We perfectly agree with Mr. Dallas that the value of these works of imagination consists in the
faithful picture of mankind which they present; and that 'when the author transports
the reader into the regions of improbability, his only view is to amuse idleness and
to gratify wonder,—the passion of children.' Mr. D's just discriminations of
character are evidences of his acquaintance with the world; and the blended lights
and shades, with which his pictures, make them as the French say "sauter aux yeux."² These lights and shades constitute the tempered virtues
which form that kind of equivocal character "good in the
main;" and personages of this description are the friends of Morland. The
Curate of Reading, though affectionately interested in Morland's welfare, comes
suddenly into his room like Job's messenger, and acquaints him with the series of
misfortunes that had befallen him,—the death of his only protectress, the privation
of his little fortune, of his situation, of his studies, of his every happiness in
life,—with the most philosophic apathy, though with tears in his eyes, and the
sympathetic address on opening his Pandora's box, of[Page 318]"having bad news to
tell his dear Ned." In this well wrought dialogue, we
see one of Job's comforters sitting for the picture of the Reading Curate; and from
this conference we pass to the reception which Morland experiences from the Vicar
of
Holcomb, and which may serve as a farther illustration of the truth of the
proposition, "that gifts of benevolence and humanity are not always brought in baskets of flowers."—The comic scene of the passionate
Whitaker, who quarrels with his tables and chairs for being placed on castors, and
spinning him round the room, owing to an angry jerk given by himself in the rage of
disappointment, it is worthy of Moliere; and the dialogue that follows, between Morland and the Vicar, is a finish to
the picture.—The reader will not resign his pleasure here, but will pursue the
narrative with sufficient interest in the fate of the hero, through a long journey
of
three volumes, without impatience for that harbour of rest, the denouement; yet, that we may not trespass on the rules
of our critical veracity, we must confess a gape or two on the fantastic scenery at Broke Hall, and the exaggerated character of the lady of that mansion. Many
excellent reflections, and precepts of the best morality, occur in the work: we wish
that our young Collegians were all Morlands; and that
the family of the Jones's would people a colony!—Having already given our sentiments
on works of the imagination, and agreed with Mr. D. that such will please most
as are most restrained within the pale of probability, we may be supposed to have
no
partiality for the second tale, which forms the fourth volume; indeed we may be
allowed to wish that Mr. D. had
not thought it necessary to maintain his position by the proof of illustration, which
exhibits a narrative of events as romantic as the fictions of Ariosto. We also disapprove the plan of
fabricating one story on the basis of a preceding tale: it is building one house on
the top of another, and exposing them to the chance of both falling together.