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likely to interest the British reader. Although his eulogy con cerning its rich and various excellences of style, descrip ion, and impartiality,' is glaringly overcharged, we agree with him that the author's views of manners in Pennsylvania before the memorable æra of 1776, and the incidental sketches of character which are mixed with his narrative, are not devoid of interest and local information: but, in reading the anecdotes of his early career in life, we must confess our disappointment at the inanity of many of them: though, when the war broke out, and he joined his countrymen under the standard of independence, his character acquired a degree of consistency and steadiness which might not have been anticipated by his juvenile exploits and connections. Having been captured at the taking of Fort Washington in the early part of the war, sent to New York, and thence to Long Island, where he remained several months, and not having engaged in active service after the exchange of prisoners, his personal narrative as to warlike operations is of a very confined nature. The object of his idolatry is General Washington, whose course of conduct he knew; and few among mortals perhaps was ever more deserving of the idolatry, if we may use so strong a word, of his countrymen than General Washington: but this writer must volunteer his crude opinions on the political career of Milton and Fox, about whom, we suspect, he knows very little. John Milton is calumniated as the parasite of Oliver Cromwell; Charles Fox comes off but little better; and even Franklin is evidently no favorite. The reader will place what confidence he pleases in the following remarks: but we deem them intitled to none, because they contradict the whole tenor of Dr. Franklin's life, which was distinguished for activity, as his political conduct was marked by straight-forwardness and plain-dealing. Wedderburn insulted him brutally; and Franklin bore the insolence with almost more than Christian meekness. They are both deposited in "the house appointed for all the living," and one of them is nearly consigned to oblivion; while the other, like his fellow-labourer in the same cause, (Washington,) will exist in the grateful memory of Americans till the very being called man is swept from the face of their vast continent.

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Shortly after the declaration of independence by Congress, a constitution had been formed for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This was understood to have been principally the work of Mr. George Bryan, in conjunction with a Mr. Canon, a schoolmaster; and it was severely reprobated by those who thought checks and balances necessary to a legitimate distribution of the powers of government. Dr. Franklin was also implicated in the production; and either his participation in it, or approbation of it, was roundly asserted by its fautors. The Doctor, perhaps a sceptic in relation to forms of government, and ever cautious of committing himself, had thrown out an equivoque about a waggon with horses drawing in opposite directions; as, upon the adoption of the federal constitution, he told a pleasant story of a self-complacent French lady who always found herself in the right. But whe

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ther he meant by his rustic allusion to show his approbation of checks or otherwise, is an enigma that has never been solved, nor is it worth the trouble of solution. The constitutionalists, however, claimed him; and, whether he thought with them or not, he was too prudent to disoblige them. It is rather probable the philosopher was of opinion that the ferment of the revolution should be left to work itself off; that the effect could not be produced by the exhibition of paper-sedatives; and that, therefore, the form of a constitution was scarcely worth quarrelling about. His observations embraced moral, no less than natural, subjects: and, as he had discovered that oil would smooth the ruffled surface of the sea, so had he found it most effectual in assuaging the troubled minds of his fellow-men. Hence, his demeanour to both parties was so truly oily and accommodating, that it always remained doubtful to which he really belonged; and while president of the executive council, to which office he had been elected on his return from France, he sedulously avoided voting on questions which partook of the spirit of party. No man had scanned the world more critically than the Doctor; few have profited more by a knowledge of it, or managed it more to their own advantage. Old, and without an object to intrigue for, he seemed wholly devoted to his ease and amusement; and I have been told by a gentleman who acted with him as vice-president, that he not only devolved upon him the whole business of the department, but even declined the trouble of thinking. As to the constitution, whose provisions it was sometimes necessary to consider, it did not appear to him that he had ever read it; or, if he had, that he deemed it worthy of remembering. In short, as to the political concerns of the state, he was apathy itself; and, like King Lear, it was obviously his "fast intent to shake all cares and business from his age." In the latter part of this volume, the author degenerates into a mere political party-writer; and his account of the ephemeral squabbles in Congress, a dozen years ago, have very little to attract attention on this side of the Atlantic.

