THE TOTING WIDOW.

THIS novel is a considerable improvement on the author's last pro- duction, The Grave-Digger, and in some respects is equal to his first fiction, The Scottish Heiress, although in others it falls below it. The composition, and the sketches of passing or subordinate persons who are not directly connected with the stirring and roman- tic business, are as good as those in his original work, if not better. But the romance seems to us inferior ; or, being a repetition of the same elements in other forms, it appears to disadvantage in the comparison.

The deficiencies or faults which seem likely to prevent this writer from fulfilling the promise of The Scottish Heiress and rising to eminence as a novelist, are two,—an inferior moral sense, by which he degrades his hero, or deprives him of sympathy in the reader's mind ; and a narrow or rather a single view of human affairs, which has rendered his second and third novels substantial but inferior repetitions of his first. A young gentleman with aspirations higher than his means, falling in love with an heiress, and brought into difficulties by his passion—a young lady or two, reduced from " affluence to beggary," as the advertisements have it, with perhaps sickness superadded to poverty to create dis- tress—and a " roguish lawyer," keeping the parties out of compe- tence for three whole volumes, but exposed towards " the end "- are the subjects on which this writer has hitherto depended. An ignorance or disregard of the duties unfolded by the Socraticce Chartee, renders his heroines deficient in delicacy of sentiment and conduct, and his heroes very unheroic, if not downright paltry fellows.

This last fault is pushed to an extreme in the work before us. Gerald Macoir, the hero, is little better than an incarnation of sel- fishness and meanness. He indulges in luxury at the expense of his mother and sister ; without property or prospects he enters into a clandestine engagement with an heiress ; he kills a rival in a duel, and, after allowing the affair to be hushed up, actually enters the church with secret blood upon his hands ; and finally drags down the woman he loves to genteel poverty. These things fill the first volume ; the widowhood not beginning till the second. It is then effected by Gerald going to Africa, in pursuance of an ab- surd promise to a missionary friend; with whom he is supposed to have been murdered by the natives. This, in conjunction with the death of his mother and the cessation of her annuity, brings both his sister and his wife to want; and the best part of two volumes is occupied in exhibiting its phases : first, in a mean lodging at Glasgow, where all their little savings vanish ; next, in the troubles of situations as governess or companion ; and lastly, the young widow, who is really entitled to her father's entailed estate, gets into the hands of a couple of lawyers, one desiring her person and both her property, which they are to share. When this difficulty is duly worked up to a climax, with a prison in prospect, Gerald Macoir returns ; and the Young Widow terminates her status and adventures.

For a first-rate novel all this is poor. Besides the cause of failure already mentioned, the author has aimed at raising a greater interest in the fortunes of his characters than modern manners will altogether bear ; and he thinks to attain it by depicting a sordid species of distress, which is rather for relief than fiction. The scenes, and several of the characters that are not involved in the action of the story, are described with truth and humour. Mr. Brantome, the old East India nabob, with a passion for botany and a favourite story of an antidote for the bite of a rattlesnake, may be a bore to the characters, but is not to the reader ; which is a point rarely hit. Lord Heron the good-natured sleepy Baron, his sis- ter the vinegar old maid, and several other characters, are well conceived and well presented. The author, however, usually succeeds much better in describing his persons than in exhibiting them in action ; and some of his scenes exhibitive of character and manners suffer by being introduced when the progress of the story scarcely leaves the reader at leisure to attend to them.

A variety of moral reflections are scattered through the book, often impeding its story, and rather eloquent claptrap than sound truth. Sketches of character and particular scenes are the author's real forte ; and he delineates these with vigour, truth, and great local (that is Scottish) fidelity. From this class our extracts will be taken.

A SCOTCH MINISTER.

