HOME.

IN her present publication SARAH STICKNEY has attempted the regular novel, and with,considerable success. Home, or the Iron Rule, is a pleasing and very graceful work. The story, although dealing with the commonest incidents of everyday life, is suffi- ciently interesting; the ch4racters are drawn with consistency and truth ; the style is elegant and sustained, and the whole com- position highly wrought without being overwrought. Critically speaking, a want of rapid4 might be objected to in the progress of the narrative ; but this is rather perceived than felt.: one or two of the incidents are perhaps not likely to have taken place ; and Elliot Lee, though consistent from first to last, appears to act without sufficient motive. But these are partial blemishes. Taken altogether, Home reminds us of the productions of another day, when the whole of a book was carefully planned and every part minutely finished, rather than of the hasty, bold, slapdash productions of our time.

The object of this novel is to trace the miserable effects that flow from a stern and severe system of domestic education, even when adopted with the best intentions, and carried into effect by a man of rigid integrity, great self-control, and as touch piety as such a character can attain. Stephen Grey is such a person ; and the interest of the tale turns upon the characters and fortunes of his children and the connexions they form in life ; each being de- veloped at a length proportioned to their importance, and with a skill which gives them connexion if not unity. The eldest son— smooth, versatile, and artful—during boyhood becomes a selfish hypocrite, and at last neglects his father when a reverse of fortune overtakes him. The second son, George Grey—of a coarse and obtuse disposition, but with the seeds of good-nature at least—is made an obstinate boy, and a low, sottish, sensual man. ALLAN, the youngest, has a shrinking, sensitive mind—the weaknesses of .genius without its strength. His father persists in forcing him into his counting-house; whence, after mutual disagreements, he is ex- pelled, and finally dies unhappy. Harriet—an open, high-spirited, .guldy girl—has her affections chilled by her father's repulsiveness. Unable to bear the puritanical gloom of the paternal residence, she -consents to reside with an aunt—a fussy, match-making busy-body, whose aim is to "get Harriet off," and who, without meaning to hurt the feelings of her -niece, is constantly hinting that she ought to have a home of her own. Under these galling circumstances, she accepts the hand of a portly, good-natured, vulgar Alderman, with a desperate consciousness of the unhappiness that awaits her: the whole of which sacrifice is admirably painted, both in its deep feelings and its reckless surface gayety. She is threatened, how- ever, by something worse than misery, through the arts of an un- principled man of fashion ; from which she is rescued by her sister Mary Grey, the heroine of the tale. Upon this character SARAH STICKNEY has expended the greatest labour : and a rigid logician might perhaps object, that, with a peculiar idiosyncracy, the "iron rule" was the best kind of training that could be adopted to pxo- duce a high-minded, self-saerificing, retiring-woman, containing • deep feelings within a calm exterior. But, passing this, Mary • Grey is beautiful both in conception and execution. The combined mother and sister of the family when young, alike protecting and sympathizing with them; the peacemaker towards all as they grow up; the soother of her father in prosperity, his stay in ad- versity; feeling keenly the loss of her first love, yet sustaining it with firm patience, and making her own unhappiness no excuse for neglecting the happiness of others. In line, Mary Grey ap- proaches much nearer the angelic nature, in her homely, un- pretending virtues, than all those heroines of romance whom the writers assure us are angels. We would gladly tell her final fate, were it not a balk to many readers to know the end.

There are many other characters besides the Grey family in the novel, and many episodes to which we have made no allusion. There are also sufficient changes of fortune, and ample variety in the scenes. Of the book we fear that no quotations can convey a fair idea; because, deriving its value from no single feature, it requires to be read entirely, or at least at much greater length than a journal under any circumstances can allow to extracts.

The following passage strikes us as a happy specimen of the writer : common, yet not commonplace—clearly put, if not for the first time—whilst any thing of triteness in the subject is redeemed by the sly elegance of the manner.

alit. GREY'S WIFE.

