a —s 
eS EE 
1829-] (5 
37) 
MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC. AND FOREIGN. 
Traits of Travel, or Tales of Men and 
Cities, by the author of “ Highways and 
Byways, 3 vols. 12mo; 1829.— What 
could have prompted these curious titles ? 
“ Traits of Travel”? convey no meaning 
whatever; and as to “ Tales of Men and 
Cities,” what tales are not of men and 
cities ? The very intelligent author professes 
himself to have been puzzled to hit upon 
what might, he says, unpresumingly tell the 
nature of the book, and finally, in despair, 
left the matter in the hands of his experi- 
enced publisher; he must have consulted 
his Cumzan oracle, and muddled the sibyl’s 
leaves. Tales, or Sketches, by H. Grattan, 
would have told the reader at once what he 
was to expect—faithful records of foreign 
Seenes and foreign manners—knowledge 
acquired not by posting over the highways, 
but by footing it in the by ones—mingling 
intimately with the people, and finding vut 
ail their ways. Mr. G. has travelled ta 
good purpose, and is, perhaps, the most com- 
petent man of his day to communicate the 
spirit and peculiarity of continental feelings. 
__ The present series of tales is, however, not 
wholly characteristic of the author. Some 
of the smaller pieces, to the amount of half a 
volume, perhaps, are of another and a com- 
moner kind ; scribbled obviously for periodi- 
cals, more for effect than from goodwill ; 
more from a feeling of obligatior to‘¢entri- 
bute so many pages, than any natural 
promptings; and of course savouring, and 
pretty strongly, of extravagance: such as 
the Confessions of an English Gatton, and 
the Pleasures of the Table. <A tale of 
revenge, called a Bone to Pick, though one 
of the best of the set, is of the same charac- 
ter, and contains none of Mr. G’s peculiari- 
ties. An Irish squire, of the last century, 
had a wife who was a bit of a termagant, 
whose railings and perverseness he met, not 
by retorting abuse, or even by whacking 
her, but by the most provoking contempt— 
leisurely taking out his snuff box, and 
tapping it, and opening it, and taking an 
ample pinch, and returning the box to his 
waistcoat pocket, he would utter some half- 
expressed sneer, some irritating equivocation, 
or sarcastic hint, and adding to it—“ and 
there now, my darling Nelly, is a bone to 
pick,” he would stalk out of the room, gently 
closing the door. The good lady, appa- 
rently, digested the matter very easily, and 
Was at once pitied and admired by servants 
and neighbours as an ill-used and most for- 
giving creature. But she was treasuring up 
a delicious morsel of revenge; nor did a 
long illness, of a fatal character, divert her 
from her purpose. When all hope of her 
recovery was abandoned, she called the 
squire to her bed side, and, after a tantaliz- 
ing prelude, when the last gasp was upon 
her, pointing to her two sons, she said, “One 
M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No.4l. 
of the boys is not your child, and there is a 
bone to pick for you /” This was touching 
the squire on the tenderest point; his 
passion was love for his children, and his 
prejudice, family pride. No explanation 
could be got, she died on the instant, with 
this post-mortem satisfaction for all the 
taunts she had endured. The uncertainty 
distracted the miserable man; suspicions 
were excited, and then dismissed to make 
way for new ones: now Jack was his, and 
now Tom; will after will was made and 
destroyed, till the life was harassed out of 
him ; the property was disputed by the sons, 
and finally fell into the pockets of the law- 
yers; some of whom, more conscientious 
than is usually believed of them, at every 
assizes, raised a small subscription for one of 
the survivors.—The Maison de Santé is a 
mad-house, in the south of France, into 
which the author strayed, and incurred some 
risk of being placed under the discipline of the 
establishment, and where he witnessed a scene 
of cruelty, sufficient to make one’s hair stand 
onend. The circumstances are represented as 
facts, and it is some satisfaction to be told, 
that, on proper representations being made 
to the government, the victims were rescued, 
and the establishment broken up.—A little 
tale, entitled Laura Pemegia, is beautifully 
told: the essential libertinage of which is 
exhibited with a delicacy and taste that 
unhappily veil the turpitude. Laura is the 
child of a Sicilian fisherman, whose beauty 
and ‘extreme simplicity attracted the notice 
of the son of an Irish peer, who is himself 
every thing that is noble and generous, but, 
and that appears a trifle, prompted by his 
passions to purchase this little charmer, of 
her abandoned mother. She has no notion 
of any thing wrong, and advantage is taken 
of her simplicity. After touring about the 
continent, he takes her to his Irish estate, 
which he holds, independently of his father, 
where he lives with her, passionately and 
permanently enamoured, and has two 
children, till a discovery is made on the 
part of an aunt, and attempts are made to 
separate them. The young nobleman’s 
father is dying in London, and in his 
absence, Laura is seduced from her home, 
put on board ship, and taken to Sicily. But 
scarcely had she landed, and began to taste 
the bitterness of desolation, when she is hap- 
pily overtaken by the young lord with her 
two children; and being once free from 
family ties, he yields to his better feelings, 
and puts a legitimate sanction to their 
union, &e. 
One of the volumes is filled with Belgian 
scenes ; a country of which singularly little is 
known ; which js most unreasonably under- 
valued by travellers, and rarely ever recur- 
red to by writers of romance; we recollect 
nobody but Scott and Mrs, Bray. National 
32 
