MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE | ims of merit and glory, as those of Homer?tion of miseries and slaughter, would set no OF THE CLASSICS. No. II. EPIC POETS.-HOMER. THE part of ancient literature which has had incomparably the greatest influence on the character of cultivated minds, is that which has turned, if I may so express it, moral sentiments into real beings and interesting companions, by displaying the life and actions of eminent individuals. A few of the personages of fiction are also to be included. The captivating spirit of Greece and Rome dwells in the works of the biographers; in so much of the history as might properly be called biography, from its fixing the whole attention and interest on a few signal names; and in the works of the principal poets. No one, I suppose, will deny, that both the characters and the sentiments, which are the favourites of the poet and the historian, be come the favourites also of the admiring reader; for this would be a virtual denial of the excellence of the performance, in point of eloquence or poetic spirit. It is the high test and proof of genius that a writer can render his subject interesting to his readers, not merely in a general way, but in the very same manner in which it interests himself. If the great works of antiquity had not this power, they would long since have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate what caused a revolting of our moral feelings, while it was designed to please them. But if their characters and sentiments really do thus fascinate the heart, how far will this influence be coincident with the spirit and with the design of Christianity? Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three pre-eminent ones of the epic class. Homer, you know, is the favourite of the whole civilized world; and it is many centuries since there needed one additional word of homage to the prodigious genius displayed in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, what kind of predisposition will be formed toward Christianity in a young and animated spirit, that learns to glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by the poet, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthusiasm will probably awaken, for the possibility of emulating some of the principal characters. Let this susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in imagination among heroes, whose valour and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven; let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his disciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquainted before. What must he, what can he, do with his feelings in this transition? He will find himself flung as far as "from the centre to the utmost pole;" and one of these two opposite exhibitions of character will inevitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with the Homeric passions? He would be still more confounded by the one, who had not attained the last depravation, transition, had it been possible for him to have on fire to imitate the principal actors. It would entirely escaped that deep depravation of feel-excite in a degree the same emotion as the ing which can think of crimes and miseries sight of a field of dead and dying men after a with little emotion, and which we have all battle is over; a sight at which the soul would acquired from viewing the prominent portion shudder and revolt, and earnestly wish that of the world's history as composed of scarcely this might be the last time the sun should any thing else. He would find the mightiest behold such a spectacle: but the tendency of strain of poetry employed to represent ferocious the Homeric poetry, and of a great part of courage as the greatest of virtues, and those epic poetry in general, is to insinuate the glory who do not possess it, as worthy of their fate, of repeating such a tragedy. I therefore ask to be trodden in the dust. He will be taught, again, how it would be possible for a man at least it will not be the fault of the poet if he whose mind was first completely assimilated be not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for to the spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a finding the sweetest luxury in insulting dying work without a most vivid antipathy to what pangs, and imagining the tears and despair of he perceived to be the moral spirit of the poet? distant relations. He will be incessantly called And if it were not too strange a supposition, upon to worship revenge, the real divinity of that the most characteristic parts of the Iliad the Iliad, in comparison of which the Thun- had been read in the presence and hearing of derer of Olympus is but a subaltern pretender our Lord, and by a person animated by a to power. He will be taught that the most fervid sympathy with the work-do you not glorious and enviable life is that, to which the instantly imagine Him expressing the most greatest number of other lives are made a emphatical condemnation ? Would not the sacrifice; and that it is