ll and Mrs Deborah Primrose. And
why have we not Dick's episode of the dwarf and the giant? Episodes are
excellent things, as good for the illustrations as for the book. No. 14,
the contrivance of Mrs Primrose to entrap the squire, properly belongs
to another chapter. "Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the squire
that she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size, and would bid both
stand up to see which was tallest." The passage is nicely told; there
is, however, but one figure to arrest attention, and that is quite
right, for it is Olivia's, and a sweet figure it is. Dear Olivia! We
have not seen her portrait before, and we shall love her, beyond "to the
end of the chapter," to the end of the volume, and the more so, that
hers after all was a hard fate. It is the part of the tale which leaves
a melancholy impression; Goldsmith has so determined it--and to his
judgment we bow implicitly. Had any other author so wretchedly disposed
of his heroine, in a work not professedly tragic, we should have been
pert as critics usually are. Mrs Primrose is certainly here too young.
We cannot keep our eyes off Olivia; and see, the scoundrel has slyly
taken her innocent hand, and the other is put up to her neck in such
modest doubt of the liberty allowed. Here, as in other instances, the
squire is not the well-dressed man of the world, whose gold lace had
attracted Dick's attention. We could linger longer over this
illustration, but must pass on--honest Burchell has been dismissed,
villany has full sway. We must leave poor Olivia to her fate, and turn
to the family picture "drawn by a limner;" capital--"limner" well
suiting the intended satire--some say a good-natured, sly cut at Sir
Joshua. We should certainly have had Mrs Primrose as Venus, and the two
little ones as Cupids, and the Vicar presenting to her his books on the
Whistonian controversy, and the squire as Alexander. Whoever wishes to
see specimens of this kind may see some ludicrous ones at Hampton
court--particularly of Queen Elizabeth, and the three goddesses abashed
by her superiority. We thought to leave poor Olivia to her fate--Mr
Mulready will not let us give her up so easily, and takes us to the
scene of her quitting her home for her betrayer; and this is the subject
of--

"Yes, she is gone off with two gentlemen in a post-chaise; and one of
them kissed her, and said he would die for her;" and there she is,
hiding her beautiful face with her hands, and poor