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ble-covered, blue-lined, lank, ledger-looking, ThreadneedleStreet sort of a volume, for the purpose of opening a running account with one's own current ideas, and the sinking into without let and molestation-as the old Irish passport has the downy depths of an easy chair, and then and there, it-giving a careless and unheeded existence to the infinite deal of nothings which lie latent in the memories of all such as have seen and heard much, and have been 'over the hills and far away.' Thoughts that breathe' will not always write; words that burn' are apt to cool down as they are traced; visions that come like shadows' will also so dedrawn forth by the sunny influence of social confidence, part;' and the brightest exhalations of the mind, which are like other exhalations, will dissipate by their own lightness, and-beyond the reach of fixture or condensation-make themselves air, into which they vanish!

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"I never in my life kept a commonplace book for preserving such Cynthias of the minute.' I have even an antipathy to all albums and vade-mecums, and such charisions-reveries which were never révés-and impromptus table repositories for fugitive thoughts, and thoughtless effulaboured at leisure. I hardly think I can bring myself to open a regular saving bank for the odd cash of mind, the surplus of round sums placed at legal interest in the great public fund of professed authorship: 'on renvoye tout cela à la pédantisme."-Vol. I. pp. 1-3. GRAMMAR") -"By the by, grammar is the last thing that should be placed in the hands of children, as containing the most abstract and metaphysical propositions, utterly beyond their powers of comprehension; putting them to unnecessary torture; giving them the habit of taking words for things; and exercising their memory at the expense of their judg ment. But this is the original sin of education in all its branches."-Vol. I. p. 136.

chief misfortune to be, that she was born a woman. This | ence in the world between sitting bolt upright, before a maris evidently a mistake which nature never intended should be committed, and in revenge Lady Morgan has worn at least a pair of intellectual breeches ever since she was three hands high. Had she been called Lord Morgan, nobody would ever have accused her of going beyond her depth, or out of her sphere; for a thousand subjects and modes of expression are patent to males, which the fair sex ought to handle cautiously, or reject altogether. Hence we say that Lady Morgan is far too often disgustingly clever. She is continually taking a tremendous stride, or rather straddle, across the rubicon of female delicacy, and with the most hearty good-will proceeds to grapple with every thing that comes in her way. Her personal vanity, joined with a total want of feminine susceptibility, prevent her from ever for a moment suspecting that she is doing any thing in the slightest degree wrong; and altogether mistaking the nature of her own powers, she confidently wraps herself up in the belief that she is unquestionably the Madame de Stael of Ireland. This she is not, and never can be. She has a good deal of information, a good deal of shrewdness, a good deal of knowledge of life; but her imagination is very limited, her feelings are blunted, and her judgment is any thing but infallible. Miss Edgeworth even is rather dry and masculine to our taste, but she is softness and delicacy itself compared with Lady Morgan. child in the fable says to the goat, "If you be a goat, show your beard." We wonder whether Lady Morgan has a beard or not. We offer an equal bet that she has. Notwithstanding all this, however, Lady Morgan's books are read, and are worth reading. A book, perhaps, ought to be viewed as an abstract thing, independent of its author. In all her Ladyship's writings there is thought, sometimes correct, and sometimes incorrect, in general vigorous, and often original. She comes into the literary arena armed cap-à-pie, and dares the lords of the creation to the combat. There are of the masculine gender many whom she could with ease horse whip at their own doors. This rather piques nos autres; and we revenge the indignity offered to our brethren, by voting the lady vulgar, and so forth. Nevertheless, wherever a reviewer gets really angry, you may depend upon it he is paying a compliment to the intellectual strength of the person reviewed. When the Quarterly called Lady Morgan “a poor worm," they must have been terribly incensed at something she had said; and it has ever taken something more than a poor worm to incense the Quarterly.

