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

• THE IRISH ELECTIONS. The sysern bitituidatiois put in practiee by the Irish Roieen Cethelc priesthood during the teceot elec. tiees work! eppear to have reached its cliinsx el tin ad dress which was delivered a eve, k ago by Dr. ?Allele to the Flouters of the couuty of Galway. It is not that the various blaspeernies or Da Mill ile are inure disgusting than others which hive been uttered by other Roman 4t e tenfold itra Catholic p r i ests throughout the election, hu, hi s station gives point acid meaning to them a ll. &tore p % r e Galway address it was still open to t h e more tern seet, to speak of the p ro f an ity an d acts of an i so l ate d pri es t h ere an d t h ere as o f t h e ii *e n r d a of i n di v id uals wh i ch were viewed with horror disgust by the general body of the Roman Ca tholic iesthoo.l in Ireland. The speech, however, fo D cuts away this ground of defence t ben eat h the i r feet. The various orators eeeniloo whose election addresses we culled some justifie fry gmtnts th e oth er d a y find, if not their w h o a 'tiens at least their excuse in the conduct of him withal they c their Archbishop. We see this result ea c a PP r t'bension and regret, not certainly on account cr ri se Person s w h o h ave so ent i re ly lost sight of their by t e „ - ,, f ec' ev to degrade themselves and their voca tion t 14 effilage and pr,tctice.s of electioneering agents of the wore: class, but for the sake of the general trans '2 he s t one w hi c h h as been set rolling in Ire not be left quiet at the poi nt to which ,' certainly Lehas been urged by Dr. itl'Hale and his fe l lo ws. Ther e are Plenty of zealots on this side of the St. George's "kennel who will be ready to take up challenge whi the have eh Ley flung down, and, whea the contest t here can be no doubt into which scale the in telligence and property of the Britis h em p ire will be for "wo. W e are able to foresee, but we are powerless aa k t e alert, th e cons e quences o f a contest between the ultra nay —'3 of either creed. There are th o u sands, millions, of men in Great Britain who asked no better than to leave their Roman Ca thee fellow-subjects in full possession of civil a nd religious liberty, but when they are com - Pell,ed.to fall in under one banner or the other, there can be „ o llttle hesitatio n as t o th e c hoice. The leaders of the Ulan Catholic party in Ireland, by their conduct th roughout the recent elections, have thrown from them the tacit support of this party—powerful as it was for d efence, if not for attack. We remember well when the late Sir Robert Peel said, in his place in the House of C ommons, "If the choice is forced upon me—if lam "repelled 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 for reflection; IDs 4. determi nat i on its made." The analogy is perfect in I ° , e present instance. The great bulls of the English un tton asked no better than to leave their Roman Catholic fellow -subjects in full possession of all their rights and l iberties ; but if we are driven—however much against o ar Will —to elect whether we will step down into the field as champions of the English Church or quietly put our heads under Dr. M'lL.le's belt and dance as he may pipe to us, our c h o i ce i s qu i c kly ma d e . We will have oothing whatsoever to do with the doctrines and disci - P, , I t in b of Rome as they may be delivered to us by lL eciah priest. We detest these doctrines in themselves, e w a e r barbarism, s m the , more averse to them when we witness the b the blasphemy, and the bloodshed which they produce in practice. The other day we had to speak of Roman Catholic priests who in broad daylight stood 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. Tee same wretched blas phemers announced that they would re'lusa to perform an y of the rites of their Church in favour of those i, s ()Le rs, or anytheir families, who should give their suffi any but the ptieste' nominees. Their children should -° , t baptized —the ritss ma rriage should not be B,oleranizA for them—when they were lying on their on ath•beds they should be denied the last consolations of tel e i gion—they should be cast out from the sanctury a stand accursed among their fellow-countryaier, ea'n' e y refused to follow implicitly the orders issued to "'ln from the head-quarters of the Rumen Catholic fn- This is no question of Derby v. Lie Hale, or `Hale v. D e rby, when us. It is an expression of hos Clt indignation at one of the foulest scenes which has "en been known in the constitutional annals of this countrylt would be the same thing to us whether the candidates echo have in6urred the hatred of the Roman Ir;sh priesthood had been men whose policy was in all k eB PeCtB s most averse to our own. We can see nothing ll - t a system of intimidation which has rendered the theory of an elective Parliament a mere delusion throughout Ireland. It is out of no affection for Lord I:l°r bY that we call attention to the language and de nunciations of his unscrupulous opponents. Dr. M'Hale told the electors of Galway the other day that only Wader the following conditions could they make u p their minds to v ote for any candidate who might support Lord Derby's Administration "Do support him, if You wish that 51r. Lacy should %end some fashionable official of an Adonis to invade the !leered precincts of the convent, and at any unseasonable t h i our to examine into the morality of its consecrated in- Ce a tec —(Cries of Never.') If you wish that your i t: l apels should be wrecked —that your priests should he fornit g into prison —that the God of Heaven, under the Lord' t a bread and wine, should be exposed to blasphemous Lord e! lie was on a late occasion, you will support •Ueri)y , 1 N oolop. , :rso s Goveroment.—(Enthusiastic shouts of every Gentlemen, if you wish that in this empire Heaven, rine sh ould enjoy freedom but the God cf that every procession should be lawful but fie.ifrpus Christi, in which the God of you wish that He should hide His t ce e e aet/ a el' no o c_ iss s a l 1 o n r o e d f ! receive d not be permitted to come out in open day to th e homage of Catholic millions, you will s e ti h P at P ° t r h t os t h e Darby G o v ernme nt ; a n d if y o u wish art suffocation houses of worship which were thronged n before the famine—if you wish, when those pee , those houses are again filled up by the tr`'n'ing population, for the growth of the potato is an emblem of the growth of the people of Ireland, to have them preserved—if you wish to have the foundation atone of those chapels, which your piety may build up, according to the ritual of the Catholic Church—if you their t o have your bishops an d pr i es t s wear the r o b es or weir profession—if y o u wish that those priests and bishop s s h ould not u ndergo a penalty for violating an Unrighteous law, then you will not support Lord Derby;' It was but a few days since there appeared in the co lumns of the Times a letter from Mr. Lacy himself, Charging Dr. let'llate with deliberate falsehood for so much of the above tissue of blasphemy as had reference to his own name. Dr. Millale knew tight well that the Proposition of which he spoke was simply one of pre caution with reference to a tingle paint —namely, that Young women and girls should not be trepanned into a Roman Catholic convent sad detained there by force and fraud. Can he suppose that the cases of the Black Rock Nunnery and of Miss Talbot hive left so little trace Upon the recollection of us all that we con forget what the conduct of the Roman priesthood in Eegland has been vtith regard to these helpless persons.? • We confess that, unless means be discovered to stay this monstrous evil, the attempt to obtain a representa tion of Ireland through theelective machinery yet known to US is a perfect farce. Priest-ridden and ignorant as the electors are in too many districts of the country, they t, would not. have given their suffrages in favour of use candidates of the priest had they been permitted to uslereise anything like free choice. The proof of this assertion is to be gathered from the very blasphemies Which we have very reluctantly brought under public notice. The nicasuie 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 up under safe watch in a dark room—you don't threaten to refuse 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 h e s been coerced, and by agencies from which any but the most wic ked and 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 moat distinguished pupils of the Junior School took place under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, and before a very large assemblage of the friends of the stadents. The following is the list of prizes:— GREEK —Swinhoe, Hoare, Ruzidock, J. Solomon, and ;vl.