About the time of the arrival in England of this Imperial description of Egypt, a few illustrious individuals in this country were presented by the Emperor himself with his own portrait, in his robes, taken from a copper-plate which he keeps in his possession, and from which he suffers no impression to be thrown off without his express order and appropriation. We have seen one of these portraits, which represents a front view of Bonaparte; and as a specimen of the art of engraving, it does the highest honour to the French school. The Prince Regent, the Duke of York, and Sir Joseph Banks, are, we understand, the chosen few who have received this mark of attention; and one other is at present on view at Colnaghi's print-shop in Cockspur-street. If Napoleon would allow of its more extensive circulation, it would form an appropriate frontispiece to this pictoral delineation of Egypt.

FROM THE MONTHLY REVIEW.

Letters of Anna Seward; written between the years 1784 and 1807. In six volumes. Crown 8vo. 31. 38. Boards. Edinburgh, Constable; London, Longman and Co. 1811.

IF, jealous for the honest fame of some illustrious dead, we have occasionally questioned the honour, and even the morality of ransacking drawers and cabinets, for the purpose of making collections of letters for general perusal, out of papers which were never designed to see the light,-if, in some instances, we have lamented the mistaken officiousness of friendship, and in others have reprobated the sordid motives which have operated in bringing the dead on the stage under circumstances highly to their disadvantage,-- we cannot, in the case now before us, yield to any feelings of this kind. As far as the editor is concerned, he is exonerated from all the usual objections which attach to the publications of posthumous letters, Miss Seward having bequeathed the MSS., from which these volumes were printed, to Mr. Constable of Edinburgh, for the express purpose of their publication; so that the wish of the author is no more than fulfilled*. How

*As a fac-simile of Miss Seward's hand writing, her posthumous letter to Mr. Constable is inserted after the preface. It is as follows:

'Sir,

'July 17, 1807.

"In a will, made and executed since I had the pleasure of seeing you in April last, I have left you the exclusive copy-right of twelve volumes quarto, halfbound. They contain copies of letters, or of parts of letters, that, after I had written them, appeared to me worth the attention of the public. Voluminous

far, considering the implied confidence of epistolary intercourse, this accomplished lady was justified in publishing, without their consent, her comments on the letters of her friends, exposing their foibles, their mistakes, and even occasionally making extracts from those letters, may be left to the decision of every reader. Certain, however, we are that several of her correspondents must be hurt at her freedom; that many will be sorry that her thirst for posthumous reputation had not been more qualified by discretion, and by a regard to the feelings of others; and that some may accuse her of unfairness, and will regret that they gave her an opportunity of inserting their names in the long list which constitutes her triumph of vanity. At her rage against all Reviews and Reviewers,* we were much more diverted than offended; and we smiled to think that, while this lady, sitting on her throne of self-sufficiency in a provincial town, was incessantly playing the part of a critic on all works of taste and imagination, she should be so ready to pronounce that the remarks of other persons on the productions of the press were the impertinence of criticism.' Because Reviewers were not sufficiently courteous to her muse, Miss Seward has endeavoured to take ample revenge by leaving a rod in pickle for them among her posthumous papers: but her poor ghost will not be gratified at the manner in which these hardened culprits take her chastisement; nor will it be much delighted at the christian return which we are inclined to make for these animadversions. She shall learn, if she can learn, that we are disposed to be just, though she would provoke us to be otherwise; and that the talents and virtues which these her letters display, shall have their full meed of commendation; though she was long in the habit of telling her friends that Reviewers were a set of ‚—‚—‚ ! ! !!! !!!

Much had this lady read and reflected; and uncommon pains had she taken to culivate her mind, to improve her taste, and to expand her heart. She unquestionably ranks in the first class of British females; and the collection of letters which she has here

as is the collection, it does not include a twelfth part of my epistolary writing, from the time it commences, viz. from the year 1784, to the present day.

