The business then of the present work is to go over again the ground of Cumberland's life, for the purpose chiefly of coming at his works, in their succession, and passing upon them a critical and final judgement; scattering however, by the way, a variety of moral observations suggested by the particulars that come into the narration. Now, in the first place, as to the new-cast story of the person's life, this, at any rate is most completely a work of supererogation, when the writer is obliged to confess explicitly that he has nothing new to tell, and that he relies entirely on Cumberland's own 'Memoirs.' In this portion of his undertaking he must of necessity be reduced to ralate in a comparatively faint and cold style, what the author of the Memoirs had related with the liveliness of personal consciousness, memory, and interest; or to transcribe the very words of that work, and thus, under the semblance of a new book, offer a sort of mutilated re-. print of the old one. This latter method has been practised by the present author to an almost unprecedented, and an altogether unpardonable extent. He inserts four, or six, or eight, and in some instances a still greater number of pages continuously, from the Memoirs; and so frequently that if all the sheer piece of Cumberland's composition were brought together, they would be found to form a most unconscionable proportion of the volume. And at the same time this stout plunderer shall seem to take credit for laudable service! by expressions such as the account is so interesting that the reader would hardly forgive me for withholding it' meaning, of course, the reader who has perused it, and perhaps paid for it, as a part of the Memoirs,'-since other readers could know nothing about the omission. It is not at all to be wondered at, that the proprietors of Cumberland's book have called in the interference of the law, and obtained an Injunction' restraining the sale of the present work.

In the next place, as to the critical trial and judgement on the numerous writings; we should not perhaps with quite so much simplicity ask, what is the need or use of it, if we were more familiar with the theatre. As several of Cumberland's plays are still sometimes performed, it may very likely be a concern of some magnitude with the frequenters to be illuminated on the subject of the merits or faults of their respective plots, and to be qualified to dissertate on the characters of O'Flaherty, Belcour, Charlotte Rusport, &c. &c. &c. But still, it may be doubted whether many of these freqnenters will take the trouble to read a book of biographical criticism to qualify themselves; whether, for the most part,

they may not very readily, either from their own taste, or from the fashionable notions among people around them, make up their opinions on these high matters, as far as they can have any question about them whether, in short, it is of much consequence, if their opinions on points of dramatic propriety are absurd-or if they have none at all. It is indeed with no intention of prosecuting critical studies, that either the vulgar or the genteel rabble cram the theatre. Nor will they, we apprehend, feel much gratitude to the present writer, for the ready made estimates and discriminations of Cumberland's more noted plays, with which they may be here supplied; though it is possible enough that a few of them may avail themselves of such convenient means of appearing wiser than their companions.

If, however, it could have been decided, on any good grounds, that the public was in want of a new and formal critical estimate of the writings of an author, of whose works by far the greater part will subside, speedily and finally, out of the public attention, this desideratum might have been furnished in the express and compact form of a critical essay on those writings. And to adopt, instead of this method, the plan of constructing, under the title of a Life,' a large work on the basis of mere extracts, long and numerous, from Cumberland's own Memoirs,' does really appear to us one of the boldest feats in book-making we have ever witnessed; and our wonder at the author's daring is excited afresh, at every re-inspection of his manner of working.

Perhaps it would not have been bad policy to maintain, in the execution of such a plan, an air of moderate assurance and self-complacency, that should avoid betraying any consciousness of much amiss in the concern, and of any need of apologies and deprecations. But surely it is a great abandonment of prudence, to go quite beyond this moderate strain of assumption, and take a high tone of merit, dignity, and independence; to obtrude the author ostentatiously where there is no occasion for his appearing at all; and to assert with a kind of indignant effort, my unimpeachable right to declare my own opinions, just before, or just after plundering, in full daylight, a dozen uninterrupted pages that another man has taken the pains to write. It is not exactly amidst such workmanship that egotism would have been expected to display itself. But this weed of literature has the faculty of growing on any thing We have seldom seen it more flourishing than in this work. There is no address employed to keep the im portant pronoun out of the way. It comes in full state at the head of each paragraph of dissenting and pronouncing. And

VOL VIII.

sometimes an inverted Johnsonian construction of sentence augments the pomp. Adverting to Miss Seward's Letters, Mr. M. says, Of this heterogeneous mass of vanity, pedantry and virulence, let me take this occasion to give my opinion? and lest there should be a danger of forgetting who is giving it, the great word returns upon us the times and ways following, within the space of half a page.

I know not whether most to condemn the egregious egotism of this proceeding, or its folly. I can find only one excuse for it, and that is the writer's sex. In passing from the principle which dictated this compilation to its conclusion, I do not find much to approve. I have been very thoroughly disgusted with her pertness, her affectation, and her vitiated style; and I have been more than disgusted with her rancour to wards the memory of Johnson.' In what she writes I find neither dig nity of sentiment, novelty of remark, nor acuteness of criticism.' p. 181.

It is very strange that the disgust which all authors, in their turn, feel at the self-importance betrayed by their brother and sister performers, should not effectually admonish them all to be a little suspicious and careful of themselves in this particular. And a very inoderate portion of this care and sus picion would teach them, how to construct their sentences, and enounce their opinions, without this perpetual and offen. sive prominence of myself as the authority, the oracle, the Apollo, to be personally recognized and reverently thought of, by all the readers and hearers of the sentence and the opinion.