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Art. 29. Stories after Nature. 12mo. 6s. Boards. Allman.

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1822.

A slight error in the title of this volume has been committed, which might with much greater justice have been called Stories out of Nature; for never, in antient or in modern time, no, never yet in tale or history," was there such "nature" as is represented in this very unaccountable production. We say unaccountable; and in fact we are almost alike unable to understand the object of it or comprehend the style in which it is written; which is certainly one of the strangest compounds of affectation, folly, and cleverness, that it has been our fortune to encounter for some time. It might be supposed from the title, that the work was intended to be put into the hands of young persons: but it betrays so total a want of any thing like principle, and contains so many very objectionable passages, that it seems impossible that even the author could have had that purpose in view. The stories are chiefly love-tales, not of the most refined character; as for instance,

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instance, the one called Claudius and Gertrude; or (by a misnomer similar to that of the title-page) Love and Delicacy;' in which the lady, who is in love with Claudius, believing herself to be dying, indites an epistle to him, confessing her passion. Again, in the tale of Edmund and Edward, or the two Friends," the latter becomes attached to a lady notoriously abandoned and beautiful;' and his friend, seeing the nobleness of his unfortunate passion, and that he was not alive to her dishonour, sends privily for money, lays it in his chamber, and helps him to this woman's company, as much as he is able; trusting that Heaven will by some means help his dear friend!' Nor can we pass over such indiscreet rhodomontade as the following; intended, as far as we comprehend the meaning of it, to be a comparison between the principles of government in antient and in modern times: at all events, it is a precious specimen of the author's style:

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Vapid, feverish, hectic policy, strikes inward. "The keen knife sees not the wound it makes." There all blows were outward. Nature had its full sway. The scales of fate were ever in motion; sometimes humanity came down, tyranny sometimes, and power: now they pause. Passion and nature both kick the beam, and crafty power with its leaden hand chokes the sweet breath of liberty; while pursy policy looks on and laughs, to see it makes us sick, and we could almost wish that "chaos were come again." (P. 121.)

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Notwithstanding the disguise of folly and affectation with which these tales are enveloped, and the great want of judgment which pervade them, they still display considerable power: the construction of the fable is often clever; the author possesses a singular faculty of imitating the language of our earlier writers; and some of them exhibit a degree of pathos which commands the interest of the reader. Perhaps the best are The Plague,' and The Maid of Provence.'

Art. 30. The History of George Desmond; founded on Facts which occurred in the East Indies, and now published as a useful Caution to Young Men going out to that Country. Crown 8vo. 7s. Boards. Scatcherd and Co. 1821.

How far this narrative adheres to the facts on which it is said to be founded, we have no means of knowing: but it is evidently written by a person who is acquainted with the Oriental scenery and manners which it exhibits; and the general style of it is more characteristic of an actual history than of a prepared fiction. Its utility, as a caution to young men' going out to India, if they chuse to profit by it, arises from its picture of the evils resulting from compliance with the expensive habits, and dissolute manners, which characterize too many votaries of display and of voluptuousness in the East; and of which the miserable consequences are depicted with feeling by the suffering and repentant writer. Besides this practical moral effect, however, the book seems to have been composed with the view of inculcating the author's religious opinions; the particular cast and bias of which will be adequately shewn by extracting a few paragraphs.

I respect too much the doctrines of that holy religion, on which all my hopes of future happiness depend, to seem even for an instant to suppose that there has ever existed a single exception to the general depravity of human nature, but in the man Jesus Christ. (P. 224.)

And now the Almighty began to deal effectually with me, and evidently to discover that it was his sovereign pleasure to snatch me, the chief of sinners, as a brand from the burning.' (P. 275.)

Men are by nature dead in sin, unacquainted with all real good, and lifted up with a high conceit of their own virtues and talents. But when the Lord begins to perform his purposes of mercy towards a sinner, he brings down his high thoughts and his proud looks, convincing him of his lost and ruined state, and leading him to that adorable Saviour who, by his death upon the Cross, purchased a full and free pardon for all those who come unto God by him.' (P. 278.)

