It appears now to be a generally adopted plan in the education of children, to convey instruction through the medium of amusement. Although I could produce the opinion of Madame de Stael in support of several objections to this system, I shall not venture to raise my humble voice against one which receives the sanction of so many sensible persons who by profession, and so many parents who from choice, superintend the cultivation of the youthful mind: but allowing that this system may offer some advantages in childhood, I think few arguments would be required to prove that the continuation of it, at a later period of life, has an injurious tendency to check the healthy development of the mind, particularly of the female mind. These observations will account for my arranging the following ideas in a didactic form, when they might have been rendered so much more inviting, had they been illustrated in fictitious tales: but still I hope, (and what will not the vanity of authorcraft lead us to hope!) that I shall find some readers amongst the youthful portion of the fair daughters of Eve, for whose perusal the paper was principally written."

The correctness of the opinions we form on the present state and influence of women, may be materially assisted by reflecting for a moment on the first creation of woman; that she was intended by her Creator as a "help-meet" for man: in the present state of society, I think this must be interpreted as applying to her, not only in the relation of husband and wife, but in the several relationships of daughter, sister, wife, and mother, and, in short, in every situation where the exercise of those milder virtues, with which God has marked the female character, may be employed to cheer and solace man in his more rugged path through life. Of course, the exercise of these virtues must always be consistent with a higher duty; and neither filial affection or conjugal love and obedience, should ever induce a woman to do ought that is contrary to the ordinances of her God. We must first inquire whether it would not be in accordance with the intention, that woman should be a "help-meet" for man, to elevate the female character far above its present tone; and then, whether it be not desirable by these means to render

female influence greater, and that influence of a more important and useful nature, than it now is. I think the former query will be answered in the affirmative, by every one who is conversant with the usual employments of the generality of women, and how little of companionship their society offers to a well-educated man. And I believe most persons will allow, that there never was a time when it more behoved women to endeavour by rational means to increase the attractions of home than the present, when the custom of frequenting clubs is become so prevalent among gentlemen; and when, in some instances, even economy seems to range herself on the side of luxury. The intellectual powers of women are supposed to be by nature weaker than those of men, but, if so, still they are capable of much cultivation, and of being raised to a worthy companionship, even with the best intellect of Man: and where, in any instance, this expansion of the mind and reasoning faculties has been effected, it is generally found that such a woman is more perfect in her conduct through all the relations of life, from her duties as a wife down to the conventional forms of civility to an acquaintance. The inferiority of the female character is too frequently attributed to an innate vanity, love of dress, &c.; this is surely an error-these follies are effects not causes: if, in the course of education from the earliest period it commences, the objects and ideas presented to a girl's mind were of a more ennobling description, her mind would develop itself with more masculine energy, and things of a frivolous or enervating character would never seem natural to it. Almost in the nurse's arms the evil of implanting future weeds begins. nursery phrases, " don't be vain of your face," don't be proud of your dress," although meant for the best, are the roots of evil, and should be carefully guarded against: they first introduce into the mind the ideas of beauty and dress, and then fix them there, by continual cautions against them, thereby inducing the child to imagine that those ideas represent things of real importance. As the child advances, she should be encouraged above all things to think, and proper materials for reflection offered to her mind, according to its power. One of the most fre

The

quent causes of the number of mentally unformed and ill-informed women, that are so frequently met with, is, that as girls approach the age when it is the custom to introduce" them, they are permitted to act upon the belief that the business of education and of mental cultivation is over, and that henceforth amusement is to become their sole occupation. What a fatal error is this! at seventeen, what does a girl educated in the usual nanner know of herself, the regulation of her mind, the control of her feelings? How much has she reflected on the peculiar faults of her nature, how strengthened herself against them? How much has she meditated on the value of the gay scenes which court her participation? What ideas has she formed on the means of making her existence useful to others, and of the termination of that existence? And yet, without a single well-defined idea on any of these subjects, a girl leaves the parental roof, and launches at once into the world, as a wife, the mistress of her husband's establishment, and soon perhaps a mother!

The most important event in a woman's life is her marriage, for on it depends not only her own happiness but her husband's; and frequently it involves still more awful consequences: for how often does an ill-assorted union prove the ruin of both husband and wife, hurrying them into extravagance, dissipation, and vice; and when there is a family, the extent of the evil is incalculable. Will children remain good and virtuous, with examples of the contrary perpetually before their eyes? No; they, too, will wander from the paths of rectitude, and spread wider the contagion of bad example. Will the children of dissentient parents enter the married state with proper feelings? No; they, too, will hand down to another and another generation the germs of discord in a state, intended to promote, and (when entered into with reverence and love) which does produce, the most exalted degree of human felicity. Unfortunately there are a great many causes of unhappiness in the married state; and I fear it too frequently is occasioned by the wife, not always from an absence of the desire to render her husband happy, but from uncongeniality of mind, and from what I must call the littlenesses of the female character. A frequent cause of discomfort between young married persons is

