When virtue tramples on patrician pride Who then shall walk more honour'd through the streets Fulvia. Oh, ye gods! And have I loved this man? Is he so all Unlike what I have pictured? At thy feet- Finding that she cannot move him from his purpose, and fearing her own weakness, she proceeds: Away! I guard myself from thee Even as an enemy, for there is now Pollution in thy touch. I leave thee--I [Exit.” Dare trust myself no longer with thee, knowing My woman's nature-lest I make confessions For which I should detest myself hereafter. I leave thee-not for ever! Thy set day Of blood, the saturnals, is not yet come. Once more, I'll see thee, ere I am confirmed In what now shakes my mind to think on: then We'll separate, though this heart burst. I have My part to act-and thou shalt judge, how well. The next drama in our list is Mr. James's " BLANCHE OF NAVARRE." This is an elegantly-written production, full of stirring incident, and including many other features which adapt it admirably for stage representation. It has also another recommendation, as belonging to the romantic rather than the classical department of the art. Finally, it offers ample scope for that display of gorgeous scenery, and all the "pomp and circumstance" of regal splendour, which the caterers to the dramatic taste of the day seem to regard as indispensable to success. So that its accomplished writer may fairly expect, sooner or later, to see it occupy a conspicuous place among our acting plays. "THE LORDS OF ELLINGHAM" is an historical drama, founded on the events known in English history as "Raleigh's conspiracy." It is written with spirit and poetical feeling throughout, and has many scenes that would produce a strong effect in the acting; but as a whole, it has less chance of making its way to the stage than Mr. James's play; though chiefly, as we conceive, from the high reputation of the latter writer. In "THE LANDGRAVE!" by Miss Montagu, is partly founded on a tale by Mr. De Quincy; and the avowed object of the writer in giving the story a dramatic form, has been to fit it for stage representation. this object, we fear, the fair writer has failed-so far, at least, as regards any hope of the drama being produced with success, at one of our national theatres; for, as we have before hinted, such success depends nowadays, less on intrinsic and legitimate desert, than on an adherence to certain conventional rules and arrangements that can scarcely be learned, or even comprehended, outside the walls of a theatre. But, in turning Mr. De Quincy's tale into a drama, Miss Montagu has added to it a large amount of interest, which could not have been connected with 'it by any other means. There is a charm in the mere dramatic arrangement of a story, which nothing else can communicate; and in all respects except that of its adaptation to an artificial taste, the task has been performed in the present instance, with judgment, feeling, and skill. The remaining portion of the volume, comprises four brief but interesting dramatic poems, all of them having for their object, the illustration of female character. TEMPTATION.* THIS is one of the very few exceptions to those ephemeral novels of the day on which the one that immediately follows it acts as the water of oblivion,-wiping it out of the public memory as if it had never been. With less of what is called "talent" than many of the works of a similar nature which have preceded it during the last few yearswith less of that flashy cleverness which is calculated to strike the superficial reader, or the mere searcher after momentary excitement,it is, in fact, a first-rate production in its class, including many rare and sterling qualities, and displaying more thought, observation, and knowledge of human character-more insight into the weaknesses and strengths of the human heart, and more skill in adapting all these to a high and pure moral purpose, than any similar production that has come before us for many a day; and if the object sought to be attained by it cannot be pursued (at all events by the popular path here chosen with a view to gain followers in it) without some degree of danger to the weaker or less wary of those followers, this is no more than the lot of all pursuits which have for their object an end extremely difficult of attainment. This deeply-considered, and carefullyconstructed fiction, seeks to prove and impress the important axiom, that no degree of female virtue, added to no amount of prudence or of moral training, can preserve a woman from the dangers springing from her own passions, under difficult and adverse circumstances;-that the power of religious belief, and the sense of religious responsibility, can alone secure the desired safety, where many circumstances conspire with the weakness of the human heart, and the strength of the human passions, in threatening danger to that vital principle of the female character, on which the very existence of civilized society depends. Now to develop and demonstrate this truth by means of individual details, arising out of an individual case, and to do this in a form which shall secure that attention without which the task might as well remain unperformed, is a dangerous undertaking; and it never was and never will be put in practice, without doing some mischief, and incurring the risk of doing much. But assuredly this is no reason for abandoning the task. The sole question in any given case must be, as it is in this will the amount of probable good overbalance that of the evil? That it does so in the present case, and in a tenfold degree, we * Temptation; or, a Wife's Perils. A Novel. 