-.ri in. LATlN.—Brock, Swinhoe, Mortan, J. Solomon, W. :Harrison, Hoare, El , ridge, H. Martin, Chester, Carpen ter, J. G. Coble, G. Udney, F. Bowler, Drake, Meyrick, Ormsby, and Haddow. FRENClL—Benedict, Chamberlain, H. Martin, Claudet, Hoare, Prosser, Shaw, Starling, Grey, Price, J. Gundry, Ely, Hansel, J. Cooke, and Mt yrick. GERMAN...-1. A:Jona, Prevost, Hoare, and A. Bel lamy. ENGLISH.—A. Aarons, Collard, Shaw, Ely, K. Ca taeron,.Le Adbitter, Hatt, Banks, Ormsby, and F. Elpirn. IlisToay.—Chtster, H. Martin, Cos:, Rowen, H. F Bridge, Ely. Lledbitter, Collard, and P. Hardy. GEotaiIAPHY.—C Bolton, E. 13,idgett, Edward Smith, S.indets, and N. Nathan. MATHENATICS.—A. Gindry, J. Cbambeiliin, J. 13 rock, R. Nezve • Prevost, Cox, Gloamau, B. Aaruns, H.t.tre, M , ,rtoO, J. Solomon, S tarlint Prosser. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. —J. Chamberlain, F. M. &Needham, Lawrence, Goodman, R. N.f eve, A. Aarons. CHYMISTRY.—Brock, R. Neave, Philpot. BOORKELPING.—COX. ARITHDIETIC.—J. Cook, Bafflers, Prosser, B. No ble, .... Manning, Leadbitter, Meytiek, Batty, A. Bytom, F. PERSPECTIVE.—E. Smith, Sanders, Banks, Hennell. ~.bitAwmc —E. Smith, Swinhoe, Jones, F. E;drid.,!:et v arrey, Hennell, Boyd, A. Baker, J. S. White, Car - Penter, Healey. . t .„.WßlTlNG,—Nleyrick, R. Wils on , T. H oare, E. S m ith, Tv • J,t e k s rn E. Buxton, Grundy. GYMNASTICS.—ConstabIe, F. Morgan. GC hamberlain, EXCELLENCE.—A. Samuel, A. Tapp, R. Carvaloo, B. V. Sandal], Grafton, A. Nesbitt, A. Charles, R. 'CV ntsleY. H. Gundry, A. Jack son G. Jackson, H. Dudden, J. Smith. The Hi ad- Masttzr, Dr. KAYE, bore testimony t o th e general good conduct and punctual attendance of th e ( Is throughout the year. The LOR D MAY.:R, at the doze o f the proceedings, e_ e'sed th e grea t gra tification which he had felt in filling the chair on so interesting an occasion, and im pren- uti upon the pupils the advantages of a good educa- Llon. , A p um , , ---- in. Mn G. C .1., R ----F„ It NOT v OTING ru-- l'ln. C. pire, in reply to b t 0 h , , , ,. Rwxs.—A Radnorahire far c re i von w..y who has a vote in Hereford shire, h be did not vote for a cheap bread but pcurpc; reetnicler, said, s u • io nth u an o w n s, ro an anybody that wanted not find' an. d those of small im.. comes that had not much Sir Join " I linSton lift I. nostitur d oy. t to wn for w„ estwoocl-park on i P 3l ''' b t 5 O ti IT 0 tha t ,f „jori roo II A ° , ed 5 [lig° hart' is i teki r y le 0 - 31 ' . o ved o of tb 0) 3 ; ratL . e t , a t Of ti°. 29 °I3. priPAt6 THE SUN, LONDON, Pastime though it was in reality, it practically enough tends d without question to develope the dreareer into ;he novelist—tutoring his mind to the' Apperenf ly noilaing could be more hopeless twenty ue g ravellin of the . imsicecies ot. a Oa,. and to the years ago thrill a n attempt to revive the popularity of ripening of those syrthetio powers welch are peeu- Romance among Englishmen. Romance, we me o mean., , Hardy requisite in the c reation, and more particn lariy in delineation of a fietitiout idiosyncracy. possessing an interest he i g htened b y the g lamour c eased embausted his ardour in those innocent ad p p perpetual and porte n tous improbability—romance the Hwvm incidents of which w ere p henomena, the machinery of ventures, Harrison Ainswerth succetsively . his labours both as en amateur pyrotechnist, and GS - • • • •' then_ of the neerornentic, and the principal characters a manager of merionettes. His assiduity _ which of which were the supernatural. With the " storied became absorbed in the toils, or rather in the galleri " of Abbotsford the age had become de- delights of literary composition. He had al es li g htedly familiarised ; insomuch that Walter S cott read y written, as we have seen, dramatis e xercised a hind of literary despotism through the scenes and dialogues : be now wrote desultory sketches and ventured even upon inditing certain influence of his incomparable masterpieces. The charms tragediee. Several of these fugitive pieces he had of his voluble rhetoric had lapsed into the chief among a l reg g_ y witnessed in the transfiguration of ‘‘ the the luxuries of imaginative literature. People were glory of print" before his departure from school,, t contributor to a weekly' so far infatuated with his " school " that their having been a frequea Periodical entitled sense of pleasure passed into an absorbing and ~. . " The Iris," at . drat period , b , select literary • le at flourishing in a raieer circ Man dominant predilection. They restricted their approval chester. Besides these papers, moreover, he penned almost exclusively to stories constructed according a variety of others in the tt European Magazine," to the model rendered fashionable by the Author of added to which he contrived to issue on his own ao- Waverley—exulting in his exquisite sensibility, his count a small theatrical publication, and to edit the genial merriment, and his picturesque antiquarianism, six first numbers of a local journal 'called the Bceotian. as in former times the lettered community had re- Among the tragedies before alluded to, the history of juiced in the witty obscenity of Henry Fielding and one at least is not unworthy of remembrance. The the humorous piquancy of Tobias Smollett, or as a still subject of this tragedy was, cu riously enough, earlier generation bad vaunted the punctilious decorum identical with that of Lord Byron's "Two Foscari," and sentimental morality of Samuel Richardson. The a kind -of synoptical criticism of it ap enthusiasm for the horrible seemed to have died out peering about a month before the publication of the with Robert Maturin, but little likelihood remaining latter, in the pages of " Constable's Edinburgh visible of any companion memorial to that of " Mel- Magazine"--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 novella—simplicity conducing almost inevi numbered a tale entitled the Falls of Ohiopyle— tahly to naturalness. There was an appre inserted in Taylor and Hessay's " London Magazine," viable disrelieh for the artificial phantasies of and two poems (printed by Arlist) called respectively, Horace Walpole, and a proportionate preference for A Summer Evening's Tale and the Maid's Revenge. the sweet and homely delineations of Oliver Gold- A selection from these miscellaneous writings, col smith. Scarcely anyone cared to penetrate the mys- lected together in a diminutive volume designated teries of ihe "Castle ef aranto," but everyone cite- December Tales, was subsequently published by riteed en affectionate interest in the fortunes of the Whittaker ; and must be inscribed on the catalogue " Vicar of Wakefield." 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 •i üblic 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 suggesting that homage for the marvellous which teaet a very considerable fertility of fancy with a pre eventually produced the strangest characters in the mature and therefore spontaneous facility of com " Notre DAM , " of Victor Hugo, the ghastliest fea- position. tures in the " Juif Errant" of Eugene Sue, and those Scarcely had Ainsworth reached that momentous very extraordinary complications of plot which epoch when, with the generality, life begins in all render the "Monte Christo" of Alexandre Dumas in its earnestness—when the death of his father induced some /respects altogether incomparable. Beyond the him to repair to the metropolis for the purpose of Rhine, moreover, the wizard-like capacities of Ludwig completing (under the guidance of Mr. Jacob Tieck were preparing for his wilder effusions a con- Phillips.of the Inner Temple) his long-evaded studies aideration in Germany equivalent only to that which as a conveyancer. Ostensibly at least such was the has been secured by the " Devil's Elixir" of Ernest object with which his journey to London was under- Hoffinaan. In 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 means matter of probability—scarcely, one might f which subsequently conducted the hero of his