old hereditary estate, GrypherwastHall, will probably, (if there is no foul play, of the likelihood of which, however, there are some hints thrown out,) become the rightful possession of our young hero. And we must say, that although of late years, property in lands or gold has become somewhat too frequently the foundation of the interest and incidents of fictitious compositions, yet, in this instance, many extremely interesting feelings are collected round it, and we are made very early in the story to hope, desire, and pray, that our friends, the Daltons, may one day get possession of Grypherwast, and its spacious and well-cultivated farms of rich wheat land. Reginald is undoubtedly a fine youth, from the little we see of him; and Mr Dalton's appearance, manner, conversation, pursuits, and character, are revealed to us by the touches of a master's hand. There is something earnestly, calmly, and yet deeply affecting in the elegant and still seclusion of the life of the melancholy scholar and gentleman, over whom hangs the shadow of solicitude and fear for an only son just about to leave him for the first time, and over whose future prospects a darkness seems to hang, which yet may possibly be dispelled. An air of pensive elegance breathes over the beautiful vicarage of Llanwell, and, without effort of any kind, the author has succeeded in making most pathetic and affecting the yearning affection of the pious and widowed father, and the reverential love of his yet unstained and innocent son.

We cannot but give one extract from this part of the history. Reginald had, by clandestinely reading a forbidden book, come to the knowledge of his being in the line of heirdom to Grypherwast, and his pleasure in knowing this is dashed by the conviction that he had disobliged his father's commands.

"Reginald had read this last paragraph, I take it, a dozen times overthen ruminated on its contents-and then returned to it again with yet undiminished interest; and the book was, in short, still lying open before him, when he heard the sound of his father's approach. The Vicar seemed to be trotting at a pretty brisk pace; and, without taking time to reflect, the boy obeyed his first impulse, which was to tie up the parcel again, so

as to conceal that he had looked into the book.

"It was not that Reginald felt any consciousness of having done wrong in opening this packet-that he laboured under any guilty shame-that he was anxious to escape from the detection of meanness. Had twenty letters, addressed to his father, been lying before him with their seals broken, he was entirely incapable of looking into one of them. He had had, at the moment when he opened

the packet, no more notion, intention, or suspicion of violating confidence, or intruding upon secrecy, than he should have had in taking down any given volume from the shelves of his father's li

brary. His feeling simply was, that he hastily indeed, and almost involuntarily, but still by his own act, put himself in possession of a certain piece of knowledge, which, for whatever reason, his parent had deemed it proper to withhold from him. To erase the impression that had been made on his mind, on his memory, was impossible; but to save his father the pain of knowing that any such impression had been made there, appeared to be quite possible; and so, without taking time to balance remoter consequences or contingencies, Reginald followed, as I have said, the first motion of a mind, the powers of which had hitherto acknowledged the almost undivided sway of paternal influence, and from no motive but one of filial tenderness for his father's feelings, he endeavoured, as well as he could, to restore to the packet

its original appearance.

"Having done so, he awaited his entrance quietly, with a book in his hand. Dinner was served up shortly afterwards, and they quitted the library together, without Mr Dalton's having taken any notice of the packet.

"Soon after the repast was concluded, he rose from the table, and Reginald heard him re-enter the library by himself. Perhaps half an hour might have elapsed, when he rung his bell, and the boy heard him say to the servant who obeyed the summons, Go to Master Reginald, and tell him I want to speak with him,'There was something in the manner of his saying these words that struck Reginald at the moment as unusual; but the man delivered his message with a smiling face, and he persuaded himself, ere he rose to attend his father, that this must have been merely the work of his own imagination.

"When he entered the library, however, he perceived, at one glance, that there was heaviness on his father's brow,

"Reginald,' he said, in a low tone of voice, 'I fear you have been guilty of deceit you have been trying to deceive your father, my boy-Is it not so?'

"Reginald could not bear the seriousness of his looks, and threw his eyes upon the table before him; he saw the packet lying open there, and then again meeting Mr Dalton's eye, felt himself to be blushing intensely.

