to have only one defect, which might have been so easily remedied, that it is to be regretted that it should have been neglected by the author. Jones, after all, proves illegitimate, when there would have been no difficulty for the author to have supposed that his mother had been privately married to the young clergyman. This would not only have removed the stain from the birth of the hero, but, in the idea of the reader, would have given him better security for the property of his uncle Allworthy. In fact, in a miserable continuation which has been written of the history of Tom Jones, the wrongheaded author (of whom Blifil was the favourite,) has made his hero bring an action against Tom after the death of Mr Allworthy, and oust him from his uncle's property.

Of the writings of Smollett, by far the most original is Humphry Clinker. In this novel the author most successfully executes, what had scarcely ever been before attempted-a representation of the different effects which the same scenes, and persons, and transactions, have on different dispositions and tempers. He exhibits through the whole work a most lively and humorous delineation, confirming strongly the great moral truth, that happiness and all our feelings are the result, less of external circumstances, than the constitu

tion of the mind. In his other writings, the sailors of Smollett are most admirably delineated-their mixture of rudeness and tenderness-their narrow prejudices thoughtless extravagance-dauntless valour and warm generosity. In his Peregrine Pickle, Smollet's sea characters are a little caricatured, but the character of Tom Bowling, in Roderick Random, has something even sublime, and wil be regarded in all ages as a happy exhibition of those naval heroes, to whom Britain is indebted for so much of her happiness and glory.

Although, as has been already mentioned, it is not my design to enter into a minute consideration of English novels, an analysis of which would require some volumes, it would not be proper altogether to overlook a Romantic species of novel, which seems in a great measure peculiar to the English, which differs in some degree from any fiction of which I have yet given an account, and which has recommended itself to a numerous class of readers by exciting powerful emotions of

terror.

"There exists," says an elegant writer, “in every breast at all susceptible of the influence of imagination, the germ of a certain superstitious dread of the world unknown, which easily suggests the ideas of commerce with it. Solitude-dark

ness low-whispered sounds-obscure glimpses of objects, tend to raise in the mind that thrilling mysterious terror, which has for its object the powers unseen, and mightier far than we.'"

It is perhaps singular, that emotions só powerful and universal should not have been excited by fiction at an earlier period; for this species of composition cannot be traced higher than the Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole.

The following curious account of the origin and composition of this romance is given by the author himself in a letter to Mr Cole, dated StrawberryHill, March 9, 1769. "Shall I confess to you what was the origin of this romance? I waked one morning in the beginning of last June from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a very natu ral dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great stair-case, I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it. Add that I was very glad to think of any thing rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening

I wrote from the time I had drunk tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking in the middle of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness, but, if I have amused you by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content."

To the work, however, which was written with so much interest, Mr Walpole did not affix his name, but published it as a translation from an Italian author, whom he called Onuphrio Montalto: he also feigned that it had been originally printed in black letter at Naples, in 1529, and that it had been recently discovered in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England. The production was ill received on its first appearance, and the extravagant commendations heaped on the imaginary author by the real one, appear abundantly absurd, now that the deception has been discovered.

The work is declared by Mr Walpole to be an attempt to blend the ancient romance and modern novel; but, if by the ancient romance be meant the tales of chivalry, the extravagance of the Castle of Otranto has no resemblance to their machi

mery. What analogy have skulls or skeletonssliding pannels-damp vaults-trap-doors-and dismal apartments, to the tented fields of chivalry and its airy enchantments?

It has been much doubted, whether the Castle of Otranto was seriously or comically intended; if seriously, it is a most feeble attempt to excite awe or terror; an immense helmet is a wretched instrument for inspiring supernatural dread, and the machinery is so violent that it destroys the effect it was intended to raise. A sword which requires a hundred men to lift it-blood dropping from the nose of a statue-the hero imprisoned in a helmet, resemble not a first and serious attempt at a new species of composition, but look as if devised in ridicule of preceding extravagance, as Don Quixote was written to expose the romances of chivalry, by an aggravated representation of their absurdities.

But, whether seriously intended or written in jest, the story of the Castle of Otranto contains all the elements of this species of composition. We have hollow groans, gothic windows that exclude the light, and trap-doors with flights of steps descending to dismal vaults. The deportment, too, of the domestics, the womanish terrors