MARRIAGE REGULATIONS IN INDIA. MALTHUS, in his Essay on Population, quotes from Sir William Jones the regulations respecting matrimony, existing in India: "Girls with too little or too much hair; who are too talkative, who have bad eyes, a disagreeable name, or any kind of sickness, who have no brother, or whose father is not well known, are all with many others excluded ;" and the choice will appear to be in some degree confined, when it must necessarily rest upon a girl, whose form " has no defect; who has an agreeable name; who walks gracefully like a Phenicopteros or a young Elephant; whose hair and teeth are moderate respectively in quantity and size, whose body has exquisite softness.” Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ comntutanda, qua eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprebenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. PLIN. ART. 30. Modern Chivalry: containing the Adventures of a Captain, and Teague O'Regan, his servant. By H. H. Brackenridge. Philadelphia. J. Conrad & Co. 2 vols. 12mo. 1804. It is a pleasure, in this land of cent. per cent. to see, now and then, a spark of humour and amusement enliven the shade. We are glad to find a man, willing to sacrifice a little of his time to divert his fellows with merriment or please them with the productions of taste. In the novel department our indigenous fruits have, though numerous, been but meagre. True it is that a scrutinizing hand might draw from their dusty shrouds, several respectable tomes, of American parentage, whose title pages are stamped with this alarming name. True it is, that in this thing we have been unusually anxious to equal, if not the eminence, at least the fertility of our European brethren. Many of us have doubtless dwelt with great sympathy on the pathetick history of the unfortunate Dorcasina Sheldon, and have been inclined to believe that the ingenious author had almost mournful tale of the “ Coquette," out-quixoted Don Quixote. At the the doleful disasters of "Reuben and Rachel," the interesting intri cacies of the "Trials of the Heart" the "Spectator," &c. &c. many fair misses under fifteen years of age, for whose use they were composed, have wept, and thought, they" had full cause for weeping." With more respect we would mention the labours of a southern adventurer in the lands of fiction. "Arthur Merwyn" and "Wieland" are by no means destitute of merit ; though the latter is rather too likely to frighten little children in the night. In the adventures of " Updike Underhill," we have seen the pen of the novelist guided with no vulgar skill by a hand that now holds the sceptre of justice. The writer of the work we are to examine, like the author last mentioned, has descended from the bench of law, to laugh his neighbours out of their foibles, and convince them of their errours, The distributor of redress and equi 1808.] Modern Chivalry. ty, when he puts off the Judge, and assumes the executioner, ought at least to be as careful, as any other man, that he does not act without a warrant ; that his lash, if keenly applied, is required by justice and regulated by reason. Works of the burlesque kind have accomplished their object generally in two ways, either by giving to a trifling incident the buskined majes ty of epicks, or by degrading the real dignity of an elevated subject into coarse and homespun apparel. The first kind is exemplified, among other instances, in the Lutrin" of Boileau, the Rape of the Lock," and the Fun," by Gay; the other in the "Batrachomyomachia," attributed to Homer, its imitations, by Addison, in Latin verse, and especially by the travesties of Homer and Virgil, It is necessary, that in a work of the burlesque kind, there should be some object or class of objects proposed to be laughed at, and to this end the reader's attention should be directed. In Don Quixote we see the gallant profession of knight errantry, which its absurdities and extravagancies had made a subject of satire, bestowed on the inconsistent character of a plain country gentleman and applied to the common in'cidents of life. These two incongruities lay the foundation for the ridiculous adventures, and pointed satires of that inimitable work. In the Hudibras, the subject proposed is the superstition of the English Levellers and Independants. Here a considerable part of the humour. arises from the inconsistent character of the knight, as he is there drawn, and his squire with the office of defenders of religion. On the whole however, the plan is much less regular and well digested in this respect, than that of Don Quixote. To an unfinished performance we The The work before us on the first glance has the appearance of being on the same plan with those, just mentioned. We are presented with Capt. Farrago, and his Irish servant, Teague O'Regan. We see them arranging their equipage in the outset of the work, and setting out in quest of adventures; we follow them from town to town, over hill and dale, "over brook, and through briar;" we are successively led from one place to another, without knowing their name or geography, and introduced to one adventure after another, without the least thread or connexion, and at the end of the book we turn back to inquire why Captain Farrago, and his bog-trotting servant were sent on this hard, and, fatiguing expedition, rather than we or any other men. Captain is presented to us as a plain rustick gentleman, whose notions were clear on all subjects, though his modes of expressing them were rather stiff and quaint; whose conversation was a little tinctured with the learning of the ancients, and the Such good sense of former times. a person is certainly not very likely to leave the quiet of a retired and rural life, to perambulate the country, and correct the disordered noAn autions of his neighbours. thor however