jours négligé d'en prouver rigoureusement l'existence, et il n'y est fait nulle allusion, que je sache, sur aucun monument Egyptien 'connu.' Further, suppose this doubt of M. Ampère's set at rest-suppose the existence of the mysteries proved-and we shall then ask, how doctrines reserved only for the initiated, were learned by the Greek philosophers, who certainly were not admitted into the caste of priesthood-a caste which was the most jealous and exclusive of all hereditary castes?

We cannot afford to dwell longer on this subject, tempting as it is. If the conclusions we have been endeavouring to establish were once made tolerably convincing-if it could be shown that the Alexandrians were Greek, and not Egyptian, in their science and philosophy-we should then have in the Arabian philosophy only one element to separate from the Koran, namely, the Greek element; as in the schoolmen of the middle ages there is only the Greek element to be separated from Christianity-an inquiry which has considerable interest in the history of philosophy, and which M. Schmölders, with his erudition, might have greatly facilitated. He has made no attempt of the kind; but he has nevertheless produced a curious and interesting work, which we recommend to the attention of all readers occupying themselves with such topics.

ART. V.-The Emigrant. By SIR FRANCIS B. HEAD, Bart. Third Edition. London: 1846.

TH HE author has not unhappily described his work in the first sentence of the very brief preface which he has prefixed to it. As the common crow,' he says, is made up of a small lump ' of carrion, and two or three handfuls of feathers, so is this volume 'composed of political history, buoyed up by a few light sketches, solely written to make a dull subject fly.' And no man of taste, we think, will read this book without admiring the beauty and lightness of the sketches, nor any man of judgment without being offended by the carrion of the politics.

Though the world has generally forgotten Sir Francis Head, or is reminded of him only when he writes about himself, there are vast numbers on whose fortunes his actions have exercised an influence not easily effaced; and the part which he once played in the history of our empire, is sufficiently remarkable to excite some curiosity as to the character of the man, and the circumstances which placed him in a prominent position. The most

minute and accurate autobiography could hardly have done more to explain Sir Francis Head's character and career, than the little work before us. In the two separate portions of his book, he presents us with the most perfect picture of his moral and intellectual being. The reader sees in a moment what manner of man he is what he is fit, and what unfit for--why he is one of the most agreeable writers of light literature, and one of the most deplorable of the politicians of our day. And a very curious and instructive lesson may be drawn, from showing how, by the accident of an injudicious patron, and the fault of an ill-judging vanity, a man who, if kept in his proper place, might have done himself some honour, and contributed some little to the harmless amusement of this much-bored world of ours, has been so misplaced and misemployed in a function wholly unsuited to his character and rearing, that he has turned out an agent of much evil, and an object of very general and deserved ridicule.

Nature has endowed Sir Francis Head, not illiberally, with some of the qualifications for a writer of the lighter kinds of fiction. He has quickness, though certainly very little accuracy of observation, much humour, and considerable power of description. Nor is he at bottom altogether a bad, unamiable man; his sympathies are kindly, and his disposition altogether rather genial. So that on the whole, without lofty or generous feeling-any of the better qualities of the poet-any conception of great thoughts or deep emotions-any even of that philosophy in fun which has inspired the great masters of wit and humour, and with a habit of exaggeration which mars the truth of all that he writes--still he has a power of appreciating the marking features of any simple incident in everyday life, and the art of conveying to others, by a few strong touches, the impression produced on himself. More of such a task he never attempts; he never labours to complete the effect produced by the first bold dashes of his pencil; but straightway passes on to the next object that has struck his fancy, and disposes of that with the same ease. If the work which he performs be flimsy, and his style incorrect and vulgar, they possess the compensating merits of lightness, buoyancy, and variety. Without pretending to the minute completeness and accuracy of Flemish painting, he can always produce a few bold and easy outlines, which have often the merit of clever caricature, and sometimes that of rough like

ness.

But the sort of mind that we have been describing is almost necessarily deficient in the attributes of large and continuous reasoning. When our author comes to deal with the great facts of human nature-when, as in the serious part of the work before

us, he pretends to discharge the functions of the historian or political philosopher-we find no trace of the knowledge, the thought, the patience, or the candour, which are requisite for the task. His presumption leads him to imagine, that to him it is given, with his childish weapons of fun and fiction, to master the world of fact. In truth, he seems never to understand the distinction between history and fiction; and to deal with the facts which he has to tell, with just the same freedom which he would exercise in colouring or disposing the images of a tale. From premises thus absolutely independent of all reality, by the aid of a logic which is certainly the loosest by which ever mortal man bewildered himself, he evolves two or three of the old commonplaces of ultra-Toryism into a political and historical system, by which he firmly believes that he has actually succeeded in governing a small portion of the human race, and by which he tries to persuade us that the world should be governed. His agreeable style is instantly corrupted by the uncongenial subject on which it is employed. His efforts at passion, and sublimity, and reasoning, are marred by his utter inability to apply with accuracy the fine words which come in his way; he attempts to supply the feeble resources of his grandiloquence by occasional bits of slang and slipslop; and produces, on the whole, some such effect as would result from Mrs Malaprop's enriching her own peculiar diction with a few scraps from the phraseology of Sam Weller.

