AND

Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c.

This Journal is supplied Weekly, or Monthly, by the principal Booksellers and Newsmen, throughout the Kingdom; but to those who may desire its immediate transmission, by post, we recommend the LITERARY GAZETTE, printed on stamped paper, price One Shilling.

No. 712.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1830.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

PRICE 8d.

the details of its transcript not only into pic-| shall now proceed to such farther specimens as
ture, but into bust and medal by the most we deem it proper to adduce in support of the
admiring and vaunted artists of Paris.
opinions we have stated, and in illustration of
Having got over the pretty portrait, we dash at the work before us. We may also premise,
once into (for such are these two volumes) the however, that Lady Morgan does not pretend
auto-biographical sketch of Lady Morgan for to write in English: her style is a conventional
the fragment of a year, during which she left jargon, so spotted with French, (and occa-
Ireland, a persecuted female in darkness and sionally Italian,) that no plain scholar (in-
despair; enjoyed a few months of the French cluding in his acquirements a tolerable ac-
capital, in the way our extracts will illustrate; quaintance with the French tongue) can un-
and returned home ready for the press to her derstand it. Every page is alike: take, at
maison bijou, as she calls it, near Dublin. hazard, a receipt for perfuming a handker-

·

In some remarks on the modern literature we find the next :

France in 1829-30. By Lady Morgan, author of "France in 1816," &c. &c. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 1086. London, 1830. Saunders and Otley. WE opened this work more with the wish than the expectation that we should find it such as would warrant a great alteration in our general opinion of the writings of Lady Morgan. But, in truth, she has not improved by twenty years of authorship: her faults only become the more fatiguing from repetition. "Oh! the delicious burst of agreeable sen-chief:The mystery of the superior tiresomeness of sations," she commences on landing at Calais, "Take a dozen embroidered cobwebs, such the present performance is also perhaps to be a lady driven from her native land for having as some araignée du voisinage' might weave ascribed to the craft of book-making: one devoted to its interests all her sympathies, to for the reticule of Queen Mab, and place them volume might have been tolerable, but two are its cause all her talents; and drawn upon in the pocket of an elegant porte-mouchoir, really more than can be undergone with any herself the persecution of one party, without which must not be of any of the old-fashioned thing like patience. "France in 1829-30" securing the protection of another."-Alas, prismatic colours; but, (as La Mode' phrases implies a picture of the country in these preg-poor lady! but her spirits were good, and she it,) du couleur le plus nouveau.' Into the conant and recently splendid years; but after wonderfully withstood the shock, though in ver of this elegant and indispensable superyawning over almost every page of Lady Mor- the early parts of the narrative we have a little fluity, the delicate odours are to be quilted, gan's flighty ebullitions, we close the last more of the sentimental than when the gaieties which communicate a just-perceptible atmochapter with no more idea of actual France of Paris induce to jumping, laughing, tumbling sphere; (that is to say, an atmosphere percepthan when we began the first. We have read about, and other small feminine eccentricities. tible to the practised olfactories of enlightened indeed a great deal about her ladyship; what Thus we hear much of the "impetuosity of nerves ;) and which mingling with the freshshe said in indifferent French, how she argued her (ladyship's) feelings;" of her "bursts of sen-ness of the last spring-water rince of the and criticised, how she referred to her former sation;" of her "newly-kindled excitements;" laundry, renders the application of the handpublications as if they had electrified entire of her "spirits too exuberant ;" and of sundry kerchief to the face a 'perfect pleasure.' This Europe, her witticisms and bon-mots, and all other indications of extreme sensibility. These receipt I give almost in the very words of the that the most engrossing egotism and vanity little clouds, however, gradually disperse, and merveilleur from whom I had it." could lug into print; but of the real state of then comes the sunshine of the heart, the frolic, society even in Paris, we learn nothing that the fun of the Wild Irish Girl of fifteen. Hop, might not have been communicated in a quarter skip, and away; I by myself I; Lady Morgan, "Napoleon was a romanticist, sans s'en of one of the volumes. the celebrated author denounced by the Quar- douter. On the restoration of the Bourbons, terly, proscribed by the Emperor of Austria, the classic muses of the ail de bœuf, who made idolised by France and the rest of Europe. their entry on the baggage-waggons of the Here I go, all life, and giving birth to a book allies, were busily employed in giving subjects as full of nothing else, as an empty nut is full for impromptu royalty to the candidates for of emptiness; but a few scraps of brown husk poetical pensions. The echoes of the theatre which are to pass for what should have been were called forth by laudatory strains mille fois kernel. From this source spring the lively répétés, in praise of the 'envoyé d'en haut.' errors which usurp the place of truth, and Apollo once more resumed his place in the misrepresent every thing which the author Tuileries, and les Graces' re-occupied the describes, except herself. By aiming at eternal niches vacated by the genius of victory. The playfulness and smartness, she exaggerates to modern classics beheld the restoration of this such a pitch, that we receive no definite or portion of the ancient régime with triumph; exact idea whatever from her sketches. In and many of the elders of the liberal party contrasting London with Boulogne, for exam-(who denied in literature that liberty of conple-she exclaims, "Is there nothing French, science which they had adopted in politics) then, out of London, where every shop is a held up the code of Aristotle in one hand, and magasin, and every article labelled by the the charte in the other." vocabulary of the Rue Vivienne?"—Reading this, one would suppose that in London every shop was a magasin, and all the goods labelled in French, as asserted by the writer: and what a preposterous notion of our metropolis "Mérimée, with his usual espièglerie, helped A sweetly-engraved portrait of Lady Morgan would such a belief afford! We do not think out the argument against me with Clarence's (sketched by J. P. Davis, and engraved by T. there are fifty such shops in all the vast cir-dream; and so, as usual, we all left off as we Wright), ushers us among, and prepares us for cumference of our trading capital; and we began. But we all agreed that the prose of the numberless personal traits with which her dwell on the passage, not so much for its P. Courier, and the poetry of Beranger, were volumes abound: it is in profile, and shews a importance, but to prove that no dependance each in perfection in their several ways: while beautiful countenance, full of character and can be placed on Lady Morgan's fanciful dis- some observed, that the French and English expression; but whether it is like her ladyship tortions; and that if she can so absurdly cari-are making an exchange of words and of things, we have not the pleasure to know. We pre-cature her own country, it would be too much and quoted a translated idiom of my Anglosume she must be mistress of intellectual to expect accuracy in what refers to a foreign French, which, though it now shocks the ears and spirited, if not of regular and handsome people. of the purists, might be naturalised some of features; for we have in "France in 1829” With this salutary proviso established, we these days. Shock us!' said Beyle- yes,

