[Text: Graham's Magazine, March, 1841.]

THE authorship of this work does a little, and but a little, more credit to Mr. Ainsworth than that of "Jack Sheppard." It is in no spirit of cavilling that we say that it is rarely our lot to review a work more utterly destitute of every ingredient requisite to a good ro

mance.

We would premise, however, in the outset of our remarks, that the popularity of this work in London is no proof of its merits. Its success, in fact, reminds us how nearly akin its author, in his treatment of the public, is to Dr. Sangrado. Blood-letting and warm water was the making of the latter and bombast and clap-trap is the Alpha and Omega of the former. In the present volume we have it plentifully administered in descriptions of the Tower of London and the plots of the bloody Mary's reign. It is this local interest which has given Mr. Ainsworth's romance such a run in London, just as a family picture, in which a dozen ugly urchins, and sundry as ugly angels in the clouds, is the delight of the parents and the envy of all aunts.

The Tower of London" is, at once, forced and uninteresting. It is such a novel as sets one involuntarily to nodding. With plenty of incident, considerable historical truth, and a series of characters such as an author can rarely command, it is yet, excepting a chapter here and there, "flat, stale, and unprofitable."

The incidents want piquancy; the characters too often are destitute of truth. The misfortunes of Lady Jane are comparatively dull to any one who remembers Mr. Millar's late romance; and Simon Reynard is under another name the same dark, remorseless villain as Jonathan Wild. The introduction of the giants would grate harshly on the reader's feelings if the author had not failed to touch them by his mock-heroics. Were it not for the tragic interest attached to Lady Jane Grey, and the pride that every Englishman feels in the oldest surviving palace of his kings, this novel would have fallen still-born from the press in London, as completely as it has ruined the author's reputation in America.

We once, in reviewing " Jack Sheppard," expressed our admiration of the author's talents, although we condemned their perversion in the novel then before us. This duplicate of that worthless romance and scandalously demoralizing novel proves either that the author is incorrigible, or that the public taste is vitiated. We rather think the former. We almost recant our eulogy on Mr. Ainsworth's talents. If he means to

earn a name one whit loftier than that of a mere bookmaker, let him at once betake himself to a better school of romance. Such libels on humanity, such provocatives to crime, such worthless, inane, disgraceful romances as "Jack Sheppard" and its successors, are a blot on our literature and a curse to our land.

VISITS ΤΟ REMARKABLE PLACES, BATTLE-FIELDS, CATHEDRALS, CASTLES, ETC. By W. HOWITT. Two VOLUmes. CAREY AND HART, PHILADELPHIA. "THE RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND." BY W. HOWITT. ONE VOLUME. CAREY AND Hart. PHILADELPHIA.

[Text: Graham's Magazine, March, 1841.]

NEXT after Professor Wilson comes Howitt. The same genial spirit, the same soul-breathing poetry, the same intense love for what is beautiful in nature, and often the same involution of style and the same excursive ideas, characterize the editor of Blackwood, and the brother of the Quaker poet.

The latter of the productions above is, as its name imports, a description of the rural life of England, whether found under the gypsy's hedge, in the peasant's cottage, or amid the wide parks and lordly castles of the aristocracy. It is a picture of which England may be proud. The author has omitted nothing which could make its subject interesting, and in presenting it suitably to his reader he has surpassed himself, and almost equalled North. The old, but now decaying customs of "merrie England;" the winter and summer life of peasant and noble in the country; the sports of every kind and every class, from milling to horse-racing; and the forest and landscape scenery of every portion of Great Britain are described with a graphic pen and a fervor of language, which cannot fail to make The Rural Life of England" popular everywhere.

Among the most interesting chapters of this work are those on the Gypsies, and that respecting May-day,

and Christmas. The description of Grouse-shooting, both in the north of England and the Highlands, is highly graphic; while the visits to Newstead and Annesley Hall are narrated with much vivacity.

It was the popularity of these two last chapters which suggested the preceding volumes above, entitled " Visits to Remarkable Places." Nothing can be simpler than the design of this latter work. With a taste for antiquarian research, and a soul all-glowing with poetry, the author has gone forth into the quiet dells, and amid the time-worn cities of England, and visiting every old castle or battle-field known in history, and peopling them with the heroic actors of the past, he has produced a work of unrivalled interest. We wish we had room for a chapter from the second of these two volumes, entitled "A Day-dream at Tintagel.' It is one of the most poetical pieces of prose we have ever met with. The old castle of King Arthur seems once more to lift its massy battlements above the thundering surf below, and from its portals go forth the heroes of the Round Table, with hound and hawk, and many a fair demoiselle.

Next, certainly, to a visit to any remarkable place, is a graphic description of its appearance. This, in every instance where the author has attempted it, is presented in the Visits to Remarkable Places." Stratford on the Avon, Anne Hathaway's cottage, the ancestral home of the Sidneys, Culloden battle-field, the old regal town of Winchester, formerly the abode of the Saxon kings, and where their monuments still remain, Flodden-field, Hampton Court, and, in short, most of the remarkable places in England, are brought vividly before the reader's mind. Indeed, many a traveller who has seen these celebrated places might

be put to the blush by one who had attentively perused this work, and who yet had never crossed the Atlantic.

NIGHT AND MORNING: A NOVEL.

BY THE AUTHOR

OF PELHAM," ❝ RIENZI,' "EUGENE ARam," Two VOLUMES. REPUBLISHED BY HARPER AND BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

ETC.

[Text: Graham's Magazine, April, 1841.]

THE Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort, of Beaufort Court, England, a proud and misanthropical old bachelor, with a rental of twenty thousand pounds, has two nephews, Philip and Robert Beaufort. The former, who is the elder of the two and heirapparent to the uncle's estate, is thoughtless and generous, with unsteady principles. The latter is a crafty man-of-the-world, whose only honesty consists in appearing honest a scrupulous decorist. Philip, in love with Catharine Morton, the daughter of a tradesman, and in fear of his aristocratic uncle's displeasure, is married clandestinely, in a remote village of Wales, by a quondam college friend to whom he had presented a living the Rev. Caleb Price. The better to keep the secret, a very old Welshman, certain soon to die, and William Smith, Philip's servant, are the sole witnesses of the ceremony. This performed, Smith is hired to bury himself in Australia until called for, while the deaf man dies as expected. Some time having elapsed, Philip, dreading accident to the register, writes to Caleb for an attested copy of the record. Caleb is too ill to make it, but employs a neighbouring curate, Morgan Jones, to make and attest it; and despatches it,