faculties. All their instincts are processes of the purest reason, but they do not originate from themselves-they are not as in man the elaboration of thought, the contrivance founded on the estimate of knowledge; but a boon-an endowment, by which experience is anticipated and wisdom matured without its progress and accumulation.

The early manifestation of instinctive wisdom is the best reply to those philosophers who have argued against its existence, for in a multitude of instances it is exhibited anterior to the possibility of experience. Man, altho' gifted with superior capacities, and susceptible of higher attachments, does not, from the paucity of his instincts, arrive during many years at the same maturity both of mind and body which most animals display within the space of a few weeksso necessary and important is the protracted period of infancy to the

edifice and destination of the human mind.'

And so widely from the mark, may we add, do they wander, who, aiming to establish the identity of reason and instinct, of the understanding of the man and that of the brute, argue for the same progress of instruction in the progeny of the monkey, as that by which the children of men are taught the distinction between good and evil, knowledge and ignorance.

In our notice of Dr. Borrow's recent work on Insanity, we slightly alluded to the dangerous as well as unphilosophical inferences relative to mental alienation, which are deduced from the assumed law respecting the omnipotence of organization. Every sally of passion, and every irregularity of what is termed temper, even when carried to any enormous and mischievous extreme, must, we remarked, be set down according to these tenets, as unfortunate, rather than criminal occurrences; and that the greatest moral turpitude could be regarded only in the light of mental misconception and bodily ailment. But the authors upon the tenor and tendency of whose writings we are now commenting, save the objecter the pains of pointing out those destructive effects of their principles, by boldly stepping forward and avowing them themselves.

Strength of temptation,' says Sir C. Morgan, is allowed in abatement of moral censure, in those cases in which the law, for the preservation of society, is obliged to strike; a mode of thinking which would not be justified if there really existed a power of resis

tance.'

In this passage there is an evident implication, nay, a positive avowal of the venomous and fatal doctrine, that whether any individual fall before, or rise from above, his natural inclinations to a certain line of conduct, the victory and the defeat are both equally to be placed to the score of organic impulse; an impli'cation and assumption which palpably make moral accountability to be a name without meaning.*. In this point of view, mad

*We have, it will be perceived, in the present discussion, avoided any reference to the Christian doctrine of warfare between "the old

houses and jails, as we before remarked, must both be considered as expedients of the same import and character; and we are called on to extend our pity and sympathy, aye, and regard also, equally to the Newgate criminal, and the raving bedlamite, both of them being in like manner victims of an organic impulse beyond control.

Upon the whole, then, there is no necessity for straining physiological principles to an extent beyond their compass, in order successfully to combat those sceptical inferences which are deduced from the laws of organization; inferences which, it is seen, soon crumble into the dust out of which they are formed, under the grasp of other powers. If the blood and filth of the dissecting room' do not, as Mr. Lawrence maintains, teach that there is any thing in man beyond nerve, and membrane, and fibre, and blood vessel, the intellectual and moral proofs of the design and destiny of our being do; and although we should be among the first to confess that it required the Sun of Revelation to bring light and immortality fully to light, it is gaining something to prove that there is no natural inconsistency in those truths which after all must rest on a firmer foundation than that of nature, before they can entirely satisfy the restless spirit and anxious desires of man.

The books, the title pages of which we have placed at the head of this article, are not without merit in their way. We need not add any thing to what has already been advanced against the principles which Sir C. Morgan advocates, in order to shew our hostile feeling towards them; but because he supports a bad cause, we see no sense or justice in detracting from the literary merit of his book in the way that has been done by those who would have lauded it as a master-piece both of composition and reasoning, had the tenets which it inculcates been of a different cast and character. Dr. Haslam's book is rather meagre as to matter, but it is written with a great deal of taste and ability. So far as the Writer opposes the reasonings of the organic physiologist, so far do we go along with him in opinion and sentiment. But we are not sure whether our notions quite accord as to the constituents of man's superiority to the rest of the animal creation. We are enabled,' says Haslam, voluntarily to recollect the perceptions we have ex6 perienced; and why so? Because we have the faculty of speech, by which the experienced perception is changed for a term, and we have the hand as the recorder of significant

and the new man;" because we are desirous of shewing the futility of the principles against which we argue, without any appeal to an authority which our adversaries would refuse to recognise.

'sounds.' But surely this mode of reasoning is rather taking a part of the process by which the fabric of man's intellect is built up, for the intellect itself. Were the possession of the hand and the faculty of uttering articulate sounds, the cause of human superiority over the brute, it would follow as a matter of course, that an individual born dumb and without hands would by no tuition whatever be capable of rising in conception and act above the standard of mere organic or animal

existence.

The same mistake appears to us to pervade our ingenious Author's speculations respecting the doctrine of numbers and the employment of conventional signs; these signs being made the cause, rather than the results of the things signified. And thus, while he successfully combats the monstrous hypothesis, that virtue and vice are regulated and measured by the mode in which the physical frame is put together, he, with Horne Tooke, (of whom indeed he is a professed disciple,) introduces a sort of verbal indicator and regulator of moral and intellectual worth and worthlessness. He substitutes words for things,-a species of philosophizing which is itself calculated to injure the cause of morality, although, perhaps, not in so great a degree, as the principles which it is one of the professed objects of our Author's treatise to impugn, and the unstable nature of which he has succeeded in making evident.

