dicated to my lord Dartmouth,* by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on without saving the least appearances. The archbishop, who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the methodists, permits the farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the opera, changed our clothes at Northumberlandhouse, the duke of York, lady Northumberland, lady Mary Coke, lord Hertford, and I, all in one hackney coach, and drove to the spot: it rained torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in; at last they discovered it was the duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child, to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked, if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts? We had nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only 'prentices and old women. We staid however till half an hour after The methodists have promised them contributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the taverns and ale-houses in the neighbourhood make fortunes. The most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be found out-as if there was any thing to find out-as if the actors would make their noises when they can be discovered. However, as this pantommie cannot last much longer, I hope lady Fanny Shirley§ will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and then you shall hear one. The methodists, as lord Aylesford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at lord Dacres, have attempted ghosts three times in Warwickshire. There, how good I am! Yours ever, HOR. WALPOLE. Strawberry-hill, June 15, 1768. No, I cannot be so false as to say I am glad you are pleased with your situation. You are so apt to take root, that it requires ten years to dig you out again when you once begin to settle. As you go pitching your tent up and down, I wish you were still more a tartar, and shifted your quarters perpetually. Yes, I will come and see you; but tell me first, when do your duke and dutchess travel to the north? I know he is a very amiable lad, and I do not know that she is not as amiable a laddess, but I had rather see their house comfortably, when they are not there.

one.

* A methodist: a constant attender at the Lock chapel, where Martin Madan, the author of Thelypthora, used to preach.

Foots' play so called. So in France, the clergy attempted to stop Moliere's Tartuffe.

The archbishop's palace.

It was on this lady that lord Chesterfield wrote his song 'When Fanny blooming fair, &c.'

I perceive the deluge fell upon you, before it reached us. It began here but on Monday last, and then rained near eight and forty hours without intermission. My poor hay has not a dry thread to its back. I have had a fire these three days. In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will affect to have a summer, and we have no title to any such thing. Our poets learnt their trade of the Romans, and so adopted the terms of their masters. They talk of shady groves, purling streams, and cooling breezes, and we get sore throats and agues with attempting to realize these visions. Master Damon writes a song, and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and the deuce a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr is a north-east wind, that makes Damon button up to the chin, and pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; and then they cry, this is a bad summer, as if we ever had any other. The best sun we have, is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other. We ruin ourselves with inviting over foreign trees, and make our houses clamber up hills to look at prospects. How our ancestors would laugh at us, who knew there was no being comfortable, unless you had a high hill before your nose, and a thick warm wood at your back! Taste is too freezing a commodity for us, and depend upon it, will go out of fashion again.

There is indeed a natural warmth in this country, which, as you say, I am very glad not to enjoy any longer; I mean the hot-house in St. Stephen's chapel. My own sagacity makes me very vain, though there was very little merit in it. I had seen so much of all parties, that I had little esteem left for any; it is most indifferent to me who is in or who is out, or which is set in the pillory, Mr. Wilkes or my lord Mansfield. I see the country going to ruin, and no man with brains enough to save it. That is mortifying; but what signifies who has the undoing it? I seldom suffer myself to think on this subject: my patriotism could do no good, and my philosophy can make me be at peace.

I am sorry you are likely to lose your poor cousin lady Hinchinbrook; I heard a very bad account of her when I was last in town. Your letter to Madame Roi and shall be taken care of; but as you are so scrupulous of making me pay postage, I must remember not to overcharge you, as I can frank my idle letters no longer; therefore good night! Yours ever,

HOR. WALPOLE.

P. S. I was in town last week, and found Mr. Chute still confined. He had a return in his shoulder, but I think it more rheumatism than gout.

We have made these long extracts, not with careful choice, for the book abounds with such; but as it is not likely to be much known here, they will contribute to the amusement at least of our readers; which, next to instruction, is the best present we can make them.

C.

ART. II.—Review of Letters from Washington on the Constitu tion and Laws, with Sketches of some of the Prominent Public Characters of the United States.' Printed and published by J. Gideon, junior. 1818.

HAD these Letters been confined to the fugitive columns of the newspaper in which they originally appeared, whatever might have been their excellences or defects, we should have spared our. selves the trouble of the following observations. But as the author has chosen to submit them to the public, not only revised, corrected, and enlarged, but in a form which at least should promise a shortlived existence, he can neither plead, as an apology for their defects, the haste with which newspaper productions are generally written and ushered into the world, nor complain if we extend to them an impartial examination.

It appears to have been the object of the author to express his views of the constitution and laws of the United States, and to delineate some of the distinguished political characters in our country.

In the exposition of the constitution and laws, he has avoided the discussion of those numerous and important principles, which the American revolution has disclosed in the science of government, and confined himself to the bare enumeration of the executive, legislative, and judicial power. By this enumeration, which may be found with equal brevity and more correctness in the constitution itself, we hope nothing new could be presented to an American reader; and we shall therefore hasten to what was perhaps the principal object of the work.

