philofopher had doubtlefs fome higher object in view; and it is not difficult to perceive that this object has been to give an eafy paffport, and general circulation, to fome of his favourite opinions. Having laid it down as a first principle that virtue confifts in juftice, or the wife and equal pursuit of general good, he thinks it neceffary, in order to carry his fyftem into effect, to investigate many fentiments which, though hitherto confidered as the legitimate offspring of nature, and even as poffeffing fome degree of moral value, are in his judgment only the creatures of error and prejudice. In this clafs he appears to rank that sense of honour which feeks its ultimate reward in the good opinion of mankind. Accordingly, this fictitious narrative feems to have been written chiefly for the purpose of reprefenting, in ftrong colours, the fatal confequence of fuffering the love of fame to become predominant.

Mr. Falkland, who ought, perhaps, rather than Caleb Williams, to be confidered as the principal actor in this drama, exhibits a character wholly formed on the vifionary principles of honour. Early tinctured with extravagant notions on this fubject, by the heroic poets of Italy, he cherishes a romantic pride; which, notwithstanding his natural propenfity toward benevolence, difplayed in occafional acts of generofity, foon forms his ruling paffion, and at length overwhelms him with accumulated wretchednéfs. He is the fool of honour; a man whom, in the pursuit of reputation, nothing could divert; who would purchase the character of a true, gallant, and undaunted hero, at the expence of worlds; and who thinks every calamity nominal except a ftain on his honour. His virtue, his life, his everlafting peace of mind, are cheap facrifices to be made at the fhrine of fame; and there is no crime too horrible for him to commit in purfuit of this object.-In the early part of his hiftory, his pride fuffers extreme irritation from the infulting provocations of a neighbour, Tyrrel; a man who has no other title to diftinction than a large eftate, and great bodily ftrength; whofe ferocious temper, brutal manners, and fhocking cruelties, render him to Falkland an object of profound contempt and abhorrence: but who, nevertheless, continually finds means to harafs and torment him, and, while he is bringing on himself univerfal difguft by his enormities, and even at the very moment when he is fuffering the extreme mortification of being driven from a public room, offers Falkland perfonal infult of the most difgraceful kind. Falkland, to whom difgrace is worse than death, wholly incapable of fupporting this load of humiliating and public ignominy, yields to the irrefiftible impulfe of deteftation and revenge, and fecretly affaffinates his rival, The reproach and the penalty of the murder, however,

fall

fall on two innocent perfons, Hawkins and his fon, formerly tenants of Tyrrel; they are convicted on circumftantial evidence; and Falkland fuffers them to die, rather than difclose the fecret which would load his name with eternal infamy. This fatal fecret becomes the burden of his foul, and the torment of his life. The fear of the infamy of detection drives him to a thousand acts of phrenzy and cruelty, and, after having tortured him with perpetually increafing anguifh, at last destroys his existence.

This vifionary character is drawn with uncommon ftrength of conception and energy of language. The reader, while he respects and adores the virtues of Falkland, feels infinite regret that his mad paffion for reputation fhould fupprefs every feeling of humanity, and become the fource of unspeakable mifery to himself, and of the moft tragical calamity to others. The character, though original, will perhaps be admitted to be confiftent; unless it fhould be thought difficult to reconcile the benevolence every where afcribed to Falkland, with the deliberate injuftice and cruelty which were fhewn in fuffering the innocent Hawkins and his fon to be executed, in preference to confeffing his own guilt.-It will perhaps be faid that the ruling paffion of Falkland was not benevolence, but the love of fame; yet it may be queftioned whether fuch benevolence, as is afcribed to Falkland, be not utterly incompatible with the tyrannical fway which is given in his character to the selfish paffion of the love of fame.

A farther object in this ftory appears to have been to exhibit an example of the danger of indulging an idle curiofity, merely for its own gratification; and the fatal confequences of this folly were perhaps never fo impreffively exemplified as in the ftory of Caleb Williams, the confidential fervant of Falkland, Williams, having been made acquainted with many particulars of his master's history by his fteward, begins to fufpect that the murder of Tyrrel had been committed by Falkland: he is therefore determined, at all hazards, to detect the fecret; he becomes a perpetual spy on his master's actions, and practises a thousand artifices to accomplish his purpofe, till at length he extorts the truth from Falkland, on a folemn oath of secrecy. Having gained his wifh, he finds the fecret a most painful burden, which, through his master's jealous apprehension for his reputation, brings on him a long feries of perfecution and perils; and the relation of them forms a large and interesting part of the narrative. Nothing can exceed the skilful management with which that part of the ftory is conducted, in which the reader remains unacquainted with the real occafion of Tyrrel's death, till the fufpicion against Falkland is gradually excited,

and at length confirmed by the persevering ingenuity of Williams. The fufferings of Williams in prifon, on a fictitious charge of having robbed his mafter, the contrivances by which he repeatedly regains his liberty, and the adventures through which he paffes, while he is wantonly perfecuted as the perpetrator of a heinous felony, and flies in difguife from place to place for fafety; till, in the last extremity of danger, he discloses the fatal fecret, and becomes miferable under a load of felf-reproach: all are related with an interefting particularity that evidently fhews the hand of a mafter. The general refult is a forcible conviction of the hazard of suffering any foolish defire, or curiofity, (that reftlefs propensity,) to creep into the mind. Error, (as Caleb well remarks,) once committed, has a fascinating power, like the eyes of the rattlesnake, to draw us into a fecond error. It deprives us of that proud confidence in our own ftrength, to which we are indebted for fo much of our virtue.'

