class of women, of whom we are not ourselves aware.

"She," exclaimed Rosine, "is one of those victim-women whom nature has

made in a peculiar manner, physically fragile; and an inappropriate education mentally feeble. She is one of those lilies which the lover delights to bend over and blight."

It will be apparent to all that Cleone is a woman who thinks for herself. Therefore, we grant it is very hard upon her to find "that a strong conviction came over that her husband

had no abstract principles to which she might trust."

He therefore does not seem to understand or sympathize with her when

she affirms

"How is love to be gained? not by vain attempts to circumscribe the sun, or contract the rays of its orbit. It is to be won only by your natural latitude, the degree of sympathy you excite. Let him who is content to live in the polar regions of suspicion, unkindness, and indifference, not wonder that he finds less love, than he who keeps tenderness, truth, and confidence in the zenith."

This majestic woman has no very exalted notions of the being called 'Homo.'

"They believe that to make speeches, balance books, look over briefs, write prescriptions,read [mark how home that thrust is, read!] sermons, make the sum total of sagacity; and as women do none of these things [we are sorry to hear that women neither cast up their accounts nor read sermons], because they are neither senators,

woman bear this money bondage. How can she bear the daily clank of the coin table to which she is fastened; a galling slave to sordidness, stand and behold dross dealt out like laudanum,-before

this canker, comfort, temper, peace, selfrespect, all that is essential to ordinary existence, give way!"

We must now conclude (after having laid before her admirers this "majestic woman's" sentiments on morals, life), by giving a glimpse of her rapoetry, and the domestic economy of tional and humble interpretation of Scripture. Her husband happened to say, "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth," and "He that spareth the rod, hateth his son, but he that loveth his son chasteneth him betimes." Cleone was triumphantly asked if she impugned the government of God, and held herself to be wiser than Solomon.

"I will tell you," she replied, "how I interpret the first sentence you have quoted. By immutable laws of good and evil, their effects are correspondent to the causes. The man that does ill, is either remotely or immediately visited by pain, and in that sense has been chastened. And as I believe that God loves all-that all have some errors,— so all will his laws more or less chasten ere he receive them. As for the words of Solomon, I can readily believe them to be founded in error," &c.

And

So much for the theology. now reluctantly, and sorrowfully, we

decide that woman has no share in the sum total."

We think in the above passage Mrs. Grimstone has given us the cause why the waters of complaint flow loudly in the following sentence. Mrs. G. it appears, from her own confession, does not cast up her accounts; Mr. G. of course becomes cautious: and then she says

"There are many women capable of dispensing wealth, that are compelled to make appeal to the buttoned pocket, and

take coin contaminated by the touch of niggardliness, to supply not their individual wants only, but the wants of the family; the wants of the very one who is as exact in having them supplied, as he is reluctant to furnish the means for which they may be done.

"How does the soul of a generous

much in the situation of the husband, "who hearing this, could not answer it, for he did not understand it-being man!!!" a very large animal, but a very little

graphic power of narrative which might be advantageously embodied by the pencil of Wilkie or Mulready. We hardly know whether the melancholy termination of the story, and her misconduct, is quite consistent with the rest. The leading history in the second volume is that of the Prior of Lauford. This we can only praise in parts; it is too much out of common nature; composed of incidents, and circumstances, and situations, that never could have been realised; too wild, romantic, and mysterious for our taste. It is the story of a young lady who felt a great attachment to the young and handsome Clergyman of the parish, by whom it was returned. In due time, and with all proper precaution, he laid down his shovel hat and gloves, and opened his sentiments and state of his affections, and was refused. In vain he pleaded, ex postulated, questioned. "No! no other engagement! but there was an insurmountable obstacle that could not be mentioned, hardly alluded to; but insurmountable it was." Well! the poor Clergyman fretted and fumed, and weeped, and proposed again, and at length wrung out from his fair one a promise of explanation. They were to meet at moonlight at the end of the conservatory. All that was right! Sir Walter Scott could have found no fault with the scene of action. Moments of tedious uncertainty they were to the first-comer. At length, he heard his fair one's light step through the flowers. She arrived—“ Now, if thy courage faileth not, follow me.'

She

led the way, lamp in hand, through narrow passages, long corridors, empty saloons, tapestried chambers, till they entered a large kind of gallery hung round with male and female portraits. "Look at them," she cried, "look! these are the portraits of my ancestors, of my family-my mother, my father-they all died mad!"

