The heroine of this novel resides with her widowed mother, Lady Riversdale, at
Geneva; and her brother, Sir Henry, is a very accomplished gentleman absent on his
travels. The separation of this affectionate brother and sister induces the necessity
of a punctual correspondence, as a means of alleviating the regrets of that state;
and the scene opens with lamentations on this subject. Miss R. tells us that it is
her brother's request that four⸱and⸱twenty hours may never pass without something
being committed to paper; and the request is faithfully fulfilled on the part of
Louisa, who, after the manner of other journalists, details every minute event of
her
life, and every emotion of her heart. As she is very young, and very beautiful, no
man of course sees Miss Riversdale without being fascinated: hence ensue lovers
² [Page 213] innumerable; and, as it is the natural consequence of abundance to
occasion a perplexity on the subject of choice, we perceive our heroine occasionally
fluctuating between two opinions; till at last she decides in favour of Colonel
Malcolm, who is such an Othello in jealousy
that we tremble lest she should encounter a Desdemona's fate. We are, however, at length relieved from this anxiety by
a sudden change of the scene; in which the Colonel retires to the back ground, drops
his love and his jealousy, and accommodates his behavior in a very gentleman-like
manner to the imperious necessity of the history, which insists on his marrying Lady
Mary Melville, who must have died had he not rescued her by a coup de bague. Miss Riversdale, having dissolved this
chain, welcomes the return of liberty, and flies from place to place with the
velocity of a bird. To-day, she is in London; to-morrow, she is at York; the next
day
she is in Scotland; and in every place she meets with great variety of characters,
which she paints rather too much in the caricature style. They are merely sketches,
hastily conceived and hastily executed; and by no means worthy of being classed as
pictures of the general habits, manners, or language of the people whom Miss
Riversdale describes. In many of the letters, however, we meet with good sense and
good sentiments; and the student or proficient in French will be pleased with some
parts of the dialogue, and some whole letters, which are written in that elegant
language. We think that the story of this work does not excite sufficient interest
on
the point of incident, to rank in the class of novels; and that it should rather have
been intitled, as the editor intimates, "Characters and Sketches of Manners."