1829.] Yovels by the Author of Headlong Halli. 389 
sisting of Messrs. Air-bubble, Smoke-shadow, and Hop-the-twig, (what 
a vein of arch humour lurks even in these cognomina) has just contrived 
to fail, notwithstanding the exertions of the clerk, Mr. William Walkoff, 
at the moment when Forester enters the village in pursuit of Anthelia. 
We have already observed that this novel possesses a tinge of Swift’s 
sarcasm: such is literally the fact, in proof of which we need only ad- 
duce the circumstance of Mr. Peacock’s having brought forward his 
Angola Baboon to represent a modern gentleman of  fashion—a piece of 
practical satire which is little if at all inferior, either in severity or con- 
ception, to the Yahoos or Houhnymms of Gulliver. But the whole tale, 
we unhesitatingly repeat, is full of a high and commanding intellect that 
knows well how to play with the literary follies of the day, as also how. 
to put them forward in the broadest and strongest light, though in no 
one instance, not even in the chapter entitled “Mainchance Villa,” 
where a stinging faculty of invective is throughout the predominant 
feature, is the amenity of the gentleman, or the enlightened liberality of 
the scholar, forgotten. Altogether, Melincourt is a production worthy of 
Arbuthnot, to whose easy, unembarrassed, and social style of humour, it 
bears no slight resemblance. 
“‘ Nightmare Abbey,” as may be readily imagined from its title, is a 
capital quiz on the rueful sentimentality of the German school. The 
owner of the Abbey, Mr. Glowry, is a gentleman wholly devoured by 
blue devils: he is only happy when miserable ; only miserable when 
there is any prospect of a moment’s happiness either for himself or his 
guests. He is thus described :— 
’ “Mr. Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious 
kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both in love and 
in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity, he had come to a 
conclusion that there was but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good 
dimer ; and this his parsimonious lady seldom suffered him to enjoy ; but, one 
morning, like Sir Leoline, in Christabel, ‘he woke and found his lady dead,’ 
and remained a very consolate widower, with one small child. 
“This only son and heir Mr. Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the name 
of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a fit of tedium 
vite, and had been eulogised by a coroner’s jury in the comprehensive phrase 
of felo de se ; on which account, Mr. Glowry held his memory in high honour, 
and made a punch-bowl of his skull. 
- “ The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr. 
Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,—a long face or a dismal name. 
His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow ; his valet was Skellet. Mr. 
Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction, and that his name 
was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves. On one occasion, 
being in want of a footman, he received a letter from a person signing himself 
Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in securing this acquisition ; but, on 
Diggory’s arrival, Mr. Glowry was horror-struck by the sight of a round 
ru ay face, and a pair of laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,— 
not a ghastly smile, but the grin of a comic mask ; and disturbed the echoes of 
the hall with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr. Glowry gave him his dis- 
charge. Diggory, however, had stayed long enough to make conquests of all 
the old gentleman’s maids, and left him a flourishing colony of young Deaths- 
heads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been the exclusive cho- 
risters of Nightmare Abbey.” 
We cannot too warmly praise the moral of this tale, as it is one of the 
most uniformly beneficial character. It is an attempt to illustrate the 
folly, not to say the selfishness—the utter inexcusable selfishness 
