the consciousness that he must lose every thing that he loves; and he finds that the elixir vite only imprisons him for ever in a charnel-house. Even in the exercise of benevolence he was wretched. Surrounded and regaled with animated praise, (says St. Leon of himself, vol. iv. p. 66.,) I was not content: I wanted a friend. I was alone amidst the innumerable multitudes of those I blessed. I knew no cordiality; I could repose no confidence; I could find no equal.'

The character of St. Leon is drawn in a masterly manner. We shall trace the outline of that part of his history which is here given; for, being immortal, it can only be an unfinished. fragment. He is stated to have been born in the time of Francis I., Charles V., and our Henry VIII.; to have been present at the celebrated interview between the first and last of these monarchs, and to have fought at the battle of Pavia between the two former, when Francis was made prisoner. These circumstances afford an opportunity of describing the martial spirit of that period. St. Leon, now about twenty years of age, renouncing military ambition, falls into the debaucheries and extravagance which in the Court of France succeeded the business of war; from these, however, he was in some measure delivered by his marriage with Marguerite de Damville; with whom he enjoyed great felicity at his castle of St. Leon, and by whom he had two sons (one of which died early) and threedaughters: but, going unfortunately to Paris for the education. of his son, he relapsed into vice, and particularly indulged the. passion for gaming to such a degree as to lose the whole of his fortune. By this circumstance, St. Leon with his most amiable wife and family are oppressed with penury, and thrown into the deepest retirement. They go to Swisserland; and when, by a variety of misfortunes, they are driven thence, they obtain a little cottage on the Lake of Constance. Here St. Leon com→ mences an acquaintance with a mysterious stranger; who, on his death-bed, reveals to him the secret of obtaining unbounded wealth and endless life*. St. Leon now looks forwards to vast enjoyment, but grievous disappointment awaits on all his hopes. The fatal present of the stranger, though it annihilated poverty, produced greater evils. He loses the confidence. of his wife, and is abandoned by his son: is imprisoned at Constance, under suspicion; escapes thence to Pavia, where, his house is burnt down by the populace, under an idea of his being in league with the devil; and in Spain his wife dies, and he is imprisoned in the dungeons of the Inquisition. He avoids,

How comes it to pass that this stranger yields to the sentence of mortality?

however,

however, being burnt at an auto da fe; makes his escape; and by the use of the elixir vita he so renews his youth, that he cannot be known as Count St. Leon. He visits his daughters after this change, at the family castle, but without the possibility of being recognized, and without the pleasure and gratifications of a parent: he then travels to Hungary, and employs his gold-creating power in acts of benevolence and humanity; yet still disappointment and misery pursue him; and Bethlem Gabor, whom he had chosen for his friend and the object of his greatest kindness, rewards him with imprisonment in a horrid cavern belonging to a castle to which St. Leon went on a visit. Delivered from this region of darkness and misery, he meets with his son Charles, but without any of the pleasures naturally resulting from an interview between a parent and child after a long separation. While meaning kindness, he obstructs his son's happiness; and though at last he effects Charles's union with the object of his love, he is obliged to renounce the gratification of being a witness of it, and to become a miserable wanderer on the face of the earth.

Such in brief is the tale of St. Leon. Mr. G. apologizes for the boldness and irregularity of his design, and hopes he may. be excused if he have mixed human feelings and passions with incredible situations, and rendered them impressive and interesting.' We cannot deny that he has accomplished this: yet why imagine incredible situations and absolute impossibilities, in order to work on our feelings, passions, and convictions? Might we not as well imagine men who could fly, or live under water like fish, or support life without eating and drinking? Of what use can such idle imaginations be to man in the actual state of his existence? We would put these questions to Mr. Godwin, because he would have it supposed that he has a moral and philosophical purpose to answer by his writings; and that he does not publish, like the vulgar herd of novelists, merely to gratify the wild fancies of love-sick misses and masters. We conclude that he is superior to so low an

aim.

Having noticed several sketches and remarks, which were evidently suggested by the circumstances of the author's own life, and knowing his sentiments concerning marriage, we were not surprized at the following passage in p. 81, 82. vol. i.: but its dangerous tendency ought not to pass without animadversion :

Few women of regular and reputable lives have that ease of manners, that flow of fancy, and that graceful intrepidity of thinking and expressing themselves, that is sometimes to be

found

found among those who have discharged themselves in a certain degree from the tyranny of custom.'

How does this insidious remark tend to diminish the love of virtue in the female breast! The irregular fair have, it should seem, discharged themselves from the tyranny of custom. Dangerous sentiment! O ye fair readers, believe it not! We will oppose to it the admirable picture of a gamester, voli. p. 148.

No man who has not felt, can possibly image to himself the tortures of a gamester, of a gamester like me, who played for the improvement of my fortune, who played with the recollection of a wife and children dearer to me than the blood that bubbled through the arteries of my heart, who might be said, like the Asiatic savage, to make these relations the stake for which I threw, who saw all my own happiness and all theirs through the long visto of life, depending on the tuin of a card! Hell is but the chimera of priests, to bubble idiots and cowards. What have they invented, to come into competition with what I felt! Their alternate interchange of flames and ice, is but a feeble image of the eternal varieties of hope and fear. All bodily racks and torments are nothing compared with certain states of the human mind. The gamester would be the most pitiable, if he were not the most despicable, creature that exists. Arrange ten bits of painted paper in a certain order, and he is ready to go wild with the extravagance of his joy. He is only restrained by some remains of shame from dancing about the room, and displaying the vileness of his spirit by every sort of freak and absurdity. At another time, when his hopes have been gradually worked up into a paroxysm, an unexpected turn arrives, and he is made the most miserable of men. Never shall I cease to recollect the sensation I have repeatedly felt, in the instantaneous sinking of the spirits, the conscious fire that spread over my visage, the anger in my eye, the burning dryness of my throat, the sentiment that in a moment was ready to overwhelm with curses the cards, the stake, my own existence and all mankind. passion seemed to rush upon my soul! How every malignant and insufferable solitude and despair did I repeatedly pass during the progress of my What nights of dreadful ruin! It was the night of the soul! My mind was wrapped in a gloom that could not be pierced! My heart was oppressed with a weight, that no power, human or divine, was equal to remove! My eyelids seemed to press downward with an invincible burthen! My eyeballs were ready to start and crack their sockets! I lay motionless the victim of ineffable horror! The whole endless night seemed to be filled with one vast, appalling, immoveable idea! It was a stupor, more insupportable and tremendous, than the utmost whirl of pain, or the fiercest agony of exquisite perception!'

