Or, passing "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," (for novelty
in quotations we find to be contagious,) have recounted the wildly
erratic history "of that false matron known in nursery rhyme,
Insidious Morey," or quoted
"How doth the little busy bee."
After which he might have soared into unapproachable heights of
surpassing literary erudition, by informing his awe-struck hearers
that the latter poem was written by Doctor Watts! The fact is, any
attempt to give the novelist's characters a learning which the
novelist does not possess is always hazardous.
The Heroine, Miss Faith Derrick, is a pretty, but not remarkably
original creation, who taxes our magnanimity sorely at times by her
blind admiration of her lover when he is peculiarly absurd, but whose
dumb rejection of Doctor Harrison, though a trifle theatrical, is
really charming. Faith is better than Linden: Linden is _"superbe,
magnifique"_; but Faith is "pretty good."
But the conception of the Villain is very fine. In Doctor Harrison we
hail a new development of that indispensable character. Of course,
the gentlemanly, good-humored Doctor is not to be considered a
villain in the ordinary acceptation of the word; he is only a
technical villain,--a villain of eminent respectability.
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