darkest crimes had, no doubt, been perpetrated beneath his roof. He was my host, too-my entertainer; nay, more, he was the man I had seen in Edinburgh. I was no longer in doubt. He held me in chain, body and soul. I was completely within his power.

I had frequently been surprised at his odd manner since I had become an inmate of his house. Sometimes he was so abstracted that he would scarcely deign to speak; at other moments, he was gay and vivacious in an extraordinary degree. I always, however, observed that he left me early in the evening to retire to his private room, alleging that he had business on hand, which would engage him for some hours before he retired to rest. I was determined to ascertain how he occupied himself here, for I feared that he was engaged in some evil work which required the utmost secrecy.

rest.

A night or two after this, I retired to my room as usual, but not to About midnight, when all was quiet, I emerged from my room. I crept stealthily along the corridor, crossed a spacious gallery, and at length came within sight of the door of my uncle's chamber. I paused before I approached nearer, and stood for a few minutes looking through one of the windows. The night was thick and heavy, and the rain fell in copious quantities. I moved on-I stood close to the chamber-doorI drew in my breath, and listened—all was still. Had my uncle retired for the night? If he had, it was contrary to his usual custom; for he seldom discontinued his operations till long past midnight. I listened again, and thought I heard him cough. Yes, he was still up-still busy with his damnable devices. There was a small crevice in one of the panels of the door-I looked through it. Gracious God! I beheld a sight which for several moments prostrated entirely all my faculties of body and mind. It was with the greatest difficulty I prevented myself from falling my full length upon the floor. As soon as I had partially recovered, I proceeded to my room, and began to reflect upon what I had just seen. That dreadful spectacle I shall never forget. My uncle was bending over the prostrate figure of a dead man, which lay stretched upon a long board before him. I knew not precisely what he was doing —whether he was endeavouring to restore animation, or he was making some experiment upon the body. I slept little during the night; and when I awoke in the morning I was exceedingly unwell.

I saw little of Mr. Arlington on the following day. At night I again crept to the door of his room. I observed that the corpse was still in the position in which I have already described it, and that he was still performing some operation upon it. I discovered, however, in a corner of the room another corpse, stretched upon a board, which appeared to be that of a boy or a girl, not more than fourteen years of age.

On the evening of the following day, Mr. Arlington proposed to play me a certain game. He had a room fitted up for the purpose, with all the appliances that were required. I consented to his proposal, though with great reluctance. We played for several hours together, and I observed, as the game progressed, that he became greatly excited, and that his appearance and manner more and more approximated those of the strange being whom I had seen shortly before in Edinburgh. Our stakes were large, and I lost considerably. I became myself at length greatly excited, and finding that I invariably lost, I became convinced that I was playing with no human being.

"Fiend !" I exclaimed, in a rage of passion, suddenly seizing him by the throat, say, who are you? Your life, your conduct, is enshrouded in mystery."

"Unloose me !-unloose me!" he gasped, struggling to free himself from my grasp, which held him as tight as though he had been in a vice. "Never, till you have explained yourself." I rather relaxed my hold, to enable him to speak.

"I will answer no questions further than that I am your uncle—your mother's brother."

"Avaunt, fiend! I cast you off-I disclaim all relationship. There is not a drop of the blood of our family in your veins."

I threw him from me with all my strength, and he came down to the ground with great force. He never stirred for several moments, and I left him for dead.

I escaped from the house. I traversed the country for miles and miles, not knowing whither I went. For days I had no food save what I found in the fields. I came to a large cemetery: there was a party there, whom I followed mechanically around the grounds. We at length entered a low arch, and descended several flights of steps. I found myself amongst some catacombs. There were hundreds of coffins piled up one upon another. I surveyed them with eager curiosity, yet scarcely knowing where I was. I was so intent in doing so, that I lost sight of the party I had accompanied. When I discovered this, I began to seek for them, but they were gone. I was alone, immured in this dreadful vault, surrounded by decaying mortality. I threw myself upon the ground, and slept; but in the night I thought the occupants quitted their coffins, and that their shrouds were tricked out with all the jewellery and finery that appertained to their wearers in life. Oh! what ghastly looks-what attenuated forms-what hollow, eyes-what unearthly shouts and noises! There was a merry-making-a ball-and they danced with wild glee around the place, and amongst them appeared the hideous face of my uncle. Oh! what a night that was. On the morrow I obtained my release.

sunken

Some months after the period referred to, I saw again the black dog stretched one night across the hearth-rug in my sitting-room. The following day brought me intelligence of the death of my uncle. A few words will suffice to explain his character. He was an inveterate gamester, and had certain dealings with body-snatchers-a class of men at that time somewhat numerous in the northern metropolis. The skeletons of the corpses which he purchased of them for dissection, he sold to the medical students at Edinburgh. I need not say more. relationship I cannot help. He is dead, and will doubtless have to answer to a higher Power than man for the sins which he committed in life.

