have had a more exemplary effect; but we must make an allowance for the warm resentment and just indignation of his injured adversary.

THE DAVENELS,

OR A CAMPAIGN OF FASHION IN DUBLIN.

THIS is not, like some of our late novels, acute or profound, but it is lively and pleasant, though occasionally frivolous, as indeed all novels are in some parts of their course.

The manoeuvring of a mother, to procure for her daughter a partner in a dance, is characteristically described.— "The most provoking circumstance of the evening, and one which excited a general feeling of disapprobation, (though it was a kind of union in partition,) was the airs captain Villiers was said to give himself. He paid no attention to any lady; and, even when conversing with men, there was a coldness which was not prepossessing. But, however provoked, the young ladies were not to be intimidated by such a manner, especially in such a man; nor were there wanting devices to charm him into the circle of gaiety. We need not enumerate the persons who failed; it would wear out the alphabet. Lady A- Mrs. B

Miss C; but Mrs. O'Brien will serve as a specimen. Having most suc cessfully married off her three eldest daughters, she now brought out her fourth a pretty-looking girl, with an air of innocence and ignorance of the world, which were to be very attractive. She was dressed with great simplicity, and had the appearance of having outgrown her clothes; she was perpetually pulling them up on her shoulders, which would, in spite of her efforts, make their appearance; and her petticoats were rather shorter than the fashion demanded. Mrs. O'Brien affected to scold her for her little awkward ways, and frequently occupied herself in settling some part of her dress, her daughter looking all the time as if she was unconscious what her mother was about, and talking over her shoulder to some one behind her. Mrs. O'Brien would then say to any man near her, 'I declare, that child does not even know how she is dressed, or what to put on!-if I did not watch her, I really believe she would go out half naked.' A gentleman to whom she said

this one evening, remarked, that her mother's care seemed to be thrown away,

"Mrs. O'Brien was piqued to conquer captain Villiers' reserve. She addressed the chamberlain, with whom she was intimate: Pray, does captain Villiers mean to stand all night like a stick, without dancing?'-The chamberlain smiled, for it was a part of his office to smile whenever a lady spoke to him; and he answered in a confidential tone, 'I really do not know-but I am inclined to think he has not engaged himself to dance; perhaps he may in the course of the evening.'-Do now,' said she, in a coaxing tone, 'just ask him, would be like to dance?" and, glancing back at her daughter, 'you can offer to present him, you know.'

"The chamberlain, who was not unused to these delicate commissions, merely gave her a look expressive of the tenderest friendship, and then took a circuitous route to where Villiers stood. He passed him a few steps, speaking to various persons as he went; then, as if he suddenly thought of it, he turned back to him; and, in consequence of something he said, Villiers moved his eyes in the direction where she was with her Miranda. His lips moved in reply, but so slightly, that they could have formed but one syllable; and, to judge from his countenance, that was a negative. The chamberlain moved on without encountering Mrs. O'Brien again: and she took her daughter on her arm, and passed close under the eyes of our hero, without looking at him; but Miranda, with the utmost naïveté, looked up in his face as she passed, and turned her head back to gaze at him. He was speaking at the time to another aide-decamp, the honorable Somerset Hardynge, a very young man-the reverse of Villiers in color and character. — ' A pretty innocent-looking_girl,' said he; do you know her?' No; I have just declined the honor of being presented to her as a partner by the chamberlain.'— 'What a savage you must be!' said Hardynge, laughing; I'll profit by your laziness; and following Mrs. O'Brien and her daughter, and not waiting for the form of introduction, which he thought could not be necessary with an Irish girl, he first bowed to the mother, and then asked Miss Miranda to dance. She twisted and writhed like a child that is uncertain whether to accept

the toy that is offered to it, until her mother said, You may dance, my dear, with captain Hardynge.' He was a tall, fairhaired, gentlemanly-looking young man, with a very animated manner; and he and Miss Miranda got on, as the phrase is, amazingly. Mrs. O'Brien then walked about, telling every one how confounded poor Miranda was at captain Hardynge's admiration; and nobody believed her, though nobody had the rudeness to tell her so."

The preparations for a masquerade, and the humors of the scene, are amusingly noticed."Trifling was the fuss at Glenlow Castle, compared with that at Castle-Mardyn. Not a room or bed in the house but changed its occupant.The Misses Decourcy shall have my room-captain Hemmings can sleep in the dressing-room: there is a very nice little bed in it-your room, George, will do for Henry O'Brien and his brother Andrew-William can sleep in the study near it; he is a sailor, and does not care where he sleeps-Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien and Miranda shall have the leopard-room and dressing-room, captain O'Sullivan shall have the little blue room, and I'll go up stairs to the flounced attic-your sisters shall have the bachelor's room all to themselves the Misses Chartres shall have the leopard-no, that's for the O'Briens-ol they shall have the pink room on the return, and the Jocelyn girls can sleep in the little white room inside it. As for the Jocelyn men, I have a contrivance for them-ay, they can have your sisters' rooms-then the ladies' maids and valets can sleep in the old school-room, and the room over it. I hope the Decourcys won't bring two maids: however, if they do, I know what I'll do:-but one thing I am determined on; I'll keep the chintz-room and dressing-room, in case lady Clara Reeve should come.' Her son and daughters exclaimed that they hoped she would

not.

