part of this Number) is the largest specimen that has of them comes under the observation of a literary appeared in the course of last year. Another species reviewer; but that little gives us no cause to regret which more properly falls under the denomination of that it is not more. To rehearse and perform legitibiography, is the publication of private letters, con- mate tragedy and comedy is too great a labour for the nected perhaps by short narratives, to prevent the performers who enjoy the monopoly of our theatrical thread of the story from being broken. The life of amusements. Velucles are found a much more Cowper, by Hayley, is a work of this sort; and (how manageable commodity; and if the author can derive much soever we disapprove her observations on them) considerable profits from his vehicle, why should he the world is obliged to Miss Williams for the private toil at a more finished performance, which will most correspondence of Louis XVI. The public has lately probably be left on his hands? We have this last year been presented with a collection of the letters and had vehicles of all descriptions; vehicles for music, other pieces of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley for action, for situation; nay every actor has had his Montague, some of which had never before appeared vehicle for that talent in which he imagines himself in print. There is nothing in general, which can give most to excel while the meagre skeleton that comes a better opportunity of understanding a man's private to us through the press, makes the country reader character than those letters he never meant for the pub-wonder how a London audience should be attracted lic eye; but over-officious friends would do well to re- and pleased by what presents to him nothing more collect that by their cares in preserving to the world these than a few ill-arranged and affected expressions interfragments, they often expose weaknesses which might spersed with abundance of stage directions. As the otherwise have been buried in oblivion. We are also comedy of John Bull has been given to the world only compelled by the collections of letters lately produced, to through a pirated edition, we shall merely observe remark in a particular manner, that the unselected cor- with regard to it, that it is a pity the manager should respondence, not only of obscure individuals, but even buy off the publication of any piece that has pretenof public characters, unless their private habits be in- sions to nature or humour. teresting, are equally tedious and uninstructive.

In WORKS OF FANCY, the last year has by no means been fortunate. Novels, plays, and poems indeed, appear in as rapid succession as-the streamers of the northern lights, we would say, were it not improper to compare with this brilliant meteor those unlustrous productions that do not even flash before they disappear from the sight for ever. The novels of the present day indeed serve the end of their creation; they bring a little money into the pockets of the writers, and enable the proprietors of circulating libraries to fill up their shelves at a cheap rate. And did their whole effects stop here, we should pass them over most willingly in the silence to which they are speedily consigned but a severer censure ought to attend the consequences which we daily see flowing from them, in misleading the imaginations and corrupting the affections of those young men and women, whose parents are not sufficiently careful in directing their tastes and strengthening their moral principles. Instead of affording pictures of real life, and useful lessons for its conduct, the novels which have disgraced the press of last year, exhibit a meagre story, spun out into four or five wide-printed volumes, interspersed with a few improbable incidents to keep up the interest, embellished with some florid bombast known by the name of poetical description, and garnished throughout with that sentimental jargon which serves to debauch and fritter away all the better feelings of the young and thoughtless. Madame de Stael's Delphine, from the rank of the authoress and the superior extravagance of the performance, stands conspicuous among the novels of last year. We should earnestly wish that female performances of this sort were ever known in this country only by translations; nor can we account it a sufficient excuse for the prostitution of our country-women's talents, that their novels are usually too great nonsense to produce any effect either good or bad.

With regard to our theatrical performances, little

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Of the POETRY of last year, we can enumerate only some characteristics; the reader will find examples for himself in any poem of the period which may fall into his hands. The strong bent which the minds of men have of late years taken towards experimental philosophy, has induced men of poetical genius to attempt adorning these topics with the garland of the muse. The possibility of the attempt we shall not at present question; but must observe that the language of science being chosen merely for its precision, without any regard to melody or idiom, makes the most grotesque appearance imaginable amidst the glowing sentiments and language of poetry; while the results of experimental philosophy, which are obtained by separating and classifying groupes of facts, must be again mingled and confounded before they can be formed into the new associations of fancy. Dr. Darwin perceiving these stubborn obstacles, endeavoured to surmount them by personifying all nature, and making plants and minerals, as well as abstract qualities of all sorts, talk and act like (whimsical) men and women. The identity of species and qualities was thus indeed preserved to those who would undertake the task of decyphering these stranger than || mythological fables; but instead of adorning science and rendering men enamoured of her, the poem was pleasing only so long as science kept out of sight; for as soon as Tetradynamia, or any other equally respectable father of a botanic family made his appearance in propria persona, the delusion vanished, and the reader was suddenly transported from a crowded assembly of gay and splendid personages, to the dry and uncouth catalogues of Linnæus. The perpetual personification of herbs and elements, was also too shocking to the common-sense of grown up persons, however probable it might appear to the philosophy of Darwin, which taught him that a cod-fish might in the ordinary course of things, obtain the form and qualifications of a counsellor of state. One might have hoped that the well-executed ridicule of the

