bufinefs of living:-then we may fee youth felect each other with warm, lively, intelligent paffions; and fo happily affociated, as to refcue Nature from blame, on the fubject of marriage.'

In the next two letters, the author traces the history and progress of the paffion of love, from a state of ignorance and barbarifm to a period of refinement and gallantry. We shall pafs over thefe, to attend to what he fays on the subject of Marriage.

As he had before imputed much of the unhappiness of a married life to the force laid on the inclinations of the parties, fo he now imagines their mifery to be greatly increased, by the laws which render their union indiffoluble.

Nothing could have been imagined more effectually to counteract the intentions of marriage, than fuch a law. Nature plainly intimates, the only method to fecure domeftic and focial happiness, is to form our connections on affection or principle; which, in producing conjugal love, the moft fincere and molt interesting friendfhip, the reciprocal and tender attachments of parents and children, brothers and fifters, heighten and multiply all our pleasures. If we obey this direction, we are fure to be happy; if we difobey, we have no reafon to expect happiness. But nature is not fufficiently wife or prudent, according to the church or the law. They have enjoined, that men and women must continue together; not because they love each other, or are likely to be happy; but because they are united; becaufe myftical words have been pronounced over them; and heaven has been fuppofed to witness their contract.

This is, however, a fubject of great extent, involving many questions which are not here inveftigated; and, till this be done, we may fairly, in the prefent ftate of fociety, doubt the practicability of removing all human injunctions for the continuance of an union, which, avowedly and beyond difpute, is intended to be lafting:-but we turn from this confideration, to contemplate the pleafing picture of an happy and rational connexion :

The Deity hath provided, when the first enchanting links of mutual affection and parental love have united us; we should be more endeared to each other, by every inftance of care and affection in the education of our children. Nothing fo effectually charms the mind into a fettled elteem, as concurrence in an employment, fo beneficent, fo delightful, as the care or education of our own offfpring. This is a work of fo much importance, and requiring fo much time, that it contributes more than any thing towards perpetuating our union. The neceffary duties to one child are fucceeded by the neceffary duties to another; until we have transferred, as it were, our whole fouls into our offspring; paffionately love each other again in our several images or reprefentatives; and live only to make ourselves happy through the happiness of our children. It is thus we may be faid to be renewed; or to be made

young

young again. We view the progrefs of an infant mind, the fources and growth of its affections, with more pleasure than is experienced by itself. We intereft ourselves in thofe great paffions which determine the events of life; we forget our infirmities, we imagine ourfelves in love again because our children are enamoured; and we become fathers and mothers a fecond time, when they affume those happy denominations. Compare, if you can, the events of what is called a life of pleasure, with fuch as thefe. And when nature is decompofing; when infirmities or diforders menace diffolutionyou may fee the man who has acted on the felfish and brutal principle of gratifying himself at the expence of truth, honour, and the happiness of others, curfing a world which detefts or defpifes him ; deferted by all, by the very inftruments of his pleasures, because univerfally difefteemed; and finking into the grave in ignominy or frantic wretchednefs: while thofe men and women who have gone hand in hand in the pleafing duties of life, will not only have a firm fupport in honourable recollections; but will be led down its rugged declivity, by the tendereft care of an affectionate offspring; and will confign themfelves to reft, like useful labourers, a little weary, but fatisfied with the work of the day.'

In the third part of our author's subject, we meet with the following judicious fentiments respecting fecret correspondences and ftolen matches: with thefe, we fhall close our extracts from this performance.

⚫ Stolen matches are feldom happy; for very good reafons. The parties have not opportunities to become fufficiently acquainted with each other; their connections are perhaps owing to the dread of being forced into fituations they deteft, and cemented by refiftance or ill-ufage. There is a charm to young and generous minds in being fellow fufferers, which forms an attachment or affection, very easily mistaken for love. All their correfpondence and commerce are carried on in that kind of hurry or obfcurity, which is ever unfavourable to judgment or choice. We accordingly fee men and women hazarding every thing for each other, on a flight fecret or ftolen acquaintance; and when marriage gives them leifure to behold what they have done; to confider or know each other; they are aftonished at their folly, and driven by despair into the exceffes of profligacy.

Yet the imprudence itself would not be fo fatal, if an indifference or difregard to truth, a habit of infincerity, artifice, and intrigue, were not formed by the neceflity of fecret correfpondence. A woman, who will be prevailed upon to deceive her rents, may be prevailed upon to deceive her husband; and a man who takes pains to teach her that art, is deftitute of the effential requifites to conjugal happiness: he never can have her confidence; he has undermined the foundation of her fidelity, and he has furnished the fecret and the inclination to betray him.'

In conclufion, the author intimates, that when he shall have induced, what is called the wisdom of parliament, to deliber

Ee 3

ate

ate on thefe fubjects, he may exercise the privilege of a Briton; and again offer fome of his opinions.'

On the whole, we may recommend these letters as deferving a ferious perufal; though the fubjects on which they treat, are by no means fully inveftigated: neither are any fatisfactory conclufions deduced from this long chain of arguments; nor is any plan of future improvement recommended. It appears, indeed, as if the writer had not, at all times, a fixed object of pursuit before him; and hence, perhaps, arifes fome of that obfcurity which we have found in his pamphlet.

0.

ART. VI. The Theatre: a Dramatic Effay. Including an Idea of the Character of Jane Shore, as performed by a young Lady in a private Play, &c. &c. By Samuel Whyte. 8vo. PP. 56. Dublin; Printed for Jones, in Grafton-street. 1790.

