ample consolation for such disappointments, in the superior merit of this volume, and in the very interesting matter which it contains.-The struggles between the Brissotines and the Jacobins are traced, ab ovo, with a masterly hand; and are presented in such a connected point of view, and in a manner so clear and perspicuous, as is not to be met with in any other publication, French or English. A very ample and interesting detail of the massacre of the Priests at Paris in September 1792 is given; and the horrid description closes with the following just observations.. "The triumph of religion was never more fully manifested, than at the present terrible period. Not all the horrors of a painfu death, rendered still more painful by the blasphemies of their assassins, could shake the constancy of these noble victims to their faith and loyalty. They met their fate with that calm courage, that holy resignation, which can alone be derived from the consciousness of rectitude, and a firm reliance. upon divine wisdom and justice. Their virtues extorted, in some instances, the admiration even of their persecutors. M. Violet, an officer who presided over the massacre at the Convent of the Carmelites, exclaimed some time after, in a fit of involuntary enthusiasm, I am lost! I am overpowered with astonishment! it is beyond my conception; and I am convinced that any man, who had been witness of the scene as I was, would have been equally astonished. The priests met death with as much joy, and as much pleasure, as if they had been going to a bridal feast.' Such testimony is not to be shaken! It is well known that the amjable Demoiselles de Cazotte, and de Sombreuil, succeeded, by a fervent impulse of filial affection, in saving their venerable parents from the savage fangs of these ferocious assassins; Monsieur de Cazotte, however, was saved, but for a time; but M. de Sombreuil, we are told, completed his escape, and fled from France." Now, we always thought that he afterwards fell a victim to the rage of the regicides; but as we have not our books at hand to refer to, we cannot ascertain the fact. His gallant son perished in the unfortunate expedition to Quiberon; what became of his amiable and heroic daughter, we never knew. The military operations are detailed with no less clearness and ability than the civil history of revolutionary France. We select the character of the unhappy King, who literally fell a martyr to his humanity, as a fair specimen of the author's style and manner. "Thus fell Lewis the XVIth, in the 39th year of his age, and the 19th of his reign; and with him fell the Monarchy of France, which, under three dynasties, had existed nearly fifteen centuries. So strong, at the time of his accession, was the general sentiment in his favour, that he was greeted with the title of Lewis the Desired. Nor, though afterwards branded with every term of obloquy, did he ever merit the hatred of his subjects. In some measure he resembled our Charles the First, to whose history he paid great attention. A comparison, however, of their conduct, when involved in difficulties, is highly favourable to the English Sovereign, Sovereign. Charles maintained, with vigour and by arms, a contest of some years duration; and, when at length overcome, still preserving his native dignity, uniformly refused to acknowledge the authority of that usurped jurisdiction by which he was arraigned. He lost his crown and life, but he preserved inviolate the reputation of active courage and unconquerable spirit. Lewis may, perhaps, with more propriety, be compared to the sixth Henry. With greater abilities than Henry, he had, in some parts of his character and situation, a strong similarity to that Monarch. Both were pious; both, diffident of themselves, and therefore easily swayed by others, espoused Princesses of elevated minds: both were driven from their thrones by rebellion, and both perished by an untimely death. "The understanding of Lewis was much above mediocrity; he had acquired a vast fund of knowledge by reading; his memory was remarkably tenacious; and his judgment, in arranging, combining, and apply. ing, what his memory had retained, was often displayed in a manner that was highly creditable to him. On the relative state and interests of France and the European Powers, his information was by to means inconsiderable. History and geography were two of his favourite studies. To the former he paid much attention; and, such was his proficiency in the latter, that the detailed instructions to the ill-fated navigator Perouse were drawn up by his own hand he was indeed supposed to be the best geographer in his kingdom. With some of the mechanical arts he was also well acquainted, and even occasionally practised them. "In his moral conduct he was unimpeachable. Just, beneficent, a good husband, a good father, and a lover of his people; he would, had he lived in an age less turbulent, when the higher talents are not required in a Ruler, have done honour to a Throne. But he did not satisfy him. self with mere morality, which, when unsupported by religion, is little to be depended upon. His piety too was exemplary. The faith in which he and his ancestors had been educated, he followed with sincerity and warmth, but without any mixture of ill directed and uncharitable zeal. On the mercy and goodness of the Deity he relied with an unfeigned confi. dence. That reliance afforded him