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In the account of his severe but imprudent studies, of which we have given only brief specimens above, and in the strikingly eloquent and touching description, of his subsequent illness and the images that passed through his mind during its continuance, we have reason to believe that the author describes only his own melancholy experiences and sufferings.

As we have expressed an opinion that we should have preferred the cousin Emily of the novel even to Ella, we deem it right to give the author's sketch of the latter. Ella is more transcendental; but there is a natural grace and beauty in Emily, according to the author's description of her, which have an irresistible charm for us; and, we think, that there is not a character in the volume more beautifully drawn than her's:

But my cousin Emily-what shall I say of her? My beautiful little cousin, with her laughing eyes, and her rosy lips, which had a smile on them all day long. Oh how palpably her image rises up before me, as I beheld her, at the time of which I am now writing, in all the grace and purity of extreme youth, full of life, and love, and cheerfulness, the gladdest spirit that ever moved along the earth, shedding sunshine all around her, and making music wherever she went. She was barely thirteen years of age, and the prettiest little creature in the world, with her nut-brown hair, soft, glossy and profuse, streaming adown her back and clustering over her shoulders, with her large, dark, grey eyes, lucid with love and merriment, and her dimpling, blushing, oval cheeks, which invited you every moment to kiss them, and her full lips which pouted, when you did, with an expression of mock gravity, which was at beautiful discord with the mirth swimming in her eyes, though she endeavoured, with all her might, to frown, and to look angry-a most abortive endeavour, always,

For, lo! directly after

It babbled into laughter;

and my cousin Emily would cry out "You naughty man!" and shaking her bright ringlets, run away with the swiftness of a fawn, her little feet gliding along as though they scarcely touched the ground; my playful, dear cousin Emily!

She was the sweetest tempered creature in the world, and was never so happy as when she was doing some little act of kindness towards another. To hear you express a wish was sufficient; off she would run up-stairs, or down-stairs, for a book, across the lawn for a flower, or into the garden for a handful of fruit, singing all the way as she went like a bird, and laughing, when yon told her, upon her return, that she was "a dear, good, kind-hearted creature, for taking so much trouble." And how well she knew the tastes of every one-how well she knew what little offering would be most acceptable to each. If an unseen hand had been at work for you in the house, you knew, at once, that it was my cousin Emily's. If you loved flowers, you would be sure to find a fresh nosegay in your plate when you took your seat at the breakfast-table; and all your favourite flowers would certainly be in the bouquet. If you were musical, she would sing to you all day, in the sweetest voice you ever heard in your life; if you were a painter you would be sure to find your colors and your pallets all ready for you at your own hour every day. If you delighted in books, you would always find your chamber well stored with them; and, child as was my cousin Emily, she it was who selected them from the library, well knowing whether the pages of the poet, or the philosopher, or the historian were best adapted to your individual predilection; indeed, wherever you moved in her father's house, you beheld traces of her "gentle spiriting." Who arranged the bouquets in the vases, and the bijouterie on the china-table, and the books in the library, but my cousin Emily? Whose handicraft was visible in the ottomans and the hearth-rugs, but my cousin Emily's? Whose voice was heard singing along the gallery, or past your chamber-door, ere you were stirring in the morning, but the voice of my cousin Emily? Always cheerful, and always active, yet, apparently, always at leisure, it was wonderful to think how much she did in the day, for she always appeared to be doing nothing. Every body loved her, for she was kind to every body; the servants of the house almost worshipped her; and her father-oh! never was there an only child more doated upon by an only parent. As for myself, it filled me with delight to look upon my cousin Emily. She was to me the impersonation of those "household charities," so often mentioned in the pages of my favourite poet, and I never alighted upon those two words without blessing my sweet little cousin Emily with all the fervour of my heart.

Doveton discloses his love for Ella, to John Smith, and the dialogue which ensues is in several passages eloquent and impressive, and is throughout characteristic and well sustained. We quote it entire.

