qualities of JANE AUSTEN, we cannot say ;-but sure we are, if our memory have not failed us, or our fancy deceived us, or our hearts betrayed us, such, or nearly such, are those, of which she has herself compounded one of the most beautiful female characters ever drawn ;—we mean, the heroine of Persuasion.

But we have digressed farther than we intended.-Indeed, so fast and thick do recollections of what is beautiful and good in the works of this admirable woman, throng into our mind, that we are borne away involuntarily and irresistibly. They stole into the world without noise, they circulated in quiet,they were far from being much extolled,--and very seldom noticed in the journals of the day,-they came into our hands, as nothing different from ordinary novels,-and they have enshrined themselves in the heart, and live for ever in the thoughts,-along with the recollections of all that is best and purest in our own experience of life. Their author we, ourselves, had not the happiness of knowing,-a scanty and insuf ficient memoir, prefixed to her posthumous work, not written in the best taste, is all the history of her life, that we or the world have before us; but, perhaps, that history is not wanted, -her own works furnish that history. Those imaginary people, to whom she gave their most beautiful ideal existence, survive to speak for her, now that she herself is gone.

The mention of her works happened to fall in our way as the noblest illustration we could give of that improvement in this department of literature, which we are fond to believe in; but we frankly confess, we would, at any time, have travelled far out of it to pay our humble tribute of respect to the memory of Jane Austen. Nor is it so foreign to our regular speculations, as the reader may be apt to imagine. Our conversation, as one of our own number has well observed, is among the tombs; and there dwells all that once enshrined in a form of beauty a soul of exceeding and surpassing brightness.-O lost too soon to us!-but our loss has been thy immortal gain.

Writers, and the generation for which they write, act upon one another with mutual wholesome or pernicious influence. The taste of the age first inspires or corrupts the author, and then the author returns the benefit or injury, by inspiring or corrupting the age. Works, like those we have been considering, are calculated to recommend and widely diffuse the principles on which they are written. But the work of regeneration had previously began, and prepared the world for their reception; and it is to this general improvement in taste that the novelist owes the exaltation of his character; for, in endeavouring to win the public favour, he has ceased to be a writer of romance, and become the faithful historian of life and man

ners. He supplies that information, so essential to a complete knowledge of our species, which is wanted in history; but which history, occupied with great and national events, cannotdescend to give. He, who in after times shall apply himself to the study of the present period, will not have to infer our private habits from dry notices, and insulated facts in our public annals, but will have before him a full and fair picture of the domestic life and manners of his ancestors. A species of writing so long held in dubious estimation has thus obtained a high rank in the literature of our age; and, having absorbed the dramatic talent of the nation, vies, in interest and dignity, with the noblest productions of our most illustrious bards. Nothing, indeed, but the flagrant abuse of this kind of composition could ever have occasioned it to be viewed in any other light, but to deny that the novel, as now written, is the pride and ornament of our literature, is mere ignorance and dotage. Had such note-takers, for example, existed in the times of Pericles and Aspasia, we should not have been left to glean scanty notices and form wrong conceptions of the Athenian character, from the pages of the great political satirist and libeller of his countrymen. What would we give for a fire-side view of those old Romans who conquered the world;to see, in the security, repose, and self-indulgence of domestic life, those whom we only know amidst the factions of state, and the toils, dangers, and excitation of war. They loved, doubtless, and hated, they sang, and danced, and wept,-they had their intrigues, their fashions, their follies, their scandals;-the lives of ninety-nine out of a hundred were thus wasted;—they were as frail in all respects, as indulgent, as pleasant, as facetious, as humourous, as sentimental, as loving, and beloved as ourselves;-but what do we see of all this? To us they are stern, haughty, and vindictive warriors, intriguing politicians,―factious statesmen,-abusive demagogues, and oppressive rulers. The English have been all this, more or less;-yet how far would he, who, from the perusal of their annals, had made this wonderful discovery, have travelled to a right view of their character? And even suppose him, by eking out his historical information, by the study of such political satires as time might have spared him, to have gained a notion, more or less just, of their national character, what conception would he be able to form of the individual Englishman?-one, perhaps, as just, as we, at this day, are instructed to entertain of the Athenian democrat, or Roman citizen.

It is by considerations of this sort, that we are made sensible of the value and importance of a description of writing, which is to transmit to posterity a full and fair view of the English character, and to prevent it from sustaining such egre

gious wrong at their hands, as the Ancients, and more particularly the Athenians, have suffered from some of our contemporaries. To us, at the present day, it may be only an amusement to see our own physiognomy reflected in a glass; but in some thirtieth or fortieth century of the Christian æra, when the English character and manners shall be studied as those of the Greeks and Romans are now, the learned Zealander of the southern hemisphere, or the polite native of New Holland, may be thankful to those who have handed down a faithful picture of times, as remote to him as those of the first Roman adventurers in Britain, and of our painted and skin-clad ancestors, are to us.

