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REVIEW.-Wilson's Travels in Russia.

pictures founded on life, then we presume that the mind may find amusement in itself. Howard was perfectly right in humanizing punishment, and preventing bad from becoming worse, but he has not diminished crime. In

our judgment, the discipline of the Navy and Army prevents more vice than all the other methods devised; because vice must there be prevented, or the public service ruined. A rascal ought to suffer pain, because he neither feels nor fears any thing else. We are told, that in the reign of Alfred, a man would have hanged his purse upon a tree in the high road on one day, and found it there on the morrow. Such was police, maintained by discipline, and to presume that rogues can be kept in order without discipline, we believe to be mere quackery; and to originate in too light an opinion of villainy among societies.

We now turn to the more pleasurable office of saying, that so copious is the mass of information contained in these volumes, that it would require a catalogue to enumerate the valuable and multifarious contents. We shall therefore extract one or two curious things. Few of our readers have any idea of a leading cause of Spindle-Shanks. Mr. Wilson, speaking of Carlscrone in Sweden, says,

"The children here wear wooden shoes,

as in the North of England, and nightcaps 'on their head during day; many of them are very squat and broad, resembling the Dutch. Having referred so often to wooden shoes, it may be remarked, that notwithstanding they may be adopted from motives of economy and supposed comfort, they cannot fail to be injurious, aud to incumber and impede the wearer; for, as they do not yield to the bending of the foot, they are dragged along as a dead weight; nor have the muscles of the leg and the calf any play. This is the reason why so many of this class of people, and of our labourers, who wear such enormously thick soles to their shoes, are generally spindle-shanked, while the barefooted Hibernian peasant displays a convexity of calf and symmetry of leg rivalling those of a gladiator or a ballet-master. Of all persons in the world, perhaps the Turks and Arabs display the finest limbs, from wearing slippers and wide boots; and their bodies also are strong and muscular, in consequence of every part of their dress being so extremely loose and flowing." ii. 217.

At the Wool-fair at Berlin, Mr. Wilson saw

"Bags of wool piled up literally like hills, and noblemen with stars on their breasts

[July,

sitting in stalls bargaining with customers for the packages they had sent to market, and in a manner too, that an English Peer would consider highly derogatory to his rank." i. 102.

There is excellent sense in the fol

lowing remark of Mr. Wilson, concerning representations of God in sculpture and painting.

"Without saying any thing of the horrible profaneness of pretending to delineate the supreme Being, the absurdities into which even the greatest artists have fallen, whenever they have attempted it, are such as shock taste and propriety equally with religious feeling. Painters uniformly choose to represent the Divinity under the form of an aged man, as if age was an attribute of that Being who is eternal, and who existed before all worlds :-as if the semblance of infirmity and decay could belong to him who is all perfection-to him, who is incapable of change."

The Imperial Library at Petersburgh has received a great acquisition of French works and manuscripts, which had been collected by Dubrovsky, who was in the suite of the Russian ambassador at Paris at the period of the Revolution, when he was enabled to obtain them for almost any thing. Among these is a manuscript volunie of letters from Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth.

"Her missal, which is here shewn, and which is bound in dark blue velvet, secured by clasps, consists of 230 pages. The first thirteen have the months and days of the year, where particular prayers are introduced, commencing in January with the 30th psalm. This book is illuminated with subjects from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The first is a picture of the angel Gabriel, and at the bottom of the are these words, Marie Reyne." i. 259.

page

We omit many sentences written by her in this missal, and copied by Mr. Wilson, because we have found things of the kind written by her, to be mere quotations, not her original composition.

To proceed with Mr. Wilson:

"In all probability this book and the letters were part of the numerous writings that belonged to the Scotch college at Douay, which was founded by Mary. Indeed I recollect, that on going over that seminary with the Rev. Mr. Farquharson, the head of the college, on his visiting it after being banished to this country during the revolution; he assured me, he had had in his possession not only the original prayerbook of Mary, but a table clock belonging to her, the first that had been made; besides the MS. poems of Ossian, and many other

1928.]

REVIEW.-Chateaubriand's Travels.

interesting papers which he had not seen since the Revolution. A full-length portrait of her, which had been concealed in a chimney during that disastrous period, and which was copied from a miniature given by the Queen to Miss Curl, one of her maids of honour, at the time she was on the scaffold, was all that remained, every thing else being carried off by the mob, and committed to the flames."

