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Art. 42. - St Margaret's Cave; or the Nun's Story. An ancient Legend. By Elizabeth Helme. 4 Vols. 12mo. 1l. 1s. Boards. Earle and Hemet. 1801.
The young baron Fitzwalter marries Blanch Stanley against his father's consent; and so privately; that the old lord supposes them as living together without the ceremony having been performed.
Blanch dies in child-bed of a daughter; and some time after her death young Fitzwalter is prevailed on to marry Edith Montford, whom his father had designed for his wife from the beginning. She also has a daughter by Fitzwalter, to whom the name of Isabel is given, as was that of Margaret to his daughter by Blanch Stanley. These two children are brought up together till the latter is in her ninth year and the former in her sixth, when Fitzwalter pays the solemn debt of nature. Edith, who believes Margaret to be illegitimate, treats her as such, as does her second husband lord de Launcy; but by the unwearied endeavours of father Austin, her nurse Alice, and a youth named Leopold, she is established in her rights, and gets the estate of Fitzwalter. If the author were asked why, during the seven years that the baron and Edith were married, he did not prove to her the legitimacy of Margaret which he was continually denying, she would be puzzled for an answer; except it were that then her tale would have been ended. Upon the whole, however, the story is artfully, and in many places very affectingly, told, and will procure Mrs Helme considerable credit among the readers of novels. Friar Austin proves in the end to be count Hoffman in a state of pe-[238]nance, and in the peasant Leopold is discovered his son; - of course he must marry Margaret, or all had not ended in a wedding. His cousin Ferdinand, too, becomes the husband of Isabel. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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