noble in a hero to pre- reader have been made to know, that in the fer even a short life attended by this felicity, spirit of that book he could never become a to a long one which should permit a longer disciple and a friend of the Messiah? But life also to others. The terrible Achilles, a then, if he believed this declaration, and were being whom, if he had really existed, it had serious enough to care about being the disciple been worth a temporary league of the tribes and friend of the Messiah, would he not have then called nations to reduce to the quietness deemed himself extremely unfortunate to have of a dungeon or a tomb, is rendered interesting, been seduced, through the pleasures of taste even amidst the horrors of revenge and destruc- and imagination, into habits of feeling which tion, by the intensity of his affection for his rendered it impossible, till their predominance friend, by the melancholy with which he ap- should be destroyed, for him to receive the pears in the funeral scene of that friend, by only true religion, and the only Redeemer of one momentary instance of compassion, and by the world? To show how impossible it would his solemn references to his own impending be, I wish I may be pardoned for making anoand inevitable doom. A reader who has even ther strange, and, indeed, a most monstrous passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels supposition, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, himself interested, in a manner that excites at Ulysses, and Ajax had been real persons, living intervals his own surprise, in the fate of this in the time of our Lord, and had become his fell exterminator; and he wonders, and he disciples, and yet (excepting the mere exchange wishes to doubt, whether the moral that he is of the notions of mythology for Christian opilearning be, after all, exactly no other than nions), had retained entire the state of mind that the grandest employment of a great spirit with which their poet has exhibited them. It is the destruction of human creatures, so long is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelzebub, as revenge, ambition, or even caprice, may and Moloch might as consistently have been choose to regard them under an artificial dis- retained in heaven. But here the question tinction, and call them enemies. But this is comes to a point: if these great examples of the real and effective moral of the Iliad, after glorious character pretending to coalesce with all that critics have so gravely written about the transcendant Sovereign of virtues would lessons of union, or any other subordinate have been probably the most enormous inconmoral instructions, which they discover or gruity existing, or that ever had existed, in the imagine in the work. Who but critics ever creation, what harmony can there be between thought or cared about any such drowsy les- a man who has acquired a considerable degree sons? Whatever is the chief and grand im- of congeniality with the spirit of these heroes, pression made by the whole work on the and that paramount Teacher and Pattern of ardent minds which are most susceptible of excellence? And who will assure me that the influence of poetry, that shows the real the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not acmoral; and Alexander, and Charles XII. quire a degree of this congeniality? But through the medium of "Macedonia's mad-unless I can be so assured, I necessarily persist man," correctly received the genuine inspira-in asserting the noxiousness of such poetry. tion. Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, If it be said, that such works stand on the the book which Christian poets, have transsame ground, except as to the reality or accu- lated, which Christian divines have edited and racy of the facts, with an eloquent history, commented on with pride, at which Christian which simply exhibits the actions and charac-ladies have been delighted to see their sons ters, I deny the assertion. The actions and kindle into rapture, and which forms an essencharacters are presented in a manner which tial part of the course of a liberal education, Or if, reversing the order, you will suppose prevents their just impression, and empowers over all those countries on which the gospel a person to have first become profoundly inter- them to make an opposite one. A transform- shines. And who can tell how much that ested by the New Testament, and to have ac- ing magic of genius displays a number of passion for war which, from the universality of quired the spirit of the Saviour of the world, atrocions savages in a hideous slaughter-house its prevalence, might seem inseparable from while studying the evangelical history; with of men, as demi-gods in a temple of glory. the nature of man, may have been, in the what sentiments will he come forth from con- No doubt an eloquent history might be so civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic versing with heavenly mildness, weeping be- written as to give the same aspect to such men, admiration with which