how can it be hoped that they who altogether back industry in the pursuit of their own advantage, should exert themselves to procure that of others."

Call you this backing your friends, Colonel Hall? truly you have "let out" as much wicked allusion to the defects of their character, as M. Mollien himself; and the mal-treated Colombians must cry out "God protect us from all such friends."

High-Ways and By-Ways; or Tales

of the Roadside, picked up in the French Provinces, by a Walking Gentleman, Series the Second. 3 Vols. 12mo. London, 1825.

We believe we were the first, or at least, the most prominent amongst the first who called the attention of the public to the writings of this author. When this "Walking Gentleman" first started upon the perilous course of literature, and put forth his coup d' essai under the quaint title of "HighWays and By-Ways," we perceived in his works all the germs of future excellence, and every quality calculated to give him the decisive lead in that school of novel, or rather of tale writing, which an eminent American had introduced and made popular amongst us. Our author, however, has not proved very grateful for the public attention which we drew upon his work, or at least he has not evinced his sensibility, by following our advice; for the present volumes contain precisely the same fundamental errors which we exposed to him in our first critique, and which in exposing we advised him to avoid in his future productions. We reminded this gentleman of the motto, fortuna favet fortibus, and counselled him not to confine himself to imitation, or to content himself with studied elegance, or minute beauties, but to soar to the higher passions and interests of life, and to bring into vigorous play, those original powers which he evidently possessed, but upon which his work proved that he was too timid to rely. That advice, afterwards reiterated to him by the highest critical work in the country, he has not thought fit to follow; and the second series of "HighWays and By-Ways," bears more strongly that feature for which alone we censured the first-tameness-the greatest fault that an author can commit, who addresses himself to the

imagination through the medium of fiction. "An author," says Dr. Johnson," may be erroneous, false, absurd, or coarse, and yet succeed, but let him beware of wearying his readers." The fact is, our author is a pupil of the Washington Irving School, and his works possess every feature of their prototype's, displaying all their beauties in an equally high degree of excellence, and exhibiting the same prominent defects to almost an equal excess. There is the same laconic terseness of phraseology, the same careful and studied arrangement of periods, the same selection of minute objects, and the same straining after nice distinctions and accurate delineations of trivial subjects and circumstances; to these we may add, the same contentment at exciting only the more soft and mild emotions of our nature, with a perpetual effort to create such emotions by the portraiture of objects, or the description of circumstances in themselves insignificant, and almost incapable of being converted by art or labour into sources of any interest whatever. Neither author ever attempts to excite the energies of his reader by scenes of deep pathos, or of turbulent interest; they both content themselves with the enjoyment of their soft and gentle undulations of the mind and heart, and seldom produce in the reader any vivid sensation of the reality of the scenes they represent; their habit being as much to pourtray their own sensations as the sources (often unaccountable ones) from which they arise. In this respect, both Mr. Irving and the author before us, are the very opposite of Crabbe, who never tells the reader what to feel in reading, what he felt in writing, or what any body would have felt, or ought, according to his notions, to have felt upon witnessing what he relates; he puts the objects and circumstances forward in their naked, isolated reality, and depends upon their producing their natural effects upon his readers. Perhaps the reasons why our author, like his prototype, always accompanies causes with supposed effects, and objects with the emotions it creates, is from a consciousness that the objects he delineates, are in themselves unimportant, and totally out of all proportion to the feelings and interests he would wish his readers to

connect with them. We need scarcely observe, that writings of this sort are in prose, what the writings of the Wordsworth school are in poetry, and that they both are of necessity the result of a very high stage of literary refinement, and may for a time please the cultivated and fastidious, -but can never become generally popular, or occupy the first place in the attention even of the most delicately 'sensitive to literary elegance. A work to be perfect, or to approach perfection, must have all that the "HighWays and By-Ways" possesses, but with much more of deep pathos, of energy, and of the appearance of reality of what it represents.

