1354. No. 18.

* * * * *

[To this class likewise belongs a Pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, from
the accomplished pen of Contarini Fleming. The lighter papers are tinged
with a high moral feeling; and we do not think that better evidence will
be found than in the following of Mrs. Hall's contributions.]


THE TRIALS OF GRACE HUNTLEY.

[This tale occupies nearly fifty pages. It so teems with moral pathos
and touching beauty, that we are at a loss to abridge it throughout so
as to preserve that acquaintance with the finest feelings of our nature,
which marks every page with sterling value. We, therefore, only adopt
the conclusion, and attempt a leading thread of the story. Grace is
the daughter of a village schoolmaster. She loves "not wisely, but too
well," "Joseph Huntley, the handsomest youth in the retired village of
Craythorpe." The father consents to their union. The real character of
the husband appears early; his fond love soon dwindles to painful
neglect: how truly does the writer observe, "the rapidity with which
love may glide from the heart of man is a moral phenomenon for which it
would puzzle philosophers to account. The brief space of a few months
not unfrequently converts the devoted into the unkind, or to a delicate
mind still worse--the neglectful husband." The wayward Huntley breaks
off church-going; he refuses Grace his company, and we find her first
solitary walk since her marriage thus touchingly referred to: "almost
every tree certainly every stile she passed--was hallowed by some
remembrance connected with the playmate of her childhood--the lover of