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our list, comes out without sponsors, and without any indication whatever as to whom is to be attributed the honour of its parentage. We know, however, a story is current that the manuscript was offered to a very respectable metropolitan publisher, who declined the honour of bringing the bantling into the world, upon the score of its exceeding immorality. hardly see enough to justify the apprehensions of that estimable and worthy person; but, at the same time, we feel assured that his shrewd diagnosis was on the whole correct, for a more silly production, notwithstanding the puffs direct of several of our brethren of the press (from whom we are, or course, sorry to differ), we have not seen for a considerable time, and we hope it may be long ere we see again a work in three volumes containing such a quantity of what cannot be designated by any other term than twaddle of the vilest description; and yet it is by no means improbable that, ere the words we now write shall have passed into print, Alice will have been read and devoured by thousands among those classes of the community who are willing, like the Persian monarch, to offer a reward, in the substantial shape of a guinea and a-half, to any manufacturer of fiction who will dish up a novel sufficiently stimulating to please their jaded palates. Passionate excitement and warmth of description, lax morality and startling incident, they must have, or the book will remain, with uncut pages, lumbering the shelves of the enterprising publisher. Of these commodities above mentioned, the work now before us certainly contains a very abundant supply. Of the plot of the story, we have neither time nor inclination to afford our readers the slightest account-in fact, they are much better without it. Let one or two samples of the style suffice; and here we may mention, that the hero and heroine are introduced in that mode which has become fami. liar to the novel-reading public through the fictions of Mr. James. The scene is the Bay of Palermo, in which both parties are amusing them selves by a matutinal dip. Clifford hears sudden scream, he looks up, sees some object floating upon the water, and then

lost footing, plunge after the object when it disappeared, grasp a slight vestment, rise to the surface again with the unresisting form of its wearer, and bear it ashore, were the successive acts of as many moments. It was the body of a young female, attired in a long, sleeveless symar; her long hair, which had not, it seemed, been restrained even in bathing, streamed from her head in wet tresses of apparently the softest auburn; a deadly pallor could not disguise the perfect loveliness of the face; the ivory arm was of faultless mould; and the wet, clinging drapery betrayed a symmetry which might have belonged rather to some nymph of the sea than any mortal maid. She did not breathe; her heart had ceased to beat-at least, the arteries at the wrist betrayed not the faintest pulsation to the delicate test of Clifford's fingers. When the flame of life burns so low that it cannot even be discerned by our coarse senses, a careless breath, a touch too much, is sufficient to extinguish it altogether. It must not be roughly fanned, but suffered to burn in a tranquil air. Clifford's conduct now was marked by absolute selfpossession, and a singular confidence of knowledge. The dry, absorbent sand drank rapidly the moisture from the stranger's dress and floating hair. When he judged that this had proceeded far enough, he placed the passive form, still invested with the cold, wet robe, on the sort of couch he had prepared for his own repose after the bath, and wrapped the linen and cloak many times around her. The influence of the moderated application of a depressing agent like cold and moisture, in recalling and stimulating that reaction inappreciable to us, which is really taking place in every living body, though apparently devoid of life, was well known to Clifford. In fine, he took her exquisite hands, whiter and colder than snow, in his own, glowing and warm, despite his recent plunge, and her chilling contact.

"Nor were these efforts unsuccessful: there was, at length, a pulsation, then he became sensible that she breathed; the lips reddened, there was a soft sigh. Clifford watched her countenance with a sort of radiant attention; and as he bent over her, himself so ideally beautiful, so powerful, and so tranquil in his knowledge, you might, without any very violent effort of imagination, have thought of the angel that sent under the Shaping Hand, while the yet unanimated ancestress of all living lay, motionless as marble and whiter than snow, on some violet bank of Paradise ;-so

softly, too, shone forth that same tenderest aspect of the Archetypal Nature in this unconscious maid, on whom the tide of animation was now returning from its recent and alarming ebb with such visible rapidity. A pair of large and soft dark eyes had opened, as the stars first appear in the sky, ere he was aware; the lady scanned the noble visage of her preserver, as in a dream. She could hardly be conscious at the moment of anything but the vague fact, that her life had been saved from a peril that she scarcely yet recalled, by a being who looked fit to be one of her guardian angels. Whether any thought of this kind was in her mind, or if, through the bright haze of partial consciousness, she believed him to be really a denizen of some more perfect world, cannot be said; but, at all events, her glance was an expression of tender and admiring trust. Neither can we give here a clear account of what was passing in Clifford's mind; but that which he did was to bend down gently and kiss the still pale cheek of the fair young creature he had saved.