The secret was discovered-the truth revealed-they did look excessively wild. The poor forlorn parson returned home, and became as melancholy and lean as a gib cat. Years rolled on, and things remained much the same, when, as good luck would have it, a Dr. Henderson arrived at the village, and took up his abode there. He was either a particular

friend of Sir Andrew Halliday, Physician to his present Majesty, or, as we believe, Sir Andrew himself in disguise. At any rate he had published a book on Insanity. He heard of the case, called on the clergyman-saw the lady-went up stairs, and looked at the portraits, and made up his mind that they were none of them half so mad as they supposed. Then he had formed a theory, that madness is not hereditable from the mother; that the mothers may go mad as often as they like, but that their children are as sound as a roach. This was doctrine both comfortable and new; he inculcated it so powerfully, as to break the resolve of the lady, assuring her, that there were ten chances to two against her turning out insane: that he could see only a little, very little, wildness in her eyes, and that the best safeguard against the disease, would be marrying a steady, good-looking young clergyman, living quietly at the parsonage, and looking after her children. Well! the kind physician prevailed. Miss Prior became the wife of the Rev. Mr. Bannatyne, and in due time favoured him with an heir. But as her husband, like all other conscientious clergymen, was much engaged in transcribing other people's, or composing his own sermons; in visiting the sick; in gardening, botanizing; writing the history of his parish; sending dissertations to the Gentleman's Magazine on Roman Pottery, and Druidical Remains; observing the migration of swallows, and sawing blocks of stone to discover living toads immured within them; and as he was of late employed in joining the broken parts of an icthyosauros, which he dug up in the glebe, and meant to present to the Zoological Society, Mrs. Bannatyne thought she should benefit by having a female companion with her so she sends to Edinburgh,and extracts from thence a young widow, with blue eyes and flaxen hair, both of most dangerous hue, of the name of Chambers. The young widow knows how to play her cards; and had not been long in the house, before she pretended to fancy Mrs. Bannatyne insane, and spoke to her conedscendingly and in compassion, as to one labouring under infirmity. And on

she went, in her artful and accursed machinations, weaving her delusions

and spells about the poor wench, till she almost made her what she represented her to be. Then she was playing her game also with the unsuspicious minister; kept him away from his wife, and persuaded each that the other had no wish to see them. This went on from bad to worse, till it arrived at such an extent of mischief and misery, that the husband, thinking his wife quite insane, in wretchedness of heart sent off for Dr. Henderson, who had been absent, probably attending his Majesty at Brighton and Windsor. He came he saw-he observed-he smelt a plot, he laid his train, be discovered the infernal scheme of duplicity and wickedness, laid it all bare, kicked Mrs. Chambers out of doors, and took the husband to the bosom of his sane, and affectionate, and happy wife. This is an outline of the story; but then, as for its merit, we do not approve at all "of taking the Sacrament" being introduced to furnish out a scene of a novel; and screams and yells and madness, breaking out in the midst of it. And there is a little too much of a German mystical sentimentalism throughout; but parts are powerfully described, and the whole enchains the attention, and affects the feelings. Of the other stories, with the exception of Lady Barbara, which is the best of all, we do not think highly.

The Young Muscovite, or the Poles in

Russia. 3 vols.

WE must confess that we were not able to get through the volumes whose title we have transcribed. We have no doubt of their merit-of the interest of the adventures, the valour of the heroes, the beauty of the ladies, the skilfulness with which the incidents are introduced, and the elegance and ingenuity with which the whole is composed; but we cannot help it— we must honestly, though reluctantly, confess a- fit of somnolency came over us as we were in the middle of the first volume, that lasted so long as to alarm our aged housekeeper. In vain she shook us, in vain her niece chafed our temples, put feathers up the nose, and used all approved means; nothing would do, the sleep would have its way; and we remained in this

.

:

state, holding the book tightly in our grasp, from 10 on Saturday evening, till half-past 12 on Monday morning (our usual hour of calling on our Publisher), when we started up (we are told) as if nothing had happened, called for our breakfast, and set off to the delight of our two domestics for Chancery-lane when dropping in, as is usual with us, for a glass of Cinnamon water, at Mr. Hume's, the learned chemist of Long Acre, and mentioning the circumstance to him, to our infinite surprise he informed us, that in the course of the preceding week he had been called in to two similar cases arising from the very same book; and he was good enough to give us a prescription to use, if the same circumstance should occur again in our critical labours.

Illustrations of Political Econony. No. XXIII. containing The Three Ages; No. XXIV. containing The Farrier of Budge Row. By Harriet Martineau. THESE clever and entertaining volumes are now closing up their series ; but most certainly will long remain substantial proofs of the talent and Abstract knowledge of the author.

theories were never before so clothed in moral truths never appeared in such flesh and blood; and political and graceful and living forms. The Farrier is a tale meant to lead to the best and truest principles of taxation; though we cannot say that the narrative is so happily framed, or the conclusions so skilfully prepared, or the truths elicited, as in some of the other numbers. The Three Ages, is designed to regulate the amount and direction of public expenditure: this is illustrated by the errors committed on this head, in three different periods of English history-the time of Henry the Eighth— Charles the Second-and the present.

There is a spirit and tone, and feeling pervading this volume that we do not approve a bitterness of reproach towards the upper classes of society-a severe censure, on the vulgar grounds, against the Church, much beneath Miss Martineau, both in propriety of feeling, and in the weight and power of the arguments; and her comparative estimate of the national expenditure in law, and in military and nuval