ressions are vague; and, of consequence, the reasonings of no
value. The attempts at rich displays of imaginative power are contrasted
with a want of invention; and illustrative stories, of feeble execution,
are lavished abundantly in lieu of physiological facts. The volumes are
too insipid to cheat an idle hour of its weariness; they rather engender
fatigue than relieve it. The author will never enter the true elysium of
glory; he has not substance enough to proceed straight up the ascent;
but will certainly be "blown transverse into the devious air." Like most
of the literature of the day, this new Theory of Moral Sentiments is
essentially transient. It will pass, like anti-masonry, without
producing an era.

Yet the chapter on Ennui is tolerably sensible. It is neither brilliant
nor acute; but gives a superficial sketch of that state of being with
considerable accuracy. To be sure, it is not from a Frenchman, that the
best account of ennui should be expected. Of all nations of Europe, the
French have the least of it, though they invented the word; while the
Turks, with their untiring gravity, their lethargic dignity, their blind
fatalism, their opium-eating, and midnight profligacies, have
undoubtedly the largest share. But the Turks are only philosophers in
practice; the theory they leave to others. Now next to the Turks, the
English suffer most from ennui. Do but hear the account which their
finest poetical genius of the present century gives of himself, when he
was hardly of age.

"With pleasure drugged he almost longed for wo,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below."

The complaints of a young man in the bloom of life and the vigour of
early hope, cannot excite much sympathy. But he interests all our
feelings, when in the fullest maturity to which Lord Byron was permitted
to attain, he still draws from his own bosom the appalling picture of
unalleviated feelings, and describes the horrors of permanent ennui, in
language that was doubtless but the mournful echo of an unhappy mind.

"'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.

The fire that in my bosom preys
Is like to some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled