were conducted with as much ability and regard to general decorum as those of England or America. The two periodical pamphlets, the Conservateur, conducted by Chateaubriand, and the Minerve, edited by Benjamin Constant, occupied the same rank in public opinion as the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews in our own country. Of these two opponents, the first is the most animated writer; the second, the clearest thinker. On the imposition of the censorship, they both threw up their publications.

Beside these, there were other political writers of merit, who laboured in general in a larger sphere of action, and contributed but rarely, if ever, to the journals. The liberal party had just sustained a severe loss in the most celebrated of its literary champions; Madame de Stael, the first of female writers, always animated by a truly liberal spirit, although her views on particular subjects were often warped by the warmth of her feelings, and the liveliness of her imagination, from the strict line of truth. M. de Pradt was still left to supply her place with greater activity, if not with equal talent; a politician who, to use his own facetious phrase, has assisted extra muros at all the congresses which have been held in Europe, since that of Rastadt; in some respects the most remarkable writer of pamphlets that has appeared since the time of Burke; but without any pretensions to his force of language or logic, although engaged in a juster and more generous cause. At a later period, M. Guizot distinguished himself by a publication to which I have already alluded, and which created in France more sensation than any single political work that has appeared since the king's return. On the opposite side, the most distinguished writer after Châteaubriand was the Viscount de Bonald, pronounced by Madame de Stael to be the philosopher of anti-philosophy. His style has too much of the obscurity from which her's was not always free, and none of the poetical colouring with which she redeemed that and her other faults. The only quality that gives his writings any flavour, is a strong infusion of bitterness. The Abbé de la Mennais is much before him in point of style. He treats political subjects entirely in a theological point of view, and of course only in the most general and abstract form, except where measures relating to the church are under discussion. Two or three foreigners, who write in French, and publish at Paris, have acquired some distinction on the same side. M. de Haller, late a member of the republican government of Berne, claims the honourable title of the modern Bacon. He is publishing a voluminous work, entitled the Restoration of Political Science, which, he assures us elsewhere, is exciting a profound sensation throughout Europe, and appears destined to produce the most important results. This person has lately been converted from the Protestant to the Catholic faith; and has thereby lost his place in the government of Berne. In the pamphlet in which he gives an account of this event, he states expressly, that he looks upon himself as specially raised up by Providence, to effect a great Reformation in Europe; the consummation of

which is to be the return of all wandering Protestant sheep to the Catholic fold. Lastly, the late Count de Maistre, formerly minister plenipotentiary in Russia, and afterwards minister of state in the service of the King of Sardinia, has defended, in a variety of publications, the doctrines of orthodoxy in religion and politics, which are now generally coupled together by their champions, the former meaning popery. Of what use, he inquires in one of these works, are general councils to bring back heretics to the faith? Is not the pillory sufficient? This passage may give the measure of his liberality and humanity. His books, however, are printed in various languages, and circulated gratis by the religious associations on the continent.' pp. 97-99.

Spain and Portugal occupy but little space in this Writer's pages. He vindicates the appointment of a single assembly, to the exclusion of an aristocratic senate, but objects with reason to the mode in which ministers are made accountable to the Cortes in all stages of their administration; and strongly condemns the absurd regulation which makes the members of the existing legislature ineligible for the next election. This was the rock on which the first leaders of the French Revolution wrecked their hopeful venture: they retired from the political field just at the important period when their talents and patriotism were most urgently requisite, and they left their work to be completed by a set of reckless and selfish adventurers, whose element was confusion, and whose sole object the acquisition of wealth and power.

Respecting Italy and Greece, the Writer concludes a brief but pithy chapter, with the expression of his hope, that the day is not now very far remote when the civilization of Europe will over-flow its present limits, and carry wealth and happiness through the whole of those delightful, but desolate regions that embosom the Mediterranean. Could the Christian powers but act together for good, with as much cordiality as they often do for evil, the regeneration of these countries might be accomplished almost without an effort. The expense which has lately been so miserably employed in crushing the liberal institutions of Naples, would, under such circumstances, have been sufficient to establish them in every part of the domains of Islamism.' p. 132.

We must decline the task of following the Citizen of the • United States' through his interesting remarks on the policy of the German and Northern States; having, indeed, partly anticipated, in our prefatory observations, the comments which we might otherwise have made in this place. We shall, therefore, only express our regret that the following note should have found a niche here, in connexion with a just reprobation of the bombardment of the Danish capital.

The author of a work lately published in England, entitled, "An

Account of the Campaigns at Washington and New Orleans, by a British officer," has undertaken to represent this outrage as a just retaliation upon the Americans for the murder of General Ross's horse, shot, as he says, from a window in the city of Washington, observing at the same time, that all the persons found in the house were previously put to the sword, to satisfy the manes of this implacable animal. A British officer has other things to study besides the law of nature and nations, and may not be aware that had General Ross himself been shot from a window, instead of his horse, those proceedings would not have been a whit more justifiable either in right or usage. But any man of common humanity, however ignorant of law, would have revolted at the idea of sacrificing a house full of innocent people, and burning down several magnificent public buildings, to expiate the death of a quadruped. This would have been something worse than the madness of the Roman emperor, who appointed his horse consul. There is reason to hope, and even to believe, that the motive assigned by the British officer was not the real one; but as he has undertakea to justify the measure on this ground, he is entitled to an equal degree of credit for good sense and good feelings, whether his account is p. 215.

correct or not.'

