illusion, and break the above-mentioned compact between the author and his reader.

Melmoth, like all the works of this author, wants originality. It frequently and fatally reminds the reader of St. Leon; and is a compound of the legend of the Wandering Jew, and the Vampyre.

Melmoth, the hero of the book, has sacrificed his hopes of salvation for the possession of a protracted term of life. This scarcely human being wanders over the face of the earth, scattering desolation in his path, and endeavouring to tempt some victim to accept the dreadful boon under which he writhes. His machinations are described in different tales, linked, or rather thrown together, in most admired disorder. The story of the family of Walberg is, perhaps, the best; exhibiting some strong and vivid description. The Walberg family are supported in affluence by a wealthy brother, who, however, refuses to see his sister or her children, but promises to bequeath to them the whole of his property. They enjoy some years of happiness, when the brother who supported them, dies suddenly; and on opening the will it is found, that to the church is left the wealth which had fed the hopes of his relations. They are thus instantly reduced from affluence to poverty, and at length to absolute beggary and famine. It is in these scenes of horror that the author seems to delight, and describe with the pen of a lover.

"Hush," said Walberg, interrupting her-" what sound was that? was it not like a dying groan ?"-" No-it is the children, who moan in their sleep."-" What do they moan for?" "Hunger, I believe," said Ines, involuntarily yielding to the dreadful conviction of habitual misery." And I sit and hear this," said Walberg, starting up,-"I sit to hear their young sleep broken by dreams of hunger, while for a word's speaking I could pile this floor with mountains of gold, and all for the risk of". "Of what ?"

said Ines, clinging to him," of what?-Oh! think of that!what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?-Oh! let us starve, die, rot before your eyes, rather than you should seal your perdition by that horrible"- -"Hear me, woman!" said Walberg, turning on her eyes almost as fierce and lustrous as those of Melmoth, and whose light, indeed, seemed borrowed from his; "Hear me ! My soul is lost! They who die in the agonies of famine know no God, and want none-if I remain here to famish among my children, I shall as surely blaspheme the Author of my being, as I shall renounce him under the fearful conditions proposed to me !-Listen to me, Ines, and tremble not. To see my children die of famine will be to me instant suicide and impenitent despair! But if I close with this fearful offer, I may yet repent,-I may yet escape !There is hope on one side-on the other there is none-none

none! Your hands cling round me, but their touch is cold!-You are wasted to a shadow with want! Show me the means of procuring another meal, and I will spit at the tempter, and spurn him !— But where is that to be found ?-Let me go, then, to meet him!— You will pray for me, Ines,-will you not?-and the children ?No, let them not pray for me!-in my despair I forgot to pray for myself, and their prayers would now be a reproach to me.-Ines ! -Ines !-What? am I talking to a corse?" He was indeed, for the wretched wife had sunk at his feet senseless. "Thank God!" he again emphatically exclaimed, as he beheld her lie to all appearance lifeless before him. "Thank God, a word then has killed her,-it was a gentler death than famine! It would have been kind to have strangled her with these hands! Now for the children!" he exclaimed, while horrid thoughts chased each other over his reeling and unseated mind, and he imagined he heard the roar of a sea in its full strength thundering in his ears, and saw ten thousand waves dashing at his feet, and every wave of blood.'

There are many absurdities in this story, although it evinces considerable power. The aged and infirm grandmother, who rises in her agony from her chair, and paces the chamber with supernatural strength, too glaringly reminds us of the awful Elspeth, in the Antiquary; and the idea of Everhard selling his blood to a surgeon for the support of his father and family, is not only wretched taste but ludicrous. It was certainly a blundering way to procure a living. There would be great beauty in the story of Immalee, if it was not so overloaded with ornament. We sicken with the eternal perfume of flowers, the never setting glare of the moon; and though there are many natural touches, they are so dwelt upon, that they lose all their simplicity in the author's hands. Indeed, Mr. Maturin's taste is very gaudy; his descriptions of nature are disfigured by meretricious ornament; and the only scene of happiness in the whole work-that of the Walbergs before their ruin-is utterly spoiled by affectation of simplicity. The tale of the lovers is more to our taste than the preceding ones, though there is little genius displayed either in the narrative or plot. There is an old English stateliness about some parts, which is pleasing, but others again are feeble, and it concludes, a la Maturin, in misery.

