ble. Literary history, however, useful and delightful as it is, is seldom written well. Most compilers of such histories are void of all the spirit and genius which the task requires. We have only to examine the eloges of the French academicians, composed by Fontenelle and D'Alembert, to perceive in what manner literary anecdotes should be written, and to most other writers to see how they should not be given.

We may offer, as a model of this species of composition, some parts of the Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting, by Du Bos. When this ingenious reflector would establish his observation, "that the impulse of genius determines those who were born with it, to become a painter or poet," he shows, by a series of connected anecdotes, that most of the celebrated painters were never born the sons of painters*. As for poets, they are still a more striking testimony of this impulse of genius. No father ever yet designed his son to assume the profession of a poet. We cannot doubt the truth of these observations when we read that variety of facts which he has united with such taste, and which establish the great principle of the impulse of genius. There are other sections in this agreeable work, which instruct us by the happy manner in which he has interwoven among his reflections a series of interesting incidents.

Johnson, who has devoted one of his periodical papers to a defence of anecdotes, expresses himself thus on certain collectors of anecdotes: "They are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not well what advantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, the irregularity of his pulse; nor can I think myself overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of Malherbe, by being ena

* Raphael, observes Du Bos, is the only exception

bled to relate, after the learned biographer, that Malherbe had two predominate opinions: one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent; the other, that the French beggars made use, very improperly and barbarously, of the phrase noble gentleman, because either word included the sense of both."

These just observations may, perhaps, be further illustrated by the following. Dr. Warton has informed the world, that many of our poets have been handsome. This, certainly, neither concerns the world nor their poetry. It is trifling to tell us, that Johnson was accustomed "to cut his nails to the quick.” I am not much gratified by being inform. ed, that Menage wore a greater number of stockings than any other person, excepting one, whose name I forget. The biographer of Cujas, a celebrated lawyer, says, that two things were remarkable of this scholar: the first, that he studied on the floor, lying prostrate on a carpet, with his books about him; and, secondly, that his perspiration exhaled an agreeable smell, which, he used to inform his friends, he had in common with Alexander the great! Somebody informs us, that Guy Patin resembled Cicero, whose statue is preserved at Rome; on which he enters into a comparison of Patin and Cicero. Baillet loads his life of Descartes with a thousand minutiæ, which less disgrace the philosopher than the biographer. Was it worth informing the public, that Descartes was very particular about his wigs; that he had them manufactured at Paris; and that he always kept four? That he wore green taffety in France; but that, in Holland, he quitted taffety for cloth; and that he was fond of omelets of eggs? There are writers who cannot distinguish between such frivolous particulars and those anecdotes which convey some striking sentiment, characteristic of sublime genius. It must also be confessed, that there are readers who, when they meet with interesting

anecdotes of illustrious men, rank them with such frivolous particulars.

Yet of anecdotes which appear trifling, something may be alleged in their defence. It is certainly safer for some writers to give us all they know, than to permit themselves the power of rejection; because, for this, there is required a certain degree of taste and discernment, which many biographers are not so fortunate as to possess. Let us sometimes recollect, that the page over which we toil will probably furnish materials for authors of happier talents. I would rather have a Birch, or a Hawkins, appear heavy, cold, and prolix, than that any thing material which concerns a Tillotson or a Johnson should be lost. It must also be confessed, that an anecdote, or a circumstance, which may appear trivial to the reader, may bear some remote or latent connection, which mature reflection often discovers. It is certain, that a biographer, who has long contemplated the character he records, sees many noble connections which escape an ordinary reader. Dr. Kippis, in closing the life of Birch, has formed an apology for that minute research, which, it is said, this writer has carried to a blameable excess. "It may be alleged in our author's favour, that a man who has a deep and extensive acquaintance with a subject, often sees a connection and importance in some smaller circumstances, which may not immediately be discerned by others; and, on that account, may have reasons for inserting them that will escape the notice of superficial minds."

D'Olivet has been censured for dwelling, in his Continuation of the History of the French Academy, on minute circumstances, unworthy of the dignity of the historian. Perhaps it was unfortunate that his predecessor Fontenelle so eminently distinguished himself in the same career. In a letter which he wrote some time after his work was published, he gives his opinion on these minutiæ of literary history.

He

says, "For my part, I should be charmed if we had a good life of Homer, of Plato, of Horace, of Virgil, and their equals. It is in these cases the minutest details would not fail to interest me; but I would not give a straw to know the year of Rome in which Bavius was born, who were his father, his mother, his nurse, and his preceptor; the number of his brothers and sisters, nor the year and the day in which he died." A warm admirer of any great man never finds any thing uninteresting which relates to him; but some biographers do not recollect, that the lives they record are not always those which enjoy this privilege.

For the Literary Magazine.

P.

THE DELINQUENT, REYNOLDS'S LAST COMEDY.

