tensively popular than his extraordinary powers would have entitled him to be. His peculiar merits, indeed, appeal to a higher order of criticism than is to be found in ordinary and superficial readers. Like the productions of Coleridge or Wordsworth, they seem to rely on deeper sensibilities than most men possess, and tax the reasoning powers more severely than is agreeable to readers who resort to works of fiction only as an epicurean indulgence. The number of their admirers is therefore necessarily more limited than that of writers of less talent, who have shown more tact in accommodating themselves to the tone of popular feeling or prejudice.
But we are unwilling to part, with anything like a tone of disparagement lingering on our lips, with the amiable author to whom our rising literature is under such large and various obligations; who first opened a view into the boundless fields of fiction, which subsequent adventurers have successfully explored; who has furnished so much for our instruction in the several departments of history and criticism, and has rendered still more effectual service by kindling in the bosom of the youthful scholar the same generous love of letters which glowed in his own; whose writings, in fine, have uniformly inculcated the pure and elevated morality exempllfied in his life. The only thing we can regret is, that a life so useful should have been so short, if, indeed, that can be considered short which has done so much towards attaining life's great end.
