tions of the like nature, which, when you have a little indulged that vein of thought, will readily suggest themselves, never fail to raise a smile, if not immediately at the expense of the author, yet entirely destructive of that frame of mind which his poem requires in order to be relished.

I have dwelt the longer on this branch of literature, because you are chiefly to look here for materials of fun and irony. Voyages and travels indeed are no barren ground, and you must seldom let a number of your Review go abroad without an article of this description. The charm of this species of writing, so universally felt, arises chiefly from its uniting narrative with information. The interest we take in the story can only be kept alive by minute incident and occasional detail, which puts us in possession of the traveller's feelings, his hopes, his fears, his disappointments, and his pleasures. At the same time the thirst for knowledge and love of novelty is gratified by continual information respecting the people and countries he visits. If you wish, therefore, to run down the book, you have only to play off these two parts against each other: when the writer's object is to satisfy the first inclination, you are to thank him for communicating to the world such valuable facts-as whether he lost his way in the night-or sprained his ankle-or had no appetite to his dinner. If he is busied about describing the mineralogy, natural history, agriculture,

trade, &c., of a country, you may mention a hundred books from whence the same information may be obtained, and deprecate the practice of emptying old musty folios into new quartos, to gratify that sickly taste for a smattering about everything which distinguishes the present age.

In works of science and recondite learning, the task you have undertaken will not be so difficult as you may imagine. Tables of contents and indexes are blessed helps in the hands of a Reviewer; but, more than all, the preface is the field from which his richest harvest is to be gathered. In the preface the author usually gives a summary of what has been written on the same subject before; he acknowledges the assistance he has received from different sources, and the reasons of his dissent from former writers; he confesses that certain parts have been less attentively considered than others, and that information has come to his hands too late to be made use of; he points out many things in the composition of his work which he thinks may provoke animadversion, and endeavours to defend or to palliate his own practice. Here then is a fund of wealth for the Reviewer, lying upon the very surface; if he knows anything of his business, he will turn all these materials against the author, carefully suppressing the source of his information, and as if drawing from the stores of his own mind, long ago laid up for this very

purpose. If the author's references are correct, a great point is gained; for, by consulting a few passages of the original works, it will be easy to discuss the subject with the air of having a previous knowledge of the whole. Your chief vantage-ground is that you may fasten upon any position in the book you are reviewing, and treat it as principal and essential, when perhaps it is of little weight in the main argument; but, by allotting a large share of your criticism to it, the reader will naturally be led to give it a proportionate importance, and to consider the merit of the treatise at issue upon that single question. If anybody complains that the greater and more valuable parts remain unnoticed, your answer is that it is impossible to pay attention to all, and that your duty is rather to prevent the propagation of error than to lavish praises upon that which, if really excellent, will work its way in the world without your help. Indeed, if the plan of your Review admits of selection, you had better not meddle with works of deep research and original speculation, such as have already attracted much notice, and cannot be treated superficially without fear of being found out. The time required for making yourself thoroughly master of the subject is so great, that you may depend upon it they will never pay for the reviewing. They are generally the fruit of long study, and of talents concentrated in the steady pursuit of one object; it is not likely

therefore that you can throw much new light on a question of this nature, or even plausibly combat the author's positions in the course of a few hours, which is all you can well afford to devote to them. And, without accomplishing one or other of these points, your review will gain no celebrity, and of course no good will be done.

Enough has been said to give you some insight into the facilities with which your new employment abounds: I will only mention one more, because of its extensive and almost universal application to all branches of literature-the topic, I mean, which by the old Rhetoricians was called ivavríwv. That is, when a work excels in one quality, you may blame it for not having the opposite. For instance, if the biographical sketch of a literary character is minute and full of anecdote, you may enlarge on the advantages of philosophical reflection, and the superior mind required to give a judicious analysis of the opinions and works of deceased contrary, if the latter method is biographer, you can with equal lively colouring and truth and interest of exact delineation and detail. This topic, you will perceive, enters into style as well as matter, where many virtues might be named which are incompatible; and, whichever the author has preferred, it will be the signal for you to Jaunch forth on the praises of its opposite, and

authors; on the

pursued by the

ease extol the

continually to hold up that to your reader as the model of excellence in this species of writing.

You will, perhaps, wonder why all my instructions are pointed towards the censure and not the praise of books; but many reasons might be given why it should be so. The chief are, that this part is both easier, and will sell better. Let us hear the words of Mr. Burke on a subject not very dissimilar: "In such cases," says he, "the writer has a certain fire and alacrity inspired into him by a consciousness that, let it fare how it will with the subject, his ingenuity will be sure of applause; and this alacrity becomes much greater, if he acts upon the offensive, by the impetuosity that always accompanies an attack, and the unfortunate propensity which mankind have to the finding and exaggerating faults." (Pref. Vindic. Nat. Soc., p. 6.) You will perceive that I have on no occasion sanctioned the baser motives of private pique, envy, revenge, and love of detraction; at least, I have not recommended harsh treatment upon any of these grounds; I have argued simply on the abstract moral principle which a Reviewer should ever have present to his mind but if any of these motives insinuate themselves as secondary springs of action, I would not condemn them; they may come in aid of the grand leading principle, and powerfully second its operation.

But it is time to close these tedious precepts, and