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

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
eine 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 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 " 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 dedicated 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 York 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 bells 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 Rookwood' that our author first gave public evi-
dence of his plastic and melodious capecity as a lyrist.
To the judicious recommendation of Charles Oilier,
himself favourably known as the writer of " Ferrers,"
we are 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 which, 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 juniper, ,
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
hof " Tom 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
sense of the huin
of the beautiful. His delineation
subtle 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
great Marigold, or . circular,
f '
e o its ined
which, although,
a
tai ningeetiree bed des(
(Book 111., ch. stained
ia glass
bl.) as still re.
zonries, be des-nince the skeleton leaf, its fibrous in-
tricacies,
Occasionally he contrived also in his first
"
tzti 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 Alan 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
Ainsworthse comp
it is seldom starred by a wit-
or grotesque
.term from natural philosophy—it
ticism. Borrowing a
is rather amorphous than crystalline. The pecuniary
gained by our author from this
advantage, if anhsal
venture,
might be numbered, we
eminently successful
believe, among those
facts which constitute not the
least remarkable among the Curiosities of Literature.
After two or three editions had followed each other
.4 Rookwood appeared anew in
is rapid succession,
1836, embellished .by the inimitable etchings of
George Cruileshan
k. Yropularity had been secured to
his name by the young
novelist—it now recited with
consolidated
him whether that popularity was to be
into a reputation.
Encouraged
the reception accorded to his
" maiden romance, V
b-,, Ainsworth in 1837 produced
Crichton—having
selected as the hero of his historical
fiction that wonderful man whose name the whole
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—presenting, as the story
does to the mind or 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 Pardon
Dodge, the Yankee pedlar, as well as in those of the
" horse-thief" Roaring Ralph Stackpole. One
circumstance, however, is altogether beyond
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 of 18:39 in
" Bentley's Miscellany," at that period still din
_t
aC.I.
by the illustrious writer who bad ushered theon ag
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 aiosst.
Until the conclusion of thebs 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, rthitremained in the
; 4405w0.
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 have appeared as though the narrative had
become essentially changed when illustrated by 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
feloTly, through the idealization of
a housebreaker. Jt Seemed to he 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
that
.412„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 the 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 in 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 iiiapa e of being long
ofinfluenced community
cedbyt
the noisiest
iesntoolf h bie common sense
h
After
ctfteese pretended apostles
otefheVeeidrtuionusohlendtgeneaettioe their Indignation.
.
rbeing
for a while
clamour, the romance
continued gradually to extend th e limits of its popu-
larity : and now, having beTAtranslated into German
aunpdensctahteteerteedgewiedfelythtehrAoudgel
him.erica, it re-appears
in the well-known
version dramatised by Bucksfone
nteitr.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 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 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 Abraham 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 pencilled
be commended as we woulddisco
bmiuend Blake, betray-
yenergy
ing as every evil the (morbid lineament 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 Kettleby,
Mint, or, as the locality was sometimes 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, " the Napoleon of
knavery:• In spite of all his brutality, one cannot
help entertaining a " sneaking kindness" for poor
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, at all
times charming, is perhaps the most so on her first
appearance, where the author exclaims (Epoch IL ch.
vi.) " Beautiful is the girl of twelve," reminding us
kwo
of that simple but exquisite query of the Ettrik
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 Sheppard"
the interest of the romance attains its
account of the famous ride to York, between
the
it interestreaches
her, Unitaiel
of inten-
eaidvatyne with
from
s one
escape a perceptiblet increase
ano
,
its climax in the last—of all th
berotke,out of
it is of all the most celebrated.emost wonderful, es
isita.vGinifeeosbßzeoruvnedd
how Jack successively
Prison at Clerkenwewlfe,Willesden out of the New
House, out of the Ca
adventure
more
than withusu tatini
usually
tetxetnrtaooynd
llold in anda out of the Condempesd.
Newgate, arrivei at the record of hisle
prepared for recitalsome.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
,"Ivr*el.