Lorces of the Triangles would have opened his eyes to || and already have Swift, Addison, and other revered the folly of his endless personifications, but his posthu- geniuses, appeared before the public in shreds and mous work The Temple of Nature, which appeared patches, with an ignominious ana tacked to their in the course of last year, presents another instance names. Nothing can be more injurious to the fame of a genius capable of excelling both as a poet and a of an author, than thus to mangle his writings, and philosopher, yet so led astray by a perverted imagina- deal them out to readers in detached morsels; and tion, that his labours serve only to corrupt the taste unless parents and teachers strictly guard against the and confound the judgment. If the Temple of Nature rising generation acquiring a taste for such frivolous really do belong to that goddess, we must conclude || and unprofitable reading, we may expect soon to find that she reckons it too fine to be inhabited, for certain the true spirit of our best authors forgotten, and their it is, we are able to discover scarcely any trace of her names only known from their ana's. footsteps on its threshold.

Among the new editions of celebrated authors illustrated by the labours of ingenious men, we in particular remark an edition of the British Essayists, by Mr. Chalmers, in which he has introduced some explanatory notes and several prefaces abounding with learning and information.

In this general review we have comprehended most The superior genius of Darwin, has made us select of the works translated from other languages, as well him as an example of errors we would expose, and as those which have originally appeared in our own. which a numerous tribe of imitators are daily propa- A translation of Plato, by Mr. Taylor, which has gating. Nor has he been less successful in hastening just appeared, will be a valuable present to the public, the corruption of the poetic style. A sickly aversion if the merit of the translation corresponds with the to the smallest appearance of ruggedness and uncouth-beauty of the work, which is handsomely printed in ness in the versification, has for some time been grow-five quarto volumes. ing on the public taste; and our late importations of German sentiment, so much in unison with soft and mellifluous periods, have hastened the banishment of all obstinate ideas which might obstruct the uninterrupted flow of modulation. This improvement has been greatly facilitated by a new species of expletive. The do's and did's of Queen Anne's days are indeed wholly banished; but their room, and much more than their room, is occupied by an exhaustless flood of sonorous epithets. By means of these new expletives, the fortunate poet is enabled, without much thought or talent, to prolong a poem to any given length, without adding an idea; it also enables him to smooth away every appearance of harshness in his lines, and to produce such exact and melodious rhymes, that for pages together, nothing appears to disturb the repose of the reader "slumbering near." It is by means of these convenient expletives that Darwin contrives to round and accumulate that endless

flow of smooth lines, with which he enwraps his imaginary personages; nor has a single poem of any length appeared in the course of last year that does not owe much of its length and smoothness to the same expedients.

The superb editions of our most eminent British authors in prose and verse, which are daily issuing from the press, would demand our highest applause, if they were in truth a tribute of respect paid to genius: but when we see the same superb decorations prostituted to the most trivial and insipid performances, we are apt to utter a fervent wish that these fine editions be not wholly designed for those who may admire their appearance too much to sully them by use.

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REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the early English Poet; including Memoirs of his near Friend and Kinsman John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; with Sketches of the Manners, Opinions and Literature of England, in the Fourteenth Century. Two Volumes. 4to. R. Philips.

