so obvious a distinction that we should have thought it superfluous to repeat it, had not the misapprehension been so very common of what constitutes the morality of a novel. Richardson, of all novelists, was he who wrote with the sincerest intentions of doing good. But he has in one character exhibited vice so full of sprightly wit and so seductively accomplished, that, notwithstanding his retributive justice, we doubt much if any young man ever read Clarissa Harlowe without occasional longings to shine a Lovelace. Be it, therefore, well perpended, that what is called a good moral does not of itself coustitute the morality of a tale or play. The latter cannot well exist without the former, but does not necessarily flow from it.

The merit of the present work is not very great: yet it may pass for tolerable where so few are better. The characters are, as in almost all the fashionable novels of recent manufacture, subordinate and subservient to the facts related. They have nothing marked and definite in them, and we are just sufficiently introduced to their acquaintance to take some interest in what befals them. The reader is seldom identified with the hero or heroine, as he is with Booth or Jones. He does not feel for them as for himself.

There is also a glaring defect in the order of narration în Alphonsine. The Countess of Moncalde is slighted by a cruel and faithless husband, till she is tempted to take refuge in the arms of a gallant. She is afterwards inveigled into a lonely castle of her husband's, where she is confined in a subterraneous cavern thirteen years! After a few months of confinement she is delivered of the fruits of her unfortunate passion, Alphonsine, whose birth she conceals from her keeper. This child of misery, baptized in tears,' is educated by her mother in absolute darkness, learns languages, music, arithmetic, &c. The history of this wondrous captivity occupies a whole volume; but we should have worked our way in the dark with considerable satisfaction and interest, had it not been narrated in the form of a journal written by the Countess and read by her friends' after her liberation. Thus knowing previously that all is well at last, we are agitated by no hopes or fears as to her obtaining freedom. We are conducted along a gloomy avenue, but it is rendered cheerful by being gilt with the gleams of distant day."

And here we have an instance of the natural marvellous. Alphonsine had been singing a hymn one day in a particuJar part of the cavern, which hymn concluded with the

words 'Glory to God!' She immediately heard a soft voice issue from the cavern, and repeat three times Glory to God!' This proves to be an echo, and we are informed in a note that there are echoes far more surprising than this, for an account of which we are referred to Bomare's Dictionary. This would be very well, were we reading a book of natural curiosities. But a novel is one thing, and Wanley's Wonders another. A greater natural wonder still is, that Alphonsine and the Countess chose this new situation to sing in on account of the heat of the weather: that the temperature of the air in a cavern of this description should be so much affected by the state of the external atmosphere is astonishing indeed. But we suppose Bomare will give an account of this strange phenomenon.

Some partieulars of Alphonsine's simplicity and ignorance are well imagined.

• One night when, according to custom, I passed my hands over her little countenance to endeavour to form an idea of her features, while I was touching her eyes, she asked me what was the use of them; then instantly recalling her words, she said, “Ah! I think I know their use; they were made to weep." Alas! she knew no other use of them. This affecting ignorance, expressed with so much simplicity, immediately drew tears from my own.'

The Countess procures her daughter some roses. Hitherto whatever had gratified her sense of smelling, had been also good to eat, as oranges, citrons, &c. Accordingly these sensations were associated in her mind, and she expresses a great inclination to devour her rose. This may appear fanciful, but we think it is philosophical. A sweet scent to her announced a delicacy to the taste.

When the prisoners are liberated, much that follows is employed in describing the effects which the novelties of nature had upon the mind of Alphonsine. Her simplicity furnishes a fund of matter, but perhaps it is made to continue too long and too undiminished after her being deterrée.-Upon the whole, those that are fond of French novels, will do well to read Alphonsine. Its tendency is in every respect unobjectionable, which is more than can be said for the Delphine of Madame de Staël. Madame de Genlis takes every opportunity of inculcating that regard for external deccifcies which forms so indispensable a charm in the female character, and which the philosophical novelists would teach us to despise as unworthy regard in a great and vigo rous mind. Virtue, with them, is not to bridle in, but to throw up the reins of the impetuous passions, a principle

equally dangerous, unnatural, and absurd. Madame de G. very justly protests against such doctrines. Alphon sine's admirer, Don Alvan, having received a discouragement of his addresses from her mother, runs away with her, and endeavours to procure an acknowledgment and ratification of her affection from herself. Alphonsine shows a proper indignation at his conduct.

She possessed not the impassioned soul of these heroines, whose inextinguishable love is checked neither by the madness nor by the crimes of a lover, nor by the world's contempt, nor even by the death of a mother. Are we not told that an interesting female must sacrifice to her admirer, reason, nature, reputation, and life? That she must abandon her family, renounce her rank and country, and load herself with reproaches and ignominy in the eyes of the vulgar, and even kill herself, if circumstances require ? The lovers of our modern romances resemble in their actions and characters that redoubtable monarch of Asia, the old man of the mountain, who, for ever stained with blood, was giving orders for suicides and massacres, and whose edicts were always obeyed. Such is the precise image of the true love. But it has been so well exhibited in the events of this age, that it is to be hoped none will dare to present us with more such pictures in future.'