One who chose to carry his speculations beyond mere matters of taste and feeling, might imagine that he beheld, in this sensible progress of the politer arts, an indication of the great moral improvement of his countrymen. And, in truth, however little the principles of taste may have to do with the policy of state, and the morals of a people, yet it is not impossible that the light, by which they have discovered truth in the one, may also serve to show them how to proceed in amending the other. That the improvement, in point of taste, is national, that is, that it extends through the whole of the liberal and enlightened part of society, we think ourselves authorized to assume; and, instead of looking for its causes in the writings of those great and illustrious authors, in whom that improvement is most clearly evinced, we rather take them to be the necessary consequences, and at the same time clearest indications, of its general existence. The reformers of taste, as well as those of religion and government, are but the men of greatest genius and strongest minds of the age, who first chip the shell, and burst the ligatures, by which the understanding of man has been confined. The tide of reason and truth rises highest in those, no doubt, whom nature and education have best prepared for its reception; yet it flows not in those particular channels only, but works its irresistible way, with more or less rapidity, through the whole mass of society. But it is not only in the liberal arts that the progress of human improvement is evinced-the very table on which we write-the furniture of the apartment in which we sit-every object that meets the eye, in which we trace the finger of man, when contrasted with the same as wrought by the artists of former days, forces upon us the conviction of the great progress which has been made, and, in these latter days, with even an accelerated rapidity, towards perfection in mechanism. In architecture, in dress, in equipage, and in every thing which the taste of the last age loaded with cumbrous and unmeaning decoration, we have begun to consider that shape or form to be the most elegant and perfect, which is best adapted to answer the intended purpose of the

building or implement itself. In the altered manners of society -in the substitution of an easy, disengaged, and natural deportment, for the embarrassing and stately forms of a barbarous etiquette, we appear to see an improvement corresponding to that which has taken place in the liberal and mechanical arts of life. In short, to whatever we direct our attention, we observe one common effort in all, to throw off whatever obstructs, or has no tendency to promote, and to assume whatever is best calculated to produce the end in view, whether that end be one of convenience or ornament, whether it have reference to the mind or the body.

Simplicity, then, which is usually considered as the attribute of a savage or primitive life, is, in fact, the result of excessive refinement; and is to be found only in highest perfection among the most cultivated and polite societies: for what is it but an assimilating our own works to those of nature, who does nothing in vain, but produces the end desired, by the simplest means and the most certain success. It is the last lesson which man learns-the end of all reason and studytrue wisdom; and though called by different names, is the same thing, whether exhibited in the make of a gown, in the structure of a poem, the building of a house, or the framing of a constitution. The degree of wisdom requisite to construct the one may be inconsiderable, compared with that which is necessary to frame the other; yet it is an argument of some force*, that the people who, in building their houses, discover throughout a perfect acquaintance with the great law of nature

That this connexion between the progress of art, and the science of legislation, is not merely fanciful, may be seen by comparing with our own, any half barbarous country of the present day— as Russia, for example. There, art, if it can, indeed, be said to be born, is in its earliest infancy-whilst ornament and splendour are at their height. Every thing is for show, nothing for use. The commonest implements, cumbered with decoration, yet vilely constructed, and performing their office in the most bungling manner. Houses, rich with "barbaric gold" and carving, without a single comfort or convenience, or any thing for which houses are designed. Every thing ill-calculated, even to a degree of perversity, for the end meant to be obtained-every thing, in short, done in vain. As to manners, an etiquette formal, perplexing, complicated, and manoeuvring, in the court, and among the nobles and people at large, descending down to the very dregs-and there, even, they quarrel for precedency of title! Their literature, if they have any, we should not be surprised to find full of oriental imagery, and unnatural and tasteless splendour; for the poetry of a rude people, we are apt to believe, is any thing but simple and natural. Look at their moral and political condition

-that of doing nothing in vain-will exhibit a proportionable degree of political wisdom in the structure of their govern

ment.

Of those arts, then, on which the comfort, the pleasure, and the happiness of man chiefly depend, we find that, in some, a discovery has been made of their true and genuine principles; and that a corresponding improvement has consequently ensued, in the works of their professors. The poet, in whose hands the reader is but an instrument on which to play, now understands how to strike every chord, from the highest even unto the lowest-from the loud trumpet note, that sounds to boot and spur, to that of the flute, which entrances the soul with its liquid melody. There is the high note of passion, the low note of fear, the soft note of love, and the glad note of joy. All these, and many more besides, does the cunning poet of this day touch, and sound, and vary, with such exquisite skill, as maketh the breast of his reader to discourse most sweet music. This, if we mistake not, however metaphorically it be expressed, is the sole end and object of all poetry; and this the bard now understands how to effect, on certain principles and in the simplest manner. The novelist has learnt his duty too, as well as the poet. To show the reader what man is, and to teach him, by judicious and chosen examples, what it is his interest to be. Every one who takes up his pen can do something towards this, if he will but contribute faithfully, and without reservation, to the general stock, his own knowledge, experience, and observation of life. The mechanic, in his humble art, has probably outstripped them both, and will be the first to reach that goal, which man calls perfection, but which is only the farthest extent of his own limited faculties.

In these, and most other useful and ornamental arts, with which the well-being and delight of men are connected, we can remark a visible improvement of his capacity and expan

what do we see? A naked iron despotism in the government, in which peacefully to their grave

pauci

Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tyranni. ›

A nobility covered with gold and vermin, at once slaves and tyrants; a miserable, oppressed, degraded, and brutalized peasantry, for whose wretchedness we can find no parallel, without crossing the Atlantic, to see it in the West India plantations. And, to crown the whole, -the close of all-an immense army, that eats up the provisions of a sterile and impoverished country, and then is thinned from mere starvation!