"All these changes, which would have weighed down lady Hortensia, only served to exhilarate Mrs. Mardyn. She felt the pride and enthusiasm of a commander on the eve of a battle. She went into every room in the house, arranging, consulting, ordering. Work-girls were employed in making or repairing curtains, blinds, toilette.covers, except when they were seised by Miss Mardyn's maid to assist her in her extra labors. The busig

VOL. X.

ness of dressing was not forgotten. Mr. Mardyn had read in the papers that the late queen of Wurtemberg, when she expected to receive her brother, the king of England, established herself at an inn by the road he was to pass, habited as the hostess of an auberge, and in that character gave him his first repast in her territories. Mrs. Mardyn inquired much about the form of this dress; and having by advice written to a friend in Dublin, who had some interest at the theatre, a dress was sent to her, being one that Mrs. M'Cullagh always wore in the part of the hostess of any inn, whether in Germany, France, or Switzerland; but which looked so fatally suited to Mrs. Mardyn, that her son and daughters were unanimous in requesting she would not wear it; and a dress which had nothing of character but what it derived from the wearer, was substituted. The Misses Mardyn examined all the Swiss costumes that could be collected; but, having no idea of disfiguring themselves to humor any country, they selected the prettiest parts of each dress; and thus, with the apron of one canton, the bodice of another, and the head-dress of a third, and wreaths of roses, added at discretion, they looked very well. But George was not so easy under the exhibition of himself as his sisters. After long consult ations, during which he looked gloomy, as if he did not care how he was adorned, he at length found himself in the habit of a brigand from the Apennines, with pistols and other offensive weapons stuck all round his belt and at his side; and, thus accoutred, he presented a most formidable aspect to his guests, as he received them at the door; but it was not necessary to speak a prologue, explaining that he was only Snug the joiner, as he wore no mask. He begged hard to be allowed to wear his cravat, or at least a black stock; but Miss Alicia Decourcy would not hear of this violation of all truth of costume:-"lord Byron always wore his throat uncovered.'Mardyn, if not convinced, was fondly overcome,' as others have been before him, and yielded. To reconcile him to his metamorphosis, she dressed herself as a shepherdess of the Apennines; and her sister, to complete the harmony, was a Milanese peasant, and so they were all suited.

"The fine people of the neighbourhood contented themselves with adding some 3

magnificence to their usual ball-dresses; but the inferior gentry were more ambi tious of distinction. Ingenuity was racked, and, as talent is not confined to rank, some certainly made up, in humour and truth of representation, what was wanting in refined taste. Some charac1ers, however, excited nothing but disgust. A party of tall young men, dressed as a troop of charity girls, conducted by a little woman, the sister of one of them, paraded the room, were stared at, and then avoided wherever they appeared. Girls would not dance with them; and, though a few boys did for a short time, the exhibition was declared to be so vulgar and unpleasing, that they were reduced to dance with each other, or to remain still. Two young men, of rather good appearance, walked about dressed in short green coats, ornamented with buttons and braids and tags, hunting-caps, covered with black plumes, with small bugle-horns, which however they could not sound, in their hands. As they neither sang nor spoke, it was not easy to guess what this meant ; at length Wharton took the liberty of asking one of them. He laughed, and answered with the most good-humored and undisguised brogue, "Why indeed, Sir, my brother and I are in the character of the Freischutz. I shall inform the company, Sir,' said Wharton.-Thank you, Sir,' said the young man. This innocent mistake excited laughter; but Messrs. the Freischutz danced the rest of their part and gave no offence, while the throng of watchmen bawling the hour, tinkers clattering their ware, and balladsingers shouting out their songs, proved that to perform a character to the life is not always the way to amuse. basket-women and fish-women, those outcasts of nature and fortune, some thought it good fun to represent; but be it known to those so gifted and so disposed, that to be disgustingly vulgar, and to address polite ears in such language as some of them could never have heard before, is the acme of bad taste, and that no man who wishes to be considered as good company for the rest of his days, should cominit himself in such characters. But some were in better taste. The witches of Macbeth, represented by some young ladies and gentlemen, who performert the music very agreeably, gave universal satisfaction."

Even

FRIVATE LIFE, OR VARIETIES OF CHARACTER AND OPINION;

by the Authoress of Geraldine.

THIS is a novel of considerable merit. It exhibits well-drawn characters; the story is interesting, and the moral unexceptionable. The dialogues are particularly good, and the sentiments of the leading characters are, in general, both just and well-expressed.

