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The style of our editor in thefe, as in his other pieces, varies with his varying emotions; but its predominant quality is energy, to which he, on fome occafions, facrifices grace; for, though the introduction of Greek and Roman phrases may ferve, in fome inftances, to give a happy emphafis to his diction, it does not feem to be confiftent with the highest degree of elegance. The drift and the tone of his prefaces and dedication give us an idea of a feeling heart and undaunted mind; the very reverse of the prelate that is the object of his too just cenfure. Dr. Hurd adored Bishop Warburton when living, but gave up fome of the works he had raised in his defence after he was dead. Dr. Parr, unawed by the influence of the Bishop of Worcester, and that numerous party whofe difcernment of character is embarked on board the fame fhip with his lordship's reputation, raises his voice in defence of men numbered among

the dead:

Victrix caufa diis placuit fed victa catoni.

This courageous mien leads not often to ecclefiaftical preferment; but, on the contrary, expofes the good and great man to chilling frofts of neglect, and the envenomed fhafts of detraction. We hope and augur better things concerning our author; but, if we should be difappointed, as he has defended those who are no more, fo may he, in his turn, find fome advocate who fhall, with equal ability and fuccefs, defend his character against all injurious attacks, and vindicate to posterity his just praise !

ART. IX. Zeluco: Various Views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, foreign and domeftic. 8vo. 2 vols. boards. Cadell. London, 1789.

HE prefent age must have novels. Il faut,' fays Rousseau,

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THE as mu peuples corrompus. By the fwarm of

publications of the kind which appear almost daily from the prefs, this feems to be a truth very generally known; and from the few that are even fupportable, the difficulty of writing a good novel feems equally apparent. To fpin out a meagre, whining fentimental ftory, with hardly any incident, or to crowd together exaggerated and improbable circumftances; to paint manfters of perfection, or of wickedness, without the fmalleft conception of a beginning, a middle, and an end, of a whole; is a work which we poor reviewers know, by fad experience, can be produced by any man, any woman, or any child. But to delineate with truth and vigour a variety of characters; to fupport them throughout; to make them think, fpeak

fpeak, and act as they fhould do; to form an interesting story, where the improbable is not mistaken for the marvellous, and where the catastrophe is produced without any violation of character in the perfons of the tale; is a tafk which the efforts of genius alone can perform; and a production of this fort, like works of genius of every kind, feldom appears.

We are led to thefe reflections on novel-writing by the publication before us, which has pretenfions to be placed above the common level of novels, but cannot be ranked among the fuperior works in that clafs. Its merits preferve it from being damned; its demerits from what may be termed unreferved falvation: all then we can do is to give it a place in the limbo 'large' of mediocrity.

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The hero of the novel is a character fupremely wicked, who, giving free loose to his appetites and paffions, gratifies them at the expence of every moral duty: his temporary enjoyments are few, and fhort-lived; anxiety, mortification, and fear, are his conftant attendants. Still grafping at that enjoyment which flies from him, he goes on from crime to crime, thinking that the laft act of villainy will enfure happiness; but finds to his mortification that his mifery increases with his guilt. He is at laft arrested in his course, and finishes his flagitious career by an untimely end.

Such is the outline, which the author has filled up, in fome places with confiderable skill, in others much lefs happily. One great fault in the production is a deficiency of incident; we have too much reasoning, and too little acting; it is the reasoning too of the author, and not of the perfonages of the ftory, which keeps them too long out of fight, and gives a languor to the performance. This fault he has copied from Crebillon, and fome other French novellifts of repute, who never have done with anatomifing the feelings and motives of their characters; leaving nothing to be difcovered by the actions of those characters, nor by the difcernment of the reader. A novel, like a play, fhould as much as poffible confift of action; the characters hould be left to fpeak and act for themfelves, without the apparent affiftance of the author; the fkilful puppet-fhew-man keeps himself and his wires out of fight, and leaves the action and dialogue to Punch and his wife.

Though there is a want of incident in Zeluco, yet it is evident that the author has done all in his power, by the introduction of epifodes, not to be defective in that point: but thefe, by the fmall, or rather no, relation they bear to the main story,

Milton.

inftead

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inftead of contributing to the interest of the novel, produce a directly contrary effect. Of this kind is the episode of Transfer and his nephew Steele; a patch of a different colour and confiftency, most unfkilfully ituck upon the web. To the want of power to invent proper incidents, and to the defire at the fame time of producing a work of a respectable fize, we must attribute his political difcuffions and religious controversy, and his drawing them out to such a length as to make the parts difproportionable to the whole. The connexion of the parts too is exceedingly faulty; they do not coalefce and melt into each other, but ftand often feparate and folitary, without any proper bond of union. For example, all the tranfactions of Zeluco in the island of Cuba have no connexion with what follows. Excepting Zeluco himself, not one of the characters we had been acquainted with during the perufal of more than two hundred pages, afterwards appears; we are introduced to a perfectly new fet, and forget our Weft-India friends, as if they had never been.

The writer, we think, has miffed a very favourable opportunity of difplaying his pathetic talents, by putting a period to the life of his hero before the arrival of Laura; an interview between fuch a wife, and fuch a husband, during the dying moments of the latter, would have given much pathos to the conclufion; but he perhaps diftrufted his powers, or was tired, and wished to wind up his ftory as faft, and with as little effort, as poffible. We are not difpofed to approve of his leaving Nerina unpunifhed. That abandoned woman, who had fo artfully worked upon the paffions of Zeluco as to excite him to ftrangle his child, had done every thing in her power to induce him to murder his wife, and was in fome measure the cause of his own death, is yet not only left unpunished, but Laura herfelf is made to plead her caufe, to soften the minds of the judges,' and fhe is let loofe again upon the world, unchastised, unblackened by the flighteft ftigma, once more to ruin and to destroy.

