side by the remains of an old friary, the end wall of a chapel with a Gothic window of open tracery in high preservation, as rich as point lace. It was full too of old-fashioned durable flowers, jessamine, honeysuckle, and the high-scented fraxinella; I never saw that delicious plant in such high profusion. The garden-walks were almost as smooth as the floors, thanks to the two assiduous serving maidens (nothing like a man servant ever entered this maidenly abode) who attended it. One, the under damsel, was a stout strapping country wench, changed from time to time as it happened; the other was as much a fixture as her mistresses. She had lived with them for forty years, and, except being twice as big and twice as tall, might have passed for another sister. She wore their gowns, (the two just made her one,) caps, ruffles, amd aprons; talked with their voices and their phrases; followed them to church, and school, and market; scolded the school-mistress; heard the children their catechism; cut out flannel petticoats, and knit stockings to give away. Never was so complete an instance of assimilation!

She had even become like them in the face.", P. 40.

68 A BOROUGH MEMBER.

Of

"Our member was a man of seventy, or thereabout, but wonderfully young-looking and well-preserved. It was said, indeed, that no fading belle was better versed in cosmetic secrets, or more devoted to the duties of the toilet. Fresh, upright, unwrinkled, pearly-teethed, and point device in his accoutrements, he might have passed for fifty; and doubtless often did pass for such when apart from his old-looking younger brother; who, tall, lanky, shambling, long-visaged, and loosely dressed, gave a very vivid idea of Don Quixote, when stripped of his armour. Never was so consummate a courtier as our member! good family and small fortune, he had early in life been seized with the desire of representing the town in which he resided; and canvassing, sheer canvassing, without eloquence, without talent, without bribery, had brought him in and kept him in. There his ambition stopped. To be a member of parliament was with him not the means but the end of advancement. For forty years he represented an independent borough, and, though regularly voting with every successive ministry, was, at the end of his career, as poor as when he began. He never sold himself, or stood suspected of selling himself—perhaps he might sometimes give himself away. But that he could not help. It was almost impossible for him to say No to any body,-quite so to a minister, or a constituent, or a constituent's wife or daughter. So he passed bowing and smiling through the world, the most disinterested of courtiers, the most subservient of upright men, with little other annoyance than a septennial alarm,-for sometimes an opposition was threatened, and sometimes it came; but then he went through a double course of smirks and hand-shakings, and all was well again. The great grievance of his life must have been the limitation in the number of franks. His apologies, when he happened to be full, were such as a man would make for a great fault; his lamentations, such as might become a great mis

fortune. Of course there was something ludicrous in this courtliness, but it was not contemptible; it only wanted to be obviously disinterested to become respectable. The expression might be exaggerated; but the feeling was real. He was always ready to show kindness to the utmost of his power to any human being. He would have been just as civil and supple if he had not been M. P. It was his vocation. could not help it." P. 44.

He

In this light and pleasant way the volume runs on, through, scenes and characters, sometimes new, and in general happily pictured. The fault of her style is a frequent affectation of naïvetè; her interrogatories of herself, her dog, and her infant playmate, are absolutely childish. She should be taught the distinction between simplicity and silliness. Her dog is too often her topic, and on the untempting subject of the brute, she regularly degenerates into mere babyism and slip slop. "Come pretty May, it is time to go home,"-" "May! May! naughty May-she has frightened away the Kingfisher!" &c. &c. All this nonsense must be excluded, if Miss Mitford desires to write for any thing better than the nursery. The misfortune of living too much in an exclusive society, is that of being infected by its vulgarisms. Yet we are at a loss to conceive in what society Miss Mitford could have discovered such phraseology, as "pot luck," "roly poly," "dumpiness," "scrap dinner," "hacker!" (for bargain, we presume). "Been to call," an atrocious Cockneyism. "Little things tossed up on a sudden," a paltry kitchen phrase. "Rump-steak," a phrase from the same humble quarter; if this and all the others are not swallowed up in the uncouthness and indelicacy of " her friend's favourite little Bitch!" Miss Mitford must cleanse her vocabulary, and describe, as she can do, man and nature, without "overstepping the modesty" either of nature or of language.

Inesilla, or the Tempter; a Romance with other Tales. By CHARLES OLLIER. 12mo. Pp. 287. London; Lloyd. Edinburgh; Blackwood. 1824.

ABOUT three years since, a novel, by the same writer, appeared; a work of much feeling, nature and beauty. It was entitled, "Altham and his wife," and detailed the domestic trials of an interesting pair, oppressed for a time, but gradually

shaking off their incumbrances, and closing their course in quiet prosperity.

Inesilla is a romance of another class, mingling in the concerns of the invisible world, and exhibiting the portraiture at once of earthly enthusiasm and demoniac influence, the depths of human passion, and the splendid yet dreary fascination of supernatural power.

Mr. Irving, in his "Tales of a Traveller," in alluding to the source of some of his stories, says, that the "Adventure of the German Student," or rather the latter part of it, was related to him as existing somewhere in French, and he had been told since writing it, that an ingenious tale had been founded on it by an English writer. This tale is, we have no doubt, the one before us; and we have as little, that both Mr. Ollier and Mr. Irving found their principal material in an epistle of James Howel, the well-known quaint and voluminous letter-writer. Howel's story is brief and spirited, but gross, and we must leave its detail to the seekers after such things. It is the adventure of a lieutenant of the police of Lyons, who, after an evening's indulgence in wine talked freely of supernatural amours; the Tempter suddenly appeared in a captivating shape, and the result was the immediate death of the lieutenant and his two companions.

