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The Wild Irish Girl. By Miss Owenson. 3 Vols. 12mo. Phillips. 1806.
A report has been industriously circulated, with more regard probably to interest than truth, that the last book read by Mr Pitt was the Novice of St Dominic, a novel by this lady. This is one of the taxes, which greatness pays, and the profit, derived from it, is what needy or avaricious booksellers put into their purses. We doubt not that, without the silly actions ascribed through this channel to Fox and Pitt, we might, using the words of Cicero, say of them magni homines, homines tamen! Peace to their ashes! And let no bookselling trick add more weaknesses to their characters than they already possess. We need no Clytus to teach us that this great being was mortal. His last acts are on record, and if he had continued in the same style of mind as he enjoyed during the period of making his will, he might have read all the novels in Lane's library, without honour to their writers. We suspect that the ground of this fabrication is, that he was unfit, in his last illness, to read any thing but nonsense - such trash as, requiring no understanding, might be read without one.
The 'Novice' is composed of the usual materials. 'The Wild Irish Girl,' now before us, has this advantage: - It con-[50]tains an abundance of matter, which has nothing to do with the story, and whose injudicious introduction much injures its interest. Without the ill-timed tiresome essays on the manners of the Irish, their harp and poetry, it might pass with some commendation. Indeed, we consider Miss Owenson as better than the common run of novelists; and if she thinks this is a compliment, she is easily pleased and heartily welcome. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, November 1999
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