In the full possession of every faculty and talent he ever possessed, the memory of M. la Fayette has all the tenacity of unworn youthful recollection; and besides these, high views of all that is most elevated in the mind's conception. His conversation is brilliantly enriched with anecdotes of all that is celebrated, in character and event, for the last fifty years. He still talks with unwearied delight of his short visit to England, to his friend Mr. Fox, and dwelt on the witchery of the late Duchess of Devonshire, with almost boyish enthusiasm. He speaks and writes English with the same elegance he does his native tongue. He has made himself master of all that is best worth knowing, in English literature and philosophy. I observed that his library contained many of our most eminent authors upon all subjects. His elegant and well chosen collection of books, occupies the highest apartments in one of the towers of the château; and, like the study of Mon⚫ taigne, hangs over the farm-yard of the philosophical agriculturist. It frequently happens," said M. la Fayette, as we were looking out of the window at some flocks, which were lowing beneath, "it frequently happens, that my Merinos, and my hay-carts, dispute my attention with your Hume, or our own Voltaire."

66

He spoke with great pleasure on the visit paid him at La Grange some years ago, by Mr. Fox and General Fitzpatrick. He took me out, the morning after my arrival, to show me a tower richly covered with ivy: "It was Fox," he said, "who planted that ivy! I have taught my grand-children to venerate it.'

In calmly summing up the evidence respecting these interesting volumes, we must confess that the general result is less favourable to the fair author than the momentary impression suggested by particular passages. The fluency of her style, the vividness of her colouring, and the appositeness of the quotations taken from conversation, all concur to dazzle the reader in his rapid progress, and to create a disposition to bestow a degree of praise which will not stand the test of deliberate inquiry.

Lady Morgan may be accused of wanting a staunch attachment to old English habits, and of a disposition to shew undue favour to France: but it is not on this account that we object to her work so much as for its frequent, we may almost say, its habitual inaccuracy. What else can we expect when we see confidence given (Vol. i. pp. 24. 113. 137. 145. 162. 252.) to allegations on the faith of anonymous pamphlets or fictitious conversations, with as much composure and confidence as if they rested on demonstrative evidence? The book is consequently intitled to only a cursory perusal; or, if the reader be desirous of treasuring up its contents in his memory, he must be prepared to make a variety of deductions from the literal import of the language. Again, though unsparing in a political sense to the ancienne noblesse, Lady M. enumerates

the

the invitations which she received from them with scrupulous minuteness; and she gives a significant hint that few persons from our side of the water were so fortunately distinguished. She has a prodigious disposition to overflow with panegyric, and cannot mention even an Aide de Camp of Bonaparte without pronouncing him (Vol. ii. p. 394.) to be one of the bravest and most gallant young officers in Europe.' We must add, indeed, that the style is throughout inflated, and often unsuited to plain topics. In short, the whole required an attentive revisal, and the exclusion of a variety of exuberances in the text, as well as of all that is common-place in the extracts. Had this been done, the performance would have gained greatly, and would have exhibited not only the most lively but the most eloquent picture which has yet been given of the condition of France.

With regard to religion, Lady M. seems a thorough convert to the doctrines of the revolutionary school; not only adverting in a ludicrous strain to the Pope, (Vol. i. p. 279., and Vol. ii. p. 46.) but permitting her pages to be made a vehicle (Vol. ii. p. 235.) for expressions of a much more seriously reprehensible nature. Voltaire is a great favourite with this lady, and no opportunity is lost of bringing forwards complimentary allusions to his memory. The following, however, is of a different cast, and must have been not a little mortifying to the pride of a philosopher who considered himself as irresistible by either sex.

"On the death of Madame de Châtelet, and in the first burst of his grief, Voltaire had an interview with the widowed husband, extremely affecting to both parties. Voltaire, on this occasion, ventured to beg back the ring, which Madame de Châtelet had always worn. "You are not ignorant of the friendship which existed between us," said the afflicted lover to the afflicted husband; "and that ring, so constantly worn, you are perhaps already aware, contains my picture."

"I have witnessed your friendship," said the Marquis de Châtelet," and I know the ring you allude to. As you observe, she never parted with it; but, to confess the truth, it is not your picture that it contains! that picture was instantly replaced by mine!" The tears of Voltaire ceased to flow! he demanded proofs of this treason to friendship and to love. The ring was sent for, the secret spring was touched, the enamel flew open, and the picture of the young, the chivalresque St. Lambert stood confessed, in all the imposing superiority of youth and military glory. The philosopher closed the spring, and returned the ring to the mourning husband.'

The manuscript of the present volumes was ready several months before the impression was struck off; and the lapse of

time

time is charged by Lady M. in rather an angry tone to her publisher; who, in return, has no hesitation in retorting on her Ladyship, and comments somewhat uncourteously on the illegibility of her MS. He adds that the sum paid for the copy-right was so large as to require the pecuniary benefit derived from the sale of a French translation:—that Lady M, insisted that the version should be literal, but that this would have caused the immediate confiscation of the book in France; --so that, after a farther delay, a translation has appeared with the omission of almost all the anti-royalist passages, and particularly of those which include commendations of the late ruler of France.

Lady M.'s work has given rise to the publication of various answers and essays in France; all of which indicate how unfashionable the language of moderation is in politics, since they are marked by the same extremes for the royalist cause which she has displayed for that of the Revolution.

