Hort. Permit me to offer a reafon on his behalf,-a reafon that makes me figh over the fate of genius.-Cervantes! the gallant foldier!-the delightful companion!-the charming writer!-the pride and boast of his country! - Cervantes wanted bread.-he wrote this celebrated work in a prifon, and knowing the taste and humour of his countrymen, composed fuch a book, as was most likely to please them, and procure relief to his miferies.'

We shall fubjoin to this extract a judicious defence of the author of Eloifa.

'Rouffeau faw that the women on the continent, while maidens, paid due respect to their honour and character, but as foon as they were married they entertained all the world, and encouraged gallants; of the two evils he thought a fingle perfon's indulging a criminal paffion, of lefs pernicious confequence to fociety, than a married woman who commits adultery:-upon this principle he wrote this book.-He puts the character of a woman who encourages lovers after marriage, in oppofition to one who having committed the greatest fault before marriage, repents, and recovers her principles.-He inforces the fanctity of the marriage vow, he fets the breach of it in a light to fhock every confiderate mind, he fhews that where it is broken, nothing but hatred and difguft fucceeds; the confidence a man fhould place in his wife, the tenderness he should feel for his offspring, is deftroyed, and nothing remains but infamy and mifery.

If Rouffeau intended by this work to give a check to this fhameful intercourfe of the fexes, fo frequently practifed on the continent, under the fpecious name of gallantry, he is to be commended; and if it produced effects he did not foresee, he ought to be excused,'

On the fubject of Richardfon, we can allow for a little female partiality; but his works are exalted too extravagantly, and thofe of Fielding proportionably depreffed. Yet, in this account of the Progrefs of Romance,' there is fcarcely an attempt to delineate the literary character of these two great luminaries of the fyftem, from whofe example the most striking variations have been produced. The author's talents feem to have been fo much exhausted in attempting to prove the abfurd romances of the middle ages, to be epic poems, that he cannot attend to a new creation in the literary world, the comic epos, of which Tom Jones was fo brilliant an example. The fupreme judge of romances fpeaks in this manper of one of its moft finished ornaments.

As I confider wit only as a fecondary merit, I muft beg leave to obferve, that his writings are much inferior to Richardfon's in morals and exemplary characters, as they are fuperior in wit

and

and learning. Young men of warm paffions and not strict principles, are always defirous to fhelter themselves under the fanction of mixed characters, wherein virtue is allowed to be predominant. In this light the character of Tom Jones is capable of doing much mischief; and for this reafon a tranflation of this book was prohibited in France.-On the contrary, no harm can poffibly arife from the imitation of a perfect character, though the attempt fhould fall fhort of the original.

Soph. This is an indifputable truth,-there are many objec tionable scenes in Fielding's works, which I think Hortenfius will not defend.

Hort. My objections were in character, and your's are fo likewife; as you have defended Richardfon, fo I will defend Fielding. I allow there is fome foundation for your remarks, nevertheless in all Fielding's works, virtue has always the fuperiority the ought to have, and challenges the honours that are justly due to her, the general tenor of them is in her favour, and it were happy for us, if our language had no greater cause of complaint in her behalf.

Euph. There we will agree with you. Have you any fur

ther obfervations to make upon Fielding's writings?

• Hort. Since you refer this part of your tafk to me, I will offer a few more remarks.-Fielding's Amelia is in much lower eftimation than his Jofeph Andrews, or Tom Jones; which have both received the ftamp of public applause.'

To Dr. Smollett, the fair critic is fomewhat more complaifant; but her account of his novels is so very trifling, that we are almost ready to fufpect that she has not yet read them.

Dr. Smollet's novels abound with wit and humour, which fome critics think is carried beyond the limits of probability; all his characters are over charged, and he has exhibited fome fcenes that are not proper for all readers; but upon the whole, his works are of a moral tendency, their titles are, Roderick Random-Peregrine Pickle-Sir Lancelot Greaves-Ferdinand Count Fathom-Adventures of an Aton.-Many years after thefe he gave the public another, in no refpect inferior, and in fome fuperior to them all, called Humphrey Clinker.'

We have given extracts of various merit, that the reader may judge for himself. If the decifion is not in favour of the work, we are at least confident that it has not been influenced by a partiality in the selection. Its form is that of dialogue; but, as it is conducted, it has all the inconveniencies, without the authority, which would have arifen from the fentiments having been attributed to men of character and learning. We have, however, examined this fubject at fufficient length in a former Review. In the present inftance, the ceremonies at meeting and taking leave, the numerous compliments very freely beRowed, interrupt the fubject, and cannot fail to difguft the

reader.

reader. Perhaps we are within bounds when we remark, that one half of either little volume would have held every thing which the most complaifant reader might have thought important.

The Egyptian romance at the end is entitled the Hiftory of Charoba Queen of Egypt, and is truly a literary curiofity.

It is extracted from a book called-The History of Ancient Egypt, according to the Traditions of the Arabians.-Written in Arabic, by the Reverend Doctor Murtadi, the Son of Gapiphus, the fon of Chatem, the Son of Molfem the Macdefian. Tranflated into French by M. Vattier, Arabic Profeffor to Louis 14th King of France.'

If the author could find more of thefe early romances, we fhould more readily acknowledge our obligation to her than for her imperfect delineation of the progress of the fubject.

To which are

Effay on the Life and Character of Petrarch. added, Seven of his Sonnets, tranflated from the Italian. 8vo. Is. 6d.

Cadell.

