of his heroine tracing a subject from Horace to Ovid !-nearly such a range as she might have taken from Dryden to Otway who lived at the same time, and at opposite sides of the

same street.

"Here lives John Dryden," &c.

We turn with pleasure to a pretty little description of the school that was formed and managed by Eva. The dramatis persone are Montgomery, De Courcy, Eva, and children:

To the school they went, but that was not the place to deve lope De Courcy's heart. Eva was indeed there, with dishevelled hair, flushed cheek, and busy finger, pointing out lessons, and cutting out work for her little scholars, whose eyes, and fingers, and tongues, moving all in concert with hers, and all directed to her, mingled the singular appearance of eager intelligence with that of automatal mechanism. To Montgomery she appeared like our first mother, binding up the straggling and decaying groupes of flowers, and teaching them to bloom (Montgomery added mentally) unto life eternal. To De Courcy she appeared-very

unlike Zaira.

The business of clothing, teaching to work, and instructing to read, sounds beautiful and sublime in reading and theory, particularly when a beautiful girl, not fifteen, is the maitresse, and ten little orphans are half of them on her lap, and half of them at her feet; but the detail the detail no one but Eva herself could have patience with them Their De Courcy certainly could not. dullness, their blunders, their stitches, taken horizontally, perpendicularly, diagonally, when they should have been taken in any and every other direction their horrible confusion of the most sacred names in their religious lessons, -appalling to Eva's ears, revolting to Montgomery's, and ludicrous to De Courcy's- their dirty hair, nails, stockings, and skirts of stuff-frocks, for which they were gently and vainly rebuked by Eva, while they gazed at her with stupid eyes, fixed immoveably on the spotless white of her drapery their looks speaking the concentrated spirit of childish envy, without a wish or thought of imitation their Babel of brogues, where the drawling Munster accent was holding vain and perpetual war with the angular and exalted cadence of the North All this, and more, and worse than all thisworse than "fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived" worse than could bé imagined except by Eva, or some one in her situation, burst all at once on De Courcy's eyes, ears, and other senses. "Can a woman be more delightfully employed ?" said Montgomery, as they retired.

De Courcy said, "Certainly not." But he thought she might, more delightfully for himself at least a kind of refined selfishness had been stealing over him since his first acquaintance with Zaira.'

Yet this said Zaira is represented as every thing that is virtuous and sublime; as charitable in the midst of luxury, and self-denying amid all the temptations to enjoyment. She

is,

is, in a word, a Platonist in a theatre; as Eva is a nun, out

of a nunnery.

We meet with passages in a letter from a Mr. Asgill, (whose character is the most sensible sketch in the book,) which we read with equal surprize and displeasure. We cannot conceive how Mr. Maturin, as the countryman of Miss O'Neil, whose virtues are the groundwork and the glory of her talents, can have brought himself to pronounce such a sweeping condemnation of the characters of actresses. If he should say,

These are only arguments in the mouth of an advocate against an imprudent marriage," he who has been so unusually connected with the stage should have taken some opportunity to counteract, or to modify, the unmitigated censure of his very wisest and best character, passed on a profession which has produced, and is producing, many of the fairest ornaments of domestic life, as well as those who form the delight of the public.

Among the grosser improbabilities of incident, we may mention the dream of Eva that she sees Zaira and De Courcy on a hill together, and that her lover tramples on her as he is getting into a carriage; a dream that takes place at the very same time at which De Courcy fancies that he sees, with his eyes open, and broad-awake, exactly the same objects. This is not the only instance of such grotesque absurdity in these volumes. The delirious dreams of several of the sick persons are really too mad for pleasant perusal; and how any author can delight in this anatomical exhibition of human ravings, we are at a loss to conceive. People familiarly fancying themselves in Hell, and other horrors of this nature, ought not to be tolerated in the literature of a civilized nation. Indeed, a very indecent because a very familiar use, and on the most worldly occasions, is made of the texts of Scripture throughout the present work; and on this subject we observe also a curious mistake; to which we advance; hoping that a hint will be sufficient for a clergyman on such a matter as the foregoing. How could he relate the anecdote at pages 58, 59, of Vol. III.? Eva, and Mrs. Wentworth, her aunt, are described as shocked by the frequent use of the name of the Deity in Milton yet it seems not only unlikely but out of the ques fion that any Calvinistic hearers should be so shocked: familiarity with the awful name of the Creator, and with his attributes, seeming to be one of the first characteristics of that coarse mode of religion which is properly called Calvinism.

At page 127. of Vol. II., Eva at length is led into a most engaging confession of her love for De Courcy: but the in13

sensible

sensible wretch makes no return! - and from this moment it is impossible to care what becomes of him.

We shall present the reader with another scene or two from this extraordinary farrago.

---

De Courcy has been to the theatre, where his delight in witnessing the dramatic powers of Zaira has been greatly interrupted by the loud whispers and pointings which marked him out as her future husband. As he rambles through the streets, he finds himself opposite to the Evangelical Meeting House; and, seeing lights in the windows, he remembered that he had heard from Eva that she intended to be there that evening, to assist at the rehearsal of some sacred music, which was to be performed on the next day, accompanied by a ser mon, for the relief of widows and orphans, &c.

Thus the same sentiments led Zaira to the theatre, and Eva to the place of worship. They were both exercising their talents for the purpose of benevolence; but this unity of object was the only thing in which they agreed. Which of them was best employed? Or was not habit the only difference between them? Charles could not answer these questions, but his feelings were touched by the contrast.

He entered the meeting-house; the congregation had dispersed (all but the private singers, who remained to practise ;) the lights, too, except a very few near the organ, where the singers stood, were all extinguished, so that the building was very dark. Round the organ there was a strong blaze of light, stronger from the contrast. Charles could see all the figures distinctly, though quite invisible to them from the darkness that filled the body of the chapel. They sung some hymns, and their solemn quiet harmony, without applause, the echoes dying through the empty aisles, soothed and solemnized him. It was like a fine twilight after a burning day.