The first and best advice to the fraternity on the subject would be, to get rid, as fast as possible, of the vanity and selfimportance itself; as this would be a most valuable moral improvement, at the same time that it would save them, in the exercise of their literary callings, much of the trouble of tak ing care of appearances. But if this is really an exorbitant and hopeless requisition, from those of Adam's posterity who are born to the splendid inheritance of the quill, the next, and an indispensible obligation, is, the exercise of a discreet vigiJance upon the operation of the wonderfully subtle and deceptive power which this same self-importance has, to infuse itself through the whole train of an author's language. Let each of the persons whom it is our unwelcome duty to admonish on this head, be persuaded at least to make an experiment on the ef fect of this vigilance, maintained through just one sheet of composition. Let them observe how many times, within such a space, a proposition or a query, which is just ready to come out in the grand style, with the mighty pronoun, representative of ME, may, by the discreet care here recommended, be interrepted, and humbled down to a plain impersonal sentence,

without losing any thing of its sense. True it is, and much to be deplored, as one of the distresses of literature, that one cannot seem to love a sentence or paragraph, even though one's own, half so well, when it has taken this sort of stranger character-when it in no shape contains or reflects ME-when it says the thing, rather than makes me say it-when it enounces a truth in such a kind of way, as if I, to whom that truth owes its importance, much more than to the fact of its being a truth, were not in existence. Truth is, confessedly, of much less importance in itself, than in the circumstance that we are its exhibitors; one decisive proof of which is, that we do not like it to be better exhibited by other people than we ourselves can exhibit it. It is therefore very mortifying to be obliged to leave out the words expressive of that which forms the grace and dignity of the whole matter; to see a page of dry sense (for sense, at least, it is sure to be, in virtue of the author, even while the composition does not repeat in every line that it is his words) to see a page of sense spread out in dry impersonality, like cut and withered grass, when the thoughts might have been presented in the state of being undetached from their author, and growing in all the green and flowery vitality of egotism, Still, if the public taste is so perverse; if the readers will not be persuaded to take throughout every page of the book a deep interest about me, whoever I may be, but will universally like my composition all the better for seeming to forget me; what can I in prudence do, but submit to their humour, and take my revenge, by secretly becalling them all for fools?

It is proper to observe, at the same time, that the mere prevention of the too frequent intrusion of the personal pronoun, though that, unfortunately, is a task so far surpassing the prudence of many of our writers, is by no means all that is required in order to repress completely, symptoms of self con ceit, and make a writer appear to lose the very thought of himself in the interest and the labour of his subject.

-It is not so much in reality as in appearance, that we have suspended our proper business in making these slight remarks; for the author before us is peccaut in no small degree on this score of conceit. He begins in a style of great parade in his preface, in which, in a high wrought tone of independence and superior virtue, he arraigns and castigates Sir James Bland Burgess about a voluntary offer of assistance. in supplying materials for the Life of Cumberland, made by the said Sir James, thankfully accepted by Mr. Mudford, (who, however we are to understand, could do very well without it), and wilfully forgotten by Sir James. There is very stout and fierce

lecturing of the knight or baronet; and perhaps if he has thus been made to know his duty the better all the rest of his life, the other readers may not be discontented to have nine or ten pages employed on a matter which might perfectly well have been competently disposed of in the same number of lines: but the subject has betrayed the writer into a very unreserved display of that self importance, which so often reappears in the course of the work

In passing along the course of Cumberland's life, by the aid of his own Memoirs, Mr. Mudford often stops to take an occasion of delivering his opinions on some topic suggested by the history; and it is often done with great formality of style, and a good deal in the manner which seems to say the subject is now going to be placed in its proper light once for all. We think there is a considerable portion of just observation in these essays; though we cannot persuade ourselves they make any very important addition to the speculations on mos rals and literature. We cannot do any thing more equitable to the writer's ability and manner, than extracting a few pas sages from some of these occasional portions of disquisition. A complimentary letter from Warburton to Cumberland, on the appearance of his first dramatic performance, leads to the following observations on the mutual civilities and insincerity of authors.

There are few testimonies less to be depended upon than those which an author's friends deliver; especially when a work is politely presented, and an opinion politely requested. What can be expected but one politely given? Politeness and truth, however, are not inseparable companions. It cannot be expected, indeed, that a man's love of integrity will be so paramount to all other feelings, that he would recompence an author's civility who had presented him with a copy of his work, by telling him it was a worthless production. There is an allowable evasion of truth in these cases, which all men practise, and all men know to be practised, except when they are its objects; and then it is no longer truth evaded but truth herself. Hence the wide difference between the public sentence upon a book, and that which we often find in the letters of eminent judges address ed to the authors themselves; and hence the mutual compliments of literary men which commonly appear so ludicrous, when divested of those accidental circumstances, by which, in their first application, they are rendered respectable.

Cumberland having concluded his recollective notices of Lord Halifax with some expressions of dark intimation"what a mounful retrospection! I am not bound to dwell upon it. I turn from it with horror"-Mr. Mudford very justly censures this proceeding,