that there is a dangerous temptation, an unmanly security, an unfair advantage in concealment. Why then should any man, who seeks not to injure but to benefit his contemporaries, resort to it? There can be no reason why he should do that with the best intentions which evil men are fain to do for the worst of purposes. A piece of crape may be a convenient mask for a highway, but a man that goes upon an honest errand does not want it, and will disdain to wear it." This was the language of a veteran and accomplished author, whom literature has now to regret; and we feel ourselves called upon to pay it some attention, as immediately connected with our present subject. Upon accurate consideration, however, we are of opinion the reasoning of Mr Cumberland will be found rather specious than solid. In the first place, it must be observed that there is no real concealment in the system of reviews now generally adopted. For, although the author of each individual critique may not be known, there is uniformly an editor who is answerable both to the public and to the individual, not perhaps for the soundness of every opinion which may be advanced in his journal, but for its general adherence to the language used among decent persons, and the fairness and candour which become men of literature. The author, there fore, who complains of a deficiency in either point, cannot want a party who must either be responsible for the article, or give up the writer's name, that he may answer for himself. But, besides the security afforded by reference to an avowed and responsible editor, the writers of the leading articles in the reviews of any eminence, are in general pretty well known both to the public and to the

individual authors who are the subjects of their criticism. The different manner and style of the principal contributors to the Edinburgh Review, for example, are easily detected, and, like the champions of old, who, though sheathed in armour, were known by their bearings and cogniz. ances, they are distinguished farther in the battle than the groom and yeoman who entered into it barefaced; so that the usual cant of "shots from ambuscade" and "arrows dischar ged in the dark," however it may be suffered to continue as legitimate permissible syllables of dolor in the mouth of a wounded sufferer, has no foundation in the actual state of things. To what purpose, then, it may be asked, should a mystery be affected which is so easily seen through, or why should not those who are the known authors of critical articles adopt Mr Cumberland's plan, and openly prefix to them their names? Our answer is founded upon the forms of civilized society, which are always calculated to avoid personality where free discussion is required. It would be scarcely possible to secure a free, or at least a peaceable, debate in the British House of Commons, without adherence to the style of what is called parliamentary language, since many things must be distinctly said by one statesman of his antagonist, which could not with propriety, or even safety, be hazarded between man and man in the common intercourse of life. In like manner there is in criticism an impersonal language, which, though every one knows it is used by a particular individual, has more weight with the public, and gives less just offence to the author censured, than if the criticism had been declaredly written in the first person singular. It is in some degree a deception, but

it is one to which we willingly give way, as it tends to save the decorum of society, and to give the critic an opportunity of discharging his duty frankly, without any appearance of personality upon his part, and without giving the party reviewed a strong temptation to push criticism into controversy. It remains also to be noticed how often the reviewer may gain a hearing from the public by use of the emphatic pronoun we, which might have been denied to the criticisms of an obscure individual upon the work of an established literary character. The difficulty, finally, of enlisting individuals to fight with their visors up, may have hastened the conclusion of Mr Cumberland's unsuccessful attempt to establish a review upon his new plan. Every one has heard of the celebrated harlequin, who could not go through his part with spirit unless when he wore the usual mask, although conscious that his identity was equally recognized whether he used it or not; and we cannot help thinking that those critics whose opinions are best worth hearing will be most ready to deliver them under the modest disguise of an anonymous publication, although they know that in many cases it is a secret which all the world knows, and in others, one which any party interested may discover if he pleases. For all these reasons we are led to conclude that the present system, while no real objection lies against it, is best fitted to preserve harmony in the literary world, and to encourage a free and unrestrained spirit of discussion, without risk of its degenerating into personal controversy, or being trammelled and chilled by over formal and timid civility; one or other of which extremes might, we think, be the consequence of the system practised in the London Review.

