place in his selections to Henry Kirke White's productions, whose sweet, though melancholy muse, was at least as worthy of this distinction as those of Darwin and Anstey, the latter of whom died a year after the intensity of his application had prematurely closed the young poet's brief, but bright career.

Successful as he has been in this work, and gratified as every reader must be in rising from its perusal, we believe there are few, if any, who would not prefer to meet with him in the walks of his native Parnassus, to receive some fresh poetical emanation from his classical and vigorous mind. Why, we are frequently asked, should his fine and magnificent spirit abandon the lyre that he loves, whose strings, though struck but in negligence or idleness, have a melody and sweetness more touching than the finished sweep of others? Let him but grasp the talisman which he possesses with a fuller consciousness of its powers, and his name will be ranked among the first of those choice and celebrated spirits, to whom belong

"The tears and praises of all time."

Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic: with Reflections on Prayer. By Hannah More. 8vo. London, 1819. Cadell and Davies. pp. 551.

We sat down to read this volume with expectations which have not been disappointed; and we tender the result of our examination with sincere pleasure. We find no gratification in exposing the demerits of a work, and are certain that the generous reader would feel no sympathy with us, were we to indulge a spirit so hostile to sound criticism. Those persons pay, indeed, an ill compliment to the public taste and temper, who imagine that no strictures will be read, but such as are written in the gall of bitterness, and who mistake indiscriminate abuse for critical acumen. To censure, will but too frequently be the duty of a faithful critic; but it will also prove a painful duty, which he will most reluctantly discharge. We trust that we shall never be found wanting in this duty to the public, when a task so irksome is imposed upon us; but we feel confident that we shall never scatter unmerited praise, or undeserved censures. Justice, truth, and impartiality, the motto of fair and honourable criticism, will be the rule of our conduct a rule, which if truly applied, will, induce the critic, laying aside every party and personal

feeling and interest, on every occasion, to know neither friend nor enemy in the publications which pass under his scrutiny. Sincerely influenced by these principles, it became a pleasing occupation to us to take up a production of this veteran champion for whatever is good in itself, and advantageous to the morals and the comforts of mankind. We have never regarded Mrs. More as a perfect, but as an excellent writer. We have always considered her as judicious, rather than profound; distinguished, not so much for depth of thought, as for discriminating observation; exhibiting a fund of general information arising from the best of principles acting upon the experience of a long life and an extensive acquaintance with society; and for the still more valuable knowledge of the human heart, consecrated to the furtherance of religion and to the benefit of mankind. She also possesses the happy art of conveying the stores of her own mind to others in an easy, chaste, and attractive style, which is correct without formality, classical without pedantry, and beautiful without labour. We hailed, therefore, with delight, another effort to serve the cause of truth and order, from the well-known and long-tried friend of virtue and of her country; whose consolation, at the advanced age in which she has again appeared before the public, it must be, that the close of her labours accords with the tenor of her literary career; and that, having finished her course as an author, it can be said of her with truth, that she never wrote a line" which dying she could wish to blot." These are her excellencies, as a writer; these are associated with our earliest recollections, and have been confirmed by the successive productions of her pen: we take leave of her, then, with unfeigned reluctance;-the only painful feeling with which we closed the volume (and we confess that it was a very painful one) was, that it is the last. This circumstance is distinctly noted in the preface; it compels the reader to enter upon the work with emotions of solemnity even amounting to awe; the writer is evidently herself intent upon it throughout, and the feeling is therefore kept up constantly, but not painfully; while the impression which is made upon us as we advance, and which remains with us when we shut the book, is, that we have been reading the legacy of a great and good mind to a world she is quitting for ever. The style corresponds with this prevailing sentiment; there is less of antithesis, and more of energy, than is to be found in her other productions. She is evidently intent upon her subject, and absorbed in itless careful of expression than earnest in her pursuit-mainly

and unceasingly anxious that she may approve herself to the conscience. But for this, it had been superfluous to remark upon the volume as a composition. Mrs. More is a writer of established celebrity, too well known to require the comments of a periodical work like this; and criticism has too thoroughly sifted her powers to demand from us additional investigation. Whatever of merit or defect may attach to her style and manner, has been long since understood and appreciated; but there is a peculiarity, as it strikes us, visible in this last production, arising from the predominance of feelings which cannot be so well explained as in her own

words.

"At her advanced age the writer has little to hope from praise, or little to fear from censure, except as her views may have been in a right or a wrong direction. She has felt that a renewed attention to growing errors is a duty on those who have the good of mankind at heart. The more nearly her time approaches for her leaving the world, there is a sense in which she feels herself more strongly interested in it; she means in an increasing anxiety for its improvement; for its advance in all that is right in principle and virtuous in action. And as the events and experience of every day convince her, that there is no true virtue which is not founded in religion, and no true religion which is not maintained by prayer, she hopes to be forgiven if, with declining years and faculties, yet with increasing earnestness, from increasing conviction of its value, she once more ventures to impress this last important topic on their attention."-[Pref. p. xvii.]