But besides the book-manufacturing origin of this failure, another principal cause of it is in either the natural temperament or the affected vivacity of the author. She writes as if she were a romping girl just let loose upon the world for the first time; and not like a sensible matronly observer, who has had some experience, and should be able to tell us a little soberly what she sees. It is almost pitiable to look upon a mature person exhibiting such fantastic tricks; and even in a miss of seventeen the long continuation of the hoyden would be apt to create ennui, if not disgust.

It is, we assure our readers, painful to us to speak thus of the production of a female pen; and we have several strong reasons for desiring that we might with justice have delivered a very different judgment. But we are bound to the public tribunal by truth, and by a sense of what we owe to its unexampled favour; and, however nibbled and scribbled at, we will in all fairness discharge our duty.

Morning society is the last specimen we shall quote of this silly style;-a passage or two also affording a tolerable sample of the way in which Lady M.'s egotism is paraded.

"!!

but not in your English sense of the word. It
does give us an agreeable shock. Are you
English aware that there is an almost primi-
tive simplicity in the errors you commit in our
language of phrases, that carries with it an
infinite charm. We modern French, for in-
stance, prefer the French letters of Horace Wal-
pole to those of his correspondent Mad. du Def-
fand: there is a force, a naïveté, in his trans-
lated idioms, a thousand times more expressive
than the purisms of the French lady, the muse
of the literati of her time. His style is as
little the French of les Quarante as his wit;
but it is something better. His words have
the force of ideas, and his phrases are so free
from the monotony of our rhythm, that they
keep us tout éveillé.' M observed, that the
French bore a great resemblance to the Athe-
nians in their sensibility to purity of style;
and this brought us to the Greeks and their
cause. We naturally made a reference to Col. Come we now to other points. On politics,
Tolstoy's pamphlet, written in excellent French, it seems, that the use of omnibuses by the
which lay upon the table. He, of course, went lower orders in Paris has had prodigious in-
with the Russian policy; the French were all fluence. "The poorest Parisian workman and
for the plains of Marathon and Greek liberty, his family ride more luxuriantly now, than "We meet, scattered over the surface of re-
and the English were more or less in the doc- that great king-roi, le plus roi qui onques mote and variegated society, so many we wish
trines which produced the massacres of Parga, fút-ever rode in his day; and the soubrette, to know, and who wish to know us, not
and Mr. Sheridan's pamphlet against the carrying the modes of the Faubourg St. Ho- merely, perhaps, for the respective merits of
Greeks; and so we were all drawn up in battle noré to that of les Invalides, drives more ra- the parties, but for that magic bond, the rous
array. David led the charge, as Praxiteles pidly in her elegant zoe, or gondola, with its me convenez-je vous conviens!' I knew the
himself might have done; and if there is any cushion of down or of iron, than the ambu-author of the statue of Condé must be in my
fire in the medal that represents my stupid latory seraglio of Versailles, when royal mo- way (be the confession an epigram or an éloge);
Irish face, it is due to that which kindled his thers, mistresses, wives, favourites, and child- and in the many pleasant hours we afterwards
spirit, as he worked and defended the land of ren legitimate and illegitimate, followed the spent in his study in the faubourg, while sitting
the arts and the compatriots of Apelles. Mean- camp of the grand monarque, all stuffed pell- for my bust,-in the Rue de Rivoli, at our hotel,
time several visitors, bored, perhaps, with a mell in the carrosse du roi. These physical-and in the various rencontres of Parisian so-
subject in which they took little interest, comforts will not easily be given up; for they ciety, this first impression was fully justified,
bowed themselves out. Among these, were inspire the possessors with a sense of the per- as first impressions, indeed, very generally are.
one or two gentlemen who had taken no fur-sonal dignity of man, and of his value (so to Although David is the sculptor of romanticism
ther part in the conversation than to ask the speak) in the market, which gives despotism par excellence, he has a strong vocation to
names of my other guests, who, after their an infinity of trouble. It is naked, unaccom- moulding the heads of those who have amused
departure, asked theirs. I said I did not know, modated, ignorant man, that constitutes the the public or himself, without much reference
or at least must refer to my visiting-book to especial raw material of unlimited sway." to sect, and still less with a view either to pe-
ascertain them. Not know the names of This teaches us to prefer the dignity of man, cuniary profit, or (in my instance) to perma-
your guests?' said Madame D.; qu'elle est as elevated by riding in omnibuses, to the nent fame.+
dróle. 'Que voulez vous, madame? We are naked man, who, according to Lady Morgan's Nothing can be more delightful, more in-
presented at some crowded assembly, or public judgment in such matters, is the raw material structive, more amusing, than our mornings at
place, to a number of all nations. We don't of despotism!! Philosophy is next on stilts Paris. One goes through a course of literature,
catch half their foreign names. These pré- as high as politics. "There are certain posi- science, arts, politics, philosophy, and fashion,
