The Lord the God of Abraham,

Who parcels out the earth,
Will not forget thy little one,

A prince of noble birth;
And he hath promised that from him

Shall rise a hardy race,
Unconquer'd in the battle field,

Unrivalled in the chase.'

s. Vain dreams of greatness ! mock not thus

An anxious mother's sorrow;
My child, the darling of my hopes,

Will be a corpse to-morrow :
The once great son of Abraham

Now destitute is lying ;
Cold, clammy sweats are on his brow,

My Ishmael is dying.
His soul hung on the lips that press'd

The empty pitcher's brink,
And seemed as passing with the words

"My mother! give me drink.' In vain I tore myself away

To shun his closing eyes ;
Too well I know the imploring look,

That fills them as he dies.
Oh! might my tears but quench his thirst,

Its rage should not last long, For I would weep my life away

Upon his parched tongue.' "Why weepest thou, fond mother?

6

Drink! drink, my child! he lives! he lives!
My Ishmael lives anew;

The brilliant waters are returned

To that dimmed eye of blue.
This desert now shall be my home,

A happy home for me,

Since God still smiles, and I am blest,

My lovely boy, with thee.

Thy heritage the wilderness,

Thy mother's heart thy throne,

Thy kingdom is begun, my child,

And here thou'rt lord alone.'-pp. 127–129.

These Lyrics are followed by A Dream,' in blank verse; Caradoc, a Narrative Poem, in Three Cantos; and Miscellaneous Poems selected from the Author's earlier productions. Considering the circumstances under which these poems have been composed, we cannot but concur in Dr. Southey's judgment passed upon one of the Author's former publications: What Mr. Ragg has accomplished is surprising; an age ago, it would 'have been thought wonderful.'

An intimation in the Preface leads us to blame ourselves for having delayed to recommend the present volume to the notice of our readers. Pecuniary straits, brought on by a long train of "afflictions, have been one great inducement for issuing these smaller productions.' Nottingham surely will not suffer her noble mechanic to struggle unaided with the inevitable results of domestic calamity. We shall rejoice to find that this volume has obtained for Mr. Ragg the support and aid to which the use he has made of his talents so justly entitles him.

Art. IV. 1. Ernest Maltravers. By the Author of Pelham, &c. 3 vols. Saunders and Otley.

2. Alice; or the Mysteries. By the same Author. 3 vols. London: 1838.

OUR

UR admiration of Mr. Bulwer, as a man of genius, is well known; but the reader may rest assured that it exists without any compromise, on our part, of those principles which have, as we believe, the Scriptures of truth for their foundation. We shall deal with the double novel before us, as those who must give an account; using our best endeavours to place the story in substance before us; and then offering some few remarks, with an eye both to the guidance of public opinion, and the private edification of the gifted author. Doctor Johnson describes true

criticism as the beauty of thought formed on the workings of the human heart; a definition, which we always desire to bear in mind, throughout our lucubrations.

The work opens with a graphic representation of what may be witnessed near Bradford or Wolverhampton ;-a blasted common, upon which heaps of ashes and rubbish have extinguished every vestige of the picturesque. A cut-throat, hardened in villany, named Luke Darvil, is then introduced long after night-fall, as counting a handful of ill-gotten gains, and cursing his daughter, a beautiful girl of fifteen. This is Alice,-a character cast in the highest style of originality, although professed to be drawn from actual life; about as much so perhaps as the Bride of Lammermoor, by Sir Walter Scott. A loud knock at the door of their rude hovel announces an applicant, who has lost his way:

The new comer was in the first bloom of youth, eighteen years of agé; and his air and appearance surprised both sire and daughter. Alone on foot, at such an hour, it was impossible for any one to mistake him for other than a gentleman ; yet his dress was plain, and someto what soiled by dust, and he carried a small knapsack on his shoulder.

As he entered, he lifted his hat with something of foreign urbanity, and a profusion of fair brown hair fell partially over a high and com9 manding forehead. His features were handsome, without being emi1 nently so, and his aspect at once bold and prepossessing.'

-Vol. I., This is Ernest Maltravers, the hero of six, or at least three volumes, himself full of sentiment and mysticism, on his return from the University of Gottingen to his friends in a Northern county. Favoured with the choicest gifts of fortune, he is drawn by our author with extraordinary care, as well as candour; and, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, we are persuaded that nine persons out of ten will persist in imagining, that whe

ther conscious of doing so, or otherwise, Mr. Bulwer has blended . pot a little autobiography in the outlines of his composition. Be

the fact as it may, the stranger offers half a guinea to be conducted to the nearest town; but in ascertaining the hour, produces a gold watch, which excites the cupidity of Luke Darvil,

by whom he is invited to stay under his roof, until day-break "shall render the prosecution of a walk more tolerable. The personal charms of Alice, flashing upon the gaze of Maltravers, go far towards supporting such a proposal. Yet, if the bait seem

attractive, the peril is imminent. Darvil plots with one John : Walters the murder and robbery of his guest; whose escape is

like that of Musselmen over their causeway into Paradise, – not wider than the edge of a razor. Alice has conceived an affection for Maltravers, as disinterested as that of the virtuous portion of her sex always is; and she resolves upon his enlargement. The

VOL. Iv.