"You need not speak, Reginald,' he proceeded, I see how it is. Look, sir, there was a letter in this packet when you opened it, and you dropt it on the floor as you were fastening it again. It is not your opening the packet that I complain of, but when you tied these cords again, you were telling a lie to your father-Yes, Reginald, you have told a lie this day. I would fain hope it is the first you ever told-I pray God it may be the last! What was your motive?'

"Poor Reginald stood trembling before him-alas! for the misery of deceit ! Conscious though he was that he had meant no wrong-conscious though he was that had he loved his father less tenderly, had he revered him less awfully, he should have escaped this rebuke at least-his tongue was tied, and he could not muster courage enough even to attempt vindicating himself by the truth.

"Involuntarily he fell upon his knee, but Mr Dalton instantly bade him rise again.

me.

666 Nay, nay, Reginald, kneel not to

You humble yourself here, not for the sin, but the detection. Retire to your chamber, my boy, and kneel there to HIM who witnessed your offence at the moment it was committed.' He waved his hand as he said so, and Reginald Dalton for the first time quitted his father's presence with a bleeding heart.

"By this time the evening was somewhat advanced; but there was still enough of day-light remaining to make him feel his bed-chamber an unnatural place for being in. He sat down and wept like a child by the open window, gazing inertly now and then through his tears upon the beautiful scenery, which had heretofore ever appeared in unison with a serene and happy spirit. With how different eyes did he now contemplate every wellknown feature of the smiling landscape! How dull, dead, oppressive, was the calm of sunset-how melancholy the slow and inaudible waving of the big green boughs -how intolerable the wide steady splendour of the lake and western sky!

"I hope there is no one, who, from the strength and sturdiness of his manhood, can cast back an unmoved eye upVOL. XV.

on the softness, the delicacy, the open sensitiveness of a young and virgin heart -who can think without regret of those happy days, when the moral heaven was so uniformly clear, that the least passing vapour was sufficient to invest it with the terrors of gloom-of the pure open bosom that could be shaken to the centre by one grave glance from the eye of affection-of the blessed tears that sprung unbidden, that flowed unscalding, more sweet than bitter-the kindly pang that thrilled and left no scar-the humble gentle sorrow, that was not Penitence-only because it needed not Sin to go before it.

"Reginald did not creep into his bed until the long weary twilight had given place to a beautiful star-light night. By that time his spirits had been effectually exhausted, so that slumber soon took possession of him.

"But he had not slept long ere he was awakened, suddenly, but gently, by a soft trembling kiss on his forehead; he opened his eyes, and saw Mr Dalton standing near his bed-side in his dressing-gown. The star-light, that shewed the outline of the figure, came from behind, so that the boy could not see his father's face, and he lay quite quiet on his pillow.

"In a little while Mr Dalton turned away-but ere he did so, the boy heard distinctly, amidst the midnight silence, a whiper of God bless my child!-Reginald felt that his father had not been able to sleep without blessing him—he felt the reconciling influence fall upon his spirit like a dew from heaven, and he sunk again lightly and softly into his repose."

There are a few other such touching passages as this in the first two hundred pages of the first volume, but sprightliness is their prevailing character. We are introduced to several of the personages, male and female, who are afterwards to figure in the history. But we never could write an abstract of anything, nor, if we could, would it now benefit our readers, for the merit of this book is not in the story, but in the sentiments, the situations, the descriptions, and the characters.

At page 187, Reginald Dalton leaves Lancashire for Oxford, in the Admiral Nelson coach, which is for a few stages driven by his friend Frederick Chisney, a dashing Christchurch-man, who afterwards plays a conspicuous part in this short eventful history. The journey to Oxford, including a good upset, is given somewhat at too great length, but with infinite spirit; and we are made acquainted with another

0

of the chief dramatis personæ in Mr Macdonald, W.S. Edinburgh, a pawky carle, we ought rather to say, a knowing knave, who in good time deve lopes out into a character most forbid ding and formidable. The insides talk away in a very amusing manner, and we were just going to quote a bit of bam and balderdash from their various

argumentations, and wranglings, and sparring, when we came suddenly on the following description of an English landscape. We quote it as a striking example of the sudden splendour of imagination with which this writer often lights up what he beholds, whether it be a mental or material vision, and the capricious wilfulness with which he as suddenly flings himself away from it, and turns off to other images of a lower, and even ludicrous kind, but which, notwithstanding, are made, by the power of genius, to blend, without offence, in the richness or magnificence of the picture.

