But a few more deaths like Keates' and Scott's-a few more vilifying and unfounded accusations, such as my sex have not saved me from-and life endangered, character blasted, feelings wounded, and indignation preying on itself, as it stifles, in its proud and spirited contempt, the prompt defence to the vile assault which has roused it-all must tend to terminate a contest unequally supported by the exposed few, and the hidden many; in whose favour, the generosity or indifference of the public must soon determine.

With respect to the general interests of literature, it may be advanced without fear of contradiction, that they have been more injured than benefited by the prevalency and influence of periodical reviews. Even the best and first of such publications have been accused of national partialities, of personal predilections, and of being subjected to the influence and interests of the publisher for whom, and in whose name, they are edited; while with respect to the whole corps of professional literary umpires, it is undeniable that their works have tended to check the free play of public judgment, by forestalling its decisions; have enfeebled public taste, by pretending to guide it; have thrown literary opinion into leading-strings; and while, by imposing commentaries and scanty analyses, they have saved the indolent the trouble of reading, and the shallow the pains of thinking, they have supplied dogmatizing pretension with a tempting assortment of ready-cut and dried decisions, upon works unknown to it in the original; and thus furnished it with the means of giving the law in society, from whence those more highly gifted with original views and independent judgments withdraw in disgust, if not in intimidation. It is also from the multiplicity of periodical reviews of every calibre, and of every price, that the sphere of blue-stocking coterie-ship has been extended, and that literary discussion, in more enlightened circles, has been placed under the ban of ridicule; for all fear to share that dread laugh' raised against those Messieurs Trissotins, who prey on the pages of periodical publications, as silk-worms feed on less noxious leaves, and spin out again the light nutriment they have imbibed, until the flimsy fragile web, though it catch none but gad-flies, usurps and supplies the place of stuff of nobler texture, and more sterling material.

Literary Reviews were made for mediocrity-they have done nothing for superior genius; they are the converse of Falstaff's proposition on wit. Good works, in the present day, have succeeded in despite of their calumnies, and bad ones have failed in spite of their support. In the past days of literature they did not exist. When Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Jonson, and Dryden wrote-those great landmarks of British literature! there were no Reviews. These writers started fairly and unimpeded,

for the goal of immortality! and reached it-and if one name, destined to be added to this glorious list, was not 'obscured in its original brightness,' if it had not its brilliant dawning hurried into untimely obscurity; it was due to the young and firm nerve oi him, who stood the brunt, and returned the shaft hurled at his aspiring genius;-a shaft which, had its aim succeeded, would have deprived this age of the poet, whose name in after-times, may, perhaps, most distinguish it.

And now, about to withdraw from the lists, which I entered with more gaieté de cœur than I depart withal, I cannot take my leave of that public, to which I have appealed, without offering some acknowledgments of my sense of its protection and indulgence, which have almost rendered the foregoing defence against unfounded charges unnecessary. It is to the support of that pub. lic I owe it, that in spite of the shoals and shallows, which have impeded my literary course, I have still been enabled to keep my little bark afloat. Pirates, and privateers, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, with their letters of marque from high protecting powers, have opened their broadsides, and played off their small arms in vain-Public opinion was still my pilot; and, towed safely into port by its assistance, I have never yet been runa-ground. The price given for my last venture from Italy, a price (says one of my critics)

6

Enough to bear a royal merchant down,'

is the best answer to those who have endeavoured to undervalue the cargo.

HERMITAGE, September 15, 1821.

SYDNEY MORGAN.

2. [Edinburgh Magazine-July, 1821.]

[Lady Morgan has quoted all the accusations against her in the Edinburgh Magazine, of Constable & Co. except the following passage under the head of NONSENSE-the 2d and 5th heads -and the concluding passages—all of which are subjoined.] We take examples quite at random; here follows a bright one:-"In this department little remains for the future traveller to glean, but living, moving, breathing Italy offers the richest harvest," &c. "Moving Italy!"—"A decree went forth," says our author, p. 155, when speaking of the Austrian government of Italy, "a decree went forth to les douaniers des pensées, to seize Voltaire on the frontiers, and stop Gibbon on the Simplon." Indeed! So these arch-infidels have been on a recent tour in Italy! This is truly an age of wonders! We trust Lady Morgan, notwithstanding her enormous importation of French scepticism and Italian flippancy and fiction, does, after all, believe in the doctrine of the resurrection, more especially considering that so decided a proof in its favour may, in all future VOL. IV.

