Now,

one of its hundred little bedrooms, low-roofed and without bells, arranged on each side of narrow corridors, which crossing each other at right-angles, and in all directions, would puzzle the most expert topographer. The Dragon and the Granby were sacred places. The lords only graced the latter, while the wealthy commoner pleased himself in the former. nous avons changé, &c. Pretty little gauche misses and their snuff-colouredcoated papas boldly stalk into both houses without being 'called;' cutlers and cotton-spinners aspire to great assembly rooms and gigantic banqueting saloons; and nothing pleases the wealthy townsman of Bradford and Huddersfield, Halifax and Rochdale, but the lambris dorés, the well-stuffed sofas of red damask, and the cuisine par excellence of those two crack hotels. The season, however, presently arrives, when the smoke of their native places recalls them to their duties, and when the complexion of the previously pimpled damsels being well polished by the sulphur bath, and the lining of their papa's stomach altered into a fresh manufacturing power by the Cheltenham chalybeate, they must take their departure and leave London luxury at Harrogate for Lancashire and Yorkshire homeliness. And then the Right Honourables, the M. P.'s, the baronets, and their ladies, pour into Harrogate, chase away all the vulgar before them, fill the Dragon and the Granby with 'Ha! ha-s,' and 'How do-s,' imprisoning the real invalids at the Crown ;-where, by the by, I lived for a week very comfortably, to be near the Montpelier Spa and the Old Well. Then begin the real gaieties of Harrogate, then the money flies, and six weeks of a plentiful harvest enables the respective landlords of those aristocratic establishments to keep them up during the rest of the year, with expenses and taxes upon them that would appal a chicken-hearted Boniface, and which could not be met but for the extravagant charges the landlords themselves make on their customers of 'gentle blood."'

The usual, the uniform consequence of any place becoming a scene of resort for wealthy Englishmen and their families is exorbitant charges for living and for lodging. At a Harrogate hotel, Dr. Granville says, the ordinary demand for lodging and board at the public table is two guineas-and-a-half per week, with half-aguinea more for the servants of the house; for if you have a servant of your own in livery, there is an extra charge of three shillings and sixpence a day; besides which, there is a tax of three shillings a week for wax-lights. How expensive then must the case be to a man with a family! and should any of them be sick, and unable to frequent without bad effects the public-rooms, the demand for a private sitting-room is three guineas a-week more. Still fashion wills it, that such exorbitance shall be countenanced; for the higher classes resort to the principal hotels, "though few of these illustrious remain the usual period of time necessary for a successful treatment by mineral water." But the overcharges to which the middle classes are subjected if they desire or require to have the benefit of the Harrogate waters, is not the only evil which fashion has imposed. Says our author :

"The state of things has given immense importance to the hotel-keepers; and in that respect Harrogate is something like Baden-Baden. These gentry are, in good truth, the lords of the place at present. What does not suit them, that must not be; and in the pursuit of this object each pulls his own way, and cares not what becomes of the rest. They go so far as to command (for it is a threat in the shape of a request) the closing of the hospital, as before stated, during the season, lest the sight of the poor lepers, and still more so the use they make of the sulphur-water out of the upper or bog-wells, as they are called, should interfere with their own establishment of baths and invalids."

Of all the English spas that the Doctor visited, the one which has left the most pleasing impressions on his mind is Scarborough; probably, he says, in consequence of its combining the luxury of sea-bathing in perfection, with the more solid advantage of efficient mineral springs; offering in a variety of respects, a striking contrast to Harrogate, which is dull and expensive as well as inland. may be, however, that our physician's partiality for the place which we are about to hear of more particularly, was, as he himself suggests, considerably promoted by his first breakfast at the "Bell." Be this as it may, we must let him speak:

It

"'I know not,' says he, 'Whether to attribute the feeling I experienced on my first arrival at Scarborough to the exciting nature of the air into which I found myself suddenly plunged, when the mail pulled up at that most intricate turn in front of the Bell,' or to the sight of the glorious ocean, or to the appearance of sundry eatables spread on the well-decked table of that inn. But to whichever of these causes it may be owing, that feeling was one of inward contentment, accompanied by a buoyancy of spirits such as I had not lately enjoyed.

