Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 1.djvu/378
and he might have grown into a confirmed gamester, if Juliet Carr had not been by, and exacted a promise from him he would play no more. A chaste opera-singer is about to forget her prudence with him, when he is again saved by the apparition of Juliet Carr. And finally, after having played at touch-and-go with vice, in several forms and at various places, he becomes her virtuous and exemplary husband. Helen Barham, nourishing her love like Rebecca for Ivanhoe, devotes herself likewise to works of charity. Lieberg is shot by Martin, the reformed housebreaker, in an attempt at the abduction of Helen Barham; and then only it is that we find out he was an elder brother of the hero's by a German lady. This is, we should suppose, an after-thought, and scarcely helps the author in accounting for the elder brother's anxiety to destroy the morality of the younger. Setting all these matters aside, the work is an admirable one, and is sure of extensive popularity.
MRS. BRAY'S HENRY DE POMEROY.
"Henry de Pomeroy; or, the Eve of St. John," is the title of a legend of the counties of Cornwall and Devon, lately issued by Mrs. Bray. It is a very worthy addition to that lady's attractive and various list. We may not say that any class of readers has been left ungratified. Here is love fatally crossed for the young; bitter repentance for the sorrow-loving; here are knightly combats and skirmishings for the romantic; schemes of ecclesiastical ambition and state enterprises for the historical; gay wassailings and merry hangers-on for the humorous; clever descriptions of old customs, picturesque costumes and architectural wonders for the antiquarian, and finally, interest and information for all. The castle of Berry Pomeroy, a visit to which gave rise to the present work, is now a ruin as ancient and interesting as a legend-seeker would desire; it is situate near Totness, Devonshire, on a manor bestowed upon a Pomeroy, by the Conqueror. Sir Henry, who flourished in the reign of lion-hearted Richard, appears to have been a gallant personage, distinguished from most of the abettors of the miserable John, by the peculiarity of his fate. On the submission of the usurper, Richard sent authorities to Berry Pomeroy, to arrest its owner, who, in the king's absence, had, among other acts of treason, stormed St. Michael's Mount, with the double motive of strengthening the hands of his usurping master, and of rescuing a fair damsel there immured. Richard's messenger arrived on the Eve of St. John; and, although the personal enemy of De Pomeroy, was, as the royal representative, (his mission being falsely stated,) hospitably entertained during three days, when disguise was thrown off, and the warrant for the knight's arrest produced—this parley of the feast and wine-cup being resorted to, in order to render the meditated blow more bitter and overwhelming. De Pomeroy, stung by the treachery, and by an insult offered to the memory of his sister, struck his enemy to the heart, and then, in dark night, sprang upon his horse. There is a portion of the castle still remaining, which is built upon an esplanade above a rocky precipice, now so surrounded and overhung by trees, that you are scarcely conscious of being near a precipice, till on its very verge. Thither, along the terrace, and not to the castle-gates, did the frantic rider urge his steed, that only paused, stopping suddenly short, at the very brink of the terrible gulf. Brief was the interval; the head of the affrighted animal was, in a moment, muffled in the horseman's cloak, the plunge was taken, and both were found dead at the base of the precipice. Such is the tradition still told, and related to Mrs. Bray, on the very spot, though the secret does not transpire until the close of her narrative. The narrative so terminated is, as we have hinted, extremely varied in character and event. The writer's antiquarian lore is liberally drawn upon, and her pages are embroidered with more curious knowledge of a remote time, than any author of less travel and research could have brought to such a task. Sometimes, perhaps, we feel that her work is a little overdone in this respect, and we lose sight of the character drawn in the elaborate descriptions of its costume; subordinate personages are also, by the same excess of external description, raised into an importance not warranted by the parts they perform; but it must be owned, that we should not have been conscious of this fault, had we been less excited by the course of the story. And in themselves they are excellent: the pleasant pictures of abbey usages in those times, of the lives of priests of all degrees, jolly monks, and scheming abbots. A certain cellarer, with his chum the sacrist, and the fool Patch, holding revel together, and discoursing "much as they might have been supposed to speak," form a really admirable group, and come out in living colours, as though preserved freshly in the unfading lines of Chaucer. There is a miller's daughter, one Grace Bolt, a bright-eyed, rosy, romping damsel of eighteen, who holds on all through the story, like a running accompaniment of laughing music; lost in the storm of ecclesiastical contentions, the clatter of battling knights, the pathos of ill-fated love, the deep meanings of remorse, but bursting out, like a stream in the clear places, with an enlivening effect.
Of the more important characters, leaving out of view Sir Henry, the author has most