do not remember ever to have read any thing |--being often caught sobbing over the patho much more absurd than this-and that the of Richardson, or laughing at the humour of puerility and folly of the classical intrusions Cervantes, with an unrestrained vehemence is even less offensive, than the heap of incon- which reminds us of that of Voltaire. He gruous metaphors by which the meaning is spoke very slow, both in public and private, obscured. Does the learned author really and was remarkably scrupulous in his choice mean to contend, that the metaphors here of words: He slept very little, and, like Johnadd either force or beauty to the sentiment? son, was always averse to retire at nightor that Bacon or Milton ever wrote any thing lingering long after he arose to depart-and, in like this upon such a topic? In his happier his own house, often following one of his guests moments, and more vehement adjurations, to his chamber, and renewing the conversation Mr. C. is often beyond all question a great for an hour. He was habitually abstinent and and commanding orator; and we have no temperate; and, from his youth up, in spite of doubt was, to those who had the happiness all his vivacity, the victim of a constitutional of hearing him, a much greater orator than melancholy. His wit is said to have been ready the mere readers of his speeches have any and brilliant, and altogether without gall. means of conceiving:-But we really cannot But the credit of this testimony is somewhat help repeating our protest against a style of weakened by a little selection of his bons composition which could betray its great mas- mots, with which we are furnished in a note. ter, and that very frequently, into such pas- The greater part, we own, appear to us to be sages as those we have just extracted. The rather vulgar and ordinary; as, when a man mischief is not to the master-whose genius of the name of Halfpenny was desired by the could efface all such stains, and whose splen- Judge to sit down, Mr. C. said, "I thank your did successes would sink his failures in obli- Lordship for having at last nailed that rap to vion-but to the pupils, and to the public, the counter;" or, when observing upon the whose taste that very genius is thus instru- singular pace of a Judge who was lame, he mental in corrupting. If young lawyers are said, "Don't you see that one leg goes before, taught to consider this as the style which like a tipstaff, to make room for the other?" should be aimed at and encouraged, to ren--or, when vindicating his countrymen from der Judges benevolent,-by comparing them the charge of being naturally vicious, he said, to "the sweet-souled Cimon," and the "gal-"He had never yet heard of an Irishman being lant Epaminondas;" or to talk about their born drunk." The following, however, i Own "young and slender tapers," and "the clouds and the morning sun," with what precious stuff will the Courts and the country be infested! It is not difficult to imitate the defects of such a style-and of all defects they are the most nauseous in imitation. Even in the hands of men of genius, the risk is, that the longer such a style is cultivated, the more extravagant it will grow,-just as those who deal in other means of intoxication, are tempted to strengthen the mixture as they proceed. The learned and candid author before us, testifies this to have been the progress of Mr. C. himself-and it is still more strikingly illustrated by the history of his models and imitators. Mr. Burke had much less of this extravagance than Mr. Grattan Mr. Grattan much less than Mr. Curran-and Mr. Curran much less than Mr. Phillips.-It is really of some importance that the climax should be closed, somewhere.

There is a concluding chapter, in which Mr. C.'s skill in cross-examination, and his conversational brilliancy, are commemorated; as well as the general simplicity and affability of his manners, and his personal habits and peculiarities. He was not a profound lawyer, nor much of a general scholar, though reasonably well acquainted with all the branches of polite literature, and an eager reader of novels

good-"I can't tell you, Curran," observed an Irish nobleman, who had voted for the Union, "how frightful our old House of Commons appears to me." "Ah! my Lord," replied the other, "it is only natural for Mur derers to be afraid of Ghosts;"—and this is at least grotesque. "Being asked what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue? Answer-I suppose he's trying to catch the English accent." In his last illness, his physi cian observing in the morning that he seemed to cough with more difficulty, he answered, "that is rather surprising, as I have been practising all night."

