Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/83

Rh hero would have undergone that peculiarly English reproach of 'being called out of their names,' (Lord Ethringhame being styled Reginald at first, and afterwards Algernon) in almost every chapter. I do not," she proceeds, "go quite so far as the lively American writer, who, in the amusing tale of the 'Cacoethes Scribendi,' encourages her whole family to write, by the assurance that 'the printers would find them spelling and grammar;' but I do gratefully confess, my obligations have been many to mine. The long sentences made short, the obscure made plain—the favorite words that would, like Monsieur Tonson, come again—the duplicate quotations—for the amendment of all these," &c., the printers were to be thanked. As she remarks, on another occasion, a proof sheet is a terrible reality. With just so much care had she devoted herself to the task of gratifying the public curiosity. Yet, her new work suffered still more, perhaps, from the opposite fault of over-anxiety. Every chapter almost appears to have been written under the influence of an apprehension, lest any one sentence should be thought dull, any portraiture tame, any scene prosaic. Each page has its half-dozen similes, and the purpose of the story, where story may be traced, is continually checked by the spirit of reflection, or of raillery, to which every turn of it gives rise in the author's mind. What her characters fail to say, she is always ready to say for them. The first half of the work, indeed, is little more than a series of discussions upon books and society, life in romance, and life in reality—fashion, manners, motives—love, hope, youth—marriage and disappointment—art and theatricals—the contradictions and mysteries of human character, and philosophy in its endless