young men have read nevolence, sacred purity, and the eloquence and such operations; but that history would Homer, and similar poets, whose genius transof divine wisdom, to enter into a scene of such deserve to be committed to the flames. forms what is, and ought always to appear, actions and characters, and to hear such max-history that should give a faithful representa- purely horrid, to an aspect of grandeur? A SLAVERY IN AMERICA. We have lately had occasion to notice the proceedings of that disgraceful body of men who are now imposing on many benevolent persons in this country; we mean the American Colonization Society. feet are bound tight to a plank; that the body is stretched out as much as possible, and thus the miserable creature receives the exact number of lashes as counted off." The public sale occurs frequently. I was present at two sales of slaves in the market-place at Charleston where, especially at one of them, the miserable creatures were in tears on account of their being separated from their relations and friends. At one of them, a young woman of sixteen or seventeen was separated from her father and mother, and all her relations, and every one she had formerly known. This not unfrequently happens, although I was told and relations together where it can be done. believe that there is a general wish to keep I I was placed in a situation at Charleston, | which gave me too frequent opportunities to witness the effects of slavery in its most aggravated state. Mrs. Street (the mistress of the the most barbarous manner; and this, although hotel) treated all the servants in the house in she knew that Stewart, the hotel-keeper here, had lately nearly lost his life by maltreating We will now direct the notice of our a slave. He beat his cook, who was a stout readers to some details of the character fellow, until he could no longer support it. He of slavery in that country. We know of rose upon his master, and in his turn gave him no more humiliating aspect under which such a beating that it had nearly cost him his human nature is exhibited than is offered life; the cook immediately left the house, ran by this part of their national conduct, as off, and was never afterwards heard of,-it contrasted with their loud professions of Not a day, however, passed without my hearing was supposed that he had drowned himself. liberty and equality; unless, perhaps, we of Mrs. Street whipping and ill using her unrefer to the resolutions of the Colonization fortunate slaves. On one occasion, when one The following extract of a letter from a gentleman at Charleston, to a friend of his at New Society, and compare them with the de- of the female slaves had disobliged her, she York, published in the New York newspapers scription of an American revival. We beat her until her own strength was exhausted, while I was there, contains even a more shockgather the following statements from a and then insisted on the bar-keeper, Mr. Fer-ing account of the public sale of slaves here: highly respectable work lately published remainder of the punishment. Mrs. Street, in guson (a Scotchman) proceeding to inflict the under the title of "Three Years in North the meantime, took her place in the bar-room. America," by Mr. Stuart. In speaking She instructed him to lay on the whip severely of the general merits of the work, the in an adjoining room. His nature was repugEdinburgh Review calls it "a book of nant to the execution of the duty which was travels, written by an honest, dispassion-imposed on him. He gave a wink to the girl, ate, and competent observer; but one who, though educated and accomplished, is not of the class or practised in the artifices of travelling authors; one less anxious to amuse or surprise, or to make himself talked of as clever, or deep, or patriotic, than to exhibit an unvarnished view of facts as they arose, and to pour tray, in plain and simple language, the results of an attentive and discriminating course of observation on men and things, nothing extenuating, nor aught setting down in malice."" And again, "His object was to give a fair account of the country, without either exaggerating or concealing the good or bad qualities of its inhabitants; and we think he has been eminently successful." The accounts which Mr. Stuart gives of the behaviour of the whites towards the blacks in the Carolinas, Georgia, and other southern states, are alike disgraceful to the Americans, and affecting to humanity. Every possible effort is made, not to instruct, but to exclude them from instruction. The blacks are prohibited from attending the schools kept by white persons; and, in 1823, the grand jury of Charleston proclaimed as a "nuisance the numbers of schools kept within their city by persons of colour;" expressing their belief that a city ordinance prohibiting, under severe penalties, such persons from being public instructors, would meet with general approbation." Such an order was of course soon after issued In perfect keeping with this unprincipled conduct is their general treatment of