Character, or Jew and Gentile, by Mrs. LEMAN GRIMSTONE, is
a publication full of admirable morality. The authoress is a phi- losopher : now a philosophical lady is not a very popular character, and it is very possible that the work may share the consequences of this prejudice. Men prefer a thing to play with, to a thing to argue with. Before marriage, they love a charming thing—after marriage, a house-keeping thing: a talking thing, above all, a thinking thing, that presumes to judge, decide, censure, or direct, is an abomination—it disturbs the lazy despot on his throne. If a woman will talk, it must be in the way 'of amusement : she must tell stories, like Scheherazade, to save her life, or at least secure her happiness. But Mrs. LEMAN GRIMSTONE sets her face against all this. She charges the men kind with oppressing her sex ; and in order to keep them in subjection, cultivating in them a series of frivolous pursuits, and misdirecting their best feelings and exertions into just such channels as serve their own selfish interests. Some truth there is here, but not the whole truth : the fact is, that the men are even worse educated than the women ; and as the power of livelihood-gaining is chiefly in their hands, and moreover the initiative in all matters of alliance, how is it to be expected that they will choose to prefer matters which are not altogether to their taste, and which indeed lead directly to their own inferiority ? Mrs. LEMAN GRIMSTONE is a partisan, and as such is too much taken up with her own side. We almost en- tirely agree with this very eloquent and argumentative person; but it generally happens that we have a remark to make which materially opens the field of view.
The tale itself is as good as most ether tales : the opinions are More acute and profound than is usual in novels; • but with a view to their general diffusion, the authoress should have been more sparing of them. She was far less profuse in her excellent book called Woman's Love; a work full of varied excellence, passages of which will always remain fixed in our memory. The Factory Bill people should have republished her touching story of the little cotton spinner. To the enumeration of female genius as recorded in these volumes, we would add the name of the authoress her- self--Mrs. LEMAN GRIMSTONE.
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