Critical Review, 3rd ser. 17 (July 1809): 330–31.

This romance is dedicated to his most christian majesty Louis XVIII. In this dedication, and also in the preface, the author in-[330/331]forms us that many of the anecdotes are genuine, though he has blended them with fictitious matter. The story is too complicated to allow us to give the heads of it, but it is not without interest; and it is certainly very inoffensive with respect to its morality. Many of the characters are well drawn and well supported, though we cannot say much for their novelty. We have a monster in the form of the Dominican, who stops at no atrocious act to satisfy his views of ambition, and another, in the character of the chief of a banditti, who is represented as the younger brother of the count de St. Hilare, a most amiable nobleman, upon whose life he makes various attempts through the instigation of the wicked Dominican, whose daughter he had married. The character of the Dominican is a close copy of the character of Shedoni in Mrs. Radcliffe’s Italian, though not drawn with so much force and discrimination. The delays and the dangers, which the count de St. Hilare experiences in the course of his journey are very naturally described, and his character, as well as that of his wife are well drawn, and very amiable. Annette, and Paulina with the old royalist, Philip St. Amand, are happily pourtrayed, the two former with much simplicity, and the latter with great energy, and effect. We can very safely recommend this novel to those who are lovers of this kind of reading; it contains nothing that is likely to corrupt or vitiate the mind;—the characters, which are copied from other works of this kind, are well selected, and those which the author may claim as his own, are very well sketched on the whole.

Notes: Listed under ‘Monthly Catalogue: Novels’. Format: 3 vols; no price. Publisher: Longman.

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