I found the man of sense in his lodgings, making notes upon one of Pindar's Olympiads. His table was groaning under the weight of Stephens Thesaurus, Facciolati's Latin Lexicon, and sundry other books of reference, less bulky in their dimensions. He wore a grey frieze dressing gown, and a pair of carpet slippers, in regular reading costume, and altogether he looked comfortable, and independent; not a pale-faced, lean student, but a stout, healthy-looking scholar, who

of the oil of health. He used to say that, "in the pursuit of knowledge, if the mind travels so fast that it exhausts the energies of the body, the weakness of the body will retard the advances of the mind, as a worn-out fellow-traveller clings to his companion for support, and then both of them labour on with difficulty." But I was not, by any means, disposed to coincide in this opinion; for when my body has been weakest, my mind has been always most strong; and I think, that there is nothing which more deadens the intellect than a rude state of animal health. I should like much to enlarge upon this subject, but I do not think that it is the province of the novellist to indulge in such subtle disquisitions.

The first thing that Smith said to me was, "Well, Doveton, have you heard from Anstruther, Esq., of Charlton Abbey, in the country of H- -?"

I shook my head, and replied, "But there has not been time yet."

"Plenty," said Smith; "if he had written by post, on the day after his arrival, you might have received your money by this time."

"But, my dear fellow!" I returned, " consider the circumstances of the case ;-a dying mother, and all the miseries attending upon a death-bed scene. You may well give him a week, after the funeral, to recover his self-possession."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed John Smith.

There was a pause: I had nothing to say in reply to that decisive monosyllable. But Smith, changing the subject, presently asked, whether I had recovered my carpet-bag?

"Yes!" I cried, with an air of triumph; for I had the advantage of Smith there.

"And, in the way, I suppose, that I recommended to you?" said the man of sense, with a smile.

"

queror.

By no means," replied the man of imagination, drawing himself up with the air of a con

"How, then ?"

"I left it behind me, at Merry-vale, and Michael Moore was kind enough to forward it.” “And, pray, who is Michael Moore ?"

This question induced an explanation; for I really liked Smith. I was of an open, confiding nature; and I loved to unburthen my heart to any one who had inspired me with affection. So I told him the whole history of the Moores; my friendship for Michael, and the love I bare towards Ella; and my suspicions that they were other than they seemed.

Smith's face wore a serious aspect, as he said, "Have you ever reflected upon the nature of your alliance with these people?"

"What do you mean?"

"Simply this," said the man of sense; and slowly and calmly his words came forth, as he continued: "It appears, from your story, that you are enamoured of this Ella Moore, and that the girl returns your affection. Is this the case!"

The blood mounted to my very forehead, as I replied, "Yes, it is."

"And have you ever reflected upon the probable issue of this mutual attachment? You say that the girl is beautiful; she is a cottage-girl, far beneath you; young, simple, and confiding. Now, listen to me, Gerard Doveton: I have long known you, and fully believe in the kindness of your heart and the integrity of your principles. I do not think that you are a villain."

"

“A villain !” I exclaimed, starting from my seat, and clenching my hand I spoke. "Nay, Doveton, hear me out," said Smith, with the utmost calmness. I say that I do not think you a villain. I believe you to be honest, generous, and kind-hearted. I do not think that you would ruin this girl."

"Let me beseech you, Smith, to spare me these negative compliments. I do not see why you should tell me that you do not think me a villain."

"Because, though I do not think so, others, perhaps, may. You are more than eighteen,the girl two years younger. As children, you might have consorted harmlessly together; but now, Doveton, your own good sense must point out the necessity of breaking off this alliance. It is a pity that you should have proceeded to this extremity, for it will cost you much anguish to break asunder the link that so long has bound you together."

"And yet it must be done. Better to die, than to be suspected. You are not bound to live; but you are bound to live honestly."

