has been slow in attaining to its rightful station amongst its
brethren--whose parentage at first was openly acknowledged. If compared
with Pelham, it might lose, at the first glance, but would perhaps gain on
any attentive reperusal.

For although it must follow from the inherent difference in the design of
the two works thus referred to, that in Godolphin there can be little of
the satire or vivacity which have given popularity to its predecessor,
yet, on the other hand, in Godolphin there ought to be a more faithful
illustration of the even polish that belongs to luxurious life,--of the
satiety that pleasure inflicts upon such of its votaries as are worthy of
a higher service. The subject selected cannot adroit the same facility
for observation of things that lie on the surface--but it may well lend
itself to subtler investigation of character--allow more attempt at
pathos, and more appeal to reflection.

Regarded as a story, the defects of Godolphin most apparent to myself, are
in the manner in which Lucilla is re-introduced in the later chapters, and
in the final catastrophe of the hero. There is an exaggerated romance in
the one, and the admission of accident as a crowning agency in the other,
which my maturer judgment would certainly condemn, and which at all events
appear to me out of keeping with the natural events, and the more patient
investigation of moral causes and their consequences, from which the
previous interest of the tale is sought to be attained. On the other
hand, if I may presume to conjecture the most probable claim to favour
which the work, regarded as a whole, may possess--it may possibly be found
in a tolerably accurate description of certain phases of modern
civilisation, and in the suggestion of some truths that may be worth
considering in our examination of social influences or individual conduct.