This narrative feems, moreover, intended to give the author an opportunity of making an indirect attack on what he deems vulgar prejudices refpecting religion, morals, and policy. On thefe fubjects, he expreffes himself with that kind of latitude which thofe, who are acquainted with his treatife on Political Juftice*, will be prepared to expect. Striking pictures are drawn, in various parts of the work, of the oppreffion which is often practifed under the form of law, and of the hardships which are inflicted in our prifons even on those whom the law has not convicted of any crime. Artful apologies are put into mouths of profeffional robbers, without any adequate refutation. Law is faid to be better adapted for a weapon of tyranny in the hands of the rich, than for a fhield to protect the humble part of the community against their ufurpation. Caleb Williams thinks with unfpeakable loathing of thofe errors, in confequence of which every man is fated to be, more or less, the tyrant or the flave; and he is aftonished at the folly of his fpecies, that they do not rife up as one man, and shake off chains fo ignominious, and mifery fo infupportable. Mind, to his untutored reflections, is vague, airy, and unfettered; the fufceptible perceiver of reafons, but never intended by nature. to be the flave of force. He thinks it strange that men should, from age to age, confent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely in order that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to law; and he prays that he may hold life at the mercy of the elements, of the hunger of beasts, er of the revenge of barbarians, but not at that of the cold

*See Rev. New Series, vols, x. ani xi.

blooded

blooded prudence of monopolifts and kings!What all this means we cannot precifely fay: but, before the old fences of law be broken down, we hold it prudent that some effectual provifion fhould be made for taming the ferocious paffions of those animals, who have never yet been turned loose into the wilds of nature without biting and devouring one another.

With due allowance for fyftematical eccentricity, (the reader will pardon the paradoxical expreffion,) this performance, interefting but not gratifying to the feelings and the paffions, and written in a ftyle of laboured dignity rather than of easy familiarity, is fingularly entitled to be characterized as a work in which the powers of genius and philofophy are strongly united.

ART. V. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor. By Thomas Holcroft. 12mo. 3 Vols. 10s. 6d. fewed. Shepperfon and Reynolds. 1794. WITHOUT adopting, in its full extent, the opinion of M.

Turgot that "more grand moral truths have been promulgated by novel writers than by any other clafs of men," we readily admit that a novel is a proper vehicle for the communication of moral truth. Its fuitablenefs for this purpose, however, arises not so much from the opportunity which it affords of interweaving moral fentiment or fpeculative difcuffion with narrative, as from the field which it furnishes for the exhibition of characters, in which the reader may contemplate, as in a mirror, men as they are, or as they ought to be. Perhaps we have few writers, among our prefent race of wits, more capable of delineating men as they are than Mr. Holcroft. He appears to have converfed much with the world, and to have been a diligent and fhrewd obferver of manners. He poffefles, alfo, a happy freedom and boldnefs of pencil, which enable him to draw his portraits, if not actually from the life, yet with all the effect of living manners; fo that the reader cannot doubt that, in ftudying the characters exhibited by this writer, he is acquiring a knowlege of mankind.

Mr. Holcroft's aim in this work extends, however, beyond the general object of conveying moral inftruction by the exhibition of character. The adventures of Hugh Trevor are constructed with a view to the folution of an important question in domeftic œconomy; "what profeffion should a man of principle, who is anxiously defirous of promoting individual and general happinefs, choofe for his fon?" It appears to have been alfo the author's defign to mark, in the character of his hero, the natural progrefs of intellect; and to fhew in what manner Man is continually impelled by the viciffitudes of life to correfpondent viciffitudes of opinion and conduct.

The

The method in which the former of thefe objects is purfued is not by an argumentative difcuffion of the merits of the queftion, but by a delineation of characters belonging to the feveral profeffions which have been commonly denominated liberal. Entertaining, as it evidently appears, no very favourable opinion either of the virtue or the utility of thefe profeffions, Mr. H. holds them up to ridicule and contempt, by exhibiting, in each profeffion, characters stained with all the vices which can be fuppofed to arife from its peculiar temptations. In these volumes, in which only a part of the plan is executed, the profeffions of divinity and law are the principal objects of animadverfion; and it must be owned that portraits are drawn of divines and lawyers, (especially of the former,) fufficiently difgufting, could they be fuppofed to be fair fpecimens, to caft a general odium on the profeffions themfelves. Were it indeed true that the beneficed clergy are in general like Hugh Trevor's uncle, felfish and avaricious, proud and envious, oppreffive, litigious, and inexorable; that, among the higher dignitaries of the church, characters are frequently to be found which resemble the bishop into whole hands Hugh Trevor has the misfortune to fall,-a compound of hypocrify, meannefs, avarice, and fenfuality; or that the unprincipled knave and crafty equivocator, Thornby, the whole bufinefs of whofe life was to impofe on credulity and to prey on imbecility, fairly reprefents the body of practitioners in the law; it would then become the first duty of fociety to rid itself,, as foon as poffible, of a fet of plunderers, who, according to this reprefentation, are either useless drones wafting the flock toward which they contribute nothing, or greedy vultures devouring the entrails of that country which they profefs to guard. It can scarcely be neceffary to say, however, that, from individual characters, even though drawn after the life, it would be unfair to deduce an indifcriminate conclufion against any body of men.-Yet Mr. Holcroft, in his choice of a motto,

""Tis fo pat to all the tribe,

"Each fwears that was levell'd at me.' 99 GAY.

bas made the ftigma general and univerfal.

The other defign for which this work was written, that of representing the progress of mind," is very happily executed in the ftory of the principal hero; which exhibits many varieties of opinion and character, arifing from a quick fucceffion of new fituations and connections. Hugh Trevor enters the world with the common advantages and the common prejudices of a fchool education. Humane and generous, active and enterprizing, he early diftinguifhes himself both by literary attainments and benevolent exertions. With a thirst after know

lege,