T H E GIPSY

Is a gocd romance, though over-elaborated, and loaded with too many reflections. The story is interesting till the denouement; its conduct sufficiently complicated; the catastrophe not very pe- netrable, and delayed until pretty near the close of the work. The incidents, without being very extraordinary in themselves, have something both wild and exciting, from their relation to the deeds (Ione before the opening of the tale, and their connexion uith the actors who did them. The characters are carefully and forcibly drawn; now and then they have touches of the truth of nature, but on the whole they seem the result of speculation rather than obser- vafion. Thechief fault in the execution—an occasional heaviness —has bcen hinted at : if it arises not from a deficiency of imagina- tion, but, as we suspect, from too great labour, we must take the good and the evil together. The Gipsy has only been made what it is by patient and painstaking study. In applying the term romance to the work before us, it may be well to fix the sense in which the word is used. We exclude, then, from the Gipsy, all supernatural machinery, and all ghostly visitants whose appearance is afterwards explained. Neither are there dungeons and prisons, or monks and bandits, or any of the paraphernalia by which the productions of the pure old school was distinguished. The main incidents of the story are such as a paragraph-monger would head "Romance in Real Life." Events as strange, or stranger, may be found in Remarkable Criminal Trials, or in any of those sources of the wild and wonderful to which we formerly directed the student :* if we except--but we will not forestal the genuine novel-reader. The distinguishing character of the Gipsy consists in confining the romantic to the perpetrators of the mysteries, or to those immediately connected with them : the other leading characters, indeed, are affected by the dilemmas of the chiefs, but their distress is unromantically displayed; and even the heroes, until directly engaged in the difficulties of the story, exhibit nothing different from other people. I i a word, the " romance" is not overdone.

The scene of the Gipsy is laid in England, soon after the ac- cessicu of GEORGE the Third; but the murder on which the in- terest of the whole turns is supposed to have been committed some twenty years earlier, when crimes of violence were far more rife than at present, and when the pleasures and pursuitsof men about town gave a harder and a more reckless tone to their character and greater promptitude to their hand. Of course the marked characteristics of the period are truly enough exhibited. Mr. JAMES was not likely to fail in matters of costume: but he also appears to have imbibed the social atmosphere of the times, and to have breathed it into his work. The manners do not strikingly differ from those of our day, still they are not ours ; the mode of travelling is different ; the communications seem more difficult ; the very landscapes appear to have a less cultivated air; and though the gipsies, as gipsies, might probably enough encamp, and tramp and band together for robbery, even now, they seem better adapted to sixty years since. A similar remark can scarcely be hazarded on the wonder-working Pharold, from whom the work takes it name : we suspect he has never been a denizen of this world, but always belonged to the romantic. An attempt to unravel the story would be a difficult matter; nor would an extract from the more serious parts be appreciated without the context, or understood without a long introduction. We shall therefore take a few bits here and there as we find them. Premising that the good looks of Colonel Manners have been com- pletely destroyed by the smallpox, here is Nosix VULGARITY.

The Lady Barbara Simpson at length arrived, with her husband in her train, and was most tiresomely pleased to see Colonel Manners. She was a worthy dame in the plenitude of ten lustres ; in corporeal qualities heavy, and in intellectual ones certainly not light. Vulgarity is, unfortfinately, to be found in every rank ; unfortunately, because, where found in high rank, in which every means and appliance is at band to remedy it, its appearance argues vulgarity of mind to which the coarseness of the peasant is comparatively grace. Now Lady Barbara Simpson was of the vulgar great ; and, though the blood of the Howards might

have flowed in her veins, the pure and honourable stream would have been choked up by the mental mud of her nature. In her youth, no sum or labour had been spared to ornament her mind with those accomplishments and graces which are common in her class; and as music and drawing and a knowledge of languages are things which, to a certain degree, may be hung on like a neck. lace or a bracelet, the mind of Lady Barbara was perfectly well dressed before her parents had done with her education. But nothing could make the mind itself any thing but what it was; and the load of accomplishments which mas- ters of all kinds strove hard to bestow, rested upon it like jewels on an ugly per- son--fine things seen to a disadvantage. The want of consideration for other people's feelings, or rather the want of that peculiar delicacy of sensation called tact, which teaches rapidly to understand what other people's feelings are, she fancied a positive instead of a negative quality, and called it in her own mind ease and good-humour ; and thus, though she certainly was a good-tempered woman, her coarseness of feeling and comprehension rendered her ten times more annoy- ing to every one near her than if she had been as malevolent as Tisiphone.

During dinner, Manners felt as if he were sitting next to somebody clothed in itair-cloth, which caught his dress at every turn, and scrubbed him whenever • No.306; 10th May 1831. Review of RooAtrood. he touched it tad his comfort was not greatly increased by finding himseNatt object of great attention and patronage to Lady Barhata. Opposite to him tat Isadore Falkland ; and though it was certainly a great relief to look on so fair Is face, yet there was in it art expression of amused pity for Lady Barbara's martyr that was a little teasing. Her Ladyship first descanted enthusiastically upon the beauty of Colonel Manners'smother, and calkd upon Mrs. Falkland to vouch how very lovely she was. Mrs. Falkland assented as briefly as possible ; and Lady Barbara then took wine with Colonel Manners, and declared that there was not the slightest resemblance between him and his mother,—examining every feature in his face as she did no to make heyself sure of the fact.

