the manner observed and objected to in our great actor, Mr. Kean. His hair was of a dark dusky brown, scattered thinly over his temples: the crown of his head was bald. One of the names of affection given him of late by his soldiers is 'notre petit tondu.' He was not fat in the upper part of his body, but projected considerably in the abdomen, so much so, that his linen appeared beneath his waistcoat. He generally stood with his hands knit behind or folded before him, but sometimes unfolded them: played with his nose; took snuff three or four times, and looked at his watch. He seemed to have a labouring in his chest, sighing or swallowing his spittle. He very seldom spoke, but when he did, smiled, in some sort agreeably. He looked about him, not knitting but joining his eye-brows as if to see more minutely, and went through the whole tedious ceremony with an air of sedate impatience. As the front columns of each regiment passed him, he lifted the first finger of his left hand quickly to his hat, to return the salute, but did not move either his hat or his head. As the regiments advanced, they shouted, some loudly, some feebly, vive l'Empereur,' and many soldiers ran out of their ranks with petitions, which were taken by the grenadier on the Emperor's left hand: once or twice, the petitioner, afraid to quit his rank, was near losing his opportunity, when Napoleon beckoned to the grenadier to step forward and take his paper. A little child, in true French taste, tricked out in regimentals, marched before one of the bands, and a general laugh ensued. Napoleon contrived to talk to some one behind him at that moment, that the ridicule might not reach, nor be partaken by him. A second child, however, of six years old perhaps, dressed out with a beard like a pioneer, marching in front of a regiment, strode directly up to him with a petition on the end of a battle-axe, which the Emperor took and read very complacently. Shortly after an ill-looking fellow, in a half suit of regimentals, with a sword by his side, ran from the crowd of spectators, opposite or from amidst the national guards, I could not see which, and rushed directly towards the Emperor. He was within arm's length, when the grenadier on the left and an officer jumped forwards, and seizing him by the collar, pushed him farther back. Napoleon did not move a muscle of his body; not a line, not a shade of his face shifted for an instant. Perfectly unstartled, he beckoned the soldiers to loose their prisoner; and the poor fellow approaching so close as almost to touch his person in front, talked to him for some time with eager gestures, and his hand on his heart. The Emperor heard him without interruption, and then gave him an answer, which sent him away apparently much satisfied with his audience. I see Napoleon at this moment. The unruffled calmness of his countenance, at the first movement of the soldier, relaxing softly into a look of attention and of kindness, will never be erased from my memory. We are not stocks, nor stones, nor tories. I am not ashamed to say, that on recovering from my first surprise, I found my eyes somewhat moistened; a weakness that never fails to overpower some persons, when alone and unrestrained by

ridicule,

ridicule, at the perusal of any trait of unmixed heroism, especially of that undaunted tranquillity of mind, which formed and finished the master-spirits of antiquity." Vol. I. P. 36.

The anecdote thus pompously introduced, appears in our minds nothing very heroical or uncommon. The author of these Letters would insinuate that he is a whig. We doubt if he be an Englishman; but if he be, we envy not the feelings of Whiggism. Not the thousands, and the hundreds of thousands of lives, which have been offered upon the altar of demoniacal ambition, not all the horrors of a Russian campaign, not all the protracted miseries of a twenty years war, could call forth a single tear from the feeling specimen of Whiggism. His tear started not for the human blood that was shed, but for love of him that shed it. If this be Whiggism: we are, and we trust that we ever shall be "stocks, stones, and tories."

Our author is most indignant that the character of his idol should ever have been held up in England to public detestation; he expresses in the tenderest terms his feelings of affection for the poor injured emperor, feelings, which do equal credit to his understanding and to his heart.

