cards. But as his
definition of the excellence of a letter was--"to say any thing, but mean
nothing," we must give up the hope of his contribution. Grimm's volumes
are, after all, the only collection which belongs to the style of letters
to which we allude. They are amusing and anecdotical, and, in our
conception, by much the most intelligent French correspondence that has
fallen into our hands. But they are too evidently the work of a man
writing as a task, gathering the Parisian news as a part of his profession,
and in fact sending a daily newspaper to his German patron.

Of the German epistolary literature we have seen nothing which approaches
to the excellence of the English school. The conception is generally vague,
vapourish, and metaphysical. And this predominates absurdly through all
its classes. The poet prides himself on being as much a dreamer in his
prose as in his poetry; the scholar is proud of being perplexed and
pedantic; the statesman is naturally immersed in that problematic style,
which belongs to the secrecy of despotic governments, and to the stiffness
of circles where all is etiquette. But Walpole and his tribe have fashion
wholly to themselves, and possess force without heaviness, and elegance
without effeminacy.

We are strongly tempted to ask, whether there may not be letters of the
gay, the refined, and the sparkling George Canning. He was constantly
writing; knew every thing and every body; was engaged in all the high
transactions of his time; saw human nature in all possible shades; and was
a man whose talent, though capable of very noble efforts "on compulsion,"
yet naturally loved a more level rank of times and things. It is perfectly
true to human experience, that there are minds, which, like caged
nightingales and canary-birds, though their wings were formed with the
faculty of cleaving the clouds, yet pass a perfectly contented existence
within their wires, and sing as cheerfully in return for their water and
seeds, as if they had the range of the horizon. Canning's whole song for
thirty years was in one cage or another, and he sang with equal
cheerfulness in them all. The moral of all this is, that we wish Mr Jesse,
or any one else, to apply himself, without delay, to the depositaries of
George Canning's familiar correspondence, and give his pleasant, piquant,
and graceful letters (for we are sure that they are all these) to the
world.

Lord Dudley's letters have disappointed every b