The notoriety which Mr. Godwin has acquired by his publications, as various in subject as in size, naturally attracts considerable attention to whatever appears under his name. Report has caused the Life of Chaucer to be looked upon as a favourite child, as a work which has particularly occupied the industry of the author; and men have been anxious to know what could be said about a period that has not hitherto been considered as a promising subject for literary labour. Of the contents and merits of this work we shall attempt to give a representation, without allowing, if

We cannot close our general view of the literature of 1803, without remarking one most corrupt abuse that has during that period much encreased in the literary world. We allude to those crude scraps of celebrated authors which are ushered into the light, distinguished by the termination ana. Among the light and frivolous authors which swarm at Paris, it became customary to collect anecdotes, fragments, excerpts, &c. of all denominations, unconnected by any natural association, and without diligence in the author to arrange and digest them. These crude materials were, for a trifling price, put into the hands of a bookseller, and soon appeared under some deno-possible, the former reputation or principles of the mination common to the subject matter, with the addition of the termination ana. Thus among others were produced Robespierriana, Bonapartiana, and one still better defined, Asiniana. This fashion having been transported to London, soon became the subject of imitation. Needy men, without talents or information, found it convenient to procure a small sum of money by dilapidating our most esteemed authors;

author, in any degree, to influence our minds: principles may without blame be modified and altered by experience; and to appreciate works by the former reputation of the author is an error of the public, which has fatally obstructed the exertions and improvement of the most eminent literary talents.

Biography may be divided into two classes: the one details to us the actions, sentiments, and circumstances

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to make every other subject appear introduced with a view to throw light on the sentiments and actions of that poet. When it is intended to discover what were the early associations of ideas in the mind of Chaucer, Mr. G. thinks himself perfectly well entitled to introduce for this purpose a description of every thing the poet had seen or might have seen, every transaction in which he might have been engaged, or of which he might have heard by report. The state of religion, of architecture, of public amusements, of the city of London, during the period of his youth, might all have influenced the formation of his mind, and these topics are therefore attached to this part of his history; and in the same manner whatever might have contributed in the progress of his life to alter his sentiments, comes successively under review.

of an individual, with a view to give us a full picture nections are for the most part only obscurely guessed of his character and situation; the other, taking the at from the hints which casually occur in his poems; history of an individual merely as a link to connect a and even of the little handed down to us concerning series of events or opinions, makes him at all times him, there is scarcely one circumstance which has not subservient to this main purpose, and when he ap- been disputed. Chaucer is also known merely as the pears, it is evident he is made to do so, not so much early English poet and therefore to connect, by any for his own sake as to suit the occasions of the author. thing like a natural association, the history of the reFrom the former species, we become acquainted with ligion, military pursuits, and civil government of his the motives which influence, and the consequences times, with the events of his life, required no small which follow the actions of mankind; and whatever share of ingenuity and pains. To obviate this difficulty be the rank, talents, or reputation of the character de- Mr. Godwin has adopted a plan in some degree new : scribed, a well-written account of him is always en- instead of employing Chaucer's life to connect the vatertaining and instructive, if he has either said or donerious circumstances of which he treats, it is his aim any thing that deserves to be recorded. The second species of biography does not so much respect the character as the situation of the individual; if he has founded a system of philosophy, the opinions of that system may be detailed in his life; if he has commanded the armies of his country, the general history of the wars in which he has borne a conspicuous part, may be properly incorporated with his own history; the poet, the legislator, the artist, who have made any striking advances in their respective pursuits, may very properly have their lives selected as the connecting link in the history of these pursuits at the period when they flourished. The more prominent the figure, the better it is adapted for this purpose; for the mind revolts at seeing the actions or opinions of more illustrious men placed in the train of an individual comparatively obscure. Nor is it doing a less violence to our usual associations, to drag forcibly into the life of an individual, things quite foreign to those pursuits in which he obtained eminence: to comprehend a history of our civil wars in the life of the poet Milton, or to introduce into the life of Sir Isaac Newton an account of the state of poetry at the period when he lived, ap-ing objects every man directs his attention to some one pears at once absurd; we should look into their lives more than another, when we reflect that scarcely two for one species of information, and we should be dis- men are to be found on whom these objects make the appointed and chagrined to find another of an entirely same impression, we must be convinced that to give different nature. To avoid what so evidently shocks the a general description of what any man might have seen association of ideas, writers, who have been particularly or heard, produces no distinct idea of what really inattached to the form of biography, and who wished to fluenced his mind. It is the province of legitimate introduce under it a greater number of circumstances biography to ascertain this latter point, and thus to than could well be associated with the description of discover the circumstances which distinguish a man any private individual, have chosen the life of the from the rest of his species. Without such informaPrince or public Governor as the connecting link of tion, to present the reader with a general view of concircumstances which happened during his administra-comitant circumstances, serves only to bewilder him, tion. A public Governor occupies in a country nearly the same situation as in this species of biography; he is the great connecting link to which the eyes of the whole society are turned; we do not associate the idea of his life with any particular species of pursuit, nor are we surprised to find interwoven with it any transaction of the country and age in which he lived.

