fear it might have vanished; for Glanville, who has written largely on ghosts, expressly says "that it is a very hard and painful thing for them to force their thin and tenuous bodies into a visible consistence; that their bodies must needs be exceedingly compressed, and that therefore they must be in haste to be delivered from their unnatural pressure." I returned, therefore, with some rapidity towards the library; and although the dog stood immovably still at some distance, in spite of my solicitations, and kept earnestly gazing upon me, as if in apprehension of an approaching catastrophe, I proceeded onward, and turned back the shutters which I had closed, determined not to be imposed upon by any dubiousness of the light. Thus fortified against deception, I re-entered the room with a firm step, and there in the full glare of day did I again clearly and vividly behold the identical apparition, sitting in the same posture as before, and having its eyes closed !! My heart somewhat failed me under this sensible confirmation of the vision, but, summoning all my courage, I walked up to the chair, exclaiming with a desperate energy-" In the name of heaven and of all its angels, what dost thou seek here?"-when the figure, slowly rising up, opening its eyes, and stretching out its arms, replied " A leg of mutton and caper-sauce, with a bottle of prime old port, for such is the dinner you promised me." "Good God!" I ejaculated, "what can this mean? Are you not really dead ?" "No more than you are," replied the figure."Some open-mouthed fool told my clerk that I was, and he instantly wrote to tell you of it; but it was my namesake, George Staples, of Castle-street, not me, nor even one of my relations, so let us have dinner as soon as you please, for I am as hungry as a hunter."

The promised dinner being soon upon the table, my friend informed me, in the intervals of his ever-ready laughter, that as soon as he had undeceived his clerk, he walked over to Star Cross to do me the same favour; that he had fallen asleep in the arm-chair while waiting my return from the grounds; and as to the dog, he reminded me that he had severely punished him at his last visit for killing a chicken, which explained his terror, and his crouching to me for protection, when he recognised his chastiser.

SONNET. THE INFANT.

I saw an infant-health, and joy, and light
Bloom'd on its cheek, and sparkled in its eye;
And its fond mother stood delighted by
To see its morn of being dawn so bright.
Again I saw it, when the withering blight

Of pale disease had fallen, moaning lie

On that sad mother's breast-stern Death was nigh,
And Life's young wings were fluttering for their flight.
Last, I beheld it stretch'd upon the bier,

Like a fair flower untimely snatched away,
Calm, and unconscious of its mother's tear,
Which on its placid cheek unheeded lay--
But on its lip the unearthly smile express'd,
"Oh! happy child, untried, and early bless'd!"
Reydon, Suffolk.

A. S.

ADA REIS: A TALE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the very able and philosophical reasoning of the Edinburgh Reviewers concerning the unruly tendencies towards criticism of "the age we write in," we cannot quite bring ourselves to believe that authors exist in the great scale of nature for the sole purpose of being set up, or set down by the critics, like so many nine-pins, which stand or fall, as the bowler goes wide of his mark, or "tips all nine" in one furious sweeping article. We cannot indeed deny that the taste of the times should be respected, and are fully aware that "those who live to please, must please to live;" still less are we disposed to question the great moral lesson" which the "article on the press" displays; or to doubt the sharp-sightedness of our brethren in the North on the subject of "utility;" but we do think it advisable in a reviewer not to make too free with the Cayenne and mustard of vituperation, if it be only to avoid exhausting the gustatory nerves of the reader, and so spoiling the market; and we for the most part endeavour to "do our spiriting gently," and bear in mind that live authors have "eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, and passions;" that they "laugh when they are tickled, and die when they are poisoned," and are warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is."

66

It has been said that there are very few books wholly bad; and literary faults are scarcely to be computed as crimes against society (the case of libel, of course, being duly excepted): although, therefore, it may be necessary that reviews should now and then have "a severe article," and give some unlucky scribbler "a good cutting up," in order to retain the ear of the public; yet it is neither policy nor humanity to run a muck against all author-kind, and treat every one as an enemy who has written a book.

Having premised thus much, the reader will doubtless be prepared to find us in a merciful mood; and we frankly own that the production now under consideration is one that has some claims to our lenity. First, whatever may be thought of the matter, because its author is a woman; and next, because she does not write from mercenary motives; but is actuated, in thus publishing her labours, by a mere good-natured wish of multiplying innocent amusement. We are no advocates for giving the great exclusive privileges in literature, for permitting them to abuse argument and lay down the law, on the strength of their aristocracy. To spare designing malice or tolerate dulness and pretension in the "nobiles et tanquam nobiles" of the earth, for the sake of their gold tassels, is a base dereliction of duty to the public; but when all is fair and above board, a reviewer is bound in courtesy to practise some forbearance to those who are much better employed in writing even a bad book, than in setting society a bad example of idleness and dissipation; and a critic may be permitted to consider a noble author, as one who is anxious to make some return to the community for all those accumulated advantages which its institutions have heaped on his favoured head.

