In observing the frank and earnest way in which witnesses replied to the questions put to them-in seeing persons of the first station in society appearing in the witness-box as a matter of course, the Count declares that he was bitterly reminded of the contrasted condition of his own country in the eighteenth century, when the administration of the laws was so mercenary, and so degraded, that there was universally amongst the people a horror of a tribunal-a terror-a shame-and even a scruple at appearing as a witness before a judge. Some of the strange inconsistencies, however, which disfigure our law, did not fail to strike the ingenuous mind of the Italian. He seemed to be particularly confounded when he heard the particulars of a case of prosecution, in which it was clearly proved that the prisoner had stolen a pocket handkerchief, and that the handkerchief was worth the sum of five shillings. The jury, however, under the necessary persuasion that the article purloined was of the value of five shilÎings, actually returned on their oaths an estimate of its being worth no more than one shilling! To us, such scenes as these are not remarkable; we are accustomed to them, but in the eyes of a foreigner, who is authorized to expect so much perfection in the administration of British justice, a spectacle like this cannot fail to place us in the most humiliating condition. But even an abuse so glaring as this, appears to have been speedily forgotten by the observing traveller, in witnessing the expedition with which the process of ascertaining the guilt of a prisoner was concluded. He saw at once the vast difference in all its bearings between the simple, and yet effectual course of English law, and the tedious and oppressive one which is still allowed to exist in Italy:

In the criminal causes there are never those skeins of interrogatorics which I once saw in Italy mount up, in a case of assassination, to at least thirty volumes in folio, of three hundred pages each. The English, luckily for them, have not that race of notaries, whose trade consists in exhausting the patience and the lungs of prisoners and witnesses, and driving them into confusion and fainting-fits, with interminable constituti and redarguizioni (settled points, and points to be cleared up). This is the fruit we have gathered from the immortal works of Beccaria, Filangieri, and Marco Pagano: England, on the contrary, without having had the glory of producing those luminaries of criminal science,* discovered, by the help of good sense alone, two principles, publicity and the jury, by means of which she enjoys a rapid, liberal, and impartial administration of justice.'-pp. 391, 392.

The custom of publicly attending the chief place of worship, where they sojourn on each Sunday by the going judges of

* Blackstone, although a great writer, is only a commentator on a legislation which preceded him."

assize, is one which obtains a warm and highly merited eulogium from the Count. Nothing, indeed, is more obviously the duty of a government than to endeavour to increase the sanctions under which the people are called on to obey good laws. In creed, the Count does not sympathize with that of the British nation, but it is no ill proof of the charity of that which he has adopted, if it prompt him to acknowledge the value of systems from which he differs. He acknowledges that the spectacle of the judges at church, presented, as it was amidst the venerable architecture of the cathedral, and whilst the pealing anthem echoed through its ancient walls, affected him to the very soul, and induced him to pay respect to those religious rites, which, under other circumstances, might have moved his laughter.

The chapters on the chief sectarian bodies which Count Pecchio had an opportunity of observing in this country, are much less to our taste than the other portions of the volume. He was quite astonished to find that those who adhered to the Arian heresy, under the name of Unitarians, had forms and shapes, had souls and bodies like other men,-such were the preposessions by which his youthful mind had been abused by nursery tales respecting the Arians.

He appears to have examined impartially into the Unitarian doctrine, and that too with some profit to himself, inasmuch as he has come to the conclusion that there is, after all, but little difference between a Unitarian and a Christian philosopher. Proceeding to the other sects in succession, he gives a description of their origin-particularly that of the Methodists, Ranters, Jumpers, &c. His curiosity was unbounded, and he was gratified, in many instances, by having the fullest opportunities of witnessing the ceremonies peculiar to sectarian worship. His encounter with the Quakers gave rise to some ludicrous incidents which we cannot withhold from the reader. It should be premised, that the Count, upon his introduction to Mr. Fry, the rich Quaker, was invited by that hospitable citizen to dine upon a certain day, at his brother-inlaw's, Mr. Buxton, M. P. The host desired the Count to ask for him (Mr. F.) on his arrival at the house, in order that he might be presented in the usual way. The sequel must be told in the Count's own words:

