The Sun. — London, England, 1852-08-02 00:00:00

a gar• cutter, fto o2 I. I B °l.l er,,164 with lu 6dr f a Lot-. Ade* --Tt° 7! r • b Oar v n to b e t r Yee 111 Y i n n r °l2 l 51 e °c " - , r e l, h : the l4 nd iore tb ° II vd ore iDift tee ar il 4 •n- .ne i 0 Vl' 3 - • 0 4e$ d fUtiu A op r ' 0100 te pti la tit ; tO bee - t be vi be oof 1 0 E 1 ; 00 13 a ll bi to re r the be s 'lo o o cis j o g ,. ~f l b , en- Aee late id , ol oP tot la iill • : 31, UI eJ 1 1 ; 11 e ee l ',a e TO 11 rotl i ttit ri re i j d t 9' t wit 03 0 0, 9 0 1 0 0 td • tbt , •I•A' o n )on THE LASH EL ECTIOVS . Irish pot in h., Roman Catholic prieeehoee en: lief. te.;t:' 1 , u cUnii weuei eppear to have rem hid ire OM :x lo an A d eke which wa• delivered is seee'h age :Iv . to the electors of the county of Crteees.y. It is nee tee' " ( pieta blasphemies of Dr. are mete rbseustine Chien whets which have free utt. rei o th, r martianCetholic trusts threugheut t h is btu his station gives Lruf~3ld point ass meanieg to them all, • Betoe , p '"Z ‘ Galway acdrees it was will open to this - more tern m among his sect to speck of the profanity 'acid viole nee of an isolated priest h e r e an d 'th ere as o f the acts of individuals which were viewed with horror and disgust by the general body of the Roman Ca thole, priesthood in Ireland. The sp - - h p c however, of Dr. ht' „ale e cuts away this ground of defence from a from beneath their feet. The various orators e e o4o whose election addresses we culled se me j e , tic e fragments the other day find, if • not their ill() loathe), at least their excuse in the conduct of him wiat ut cll their Archbishop. We see this result of a PPr'hension and regret, opt certainly on arsenal tho se 6 9,.:, Persons who have so entirely lost sight of their "" ° (lice /14 to d.-gra e d Ives and theit• vocation uy th e ei language and prenices electieneering agents .'th e orst class b. , fer the sake of the gorwr 4l tran quillity,e ' -' Tee s. ` :tee which has hen set rolling in Ire. h li d Will e. cereeely riot be leit quir , t the peiet to which hui been urged by Dr. el.flele and his • ellewe There are plows, of zsaltta on this side or St. Ge-tree's seismal who will he reedy to teke up the challenge which they have flung down, and, whet) ceteeee, remis=s, there c.an be nu doubt into which scale the in ,elligenee and propene , of the British emplre still be the:ten. We are able to fores,e, but we are p :werloss to avert, the coes,quences of a contest between the ultre 2, alots of either creed. There are thousands, nay millions, of men in Great Britain who asked no better than to leave their Roman • Cu th°lic f bow-subjects •is full possession of civil and religious liberty, but when they are com pelled to fall in under one banner or the other, there can be little hesitation as to the choice. The leaders of the Catholn party in Ireland, by their conduct 'throughout the recent elections, hive thrown from them the tacit support or this patee—powe , ful as it was for defenoe, if not tor attack. We remember well when the late Sir R )bert Peel said, in hie place in the Hone of Conamous, "If the choice is fore , d upon me—if I am, cornpelled to determine whether I shall give in my alle giance to Queen Victoria or to Mr. Smith O'Brien, the Mockery King of Munster, I ask no time fir r flaction; my determination is made." The analogy is pertect in the present instance. The great bulk of the English rt.- lien asked no better than to leave their It men Catholic fellow-subjects in full possession of all 'their rights and liberties; but if we are driven—however much against Our will —to elect whether we will step down into tPe field as champions of the English Church or quietly put our heads under Dr. M'Hale's belt and dance as he may Pipe to us, our choice is quickly made. Wo will have nothing whatsoever to do with the doctrines and disci pline of Rome as they may be delivered to, us by an Lish priest. We detest these doctrines in themselves, a nd we are the more averse to them when we witness the barbarism, the blasphemy, and the bloodshed which they produce in prac:ice. The other day we had to speak of Roman Catholic 'priests wh o i n b r oad daylighestood up before assem blies of the ignorant peasantry and authoritatively de clared to them that to vote for any candidate but the • one on whom the choice of the priests had fallen was to incur eternal damnation. The same wretched blas- Owners announced that they would retuse to perform any of the rites of their Church in favour of those Voters, or their families, who should give their suffrages to any but the priests' nominees. Their children should out be baptizAl—the rite) of marriage should not be solemnized for them—when they were lying on their deathbeds they should be denied the last consolations of reli gion —they should be cast out from the sanctuty and stand accursed among their fellow countrymen, if they refused to follow implicitly the orders issued to them from the head-quarters of the &,-omen Catholic __ party. This is no question of Derby v. M'Hale, or ueliale v. Derby, wide us. It is an expression of hoe , nest indignation at one of the foulest a••enes which has ever been known in the constitutional annals of this country,. It would be the same thing to us whether the candidates who have incurred the' hatred of the Roman Irish priesthood had been men whose policy was in all respects most averse to our own. We can see nothing bat a system of intimidation which has rendered the tneory o f an elective Parliament a mere delusion throughout Ireland. It is out o f no affection for Lord Derby that we call attention to the language and de nunciations of his unaerupuloue opponents. Dr. Miele told the electors of GalitaY under the other day that ocly the following conditions could they make up their minds to vote for any candidate who might support Lord Derby's Administration "D.) support him, if yen wish that' slr. Lacy should aend some fashionable official of an Adonis to invade the seared precincts of tare convent, and at any u nseasonable hour to examine into the morality of its consecrated le , ates.--(Crie , i Of • Never?) If you wish that your Chapels should be wr ec k e d— t h at your priests should be form into pr i son — t h at the beet of hei e ven, under the of bread and insult, Lo r d be _ was on a late occasion, you win support no.) Government.—(Enthuateaue shouts of ev ery pe i , , Gentlemen, if you wieh diet in this empire 4011 hhOuld enjoy treerktn but the God of Heav e r !) sad th a t - the prooe.6 . every proc , ssion should be lawiul but Waxen • C wi li s r h i) t t h i, a;, in n wh s i h c , h ul t d be ra tcl u e; s f ou of to come out ' in ' open day to frret'etivit:e I : nh 0:1 bolas p•--eCri:t eesfuti Catholic melion . s, you will support the Derby y G,,verocaent; and y.,u wish that those houses of worship which were thronged to s uffecetion before the famiue—if you wish, When ne h th'ose houses are again filled up by the g r owing population, for the growth of the potato is an e . enblem o f t h e growt h of the peop l e o f I re l an d , to h ave them preserved—if you wish to have the founriatien stone of those chapels, which your piety may build up, according to the ritual of the Catholic Church--if y ou wish to bare your bishops and priests wear the robes of their p ro f es sion-eif you while that those priests and bishops should not undergo a penalty for violating an unrighteous law, then you will not support Lord Deiby." It was but o few days since there appears-'d in the co lumns of the Times a letter from air. Lacy himself, charging Dr. -with deliberate falsehood for so • much of-the above tissue or blasphemy as had reference to his own name. Dr. M'Hale knew right well that the proposition of which he spoke was simply one of pre-. caution with reterence to angle pent—namely, that young women and girls should not be trepanned into a Roman Catholic convent teed detained there by knee and fraud. Can he suppose that the eases ef the Black Rook Nunnery and ef Miss Talbot have left se little truce up-on the recollection of us all that we can forgot what the conduct of the Rowan priesthood in Eigland has been with regard to these helpless person,? We confess that, unless means be discovered to stay this monstrous evil, the attempt to obtain a represents tiou of Ireland through the elective machinery yet known to us is a perfect farce. Priest -ridden and ignorant as the electors are in- too many di s tricts of the ountry, they would not have given their suffrages in favour.of the candidates of the priest had they been permitted to exercise anything like free choice. The proof of this assertion is to be gathered from the very blasphemis which we have very reluctantly brought under public notice. The treasure of the•violence employed by the priests is the measure of the voter's reluctance. You don't bind a willing voter down in a cart—you don't shut him neglecter sate watch in a dark room—you don't threaten to retuse him the rights of the Church—you don't invoke eternal damnation on his head. Wherever • scenes such as these have occurred there is no true elec tion. The conscience of the voter has been coerced, teed by agencies from which any but the most wicked arid unprincipled men would recoil with horror. It is no • light matter to mix up the Almighty in the proceedings of an Irish election.—Times. UNIVERsITY COLLEGE. On Saturday , the annual distribution of prizes among the moil distinguished pupils or the Juuior 50h.),1 took place under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, and before a very large assi , mtilage of the friends of the students. The following is the list of privs:— GazEK , --Swinhoe, Hoare, Ruddoek, J. Solomon, and . H. 11.5rtin. LATIN.