that the Edinburgh Review shall rapidly undeceive him if he mistake his talents: and that his delusion shall not last beyond the first tragedy or comedy.

The picture at the exhibition is extremely well managed, and all the various love-tricks of attempting to appear indifferent, are, as well as we can remember, from the life. But it is thirty or forty years since we have been in love.

The horror of an affectionate and dexterous mamma is a handsome young man without money; and the following lecture deserves to be committed to memory by all managing mothers, and repeated at proper intervals to the female progeny.

"True, my love, but understand me. I don't wish you positively to avoid him. I would not go away, for instance, if I saw him coming, or even turn my head that I might not see him as he passed. That would be two broad and marked. People might notice it. It would look particular. We should never do any thing that looks particular. No, I would answer him civilly and composedly whenever he spoke to me, and then pass on, just as you might in the case of any body else. But I leave all this to your own tact and discretion, of which nobody has more for her age. I am sure you can enter into all these niceties, and that my observations will not be lost upon you. And now, my love, let me mention another thing. You must get over that little embarrassment which I see you show whenever you meet him. It was very natural and excusable the first time, considering our long acquaintance with him and the General: but we must make our conduct conform to circumstances; so try to get the better of this little flutter: it does not look well, and might be observed. There is no quality more valuable in a young person than self-possession. So you must keep down these blushes," said she, patting her on the cheek, "or I believe I must rouge you : — though it would be a thousand pities, with the pretty natural colour you have. But you must remember what I have been saying. Be more composed in your behaviour. Try to adopt the manner which I do. It may be difficult; but you see I contrive it, and I have known Mr. Granby a great deal longer than you have, Caroline." - (pp. 21, 22.)

These principles are of the highest practical importance in an age when the art of marrying daughters is carried to the highest pitch of excellence, when love

must be made to the young men of fortune, not only by the young lady, who must appear to be dying for him, but by the father, mother, aunts, cousins, tutor, gamekeeper, and stable-boy-assisted by the parson of the parish, and the churchwardens. If any of these fail, Dives pouts, and the match is off.

The merit of this writer is, that he catches delicate portraits, which a less skilful artist would pass over, from not thinking the features sufficiently marked. We are struck, however, with the resemblance, and are pleased with the conquest of difficulties-we remember to have seen such faces, and are sensible that they form an agreeable variety to the expression of more marked and decided character. Nobody, for instance, can deny that he is acquainted with Miss Darrell.

'Miss Darrell was not strictly a beauty. She had not, as was frequently observed by her female friends, and unwillingly admitted by her male admirers, a single truly good feature in her face. But who could quarrel with the tout ensemble? who but must be dazzled with the graceful animation with which those features were lighted up? Let critics hesitate to pronounce her beautiful; at any rate they must allow her to be fascinating. Place her a perfect stranger in a crowded assembly, and she would first attract his eye; correcter beauties would pass unnoticed, and his first attention would be riveted by her. She was all brilliancy and effect; but it were hard to say she studied it; so little did her spontaneous, airy graces convey the impression of premeditated practice. She was a sparkling tissue of little affectations, which, however, appeared so interwoven with herself, that their seeming artlessness disarmed one's censure. Strip them away, and you destroyed at once the brilliant being that so much attracted you; and it thus became difficult to condemn what you felt unable, and indeed, unwilling, to remove. With positive affectation, malevolence itself could rarely charge her; and prudish censure seldom exceeded the guarded limits of a dry remark, that Miss Darrell had "a good deal of manner."

'Eclat she sought, and gained. Indeed, she was both formed to gain it, and disposed to desire it. But she required an extensive sphere. A ball-room was her true arena: for she waltzed "à ravir," and could talk enchantingly about nothing. She was devoted to fashion, and all its ficklenesses, and went to the ex

treme whenever she could do so consistently with grace. But she aspired to be a leader as well as a follower; seldom, if ever adopted a mode that was unbecoming to herself, and dressed to suit the genius of her face.'-(pp. 28, 29.)