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The

If

The "Book of the Boudoir" is full of all Lady Morgan's faults, and is by no means destitute of some of her excellencies. The London Journalists have been all abusing it, yet all quoting from it. It is a kind of Album, made up of odds and ends,—anecdotes, reminiscences, reflections, apophthegms, and gossip. It is certainly by no means a bad book for killing a wet forenoon with. one could overlook, in its perusal, its vulgarity, its egotism, its loose notions of morality, its vanity, and its total want of sentiment, there is enough of smart, ingenious writing behind, to make the work palatable. Hoping that these remarks have conveyed a general notion both of the author and her book, we shall add a few lively extracts, which we have selected, with a view of giving as favourable an impression of both as possible, and, at the same time, of amusing our readers. We begin with the passage with which the first volume commences, and add to it one or two miscellaneous articles:

NOTE BOOKS." Last night, as we circled round the fire in the little red-room in Kildare Street, by courtesy called a boudoir, talking about every thing, any thing, and nothing at all, I happened to give out some odds and ends that amused those who, truth to tell, are not among the least amusable; when somebody said, Why do you not write down all this?' and here is a blank book placed before me for the express purpose. But I suspect there is no talking upon paper as one talks 'les pieds couchés sur les chenets. I feel, at least at this moment, that there is all the differ

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THE COUNTESS D'ALBANY.-"Talking of the accidents, incidents, and odd conjunctions of travelling, it happened, one fine autumnal morning, at Florence-and oh, for the Tuscan autumn! with its Tuscan grapes,' fresh olives, and autumnal flowers, which give the Tuscan capital its pretty name-it happened that my illustrious countryman, Mr Moore, my husband, and myself, were seated on a sofa in our old palace in the Borgo Santa Croce, looking at the cloud-capt Apennines, which seemed walking in at the windows, and talking of Lord Byron-from whose villa on the Brenta Mr Moore had just arrived-when our Italian servant, Pasquali, announced The Countess D'Albany." Here was an honour which none but a Florentine could appreciate!--for all personal consequence is so local! Madame D'Albany never paid visits to private individuals, never left her palace on the Arno, except for the English Ambassador's, or the Grand Duke's. I had just time to whisper Mr Moore, The widow of the Pretender! your legitimate Queen! and the love of your brother poet, Alfieri;' and then came my turn to present my celebrated compatriot, with all his much more durable titles of illustration: so down we all sat, and fell to discourse.'

"I observe that great people, who have been long before the public, and feel, or fancy, they belong to posterity, ge nerally make themselves agreeable to popular writers; and they are right; for what are the suffrages of a titled coterie, which can bear but the breath and suppliance of an hour,' to the good opinion of those whose privilege it is to confer a distinction, to awaken an interest that vibrates to the remotest corner of the known world? Kings may give patents of nobility-genius only confers patents of celebrity. One line from an eminent writer will confer a more lasting dignity than all the grand and arch dukes that ever reigned from Russia to Florence can bestow.

"Madame D'Albany, already forgotten as the wife of the last of the royal Stuarts, will live as long as the language of

Dante lasts in the lines of Alfieri.

"The Countess D'Albany could be the most agreeable woman in the world; and, upon the occasion of this flattering visit, she was so. She could also be the most disagreeable; for, like most great ladies, her temper was uncertain; and her natural hauteur, when not subdued by her brilliant bursts of good-humour, was occasionally extremely revolting. Still she loved what is vulgarly called fun; and no wit, or sally of humour, could offend her.

"We had received very early letters from London, with the account of the King's death, (George the Third.) I was stepping into the carriage, to pay Madame D'Albany a morning visit, when they arrived; and I had them still in my hand on entering her library on the roi-de-chaussée,

where I found her alone and writing, when I suddenly exclaimed, with a French theatrical air,

Grande Princesse, dont les torts tout un peuple deplore, Je vien vous l'annoncer, l'Usurpateur est mort !' "What usurper!' asked Madame D'Albany, a little surprised, and not a little amused. "Madame, l'Electeur d'Hanovre cesse de vivre! The mauvaise plaisanterie was taken in good part; for, truth to tell, though the Countess D'Albany always spoke in terms of respect and gratitude of the royal family, and felt (or affected) an absolute passion for his present Majesty, whose picture she had, she was always well pleased that others should consider her claims to the rank of queen as legitimate, of which she herself entertained no doubts. She, however, affected no respect for a husband, whom, living, she had despised for his vices and hated for his cruelty."Vol. I. pp. 193-6.

