Ple which it is desirous of attaining. And this is the answer that the patron of emulation would render to the definition given of it above. He would say, It is indeed the desire of surpassing others; but not for the sake of superiority merely, which would make it the questionable feeling that is asserted; but for the sake of some other ulterior object, which may be as various and diversified in its nature as the whole circle of affairs that respect as well the future as the present state of being could make it. Just then as imitation might be defined the act of imitating others, so emulation might be defined the act of aiming to surpass them. And even on the exceedingly narrow ground of such a definition, there is little doubt the act of emulation might be defended against the allegations of your correspondent. He admits of imitation under certain restrictions: precisely under the same restrictions we would contend for emulation. The desire to surpass another cannot in itself be very different, and only in degree at all, from the desire to equal another. In fact, viewed in their naked form, stripped of all circumstances, they are, as to the practical question of guilt or innocence, identical. And if your correspondent is pleased to saddle emulation with certain unfavourable adjuncts, motives, &c., to rob it of its character, the very same or equally unfavourable concomitants may be given to imitation. Whilst, on the other hand, the very conditions under which he is pleased to set forth and prescribe a laudable imitation, are exactly those under which we should feel as little hesitation in speaking of a laudable emulation.

But we own, we are not satisfied with a definition which makes a distinction between two acts so very nearly allied and identical with each other as Imitation and Emulation. We are rather desirous of merging, in the first instance, one of them, and certainly that which is the

lesser act of the two, into the other. And calling both by one word, Emulation, we should then desire to trace it still further back to something else which may bring us into contact with the more simple and essential properties or principles of the human mind.

With this view, perhaps, Emulation might rather be defined to be the desire of excellence, leading to its pursuit, according to some given model, standard, or example. The question as to what standard may or may not be adopted in this pursuit, might be considered of much weight in determining the comparative measures of safety in conducting it. The standard of authoritative precept would of course be considered the safest: next, that of some imaginary model, some "beau idéel" impressed on the mind from some cause wholly independent of exterior personal considerations. Of examples, dead ones might be considered as the next in safety; and the least safe of all, as tending to excite unfavourable passions in the pursuit, would be living ones in contact with the aspirant. These last, however, as it happens, are the very standard to which, under proper restrictions, your correspondent himself brings the mind of the pupil in his pursuit of excellence. It will, therefore, by him, as well doubtless as by all reasonable persons, be admitted, that under some circumstances the pursuit of excellence may be conducted with reference to the standard of actual living examples, who are in contact with the pursuer, and of course engaged in similar pursuits. It is said, under some circumstances,

for it now appears, even on the verdict of your correspondent himself, that circumstances are the chief and only source of difference in the nature of this pursuit; and hitherto we may most justly represent the act of emulation, according to the above principle, as a strictly neutral operation, of which circumstances alone are hereafter to determine the goodness or badness.

In fact, this principle of emulation; this desire of excellence abstractedly considered; this thirst of improvement; call it, if you please, this ambition to rise to some standard hitherto unattained, seems to me to be that very original and essential property of the human mind of which we have been in search. It is in some form or other, I firmly believe, wholly inseparable from all inferior intelligences; and seems to be that grand and universal law by which all finite intellectual substances gravitate in endless progression to wards that source of perfection from whence they emanate. You may modify, combine, limit, direct, controul it as you will; you may, if you please, rail at it, condemn it, and exclude it from your system; but you never will and never can extinguish its operation in the human mind. There it will still remain; there it will forcibly act. Under a thousand forms it will ever elude the subtlest grasp that should attempt its destruction; and what is more, will, with no recollection of your unnatural designs, kindly repay them by still continuing, as it has always done in time past, to yield you the most solid fruits of excellence; and to fill with activity, vigour, and effect, all the necessary, all the useful, and all the venerable departments of human life.

Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recur

ret,

Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.

It is this principle which the reasonings of your correspondent covertly and in effect tend, though I am far from saying aim, to discard from the system of education, and even to banish from the human mind. And feeling as I do, the inefficacy of the attempt, as well as the tremendous loss which would accrue to the world should it succeed; it can be no matter of surprize that I thus humbly endeavour to save so much time and labour, that might be more usefully employed, and to discourage an attack

To the Editor of the Christian Observer, My situation in a remote part of the country, and disinclination to travel beyond the limits of a mari time province, create in my feelings a kind of morbid strangeness to the habits of a town life; of which I have long known nothing, but through the medium of books, and the conversation of casual visitors. I have, however, lately had an opportunity of receiving periodical details of the proceedings of the fashionable and commercial crowds, which mingle their numbers in your busy capital; in consequence of my second son having remained in town during six months, previously to his departure for a western colony. I commissioned him, while in London, to send such information as might furnish our domestic circle with a passable idea of what was going on in scenes so different from the calm uniformity of our own retirement; and particularly wished him to communicate a few notices respecting the present state of our national learning, a subject not indeed im mediately within the range of my regular pursuits, but interesting, in its degree, to one who in earlier life knew a little of Virgil and Theocritus, and more of our own Milton; and who retains that general love of literature which was impressed upon him when he gathered his opinions of mankind and his elements of moral science from the midsummer-nights' dreams of poetry.-My poor William has really deluged us with literary gazettes, for such his letters must be termed; but the misery is, that I do not find he has read a single hook during the whole half year. I do find, nevertheless, that he is become the bosom friend of some gay booksellers at

