1822.] 
ladies” has*been “called toasting ;” 
whereas we can assure him that “the 
whole paper” does not contain a word 
on the subject. 
The eleventh article is Sir ROBERT 
Ker Porrer’s elaborated Travels in 
Georgia, Persia, §e. Just now we ap- 
prehend the public is pretty well 
stocked with voyages and travels, and 
we do not complain of their number, 
only we wish some of them were less 
exclusively devoted to physical, instead 
of moral, objects of research. Itis not 
so much by ascertaining the height of 
mountains, tracing the course of rivers, 
or expatiating.on the beauty of natural 
scenery, that mankind can be bene- 
fited, as by examining their govern- 
ments, religious institutions, and man- 
‘ners, and the influence of these on so- 
cial happiness. Sir Robert, however, 
whose enquiries have been partly di- 
rected to the manners of the people 
among which he sojourned, does not 
appear particularly objectionable on 
this head. Some of his descriptions 
are rather luxuriant, and we observe 
the most piquant have been carefully 
culled out by the reviewer, without any 
comment on their “dangerous ten- 
dency.” This, we suppose, is a com- 
pliment to Sir Robert’s “loyalty” and 
“ courtier-like” deportment. 
The Pirate: in this article we have 
the sage gentleman we noticed, on a 
former occasion, as having never been 
“in love,” and who now informs us, 
with due solemnity, that he is “‘ incre- 
dulous in love at first sight, thinking it 
always to require previous acquain- 
tance, and almost intimacy, as a predis- 
posing cause.” His outline of the story 
is meagre and spiritless in the extreme, 
and his discrimination of character in- 
correct. For instance, we are told 
Triptolemus Yellowley ‘is insipid ;” 
whereas we consider him, with his 
sister Babie, the most amusing and 
best supported character in the group, 
always excepting the old Udialler. 
For Minna Troil we have no penchant 
whatever ; and we think no sailor, like 
Cleveland, would have preferred such 
a visionary enthusiast to the more 
lively and natural attractions of the 
fair Brenda. The whole novel, or ra- 
ther romance, stands very low in our 
estimation: it is full of vulgar clap- 
traps, improbable fictions, absurd con- 
ceits and incongruities; and we can- 
not help thinking the vagaries of 
our laureate friend in Thalaba and 
the Curse of Kehama unfairly treated, 
The Quarterly Review, No. 51. 
413 
while such outré creations as Meg Mer- 
rilies and Norna of the Fitful-head 
pass with impunity, and even praise. 
Strewarv’s Second Dissertation forms 
the thirteenth article. It is rather 
tedious, on a subject in which we ap- 
prehend the superficial and the pro- 
found may be equally diffuse and 
unsatisfactory. We ourselves concur 
with the prevailing opinion on the in- 
utility of metaphysical enquiries, and 
think with a sagacious writer, himself 
a great metaphysician, that the writings 
of Addison will be read when those of 
Locke have sunk into oblivion. What 
more, indeed, can we hope to dis- 
cover? Though we push Nature into 
her utmost recesses, we can never com- 
prehend the secret principles on which 
her most remarkable phenomena de- 
pend. We can trace a plant to its 
origin, we can resolve a seed into its ele- 
ments, yet we cannot explain the mys- 
terious power by which it afterwards 
matures into the most beautiful foliage, 
or delightful fragrance. Can we do 
more with the mind of man? We may, 
indeed, resolve its various faculties 
into imagination, volition, perception, 
and so forth; but this does not bring 
us nearer to our object; it does not 
develope the peculiar organization by 
means of which intellectual pheno- 
mena are produced. The reviewer 
complains that Mr. Stewart has not 
afforded more comprehensive views of 
different metaphysical systems: we 
apprehend the defect arose more from 
the subject than the writer. It is not 
easy to state the precise boundaries 
which separated the theories of Locke, | 
Leibnitz, Berkeley, and Reid ; for they 
differed only in particulars, and it is to 
the particulars in which they differed 
that Mr. Stewart, in our opinion, has 
properly confined his illustrations. The 
arrangement, too, appears to have been 
unavoidable, so as to introduce the 
Same mass of varied and curious in- 
formation; and the “two,” and even 
“three tier of notes,” are at least war- 
ranted by the example of one cele- 
brated philosopher, whose folios are 
frequently admired. 
MALtE-Brun’s Spurious Voyages is 
a lively article, in refutation of some 
preposterous claims, recently put forth 
in Paris, to the discovery of the north- 
west passage. 
The fifteenth and last subject is Co- 
lonial Policy ; in which are successfully 
combated the objections that colonies 
are a drain on the capital and popula- 
tion 