But these things are of little consequence. Mr. Curran was something much better than a sayer of smart sayings. He was a lover of his country-and its fearless, its devoted, and indefatigable servant. To his energy and talents she was perhaps indebted for some mitigation of her sufferings in the days of her extremity-and to these, at all events, the public has been indebted, in a great degree, for the knowledge they now have of her wrongs; and for the feeling which that knowledge has excited, of the necessity of granting them redress. It is in this character that he must have most wished to be remembered, and in which he has most deserved it.

(November, 1822.)

witzerland, or a Journal of a Tour and Residence in that Country in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819. Followed by an Historical Sketch of the Manners and Customs of Ancient and Modern Helvetia, in which the Events of our own time are fully detailed; together with the Causes to which they may be referred. By L. SIMOND, Author of Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain during the Years 1810 and 1811. In 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1822.* M. SIMOND is already well known in this accordingly, in all his moral and political obcountry as the author of one of the best ac- servations at least, a constant alternation of counts of it that has ever been given to the romantic philanthropy and bitter sarcasm-of world, either by native or foreigner-the full- the most captivating views of apparent hapest certainly, and the most unprejudiced-piness and virtue, and the most relentless disand containing the most faithful descriptions closures of actual guilt and misery-of the both of the aspect of our country, and the peculiarities of our manners and character, that has yet come under our observation. There are some mistakes, and some rash judgments; but nothing can exceed the candour of the estimate, or the fairness and independence of spirit with which it is made; while the whole is pervaded by a vein of original thought, always sagacious, and not unfrequently profound. The main fault of that book, as a work of permanent interest and instruction, which it might otherwise have been, is the too great space which is alloted to the tranBient occurrences and discussions of the time to which it refers-most of which have already lost their interest, and not only read like old news and stale politics, but have extended their own atmosphere of repulsion to many admirable remarks and valuable suggestions, of which they happen to be the vehicles.

sweetest and most plausible illusions, and the most withering and chilling truths. He expatiates, for example, through many pages, on the heroic valour and devoted patriotism of the old Helvetic worthies, with the memorials of which the face of their country is covered-and then proceeds to dissect their character and manners with the most cruel particularity, and makes them out to have been most barbarous, venal, and unjust. In the same way, he bewitches his readers with seducing pictures of the peace, simplicity, independence, and honesty of the mountain villagers; and by and by takes occasion to tell us, that they are not only more stupid, but more corrupt than the inhabitants of cities. He eulogises the solid learning and domestic habits that prevail at Zurich and Geneva; and then makes it known to us that they are infested with faction and ennui. He draws a delightful picture of the white cottages and smiling pastures in which the cheerful peasants of the Engadine have their romantic habitations-and then casts us down from our elevation without the least pity, by informing us, that the best of them are those who have returned from hawking stucco parrots, sixpenny looking-glasses, and coloured sweetmeats through all the towns of Europe. He is always strong for liberty, and indignant at oppression-but cannot settle very well in what liberty consists; and seems to suspect, at last, that political rights are oftener a source of disorder than of comfort; and that if person and property are tolerably secure, it is mere quixotism to look further.

The work before us is marked by the same excellences, and is nearly free from the faults to which we have just alluded. In spite of this, however-perhaps even in consequence of it-we suspect it will not generally be thought so entertaining; the scene being necessarily so much narrower, and the persons of the drama fewer and less diversified. The work, however, is full of admirable description and original remark:-nor do we know any book of travels, ancient or modern, which Contains, in the same compass, so many graphic and animated delineations of external objects, or so many just and vigorous observations on the moral phenomena it records. The most remarkable thing about it, however and it occurs equally in the author's former So strong a contrast of warm. feelings and publication-is the singular combination of cold reasonings, such animating and such deenthusiasm and austerity that appears both in spairing views of the nature and destiny of the descriptive, and the reasoning or ethical mankind, are not often to be found in the same parts of the performance-the perpetual strug-mind-and still less frequently in the same gle that seems to exist between the feelings book: And yet they amount but to an extreme and fancy of the author, and the sterner in-case, or strong example, of the inconsistencies timations of his understanding. There is,

I reprint a part of this paper:-partly out of love to the memory of the author, who was my connection and particular friend:-but chiefly for the sake of his remarks on our English manners, and my judgment on these remarks-which I would venture to submit to the sensitive patriots of America, as a specimen of the temperance with which the pa. triots of other countries can deal with the censors of their national habits and pretensions to fine breeding.

through which all men of generous tempers and vigorous understandings are perpetually passing, as the one or the other part of their constitution assumes the ascendant. There are many of our good feelings, we suspect, and some even of our good principles, that rest upon a sort of illusion; or cannot submit at least to be questioned by frigid reason, without being for the time a good deal dis countenanced and impaired-and this we take

be made."

