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The Country Minister, Part Second, a Poem in three Cantos, with other Poems, by the Rev. J. Brittell. G. B. Whittaker, London, 1825. WE are all delighted, at least all of us who possess a relish for the softer and calmer delights of nature and rural simplicity, with those poetic descriptions that dwell on the charms and enjoyments of a country life; but there is in these descriptions something of a relaxing aud alling nature, something of so sweet and humanizing a mould, that we insensibly and unavoidably slumber amid the delightful scenes and romantic situations in which we are placed; and we wake from the reverie of intellectual infatuation to seek for something more poignant and stimulating-something rouse us from the calm of melting and languishing emotions: hence it is that when descriptive poetry is not mingled with historical or fictitious narratives, when human life, with all fortunes and misfortunes, is not mixed up with the fairy scenes and elysian creations of the poet, we real a few pages, close the book, and slumber amid the sweets of too happy, too delightful, and, for us rough mortals, too celestial an abode. Too much enjoyment satiates the mind as too much sweets satiates the palate, and we seek for a relish in rougher and coarser fare. Hence it is, if we mistake not, that the first part of "The Country Minister" has been unsuccessful, and we fear that the same cause will render the second part equally unpopu lar. It does rot address itself to the busy and active world; it removes from the scenes of real life, to linger amid those softer and more retired retreats where meditation and philosophy love to take up their abode. But the bulk of mankind are not philosophers by nature, and they are seldom rendered so by the accidents and circumstances of real life. Hence, the Country Minister leads them into a world with which they are little acquainted, and as it is

only birds of a feather that flock together," they soon get tired of the Minister and his solitary musings. There is little in the work itself, taking it in piece-meal, that we can find fault with; but taking it as a whole, it wants all that is calculated to rouse and animate those passions which are eternally craving for enjoyment. It addresses itself to no particular passion whatever; it presents no commanding, no interesting character. It brings us acquainted with a man who rather shuns than courts our society, and we soon feel a desire of leaving him to enjoy his own sequestered and unsocial meditations to seek the society of such men as ourselves. In a word he is too de void of passion, and has therefore nothing in him that interests. He is a gentle inoffensive man, and a lover of nature, we mean of external nature, not of human nature, for he seems to look down upon the rest of mankind, and to consider himself the only perfect being among the human tribe. He moves along unnoticed and unnoticing, as regardless of the world as the world is of bim. What interest can we take in the fate of a man who turns his back upon mankind, and seems only to feel for himself. There is no man on whom we look with more perfect indifference than a selfish person; and it is doubtful, whether the Deity itself does not prefer, as we do, men of many faults and frailties, where they are mingled with some virtues of a redeeming character, to him who has neither the ambition to be good, nor the courage to venture into the forbidden paths of iniquity. "Be either good or evil," says the sacred writer," or I will spew you out of my mouth." In fact, where there is no passion, there is neither vice nor virtue, for we approximate too closely to inanimate being to possess any property, attribute, or stimulus capable of inclining, alluring, or urging us to become the disciples, or yield to the attractions of either. Alfred was a

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teacher, and imagined himself, no doubt, too good to fill so labouring and unprofitable a situation. He was accordingly discontented.though he evinced, at the same time, no evidence of those lofty and aspiring powers that deserved a better and a happier fate. We are told, indeed, that he was "worn out with labour and oppressed with care," and that, consequently, "his mind no more domestic joys could share;" but if it was real physical labour that actually wore him out, how greatly ought we topity those happy mortals who drudge in the field from morning to night, and labour as much in an hour as Alfred in a week. It was not then labour, but an unsocial and selfish mind that made Alfred discontented with his lot. Even his own family could not soften the stubborn asperity of his mind.

"In vain his wife to greet his coming smiled,

Used all the aris that care have oft beguiled;

With pleasing skill arranged the decent room,

And raised the hearth's warm blaze to cheer its gloom;

In vain his children played around his knees,

And tried with winning hearts their sire to please.