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The Life of Chaucer evidently belongs to the species of biography we have just been describing: the circumstances more particularly relating to himself occupy a comparatively small part of the work he is chosen as the connecting link in a description of the manners, literature, and various other circumstances of the times in which he lived. In adhering to this design, however, Mr. Godwin has had many difficulties to contend with; the events of Chaucer's life which have reached us are extremely few; his sentiments, habits, and con

This plan of biography, considering it on general principles, seems extremely objectionable. It indeed presents to the view a general picture of what might have influenced the formation of the individual's mind, but discovers nothing of what actually did influence it. When we consider that of the numerous surround

and render him liable to error: he has to guess which of them really influenced the mind of the object of his enquiry; and if he should happen to guess wrong, the biographer is directly chargeable with giving him false ideas of human motives and actions. But the author of the Life of Chaucer does not leave the reader to the dangerous dilemma of guessing; he takes that risque upon himself; and accordingly, through a great part of the work, whenever Chaucer appears, it is for the purpose of shewing what impressions such and such circumstances probably produced on his mind. We do not blame Mr. G's. industry for not obtaining more complete information; we believe he has done nearly all in any man's power for this purpose: but when he saw that time had destroyed almost every document from which distinct information could be extracted, he should not have eked out his scanty materials by

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suggestions of fancy, and then held out this offspring the otherwise disjointed particulars with which the of imagination to the world as an actual narrative of canvas is diversified." The propriety of this arrangethe Life of Chaucer. We must also take the libertyment we have already considered. to say, that the principal figure appears to us disproportionate to the ornaments with which it is surrounded. Allowing all due reputation to Chaucer for whatever is certainly known concerning him, allowing him to have introduced a taste for original English poetry, and to have been the favourite of princes, still we are not a little astonished to find law, religion, courts, statesmen and soldiers, starting up on every side, and all for the sole ostensible purpose of influencing this early poet's mind. We admire the curious and splendid machinery of that age; but we are surprised and half indignant at the purposes to which it is applied.

We have stated the impression left on our minds by the plan of Mr. Godwin's work: it is a question in a great measure distinct from that of the execution. We have been the more particular in stating our reasons against the plan he has pursued, as from the prevalence of a taste for this mode of biography, we might soon expect to see this department of literature intirely lose its character, and the Life of a man brought to signify, a collection of whatever happened in his time, whether he was interested in the circumstances or not.

Mr. G. complains of the meagre and dry details which are usually given to the world by antiquaries, and states it to have been his wish in this work carry the workings of fancy and the spirit of philosophy into the investigation of ages past." He congratulates himself on having made many discoveries by resorting to the national repositories in which our ancient records are preserved; a method of investigation he says almost entirely neglected by Mr. Tyrwhitt, the last editor of Chaucer. The full result of these labours however, he has not been permitted to give to the public, as the bookseller assured him that two volumes in quarto were as much as the public would allow the title of his book to authorise. He assures us also of a very material point, that no reference has been trusted without actually inspecting the book to

which it was made.

The preface is followed by a dissertation on the date of Chaucer's birth, the usual date assigned to which is 1328. In a deposition however made by the poet in a disputed case of chivalry in 1886, he states himself to be forty years and upwards, whereas according to the commonly received date of his birth, he must then have been fifty-eight years of age. After some reasonings on both sides, Mr. G. declares in favour of the received chronology. Indeed, as he confesses, the new computation, if admitted, would destroy the whole fabric of the poet's education and early pursuits.

