which the machine has ground-and of patterns of curicus workmanship and of a talkative battlement; and when he intends to be very vivacious, and severe, and ironical, he says, 'Now, riddle-my-ree, what is this?' (See page 347.) All which very excellent things are printed in italics: and we fairly acknowledge that we could never have suspected that the writer intended to be very witty, without some such indication of his purpose. We have next a somewhat tedious article upon the Chinese works published by the excellent and zealous missionaries of Serampore; a heavy article on the poet Mason; a well-written, but too long article on Insanity, and on the facts which have lately been brought to light concerning the horrible treatment of the unfortunate maniacs; an elaborate article upon the Researches' of the illustrious M. de Humboldt, which is full of prejudice and ill-temper; and a contemptible one upon the Poetic Mirror. The author of this last exquisite piece is pleased to tell us, that he has seen, with inexpressible delight, that admirable tragedian, Mr. Kemble;' and after communicating this very important and interesting information, he is farther pleased to add, that he has seen and laughed at Mathews's mimicry of Kemble.' Nay, he proceeds yet more bountifully to illuminate our darkness by saying, that he has seen actors who were not the mimics but the imitators of Mr. Kemble, who pleased him most when he forgot that they were imitators.' Now let us see how this ingenious person handles the exquisite illustration with which he has favoured us. He tells us, that what Mathews is to Kemble, the Rejected Addresses are to our Poets.' We humbly confess, that we, in our simplicity, never could see any thing at all ludicrous in Mathews's mimicry, beyond the mere circumstance of its being a concentration of the peculiarities of Kemble, and of the other actors whom he imitates-for he repeats the very words of their characters; and the mimicry would become disgusting, if the mimic attempted to give to Penruddock, or Richard III. an air of burlesque. His imitation of the comedians consists in an exaggerated representation of their manner. Now the Rejected Addresses' are broad and farcical imitations of our Poets,-and are very like what they would write, if they were to write in a ludicrous and distorted way, but in their own manner upon that particular subject; though there is not the slightest resemblance beyond the mere structure of their style, between the imitations of Lord Byron, of Walter Scott, or of Crabbe, and what these authors have actually writWe believe, in fact, that the mimicry of Mathews, and of the author of the Poetic Mirror, have a much greater resem ten. 6 blance to each other, in quality, than the talents of this kind which the authors of the Rejected Addresses' possess, bear to those of the comedian; and our critic, we think, might have found a better parallel to the Smiths' vein of imitation, in Mrs. Orger's admirable ridicule in Tilburina, of the exquisite acting of Miss O'Neill in Belvidera. This piece of caricature is quite perfect in its kind; and is, to the pure and touching passion in the representation of Miss O'Neill, exactly what the anamorphosed pictures of the Rejected Addresses are to the poetry of the living originals. We have thrown away more space upon this elegant histrionic illustration of the Quarterly Reviewer than it may seem to be worth; but we could not tolerate the supercilious air and ostentatious bonhommie with which this person has, in his wisdom, dealt us out our dole of intelligence. If he had been revealing to us the causes of gravitation, or unfolding all the sublime secrets of the human mind, the writer could not have displayed an appearance of more exalted beneficence, or of the lofty condescension of a superior being to the frailties and errors of man. We wished also to show how the Quarterly Review, even in matters of taste, reasons from groundless analogies, or from no analogies at all. This benevolent person then proceeds to give us a specimen of what he calls The Guerrilla;' and although we have read the Poetic Mirror with some care, yet we confess that we were a little puzzled to discover the thing which is here spelt with such an agglomeration of rough consonants: however, we stumbled onward to something about a certain CONRADE, which name, though, as usual, mis-spelt, developed the mystery; for we found from this, and a few other instances of the like sort, that the illustrious critic, however learned in other matters, was rather ignorant of Dilworth and Dyche; whose useful books upon English spelling we would, in all humility, recommend to the study of our Reviewer, in the earnest hope that he will be better qualified, by the diligent perusal of these instructive treatises, to produce something in the next number of the Quarterly Review, in which, though we dare not venture to expect any thing like wit, or eloquence, or originality, we may be happy enough to escape the barbarous orthography of which he is now so profuse. We are next told that the author of the Poetic Mirror (sad dog!) imputes to the Laureate, that amiable mau,' a tone of angry egotism of which no example is to be found in bis works: an assertion which, we think, is as intrepid an experiment upon the common sense and understanding of the world as the Quarterly Review, bold as it is in this way, ever ventured to make. This is delightful; but it is a fair specimen of the veracity, impartiality, and modesty of the Review upon all such subjects. The Reviewer quotes the 'Curse,' which, he thinks, some may be willing to denounce against the fraternity: we presume he alludes to such lines as the following: May scorning surround thee,'- And fame shall disown thee And visit thee never' And the curse shall be on thee We are also informed that the story of the Gude Grey Katt' is written in a dialect, or rather a jargon, which the gentle critic doth not understand. Here is a profound Reviewer! This is just as if the learned secretary of the Admiralty had sat down to write his pretty stories for children without understanding Hume; or as if the editor of the Quarterly Review, in the progress of his admirable translation of Juvenal, when he met with such unlucky lines as, 66 quoties lascivum intervenit illud Zwn xas fuxò, &c."