CXXV. THE LETTERS OF SOLI- HE former volumes of this work Thaving been published before the existence of our new series, it is necessary to give our readers the following extract from the preface to vol. 4. "The work, of which the fourth and fifth volumes are now published, was sold to Mr. Sampson Low, more than three years since; and the first three books were published in October, 1800. A few months afterwards, Mr. Low died; and his executors thought it adviseable to sell such parts of his effects as consisted of copyright, by auction. Among the property thus disposed of was the remainder of the impression of three volumes of the Letters of a Solitary ♦ Wanderer,' and his purchase of two manuscript volumes, for which I had been paid. It happened, that of these five volumes of the same work, the three volumes already published were bought by Messrs. Crosby and Letterman; and the two others by Messrs. Longman and Rees. This occasions the book to appear under very aukward circumstances, and has prevented my concluding it, at least at present, according to my original agreement with Mr. Low, which was, to furnish him with six volumes. The conclusion of the work must now depend on my health and leisure. Had the book been of another description, and contained only a single narrative, I must have completed it. As it is, the story of the Solitary Wanderer himself remains to be told; but the want of it does not affect any of the narratives except the last; and I have written much of it a second time, to disentangle it, as far as I could, from that which would have closed the work, had it now been finished, according to my first design, and with which I intended to connect it." Though we are very cautious of troubling our readers with the trash of tales and novels, with which we are deluged, we must not rank every work of invention under that class, much less the elegant productions of this fair authoress. The tales in these volumes are, the Hungarian-Leo nora-and Guilelmine de Mortivalle, which are made, almost insensibly, to slide into each other. We shall give an extract from the 2d, which is in vol. 5, p. 170. "The Narrative of Leonora, ad dressed to her Friend, thus proceeds: "There is a book, I believe, called Great Events from Little Caused I have frequently pondered on the trifling circumstances, which, by a chain of unforeseen and improbable consequences, have led to the most important conclusions in private life. To circumstances of apparently as little importance, may be imputed some of those events which have involved the happiness or misery of millions, and the fate of many nations of the earth. I think I have some where seen an anecdote, which relates, that the fortunate close of the war which had deluged Europe with blood, was brought about, because the Duchess of Marlborough refused her mistress, Queen Ann, a new pair of gloves; and I believe, if the real motives of those wars, which have depopulated the world, could be dis cerned, they would, whatever impor< tant causes have been assigned to them, be found to have originated in the pride or folly of some individual, unworthy to manage a village, but to whom it has pleased heaven to entrust the government of the poor creatures of the earth. "But I am digressing from myself, who am, you know, at least one of the heroines of my own tale. These reflections, however, were suggested by my considering the apparently inconsequential circumstances that introduced another, who will take a considerable part in the sequel of my sad history. "When I was alone I recalled the scene that had passed; and while Į considered the appearance and manners of the last of my new acquaintances, I began to doubt whether I was not acting improperly in cultivating the intimacy of either of them. Yet the recollection of the young women I had first met, dwelt with such fascinating influence on my mind, that I could not determine to relinquish the pleasure which I believed it must give me to converse with, perhaps to as sist, in some way or other, a creature so lovely, and so unfortunate. I own there was a degree of romantic enthusiasm in this; but I have much to say in its extenuation. Gertrude, my beloved sister, had long since been divided from me; and this young stranger, who was about the same age, seemed to be sent to fill that place in my heart which her absence, and the infancy of my only remaining girl, left vacant. Whatever, therefore, appeared objectionable in her companion, who had certainly very much the air of a woman of intrigue, I persuaded myself that my new favourite, whose appearance and manners were totally different, was thrown by some accident, in which her own inclination had no part, on the protection, and was probably in the power of one whose disposition was not congenial with her own. "The arguments thus suggested by the lively interest I took in this unknown young person, quieted the suspicions which prudence, and, indeed, judgment offered. Nothing had lately awakened me from the torpor into which my mind had been accustomed to sink, from the mere hopelessness of ever tasting happiness, or even tranquillity. But now I once again felt a solicitude in some thing not immediately relating to my own children, and looked forward with a considerable degree of impatience for the time when I was again to meet my young friend. "It came; and if I had before conceived for her a degree of regard, such as a new acquaintance had hardly ever the power of inspiring, it was greatly increased by this second conversation. Her companion had on this day engagements, which she probably preferred to a female party only, and sent an excuse, which I was very willing to accept. 