Beautiful painting is to be seen in various parts of this romance, and we could extract pages of just observation and acute remark. For example:

The passions of an husband and father will be found to be the true school of humanity.'

Adversity

Adversity is the season of sober thought, calls home the erratic mind, and teaches us to be cheaply satisfied.'

It may be laid down as a rule, that they who cannot hate can least endure to be the objects of hatred.'

The ingredients of sublimity are the materials of heroic virtue.' Our senses are the masters of our minds, and reason vainly op. poses itself to the liveliness of their impressions.'

• Feeling does not stay to calculate with weights and a balance the importance and magnitude of every object that excites it: it flows impetuously from the heart, without consulting the cooler responses of the understanding.'

There is something indescribably delicious in the concentration of mind.'

Self-importance of man! upon how slight a basis do thy gigantic erections repose!'

If all Mr. Godwin's writings were of this complexion, we should read them with more satisfaction, and bestow on them a more liberal praise: but, since his mind is as excentric as it is vigorous, it is our duty to advise his readers to peruse him with caution, and to admire him with discrimination.

The reader will find, in the catalogue part of this Review, (in the class of Miscellaneous,) some account of a burlesque imitation of Mr. Godwin's work.

ART. V. Sermons on practical and important Subjects. With a Preface, particularly addressed to Candidates for Orders, and the younger Clergy. By Philip Henvill, Curate of Damerham South, Wilts. 8vo. pp. 350. 7s. 6d. Boards. Egerton. 1799.

F the present learned and excellent Bishop of Sarum, to whom these discoures are dedicated, and who is said to be their patron, had condescended to peruse them in manuscript, we are persuaded that we should have been spared some trouble and concern. The moral and religious tendency of sermons renders them a species of composition which we wish to treat with respect but we have so many very excellent productions of this nature already published, that none should now be suf fered to go to the press which do not possess considerable merit. By the long preface, which occupies a great part of this volume, and in which the author undertakes to teach the teachers in Israel, we were led to expect something in the ensuing discourses that would distinguish them from the ordinary specimens of pulpit eloquence. How cruelly has Mr. H. disappointed us! We say cruelly, because he has placed us in a situation in which it is painful to us to discharge our duty. It concerns us to characterize sermons, which doubtless were dictated by a good heart, and preached and published from a good motive, as defective compositions: yet this we must do in the present in

stance, unless we would forfeit our reputation with the public. There is no lucidus ordo in them; the ideas of the preacher seem always confused; and many pompous words are often put together to express very little meaning. The perusal of them reminded us of the remarks or memorandums of Yorick, (see Tristram Shandy,) on the backs of his own discourses; one of which we recollect was, "This sermon will suit any text, and this text any sermon." Mr. Henvill seems to have no conception of the necessity of confining his thoughts to his subject, nor of methodically arranging them. In his sermon on Charity, it would be impossible to ascertain from a great part of it what was the particular theme selected for discourse; and we can only learn this by looking at the top of the page. Who would suppose that the following was an extract from a sermon professedly treating on charity?

6

To the young, the volatile, and the gay, not yet initiated in the paths of vice, I would wish in this place particularly to address myself!

You are, my friends! just entering on the stage of life; and you may consider the world as an extensive theatre and it will principally depend on your own conduct, "whether the final conclusion will be tragical, or pleasant,-beyond all human comprehension. Virtue and vice, in the language of allegory, may be considered as two deities contending" for the mastery."-The one, arrayed in all the brightness of celestial majesty, conducting us to the "strait" though 66 narrow gate, which leadeth" to eternal life."-The other, decked in the spoils of Eastern magnificence, and satiated with the enjoy ment of voluptuous pleasures ;-encouraging debaucheries of every kind, countenancing idleness and immorality, and pointing to the "broad" and beaten " way" which leads, apparently, to the completion of happiness; but which, in fact, is the sure and inevitable road" to destruction."-How "vain and momentary are all sublunary enjoyments;"-how ill-founded the idea of their reality; and, above all, how ridiculous the pursuit, to "follow after things temporal, and finally to lose the things eternal!"

The road to virtue, it must be confessed, is of steep and rugged ascent; and requires some degree of patience to render it accessible; -so numerous are the temptations to induce us to turn aside, and "go out of the way:" and so prevailing are our sensual appetites and inclinations, which are as so many stumbling-blocks to impede our progress. Yet, if we have sufficient philosophy to withstand these temptations, and perseverance to surmount these obstacles, we shall at length arrive at that summit of uninterrupted bliss-the TEMPLE OF VIRTUE! And what a prospect does it present to our view! Romantic, imaginative ideas are apt to steal frequently on the mind, upon the most trifling and indifferent objects;-why then should we not indulge our fancy with similar reflections upon so delightful and important a topic? With what a serene and pleasant aspect, will things appear dispersed over the whole face of nature?

With