peculiar satisfaction that we consider how powerful must be the authority and the influence of the line pursued by the American States; not only from the just weight of that great and free nation, but from the very natural prejudices entertained by it against the belligerent right of search. The immortal honour which the Americans have gained by their former exertions against the slave trade, augmented by their recent enactments, classing it among piratical offences, will soon, as it now appears, be consummated, by their accession to the principle for which we have been contending. A report lies before us, from a Committee of Congress upon this point; and nothing can be more judicious or more enlightened. The perusal of it may well make those of our countrymen blush who pass their lives in ef feminate railing at their kinsmen in the New World, and who seem to delight in nothing so much as the very rational hope, that the jealousies of the two nations may be fanned by such means into fierce and implacable hostility, at the time when each can the least afford to lose the other's assistance. The Committee begin with showing, that a mutual right of search is indispensable to the great object of Abolition,' as affording the only security against our slave traders taking refuge under the flag of any one power, which should at any time become less vigilant than the rest in executing its Abolition laws. They then advert to the prejudices existing in America against this right, founded upon the opinions entertained respecting the practice of searching neutral vessels in time of war; and they deny that the two kinds of search are, in principle, in any degree allied; and most justly observe, that the unqualified admission of England, that no right whatever at present exists of searching in time of peace, an admission both founded upon the decisions of our Prize Courts, and evinced by the negociation itself, ought at once to remove the principal objections against the new arrangements contended for. They put the matter upon a plain and practical ground, when they add, that the question simply is, whether such an agreement will be beneficial to the two nations;' and they truly add, that all inconvenience from detention of vessels will be precluded, by limiting the right of seizure alone to ships having slaves actually on board. The Report then proceeds in the following manner; and, we believe, a more gratifying example of sound principle never was displayed in any State paper.

6

The feelings of this country (America) on the general question of search, have often been roused to a degree of excitement that evince their unchangeable character; but the American people will readily see the distinction between the oases; the one, in its exercise to the

extent claimed, will ever produce irritation and excite a patriotic spirit of resistance; the other is amicable and charitable: the justness and nobleness of the undertaking are worthy of the combined concern of Christian nations.

The detestable crime of kidnapping the unoffending inhabitants of one country, and chaining them to slavery in another, is marked with all the atrociousness of piracy, and, as such, it is stigmatized and punishable by our own laws.

To efface this reproachful stain from the character of civilized mankind, would be the proudest triumph that could be achieved in the cause of humanity. On this subject, the United States having led the way, owe it to themselves to give their influence and cordial cooperation to any measure that will accomplish the great and good purpose; but this happy result, experience has demonstrated, cannot be realized by any system, except a concession by the Maritime Powers to each other's ships of war, of a qualified right of search. If this object was generally attained, it is confidently believed that the active exertions of even a few nations would be sufficient entirely to suppress the slave trade.'

The Report concludes as follows.

The Committee, after much reflection, offer the following Resolution :

"Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be requested to enter into such arrangements as he may deem suitable and proper, with one or more of the Maritime Powers of Europe, for the effectual Abolition of the African Slave Trade. '

The most sanguine hopes may therefore be entertained, that the question will be satisfactorily adjusted between the English and American governments. May we not then appeal to the body of our most enlightened European neighbours, and call upon them to stimulate their rulers not only to follow the example set by England and America in classing the slave-trade among heinous crimes, but to join them in that measure which, if those three great maritime powers adopt it, must speedily become the law of all nations? That the French people at large are prepared for such a step, there can be little reason to doubt. All their ablest statesmen have the most sound views upon this important question; and the remains of prejudice with respect to the means, when so generous an anxiety is entertained for the attainment of the object, must soon give way to the enlightened genius of the age; and certainly, what has passed in America, is calculated to assist in dispelling those prejudices beyond any thing we can conceive.

Our attention has, in this article, been confined to the portion

of the Parliamentary Papers which treats of the French slavetrade, as out of all comparison the most important in every point of view. Much to lament and to amend is, however, contained in the correspondence with Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands; and it is to be hoped that our Government, acting under the control of the almost unanimous opinion upon this subject entertained both by Parliament and the country, will be enabled, before long, to obtain some more satisfactory arrangements with those three powers. The late Revolutions, and the establishment of a popular constitution in Portugal and Spain, afford additional grounds for such expectations.

ART. III. The Family Shakespeare. In Ten Volumes 12mo. In which nothing is added to the Text; but those Words and Expressions are omitted which cannot with Propriety be read aloud in a Family. By THOMAS BOWDLER Esq., F. R. S. & S. A. London. Longman, 1818.

