"The author, whoever he is, has a truly graphicand creative power in the invention and delineation of characters---which he sketches with an ease, and colours with a brilliancy, and scatters about with a profusion, which reminds us of Shakspeare himself: Yet with all this force and felicity in the representation of living agents, he has the eye of a poet for all the striking aspects of nature; and usually contrives, both in his scenery and in the groups with which it is enlivened, to combine the picturesque with the natural, with a grace that has rarely been attained by artists so copious and rapid. His narrative, in this way, is kept constantly full of life, variety, and colour; and is so interspersed with glowing descriptions, and lively allusions, and flying traits of sagacity and pathos, as not only to keep our attention continually awake, but to afford a pleasing exercise to most of our other faculties. The prevailing tone is very gay and pleasant; but the author's most remarkable, and, perhaps, his most delightful talent, is that of representing kindness of heart in union with lightness of spirits and great simplicity of character, and of blending the expression of warm and generous and exalted affections with scenes and persons that are in themselves both lowly and ludicrous. This gift he shares with his illustrious countryman Burns---as he does many of the other qualities we have mentioned with another living poet,---who is only inferior perhaps in that to which we have alluded. It is very honourable indeed, we think, both to the author, and to the readers among whom he is so extremely popular, that the great interest of his pieces is for the most part a moral interest---that the concern we take in his characters is Ïess on account of their adventures than of their amiableness---and that the great charm of his works is derived from the kindness of heart, the capacity of generous emotions, and the lights of native taste which he ascribes, so lavishly, and at the same time with such an air of truth and familiarity, even to the humblest of his favourites. With all his relish for the ridiculous, accordingly, there is no tone of misanthropy, or even of sarcasm in his representations; but, on the contrary, a great indulgence and relenting towards those who are to be the objects of our disapprobation. There is no keen or cold-blooded satire---no bitterness of heart, or fierceness of resentment in any part of his writings. His love of ridicule is little else than a love of mirth; and savours throughout of the joyous temperament in which it appears to have its origin; while the buoyancy of a raised and poetical imagination lifts him continually above the region of mere jollity and good humour, to which a taste, by no means nice or fastidious, seems constantly in danger of sinking him. He is evidently a person of a very sociable and liberal spirit---with great habits of observation---who has ranged pretty extensively through the varieties of human life and character, and mingled with them all, not only with intelligent familiarity, but with a free and natural sympathy for all the diversity of their tastes, pleasures, and pursuits---one who has kept his heart as well as his eyes open to all that has offered itself to engage them; and learned indulgence for

human faults and follies, not only from finding kindred faults in their most intolerant censors, but also for the sake of the virtues by which they were often redeemed, and the sufferings by which they have still oftener been taught. The temper of his writings, in short, is precisely the reverse of those of our Laureates and Lakers, who, being themselves the most whimsical of mortals, make it a conscience to loathe and detest all with whom they happen to disagree, and labour to promote mutual animosity, and all manner of uncharitableness among mankind, by referring every supposed error of taste, or peculiarity of opinion, to some hateful corruption of the heart and understanding.

"With all the indulgence, however, which we so justly ascribe to him, we are far from complaining of the writer before us for being too neutral and undecided on the great subjects which are most apt to engender excessive zeal and intolerance---and we are almost as far from agreeing with him as to most of these subjects. In politics, it is sufficiently manifest, that he is a decided tory---and, we are afraid, something of a latitudinarian both in morals and religion. He is very apt at least to make a mock of all enthusiasm for liberty or faith, and not only gives a decided preference to the social over the austerer virtues; but seldom expresses any warm or hearty admiration except for those graceful and gentleman-like principles which can generally be acted upon with a gay countenance, and do not imply any great effort of self-denial, or any deep sense of the rights of others, or the helplessness and humility of our common nature. Unless we misconstrue very grossly the indications in these volumes, the author thinks no times so happy as those in which an indulgent monarch awards a reasonable portion of liberty to grateful subjects, who do not call in question his right either to give or to withhold it-in which a dignified and decent hierarchy receives the homage of their submissive and uninquiring flocks-and a gallant nobility redeems the venial immoralities of their gayer hours, by brave and honourable conduct towards each other, and spontaneous kindness to vassals in whom they recognise no independent rights, and not many features of a common nature. It is rather remarkable however, that with propensities thus decidedly aristocratical, the ingenious author has succeeded by far the best in the representation of rustic and homely characters;-and not in the ludicrous or contemptuous representation of them; but by making them at once more natural and more interesting than they had ever been made before in any work of fiction; by showing them not as clowns to be laughed at; or wretches to be pitied and despised; but as human creatures, with as many pleasures, and fewer cares than their superiors, with affections not only as strong, but often as delicate as those whose language is smoother, and with a vein of humour, a force of sagacity, and very frequently an elevation of fancy, as high and as natural as can be met with among more cultivated beings. The great merit of all these delineations, is their admirable truth and fidelity, the whole manner and cast of the characters be