"Fear nothing, dear signorina,' he said, in the language which he thought most likely to be hers; you are as with a brother.' 'I am sure of it,' faintly murmured the stranger, in the sweet words of the same language."

Having already, in a former review of one of Mr. James's novels, expressed our opinion as to the value of this apparently efficacious mode of bringing back to life young ladies whose animation is suspended by drowning or otherwise, it is unnecessary now to dwell further upon the subject, but it is curious how very soon a "kiss" restores them, not only to life, but to the perfect possession of such faculties as Providence had

given them. In this instance, the gentleman, as to the state of whose apparel the writer is silent, tells the lady" in the wet, clinging drapery," which, instead of concealing, reveals her charms, not to be afraid, but to look upon him as a brother; and the gentle creature, raising her dark eyes, says, she "is quite sure of it." How, in that condition, she could know anything at all about the matter, still less be sure of it, is a puzzle which perhaps the author will do us the favour, at some future time, to explain. Yet saith some courtly critic writing upon this passage-" All is conducted with a refinement, a delicacy, and a dignified

propriety beautifully accordant with the holy axiom, that " to the pure all things are pure"!! Good gracious!-dignified propriety! Marry come up! Where is the dignified propriety under such peculiarly infelicitous circumstances? We cannot make it out at all. It is a style of introducing two amiable young persons of different sexes to each other, of which we cannot, in the least, approve. We should much prefer seeing the young gentle. man in his gold waistcoat, white cheker, and varnished boots, with his gibus hat under his arm, bowing reve rently before the fair girl, enchantingly arrayed in spreading draperies of Limerick lace, the queen of the ball-room-than plunging like a curly. tailed poodle into the Bay of Palermo, seizing upon the young lady, bearing her in triumph, and in her bathing. dress, to the shore, and kissing her from comparative asphyxia into a state of animated existence. We object to this sort of thing altogether; and should the author of " Alice," as public rumour says, be a lady, we shall be happy to enter more at large into our reasons, if she will kindly grant us the honour of an interview.

One more specimem. Pair number two are made acquainted with each other in the following naive man

ner:

"The two brothers were not staying at an hotel, they had apartments in the Palazzo Foscari, on the grand canal. They had disembarked, and were ascending the steps of the palace, when the same gondola which, at an early hour in the evening, had pursued their bark, and which had continued to follow it, came up rapidly, and the gondolier in the bow sprang out, ascended a couple of steps, to Lord Beauchamp's side, and touched his arm. The young noble turned, and the man laid his finger on his lip, and pointed to Frederick, who, in deep reverie, had entered the great door. What is it, caro mio?' A signora desires to speak one little moment with your Excellency. A signora where? In the gondola, signoria." Lord Beauchamp hesitated: he thought it probable he had been mistaken for his brother, whose extreme beauty made him often the subject of similar advances. 'Are you sure it is I the sig nora wishes to see?' Perfectly sure, your Excellency; I cannot be mistaken.' Lord Beauchamp descended the steps again, and entered the gondola. It was

not exactly a prudent thing to do; but he was just in the humour for something desperate. Whether he should be welcomed by the pressure of a soft hand or the stroke of a stiletto was nearly indifferent to him.

"The interior of the gondola was not lighted; the door stood open; but Lord Beauchamp merely bent down, as if to receive any communication its occupant might choose to make, saying, 'I am at your command, signora.' The gondola, at the same instant, obeyed a strong impulse, that sent it out into the middle of the canal, and a voice from within, of great sweetness, requested him in Italian, with the inimitable accent of a native, to enter. He complied; and being just able to perceive, by the light that flashed in from his own palace door, that the lady was sitting on the left, he placed himself by her side.

