ELLEN MIDDLETON
Is a religio-sentimental novel of fashionable life ; purporting to be an autobiographical confession, though it is not written in the spirit, scarcely in the form, of that kind of narration. Ellen Mid- dleton, when a girl, unintentionally causes the death of her cousin : her share in producing this calamity is known to a rejected suitor, who keeps the secret to others, only the more securely to harass
and terrify her. The tyrannical persecution of this base-minded villain compromises her character and her husband's honour in the eyes of the world. Ellen's fair fame is ultimately vindicated, but too late to save her from death brought on by her protracted sufferings.
This novel is the work of a clever and accomplished writer, possessed of considerable skill in the conduct of a story and the management of dialogue ; and as such it cannot be read without some gratification. Its grand defect is the almost unmitigated monotony of wretchedness pervading the tale of misery. Its weari- some painfulness is not lessened by the purely constructive woes of the heroine ; neither do the artful ingenuity and verisimilitude of the details hide the improbability of the main circumstances or the inconsistency of conduct in the principal persons. The cha- racters are unloveable ; the best being almost repulsive from their cold, stern secretiveness ; while the bad are dmmons of heartless cruelty. The vein of religious sentiment running through the work is out of place in a fiction not involving matters of creed and opinion, and in which charity and other Christian virtues exert little influence on the action of the parties. The "saint," Alice, is sold by her mother to the villain of the story ; her marriage with him being one of the many unaccountable occurrences. The pathos is of a morbid, larmoyante kind— disagreeable without being ex- citing : one cannot sympathize with sorrows partly gratuitous, partly the result of infirmity of character.
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