26

"

times, be found in her Italy, where it is recorded that the "dou aniers des pensées" were commissioned to apprehend the body of Voltaire, (the soul not being cognizable by a legal warrant,) travelling " on the frontiers of Italy, some forty odd years after his death!" But to proceed-"The Republic of Genoa has seized on JANUS for her founder, ABRAHAM for the contemporary of her highest prosperity, and ROME as a foil to her glory." Vol. I. p. 341. As we firmly believe that nothing we can say will act as a foil to the glory" of this notable aggregation of words, we shall pass on, and conclude this head by a short quotation or two, without note or comment. "Descriptive poets belong only to free countries, where royal academies cannot put down nature' de par le roi,' nor royal academicians declare her inspirations "faux et ignobles." Vol. II. p. 4.-" Here stood the patrician villa, and rose the imperial palace; here Lucullus enjoyed-and Horace sung his SORACTE!" Vol. II. p. 169.— "Mutius Scævola, and his burning hand," &c. Vol. II. p. 173.. At the same place we learn that Rome was founded either by the Celts or the Jews. So much for Nonsense. We proceed now to our second head, of

2. IGNORANCE. As Miladi has beplastered her pages with whole trowel-fulls of French and Italian, we shall select the first example which turns up of the former language. "A Prussian renegado was made the teacher of the army; and a source of discontent was opened, never to be dried up, by the introduction of the coup de plat de sabre." Vol. II. p. 26. We can inform her ladyship that a Frenchman would have said, "des coups DU plat de sabre." Again, in p. 30, we find " qui se vende AQUA VITA." We will not insult our readers by correcting the French and the Latin of this passage. At p. 57 we meet with the following outrageous attack, not more characterised by the Gothic ignorance, than the malevolence which it displays, against the late amiable and learned author of the Classical Tour in Italy: "Eustace, in his commentary upon the loss of the Court and Academy of Turin to the British youth, observed, that they served as an introduction to the manners and language of Italy. This is one of many instances of his false, flimsy, and pompous work, of his utter ignorance of Italy, or of his PREMEDITATED PERVERSION OF FACTS. The historical and topographical details, and even the classical quotations of Eustace's work, are most generally copied from Lalande's cumbrous, and, therefore, neglected Voyage en Italie.' But the projected renovation of Latin, as the common language of Europe, and the restoration of the Pope to his ancient supremacy, are all his own. The true character of this production (and it is less painful to make the assertion, as its author's ear is no longer alive either to praise or censure) is to be found in the 4th Canto of Childe Harold; and Lord Byron's long residence in Italy, and his inti

