the alpine plants are kept during winter, as Mr. Boose, the gardener, thinks the Vienna winter too fevere for them.

The inhabitants of these princely buildings are no ways unworthy of them; the rareft palms and fhrubs peculiar to the tropics, grow here in their native pride. The corypha umbraculifera extends its large leaves twelve or fourteen feet around: the caryota urens afcends to the height of fixteen or eighteen feet; the cocos nucifera and elacis guineenfis grow with great luxuriancy; and many rare fhrubs, natives of the fame favoured climate, though not fo peculiarly indicative of their country, are here equally exuberant. The citharexylum quadrangulare is twenty feet high; bignonia leucoxylon, malpighia glabra, and the coffee tree fixteen feet; and the ruitzia laciniata, carolinea, princeps et infignis, with others lefs rare, twelve to fourteen. The rhapis flabelliformis has a ftipes above ten feet high; the hernandia fonora and helicteres apetala, with their large leaves, contribute their part to beautify this princely collection.

SOME TRAITS

OF

THE LATE MRS. GODWIN.

T has often been remarked, that a literary life is barren of events, and deprived by this poverty of the general intereft of biography. Mr. Gibbon, however, was an exception to the remark-a remark which feems to have originated rather in the difficulty of gathering from furviving relatives an account of their literary friends, than in the avowed paucity of the cha

racters themselves.

We promifed fome account of Mrs. Wolftonecraft, aame by which fhe is better known than that of

Godwin,

Godwin, to the readers of THE MONTHLY VISITOR. Being far from unmindful of this promife, we used every exertion within our reach to fulfil it; but we are forry to confefs, that fuch exertions have not anfwered our hopes. Perhaps Mr. Godwin, at some future day, may give us that information which at prefent we cannot acquire. He may favour the world with a biography of his deceafed wife.

From the little which we have been able to learn, it appears that Mifs Wolftonecraft had not changed her original name, till her marriage with Mr. Godwin. But, a woman of ftrong fenfibility, fhe had not, all this while, been a ftranger to love. Report has mentioned Mr. Fufeli as the perfon who first infpired her with this fentiment. It was purely an attachment, on the part of Mrs. Wolftonecraft, in which the acted with great honour and fortitude. She was then the dearest friend of Mrs. Fufeli, and on a vifit to her. She revealed her fituation to that lady, as the caufe of leaving their house, and went abroad. In this, or fome other excurfion, the met with the celebrated Mr. Imlay, author of a Topographical Defcription of America. Their intimacy was not of long continuance. Mr. Imlay indeed, had propofed marriage to Mrs. Wolftonecraft, but the rejected it on account of her pecuniary embarraffments, which in that cafe were made over to him. She had by Mr. Imlay a daughter, who has been educated according to thofe rules which are prefcribed by the author of the "Rights of Women."

Latterly there have been a number of gentlemen mentioned as the admirers of Mrs. Wolftonecraft; of which number is Mr. Opie. So faint were the conceptions of the literary circles to the union of Mr. Godwin with Mrs. Wolftonecraft, that the first mentioned gentleman, Mr. Opie, from his polite attentions to that lady, in their occafional meetings at the houses of their friends, was felected as her future husband.

It seems that these circles not only knew very little of the matter, but-that, had they attended to the rules of the new-fchool, they must have pronounced a different verdict. It was at the houfe of our principal poetefs, the British Sappho, that we witneffed the following scene.

There were prefent, among many of the literari, Meffrs. Opie and Godwin, and Mrs. Wolftonecraft. Mr. Opie was, as ufual, very attentive to Mrs. Wolftonecraft. But the philofopher-the lover of Mrs. Wolftonecraft, and the great man who contends thar men may live without fleeping, was himself faft afleep in the chimney-corner. This infignificant incident might have taught our fashionable lookers-on, that Mr. Godwin and Mrs. Wolftonecraft, poffeffing, thus eminently, the happy quality of mutual diftance, were marked for man and wife! She did not long enjoy the pleafures of this philofophical union. She died in childbed, on Sunday the 10th of last September.

