tors, never know his weak fide, nor what particular advices or cautions he flands moft in need of; whereas, if he had attended a public school, and mingled in the amufements and pursuits of his equals, his virtues and his vices would have been disclosing themfelves every day; and his teachers would have known what particular precepts and examples it was most expedient to inculcate upon him. Compare those who have had a public education with thofe who have been educated at home; and it will not be found, in fact, that the latter are, either in virtue or in talents, fuperior to the former. I fpeak, Madam, from obfervation of fact, as well as from attending to the nature of the thing.' I. 180-185.

The following remarks upon the fecond-fight, and other fuperftitions of the Highlands, we think we have seen somewhere elfe. We extract them now from a letter to Mrs Montagu, and think they afford a favourable fpecimen of the author's powers of diffufe, eafy, and descriptive illustration.

I have been told, that the inhabitants of fome parts of the Alps do also lay claim to a fort of fecond-fight: and I believe the fame superftition, or fomething like it, may be found in many other countries, where the face of nature, and the folitary life of the natives, tend to imprefs the imagination with melancholy. The Highlands of Scotland are a picturefque, but gloomy region. Long tracts of folitary mountains covered with heath and rocks, and often obfcured by mift; narrow vallies, thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices that refound for ever with the fall of torrents; a foil fo rugged, and a climate fo dreary, as to admit neither the anrufements of pafturage, nor the cheerful toils of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along the friths and lakes that every where interfect this country; the portentous founds, which every change of the wind, and every increase and diminution of the waters, is apt to raise in a region full of rocks and hollow cliffs and caverns; the grotesque and ghaftly appearance of fuch a landscape, especially by the light of the moon;-objects like these diffuse an habitual gloom over the fancy, and give it that romantic caft, that disposes to invention, and that melancholy, which inclines one to the fear of unfeen things and unknown events. It is obfervable too, that the antient Scottish Highlanders had fcarce any other way of fupporting themfelves, than by hunting, fishing, or war; profeffions, that are continually expofed to the moft fatal accidents. Thus, almoft every circumftance in their lot tended to roufe and terrify the imagination. Accordingly, their poetry is uniformly mournful; their mufic melancholy and dreadful, and their fuperftitions are all of the gloomy kind. The fairies confined their gambols to the Lowlands: the mountains were haunted with giants and angry ghofts, and funeral proceffions, and other prodigies of direful import. That a people, beset with fuch real and imaginary bugbears, fhould fancy themfelves dreaming, even when awake, of corpfes, and graves, and coffins, and other terrible things, feems natural enough; but that their vifions ever tended to any real or useful discovery, I am much inclined to doubt.' I. 221-222.

Of

Of the fame degree and fort of merit are the following remarks on the credit due to voyagers reporting marvellous facts as to character and manners.

• When a European arrives in any remote part of the globe, the natives, if they know any thing of his country, will be apt to form no favourable opinion of his intentions, with regard to their liberties; if they know nothing of him, they will yet keep aloof, on account of his ftrange language, complexion, and accoutrements. In either cafe he has little chance of understanding their laws, manners, and principles of action, except by a long refidence in the country, which would not fuit the views of one traveller in five thousand. He therefore picks up a few ftrange plants and animals, which he may do with little trouble or danger; and, at his return to Europe, is welcomed by the literati, as a philofophic traveller of moft accurate obfervation, and unquestionable veracity. He defcribes, perhaps with tolerable exactnefs, the foils, plants, and other irrational curiofities of the new country, which procures credit to what he has to fay of the people; though his accuracy in defcribing the material phenomena, is no proof of his capacity to explain the moral. One can easily dig to the root of a plant, but it is not fo easy to penetrate the motive of an action; and till the motive of an action be known, we are no competent judges of its morality; and in many cafes the motive of an action is not to be`known without a most intimate knowledge of the language and manners of the agent. Our traveller then delivers a few facts of the moral kind, which perhaps he does not underftand, and from them draws fome inferences fuitable to the taste of the times, or to a favourite hypothefis. He tells us of a Californian, who fold his bed in a morning, and came with tears in his eyes to beg it back at night; whence, he very wifely infers, that the poor Californians are hardly one degree above the brutes in underftanding, for that they have neither forefight nor memory fufficient to direct their conduct on the most common occafions of life. In a word, they are quite a different fpecies of animal from the European; and it is a grofs mistake to think, that all mankind are defcended from the fame first parents. But one needs not go fo far as to California, in queft of men who facrifice a future good to a prefent gratification. In the metropolis of Great Britain one may meet with many reputed Chriftians, who would act the fame part for the pleasure of caroufing half-a-day in a gin-fhop. Again, to illuftrate the fame important truth, that man is a beaft, or very little better, we are told of another nation, on the banks of the Orellana, fo wonderfully ftupid, that they cannot reckon beyond the number three, but point to the hair of their head, whenever they would fignify a greater number; as if four, and four thousand, were to them equally inconceivable. But, whence it comes to pass, that these people are capable of fpeech, or of reckoning at all, even fo far as to three, is a difficulty, of which our hiftorian attempts not the solution. But till he fhall folve it, I must beg leave to tell him, that the one half of his tale contradicts the other as effectually, as if he had told us of a

