ladies, would suffer very much from a fish diet; and that a whole Lent would give such a sallowness to the celebrated beauties of this island as would scarce make them distinguishable from those of France. I shall only leave to the serious consideration of my fair countrywomen, the danger any of them might have been in (had Popery been our national religion) of being forced by their relations to a state. of perpetual virginity. The most blooming toast in the island might have been a nun; and many a lady who is now a mother of fine children, condemned to a condition of life disagreeable to herself, and unprofitable to the world. To this I might add the melancholy objects they would be daily entertained with, of several sightly men delivered over to an unavoidable celibacy. Let a young lady imagine to herself the brisk embroidered officer, who now makes love to her with so agreeable an air, converted into a monk; or the beau, who now addresses himself to her in a full-bottomed wig, distinguished by a little baldpate covered with a little leather black scull-cap. I forbear to mention many other objections, which the ladies, who are no strangers to the doctrines of Popery, will easily recollect; though I do not in the least doubt but those I have already suggested will be sufficient to persuade my fair readers to be zealous in the Protestant cause. We read no such political writing at the present day; elegance of style is considered as quite a subordinate matter, and pleasantry rarely passes from a paragraph into an article.

وو

The Lover, of Steele, is concerned with the policy of Passion, and the strategy of Love. It is a work of sentiment, and peculiarly a lady's journal. The passion of Love in all its multiplied forms; the affections of the heart with all their subtle windings; the various aspects of

friendship, are painted with masterly skill. Tales of real life, and characters so natural as to seem almost living, occupy a large space, with a rich fund of sense and unpretending sincerity of feeling. The purest sentiment, a facile wit, and polished gallantry, are its marked features. The Lover is an avowed imitation of the Tattler, which is a surety for the style of its author. Like that delightful collection, it contains its club, and had letters written to its author, Marmaduke Myrtle, gent. Thoroughly acquainted with city life, and the ways of the town, the book is full of good advice of the kind most needed in a great city. It is, besides this, a chart of the shoals and quicksands of the tender passion, that should be studied by all youthful navigators. Beyond this, it has the additional attraction of delightful illustrative matter, incidental to the main design. It contains many admirable suggestions of the highest practical value, and delicate satire, with fine irony unequalled but in the pages of his friend and associate. Of these various fine qualities we shall endeavor to present examples, though necessarily brief and few. Here is the portrait of a Lover Vagabond, as he calls the representation of a certain class of speculative rakes. "He has the language, the air, the tender glance; he can hang upon a look, has most exactly the veneration of face when he is catched ogling one whose pardon he would beg for gazing; he has the exultation at leading off a lady to her coach; can let drop an indifferent thing, or call her servants with a loudness and a certain gay insolence rare enough; nay, he will hold her hand too fast for a man that leads her, and is indifferent to her, and yet come to that gripe with such slow degrees, that she cannot say he squeezed her hand, but for anything further he had no inclination." We wish

we could find room for certain delicious papers, that would be mutilated by mere extracts. Such are, the Battle of

Eyes; the Lover, containing the tragical history of Penruddock, with the affecting correspondence that passed between the husband and his wife; the story of the Venetian Count; the humorous family picture of the Crabtrees; the refined thoughts on making presents; the account of the Ladies of consideration; and of the young student who was so artfully taught to speak and act for himself; and a number of elegant episodes. Instead of these we can only copy a passage or so, at random-generally selecting such as Labruyère might have written, from their nicety and refinement; and maxims with regard to good breeding, ast judicious as anything in Chesterfield, at the same time that they have ten-fold the heart in them.

"Women dissemble their passions better than men, but men subdue their passions better than women.'

"There are no inclinations in women which more surprise me than their passions for chalk and china. The first of these maladies wears out in a little time; but when a woman is visited with the second, it generally takes possession of her for life. China vessels are playthings for women of all ages. An old lady of four score shall be as busy in cleaning an Indian Mandarin as her great-granddaughter is in dressing her baby."

"A too great regard for doing what you are about with a good grace, destroys your capacity for doing it at all." "The best way to do a thing as you ought, is to do it only because you ought."

"As for my own part, I always approve those who make the most of a little understanding, and carry that as far as they can, than those who will not condescend to be

perfect, if I may so speak, in the under parts of their character."

ugly is a woman's word for knavish."

"Some silly particle or other, as it were to tack the taking leave with the rest of the discourse, is a common error of young men of good education.”

"A good judgment will not only supply, but go beyond experience; for the latter is only a knowledge that directs us in the dispatch of matters future, from the consideration of matters past of the same nature; but the former is a perpetual and equal direction in everything that can happen, and does not follow, but makes the precedent that guides the other."

The reader will do well to turn to the beautiful dedication to the Lover, a masterpiece of composition, as well as a noble effusion of friendship: the whole work is of the same texture, and so uniformly attractive as to appear more to advantage read continuously, than cut up into shreds and patches; a test to be applied only to works of standard merit, since most modern writers gain by the transcription of their most elaborate passages.

II.

TYRONE POWER,*

Is certainly the prince of Irish actors.

Indeed we never

saw the Irishman even decently personated before we saw this admirable performer, nor do we conceive it possible for any future rival to disturb our opinion of him. Irish Johnstone is with the past: he may have equalled Power, but we doubt it—we are sure he could not have surpassed him. Power, beyond any actor we ever saw, and we have seen the best that have graced the boards of our old Drury, unites in himself the most literal fidelity with the richest humor this side of burlesque. He is always natural; he is the most picturesque of actors. The elder Mathews had far finer wit, knowledge of character and invention; his son a more sparkling fancy, wonderful quickness, and a keener wit. Jack Reeve was John Bull in grotesque, and Keeley is nature's self in little. In quiet humor, the last mentioned actor beats them all. Dowton, whom we saw in his decline, was a serious old gentleman of the senti mental school. Charles Kemble was the perfection of the genteel comedian. All of these performers were gifted. with a universality to which Power can lay no claim, and yet we reiterate, in his single walk of Irishman, whether gentle or simple, the attorney or the tailor, the country

* 1840.