6 Instead, therefore, of the rendezvous she had proposed, we returned to our favourite haunt, in the Ludovisi gardens: their being triste et morne,' was to us a recommendation.Alas! my dear Sophy, do not blame me for this sudden attachment; do not say that a woman, some years married, the mother of a family, should have repressed this warmth of immediate and unauthorized friendship, which is justly considered as an error, even in the age of inexperience. Before you condemn me, recollect how long my heart had preyed upon itself, devoured by its own miseries;-how long it was since I had heard the soothing sound of friendship and sympathy, from a being who could feel and think as I did, and you will surely find many excuses for my conduct. Nor did these considerations alone influence me. I thought that my remaining little girl, though yet an infant, might one day need advice and protection, as much as this lovely and forlorn young woman appeared to want it now; and I determined to act towards her, as I would that some benevolent woman, with more power than I had, should act towards a child of mine, who might be friendless in a strange land. "With these impressions and resolutions in her favour, how could I help being enchanted with the frankness, the simplicity, the thousand graces of the young creature I am describing? It is true that I saw she was romantic, and even wildly enthusiastic; but I had at that time too much tendency to those faults myself to be very rigid in my remarks on another. The affectation with which that style of talking is often assumed, would instantly have disgusted me, but here was no affectation. I must tell the story of her wanderings, and of her misfortunes, as she herself told it; for no words but her own can do her justice. I give them to you as well as I can, through the medium of another language; though it is impossible for me to convey to you what I felt myself -the inexpressible graces of her man ner. "GUILELMINE DE MORTIVALLE, "You already know I am of Switzerland. In a country that has long boasted of the inflexible spirit and love of freedom of its inhabitants, it is strange that aristocratic notions, and the pride of birth, should have such powerful influence over the upper ranks; but the Baron de Mortivalle, my father, though a native of Switzerland, had received his education in France; and having entered early in life into the service of the French monarchy, had himself a regiment, and my elder brother a majority, when the revolution began, in which the Helvetic states have since been so deeply involved. I was then very young; for I have not yet reckoned eighteen years. days were passed in tranquillity and "I had a mother, with whom my happiness. She was the best, the gentlest, the most indulgent of women. We lived so much alone, that my whole heart was devoted to her; for my father I seldom saw. The paternal fortune, which had been sufficient for his ancestors; was now so much lessened, from the change of manners, and the loss of a process at law, with another branch of his family, that it was by no means equal to the support of the rank on which he prided himself, and which it was his ambition that his sons should be able to preserve in undiminished lustre. It was not as the citizen of one of the cantons that this could be done; and he had insensibly attached himself to the manners of the court, in whose service he had entered at an early ages, and to which he dedicated his clest son as soon as he was able to bear arms. from early habit, this young man became what his father had desired to see him his ideas were those of a French subject; and his ambition only to attain an high rank in the armies of the King of France, where, in the nominally Swiss regiment, commanded by my father, though hardly a third of the men were of that nation, my elder brother was, at an early age, promoted to a majority; but the younger, who had remained, till he was turned of seventeen, at the paternal house, and whose education had been more that of a Swiss, was yet only a subaltern; and, being placed in another regiment, was, soon after he first entered it, sent to Martinique, from whence he returned with the corps he belonged to, in 1790, being then about nineteen. Such was the situation of our family at that period; I was only in my fifteenth year; and, except that my mother had taken me three or four times to Lausanne, I had never seen any thing beyond the beautiful and romantic country overlooking the lake where I had drawn my first breath. Among my mother's collection of books, where I was suffered, and even encouraged, to pass many hours, I acquired ideas of the world which did not give me any wish to enter it. It was not unnatural that Rousseau should be my favourite author; for I saw not, in deed I have never yet seen, those of his works which are said to prove his life contradictory to his principles, and so unworthy of his morality. Nor * do I wish, or will I ever see them. The delight his enchanting writings have given me, I will not have polluted if it is illusion, I desire, not to have the illusion dissolved! "But, my dear madam, you will, perhaps, smile at the romantic folly of your young friend, if I tell you all; I will hazard it, however. Situated in many respects like Julie, I fancied that I should emulate her character in all but its fatal errors: but I had no beings near me that resembled, or that my fancy could elevate in any thing at all like those who made her destiny. My mother was, indeed, in many respects, like the Baroness de l'Etang; and my father had the faults and the feelings of the Baron. I lived almost in the very midst of the scenes that the fascinating pen of Jean Jacques has described. Can you wonder that my heart sought a St. Preux and a St. Claire? Alas! I was but a child; and it is, perhaps, on impressions received at the age I then was of, that the future character depends; and the ideal Julie has possibly influenced the life of the real Guilelmine. The convulsions which have now for so many years agitated Europe, were then rapidly increasing; and uneasiness on account of political affairs for the first time reached our abode at Mont Galaciel. We heard, that of the regiment my father commanded, a great part had gone over to the convention; that three of his officers had fallen victims to the fury of the soldiers, in attempting to reduce them to obedience, while the baron and his eldest son, having narrowly escaped with their lives, had attached themselves, with the small remains of their corps, to another regiment, and waited, at some distance from Paris, the orders of those who acted for the king. "If this account filled my mother's mind with uneasiness and apprehension, in which, though less able to judge of consequences, I very truly participated, the letters we received from Felicien, my younger brother, were very little calculated to appease our anxiety. He told us that the sentiments he had, in early youth, imbibed from his tutor at Galaciel, had made it impossible to behold with indifference the scene then passing in France; still more impossible for him to devote himself to the party to which his father and his brother adhered. be closed upon him for ever.' "You who are a mother, you may form some idea of what mine felt when she read such a letter from the son she best loved; for Felicien having been longer with her, and having a milder and more affectionate temper than D'Aspermond, (her eldest son,) she had never been able equally to divide her affection between them, and Felicien was, I believe, dearer to her even than Guilelmine. Married at a very early age to a man of that hard and imperious character, which is, I believe, common enough—a man who thought it beneath the dignity of his nature to consider his wife otherwise than as an inferior crea ture, who was to continue in his family, and obey his will; my mother had never, till within the last years of her life, ventured to suppose that she had an understanding or a will of her own. Left, however, in solitude, or solitude relieved only by the company of her daughter; feeling herself unhappy, and compelled to read, a new train of ideas had followed; and though she still trembled before the stern and imperious autho rity of the baron, neither the early impressions of her youth, which were thus awakened, (for she had been bred up among the republicans of Geneva,) nor the voice of reason and of justice, would suffer her any longer to consider herself as the mere creature of another, without an opinion or will of her own; nor did she wish that I should acquire the same notions of unqualified submission. When, therefore, to these sentiments, the strong impulse of maternal love was added, Madame de Mortivalle was by no means disposed to refuse admission to her son; and even had she already received, as Felicien ima gined, the prohibition of her husband against receiving him, it was more than probable her obedience would have failed." They had their principles and mo-earth, but of which the doors may tives he had his: it was not in his power to yield up his conscience to his private affections; and where the duties of a man clashed with those of private life, he must consider the first as paramount to every other. To avoid the consequences of his father's indignation on one side, or the reproaches of his own conscience on the other, he must cease to take the pay of France, as he could no longer bear arms for the monarch he had sworn to serve, and won. Lot tikė them up in a cause which might, at no very distant period, bong Ela into the field in hostile opposition to his father and his brother. He had therefore given in his resignation, and having done so, hastened, as a private individual, to throw himself at the feet of the baron, state the reasons for what he had done, and implore his forgiveness. But my father,' said Felicien, my father forbade me ever again to address him by that revered name; he renounces, he disclaims me; nor, since I could not recede from the ⚫ resolution I had taken, did I dare to solicit leave to see you, my beloved mother, and Guilelmine, once 'more, before your Felicien, who, whatever may become of him, will ⚫ not cease most affectionately to love you, takes