master almost have ventured to assert, within the limits h o d piece through so many novel and fascinating enter possibility. The notoriety of Matthew Lewis a teinments. Whatever the motive, the result was already floated away into dim perspective, ll theas indisputably such as might, under the circumstances, his own corpse is said to have doneii. hammock— when y have been anticipated. The " jealous mistress" buried him in the deep sea in is .nt of the Lew was abandoned for a flirtation with the shot slipping, the shroud blowing .t o h peni o Literature. Previously, however, the young a sail, and the dead man gliding awa t l ; ghost-tv't'lhink law-student had penetrated those mysteries like rapidity—an incident we cannot ,, hid of pecu of the metropolis of which, at a subsequent period, he liarly befitting the author of the . Moak, _all rc mances the most daring as it is unquestionably of all the began the Revelation. That be ehould ever have most detestable. Besides which the lovers of ro- of . permitted himself to he diverted from the completion ; mantic fiction had reason to lament, about the period this eof nterprise must always be matter regret, referred to, namely in 1823, the departure in the aware as the public is of his very peculiar and ad rnir.able ualitications. With somewhat of the mi seemedb:xtietb year of her age, of Ann Radcliffe. There nate e l of Henrya hew, and with something no likelihood whatever of the world of ' ntss e y y letters producing vary speedily any one worthy more than the exactitude of James Grant, he pos of Eugene Sue's mastery over the of being her successor. Materialism appeared aeaseamuch lh none of his socialist views or of his sickly to have altogether, if not permanently, usurped terrible,. with the licentious. Aided by this unusual the place hitherto occupied by Spiritualism. More combination apptiter of abilities, he might yet recount the than ever a mercantile community, the people of ' of London in some fiction wherein the prin• these islands were beginning precisely at that period m ' a l rveA o a f social economy would be illustrated through to augment their activity very considerably for the eiP es edium of its own picturesque analysis, while the purpose of extending, as well as of facilitating, their commercial avocations. Physical science and me- the I"statistics glittered (like motes in the sunbeam) in driest chanical ingenuity were entering upon that the golden glow of imagination.' As inexperienced as his united action which, within the last quart favourite -tan r dulph, as susceptible in temperam e nt, ter of a century, has so m i racu l ous l y mu l e as gay and as handsome , Harr ison Ainswo rth passed fiplied the industrial achievements of the United with equal zest . speedil y through the round of the London amusem ents. Hapm y, I also, he very disco- Kingdom. England was b e i ng th rea d e d , even then, d Hilda in Fanny, the you n g es t daughter of by railroads, which, by subsequent r am ifi cat i ons and v " a P known librarian, at that • intersections, have become transformed iron Mr. Ebers, the we .- period into an lessee of the Italian Op era, or, as it is desi g nat ed by network. Under all circumstances, an endeavour at way of peculiar distinction, Her Majesty's Th ea t re. that time to wield anew the weed of a liter ar y M er li n • The marriage which consequently t ook place in 1826 would have seemed to the generality a schem e.o f th e productive of those three daughters —it Fanny, Emily most idle and preposterous extravagance.lt was scarcely vetas ar y ' and Blanche" — to whom Ainsworth less futile than an attempt to encounter a ghost at has ve y r gracef u lly inscribed the most delightful of twelve o'clock at noon - day in Pi cca dilly. It was his .animated compositions. Scarcely twelve years like evoking a dryad out of a lamp-post. It was h after l pitting Ariel or ?tick in a race against the electricher nuptials, s, however, the young mother, i n 1838, expired—sod the continued literary success of telegraph. It was summoning Egeria from among the widower became thereupon, we may conjecture, the bow pots, and the london-pride, and the lupins, enhanced 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 then that one could only have obtained it) by the aid of the his maiden romance, Sir John Chiverton, first made oxyhydrogen microscope. To a matter of fact ob its appearance---a story recounting in seven chapters server the project of realizing a thoroughly 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 the narrative that project was actually realized. The steam was, it yielded augury of worthier achievements,tand • 'was n ot transformed into the hippogriff, but the engine was mentioned in " Scott's Diary," under date romancist appeared, and in an age of railroads secured October 17, in the year of publication, as a " clever" to himself this apparently unattainable reputation ! volume, which had been perused " with interest" even And what was, perhaps, yet more remarkable, his affec- by the fastidious eye of the Master-Novelist. Uh tion for the uneart h ly drea ms of m y s ticism had been questionably the most enthralling pass a g e in the nurtured in the land of the loom — their voice becom- ve a o le story is that in which the heroine, ing audible, so to speak, above the din of the roaring Ellice Chiverton, proceeding at midnight through workshops and the populous factories of Lancashire. the su bt er ranean dungeons, releases her lover Reginald P William Harrison Ainsworth, born on the 4th of s t w yche from captivity—or rather t he subse quent , February, 18 05 , in King , street, Manchester, was the re o n w here she is surprised by her brother while eldest son of Thomas Ainsworth (a solicitor, enjoying porti , traversing the vaults under Chiverton Hall, and in fly in that locality considerable practice), by Ann, frem ei tn , through dread of assaseination, is mei daughter of the Rev. Ralph Harrison, a distinguished ing drowned. Occasionally, even in the diction Presbyterian. Among his progenitors there had al- dentally ,,s ___ 'r John Chiverton," there are perceptible the ready been several i n b ot h branches of his °f it I s of a beginner, the evidences of a quaint and family who had achieved for themselves some d egree ev : enc . : affectation—as where in the course of this of distinction. His maternal ancestor, Cuthbert Har faums'ticident reference is made to the "external ex rieon, was celebrated both by learning and by lade- very IT , from the cavern. Several of the subordinate eendence as a nonconformist. His paternal ancestor, trance introduced are little else than. the dim Robert Ainsworth, has, by his industry as a lexica- personages jags of character, afterwards more care grepher, associated his name with the English••and- I f or , la el 8 aand artistically elaborated—such, for exe Latin, as inseparably as Boyer has associated his with u sd, as the tawny visage of Mahmood the English-rind-French Dictionary : while another a ß m S e' the Moor and the malignant features member of the same house, Henry Ainsworth, ob of Bali mel ithe Physician. Another creation, tailed a high repute two centuries ago as a Brotvnist sketchy of its kind, lends t o thou h Y e wally the having evidenced, moreover, the ripeness of' his erut book g a mo ci re agreeable fascination in the goodly and ditiou as a Hebrew scholar, both by his translation f the steward, Master Misseltoe. venerable person o of the Pentateuch and by his annotations on the or shortly before, the a Sim ltaneouslet with,appear 01d Testament. Our author's our} brother, ance u of Sir John Chiverton,. Harrison Ainsw ort h is. Thomas Gilbert Ainsworth, appears to have Pamphlet (Bvo.. p p . sued from the press A 24), en given early promise of attaining some positionthe Best M . eans of Afford titled "Considerations on kindred in its intellectual eminence, but, after taking . i I m diate Relief to the Operative Classes in the a scholarship at Cambridge, and otherwise enhancing in al-e . paper inscribed by Manufacturing is ri D . t 'ets"—a the the expectation of those interested in watching his - Right Hon. Robert Peel, then s ecret advancement, his constitution appears to have and author to the_ State for the Home Department. At. A. feeling denly broken down under the effects of over-study— tar Y of • to have ' been the motive compelling him to abandon the idea