The first view of the country, though no longer new to most readers, is given with a truth, and a freshness of feeling which we are tempted to preserve in an extract.

all at once upon the Canton de Vaud, and upon half Switzerland! a vast extent of undulating country, tufted woods and fields, and silvery streams and lakes; villages and towns, with their antique tow.

to be very clearly the case with M. Simond. [ of destruction-a savage enemy, speaking an un His temperament is plainly enthusiastic, and known language, with whom no compromise could his fancy powerful: But his reason is active and exacting, and his love of truth paramount to all other considerations. His natural sympathies are with all fine and all lofty qualities but it is his honest conviction, that happiness is most securely built of more vulgar "Soon after passing the frontiers of the two materials-and that there is even something countries, the view, heretofore bounded by near ob. ridiculous in investing our humble human na-jects, woods and pastures, rocks and snows, opened ture with these magnificent attributes. At all events it is impossible to doubt of his sincerity in both parts of the representation;— for there is not the least appearance of a love of paradox, or a desire to produce effect; anders, and their church-steeples shining in the sun. "The lake of Neuchâtel, far below on the left, nothing can be so striking as the air of candour and those of Morat and of Vienne, like mirrors set and impartiality that prevails through the in deep frames, contrasted by the tranquillity of whole work. If any traces of prejudice may grounds and ridges of the various landscape. Betheir lucid surfaces, with the dark shades and broken still be detected, they have manifestly sur-yond this vast extent of country, its villages and vived the most strenuous efforts to efface them. The strongest, we think, are against French character and English manners-with some, perhaps, against the French Revolution, and its late Imperial consummator. He is very prone to admire Nature-but not easily satisfied with Man; and, though most intolerant of intolerance, and most indulgent to those defects of which adventitious advantages make men most impatient, he is evidently of opinion that scarcely any thing is exactly as immutability, and duration without bounds; but it "The human mind thirsts after immensity and it should be in the present state of society-needs some tangible object from which to take its and that little more can be said for most flight,-something present to lead to futurity, someexisting habits and institutions, than that thing bounded from whence to rise to the infinite. they have been, and might have been, still This vault of the heavens over our head, sinking all terrestrial objects into absolute nothingness, pansion in the mind: But mere space is not a permight seem best fitted to awaken this sense of exceptible object to which we can readily apply scale, while the Alps, seen at a glance between heaven and earth-met as it were on the confines of the regions of fancy and of sober reality, are hand, and suggesting thoughts such as human lanthere like written characters, traced by a divine guage never reached.

worse.

He sets out for the most picturesque country of Europe, from that which is certainly the least so and gives the first indications of his sensitiveness on these topics, by a passing critique on the ancient châteaus of France, and their former inhabitants. We may as well introduce him to our readers with this passage as with any other.

"A few comfortable residences, scattered about the country, have lately put us in mind how very rare they are in general: Instead of them, you meet, not unfrequently, some ten or twenty miserable hovels, crowded together round what was formerly the stronghold of the lord of the manor; a narrow, dark, prison-like building, with small grated windows, embattled walls, and turrets peeping over thatched roofs. The lonely cluster seems unconnected with the rest of the country, and may be said to represent the feudal system, as plants in a hortus siccus do the vegetable. Long before the Revolu. tion, these châteaux had been mostly forsaken by their seigneurs, for the nearest country town; where Monsieur le Compte, or Monsieur le Marquis, decorated with the cross of St. Louis, made shift to live on his paltry seigniorial dues, and rents ill paid by a starving peasantry; spending his time in reminis cences of gallantry with the old dowagers of the place, who rouged and wore patches, dressed in hoops and high-heeled shoes, full four inches, and long pointed elbow-ruffles, balanced with lead. Not one individual of this good company knew any thing of what was passing in the world, or suspected that any change had taken place since the days of Louis XIV. No book found its way there; no one read, not even a newspaper. When the Revolution burst upon this inferior nobility of the provinces, it appeared to them like Attila and the Huns to the people of the fifth century-the Scourge of God, coming nobody knew whence, for the mere purpose

