Cecilia, and Camilla, holds a distinguished place. Mrs. Radcliffe's " enchantments drear" and mouldering castles, derived a part of their interest, we suppose, from the supposed tottering state of all old structures at the time; and Mrs. Inchbald's "Nature and Art" would not have had the same popularity, but that it fell in (in its two main characters) with the prevailing prejudice of the moment, that judges and bishops were not pure abstractions of justice and piety. Miss Edgeworth's tales, again, are a kind of essence of common sense, which seemed to be called for by the prevailing epidemics of audacious paradox and insane philosophy. The author of the present novel is, however, quite of the old school, a mere common observer of manners, -and also a very woman. It is this last circumstance which forms the peculiarity of her writings, and distinguishes them from those masterpieces which we have before mentioned. She is unquestionably a quick, lively, and accurate observer of persons and things; but she always looks at them with a consciousness of her sex, and in that point of view in which it is the particular business and interest of women to observe them. We thus get a kind of supplement and gloss to our original text, which we could not otherwise have obtained. There is little in her works of passion or character, or even manners, in the most extended sense of the word, as implying the sum-total of our habits and pursuits; her forte is in describing the absurdities and affectations of external behaviour, or the manners of people in company. Her characters, which are all caricatures, are no doubt distinctly marked, and perfectly kept up; but they are somewhat superficial, and exceedingly uniform. Her heroes and heroines, almost all of them, depend on the stock of a single phrase or sentiment; or at least have certain mottoes or devices by which they may always be known. They are such characters as people might be supposed to assume for a night at a masquerade. She presents not the whole-length figure, nor even the face, but some prominent feature. In the present novel, for example, a lady appears regularly every ten pages, to get a lesson in music for nothing. She never appears for any other purpose; this is all you know of her; and in this the whole wit and humour of the character consists. Meadows is the same, who has always the same cue of being tired, without any other idea, etc. It has been said of Shakspeare, that you may always assign his speeches to the proper characters :-and you may infallibly do the same thing with Madame D'Arblay's; for they always say the same thing. The Branghtons are the best. Mr. Smith is an exquisite city portrait. Evelina is also her best novel, because it is shortest; that is, it has all the liveliness in the sketches of character, and exquisiteness of comic dialogue and repartee, without the tediousness of the story, and endless affectation of the sentiments. Women, in general, have a quicker perception of any oddity or singularity of character than men, and are more alive to every absurdity which arises from a violation of the rules of society, or a deviation from established custom. This partly arises from the restraints on their own behaviour, which turn their attention constantly on the subject, and partly from other causes. The surface of their minds, like that of their bodies, seems of a finer texture than ours; more soft, and susceptible of immediate impression. They have less muscular power,-less power of continued voluntary attention, of reason-passion and imagination; but they are more easily impressed with whatever appeals to their senses or habitual prejudices. The intuitive perception of their minds is less disturbed by any general reasonings on causes or consequences. They learn the idiom of character and manner,

as they acquire that of language, by rote merely, without troubling themselves about the principles. Their observation is not the less accurate on that account, as far as it goes; for it has been well said, that "there is nothing so true as habit.'

There is little other power in Miss Burney's novels, than that of immediate observation. Her characters, whether of refinement or vulgarity, are equally superficial and confined. The whole is a question of form, whether that form is adhered to, or violated. It is this circumstance which takes away dignity and interest from her story and sentiments, and makes the one so teasing and tedious, and the other so insipid. The difficulties in which she involves her heroines are indeed "Female Difficulties; "-they are difficulties created out of nothing. The author appears to have no other idea of refinement than that it is the reverse of vulgarity; but the reverse of vulgarity is fastidiousness and affectation. There is a true and false delicacy. Because a vulgar country Miss would answer "yes" to a proposal of marriage in the first page, Madame d'Arblay makes it a proof of an excess of refinement, and an indispensable point of etiquette in her young ladies, to postpone the answer to the end of five volumes, without the smallest reason for their doing so, and with every reason to the contrary. The reader is led every moment to expect a denouement, and is as constantly disappointed on some trifling pretext. The whole artifice of her fable consists in coming to no conclusion. Her ladies stand so upon the order of their going, that they do not go at all. They will not abate an ace of their punctilio in any circumstances, or on any emergency. They would consider it as quite indecorous to run down stairs though the house were in flames, or to move off the pavement though a scaffolding was falling. She has formed to herself an abstract idea of perfection in common behaviour, which is quite as romantic and impracticable as any other idea of the sort; and the consequence has naturally been, that she makes her heroines commit the greatest improprieties and absurdities, in order to avoid the smallest. In contradiction to a maxim in philosophy, they constantly act from the weakest motive, or rather from pure affectation.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.*

We have often been astonished at the quantity of talent of invention, observation, and knowledge of character, as well as of spirited and graceful composition, that may be found in those works of fiction in our language, which are generally regarded as among the lower productions of our literature, -upon which no great pains is understood to be bestowed, and which are seldom regarded as the titles of a permanent reputation. If Novels, however, are not fated to last as long as Epic poems, they are at least a great deal more popular in their season; and, slight as their structure, and imperfect as their finishing may often be thought in comparison, we have no hesitation in saying, that the better specimens of the art are incomparably more entertaining, and considerably more instructive. The great objection to them, indeed, is, that they are too entertaining-and are so pleasant in

Tales of My Landlord.-Vol. xxviii. page 193. March, 1817.

the reading, as to be apt to produce a disrelish for other kinds of reading which may be more necessary, and can in no way be made so agreeable. Neither science, nor authentic history, nor political nor professional instruction, can be conveyed in a pleasant tale; and, therefore, all these things are in danger of appearing dull and uninteresting to the votaries of those more seductive sudies. Among the most popular of these popular productions that have appeared in our times, we must rank the works to which we have just alluded; and we do not hesitate to say that they are well entitled to that distinction. They are, indeed, in many respects, very extraordinary performances-though in nothing more extraordinary than in having remained so long unclaimed. There is no name, we think, in our literature, to which they would not add lustre-and lustre, too, of a very enviable kind; for they not only show great talent, but infinite good sense and good-nature,-a more vigorous and wide reaching intellect than is often displayed in novels, and a more powerful fancy, and a deeper sympathy with various passion, than is often combined with strength of understanding.

The author, whoever he is, has a truly graphic and 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 remind us of Shakspeare himself: yet with all this force and felicity in 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 Burnsas 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 less on account of their adventures than of their amiablenessand 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 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 are 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 witha 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 being accurately moulded on their

condition—and the finer attributes that are ascribed to them, so blended and harmonized 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 gaiety 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 unworn 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 inventors.

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,