STOKESHILL PLACE, OR THE MAN OF 'instills& THERE is no

writer of this age who approaches Mrs. GORE in the truthful and therefore the effective manner in which she embodial those social peculiarities which come nearer to vices than foibles. In her Hamillons, she painted dominant Toryism of the worst kind,—rapacious, profligate, and insolent,—such as the arbitrary temper of PITT and his successors, and the court Of GEORGE the Fourth, bad called into existence. In Stokeshill Place, she quietly, but deeply, shadows forth the mingled contempt and hatred which the country aristocracy feel towards a new ma; and hits hard the disposition in this country to postpone the ere joyments of life and the ties of affection to the reputation of a rim of business. She also sketches, and in a masterly manner, one of the social nuisances of the time—the "worst possible style of young man "—a " cad " in dress, a "disorderly" in conduct, a blackguard in behaviour, and (if, by the accident of position, not a sharper himself) so familiar with sharpers and their practices that he is safe from their tricks by being "up" to them all. The character of Lord Shoreham, the representative of this class, from his first appearance till the last we hear of him, is a perfect bijou as a piece of painting. And his uncles—Gustavus Drewe, the dry, methodical, disagreeable scamp, with his brother, Parson Drewe, the modern spurting slang divine—are equally good ; but the species is scarcely so extensive, or so conspicuous. The main interest of Stokeshill Place turns upon the career of Mr. Barnsley, and the character of his daughter Margaret, as it is gradually developed by the circumstances in which she is placed, Barnsley himself was bred an attorney ; but, by marrying his master's only daughter, he stepped into a fortune of some hundred and fifty thousand pounds on the death of his eccentric old father- in-law ; and purchased Stokeshill Place, in consequence of having been piqued at school by the perpetual descriptions of its glories by the son of its embarrassed owner. Settling down on his per- chase, he loses his wife, and forces his way into the rank and standing of a country gentleman, by his activity in the business of the county. On the accession of one of its Members to the Peerage, he represents the neighbouring borough ; comes to London, and through his Tory politics procures a fashionable chaperon for his daughter Margaret; embarks in London gayeties; is gratified by his own senatorial imprtance, and the effect which the beauty and accomplishments of his daughter produce on the fashionable world; when ruin (not in a very probable manner) overtakes him in his seventh heaven. He has temporarily in- vested a sum of money in a country bank at six per cent.; which of course makes him a partner, and his fortune is swept away by the failure of the firm. His daughter at first vainly endeavours to sustain his equanimity ; but when she accompanies him into voluntary exile, her mild virtues gradually acquire an ascendant over him ; and would have restored, him to peace, but for some secret crime, whose remembrance constantly haunts him. What this is—how it is discovered, and punished, and in what manner the virtues and sufferings of the heroine are rewarded—we will not be so malicious as to unfold. Every one who ever condescends to read a novel must read Stokeshill Place, and we will not mar the interesting suspense of perusal by telling how it ends. As a story, Stokeshill Place is not able to stand the test of con- sideration ; nor are the morals which the author would point very consistently supported. Then, a less skilful man of business than Barnsley would have known that the receipt of six per cent. brought him within the law of partnership, without the necessity of any unread clause in the receipt, and would never have so com- mitted himself: there are also other business inconsistencies, which detract from the probability. The moral of striving to get beyond one's born sphere, is inadequately sustained. Barnsley's business talents make him, in Kent, of more consideration than a arra country gentleman, though he may be exposed to mortification, from which they are free. And in London, his activity as a Mem- ber of Parliament, his wealth, and the beauty of his daughter, enable him to distance his country connexions. It is only his fall that reduces Barnsley to his original station : this fall was flot. likely to have happened to him ; and, judging from Mrs. GORIS account of the morals of high life, let the misfortune have hap- pened to whom it would, they would have been abandoned in pre- cisely the same way. As a mere vehicle for the exhibition of characters and manners, the story, however, is entitled to considerable praise. The.va- rious incidents in which the provincial persons and their prejudices are brought out—the skill with which the weakness of Barnsley is traced, as his schoolboy feelings against the Woodgates of Stokeshill are continually kept alive by the feudal prejudices of the villagers in favour of the old family—the picture of ham'

