is poor Olivia speaks. "Thus each day I grew more
pensive, and he more insolent, till at last the monster had the
assurance to offer me to a young baronet of his acquaintance." This
scene is not fit for picture; it is seemingly nothing but successful
villany, and of too gay a cast to be pathetic. The chapter from which it
is taken would have furnished a much better one--the meeting between the
Vicar and his poor Olivia. We can bear the suffering of a Cordelia,
because all in that is great though villany be successful; but there is
a littleness in mere profligacy that infects even the victim. We could
have wished that Mr Mulready had taken the "Meeting" for his
illustration. How exquisitely beautiful is the text! The first impulse
of affection is to forget, or instantly palliate the fault. "Welcome,
any way welcome, my dearest lost one, my treasure, to your poor old
father's bosom!" Then how exquisite her observance of the effect of
grief upon the parent's appearance. "Surely you have too much wisdom to
take the miseries of my guilt upon yourself." How timely has Goldsmith
thrown in this, when we are most willing to catch at a straw of excuse
for the lovely sufferer! No, we say, she never contemplated the misery
she has inflicted; and then how natural is the instantaneous remembrance
of her guilt! The taking it up and laying it down at a moment's call,
from affection, is most touchingly beautiful. "Our wisdom, young woman,"
replied I--"Ah, why so cold a name, papa?" cried she. "This is the first
time you ever called me by so cold a name." "I ask pardon, my darling,"
returned I; "but I was going to observe that wisdom makes but a slow
defence against trouble, though at last a sure one." Admitting the
subject chosen by Mr Mulready, we do not approve of his manner of
telling it; we scarcely know which is the principal figure. Nor is
Olivia's good. It has nothing of the madness the text speaks of. "My
answer to this proposal was almost madness." We are glad to quit the
scene, though our next step is into deeper misery; and--

"The return of the Vicar to his home in flames," a pitiable sight; but
here is the triumph of love over misery, and the subject is good. "Now,"
cried I, holding up my children, "now let the flames burn on, and all my
possessions perish." The scene is well told, and not the worse for a
justifiable theft from Correggio in the fainting figure--it is the
_mother_ in the Ecce Homo in the National Gallery. Th