At this point of the proceedings, Manners was more amused than annoyed; for his own ugliness was no secret to himself, and he therefore knew well that' it could be no secret to others. He laughed then at her Ladyship's scrutiny, ao replied, " I was once considered very like my mother, Lady Barbara ; but what- ever resemblance I did possess was carried away by my enemy, the small-poza, " Oh yes," she cried in return, a dreadful disease that ! Shocking the ravages it sometimes makes! I see you must have had it very bad." " Very bad, indeed, Lady Barbara," replied Colonel Manners with a laughing glance towards Miss Falkland ; " and, what is worse, I had it at that period Of life when one has just learned to value good looks, without having learned to despise them." " Oh, terrible !" exclaimed Lady Barbara really commiserating him; "it must have made a terrible change in you, indeed. Dear me, what a pity !"

Landscapes are things which Mr. JAMES evidently loves to paint; though, as we hinted on a former occasion, they are sot altogether his forte. He is too minute in his enumeration of par. ticulars ; he seems bent upon swearing to the identity of the scene and the state of the weather, and sacrifices breadth and effect to literal exactness. Still his labour is not without end; and here is rather a favourable specimen.

WOOD SCENE AND GIPSY ENCAMPMENT.

The spot through which the travellers were riding, and which was a viale piece of forest ground, one might have supposed from the nature of the scenery

to be as conimon to all lands an possible ; but no such thing ; and any one wh'a gazed upon it required not to ask themselves in what part of the world they were. Tlw road, which, though sandy, was smooth, neat, and well tended, came

down the slope of a long hill, exposing its course to the eye fur near a mile.

There was a gentle rise on each side, covered with wood ; but this rise, and its forest burden, did not advance within a hundred }arils-of the road on either hand,

leaving between—except where it was interrupted by some old sand-pits—a space of open ground covered with short green turf, with here and there an an- cient oak standing forward before the other trees, and spreading its branches to

the way-side. To the right was a little rivulet gurgling along the deep bed it

had worn for itself amongst the short grass, in its way towards a considerable river that flowed through the valley at about two miles distance ; and on the left, the eye might range far amidst the tall separate trees—now, perhaps, light- ing upon a stag at gaze, or a fallow-deer tripping away over the dewy ground as light and gracefully as a lady in a hill-room—till sight became lost in the green shade and the dim wilderness of leaves and branches.

Amidst the scattered oaks in advance of the wood, and nestled into the dry nooks of the eand-pits, appeared about half-a-dozen dirty brown shreds of can- vas, none of which seemed larger than a dinner napkin, yet which—spread over hoops, cross-sticks, and other contrivances—served as habitations to :.ix or seven families of that wild and dingy race whose existence and history is a phenome- non not amongst the least strange of all the wonderful things that we pass by daily without investigation or inquiry. At the mouths of one or two of these little dwelling-places, might be seen some gipsy women, with their peculiar straw bonnets, red cloaks. and silk handkerchiefs ; some, withered, shrunk, and witchlike, bore evident the trams of long years of wandering exposure and vicis- situde • while others, with the warm rose of health and youth glowing through the golden brown of their skins, and their (lark gem-like eyes flashing un- dimmed by sorrow or infirmity, gave the beau ideal of a beautiful nation long passed away from thrones and dignities, and left but as the fragments of a wreck dashed to atoms by the waves of the past.

At one point, amidst white wood ashes, and many an unlawful feather from the plundered cock and violated turkey, sparkled a fire and boiled a cauldron; and, round about the ancient beldame who presided over the pot, were placed, in various easy attitudes, several of the male members of the tribe, mostly covered with long loose great-coats, which bespoke the ()semis either changed or shrunk. A number of half-naked brats, engaged in many a sport, filled up tbe scene, and promised a sturdy and increasing race of rogues and vagabonds for after years. Over the whole—wood and road and streandet and gipsy encampment— was pouring in full stream the purple light of evening, with the long shadows stretching across and marking the distances all the way up the slope of the hill. Where an undulation of the ground about half-way up the ascent gave a wider space of light than ordinary, were seen, as we have before said, two strangers riding slowly down the road, whose appearance soon called the eyes of the gipsy fraternity upon their movements ; for the laws in regard to vagabondism had lately been strained somewhat hard, especially in that part of the country; and the natural consequence was, that the gipsy and the beggar looked upon almost every human thing as an enemy.

A REFLECTION.

