Romancers stand forth :-novel scribes straight arise, Whose furor consists in retailing huge lies.

resting. The account of a visit, which, the author says, Charlemagne and his twelve peers paid to an Emperor Hugo of Constantinople, and the reception which that prince gave to them, is, as the same writer expresses it, "Un des plus grand naivetez qu'on ait jamais ecrites." After a magnificent entertainment these guests were conducted to a sumptuous bed-chamber by Prince Tiberius and the lovely Princess Jacqueline. Thirteen pompous beds ornamented the apartment; that in the middle was for Charlemagne, who, not being sleepy, pro-. posed to amuse himself with his knights by a species of conversation which the author of the romance calls "Gaber," and which consisted of the most improbable rhodomontades; from whence, it is conjectured, is derived "The Gift of the Gab." The emperor himself began by vaunting that, with his good sword Joyeuse, he could cut a man in twain, though defended by the best tempered steel. Orlando, his nephew, professed that, with a blast of his horn, he would level with the ground fifty fathoms of the walls of Constantinople; and thus every peer made his boast, when, the Gabs being completed, the party composed themselves to sleep, which would not have been the case had they known what awaited them the ensuing morning. Now it chanced that the Emperor Hugo, expect

In mazes monastic of Strawberry Hill,

Sir Horace first issu'd the marvellous pill;

His brain teeming hot with the chivalrous rant, O! Engender'd the Giant, and Castle Otranto: (f)

ing much from the conversation of thirteen such paragons of valour and wisdom, placed a spy, who was directed to note every word which passed, and report the same early in the morning. The commission was faithfully executed, and the result made known to Hugo, who was so disappointed to find, in the room of the wise maxims he had expected, such a farrago of lies, that, unmindful of the laws of hospitality, he sent word to the whole party, that, unless each performed the purport of his "Gab," he had made an oath to hang up every one of them, not excepting the great Charlemagne himself. The remainder of the story is too long, too profane, and much too free for this work; wherefore those who are desirous of ascertaining how the emperor and his peers extricated themselves from the scrape must consult Menage, who will inform them of the humanity of Princess Jacqueline, and of the very different figure which a celestial messenger made by undertaking a business quite out of his line.

(f) The style of this would-be flight of fancy, like the dull monotonous language of the Mysterious Mother before men.

A stupid, incongruous, blundering tale,

The rank of whose writer alone caus'd its sale;

Since, had Leadenhall's Lane seen the work, I'll be

bound,

To possess it he would not have proffer'd five pound.
Not thus of The Old English Baron we'll speak,
Of falsehoods now extant a most happy freak; (g)

tioned, is a further convincing proof of its writer's total incapacity to produce any composition bearing the stamp of originality and genius. As a compiler of the Anecdotes of Painting and Engraving, Lord Orford appears in a respectable light; but for the accomplishment of any literary attempt beyond the mere drudgery of research he never was intended by nature; and, consequently, the world would have lost nothing had his romance and his drama existed only in the mazes of his lordship's pericranium.

(g) There is a simplicity in the style and a constant interest kept up throughout the tale of Miss Reeve's Old English Baron, which must command the plaudits even of the most fastidious advocates for literature; for myself I am free to confess that I perused its pages with infinite pleasure; nor is there, in my

For which I must compliment scribe Clara Reeve
As the lady most able to lie and deceive;

By hobgoblins bit, and knights errant, her hosts,

She brought forth, at length, a complete brace of

ghosts;

While story of Dame and her murder'd Lord Lovel
Hath made Miss oft cold as Sir Cloudesly Shovell,
I mean marble effigy greeting the eyes,
Which smother'd with wig in the Abbey snug lies.
The name of a Lee, next, my muse shall impress,
Who bewitch'd youths and maids with her charm-
ing Recess ;

A tale that condenses some truth with much fiction,
And is passably fair on the score of its diction. (h)

humble opinion, a better fiction now extant among the countless works of the same description which have since been handed from the circulating libraries.

(h) Miss Lee's Recess is ably put together; she has blended truth with fiction in a masterly way, and the only fault of this production is the tediousness of the last volume.

Anne Radcliffe, Leviathan fam'd of romance, (i)
With grand cacoethes throws reason in trance.
Descriptions she gives both by sea and by land,
But the devil a soul can the scene understand;

(i) Much has been said respecting the Mysteries of Udolpho, from the pen of the above lady; but I have no hesitation in stating that I should never for a moment balance in awarding the preference to the Romance of the Forest. In the first-mentioned production the descriptions are carried on to an extent that not only renders them tedious, but unintelligible; and I very much query if two, and sometimes three of Sonini's Alpine pictures were not condensed into one by the author upon these occasions. But the most flagrant defect in this performance is the miserable denouement of what constituted such unceasing terror during so many thick volumes; I mean a mere effigy in wax behind a curtain, which every reader is prompted to believe a more horrific spectacle than ever before met human optics. The Romance of the Forest, on the contrary, is replete with interest; such actions, such scenery, and such characters might, and doubtless have, existed; and for this plain reason do I prefer the last mentioned volumes. As to Mrs. Radcliffe's productions, taken in the aggregate, they undoubtedly prove her to have possessed a most fertile imagination combined with no small share of literary acumen.