·

le

COUNTRY LIBRARIES." Madonna mia! how well I know the smell of a country-house library! Being, by divine indignation, an author, people think I do nothing but read and write books, eat paper, and drink ink,' as Sir Nathaniel says; and are pleased to consider that which is but the episode, as the history of my life. It frequently happens that, before I have made acquaintance with half the rose-trees, smelled the geraniums, or swallowed a draught of the delicious air I left town expressly to breathe, I am presented with the key of the bookcase (I would as soon lock up my bells as my books, since the great merit of both is, to be always at hand)-So I go twisting and turning the said key into its rusty lock; and, ouf! the fust and the must, when the bookcase is opened! Then, what a search for something one can read through in less than a twelvemonth. Out of every hundred volumes, there are scarcely more than six or seven works; for country-house libraries are made up of folios, quartos, or large octavos pour moins; except that here and there is a sort of thick, short, squat volume, that belongs to no class or form; and every work runs from ten to fifteen volumes. The reason is, that country-house libraries are generally heir-looms, originally collected as a work of gentility by the wisdom of the country-house ancestors. They consist of what are called standard books-books that would let the world stand still to the end of time!-composed and collected when knowledge, instead of being given, as now, in quintessential drops, was weighed out by the stone, or measured by the yard. Concentration, in all things,-the throwing off the rubbish, and getting at the element-is the true proof of excellence; and it is now in literature, as in medicine; instead of being choked with a pint of bark mud, (all port wine as it may be,) we swallow a few pellucid drops of quinine, without wry faces or deep inspirations! It formerly took a life to write a book, and half a one to read it. Ob, the Rollin's Histories,' and Voyages round the world,' and the Clelias and Cassandras,' and the poems in fiftynine cantos, the folio Thoughts upon Nothing,' and the seven-volume ponderosity of Sir Charles Grandison!"Vol. I. pp. 282-4.

The following passage is rather severe on the rhyming race, but we almost suspect it is just:

POETS' LOVES.-" Poets seldom make good lovers, except on paper; there is no serving God and Mammon. The concentration of thought which goes to the higher flights of composition, allows the feelings but little play. There has been much dispute whether great actors are the dupes of their own art; but the great actors themselves have honestly avowed that they owe their successes to their coolness and self-possession; and the poets, if they were equally candid, would own themselves in the same predicament. They are not, however, often inclined to make the confession. Horace says, "We must weep ourselves before we can make our readers weep;' and Pope's 'He best can paint them, who shall feel them most,' goes very nearly to the same tune.

"Passion, though eloquent, is not descriptive; and delights not in those details which make the essence of impressive writing. Dr Johnson, who loved, or fancied he loved, his she-bear, and was therefore (good bruin!) the better authority on the subject, has said that he who woos his mistress in verse, deserves to lose her;' and there is no woman of sense who would not come to the same conclusion. I have heard an odd paradoxical person assign a physiological reason for this. When one great organ, he says, is much and permanently excited, the developement is at the expense of all the other functions. Head-workers, in particular, have uniformly bad digestions; and how can a man be he

Il n'a

roically in love with a female stomach? I, who am no
physiologist, can only appeal to facts. Pope, Dryden, Swift,
Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, were none of them famous
as lovers; they had no great passion, and excited none;
some of them were absolutely insensible to female charms,
and were sceptics to their influence. La Fontaine, with
all his naïvete-which is generally so indicative of passion—
was as cold as an icicle, Je doute,' says Miron, his friend,
'qu'il y ait un filtre amoureux pour La Fontaine.
guère aimé les femmes. I have some doubts of the sensi-
bility even of the divine Petrarch, notwithstanding his
thousand and one sonnets, which made so little impression
on Laura. As to Ovid, his conceits are the antipodes of
passion and feeling; and Anacreon was so mere a roué,
that I should as soon take Don Juan for a martyr to the
'belle passion' as he. Cowley, who wrote so much upon
love, was an anchorite. Prior, who wrote so freely on it,
was a rake; and Rousseau, a poet in prose, wrote Julie,
and lived with Thérèse, who, besides being an imbécille, was
neither chaste nor sober, and was all for love, and a little
for the bottle.' When Doctor de Pruli chided Rousseau,
a few days before his death, for exposing himself, in his weak
health, by going to the cellar, Rousseau, pointing to Thérèse,
observed, Que voulez vous? quand elle y va, elle y reste.
-Vol. II. pp. 21-3.

We are always glad to meet with our old friend Robert Owen of New Lanark, a man whom his day and generation do not sufficiently appreciate. The following anecdote places him in far too ludicrous a light, but it is characteristic:

ANECDOTE OF ROBERT OWEN.-" On the previous morning the most benevolent, amiable, and sanguine of all philanthropists, called on me with a countenance full of some new scheme of beneficence and utility It was Mr Owen of New Lanark, whose visits are always welcome in Kildare Street, though so few and far between.'

