REVIEWS OF LITERATURE, AND SPIRIT OF FOREIGN MAGAZINES. SELECTED AS A MONTHLY MISCELLANY, FROM THE LATEST AND BEST FOREIGN REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES; AND Designed to give the Essence of all that is interesting "The wheat from all these publications should, from time to time, be winnowed, PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY JOHN F. WATSON, BOOKSELLER, And by the Booksellers in the principal cities in the United States. 1812. ADVERTISEMENT. THE selected literary articles here offered to the American public in a periodical form, if chosen with a judgment equal to the expectations of the Editors, must contain an assemblage of the most interesting and agreeable papers: nothing less, than the essence of all the best foreign productions published within the last three or four years, in the English and Scottish capitals, in the form of Reviews, Journals, and Magazines. To this are occasionally added such original Reviews of distinguished American works as have well deserved the place. The motive which led to this compilation was chiefly to present our countrymen at the least expense, the opinions and speculations of the great and leading literary and political writers abroad. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, alone, gleaned into this work, furnish such able writings as flow from the pens of lord Petty, the earl of Selkirk, Jeffray, Playfair, Stewart, Brougham, Horner, and the reverend Sydney Smith, on one side; and Canning, Hookham Frere, John Smith, George Ellis, Walter Scott, Southey, Stephen, Gifford, and the reverend Gerard Andrews, on the other side. Indeed it is a confessed fact, that since periodical works received their first renown under such geniuses as Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Johnson, Marmontel, 1 |