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Eugene, under the other; and thus they reeled along through the streets, towards the Amthaus.

With considerable difficulty, we carried the delirious Ewson to his own room, where he raged and blew for half the night on his flute, so that I could not possibly obtain any rest; nor did I recover from the influences of the mad evening, until I found myself once more in my travelling carriage.

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GODWIN.*

Throw aside your books of Chemistry, and study GODWIN on Necessity,' the advice of Mr Wordsworth to a student in the temple some thirty years ago, applied to an author then enjoying a popularity arising from circumstances which have since contributed to depress his reputation. Fame, whose duration depended on the success of that tragic experiment, might naturally be expected to subside as we approach an era when the French Revolution can be re

The following is extracted from the Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors.

William Godwin, son of Mr J. G. Minister of a congregation of Dissenters at Guestwick, Norfolk, was educated at the Dissenters' College, at Hoxton, and in 1778 began to officiate as minister at Stowmarket, Suffolk, where he continued till 1782, when he laid aside the clerical character, removed to London, and determined to pursue literature as a profession. In 1797 he was united to the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, who died the same year. His second marriage took place in 1801. Some years since Mr G. opened a bookseller's shop in Skinner-street where he has ushered into the world many very useful works tending to facilitate the instruction of youth. Mr G. is said to be the author of various publications to which he has not affixed his name; his avowed productions are :

Sketches of History, in six Sermons, 12mo, 1782,-Enquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on general Virtue and Happiness, 4to, 1793. 3d edit. 2 vols. 8vo, 1797.-Things as they Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. 3 vols. 1794.-Cursory Sketches on the Charge delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand Jury, Oct. 2, 1794, 8vo. The Enquirer; Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature, in a series of Essays, 8vo, 1796.-Memoirs of (Mary Wollstonecraft,) the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 8vo, 1798.. St Leon, a tale of the 16th century, 4 vols. 1799.-Antonio, a tragedy, 1801.-Thoughts occasioned by the perusal of Dr Parr's Spital Sermon, being a reply to the attacks of Dr P., M. Mackintosh, and others, 8vo, 1801.-The Hist. of the Life and Age of Geoffry Chaucer, 2 vols. 4to, 1803. 2d edit. 4 vols. 8vo, 1804.-Fleetwood, or New Man of Feeling, 3 vols. 1805.-Faulkner, a tragedy, 8vo, 1807.-Essay on Sepulchres, 8vo, 1809.-A History of the Commonwealth of England has lately appeared.

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garded without the sanguine hopes of the visionary, or the delusive transport with which its dawning was hailed by the philanthropist. Other causes may have assisted in throwing premature obscurity over his name as a fearless speculator; but it is not with MR GODWIN as author of the far famed Enquiry concerning Political Justice that we have at present to deal. The soundness or fallacy of opinions there promulgated can furnish matter of censure or of praise only to the moralist and politician: his merits as a Novelist. interest a far more comprehensive class. As the author of Caleb Williams his name is familiar in every quarter of civilized Europe, and will continue to be mentioned with respect while man takes an interest in the delineation of human character modified by events so strange as to border on improbability, yet narrated with an air of such seeming reality as to silence every doubt-to make the reader, as it were, an eyewitness of all he is perusing, and to hurry him on without power to resist the fascination. It is seldom that a writer, taking part in disputes only of transient interest, produces a work, as in the present instance, to be universally relished after the circumstances from which it originated have passed into oblivion. Caleb Williams was at first intended as a satire on local usages; but its author has gone beyond his immediate object, and addressed himself to feelings which are permanent as human nature. has evidently been composed with a view to demonstrate

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the probability of being brought to the gallows for a theft or a murder of which we may be innocent as the child unborn. Yet, though such a proposition be all but consolatory to the reader, and although a fiction intended to support even an instructive maxim must ever be of questionable merit, it were difficult to name a work which excites so strong an interest. The author may often reason fallaciously on the motives of his actors-his facts may be improbable, and his characters inconsistent,-but the reader, lost in sus

cleared away.

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pense, perceives not these defects till all mystery has been The character of Falkland is one of the finest ever drawn by a novelist, and so original that few have succeeded in copying his inventor. Actuated as he had ever been by the most chivalrous motives, it may be difficult to conceive how he could so suddenly have become a midnight assassin; but, to the reader, this improbability is fully compensated by the fearful and engrossing conflict which it produces in his bosom.-In St Leon there is a falling off so glaring that, but for the character of Bethlehem Gabor, one not previously informed would have some difficulty in tracing it to the author of Caleb Williams. The peculiarities of the Radcliffe school are here carried to their utmost extent. Terror predominates to such a degree, that, before concluding, the reader determines to wonder not longer at that which is intended to be marvellous. In the earlier part, however, we meet with some redeeming traits. The description of St Leon's visits to the grave of his nobleminded parent, of his feelings on commencing his career in arms at the siege of Pavia-of his domestic bliss when united to the saint-like Marquesite and his despair when ruined at the gambling table, will long be impressed on the most careless readers. The whole of a passage describing the terrific thunder-storm which threatened desolation and ruin to his little property, is scarcely excelled by the most sublime descriptions in any of our poets; and the landscape as it appeared on the approach of day, with that which greets him on escaping from a Spanish prison, will as frequently recur to the reader's imagination as any scene to be met with in fiction.-Fleetwood might have been more favourably received were it not designated by the most inapplicable alias ever introduced into a title-page. In it we become acquainted with one who is indeed a new Man of Feeling; for he who has been accustomed to associate with his ideas of such a character, the amiable virtues and

disinterested benevolence of a Harley, will soon be convinced that Fleetwood is in every thing his opposite. Harley, while not insensible of his own distresses, feels acutely for those of others; but his intended prototype lives only to gratify his own wants, reckless of the misery he may occasion to those whose happiness should be dear to him. Bent on self-gratification, he does not once endeavour to advance the general welfare of mankind, or to promote the enjoyment of individuals with whom he is more intimately connected. Dissatisfied under misfortunes which a man of principle would overlook, and fretful under trivial disappointments, the reader, instead of sympathizing in his mighty grievances, views them rather as fit objects for ridicule or contempt; while the laboured extravagance of language and sentiment soon becomes monotonous, and furnishes but an indifferent substitute for that delicacy of description which, in other writers, brings before us the most minute and evanescent shades of feeling.-When we characterize Mandeville as portraying, with admirable fidelity, the feelings and crimes, the injuries and vanities, of one who is neither altogether rational nor decidedly insane, and add that we prize it more than any other of MR GODWIN's fictitious writings, it may be necessary to give some reason for holding an opinion so different from that entertained by high authorities. In elegance and purity of style it far excels every similar work, and may, indeed, be regarded as one of the finest specimens of English undefiled' that has lately appeared. It abounds with reflections which would not be misplaced in the gravest philosophical treatise, expressed, too, in language so comprehensive and harmonious that they are retained long after we may be unable to trace them to their original. The minute account of an Irish massacre and the detail of certain religious opinions, perhaps the most tiresome parts of the book, throw much light on the malady. of the unhappy being who relates them, and are amply

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