sists the effect. The Spanish performers have an inimitable talent, for this kind of low comedy; they appear to have been born and bred in the different conditions they represent; and the illusion produced is complete.'

To the truth and accuracy of this description, we can bear ample testimony. A stranger, who is desirous of studying the peculiarities of character, manners, customs, or dress, that prevail in the different provinces of Spain, will not easily find a shorter or better school, and certainly cannot find a more amusing one, than the theatre, when these saynetes are represented."

In his chapter on the State of the Arts, we meet with the following remarks on the Spanish school of painting, which appear to us to convey a just and not exaggerated idea of its merits.

Of all the liberal arts,' observes Mr Laborde, painting is that which has been most cultivated in Spain, and in which its natives have best succeeded. The Spanish school is little known, and deserves to be more so. It holds a middle place between the Italian and Flemish schools. It is more natural than the first, more noble than the second, and participates in the beauties of both. It is not in the correctness of design or nobleness of form, that the Spanish artists usually excel, but in the pure imitation of nature, in grace, truth, effect, and expression of feeling.'

But, even upon this subject, where Mr Laborde seems more at home than in any other part of his work, he cannot, by some strange fatality, mention a date, without committing a blunder. Velasquez, whose portraits of Philip III. and IV., and of the Count Duke of Olivares, are among the most valuable of the pictures in the Royal Palace at Madrid, he tells us, was born in 1653, and died in 1725; that is, was born thirty-two years after the death of Philip III., eight years after the death of the Count Duke, and only twelve years before the death of Philip IV. The real dates of the birth and death of Velasquez, were 1599 and

We

The concluding chapters on the Physical Constitution of the Spaniards, on their Character and Manners, their Usages and Customs, their Dress, their Ceremonies, and Public Festivals, are executed, on the whole, with judgment and discrimination. select the following observations on the Spanish character, as aífording, with the extracts which we have made in these last pages, the most favourable specimens we have been able to give of Mr Laborde's performance.

Some customs and some traits of character run through all the provinces. The national pride is everywhere the same. The Spaiard has the highest opinion of his nation and himself, which he energetically expresses in all his gestures, words and actions. This opinion is discovered in all ranks of life and classes of society; in

crimes and in virtues; among the great and the small; under rags of poverty as much as in the royal palace. Its result is a of haughtiness, repulsive sometimes to him who is its object, useful in giving to the mind a sentiment of nobleness and self-est which fortifies it against all meanness. This pride may be c dered as one cause of the great number of persons who quit world, and embrace the ecclesiastical profession; the slightest tempt, the least constraint, often produces on these haughty dis tions the effect of real misfortunes.

The Spaniards are extremely reserved; they have little of exterior demonstrations, of that deceitful show which is called p ness. They do not make advances to a stranger; they wait for to begin; they watch his conduct; and do not give him their dence, till they think they know him. Their address is serious, sometimes even repulsive; but, under this unpromising exterior, conceal a worthy heart and a great disposition to oblige; they ter around their benefits, without endeavouring to make a me them; and grant without having promised.

The Spaniard is very slow in all his operations. He ofter berates when he ought to act, and spoils affairs as much by hi porizing as other nations by their precipitation. They have a pr contrary to one of ours;-they say, that one should never do t what may be put off till to-morrow. This slowness of the Spa appears incompatible with the vivacity of their imagination; it consequence of the distrust and circumspection that are natu them; but when their pride is irritated, their anger provok their generosity stimulated, they wake in a moment from thei thy, and are capable of the most violent and the most noble act We apprehend, that, in the last paragraph, Mr Labord hit upon the true defect of the Spanish character,-the on tainly the most prejudicial to them in the arduous conflict in they are at present engaged. This disposition of mind. them confound procrastination with deliberation; and in that, when they have put off an important determination have acquired some security, that, when taken, it will be a one. To the activity, knowledge, and foresight of their ants, they have nothing to oppose, but an invincible con and firmness, which reverses have never shaken for a m If they have not achieved victories, they have not suffered selves to be dispirited by defeats. If they have been impro in success, they have not been despondent in misfortune. armies have been dispersed, and their towns pillaged; but th sessions of their enemy are still limited by the immediate of his power; and extend not, after all his victories, beyc precincts of his camps and garrisons.

The hypocrisy with which Mr Laborde bewails the misfo of a war, the most unjust and unprovoked of any underta

an age fruitful in injustice, deserves to be exhibited in his own words. Good Spaniards!' he exclaims, who have thus heaped kindnesses on nie without even looking for my gratitude, who have rendered those unhappy times so easy to me, may you, in your turn, find some asylum amidst the troubles which rend your country! Alas! perhaps flames are about to consume those houses in which I have been received! perhaps cannon are already destroying those monuments of your religion and history, of which you are so proud!' Who would believe, that this Mr Laborde, with such sentiments of gratitude on his lips, has lately repaired to Madrid, and there resumed his former connexions with the literary men of that capital, not for the purpose of assisting or consoling them in their misfortunes, but in order to extort from them certain valuable manuscripts, which, in hours of former confidence, they had unwarily made known to him. It is but fair to add, that, in one attempt of that sort, he was checked by the interference of a French officer of rank.

