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This is really what it professes to be, a romance; - and the author gives very decided proof, that she knows how to please the readers of that description of composition, which she evidently has no hesitation in cultivating in all its wildness and extravagance. - Envious brothers, and wicked uncles, love-sick damsels, and disdainful chevaliers, good monks and bad, gallant knights, and ferocious banditti, gothic halls and moorish castles, haunted cloisters and mouldy dungeons, dismal caverns and impervious forests, the horrors of captivity and even the terrors of the Inquisition, black spirits and white, red spirits and grey - in short, all the delightful varieties of the various schools of Romance, are combined in these four volumes, to afford a rich treat to the most fastidious subscribers of the circulating libraries; and we predict that they will be so popular among the class for whom they are composed, as to be thumbed to pieces in less than twelve months.

Nothing can be more captivating than the opening scene of this enchanting Romance. Lionel, Duke of Clarence, repairs to the gay Court of Milan, to wed the beautiful Victorine, daughter of the reigning Duke. He is accompanied by the young and handsome Earl of Ravenspur, and his brother, Lord Henry Ravenspur. The susceptible Princess, and her equally susceptible friend, Angelina Frescati, are each enamoured of the comely English Earl. But his heart is as cold as the regions from whence he came, and one of the slighted dames determines upon revenge, whilst the other dies of love. Angelina marries Lord Henry, to have the better opportunity of wreaking her vengeance upon his brother. The party leave Milan, and return to England - and now commence the eventful plots, which occupy the first volume. Angelina and her husband succeed in persuading Richard the Second that Ravenspur is a traitor. - He is banished with his bride, the Lady Geraldine, and Lord Henry takes possession of his title and estates. The second volume details the tyranny of the new possessor of the barony of Ravenspur, and the regret of the vassals for their exiled master. The third recounts the attempts of certain assassins hired by Lord Henry to murder his brother - the flight of the persecuted Earl from place to place, and his hair-breadth escapes amidst caverns, glens, and rocks, until he takes refuge with a Moorish Prince, in Spain. The fourth is filled with the atro-[594]cities of a profligate monk, and the fearful secrets of the Inquisition, (the anachronisms of the book are mere trifles; the holy office has so many charms for a novelist, that it is quite fair to antedate its establishment) and ends with the accession of Bolingbroke to the English throne, the disgrace and violent death of Lord Henry, and the recal [sic] and restoration to his honours, of the Earl of Ravenspur.

One passage will be enough, as a specimen of the author's rich and poetic style.

'Ah, Angelina! well mayst thou love this haughty lord; for ne'er did mortal man bear such a godlike form: his spirit too, great and noble, yet gentle as the tenderest heart could wish. Ah! it must be so: he loves, else could he not resist the charms of our southern dames: he loves, and with romantic constant ardour. A rival! let her not come within our reach; for, although I cannot wed this noble lord, he must not, shall not wed another. No, time may soften his rigid feelings; and yet, why should I dwell on this: alas! am I not doomed to the cold chilling love of England's younger son? yet, sure 'twere no great crime to gaze upon the face of beauteous Ravenspur, and sigh that I was born a princess. But peace, my soul; I hear the tread, the lingering, cold and formal tread of Lionel. He wooes me as the cold blast on the snow-capt Apennines wooes the blushing rose: shrinking before the warping wind, it droops its head, its leaves of glory fall, and, stripped and faded, it droops, as I do. From the keen ardent gaze of our Italian youths I blushing turn; but from Lionel, with fainting chills. But why tarries he? some form of state impedes his progress.' Vol. I. P. 9.

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Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000