338 



Monthly Review of LUeraiure, 



(^Sept. 



Rut, alil that once has touch'd tier with the 



weight 

 Of tlie world's scorn, and blighted all her 



good ; 

 Such is the piteous portrait you shall see. 

 And having seen it, then exclaim with me. 



Curse on the savage and unbending law 



Of stern society, that turns a speck 

 In woman to an everlasting flaw I 



And, far Irom whisp'ring us to save or check 

 Her course in wantonness, but bids us draw 



Round her, like wretches hov'ring round a 

 wreck, 

 AU that the wave hath spar'd, to spoil and 



plunder. 

 And sink the noble vfessel farther under. 



The inquest, which, it will be remem- 

 bered, sat, as if it never meant to rise again, 

 is thus humorously broken up by the great 

 Duke- 

 Well, there they sate— and there they'd still be 

 killing 



The nation's time and patience, had not they 

 Sent to the Duke, to know if he were willing 



They should be paid : who in his slap-bang way 

 Replied," Pay — Inquest ! damme, not a shilling!" 



Which brought their verdict in without delay, — 

 ' Twas this, divested of its legal pride, 

 " The roof fell in, and so the people died." 



Cain, the Wanderer, S;c. By 



1829. — Another Cain, an emanation from 

 we know not whom — in the very tone and 

 spirit of Lord Byron's, and in execution 

 equal, we have no liesitation in admitting, 

 quite, to that able and inemorable, but ha- 

 rassing and comfortless performance. The 

 author, whoever he may be, and he will 

 soon be, as Pope said of Johnson, diterre, 

 is of course fully aware of the trying com- 

 parison he subjects himself to, and braves 

 it ; he knows aU about the matter. He 

 himself sketched the thing years ago, and 

 actually wrote a scene or two, but threw 

 them into the fire. The subject resumed 

 its sway in his own bosom, when Lord B.'s 

 poem appeared, and he has at length given 

 vent to his long-suppressed and burning 

 thoughts. He willingly acknowledges his 

 general idea of the subject has been enlarged 

 and " inspired" by dwelling upon Lord 

 Byron's — he has shared in the common 

 impulse given to the age by that exciting 

 writer ; but he disclaims imitation, or the 

 plunder of any one tliought or line of his, or 

 of any one else. If the tendency — the very 

 end proposed — the very plan " adopted," 

 be the same — all is extended, he says, on an 

 enlarged scale. His specific object is to 

 develope Cain as a man of a powerful and 

 daring mind, of which pride is die basis, as 

 it is, he observes, of all strong minds — as a 

 man, who regards his own impulses, his 

 own acts of passion, not as the natural effects 

 of unformed and undisciplined principles, 

 but as predestinations of tlie Deity, and yet 

 resolves to struggle against them. He is 

 too i)roud to yield to his own convictions- 



he wrestles with this supposed over-working 

 influence ; and wliile doing iU, clings to 

 good, not fi-om any relish for its beauty, but 

 from something like perverse opposition, 

 because he conceives the Deity has thrown 

 obstacles in the way of his attaining to good, 

 and attain it, he will. This was Cain's 

 principle of action, as it had been precisely 

 that of Lucifer's ; and Lucifer, though it 

 had been the cause of ruin to himself, pre- 

 sents himself to Cain, at a critical mo- 

 ment, and kindly urges the unhappy man 

 onward in his fatal carreer. 'We cannot 

 ourselves, con amore, enter into the depths 

 of these feelings so forcibly and fondly por- 

 trayed it is painful, and revolts us — with 



the writer, it must have been the indulgence 

 of a passion — the mere tasking of his inge- 

 nuity it never could be ; but tliough such be 

 our feelings, we cannot see the strong occa- 

 sion for moral liorror, which some appear to 

 feel. The wTiter does no more than the 

 preacher docs, who endeavours to track the 

 wiles of the devil, only that few preachers do 

 it so effectively ; and as to the " moral" of 

 the piece, it is as instructive and alarming 

 a lesson as moral can be. 



Instead of plunging into Lucifer's meta- 

 physics, or Cain's ultra-stoicism, we prefer 

 giving the reader a scrap of Ada, his wife's 

 passionate, but more tender expostulation, 

 afler Cain expresses his deteniiination to 

 quit her, because he cannot make her 

 happy. 



Oh Gocl ! do I hear thee ?— No, and yet 

 Thy lips are (juivering — thy heart heaves with 



passion. 

 Wilt thou forsake me, Cain, in my distress ? 

 Me, whom till now thou hast ever turned to in 

 Thy sorrows — hast thou the heart to do this thing ? 

 Canst thou abandon me ? By all must dear — 

 Alas ! what is or was — by our young days 

 Together, those trusting, innocent days!— recal 



them 

 But a moment, a brief moment, then look on me 

 And feel the change now! by our own child- 

 kneel, wretch, 

 And pray — look down on us — look on the child 

 Of thine own loins, the young, the unformed 



helplessness ! 

 Thou couldst not leave him — I see the very 



thought 

 How it shakes ihee : look on thy desolate wife, 

 Think of our utter wretchedness without thee ! 

 I shall not long be with you — I feel I shall not — 



let me live that little while, and then 

 Die at your feet ! you will not have remorse, 

 The burden of my death will not oppress you I 

 Remember — oh, he has no memory — 



No gentle feelings to awaken! I — 



1 cannot speak — this pain — my heart. — 



Gabrielle, a Tale of the Swiss Mountains, 



by C. Reddinfi, 1829 A beautiful little 



performance, full of truth and nature — and 

 of a simplicity studiously rejecting all ex- 

 travagance of colouring and vehemence of 

 sentiment. It is a novelty — at least a rarity 

 in tliese days, when " tales of passion" 

 thrust out the realities of common expe- 