REYNOLDS, as an author, in fecundity and success, seems to be the only British competitor of the German Kotzebue.

He has so long and deservedly amused the public, that we always regret when he suffers any failure; but it is impossible to be always new and entertaining, and Mr. R. must take refuge in the general and consoling maxim, that "all things have a tendency to deterioration," and that other authors who wield the quill like himself, must soon, like himself, be subject to have it worn to the stumps.

The fable of this piece is contrived to produce absurd surprises; to connect the dramatis persone by links of hidden consanguinity, and to make husband and wife, father and daughter, uncle and aunt, german cousins, and grandmothers, of a set of characters who at the commencement of the play seem nowise related.

The author had probably flattered himself, that it would make a noble incident in his comedy to show a father unwarily entrapped by his ne

cessities to be a pander to his unknown daughter. A ruined baronet is exhibited as the led captain of a young profligate, and is tempted by his patron to steal away a lady from a boarding school, who at last turns out to be his own child.

This incident, however outrageous, is not wholly new; there is something similar in a paper of the Adventurer, in which a father is shown picking up a prostitute in the street, and discovering her to be his daughter.

But it is not sufficient that Olivia should be thus related to sir Arthur; it becomes necessary for the plot of the play that the governess of this young lady should turn out to be his wife, whom he supposed to have been long dead.

Such things as these are certainly out of the common way; and no less so is the circumstance of sir Arthur's creditors tearing all their bills, and cancelling their securities, as if they were so much waste paper. People who have seen much of the world would tell Mr. Reynolds, that bond-and-judgment creditors may be thus easily got rid of in a play, but are not so quickly dispatched elsewhere.

Sir Arthur, however, in the latter end of the comedy, seemed to have moved heaven and earth in his favour, and to have good fortune poured upon him in profuse showers. His outlawry is reversed, without the form of petitioning the court; his bankruptcy is set aside, without any reason assigned; and he is white-washed in a few clap-trap sentences about benevolence and what not.

The other characters of the play, for of the mother and daughter I shall say nothing, as they are in the usual style, the one all virtue, and the other all penitence, are an architect and his son, "Dorie and Co.," the first time, by the bye, I ever heard of a firm of architects, this being a business in which partnership is not very customary.— However, Dorie and Co. are by no means amusing personages. Emery

is a sailor turned jockey; he excites some expectations in the first act, but, in the conclusion, seems to answer no other end than to impress the good moral lesson of the fallacy of hope.

For the Literary Magazine.

PARTICULARS CONCERNING IRE

LAND.

THE climate of Ireland is mild, temperate, and salubrious, and the natural fertility of the soil superior to that of England; the rocks even are clothed with grass. Those of lime stone, with a thin covering of mould, have the most beautiful verdure, so that sheep-walks seem to be pointed out by Nature as the proper destination for a great portion of the soil of this island. Besides these, there are vast tracts of mountainous ground adapted to the rearing and breeding numbers of black cattle, which are expeditiously fattened in the rich and moist plains below. Few countries are watered in an equal degree with Ireland. She boasts of a multitude of rivers, many of them navigable, and of streams innumerable, which, while they refresh the soil, and embellish the scene, invite the hand of industry to lay out bleach-greens, establish manufactures, and erect mills and machinery on the banks. Hence also the means of intercourse of all parts of the kingdom with each other by inland navigation.

The bowels of the earth are rich in mines of copper, lead, and iron; they produce also coals and culm more than sufficient for the consumption of the country, and a variety of other mineral substances of great use in the manufactures. Ireland possesses inexhaustible quarries of beautiful marble, and all the materials for building, wood only excepted, in the greatest profusion.

The situation of Ireland, with respect to foreign relations and commerce, is peculiarly favourable to

the encouragement of industry, and the advancement of productive labour. The principal disadvantages are the want of timber, and of fuel, which is so necessary in almost all the manufactures. The chief manufacture of Ireland is linen. The linen trade replaces three distinct capitals which had been employed in productive labour: the capital of the farmer who produced the flax; the capital of the master manufacturer who employed the hands in its progress to the state of linen web; and the capital of the bleacher who finishes it for consumption.

A manufacture is entitled to preference, which can be fabricated wholly, or for the most part, from domestic materials. This praise is peculiarly due to the Irish linen manufacture, since almost all the money advanced from the capital of the society to set in motion the linen manufacture circulates within the society itself. From the moment of the seed being first put in the ground, to the time of its being exhibited in the market in the form of a piece of white linen, every thing is the native growth of the soil, every thing the productive labour of the inhabitants of the country. This manufacture possesses another excellence; it carries the productive labour of the workman to the highest pitch of value. The acquired value, which the skill and exertion of the manufacturer bestow in the progress of the manufacture, is greater, in proportion to the intrinsic value of the raw materials in the linen manufacture, than in most others. The same parcel of flax may be made into a piece of common linen worth two shillings a yard, or into a piece of cambrick of twelve times the value; merely by the different exertions of the spinners and weavers. A circumstance of peculiar excellence in the linen manufacture is its intimate connection with agriculture; it not only employs the people actually engaged in the manufacture itself, but also the husbandman in raising the product about which it is conversant. The

VOL. V. NO. XXVIII.

cultivation is attended with considerable profit, and employs great numbers of women and children, who might be otherwise a burden on the community.

