elevates, or refines the thought; whatever assists the co nection between language and the shadowy tribes of idea whatever seizes those transient impressions of the hear which come and go so quick, that they allow no leisu to study them, are acquisitions, which the profound phil sopher, and generous moralist, will know how to appr ciate. To purge the human heart, and extract from it the fi incipient seeds of crime, by holding out a terrific pictu of its progress and its consequences, has been promulgat by critics from early ages to be the purpose of Traged Lord Brokenhurst is a dreadful Tale: but perhaps it i notwithstanding, much too short. The wickedness of La Brokenhurst has been thought by some to outrage all p bability but when once the furious passions become writh with obliquity and cunning, and have risen to a certa degree of ascendance, who shall say where they will stop If this character be a picture of female depravity a horror, the author makes amends by his character Adelinde Coningsby, who is all purity, and loveliness a spirit; « A faëry vision Of some gay creature of the element, a creature made to be worshipped; to turn humanity i celestial; to illuminate deserts; and soften the savages the woods. But a Being so good was not calculated long happiness here: her sun soon sets in violence a horror! The author delights himself with these images of glo and tempest. He has a melancholy view of life; and e dently clings to sorrow as the congenial inmate of bosom, But it cannot be asserted, that sorrow has closed his heart, his curiosity, or his mental activity. Always enquiring, expatiating, analysing, combining, he has never suffered the ills of life to palsy him, nor gigantic disappointments to turn to gall the native glow of his spirit. The enthusiasm, that was his earliest characteristic, remains unabated in his latest writings. If the Autographical Memoirs, which are said to have been seen by some of his friends, shall ever appear, it will be proved that the accusation of querulousness, a word which implies complaint without adequate cause, has been most unjustly applied to the author. The variety of acts of injustice, to which he has been a victim; the ingratitude, the treachery, and neglects he has experienced, have drawn forth enduring testimonies of his fortitude rather than of his querulousness. in any The great difference between an original writer and those who take advantage of the topics of the day to exercise their memories, and apply their ingenuity in specious productions of factitious interest, is well-known to all profound readers. The number of the former class age, is small. Quickness and force of apprehension, power of memory, and facility of language, are not uncommon. But how few are they, who think for themselves? All the rest will live their little day and be forgotten. The borrowed is not at the first moment discriminated from that which originates in the writer's mind but the difference shews itself with time the want of vital spirit suffers it to fade. The elasticity of genius cannot be destroyed by misfortune; or enfeebled by neglect. XLVIII. HALL OF HELLINGSLEY. The scene of this Tale is laid in one of the Midla Counties approaching towards the West. The time the re of king James the First. It took its origin from an incid which forms the subject of an actual tradition still prev ling in a certain village regarding a Branch of a noble mily then resident there; and which the Author heard the spot nearly 40 years ago. What parts are mere inv tion; and what parts have reference to private history would be indelicate and useless to distinguish. The pe chosen appears to afford various materials of striking i rest. The Characters of that age have been sufficiently cidated; and are strongly associated in our memories. T do not approach us too near; so as to allow no pla the faney. Nobility in those days was a distinct race, w though Philosophy and Liberalism may rejoice in ha destroyed it, at least affords splendid or strongly-colo pictures to the Imagination. Nothing is intended in this Tale, of minute Man of what is called a tact at the little technical outward f of society; forms which change with every generation; perhaps two or three times in every generation; so what thirty years ago was all interest because it ca « the manners living as they rise, » now appears tedi ridiculous, and revolting. With what ennui we now from all the tiresome ceremonial, and stiff costume of mentary fashion, with which so large a portion of Rich son's endless volumes of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison is stuffed; and yet at the time, the greatest proportion of readers thought these things the great charm of those works. The allusion to manners, which two Centuries have left behind, is quite different : whenever traces of them remain upon the memory, they remain because they were intrinsically interesting. All that was frivolous, dull, and absurd; all that had not the sparks of life in it, has long since faded away; and ceased to leave the speck of an impression. It is the Past that the Poet and the romance - inventor find the expanded field, which they require. If they offend against poetical probability; the illusion, it is their business to create, is gone. But yet if they do not heighten nature; if they do not select, nor recombine from what is beautiful or grand, they do not perform the work of genius. The latitude for this probability is better found in the Past. Distance softens Time hallows: we are not willing to allow in our cotemporaries the high traits we can believe in ages, that are gone. There is room also for more curiosity, more novelty, and surprise in a story of other days. We enter it with a spirit more awakened; our fancy is more active; and our credulity is more disposed to favour it. It is true, that the purchasers of Tales of Fiction are various; and ought to be various, that they may be suited to various tastes. Some read that they may have their knowledge of characters of the day sharpened; that they may improve their skill in the prevailing opinions; and gaze upon the pictures of the bustle in which they delight to be engaged. Others desire to have their fancy exercised; their sentiments exalted; and the more shadowy faculties of their minds gratified and strengthened. If attention to what is called practical, is a sort of habit of mental discipline necessary to those, whose dut on them to qualify themselves for most of the nu vocations of daily routine; and whom too refined a bility and too abstract sentiments would withdraw their labours, or disgust with their employments, th numerous others, to whom the opposite intellectua vations are as necessary as they are delightful. The present NOVEL is (if the author is not mist written on those principles, and in that taste, wh tuates a poetical Invention; with the selection, the the picturesque circumstantiality; the enthusiasm, lieving delusion, which characterize, or ought to terise, the fictions of Poets. XLIX. THE FOUNTAIN OF HELICON, Written March 31. 1891. Rock'd by the roaring winds to sweet repose, |