wounds to dress. I would venture a wager Flanders increases in the christenings more than in the burials of the week.' I. 183.

These, upon the whole, we think are favourable specimens ; and if the whole book were of the same quality, it would be very entertaining. The greater part of it, however, is far inferior; and though we have too great a regard for our readers to annoy them with many specimens of absolute dulness, we cannot do our duty without laying before them a few instances of that overlaboured and uneasy wit which has afflicted us so often in the course of our reading. We find ourselves just at this description of the furniture of an old mansion.

There are long tables in the room that have more feet than the caterpillar you immured at Bullstrode. Why so many legs are needful to stand still, I cannot imagine, when I can fidget upon two. There is a goodly chest of drawers in the figure of a cathedral, and a looking-glass, which Rosamond or Jane Shore may have dressed their heads in. Amongst the old furniture, I must not forget the clock, who has indeed been a time-server. It has struck the blessed minutes of the Reformation, Restoration, Abdication, Revolution, and Accession, and, by its relation to time, seems too to have some to eternity. It is like its old master, only good to point the hour to industry,—to wake the slothful soul to labour,--to mark the time by voice, though not by action. It is the minister of old care,' &c.

If age be honourable, why should I neglect the fane of antique structure, which shook with the wind that blew the Danes to Britain; turned with the blast that sent our hero Richard to the holy wars, and then stood fair for France with Edward, moved with the glorious gale that brought a conquered king from France with our young victor the Black Prince. It pointed out the hour for gallant Henry to attempt a kingdom greater than his own; it obeyed the wind that brought over the chastiser of wicked Richard; then turned full to the happy wind that scattered the Armada, and moved as readily to the fair gale that wafted over our glorious William but of late days it has seldom stirred; tired of bringing terror to nothing but a timorous valetudinarian, or informing the spleen when the wind is in the east; and, loath to have the idleness of some admiral imputed to its advice, it moves no more, but seems indeed to be founded upon steady, and fixed principles, and I believe will turn no more, except it be for Vernon. What will your Grace say to this inventory? I am ashamed; but I observe peo ple are apt to converse like the company they keep; and really I see hardly any thing but this poor fane planted on an aged oak just over against my window, and I hear nothing but the clock telling me how I kill time, while I unhappily reflect the sad revenge it will take upon me; therefore, what can I repeat but what I learn? I am spinning out a happy hour; such I account it when I write to you; and really I have not the art of abbreviation. * I. 141-144.

The same outrageous determination to be witty dictated the following description of a sea captain.

The good captain is so honest and so fierce, a bad conscience and a cool courage cannot abide him. He thinks he has a good title to reprove any man that is not as honest, and to beat any man that is not as valiant, as himself. He hates every vice of nature but wrath, and every corruption of the times but tyranny. A patriot in his public character, but an absolute and angry monarch in his family, he thinks every man a fool in politics who is not angry, and a knave if he is not perverse. Indeed, the captain is well in his element, and may appear gentle compared to the waves and wind; but on the happy quiet shore he seems a perfect whirlwind. He is much fitter to hold converse with the hoarse Boreas in his wintry cavern, than to join in the whispers of Zephyrus in Flora's honeymoon of May. I was afraid, as he walked in the garden, that he would fright away the larks and nightingales; and expected to see a flight of see-gulls hovering about him. The amphibious pewet found him too much a water animal for his acquaintance, and fled with terror.' I. 181, 182.

The reader may also take this picture of a country family, as a partner in the same style of drawing.

His wife he has always kept in the country to nurse seven or eight daughters, after his own manner; and the success has answered the design. He has taught them that all finery lies in a pair of red-heeled shoes; and as for diversion (or, as I suppose they call it, fun), there is nothing like blind man's buff. Thus dressed and thus accomplished, he brought them to our races, and carried them to the ball, where, poor girls, they expected to be pure merry, and to play at puss in the corner, and hunt the whistle; but seeing there was nothing but footing, which they had never been suffered to do in their shoes, and right hand and left, which their father thought too much for women to know, they fell asleep, as they had often been used to do, without their supper.' You have no such good folks in Buckinghamshire. There your Grace saw a fine importation of S's. They had not one article of behaviour so untaught as to appear natural. These have not one manner that seems acquired by art. The two families would make a fine contrast. Pray do but figure the Mademoiselles Catherinas advancing in state to meet these jumping Joans. To be sure, seeing Madame courtesy so low, they would think she meant to play at leap-frog, and would jump over her head before she got to the extremest sink of her courtesy.' I. 237, 238.

The following, as it nods a little towards seriousness, is considerably worse.

'One sees a good deal of the world at Tunbridge. There is one man drinking waters to cure him of the ill consequence of sloth and avarice, and the melancholy remembrance of having denied himself

the

the benefits of his time, and others the assistance of his money. There the splendid South Sea Director would wash away the recollection of his iniquity, and, by magnificence, gild his crime till fools admire and envy it. How many adorn their guilt and misery to catch that approbation from others their own heart denies! These waters would indeed be of great use, could they but make Directors void the worm that never dies; but conscience is a dragon not to be charmed by all the sweetest songs of the Syren pleasure; and in the midst of these diversions, and the gaiety of company, they seem to me not to be able to speak peace to their souls,' &c. I. 247, 248. The following short passage is in far better taste. She is speaking of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.

• I am as fatigued with his hero's adventures as if I had rode behind him. He out-quixotes Quixote; knights, brave or miscreant, are unhorsed; ladies, fair or foul, chaste or wicked, fall in love with him: between the lance of Mars and the arrow of Cupid, no age or sex escape him unhurt. Then the fair Princess bathing for the good of the public! I took great care no such accident should happen at Mary-le-bone.Every one is in wrath at Sir John Norris's return. I hope the next expedition will be in mackarel season, and then we shall take something.' II. 54, 55.