their slaves. His first statement has reference to Charleston. So far as respects the slaves, they are even still in a worse situation; for, though their evidence is in no case admissible against the whites, the affirmation of free persons of colour, or their fellow slaves, is received against them. who understood it and bellowed lustily, while A whom I found to be the cook, with tears in his ferent Wherever the least symptom of rebellion or insubordination appears at Charleston on the part of a slave, the master sends the slave to the gaol, where he is whipped or beaten as the in his travels, mentions that he visited this master desires. The Duke of Saxe Weimar, gaol in December 1825; that the “black overseers go about every where armed with cowhides; that in the basement story there is an apparatus upon which the negroes, by order of flogged; that the machine consists of a sort the police, or at the request of the masters, are of crane, on which a cord with two nooses runs over pulleys; the nooses are made fast to the hands of the slave and drawn up, while the auction sales of the negroes. A few days since "Curiosity sometimes leads me to the attended one which exhibited the beauties of slavery in all their sickening deformity. The bodies of these wretched beings were placed upright on a table,-their physical proportions examined, their defects and beauties noted. A prime lot, here they go!' There I saw the father looking with sullen contempt on the countenance that he dare not speak ;-and the crowd, and expressing an indignation in his mother, pressing her infants closer to her bosom with an involuntry grasp, and exclaiming, in wild and simple earnestness, while the tears chased down her cheeks in quick succession, children! But on the hammer went, reckless I can't leff my children!-I won't leff my alike whether it united or sundered for ever. On another stand I saw a man apparently as white as myself exposed for sale. I turned away from the humiliating spectacle. "At another time I saw the concluding scene of this infernal drama. It was on the wharf. A slave-ship from New Orleans was handcuffed and pinioned, were hurried off in lying in the stream, and the poor negroes, boats, eight at a time. Here I witnessed the last farewell,-the heart-rending separation of every earthly tie. The mute and agonizing embrace of the husband and wife, and the convulsive grasp of the mother and the child, who were alike torn asunder-for ever! It was a living death,-they never see or hear of each other more. Tears Aowed fast, and mine with the rest.” Charleston has long been celebrated for the severity of its laws against the blacks, and the mildness of its punishments towards the whites for maltreating them. Until the late war, there were about seventy-one crimes for which slaves were capitally punished, and for which the highest punishment for whites was imprisonment in the penitentiary. A dreadful case of murder occurred at Charleston in 1806. A planter, called John Slater, made an unoffending, unresisting, slave, be bound hand and foot, and compelled his companion to chop off his head with an axe, nies of death, into the water. Judge Wild, and to cast his body, convulsing with the ago who tried him, on awarding a sentence of imprisonment against this wretch, expressed his regret that the punishment provided for the offence was insufficient to make the law respected,-that the delinquent too well knew that the arm which he had stretched out for the destruction of his slave was that to which he alone could look for protection, disarmed as he was of the right of self-defence. 264 But the most horrible butchery of slaves which has ever taken place in America, was the execution of thirty-five of them on the lines near Charleston, in the month of July 1822, on account of an alleged conspiracy against their masters. The whole proceedings are monstrous. Sixty-seven persons were convicted before a court, consisting of a justice of the peace, and freeholders, without a jury. The evidence of slaves not upon oath was admitted against them, and, after all, the proof was extremely scanty. Perrault, a slave, who had himself been brought from Africa, was the chief witness. He had been torn from his father, who was very wealthy, and a considerable trader in tobacco and salt on the coast of Edited by the late WILLIAM GREENFIELD, Superintendant of the Editorial department of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Arranged. Stereotype Edition, 4s. 6d. The only book in the English language of its size, in large type, that contains a book of the Bible. Sold by S. Bagster, Paternoster Row; Darton, HolCo., Gracechurch Street; and all other Booksellers in town and country. born; Fry, Houndsditch; Arch, Cornhill; Darton and Africa. He was taken prisoner, and was sold, SINGULAR ENCOUNTER WITH A LIONESS. THIS is a representation of an occurrence which took place in the Tower of London, and is strikingly illustrative, not only of the courage of the individual concerned, but also of the native superiority of