"The children of the present generation have been taught to start at the name of Bonaparte as if he was in the bush; our colJcges and academies have given prizes to those who could best pourtray his crimes. The painter has sketched a countenance to correspond with the fancied features of treason, murder, cruelty, and pride. Not the terrors of a degenerate Roman could have beheld the imp-begotten Attila under an aspect so hideous. The pious from their pulpit prayed for that resignation, patience, and humility, under this scourge of God, which were recommended from the benches of parliament as the true christian virtues necessary for those who were to be borne along without a murmur by the current of events, to bear all trial of taxation, and to be content with the mean instruments through whom (the help and cunning of man being altogether of no avail) they might, in the appointed time and hour, work out their salvation. Such was the general feeling; to be insensible to which was looked upon as the proof of an hardened mind, perverted by, or perhaps already associated with, wickedness." Vol. I. P. 5.

Our author seems especially enraged that any murder, assassination, or cruelty, should be imputed to such a lamb of tenderness and innocence.

"It was in vain that the imputed poisonings, and assassination of single captives, became an idle tale, abandoned by those who gave to them their original credit. The Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, was still to be charged with withdrawing from his throne and his myriads in arms,

to

to strangle an unarmed British sailor: and it was still to be accounted a want of patriotism for an Englishman to regard him in any other light than the murderer of his countryman." Vol. I. P. 7.

If in his retreat, the General (Buonaparte, we mean) should cast his eye upon the volumes before us, we should think that he would be somewhat amused at the intrepid assertions of his worthy admirer and friend: that he would smile at the trouble which our author takes so undauntedly to deny, what he himself has more than once actually confessed.

From the gross and unqualified abuse of Lord Castlereagh, Lord Grenville, Mr. Grattan, and even of Mr. Burke himself, all parties alike (excepting the Buonapartists) falling under his lash, we should imagine that the author cannot be an Englishman, but some satellite of the Jacobinised Imperialists, who having failed in accomplishing sufficient mischief in France, is sent to try his hand, under the patronage of some good friends, in England. But a worse instrument could not have been selected. He appears to have been merely a bye-stander amidst the events he describes, nor to have any share in the transactions beyond that of any caffé politician. His descriptions, therefore, are always ignorant, often inaccurate. Turgid in his style, confined in his views, feeble in his conceptions, noisy in his abuse, and most tyrannical in his dogmatism, he cannot fail of amusing those whom he would wish to irritate, and of disgusting those whom he would hope to influence.

Subjoined to the second volume are a few official documents, manifestos, state papers, &c. which we consider as the most valuable part of the work, as they are uncontaminated with the boisterous flippancy, and the unprincipled presumption of the author; who, we repeat our persuasion, must be a Frenchman, and a Frenchman of the worst order-one who would gladly see his country consigned first to revolutionary anarchy, and call it liberty, then to military despotism, and call it glory.

As one specimen more of the principles and temper exhibited throughout the whole, we shall extract the author's account of the entry of the King into Paris. We shall not throw away our time in correcting the mis-statements, or in combating the bad principles with which it abounds.

"So entirely was I wrapt up in the persuasion, that the truth of the present state of feeling in France, need only be seen to carry to any mind the conviction of the injustice and impolicy of bearing back the Bourbons in triumph, over the trampled necks of Frenchmen, that I was bold enough to suppose a representation of facts, however faintly and imperfectly drawn, might not be totally lost even upon Lord Castlereagh, and might arrest his attention sufficiently to make him wait for better authority before he

proceeded

proceeded to decide. The contemplation of some such effort, desperate as you will think it when directed against the statesman who, three weeks before Louis decamped from his dominions, wondered at his majesty's surprising progress in popularity, had, however, entered into my head, and I was employed in the act of softening down the ridicule of an individual imploring mercy for eight and twenty millions, and praying for reprieve, if not for pardon, when loud acclamations called me into the street, and saved me all further labour in vain, by presenting to me another revolution of handkerchiefs, and that triumph, which is so much the more easily and suddenly displayed, as every one carries an emblem of the party in his pocket. In short, a battallion of the national guards were passing with white flags, to the shouts of Vive le Roi, The streets were lined with the same troops, in white cockades; not a national colour was to be seen; the white flag was floating on the column of the grand army, and the windows glittered with women and white linen. My eyes were scarcely disenchanted, until I saw the Moniteur, with its former designationagain the only official journal; and read in that paper two ordonnances of Louis, by the grace of God, king of France and Navarre ; dated the 21st year of his reign. The same king, I saw, was to enter Paris about three o'clock in the afternoon.

