ART. IV. The Daughters of Isenberg: a Bavarian Romance. By Alicia Tindal Palmer. In 4 vols. 8vo, London. Lackington, Allen, and Co. 1810.

T was on one of those etherial mornings when the gales bear on their playful wings the sweets stolen from the flowers of early summer, that the three lovely daughters of the Baron Isenberg were lightly tripping from the pagodé des bains towards the chateau of their father." p. 1.

Baron Isenberg is a Bavarian nobleman who, about a century ago, sat down in that country with a wife whom he had stolen from her parents at Paris. Having improved his taste by travelling, his first care is to build a superb chateau ;-the battlements are garnished with a powerful train of artillery, to fire on great occasions, such as the arrival of a guest, the marriage of a peasant, &c. In other respects, the chateau resembles a house in Grosvenor-square, or rather the description of one in the flowery advertisements of Mr. Philips; it has porticos, saloons, studies, and boudoirs, and is fitted up in the most fashionable style, after drawings by the judicious Mr. Hope. The pagodé des bains,' from which the young ladies have just emerged, is a beautiful specimen of modern taste. It is furnished in the Indian manner, (the Egyptian we suspect, is aleady obsolete,) and, though built like a Chinese temple,' is surmounted by a dome unique in its kind.' p. 167. Here the fair Bavarians prosecute their studies, which are precisely those of the young ladies of Queen-square; a little French, a little music, a little botany, a little conchology-in short, a little of every thing.

Before we learn all this, however, it appears that Miss Palmer, recollecting that she could tell a story better in her own tongue than in any other, deems it fit to make all her characters speak the language of this country. This is accomplished by giving the parents a few years residence in England, and supplying the children with English nurses; so that the house of Isenberg is a perfect English colony. The baron has a maiden sister, who is still more fond of the language than the rest. She was extremely anxious to understand Homer and Virgil in the original. In this she failed; but the attempt, says the author, gave her so decided a preference for the English language that she never used any other.' To those who are not acquainted with the logic of our novelists, this must have the appearance of what the learned Partridge calls a non sequitur; but it isvery clearly made out. The good old lady had remarked that her tongue (the Bavarian, we suppose) did not admit those derivitives from the ancients which enrich ours, and was therefore unworthy of one who aspired to an intimate acquaint

ance with them.' p. 13. In consequence of this grand discovery, she sedulously cultivates the English language; and greatly to the delight of the author, who is not to be wearied with her phraseology, never opens her mouth but in such terms as these:

Had you truinated this matter with imprejudication, prior to the existimation you have with so much tretricity delivered, it must have been obvious to you, that your incondite vaniloquence must appear to me either arising from incogitancy, or an inane kenodoxy which gives you an exoptation temerariously to insinuate that my sex must be nescious on topics of erudition.'-Vol. ii. p. 78.

6

Besides the daughters just mentioned, the Baron has a son, who, about this time, brings to the chateau two young noblemen, on a visit one of these is Don Lerma, a Spaniard; the other, Marquis of Villarose, a Frenchman: these, of course, fall desperately in love with two of the sisters; but, that affairs may not terminate too rapidly, the brother proposes an excursion to the aqueduct of Reichenhale. On their way, they are struck with the sight of a mountain; and, what almost leads them to doubt the evidence of their own senses, something that has the appearance of a hut on it. The young Bavarian, who, from the nature of his country, had no idea that mountains were habitable, proposes to examine the phenomenon. Accordingly the party climb the heights, and discover a 'cherub' of a peasant, bathing some faded flowers with her tears.' This beautiful and sensitive' young lady was the handmaid of a bloody-minded baron, who, for some unknown offence, probably for eating his sour krout, had sent her to take care of a herd of sheep.' There she had lived several months (how, we are not informed) without seeing a human being: at length a boor of the name of Christophe finds her out; and the sweet, timid girl' gives a luscious account of her innocent amours (but all in confidence) to three young noblemen whom she had never seen before. Christophe, it appears, has not visited his mistress for some days; and, to ease her bursting heart, the travellers kindly agree to postpone their intended journey, and go in quest of him. After a long and tedious search, he is discovered in the mines, whither he had fled to avoid being sent to the army, His release instantly takes place but all is not yet over. The Baron Thundertentrunck (second of the name) refuses to pardon Josephine; and the author, justly enraged at his cruelty, raises a tremendous storm, which throws down the left turret of the chateau,' and crushes the obdurate inhabitant. Before his death, however, he had, with great foresight, planned the removal of Josephine; and nothing was ever so adroitly managed. A number of bandits' are sent to the mountain, to seize the interesting shepherdess,' and nail her up in a coffin-leaving a little grated opening for air, which however is not admitted in any