De Courcy felt as if his musical perceptions and his sensibility of nature were delightfully mingled. He felt this music to be like the pleasant time, the cool, the silent." The music suddenly changed; they sung the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah. The solemnity of the well-selected words, the sublimity of the harmony, the awful repetition of the sounds," for ever and ever-Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" forcing the idea of eternity on the mind by their endless recurrence, thrilled through De Courcy's heart. And when the sweet and powerful voice of Eva, sustaining the upper part, dwelt on the ascending notes, repeating, "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords;" while all the other parts continued the ceaseless, solemn iteration, “for ever, and ever," De Courcy felt as if he listened to the songs of angels.

39

There was nothing round him to disturb or divide the impression on his senses or his mind; no crowds, no bravo's, no glare of lights, no stifling and yet intoxicating heat. He was alone almost in darkness, and the figures so far above him, the light falling on them alone, and the unearthly music, exalted him for some

moments

moments beyond himself. He saw Eva separated from him high in a region of light and harmony, uttering in these awful words a last farewell, and returning to that God from whom her rash and unhappy love had divided her for a season.

"Am I then losing her?" he exclaimed, with horror.

"For ever and ever," repeated the voices," For ever and ever!"

The lights swam before his eyes. He retired to a remoter part of the chapel, and, kneeling on the ground, prayed to Almighty God, to enlighten his understanding, and to touch his heart; and enable him, in this awful crisis of his life, to refuse the evil, and choose the good. Alas! he did not know, that when we implore God to search our hearts, it is because we dread to search them ourselves. He prayed fervently, indeed, and wept; but when we make our imagination the interpreter between the Deity and us, its oracles are not always infallible. He prayed that his passions might be subdued; but perhaps, like St. Augustine, he wished that his prayers might not be heard too soon.'

We think it will be allowed that much of this description manifests a force and a pathos, which deserved a better conclusion than a stale joke about St. Augustine; and that it would have been well if the humorous idea (for such only can we call it) of the frequent repetitions of the chorus 'forcing the idea of eternity upon the mind' had been omitted.

Now that we touch on the point of humour, we are bound to confess that Mr. Maturin seems to excel greatly, and even with national felicity, in this truly Irish qualification; and we shall specify some of his luckiest hits, in this manner.

Mr. Wentworth's Carriage.

The Wentworths kept a plain brown carriage' (to match the brown-papered room, we suppose,) drawn by two sleek horses; they advertised for a serious coachman, and they had got one, a very grave man, who had been converted, secundum artem, years before; and for the horses, they knew their way to Bethesda, without a driver.'

The Christianity of Mac Owen.

Mac Owen had been pressing the new convert (a man of gigantic size, who is called the babe, in allusion to his conversion,) for a test of his faith; for he had no idea of a man's having any religion unless he could specify it under a particular denomination, and signify his creed by a kind of free-masonic sign, technical and decisive. This the convert refused, it seems; and as the young men came in, he was bellowing, with a cup of tea in his hand, which he was spilling in the trepidation of his rage, "No, Sir-no, Sir never, never. I will neither be Catholic or Protestant, Arminian or Calvinist."

Don't put Arminian first," said Mr. Wentworth. He went on. - "Neither Trinitarian or Arian - neither Universalist or Particularist. No, Sir. Sir, I will be a Christian.

-

Yes,

Yes, I will be a Christian, (foaming with passion.) I will-I will be a Christian." And his voice was actually a roar, and he thumped the table in the fury of his vociferation and the eagerness of his orthodoxy.

"Good God!" said De Courcy to himself.'

De Courcy and Montgomery had been present at this wellimagined scene.

The Christianity of Mr. Wentworth.

"I will stay, said Eva, to convince you that my fears are not artificial," (fears excited by a thunder-storm,)" and that I never yielded to them without the utmost struggle I was capable of."

She was interrupted by Mr. Wentworth's loud, harsh, untuneable voice," crooning" over some lines of Watts, proper to be recited during a thunder-storm :

"We shout to hear thy thunders roll,

And echo to our father's voice."

And, as he was shouting in loud echo, leaning magnanimously against the window, a strong flash of lightning struck directly across his sight, and, clapping his hands before his eyes,' with an exclamation little short of profane, he hurried out of the room.'

We could select a passage in which Mrs. Wentworth, who is generally represented as very superior to the beings around her, addresses De Courcy with a violence and a venom which are wholly of this earth: but we had rather turn to a lively and diverting scene in which Lady Longwood, a heartless fashionable, is described as pushing the very moderate musical talents of her daughter Honoria, at a party at which Zaira sings. When they have sung a duet together, her ladyship thus "runs riot" on some goodnatured expressions of Zaira:

"Oh, my dear, dear Madame Dalmatiani!" said Lady Longwood, catching both her hands with eager delight, "how you do enchant me! Could I have imagined my poor timid Honoria would have obtained such flattering applause- and from you?"

• Zaira looked at her for a moment with silent amazement, and then recollected herself enough to praise Honoria as much as her conscience would let her. But her own thoughts were quite enough for Lady Longwood; and she glided away to repeat to her wondering, weary, incredulous audience Zaira's raptures about her poor Honoria.

"Dear creature," said she, throwing her arm on Honoria's bare broad shoulders in a fine Sevigné style, "how timid she is! these praises quite overpower her I feel her little heart beating

so this moment."

" "Oh, mamma!" cried the timid Honoria, twisting herself in no graceful attitude from under the fostering arm, "that odious bracelet of yours; it has torn my neck, and now you have got it entangled in my hair."

And,