Mrs Charlotte Smith": OhTime has Changed me since you saw me last. Published by J.Asperne, at the Bible, Crown & Constitution, Cornhill, 1.Dec 1806. EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, AND LONDON REVIEW, FOR NOVEMBER 1806. LITERARY NOTICE OF THE LATE CHARLOTTE SMITH. WE [WITH A PORTRAIT.] PERMANENT as it was PROLIFIC. Of thofe exertions we are now to speak as they appeared at different periods, and in different forms, and in all exhibited strong marks of pre-eminent genius, and riking features of original excellence. E have chofen to defignate this ful exertions, ought to have proved as flight sketch a literary notice," rather than a biographical memoir; because, however fingular it may feem, it is nevertheless certain, that anecdotes of the life of the once beautiful fubject of it, at least fuch as may be depended upon, we have not, with all our industry, been able to procure; though we hope and trust, that what we have written will excite fome friend to her memory, and there muft be many who are more competent, to favour the world with an account of her birth, education, connexions, and domeftic habits. From the caufe that we have stated, therefore, we can only view the life of Mrs. Charlotte Smith, as its effence is diffufed through her works, and only notice her late exiftence by what remains to render it visible, the existence of her genius: we can only view her in the light of a very elegant writer, and from the effufions of her pen, as it has collaterally scattered the emanations of forrow through her various volumes, difcover that he was a very unhappy woman. From her Novels it appears, that during the whole courfe of her literary career, the was embarrassed in her affairs, entangled in legal difficulties, and fometimes enduring the pangs of penury, and that HER PEN was not only a mental but a pecuniary refource; which, if we confider its various and fuccefl The works of Charlotte Smith are to be confidered in two points of view, the poetical and the romantic: perhaps the latter appellation will hardly he allowed, as the characters in her novels. rest upon the basis of nature, and are faid to be accurate copies of real life. This, fubject to certain modifications, we are ready to admit; but at the fame time, in favour of our epithet, mult claim attention to the VEHICLES in which they are introduced. Thefe, certainly, in many instances, have an aerial property, and, impelled by her, foar beyond the fixed and fettled rules" of terrene principles, taking a range which carries them to a fußicient diftance from common existence to justify our defignation. It would here be to little purpose were we to investigate the different fources of romance, or to attempt to difcriminate the different claffes of its defcendants, the Novels that have for more than a century not only amufed, but, in our opinions, improved, mankind, because those of Charlotte Smith cannot be correctly identified with any one of them. Neither does her poetry, always tender, pathetic, and, though frequently gloomy, animated, difplay thole marks of imitation that may fometimes be discovered in the works of those whofe names have attained ftill greater celebrity. Confidering her, therefore, as the child of genius, infulated in her ta lents, and, we fear, ftill more infulated by her misfortunes, it may be proper, as we contemplate her portrait, to give to it an ideal animation, while we for a moment recollect thofe volumes which her genius once engendered, and her talents, ftimulated by thofe misfortunes, produced. BANISHED MAN 4 vols. IzMO. She has ailo published “TRE WANDERINGS OF WARWICK,' "MONTALBERT AND MARCHMONT," "THE OLD MA NOR HOUSE," "RURAL WALKS," in dialogues for the ufe of young perfons, "RAMBLES FURTHER," in continuation of "Rural Walks," and "A Narrative of the Lofs of CATHERINE, VENUS, &c. near Weymouth, drawn from the life, and printed for the benefit of a furvivor from one of the Wrecks, and her Infant." The motive which led to this publication did honour to the humanity of the fair authorefs: we hope that it was attended with a fuccefs equal to its benevolence. The firft effufions of the melancholy mind of Charlotte Smith appeared in lume of "Elegiac Sonnets;" for which, In 1797, the published a fecond vothe year 1784, under the title of "Ele- it appears, the had a large fubfcripgiac Sonnets," at a time when the town was fo nearly fatiated with this fpe- racterized by a haughty kind of diffition. The preface to this work is chacies of writing, that the trade emphati dence. She fays, very juftly, that "it cally termed poetry a drug fo that it rarely happens that a fecond attempt in is probable they would have funk under their title, had not their intrinfic any fpecies of writing equals the firit, when the first has been remarkably fuc. merit buoyed them up. The genius cefsful." Yet although the feems, in they displayed procured them admi- this inftance, to deprecate criticism, rers, and obtained for their fair au- and in fome others to itate pecuniary