inconvenient quantity, as the vent is carefully covered with a velvet pall. Haste and secrecy being required, the funeral procession moves in solemn state down the mountain, and on that or the succeeding day is encountered by the young lords. The bearers drop their charge, and run off; and Josephine begs most piteously to be taken out of her incommodious travelling carriage. All now is happiness, and the parties return to the chateau of Isenberg.

Here an accession of company awaits them. The author, not having characters enough on her hand, introduces an English family with vast parade. There is a Lady Aberdale, accompanied by her son Sir Launcelot, her niece Miss Wanmore, and a Dr. Mortimas. The lady and her son are perfectly insipid: the two others were apparently meant to be prominent characters; but the author wanted powers to fill up her own outline. Miss Wanmore is a stupid and disgusting Bidgetina; and the Doctor, who is brought forward as an eccentric man of letters, is, in fact, an unmeaning idiot, who gives signs of life only by eating. Not one of the party contributes, in the slightest degree, to the progress or interest of the story; and all disappear from it in succession without notice or regret.

The second volume is nearly occupied by an Arcadian fête,' given in honour of the spousals of Christophe and Josephine. Never did Isenberg witness so classical a scene. Pomegranates, citrons, laurels and myrtles, with the purple dittany, so celebrated by Theophrastus, and groves of orange trees thickly laden with perfumed blossoms, formed so enchanting a picture, that it is not surprising the company thought themselves, as the author affirms they did, transported to Pelasgia.'

6

Amidst a tedious profusion of mummery, copied, with equal ignorance and absurdity, from some French burlesquer of Grecian manners, Cupid binds the happy pair together with branches of ivy; upon which a fine chorus of female voices, greatly to the edification of the Bavarian boors, chants the following hymn: Like the Thessalian courser, exalted above her companions, like the lily the pride of the garden, Josephine is the ornament of our nymphs.' There is more of this exquisite fooling; but no mortal patience can get through it.

The festival is followed by another excursion. In this no 'cherub' is discovered; but the journey is not for this the less agreeable. A novel is nothing without a ghost, and Miss Palmer is determined to have one at all events. There is a certain Mons. Crevecoeur, cousin to Viola, who resides with her grandfather at Paris: this gentleman is extremely anxious to attach the young lady to himself; for this purpose, he takes an occasional journey to Bavaria, and skulks about the country in a suit of rusty armour,

till he finds an opportunity of frightening people into fits. Instead, however, of appearing to the daughter, he haunts the mother; and while she is sinking with terror, warns her, with a mournful waving of his head,' not to marry Viola to Villa

rose.

A thunder-storm now drives the party to seek shelter in an obscure village, called Mittewald (for the author piques herself on her topographical knowledge), which afforded but one miserable 'auberge,' or rather hovel, consisting of two rooms: here they agree to dine; and a repast is shortly served up, at which Dr. Mortimas manifests an extraordinary appetite as well as taste; for he eats his partridge with seasoned jelly,' and 'laves his paties with a profusion of turtle soup;' while, with somewhat more correctness, he washes down every mouthful of perigord-pie with a bumper of Burgundy.'-Vol. ii. p. 247.

