CHAP. XXXIX.] ITS TENDENCY. 341 



ness in the tale, and many passages fitted to awaken 

 our best affections. Even the false political economy 

 bordering on communism, is redeemed by the tendency 

 of the book to excite sympathy for the sufferings, 

 destitution, and mental degradation of the poor. The 

 dramatic power displayed in many scenes, is of a 

 high order ; as when the Jesuit Rodin, receiving his 

 credentials from Koine, is suddenly converted into 

 the superior of the haughty chief to whom he had 

 been previously the humble secretary, and where 

 Dagobert s wife, under the direction of her confessor, 

 refuses, in opposition to a husband whom she loves 

 and respects, to betray the place of concealment of 

 two young orphans, the victims of a vile conspiracy. 

 In this part of the narrative, moreover, the beauty 

 of the devotional character of the female mind is 

 done full justice to, while the evils of priestly domi 

 nation are exhibited in their true colours. The im 

 prisonment of a young girl, of strong mind and 

 superior understanding, in a madhouse, until she is 

 worked upon almost to doubt her own sanity, are 

 described with much delicacy of feeling and pathos, 

 and make the reader shudder at the facility with 

 which such institutions, if not subject to public in 

 spection, may be, and have been abused. 



The great moral and object of the whole piece, is 

 to expose the worldly ambition of the Romanist 

 clergy, especially of the Jesuits, and the injury done, 

 not only to the intellectual progress of society at large, 

 but to the peace and happiness of private families, by 

 their perpetual meddling with domestic concerns, 



Q 3 