There is also an unpardonable fault in this school of writers, a fault at once associated with the pettiness of object, and the unimportance of circumstance, to which we have -before alluded; we mean the endless, wearisome dilatation of every sort which prevades the writings of all this school. A single thought, or scarcely more than the atom of a subject will be dilated through pages, and the reader never gets to his journey's end, or having got to it, looks back with surprize at the im-mense length of his journey, and at the little he has seen or heard in its progress. Richardson carried this unpardonable fault of dilatation to its utmost possible extent, and he added to it, the, if possible, worse fault of repetition, so that to wade through one of his novels, now the mania for them has ceased, requires so very .peculiar a class of mind, that those who can accomplish such a dull Herculean labour are considered as a class sui generis, and are technically known by the book-trade, as "the readers of Richardson." If the Irving school 'do not cure themselves of this fault, their works will experience à similar - fate.

But with all these faults, it is im'possible in an age so highly refined, that works so carefully polished and elaborately wrought, should not be well received, and accordingly, we find that the writings, both of Mr. Irving, and of our present author, his imitator and follower, have been popular amongst us from their first appearance, to the present hour. All the -features that distinguish Geoffrey Crayon, are to be discerned through

out the "High-Ways and By-Ways." The latter author has all the polished elegance of his precursor, nor is there a beauty in either "Geoffrey Crayon,” or "Bracebridge Hall," that might not be equalled by quotations from the "High-Ways and By-Ways," whilst the latter author is free from plagiarisms with which his prototype abounds; he has also more richness of humour, more original conception, or creation of character; he is richer in circumstances, and above all, he has a deeper power over the heart and affections, dealing more in human passions and sympathies, indulging less in the mere sportiveness of the fancy.

We do not admire the present series of the "High-Ways and ByWays" as much as we did the first. They dispose us rather to admire the capacity of the author, than the production itself. The series consists of two tales, neither of which pourtray human passions in their intensity, or where at least they attempt -to make any such portraiture, the passion is either in itself so unnatural, or arises from causes so extravagant, that the reader has not a full sympathy with what is represented to him. In the beautiful story "of La Villaine Tête," in the first series, all was natural and probable, and bore the impress of truth and identity, and the readers' fears, affections, and passions were excited throughout, and sustained admirably to the conclusion of the piece. The same might be said of its companion, the beautiful story of the "Father's Curse," although horror was rather too predominant a sensation throughout the latter part of the perusal; but there can be no such strong and over whelming sensations, produced by the present tales, and the fault lies in the outlines of each story, rather than in the filling up.

In the first tale, called "Caribert ; or the Bear-Hunter," our author represents himself benighted, or in danger of being benighted in cheerless weather amidst the central Pyrenees. He takes shelter for the night in a small tavern, the resort of muleteers and smugglers of contraband trade, across the boundary, or line of demarcation between the two kingdoms of France and Spain. His host is a rough, coldhearted, money-loving borderer, who makes a fortume by affording facilities

to the illicit traders. He is, however, a good-tempered, if not a good-natured man, and is possessed of two daughters; the one a child, the other of an age to love and to be loved. This girl is painted very happily, and much out of the ordinary way of painting novel, heroines. She is, however, capable of intense feelings, and of high resolves, and is rather inconsistently beloved by a gentle ratiocinative sort of a chamois-hunter, named Claude, and, considering the absolute contrariety of their dispositions, and that the youth "bowed and sighed, but never talked of love," the courtship goes on à merveille. But unluckily the lovesick Claude introduces to his Aline his friend Caribert, a bear-hunter, whose ferocity, strength, and contempt of all the gentler scenes and allurements of life had rendered him the wonder of all the district. Caribert falls in love with Aline at first sight, and, in many respects, the congeniality between their dispositions insures the new lover a favourable reception. Caribert is so maddened by his passion that, amidst the fiercest conflict of honour and love, he utterly betrays and supplants his friend Claude; whilst Aline, with less compunctious visitings of nature, behaves with equal perfidy, cruelty, and dishonour. The affections of Caribert and Aline are now irrevocably fixed; but the perpetual conflict between friendship, honour, and love, in the fiery mind of Caribert had nearly wrought him to a pitch of madness, and he beholds his father struggling with a bear, and eventually killed before his eyes without rendering him the least assistance, being unaccountably rivetted to the spot by the delirious intensity of feelings produced in him by preceding events. This horrid scene of the bear-hunt drives Caribert completely mad, and in his ravings, as well as in his fits of melancholy, the presence, the look, the voice, or Jouch, of Aline, form the only "medicine to the mind diseased.". Claude, in his affliction at the perfidy of his friend, and in the inconstancy of his mistress, had fled the country, but be returns, and participates in all Aline's affliction and solicitude for the distracted Caribert, until, at length, this person dies, and Claude eventually marries Aline. It is impossible for any story to be more beautifully, told