—Brook.. Swinhoe, Mortan, J. Solomon, W. Harrison, Hoare, Ei.tridge, li, MarI:lo, Chester, Carpen ter, J. G. Coble, G. Miney, F. Buteler, Drake, Meyriek, Ormsby, and Haddow. FRENCH.—Benedict, Chamberlain, H. Martin, Clautiet, Hoare, Prover, Shaw, Starling, Grey, Price, J. Gnndry, Ely, Hamel, J. Cooke, and M , yriek. GERMAN. ••- A. Aarons, Prevost, Hoare, and A. Hig hway. ENGLISH.—A. Aarons, Collard, Shaw, Ely, K. Ca inerou Leadoitter, Hart, Banks, Ormsby, and F. Hyam. Hitrron.y.--Chester, H. Martin, Cox. Rowell, H. F Britige, Ely, Leadbitter, Collard, and P. Hardy. GE ,, casmr.—Cox, Bolton, R. Briigett, Edward Smith, Sanders, and N Nathan. MATHEMATICS.—A. Guiltily, J. Chambellain, J. Brock, R. Neave, Prevost, Cox, Goodman, B. Aaruns, Starling, Hoare, Morton, J. Solomon, Prosser. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. J, Chamberlain, F. M. Needham, Lawrence, Goodmsn, R. Neeve, A. Aarons. CHYMISTRY.—Brock, R. Neave, Philpot. BOOKKEEPING.—COX. ARITHMETIC.—J. Cook, Sanders, Prosser, P. Noble, J. Manning, Leadbitter, Meyriek, Batty, A. Hyam, F. PERSPECTIVE,—E. Smith ; Sanders, Banks, Flenn4 l . DRAWING.—E. Smith, Swinhoe, Jones, F. Eldridge, • Varrey, Hennell, Boyd, A. Baker, J. S. White, Car penter, Healey. W arrrrio.— Sleyrick, H. Wilson, T. Hoare, E, Smith, W. Jbekson, E. Buxton, Glu m iy, GYMNASTICS.—tIonstable, F. Morgan. GENERAL EXCELLENCE. --.A, Samuel, A. Tapp, B. Chamberlain, Carvatoo, B. V. Sandau, Grafton, A. Ne.bitt, A. Charles. It. Worsley, 11. Gundry, A. Jack son, G. Jackson, H. Dail - len, J. Smith. The H=ad Ms.stor, Dr. RAVE, bore testimony to the general go:'d conduct and punctual attencistce of the b°3 7 +l throughout the year. The LORD A.Y. T., at the close of the proceedings, ?Pressed the great gratification which he had felt in ulli tg t h e chair on so interes;'lng an necitsio; od . atiedc,ut pressed upon the pupils the advantages of a tiun. A 1114A "N FoR NOT VOTING fort MR. G. C. Lzwis.—A Radnorshire farmer, who haa a vote in Hereford shire, in reply to th e Frettrader, said, e that' wanted question why be did not vote for a comes that had ?Lot much cheap bread but h "could 12 "Prs, / • c and those of small in not find anybody int:c ‘antc,, , to live upon. Sir John l'ukington hit town for Westwood-park on Saturday. THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, Pastime though it was in reality, it practically enough tencehi Without question to devekipe .he dreamer into •he novelist—tutoring his mind to the_ more 1 otelsss • twen .Y . unravelling of the intricacies of . ere pecti.. a plot, and to the 40'4n:fitly nothing could be ,i a , . ripening of those synthetic powers which i„ ve e rs ago than en attempt to revive the popularity Ot ita r - ua „,, " tong Englishmen. Romance, we mein, li•rty requisite in the creation,. _an . and iho d. p i a e r r t a ic c a; it-thl•enerl by the glamour of a larly in the delineatiki of a fictitioas i lost ~_ Having exhausted his ardour sa those ionocent ad peapetuel and porteetous imprebatility—roman ' Oh possessing an interest lan„ _ ce , ~ incidents of which were phenomone, the muchinery of ventures, Herrison Ainsworth .saccessively ceased hie labours both es an amateur pyrotechnist, and as . which was the neerementic e and the principal elarecters a iity then With in toile, or rathsr -inthe manager of rearioeettes. His aseidu - the galleries" which were the. supernatural. . the " storied became absorbed ... h . .. I _., . tit galleries" of Abbotsford the age had become de- delights of literary composition. He t r a u u me a ti s c that Walter Scott lightedly familiarised ; insomuch despotism through thehe now wrote desultory ready written, h . as . we have seen, . d exercised a kind ,of literary scenes arid dialogues . skelehes and ventured even upon incliting certain influence of his incomparable masterpieces. The charms of his voluble rhetoric had lapsed into the chief among already f " ate witnessed in the trametiguradon o tragedies. Several of these fugitive pieces he had the luxuries of imaginative literature. People were glory of print" before his departure from school, so far infatuated with his " school " that their havingbeen a frequent contributor to a weekly sense of pleasure passed into an ahtorbieg and in a rather select literary circle at Man pfie)roirofd2kciaulg" ntitled " The Iris," at that period - dominant predilection. They restricted their apprevai chaster. is teeste:e ee these papers, moreover, he pennsd almost exclusively to stories couetructed according a variety of others in - the o Earepean alagteine, to the MO(1,1 rendered fashionable by the Author or E; added to which lie contrived to issue on his own ac lirry,rley—oxulting in his exquisite „ sensibility, hi s co a unt small theatrical publication, aitd to edit the genial ror-rrirn , nt, and*. Pictur , 'squ'' 4 .' l ' ' 1:1 "" arl ' , 4D3 ' six firetniunbers of a locel journal called the :Bteotion. as in former times the lettered comenutnty had re. Among the tregedies.bernie, alluded to, the history: of juiced in the witty.obscenity of Henry Fielding and one at Least is not unworthy of remembrance. The thehumorous piquancy of Tales Smoliett, or as a still earlier gen e ra. io i t had vaunted the punctilious decorum sah l eer °I this identical with that of Lerd Byron's `cF Two oscari," and seteimeetal morality of Samuel Richardsoo. Toe "tra g edy was, tutiously enough, a kind of synoptical criticism of it Bp enthusi,,ln for the horrible seemed to have died out peering about a mouth before the publication of the -aids Robert Maturio, but little likelihood remaining lattera in the page a .of `sConstable's Edinburgh visible of any companion memorial to that of '`Mel- Alagazine"--to which serial the young tragedian moth the Wanderer." Simplicity was generally thereupon became an established contributor. To recognised as, of all, the most desirable quality in gether with his effusions in _this quarter must be the novelist—simplicity conducing almost inevi_ numbere,d a tale entitled the Falls of Ohiopyle— tablv to naturalness. There was en nppret inserted in Taylor and Hessey's " Lotecien Magazine," cable disrelish for the artificial phantasies .of and two poem: (printed by Arliss)callsd respectively, Horace Walpele, and a proportionate preference for A Summer Evening's Tale and toe Maid's Revenge. the sweet and homely delineations of Diver Gold- A selection from these miscellaneous writings, col smith. Scarc•-ly anyone cared to penetrate the nays- lected together in a diminutive volume designated tries of the " Castle of 0- - ranto," but everyone che- December Tales, was subsequently published by risaeri en affectionate interest in the fortunes of the Whittaker ; and must be inscribed on the catalogue ``Vicar of Wekefield." . Across the Channel, the of those works which are interesting as productions— fantastic and grimly genius of Honore de Balzac jejune it may be, but still original in their very crudity was preparing the public mind for the more cordial and extravagance—completed before the age of nine appreciation of Paul Lecroix, if it was not actually teen. If devoid of .loftier merit, they evidence at euggesting that hornsge for the marvellous which least a very considerable fertility of fancy with a pre eventually produced the strangest characters in the " Notre Dame" of Victor Hugo, the ghastliest fea tures in the " Juif Errant" of Eugene Sue, and those position. very extraordinary complications of plot which Scarcely had Ainsworth reached that momentous render the " Monte Christo" of Alexandre Dumas in epoch when, with the generality, life begins in all some respects altogether incomparable. Beyond the its earnestness—when the death of his father induced Rhine, moreover, the wizard-like capacities of Ludwig him to repair to the metropolis for the purpose of Teak were preparing for his wilder effusions a con - completing (under the guidance of Mr. Jacob sideration in Germany equivalent only to that which Phillips of the Inner Temple) his long-evaded studies s a conveancer. Oetensibl least suchas the has been secured by the " Devil's Elixir" of Ernest object with which his journey to t London wa sunder'Hoffmaon. lii England the revival, we repeat, of the taken, though we conjecture that his arrival in the popularity of Romance appeared. at that epoch by . no capital was attributable to emotions similar to those which . subsequently conducted the hero of his master almostmeans matter of probability —scarcely, one might .tof have ventured to assertovithin theLewismi limits piece through so many novel and fascinating enter possibiliiy. The notoriety of Matthew L ihad tainments. Whatever the motive, 'the result was already floated away into dim perspective, as indisputably such as might, under the Circumstances, his own corpse - is, said to havedone hammock—when they buried him in the deep sea in his have been anticipated. The " jealous mistress" of the Law Was abandoned for a . flirtation with the shot slipping, the shroud blowing open into Literature. . Previously, however, the young a sail, sud the dead man gliding away t withh.kghost like rapidity—an incident we can , rio but ,, t think peal- law-student had penetrated , those mysteries of the metropolis of which, at a subsequent period, he 1 litirly befitting the author of the ' ?honk,. of all ro mances the Most daring as it is unquestionably of all the began the Revelation. That he s hould ever have most detesieble. Besides which the lovers of ro. e r' rmitted himself to be diverted from the -completion P of this enteri e ust always be matter of regret, mantic fiction had reason