your two-handed dealings; either you are for us or against us, so let us know what you mean. I say we will have the lamb, and

you may peach or not, as you please.'

86

"And I say you shall not have the lamb, if I know it," retorted Ford. It is true you have had no luck the last few nights, but you have got clear off-that is something; now, if you take the lamb it will surely be traced to you, for, as I said before, I will have nothing to do with it; and there is a matter of transportation at once.

"What! you are going to split then, are you?" cried Fipps, with a great oath-" turn king's evidence, eh?"

"God forgive you," said Ford quietly; "I am not the man you take me for. You are two to one; or, as I fairly tell you, you should not rob my master; but if you are determined on doing so, I will see nothing and say nothing, but good-night and good-bye. After this job I will have nothing to do with poaching or poachers." I believe Ford is right after all," exclaimed the other man. "I don't feel much inclined for lamb myself, with such expensive sauce. Let the things be: come along." And Fipps, muttering sundry curses on their want of spirit and unanimity, reluctantly gave up his proposition.

66

And well for all parties was it that he did so; for immediately behind the hedge where they stood talking, was Ford's young master, who had been called up by the shepherd to a sick lamb, and observing the three men at that hour on his father's premises, had cautiously dogged them to see what they were about, and thus by the merest accident became a witness of the intended theft and poor Ford's honesty.

We need hardly say, that as soon as possible he was restored to his employment on the farm; and that, from the discovery he had made of his companions' morals, and the shock the death of his child occasioned him, (for he never wholly forgave himself his absence on that night,) he has given up all intimacy with Fipps and his friend; proving that necessity had been the sole inducement to his one night's poaching, and that employment for the peasant is more effective than penal laws, for the preservation of· game.

C. W.

564

New Books.

EVELYN HARCOURT. A Novel. 3 Vols. post 8vo. H. Colburn.

THE THREE COUSINS.

H. Colburn.

A Novel. By MRS. TROLLOPE.

3 Vols. post 8vo.

RANTHORPE. 1 Vol. post 8vo. Chapman & Hall.

THE WHIM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 3 Vols. post 8vo. Smith, Elder, & Co. Jack Ariel; or, Life on Board AN INDIAMAN, 3 Vols, post 8vo. T. C. Newby.

THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN. By MR. A. TROLLOPE. 3 Vols. post 8vo. T. C. Newby.

NOVEL reading must be the assiduous occupation of some large class of society; some unknown sect must have a devotion to the work, or it is impossible the daily issues could be otherwise so rapidly consumed. It would be curious and amusing to trace the circles into which they gradually penetrate; and we suspect that the lady of high breeding, in Belgrave-square, would be very much annoyed to find that the publican's daughter, at Mile-end, was at the same moment weeping over the sorrows of some cruelly-treated heroine, or secretly admiring the address with which an ideal seducer was entrapping a vain beauty. The nobler sex (as we style ourselves) would not be flattered by finding that a shop-boy was enjoying the eloquent raptures of some deeplyintellectual hero at the same time as a senator. Such a test would bring extraordinary opposites to a very strange equality. If "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," undoubtedly one novel has, to a great degree, the same effect-confounding Kennington and Kensington, and Portland-place, Regent's-park, with Portland-place, Walworth. It is well and it is ill that it is so. It is well that the imaginative faculty should be employed: it is well that it should not be wasted. As direct examples, perhaps, fiction does not effect much. Few men have deliberately set about imitating any one particular ideal-at least not since models have been more numerous and less distinct. Lovelace undoubtedly had his imitators, who, confounding his courage and address with his heartlessness and falsehood, could not fulfil their own idea of greatness without falling into scoundrelism. Jack Sheppard, like Karl, has undoubtedly victims to answer for, who, mistaking success for heroism, care not how it is obtained.

The present novels are not chargeable with such grave results. They deal more in fact than ideality and present such a subdued picture of heroism that it is no longer so highly contagious. The re-representa

tion of realities which a distinguished genius has set the fashion of, has at least the advantage, that it widens our sphere of experience without creating that excitement of imitation which has been in many instances the bane of this class of fiction. If modern stories are not so intense as the old if we have not any Lovelaces or Caleb Williamses, we have not at the same time such strong stimuli to the morbid indulgence of an appetite or passion. But this remark must apply to our own. romance writers; for those of France still delight to exaggerate a passion to a monstrosity, and scruple not to introduce the depravity of the appetites rather than not create a sensation. From such errors the higher portion of our fictious writing is clear; and has been tending rather towards purity than otherwise for some time. As to the charges. brought against it, of depicting scenes of vice, they are not tenable, because, if the writer depict errors to insure their remedy, and in relating such scenes, debases instead of glorifying vice, he performs a medicinal office and deserves thanks instead of blame.

The works which have called up these reflections, and are at the head of our article, are all of very different classes of the same large school of writing.

EVELYN HARCOURT is a sentimental novel formed to create an intense interest with those whose want of sterner occupation leads them to the indulgence of their feelings to a morbid extent. It is not without its good writing and some interesting scenes and descriptions, but altogether it is overstrained, and the distress is overwrought. The heroine is completely steeped in misery, being driven mad and blind, and reduced to poverty. Indeed, the authoress delights in woe of all kinds. The scene is too frequently laid in the room of sickness and of death; and every kind of calamity is introduced into its pages. One lady is forsaken: another ruined in mind and constitution. There are two. deaths in the natural way, and two suicides. Nor are these miseries made to point any particular moral or illustrate any points of character or circumstances, but are the result of a morbid tendency to feminine melancholy.

