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260 Literary and Critical Proémium. 
verses have done as much mischief among 
the ladies as any recruiting officer in a 
country-town. Surely, if “ my dear Anne” 
is insensible to Moore, she is in no danger 
from Don Juan. Then, as to Chaucer, 
we think him extremely ill-used; he is 
pronounced to be “rugged and verbose,” 
and to write in “an almost obsolete lan- 
guage,’ which offers “an almost insuper- 
able bar to the perusal of his poems.” ‘Lo 
this assertion of “rugged and verbose,”’ 
we give the reply valiant—it is not true ; 
and as to the language opposing “ an insu- 
perable bar,” it opposes no bar except to 
ignorance. Chaucer has few serious diffi- 
culties to any one who really understands 
the English language, a degree of know- 
ledge, which we at least are not et 
enough to deny the ladies. 
Tales of a Traveller. By Guorrrey 
Crayon, Gent. 2 vols. 
ly has been said of Irwin, as of many 
other authors, that he does not write for 
posterity ; upon this point we will not pre. 
tend to decide, not knowing what may be 
the taste of posterity, or whether it may 
have any taste at all; but, if to be read by 
all his contemporaries, high and low, wise 
and simple, be enough to satisfy an author’s 
ambition, Master Geofirey Crayon is a very 
happy man. We hardly know of any wri- 
ter who is so universally read, and so little 
censured ; he seems to have bought golden 
opinions of all men, though we think he 
has given them plenty of dross for their 
gold, or, to say the least of it, mere tinsel. 
But so the fact is: the Americans admire 
him, because he is an American; the 
Seotch and Irish, because he is not an 
Englishman; Mr. Murray, because he 
writes what will sell; and the English, be- 
cause it is the fashion—reason enough in 
London for the admiration of any thing. 
The present volumes are distinguished 
by Irwin’s usual elegante, and by a quaint- 
ness of exaggeration, which, though not 
precisely either wit or humour, is some- 
thing akin to both. The stories themselves 
are not much, either for novelty er matter ; 
the style is every thing; and, as far as 
prose can be said to resemble poetry, it is 
like the poetry of Campbell. There “is 
something extremely similar in the genius, 
or rather talents of the two, for neither 
can pretend to that higher quality of mind 
which is usually comprehended under the 
name of genius; there is the same fasti- 
dious elegance in either, the same want of 
energy ; they please, but do nothing more 
than please, without exciting a single emo- 
tion, or adding any thing to the stock of 
our ideas. Their works seem less to be 
novelties than elegant editions of what 
others have expressed before them; and if 
they would not slip out of the memory of 
the generation, they must go on writing 
incessantly, no very hard condition of fame, 
considering the depth of Mr. Murray’s 
(Oct. 1 
purse, and the extent of the English Die- 
tionary. Atevery step, we are reminded 
of some familiar author; Goldsmith is the 
animating spirit of the humourous tales, 
and in those of terror, Mr. Irwin can even 
condescend to borrow of Lewis; the story. 
of the Belated Travellers is no more than a 
very indifferent version of Don Raymond’s 
narrative in the Monk, which had been 
already imitated by Maturin in his “ Family 
of Montorio,” and which, whatsoever might 
be its merits, did not need to be served up 
a third time to the public. An attempt is, 
indeed, made to give a new appearance to 
several tales of this kind by an abrupt and 
ludicrous catastrophe, but though the joke 
may tell once, it will hardly bear a repe- 
tition. 
Fifteen hundred pounds have, we under- 
stand, been the remuneration of these for- , 
tunate volumes, and there seems to be no 
reason to, doubt the prudence of the specu- 
lation. 
A Tour on the Continent. By Roger 
Hogg, Esq.—This is a very slight sketchy 
volume, but sufficiently amusing for the 
hour. Mr. Hogg carries his readers through 
France, Switzerland, and Italy, simply 
stating facts as they actually oecurred to 
him, without any attempts to be either 
profound or descriptive. He does not ap- 
pear to have seen any thing out of the 
common beat of tourists ; but what he has ' 
seen, he tells truly and unaffectedly. 
Effigies Poetice. — The author of this 
work has united the very opposite modes of 
judging mea, by the rules of Lavater and 
the rules of Aristotle, by what they looked 
and what they wrote, and, as might be 
expected, is sometimes not a little puzzled ~ 
to reconcile a poet’s face with his talents. 
The physiognomical part is, we suspect, 
nothing more than a bait ad captandum, a 
mere noyelty in the mode of administering 
criticism, to make it go down the better, 
and at the same time give an air of origi- 
nality to the whole. As to the criticism, 
independent of this connexion, it is made 
up of brief assertion, and the worth of as- 
sertion, without proof, must depend upon 
the worth, real or supposed, of him who 
makes it; had the author only favoured 
us with his effigy we might have profited 
by his’ example, and condemned or ab- 
solved him by the length and breadth of 
his forehead. 
By JOHN JOHNSON, 
Printer. 
The old connexion between the printer 
and the scholar, so long broken off, seems 
to be reviving in our age; a connexion so 
natural and so truly useful, that the only 
wonder is how it ever could haye been in- 
terrupted. It matters not how much or 
how little a bookseller knows of what he 
is to sell; his want of knowledge hurts no 
: . one 
Typographia. 