THIS very elegant Effay contains a concife relation of the events of the poet's life; of a life not interesting by a difplay of fplendid actions, or important negociations, but from one circumftance, viz. a violent and lafting paffion. Though Petrarch was an ecclefiaftic and a statesman, yet we only look on the lover of Laura, and the poet. Concerning this famous lady we have the following information.

Although in the innumerable verfes which he composed in the ardour of his paffion, he has expatiated on every feature of his lovely mistress, it is perhaps impoffible thence to describe accurately either her perfon or her face; for the rapturous defcriptions of a poet feldom convey accurate or diftin&t ideas. The idea which painting conveys of a beautiful form, is much tronger and more complete. By thofe pictures of Laura, which are faid to be genuine, he is reprefented as of a fair complexion, her hair of a ligh. colour, her face round, with a small forehead, her cheeks rather full. She is painted with her eyes very mach caft down, fo as to appear almoft fhut. The expreffion of the whole countenance is that of a very young girl, of amiable fimplicity of manners, of much fweetness of difpofition, and extreme bashfulness. The most excessive modelty and reserve in her demeanour, feems indeed to have been the ftrongest characteristic of the miftrefs of Petrarch. It was this quality, which, in the eyes of her lover, heightened every charm of her perfon, and every accomplishment of her mind; and it is not improbable, that to this fingular and ftriking atribute were owing, both the ardor and duration of his af, fection.

The

The principal part of this little work contains the arguments of the author to prove, that Laura was in reality never married. Yet it was remarkable that Laura de Sade fhould have died on the fame year with the Laura of Petrarch, and. that the tomb of the latter should have been in the fame chapel with that of the former. We ought, however, to add, that the plague was epidemic in that year, and more than one Laura may be supposed to have died of it; as well as that the chapel feems not to have been appropriated to the house of Sade only. On the other hand, Petrarch always gloried in his affection as a merit rather than a crime: it was never confidered, even in the fuppofed converfation with St. Augustin, where every argument is employed to wean him from it, as an improper attachment: he feems to have had at times accefs to his miftrefs; to have received fome little encouragements, the lender food on which love is fometimes fupported, and we never hear of a jealous husband, or of an indifcreet familiarity.

The laft argument advanced by the author in the Mémoires (viz. Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque), which he gives as in a manner conclufive upon this point, is the explanation of the in word ptbs. Having candidly enough acknowledged that all the preceding arguments amount only to conjectures, the author might certainly have included the laft, with equal propri ety, under the fame denomination. His interpretation of the word ptbs, partubus, is certainly nothing more than a conjecture; to fupport which we have only his own opinion, and that of meffrs. Caperonnier, Boudot, and Bejot, of the king's library. But, in oppofition to their opinion, we have that of all the editors of the works of Petrarch. It will not be denied that the earliest of these editors, who lived at no great distance of time from the age of Petrarch, were much better able to read the manufcripts of that age, and to interpret their abbreviations, than the critics of the eighteenth century. But with regard to this abbreviation, the author of the Mémoires is far from afferting that all the manufcripts of Petrarch contain the words fo written, or that those which he mentions are the moft ancient. He mentions only two; fo that we may reasonably conclude that all the other manufcripts, of which the author's zeal upon this fubject would lead him to examine a great number, must bear the word written at full length, perturbationibus; and many of these were, perhaps, prior in date to thofe which he mentions. Even of those two, it is probable, from their coincidence in fo uncommon an abbreviation, that the one must have been copied from the other. At the best, therefore, the argument comes to this point: among all the ancient manufcripts of the Dialogues of Petrarch, there are two which write the word prbs, the reft write at full length, perturbationibus. Be

fore

fore any conjectural interpretation of this word, different from the other manufcripts, can be allowed, it muft, in the first place, be proved that these two manufcripts are the most an cient of all; and that the reft have only given interpretations of the contraction: but this is not attempted; and the chance that these manufcripts are not the most ancient, is in the proportion of two to all the other manufcripts of the fame work exifting; perhaps two hundred.'

We think thefe, added to the other arguments, entirely decifive; and we shall agree with the author that

The arguments produced by the author of the Mémoires, are totally infufficient to fupport his hypothefis; which is ftill further difcredited, if not directly confuted, by the internal evidence arifing from the works of the poet himself.'

The Sonnets are tranflated with confiderable elegance. The author has only felected the forty-eighth, one hundred and thirty-fecond, two hundred and twelfth, two hundred and fifty-first, two hundred and fixtieth, two hundred and fixtyfirft, and the two hundred and feventieth. We fhall tranfcribe the one hundred and thirty fecond.

• Hor, che'l ciel, e la terra, e'l vento tace, &c. 'Tis now the hour when midnight filence reigns O'er earth and fea, and whifp'ring zephyr dies

Within his rocky cell, and Morpheus chains

Each beaft that roams the wood, and bird that wings the fkies.

'More bleft thofe rangers of the earth and air,

Whom night a while relieves from toil and pain:
Condemn'd to tears, and fighs, and watting care,
To me the circling fun defcends in vain!

Ah me! that mingling miferies and joys,

Too near allied, from one fad fountain flow;

The magic hand that comforts and annoys,

Can hope and fell defpair, and life and death beftow!

Too great the blifs to find in death relief,

Fate has not yet fill'd up the meafure of my grief.'

Ifaiah verfified. By George Butt, Cler. A. M. 8vo. 5s. in Boards. Cadell.

4

THE prefatory addefs opens with a fhort, but warm encomium on the prophetic writings of Ifaiah, extracted from Dr. Lowth's Prelections: warm, however, and animated as it is, we prefume not to arraign its juftice, though we venture to condemn the high flown panegyric on poetry which immediately follows it.

• Such,