There is an offence to delicacy in this system, which cannot be sufficiently reprobated; and we have often seen a pretty modest girl shrink before the silly eagerness of a shewing-off mother, when compelled to make a display of her accomplishments to every puppy who is deemed rich enough to hear the song of Maria,the harp of Julia,-or to be favoured with a sight of Matilda's sketches from nature. We own ourselves more offended by the gross indelicacy of this proceeding, than if the young ladies were taken into public merely to acquire a taste for the incessant and unvarying routine of a fashionable life; but experience shews, that to those who obtain the grand desideratum, the consequences of their early initiation into the Scotch gay world are by no means prejudicial. The natural love of our countrywomen for their husbands and children, together with the smallness of their fortunes, induce them, with admirable grace, to renounce the cloying charms of a dissipated life, for the sober joys of their own fire-side, We must however confess, that a very numerous body, we mean the old maids, who have not domestic ties to counteract their early introduction to folly, are often sufferers from the present system, and do not seem to remember, that showing their poor old faces at every card-table in town, can scarcely be considered a a fit occupation for immortal beings.

We think, Mr Editor, we hear you ask our intention in thus addressing you? Why then, our wish is hereby to say, we do not look upon ourselves as at all renouncing the character of thinking beings, because, when young, we sometimes dance at a ball! But though we condemn the pertness of Alpina to the Old Indian, his last let ter evidently corroborates the truth of Alpina's remark, that his own inability to relish tripping in the fairy ring, is alone the cause of the preference he gives to a fat dinner, over sipping lemonade among the votaries of Terpsichore. Let men and women try to improve the rational part of their nature, and we shall only object to those amusements which are criminal in their tendency, or when, instead of the occasional relaxation, they become the business of life; and let mothers teach their daughters, that it is quite possible to live without matrimony, and

that, whether single or married, they are alike responsible for the use they make of their time, as candidates for a kingdom where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.—I have the honour to be, Mr Editor, your CONSTANT READER.

6th June 1818.

NOTICE OF ZACHARIE BOYD'S BATTEL OF THE SOULE."

MR EDITOR,

LAST

I happened lately to be rummaging among some old books belonging to a friend of mine, who has a very complete collection of the theological works which appeared in Scotland, from the time of the Reformation down to nearly the middle of the last century. The following title page struck my eye: "The Last Battel of the Soule in Death. By Mr Zacharie Boyd. Edinburgh, 1629." The author I had often heard mentioned as having exerted his genius in a metrical paraphrase of the Bible, and from what I had heard of that production, I cannot say I anticipated much edification from his "Last Battel."-After having perused it, however, I may safely affirm, that it is a very interesting book, and that, if I have derived no benefit from it, the fault is my own. It is evidently the production of a vigorous intellect, and of a strong, if not very refined, imagination. Moreover, if we may judge from the work, Mr Zacharie Boyd must have been eminently qualified for that important part of the pastoral office-the consolation of the sick.

It is true, that the style of the times in which it was written, and of which it hath a strong savour, is scarcely adapted to the fastidious taste of this polished age; but many of your readers, I am persuaded, will not on that account turn away with disgust from a work of real intrinsic merit.

As the book is very rarely to be met with, I shall take the liberty of extracting from it some passages which may give your readers a proper idea of it. It is divided into eight conferen ces, which take place chiefly between a dying man and his spiritual guide. It also contains the last speech of the former to his wife and children, and concludes with a dispute between the

Devil and the Angel Michael, touching the soul about to be disembodied.

At the beginning of the conversation, the sick man is sorely beset with temptations of different kinds. By his own confession, his attachment to the world is great, and it is not without a violent struggle that he is able to wean his thoughts from it. The faithful pastor, however, is always at hand with his assistance, and uses the following argument to reconcile him to quit the world: "If a lord should give to some of his tennants a cottage-house of clay, with some little piece of ground for colewort or cabbage for to live upon, saying, This will I give thee for my life time; but if afterward this lord should say, Fetch thee my good servant out of his clattie cottage, and bring him to my palace, that he may eat at mine own table for ever: Tell me, if by the change that servant hath lost; would that servant, think yee, say, No, Lord, I will not come to thy table, for thou hast promised me this cottage-house for my life time? What lord in the land was ever troubled with such an answer?"