There is one very considerable advantage to the public attendant upon the literary propensities of the great, which still farther tempts us to a lenient estimate of their "doings ;" and this lies in the insight

such works afford unto the character and peculiarities of high-born intellects. Very few of us are suffered to pass the magic circle within which the exclusively upper classes congregate; and the most favoured of us have but rare occasions for knowing what a great man's brains are made of. The points of view from which these favourites of for tune look down upon men and things, engender conclusions very different from those which ordinary people form on the same subjects; and as these persons exercise so wide an influence on the destinies of the species, it is good to have some means for analysing their conceptions. Shut up among themselves, or coming into contact with general society, without either giving or receiving much impulse, transacting little or no business personally, and having their most ordinary wants anticipated, those among them who take not a leading part in politics, live in a world of their own, which bears as little resemblance to this "work-a-day world" of ours, as the French Institute does to the Dom Daniel. The works, therefore, of a noble author, whether they be wise or silly, amusing or dull, good for something or for nothing (in themselves), are at least interesting as part and parcel of their author's mind, as reflections of intellects with which we must otherwise remain unacquainted, and as it were anatomic preparations of that singular variety of the human animal, which is at once so important, and so difficult to examine in the recent subject.

The fair authoress of Ada Reis, if we may judge from her writings, possesses a mind powerfully modified by the circumstances of her caste and position, and in itself not unworthy of some consideration by the philosopher. Acute, ingenious, imaginative, capable of quick and shrewd observation, with feelings as exalted as her fancy, she has yet, by the force of circumstances been so far removed from the flat realities of life, that she scarcely sees any thing as it really is. Her acquaintance with literature, though more general than her knowledge of the world, having been equally independent of necessity and business, has likewise exempted her from that mental discipline which is essential to regular composition. Her sagest pages have, therefore, a wildness or an oddity about them; and there is an inequality in her steadiest march, which betrays feelings under little command, and ideas which flow quite independently of volition.

Taking her works as a faithful index of her mind, nothing can be more bizarre than the nature and composition of her notions. In all that concerns the fashionable world, that world of which the Editor of the Morning Post is the geographer,-its follies, its dissipations, its heartless inanity, and its freezing apathy, she is perfectly at home; and what she has seen, she paints with considerable fidelity, and a force occasionally approaching to that of our best novelists. Hence it is, that of all her works, Graham Hamilton will the most universally please. But beyond this sphere, her notions are the result of a miscellaneous and not very judicious reading, coloured by an imagination whose activity has found food for passions, which wealth, rank, and the peculiarities of the social epoch, would otherwise have kept in an insipid abeyance. Of the real world, of the cares, anxieties, and difficulties though which men pass in their daily efforts for subsistence, she knows nothing. Of their duties and relations she has but vague and confused conceptions, partly the fruit of that sort of early instruc

tion which the children of the great receive, but more the creation of a heart disposed to be affectionate, and of sensibilities too prone to exaggeration; the whole perhaps a little tinctured by the philosophy of the Hannah More school. Her pages exhibit in curious and sometimes in droll points of contrast, this strange mixture of simplicity and shrewdness, of domesticity and dissipation, of wild ideality, and satirical touches of real characters and passing follies. In perusing her works, we seem to accompany her in those her rapid and frequent journeys which the daily papers daily commemorate, between Whitehall and her country villa. In the exercise of her "modò Thebis, modò posuit Athenis" faculty, she uses no discretion, and she passes from the fairy creations of her imagination to the impertinences and insipidities of the saloon and the ball-room, with an abruptness which to some may appear to require a clue. Her style, as unsettled as her subject, changes from grave to gay, from sentimental to satirical, according to the state of her temperament at the moment of composition. Her books, therefore, are not formed for those sage and à plomb persons who demand a "cui bono?" at every step, and require a mathematical and moral precision in all they read. In Ada Reis, indeed, the authoress has laboured hard to extract a moral; but she alone perhaps could conceive that any thing bearing upon actual life could be abstracted from personages and adventures so wild and fantastic. Those readers, however, who are less fastidious, and who pause not to inquire," Is this probable ?" "Is that in nature ?" and who, without judging a work as a whole, are contented with a quick succession of melo-dramatic scenery and events, interspersed with some passages of great descriptive force, will not be disappointed in the perusal.