Before bringing this article to a conclusion, we owe to Mr Laborde the justice to state, that we have not been able to see his original work, and that our remarks have therefore been necessarily founded on a translation, which bears evident marks of having been hastily executed, and by one who, we apprehend, is but imperfectly acquainted with many of the subjects treated in the work. But, in justice to ourselves, we have also to add, that we have suppressed many unfavourable criticisms that had occurred to us, when it appeared to us, on further reflection, that the fault might lye, not with the author, but with the translator.

ART. V. The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, with some of the Letters of her Correspondents. Part the First; containing her Letters from an early Age to the Age of Twenty-three. Published by Matthew Montagu, Esq. M. P. her Nephew and Executor. 2 vol. 12mo. pp. 630, London, 1809.

THES

HESE two sizeable volumes contain a selection from the letters written by Mrs Montagu while under the age of twentythree. Now, considering that this celebrated lady lived to be upwards of eighty, and probably did not grow less communicative as she grew older and better known, it certainly was not without some alarm that we ventured to calculate, by this scale, the prob.ble bulk of the whole publication. We have read through this introductory part of it, however, without any extraordinary impatience; and trust that, when the time comes, we shall be en

dowed

dowed with strength sufficient to do the same duty to the successive parts which may be awaiting us.

A considerable portion of the letters now before us are published, we should suppose, rather as curiosities, than on account of their intrinsic excellence. Several of them-and by no means the worst in the collection-were written, it seems, while the author was under fifteen years of age; and would certainly be considered as extraordinary performances-even in this age of premature womanhood and infant accomplishment. The subsequent letters, indeed, scarcely keep the promise that is held out by those early effusions. They are not at all more lively or more natural; and are all the worse, we think, for being more plentifully garnished with moral reflections and morsels of elaborate Battery. If the correspondence does not improve faster in its subsequent stages, we fear greatly that there will be no climax in the reader's admiration.

The merit of the pieces before us seems to us to consist mainly in the great gaiety and vivacity with which they are written. The wit, to be sure, is often childish, and generally strained and artificial; but still it both sparkles and abounds: and though we should admire it more if it were better selected, or even if there were less of it, we cannot witness this profuse display of spirits and ingenuity, without receiving a strong impression of the talents and ambition of the writer.

ous.

The faults of the letters, on the other hand, are more numerIn the first place, they have, properly speaking, no subjects. They are all letters of mere idleness, friendship, and flattery. There are no events,-no reasonings,-no anecdotes of persons who are still remembered,-no literature, and scarcely any original or serious opinions. The whole staple of the correspondence consists of a very smart and lively account of every-day occurrences and every-day people,-a few common-places of reflection and friendship, and a considerable quantity of little, playful, petulant caricatures of the writer's neighbours and acquaintAll this has a fine familiar effect, when interspersed with more substantial matter,- -or when it drops from the pen of a man of weight and authority; but whole volumes of mere prattlement from a very young lady, are apt, however gay and innocent, to produce all the symptoms of heavier reading.

unces.

A second, and perhaps a greater fault, is want of nature and simplicity, and this, in so far as we can judge, pervades the whole strain of the correspondence. There is an incessant effort to be witty or eloquent, which takes away from the grace of success, and makes failure ridiculous. There is no flow from the heart, -no repose for the imagination,--no indolent sympathy of con

fidence.

fidence. Every thing is gilded and varnished in the most ostentatious manner, and exposed in the broadest light. It is not the learning only, or the ridicule, that is introduced for effect;-all the familiarity must be brilliant, and all the trifling picturesque. It is evident, in short, that Mrs Montagu wrote rather from the love of her own glory, than from any interest in the subjects of her correspondence; and the less we can sympathize with this feeling, the less we shall be delighted with her performance.

The last, and the most serious want we shall notice in this girlish correspondence, is the want of heart and affection. We naturally reckon upon a little romance in the confidential epistles of a damsel of eighteen; or, at any rate, upon some warmth of attachment: but, in these letters, though we have plenty of eloquent professions of friendship, we confess that we have looked in vain for this common bloom of sensibility. There is no softness, -no enthusiasm,-nothing which could, for one moment, be mistaken for the language of tenderness or emotion. Yet these are letters to chosen friends and early associates; and embrace the period in which the writer became a wife and a mother. It is not enough that the letters of a woman should be lively and witty;--female gaiety loses both its charm and its dignity, when it is not shaded with softness ;--even female intellect is not quite respectable without it. The readers of Mad. de Sevigné complain, indeed, of the vehemence and anxiety of her attachment to her daughter; yet, importunate as that feeling is, we verily believe that it gives the chief charm to her correspondence. The image of that warm and watchful affection is constantly impressed upon. our recollection; it redeems all the levities, and gives an interest to all the details of her letters; and carries us, with ready good nature, into all the anecdotes which appear to have amused a creature at once so sprightly and so kindhearted. Mrs Montagu, on the other hand, no doubt appears very good-natured and obliging; but without any devotedness of affection, or much concern, beyond that of admiration and amusement. On the whole, we think her professions of friendship and serious morality the least attractive parts of her performance. Her ludicrous descriptions and witty remarks, except that they are always too elaborate, are often tolerably successful; but the most entertaining of all, we think, are her lively personalities,-those half malicious, half playful delineations of common acquaintance, by which the merriment and the jealousies of polite society have been chiefly maintained, ever since the period of its first formation.

Thofe who like the prattlement of young ladies, muft naturally have fome curiofity to know how they prattled feventy years ago. Thefe volumes, will certainly gratify that curiofity; and, indeed,