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ART. X. Bracebridge Hall; or, the Humorists. By Geoffrey Crayon, Esq. 2 Vols. 8vo. 17. 4s. Boards. Murray. 1822.

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EOFFREY CRAYON is now so well known to our readers, and to the public at large, that he wants no introduction to them, nor any letters of recommendation. He has already "found favor at their hands," and has established his claim to their kind reception whenever he presents himself before them. Nevertheless, he chuses still to preserve the travelling name under which he has hitherto appeared, and on offering these volumes to our acceptance has thus introduced himself and them to our notice:

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Worthy Reader!— On again taking pen in hand, I would fain make a few observations at the outset, by way of bespeaking a right understanding. The volumes which I have already published have met with a reception far beyond my most sanguine expectations. I would willingly attribute this to their intrinsic merits ; but, in spite of the vanity of authorship, I cannot but be sensible that their success has, in a great measure, been owing to a less flattering cause. It has been a matter of marvel, that a man from the wilds of America should express himself in tolerable English. I was looked upon as something new and strange in literature; a kind of demi-savage, with a feather in his hand, instead of on his head; and there was a curiosity to hear what such a being had to say about civilized society.

This novelty is now at an end, and of course the feeling of indulgence which it produced. I must now expect to bear the scrutiny of sterner criticism, and to be measured by the same standard with contemporary writers; and the very favour which has been shown to my previous writings, will cause these to be treated with the greater rigour; as there is nothing for which the world is apt to punish a man more severely, than for having been over-praised. On this head, therefore, I wish to forestall the censoriousness of the reader; and I entreat he will not think the worse of me for the many injudicious things that may have been said in my commendation."

He must, indeed, be a churl who can read the preliminary chapter of Bracebridge Hall without perceiving, at the close of it, that his good feelings are already bespoken: there is a something in the appeal which is irresistible. A young man of lively imagination, warm affections, and a poetical cast of mind, romantic, inquisitive, and observant,—is born and brought up in a new country, which possesses no remains of antient art, nor any very splendid specimens of modern skill: but he is educated in the literature of an old nation, whose historians have recorded the noble achievements that were there accomplished in antient days, and whose poets have brought before his fancy the feudal castle and the monastic abbey.

Having in his boyhood associated with the name of England all that is heroic in warfare, venerable in religion, classical in literature, superb in art, and wonderful in science, he leaves his native land, and sails to this, the capital of the world. He arrives, and

"Towers and battlements he sees,

Bosomed high in tufted trees ;"

and all that painting, poetry, and romance had pictured to his imagination is presented to his view in faithful reality. His 'Sketch-Book' is made the repository of every thing that strikes him as beautiful, picturesque, and peculiar: he takes the outline with a rapid pencil, and finishes the drawing at leisure. It thus happens that some of our countrymen are now perhaps indebted to a foreigner, — though we do not like the use of this word towards an American, sprung from our own loins and speaking the same language with ourselves, - for exhibiting to them certain of their national peculiarities and customs, which had escaped their own remark: in the same manner as many fine ladies and dandy gentlemen at the west end of the town, who never soiled a shoe on the east side of Temple Bar, and whose character for fashion would be ruined if they were seen on London Bridge or at the India Docks, are at last reluctantly dragged, by the prying curiosity of some friends from the country, to pay a visit to St. Paul's and the Tower, and even to take a peep, incog., at the "tall bully" on Fish-street Hill.-Mr. Irving has indeed 'forestalled the censoriousness' of his readers: but we cannot think so ill of them as to suppose that they would visit the sins of the critic on the head of the author, even admitting that the former, albeit unused to the flattering mood, should have bestowed on him any injudicious commendation. He is not unconscious of his present elevation in the region of literature: but he must be cautious: we greatly doubt whether he has strength of pinion to soar higher: he is evidently fluttering his wings without rising; and perhaps it would be better to repose awhile, and renovate his strength, than flutter till he flags.

The readers of "The Sketch Book" will probably recollect something of the Bracebridge family, and the Christmas festivities which Geoffrey Crayon so happily described. He is now on another visit to the Hall, having been invited to a wedding which is soon to take place; the squire's second son, Guy, a fine, spirited, young captain in the army, being about to be married to his father's ward, the fair Julia Templeton. A gathering of relations and friends has already commenced REV. AUG. 1822.

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to celebrate the joyful occasion, for the old gentleman is an enemy to private weddings: there is nothing, says he, like launching a young couple gaily, and cheering them from the shore: a good outset is half the voyage.' As all the preliminaries, however, have been settled, the determined novelreader will perhaps yawn at the insipidity of a plotless courtship for here are no jealousies excited, no perfidious hopes fed, no stolen kisses or clandestine meetings, and no accidents, except that Julia is thrown from her horse as she is pursuing the dangerous sport of hawking, and thus a convenient delay of the nuptials is become necessary:- to which delay we are indebted for the history of the heroes of the village as well as of the Hall, the parson, the schoolmaster, the politician, the champion, and the old soldier, the sports of May-day, and the prophetic palmistry of the black-eyed gipsy.

In perusing the descriptions of Mr. Irving, we feel as when listening to a piece of music, or inhaling the fragrance of a flower-bed: it is almost a sensual gratification, transitory and unimpressive: so the concert closes, and the flower-bed fades, and we forget the harmony of the one and the odor of the other. Mr. Irving very rarely makes an appeal to the feelings: description, pure description, is his forte, and we must confess our good opinion of his powers. We find, indeed, a very frequent recurrence of imagery, somewhat diversified, though essentially the same: as a skilful composer will take a popular air, preserve it through an endless succession of variations, each rising in complexity above the other, and return by a few happy da capos to the original melody. Perhaps we are getting old, and less sensible to the superficial beauties of mere description, for with us they die on the ear and sink no deeper: but this is a matter of taste, and about taste we may not dispute.

