For Wil

the author intended it should conciliate the latter. frid's attack upon Bertram, in the second canto, is heroic, and his unhesitating self-devotion to satisfy the thoughtless murmur of Matilda, in the fifth canto, is the noblest action in the poem. But there is such an unlucky moping air with him, such an unmanly submission to disappointment, and above all, such a contrast with the polite, fascinating, and gallant deportment of O'Neale-that he must appear to great disadvantage in the eyes of all the gay and cheerful. With spirits of a more pensive turn, and critics whose judgment takes counsel of sympathy, he will haply find favor, and to them we commend him.

Bertram, Edmund, and Wilfrid are all the characters which need be particularly spoken of. There is nothing new in those of Oswald and Mortham. The story of the latter is obscurely told, and the artifice of his wife's death and son's recovery is trite among the novelists.

O'Neale and Matilda have nothing to distinguish them from Ellen and the Græme, and all the beautiful and gallant heroes and heroines, which have gone before them. In nothing perhaps has Mr. Scott departed so much from the example and rules of the first poet and the first critic, as in fixing the interest of his poems upon characters properly secondary.

But it is time to close these remarks, before we encroach further on the right of private judgment, or expose ourselves longer to the censure, which has been justly passed upon some others, for captious criticism of Scott. We have not thought it necessary to praise Rokeby distinctly, for we have given it the highest praise in placing it upon a level with the other poems of its author. The particular shade of superiority or inferiority we affect not to determine. For ourselves we may say of them all, that we like that best, which we may happen to read last. Each has its peculiarities of beauty and defect. But they have all such an activity of narration-such a faithfulness, yet brilliancy of description-such a magical art of throwing life and interest into every sentiment, person, or thing, that we admire them from feeling and criticise them by effort.

ARTICLE 2.

Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay, who died in Charleston, S. C. on the 10th of June, 1811, in the 52d year of her age. With an Appendix containing extracts from her diary, letters, and other private papers; and also from letters written to her by her father, Henry Laurens, 1771— 1776. By David Ramsay, M. D.

"The experimental part of religion has generally a greater influence than its theory." Mrs. Rowe's Posth. Letter to Dr. Watts.

Printed at Charleston, S. C.-Reprinted Charlestown,
Mass. Samuel Etheridge, jun. 12mo.

THE author and editor of this book evidently lays no claim by it to literary reputation; we shall not therefore regard it in that point of view; the more important office devolves upon us, of considering its moral and religious tendency and character; an office, in a considerable degree delicate and difficult, but which we shall endeavour to perform with seriousness and impar tiality.

However various the different conditions of human life ap pear, a great degree of similarity subsists among all of them. The events, which mark the lives of others, are usually such as have happened, or as, we easily suppose, may happen to ourselves, and the virtues and vices, the personal, moral, or intellectual qualities ascribed to them are such as we ourselves pos sess or want; hence books of biography generally excite a high degree of interest and are read with avidity: the volume before us has already passed through three editions. They take a deep hold of the minds of the young; the facts related and the inferences, which are made from them, are long retained and easily recollected, and there is no species of writing, which, in skilful hands, may contribute more to the promotion of virtue and piety. But the execution of it with any degree of excellence requires talents of a peculiar description, and which fall to the lot of but few. If the art of portrait painting be difficult, it is an art of superior effort to give a just delineation of the intellectual or moral character of another; it is yet more difficult

to analyze it with accuracy; to trace the various influences by which it was formed, to note its progress, and above all things, to estimate with exactness its moral worth.

It is, if we recollect aright, a remark of Dr. Johnson, that a faithful history of the life of any one would be useful. We accede to this sentiment, not from an implicit reliance on his authority, but from a full conviction of its justness. Next to the examination of one's self, a knowledge of human nature will be best attained by the study and observation of the lives and characters of others, and the particular rank, talents, or acquisitions, of the subject of our observation, are of little importance, compared with the kind of view which we take of it; for the principles, the motives, and the passions, from which men act, are, though under different disguises, the same in every condition of human life. A great variety of incidents, or a course of splendid and interesting achievments, works accomplished, dangers encountered, and honors attained are then necessary to render a subject of biography useful, only so far as they serve to develop principles and circumstances, which influence the conduct and mould the character. He is the best biographer, not who recounts with the most critical exactness the circumstances of time and place, but who most faithfully presents to our view the moral features and expression of his subject; the artist, who directs our attention, not merely to the effects produced, but who dissects his machine, exhibits singly and conjointly its various parts, teaches their different uses and mutual relations, and shows how its operations are effected, guided, and controled.

