finally in hat and
feather--silks and satins--a caricature of a courtier of Louis XIV.; and
all this at the age of eight or nine!

We have said that our love for Bettina only extends to the three years of
her life from 1807 to 1810. At that period it dies a natural death. She
assumed at fourteen the feelings of a love-inspired, heart-devoted
"character"--as fictitious, we are persuaded, as any created by dramatist
or poet; and it was pleasant to see with what art and eloquence she acted
up to it. It seemed a wonderful effort of histrionic skill, and superior,
in an infinite degree, to the mere representation on the stage of an
Ophelia or Miranda. But when years passed on, and she still continued the
same "character," she strikes us with the same feelings that would be
excited by some actress who should grow so enamoured of her favourite
part, as to go on Opheliaizing or Desdemonaing off the stage--singing
snatches of unchristian ballads, with the hair dishevelled, during prayers
in church; or perpetually smothering herself with pillows on the
drawing-room sofa. It is as if General Tom Thumb were to grow to a decent
size, and still go on imitating Napoleon, and insisting on people paying a
shilling to see his smallness. Bettina should have stopped before she grew
womanly; for though we have not the least suspicion of her having had any
meaning in what she did--further than to show her cleverness--still, the
attitudes that are graceful and becoming in a children's dance, take a
very different expression in an Indian _nautch_. And therefore we return
to our belief at the commencement of this paper, that the "child" of
Goethe's correspondence died, and was buried in a garden of roses, in the
year 1810--_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_.

NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS.

No. VIII.

SUPPLEMENT TO MACFLECNOE AND THE DUNCIAD.

Well, then, we have once more--to wit a month ago--wheeled round and
encountered face to face our two great masters, with whom we at first set
out--John Dryden and Alexander Pope. We found them under a peculiar
character, that of Avengers--to be imaged by the Pythean quelling with his
divine and igneous arrows the Python, foul mud-engendered monster,
burthening the earth and loathed by the light of heaven.

Dryden and Pope! Father and son--master and scholar--founder and improver.
Who can make up his election, which of the two he prefers?--the free
composition of Dryden that streams on a