r of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the
number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges
upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish,
the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she
has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence
and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will,
perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is
vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused
have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O
nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft
word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress
or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with
scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to
the matter in dispute--a simple question of mackerel--O, Mrs. Trollope!
Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself
with selling your _own_....

There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but,
coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly
indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a
representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful
and wicked slander.

BULWER'S "ERNEST MALTRAVERS"

To talk of _Ernest Maltravers_ now, is to rake up a dead man's ashes.
The poor creature came into the world almost still-born, and, though he
has hardly been before the public for a month, is forgotten as much as
_Rienzi_ or the _Disowned_. What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn
wisdom with age, and confine his attention to subjects at once more
grateful to the public and more suitable to his own powers! He excels in
the _genre_ of Paul de Kock, and is always striving after the style of
Plato; he has a keen perception of the ridiculous and, like Liston or
Cruikshank, and other comic artists, persists that his real vein is the
sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine-papers, what an outpouring
of fun and satire, might we have had from Neddy Bulwer, had he not
thought fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and be
Edward Lytton, Heaven--knows--what Bulwer, Esquire and M.P., a dandy, a
philosopher, a spouter at Radical meetings. We speak feelingly, for we
knew the youth at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for