sentés present others; they call, and are let in. tions, and, above all, certain celebrities in so- toute en courant; laughing, arguing, gossip-
Their names are announced by my servant, ciety, to which the mind necessarily attaches ing, lounging on sofas, or jumping into car-
who gives them all a certain Irish tournure, certain ideas, ideas which are not to be riages, running in and out of public and pri-
that makes confusion worse confounded; and shaken off, however often refuted by individual vate edifices and collections.
so there they are. Some turn out delightful, experience;" which, being translated, is "I happened one night to mention at Gene-
high-bred, and agreeable, like that young Wal- meant to import, that we feel some awe on ral Lafayette's that I should remain at home
lachian Boiardo who has just left us; and going into the company of an eminent person on the following morning, to sit for a medal
others prove prosers, like—but I won't ex-age, such as the Count de Tracy, whom Lady to David; and the information brought us a
emplify, where all are courteous and kind, and Morgan was about to visit, and whose assem- numerous circle of morning visitors; others
well informed and well disposed.' And one blies (she informs us) are among the most dropped in by chance, and some by appoint.
of them,' said Monsieur de ----
'whom I saw select and remarkable in Paris. Inaccessible ment. From twelve till four, my little salon
here the other day, is an ex-Jesuit.' Ma- to common-place mediocrity and pushing pre- was a congress composed of the representatives
donna mia! you make me start! I am de- tension, their visitor must be ticketted in some of every vocation of arts, letters, science, bon
nounced, then, to the holy office, or to the police way or other to obtain a presentation." Her ton, and philosophy, in which, as in the Italian
at least.'
'Oh! don't be alarmed,' said Beyle; ladyship must, therefore, to use the slang word, opera-boxes of Milan and Naples, the comers
you have nothing to fear from the police have been "ticketted" above the common-place and goers succeeded each other, as the narrow
now.' "You don't mean to say that there is mediocrity and pushing pretension on which limits of the space required that the earliest
no longer a police in France?' A peu près. she looks down. Indeed, she is full of her visitor should make room for the last arrival.
Upon great occasions, a few civil gentlemen aristocratic associations: and few persons be- There was Pigault le Brun, the father of the
come forth, enter your room, chapeau bas, po- low dukes, marquesses, barons, and counts revolutionary novelists, whose wit and humour
litely inquire into the disorder, or relate the (except distinguished geniuses), figure on her can never be out of fashion, however it may
event that occasions their intrusion, and have tapestry. The grand is pleasant:-a French fare with the forms in which he has embodied
the air of paying a visit of ceremony, instead romanticist has told her a pathetic tale (an
of a domiciliary visit. As for your Jesuit, invention, by the by) of a poor poet, who dies
whoever he may be and these things are swan-like; and the following is the finale :—
easier said than proved-the worst you have “At last he retired to a poor little village
to expect is an attack in some of the ultra near Meudon, where he gave himself up to the
papers, or in those intelligent organs of public composition of works which dissolve the soul in
opinion, which treat upon hats, caps, ( des tears, or burn it with passion. Poor, neglected,
grands ourlets et du petit manteau.' Or de la worn-out, he died last October of a broken
pluie et du beau temps-que voilà!' I exclaimed. heart, and a complicated pulmonary consump-mistaking Madame for a Miss!

So let us enjoy it in the gardens.' Levero tion. You weep, chère miladi !'
'Tis very
l'incommodo,' said David-
foolish,' I said; but the fact is, that the life
It is a happy thing for the ignorant, that and death of this unfortunate and very foolish
translations of this slip-slop and patch-work young man recalls those of one who, when in
are generally given at the foot of the page; by infancy, was the adopted of my father's house,
which even the few country gentlemen who may the unfortunate Thomas Dermody, the poet;
read this book will be enabled to comprehend but you know as little, I suppose, of our mo
the commonest French words and phrases. dern poets as I do of yours.' Que vous ties
There is a kindness in this which almost ex-bonne!' said my good-natured friend, mingling
cuses the offence of so unnecessarily introdu- his tears with mine."
cing them. But the pure English is sometimes What a melting scene- chère Miladi and
on a par with the pure French for instance Monsieur weeping together! affettuoso! Their
(p. 186), where her ladyship confesseth, "I am picture in the act would have made a more in-
either too old or too young, too blasée or too teresting frontispiece than even her ladyship's
vivacious, to set down to such sentimental va lovely portrait. Then "my father's house
pours of vanity or indigestion ;" and, p. 352, must have impressed the blubbering French-
the attraction of the Abelard, in my eyes, is man with the idea that her crying and senti-
that it is as like Talma as if he had set for it :" mental ladyship's paternal mansion was at least
for which her ladyship deserves a good set- a château; yet the only wings the worthy Mr.
ting down.
Owenson, her papa, ever owned were not those
of a house, but of the stage. But where all is
vanity, without vexation of spirit, why should
we give only one taste?-there are plenty more
precious bits.