"Never had Reginald opened his eyes on that richest-and perhaps grandest, too of all earthly prospects, a mighty English plain, until he saw it in all its perfection from the Hill of Haynam, that spot where Charles Edward, according to the local tradition, stood rooted below a sycamore, and gazing with a fervour of admiration, which even rising despair could not check, uttered the pathetic exclamation, Alas! this is England.' The boundless spread of beauty and of grandeur-for even hedges and hedgerows are woven by distance into the semblance of one vast wood-the apparent ease the wealth-the splendour the limitless magnificence-the minute elaborate comfort-the picturesque villages-the busy towns-the embosomed spires the stately halls-the ancestral groves-everything, the assemblage of which stamps · England herself alone' -they all lay before him, and there needed no Alas!' to preface his confession. -But as to the particulars, are they not written in John Britton, F.A.S.?-And who is it that has not seen all that Reginald saw, just as well as he? Who is not acquainted with the snug unpretending little inns, with their neatly papered parlours, and prints of Hambletonian and Lord Granby, and handy waiters, and neat-fingered waiting-maids, and smiling landladies, and bowing landlords, and good dinners smoking in sight of the stopping coach? and the large noisy bustling inns, with travellers' rooms full of saddle-bags and dread-noughts, and tobacco-smoke

and Welsh-rabbits, enormous hams and jugs of porter, and stained newspapers, and dog-eared Directories, and chattering, joking, waiter-awing bagmen, and civil contemplative Quakers,

Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
All silent, and all-'?

and the charming airy country towns near a shady grove and a murmuring brook,' with cleanly young girls seen

over the Venetian blinds, in the act of

rubbing comfortable old fellows' bald pates

rather than ven'son or teal?'-and the

-and other comfortable old fellows just mounting their easy pad-nags to ride out a mile and other cleanly young girls laying the tablecloth for roast mutton, filthy large towns, with manufactories and steam-engines, and crowded sloppy streets, and doctors' bottles, green and blue,' in the windows? and the stately little cities, with the stately little parsons walking about them, two or three abreast, in well-polished shoes, and blameless silk aprons some of them, and grand old churches, and spacious well-built closes, and trim gardens, and literary spinsters?

We have all of us seen these things— and they are all of them good in their several ways. We have all been at such places as Preston, and Manchester, and Birmingham, and Litchfield. We have all seen statesman Brougham's paddock, and listened to

Long-Preston Peggy to Proud-Preston went, For to see the bould rebels it was her intent.'

We have all heard of Whitaker's History, and the late Dr Ferrier, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of the Mancunian Mart.' We have all admired Soho, and pin-making, and Chantry's bust of James Watt. We have all heard of Anna Seward, and sighed over her lines on the death of Major André; and sympathized with the indignation of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq. at the damned goodnatured friend,' who asked across the table for Mrs Edgeworth and the babies, just when he and Anna were opening the trenches of their flirtation. And we have all seen the house where Samuel Johnson's father sold books; and many of us have (like Reginald) walked half-a-mile farther, on purpose to see the willow which Surly Sam' himself planted in Tetsy's daughter's garden. And we have all been at Stratford-upon-Avon, and written our names in black lead upon the wall, and heard that old body that says she is Shakespeare's great-great-greatgreat-great-great-grand- niece- in-law, spout the opening scene of her ' WATERLOO, a TRAGEDY.'

Dear Captain Brown, the postman has been here,

And you look sad

Now, marry, say not so ; But the regiment has at last received its orders, And I must take my seat for the Isle o' Wight. Farewell, farewell, dear Kate,' &c. &c.

