LADY EILBSSINGYON . 8 CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY LADY.
Tose Confessions have neither the verisimilitude nor the pi- quancy which are naturally looked for in a history of the female heart written by one of her own sex ; nor are the experiences of the "Elderly Lady" so amusing as those of the "Elderly Gentle- man" recorded by Lady BLESSINGTON. A woman, however, cannot write about love without being in earnest ; and, however she may disguise or misrepresent her own feelings when speaking of herself, she is pretty sure to express them truly when she becomes the organ, real or assumed, of another. These revelations of femi- nine foibles and virtues, and of the secret springs of emotion and action, give an interest to the Confessions which the character and Incidents but feebly support. The book is therefore superior to the efforts of ordinary scribblers who " coin their brains for drachmas;" but the dull realities of life could hardly furnish a more uninteresting, nor the Minerva press a more improbable his- tory, than the career of the Elderly Lady. Lady Arabella Walsingham is an heiress, and, as a matter of course, a spoiled child : after her mother's death, her father marries her governess, a perfect paragon. The heroine fancies herself in love with the brother of her stepmother ; and is offered to him by her noble father, but rejected for a preferred object. Overcoming the shock of his marriage, she is next enamoured Of a pensive young nobleman, whose feelings towards her are purely platonic ; but when at last her charms melt the ice of his bosom, she discovers that she was but his second love. Mortified to think that she has only kindled a flame in his heart from the embers of a former passion, she grows jealous of her dead rival's place in his affections, and in a fit of spleen gives him his dismissal. Afterwards, by an accident, she literally falls into his arms at an inn, and in the agitation of the moment confesses that she still loves him ; when, to her utter discomfiture, she discovers that he .at that moment on his way to the chamber of his newly-made bride. All other delicate distresses are trifles to this. But the "pot' bitterness is not yet full : the rich heiress has the mortifica- tionofseeing her widowed stepmother married to a nobleman w hose attentions she fancied were directed to herself; and to escape being de trop in her own house, she allows herself to be entrapped into a Thatch with a poor lord, by an artful woman with whom he had a
Such a series of trials and humiliations occurring to a young
and beautiful heiress, though she is proud, vain, and capricious, is a little out of the range of probability, and an over severe punish- ment for faults of temper and education ; yet, with all this stimulus, we take little interest in the sufferer, simply because her character wants life and individuality. It is not merely a slight and imper- fect sketch, it wants unity and coherence. Nor do the incidents and allu,ions contribute to preserve the assumed personation: the costumes and accessories of the scene, the modes of thought and expression, the habits and associations, are those of the present day, not of the last generation. The assumed disguise is soon seen through ; the mask drops off, and Lady ButssaNnstore the littera- teur stands confessed.
The satirical sketches of the pride and pomposity of the stiff- ba .ked aristocracy, are clever, but caficatured; and the anecdote of two trading Italian nobles, who make love in couple, and being asked playfully by the lady what the one would do were she to accept the other, reply, una voce, that the rejected lover was to be her crivaliere servente, is rather broad, even if characteristic. There are some pretty descriptions, and pleasant touches of cha- racter, which would set well in our pages, if there were room : as it is, we prefar an apoplithegni or two from feminine experience.
PENSIVE ADMIRERS PREFERRED.
I have remarked that the generality of may sex prefer those of the other who are of a grave and sentimental turn, provided always that the gravity proceeds not from dulness, but from a reflective cast of mind, which increases their re- spect while it adds to the interest they experience. I have known a pale face and a pensive manner make impressions on female hearts that had successfully resisted the attacks of ruddy countenances and exhilirating gayety : the pos- sessor of these apr,'Mtens being mote calculated to amuse than interest, are rarely ternenobered when absent. Women seldom fotget the man who makes them sigh ; lout rarely recur to him who has excitzl their mirth, eems though a brilliant wit may have been displayed in his bon mots and good stories. He, therefore, who would captivate the fastidious taste of le beau sere must eschew too frequent smiles, even though lie may have fine teeth ; and must likewise avoid occasioning or pronioting the exhibition of those pearly ornament. in her wishes permanently to please.
WOMAN'S VANITY.
How many of our sex, who would otherwise have beets estimable, have had their noblest qualities sullied by this one but engrossing passion, which, " like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest ;" rendering them eager to quarrel with the vanity of every other human ',Moog in order to avenge the jealousy and cri9cance of their own. How often do we hear women exclaim, " I cannot support Lady So and So, or Mrs. So and So, she is so intolerably vain ;" never recollecting that this anger furnishes the must irrefrag,ahle proof that they possess in no ordinary degree the very quality they condemn ; for it is an indis- putable fact, that only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.
SCHOOLGIRL'S LOVE.
On looking at Frederic Melville, the once pale, interesting, but now lusty and fresh-coloured father of a family, I could scarcely forbear a smile at the recollection of my former girlish predilection for him. How inferior, bow im- measurably infeaor, was he to Lord Clydesdale, in appearance as well as in manlier. This alteration in his looks, but still more, the total change in my own taste and opinions, led me to reflect on the fully of permitting girls to marry the first object that attracts their juvenile fancy, without allowing a rea- sonable time to elapse, in order that the stability of the sentiment may be ascer- tained. How few young women would at twenty select the admirer as a partner for life who might have captivated them at seventeen ; and how many of the desperate passions, supposed to be eternal, would fade away like a dream before the influence of reason, if subjected to the ordeal of a couple, or of even one year's absence.
Mr. PARRIS'S "illustrations" are, as usual, only a set of fancy heads; dressed up beauties, with hard, oval faces, large eyes, long noses, and short upper-lips, staring sentiment with all the might of no-meaning.
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