cf obtaining of humanity appears ' to appeal thus to the " m i i hifi. his degree, and precluding him from entering actuating the writer of the population —pi g the Church, to which he could scarcely have canoe and magnanimity roused by the horrors of a proved otherwise than an ornament. Very dif- sympathies being alert destitution. It would scarcely terent were the destinies of the eider son of the very fatal and prev h oweve r, to allude otherwis e solicitor. E I ucated in the first instance by hi s uncle, than i have b n een t h e moat necessay, e r urso r y man ner to an effusion lik e the Rev. William Harrison, he was eventually placed w with si wp _ y I local and ephemeral in in one of' the classes presided over by the Rev. $o- serest—had we not remarked in one portion of the binson Elsdale, at the free grammar-school in argument (p. 20) an expression which—considering Manchester. In this establishment, d,ti,n illustrated baekto the subject mentioned, the time in which it was by many scholars of distinction, n the g sixteenth mentioned, and the statesman to whom it was men. the period of i's foundation reported to have tioned—must, if on from its singularity, command century, Harrison Ainsworth is abilities our surprise and our admiration. The expression , displayed somewhat unusual and precocious . among' occurs where the pamphleteer, having hinted at the obtaining the commendation of his superiors, Gree, advisability of settling the question of the corn-law s other thing, by his ingenious translations of , - in reference to the alleviation of the distress in th e and Latin poetry—his declamation on one of the manutacturing districts (a distress analogous to that public-display -days of the "Quis vere Rex" of Seneca, of 1846), addresses this curious inquiry, in 1826, t o i follow e d b y t h e rec i ta l o f an or i g inal version, beng the very statesman who, twenty years afterward s , still rememb ere d i n t h e scene aids academic successes. inaugurated the free-trade principles—" Important a% Shortly after attaining the dignity of the " first it is [meaning the question of the Corn-laws] w ou l d form" the stripling was removed from the school, and its decerminaiion either way immediately . [sic in orig ] introduced as a clerk into the office of Mr. Alexander yield relief to the sufferers ?" Surely a sugg estipii Kay, an attorney of high respectability—the father of of most prophetic appositeness—sulimicted twenty; the future novelist intending' ddh et . to the judgment of the .Destroyer of to e he. e leis energies six years ago r to the legal profession. An irrepressible passion for Protection. literature decided otherwise. Cbatterton himself had Incited to the experiment by his father-in- la w scarcely more manifest d le h f h drudgeries of - isre is or t eHarrison Ainsworth, in 1828 commenced business ees as the law or a more apparent appetite for the fruits of a publisher. The enterprise originated in an enthu.. imagination. And as the " wondrous boy " was .; ,- for letters, rather than iu a solicitude to sue, enabled to solace himselt by frequent meditation near ;41113 in it merely as a commercial speculation. Cenyrge's tomb lt in the beautiful church of St. Marv, of favourite theory more than the e n . ltedeiiffe, Ainsworth wandered among th ' was the test a e more con- and large emolum genial soli:uth-s of the garden at B h deavour to secure rapid returns ent ' eee Hill, a country 1 About the time of its commencement. Ainsworth residence to which the family hard removed almost I immediately upon the occasion of his nativity, a plea- ~alight have assumed the post originally intended tance, by formally becoming the h ead sent mansion agreeably situated at a distance of fo f r his accep firm established by his progenitor, nearly two miles on the road to Chatham. Dividing ° the fi,i• legalof which were then being directed by two his time between the dusty lawyer's office and the the a • irs in Menchester. Instead of return. n shrubberies of home, his love of letters partners resident e ree to the law, however, be still clung hadtenacity wined the re rapidly gai p .ponderence, hay- m g to have very •childhood, a love that develop e d log been preceded by an entimeieem • for the menu- to the love of his _ a love and beautiful amble niid subsequently for the coo- r ambition—the innocent fecture of fireworks,. . ... 1 the duties of • eo-- t'of literature. He preferred 1 former a pub duet of private there trice's. i?' is related of h im, in re- ion • and in the ogyna, mentionedeccentricity, usher to those of a solicitor . . . t at his &niece to the last• ... render his establishment, it p r ese to the taste ionic art -induced him city he resolved to schoolboy devotion _ i acme its . Eible, one of the securer havens of scholarship— wer e it hod reached the . •of Wen at length, when nurtured from embryoes sity, to erect a miniature theatre in a cellar (possibly { reputation might be _ , .to Vuences of amenity in locality es the least liable , fruition under the fostering ill i ___. selecting that s ubteiranea . nine project was n machinist, his own liberality, and discrimination. to interrurion), being his ow . Mist. Added to all eminently benevolent in its character, and it it experienced.was scene painter, and his own d"'l r him as Charles ' worthy of' happier consequences than in which, you might leave said o re d o wn et r lin. of Munden, -he " flying island" never settled, r Lamb said eo deliglit' ll ' J took root in " the Row." After eighteen months had much a come that he was " not so m _ elapsed reluctantly brought to a d' himeelf the the endeavour was . . . lan as a company"—actin]; conclusion —th e adventurer finding himself doubt- i . n—the youthful . whole of his different characters . I Here, portion at* least when l ess , poor Lamen Dancbard was correct be , of the care er o f Richardson. Although the attempt observed in hi s cursor y memorial of our riut - "r , proved in no res 1 •• it fortunately led to, pect .ucrative, originnlly Published in 1842, in the "Mirror," that' . no pecuniary involvement, A bubble was broken--- `' it is to this Circumstance, that our Libra- . . . perhaps, bu' it was only the bubble 1, ' of a a d ydream. *mi nims are indebted for many admirable romances. while the pleasures of composition bad not been alto . HARRISON AINSWORTH. MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 2, 1852, gather forgotten in the anxieties of publication. Se veral mis ce ll aneous pie ces were penne d, w hil e the i author of th e f ore g o i ng exper i ment was eager l y loeking forw ar d t o th e rea li zat i on of h i s h opes; an d, before 1830 arr i ve d, Ai nsworth had wr i tten, b es id e s one or two m e l c d ramas , s till i n manuscript, t h e open ing acts of a t rage dy never since completed—thee theme being identical w ith th a t se l ected by Henry Taylor as the subject of his m as t erp i ece, t e e no ble and eminently dramatic lelstory of Phili p V an, Artevelde. Later on, Ainsworth Started for the, continent, Visiting the romantic scenery of Switzerland, and traversing the - picturesque cities of the peninsula. During 1831' Isie determined at length, to produce a work of larger pretension than any upon the com position of which he had hitherto adventured. He resolved that it shsuld ensure some degree of popular attention by the novelty of its materials and by the Roman very manner of its censtruction. His enterprise he had already faintly indicated in the framework of the story of " Sir John Chiverton," but a new tale was now to be written, in which he would venture to emulate the genius of Mrs. Radcliffe—the scenery being national instead of outlandish, the style moder nized instead, of entiquat e d. These intentions were first formed toward s th e c l ose of 1831, u pon the ocs. casion of a pleasant v i s it at Chesterfield. Yet it was already the spring of 18 34 when their fulfilment was rendered visible by th e pu bli cat i on of l i /?ookwood. The reception accorded to the work was triumphant. It fixed public notice upon the novelist, if it lett him still the task of building up his reputation. Cuchfield Place in Sussex, he has since informed us, was the original of the ancient residence described by him as Rookwood Hall in Yorkshire. And vidly has he herein depi c t e d t h e o ld manor i a l dwellin vi g-place ofwhich he bad long m e ditated