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    The first drama is entitled ' The Poor Scholar / and shows the demon baffled in his attempt upon a youthful pedagogue , at the point of death , in circumstances of penury and privation . The meditations of the scholar at evening , when his failing frame indicates that he has dismissed his class for the last time , and is

    about to learn , himself , the solemn lesson of mortality , are very beautiful and touching ; as are some portions of his dialogue with the evil spirit , who comes to visit him in the guise of a philosopher . We cannot entirely acquiesce in the moral of this drama . We are not quite sure that we distinctly apprehend the nature of the temptation . In part it is an appeal to the desire of literary honour and of personal comfort . But it seems mainly to relate to the student ' s faith , which is assailed in certain books and parchments put into his hands by the tempter . Now , if the writer intends that the salvation of the soul would be endangered by the reception of false opinions , and that too while the mind is debilitated by mortal sickness , we protest against her doctrine .

    Nor do we imagine it to be at all needful or desirable to cherish that horror of the very name of philosophy , which is probably felt by many of the well-meaning , but not very intelligent religious persons , to whom the authorship of this volume may be a sufficient passport even for a drama . To feed their fears is quite superfluous , and worse than carrying coals to Newcastle . We cannot imagine Mary Howitt to wish the religious world more

    imphilosophical or anti-philosophical than a large portion of it is at the present moment . There is no danger of the fiend ' s imposing upon them . Their temptations are all the other way ; and if it consorted not with her plan to unstop their ears to sounds c musical as is Apollo ' s lute , ' she should nevertheless have avoided the semblance of ministering to the purblind horror that tends to alienate reli ' gion from the intelligence of the age .

    In the second drama , Thomas of Torres , ' the demon secures his prey by exciting the avarice of a spendthrift who had wasted all his substance . The scenes of this drama are separated by long- intervals of time , amounting altogether to twenty-one years , so that opportunity is afforded , and improved , for striking pictures of the descent from one depth to another of crime , down which the most sordid species of the most sordid passion drags the soul . ' The Pirate' also shows the principle of evil triumphant , and by the agency of avarice also , though differently modified . It acts upon a nobler nature , and kindles up instead of smothering the other passions . Albert Luberg , a young merchant , whose vessel has been wrecked , is induced by the demon to become his partner in what afterwards turns out to be a pirate ship . The voyage is full of beauties and horrors , both of which are powerfully sketched . The Indian isle and the simple Edah are loveliness itself . The plague-ship , and the destruction of its crew , are

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    The Seven Temptations . 307

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 397, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/15/