which the tale may be said to commence. There are three distinct mises-en-scène in the three first chapters; the fourth and fifth introduce fresh characters with scarcely less abruptness, though the imagination begins to supply some of the gaps in the narrative; and when the threefold, or rather manifold, cord is eventually woven into one, which is not the case till the middle of the first volume, it requires a strong effort to combine the fragmentary sketches which have been placed before us into a consistent picture of family history. Not that we by any means disapprove of the style of narration which plunges at once in medias res. It is intended to be, and, if well done, it is, the nearest approach to an actual representation of the scene described; and it certainly saves many a listless reader from throwing down a book in disgust at the prolixity and probable silliness of the introductory chapters.

We confess to having a strong horror of being dragged through the birth, parentage, and education of heroes and heroines, but the " disjecta membra" of "Cleve Hall" seem to give evidence of being too designedly detached, and leave that most painful impression upon the mind of affected simplicity and laboured ease. The plot itself we cannot consider natural, though from what we have said of its intricate nature, we shall not be expected to enter into it at length. On our part it would be a useless labour, and we are very far from wishing to deter persons from reading the book for themselves, assured that notwithstanding the defects referred to they will find much both to amuse and instruct in the interesting scenes and life-like delineations of character, which are always to be found in the writings of this authoress.

We are

And thus recommending the work generally we feel at liberty to criticise some of its details with entire freedom. glad to miss the ever-recurring "sermonisings," which we found fault with in " Katharine Ashton;" we then entreated Miss Sewell to allow the facts she so well describes to speak for themselves, without constantly moralising thereon. Now the incidents of "Cleve Hall" do speak plainly for themselves, too plainly; but we doubt whether they can be said to speak the truth. We regard them as highly improbable. As for the thrilling melo-dramatic denouement, it is positively vulgar! Granting the (to us) incon ceivable circumstances which have gone before, the long estrange-ment of Edward Vivian and his children from his father, Mr. Vivian's comparatively long stay in Cleve, without becoming known to his family, and above all the mysterious kidnapping, for it is nothing else, of Clement; we do think that Captain Vivian might have been sent beyond the seas quite as satisfactorily as he was, and that the necessary confession might have been wrung from the coward villain by his noble-hearted boy, without having recourse to cliffs, and caves, smugglers, rum-puncheons, and preventive officers, with the inevitable powder-and-shot, and sword wounds, to which we are introduced, with the view, we suppose, of enhanc

ing the admonition to young gentlemen of restless dispositions and weak principles, who may in the days to come be tempted to do the like again. If any, haply, are so tempted may they be preserved from Aunt Bertha, a character who is the very genius of order, punctuality, and self-control, and who in the combined influence of these virtues, executed with military precision, imparts an air of aggravating discomfort to the family circle in which she moves quite sufficient to accomplish the eccentricities of its junior members, at which the reader is evidently expected to hold up his hands in pitying wonder. This notable female seems intended for the moral heroine of the book, but we are quite sure that Miss Sewell intends to exhibit her faults, which though few are grave, quite as unreservedly as her virtues, which are many and important. So prominent, however, is the position assigned to her, that we have heard it maintained that she is really intended for a pattern character. Equally unpleasant and more unnatural, is the abandoned villainy of John Vivian. Miss Sewell evidently draws her good characters more or less from the life, her bad ones from imagination. We doubt if the world deserves the compliment which the fact implies. To depict ordinary immorality, we speak particularly of dishonesty and profanity, in its true colours, would surely be more practically useful. The clergyman, Mr. Lester, who plays a prominent part, is of the type of learning combined with simplicity and unaffected piety, which is always to be found in the now long list of Miss Sewell's tales. For his daughter Rachel an interesting but exaggerated character, and Arnold Vivian, the finest character in the book, we must finally refer our readers to the authoress's own pen.

The following is one of those life-like domestic sketches in the painting of which Miss Sewell has no superior:—

"Ella certainly exerted herself more when left to herself. It seemed as if a perverse feeling made her determined upon showing herself more indolent in proportion as Bertha was energetic. She drew her chair closer to the table, finished hearing Fanny's lesson, then made her go back to her copy, and bade Louisa bring her French History. That lesson was pleasant enough. Ella liked being read to, and she was very fond of history, and had a marvellous memory for dates.

