against female authors; but no sooner did Mrs. Hamilton fix her habitation there, than she became an object of peculiar interest. Her reputation for talents procured her marked attentions; her good humour, simplicity, and benevolence, gave a charm to her conversation, that not only conciliated affection to herself, but had a tendency to banish all prejudice against literary ladies;-which is indeed a very foolish prejudice; for if literature be any thing, it is collective wisdom, the force of truth, and the beauty of imagination; its use is to make rational beings wiser, better, and happier; and if women participate in the rational nature, why should not these benefits be common to the two sexes. It no doubt gratified Mrs. Hamilton, to shine in society, but to be useful in it was her chief aim. To the end of her days, therefore, she continued to promote the cause of virtue and knowledge, by multiplied works of utility. Letters to a Nobleman's Daughter, Aggripina, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, and the Popular Essays, successively appeared. Nor to the pen alone did she trust, as the instrument of her benevolent purposes. She was distinguished by the practical aid she lent to the struggles of humble merit, by the readiness and sincerity of her sympathy with the afflicted, and particularly in the superintendence of the House of Industry, an institution for the employment and instruction of the female poor. The Cottagers of Glenburnie was written for the poorer classes. Beside the excellent feelings and moral principles of the writer, this work displays that exquisite talent of observation of a certain class of objects, which Swift has perversly exhibited in the Directions for servants- How do you like my new footman," said Lord Orrery to the Dean-"I detest him, the fellow has committed fifteen faults since we sat down to dinner," was the answer. The describer of Mrs. M'Clarty's household must have possessed the same discriminating faculty in domestic affairs; though her humour was tempered by far different feelings from those of the friend of Lord Orrery. She has shown in the Popular Essays, as well as in the Cottagers of Glenburnie, that intelligence and virtue are very closely connected with those habits of attention, which are exhibited by cleanliness, carefulness, and order, in household matters. The utmost consistency of purpose is seen throughout her writings. Moral and intellectual nature was the great object of her contemplation-God's ways and will-man's goodness and happiness. We trust she has not lived in vain, and that the good she

did while living, will be repeated and extended by many, who shall read of that goodness. The light she has thrown upon metaphysics will make the study of the human mind no less fashionable than the study of languages, or natural philosophy. That though our own constitution has been last and least, in our researches heretofore, it will become the first and most important in our esteem.

We have only to state, in conclusion, that Mrs. Hamilton died at Harrowgate, in England, in July, 1816. We have not pursued closely her history-precisely because the history of incidents does not attach to her. The "interest of ideas," and not of events, belongs to her; we have repeated her virtues often, but not too often; they are inseparably annexed to the idea of her, in every stage and vicissitude of her life.

Among the acquaintance of Mrs. Hamilton, it is with peculiar pleasure that we name Miss Edgeworth. The character of mind of these ladies is different, but in perfect harmony. They have observed society and the human mind, to analyze human nature. And though their respective talents of wit and humour, had enabled them to become successful satirists, and the rectitude of their own moral principles might have naturally led to severity; yet the same benevolence and liberality, induced both to attempt the improvement of their fellow creatures in the same way-by prevention instead of cure, by amusing instead of lecturing, by leading instead of driving, by conviction instead of subjection, by hope instead of fear. Miss Edgeworth's remarks on Mrs. Hamilton's writings are perfectly in unison with our own opinion-and as a bigher authority than any other, we subjoin them to our own feeble tribute of veneration and praise.

'Mrs. Hamilton's works, alike in principle and in benevolence of design, but with each a different grace of style and invention, have established her character as an original and successful writer of fiction; but her claims to literary reputation as a philosophic, moral, and reli gious author, are of a higher sort, and rest upon works of a more solid and durable nature-upon her works on education, especially her Letters on Female Education. In those, she not only shows that she has studied the history of the human mind, and that she has made herself acquainted with all that has been written on this subject by the best moral and metaphysical writers, but she adds new value to their knowledge by making it practically useful. She has thrown open to all clas

ses of readers, those metaphysical discoveries or observations, which had been confined chiefly to the learned. To a sort of knowledge which had been considered rather as matter of curiosity, than of use, she has given real value and actual currency. She has shown how the knowledge of metaphysics can be made serviceable to the art of education. She has shown, for instance, how the doctrine of the association of ideas may be applied in early education, to the formation of the habits of temper, and of the principles of taste and morals; she has considered how all that metaphysicians know of sensation and abstraction can be applied to the cultivation of the attention, the judgment, and the imagination of children. No matter how little is actually ascertained on these subjects: she has done much in awakening the attention of parents, of mothers especially, to future inquiry She has done much by directing their inquiries rightlymuch by exciting them to reflect upon their own minds, and to observe what passes in the minds of their children; she has opened a new field of investigation to women-a field fitted to their domestic habits, to their duties as mothers, and to their business as preceptors of youth, to whom it belongs to give to the minds of children those first impressions and ideas which remain the longest, and which influence them often the most powerfully through the whole course of life. In recommending to her own sex the study of metaphysics, as far as it relates to education, Mrs. Hamilton has been judiciously careful to avoid all that can lead to that species of vain debate, of which there is no end. She, knowing the limits of the human understanding does not attempt to go beyond them, into that which can be at best but a dispute about terms. She does not aim at making women expert in wordy war; nor does she teach them to astonish the unlearned by their acquaintance with the various vocabulary of metaphysical system-makers; such juggler's tricks shed espised; but she has not, on the other hand, been deceived or overawed by those who would represent the study of the human mind, as one that tends to no practical purpose, and that it is unfit or unsafe for her sex.'

Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton is well known to be, not only a moral, but a pious writer; and in all her writings, as in all her conversation, religion appears in the most engaging point of view. Her religion was sincere, cheerful, and tolerant, joining, in the happiest manner, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

All who had the happiness to know this amiable woman, will, with one accord, bear testimony to the truth of that feeling of affection, which her benevolence, kindness, and cheerfulness of temper inspi red. She thought so little of herself, and so much of others, that it was impossible, superior as she was, to excite envy : She put every body at ease in her company, in good humour and good spirits

with themselves. So far from being a restraint on the young and lively, she encouraged, by her sympathy, their openness and gayety. She never flattered, but she always formed the most favourable opinion, that truth and goodness would permit, of every individual who came near her. Instead, therefore, of fearing her penetration, all loved and courted her society.'

ART. X.-Sylla: tragedie en cinq actes, par E. Jour. Troisieme edition, 8vo. pp. 80 et xxviii. Ponthieu, Paris, 1822.

In the latter part of last December a tragedy was produced at the Theatre Francais, or principal theatre of Paris, which has occasioned extraordinary excitement. The story is founded on the life of Sylla, and the piece is written by M. Jouy, a member of the Institute. What has given it so much notoriety, is not the peculiar elegance or sublimity of its composition, nor the interest or ingenuity of its fable; but a close analogy which the Parisians have discovered between the triumphs, dictatorship, and abdication of Sylla, and certain events in the history of Napoleon. However well founded may be this parallel, in some of the broad outlines of the two characters, there are many points in which they differ widely from each other. But the keen perception of the Parisians is particularly alive to every thing touching the very name of Napoleon, whose memory is now rendered so dear to them by being associated with all their departed glory, and with that great and splendid rank which they once maintained in Europe. This and the particular restraints which are at this time imposed upon the liberty of the press, may have given to their sensibilities a morbid acuteness, which could trace out similitudes that had no existence in reality, or which at least were too subtile for the eyes of common observers. Such appears to have been the result, while the preface of the author avers that it was written without any intended allusion of this kind; a declaration which it would not perhaps have been politic to make at the time of its publication, for fear of having awakened the suspicions of the Censeurs, and put them on the search for inuendos, enigmas, and equivoques, which their dulness, more than their lenity, is supposed to have overlooked. M. Jouy studiously avoided entering into a parallel between Napoleon and Sylla, in the preface to the first edition; but when public opinion had stamped his work with the most brilliant VOL. IV.

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success, and brought, for more than fifty successive nights, admiring crowds to the house; when edition after edition had been exhausted, and when all Paris was on tip-toe to see Sylla; he very judiciously avails himself of the prevailing enthusiasm, and under its protection, does not hesitate to say, that there are, in truth, some few features in which Sylla and Napoleon may be said to resemble each other.

But since the tragedy of Sylla has become with some writers the motive, or rather the pretext, of a parallel between the conqueror of Orchomenus and him of Austerlitz, I will examine in a few words the relations which may be traced between these renowned men, and the contrarieties much more striking which assign them so different a place in history."

Again, the author remarks- The administration of Napoleon, in the course of a reign much longer, had not to reproach itself but with one sanguinary act. His will, not less immoveable than that of the Roman dictator, took its source in a genius of a superior order, and in the admonitions of a sublime reason. I understand here by sublime reason, the faculty of combining, with as much boldness as wisdom, the elements of success. The same indifference to cotemporary opinion, the same craving of the esteem of posterity, the same coolness in danger, the same disdain of men, the same force and same weakness, of an intelligence which could not support itself constantly at the same elevation.'

Again The one gave liberty to the Romans, whom he had massacred and degraded; the other covered France with the monuments of his glory, and raised upon the towers of Europe the standard of liberty, of which he had disinherited his country.

Sylla terminated quietly his days at Rome, which he had inundated with blood and with tears, in the midst of a generation of children, whose fathers he had proscribed. Napoleon died, prisoner of the English, on a desolate rock in the bosom of the ocean, where he traced, himself; the outlines for his own tomb.'

Préambule Historique, pp. xvi. xvii. xix. Whether the inferences of the Parisian audience be founded in truth or error, no one, certainly, who has witnessed the representation of Sylla, and the loud and enthusiastic applause of the house, even where the language can be construed into the most distant allusion to the great achievements of the Emperor; -no one, who has been present on such an occasion, can fail to recognize what is the predominant and popular feeling of the French. The audience see, in the personation of Sylla, the cruelties only of the Roman Dictator, but the sentiments of Napoleon. If the legitimacy and pretensions of the present dynasty on the throne of France were to be determined by the same