work, the plot, as the author proceeds, will naturally be improved from the original design, and the characters heightened by touches unthought of in their first conception. On the contrary, in a hastily written drama, the invention of the plot and the elaboration of the characters, are, as well as the composition, the work of a moment.

This is another solution of the matter, however, of which Scott says nothing. Fielding's comedies were composed in his youth he left off writing for the stage, as he very justly remarked, when he ought to have begun. Youth may be the time for mere sports of the fancy, for the imagination and description of things whose prototypes are in other worlds than this; but it is only for writers of mature age, who have seen much of life and of men, that the dramatic muse has reserved her favours. It is with the human heart and human nature that the writer for the stage has to do; and from his observation of these it is that he learns to touch the springs that move the passions of men. The talent of the comic writer is most of all indebted to an attentive observation of society. His knowledge of the world cannot come by instinct; he cannot portray foibles, and oddities, and humours, which he has never observed; and if he attempts to describe such as have no originals among mankind, his characters are only monstrous, absurd, and unnatural. The youthful writer may, it is true, have all that comic power which arises from wit, or the unexpected coupling of dissimilar ideas, but he cannot, in the nature of things, possess much of that which depends on humour, or the ludicrous painting of manners and characters. Take the comedies of Congreve, to which those of Fielding have been compared, for an example. They were written in his early youth; they abound in wit; they sparkle with jests and repartee; but in none of them, except his Way of the World, is there any attempt at delineation of character.

In several other passages of his work, the author has advanced the notion that the successful novelist is unfitted, by his peculiar cast of mind, and habits of composition, to succeed in dramatic writing; but we cannot see that this opinion receives any support from the examples he has given. Le Sage, it is true, seems to have been even less happy in his regular comedies than Fielding; but these, though he continued to write comic operas to his old age, were composed in early life, and before any of his novels. Yet the "French critics," says our author, "who are indisputably the best judges, were inclined to think, judging from Turcaret, that he would have risen to eminence, had he continued to cultivate the regular

comedy." It is admitted by Sir Walter, that The Reprisals, or the Tars of Old England, the only acknowledged dramatic attempt of Smollet, which was, however, only a farce, shows the possession of great comic power, and that the Frenchmen and sailors who figure in it, are drawn to the life, and "the Scotchman and Irishman hit off with the touch of a caricaturist of skill and spirit." But, "the story," says our author, "is trivial." This may be, but we suppose he would not be guilty of so much disrespect to the talents of Smollet, as to maintain that he was incapable of contriving a story that was not so; and as to the other requisites for success in comedy, he allows him to possess them. The best way of determining this question would be an examination of the works of those who have attempted both kinds of writing in the maturity of their genius, and with an equal exertion of their powers. Two instances

of this kind present themselves in looking over these volumes. What finer specimen of fictitious narrative has the English language to boast of than the Vicar of Wakefield? Yet it would be difficult, we imagine, to point out in what respect the qualities which have made this work so delightful, prevented the author from attaining as great a measure of excellence in his Good Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer, which are exceeding good plays after all. The novels, as well as the comedies, of Richard Cumberland, are ranked by our author quite as high as we should be disposed to do; yet it is almost impossible to conceive of works which more resemble each other in the degree of talent with which they are written. His West Indian is a stock play, and his Henry and Arundel are quite as good in their way.

There is a very grave and earnest defence of the moral tendency of Tom Jones, of which we shall say more in the course of this article.

The remainder of the first volume is taken up with the lives of Le Sage, Smollet, Charles Johnstone, Sterne, and Mrs. Radcliffe. We give the following passage from the life of Le Sage, in which the author touches upon the controversy respecting the origin of his celebrated work; a controversy which, in some book that we have lately read, is said to be yet undecided.

"There has been, indeed, an unauthenticated account of Le Sage having obtained possession of some manuscripts of Cervantes', which he had used liberally, and without acknowledgment, in the construction of his Gil Blas. A translation of Le Sage's novels into Spanish hears, also, on the title-page, the vaunt, that this operation has restored them to the language in which they were originally written. But the styles of Cervantes and Le Sage are so essentially different, though each in itself

is masterly, that, in the absence of positive evidence, one would as soon be induced to believe that the Frenchman wrote Don Quixote, as that the Spaniard composed Gil Blas. If Le Sage borrowed any thing from Spain, excepting some general hints, such as we have noticed, it may have been some of the detached novels, which, as in the Diable Boiteux, are interwoven in the history, though with less felicity than in the earlier publication, where they do not interrupt the march of any principal narrative. On the other hand, it is no doubt wonderful, that, merely by dint of acquaintance with Spanish literature, Le Sage should have become so perfectly intimate, as he is admitted to be on all hands, with the Spanish customs, manners and habits, so as to conduct his reader through four volumes, without once betraying the secret, that the work was not composed by a native of Spain. Indeed, it is chiefly on this wonderful observation of costume and national manners, that the Spanish translator founds his reclamation of the work. as the original property of Spain. Le Sage's capacity of identifying himself with the child of his imagination, in circumstances in which he himself never was placed, though rare in the highest degree, is not altogether singular; De Foe, in particular, possessed it in a most extraordinary degree. It may be added, that this strict and accurate attention is confined to externals. so far as the principal personage is concerned. Gil Blas, though wearing the golillo, capa, and spada, with the most pure Castilian grace, thinks and acts with all the vivacity of a Frenchman, and displays, in many respects, the peculiar sentiments of one.

