drive to the Bois de Boulogne, or some of the public walks which are beautiful, in, and near Paris, and on which I shall expatiate hereafter. When the carriage returns, I go out with Cecilia and Fanny; we dine at six. and if we have no engagement out, spend our evenings delightfully at home, in reading. music, and dancing. The French country dances. or quadrills, as they are danced here, are very pleasing; the music is sweet, and the steps and figures graceful. Madame la Duchesse often joins our family parties, and her lively wit and talents add considerably to our enjoyment: we sing duetts together, she has a pretty voice, but her style is quite French. There is an arch playfulness peculiar to the French character, which when added to beauty, renders them very fascinating companions. This something is very difficult to describe, nay, I may almost say is indescribable, for as you cannot in repeating. give the look and gesture which accompanies their petit mœurs, divested of that magic, they become indeed nothings. I felt this forcibly in reading Lady Morgan's France," for where she would impress the English reader with an idea of the superiority of the French soirees to English social parties, her picture fails: and we like our fire-side chat, our simple ballads. sang in voices of sweet melody, our strains of Handel, (who although a German, England claims as her own) and of our Purcel, who, mingling his rich harmony with Shakespear's heaven born strains, has rendered himself immortal! and we confess we are not willing to exchange such joys, imperfect as they may be, for the refined repartee or bon mot, or jeu d'esprit ;, nor would Englishmen be at all gratified to have their daughters, from fifteen to twenty, celebrated as les belle esprit, among the literati of their sex.

The wide difference between the French and English character was never more strongly exemplified to me than the other day. The weather was fine, a bright sun made old Winter look like Spring. We all drove to the Bois de Boulogne, where we found many parties, like ourselves, assembled to enjoy the beauty of the morning; but not as the English do in our parks. pacing with measured steps to and fro one broad chosen walk. point de toutgroupes of females, of all ages, playing different games of exercise; ball, battle-door, and shuttle-cock, and puss in the corner. Yes, actually, I saw four genteel women, of middle age, with beckoning fingers, bright eyes, and smiling lips, darting from side to side, with all the buoyant glee and hilarity of child-hood. I felt so surprised, and was for a moment so much of an English women, that I did not know whether to think it very silly, or very wise; to admire, or to condemn; but I was in Parisand mauvais honte soon gave way to savoir-vivre. I urged the children to join in these games, but they at first hung back,

ashamed. At length a good humoured invitation, from some of the merry makers prevailed; and I joined in the general happiness most heartily; tho' not in their frolic sports. These things cannot be done in England-and why not?-I will tell you in my next packet. This much must now take its course to you, and, oh! may it find you enjoying all the health and peace that is hourly wished you, by your friend, M.

From Paris, February. 18-.

(Letter III, in the next number.)

FOR THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE

A REVIEW

OF

JUSTINA, OR THE WILL

A Domestic Story, in two volumes, published in New-York, by Charles Wiley, 1823.

SUCH is the fecundity of the imagination in the present age, that reviewers cannot find time to give one half of its progeny, either that parental castigation or friendly greeting which their merits or defects may demand. This is doubtless a most heavy calamity as it regards both the writers and readers of such works; for the reviewer is generally if not always a personage of the strictest impartiality, who knows neither men nor measures, seeks neither fame nor wealth, but expends his precious time and erudite talents solely for the laudable purpose of rescuing Genius from obloquy or neglect; or preventing the imposture of quacks in literature, who by the learned sageness of their labels endeavour to deceive the young and the illiterate. Indeed it is a maxim among our profession. that no individual, of whatever class in society, should be gratified or instructed by a work which we had not deigned to praise; and to feel repugnance either to the amusement or erudition of an author who had received the commendation of our critical dictatorship, is, in our opinion, presumption in the extreme. I know that the validity of our self constituted power as arbiters of taste is sometimes questioned; and whispers much to the disrespect of our critical infallibilily, have been permitted to circulate from lip, to lip un

til they have expanded into loud and audible language. We are sorry to say that even authors, who should be more docile and obedient than the mere men of creation, have joined in this rebellion against our authority. Hence Robert Burns, in speaking of some of our family in his day, calls them,

"Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes,
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose."

Nor has our trusty and beloved brother Fadladeen, that prince of reviewers, escaped the ironical lash of envy. We confess, that that critical elevation of eye brow, which so much distinguished his learned physiognomy, and that laudable zeal which was equally manifested, "whether the game before him was pagans or poetasters, worshippers of cows or writers of epics," give him a strong recommendation to us, although the blue eyed songster of Erin would irreverently endeavour to convey through him, a satire upon our race.

