THE MISER ' S DAUGHTER EXHIBITS a considerable improvement on Mr. AINSWORTH'S
former Productions; and, in a certain sense, it is probably the best of his works. He has discarded the Nesvgate Calendar and felonious romance : there is more repose and relief in his persons and scenes, With less of laborious straining for merely mechanical effects. With limitations, to be mentioned presently, The Miser's Daughter also contains more of real life in its form, if not exactly in its spirit, than this writer has been in the habit of displaying ; and his style, though still literal and rather laboured, is less encumbered than it was formerly. The scene of The Miser's Daughter is laid in London, during the middle of the reign of George the Second-1744 is the date given. The main character, who is intended to point the moral of the tale, and on whom the fate of the other persons depends or with whom they are in some way connected, is Mr. Scam, the Miser. The he- roine is, of course, the daughter ; the hero, of course, her lover ; and the Miser, as another matter of course, is opposed to the match, notwithstanding some old pledge between the parents—neither very probable nor managed to any effective purpose. The rival of Randulph Crew is Philip Frewin, a hypocritical nephew—a close- fisted hunks before his uncle, an extravagant spendthrift abroad; Mr. Abel Beechcroft, an uncle of Randulph, an old friend of Scarve, and an unsuccessful suitor of his departed wife, acts as a kind of protector, or " machinery in piecrust "; besides which, Jacobite in- trigues and intriguers are mixed up with the conduct of the story. Connected with it, but often so slightly as to appear episodical, are a variety of town characters and occurrences ; which are by far the most easy and natural parts of the romance. The governing incidents of what is properly the tale are frequently improbable, and exagge- rated in essence if not in form ; the conduct of the characters, and the motives which sway them, unnatural and forced. They are not so- much men acting upon usual motives, as automatons palpably moved by a story-writer, who has got some object of convenience or fancied effect in view. From these faults much of the episodical matter is free. The fashionable gatherings in the Park, the fLIte at Maryle-
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bone Gardens, the masquerade at Ranelagh, and several other scenes, though deficient in airiness and over-minute in description, are written by a man acquainted with the times. The same remark ap- plies to the characters of Lady Brabazon and Beau Villiers ; the Welsh Jacobites, Sir Bulkeley Price and Sir Norfolk Salusbury, though only sketches, are life-like ; the old beau, Sir Singleton Spinke, and the middle-aged beau, Trussell Beechcroft, are finished characters, without any traces of labour. Trussell Beechcroft, the goodnatured, rather rakish elderly bachelor, is about the best-con- ceived and best-sustained character Mr. AINSWORTH has drawn,— amusing, consistent, and not exaggerated, though there was a temp- tation to exaggeration, which the author has successfully avoided. Trussell's introduction of his nephew to scenes of gayety and dis- sipation is not made to appear as the result of a roguish plan to embroil him with his rich uncle Abel, but as the effect of Trussell's own taste for such a life ; though the reader is occasionally allowed to suspect, that if Randulph should offend his straitlaced relative, it would not be altogether disagreeable to the beau. No doubt can exist respecting the author's knowledge of the time he is writing upon ; for Mr. AINSWORTH'S first romance of Rookwood was placed in a similar age, and much of his reading both professional and spontaneous bears upon the earlier part of the last century. But, either from want of refined art, or from having written the work for piecemeal publication in Ainsworth's Magazine, and perhaps with some view of future adaption to the stage, the piece has a disjointed appearance : the author, more- over, has made a bodily use of his studies ; a nice eye can detect his conveyances from the novels and comedies of the time. Mr. Scarve's chest is broken open, and the scene which ensues recalls a similar one in the comedy of the Miser. When Lady Brabazon visits the old usurer to borrow money, he is smitten with the fashionable demirep : and the incident was a favourite one with the older comic writers, but the decorum of our time requires a guarded display, and perhaps the raciness escapes with the breadth. The idea of Lady Brabazon and the use made of her seems to have been derived from the Lady Bellaston of Tom Jones; though Mr. A naswoirru necessarily stops short of the fulness of FIELDING. The company in Beau Villiers's ante-room--jockey, bully, tailor, a transcript from the scene in the "Rake's Progress."
Crackenthorpe Cripps, the Beau's valet in his master's clothes, is the valet of the stage rather than of life, and though often amusing is generally overdone : whilst the appetite of Jacob, the Miser's man, and several other points of action, seem not only drawn from the stage but designed to return to it.
The lighter scenes, or those with the Jacobite conspirators, though much the best parts of the work, require great space, and some previous acquaintance with the characters, to appreciate them : we must take a few descriptive parts, albeit literal.
A MISER AND HIS ROOM.
Mr. Scarve was an old man, and looked much older than he really was— being only sixty-five, whereas he appeared like eighty. His frame was pinched,, as if by self-denial, and preternaturally withered and shrivelled; and there was a thin, haggard, and almost hungry look about his face, extremely painful to contemplate. His features were strongly marked and sharp, and his eye gray, keen, and piercing. He was dressed in a threadbare cloth robe, trimmed with sable, and wore a velvet nightcap, lined with cotton, on his head. The rest of his habiliments were darned and patched in an unseemly manner. Beside him was a small table, on which was laid a ragged and dirty cloth, covered with the remains of his scanty meal, which Randulph's arrival had interrupted. Part of a stale loaf, a slice of cheese, and a little salt constituted the repast.