But we have not noticed the most horrible of these loathsome narratives the story of Moncada. This is a tissue of horrors, without sublimity; terrors which excite no sympathy; and sufferings for which we feel nothing but disgust. When we first beheld the print of Reynolds' Ugolino, we felt not only horror, but displeasure; but when we examined it attentively, observed the perfect execution and exquisite keeping of the picture, we forgave the artist's bad taste in selecting such a subject, and forgot the deformity of the piece-in admiration of the genius which

it displayed. But in this author's representations of famine, madness, poverty, and the long list of ills which flesh is heir to, there is no redeeming sublimity. When we have once looked on them, we do not willingly turn to examine them again. We will give a specimen of this kind of writing. The following tale is related in a dungeon-by a parricide-who was engaged to assist in the escape of two lovers from the walls of a convent.

"They were conducted here," he continued, "I had suggested the plan, and the Superior consented to it. He would not be present, but his dumb nod was enough. I was the conductor of their (intended) escape; they believed they were departing with the connivance of the Superior. I led them through those very passages that you and I have trod. I had a map of this subterranean region, but my blood ran cold as I traversed it; and it was not at all inclined to resume its usual temperament, as I felt what was to be the destination of my attendants. Once I turned the lamp, on pretence of trimming it, to catch a glimpse of the devoted wretches. They were embracing each other, the light of joy trembled in their eyes. They were whispering to each other hopes of liberation and happiness, and blending my name in the interval they could spare from their prayers for each other. That sight extinguished the last remains of compunction with which my horrible task had inspired me. They dared to be happy in the sight of one who must be for ever miserable,-could there be a greater insult? I resolved to punish it on the spot. This very apartment was near,-I knew it, and the map of their wanderings no longer trembled in my hand. I urged them to enter this recess, (the door was then entire,) while I went to examine the passage. They entered it, thanking me for my precaution, they knew not they were never to quit it alive. But what were their lives for the agony their happiness cost me? The moment they were enclosed, and clasping each other, (a sight that made me grind my teeth,) I closed and locked the door. This movement gave them no immediate uneasiness,—they thought it a friendly precaution. The moment they were secured, I hastened to the Superior, who was on fire at the insult offered to the sanctity of his convent, and still more to the purity of his penetration, on which the worthy Superior piqued himself as much as if it had ever been possible for him to acquire the smallest share of it. He descended with me to the passage,-the monks followed with eyes on fire. In the agitation of their rage, it was with difficulty they could discover the door after I had repeatedly pointed it out to them. The Superior, with his own hands, drove several nails, which the monks eagerly supplied, into the door, that effectually joined it to the staple, never to be disjoined; and every blow he gave, doubtless he felt as if it was a reminiscence to the accusing angel, to strike out a sin from the catalogue of his accusations. The work was soon done,— the work never to be undone. At the first sound of steps in the passage, and blows on the door, the victims uttered a shriek of ter

ror. They imagined they were detected, and that an incensed party of monks were breaking open the door. These terrors were soon exchanged for others, and worse, as they heard the door nailed up, and listened to our departing steps. They uttered another shriek, but O how different was the accent of its despair!—they knew their doom.