'I wish you to publish two volumes annually; and by no means to follow the late absurd custom of classing letters to separate correspondents, but suffer them to succeed each other in the order of time, as you find them transcribed. "When you shall receive this letter, its writer will be no more. While she lives she must wish Mr. Constable all manner of good, and that he may enjoy it to a late period of human life.

'Anna Seward.'

*On the subject of Reviews, Miss S. would have it supposed, that she is quite in the secret: but never was a lady more completely in the wrong, than in the assertions which she makes respecting the M. R. in Vol. ii. p. 9. Neither of the gentlemen there named ever wrote poetical criticisms in our pages.

prepared for the public, will interest, amuse, and instruct. In offering her opinions on a great variety of subjects, she displays a masculine strength and capacity of mind, unfolding her sentiments in general with great command and felicity of language. In religion she is no bigot, and in politics no slave to fashionable and courtly opinions. She writes as she thinks, without constraint; and many of her observations are so correct in themselves, and so happily expressed, that they may be quoted as apophthegms for the direction of posterity. As a correspondent she was courted; and though she was vain of her talents, and both pedantic and arrogant in the display of them, the fund of knowledge and good sense which she disclosed made her gold current in spite of the alloy. Even as a critic, her powers are considerable; and in combating the excentricities of her critical friends, she manifests a portion of reading and acumen which is very rare among bluestockings. She writes with all the pride of independence, and tells one of her correspondents, that her indignation is apt to kindle at every appearance of people presuming upon the superiority of their situation.' It is very evident, however, that she is fond of the great; and that she is peculiarly flattered by the praise which comes from that quarter. In every letter, she appears to be writing for the public rather than for the individual to whom it is addressed, and in consequence of this circumstance a want of ease is apparent. With all her friends, indeed, she is full of display. She is even vain of her person; for she tells us that she has been thought to resemble Mary Queen of Scots, and Mrs. Fitzherbert, between whom no resemblance can exist and her portrait, prefixed to the first volume of this work, must confine the similitude to the former, if it allows of any to either. Of her talents as a writer and a critic, no individual could cherish a higher opinion than herself;* and, notwithstanding she tells Mr. Hardinge, that she had written on one of his letters, in which he spoke a little too plainly, " to be read frequently as a medicine against vanity," (see Vol. 2. p. 167.) we never hear that the drawer was again opened which contained this letter, for the purpose of applying the antidote which it furnished. More than once she quotes the golden rule of doing to others as we wish them to do towards us in similar circumstances: but, if she had been a young clergyman in want of a sermon for a particular occasion, and if a female friend who was ready at composition had kindly furnished that sermon, which on delivery had gained applause, what would Miss Seward have said of the honour and generosity of the real author, who afterward disclosed the fact in

:

• Having in one place mentioned her own poems, she adds, 'I know their poetic worth,'

letters designed for publication, and so marked the circumstances that the poor preacher of petticoat-sermons must be unmasked to the ridicule of all his acquaintance? Yet this has she done.Her attentions to her aged and helpless father were truly amiable but an affectation pervades her details of them, which ought to have been kept from the public eye.

With all Miss Seward's high pretensions to authorship and to superlative critical sagacity, her style is not exempt from what Dr. Johnson denominates "colloquial barbarisms." Extensive

as her acquaintance was, she knew little of the higher circles of fashion, and did not entirely banish those provincialisms, which are deemed marks of vulgarity in society of the first class. We find in her volumes such expressions as the following, which ought not to have occurred in the letters of a hyper-critic ;-in the letters of a lady who severely chastises her friend Mrs. Piozzi for her kitchen-phraseology: One can never be weary of wondering';' to which folk are reduced;'-' On my life this seems;' -There had been scarce an instance ;'-' I had not been in London this long time - I was flattered that my picture was thought like by yesterday's callers ;'-' I do not think so highly of the Spectators as is customary to speak;'-some two miles from Chesterfield;'- would have expressed this observation somehow thus ;'-' I have an immense deal to say,' &c. A long list also of new words may be collected from these volumes; such as moleism, beetleism,-autumn-alaties, unaccountabilities, autumn-alaties,—unaccountabilities, courtierism,-frostism,-numskullism,