There was more, however, far more bitter kept mingling in the draught. Round the idea of one's mother the mind of man clings with fond affection. It is the first, sweet, deep thought stamped upon our infant hearts when yet soft and capalde of receiving time e most profound impressions, and all the after- feelings of the world are more or less light in comparison. I do not know that even in our old age we do not heat back to that feeling as the sweetest we have known through life. Our passions and our wilfulness may lead us far from the object of our filial love ; we learn even to pain her heart, to oppase her wishes, to vio- late her commands ; we may become wild, headstrong, and angry at her counsels or her opposition ; but when death has stilled her monitory voice, and nothing but calm memory remains to recapitulate her virtues and jowl deede, affection, like a flower beaten to the ground by a past storm, raises up her head and smiles amongst the tears. Round that idea, as we have said, the mind slings with fond affection ; and even when the early period of our loss forces memory to be silent, fancy takes the place of remembrance, and twines time image of our dead parent with a garland of graces and beauties and virtues, which we doubt not that she possessed. Thus had it been with De Vaux : he could just call to mind a face that had appeared to him very beautiful, and a few kind and tender words from the lips of her he had tailed mother ; but he had fancied her all that was good and gentle and virtuous; and now that he was forced to look upon her as a fallen being—as one who had not only forgotten virtue herself, but in sin had brought him into the world, to degradation and shame—what could be his feelings towards her? The following, though wanting in that lightness and. life which is the prevailing want of the work, strikes us as being a true por- trait, and illustrating the remark we just now made as to the truth with which the times are represented. Sir Roger Milling- ton is altogether English, yet he as evidently belongs only to a

particular period. It may be added, that his conduct is in keep- ing with the character here drawn.

A " BLOOD " OF GEORG/ THE SECOND'S DAY.

The stranger's person merits some slight description, and even a more detailed account of his clothing than is required on ordinary occasions. Ile was a man, perhaps, four or five years younger than the peer himself ; thin, light, active, with a twinkling gray eye, somewhat too full of moisture, and a number of those long radiating wrinkles which, I believe, are called crows' feet, decorating the corners of the eyelids. His general complexion was white, of that dry and somewhat withered appearance which long habits of dissipation leave behind, when dissipation is not combined with drunkenness. In every glance there was a quick, sharp, prying expression, joined to a somewhat subservient smile, which was strangely enough displayed upon a cast of countenance the natural expression of which was pertinacious effronter:!. His dress was well-worn, and had not, app irently, been formed, originally, of any very costly materials ; but it had, withal, a smart cut and a smart look, which prevented the eye from detecting either the long services it had rendered, or the coarseness of the stuff. It was of a rather anomalous description too; consisting of what was then called a marone frock with a silver lace, a pair of buckskin breeches for riding in, thunder and lightning silk stockings just show-

ing their junction with the breeches above, and a p 1, air of heavy stockings, ; while ruffles, and a frill of that species of lace which, seeming all darns together, admits the most frequently of being mended, decorated his wrists and his bosom.

Lord Dewry gazed at him as 'he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting, with a look which, if it did not absolutely express the stare of utter strangeness, had very few signs of recognition in it. But the other was neither TO be abashed nor discomposed ; and his manners, which were those of a gentle- man, softened down a good deal of the effrontery which his demeanour displayed. Had he not been a gentleman, and in the habit of mingling with gentlemen, his determined impudence would have been insufferable; and even as things were, that impudence, together with a certain affected swagger in tone and language which was very generally assumed by the puppies of the day, and which the - visiter caricatured, were quite sufficiently annoying, especially to such a man as Lord Dewry. Conceiving at once that the peer was not peculiaily delighted with his visit, the strauger advanced round the table, and with a low bow ad- dressed him ere he had time to speak. 4 • The better qualities of Sir Roger Millington were few. The best of them was personal courage, or rather that total thoughtlessness in regard to death, and what is to follow death, which in many men supplies the place of a nobler principle. He hail always, too, been what is called generous ; and be did indeed possess that curious combination of qualities which makes a man pillage and ruin the father of a family, and thus bring want, destruction, and desolation, upon a whole household, while at the same time he is willing, on every occasion, to share the ill-gotten wealth of the moment with any one who needs it. His generosity, however, still more displayed itself in wasting, amongst debauchees like himself, whatever he possessed, and thinking no means ignoble to dissipate what he bad thought no means dishonourable to obtain. Born of a good family, introduced early into the best society, and placed as a military man in a situation which should have acted rather to strengthen ho- nourable principles than to lead him from them, he bad at first, so long as the actual war lasted, gained some credit and renown as a soldier ; but no sooner had a peace succeeded, than various gambling transactions of a somewhat doubtful character rendered it expedient that he shouid quit the service. This he was permitted to do without disgrace ; but from that hour his progress had been downwaids in fortune and society. He had first mingled with gentlemen upon equal terms ; and during the greater part of his acquaintance with Lord Dewry, had kept himself on the same footing with his companions, by keeping up the same expenses and by indulging the same vices. He was often very suc- cessful at play ; and, though it was reported that his scruples were not very great :in regard to the experience or the sobriety of those with whom he sat down, as his winnings enabled him, generally, to live in luxury and splendour, there were few found to object to the means of acquirement. Ile sometimes lost, however ; and as on one or two occasions his losses had been to persons of greater wealth than courage, be was said to have discharged his debt by lending the use of his sword in some of the numerous disputes which vice and debauchery entail upon their disciples.