regulation of our opinions depends all our virtue, or our guilt. In short, I am lost and bewildered in the question, and want your guid ing hand to lead me into truth.'

Mrs. Chapone, about this time, had an opportunity of conversing with Dr. Johnson himself on the subject, and was too warmly attached to her cause to be silent in its defence. She tells her friends, to whom she afterward related their conference, that she wondered to hear a man, who by his actions shews so much benevolence maintain that the human heart is naturally malevolent.' He said, however, that if he had betrayed such sentiments in the Ramblers, it was not with design, for that he believed the doctrine of human malevolence, though a true one, is not an useful one, and ought not to be published to the world:-on which the fair disputant makes a most pertinent and comprehensive quære, which it would require volumes to answer satisfactorily Is there any truth that would not be useful, or that should not be known?'

We little expected to be betrayed, by a review of the correspondence between two young ladies, into a grave disquisition on the moral nature of man; and we are as much surprised as our readers may probably be, at what we have presented to their notice. Wonder is however generally the child of ignorance; and ours, on this occasion, must in candor be ascribed to our want of opportunities of examining the letters that pass between our youthful countrywomen: who still, we doubt not, are more ready to devote their pen to moral and theological inquiries, than to new faces, new dresses, and new music. This is one of the numerous disadvantages, to which we sedentary critics are exposed, by our exclusion from the fashionable world.

The opposite systems of opinion, which our two heroines defended in their early years, appear to have given a tincture to all their discussions on every subject. Miss Carter found the echo of her own sentiments in the gloomy severity of Young's Night Thoughts, and Johnson's Rasselas; while Miss Mulso is astonished that the former should conceive himself a poet, and thinks that the latter ought to be ashamed of publishing such an ill-contrived, unnatural, unfinished, and uninstructive tale.' On the other hand, the tenderness and pathos of Richardson give him an entire command over the yielding heart of Miss Mulso; while her graver friend indulges in some irreverent sarcasms, that would have been considered as little short of blasphemy by the côterie of his female worshippers. The infallibility of his judgment is not indeed admitted by his defender, who takes the liberty of attacking

It

him with vigor and success on his high notions of parental prerogative, and founds her argument on the principles of Locke respecting the nature and ends of authority in general. may be questioned whether the editor of these volumes has not been guilty of something approaching to a bull, in calling letters on one side only a correspondence; and we regret extremely that those of Richardson have not been produced. He appears to have been driven successively from all the posts which he occupied, by his acute antagonist: but even if his pleading consisted merely of loose illustrations, drawn from real instances, the relation of such facts by his graphic pen must have been found highly entertaining. Her remarks on the effect of the paternal curse strongly mark her sagacity, good sense, and ingenuity; and the manner of them proves that Richardson had all the indecision of lingering prejudice, and all the tergiversation of one who is ashamed of defending exploded doctrines, without being yet convinced of their mis chief or absurdity.

It is with pain and reluctance that we turn from the agree able task of contemplating the works of this admirable writer, to detail the melancholy events of her life. No one was ever more called to practise those virtues which she had laboured to acquire. After many delays, occasioned, it seems, by some difficulties in regard to family arrangements, she was united, in her thirty-third year, to Mr. Chapone, for whom she had long cherished a warm attachment. Their mutual affection is said to have been unbounded, and their happiness complete, notwithstanding that degree of confinement in their pecuniary circumstances, which may perhaps, according to the proverb, "tend to alienate the hearts of the sordid and selfish, but which is certainly favourable to a real and disinterested affection. Mrs. Chapone still continued her epistolary intercourse with her friends, particularly Mrs. Carter, to whom she thus expresses herself: I have more hours to myself than I wish for, for business usually allows me very little of my husband's company, except at meals. This I should be inclined to lament as an evil, if I did not consider that the joy and complacency with which we meet, may probably by this means last longer than if we could be always together.' These hours of solitude afforded opportunities of study, which were not neglected, nor was the pen of criticism thrown aside. Her sentence on the letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe is very just, and the terms in which it is couched may be thought to have some reference to the writer's state of mind at that period: "Her descriptions of the state of the blessed are after my own heart, and exactly suit the rovings of my own fancy. She treats us

H

too with some pretty poetry, here and there, on that subject. But her devotion is too poetical for me, and savours too much of the extravagancies of the mystics. When I hear persons addressing the Supreme Being in the language of the most sensual and extravagant human love, I cannot help fancying they went mad on a disappointment of that passion, when it was placed more naturally. This however, was not Mrs. Rowe's case, for I think she was remarkably happy in marriage. I am the more surprised that her affections broke out into such wild torrents, since they had a free course in their natural channel. I know she is a great favourite of yours, and perhaps, you will hardly forgive this censure.'

In the letter before quoted, she tells her most intimate correspondent- If you can love a man, I expect you will love him (Mr. Chapone), if ever you know him thoroughly: but we imagine that this lady had never the pleasure of witnessing the mutual esteem of her husband and her friend; the former of whom, 4 within ten months after they were married, was seized with a fever, which was, from the beginning, pronounced fatal, and terminated his existence after a week's illness.' The attentions of his wife were unremitted, her affliction at his death was extreme, and her health received a very severe shock, from which her nerves never entirely recovered. The consolation of her friends, and the resignation of her mind, could not restore her spirits to their original composure: but in the family of her second brother, who resided at Thornhill, near Wakefield, she attached herself to her eldest niece, and diverted her melancholy by giving those valuable lessons for the improvement and regulation of the mind, which were afterward so generally approved under the title of her Letters. They were published in 1773, in consequence of the earnest persua sions of Mrs. Montague, and other friends, and immediately obtained the high degree of favour which they deserved. Numerous were the applications for the acquaintance of the author of such a work, and there were some, who, understanding her circumstances were not affluent, hoped to obtain her assistance in the instruction of their families: but to proposals of this nature she never would listen.'