consolation in the latter stormy period of his reign, and fortitude in the hour of death. It enabled him to tri. umph over slander, captivity, and the grave. But, numerous as his virtues certainly were, there was one master fault which run through and vitiated the whole of his conduct. He wanted that firmness and decision, without which the greatest virtues are some. times worse than useless. A Monarch should know as well how to make Himself feared as loved. In vulgar minds mere affection soon degenerates into something bordering upon contempt. His orders can never be disobeyed or slighted without prejudice to himself. Lewis yielded at those very moments when he should most rigorously have enforced obedience; when he should fully have asserted his authority, or abandoned life and authority together. Passive courage he possessed; but not active. "Yet even this had its rise in a fault, for it was a fault, of so amiable a nature, that it can hardly be censured without pain. It arose from the extreme horror, which he always felt, of shedding human blood. Looking, however, to the situation in which they are placed, and the high purposes for which they hold that situation, Sovereigns ought to consult, not their feelings, but their duties. Blind and indiscriminate mercy is, in its effects, the worst of cruelties. Humanity itself imperiously commands the punishment of those who wantonly and wickedly violate the laws on which social order is founded; and, by giving a loose to the most violent passions of man, reduce him to a state of worse than savage nature, since it has all the bad qualities of savage existence, without any of its virtues. The Monarch is the guardian of the State, and the safety of the State is put to the hazard, when traitors are allowed to conspire with impunity. Nor will the King, who tolerates treason, long remain a King. "The unfortunate Lewis fell a victim to his ignorance of this truth. In his fall he drew down the greatest evils, not only upon his own country, but also upon a considerable part of Europe. That clemency, which he so injudiciously shewed to rebellious subjects, cost the lives of the bravest, the wisest, and noblest characters of the time in which they lived; covered France with scaffolds and blood; shook, to their foundations, some of the oldest established Governments, and involved others in total destruction. His fate will operate as a lesson to all Sovereigns to extinguish, with a decided hand, the first embers of sedition; and happy will it be for mankind, if the caution thus inspired does not, sooner or later, degenerate into a gloomy and suspicious tyranny, which, under pretence of resisting innovation, may discourage all reform, and strike the safest and most deadly blows at the very existence of freedom itself. History, while it ranks Lewis with those who were worthy of being enrolled among saints and martyrs, must lament that he lived in an age, and among a people, when all the vigorous talents of a Henry the Fourth would not have been more than sufficient to preserve unimpaired the dig nity of the Sovereign, and, by that dignity, the peace and welfare of his subjects." The indirect communications which preceded the death of this virtuous, but unfortunate Sovereign, between the British Ministry, and the agents of the French Government, are narrated with marked impartiality, and the observations which accompany them display much good sense and sound judgment. In the curious Report of Kersaint, from the Diplomatic Committee to the French Convention, on the 1st of January, 1793, on the relative situation of the two Countries, that Revolutionary Orator drew the following picture of a deceased Statesman, in which we recognize a much stronger likeness than those sanguine admirers who, with equal truth and modesty, have been pleased to hold him up as "the best of Patriots," will be disposed to admit. "A friend to the rights of man, and a flatterer of the King; a criti. ciser of the Government, and a superstitious admirer of the British Con stitution; a popular Aristocrat and democratic Royalist; Fox had but one end, that of raising himself upon the ruins of his rival, and of avenging, once for all, his many parliamentary defeats, not less fatal to his interest than they were to his glory.' It is here asserted, that the memorable decree of the French Convention, of the 19th November, 1792, holding out a direct invitation to the subjects of all countries to rebel against their Sovereigns, was revoked on the 13th of April, 1793, at the instigation of Danton, who, who, on that day, obtained a decree "which, while it deprecated all interference of Foreign States in the internal concerns of France, solemnly declared, in the name of the French People, that the National Convention would not meddle in any manner with the Governments of other Powers."" But whether this new decree is supposed to have been a virtual revocation of the former decree, or whether that of November 1792 was formally repealed, we are left to conjecture. We have not, at present, an opportunity of referring to the Moniteur for the purpose of ascertaining this fact, but certainly we never understood that the decree, which had given such just grounds of offence and of alarm to the other European Powers, had been repealed. At all events this affected abjuration of a right (which, by the bye, we know was afterwards constantly exercised, wherever the French arms were