"And why not live honestly with Ella?"

"

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'Oh, yes!" replied Smith; you certainly may marry the girl."

"To be sure. Then why talk so much about villany, and heart-breaking separations?"

"Hear me, Doveton," replied the man of sense; "it may be, that you will smile with contempt, when I talk about conventional distinctions, and say that it would little become you to marry this cottage girl. If I cause you pain, I am sincerely sorry for it; but, believe me, Gerard, that my opinion is the opinion of the whole world. You may despise that opinion, and think that you are superior to any such paltry considerations; but, perhaps, you will acknowledge with me, hat it would be both unwise and selfish to sacrifice your own happiness and that of your best beloved."

"Doubtless; and that sacrifice would be made, if Ella and I were to be sundered."

"Perhaps not; you think so at present; but when you have thought about it a little, you will find that it is not so impossible to reconcile yourself to this change. Time has a wonderful effect upon sorrow; and it is astonishing with what fortitude we bear, after a season, the evils which, at first sight, appear to be absolutely insupportable. You will soon forget Ella Moore. Have you got a pretty cousin, Doveton ?"

The prettiest that ever was seen.'

"Then fall in love with her as quickly as you can."

"Smith, I entreat you not to talk in this heartless manner. I love the girl-I love Ella Moore; and why should I not marry her?"

"Oh! marry her," said Smith, "marry her by all means, and be discarded by your whole family. Marry her, and entail upon your wife the odium of all your relatives; exalt her to a station in society where her claims will be unacknowledged; expose her to endless contumely, and a series of cruel mortifications; allow her the satisfaction of feeling that she has ruined her doating husband. Yes, Doveton, let her see that she has brought upon you the curses of your parents, and the scoffs of society; and then ask her if she be happy? Oh! my friend, man never did grosser injury to woman, than by raising her to a station in society, which she was never intended to fill."

I'll

"Smith, if you were once to see Ella, you would never talk to me again in this manner. answer for it that you have formed in your mind a very incorrent notion of the girl. If you think that she is one of your thick-limbed country wenches, with coarse, rosy cheeks, and clumsy ankles, and red hands, and calf-like movements, and a harsh voice, and a corrupt dialect, you are grievously in error, I assure you. In the first place, she is exceedingly beautiful—"

"Of course."

"Anl she is full of grace; every action, every motion of her limbs, whether she sits, or walks, or stands, is replete with the most exquisite grace. I tell you, Smith, that in any assemblage, among the gentlest, the most high-born ladies of the land, would Ella Moore be the observed of all observers. With her slender, undulating figure, and her blue eyes, and her small features, and her tiny white hands, and her pretty little feet, she is as delicate and as aristocratic a maiden, as though she had been bred in a palace. And her mind, Smith-oh! think not, I beseech you, that it is coarse, and ignorant, and indiscriminating; for she is endowed with an exquisite sense of the beau tiful and becoming; thoughtful is she, much has she read, and when she speaks to you, you would think an angel were speaking, such melody is there in the tones of her voice."

"One thing seems very clear, however," said Smith, with a smile upon his face.

"And what is that?"

"Why, 'tis clear from your glowing description of the girl, that you are devotedly in love with her, Gerard. I would that it were otherwise, my friend; for I do not think that much happiness is likely to accrue from your attachment. The girl may be all that you describe her; nay, I think that she is, Deveton; for you are not one to see perfections that do not actually exist. But, however beautiful and accomplished she may be in herself, you must feel that, in station, she is far beneath you; and I have already described some of the miseries that result from an ill-assorted match. Be not impelled by passion, but guided by reason. Oh! my friend, if ever you have listened to my advice, give ear to it now, I beseech you. Consider well what you are about; pause ere you have gone too far; restrain the impetuosity of your nature; and do not suffer the calm voice of reason to be overswayed by the hurricane of your passions."

