deed we are confident, that Mr. Stewart must feel as we do, and as every good man must feel. But we cannot conceal our surprise : at the extravagant and hyperbolical language in which he speaks of the Treatise of Human Nature,' viewing it solely in respect of its. philosophical acuteness. It is a work which was disowned by, its author, not on account of the opinions which it contained; for these he subsequently embodied in his Essays; but because it was written at an age, when his judgment was not mature, and because it was, on that account, unworthy of his subsequent re-; putation. The opinion of the public respecting it, is sufficiently exemplified in the fact, that notwithstanding the great popularity. which the author afterwards acquired, a second edition of it was never called for, until within these last few years. We have read the book, on the strength of the recommendation which has been so lavishly bestowed upon it; and most cordially do we ac quiesce in the judgment, which the author himself and the public. in general, have so unequivocally pronounced upon it. We would, without any hesitation, bind ourselves to produce more flagrant instances of bad reasoning, of unintelligible speculations, extravagant assumptions and crude hypotheses, from the first volume of the "Treatise upon Human Nature,' than from any work of celebrity, which has been written in our language, during the last century. And strange, indeed, would it be were it otherwise. A work whose professed object, at least whose manifest tendency, was to destroy: the distinction between right and wrong, to disprove the existence of a God, and to sap the foundation of every principle, upon which the. welfare of society and the eternal happiness of mankind depend, must necessarily, in every step of it, be opposed to truth and solid reasoning. It is really a contradiction in terms, to praise the philosophical genius of a man, who attempted to establish such utter absurdities as Hume openly supports in his Treatise upon Human Nature,' and more covertly in his Essays. He may have been an acute sophist, but he could not possess in his mind even the first elements of true genius in philosophy. There is an ingenious person of the present day, who has published more volumes than one, to disprove the Newtonian theory of gravitation; and every one who is informed of the fact, will be at once satisfied, as to the sort of in- ̈ genuity which such speculations must display. Can we then doubt as to the character of a system of metaphysics, which professes to call in question the great truths of natural religion? And is it not a valuable testimony in favour of the immutable foundations on which those truths repose, when we find, that so shrewd and sharp witted a man as Hume, was unable to impugn them, except upon principles of reasoning, by which he was also able to deny the truths of geometry, and to affirm that there was neither sun or moon or stars in the heavens, nor mind or matter, in the earth? But But it is time to draw our remarks to a conclusion; which we shall do with briefly expressing our hope, that nothing which we have said will lead Mr. Stewart to doubt the respect which we feel for his writings, so far as the talents which they display are concerned, or for the objects which, we are sure, it is the first wish of his mind to promote. If the objections which we have made to the principles of his philosophy are really not solid, they máy, at least, be useful, in turning his attention to those parts of his theory which require light, or call for further confirmation. If on the other hand,— -as we of course suppose, but should be most unwilling to affirm,—they are founded upon weighty and sufficient reasons, we cannot for one moment imagine, that any thing which we have said, will be construed by him, into an occasion of anger or complaint. To dispute warmly and earnestly against a man's favourite opinions necessarily puts his candour to the test; but if the opposition is conducted with civility and fairness, it certainly ought not, and more especially in matters of philosophy, to be any trial of his temper. In the heat of composition, and in the haste of argument, we may have appeared, at times, though we are not aware of the occasion,-to forget for a moment the great reputation of Mr. Stewart; but we can truly assure him, that our fault has proceeded merely from forgetfulness; and that our wish and intention have uniformly been to deliver our sentiments with freedom, but at the same with courtesy; and without ever leaving it to be supposed, that we considered the consequences which we have deduced, in one or two instances, from his philosophy, as being any part of his opinions. ART. XIV. 1. Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie et de l'Histoire; publiées par MM. J. B. Eyriés et MalteBrun. 2. Mémoire sur les Voyages exécutés dans l'Océan Glacial Arctique, au Nord de l'Amérique Septentrionale; par Le Chevalier Lapie, Geógraphe. Paris, 1821. WE E really thought that the ghosts of Laurent Ferrer Maldonado and Bartolomeo de Fonté or de Fuéntes, had long ago been laid, and for ever, in the Red Sea ; but we were mistaken, for here we have them once more revisiting the glimpses of the moon,' and haunting an unfortunate Frenchman, who designates himself Le Chevalier Lapie, géographe, a title of honour given by his countrymen to every paltry map-maker, of whom, from the specimen before us, we venture to set down the Chevalier as about one of the worst that Paris produces. M. Malte M. Malte-Brun is probably known to most of our readers as the author of a systematic work on geography;* he is besides the editor of a periodical digest under the title which stands at the head of this article; the first as much superior to the compilations of our Guthries and Pinkertons, as the other is to the garbled productions of our Truslers and Mavors. How so competent a judge of the value and importance of geographical subjects could stoop to disgrace his Annales' with such trash as that we are about to notice, is to us perfectly inexplicable. We will not think so ill of M. Malte-Brun as to suppose, that he would lend himself to the unworthy purpose of endeavouring to persuade the French nation, (always too ready to believe whatever promises to detract from the honour and reputation of England,) that the north-west passage round America is already known, and has actually been made; and that consequently Captain Parry, will have no claim to merit on the score of discovery, in the event of his being successful. But whatever share M. Malte-Brun may be pleased to take in the present brilliant performance, he long ago recorded his deliberate opinion on the productions ascribed to the two worthies above mentioned, as well as on those who have been simple enough to defend them. Certain modern enthusiasts (he says) have imagined that the navigators of the sixteenth century, in passing through