Mr. Geddes spoke of the advantage of a knowledge of Homer and Virgil ; the economy of minced collops to a young man at college, because they had no bone; and the advantages of early rising, because it saved candles and was conducive to health; told repetitions of college stories over his wine ; how, when he gave a supper to his fellow-students on taking hie degree, they had first made him tipsy, then shaved one side of his head, and powdered the hair that remained with pounded rosin when he was asleep,—an amiable act of juvenile friendship, which made him feel lively regret that in this world he could meet them no more, although he hoped to hold communion with them in a future state, where, it was to be hoped, rosin and razors were difficult to be procured; how in his wild young days—a wildness, by the way, in which he rather seemed to have been a sufferer than a participant—those unforgotten juvenals had damped the wicks of class-room candles, so that they might not light, stuck needles in Professor's chairs, put gunpowder in the coal-cellars, and vexed the Magistrates with riots so that the military had several times to be called. out ; how they had been accused of enticing little children into the college, bleeding them to death in warm baths, while the victims sucked oranges, then dissecting them cruelly, and selling the offal to make drugs; and how he, and other harmless lads, had been beaten by mobs for these visionary crimes : at which agreeable reminiscences the good man laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks and the port wine over his hand and wrist.

A LEGAL GENTLEMAN.

Pyke was well dressed, and looked like a gentleman ; his manners and con- versation were such as a gentleman might have had ; and yet there was some- thing about him which betrayed inferior caste. It was neither in appearance, in word, nor in deed : there was nothing to take objection to in either of these; but all these were artistical: he had studied the subject, as it were, and, having a keen and powerful mind, had made himself master of it : he knew the effect which the world gave to the symbols of certain attributes, and therefore had acquired the power of using them. For these attributes themselves he cared not a rush : the polished benevolences of life could never have been farmed by such men as he ; but he found them existing in a system, and he set his mind to master it. Hence, although he had the ways, he had not the instincts of a gentleman ; hence the want of those small indecorums which show the short- ness of the distance which natural refinement may stray—the want of that genuine unobtrusiveness, which seems so imperfect in its own relation, but which unites so well with the other elements of demeanour—the want of that irregularity which shows an aptness for nicety, needing not the shackles of rules. Pyke was not a gentleman : he was easy, polite, well-dressed, and all that ; but the character, although well played and correctly understood, was not his own.

The following is from Gerald's night-adventure in keeping his appointment for the duel.

RIDE IN A SNOW-STORM AMONG THE HILLS.

It was a weary ride : the white wreaths were increasing in size and number,. and the escapes of man and horse were oftener than they knew. Even the hounds became nearly exhausted, and whimpered as they struggled through the snow.

A long sharp ridge rose before him. He made his horse clamber to its summit, and looked anxiously around him, in the hope of seeing a light ; bat he saw nothing but the white hills and the whirling storm. He heard the gurgle of a stream below; the sounds were faint and hollow, as if the banks were deep and precipitous. He kept this sound for a guide, and, why he hardly knew, proceeded in what seemed to be the direction of the stream. The ground continued to rise : the sound of the water became fainter, except now and then, when the noise the stream made, gushing over broken rocks, rendered it audible in spite of the vast depth of the narrow ravine through which it ran.

After proceeding for some time thus, in one of the temporary pauses of the storm he caught a glimpse of a faint light, winking some miles in the distance, on the other side of the stream. By this time the atmosphere, dim and stormy as it was, began to be partially illuminated by the rising moon. His object now was, if possible, to cross the stream and reach the light. 'urging his toiling horse along the edge of the ravine, he sought for a place at which he might descend the bank : but the chasm became gradually wider, and its sides even deeper and more precipitous. The partial cessation of the storm, however, continued, although the clouds, now partially revealed, were dark and threatening still.

At length he saw a narrow ledge running like a spur from the precipice, and seeming to cross over to the other side. It appeared to form a kind of natural bridge across the hidden river, although the masses of snow piled about it made its real character indistinct. At the best it seemed a desperate crossing-place, but not more desperate than his condition was. Patting his horse's neck with his frozen glove, he felt its mouth with the bridle, touched it with the spurs, and with that strange feeling which in desperate extremities makes us aggra- vate recklessness, he resolved to make the hazardous passage in the saddle. The animal snorted, and advanced reluctantly. The sides of the ridge were of giddy depth ; some of the snow that hung on them fell down, and revealed a narrower footing than he had reckoned on. At some places it seemed not to exceed a foot and a half in width, and was apparently about twenty feet long. Its junction with the opposite bank was hidden by masses of snow, but it ap- peared to be broader there. He now repented of having ventured to cross such a place on horseback: but it was too late to retreat ; one false step, far less an attempt to turn, would have precipitated horse and rider down the abyss. Just as he reached the middle of the ledge, the moon shone forth. The clear light revealed a terrific view to man and horse. The animal paused, and its startled rider looked around him. Far down the precipice the light shone on the black narrow stream ; tufts of furze loaded with snow—trees hanging forward on their strained roots that the sparkling icicles mingled with—and, lower down, sharp points of rock, which the river-mists had prevented the snow from lying on—checquered the sides to the right and left. The long yawning abyss seemed in the distance to join the irregular gradations of the lonely hills, now white, and glancing coldly in the moon-beams.

