shepherd; resigns his crook into younger hands; and shares with his father the stronger labours of the field. When old age creeps upon him, and his strength declines, he descends into the vallies, returns to the scrip and the crook, and passes the remainder of his days reclined on the soft turf of the meadows.

"The most brilliant of these epochs, is that at which a young man is elevated to the rank of cultivator, and this, therefore, is celebrated with solemnity. As soon as a shepherd of the mountain has completed his fifteenth year, his father goes in search of him, to conduct him into the fields, or into the vineyard, which he is thenceforward to cultivate. The memorable day is a festival for the young man's family."

"The Reviewer," a subject obviously of too great delicacy for us to enlarge upon. Of the two next novels, "The Cate of Kolmeras," and "The Man of Worth," the former is an unsuccessful attempt at humour; and the latter is tiresome and insipid, at least it has no charms for us.

The mystery of the " Perplexed Lover," is preserved with inimitable dexterity; and if the marriage of Melcy with Bathilda can be admitted-the revolu-, tion might, perhaps, afford a solitary fact on which to ground it-the story is happily conceived, and artfully told. In the character of Leontina are some delicate touches of nature-but we must not destroy the effect of the stories by babbling all their incidents.

"Destiny, or the Unfortunate." Fact, probably, and fable, amalgamated: it seems as if Madame Genlis had collected the misfortunes of an hundred emigrants, and poured them upon the devoted head of her unhappy hero, Kerkalis; his mild, amiable, and honourable character, excites a good deal of interest. But there is a tide in the affairs of men; the fortune of Kerkalis, however, always remains at ebb.

"The Princess des Ursines." The rise and fall of this ambitious mistress of Philip V. of Spain, are related with a sufficient regard to historical truth.

"The Green Petticoat" is a very pretty

story, which has its foundation in truth. The heroine is a young German, still living.

Shakespeare's Catharine and Petruchio furnished the idea of the tale entitled "The Husband turned Tutor;" such overstrained characters are not pleasing.

"Pamrose; or the Palace and the Cat." The most interesting part of this little novel is not a fiction; but, in all its particulars, an absolute fact. It was communicated to the authoress by a person in every respect worthy of the highest credit, (Mademoiselle Ítzig, of Berlin,) who was very well acquainted with a man who had resided at the court of this benevolent princess, and had been an eye-witness of the noble action here related. This interesting princess is no more." A great many scenes in these novels are laid in palaces. Madame Genlis lived in a court, and estimated keenly enough the characters which composed it. The frivolity and dissipation which frolic in the sun-beams of royalty, are often held up to contempt; and the truth is frequently revealed, that it is not in the power of splendid apparel and sumptuous festivities, to still the throbbings of an aching heart.

"A Woman's Prejudices" is the last story. The word overcome should have been added to the title. The anecdote which it relates, we are assured is "faithfully true." A circumstance from which it derives additional interest.

The

Too many of our modern novel. writers have no other means of preserv ing the attention of their readers than by keeping them in a constant bustle: incidents are crowded together without mercy, and without measure. more able pen of Madame de Genlis is employed in the delineation of character: she has studied human nature, and the little traits which she introduces, without parade and forwardness, are oftentimes very striking.

If these volumes should come to a second edition, we recommend to the translator a careful revision of his language: he will detect some grammatical inaccuracies.

circulating libraries, within the last twenty years, has constituted an immense market for novels; but great as the demand is, we see no reason to apprehend a deficiency in the supply. Where so many tastes are to be consulted, and de gustibus non disputandum, the articles must be variously flavoured, and, therefore, variously compounded. If one appears insipid, and a second be too highly seasoned, we must not make wry faces, and be out of humour at this diversity; the chief duty which devolves on us, who are called upon to taste most of the commodities, will be to give open warning should any thing tainted, any thing unwholesome be exposed to sale; this duty we will most scrupulously perform, if unhappily, it shall ever be required from us. On the other hand, it will give us pleasure to announce any thing of peculiar richness and fine quality; but on articles of ordinary goodness we shall not often give a very peremptory opinion.

