manity and heroism. Among other generous actions he rescued a child from the flames, and as the only person to whom it seemed to be related expired just as he arrived to save it, he took it with him to the valley. After the lapse of some years, news reached the valley that the war was ended, and Placide received a letter from Don Pedro, informing him that he had returned, with his wife to Spain, but that they had lost their child, that grief had brought Donna Bianca to the verge of the grave, and requesting him to repair, with family, immediately to Madrid, Placide obeyed the call, he found his friends in the deepest affliction, but providence had enabled him to bring with him healing and consolation. The child, which he had so fortunately rescued, and cherished in the valley, was the lost daughter of Don Pedro. Thus ends the story.

The incidents which Madame de Genlis has selected are interesting, and are individually well described, though the

story itself does not manifest much epic skill; and the work owes its charm to the design of the author-to the conception on which it is founded, and to the generous strain of feeling, and the impressive eloquence which pervade it, not to any complexity of plot, or any ingenious and unexpected turns in the narrative. Indeed the design of the author rather forbid the exercise of invention in weaving an intricate fable; all that was required, in this way, being only a judicious selection of such a state of society, and some of the prominent scenes by which it is characterized, as would furnish apt occasions for the discussion of general principles, as well as striking illustrations of their truth: accordingly the work is more didactic than narrative. The style of the work has suffered very considerably by the translation, which abounds with inaccuracies both of language and construction; in the present edition there are not a few typographical errors. L.

UR readers will, perhaps, think it

recollections of it are too imperfect to

men which we have recently exhibited to them of Mr. Coleridge's poetical powers, to trouble themselves with inquiring into the history of either his life or opinions. But if he have failed to interest them as an author, he will at least amuse, and may even instruct them, as a man;the blank simplicity with which he relates the many disastrous strokes that his youth suffered,' converts even distress into matter of merriment; whilst his experience, unprofitable as it has been to himself, can scarcely fail to convey a wholesome lesson to others. The impression made on us by the perusal of this singularly wild and original' production, is, we confess, on the whole, not unfavourable to Mr. Coleridge; since it affords not less evidence of the goodness of his heart, than of the badness of his head; and we are always willing to admit a small portion of the one as an equivalent for a large share of the other.

Mr. Coleridge commenced his literary career in the year 1794, by the publication of a small volume of juvenile poems.' This work we have never seen since we were in any degree competent to pronounce upon its merits; and our VOL. 11.-No. 11.

We believe, however, that it was more favourably received than any of his subsequent works; either because it was freer from faults, or that its faults were deemed the venial errors of an immature mind, which would easily be corrected by riper reason. Mr. Coleridge tells us that his early essays were censured for their excess of ornament,' and their

strained and elaborate diction;' the first of which charges certainly will not lie against his later performances, nor was it, as we remember, any further applicable to the poems alluded to, than that they betrayed a degree of quaintness and affectation of phrase-but the last attaches with equal force, though in a different manner, to all his writings. It is not less unnatural nor less laborious to sink below the dignity of a subject, than to soar above it-whilst it is difficult to decide which is the more ridiculous. Yet into one or other of these follies Mr.

Coleridge has ever run. What renders this vaccillation and incongruity of his style the more remarkable, is, that he discovers a good taste in estimating the relative rank of the ancient classics, and discriminates with considerable accu

through this passage, and its moral elevation, give it a tone of eloquence, notwithstanding its verbal and grammatical inaccuracies. We shall speak in another place of Mr. Coleridge's habitual violations of grammar, but the sentence beginning, "But still more striking," &c. is so exceedingly vicious that we cannot suffer it to pass us here without reprehension.

We ought to have mentioned before, as essential to the understanding of this book, or rather as accounting for the utter incomprehensibility of the greater part of it, that Mr. Coleridge had 'bewildered' himself even before his fifteenth year, in metaphysics, and in theological controversy. Sorry we are to say he seems yet to have obtained no light on the subjects of his investigation. It is to be hoped that, in the work with which he threatens us, on the Productive Logos human and divine; with, and, as the introduction to a full commentary on the Gospel of St. John; he will elucidate-at least his meaning. As an instance of perseverance in the discharge of duty, if not as a feat which few can boast of, we may take some credit to ourselves for having diligently and deliberately read and marked the chapters, in the volume before us, on the law of association, on the systems of Aristotle and Hartley, on the consequences of the Hartleian theory, on the possibility of philosophy as a science, (and therein of PLATO, JACOB BEHMEN, and EMANUEL KANT,) the chapter advising the reader not to read the next chapter, and the chapter which ought not to be read,-we say that we may take some credit to ourselves for having diligently and deliberately read and marked these various ingenious and erudite dissertations, but as to having inwardly digested them, we will frankly confess that this is a function that entirely transcends our intellectual faculties.

We are more inclined to laugh with, than at Mr. Coleridge, and shall therefore refrain from entering into an exposition of his psychological theories. It is but fair to acknowledge that he affords us frequent opportunities of indulging our prevailing inclination. In his advice to young authors respecting publication,' and 'various anecdotes of the author's literary life, and the progress of his opinions in religion and politics,' there is a great deal of lively wit and pungent satire; whilst the good-nature with which he tells the story of his chagrins dissipates every idea of mortification. Among his literary undertakings Mr. Coleridge commenced the publication of a periodical work entitled 'the Friend.' The fate of

his enterprise leads him to warn others not to calculate very much on the number of names on their subscription list, unless they know the character and circumstances of their subscribers. Of a hundred subscribers obtained to this publication by a single friend," ninety," he tells us, threw it up before the fourth number, without any notice; though it was well known to them, that in consequence of the distance, and slowness, and irregularity of the conveyance, I was compelled to lay in a stock of stamped paper for at least eight weeks beforehand; each sheet of which stood me in five pence previous to its arrival at my printer's; though the subscription money was not to be received till the twenty-first week after the commencement of the work; and lastly, though it was in nine cases out of ten impracticable for me to receive the money for two or three numbers without paying an equal sum for the postage.