With the notice of this anomaly in the reviewing system, we must conclude our account of the present state of Periodical Criticism in Britain. We have it not in our power, nor would the labour be repaid by any useful result, to report upon the various works now current in this department, far less to arrange their precedence. What we have chiefly attempted in this sketch is to give some idea of the spirit and principles of that which is decidedly the foremost in the field. Its surprising and unprecedented success has rendered the Edinburgh Review the mirror in which the others dress themselves, and from which they endeavour to select and imitate the qualities which recommend that journal to popular favour. The tone of criticism, therefore, at the commencement of the nineteenth century may be characterized as harsh, severe, and affect. edly contemptuous, dwelling rather in general and excursive discussion, than in that which applies itself to the immediate subject; but requiring, from those very circumstances, an elevation of talent and extent of information unknown, or at least unnecessary, to the humble labourer of the preceding period. If the art has been emancipated from the commercial trammels of the bookseller, it has unfortunately become more deeply involved in the toils of the political statesman. This last yoke, however, if equally rigorous, is less sordid than the former, and the professors of the art of criticism have risen in rank and reputation accordingly; nor can it be denied that these periodical publications have at present an interest and importance altogether unknown in any former part of our literary history.

SIR,-The character of your present correspondent is perhaps very little to the purpose of his communication; but who can resist the temptation of a favourable opportunity for speaking of himself and his own affairs? I am, then, a bachelor of fifty, or, by'r lady, some fifty-five years standing, and I can no longer disguise from myself, that the scenes, in which I formerly played a part of some gratifying degree of consequence, are either much altered, or I am become somehow less fitted for my character. Twenty years ago I was a beau garçon of some renown, escorted Lady Rumpus and Miss Tibby Dasher to oyster parties, danced with the lovely Lucy J, and enjoyed the envied distinction of hand

ing into St Cecilia's Hall the beauti ful and too-early-lost Miss BBut, as the learned Partridge pathetically observes, non sum qualis eras; and now, far from being permitted to escort the young and the gay through that intricate labyrinth, entitled the Entrance to the New Theatre Royal, I observe it is not without obvious reluctance that I am selected as a proper beau to the General Assembly.

Nor indeed can I disguise to myself, that I owe even this humble distinction to the gravity of my phy siognomy and habit, which the dis cerning fair consider as peculiarly calculated to overawe the beadles, by conveying the impression of a Ruling Elder. My apartments in Argyle's square, those very lodgings where my

petits soupers were accounted such desirable parties, have now acquired a certain shabbiness of aspect, and 'seem to me contracted in their very dimensions. Nay, what is worse than all this, my annual income, though nominally the same, does not produce above half the comforts it used to compass. Amid these disconcerting circumstances, one would have thought that I might still have derived some benefit from a smattering of literature, which, having decorated my conversation in my better days, might be supposed still in some measure to recommend me to society. But I know not how it happens, that even in this respect matters seem strangely altered to my disadvantage. The time has been, when I could thrust my head over the threshold of Mr Creech's shop, and mingle in the first literary society which Scotland then afforded, and which (no disparagement to the present men of letters) has hardly been equalled since. I was personally known to Adam Smith, to Ferguson, to Robertson, to both the Humes, and to the lively Lord Kaimes. At a later period, my company was endured by the Man of Feeling, and other distinguished mem. bers of the Mirror Club. I have talked on prints and pictures with Johnie Mn, have shaken my sides with the facetious Captain Grose over a bottle of old port, and one evening had the superlative distinction of hear ing the tremendous Dr Johnson grumble forth wit and wisdom over a shrinking band of North British literati; so that I may say, with the magnanimous Slender, "I have seen Sackerson loose, and taken him by the chain." These, sir, are pretensions to a respectable place in literary society, and might entitle me to some deference from my juniors, who only

know most of these great men in their writings or by tradition. Yet now I find my opinions in taste and criticism are almost as much out of fashion as my toupee and my small silver buckles. Every stripling, whom I remember an urchin at the High School, seems to have shot up into an author or reviewer, for the purpose of confuting my sentiments by dogmatical assertion, or overwhelming my arguments by professional declamation. This is so melancholy a truth, that I have learned to rank myself in conversation according to the rule of precedence settled at processions; and never attempt to declare my own opinion till I am sure all the younger members of the company have given their sentiments. But, notwithstanding every compromise which I have endeavoured to make with the spirit of the time, I feel myself daily becoming more and more a solitary and isolated being; and while I cook my little fire and husband my pint of port, I cannot but be sensible that these are the most important occupations of my waking day.