Gerald hastily removed his eyes from the depths immediately beneath him, for the sight made him dizzy, and urged on the horse again. But now the animal refused to stir. With its fore-legs planted firmly before it, its nostrils distended and its ears pressed back, it seemed under the influence of panic, and its head only obeyed the raised bridle—the animal would not budge. The thick-crowding clouds at that moment came over the moon again, and the drifting snow began to fly across the hills.

Gerald struck his spurs to the horse. The animal slightly swerved; and the rider, by a sudden movement of the bridle, only prevented them both falling down the precipice. The ledge here was not two feet wide.

The horse became restive, and attempted to turn. Maddened by this new danger, Gerald spurred the animal again. The horse reared ; and when the startled rider, bending forward, slackened the bridle, the animal attempted once more to tarn. Its hind-feet slid on the icy path, and its haunches seemed sinking; but suddenly regaining its footing, the young. man tried to urge on by gentle means; but the terrified horse reared more violently than before. A desperate blow between the ears, from the rider's heavy whip, alone prevented the animal from falling backward over the cliff: but its panic increased, and Gerald, as the last chance for his life, now attempted to throw himself from the saddle. The horse swerved suddenly, and lost its footing; the rider fell forward, and, grasping the ground, saved himself from falling over the cliff. Not so the horse ; for a moment or two it clung with its fore-feet to the ledge, pawed wildly to regain a footing, then rolled down the precipice.

The novel opens well ; using the feelings of young and ardent youth as a substitute for the common material of romance, in a way that recalls The Scottish Heiress. But it is not well contrived or supported. We do not enter into Gerald's feelings in the novel, because he brings his troubles on himself. Thus, he has lost his degree by his laziness and conceit.

A REJECTED CANDIDATE FOIL A DEGREE.

A few steps brought Gerald to the entrance to his rooms. Mounting a worn freestone stair, he reached them, and stood in the middle of the floor as if he bad been stunned. Now it was, when his pride no longer steeled him to the semblance of composure, that he felt the crushing load of the calamity which bad befallen him ; yet dizzily, as the prostrate mind acknowledges the startling reality of sensation after the shock of a mortal injury to the body. And cold and strangely inquiring as the eye of such a death-stricken man on those around him, was the look which Gerald now cast on the mute, familiar objects which met his view.

The window of the room looked out on the college-church. Already the dim court-way had a cold, misty obscurity ; the glass in the long Gothic win- dows was dark and purple-hned with age ; and the damp gray walls, on which, in their pent-up loneliness, no open light had fallen for centuries, looked dis- mal in the silence of neglect. Nor was the room itself less desolate after its kind. It was now precisely the light to give it the most dreary aspect. The furniture was old, ill-matched and dark, the carpet faded, and the walls gray with age. Books, some open and some shut, lay about the place; a pair of slippers and a dressing-gown had been thrown so as to spread a look of confusion, as far as themselves and their position of disunion could go ; the fire had been suffered to go out, and the small breakfast-kettle still stood on the dusty hob ; the very crumbs had not been swept away, but lay scattered about the rug, which with its torn fringe was itself twisted out of place. Piles of manuscript, college essays and notes of lec- tures, lay on the floor ; slips of paper covered with geometrical figures strewed the table, amid worn classics, with their open pages of browny whiteness stud- ded with marginal annotations in pencil and ink, looking repellent from the crabbed tedium of their hard black type and the weary labour they had al- ready caused ; and a letter which he had that day written to his mother, but bad kept unfolded, that he might announce, by way of postscript, that he had just returned from the college=liall, where his name had been proclaimed as one of those on whom the degree was to be conferred, lay on the mahogany table under his eyes. He looked at them all till they swam before him ; his pride forsook him—he sunk on a chair, and wept.