The gon

dolier closed the door; and as the only light now came in from one of the little side windows, he could distinguish neither the face nor the person of his companion. The gondola moved slowly and silently through the water. The lady did not speak, and they floated on in silence, broken only by the almost noiseless plash of the oars; once another gondola shot past, and sometimes the light from a palace balcony shone in at the little window. The lady was dressed in black: it was nearly all he could discover by these brief glimpses, which, nevertheless, appeared to annoy her, for she nervously closed the jalousie, and the obscurity within became complete. There was a nameless something in the slight movements of the stranger, there was something in the sweetness of her voice, which gave him the idea of a woman whose charms time at least could not have injured. The light from a passing gondola, as it shone in, discovered, on her lap, a beautiful hand holding a handkerchief, almost wholly of lace, of necessity very costly and the hand itself sparkled with gems, of which one was so rare as to be confined by a slender chain to a magnificent bracelet. He discovered this by the steadier palace lights; and when the handkerchief was shaken once, it diffused a peculiarly agreeable perfume. From all this, Lord Beauchamp judged, not without probable grounds, that the lady belonged to the higher classes of society; and, despite himself, he felt the beat of his heart quickened by this silent and mysterious contiguity. Presently, after the jalousie was closed, Augustus felt the stranger's hand passed timidly within his own, and her head sunk on his shoulder. Who are you, dear signora,' he said, with great gentleness,

:

and taking in his own that soft, trembling hand; 'what is it in which I can serve you?' 'In nothing, signor-in nothing.'

"This was embarrassing. Lord Beauchamp was sure that that the stranger was really a lady. He recognised the freemasonry of bon ton in her very familiarity—her head reclined lightly on his shoulder, her soft hand was simply resigned in his. At least, dear

signora,' he said, you will tell me how I have merited this confidence, and those marks of tenderness.' For some time the lady did not reply, at last she said, with great sweetness, and a southern naïveté, Can one tell why one loves?' Lord Beauchamp passed his arm instantly round the stranger's waist, and raised her hand to his lips: he was too chivalrous to do less, in acknowledgment of such words. But, dear signora,' he said, is such a love-forgive me what you have a right to feel, or I to return?' You are not married,' said the lady, softly. 'No.' 'Nor betrothed?' Nor betrothed,' said Augustus, after a moment's hesitation but'- 'I am not married either, nor betrothed,' said the lady, after patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence: you thought I was?—that was natural.'

"This altered the case, though, extremely.

"And you say that you love me,' said Lord Beauchamp, who observed also that the stranger's Italian was the purest that could be spoken, and her accent music itself; and you are unwedded? Are you also forgive once more the question-are you one that I can love without degradation?' Lord Beauchamp said this bending down to his companion's face, and in a very low voice."

This scene must convince the public that the author, whatever be his faults, has a strong taste for startling introductions; he plunges in medias res at once, and his heroes and heroines have all the advantage which can be expected to arise from the making of each other's acquaintance under circumstances not only of a novel, but of a very free and easy description. have learned, however, two things of which we were not previously aware, one that an English nobleman addresses an Italian gondolier by the affectionate and familiar title of "my dear," and the other, that familiarity such as the author describes is the outward and visible sign of good breeding. "Her

We

head was reclined on his shoulder, her soft hand was resigned simply in his," and this without the least former knowledge or acquaintance of any kind or nature whatever. A gentleman is invited to enter a strange gondola-he finds a lady there in the dark, who reclines her head without further ceremony upon his shoulder, and the inevitable inference at once occurs to him that she must be a lady of fashion. But we were about to omit another sign from which Mr. Augustus Clifford had drawn this inference-the lady's mouchoir de poche was very highly scented. Shade of Pelham! object of our early worship, look down upon us here with a pitying eye, what would be your opinion of a lady with a lace handkerchief smelling strongly of musk? We think we could anticipate it, but we have at all events no difficulty whatever in stating our own, which is emphatically this, that the lady who could act in a manner so outrageous, and so utterly subversive of all received opinion, was no better than she should be.

These extracts, which we have given with some reluctance, afford a tolerable idea of what manner of work is "Alice, or the New Una." Upon the religious scenes-if we can apply such a term to them we shall not undertake to speak

at all. We cannot trust ourselves to do so, but we look upon the mixture of profanity and levity with which this work abounds as not by any means the least mischievous portion of it.

The task is by no means a pleasant one to us of holding up any work to reprehension, but we should deem ourselves wanting in that duty we owe our readers, did we hesitate to point out what must be considered as very grave and serious errors.

We were not without hopes that the homely and simple pathos, the tenderness and beauty of such writers as Dickens, had not only eradicated the genus of fashionable novels, properly so called, but had set up a purer and more exalted standard of taste, and we cannot but express our deep regret that the good work is not yet completed, nor can it be so long as such produc tions are found not only to issue from the press, but to be read and sold among a British public. We have always been ready to lend the aid of our humble services, in correcting and reforming such abuses, and while we continue to labour in the same cause, we shall never omit an opportunity of holding up to public contempt all offenders, whatever may be their rank or station.