to lament, about the period h Pr rise is of his very peculiar and ad referred to, namely in 1823, the departure its the aw . t ir h e l as t e l . p li c fi dons. With somewhat of the nail year of her age, of Ann Radcliffe. There rnira e qua i ai Henry Mayhew. and with something seemed no likelihood whatever of the world of nutenessofth' of James Grant,' he pos letters producing very speedily' any one worthy more than much of exactitudeofEugene Sue's . mastery over the d• being her successor. Itlaterialistri appeared mu ith none of his socialist views or of - his sickly ,o have altogether, if not permanently, usurped territftee, for w the licentious. Aided by this unusual the place hitherto occupied by Spiritualism. More appetite of abilities, he might yet recount the than ever a mercantile community, the people of ° I marvels of Loudon in. some fiction wherein the prin these islands were beginning precisely at that period ° * a les of social economy would be illustrated through to augment their activity very considerably for the e th iP e medium of its own picturesque analysis, while the purpose of extending, as well as of facilitating, their • glittered (like motes in the sunbeam) in commercial avocations. Physical science and me- driest statistics .. . chanical ingenuity were entering upon that the golden glow sine erle • • of imagination. A xp need as his in favourite Itandulph, as susceptible .temperament, united action which, within the last guar g v and as handeome, Harrison Ainsworth passed ter of a century, has so miraculously mul- asrase zest through the roupd of the London tiplied the industrial achievements of the United w"" equ a l t , Happily, also, he very speedily; disco- Kingdom. England was being threaded, even then, amusemen, • . by railroads, which, by subsequent ramifications and vered a Hilda in an , • .a 1 ny the youngest daughter of i nt ersections, have beeome t rans f orme d i nto an i ron Mr. Ebert, the eels-known librarian, at th at period network. Under all circumstances, an endeavour at lessee of the Italian . Opera, or, as it is designated by that time to wield anew the wand of a literary Merlin way of peculiar distinction, Her Majesty's Theatre. which consequently took place in 1826 would have seemed to the generality a scheme of the The marriage , _ ocve 1 fi of those three daughters-do F anny, most idle and preposterous extravagance.lt was scarcely E was . po la . ar y and Blanche"—to whom Ainsworth less futile than an attempt to encounter a ghost at has m very Emily gracefully inscribed the most delightful of twelve o'clock at noon-day in Piccadilly. It was his animated compositions. Scarcely twelve years like evoking a dryad out of a lamp-post. It was his her nuptials, however, the young mother, in pitting Ariel or Puck in a race against ; the electric 1838, expired—and the continued literary success of telegraph. It was surrimoaing E ger ia from among the bow .pots, and the London - pride, and the lupins,widower became thereupon, we may conjecture, the enhaned from a pleasure into a consolation. That and the geraniums of a front - garden, twelve feet by success may with a certain degree of accuracy be seven, in Pimlico. There might have appeared dated back to the year which witnessed his union at the time hardly more absurdity in examining a with his betrothed-1826 having, in a manner, also drop of the divine ichor—the blood of the gods—(if witnessed its commencement. For it was than that one could only have obtained it) by the aid of the his maiden romance, Sir John Chiverton, first made oxyht - drogen microscope. To a matter of ract ob its t isooeratice—a story recounting in seven chapters wevor the prvjt-ct of realizing a tnernugi3ly popular the crimes and sorrows of an English baronet at an reputation as an ultra-romancist would have seemed old country house, peopled with victims under about as rational, possibly, as an effort to trans ground, and above-ground with a motley and sinister form a steam-engine into a hippogriff. Yet group of -myrmidons. Brief though tile narrative that project was actually realiz,d, The steam- was, it yielded augury of worthier achievements,- and engine was not transformed into the hippogriff, but the was mentioned in " Scott's 'Diary," under date romancist appeared, and in an age of railroads secured ear of- October 17, in the ypublicatiou, as a " clever" to himself this apparently unattainable reputation! volume, which had been perused " with interest" aver And what was, perhaps, yet more remarkable, his affec tion for the unearthly dreams'of mysticism had been by the fastidious eye of the M a ster-Novelist. Un- questionably the most enthralling passage in the nu rtured in the land of the loom — their voi ce becom- wole story is that in ' which the heroin e , ing audible, so to speek, above the din of the roaring Ellice Chiverton, proceeding at ,midnight tbrough workshops and the populous factories of Lancashire. the s ubterranean dungeons, releases her lover Reginald William Plarrison Ainsworth, b orn on the 4:h of - ea tw che from captivity—otrather the subsequent February, 1805, in King-street, Manchester, was the resY where she is surprised by her brother while eldest son of Thomas Ainsworth (a solicitor, etjoyiug portion,.rsieg. the vaults under Chiverton Hall, andln fly in that locality considerable practice), by Ann, ri:av' from him, through dread of assassination, is a cc t. daughter of the Rev. Ralph Harrison, a distinguished ' e g et Ity drowned. - Occhsionally, even - in the diction Presbyterian. Among his progenitors there had al- d. a a adi a John Chiverton," , there are perceptible the ready been several in both branches of this ( it, _ t ces of a beginner, the evidences of a quaint and family who bad achieved for themselves some degree evi en ttc affectation—as where in the course of this of' distinction. His maternal ancestors Cuthbert incidentHar fan;vaal reference is made to the-" external ex ;--rison, was celebrated both by learning and by ludo- ver " o f r om the cavern, Several of the subordinate oendence as a nonconformist. His paternal ancestor, trance personages introduced are little else than the dim Robert Aineworth, has, by his industry as a leiica- () f dowings of character, afterwards more eare grapher, associated his name with the English-aad. full l a and artistically elaborated—such, for . ex. Lvin, as inseparably as Boyer has associated his with y l ~ , a s the tawny . visage of Mahmood the Eta fish-and-French Dictionary : while another ample," e, the Moor and the malignant features member of the same house, Henry Ainsworth, oh- of Bali Scymel the Physician. Another creation, twined a high repute two centuries ‘ ago as a Browni s t o e nally sketchy of - its kind, lends to the having evidenced, moreover, the ripeness of his erus though more g egreeable fascination in the goodly and dition as a Hebrew scholar, both by his translation book a be person of the steward, Master Misseltue: of the Pentateuch and by his annotations on the venerable person with, or shortly before, the Old Testament. Our author's younger brother, 111 Th t t a- Sir John Chiverton, Harrison Ainsworth is. appear- Thomas Gilbert Ainsworth, appears to .have once of o il.= the press A. Pamphlet (Bvo, pp. 24), en given early promise of attaining some position sued " Considerations on the Best Mean s of Afford kindred in its intellectual eminence, but after taking titled . •P Relief to the Operative Classes in the a scholarship at Cambridge , ing Immediate and Otherwise enhancing . the expec t at i on of those interested in watching his Manufacturing Districts"--a p a p er inscrib ed by the advancement, his constitution author to the Right H. Robert Peel, then Secrea appears to have sud denly broken (lawn' under the effects of over-stud y-- tary of State for the . Home Department. A feeling compelling him to abandon' tbe idea of . 31 . of hugnenity appears to have been the motive obtainin . - •motive to appeal thus to the mhis degree, and precluding a entering actuating the writer -,ath " _him frown _ 0 e population--lat ' , the Church, to which 'he could scarcel • cence, and magnanimity „ . -, a n i y have "proved otherwise an roused by the norrora :of a than ornament. Very dif-sympathies beingd titution. It would Scarcely ferent were the destinies of the - elder son of the very fatal and prevalent es solicitor. Elucated in the first instance by his uncle have been necessary, however, to allude otherwise the Rev. William Harrison, he was eventually placed than in the most cursory manner to an effusion like. in and ephemetalina. in one of the classes presided over by the Rev. R O -., this, invested with a simply, . El tlel at the ' free grattdmat tinson se. e, school .in terest—had we not remarked in one portion of tit - Manchester. establishnient • illustrated In this . . . ti, t it - h cons'd e argument (p. 20) an expression wlc —. i . eri ng by many' scholars of clistinhuo dating back the subject mentioned,. the time in wh'i'ch it' w as in the sixteenth -to mentioned, and the statesiben to whom it. was • m eta; the period of its foundation reported to have tioned—must, if only from its singularity , coMmand century, Harrison Ainsworth is precocious abilities, our surprise and our admiration. The expression displayed somewhat unusual and among occurs - where the pamphleteer, having hinted at th e obtaining the commendation of his superiors , . other things, by his ingenious translations of Greek advisability of settling the question of the corn-la ws the in reference to the alleviation of the distress in the and Latin poetry—his declamation on one of manufacturing districts (a distress