strength amuses his imagination with a fanciful rather than a real value; as a man may be pronounced numerically richer who has a hundred pounds in sixpences, than he who has thrice the actual worth in one solid wedge of gold. It is not by diffusing our powers that we give them the strongest operation, though we do the widest; concentrated energies produce the greatest and the most permanent effects.

Had Cumberland been duly aware of this truth, (and a most important one it is to every author who hopes to labour for immortality), he would have had less occasion to boast the ceaseless rapidity with which he wrote, and less, perhaps, to claim from the indulgence of criticism. It is a mortifying panegyric to admit the merits of an individual, with the qualifying clause, that he has done well, considering he has done so much.

I have been led into these observations from considering the Impostors, a comedy, which Cumberland produced in 1789, aad the plot of which has some general resemblance to that of the Beaux Stratagem. But there all resemblance ceases. The dialogue is dull and insipid, the characters either vapid or preposterous, and the language destitute of all animation. Nature is violated in every scene; and in none more than where Eleanor avows her love for Sir Charles Freemantle. Let the reader imagine the absurdity of a young lady being rescued in the morning from

the peril of an unruly horse, by a stranger to whom she very kindly gives her hand in marriage before night.

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

Eleanor seems to have been formed upon Wycherly's Country Girl, or rather Country Wife, for Garrick gave it the present name when he altered and adapted it for representation; but instead of artlessness and simplicity, instead of the amusing sincerity of unsuspecting innocence, she has nothing but rustic coarseness at first, and flippant openness afterwards. She is, in every thing, inconsistent, and to waste more notice upon her would be inconsistency in me.

The general character ofthis play, indeed, is dullness in the incidents, imbecility in the dialogue, and extravagance in the characters. I have never heard its success; and I should unwillingly believe that it had any.

About the same time that the Impostors appeared, Cumberland attempted a new species of writing, and produced his novel of Arundel. This degraded branch of composition few men of talent are willing to cultivate, because they fear to be confounded with that herd of scribblers whose effusions of folly or obscenity rank under the general denomination of novels. Yet, while such an abuse of fiction is to be lamented, the philosopher and the moralist see, by one intuitive glance of thought,

how noble and powerful an instrument is remaining inert and unoperative, because its name is vileness, and its uses, hitherto, have been too often foolish, or disgraceful. Some of our greatest men, however, have not disdained to employ imaginary narratives, as vehicles for conveying to the world their opinions upon life; and the practice of such writers as Sir Thomas More, of Bacon, of Harrington, Swift, Johnson, and Voltaire, not to mention those who have written works of fiction. for less exalted purposes, might dignify any thing beyond the power of subsequent depreciation. An epic is, in modern times, a thing no less degraded than a novel; yet, were there now a mán living, with genius capable of success, would he hesitate to tread in the steps of Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Camoens, and Milton, because inferior writers have prostituted the appellation?

I rejoice that Cumberland was influenced by no such motives, or we had never seen Arundel, and I had lost one pleasure, which is more than man can afford to lose. I consider this novel as entitled to hold a very distinguished place, and as a production possessing a more than usual portion of fancy, elegance, and interest. It was written under some disadvantages while Cumberland was at Brighthelmstone, and sent to the press as fast as it was composed. He seems, however, to have had an accurate notion of its merits, and declares that notion without much reserve.

The character of Arundel is drawn with a degree of chivalrous refinement and loftiness of honour, which, without carrying him beyond nature, makes him such a being as we behold with delight, and long to imitate. His dignity of feeling never degenerates into arrogance, nor his graceful and becoming pride into haughtiness. His conduct is that of a perfect gentleman, undebased by any affectation.

His introduction into the family of Lord G. coincides, in some particulars, so strongly with Cumberland's own introduction into the family of Lord Halifax, that, as I have already observed, it always appeared to me intended to allude to that circumstance. I do not, indeed, mean to infer that Cumberland was an Arundel, for the resemblance soon ceases; but in all those regrets which Arundel pours forth, at being torn from his college solitude, from his favourite studies, and from his academical friends, to submit to political duties, and to the unvarying ones of a secretary's office, I think Cumberland intended an adumbration of his own early condition. This idea is strengthened in me, too, when I remember that he owed his promotion to his father's services during an election, and that Arundel is patronised by Lord G. for the very same reason. (See Letter II).

But, whatever affinity there may be between Arundel and Cumberland, there is none between the father of Arundel and his own venerable sire;

nor can I conjecture why he delighted to draw that character with such qualities as could excite only unmingled detestation. The reader hardly believes that such a son as Arundel could have sprung from so degenerate a stock, and the contrast, so far from heightening the virtues of the descendant, tends rather to diminish our admiration of them, from the operation of that prejudice so common in life, by which we extend, more or less, the ignominy of a single member to all the branches of a family. There seems to have been no sufficient motive for assigning to Dr. Arundel so much meanness; it has no influence upon the narrative, and might, therefore, have been spared with great advantage to the reader's feelings.

In the character of Lady G. Cumberland has certainly "set virtue upon ice," to use his own words; but so far from falling, I hardly think that she slips. Her husband treats her with scorn, and she indemnifies herself for his neglect, in the respectful and consoling attentions of another. These attentions lead to nothing that is criminal, and shall it be denied to a wounded heart to repose upon the bosom that would shelter, but which harbours no thought that would wrong it? In the letters of the Honourable Mrs. Dormer to Lady G. there are many arguments justificatory of her friend's conduct, and which, whether Cumberland meant them to be so, or not, are absolutely unan. swerable.