tires the hero himself, who returns to Smyrna in a disappointed and melancholy mood: a natural consequence of the disappearance of that vivid scenery which had lately engrossed his attention. He is aroused from this intellectual listlessness, by falling in, (accidentally, as he supposes,) with an inexplicable but interesting stranger, who introduces him to an assembly of Christians at Pergamus; and from that moment a new mys tic life, a regeneration of mind, begins within him. The stranger continues to act powerfully on him, to excite his cu riosity and expectations, and, by dexterous but circuitous steps, to prepare and discipline the intended convert. A mysterious appointment to meet again precedes their sudden separation. A new guide attaches himself to Peregrinus, and introduces him to a family of Christians residing in a solitary part of the country; whose amiableness, harmony, and simplicity of 'manners, were calculated to make so deep an impression on his mind, as to inspire the settled wish of devoting his whole life to the society of persons so beautifully and holily virtuous. Perigrinus is at length initiated into the mysteries of this pure and attractive sect; and he again meets the impressive stranger, who becomes known to him by the name of Kerinthus, and from whom he receives, as the reward of his growing zeal, a second grade of initiation. The property which, about this time, he inherits from his father is chiefly made over to the common stock of the religious society, into which he is now grafted; and he gradually obtains an apparently more intimate knowlege of its interior constitution and the spirit of its directors: who destine him, however, rather for their instrument than their confidant. He undertakes the office of a missionary: but, in consequence of the well-known edict of Trajan, he incurs imprisonment. The attentions of the faithful console the irksomeness of his confinement. A deaconess is sent to him with the offerings of affectionate charity; and she is no other than Dioclea, the priestess of Halicarnassus, and the sister of Kerinthus. Her explanations convince him that he has been hitherto the dupe of artifice, and the blind conductor of purposes of politic ambition. Through the management of Dioclea, he obtains his liberty: but he is become disgusted with the interior of a sect externally so pure, so lovely, and so insinuating. He now falls into a kind of misanthropy, which leads the way to his annexation to the order of Cynics; whose severity, whose privations, and whose erect independence, form his next idea of human perfection. He is drawn to Rome, and sets up for a distinguished scourge of corruption, and an avowed womanhater. The Empress Faustina (in whose character, incauious levity was a marked feature) becomes curious about the puritanic snarler; and, having laid a wager on the subject with a Roman lady, she contrives, without committing her own dignity, to gain a victory over the misogyny of Peregrinus by attacking him on his weak side. He now becomes the town talk, and the jest of the court and the metropolis. This increases his ill-humour with the world, from which he attempts to retire, and which he now fancies he can best serve by the spectacle of a voluntary death, which should demonstrate his confidence in the essentially demonic nature of man, and its necessary continuance through future existence. This leads to the catastrophe, which he announces to all Greece, and realizes at Olympia. Many traits in the character of this honest enthusiast seem derived from the study of that of Rousseau. It is a new and masterly delineation, imbued with the profoundest knowlege of human nature; and it is so perfectly consonant with moral probability, that one can hardly imagine the tale of Lucian to have had any other substratum. So complete is the adaptation of every circumstance in the new story to the outline of the old one, that it seems the only possible solution of this moral enigma, the only manner in which events so misrepresented could truly have passed: it presses on conviction with that degree of illusion which is confounded with reality. The erudite intimacy of WIELAND with the manners and opinions of the age, and the sects, which he undertakes to characterize, is no where more conspicuous than in this novel; and the equity with which he depicts the pure morals of the family near Pitane, as naturally resulting from the religion of the Christians, is a tribute to impartiality not common among philosophers who are so perpetually busied in satirizing the priests. With all its insight into human nature, the whole work tends perhaps to chill the pursuer of the ardent virtues, and to insinuate à loose sensuality: we should rather wish it to be seriously studied by those who chance to read it, than to see it very generally read. The xxixth volume opens with an admirable dissertation on the free use of reason in matters of faith. It has been entirely translated in the "Varieties of Literature *;" and it well deserves a more than cursory perusal. Essays on the French Revolution succeed, which are distinguished for calm and penetrating observation, for a poising equity of estimate, and for a discriminating urbanity of praise and censure. * See a brief account of this work, Rev. New Series, vol. xix. P. 472. Volume xxx. contains an account of the earlier essays of the Aeronauts; which are acquiring a fresh interest, now that balloons are become a regular military resource for reconnoitring. Next follows The Secret of the Order of Cosmopolites, which we respectfully recommend to the consideration of our heresy-ferrets. The Account of Nicolas Flamel has appeared in the Varieties of Literature.' The Philosopher's Stone, and the Salamandrine, (called by the translator (see Rev. vol. xxv. p. 213-214) Silvester and Rosina, and the Druid,) are apparently the only fairy tales acknowleged by WIELAND: the latter accomplishes a prediction of Horace Walpole, that it would be possible to construct a good story in which every thing should appear supernatural, and yet be naturally explained at last.