the moral courage of man to the strength and ferocity of the inferior animals. The tale is well told in an elegant publication entitled "The Tower Menagerie." "It cannot be doubted that the lighter and slenderer shape of the lioness, and her consequently greater activity, tend, in an especial manner, to the formation of that lively and sensitive character by which all her actions are so strongly marked; but there is another cause, no less powerful than these, which operates with peculiar force, in the vivid excitability of her maternal feelings, which she cherishes with an ardour almost unparalleled in the history of any other animal. From the moment she becomes a mother, the native ferocity of her disposition is renovated, as it were, with tenfold vigour; she watches over her young with that undefined dread of danger to their weak and defenceless state, and that suspicious eagerness of alarm, which keeps her in a constant state of feverish excitation; and woe be to the wretched intruder, whether man or beast, who should unwarily, at such a time, approach the precincts of her sanctuary! Even in a state of captivity, she may have been previously subjected to the control of her keeper; she now loses all respect for his commands, and abandons herself occasionally to the most violent paroxysms of rage. "Of this the individual lioness now in the Tower affords a striking example. We have already observed, in our account BRITISH COLLEGE OF HEALTH, KING'S Morison's Pills. SIR,-Gratitude to God, " from whom all blessings To Mr. A. Charlwood, General Agent for the sale of flow," has induced me to give publicity to my case and cure. On Tuesday, the 18th day of September, I was seized with that dreadful disorder, called the Cholera Morbus, in the following manner: violent cramp in my legs and thighs, and very rapidly approaching my body, excruciating pains all over me, violent purging, a substance like gruel was all that came from me; I was extremely sick; my brother thought I must die unless I obtained immediate relief; he went to Mr. Farrow's, your agent, in Magdalen street, and got a box of No. 2. I took ten pills dissolved, but the cramp still increased; in half an hour, ten more, my legs were put in warm water, and afterwards wiped dry, and put into hot blankets; the pills operated both ways, and I soon found perfect ease; I enjoyed a very good night's rest; but the next day I was seized with a swelling of the body and extreme hardness; four more of No. 2 pills were given me; the disorder brought me so low that my life was almost despaired of, but taking a little nourishment, and with the blessing of God on the means used, I am now recovered. I remain, Sir, yours respectfully, PETER STRATFORD. Norwich, Old Cat and Fiddle Yard, October 2nd. To Mr. Charlwood. Sir, I can never be sufficiently thankful to the Father of Mercies, and Morison's Vegetable Medicine, as the means used for my recovery, under a violent attack of Cholera. On the night of the 17th of September, I was taken with cramps so violently, that I required several was also very sick, and my bowels persons to hold me; exceedingly relaxed; I had eleven pills of No. 2 dissolved and given me, and in the course of the night I took eight more, which operated powerfully, and entirely removed pain. I continued taking small doses for a few days, and am happy to say that I am now entirely restored to health. Norwich, opposite the Three Maltsters, St. Paul's, Oct. 1st. SARAH BROOKS. In the above two cases the parties are willing to satisfy any person of the truth thus stated, that may please to call of the lion, that, for a considerable time APHORISMS. SLEEP, the type of death, is also, like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell, and is excluded from heaven.-COLTON. To know a man, observe how he wins his obfect, rather than how he loses it; for, when we fail, our pride supports us: when we succeed, it betrays us.-Ib. Civil freedom is not a thing that lies hid in the depths of abstruse seience. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can bear upon it is of so coarse a texture as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy and those who are to defend it -BURKF. The empire exercised by Satan over man is to be regarded, not as the power of a prince, but as that of an executioner.-CHARNOCK. Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters them.