198 
reference, and should, we think, be written 
exclusively with this view. The capital 
qualification required is accuracy as to dates, 
connexions, actions, writings, discoveries, in- 
ventions ;—any very nice or elaborate esti- 
mate of talents or character, is wide of the 
purpose ; and for a compiler to be indulging, 
as Dr. Watkins does, his high church and 
Tory spleen, and damning every person 
whose creed or whose philosophy does not 
square with his own narrow conceptions, is 
perfectly intolerable. We are glad to see a 
work calculated so usefully to supersede his 
very contemptible performance, and have 
no doubt it will soon be in every body’s 
hands. 
Gomez Arias, or the Moors of the Alpa- 
jarras, by Don Telesporo de Truebo y 
Cosio, 3 vols. 12mo. ; 1828.—This romance 
is the production of a Spaniard, and exhibits 
a command of the English language very 
rarely attained bya foreigner. The phrase- 
ology is not merely free from offences against 
common correctness, which study might 
readily secure, but from violations of idiom, 
from which nothing but extraordinary tact, 
by which we me2zn some unusual facility in 
catching the niceties of propriety, could 
enable the author to steer clear. The whole 
production has as little as possible the air of 
a foreign performance, but rather that of a 
man with a good ear, and no bad taste, not 
yet thoroughly drilled into the mysteries of 
composition, and wanting only ease and 
variety. Not half-a-dozen slip-slops per- 
haps could be detected through the volume— 
averred for acknowledged—ungracious for 
graceless—invulnerable for insensible—and 
vails for wages—just preclude the suspicion 
of their not having been well looked over by 
an English eye. Such success: prove the 
possession of intellectual vigour—though of 
a kind perhaps not very valuable, if indeed 
of any, to society, nor, except exerted in 
particular directions, and that depending on 
the fashion of the times—very serviceable to 
the individual. The highest attainable suc- 
cess can scarcely place the most laborious 
student completely on a level with even the 
uncultivated native. If there were such a 
thing as universality of genius, the same 
labour spent upon some art or science might 
work up a man into distinction; but pro- 
bably the superior person in one line, would 
make but a very poor figure in another, with 
his utmost exertions. After all, the trial 
can scarcely ever be made—or the fact esta- 
blished—for distinction in one pursuit swal- 
lows up a life. 
The tale itself is one mixed up of pro- 
fligacy and revenge. Gomez, the hero, is 
another Don Juan. Prompted by ambition 
—after a series of successful adventures— 
Gomez is engaged on legitimate terms to a 
lady, the heiress of the richest and noblest 
family in Spain, and the marriage is delayed 
only from the necessity of a temporary ab- 
sence, while the life of a rival, wounded by 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Aueusrt, 
him in a-recent encounter, is yet in danger. 
In this little interval, he meets with another 
lady, the sole daughter of a noble house, 
whom he tempts from her home, and in a 
few days, growing weary of his prize, leaves 
ona mountain, sleeping from fatigue, under 
the protection of a servant; with instrue- 
tions to take her, on waking, to aneighbour- 
ing convent, whither he himself was pro- 
ceeding, to make preparations for her recep- 
tion, and abandon her for ever. Searcely, 
however, is he out of sight, when a party of 
marauding Moors come up—the servant 
flies, and the lady is conveyed to the Moorish 
chief. It was in the reign of Isabella, and 
the Moors were again, after the capture of 
Grenada, in rebellion. 
The chief, delighted with the prize, would 
have taken immediate advantage of his good 
fortune, but for the opposition of a renegado 
companion, who recognises the lady, and 
immediately sees the chances of obtaining 
satisfaction for injuries he himself had sus-~ 
tained from Gomez—for Gomez was inde- 
fatigable in the pursuit of his profession, 
and spared neither mistress nor maid. 
Events, however, interrupt the plans of 
revenge instituted by the renegade—the 
Christians advance—the Moors are routed— 
and the lady fells into the hands of Don 
Alonzo de Aguilar—brother of the great 
Gonsalyo de Cordova. This Don, more- 
ever, is the father of the very lady to whom 
Gomez is engaged. The triumphant. party 
speed to Grenada, and the recaptured lady, 
whose name is Theodora, is, for the present, 
placed under the protection of Leonor, his 
daughter, whose marriage with Gomez is 
now actually to be consummated in a day or 
two. 
Discoveries of course take place—Theo- 
dora learns that her betrayer, Gomez, is the 
hero who is to marry Leonor, and Gomez, 
to his most serious annoyance, that Theo- 
dora is in the house of the bride. On the 
eve of the marriage Theodora presents her- 
self, dagger in hand, by Gomez’ bed-side, 
but love withheld the meditated blow. 
Gomez awakes—she announces her resolu- 
tion, if he perseveres in the marriage, to face 
him at the altar, and disclose his rascality. 
Gomez, thus hampered, has nothing for it 
but. dissembling—he promises to break off 
the said marriage, and conduct herself the 
very next night to her father’s, and make 
her an honest woman—and on the faith of 
this promise, the lady with the dagger con- 
tentedly withdraws. i 
Day at length dawns upon the hero’s per- 
plexity, and he demands of the father, and 
next of the bride, a day’s delay, under some 
unsatisfactory pretence. While conferring 
with his servant on the means of extricating 
from his embarrassments, the renegado 
comes up, and overhearing the conversation, 
undertakes at once to relieve him. Ars 
‘yangements are consequently made, and in 
the night, he conducts his victim to a place, 
pointed out by the renegado,. where he finds’ 
