1829.^ 



Domestic and Foreign. 



101 



son volunteer what must be open to offensive 

 construction ? 



The Village Nirihtingale, tci/h other 

 Tales, by Elizabeth Frances Dagley ; 1829. 



A very agreeable little volume for young 



people, by the author of" The Birth Day," 

 " Fairy Favours," &c. — calculated, in an 

 easy and graceful manner, to illustrate the 

 duty and beauty of kind feelings — to teach 

 the advantages of moderation, contentment, 

 and prudence — and enforce the propriety 

 of charitable constructions. The 'V'illage 

 Nightingale is the principal tale, and paints 

 a good-looking, well-disposed girl, gifted 

 with a sweet musical voice, and pushed 

 by undue severity at home, and unwise 

 admiration abroad, into an indiscretion, from 

 the too probable consequences of which she 

 is happily rescued by well-timed kindness 

 and judicious treatment. The little inci- 

 dents of the narrative, which are quite un- 

 forced, are told with great feeling and un- 

 affected simplicity ; and the short sketches 

 which follow, are all worthy of accompany- 

 ing the principal piece. 



Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, by James 



Grant; 1829 This Life of Mary is the 



production of Mr. Grant, the editor of a 

 newspaper in the remote and obscure town 

 of Elgin. The object of the writer was to 

 present an account of the queen, in a cheap 

 and unpretending form, at once sufficiently 

 concise for such as have little leisure or op- 

 portunity for perusing historical works, and 

 sufficiently minute to furnish them with a 

 somewhat intimate acquaintance with the 

 more interesting circumstances connected 

 with her history. This object he has suc- 

 cessfully accomplished. The narrative is 

 a plain and satisfactory one, founded upon 

 a full and free consideration of all existing 

 materials, without following in tlie wake of 

 - any particular authority, and avoiding, for 

 the most part, controversial matter. Though 

 refusing to take generally the tone of an 

 apologist, he has briefly and collectedly 

 sununed up the grounds of his con- 

 viction independently of other persons' 

 conclusions. That conviction is decidedly 

 favourable towards Mary, whom he con- 

 siders as a person " far more sinned against 

 than sinning" — as one of an easy tempera- 

 ment, driven into acts and positions which 

 wore the aspect of indiscretions and even 

 crimes, by the importunities or the trea- 

 cheries of conflicting and interested par- 

 tics. The divisions of a distracted country 

 — the oppositions of powerful interests, and 

 those interests headed by violent spirits, 

 and alternately prevailing, and in a rude 

 and excited period — these things will ac- 

 count for occasional intcmj)erance and oc- 

 casional inconsistency in the queen's mea- 

 sures. Her youth must always plead for 

 her with elder and sober men — her beauty 

 will with boys and girls. It must, more- 

 over, never be forgotten, tliat several per- 

 sons were executed for Darulcy's murder. 



and all acquitted the queen. The pro- 

 priety and correctness of her conduct during 

 her long and harassing confinement of nine- 

 teen years in England, is, with Jlr. Grant, 

 a security that her previous and early ac- 

 tions in her own country could never have 

 been of that desperate and profligate cast 

 which some have ventured to represent 

 them. Elizabeth was her jealous enemy, 

 and the friends and ministers of Elizabeth 

 have been the chief describcrs of JIary's 

 life. The historian of Burteiyh, after exa- 

 mining the state papers relative to Eliza- 

 beth's treatment of ilary — though desirous 

 of white-washing the minister at least — has 

 been heard to observe — " 8!ie is as black as 

 ebony, and Burleigh of the same colour." 

 They stuck at nothing to misrepresent her, 

 and prosecute their own views. 



Rybrent de Cnice, 3 vols. \2mo. ; 1829. 

 — Though manifestly the production of an 

 intelligent and cultivated person, this is 

 merely a novel — a sort of home — we do not 

 mean homely tale, but one made up of a 

 few family incidents, selected as striking, 

 but bordering on the extravagant — scarcely, 

 indeed, coming within the bounds of possi- 

 bility in English society : relative, more- 

 over, merely to boys and girls — teaching 

 nolliing, adding nothing to our stock of 

 realities, and requiring little for its construe- 

 tion and materials beyond famOiarity with 

 works of fiction, and shewing few proofs of 

 acquaintance with tlie actual business of life. 

 It is, however, excellently well zcritten — . 

 there is no attempt at finery — the language 

 is natural, and the sentiments unforced — 

 and, though seldom eloquent, is not defi- 

 cient in vigour. The details are singularly 

 minute, without being wearisome, and the 

 signs of a direct and sound understanding 

 are every wliere visible. The writer has ca- 

 pabilities for better things, and only wants 

 opportunities to elicit and shew them. She 

 is losing time in pursuing a course, which can 

 only bring with it the approbation of very 

 young gentlemen and ladies, and those idle 

 ones. 



The hero, Rybrent de Cruce — where 

 could this strange name come from ? — is 

 left a child under the care of his aunt, dur- 

 ing the absence of General de Cruce and 

 his lady in India. The same kind aiuit 

 undertakes also the charge of two young 

 girls, left without protection by the death 

 of their mother, and the indifference of the 

 father, who, to the abandonment of his fa- 

 mily, had withdrawn to France, fascinated 

 by foreign manners and foreign principles ; 

 and, afterwards, as his daughters grow up, 

 and the story advances, engaged licart and 

 hand in all the atrocities of the French re- 

 volution. The young folks are brouglit up 

 together, under the tuition of a reverend 

 gentleman, till Rybrent is some seventeen 

 or ei'^liteen, and the girls a year or two less, 

 when suddenly is announced, fiom ihe 

 fatlicr of tlie young ladies, who had not for 

 years taken tlie slightest notice of them, the 



