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The first volume of this work, from the pen of Miss Harriet Lee, was noticed in our Review for April last; and we then expressed a favourable opinion of the inventive powers of the fair writer, with which we would associate a similar judgment on this production of her sister. The story of the two Emilys, occupying the whole of this volume, abounds with a great variety of incidents, with many striking and affecting scenes, and is not without a considerable mixture of that distress and horror which are congenial to the present fashionable taste. The texture of the fable, however, is wild and romantic; little attention is paid to probability; and although manners are well described, and many observations are interspersed which seem to evince a knowledge of the human heart, yet we cannot compliment Miss S. Lee on the truth and consistency of her characters. The Duke of Aberdeen, on his entrance into life, gives no indication of that [417] cold, selfish, unfeeling temper, and that turn for low debauchery, which disgrace him in his latter years; and which seem scarcely reconcileable with the energetic sense and strong passions which are ascribed to him. The diabolical malice and revenge of Emily Fitzallen are such as, we hope, never existed: the disguises which she assumes, in order to impose on the Marquis of Lenox, are scarcely within the verge of possibility; and though her marriage with that Nobleman doubtless surprises the reader, the astonishment may arise as much from the gross violation of probability, as from the skill and art of the writer.

We know not whether we can approve of that practice, among our Novelists, which is now very common, of killing their heroes and heroines, and bringing them again to life. In the history of John Buncle, one of his many wives not only dies but is buried; yet she contrives to make her appearance again, and is introduced to her former husband as the wife of his friend. The revival of the Marquis of Lenox, after his duel, appears to us not less extraordinary.

The great defect of this novel, however, is that the perplexity, which in every tale is necessary in a certain degree to interest and agitate the passions of the reader, is occasioned not by those events which may happen in the ordinary course of human affairs, but by artificial concealments, the indulgence of absurd and unaccountable prejudices, and the wanton assumption of false characters. At the same time, in justice to the fair writer, we must observe that no objection can be made to the moral tendency of her work; that the prevailing sentiments are virtuous and pious; and that Emily Arden and her husband, the Marquis of Lenox, are bright examples of excellence in domestic life, and are rewarded with its never-failing concomitant, true happiness. - The language may be considered by some as rather too florid, and is not always correct.

We shall lay before our readers the following extract, which will enable them to judge of the descriptive powers of the author; and it will recall to their memory a calamitous event, which not many years since made a deep impression on every feeling and reflecting mind, and can never be contemplated but with sentiments of terror, mixed with reverential awe.

It would have been much more agreeable to the Marquis, as well as the bride, had the return of their friends been a little deferred. However, as that must happen when it would, the lover was anxious to find Sir Edward, ere he reached the palace of the Count Montalvo; as well to apprize him of the recent ceremony, as [418] to prepare him to avow a previous knowledge of his daughter's disguise. Wandering, with this view, through those beautiful groves that on all sides border the shores of Messina, the pure air insensibly calmed the spirits, and sobered the brain, of the Marquis. He half wished he had waited the return of Sir Edward, ere he wrested from him his daughter; and turned towards the walk on the quay; where he anxiously looked out for the bark of the Count. The grandeur and beauty of the view never struck the Marquis so sensibly: behind him arose the magnificent natural semicircle, with the lofty columns of the Palazzata; before him appeared the celebrated strait, once sung by all the Muses; and the elegant fictions were yet present to his mind. Blending, in an hour and situation so singular, the romance of poetry with that of love, he threw himself on a marble seat by the fountain of Neptune, and repeated, as he gazed, the verses of Homer. The blue strait, hardly dimpled by a breeze, was half covered with gaudy galleys, and the boats of fishermen; the fires of the light-house were reflected in glowing undulations on the waves; heavy black clouds, tinged with a dun red, seemed to seek support on the rocky mountains of Calabria; and the winds, after a wild concussion, subsided at once into a horrible kind of stillness. The rowers, whose laborious and lively exertions animate the sea they people, now made vain, though more vigorous efforts, to take shelter in the harbour. Suddenly the atmosphere became murky and oppressive; the clouds, yet more swoln and dense, sunk so low, they almost blended with the waters. Not a bird ventured to wing the heavy and unwholesome air; and the exhausted rowers could not catch breath enough to express, by a single cry, the agonizing fear that caused cold dews to burst from every pore. A tremendous sense of impending evil seemed to suspend all vital motion in the crowd late so busy around the Marquis; who impulsively partook that sick terror of soul, to which no name has ever yet been given. This awful intuitive sense of the approaching convulsion of nature was, however, only momentary. A tremendous shock followed; the Marquis felt the danger, and tried to arise: the earth rocked beneath his feet. The marble fountain, near which he rested, was cloven in twain instantaneously; and hardly could he escape the abyss he saw close over the miserable wretches, who, but a moment before, were standing beside him. Columns of the Palazzata and other surrounding buildings, fell with a crash, as if the universe were annihilated. The horror yet raged in all its force, when the sudden rise of the earth he stood on, threw the Marquis, and a crowd around him, towards a wall, which must have dashed their brains out, but that, weak as they were, the wall was yet weaker, and fell before them in a cloud of dust. Oh! God, what it was to hear the agonizing shrieks of suffering humanity, blended with the thunders of desolation, and the deep internal groans of disjointed nature! when, to complete the calamities of Messina, the sea, in one moment, burst its bounds; and boiling, as it were, with subterraneous fires, rolled forward, with horrible roarings, a mountainous deluge. As quickly returning, it bore away a train of bruised and helpless wretches; and among them, him who was so lately the gayest [419] of the gay, the happiest of the happy, - the unfortunate Marquis of Lenox.

Recollection was too fleeting, life too dubious, too fluctuating in the Marquis, when first he found he was yet in the land of the living, for him to connect his ideas, or utter any sound but sighs and groans. He soon perceived that he was in a small, but miserable place, encompassed with faces he had never beheld till that moment, while hoarse voices resounded in his ear, equally unknown to him. Alas! the only eye he could have seen with pleasure, dared not to meet his; the only voice he could have found comfort in hearing, uttered not a word, lest the agitation, even of pleasure, should, in so weak a state, be death to him. Yet watching every breath the unfortunate youth drew, ready to echo every groan that burst from him, sat, hid by a curtain, his anxious, his affectionate uncle, sir Edward Arden: and that the Duke of Aberdeen had yet a son, was rather owing to his natural sensibility, than his immediate affection.'

From the termination of this tale being designated only as the end of the second volume, we are induced to suppose that a prosecution of this joint undertaking is intended.

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