-BP. HALL. on them, or on Mr. Farrow Magdalen-street; who is also at liberty to refer to four other persons that have been cured of the same complaint, by Morison's Medicines, in the same neighbourhood, but do not wish their names to be made public. The "Vegetable Universal Medicines" are to be had at the College, New Road, King's Cross, London; at the Surrey Branch, 96, Great Surrey-street; Mr. Field's, 16, Airstreet, Quadrant; Mr. Chappell's, Royal Exchange; Mr. J. Loft's, Mile-end-road; Mr. Bennett's, Covent-gardenmarket; Mr. Haydon's, Fleur-de-lis-court, Norton-falgate; Mr. Haslet's, 147, Ratcliffe-highway; Messrs. Norbury's, Brentford; Mrs. Stepping, Clare-market; Messrs. Salmon, Little Bell-alley; Miss Varai's, 24, Lucas-street, Commercial-road; Mrs. Beech's, 7, Sloane-square, Chelsea; Mrs. Chapple's, Royal Library, Pall-mali; Mrs. Pippen's, 18, Trinity-grounds, Deptford; Mr. Taylor, Hanwell; Mr. Wingrove-place, Clerkenwell; Miss C. Atkinson, 19, New Kirtlam, 4, Bolingbroke-row, Walworth; Mr. Payne, 64, Jermyn-street; Mr. Howard, at Mr. Wood's, hair-dresser, Richmond; Mr. Meyar, 3, May's-buildings, Blackheath; Mr. Griffiths, Wood-wharf, Greenwich; Mr. Pitt, 1, Cornwall-road, Lambeth; Mr. J. Dobson, 35, Craven-street, Strand; Mr. Oliver, Bridge-street, Vauxhall; Mr. J. Monck, Bexley Heath; Mr. T. Stokes, 12, St. Ronan's, Deptford; Mr. Cowell, 22, Terrace, Pimlico; Mr. Parfitt, 96, Edgware-road; Mr. Hart, Portsmouth place, Kennington-lane; Mr. Charlesworth, grocer, 124, Shoreditch; Mr. R. G. Bower, grocer, 22, Brick-lane, St. Luke's; Mr. S. J. Avila, pawnbroker, opposite the church, Hackney; Mr J. S. Briggs, 1, Brunswick-place, Stoke Newington; Mr. falgate; Mr. J. Williamson, 15, Seabright-place, Hackneyroad; Mr. J. Osborn, Wells-street, Hackney road, and Homerton; Mr. H. Cox, grocer, 16, Union-street, Bishopsgate-street: Mr. T. Walter, cheesemonger, 67, Hoxton Old Town; and at one agent's in every principal town in Great Britain, the Islands of Guernsey and Malta; and throughout the whole of the United States of America. T. Gardner, 95, Wood-street, Cheapside, and 9, Norton N. B. The College will not be answerable for the consequences of any medicines sold by any chymist or druggist, as none such are allowed to sell the "Universal Medicines." Printed by J. HADDON and Co.; and Published by J. CRISP, at No. 27, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, where all Advertisements and Communi. cations for the Editor are to be addressed. THE establishment of Town-halls, or, as they are called in French, Hotels de Ville, Hotels des Communes, or Maisons Communales, in the towns and cities of the continent was, probably, simultaneous with the granting of the charters which conferred upon the inhabitants freedom and privileges, and may be dated from about the commencement of the twelfth century. At this period every town was subject to some lord, who, when his pecuniary exigencies necessitated it, granted, for a stipulated price, a charter which gave a code of fixed sanctioned customs, and a set of privileges, always including municipal or elective govern ment. The institution of these free cities | tinuance, from the time of the Romans, The origin of the municipal rights of the river. In later times this association | tried and executed, along with three and | fox, which were destined to be burnt twenty other monsters, who suffered at alive—pour faire plaisir à sa Majesté. To the cries of the cats was added the noise of various instruments. The magistrates of the city, bearing yellow wax tapers, advanced in procession towards the pile, and presented to the king a taper of white wax, ornamented with red velvet, with which his majesty set it on fire. When the wood and the cats were consumed, the king entered the Hotel de Ville, where a collation, consisting of cakes, tarts, and sweetmeats, was prepared. The people carried off the ashes and burnt wood in the belief that they would bring good luck. "Louis XIV. having appeared only once, the attendance of the king was discontinued, and the ceremony in after The open space before the building is times lost much of its splendour. Latcalled the Place de Grêve. It is here terly, the prevot des marchands, the that all executions took place, and it was sheriffs, and municipal body, came in here that, during the revolution, the guil-procession, set fire to the pile, and then lotine was almost permanent; its earth | immediately retired." was moistened with the best and most illustrious blood of France. We believe that executions are now no longer tolerated within the French capital; a piece of ground without the walls has been allotted for this purpose. In Felibien's History of Paris, there is a singular ceremony recorded as being observed in former times on the Place de Grêve, and, as the work is not common, it may amuse our readers, We need not premise that, since the revolution, the custom has ceased. T. ADDRESS TO THE KING OF SPAIN, is mentioned as the Mercatores aquæ Parisiaci, having the additional privilege of laying an impost upon all commodities brought to the city by water. They were governed by officers selected from their own body, which appears to have consisted of the principal inhabitants. Thus far, once established, the transition to the modern municipal constitution will be easy, with its mayor, provost, sheriffs, and other officers, who had the care of the internal police of the city, and of the river, but possessed no judicial authority. As at present constituted, the municipality of Paris consists of twelve mayors (one to each of the twelve divisions of the city), assisted by two deputy mayors, who, including the prefect of the department, form a municipal body of