Miss Gunning is versed in the art of novel-writing: she keeps up the mystery with considerable dexterity, and the present volumes have altogether amused us. We have, notwithstanding, many heavy faults to find; but, perhaps, they are rather the effect of haste and carelessness, than of incapacity or ignorance. In the first place, the grammatical blunders are almost innumerable: the rare deviations from orthography which we have detected, are, no doubt, to be attributed to the carelessness of compositors, and the oversight of the corrector of the press. Miss G. is not sufficiently

considerate in the language which her characters speak: When the Earl of Mount-Talbot is on the road to FairyMount, bar-women, peasants, and footmen, are scarcely to be distinguished by their conversation from his lordship himself. The character of the earl is supported with consistency and spirit; the malevolence of Mr. Fitzgerald has no adequate cause; his character is extravagant, and, we believe, perfectly unnatural. The loves of Herbert and Rose,-a beautiful flower, not yet full blown---are delineated with delicacy and feeling; and the scene between Herbert and Lady Lismore, in the third volume, where the latter discloses the secret of her maternity, is managed with great address.

In her haste, Miss Gunning has committed an unfortunate anachronism: in the first volume, Lord Mount Talbot, in a conversation with Lady Lismore con- . cerning Rose, says "Does she not turn out handsome? I thought her an engaging child, but she must be now nearly a woman." "Almost sixteen--just two years younger than Herbert ;" after this, in the second volume, Rose's father arrives, and says, that "sixteen years has nearly elapsed since his marriage."

We decline going into further particulars: had Miss Gunning submitted her manuscript to the revision of some friend, who would have corrected her grammar, chastened her metaphors, and pruned away some redundancies, the Farmer's Boy would have ranked respec tably among modern novels.

IN Mr.Pratt's novels, gleanings, &c. are scattered a great many tender little tales, and pathetic anecdotes: as these works are printed in too bulky and expensive a form to be put into the hands of children, a selection from them was thought adviseable, and the speculation answered.

These stories are not addressed to the understanding: they impart no scientific information, but they are, generally speaking, likely to amuse children, and are all of them moral. The volume is ornamented with vignettes.

PP.

THE family of Filippo, marquis of Fesole, consists of a wife, no less a personage than the daughter of Lorenzo de Medici, a son, a daughter, and the orphan Isabel. The mild virtues of Isa

bel, and the manly ones of the son Lorenzo, were not lost upon each other : esteem soon softened into love: the marquis, jealous of the honour and ambitious of the aggrandisement of his

family, had long aspired to the governent of Ferrara: it becomes vacant, and Cæsar Borgia, anxious to win the marquis over to his interest, obtains the vacancy from his uncle the pope, and offers it to the marquis, on condition that his son, Lorenzo, shall marry the daughter and heiress of Borgia. Is the great Cæsar Borgia to be foiled in his mighty projects by the loves of a whimpering boy and girl? Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Camilla, the daughter, confiding in the generosity of Duke Borgia, who is on a visit at the castle of Fesole, relates to him the attachment between her brother and Isabel: affecting to compassionate their distress, he promises no longer to urge the connection, but in a few nights afterwards contrives to have the hapless girl carried off from the castle. The ardent Lorenzo pursues the captive maid: he falls into the bands of banditti, who conduct him to a cave, secured by massy and successive doors, locked, bolted, and barred. Here, however, he is released in the course of the night, by an intrepid heroine, who, without any ceremony, assassinates the captain and lieutenant, seizes the keysof the cavern, and effects her escape. This lady is no other than Laura, the daughter herself of Borgia, who, together with her mother the duchess, had been taken by the banditti in their way to Fesole castle, in order to celebrate the nuptials. An unlucky rencontre! Lorenzo, who loses his horse in the conflict, and therefore could no longer continue his pursuit, very gallantly escorts the ladies to the castle of his father. He learns that his inamorata is immured in a convent: he contrives to scale the walls and pass the barriers, and by the bribery of two inferior monks, to lay a plan for the escape of Isabel. The plan is thwarted by the treachery of these agents, whose fear of Borgia afterwards induces them to make him acquainted with the meditated escape. Lorenzo is seized under the pretended suspicion of impious practices towards the church, and Isabel is conducted at the appointed time by the hireling Anselmo, not to the arms of her disappointed lover, but to a troop of armed men, who hurry her away to the strong castle of Valdarno. From this castle, however, where many tales of horror are related, she effects her escape by the assistance of Ernesto, a young Pisan nobleman, with whom Isa

