254 THE WANDERING JEW.&quot; [CHAP. XXXIX. 



being translated &quot; defense,&quot; instead of &quot; barrier,&quot; with other 

 blunders equally unpardonable. Yet the fascination of the orig 

 inal, and its power to fix the attention, triumph over these dis 

 advantages, and over the violence done to probability in the 

 general plot, and over the extravagance of many of its details. 

 The gross, sensual, and often licentious descriptions in which the 

 author indulges, in some scenes, and still more, such sentimental 

 immorality as is involved in the sympathy demanded for Hardy s 

 love and intrigue with a married woman (he being represented as 

 the model of a high-minded philanthropist), make one feel the con 

 trast of such a work with the chaste and pure effusions of Scott s 

 genius. Yet there is much pure feeling, many touches of tenderness 

 in the tale, and many passages fitted to awaken our best affec 

 tions. 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 Rome, is 

 suddenly converted into the superior of the haughty chief to whom 

 he had been previously the humble secretary, and where Dago- 

 bert s wife, under the direction of her confessor, refuses, in opposi 

 tion 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 domination are exhibited in their 

 true colors. The imprisonment 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 

 inspection, 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. That the shafts 



