"a young nobleman," the phrase will take its course from the highest to the lowest branches of the trade, and will become so ridiculous, that the very apprehension of its applicability will deter many of the brilliant and accomplished minds which adorn the aristocracy of England, from permitting themselves to indulge in one of the most fascinating departments of literature.

6

Granby,' we venture to assert, is not the work of a mind which has been accustomed to view society from the 'vantage ground of elevated rank. It is the production of a practised writer, who, however conversant he may be with the fashionable lounges of this great metropolis, may still be contented to derive his claims upon our notice, rather from his merits as a novelist, than from any spurious pretensions to nobility which others have set up for him.

There is much that is worthy of admiration in the work before us. The style in which it is written is remarkably simple, fluent, and idiomatic. Sometimes it rises to a degree of elegance, particularly where the author is engaged in describing a fine landscape, or in reporting the conversations of his favourite personages. The pervading fault of Granby is, that it abounds with dramatis personæ whose characters are described with superfluous minuteness, but who are seldom made to act in conformity with them. They are announced individually with all imaginable pomp; every feature of their countenances, every peculiarity of their temperaments, is analysed before-hand with the most scrutinizing diligence, so that when the parties appear before us, we seem to know much more about them than they do themselves, or than their language or actions can justify. Besides, of the whole squadron, consisting of some fifty persons, who are thus painted for us at full length, there are not above one or two for whom we feel any great degree of interest. The true master in his art seldom describes his characters at all. He makes the reader acquainted with them by means of what they do or suffer, not by the attributes which he ascribes to them.

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Next to this fault of over-wrought description, these volumes are swelled out by a succession of conversations, the greater part of which, after we have waded through them, leave no impression whatever on the mind. They are mere badinage, a collection of the most trifling and unamusing attempts at wit and repartee, interspersed with some villanous puns and vulgar jokes, such as we are surprized to hear in the company to which the author introduces us. To this remark there are some exceptions. We regret that they are too few.

Granby, the hero of the tale, is a good sort of young man, who acts the amiable on all occasions, and sometimes appears in a most disinterested and honourable capacity, without ever impressing us with the idea of magnanimity. As the author has drawn him, his virtues are more allied to timidity and weakness of character, than to real dignity of mind. The whole story turns

upon an early attachment which he formed for a cousin of his own, whose friends contrive from prudential motives to counteract, for a whole year, the steps which he took to advance their union. The lady is thus described in the author's usual minute and "lengthy" manner.

'Caroline Jermyn was worthy of all the love and admiration which she had inspired in our hero. Without possessing that faultless regularity of feature, the very blamelessness of which is sometimes insipid, she united the charm of interesting expression, to a face and figure which were sufficiently good to obtain an approval from the most fastidious eye. There was a sunny brightness in her smile, the charm of which could not be overlooked; and her cheerful and even spirits, and playful vivacity, were rendered still more attractive by her unvarying sweetness of temper. She also possessed considerable quickness of perception, mixed with a candour and good nature which made her ever ready to excuse those follies which she was so prompt in discovering. She was young, and had hitherto seen little of the world; and society on an extended scale was still almost new to her; but she brought with her an innate tact, the united result of good sense and good taste and powers of pleasing, of which she was always less aware than those who were in her company. She had a good deal of diffidence, and a sensitive delicacy of feeling, which gave to her manner an occasional shade of reserve; but it was reserve without coldness, and which did not even injure the artless sincerity of her address; it was a reserve which scarcely any who witnessed it could wish to see removed, so well did it accord with the graceful softness of her character. She was totally free from affectation, and had a shrinking dread of display, which gave an intrinsic value to those captivating qualities which she unconsciously exhibited.

Caroline Jermyn felt a sincere and strong attachment to Henry Granby, whom she had now known for several years. She could remember to have liked him from the first period of their acquaintance; and that sentiment, which began in girlish admiration, ripened with her years into actual love. She, indeed, would not have given it that name; but how could one interpret otherwise her eagerness to insure his good opinion; her eye that watched his looks so timidly, yet anxiously; her abstracted mien when he was absent; her brightening countenance when he approached? She felt that she had derived, not only pleasure, but advantage from his society. His correct taste had enabled him to enter judiciously into her pursuits; it was his pencil that first called forth the powers of her's; his love of music that chiefly urged her to excel. literary taste had also been in a great degree guided and encouraged by his; and her talents, which amply repaid their cultivation, had not been suffered to lie waste. She was generally, but not pedantically accomplished; and without being profoundly or scientifically learned, was well informed on most topics of elegant and useful knowledge, and such as give a value and a grace to the intercourse of polished society.'— Vol. i. pp. 46-49.

