ives
for devoting a number of our pages to "France in 1829-30," could we for
a moment be persuaded that our readers would credit the assertion. It
seems to us, that we already behold every one of them smiling in
derision, and giving an incredulous shake of the head, at the bare idea
of a cold-blooded reviewer being actuated by indignant feelings to place
his critical lance in rest, and run a course against an unfortunate
author. We must, nevertheless, be permitted to protest, that we do feel
a considerable quantity of very honest and virtuous indignation against
the trash last put forth by _Miladi_--quite as much, we are sure, as
impelled Juvenal to the composition of his searing satires. We may be
told, however, that we are waging battle with a lady, and that we should
be upon our guard not to give fresh cause for the exclamation, that "the
age of chivalry is gone." A lady, true; but, when in your boasted "age
of chivalry," persons of her sex buckled on armour and rushed into the
_melee_, were they spared by the courteous knights with whom they
measured swords? Did not Clorinda receive her death wound from the hand
of Tancred? And why should the Amazon who wields the pen, be more gently
dealt with than she who meddles with cold iron? In literature, as in
war, there is no distinction of sex. We hope, therefore, we shall not be
accused of ungallant, or anti-chivalric bearing, on account of the blows
we may inflict upon the literary person of a most daring Thalestris,
especially as her vanity is a panoply of proof.

In her preface, Lady M. says, that a second work on France from her pen
could only be justified by the novelty of its matter, or by the merit of
its execution. Then do we pronounce this second work, this "France in
1829-30," to be the most unjustifiable imposition on the good nature of
the reading community that ever was practised. Its matter is nothing
more nor less than Miladi herself; and is she a novelty? Something less
than half a century ago, her Ladyship undoubtedly was a novelty, and one
too of an extraordinary kind. As to the "merit of its execution," it is
quite sufficient to know that it is the work of Lady Morgan, to form an
idea of that requisite for its "justification." Out of thine own mouth
have we condemned thee. The fact is, that "France in 1829-30," is
almost, the counterpart of "France in 1816," and the same remarks may
be made concerning it which we have already applied to the latter. All