able and accomplished youth, whose style, topics, and behaviour, he might thus acquire. But while assuming a splendour which his education and manners disgraced, he did it by degrees; still, from a bashful dread of ridicule, leaving some part of his establishment on its original scale. Like a garden on a morass, where one uncultivated corner is sufficient to betray the nature of the soil, this want of congruity and completeness destroyed the effect of all his toil and expence, and constantly reminded his guests, that he had not been early accustomed to the elegancics of life, but was struggling to rise above his native element, on feeble and artificial wings. For their own interest, however, they humoured, while they amused themselves with his forward and awkward imitation of their manners. They devoured his dainties, and laughed at the giver, who gratified at once their appetite for food and for folly. Pride entered a man of middle age, who had retired from trade, to the enjoyment of senatorian dignity, and thus instructed him :-" Your business now is, by imitating the nobles, to keep at a distance those whom you have hitherto admitted with a familiar affability. If you give an entertainment, let the invitations fix a distant day, that your guests may behold its approach with awful solicitude and preparation. When they arrive, receive them with the same cold and stately condescension which you have yourself formerly experienced from the senators and suffetes, and let the same unsocial solemnity prevail at your table. Never let it appear that one man, by his personal qualities, is more welcome, or can add more to your gratification than another. Learn the art of damping every pleasant sally, by a corrective gravity; and let no man, who is not so rich as yourself, presume to feel himself happy in your presence. Beware of risking the statement of a comparison in any other point; and, therefore, should a man, distinguished only for worth or talents, dare to take a lead in conversation, let a reproving manner instantly teach him that he is not wealthy enough to be wise. Should conversation, in spite of every repulse, pro ceed, wrap yourself up in a sort of suffering silence, with sometimes a slight smile, as if at the shallowness of the speaker, and reserve yourself for the first interval, shortly and díctatorially to decide the subject, without offering any reasons. Draw, as it were, an arctic circle around you, in the centre of which you must remain as fixed, as cold, and as unapproachable as the Pole. Cheerfulness and ease will thus be banished from from your house; and, by adopting the pompous discomfort of patricians, you may be allowed a portion of their repulsive dignity. Be careful, above all, to associate chiefly with those whose pretensions are the same in kind, though somewhat inferior in degree with your own; and prefer being the first man in a village to being the second in Carthage." This advice was followed, but without success. The constraint of a forced and counterfeit character could not be uniformly maintained. The phrases of the forum would sometimes dishonour the saloon: and when the demon was off his guard, his pupil, by relaxing in an evening with an old pot-companion, would undo all the effects of his painful self-denial. Like Penelope, he unravelled by night the web he had wove by day, and had his labour to commence anew. The rivals next met in Rome, when their wish was to try how far they could diminish the value of the most perfect characters. Vanity chose a statesman who had rendered himself the most popular orator of his age; and succeeded in tarnishing the splendour of his fame, by betraying him into a constant and disgusting repetition of his services,-by inspiring him with such a false sense of his own importance as led him, in domestic distress, or political adversity, to tire the public ear with his childish whining,-by tempting him meanly to solicit a friend to write a fictitious and flattering account of his conduct, and at last, by seducing him to fawn upon the destroyer of his country, that he might preserve his ears to listen to his flatterers. Pride took possession of a stubborn, intrepid patriot, and urged him to many of those actions which were ascribed to his acknowledged ability and virtue. modify his conduct to a change of circumstances, but maintained an ob stinate inflexibility, when accommodation would have been more beneficial. He would have all, of which he had once signified his approbation, or nothing; when pushed to the last extremity, with savage impatience he tore out his bowels; and, to spare himself the personal mortification of meeting a triumphant rival, he thus deprived the state of her ablest citizen. The last act of his life robbed the rest of half its glory, and unmasked a selfishness which rendered the motives of his public conduct equivocal and suspicious. He could not stoop to In their next effort, the demons, shifting the age, but not the scene, sought each a subject in whom they could exhibit their power under the greatest variety of aspects. The male fiend selected a cardinal, whose brain he inflamed in equal degrees, and, at the same time, with the pride of rank, the pride of wealth, the pride of power, the pride of learning, and the pride of sanctity: and the female chose a titled poet, who was vain of a nobility which he affected to despise, of talents which he abused, of infidelity which his remorse belied, of scorn of mankind, while he was straining every faculty to win their plaudits of indignation against cruelty, while practising it on those he had sworn to cherish,-of excessive sensibility, which was but excess of selfishness,-and of love for a country which he laboured to demoralise and debauch. With the exhibition of these masterpieces the contest closed, but as it left undetermined to whom belonged the diabolical praise of having added most to human misery, the mutual hatred and pretensions of the rival pair were only exasperated by the inconclusive conflict. Desirous of the strongest barrier between them, they fixed on the Pyrenean mountains. Pride chose the south side, and Vanity the north, which still continue their favourite resorts. Both make occasional excursions to a Green Isle in the opposite ocean; but their influence there, though not destroyed, is considerably diminished by the superior potency of a benignant Genius called Common