to-morrow? Shakspeare has exquisitely described his belief in this philosophy : "The southern wind And I believe myself to be possessed of the faculty whose power consists of this hereafter sort of discernment ;-Sydenham used to call it my genius." The subject of our tale is detained at Hamburgh, by an acquaintance formed with an English officer of rank, General Purcel, and his lady, but chiefly by the charms of their daughter Maria. The beauty and accomplishments of this young lady, and still more the delicacy of her health, and the apparent frail tenure on which she holds these gifts, are calculated to make a deep impression on the heart of the youthful visionary, whose temperament was as melancholy as his feelings were tender. Of course he becomes the lover of Maria, but experiences the strongest and most startling opposition on the part of Mrs Purcel, who, seeming on the one hand much, and even passionately attached to her daughter's admirer, declares herself, on the other, vehemently opposed to his suit. She is prevented from giving the grounds of her objections by some of those interruptions which are usually employed in romances to prolong the embarrassments of the dramatis persona, and which perhaps are not in the present case very artificially interposed. Considering, as it proves to be the case, that Mrs Purcel was the guilty mother of the hero of the tale, and thus witnessed the dreadful scene of her son making love to her daughter, it is impossible that she could have left to chance an explanation of such tremendous importance. So, however, it is; and General Purcel conceiving the objections of his wife to be founded on some frivolous aversion, or yet more capricious, and perhaps guilty, attachment to the lover of Maria, gives his consent to their private marriage. General Oglethorpe is written to for his approbation. Instead of answering the letter, the veteran comes to town, to explain, doubtless, the fearful mystery, but expires ere he can discharge the task. The private marriage is then resolved on, and is in the act of proceeding in the very church where the body of the deceased General Oglethorpe had been just interred. "That such an unnatural mixture of irreconcilable rites should ever have been consented to by a creature so full of tenderness and of such unparalleled delicacy as Maria, is not the least wonder in our dismal story; but she was fastened to the same chain by which I was drawn on. It was thought by us that the horrible stratagem of joining the funeral and the wedding together would never be suspected by Mrs Purcel." But Mrs Purcel had heard the intelligence. She bursts on the ceremony, and astounds them by the outcry, "Brother and sister-brother and sister!" "I heard no more," continues the ill-fated narra"the edifice reeled around me-and there is a hiatus in my remembrance-a chasm in my life." The melancholy tale concludes thus: tor; "Ten years have passed since that dreadful morning, and I have never opened my lips to enquire the issues of the event; but one day, about two years ago, in visiting the English ceme tery at Lisbon, I saw on a marble slab, which the weather or accident had already partly defaced, the epitaph of Maria. The remainder of my own story is but a tissue of aimless and objectless wanderings and moody meditations, under the anguish of the inherited curse-But all will soon be over a tedious hectic that has long been consuming me, reluctantly and slowly, hath at last, within these few days, so augmented its fires, that I am conscious, from a sentiment within, I cannot survive another month; I have, indeed, had my warning. Twice hath a sound like the voice of my sister, startled my unrefreshing sleep; when it rouses me for the third time, then I shall awake to die." The objection readily occurs to this tale, that the events are improbable, and slightly tacked together: but in these respects authors demand, and must receive, some indulgence. It is not perhaps possible, at the same time, to preserve consistency and probability, and attain the interest of novelty. The reader must make the same allowances for such deficiency, as are granted to the scenist, or decorator of the drama. We see the towers which are described as being so solid in their structure, tremble as they are advanced or withdrawn, and we know the massy and earth-fast rocks of the theatre are of no stronger material than painted pasteboard. But we grant to the dramatist that which must be granted, if we mean to allow ourselves the enjoyment of his art; and a similar convention must be made with the authors of fictitious narratives, and forgiving the want of solidity in the story, the reader must be good-natured enough to look only at the beauty of the painting. It is perhaps a greater objection, that the nature of the interest and of the catastrophe is changed in the course of the narration. We are first led to expect that the author had subjected the interest of his hero to that gloomy and inexorable deity, or principle, in whom the ancients believed, under the name of Destiny, or Fate, and that, like Orestes or Hamlet, he was to be the destined avenger of his father's injuries, or of his mother's guilt. Such was the persuasion of the victim himself, as expressed in several passages, some of which we have quoted. But the course of the action, the point upon which our imagination had been fixed, at the expense of some art, is altogether departed from. No more mention is made of Mr Oakdale, and though a fatal influence continues to impel the destined sufferer into most horrible danger, yet it is of a kind different from that which the omens presaged, and which the hero himself, and the reader, on his account, was induced to expect. For example, he meets on his road to Harwich with the funeral of a man who had been murdered, much in the same circumstances as those which attended the death of his own father, and which, while they indicate a bloody catastrophe to the story, bear no reference to that which really attends it. But although these objections may be started, they affect, in a slight degree, the real merits of the work, which consist in the beauty of its language, and the truth of the descriptions introduced. Yet, even these are kept in subordination to the main interest of the piece, which arises from the melancholy picture of an amiable young man, who has received a superstitious bias, imposed by ori ginal temperament, as well as by the sorrowful events of his childhood. In this point of view, it is of little consequence whether the presages on which his mind dwells, concur with the event; for the author is not refuting the correctness of such auguries, but illustrating the character of one who believed in them. The tendency to such belief is, we believe, common to most men. There are circumstances, and animals, and places, and sounds, which we are naturally led to connect with melancholy ideas, and thus far to consider as being of evil augury. Funerals, churchyards, the howling of dogs, the sounds of the passing bell, which are all of a gloomy character, and, calamitous, or at least unpleasing in themselves, must lead, we are apt to suppose, to consequences equally unpleasing. He would be a stout sceptic who would choose, like the hero of our tale, to tack his wedding to the conclusion of a funeral, or even to place the representation of a death's-head on a marriage-ring; and yet the marriage might be a happy one in either case, were there not the risk that the evil omen might work its own accomplishment by its effect on the minds of the parties. But besides the omens which arise out of natural associations, there are superstitions of this kind which we have from tradition, and which affect those who believe in them merely because others believed before. We have all the nurse has taught us of presages by sparkles from the fire, and signs from accidental circumstances, which, however they |