Some conversation here ensues, but the minister's words are not attended with any immediately wholesome effect. The dying man continues to speak his mind plainly, and confesses, without hesitation, his carnal attachments. "I have filled my barnes, and I desire to enjoy the fruits thereof. There is no man but hath desire, after great paines, to reape some fruites of his labours: I wish that death would excuse me for some years: This is my griefe, for I must be plain with you, I cannot well accord to leave such comforts." After some farther argumentation, he still remains very much in the same state of feeling. "I have latelie bought some heritage; my servants are plowing it; before I die I would wish once to reap the fruites thereof." And again, "My lands are laboured; the harvest draweth neere; there is a plentifull croppe upon the ground; cornes and wheat and all abound."

At last, however, he gives in. He exclaims," Fye, fye, on my faultes and my folie: I foolishlie once thought that I should feather a nest into this world that should never be pulled down: Mine heart hath been bent toward this vanity, that I have neither moved foote nor finger toward eternal life."

Many interesting conversations now take place, in the course of which the dying man has his doubts removed, and his views greatly enlightened. Of the seasonable assistance of the pastor he seems fully sensible, and his gratitude vents itself in the warmest expressions of obligation. The humble pastor is, however, far from attaching any merit to his own labours. "We who are pastors (says he,) are but the Lord's spouts and cocks of his conduits, whereby his graces are conveyed unto the hearts of our hearers."

The advices which are bequeathed to the wife, may be listened to with advantage by the present generation.

The husband seems aware of the danger that his spouse will not tarry long to fill up the vacancy which his death will occasion, and accordingly admonishes her to content herself without carnal marriage. "As for thee, my spouse, now shortlie thou art for to bee a widow: I counsell that thou marrie thyself to Christ; let him be thy spiritual spouse." After this preamble, he enters into the consideration of the question in form, and has the precaution to begin with a quotation on his side from St Paul.

Having exhausted this topic, he gives her the signs of the spiritual life, which is to be the object of her aim. "There must appear four effects from the four winds: From the East, the orient of that life, there must bee an arising from sinne: From the West, there must bee a dying to sinne, even a setting and going down of wickedness: From the South must come the heat of zeale, moisted with showers of tears of true repentance; and last, from the North must come a chill cold of trembling fear to offend God."

He is, however, far from wishing that, amidst her aims after more exalted objects, she should neglect the prudent management of her worldly matters. My counsell is, that often, thou reade the holie Scriptures, and particularlie the 31st chapter of the Proverbs, where thrift and godliness are joined together."

His advice touching the mode of apparelling herself is also very sound. "Beware to out-runne thy rank, or to out-weare the fashions by attyring thyself too gorgeouslie. Soft apparele is but for kinges houses: what are such cuts and cordons, silk and satins, and other such superfluous vanities, wherewith many above their rank and place

are so disguised, but infallible tokens of an unsanctified heart? With such follies are often joyned libertyne eyes, and wandering with wanton glaunces.' He seems to love to dwell upon this subject, again remarking, "Too curious busking is the mother of lusting works, the very bush hung out for to inveigle unsanctified hearts unto folie."

The discourse which he holds with a carnal acquaintance, who sounds him touching the funeral and some other particulars, indicates the same good sense. Such is his humility, that he will not even hear of a tomb-stone with his name carved upon it. Here follow his directions: "Lay me under the greene turfe.-How many martyres have been burnt into ashes, which have been cast up into the winds, and scattered upon the waters? caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam.' His aversion from a funeral sermon is equally repugnant. Away" says he, "with the flattering panegyricks of such funerale praise. All men are lyers, but dummie cannot lye."

66

"

A short time before the last scene, a dialogue takes place between the soul and the body, in which the latter expresses its grief at their approaching separation, in a very natural way, and the former attempts to reconcile the latter to its fate, by observing, that their separation is only temporary, and that the time approaches when they shall again meet to enjoy each other's society more than ever.

There is perhaps as much power of imagination manifested in the dispute between the devil and the angel Michael as in any part of the work. Satan commences thus: "I have many things to lay to this man's charge. I am the Lord's proctor and attorney, appointed to plead for his justice. I have already sifted his life. Of force this soul must be damned. Nane assies can cleanse it. It is now taken red hand in the path and passage of sin." Michael is not deterred by these threatening words of the enemy, but openly challenges him to do his utmost. "Come, come, with thy most foule mouthed objections; what canst thou allege against the soule of this man before that it come out of

scorned against God's word, counting it but paper-shot. He burned with lust like an oven heated by the baker. Hee so loved his lust, that it was his love. His hands were full of pickerie; his eyes were full of adultery, and his heart was of guile, and his tongue full of lyes, ever gaggling like a goose. He was a cunning claw-back, and a paunch pike-thank. His custom was to defile the air with belghs of blasphemy. Hee sported at all reproofs. O the noble juggling." There, then this gear goeth trimme. By hooke and by crooke he sought for gaine. How hee won it hee cared not, if men perceived not his fraud. With Judas hee was wholly given to the bagg and baggage of his covetousnesse." "Christ would never be a cautioner for such a reprobate goat as he. In wickedness he hath outstripped all others; he put on Christ like an hat which goeth off to every one that wee meete. The wyne pynt and tobacco pype, with sneesing powder, provoking snevell, were his heart's delight." "At his prayers before men, he did chirpe like a grasshopper, but where are his tears of repentance? He in his braggs was like the hen which cackleth at every egg she layeth."

