the honourable member referred to, is an advocate of banks and connives in their operations-else we should have concluded that he meant his striking picture for bank attorneys. That many of these latter gentlemen have made large sums of money, in the shape of costs-that every village in the state groans under the pressure of their acts, is undeniable; that monstrous monied aristocracies, working ruin to thousands, subverting public confidence and private morals, employ attor neys, and profitably too-is known to every one;-that these mindless, heartless combinations, "these horse leaches of private oppression, and vultures of public robbery," under the name of banks, fling their outrageous arrows throughout the land, and that attorneys are their agents, is true;-but why "mince damnation with a phrase," and throw the burden of bank iniquity upon the shoulders of their attorneys.

Multiplicity of suits-inordinate costs, severest exactions on the part of the plaintiffs, swell the catalogue of wrongs; and deep and loud and awful is the warning voice now heard in this state. The thousands who have been enticed and ruined by banking facilities—and banking deceit, are, and will prove a host against this system. The feelings of the heart a sense of honour and justice-opposition to oppression--are all arrayed against it. Let the bank debtor tell what appeal can be made to the stockholders of a chartered company-what cry of anguish can reach incorporeal ears? Melting as may be the tears of misfortune, do they not freeze as they fall within the chilling influence of such combinations? So enormous have been the costs received by attorneys prosecuting for banks, in the country particularly, that the legislature has been induced to strike off about one-third of the fees formerly allowed: and, thus, fair

men, who with a respectable private practice can hardly earn a living-must suffer for the enormities perpetrated by banks and their agents.

It is time, however, to speak of a subject more particularly the object of this paper. D. T. Blake, Esq. of the NewYork bar, has compiled with considerable labour, the Chancery Practice of this State. The forms and rules of the court are stated in the body of the work-and in such a manner as to refer to the principles of equity jurisdiction, and the decisions of the court-which accompany and elucidate each particular proceeding. A book of this description has been long sought for, and must prove a valuable aid to solicitors and counsellors of the court.

The arrangement is so judicious, that what may have appeared obscure, is made clear-and the many forms and rules of the English court, which do not obtain here, and which only embarrass and fatigue the practitioner, are rejected. It has been often remarked, that among the books of practice, published in England, very few have been written by men of liberal or cultivated minds-Mr. Blake is an exception to these remarks. He unites the rare qualifications of patient inquiry and practical knowledge to good sense, extensive reading, and a well cultivated understanding. From this gentleman we had a right to expect a book, satisfactory and useful on any subject, to which he directed his attention. We have seen a large part of this work in print, although its publication has not yet been announced, and it meets the expectation we had form ed. Mr. Blake may be assured that the profession will appreciate his labour, and extend such encouragement as may induce him to continue his literary exertions. M.

Lellers from the hon. Horace Walpole, to George Montagu, Esq. from 1736 to 1770. A NEW collection of the correspondence

of a person so celebrated as Horace Walpole, cannot fail to be a great treat to the public. These letters are addressed to the son of general Montagu, and nephew of the second earl of Halifax, who was the representative of Northampton, private secretary to lord North, when chancellor of the exchequer, and the holder of several other official situations. He seems also to have

been a man of refined mind, and elegant literary acquirements; an eminent and suitable friend for lord Orford.

The style, as might be anticipated, is easy and playful, and the epistles full of piquant anecdotes. Ex. gr.

"I remember a very admired sentence in one of my lord Chesterfield's speeches, when he was haranguing for this war; (anno 1745.) With a most rhetorical transition, he turned to the tapestry in the House of Lords, and said with a sigh, he feared there were no historical looms at work now!" p. 14.

face to the prisoners till they are condemned.'

"If you have a mind for a true foreign idea, one of the foreign ministers said at the trial to another, Vraiment cela est auguste.' 'Oui,' replied the other, cela est vrai, mais cela n'est pass royale."

"I am assured, that the old countess of Errol made her son, lord Kilmarnock, go into the rebellion on pain of disinheriting him. I don't know whether I told you that the man at the Tennis Court protests he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Story's Gate; and, says he, he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner. He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters, she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings. Can one help pitying such distress? I am vastly softened too about Balmerino's relapse, for his pardon was only granted him to engage his brother's vote at the election of Scotch Peers

August 16. I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look. Old Lovat arrived last night. I saw Murray, lord Derwentwater, lord Traquair, lord Cromartie and his son, and the lord provost, at their respective win dows. The other two wretched lords are in dismal towers; and they have stopped up one of old Balmerino's windows, because he talked to the populace; and now he has only one that looks directly upon all the scaffolding. They brought in the deathwarrant at his dinner. His wife fainted. He said, 'Lieutenant, with your damned warrant you have spoiled my lady's stomach.' Lord Kilmarnock who has hitherto kept up his spirits, grows extremely terrified." We resume our application to this very amusing work, the vivacity and unbounded freedom of which, adds a charm to what would, without these graces, be highly interesting in many literary points of view, as well as in that of a descriptive and characteristic sketch of the higher classes of society and fashionable manners, in the era to which it belongs Walpole, almost as selfish as Fontenelle, reminds us constantly of that author. He is playful, satirical, humorous; his knowledge of life considerable, his perceptions acute, and his pursuits calculated always to entertain, and often to convey information on subjects of arts, literature, and science. His correspondence forms so complete a melange of politics, an ecdote, scandal, intelligence, wit, and criticism, that we could not, if we would, digest it into any thing like a systematic analy sis. Perhaps it will be fully as agreeable to follow the rambling course of the letters. The early days of Methodism are thus alluded to, after mentioning that the duke of Cumberland had arrived (1748.)