-miserism,dupism,

&c. &c. As to the last, we wanted, indeed, an abstract term for a quality which is so very abundant. Her copious application also of endearing epithets to her friends generally occurs without the prefixed article which grammar requires, as charming Miss A.-excellent Mrs. B.,-delightful Mr. C., &c. when not personally addressed. A little coarseness of remark, too, not very feminine, is observable in the following passage: 'The evidence you bring of Mr. B's bachelor voluptuousness is irresistibly strong. I suppose Mr. Day knew it not, or, with his general abhorrence of sensuality, he had spared to mention him with so much esteem :-but, Lord! what a pale, maidenish-looking animal for a voluptuary !- -so reserved as were his manners!-and his countenance !— a very tablet, upon which the ten commandments seemed written.'

Yet, after all the spots and blemishes which the perspicacity of criticism may discover in these volumes, the honest and impartial reporter (if such, according to Miss S., could be found!)will not hesitate to bestow on the writer of them warm and heart-felt praise, the praise which is due to a cultivated, discriminating, and fascinating intellect. Our lady-authors, if they do not envy

Miss Seward her fame, will be proud of this correspondence, and will quote it against the lords of the creation in proof of the equality of the female to the masculine intellect; we ought to say, in proof of the superiority of the female mind; for Miss S. rides her great horse over, and attempts to trample down, the whole phalanx of men-critics.

.

It is unnecessary to remark that Miss Seward had the pen of a ready writer, when we state that this selection from her correspondence, which forms not one-twelfth of the whole, includes upwards of five hundred letters, some of them extending to a considerable length, addressed to a variety of ladies and gentlemen; in the list of which are Mr. Hayley, Dr. Percival, Miss Helen Maria Williams, Mr. Hardinge, (the Welch Judge,) Mrs. Knowles, (the Quaker,) Mr. James Boswell, Mr. Repton,(the Landscape Gardener,) Dr. Warner, Dr. Gregory, Mr. Wedgewood, Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Crowe, (Public Orator at Oxford,) Dr. Darwin, Mr. Jerningham, Mr. Thomas Christie, Dr. Downman, Rev. Mr. Polwhele, Dr. Parr, Mr. Courtney, M. P., Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, Mr. Park, Rev. R. Fellowes, Dr. Mansel, (now Bishop of Bristol,) Mr. Southey, Mr. Walter Scott, &c. Many other names of less celebrity, present themselves in the table of contents: but to enumerate every one of this lady's correspondents, would be to give a long and uninteresting catalogue.

Our readers, perhaps, may not be disposed to thank us even for this curtailed enumeration, observing that they are not so much concerned to know to whom Miss Seward addressed her letters, as to learn the subjects on which she employed her mind and her pen. To satisfy impatient curiosity, then, we shall present a coup d'ail of this miscellany. It offers to us this lady's thoughts on religion, morals, politics, music, preaching, poetic and prose composition, criticism, and the drama. She comments on the publications of the day, discusses the merits of statemen and the policy of their measures, freely offers her sentiments, and gives way to her feelings on the subject of war and our conduct as a nation relative to the French Revolution. When she attends the couch of her aged nursling,' as she calls her superannuated father, the sentiments of filial piety and affection breathe in her letters; and when death had broken this chain which confined her to her home, and her own indisposition obliged her to try the effect of bathing and change of air, her pen executes the office of the pencil, and all the tints of landscape-painting glow in her descriptions. Her loves, her hatreds, and her friendships are recorded, interspersed with references to those local and temporary occurrences which naturally blend themselves in a correspondence that passes between intimates. The general cast and