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merce: the same querulous tone is kept up in his observations on all our institutions. All this is the more provoking, as he never once deigns to give us the least glimpse of the clue by which we may escape from the labyrinth of error in which we are now involved; and, after having exerted himself to show the darkness of the dungeon which we have dug for ourselves, he very humanely leaves us to grope our way out of it, the best way we can. In short, he seems to have no very clear views on the subject; and finds it, of course, a much easier task to point out the evils of our situation, than to suggest any scheme for its improve

ment.

We shall not attempt to give a minute account of these volumes; but we shall give a slight sketch of their miscellaneous contents, and make such extracts, as may enable our readers to judge for themselves, of their general merits, and style of exe

cution.

Our traveller lands at Falmouth in spring 1802, accompanied by an English gentleman, whose remarks, in the course of the journey, are of essential service; as, without this assistance, the knowledge he displays of the country he passes through, would have been quite out of character. The first sixty pages are occupied with an account of their journey to London, in which nothing very striking or interesting occurs it is chiefly made up of descriptions of the roads, inns, and modes of travelling; which, as we have already hinted, are insufferably minute and trifling. The whole is narrated in a rather lively, but pert and flippant manner; and enlivened with a variety of little stories and anecdotes, apparently gleaned from some of their voluble hostesses. In the very first letter, there is a string of them, which we will quote, as a specimen of their general merit.

A madman not many years ago carried his wife here at low water, landed her on the rock, and rowed away in fport; nor did he return till her danger as well as fear had become extreme. Some time fince, the prieft of this place was applied to to bury a certain perfon from the adjoining county. "Why, John," said he to the fexton, "we buried this man a dozen years ago: " and in fact it appeared, on referring to the books of the church, that his funeral had been registered ten years back. He had been bed-ridden and in a ftate of dottage during all that time; and his heirs had made a mock burial, to avoid certain legal forms and expenses which would elfe have been neceffary to enable them to receive and difpofe of his rents. I was alfo told another anecdote of an inhabitant of this town, not unworthy of a ftoic :-his houfe was on fire; it contained his whole property; and when he found it was in vain to attempt faving any thing, he went upon the nearest hill and made a drawing of the conflagration :-an admirable inftance of English phlegm!' I. 5, 6.

There

There are many examples of the affected liveliness, and con. ceited turn of expression, which marks the close of the following extract:-we hope our readers will be satisfied with this.

The perpetual ftir and butle in this inn is as furprifing as it is wearifome. Doors opening and fhutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every quarter, while he cries "coming" to one room, and hurries away to another. Every body is in a hurry here; either they are going off in the packets, and are haftening their prepa. rations to embark; or they have just arrived, and are impatient to be on the road homeward. Every now-and-then a carriage rattles up to the door with a rapidity which makes the very houfe thake. The man who cleans the boots is running in one direction, the barber with his powder bag in another: here goes the barber's boy with his hot water and razors; there comes the clean linen from the washer-woman; and the hall is full of porters and failors bringing in luggage, or bearing it away:now you hear a horn blow because the poft is coming in, and in the middle of the night you are awakened by another because it is going out. Nothing is done in England without a noise; and yet noise is the only thing they forget in the bill!' 1. 6, 7.

. The description of the country, and the different towns they pass, we believe to be tolerably correct; but we shall not detain our readers with any account of places so very generally known: the descriptions are by no means diffuse or tedious, and we accompany the travellers without any sense of fatigue. We must confess, however, we are frequently annoyed with the author's unlucky passion for jokes; he never loses an opportunity of introducing them; and they are very often in rather a vulgar taste. For instance, in speaking of Bridport, he says the neighbourhood is so proverbially productive of hemp, that when a man is hanged, they have a saying, that he has been stabbed with a Bridport Dagger. And again, on his approaching London, it is remarked, that the country had once been a forest, but has now no other wood remaining than a few gibbets, which last ingenious witticism, we suspect, he borrowed from a certain auctioneer, who, in selling a piece of land, described it as beautifully adorned with hanging woods; which, the enraged purchaser found to be no other than the useful machines above mentioned. We now reach London; and confess we were under great apprehensions of being obliged to follow our traveller through the vast field of description that is now at once opened to him; we were, however, agreeably disappointed, on finding only a very short account of the general appearance of the city, and a lively picture of the moving scenery, the wonderful concourse of people, and the activity and bustle which pervades every corner. The opulence and splendour of the shops, it is justly observed, is particularly striking to foreigners, and give them the highest idea of the imse riches of the metropolis.

