In the Press, and speedily to be Published,

In One Volume Octavo, Elegantly Printed-Price 10s.

SERMONS,

BY

THE LATE REVEREND DONALD MITCHELL,

MINISTER OF ARDCLACH, PRESBYTERY OF NAIRN.

PUBLISHED FROM THE AUTHOR's MSS. WITH A SKETCH OF THE

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

THE REVEREND SIMON FRASER,

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WIDOW, AND OF HER FAMILY,

Of whom one is JAMES MITCHELL, the Boy born Deaf and Dumb, whose extraordinary Case, as described by MR. STEWART and MR. WARDROP, has so much interested the Curiosity and Humanity of the Public.

SUBSCRIPTIONS for this Volume will be received at MR. MURRAY'S, Albemarle Street; MESSRS. LONGMAN'S, Paternoster Row; and MR. ANDERSON'S Weekly Journal Office, Edinburgh.

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1814.

ART. I. Patronage. By Maria Edgeworth, Author of Tales of Fashionable Life,' Belinda,'' Leonora,' &c. 4 vols. 12mo. London. 1814.

NOVEL-writing is perhaps the most remarkable addition which

the moderns have made to literature. In a variety of other instances they have prodigiously embellished and enlarged the structure bequeathed to them by antiquity; but in this they have built from the ground. Every thing that we see of this kind is planned by their genius, and fabricated out of materials exclusively their own. Some miserable attempts of the later Greeks will hardly be considered as contradicting this assertion. With the single exception of the Æthiopics of Heliodorus, they consist of a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste, invention, or interest, with out influence even upon the declining literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau. In fact the means of making a novel did not exist. Slavery spread a gloomy uniformity over three-fourths of the population of Greece and Rome. The free citizens were chiefly devoted to publick affairs, and their private life exhibited nothing but a stern unsocial strictness on the one hand, or a disgusting shameless profligacy on the other. To them that steady settled influence of women upon society was utterly unknown, which in modern times has given grace, variety, and interest to private life, and rendered the delineation of it one of the most entertaining and one of the most instructive forms of composition. Such persons, such feelings, and such events as our novels describe did not exist till after the united effect of religion and chivalry-of religion in purifying-and of chivalry in softening the manners of men-had re-civilized the world with a more perfect civilization than was consistent with the habits and opinions prevalent in the most polished states of antiquity. The comic theatre of the ancients, which may be supposed to give a pretty accurate idea of their domestic habits, is barren both of character and incident, and the same notions of propriety which prevented all women above the servile state from appearing among the personages of a comedy, would equally have excluded them from any other work of fiction drawn from private life. But as soon as private life acquired sufficient interest and variety to render it worth describing,

novels

novels were invented to describe it, and following pretty nearly the improvements of society, they have now become an important and very extensive branch of literature. In number they equal, in popularity they surpass every other. The public is delighted with the good ones, and content to read those that are bad. All classes of readers find a charm in the description of scenes which every one has witnessed, and of feelings with which every heart sympathizes. We doubt, however, whether the dignity of this species of composition has quite kept pace with its popularity-whether (speaking of our own country at least) people admire enough what they like perhaps too much-whether the same quantity of talent employed with equal success in any other way, would not have produced a larger share of fame. The readers of Homer and Virgil, of Sophocles and Shakespeare, are not only delighted with the genius of these great authors, but pride themselves upon the dignity of their own occupation. Nobody is at all conversant in their works who is not aware of the rank which they hold in the republic of letters: but we are inclined to suspect that of the thousands who are charmed with the writings of Cervantes, Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau, a very large portion are quite unaware that they are to be numbered among the most successful efforts of human wit, ingenuity, and eloquence. If there is a strong taste in favour of novels, there are also some prejudices against them. There is something undignified in their name and origin. The germ of them is to be found in those entertaining, but extravagant and unprofitable histories of giants, enchanters, knights and damsels, which were so eagerly read in a stage of society when the manners described in them were not become wholly obsolete, and when what may be called the romantic mythology still found a place in popular belief, but which fell into discredit at a more advanced period, and received their death-blow from the wit of Cervantes. It happened too that the earliest of those compositions to which we have now agreed to confine the name of novels, that is to say, the earliest fictitious accounts of probable events in private life, were of such a tendency that all grave persons were obliged, and all moral persons were disposed to discountenance them. Boccacio, who contributed so much to refine the language, did not a little to deprave the morals, of his country. He and his whole school are chiefly employed in the description of inflammatory scenes and profligate adventures. Even the greater and more recent writers are not free from some reproach. Le Sage's rogues are a great deal too agreeable and too prosperous. Richardson describes vice too plainly for modest ears. Rousseau and Fielding are also great offenders-though in widely different ways: Fielding too often makes virtue ridiculous; Rousseau tries to give dignity to vice.