the celebration, with " the t r i m gardens "—one of those exquisite gardens he has himself exquisitely , called e' R oo k: b. 1., ch. iii.) co h ome out o d oors '--tos gether with the " rook-haunted grovee, the gloomy chambers and the gloomier gallsri ee ," he loves to paint with the sombre tints o f Rosa rather than with the sunlight touch of Lorraine. Unlike " Waverley," the story dated back, not sixty, but a hundred years before the time of its original appearance: It ap pealed none the less readily, however, to the sympathies the and real weavingand of the reader — so ingeniously bl en di ng the horrible with together, as it were, in a s the my ster i ous, as to elicit soon afterwards the pan eg y r i c of one of the Edinburgh Reviewers. Ori g inatiege as the plot does, in the crimes of the ancient f am il y of the Rook woods, it commences and t erm i nates in the midst of i t the familiar woof, the appropriate terrors of a vault where the murdered and the murderers are rotting side by aide 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 R o ckwood. His grandson, Luke Bradley, eldest born of Sir Piers, contrasts strangely enough with the gentle and heroic nature of his ysunger half brother, Ranulph, 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 Rook wood. Associated with these, there appears darkly but conspicu ous l y upon t h e 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. Polpyhemus 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 Davenham Priory, and find ourselves jostled in the motley horde of the gipsies owning Barbara Level as their Queen; and Balthazar as their Patrice. There we are introduced to the Upright Man, otherwis.e called Magus Zoroas ter, and to met Brummell of the "boozing k ens Jerry Juniper—the very pink of tatterdemalions. 'A pleasant anachronism makes us acquainted, moreover, H with the redoubtable Knight of Malta, Sir William Courtenay, who swaggers over the green award as gaudily bedizened as when be flourished his sword Excalibur in the archiepiscopal streets of Canterbury. A multitude of other impostors throng the sequesteted ' precincts Of the priory, 1 " Where slutoberea 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 'pinions of the i moon, the nimble whip-jocks and the squalid palliards, the rufflers, the morts, the dells, and the doxies, the priggers, the gills, and the jarkmen—those rogues who were the spawn of Crime and Destitution, whose descendants have -been nearly extir pated by the Vagrant Act, and who are yet to the romance of those generations what the luzzaroni are now-a-days to an Italian landscape. Associated with these rogues of Davenham, but still, altogether apart from them, are two characters the " bright, particular stars" of this lesser hemisphere—Sybil the des k-eyed Gitanilla, beloved by Sir Luke Rookwood, and another who has already appeared at intervals upon. the scene, the real hero of the story—Dick Turpin the Prince of Highwaymen. Immediately upon his entrance, even under the sobriquet of Jack Palmer, there is a promi se o f adventurous exci t e ment which attains the full ness of its realizat i on in the crowning incident of "R oo k wood " —one of t h e most animated ' and inspiriting descriptions within the range of romantic lit erature. Everyone who has once read it bears it in remembrance like an ode of Pinder or a sy mphony of ,Beethoven. Written, within twenty-four hours from the time of its comm encement, it bears evide nce of the inspiration of a continu ous an d sus t a ined en thusiasm. Essentially lyrical in style, the n arrative here partakes in a gr ea t measure of the me l o dy 0f rhythm, the hoofs of Black B ess yielding throurrhou, t the music of the accompa n i ment. The Ride - to York, it must be remembered, was no m e r e myth, but a matter upon actual record, a miracle of horseman' ship -as indisputable a s th e celebrated feat ac hi eve d by Mr. Osbaldeston. It occurred, aehere r ecounted, during an autumnal night of 1737 and marvellcu though the journey wa s i n i tself, it has been altogether exceeded by the brillia n t f ac i lity and abounding grace of its celebration. Th e r id er has been surpasse d by his historian. Eclipse has been eclipsed. Starting from Kilburn Well s —i n t h e immediate vicin i t y of which spot, at a house ca ll e d " the Elms," the lalis. terly narrative of Ain swor th was penned—we Let - nut upon that long and br eat hle ss race at about sundown on a beautiful evening in O c t o b er. From the ou tset our te sympathies are with the highwaym aner and we long to ; witness, or rather to participate in his triumph e he his pursuers—Coates, Tyrconuel, and Pettereon s t ut. chief constable of Westminster. Escape is lera festly, from the first, a matter of secondary c° L ' e ' l lelac k tion. Besides which, with the fleetness Im .The I3ess,- it is-so easy as to be absolutely desPis e gt f o l. Purpose from that mom en t i s to tantalise tbeerpe low era 'h . v s i t h the pr o b a bili t i es of a capture ea e doubt, alleedo otne d to dis a pp o i n t ment. Sometime% " il to hai r " Dick allows his temerity to carry him be oso breadth ventures, where success appears to or ex lutely hopeless—but Dick cherishes a pa elion c f e there citement, and the reader loves it too, and 4en aocase ive is 1111 inexpressible zest in the agony of every B ou e e rful predicament. Throughout the whole of uth," wonderful the ride we are with Turpin, observing et el , oo a lways vividness of reality and observing . hieVi iburn be with a rapturous admiration. Leaving Kilburn stripe into hind us, we gallop up Windmillshillt s o f Hemp stead-heath, lane, skirt the lower part t he pathway steael-heeth, surmount the acclivity_ her ' oad, an d so leading to North-end, cross the Hendontr ar - 5 d the en hasten on by Crackskull-common to w s bye way to trance into Highgate. Turning dow°,, ek T ur pin is escape the main stn et of the village, i its proving no all but teken, from the circumstance of _ e s e e threads the thoroughfere—but, clearing a 14" , cu ediog past fields in the direction of Hornsle o co nfronted by Crouch-end and up Duval-lane unchivaux-de-frize the lofty ber-gete 'surmounted Y b- atchino. how Bess There is a feeling of exultation in w e ,,,, than ini pre bounds over it with scarcely le" tarop ik e sman to decetsor—elmost causing the hi , emszsneent. be. trampled to death i n t nueltethe green, Striking into a bye lane, a a , he proceeds we are with Turpin egaiufterwards when he through Tottenhom, . and a i„i n g its driver, to leaps over the donkey-cart • conta mmonton, and so the delight, of the good folks at Edmonton, pipe of tobacco in Passes oa until he coolly lights kimm . ng i swiftly over sight of his pursuers, whi le s we e more with ,the Enfield highway. Away--owe time, perhaps of Bess and her rider—' of hi % r, p hearpal the any time," says his bioqaPhe e l e him sending his crack rider of Euglend• taunting e o ner before clatteri ng through message bY the WaltreetS of Ware, , w he re fresh horses are o bt a ined, a the darkened empty they are subsequently obtained at- different a ft e rwards, by P a t erson stss4e6 w it n ess Dick's encounter and his co mpan i ons . We stage- - we observe his in with the York and London the bucket of brandy- genious refresher for the mare,tere. ik round the bit, at end -water and the raw ' b ee ee rleieh House, after having the little hostelrie near n and traversed the county completeki eighty odd milts, in a , I the saddle, we are with of Northampton. •Ag-iaStamford, through ' Lincolnshire. him —on—through ound of Rutland, by Mel across the intermediate g r et n uen , over GOnerbY-hill, ton MoWbray, by 'Pi past Newaik, past Trent, down the vale of theßelvor, broad shire of Notting ham,one through the glades oft _ waste th a t wa g once a into the heart of tne kindred Robin and his merry forest, haunted by the _ into Yorkshire —p ast a t „rcbers at, Sherwood: AwaY by the waters of past Selby, eseiWtr - ' ey, pa 'tThorne, the Ouse, over the Aire t h e Don, past Saaith, over I ! over the Derwent, swimming across Cawood Ferry- On—past Fulford, the race, runs with unwearied anis mtnion, uefisgging ardour, and unceasing variety, until at day-break the goal becomes actually visible in Clifford's Keep and Ail Hallows Tower, and the Minster, with its " serene and Mas sive Pinnaelee" when Black Bess expires from exhaustion, and