analogous to th at public-dis I d idavtaays of the "Quit vere Rex" of Seneca,. of 1846), addresses this curious inquiry, in 1826, to followed by the recithl of an original version, beiug t h e very statesman who, twenty years afterwards, • still remembered in the scene of his academic successes. inaugurated the free-trade principles—" Important a s Shortly after attaining the dignity 'of the " first it is [meaning the question of the Corn-lawe]. w i form' the st • Vremoved froth the school, and its determination rip ing was its ou d either way immediately [sic in 0 • ' introduced es a clerk into the office of Mr. Alexander tikr.] yield relief to the sufferers ?" Surely a suggestion Kay, an attorney of high respectability—thesfather of ot . most t prophetic appositeness—submitted tw eat : the future novelist intendin to dedicate his energies • six year . s ga 0 to the judgment of the Destr ' . oyer of to the legal profession. An g irreprestible passion for literature decided otherwise. Chatterain himself had Protection. literature to the experiment by his father-in.l aw, scarcely more manifest disrelish for the drudgeries of Incited Ainsworth, in 1828 commenced business ." Harrison - . the law or a more apparent- appetite for the fruits of originated in as a publisher. The enterprise an enthu. imagination. And as the "wondrous boy" enabled to solace himself by frequent was siasm for letters, rather than in a solicitude to sue. meditation near d in it merely as a commercial speculation. I t Csnynge's tomb in the beautifulchurch Marv, coed and large than the ei r . Redcliffe, Ainsworth wandered mono. the - was more con- are rapid' returns and large e genial solitudes of the garden at B !fdeavour to sec are molument. rec Hill, a country ! About the time of its commencement Ainsworth residence to which the family had removed almost have assumed the post originally intended immediately upon the occasion of his nativity', a plea- • might • sant mansion agreeably situated att by formally becoming the h ead a distance of ' for his legal accep ancfiet,m established by his progenitor, nearly two miles on the road to Chatham. DiVidieg ' 111. the a which were then being directed •by two his time between the dusty lawyer's office the affairs ow i aucl the in Manchester. Inatead of return green shrubberies of home, his hate of letters appears partners resident lhowerat, be still clung with tenacity [ la va very to , " p ip, gained the preponderaece, hay- ing to the aw,. . a lava that had devel d iog been prect, lei by au entlathiasm for th e . u to the love of his childhood, opt beautiful d suh 1e ti for m " ---- ' into ambition—the innocent love and anihi _ fixture of firewolks, an It .stg f i l n y the con- , lion ofliterature. He preferr' d the iesdu of a pub, duet of private theatricals.is r - eted . of hi m , h i aa ., ' i of a solicitor: and in the former ce p a _ the taste mentioned eccentricity, n-her to those terence to that his j render his establishment, if p at the histrionic art induced him city he resolved to schoolboy devotion to . . havens of scholarship :a - were d retiched the acme cf its inten. ; sibie, one of the securer at let g;h, when it ht +d ht be nurtured from embryoes to city, to. erect a miniature the ore in a cellar (aossibty reputation mg Us of ameni ty . selecting that subterranean . Toe project w as n machinist, his own n liberality, and discrimiatitio • to interruption), b e ing la, o_w ~ a nd it drstaettat. Added to all eminently benevolent in its character, : was scene • painter, and his own . of ices than it experleaced. whicb, you might hate • said him as Charles wertiay of happier conseque in Lamb sa id to delightfully t ,f Munden, The " flying island" never settled down earnest, or u ch a come- tuck r oot in " the Row." After eighteen months h a d that he was "not so - m himself the elapsed the endeavour -was teluctantly brought to a dish as a company" —acting doubt- co „ I ' 4 ' l ' 3o n —the youthful adventurer finding' himself wholeof 'lf t characters ! Rae, jn,,,, his CI eren --- taoalsetent less, correct when he to emu Sie . poor Langan Blanchard was Although the attempt (eater sea in his of the career of Richardson. author, - Originally published ' 1 . 842 in the "Mirror," that proved in no respect lucrative, it no • 'bubble was brolun--- "itis t this in , that ou r „att.Pecuniary Involvement. A - • o ea circumstance aerha t n D t at our hat"' but it was only the bubble of a daydream. Mean are ar • " . • ' i • e Indebted for many admirable romances. ► ! bile the plea s ures of composition had not been alto- EARIZISON AINSWORTIL gether forgotten in the anxieties of publication. Se veral riiiseeeeTaTieeeie pieces -- were penned, -011116-115-, y a Batten' of ..reaeforegoine s experiment wee _eegere before 1830 arrived,. Ainsworth bad written, besides_ one or two m el o dr amas , st il l in manuscr i pt , t h e open ing acts of a t rage dy never s i nce completed — t h e th em e being identical w ith th at selected by H enry T a ylor as the eubi e ct o f hi s masterpiece, the nobly and . lockin g f or w ar d to t h e realizatian of his hopes; and, eminently drametic history of Philip Van Artevelde. Later on, - Ainsworth' stateed for the continent, visiting e ehe romantic scenery of Switzerland, and traversiegn the picturesque cities - of the Roman peninsula. During 1831 be determined, at length, to produce a work of larg e r pretension than any upon the com position of which he had hitherto adventured. He resolved that it shauld ensure some degree er pop ular attention by the nove l ty of its materials and by the very manner of its construction. His enterprise he had elreadv faintly indicated in the framework of the story of " Sir John Chiv,,rton " but a ne w . tale was now to be written, in which ' •he would venture to emulate the geeius of I'aZi3. Radcliffe—the scenery Laing nations! instead of cutlandieh, the style moths nizedineteed of .fintiqrtanol. These intentiens were first fereacd toward e tee close of 1831, upon the, oc casiou of eepleasaiit yieit a t Chesterfield. rret it sees already the spring of 1834 when their fulfilment was rendered visible by the publication of Rook/rood. The reception accorded to thee - work was tritee &aunt. It fixed public notice upon the novelis,e, if it left him still the task of building up his reputation. Cuelefield Place in SUPSeX, be hes since informed .us, was the original of the ancient residence described by him as Rookwood Hall in Yorkshire. ALAI vividly has he herein depicted the old manorial dwelling• place of "which h e had long meditated t h e celebration, with the trim gardens "—one of those exquisite gardens he has himself exqu i s i te l y ce lled ee Rook." te 1., ch. iii.) " home out of doors "—to geber Kith the " rook-haunted groves, the gloomy chambere and the gloomier galleries," he loves to paint with the sombre tints of Rosa rather than with the sunlight touch of Lorraine. Unlike " Waverley," the story dated hack, not sixty, but a hundred years before the time of its original appearance. It ap pealed none the less readily, however, to the sympathies of the reader—so ingeniously blending the horrible with the familiar and w eav i ng together, as it were, in a single woof, the real and the mysterious, as to elicit soon afterwards the panegyric of one of the Edinburgh Reviewers. Originating, as the plot does, in the crimes of the ancient family of the Rook woods, it commences and terminates in the midst of the appropriate terrors of a vault where the murdered and the murderers are rotting side by side in their coffins—one of the most villanous and revengeful of the house appearing at the outset as the sexton, Peter Bradley, but ultimately in his true identity as Alan Rockwood. His grandson, Luke Bradley, eldest born of Sir Piers, contrasts strangely enough with the gentle and heroic nature of his younger half brother, Rtnulph, his own desperate and sinister temperament —the main interest of the narrative being centered in his resolute endeavour to secure for himself the title and fortunes of Sir Luke Rookwood. Associated with these, there appears darkly but conspicuously upon the canvass, the widow of Sir Piers and mother of Ranulph-Maud, the Lady Rookwood ! It is not, however, to these characters that the romance, by any means, owes its principal fascination. Neither is it to little Codicil Coates the attorney, nor to big Titus Tyrconnel the physician, nor even, with all his astounding " sesquipedality of stomach," to Dr. Polpyhetnus Polycarp Small, the Vicar of Rookwood. It is discoverable even elsewhere than in the constancy of the heroine Eleanor, or in the soldier-like self possession of her brother, Colonel Mowbray. Briefly; the principal charm of " Rook wood" lies not among the reputable personages intro duced but among the vagabonds ! The interest of perusal only becomes enthralling when we have reached the ruins of Daveneam Priory,' and find ourselves jostled in the raotley horde of the gipsies owning Barbara Loyd as their Queen, and Balthazar as their Patrico. Toere we are introduced to the Upright Man, otherwise called Magus Zoroas ter, and to that Brummell of the "boozing kens," Jerry Juniper—the very pink of tatterdemalions. A pleasant anachronism makes us acquainted, moreover, with the redoubtable Knight of Malta, Sir William Courtenay, who swaggers over the green award as gaudily bedizened as when he flouriebed his sword Excalibur in the archiepiscopal streets of Canterbury. A multitude of other impostors throng the sequestered preoincts of the priory, . o Where slumbetel abbots purple as their wines," in the Golden Age uniting the Happy and the Pic turesque. There, however, during