dignity of his namesake, whom he has certainly no desire to lower in our
esteem. With an egregious passion for distinction, a great vanity, in
short, we are afraid that he himself (judging from some passages in his
Autobiography) hardly possesses a proper degree of pride, or the due
feeling of self-respect. The Christian in the novel is the butt and
laughing-stock of a proud, wilful young beauty of the name of Naomi; yet
does he forsake the love of a sweet girl Lucie, to be the beaten spaniel
of this Naomi. He has so little spirit as to take her money and her
contempt at the same time.

This self-willed and beautiful Naomi is a well-imagined character, but
imperfectly developed. Indeed the whole novel may be described as a
jumble of ill-connected scenes, and of half-drawn characters. We have
some sad imitations of the worst models of our current literature. Here
is a Norwegian godfather, the blurred likeness of some Parisian
murderer. Here are dreams and visions, and plenty of delirium. He has
caught the trick, perhaps, from some of our English novelists, of
infusing into the persons of his drama all sorts of distorted
imaginations, by way of describing the situation he has placed them in.
We will quote a passage of this nature: it is just possible that some of
our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them
from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to
nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides
from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells
at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell,
and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth,"
he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat was
impossible, and the least movement exposed his head to be shattered. The
conception is terrible enough, but by no means a novel one, as all
readers conversant with the pages of this Magazine will readily allow,
by reference to the story of "The Man in the Bell," in our tenth
volume,[4] one of the late Dr Maginn's most powerful and graphic
sketches. But the natural horror of the situation by no means satisfies
this novelist; he therefore engrafts the following imaginations
thereupon, as being such as were most likely to occur to the lad,
frightened out of his senses, stunned by the roar of the bell, winking
hard, and pressing himself closer and closer to the wall to esca