lpable
innuendoes, is worthy of Miss Squeers. In an evening visit to the ruins
of the Colosseum, Eustace, the young clergyman, has been withdrawing the
heroine, Miss Lushington, from the rest of the party, for the sake of a
_tete-a-tete_. The baronet is jealous, and vents his pique in this way:

"There they are, and Miss Lushington, no doubt, quite safe; for she
is under the holy guidance of Pope Eustace the First, who has, of
course, been delivering to her an edifying homily on the wickedness
of the heathens of yore, who, as tradition tells us, in this very
place let loose the wild _beastises_ on poor St. Paul!--Oh, no! by
the bye, I believe I am wrong, and betraying my want of clergy, and
that it was not at all St. Paul, nor was it here. But no matter, it
would equally serve as a text to preach from, and from which to
diverge to the degenerate _heathen_ Christians of the present day,
and all their naughty practices, and so end with an exhortation to
'come but from among them, and be separate;'--and I am sure, Miss
Lushington, you have most scrupulously conformed to that injunction
this evening, for we have seen nothing of you since our arrival. But
every one seems agreed it has been a _charming party of pleasure_,
and I am sure we all feel _much indebted_ to Mr. Gray for having
_suggested_ it; and as he seems so capital a cicerone, I hope he will
think of something else equally agreeable to _all_."

This drivelling kind of dialogue, and equally drivelling narrative,
which, like a bad drawing, represents nothing, and barely indicates what
is meant to be represented, runs through the book; and we have no doubt
is considered by the amiable authoress to constitute an improving novel,
which Christian mothers will do well to put into the hands of their
daughters. But everything is relative; we have met with American
vegetarians whose normal diet was dry meal, and who, when their appetite
wanted stimulating, tickled it with _wet_ meal; and so, we can imagine
that there are Evangelical circles in which "The Old Grey Church" is
devoured as a powerful and interesting fiction.

But perhaps the least readable of silly women's novels are the
_modern-antique_ species, which unfold to us the domestic life of Jannes
and Jambres, the private love affairs of Sennacherib, or the mental
struggles and ultimate conversion of Demetrius the silversmith. From
most sil