It may be reasonably asked, how such a man as we have here described could ever stoup to solicit the love of woman ? a question which, on the plea of utttr ignorance, the writer declines to answer ; it having always appeared to her one of the greatest mysteries in life, how mu, whose very birthright seems to be the inalienable privilege of commanding, should humble themselves to the com- mon language of love ; yet that they do actually solicit, and not commaod, we can- not for the honour of the female sex permit ourselves to doubt. And certain it is that Stephen Grey did lead to the altar a fair and gentle bride, who found little difficulty in conforming to the very letter of her vow. It is true she was hardly prepared fur all that followed ; for, being considered merely as a piece of domes- tic machinery, whose office was to keep the rest of the household furniture in order, she was not prepared to have all her womanish wishes thwarted as if for very pastime, or to bring up children whose infantine caresses should never meet a father's tenderness ; and fur some time site persisted in introducing them occasionally to his notice. When they looked their loveliest, and sometimes when her heart was lightest, she would suffer then, to reach so far as the sober page upon which her husband's eye was fixed, while the merry urchins would laugh and crow and pat the rustling paper, until an angry growl, or a sharp stroke upon the little rosy fingers, sent both mother and child into the nursery to hide their disappointment and their tears. Here it was that Mrs. Grey learned, like many other weak women, to seek the sympathy she was denied elsewhere ; for with her servants she could converse about her children, and in the society of her humble friends she could freely enjoy their playful prattle. Dangerous as this system of confidence was, it would have been well if the stern discipline of her husband had driven the helpless wife to no other resource; but there was one more lamentable means of escaping the harshness she dared not brook, to which ponr Mrs. Grey at last descended,—and that was, to deceive. It was not her nature, and still less her wish ; but she was harassed, frightened, and systematically denied even- trifling request, merely because it was a woman's ; and though she could' have borne all this for herself, for her children she thought it act only justifiable but meritorious to find some way of escape. Hence fialowed the forbidden wish secretly indulged ; the detected transgression covered with an evasion, perhaps with more ; the unlawful treat when papa was gone born borne ; and all that fatal undermining of domestic comfort, of social union, and of moral rectitude, so sure to follow when the wide field m deception is once thrown open.

This description of forced Family Prayers is also sensible and pointed ; and serves to introduce sketches of some of the persons already mentioned. We take it out, but in the book it is con- nected with the narrative.

First in importance, then, was James Grey, the oldest son ; whose complexion, hair, and features, bore a strong resemblance to those of his father, but that greater pliability of muscle enabled hint to smile, as well as look serious,just as occasion required. Some people thought it a sinister smile, and certainly it was one that seldom ripened into a hearty laugh. It seemed to be a smile having a purpose in it, rather than arising from the natural gayety of a light, free spirit. With all his strict sense of propriety, his inborn desire to he, to do, and es- pecially to look the thing most approved in society. James Grey was not able, throughout the whole of his father's Sabbath readings, to shake off the influ- ence of the leaden god ; but the efforts he made to recover himself, before de- tection, after each inadvertent nod, to rear himself up yet more majestically on his stool, though they sometimes endangered his person by a backward inclination, were truly worthy of imitation by his juniors, and such as they ought to have been proud to see an example of in their elder brother.

But, wholly regardless of other people's merits, as well as unambitious to support his own, George Grey, the next in age, sat reeling to and fro, now

this way and then that ;- his heavy eyelids raised only for the critical montent when most in danger of losing his equilibrium, or when his brother James, in the intervals of his own slumbers, twitched his jacket, jerked his elbow, or forcibly stuck a large pin into his round massy shoulders. Then it was that

George endeavoured to maintain his often-disputed title to sensibility : for, touch but his person, and he was all alive; touch it with ever so minute asense

of pain, and if so situated that he dared not kick or bellow, the big tears used to stand in his large gray eyes, while his thick lips protruded in the silent petulance of a sullen, slow, deep-seated rage. As if in contrast with the gross bodily substance of George Grey, his sister Mary had seated herself beside him; her earnest, thoughtful eyes, that looked too spiritual for sleep, fixed intently upon her father's countenance, her slender figure bending from the weariness necessarily accompanying her long and pati- ent endurance of this unnatural restraint, and her attention, whenever it wandered from the subject of her father's book, (which it did perforce,)

resting with love and care and teuderness upon the different objects around her. Mary was not beautiful, nor a genius, but she bad something in her pale and serious face which often fixed the eye of the beholder, making the sick or the

suffering appeal to her for sympathy, and the helpless ask at her hands the kindness of which they were in need.

Next in the group was Allan Grey, in countenance like Mary, but posseaaing far higher claims to beauty. There was evidently more of genius in his character ; while he wanted the strength n mind, the firmness, and stability of his sister. lle was one of those fair and delicately-moulded creatures who make-us tremble for their after kit; and evert while the sun is upon their shining, hair, and the of tally life beams fautta.their "pure, char eyes," we fircaltuitarilz mark out

for them a path of sorrow and suffering, which we would almost rather occupy ourselves than see them doomed to tread. Yet why these gloomy comments upon Allan Grey, who looked up with rosy cheek and dimpling smiles, as soon as the sharp rebuke was ended or the tear was wiped away ?