The

THE NOVELS OF THE DAY.

THE name of Mrs. Norton, too seldom hailed as a novelist by those who prefer prose to poetry, must ever be welcomed with peculiar pleasure by the lovers of fiction in this form, when they recal the singular pleasure they derived from her former productions.

After a series of years of experience, and consequently of trial, have past over our heads, we are all apt to dwell less delightedly on melancholy scenes than

In the time of our youth, when life's cares are unknown,
And its pleasures with all their new lustre begin;

for the
"inclined to sadness-oftentimes not knowing why."
young are
What, therefore, middle-aged, sobered readers may call too harrowing
to the feelings, too distressing in its truthfulness of description, in the
touching tale of "Stuart of Dunleath," will be precisely the charm to
attract the younger part of the community. We shall not, however,
attempt to deter them from the inevitable sorrow which their search into
these pages will excite, for we hold to the principle laid down by Tony
Lumpkin when he said, "the more they cry over a book, the better they

like it."

Graceful and eloquent in the easy flow of the language, the story of "Stuart of Dunleath" is pathetic and poetical, full of power and replete with interest; and its earnest simplicity of style carries the reader on with a narrative which fails in nothing "to hold the mirror up to nature."

The delicate, amiable, generous, and trustful Eleanor, Mrs. Norton's heroine, is one of the most attractive and captivating creations we have met with for many years: there is nothing forced in the situations which bring out her charming character; all, with regard to her, flows as naturally as possible; both her joys and her griefs bear the unmistakable stamp of truth; and the author of so youthful a picture must of necessity possess a thorough knowledge of the human heart in all its purest and most exquisite feelings.

We are not willing to give even a brief outline of the story, as we think it will be better appreciated by a careful perusal; the mere detail of facts would do it but little justice, although, in a dramatic point of view, "the plot is a good plot," and the excitement which seizes the reader is kept alive to the last. The hero is probably not untrue to nature, but he is, we are of opinion, Mrs. Norton's least happy conception,for this reason: the sad scrape he gets into by an imprudent speculation, which involves the fortune of his ward, and the rash attempt afterwards made on his own life, tend to destroy our confidence in him as a man of that strict honour and real nobility of mind which one not only looks for in a fictitious hero, but in the example which the writer of fiction ought always to offer in one of his characters as worthy of being followed. We love Eleanor, but we pity David Stuart, and go near to hold his extreme weakness in contempt. In spite, however, of this, he holds the story together with amazing interest and, principle apart, his character is drawn with a masterly hand.

Every one of the personages introduced has, moreover, some distin

Stuart of Dunleath, a Story of Modern Time. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. Colburn and Co.

guishing individuality, and in this particular Mrs. Norton reads a lesson to those authors whose characters are mere encumbrances on the stage, without helping the story. This is a rare and great merit, worthy of imitation, and shows the skilful workman, who knows how much every touch he gives will tell.

In proof of what we say, we shall give a few extracts, such as will show the singular graphic power of a writer, in whose comic scenes for such are not wanting in the midst of the sad whole-dwell so much humour, that we involuntarily murmur the name of Sheridan, confessing the likeness, and yielding to its influence.

The first volume introduces us to the feeble, amiable Lady Raymond, a prey to delicacy and indolent indulgence, whose existence is divided between sorrow for the loss of a tender and beloved second husband, the father of her daughter, the heroine; and devoted, admiring idolatry towards her son by a first, who was unloved, and was harsh and severe towards her. That son is admirably described in contrast to Stuart of Dunleath, left guardian of the child by his dying father, and looked upon with unfriendly eyes by the step-son, for whom his bounty had made ample provision:

There is, amongst some statistical records of madness lately, an account of a woman who went mad from pride in her child, and imagined herself the mother of the seraphim. Lady Raymond just stopped short of the point of insanity. She certainly thought human perfection had reached its acme in the good-looking, stern, square-shouldered young officer she had the happiness to call her son. What he said was law; his very step had a quarter-deck brevity and decision about it, as if he were for ever about to issue a command. He treated his mother with a protecting and superior tenderness, which he reversed into a stern criticism for every other human being, not excepting his affianced bride. He treated Eleanor as his father had treated his mother during their brief, unhappy union; in days he could not remember, but of which he gave in his own manners so correct a copy as sometimes surprises those who think habits are not hereditary, and who will not admit that habits are, in fact, a part of our nature and dispositionthe outward covering of the soul. Godfrey Marsden was clothed, under his lieutenant's uniform, in a perfect panoply of self-satisfaction. If he set himself up as a judge of all other men, it was that he was better than all other men, and he knew it.