towns, woods, lakes, and mountains; beyond all terrestrial objects-beyond the horizon itself, rose long range of aërial forms, of the softest pale pink hue: These were the high Alps, the rampart of Italy-from Mont Blanc in Savoy, to the glaciers of the Overland, and even further. Their angle of elevation seen from this distance is very small indeed. Faithfully represented in a drawing, the effect would be insignificant; but the aerial perspective amply restored the proportions lost in the mathematical perspective.

Coming down the Jura, a long descent brought us to what appeared a plain, but which proved a varied country with hills and dales, divided into neat enclosures of hawthorn in full bloom, and large hedge-row trees, mostly walnut, oak, and ash. It had altogether very much the appearance of the most beautiful parts of England, although the enclosures were on a smaller scale, and the cottages less neat and ornamented. They differed entirely from France, where the dwellings are always collected in villages, the fields all open, and without trees. Numerous streams of the clearest water crossed the road, and watered very fine meadows, The houses, built of stone, low, broad, and massy, either thatched or covered with heavy wooden shin gles, and shaded with magnificent walnut trees, might all have furnished studies to an artist."

Vol. i. pp. 25-27.

The following, however, is more characteristic of the author's vigorous and familiar, but somewhat quaint and abrupt, style of description.

"Leaving our equipages at Ballaigne, we proceeded to the falls of the Orbe, through a hanging wood of fine old oaks, and came, after a long descent, to a place where the Orbe breaks through a great mass of ruins. which, at some very remote period, have fallen from the mountain, and entirely obstructed its channel. All the earth, and all the smaller fragments, having long since disappeared. and the water now works its way, with great noise

serve in their intercourse with the people, are not | In short, the friends of Geneva, among ot a moder by any means at variance with the assertion; for that external simplicity and affability to inferiors is one of the characteristics of the aristocratic government; all assumption of superiority being carefully avoided when real authority is not in question. Zurich suggests the idea of a municipal aristocracy; Berne of a warlike one there, we think we see citizens of a town transformed into nobility; here nobles who have made themselves citizens.'

:

Vol. i. pp. 213-217.*

English travellers, are not numerous though they are select. These last distinguished themselves during the late hard winter by their bounty to the poor-not the poor of Geneva, who were sufficiently assisted by their richer countrymen, but those of Savoy, who were literally starving. If English travellers no longer appear in the same light as for merly, it is because it is not the same class of peo ple who go abroad, but all classes, and not the best of all classes, either. They know this too, and say it themselves; they feel the ridicule of their enor mous numbers, and of the absurd conduct of many of them. They are ashamed and provoked; describe it with the most pointed irony, and tell many a hu morous story against themselves. Formerly, the travelling class was composed of young men of after leaving the University, went the tour of the good family and fortune, just coming of age, who, Continent under the guidance of a learned tutor, often a very distinguished man, or of men of the same class, at a more advanced age, with their families, who, after many years spent in professional duties at home, came to visit again the countries they had seen in their youth, and the friends they had known there. In those better times, when no Englishman left his country either to seek his fortune, to save money, or to hide himself; when travellers of that nation were all very rich or very learned; of high birth, yet liberal principles; unbounded in their generosity, and with means equal to the inclination, their high standing in the world might well be accounted for; and it is a great pity they should have lost it. Were I an Englishman, I would not set out on my travels until the new fashion were over."-Vol. i. pp. 356-359.