"As soon as we had sunk into our arm-chair, and put our feet on the fender, and before we had got on the usual topics of parallelograms and perfectibility, New Lanark, and a new social system, he began,

"My dear Lady Morgan, you are to have a party tonight.'

To be sure, my dear Mr Owen, and it is made expressly for yourself. You are my Lion; I hope you don't mean to jilt me?'

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By no means; but I have brought you a better lion than I can prove.'

"I doubt that; but who is he? where is he?"
"In my pocket.'

"You don't say so; is it alive?'

"Here it is,' said Mr Owen, smiling; and, drawing forth a little parcel, he unfolded and held up a canvass tunic or chemise, trimmed with red tape.

"I want you,' he added, to assist me in bringing into fashion this true costume of nature's dictation, the only one that man should wear.'

"But woman, my dear Mr Owen?'
"Or woman either, my dear Lady.'
"Consider, Mr Owen, the climate!'
"Your face does not suffer by it.'
"But then again the decencies?'

"The decencies, as you cal them, Lady Morgan, are
conventional; they were not thought of some years ago,
when you were all dressed in the adhesive draperies of an-
tiquity, like that beautiful group on your chimney-piece.
You see there the children of Niobe wore no more volumi-
nous garments than my tunic; that lovely child, for in-
stance, which Niobe is endeavouring to save from the shafts
of Apollo. And yet none of your fine ladies or gentlemen
are shocked by the definition of forms which have ever been
the inspiration of art. I assure you that I have already got
several ladies to try this tunic on-
"Oh! Mr Owen!!!'

"On their little boys, Lady Morgan; and if I could only induce you to try it—

pose

Me! my dear Mr Owen! you surely cannot sup

"I don't ask you to wear it, Lady Morgan. All I beg for the present is, that you will give it a trial, by showing it off at your party to-night: recommend it-puff it off!'

"Quitte pour la peur, I promised to do so to the utmost of my appraising abilities; and so we suspended the little chemise from the centre of my bookcase, under a bust ef Apollo.

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66 "

videre !'

Street.'

It is certainly placed to great advantage, Mr Owen,' I replied, with a sigh; but it gives my pretty library very much the look of Ragfair, or a back parlour in Monmouth "My dear madam,' he replied, emphatically, where the human race is to be benefited, no sacrifice is too great. And this sentiment, which is the governing principle of Mr Owen's life, may serve for his epigraph."-Vol. II. PP 62-5.

We bid Lady Morgan farewell with no unkindly feeling; and, if we did, she is an old soldier, and knows very well how to fight her own battles. We like to get a book from her now and then. It is always a dashing, helter-skelter sort of affair; and, in these "meek piping times of peace," it is a comfortable relief to the creamyfaced weaklings who are continually melting under our hands. Let Lady Morgan publish, therefore, at intervals; but she need not visit Edinburgh, for we have a Byronic hatred towards dumpy women.

Inde

There,' said Mr Owen, looking rapturously at the the Old World has been materially increased. little model dress of future perfectibility; there it is wor-pendently of the numerous body of merchants and diplothily placed! Such were the free vestments, that, leaving matic agents, or of wealthy and inquisitive travellers, the limbs of the Greek Athlete unrestrained, produced those noble forms which supplied models for the Apollo of Bel- who constantly visit us, many sons of the richer families have been sent for education to France, to England, and to Germany. We have the happiness to reckon some of them among our friends; and we can bear them this testimony, from an intimate acquaintance both here students, or men more anxious to carry home the useful and in other lands, that more enthusiastic and unwearied and ornamental knowledge of foreign countries, we have never known. The effects of their labours are already beginning to be visible-in the tone of society, and in the universities and literature of America. Any one accustomed to look over the successive numbers of the North American Review, must have been struck with the early and accurate analysis it contains, of almost every important work in literature and science that appears in Great Britain or on the Continent. We are ready to admit, that this highly-educated state of the public mind does not necessarily infer the presence of original talent. We are aware that, notwithstanding the intensity of Cooper, or the classic beauty of Percival, we would look in vain for one name that stands out in bold relief among its fellows like those of Byron, Wordsworth, or Scott. All that we contend for is, that the atmosphere in which alone such spirits can breathe, a dense congregation of congenial souls, is there,-minds with the same aspirations,-minds capable of appreciating them. Where God builds a house, he does not let it wait long for a tenant. Let the future fates of America be what they will, of one thing we are sure, that she never will disgrace the lineage from which she has sprung. Noise and nonsense enough will be uttered, but wherever men's tongues and pens are free, this must be the case; and over the creeping and noxious weeds, the majestic trees of the forest will wave their branches beneath the blue dome of heaven.