.the west end of the town; and that under their shadow he is already in the last stages of the bibliomania. As a proof of the progress of, this distemper on a constitution which, I thought, would long defy contagion, he sent me last week a copy of a forth-coming advertisement, as it will appear, he tells me, in all the quarterly journals of the next season. It contains one hundred and fifty articles, and the first seven are announced as follows: Select List of NEW PUBLICATIONS;

TO APPEAR, IF POSSIBLE, ON THE FIRST OF APRIL, 1814. 1. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE MARCHIONESS OF Q; from 1780 to 1810.-This exquisitely interesting accession to elegant literature is acknowledged to contain the only genuine record and classification of varieties in amusement and dress, during the specified period; the noble authoress having, amidst an infinitude of minor details, indulged her correspondents with the secret history of the introduction of the pelisse into the British wardrobe; the origin of puce and coquelicot; the partial suffusion of those hues over patrician habiliments, and a comparative view of their influences on the splendour of three successive birth-days; and, particularly, with an elaborate memoir on the rise of the bandalore (that once athletic and philosophical recreation of fashionable life), its premature decline and fall, and mysterious connection with the measures of a certain cabinet in the earlier periods of the French Revolution. The work, printed uniformly with Miss Seward's Letters, is expected to extend to eight volumes; the last two being reserved for confidential notes addressed to the principal female domestics of her ladyship's establishment. Portraits, fac-similes, and graphic illustrations of costume, furniture, horticulture, and general taste will be liberally dispersed through every volume.

2. LEGENDS OF THE CRADLE. BY

MRS. BUNCH.-At a period when the intellectual efforts of women rival the most distinguished productions of the other sex, it is unquestionably due to the memory of an ancient female fabulist, (who, from the matronly and maternal character of her style, has long borne the familiar and endearing appellation of Mother Bunch), to rescue her pretensions from that unmerited oblivion which, it is feared, begins to darken their celebrity. Accordingly, an authentic edition of the Buncine Tales, printed from black-letter copy recently discovered in the British Museum, and collated with a MS. in the Advocate's Library at Edinburgh, is now offered to the public, and especially to the guardians of education. The Editor trusts that the patrons of antique British literature will remunerate the labour and anxiety bestowed on this national work. The sex of the original writer will remind a gallant and chivalrous. age of the veneration demanded by the name (clarum et venerabile nomen!) of a lady, who, without any disparagement to the recent claims and talents of Madame de Genlis, Miss Edgeworth, and the Aikin family, long monopolized the merit of developing the nascent energies of legislators, warriers, and philosophers.-The Legends, preceded by a biographical preface, and whole length and breadth portrait of the authoress, engraved, by special permission, from an original painting in the principal nursery at a ducal mansion, will be printed in one vol. royal 4to; price 51. 5s. in extra boards.

** The editor of Mrs. Bunch avails himself of the opportunity of contradicting a report, that he had pledged himself to prepare a variorum edition of the Life of Thomas Thumb, and of the sentimental narratives of that adventurer's (supposed) contemporary Mrs. Goose. The fact is, that he has long entertained very serious doubts of the veracity of the singular achieve

ments said to have been performed by so diminutive a here as THUMB (or Thumbicas, as the mookish annalists of the middle ages usually write the name), particularly his success against personages of extraordinary stature; and he inclines to think that historians confound Thumb with John the well-known Assassin of Giants.-The editor's reluctance to publish the Goosian Fables is founded on a conviction, that no perfect MS. or edition of them has survived the ravages of time, or rather the criminal indifference of librarians; and, without specifying names, he reminds those whom it may concern, that the mutilated legends of Guy Earl of Warwick, and of Cinderella, in the library of the Royal Institution, will remain as monuments of the negligence and venality of a certain individual, whom misguided tenderness has hitherto shielded from justice.

3. GEOLOGY OF FINCHLEY COMMON. However superfluous it may appear to invite the attention of philosophical mineralogists to this important title, the author cannot deny himself the gratification of appriz. ing the geological world, that his unwearied researches among the awful and almost illimitable solitudes of Finchley have been rewarded by the discovery of seventeen new earths; the examination of which furnishes data utterly subversive of the two rival hypotheses of the Vulcanists and Neptunists, and (he flatters himself) demonstrative of a new and conclusive theory. Subjoined is an analysis of the dark-coloured sediment (or limus) deposited by the Thames, and such tributary streams as increase its waters between Blackfriars and London bridges.-The work will unquestionably form an era in physical science; and, it is presumed, must specifically recommend itself to such ladies and young persons as frequent the various Institutions of the metropolis in pursuit of experimental philosophy.