Stuart of Dunleath, the guardian, is thus described:

:

There was much of his mother's nature in David, but the alloy of his father's blood was there also. The nerve and untiring energy which enabled Mrs. Stuart for years to stem a flood of ruin, he had but not her patient self-denial, her unswerving purpose. Her enthusiasm, her tenderness, her wide sympathy, and indulgence for all her fellow-creatures, he had: but not her self-government. The pang of remorse ever followed in his heart the commission of error, but the new error was not certainly avoided. He was like a fair ship, well-trimmed, with all her sails, masts, and cordage complete, her rudder and compass to steer, but no anchor to hold by when all was done.

The scenes between the master and his interesting pupil are sweetly touched, but we come suddenly on a passage which we must recommend Mrs. Norton to "reform altogether" in her next edition, if she desires to give the well-informed reader an idea of the erudition as well as taste of her heroine's instructor. Mrs. Norton makes Stuart describe to his fair and listening ward "the town-hall of Bruges," and tell her "the story of Jacques Cœur, the Flemish (!) jeweller, whose house it was," (!) and whose history is a pendant to that of our Wolsey in its illustration of the text-" Put not your trust in princes."

Now, if Stuart of Dunleath-we will not say the charming authoress —had ever read "the story of Jacques Cœur," or the history of his time,

he could not fail to have known, what any French schoolboy could tell him, that Jacques Coeur was the treasurer of Charles VII. of France, and lived at Bourges en Berri, as different a place from Bruges in Belgium as Monmouth is from Macedon. The fact being somehow known to the author that the unfortunate merchant was ill-treated by his sovereign, who accepted his gold to drive the English out of France and then left him "naked to his enemies"-makes this blunder of her hero the more extraordinary.

But to return to Mrs Norton's characters: Lady Margaret Fordyce, the accomplished lady of fashion, Eleanor's chaperon, is sketched as one only could sketch to whom such fascinating persons are familiar: the beauty both of mind and body of this delightful creature make her a rival in our hearts with the sensible and tender Eleanor herself. The pretty little Duchess of Lanark is no less well described.

Amongst the many passages which reveal Mrs. Norton's essentially poetical nature, one particularly strikes us; it is that in which she compares the springing of love in her heroine's heart to a flower.

Here it is:

66

Reader, I once saw a flower blow. It was a superb specimen of that glorious bulb, the amaryllis. For its own sake it stood in the window, to glean the two hours of sunshine of a London sky; for the sake of the giver it stood near me, that from time to time when I looked up from my reading, I might, as the French say, caress it with my eye." Suddenly a sharp sound, as of the striking of a large insect's wing against the glass, made me glance upwards. I saw it-I saw that daily and hourly miracle of nature in its act of completion. My flower blew: not as the rose blows, day by day unfolding its soft leaves a little and a little more in gradual beauty, but suddenly, with a glad start, flinging its deep rose-coloured leaves asunder, the heart of my young amaryllis lay bare to the light, and the sun saw a new worshipper on the strong green stem which daily drew light from his glory. It was the act of a moment; but no human hand, no skill, no art, could have forced the shining petals back to their calyx. My flower had blown, to live its life of dumb loveliness, to look as it did then, fresh as the dews of the morning, and afterwards waning in its beauty, to grow dimmer and more earthly, till a new and different compression should shrink those longpointed leaves, and bid them hang brown and withered from the cup which was their cradle and their grave!

Sir Stephen Penrhyn, and his hard, harsh, Scotch sister, are excellently well drawn-the latter, it is to be hoped, a little overdrawn-and Tib is the perfection of shrewd, inquisitive ill-nature. Scene after scene of real life flash by as the tale advances, and all is touched with a light and sure hand, and with just enough finishing for distinctness. The twin sons of Eleanor are beautiful gleams in the too mournful picture, and their sudden fate is told with startling-nay, almost frightful power, the more striking from the contrast presented of the worrying, cold-hearted sister-in-law's irritating conduct just before the blow that falls on the unhappy mother. Who that has bent beneath affliction but does not feel the force of this passage:

Nothing is more common than to hear it said to persons in affliction or depression, “Oh! but you should employ yourself—you should resort to some of your usual occupations: I really wonder that you, who have so many resources, should allow your mind to sink this way." Alas! our resources are of very little service in hours of real affliction! The soul is palsied, not the hands: we cannot employ ourselves if we would. There is an energy in happiness that the wretched cannot feel. To what end should we labour? What does anything signify? Why should we shake the sands in the monotonous course of time? Let the hours go by: let them bear them with us, or leave us behind in the grave; what care we? Only let there be peace and silence; no turmoil round us, no exertion expected from