These are some of the blemishes we have discovered in Zeluco; but it is not deficient in beauties. In the finifhing of many of the parts the writer has fucceeded better than in the general conftruction of the work. The character of Laura (except in the inftance we have juft mentioned) is well fupported. She is amiable, fenfible, and accomplished. The author has not clothed her with the abfurd attribute of Romance, perfection, but has made her act with propriety a very difficult part. The horrid Zeluco moves fteadily on in all the dark majesty of vice, without the smallest deviation into the path of virtue. The fubordinate characters, Signora Sporza, Carloftein, Seidlitz, Bertram, Buchanan, Targe, &c. are correctly delineated, and fufficiently

fufficiently diverfified; but fome of them take up more room than is confiftent with their fmall, or no importance, to the ftory.

It may be worth mentioning that the author has introduced feveral clergymen; but it is only to hold them up to contempt or deteftation, for he has invariably characterised them as fools or rogues. Could he not bring himself to make one exception? Or does he think that the character of imbecility or of vice, which he gives to the teachers of religion and morality, will serve the purposes of either? As our author feems at open war with the clergy, we are glad to find that he is not like Le Sage, for he appears on the best of terms with physicians. These he has decked out with every moral and intellectual perfection, to whom his clerical caricatures ferve only as a foil. Among other inftances, if the reader will give himself the trouble to examine the characters of the prieft and the physician in the ifland of Cuba (Vol. I. chap. 21 and 22), he will find a ftriking example of what we have advanced. We do not pretend to dive into the author's motives, nor indeed to say that he had any for this degradation of the clergy; but the fact is as we have stated.

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We have already obferved that the writer has been more fuccessful in the parts of his work than in the fabrication of the whole; we might fay, in the language of painters, that there is a want of harmony and keeping in the piece, but that the parts are well finished ungues exprimet, et molles imitabitur capillos, but ponere totum nefciet.' The dying negro, Hanno, though fome of the foldiers' expreffions are too high-feafoned, is a good imitation of Sterne; the difpute between Buchanan and Targe on the fubject of Queen Mary, is highly characteristic; and the pangs of the guilty mind are admirably exprefied in the last converfation between Bertram and Zeluco. These are only a few of the paffages, out of many, which will be perused with pleasure by every reader who is worth the pleafing. The following letter from an English footman will thew that the author is not deficient in humour; we think the epiftle of Targe rather better, but it is too long for infertion:

• A Monfeer,

Monfeer BENJAMIN JACKSON, che le Count de

⚫ Engliterr.

Shire.

DEAR BEN,

HAVING received yours per courfe, this ferves to let you know that I am well and hearty, and fo is Sir

but as for

Mr. Steele, he had a fall from his horse in taking a very easy leap,

which hurt him a little; but he is growing better, thank God, for he is as good a foul, and as generous to fervants, as any alive: it was all the horse's fault, that I must say in juftice to Mr. Steele, who put more truft in this lazy toad than he deserved; being deceived by the owner, who pretended he was a very good leaper. Now, to fay the truth, I have not feen many tolerable horfes fit for hunting in all this town; and as for the women, about which your fifter Befs makes inquiry, they are all for the most part painted, at least their faces; then for the reft, they hardly ever nick their tails, I mean of the horses; for England is the only country for horfes and women. I do not believe that all Paris can produce the like of Eclipfe and your fifter Befs.

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Since you and your fifter Befs defire it, I fhall now write to you a little about the defcription of this here town and country. In my own private opinion, Paris is but a tirefome town to live in, for there is none of the common neceffaries of life, as porter or good ale; and as for their beef, they boil it to rags. Wine to be fure is cheaper here, but not fo ftrong and genuine as in London.

I have been at the French king's palace, which they call Verfailles in their language; it is out of town, the fame as Kew or Wirdfor is with our king. I went first and foremost to see the ftables, which to be fure is very grand; and there they have fome very good-icoking horfes, efpecially English hunters: it grieved me to fe fo many of our own best subjects in the fervice of our lawful enemy, which to be fure the French king is.

We little think how many of our fellow-creatures are feduced from England to diftant countries, and expofed to the worft of ufage, from both the French and Spaniards; for none of them know how an English horfe ought to be treated.

When I was at Verfailles, I faw the Dowfinefs, which is all the fame as the Prince of Wales's wife with us; fhe is one of the prettiest women I have feen in France, being very fair and blooming, and more like an Englishwoman than a French, and not unlike your fifter Befs, only her drefs was different.

She rides, like the ladies in England, with both her legs on the fame fide of the horse; whereas I have feen many women fince I came abroad ride on horseback like men; which I think a bad contrivance, and I am surprised their husbands permit it. But I am told the women here do whatever they pleafe, for all over France the grey mare is the better horfe.' Yet, what contradicts this, and which I cannot account for, is what I heard my Lord D's butler tell yesterday; which is this, that, by a law which he mentioned, but I have forgot its name, though it founded fomething like a leek, By that there law, he faid, that no woman can be king in France; that is, he did not mean by way of a bull, for he is of English parentage, born at Kilkenny; but he meant that no woman can ever be queen in France, as our women in England are. As for inftance: fuppofe the king has no fons, but only a daughter, then when the king dies, this here daughter, according to that there law, cannot be made queen, but the next near relation, provided he is a man, is made king, and not the laft king's daughter, which to be fure is very unjuit. But you will fay, can there be no queen in France then?

Yes,

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