stances of real life. In this his first composition his enemies will find enough to deride; it is sufficient for us that we find enough to admire, and to pronounce, that if Mr. Milman does not rise hereafter to be the first dramatic poet of his day, it will not be because he had not the powers, but because he used those powers amiss.

ABT. VIII. Howard; by John Gamble. Esq. Author of Irish Sketches, Sarsfield, &c. In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 436. Baldwin.

IT is with a mingled feeling of pain and pleasure that we reNew our acquaintance with Mr. Gamble, on whose novel of "Sarsfield" we, a few months back, considered it as our duty to make some pointed animadversions. The pleasure, however, is far outweighed by the pain; and is, indeed, of that undesir able kind which is felt by the spectator of a conflagration, who, while he deplores that such an event should have happened, cannot help admiring the ceaseless and rapid whirls and convolu tions, the shifting lights and shades, and the glowing and ruddy hues of the destructive flames.

In his present work Mr. Gamble does not give us less reason for complaint than he did in his former. He continues, we hope unintentionally, to propagate principles, which can have no other tendency than to demolish the very foundations of virtue, to render man miserable here, hopeless of an hereafter, and most unfit to encounter its terrors, when too late convinced of its existence.

The story is even more simple than that of "Sarsfield," and the characters and events are fewer in number. The text of the author is comprised, as a motto, in two lines from Pope's Homer:

"To suffer is the lot of man below,

And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe."

and of this text the two volumes are a continued illustration. Howard is an Irishman, who is, and has been even from his infancy, a creature of enthusiasm, melancholy, and romance,, firmly believing in the irresistible power of fate, and possessing an ardent imagination, feebly controuled by reason. Among the few particulars of Howard's early days, we think Mr. Gamble would have done well had he omitted the youth's aquatic perils in the grain tub, which he had converted into a boat. It was not worth while to borrow so worthless an incident from the Lyrieal Ballads of Mr. Wordsworth. Previously to his embarking

in

in the grain tub, he had made a fruitless attempt to fly, by means of a machine; and now, finding himself excluded from two elements, and being compelled, in the month of November, to sit inactive at home, he sinks" for some weeks into a state of the most profound melancholy." His character, and the tone of his mind, may be judged from Mr. Gamble's picture of him in this situation.

"His disease (melancholy may well be called a disease) seemed to admit of no remedy, as it was a mere perception of misery, without reason or cause; a heaving of the heart as it shrunk dis mayed from the long look-forward path of life, and a bursting con. viction of that anguish'd heart, that long before he arrived at the close of existence, or fulness of manhood even, some dreadful misfortune, some terrible calamity would befal him. It is astonishing how pertinaciously this idea clung to him; how the mere he struggled against it, the more it got possession of him; how he groaned aloud, and shouted even with anticipated misery, as for hours together, with hurried step, he walked to and fro, and backwards and forwards, and bitterly, bitterly exclaimed, "It is my fate, it is my fate,"

In this state, of what we think ought to be called insanity, he looks round him, and, as he looks through a blackened medium, he of course discovers that every body else is as miserable as himself; and he begins to enquire why man fhould be miserable. But this is too interesting a subject for Mr. Gamble himself not to descant on; and he accordingly comes forward, in his own person, and makes a few remarks, or rather insinuations, of which the blasphemous tendency is, to accuse the Supreme Being of injustice. Howard is next introduced as a writer of gloomy verses; and then, on occasion of a funeral, as a still more gloomy declaimer on the wretchedness of the human race. His speech, both as to matter and style, is not such an one as would probably be made by a youth of less than sixteen. It excites, quite naturally, the wonder of an old gentleman in the room; and affords Mr. Gamble an opportunity, not to be thrown away, of giving vent to his own ideas, with respect to futurity. Ah, well-a-day! poor youth," said he, "the next world may do something for you; and I hope for your sake there is a next, for I see you are doomed to be unhappy in this. If ever there was a miserable being on earth it will be you. It is your fate, it is your fate.".

Howard now becomes acquainted with a dissipated ensign, who leads him into a variety of excesses and extravagancies. The reflections of Mr. Gamble on this head are so just, that we will quote them.

The pain which followed this departure from the ways of inno cence was very great in the youthful sinner's breast; he felt what was fair and virtuous in morals, and could not fail to contrast his present wretched mode of life with the quiet tenour of his former days: placid evenings of conversation in the bosom of his family, or the conversation of an instructive and entertaining book; healthful mornings of recreation in the fields, and glowing reflections on the glory of nature, and the wonder of her works. Even when, as too frequently happened, those glowing reflections became gloomy ones, still in their worst gloom was a grandeur which ele vated, while it rived the heart.--Sad reverse now! Turbulent evenings of riot and drunkenness; hot drink and hot suppers, inflaming the blood, corrupting the heart, and corroding the temper; distempered mornings of care and disquiet, of listlessness and anguish; disordered head, and sickened stomach; estrangement from himself, and, of consequence, from the family he loved. He could not bear to mingle in their society, because he thought the downcast eye and sorrowing look reproached him for the folly he had committed, and saw in his soiled visage the spots of the miry gulph into which he had fallen: they more painfully reproached him, because while his conscience set the eye and face a speaking, the tongue was a silent one. Oh! who would ever,' oftentimes exclaimed he, as he rose jaded and unrefreshed from his care-worn pillow, lose the gratification of temperance, and satisfaction of virtue, for such wretched and vain delights as these.' And, oh! exclaim I in like manner, what youth of sensibility, what youth even of common understanding or humanity, would be the misery rather than the comfort of his parents, would lose the approbation of the world, the still more valuable approbation of his own breast, for such wretched and vain delights, as they may well be called!

