she was attached with alınost more than maternal affection-but gifts received from a gracious Providence, which she again entrusted to His care? She quit ted them without a sigh, knowing in whom she had believed, and being persuaded that He was able to keep that which she had committed unto Him

against that day.'-Hers had been a life of PREPARATION; and hers was most truly a death-bed brightened with HOPE. To her had been imparted faith without presumption, and virtue with out self-righteousness. Her life, according to human judgment, had been a life of charity, the fruit of faith; and her last illness was occasioned, through Divine permission, by an act of selfdenial in shewing mercy to the poor,

Her last disorder was sudden, and extremely painful. But no murmur escaped her lips; and-must it not be mentioned with becoming pleasure?no expressions of surprise at her danger testified a mind unprepared for her last change. On the contrary, her few intervals of ease were employed in expressing her comfortable hope: and,

when she referred to a certain dread of

death which had ever dwelt on her mind, it was only to declare that the sting of death was removed, and that she met it without terror, or any uneasy apprehension. Her expressions of humility were deep and unqualified; her reliance upon her Saviour, entire and unshaken. Her soul seemed, in the language she quoted, as if in haste to be gone, and be wafted away to His throne.' And her 'sure and certain

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sermons of this volume have been so copious that we can afford no space for the Occasional Discourses, to which therefore we must now only refer our readers, whom we have enabled to judge what they have to expect from the perusal, by the specimens already placed before them. We need only add, that they will not be disappointed. In conclusion, we cannot refrain from congratulating the public on the specimen of sound Church of England divinity, which is presented to them in the volume before us, in which we have ardent piety without enthusiasm, discretion without coldness, and orthodoxy without bigotry; and such a happy and intimate union of doctrine with practice, that it is scarcely possible to read the author's development of his principles without directly applying them to the conscience, or to follow him through his delineation of duties without a reference to those elevated principles by which alone the obedience of the heart can be secured.

We are glad to find that a third edition of this work has been already called for, and the author has, we trust, availed himself of the opportunity which it has afforded him of correcting the defects of the first edition. We could have much wished that the sermons had been all so reduced in length, as to admit of their being conveniently read in families; and, even for private reading, they would thus be rendered more useful, for it not unfrequently happens that the effect nating statements of truth is greatly produced by strong and discrimiweakened by the expanded explanations, that have either intervened, or preceded, or followed them. One of the most difficult attainments in composition is the art of compression; and we would particularly recommend the study of this art to our author, as likely to give increased efficiency to sermons possessing so many just claims to

The Pirate, by the Author of "Waverley, Kenilworth, &c."

(Continued from p. 172.)

IN our last Number we stated our intention of entering, somewhat at large, into a view of the evils which appear to us to flow from a habit of trifling reading, particularly in the line of fictitious narrative. In order fairly to meet the case, we divided works of imagination -not very logically perhaps, but conveniently for our purpose-into three classes; namely, those which are written with an obviously bad intention; those which are written with no definite intention at all, except fame or profit to the author and amusement to the reader; and those which are written with a positively good intention. The first class we dismissed in a few words, as too palpably evil to require an argumentative reprehension. The second class seemed to deserve a more lengthened discussion; and to furnish a basis for our remarks, we selected, as a somewhat favourable specimen, the tales of the unknown author of Waverley ; and had proceeded so far in our plan as to give an outline of "The Pirate," with extracts, this being his last production, and though inferior to several which have preceded it in literary merit, yet presenting a fair sample of the moral qualities of his novels. Now, we do not hesitate to say, that even were no novel more exceptionable than the Pirate, or than Waverley, or Kenilworth, or any other of these tales, the effect of habitually indulging in the perusal of such works would be decidedly injurious; and we purpose to for. tify our remarks by a specification of some of the evils which appear to us naturally to result from this habit. We should however premise, that though we have selected the Waverley Novels as a sort of standard by which to try the question at issue, and have thus taken ground much less favourable to our own views than if we had extended our

view to the general trash of the circulating library; we shall not so strictly confine our remarks, as not occasionally to urgé arguments which may not apply, at least in their full force, to the writings inmediately under our consideration; a warning which we think it but fair to give, lest we should seem to impute to the author of Waverley faults with which he is not chargeable. Our readers, therefore, in justice both to the author and to us, will make the necessary abatements in the application of our strictures to his particular case.

The first objection which presses upon our attention in regard to the habit of novel-reading, is the INJURIOUS excitement which it tends to produce. And here let it be kept in mind, that the works of fictitious narrative to which our observations are meant to apply, are those which are written with no definite views, except of fame or profit to the author, or of amusement to the reader. Now, works of this description may differ widely in their degrees of morality, or immorality; but one property is common to almost all of them, that they are intended to be stimulating. If they fail in this, it is generally the author's misfortune, and not his purpose. He intends his work to be irresistible in arresting the imagination, and absorbing, for the time, every faculty of the mind, and every affection of the heart. If his readers can contentedly eat, drink, sleep, study, or pray from the time they commence his narrative, till they have followed the vicissitudes of his hero or heroine to their conclusion, it is so much detracted from the potency of his genius. wishes his spell to be inextricable: his ideal world is to cast into the shade all the tame realities of this visible sphere: joy and sorrow, health and duty, are all to be for gotten while, following the mazes of the artist's fancy, the enchanted reader plies the volume by the ray of the sickly taper into the darkest

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son.

