passion, is the most susceptible to pain. Circles there are in London, in which to be admitted is to be pleased and to admire; but those circles are composed of persons above the fashion or aloof from it. Of those where that tawdry deity presides, would it be extravagant to say that existence is a course of strife, subserviency, hypocrisy, meanness, ingratitude, insolence, and mortification; and that to judge of the motives which urge to such a life, we have only to imagine the wish to be every where in the pursuit of nothings? Fashion in this country is also distinguished from her sister in France, by our want of social enthusiasm for genius. It showed, not the power of appreciating his talents, but a capacity for admiring the more exalted order of talents (which we will take leave to say is far from a ridiculous trait in the national character), that the silent and inelegant Hume was yet in high request in the brilliant coteries of Paris. In England, the enthusiasm is for distinction of a more sounding kind. Were a great author to arrive in London, he might certainly be neglected; but a petty prince could not fail of being eagerly courted. A man of that species of genius which amuses—not exalts-might indeed create a momentary sensation. The oracle of science -the discoverer of truth, might be occasionally asked to the soirees of some noble Mæcenas; but every drawing-room, for one season at least, would be thrown open to the new actress, or the imported musician. Such is the natural order of things in our wealthy aristocracy, among whom there can be as little sympathy with those who instruct, as there must be gratitude to those who entertain, till the entertainment has become the prey of satiety, and the hobbyhorse of the new season replaces the rattle of the last.

Here, we cannot but feel the necessity of subjecting our gallantry to our reason, and enquiring how far the indifference to what is great, and the passion for what is frivolous, may be occasioned by the present tone of that influence which women necessarily exercise in this country, as in all modern civilized communities. Whoever is disposed to give accurate attention to the constitution of fashion (which fashion in the higher classes, is, in other words, the spirit of society), must at once perceive how largely that fashion is formed, and how absolutely it is governed, by the gentler sex. Our fashion may indeed be considered the aggregate of the opinions of our women. In order to account for the tone that fashion receives, we have but to inquire into the education bestowed upon women. Have we, then, instilled into them those public principles (as well as private accomplishments) which are calculated to ennoble opinion, and to furnish their own peculiar inducements of reward to a solid and lofty merit in the opposite sex? Our women are divided into classes-the domestic and the dissipated. The latter employ their lives in the pettiest intrigues, or, at best, in a round of vanities that usurp the name of amusements. Women of the highest rank alone take much immediate share in politics; and that share, it must be confessed brings any thing but advantage to the state. No one will assert that these soft aspirants have any ardour for the public-any sympathy with measures that are pure and unselfish. No one will deny that they are the first to laugh at principles, which it is but justice to say, the educat ionwe have given them precludes them from comprehending, and to excite the parental emotions of the husband, by reminding him that the advancement of his sons requires interest with the Minister. The domestic class of women are not now, we suspect, so numerous as they have been estimated by speculators on our national character. We grant their merits at once; and we inquire if the essence of these merits be not made to consist in the very

refraining from an attempt to influence public opinion,-in the very ignorance of all virtues connected with the community ;-if we shall not be told that the proper sphere of woman is private life, and the proper limit to her virtues, the private affections. Now, were it true that women did not influence public opinion, we should be silent on the subject, and subscribe to all those charming commonplaces on retiring modesty and household attractions that we have so long been accustomed to read and hear. But we hold that feminine influence, however secret, is unavoidably great; and owing to this lauded ignorance of public matters, we hold it also to be unavoidably corrupt. It is clear that women of the class we speak of, attaching an implied blame to the exercise of the reasoning faculty, are necessarily the reservoir of unexamined opinions and established prejudices,-that those opinions and prejudices colour the education they give to their children, and the advice they bestow upon their husbands. We allow them to be the soothing companion and the tender nurse-(these are admirable merits -these are all their own)-but, in an hour of wavering between principle and interest, on which side would their interest lie ?-would they inculcate the shame of a pension, or the glory of a sacrifice to the public interest? On the contrary, how often has the worldly tenderness of the mother been the secret cause of the tarnished character and venal vote of the husband; or, to come to a pettier source of emotion, how often has a wound, or an artificial pampering, to some feminine vanity, led to the renunciation of one party advocating honest measures, or to the adherence to another subsisting upon courtly intrigues! In more limited circles, how vast that influence in forming the national character, which you would deny because it is secret! -how evident a proof of the influence of those whose minds you will not enlarge, in that living which exceeds means,-so pre-eminently Englishso wretched in its consequences-so paltry in its object! Who shall say that the whole comfortless, senseless, heartless system of ostentation which pervades society has no cause-not in women, if you like-but in the education we give them?