Smith spoke with an earnestness and a rapidity of utterance quite at variance with the even tenor of his common discourses. I had never seen him so much moved before; it was plain that

cause of inquietude could thus have ruffled the calmness of his nature. I looked into his face ; and his massive features wore an expression of earnest sorrow. I was almost tempted to cry aloud, You have prevailed, Smith, you have prevailed." But my great love for Ella Moore restrained me. What was Smith to me in comparison with her? What were all his homilies, and his eternal common sense, when weighed against one kind word, or one smile of affection from Ella? -"Smith," said I," you are my friend, I know it; I see that you are my sincere friend. But I cannot abandon the Moores; I cannot tear out the love of Ella from my heart, without bursting all its strings asunder: as long as its pulse continue to beat, they must, they shall beat for her. Smith, you do not know what it is to love, or you would not talk in this strain to me. I tell you, that for her sake I am ready to sacrifice every thing; friends, parents, station, every blessing in the world, but her love. Station, indeed! what is station to me? I will descend to her station; on me shall the tempest fall. What if I should give up everything, and live with Ella Moore in a cottage; there is nothing, of selfishness in that."

"You talk like a puling, love-sick boy, as you are," returned John Smith. "Now many have uttered before you just this same farrago of nonsense about cottages and broken hearts, and all the other pet symbols of the tender passion, yet how few have put their love and their philosophy to the proof, by giving up, for the sake of the beloved, one tittle of the common comforts of life. You think that you mean what you say, but you do not; no, no, Gerard, no cottages for you.

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is-Love, forgive us !—cinders, ashes, dust.'

Take my word for it that the writer of these lines is perfectly correct in his assertion. Love in a hut! Doveton; nonsense! Hunger and cold, and nakedness, and squalling children, and tickets for soup from the Mendicity Society, and no end of distraining for rent.'

"I did not think, Smith," I replied, beginning to lose my temper," that you were capable of talking such absurdity. I took you for a man of sense; I find you a man of nonsense. Hunger and cold, what silly bug-bears! just like the bogies, which the nursery-maid conjures up to frighten young children. Hunger, indeed! have I not a hand to execute, and a head to contrive? have I not faculties, mind, intellect?"

"And nine hundred pages of manuscript in your carpet bag ?"-cried John Smith. "This is too much; it is, indeed," I exclaimed.

"Smith, you will drive me mad."

"Nay, Doveton, you are that already," returned Smith, with the utmost calmness.

"Do you wish, Sir, to drive me from your house?" and I started from my seat, as I spoke. "Do you wish, Sir, to, to, to— in short, do you wish to insult me?"

Why, as you put the question so frankly," replied Smith, "frankly shall you be answered, Doveton. I do think that you are wasting my time by staying here. I do think that you had better be gone."

"Oh! certainly, certainly, Mr. Smith!" endeavouring to assume an air of levity, as I seized my hat and retired, your most obedient; good morning, Sir?" and I grasped the handle of the door, but my arm trembled so much with excitement, that it was some time before I could open it.

"Yet stay, Doveton; do not go yet,” cried Smith; "I don't wish you to leave me in a passion."

I did not answer, and Smith continued, "I acknowledge, Doveton, that I was wrong."

Now, this was the first time that Smith had ever confessed himself wrong, in any of his transactions with me, for, indeed, it was the first time that he had been wrong. But the acknowledgment had its due effect. I returned to my seat, and laid my hat upon the table, and said, “Well Smith, I forgive you."

"And you really love this girl, with your whole soul?" asked Smith.

"I have told you before," said I.

"And she loves you with an equal measure of affection ?"

"I think so."

""Tis not enough to think."

"I am sure that she does; all her words, and looks, and actions, betray her love."

"And you know what love is; you know how to interpret those signs?"