The reader by this time has perceived that in Alphonsine he must expect to meet with much of the improbable and the wonderful. The author apologizes in her preface for the romantic air of her tale, on the plea that she is writing a romance. But who compelled her to write a romance at all? She intended her work, it seems, to be a sample of what she terms sensitive education, or education through the senses. If so, the more uncommon the situations, the less applicable is the lesson; and we may answer to her apology in the words of a Latin author :-Quis te perpulit ut id committeres, quod, priusquam faceres, peteres ut ignosceretur ?'

ART. XII.-Régence du Duc d'Orléans, &c.

The Regency of the Duke of Orleans. A posthumous Work of Marmontel, Historiographer of France, &c. 8vo. 2 Vols. Paris. 1805. Imported by Deconchy.

IN Dr. Apthorpe's Letters on Christianity, a work which unites in an eminent degree the zeal of a believer and the learning of a scholar with (what does not always fall to the, lot of a controversial writer) the candour of a gentleman,

among various excellent remarks on the study and com pilation of history, there is one which is so just in itself, so well enforced, and so aptly illustrated, that we wish our limits would allow us to transcribe it entire. It is meant to point out the difference of history, as seen in its native dress of original memoirs, and as decorated by the eloquence of an able compiler. The compilation, he observes, may perhaps be more agreeable in some respects than the original; but can never be so expressive of truth and manners. The one he compares to Homer in the original, where we see a half barbarous poet, painting the manners of a barbarous age with a pencil congenial to the subject and the time: the other to Pope's translation, where "the rudeness of the ancient bard gives place to a courtly elegance of composition and to heroes of a more polished cast. He contends that the only legitimate study of history is in original historians; that these are the text of history, and that compilers, however eloquent or sagacious, are only commentators and interpreters. To pursue my allusion, (he adds,) when the text is familiar, the commentary is interesting and instructive; and I much doubt whether historic researches are in any considerable degree pleasing or instructive, except to such as trace them from the original source of information. Compilers, indeed, presuppose their readers versed in their authorities; and the investigations into which they are led by the diversity of opinions formed on ancient memoirs, are insipid to such as do not recur to those authentic relations.'

We were willing to place this excellent remark in the foreground of our present article, not merely as applicable in a great degree to the work under consideration, but because. the majority of readers, even of such as cannot plead their want of leisure as an excuse, acquiesce implicitly in recent compilations, and never dream of searching into origi nal records and documents. We satisfy ourselves with Hume and Gibbon; but as for Polydore Virgil, or the writers of the Augustan history, we know just so much about them as Hume and Gibbon may be pleased to communicate at the heel of their page.

For this reason we make no scruple of acknowledging, that the present work, notwithstanding the ease and elegance of its style, (and it would be strange if a work of Marmontel's, after three transcriptions, which the editors tell us it underwent, from his own hand, should be defective in these points) would have come in a more acceptable, because a more creditable form, had it been a mere literal publication

of the manuscript records to which he obtained access, with occasional remarks and illustrations. But, taking it as it is, we have to complain that, except in a few instances, we are left quite in the dark as to the source of the compiler's information. The Duke of St. Simon seems to have been his grand guide, and from the active part he himself bore in the continental transactions during the minority of Louis XV. there could not well have been a better. We are told in Marmontel's Memoirs that he obtained permission to consult the manuscript original of St. Simon in the Dépôt des affaires étrangères,' and that he made copious extracts from those papers. But except here and there, particularly where the compiler's opinion differs from the memorialist's, St. Simon is rarely quoted, and still more seldom referred to. In a word, we do not recollect half a dozen references to authority throughout the two volumes. Nor can it be said that the author would probably have supplied this defect, had he lived; for the work seems to have received its ultimate revision so early as in the year 1788.

I had laid it down (says the author in his Mémoires) as a point of honour and delicacy to fulfil in a becoming manner iny functions as historiographer, by digesting with care some memoirs for the use of future historians. We thank the memorialist for throwing new light upon a passage of Tacitus which he has chosen for one of his mottoes. Sine gratiâ aut ambitione, bone tantum conscientiæ pretio.' The learned will in future observe that this passage is to be construed, Not for the sake of courting interest or favour, but solely as a salvo to my own conscience.' It may be worth the while to inform the reader in an abridged extract from the author's own narrative (Mémoires, v. iii. P. 123.) how he, who had chiefly signalized himself by a few operas and a few love stories miscalled Moral Tales, with some crude articles of encyclopedean philosophy, came to be.dignified with the high office of historiographer. A process had been com menced against the Duke of Aiguillon for mal administration as commander in Britanny, and the only one that ventured to undertake his cause was Linguet, an aspiring young lawyer, but whose talents were not yet formed. This person had drawn up a memorial with which his client was tuch dissatisfied, and by the intervention of a common friend, the office devolved upon Marinontel, of pruning the luxuriance and digesting the chaos of this juvenile performance, which he performed somuch to the Duke's satisfaction, that soon after, at his request, Marmontel was appointed by the king to the office of historiographer, vacated by the death of Duclos.