"Unquestionably, the being admitted to the privilege of sitting down at once with three or four merry persons, and a lady or two to boot, at a table where I was presently helped with all the good things of this world, after an early morning drive of three or four hours, with an unfreighted stomach,' was likely to put in good humour even the crossest-tempered fellow alive; and perhaps that had its influence in the present instance. Bread good, and good-looking; excellent tea, tea-cakes, muffins, and newlaid eggs, would satisfy any reasonable bachelor at a London club-house. But what if he found within his reach on the same table, a pièce de resistance of cold beef, and raised pies, and shrimps, and potted and marinanded fish of many kinds, to satisfy wherewith either his hunger or his whim! And yet such things and such a breakfast, are to be found at Scarborough, not only at the Bell Inn, but at many other hotels; and they constitute one only of four daily repasts which honest and civil Master Webb (and I heard that other landlords do the same) gives you at nine, twelve, four, and eight o'clock p. m., at his ordinary on Bland's Cliff, for the sum of six shillings per diem, including lodging."

Again :

"I am enchanted with Scarbourgh. And who would not be who has sojourned but a single day at this ' Queen of English sea-bathing places, at the close of the summer-months, or in the early days of a bright autumn? To me Scarborough was a surprise, to the full extent of the word. I was not prepared to find a Bay of Naples on the North-east coast of England; nor so picturesque a place perched on lofty cliffs, reminding an old and experienced traveller of some of those romantic sea-views which he beheld abroad, particularly in Adriatic and Grecian seas. * Scarborough

*

is perhaps one of the most interesting marine spas in England. It combines the advantages of mineral springs with those of a convenient and luxurious sea bathing shore. It is surrounded on the land side by numerous objects of attraction, to which either roads or footpaths, over moors and dales, like radii from a centre, offer a ready access to the visiters. Some of those objects, indeed, have acquired well-merited reputation. In modern architecture, enriched and heightened by extensive gardens, plantations, and Arcadian groves, there is Castle Howard, which the visiter will perceive on the right of the high-road immediately beyond Malton. In ancient structure Rivaulx Abbey, which is supposed to have been the first Cistercian monastery founded in Yorkshire, presents ruins of considerable extent, more perfect than those of most of the same class of monastic buildings in the county, Fountain Abbey excepted. In natural phenomena we have the strongly-marked geological formation of the coast right and left of Scarborough, with its caverns and promontories-its clefts, its dislocations, and its elevations-all sufficiently denuded to exhibit a very museum to the lover of geology. From Robin Hood's Bay northward, to the Flamborough Head southward, a distance of thirty-three miles of coast, every inch of the land, which may be inspected at low-water over a course of the finest sands in England, is pregnant with interest."

Scarborough once more, and the prices there:

"Living on the whole is somewhat cheaper at Scarborough than in London, and certainly not so extravagant as at Harrogate. From inquiry of an excellent manager, the mother of a large family, I learned that the prime pieces of meat, with all bones removed, cost but eightpence per pound; that poultry, eggs, and butter, are one-fourth cheaper than in London; and that a fair-sized cod-fish may be had for one shilling, or a pair of the largest soles for that sum. Bread and milk are tolerable, and water is excellent, rather hard but well-flavoured and limpid.

"Water and bread! These are no trifling comforts at a spa; and though they may appear trite in their nature to some people, yet the enumeration of them will have its value with a large majority of my readers. Houseroom, whether in the form of lodgings or of separate houses, is not to be procured good at a very cheap rate. The average rent for the latter is ten guineas a week. A large house near the cliff-bridge lets for thirteen guineas during the season, which is reckoned to begin on the 1st July, and to terminate on the 12th October. After the latter date, house-rent falls to one-half its former amount. Lodging and boarding_houses are of three classes; and at all of them four meals are allowed. The respective prices are 4s. 6d., 5s. 6d., and 6s. 6d. per day, including a bedroom."