people

people who were fo weak as to be incapable of bodily exertion, and yet, that he had seen one of them lift a ftone of a hundred weight. ' I. 392-94.

us.

Thefe are fair fpecimens of what is beft in the volumes before Sometimes he is ftill more elaborate and ingenious; and attacks his female correfpondents with this kind of familiar writing.] • What is the reafon, Madam, that the poetry, and indeed the whole phrafeology, of the eastern nations (and I believe the fame thing holds of all uncultivated nations) is fo full of glaring images, exaggerated metaphors, and gigantic defcriptions? Is it, because that, in thofe countries, where art has made little progrefs, nature fhoots forth into wilder magnificence, and every thing appears to be conftructed on a larger fcale? Is it that the language, through defect of copiousness, is obliged to adopt metaphor and fimilitude, even for expreffing the most obvious fentiments? Is it, that the ignorance and indolence of such people, unfriendly to liberty, difpofes them to regard their governors as of fupernatural dignity, and to decorate them with the molt pompous and highfounding titles, the frequent ufe of which comes at last to infect their whole converfation with bombaft? Or is it, that the paffions of those people are really ftronger, and their climate more luxuriant? Perhaps all these caufes may confpire in producing this effect. Certain it is, that Europe is much indebted, for her ftyle and manner of compofition, to her ancient authors, particularly to thofe of Greece, by whose example and authority that fimple and natural diction was happily eftablifhed, which all our beft authors of fucceeding times have been ambi. tious to imitate. I. 234 235.

Thefe queries, however, were addreffed to the ingenious Mrs Montagu; and feem to have been very much to her taste : at least fhe is polite enough to answer in the fame ftyle, and has rather the best of the battle we think. This is her refponse.

• You afk me why the eastern nations are, in their poetical compofitions, fo full of glaring images, and exaggerated metaphors? One reafon, I prefume, is, that they are little addicted to write or read profe. Fiction and bombaft are called le Phabus, in the French language: the marvellous is affected in poetry more than in profe; exaggeration is a road to the marvellous. The firft paffage from hieroglyphic reprefentation to imitation by words, muft naturally be by images. The Greeks, by a certain fubtilty of parts, and the popular character of the philofophers, addicted themselves greatly to metaphyfics; this banished from the learned the groffer images. They cultivated all the parts of rhetoric; thence grew precifion, and confequently the figurative ftyle became lefs in ufe; words acquired certain and exact fignification; and Socrates, the best and most modeft of men, would inculcate the maxim, that the gods hate impudence, without delineating an eagle, a crocodile, a fea-horfe, and a fifh, as the Egyptian fages had done, to teach it. Many of the high-pompous and high-founding titles you take notice of, 28 given to eastern princes, are verbal translations of the fymbols of re

gal

gal power, executive juftice, &c. As to Homer, we know little about him; he feems to paint exactly from the life, as our Shakespeare did, and as the first-rate geniuses will always do, where there are not eftablished laws of criticism, to which they muft bend, and which fet up a pattern and mode to work by. You will find Æfchylus an hieroglyphical, fymbolical, allegorical writer; his works fmell of Egypt, and the mythology of his country. Sophocles faw that the historical muse of Herodotus was admired; he therefore takes a more middle flight between history and poetry. Euripides finds his countrymen ftill more refined, and is a moral philofopher, as well as poet. He writes to Socrates, and the difciples of Socrates. Something of the pomp and luxury of an Afiatic poet's defcriptions certainly arifes from the wealth and plenty of his country, and the difplay of gold and jewels, and the perfumes, &c. in the palaces of the great. Offian exaggerates only the ftrength and valour of his heroes, and the beauty of his women. As poetry profeffes to please and furprife, it will always embellish and magnify. I. 241-43.

