Carew's Survey of Cornwall, by Lord de Dunflanville. 211

as he averred to me, and as I have heard from others."-"For sweetness of flesh, no fheep in England can exceed those killed from our fandy parifhes, fuch as Gwithian, St. Piran, St. Cuthbert, St. Merin, St. Mynvor, &c. which is to be attributed to their feeding; thefe fands, befides the sweetness of the pafture growing on them, being covered with millions of fmall thell fnails, which they lick up with their tongues." P. 78. “As eastwards they make use of horses, fo here we plough all our ground with oxen, and use them too in our carriages, for which we have butts and waines, inftead of carts and waggons, as being more fuitable both to our narrow ways and hilly lands." P. 80. "We had formerly an excellent breed of horfes on Goodhilly in the Meneage, occafioned (as I have heard) by a Barbary Horse being turned loofe there by one of the Erizy family. But though this race be in a manner loft, yet we ftill call our small western horfes Goonhillies, which are in great request all over the kingdom, being very ftrong, hardy, and most of them natural pacers." "The Lord Viscount Falmouth has bred horfes, both for the coach and faddle, of great value. The old Mr. Tievillian, of Bafil, had alfo a breed of very good horfes." P. 81.--" My brother-in-law, Thomas Worth, jun. of Penryn, Efq. had a Spaniel dog, of whom I have heard him tell feveral unaccountable facts, of his finding things loft, fetching rings, &c. from the bottom of the fea, which he had not feen thrown in, and after fome distance of time, &c. Indeed fuch as 1 should scarce have believed, had I not had them from his own mouth, and confirmed too by feveral eye-witneffes of good credit, as well as himself." P. 82.

Mr. Tonkin's ferious attention to the opinion of the Hon. Francis Roberts, Efq. that our birds of paffage," on their difappearance, retire to the moon," furnishes a proof of credulity which we fhould not have expected in fo learned and fenfible a man. See P. $3.

"The laft gentleman (we are informed) who kept hawks in Cornwall was Mr. Glynne of Glynne's grandfather.”—“ In the bottom under Treluddro in Newlyn, nightingales are faid to have been seen and heard,-but (fays Mr. T.) I fufpect the truth' of it." P. 85. "I have often taken peal as large as moft trouts, and took once seven score and ten of them at one draught in Mellingy river, the smallest of which were not lefs than twelve, and many of them eighteen or twenty inches in length. Some imagine, because the common-people call them falmon-peal, that thefe are young falmon; but that is a great mistake, for they differ from them both in fhape and colour, and never attain to their bignefs; befides that they caft their spawn conftantly every year in the rivers." P. 94. "Our fhrimps are of the fame fort with those which they call prawns in London."-" You may,

in many fhrimps, take notice of an exuberance like to a wen, a little below the eye on opening it, you will find a young fole, as I have feveral times obferved; but whether thefe are the proper receptacles for the fpawn of all foles, I will not aver, though it be very probable; for where fhrimps are plenty, there foles are fo likewife." P. 96.

"I once faw," fays our annotator, "between eight and nine fcore of porpoifes taken in a creek under St. Mawes, which would have been of good value had the takers underflood how to get out the oil and make the most of it." And here it may not be amifs to mention, that of late years that fort of whales called ́ grandpuffes and blowers have appeared in great plenty on our coaft, in the pilchard feafon-following (as is fuppofed) the pilchard-which induced the late Robert Corker, of Falmouth, &c. Mr. Kempe, of Rofteage, and fome other gentlemen, to apply to the late Queen for a patent for the taking of them; and fome coft they were at to get experienced harpers, &c. for that pur pofe: but it turning to no manner of account by mifmanage ment or fome other caufe, (for there was no want, of fish, they made ufe of a good opportunity in the late frantical feafon, and difpofed of their patent among the late bubbles, fo as to fave themfelves harmlefs." P. 99. "Pilchards have of late years altered their feafon of coming on the coaft; fo that, inftead of fhowing themselves about July and the time of harveft, they feldom appear till December, and fometimes after Christmas. Being taken fo late in the year, they muft endure the heat of the enfuing fummer abroad before they can be fold off; fo that all who have any regard to the welfare of their country ought to fee the laws duly put in exaction [execution, which our parliaments have in that behalf fo fully enacted. What the effect of the fisk thus altering their feafon may in time produce fome have difmalapprehenfions of, and I should think was already come to pafs, in the great failure in the fifhery on the fouth coaft within thefe four or five years last past――but, as this has fo happened formerly 100, I hope their fears will prove groundless."

P. 103.

We collect from the public prints, that during the laft feason, there was a great failure of pilchards on the coafts of Cornwall. That fuch failures, then, have formerly hap pened, and yet that the fish have returned to the coafts in their ufual abundance and with their accustomed regularity, may give comfort to those who are engaged in the pilchard. fishery, which we conceive to be a very important concern. We have thus given our readers a taste of Tonkin, which they will not judge unpleafant.

The volume is very handfomely printed; and the noble Lord, in thus condefcending to become an editor of Carew as illuftrated by a man of obfervation, (though of no great philofophica

philofophical difcernment) hath certainly done an acceptable fervice to his native county; whilft he has furnished a treat for all, who are fond of topographical refearch, or genealogical antiquities.

Svo,

ART. II. Self-Controul: a Novel, in three Vols. Second Edition. Manners and Miller, Edinburgh; Long. man and Co. London. 1811.