From this period, the history of Mrs. Chapone consists of little more than an enumeration of the friends who were taken from her, year by year. She had the misfortune of surviving nearly all those to whom she was most tenderly attached: but perhaps it is to be considered in the light of a blessing, that, after having done so, she survived her own faculties. It was considered as advisable for her to leave London in the year 1800; and she retired with her youngest niece to Hadley, where she had the advantage of the near neighbourhood of Mrs. Burrows, an old and dear friend, and a

member

member of a family with every part of which she had been for many years connected by ties of the closest intimacy. At times she was unconscious of the presence of her friends; but at others nature seemed to revive within her, and she would occasionally astonish them with even brilliant sallies of her genuine vivacity:

In October 1801, Mrs. Chapone completed her 74th year. On the christmas-day following, without any previous illness, having de, clared herself unusually well the day before, she fell into a doze from which nothing could arouse her, and which the medical gentleman who attended her immediately pronounced to be the forerunner of death; and at eight o'clock in the evening, without one apparent struggle or sigh, she breathed her last in the arms of her niece, still attended by her unremitting friend Mrs. Burrows.'

The principal pleasures enjoyed by Mrs. Chapone, during the melancholy years of her premature and long widowhood, were derived from cultivating her literary taste, and enjoying the society of those whose conversation was capable of ministering to its gratification. Her acknowleged talents, and the useful exertion of them, made her a welcome guest in the assemblies of the great, the learned, and the wise. We should have thought that her letters might have supplied more ample food for the love of anecdote: but there may be sufficient reasons for not indulging that appetite to a greater extent, The following portrait stands almost single: but it represents a very extraordinary original, and is drawn with skill and spirit:

"The Abbé Reynal dined at Mrs. Boscawen's, Glanvilla, about ten days ago, and she was so obliging as to ask Mrs. A. Burrows and me to meet him in the afternoon. I was exceedingly entertained, and not a little amazed, (notwithstanding all I had heard about him) by the unceasing torrent of wit and stories, not unmixed with good sense, which flowed from him; he had held on at the same rate from one at noon, (when he arrived at Glanvilla) and we heard that he went the same evening to Mrs. Montagu's, in Hill Street, and kept on his speed till one in the morning. In the hour and half I was in his company, he uttered as much as would have made him an agreeable companion for a week, had he allowed time for answers. You see such a person can only be pleasing as a thing to wonder at once or twice. His conversation was, however, perfectly inoffensive, which is more than his writings promise: his vivacity, and the vehe. mence of his action, (which, however, had not any visible connexion with his discourse) were amusing to me, who am little accustomed to foreigners. Mrs. Boscawen is a very good neighbour to us here, and a most delightful companion every where. I never knew her in finer spirits than of late. One could not but make a comparison much to her advantage, between the overwhelming display of the abbe's talents, and that natural, polite, and easy flow of wit and humour which enlivens her conversation."

We close this interesting work with a confident and cordial recommendation of it to every reader who can either think or

feel.

ART. III. Hora Biblica; being a connected Series of Notes on the Text and Literary History of the Bibles, or Sacred Books of the Jews and Christians; and on the Bibles or Books accounted sacred by the Mahometans, Hindus, Parsees, Chinese, and Scan dinavians 8vo. Vol. I. fourth Edition. Vol. II. 2d Edition. 18s Boards. White. 1807.

IT affords us much satisfaction to announce an enlarged

edition of this learned and useful work, which proceeds from the pen of a gentleman of the law, (Mr. Butler, of Lincoln's Inn,) who, according to his motto, prosecutes critical theology as an amusement, and who rivals many divines in his knowlege of the Sacred Scriptures. On former occasions, (see M. R. Vol. xxvii. p. 210. N. S. and Vol. lv. p. 160, N. S.) we paid our respects to this lay-theologian; who displays on the knotty points of Biblical research that neatness and that precision of statement, which are so peculiar to gentlemen of the legal profession, and who sums up evidence pro and con with a fairness which is highly gratifying to searchers after truth. Having, in the articles above mentioned, enumerated the principal contents of these volumes, we can only advert, in this place, to the additions which stamp a peculiar value on the present edition. The whole work appears to have been carefully revised; and we find that Mr. Butler is strictly correct when he observes, Vol. I. p. 66, that the Jews themselves have never admitted the yowel points into the rolls or manuscripts used for religious worship in their synagogues, though they are inserted in the books for the common people."

In our first notice of the Hora Biblica, we transcribed the summary of the contents of the first volume, divided into XVII sections; the last of which consisted of 'general observations on the nature of the various readings of the sacred text, as far as they may be supposed to influence the questions respecting its purity, authenticity, or divine inspiration.' This section, or chapter, Mr. Butler appears to have considerably augmented. After having applauded the useful and magni'ficent exertions which have been made in this country for the purpose of obtaining the sacred text in its utmost purity, by the publication of Bishop Walton's Polyglott, of Dr. Kennicott's Edition of the Hebrew Bible, of fac similes of the

• Le changement d'étude est toujours un délassement pour moi.

D'AGUESSEAU.