they may not very readily, either from their own taste, or from the fashionable notions among people around them, make up their opinions on these high matters, as far as they can have any question about them; whether, in short, it is of much consequence, if their opinions on points of dramatic propriety are absurdor if they have none at all. It is indeed with no intention of prosecuting critical studies, that either the vulgar or the genteel rabble cram the theatre. Nor will they, we apprehend, feel much gratitude to the present writer, for the ready made estimates and discriminations of Cumberland's more noted plays, with which they may be here supplied; though it is possible enough that a few of them may avail themselves of such convenient means of appearing wiser than their companions.

If, however, it could have been decided, on any good grounds, that the public was in want of a new and formal critical estimate of the writings of an author, of whose works by far the greater part will subside, speedily and finally, out of the public attention, this desideratum might have been furnished in the express and compact form of a critical essay on those writings. And to adopt, instead of this method, the plan of constructing, under the title of a Life,' a large work on the basis of mere extracts, long and numerous, from Cumberland's own Memoirs,' does really appear to us one of the boldest feats in book-making we have ever witnessed; and our wonder at the author's daring is excited afresh, at every re-inspection of his manner of working.

Perhaps it would not have been bad policy to maintain, in the execution of such a plan, an air of moderate assurance and self-complacency, that should avoid betraying any con sciousness of much amiss in the concern, and of any need of apologies and deprecations. But surely it is a great aban donment of prudence, to go quite beyond this moderate strain of assumption, and take a high tone of merit, dignity, and independence; to obtrude the author ostentatiously where there is no occasion for his appearing at all; and to assert with a kind of indignant effort, my unimpeachable right to declare my own opinions, just before, or just after plundering, in full daylight, a dozen uninterrupted pages that another man has taken the pains to write. It is not exactly amidst such workmanship that egotism would have been expected to display itself. But this weed of literature has the faculty of growing on any thing We have seldom seen it more flourishing than in this work. There is no address employed to keep the i portant pronoun out of the way. It comes in full state at the head of each paragraph of dissenting and pronouncing. And VOL VIII.

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sometimes an inverted Johnsonian construction of sentence augments the pomp. Adverting to Miss Seward's Letters, Mr. M. says, Of this heterogeneous mass of vanity, pedantry and virulence, let me take this occasion to give my opinion and lest there should be a danger of forgetting who is giving it, the great word returns upon us the times and ways following, within the space of half a page.

"I know not whether most to condemn the egregious egotism of this proceeding, or its folly. I can find only one excuse for it, and that is the writer's sex.' In passing from the principle which dictated this compilation to its conclusion, I do not find much to approve. I have been very thoroughly disgusted with her pertness, her affectation, and her vitiated style; and I have been more than disgusted with her rancour towards the memory of Johnson.' In what she writes I find neither dignity of sentiment, novelty of remark, nor acuteness of criticism.' p. 181.

It is very strange that the disgust which all authors, in their turn, feel at the self-importance betrayed by their brother and sister performers, should not effectually admonish them all to be a little suspicious and careful of themselves in this particular. And a very moderate portion of this care and sus.picion would teach them, how to construct their sentences, and enounce their opinions, without this perpetual and offen. sive prominence of myself as the authority, the oracle, the Apollo, to be personally recognized and reverently thought of, by all the readers and hearers of the sentence and the opinion.

The first and best advice to the fraternity on the subject would be, to get rid, as fast as possible, of the vanity and selfimportance itself; as this would be a most valuable moral improvement, at the same time that it would save them, in the exercise of their literary callings, much of the trouble of taking care of appearances. But if this is really an exorbitant and hopeless requisition, from those of Adam's posterity who are born to the splendid inheritance of the quill, the next, and an indispensible obligation, is, the exercise of a discreet vigilance upon the operation of the wonderfully subtle and deceptive power which this same self-importance has, to infuse itself through the whole train of an author's language. Let each of the persons whom it is our unwelcome duty to admonish on this head, be persuaded at least to make an experiment on the ef fect of this vigilance, maintained through just one sheet of composition. Let them observe how many times, within such a space, a proposition or a query, which is just ready to come out in the grand style, with the mighty pronoun, representative of ME, may, by the discreet care here recommended, be intercepted, and humbled down to a plain impersonal sentence,

without losing any thing of its sense. True it is, and much to be deplored, as one of the distresses of literature, that one cannot seem to love a sentence or paragraph, even though one's own, half so well, when it has taken this sort of stranger character-when it in no shape contains or reflects ME-when it says the thing, rather than makes me say it-when it enounces a truth in such a kind of way, as if I, to whom that truth owes its importance, much more than to the fact of its being a truth';' were not in existence. Truth is, confessedly, of much less importance in itself, than in the circumstance that we are its exhibitors; one decisive proof of which is, that we do not like it to be better exhibited by other people than we ourselves can exhibit it. It is therefore very mortifying to be obliged to leave out the words expressive of that which forms the grace and dignity of the whole matter; to see a page of dry sense (for sense, at least, it is sure to be, in virtue of the author, even while the composition does not repeat in every line that it is his words) to see a page of sense spread out in dry impersonality, like cut and withered grass, when the thoughts might have been presented in the state of being undetached from their author, and growing in all the green and flowery vitality of egotism, Still, if the public taste is so perverse; if the readers will not be persuaded to take throughout every page of the book a deep interest about me, whoever I may be, but will universally like my composition all the better for seeming to forget me what can I in prudence do, but submit to their humour, and take my revenge, by secretly becalling them all for fools?