than the author has contrived to tell. this incongruous tale; and, as far as the management of the materials is concerned, it wants nothing but shortening by about one third to be perfect in its kind. But the whole outline and substratum of the story are bad. It is impossible to conceive. the characters, and manners, and sen-> timents to belong to the class of persons who are the actors in the drama, nor are they of a class to excite any general sympathy, except for the most simple feelings and vulgar misfortunes which "flesh is heir to." The timidity and bashful reserve of Claude, his patient endurance of the blackest treachery in his friend, his pandering to the passion of his mistress for the distracted Caribert, and his final marriage of her after the death of that person, are all circumstances which might have taken place in real life, but they are out of all book probability, and are calculated to excite neither interest nor credence. The transitions of passion, and indeed of nature, in Caribert, are likewise out of all verisimilitude, and his abstraction during his father's murder, upon which the catastrophe of the peace entirely turns, outrages all probability. The story is incapable of being converted into any source of deep, permanent, and general interest. But "materiem superabat opus;" there are, throughout the story, isolated parts of great beauty, and the whole is told in a manner, if not to rouse the deeper feelings, at least to charm the fancy, and to kindle many of the more gentle and pleasurable emotions. It is impossible to lay the book down without saying," he who has written this possesses no ordinary powers, and can write much better things." As a specimen of the author's best style, we should refer the reader to the description of the bear and wolf-hunt in this story of Caribert. It at least equals any picturesque description in any novel of our day, and surpasses even the description of the stag-hunt in "Waverley," or that of the attack upon the whale in the "Pirates." The description of the frightful chasm in the Pyrenees, commencing at page 49, appears to us to be admirably given. The sudden change of Aline's countenance from the ordinary level to even beauty, when the master-chord of her heart and passions was touched,

the natural enthusiasm of her mind, with the portraiture of that of Caribert's, with the first scene of their courtship, and the effects which circumstances had upon his fierce and ardent temper, all display the hand of a master, and of one who has studied at the great fountain of all excellence-nature.

The next story, called "The Priest and the Garde du Corps," displays great ingenuity and art in the management of the story; but we do not think that the story itself is of a happy selection. All the interest turns upon the enthusiasm and devotion for the queen of France in a young Irish officer of the French Garde du Corps, who, at the commencement of his romantic fervor, had seen her only as she passed the mob in which he was standing. We need not say, that a feeling in itself so irrational and ridiculous, and carried to the most extravagant excess, cannot possibly be converted into any source of interest to general readers. If human being ever did exist with so absurd a sentiment as that which influenced the hero of this tale, he richly deserved every evil that could befall him.-All the incidents of this story are drawn from the French revolution, the scenes of which, some century hence, will, in all probability,

be the most fertile of all resources to the novel writers of every description; but we doubt if that event is yet far enough removed from our own times for the writers of fiction to make it. their resort for the materials of tales in either prose or verse.

Much of this story appears to us to be little more than a very elegant version, or transposition of the columns of the newspapers and periodical works of London at the period of the French revolution. The fête given by the French body guard to the regiment of Flanders at Versailles, the storming of the palace by the mob, the escape of the queen from her bedchamber, are strictly of this description. But even in this story there are numerous passages of great beauty the characters of the Irish priest and of the Irish servant are admirably drawn, and evince that the author possesses a rich fund of humour, and a power of delineating character.

Having been so unsparing in our censures, it is but justice to add, that the perusal of these volumes cannot fail to raise the author high in the esteem of the sound and judicious critic, for he has made the utmost that it was possible to make of his materials, and this perhaps is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon any writer.