Every thing in the room bespoke the avaricious character of its owner. The paneled walls were without hangings or decoration of any kind. The room itself it was evident had known better days and richer garniture. It was plain, but handsome in its character ; and boasted a large and well-carved chimney- piece, and a window filled with stained-glass, displaying the armorial bearings of the former possessor of the house, though now patched in many places with paper, and stopped up in others with old rags. This window was strongly grated, and the bars were secured in their turn by a large padlock, placed inside in the room. Over the chimney-piece were placed a couple of large blue and white china bottles, with dried everlasting flowers stuck in the necks. There were only two chairs in the room, and a stool. The best chair was appropriated by the miser himself. It was an old-fashioned affair, with great wooden arms, and a hard leathern hack, polished, like a well-blacked shoe, by frequent usc. A lzw coals, carefully piled into a little pyramid, burned within the bars, as if to show the emptiness of the grate, and diffused a slight gleam, like a mocking laugh, but no sort of heat.
THE BEAU'S DRESSING-ROOM.
While Randulph was returning the fencing-master's bow, the door of the
inner room was opened by Mr. Cripps. On discerning Trona and his com- panion, the valet immediately hastened towards them, and entreated them to step in to his master, who, be affirmed, had been expecting them for some time.
The apartment into which they were ushered was the beau's dressing- chamber; that part of it, however, devoted to the toilette-table and its ap- pliances being separated from the rest by a magnificent Indian japanned screen. It was furnished with the most refined and luxurious nude. Rose .coloured curtains drawn across the windows subdued the light, and threw a warm tint on all around, while the air was loaded with delicious.perfurres. A very dimi- nutive monkey, clothed in a scarlet coat, and wearing a bag-wig and a little sword, played its diverting tricks in one corner, while a gaudily-plamaged macaw screamed in the opposite angle. Choice flowers in pots added their fragrance to the artificial odours; and a couple of exquisite little spaniels of Charles the Second's breed, with the longest and silkiest ears imaginable, and large gazelle-like eyes, occupied a cushion on the hearth. At a table, covered with the whitest and finest linen, and glittering with silver of the rarest work- manship, together with a superb service of china, sat, or rather reclined, in the easiest of easy chairs, Beau Villiers. He did not rise on the appearance of his guests, but moving slightly and graciously to them, though with somewhat, Randolph fancied, of a patronizing air, motioned Mr. Cripps to set them chairs. He was quite in dishabille; his graceful figure being enveloped in a loose dressing-robe of the richest brocade, while the place of the peruke was supplied by a green silk cap, very becomingly put on. His shirt was open at the throat, and decorated with a profusion of lace at the bosom and wrists. Pink silk hose and velvet slippers completed his costume. There were two other persons present ; Sir Singleton Spinke, and a very portly gentleman with puffed-out Inflamed cheeks, who was introduced as Sir Bulkeley Price, and who Ran- dolph concluded must be the hero of the story he had just heard related by the barber : a circumstance which gave him a peculiar interest in his eyes. Mean- while, Mr. Crippa, who together with the page officiated at breakfast, pro- ceeded to do the honours, and, twirling the mill of a richly-chased silver choco- late-pot, poured out two well-frothed cups of the unctuous beverage, and handed them to the new comers.
MARYLESIONE GARDENS.
Marylebone Gardens, it is well known, lay on the eastern side of the upper end of the lane bearing the same name; the whole of the country beyond Harley Street, which was not more than a third of its present extent, being open fields. They were of considerable size, and were originally laid out and planted at the beginning of the last century, at which time the public were gratuitously ad- flatted to them. In one part of the grounds there was an excellent bowling- green, which drew many lovers of that most agreeable recreation to it. By degrees, the gardens being very conveniently situated, rose in repute ; and in 1737, their proprietor, Mr. Gough, began to demand a shilling for admittance— this sum entitling the visitor to its value in refreshments. But still further improvements were effected. Orchestras, boxes, and a theatre for musical en- tertainments, were erected within them. Besides the main walks, semicircular rows of trees were planted, and hedges contrived so as to form pleasing laby- rinths for those who preferred privacy. Bowers and alcoves were built in different places ; lamps were fastened to the trees; and at night, on the occasion of a fête, every part of the garden was illuminated with myriads of lamps of various colours. The company began to improve, and the price of admission was raised to five shillings. Fetes of every kind were held here-' and the place continued in vogue until nearly the end of the century with which its rise commenced. Malcolm mentions that a few trees, once forming part of Mary- lebone Gardens, were standing at the north end of Harley Street in 1808. But we fear not even a stump of one of them is now Lft.
• The etchings by CRUIKSHAISK, which firmed an essential feature of the story in the Magazine, are not without distinct character in some instances, though in others grossly caricatured : their merit consists in the dramatic arrangement of the groups and the striking effect of the scenes. These are placed before the eye so vividly that they appear like sketches of actual occurrences : one almost begins to consider whether it was possible CRITIESHANK should have visited Ranelagh or Marylebone Gardens, or been engaged in a duel with swords in Tothill-fields, a century ago.
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