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 ParaTation of the re-
in the mind of the reader an 51)Prec
. The anxiety for his
sources of the prison-breaker
enhanced, when he
subsequent success becomes tened supper at
coolly strolls into theoro,eo,,sly apparelled in
Kneebone's, himself " period, followed by his
the costume of • 4'B_l
-accompanied by Edge-
lieutenant Blueskuseta.
i negligee, and by Poll Mag-
habit—the carousal being
a eefr.
dildhl yag. Jonathan, Jack, mope heavily
worth Bess ibnlue
got :in a, , with 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 final 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
the 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, through
room, along a passage,
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 is the distressing 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
an fool's paper," and to Jack's mother that
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." About the drollest sentence in the
narrative is humourous principally
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, 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-
folthedcapacitpyrinacsipal a palace, a prison, and a for-
tress,"characters involved in the plot
being partly historical and partly fictitious. Promi-
ntreangticamepoinsodgte of theheinci Ladydents of the narrative, is the
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. 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 fromfe i 1 Ifirpeumt might
Brobdignag.have G
doneuy
when
Fawkes, the other serial alreaydy referred toindirectly,
was originally issued by instalments in" Bentley's
Miscellany"—securing to its writer the sum of 1,5004
tation. Embellished by Cruiksy i
h ncreasing his repu-
in
its
naturean than k, it revealed under
an aspect the most picturesque—
a
and at the same time
yistorians
plot more daring
a
nira
en
eygonfi
zwahnieceh
.
withe ewe
treated which
highest tlihriosudg h o ut
ancientncl more
erexintreadoredrninarh
have
Theintri-
cate punctilious t idelicate
truthfulness
subjectis
hr
by Harrison Ainsworth, is in the very
entitled to admiration. As his authority he
je-ugrdeie
ciously selected the impartial and luminous annals- of
tlhoeyavltiyvidanrdeeedredvotion here of
fi
Lingard—gracefully portraying in the character of
the
Catof the celebrated Gunpowder Conspiracy, we can the
hiaenliace. Raelscelainffnein thge
more readily appreciate the humorous regret of Ella,
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 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 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
from 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 Eagleeappea 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 danger, 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 " Bentley's Miscellany," and in
February of 1842 there appeared the initial numbere
of Ainsworth's Magazine. Upwards of ten years
have, since then, elapsed during which
cataloguetheventure
of
has continued to be numbered among
established periodicals: Favourably introduced to the
originator, editor,
world under the name of its jointoorhg
as
the
had never
and proprietor, its reception was such
been accorded so iostantaneoousegYoing advantage, the
l to any similar pub-
lication. Besides, to the foregoing
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 charming production, Ainsworth de-
piece. customs of English society,
pitted the-ln Intha-ns;elihrastr,a,nyd, of London society as it ap:
or rather
migsofourgreat-grandfathers. Ahund!e4
have elapsed since the period
pearediutvvheedeY
years are supposed
I begins, and with its beginning we watch
to
when the ta
n eof the vices of the capital upon the hero
the infl"cee; ye, interested in observing him pass
R dug," -retemptations. The action
—scaatubelfss through so many
plot is at first almost equally divided between
of the
his uncle..
.s house at Lambeth—where we become 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
miser'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 narrative—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 anis
racters to the narrative—such as Clementi_nnd
and her mother the Lady Brabazorkac:_.
the old gallant Sir Singleton Spinke and th;teer incom-
parable parable pink (or iu.carnation) of eviu,i7r. 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 Jac°.
sturdy chaedler, Mr. Rathbone. Ptihuen)Prival of the
; he -faced Sir
bite conspirators, including
methodical Sir Norfolk Sa-
Bulkcley, Price and the neetti,erw-se
i domestic fiction
purple
lusburs, infuses into
the
ei
°adventure. Paramount in
the excitement o'-'
.Jacobites,polivca
Cordwell Firebras ex-
influence over these powerful command over the
ercises a scarcely lessad taedulph. His machinations
destinies of Hilda
and
the outset as much matter for
become, therefore, from
.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
Inoroef the latter miscreants, is it to join ill
the footsteps the
r- arties given by Kitty Conwsh
the select supper-parties
pat the little theatre in the liar:Der'
bewitching actress. the
in
.reference to the
ket. Regarding work simply
13_,toaccord
style of the composition it is impossible Q‘