the last century, under a baser influence, collected the minions'of the moon, the nimble whip-jacks and the squalid palliards, the rufflers, the sorts, the dells, and the dories, the priggers, the gills, and the jarkmen—those rogues who were the spawn of Crime and Destitution, whose desceolants have been nearly extir pated by the Vagrant Acs, and who are yet to the romance of those generations what the lszzsroni are_ now-a-days to on Italian landscape. Associated with these rogues of Daveuh a m, but still, altogether apart from them, ate two characters the " bright,, particular stars" of this lesser hemisphere—Sybil the dark-eyed Gitanilla, beloved by Sir Luke Rookwood, and another who has alread y appeared at intervals upon the scene, the real, hero of the story—Dick Turpin the . Prince of Highwaymen. Immediately upon his entrance, even un d er the so b r i qu et of Jack s Palmer, there is a promise of adventurous whichexcitement e attains th e crowning the full ness of its real i z ati o n in crowning incident of "R oo kwood"—one of the mo s t animated and inspiriting descriptions within the who range of romantic literature. Everyone has once read it b ears it in remem brance like an ode of Pinder or a symp hon y la . : Beethoven. Written Wi thin twenty-four hours from the time of its commencement, it bears evidence of the inspiration of a. continu ous and sustained en thusiasm. Essentially ly r i ca l in style, the nar rative_ here partakes in a gr ea t measure of the me l o dy of . rhythm, the hoofs of Bl ac k Bess yielding throughout the music of the accompaniment. The Ride to Yo rk, it must be remembered, Was no mere myt h, bu t a matter upon actual record, a miracle of harsernan.. a ship as indisputable as th e celebrated feat ac hieve by Mr. Osbaldeston. It occurred as here recountee?n, during an autumnal ni g h t of 1737—and; marvelous _ though the journey wa s i n i tself it has been a lt o gether grace exceeded by the brilli ant f acility and abounding ciby of its celebration. Th e r i der has been surpasb e ng his historian. Eclip se has beer eclipsed. starti of from Kilburn Wells—in the immediate vicinity aes which spot, at a house called " the Elms," the t w o _, terly narrative of Ainsworth was peened —we Sedownn‘ upon that long and breathless race at about slin et our on a beautiful evening in October. From the outlsong to sympathies are with the high ova man and w e over witness, or rather to Participate, in hie triumph the his pursuers—Coates, Tyrconnel, and Pattersonmani chief constable of Westraineter. EscaP e es-bsieera featly, from the first, a matter of secondari e " - t Black tion. Besides Which, with the fleetness e d. The Beds, it is so easy as to be absolutely desPi a , e ,. di M. 'purpose from that moment is to tantalise 1 " 16 -Arn e.-- lowers" with the probabili t i es of a e li ptat 1 3 e d o ubt, 11() doubt, ally doomed to disappointment. So m etimes, tete hair- Dick allows his temerity to carry l'in l ee b e abso breadth ventures, where success ap p e ars t , siert for ex lutely hopeless—but Dick cherishes a p a t hoce there citement, and the reader loves it too, " s ocessive is an inexpressible zest in the agony of ece, r 7 swee e e rful -- predicament. Throughoutthe whole o f e,, with the ride we are with Turpin, observingj e % t o o always vividness' of reality and observing, " I " N iie u rn be with a rapturous admiration. Letterng strike into hind us, we gallop up Windmill -hi" e e Hemp- Shoot-up-hill lane, Air.; the lower P ar tbe pathway steadeneath, surmount the acclivity nenbtroadt and so leading to North-end, cross the Reee t - ewar es the en hasten on by Crackskull-cosmos 0 a eyevvay to trance into Highgate. Turning dow I.oe. Pick Turpin is escape the main street of the eil-n - e • f i ts proving no all but taken, from the circumstan c t e ,„ h e threads the thoroughfare—but, clearing s g a ee '. sc udding past fields in the direction of o °ll2 ; t e t il c onfronted by Crouch-end and up Duval-lane . e chivaux-cle-frize. the lofty bar-gate surmounted 5' i vvatchiag how Bess There is a feeling of exultation - u ease than its pre bounds over it with scarcely Le as t e enpikesman to decessor—almost causing 1 ". e., his amazement:be trampled t o d ea th . " 1 e t Ducket's-green, Striking i n t o a b ye lane, as be proceeds we are with Turpin seetilleitfterwards when he through Tottenham, and w i n ing its driver, to leaps over the donkey-cart cent Edmonton, and so the delight of the good folks' e b _ s i pipe of tobacco in passes on until he coolly lights ki m eoing swiftly over sight of ,his pursuers, while s we are once mere with the Enfield highway. A-war -l ov a - time, perhaps of Bees and her rider — ,1 of his ee ._ o incomparably the any time," bays his biograTe; hear him sending his crack rider of Englend." o „ ag goner before clattering taunting message by the ' s treets of Ware, where through the darkened enlP'llYs they are subsequently fresh horses are obtained, s afterwards, by P a t erson We eb tainei at different - -ata ir w itness Dick's encounte and his c ompan i on s. I : stag e —we observe his ins with the Y or k an d renew re, the bucket of brandy end-water and the raw ne . geniou s re f resher f or the Ti. s t e sk round th e bit, at the littl e h oste l r i e D ear S u rleigh House, after ha v i ng c ompleted eighty odd w iles and traversed the county Again, in the saddle, we are with of Northampton. ward, through Lincolnshir e . him —on—through Stamford, across the interinediat" ground of Rutland, by M e l• ~. h ton ranthaln, over Gone r b y -hill , - Mowbray, by ur_, pad Newark, pa s t T rent, down the vale of Belvoir, , the broad shire of Notting on, through the gledea ham, into the heart Io of r t he waste that wa s once a I, e kindred Robin and his m erry forest, h aun t e d by te t arche rs .at Sherwood. A.way into Yorkshire--p as t oast Selby, by the wat ers o f Ravvtrey, past Thorlbee p ast Selby, fuse, over the Ai re , , the t h e Do, past $Ol4O, oyes AUGUST 2, 1852) over the Der went, swimming across Cawood Ferry-- len - -- - past - Fcrlferrti, the- race runs with unwearied ani mation, unflagging ardour, and unceasing variety, until at day-break the goal becomes actually visible ein e Clifford's ' Keep and Ali Hetlases_Tower, noel . ; .the Minster, with its " serene and mas sive. pinnacles" when Black Bess expires from exhaustion; and Turpin forgets the glory of his achievement in despair at the death of his favourite. He is . yet weep i ng over h i s courser w h en h e h ea r s six o clock struck by the deep bell of York cathedral. The manner in which-all this is related has about it something wonderfully fine, partaking in many respects of the " rostrum of poetic inspiration." Several of the passages descriptive of the peculiarities of the " menage," of the tockeyabip•of the highwayman, and of the sympathy existing between the horse and its rider ' - are,wortby of-Charles Apperl ey. The single chapter dedicat e d to a inin • Black panegyric on Bess con stitutes a more complete and certainly a more exqui site tribute to the -Arabian, than the whole of Eugene Sue , s extravagantly elaborated love- story about " Godoltdlin." After rendinr , the narrative of the rid .s e to Y or k all 'scruple about the leaaimecy of, our admiration for the hero of the achievement venial--:re yield to the vertigo of de light le-hittself expefienced in its aceomplislimert, a sensation es wild and unrecsouing as that excited by the b e ll s of Notre Dinne in the hti of Quasimode. Insomuch that, on closing this record of hie lawless explcits, eta are ready to assert that if Claude Du Val was, as he is here happily designated " the Bayard of the Road," then, was Dick Turpin the very Alexander, and Black Bess the Bucephalus. It was in e R oo kwood' that our author first gave public evi dence of his plastic and melodious capecity as a lyrist. To the judicious recommendation of Charles Oilier, h i mse lf favourably known as the writer of " Ferrers," we a re indebted for the development of those peculiar powers, blending in verse the incon groin charms of music and horror and drollery, in which Harrison Ainsworth has seldom been equalled, and, in w hi c h, in our time, he has been alone sur passed by the master of English Song —Barry Corn wall. The churchyard ditties chauuted by the sex ton breathe of the atmosphere of the charnel-house, and their rhythm seems to move to the rattle of the Brava-digger's mattock. Several of the affrains honour even to the " would have done the fragments chansons" of Beranger. R is to th th' composed in Ped ler's French, however! toa the wheat commendation is due more especially the effusions attributed to the readiest of the patterers of romany Jerry j u niper, , I comparably the.ha •of - piest these in "Rookwood.' n popularizedas"Nix my dolly became ultimately, on being admirably set to music pals, fake away , ' t Rodwell. The celebrity thus at- Herber by poor flash songs and the slang dialogue of tamed by the have provoked the jealousy of Ainsworth might it onceny survived the very Pierce Egan , as e acquired by the vulgar and questionable fame ho f " T om and Jerry." Harrison boisterous mkt moreover, in " Rookwood," he- Ainsworth revealed,l volubility as a lyrist, a delightful sides this unusual anarous, and not unfrequently, also, a se nse of the huin of the beautiful. His delineation su btle appreciation o_ priory and of the surrounding landscape at Davenitarn , of the ruined descended even to the pencilling of the circular window of the chapel, l g reat Marigold, or . circular, f ' e o its ined which, although, a tai ningeetiree bed des( (Book 111., ch. stained i a