The Corvey Novels Project at the University of Nebraska

— Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period —

This authoress is greatly superior to the mob of novelists who write with ease: - (For that performances of the present kind are easily written, we may fairly conclude, from the very great number which are continually presented to us.) - She aims, occasionally, at a display of character; and not unfrequently delineates it with tolerable success. This, as we have repeatedly observed, is the principal excellence in a novel, as it is in dramatic production. Miss Dalton too, in a plain and simple tale (which we would always prefer to that which is complex, because the figures may consequently be drawn with a bolder hand) has contrived to interest us sufficiently in the event. Attention is kept awake, while the sentiments are such as every good and susceptible heart must thoroughly approve.

As this writer will probably appear again before the tribunal of the public, we are induced to present her with a word of advice, viz. "to admire superior sense and doubt her own." The following quotation from the preface to this works, will shew that she does not deem to humbly of her own abilities. Her novel is far from being faultless in point of composition; and her saucy humility had better have been spared:

'To you, O ye critics! I address my fervent prayer; and I implore you to disregard this humble TALE. The amusement of a few solitary hours cannot be worthy of your high attention. Unstudied, unornamented as it is, it may, perhaps, beguile some tedious interval, if your censures do not cruelly crush the flattering hope, and stifle my poor bantling on its first struggles into life. Permit it, I entreat you, to pass by in unheeded insignificance, and reserve your sagacious animadversions for those stupendous works, that, like the pyramids of Egypt, rise successively above each other, and provoke, by their pretensions to fame, an inquiry into the nature of their structure, and the basis of their elevation.'

Having hinted at some errors in this production, we had, at first, an intention of pointing them out. Its general merit, however, is so considerable, that we have dropped that design. - For, to talk in the quaint kind of language of the authoress, 'a short time produced reciprocal dilection in our bosoms, indicative of the purest friendship.' - A friendship, by the way, which we shall willingly cultivate, if to this lady it may seem good.

As we imagine the author must be a very young lady, and deeply read in poetry and novels, we forbear to censure in a sarcastic style; yet we cannot agree with her that this work is unstudied; nay, we think that labouring to ornament it, she has rendered many passages unintelligible. If she will listen to the warning voice of experience, we advise her to throw aside her pen, and not attempted to enter the road of glory, as she fancifully calls publishing a novel. There is certainly nothing immoral to be found in the volumes, though exquisite sensibility is a usual the cardinal virtue.

If, at our author's request, we should be inclined to pass by the good Vicar of Lansdowne, and turn like the Levite of old, to the other side, yet a duty superior to complaisance, a duty arising from our professions and connections with the public would compel us to pay our respects to him. In reality, we do no see why this lady, for young she has said she is, and single we suspect her to be, should deviate so far from the usual desire of being noticed, except she feared that our attention would be followed by dislike. But this is a suggestion so unfeminine, that we cannot for a moment admit it. Let us leave then conjecture, and turn to the work.

We see in many passages of this novel proofs of its having been written by an author unhackneyed in the tricks of the profession. The tale is natural, easy, pleasing, and interesting. If it were not for the little inexperience which we hinted at, we should have ranked it very high in the class: at present, if it is not in the first rank, it may be placed at the head of the second. The language is good, the characters, if not quite new, are not those usual personages which we meet with every day; the situations are interesting, and the moral unexceptionable. We have read it with pleasure, and we ought, for Miss Dalton's sake, to say that she deserves praise.