CURIOUS ERRORS OF MISS HAMILTON, MISS
OWENSON, AND MRS. RADCLIFFE.

SIR,-In your last I ventured to offer a few critical remarks on a passage in Dr. Ash; and I now propose to be so rude as to attack one or two of the fair sex yet let them not be afraid-their character is perfectly safe in my hands. The ladies of whom I am about to speak, stand so deservedly high in the opinion of the public, that to say how much I admire the elegance of their writings, and the justness of their sentiments, would be rather to pay a compliment to my own taste than to their talents. To mention only the name of Miss Hamilton is to have said every thing. Let not any of my readers be offended if I attempt to prove that this polished writer has been once in error;then too the mistake was but trivial, and fully compensated by a thousand beauties; yet am I right in pointing it out, for to detect any error, however trifling, or wherever it may be met with, is laudable. The fair fame of Miss Hamilton cannot be sullied by one petty inaccuracy, nor, in commenting on it, shall I be thought, I trust, to entertain the most remote wish of detracting from her wellearned reputation :

“Verum, ubi plura nitent.... non ego paucis

Offendar maculis."

K

Every candid reader will, I hope, do justice to my motives. But to the matter at once. Miss Hamilton, in her "Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education," (vol. ii. p. 186) gives it as her opinion that poetry should not form part of children's studies, because they have not acquired a sufficient stock of ideas to understand it. She justly observes that where the mind is incapable of keeping pace with the rapid associations of the poet; where the finest allusions are lost for want of conception to apprehend their meaning; where the finest imagery presents no object to the mind; the emotions that are excited have surely no affinity to the sublime or beautiful. To defend her proposition, she thus gives an instance :-"Let us suppose a little girl, whose acquaintance with natural objects extends to the grass-plat which ornaments the centre of some neighbouring square. In order to cultivate a taste for descriptive poetry, she is enjoined the task of getting by heart Gray's celebrated Elegy, which abounds in imagery at once natural and affecting. Let us follow her in the conceptions she forms from it. Two lines will be a sufficient example.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea."

Having gone through her observations on the first line, and convinced us that the mind of a child is not adopted to form correspondent ideas of it, she thus proceeds in her remarks:-"What does she make, what can she make, of the succeeding line?

A herd she has probably heard of, as one who takes care of sheep, goats, or other animals; but why the herd should low, is certainly beyond her comprehension. How, or in what manner, he winds, is equally so."

Can it be believed that Miss Hamilton, the wellinformed, correct, elegant Miss Hamilton could have made so egregious a mistake as to take herd for herdsman? And yet that it is so, is too evident; the context, unfortunately, will admit of no palliation.

And how, supposing the word to signify "one who takes care of sheep, &c." does Miss Hamilton understand the line? For it should be observed, that she does not criticise the words themselves, but merely observes that they are above a child's comprehension. In this case, I must confess myself a "mewling infant;" for were the line to stand thus

"The lowing Swain winds slowly o'er the lea,"

I must candidly own I should not understand it. It is very strange how such a blunder could have been committed, and equally so how it could have proceeded to the public eye,-for the compositors for the press, nay the printer's devils, one would have thought, must have corrected it.

As to venial errors like the following, one may easily excuse them, for a lady is not obliged to understand Latin. Miss Owenson, in her excellent

Novel "The Wild Irish Girl,"-in speaking of an old woman and her two cows, very learnedly calls them a triumvirate. And yet, perhaps, if any body ought to be brought to an account for displaying this kind of ignorance, it should be Miss Owenson, as she is not slightly partial to talking "rotundo ore" on deeply learned subjects; and in her “Ida of Athens," impresses on us in every page a thorough conviction that she is deeply imbued with classical knowledge.

The mighty "Enchantress of Udolpho" has also committed a blunder very much resembling the above-speaking of one of the magnificent Venetian halls, her glowing fancy has created, she says, "it was brilliantly illuminated by vast tripods suspended from the vaulted roof."-Either etymology or Mrs. Radcliffe must blunder here most terribly, for I need not observe that it is generally considered as a sine quá non with tripods, that they should stand on three feet. But enough of this cavilling at words.

Yours, &c.

PERCONTATOR.

ON THE EYES OF PORTRAITS.

PLINY remarks of a certain Painter, that he was the first, who, in a portrait, drew the eyes with so peculiar a skill, that they seemed to follow the spectator as he changed his place, and still to look at him. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1766,-observes on this passage, that Pliny discovers great ignorance in making the remark, and further adds that the effect is constant, and impossible to be otherwise. He says"the most ignorant Painter does the same thing without intention, and the most skilful can never represent the eyes looking at the spectator, standing in any one place, but they will also have the same direction to him standing in any other. The cause of this effect, it is plain that Pliny did not know:-it is, that the direction of the eyes towards the spectator, remains the same in whatever place he stands, for that direction, or turn, of the pupil, bears still the same relation to the position of each feature, and to all parts of the face, which being on a plane, suffer no apparent changes; and it is on this relation that the whole depends; whereas, in a living face, or statue, that relation is continually changing with every change of place of the spectator."