most difficult to support with propriety. What a combination of rare qualities is essential for this purpose. Amongst others, sense, delicacy, and temper. DE MOOR.

REVIEW.FOR THE POLYANTHOS.

Things by their Right Names. Boston, Munroe & Francis.

A NOVEL With this quaint and singular title has lately made its appearance; and though the modest writer has not called himself by any name, he seems to be well acquainted with the evil arising in the world from the fashionable science of calling things by wrong names. It is an attempt to expose the folly, the turpitude, and the wickedness of the prevailing custom of using expressions, whose letter and spirit are foreign from the thing meant to be expressed-that jargon, which confounds and bewilders the principles of morality— the ideas of happiness-the sense of every thing that is just, true, and desirable.' With every thing that ranks on the side of Falsehood, from the pitiful meanness of well-bred duplicity, to the brazened vice of hardened perjury,' the author declares himself at open war.

Let not those, whose fastidious and corrupted taste can relish nothing that is not seasoned with the spice of modern philosophy, expect to find in this work stimulants for their vices, or palliatives for their listlessness. That spurious sensibility, which blurs the grace and blush of modesty ;' that hypocrisy, which

'Sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words,'

will here meet no congenial sentiments. Yet the reader, whose heart is made of penetrable stuff,' whose understanding is not so braz'd' by damned custom,'

That it be proof and bulwark against sense,'

will find a sufficient compensation for the time spent in reading and the price of the book; and to all such it is recommended.

We possess not the happy talent of making abridgements, in such a degree as to enable us to condense the story to the small space alloted us. Nor would we by presenting a mutilated fragment, anticipate any part of the agreeable surprise, which the incidents of a novel always produce in the mind of the reader. We shall give one or two extracts, as specimens of the style and morality, and dismiss it with our cordial approbation.

6

"No one was a truer nomenclator than Mr. Fitzosborn when he spoke of virtue and vice in which he had no share : he was unacquainted with, and would not have understood, the modern vocabulary. He knew not what was meant by ' an amiable weakness.' He had no conception that an unfortunate passion' explained the premeditated invasion of the peace and honor of a husband, or indiscretion' the grossest act of unfaithfulness in a wife. He knew nothing of,' vows which, registered in Heaven,' annulled those registered on earth; of the union of hearts,' that superceded all other union nor could he better understand that seduction was 'gallantry,' or murder a point of honor.' He did not know that a little derangement' meant bankruptcy, or the settling one's affairs' was depriving one's creditors of half their due. He was not aware that candor' was the toleration of every vice; or freedom from prejudice,' infidelity. Nor were his principles much more liberal than his knowledge in the English language was extended. He would not allow that a young woman who spent the most part of her time in frivolous amusements, or selfish gratifications was a Christian: or that luxurious refinement in accommodation, in ornament, in dress, or in food, consisted with sober-mindedness. Nor could he readily admit that coquetry, dissimulation, or extravagance, were youthful follies-only freaks of thoughtless youth.' With him they tainted, and they stampt the character."

เ

*

"In the science of calling things by their right names' may be found the secret of characters so uncommon as those of Edward and Caroline.

"The bounty of Mr. Fitzosborn made them rich-their virtues made them happy. Neither dazzled by the glitter of sentiment, nor confounded by the misapplication of terms, their feelings were directed to a legitimate end, and their understandings became the champions of truth. To their unsophisticated intellect no qualifying epithet could christianize. pride or authorize revenge; the licentiousness that invaded the peace, or the extravagance that ruined the fortunes of a family, were with them something more than the frailty of human nature.' The misuse of time, on which hung the interests of eternity, passed not with them for agreeable trifling; and in professing themselves to be Christians, they believed themselves bound to become patterns of meekness, humility, and moderation.

6

"Reader! whoever thou art, go and do likewise !"

TRAVELS IN SARDINIA.

DURING the years 1809, 1810 and 1811, John Galt, an English gentleman, performed a tour in Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and Turkey, an account of which he has lately published. His description of the island of Sardinia is interesting, from which we publish the following extract, concerning character and manners.

"The state of society in Sardinia is probably not unlike what existed in Scotland about a hundred and fifty years ago. Family pride, a species of political scrophula, is in Sardinia particularly inveterate. But the exclusive spirit of the nobles begins to be counteracted by the disposition of the sovereign to extend his own authority. Many parts of the country are in what a politician considers only as an unsatisfactory state. In the district of Tempio this is greatly the case; the mountains are infested with banditti, and the villages are often at war with one another. A feudal animosity of this kind, which had lasted upwards of half a century, was lately pacified by the interference of a monk. The armies of the

VOL. I.

19

two villages, amounting each to about four hundred men, were on an appointed day drawn out in order of battle, front to front, and musquets loaded. Not far from the spot the monk had a third host prepared, consisting of his own brethren, with all the crucifixes and images they could muster. He addressed the belligerents, stating the various sins and wrongs that they had respectively committed, and shewing that the period had arrived when their disputes should cease, the account current of aggressions being then balanced. The stratagem had the desired effect, and a general reconciliation took place. The Sardinians have yet much to learn, not only in civil intercourse, but in the delicacies that should attend it.

1

"The country is divided into prefectures. The prefect is a lawyer, and is assisted by a military commandant, who furnishes the forces required to carry his warrants into effect. This regulation has been made in the course of the present reign, and may be regarded as an important step towards the establishment of a public and regal authority over the baronial privileges. In the provinces justice is distributed by the prefects, whose functions seem to correspond in many respects with those of the Scottish sheriffs. When any particular case occurs in which the king, considers it expedient to appoint a judge of the supreme court in the capital, on purpose to try the cause on the spot, wherever this extraordinary justiciary passes, the provincial courts of justice are silent, and superseded by his presence. There are no periodical circuits of the justices.

"The judges receivè a small stipend from the king, upon which they cannot subsist. They are allowed also a certain sum for each award that they deliver, which has the effect of making them greedy of jurisdiction, and interested in promoting revisions. The administration of justice is in consequence precarious, and gifts to the judges are of powerful advocacy.

"In a country where the government has so little power in the detail of ruling, and where the rectitude of the laws is

so enfeebled by the chicane of the courts, it is natural that the people should often surrender themselves to their bad passions. The Sards possess, to an eminent degree, the venerable savage virtue of hospitality. They are courageous, and think and act with a bold and military arrogance; but the impunity with which they may offend, fosters their natural asperity. They are jealous of the Piedmontese; and on this account the king has not encouraged emigration from his late continental dominions to settle in Sardinia. In their political revolutions they have sometimes acted with an admirable concert and spirit. Not many years before the arrival of the Royal Family they had some reason to be discontented with the conduct of the viceroy and his ministers; and, in consequence, with one accord, they seized, at the same time, both on him and on all Piedmontese officers, and sent them home without turbulence or the shedding of any blood.

"In a country where the inhabitants still wear skins, and titles remain in a great degree territorial, it is not to be expected that learning and the arts of polished life can have made any interesting degree of progress. There is, however, an institution in Cagliari worthy of being particularly noticed. It is formed for the purpose, as it were, of affording an opportunity to humble-born genius to expand and acquire distinction. The children of the peasants are invited to come into the city, where they serve in families for their food and lodging, on condition of being allowed to attend the schools of the institution.

"They are called majoli, and wear a kind of uniform, with which they are provided by their friends. Some of the majoli rise to high situations: the greater number, however, return back to the provinces, and relapse into their hereditary rusticity; but the effects of their previous instruction remain; and sometimes, in remote and obscure vallies, the traveller meets with a peasant, who, in the uncouth and savage garb of the country, shews a tincture of the polish and intelligence of the town."