"Oh, Smith! can you ask me such a question ?-Do you not remember the first conversation

desire possessed my whole soul; a desire, or rather, I should say, a burning thirst, to be loved. And can you ask me whether I know what love is, and what are its common manifestations. Me, who have watched for hours the changing aspect of a countenance, looking for an expression of love; me, who, with the most subtle sense of hearing, have analysed every voice that has addressed me, hoping to catch a tone of affection; me, who have watched, and prayed, and panted for love, as the hart pants for the water-brooks. Oh, Smith! can you ask me, whether I know what are its signs?"

The man of sense did not smile at my enthusiasm. His face has sad, and I thought that I perceived an unwonted glistening in his eyes. He shook me by the hand, and said very kindly, "Well, Doveton, I have nothing more to say. I was wrong, from the very first, to intrude my advice upon such delicate matters as these. What have I do with such things? What do I know about the inmost feelings of your heart? You must let those feelings decide for you. 1, perhaps, least of all in the world, am competent to give advice upon love matters. Commune with your

own heart, and I do not think that you will act impurely; though, perhaps, you will act unwisely. But as the old Roman said, and as I once quoted to you before, Oh! how hard it is both to love and to be wise,' Doveton, I will say no more, to you. Love is the province of the heart, not of the head; and, therefore, you must be guided by your own feelings, and not by me advice. This is unsaying all that I have said to you before; but I will stand the charge of inconsistency. Common sense and love, have nothing to do with one another."

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Here we perceive that judgment, or the reasoning faculty, is excited into the earnestness of deep feeling, by the passionate energy of imagination under the influence of love. To the language of this dialogue, we have no objection to offer; but we do most decidedly object to the false morality of conventionalism, which judgment is made to utter. What on earth had difference of station to do with this case? What disgrace even in the eyes of the slaves of conventionalism could Gerard Doveton, the son of a bankrupt merchant, have incurred, by marrying a lovely girl of a most exalted mind, who had never been in any menial station, though educated in a cottage, by a mother who had evidently moved in a higher sphere of society! John Smith does not pretend to question Gerard Doveton's glowing description of Ella; of her purity and elegance of mind. What then does he oppose to their union? The considerations of rational prudence? No; but of difference of station! and this in a country where it is not uncommon for peers to marry actresses! Had any great difference of station existed even, the argument employed by John Smith would still have been false in morals, though consistent with what is called common sense: meaning thereby worldly sense; but such difference in station did not exist, and yet Gerard Doveton did not deny its existence !

In the course of a journey Gerard renders some service to a Mr. Anstruther, the personification of intellect combined with love; a man of cultivated mind and exquisite sensibility, sunk by a series of domestic afflictions into a hopeless state of dejection. His gratitude knows no bounds; until at length it merges into an affection quite parental in its strength. Gerard visits him and then this attachment grows up, and leads Mr. Anstruther to propose to make his young friend his heir. The exalted principle on which Gerard rejects the benefit, is developed in the following dialogue, and every reader will appreciate it, although few, we fear, could have acted up to it. We must pre

mise that Anstruther has become so attached to Gerard, that the idea of the latter's leaving him, is distressing. Gerard is about to quit Mr. Anstruther for a month only, then to return and remain entirely with him. It is to this intention that Mr. Anstruther alludes in the first passage of our extract.

"Once, and only once, during the week, which preceded the day of my departure, did Anstru ther allude to the dreaded event, and then it was in language expressive of the admiration, and the more than gratitude which my kindness had awakened in his bosom. "To give up." said Anstru ther," so much for me-how kind, how generous, how god-like!"

And the answer, which I returned, is explanatory of the guiding principle which actuated my behaviour towards my friend. "You are alone, and, therefore, will I cleave to you. Others love me, and others by me are beloved; but they all have more than one pillar supporting the 'structure of their love. Upon me, alone, do you lean; you say that I am all-in-all to you, but to others I am but one of a number. Take away my support from them, and still they stand erect; from you, and you fall prostrate in the dust. No, no-I will cling to you, and we will lean upon

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