morals, and sap the foundation of every virtuous principle in their hearts. Perhaps, even more anxiously should evil books be prohibited than evil companions, because they may be accessible almost at all times, and in all places when least suspected, and in the most unguarded hour, they may be instilling their deadly poison.

There is something very dreadful in the thought of a man of genius misapplying the talents with which the bountiful God has endowed him, and leaving behind him writings to corrupt ages yet unborn. The poisoned tunic of the dying Centaur was a present not more deadly in its effects to the body of its victim, than the legacy which some writers bequeath to destroy the souls of men. If some of our admired writers were refined, and their coarse and worthless, or worse than worthless, dross purged away, into what a small compass would many a massy volume be shrunk. The lines of Blackmore about the wits of his day, may be applied with nearly as much justice to some favourites of modern times:

"Ev'n Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherly,

When thus refined, will grievous sufferers be:
Into the melting-pot when Dryden comes,
What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes!
How will he shrink, when all his lewd alloy
And wicked mixture shall be purg'd away."

Of the author of "The Seasons," on the contrary, it is recorded as his highest praise, that his works contained

"No line which, dying, he could wish to blot :"

and I have always thought that there is something very noble in the sentence with which the Rambler concludes his labours :- "The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity,

without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment. I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth." The eagerness of the penitent Earl of Rochester to repress or recall his licentious writings, is well known. The mischief of such productions is incredible: no repentance of the author, so far as the world is affected, is availing. And I am sure there have been authors who, at certain periods of their lives, and at moments of serious reflection, would give the world, if at their command, to consign to eternal oblivion vile productions that had issued from their pen; but "litera scripta manet," and the mightier the genius, the deadlier the plague. If we are to be judged for every idle word that we may speak, whose effects must be comparatively transient, how enormous must be the guilt of those upon whose words there has been set a stamp of perpetuity, to the injury of future generations! If a woe be pronounced upon him who causes his brother to offend, what must be the crime of those whose writings have been the fruitful source of offences, long after the hands which penned them have mouldered into dust! O, that men of talent and genius would reflect on this in time, before they lend the sanction of their names to any sentiment of immorality and irreligion, and remember that their wit and endowments are only valuable, so far as they are employed in strict consistency with piety to God, and the good of their fellow-creatures! The two novelists above-mentioned had an immense host of imitators.

We shall now turn our attention to another contributor, in a different style, to this species of literature. About the middle of the eighteenth century Lord Orford, better known as Horace Walpole, published a little

work, of which the first idea seems to have entered his mind, in connection with the Gothic structure he was then building at Strawberry Hill. "This agreeable trifler," as Burke sarcastically calls him, who professed his devotion to matters of virtù, and his admiration for the arts, has gained an unenviable notoriety for coldness of heart, and duplicity of conduct in his treatment of poor Chatterton. Yes, he led on this gifted and unfortunate youth, with "the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick," while the purchase-money of some of the worthless baubles which, with minute and elaborate enumeration, he has entered in his catalogue, such as trays in the shape of fans:" "a tray with four ancient combs, one being ivory," which we are informed is "very ancient:" "tea-cups and caudle-cups of rare and most estimable character:" "the top of a warming-pan," which we are gravely told by his lordship was "probably used by his Majesty Charles II. and the Duchess of Cleveland:" "the wedding-gloves of Mrs. Hampden, the wife of the celebrated John Hampden" and such like trumpery, might have rescued him from a premature grave.

The little romance which Horace Walpole probably thought very little of, in comparison with other and more laborious products of his pen, is that, however, by which this noble author is best known. Its Gothic wonders, most probably, were suggested by the very scenes which he was conjuring up around him: and as he was building, so he evidently wrote the little tale con amore. We find, therefore, that it has had wonderful success, both at home and abroad, there being few modern languages into which it is not translated. This story was so popular, that it gave rise to a new inundation of romances. These may be classed in one category, as more or less full of marvellous absurdity, supernatural and most improbable wonders, in a thousand ways outraging good taste and nature, and "outheroding Herod." The names of these productions must be

known to many of my readers, and, even if I had the inclination, it is beside my purpose, to do more than allude to them in a cursory manner.

Much about the same time there appeared a writer of fiction, very different in his style-the witty, the profligate, the sentimental Sterne. Nothing, perhaps, could be a stronger proof of the moral laxity of manners, when Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne flourished, and the toilet-table of the lady of fashion was pronounced incomplete without its "Tom Jones," "Peregrine Pickle," and "Tristram Shandy;" and when Sterne, to the no small indignation of Dr. Johnson, had his invitations to dinner in London three months deep. Unhappy Sterne !-his case was rendered infinitely worse by the clerical profession which he had assumed. Bad enough in a layman, his sentiments were revolting beyond measure in a clergyman. There was an advice once given him, at which he was highly offended, by a dignified prelate of his own church-himself a man of pre-eminent genius, and who could well appreciate and reward genius in others, and even allow for some of its innocent aberrations and extravagancies-who recommended him "to laugh, so that priests and virgins could laugh with him."

Well would it have been for Sterne, if he had acted on this friendly suggestion; but as he lived a licentious life, so he died a miserable death. From the hot-bed of his school there soon issued an obscene brood of followers, full of tawdry and prurient sentimentality; in good set phrases, discussing and mouthing about virtue, but insinuating the pleasures of vice; worthy disciples of the man, who, it was said, could whine over a dying ass, and refuse help to a starving mother. For many years these writers effected much to demoralize, and many of them still continue to corrupt, the reading public of the English nation.

In what rank shall I classify the novels of high or fashionable life, where lords and ladies are constantly figuring before us, and mystifying both themselves and

the reader; and balls and Christmas festivities in countryhouses drag their slow length through endless chapters; and the most overwhelming distress from some dreadful contre-temps intervenes, which a single word at the beginning could have explained, and set all to rights; and at last a most unforeseen denouèment sheds, as is becoming, the most benignant happiness over all around! And where shall I put the slipshod, namby-pamby school, the favourite of ladies, and "the mob of gentlemen," who read at ease, full of such "skimble-skamble stuff," that if you had patience to wade through the three volumes, you would wonder, and begin to ask yourself, what it was all about, there being certainly not more than “ one grain of wheat to a bushel of chaff;" and would at last be obliged to come to the honest conviction, that the contents might be summed up briefly in Hamlet's description of the book he was reading

Words, words, words!" This puerile style lasted sufficiently long (it may be doubted whether it is yet. extinct), when some writers of fiction sought and gained the public attention, in the way of what I will designate as domestic novels, tales of every-day life, professing to delineate what is passing round about, within our own observation. The moral intention of these works was good, and to the honour of the sex be it said, the best efforts proceeded from female hands. Still, although they afford entertainment, and are comparatively innocuous, yet it cannot be suppressed that the morality invariably rests on a wrong basis, that the incidents are such as seldom, if ever, occur in real life; and that the mind habituated to the reading of them becomes enervated, and cannot be easily drawn away to grave and useful studies.

I come now to speak of one, the mighty Enchanter of the North, the Shakespeare of novelists. I confess I do not know how to approach this part of my subject: I must candidly acknowledge, it is a struggle of my sober conviction, of my better judgment against my youthful