"In confirmation of my first caveat, I will select one fact among many. On my list of subscribers, among a considerable number of names equally flattering, was that of an Earl of Cork, with his address. He might as well have been an Earl of Bottle, for aught I knew of him, who had been content to reverence the peerage in abstracto, rather than in concretis. Of course, THE FRIEND was regularly sent as far, if I remember right, as the eighteenth number, i. e. till a fortnight before the subscription was to be paid. And lo! just at this time I received a letter from his lordship, reproving me in language far more lordly than courteous, for my impudence in directing my pamphlets to him, who knew nothing of me nor my work! Seventeen or eighteen numbers of which, however, his lordship was pleased to retain, probably for the culinary or post-culinary conveniences of his servants."

In the next place he warns "all others from the attempt to deviate from the ordinary mode of publishing a work by the trade," though he disclaims at the same time any insinuations derogatory to the fairness of the general character of booksellers. In support of this monition he adduces the following anecdote.

"A learned and exemplary old clergyman, who many years ago went to his reward, followed by the regrets and blessings of his flock, published at his own expense two volumes octavo, entitled, a new Theory of Redemption. The work was most severely handled in the Monthly or Critical Review, I forget which; and this unprovoked hostility became

the good old man's favourite topic of conversation among his friends. Well! (he used to exclaim,) in the SECOND edition I shall have an opportunity of exposing both the ignorance and the malignity of the anonymous critic. Two or three years, however, passed by without any tidings from the bookseller, who had undertaken the printing and publication of the work, and who was perfectly at his ease, as the author was known to be a man of large property. At length the accounts were written for; and in the course of a few weeks they were presented by the rider for the house, in person. My old friend put on his spectacles, and holding the scroll with no very firm hand, began-Paper, so much: O moderate enough-not at all beyond my expectations! Printing, so much: Well; moderate enough! Stitching, covers, advertisements, carriage, &c. so much.-Still nothing amiss. Selleridge, (for orthography is no necessary part of a bookseller's lite rary acquirements,) £3. 3s. Bless me! only three guineas for the what d'ye call it? the selleridge? No more, Sir! replied the rider. Nay, but that is too moderate! rejoined my old friend. Only three guineas for selling a thousand copies of a work in two volumes? O Sir! (cries the young traveller,) you have mistaken the word. There have been none of them sold; they have been sent back from London long ago; and this £3. 38. is for the celleridge, or warehouse-room in our book cellar. The work was in consequence preferred from the ominous cellar of the publisher to the author's garret; and on presenting a copy to an acquaintance, the old gentleman used to tell the anecdote with great good humour, and still greater good nature."

But the most impressive illustration of the wisdom of his precepts is contained in the following statement of his own

case.

"With equal lack of worldly knowledge, I was a far more than equal sufferer for it, at the very outset of my authorship. Toward the close of the first year from the time that, in an inauspicious hour I left the friendly cloisters, and the happy grove of quiet, ever honoured Jesus College, Cambridge, I was persuaded by sundry Philanthropists and Antipolemists to set on foot a periodical work, entitled THE WATCHMAN, that (according to the general motto of the work) all might know the truth, and that the truth might make us free! In order to exempt it from the stamp-tax, and likewise to contribute as little as possible to the sup

posed guilt of a war against freedom, it was to be published on every eighth day, thirty-two pages, large octavo, closely printed, and price only FOUR-PENCE. Accordingly, with a flaming prospectus, "Knowledge is power," &c. to try the state of the political atmosphere, and so forth, I set off on a tour to the north, from Bristol to Sheffield, for the purpose of procuring customers, preaching by the way in most of the great towns, as an hireless volunteer, in a blue coat and white waist coat, that not a rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on me. For I was at that time, and long after, though a Trinitarian (i. e. ad normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in religion; more accurately, I was a psilanthropist, one of those who believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress on the resurrection rather than on the crucifixion. O! never can I remember those days with either shame or regret. For I was most sincere, most disinterested! My opinions were, indeed, in many and most important points erroneous; but my heart was single. Wealth, rank, life itself, then seemed cheap to me, compared with the interests of (what I believed to be) the truth, and the will of my maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by vanity; for in the expansion of my enthusiasm, I did not think of myself at all.

"My campaign commenced at Birmingham; and my first attack was on a rigid Calvinist, a tallow chandler by trade. He was a tall dingy man, in whom length was so predominant over breadth, that he might almost have been borrowed for a foundery poker. O that face! a face na rupow! I have it before me at this moment. The lank, black, twine-like hair, pingui nitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin gunpowder eye-brows, that looked like a scorched after-math from a last week's shaving His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of colour and lusture, with the coarse yet glib cordage, that I suppose he called his hair, and which, with a bend inward at the nape of the neck, (the only approach to flexure in his whole figure,) slunk in behind his waistcoat; while the countenance, lank, dark, very hard, and with strong perpendicular furrows, gave me a dim notion of some one looking at me through a used gridiron, all soot, grease, and iron! But he was one of the thorough bred, a true lover of liberty, and (I was informed) had proved to the satisfaction of many, that Mr. Pitt was one of the