Now, though we by no means vindicate the system of reprisal which dictated the destruction of the public buildings' of Washington, yet, we have always understood, that in this paltry warfare, the Americans, on the Canada frontier, led the way. But without insisting on this comparatively immaterial point, we cannot refrain from adverting to the miserable spirit of misrepresentation which pervades this paragraph. It was in retaliation, says our Author, for the murder of General Ross's horse.' If this statement were correct, which we much doubt, we presume that no one will question but that the shot which struck the horse, was aimed at the rider; and we apprehend that, in military usage, an attempt of this kind is invariably visited with severe and summary vengeance; whether justly or not, it is beyond our province to decide.

In the observations on the state of things in Great Britain, there is some striking matter mingled with much that is common-place. Adverting to the prosecutions which have been carried on against obnoxious publications, and admitting that the suppression of such violations of truth and decency, is an act of substantial justice,' the Writer objects to these proceedings on the score of expediency. He states that he first learnt from the trial of Carlile, that two or three editions of the works of Paine had been published in America; that be never saw a copy in a bookseller's shop, and that he has met with very few in private collections.' In fact, they are never heard of' in the United States, and excite no interest, because

they are fairly left to take their chance for popularity or obscurity.

The description of the aspect which England, as a sort of Father-land, presents to the eye of an American, is skilfully done, much in the style of Washington Irving.

The misery that exists, whatever it may be, retires from public view; and the traveller sees no traces of it, except in the beggars, which are not more numerous than they are on the continent, in the courts of justice, and in the newspapers. On the contrary, the impressions he receives from the objects that meet his view are almost uniformly agreeable. He is pleased with the great attention paid to his personal accommodation as a traveller, with the excellent roads, and the convenience of the public carriages and inns. The country every where exhibits the appearance of high cultivation, or else of wild and picturesque beauty; and even the unimproved lands are disposed with taste and skill; so as to embellish the landscape very highly, if they do not contribute as they might to the substantial comfort of the people. From every eminence, extensive parks and grounds, spreading far and wide over hill and vale, interspersed with dark woods, and variegated with bright waters, unroll themselves before the eye, like enchanted gardens. And while the elegant constructions of the modern proprietors fill the mind with images of ease and luxury, the mouldering ruins that remain from former ages of the castles and churches of their feudal ancestors, increase the interest of the picture by contrast, and associate with it poetical and affecting recollections of other times and manners. Every village seems to be the chosen residence of industry, and her handmaids, neatness and comfort; and in the various parts of the island, her operations present themselves under the most amusing and agreeable variety of forms. Sometimes her votaries are mounting to the skies in manufactories of innumerable stories in height, and sometimes diving in mines into the bowels of the earth, or dragging up drowned treasures from the bottom of the sea. At one time the ornamented grounds of a wealthy proprietor seem to realise the fabled Elysium; and again, as you pass in the evening through some village engaged in the iron manufacture, where a thousand forges are feeding at once their dark red fires, and clouding the air with their volumes of smoke, you might think yourself for a moment a little too near some drearier residence.'

pp. 288, 9.

After striking sketches of Oxford, with its collegiate palaces, seeming the deserted capital of some departed race of giants ;' of Liverpool, all bustle, brick, and business;' of Stonehenge, with its immense masses of rock wrought and moved' by semi-barbarians; of the ancient forts upon the Ohio, on ⚫ whose ruins the third growth of trees is now more than four hundred years old; and of our ruined castles and cathedrals, putting on their dark green robes of ivy to conceal the ravages of time;' he goes on as follows:

• What a beautiful and brilliant vision was this Gothic architecture, shining out as it did from the deepest darkness of feudal barbarism! And here again, by what fatality has it happened that the moderns, with all their civilization and improved taste, have been as utterly unsuccessful in rivalling the divine simplicity of the Greeks, as the rude grandeur of the Cyclopeans and ancient Egyptians? Since the revival of art in Europe, the builders have confined themselves wholly to a graceless and unsuccessful imitation of ancient models. Strange that the only new architectural conception of any value subsequent to the time of Phidias, should have been struck out at the worst period of society that has since occurred. Sometimes the moderns, in their laborious poverty of invention, heap up small materials in large masses, and think that St. Peter's or St. Paul's will be as much more sublime than the Parthenon, as they are larger: at others, they condescend to a servile imitation of the wild and native graces of the Gothic; as the Chinese, in their stupid ignorance of perspective, can still copy line by line, and point by point, a European picture. But the Norman castles and churches, with all their richness and sublimity, fell with the power of their owners at the rise of the commonwealth. The independents were levellers of substance as well as form, and the material traces they left of their existence, are the ruins of what their predecessors had built. They, too, had an architecture, but it was not in wood nor in stone. It was enough for them to lay the foundation of the nobler fabric of civil liberty.' pp. 292, 3.

The old and new towns of Edinburgh, are pleasantly compared to Fitzjames and Roderick Dhu, reposing on the same plaid.'

One of the few weak points of the present volume, lies in the attempt to identify the conduct of the British Government, in urging on the attention of the American Administration the palpable evasions of the laws against the slave-trade, by citizens of the United States, with what would be the impertinence of the Cabinet of Washington in dictating to England the suppression of the practice of Impressment. Does the Writer mean to say, that the foreign slave-trade can, in any sense whatever, be considered as a mere matter of domestic regulation? Yet, in what other light can he possibly view our indefensible practice of maritime conscription? His sentiments on the subject of Bible and Missionary societies are of very equivocal friendliness. He approves of them warmly, but simply as promoters of a more enlightened polity. Of the missionaries themselves, this modest gentleman speaks in scorn, as unacquainted with the true character and spirit' of the Bible, as pioneers of civilization,' pushing forward where wiser men have no motive to advance, and where their wisdom would be of little service if they went.' All this, however, is only ridiculous; but when he intimates that the first crop'