&c." Lord Selkirk, some years ago, attempted to divert the tide of emigration from the Highlands of Scotland to the United States, and turn it to Prince Edward's Island, within the territories of Great Britain. More lately, his views of colonization seem to have become more extensive; and having purchased about a third part of the stock of the Hudson's Bay Company, he obtained from their governors a grant of a wide extent of country, held or supposed to be held, under their charter, of which he proceeded to take possession.

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The settlers on this tract have been molested, it appears, by the servants of the North-west Company, between which and the Hudson's Bay Company there had long subsisted a deadly feud; and some very extraordinary proceedings are understood to have taken place on both sides. According to Lord Selkirk, the fur trade is not in the best hands, nor carried on in a very honourable manner. The North-west Company is pointedly accused, indeed, of great violence and injustice, for which, as the law at present stands, it is extremely difficult, or altogether impossible, to call its servants to account. Of the Hudson's Bay Company, the Reviewers do not think so well as Lord Selkirk does. The rest of this article, and that which is of a far deeper interest, relates to the North-west passage. The relation of Maldonado's voyage is held to be a clumsy and audacious forgery. The Reviewers firmly believe, however, that a navigable passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, round the northern coast of America, does exist, and may be of no difficult execution. In support of this opinion, they proceed to examine the various unsuccessful attempts that have been made at different periods. No human being, they say, has yet approached the coast of America on the eastern side, from 66 degrees and a half to 72 degrees, and here it is thought the passage may be found.

9. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III.; and the Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems. By LORD BYRON." -If the heart of Lord Byron be not dead to every emotion of pleasure and gratitude, this article must stir up these feelings in no common degree. The Reviewer displays throughout, not only the powers of a poet and of a critic of

the highest order, but the delicacy and solicitude of a friend, without, however, shutting his eyes to the eccentricities and misjudged exhibitions of this lugubrious and indignant misanthrope. There are one or two digressions in it somewhat curious, for they may be thought to identify the Reviewer,— upon much the same grounds as Childe Harold has been supposed to speak the sentiments of Lord Byron. In the first, be disputes the proposition, that rapidity of composition and publication endangers the fame of an author of great talents. A little after it is stated, as an axiom, that "every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct view of the landscape, sentiment, or action, which he intends to describe to the reader."Lord Byron's political opinions, of course, meet with no favour; but his sins of omission, as well as commission, though pointed out in forcible language, do not call forth those expressions of contumely and bitterness, which so, often disgrace the subalterns in political hostilities. There is something very serious, or, so different are peoples' tastes, perhaps amusing, at the conclusion of this article. It is impossible not to see in it the goodness of the writer's heart, though we make no, doubt that others may pretend to discover also a slight infusion of amiable simplicity. For our own parts, we can, not help suspecting that there is a reasonable portion of affectation in some of Lord Byron's dolorous verses; and that to treat him like a spoilt child will not have much efficacy in removing the complaint. If any one should hereafter think it necessary, in order to establish his superiority of talent, to begin with distinguishing himself in the circles of vice and folly, despising the restraints to which ordinary mortals have agreed to submit, he may be led to doubt of the certainty of this mode of proving his claim, when he is assured that the moral and religious regimen, here prescribed to Lord Byron, has been very faithfully observed, both in the private and public life of several of the most distinguished writers of the present age.

10. Warden's Letters."-" Mr. Warden's pretences and falsehoods," say the Reviewers, “ if not detected on

the spot, and at the moment when the means of detection happen to be at hand, might hereafter tend to deceive other writers, and poison the sources of history." The motive of the Reviewers is therefore a very laudable one, and the detection' will no doubt be very satisfactory to a certain class of readers. But the historian! Sources of history! If the historian and philosopher should sit down to this, and the corresponding article in the Edinburgh Review, about a hundred years hence, what must he think of the political parties, and of the state of literature, in Britain in the year 1816? Mr. Warden is a 66 blundering, presumptuous, and falsifying scribbler;" and the proof is, that he actually brought the materials of this book from St. Helena, in the shape of notes, instead of having really despatched letters from sea, and from St. Helena, to a correspondent in England!

11. "Parliamentary Reform."-That part of this article which corresponds with its title, contains sentiments, about the justness of which there will be little difference of opinion among well informed men. None but the most ignorant can expect, and none but the most wrongheaded, or unprincipled, will teach the people to expect any relief under the present distresses of the country, from universal suffrage and annual parliaments. But the Reviewer does not confine himself to topics, in the discussion of which, he would have carried along with him the approbation of all those whose approbation is of any value. Unfortunately, we think, for the cause of which he is so able an advocate, he has introduced a great leal of extraneous matter, concerning which men of the clearest heads and purest intentions, cannot be brought to agree. He has also counteracted the effects which the soundness of his judgment, and the powers of his eloquence, might have otherways produced upon misguided or unthinking reformers, by indulging in a strain of violent exaggeration and reproach. So wide a departure from the Roman poet's maxim of suaviter in modo, fortiter in re, brings him too near to the style of the orators and authors whom he so justly exposes, and is inconsistent with the respect which so able a writer owes to himself and to his readers.

MEMORANDUMS OF A VIEW-HUNTER. From the Edinburgh Monthly Magazině.

London, 5th March, 1817.

