which, from default of intellect on my part, must wait without its solution, and a joyful Q.E. D. at its tail. Not content, however, with making the moon come and go, out of all reasonable calculation, they will not do her justice, when they allow that she is present. Hast thou not in thy multifarious reading, Christopher, met with passages of the same kidney as this? "Maltida rushed towards the Castle, whose sculptured portal was illuminated by the lucid rays of the full orbed moon. Suddenly, to her terror, she saw a muffled figure issuing from the archway, when at once a multitudinous mass of clouds spread over the luminary, and the shuddering Matilda was involved in solid darkness. It became impossible for her to determine on which side to direct her steps-all was black, bewildering, indistinguishable shade-she paused, and listened." Now although, when the moon is "full orbed," I am in it, yet from confidential and credible friends, I am too well aware that a cloudy night upon earth, at the time of the month above indicated, is nothing like a perfectly dark one; and when only broken clouds pass over the moon, there remains a very tolerable degree of glimmer to direct one's steps by, or to discern the objects immediately around one.

This instantaneous, and impenetrable darkness, so often conjured up by romance writers, strongly reminds me of the dark scenes on the stage, where although the interlocutors of the drama deplore their being "sand blind" with it, or even " high gravel-blind," (as Lancelot Gobbo hath it) yet do box, pit, and gallery, very plainly distinguish every thing that is going on; and while the actors creep about with faultering foot, that they may not stumble, and with hands dispread, that they may not dash their brains out by jostling against an obstacle haply harder than their skulls-the great wonder would be, if any of the blundering awkwardness which so often happens in the dark were to take place; for no spectator, however simple, can help believing that the "harlotry players" see one another perfectly. I remember seeing a play (for I sometimes go to the theatre when my sovereign lady is "hid in her vacant interlunar cave") which was called, The Wife of Two Husbands, though I fear that both wife and husbands twain are now all laid

upon the shelf. In this, some catastro phe was to be brought about by a mur der in the dark-the gentleman-villain is to walk on first, and the person who goes second in the line is to be dispatched by a blow from a hired assassinsome one, however, who knows the arrangement, pops in before the leader, and so this worthy gets the blow on his mazzard which he intended for his neighbour at his back. Now, unluckily when I saw it, the stage was so im perfectly darkened, indeed so light was it all the while, that not only the persons of the actors, but even the most trifling distinctions in their dresses were more than merely perceptible, so that the cunning contriver of the plot seemed to us as if he could not possibly fail to see, and even to know the very person who stept forward, and made him play second fiddle, when he did not intend it.

Now, this make-believe theatrical sort of darkness is what I cannot help thinking of, when romancers suddenly wrap up their moon in the mantle of a fleecy cloud, and tell us that not a twinkling of light remains-but despite their asseverations that the blackness is pitchy, palpable, portentous, I am certain there is still a glim mering sufficient to warn Matilda from stepping into a puddle, if she dislikes to wet her white satin slippers, which are, no doubt, prettily edged with silver tinsel, and graced with a spangled rosette in front. She may pause-she may listen-but I will be bound for it, she walks straight to the Castle, if it is needful that she should do so. Even if she wanders, it will only be into some deserted cloister, or ruinous oratoryfor sure I am, it is not so dark as to let her go astray into the moat, or through the horse-pond, or among the piggeries, or through a brew-house, a wash-house, or a scullery-all which were actual appendages, although vulgar ones, to the most romantic castles in baronial days of yore. Now, if future constructors of novels and romances will take my advice, (though I am half afraid they will give no heed to it) I should recommend to them, when they have fixed that such or such a fact shall hap→ pen at the time of full moon, to remember, that at about three pages onward, (or as many more as will occupy about fourteen days, by a rough guess) it must be a night without a moonconvenient as it may be for Orlando to go home by moonlight, he must be

content to guide his steps by a lantern; and if Charlotte indites a love epistle, when, like the rest of of the house, she ought to be in bed, and asleep, she positively must not indulge in a simile, drawn from any pretended peep-out at the moon, and from affecting to see her image twinkling in the water-for moon there assuredly can be none visible. Again, the dealers in the sublimer style, the romance-inditers, ought, when they have once fixed upon a perfectly moonless night, to allow the moon to be journeying up in the sky after a couple of weeks have elapsed in their narrative. Wish ever so, that it may be as black as thunder, it cannot be allowed them-the current of events must conform to the changes of nature, and they must postpone their dark deeds for a fortnight further on in the work. At this particular period, Rustivisagio cannot be allowed to mutter to his Comrogue Ugglifizio" Ha, by St Dominic, as murky a night as we could wish for!" No," the blanket of the dark" will have some holes in it, and through them some lunar rays will penetrate; it is an equal chance too, that the said blanket may be removed altogether.

But enough-you may be sure, connected as I am with the moon, that I cannot read fictitious works, containing these discrepancies, with all the coolness of an unconcerned person. No, I get puzzled-my wits turn topsyturvy and I shut up the book in despair. Not, indeed, that all these light troops of the literary squad are guilty of these faults—but since I have been so scrupulous as not to mention those "who are transgressors in this sort," I, on the other hand, shall not call up the blush of modesty on the cheeks of those who either have steered clear of their fellow-fiction-mongers' errors, or else have so dextrously embroiled all

marks and notes of time, that the reader finds it impossible to say whether they have adapted their story to the nature of things in this particular or not.

Now I am on the score of novelreading, and that I may not seem to be altogether morose, (for I must own that my communications to you have almost all been of the find-fault kind,) I will pay a little debt of gratitude for a favour received from one of the novelwriting tribe. In a little tale called "Duty," by the late Margaret Roberts, (of whom it is worth while to read her friend Mrs Opie's account, in which her delightfully feminine character is admirably drawn-a character in which intellect, gentleness, and firmness of principle seem to have been most happily blended)—in this tale, there is a delicate compliment to me, me-the Man in the Moon! I said before (although my modesty would not suffer me to expatiate upon it) that I do not so often get any mention made of me, as, upon reasonable consideration of the superabundant panegyric lavished upon the moon, may seem to be natural and right. But in the posthumous novelet of Mrs Roberts I have a whole ode inscribed to me, and, partial as I am aware my judgment must necessarily be in the matter, I still do think that thou, Christopher, wilt allow that many of the stanzas have great merit. I

suppose I am to understand that the sentiments are intended to come from the heroine of the tale, rather than the authoress. Be it so. I subjoin most of the poem, allowing myself the benefit of making a running gloss upon it, for the lady is sometimes a little out of her reckoning; but, on the whole, it is exceedingly grateful and flattering to me to have been so noticed. The ode opens thus.