tire and humour is perhaps little favourable to the mind, and they are only allowable, and may be read with profit, when employed as the scourges of vice and folly.

Gaudentio di Lucca is generally, and, I believe, on good grounds, supposed to be the work of the celebrated Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, one of the most profound philosophers and virtuous visionaries of his age. We are told, in the life of this celebrated man, that Plato was his favourite author; and, indeed, of all English writers, Berkeley has most successfully imitated the style and manner of that philosopher. It is not impossible, therefore, that the fanciful Republic of the Grecian sage may have led Berkeley to write Gaudentio di Lucca, of which the principal object apparently, is to describe a faultless and patriarchal form of government. This representation of perfection and happiness is exhibited in the journey of Gaudentio di Lucca to Mezzoramia, a country in the heart of the deserts of Africa, whose inhabitants had lived unknown to the rest of the world, and in a region inaccessible, except by the road by which Gaudentio was carried thither. This Italian having followed a sea-faring life, was taken by corsairs, and carried to Alexandria. He was there sold to

one of the chiefs, or pophars, of this unknown country, who had come to Egypt on mercantile speculation. The best and most striking part of the work is the description of the journey across the desert sands, which the travellers traverse on dromedaries, and which are happily contrasted with those stations that lay on the road, in which they sought repose and shelter. The region which Gaudentio finally reaches is described as a terrestrial paradise, and its government, laws, and customs, are what the author conceives to be most perfect in civil polity and social intercourse. His views are somewhat fantastic, but not so visionary as those exhibited in the Utopia. During his abode in this happy land, Gaudentio, who had been discovered to be the grand-nephew of the mas ter whom he had followed to Mezzoramia, is treated with much distinction, and, at length, espouses the daughter of the pophar. But after a residence of twenty-five years, having lost his wife and children, he sets out for his own country, and, after some adventures, arrives at Bologna, where he is arrested by the inquisition, and forced to give an account of his adventures.

The style of this work is extremely pure, and some of the incidents, especially that of the Grand Vizier's daughter, who was afterwards sultana, ex

ceedingly well managed. The portrait of the English Freethinker, towards the end of the work, is skilfully drawn, and the absurdity of the arguments of Mr Hobbes very humorously displayed.

I have now finished what I proposed to write on the History and Progress of Fiction. To some of my readers I may appear, perhaps, to have dwelt too shortly on some topics, and to have bestowed a disproportionate attention on others; nor is it improbable that in a work of such extent and variety, omissions may have occurred of what ought not to have been neglected. Such defects were inseparable from an enquiry of this description, and must have, in some degree, existed even if I could have bestowed on it undivided attention, and if, instead of a relaxation, it had been my sole employment. I shall consider myself, however, as having effected much if I turn to this subject the attention of other writers, whose opportunities of doing justice to it are more favourable than my own. A work, indeed, of the kind I have undertaken, is not of a nature to be perfected by a single individual, and at a first attempt, but must be

the result of successive investigations. By the assistance of preceding researches on the same subject, the labour of the future enquirer will be abridged, and he will thus be enabled to correct the mistakes, and supply the deficiencies, of those who have gone before him.