Mary had usually found it necessary to separate Allan from the little mis- chievous, rebellious Harriet ; but on the present occasion they sat together ; and, whatever might have been Allan's wish, it was impossible to yield to any kind of composing influence, so long as Harriet, with her curly head and laugh- ing eyes, sat mimicking, inaumb-show, all the animals that " went up into the ark," or alternately stretching her arm to its utmost length, in order to accom- plish a sly prick at George, or twitching Allan's waving curls, and then, in an instant, looking gravely up to her father, as if drinking in the wisdom of Solomon.

The reason why we cannot give scenes has been already men- tioned : let us, instead, offer a few fragments.

A HINT TO COUNTRY VISITERS.

There are many perplexities and trials in rut at life, which those who have heard only of its Arcadian felicity are little aware of. Among these, and by no means the least important, is the endurance of visiters who bring no work —who seat themselves by ten o'clock in the morning, a dead weight upon their friend, and cast appealing looks around them fur the amusement with which they should have provided themselves as soon as they accepted the invitation. Such visiters ought to be informed, that it is not always summer in the country; that strawberries are not always ripe, nor ruse-trees in " full bearing ;" but that early meals and quiet days, with absence of morning calls, leave many hours for the uninterrupted exercise of earnest thought and interesting con- versation, with which a rational and cultivated mind is seldom wearied.

A COLD WIFE.

Nor would it have been easy, even for those whose judgment was unbiassed, to have laid any positive or decided fault to Ellen's charge. There were many defects in her character ; but beauty and gentle manners, in the general esti- mate of women, go far towards supplying their want of energy, and even their want of heart.

It is as a wife that these defects appear, and grow upon the disappointed hus- band, like the frightful figures exhibited by a magic lantern, increasing in hideousness as they increase in magnitude and distinctness. It is when the doting lover begins to suspect that the silent calm he had hitherto mistaken for maiden shyness is, in reality, the silence of the soul—the calm of imperturbable stagnation; when he discovers that he has devoted his first and his best affec- tions to a beautiful, but marble statue; when he returns to his home, which ought to be" an ever sunny place," and finds nothing but the yawning vacancy of a cold and cheerless void—when he pours his fresh warm feelings, that burst in unstudied language from his burning lips, upon the stony surface of an in- sensible heart, and that heart a woman's—it is then that he shrinks back re- pelled and blasted, as if the blooming charms he once adored were exchanged for deformity and horror.

A RECTOR'S MODE OF COURTSHIP.

Mary was one of those domestic agents who can officiate behind the scenes, and yet look perfectly disengaged Wine her guests,—as if the affairs committed

to her management were regulated by a secret spell, solely dependent upon the impulse of her will, and extending its influence through innumerable channels, without the aid of manual 'effor t. No one seated as the mistress of the table could look more regardless than she did of the flavour of the different viands spread before her, ur the mode of their preparation. And yet, when the rector, a round-faced, rosy little man of fifty, after fastening the napkin in his button- hole, and regaling himself with the first mouthful of fish or soup, found time to look about and make himself agreeable, his method of doing so was by remark- ing upon the excellence of every dish, and addressing his remarks with pointed emphasis to Mary. Nothing could exceed the gravity and importance with which his opinion on these weighty matters was delivered. His gravity in the pulpit was a trifle to it. But when his hour of solid satisfaction was over—the only hour in which he seemed to be devoting himself to the real business of life, when his eyes rolled round, and he saw no possibility of eating more—it was then that he resigned himself exclusively to pleasure; and softening the whole expression of his coun- tenance, he uttered in a low and silvery voice all the sweet flatteries he ever found an opportunity of pouring into Mary's ear.

Unfortunately for the effect of his eloquence, it was accompanied by such indubitable evidence of his low estimate of female intellect, that it had little chance of producing any high degree of pleasure, wherever it might be directed. If politics were the subject of general discourse, he would turn to Mary, and explain, almost as clearly as they are generally explained, the nature of Whig and Tory principles; adding, in a concise and authoritative manner, " The Radicals, you know, Miss Grey, are the people who burn the corn-ricks in the Midland counties."