In this legend, probably invented by the monks, for the purpose of making people cautious in their tavern-speeches; is found the germ of both Tales, the mysterious woman, the irresistible spell, the midnight city, and the demoniacal catastrophe. Thence, however, the writers launch out into their own streams of imagination. But what is, in the one, a fragment of a book, is, in the other, a book, diversified with more striking peculiarities of character, and deepened with a more affecting tenderness and truth of passion.

The glowing temperament and noble love of the hero, the unmixed sweetness, simplicity and lovely fondness of his mistress, and the solemn and shadowy grandeur, the unearthly beauty, and the sad and reluctant evil of the Temptress form the foreground of a picture, honourable to the invention and to the genius of the author of Inesilla.

The Tempter makes his first approach in the guise of an old Spanish cavalier, who, throwing himself in Leandro's way, holds forth eloquently on the Epicurean system, and invites our hero to spend an evening at his residence, that he may be enabled to judge of the superior wisdom of cultivating the pleasures of life; and Leandro finds, to his surprise, an elegant mansion," situated in a grove of silver-shafted beeches, on the

side of a hill." The account of this entertainment, is a striking specimen of description.

Supper being announced, the party were conducted to a secluded spot in the heart of the thick garden. The place seemed contrived for the purpose of banqueting,- the plot of earth being covered with short turf, and entirely enclosed by young and tender trees, which, in untrimmed simplicity, shot up high overhead, and interlaced themselves archwise into a pleasant roof. Here the table was laid. The light came from an hundred lamps, hung carelessly among the plants, -some of them struggling in single beams from the depths of the coverture, and others crowding in golden constellations near the table. "We have adjourned to this spot,' said the old president of the association, because the night is heavy and sultry, and if any air is to be had we shall find it here imprisoned in the net-work of these cool leaves. With the light of these lamps, and, above all, of the ladies' eyes, we shall not miss the moon and stars, which are smothered by dense clouds, stretched out and sleeping across the heavens.-Sit down, my friends.'

"The senses delight in contemplation of the picture made by that banquet. We hear, in our imagination, the rustling of the silk as the beauties sat down and adjusted themselves at the table:-we see the cavaliers in the picturesque costume of their country,-the feast set off with odorous flowers,-the plate richly wrought, the dainty wine, like liquid rubies and topazes,-the light branches of the trees waving and bending as if in obsequious attendance,—and the lamps, which made lovely transparencies of the lower leaves, showing their delicate veins, and then fading upwards into the gloom of the sultry heavens.

"Leandro conducted the lady, to whom he had been introduced, from the room to the garden, and seated himself beside her at supper. He thrilled from head to foot under the touch of a secret and irresistible fascination. A presentiment came over him, for which he could not account, that he was destined to arrive at the joy of her caresses; and if the guilt which allied itself to this feeling, trembled into his conscience and disturbed it, his anticipation was at the same time, and by the same process, rendered more exciting. He panted with expectation, though nothing had occurred to warrant it; for the lady, instead of seeking to be attractive, sat by him in unapproachable stateliness and reserve!"

Such is the introduction of the principal figure in the supernatural part of the romance; and it should be understood, that Mr. Ollier has constituted her an unwilling agent in the mischief of her presence. She is a guilty, but repentant being, who, seduced in her life-time by the dazzling thought of perpetuating not only existence but beauty, enters into a treaty with the "eternal enemy of man." She flits before Leandro,

on his return home, through the streets of a magic town, in which he is involved, and his inflamed imagination prompts him to follow, and request admission into her abode, which is described as the seat of enchanting and enchanted splendour. Here she discloses her woeful story, by which it appears that she is the ancestress of both Leandro and Inesilla. This disclosure and negligence in doing his bidding, calls down the awful vengeance of her fiendish tyrant.

"Hush! hark! Do you hear that iron noise ?-He comes, he comes! Now, Leandro, now is the time exalt thy courage, yield not!-Look, the walls of this place totter, the wet grass is already beneath thy feet-thou standest under the open clouds! He comes in his terror, in his terror! Remember me, my dear child: bind up thy nerves! He approaches nearer and nearer: ah! he's here! Mercy, mercy, oh, mercy!'--And the shrieks died away on the desolate and wide air."

The result is, that the youth's life-blood is represented as dried up, from his having encountered the withering glance of the dæmon. He is discovered by his anxious friends, and borne to the house of Inesilla's father only to die. This concluding scene is treated with quiet, but powerful pathos.

"Rest yourself, dear Leandro,' replied Inesilla, you shall know all in time. Sleep, if you can, while I sit by your side. Oh, if you knew my happiness to have you once more near me! But, alas, your faintness is coming again. There-the pillow is beneath your head.'

"He sank on it, and remained quiet; while she, with anxious solicitude, sat watching the changes of his countenance, which were many and fearful. It went into strange resemblances, and at last settled into a look totally unlike himself-an hippocratical visage.

"Oh, what was then the agony of the poor girl! Her heart sank within her; she almost ceased to breathe; her thoughts were only that she would die with him.

"A little before dawn he opened his eyes, and said faintly:

"Art thou, there, Inesilla? Let me hear thy voice, for, alas! my eyes are very weak, and cannot bear to look long on any thing. Remove that taper, pray thee, my love; it troubles me.'

"She drew a shade over the faint light, and returned to him; and he continued:

"Give me thy hand: the mystery, the terror, and the suffering, have killed me: try if thou canst lift me up-I shall breathe better. Turn my head to the cross.-Ah, I feel worse than before: drop me again—I shall be strangled. Oh, my love! Oh, Inesilla !—But fear It is only exhaustion. There!'

not.

"Andreas and Sebastian were together during this time, as the