It is proper to observe, at the same time, that the mere prevention of the too frequent intrusion of the personal pronoun, though that, unfortunately, is a task so far surpassing the prudence of many of our writers, is by no means all that is required in order to repress completely, symptoms of self con-ceit, and make a writer appear to lose the very thought of himself in the interest and the labour of his subject..

It is not so much in reality as in appearance, that we have suspended our proper business in making these slight remarks; for the author before us is peccant in no small degree on this score of conceit. He begins in a style of great parade in his preface, in which, in a high wrought tone of independence and superior virtue, he arraigns and castigates Sir James Bland Burgess about a voluntary offer of assistance. in supplying materials for the Life of Cumberland, made by the said Sir James, thankfully accepted by Mr. Mudford, (who, however we are to understand, could do very well without it), and wilfully forgotten by Sir James. There is very stout and fierce

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lecturing of the knight or baronet; and perhaps if he has thus been made to know his duty the better all the rest of his life, the other readers may not be discontented to have nine or ten pages employed on a matter which might perfectly well have been competently disposed of in the same number of lines: but the subject has betrayed the writer into a very unreserved display of that self importance, which so often reappears in the course of the work.

In passing along the course of Cumberland's life, by the aid of his own Memoirs, Mr. Mudford often stops to take an occasion of delivering his opinions on some topic suggested by the bistory; and it is often done with great formality of style, and a good deal in the manner which seems to say-the subject is now going to be placed in its proper light once for all. We think there is a considerable portion of just observation in these essays; though we cannot persuade ourselves, they make any very important addition to the speculations on morals and literature, We cannot do any thing more equitable to the writer's ability and manner, than extracting a few passages from some of these occasional portions of disquisition. A complimentary letter from Warburton to Cumberland, on the appearance of his first dramatic performance, leads to the following observations on the mutual civilities and insincerity of authors.

There are few testimonies less to be depended upon than those which an author's friends deliver; especially when a work is politely presented, and an opinion politely requested. What can be expected but one politely given? Politeness and truth, however, are not inseparable companions. It cannot be expected, indeed, that a man's love of integrity will be so paramount to all other feelings, that he would recompençe an author's civility who had presented him with a copy of his work, by telling him it was a worthless production. There is an allowable evasion of truth in these cases. which all men practise, and all men know to be practised, except when they are its objects; and then it is no longer trnth evaded but truth herself. Hence the wide difference between the public sentence upon a book, and that which we often find in the letters of eminent judges address ed to the authors themselves; and hence the mutual compliments of literary men which commonly appear so ludicrous, when divested of those accidental circumstances, by which, in their first application, they are ren dered respectable.

Cumberland having concluded his recollective notices of Lord Halifax with some expressions of dark intimation"what a mounful retrospection! I am not bound to dwell upont. I turn from it with horror”-Mr. Mudford very justly censures this proceeding,

I cannot help thinking it would have been more decorous to have rerained wholly from touching upon his vices, or to have done it more expli, itly than by dark hints and exclamations of horror. These only serve o awaken the imagination without satisfying the reason; and when.com ecture is idly excited in its darkest colours, we all know that there is a propensity in man to push it to extremities. A man, will sooner lose his character by a shrug of the shoulder aptly performed at his appearance, or smile of significant surprise when he talks of honesty, or a solemn shake of the head when another praises his integrity, than he will by any open and manifest attack, conducted either by truth or artifice; and, by a parity of reasoning, to record the merits of any one, to refer mystériously, at the conclusion, to the contrast between those merits and certain defects, and then abruptly to quit the discussion as one too heart-rending, too shocking to be pursued, is the most certain, though not the most allowable method, to make the reader believe all that we wish, and more than is true. p. 154,

In common with every man of principle, Cumberland was indignant at the iniquities of anonymous criticism, an evil which, as Mr. M. observes, it is not likely that any remonstrances will diminish'; for, as long as men can attack secure from retaliation, they will do it; for the leaven of malignity and envy is too intimately corporated with our nature, not to ferment into action when it may be done with impunity," Mr. Cumberland however projected a periodical work, in which the rules of assigning the names of the writers should be a se curity against the usual abuses of criticism. And perhaps he flattered himself that this bold and ingenuons distinction of the London Review, would give it so powerful a rivalry with its anonymous contemporaries, as either to compel them to a little more decorum, or diminish their popularity. We will transcribe Mr. M.'s observations on the impracticability of conduct ing the work of critical censorship on this ingenuous plan, without incurring almost a necessity of deviating from strict bonesty; while in the anonymous method such a deviation is a matter of free choice.

If we could suppose that the most eminent names in modern literature would be found in the pages of a review, established upon a principle simi lar to Cumberland's, I do not think that any advantage would be gained beyond the abolition of some practices in anonymous criticism which are disgraceful to letters. The rigid integrity of a Brutus or a Cato must not be expected. Literary men constitute a sort of fraternity: they are usually acquainted with each other, or likely to be so; and the feelings of friendship and esteem would be perpetually clashing with the duties of the critic. Will the man who has dined at my table to day, and partaken of my hospitality and kindness, sit down to-morrow, and avowedly endeavour to sink my character in the public estimation? No: unless he would be hunted from society he cannot do this; if he would be received as a mem ber of it he must conform to its duties; and though the book I have pub