glass bl .) as still re. zonries, be des- nince the skeleton leaf, its fibrous in tricacies, Occasi on ally he contrived also in his first " tz t i a group vividly in a single sen romance to s,.ee. manner, when Sybil's hand was ten ae. . In this seized in that of A la n Rookwood, he observed that it the fingers of Venus in the grasp of appeared ", like the is seldom, however, that the style of a skeleton. ' osition sparkles into adroit phrases Ainsworth s e comp it is seldom starred by a wit or grotesque .term from natural philosophy—it ticism. Borrowing a is rather amorphous than crystalline. The pecu n i ary gained by our author from this advantage, if anhsal venture, might be numbered, we eminently successful believe, among those f ac ts which constitute no t the least remarkable among the Curiosities of Literat ure . After two or three ed i t i on s had followed ea c h o th er .4 Rookwood appeared anew i n is rapid succession, 1836, embellished .by the inimitable etchin gs o f George Cruileshan k. Y ropularity had been secured to his name by the young no velist —it now recited with consolidated him whether that popularity was to be into a reputation. Encouraged t h e reception accorded t o hi s " maiden romance, V b -,, Ai ns worth in 1837 p ro d uce d Crichton —having selected as the hero of his historical fiction that wonderful man whose name th e w h o l e as that of a world has consented to recognise Crichton, Ainsworth Paragon. In his account of the Admirable view from . has taken a totally different from that in ot has been regarded which the celebrated Sc .. his mography of Torquato by Dr; Black in __ Crichton in Tama Instead of regarding James this depreciative aspect, the romancist has here adopted the opinions advanced in the memorial of David Buchanan, and corroborated in the " Discoverie of a Jewel," not the least delightful of the writings of Sir Thomas Urquhart—better remembered as the translator of Rabelais, and better admired as a genuine Pantagruelist. Nothing could be more graceful than the apology by which our author ex cuses himself in his Preface for not attempting to represent Crichton as an invincible disputant. He judiciously preferred depicting his hero as an ac complished gallant instead of as a wily dialectitian. By adopting this course he was enabled the more readily to depict society at large as it appeared in Paris towards the close of the sixteenth century— introducing us to the court of the polite but heart less Henri, where the attention alternates between the vivacious wit of Joyeuse and the stilted gravity of D'Epernon. Everywhere throughout the work were perceptible the evidences of a very comprehensive research extending to the mysteries of political in trigue, and penetrating the arena of a spurious but then influential philosophy. The laborious investigations required in the collection of so many interesting par ticulars, while it could not in any respect have been compensated by the 3501. originally received for the manuscript of " Crichton," imparted to it that peculiar value which may still claim some share in the approval of criticism —prese n ti ng , as th e story does to the mind o r the reader, a vivid and accurate portraiture of a remote, and, in many respects, re markable generation. In accomplishing his some what difficult undertaking, the writer described the conspicuous characters with singular minuteness, re vealing not merely the heart of the Queen Louise but the brain of Cosmo Ruggieri the astrologer of Ca therine de Medicis, and defining with equal clever ness, the absurdities of the King's jester Chicot, and the charms of the heroine, the beautiful De moiselle Esclairmonde. Recently the pencil of Hablot Browne has somewhat elegantly illumined the pages of " Crichton" with a variety of illustra tions, in some of which the more surprising adven tures (such as the Descent of the Pillar) are depicted with the kindred tokens of artistic inventiveness. If for nothing else, the story would have been accept able for the charming songs again, as in its prede cessor, plentifully interspersed. Possibly the most flagrant blemish in the narrative is the confusion and abruptness of' its close—a fault, by the way, which is painfully prevalent among some of the noblest master pieces even inedramatic composition. Assuredly the most notable merit in the work is that it vindicates the memory of Crichton, by reminding us that be was the' cherished associate of such men as Massa and Speroni, and' that he was the rival of persons no less 'renowned than Mazzoni and Mercenarius—facts jus tifying the verdict of Dr. Johnson, that the marvel lous Scotchman must be ranked amongst the number of Prodigies. During the same year that witnessed the appear ance of " Crichton," Ainsworth edited " Nick of the Woods," a story just then issued from the American press by Dr. Robert Bird, of Philadelphia, and to the London reprint of which his English contemporary affixed A Preface higbly eulogistic in tone, but dis criminating in its meed of approbation. The scenery in which the events of the tale are said to be situated —spreading through the forests of North America— was enough of itself to fascinate the regard of such as had not already been rendered fastidious by those matchless fictions of Fennimore Cooper which have constituted him, in regard to those woodlands, what honest Gilbert White was to Selborne—supreme and unapproachable. Besides this attraction, the work bad others, discernible in the humours of Pard on Dodge, the Yankee pedlar, as well as in those of the " horse-thief" Roaring Ralph Stackpole. O ne circumstance, h ow ever, is altogether bey on d our comprehension, and would infallibly be beyond the comprehension of George Catlin. ---namely, how anyone could undertake to edit the writings of a deliberate traducer of the Red Indians, One who, in in defiance of all authority, could venture to malign the hero-formed and gentle-hearted, the brave and eloquent, Redskins. Could not the English editor of "Nick of the Woods" have been deterred from such an enterprise through dread of a visitation from the ghost of flakewelder—offering him not a visionary calumet but the taste of a spectral tomahawk ? A moderate interval having elapsed, Ainsworth deterinined to issue another romance, to have been originally entitled " Thames Darrell." It was adver tised indeed under that name as forthcoming, but, ultimately re-christened, its chapters began to nta.e their periodical appearance in the January o f 18: 3 9 in " Bentley's Miscellany," at that period still d in _ t a C . I . by the illustrious writer who bad ushered the on a g zine into existence. Shortly afterward ; withdrawal of Charles Dickens from the , the Miscellany, the res office devolved upon nonHarr continued to enliven the publication of of Jack Sheppard up to the During this period he receive turn ,tor his united labours a io s st. Until the conclusion of the bs s the eedtorship of of the eneibetilnsworth, who with instalments 1 its completion. time of each month in re editor and contributor. mentioned romance— 'the remarkable p . er P lin several particulars, rthit remained in th e ; 4 405 w0. I anaong the fictions °^ undisputed enjoyment of an extraordinary amount of popularity. Once transferred from the magazine to the different theatres of the metropolis, it was dif ferent.. " Mr. IL" was, then, not more infallibly " damned" than " Jack Sheppard." The reason for this, however, was diametrically opposite—the farce was damned because it was unsuccessful, and the me lodrama because it was eminently successful when dramatised. Thousands crowded to witness the acted version of the story, which thereupon became a byword . among a certain class of hyper - critics and pseudo religionists. According to their view it would h ave appeared as though the narrative had become ess en ti a l ly changed w h en ill us trated by the designs of the scene-painter, instead of by the mas terly embellishment s of Cruikshank. An outcry was raised against the romancist. His production was vilified as demoralizing. His unquestioned abilities were said to have been grossly and shamelessly per verted in exalting feloTly, th roug h th e id ea lization of a housebreaker. Jt Seemed to h e faptten that crime —the basest, as well as the loftiest—has always been the fitting theme for the more tr...g,ic eximplei of ienagi eativo litetetate. it appeared lost to remembrance t h at .4 12„chslus portrayed an adulterer in ay i sienestre, while Shal:Fpere kindled our sympa thie s in iLlialf of Othello, although he was the de - - stroyer of his wife, and in behalf of Alaclieth, although the usurper wes nothing better than a midnight as-_ sessir, stabbing his guest under the screen of_aospi tality, and that guest his anointed sovereign. Availing themselves of the examples thus afforded by 1 their immortal predecessors—Fielding had already penned his history of "Jonathan Wild," Godwin had recounted the mingled sorrows and infamies crowded together in the records of " Caleb Williams," while Scott had in Dirk Hatterick revealed a meanness and ferocity as flagrant as that which Homer united in the nature of Thersites. Among the distinguished con temporaries of Ainsworth it must be allowed that two at least have largely participated in the obloquy, to the brunt of which " Jack Sheppard" was, for some unaccountable reason, principally subjected. Bulwer Lytton has been vilified as the celebrant of ' the career of Aram the homicide, and of Lucretia the poisoner, as Dickens has equally been assailed for his delineation of th e murderer 'Bill Sykes and of the parricide Jonas Chuzziewit. But Ainsworth, be yond all other