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Art. 22. The Miser Married. By Catherine Hutton. 12mo. 3 Vols. 15s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1813.
We have here certainly a promising first attempt. The dialogues are natural, and each letter is characteristic of its supposed writer. The story also is amusing; though the miser's wife teaches a rather dangerous doctrine (in Vol. iii. p. 145.) when, speaking of her conduct towards her husband, she says, 'I follow the example of the immortal Mr Pitt: whenever he had done or intended to do any great mischief, he thundered out a greater; and the people, thankful in' (for) 'escaping the second, received the first as a favour.' We presume that a similar speculation in real life would scarcely prove as successful as it is supposed to have been in this lady's case, and as it certainly was under the management of the skilful statesman in question. The letters of the inferior characters might have been more intelligible and amusing, if every word in them had not been studiously mis-spelt. It is an error (Vol. i. p. 258.) to say, that 'Lady Montgomery is become Lady Winterdale,' since she would be Lady Montgomery still, having married a man without a title; and the fair author is rather behind-hand in her information, when she asserts that 'Mrs Hannah More keeps a lady's boarding-school.' Vol. ii. p. 233. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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