"Gumley, who you know has grown methodist, came to tell him, that as he was on duty, a tree in Hyde-park, near the powder magazine, had been set on fire; the duke replied, he hoped it was not by the new light. This nonsensical new light is extremely in fashion, and I shall not be surprised if we see a revival of all the folly and cant of the last age. Whitfield preaches continually at my lady Huntingdon's at Chelsea: my lord Chesterfield, my lord Bath, my lady Townshend, my lady Thanet, and others, have been to hear him. What will you lay that next winter he is not run after instead of Garrick ?"

Garrick is no favourite with our author, and he rarely misses an opportunity of cutting at him. He is not astonished that he and Colman write badly together, since they write so ill separately. He allows him to be a good actor, but reviles the stuff he brings upon the stage, and the alterations he makes in pieces presented to him. The following specimen from Paris, Oct. 16, 1769, shows that there is no novelty in our present practices or severity of criticism.

"There is a total extinction of all taste: our authors are vulgar, gross, illiberal: the theatre swarms with wretched translations and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but improving abuse. I have blushed, at Paris, when the papers came over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable nonsense about Shakespeare. As the mau's writings will be preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable actor? Cibber wrote as bad odes; but then Cibber wrote the Careless Husband, and his own life, which both deserve immortality. Garrick's Prologues and Epilogues are as bad as his Pindarics and Pantomimes."

The opinions given of several distinguished writers of the day, are as biting as those touching plays and players: we select a few, without advocating their justice.

"Rigby and Peter Bathurst, t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding: who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr. Lyttleton, added that of Middlesex justice. He sent them word he was at supper; that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a wand three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred, nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had so often seen him come to beg ruinen of sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs, on which he civilized.

"Millar, the bookseller, has done very generously by him: finding Tom Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him an

spirit in the world, against that brute, who hated every body that he hoped would get him a mitre, and did not.-His own journal, sent to Stella, during the last four years of the queen, is a fund of entertainment. You will see his insolence in full colours, and at the same time how daily vain he was of being noticed by the ministers he affected to treat arrogantly. He goes to the rehearsal of Cato, and says, the drab that acted Cato's daughter could not say her part. This was only Mrs. Oldfield. I was saying before George Selwyn, that this journal put me in mind of the present time, there was the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system; but I added, 'There is nothing new under the sun'-No,' said Selwyn, nor under the grandson." [George II. and III.]

“I am got into puns, and will tell you an excellent one of the king of France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn's. You must have heard of count Lauragais, and his horse-race, and his quacking his horse till he killed it. At his return, the king asked him what he had been doing in England? Sire, j'ai appris à penser 'des chevaux ?' replied the king."

Reserving a curious anecdote of Hogarth, and some other interesting extracts, for hereafter, we may be excused, if, so near the close of such limits as we can conveniently allot to one subject, however various, we follow the example of our author, and say, having got into puns, we will conclude with a few of the witticisms which we find scattered through these pages.

"Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to tell you two bon mots of Quin, to that turn-coat hypocrite infidel, bishop W-b-n. That saucy priest was haranguing at Bath on behalf of prerogative: Quin said, pray, my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican; and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the First might be justified-aye! said W-b-n, by what law? Quin replied, By all the laws he had left them. The bishop would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. I would not advise your lordship, said Quin, to make use of that inference, for if I am not much mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles. There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply; but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard."

"Unless the deluge stops, and the fogs disperse, I think we shall all die. A few days ago, on the cannon firing for the king going to the house, somebody asked what it was for? M. de Choiseul replied, apparement, c'est qu'on voit le Soleil."-[A happy compliment to our then youthful king, in 1761.]

"The cry in Ireland has been against lord Hillsborough, supposing him to meditele an union of the two islands; George

Selwyn seeing him set t'other night between my lady Hand my lord B, said, Who can say that my lord Hillsborough is not an enemy to an union!"

A hit of equal force against another lady of gallantry, is recorded of Charles Townshend:

"My lord said he, has quite mistaken the thing; he soars too high at first: people often miscarry by not proceeding by degrees; he went, and at once asked for my lord's garter; if he would have been content to ask for my lady's garter, I don't know but he would have obtained it !"

The anecdote of Hogarth, which we have mentioned, is contained in a letter of the 5th May, 1761.

"The true frantic Estrus (says the writer) resides at present with Mr. Hogarth; I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent-Why now, said he, you think this very vain, but why should not one speak truth? This truth was uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin-tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's-pluck in St. James's market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you.' I sat down, and said, I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this wonderful dialogue by initial letters.

"H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with something in our way. W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would let me have it to correct; we painters must know more of those things than other people. W. Do you think no body understands painting but painters? H. Oh': so far from it, there's Reynolds, who certainly has genius; why, but t'other day he offered a hundred pounds for a picture, that I would not hang in my cellar; and, indeed, to say truth, I have generally found that persons, who have studied painting least, were the best judges of it; but what I particularly wished to say to you was about sir James Thornhill, (you know he married sir James's daughter:) I would not have you say any thing against him; there was a book published some time ago, abusing him, and it gave great offence. He was the first that attempted history in England, and, I assure you, some Germans have said that he was a very great painter. W. My work will go no lower than the year 1700, and I really have not considered whether sir J. Thornhill would come within my plan or not; if he does, I fear you and I shall not agree upon his merits. H. I wish you would let me correct it; besides, I am writing something of the same kind myself; I should be sorry