tian edifices; how early the bronze Jupiters were metamorphosed into St. Peters,

'And Pan to Moses lent his pagan horn ;'

how much of ancient art is to be traced in the Byzantine Christian school; how far the church music is in any degree an echo of still older strains, and from what region? whether from Palestine or Greece?-even in poetry, how far the romance of the middle ages was the ancient mythology in a new form, or whether both sprung from a common source in the east?-let us venture to hope that a work tracing all this extraordinary transmutation with the eloquence of taste and the sobriety of good sense, will at length complete the history of the fall of heathenism, and that far more important chapter in the history of mankind, the rise of Christianity.

ON

ART. III.-Tales of the Woods and Fields. A Second Series of 6 The Two Old Men's Tales.' 3 Vols. 12mo. London. 1836. N the appearance of the first series of these Tales we were struck by the depth of thought and feeling, the occasional nicety of observation, and the high-wrought and sustained interest, displayed in them. We believed that a new name of promise had been added, or was about to be added, to our literature; and we were amongst the foremost to congratulate the authoress. Even then, however, under the direct influence of novelty, we fancied we saw good grounds for suspecting that her knowledge of society was limited, and that her strength lay less in delineating manners than in laying bare the workings of the heart. After reading the leading story of the series now before us, it is no longer possible to doubt that we were right in this estimate. There is the same glancing cleverness, the same penetrating sagacity, the same pathos and tenderness, as before; but most unfortunately the plot is made to depend exclusively on the habits, feelings, tastes, associations, and modes of thought of a class of which, with all due deference be it spoken, the writer knows nothing; and the consequence is, that she has produced a story bearing about the same relation to Messrs. Tomkins' and Jenkins' spiteful pamphlets that Miss Martineau's ingenious fictions bear to the somniferous tomes of Messrs. Mill and M'Culloch. According to this shrewd observer, in short, every man of quality is a reckless, heartless profligate, and every woman of quality no better than she should be, or a fool. Nor is this theory of society incidentally alluded to, or casually introduced; it is the moral she

proposes

proposes to educe from the narrative, the groundwork on which she is to raise the superstructure, the text from which she is to preach. Now, though usually tolerant enough (if contempt be toleration) of the absurdities of those sulky ex-governesses and envious dandylings by whom the circulating libraries are periodically supplied with trash, we cannot tamely permit so accomplished a writer as the author of these Tales to exercise her influence in this manner; and we propose, therefore, in the course of a brief analysis of her principal story, A Country Vicarage, to point out the mistakes she has committed in the plan as well as in the execution of the work.

Her intentions are thus explained in her advertisement—

'It must be confessed, that the subject has already been several times. beautifully treated; more especially by Mr. Griffin, in his admirable tale of "The Collegians;" by Lord Mulgrave; and by the elegant author of the "Tales of a Chaperon." It has been thought, however, that something was yet left to be done upon this subject; and that writers in general have fallen into the error of attributing the uneasiness which they describe, rather to a certain ignorance of external forms, and unaptness in merely conventional details, which any girl of sense and spirit would overcome in a few months, than to that radical opposition in habits, sentiments, tastes, and feelings, which renders domestic happiness so rarely attainable in cases of this kind.'-vol. i. pp. vii. viii.

In

The authoress must surely have read the books she mentions cursorily, and bestowed little reflection on them. The Collegians, Hardress Cregan, a gentleman by birth and education, marries Eily O'Connor, the uneducated daughter of a ropemaker. The marriage is kept secret, both parties being under twenty, and they live together in a cottage amongst the mountains, till the ardour of Hardress's passion has begun to cool, when he returns home and finds himself domesticated with a beautiful and accomplished girl of his own rank in life, whom his mother (ignorant of his marriage) has all along intended for his bride. They become warmly attached to each other, and Hardress, urged on by his mother, in a moment of phrenzy, commits himself by the offer of his hand. To procure the power of fulfilling this engagement, he causes his wife to be murdered by a confidential follower, who turns king's evidence on the very eve of the bridal. We have no difficulty in admitting the truth and vividness with which the actors' feelings are developed, or the skill with which the chief incidents are introduced and brought to bear on the catastrophe. But Mr. Griffin (if that be the author's name) clearly wrote with far other views than that of showing the danger of incompatible marriages, or of proving that a young

a young man who marries a young woman, in an inferior rank of life, for her beauty, will probably get tired of her in a month or

two.

If I had been writing in French' (says Ireland's Viceroy' in the advertisement to The Contrast') L'Homme Difficile would most nearly have defined the character I meant to pourtray.' Now this is a character which would be pretty sure to keep any woman, to whatever rank of life originally belonging, in a fret; but the illustrious author does not leave poor Lucy's wretchedness dependent either on her lord's humours or her own ignorance of forms, but introduces a certain Lady Gayland by way of giving her the additional excitement of jealousy, and puts her to death at last by a series of melodramatic incidents, doing little credit to his taste, and none at all to his invention.

In Molly and Lucy,' the third of the above instances, the object is certainly to show the imprudence of unequal marriages; and the radical opposition in habits, sentiments, tastes, and feelings, is sufficient, in all conscience, to account for the lady's uneasiness (the gentleman takes matters easily enough), without referring to her unaptness in merely conventional details. But the grand objection to Mrs. Sullivan's story, considered as an illustration of this peculiar subject, appears to have escaped our authoress, or we presume she would have made an effort to obviate it in her own. Far from being an adequate representative of the aristocracy, Lord Montreville is one of a species of which, we undertake to say, not more than half a dozen individuals could be discovered by the most acute observer, at any one given period of time, throughout the whole of this overgrown metropolis, so that it was hardly worth Mrs. Sullivan's while to be at so much pains to put young ladies on their guard against them. An equally fatal objection might be taken to the age of the parties, Lord Montreville being a Cupidon déchaîné' between forty and fifty, with as many tooth-brushes, hair-pencils, and pomatum-pots as would fill a havresack, and Lucy Heckfield, a gay, laughing, simple-hearted girl of eighteen. In one of the most celebrated of the new French novels (Jacques), the plot is made to depend on the incompatibility of eighteen and thirty-five. This may be pushing matters a little too far-but, undoubtedly, the proposed problem will never be satisfactorily solved, until a couple be selected for the experiment, between whom there exists no material difference or disparity, except that necessarily resulting from rank; and on opening the present volumes, we expected a couple so circumstanced to be brought upon the stage.

