huts and cottages, rather than in halls and palaces. His Baron is ſhewn more diſtinctly in his indigent eſtate than in his affluence. The daughters enjoy but one day of luxury for fix of ſolitude and hardſhip. His hermit-knight and runaway ’ſquire are ſurely not characters elevated above
REVIEWER.
We could eaſily undertake to ſhew that our author has not ſeized the full advantage of his ſubject. He has not been careful to intereſt the reader in the fortunes of any of his perſonages: nor are his characters delineated with ſufficient preciſion. They come, and no heart beats at their approach: they go, and leave behind them no ſolicitude for their fate. When a writer has before him all that obſervation has aſcertained of the courſe of nature; when he adds to this all that ſuperſtition and ignorance have dreamed of powers ſupernatural; and when he aſſumes the liberty of mixing theſe heterogeneous materials without conſtraint, we may expect him to produce ſome ſtriking ſituations. But in the work before us we can diſcover little that affects us with pity or laughter. The beginning of the ſecond volume irreſiſtibly reminds us of the Tempeſt, and Midſummer’s Night’s Dream, but Number-Nip has neither the airy lightneſs of Ariel, nor the entertaining half malicious archneſs of Puck. This Prince of the Gnomes partakes of the gloom of his own dreary ſubterraneous realms.
Our author ſeems to underſtand little of a painter’s artifice. He ſhews his figures without management or perſpective. Ignorant, as it would appear, of themeans