THE THREE COUSINS, by Mrs. Trollope, is a very different work, abounding in the pourtrayal of character with that subtlety of satire for which the authoress is so celebrated. The story is conducted in a very artistic manner, and the characters developed by series of situations be-speaking the excellent tact and experience of the celebrated writer. It is, too, more just and liberal in its tone: acknowledging, in those circles and amongst those politicians the lady has been wont to uphold as patterns. of excellence, a gentle-mannered but worldly bishop, a malignant baronet, a ruffian heir-expectant, a heartless lady of fashion, and sundry other adornments of the better classes.

RANTHORPE is the history of a literary man who knows every characteristic of the genus, and who speaks as one having a long experience. It is a work abounding in talent; and if the product, as we believe, of a new writer in this species of literature, we hail him as one likely to add

to it most creditably to himself and most advantageously to the reader. Every page of it bespeaks a practised man of the world, and the scholar, together with that feeling for the ideal, and that practised art, which are necessary to produce a fine work of fiction. It is more than a work of promise-it is one of noble performance.

THE WHIM is a work also by a practised hand evidently, but from the pen of one who has more studied the art of stimulating his reader to the end of his volumes, than to give him new experiences or do anything more than interest him. It is not without talent, but it is talent of that kind which belongs rather to the artisan than the artist. He may secure attention, but seldom admiration. It is a good novel of the old kind, and may be doubtless a safe investment for the circulating library-keeper."

JACK ARIEL is a nautical novel, without love or gallantry; and, as it appears to have been drawn from the actual occurrences of a voyage or voyages, will interest some readers but it exhibits no extraordinary powers of observation or knowledge, to claim for it any very high place.

THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN, by Mr. A. Trollope, is a story of Irish ignorance and wretchedness, a long-drawn-out narrative of the downfal of an ancient Irish family. It is strictly natural, as life-like and vigorous as could be desired; but the story might have been told in one volume. A tale, to bear the prolixity of three volumes, should abound in strong incidents, all tending towards the final disposition of the characters; and this requirement is much wanted in this work. The story is one of hard landlordism, poor tenantry, seduction, and the upshot-the gallows! The hero kills the seducer of his sister, and pays his life for so doing. We wish that the author had thought proper to modify his narrative, in some parts, for the roughness does not add one tittle to the full development of the story. His Irish dialogue is smartly and judiciously written, and is the evident result of residence. He is copious in his knowledge of Irishisms and local idioms, and this knowledge judiciously used adds to the vividness of his pictures. There are some stirring and life-like scenes in it, and we augur from it a successful career to the author. He evidently has inherited a keenness of observation and power of narrative.

We had intended to have concluded with some remarks on the general tendency of these works, but want of space prevents.

3

THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE. BY GEORGE COMBE. Edinburgh Maclachlan, Stewart & Co.

THIS pamphlet is intended as a sequel to Mr. Combe's "Remarks on National Education." It is worthy of his high and piercing intellect. In every sentence he pays homage to vital religion, showing conclusively that we are as much bound to abstain from the violation of a physical law, as from the infraction of a moral or mental law, since both laws

emanate from the same law-maker, from the Creator and Governor of the Universe. Under these views, Science becomes the handmaid of true Religion, since Science teaches how the organic and inorganic kingdoms are framed and sustained. If, for instance, a person is taught that the chief use of the lungs is to purify and vitalize the blood, and that one of the conditions of the process is to inhale pure air, a neglect of that law is followed by uneasiness in the form of disease, and if persevered in by death. The uneasiness felt is the warning to our physical nature, as the pangs of conscience are the warning to our moral nature. If we seek our own happiness we must pursue it in the direction of the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, since He is the author of Nature; and let none mistake the true meaning of the word "law," as used in this sense. When we speak, for instance, of the law of gravity, we do not attach to it the slightest idea of causation, for that would be a mode of the corpuscularian philosophy; gravity, as we comprehend it, is no more than the known effect of an unknown law, for we cannot determine the essential qualities of the law, without comprehending the essential attributes of the law-maker. We know the law of gravity solely by its effects, not in its causality; and this distinction appears to us of the deepest importance. Mr. Combe is one of those philosophers who is in advance of his age; but the spread of intelligence has enabled him to be better understood now than he was twenty years ago. His views of education will instruct both statesmen and prelates.

JOURNAL OF A FEW MONTHS' RESIDENCE IN PORTUGAL, AND GLIMPSES OF THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. E. Moxon.

:

THE anonymous author of a "Journal of a few Months' Residence in Portugal" has several advantages over the general tourist. First, he resided some time in the country he seeks to delineate; and then, he has chosen a country of which little more than the sea-bound has been described. Lisbon we thoroughly know, but of the mountainous interior of Portugal, and of its society, not much. In these volumes we really have glimpses of both and the author is evidently a scholar used to good society both of books and persons. His descriptive poems are not remarkable, but he details what he has seen more than what he has felt, and does not fall into the fatal folly of fine writing: nor does he overstrain his spirits in hopes of passing for a wit on his travels. Consequently his volumes are very agreeable, easy reading, and we doubt not conveying valuable, because just information of this turbulent little country. There are indications that it is the work of one of the softer sex-an ominous term applied intellectually not that we mean it in any opprobious sense. If the work of a lady, there is not only less (though there is some) egotism and small talk than in similar works of the sex that alone is supposed capable of producing legislators and philosophers.