We have compared the profile on the gold coin of Mary with the effigies in Westminster Abbey, and thought that the resemblance was tolerably exact. We have also heard, that the lady of an eminent Surgeon at Edinburgh, has often sat to Painters, for a portrait of this Royal beauty. Mr. Wilson, in a note, adds the following interesting particulars concerning the portrait, &c. to those already given :

"This noble picture [the portrait before mentioned] was set up in the dining hall of the college [of Douay]; and it is a singular circumstance, that in the title-deeds it is directed, that to whatever place the seminary shall be removed, this picture was to go with it. I afterwards saw it in the Scotch college at Paris, where it will remain till it is seen, if the college of Douay is to be restored; in which event it will be replaced

in its former situation. It is said that the

Queen's confidential secretary, Babington, had also an original full-length portrait of her, by Frederico Zucchero, and one of her son James, which he gave to the Drapers' company in London, and the veil which she wore on the scaffold is in the possession of an English Baronet,* who claims a descent from her Majesty. This was given him by Cardinal York, the last branch of the Stuart family, who had long preserved it in his chapel, as a most sacred relic."

We cannot leave this work, without expressing in a philosophical view our regret at the reluctance of foreigners to adopt our notions of comfort and convenience. But so things are. A savage prefers finery to utility, and habit reconciles men to absolute nuisances. have heard a gentleman, who resided many years at Oporto say, that he tried in vain to shew the superior comfort and convenience of a scythe to a sickle in mowing grass, but in vain. Their

We

habits were naturalized to the use of the latter; and you cannot put an English farmer out of his way in regard to evident improvements. The difficulty lies not in suggesting improve

The late Sir Thomas Coxe Hippisley,

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ments, but in effecting the adoption of them. We presume, that Foreigners find that they cannot afford the permanent cost of several of our English improvements, and therefore decline them; and that our countrymen reject them, because they are not educated above prejudice.

Travels in America and Italy. By Viscount de Chateaubriand. 2 vols. 8vo. THE Viscount is a traveller who carries, as Hotspur's fop did, a pouncet box, or pocket mirror, in which ever and anon he beholds himself, or in other words, obliges us with 'a diatribe abounding with every variety of the lugubrious, in which he was himself concerned; and ebullitions about the sad necessity that he must die, like other people; intending apparently to furnish posterity with this important information, that in such a place, and at such a time, stood in lucubration, like an animated post, the illustrious Author of this work. We shall only give one specimen to vindicate our criticism.

The Viscount set out for America, with the view of discovering the NorthWest passage; and after a grave and just remark, that things in Europe would have gone on as they did, though he was absent, utters the following soliloquy:

"It is probable that I should never have been so unfortunate as to write; my name would have remained unknown, or perhaps there would have attached to it that peaceful kind of renown, which excites no envy, and which bespeaks lessglory than happiness. Who knows even if I should have recrossed the Atlantic; if I should not have fixed my residence in the solitudes discovered by me, like a conqueror amid his conquests? It is true, that I should not then have figured at the Congress of Verona, nor should I have been called Monseigneur at the office for Foreign Affairs, Rue des Capucines, Paris." (p. 81.)

No, certainly not, no more than he would have been called the Duke of

Wellington, at Apsley-House, Piccadilly. However it is to be recollected, that this work is only a translation from the French, and that the French sée no folly in vanity.

Although we consider the Viscount to belong in authorship only to the class Entomology;" yet, frail and feeble as is the structure of its subject, we know that many of them make a brilliant picture, pinned upon white paper, and

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REVIEW.-Chateaubriand's Travels.

by no means desire to withhold this honour from Monseigneur of the Rue des Capucins, especially as this work is published professedly that the world may not sustain a severe loss, similar to that of the Decades of Livy.

Whatever may be the vanity of the Author, we by no means wish to depreciate the book, which contains lively and interesting matter, and occasionally curious things.

An exemplification of the latter, according to our rule, we shall extract for the entertainment of our readers. Every body has heard the nursery tale of Fine Ear, and perhaps would little suppose that it is only an exaggeration of fact; but M. Chateaubriand states, concerning the native Indians,

[July,

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Now no person can be wise who has "This acuteness of hearing is absolutely not reflection, gravity, and silence. But wonderful: many an Indian can hear the because Frenchmen are boys through steps of another Indian at the distance of the whole of life, no other nations are four or five hours journey, by clapping his men and possess common sense. Eterear to the ground. In about two hours, we nal racket and frivolous amusement, were actually joined by a family of savages, converted into indispensables of existwho set up a shout of welcome, which we ence, form in our judgment very injoyfully answered." P. 152. This a curious philosophical pheno-mestic parents, surrounded with virferior pleasures to those of wise domenon; and we shall therefore pursue it to the utmost extent of the informa- French happiness consists in tuous children and with happy faces. tion, furnished by the Viscount. being at home-in having no home, only an inn for a permanent dwelling; and then besides, M. Chateaubriand, in the fullness of his political wisdom, is utterly astonished that his omnipotent nation permitted the wretched English to have a footing in America-such ignorant, such gross, such insignificant barbarians, as will never be taught to know their humble political station, until the Viscount Chateaubriand takes the supreme management of French affairs, and out-buonapartes Buonaparte.