-The Dialogue with a Parish Priest is tedious and feeble: it attempts an apology for the author's frequent obscenities. The priest, among other things, asks, "Would you wish to find, in the hands of your daughter, your Idris, or your Comic Tales?" WIELAND answers, "I should not put them into her hands: but I have so educated her, that, if she reads them, she will read them without contamination." This dialogue terminates the present collection: six more volumes, we hear, are in contemplation, which are to comprise the inferior and juvenile writings of WIELAND, and an autobiography. * In looking back on this vast mass of diversified composition, the attention will chiefly centre on the epic efforts in prose and verse. WIELAND'S Novels are of a form nearly peculiar. Wholly negligent, apparently, of living manners and opinions, he has laid the scene of all his fables in remote ages and countries, and is scrupulously attentive to the costume not only of the objects but of the very ideas introduced: yet he artfully indicates a perpetual analogy between the ways of act. ing and thinking in different times and places; he steadily keeps in view the general laws of human hallucination; and he is ever solicitous to inculcate the truism, that under other masks and names men are still repeating the same comedy. An enthusiast, tamed into a worldling by the delusions of a mistress and the lessons of a philosopher, is the favourite subject of his intellectual sculpture. For pathetic, and even for highly comic passages, we may long seek in vain: but for beautiful description, and delicately interesting situations, we are never at a loss: he does not aim at exciting passion, but at analysing character: he seldom attains to dramatic vivacity: he pro * See Review, vol. xviii. p. 522.; xix. 481.; xxi. 490.; xxii. 506.; and xxiii. 575. duces duces a calm and placid, not a boisterous and turbulent delight, the intoxication of the sharoot, not of the wine-flask. It is observable that he seldom describes the scenery of mere nature. From the profusion of beautiful objects of art, among which his personages are exhibited to view, his fancy may be thought to have laid in its stock of decoration under the gilded ceilings of the opera-house, not beneath the blue cope of heaven; and he seems more to have dwelt in the palace than on the mountain-side. He every where flatters the luxurious, and encourages a delicate sensuality: a Stoic would call him "the sycophant of refinement;" an Epicurean would style him the philosopher of the Graces." His writings are therefore adapted to attach the inhabitants of cities, and to find favour with the opulent, the travelled, and the polished: their whole impression is not made at first; they gain by repeated perusal. Of WIELAND's Poems, the most successful are his metrical romances. Wiser than Ariosto, he has not attempted to combine into a disjointed whole the several tales of knighthood which he has thrown into rhime. Sometimes, (as in Gyron le Courtois,) it is a single adventure which he versifies; sometimes, (as in Oberon,) it is a whole story-book to which he gives the form of an epopea. Pagan legends also, and fairy tales, have often furnished him with a basis of narrative; for he bestrides with equal skill the Hippogryffon of chivalry, the Pegasus of Olympus, and the Simoorg of Ginnistan. His omnipresent fancy can evoke at will the divinities of every mythology, and enrobe them all with dazzling magnificence and classical propriety. Yet his heroes and heroines want, perhaps, a certain heroism of character: they are Sacripants, Zerbinos, and Rinaldos, Angelicas, and Armidas; they are neither Agamemnon, nor Achilles, nor Diomed, nor Clytemnestra, nor Andromache: but, if they win less on the admiration, they gain perhaps more on the affection. The youngest of the Graces, not the highest of the Muses, besought for him, of Apollo, the GIFT OF SONG. Tay ART. II. Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, &c. i. e. Letters "T *The former volumes of these letters were noticed in the M. R. vol. xx. p. 519. and xxii. p. 513. and and tenth volumes of these letters.-The 108th letter relates to the national character of the Germans, which the author thinks distinguished for serviceableness, and to the esteem in which it is held among foreigners. In the 109th, the French nation is brought on the carpet; and their love of the theatrical in private conduct and public institutions, and their tendency to consult in every thing only its effect on the audience of the moment, are well noticed. The effects of French culture on German imitation are also analysed, and the Gallicomania is censured as tending to impair originality. Some extracts from the posthumous works of Lessing next occur, under the title "Sparks ;" and the collective edition of his works, undertaken by the pious care of a surviving brother, is recommended. We shall give an account of it hereafter. The 113th letter contains remarks on the enthusiasm with which various English writers have been received by the German public: we are told that the novels of Richardson have ceased to please, and that Blair ranks very highly in the estimation of foreigners. The tenth volume is more interesting than the ninth. It begins with an inquiry into the reciprocal influence of nations, and observes that hitherto they have rather injured than benefited each other; and that, if each nation had grown up in complete insulation, the progress of its culture would probably have been more rapid, and the phænomena of its characteristics more peculiar and interesting. Negro-Idyls next occur. Not the smooth painless incidents of Arcadian life adorn these affecting poems. The real miseries, which every year's slave-trade repeats on the African and American shores, are here written with the tear-dipt pen of humanity. The 115th letter enumerates various writers who have much contributed, by the maxims which they have invented or diffused, to promote social humanization. Among the less known, is the name of Giambattista Vico, author of Principij di una Sciencia nuova, 1725. After the example of the antients, whom he had much studied, he sought to found on common principles the theory of morals, law, and right of nations. Plato and Tacitus among the antients, Bacon and Grotius among the moderns, were, it is said, his favourite authors. He founded at Naples that school of political philosophy, which has since iani produced Genovesi, Galf, and Filangieri. A missionary-story, the scene of which lies in Paraguay, some moral oriental anecdotes in blank verse, vague reflections on perpetual peace, and a few odes, furnish matter for five letters. The |