ment extinguished, when, at last, the seemingly stupid exactness of my valet gave way to the impatience of others, and they broke open the door."-Vol. ii, pp. 248-253.

The rest of the story may be comprised in a few words. Gifford, whom Fleetwood had constituted his heir, becomes impatient to enter upon possession; and, finding his patron's constitution proof against mental distress, he attempts, with the assistance of two ruffians, to murder him in the forest of Fontainbleau. As all Fleetwood's servants were in Gifford's pay, they saw this transaction take place without interference-a circumstance which struck their master so forcibly, that, while the ruffians were dragging him into the wood, he was considering whether it be one of the effects of wealth, that with it we engage persons in our service to murder us. The solution of this problem, as well as the consummation of Gifford's crime, is interrupted by the arrival of some horsemen, who rescue Fleetwood, and make the assailants prisoners. That Kenrick was his preserver will be readily anticipated by all who are acquainted with the good old beaten track of novels on these occasions; and to do Mr. Godwin justice, he has seldom taken a by-path from one end of this performance to the other. Gifford is consigned to the gallows, which he had merited; the clouds of jealousy, which had obscured the mind of Fleetwood, are gradually dispelled; every suspicious circumstance is accounted for; and after some hesitation (very natural, we think) on the part of Mary, she is again united to the Man of Feeling.

Having occupied so much room in detailing the story, we have but little left for animadversion. The incidents during the two first volumes are chiefly those of the common life of a man of fashion; and all that is remarkable in the tale is the laboured extravagance of sentiment which is attached to these ordinary occurrences. There is no attempt to describe the minuter and finer shades of feeling; none of that high finishing of description, by which the most ordinary inci dents are rendered interesting: on the contrary, the effect is always sought to be brought out by the application of the inflated language of high passion. It is no doubt true, that a man of sensibility will be deeply affected by what appears trifling to the rest of mankind; a scene of distress or of pleasure will make a deeper impression upon him than upon another; and

it is precisely in this respect that he differs from the rest of mankind. But a man who is transported with rage, with despair, with anger, and all the furious impulses of passion, upon the most common occurrences of life, is not a man of sentiment, but a madman; and, far from sympathizing with his feelings, we are only surprised at his having the liberty of indulging them beyond the precincts of Bedlam.

In the third volume, something of a regular story commences, and the attention of the reader becomes fixed by the narrative. But the unnatural atrocity of Gifford, and the inadequate means by which he is so nearly successful, render this part of the tale rather improbable. The credulity of Fleetwood is unnecessarily excessive, and might have been avoided by a more artful management of incident.

But we have another and a more heavy objection to him, considered as a man of feeling. We have been accustomed to associate with our ideas of this character the amiable virtues of a Harley, feeling deeply the distresses of others, and patient, though not sensible of his own. But Fleetwood, through the whole three volumes which bear his name, feels absolutely and exclusively for one individual, and that individnal is Fleetwood himself. Indeed he is at great pains, in various places, to tell us that he had been uncontrolled in his youth, was little accustomed to contradiction, and could not brook anything which interfered either with his established habits, or the dispositions of the moment. Accordingly his despair for the loss of his two French mistresses, is the despair of a man who loses something which he thinks necessary to his happiness and in a way not very soothing to his feelings; but as we understand him, he can no more be properly said to be in love with either of these fair ladies, than a hungry man, according to Fielding's comparison, can be said to be in love with a shoulder of Welsh mutton. In like manner, his pursuit after happiness, through various scenes, is uniformly directed by the narrow principle of self-gratification; there is no aspiration towards promoting the public advantage, or the happiness of individuals; Mr. Fleetwood moves calmly forward in quest of what may make Mr. Fleetwood happy; and, like all other egotists of this class, he providentially misses his aim. But it is chiefly in the wedded state that his irritable and selfish habits are most completely depicted. With every tie, moral and divine,