The writer is not contented, however, with his ample belief in the doctrines of our religion, as they relate to the being and attributes of the Creator and the efficacious offices of the Mediator, but seems more than half inclined to admit the existence of another and an evil supernatural power, under the denomination of witchery. For example: (p. 232.)

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It is a question with many whether such a thing as witchcraft still actually exists on earth. I have myself little doubt but that, if it ever existed, (a matter which several passages of Scripture render highly credible,) it is still to be found among idolatrous nations.'

Let us add, as some little exculpation of the writer's taste at least, that he does not, according to the old fashion, discern his witches in the shape of horrid old women riding on a broom-stick, but asserts their existence in the form of the seductive young females of the native Oriental tribes.

Art. 31. Some Passages in the Life of Mr. Adam Blair, Minister of the Gospel at Cross-Meikle. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d. Boards. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London.. 1822.

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From the title of this volume, we were led to expect an edifying account of the pastoral labours of some precious member of the Scotish presbytery, intermixed with sundry disputations on the most knotty points of polemical divinity. We were, however, surprised by discovering these Passages' to be a very interesting fictitious narrative, proceeding from that vast forge of novels which has within the few last years been established in the Scotish capital. The life of Adam Blair contains the history of a young Scotch minister, who possessed every virtue but that of doubting his own steadfastness; and who fell from virtue at the moment when he was engaged in a most Christian-like and charitable action. It would be useless to attempt any outline of the story, the interest of which does not consist in any variety of incident, but in the truth of feeling and character which it exhibits. In some instances, undoubtedly, we detect an exaggeration of senti

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ment: but, on the whole, the volume displays a very intimate acquaintance with the human heart. The author, whoever he be, (and we venture to assert that this is no lady-writer,) is one who, if he has not looked "quite through the ways of men," seems to have lost no opportunity of scrutinising with an accurate eye the secrets of our bosoms. The characters of the hero, and of old John Maxwell his friend and one of the elders of his people, are finely drawn portraits: but with Mrs. Campbell we were not so well pleased, though there may perhaps be as much nature in the painting.

In one instance, we have observed a plagiarism, of which the author himself was probably unconscious; viz. the very striking similarity between the death-scene which is described at the commencement of the present volume, and that which Mr. Edgeworth has recorded in his memoirs, at the time of losing his wife Honora, A few inaccuracies of language also occur in these Passages,' which seem to be the consequence of hasty publication;- such, for instance, as in page 38., where we find, He could not bear neither to think,' for nor could he bear to think.

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Art. 32. An Appeal to the Public in Defence of the Spitalfields Act; with Remarks on the Causes of the Miseries and Moral Deterioration of the Poor. By William Hale. 8vo. 1s. Holdsworth.

The statute 13 George III. chap. 68. enacts that the prices for labor shall be settled by mutual agreement between the mastermanufacturer and the journeymen-weavers of the silk-trade, and, when settled, shall be ratified by the magistrates; and that the prices so ratified shall be the legal wages, until altered by some new mutual agreement. It is the object of Mr. Hale to shew that this Act has the experience of half a century in favor of its beneficial tendency; and he brings forwards many statements and calculations in detail, to evince that in times of distress the poor of Spitalfields have been relieved, in some degree, by this Act, from the pressure of difficulties which has overwhelmed the poor weavers in districts where the price of labor is left open, and the supply is regulated by the demand. The pamphlet is written with earnestness and ability.

Art. 33. An Enquiry into the Elective Franchise of the Citizens of London, and the general Rights of the Livery. By Henry Schultes, Gent. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Cowie and Co.

Mr. Schultes has here furnished a valuable little treatise on the municipal rights of the city of London, which contains much curious and recondite learning on antient usages and institutions. The principal authorities are quoted at some length in the notes, and the writer expresses himself to be under particular obligations to Mr. Richard Taylor for information respecting the Saxon laws. The antiquarian research condensed into this pamphlet might, in the hands of any professed book-maker, have been beaten out into a volume of ostentatious size and appearance.

Art.

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