Art. VI. Letters from Mrs. Delany (Widow of Dr. Patrick Delany,) to Mrs. Frances Hamilton, from the Year 1779, to the Year 1788; comprising many unpublished and interesting Anecdotes of their late Majesties, and of the Royal Family. Now first printed from the original Manuscripts. post 8vo. pp. 106. London. 1820. GOO OOD Mrs. Delany was assuredly the happiest old lady of her day in the three kingdoms: she fairly basked in the sunshine of Royalty. On the death of her friend, the Dowager Dutchess of Portland, she had a house assigned her by the King as a summer residence, adjoining the entrance to Windsor castle, together with a pension of £300. a year, on purpose that she might be near her royal friends; and they were in the habit of coming in to drink tea with her in the most neighbourly way imaginable. Mrs. Delany was at this time turned of eighty-five; but she enjoyed her pension and her honours nearly three years.

Now, as to the use of telling the Public all this, when the venerable person has been dead these thirty years, we should, had our advice been asked, have expressed some doubt; but 'the most trifling circumstance acquires dignity and interest,' we are told by way of apology, when it refers to departed worth and greatness;' such, for instance, as the following:

The Prince of Wales dances a minuct better than any one I have seen for many years.'

And now, as I know you take pleasure in what gives me pleasure, and does me honour, I must tell you of our amiable gracious Queen's politeness, and I may presume to add, kindness to me. She was told I had wished for a lock of her hair; she sent me one with her own royal fingers.'

The Duchess of Portland sat on the Queen's right hand, and I on her left. Her Majesty talked a great deal to me about books, especially about those on religion, and recommended to me an explanation of the Four Evangelists, translated from the German. The next morning she sent me a present of the work, in three volumes.'

I have been several evenings at the Queen's Lodge, with no other company but their own most lovely family. They sit round a large table, on which are books, work, pencils, and paper. The Queen has the goodness to make me sit down next to her; and delights me with her conversation, which is informing, elegant, and pleasing, beyond description, whilst the younger part of the family are drawing and working, &c. &c. the beautiful babe, Princess Amelia, hearing her part in the entertainment; sometimes in one of her sisters' laps; sometimes playing with the King on the carpet; which, altogether, exhibits such a delightful scene, as would require an Addison's pen, or a Vandyke's pencil, to do justice to. In the next room is the band of music, who play from eight o'clock till ten. The King generally directs them what pieces of music to play, chiefly Handel's.'

At this time of the year (August) the evenings are devoted by them to the Terrace till eight o'clock, when they return to the Lodge to their tea and concert of music: happy are those who are admitted to that circle! The Queen has had the goodness to command me to come to the Lodge, whenever it is quite easy to me to do it, without sending particularly for me, lest it should embarrass me to refuse that honour; so that most evenings, at half-an-hour past seven, I go to Miss Burney's apartment, and when the royal family return from the Terrace, the King, or one of the Princesses (generally the youngest, Princess Amelia, just four years old) come into the room, take me by the hand, and lead me into the drawing-room, where there is a chair ready for me by the Queen's left hand: the three eldest Princesses sit round the table, and the Ladies in Waiting, Lady Charlotte Finch and Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave. A vacant chair is left for the King, whenever he pleases to sit down in it. Every one is employed with pencil, needle, or knotting. Between the pieces of music the conversation is easy and pleasant; and, for an hour before the conclusion of the whole, the King plays at backgammon with one of his equerries, and I am generally dismisssed.' pp. 91, 92.

That the late King was very fond of his children, that his habits were domestic, his manners condescending and affable, has been always sufficiently well understood. Mrs. Delany's chit-chat letters afford us on this point no additional infor

mation. The Queen, too, bore an excellent character as an exemplary mother, and was on this account generally popular, till she began to betray a disposition to meddle with politics, a subject which she was wholly incompetent to understand. Though she had not the credit of munificence, she was not deficient in the less costly virtue of kindness; and if the deficiency of her education had left her narrow-minded, the purity of her moral principles was above suspicion, and in her maintenance of the true dignity of her court, she was as unbending as she was conscientious. The clearest instance we have met with, of any thing approaching to refined sensibility in her late Majesty, is the following:

'One little anecdote of the Queen struck me, as a stronger instance of her real tender feeling towards our dear old friend, than all her bounties or honours. As soon as the Duchess of Portland died, Mrs. Delany got into a chaise to go to her own house; the Duke followed her, begging to know what she would accept of, that belonged to his mother; Mrs. Delany recollected a bird that the Duchess always fed and kept in her own room, desired to have it, and felt towards it, as you must suppose. In a few days she got a bad fever, and the bird died; but for some hours she was too ill even to recollect her bird. The Queen had one of the same sort which she valued extremely (a weaver bird); she took it with her own hands, and while Mrs. Delany slept, had the cage brought, and put her own bird into it, charging every one not to let it go so near Mrs. Delany, as that she could perceive the change, till she was enough recovered to bear the loss of her first favourite. This requires no comment, as it speaks strongly for itself." 99, 100.

This is worth all the rest of the volume put together; yet Mrs. Delany herself makes no mention of the circumstance: it occurs in the letter of a female friend. It is clear, indeed, that had her situation afforded an opportunity of collecting any striking memoranda relative to the royal family, she was not, at eighty-five years of age, very well able either to discriminate what was worth telling, or to preserve it.

The neighbourly tea-drinkings, the sociable working parties, the concerts, the backgammon, and commerce table, and drawing, and knotting, and early hours, of the royal inhabitants of Windsor castle, are interesting, however, in the retrospect: they seem to comport with the genuine English character, and unfortunately they have given way to nothing better. In the circles of the great, Evening exists no longer. Evening, with itstrain of fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness' is now transformed into what? The hour before dinner. Oh, good Mrs. Delany, how would this have suited your venerable habits? Alas! such are not the daily visiters at the palace of George the Fourth.