I was thus whiling away my evening, with a volume of Don Quixote open before me, when my attention was caught by the account which Altisidora gives of the amusement of the devils in the infernal regions. "I got to the gates of hell," says she,

where I found a round dozen of devils in their breeches and waistcoats, playing at tennis with flaming rackets; they wore flat bands, with scolloped Flanders lace, and ruffles of the same; four inches of their wrist bare to make their hands look the longer, in which they held rackets of fire. But what surprised me most was, that, instead of tennis-balls, they made use of books, that were every whit as light, and stuffed with wind and flocks,

and such kind of trumpery. This was indeed most strange and wonderful; but what amazed me still more, I found that, contrary to the custom of gamesters, among whom the winning party is at least in good humour, and the losers only angry, these hellish tossers of books of both sides did nothing but fret, fume, stamp, curse, and swear most horribly, as if they had been all losers. "That's no won der at all," quoth Sancho, "for your devils, whether they play or no, win or lose, they can never be contented." When I had proceeded thus far in my author, the light began to fail me. I finished my last glass of wine, and threw myself back in my easy chair to digest what I had read. The ludicrous description of Cervantes became insensibly jumbled with my own reveries on the critical taste and literary talents of my contemporaries, until I sunk into a slumber. The consequence was a dream, which I am tempted to send you as an introduction to some scraps of poetry, that, without it, would be hardly intelligible.

Methought, sir, I was (like many of my acquaintance) on the high-way to the place of perdition. The road, however, seemed neither broad, nor flowery, nor easy. In steepness, indeed, and in mephitic fragrance, the place of my peregrination was no bad emblem of the descent of Avernus; but, both in these and in other respects, it chiefly resembled a deserted close in the more ancient part of our good city. Having been ac. customed to the difficulties of such footing in my younger days, I picked my way, under low-browed arches, down broken steps, and through miscellaneous filth, with a dexterity which no iron-heeled beau of the present day could have emulated. At

length I came in sight of a very large building, with a court-yard in front, which I conceived to be the Tartarus towards which I had been des cending; I saw, however, neither Minos nor acus, neither Belial nor Beelzebub; and, to speak plainly, sir, the building itself seemed rather to resemble your own Pandemo nium, than either that of Milton, the Erebus of Virgil, or the dread abode of Hela. Cerberus was chained near the door; but, as he had got rid of two of his heads, and concentrated their ferocity in that which he retained, he did not greatly dif fer in appearance from an English! bull-dog. Had it not been for certain whips, scourges, gorgon-faces, and other fearful decorations of infernal architecture, which were disposed on its front by way of architrave, like the fetters and chains in front of Newgate,-had it not been, I say, for these and similar emblems of disappointment, contempt, and mortification, and for a reasonable quantity of flying dragons and hissing serpents that occasionally flew in or out of the garret windows, I should rather have taken the place for an immense printing-house than for the infernal regions. But what attract ed my attention chiefly, was the ap parition of a body of fiends, of differ ent stature, size, and ages, who were playing at racket with new books, exactly in the manner described by Cervantes in the passage I have quo ted, and whose game was carried on and contested with most astonishing perseverance in the court-yard I have mentioned. The devils, being, I presume, of real British extraction, were not clad in the Spanish costume of laced bands and scolloped sleeves, and they seemed to have transferred the pride which Altisidora's hiends