triumphant) to succour all rebels, was so little relished by the Jacobins, that the very next day, at a dinner given by the Commune of Paris (who, in fact, governed the Convention) to some fugitive traitors from Liege, it was unanimously resolved, that a new oath should be taken of eternal war against all Kings, and of peace, union, and brotherhood with people of all countries, who, adopting the principles of the French Republic, should desire to connect themselves with it by the ties of fraternity.", A large collection of State Papers accompany the volume, and the miscellaneous parts of it are judiciously compiled. The Account of Books, however, appears to us to be a very unnecessary appendage to a publication of this nature, because it must, of necessity, be too brief to be satisfactory. In the present volume, it is confined to a review of three publications; a very able review, indeed, it is; but what idea can be formed of the state of literature in a country, from so slender a selection? Upon the whole, we have no hesitation in pronouncing the book before us to be the most able, and the most interesting of any work of the kind which we have yet seen. We are happy to find that the publishers have begun to carry their new plan, of accelerating the completion of their series of Registers, by publishing two volumes at once; that for 1801 appeared at the same time with the volume for 1793, and we propose to take an early opportunity of giving some account of it to our readers. POLITICS. A Letter to Mr. Whitbread, on the Duty of rescinding the Resolutions which preceded the Impeachment of Lord Viscount Melville. 8vo. Pr. 38. Hatchard. 1806. HAPPY were we to find that this able and spirited monitor had again taken up the pen to teach Mr. Whitbread, and some of his political associates, what they appear to be totally ignorant of-their public duty, daty. Mr. Whitbread has, of late, taken upon himself to become the monitor of others, when there is not a public man in the kingdo a who stands in so much need of admonition as himself. If the spirit of party had not subdued all sense of duty, all notions of right and justice, in the Last House of Commons, that caput mortuum, of which we may now speak truth without the danger of being prosecuted for a libel, or rather, without the risk of being punished without prosecution, because we supppose it has no feeling which can be hurt, -never could have given, in its condut on the subject in question, that blow. to the justice of the country, which every man who loves either justice or his country must deplore to the latest hour of his existence;-that House could never have suffered its dissolution to take place, without affording every reparation in its power to the object of its persecution, and to the insulted laws of the realm. Strong as the language which we have heretofore used to reprobate the monstrous iniquity of proceeding to the condemnation of any British sub ject without hearing him, and of inflicting punishment without a trid, it was totally inadequate to convey a just sense of the indignation which av felt on the subject, and which every man who has the sense to appreciate the distribution of impartial justice, ought to feel. What then can we say of any body or assemblage of individuals, who, after having so acted, hears their premature and illegal sentence revoked by the highest tribunal in the realm, and yet has not the decency, the honesty, we will say the persons composing it were our representatives, and as free men we have a right so to speak to them-to take any one step for repairing the injury which they had done, the injustice which they had committed! As to the individual to whom this Letter is addressed, he is justly considered as a humble and weak instrument in the hands of more potent, but more artful, partisans ;-humble, we mean, in his talents, though proud and self-sufficient enough, Heaven knows, in his own estimate of those talents;-weak in proof, though strong in assertion. We confess that we have not such an opinion of him as to believe that he will profit by the excellent advice which is here given him, or that he will take in good part the severe chastisement which is here inflicted on him. "The bulk of the people thought you were fighting their battles; and the great mass of opinion was, for a time, on your side. When any set of men, forming themselves into a party, profess to march forth in array against corruption-though all the time they are going out only to fight for themselves-they are sure to have the huzza of the croud in their favour. The minds of the multitude are not made for penetration :--they Whoever see, generally, just as much as you shew them, and no more. has art enough-and it requires no great deal"-(it requires more dishonesty than art)" to separate their passions from their understanding, may easily lead them astray. But truth will, by degrees, win her way through the croud. The thinking few will at length convert the thonghtless many; and the iron neck of prejudice will bend itself to the yoke of reason." It affords us some consolation, that we have acted as pioneers to truth, by labouring hard to remove the obstructions which prejudice, interest, and persecution, had thrown in her way, as well in the case of LORD MELVILLE as in that of COLONEL PICTON. Happily, in espousing the cause of men under prosecution, out of place, and loaded with popular calumay, |