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MRS INCHBALD is already in possession of a very fair reputation as a writer, from which this performance will by no means detract. We have, however, a very serious quarrel [262] with many of the principles which are here inculcated, many misrepresentations of characters and situations; many inaccuracies, which a candid enquiry, or a little careful deliberation, would have prevented. We lament that it should be thought necessary, by some of the most accomplished persons in this branch of writing, to exhibit the errors and weaknesses of those in exalted rank, in the most odious and exaggerated representations. What is intended by it, we shall not here investigate; nor stop to observe, that, in vulgar minds, the transition from contempt and dislike to acts of violence is but too easy. We shall be satisfied with telling Mrs. Inchbald, and those with whose sentiments she appears to assimilate her own, that the noblest virtues, and most excellent accomplishments, are as often found to unite in individuals of the most elevated rank, as in any other portion of society, and that throughout all, the moralist will have occasion to distribute his admiration and dislike in proportions nearly equal.

The outline of the story, which is agreeably enough told in these volumes, is this: two brothers, William and Henry, set out on foot, from a distant province, to seek their fortunes in London. After suffering, for a time, the evils of poverty, Henry fortunately remembered one qualification, which, in all his distress, he had never called to his recollection, namely, that he could play upon the fiddle. This accomplishment, (credat Judaeus!) enables him very speedily to maintain his brother at college, to obtain for him, first of all, a living of five hundred pounds a year, and afterwards a deanery, whence finally, he succeeds to a bishoprick.

The demeanour of the Ecclesiastic, in his progress from humility to grandeur, is represented throughout as full of ingratitude, insolence, pride, and every unamiable quality. The Fiddler, ill-treated by his great brother, and losing, by accident, the means of exercising his talent, migrates to a distant and barbarous country, whence he contrives to send an only son to the care of his brother; and the contrast of the manners of the uneducated young man, with those of the son of the polished, and now affluent priest, the delineation of their several qualities of mind, and their final effects upon the quantum of content which each is supposed to enjoy, is the object of Mrs. Inchbald's novel. The Bishop dies, despised and unlamented; his son, distinguished by the vices of the age, becomes a Judge, condemns to death a young woman whom he has seduced, and spends the latter part of his life detested by all, and not less so by himself. The Bishop's brother returns to his native country, accompanied by his son, who, incurring his uncle's displeasure, had left England in search of his father. The issue of [263] these adventures is, that they spend the remainder of their lives in humble, but contented poverty.

Every vice and imperfection to which, from their situation and circumstances, grandeur and affluence are exposed, are here plentifully heaped upon the poor Bishop and his friends. All we can say is, that we know of no such ecclesiastics as are here represented; we never heard of such distinction obtained in the Church through such a channel; and indeed, throughout, we are compelled to remark, that the author seems to have received her information, with respect to colleges, and the clergy, from very ignorant, or, what is worse, very malicious tongues. We could point out many other errors of a less important kind, but we would rather turn to the more agreeable part of our duty, that of the communication of praise. The book throughout is remarkably well written; some situations are described with singular elegance, truth, and energy. The following description of a young woman, who, having been seduced and deserted, and, as she supposed, having also murdered her infant, has determined on self-destruction, can never be read without emotion. With this we shall take our leave of the performance.

While she found herself resolved, and evening just come on, she hurried out of the house, and hastened to the fatal wood - the scene of meditated murder, and now the intended scene of suicide. As she walked along, between the close-set trees, she saw, at a little distance, the spot where William first made love to her; and where, at every appointment, he used to wait her coming. She darted her eye away from this place with horror; but, after a few moments of emotion, she walked slowly up to it - shed tears, and pressed with her trembling lips that tree, against which he was accustomed to lean while he talked to her. She felt an inclination to make this the spot to die in - but her preconcerted, and the less frightful death, of throwing herself into a pool on the other side of the wood, induced her to go onwards -

Presently she came near the place where her child, and William's, was exposed to perish. Here she started with a sense of the most atrocious guilt; and her whole frame shook with the dread of an approaching omnipotent judge, to sentence her for murder. She halted, appalled! aghast! Undetermined to exist longer beneath the pressure of a criminal conscience, or die that very hour and meet her final condemnation.

She proceeded a few steps farther, and beheld the very ivy bush close to which her infant lay when she left him exposed; and now from this minute recollection, all the mother rising in her soul, she saw, as it were, her babe again in its deserted state, and, bursting into tears of bitterest contrition and compassion, she cried:

'As I was merciless to thee, my child, thy father has been pitiless to me! as I abandoned thee to die with cold and hunger, he has forsaken, and has driven me to die by self murder.' She now fixed [264] her eager eyes on the distant pond, and walked more nimbly than before, to rid herself of her agonising sense!

Just as she had nearly reached the wished-for brink, she heard a footstep, and saw, by the glimmering of a clouded moon, a man approaching. She turned out of her path for fear her intentions should be guessed at and thwarted; but still, as she walked another way, her eye was wishfully bent towards the water that was to obliterate her love and her remorse - obliterate for ever William and his child.

It was now that Henry, who, to prevent scandal, had stolen at that still hour of the night to rid the curate of the incumbrance, so irksome to him, and take the foundling to a woman whom he had hired for the charge: it was now that Henry came up with the child of Hannah in his arms, carefully covered all over from the night's dew.

'Hannah; is it you?' (cried Henry, at a little distance) 'Where are you going this late?'

'Home, sir,' said she, and rushed among the trees.

'Stop, Hannah,' he cried, 'I want to bid you farewell; tomorrow I am going to leave this part of the country for a long time. So God bless you, Hannah!' Saying this, he stretched out his arm to shake her by the hand.

Her poor heart, trusting that his blessing, for want of more potent offerings, might perhaps at this tremendous crisis, ascend to heaven in her behalf, she stopt, returned, and put out her hand to take his.

'Softly,' said he, 'dont [sic] wake my child; this spot has been a place of danger for him; for underneath this very ivy bush it was that I found him.'

'Found what?' cried Hannah, with a voice elevated to a tremendous scream.

'I will not tell you,' replied Henry, 'for no one I have ever told of it would believe me.'

'I will believe you; I will believe you;' she repeated with tones yet more impressive.

'Why then,' said Henry, 'only five weeks ago?'

'Ah!' shrieked Hannah.

'What do you mean?' said Henry.

'Go on,' she articulated in the same voice.

'Why then, as I was passing this very place, I wish I may never speak truth again, if I did not find' - here he pulled aside the rug in which the infant was wrapt - "this beautiful child.

'With a cord?'

'A cord was round its neck.'

''Tis mine! the child is mine! I am the mother and the murderer! I fixed the cord, while the ground shook under me! while flashes of fire darted before my eyes! while my heart was bursting with despair and horror. But I stopt short. I did not draw the noose. I had a moment of strength, and I ran away. I left him living - he is living now - escaped from my hands - and I am no longer ashamed, but overcome with joy that he is mine! [265] I bless you, my dear, for saving his life, for giving him to me again, for preserving my life as well as my child's.'

Here she took her infant, pressed it to her lips and to her bosom, then bent to the ground, clasped Henry's knees, and wept upon his feet.

He could not for a moment doubt the truth of what she said; her powerful, yet broken accents, her convulsive starts, even more, her declaration convinced him.

[complete] Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, August 1999.