would have collected a set of common-places respecting morality, too short to fatigue, too sound to be controverted, too elegant to be despised, too good to be lost, and too neat to be criticized unkindly. If he were then to shuffle his pack of cards afresh, and send it to the printer, the result would be such a book as this. It is divided, indeed, into rather long chapters: but each chapter often contains a handful of half-a-dozen separate topics, unaccountably disconnected. On each subject, something pretty is prettily said; yet nothing is exhausted, and no sufficient preparation is usually made for the desultory variations of matter. The reader is surprized that he who speaks to a point so well should have no more to say; and that he who observes so delicately should so soon be tired of looking. His thoughts have more vigor than drift, and his style more life than variety: so the grass-hopper skips afar though unconscious of her path, and chirps amain though her uniformity fatigues.

The sort of writing in which this author appears to us most adapted to excel is character-drawing. We should advise him to take down his Theophrastus, his Bruyère, his Bishop Hall; and, having duly studied these classical models, to complete a set of modern portraits, generalized into ideal representations of an entire class of men. A good specimen or two may be found in the sixth chapter:

I now sought a friend to whom I could fully unburthen my heart, who would neither reason nor ridicule, but who would sympathize in sorrows that no reason could remove. Towards one man I was imperceptibly drawn by the attractive charms of his conversation. His wit was more cheerful than dazzling. He employed learning but as one of the many means of pleasing; and while he instructed the mind, he seemed anxious only to amuse. His conversation was a delightful rest to the soul; and he secured approbation by not appearing to exact it. Pity seemed the ruling passion of his mind; at least tears and eloquence were lavished on the darling theme, and charity caught new graces adorned by his language. But it was the eloquence of genius, not of feeling. His eye glistened at a tale of sorrow, when that tear was likely to be consecrated by the applause of the world. His was the stage-box sensibility, that with ostentatious tenderness lavishes tears upon fictitious distress, while the pining children of poverty are regarded with philosophic composure,- that mechanism of feeling which vibrates only to the passing gale of popularity.

I soon lost all pleasure in the society of a man who was most de-. ceitful when most he charmed, and attached myself to a character apparently so congenial to my own, that I thought no time could lessen the avidity with which I sought his conversation. He, like me, felt disgust to society; but, like me, he had never tasted its sweetest joys, had never revelled in the golden dreams of hope, nor known that blessed moment when the silent eloquence of a glance bids every hope be realized.

• But

But I soon learned to distinguish between the gloomy discontent of constitutional misanthropy and the fastidiousness of a too susceptible and disappointed heart. In his youth he had gained some celebrity by his argumentative talents: logic was his favourite study, controversy his only recreation; and he entered society without any object or desire but to engage in disputation. Imposing and sophistical, he puzzled many whom he failed to convince, and politeness taught others to relinquish an unimportant discussion. Thus, elated by imaginary successes, from being ingenious he soon became dogmatical, and conceived every opposition to his opinion was an insult to his understanding.

A sophistical man, who first supports an opinion merely to display his ingenuity, is apt to argue himself into conviction of its truth. He soon began to advance extravagant paradoxes, and propagate the most dangerous sentiments, until, at length, his principles became as odious as his manners were tiresome. Finding himself, therefore, shunned, he resolved to make a voluntary retreat, and passed his days in sullen and gloomy hatred. He could tolerate the follies which gave him an opportunity of displaying his eloquence, but could not forgive the blind and indiscriminating stupidity that called his lofty declamations bombast, and his elegant fastidiousness pride and malevolence. Hatred seemed the natural complection of his mind; a look, a word, created the most horrid suspicion. Suspicion was soon magnified into certainty; he triumphed in the discovery, cherished the growing aversion, and never forgave the person who undeceived him. In short, to find pretexts to be miserable was the only use he made of reason. He could forgive those who injured him, but never forgave those whom he injured. He was capable of performing a generous action, but the object of his bounty was ever after the victim of a barbarous tyranny. His maxims were, never to trust, and he could not be deceived; never to love, and he could not be disappointed; and he believed himself wise, when only suspicious. But was he happy in his security? Oh, no! the canker of discontent preyed upon his heart; he was dreaded by the cheerful, despised by the wise, and avoided by those who had real sorrows to lament.