Mrs. Ramsay is a highly deserving subject of biography. The narrative of her life however is dry and formal. Though capable of being rendered extremely interesting and instructive, yet for whatever it possesses of these qualities, it owes nothing to the relater, and is wholly deficient in that warmth and elevation of feeling, with which we should have supposed the husband of a woman, so amiable and excellent, would have dwelt upon her memory.. Some may perhaps find an apology in the haste, in which this volume appears to have been prepared Vol. IV. No. 1.

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for the press, and in the nature of its author's literary and professional engagements.

As a wife, a daughter, a mother, and a friend, Mrs. Ramsay is entitled to high respect. Her history is the history of a useful, virtuous, and pious woman, conscientiously strict in the performance of the various duties of life, attentive to the government of her heart, and steadily devoted to the service of her Maker. Her solicitude for the improvement of her family and the happiness of her husband, her industry and charity were quite remarkable; and she appears to have been strongly possessed of the genuine spirit of Christianity, which led her to forget herself in her concern for others. When we have spoken of her character in these several relations of life, it will be seen, that we have spoken of it, in the most important respects as a Christian; for religion has an intimate and indissoluble connexion with ordinary life; and the performance of our common and private duties, and the accommodation of our temper to the daily variety in our circumstances furnish the best and the only certain test of our religious sincerity, and the proper standard of our religious attainments.

Her biographer has thought proper however to acquaint us with her theological opinions. "A few fundamental doctrines, such as free salvation by the atoning sacrifice of the coequal Son of God and sanctification by the Spirit, she considered as worth contending for." p. 36. Whatever influence this fact may have upon our respect for her understanding, yet as we attach no merit to any opinions, it has none upon our estimation of her moral character; nor are we the less disposed to venerate her seriousness and the spirit and habit of prayer, for which she was distinguished, the ardor of her zeal and the steadiness of her devotion, though associated in the same character with. principles of religious belief, from which our own views and feelings are abhorrent.

In remarking upon the memoirs, we ought not to pass without notice two very extraordinary notes, which are attached to them; pp. 19 and 29; from which it would appear, that Mrs. Ramsay received, in a supernatural way, information of the death of an uncle and a brother. So powerful is human vani

ty, that we are always prepared to doubt the truth of such relations; and so greedily would most men seize at the reputation of being the subjects of a miraculous communication from heaven, that we can much more easily suppose, that circumstances should be made to bend to their wishes, even at the expense of truth, than to believe that a special miracle should be wrought, for no moral purpose whatever. Admitting however the truth of these relations, yet the publication of them will serve only to encourage superstition, and those false pretensions to an immediate intercourse with heaven, from which the worst consequences result.

"It is," says Paley's favorite Tucker, (we quote for those who can understand it, howbeit there is not in all men this knowledge,) "it is of most dangerous tendency for a man to persuade himself he perceives the divine interposition, actually operating upon him. If we conceive Him familiarly present and immediately operating upon ourselves, we shall unavoidably fall into an apprehension of his being absent or regardless elsewhere, and insensibly nourish a conceit of being peculiar favorites. But there are degrees of extravagance, and I am apt to suspect that many pious Christians, especially of the female sex, though not running those lengths, yet do a little surpass the bounds of moderation: therefore they can never be too much upon their guard against the notion of perceiving the immedi ate operations of the Holy Ghost. The thought of a present Deity working in us is an intoxicating thought; the indulgence of it is extremely dangerous. Therefore, as I did before," continues he, "I shall now again recommend to every man to remove the finger of God from him, as far as he can without letting it go beyond the reach of his comprehension; if he believes the grace in his heart owing to a supernatural interposition of the Spirit, still he may place a line of second causes between the act of God and the effect he feels."*

"In apprehending the actions and concerns of men to lie under the continual inspection and conduct of his Providence, we do no more than is agreeable to sound reason and truth; but if we suppose the eye of Providence engrossed by particu· • Tucker's Light of Nature pursued, Vol. v. c. 12. passim.