It

. It is quite impossible to follow the writer through the great yariety of matter which he has jumbled together in the remaining letters of the first volume. Except a visit to St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, St James's, and Drury Lane theatre, there are few notices of our public buildings or places of entertainment. The account of St Paul's, on the whole, is dull; though the following short statement, of the general effect of the view from the top, on the mind of our sentimental Iberian, is rather a favourable specimen of the style which England has lately condescended to borrow from Germany.

I would have climbed St Paul's, if it had been only to fee Londoa thus mapped below me, and though there had been nothing beautiful or fublime in the view: few objects, however, are fo fublime, if by fublimity we understand that which completely fills the imagination to the utmost measure of its powers, as the view of a huge city thus feen at once :-house-roofs, the chimneys of which formed fo many turrets; towers and steeples; the trees and gardens of the inns of court, and the diftant fquares forming fo many green fpots in the map; Westminster Abbey on the one hand with Weftminster Hall, an object scarcely less confpicuous; on the other the Monument, a prodigious column worthy of a happier occafion and a lefs lying infcription; the Tower and the mafts of the fhipping rifing behind it; the river with its three bridges and all its boats and barges; the ftreets immediately within view blackened with moving fwarms of men, and lines of carriages. To the north were Hampstead and Highgate on their eminences, fouthward the Surry hills. Where the city ended it was impoffible to diftinguish: it would have been more beautiful if, as at Madrid, the capital had been circumfcribed within walls, and the open country had commenced immediately without its limits. In every direction the lines of houfes ran out as far as the eye could follow them; only the patches of green were more frequently interfperfed towards the extremity of the profpect, as the lines diverged further from each other. It was a fight which awed me and made me melancholy. I was looking down upon the habitations of a million of human beings; upon the fingle fpot whereon were crowded together more wealth, more fplendour, more ingenuity, more worldly wifdom, and, alas! more worldly blindness, poverty, depravity, difhonefty and wretchedness, than upon any other fpot in the whole habitable earth' II. 14, 15.

The following remarks on the bad effect produced by windows in our buildings in the Grecian style, we think quite just. But the architecture of the ancients is altered, and materially injured by the alteration, when adapted to cold climates, where it is necessary when the light is admitted to exclude the air; the windows have always a littleness, always appear misplaced; they are holes cut in the wall; not, as in the Gothic, natural and essential parts of the general structure.' Drury Lane theatre is minutely described, and due praise is bestowed on our two most celebrated

celebrated performers, Kemble and Mrs Siddons. The acknowledged degeneracy of the drama is attributed to the prodigious size of our theatres. The finer tones of passion cannot be diseriminated, nor the finer movements of the countenance perceived from the front, hardly from the middle of the house. Authors therefore substitute what is called broad farce for genuine comedy; their jests are made intelligible by grimace, or by that sort of mechanical wit which can be seen; comedy is made up of trick, and tragedy of processions, pageants, battles and explosions.' There is, no doubt, much justice in this remark; but we cannot receive it as a complete solution of the melancholy fact; and it is indeed partly contradicted by the great applause constantly bestowed on the two great actors already named, who certainly do not owe their celebrity to mere stage trick and extravagant grimace. The subject is a curious one, and worthy of more attention than has yet been bestowed on it.

