diction: so that, like a see-saw at whist, the suits are conti nued without interruption. The letters abound in gossipping stories from the capital, and a more than ordinary struggle at wit, with a less than ordinary successi

The letters to the Earl of Strafford are succeeded by those to the Right Hon. Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey.

'These epistles are in a cheerful tone of old-fashioned gallantry and politeness. The account which the author gives of himself, and the manly and useful manner of passing his time, will amuse his most serious readers. As to his female friends, he seems to have been regarded by them as an innocent plaything, with many amusing qualities, which they could enjoy without risking their reputations.

On his arrival at Paris, 1765, he says, p. 525- I am but two days old, sure, and I doubt I wish I was really so, and had my life to begin, to live here.' Complaining of the dirt of the country, which is melancholy after the purity of Strawberry,' he adds: In short, madam, being as tired as one can be of one's own country, I don't say whether that is much or little, I find myself wonderfully disposed to like this:-Indeed Iwish I could wash it.'

Though constantly speaking of his favour with the first people of Paris, he seems jealous of that which Hume enjoyed: -Mr.Hume, that is, the Modes asked much after your ladyship.' - There are several English here, whether I will or will not. I certainly did not come for them.' At p.528, we have an excellent paragraph on the disadvantages and embarrassments occasioned to a stranger by the want of facility in speaking the language of the country:

• I may be charmed with the French, but your ladyship must not expect that they will fall in love with me. Without affecting to lower myself, the disadvantage of speaking a language worse than any idiot one meets, is insurmountable: the silliest Frenchman is eloquent to me, and leaves me embarrassed and obscure. I could name twenty other reasons, if this one was not sufficient. As it is, my own defects are the sole cause of my not liking Paris entirely: the constraint I am under from not being perfectly master of their language, and from being so much in the dark, as one necessarily must be, on half the subjects of their conversation, prevents my enjoying that ease for which their society is calculated. I am much amused, but not comfortable."

We cannot resist the pleasure of inserting the author's admirable account of the power which Mad. Geoffrin had over him: • Mad. Geoffrin came and sat two hours last night by my bed-side: I could have sworn it had been my lady Her

* He was then in gouty confinement.

vey, she was so good to me. It was with so much sense, information, instruction, and correction! The manner of the latter charms me. I never saw any body in my days that catches one's faults and vanities and impositions so quick, that explains them to one so clearly, and convinces one so easily. I never liked to be set right before! You cannot imagine how I taste it! I make her both my confessor and director, and begin to think I shall be a reasonable creature at last, which I had never intended to be. The next time I see her, I believe I shall say, "Oh! Common Sense, sit down: I have been thinking so and so; is not it absurd?"-for t'other sense and wisdom, I never liked them; I shall now hate them for her sake. If it was worth her while, I assure your ladyship she might govern me like a child.'

We are next presented with letters to Caroline Campbell, Countess Dowager of Ailesbury. From the year 1760 to 1779. Had we room, we should here be tempted to insert whole letters as well as fragments; as Mr. W. wrote to none of his correspondents more naturally and affectionately than to this worthy and amiable Countess, who was the wife of his dearest friend Marshal Conway. The Ild of these letters to Lady Ailesbury, then at the Hague, is uncommonly lively and characteristic. In the postscript to the IlId, he asks - Pray, madam, do the gnats bite your legs? Mine are swelled as big as one, which is saying a great deal for me.' In the IVth, he gives her ladyship a pleasant account of the coronation, 1761; with portraits and anecdotes in his own ironical style.

The following reflections, p. 567, are very Walpolean : • Old age is no such uncomfortable thing, if one gives one's self up to it with a good grace, and don't drag it about To midnight dances and the public show. If one stays quietly in one's own house in the country, and cares for nothing but one's self, scolds one's servants, condemns every thing that is new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the summers get over themselves.'

The ensuing letters to Mrs. Hannah More are laboured, and less pleasant than the preceding to the natural unpretending Coun. tess. They are very encomiastic, and manifestly in payment, value received. He is making la petite bouche at the compli-. ments of his ingenious correspondent, and says, in his own peculiar idiom, that he has made a resolution not to expose his pen's grey hairs.'

Nature

Nature gave to Mr. Walpole a tongue to talk virtue, and even heroism, but not a mind nor a body adapted to act either. He talks what he should feel, but feels not what he talks: yet he puts a good face on his infirmities, and talks patience, at least :

P. 599. You commend me (says he) for not complaining of my chronical evil-but, my dear madam, I should be blameable for the reverse. If I would live to seventy-two, ought I not to compound for the incumbrances of old age? And who has fewer? And who has more cause to be thankful to Providence for his lot? The gout, it is true, comes frequently, but the fits are short, and very tolerable; the intervals are full health. My eyes are perfect, my hearing but little impaired, chiefly to whispers, for which I certainly have little occasion: my spirits never fail; and though my hands and feet are crippled, I can use both, and do not wish to box, wrestle, or dance a hornpipe. In short, I am just infirm enough to enjoy all the prerogatives of old age, and to plead them against any thing that I have not a mind to do. Young men must conform to every folly in fashion, drink when they had rather be sober, fight a duel if somebody else is wrong-headed, marry to please their fathers, not themselves, and shiver in a white waistcoat, because ancient almanacs, copying the Arabian, placed the month of June after May; though, when the style was reformed, it ought to have been intercalated between December and January.-Indeed, I have been so childish as to cut my hay for the same reason, and am now weeping over it by the fire-side.'