To know something of those who, by their virtues or talents shed lustre on their age and country, is a sentiment deeply implanted in the heart of man. We examine with eagerness the minutest circumstance that can unfold the character of Washington, Franklin, Burke or Johnson, and view with interest whatever is connected with their lives or fortunes. Even in their busts and paintings, we endeavour to trace the lineaments of their minds; and lament when these imperfect memorials have not been left behind.

in

Although this sentiment has existed wherever literature and civilization have been known, it has in this country derived additional strength from the nature of our political institutions. There is no citizen so ignorant as to require to be informed that the happiness and prosperity of his country will, in a great degree, depend on the qualifications of those by whom its affairs are administered: proportion, therefore, to the solicitude with which he watches over its interests, and contemplates its glory or decline, will be his anxiety to learn the characters of every candidate for political preferment. Nor is he prompted to this investigation by a merely general interest. It is his inestimable privilege to contribute by his writings or his vote to the elevation, not only of his immediate representative, but of the distinguished individual who fills the

highest office a free people can confer; and it therefore becomes his duty to investigate, with the most scrutinizing attention, the merits and qualifications of those upon whom may depend the best interests of his country.

To obtain the information requisite to a faithful discharge of this duty, is attended with more difficulty than is generally imagined. The most conspicuous characters can be personally known to few, and the number is still more limited who are admitted to that familiarity and confidence, without which no just estimate of character can be formed. If the persons, then, who reside in their immediate vicinity, are thus liable to misconception, can we wonder at those being deceived who have no better guides in the formation of their opinions than the general observation of their public conduct; the reputation which, whether justly or unjustly, they have acquired; the fallacious representations of interested advocates; or ill-founded suggestions of malignity or envy!

Of all the means by which those deprived of the advantages of personal intercourse are enabled to judge of the qualifications of public men, there is perhaps none superior to delineations of character by an intelligent observer. But before we permit them to influence our opinions, we should be assured that the person attempting this arduous, but invidious office, has no other motive than the public good; that he is neither impelled by the desire to conciliate, nor deterred by the fear to offend; and that to a mind liberal, comprehensive and discriminating, he unites that knowledge of the human heart, without which the highest intellectual attainments would be productive of more injury than advantage.

Although the letters of our author may be considered as belonging to this species of composition, he appears to have mistaken its proper province, by blending the incidents of private life with those peculiar characteristics which may be supposed to strike the attention of the observer. In such performances the writer is expected to present a vivid portrait to our view. The countenance, exterior deportment and general appearance of the person described may, with propriety, be considered, because, like the shades of a picture, they give additional effect to the whole colouring and design. But to go farther than this, and, without professing to give even an imperfect biography, to narrate vague and unimportant incidents of private life, appears to us inconsistent with the design, and therefore ill timed, and improper.

This observation will apply to the sketches of Messrs. Crawford, Wirt, and Pinckney. The incidents which are mentioned, whether true or not, impart no interest, because they are too few and unimportant; they divert the attention, destroy the unity of the design, and labour under the additional disadvantage that the writer is supposed to rehearse what he may have gleaned from sources on which little reliance should be placed.

We will here, also, notice an objection which will apply with equal force.-There is scarcely a portrait in which the connexion

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of our ideas is not unexpectedly interrupted by digressions having no necessary connexion with the subject, and destroying the effect which it should have been the object of the writer to produce.Thus in the sketch of Mr. Monroe, we find a digression on the awkwardness of manners prevalent in America; in that of Mr. Calhoun, on the influence of climate on the human intellect, and the distinction between oratory and poetry; in that of Mr. Wirt, on the prevalence of false eloquence and the bombastic style among the Virginia orators; and in that of Mr. Forsythe, on the South American question, and the tendency of the study and practice of the law to produce facility of speech and paucity of ideas. That the reader, however, may judge of the ease and grace with which these digressions are generally introduced, we must beg leave to present him with an extract. Mr. Lowndes is a man of wealth and of probity, modest, retiring, and unambitious; but his mind is of the first order, vigorous, comprehensive, and rapid. He is chairman of the committee of finance, and in that situation has discovered a very general, profound, and extensive knowledge of finance.' 'He is not only an able political economist, but a skilful statist. For your further information, I will draw the distinction in the language of Peuchet, (Statisque Elémentaire) who has given it more correctly than any writer I have yet had the opportunity of reading.' The first, or political economy, conceives, produces, and puts in execution,' &c. &c. The second, or statistics, is occupied in preparing the elements,' &c. &c. After thus learnedly settling the distinction, which it was surely sufficient to have made, he once more returns to the character of Mr. Lowndes, but not until the reader had almost forgotten his existence.

From these more general objections, we will direct our attention to the fidelity of some of the portraits.

Mr. Monroe is the first in the collection. Of this gentleman, perhaps not a single additional trait could be given, after the portrait in the British Spy. In the one however by our author, the general features are at least preserved; and although it

may want the originality, and beauty, and harmony of colouring, which distinguish the productions of Mr. Wirt, it may perhaps claim some merit from the closeness of its resemblance. That our author may not be deprived of his merited praise, we present to the reader the following comparison:

PORTRAIT OF MR. MONROE.

BY OUR AUTHOR.

He appears to be between fifty and sixty years of age.

-With a form above the middle size, compact, muscular, and indicating a constitution of considerable hardness and vigour.

His manner and habiliments are those of a plain country gentleman.

IN THE BRITISH SPY.

Judging merely from his countenance he is between the ages of forty-five and fifty years.

In his stature he is about the middle height of men, rather firmly set, with nothing further remarkable in his person but his muscular compactness and apparent ability to endure labour.

His address and personal appearance are those of a plain and modest gentle

man