One very curious feature in the book is the chess dance, which has been sometimes carried out since in reality. It is one of not the least interesting points in Peacock’s rather enigmatic character that he seems to have had a liking for pageants and shows, whether in themselves, or (in this particular instance) because of the example in his beloved Rabelais, or as fashions of old time—for there never was such a lover of old time as this Liberal free-lance. His grand-daughter tells us that he used to hold Lady-of-the-May revels in his old age for the children at Halliford, and the Aristophanic play in _Gryll Grange_ partakes at least as much of this fancy as of the direct liking for theatrical performance proper which Peacock had, and which made him for some years a regular theatrical and operatic critic. The songs of _Melincourt_ are, considering its length, not numerous, and only one of them is, for Peacock, of the first class. Anthelia’s first ballad, “The Tomb of Love,” is not very much above the strains of the unhappy Della Crusca and his mates, whose bodies in her time still, to speak figuratively, lay scattered on the critic mountains cold, where they had been left by Gifford’s tomahawk. Nor is her second, “The Flower of Love,” much better. The terzetto, which immediately follows this, is not very strong, though “Hark o’er the Silent Waters Stealing” is tolerable, and “The Morning of Love” is very fair imitation-Moore, and the Antijacobin quintet very fair Hook. Of the two remaining serious pieces “The Sun-Dial” is much better than “The Magic Bark.” But the credit of the verse of this novel must rest upon “The Ghosts.” It faces a page in which Southey is represented as saying of himself, “I knocked myself down to the highest bidder,” and interrupts a discussion which, putting aside this childish injustice, Mr. Hippy most properly describes as “dry,” so that it must have been a considerable relief at the time. The disputants, it is true, relapse; but probably few attended to them originally, and now, through most of the rest of the novel, the reader catches himself humming at intervals, Let the Ocean be Port, and we’ll think it good sport To be laid in that Red Sea! GEORGE SAINTSBURY. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE TO THE EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1856 1 CHAPTER I ANTHELIA 5 CHAPTER II FASHIONABLE ARRIVALS 14 CHAPTER III HYPOCON HOUSE 22 CHAPTER IV REDROSE ABBEY 29