One or two of the letters on the French revolution appear to have been written with due horror at its dreadful consequences. It seems to have put his lordship in humour with poor Louis XVI. though a king. Religion, too, has fared the better for the decorum with which good breeding obliged him to soften sarcasm, in speaking of it to Mrs. H. More.

Here break we off. -The liberality with which we have presented our readers with so large a portion of the medullary substance of this most entertaining volume, we hope, will not only be a gratification to those who cannot purchase the work, but be some incitement to those who can; when we assure them that there are innumerable excellent letters to celebrated and eminent persons, which, so far from inserting them entire, or even extracting fragments from them, we have not been able to name.

In the course of our examination of this voluminous work, we have praised and censured with the utmost freedom and sincerity, without the least intention of deviating from the exact line of truth; as literally, as if the shade of the author had exclaimed in the words of Shakspeare,

"Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice."

If the subjects which the author has chosen, though always amusing and curious, be not constantly of equal dignity and importance, the most fastidious critics must allow that they have been treated in a very original and entertaining manner. Not one of his various productions deserves the chilling epithet of dull or dry; and though some may call the style quaint, and deem a few of the materials queer and gossipping, they must grant that his writings, and (those who have enjoyed it) his conversation, afforded much information, seasoned with a very peculiar kind of wit, and relating to illustrious personages and eminent individuals; information, too, which few, if any, had equal opportunities either of gaining or communicating.

ART. VI. Sermons on various Subjects. By the late Rev. Benjamin Choyce Sowden; of Emanuel College, Cambridge, and Minister of the English Episcopal Church at Amsterdam. 8vo. pp. 419. 7s. Boards. Johnson. 1798.

:

A MONG the great number of sermons which annually issue from the press, we are sorry to see so few distinguished by that gospel simplicity, and that brotherly charity, which are so suitable to the Christian preacher; and without which the most eloquent and popular orator is but "a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."-The volume before us, however, we can fairly say, honorably ranks among the chosen few. It consists of twenty-four excellent discourses, on the most important Christian duties and doctrines. The style, though not laboured, nor always perfectly correct, is generally elegant, easy, and perspicuous; and the good and benevolent heart discovers itself in every page. We are told that these sermons were not prepared for the press by the author himself; and that it does not even appear that they were composed with any farther views, than the instruction and edification of the audience to which they were delivered. The author, had his life been prolonged, would probably have given to them a higher degree of polish, as we live in times when style is cultivated with a peculiar, and perhaps exaggerated solicitude. Of this he was, undoubtedly, capable. It is well known, how much he was esteemed by the professors and men of letters at Amsterdam; not only on account of his moral and social qualities, but also of his knowlege, taste, and genius.'

The subjects of the discourses are :

The suitableness of Religion to the nature of man. The difficulties of Religion no reasonable objection to it. - The superiority of the hopes of the Christian, when compared with those of the Deist. God no respecter of persons. The usefulness of good examples. -The character and reREV. Nov. 1798.

X

ward

ward of Job. On sanctifying the name of God. On the inscription at Athens " to the unknown God."-On the Love of God (an excellent Sermon). The joy arising from a practical regard to Religion. Considerations on the circumstances of Christ's agony. - The Christian's hope. -The reality, necessity, and consequences of Christ's ascension considered. -Philosophical views of a future state, as revealed in the Gospel.-Religion and virtue our sovereign good. The immoderate love of pleasure. -The necessity of combating sin in its beginnings. The art of numbering our days. Our Lord's commendation of the unjust steward explained.The vanity of expecting true happiness in this world.

From the last sermon, we may give a favorable specimen of the worthy and amiable author's style and manner. After having shewn, from the doctrine and example of Solomon, the vanity of human happiness, he proceeds and concludes thus:

But to the experience of Solomon, let each of us add his own. Let each recall to mind the events and sentiments of past life. Can you not recollect a period, when you ardently wished for the very circumstances which Providence has since allotted you? Did you not then regard them as the summit of human happiness? Did you never fondly imagine that when these wishes were gratified, you should have nothing further to desire? Were these opinions justly founded? Do your present sentiments exactly correspond with them? Do the objects of experience confirm the suggestions of hope?

• Let imagination realize every ideal scheme of happiness, which you have ever proposed to yourselves; and with all the advantages you could be supposed to acquire, you would still be as short of complete felicity, as discontented with the present, and as anxious for the future, as you are with those you actually enjoy. And you would be astonished to find a similarity so striking, between what, in this respect, you had imagined so widely different.

A remarkable instance of the unsatisfactory nature of all worldly prosperity, and a confirmation of Solomon's maxim, is afforded by the Emperor Septimius Severus. "Omnia fui et nihil expedit." " I have been all things, and all is of little value,” was his declaration after having been raised from an humble station, to the imperial throne of Rome and the sovereignty of the world.

• From what has here been asserted, think not that we mean to conclude that all conditions of life are absolutely equal with respect to the happiness they afford; that therefore they who enjoy the most valuable temporal advantages, should regard them with contempt and indifference, and that they from whom they are withheld, ought not to endeavour to acquire them, or to improve their condition and circumstances. Such a conclusion would be as contrary to the dictates of religion as to those of common sense.

• Nothing, except the grossest stupidity and ingratitude, can render us insensible to temporal prosperity and to the external means of happiness, when Providence thinks fit to bestow them upon When our cup overflows with blessings, and we are surrounded with every thing which can render life not only comfortable but de. lightful;