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played by Mathews, and in which the knowledge of Obadiah's presence would inevitably stimulate that keen observer to frisk with peculiar and merciless pleasantry.

The biography is, on the whole, a clever book, containing many amusing anecdotes, and well calculated to revive and retain the memory of a remarkably gifted performer. As the present two volumes bring the narrative only to the beginning of those popular performances, the "At Homes," or recitations, in which Mathews was the sole exhibitor, there must be much remaining to tell, and well worthy of being told. The actor's intercourse with individuals of rank, as well as of public name, his long and various mixture with human character under all circumstances, and the quick sensibility to the ludicrous, the forcible, and the original, in human nature, gave him boundless opportunities of sustaining the office of a mental Lavater. Certainly no man better understood the physiognomy of the mind; and, professional as his remarks naturally must be, they often had a value beyond the theatre. To this native sagacity he added the merit of estimable personal conduct. Mathews sought none of the infamous celebrity which men, who presume themselves geniuses, are so fond of acquiring. He did not find it essential to his fame either to separate from his wife, or cast off his sou ; and he died, as he had lived, without a stain on his name.

How glad I am, my dear Mr North, to have found you at home!—charming snuggery!—famous fire!—and I declare there's a second tumbler on the table, as if you expected me. Your health, my dear friend!—good heavens, what intense Glenlivat!—I must add a little water; and now, that at last we are cozy and comfortable feet on fender, glass in hand—I beg to say a few words to you on the subject of German morals and German literature.

Sir, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I must crave your indulgence—more sugar, did you say?—while I dilate a little upon the many trumpet-blowings and drum-beatings we have heard on these two subjects for the last fifteen or twenty years. Morals!—oh the good, honest, simple, primitive, Germans! Literature!—oh the deep-thinking, learned, grand, original-minded Germans! Now, the fact is, sir, that the Germans have neither morals nor literature. But, as I intend, with your permission—your bland countenance shows your acquiescence—to demonstrate by the thing they call literature, the notion they entertain of the thing they call morals, I need not trouble you with a double disquisition on these two points, as in fact they are, like the French Republic, one and indivisible. Fifty years ago, they themselves confess, they had no literature. The capabilities of their noble language were yet undiscovered; their scholars wrote in Latin; their wits wrote in French. Poetry was defunct, or rather uncreated; for, on the top of the German Parnassus, such as it was, sat in smoke and grandeur the weakest of mortals, the poorest of versifiers, the most miserable of pedants, John Christoph Gottshed. Was he kicked down from his proud eminence by the indignation of his countrymen?—hooted to death by their derision?—and finally hung in chains as a terror to evil doers? My dear sir, the man was almost worshipped—yes—he, this awful example of human fatuity—a decoction of Hayley and Nathan Drake—was looked up to by the whole German nation, as an honour to the human race. It will not do for them to deny the soft impeachment now, and tell us that they look down upon that worthy. I dare say they do ; but whom do they look up to between the days of Gottshed, and the first appearances of a better order of things in the persons of Wieland, Klopstock, and Gesner? To the other members of the Leipsic school, Gellert, Rabener, and Zacharia!—pretty men for a nation to be proud of!—No sir, you need not shake your head. I am not in a passion, I assure