NEW EDITIONS.

The Dominician, a Romance. By Capt. T. Williamson, author of the wild sports of the east, in 2 vols. boards. Price $1 50. New York; I. Riley.

The Village Pastor and his children; a novel from the German of Augustus la Fontaine. New York; D. Longworth. Price 2 dollars.

Christian Memoirs, in the form of a new pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem: an ingenious allegory in imitation of Bunyan's pilgrim's progress. Boston; Manning and Loring. Price $1 12 1-2 cents.

An Oration pronounced at Dedham, July 4th, 1810. By Theron Metcalf, Esq. O. C. Greenleaf.

* Oration at Newburyport, 4th July, 1810. By Samuel L. Knapp. Newburyport; Ephraim W. Allen.

Sotheby's translation of Weiland's Oberon, in two volumes, 12mo. Boston; J. Belcher.

་

The Touchstone of Common Assurances; or a plain and familiar treatise, opening the learning of common assurances or conveyances of the kingdom. By Wm. Sheppard, Esq. of the Inner Temple. To which is added, the laws of several states of the union, relative to common assurances. First American from Hilliard's last London edition, 2 volumes. New York; 1. Riley.

The natural and civil history of Vermont, by Samuel Williams, L. L. D. member of the American academy of arts and sciences of Massachusetts, &c. in 2 vols. octavo. Second edition, corrected and much enlarged, with a map of the state. Burlington; S. Mills.

The Lives of the most eminent Poets, with critical observations on their works. Charlestown; S. Etheridge, junior.

The Poems of Ossian. Translated by James Macpherson, Esq. To which are prefixed, Dissertations on the Aera and Poems of Ossian, and a Preliminary Discourse, or Review of the recent controversy relative to the authenticity of the Poems. With Engravings on Wood, by Anderson. New York; E. Sargeant.

WORKS PROPOSED AND IN PRESS.

William Wells and T. B. Wait and Co. Boston, have in press; The Lady of the Lake. By Walter Scott. From the London quarto edition.

Brannan and Morford of Philadelphia, have put to press, a new edition of Plutarch's lives, with notes, historical, and a new life of Plutarch, together with a preface. By John and William Langhorne, in 6 vols. 12mo.

Proposals for publishing by subscription, an interesting work, entitled memoirs of the war, in the southern department of the United States. By an officer of the southern army.

THE

MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY,

FOR

AUGUST, 1810.

From the London Monthly Magazine.

ADVICE TO A YOUNG REVIEWER, WITH A SPECIMEN OF THE ART.

You

is

ou are now about to enter on a profession which has the means of doing much good to society, and scarcely any temptation to do harm. You may encourage genius, you may chastise superficial arrogance, expose falsehood, correct errour, and guide the taste and opinions of the age, in no small degree, by the books you praise and recommend. All this too may be done without running the risk of making any enemies; or subjecting yourself to be called to account for your criticism, however severe. While your name is unknown, your person is invulnerable at the same time your own aim sure, for you may take it at your leisure; and your blows fall heavier than those of any writer whose name is given, or who is simply anonymous. There is a mysterious authority in the plural we, which no single name, whatever may be its reputation, can acquire; and, under the sanction of this imposing style, your strictures, your praises, and your dogmas, will command universal attention, and be received as the fruit of united talents, acting on one common principle-as the judgments of a tribunal who decide only on mature deliberation, and who protect the interests of literature with unceasing vigilance.

Such being the high importance of that office, and such its opportunities, I cannot bestow a few hours of leisure better than in furnishing you with some hints for the more easy and effectual discharge of it: hints which are, I confess, loosely thrown together, but which are the result of long experience,

and of frequent reflection and comparison. And if any thing should strike you at first sight as rather equivocal in point of morality, or deficient in liberality and feeling, I beg you will suppress all such scruples, and consider them as the offspring of a contracted education and a narrow way of thinking, which a little intercourse with the world, and sober reasoning will speedily overcome.

Now as in the conduct of life nothing is more to be desired than some governing principle of action, to which all other principles and motives must be made subservient; so in the art of reviewing I would lay down as a fundamental position, which you must never lose sight of, and which must be the main spring of all your criticisms-Write what will sell. To this golden rule every minor canon must be subordinate; and must either be immediately deducible from it, or at least be made consistent with it. Be not staggered at the sound of a precept, which upon examination will be found as honest and virtuous as it is discreet. I have already sketched out the great services which it is in your power to render mankind; but all your efforts will be unavailing if men do not read what you write. Your utility, therefore, it is plain, depends upon your popularity; and popularity cannot be attained without humouring the taste and inclinations of men.