novelists, appears to have been selected as the principal victim invoking these specious but ignorant vituperations. Apparently the only cause for this lies i n the circumstance of his having selected for his hero a burglar instead of a blood-shedder—a reason, it must be admitted, somewhat crab-like and insequential. Happily iii apa e of b e i ng l ong ofinfluenced community cedbyt the noisiest ies n t o o l f h b ie common sense h After c t ft e e se pretend e d apos tl es otefheVeeidrtuionusohlendtgeneaettioe their Indignation. . rbeing for a while clamour, the romance continued grad ua ll y to extend th e limits of its popu larity : and now, having beT A translated into German aunpdensctahteteerteedgewiedfelythtehrAoudgel him.erica, it re-appears in the well-known version dramatised by Bucksfone nte i t r . teen years after rese the period of its original rep still, hap asiTillueskin, and hap pily with " glorious Paul Bedford" with " clever little Mrs. Keeley" as the housebreaker. Surely this is the very hydra of romances and the very phoenix of melodramas. A m ore enthralling tale was perhaps never written than this same 4 rascally "Jack Sheppard." The. attention becomes fastened upon the thread of th e . plot at the very commencement, and follows it up with eager and unflagging curiosity to the very mo ment.of its conclusion. Thoroughly awakened by the wild and masterly description of the storm upon the river, this curiosity only becomes appeased when we reach Tyburn and see the body of Jack—shot by the military rather than strangled by the hangman—borne over the heads of the multitude to the carriage of the Marquis de Chatillon. Divided into three epochs -1703, when the hero was an infant; 1715, when he was a boy, and 1724, when he was still a stripling— the story reveals very cleverly the aspect of London at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Its inte rest, although diffused, in some measure, among a variety of different characters, is yet principally con centrated upon the prominent figure in the canvass— Jack Sheppard —a figure strangely individualized by the pen of Ainsworth and the pencil of Cruikshank. ,His slender and supple frame, his bullet-shaped head, his black hair closely cropped, each detail and adjunct is minutely delineated, as if transcribed by a penta graph from the original portrait taken by Sir James Thornhill, in the presence of Figg the pugilist, Gay the poet of Macheath, and Hogarth the painter of the Idle Apprentice. And the face does in reality, as here asserted, possess all the unaccountable fascination of one of the " vagaband heads of Murillo," beam ing at once with the gaiety of an English scape grace and " the drollery of a Spanish piccaroon." Generally speaking, the other individuals introduced in the story are cleverly discriminated, some of them being rather ingeniously contrasted with eachother. Goodnatui ed Owen Wood, the carpenter of Wych street, and ultimately the retired tradesman of Dollis hill comes before us, for example, only the more agree ably from his association with a shrewish wife and a jolter-headed coxcomb of s friend like the Jacobite draper, William lineehone. His - unwearying kind ness to Jack's niother secures to him, Moreover, the fulness of the reader's sympathy—a peculiar interest being attached throughout to the circumstances of the unfortunate widow, en interest equally profound when she is chained as a maniac in one or the wards of Old Bedlam, or when she is living peaceably in a little cottage at Willesden. Among the surprises of the romance can scarcely be numbered, for this reason, the discovery of Constance Trenchard in the person of Mrs. Sheppard—Joan having re vealed from the outset a superiority over the squalid crew to whose companionship she had been evidently throughout degraded by misfortune. Without question the most powerful incident in the story is that of the revolting murder of her brother Sir Rowland in the " well-hole," by the infamous Jonathan Wild, assisted by Ab raham Mendez, his almost equally execrable Jew-satellite.. The por traiture of the great thief-taker-1 of the most gr atrocious monsters that ever humanity— mustaceoneofthe ghastly phantom-visages penc illed be commended as we woulddisco b miuend Blake, betray yenergy ing as every evil the (morbid li neam ent does if you will) of the creator's vigorous and daring . the Mast r fth e o e imagination. A terrible horde of miscreants obedient to the rule of Baptist Kettle b y , Mint, or, as the locality was s ometimes termed, the island of Bermuda—reveals anew the author's re markable aptitude for the delineation of vice in all its varieties. But the most odious ruffian in the whole gang, from Quilt Arnold the principal among the myrmidons of Jonathan, to Mynbeer Rykhart Van Galgebrok the skipper of the Zeeslang, dwindle's into 'insignificance beside the preternatural guilt of the " thief-taker," or as he is here aptly called by Ainsworth, " t he Napoleon of knavery:• In spite of all his brutality , one cannot help entertaining a " sneaking kindness" for p oor Blueskin, because of his faithful and enthusiastic at tachment to Captain Sheppard. • Surrounded as they are by so many despicable criminals, Thames Darrell and the daughter of the carpenter appear under a guise of irresistible fascination. Winifred, a t a ll times charming, is perhaps the m os t so on her fir s t appearance, where the author exclaims (Epoch IL c h. vi.) " Beautiful is the girl of twelve," remindi ng us kwo of that simple but exquisite query of the Ett r ik c Shepherd, in one of his prose stories :, Ro" Who loves ' , o in the not a little girl of thirteen ?" As in " height sunset and sunrise, so with Jack Sh eppard " the interest of the romance attains it s account of the famous ride to York, between the it interestreaches her, Un i t a i e l of inten eaidvatyne with from s one escape a perceptiblet increase ano , its climax in the last—of all th b e ro t ke , out of it is of all the most celebrated.emost wonderful, es i s i t a . v G in i f ee o s b ß ze o r u v n ed d how Jack successively Prison at Clerkenwewlfe,Willesden out of the New House, out of the Ca adventure more than with usu tatini usually t e t x e t n r t ao o y n d llold in and a out of the Condempesd. Newgate, arrive i at the record of hisle prepared for recital so me .el .. tinence of his formerextraordinary. The veryi! into a audacity, feeling 02 . _Tr:, ladmiration for that union of cuniuw: ingenuity, perseverance, and self-I""_!_ s _ sion. Jack's incomparable coolness in slipping , " I v r * e l. from Newgate, under the very noses a A,,L.B:_and ton, and Langley —that cerberus of turnkey when Spur when only assisted by the connivance :amours, awakens ling, and by the presence of his P ara T a tion of the re in the mind of the reader an 5 1 ) P rec . The anx iety for his sources of the prison - breaker enhanc ed, when he subsequent success becomes tened supper at coolly strolls into the oro , eo ,, s ly apparelled in Kneebone's, himself " pe ri od, followed by his the costume of • 4 ' B _l - ac companied by Edge lieutenant Blueskuseta. i n egligee, and by Poll Mag habit—the carousal being a eefr . d ild h l y ag. Jonathan, Jack, mope heavily worth Bess i b n lue got :in a, , w i t h the ludicrous trick upon Shot merrily closets ever, is confined for greater safety in the ironed than Castle at N ward called the ewgate—whence he makes bolt. his fina l and , most memorable. escape from incarcera tion. it is in tracking him throughout this marvel lousincident that we e recognise the peculiar skill of Recapture th e roraancist. Having watched the prison -breaker arm himself with the broken links of his chain, with au iron bar, and a rusty nail, we follow him with breathless anxiety up the chimney, into the Red into the chapel, th roug h room, along a p assage, another passage, penetrating two walls of solid masonry, and bursting open seven doors in succession. From the lower leads to the southern tower, and from the leads of the gate to the northern tower, we trace his progress with 'rapt solicitude —until, having returned to the cell for his blanket, Jack lowers himself down from the extremity of the building immediately fronting Giltspur-street, and, dropping upon the roof of the turner's house, passes through a garret door into comparative safety. His subsequent adventure, his Right from Seaccal-lane to the meadow near Sir John Oldcastle's, his being re. leased from his irons by a blacksmith at Tottenham, and his final seizure by Wild when attending his mother's funeral in the churchyard at Willesden, are recounted in a manner the interest of which only terminates at Tyburn, on Monday the 16th of No vember, 1724, with the incident of Jack Sheppard's execution. In reference to the plot, perhaps the most apparent blemish i s th e di s t ress i ng rapidity with which the hero is each time recaptured after escaping from confinement. In reference to the composition, it may be remarked that the dialogue is occasionally sparkling with appropriate witticisms in the way of axioms, such as the carpenter's remark to Jack that " a white wall is a n fool's p a p er ," an d t o J ac k' s mother t h a t Gin-lane is the nearest road to the churchyard" —all of which aphorisms are Selected with an eye to congruity. About the gallows the writer be comes cf course appositely facetious—for, having called it in "Itookwood" the three-legged mare," he designates it in " Jack Sheppard " the " horse foaled by an acorn." Abou t t h e drollest sentence in the narrative is humouro us pr i nc i pally by alliteration— where it is said that Kneebone's kther " lost his legs and his lite" at the battle of