apid production of novels. But no language can
be too contemptuous, or too condemnatory, for the spirit of those works
in general. Every tie of society is violated in the progress of their
pages; and violated with the full approval of every body. Seduction is
the habitual office of the hero. Adultery is the regular office of the
heroine. In each the vice is simply a matter of course. Manly honour is
a burlesque every where, but where the criminal shoots the injured
husband in a duel. Female virtue is only a proof of dulness or decay, a
vulgar formality of mind, or an unaccountable inaptitude to adopt the
customs of polished society.

The hero is pictured with every quality which can charm the eye or ear;
he is the handsomest, the most accomplished, and the most high-spirited
of mankind, all sentiment, and all scoundrelism. The heroine, always a
wife or a widow,--in the former instance, is the "lovely victim of a
marriage in which her heart had no share," and in which she is entitled
to have all the privileges of her heart supplied. And in the latter is a
creature full of charms, about twenty-one, resolved to live for love,
but never to be "chained in the iron links of a dull and obsolete
ceremonial" again. She quickly fixes her eyes on some Adolphe, Auguste,
or Hyppolite, "_Officier de la Garde_," who has performed prodigies of
valour in Algiers, taken lions by the beard every where, and is the best
waltzer in all Paris. They meet, flame together, swear an _amitie
eternelle_, and defy the world, through three volumes.

In reprobating this detestable school, we certainly have no hope that
our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on
the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task
of reforming our own.

Within these few years, the English novels are rapidly falling into the
imitation of the French. And we say it with no less regret than
surprise, that the chief imitators are females. The novels written by
men have generally some manliness, some recollection of the higher
impulses which occasionally act on the minds of men; some reluctancy in
revealing the more infirm movements of the mind; and some doubts as to
the absorption of all human nature in one perpetual whirl of
love-making.

But with the female pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into
one impulse--all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do,
but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole."