hundred thousands? Yes, yes, I foresaw this; must come to us at last, and then, Sawyer, you are made for ever. The best accounts in all, the city-receivership of the countygovernment accounts; I know what I am about, my boy; and I am sure Sawyer Dickens is not the undutiful son, or the snivelling fool, that would balk the plans of his father.'

As this votary of wealth now prophesied, precisely so it came to pass. After a variety of struggles between pride and shame-between the instant disgrace and ruin of bankruptcy, and the more remote humiliation of adding Sawyer Dickens to the firm, the heart-broken Darlington acceded at length to the latter. Sawyer Dickens was immediately admitted upon the most liberal terms, as an inmate in the house of Mr Darlington, and attended the banking house in the capacity of a pupil, who was hereafter to become a principal in the concern. It was the substance of one clause in the articles of this agreement, that if, on or before a certain day, Sawyer Dickens married Amelia Darlington, then and in that case the said sum of two hundred thousand pounds, now belonging to Edward Dickens, with all other share, interest, and concern whatever, which he now possessed in the house of Darlington and Dickens, should be and become the joint property of the said Sawyer Dickens and Augustus Darlington, and the survivors of them for ever. The intent

of this clause was obvious, and that intent was answered. The credit, the fortunes of Darlington, now rested entirely on the connection with Dickens, and the filial anxiety of Amelia soon discovered that important secret.

At the same time, Sawyer Dickens, with his father, perceived the numerous advantages that must accrue from a relationship with the family of Darlington, in the event of his death, and urged with importunity his pretensions to the gentle Amelia. They were married. Mr Darlington lived to bless their nuptials, and then sunk to that grave, which the indiscretions of a beloved son had prematurely prepared.

The heart of old Dickens was now without a wish: he beheld the work of his hand, and rejoiced. From penury itself, he had risen to a level, in point of fortune, with the richest men of his age, and he saw his son firmly established in a concern that added every year immense accumulation to his already overgrown fortune. He lived to see that son the father of a son, and then his career of avarice was closed for ever. Through life he had suffered no pain, he had enjoyed

no pleasure from the intellectual part of his being: for in him the accumulation of wealth was not a passion, but merely an instinct, which afforded him only a similar enjoyment to that which the indulgence of gluttony yields to its grovelling votaries. In death he experienced neither mental terror nor hope; his corporeal sufferings engrossed his whole essence of being, except that in short intervals of ease, he would exhort his son to preserve and to increase that wealth, which it had been the chief end of his existence to create. The widow Dickens survived her husband only a few months; and these three deaths left Mr Sawyer Dickens, as before stated, one of the wealthiest commoners in England.

MATURIN.

Ir does not generally hold that an author is characteristic of his country; but in the case of Ireland, with one or two exceptions-Swift and Sir Richard Steele, for instance,* who were pure English writers and thinkers—almost all her authors are strongly marked with the peculiar qualities that distinguish her as a nation. At this time, we have Moore among our poets-Philips among our orators—and (till lately) Maturin among our romance writers-three authors thoroughly and unequivocally Irish-with all the faults and excellences that are supposed to characterize their country. men-ardent and imaginative to the last degree-full of pointed sentiment and brilliant imagery-bold and rapid in their conceptions-fervent and exaggerated in their diction-always straining at effect, and at times reaching the height of powerful writing, though as often, by their extravagance, falling into the ludicrous-generally bearing the reader impetuously on in a state of dazzled and feverish enthusiasm, but leaving him at last oppressed and fatigued, by a glare to which there is no relief, and an excitement to which there is no cessation. The latter of these writers did not, in his life time, attain that celebrity which his works entitled him to; and it is grievous that this reading age should have to add one of unquestionable genius to the list of unfortunate and ill-rewarded authors. He was a clergyman of the Irish Episcopal Church, and held the cure of St Peter's, Dublin. With the frankness of his countrymen, he tells us in one of his prefaces that none of his prose works had been success

* Goldsmith, too. But though Goldsmith was a pure English writer, his character as a man was Irish.

ful, and in another of his prefaces hints that necessity made him take to romance-writing. It is certain, his strength lay in that branch of literature, and in all probability his inclination also; yet he would not have pled necessity for betaking himself to it, without cause. What we have to regret is, that his merit was tardily appreciated, and that he was cut off just as he was gaining that notoriety and distinction which was so deservedly his due.

Montorio, or The Fatal Revenge, was his first attempt in romance-writing, and, though composed at an early age, evinces great strength of fancy and feeling, and shows how decidedly his mind was at this time bent to the course which it afterwards followed. Not only are the incidents and situations striking and romantic, but they are supported and executed with a force and talent equal to their conception. The Milesian Chief and The Wild Irish Boy succeeded Montorio-the former a romance, laid in Ireland, of powerful interest, and from which, we conjecture, the hint of The Bride of Lammermoor has been taken the latter rather a novel than romance, displaying considerable knowledge of fashionable life both in Dublin and London. Then followed his tragedy of Bertram; and in 1818, his Women, or Pour et Contre, a novel with many faults of style and story, but with numberless beauties to overbalance them. Next succeeded his Melmoth, by far the best, in our opinion, of all his romances, that can yield to no similar work in the interest and sensations it creates :-and last of all came his Albigenses, his only attempt at historical romance, and by no means a failure.

Our specimen of Maturin must be from Melmoth. The extract which follows is a story which a wretched parricide tells a noble Spaniard, as they lie in a subterraneous passage, waiting the fall of evening, on purpose to make their escape from a monastery. The parricide, after the commission of his dreadful crime, had found shelter in this monas

A a

tery, and by the most depraved cruelty endeavoured to numb the stings of conscience, and to glut his fiendish passions by making others as miserable as himself. This is a relation from his own mouth of one of his deeds, while a servant in the monastery.

STORY OF A PARRICIDE.

I was desired to attach myself to a young monk of distinguished family, who had lately taken the vows, and who performed his duties with that heartless punctuality that intimated to the community that his heart was elsewhere. I was soon put in possession of the business; from their ordering me to attach myself to him, I instantly conceived I was bound to the most deadly hostility against him. The friendship of convents is always a treacherous leaguewe watch, suspect, and torment each other, for the love of God. This young monk's only crime was, that he was suspected of cherishing an earthly passion. He was, in fact, the son of a distinguished family, who (from the fear of his contracting what is called a degrading marriage, i. e. of marrying a woman of inferior rank whom he loved, and who would have made him happy, as fools, that is, half mankind, estimate happiness) forced him to take the vows. He appeared at times broken-hearted, but at times there was a light of hope in his eye, that looked somewhat ominous in the eyes of the community. It is certain, that hope not being an indigenous plant in the parterre of a convent, must excite suspicion with regard both to its origin and its growth.

'Some time after, a young novice entered the convent. From the moment he did so, a change the most striking took place in the young monk. He and the novice became inseparable companions-there was something suspicious in that. My eyes were on the watch in a moment. Eyes are particularly sharpened in discovering misery when they can hope to aggravate it. The attachment between the young monk and the novice went on. They were for ever in the garden together-they inhaled the odours of the flowers they cultivated the same cluster of carnationsthey entwined themselves as they walked together-when