TH

HE young lady here celebrated, is Mrs. Lefanu, then known by the maiden name of Sheridan; a name that feems deftined to make a confpicuous figure in the annals of literature, and polite accomplishments. Her mother, as we are here informed, was Mrs. Sheridan*, wife of the late Thomas Sheridan, Efq; well known by his English dictionary, his performances relative to the fcience of oratory, and his theatrical connexions. The young lady had been a pupil to Mr. Whyte, whofe merit as a profeffor of fchool education, is well known in Dublin; and who had likewife the honour of inftructing her brothers, Charles Francis Sheridan, Efq; representative in parliament for Rathcormuck, in Ireland, and Richard Brinfley Sheridan, Efq; member (in the English parliament,) for Stafford.

Mifs S.'s performance of Jane Shore, was, according to the account here given, fuch as merited, and obtained, the warmeft applause from the audience, as well as from her delighted panegyrift, in the prefent publication. Mr. W. who appears to be a good judge of the fubject, after difcuffing, in a strain both ferious and farcaftically pleafant, the art of acting, as a profeffion, and fhewing the miferable effects of a mifapplication of talents in this line, proceeds to pay a very handsome compliment to the heroine of the piece;-of which our readers may take the following extract, as a fpecimen of the author's poetry:

*Mrs. Sheridan, whofe maiden name was Chamberlaine, was the writer of Sidney Bidulph, Nourjabad, the Discovery, &c. for which, fee the Reviews, Paffim.

• She

She fpeaks, and with the tongue of eloquence,
Speaking her author's, proves her own good sense;
Each word, each action, even her filence moves,
Extends our feelings, and the fenfe improves.
Critics throughout her varying powers attend,
And approbation will in wonder end.

Lo! for the Royal Innocents fhe pleads,
With kindred fympathy the audience bleeds;
Alas! for pity! the foreboding cries,
Alas! for pity! every bofom fighs.

Rapt with the theme, and glowing with her part,
She wings each word directly to the heart,
With every power and every grace of speech,
Which feeling can fuggeft, and art can teach;
She fooths, excites, the deprecates, the burns
With generous zeal, with keen reflection mourns,
That could the Drama from prescription err,
Stern Gloucefter's felf might well be mov'd by her.
Then when, all-judging Heav'n fhe bows to thee,
And owns thy juftice in the hard decree,

With what fimplicity her accents flow,

In all the melting energy of woe!'

Several prologues, and other fhort pieces of poetry, by Mr. Whyte, are added to the Theatre;' together with A Paraphrafe on Dr. Watts's celebrated Diffich on the Study of Languages,

"Let every foreign tongue alone

Till you can spell and read your own."

This paraphrafe was addreffed to the young gentlemen of the English grammar fchool, by one of their school-fellows." The young bard, we are informed, was not above fifteen years of age at five and twenty, fcarcely any writer would be afhamed of fuch a performance.

Befide the production which is the immediate fubject of this article, now drawing to a conclufion, Mr. Whyte was, fome years ago, a contributor to the entertainment of the public, in a work entitled the Shamroch: See Rev. vol. 47, p. 484. In our notice of that collection of poetical pieces, one of our affociates of that day, feems to have been rather fevere on the compiler, for faults which, as it afterward appeared, were not properly his own: but for this treatment, the reviewer, foon after, made him a polite acknowlegement, in a fubfequent Review. Such candour is a luxury, in the exercife and enjoyment of which, even the (fuppofed) cold heart of a critic is, we fee, fometimes capable of indulging.

N. B. We have feen an account of a laudable inftitution, originally planned by Mr. Whyte, and lately established in

E e 4

Dublin

Dublin, under the title of the ABECEDARIAN SOCIETY. This benevolent defign has for its object, a due provifion for the fupport of fuch deferving fchool-mafters, as, having been more attentive to the duties of their profeffion, than to the advancement of their own fortune, or who have been reduced by inevitable calamities, have, therefore, a juft claim on the generofity of their more fuccefsful brethren, and on the liberality of the public in general.-We are glad to hear that this charity meets with good encouragement in our fifter kingdom; and we shall be happy to fee Mr. Whyte's well-digefted plan adopted, with spirit and effect, in our own country.

G.

ART. VII. The Denial; or, The Happy Retreat. By the Rev. James Thomson. 12mo. 3 Vols. 95. fewed. Sewell. 1790.

OF the various fpecies of compofition that in course come before us, there are none in which our writers of the male fex have less excelled, fince the days of Richardfon and Fielding, than in the arrangement of a novel. Ladies feem to appropriate to themselves an exclufive privilege in this kind of writing; witness the numerous productions of romantic tales to which female authors have given birth. The portraiture of the tender paffions, the delicacy of fentiment, and the easy flow of ftyle, may, perhaps, be moft adapted to the genius of the fofter fex: but however that may be, politenefs, certainly, will not fuffer us to dispute this palm with our fair competitors. We, though of the harder fex, as men, and of a ftill harder race as critics, are no enemies to an affecting well-told ftory: but as we are known not to be very easily pleafed, it may be imagined that those performances only will obtain the fanction of our applause, which can ftand the teft of certain criteria of excellence.

The ftory of a novel should be formed of a variety of interefting incidents; a knowlege of the world, and of mankind, are effential requifites in the writer; the characters should be always natural; the perfonages fhould talk, think, and act, as becomes their refpective ages, fituations, and characters; the fentiments fhould be moral, chafte, and delicate; the language fhould be eafy, correct, and elegant, free from affectation, and unobfcured by pedantry; and the narrative fhould be as little interrupted as poffible by digreffions and epifodes of every kind: yet if an author chufes to indulge, occafionally, in moral reflections, in the view of blending inftruction with amufement, we would not wifh, altogether, to fruftrate fo good a defign-but, that his precepts may obtain the utmost efficacy,

WC