accident get admittance into the pasture, sweet as clover, of the derivations and similarities of speech, first to graze bis fill, and then leisurely to lie down, bask, and ruminate; by which practice he will obtain wholesome digestion, sudden growth, and increase of strength, beyond his hopes. For my own part I have fed voraciously of this kind of diet, and never once found it surfeiting: it has swelled me to a prodigious size, as must have been long agoperceived. And as to my learning!-Good Heavens! With half a dozen dictionaries before me--Well, well, there are many men of learning like myself. vol. 1. P. 120.

Was Mr. H. engaged to write by the square inch? Or did he write this and similar passages (according to a quaint phrase now in vogue) by automatic association of ideas, that is, by setting down the first word that came uppermost without reference to arrangement or to meaning?

The first volume abounds with specimens of the above style, which Mr. H denominates in his preface sportiveness,' and which he tells the reader, he suffers to die away as the story becomes more interesting.' This resembles the conduct of a man, who after laughing very loud at his own jokes, begs pardon of the company, and promises not to be so witty for the remainder of the evening.

All our readers most probably recollect the celebrated walk of Mr.Godwin's Man of Genius from Temple Bar to Charing Cross. His man of genius is fairly out-geniused by Bryan Perdue.

'One day, as I was passing a plaster-model shop, I saw the figure of a vestal virgin, which I immediately fancied was her (Henrietta's) exact resemblance. I hurried into the shop, purchased it, took it in my arms, and, under the pretence of praising its antique and Grecian beauties, gave vent to my own imaginary raptures.

'I then hurried home with it, for I would not have quitted it for kingdoms, most carefully guarding against passengers, and every accident that might injure my precious treasure. On any other occasions, my false pride would have risen in arms at being myself the porter of such luggage.

When at home I placed it before me, traced in it all the sweet proportion, the simple graces, the chaste thoughts, and the divine beauties of Henrietta! I stood contemplating it in an undescribably thelancholy ecstasy.

So entirely was I lost in imagination, that I began to convérse with it, to utter my tender and passionate complaints, to ask most piteous questions, to reason with it, and to implore compassion

How excellently, and with what force of ridicule, did this trifling incident shew the absurdity of the supposition, that love is irresistible; since the imagination could thus put the cheat upon itself, and, Henrietta not being present, could transfer all its rap

tures to plaster of Paris! It is concerning the due regulation of the fancy, and the various powers of the mind, that education ought principally to be employed.'

Let every British schoolmaster weigh well the philosophi cal reflection at the close of this chapter. Let them solemnly present a petition to parliament, that all Italian image-venders may be sent' out of the country, as corruptors of the morals of the state. We do not recollect whether Solon of Lycurgus said any thing about the matter, but we very much suspect that the TOT whom Plato wished to exclude from his republic, were makers of images, and not of verses, as is usually supposed.

If the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue should reach a second. edition, we advise the author of them to adopt the following paragraph from the third page of his second volume, for his motto, with the trifling alteration of changing the words GOOD-HUMOUR into GOOD-SENSE.

'Oh, Good-humour! thou charm of human life, how gladly would I make thee my Goddess! How have I daily vowed to worship thee! and how have my pious intentions been daily traversed, by that per-. verse demon Evil-habit! sometimes appearing to me under the form. of Folly; but more frequently with the odious though perhaps ima ginary face of foul Injustice. Forgetful, then, of thee, Good-humour and intent only upon reform! redress! retribution! and Satan himself knows not how many other wild speculative whims, how have I stormed, raved, and vowed eternal warfare against shadowy evils of my own creating!"

ART. III-A Tour in America, in 1798, 1799, and 1800; exhibiting Sketches of Society and Manners, and a parti · cutur dccount of the American System of Agriculture, with its recent Improvements. By Richard Parkinson, late of Orange Hill, near Baltimore, Author of the Experienced Farmer, &c. 2 Vols. 8vo. London. Harding. 1805.

THIS book is avowedly written for the purpose of vilifying America. The author, who went to that country on an agricultural speculation, having been disappointed in his golden visions of vallies waving with corn, or covered with the most delightful verdure, sits down on his return to England, to represent the United States as a perfectly barren waste, and the inhabitants as an almost savage people., He finds nothing worthy of his praise throughout the whole country; he is the true Smellfungus, who never meets with

a mushroom; or rather perhaps he may be denominated a happy mixture between the ill natured and the ignorant traveller. It is hard indeed to say which of these two qualities, spleen or absurdity, most strikingly preponderates in the lucubrations of Mr. Richard Parkinson.

His misfortunes set out with him upon his voyage. He was stopped fourteen days off Liverpool, because his ship wanted proper ballast; one of his servants became sick; the other was pressed by a king's boat; all his family were qualmish, except one son of twelve years of age; and this boy and our author had sixteen horses, nine head of cattle, and thirteen pigs to feed, and pump water for to clean the dirt from,' &c. &c. To crown such a list of evils, nearly as numerous as those which befell the unhappy family in the song of Auld Robin Gray, the famous race-horse, Phanomenon, died! Poor Phænomenon! Here, had Mr. Parkinson been poetically gifted, we have no doubt he would have written an elegy; for he is of a very plaintive disposition. He extracts no comfort from the consideration that Cardinal Puff still survived.