WE

E have long intended to notice this very meritorious publication; and are of opinion, that it requires nothing more than a notice to bring it into general circulation. We are not ourselves, we confess, particularly squeamish about incorrect expressions and allusions; and in the learned languages especially, which seldom come into the hands of the more delicate sex, and can rarely be perused by any one for the gratification of a depraved taste, we have not been very anxious about the dissemination of castrated editions; but in an author of such unbounded and deserved popularity as our great Dramatist, whose volumes are constantly in the hands of almost all who can read of both sexes, it is undoubtedly of great consequence to take care that youth runs no risk of corruption in the pursuit of innocent amusement or valuable instruction; or rather, that no offence is offered to delicacy in the midst of the purest gratification of taste.

Now it is quite undeniable, that there are many passages in Shakespeare, which a father could not read aloud to his children-a brother to his sister-or a gentleman to a lady :--and every one almost must have felt or witnessed the extreme awkwardness, and even distress, that arises from suddenly stumbling upon such expressions, when it is almost too late to avoid them, and when the readiest wit cannot suggest any paraphrase, which shall not betray, by its harshness, the embarrassment from which it has arisen. Those who recollect such scenes, must all

rejoice, we should think, that Mr Bowdler has provided a security against their recurrence; and, as what cannot be pronounced in decent company cannot well afford much pleasure in the closet, we think it is better, every way, that what cannot be spoken, and ought not to have been written, should now cease to be printed.

We have only farther to observe, that Mr Bowdler has not executed his task in any thing of a precise or prudish spirit; that he has left many things in the text which, to a delicate taste, must still appear coarse and reprehensible; and only effaced those gross indecencies which every one must have felt as blemishes, and by the removal of which no imaginable excellence can be affected. It is comfortable to be able to add, that this purification has been accomplished with surprisingly little loss either of weight or value; and that the base alloy in the pure metal of Shakespeare has been found to amount to an inconceivably small proportion. It is infinitely to his credit that, with the most luxuriant fancy which ever fell to the lot of a mortal, and with no great restraints from the training or habits of his early life, he is by far the purest of the dramatists of his own or the succeeding age, and has resisted, in a great degree, the corrupting example of his contemporaries. In them, as well as in him, it is indeed remarkable, that the obscenities which occur are rather offensive than corrupting-and seem suggested rather by the misdirected wantonness of too lively a fancy, than by a vitious taste, or partiality to profligate indulgence; while in Dryden and Congreve, the indecency belongs not to the jest, but to the character and action; and immodest speech is the cold and impudent exponent of licentious principles. In the one, it is the fantastic colouring of a coarse and grotesque buffooneryin the other, the shameless speech of rakes, who make a boast of their profligacy. It is owing to this circumstance, perhaps, that it has in general been found easy to extirpate the offensive expressions of our great poet, without any injury to the context, or any visible scar or blank in the composition. They turn out not to be so much cankers in the flowers, as weeds that have sprung up by their side-not flaws in the metal, but impurities that have gathered on its surface-and that, so far from being missed on their removal, the work generally appears more natural and harmonious without them. We do not pretend to have gone over the whole work with attention-or even to have actually collated any considerable part of it: But we have examined three plays of rather a ticklish description-Othello, Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure-and feel quite assured, from these specimens, that the work has been ex

ecuted in the spirit, and with the success which we have represented.

Mr B. has in general followed the very best text-and the work is very neatly printed. We hope, however, that the publishers will soon be encouraged to give us another edition, on a larger letter. For we rather suspect, from some casual experiments of our own, that few papas will be able to read this, in a winter evening to their children, without the undramatic aid of spectacles.

ART. IV. Œuvres Inédites de Madame la Baronne de Staël, publiées par son Fils; précédées d'une Notice sur le Caractère et les Ecrits de M. de Staël. Par Madame NECKER SAUSSure. Trois Tomes. 8vo. London, Treuttel & Würtz. 1820.

TH

HIS posthumous publication makes us better acquainted with its illustrious author than any of the works which she has herself given to the world-and lets us more into her personal character than all that has yet been written about her. Nor do we say this so much with reference to the prefatory Memoir, or Eloge rather, which stands at the beginning, as to those productions of Mad. de Staël herself, which now make their first appearance. These consist of her first and her last writingsof the plays and poems in which she indulged her genius before she had imbibed the spirit of her age, or aspired either to rival or to replace its models-and of the pieces with which she amused her later retirement, with scarcely any view to publication, or which she did not survive to revise, with that deference to public opinion which always lowers the relief, and weakens the originality of the most intrepid of experienced writers. By far the most remarkable of these pieces, is one which she has entitled, though not quite correctly, Dix Années d'Exil. It contains the history of her persecutions under Bonaparte, and some of her observations on the countries which that persecution compelled her to visit. It is full of original and striking views of the character and policy of the extraordinary Person from whose hostility she suffered-not always very candidly conceived, perhaps, or very charitably expressed-but all bearing the distinct impress of genius and sincerity. The traits, indeed, of her own character that are thus unconsciously disclosed, in these little sallies of impatience and exaggeration, as well as in the details of the various proceedings which give rise to them, are among the most curious and interesting parts of the work; and ifthey