We are prepared to agree with her in the bold sentiment with which she sets out, that "religion has made, and is making," a considerable progress among us; especially," as she adds," in the higher, and even the highest, ranks of society." We call this a bold statement, because the mere advancement of religious knowledge will not absolutely decide a correspondent diffusion of religious principle; and because some recent facts have appeared to indicate a disposition hostile alike to the civil institutions of society and to the perfect system of Christianity. But it would be as irrational as uncharitable, to suppose that the aggregate of those unparalleled exertions which have of late years been made to disseminate the Scriptures, did not spring from a sincere desire to promote the Divine glory, and to ameliorate the moral condition of mankind, originating in an unfeigned conviction that these grand ends can be secured alone by the influence of the word of God. The writer before us affirms, that this is "a period abounding and advancing in almost

every kind of religious improvement;" nor can the contrary be fairly inferred from that opposite spirit of infidelity which is abroad in the world, and which aims especially at seducing the lower classes of society. With the opponents of revelation, religion is too much a matter of indifference to disturb their repose, or rouse them from the indolence of their philosophical speculations, unless they are in danger of being beaten from their retreats by the arms of the enemy carried into their own territories. They now gird on their armour, not merely because their foes are at hand, but because they are every where victorious; because the army of the living God is advancing in the fulness of its strength, having laid aside those party animosities and internal divisions which weakened it; and because the triumph of the cross is no longer problematical. While bigotry has been shocked at the alliance of different Christian sects, agreeing in principle, without compromising conscience in their particular convictions, as indicating laxity of discipline, and endangering party pretensions, infidelity has taken the alarm upon better grounds; it has calculated justly that union is strength, and that union only was necessary to complete the conquests of religion and now that Christians are rallying around their common standard as a band of brothers, it trembles for the falsification of the threats of Voltaire, and the establishment of the predictions of Jesus Christ. The renewed efforts to prop a bad cause, which some consider as the evidences of decaying religion, appear to us rather as the convulsive struggles of a dying opposition, conscious of the strength and predominance of Christianity, the power and prevalence of which is too victorious to allow any man to remain neutral. Under these impressions, we cordially join in the satisfaction of this distinguished writer, at the progress which religion has made, and is certainly making, in the present day.

It has ever been a leading excellence in the writings of Mrs. Hannah More, that, beyond their intrinsic worth, they have been well-timed. She has been the guardian of public morals, without ostentation and without presumption, by sounding an alarm whenever they have been endangered, and by giving them a mild and scriptural direction when they continued to flow on uninterruptedly. The transition from a state of protracted warfare to one of profound tranquillity, could not but produce an extraordinary effect upon the public mind; and it was natural to anticipate an eager disposition to visit the Continent, after it had been so long locked against our countrymen. Speculative evils were to be ex

pected; but one object of this publication is to expose such as are real, and have actually taken place, and to guard against greater mischiefs which may yet be apprehended by too close a contact with those habits and sentiments so uncongenial with Christianity, and so unlike our native and educational principles.

The first part of the volume consists of Foreign Sketches, and deserves to be read with deep and serious attention. Three extracts alone can we indulge in; and indeed it is difficult to make selections from a volume abounding in truth, beauty, and pathos. The first relates to the purchase of articles of foreign manufacture.

"When tempted to make the alluring purchase by the superior beauty, real or imaginary, of the article, might we not presume to recommend to every lady to put some such questions as the following to herself:-By this gratification, illicitly obtained, I not only offend against human laws, but against humanity itself; by this purchase I am perhaps starving some unfortunate young creature of my own sex, who gained her daily bread by weaving her lace or braiding her straw. I am driving her to that extremity of want which may make her yield to the next temptation to vice, which may drive her to the first sinful means that may offer of procuring a scanty, precarious, and miserable support. It is in vain that I may have perhaps subscribed for her being taught better principles at school, that I have perhaps assisted in paying for her acquisition of her little trade, if by crushing that trade I now drive her to despair, if I throw her on a temptation which may overcome those better principles she acquired through my means. Shall I not then make this paltry this no sacrifice? Shall I not obtain a victory over this petty allurement, whose consequences when I first gave way to it I did not perceive?'

"The distress here described is not a picture drawn by the imagination, a touch of sentimentalism, to exhibit feeling, and to excite it. It is a plain and simple representation of the state of multitudes of young women, who, having been bred to no other means of gaining their support, will probably, if these fail, throw themselves into the very jaws of destruction. Think, then, with tenderness, on these thousands of young persons of your own sex, whom a little self-denial on your part might restore to comfortmight snatch from ruin. Many ladies, who make these unlawful purchases, do not want feeling, they only want consideration. Consider, then, we once more beseech you, consider, that it is not merely their bread, but their virtue, of which you may be unintentionally depriving them; and you will find, that your error is by no means so inconsiderable as it may hitherto have appeared to you."-[pp. 14-16.]