Turpin forgets the glory of his achievem ent in despair at the death of his favourite. He is yet weeping over his courser when he hears 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 " cestrum of poetic inspiration." Several_of •the passages descriptive:: of the peculiarities of the " menage," of the jockeyahip of the highwayman, and of the sy m path y existing between the horse and its rider ' tire:Wor thy o f C harles Apperley. The single chapter dedicat e d to a panegyric on Black 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 ``Godolphi n ." After reading, the narrative of the ride t o Y ork all scruples about the legitimacy of our acirairatien for the hero of the achievement vanish —we yield to the vertigo of de light he himself 'experienced in its accomplishm en t, a sensation as wild and un reason i ng as that exc i ted by the bells of Notre Dame is the heart of Quas;modo. Insomuch that, on closing _ this record of his lawless e xploits; we are ready to assert that if Claude Du Val was, as he is" here happily d es i gna t e d " the Bayard of the Road then wa s Di c k T urp i n the very , Alexander, and Black Bess the Buoephalus. It was in ~ R oo kwood" that our author first gave public evi dence of his plastic and melodious capacity as a lyrist. To the judicious recomme n d a ti on of Charles Oilier, hiraseltfavourably-known as the writer of " Ferrers," we are indebtowersed for the develop men t o f those peculiar p , blending in verse t h e incon grous charms of music and horror and drollery, in which Harrison Ainsworth has seldom been equalled, and, in which , in our time, h e h as b een alone sur- Son—Barry loY the Master odf di wall. wall. The churchyar tties chaugnted by the sex ton breathe of the atmosphere of the charnel-house, and their rhythm seems to move to the rattle of the grave-digger's ma ttock. Sever a l o f the refrains would have done h onour even to th e "chansons" of It is to the fragments composed in Pad- Beranger• ff highest commendation let's French, however, that the ' of the e is due—more especially to the effusions attributed to the h e a rers e of romany Jerry Juniper, readiestthe...cnn3 ppi eat of these in "Rockwood. pp "Incomparably 1- popularized as "Nix my dolly ultimately became pals, fake away," on being a d mirably set to music t Rodwell. The celebrity thus at by poor Herb er tained by the flash s ongs and the slang dialogue of Ainsworth . might have provoked the jealousy of Pierce Egan, as it has indisputab l y survived the very ques tionable fame onc e acquired by the vulgar and f o Tom and Jerry." Harrison boisterous mir th o moreover, in " Rookwood," Ainsworth revealed,i volubility as a lyrist, a delightful be sides this unusual humorous, and not unfrequently, also, a sense of the of the beautiful. His delineation subtle appreciation a nd of the surrounding landscape of the ruined priorydended even to the pencilling of the at Davenhath, ordescended circular, window of the chapel, great marigolds de s poiled of its stained glass blae which, although. s e e d (Book 111., ch. i.) as still re zonries, h e d e scribed taining entire, "'like the skeleton leaf, its fibrous in• Occasional VAT contrived also in his first tricacies." OCCB VAT vividly in a single sent romance to sketch manner, s . , • when ybil s hand was tence,- In this . Rookwood, he observed that it seiesd in that of Alan appeared " like the. fingers of Venus in the grasp of It is seldom, however, that the style of a skeleton." ,-- on sparkles into adroit phrases Ainsworth's celeVe. It is seldom starred by a wits or grotesque concerto.term from natural philosophy —it ticism. Borrowing a s than crystalline. The pecuniary is rather amorphou any, gained by our author from this advantage, if successful venture, might be numbered, we eminently facts which constitute not th e believe, among those least remarkable amonthe Curiosities of Literature. After two or three editions had followed each ot h er 4 cß oc kwood" appeared an ew i n 1836 embellisined in repid succession, by the inimitable etchin gs o f Georg , Popularity had been sec ure d to George Ceniksh ank ' ove list—it now rested with his name by the young n him whether that popularity w as to be con so lid ate d into a reputation. , Encouraged by e recep tion accorde d to his "maiden romance, -, A i nswo rth in 1837 produced ted as the hero of his historical Crichton—having se le h whose name the whole fiction that wonderful man world has consented to recognise as that of a Paragon. In his accoun of the Admirable f Crichton, Ai nswor th . view that in has taken a totally different rom t by Dr. Black in has been regarded which the celebrated Sco . his biography of Torquato regarding James Crichton in Tasso. Instead of - re g this depreciative aspect, the romancist has here ' adopted the opinion s 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 es 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 collet 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 —presentin g , as the story does to the mind of 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 Chicor, 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 th e D escen t of the Pillar) aredepicted 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 abeuptness of its close—a fault, by the way, which is painfully'prevalent among some of the noblest master pieces even in dramatic composition. Assuredly the most notable merit in the work is that it vindicates the memory of Crichton, by reminding us that he was the cherished associate of such men as Idassa and Speroni, and that he was the rival of persons no less renowned than Mazzoni and Mercenarius—facta 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 Wood=," 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 highly eulogistic in tone, bus dis criminating in its meed of approbation. The scenery in which the events of the tale ore said to he situated —spreading through the forests at North America — was enough of itself to fascinate the regerd of such as had not already been rendered fastidious by those matchless fictions of Fenniasore Cooper which have constituted him, in regard to those woodlands, what hoaest Ciiibert White was to Sclborne—suprsme and unaPpeeichillse. ' Besides this attraction, the work harleithers, discernible in the humours o f Pardon Dodge, the Yankee pedlar, as well as in those of the " horse-thief" Roaring Ralph Stackpole. O ne circumstance, however, is altogether beyond our comprehension, and would Catlin—namely, infallibly b e li beyond the comprehension of George nan o y , how anyone could undertake to edit the writings of a deliberate traducer of the Red Indians, o ne who, in in defiance Of all authority, could venture to malign the hero-fornned 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 Hsckewelder—cffering him not a visionary calumet but the taste of a spectral tomahawk ? A moderate interval having elapsed, Ainsworth determined 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 inak.e their periodical appearance in. the January Of 1839. e"! " Bentley's Miscellany," at that period still conducted by the illustrious writer who had ushered the o w f ile tine into existence. Sh o etly afterward? s n o f withdrawal of Charles Di c k ens from the a d I torshiP of the the Miscellany, the responsibilitisews who Ainsworth, office devolved upon garrison A w i i n th instalments continued to enliven the publication its completion. of Jack Sheppard up to the till2P ° eße e month in re -1 During this period be received 51 1•ditor and contributor. I turn for his united labours 38Last mentioned romance -1 Until the conclusion of the „ ea the most remarkable in several particulars, peeh"re, h _ e it remained in the among the fictiousbf AinsaeOri I 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 "Jock Sheppard." The reason for this, however, was diametrically opposite—the force was damned because it was unsuccessful, and the me lodrama became it was eminently successful when dramatised. Thousands crowded to witness the act e d version of the story, which thereupon became a byword among a certain class of hyper-critie and pseudo-religionists. According to their view it would have appeared as though the narrative had become esse ntially changed when illustrated by t the designs of the scene-painter, instead of by the mas terly embellishments 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 