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must improve in exact proportion to the time devoted to them by their preceptors, whereas the fact is the very reverse; for a child recollects and treasures up every thing he is told, provided you do not trespass on his natural impatience of restraint. If you detain him too long, so far from recollecting all you tell him, he recollects nothing. His mind is elsewhere; or if it be at home, it is only employed in coun!ing the hours and minutes that are to compose the time of his bondage, and set him at liberty. When at liberty, books are his aversion; they are equally his aversion when obliged to return to them; while they would form the most pleasing portion of his time if they were exactly suited to his own taste and relish, for children of reflective and meditative minds will grasp at instruction long after others are weary of it. The teacher and the pupil are therefore mutually injured by a mistaken idea of education. One idea or principle of knowledge properly understood, and strongly impressed upon the memory, is worth a thousand vague and fleeting notions that serve more to lead us into the labyrinth of dulness than to increase our knowledge, our wisdom, or our experience. Hence it is that men of genius have frequently been looked upon as dunces, until they got rid of the trammels of the school, and be gan to reflect and think for themselves. But why is teaching so painful and disagreeable? This is a question which our limits will not permit us to enter into at present. We may, and perhaps it is as probabable, that we may not, have occasion to examine it in a future number; and we shall, therefore, at present, only say that we cannot help thinking Mr. Brettel has painted his Country Minister from his own feelings and experience. There is much simplicity and naiveté in the style, much of romance and picturesque imagination in the scenery, and what is still more interesting, it is not a scenery borrowed from the ideal world. The proper or real names of places are mentioned, and to the resident inhabitants, and those who have visited them, the Country Minister will consequently be an acceptable present.

Tales of Old Mr. Jefferson, of Gray's Inn, collected by Young Mr. Jef ferson, of Lyon's Inn. Vol. III. G. B. Whittaker.

THE old prejudices against the reading of novels are considerably abated, and must gradually decrease, while novelists continue to improve with the spirit and intelligence of the age. This branch of literature must be considered highly important by all who reflect on its influence upon society; it forms with most readers the third stage of education, as it immediately succeeds their elementary or classical studies. Our circulating li braries, which now contain so many works of sterling merit, at once attractive and instructive, were formerly crammed to repletion with the crudities and diseased imaginings of distempered brains; and a work of understanding and sense, in this depart ment, rarely met the eyes of the youthful part of society. Critics in vain decried these absurd effusions of dwarfish intellect; and parents in vain put them under the bane of their interdiction. A thirst for ornamental rather than useful knowledge existed, and was gratified by tasting the surface, not by drinking deep in the Pierian spring. A few noyelists, however, of transcendant merit, rose as beacons to guide posterity out of the trammels of unnatural romance and sentimental jargon: and as long as literature is cherished in any country, the writings of Cervantes, Le Sage, Fielding, and Smollet, will exist to instruct and amuse mankind. What an inexhaustible fund of amusement and instruction would have been the works of such men, had there been any such, in the ages of Grecian and Roman history! How intimate would have been our knowledge of the manners and customs of antiquity! How much more able should we have been to judge how far different forms of civil and religious government affect the sum of general happiness, and how, and in what degree, it has been increased or diminished by the various religious and political dogmas, that have united to afflict and debase the intellectual faculties of mankind! That this species of writing is capable of expanding and improving, while it delights the mind, needs not now any proof. Most of our best novels are

founded on nature and experience, and may be divided into three classes, describing either "things as they should be"-" things as they were"→ or," things as they are." Those of the first class chiefly spring from system-mongers, or well-intentioned writers who found theories upon prejudices. The second class appears now to have many votaries who fill up the chasms of history with matter inferred from present, rather than from past, circumstances; and they appear unconscious of the difficulty of their task. To describe the manners of past ages in detail, and to develop their prejudices, to pourtray their passions, and to delineate the reciprocal bearing of ignorance and dawning intelligence, are efforts of the mind that require the brightest genius and the most profound erudition. These two classes of novelists are but of little value; their study is to amuse and to be paid: the first affect to guide us out of the labyrinth of present error into the brightest regions of knowledge, and yet predicate of futurity what is founded on neither past nor present experience, neither in reason nor in philosophy. It is therefore no wonder that these novels become a prey to the devouring tooth of time; and perhaps of all the creeping things that slime the earth, from the cringing courtier to the lazy mendicant, the book-worm should be esteemed by man the most valuable.

The third class of novelists, those who write of "Things as they are," deserve much higher praise than the others. They bring before us palpable and tangible subjects, and exhibit portraits of existing objects, which we can compare with the originals. They teach us what theories to detest, and what to admire; they unveil to us the vices and the follies which daily beset us in the path of life; and their descriptions of virtue and vice are the more efficacious, because they cannot be overcharged without detection: they become the very road book of life. In this class we must rank the novel which is now under our notice; and we think it a sign of the decay of prejudice, that the first two volumes have already reached a second edition, even before the appearance of the third, of which we now intend to give a short account. In this volume there are two tales; The Proselyte;