The North American Review. No. LXIV. Boston.
Frederick T. Gray. London. O. Rich. Edinburgh.
Adam Black.

NOTHING can afford a more striking contrast than the first number of this Review, which fell accidentally into our hands some time ago while on a visit to a friend in the country, and that which is now lying on our table. It is the contrast between a heavy imitation of the Edinburgh Review, and a work which imitates no other, but expresses, in a spirited and polished style, original views on a variety of interesting topics. This advance it has not made alone, but in company with the whole of American literature. When that country first separated from Britain, it was necessarily too much engrossed with business to pay much attention to letters; and separating, moreover, at a time when there was a greater intellectual stagnation than has been experienced at any other period of British history, it could not be expected to carry any great impulse along with it. Little progress was made in this respect till about the beginning of the present century; for we cannot dignify the coarse and tasteless, though occasionally vigorous, effusions of Joel Barlow and his contemporaries with the name of poetry.

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"In politics, the deficiency of standard works in the liIt may look like an effusion of national vanity to say, terature of modern Europe is equally remarkable, and the that the first kindling up of a true literary spirit in Ame- science is evidently still unsettled. Locke's Treatise on rica was caused by the Edinburgh Review; but, as we satisfactory character with his Essay on the Human UnGovernment' is far from possessing the same complete and are convinced of the truth, we must even run the risk of derstanding;' and the notion of a social contract, which he incurring the suspicion. That periodical, be its critical held in common with all the English politicians of his time, and other tenets what they may, communicated its own and which forms the basis of his theory, seems to be essenenergy and activity to the literature of Britain,-it did tially erroneous. The Spirit of Laws' is justly celebrated more, it gave it for a time its own form and impress. for the depth of thought, extent of reading, and point and America drew, at that period, its literature from this beauty of language, which are exhibited in it, and will ever country, and received, along with it, the contagious dis-nately for its utility as a classical and standard work, it remain a most valuable literary monument; but, unfortuposition to intellectual activity. Its first efforts were characterised chiefly by a power which knew not well how to direct itself, and was sorely in want of materials to work upon. It is not enough to give men the first rudiments of taste, and then turn them into the wilderness with nothing but nature for their guide.

The men

who would excel in literature must live in the constant

excels chiefly in details, and the statement of leading principles is precisely the most questionable thing about it. The later French politicians wrote under the influence of temporary passions and interests, and receded from, instead of advancing beyond, the point to which the science had been brought by Montesquieu. Rousseau did little more than present, under the attractions of his powerful style, but, in other interchange of thoughts with a community who share their of the English writers; and Mably, whose name was at one respects, under a less advantageous form, the theories feelings and their knowledge. They must have it in their time distinguished, with all his apparatus of positive histopower to look back on the long lapse of past ages; all rical knowledge, is substantially a mere declaimer. In Engthe mighty deeds and events which stand in reality iso- land, little or nothing has been done since the time of Locke, lated, with empty and formless years intervening between towards completing the enterprise which he unfortunately them, must appear to them in the retrospect grouped into failed to accomplish. Had Burke digested his notions into one glorious whole. In the want of all these in America, a complete and formal treatise, he would have been at once the Locke and Plato of politics; and it is in his writings, rent as she had been from the European system, we are occasional, fugitive, passionate, sometimes self-contrato look for the secret of the emptiness of her first pro- dictory, as they are,-that we are to look, if anywhere, for ductions. the scattered elements, the membra disjecta, of a true theory Since that time, the intimacy between America and of government. The system now most popular in Eng

land, regarding only the number, and not the character of its adherents, is that of radicalism, (?) as understood and taught by the followers of Bentham. Little can of course be looked for in politics, from a school which denies the reality of moral distinctions; but their opinions evidently gain ground, in the absence of any powerful champion of an opposite one, and threaten to subjugate the mass of the people; an event which, if it happen, must of course be followed by a bloody and disastrous revolution."