We are far from wishing that women, of what rank soever, should intermeddle with party politics, or covet the feverish notoriety of state intrigues, any more than we wish they should possess the universal genius ascribed to Lady Anne Clifford by Dr. Donne, and be able to argue on all subjects "from predestination to slea silk." We are far from desiring them to neglect one domestic duty, or one household tie; but we say-for women as for men-there is no sound or true morality, where there is no knowledge of -no devotion to-public virtue. In the education women receive, we would enlarge their ideas to the comprehension of political integrity; and in the variety of events with which life tries the honesty of men, we would leave to those principles we have inculcated-unpolluted as they would be by the close contagion of party-undisturbed by the heat and riot of actionthat calm influence, which would then scarcely fail to be as felicitous and just as we deem it now not unoften unhappy and dishonouring. But of all the inducements to female artifice and ambition, our peculiar custom of selling our daughters to the best advantage is the most universal. We are a match-making nation. The system in France, and formerly existent in this country, of betrothing children, had at least with us one good effect among many bad. If unfriendly to chastity in France, it does not appear to have produced so pernicious an effect in England; but while it did not impair the endearments of domestic life, it rendered women less profession

ally hollow and designing at that period of life when love ceases to encourage deceit; it did not absorb their acutest faculties in a game in which there is no less hypocrisy requisite than in the amours of a Dorimont, or a Belinda -but without the excuse of the affections. While this custom increases the insincerity of our social life, it is obvious that it must react also on its dulness; for wealth and rank being the objects sought, are the objects courted; and thus, another reason is given for crowding our circles with important stolidity, and weeding them of persons poor enough to be agreeable and because agreeable-dangerous and unwelcome.

Would we wish, then, the influence of women to be less? We will evade the insidious question.-We wish it to be differently directed. By contracting their minds, we weaken ourselves; by cramping their morality, we ruin our own; as we ennoble their motives, society will rise to a loftier tone-and even Fashion herself may be made to reward glory. as well as frivolity. Nay, we shall not even be astonished if it ultimately encourages, with some portion of celebrity and enthusiasm, the man who has refused a bribe, or conferred some great benefit on his country, as well as the idol of Crockford's or the heir to a dukedom.

It

It is somewhat remarkable, that that power of ridicule so generally cultivated as a science in France has scarcely exercised over the tone of feeling in that country so repressing an influence as it has among ourselves. never destroyed in the French the love of theatrical effect; and even in the prevalence of those heartless manners formed under the old régime, it never deterred them from avowing romantic feeling, if uttered in courtly language. Nay, it was never quite out of fashion to affect a gallant sentiment or a generous emotion; and the lofty verse of Corneille was echoed with enthusiasm by the courtiers of a Bourbon, and the friends of a Pompadour. But here, a certain measured and cold demeanour has been too often coupled with the disposition to sneer not only at expressions that are exaggerated, but at sentiments that are noble. Profligacy in action surprises, shocks, less than the profession of exalted motives, uttered in conversation, when, as a witty orator observed, "the reporters are shut out, and there is no occasion to humbug.'' We confess that we think it a bad sign when lofty notions are readily condemned as bombast, and when a nation not much addicted to levity, or even liveliness, is, above all others, inclined to ridicule the bias to magnify and exalt. A shoeblack of twelve years old, plying his trade by the Champs Elysées, was struck by a shoeblack four years younger. He was about to return the blow-an old fruitwoman arrested his arm, exclaiming-"Have you then no greatness of soul?" Nothing could be more bombastic than the reproof. Granted. But who shall say how far such bombast influenced the magnanimity of the labouring classes in that late event, which was no less a revolution in France, than the triumph of the human species? Exaggeration of sentiment can rarely, as a national trait, be dangerous. With men of sense it unavoidably settles into greatness of mind; but moral debasement,- -a sneer for what is high,-a disbelief of what is good, is the very worst symptom a people can display.

The influence which it is the natural province of the Drama to exert towards the exalting the standard of sentiment and opinion is not, at this time, it will readily be allowed, very efficacious in counterbalancing the worldly and vulgar tendency to degrade. Tragedy sleeps side by side with the Epic; and the loftier shapes of Comedy have dwindled into Farce, that most dwarfish imp of all the varieties of dramatic humour. The stage seems