them. There was Mignet, the historian of his age, and belonging to his age honest, fearless, and giving to his narrative the demonstration of mathematics and the brevity of epigram, in a style which is in itself philosophy. There was Mérimée, like his own original and de

+Amongst his sitters, her ladyship, with her customary fidelity and knowledge, mentions Mademoiselle Tastu,

'Pour qui veut se noyer, la place est bien choisie,
On n'aurait qu'à venir, un jour de fantasie,
A cacher ses habits au pied de ce bouleau,
Et, comme pour un bain, à descendre dans l'eau.
Non pas en furieux, la tête la première;
Mais s'asseoir; regarder; d'un rayon de lumière,
Dans le feuillage et l'eau suivre le long réflet,
Puis, quand on sentirait ses esprits au complet,
Qu'on aurait froid, alors, sans plus trainer la fête,
Pour ne plus la lever, plonger, avant la tête."

587

How gloriously unintelligible these big words are, and, where intelligible, how absurd! The ancient sculptors shrunk from passion and gesticulation!! O, Laocoons, Gladiators, Apollos, be burnt into lime and forgotten!

Of Rossini we like the notice, though, as usual, only brought in to hitch her ladyship, her publications, and her justly portrayed manner of chattering upon

lightful dramas, simple, natural, and animated., do that: mais écoutes, 'tis from Le Creux de The brilliant Beyle, whose travels made me la Vallée.' long to know the author, and whose conversation is still more lively and original than his books; Dumas, the author of Henry the Third, one of the most successful adventurers in the rich and new mine of romanticism; and the spiritual and interesting Robert Lefèvre, and De Montrol, who says more clever things even than he writes, who has composed a life of Clement Marot, in an episode, that is in prose Is this not beautiful, original, sublime? A of inspiration, he would laugh at you. He what its subject was in poetry; and the Com-writer of the old school would have plunged his laughs at the very idea; but then he laughs at "Inspiration! If you were to talk to him mandeur Gazzera, of the order of Malta, the hero head foremost, like a vulgar suicide of the every thing, himself included. He is a thoauthor of many ingenious works, one among Pont Neuf. If Rousseau, your Kirk White, rough Mephistophiles! To see Rossini in all the oldest of our continental friends, and the or our Millevoye, were to drown themselves, the glory of his genius, and his natural and most hospitable of hosts; and there was an would not they thus have died? It makes one unobtrusive wit, you must see him at midaccomplished young diplomatist from the United quite long to follow the example.' An irre- night, composing at his little desk, in his black States, Mr. B, and Monsieur Miguel de la pressible fit of laughter seized me; and my cap, surrounded by his habitués, yet undisBarra, the secretary of legation from Chili; young exalté, somewhat disconcerted by a mer- turbed by their fun and frolic; in which, from and Don Louis d'Arandada, an attaché of the riment which, if it had not been inevitable, time to time, he bears his part, particularly if Portuguese embassy; and Colonel Tolstoy from would certainly have been very rude, took his his clever friend Caraffa be present: then, inRussia; and the Prince and Princess of Salmes, hat, saying, after a moment's silence, I see, deed, he is in his own sphere; there is nothing from their feudal castle on the Rhine; and the Lady Morgan, that I have been mistaken. like him. I hazarded an opinion on music Count and Countess de Rochefoucauld Lian- You have long been deemed in France a cham- and Rossini, which I have printed in the Book court-(the principles of the one, and the pion of romanticism. I was a boy when your of the Boudoir; and so we got upon the revograces of the other, like their illustrious name, work on this country came out; and I took lution he has effected in his art, and upon that beyond all change of circumstance or touch of my first colour of literary opinion from your genius which gets the start of its age. time); and the honest and gifted Italian bro-France. Whatever popularity you enjoy as a said Mignet, genius goes with its age; and it thers Ugoni; and son obligéance,' Monsieur writer here, you owe it to this belief. To what is by so doing that it wins its success. I still Jullien de Paris; and the two first amateurs No,' of the musical world, even of that musical world know not; but I cannot compliment you on ing, clever men go with their age, and procircumstance I may attribute your change, from whence they came, Signor Barberi and the retrogradation: I have the honour to offer sper; genius goes one step beyond it, and is persisted in my Mrs. Malaprop style of arguSignor Dottore Benati, with many others, who you my respects. came in and went out successively,-each leaving behind them the votive offering of an agreepersecuted.' Mérimée and David were of my able impression. opinion."

nary persons.

