more bounded powers into notice, have been by Mackenzie carefully subjected to the principal object which he proposed to himself—the delineation of the human heart. Variety of character he has introduced sparingly, and has seldom recourse to any peculiarity of incident, availing himself generally of those which may be considered as common property to all writers of romance. His sense of the beauties of nature, and his power of describing them, are carefully kept down, to use the expression of the artists; and like the single straggling bough, which shades the face of his sleeping veteran, just introduced to relieve his principal object, but not to rival it. It cannot be termed an exception to this rule, though certainly a peculiarity of this author, that on all occasions where sylvan sports can be introduced, he displays an intimate familiarity with them, and, from personal habits, to which we have elsewhere alluded, shows a delight to dwell for an instant upon a favourite topic.

Lastly, the wit which sparkles in his periodical essays, and, we believe, in his private conversation, shows itself but little in his Novels; and, although his peculiar vein of humour may be much more frequently traced, yet it is so softened down, and divested of the broad ludicrous, that it harmonizes with the most grave and affecting parts of the tale, and becomes, like the satire of Jaques, only a

more humorous shade of melancholy. In short, Mackenzie aimed at being the historian of feeling, and has succeeded in the object of his ambition. But as mankind are never contented, and as critics are certainly no exception to a rule so general, we could wish that, without losing or altering a line that our author has written, he had condescended to give us, in addition to his stores of sentiment,-a romance on life and manners, by which, we are convinced, he would have twisted another branch of laurel into his garland. as Sebastian expresses it,

However,

« What had been: is unknown; what is, appears:»>

we must be proudly satisfied with what we have received, and happy that, in this line of composition, we can boast a living author, of excellence like that of Henry Mackenzie.

VOL. II.

8

CLARA REEVE.

CLARA REEVE, the ingenious authoress of The Old English Baron, was the daughter of the Reverend William Reeve, M.A., Rector of Freston, and of Kerton, in Suffolk, and perpetual Curate of St Nicholas. Her grandfather was the Reverend Thomas Reeve, Rector of Storeham, Aspal, and afterwards of St Mary, Stoke, in Ipswich, where the family had been long resident, and enjoyed the rights of free burghers. Miss Reeve's mother's maiden name was Smithies, daughter of Smithies, goldsmith and jeweller to King George 1.

In a letter to a friend Mrs Reeve thus speaks of her father. My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the parliamentary debates while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares

for ever.

to myself, they fixed my principles once and He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave made amends for its dryness. I read Cato's Letters, by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman Histories, and Plutarch's Lives; all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their names.

The Reverend Mr Reeves, himself one of a family of eight children, had the same number; and it is therefore likely, that it was rather Clara's strong natural turn for study, than any degree of exclusive care which his partiality bestowed, that enabled her to acquire such a stock of early information. After his death, his widow resided in Colchester with three of their daughters; and it was here that Miss Clara Reeve first became an authoress, by translating from Latin Barclay's fine old romance, entitled Argenis, published in 1762, under the title of The Phoenix. It was in 1767 that she produced her first and most distinguished work. It was published by Mr Dilly of the Poultry (who gave ten pounds for the copy-right), under the title of The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story. The work came to a second edition in the succeeding year, and was then first called The Old English Baron. The cause of the change we do not pretend to guess; for if Fitzowen be considered as the Old English Baron, we do not see

wherefore a character passive in himself, from beginning to end, and only acted upon by others, should be selected to give a name to the story. We ought not to omit to mention, that this work is inscribed to Mrs Bridgen, the daughter of Richardson, who is stated to have lent her assistance to the revisal and correction of the work.

The success of The Old English Baron encouraged Miss Reeve to devote more of her leisure hours to literary composition, and she published, in succession, the following works: The Two Mentors, a Modern Story; The Progress of Romance through Times, Countries, and Manners; The Exile, or Memoirs of Count de Cronstadt, the principal incidents of which are borrowed from a novel by M. D'Arnaud; The School for Widows, a Novel; Plans of Education, with Remarks on the System of other Writers, in a duodecimo volume; and The Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon, a Natural Son of Edward the Black Prince, with Anecdotes of many other Eminent Persons of the Fourteenth Century.

To these works we have to add another tale, of which the interest turned upon supernatural appearances. Miss Reeve informs the public, in a preface to a late edition of The Old English Baron, that in compliance with the suggestion of a friend, she had composed Castle Connor, an Irish Story, in which appari