WIDOWS AND WIDOWERS.
Luca Mrs. THOMSON'S former works, this fiction displays a good deal of social observation and reflection, as well as a rare knowledge of manners and character in the days of our grandfathers. It also exhibits her careful and elaborate execution : but in other respects it falls below her previous productions ; the spirit of her old defects appearing in the more material form of imitation, and what is worse, an imitation of herself. Her story was always long-drawn- out, and slow in its motion ; the distresses of her persons were produced by insufficient causes, and often by causes ridiculously inadequate to the effect ; she was continually impeding her nar- rative by disquisition, or minute description ; and where the course Of events seemed leading to a natural climax, it was "put off," like a dinner-party, and with less consideration. These faults it'
Widows and Widowers have degenerated into the offence of man- nerism, with the addition of a complex and ill-constructed story, or series of stories.
The time of the romance is sixty years since ; the principal events taking place about 1780, though the story opens before and closes after that period. Analyzed and reckoned up, the separate threads of story might amount to half-a-dozen ; and the subordinate hav- ing no necessary connexion with the principal actions, they answer no other purpose than to interfere with the progress of more im- portant events. The main tale consists of the troubles of the heroine, Adeline Meadows ; which arise first from her love for and then from her marriage to Mr. Stanhope Flowers, a rake of the old school, who behaves to his wife as the profligates of the time in question were in the habit of behaving. In a common case, Mrs. Tuomsore felt that there could not be much of interest for the domestic troubles of a silly girl, brought on herself by her persistence in an imprudent and headstrong passion. Adeline is therefore made ignorant of her lover's character. Had she known it, she would have discarded him from her thoughts : but her father, when arguing with her against the match, is too delicate to say that he is a profligate, and merely tells her he is poor ; so that the main interest of a three-volumed novel hinges on the non-utterance of the word profligate or its synonymes, by a prudent father to a dutiful daughter, discussing a question where the happiness of a life is at stake. This story is further tided on pretty much in the same way; and is made to depend upon misconceptions—upon words that were misunderstood, or something that ought to have been told but was omitted.
The second story, formally rather than necessarily connected with the first, turns upon a criminal trial of the period, where a man in the position of a gentleman was convicted of poisoning a near con- nexion under singular circumstances. Notwithstanding a little melodramatic exaggeration, and the bad taste of attributing Law- son's crimes to his scepticism, this part seems to us far superior to the other : it has more of strength and reality, the incidents are more interesting in themselves, and they move quicker. The cri- minal also is well introduced into the family of his victim ; the mere skeleton hints of the trial are well filled up, and a stronger motive for the crime is supplied ; though, closely examined, the facts of the real case are not always coherent with the antecedents of the fic- tion. It is, however, a question how far this use of a man's memory is altogether justifiable. If we are not confounding this with some other trial, the question of death having been induced by poison was doubtful ; one of the HUNTERS was called to give his opinion that the post mortem appearance, deposed to by the country practitioners, proved nothing, and that the symptoms of the death were natural, (and, as described in the fiction, seem scarcely those of laurel-water). The evidence bringing home any overt act to the accused was slight and circumstantial ; and Mrs. THOMSON says that his innocence is firmly believed to this day by the people in the district. Had Mrs. Tnomsoe confined herself to the facts or something resembling the facts, no objection could be made ; but, not content with assuming the murder as certain, and ascribing the motives of it, she blackens Lawson in every way, painting him as an adventurer, an infidel, a blackleg, a bad hus- band, and a false friend. The amiable and well-intentioned au- thoress seems to have had some notion that this was questionable ; for she observes, as an excuse, that none of the murderer's descen- dants are known to exist, and only remote connexions of the family of the victim : all which reasons are valid as regards the feelings of the living, but have no bearing upon the repute of the dead. The persons in the other stories, or episodes, or whatever they may be called, are natural, but too trivial for fiction, at least for the fiction with which they are interwoven. A young country attorney aping gentility, a conceited curate fearful of being perse- cuted into matrimony by the attentions of the ladies, a goodna. tured but rather selfish governess hunting for a husband and a home, with all the commonplace personages which a country-town and neighbourhood can at any time supply by the dozen, are too slight for any thing but passing notice in the earlier part of a work, and even then require judicious handling. Considered merely as delineations, apart from their intrinsic matter or connexion with the conduct of the story, the praise of very skilful portraiture must be awarded to these parts ; and the characters and reflections of the entire fiction is entitled to the same praise. Widows and Widowers is defective as a fiction, but capital as a series of sketches; a fact that renders parts better reading than the book.
GENTLEMANLY AND PROFESSIONAL LOVE.