6

The story, which has in this and other matters disappointed us, is opened by a letter from a Mrs. Carlton to a Mrs. Digby:-

'There

'There is something quite painful to my feelings in the idea of so much elegance and beauty being condemned for life to the seclusion of an odious parsonage-neither carriage, table, nor society!-for I understand that poor Mr. Evelyn is wretchedly straitened in his circumstances, and wants the very indispensables of existence. I thought his daughter had a singularly aristocratic air-to be sure they are of a good family; but I consider it as a proof of the delicacy of her taste, and of a native refinement that one loves to see, that she has escaped those thousand little vulgarisms that shock and offend one's taste so much in the non comme il faut.

The race ball is on the 20th of March, and on the 19th I hope to see you and your fair companion. And should it be my happy fate to prove the means of affording her the opportunity of entering those certain circles, which, indeed, nature seems expressly to have formed her to adorn-in short, if any of my young lords

But I will say no more-you know what my heart would feel upon the occasion.'-vol. i. pp. 3-5.

Mrs. Digby expresses her readiness to take Miss Louisa Evelyn to Dangerfield, but intimates a doubt whether she shall be consulting the young lady's happiness by doing so :

I have a notion that all without the boundary of the certain circles is not so triste, and so vulgar, and so horrid, as we are apt to suppose it. At least, as I often find that within, which is wearisome enough, I doubt whether those young ladies do the wisest thing in the world, who sacrifice every old habit, and sever themselves from every old connexion, for the privilege supreme of stepping within a magic ring, where they are never very welcome, and seldom very happy.'-ibid. pp. 6, 7.

To this extent we go along with the authoress; but we think her clearly mistaken in supposing any fatal disparity to exist between the daughter of a clergyman of good family, subsequently described as all polished and gentlemanlike,' and a nobleman, however exalted his rank. The families of the clergy form a recognised part of the best provincial society, which, during several months of the year, includes ten-twelfths of the elements of which the best London circles are composed; and their daughters are taught pretty nearly the same round of accomplishments as are thought indispensable for the daughters of the richer gentry and the nobility; so that, in our opinion, Louisa Evelyn would have had at the very utmost only an ignorance of some very trivial conventional details to overcome. The facility with which this sort of thing is overcome by women even of a very inferior order, is well illustrated in the Heart of Mid-Lothian,' where Effie Deans, as Lady Staunton, completely imposes on the Duke of Argyle, an unimpeachable judge of bearing and

manners.

Before quitting the Vicarage, we are particularly introduced to

every

every member of the circle, which consists of Mr. Evelyn, Louisa, two younger children, and a grave, staid, sober student in divinity, Mr. Charles Lovel, who has had the imprudence to fall in love with Miss Evelyn. There is also a clever and pleasing sketch of Louisa's last evening at home.

The day, the important day, at length drew on. Mrs. Digby's carriage is at the gate; and Louisa, arrayed in a chef-d'œuvre of a pelisse a present from Mrs. Carlton, who very properly considers her own credit at stake on the debut of her protégée-is in the act of taking leave of Charles and papa :

"I think we must own," said Mrs. Digby, smiling, and looking, with something of a mother's pride and fondness, upon the charming girl who stood before her, "that Carsan understands her art rather better than Miss Green-eh, Mr. Lovel?" But Charles did not answer -his eyes were fixed upon Louisa. A mingled feeling of admiration and of regret might have been read in their expression. How beautiful she looked in this elegant attire! How formed-how fitted for that station of which it was the significant costume! How far, already, removed from the humble sphere which they had occupied together!'

p. 36.

They arrive just in time to dress for dinner; a robe to correspond with the pelisse is in readiness; Mrs. Carlton's French maid is in attendance to put it on, and then enter Mrs. Carlton herself, in the full dress and glorious embonpoint of handsome, well-preserved fifty-four

"Come, my love! take my arm," said Mrs. Carlton, much elated by the idea of the beauty she was about to produce in her drawingroom. And Louisa, blushing and trembling, the delicacy and softness of her appearance enhanced by the decided and somewhat masculine air of her companion, was ushered into a saloon, splendidly lighted, and filled with a brilliant crowd of elegantly-dressed men and women, engaged in the usual manner of such assemblies before dinner. There was the regular party which ought invariably to be collected in all fashionable country houses, upon these occasions. There was the Duke and the Duchess, who are always everything that is most exemplary and amiable-he, is usually a great agriculturist; she, an embroiderer of flower-pots and Albanians; they are apt to be a little dull. There was

the Sir Harry,-a great fox-hunter. There was the Mr. Crawford,-a man of conversation and gastronomy about town; very witty, and very terrible. Two or three Lady Marys and Lady Selinas,-amiable, unaffected, accomplished girls; characters such as our modern system of education is so admirably calculated to produce.

'And there was the usual scheming mother, and her vicious trio of portionless handsome daughters; those perennial victims to the moral of our most moral stories-those unhappy examples of young ladies, without fortune and without connexion, who dare to commit the heinous and ever-recurring crime of setting caps (which they never wear) at