*

6

6

is interesting to the English reader.
Of Helen Maria Williams, too, the mention

putes between the Romanticists and the ClasApropos we have far too much of the dis"I have been sitting for my picture to just as well have been written in Dublin as in sicists, and of other crude essays, which might Robert Lefèvre, a most agreeable and well- Paris; and, besides, her ladyship possesses very friend Miss Williams; and it was painful to informed person. His agreeability is that of a "We talked much and long of our celebrated laisser aller temperament, and his information opinions upon French literature or art. insufficient knowledge to justify her giving learn, that she had fallen into absolute indithat of a man who has lived in the midst of criticisms are, indeed, quite ludicrous. great events, and with notable and extraordi- this beautiful statue" (Condé, on the Pont endeavoured to conceal till all further concealHer gence some time before her death; a circum"In stance which, in her independent spirit, she I believe, hate to sit for pictures, however sublime calm, the momental immobility, the in- Mr. C, a respected member of the Dutch All busy people, Louis XVI.) she says, "there was not the ment was impossible. strong the propensity of their amour propre fectious solemnity, which makes one tread church, and one of the most celebrated preachHer excellent nephew, to multiply their likeness. ball in the Rue de Bourbon, at my excellent galleries of the Vatican, as if the godlike crea- state of her affairs, came for her to Paris, and At a lightly and breathe low in passing along the ers of Amsterdam, having at last learned the friend, Madame L's, I took shelter from tures there represented were themselves pre- took her home to Amsterdam; but the transthe heat and crowd in a pretty boudoir, and sent in their silent divinity, to impose awe, lation from her own delightful circle in the threw myself upon the first ottoman that pre- and to command adoration. But in its place French capital, and the different order of soci sented itself, very nearly tumbling over an old was to be found a quality of an opposite and ety in Holland, were too much for her spirits, gentleman who occupied a place on its corner, perhaps equal merit-living, moving, exciting, and she fell into such melancholy and illbles under the violent pressure of the indignant change. Her devoted relation, solicitous even passionate humanity. The very pedestal trem- health, that her constitution sunk under the and animated form it supports." Oh!! sufficiently long to lose their moral, in their her back to Paris. He brought her back, how"The eye does not dwell on them (the statues) head, out of his own limited means, and brought for her pleasures, placed an annuity on her physical effect. But in the arts, and especially ever, only to convey her to her modest tomb, in sculpture, where form is not mingled with amidst the cypresses of the Cimetière de la colour, the angular awkwardness of passionate Chaise. Thus terminated the life of Johnson's General Sebastiani, talking to him of the to excite in the beholder a sympathetic pain, faults were attributable to the singular times in gesticulation being permanent, has a tendency elegant muse, in sadness and poverty.' Her old and new nobility, asked, Do you not such as the actor would himself sustain in the which her ardent feelings and brilliant talents think, general, as I do, that a fusion between long maintenance of so constrained an attitude. developed themselves. Born and bred in an them would be very desirable ?" cher Sebastiani,' replied Lafayette; je le dé- quished by great art) the ancients have shrunk; talents to other purposes, and in all probability Oui, mon From this difficulty (which is only to be van- other era, she would have directed her original sire;-mais complette, jusqu'à l'évaporation." "+ and I was half afraid to express the admiration with a happier result." The following is a sportive and clever expo- I felt for this fine statue, lest I might be wrong, sition of the romantic sect in Paris, and of her according to rule, though right according to ladyship's vanity :impression.

near the door."

With this hoydenish trait we shall conclude our extracts illustrative of the appearance Lady M. cuts in these volumes; and more, we trust, to the satisfaction of our readers, select a few of the few passages which can interest or amuse the public. The subjoined is a neat mot of the famous Lafayette (of whom, now 73 years old, her ladyship gives a pleasant sketch).

"Lady Morgan, if you wanted to drown yourself, how would you set about it?' would I drown myself? throw myself into the How water, I suppose.' water! that's the pont aux ânes; any one could Throw yourself into the

The meaning of this parenthesis is far above our

comprehension.

It is an odd sign of her ladyship's vivá voce French, that whenever she attempts to speak it, the parties answer in English as well as they can: the whole seems a sort of humorous lingua-franca.

Choose your day and set off. Ere you sink in the billow,
The place where we stand is just made to your mind.
"Should you wish in the waters a cold bed to find,
But go, step by step, as you'd enter a bath:
Pack your clothes in a bundle snug under yon willow.
Souse not head over ears, as if conquered by wrath,
Sit down-look about you-examine the ray

Which pours in, through the trees, in a long line of day:
(That is, half killed with cold), take the leap in the
And when you're in order, prime up to the mark,

dark.'

Don't keep yourself waiting, but down with your head,
And be sure you don't lift it again till you're dead,"

6

testant Pope"-Marron had presented a little Pius VII. called a M. Marron "the Propoem to his holiness; and "the following couplet was sent to M. Marron by the pope, and may serve as a specimen of his playful wit

'Vertueux Protestant, que je souffre à vous voir;

Tirer Marron du feu, n'est pas en mon pouvoir."" and a good sign of tolerant joking in the head The point, Lady M. declares, is untranslateof the church. able; that is a pity; but the epigram is neat,

In all that we have said of, or done with,
Lady Morgan's publication, we have confined

ourselves to the first volume; and (at present | after the Ordonnances were issued, and turn-bonne santé, et vous dit mille amitiés. Nous at least) we shall abstain from its worthy pa-ing them thus idle and flushed into the wine-sommes profondément touchés des temoignages rallel, the second, except to observe, that it houses, was one of the most prominent and d'approbation et de sympathie que nous ont contains a Postscript of 38 pages relative to immediate causes of the successful resistance été donnés par le peuple de la Grande Bretagne the late revolution-all that belongs to 1830 of the capital. This is not noticed by Lady et de l'Irlande. Il faut esperer que cette rein the work. If we might credit her ladyship's M., who merely repeats : volution, sans tache, amenera la liberté de l'Eurose-coloured description of France in the prerope. Recevez, mes chers amis, tous mes receding year, we should hold this glorious event mercimens et amitiés. LAFAYETTE." to have been very unnecessary; for she assures "I must send you our new national song, by us in her last chapter, on bidding adieu to the Casimir la Vigne, although mingled with other country: kindnesses to me; but I have not time to copy it.*

"If ever there was a moment in which, beyond all others, France is to be visited with pleasure, and quitted with regret, it is now, when every thing conspires to evince that she has discovered the great secret of all human science, its object and its end-the secret of good government, in the interest, and for the happiness, of the greatest number. To attain to this glorious knowledge, and to its practical application, she has laboured long, and suffered much; and her efforts, like her sufferings, have been without parallel or example."