But

But besides the blame justly cast upon some of the most celebrated novels for their immoral tendency, we have been sometimes inclined to suspect that this style of writing has suffered in publick opinion by a prejudice derived from that age of erudition' which succeeded the revival of learning. Whilst the ancients were considered (and, for some time, justly considered) as the great and only models of excellence, and whilst the successful imitation of their works was regarded as the highest point of literary ambition, a species of composition wholly unknown to them was not likely to be fairly appreciated, whatever its intrinsic merit might be. In fact, we find that Boccacio himself rested his chief title to fame, not upon his immortal Decamerone,' but upon some Latin books, the very names of which, though we have often met with them in the literary history of that age, we are not ashamed to say we do not recollect. The prejudice was then in its greatest force. It has grown gradually weaker, and may now be considered as wholly extinct; but if we are not much mistaken, some traces of it were observable in the literature of this country till the very age in which we are living.

In respect too of morality, we are happy to observe that a great improvement has taken place of late years. It is, indeed, true that the press in England has produced some profligate novels, and that the press of France has teemed with them. But the most popular and distinguished works have been quite free from this disgrace. We owe this improvement in a great measure, no doubt, to the increased morality, or at least decency of the age,--partly too, as we are inclined to think, to the circumstance of this branch of literature having fallen very much into the hands of the other sex, who are restrained by education, disposition, and custom within those bounds which have been too frequently passed by the celebrated writers of whom we have just ventured to complain. Indeed it is a task for which women appear to be particularly well qualified. They are, generally speaking, gifted with a nice ception of the various shades of character and manners. This faculty is cultivated by constant habit. Private life is every thing to them. The laws of society confine them within its sphere, and they are therefore likely to observe it with care and to describe it with precision. In France the most eminent writers of this class are females, and in England we can boast several who amply maintain the credit of their sex and nation-particularly Madame D'Arblay, (Miss Burney,) and the lady whose last publication is now before us.

per

Of this work it is our duty to render some account to our readers, but we trust we may be allowed in the first place to offer to them some general remarks upon an author already so well and so advantageously known to the world. We are the more inclined to do so, because Miss Edgeworth, with that vigour and originality which

U 2

which are among the principal characteristics of genius, has struck out a line of writing peculiar to herself a line which it required considerable boldness to adopt, and no common talents to execute with effect. Not only has Miss Edgeworth interdicted to herself all those unfair and discreditable modes of obtaining popularity to which we have before alluded, but she has also voluntarily renounced many others that may be deemed fair, and comparatively harmless. We do not mean to speak merely of the entire absence of castles, draw-bridges, spectres, banditti-caves, forests, moonlight and other scenes, which have furnished to Mrs. Ratcliffe and her school many a gorgeous and terrific tale. Her most distinguished contemporaries have been content to forego these easy embellishments. But she has made some sacrifices which, if we are not much mistaken, are peculiarly her own.) Her pictures are all drawn in the soberest colours. She scarcely makes use of a single tint that is warmer than real life. No writer recurs so rarely, for the purpose of creating an interest, to the stronger and more impetuous feelings of our nature. Even love, the most powerful passion that acts within the sphere of domestic life-the presiding deity of the novel and the drama, is handled by her in a way very different from that in which we have been accustomed to see it treated in works of fiction. In them we find it represented sometimes as a guilty, sometimes as an innocent, but generally as an irresistible impulse-as a feeling which springs up spontaneously in the human breast,-now as a weed-now as a flower-but whether as a weed or as a flower, not to be eradicated. The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and irretrievably into love-if they fell in love with the right person so much the better-if not, it could not be helped, and the novel ended unhappily. And above all, it was held quite irregular for the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less reverence. She has analyzed it, and found that it does not consist of one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into its composition-habit-esteem-a belief of some corresponding sentiment -and of some suitableness in the character and circumstances of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously applied, is almost a specific-and following up this bold empirical line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Having mastered love, of course she treats the minor passions with very little ceremony, and indeed she brings them out so curbed, watched, and circumscribed, that those who have been accustomed to see them range at large would hardly know them in their new trammels. Her favourite qualities are prudence, firmness, temper,

and