Augustus saw how dangerous such a companion must prove to a mind already so oppressed as mine, and he endeavoured to accomplish, by general reflections and oblique insinuation, what he dreaded to attempt by open expostulation; well knowing that the pride of man is for ever at war with his reason and interest. He described, with all the eloquence of feeling, how injurious to the interests of society is the indulgence of misanthropy; what misery a discontented mind draws upon itself, and all those within its power; like the fabled Upas tree, breathing pestilential vapours, and with poisonous influence expelling utility and joy from its fatal atmosphere.

When some sentimental caprice is disappointed," continued he, "gloom instantly seizes on the mind: we despise the pleasures and comforts within our reach, and distorting the most promising appearances into melancholy augurs, sullenly resign ouselves to hopeless despondency. We never consider how much more misery is below, than happiness above us; how many pine in want and agony, or suffer

the

the more horrible pangs of a guilty conscience. Alas! millions of human beings consider a mere exemption from want and pain as the height of human felicity; while those blessed with health, independence, innocence, and friends, close their eyes on conviction, and dream of imaginary sorrows. We complain of the small portion of happiness we enjoy; we accuse our fellow-creatures and the state of society, forgetting that happiness is a sacred relic committed to the sanctuary of our own hearts. Who is to blame if that sanctuary is profaned by every ignoble passion? if pride, envy, ambition, revenge, steal the bright image of heaven? Happiness, how fleeting! like time, unmarked but by its flight, and prized only when it cannot be recalled; the present moment for ever neglected, while a future, which beckons with delusive smiles, yet ever flies our grasp, employs all our thoughts. When we look back on past pleasures, and, dressing them in imaginary charms, sigh the useless wish, "Oh, that those days of bliss would return!" let us ask ourselves, was that time more prized when present, than this moment of useless regret ; and may not this neglected moment be the regretted past of a future day?"

Alas! how much easier is it to convince the understanding than to reform the heart! Memory still conjures up visions of departed joys, and argument affects not the blighted feelings of disappointed hope. Ye, who never knew the sweet dream of life; who never hung enamoured on accents that gave back the image of your own soul, softened and refined; who view the rising sun but as the cause of light and heat, not as the harbinger of returning bliss; it is for you to argue, but for me to feel!'

If one set of delineations abounds more than another in these pages, the favourite views seem to be those of a countryclergyman's situation and residence; and if we were allowed to infer the real history of the author from intimations thrown out by the imaginary misanthropist, we might suppose him to have been a young priest, labouring under the temporary melancholy of a widower *, who had been visiting London to recruit his spirits, and there left with his bookseller these detached beauties of his sermons, We recommend them to the perusal, to the interest, and to the curiosity, of all single ladies: they are well adapted for the parlour-table, and may be read aloud in female circles with grace and satisfaction. Such fair readers should be made acquainted with the taste of their guest, or

client :

I expected some pleasure at the house of Mr. D- —, a gentleman of large fortune, with three beautiful daughters, of whose elegance and accomplishments fame spoke very loudly. They were celebrated musicians, and to me, who am an idolator of that charming art, no other attraction was necessary. Music is no solitary acquire

* If the passage in the preceding extract, at the bottom of p. 201., be not contradictory to this supposition.

ment,

ment, which, proudly all-sufficient to itself, renders the possessor careless and incapable of pleasing.

These young ladies, returning home with all the ignorance and affectation of a boarding-school, are considered prodigies of musical talent, because they can with unblushing effrontery and unfeeling rapidity gabble over an Italian bravura, closing their eyes, shrugging their shoulders, and employing the appoggiatura till it degenerates into a groan. Sweet powers of harmony, how are you insulted! The Miss D-s sung and simpered, played the tambourine, and put themselves into the most graceful attitudes; exhibited a thousand pretty childish airs, all those

Quips and quirks, and wanton wiles,

Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,"

so easily acquired from a fashionable governess, or copied from a second-rate actress.

