15 MARCH 1834, Page 18

THE OLD MAIDEN S TALISMAN.

THE author of ('hartley is a clever man, but not of first-rate talent. In the present instalive, his ability is completely misapplied. These " Strange Talus" are not fanciful, they are not ideal, they are not romantic ; they are simply impossible. "The Old Maiden's Talisman" takes its title from a jewel which is given to Lady Mary Deningford, by means of which she is enabled to discover the inmost thoughts of people in relation to herself: she uses it till she has made herself miserable, by its information, and some strange imprudences of her os n : she then discontinues its use, and misses the benefit of its assistance at the very time it is most wanted. There is occasionally some humour, arising frum the discrepancies between the professions of friends and their real thoughts. But the author wants the light- ness of touch and the satirical shrewdness necessary to bring out the capabilities of the subject. The ta'e is also too long, and too tragic in some of its incidents, seeing that the greater por- tion is at all events intended to raise laughter. Ilad the design been to illustrate the evils of searching after hidden secrets, the whole should have been serious, and we might have overlooked the impossibility in the moral effect. Had the author's intention been to show the bliss of ignorance, we could have enjoyed a hearty laugh at the awkward information which the Talisman conveyed to its over-curious owner, or we could have laughed throughout without regard to a moral. But the mixture of the tragic, the comic, and the impossible, disgusts and wearies. It is worse than the deprecated junction of the fish's tail to the woman's body : " Quodcunque ostendis milli sic incredulus odi."

. The three shorter tales are somewhat better, for they are hu- morous throughout ; and the author seems more at borne with linendmpers, lodging-houses, and Margate boys, than when amongst lords and ladies. But we feel a certain heaviness of hand in them all, and probability is departed from without an object. It would be easy to produce all the effect which the author of Chunky produces, without granting impossibilities.