Her

Lady Jermyn, and her husband Sir Thomas, who are well pourtrayed, had higher views for their daughter than Granby's expectations at that period held out. He was then living with his uncie, General Granby, a retired officer, possessing a limited in

come; and he did not yet know that the estates of another uncle, Lord Malton, together with the title, were to descend to him on failure of male issue in the right line. The world imagined that Lord Malton's heir would be his son Tyrrel, but it turns out in the sequel of the tale that the latter was the fruit of an illicit passion, substituted in infancy by the father's desire for the real heir, who died almost as soon as he was born. Of this same Tyrrel the author makes most unsparing use. He is the evil demon from whose machinations spring all the troubles and disappointments experienced by Granby. Upon the whole, we think that the character of Tyrrel is drawn without any regard to vraisemblance. He is a profligate gamester, a treacherous friend, a mercenary suitor, and, withal, a man of fashion. When driven to an emergency, he becomes a ruffian of the lowest cast. All his perfidy to Granby is repaid by unbounded generosity, which, by the way, looks more like the result of terror than of benevolence. When the mask was removed, and Tyrrel's real situation is known to the world, he is represented as wandering about the streets of London in the disguise of an old Jew. His life is, consistently enough, closed by suicide. The introduction of such a character into the story, together with the many scenes of guilt and treachery, approaching more than once to the verge of murder, in which he is involved, betray a remarkable deviation from the good taste which is perceptible in other parts of this work. The activity of Tyrrel throughout, and the base and furious tenor of his conduct, unredeemed by a single virtue, are not at all in keeping with the tone and manners of the circles in which he moved, nor, it may be added, of the age in which he is supposed to have lived. The interest which his profligate schemes impart to the tale, is essentially melo-dramatic; it therefore reduces the standard, by which the work should be estimated, below that to which most probably the author aspired..

In his representation of quiet, domestic, drawing-room intercourse, as well as of the bustle and heartless brilliancy of London routs, the author is peculiarly felicitous. Sometimes also, as we have already intimated, he touches external scenery with a masterhand. No man has ever left a ball room at an early hour of the morning, who will not recognize the truth and beauty of the following picture. It is necessary to premise, that after a tedious separation from Caroline for several months, Granby met her with her mother at a rout, and learned from a bright glance that, though compelled to submit to the control of others, she did not yet forget the companion of her infancy. As they left the ball-room

"Granby followed them with his eyes and now too full of happiness to be accessible to any feelings of jealousy or repining, after a short reverie of the purest satisfaction, he left the ball, and sallied out into the fresh cool air of a summer-morning, suddenly passing from the red glare of lamp-light to the clear sober brightness of returning day. He walked cheerfully onward, refreshed and exhilarated by the air of

morning, and interested with the scene around him. It was broad daylight, and he viewed the town under an aspect in which it is alike presented to the late-retiring votary of pleasure, and to the early-rising sons of business. He stopped on the pavement of Oxford-street to contemplate the effect. The whole extent of that long vista, unclouded by the mid-day smoke, was distinctly visible to his eye at once. The houses shrunk to half their span, while the few visible spires of the adjacent churches seemed to rise less distant than before, gaily tipped with early sunshine, and much diminished in apparent size, but heightened in distinctness and in beauty. Had it not been for the cool grey tint which slightly mingled with every object, the brightness was almost that of noon. But the life, the bustle, the busy din, the flowing tide of human existence, were all wanting to complete the similitude. All was hushed and silent: and this mighty receptacle of human beings, which a few short hours would wake into active energy and motion, seemed like a city of the dead.

