In his first essay, the author observes that a prior acquaintance with inferior productions tends to disable us from appreciating the higher. And he shows that not only our mental but our external faculties are capable of a much higher degree of improvement from use and habit, than they generally receive.

The pleasure arising from objects of taste is in a great measure influenced by the association of ideas, which is again affected by casual circumstances; as, by the books that first awoke our imagination, and by our habitual studies and pursuits. In celebrated works, the defects are apt to become agreeable, not only from their connexion with real beauties, but from regard to the genius of the author, and the consciousness of the number and judgment of his admirers. Even our aversion to the character, the opinions, or the country of an author, may cause a disrelish for the beauties of his works.

The perfection of taste demands great sensibility in the moral feelings :

"Upon the whole, then, our taste will be improved, according as our moral sensibility and intellectual faculties are improved; according as our knowledge is extensive; according as we have become acquainted with first-rate compositions; according as we are disposed and accustomed to connect agreeable trains of thought with proper objects; according as we have learned to counteract unfavorable associations: and according as we have been trained to direct our full attention to the more affecting circumstances, and to apprehend them completely and distinctly, even when they are too complicated or too delicate for common observers." p. 12.

But even taste, however correct, cannot overcome the languor of satiety; and we are instinctively urged to improve and diversify our powers of discrimination, by the study of inferior objects, recommended by the interest of novelty. The passive pleasures of taste, our author remarks, will be most grateful, when they are sought as a recreation from the engrossing anxieties of business, or the severer pursuits of science.

The standard of taste has been much canvassed. This writer founds the principles of criticism on the general sentiments of mankind; i. e. the cultivated and well-informed." But the principles of criticism

"Exhibit a standard which may at all times be readily consulted; and this is more than we can say of nature, or of the general sentiments of any part of mankind. But the establishment of these principles is an arduous work, where many errors mingle themselves with the investigations of the ablest men, and where, as in every other department of philosophy, we must only look for an approxi

mation to what we are never destined in our present state completely to attain." p. 16.

The imagination often represents objects more vividly in dreams, than sensation can transmit them to our waking facul ties; and this results from the comparative fewness of the objects that engage our thoughts while asleep. The imagination has another source of enjoyment, in the power of combining and uniting those qualities, which may never have existed in real objects.

Association is incessantly propagating a train of ideas, from the impulse of the imaginative faculty. Their union gives rise to emotions, which are frequently more animated than those of real life; even when we discredit the existence of the objects that may be suggested by the imagination.

"The reader, probably, has no belief in ghosts and enchantments: yet he will feel some degree of horror when his imagination is awakened by the tales

Of the death-bed call

To him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt

Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk

At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave

The torch of Hell around the murd❜rer's bed." p. 22.

We pass over many very sensible observations of a similar kind, which will be better understood in the original; and come to the author's precepts for the conduct of Imagination. The reader should be prepared for the intended impression; and the writer should be more solicitous to supply him with appropriate hints, than to enter into minute detail. Judgment in selecting the most efficient of a multitude of ideas is of no less importance than copiousness of invention. The crisis of time and circumstance must be well studied.

"Every one, who has witnessed the representation of Venice Preserved, may recollect a circumstance, which shows how much may be done by a proper preparation. I allude to the sudden alarm, which seizes the audience in the parting scene between Jaffier and Belvidera, when the bell gives the first toll for the execution of the conspirators. The effect of the bell would have been little or nothing, if it had been heard before this affecting interview begins. It is from the trembling sensibility to which we are previously subdued, that the signal for the execution shakes us to the very heart." p. 37.

As imagination is more powerful than language or painting,

it shows both policy and talent in the author, to claim the assistance of his reader's fancy. But this confidence is not to be carried too far:

"It may not, however, be easy to determine in particular cases, whether the reader may be supposed to be sufficiently prepared, so that the hints which are given may serve both to keep up the fire of his imagination, and to present a sufficient outline, which he will readily of himself fill up in the manner we could wish. Where this does not happen, the attempt must prove abortive, and the composition be most feeble in the very place, where the author designed it to have the strongest effect." p. 40.

But every great or interesting object ought to be in some respects particularly and even minutely described,' in order to assist our apprehension of those other qualities, which have been noticed but generally. Milton's Eve is cited in illustration.

Emotions that are painful in their higher degrees may be gratifying in the gentler; as in the instances of sunshine, fragrance, and sweetness. Though self-gratulation may be a constituent of the pleasure that proceeds from narratives of terror, there are others of equal efficacy:

"We are to remember, that the unusual and alarming situation, in which the characters are represented, must awaken our curiosity both with regard to their fate, and with regard to their conduct and appearance, in circumstances where the utmost fortitude, or fortitude more than human, would be requisite for their support. And, perhaps, it is in the gratification of this curiosity, that the pleasure of many persons chiefly consists.