To analyse the work is the best method of enabling our readers to judge for themselves in what manner Mr. Godwin has executed his plan. In the preface, (which by the way is divided into sections in order to suit the frittering taste of the age) the author gives us his own ideas of his work. Every writer may be allowed to invite attention by magnifying in some degree The date of Chaucer's birth was first assigned to the the object of his labours; particularly a biographer year 1328 by Mr. Specht, from comparing the inscripwho, as in the present instance, proposes to exalt his tion on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, which states subject above the rank he bears in the ordinary opinion that he died in 1400, with the accounts given by of mankind: yet with all these indulgences we cannot Leland of the times when he flourished. The place but be startled at the first sentence of the preface; of his nativity is assigned to the city of London, from "The two names which do greatest honour to the a passage in his works where he speaks of it as exciting annals of English literature, are those of Chaucer and in him that enthusiasm which all creatures feel towards of Shakspeare." That Chaucer was a wonderful poet their native spot. The inferences drawn from this when we consider the times in which he lived, no man passage are, that he also spent his early years in will dispute; but to enthrone him above Milton and all London, and that he was the son of a merchant. the other splendid geniuses who have adorned our lite- This latter inference Mr. G. assures us is somewhat rature both in prose and verse, is an hyperbole of ra- plausible: there are few hypotheses so ridiculous as ther inauspicious aspect at the commencement of a not to have this claim, at least, on our belief. The work. Mr. G. further informs us, that " no one mention of London gives occasion to introduce a man in the history of human intellect ever did more history of that city, its flourishing state under the than was effected by the single mind of Chaucer." || Romans, its decay under the Saxons, its recovery "The first and direct object of this work is to erect a under the Norman kings; its rapid increase of popumonument to his name, and, as far as the writer was lation, and the wealth of its citizens, some of whom capable of doing it, to produce an interesting and in the days of Chaucer, were able to give sumptuous amusing book in modern English, enabling the reader entertainments to kings. who might shrink from the labour of mastering the phraseology of Chaucer, to do justice to his illustrious As a secondary object of his plan, he says, that "if the knowledge of contemporary objects is the biography of Chaucer, the converse of the proposition will also be true, and the biography of Chaucer will be the picture of a certain portion of the literary, political, and domestic history of our country. The person of Chaucer may in this view be considered as the central figure in a miscellaneous painting, giving unity and individual application to

Chaucer's probable initiation in letters in the city of London, introduces an account of the state of literature in that age. Learning had in a considerable degree recovered from the barbarism of the dark ages; the Norman race of kings were scholars themselves and the patrons of learning. Travellers had, under Henry I, begun to import the learning of the Saracens from the east: several popular histories were translated or composed, and eagerly received. Literature, however, still groaned under great disadvantages from the paucity of books, and the despotism of papal super

stition, which, however, was now on the decline. of the former against the Saracens in Spain was comThe discredit into which the English language had posed, as tradition has it, by Turpin, archbishop of fallen in consequence of the introduction of a foreign Rheims, in the year 1100; and Geoffrey of Montongue by the Norman invaders, prevented any works mouth discovered in a convent a fabulous history of of literature from being written in our vernacular the kings of Britain, from the Trojan Brutus downidiom. In London, however, in spite of all these wards. Wace, and Benoit de St. Marc wrote their obstacles, learning was cultivated with considerable romances in the reign of Henry II. and to Wace, the success: it contained in the times of Henry II. three origin of romance, strictly so called, may be ascribed. public schools, besides many private seminaries, in This subject being exhausted, Chaucer again apwhich the arts of logical disputation, the elements of pears. Our author justly asserts the importance of grammar, and exercises in verse, formed the principal proper religious impressions in our early years; and topics of education. Although London had probably, concludes that the poet could not fail to be early inby Chaucer's time, declined in these characteristics of structed in whatever was regarded as "seemly, decent, an university, by the rising reputation of Oxford and and venerable:" and thus an opportunity is afforded Cambridge, yet it probably still retained many of its of introducing a description of the Roman Catholic schools; and, inferring from his mercantile birth that religion in the middle ages. The decay of this imChaucer was not educated according to the custom of mense fabric, Mr. G. ascribes to the unfortunate re-› those days, as a page to some of the nobility, Mr. G.sult of the crusades. These expeditions "were atpictures to himself the poet daily resorting to one of tended indeed with the utmost brilliancy and astonishthe seminaries of the metropolis, and there doubtlessment; they propagated a sentiment almost beyond becoming acquainted with the favourite Roman authors of the day. The poets of the Augustan age were then deserted for the florid writers of later times; and Greek literature was unknown.