The following passage seems to us to contain a just appreciation of the merits of De Béranger, the French lyrist :

"Born of humble parents, and cast upon the lowest spoke of the wheel of Fortune, in spite of her malicious ef forts to throw him off, he has clung to it during its revolutions, until the goddess, mollified, as it were, by his perseverance, has bestowed upon him a boon which would gladly be grasped at by most men, namely, a most extensive and popular reputation. As a party writer, he has made himself obnoxious to one great political sect throughout the kingdom, and has made himself an equal favourite with the numerous faction which is arrayed on the other side. We may be enthusiastic; and we confess that we find something to excite enthusiasm in the character of one, who, despising alike the favours of fortune and of power, has devoted himself and his talents to his country. Blind and selfish though his affection may be, still it is a noble selfishness, and one that excuses much that we should not otherwise so lightly pass over. The levity, the voluptuousness, the vanity, nay, the coxcombry of talent, which abound in many of his songs, all these blemishes we excuse, when we remember how often he throws off this veil which shrouds his more

estimable qualities, and displays to us, in its true light, the feeling, or rather passion, which burns beneath them-an ardent and unquenchable love of freedom.

selfish, local, or party prejudice; to become, in truth and in deed, a citizen of the world; to ennoble and expand his heart till it become a great sea, which shall gather tribute from the fountains of the whole earth, to purify and again give back their contributions in the shower and the fruitful dew. He must strive to make himself perfect in all good, wise, and great things, and to become a living example of that perfection upon which his soul's eye should be for ever fixed. Thus educated, those restless yearnings of the spirit, those unquenchable desires, ever thirsting for satisfaction, yet never satisfied, which form the real moving power that impels the true poet forward, will be left free to act; and those high instincts haunting the eternal mind, a presence that will not be put by,' will find for themselves a tongue and a ready utterance.'

Like the manager of a theatre, stepping forward at the end of an overpowering tragedy, to remind the audience of the neatness and taste of his establishment, we conclude by assuring our readers, that the paper and printing of the North American Review are worthy of Ballantyne himself, being little inferior to what they meet with in their own LITERARY JOURNAL.

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THIS is a vulgar piece of fashionable drivel, peculiarly offensive in our nostrils. It is a matter of six hundred pages, covered with letter-press, but for what earthly purpose, it " goes beyond the length of our tether," as David Tweedie says, to discover. The first volume contains an account of several balls given during the winter season in Dublin, and which appear to us precisely si

But we will not lavish any more commendatory epithetsmilar to all the other balls given in all the other cities of upon Béranger or his work; for, on looking over our article, we are apprehensive lest we should be misunderstood, and lest the unquestioned beauty of some of his songs should have led us into somewhat too unqualified an expression of admiration of the tout ensemble. To our extracts, we trust no reader of good taste will refuse to award the same amount of praise that we have bestowed upon them; but, nevertheless, for the sake of our national character, and our claims to a superior degree of moral sense, we should be extremely sorry to see these two volumes in general circulation among

us.

Our last quotation contains the American reviewer's account of what constitutes a poet :

He

"The child of impulse and passion, yet retaining all the simplicity and easy confiding faith of childhood; impatient, impetuous, and full of life, with the blood ever running races through his veins, yet ever under the guidance of Reason-not cold and pale as she is wont to be painted, but wise with an earnest wisdom, and warm with the glow and freshness of an earlier clime;-he must be skilled in human nature, and not only must he be familiar with the spoken word and the visible act, but with that philosophy according to which these are regulated. He must ponder deeply the motives of the heart, and be able, by a quick and divining sympathy, to penetrate into its very retirements. must cherish his imagination, and cultivate his taste, by a careful study of all those whose works give evidence that they felt within them the strivings of the diviner mind; not to imitate, but to gain directions which may guide him to those guarded and enchanted fountains of inspiration from whence they themselves have drawn. He must be learned in all the branches of human knowledge, that his mind may be full of associations. He must become master of the most copious vocabulary, that copia verborum, not less important to the poet than the orator; and not only take pains to acquire command of words, but he must study into their powers, and busy himself in learning all those reflected shades and hues of meaning, with which they have been tinged by association, as if they had been dipt in the warm flush of a rainy sunset;' for this is the distinguishing peculiarity of a poetic dialect, that its words not only suggest the single and immediate idea to the mind, but come linked with a thousand beautiful, though dim, remembrances. But his most anxious labour ought to be to cultivate his own heart,-to cleanse it from all the taints which it acquires by coming in contact with the world. He must strive earnestly to purify his imagination; to fill his mind with noble desires and inotives; to divest himself of every

his majesty's dominions, the leading characteristic of these assemblies being, that some young men dance quadrilles with some young ladies. The second volume takes us to Nice, for no particular reason that we know, unless that the authoress (for it must be a lady) has exhausted all she has got to say about Ireland, and finds change of scene necessary.