It will be by this time manifest to our readers that the Doctor blends the utile and the dulce in a lightsome and agreeable manner; and that his matter is much diversified. Our next and last extract will furnish further evidence of this variety, and show that his eyes were uniformly open, so as to discriminate where improvement was in advance, and when in arrear; and also to mark what where the particular sorts of improvement, and what the defects. Preston, it appears, exhibits anomalies. Hear the physician :

"Of all the rising manufacturing towns in the North, Preston is probably the only one which has contrived to add to its population, its wealth, and its factories, to a very considerable extent, without at the same time having made any corresponding advances in civilisation, cleanliness, and ameliorations in the material part of the city. Its streets are as narrow and as crooked and as dirty as ever. Very few of its shops, even in Fishergate, the Regent Street of the place, exhibit any appearance of improvement from what they must have been thirty years ago. It possesses no public building, not even a market; and on every Saturday evening the butchers' shambles, and other sheds for the display of every marketable commodity, are set up in a line on one side of the very street just named, nearly to its whole extent, causing filth, confusion, and inconvenience. It will hardly be believed that there exists no such thing as a public or any other bath, hot or cold, in Preston. There are two ordinary news-rooms in the placethe one a little more aristocratic than the other; yet even the latter is very unworthy of the wealthy people who subscribe to it. Preston, I repeat it, is fifty years in arrear of the progress of all modern manufacturing towns in England, in the conveniences, the comforts, and the embellishments of life; nay, it is a hundred years in arrear of the steady and somewhat surprising progress of its own manufactures. It is a place slow in improving, and seems to consist only of people intent on amassing wealth by commerce, manufacture, and speculation. It would take half a century of steady goodwill, and a considerable expenditure of money, to make Preston what Manchester, Halifax, Bradford, Wakefield, or even Huddersfield, are and have been for a long time. And yet, to judge from a little episode in the daily routine of the place, to which I was a witness in the green-market, one would feel disposed to consider the Prestonians an intellectual people. A licensed hawker having advertised the importation and intended sale of three thousand volumes of cheap books, had been so successful in his operation, which was carried on in the open market-place, that he felt it necessary to apologize to the reading public' because his large stock had been exhausted a day sooner than he had anticipated. He promised, at the same time, the literati of Preston, to return soon with a still more splendid supply for their accommodation."

VOL. I. (1841.) No. IV.

Q Q

578

ART. XII.

1. Cecil; or the Adventures of a Coxcomb.

Bentley.

A Novel. 3 vols. London:

2. Corse de Leon: or the Brigand. A Romance. By J. P. R. JAMES, Esq. 3 vols. London: Longman,

WELL, we dare to say that our readers will be satisfied for this month with samples, amounting to something like a tithe of those which might be presented, of the novels and romances that have been published and puffed since we last paid any attention to these tribes. Even those persons who resort to the pages of the Monthly Review with a very different purpose than to sate an appetite for the literature of circulating libraries, will allow that we cannot altogether overlook the most numerous classes of books that now issue from the press, and which, unfortunately, consist of fictions, either in the guise of poetry or of prose. Nay, they must approve of our conduct when they find that we have selected specimens of mark, and the best of their kind, which the month supplies. Indeed, benefit and legitimate pleasure must be conferred whenever talent and a knowledge of the world, as in the former of these works, are directed to delinea. tions of character and of society, as well as to the business of re proving in a caustic and cynical tone; or, as in the latter, when na tural ability, enthusiastic reading, chivalrous sentiment, and con summate art have all combined to work out a sterling historical romance. But to each creation in its turn :

"The Adventures of a Coxcomb" gives us a picture of high London life, and is evidently the work of one who has witnessed its heartlessness, its frivolities, and its sordid selfishness. He also carries the reader, with an easy command, to foreign parts, and affords many glimpses of the continent. The work, however, is not a novel with a continuous story; with cunningly contrived and reciprocating plots; not even with completed characters, not excepting the Coxcomb, the Honourable Cecil Danby himself. Nay, a principal fault of the work is its frequent violation of consistency; the constant effort also to be smart, or to be energetic, forcing us to pronounce the author to be merely clever, but without genuine power or artistic skill.

But although Cecil is over piquant, too studious of point and brilliancy, and without the frame-work or structure of a plot,-for he breaks off as soon as he breaks a heart, jumps from humorous sneers to pathetic incidents, from the dance to the courts of law or of Parliament, from home to abroad, just as the whim is upon him, or as soon as he has uttered what he wished to say,—and although he takes the title of Coxcomb, he has yet a heart as well as a head, and with facility can touch the feelings, speak wisely, and act manfully. Still the sparkling quality prevails, and the reader's sense of overstraining is dominant.