"Napoleon is overthrown at the battle of Waterloo; he is compelled to abdicate by the representatives of the people. The conquerors arrive at the capital, to which they grant honourable terms of surrender, and respect the independence of an unfortunate nation. The Duke of Wellington, and the whole English army, behave with a moderation more noble than their victory. The sovereigns promise solemnly to adhere to their declarations. The friends of freedom cherish every hope. Lord Castlereagh arrives; the curtain rises at once, and displays the triumphant personages of the drama, unmasked, and in the attitude of revenge and rage; whilst France appears, a conquered culprit, in chains, bound to the altar, and waiting for the blow. Her government is dissolved by force; her representatives are driven from their seats; the glittering ensigns of her former glory are torn down, and displaced by the banner of treason and disgrace, the pale memorial of defeat and slavery. The monarch who, if private virtues do not interfere with a policy too likely to be pursued, may exercise the despotism of a domestic master, and the severity of a foreign conqueror, may treat her children as slavishly as if they were his own, and as unsparingly as if they did not belong to him,-is re-armed with authority, and intrusted with the infliction of every punishment, which is rendered more intolerable as it follows upon the hope of pardon, and the mockery of reprieve. It was reserved for the return of the father of his people, to inform the inhabitants of Paris that they are put into the hands of a Prussian governor, a General Muffling, who tells them so in a proclamation, which is couched in terms of menace;

and

and which appears by the side of the two ordonnances of the restored monarch, denouncing vengeance on the culpable, and restoring all the corrupt authorities of his former reign. It was reserved for the day of his entry that the palaces of his ancestors should be defiled by the barbarians of the north-that the streets, the bridges, the avenues, of his capital should groan under the weight of foreign cannon. And under whose influence, at whose bidding, does this fatal change in the conduct of the conquerors appear to have been commanded? Is it only from a coincidence, that it has taken place at the arrival of the minister of that government, which made an exception to an article of the treaty of Vienna, because that article appeared to imply an interference with, and an aggression upon, the national independence of France? Is it from a coincidence only, that on the appearance of the apostle of good faith and sincerity, of the master of the only moral cabinet of Europe, the ferocity of a Blucher is at once let loose in violation of all honour and honesty, of former promises and recent stipulations? Vol. II. P. 154.

ART. V. Glenarvon, a Novel. 3 vols. 12mo. 11. 4s. Colburn. 1816.

As the tale before us has excited much attention in the higher circles, our readers will justly expect some account of so strange a production. Its authoress is avowed to be a lady of very high rauk, whose life has been passed amidst the scenes of dissipation and vice which she now describes. By a certain privilege allowed to novellists, the lady in question has made herself the heroine of her own tale, and has drawn her own character under that of Calantha. Under the title of Glenarvon, a certain noble Lord is said to be pourtrayed, and we are told that the resemblance is a striking one. Be it who it may, there are strong and sad reasons to suppose that the character is not overcharged, but that the measure of its iniquity is full.

It may now be supposed that we should abridge the tale, and present our readers with some account of the leading incidents in this extraordinary work; but we shall spare ourselves the misery of transcribing, and them the horror of reading one continued series of vice and misery. It is not that the descriptions are too highly coloured; it is not that the words themselves. would raise a blush; but it is that the incidents, even when clothed in all the frowning solemnity of modern debauchery, are such as would rend the heart of the innocent, and strengthen the guilt of the profligate. For the young and innocent to dwell upon

scenes