Old Saint Paul's (ePub)

This tale is one of most exciting interest and Mr. Ainsworth has selected a theme rich in remarkable incidents, and which his fruitful fancy has wrought into a picture highly and faithfully illustrative of moral society in the time of the second Charles. The libertine and licentious character of the court at that period is exposed in a manner well calculated to convince the present generation how much princely manners and princely morals will be aped by the attendants of a court and spread themselves throughout the less elevated ranks of society. We have always thought that the works of Mr. Ainsworth, from being addressed so pointedly and directly to the feelings, and not so exclusively to the simple fantasia and imaginative of the mind as some other popular writers of his time, that they were therefore so much better calculated to convey lasting impressions to the reader and carry with them a power of moral sentiment in depicting vice, and deploring its dreadful consequences , which can never attend anything which is a mere display of ideality. In the present work the author has given powerful evidence of his particular kind of talent. From the glowing and animated description of the grocer of Wood Street and his family to the pictures of the monarch and his associates , there is a highly interesting portraiture of character, and in many places where other authors would have made nothing of the subject, or perhaps left it altogether untouched, such as in the scenes connected with the pesthouse and the other miseries of the plague, he has, by introducing them, developed some of the most touching appeals to the feelings to be anywhere met with. A less skillful master might have been unable to introduce such topics without harassing the feelings and would have left them untouched, but Mr. Ainsworth has given to them an importance and tragic truth which render them essential to the character of the tale.