figurative language, was indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." P. 365,

This is a sufficient specimen of silliness and egotism; and releases us from the task of quoting other and longer passages in which Mrs, Catharine Cappe undertakes to show that all men who are desirous of a good education, (p. 388), should repair to the Unitarian College at York; and avail themselves first, of "Mr.Well-beloved's own labours, and secondly, of those of two such coadjutors as the present mathematical and classical tutors, the Rev. William Turner, jun. and the Rev. John Kenrick." From these people our sons are to imbibe "the genuine Protestant principle of candid and serious investigation" between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one! And they will also be taught that it is better to attend a meeting-house than a church, because

"The opinions of the man who is a member of the Establishment, are identified, and his conduct is expected to be strictly in union with the religious system he openly professes; whilst the other, not being bound by any particular confession of faith, is at perfect liberty to follow the dictates of his own conscience, and to embrace whatever he believes to be really Scriptural truth, although it may, in some instances, have been explained by the officiating minister, in a manner somewhat different from his own previous conceptions of its genuine import." P. 405.

Let it be observed, that Mrs. Cappe was not an Infidel under the disguise of an Unitarian, but a sincere believer in Revelation. Her eyes were open to the progress of unbelief, and she regretted that the popularity of Gibbon and Hume interfered with the sale of her husband's Disquisitions, and her own Reflections. At the same time, the old lady was unable to perceive that her college and her congregation must be hot-beds of scepticism, and actually lamented that the conduct of a Churchman should be expected to be in union with his faith. Yet she valued herself beyond measure upon the soundness of her intellect, and fancied that she could see farther than the generality of her fellow-creatures, into the deepest and most mysterious subjects. Is she to be considered a fair specimen of those reasonable and enlightened Christians who congregate in Essex-Street upon the Sabbath-day?

ART. XV, Elia. Essays which have appeared under that Signature in the London Magazine. 8vo. pp. 346. 5s. 6d. Taylor and Co. 1823.

It is hardly necessary to introduce to the notice of our readers a work so well known as the series of essays which have

appeared in the London Magazine under the somewhat fanciful signature of Elia, and have lately been collected into one volume in consequence of the celebrity which many of them have separately acquired. Their merits which are transcendantly above the usual level of magazine productions, will best be examined by dividing them into three classes, Reminiscences, Extravaganzas, and Essays proper The first class embraces many portraits, some imaginary, some real, of things and persons which are gradually becoming obsolete for want of a little timely notice; and of which our children would have formed no distinct idea but for the assistance of this vivid and accurate recorder. The most valuable of these descriptions relate to the generation of actors just past, whose characteristics are so well hit off in those instances of which we are competent to judge, that we give implicit credence to the rest. The following, portrait of the celebrated actor Dodd, in Sir Andrew Aguecheek, is no doubt as exact as that of the favourite of our youth, poor Dicky Suett; and is gracefully contrasted with the picture of his exit from life, which immediately follows.

"Few now remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage fost in him! Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few seasons ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was it, as it came out of nature's hands. It might be said to remain in puris naturalibus. In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a twilight conception-its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsation. The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to cover the expansion of his broad moony face over all its quarters with expression. A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his forehead would catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in communicating it to the remainder.

"I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn-they were then far finer than they are now-the accursed Verulam Buildings had not encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves of the terrace the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if it remembered its brother-they are still the best gardens of any of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten-have the gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and law-breathing-Bacon has left the impress of his

foot upon their gravel walks taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom, from his grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old Benchers of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be in meditations of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any positive motion of the body to that effect-a species of humility and willworship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather puzzles than pleases the person it is offered to-when the face turning full upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd. Upon close inspection I was not mistaken. But could this sad thoughtful countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand agreeable impertinences? Was this the face-full of thought and carefulness-that had so often divested itself at will of every trace of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or three hours at least of its furrows? Was this the face-manly, sober, intelligent, which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry with? The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came upon me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. I thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is something strange as well as sad in seeing actors-your pleasant fellows particularly-subjected to and suffering the common lot-their fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only. We can hardly connect them with more awful responsibilities. The death of this fine actor took place shortly after this meeting. He had quitted the stage some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many scenic and some real vanities-weaning himself from the frivolities of the lesser and the greater theatredoing gentle penance for a life of no very reprehensible fooleries, taking off by degrees the buffoon mask which he might feel he had worn too long and rehearsing for a more solemn cast of part. Dying he put on the weeds of Dominic*.?? P. 311...

*"Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his

There is an admirably worm-eaten and obsolete gusto in the descriptions of the old South Sea clerks, perfectly in character with their dusty deserted bureau, "ever gaping wide and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out;" and indeed the author himself gives us to understand, that these walking fixtures are copied faithfully, with merely the alteration of names. The characters also of Coventry and Salt, the senior benches of the middle Temple, are pointedly contrasted with each other, as are those of Boyer and Field, the masters of Christ's Hospital Grammar School. On the death of Boyer, a worthy and learned man, but as it seems, "a rabid pedant, with a heavy hand," the following bon mot of Coleridge is recorded.

"Poor J. B.-may all his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by little cherub boys, all heads and wings, with no bottoms to reproach his sublunary infirmities.'" P. 46.

In the same paper, (Christ's Hospital five and thirty years ago) the author, whom we believe to be Mr. Charles Lamb, a gentleman already known in the literary world, does justice with a friendly, and apparently a discriminating pen, to the early talent of the gifted and eccentric genius above-mentioned, and commemorates also more than one distinguished character, whose cotemporaries they were. In this, as in other instances where real persons are introduced, the essayist deserves great credit for the discrimination and gentlemanly feeling which he has shewn, "nought extenuating, nor aught setting down in malice;" and generally combining some redeeming trait with the foibles or oddities which he describes so amusingly. In no case does he appear either to squander away his praise, or to indulge a bantering propensity at the expense of the dead or living: and we cordially recommend his example to the Peters and other literary gossips of this gaping age.

The following ludicrous and at the same time painful anecdotes of the abuses of Christ's Hospital as contrasted with its present self, are given by him with great naivetê and humour, and in a manner which shews that he possesses the power of gibbeting in effigy on proper occasions.

"There was one H, who I learned, in after days, was seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself

'Save

hat and salute him as the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a you, Sir Andrew.' Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put him off with an Away, Fool." "

in fancying that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered at Nevis, I think, or St. Kitts,- -some few years since? My friend Tobin was the benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red hot iron; and nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter a (a young flame of his) he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the ward, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat-happier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept his own counsel-but, foolisher, alas! than any of his species in the fables-waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as (toppling down the walls of his own Jericho set concealment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent any censure on the occasion. was in the stewardship of L's admired Perry.

This

"Under the same facile administration, can L. have forgotten the cool impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for our dinners? These things were daily practised in that magnificent apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so highly for the grand paintings by Verrio, and others, with which it is hung round and adorned.' But the sight of sleek well fed blue-coat boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions carried away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido)

"To feed our mind with idle portraiture." P. 32.

Whether Mrs. Sarah Battle, the philosophic and eloquent commentator on Hoyle's dry text, be a real character or not, she is admirable in her way; and if compounded by the author from the traits and maxims of antiquated spinsters, the conception does him the greater credit, and shews a power of identifying himself with the thoughts and arguments of all oddities after their kind. For our own part, though uninitiated into the mysteries of "square games," we can almost fancy we enter into their spirit while listening to the old lady's ingenious arguments in their favour.

Of his extravaganzas we must speak with more qualified praise, at the same time that we are inclined in candour to consider them as such, and to allow, in his own phrase " that