ART. II. Adelaide; a Tragedy, in Five Acts. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden. By Richard Sheil, Esq. Second Edition. 8vo. 4s. 6d. Colburn. 1816.

IN

N the dedication to this play, the author tells Miss O'Neil that the part of his heroine was written for her. Let Hecuba, then, appreciate that which is addressed to Hecuba: but what is Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba?" Are we to be told that a writer of tragedies has no ampler or nobler model before his eyes than one living actress, however excellent that actress may be; and are we to endure such an assurance? What is become of the pride and the inborn spirit of a poet, when he can be tamely contented to drag his laurels in the dust, because that dust is swept by the train of some favoured votary of Melpomene? This is indeed, at once, to resign his own high honours; voluntarily to descend into the comparatively low rank of histrionic imitation; and to give a pledge to his readers that nothing truly great (nihil magnificum aut generosum) is to be found in the pages of a drama, written with an eye not only fixed exclusively on the stage, but rivetted on one theatrical favourite. Most punctually is this pledge redeemed in the play of Adelaide; and yet our regret at the failure of the author is greatly heightened by the evidence with which he has furnished us, that, with juster views and loftier aims, he might have produced a very different tragedy. In Adelaide we find a positive promise,

14.

mise of something yet to come *, of better taste, in maturer years; of more extensive knowlege, after improving opportunities; of firmer, clearer, and more decided genius in some second attempt. On one point we are particularly pleased to be able to dwell with considerable approbation. Mr. Sheil is not so much bitten as several of his contemporaries with the Palaio-mania, or raving fondness for antique phraseology, but really does often write as a Briton of the 19th century may naturally write; and it is not a necessary consequence of any false theory of language in this author, that his imagination should be obscured, his vigour enfeebled, his genius altogether constrained, by the imitation of any man, or set of men, born two or more centuries ago. That a stiffness, an aukwardness, and a pedantry, occasionally cling to Mr. Sheil, is, we think, unfortunately manifest: but it is not the modern-antique affectation which has infected him. He is bombastic, but it is not the bombast of antient Pistol, nor. the bravado of Bobadil. He is conceited, but not crossgartered like Malvolio. He is feeble, but it is the legitimate and genuine feebleness of a modern novel-writer, celebrating the "gilded vanes of Vancenza," or weeping over the distresses of the emigrant "Hubert de Sevrac." This last recollection brings us directly to Adelaide and her story.

She is the daughter of the emigrant Count St. Evremont, and of Madame his wife. She combines beauty, innocence, and feeling:' but alas! she is privately married, as she her self supposes, though dishonourably deceived, as it eventually appears, by Count Lunenberg. This truly modern hero, who, under pretence of marriage, has inveigled a high-born virtuous female into his contemptible snares, is, according to the author's showing, a sort of glorious mixture of resistless ambition and irresistible love, which we, of colder wits, can barely understand. The result of his accursed union with a being so worthy of a better fate may easily be foreseen. She takes poison; and Lunenberg dies, as he ought, by the hand of Albert her brother, but not as he ought in just agreement with his previous villainy, by running on the sword of his antagonist. Thus a false splendor and a seductive generosity are thrown around the character of a villain in his last moments. That the worst characters often have a portion of some virtue in their nature is sufficiently evident; and that the

*How that promise has been kept our readers will discover in the subsequent review of "The Apostate," another theatrical bantling of Mr. Sheil's production, surprisingly adopted and supported by the parish of St. Paul's, Covent-Garden.

mass

mass of mankind is of a very mixed moral description is also certain: but we must contend against that fatal modern art of leaving favourable impressions on the spectators of the expiring hour of a scoundrel. "Let a dog die like a dog" may be a coarse maxim, but it would be a very salutary piece of advice for some of our popular poetical moralists. We do not accuse Mr. Sheil of this dangerous sort of morality in general, nor of any degree of this deceitful popularity: but the last speech of Lunenberg holds out hopes which, after his infamous conduct, must be as destructive (if adopted by the audience, which is too probable,) of all sound principle and useful moral effect as the reprieve in "The Beggars' Opera." Let our readers judge, and only remember that this speech is made by that very mean person himself who confessed, a few scenes earlier in the play, as follows:

'Lunenberg (to Adelaide).

I lured thy unsuspecting innocence,
And, with a semblance of religious rites,

Abused thy trust, and plunged thee into shame."

And whatsoe'er thou art, I thank thee for it.
How sweet a lethargy comes on my soul!
The blood that rioted now ebbs apace,
And passion's torrent stagnates. Adelaide!
Where art thou, Adelaide? This gushing life
Is all that I can give, in reparation

Of all the wrongs I've done thee.

We shall lie down together in the grave,

Act iii. sc. Tà

And when the sound of heaven shall rouse the dead,
We shall awake in one another's arms.

Speak to me: let the voice of Adelaide

Still breathe its sweetness on my deafening ear.
My eyes cannot endure the glare of light;
But I will cast a last long look of love,

And gaze my soul away. Where is thy hand?
I'll lay it near my heart. Oh, Adelaide!

(Dies).

The effect of the concluding speech of the hero in the novel of Clarissa Harlowe is, we presume, very different from the foregoing. When will our authors again attempt "to set the passions on the side" of exalted and suffering virtue? When will the noble, enlightened, truly generous few be their

models;