Here we terminate the hiftory of Mrs. Godwin. The few additions which we might make could be fupplied by rumour-perhaps malice, but we choose not to league with either; and we can only fubjoin to these fimple traits of her existence, fome idea of her perfon and character: in the latter fenfe, both as a writer and

a woman.

In PERSON fhe was above the middle ftature, and rather bony her eyes were poor and inexpreffive; yet, from the ftrength of her forehead, there was fomething commanding in her countenance. She was flow in converfation; feemed to study her words, and might be thought to lie in wait for repartees.

Her WRITINGS are certainly of the first stamp. Her thoughts were bold and clear; her ftyle nervous: there was fomething mafculine in the whole of her. But her philofophy was not the moft happy; especially for a female. Mifs Imlay has been fpoilt by it. This girl,

not

not above five years old, is a fufficient antidote to the miftaken fpeculations of her mother. Mrs. Wolftonecraft was not in love with Christianity; and it is a queftion with fome, whether infidelity be at all friendly to that fweetness and urbanity of foul, and that gentlenefs of manners, which muft endear the woman to fociety.

I

THOUGHTS ON A LATE BIOGRAPHY.

MR. EDITOR,

*

ASSURE you that I am not one of those men who wish to derive importance from the occafion. I have, for fome time paft, been particularly filent. I have feen enough, indeed, of the depravity of this age, to have induced me to an oppofite behaviour; but I thought our age fo depraved, that nothing less than a moft fignal inftance of turpitude and deformity, could roufe us to a fenfe of our fituation.

I have read in the European Magazine for laft September, fome memoirs of William Beckford, efq. of Fonthill" and I will trouble you with a few remarks on this fingular and unprecedented paper.

When the character of an individual has been pub. licly understood as degraded to the fouleft practices of the most foul and unnatural times, it is not fufficient to affign fuch a belief to the efforts of “detraction," "malice," "ignorance," and "ingratitude;" it is neceffary to prove, that individuals have been flanderous and ungrateful-that a nation has been ignorant and malicious. By a fophifm which our laws permit TRUTH IS A LIBEL; and we dare not explain to the public, the wretched enormities of certain men. I had almost faid, it is well for thofe men that we may not. I beg leave to correct the affirmation. While men can be fecure in iniquity, if it does not reach to a public tribunal; and while thofe whofe high places,

as

as the preceptors and protectors of our morals, ought, at leaft, to make them neuters in crime, fhall, under the influence of bribes, explain vice into virtue, and depravity into greatnefs; where is our common fecurity? how can we depend on any profeffions of truth? and what fhall preferve, amidst thefe vile and intricate practices, the focial relationships, the unavoidable duties, and the deareft fympathies of life?

In this day, Mr. Editor, a good memory is not among the leaft of our qualifications. We feem too apt to forget the difpofitions and inftructions of those who have gone before us; and fome men would profit themselves of this temper. But we do not forget-we fhall not forget alderman Beckford-and, with this perfect recollection of the father, we may gather, from the chronicles of our land, no imperfect recollections of the fon. This fon, we are told, is a man of confummate abilities, but (moft unfortunately!) he has been perverted in the exercife of his talents, by the following circumftances"It may be thought ftrange, (fays the European Magazine) that Mr. Beckford, with the abilities generally attributed to him, fhould not have produced them more on the fcene of public life.". "But the world

fhould know, that with talents, and particularly that of eloquence, fitted to have made a brilliant figure on this ground, (parliament) Mr. Beckford, unfortunately, wants that strength of constitution neceffary to bear that conftant attendance, fatigue, and those late hours required in the houfe of commons." The newspapers are full of this fubject; though they have not given us a fingle idea on the origin of Mr. Beckford's "wants,” as they refpect his "ftrength of conftitution."

Perhaps, Mr. Editor, fome people ought to know, that there is a conftant re-action in nature. Evil never goes unpunished. The man who feduces an innocent girl, adds another to the number of those unhappy wo inen, whofe contagions bring many a feducer to ruin and to death! There is high juftice in these matters:

and