Men who have independent fortunes, men who look around upon the most favoured haunts of the sylvan gods, and call those green glades their own, have leisure to indulge flights of imagination, sometimes to their sorrow. The busied labourer in this great world's troublous scene, the man whose thoughts are occupied with a profession, may, and it is said he always does, throw off an ill-fated preference more readily than women ; but the high-born owner of the soil, whose every clod teems with historic recollections, stands more upon an equality with womankind. He is bred up in a region of tenacious impressions sad faithful recollections. He has not had to buffet with those tides which bid the professional man to know this one troth, that circumstance is stronger than inclination. All that was high-minded and enthusiastic in the Civil Wars emanated from the country-gentlemen, whose nice sense of honour had not been tarnished by the detrimental process of professional interests and mercan- tile dealings.
THE TIMES OF OUR GRANDFATHERS.
Some few observations must here be made on the state of society at the period when Adeline was introduced into that portion of the fashionable world which her husband called his" set." It was before the turbid atmosphere of Revolution- ary France had settled into a calm. It was when the splendour of talent was permitted in public life to throw a gloss over depravity. It was when the passion for gaming was in its greatest excess in this country : never, perhaps, had it so thoroughly imbued the higher classes. Possibly it will always exist; but then it was unblushingly practised, often with avowed dishonour. It was before in- temperance had begun to be deemed ill-breeding; when third-bottle men had a sort of respect attached to their proficiency : it was when scepticism gave the tone to the conversation of the lettered; when a religious man—a being. thanks to Providence, now often to be met with even in the highest classes—was an exception to his fellow-mortals. It was when periodical literature, that great test of the taste of the times, was either meagre and frivolous, or gross to such a degree, that, even in searching for the customs and opinions of former days, it is impossible to read it without disgust. It was when the clergy were supine, and the advocates of infidelity bold and zealous. It was—and perhaps most strongly was that feature marked—when women were dressed dolls, elaborate in their persons, slovenly in their minds; skilful at the crimping of a frill or in the colouring of a comfit, but remarkably awkward at orthography and grammar; and, what was incomparably worse, without that love of knowledge for essen- tially employing time which preserves the mind from vanity, the doorkeeper to vice.
THE EFFECTS OF A HUNTING-ESTABLISHMENT.
Serene and simple was the little town of Swindon when the nobleman whom Mr. Lawson visited had altered a small house into a spacious residence, and shed the poison of his influence on the place. It was true, that he brought much custom to the town. Stables let high, the inns were converted into hotels, the small tradespeople put up fresh boards over their shops. The long barber's pole, which extended across the street, was succeeded by the words " Perfumer and Hairdresser"; the mercers became linendmpers and haber- dashers; the sempstresses, dress and habit-makers; the music and dancing-mas- ters rose into professors ; hut most throve the farrier, who grew forthwith into a "veterinary surgeon." Red coats besplashed with mud were for ever dashing through the once quiet streets; carriages were rolling at night to balls and masqueradeas given by Lord Mauley ; all places were thronged by his inmates, except his Lordship's pew at church—that was desolate as heretofore. It was thought a great thing for quiet Swindon that this nobleman chose to bring a pack of hounds, with all their appurtenances of vice, to the very pre- cincts. Long has it been remembered! Long has the father had to mourn over the snares successfully laid for his young daughter. The aged mother remem- bers still that her boys were steady, until grooms, and jockeys, and coachmen, initiated them into depravity. The tottering old man at the almshouse leans over the stone-topped wall, and muses on the epoch when his honesty first broke down. He took the bribe—and for what? who was the tempter? Old man, go to thy prayers; nor recal, for 'tis now in _vain, the days when thou couldst look thy neighbour in the face, and walk to church and hear what the parson said without a creeping o'er thine old bones and a blush upon thy wrinkled brow.
But this was all for the good of the town. Long, long did its interests prosper under the patronage of Lord Manley; and when he left it for a noble seat which accrued to him through inheritance, the poor inhabitants proffered him an humble address of gratitude for all that he had effected in their favour.
THE ADVANTAGES OF WEALTH.
Men well-born and in good circumstances have such various opportunities of moulding themselves into the most fascinating companions, it not into the most useful members of society. They have access to noble libraries, they are in daily familiarity with exquisite pictures; they look from their windows upon what is fair and noble in landscape; or if in London, their taste may be elevated by a communion with the highest order of intellect. Their childhood is generally passed among objects of historical interest, or in scenes of pic- turesque beauty. Then those old colleges, to which, ere the associStions of home are destroyed, they repair : how stately in exterior, how fastidiously pre- served; what pictures, what halls, what chapels, what men who move shout in those aisles and quadrangles in a peculiar garb, associated in our thoughts with clerical dignity, and with learning and purity! From such scenes and compa- nions men of condition issue into the world—to travel, to see, to learn, to ad- mire ; and if they have only gathered up the weeds which sprang up in their young haunts—if they have driven coaches when they might have bestroee Arabians fleet and graceful—if they have smoked, and drunk, and sunk into the lowest of all things, degraded aristocracy—it is not the fault of their sta- tion; which promises and offers all that is fair, noble, and, if they choose to make it so, excellent.
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