'At six o'clock precisely, I give a sonorous knock at the door of Mr. Buxton's house; the servant, thinking me one of the guests, opens the door, and shows me the way to the dining-room, and I, believing it so arranged by Mr. Fry, enter with all confidence and intrepidity; when, behold! I find myself in the midst of a great number of guests at table, with no Mr. Fry to be seen. Such a mishap might disconcert anybody, and especially one who spoke English rather ill, and yet ought by rights to justify, by the finest phrases of the Galateo, his extemporaneous appearance among unknown and astonished individuals. But what would not his surprise have been at finding himself, as I did, in the midst of t VOL. IV. NO. 1. (1833.)

C

smoke of the viands, and several blazing candles, in the presence of a number of ladies, uniformly dressed, after the fashion of nuns, with handkerchiefs like the tuckers they wear, with countenances smooth as mirrors, untouched by the passions, and of four men, with their faces covered with paint, great rings dangling from their ears, others still larger from their noses, and a dress of many colours, covered all over with chains and Spanish dollars? But there was no time to turn an absolute statue for astonishment,-for these gentle ladies, with a smile still more sweet than that which is usually seen on the countenances of Englishwomen, and manner still more familiar, invited me, each more pressingly than another, to seat myself at table. Had I been in Italy, I should have believed the party some pleasant masquerade; but in England, truly I could not guess what it could possibly be. While I was guessing where I could have got to, acknowledging the many kind offers of the ladies, and eyeing those four kings-of-cards sort of faces, Mr. Fry arrived and explained the mistake which the guests might believe I had committed: and it is now my turn to explain the enigma of those four extraordinary table companions. The gentlemen who had so many things dangling from their ears and noses, were four chiefs of Indian tribes in Canada, assuming to themselves the title of kings, who had arrived a short time before in London, to complain before their brother the King of England, of some unjust proceedings of the Governor of Canada;-the ladies were Quakeresses, and among them was the celebrated Mrs. Fry, who, to benevolence and information, unites a solemn, peaceful, and majestic aspect. This is the somewhat singular manner in which I made the acquaintance of this lady-friend,* who, as is well known, has, by her example, established a society of missionaries, who preach in the prisons of the women in confinement.

Every mystery cleared up, and legally installed at the table, I took part, without reserve, in the general good-humour.'-pp. 459-463.

He

Shortly afterwards, Count Pecchio obtained permission to become one of the audience, on an occasion when Mrs. Fry preached one of her sermons to the prisoners of Newgate. does not, however, seem to conclude that much practical advantage is derived from her eloquence, as the culprits to whom she chiefly directed her discourse, showed any other than symptoms of compunction, or of a disposition to amendment. After paying a very handsome compliment to the heroic merits of Mrs. Fry, the Count expands the application of his eulogy to the Society of Friends in general, and justly awards to them the praise of consistency in the cause of morality and philanthropy.

A considerable portion of the concluding pages of the volume, are devoted to the consideration of the condition of lunatics in England. The views of the Count upon this extremely difficult question, are marked by soundness of judgment and great benevolence. Indeed, good sense, moderation, impartiality, and a love

* The Quakers call their sect "The Society of Friends." I should not have made use of the name Quaker, which in English is a term of little respect, were it not the name by which these sectaries are known in Italy.'

of his kind, without distinction of country or religion, are the characteristics of the Count, which manifest themselves almost in every one of his pages. However he may differ from us in opinion as to the religious condition of this country at present, he has at least endeavoured to render us a great act of justice, by assuring his continental friends and their countrymen, that our toleration of religious freedom does not extend, as is by some supposed, to either atheists, or deists, or ostentatious infidels. It is true we do not burn them for the sin of disbelief-nor have we auto-de-fe's to punish the obstinacy of heretics; but there is sufficient good taste in the better circles of England, not to allow of such things amongst them as a strumpet for a goddess of reason, or a Voltaire for the apostle of their souls.