The chapters on Forest Trees in vol. i., and on Country Gentlemen in vol. ii., contain such good delineations of the manners, habits, and feelings, of the real old English Country Squire, and such sensible observations on the utility of that character when rightly sustained, that we must submit portions of them to our readers; only regretting that we have not space for the whole. We place the latter chapter first, as more properly introductory of the personages.

I take great pleasure in accompanying the squire in his perambulations about his estate, in which he is often attended by a kind of cabinet council. His prime minister, the steward, is a very worthy and honest old man, that assumes a right of way; that is to say, a right to have his own way, from having lived time

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out of mind on the place. He loves the estate even better than he does the squire; and thwarts the latter sadly in many of his projects of improvement, being a little prone to disapprove of every plan that does not originate with himself.

In the course of one of these perambulations, I have known the squire to point out some important alteration which he was contemplating, in the disposition or cultivation of the grounds; this of course would be opposed by the steward, and a long argument would ensue over a stile, or on a rising piece of ground, until the squire, who has a high opinion of the other's ability and integrity, would be fain to give up the point. This concession, I observed, would immediately mollify the old man, and, after walking over a field or two in silence, with his hands behind his back, chewing the cud of reflection, he would suddenly turn to the squire and observe, that "he had been turning the matter over in his mind, and, upon the whole, he believed he would take his honor's advice."

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Christy, the huntsman *, is another of the squire's occasional attendants, to whom he continually refers in all matters of local history, as to a chronicle of the estate, having, in a manner, been acquainted with many of the trees, from the very time that they were acorns. Old Nimrod is rather pragmatical in those points of knowledge on which he values himself; but the squire rarely contradicts him, and is, in fact, one of the most indulgent potentates that ever was hen-pecked by his ministry.

'He often laughs about it himself, and evidently yields to these old men more from the bent of his own humour, than from any want of proper authority. He likes this honest independence of

*From the chapter on Horsemanship, in vol. i., we insert here a little farther sketch of this important personage.

• His crabbed humour is a source of much entertainment among the young men of the family; the Oxonian, particularly, takes a mischievous pleasure now and then in slyly rubbing the old man against the grain, and then smoothing him down again; for the old fellow is as ready to bristle up his back as a porcupine. He rides a venerable hunter called Pepper, which is a counterpart of himself, a heady, cross-grained animal, that frets the flesh off its bones; bites, kicks, and plays all manner of villanous tricks. He is as tough, and nearly as old as his rider, who has ridden him time out of mind, and is, indeed, the only one that can do any thing with him. Sometimes, however, they have a complete quarrel, and a dispute for mastery, and then, I am told, it is as good as a farce to see the heat they both get into, and the wrongheaded contest that ensues; for they are quite knowing in each other's ways, and in the art of teasing and fretting each other. Notwithstanding these doughty brawls, however, there is nothing that nettles old Christy sooner than to question the merits of his horse; which he upholds as tenaciously as a faithful husband will vindicate the virtues of the termagant spouse, that gives him a curtain lecture every night of his life.'

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old age, and is well aware that these trusty followers love and honour him in their hearts. He is perfectly at ease about his own dignity and the respect of those around him; nothing disgusts him sooner than any appearance of fawning or sycophancy.

I really have seen no display of royal state that could compare with one of the squire's progresses about his paternal fields and through his hereditary woodlands, with several of these faithful adherents about him, and followed by a body-guard of dogs. He encourages a frankness and manliness of deportment among his dependents, and is the personal friend of his tenants; inquiring into their concerns, and assisting them in times of difficulty and hardship. This has rendered him one of the most popular, and of course one of the happiest of landlords.

'Indeed, I do not know a more enviable condition of life, than that of an English gentleman, of sound judgment and good feelings, who passes the greater part of his time on an hereditary 'estate in the country. From the excellence of the roads and the rapidity and exactness of the public conveyances, he is enabled to command all the comforts and conveniences, all the intelligence and novelties of the capital, while he is removed from its hurry and distraction. He has ample means of occupation and amusement within his own domains; he may diversify his time by rural Occupations, by rural sports, by study, and by the delights of friendly society collected within his own hospitable halls.

Or if his views and feelings are of a more extensive and liberal nature, he has it greatly in his power to do good, and to have that good immediately reflected back upon himself. He can render essential service to his country, by assisting in the disinterested administration of the laws; by watching over the opinions and principles of the lower orders around him; by diffusing among them those lights which may be important to their welfare; by mingling frankly among them, gaining their confidence, becoming the immediate auditor of their complaints, informing himself of their wants, making himself a channel through which their grievances may be quietly communicated to the proper sources of mitigation and relief; or by becoming, if need be, the intrepid and incorruptible guardian of their liberties - the enlightened champion of their rights.

All this, it appears to me, can be done without any sacrifice of personal dignity, without any degrading arts of popularity, without any truckling to vulgar prejudices, or concurrence in vulgar clamour; but by the steady influence of sincere and friendly counsel, of fair, upright, and generous deportment. Whatever may be said of English mobs and English demagogues, I have never met with a people more open to reason, more considerate in their tempers, more tractable by argument in the roughest times than the English. They are remarkably quick at discerning and appreciating whatever is manly and honourable. They are by nature and habit methodical and orderly; and they feel the value of all that is regular and respectable. They may occasionally be deceived by sophistry, and excited into turbulence by public distresses and

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