MR. EDITOR-If you can find room for some brief sketches of a view-hunter, who has a little enthusiasm in his line, and who, like not a few of his countrymen, has been a view-hunting lately in France, his memorandum book is very much at your service. The sketches have at least one merit-they are warm from the life.

No. I.

To Dover.

-Preparing the race-ground for the races. This raised a train of ideas about the D, S, the fair M-, and all that, varied but pleasing.

Pretty clean-looking village of Bridge in the bottom. The country rich with gentlemen's houses and garden-like enclosures. The track was now new to me. This had been the boundary of my former trips on the Dover road. The dale to the right, with hamlets, villages, churches, gentlemen's seats, appears peculiarly elegant, contrasted with the plainness on the left. The road is carried along the east side of a valley. This valley is narrow and rich-of the glen sort-and, as we approach Dover, it has several pleasing vista-openings in the Scottish stile.

We got a small peep of the channel, two or three miles from Dover. The town itself is scarcely seen till we enter. On descending to the bottom, in which it stands, we took up a little man about twenty, one of the most free and easy persons I have ever met with. He introduced himself to us in a moment, and gave us all the information we wanted; indeed, much more than my companion S― seemed to want. But I was pleased with the rattle for the moment. He, however, did not lack either sense or discrimination. He pointed out the stream that creeps in the bottom, as being reckoned the richest in England of its size, for manufacturing returns. So he said. Saw several paper manufactories and flour mills. One of the formér, he said, was famous for fine paper; the scenery of its banks pleasing, and, from this account, it became more interesting. It seems to descend from a vista on the right, and to run only four or five miles.

Our attention was attracted by a

group of young women promenading in a green field on its bank, near a very small rustic chapel and church-yard; the latter only about fifty feet square. The whole formed a fine rural picture. On descending to the level of the stream, we found both the footway and the road covered with walkers; for this was Sunday afternoon, and the weather was uncommonly fine. When we entered the town, we still found the footway-for it has a footway on each side, and this was one of the few we were to see for many a hundred mile-still crowded with promenaders. The people well dressed, particularly the women. The girls very pretty. Seldom have seen so many fine faces in a town of the same size; but it was Kent. A smile on every counteI like to see the evening of the Sabbath-day kept in this cheerful but decorous manner.

nance.

I shall compare this with what I see at Calais, said I to my companions of the to p.

Dover.

At the Paris hotel. Very good house. Civil and attentive. Full of passengers to and from the continent. Walked out with my companions, Dr. B. and Mr. S., to view-hunt a little on the heights on so fine an afternoon. The town built on a narrow slip of land at the bottom of steep chalky cliffs. Ascended a circular excavation in the chalk. Three winding stairs up it, of about 200 steps. Made some years ago. Centinels both at the entry below and above. Part of the works of defence, on the top of the hill, a little to the right of this. Ascend it by ladder stairs on the outside. These have a fine effect, combined with the fortifications. The castle, also, has a venerable and picturesque appearance from this station.

I inquired about Shakspeare's cliff of the soldiers. A decent-looking militiaman, who was carrying a pretty child, while two more were playing round him, pointed it out to me-a mile or so off. A few halfpence made the little folks very happy, and the parent's fond eye glisten with delight. I cast a wishfui look to this favourite cliff:-The declining day was so fine. But Dr. B. said, he was so fatigued he could not think of it; and as I could not leave him so abruptly, I was obliged to give up the project, but not without re; gret that was constantly recurring. This is the inconvenience of a view

hunter entangling himself with any nonview-hunter as a travelling companion. He is prevented from seeing half of what he may see.-A word to viewhunters. I determined to give my companions the slip for the future, except at meals.

I then proposed ascending to the citadel. The way at first steep, and nearly on the edge of the precipice. Dr. B. said to some of the soldiers who pointed out our way, as they were reclining on the declivity, that it looked like ascending to the skies. Nothing of that sort, said a drummer. I have climbed it often, and I never found I was a bit nearer heaven than before. The pert drummer might not be very far wrong with respect to himself.

The view of the harbour, which is a tide one, and very extensive, having gates between the outer and inner station, with the ships so far below us, formed an interesting picture. The sea was delightfully calm. The white cliffs of France, whither we were going, had their effect. The sight set us a talking of the probability of the junction of Great Britain formerly with the continent. The sameness of the soil, and. other geological phenomena, and the proximity, seemed to make a junction likely; the vast length of the British channel, and the wile German ocean approaching so near, render a separation from the first as natural. In short, whether this part of the channel was once an isthmus, and Albion a peninsula, or not, will ever be a doubtful speculation. We have nothing but conjectural reasons, and these appear to be as strong on the one side as the other.

Two very bonny lasses, with a fine child, ascended at the same time with us, but still nearer the precipice. I begged them, for Heaven's sake, not to go so near. They laughed, and went still nearer; and sat down almost on the very edge of the tremendous precipice, which, even at the distance we were standing, made us shudder. Goodbye, my poor dears, said I to them; I shall see you no more. They gave me some jocular reply. Such is the effect of cus

tom.

Went up to the citadel. Not allowed to enter. A nice-looking woman and her husband on the drawbridge. She seemed quite frightened. On raising my eyes, I soon found the cause of her terror. They were going to fire the