The supposed refinement of the present age, and other topics, are well discussed in the following dialogue.-Percy, a polite young man, says to his female friends, "Can I do any thing for you at Southampton? I assure you my talents in the commission line are firstrate. I can choose muslin or music for you with equal skill. Will you trust me?'- You can do us a very great service,' replied Constance; just call at the library and scold Mrs. Gifford for not having sent the third volume of Tremaine; she promised it yesterday; we have waited four whole days for it.'"With your heart breaking for the heroine, I suppose,' said Percy.-Oh! it is too cruel,' exclaimed Constance. My sympathies are not in general so lively for these charming phantoms; but Georgiana Evelyn is so gracefully winning, so entirely lovely, that I cannot be at all happy while she is dying of a decline.'—

Oh! she will not die,' returned Percy: I feel an instinctive conviction that she will recover. The author has too good taste, too much feeling, to kill her; he would not do any thing so savage.'—'If you have nothing better to justify your hope than the tender mercy of an author,' said Constance, it does not inspire me with the least confidence; it does not afford me the smallest consolation-they are such practised barbarians. Recollect the atrocities they perpetrate, the unprovoked murders. I believe they sometimes set the Fates to work, and cut the thread of life for the sole purpose of making us close their books with the heart-ache.'-Percy laughed, and galloped off, with a promise not to return without Tremaine, while Sir Henry, addressing Constance, said, 'Is a fin joyeuse, then, quite necessary to your enjoyment of a tale? Not absolutely necessary, but certainly very conducive to my thorough enjoyment of one,' replied the young lady; and the fin tragique indisposes me very much for its second

state for happiness.'-No, not quite so far,' answered Constance; but I can imagine a state of society extremely delightful, equally removed from barbarism and luxury, from which the rudeness of savage ignorance, and the cold and heartless formalities of modern life, would be alike excluded. Now St Pierre, in his tale of Paul and Virginia, gives an enchanting picture of such a state.'-The coloring of the picture is enchanting,' said Mrs. Grenville. Virginia weaving garlands by the side of Paul, beneath the shade of the banana, counting the flight of hours by the shadows of the trees, and of years by their growth, is highly poet ical and captivating; but then there are details that dissolve the spell: she washed the linen, cooked the dinner, and could neither read nor write-serious drawbacks in my estimation of felicity.'

She only did what the royal Nausicae and the noble Achilles did before her,' observed Constance, laughing. 'Oh! the dignity of these precedents is unquestionable,' returned Mrs. Grenville; their happiness, perhaps, rather less so. Why, indeed, should we imagine it to have been more vivid or more permanent than our own? The senses were awake to enjoyment, and the passions keenly alive to excitation, but the intellectual powers were comparatively dormant. Now, next to the hallowed delights of devotion, and the exercise of the tender charities of life, the cultivation and expansion of the intellect, open the richest source of enjoyment. Of this rich source, how little did they taste!' Their intellectual plea sures, though less enlarged,' observed Sir Henry, were perhaps more intense. Those of imagination, for instance, are certainly more vivid in that state of society than in any other. In these metaphysical, mathematical, logical days, imagination is fettered and crippled. There is none of the dimness and haze so necessary to the mysterious effect of its enchantments; reason and science have seised the potent wizard; and in their withering grasp the wand is broken, the incantation powerless. In these 'evil times,' we have but a faint notion of the effects of poetry upon our ruder ancestors; the rapture, the ecstasy, the keen emotion, the delicious illusion-at any rate the pleasures of imagination were theirs in all their force and vividness.' Yes, but not in their beauty and delicacy,' replied Mrs. Grenville. What we

have lost in intensity, we have gained in tenderness: besides, I am not convinced, that, because our enjoyment is more strictly intellectual, it is less complete. If the pages of Homer have ceased to convulse the physical frame, they have not ceased to electrify the mind; if the song of the bard no longer plucks the sword from the scabbard, it still kindles the glow of patriotism.'

Such a character as that of 'cousin Frances' may sometimes be witnessed in real life.-Such a treat for you, my dear mother!-A letter from cousin Frances!' said Constance, inspecting the address of one, which she handed to Mrs. Grenville. I am sure the very hand-writing looks out of temper. Pray is she as much in good humor with the world as usual?' continued she, as Mrs. Grenville folded up the letter.-She is in good humor with you and me, at any rate,' replied Mrs. Grenville, for she intends paying us a visit next week.'- Indeed !' said Constance. Now a great deal is sometimes revealed by this little word;

perhaps there is scarcely any one about which it is more necessary to say, Ecrivez-moi le ton.' There is a joyous, animated indeed, bespeaking delighted surprise; the dull civil indeed, indicating joyless acquiescence;-the indeed of disappointment, and the indeed of indifference. Time will develope the quality of the indeed just pronounced.→→ 'Well! poor Frances!' exclaimed Mrs. Grenville; I am sure I shall be ex. tremely glad to see her!'-' It is a proof of your unfailing, unconquerable benevolence, then, my dear mother. Not to be extremely sorry, is the warmest state of feeling I can bring myself to.'-'I hope we shall make her comfortable,' said Mrs. Grenville, in a doubtful accent, after musing a few minutes. When you have acquired the power of working miracles, that hope will be reasonable, and realised, perhaps,' observed Constance; 'but where lives the gifted mortal who could make cousin Frances feel and acknowlege herself happy? She used to bestow herself upon poor dear aunt Ellen for six weeks every summer; and I am sure her visits gave me a very lively idea of purgatory. I believe she would realise what judge Jenkins said of John Lilburne, that, if the world was emptied of all but himself, Lilburne would quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne.' She is so ingenious a self