For it is more than pleasing; it is instructive and improving. Whoever shall carefully peruse this work without learning, or at the least reviving, much that is valuable and profitable, must be much wiser than we were; whoever is not improved by it, must be much better. It is a fault with many books of a design somewhat similar to this, that they admit either directly, or, more commonly but quite as mischievously, in an indirect manner, that the performance of our duties is an irksome task, which only looks for its reward to another world. This is a noble, and to our deliberate reason, a sufficient motive. But it is not the only one, and others are to be found in immediate satisfaction and present happiness. And such is the constitution of man that the former is too often feeble, unless cherished by the latter. "Affections," often masters of reason as well as of passion, "sway it to what it likes or loaths." In the work before us, there is no such admission; and no such, we contend, is necessary.

Hitherto our opinion of this work has been general, but it would far exceed our limits to notice particularly the parts which seem likely to give most pleasure. This will in some measure be effected by an extract or two, in the selection of which we might be somewhat embarrassed where there is so much that is excellent. We shall therefore take them without much consideration; and if the reader shall decide that many better might have been chosen, he may possibly be right.

The following are specimens of the descriptive style.

"Evelyn Hall was not one of those houses seated in the recesses of a park, where a solitude is to be traversed before you approach its inhabitants. It rose (many people of taste said too suddenly) in the very village from which itself and its possesors had derived their names ever since the Conquest. Cottages lay scattered in all directions, with every one its little forecourt or garden, filled with sweet herbs, and interspersed with hollyhocks, poppies, and all the common cottage flowers. But among these, let it be recollected, is the rose. How benignant indeed seems the Creator, in thus rendering this sweet flower at once the most beautiful ornament of nature, and the cheapest and easiest of cultivation. I never see a rose at a cottage door, but I think it designed by Heaven itself, as the poor man's regale. 'Sua si bona norint.' ****

"From the court the Bench adjourned to dinner; and, reader, if thou hast ever had the good fortune to feast thyself in the great room of a great inn in a county town, enlarged by three or four rooms being thrown into one, for the ourpose of giving am

ple space to their worships,' thou wilt figure to thyself the glories of the George, in its triumph over the Fountain.

These two great powers had struggled for pre-eminence for half a century; and each with alternate and temporary success. Many, indeed, had been the painful discussions held by the nobility, gentry, and reverend clergy of this far-famed county, as to the respective merits of these powerful rivals; though it was generally observed, that, according as Whigism or Toryism prevailed in the riding, the feasting was held to be best at the one or the other.

A few honest pilgrims, indeed, there were, who were of neither of these parties, but above them both. They were your philosophers in politics, in other words, your levellers; who, in their love for equal rights and radical reform thought that the aristocracy of inns ought to be opposed, like all other aristocracies, and that the meanest pot-house in the borough ought to be supported as well as they. They therefore poisoned themselves at the Rose, the Catharine Wheel, and at the Blue Posts, from pure love of their country, rather than favour those who had the as inǹs to insult the rights of man, by holding their houses out best of every thing. eunplying their customers with the

Be it understood, however, that thes

supporters among the company which I have introduceu

reader; who, though they were radically divided as to the abovementioned superior powers, united in resolving, that one or the other should be the happy seat of refreshment for the tired magistrates of the riding, in quarter sessions assembled.

It is not necessary to say more on this subject, important as it is, nor to tell the reader how it happened, that the George at present had got the upper hand.

It is sufficient that it cost one doctor of laws, three masters of arts, and two baronets, two years' painful and preserving struggle, to accomplish this momentous revolution; which, after all, had perhaps never been effected, if, in addition to a continued flow of success to the British arms abroad, the beef at the Fountain had not, during three quarters of a year, been, by the confession of all, too littled corned.

The landlord of the successful sign, in a new coat of second cloth, with old silver buttons newly brightened, upon which was impressed the image which his sign professed to represent, had now twice announced that the greatest part of the dinner smoked upon the table, and that they only waited the approach of the chairman, to take up the fish; and this message was twice whispered to the chair, through their worships on the right hand of the court, (and in fact, had produced the instant departure of their said

worships, in regular succession, to the no small annoyance of their worships on the left,) before the chairman thought proper publicly to announce the happy tidings.

This occasioned a considerable heart-burning; for the favoured ones on the right hand, who were first entrusted with the secret, and had thus obtained the best places at the table, were almost all government men, who had naturally got together on the bench; while the unlucky party, who had as naturally adhered to one another on the other side, glorified themselves in the name of Reformers.

Now though the chairman was the most equitable of men, and had delayed promulgating the important secret disclosed to him from no other reason than that he was just at that moment in the act of finishing his charge to the jury, on which the imprisonment and whipping of John Hodges, for stealing turkeys, materially depended-yet, as he was shrewdly suspected of being less unfavourable to ministers than he had been, and the landlord who had brought the message, and the clerk of the peace who had forwarded it, were notorious Tories-nothing could persuade the opposite party (whose profession, indeed, was systematiouence in fawas any other than a fault, against the rights of the people." vo the following the reader of Sterne is easily traced.