bel had passed the early years of life, and who also had long been imprisoned in this castle by the connivance of Duke Borgia. Lorenzo is also released from his captivity by the wife and daughter of Borgia. who learning that he had been arrested under a fictitious name, and ignorant that the duke had instigated the violence, invited the chevalier to their palace, where he excites at once the love and the revenge of Laura. Lorenzo soon learns the place of Isabel's confinement, and sets out with Benvolio (a page of the duke, but in the interest of Lorenzo) and with his faithful servant Jacopo, in order to effect her rescue. They are benighted at the foot of the Appenines, seek shelter at a distant castle, which is tenonted by banditti, where they are on the point of being murdered. By a fortunate accident-a novel writer, llke a magician, by the waving of his wand, can bring about the most improbable events,-by a fortunate accident, Ernesto and Isabel, in their flight from the castle of Valdarno, had also sought repose in this house of robbers. A bloody contest ensues, the robbers are routed, and the travellers make their escape to Venice, where the ardent Lorenzo and the timid Isabel are hastening the anxious hour of their nuptials, when the persecuting spirit of Borgia once more finds them out, and dashes from their lips the full uplifted cup of happiness. Isabel is again hurried to the castle of Valdarno, where she learns the secret of her birth: that she is a daughter of Borgia himself, by Isabella di Medici! She makes her escape by exciting the compassion of a villain, who is sent to murder her: he conducts her to Rome, where she meets the Marquis de Fesole, whose interest had procured the liberation of his son and of Ernesto. The fate of the pontiff Alexander VI. who just at this time accidentally drunk the poison he prepared for his guests, and the flight of Borgia into Sicily, relieve the lovers from any further fears; they are mairie, and, to the best of our knowledge, lived very happily afterwards.

Such is the outline of this story. They who delight in battles, robberies, and murders, will have a treat indeed, in the perusal of these bloody pages. They whose simplicity of taste is offended at improbable adventures, marvellous discoveries, feeble descriptions, and

unmeaning soliloquies, will be astonished that any one, over whom the sacred academic groves of Cambridge had

thrown their venerable shade, should have so little chastened his imagination and refined his taste.

THIS interesting novel was begun by Mrs. Gunning, who was attacked by illness during its progress, which in creasing rapidly, she was with great reluctance prevailed on to lay aside her pen. It has, since that lady's decease, heen revised and augmented by her daughter, Miss Gunning, who eminently possesses her mother's superior talents in novel writing. The Heir apparent, is the second son of a Lord Ormington, a most amiable youth, extremely handsome, highly accomplished, just arrived from Italy to console his widowed mother, and to attend with fraternal affection, his elder brother, languishing on the bed of sickness. The

The

character of our hero is beautifully as well as naturally drawn. In Alicia Arundal, a young lady to whom Henry (the heir apparent) is fondly attached, the author has been peculiarly happy in pourtraying the character of a most engaging female, the model of every thing desirable in a companion for life. character of Doningfield too is drawn with much interest; the countess (our hero's mother) is a composition of pride, avarice and unbounded ambition, to the gratification of which she descends to the lowest meannesses, and by her diabolical machinations, causes the death of two most amiable and deserving persons.

Pp.

IN Raymond, there is a good deal to praise; and compared with the generality of novels, it certainly claims precedence. The invention, character, and language are, in many places above mediocrity, seldom below it. The plot is artfully contrived and the denouement shews great ingenuity Inold Filmore and his grandson, the operation of avarice is well displayed, and the contrast exhibited in the benevolent young marquis Raymond, appears more marked from so judicious a foil. If we except to any character in this work, it is to that of Lady Arpasia Ermington, the noble

1120.

THE hero of Warkfield castle is a Lord Meldon, who, on account of his attachment to Charles I. and the subsequent success of the republican party, is obliged to quit his country and his paternal estate. His adventures during his exile of course form the prominent events in the work; and these, though they contain few novel or striking incidents, are by no means devoid of interest, nor do they, (which is seldom the case) in any instance, outrage pro

bability. The auxiliary characters likewise introduced, are some of them happily delineated. Fanny speaks the true Northumberland dialect, and Meggison's faithful attachment to his master, is a pattern for domestics. The language is unaffected, and in many places above mediocrity. The sentiments inculcated throughout, are such as tend to amend the heart; and the volumes are not deficient in point of amusement.