the powers and the sphere of the human mind. But this very circumstance was pregnant with ruin: they stretched too vehemently the religious nerve in the soul of man; and their ultimate defeat recoiled with Among the other early studies of Chaucer, our au- fatal effect to plague their inventors." Unless this thor thinks it can scarcely be questioned that romance religious nerve means the abject dread of something was a favourite species of reading; and hence he unknown, which we call superstition, we must own takes occasion to elucidate the origin of romance, ourselves at a loss to explain it if our author means and its concomitant circumstances. Romance arose to assert that these terrors were much dissipated on in the twelfth century from chivalry which prevailed discovering the fallacy of the Pope's pretensions by in the eleventh century; and the origin of the latter the result of the crusades, we allow the truth of the is to be referred to the feudal system which was es- observation; but there were many other circumstances tablished in its most perfect form two centuries be- in the state of European nations and the natural profore. In the description of the feudal system whichgress of the human mind, which tended infinitely succeeds, nothing new is added by Mr. Godwin to the labours of former inquirers. In the days of Chaucer, he observes, this system was already a ruin, but its effects on society are conspicuous even in our days.

more to the overthrow of the Roman Catholic religion than the bad success of the crusades.

The strong and permanent hold which the Roman Catholic religion gained on the minds of men, GodRomance was a record of the adventures of persons win attributes chiefly to its so forcibly addressing the educated in those arts and habits of thinking, which senses. "Religion," he observes, "is nothing, if it arose from the spirit of chivalry, when every appeal be not a sentiment and a feeling" we may add, was made to the sword, and when feats of prowess-that if it be nothing more than a sentiment and a were accounted the noblest of human actions. A feeling, it is not religion. Unless the grounds of bethousand supernatural and impossible ornaments, lief be ascertained, unless the understanding be inwhich were, however, allowed by the ignorance of the formed and convinced, unless devotion proceeds from age, were intermingled with the narrative. Romances rational motives, it may be passion, it may be feeling, at first consisted of songs for festivals, and were ac- it may be the tremors of the religious nerve, but it companied with instrumental music. Their origin is cannot be "piety towards God, or love towards man.” referred by our author to the Runic and Scandinavian By Mr. Godwin's calculation the most ignorant and Scalds. While poetry was blended with the pagan abject bigot, prostrated before a piece of the true mythology, it was gloomy and obscure; and it was cross, during what he emphatically terms the "relinot till Christianity had broken this connection, that gious ages,' was infinitely more possessed of real the compositions of the minstrel became sportful, and Religion, than the enlightened christian of the ninethe great source of pleasure in every scene of festivity. teenth century who founds his belief on conviction, Minstrels were yet in their highest reputation in the and worships God in spirit and in truth. If we esti-. days of Chaucer. mate Religion by Mr. G's scale, the degree of imIt is a characteristic of the old romance, that it pression produced on the senses by its external ceregives the manners and adventures of chivalry to per-monies, we shall look upon the reformed religion as a sonages drawn even from the remotest periods of Greece and Rome. Charlemagne, Emperor of the West, and Arthur, king of Britain, with their followers, were the subjects of the two first romances of note. A grand prose narrative on the imaginary feats

VOL. III.

very bare and inefficient worship indeed; the Roman Catholic, with all its appendages of images and processions, will rise higher in the scale; but the pagan faith which made a man see in every tree, shrub, and rock, the habitation of some god or demon, who had

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