"Our visitors inform us, that they have heard us for two days past; that they knew we belonged to the white skins, as the noise which we male in our march, was greater than the noise made by red skins. I inquired the cause of this difference, and was told that it arose from the mode of breaking the branches, and clearing a way. The white also reveals his race by the heaviness of his tread; the sound which he produces does not progressively increase; the European turns in the wood, the Indian proceeds in the right line. Id. i. 158.

So far as the information goes in these volumes, (and for that we feel obliged,) all is very well, but as to Monseigneur of the office of Foreign Affairs, Rue des Capucins, we presume that such office must have been given to him, merely because he had been abroad, as we call it, and therefore was deemed sufficiently qualified for the portfolio of foreign affairs. A Frenchman, full of national prejudice, sees nothing wise, but what Frenchmen do. For instance, our Author did not know that a Roman gossiped in the Forum for all he wanted to know of the passing times, and for the remaining hours, through the heat of the climate, chose to live in perfect shade and cloistered porticoes. We allude to the Roman

We assure our readers, that it is with real pain that we speak thus harshly. But it is utterly impossible to bear the arrogance of the Viscount Chateaubriand. The fact is, that he has a woman's intellect, according to the principle of Fielding, that women see no difficulty in the projects which they form; and we add, that they will defame, till they create hatred. It would be in vain to tell the Viscount that it is a standing monument of his nation's inferiority that a paltry island, under the very nose of that nation, should have a power superior to the latter, and that the latter dares not to attack it, though only at the distance of twenty or thirty miles.

1829.]

REVIEW.-Imitation of Jesus Christ.

We heartily wish, that this book had never been translated; because, the English not having the admiration of vanity habitual to the French, it only exposes the author to contempt, and suffocates his actual merit.

The Imitation of Jesus Christ, translated from the Latin Original, ascribed to Thomas à Kempis, with an Introduction and Notes. By the Rev. T. Frognal Dibdin, D.D. F.R.S.S.A. &c. &c. 8vo, pp. 389.

THIS is the most beautiful exemplification of genuine holiness that was ever known; and it is a most gratifying circumstance, that while fanatical and groaning jargonists load the press with trash, literary merit in theological composition is once more regarded, for that is the only means through which such edifying books will ever be read by educated men. Perfect however, and indeed divine, as is the exquisite system of this Philosophy, the truest picture known of what Christ was intellectually and morally, and evidently the work of an amiable Monastic, (to whose mode of living alone can it possibly apply,) it reininds us of one idea, which, if it be erro neous, must be laid to ourselves alone.

It does not appear to us, that the physical effects of the fall of man have ever been duly considered. It is evident, that if he was condemned to get his living by the sweat of his brow, that angelic purity, and such in fact is the doctrine of this fine work, from that moment became impracticable. The attention of man from that very instant pointed to provision for the wants of the day, by an impulse of magnetism; for even the monk who wrote this work, (John Gersen of Verselli, a Benedictine Monk of the thirteenth century, not Thomas à Kempis, thinks Dr. Dibdin, an excellent judge in such matters,) forgot, that to elevate one man to a life of abstract purity, is to degrade others to mechanical and agricultural labours to supply his wants; and that such purity being incompatible with these mechanic-like modes of employ, it could never be the partial intention of Providence to confer the beatitudes of heaven upon the abstract only. That the sentiments here contained might have been those of Adam, before the Fall, (if we assume that he had theoretical knowledge of

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Evily we fully believe; and in a literary view, it is a work of most extraordinary felicity; but the world as it is, and the world as it ought to be, are two distinct questions, and in a state of ignorance, such, e. g. as is that of the day-labourers of Great Britain, what becomes of the "Imitatio Christi." The first step to moral and religious improvements is the "Education of the People." An educated man does his daily work under an intellectual ascendancy, and he is no longer an engine. The desideratum is universality of National Education," conducted upon the principles of the Establishment, i. e. of morals founded on piety, and philanthropy founded on utility. This is a digression, but it is one to the purpose. Every system of abstract perfection can be addressed only to persons capable of abstraction. Now savages are incapable of abstraction; and until this evil be removed by education, systems of holiness, however beautiful and perfect, can never be matters of general adoption.