"If you have ever happened to travel that road about the end of October, you have probably seen a great deal even of the more transitory and occasional sort of things that fell under the inspection of Reginald and his companions. You have probably observed abundance of rosycheeked old Staffordshire parsons, in greyworsted stockings, seeing their sons into the Oxford-bound coach, just below the rectory ha-ha. You have been annoyed with the troops of empty, talking, consequential, beardless' men,' chattering to each other about First Class' and Second Class'-Sir Roger Newdigate's prize-poem-the Dean of Christchurch -Coplestone's pamphlets-and the Brazen-nose Eight-oar. You have been amused with the smug tutors, in tight stock ing pantaloons and gaiters, endeavouring to shew how completely they can be easy, well-bred, well-informed men of the world, when they have not their masters' gowns upon their backs-hazarding a jocular remark, perhaps, even to an undergraduate the one moment, and biting their lips, and drawing themselves up, the moment after. You have been distrest with their involuntary quotations from Joe Miller and the Quarterly Review; and if you have taken a second 'cheerer' with them after supper, you may have been regaled with some classical song out of the Sausage the swapping, swapping Mallard'—or,

Your voices, brave boys, one and all I bespeak 'em,

In due celebration of William of Wickham;
Let our chorus maintain, whether sober or mellow,
That old Billy Wickham was a very fine fel-
low,' &c.

"You have not, indeed, it is most probable, enjoyed the advantage of hearing and seeing all these fine things in company with a sturdy Presbyterian Whig, grinning one grim and ghastly smile all the time, reviling all things, despising all things, and puffing himself up with all things; but, nevertheless, you would in all likelihood think a fuller description no better than a bore."

At last the Admiral Nelson stops before the Angel Inn, and Reginald Dalton is in Oxford. Madam de Stael, and the reverend Mr Eustace, and Forsyth the school-master, and many dozen and scores of other blue-legged people, have informed the world in print, how they felt when first they

beheld-Rome. We remember thinking all their descriptions very fine at the time, and we ourselves have in our portfolio our description of our own feelings on the same memorable occa sion; not a little superior, unless we greatly err, to them all; but not su perior-not equal to the following short and unambitious burst about beautiful, august, and venerable-Oxford./ "Tax not the prince or peer with vain expense, With ill-match'd aims the architect-who plann'd (Albeit labouring far a scanty band

Of white-robed scholars only) some immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence.

"So says (0! si sic omniu 1) a great living poet; and, in truth, a very prosaic animal must he be, who for the first time traverses that noble and ancient City of the Muses, without acknowledging the influences of the GENIUS LOCI; and never was man or youth less ambitious of resisting such influences than Reginald Dalton. Born and reared in a wild sequestered province, he had never seen any great town of any sort, until he began the journey now just about to be concluded. Almost at the same hour of the preceding evening, he had entered Birmingham; and what a contrast was here! No dark narrow brick lanes, crowded with waggons-no flaring shop-windows, passed and repassed by jostling multitudes-no discordant cries, no sights of tumult, no ring of anvils-everything wearing the impress of a grave, peaceful statelinesshoary towers, antique battlements, airy porticos, majestic colonnades, following each other in endless succession on either side-lofty poplars and elms ever and anon lifting their heads against the sky, as if from the heart of those magnificent seclusions-wide, spacious, solemn streets

everywhere a monastic stillness and a Gothic grandeur.-Excepting now and then some solitary gowned man pacing slowly in the moonlight, there was not a soul in the High-street; nor, excepting here and there a lamp twinkling in 'some high lonely tower,' where some one might, or might not, be 'unsphering the spirit of Plato,' was there anything to shew that the venerable buildings which lined it were actually inhabited."

At the Angel Inn, Mr Macdonald introduces Reginald to Mr Keith, a Scotchman and a Roman Catholic priest settled in Oxford, who afterwards proves one of the most original and most delightful old men in the world. These cronies use towards each other the privilege of ancient friendship, or at least of old acquaintanceship, and several rallies occur in