money; few young women are taught the value of money, and to regulate their wishes and expenses in proper proportion to their means: when they marry, and have the uncontrolled use of their husband's purse, pecuniary embarrassment is the consequence; then follow discontent, peevishness, &c. If the husband regulates the expenditure, then there is a subject in which they are mutually interested, but which, from the wife's ignorance of it, becomes one in which they have no community of feeling; a serious. evil in the married state, where there should be no divisions of interest, no disingenuousness, no concealments. Another prolific source of conjugal infelicity, is the carelessness so frequently manifested by wives, as to their personal neatness when alone, and the neglect of such accomplishments as attracted their husband's admiration before marriage; nothing cements affection more than similarity of tastes and pursuits, or is more engaging in a husband's eyes, than the desire to please him, and him only; and nothing is more likely to estrange a husband, and to drive him to seek amusements abroad, than a careless wife, or one whose principal aim it is to shine in society. The more cultivated a woman's mind is, assuredly so much the more influence she will have with her husband; but this influence should be directed by the strictest rules of obedience and affection, and should never be so displayed before others, as to detract from the superiority which a husband ought ever to maintain, and which it ought to be the pride of a wife to support by submission. But this influence may sometimes be most happily and beneficially employed. Women, from being more withdrawn from the corruption of the world, retain the purity of their feelings in simple cases of right and wrong, when perhaps a man's judgment becomes warped by his intercourse with mankind; in such cases, how readily would a sensible man be guided by his wife's opinion, if she could give a reason of that opinion, instead of the too general mode of a woman's argument"it is so, because it is." Can there be any happiness, which the world can offer, equal to that which a wife enjoys, who is the chosen companion, adviser, and friend of her husband? And if she be a mother, how must her heart glow with honest and noble pride, to feel that she

The Manuscripts of Erdély: a Romance. By GEORGE STEPHENS. In 3 vols. Smith and Elder.

Although disguised and deformed by whims and vagaries innumerable, we can perceive that this singular production is written by a man of decided natural genius; but, alas! the soil of that genius, luxuriant as it is, is at present wofully overrun by wild weeds, ramping and shadowing the gracious herbs and fair blossoms, so that much we doubt whether useful and profitable fruit will ever come to perfection. At least, it will require the mighty effort of an energetic character to subdue, and arrange, and turn to good purpose, the chaotic elements of the mind and memory that has poured forth this romance.

The "Manuscripts of Erdély" are as full of learned research and classical allusion as "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy," or the writings of Jeremy Taylor: there is, however, little taste shown in the manner in which he has perverted his historical knowledge. The true adventures of Queen Isabella of Hungary, and her infant son John Zapoyla, surnamed the Orphan, afterwards Waivode of Transylvania, are far more interesting, and really in a more captivating spirit of romance, than those of the fictitious daughter, Czerina, provided for her in the "Manuscripts of Erdély." As for the MSS. themselves, they are so headed, instead of being called chapters: a very harmless whim, that nought affects the matter contained therein. The author possesses valuable information respecting the costume, manners, and statistical knowledge of Hungary at that eraknowledge that, if skilfully developed, would have had the finest effect on the story; but it passes our patience to see precious material lavishly wasted, and an accomplished mind produce such a crude and shapeless work. This may be accounted for by the mania of the day for writing without correction or polish, which is alone practicable when an author has learnt his business. Oh, for the good old times when authors never published till they could induce a publisher either to purchase a manuscript, or at least take the risk of it! then must the "Manuscripts of Erdély" have been put in

a marketable condition the following emendations must have taken place :The story must have been told in a perspicuous style; the unmerciful abuse of adjectives must have been abated; the flighty rants reduced into readable order -in short, our learned and fantastical student must have tamed the wildest of his vagaries, and pruned the rest into rational shapes. Then he must have come to the conclusion, that a prodigality of horrors defeats the purpose of literary terror; he would have forbidden himself the profuse use (or rather the abuse) of coffins, skeletons, and charnelhouses; he would per force have analysed how much more truly terrific the simplest circumstance told in the quiet language of Defoe or Brockdon Brown becomes, than if these magic writers had introduced their readers to a myriad of mouldering corpses and gory skeletons. The hair rises and the blood thrills at the mere foot-print of a savage on the sea-beach in "Robinson Crusoe:❞—this is an old criticism we are aware, and we merely quote it as a familiar instance of the mighty effect on the human heart, produced by simplicity of language and felicity of incident, worked up by a chastened genius-chastened in the most ef fectual of all schools-poverty. Neither do we recommend literal imitation, but would point out how completely Brockdon Brown has formed himself by this example without plagiarism. Our author requires perspicuity of thought, as well as of style; his mode of narrative is cramp and difficult, excepting in some instances where there are glimpses of natural genius, that break through the trammels of the pedantic whimsies with which he has fettered himself. reading is immense; but he has read without taste, and to him may be applied the unjust remonstrance wittily brought against that most amusing creature, Hearne, the antiquary :

His

Quoth Time enraged, to Thomas Hearne,
Whatever I forget you learn!
Then Hearne replied, in furious fret,
Whate'er I learn you soon forget!