To extract from this work, would be only to give a link from a chain. We sincerely congratulate Dr. Dibdin upon having done justice to it by an improving translation. A philosopher would say, that a morbid feeling alone could give birth to such aspirations of pure holiness. The divine system of Jesus Christ is here elucidated in a manner against which the gates of hell cannot prevail; and it is the only book in which the blessedness and perfection of Christianity is really developed.

The Foreign Review and Continental Mis

cellany. No. 11. Black & Co.

THE same bold spirited writing as we praised in the first number, charac terises this second fasciculus. We shall go through the articles seriatim, and give our opinions independently.

1. Papal Domination in Spain. Papal domination is a political disease, which shows itself by de-rationalizing government, and depletion of national wealth. Nor is it possible to disjoin spirituals and temporals; for, say our authors,

"If the dogmata of the Church of Rome be admitted, it is useless to fight against the pretensions of her court. Subtle scholars will understand how to distinguish be

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REVIEW.-Foreign News.

tween infallibilty in spirituals, and infallibility in temporals, to discriminate, by nice abstractions, between the unbounded obedience due to a foreign prince in one capacity, and the qualified respect due to the same man in another; but an ignorant and superstitious

mob will not be able to enter into these scholastic refinements; and it is upon the rocks of superstition and ignorance that Rome has founded her church. Protestant countries can never be sufficiently grateful to those intrepid men, who, disdaining compromise, rejected at once all communication with the implacable and crafty enemy of all religious liberty, and left it not an inch of ground on which to plant an intrigue. Roman Catholic countries must speedily come to a similar determination. In Germany they are fast approaching to a secession from the Church of Rome in every thing but name,-they will soon find, that even retaining the name is retaining too much." P.870.

The tendency of this paper is to show, that the fears of the Romish Court, especially in a pecuniary view, 'occasioned the downfall of a constitutional government in Spain.

II. Chinese Novels and Tules. There is very little difference from those of Europe. Wooing forms the subject of all; only people marry in the end two wives instead of one, (as if it was only having twins instead of a single child); but if they can manage one wife, it is more than Europeans can do. III. History of Italian Painting. We are very willing to admit the precedence and great merit of this school of art in Italy. Be its merit, however, what it may, we do not approve of its taste, for that to us is quite a distinct thing from execution. We do not admire dark back-grounds in landscapes; nor swarthy men, and yellow women. We see in them little dignity in figure, or grace in attitude, or speaking eyes, or strong expression in visage in mere Madonnas. We see a stiffness in Claude, not to be found in Gainsborough.

At the same time, we refer only to the school in general. There is a sublimity in some of the heads of Raphael, which cannot be surpassed; and a character of divine youth in the angels of Guido, which exeeeds even the happiest preconceptions of a rich imagination; but taking the school as a whole, there is in our eyes a sad preponderance of insipidity. We know that we shall disturb the whole rookery of connoisseurs, but we will speak as we feel, in defiance

[July,

of their cawing. We pity them. It is sad for Romans to have an irruption of Goths.

IV. Posthumous works of Nicholas Moratin. He was a Spanish poet; and Spanish poetry abounds in description. Now description should be simple and natural. Moratin's is forced and artificial: it appears that Lord Byron borrowed his bull-fight in the

first canto of Childe Harold from Mo

ratin. We firmly believe that the noble Lord adopted many other people's children, beside this; but we are inclined to think also, that he fed and clothed them better than their real parents, and otherwise improved them. V. Goethe's Helena. To deny to Goethe the praise of genius, would be base; but, if a tale be allegorical, let it be like that of Cupid and Psyche, beautifully moral and intelligible, when the clue is acquired. We see nothing here, but fantastic, chaotic eccentricity, displayed in pantomime tricks, legerdemain, and fire-works. Faust has no dignity of character; Helen is a doll, and Euphorion is not blance between an ill-natured man and Ariel. There may be some resemthe devil; probably there is so, but there should be a Miltonian grandeur of evil in the latter, and Mephistophiles is a mere attorney character, pitiful in malice, sentiment, and action. All this may accord with German It does not with ours.

taste.

VI. Chauteabriand's latest productions. The Viscount is treated as the

vainest of men. Johnson says, "the sorrows of vanity are never pitied." For our parts, all the vain people whom we have known, never felt an iota of sorrow on account of other people's thoughts of them. They were incorrigible idolaters.

VII. Botta's Histories, and Historical Veracity. It seems that this man has a particular antipathy to truth; and deems it an excellent principle of historical writing; for why? to let off a pun: History" is only "His Story;" and whether he writes the one or the other, it is precisely the same thing with him.

VIII. The Records of Sweden. In this paper is a view of the Northern Mythology in the compressed form in which he (Geijer) has compiled it from the two Eddas, and particularly from that prophecy of the Vala, which

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