“I have finished the ten pages,' said Louisa, as she came to the conclusion of a chapter.

"Never mind, go on; you must hear about Henri Quatre.'

"Louisa glanced at the clock. It is a quarter to one, Ella, and it is my music lesson day.'

"Ella's sigh might have been that of a martyr.

"I shall give you your lesson in the evening, go on now.'

"And shall I say the questions in the evening?'

"We will see: go on."

"Louisa was not fond of history, and cared but little for Henri Quatre; and she was provoked at having all her time occupied and so

much added to her lesson hours. She read very badly, and Ella was impatient, and, striking the table in irritation, shook Fanny's hand, and made her blot an exercise which she had begun; the copy having long since been brought to an end, and put aside with scarcely a glance or an observation. Fanny burst into tears. She was a very untidy writer, and her exercise books were proverbially slovenly, and Bertha had lately endeavoured to stimulate her to carefulness by the promise of a reward whenever six exercises should be written without a blot.

"You shouldn't cry, Fanny,' said Louisa; 'you will make your eyes red, and then you won't be fit to be seen.'

"And it is so silly, too,' said Ella; 'crying about nothing! what does it signify? Take it up with your blotting paper, and it will all be right.'

"She returned again to Henri Quatre, and left Fanny to mourn in lonely sorrow over the loss of her anticipated present; for Aunt Bertha had no mercy upon excuses. The blot was there, that was enough. There would be no question of how it came.

"The clock struck one. 'I should have just time for my music lesson,' said Louisa, imploringly.

"What? yes!' Ella was still dreaming over the history.

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Louisa, hasn't Aunt Bertha got the Henriade? Just go and fetch it, there's a good child.'

"The what, Ella?'

"The Henriade, Voltaire's Henriade; don't you know?'

"Louisa walked slowly out of the room, and came back with a message that Aunt Bertha was engaged, and couldn't attend to any thing of the kind at present. Ella did not seem quite to hear. Louisa went to the piano, opened it, and put up her music book.

"Louisa, it won't take you a minute; just run across the garden up to the Rectory. Mr. Lester has the Henriade. I am nearly sure I saw it in his study the other day. He will let me have it.'

"Louisa looked excessively discomposed, and did not move. "Go, child, go,' said Ella.

"Shall I go?' asked Fanny. She was very tired of lessons, and much enjoyed the thought of a run across the turf.

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Where is the

Yes; only you don't understand. There, give me a piece of paper and a pencil; not that one, that is a slate pencil. one you were drawing with last night?'

"I don't know; I left it on the table.

put away the things.'

Louisa, it was your turn to

"Oh, Fanny, indeed, if you remember, I took two days together, because you had a headache.'

"That was a week ago,' said Fanny, fretfully; it was your turn I am sure.'

"Never mind whose turn it was,' exclaimed Ella: 'only fetch me a pencil.'

"I don't know where to find one,' said Fanny.

"Not know where to find a pencil? Why there are hundreds in the house. Louisa, give me one of your drawing pencils.'

"Aunt Bertha said I was not to lend them,' said Louisa.

"Ella's colour rose. 'I can't trouble myself about that. I must

have one.'

"Louisa had evidently no intention of obeying. She sat playing with the leaves of the music-book, her face resolutely directed away. Ella took up a pen, and began to write with it instead.

“There, Fanny,' and she tossed the note to the child, who ran off with it. Ella was too much annoyed with Louisa to take any notice of her; and the practising was begun and continued, whilst Ella sat at the table drawing mathematical figures on a sheet of note paper.

"That is the first dinner bell,' said Louisa, and she jumped down from her seat, and shut up the piano.

"No answer.

"Fanny will be late,' she continued; she won't hear the bell.' "She has plenty of time,' replied Ella, coldly.

"Grandmamma will be angry,' persisted Louisa.

"You had better go and get ready yourself, Louisa,' said Ella. "I must put the room tidy first,' was the answer; and Louisa, with the most determined spirit of neatness and provokingness, not only moved away every thing which belonged to herself and to Fanny, but also divers little articles of property appertaining to Ella. Fanny will be late,' she repeated, as she hastened out of the room, leaving Ella nothing to distract her eye from the contemplation of the tables and chairs, except the sheet of note paper on which she was scribbling.