CHRIST, OBSERV. No. 146.

4. TAILORS; THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY AND MANNERS, AND CONNECTION WITH THE ECONOMY AND COSTUME OF EMPIRES.-The English editor of this rich intellectual effusion has accompanied his version with illustrations which will render the whole performance (ori ginally written for circulation on the continent) applicable to the loca peculiarities of his native island. He has also added a dissertation on a subject unaccountably omitted by the German author; namely, the hypothesis that mine individuals of the profession are required to constitute the true homo sapiens of Linneus. The appendix contains an essay towards a theory of the oriental posture so generally assumed in the celebration of the sartorian mysteries.

*A French translation of these volumes was discovered at Paris by the police, and destroyed by express command of Napoleon; who, as it would appear, was alarmed by the spirit of metaphysical freedom breathing through every paragraph.

5. An illustrated Edition of THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.-In the present improved state of ethics, many original thinkers have expressed their surprize that no attempt has been made to enforce the claims of virtue by the auxiliary might of typography and graphic science. It is therefore proposed to prepare a superb edition of the above popular code of rectitude, illustrated by a series of the most finished specimens of wood engravings hitherto produced by the School of Bewick. The letter-press will be corrected by an eminent amateur in modern divinity; who, without presuming to adulterate the text, has engaged to subjoin such notes and comments as may soften the austere obduracy of its precepts, and, in some instances, furnish a practical refutation; in correspondence to the enlightened theories of the age. It is assumed that a cursory perusal of these annotations, added to an inspection of the designs and vignettes, will superN

rede the necessity of any irksome study of the original work, stuooth the once rugged ascent to the emple of virtue, and display the deathless triumphs of the pencil over the retiring forces of vice. The potency of the graphic art in this publication is computed by recurring to the fact, that for several years subsequent to the appearance of Hogarth's Rake's Progress, no rake, who had examined that (till now) unrivalled series of plates, ever relapsed into his antecedent indiscretions. The undertaking will be completed before the next fashionable season; in order that parents and guardians may opportunely idspire with a permanent love of vir-tue, and intolerance of irregularity, the young persons immediately under their influence, by presenting them with copies of this irresistible spersuasive to goodness. It will be printed in an order of transcendent magnificence at the Shakspeare Ipress, in imperial folio; with a portfolio of plates, exclusive of the head and tail pieces, and an engraved title in the lapidary style with characteristic decorations. The price "is not intended to exceed 314. 10s.

6. SCAVENGEMIANA; OR, ANECHOTES OF DISTinguished DustMEN. The variety and deserved popalarity of publications in ANA encourage the compiler of these papers to anticipate a highly flattering reception from the innumerable lovers of select anecdote. His nativity - and long residence in St. Giles's ·(salve, magna parens!) have afforded facilities of communication with leading characters among an ancient and meritorious profession, only to be appreciated by a careful examination of his performance. He has, however, the mortification of confessing, that all attempts to procure a chronological set of illustrative portraits have been fruitless; and he is driven to the necessity of offering a broken series, engraved from the only collection accessible to his inquiries, and possessed by a monificent patron of the arts in the vicinity of the Seven Dials.-The

work will be published by subscrip tion, and the copies most faithfully delivered in the order of subscrib ing. Names are received by the editor in Dyot Street.

**The author of Scavengeriana has been for many years collecting materials for a peculiarly interesting bistoric work; which, he trusts, will speedily appear, under the title of Annals of the Gypsey Monarchy, from its Founder, Robertus Muricidus (Bob the Rat-catcher) to the origin of the existing dynasty in the person of Tom the Tawny. Much information has been obtained from the Royal archives at Norwood, from oral tradition, and particularly from the Charta de Fomesta, and similar documents. This great undertaking will be enriched by a glossarial dissertation on the ancient Gipsey phraseology; also by essays on Palmistry, the Spartan Vir tue, and various collateral topics. To be embellished with sketches of forest scenery, and accurate zoological drawings of poultry, &c. &c. &c.

7. Seculum AsinarIUM; OR, FIGGE FOR THEIR LEARNINGĖ.~ This is the title of a beautifully illuminated MS. lately discovered among the Selden papers in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. By several gentlemen of high celebrity for their attainments in our early literature, it is pronounced to be a prophetic (though obviously ironical) estimate of the learned character of the nineteenth century; and, probably composed on the model of Barclay's Navis Stultifera, or Shippe of Fooles. Of the accuracy of their decision the less critical reader may form a judgment after perusing the following specimen, selected almost fortuitously from the writer's Prologue: When such wights, as should be righte true schollars, do eschew sound learninge, they do straightway fall to picke out a via regia to wisdom; wherein they wander farre, and get nothing. Of this. their travail come emptie heads and sicklie hearts; yea, great crie and small wooll; and each wight is awearie, and saith, I trowe, that