even to have relinquished the most common, though not the least moral, of its prerogatives, viz. to hold the mirror to existing customs, and to correct folly by exhibiting it, We question, indeed, whether that power has ever been largely exercised-whether the drama has ever visibly and truly bodied forth the image of the times-since the plastic and unappreciated genius of Jonson adapted his various knowledge of the past to a portraiture of his own period, even too individual and exact. The Restoration--so pernicious for the most part to what was most excellent in political truths-was little more favourable to whatsoever was noble in the provinces of literary fiction. The stage was lowered to clumsy and graceless imitations from the French, and reflected the grossness and vice of the court-not the manners or morals of that people over whom the contagion of the court was far from extensive. Seeking its food from a form of society, artificial alike in its vices and its customs, the Comedy of that day, despite its lavish and redundant wit, rarely touched upon a single chord dedicated to simplicity or nature. And to believe that the literary Aretins-the dramatizing Don Raphaels of the Restoration-represented or influenced their age, were to believe that they found, or made, the countrymen of Vane and Bradshaw, of Falkland and of Derby, a community of sharpers rioting in a metropolis of brothels. The remarkable contrast that the delicate and somewhat emasculate refinement of the celebrated Periodicals in the reign of Anne present to the indecency even then characteristic of the stage, and the universal and instantaneous impression they produced-so far deeper than that created by any of the licentious comedies of the day-will be quite sufficient to convince those who remember that the brilliancy and rapidity of literary success are proportioned to the exactness with which the literary effort accords with some popular train of feeling deeply felt, but not hitherto commonly expressed, that the stage did not, at that period, represent the manners of the contemporaries of Addison much more faithfully than, in the preceding times, it had reflected the tone of feeling common to the contemporaries of Russell and Sidney. Coming to a period nearer the present, it can scarcely be asserted that even the exquisite humour of Goldsmith, or still less the artificial and exuberant wit of Sheridan, were exercised in giving a very peculiar and marked representation of their times; whatever they might effect in exhibiting certain aspects of society, as common in one nation of Europe as another. Since the masterpieces of their genius, the attempt to show "the form and pressure of the age" has not been made with any tolerable success. And should any novelty (not arising from the claims of the actor) now attract to the theatre-we must thank Germany for a superstition-France for a farce-Siam for an elephant-or England for a scene. The influence attributed of old to the stage has passed into new directions: Novels represent manners, and Periodicals opinions. The higher, the more abstruse, the more extended branches of morals, are but slightly and feebly cultivated. Thus, little of general influence is left to that part of literature which teaches-save what may be exercised by publications adapted to the immediate necessity, prejudice, or caprice of the times, and by cheap works addressed to the people,-elementary, if intended for their understanding-declamatory, if for their passions.

It would be a matter of speculation deserving a larger notice than we can afford it here, to inquire how far our national literature is influenced by the place which our literary men hold in society. That men of letters do not enjoy in England their legitimate and proper rank is a common and trite

complaint. There is, doubtless, something equivocal in their station. An English author of but moderate eminence at home, is often astonished at the respect paid to him abroad. Political power-the chief object of desire with us leaves to that direction of intellect which does not command it but a moderate and lukewarm homage. author with a momentary eclat; but the "lion" loses his novelty, and the Fashion may indeed invest the new author ceases to be courted. We recollect to have heard one of the most brilliant and successful writers of the day exclaim, that he would rather, for the gratification of social vanity, be a dull, but officious, member of Parliament, than enjoy his own high and popular reputation as an author. The vanity of authors is not, then, confined to their profession, which does not bring them a reward sufficiently palpable and present. Led, like the rest of their countrymen, by the rage of fashion, they long for the reputation of being admitted to brilliant society, rather than the consideration accorded to them in literary circles. One effect, at least, not favourable to the higher and purer branches of composition, is produced by this uneasiness and yearning. Straining for the effect, the glitter, or the novelty that will render them" the fashion," they give to literature a feverish and exaggerated cast. They grasp at the humour, sometimes the frivolity, of the moment, and endeavour to hurry the serene and dignified glories of literature into a succession of "lucky hits." Two other effects noticeable, we think, among Englishmen of letters, may be derived from the same cause. First, the want of that social brilliancy which is generally the characteristic of a Frenchman eminent in literature. When one of our most popular moralists observed, "that he never knew a man of sense a general favourite," he uttered a sentiment peculiarly adapted to charm the English. In France every man of sense would have aspired to be a general favourite, and every man of literary distinction might have won easily enough to that ambition. But here intellect alone does not produce fashion, and the author, failing to attain it, affects the privilege of railing, and the right to be disappointed. This dissatisfaction at the place destined to the nature of his exertions -this consciousness of enjoying neither that station of honour, nor that method of being honoured, which he has been taught to covet -is almost necessarily destructive to the self-confidence and self-complacency, without which no man makes a great proficiency in the graces of society, or the courageous profession of a wit. The second effect, produced by the desire to shine in other circles than their own, is, we think, visible in the scattered and desultory manner with which our literary men encounter each other; they do not herd closely together. There is not among them that intimate knot and union which was, and is, characteristic of the authors and beaux esprits of Paris, and produces so remarkable an influence on their works,-giving to their philosophy the graces of animated conversation, and colouring their style with that air of life, and fulness of worldly knowledges which, whatever be the changes and caprices of their. literature, invariably remain, sometimes the staple, and almost always the predominant characteristic. When Helvetius produced that celebrated work, so rich in anecdote, illustration, and isolated brilliancies of remark, he was accused of merely collecting, and forming into a whole, the opinions current in the circles with which he mixed every day. It would be somewhat difficult for an English philosopher to subject himself, with any semblance of justice, to a similar accusation.

It would be a little unjust to quit our subject without saying any thing