THAT a novel should have arrived at a fecond edition, beforé

it reached us, is no proof of its decifive merit. We are not folicitous of forming a general acquaintance with works of that defcription; and after fuch of them as are not fent to us, we feldom enquire. It is not for their real meritscither as works of genius or as vehicles of prudential and moral maxims--that novels are fo eagerly and fo generally read; but merely to kill time, by agitating a fickly imagination. Self-Controul has had, we understand, a very extenfive fale, particularly in Scotland, where it is attributed to the wife of a Minister of the Scottish Church at Edinburgh, and where parties have been formed respecting it; foine extolling it to the fkies, aud. others depreffing it below its real merits. The general tendency of its moral is certainly excellent; many of the fituations too are interefting, and though fome of them are improbable, in a high degree, they are not beyond the verge of poffibility. Some few incidents, exceptionable in the firit edition, have been foftened in the fecond; and the whole may fairly rank in the higher, though not higheft, clafs of novels.

The chief moral inculcated in the work is announced in its title it is the importance of felf-controul; fpringing from a true faith in the doctrines of Chriftianity; but many other truths are here, taught in the hiflory of a fashionable libertine.

The heroine of the tale is Laura Montreville, a lady of a refpectable and ancient family, though her father, a half-pay captain of foot, was reduced to indigent circumftances." The hero, for fuch we think he must be confidered, is Colonel Hargrave, heir to the title and eftate of an English Earl; but between the heroine and the hero there is no other refemblance, than that they are both young and handfome, and both of elegant and dignified manners. The former is a chriftian, poffeffed of every chriftian virtue; the latter is a fenfual libertine, in the loweft degree Jelfifh, as libertine fenfualifts

Ps

fenfualifts generally are. The former, though her paffions, like the other qualities of her mind, were naturally strong, uniformly ftrives, and ftrives fuccessfully, to keep them under the controul of reafon and religion; while the latter is the flave of paffion and grovelling appetite, which hurry him into the perpetration of the most enormous crimes.

Captain Montreville, on his marriage, to a lady of qua lity, without prudence and without principle, had retired from the army to a small farm in the neighbourhood of Perth, where he and his lady thought that they could live comfortably on his half-pay, and the intereft of 50001, which was Lady Harriet's portion, Her ladyfhip, however, had not learned the principles of economy; and at the period of her death, her fortune was all expended, except 1500l. with which the Captain had purchased an annuity for his daughter, then seventeen years of age. Colonel Hargrave's regiment had for fome time been in quarters fomewhere near Glenalbert, Captain Montreville's cottage, where the Colonel was a frequent vifitor; and his polifhed manners, knowledge of the world, and elegant and manly form, had excited in Laura's inexperienced mind the paffion of the pureft love. To her charms he was far from infenfible, though he is reprefented, through the whole of this work, as a stranger to any other love than the love of himself. Meeting with Laura, in one of her folitary walks, on the evening of the third day after her mother's funeral, he abruptly made propofals to her, taking care to convince her, inexperienced as The was, that his intentions were not honourable; but fhe efcaped from the fnare, and with great propriety determined to caft him off for ever,

On the next day he came to make honourable proposals to her father, who, pleased with Hargrave's manners, and knowing nothing of the infult which he had offered to his daughter, gave him every rational encouragement; but Laura adhered to her purpose, and, to the furprise of her father, rejected both title and fortune.

In the mean time, Captain Montreville had learned that his daughter's annuity was not fecure, owing to fome legal informality in the deed by which it was fettled on her; and he determined to go to London, and have the informality, if poffible, rectified. With difficulty he was prevailed on to take Laura with him; and at an interview which Hargrave contrived to have with her, the evening before her departure, he extorted from her a promife, that if his conduct fhould be found correct for two years, the would at the end of that period marry him.

The

The events of Laura's journey and voyage (for the perfuaded her father to fail from Leith) to London; her fimple remarks on the manners of Edinburgh, and on the more crowded streets of our great and bufy metropolis; as well as her father's difappointments refpecting the annuity, and the pecuniary diftrefs to which he was reduced, our limits do not permit us to detail. The pecuniary diftrefs Laura contrived to lighten by her skill in the arts of painting and drawing; but her father's difappointments foured his temper, and fubjected him to difeafe, while fhe was conftantly expofed to the fnares laid for her by licentious young men of fortune. Hargrave, in the mean time, although he had purfued her to London with the most honourable views, as he perfuaded himfelf, was entangled in an amour with a married lady; and it was by accident that he and Laura at laft met in the print fhop, where the difpofed of her pictures and drawings. Hargrave accompanied her home; haraffed her with his impor tunities, threatnings, and other violences; and was encou raged in his pretenfions by her father.

In the mean time Laura had conceived a high esteem, bordering on love, for Montague De Courcy, who had ref cued her from the infolence of fome young men in the freet; and he was fo ftruck with her appearance, that he de termined to become acquainted with her; but when he had difcovered her place of refidence, he difcovered, at the fame time, that her father was an old friend of his father's, by whom he had been fondly noticed in his infancy. The moral character of De Courcy is in every refped the reverfe of Hargrave's-pious, patient and generous; while his perion is represented as at least equal in every thing, and his manners as fuperior, except in thofe external and fuper. ficial accomplishments, which are to be acquiied only by mixing conftantly with the gay and fashionable world. The author informs us, that De Courcy had been educated, in the University of Edinburgh, because his mother, whom his father had left his fole guardian, would not trust his morals in an English Univerfity; as if the morals of a young man were not watched with more vigilance in the Univers fities of Oxford and Cambridge, than in the gay metropolis of Scotland, where, if we be credibly informed, there is neither academical drefs nor academical difcipline. In this inftance the author betrays the national prejudices of her country; but it is the only inftance, in which we observed her doing fo; unless we must confider the giving of a prefbyterian form to the family devotions in De Courcy's houfe, as another.