The reader is now perhaps sufficiently satisfied with the devil's merits as a pleader. He had, however, very soon to lower his tone some little, and it was evident that Michael would carry off the prize. He attempted to give the dying man a "girke with his rodde," but Michael prevented him.

At last he was glad to make the following humiliating proposal: "Seeing in his life I have been his master, let him be divided, let me have any part, and let God take his choice in the partnership.

Michael, of course, enters into no such bargain with Satan, but refuses any farther parley with him, and straightway, taking the soul under his protection, directs his flight to the mansions of the blessed. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Glasgow, Feb. 22, 1818.

T. T. B.*

* We should be extremely obliged to our correspondent, if he would favour us with some farther notices of Boyd's writings; in particular, of the far-famed version of the Bible. A sketch of his life would also be very acceptable to us, and we are persuad

MARRIAGE. A NOVEL.*

So many reviews of novels have appeared within the last two or three years, that we ourselves are well-nigh sick of criticism upon such subjects. The plan we follow in private, is to skip over the first two or three pages of the article, which commonly contain a regular history of romance writing and novel writing, and to commence reading at that paragraph which we find opening with " -the hero, or heroine, of the present work, is the son or the daughter," &c. We are pretty sure, from this point, to read something that we have not met with before; and that, to all students of prose fiction, is all in all.

There is only a single remark which we wish to make, before proceeding to a short sketch of the exquisite performance which lies before us. It is this. The merits of those female authors who have written English novels are, we think, praised with more ardour than judiciousness. It is commonly said, that ladies have more leisure to make observations, in regard to small things, than falls to the share of the other sex; and that the characteristic excellence of their productions consists, accordingly, in the delineations which they give of the minutiae of social life. This is all very true, so far as it goes; but we think the works of Madame D'Arblay and Miss Edgeworth are chiefly valuable for something of a yet more important nature, for the new light, namely, which they have thrown upon one great department of human nature. They have introduced men into a more intimate acquaintance with the characters of women, than they could before pretend to, or, at least, than could at all be gathered from any works, either in prose or verse, writ ten by persons of their own gender. The arrangements of society among us are such, that women spend by far

• Marriage, a Novel; in 3 vols. Black wood, Edinburgh. Murray, London. 1818. "Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities-in the performance of daily duties-in the removal of small inconveniences in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small and frequent interruption." JOHNSON.

the greater part of their lives with women, and men with men; and seldom does it happen, that the characters of any considerable number, either of males or of females, is understood by a person of the opposite sex. Men, above all, are mysterious beings to women. They flatter themselves that they thoroughly comprehend us, and they do, indeed, seize, with great facility, on as much of our nature as is sufficient for their purposes. But, behind this there remains an immense and a highly interesting region, which is, and, we suspect, must always continue to be, untouched upon by the most adventurous of female explorers. We, in like manner, only go "so far but no farther" in our individual advances towards a knowledge of woman. But the female novelists have been sad traitors to their own sex; they have gone on blabbing" the secrets of the prison-house" most unconscionably, and we fancy (for we cannot pretend to form any very precise or determinate opinion on the subject,) that the limits of their terra incognita

are now much more contracted than those of ours.

"Marriage," is at once discovered to be the work of a female hand, both by the minute accuracy of its ordinary details, and by the exquisite originality and instinctive fidelity of its female portraits. We are not sure that any fair author ever went farther in the practice of that sort of tale-bearing, to which we have just alluded, than this apparently new offender. She possesses, indeed, all those talents which lend eminent dangerousness to the character of a spy. She is, in the first place, both as acute and as extensive an observer, as Miss Edgeworth herself; like her, she pourtrays, with equal facility and accuracy, every gradation of social life, from the highest ton of the cool and indifferent metropolis, where every body's maxim is "nil admirari," down to the enthusiastic ignorance of a poor Highland laird's "purple" daughters, and the tawdry blue-stockingship of a young lady from the manufacturing district of the Lowlands. But our author knows and feels many things of which no trace is the Irish spinster. She has, in short, to be discovered in the witty pages of been in love in her time, and that has given her a mighty advantage over her calm and satirical rival. She thus