ing accurately moulded on their condition; and the finer attributes that are ascribed to them, so blended and harmonised with the native rudeness and simplicity of their life and occupations, that they are made interesting and even noble beings, without the least particle of foppery or exaggeration, and delight and amuse us without trespassing at all on the province of pastoral or romance.

"Next to these, we think, he has found his happiest subjects, or at least displayed his greatest powers, in the delineation of the grand and gloomy aspects of nature, and of the dark and fierce passions of the heart. The natural gayety of his temper does not indeed allow him to dwell long on such themes; but the sketches he occasionally introduces, are executed with admirable force and spirit--and give a strong impression, both of the vigour of his imagination, and the variety of his talent. It is only in the third rank that we would place his pictures of chivalry and chivalrous character; his traits of gallantry, nobleness and honour; and that bewitching assemblage of gay and gentle manners, with generosity, candour and courage, which has long been familiar enough to readers and writers of novels, but has never before been represented with such an air of truth and so much ease and happiness of execution.

"Among his faults and failures, we must give the first place to his descriptions of virtuous young ladies-and his representations of the ordinary business of courtship and conversation in polished life. We admit that those things, as they are commonly conducted, are apt to be a little insipid to a mere critical spectator;-and that while they consequently require more heightening than strange adventures or grotesque persons, they admit less of exaggeration or ambitious ornament: Yet we cannot think it necessary that they should be altogether so lame and mawkish as we generally find them in the hands of this spirited writer,-whose powers really seem to require some stronger stimulus to bring them into action, than can be supplied by the flat realities of a peaceful and ordinary existence. His love of the ludicrous, it must also be observed, often betrays him into forced and vulgar exaggerations, and into the repetition of common and paltry stories; though it is but fair to add, that he does not detain us long with them, and makes amends by the copiousness of his assortment, for the indifferent quality of some of the specimens. It is another consequence of this extreme abundance in which he revels and riots, and of the fertility of the imagination from which it is supplied, that he is at all times a little apt to overdo even those things which he does best. His most striking and highly coloured characters appear rather too often, and go on rather too long. It is astonishing, indeed, with what spirit they are supported, and how fresh and animated they are to the very last; but still there is something too much of them: and they would be more waited for and welcomed, if they were not quite so lavish of their presence. It was reserved for Shakspeare alone, to leave all his characters as new and un

worn as he found them, and to carry Falstaff through the business of three several plays, and leave us as greedy of his sayings as at the moment of his first introduction. It is no light praise to the author before us, that he has sometimes reminded us of this, as well as other inimitable excellences in that most gifted of all in

ventors.

"To complete this hasty and unpremeditated sketch of his general characteristics, we must add, that he is above all things national and Scottish, and never seems to feel the powers of a giant, except when he touches his native soil. His countrymen alone, therefore, can have a full sense of his merits, or a perfect relish of his excellences; and those only, indeed, of them, who have mingled, as he has done, pretty freely with the lower orders, and made themselves familiar not only with their language, but with the habits and traits of character, of which it then only becomes expressive. It is one thing to understand the meaning of words, as they are explained by other words in a glossary or dictionary, and another to know their value, as expressive of certain feelings and humours in the speakers to whom they are native, and as signs both of temper and condition among those who are familiar with their import.'

