584 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



ally in contact with them, a8 aspirants, con- 

 fidants, or agents; and some of these, for the 

 gratification of vanity, or with the hope of 

 gain, will tell all they know, and all, perhaps, 

 they can fabricate. It is not, however, now- 

 a-days, solely to butlers and abigails the mob 

 are indebted for their knowledge of the great ; 

 undoubtedly men and women more capable 

 of observing and recording get among them, 

 and give us, if not complete, at least more 

 competent, conceptions than formerly. The 

 writer of the " Manners of the Day" is 

 understood to be one who has had greater 

 facilities in approaching the " gods" than 

 most of those who have hitherto exhibited 

 the objects of the world's idolatry. 



A grave man of forty, a peer, a member 

 of the cabinet, with some twenty thousand 

 pounds a-year, and given up by match- 

 makers, accidentally meets with a beautiful 

 girl of seventeen, j ust released from the school- 

 room, and marries her off-hand, or at least as 

 speedily as such a matter can be arranged. 

 The shrinking girl looks on him rather as a 

 father than a lover, and expresses some na- 

 tural scruples ; but these are speedily borne 

 down by her mother, a lady who had been 

 very successful in marrying off two or three 

 daughters, and had still another, besides two 

 or three sons to provide for. The noble 

 lord's official engagements compel him to 

 place his lovely bride under the auspices and 

 protection of his sister, a prime leader of the 

 fashionable world, a lady-patroness of Al- 

 macks, &c. This lady is sadly chagrined 

 at her brother's marriage, but is too well 

 worn in the ways of life to show her chagrin. 

 " What is done cannot be undone," is not al- 

 ways true ; there are ways of breaking hymen- 

 eal fetters without the violence of death. Lady 

 Danvers introduces her brother's bride into 

 fashionable life to her own particular set ; 

 every lady must have her male attendant ; and 

 she treacherously places a profligate colonel 

 of the guards in attendance on the young and 

 now brilliant Lady Willersdale. Exposed, 

 unarmed, to his insidious attentions, she is 

 seduced to the very brink of destruction, 

 when luckily her official lord is seriously 

 wounded in a political duel ; an event which 

 breaks up her career of dissipation. Duti- 

 fully, and by degrees fondly, she adheres to 

 Lord Willersdale's bid-side, and Lady Dan- 

 vers's diabolical scheme is fairly baffled. Re- 

 tirement gives time for reflection, and Helen, 

 aware of the peril she had thus narrowly 

 escaped, urges her convalescent husband to 

 visit his Irish estates. In the solitude of the 

 banks of the Shannon, and among the friends 

 of her lord, she meets with a young lady of 

 her own age, a ward of the minister of the 

 parish, a very charming girl, a very miracle 

 of accomplishment, intelligence, and decision, 

 whose birth is wrapt in mystery, but which 

 of course develops in the course of the story. 

 Suddenly, after a residence of some months, 

 Lord Willersdale is summoned by his gra- 



cious sovereign to take the reins of a new 

 ministry ; the party returning to London, and 

 a second season of gaiety and tumult com- 

 mences. Though fortified by her new-found 

 affection for her lord, the lessons of her past 

 imprudence, and the absence of the wily Lady 

 Danvers, Lady Willersdale is again exposed 

 to danger. The colonel of the former season, 

 now Lord Forreston, and possessed of vast 

 wealth, again makes his treacherous ap- 

 proaches, but more covertly than before. 

 Lady Willersdale's young Irish friend 

 is with her. To that lady's charms his 

 devoirs are ostensibly paid, and these Lady 

 Willersdale favours, for she is eager to marry 

 her beautiful protegee to a man of rank and 

 fortune. His attentions to herself, however 

 cloked, excite some apprehensions in the 

 mind of her brother, a frank and gallant 

 soldier : he expostulates with Lord Forreston, 

 and he the better to cover his secret purposes, 

 finally offers his hand to Florence, hjr Irish 

 friend. A letter addressed to her guardian, 

 for his consent, brings him to town, when a 

 strange discovery takes place. Florence proves 

 to be Lord Forreston's own daughter, by a 

 lady whom he had seduced, to whom the said 

 guardian had been himself attached, and who 

 on her deathbed had bequeathed to him her 

 child, never to be seen by her profligate father. 

 By the law of Scotland, Florence is legiti- 

 mate. Lord Forreston repents of his purpose, 

 Slays the repentant father, and unites his 

 aughter to the man of her choice. Lady 

 Willersdale discovers Lord Forreston's base 

 views, is shocked at her own conduct, con- 

 fesses her follies, and is anew taken into her 

 lord's confidence. His dismissal from office 

 completes the cure ; he is at leisure to shield 

 his wife, and she escapes all farther danger. 

 The writer is a person of considerable tact ; 

 she catches the pith of a sentiment and the 

 points of a scene, and presents both to the 

 reader effectively . But these representations 

 of fashionable life, we doubt not, mislead. 

 That there are profligates in the caste she 

 describes, perhaps in an unusual proportion, 

 public facts make notorious ; but these novels 

 make intrigue the business of life among them, 

 and lead the vulgar to suppose the great are 

 all worthless alike. 



The History of Chivalry and the Crusades, 

 by the Rev. H. Stebbing, M. A. 2 vols. 

 K530. L. and LI. of Constable's Miscel- 

 lany. Mr. Stebbing's History of Chivalry 

 and the Crusades is a very sensible and spi- 

 rited performance, distinguished from its pre- 

 decessors by a disposition to promote a more 

 sober estimate of the virtues of knight- 

 hood and its effects upon the civilization of 

 society. It is not his purpose to depreciate 

 the splendour of its institutions, or its influ- 

 ence in prompting the spirit or directing the 

 valour of its votaries to daring undertakings ; 

 but it is his intention to measure its virtues, 

 religious and moral, by a severer standard 



