cidents of 'Huntly,' if they be not just in their full extent, are doubtless such as most readers will make, which alone is a sufficient reason for dropping the doleful tone and assuming a cheerful one, or, at least, substituting moral causes and daily incidents in place of the prodigious or the singular. I shall not fall hereafter into that strain." The two last novels of our author, however, although purified from the more glaring defects of the preceding, were so inferior in their general power and originality of conception, that they never rose to the same level in public favour.
In the year 1801 Brown returned to his native city, Philadelphia, where he established his residence in the family of his brother. Here he continued, steadily pursuing his literary avocations; and in 1803 undertook the conduct of a periodical, entitled The Literary Magazine and American Register. A great change had taken place in his opinions on more than one important topic connected with human life and happiness, and, indeed, in his genera! tone of thinking, since abandoning his professional career. Brighter prospects, no doubt, suggested to him more cheerful considerations. Instead of a mere dreamer in the world of fancy, he had now become a practical man: larger experience and deeper meditation had shown him the emptiness of his Utopian theories; and, though his sensibilities were as ardent, and as easily enlisted as ever in the cause of humanity, his schemes of amelioration were built upon, not against the exist-