'There was little to break this solemn illusion. Around were the monuments of human exertion, but the hands which formed them were no longer there. Few, if any, were the symptoms of life. No sounds were heard but the heavy creaking of a solitary waggon: the twittering of an occasional sparrow: the monotonous tone of the drowsy watchman: and the distant rattling of the retiring carriage, fading on the ear till it melted into silence: and the eye that searched for living objects fell on nothing but the grim great-coated guardian of the night, muffled up into an appearance of doubtful character between bear and man, and scarcely distinguishable, by the colour of his dress, from the brown flags along which he sauntered.'-Vol. i. pp. 297-299.

Though subjected to a series of disappointments and mortifications in his pursuit of Caroline, yet Granby was occasionally cheered by a secret intelligence, which was renewed between them as often as they met at various assemblies, and this too without the aid of verbal communication. The arts of Tyrrel occasioned both a good deal of annoyance, by false representations calculated to excite their mutual jealousy. Another hero was also engaged in similar practices, which seemed likely to be more fatal to Granby's hopes than the machinations of Tyrrel, because they were contrived with more intriguing ingenuity, and conducted with a more specious exhibition of disinterestedness and politeness. This hero was Trebeck, who is perhaps the most finished character in the novel. He is evidently a compound of one or two now antiquated beaux, who not many years ago were in the highest odour of fashion at the west end of the town. The ease of his manner, the oddity of his remarks, the temerity and good ton of his language, and his thorough mastery over every circle into which he is admitted, may be supposed to be borrowed for the occasion from a living original. The copy is excellent, though we should hope overcharged, in the unamiable traits of character which are given to Trebeck.

The reader may wish to see a specimen of his conversational facility. The following dialogue between him and Caroline is supposed to have taken place at the dinner-table at Lord Daventry's, where a large party was assembled; among them the epicurean

Duke of Ilminster. The passage displays the character of Trebeck, and affords rather a favourable example of the author's powers in this department of a novel. It also presents Caroline in an amiable point of view.

"By the by," said Trebeck, who sat next to Caroline, "what is the dish before you? It looks well, and I see you are eating some of it. Let me recommend it to the Duke upon your authority; I dare not upon my own.'

"Then pray do not use mine."

"Yes, I will, with your permission; I'll tell him you thought by what dropt from him in conversation that it would exactly suit the genius of his taste. Shall I? Yes, Duke," (raising his voice a little, and speaking across the table.)

“Oh, no! how can you?"

"Why not? - Duke," (with a glance at Caroline) “ will you allow me to take wine with you?"

"I thought," said she, relieved from her trepidation, and laughing slightly, "you would never say any thing so very strange."

"You have too good an opinion of me; I blush for my unworthiness. But confess, that in fact you were rather alarmed at the idea of being held up to such a critic as the recommender of a bad dish."

"Oh no, I was not thinking of that; but I hardly know the Duke; and it would have seemed so odd; and perhaps he might have thought that I had really told you to say something of that kind."

"Of course he would; but you must not suppose that he would have been at all surprised at it. I'm afraid you are not aware of the full extent of your privileges, and are not conscious how many things young ladies can, and may, and will do."

me.

"Indeed I am not perhaps you will instruct me.”

“Ah, I never do that for any body. I like to see young ladies instruct themselves. It is better for them, and much more amusing to But, however, for once I will venture to tell you, that a very competent knowledge of the duties of women may, with proper attention, be picked up in a ball-room."

"Then I hope," said she, laughing, "you will attribute my deficiency to my little experience of balls. I have only been at two."

have

"Only two! and one of them I suppose a race ball. Then you not yet experienced any of the pleasures of a London season? Never had the dear delight of seeing and being seen, in a well of tall people at a rout, or passed a pleasant hour at a ball upon a staircase? I envy you. You have much to enjoy."

"You do not mean that I really have?"

"Yes - really. But let me give you a caution or two. Never dance with any man without first knowing his character and condition, on the word of two credible chaperons. At balls, too, consider what you come for to dance of course, and not to converse; therefore, never talk yourself, nor encourage it in others."

"I am afraid I can only answer for myself."

6.66

Why, if foolish, well-meaning people will choose to be entertaining, I question if you have the power of frowning them down in a very forbidding manner: but I would give them no countenance nevertheless."

"Your advice seems a little ironical."