ART. II.-Memoirs of Dr. Burney, arranged from his own Manuscripts, from Family Papers, and from Personal Recollections. By his Daughter, MADAME D'ARBLAY. 3 Vols. 8vo. London: Moxon. 1832.

No generous mind will refuse to lament with us the series of domestic afflictions which retarded for an unusually protracted term the publication of the present memoir. Dr. Burney's death took place in 1814; he had left ample materials for an authentic account of his life and actions, having commenced, at so remote a period as 1782, to form materials for that purpose. The active employments in which he was engaged as a professional man, prevented him from systematically pursuing the plan of a continuous record, and he confined himself for a considerable interval to a few memorandums concerning himself. In the year 1807, having reached the venerable age of eighty-one years, he entered upon the composition of sundry volumes, illustrative of the events of his own life. Frequently had he, in his latter days, expressed a strong inclination that the history of his life should be given to the world; and, to the distinguished daughter who, by her genius, has conferred such an exalted reputation on her family, the task was conceded by the general consent of all its members, of arranging the materials of that history.

The perusal of a few pages only of this memoir, will furnish to the reader ample reasons to make him rejoice, that the important trust of historian to her father, was not confided to other hands than those of Madame D'Arblay. It will be found that, instead of limiting herself to the confines of the small area, as it were, which is constituted by the single career of Dr. Burney, the memorialist, as she modestly entitles herself, has expatiated in new regions of interest, has indulged in copious details, and given illustrations of events and characters and manners, which, whilst they

form a most valuable portion of the contents of these volumes, are yet in strict association with the chief theme to which the work is ostensibly devoted. Nor will the reader be displeased at finding that no inconsiderable portion of this supplemental matter is dedicated to Madame D'Arblay herself. And that this should be so, will be at once evident to those who remember that it was in her, in her talents, and her accomplishments, that the glory of the Burney family was concentrated. Extensive as were the claims of Dr. Burney on the admiration of his posterity, yet it cannot be denied that the splendour with which his name is still surrounded, has been, in a great measure, borrowed from the light of his daughter's genius. If the intimacy of the Burneys was sought for by the great and the eminent, if wits and philosophers, statesmen and scholars, gathered in unprecedented numbers around the board of Dr. Burney, it was not the musician that was courted, but the fortunate father of an intellectual prodigy. Madame D'Arblay, to her eternal honour, seeks, all through the work, to place herself in the back ground of the picture, whilst her father, and the characters whom after him she most values, are presented to us in the boldest colours, and under the advantages of the most intense relief. She labours to cripple the story of her own adventures into the insignificant form of an episode, interwoven amidst the materials of the principle story. But, as the sequel will prove, the memoir, in spite of her own humility, and of that tender filial attachment, which would always yield a preference to her father, turns out, in practice, to be no less than a curious. history of a celebrated family, of which Madame D'Arblay was the true heroine.

It appears to us, on a careful perusal of these volumes, that the authoress, in the commencement of the work, had not been sufficiently inoculated with the spirit which, in the subsequent part, shines out so warmly, and yet so gracefully. The force of veteran habit seems to have exercised an unlimited controul over her mind at the outset, for the first volume bears undoubted marks of that sort of artificial management of the materials in hand, to which an experienced manufacturer of romantic incident would most likely have recourse. This volume is, in consequence, a perfect curiosity, for the subject of the memoir is treated throughout its pages, not as a plain, downright man of the world, engaged in the vulgar business of life, as was really the case, but altogether as a swain of the most unobjectionable pretensions to all the privileges and immunities that have been conceded for centuries to the Charleses, the Belmores, and the Valancourts of the Minerva press. The history of her father's first courtship-the moral effect which it produced upon him, and the nature of his habits before and after his matrimonial enterprize, are wrought up by the memorialist with a dramatic skill, and a degree of scenic effect, as complete as if the whole were an ideal tale conjured up by the