"The second dinner bell rang, and Ella was not ready, and Fanny was still at the Rectory. Mrs. Campbell was exceedingly annoyed, for punctuality was her darling virtue, and Louisa triumphantly told the history of how and why it all happened, and was informed by her grandmamma that she was the only person in the house to be depended upon; whilst Bertha reminded Ella that if she had come in proper time, the lessons would have been all finished by one o'clock.

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Fanny appeared when dinner was half over; and being received by harsh words and severe glances, burst into another fit of crying, and was again warned by Mrs. Campbell, as the most conclusive and natural argument for self-restraint, that she would quite spoil her face, and make herself such a figure she would not be fit to be seen.

"That had been a very instructive morning to the children. They had had lessons in unpunctuality, ingratitude, self-indulgence, procrastination, absence of sympathy, impatience, disobedience to orders, illnature, self-conceit, and vanity, and all through the medium of French exercises and the life of Henri Quatre."

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Iphigenia at Delphi. A Tragedy. By the Rev. ARCHUR GURNEY. London: Longmans. 1855.

It is in no spirit of depreciation that we remarked but few passages, fit to be quoted as "the beauties" of Mr. Gurney's Tragedy. Modern poetry abounds for the most part in isolated paragraphs, and even single lines, of (it may be) great power and loveliness. We find systems theological, moral, and political treated of in a brilliant phrase or two.

and exquisite miniature paintings produced by the apt combination, and curious felicity in selection, of some half-dozen words. But as a whole, the impression produced upon the mind is highly unsatisfactory. The reader is bewildered, he has seen many beautiful word-pictures, he has meditated over some striking thoughts-but what does it all mean? The total impression is as "stale, and flat, and unprofitable," as the contemplation of the blackened sward and bare poles after "a brilliant display of fireworks." For want of asking himself the above pregnant question, many a reviewer, dazzled by the poetical pyrotechny so much in vogue, has not unfrequently given his imprimatur to a work which, taken as a whole, must be pronounced a great poem only as the kaleidoscope could be considered as a fine picture. Now the "Iphigenia" of Mr. Gurney is the very reverse of all this-" the god-Greek" of Antique Tragedy, and its musical Hellenic echo at Weimar, are safer studies than the Graduates of the Spasmodic school are aware of, and accordingly, in the present work we have a compact Whole, and not a string of fervid and apparently unconnected passages. A great idea is worthily worked out, and a distinct impression is made upon the mind. The reader is conducted into an ancient temple, and takes his stand amidst the sculptural Denizens of Grecian story, calm and statuesque, in white repose. But the tragedy deepens, a grand and stately life slowly descends upon the Marble People: in vivid and awful gyrations they circle the golden-haired Priestess,

"And the cold marble leaps to life,"

not a goddess, but a woman bold to dare and to suffer; too gentle for a heroine, were it not that shadows of the temple-life in that old Taurian forest have ploughed lines on the young forehead deep enough to prevent the fillet of the Priestess from falling off. Garlands only fall from the unwrinkled brows of Olympians, as Iphigenia knows; and it is with a feeling of relief, that at last we find her laying aside the Priestess' tiara -and the Grecian statue becomes a veritable Woman.

Mr. Gurney has thrown himself into his subject in the present instance, and kept himself to it, and has put forth a very pleasing and readable poem.

From an able volume of Country Sermons, by the Rev. E. T. CODD, (Masters,) we extract one passage, which very clearly and truly states the doctrine of Confirmation.

"On the one hand, she expressly tells us that the public renewal and recognition of the baptismal covenant is not Confirmation itself, but preparatory to it, in order that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it;' on the other hand, she authoritatively declares, that it hath been a solemn, ancient, and laudable custom in the Church of God, continued from the Apostles' times, that all Bishops should lay their hands upon children baptized and instructed in the Christian religion, praying over them, and blessing them;' and 'this holy action,' she says, we commonly call Confirmation. The authority, then, of Confirmation is the example of the Apostles, and the universal custom of the Church ever since. The out