able life in London—and the mode in which the character of Mar.. developed, front the timid girl, whose whole world consists

and governess, to the domestic heroine, whose mind garet tsf father io her be a expanded by the triumphs of a London campaign, and 1::),"es-- been rers are called out by the necessities of adversity—are ,:rerae ..;obable, and sufficient. Still more excellent is the exe- P— I- "Mr Mrs. GORE seems to have an intuitive sagacity of percep- ctilletr!,enWhic—h-e-nables her to embody without effort the changes of the niany.coloured fashionable life around her.

Stokeshrll Place does not well bear piecemeal display ; the ho e being so unforced, and the parts so dependent for their effect w upon each other. However, we w ill extract a few passages, as

specimens of the workmanship, and of the sort of work. And the 6111 extract shall be a picture of the kind of country gentleman by whom the Peerage is •'recruited," and the motives of the

recruit. The Holloways have risen by prurience, economy, and time,

from the yeomanry to the first rank of the squirearchy; the patriarch for the time being living within his income, but fully up to his condition, and preserving the estates untouched for the eldest son, by placing his younger sons in commercial pursuits. But a. cloud was at length impending over the prosperity of the family. George Holloway, its heir apparent, afforded living proof that wise fathers do not always beget wise children; for a thicker.headed fellow never did honour to the squirearchy. At college, where, as at a military mess, the give and-take order of pleasantry forms one of the enjoyments of jovial life, Holloway had been occasionally twitted with the mercantile vocation of his wicks ; and, unable to furnish the retort courteous expected by his gibers, found himself at length a mark for contempt instead of a butt for raillery. The young fellow-commoners, his eempanions, despised him for being dull, and he fancied they despised him for not being a lord. The arrow thus launched had sunk deep into his heart. ip after fifes

eople found him too stupid to quiz; and the lint wound, uncl- P

faced by any deeper scar, went on growing with his growth and strecgthening with his strength; while every new batch of peels afforded a stimulus to his sufferings. Somewhat deaf, and by no means a conversrtional men, he took no note of the flouts lavished from all sides upon these gent: 3' of the King's crea- tion; he knew only that it was a mighty hard thing they should he entitled to walk out of a room before himself, and, by attaining a place at table above the salt, secure the best slice of the haunch, or the liver wing of the fowl, while he ares dieted on drumsticks.

For his father possessed an estate of nearly f20,000/. a year in that county which the brags of Bonaparte and the panic of Pitt rendertE, at the beginning (lithe present century, as important as in that of Cze.ar. Young Holloway felt that if Coriuth was esteemed by the ancients the key of ( ;twee, Dover might be called the patent Bramah of England ; and when he beheld his father's yen. manly corps galloping on the doyns in a paroxysm of the invadon fever, George fancied be could discover in the B:rmingliam helmet th.t sat heavy on his heavy brows, a foreboding of that future .roronet which was to add another baron to the heroic annals of Kent.

Still, old Holloway would not hear of it. Ile felt himself ton great to be made a baronet ; not great enough to be made a peel. 'Ike distinction which HO to raise him to the head of a table, would depreciate him to the fag-end of the aristocracy ; and he must stand as low in the Upper House as he stood high in the Lower. No ennoblement of public service consecrated in his person a distinction to which mere opulence Milo ds a prop, but cot Lever afford a basis.