Sense. Through his means the inhabitants are enabled to perceive objects in their just and natural proportions,-to rate themselves, as well as others, at their real value,― and to dissipate the vapours breathed around them by the kindred demons, which would present things to their eyes indistinctly swelled into false and extravagant forms. May the influence of this useful, though homely household god, be strengthened and extended till Astrea shall return to the earth, and till the Genius of Self-estimation, disgusted with his illicit offspring, shall draw his sister Merit from her retirement, and again make her his only associate! May the Green Isle of the ocean be their darling abode, and from thence, as from another Delos, may they waft their benign inspiration over every corner of the globe! Stanzas, To a young Lady on St. Valentine's Eve. THIS is the eve of Valentine, And many a youth will rack his fancy, In verse and billet-doux to shine, With compliments to lovely Nancy. Methinks I see, around your room, Lie scatter'd, emblems, am'rous posies, While each epistle breathes perfume Far sweeter than Arcadian roses. Dear Nancy, may the humble bard Whose artless song comes unadorn'd, One moment meet your kind regard, Nor be for richer trifles scorn'd! No quaint device adorns his page, Of hearts commingling-turtles cooing; Or Cupids, in resistless rage, With quiver fill'd, for man's undoing. I will not talk of flames and darts, Although your beauties please my sight, I think you lovelier as a woman. "Twere easy for the Muse to swear Of glowing cheek and swelling bosom ; How this transcends the lily fair, And that the rose-bud's opening blos som. What though these hills were never seen, And, raptur'd, gaze on fields Elysian! The lawn which veils a virgin's breast Gives vigour to Imagination; As Fancy paints the phoenix' nest, The rarest wonder of creation. And I could praise your dewy lip, And say it breath'd celestial nectar; But as I ne'er was blest to sip, This were at best a bard's conjecture. Your voice, the music of the spheres, Would suit my rhyme and sound in metre ; No tuneful orbs e'er sooth'd my ears, sweeter. My pen could say, your sparkling eye Outshines the stars-sheds brighter lustre ; With all that memory could supply, Who sue for wealth, or flatter beauty; I chuse to decorate my song With artless truth and friendly duty. I need not say that you are fair, Your toilet tells you that each morn- But Time, who lies in ambush there, Love beckons from his myrtle bow'r ; Let cautious Prudence guide you thither. But he who talks by rote, or rule, Dear maid, suspect that man a fool, Or that his purpose is beguiling. Be yours to meet some modest youth, Who holds your worth in estimation; Whose heart is love, whose tongue is truth, And sues to gain your approbation: Then, led to Hymen's hallow'd porch, Before next Valentine's returning, May Love light up his sacred torch, Through life with ceaseless lustre burning! SCENES AND IMPRESSIONS WE imagined, on perusing the first publication of this anonymous author, that we could detect peculiari ties about it, indicating a proneness on his part to the laudable employment of book-making; and on this account we could not help viewing his Sketches of India as the forerunner of a family of Tours, Travels, Recollections, Scenes, and Impressions. It is an easy matter, we apprehend, to foretel, with almost perfect certainty, on seeing a man's first performance, whether he will try a IN EGYPT AND IN ITALY”. second; and still more easy, on seeing the second, to predict whether he will attempt a third; in the same way as it is a simple thing to judge from the expression of a person's countenance, and a little talk with him, whether in his case taciturnity or loquacity prevails. The excellence of a first production, too, is generally a pretty good criterion by which to judge of the probability of its being followed by others from the same pen, for good authors commonly write more than one book t. But Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and in Italy; by the Author of Sketches of India, and Recollections of the Peninsula. London. Longman, &c. 1824. pp. 452. + Sir Walter Scott somewhere remarks, that the best English authors are the most voluminous. He himself must be taken as one great instance of this fact. besides this criterion, there is about some works so much of the natural spirit of their authors, so much that indicates their ordinary feelings and peculiarities, that really one cannot fail to determine, to one's own satisfaction at least, whether they are decidedly given to literary practices, and to the composition of books. That modesty, however, which it is said is peculiar to great genius, may eventually gain the upper hand of a moderate ambition, and thus the world may be disappointed of what that genius promised; but middling talents, which are generally accompanied by an assortment of opposite qualities-pertinacity, loquacity, and conceit, and not unfrequently, too, a degree of activity and industry which leads them to the perpetration of all manner of literary crimes, are sure to prove abundantly steady and unweariable in their operations, when once they are fairly set upon a literary course. But however this may be, it is plain that the author before us, who unquestionably possesses some peculiarities of the latter sort of writers, has now publish ed enough to challenge the critic; and as he has doubtless determined to write still more, we have thought it high time seriously to admonish him to abandon some of the faults with which all his writings abound. Though there are great exceptions to the general maxim, that """ practice produces proficiency," as in the instances of Home, Thomson, "The Great Unknown," Campbell, &c. whose Douglas, Seasons, Waverley, and Pleasures of Hope, were among the first, and are decidedly the best things they ever wrote,-yet, when we read the first book of an author who is evidently not more than the third part of a century old, and find it tolerably well put together, we naturally expect that as he writes he will improve. This, however, does not hold good in the case of the author of Scenes and Impressions; and we can only account for the fact, by supposing a very probable thing-that he has been much spoiled by a critique upon his Recollections of the Peninsula, which appeared lately in the Quarterly Review, and in