He has now leisure to notice the public events of the day, such as the change of ministry, and the elevation of Mr Addington, of whom he professes great admiration, and delivers a long panegyric on his talents and virtues. Our readers must be contented with this morceau. His enemies have nothing worse to object against him than that his father was a physician. They call him Doctor on this account. A minister of healing he has truly been; he has poured balm and oil into the wounds of his country, and his country is blessing him.' A whole letter is filled with an account of the trial and execution of Governor Wall; which leads to some observations on the martial law and military affairs of England. We heartily agree with the writer in his reprobation of the cruelty of our military punishments. The following description, we are afraid, is not exaggerated.

The offender is fometimes fentenced to receive a thousand lashes ;a furgeon ftands by to feel his pulfe during the execution, and determine how long the flogging can be continued without killing him. When human nature can futtain no more, he is remanded to prifon; his wound, for from the fhoulders to the loins it leaves him one wound, is dreffed, and as foon as it is fufficiently healed to be laid open again in the fame manner, he is brought out to undergo the remainder of his fentence. And this is repeatedly and openly practifed in a country, where they read in their churches, and in their houses, that Bible, in their own language, which faith," Forty ftripes may the judge inflict upon the offender, and not exceed." I. 109, 110.

We agree with him also in his opinion of the miserable state of our present military system; but we must add, that the hints which are here thrown out for its improvement are, in general, either quite common-place, or ridiculously puerile and absurd; which is the more unfortunate, as they are delivered in the most presumptuous and

dogmatical

dogmatical manner. No comment can be necessary on the fol lowing passage.

But the fure and certain way to fecure any nation for ever from aalarm as well as from danger, is to train every schoolboy to the use of arms: boys would defire no better amusement, and thus, in the course of the next generation, every man would be a foldier. England might then defy, not France alone, but the whole Continent leagued with France, even if the impaffable gulph between this happy ifland and its enemy were filled up. This will be done fooner or later, for England muft become an armed nation. How long it will be before her legislators will difcover this, and how long when they have discovered it, before they will dare to act upon it, that is, before they will confent to part with the power of alarming the people, which they have found fo convenient, it would be idle to conjecture.' I. 117, 118.

Can any man in his senses seriously believe, that if all the schoolboys in the kingdom were to abandon bats and balls, and amuse themselves, in their leisure hours, in learning the use of arms, the next generation would be at all more likely to be soldiers, or the nation more warlike? After a residence of a couple of months in London, our traveller sets out on another journey. He first goes in the stage-coach to Oxford. His fellowtravellers are of course introduced to our acquaintance. We are then presented with this delectable specimen of their conversation.

The good lady gave us her whole history before we arrived at the end of the first Itage;-how she had been to fee her fifter who lived in the Borough, and was now returning home; that she had been to both the playhouses; Aflley's amphitheatre, and the Royal circus; had feen the crown and the lions at the Tower, and the elephants at Exeter 'Change; and that on the night of the illumination fhe had been out till half after two o'clock, but never could get within fight of M. Otto's houfe. I found that it railed me confiderably in her eftimation when I affured her that I had been more fortunate, and had actually feen it. She then execrated all who did not like the peace; told me what the price of bread had been during the war, and how it had fallen; expreffed à hope that Hollands and French brandy would fall alfo ; fpoke with complacency of Bonniprat, as fhe called him, and afked whether we loved him as well in our country as the people in England loved king George. On my telling her that I was a Spaniard, not a Frenchman, fhe accommodated her converfation accordingly; faid it was a good thing to be at peace with Spain, becaufe Spanish annatto and jar raifins came from that country; and inquired how Spanish liquorice was made, and if the people wer'n't Papists, and never read in the Bible. You must not blame me for boafting of a lady's favours, if I fay my answers were so fatisfactory that I was preffed to partake of her cakes and oranges.' II. 49-51.

When tired of the company inside, he takes his seat on the

VOL. XI. NO. 22.

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