"The last French editor of Le Sage's works thinks that Gil Blas may have had a prototype in the humourous, but licentious History of Francion, written by the Sieur Moulinet de Pare. I confess I cannot see any particular resemblance which the History of Gil Blas has to that work, excepting that the scene of both lies chiefly in ordinary life, as may be said of the Roman Comique of Scarron. The whole concoction of Gil Blas appears to me as original, in that which constitutes the essence of a composition, as it is inexpressibly delightful."--Vol. I. pp. 64, 65.

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In the life of Smollet we have a very elaborate comparison of his merits as a writer of novels with those of Fielding, which concludes by placing him on a level with his rival. For ourselves, we admit the ingenuity of the argument, but we believe that public opinion has already settled this question in a different way, and we are willing to leave that decision, as the lawyers say, undisturbed. Indeed, the frequent use of the phrases "northern novelist," and "Fielding's northern rival," show that the author, while he sits gravely balancing opinions, and awarding judgment from his critical tribunal, does not forget that Smollet was a Scotchman. We cannot help thinking, likewise, that his candour has admitted merits enough in the writings of Fielding, and faults enough in those of Smollet, to lead his readers to a different conclusion from that at which he has himself arrived. Smollet's humour is broad and overcharged; it lies on the surface of his pictures, and strikes us most strongly at the first glance: that of Fielding is nature

itself, and pleases us the more the longer we dwell upon it. The characters of Smollet are of the most irregularly eccentric kind; so much so, that one might consider himself fortunate if he should stumble on a single one of them in a whole nation, and it is an easy matter to raise mirth out of eccentricities: those of Fielding, on the contrary, we might almost suppose taken from the circle of our own acquaintances. The careless crowding together of odd figures, and laughable situations and adventures, in the novels of Smollet, which Sir Walter mentions among their recommendations, if it does not absolutely oppress the reader, does not detain him like the more sly and reserved humour of Fielding. The want of Fielding's power of awakening sympathy and pity, is not compensated by the few instances in which Smollet has shown himself able to excite the stronger, but more easily managed passion of terror.

Of Charles Johnstone, we are told, that he " was an Irishman by birth, though it is said, a Scotchman by descent, and of the Annandale family." He received a classical education, was bred to the bar, and came to England to practice, but was compelled by excessive deafness to relinquish his profession. He consoled himself under this infirmity by abusing the human race in general, and his contemporaries in particular, in a work which Scott calls "the Scandalous Chronicle of the Time"-a kind of political romance, entitled Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea, which was first published in 1760. Our author occupies a couple of pages in tracing a comparison between this work and Le Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, but it seems to us that Johnstone's book is hardly worth the trouble. It is true, that it contains some powerful writing, and shows no inconsiderable knowledge of mankind; but it is impossible to imagine a darker and more disgusting picture of human nature than it presents. It is as if an anatomist were to dissect a putrefying carcass on a public stage, for the amusement of the multitude, and to show, with a most learned accuracy, how the muscles, the blood-vessels, and the tendons, were mingled and confounded into one mass of rottenness. But the picture is as false as it is disgusting. Villany is represented as an instinct of our nature: the grossest, as well as the most trivial crimes, are perpetrated without the slightest remorse; we are suffered to see none of the returns of better feelings, and relentings to virtue, which at times will visit the bosoms of the most profligate. His delineations of human character bear the same resemblance to the originals we meet with in society, as figures cut with a pair of scissors out of black velvet to the human face and form. What can be furVol. I.

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ther from the truth than his furious libel on Whitfield? If he was more fortunate in judging of the motives of Wilkes, it was owing rather to his determination to impute the worst motives to those who were then in the opposition party, than to any sagacity of penetration, or even happiness of conjecture. Scott praises his principles. It is true, that his reproof sometimes falls upon vice; but when we.applaud the principles of an author, we are understood to represent them as in all respects pure and unexceptionable. But where is this purity to he found in Johnstone's work? Are we to seek it in his indulgence to libertinism, in the delight he takes in minute descriptions of the gross and nauseous orgies of lewdness and debauchery, or in his profound respect for the political and ecclesiastical establishments of Great Britain? The appetite for scandal gave this work a prodigious run at the time of its appearance; and it may still be read by those whose curiosity is excited by its allusions to the characters and events of the time; but it is a heavy book on the whole, and few, we apprehend, will hereafter be drawn to its perusal by the desire of amusement.

A very fair estimate is given in this book of the writings of Sterne; and a very liberal, and what some would, perhaps, think an extravagant tribute of applause, is rendered to the great powers of Mrs. Radcliffe. It is curious, that although from the truth, freedom, and high colouring of her sketches of Italian scenery, an opinion has prevailed among her readers that this author had travelled in Italy, yet, in fact, she never visited that country. It is a very difficult problem with our author, and one which, after a great deal of argument, he does not succeed in solving to his satisfaction, that Mrs. Radcliffe should have published nothing from the year 1797, in which her Italian made its appearance, up to the time of her death, which took place so late as 1822. Is he to be reminded that life has other duties, and other employments, besides the composition of novels, and that the author who has written half a dozen good books, is under no possible obligation to continue writing on to his last breath?

The second volume of this work contains the lives of Richardson, Johnson, Goldsmith, Walpole, Mackenzie, Clara Reeve, Robert Bage, and Richard Cumberland. The examination into the merits of the several novels of Richardson is one of the best parts of the book; and although partly borrowed from Mrs. Barbauld, exhibits the profound acquaintance of the author with the principles of this kind of writing. The following estimate of the moral tendency of Pamela, Richardson's first novel, is, in our opinion, exceedingly judicious; though, as we shall show hereafter, the author does not always argue thus rationally.