which he was unluckily informed, that he is posscssed of a brisk and lively imagina tion, and that, on the whole, he writes wonderfully well. The upshot of this has been, we are sorry to remark, that our friend has clearly taken it into his head that he is a man of notable talents, of no ordinary imaginative powers, and that he possesses, withal, the necessary capabilities of a more than tolerable author. Now, we would really remonstrate with him on this point, and submit, both to himself and to the public, that his talents, though good, are not by any means of an order that entitles him to make such literary flourishes as those displayed in his last work. Though there was not much simplicity of style in his former works, they were comparatively free from two great faults most conspicuous in this-affectation and bombast-the almost necessary evils of that complacency and self-approbation which we should suppose is invariably produced by the favourable judgment of a literary functionary, so high and authoritative as the one to which we have alluded. When once a man conceives a very satisfactory notion of his own deserts, affectation, that most disgusting, by the way, of all our sinless, or at least secondary failings, is sure to grow upon his character, as a loathsome bloat thrives and spreads on the pampered body; and bombastic language is so much akin to an affected manner, that both may be accounted for in the same way, and reproached in the same terms. It is needless to remark, that both, or either of these faults, especially when visible in composition, imply, at least, a defect of literary skill, if not, indeed, of judgment itself. But to call in question this high and peculiarly-honoured intellectual power, is to an author as serious a matter as a denial of honesty is to a merchant, or an impeachment of professional skill to a professional man, or of orthodoxy to a divine, on which alone depends the confidence of those whose confidence he necessarily requires. On the ground, therefore, of affectation and bombast merely, we shall not farther urge the charge of a scarcity of judgment in the author before us, and we call upon our charity to withhold us from seeking any other proof of the fact. But we do seriously charge him with a very middling taste. His is professedly a work fitted more to amuse the fancy, and to tell upon the feelings of the heart, than to edify or enlighten the head,— and as such, therefore, the blandishments and chastity of a pure taste ought to have been regarded as of much more importance than the lessrefined marks of a powerful and vigorous understanding. Unfortunately, however, he has assumed a style which, for high-sounding tone and blustering consequence, is not a whit inferior in many parts to the halfpolished, half-rude, though far more energetic expatiations of a wellknown metropolitan divine. So far from possessing any thing like harmony, indeed, his composition is stiff to a degree that renders it frequently unintelligible on a hasty perusal, sudden and abrupt in turning from one subject to another, and most cramped and broken where it ought to possess most freedom and continuity. But there is always meaning in what he says, and not a little of it; and there is instruction in it too, though he disclaims all intention to write for any other purpose than to amuse his readers. There are, throughout the volume, obvious indications of our author's having perused, with attention and approbation, Volney's well-written Travels in Egypt, for whether studied on the part of the former, or accidental merely, there are, in the writings of both, many strikingly similar passages, and many instances, too, in which there are obvious resemblances in their manner. In one very important point, however, these authors, we rejoice to say, are perfectly contrasted. The one was a conscientious Deist; for, with all his deism, Volney was yet an honest man, and died at peace with all mankind: the other is apparently a Christian, of more piety than is commonly found in people of his profession, among whom, alas! piety is a thing more frequently scorned than revered; "the sword (according to a severe if not illiberal remark of John Edwards) being a more deadly weapon to the spirits of those who do wear it, than it is to their bodies on the battle-day." We feel, how ever, a satisfaction in referring to pages 103, 121, 125, and 257, for proofs of our author's religious and moral bearing. We have been somewhat particular in making the foregoing critical remarks upon the literary character of our author's performance, because the merit of such works mainly consists in the mere elegance and correctness of their diction; on these qualities, at least, depends much of the pleasure derivable from them. M. A. B.-(we cannot be constantly reiterating "our author,"and we have no other mode of briefly designating him)-M. A. B. appears to be a sort of rambler to and fro on the face of the earth. On his way from India, where he had been professionally employed, he called in by Mocha, of which he gives the best and most graphic description we have seen. From thence he sailed up the Red Sea to Djidda, a place described, as our readers will remember, by the master-pen of Bruce; but M. A. B. only sketches the character of its present Governor, Rustan Aga, and describes his unique and amusing interview with that important personage. From Djidda, by the way of Yambo, Kosseir, and the Desart, he ultimately arrived at Thebes, which was the first place in Egypt he halted at to examine. He then sailed down the Nile to Dendera, Siout, Radamont, Memphis, and from thence to Ghizeh, of all which places he gives topographical and characteristic sketches, and, like the generality of Egyptian travellers, expresses his particular astonishment at those monuments of human power and folly, the pyramids. We have then an interesting enough account of Cairo, and some very unsatisfactory particulars respecting the present Ruler of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha, of whose character we had been led to form a very different notion from that which is conveyed of it in this volume. He is here represented as a grovelling, brutal, and selfish Turk, occasioning mischief, rather than doing good to Egypt. We quote the following paragraphs relative to him, which may also be taken as specimens of M. A. B.'s mode of expres sing himself: |