Nevertheless, George, who from a dull young man was plodding on into a duller middle. aged, grew heavier in mind and bull)' as he advanced in years ; and this was the only weight he acquired in the world. Ills inventive faculties were not bright enough to create frm himself 'even a new ol 1,:cr of ambitiou. You might as well expect the Withamstead oaks to bring forth some fine season almonds instead of acorns, as for Holloway, ( junior though no longer young,) to fancy the word great man could swan any thing hut a lord. All those ten yeals of Lord Shoreham's minolity, which did nothing for the young squire but convert him front a man of thirty into a man of forty, had served to confirm him in this fixed idea. Ile never enjoyed a day's shooting at Wynnex Abbey, without feeling that the seal of its superiority over Witham- stead Hall consisted in a livery button; Ile could not bear to hear even the keepers advert to " my late lord's time." He feared that, as plain George Hui- loway, he might be confounded with his uncle the brewer, George Holloway, of Holloway's entire ; although the minister's grateful adjuration to his father to "name what he wished done for him," might at any moment distinguish him not only from the relative whom that vulgar fellow Closemen, of Cinnamon Lodge, designated as the Bacchwi of the Vat-ican, but enable him to take pre- cedence of Sir Richard Woodgate with his toll of antediluvian parchments. His one idea had germinated, like a grain of mustardoseed, aud spread its shade in all directions.

Le ler SHOREHAM.

Lady Shoreham was a woman unexceptionable in conduct, character, and Manners as regards the superficial moralities of life. She had been a respect- ful daughter to reckless parents; a deferential wife to a husband who valued her less than the least valuable drawer of his cabinet of medals; and was now a .devoted mother to the three children be had bequeathed to her guardianship. But, as there exist certain infatuations known by the names of egotism, .favouritism, nepotism, Lady Shoreham was the slave uf au engouement, which, for want of a better name, most be termed familyism. Till the period of her marriage, her brothers and sisters represented in her ,eyes a privileged race, to whom the interests of the whole world were to be nauri- feed; but, from the moment of becoming a mother, this idolatry was trans. 'hired to her children. She held their finger-aches to exceed in importance the plagues and pestilences depopulating a province; and a whole navy might sink unheeded, so that the pleasure-boat of the young Viscount floated in smooth water. The weakness was as little unamiable as any weakness can be that implies indifference towards the sufferings of mankind ; for she gave up her time and thoughts to the advantage of her offspring, and would have considered her own misery and that of the whole human race, as unworthy to be weighed against a flood of tears from the eyes of any member of her beloved family.

The over care with which Lady Shoreham has brought up her

IOU, coupled with a base peculiarity of nature, contributes to make him the selfish disreputable he turns out. His first appearance in the novel is on the occasion of his completing his minority. Barnsley has been left executor by the late Lord Shoreham : a gathering of the county is to take place to commemorate the natal day of his son : the day preceding has nearly worn away, and his mother is getting anxious ; but, just as he is given over— A sudden tumult arose in the great hall; and the yelping of dogs, the swear- ing of grooms, the neighing of horses, and the vociferous laughter of several strange voices, caused the colour to rise in Lady Shoreham's face. "It is my son: " cried she, full of joy, yet all of apprehension. And at that moment, a pretty-timed, underroseit young man, with a velvet travelling-cap on his bead and a pea-jacket on his shoulders, his hands in his pockets and acigar in his mouth, shuffled into the vestibule. " dear boy, I was afraid you were lost ! " cried hi mother. " Mr. Barnsley, Lord Shoreham; Shoreham, any love, Mr. Barnsley, to whom we are all so much indebted."

Barnsley bowed encouragingly to his young protig6 ; and Lord Shoreham, taking the cigar from his mouth, but not the cap from his head, tnuttered some unintelligible civility, while his mother led the way into the library. "You are very late," said she, addressing Lord. Shoreham. "the dressing. bell has rung. Everybody is come; it wants only five minutes of six, and we dine at six precisely."

"They must put off dinner," replied Lord Shoreham coolly. "'My fellows will be a quarter of an hour getting out my traps; and Gus won't be here these ten minutes."

"

" He chose to come with the parson in the britschka, on account of my smoking; and by Jove I smashed them like fun, Li irig them the go.by at the turnpike." "Gus! the parson! " faltered Lady Shoreham. "You surely have net brought down your uncles?"

"Didn't you get my letter?" demanded her son, planting himself before the fire on the hearth.ru,g, with his hands again ensconced in the pockets of the pea-jacket.