We have found it requisite to speak the uncompromising truth-we hope not in the manner of an ill-natured cutting up. Yet we have not done, for we have

a more serious charge to bring against Mr. George Stephens than errors of taste or ill-digested learning-this is a want of moral purity; and that injurious taint (if he is not convinced of its turpitude) will be a complete bar to eminence as an author: it will infallibly limit his readers. If he retains this evil bias, although he may correct his style of diction and narrative to the literary perfection that will render his works po pular to a certain degree, yet their perusal must be confined to coarse-minded men, or women that are coarser than any men. He often indulges himself in small digressive passages, addressed to fair and gentle readers as his, par excellence yet it is requisite that he should be informed that ladies to whom both these epithets justly apply will throw down the book, disgusted by his bold license. If he has not seen it, let him attentively peruse the beautiful essay on the "Moral Fame of Authors," published by Prince Hoare in the last volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature:" he will there see the opinion of a scholar, and a ripe one, whose reading (however trifles may have formerly escaped from his pen) is as deep as his own, and whose acquirements are chastened by elegant taste and sound judgment.

a

Perhaps after reprehension on point of such vital importance to female readers, we ought not to introduce a single passage of the work to their notice; but, in the hopes that an author of such rare acquirement may be won to the cause of virtue and purity, and may devote improved talents and chastened genius to their service, we quote a passage, in which his hero, the cardinal regent of Hungary, whose character is well sustained throughout, appears with grand effect :

:

"The clock of the abbey knelled three hours after midnight, as the regent touched land. He instantly mounted on his Anatolian charger, and rode to a gentle eminence, which commanded a view of the battle field, now veiled in the dim indistinct twilight of the waning stars. He had no difficulty, however, in tracing the enemy's position on the opposite bank, by the pale glimmer of their watch-light.

"My lords and co-patriots,' said the regent, addressing himself to his chiefs and principal officers, who now congregated round him, to learn the order of battle, and

receive his last commands; this day the insulting spoiler must either bite the dust, or Hungary bid adieu henceforth for ever to that independence of a foreign yoke, which, for centuries, it has been the glory of her sons to preserve inviolate. For such as outlive this day, there is no middle condition between slavery and triumph. Is there a man of ye, but who would call upon his native soil to cover him, rather than he daily and hourly held in subjection, by German laws and German lawgivers? Is there one who would not prefer, that the source of life failed, as beseems a hero and a patriot, in the field of carnage, than, for the sake of a wretched remnant of existence, to have the tide at one eternal ebb, indignant at the heart, and feel, ay, witheringly feel, the honest crimson mantling his manly brow in humble shame, before whom?-his God?no, his fellow-creature! but not his fellowcountryman; before the Nemet* viceroy and the Nemet waivode, to know, like the despoiled and enslaved Bohemian, that his country's vars and cities have Austrian governors; to see his own allodial estates, the castles and manors of his fathers, possessed by Austrians of the meanest birth and lowest station, and to be loaded, like the citizens of Praed, so late his fellow-subjects, with new and exorbitant imposts, to defray the expense of his coercion. To know,-ay, mark this, my friends! and let it nerve your arms, and make steady your hearts, in the hour of battle,-to know, I say, that that crown, which he, who annexed Erdély to the territory of the Magyars, and who now, a blessed saint in heaven, looks down on this day's great question received, as a symbol at once, and an evidence of Hungaria's sovereignty,—that this crown, fabricated by angels, that erst circled the head of Constantine himself,-this crown, the gift of Rome, is worn by a petty prince of Germany, . . by one, to whom our laws are unknown, and our customs contemned, and who, without scruple, will abrogate the one, and abolish the other; to whom our beautiful tongue is a dead letter, and the classic language of our constitution, that which Cicero spake, and which hath clothed our coronation oath, with I know not what of sanctity, for many a century of freedom, -that language, ay, by heavens! the very words, by virtue of which Ferdinand will wear your crown, are a blank to the barbarian!WILL wear your crown, did I say?—indeed, you need not hope for such an honour; no, by one act, your conqueror means to deprive you of the favour of leaven, which the possession of St. Stephen's diadem typifies, and assures to Transylvania, and to despoil you of all honour among the nations, by bearing away the ornament of your kings—whither? -to Vienna. Infamous plunder! eternal Nemet, i. e. German.