This is marvellous fine, we own, and very satisfactory. All the billets-doux, however, of those learned correspondents, are not quite so lofty. Sometimes they condescend to be sentimental, and to tell pretty stories; and then, no doubt, they are still more ridiculous. Thus Dr Beattie tells a silly anecdote of somebody having seen a pigeon perch on the head of Shakespeare's statue at Stratford; to which Mrs Montagu replies, by observing, that any bird might have been a symbol of Shakespeare, the gravity and deep thought of the bird of wisdom,-the sublime flight of the eagle to the starry regions,' &c.; and Dr Beattie, unable to drop the pretty incident,' as they tenderly call it, rejoins in the following passage, which is of a quiet and mawkish stupidity, we think, equal to any thing that ever fell from the pen of Richardson's female correspondents.

I have not yet feen the verses on Shakespeare and the dove. One thing I am certain of, which is, that they will contain nothing fo much to the purpose, or fo elegant, as what you have faid on the occafion, in profe. You juftly remark, that any bird of character, from the eagle to the sky-lark, from the owl to the mock-bird, might fymbolize with one or other of the attributes of that univerfal genius. But do not you think, that his dove-like qualities are among thofe on which he now reflects with peculiar complacency? And I think it could be fhown, from many things in his writings, that he refembled the dove, as much as the eagle. I. 394

We are compelled to notice some other faults in these letters, of a still more serious nature. We allude to the habitual assentation and exaggerated compliments with which the author seems to have addressed all his wealthy or celebrated correspondents; and to some other occasional traits of meanness which suit very

ill

with the lofty pretensions which he now and then makes to independence.

We have no objection to sprightly compliments to a lady,— though she should be opulent and stricken in years,--provided they are delivered with that light and careless air which gives them grace and propriety; but such elaborate douceurs as occur in the following letter to Mrs Montagu, look too much like adulation, and are humiliating to all the parties concerned.

• Your last letter, of the 5th June, reached me after I had been fome days at Peterhead, endeavouring, by the use of the medicinal waters of that place, to shake off this hideous indifpofition. But from that water I did not receive half fo much benefit, as from the very agreeable accounts you gave me of your health and fpirits. I congratulate you, Madam, and myfelf on your recovery, and I earneftly pray it may be permanent.

Your defcription of Tunbridge-wells is fo very lively, that I think myself present in every part of it. I fee your hills, your cattle, your carriages, your beaux and belles blended together in agreeable confufion. I am delighted while I fympathize with the feelings of thofe, whofe imagination is refreshed and amufed, by the pleafing incongruities of the fcene, and whofe health and fpirits are reftored by the freshness of the air, and the virtues of the fountain. But what interefts and delights me moft of all, and more than words can exprefs, is, that by the eye of fancy I behold you, Madam, looking around on this fcene with an afpect, in which all your native benignity, fprightliness, and har mony of foul are heightened, with every decoration that health and cheerfulness can beftow.' I. 228–9.

• Your moft obliging and most excellent letter, of the 14th current, bore the impreffion of Socrates on the outfide, but judgment, better than that of Socrates, spoke within. He, if I mistake not, piqued himself on having conftantly refided in Athens, and used to say, that he found no inftruction in ftones or trees; but you, Madam, better killed in the human heart, and more thoroughly acquainted with all its fublimer affections, do justly confider that quiet which the country affords, and thofe foothing and elevating fentiments, which "rural fights and rural founds "fo powerfully infpire, as neceffary to purify the foul, and raise it to the contemplation of the firft and greatest good. Yet, I think, you rightly determine,' &c. I. 287-8.

After this, the reader will not be surprised to find him telling her, My models of English are Addison, and those who write like Addison, particularly yourself, Madam, and Lord Lyttleton.' All this, however, would have been much more tolerable, if it had only been a commerce of mutual flattery, in which both parties were on an equal footing; but it appears clearly, that Mrs Montagu sometimes paid this praise in more substantial coin; and that Beattie thanked her for it with a lowliness which it grieves us to see in a man of letters who was so independent of

patronage.