3 vols. have no hesitation in replying; and that is all that the moral claims of the case demand. The surgeon who probes the wound, or excises the diseased part, not only must give pain, but may do irreparable mischief; and whether he should be trusted to perform his delicate and difficult office, depends on the amount of his individual skill and knowledge. If he is ignorant, or careless, or a bungler, woe betide the patient who falls under his hand. And precisely thus it is with the literary quacks and bunglers of our own or any other day: they cannot by any possibility touch a moral question that involves difficulty, delicacy, and consequent danger, without doing mischief,-always provided (which is happily not always the case) they have the wit to obtain patients on whom to practice their nostrums. But with the gifted and accomplished intellectual physician, the evil is the exception, the good the rule of his efforts :-and such is eminently the case in the beautiful and admirable tale before us. It depicts in colours, and under forms, the most touching and the most true, the "perils" of a young, pure, and lovely wife, who has in early youth been entrapped into a marriage with a man she cannot love-cannot even respect-can scarcely avoid at once fearing and despising;-yet thrown daily and hourly into the presence and society of another man, who is in all respects adapted to make her happy as a companion-who is the soul of honour and generosity-and who loves her to distraction, and consequently cannot avoid showing his love, and suspecting, if not perceiving hers for him. Fancy a lover placed under these "temptations," with no better guard or guide than his "honour;" and a wife subjected to these "perils" with no stronger safeguard than her innate modesty, and her sense of cold " duty," and still colder " propriety;" and then judge of the danger and difficulty of the task which the writer of "TEMPTATION" has set herself;-judge further of the consummate skill she has applied to it, when we state that, while avoiding nearly all the dangers which beset her, she has presented us with not only one of the finest and most effective moral lessons that was ever penned, but one of the most entertaining fictions that this era of entertaining fictions has produced. THE LION.* If this novel does not exactly answer to the title it assumes, it does something much better. Indeed had it so answered, it would scarcely have demanded more than a few words of passing notice at our hands. "A Tale of the Coteries" must be at best an ephemeral affair, losing its interest with the ever-changing theme, which gave it birth. But the novel before us has higher objects, and it to a certain extent attains them. In fact the leading subject of the story (the history of " a literary genius"), is admirably chosen, and nothing, we imagine, but the extreme difficulty of treating it could have allowed it so long to remain The Lion: a Tale of the Coteries. 3 vols. untouched, except in slight essays and passing paragraphs. Moreover, the writer, whoever he may be, who has here taken it up, is evidently well qualified for the task, in many, and those the most important particulars; but in others he falls short, and in some he entirely fails. Among the latter is the conduct of the story. In fact the thread of fiction on which our author strings his scenes, characters, and reflections, is a very feeble, and what is worse, a very tangled one, and in spinning it out to the required three volume length, he has evidently grown tired, and slumbered over his task, long before it reached its completion;-so that the latter part of it in particular is full of knots and flaws, that either stop the consecutive interest abruptly, or allow it to break down altogether. This is the main defect of the work in its "Novel" character; having got over which, and the somewhat too farcical and extravagant manner in which some of the satirical scenes are worked out, and the minor and merely incidental characters depicted, the remainder of our task is one of unmixed commendationwhich, if our space allowed of much detail, would often attain a high pitch. The early part of the work in particular contains many passages that would not belie the reputation of our best writers of philosophic fiction, and they prove the author to be fully qualified, both by nature and by acquirement, to fulfil the difficult task he has set himself, of depicting the early struggles which ever attend the development of that gift, whether for good or evil, which fixes on its possessor the name of a genius." We must believe, however, that the present writer uses that phrase rather in its equivocal and half satirical sense, than in that which we attach to it when speaking of the highest and purest order of the human intellect: for the latter not only never made a man the denizen of a coterie, even though he were its head-it never yet allowed him to remain such for a single season," however circumstances may have momentarily forced upon him such an utterly "false position." In short, our "Lion" of