But the present day is not more marked by the numbers than the character of imaginative works. When we compare them with the greater part of the same class of productions which came forth in the beginning of the last century, we would suppose that men's imaginations had undergone a radical change. Surely the improvement in the intellectual machinery of novel writers must have been as great as that of the natural world; for the discovery and application of steam is not more strange, with all its saving of time and labour, than its counterpart in the world of romance made by the “Great Unknown." What if Perkins should arrive at our wharves direct from London, in twentyfour hours, perched in the stern sheets of a cock-boat; or another of our worthy citizens enter one of our city-hotels by the chimney, gracefully balancing and corvetting on his patent wings; or Captain Symmes astonish us at the "witching hour of night,” by a conflict dire with some of the intestine inhabitants of our earth. These things might all be accounted for; indeed if we credit, popular report, they are already all demonstrated; but that the author of Waverly, and his disciples should keep up a continucd fire upon our imaginations from the press, is, we know indeed to be a fact, but how to account for it surpasses our pigmy understanding, while it excites one universal expression of astonisment.

Among the other remarkable productions of the present day is the description of the work now before us, viz. a religious novel-a religious novel!!! The very name has in it something startling and contradictory to our pre-conceived opinions and educational prejudices. To go into the regions of fiction to collect materials for the reccommendation of the word of eternal life;

to identify the personages of Revelation with the Quixottes of romance- -but no, there is no such thing in these volumes, nothing to contaminate the religious, or undermine the awful solemnities of religion; no, but on the contrary they contain, to say the least of them, a well meant defence of one of the most vital and essential doctrines of the gospel; viz. the doctrine of the Divinity of the Saviour. We were about to add, that parabolical instruction, which is undoubtedly a species of religious novel writing, has always been permitted and even encouraged; but as our intention is rather to give some account of the substance and execution of the work now before us, than to discuss the propriety of such writings, we shall at once enter on the execution of our plan.

We have in this, as we should have in all works of fancy, a principal personage conducted through a variety of scenes, some of which would be really distressing, had we not the quieting and consoling assurance, derived from experience, that the more dark and disconsolate the fate of heroes and heroines may be, during the midnight of their distresses, the more bright and brilliant will be the morning of their deliverance. The plot, though tolerably well conceived, is very simple; yet of that description of simplicity, which from its near coincidence with reality, gives it a greater alliance to things that "might have been," than if it was more full of “hair breadth escapes."

We understand that this novel is the production of a Lady; that she is one of piety and talents we have no merit in believing, for every chapter in the work, evinces that she is both, though we are much deceived if she has done her talents justice; but in addition to this, that she is a Lady of a kind and amiable heart, we would venture, even at the risk of our critical infallibility, to assert; if indeed it can be called a venture, after having perused this tale. We confess that when we first heard the title, we had very moderate expectations of it, as it sounded so like the Belindas and Amandas, &c. of the last century,

"Issuing sighs that smoked along the wall."

in the sickening loathing of their sickening loves. But if its name alarmed us much, its subject made us still more distrustful. We immediately-for who can at once stop the precipitous torrent of his aroused reflections? assigned it a station among that crude undigested mass of novels, which proceeding from brainless heads and diseased imaginations, add a little to the labour and profit of the printer, and then enjoy an existence infinitely more placid and undisturbed than the polypus. This feeling was changed by the opinion of friends on whose judgments we

place much dependence; and having perused it attentively for ourselves, we confess we were both pleased and instructed by it. And in order to justify our own complacency, as well as to convey to our readers a due sense of our penetration, we are happy to inform them, that the merits of this work are duly apppreciated in London, the very mart and home of literature, where it is republished under the title of, "Justina, or Pure and Undefiled Religion."

But to the story. Mr. Melross, on account of a failure in his mercantile concerns, is obliged to leave this country for the metropolis of England, whither he carries with him Justina, the heroine of the tale. After much exertion, and the sacrifice of his American estates, he discharges all his debts, and dies in poverty and happiness. Justina. after an absence of nine years, returns to the land of her Fathers, beautiful in person and amiable and accomplished in mind. Sometime after her arrival from England, and during her stay in the beautiful and romantic isl ands of the Bermudas, whither she went to accompany an invalid friend, her sister Augusta became acquainted with two gentleman of the names of Elmore and Arlington. Betwixt Augusta and the former of these gentlemen there arose a mutual attachment. Shortly after the arrival of Justina from Bermuda, she discovered that she possessed sentiments towards the noble minded Arlington, dearer far than friendship, which for many reasons she felt confident was mutual. Arlington however was deeply in love with Augusta, though she was plighted to his friend; and by one of those unaccountable freaks of the human heart which are of such infinite importance to novel-writers, Elmore forsakes the disconsolate Augusta for her sister. Here arises a misunderstanding betwixt the two sisters, upon which turns much of the interest of the story. Elmore is at once, and decidedly, rejected by the amiable Justina, who strongly recommends Arlington to Augusta. though in doing so, she rends her own tenderest affections. What however induced Justina to persevere in this, was the fact that she unavoidably gave Arlington the knowledge of her attachment to him. She feared therefore, should Augusta reject him, he would attribute his rejection to her interested interference. No sooner however did Augusta discover Elmore's attachment to her sister, than she dicovered, as she thought, Justina's reasons for pleading so warmly for Arlington, whom she then rejects, and no sooner is he rejected than he believes it occasioned by the duplicity of Justina. Several circumstances, naturally conceived and well described, give a strong probability to both these suspicions. This leads to a separation betwixt the two sisters. Justina goes to New-York; and soon afterwards to Philadelphia, where she meets with an opulent