It is the height of injustice to say that love alone is to be learned from the novels of the present day very accurate notions of natural history may be gathered from them; and hence we suppose it is that those young ladies, who, to their credit, study them assiduously, commonly find their understanding as much improved as their sentiments are chastened and refined. With all this, however, we should grieve to hear that any worthy citizen, encouraged by our last quotation, had, during a long course of easterly winds, projected a journey to the village of Mittewald, for the purpose of eating turtle-soup.' We have heard, from what we account pretty good authority, that no turtles have lately been found in Bavaria; this, however, forms no reasonable impeachment of Miss Palmer's veracity, as wonderful alterations are known to have recently taken place on the continent.

By this time Don Lerma has declared for Carinthea and Villarose for Viola: the eldest sister, Pauline, we had destined, in our own minds, for Sir Launcelot; but she had already provided for herself. During a residence at a friend's house, she enters into an amorous correspondence with an invisible youth, by means of a swan, called Jupiter, and a daughter of the king of Poland, who rides about the country in breeches, and carries tokens and messages for young damsels in distress. As Pauline 'makes it a point of conscience to conceal nothing from her honoured mama' she dutifully details the progress of her passion in a series of letters: instead, however, of sending them to the post, she carefully locks them up in a closet; so that her honoured mama' remains, for three years, in utter ignorance of the whole transaction. Before matters are brought to a crisis, the young lady and her hostess take an airing in the Tyrol: here they are seized by a band of robbers; and the lover, who had followed in disguise, is wounded and made prisoner in an attempt to rescue them. They are hurried through a

subterraneous passage several miles in length, dank, and dark, and full of horrors: at length they reach the habitable part of the cavern; and, as it may give our fair readers some idea of the mode in which bandits' live in the savage part of the Tyrol, we shall copy the description of the saloon.

'It exhibited the appearance of a superb tent: three large chandeliers suspended from its lofty dome, and filled with wax-lights, illuminated every part of it with the splendour of a palace. The carved cieling as well as the rocky sides were hidden by a loose hanging of light-coloured cloth-stands of flowers divided the room into compartments-these, filled with a harpsichord, a pair of globes, books, secured by nets of brass wire, &c. gave a polished character to the saloon, and proved that they were not fallen into the hands of absolute barbarians. Vol. iii. p. 65.

The bed-chambers of the cavern do not, by any means, correspond with the magnificence of the drawing-room: they are 'literally holes scooped out of the rock ;' and, to add to the horrors of such living tombs, no doors secure the sleeper against the intrusion of the daring inhabitants.' Pauline, therefore, not liking her quarters, gropes her way back to the saloon: here she finds a book on the table, which, on inspection, proves to be the bloody record of one of the robbers, written for his amusement, in the interval of cutting throats, and desperately wicked. Pauline finds it so interesting to her hurried feelings,' that she sits up all night to peruse it, though alarmed by the groans of a slumbering bandit, and the ferocious figures which glare upon her from a large picture, executed by the first masters:-for the murderer was a man of taste, and, like Alexander the Great, scorned to commit his features to any secondary hand. Meanwhile her lover, in exploring this interminable cavern, catches a faint glimpse of daylight; he immediately rushes to the chink, which is just wide enough to admit his body; but has scarcely reached the outward verge ere he is precipitated down a rugged descent of many hundred feet into the river Inn. A water-dog 'miraculously' preserves him from drowning, and some hospitable fishermen cure his bruises. He now bethinks himself, that so commodious and pleasant a mode of escape as that which the chasm offers, would suit the timidity of his mistress; he therefore hires a boat, and, paddling into the stream, begins a Bavarian air on the lute. This fortunately catches Pauline's ear, and she creeps through the opening to discover the musician; her foot opportunely slips, and she tumbles headlong into the tremendous gulph below. With great difficulty she is fished up, and more dead than alive con. veyed to a neighbouring convent.

Meanwhile the father of the baroness, grown old and infirm, wishes to be reconciled to his fugitive daughter before his death,