Nice, as we learn from the Gazetteer,

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" is an ancient and considerable city of Italy, capital of a county of the same name, with a strong citadel, and a bishop's see. The exports are silk, sweet oil, wine, cordials, rice, oranges, lemons, and all sorts of dried fruits." All the dramatis persona, therefore, of the "Davenels," go to Nice, and after the heroine is thoroughly satisfied that she can never be married to the hero, she is married to him, and the novel ends. We shall with pleasure surrender our editorial functions to the person who convinces us that this is not as good an account of the plot as can be given. Then, as to the dialogue ;-surely there must be something sparkling there; when did a “Campaign in Dublin" ever take place without some good things being said? Let us dip for a moment into the "Davenels" to try. The heroine and her sister thus express themselves on their return home from an assembly: "O dear!' said Henrietta, yawning, I am glad Harris did not sit up; but I think she may get up now to disrobe me.'-' We are better without her,' said Frederica; and offering her assistance, they helped each other to undress, and retired to rest." Frederica is the heroine, and of course, as this extract implies, is very amiable. She is lively, too, and indeed almost trop prononcée in her manners, as might be guessed from the following passage :-" Frederica burst out laughing, and said, I protest I was taken in at first; I really thought she had not where to lay her head.' She is very tiresome,' said Henrietta, with her eternal complaints. I am sure nothing should induce me ever to travel with her again.'-' If one seems to pity her,' said Frederica, she will bear any thing; indeed, she has very little to bear, more than any of us, and I was longing to stop in the kitchen, though they were frying.' [From a delicacy of constitution, we presume, in the heroine.] We must have a fire here,' said Henrietta"-[a noble and generous

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proposal.] This same Henrietta is remarkably clever; upon one occasion she made the following admirable observation :-"Come, you shall not pretend you are less happy with an agreeable young man; I feel very happy when I am with you and my brother, but I am not at a loss how to be agreeable when I am with men I like." She said this, as the authoress obligingly informs us, " with a little vanity of manner, which Frederica thought became her." Frederica is occasionally sentimental, which we think a great charm in woman. Happening to be in the country, she exclaims,-" How delightfully that thrush sings, and how pleasant the smell of the newmown hay! Is that hay?' said Sir Martyn, [a gentleman who was unable to appreciate this fine poetical burst.] I thought there was an agreeable smell!'" Concerning this same Sir Martyn, we are favoured with the subjoined highly interesting anecdote :-" Sir Martyn had intended asking Henrietta Davenel for the next quadrille; but Lady Floranthe chose to consider him as her partner still. Though standing near her, he forgot her very existence for some minutes, and the stopping of the music reminding him that it was time to secure Henrietta, he turned briskly round in order to find her, when Lady Floranthe, taking it as a signal for going to their places, passed her arm in his, and most undoubtedly led, while she seemed to follow him, to the top of the room.' We can conceive few situations more horrible; and it is evident that Lady Floranthe must have been a female Machiavel. One other little passage, and we have done. It is very impressive, and full of incident :—“ Lady Hortensia suddenly stepped towards the door. [The attention is roused by the word "suddenly," for when one does any thing suddenly, you may always be sure that something is to follow.] Mardyn, who went last, glanced back at Frederica. [This was a natural action on the part of Mardyn, for he was in love with Frederica.] Lady Hortensia, in a low voice, [there is something awful in a low voice,] asked him-to dine and go to the play with them that evening, adding, [still in a low voice,] We have a bor."

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If our readers are not now inspired with a desire to read the "Davenels," we shall merely add, that the hero, Captain Villiers, made it a rule to give himself considerable airs at every party he went to.

