perience her means. She makes vastly less allowance than has been usually made for those " amiable weaknesses," "sudden impulses,' "uncontrollable emotions," which cut so great a figure in the works of her predecessors. Her heroes and heroines are far more thinking, cautious, philosophizing persons than ever before were produced in that character. She is, in fact, if we may be allowed to coin a word, an anti-sentimental novelist. Her books, so far from lending any countenance to vice, even in its most refined and agreeable form, afford some of the best lessons of practical morality with which we are acquainted. They teach, not merely by dry, general maxims on the one hand, or by splendid examples on the other, but by reasons put into the mouths of the actors themselves, what is the right mode of conduct in circumstances of difficulty or temptation. She is constantly endeavouring to point out, by the discussion of cases judiciously selected, or ingeniously invented, what is the road by which virtue conducts us to happiness. There is hardly any good quality to which Miss Edgeworth has not contributed her powerful recommendation; but the ultimate rewards of steadiness, independence, and honest persevering exertion, are those she is fondest of setting before our eyes, and we think her choice is sanctioned by the value of the doctrines which she inculcates. She has, doubtless, observed that this mode of instruction is not adapted to those cases in which to deviate from virtue is palpably a crime. It is to the decalogue, and to the terrors of the law, that we are to look for the prevention of these graver and more striking offences. But men become fickle and indolent, and rely upon others to do that which they ought to do for themselves, before they have remarked the beginning of the evil, without foreseeing its consequences, and without being able to apply a remedy. It is to guard against these bad habits of mind-the causes of so much failure, disgrace, and misery, that Miss Edgeworth has principally directed her attention, and there is scarcely a page that does not contain some exhortation-direct or indirect--by precept or example to control our passions and to exert our faculties. There are hardly any works of the kind that young persons can read with so much benefit. To their minds she constantly presents, in various shapes, and with a thousand illustrations, this great and salutary maxim--that nothing is to be learnt, and very little to be gained without labour-severe and continued labour. But she does not forget, in order to reconcile them to this somewhat unpalatable doctrine, to show with equal care and truth that labour becomes vastly less irksome by habitthat judiciously directed it seldom fails of its object--that laziness, even to those whose rank and fortune screen them from its most dreadful consequences-poverty and contempt-is in itself wearisome and painful-that the pauses and recreations of successful

diligence comprise within them more cheerfulness and real gratification than are spread over the whole surface of a merely pleasurable life. With this view her principal characters are represented as persons of good, but not of extraordinary faculties: they do nothing suddenly and "per saltum," and their success and attainments are no more than what half the world may hope to equal by following the same means. She deals in exam ples, not in wonders; hers are models of imitable excellence, and she rarely abuses the license of fiction to exhibit those miraculous combinations of virtue and talents, which, though they delight us for a moment with the image of perfection, serve to perplex and discourage, not to guide, the ordinary race of mortals.

Our readers, we presume, are aware, and if they are not, they will be very far from doing justice to Miss Edgeworth's merits, that so far as effect is concerned, this uniform systematic preference of what is useful to what is splendid, is a prodigious disadvantage. It is upon dazzling characters, in which virtue bordering in its excess upon the contiguous fault, more resembles a generous instinct, than a quality cultivated and strengthened by reason, that the writers of novels have justly relied for securing the public attention. Discretion and a logical head they thought by no means fit for the heroes and heroines of romance. And, undoubtedly, if effect were the only object, they did much better with rash courage, inconsiderate generosity, hasty confidence, and love ardent and irresistible at first sight, qualities infinitely more attractive to the bulk of mankind than those with which Miss Edgeworth has ventured to invest the principal persons of her drama. If, then, in spite of sacrifices to which hardly any one else has submitted, she has contrived to render her works highly entertaining and popular, she surely deserves double praise; not merely for having surmounted a difficulty, which, when that difficulty has been made only for the purpose of being surmounted, is a merit of a very inferior order, but because the purpose for which she voluntarily encountered it was highly useful and important.

To the accomplishment of this task she has brought very considerable talents and acquirements, various reading, knowledge, which, though she is too judicious to display it with ostentation, seems to be both extensive and accurate; a nice observation of manners and character, both in individuals and in society; a clear, easy, unencumbered style, and a keen sense of the ridiculous. Her two strong points are good sense and humour, and it is by the buoyant power of her humour that she has been able to diffuse among the public so large a portion of her good sense. Nothing can be more chaste and correct, and at the same time more ludicrous, than the representation of themselves, which her characters VOL. IV. New Series.

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are made to give in their own conversation. That condition so indispensable to the true comic, their utter unconsciousness of the effect they are producing, is strictly observed. The hand of the author is never perceived, (as it almost constantly is in our modern comedies, to the entire disgust of all persons of tolerable taste,) but they are led in the most natural manner imaginable, and without saying any thing that they might not be supposed to say, to cover themselves with ridicule. The absolute want of colouring and exaggeration only serves to improve the picture, and strengthens the impression almost up to that of the same circumstances in real life. We have always thought these dramatic parts of Miss Edgeworth's books, which, indeed, take up a considerable share of them, very much the best; and it is to this remarkable talent for humour, that she is indebted for the popularity she enjoys, in spite, not only of the disadvantages to which (as we have already observed) she has spontaneously submitted, but also of some defects which we shall now, though unwillingly, proceed to notice.