mate knowledge of the country, leave His testimony on this occasion beyond appeal." Now, on this passage, we beg leave to remark, in the first place, that "the testimony beyond appeal" is not that of Lord Byron, but of Mr. John Cam Hobbouse, who wrote the note to which the above passage refers; and, in the second place, to accuse a clergyman of a "premediated perversion of facts," because death has put a seal on his earthly career, and his "ear is no longer alive either to praise or censure," and that too without one particle of evidence produced in justification of so grave a charge, is an act of wanton and unprincipled atrocity, of which we really did not, for a moment, suppose Lady Morgan capable. Mr. Hobhouse's remarks were occasioned by the following passage in the Classical Tour, Vol. II. Chap. IX. p. 355, 3d edition: "Of Boccacio, the modern Petronius, we say nothing; the abuse of genius is more odious and contemptible than its absence; and it imports little where the impure remains of a licentious author are consigned to their kindred dust. For the same reason, the traveller may pass unnoticed the tomb of the malignant Aretino." Mr. Hobhouse objects, first, to “evoking the shade of Boccacio, in company with that of Aretino ;" and, secondly, to Mr. Eustace not giving the "modern Petronius" the full benefit of his subsequent "repentance," which he thinks ought to "have arrested his exhumation ;" but he, nevertheless, speaks, with the courtesy of a gentleman, of the literary merits of the amiable and intelligent author of the Classical Tour. The truth is, the Decameron of Boccacio is one of the most impure and licentious books (the NOUVELLE HELOISE Only excepted) extant in any language. But Boccacio is defended on two points-his style, and his repentance-for having written a book offensive to modesty. With regard to his style, there can be no question that it is excellent, and that he is the father of Tuscan prose; but it remains to be shown that a pure style ought to be made a vehicle for the dissemination of impure thoughts and ideas. The excellence of the style is, in fact, a deep aggravation of the author's guilt, for it tends to give cur rency to the poison, which otherwise might have slumbered in happy concealment, among the moths and cobwebs of some ancient library. Boccacio and Rousseau are dangerous by the perversion of the highest gifts. Nor is it an extenuation of the offence of the former, that he repented of what he had done:-for so does the felon at the gibbet. Mr. Eustace would have been a dishonour and a stain to his profession had he written otherwise than he has done. At the same time, there is a very natural reason why he should have been exceedingly disagreeable both to Hobhouse and this woman. His Antigallican Philippics" necessarily rendered him obnoxious to the former, and his habitual respect for taste, decency, religion, and regular government, to the latter. But to proceed with our ungrate

ful task. We have already given a specimen of Lady Morgan's French. Her Italian is, if possible, worse We find "conciliatori" used once and again in the singular number; and instead of "niente per la dogana?" which her Ladyship takes care to repeat on all occasions, she ought to have written "ha lei qualche cosa per la dogana ?" In p. 129 we have the following words: The canon returned in grand pontificalibus.". At p. 143,"imposition foncière" is used instead of impôt foncière, or contribution foncière. Her Ladyship will permit us to inform her that these words mean the land-tax. Throughout both these quartos we constantly meet with cavaliere servante, for cavaliere servente. "Servante" means "keeping," whereas "servente" signifies "serving." We ought, certainly, to apologise for these minute, and some may think, hypercritical remarks, but they tend to show the gross and deplorable ignorance of this arrogant woman, who has spoken so bitterly, and rashly, and falsely, of the late Mr. Eustace. At p. 204 we find Pavia stated as the "Insubrian Capital." Pavia was certainly one of the principal towns of the Insubres, but there cannot be a shadow of doubt that Milan (Mediolanum) was their capital. So much for Miladi's knowledge of ancient geography. The citizens of Pavia must, however, feel very grateful to the inventive genius of this Irish woman, who has baptized their "good town" with a new name "THE INSUBRIAN ATHENS."-The next blunder which falls to be exposed is of a graver sort, as it indicates that aversion to the reception of religious truth engendered by the baleful influence of French scepticism.-"The first well authenticated martyrdoms occurred only after the establishment of a paid hierarchy," p. 234. In a note upon this passage, we see the cloven foot still more distinctly: "The punishment of fanatical inroads upon the established religious worship of the country, or of tumultuary outrages against the public peace, have been falsely coloured as persecutions, by the writers on this subject; and these form nearly the whole of the well authenticated cases of Pagan violence. This statement is utterly false, as may be shown by the authority of Tacitus himself, who was so far from being friendly to Christianity, that he describes it as “exitiabilis superstitio." Vide Tacit. Ann. Lib. XV. c. 44. This ignorant and foolish woman, who talks of the "fanatical inroads" and "tumultuary outrages," of the primitive Christians, either does not know, or wilfully suppresses, the facts admitted by Gibbon, that all they contended for was "the unalienable rights of conscience and private judgment," and permission to decline holding" any communion with the gods of Rome and of the empire ;" and that Nero, (who was universally believed, by his own subjects, to have fired Rome,) in order "to divert a suspicion," which, (as Gibbon justly remarks, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II. p. 337. 8vo edition,) " the power of despotism was