., pp. 9, 10,

E

ferocious ruffian, before Ernest came, had been in the act of proposing to her a course of prostitution, in the wages of which he was largely to participate; yet strange to say, an incrustation of ignorance, almost amounting to fatuity, had hitherto preserved her mind as well as person from defilement, as the rough and unsightly chrysalis protects the future butterfly. She goes to her parent, and appeals to his fears, on behalf of Maltravers; and when satisfied that her appeal had failed, the poor girl, by filching the key of an outer door which Luke had locked, enables the captive to escape at the risk of her life, and the moral certainty of immediate ill usage. A blow from Darvil fells her to the ground; but early next morning, her own flight ensues, and we find her accidentally overtaking Maltravers, without a plan, and apparently without an idea.

A

His conduct towards her, as his preserver, seems not unnatural. He appears before us as a wild, enthusiastic, odd being, just launched upon the world, with a full purse, rich expectations, and a poetical temperament. Strangeness and eccentricity are the most charming affairs to him imaginable. Without intending any harm, he thought that he would take this lovely girl to live with him as a pupil, not as a mistress. She possessed neither friends nor a home, which could be a real asylum. Her darkness of understanding is such, that she is unconscious of the existence of a God. Her simplicity is such, that the first proposal of waiting upon him comes from herself;-and the very singularity of the arrangement enchants his fantastic philosophy. He would fain educate her therefore,-write fair and heavenly characters upon so blank a page,,-and act the Saint Preux to another Julie of Nature! cottage is accordingly taken, with an old woman to wait upon them; Alice is to be also a nominal servant: with the assistance of a schoolmaster, he teaches her to read, write, and say her prayers: Ernest conceals his real name, and adopts that of Butler: her mind rapidly developes, the faster perhaps from the frost of penury having kept it hitherto in torpor: she advances in her acquirements like a locomotive on a railroad, or a lark ascending in the sky: extraordinary musical powers are called forth through the skill of her instructor;-but the catastrophe, though delayed, is exactly what might be expected. Passion laughs platonism to scorn; and how should it be otherwise? She learns to copy out the poetry of her patron; and meanwhile they live in sin,-as the mass of gay society lives, in the very arms of the wicked one; until a stray newspaper, having communicated to Ernest the dying circumstances of his father, dissolves the talisman of his guilty pleasure, and summons him to that grand test of its worthlessness-a death-bed!

During his absence, Alice, left through thoughtlessness without the means of direct communication with Maltravers, is carried off

by her atrocious parent, Luke Darvil; who, having entered the cottage with intentions of robbery, thus discovers his child, and hurries her away into Ireland. Alas, for poor Alice! When she recovers her senses, the dawn breaks slowly among desolate and heath-covered hills. She has exchanged her bed of down for one of rough straw: the light tilted cart, containing her, jolts over the ruts of a precipitous lonely road; and by her side scowls the face of her dreadful keeper. A protracted journey to the sea-coast conveys her hopelessly from her paramour. Some remarks are here adventured by the novelist on what is called female morality. Alice, he thinks, might have been moulded into criminal pursuits, at the suggestion of the monster who begat her, before she knew Maltravers; but from that hour, he adds, her very error made her virtuous ;—she had compre“hended, the moment she loved, what was meant by the honour

of women; and by a sudden revelation, she had purchased modesty, delicacy of thought, and soul, by that sacrifice of herself! Our opinion is, that such a view of the case must ever be as dangerous, as it is altogether unfounded. When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. It is a much more accurate observation, which also meets us in the second volume, that though man loves the sex, woman loves only the individual; and that the more she loves him, the more cold she is to the species:' yet, even this is only true on the right side of virtue. An exception may possibly occur here or there; but with a rarity demonstrating the soundness of the inspired proposition. We would be amongst the last to utter a harshi word against the weaker, yet indisputably the better portion of our race; only sin must not be allowed to conceal its hideousness under a mistaken speciousness of sentimentalism. Its form and language may be those of an angel: its righteous wages are the worm that never dieth, -the fire that never shall be quenched. Alice is to be plucked as a brand from the burning, -and we rejoice at it: but it is truth, and not error,-a return to the right way, and not a deviation from it - which brings her in ultimate safety through her mysterious ordeal. On again escaping from paternal durance, she feels that she is about to become a mother. 'In a lowly shed, the bitter pangs of child-birth present her with a girl, which with many a weary step, and through hunger, thirst, and cold, she drags to the cottage, where she had sported her short sunshine with Maltravers. It has passed into the hands of strangers; and she is driven from the door.

Ernest in the meantime loses his father; and about three weeks after the night in which Darvil decamped with his daughter, having hastened in a post-chaise to the spot, he discovers his first love gone. He too begins now to reap the harvest of cor