"Workmen, trades-people, the pupils of the Lycée, boys, and children, congregated and scoured the streets. The shops closed. Arts, science, commerce, trade, were all suspended. The Change shut its doors, the National Bank refused to discount; and thousands of citizens, deprived of employment, with want staring them in the face, were let loose to swell the great tide of discontent."*

Translation." Living as I am, in a vortex of affairs, I beg your permission, my dear friends, to dictate my answer to your kind Her ladyship goes on to paint the scene in letters, with an acknowledgment of the receipt very bombastic colours, making quite a theatri- of ten pounds, enclosed. We have made a cal picture of families and children, and groups noble and rapid revolution. The glory belongs and women, all heroism and tenderness, &c. to the people of Paris; that is, to the portion &c.; but as this can neither inform nor enter- the least affluent of its population; to the pupils tain any body, we shall quote a letter from of the schools of medicine and of law, &c., Lafayette, who has done his gray hairs so mingled with the populace, and, more particu much honour in this momentous struggle, (and larly, with the pupils of the admirable PolyBut Prince Polignac assumed the reins, and not more by any one act than by his fine declara- technic School, whose uniform was every where overthrew all this blessedness; and the dy- tion against inflicting the punishment of death the signal of confidence. The people shewed nasty was changed, the constitution renovated, for political offences; thus endeavouring to themselves as great, by their generosity after France delivered from the thraldom which spare the ministers he had overthrown, now the victory, as they were terrible and expert in was preparing for her. Assuredly, if the re- that they are in his power,- -a desire in which the hour of combat. I observe, with pleasure, volution stops where it appears to have stopped, every good and wise man, who loves justice that you approve of the resolution which we it does deserve the admiration of the world; tempered with mercy, and who dreads the re- republicans have taken, of concurring in the for Lady M. truly says in fact, though per- action of all bloody deeds, must cordially sym-erection of a popular throne, by amalgamating haps with too much of her flummery of lan-pathise):-this letter is dated 21st August, it with republican institutions. The choice guage: and addressed to Sir C. and Lady Morgan; made of the prince and family are excellent. The brief unity of its epic action was un- and we give it both in the original and the in- You ask for some personal news of your old stained by one crime, unblemished by one different translation. friend. I was at La Grange at breakfast on fault. All that was great, all that was good, "Au milieu du tourbillon où je vis, mes the Tuesday, when I received the Moniteur all that was sublime in humanity, came forth chers amis, je vous demande la permission de and ordinances. Eight hours afterwards, I was in deeds, that leave the poetry of virtue far dicter ma réponse à vos deux bonnes lettres, at Paris. The fighting began on the Tuesday behind, and the fictions of genius far below, en reconnaissant l'envoi de dix livres sterling. evening, and was continued through Wednes what history will now record. Rome produced Nous avons fait une belle et rapide revolution. day and Thursday. On, Thursday morning, no such men, Sparta no such boys,' as the citi-Toute la gloire en est au peuple de Paris; the Hôtel de Ville, after having been taken zens of Paris, and the pupils of her scientific c'est-à-dire à la portion la moins aisée de ce and retaken, became my head-quarters; and schools. The stoical heroism of antiquity, and peuple, aux élèves des écoles de droit et de the tri-coloured flag, which I had planted there the sturdy resistance of the modern revolution- médecine, &c. mêlés à la population et par- forty-one years ago, again floated from its roof. ary times of England and America, have been ticulièrement à l'admirable Ecole Polytechnique, On Friday there was still some skirmishing in more than equalled, more than surpassed, by dont l'uniforme étoit partout un signal de con- the faubourgs; but the greater part of the the self-devotion, the valour, the unity of pur- fiance. Le peuple s'est montré aussi grand royal army had retreated to cover St. Cloud. pose and of feeling, of the luxurious inhabit- par sa générosité après la victoire, qu'il a été The court made a show of resistance at Ram. ants of the most polished, refined, and luxu- terrible et habile dans les combats. Je vois bouillet: it had still ten thousand of the bestrious capital of the world. It is not thus that avec plaisir que vous approuvez la résolution disciplined troops; but I ordered twenty thou slaves regain their liberty; it is thus that free- prise par nous autres républicains, de concourir sand citizens to march against them, which men protect it. * An uncontrollable à l'érection d'un trône populaire, en l'amalga- determined a retreat. The royal family have patriotism, an incorruptible honesty, and a mant à des institutions républicaines. Le since traversed France under the protection of total abnegation of self, in the great cause, choix du prince et de la famille est excellent. our commissioners with the tri-coloured scarf. governed all classes." Vous me demandez des nouvelles personelles A profound silence, undisturbed by a single The measures, associations, &c. by which de votre vieux ami. J'étais à la Grange à dé- insult, reigned wherever they passed. France "all classes" were thus prepared to resist tyran- jeûner le Mardi lorsque nous avons reçu le is now organising itself into a national guard, nical and unconstitutional innovation, are for Moniteur et les ordonnances: huit heures of which it is desired that I should remain history to develope; that they were so pre- après j'étais à Paris. On s'est battu le Mardi provisionally the commander-in-chief. All my pared is evident, and that the explosion was soir, la journée du Mercredi, et du Jeudi. Le family are in good health, and express towards simultaneously and effectively produced, by a Jeudi matin, l'Hôtel de Ville, pris et repris, you a thousand friendly sentiments. We are well-understood compact and arranged course était devenu mon quartier général; et le all deeply sensible of the testimonies of approof action, is not to be doubted by men of pene- drapeau tricolore, que j'y avais planté, il y a bation and sympathy which have been offered tration. And we say not this in disparage- quarante un ans y flottait de nouveau. Le us by the people of Great Britain and Ireland. ment; on the contrary, we maintain that the Vendredi on se battait encore dans les fau- Be it hoped that this revolution, without a end would have justified almost any means; bourgs; mais la plus grande partie de l'armée stain, may effect the liberty of Europe. Acunless mankind are willing to be made dumb royale couvrait St. Cloud. La cour a fait cept, my dear friends, the expression of my beasts (as by silencing the press), and then mine de résistance à Rambouillet. Elle avoit thanks and friendship. treated as such by a parcel of masters, rioting encore dix mille hommes des meilleures troupes (Signed) "LAFAYETTE."† in the fulness of usurped dominion, dispropor- réglées. J'ai fait marcher vingt mille ci- We have to add, that Sir C. Morgan has tioned wealth, and selfish luxury.* The dis-toyens, ce qui a déterminé le mouvement furnished four essays or papers to these vocharging and letting loose some 25 or 30,000 de retraite. La famille royale a ensuite tra- lumes, on Philosophy, the Public Journals, of the mechanics of Paris, with a fortnight's versé la France sous l'escort de nos commis- Primogeniture, and Public Opinion :-he seems wages in their pockets to save them from want, saires à écharpe tricolore. Elle a partout to have had allotted to him all the subjects (exas was done by their masters on the morning trouvé la silence, sans la moindre insulte. La France s'organise en garde nationale, dont on • Written in English. It will be well for these orders, wheresoever they exist, to observe the signs of the times. It is not only in a voulu que je restasse provisoirement le com-ceived more than 5000 private letters, and upwards of A Paris paper states, that General Lafayette has reFrance-it is throughout the enlightening world, demanded mandant-en-chef. Toute la famille en est en 20,000 letters on public business, most of them from whether the earth and its enjoyments have been made for mankind, or for a very small and not the most deserving class of men?

