THE Sorrows of Rosalie • is a tale of seduction.
All the incidents are of the well-approved' and long-established order of events in such cases. Innocence lives in a cottage with age : seduction comes in the shape of a gay Lord Arthur; the cottage is exchanged for post-chaise and four; its ancient inhabitant dies of grief at the loss of his daughter ; who is deserted in her turn, and delivered of a child in distress and poverty: .seeking her treacherous lover, she finds him caressing and marrying somebody else—returns to her native village, goes mad, or dies, or both. There is evidently no novelty here; but the situations are described plainly, and without ostentation, while occasionally a natural feeling breaks out in some of the stanzas—such parts approach the affecting. We may in- stance the departure of her seducer, when he leaves her for the last time, and also her return to the cottage of her parent : she is igno- rant of his death, and finds the abode of her childhood occupied by a family of new faces. Among the minor pieces, there are some which possess the charm of a natural pathos, such as that we have given Rosalie some credit for. The verses called " The Nursery " are a sort of " Elegy written in a deserted Nursery." The following verse may he picked out as bringing to the mind a pleasant and familiar image of childhood- " No busy fingers now with figures quaint
Adorn the falling paper of the room No youthful artist's brightly-coloured paint Relieves the dark and shadowy walls from gloom."
* A Tale, with other Poems. London, 1828. Ebers & Co.
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