has a magick art, to which almost all difficulties may be brought to yield. Judge B. actu. ally kidnaps the Captain from this quiet, and solitary retirement, and sends him to seek his fortune "et modo Thebis ponit, modo et Athenis." In order however to have some loop hole for his interference in affairs entirely foreign from his own, he is saddled with an Irish servant, who becomes the subject of most of the adventures.. In these adventures there is much uniformity. At the first town Teague is proposed as candidate for Congress, at the next he is mentioned, as a member of the Philosophical Society, at another he is requested to deliver an oration on the fourth of Ju ly, or to perform the honourable duty of editor of a paper. The reader is scon tired of this sameness of plan, and of this want of connexion in the incidents. Were it not that the lash of the satirist is allow ed to fall almost indiscriminately, and that much exaggeration is nenecessary to give a ludicrous colour to the tame incidents, and characters of common life; were it not for these reasons, we should be disposed to blame the Judge for ex. hibiting Teague, a complication of every species of roguery, and barbarQusness, as a true example of the Irish character. We should be disposed to blame; Sir John Carr, and Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Owenson, the champions of Ireland, would show him but little mercy. This work then has but small pretensions to the title of a regular performance of the burlesque kind. But it may be said, that we have been all this time" querentes nodum in scirpo;" and that the author avowedly makes no pretensions to any thing of that kind. For on p. 28. part 2, Vol. I, he says ** I mean this tale of a Captain travelling, but as a vehicle to my way of thinking on some subjects, just as the ancients introduced speakers in a dialogue, or at feasts; and at the conclusion of the work, "The vehicle, that I have chosen of supposed travels, and conversations,affords great scope,and much freedom, and furnishes an op, portunity to enliven with incident. Doubtless it is of the same nature, with many things in the novel way, written by philosophick men, who chose that mode of writing, for the purpose merely of conveying senti ments, which, in a didactick work under the head of tract or disserta tion, could not so easily gain the attention of their readers." This apology however, gives but little excuse for the mode of execu tion, if, as we have stated, it be faulty. It is not unlike that of the lady, who excused herself from weeping at a pathetick sermon, when the surrounding audience were all in tears, by saying, that she belonged to another parish. Undoubtedly every author has a right to make his work whatever he pleases; but if he clothes it in the form and cir. cumstance of any class of works before known and defined, as such it must be judged in some respects, that is to say, as far, as it is a merit to execute it on a regular plan, conformed to the rules of criticism, which, in their turn, are drawn from the great examples of eminent preceding authors. The author of Madoc, after choosing an important historical fact, and relating it in poetical narrative, with the proper appendages of episodes, descriptions, characters, &c, finding that it is in some measure deficient in unity, and perhaps in some other requisite qual ities, declares, in his preface, with great independence, that his poem assumes pot the degraded title of Epick. But as an Epick it was written, and as an Epick, it has been, and must be judged, notwithstanding the protest of its author. And the propriety of this principle is obvious. No protest would for bid an author from receiving the allowance of praise that his work had deserved, and why should it shield him from any part of the disapprobation. From this general view of the work, we proceed to judge of it more in detail, and here its preten act. mitted, and left to farces of a single It must be allowed, however, that the effect of it is often exces sively risible. The character of Teague O'Regan, is a singular mixture. He is a bog-trotter, fresh from the wilds of Ireland, with much ambition, and infinite effron tery, knayery of every species in abundance, and a great fondness for the ladies. His original rudeness, and the methods, that were taken to prepare him for his entrance at the President's levee, where he was to be presented as a candidate for office, are humourously drawn in the fol lowing scene, between the Irishman, and his dancing master. Monsieur Patrick, said Monsieur Doupetie, for understanding that he was an Irishman, and thinking that all Irishmen were named Patrick, he gave hin this appellation: Monsieur Patrick, said he, il faut commencer par les principes; must begin by de principle. La premiere principe, de first lessong est placer les pieds; place de foot. Voyez; dis foot, cy; comme cela; (shewing him how to place his foot) and ce luy, dat foot, la; comme dis foot, (shewing him by his own foot how to place it) Tournez les pieds; open de foot, quoi? vous ouvrez la bouche; vous open de mout, and not de foot. Vous keep vos foot in de same position, et vous baillez ; you open de mout. La secong principe, is to keep de body droit: trait. Must sit firm sur ses membres, on de limb. Tenez votre body as dis (shewing him in what manner to keep his body) assieyez vons, sur vos membres, comme ce la; dis. way Monsieur. Quoi! encore la bouche I stop here to observe, that the open ing the mouth when an exertion of the mind or body is required, is a habit very common with uninformed men, and not at all peculiar to Teague: you will observe, that men, who have not been long, or at least much in the habit of writing, when they put pen to paper, open the mouth, and protrude the tongue, moving it, as the pen turns to the right hand of |