Of the slip-slop reading, under this denomination, with which the town
has lately been inundated, the following is a fair specimen:--
_Hyde Nugent._--The book is made up completely of the gossip of
drawing-rooms, hotels, dinners, and balls. As to the hero, if any one
has a grain of curiosity about him--gratify it. Hyde is the son of a man
of family and fortune; he goes to Oxford, fights a duel, and is
expelled--prevails upon a marquess to break the matter to the
father--falls in love with the marquess's daughter--goes large and loose
about town--is every where introduced--and one of every party.
Notwithstanding certain warnings, and his own disgusts, he frequents
Crockford's--gets plucked, and moreover deeply involved with the Jews.
In the meanwhile he does not neglect the marquess's daughter. They soon
come to an understanding. He is irresistible--she is an houri. But the
consciousness of his embarrassments press heavily upon him, and he is on
the point of taking some desperate step, when he is summoned to attend a
friend in a duel, who kills his antagonist; and he and Hyde are obliged
to fly. This rescues him from his gaming associates; though he gets
among others at Lisbon, and narrowly escapes assassination. On his
return to England, his sister has married a duke's eldest son, and all
the family visit the said duke's, and there also assemble the aforesaid
marquess and his beautiful daughter.
But now comes forward more than before, an officer of the guards--a
guardsman is now become indispensable--who is also in love with the
marquess's daughter, and being not at all scrupulous of the means of
accomplishing his point--a very worthless person in short--he plays
Iago, and pours into the lady's ear the tale of Hyde's gambling
propensities, and his deep involvements; and moreover of a lady whose
affection he had wantonly won, and wantonly cut, and who was now
actually dying for him. This, however, was not all true; the lady
alluded to was the daughter of his father's friend and neighbour; she
and Hyde had been brought up together from children, and played and
romped together, and once, before Hyde went to Oxford, he had forced
from her a kiss. The poor fond girl had treasured up the kiss, and Hyde
had thought no more of her, or of it. She, however, pined away, and let
concealment feed on her damask cheek; and at this time was at Brighton
for change of air. She has a brother, a lancer; he hears, through Hyde's
precious rival, of the state of his sister, and for the first time, of
the cause. He flies to the duke's--though deeply occupied, at the
moment, in seducing the affections of a married woman in Ireland--and
calls upon Hyde to meet him forthwith. Hyde's rival is the lancer's
second. Hyde falls, and as he is borne bleeding to the house, Lady
Georgina, the marquess's daughter, meets him. The shock kills her
outright, and the story stops; but hints are given that he slowly
recovers, and by still slower degrees is brought to think of the
charming girl, who had treasured his boyish kiss, and marries.--_Monthly
Magazine_.
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