Mr. Parkinson took with him his Experienced Farmer, in order to republish it in America; and he allows that this speculation answered very well; as also did the horses, cattle, and hogs, above his expectation; but the wonderful barrenness of the land, was beyond any description.' We shall, throughout our review of this work, take the liberty of occasionally using the author's own words, as there is a peculiar naïveté in his style.

The barren land of America, however, when properly cultivated and manured, appears to have produced for Mr. Parkinson, by his own account, very fair crops; and by the single article of milk, he gained very considerably, which is a proof that good grass land, as well as arable, can be found beyond the Atlantic. The different statements indeed of this author in different parts of his work, are so utterly inconsistent with each other, that we are at a loss to conceive upon what principles it has been taken by some of our contemporaries in the light of a serious performance. We are confident that the author himself meant it for a burlesque upon arguments against emigration; and considering it in this point of view, the Tour in America has really a very rich vein of irony running throught it, as the author continually seems to be in a violent passion; but we have no doubt that he is all the while laughing in his sleeve at the credulity of his readers.

He does not indeed quite possess the grave bumour of Cervantes; but his wit is very refined, for we should almost

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at times suppose him to be in earnest. His language is entirely his own, and as animated as it is original; in this part of his character as an author, he is therefore above all praise; but in the design of his work, we may compare him to Swift, in the Voyage to Laputa, or to the father of Swift, Rabelais, in the Voyage to the Holy Bottle. It is the opinion of one of our friends that the Baron Munchausen would afford a still more striking resemblance, if Mr. Parkinson were compared to him. It may be so, or indeed Monsieur Vaillant might be mentioned as the facetious prototype of our author; but as Vaillant was a scholar, the similarity is destroyed.

On my arrival in America, I was compelled,' says Mr. Parkinson, to treat General Washington with a great deal of frankness.' Fie, Mr. Parkinson! so frank with your superiors, and yet perpetually inveighing against that insolence of manners, which the Americans acquire from their ideas of equality and independence. But however plain with the General, Mr. P. perfectly agreed with Mrs. Washington, that he had brought his pigs to a bad market;' and 'if every old woman in the country knew this,' continues our ungallant author, I thought my speculation would answer very ill. We here evidently discover Mr. Parkinson's comic drift, as he begins by forming his opinion of America upon the accounts of old women.

Mr. P. now met with a person of the name of Grimes, who had a little time before shot a man for going across his plantation.' He congratulates himself that this new friend did not also shoot him! Admirable humour!

Indeed, it is quite superfluous to adduce any more proofs of the real intention of Mr. P. in publishing this book, namely, that of ridiculing the opposers of emigration. We shall, however, amuse our readers with a few more instances of his successful irony, and then dismiss him with the valuable praise of having added to the stock of innocent and rational amusement. Works of fiction, if well managed, with an agreable subject, and a good moral, have always been esteemed as very useful in forming the manners of the rising generation; and there is an infantile simplicity in some of Mr. Parkinson's remarks, which admirably adapts his book to the use of the nursery. More decent than Gulliver's Travels, the Tour in America, like the former work, combines instruction and entertainment. It is at once a satire and a fable.

Our writers have of late years neglected to attempt this pleasant union of sarcastic story with an account of real coun

tries and characters; and we think the world is much indebted to Mr. Parkinson for the revival of an ancient practice, sò suitable to his own talents for the ludicrous.

The hyperbolical tales (in the first volume of this work,) of the escape of American prisoners from the hands of the Indians, are perhaps a little too grossly coloured. Their extravagance, however, serves to evince more clearly the author's general aim at the burlesque. And indeed a thought now strikes us, that these tales might be done into verse very easily by some wonder-monger of the present day, and under the title of New Tales of Terror,' might far exceed the former work of that name, in sale, as well as in merit of every kind.

Mr. Parkinson hints in his usual and delicate manner, at the hatred of the Americans for the English. In all companies, he observes, the American runs foul of the Englishman.' Mr. P. by a superficial reader would be thought to retaliate. He takes every opportunity of attacking the nation of America, with seeming virulence. His irony is here excessively keen. He must in his heart be a true American, for he calls that people a set of scoundrels, almost in plain words. The following is a specimen of lighter wit.

There is one gentleman of the name of Gough, at Perry Hall, who told me he thought of being a Mr. Bakewell (i. e. a great breeder of cattle,) but it would not do in America. He put me in mind of the Quaker in England, who, being asked in court by a counsellor, what he meant by saying likewise and also? replied, Lord Kenyon is a great lawyer; thou art also, but not like-wise. Thus Mr. Gough was also, but not like-wise, as Mr. Bakewell, VOL. 1. P. 287.

This is surely an instance of elegant and playful trifling! Mr. Parkinson indeed seems to be as great a master of the bagatelle, as of the strong and cutting powers of satire.

Those swamps or bottoms,' says Mr. P. which the Americans term rich, are light and crumbly. The author and the people whose country he describes are here at issue. But from a recurrence to Mr. Parkinson's known character of an ironical and jeering writer, we shall easily reconcile -the different accounts.

Upon the whole,' continues Mr. P. America appears to me to be a most proper place for the use to which it was first appropriated, namely, the reception of convicts.' This sentence, our readers will perceive, is much too illiberal to be interpreted seriously. We give Mr. Parkinson the full credit for his joke, and we admire the fine-drawn compliments of his narration. America was never before so deli