Be assured that by a similar train of sound and judicious reasoning, the consciences of thousands in public life are daily quieted. It is better for the state that their party should govern than any other: the good which they can affect by the exercise of power is infinitely greater than any which could arise from a rigid adherence to certain subordinate moral precepts; which therefore should be violated without scruple, whenever they stand in the way of their leading purpose. He who sticks at these can never act a great part in the world, and is not fit to act it if he could. Such maxims may be very useful in ordinary affairs, and for the guidance of ordinary men ; but when we mount into the sphere of publick utility, we must adopt more enlarged principles; and not suffer ourselves to be cramped and fettered by petty notions of right and moral duty.

When you have reconciled yourself to this liberal way of thinking, you will find many inferiour advantages resulting from it, which at first did not enter into your consideration. In particular, it will greatly lighten your labours to follow the

1

publick taste, instead of taking upon you to direct it. The task of pleasing is at all times easier than that of instructing: at least it does not stand in need of painful research and preparation; and may be effected in general by a little vivacity of manner, and a dexterous morigeration (as Lord Bacon calls it) to the humours and frailties of men. Your responsibility too is thereby much lessened. Justice and candour can only be required of you so far as they coincide with this main principle; and a little experience will convince you, that these are not the happiest means of accomplishing your purpose.

It has been idly said, that a reviewer acts in a judicial capacity, and that his conduct should be regulated by the same rules by which the judge of a civil court is governed that he should rid himself of every bias; be patient, cautious, sedate, and rigidly impartial; that he should not seek to shew off himself, and should check every disposition to enter into the case as a partizan.

:

Such is the language of superficial thinkers; but in reality there is no analogy between the two cases. A judge is promoted to that office by the authority of the state; a reviewer by his own. The former is independent of control, and may therefore freely follow the dictates of his own conscience: the latter depends for his very bread upon the breath of publick opinion; the great law of self-preservation therefore points out to him a different line of action. Besides, as I have already observed, if he ceases to please, he is no longer read, and consequently is no longer useful. In a court of justice, too, the part of amusing the bystanders rests with the counsel in the case of criticism, if the reviewer himself does not undertake it, who will? Instead of vainly aspiring therefore to the gravity of a magistrate, I would advise him, when he sits down to write, to place himself in the imaginary situation. of a cross-examining pleader. He may comment, in a vein of agreeable irony, upon the profession, the manner of life, the look, dress, or even the name, of the witness he is examining: when he has raised a contemptuous opinion of him in the minds of the court, he may proceed to draw answers from him capable of a ludicrous turn, and he may carve and garble these to his own liking. This mode of proceeding you will find most practicable in poetry, where the boldness of the image, or the delicacy of thought, for which the reader's mind was prepared in the original, will easily be made to ap

pear extravagant or affected, if judiciously singled out, and detached from the group to which it belongs. Again, since much depends upon the rhythm and the terseness of expression, both of which are soinetimes destroyed by dropping a single word, or transposing a phrase, I have known much advantage arise from not quoting in the form of a literal extract, but giving a brief summary in prose of the contents of a poetical passage; and interlarding your own language with occasional phrases of the poem, marked with inverted commas. These, and a thousand other little expedients, by which the arts of quizzing and banter flourish, practice will soon teach you. If it should be necessary to transcribe a dull passage, not very fertile in topicks of humour and raillery, you may introduce it as 66 a favourable specimen of the author's man

ner."

Few people are aware of the powerful effects of what is philosophically termed association. Without any positive violation of truth, the whole dignity of a passage may be undermined by contriving to raise some vulgar and ridiculous notions in the mind of the reader and language teems with examples of words by which the same idea is expressed, with the difference only that one excites a feeling of respect, the other of contempt. Thus you may call a fit of melancholy "the sulks," resentment "a pet," a steed "a nag,” a feast “a "junketing," sorrow and affliction "whining and blubbering.” By transferring the terms peculiar to one state of society, to analogous situations and characters in another, the same object is attained; a drill-serjeant, or a cat and nine tails, in the Trojan war-a Lesbos smack, put into the Piraeus-the penny-post of Jerusalem, and other combinations of the like nature, which, when you have a little indulged that vein of thought, will readily suggest themselves, never fail to raise a smile; if not immediately at the expense of the author, yet entirely destructive of that frame of mind which his poem requires in order to be relished.

I have dwelt the longer on this branch of literature, because you are chiefly to look here for materials of fun and irony. Voyages and travels indeed are no barren ground, and you must seldom let a number of your review go abroad without an article of this description. The charm of this species of writing, so universally felt, arises chiefly from its uniting narrative with information. The interest we take in the story