The first tri-coloured flag is said to have been improvised of the shirt and habiliments of a dead soldier.

officers and soldiers en retraite, which remain unanswered. To answer the letters as they arrive daily, would, it is said, require ten or twelve secretaries.

589

cept the Postscript) beginning with P, and he great terror of Southern America, and the branches of the vena cava and the aorta; so has acquitted himself so very satisfactorily, that harmless earthworm that we turn up in our that those vessels form no considerable system, we should not have been sorry if his lady had fields; but it is no less true; and different as and transport but a small quantity of blood to allowed him a few other letters. We should they are in outward form, it will be found that the lungs, instead of a mass of this fluid almost then have had some intelligence, instead of this general law produces a multitude of par- equal to that of the rest of the body, as in long passages that lead to nothing; and a com- ticular conformations. pilation which, taken altogether, would have frame of the different classes of animals ever the heart of reptiles possesses but a single venThe structure and warm-blooded animals. For this same reason been too much for the nerves of private friends determine the laws of their existence; and tricle, which suffices to make their blood circuin private correspondence, and too unimportant when the anatomist has discovered the relative late, independently of respiration. The latter for a few columns of newspaper communica- power and deficiency of the several organs, the may remain suspended for some time without tions. On the flighty statements we can re- history of the animal's life is known. pose no dependence; the style is abominable, organic conformation which distinguishes the tion of the fluids. This is witnessed in frogs, being no more English than a brindled cow or reptile tribes, is thus clearly shewn in the salamanders, and marine tortoises, which dive The interrupting the course of life and the circulaa Danish dog are white: all is overcharged; work before us :— and we have to regret the foolish exposure of a naturally clever woman, eaten to the core longer these animals can subsist under water, entire days. The colder the atmosphere is, the under water, or bury themselves in mud for with the most excessive vanity. without having occasion to respire the air, and without perishing, for they are then in a state

The Animal Kingdom described and arranged in conformity with its Organisation. By the Baron Cuvier. Translated, with large additional Descriptions, by E. Griffith, F.L.S., and others. Part XXV. Reptilia. Whittaker and Co.

the powers and acuteness (if such a word be applicable) of reptiles is stated with equal simThe sources of the great diversity between plicity; so that the extreme limits of variation may be easily ascertained.