" What letters?"

" Saying that my uncles must he present at the celebration of my coming of age. Just like the parson," he continued, perceiving from his mother's wonder- ing face that this was the first intimation she had received of such a calamity. "I gave it him to put into the letter-box at Ctockford's, as he was going up the steps; and I dare say 'tis still in his pocket, unless his rascal took it out at night to light his pipe."

Lady Shoreham stood for a moment aghast.

"But, my dear boy, this is really a most unreasonable proceeding," faltered she, at last. " There literally is not a bed in the house. I had the greatest difficulty in making out one for our friend Mr. Barnsley."

" Why, who the Devil hove you got here?" inquired Lord Shoreham, with an air of disgust.

"All the families of the immediate neighbou:hocd ; besides ny brother Tynemouth, and—" " Well, well," interrupted Lord S!lorehatn, "let who will be turn NI out, room must he made for Gus and the parson. 31e uncles are the only people I have invited, and they must be properly accomunidated. How deuced uulucky that you did nut get my letter."

" Rather say unlucky that you did not —" "Shoreham, my boy ! " shouted a strange voice, as a strange head in a strange straw hat was thrust into the library, "are you here or hereabouts?"

" Come in, Alfred, conic in," cried the dutiful nephew, without stirring from the hearth-rug ; while Lady Shoreham escaped through the saloon, to recover her self, possession and give the necessary orders ; and Barnsley bowed and stared, as the extraordinary figure of liaison Drewe advanced into the room, gaitered and jacketed for his journey us other men equip themselves for a shoot- ing expedition.

"Where's Gus? " inquired Lord Shoreham.

"In confab with the heath coachman, finding out whether there's a tailor at Westertou he can trust to mend the spring of the britschka," said Alfred Drewe, throwing himself into a their, aial placing his muddy. leather gaiters on a

beautiful ottoman embroidered by the fair hand of his inece " That was a clever smash you gave us at the toll-bar ; and faith, my fine fellow, you must pay for it."

"By Jove, I thought you were over ! " cried Lord Shoreham, laughing heartily at the recollection. " But I say, Alfred, what the deuce did you do with that letter id mine ?"

"What letter ? To Lady Catalpa?"

" No, no! to ow mother."

" Your mother Devil a word do I remember about the matter. I took Lady Cat's myself, as an excuse for a call. If you trusted me with any thing for the post, I dare say I gave it to my tiger to drop in ; and the young dog (who is apt to take a drop too much) seems to have dropped all recollection of the business."

" Very unlucky !" said Lord Shoreham. "But we must make the best

of it." '

"By George, how they have ruined the place! " ejaculated parson Drewe, looking round. "how easy to see, by all thew gimcracks, that a woman's finger has been in the pie ; hope it won't prove a pigeon pie, eli, Shoreham ? Not a chair for a fellow's legs, when he comes in from shooting; and instead of a good comfortable rug before the fire, for man or beast to stand or lie on, a strip of velvet painted to look like a leopard's skin. Why not a real leopard's skin at once? Except, now I think of it, that they're all bought up for the Bloomsbury hammercloths. Tigers are sure to sports leopard's skin." "Come, come, don't put your foot into it," cried the young Peer. "I'll take odds thst the Mayor of Westerton has got one, at this moment, on his family coach. But here comes Augustus. Take it coolly—for he's in a devil of a way about the britschka."

Barnsley felt uncomfortable ; arid but that his black silk stockings and white waistcoat left no pretext for retiring to dress, would have been heartily glad to get out of the room. The "devil of a way" of a man recently taken up as disorderly in a row at the opera, excited fearful surmises in his mind. What, therefore, was his surprise when, the library.donr having opened an inch or two and shut again, a spare, middle-aged man, of formal demeanour and immoveable countenance, traversed the room like clock-work, seated himself gingerly in a chair, and began fillipin.g off the dried spots of mud contracted by his nether habiliments during Ins tourney.