The story is Asiatic, and is coloured with the diablerie of an Arabian tale. The adventures turn on a compact with the evil powers, or at least with their magic-gifted servants; for it is not very clear which is intended. The events succeed each other with the rapidity, and with something of the wildness of a dream. They have, consequently, but little sustained interest; but amidst the most unreined extravagance of the story, there are perceptible glimpses of the human heart, which are not the less interesting because they are somewhat out of place and proportion. But the author's fort is evidently description. In this she occasionally exhibits powers that might be turned to a better account. In giving, therefore, a specimen of the work, we shall make our selection with a view to the illustration of this talent. The following passages are from the 10th chapter and 2d vol. and relate to the earthquake at Lima.

"Ada Reis entered, his air wild and terrified. 'Didst hear nothing?' he cried. 'Hast seen nothing?' he said, darting by her (Fiormonda.) Hark! again! Look, look from the casement.'

"A lurid beam burst from the dense clouds; a noise loud and terrible aroused every inhabitant of the house. Condalmar returned calm, and with a smile. The heat was intense; the forked lightning flashed along the skies; screams rent the air; the terrified slaves and menials rushed into the presence of their master kneeling and quaking. The howling of dogs was then heard; strange and dismal sounds filled the air: a sulphurous smell infected the streets: the beasts of burden, as they passed along, seemed scarcely able to sustain themselves under the loads

they bore.

In the market-place, in the grand square, the gardens and plains adjoining the town, the terrified inhabitants had assembled together, lamenting aloud, and saying the last day was at hand. The churches were suddenly filled; and, of whatever religion, Catholics, Protestants, Heretics, and Pagans, prostrated themselves before the altars, fearful of they knew not what danger.

"Condalmar addressed himself to Ada Reis, and proposed that before it was too late they should fly from this state of horror and alarm, and remove as quickly as possible to Callao..

"Arrived at Callao, they found the scene there, if possible, more terrific than at Lima. Never had the sun risen upon greater calamity. The whole population of the place were assembled on the beach; parents clasping their children, and husbands their wives; and all invoking Heaven for mercy and compassion.

"The night proved more sultry than the day had been; cattle and dogs traversed the country alone in wild affright. Children wept, they knew not why. Strangers inquired of each other the meaning of these terrible portents; many fled from the city and fort of Callao and betook themselves to the sea; but Ada Reis was of opinion that to attempt the sea in its present state were more dangerous than to remain on land; for the whole sky was of a purple tint, and the waves, with a still swell, seemed rising above the level of the shore. Subterraneous noises were heard the whole of the day, sometimes resembling the bellowing of oxen, and at others the discharge of artillery, or thunder rattling at a dis

tance.

.

"In a short time Ada Reis joined them; and even at such a moment they could not abstain from impious raillery and profane jesting. Should the earth quake, I will not,' said Ada Reis. At that moment a tremendous shock threw Fiormonda forward, and in the next a concussion so violent ensued, that the building broke asunder into ruins.". "The concussion was repeated; sulphurous flames broke forth from the bosom of the earth: then at once were heard on all sides the screams of the dying, the roaring of thunder, the wild howling of animals, the crash of churches, palaces, buildings toppling one upon another; all in a moment destroyed, and burying under them their miserable inhabitants."

In the last volume, which is in many respects inferior to the others, the authoress drops on a sudden the elevated and sustained tone of writing; and bringing her personages into a species of hell or purgatory of her own imagining, becomes at once familiar and satirical. After the manner of Dante, or rather of Quevedo, she proceeds to dispose of classes and predicaments, and in her wilfulness spares neither herself nor her friends. It is in this part of her work that she exhibits most especially a nervous sensibility to injury, that vents itself in traits and anecdotes of those with whom she is displeased. Through the whole work, indeed, we are grieved to find that the writer is evidently ill at ease. Gracious Heaven! how little is every worldly prosperity to happiness! High birth, wealth, ease, distinction, the confluence of all physical goods, with friends, relations, and admirers-are all insufficient to fill that aching void, the human heart? When every thing, which in prospect seems most desirable, conspires to render a mortal happy, there is still a waking busy devil within, to conjure up imaginary woes, to create constructive miseries, to subtilize and sophisticate, to magnify and to distort, to exaggerate expectation, and to manufacture disappointment. Let not the cold moralist, triumphant in his own composure, say that this is madness, ingratitude, fretfulness unworthy of sympathy, or folly beneath compassion. Man does not desire to be miserable, he does not seek to suffer. Ideal miseries (if those in question be ideal) are not the less miseries because they proceed from within: nor is hypochondriases a less painful disease, because