The following remarks upon the effect of Sir Robert Walpole's downfal are more interesting, because more applicable to other times, than most of her occasional moralization.

I imagine the study of physiognomy must be very entertaining at present. One might see Hope sitting in a dimple, Fear skulk ing in a frown, Haughtiness sitting on the triumphal arch of an eyebrow, and Shame lurking under the eyelids; then in wise bystanders we might see Conjecture drawing the eyebrows together, or Amazement lifting them up. A man in place bringing his flexible countenance to the taste of the present times, smiling about the mouth as if he was pleased with the change, but wearing a little gloom on the forehead that betrays his fear of losing by it. Men that never were of any consequence wrapping themselves up in the mystery of politics, and seeming significant; as if, when times alter, they had a right to expect to be wise. Then the vacant, smiling countenances of those civil people that would intimate they would do any thing for any body. The asses that, in lions' skins, have brayed for their party, throwing off their fierceness, and appearing in their proper shape of patient folly, that will carry a heavy burden through dirty roads. Then the state swallows, that have ever lived in the sunshine of favour, withdrawing from the declining season of power. Then the thermometers, weathercocks, and dials of the state, will scarce know what to say, how to turn, or which way to point. They who have changed their coat with every blast, what must they do till they know which way the wind blows? Unhappy ignorance, that knows not if preferment comes from the east or from the west, or yet from the south! Then what will those noble patriots

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triots do whose honesty consists in being always angry, now they know not whom to be angry with? These occurrences give one too great an insight into mankind, for one receives bad impressions of them by seeing them in these hurries; while, for haste, they leave the cloak of hypocrisy behind, and show the patched, stained, and motley habit of their minds.

All I expect, is, to see those that lately have appeared as knaves look like fools; those that have looked like fools appear as knaves. I would the good precept, be angry and sin not, were divided between the parties in power and out of it; that the first would not sin, and the second would not be angry: but between the wickedness of the powerful, and the wrath of the disappointed, there is no peace in Israel. II. 152, 153.

This is about the best of her seriousness; but her vocation is decidedly for satirical trifling. For example

I want to know how the world goes on: we stand still here. Dulness, in the solemn garb of wisdom, wraps us in its gentle wing; and here we dream that others do ill, and happy are we that do nothing. One yawns there is peace in solitude; another stirs the fire, and cries how happy is liberty and independence; another takes a pinch of snuff, and praises leisure; another pulls a knotting shuttle out of her pocket, and commends a little innocent amusement; their neighbour, more laborious, making a lace with two bobbins, says business should be preferred to pleasure and diversions. How wise is every body by their own fire-side, and how happy every one in their own way! What glorious things do the ambitious say of ambition, and what mighty phrases do they adorn the giant with! How civilly do the indolent speak of idleness, and how prettily do the trifling express trifles; how cunning do those think themselves who live in cities, and how innocent do they look upon themselves to be who dwell in the country.' II. 150, 151.

Among many reasons for being stupid, it may be urged it is being like other people, and living like one's neighbours; and indeed without it, it may be difficult to love some neighbours as oneself: now, seeing the necessity of being dull, you won't, I hope, take it amiss that you find me so; but consider I am involved in mists from the sea, and that the temperament of the air and the manners of the place contribute to my heaviness. It provokes me to hear people that live in a fog talk of the smoke of London, and that they cannot breathe there a proper reason for them to stay away who were made for nothing but to breathe. But people in town have other signs of life. But to the good folks that talk in that manner, nothing is an obstruction of life but an asthma. ' I. 235.

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It would be very easy to cite fifty such passages; but for those who have not already determined to look into the book for themselves, we fear we have already cited too much. We ought, indeed, to have noticed some passages of profound erudition about Horus and Cerberus, Horatius Cocles, and Pythagoras ;-and also

some

some of the elaborate eulogies bestowed on the Dutchess of Portland, and my Lord Duke and the infant Marquis; but meritorious and characteristic as all these things are, we have no longer room for them. Upon the whole, we think the vivacity of these letters attractive;-though it is sometimes childish, and almost always theatrical, We think the familiar style excellent, and the eloquence abominable; and are of opinion, that they would have been infinitely more charming, if two thirds of the wit could have been exchanged for a few traits of simplicity and affection. Comparing them even with the earliest letters of Lady Mary Wortley, it is impossible not to be struck with the vast superiority of the latter, in sound sense, good taste, and facility. There is, in those delightful compositions, such a mixture of just thinking and solid sagacity, as gives both dignity and relief to the wit and trifling which intervenes; and the trifling itself is far more graceful and striking, both because it is less laboured, and infinitely less verbose. Mrs Montagu certainly comes nearest that admirable model in her lighter strokes of personal satire, and the purity of such parts of her diction as she had not determined to make splendid,

In making these strictures on the letters before us, we do not forget that they were all written under the age of twenty-three; and have even a reasonable degree of faith in the editor, when he assures us, that if we will only have patience, we shall find her hand improve astonishingly in the course of the next five or six volumes. All we say is, that there are great faults in the volumes before us; and that we do not exactly perceive the ne cessity of reading the bad letters before we are favoured with the good. If the letters were all as good as Lady Mary's, the editor may depend upon it, that the public will neither buy nor admire twenty volumes of them; and if there be ten or twelve volumes out of the twenty that are not quite so good, we are clearly of opinion, that the best thing he can do for his aunt's glory and his own credit, is to suppress these twelve,-together with four or five of the remaining eight. There are many works, besides those of the old Sybil, the value of which may be prodigiously increased by diminishing their number.