Selecta ex Eutropii Historia Romana, et Cornelii Nepo-
tis; itemque ex Fabulis Phaedri Esopiis, cum Notulis
Anglicanis; et Vocabulario Uberrimo; in Gratiam
Tyronum Conscripta.
Edidit Gulielmus Lorrain,
LL. D. Editio Tertia, Ampliata. Glasguae. Vene-

unt apud Robertson et Atkinson.

1829.

We feel happy in recommending to the notice of teachers, and others who are interested in facilitating the progress of a classical education, this elementary work as

dition of a very fine old picture by Reubens, the noble proprietor of which had kindly given the Academy the use of it for a time. The glare of lamp-light was not, indeed, suited to set off the pictures to advantage, and it was rather their general moral effect which was left upon the mind, than any distinct perception of their individual merits. It was a delightful patriotic feeling to sit encircled by so many specimens, chiefly of Scottish art; and the few noble additions from England, and the magnificent masterpiece of the Flemish School, seemed to look with no scorn, but with a very benevolent eye of encouragement, upon the efforts of our Northern Artists, which are the fruit of but a few years' practice and experience. The progress has, indeed, been wonderful; and I am not sure whether the genius of Scotland has not evinced its fertility and resources quite as much in this unaccustomed department, as in those literary walks in which it has been so long distinguished. Whatever distinction, indeed, a nation may acquire in certain displays of talent, till the fine arts are obtaining a firm root in its soil, it cannot entirely throw off the reproach of barbarism. Poetry will not accomplish that advantage for it, because the greatest poets the world has seen, have lived in ages very remote indeed from civilization. There may be great scholars, too, and philosophers, in a country where there is but little general cultivation; but where that becomes prevalent, ambition to excel in the fine arts grows likewise into a prevailing passion, and a field is opened for the genius of a people, which may hitherto have been quite unthought of, and unexplored. It is only, however, when they enter upon this splendid course, that one and the same character of elevated mental existence seems universally to encircle them. The creations of art are not like books, which speak merely to the mind, and do not speak alike to all; they address themselves first to the senses, and gaining an inlet by those entrances which are common to all men, they triumphantly advance to fill the imagination and to excite the feelings of nations. No doubt, the eye which is qualified to relish the beauties of painting or sculpture, is not the inexperienced eye of the inattentive or unrestrained spectator-but it is remarkable how soon, when the taste for these divine arts is once awakened, a very keen perception of their excellences becomes widely diffused. The forms of a higher and superior beauty come thus to be familiar to the public mind. The citizen and the rustic themselves have

their minds exalted by the representation of the sublime in human affections, or of the still higher attributes of superior beings-or natural beauties, which before were undistinguished by them, now acquire a meaning and expression unfelt hitherto, when they are reflected from the living canvass or marble.

Sentiments to this effect, though much better expressed, were brought forward in the eloquent orations with which we were favoured, on the occasion to which I one of very considerable merit. The selection furnishes have alluded. The excursive genius of Wilson had a fine a good groundwork for the Latin tyro's study while at theme for its delightful wanderings; whether it hovered school. The English notes are judicious and appropri- over the cradle of the arts in ancient Greece, or followed ate, and in the vocabulary the quantity is carefully mark- them in their later exhibitions of excellence,—or at last ed, the etymology of every word is pointed out, and syno-rested with love and hope upon their rise in his native nymous words, classical allusions, phraseology, and proper names, &c. are also fully and clearly illustrated.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

SOME REMARKS ON THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE
ARTS IN SCOTLAND.

land, and saw, amid the mist of its mountains, forms of natural scenery for the painter, or the no less dense mist of its peat fires, countenances and limbs for the statuary, to which Greece or Italy themselves could scarcely find rivals. The progress of architecture among us, of late years, was likewise strikingly adverted to by him and other speakers; and that splendid building, the New High School, met with universal tributes of applause. A people who are surrounded in their daily walks by fine archiI was present at the dinner given, some time ago, by tectural displays, must derive from them a character of the Members of the Scottish Academy, and could not but elevation and refinement, especially where they are apfeel highly gratified, both with the company, and the oc-plied to high objects for the academies of youth-for the casion on which they were assembled. We dined in a room, the walls of which were thickly ornamented with the paintings exhibited by that Institution, with the ad

By the Rev. Dr Morehead.

monuments of the illustrious departed and for the temples of the Deity. These objects have been, till of late, prosecuted in this part of the island in edifices the

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