For all delights are vain; but that most vain,

Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain."

Excellent as this is, the reader will not fail to perceive, that Mr. Gamble has omitted the most powerful of all reasons for shunning the paths of guilt. It must surely be unnecessary to say, that we mean the dread, which every man ought to feel, of acting in disobedience to the commands of his Saviour and his God.

To supply the lavish expenditure of money for his follies, Howard has recourse to his father's desk. Mr. Gamble, we must observe, seems to have a propensity to make thieves of his heroes; or, as Drs. Gall and Spurzheim would say, to represent them as having," the organ of covetiveness exceedingly developed" in their sculls. At length, knowing that much longer concealment of his fault will be impossible, Howard meditates taking all that remains of the money, and quitting his father's house. He contends against this temptation, but feels "irre

sistibly

sistibly impelled to yield," and exclaims that "it is his fate." Fortunately, however, the unexpected sight of his father, smil ing on him at the moment he is preparing to consummate the crime, awakes all his filial feelings; he desists from his purpose, and relinquishes his dangerous acquaintance. But here Mr. Gamble cannot abstain from introducing his baneful sentiments. The youth attributes to Providence his escape from guilt. "Arrogant and self-sufficient creatures that we are!" exclaims he, "Providence busy itself about us! or our pitiful objects or pur suits!"

Howard having reached the age of twenty, it is thought proper that he should endeavour to provide for himself; and he is, in consequence, equipped for a journey to London. He quits the paternal roof with a heavy heart, and gloomy forebodings, but change of scene soon revives his spirits. He reaches Liwerpool in safety; and here again we have a rhapsody on “overruling destiny," and the great men who have believed in it. The narrative of Howard's journey to London is given by himself, in a letter to a friend, which is written with infinite spirit. The passage in which he prides himself on his complete ability to baffle all the schemes of sharpers, against whom he has been kindly cautioned, is laughable and truly in character. "I should," says he, "be sillier than ever I was yet thought, after having read Tom Jones, Roderick Random, and Ferdinand Count Fathom, to let myself be taken in by sharpers,"

In the coach that conveyed him from Liverpool, the passengers were two merchants, a prudish, haughty lady, who shunned conversation, and seemed to sleep during a part of the journey, and a female, young, lovely, and amiable, who immediately became the possessor of his heart. His affection, however, was as pure as it was ardent. At Litchfield, where for the present his mistress terminated her journey, he prevailed on her to pass the afternoon in his company; but he was disappointed, by the speedy arrival of her uncle, who seemed to regard him with dislike, and carried her away, leaving. Howard without any knowledge of her name, or even of her place of abode, farther than that her father was a tradesman in London.

In the metropolis he passes his time chiefly in visiting St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and the theatres; and in dwelling with doating fondness on the idea of the fair one; yet, such is the "indolent melancholy of his nature" that he makes no attempt to discover her abode. By chance he again falls in with the dissipated ensign, and is again misled by him. At the "Dog and Duck, he one evening meets with his prudish fellowpassenger in the coach, who now appears in her real character of a prostitute, rallies him on his sudden passion for the other female

female traveller, and informs him, that it was she herself who, in revenge for Howard's want of gallantry, informed the uncle of his niece's arrival, and prejudiced him against her compa

nion.

. The ensign shortly after sets out to join his regiment, at Birmingham; and having previously learned from Howard, that he knows nothing more of his mistress's commexions than that her uncle lives at Litchfield, he promises to discover for him her name and residence. His profligate acquaintance has, however, no intention of serving him. On the contrary, having obtained from the uncle the address of her father, with whom she now is, in London, he commits the wanton and gratuitous perfidy of writing to the latter an anonymous letter, affirming, that Howard is carrying on an intrigue with her, and has taken a lodging in the neighbourhood, for the purpose of conducting it more conveniently. On receiving this intelligence, the father locks up his daughter; and his passion so far outruns his reason, that he writes Howard an abusive epistle, to which he puts his name, and the place where he lives.

The consequences of this foolish step are such as may naturally he expected, and they afford Mr. Gamble an opportunity of breaking out into exclamations, on the "strange fatality which drives unconscious man unresisting before it." Howard takes post in a public-house opposite to the home of his mistress, gains a sight of her, and writes a letter, which after much cogitation on the mode of conveying it, he confides, not to a feathered Mercury, but to a humble pot-boy. Unused to such commissions, the messenger loses the letter, and the lover is consequently in great trouble, when he is visited by an elderly man, of rather a rough appearance, who proves to be a person to whom his father had done a service, which he is desirous to repay to the son. The character of this old man, who is an Irishman, and a stationer by trade, is drawu con amore. He is warm-hearted, hospitable, eternally voluble, and abounding in curiosity. The letter, sticking to the bottom of a porter-pot, has fallen into his hands, and, having been opened by him, produces this visit. Finding that Howard's intentions are honourable, he promises to deliver the letter into the hands of Louisa, who is the daughter of a neighbour and friend. An answer is returned, an intercourse is commenced, and their love becomes mutual and enthusiastic.

Convinced that the father will not give his consent to the match, the old stationer and the lovers keep the correspondence a profound secret from him. At length, Howard obtains all appointment, which, though it is at present to remove him far from London, will eventually enable him to claim the hand of

1.

Louisa.