—or, e calo descendit Γνώθι σεαυτὸν had added a note to say-Some parts of these lines are written in a dialect, or rather a jargon, so uncouth and unintelligible, that I cannot tell whether Juvenal means to be pleasant or sad; whether he puts in these little crooked letters to make his lines look like Mosaic; whether he means to put them in as feet for the verse to stand upon; or whether he means any thing at all!' We then have an article on Baptismal Regeneration; under which, none but those who can sustain the weight of a modern sermon will be able to remain awake; a review of James's Tour, the writer of which has caught some of the good sense of his author; and an entertaining piece upon the foreign travellers in England, in the which' the writer is profuse of his 'whereins,' and 'whereofs,' and 'heaven knows,' and twenty other things as elegant and emphatic, We are also told that we cannot die while a drop of vitality remains in us.' It is unfortunate for the world that they always knew this-as thereby the benevolence of the author in declaring the valuable discovery which he has just made shows rather ridiculous. We cannot afford to say more of the Quarterly Review; but we have been informed that its style has been praised by the Monthly Magazine for its elegance; and if so, we can only say, that we shall consider that the opinion of that publication is as respectable in matters of taste as it has always been in politics and religion. Upon the whole, we think, old Henry More's Catalogue is very characteristic of the Quarterly Reviewers, and we quote it, at once for that reason, and as a specimen of that school of poetry, to whose revival the efforts of the Review have long been directed: 'That rabble rout Is Ireful-Ignorance,-Unseemly Zeal,- Which-their-dull-skonses-cannot-easily-reach. Song of the Soul. The present admirable Number of the EDINBURGH REVIEW luckily delivered us from the enthusiastic intolerance and blind zealotry of the Quarterly Review; and its first excellent article upon the Life and the Writings of Swift, put us at once in good humour with ourselves. The writing of this article is truly eloquent, if eloquence consists in leaving upon the mind not only an acknowledgment, or even a powerful conviction of truth upon the mind, but a portion of the same feeling with which the author is himself inspired. We really cannot think of any other comprehensive definition. None, we think, with principles above the level of those of a hireling party-scribbler, or of a sleek court-favourite, or of a blind and bigoted Tory, can read that article without feeling his former abhorrence of Swift, and his hatred of the infamous principles which governed him, increased ten-fold. Mr. Coleridge's Poem comes next, which is with great justice consigned to eternal contempt. To the article Ŏn the Liberty of the Press,' we need not give any higher praise, than that it is worthy to be placed along with the other articles on the same subject which the Edinburgh Review has produced. But we hasten on to the superb article on Dugald Stuart's Dissertation prefixed to the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.' To give any analysis of a piece which every one has read, would be useless; but we cannot refrain from expressing at once our unbounded admiration of the various talents of the writer, and the delight and instruction which we have received from his performance. We do not, indeed, remember any prose composition, since the days of Burke, in which so much elegance of fancy, and stateliness of diction, have been joined to so much profoundness and originality of thinking, and the hardihood and severity of philosophy. The Number is altogether a magnificent one; and, in conclusion, we cannot help at once lamenting the deplorable blindness, and marvelling at the deplorable stupidity, which, to all this splendour of eloquence, originality of view, vivacity of wit, and comprehension of mind, can prefer the uniform heaviness, the servile pedantry, the obscure dulness, the bigotry, and the partialities of the Quarterly Review. ART. VIII-A Description of the principal Picturesque Beauties, Antiquities, and Geological Phenomena of the Isle of Wight. By Sir H. C. ENGLEFIELD, Bart. With additional Observations on the Strata of the Island, and their Continuation in the adjacent Parts of Dorsetshire. By TнOS. W WEBSTER, Esq. Illustrated by Maps, and numerous Engravings, by W. and G. COOKE, from original Drawings by Sir H. ENGLEFIELD and T. WEBSTER. pp. xxx. and 242, with 50 plates. Imperial 4to. 71. 7s. Large paper, 101. 10s. Payne and Foss, 1816. SIR H. Englefield is almost the only person of his religion in the United Kingdom who aspires to the character of a man of science; most others of the same faith having no higher pretensions than that of being merely men of letters. Yet, in all ages and nations, men have spoken of the votaries of knowledge as forming a republic, in which there are neither exclusive prerogatives, immunities, nor penalties, and certainly its cultivation in this country is absolutely free to every description of per |