In the first, and one of the most material branches of novelwriting, that of framing a story, she is remarkably deficient. It must at the same time be owned, that this art, when carried to its highest pitch, is a great, and therefore uncommon specimen of genius and skill. Indeed, if we were to mention that which, in a choice of excellences, we most admire in Fielding's great work, it would, perhaps, be that wonderful variety of incidents arising without improbability, and introduced without confusion, and tending, through a story constantly rising in interest, to an unforeseen catastrophe. Any comparison with so happy an effort of so great a master, would necessarily be unfair; but the truth is, that in this respect Miss Edgeworth is inferior, not only to those that are generally her superiors, but to many among those that are vastly below her in every thing else. She has little fertility in contriving, and still less dexterity in combining events. It is in characters that she shines; when she attempts to give interest to events, it is almost always at the expense of nature and probability. Her narrative is hammered out "invitâ Minervâ," and she never would have attempted it at all, except as a convenient vehicle for sketches of life and manners.

On her morality we have bestowed its due praise. It is of that sort which is most calculated to do real practical good; but the desire of instructing is too little disguised. The reader sees too plainly that he is under discipline. There is too much downright lecturing. The serious parts have a prim didactic air. The lesser rules of conduct are deduced truly enough, but with too much parade of accuracy and strictness, from general principles. We know how necessary the square and the rule are to the ar

chitect, but we do not like to see the chalk-marks upon the building. Morality ought not to smell of the lamp. It has been Miss Edgeworth's fancy to give all her virtuous characters a tincture of science, and to make them fond of chymistry and mechanics. We have no sort of objection to see them endowed with this useful knowledge, provided it does not prevent them from having rather more warmth, and rather more grace. To say the truth, we are inclined to think that in avoiding the common error of novelwriters who make morality depend too much upon feeling, and too little upon the understanding, she has not completely escaped the opposite fault, but has ascribed too large a share of it to the head, and too little to the heart.

Carmen Triumphale, for the commencement of the year 1814. By Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laureat. 4to. pp. 32.

[In this his first laureat ode, though there are several stanzas of great excellence, Mr. Southey does not appear to have answered the public expectations. The Edinburgh Reviewers have taken much mischievous pleasure in placing it in a very ridiculous point of view. They exhaust upon this subject all those well-known arts of sarcas tic criticism which they have hitherto used with such effect upon Montgomery and Lord Byron, and sum up their opinion with the following contemptuous epitome of the ode.]

THE subject is the grand one of the approaching liberation of Europe from the tremendous thraldrom of France; and noble and inspiring as it is, it is treated by the laureat bard with such inconceivable tameness and sterility, that we have not been able to discover one striking thought, or glowing phrase-one trait of feeling, or spark of fancy-nay, not even one bold image, or lofty expression, in the whole compass of his performance. To compensate for the want of all these, he shouts vehemently, as is his manner, seven several times," Glory to God! Deliverance to mankind!”—and then proceeds to tell the old story of the war in the Peninsula-not merely for the last year, which is all that comes fairly within the province of a new-year poet-but for the five last campaigns; and then, having spent fifteen strophes in praising "the Wellesley," as he affectedly calls Lord Wellington, and abusing the French in the dullest style, and meanest diction of a newspaper, he proceeds to say a word or two on the exploits of the northern princes, and especially of the King of Prussia, whom he ingeniously designates by the name of "the Brandenberg." He then dutifully congratulates Hanover on the restoration of its old

illustrious line-speaks a word of comfort to the injured Hollanders-and ends with an anticipation of restoration and peace.

[In all this there appears to us not only a good deal of party bitterness, but also a something of personal malice. It is unworthy of both parties. Why, says Dugald Stewart, do not men of superior talents learn, for the honour of the arts which they love, to conceal their ignoble enmities from the malignity of those whom mortified pride and conscious incapacity have leagued together as the covenanted foes of worth and genius. From the Eclectic Review, a very unequal work, but occasionally displaying much ability, we have extracted the following article, which, while it is marked by good sense and taste, breathes a spirit of candour not to be found in the Edinburgh criticism.]

IF it be necessary, for the glory of the British court, to have a poet laureat, we presume it is equally so that he should be a man of genius, and that the emoluments of the office should be worthy of the munificence of the sovereign. We recollect no living bard who has more ability to confer honour on the bays, or less occasion to seek honour from princes, than Mr. Southey. But, we think some objections lie against the place itself, considered in its present degraded state, as being beneath the dignity of the court to offer to a man of transcendent intellect--not to say whether it be not beneath the dignity of such a man to accept it. From the manner in which its duties have hitherto been performed, the office can confer on him who holds it but a small portion of credit, inferior even to its scanty emolument. To furnish laudatory odes, at certain seasons, appears to be a servile duty; yet surely the annals of this country, in an age so fruitful of great events as the present, might, twice a-year, supply themes on which the noblest talents might be happily employed in the small compass of an ode. A hundred pounds and a butt of sack, were, we confess, monstrous overpayment for such annual strains of stupifying praise as Cibber, Whitehead, and Pye, were wont to pour into the ear of royalty, being after the rate of twenty shillings a line for pigmy lyrics. Brevity, indeed, was their principal merit a merit of no ordinary size in dull poetry, which, like a humming top, spins the longest when it sleeps; for when the quality of poetry is indifferent, the quantity cannot be too small. Mr. Southey's booksellers might not perhaps venture to purchase the copyright of his best verses at the royal price; yet, considered as being the bounty of a great monarch, which ought to reflect lustre on himself, and for such services as might be rendered by a poet of high order, the remuneration is mean. In the reign of James I. a hundred pounds a year were adequate to the support of one of his majesty's servants in ease and affluence, according to the style of those days; and a butt of sack, even in the present day, is quite as much wine as any poet, accustomed to purer

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