The tedious display of accomplishments over, I endeavoured to discover the yet hidden treasure of mind. I first introduced common topics, that I should not alarm them by too exalted an opinion of my wisdom, and check that natural flow of thought which is woman's sweetest charm. On the subjects of balls, dress, and scandal, they were loquacious and animated; but their animation was without any play of fancy: they had all the surface of refinement, but wanted that inherent elegance which charms by unstudied graces, and diffuses through the manners a calm, collected, winning ease. 'T'heir conversation was made up of the cant of science and the jargon of romance, and I soon found that the range of their literary pursuits was confined to those fictions which soften without instructing the heart, those works of imagination which, like the prismatic glass, shew objects glowing with false but brilliant colours: and that to their dazzled eyes the sober page of reason was never unfolded.

Though I do not agree with those sage moralists, who have endeavoured to prove all novel-reading destructive and all novel-writers contemptible, I believe that, were a fair estimate made of the comparative good and evil which novels have done to society, we should find the evil predominate. They create a distaste for the sober pleasures of life; they describe love and hatred in such extravagant terms, that the temperate feelings of nature appear insipid; they display such models of impracticable perfectibility, that we turn in despair from the imitation; and they paint vicious characters in such alluring colours, that we forget their errors in contemplation of their brilliant and engaging qualities. To support the consistency of characters, they are made to utter the most dangerous sentiments. The author does not perhaps wish to inculcate those sentiments, but a long train of events and arguments are not always able to do away the impression of one false but ingenious maxim, as few minds are capable of following or comprehending the laboured combinations of little results with which the author fancies he overthrows it. Thus the sentiment, which probably was introduced only to be confuted, will be engraven on the memory to create bad actions or to excuse them.

A mind that has long followed fiction through her flowery mazes is little inclined to pursue the plain unadorned path of reason. Thus

the understanding lies dormant, while imagination roves uncontrolled, and the genuine sympathies of nature, the best feelings of the heart, are exhausted on fictitious woes. Thanks to the taste and genius of the present day, every circulating-library supplies elopements, catastrophes, mystery, and distraction, distressed damsels and invincible heroes, in such abundance, that terror has ceased to tremble, and wonder has ceased to stare. The softest hearts have expended their stock of sympathy, and the most weeping eyes can no longer produce one tear even for domestic calamities. Every boarding-school miss has learned to act the heroine, to create adventures, and then weep at them; to unbind her golden tresses, fix her eyes upon the moon, and sigh forth her sorrows in tripping Madrigals. Intricate incident, astonishing discoveries, hopeless misery, and felicity more perfect than that of angels; sulky heroines, who are perfect in the arts of blushing, scolding, and looking disdainful; sophistical heroes, who sentimentally break the Ten Commandments, and then sanctify every immorality by proving themselves men of their word; sighs, blushes, thrilling sensibility and uncontrollable emotions, with a little pert dialogue interlarded with French phrases, constitute the whole art of modern story-telling.'

Wishing to the author every possible perfection in his Julia, (who, in the end, seems to recall him to life and love,) we deem it expedient to observe that too much fastidiousness is not favourable to human felicity; that in every character we may detect some imperfection of temper, and some deficiency of acquirement; that external advantages are denied at times by nature and at times by fortune and that a critic of manė kind, after every epithet of panegyric, can apply a but of deduction. The doctrine of universal compensation, which assumes that every fault is counterbalanced by some latent merit, is the most favourable to candid appreciation; and to the reciprocal tolerance and accommodation which best become those who are matched to draw together in the car of life.

ART. XIII. The British Constitution, analyzed by a Reference to the earliest Periods of History: in which is detailed Magna Carta, with Illustrations by the most eminent legal Characters, &c. &c. Compiled by a Doctor of Laws, 2 Vols. 12mo. pp. 864. 16. Boards. Chapple.

THIS HIS Doctor of Laws is an ardent eulogist of the British constitution, and reminds us, by his panegyrics, of the enraptured foreigner who, on hearing the subject broached in conversation, was accustomed to exclaim, "Elle est belle,-elle est superbe." Whoever the author (or rather compiler) may be, he takes great pains to assert a character of impartiality, and to disclaim equally the design of courting the smiles of the great, er of putting a mischievous instrument into the hands of party.