the coteries is not of the true leonine species, lord of the desert and the jungle-monarch of the primeval forest-but rather of that equivocal kind which the natives of its habitat are able to subdue to their will, and make the medium of running down other animals nobler than itself, if not so strong or so swift of foot. Our "genius" of the coteries, so far from being of the Shakspearian or the Miltonic order, has not even the savage grandeur of a Byron, or the reckless but proud spirit of a Burns; he is in truth little better (or worse) than a clever would-be (and if he lives will be) man of the world, who can think, talk, and write cleverly on any given topic, and who has just enough of the divine afflatus within him to make him dissatisfied with himself and all the world, without being able to better or benefit either. He has the temperament of genius, but not the stamina of it; the aspirations which point and lead to greatness, but not the powers which can alone change those aspirations into acts. His intellectual character is a sort of parody on that of Macbeth ;—he is "Not without ambition, But without the goodness should attend it. What he would highly, that would he easily"— He would fain play a great game, but will not risk a great stake. In short, our "Lion" wants to be a man of genius, a man of the world, and a man of the coteries, at one and the same time :-a consummation as little to be attained as to be wished. We are not able very exactly to perceive whether our author intends his sketch of Brandon as a satire or a homily: perhaps a blending of both. What is certain is that, so far as his principal character is concerned, the work may be read with no less amusement than instruction; and if, in all the rest of the characters, and the scenes in which they are engaged, we meet but little of the latter, the former abounds, and thus brings the work within that popular category at which probably it chiefly aims;-for it is evidently written in an off-hand, dashing, and careless manner, so as rather to bespeak than to exercise the very considerable and varied powers which the writer unquestionably possesses. The style of these clever volumes is evidently that of a cultivated and practised hand; the thoughts are those of a man who has passed much of his life in thinking; and (we must repeat) the work altogether indicates much higher powers than have been exercised in the production of it. NOTES ON NEW PUBLICATIONS. Anecdotes and Traditions, illustrative of early English History and Literature. Edited by W.J.Thoms, Esq., F.S.A.-This small quarto volume is one of the publications emanating from the Camden Society,-an infant institution of laudable purpose, and fair promise-a combination to effect what no individual enterprise could be expected to accomplish, viz., to rescue from neglect all that is most curious and valuable in the way of early historical and literary remains. In the present volume, Mr. Thoms has brought to the light of day many curious things deserving note for their connexion with old usage, or for their continued influence over that of our own time; while the parallels and other explanatory aids, which his ingenuity and research have enabled him to give along with his text, will be found not a little conducive to the entertainment and profit derivable from the work. Ianthe. By Nugent Taylor.-A poem which, though smoothly written, and not without some graceful and pleasing fancies, is so broken into fragments, and is so entirely "of imagination all compact," that it will scarcely be intelligible beyond the limited number for whose gratification it was probably written. The Outlaw. By R. Story.-As this is not a time to discourage poetical attempts, however they may fall short of the writer's high design, we shall not note in detail the errors of this drama, but say that it is not without merit, and will doubtless excite considerable interest in the localities in which its scenes are laid. The story belongs to the times of chivalry, and includes several pleasing lyrical compositions. Illustrated Edition of Gray's Elegy.-This elegant little volume may be looked on, we imagine, rather as a tribute to the still-increasing fame of Gray, than as a speculation with a view to pecuniary profit; and as such we receive and commend it to public favour. Its pictorial illustrations are pretty and appropriate; but many of them fall considerably short of the high point of excellence which the art has attained in the present day. In fact, the best "illustrations" of this charming poem are, the various foreign versions of it which accompany the present edition. These, while they prove the extended fame of the poem, afford a curious and interesting study with reference to the genius of the language in which each is couched. With the exception perhaps of the Greek version, by Cooke, it is curious to observe how totally inadequate all the others are to convey a just idea of the original poem. The Miser's Daughter; a Comedy; and other Poems. By John Purchas.-This volume is distinguished by being the most bulky attempt of its kind that we remember; we are not able to add that it is the most brilliant. Still it is very far from achieving the opposite extreme. The Rugby boy of seventeen-for such the author describes himself-has made pretty nearly as creditable a commencement to his |