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It was my penance (no,-my delight) to watch at the door, under the pretence of precluding the possibility of their escape; (of which they knew there was no possibility ;) but, in reality, not only to inflict on me the indignity of being the convent gaoler, but of teaching me that callosity of heart, and induration of nerve, and stubbornness of eye, and apathy of ear, that were best suited to my office. But they might have saved themselves the trouble,-I had them all before ever I entered the convent. Had I been the Superior of the community, I should have undertaken the office of watching the door. You will call this cruelty-l call it curiosity,-that curiosity that brings thousands to witness a tragedy, and makes the most delicate female feast on groans and agonies. I had an advantage over them,-the groan, the agony I feasted on, were real. I took my station at the door-that door which, like that of Dante's hell, might have borne the inscription, "Here is no hope,"-with a face of mock penitence, and genuine, cordial delectation. I could hear every word that transpired. For the first hours, they tried to comfort each other, they suggested to each other hopes of liberation,-and as my shadow, crossing the threshold, darkened or restored the light, they said "That is he ;"then, when this occurred repeatedly, without any effect, they said, “No, no, it is not he," and swallowed down the sick sob of despair, to hide it from each other. Towards night a monk came to take my place, and to offer me food. I would not have quitted my place for worlds; but I talked to the monk in his own language, and told him I would make a merit with God of my sacrifices, and was resolved to remain there all night, with the permission of the Superior. The monk was glad of having a substitute on such easy terms, and I was glad of the food he left me, for I was hungry now, but I reserved the appetite of my soul for richer luxuries. I heard them talking within. While I was eating, I actually lived on the famine that was devouring them, but of which they did not dare to say a word to each other. They debated, deliberated, and, as misery grows ingenious in its own defence, they at last assured each other that it was impossible the Superior had locked them in there to perish by hunger. At these words I could not help laughing. This laugh reached their ears, and they became silent in a moment. All that night, however, I heard their groans,-those groans of physical suffering, that laugh to scorn all the sentimental sighs that are exhaled from the hearts of the most intoxicated lovers that ever breathed. I heard them all that night. I had read French romances, and all their unimaginable nonsense. Madame Sevigne herself says she would have been tired of her daughter in a long tete-a-tete journey, but clap me two lovers in a dungeon, without food, light, or hope, and I will be damned VOL. II.

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(that I am already, by the by) if they do not grow sick of each other within the first twelve hours. The second day, hunger and darkness had their usual influence. They shrieked for liberation, and knocked loud and long at their dungeon door. They exclaimed they were ready to submit to any punishment; and the approach of the monks, which they would have dreaded so much the preceding night, they now solicited on their knees. What a jest, after all, are the most awful vicissitudes of human life!-they supplicated now for what they would have sacrificed their souls to avert four-andtwenty hours before. Then the agony of hunger increased; they shrunk from the door, and grovelled apart from each other. Apart! -how I watched that. They were rapidly becoming objects of - hostility to each other,-ob, what a feast to me! They could not disguise from each other the revolting circumstances of their mutual sufferings. It is one thing for lovers to sit down to a feast magnificently spread, and another for lovers to couch in darkness and famine, to exchange that appetite which cannot be supported without dainties and flattery, for that which would barter a descended Venus for a morsel of food. The second night they raved and groaned, (as occurred ;) and, amid their agonies, (1 must do justice to women, whom I hate as well as men,) the man often accused the female as the cause of all his sufferings, but the woman never, never reproached him. Her groans might indeed have reproached him bitterly, but she never uttered a word that could have caused him pain. There was a change which I well could mark, however, in their physical feelings. The first day they clung together, and every movement I felt was like that of one person. The next, the man alone struggled, and the woman moaned in helplessness. The third night-how shall I tell it ?-but you have bid me go on. All the horrible and loathsome excruciations of famine had been undergone ; the disunion of every tie of the heart, of passion, of nature, had commenced. In the agonies of their famished sickness they loathed each other, they could have cursed each other, if they had had breath to curse. It was on the fourth night that I heard the shriek of the wretched female,-her lover, in the agony of hunger, had fastened his teeth in her shoulder ;-that bosom on which he had so often luxuriated, became a meal to him now."

As if this were not enough, he proceeds to relate that, when all was over, in removing the bodies of his victims, he discovered that the female was his own sister.

The description of manners in England is very happy,-and causes us to regret that an author should be so wedded to gloomy colouring, whose brighter tints are so pleasing. The representation of an infuriated mob, is forcible; but, with the recollection of Porteus' mob, as portrayed by the author of Waverley, upon our minds, we can give it no higher praise. The scene which follows, in the death of their victim, is loathsome in the extreme. --Melmoth concludes in worse style than it commenced. The