At Schaffhausen, again, he observes,

But we must now hasten from the Physical wonders of this country to some of the author's Moral observations; and we are tempted to give the first place to his unsparing but dispassionate remarks on the character of modern English travellers. At Geneva, he observes, “English travellers swarm here, as everywhere else; but they do not mix with the society of the country more than they do elsewhere, and seem to like it even less. The people of Geneva, on the other hand, say, Their former friends, the English, are so changed they scarcely know them again. They used to be a plain downright race, in whom a certain degree of sauvagerie (oddity and shyness) only served to set off the advantages of a highly cultivated understanding, of a liberal mind, and generous temper, which characterised them in general. Their young men were often rather wild, but soon reformed, and became like their fathers. Instead of this, we now see (they say) a mixed assemblage, of whom lamentably few possess any of those qualities we were wont to admire in their predecessors. Their former shyness and reserve is changed to disdain and rudeness. If you seek these modern English, they keep aloof, do not mix in conversation, and seem to laugh at you. Their conduct, still more strange and unaccountable in regard to each other, is indicative of contempt or suspicion. Studiously avoiding to exchange a word with their countrymen, one would suppose they expected to find a sharper in every individual of their own nation, not particularly introduced,-or at best a person beneath them. Accordingly you cannot vex or displease them more than by inviting other English travellers to meet them, whom they may be compelled afterwards to acknowledge. If they do not find a crowd, they are tired. If you speak of the old English you formerly knew, that was before the Flood! If you talk of books, it is pedantry, and they yawn; of politics, they run wild about Bonaparte! Dancing is the only thing which is sure to please them. At the sound of the fiddle, the think-l'Anglaise. ing nation starts up at once. Their young people are adepts in the art; and take pains to become so, spending half their time with the dancing master You may know the houses where they live by the scraping of the fiddle, and shaking of the floor, which disturbs their neighbours. Few bring letters; and yet they complain they are neglected by the good company, and cheated by innkeepers. The Tatter, accustomed to the Milords Anglais of former times, or at least having heard of them, think they may charge accordingly; but only find des Anglais pour rire, who bargain at the door, before they venture to come in, for the leg of mutton and bottle of wine, on which they mean to dine!"

"Placed as I am between the two parties, I hear young Englishmen repeat, what they have heard in France, that the Genevans are cold, selfish, and interested, and their women des précieuses ridicules, the very milliners and mantua-makers giving them selves airs of modesty and deep reading! that there is no opera, nor théâtre des variétés; in short, that Geneva is the dullest place in the world. Some Bay it is but a bad copy of England, a sham republic; and a scientific, no less than a political, counterfeit.

"There were other admirers here besides ourselves; some English, and more Germans, who furnished us with an opportunity of comparing the difference of national manners. The former, divided into groups, carefully avoiding any communication with each other still more than with the foreigners, never exchanged a word, and scarcely a look, with any but the legitimate interlocutors of their own set; women adhering more particularly to the rule-from native reserve and timidity, full as much as from pride or from extreme good breeding. Some of the ladies here might be Scotch; at least they wore the national colours, and we overheard them drawing comparisons between what we had under our eyes and Coralyn; giving justly enough, the preference to the Clyde; but, at any rate, they behaved à The German ladies, on the contrary, contrived to lier conversation in indifferent French. With genuine simplicity, wholly unconscious of forwardness, although it might undoubtedly have been so qualified in England, they begged of my friend to let them hear a few words in English, just to know the sound, to which they were strangers. If we are to judge of the respective merits of these opposite manners, by the impression they leave, I think the question is already decided by the English against themselves. Yet, at the same time that they blame and deride their own proud reserve, and would depart from it if they well knew how, but a few have the courage to venture:-and I really believe they are the best bred, who thus allow themselves to be good-humoured and vulgar."

Vol. i. pp. 94, 95.

We have not much to say in defence of our countrymen-but what may be said truly, ought not to be suppressed. That our travel. lers are now generally of a lower rank than formerly, and that not very many of them are fitted, either by their wealth or breeding, to uphold the character of the noble and honour. Many travelling details, and particular de-able persons who once almost monopolised acriptions, are here omitted. the advantages of foreign travel, is of course