which can bind a man to the object of his choice, or which could withhold him from acts of unkindness or cruelty, he commences and carries on a regular system for subjecting all her pleasures to the control of his own, and every attempt on her part to free herself from this constraint, produces such scenes of furious tyranny, as at the beginning nearly urge her to distraction, and finally drive her an outcast from society. In short, the new Man of Feeling, in his calm moments a determined egotist, is, in his state of irritation, a frantic madman, who plays on a barrel organ at a puppetshow, till he and the wooden dramatis personæ are all possessed by the foul fiend Hibbertigibbet, who presides over moping and mowing. We close the book with the painful reflection, that Mary is once more subjected to his tyranny; and our only hope is, that a certain Mr. Scarborough, a very peremptory and overbearing person, who assists at the denouement, may, in case of need, be a good hand at putting on a strait waistcoat.

CUMBERLAND'S JOHN DE LANCASTER.*

[Quarterly Review, 1809.]

MR. CUMBERLAND has now borne arms in the fields of literature for more than half a century:† the nature of his service has been as various as its date has been protracted; nor has his warfare been without its success and its honours. If he has never been found in the very van and front of battle, he has seldom lagged in the rear; and although we cannot find that he has on any occasion brought home the spolia opima, or qualified himself for the grand triumph, it must be allowed that he has often merited and obtained the humbler meed of an ovation. His dramatic pieces are those on which his fame will hereafter most probably rest. But the "Terence of England, the mender of hearts," unsatisfied with having made more than one successful effort in modern comedy, perhaps the most difficult of all composi tions, seemed determined to show us that his vein though fertile was not inexhaustible, and that the friend of Garrick, of Goldsmith, and of Johnson, could write plays fit only to be prefatory to the more important matter of Mother Goose. These must be forgotten ere the author of the West Indian, the Brothers, the Jew, and the Wheel of Fortune, can enjoy his full honours; but we can comfort him with the assurance that the date of their memory is already nearly expired. As a periodical writer, Mr. Cumberland's classical learning and accurate taste, his beautiful and flowing style, and the pleasing subjects on which he usually loves to employ himself, compensate in some degree for want of depth of thought,

* John de Lancaster, a Novel. By RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Esq. 3 Vols.

+ Mr. Cumberland died 7th May, 1811, in his eightieth year, and was interred in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey.

or novelty of conception. It is hardly possible to speak too highly of his translations from Aristophanes and the ancient Greek fragments; they are not only equal but superior, to anything of the kind in our language, and so great is our respect for the author of these exquisite versions, that we will not say a single word of his original poetry.

But it is as a novelist that we are at present to examine Mr. Cumberland's literary powers. We cannot place Arundel and Henry on the same shelf with the works of Fielding or Smollet, and we are the less inclined to do so, as the latter novel, being a close imitation of Tom Jones, serves particularly to show the wide difference between the authors. Yet Mr. Cumberland's novels rank far above the usual stock in trade of the circulating library, are written in easy and elegant language, and evince considerable powers of observ. ing generic, though not individual, characters. Excepting Smollet alone, whose sailors are, moreover, of a more ancient and rugged school, none has better delineated the characteristic and professional traits of the British navy, than Mr. Cumberland. The mission to Spain filled his portfolio with interesting sketches of that people, and of the persecuted Jews, who yet reside amongst them, which we often trace in his novels, tales, and dramatic labours. The works of former authors he has laid liberally under contribution, and sometimes new-dressed their characters so well, as to give them an air of originality. Thus Ephraim Daw, in Henry, is a methodistical Parson Adams, having the same simplicity of character, the same goodness of heart, and the same disposition to use the carnal arm in a good cause, qualified by the enthusiastic tenets and language of the sect from which the author derives him. It is therefore, we repeat, rather in delineating a species than an individual that the art of Mr. Cumberland consists, so far as it is original, the distinguishing personal features which he introduces being usually borrowed from others. Indeed we know but two remarkable peculiarities of taste in manners and incident which are completely his own, and run through all his works. The first is an odd and rather unnatural transfer of the task of courtship from the hero to the heroine of the piece. Mr. Cumberland seems to have found an inexpressible charm in exchanging the attributes of the sexes, so that the weaker may turn the chase upon the stronger, and