"At this moment Jenkins appeared.

'Not now, my good friend,' said the refined master, 'I am at present too much at my ease to interrupt it with trash.'

"No!' persisted he (gently pushing the steward out of the room, and coming back to his chair, as if he had done a great feat), 'such tranquillity, after such a storm, shall not be ruffled again by my own fault.'

The door, in closing upon Jenkins, seemed to close upon all that Tremaine could fear, and left him in possession of all he professed to wish for himself.

Now this is a possession of an extremely doubtful nature, and may, like many other possessions, be turned to good or bad account; or, like the talent in the parable, to no account at all, according to the skill, knowledge, and capital, the good or bad management of the owner. Sometimes a fortune is spent upon it, and yet the property is never the better, nor the master the richer; the recipient, indeed, is often like a quicksand, on which time, labour, and materials are all bestowed, without its being made capable of growing one single blade of grass, but all is sullen, and dry, and withered, so that a hungry goat or ass will scarcely browze upon it.

Sometimes it is a web, that may be wrought into a beautiful gossamer fineness, equal to receiving the most splendid dye, and fashioned into a thousand graceful folds, but, from its very texture too flimsy for use, and tearing at a touch.

It is only when it is the growth of a sound and mellow soil, or by incredible pains in its cultivation, that this equivocal possession called self, flourishes. Nature and art then seem to go hand in hand together, the former being always the principal, the latter only the subordinate agent, in bringing it to perfection.

To which of these three classes the self of Tremaine belonged, the reader may perhaps be able to determine as well as we could for him.

He was certainly not of the first-as little, perhaps of the last; and to have compared him to the middle one, would certainly have been to do him injustice. Be that as it may, he was at this moment not so much disappointed as usual, in the enjoyment of his possession; a fillip seemed to have been given to his spirits, and from the horrors he had just experienced, is was astonishing how happy he felt.

The truth is, he had been sufficiently uncomfortable abroad, to be glad that he was at home again; and this, I believe, goes to the bottom of the whole question.

'Souse him in cold water'-said the sensible physician of a rich man, on whose case he was consulted: 'or roll him in the mud, or overturn his post-chaise !'

'Throw but a stone, the giant dies,' said another sage, who was a poet, or at least a versemaker- it is nothing but hyp-he has got the spleen.'

'Then send him to Ireland,' says a third; 'or round the world,' cries a fourth; or get him on a committee of the House of Commons,' suggests a fifth; or fall in love,' adds a sixth.

Strange! that with so many remedies, this plaguy disease I just now mentioned should be suffered to remain a moment in this fair isle !

It is not the absence of a good we covet, that moves this devil within us; but sheer uneasiness, when all we covet is gained. Yet who shall say, that this uneasiness is not forced upon us for wise purposes-that the will may be exercised, and liberty enjoyed?

If the reader will not take my word for this, he may find it in Mr Locke's famous chapter upon power, liberty, and necessity, under the head of Volition.

'But who ever heard of introducing Locke to the readers of a novel !'

A novel! I did not know I was writing one.'

'May we venture to inquire, then, what you are writing?'

'As I hope for readers, I intended it as a treatise of moral philosophy.'"

The following is a specimen of the dialogue.

By this time they had joined the doctor, who was sitting on a bench, with his eyes following his black subjects through a thousand airy circles; and his ears seemingly delighted with what struck Tremaine as a horrible noise.

After the first salutation, 'Well, papa,' said Georgina, smiling, 'have you bought your bust ?'

'No, my dear, I have not.'

'I really thought so,' returned she, and her smile turned into a laugh; I even said to Mr Tremaine, that although you went on purpose for it, you would come back empty-handed.'

'You are at least a true prophetess; but why did you prophesy?"

'I guessed.'

'Well, then, why guess?' quoted Evelyn goodhumouredly. That you might have the pleasure of another ride for it to

morrow.'

'My girl knows me well,' said the delighted father. If the weather is fine, and my mare carries me as well as to-day, I shall, I dare say, overcome my objection, and return for the bust to

morrow.'

And pray what was the objection?' said Tremaine with curiosity.

'I thought it a shilling all too dear,' answered Evelyn.

'A shilling! and with six or eight miles there and back, is it possible you can have hesitated for a shilling?'

Even so,' said Evelyn, coolly; nay, what is more, upon second thoughts, I think the thing cheap.'

Then why not have bought it?'

'I did not think so at the moment, and it was but going again.' 'Good heavens!' said Tremaine in a sort of triumph, is this the value which you men of method put upon your time? To what must you practical people, after all, be reduced, when a trumpery piece of plaster, or perhaps a tea-cup, costs two journeys and a great deal of calculation, in a very wise head too, to get it.'

' And very well bestowed,' answered Evelyn, for I assure you I have got already all I intended by it, and that was not a little.' 'For heaven's sake, what?

'I got rid of the spleen.'

'I told you so,' observed Georgina.

But I thought you never had the spleen?' retorted Tremaine. 'Not often-but I cannot help my constitution, which generates