"If to all this we add, that the imagination may be elevated to the sublimest conceptions; and that the gentler and endearing emotions of pity, with all the charms of composition, may be blended to soften the dreadful: it would appear, that we may account in a satisfactory manner for the pleasure, which may be derived from writings, whose object is to raise our terror."

p. 98.

Terror is aggravated by obscurity; and too much specification in the portraiture of disgusting objects detracts from its impressiveness. The terrible and the sublime are advantageously united; and a temporary guidance of the attention towards soothing objects will operate both as a relief and an auxiliary to the intensity of terror.

Pity, like terror, owes considerable part of its attraction to the self-love of its votaries; nor should it be prolonged to weariness. An amiable character in the sufferer adds to the effect of the composition. The author observes,

"Otway, whose powers in the pathetic are very uncommon, has miserably neglected the effect of character in the case of Jaffier and

Pierre. The former we despise; the latter we detest: and hence we are not only the less interested in their fortunes; but the interest, which by the talents of the poet we are forced to take, is reluctant and unpleasing. On the other hand, the virtuous and amiable Belvidera has the full command of our affections and pity." p. 128.

The perversion of innocence by sophistry, as in Voltaire's Mahomet, may be strongly attractive of commiseration. The author, as in a former chapter, advises that all unseemly or disagreeable adjuncts should be judiciously suppressed; and he again tries his hand on Otway, and makes an animadversion upon the poet, to the justice of which we cannot subscribe. That the catastrophe of the Orphan involves as much horror as pity may be conceded; but, in our judgment, to no unseemly degree. If this, together with the peculiarity of the event, from which the distress takes rise, should render the work less proper for the stage-at least in modern times-it cannot fail to command the keenest sympathy and the most enamored interest in the silent perusal.

Our other engagements are incompatible with a particular notice of the remaining Essays. From the author's frequent references to the poets and essayists of Scotland, and his occasional praises of their most indifferent productions, we suspect that he has acquired his knowledge in that country. His book is, upon the whole, written in a style rather diffusive, and evinces no power of very profound thought; but he is a diligent observer of what lies near the surface, and expresses himself with commendable perspicuity.

ART. XIII.-Historical Memoirs of my own Time; Part the First from 1772 to 1780; Part the Second, from 1781 to 1784. By Sir N. WILLIAM WRAXALL, Bart. Second Edition, in Two Volumes, pp. 1163. London, Cadell. 1815. SIR William Wraxall has long enjoyed the reputation of an excellent writer; and his fame as a literary character, and an accomplished man of the world, will not suffer by this publication. It treats of subjects in themselves highly interesting, and they are narrated in a clear and forcible manner. attempted, he has done well: but whether his success will contribute as much to the moral improvement of his readers, as to their amusement and the increase of his own celebrity, may, in a few instances, be questioned. If it do not, the fault will

What he has

probably be found in the matter, not in the man who handles it. We speak relatively to some part of the contents of the first volume: in the other, the scene does not lie among puppets moved upon the wires of Appetite, by the hands of Rapa city and Treason; not in the land "of singing and dancing 'slaves," or among Lusitanian dupes and bigots, but in England -in that happy country where Vice seldom dares shew her hideous face unmasked, and where the decencies and charities" of life are still cherished, protected, and honored.

A great proportion of the facts related in the first volume of this work, especially concerning persons high in rank and office, are of that description which tends to degrade the general estimate of human nature, and lower the tone of moral feeling. When we read, for instance, of a King of Naples more gross in his habits and conversation than an English porter; when we are told of the inconceivable mixture of levity and stupidity, bigotry, and licentiousness, which has disgraced royalty on the thrones of Spain and Portugal (to say nothing of incestuous marriages and murders perpetrated from political motives), instead of regarding those sovereigns as superior to the generality of mortals, we can scarcely assign them a place among rational beings. Whatever may be urged by the advocates for unqualified royal biography, it should be remembered that the perusal of the secret Memoirs of Courts, however fine the mould in which they are cast, seldom leaves the mind without a stain. We are commanded to look upon the persons of kings as invested with a degree of sacredness, and entitled to a respect which familiarity has a direct tendency to destroy'; and notwithstanding what the Abbé Winckleman has said relative to the conflicting feelings and mixed emotions in the countenances of pictures and statues, it is impossible for the bosom at once to entertain veneration and disgust for the same object. Hence, by dispelling the cloud of mystery that constitutes the magnifying medium through which monarchs are usually seen, and thus reducing them to the same standard and distinctness with other men, the chronicler of crowned delinquency weakens the respect which undefined perceptions had created, and undermines that allegiance which good subjects would fain pay-even to bad rulers. Some of Sir William's portraits remind us of the paintings of Dutch artists, who have wasted their time in forming accurate representation of gross and familiar subjects, which are but the more disgusting from being correct. They are, indeed, true to Nature, but such Nature as Art would be well employed in hiding; and of which the most exact delineations are the most reprehensible.