(To be continued.)
FASHIONABLE NOVELS.
It is well that hard words break no bones, else two or three gentlemen of literary notoriety would be in a sorry plight after reading the following passage in a recent Magazine. We stand by, and like the fellow in the play, bite our thumb:—
"Surely, surely, all men, women, and children, not cursed with the fatuity that would become a vice-president of the Phrenological Society, must by this time be about heartsick of what are called Novels of Fashionable Life. Only two men of any pretensions to superiority of talent have had part in the uproarious manufacture of this ware, that has been dinned in our ears by trumpet after trumpet, during the last six or seven years. Mr. Theodore Hook began the business—a man of such strong native sense and thorough knowledge of the world as it is, that we cannot doubt the coxcombry which has drawn so much derision on his sayings and doings was all, to use a phrase which he himself has brought into fashion, humbug. He could not cast his keen eyes over any considerable circle of society in this country, without perceiving the melancholy fact, that the British nation labours under a universal mania for gentility—all the world hurrying and bustling in the same idle chase—good honest squires and baronets, with pedigrees of a thousand years, and estates of ten thousand acres—ay, and even noble lords—yea, the noblest of the noble themselves (or at least their ladies), rendered fidgety and uncomfortable by the circumstance of their not somehow or other belonging to one particular little circle in London. Comely round-paunched parsons and squireens, again, all over the land, eating the bread of bitterness, and drinking the waters of sorrow, because they are, or think they are, tipt the cold shoulder by these same honest squires and baronets, &c. &c. &c. who, excluded from Almack's, in their own fair turn and rural sphere enact nevertheless, with much success, the part of exclusives—and so downwards—down to the very verge of dirty linen. The obvious facility of practising lucratively on this prevailing folly—of raising 700l., 1000l., or 1500l. per series, merely by cramming the mouths of the asinine with mock-majestic details of fine life—this found favour with an indolent no less than sagacious humorist; and the fatal example was set. Hence the vile and most vulgar pawings of such miserables as Messrs. Vivian Grey and "The Roué"—creatures who betray in every page, which they stuff full of Marquess and My Lady, that their own manners are as gross as they make it their boast to show their morals. Hence, some two or three pegs higher, and not more, are such very very fine scoundrels as the Pelhams, &c.; shallow, watery-brained, ill-taught, effeminate dandies—animals destitute apparently of one touch of real manhood, or of real passion—cold, systematic, deliberate debauchees, withal—seducers, God wot! and duellists, and, above all, philosophers! How could any human being be gulled by such flimsy devices as these?
"These gentry form a sort of cross between the Theodorian breed of novel and the Wardish—the extravagantly overrated—the heavy, imbecile, pointless, but still well-written, sensible, and, we may even add, not disagreeable, Tremaine and De Vere. The second of these books was a mere rifacimento of the first; and, fortunately for what remained of his reputation, Mr. Robert Ward has made no third attempt. He has much to answer for; e.g. if we were called upon to point out the most disgusting abomination to be found in the whole range of contemporary literature, we have no hesitation in saying we should feel it our duty to lay our finger on the Bolingbroke-Balaam of that last and worst of an insufferable charlatan's productions—Devereux.
BRUSSELS IN 1829.
For the education of youth of both sexes, Brussels is one of the best stations on the continent, and is a good temporary residence for Englishmen whose means are limited. The country is plentiful, and consequently every article of living moderate. It is near England, the government is mild, and there is no restraint in importing English books, though their own press is any thing but free.
The population of Brussels is rated at nearly 100,000, of which above 20,000 are paupers, supported by the government and voluntary contributions. The population is rapidly increasing. The number of foreigners in the winter of 1828 was between seven and eight thousand, of which half the number were English. Many families settle for a season, and take their flight south, or return home in June; but the greatest number are stationary for the education of their children. An English clergyman, formerly a teacher at Harrow, has an establishment for boys, well conducted, and the expense does not exceed fifty guineas a year. There are several seminaries for girls, also superintended by Englishwomen, with French teachers. Masters in every department are excellent, so that few places afford better schools for education.