The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-26 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE REPEALER& THREE Vozs. LoNnoN.
1833.

The composition of this tale has evidently
been a labour of love. Lady Blessington (the
fair authoress) as being a stanch anti-repealer,
has thrown her whole soul into the subject, and
struck right and left at the agitators with more
than woman's energy. The tale portrays the
temptations to which a well-intentioned, but
weak-minded young Irish peasant, by name Jim
Cassidy, is subjected in consequence of the plau-
sible declamations of some demagogues who have
made their appearance in his neighbourhood,
and maddened half the community, and his final
conquest over such temptations, through the
instrumentality of his excellent wife, Grace. As
this, however, would scarcely afford materials for
three volumes, Lady Blessington has interwoven
an episode, which gives her the opportunity of
introducing two or three sketches of fashionable
society in London. 'We cannot say these sketches
are an improvement on the tale. They arc, in
fact, a drawback on its interest as a continuous
narrative, being trite, flat, and insipid to a de-
gree. The fair authoress, too, has adopted the
favourite cant of modern novelists, in presenting
us with etchings (in one instance amount-
ing to a full-length) of all the authors
and authoresses, popular or otherwise, with
whom she has mixed in society. This sort of
reciprocal flattery, by which one novelist conci-
liates the good will of another, and exacts a
flattering full-length in return, is a striking
symptom of the decay of a sound, healthy taste
in our imaginative literature. We do not find it
in the works of our elder novelists, all of whom

attained eminence in their day, and will be re-
membered to eternity, without the aid of such
sickening, adventitious puffery. Those who read
the " Repealers " will at once acknowledge the
justice of our hint, and be struck with the adroit

way in which Lady.Blessington has introduced one
or two authors, with the titles of their works, &c.
duly appended, for the sole purpose, as it should
seem, of giving them a lift off the booksellers'
shelves. Of course, when the authors thus
honourably distinguished publish their next
work, Lady Blessington, in return—on the
good old Scotch principle of " claw me, claw
thee," will find herself figuring full-length,
among the dramatis persona'. On such easy
terms, in these days of literary finesse, is literary
fame (or rather notoriety) insured. The best
portions of the " Repeaters" are those which
are laid among the humbler classes in Ire-
land. In the sketches of Jim Cassidy

and his wife Grace, we trace much of
Mrs. Hall's agreeable mannerism in her
" Irish Sketches." But the original, as is
usually the case, is far superior .to the imitation.

Another merit that the " Repealers" possesses,
is a singular ease and sprightliness of dialogue.
It trundles on evenly and smoothly, like a well-
hung phaeton over a Macadamized high-road.
There are no rude jolts, no interruptions, no
sudden stoppages ;—all is light, easy, and
equable. Female novelists are, and ever have
been, remarkable for the felicity of their dia-
logues. They put-a heart and soul into their
most common-place chit-chat, of which men
have no conception. Miss Austin's novels, for
instance, are wholly made up of such gossip,
yet they form some of the most agreeable
reading in the world. We may say the same of
Madame D'Arblay; and so, perhaps, of Miss
Edgeworth, did we not perpetually feel, when
perusing her shrewd, nervous, pithy, and sarcas-
tic dialogues, that she was a man disguised in a
petticoat. We close our hasty notice of this
clever tale with the following extract. It is full

of archness and character, and shows a quick
faculty of minute observation :
" Indeed and I'm sorry for your trouble, Larry, ' an-
swered Grace. I beard, sure: enough, that you lost
your poor woman some time ago, but I thought that as
you hadn't seen her for a long while, maybe you had got
used to living without her. '

" Och ! then, Mistress Cassidy, how can you, who
have a tinder heart, be after saying such a thing to me ?
Sure it's the being such a long 'while without seeinz my
poor Molly, that makes me in all this throuble. If we
had been living dacently and rispectably together, quar-
relling every day, like most other married couples, I m.ght
soon get over my grief, and think, perhaps, her going
before me on the long road was all for the better ; but
it's so long since I parted from the creathure, and she bad
gone so clear aad clans out of my head for en many years,
that now I know she is dead, faith, she comes back into
my mind for all the world as she was whin I first mar-

lied her, and I can't for the life of me dhrive her away.
She is always before me, with her purty coal-brick hair,
her cheeks like two red apples, and her roguish eyes
laughing in her head ; and sure is'nt this enough to break
the heart of me ? If I saw her as she was latterly, sure
I could not have such false notions, for then I'd
know that it was a poor ugly ould woman that
was dead, instead of a sprightly, purty girl ; but
it's all in vain for me to he thiying to remember bow
she looked before I parted from her, when we used to be
fighting and squabbling all day bekase I'd take the dhrop,
and that I used, to think she looked like the north side of
a crab-tree, so sour and contrairy when I came home. No,
faith, Mrs. Cassidy, all this is gone clone out of my mind,
and I'm just grieving my heart out for the clone sprightly
Colleen dhas I was once so fond of, instead of thinkinv of
the poor ould woman that's gone to her long bonte.l Tien
whin I they to comfort myself by rimimbering: the nick-
names and bitter words she used to say to me, I can't
bring one of 'em fresh into my thoughts, but all the loving
words is always coining into my ears."'

LIVES OF CELEBRATED SPANIARDS.
This is d translation,', from the Spanish of
Quintana, by a gentleman whose name is placed
in the title page ; but as he may not like to see
it coupled witb the -observations we are about to
make on his book, and as mentioning it is not
essential to the dischit.ge of, our duty, we shall
forbear inflicting unnecessary pain upon him.
First, with rtspectrth the original Spanish work,
it is written in the woist.taste,-and, we marvel
how the author has managed 'to make an inte-
resting subject stale, flat, , and unprofitable. A
judicious selection of the lives of celebrated a,
Spaniards properly, handled, would not only
ti
have been highly entertaining but, considering a
the general ignorance prevalent in this country I
with respect to the greater part of Spanish
history, would be exceedingly useful. Instead, m
however, of any thing tending to throw light on in
Spanish history, we have miserably meagre lists
of the battles in
,which the hero of the day hap-
pens to be engaged, Imixed up with a few b,
maudlin observations and false views upon the
glories of fighting. The following is a favm,r-
able specimen of the miserable stuff with ‘‘hich

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