Tremendous is the power of a novelist! If four or five men are in a room, and show a disposition to break the peace, no human magistrate (not even Mr. Justice Bayley) could do more than bind them over to keep the peace, and commit them if they refused. But the writer of the novel stands with a pen in his hand, and can run any of them through the body,-can knock down any one individual, and keep the others upon their legs; or, like the last scene in the first tragedy written by a young man of genius, can put them all to death. Now, an author possessing such extraordinary privileges, should not have allowed Mr. Tyrrel to strike Granby. This is ill managed; particularly as Granby does not return the blow, or turn him out of the house. Nobody should suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled by the nose. The Iliad would never have come down to these times if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have trembled for the Æneid, if any Tyrian nobleman had kicked the pious Eneas in the 4th book. Eneas may have deserved it; but he could not have founded the Roman Empire after so distressing an accident.

HAMILTON'S METHOD OF TEACHING LANGUAGES. 453

HAMILTON'S METHOD OF TEACHING LANGUAGES. (E. REVIEW, 1826.)

1. The Gospel of St. John, in Latin, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation. Executed under the immediate Direction of James Hamilton. London, 1824.

2. The Gospel of St. John, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation from the Italian, with full Instructions for its use, even by those who are wholly ignorant of the Language. For the Use of Schools. By James Hamilton, Author of the Hamiltonian System. London, 1825.

We have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Hamilton personally. He may be the wisest or the weakest of men; most dexterous or most unsuccessful in the exhibition of his system; modest and proper, or prurient and preposterous in its commendation ;-by none of these considerations is his system itself affected.

The proprietor of Ching's Lozenges must necessarily have recourse to a newspaper, to rescue from oblivion the merit of his vermifuge medicines. In the same manner, the Amboyna tooth-powder must depend upon the Herald and the Morning Post. Unfortunately, the system of Mr. Hamilton has been introduced to the world by the same means, and has exposed itself to those suspicions which hover over splendid discoveries of genius, detailed in the daily papers, and sold in sealed boxes at an infinite diversity of prices-but with a perpetual inclusion of the stamp, and with an equitable discount for undelayed payment.

It may have been necessary for Mr. Hamilton to have had recourse to these means of making known his discoveries, since he may not have had friends whose names and authority might have attracted the notice of the

public; but it is a misfortune to which his system has been subjected, and a difficulty which it has still to overcome. There is also a singular and somewhat ludicrous condition of giving warranted lessons; by which is meant, we presume, that the money is to be returned, if the progress is not made. We should be curious to know, how poor Mr. Hamilton would protect himself from some swindling scholars, who, having really learnt all that the master professed to teach, should counterfeit the grossest ignorance of the Gospel of St. John, and refuse to construe a single verse, or to pay a farthing?

Whether Mr. Hamilton's translations are good or bad is not the question. The point to determine is, whether very close interlineal translations are helps in learning a language? not whether Mr. Hamilton has executed these translations faithfully and judiciously. Whether Mr. Hamilton is or is not the inventor of the system which bears his name, and what his claims to originality may be, are also questions of very second-rate importance; but they merit a few observations. That man is not the discoverer of any art who first says the thing; but he who says it so long, and so loud, and so clearly, that he compels mankind to hear him-the man who is so deeply impressed with the importance of the discovery that he will take no denial, but, at the risk of fortune, and fame, pushes through all opposition, and is determined that what he thinks he has discovered shall not perish for want of a fair trial. Other persons had noticed the effect of coal gas in producing light; but Winsor worried the town with bad English for three winters before he could attract any serious attention to his views. Many persons broke stone before Macadam, but Macadam felt the discovery more strongly, stated it more clearly, persevered in it with greater tenacity, wielded his hammer, in short, with greater force than other men, and finally succeeded in bringing his plan into general use.

Literal translations are not only not used in our public schools, but are generally discountenanced in them. A literal translation, or any translation of a