of you, and of his native country, a long, perhaps a last farewell! Alas! my mother, your son has not deserved the reproaches with which his father has in his wrath loaded him. But I dare not, 'I will not defend myself against him: yet surely in one instance, and in one alone of a private nature, I may disobey him. I must see you, my 'mother-I must see Guilelmine before I quit my native country. Do not refuse me admittance; let not the doors be shut against one who could in no other instance disobey his father. Yet, if his commands have reached you to refuse 'me this last favour, I know that he must be obeyed, and I will submit, whatever it may cost me. With a young Englishman, who thinks as I < do, and who has acted on the same principles, I shall almost immediately leave this country, and possibly almost as soon as you receive this letter, your son may, from his 'native mountains, be within sight of the paternal house, that contains 'two of the beings dearest to him on We cannot proceed farther with this narrative; and analysis destroys the interest of this species of writing, which in a great measure depends on the expectation of new scenes and incidents continually arising, and of which anticipation destroys the charm. ORIGINAL CRITICISM AND CORRESPONDENCE. TO THE EDITOR. Reply to J. S's Defence of his New Testament Doctrine of Atonement. MR. EDITOR, most, if not altogether, unoccupied ; I AM less surprized at what Mr. S. the travellers have walked through has said in answer to my remarks than at what hehas not said, and therefore tacitly admitted. He makes no objection to my statement, that on his principles MODERN UNITARIANISM, or Unitarianism as embraced by the great body of that denomination, IS DESTITUTE OF THE GRAND PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN OBEDI ENCE. But if so, with what face can he contend that they are "ministers of the gospel?" whether popular orthodox preachers have an exclusive right to this character, or not, the generality of Unitarians are excluded from it, and that by one of their brethren. That mistakes of lesser mo'ment may consist with an attachment to the gospel, is readily admitted; but an error which renders the atonement "void and useless" (p. 14); an opinion which is "so inimical to the spirit of practical Christianity, that perhaps there is not one existing amongst its professors that is more so" (p. 15); a scheme where "the grand and only true spur to serious and universal godliness is wanting," (p. 19), must utterly subvert it. It is true that what he has said of orthodox preachers is equally strong. He represents their scheme as founded in "a total misunderstanding of the doctrine of the atonement, (p. 13); as that which is subversive of every truth taught in the volume of inspiration, and of every design for which the Son of God came into the world." (p. 11.) If this be just, they cannot be said to believe the gospel, nor to preach it. It is therefore surprising that after all this Mr. S. can compli ment each of these erroneous descrip tions of people with the character of "gospel ministers." It can be no other than a compliment.-If he mean what he says, when describing their principles, he must in reality refuse them this honourable character, and very nearly, if not wholly confine it to those who imbibe the Unitarian system upon his principles. The highways of truth have for ages been al bye-ways, until that Mr. S. arose, till he arose a father in Israel. Mr. S. complains of misrepresentation. He does not "disown all dependence it seems upon the teachings of the Holy Spirit, but merely the unsupportable sense of them in which they are contended for by enthusiasts. Yet he had said, "Here then, (in examining after truth) we are wholly dependent upon those powers with which we are furnished by our benign Creator." (p. 2.) And again, "The exercise of our reflecting powers is our last, and only proper resource in the determination of what is truth. As to the notion, that God will illuminate the minds of those who pray for his enlightening Spirit to guide them infallibly, and to form a right judgment of truth, it stands confuted by its own advocates," &c. (p. 5.) If this be not disowning all dependence on the teachings of the Holy Spirit, it is difficult to determine what is. His representing those who pray for divine teaching as pretending to infallibility, resembles many other of his caricature descriptions. That there are enthusiasts who make such pretences, is admitted; but it is not them only that he opposes; his principles are equally opposed to all prayer for divine illumination, as to the plain direction of scripture not to lean to our own understanding. Again, I have "discovered in him, he says, an advocate for the abominable doctrine of original sin." No, this is his mistake. By the phrase of whatever age,' I meant not whatever age of human life, but whatever period of time; and I say again, that sin should have taken an universal range through the whole of mankind, of whatever period, nation, or condition, and should have been so malignant in its operations, as to render them all the enemies of God, and exposed to fu ture punishment, is a concession some. what singular for an Unitarian. If all this do not imply a corrupt nature in man, or a nature corrupted from |