of imputing to hypocrisy all pretensions to a severer scale of morals, or a more vivid sense of religion, is as offensive to sound reason and Christian philosophy as that which attaches a charge of guilt to matters of indifference, or to the ordinary amusements of life.

We would willingly hope that several of Johnstone's other characters, if less grossly calumniated than Whitefield, are at least considerably overcharged. The first Lord Holland was a thorough-bred statesman of that evil period, and the Earl of Sandwich an open libertine, yet they also had their lighter shades of character, although Chrysal holds them up to the unmitigated horror of posterity. The same may be said of others, and this exaggeration was the more easy, as Johnstone does not pretend that the crimes imputed to these personages were all literally committed, but admits that he invented such incidents as he judged might best correspond to the idea which he had formed of their character; thus rather shaping his facts according to a preconceived opinion, than deducing his opinion from facts which had actually taken place.

The truth is that young, ardent, and bold, the author seems to have caught fire from his own subject, to have united credulity in belief with force of description, and to have pushed praise too readily into panegyric, while he exaggerated censure into reprobation. He

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every where shows himself strongly influenced by the current tone of popular feeling; nay, unless in the case of Wilkes, whose simulated patriotism he seems to have suspected, his acuteness of discrimination seldom enables him to correct public opinion. The Bill for the naturalization of the Jews had just occasioned a general clamour, and we see Chrysal, not only exposing their commercial character in the most odious colours, but reviving the ancient and absurd fable of their celebrating the Feast of the Passover by the immolation of Christian infants. With the same prejudiced credulity, he swallows without hesitation all the wild and inconsistent charges which were then heaped upon the order of the Jesuits, and which occasioned the general clamour for their suppression,

On the other hand, because it was the fashion to represent the continental war, which had for its sole object the protection of the Electorate of Hanover, as waged in defence of the Protestant religion, Johnstone has dressed up the selfish and atheistical Frederick of Prussia in the character of the Protestant hero, and put into his mouth a prayer adapted to the character of a self-devoted Christian soldier, who drew his sword in the defence of that religion which was enshrined in his own boThis is so totally out of all keeping and character that we can scarce help thinking

som.

that the author has written, not his own sentiments, but such as were most likely to catch the public mind at the time,

But, feeling and writing under the popular impression of the moment, Johnstone has never failed to feel and write like a true Briton, with a sincere admiration of his country's laws, an ardent desire for her prosperity, and a sympathy with her interests, which more than atone for every error and prejudice. He testifies on many occasions his respect for the House of Brunswick, and leaves his testimony against the proceedings first commenced by Wilkes, and so closely followed by imitators of that unprincipled demagogue, for the pose of courting the populace by slandering the throne. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding his zeal for King George and the Protestant religion, the Jacobite party, though their expiring intrigues might have furnished some piquant anecdotes, are scarcely mentioned in Chrysal.

pur

A Key to the personages introduced to the reader, in Chrysal, was furnished by the author himself to Lord Mount Edgecombe, and another to Captain Mears, with whom he sailed to India. It is published by Mr William Davis, in his collection of Bibliographical and Literary Anecdotes, with this caveat:-« The author's intention was to draw general characters; therefore, in the application of the Key, the

reader must exercise his own judgment.>> The Key is subjoined to the text with a few additional notes, illustrative of such incidents and characters, as properly belong to history or to public life. Anecdotes of private scandal are willingly left in the mystery in which the text has involved them; and some instances occur in which the obvious misrepresentations of the satirist have been modified by explanation. But when all exaggeration has been deducted from this singular work, enough of truth will still remain, in Chrysal, to incline the reader to congratulate himself that these scenes have passed more than half a century before his

time.

STERNE.

LAURENCE STERNE was one of those few authors who have anticipated the labours of the biographer, and left to the world what they desired should be known of their family and their life.

"

Roger Sterne' (says this narrative), grand

Mr Sterne was descended from a family of that name, in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215.