95

ART. II.-Analysis of the Fournal of Science and the Arts of the

Royal Institute. Edited by Mr. Brande. No. VI.

'Art. 1.-An Account of the Life and Writings of Baron Guyton de Morveau, F.R.S. Member of the Institute of France, &c. &c.By A. B. Granville, M.D. F.L.S. M.R.C.S., &c. Foreign Secretary of the Geological Society.'-Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau was born at Dijon, January 4, 1737; he was educated for the bar, and purchased the place of advocate general, in the parliament of Dijon, at the age of twenty-four, for forty thousand francs; for under the old regime all law offices were put up to sale. In 1764 he was admitted honorary member of the academy of sciences at Dijon. Soon after this he began to pay attention to chemistry, in which he lectured with great success. His Elements of Chemistry, published about 1778, was decidedly the best work on the subject which the public had yet seen. His several memoirs on chemical subjects acquired him great and deserved reputation, and he was appointed to draw up the chemical articles in the Encyclopedie Methodique, in 1780. In 1787 he read, at the academy of sciences, his plan of a new chemical nomenclature. Owing to his influence and exertions, Dijon became the place whence the scientific news of Europe was disseminated through France. In 1783, he published Reports of his Pleadings at the Bar. During all this time he was continually enriching chemical science with memoirs and experiments of great importance, published in the various scientific journals of that nation. On the 25th of April, 1784, he ascended, with president Virly, in a balloon from Dijon; and again on the 12th of June following. He was elected into the first constituent assembly in France, and he then quitted his chemical lectures, having given fifteen

courses, gratuitously, to his fellow citizens of Dijon. He was for some time president of that assembly. On the 16th of January, 1793, he voted with the republican party, which the legitimates never forgave; and had he not died when he did, the Bourbon family would have banished, if not punished him more severely. In 1796 he was elected one of the council of five hundred. In 1799 he was chosen one of the directors of the mint, and director of the polytechnic school. In 1806 he received the cross of the legion of honour. He died on the 21st of December, 1815, having done as much for the promotion of chemical knowledge as any man of his day.

'Art. 2.—An Inquiry into the Varieties of Muscular Motion, and their Connexion with Peculiarity of Texture in the Moving Organ. By J. R. Park, M.B., &c.'---This is a physiological dissertation on muscular motion, not capable of abridgment. We noticed among the opinions contained in it, not commonly received, 1st, the spontaneous relaxation of involuntary organs. 2d, The denial of any muscle or any thing similar to muscular contraction accompanying the arteries and veins; an opinion entertained by Bichat and Berzelius, the first supporting it from physiological, the second from chemical considerations. 3d, The sphincter-form of the mouths of the exsorbents. These opinions, however, are deduced from reasoning, not from actual, eye-sight observation.

'Art, 3.---On the Genus Pancratium.---By John Bellenden Ker, Esq.'---A botanical paper that does not admit of abridgment.

Art. 4.---Description of the Vallies of Cucuta in South America.--By M. Palacio Faxar.'---An entertaining account of the portion of country described, but without science, or indeed interest.

• Art. 5.---On a new Method of Constructing Chimnies.'---This new method of constructing chimnies and fire places, we consider as so important to those who use steam engines, to brewers, distillers, dyers, and others, who employ great fires, that we are induced to copy it, with the plate. A mode of constructing a fire place which shall reduce the heat of the chimney from 440 to 250 of Fahrenheit's thermometer, and which, with equal fuel, shall convert into steam, under the same pressure, 7lb. 12oz. of water, instead of 5lb. 8oz., is such an improvement, that every means ought to be taken to make it generally known:

No contrivances are of more importance than those which may be classed under the head of Furnaces; without them, we should enjoy few of the necessaries and none of the comforts or luxuries of life; they comprise all kinds of fires, from those employed for mere culinary purposes, to those requisite for smelting metals, working steam engines, &c. As to the last, though great have. been the improvements in the engines themselves, the furnaces remain nearly in the same state as Mr. Watt found them; any practical improvement in their construction, must therefore be worthy of attention.