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to become a violent admirer of the old dramatists, and a despiser of the poetry of Pope. He has, in fact, given up all the critical principles upon which his journal was at first conducted, and has shewn himself equally devoid of consistency in his general theory, as in his judgment of individuals. Surely the English should not reproach the French with their passion for frivolity, while they themselves submit to be schooled by one whose wit and sarcasms are engrafted upon so much ignorance, and disgraced by so much error.

I am so much a lover, both of the literature and of the people of England, that I cannot help speaking of Mr Jeffray with almost as much warmth as I should have deemed proper, in case he had been a countryman of our own. I admire his talents, I lament their misapplication, and I prophesy that they will soon be forgotten. In all his volumes, I know of no original speculation in philosophy, no new rule of criticism, likely to make him ever be appealed to as authority hereafter. In truth, I suspect, that but for the political dissertations with which it is often almost entirely filled, the reputation of the Edinburgh Review, in spite of all the cleverness of Mr Jeffray, would before this time have been very much on the decline. Even here, I think it is by no means entitled to the patronage of enlightened Britons, still less to the favour of patriotic Germans.

During the greater part of the years in which this journal has been published, Great Britain has been engaged in a struggle, not for extended empire nor flattered ambition, but for her existence as the country of a free and Christian people. Throughout the whole of this eventful period, unawed by the majesty of this sacred cause, a set of Englishmen, distinguished by splendid talents, and possessing, to an astonishing degree, the public ear, have devoted their exertions to the unworthy purpose of deriding the zeal and paralysing the efforts of their generous nation. A great country, in the hour of her conflict, should not hear the voice of despondency from her children. The whisper of despair is treason, when the vessel is in danger; and they who have escaped the shipwreck without having assisted at the pump, should blush for the safety which they do not deserve. This journal was uniformly the apologist of Napoleon. What would Greece have thought of the Athenian wit who should have extolled Xerxes while he was on his was on his way from Sardis, or called Leonidas a madman, because he was willing to be the guardian of Thermopyla? How ungenerous must those spirits be, which, that they might gratify the vulgar spleen of petty politicians, could deride the young ardour of renovated Spain, or pour contempt, at that soul-stirring moment, upon the magnanimous devotion of indefatigable England! Such is the blindness of party rage, that these monstrous offences are, even at this moment, looked upon as patriotic services by many well-meaning countrymen of Elizabeth, Hampden, and Pitt. The delusion cannot long survive; for Europe is of one mind, and the right cause has triumphed.

The cause of Christianity is still more sacred than that of our country; and I think that it too has been attacked, if not with the same open violence, at least with the same rancour of hostility. The malevolence does not appear less odious because it is combined with cowardice. This journal has never ventured to declare itself boldly the champion of infidelity; but there is no artifice, no petty subterfuge, no insidious treachery, by which it has not endeavoured to weaken the influence which the Bible possesses over the minds of a devout and meditative people. Mr Jeffray does not choose to speak out, and tell the world that he is a disciple of Hume: we should then know with whom we have to contend, and provide for the conflict the same weapons which have so often been victorious over such an enemy. But he has recourse to a thousand little unworthy tricks, which could only be tolerable for a moment, were the country in which he writes as remarkable for slavery as it is for freedom. Does any author write a paragraph of foolish blasphemy? Mr Jeffray is sure to quote it in his Review as a piece of "innocent pleasantry." Does any man dare to speak, with the feeling and the fearlessness of a Christian, concerning God and the destiny of man? Mr Jeffray is sure to ridicule his piety as Methodism, and stoops to court the silly sneer of striplings against a faith, which, as he