the Boyne, leaving little more than his "laurels and his loyalty" to his de scendants. Among all tile literary offspring of our romancist, "Jack Sheppard " has been received by the msjdrity of his admirers with the most sedulous consideration —possibly upon the same principle by which the scapegrace of a family is generally the favourite. During the following year, 1840, two fictions of an entirely different character attested the fruitful ness _ of vi imagination. Their appear ance (in periodical instalments) oluirchau was thoes simultaneous -- was, likewise, in each in stance, followed by a collective republica tion. The Tower of London, issued separately in monthly parts by Bentley, and superbly illustrated by Cruikshank, seems to have been productive in this manner of nearly 7001. respectively to author, artist, and publisher. Ingeniously intended by Ainsworth to reveal the whole of the internal and external ar rangements of the celebrated structure from which it derived its designation, the work, by a succession of alluring incidents, cond uc t e d th e rea der through al most every nook and c r ev i ce o f t h e b u ildi n g, through its " towers, chapels, halls, chambers, gateways, arches, and drawbridges, " clambering the loftiest parapets, and threading the obscurest corridors, and occasionally penetrating those subterranean dungeons where the victims of tyranny were in former ages so frequently subjected to incarceration. It was thus a d ro itly that the Tower was displayed in it s three folthedcapacitpyrinacsipal a palace, a prison, an d a for tress,"characters involved i n t h e p l ot being partly historical and pa rtl y fi ctitious. Promi ntreangticamepoinsodgte of the heinci Ladydents of the narrative, i s t h e Jane Grey—the patho s o f whose career was so obviously enhanced by the guilelessness of her meek and fatal usurpation. H ap _ piest of all our author's efforts in the delineation of character must be ranked the Mephistopheles of the tale, Simon Renard—subtlest of Spaniards and wiliest of ambassadors. Mau re the headsman figures upon the scaffold more than once, as a sort of Elder Dennis —while the eldritch figure of Xit the dwarf contrasts as strangely with the jovial giants Og, Gog, and Magog asa domesticated n a visitor from fe i 1 I f i r p e u m t might Brobdignag. have G done uy when Fawkes, the other serial alreaydy referred toindirectly, was originally issued by instalments in" Bentley's Miscellany"—securing to i t s writer the sum of 1,5004 tation. Emb e lli s h e d by Cruiksy i h ncreasing his repu in its nature an th a n k, it revealed under an aspect the mo s t picturesque— a and at the s ame t i me y istorian s plot more daring a n ir a e n e y g o n f i z w a h n i e c e h . with e e w e treated w hi ch highest tli h r i o s u d g h o ut ancientncl more er ex in tr e a d or e d rn inar h have Theintri cate punctilious t idelicate truthfulness subjectis hr by Harrison Ainsworth, is in the very e ntitled to admiration. As his auth or i ty he je-ugrdeie ciously selected the impartial and luminous anna ls - of tlhoeyavltiyvidanrdeeedredvotion here of f i Lingard—gracefully portraying in the charact er o f the Cat of the celebrated Gunpowder Conspiracy , we can the h ia e n li a ce. Rael s c e l a i n ff n e in th g e more readily appreciate the humorous regret of Ell a , that by its premature disclosure posterity was un fortunately denied what must otherwise have been such a magnificent thunder-clap in History ! For minute exactitude, scarcely anything can be finer than the lineaments here pencilled of the chief per sonages involved in the intended treason—the novelist more especially disclosing his accuracy in his portraitures of the aspiring and audacious Catesby, of the fervent but fanatical Gar net, and of that "gloomy and supersti tious enthusiast" whom he has chosen naturally enough, if only for the criminal magnanimity of his self-sacrifice, as the hero among the conspira tors. As the symbol of the elevated purpose of this effusion the author has himself selected one word— and that nerd a talismen—Toleration. Early in IS4I there began to appear in the " Sunday Times" th succe s sive chapters of a tale, entitled Old St. Paul's, in which Ainsworth recounted anew the horrors of the Plague and Fire, and in which he celebrated, as the name premised, the splendours of the ancient cathedral. For the work thus published he received 1,000/. from the pro prietors of the newspaper, and thereby appeared likely, for a while, to transplant to this country a school long indigenous among the writers of France, the school of the " feuilletonistes." Ultimately, when completed, the story was reprinted in three volumes, proluselY. and execrably illustrated by John Franklin. Its facts in reference to the dread calamities which visited the metropolis towards the close of the seven teenth century, were variously derived from the careful Diary of Evelyn,- and from that thrilling volume penned by Defoe in which he drew his chief inspi ration from the haggard recollections of his childhood. The interest investing the household of Stephen Bloundel, the grocer of Wood-street, at the com mencement of the story, becomes speedily extended f rom Amabel, his daughter, and Leonard Holt, his apprentice, to Major Pillichody and Sir Paul Pare ravicin. The grave-digger, Anselm Ch low es, and the madman, Solomon Eagle e appea r at intervals like the ghostly phantasms of a nightmare—the latter casting a wierd light from the cauldron of burning coals upon his head, as in the sublime painting of Paul Poole— one of the noblest works of art ever produced in England. Although perhaps the least meritorious among his compositions 0 Old Saint Paul's" retains the charm for which Ai neworth as a romancist is at all times remarkable —the charm of quential chain of incidents, combining • with these the horrid sense of an ever-present da nger, h a c arac teristic in like manner always possessed of fascination. Almost immediately upon - the completion of " Guy Fawkes," Ainsworth ceased, in 1841, to preside overe the February editorship of " B entley ' s Miscellany, " and in February of 1842 t h ere appeared the in i t i a l n umber e of Ainsworth's Magazine. Upwards of ten years have, since then, elapsed during which cataloguetheventure of has continued to be numbered a mong established periodicals: Favourably intr o d uc ed to the originator, editor, world under the n ame of its jointo o r h g as the had never and proprietor, its reception was such been accorded so i o stantaneoouse g Y oing advantage, the l to any similar pub lication. Besides, to the foreg oing cordiality of this receptiono of f -as principally attribut the magazine being able to the circumstance opened with a new tale_called The Miser's Daughter, ndoubtedly our author's for many many reasons, this c h a rming production, Ainsworth de piece. customs of English society, pitted the -ln Intha-ns ; eli h ras t r , a , n y d , of London society as it ap: or rather migsofourgreat-grandfathers. Ahund!e4 have elapsed since the period pearediutvvheedeY years are sup pos ed I b eg ins, and with its beginning we watch to when the ta n e of the vices of the capital upon the hero the inf l " ce e; ye, interested in observing him pass R dug," -re temptations. The action —scaatubelfss throug h so many plot is at first almost equally divided between of the h i s uncle .. .s house at Lambeth—where we becom e ac o inted with Abel and Trussell Beechcroft, the former'aa sour hut kindly - hearted, the latter well-na tured but of lax End worldly principles —and the m i se r's desolate dwelling in the Little Sanctuary at Westminster. Under this rooftree, besides Mistress Clinton, a nonentity of a maiden aunt, and honest, ugly Jacob Post, the miser's servant, reside the miser himself (Starve, otherwise called Starve by his neighbours), and the heroine Hilda, his daughter—the beautiful beloved of Randulph. Several of the per sonages living immediately opposite contribute largely to the drollery, and sometimes indirectly to the se rious plot of the na rrative —conspicuous among them, Peter Pukerich the barber or perruquier, Deacle the mercer, and his merry little offspring the Fair Thome sine. A fashionable groupe first recognised in St. James's-park contributes several important ani s racters to the narrative—such as Clemen ti _ n n d and her mother the Lady Brabazorkac:_. the old gallant Sir Singleton Spinke and th;t ee r incom parable parable pink (or iu.carnation) of eviu, i 7 r. cack- Villiers--not forgettieg the Beau's valet, Abel's butler, entnorpe Crimps, the nephew of Uncle Mrs Net . Mr. Josiah ;lakes, the admirer of tleship, and consequently as such A cluster of J a c°. sturdy chaedler, Mr. Rathbone. Ptihuen)Prival of the ; he -faced Sir bite conspirators, including methodical Sir Norfolk Sa- Bulkcley , Price and the neet ti,erw - se i domestic fiction purple lusburs, infuses into the e i °adventure. Paramount in the excitement o'-' .Jacobites,polivca Cordwell Firebras ex influence over these powerful command over the ercises a scarcely lessad t a edulph. His machinations destinies of Hilda and the outset as much matter for become, therefore, fro m .0h _ p iii Frewin are of disgust, or curiosity as Diggsthose °f f i the attorney are cf abhorrence. as those of agreeable, however, than dogging Somewhat Inor o e f the latter miscreants, is it to join i ll the footsteps the r- arties given by Kitty Conwsh the select supper-parties p at the little theatre in the liar:Der' bewitching actress. the in .reference to the ket. Regarding work simply 13 _, toaccor d style of the composition it is impossible Q‘ .... r -- 0 1. 0 . N. t