felony, through the idealization of a housebreaker. It seemed to be forgotten that crime —the basest, as well as the loftiest—has always been the fitting theme for the more tragic examples of imagi native literature. It appeared lost to remembrance that Eschylus portrayed an adulterer in Cly temnestra, while Shakspere kindled our sympa thies in behalf of Othello, although he was the de stroyer of his wife, and in behalf of Macbeth, although the usurper was nothing better than a midnight as sassin, stabbing his guest under the screen of hospi tality, and that guest his anointed sovereign. Availing themselves of the examples thus afforded by their immortal predecessors—Fielding had already penned his history cf " 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 he 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 the murderer Bill Sykes and of the en t d he all pr o in th oi e p r ai novelists,viotanparricide J onas Ch uzzlewit. But Ainsworth, be yond appears invoking these have been speciousselected b u as t ignorant vituperations. apparently the only cause for this li e s i n th e circumstance of of his having Selected for his hero a b urg l ar insteada some, h h o w c d t b s hoe crab-like f ir k a reason, it must b e a d m i tted, n and insequential. Happily capable the common sense of the c ommun i ty is wi influenc e d b y t h e no i siest of After these preetefndbeeidnagpolsotnlegs tabooed in ob e di ence to their terbeing clamour, th e romance for a w hil e of Virtuous I n di gnat i on. continued gr a d ua ll y to extend the limits of its popu beenAtranslated into German popu larity : and now, having m . erica, it re-appears and scattered widely through upon the stage of the Adelphi in the well-known version dramatised by Buckstone, thirteen years after the period of its original re p r esentation—still, hap pily" as th e ;l housebreaker. with " glorious Paul Bedford" with " clever little Mrs. Keeleyueskin, and Surely this is the very hydra of romances and the very phcenix of melodramas. A more enthralling tale was perhaps never written than this same rascally "Jack Sheppard." The attention becomes fastened upon the thread of the 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 nune measure, among a variety of different characters, is yet principally con centra:ed 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 crcpped, each detail and adjunct is minutely delineated, as if transcribed by a penta graph from the original portrait taken by Sir James Thornhill, n 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 gaiety of an English scape graceand drolleryhe of a Spanish piccarocn." once o w th i e th t Generally speaking, the other individuals introduced in the story are cleverly discriminated, some of them being rather ingeniously contrasted with eachother. Goodnatured 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 a friend like the Jacobite draper, William Kneebone. His unwearying kinds ness to Jack's mother secures to him, moreover, the fulness of the reader's sympathy—a peculiar interest being attached throughout to the circumstances of the unfortunate widow, an interest equally profound when she is chained as a maniac in one of 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 f Mrs. Shepp ard —Joan having re vealed from the outset a superiority over the squalid crew to whose companionship she had been evidently throughout degraded by misfortune. p Without question the most po werful incid en t : i n th e story is that of the revolting murder of her brother Sir Rowland in the " well-hole, by the infamous Mendez, his f Jonathan Wild, assisted by A braham AA. almost equally execrable J-ew-satellite. tine por traiture of the great thief-taker —one of atrocious monsters that ever disgraced hum anity— must be commended as we wou ld commend one df the ghastly phantom-visages e energy (morbid ing as every evil lineament does t pencilled by Blake, betray the if you will) of the creator's vigorous and daring imagination. A terrible horde of m i sc reants obedient to the rule of Baptist Kettleby, the Masher of the I s tern.seor'd, the the auth Mint, or, as the locality was sowed island of Bermuda—reveals anew markable aptitude for the delineation of vice in all its varieties. But the most odious ruffian in the 0 lynheer whole gang, from Quilt Arnold the principal among the myrmidons of Jon athan, Rykhart Van Galgebrok the skipper of the Zeeslang, dwindles into insignificance beside the preternatural guilt of the " thlef-teker," or us he is here aptly called by Ainsworth, "the Napoleon of knavery: In spite of all his brutality, one• cannot help entertaining a "sneaking kindness" or poor Blueskin, because of his faithful and entlausitastic at tachment to Captain Sheppard. Surroundet I ris they aro by so many despicable criminals, Thames. Darrell and the daughter of the carpenter appear pander a guise of irresistible fascination. Winifre ,at all times charming, is perhaps the most sn on lber first appearance, where the author exclaims (Ep act d IL oh. vi.) "Beautiful is the girl of twelve," eatn i tidirg . us of that simple but exquisite query of the E ttr i c k Shepherd, in one of his prose stories, " Aar h o l oves not a little girl of thirteen ?" As in " R ot rl ewaad the interest of the romance attains its neigh;in the t account of the famous ride to York, b e t wee, n . sunset and sunrise, so with " Jack Shepp ar d' , the interest advances with a perceptible i ncrease inten sity from one escape to another until o e its climax in the last—of a ll t h e it reaches it is of all the most celebrated. most wollitklfcl ' es how Jack successively broke of Having t observed , l House, out of the Ca ge at w il , Sr. Gile s :T a R ound asden, out of the New Prison at Cletkenweli, and out of the Ct si idemned Hold in Newgate, arrive adventure with an - attention at the record (d' his lo t s:. prepared for sot xte.recter! more than usuelly extraordinary. tinence of his former achievementswary. The vet Lt h in t l o a feeling piques 3 u n of admiration for that union of cunnin g, audaci" . ,- •, , it,genuify, perseverance, and se flosses l'ieri" Jack's incomparable coolness in 2144 n g a n y . from Newgate, under the very noses of Au tin/ rna toe, and Lan; le cerberus of turralt s' s Y . s" s ; e ara when only assisted by the connivance of: . 71 a wakens ling, and by the presence of his param.actoltiont, 2 f the re in the mind of the reader an sing snit ety for his sources of the prison-hreaker.enegneed, when he subsequent success becomes n threatened s ripper • at coolly strolls into the coo ly appal viled in ,Kneebone's, himself go e r r g iod, followed by his the costume of the anc r ac companied )y Edge. lieutenant Blueskinrte. _ e, e and by I "tell Meg worth Bess in a sc r il a l ia t g. 7 -0 carou eel being got in a blue the the ludicrous trick von Shots merrily closed ..,„ mi dby Jonathan, Jack, Ere neav• il b o lt. than ev er, urea is confined for great er sa E zty in the war d c alled the Castle at ew t ired th N E—whence. he makes A most naemorabl his fi nal 51)-*-h' e escape from i nearcerto i s in tracking throughout thi a; marvel lous incident that we recognise lons • the peculi ter skill of the ro mancist.Having watched the prist so-breaker arm himself with the broken links of his cl ssi• n, with an iron bar, and a rusty nail, we follow him with breathless anxiety up the chimney, into the P d room, along a passege, into the chapelthrough another passage, penetrating two wails of solid masonry, and bursting open seven doors In succession. From the lower leads to tower, end from the leads of the gate to the northern. tower, wa trace his progress with 'rapt solicitude —until, having returned to the cell for hi a blanket, Jack low e rs himself down front the extrerr ti ty of the building immediately fronting Giltspur-3 t eet, and, dropping upon the roof of the turner's through a garret door into comparative sa ii ty. His subsequent adventure, his flight from Seac to al-lane to the meadow near Sir John Oldcastles, 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 Tybarn, on Monday the 16th of No vember, 1724, with the incident of Jack Sheppard's execution. In refer ence t o t h e plot, per h aps the is the tl. aie distressing !a l niot.ht which the h b e l r e e m blemish eache escaping from confinement. In refe rence to the composition, it may be