watches of midnight. We do not aver that every novel is thus alluring; but this is only to say that every novel is not written by a Richardson, a Burney, a Ratcliffe, or by the author of Waverley. What is called a "good" novel, and what for that very reason perhaps we ought to call a "bad" one, certainly approaches this standard of excellence. It introduces its reader to a new world; it rivets his attention by an artfully adjusted series of incidents, and a highly-wrought description of characters; stimulating the feelings and the curiosity in so powerful a manner as, for the time, to render almost every thing else uninteresting in the compariThe excitement may be more or less injurious in its character, or in its intensity, or in its duration. In many novels, the character or quality, so to speak, of the excitement, is of a decidedly exceptionable kind: they add fuel to the flame of passions which we are bound to mortify and subdue: they lead the reader to the margin of temptation, and too often precipitate him over the brink. We shall Hot complain very seriously of the Waverley Tales in this respect; for the excitement they cause is not for the most part strictly that of the passions. But still an intense excitement of long duration, even if not positively vicious, is generally hurtful in its effects. It enervates the mind; it generates a sickliness of fancy; and it renders the ordinary affairs of life insipid. Should it be objected, that this argument, if allowed at all, would go much too far; that it would banish music, and poetry, and all works of imagination, and many of the severer sciences themselves, since all these cause excitement; it may be replied, that it would certainly go so far as to restrict these within due bounds, where they are matters of mere recreation: where they are matters of business, they do not come fairly within the scope of the present discussion. We admit that a

mathematical treatise may create as long and powerfully sustained an interest as a novel; and that the excitement will be injurious, if it cause a person to neglect any duty of life for its gratification. But then there are many qualifications in the one case, which do not apply to the other. For example, the interest excited by the Principia of Newton, is not of an impassioned character: it may indeed, like a novel, so arrest the mind as to cause the student to neglect the claims of business, or devotion, or health itself; but it does not mìnister to any corrupt appetite, which is more than can be said of most novels: nor is such a course of reading open to various other important objections, which we shall have to urge against an inordinate indulgence in works of fiction. Again; the faculties called into exercise by severe study, are of a very different nature to those which are stimulated by novel-reading; nor is the vigour of the mind impaired, but on the contrary increased, by such an application of its powers. Besides which, the one may be an affair of business; whereas the other can only be at best a recreation. A Cambridge wrangler, we allow, may be as much engrossed by his pursuits, as a novel reader; but the one is engrossed in his proper calling, the other for no assignable good end or purpose whatever. If a clergyman in active duty, as a mere amusement, were to give up his mind to the same degree of mathematical study as he might lawfully do when a college student, he would doubtless be open to a part of the charge which we are urging against novel-reading: he would find his studies entrenching on his public labours, and would shrink perhaps from the ordinary calls of his duty to indulge in these pleasures of intellect. There would however still be many degrees of difference in the two cases; though in both the claims of a family, or a parish,

might be neglected in the intoxication of habitual mental excitement. Our argument, however, is by no means intended to go so far as to exclude a temperate degree of mental excitement arising from a variety of pursuits, as well as from the study of mathematics. With respect to such poetry, or music, or fictitious literature, as have no vicious tendencies, the chief danger consists in the intensity and duration of the excitement they produce. But the intensity and duration of that produced by novel reading is usually very considerable. Few novel readers can take up a well written tale, consisting of several volumes, for five or ten minutes at a time, and lay it down again, and return to the ordinary and less interesting pursuits of life, without having their minds injuriously stimulated, and being led to cast many a longing lingering look behind." There is an evil in this respect in the general construction of our novels: they are usually long-much longer than any person ought to be able to find time to read at one, two, three, or even many more sittings; yet they are so contrived, as to be incapa ble of being read in repose by instalments. The mind is absorbed; the imagination is heated; and the affections are engaged. The moment arrives to lay down the volume; but it is not so easy to banish the subject: we quit it in a feverish state of mind, and are in this fever till we return to it. Business, study, devotion, the requirements of nature, and the obligations of society, are but an irksome parenthesis, till some imaginary hero is extricated from his perilous jeopardy, or some sentimental heroine is united to the object of her uncontrollable affections. The result, may be best seen in young and badly educated persons, and in general wherever the mind has not been disciplined to self-control. In such cases, the struggle between the call of duty, and the stimulus of

curiosity, is but too plain: the midnight novel, if it does not colour the next day's conversation, gives at least its tone to the feelings; and it is well if it do not through the day occupy by stealth many a moment clandestinely taken from business requiring close and undivided attention, and if it do not also engross the thoughts even while it is not allowed to fill the hands.

A mind under the genuine influence of novel-reading, shrinks from every thing like effort in study. It is stimulated with artificial condiments, till it loses all natural and healthy appetite.

Not only the

graver departments of literature, but even books of amusement of a less piquant character become dull and prosing in comparison with these highly seasoned viands. We question whether a few months unrestrained indulgence in. Waverley novels themselves, sober and manly as they are when compared with the ordinary class of such productions, would not generate for a time at least, a distate, for our standard essayists, and for most writers of true and unromantic narrative; to say nothing of the more serious walks of metaphysics, theology, and other abstract studies, which could not be supposed to present any attractions to the babitual novel-reader.

Were we Medical Reviewers instead of Christian Observers, we might feel it necessary to add to our charge against novel-reading, on the score of excitement, the physical evils often attendant on the practice when carried to excess. We know, at least, that medical men have frequently urged this point; and have stated that the habit of novel-reading is almost as enervating to one class of their patients as the use of opium, or of spiritous liquors, to another. It is very clear, that the passions of the human mind cannot be strongly excited day after day, and year after year, without causing subsequent languor and exhaustion, both men