thirtyseven persons. They have various functions assigned to them: including the general police of the city, cleansing and lighting. They have to perform the celebration of marriage, it being, since the revolution, considered merely as a civil contract. They keep also the registers of births and deaths, and many other duties, but have no judicial jurisdiction. The chief of the municipality being the prefect, the Hotel de Ville is assigned to him. The wood-cut at the head of our paper is a representation of this building; it was erected from the designs of Domenique Boccadora, an Italian from Cortona. The style of architecture is not unpleasing, and the principal façade is not without merit. The foundation was laid in July, "The magistrates of the city having 1533, and terminated in 1606. Previous ordered a large heap of faggots to be piled to the revolution there was over the en-up in the centre of the Place, the king, trance an equestrian statue of Henry IV., attended by his court, came in procesan alto-relievo in bronze upon black mar-sion, and set fire to it. The earliest noble. It was placed there by the cele- tice we have of this ceremony is of the brated and patriotic Francois Miron, Pre- year 1471, when Louis XI. performed it, vot des Marchands, to whom Paris is probably in imitation of his royal pred-duced into the condition of the servile class indebted for many of its useful establish- cessors. His example was followed by ments. It was destroyed during the re- nearly all his successors. Henry IV. and volution, and is now re-emplaced by a Louis XIII. seldom failed to observe it. basso relievo in plaster. During the re- Louis XIV. performed it but once, in volution the interior was despoiled of 1648. This ceremony, called the feu every ornament and every inscription de la Saint Jean, was celebrated with that had any connexion with monarchical much pomp and expence. In 1573, it government. There remains little else was performed by Henry III. in the folworthy of attention, except it be a bronze lowing manner:-In the centre of the pedestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth, Place de Grêve was erected a pole sixty by Coysevox, which is considered to be feet high, having numerous cross pieces rather a fine production, notwithstand- of wood, to which were attached five ing that, being dressed a la Grecque, the hundred bundles of brush-wood, two artist has given it a full court wig. Within hundred faggots (cotterels), and at the its walls many of the worst and darkest bottom ten loads of timber, with much scenes of the revolution were acted. It straw. There was also a barrel and a was in one of its chambers that Robes- wheel, probably containing combustible pierre, that disgrace to human nature, matter. The sum of forty-four livres was was seized; he resisted, and his jaw was expended for crowns and garlands of shattered by a pistol shot. He was then roses; a large quantity of fireworks of thrown on a table, where he lay for two all kinds were discharged; and, to keep hours weltering in his blood, a most hide- the populace in order, there were present ous spectacle, subject to the execrations 120 archers, 100 arbaletriers, and 100 and howlings of an infuriated populace. arquebusiers. To the pole was fixed a He was removed from thence only to be basket, containing two dozen cats and a 21st of July, 1811, for the amelioration of slavery, with a view to its utter extinction in that Colony, as one of the most valuable concessions ever made, on the part of practical and experienced men, to the cause of negro freedom, and as a full and satisfactory answer to all the misrepresentation of our colonists, respecting the practicability, or advantages, of free labour in our sugar colonies. “In all that relates to changes to be introof agricultural wealth, than for the safety of our fears are less excited as to the diminution the whites, so easily compromised by imprudent measures. Those who elsewhere accuse the municipality and consulado of an obstinate resistance, forget that, from the year 1799, these same authorities have in vain proposed that the state of the blacks in the Island of more, we Cuba should be taken into consideration. Still which the nations of Europe, that pride themare far from adopting maxims selves most in their civilization, have regarded as irrefragable; for instance, that without slaves there can be no colonies. We declare, on the contrary, that without slaves, and even without blacks, colonies CAN EXIST; and that all the difference would be in the amount of produce. But, if such be our firm persuasion, profits in the more or less rapid increase of we ought also to remind your Majesty, that a social organization into which slavery has been once introduced as a constituent, cannot be changed with immediate precipitation. We trary to moral principles to drag slaves from are far from denying that it was an evil conone continent to another; that it was an error in politics not to listen to the complaints which Ovanda, the Governor of Hispaniola, made |