Baffin's Bay, and traversing the eternal ice of the Polar seas, had made the tour of America by the north, a dream which it would be ridiculous even to wish to refute.' (Précis de la Géog. vol. i. p. 504.) Again: 'the most competent judges place the voyages of Maldonado and Admiral de Fonte, in the class of fables;' the latter, in particular, (he adds) in all the circumstances which attend it, wears the character of imposture.' (p. 507.) In a subsequent volume he points out the many geographical and physical absurdities in what he calls the pretended sea-voyage of that impostor, Ferrer Maldonado.' (vol. v. p. 237.) And what seems yet more extraordinary, in the very same Annales' in which the Chevalier Lapie's idle trash now appears, he inserted the complete refutation of Maldonado's voyage by the Baron de Lindenau, with a special declaration that it coincided altogether with his own opinion on the subject! Had his journal been a mere repository of voyages and travels, real or fictitious, M. Malte-Brun might insert in it what he pleased; but as it forms a kind of Geographical Review, in which the various matters are discussed, and criticized, the present article is utterly incompatible with the former one, and every way unworthy of the work. -" * Précis de la Géographie Universelle.' After .* After the complete exposure of the falsehoods, absurdities, and even impossibilities contained in the relation of the voyage ascribed to Maldonado, by Malte-Brun, the Barons de Lindenau and Humboldt, the late Admiral Burney, Mr. Barrow, and by ourselves ;* it may seem a waste of time to give it a moment's further notice; but as people are apt to forget what they read, and as it may be useful to let the French, (the worst geographers, as a people,' in Europe,) distinctly see what pretensions the Chevalier Lapie has to the title he assumes, we shall dedicate a few words to the two voyages so unaccountably dragged forward by Malte-Brun; and which, we flatter ourselves, we shall be able to fling back to merited scorn and oblivion. The impostor, whether Maldonado or (as Burney suspected) some Fleming, who fabricated the account of the voyage, called by his name, sails through Hudson's Strait without interruption, as high as the 75th degree of latitude, in the latter end of February and the beginning of March; passes Behring's Strait (till then unknown, but conjectured to exist under the name of the Strait of Anian) in the commencement of April; remains in the Pacific till the middle of June; and then returns, without the least obstruction, by the way which he had come! There is no instance, since the date of the Hudson's Bay Company's charter, of any of their ships being able to pass the first, or Hudson's, strait, though in lat. 62° only, sooner than the middle or end of June, and generally not till July; even Capt. Parry, on his present expedition, could not, with his iron-bound ships, and every exertion that he was able to make, clear this strait sooner than the 22d of July. Yet this pretender sails not only in lat.. 62° but up to the 75th degree, and from thence across the polar sea, and through the Strait of Anian, between the end of February and the beginning of April. We all know that Captain Parry, about the 75th degree, and in the height of summer, used every possible exertion for two successive seasons, without making the least progress beyond the western extremity of Melville Island. How then, it will be asked, has the Chevalier Lapie contrived to surmount these obstacles? Nothing so easy. In these northern countries, he tells us, the seasons and the temperature are constantly changing; and he illustrates his position by the two voyages of Ross and Parry, of which he has heard, but evidently read not a syllable. Ross,' he says, was stopped by the invincible obstacles which nature threw in his way! Lancaster Sound was completely closed up with mountains of ice; but Parry, on the contrary, found it the following year entirely free from ice, and pro Quarterly Review, No. XXXI. ceeded ceeded under full sail to Melville Island.' We have therefore only to concede to M. Lapie, that the season of the year 1588 was a remarkably mild one, and every difficulty at once vanishes. The next part of Maldonado's narrative, which we shall select, is not only ridiculously false, but impossible; for if we take the courses and distances stated by this precious navigator, we shall find that, instead of coming out at Behring's Strait, he had, unknown to himself, sailed across the whole peninsula of Kamtskatka, and got as far as to the middle of the sea of Okotsk! Nor is this all; for should we even admit that some mistake might occur in the courses or distances, as set down in the manuscript, and that he actually passed through the Strait, the difficulty would not be at all diminished, as we are next informed that, on leaving it, he sailed south-west along the coast of America, keeping sight of it, until he reached the 55th parallel of latitude; that is to say, a course which is directly from the coast of America into the open sea and out of sight of all land! Sailing on the sea, however, is contrary to his usual practice; for he is so fond of a land navigation that, on his return, and previously to his reaching 'the Strait of Labrador,' he informs us that, having arrived at the Arctic circle, he lost not the sight of the sun and as the Arctic circle neither passes over, nor comes near, any part of the polar sea, he must necessarily have steered his ship right across the continent of America, and come out about Wager river! The Chevalier Lapie, however, is nothing daunted by these absurdities; the simplicity and naïveté,' with which, he tells us, this relation is written, have inspired him with such confidence, that he believes every word of it. Poor Amoretti (less bold than himself) was somewhat staggered at the transfer of the strait of Anian into the sea of Okotsk; but calling to his aid an earthquake or two, by which one strait might have been shut up, and another might have been opened, he contented himself with the argument used by Sganarelle when the liver of his patient had usurped the place of the heart,-à présent, on a changé tout cela. Our Géographe, however, takes another line. He places Behring's Strait where it is now well known to be; and by cutting off 150 leagues here, 50 there, and changing 440 into 200; by taking away two degrees of latitude in one place, and adding them in another; and by opening a passage from Norton Sound into the polar sea, and a few other trifling corrections of the assumed mistakes of the impostor, or his transcriber, he triumphantly brings him within 5° 30′ of the latitude assigned to the port in the strait of Anian by Maldonado that is to say, instead of 60°, the Chevalier tells us, it ought certainly to be 65° 30'. This alteration is made with all imaginable gravity, and with a perfect conviction VOL. XXVI. NO. LII. L L on |