A LARGE engraving of this subject (about two feet in length and of proportionate height) is just now publishing by Messrs. Hurst and Robinson, of Cheapside, from a picture painted in the year 1772, by the late BENJAMIN WEST, President of the Royal Academy. The plate was left in an unfinished state among the effects of the late Mr. WOOLLETT, and has lately been completed-the landscape by MIDDEMAN, and the figures by ROBINSON.

Perhaps this is, on the whole, the best of the composed historical land. scapes of the late president. There is one, now exhibiting at his gallery, in Newman-street, that will compete with it for that honour-namely, his

"Subsidence of the Waters of the great Deluge," but, at least, of his historical landscapes of profane subjects, his Calypso receiving Telemachus on the shores of her island, may be regarded as the best.

The general luxuriance and sylvan grandeur of the scene; with its noble forest trees and cavernous rocks, festooned with gadding vine; its distant promontory involved in gloom, and its flower-enamelled fore-ground, all betoken an island of romantic solitude, suited to the residence of a beautiful goddess and her attendant train: while the surging waves breaking on the shore; the stranded Greek ship, with its riven sails and antique rostra, and the stormy clouds driving

toward the horizon, effectually carry back the spectator's mind to the perilous situation from whence Telemachus and the disguised Minerva have recently escaped.

The disguised goddess looks as she ought; wary, venerable, and leaning, in the assumed character of a philosophical old man, on a staff: but Telemachus is somewhat deficient in youthful beauty, for the hero of Fenelon; and looks rather too much like Mister Smith, or Mister Jones, performing the part of the son of Ulysses. Nevertheless the goddess Calypso herself, stands forward like a heroine, grand and compassionate, and gives him majestic welcome, The attendant nymphs, meanwhile, perform their subordinate parts with sufficient gracefulness: the dancers with agility; the rest with due decorum toward their superior, and sisterly attention toward each other: yet we must add that the heads of some of them are somewhat too common and unelevated in character and expression, for the inhabitants of a terrestrial elysium: too much like those of ordinary opera girls: but some of their attitudes are antique and Poussinesque, particularly that of the nymph, who, with the air of a Bacchante, throws aloft the tambourine as she dances.

The sun, victorious over the tempest, although his orb is hidden behind a cloud, is about 30° above the horizon. The time represented is consequently about two hours before sun-set, and we are reminded of that beautiful stanza of our delightful poet :

"A beam of tranquillity smiles in the west;

The storms of the morning pursue us

prise. He has not reflected that the sun, being in itself so much larger than our planet, those of his rays which fall upon the earth are always parallel; or are so from the refrangibility of our atmosphere. Instead of attending to this, Mr. West has treated the source of light in his picture as if it had been a torch, pharos, or other beacon, not above an hundred yards from the shore, and has accordingly projected the cast shadows from Mentor and Telemachus in one direction, and those of Calypso and her nymphs in another, just as they would fall if the illuminating cause were small and central.

And now, concerning the parts performed by the Engravers, or translators of Mr. West's original. Both of those living artists, whose names appear to the work in conjunction with that of Woollett, have laboured under considerable disadvantage. Wool

lett's name stands so deservedly high in the estimation of the majority, that it is probable the least meritori ous parts of the present work will be set down to the account of Mr. Middiman and Mr. Robinson; whereas they are in reality the authors of the best parts. We are enabled to say this from having carefully inspected an impression of the plate in the state in which it was handed to these latter gentlemen. It had been wrought upon, since Woollett's death, by some inferior hand, which had reduced it to a state of blackness and vulgarity, from which it was no easy matter to redeem it.

We happen to know, too, that notwithstanding the plate bears the name of Woollett, there is scarcely a line from his masterly hand, excepting the etching of the figures, in the whole performance. The landscape was etched at the house and under the eye of Woollet, but by Mr. EMES, who subsequently engraved the large plate of the destruction of the floating batteries before Gibraltar, from the much-admired picture by Jefferies. We do not mean to disparage Mr. Emes; but to tell truth, and to restore him his due. This latter work, which has been long before the public, shews his stock of

E. M. January, 1825.

M