Such a man as this, had he been strictly kept to the province of light literature, and had his vanity been controlled by judicious criticism, might have attained no little excellence in that agreeable and humble walk. Humorous tales were the work really set out for him by nature; and it is not too much to say that he might have achieved an amusing novel. His physical strength and spirits qualified him admirably for a traveller; and, though we could not have counted on a profound or accurate observation of men or things, we should have had vivid descriptions of passing scenes and incidents, and humorous stories of personal adventure. He should have been left to scamper over other Pampas, or blow fresh bubbles from other baths than those of Nassau. But he was sadly wronged by those who, in an evil hour, took him from such congenial operations, and placed him in positions where the practical interests of men were entrusted to his indiscretion and presumption. He owes this to the poorlaw commissioners, who employed him as assistant commissioner in Kent, and before they had had time to discover the evil conesquences of his proceedings, passed him on with much commendation to Lord Glenelg, who appointed him to the vacant govern

ment of Upper Canada. He went out to that province with positive instructions and some vague intentions to reform the abuses which had brought it into a state of disorder and discontent. A fruitless attempt to conciliate parties ended in his quarrelling with the popular leaders, and becoming the tool of the illiberal party, into whose arms he threw himself. At the head of that party he entered into a contest with the Assembly, dissolved it, and by the aid of very favourable circumstances, and of considerable activity, ability, and, it must be added, unscrupulousness in the use of electioneering arts, obtained a majority in a new parliament. The process by which he had obtained success identified him, and with him the crown, of which he was the representative, with the dominant party; and the abuse of power by that party alienated a large portion of the colony from its previously undisturbed attachment to the mother country. To the feelings thus excited the unhappy events of Lower Canada gave a great impulse; and the rebellious designs at first entertained by a few contemptible demagogues, acquired strength from the provocations offered to a large mass of the population, were encouraged by the apathy of the governor, and finally manifested themselves in a rebellious outbreak, to which his inconceivable want of energy and prudence very nearly gave a fearful chance of momentary success. Rescued from this peril by the vigour of others, and the gallant loyalty of the colonists, he plunged the interests of the colony and the empire into the yet more formidable hazards of a needless quarrel with the neighbouring republic. Fortunately an unseemly squabble with his official superiors had by this time produced his recall; and the publication of his despatches, by exposing the extraordinary absurdity of his career, indisposed every party in this country from encouraging the attempts which he unceasingly made to obstruct the plans by which the government effected the pacification of Canada. Since that time, rejected by all parties, he has failed in every attempt to obtain a fresh field for the practical trial of his perilous theories of colonial policy; and has remained in a harmless obscurity, from which he ever and anon attempts to emerge by means of publications, in which he vaunts the unappreciated merits of his official career, declaims against the equal ingratitude of successive ministries, and mourns over the happy consequences that have followed from the utter and universal disregard of his counsels.

It would have been far more agreeable to our own taste, and probably to that of our readers, had we felt justified in taking no notice of the work now before us, or been able to confine our criticism, and their attention to those lighter parts of it, which

exhibit the literary merits for which we have given the author credit. But the great experiment of colonial policy which commenced with Lord Durham's Report, and is now in progress of trial in our great colony of Canada, is of far too vast im portance to permit us to allow any misconception of the circumstances in which it originated, or any misrepresentation of its actual results. And though the statements and opinions of Sir Francis Head are not likely to exercise any influence on the mind of any public man conversant with his character and the real truth of the matter, or likely to be entrusted with the fortunes of our colonies, the public in general, are probably not sufficiently mindful of events which have long since ceased to interest them, to be equally on their guard. This book has been read by many whose knowledge of its author's career is limited to a vague impression of his having been governor of Canada during a wanton, and, as is generally imagined, a formidable rebellion, which was suppressed under his command; and of his measures having been approved by the ministry of the day, and himself rewarded with the title which he now bears. Such readers will attribute some authority to the statements of one who is apparently stamped with authentic marks of public confidence. And when such a man gravely demands the attention of his countrymen, while he 'discloses facts which not only threaten the safety of our institutions, but in which the honour of the British Crown is deeply involved,'-when he goes on to develope his own story of events in which he was a principal actor, and, from sources accessible only to himself, to reveal certain strange mysteries in past transactions, it would be too much to expect that whatever may be the obvious extravagance of his theories, and looseness of his reasoning, the great mass of his readers will detect the inaccuracy of his statements, and appreciate the absolute worthlessness of his whole narrative. Some portion of a large mass of error may obtain currency: and we owe it to the right understanding of a not uninteresting portion of our history, and a very important political change, to destroy the effect of every one of Sir Francis Head's most mischievous mistatements.

We shall therefore pass rapidly over the better part of the present work, simply informing our readers that in the first hundred and fifty pages of the Emigrant, they will find much to amuse them. They must not attach too implicit credence to Sir Francis's theories of natural history. The difficult problem of the intense variations of the climate of North America is far from being explained by his very simple solution. He contrives somewhat to exaggerate the effects even of Canadian frost on the human face and fingers. But the reader, who may chance to find this book in