in fact, be considered as almost forming another "Vertebrated animals, with cold blood, may, world. They preserve some analogy, it is true, in the general arrangement of the brain, of the of semi-torpor." with the superior classes, in the bony skeleton, senses, and of the principal viscera; but the heart, both in reptiles and fishes, has but one ventricle or cavity. The vesicular lungs of the reptiles, instead of receiving, as in mammifera WE have more than once noticed this work in with the vital air, receives but a small streamand birds, the entire blood to be impregnated its progress towards completion, and bestowed let of the venous blood, which is even oxy-not fixed, like that of mammifera and birds, our meed of praise on its conductors, for the genated but feebly, for these animals breathe but varies with the proportion which the dia"The quantity of respiration in reptiles is judicious manner in which they have blended but very slowly through this pulmonary viscus, meter of the pulmonary artery bears to that of interesting illustrations of the habits and na- the tissue of which is so very lax. From this the aorta. ture of animals with the scientific system of it results, that the blood, scarcely warmed and considerably more than frogs, &c. From this Cuvier. Like all other sciences, zoology has vivified by combination with the vital air, ex-proceed differences of energy and sensibility, Thus tortoises and lizards respire its own peculiar phraseology; which to the cites but languidly the entire organisation; much greater than can exist between one mamgeneral reader presents nothing but a dry ca- accordingly, we find the reptiles nearly cold to miferous animal and another, or one bird and talogue of hard names, while to the student of the touch, like inanimate bodies: for this rea- another." the science it furnishes the only means for son they are observed to seek and court atmosystematising knowledge and classifying ob- spheric heat, or the warm sunshine; and the lonia (tortoises), and part of the Sauria (lizards servations. The great advance which has been cold of winter reduces them to a state of torpid- and crocodiles). The former division is enThe present Number contains the order Chemade in the study of natural history within ity. They seem, for the most part, to vege- livened by a very interesting account of the the last few years has been owing rather to the tate rather than live, to be insensible of a establishments for breeding turtle, in the West accuracy than to the extent of the information wound, and even scarcely to discover any con- Indies; but we cannot understand why the acquired by modern travellers: when once the siderable degree of anguish when cut in pieces. writer should suppose that such depôts will distinctive marks of the different classes and Their organisation very speedily renews many lead to the destruction of these animals. orders have been determined, the chances parts, such as the tail or toes, when they have Though civic banquets may at present conof mistake are infinitely diminished; we no been removed. As these animals have but very sume more than can be reared in the turtlelonger meet with statements of anomalies and little cerebellum in proportion to their size, and ground, and consequently cause these establishexceptions, but find that amid all variations a brain composed of but six small tubercles, ments to be rather feeding-stores than breedingand diversities there is a beautiful harmony in their existence is not so absolutely concentrated places, the opportunities they afford of closely nature; that there are invariable laws for the in their head as ours. animate as well as the inanimate creation; and attached to their spinal marrow, and to be more must eventually lead to the formation of a good It seems rather to be observing the animal's habits and economy, that though within certain limits, there is generally disseminated throughout their body. system for their regular production, and thus room for many diversities, yet that those limits A tortoise has been known to live for eighteen ensure the continued glory of civic dinners, are never overpassed. The study of animated days after the brain was removed, still walking and the luxurious gratification of gourmands. nature, always delightful, has thus acquired a about, but groping its way, for its eyes were new charm; for, in addition to its inherent closed, and the power of vision lost in conseinterest, it has obtained at once the certainty quence of the cutting of the optic nerves. and simplicity which constitute so great a salamander has lived several months although portion of the pleasure derived from the study decapitated by means of a ligature fastened of the physical sciences. In man, nature has tightly round the neck. displayed the powers of the brain and the when plucked out, will beat and contract on expressed the opinion we still hold, that, wheThe heart of a viper, ON the appearance of Mr. Reade's Cain, we nervous system; to beasts she has given mus- being pricked for the space of forty hours. ther we considered the creative imagination it cular energy; to the winged tribes of air she From all this appears, that these animals have displayed, or the originality of thought it has presented a powerful pulmonary apparatus; not such a centralised life as that of a quadru- evinced, Cain was the work of no ordinary and to the reptile kingdom she has assigned ped or a bird, which would instantly perish mind, and of no ordinary promise. Mr. Reade superior muscular contractility-whose results from similar amputations. This pertinacious is a writer whom we would so much sooner are ever the source of wonder and surprise. irritability in frogs and serpents renders them encourage than depress, that we feel both reEach portion of zoological science has thus very proper subjects of galvanic and electrical luctance and regret to say that the production attractions peculiarly its own: in the mam- experiments. Electricity is found to exercise a now before us does not realise our anticipation. malia we admire the display of strength and most powerful influence on them. Reptiles are In plan it is extravagant. muscular exertion, while we trace the grades exceedingly sensible to storms, and to an elec- which shocks the more from opposition to all of docility and intelligence which find their tric state of the atmosphere, of which they our old beliefs. We acquit Mr. Reade of in- an extravagance consummation in man: the varied plumage appear to foresee all the changes, as appears by tentional irreligion; but the pages before us and the rich harmony of the birds irresistibly the croaking of frogs, &c. This want of con- shew to what lengths a favourite theory and arrest our attention; but in the reptiles we centration of vitality in the brain has, in the unbridled fancy are apt to betray a writer. have to wonder at the amazing diversity of reptiles, as its natural accompaniment, a marked We are willing to allow all possible license to their forms, their wondrous tenacity of life, diminution of intelligence; and though some poetry, but it is carrying this license a little and, above all, their power of reproducing of them can be tamed, it is next to impossible too far when, making Scripture its foundaparts whose loss in other animals would be the certain termination of existence. It may well excite our astonishment, that there should be a common law of life to the alligator, the

to teach them any thing.

A

they have lungs. But this organ is vesicular,
"These animals all respire the air, because
and the blood-vessels which arrive at it are only

The Revolt of the Angels; and the Fall from
Paradise, an Epic Drama.
Reade. 8vo. pp. 204. London, 1830. Col-
By Edmund
burn and Bentley.

hold true and sacred. Lucifer is here reprenew version of all we have been accustomed to tion, it takes upon itself to give an entirely sented as creating Adam in defiance of the