pps 
4 
i 
ARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 
‘Hand, Domejiic and Foreign. 
Authentic Communications for this Article will always be thankfully received. « 
es ee | 
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ah 7 ass - 
_* VARIETIES, Lit 
| f° Including Nolices of Works in 
i yi 4 *« 
at ¥ t 
; WHTE consider the literary part of the 
4 i W public as being deeply interested 
"in the doctrines lately maintained in the 
Re cow ts of law;on matters of Criticism,and 
we therefore feel it to be our duty to nu- 
‘tice them in this lace. Every’ uyan of 
ttersmust be sdhsible of. the growing 
hike of anonymous literary Criti- 
‘ism, and will find it no difficulty in 
cing from this abuse of an use- 
art, the decline of literature, and 
the apparent deficiency. of genius in 
-. Elid We givef the. gentlemen of 
‘zhe log robe credit ‘for not” being 
) ‘aivare’ of the vile: practices of? tradets 
: t ) intiterary criticism in “this metropolis,’ 
» and we thérefore are nat sdrprized to 
h em confound the invectives f 
i ¥ hived‘anon ymous reviewers with 
ynak pap avowed answers Of Mice to 
i | Filther, and’of “ Newton to Descartes!” 
4 Te atlur s 1s the ‘bighést satisfaction to 
/ discover among them so laudablé a ten- 
erness forfreedom of discussion, and for 
he liberty’ of the press; but we hope 
stat now they have pee te this 
"matter, they will not push it to the’same 
H _ dengtlis as they do the liberty of the 
/ tongue. We invite thet, ‘howeyer, 
40 apply their accustomed  perépica 
to the evil complained of, and) to” 
2 ai v a broad line of ‘demarcation be-— 
-~ tween an author,who- avows his observa- 
1s on any Subject, or even an’ anony- 
Tih» 
’ 
4 ' 
- 
a 
a 
oy city 
~ dai 
u6l 1 
ous writer who defends or attacks any 
_ dogma in the language of good manners, 
and’ the concealed writer in‘an anony- 
mols review, who, at a givert price Ly | 
the sheet, iends himself to support 0 
A tions, and to insult the most hong 
ble” 
' delicacy, Ought not conceal- 
_ ment in a writer of invective to be as 
\ sumed as prima facie evidence of bad- 
“ness of intention? Is it not evidence of 
“a guilty mind, equivalent to that against 
tan who runs away when there is a_ 
® ery of Stop Thief? For our partywe 
_ deprecaie the present doctrines of the 
4 courts, in regard to trading eritics, fully 
‘eohvincedthat periodical criticism which 
al 
4 
4 
a 
2 
aie author, has operated as a bliuliton 
the genius of the country, has been made. 
_ Subservient’ to the gratitication of the 
worst passions, and bas bafiled and’ re- 
tarded the progress af truth agd science.* 
“* Lo piove the justhess of thee remarks, 
‘we shal! quote from the best conducred «our 
od See - 
“or delicacy 
_, France as ani 
does dot possess the responsibility of a. 
i 
The public will observe: with satise 
faction that Parliament has voted 3,000k 
to. the Board of Agriculture, to ene 
able it with greater rapidity> to ‘com= 
plete the Surveys of the Kingdom. “A 
full account of the labours and ‘progress 
of this highly important Board will be 
found under the head Proceedings of Pub- 
lic Societies. As soonas the whole of the 
County Reports have been printed, it is 
intended to publish an “Analysis of the 
whole, to lay before his Majesty and 
both Houses of Parliament, a work which, 
Reviews, and the one which deserves the 
most to be considered as an authority in mat- 
ters of criticism, THE MONTHLY, its opie 
nion on two well-known books of established 
character and opposite descriptions, > 
Memoirs of Fanny Hirs.—VideMonthly 
Review,vol. li, p. 451:— This isa work of 
the Novel kind, thrown into the form of 
Letters from a reformed woman of the towa 
to “her friend, containing memoirs of her 
past lire, and describing the steps by which 
she was led into the paths of vice and infamy. 
It doés' not appear to us, that this performance 
has any thing in it more offensive to deceney 
of sentiment and eXxpressiong — 
than our novels and books of entertainment 
ea have ; for in truth they are, most 
of them, but too faulty in this respects The ' 
author of Fanny Hill does not seem to have 
expressed any thing with a view to counte- 
nauce the practice of any immoralities, but 
‘merely to exhibit truth and nature to the 
world, and'to lay open those mysteries of 
iniquity, that, in our opinion, necd oily to be 
exposed t) view in‘order to their beine ab- 
horred and shunned by those who might 
otherwise u warily fallinto them. As to the 
step lately | to'suppress this book, we 
newspapers inform us, that the celebrated 
History ef Zom Tones has been suppressed ig 
mmoral work.” 
The Vicar ef Wakerrretp, by Cr. 
ie en, without the stightest regard to de+ Teadly are ata loss to account for it. The 
it *:. a ency or 
SP ae SE: Vol, xxxiv. page 407. 
% Through the whole course of our travels 
in the wild regions of romance, we never met 
it /any thing more difficult to charactérize, 
than ‘the Vicar of Wakefield ;) a performance 
which contains beatities sufficient toentitle it 
othe highest applause, and defects enough 
O put the discerning readet out of all patience 
with an author capuble oj so strangely under- 
writing himself.” rx 4 
Volumes mizht easily be filled with speci« 
mens of equal degradations of the critical 
art; abundantly sufficient to deter any man 
of common intelligence from surrendering his 
jedgament of An author to the mercy of anony- 
mes revic cre. 
for 