remarked that the dialogue is recaptured repi a d f i t t e y r occasionally sparkling with appropriate in the wa y o f axioms , such witticisms r emark to Jack that ~ s the carpenter's a f e e s .. a white wall is paper," and to Jack's mother that " Gin -lane is the nearest road to the churchyard" —all of which aphorisms are selected wit • h to congruity. About the gallows the writer an eye be comes of course appositely f • acetious—for, having called it in " Rookwood" the " three-legged mare," he designates it in "Jack Sheppard " the " horse foaled by an acorn." About the drollest sentence in the narrative is humourons principally by alliteration— where it is said that Jineebones B father " lost his legs and his life" at the battle of the Boyne, leaving little more than his "laurels and his loyalty" to his de scendants. Amocg all the literary offspring of our romancist, "Jack Sheppard " has been received by the majority 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 our author's imagination. Their appear ance which was (ia periodical instalments) 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, conducted the reader through al most every nook and crevice of the building, 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 adroitly that the Tower was displayed in its three fold capacity . as n a palace, a prison, and a for tress," the principal characters involved in the plot being partly historical and partly fictitious. Promi nent among the incidents of the narrative, is the tragic episode of the Lady Jane Grey—the pathos of whose career was so obviously enhanced by the guilelessness of her meek and fatal usurpation. Hap 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. Maugre the headsman figures u p on the scaffold m o r e th an once, as a sort of Elder Dennis —while the eldritch figure of Xit the dwarf contrasts . as strange ly wi th the jovial giants Og, Gog, and gog as a v i s it or f rom Li ll i put m i g h t h ave done ed hen domesticated in a family from Brobdignag. Guy Fawkes, the other serial already referred • . to indirectly, was originally issued by instalments. a in Bentley's Miscellany"--securing to - it•s writer the sum of 1,5001., end at the same time g rnater' ] increasing his repu tation. Embellished by Cru La iks Y hank, it revealed under an aspect the most picture e ue and more extraordi nary in ins naturea plot m ore d ar i n g h than any of w hich ancient or mcdern hi s t or i ans The punctilious truthf u l ness with which any c ogn i zance . ay cognizance. this intri cate and delicate subject i s h ero treatede by Harrison Ainswcrth, is in the very hi throughout g t entitled to admiration. As his authority e h e s judi ciously cicahly selt, , c.ed the impartial and luminous ann a l s of i Liugard—gracethlly portraying in the character of Viviana Radcliffe the loyalty and devotion of the Catholics. Scanning the vivid record here given of the celebrated Gunpowder Conspiracy, we oars the more readily appreciate the humorous regret of Elia, 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, sceircely 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 End audacious Catesby, of the fervent but fanatical Gar net, and of that "gloomy and supersti tious enthusiast" whom be 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 word a talisman—Toleration. Early in 1841 there began to appear in the " Sunday Times" the successive 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 promised, the splendours of the ancient cathedral. For the work thus published he received 1,0001. from the pro prietors of the newspaper, and thereby appeared lik e ly, for a while, to transplant to this country a school long indigenous , among the writers of France, the school of the " feuitletonistes." Ultimately, when co mpleted, the story was reprinted in three volumes, profusely 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 from Amabel, his daughter, and Leonard Holt, his , apprentice, to Major P illichody and Sir Paul Par ravicin. The grave-digger, Anselin Chowles, and the madman, Soloman Eagle, appear at intervals like the ghostly phantasms of a nightmare—the latter casting a wierd light from the cauldron of b •coals upon burning 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 " Old meritorious among his compositions, Saint Paul's" retains the charm for which Ai nswort h . . as a romancist is at all times remarkable —the charm of a rapid and se quential chain of incidents, combining these the horrid sense of an aver -present d with danger, a . charac teristic in like manner always possessed of fascination. Abuott immediately upon the completion of " Guy Fawlies," Ainsworth ceased, in 1841, to preside over the editorship of " Te e tl ' nee eand in the n et s , iscellany, February of 184' 1 'ehere appeared the initial number of Ainsworth's Magazine. Upwards Of ten yea rs have, since th en , e l apsed dur i ng which the venture has continued to be numbered among t h e catalogue of established eriodieels. Favourably in tro d uc ed to the world under the name of its joint originator, editor, and proprietor, its reception was such as . h . e ar ne u. e . r been accorded so instantaneously to any .v st a in n. l l 3 e p b the lication. Besides, to the foregoing.a tg ? attribut able of this reception was Princi p ally magazine being able to the circumstance cf th e , tale called The !Miser s Daughter, opened with a new d htedly our author's for many many reasons., un charming production, Ainsworth de piece. .11i this coar gnd customs of English society, plated the ma nners ht say, of London society as it ap or rather we cr-gsofourgreat.grandfathers. Ahundred pearedin the 9 2:ed to have elapsed since the period years are SUPp b -- ias, and with its beginning we watch when the tale ,eg . f the vices of the capital upon the hero the influ enc 6 i ,: w interested in observing him pass Raodulph 'lt many temptations. The action 5c action scatheless throng so "a of the p la t - i 3 at first almost equally divided between h i s u nc le's house at Lambeth — where we become ac quainted w ith Abel and Trussell Beech cro f t, t h e former sour but kindly-hearted, the lat t er well-na tured but of lax and worldly principles —and the w iser' —an s desolate dwelling in the Little Sanctuary at :Westminster. Under this rooftree, besides Clinton, a nonentity of a maiden aunt, d Mistress honest, ugly Jacob Post, the miser's servant, reside eu himself (Starve, otherwise called Searve by his neighbours), and the heroine Hilda, his beautiful beloved of Raadu.l- h. Several daughter —the per sonages living immediately opposite 13 of the . contribute largely to the drollery, and sometimes indirectly to the se rious plot of the narritiv.— :spicuous among them, Peter Pokerich the barber perruquier, Deacle the mercer, and his merry little offspring the Fair Thome sine. A. fashionable groups first recognised in St. - Jamey's-park co :tributes several important cha racters to the narra tive—such as Clementine, and her mot her the Lad Brabszon, and the old gallant Si r Singleton Sin y nke and that incom parable pink (or in -carnation) of ex quisites Beau rack- Villiers —not f orgett i ng t h e B eau ' s va let, Mr. C enthorpe Cripps, the nephew of Uncle Abels bu i r t r. Mr. Josiah Jukes, the admirer of phunP. M ra i the e tleship, and consequently as such the rival _o sturdy chandler, Mr. Rathbone. A cluster of Jaco bites. conspirators, including the purple-faced ii, B ulkeley Price and the methodical Sir Norfolk Sa lusbury, infuses into the otherwise domestic fiction the excitement of political adventure. Paramount in Cordwell braa ex influence over these Jacobites, Fir excises a scarcely les powerful command over the destinies of Hilda an d E a ndulph . His machinations t t become, therefore, from. the .. outset as much matter for i tp Frewin are of disgust, or curiosity as those of Philip I as those of Diggs the attorney are of abhorrence. agreeable, however, dogging the mor e than . the footsteps of the latter miscreants, is it to jo in in the select supp er- p arties g i ven by Kitty Conway, the bewitching actress at the little theatre in the Barn a !'" ket. Regarding the work simply in reference to the style of the composition it is impossible not to accord rM:.. ss 7 , Fa~~ .a :se • '; . rith ptv. rOO 3rd' for for 35 45 '2OO ' 105 The ;Doti. be' tffl ecbs • 0 ,46 • f r y e of the e v 145 It