The principal obstacles to the success of the woollen, cotton, and silk manufactures, and those in which fire is the chief agent, are the want of capital and the want of fuel.

Glass is of such unbounded variety of uses and forms; it is capable of being wrought up to such surprising brilliancy; it not only contributes so much to the embellishment of our houses and tables, but is so necessary, in an infinite variety of applications, to the comfort and convenience, the cleanliness and health of man, that it must quickly become an object of great consideration in every country where industry resides. Considering the prodigious advantages of glazed windows in a cold and moist climate, where the object of the architect must be to transmit as much light as possible, and, at the same time, to exclude the damp air; considering the variety of useful vessels, for common purposes, that are formed of this substance; considering its important services to science, particularly in chemistry, optics, and electricity; it is no wonder that every country should feel the value of this manufacture, and wish to exercise the arts of producing its fabrics. The exertions of Ireland have been directed to this branch of industry; and her essays, as far as they have extended, have been more successful than in most other manufactures, and reflected equal credit on the taste and application of her workmen.

The general obstacles to the prosperity of Irish trade and manufactures are, 1. War. 2. Religious intolerance. 3. Laws indiscreetly meddling, to confine or vex the manufacturer in his operations : such are some of the excise laws. 4. Taxes that check the consumption of a manufacture. 5. Multiplied festivals. 6. Prejudices respecting

8

usury, tending to keep money out of circulation. 7. Luxury among manufacturers, consuming their capital, and cramping their operations. Prodigality is the prevailing disposition of the Irish; their apparel, their houses, their attendants, their tables, their equipages are all in a style respectively beyond their means. This, too, generally begins with the higher orders, and goes on, in a regular graduated scale, down to the lowest classes. Every one aspires to a rank above his own, aping its manners, and vying with it in dissipation. The country 'squire, tired of cultivating his demesne, and leading the life of unassuming ease and plenty, that his ancestors led before him, mortgages part of his estate; buys a seat in parliament; brings his family on the have of Dublin; rigs himself out in clumsy finery, and secondhand airs; haunts levees like a ghost; besieges the doors of secretaries and under-secretaries like a catch-pole ; and thinks himself well rewarded with a place of five hundred a year during the continuance of his parliamentary being. Foolish man! he never stops to consider that the sum paid for his return for a borough, together with what he might have accumulated by economy and decent frugality, would have purchased the fee simple of an income as great as that, for which he sacrifices his independence, his quiet, his character, and the morals of his family.

What does the merchant or shopkeeper? He commences business with perhaps two thousand pounds, which is considered as a handsome capital. The whole or the most part of this capital he expends on the fine of a large house, and on furniture. His stock in trade he obtains on credit. He keeps a pair of hunters and a harlot. He indulges himself in all the pleasures of the table. He frequents the gamingbouse. In short, he lives in a style of a man who had already acquired an ample fortune. He flatters himself that, by frequent entertainments

and conviviality, he shall acquire friends, and form useful connections. His credit totters; he gets a wife, with some money; this wards off the evil day for a season, only to return with greater certainty; for the wife is not less extravagant than the husband. The man becomes a bankrupt; pays two shillings and sixpence in the pound; and is happy if he can become a tide-waiter, a gauger, a hearth-money collector, or an ensign of militia. He dies, and leaves a race of idle, uneducated beggars to burthen the community. Such is the history of many a merchant and master manufacturer in Ireland.

For the Literary Magazine.

TCHIKANAKOA AND THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

TCHIKANAKOA, a celebrated chief, commanded the united Indians at the defeat of St. Clair. He was an uncommon man, for, with the talents and fame of an accomplished warrior, he is the uniform supporter of peace and order, among five or six tribes who put their trust in him; simple, wise, temperate, ardent in his pursuits; speaking different languages eloquently; attached to the hereditary chief of his tribe, whom he supports though he might supplant; preserving his dignity among the vulgar of every rank, by a correct reserve; to his friends, as it were, unembodied, showing all the movements of his soul, gay, witty, pathetic, playful by turns, as his feelings are drawn forth by natural occasions; above all things sincere.

While the weapons, dresses, and trinkets of these people find their way into our cabinets, ornaments drawn from the Indian wardrobe of the mind, the dresses in which they exhibit the creations of their fancy, may by some be thought not uncurious.