thorefs a celebrity which has, in this inconvenience as an excufe for fufferrefpect, continued to the prefent hour. ing a fubfcription, and depreflion of In 1787 we find that the affumed the fpirit as a reafon for the delay of publicharacter of a profe writer, and pub- cation, ftill, through the whole, may lished "The Romance of Real Life." be traced thofe trong drawn lines of This, although a tranflation, difcover- diffatisfaction, and fometimes of indig ed talents fufficient to justify the pub-nation, that difcriminate her other prolic for the favour with which it was re ceived. In 1788, the produced "EMMELINE, the Orphan of the Castle †," 4 vols. 12mo. In 1790, "ETHELENDA; or, The Reclufe of the Lake 1," 5 vols. 12mo. In 1791, "CELESTINA," 4 vols. 12mo. In 1792, "DESMOND," 3 vols. 12mo. ; "THE EMIGRANTS, a Poem ¶, quarte; "THE * It appears that these sonnets had run through four editions before they were reviewed in this Magazine. If the reader turns to Vol. XVI, p. 264, he will there fee them characterized. + See European Magazine, Vol. XIV, P. 248. See Vol. XVII, p. 170. Of this poem there is an ample review and character in this Magazine, Vol. XXIV, p. 41. ductions; through the whole may be difcerned the exertions of a wounded mind ftruggling to free itself from the gripe of oppreffion, and to rebut the arrows of malignity. This preface is therefore valuable; as in the paucity of information refpecting the life of our elegant authorels, we learn from it fome of the caufes that elicited thofe obfervations that are diffufed through her works, and which repeatedly indicate that "The world was not her friend, Nor the world's law," We thall confequently quote the paffage to which we have adverted, and conclude this brief notice with a fonnet that indelibly marks the gloomy tincture of a mind which certainly took its colour from fevere affiction. To the Editor of the European Magazine. SIR, I FIND in the laft number of THE REA SONER, that the author has chofen, under tite banner of Dr. Johnson, to attack the memory of Gray. There is, in my opinion, le's courage than conceit required in an attempt of this nature. Gray, although one of the gra vett of men, would have fmiled at it, had he been living; and perhaps this attempt may excite more attonithment and lefs anger in the minds of the admirers of that fublime poet than the author is aware of. Could any one of the misfortunes OBSERVATIONS on a late ATTACK on that fo rapidly followed" the subscripthe POEMS of GRAY. tion have been forefeen, nothing fhould have induced me to have confented to it for what expectation could I entertain of refifting fuch calamities as the detention of their property has brought on my children? Of four fons, all feeking in other climates the competence denied them in this, two were (for that reafon) driven from their profpects in the Church into the Army, where one of them was maimed during the first campaign he ferved in, and is now a Lieutenant of Invalids. The loveliest, the molt beloved of my daughters, the darling of all her family, was torn from us for ever. The reit, deprived of every advantage to which they are entitled, and the means of proper education for my youngest fon denied me! while the money that their inhuman trustees have fuffered yearly to be wasted, and what they kept poffeffion of on falfe and frivolous pretences, would, if paid to thofe it belongs to, have faved me and them from all these now irremediable misfortunes." I must here obferve, that of all the branches of literature, that which has by the moderns been mifcalled CRITICISM feems to me the easief to be attained; and of the various modes in which this unfortunate propension of mind (I will not, for special reatons, fay, of gen us,) expands itself, there is not, to us jmatterers, any fo alluring as that which may aptly enough be termed comparative, which branches into amalogy, and enables us to draw conclusions without a previous examination of the premifes. It is, I think, Sir, a maxim in our Courts, that when toever a paper is produced in evidence, the defendant has a right to have the whole of it read; and this for a very good reason, because in matters of literary property or libel, for instance, the context may, perhaps, explain the particular fentence that might have been fuppofed to have been borrowed or folen or perverted, and how that it really mingled with the general mais or ideas in the mind of the author, and was drawn by him into a regular fyftematic train, engendered by genius, perfected by erudition, and finished by the hands of taste and elegance. Such a combination, I conceive, produced the poems of Gray; which, to quote the REASONER's favourite, Dr. Johnfon, having "pleated many, and pleated long, ought, by this time, foaring upon the wings of original ge. nius and intrinsic merit, to have been out of the reach of CRITICISM. So they are out of the reach of fair CRITICISM, fuch as, from Ariftotle, Horace, Boffu, Boileau, Dacier, and teveral others, descended to our fore fathers, |