No. 33.

LITERATURE.

No. XIII. of the Sketches of Contemporary Authors-MR. JAMES MILL-will be given in our next.]

ON UNIVERSITIES.

WHEN a people have begun to regard literature and science as important benefits, they will, at the same time, begin to consider it a duty, in their character both of citizens and parents, to examine existing modes of education, and supply what they find deficient in present institutions, by the establishment of others on more popular principles. They will not be content to see the great and the opulent provided for in the ancient seminaries of science; they will acknowledge no prescriptive right in these ranks to the instructions of the most enlightened scholars of the day; they will listen to no opinion on the incompatibility of literature and business, of mental improvement and professional industry; and the consequence is, that they will usually determine on some plan adapted to diffuse the much-desired benefits of education through every portion of the community. Public libraries, book-clubs, and debating societies, are the first inventions of the rising spirit of inquiry; the next are the publication of standard works on literature and science, in cheap and popular forms; the simplifying of the abstruser departments of learning, in order to engage the attention of a wider class of students, and the attempt to bring the classical languages, hitherto considered as the peculiar property of the learned, within the ordinary range of general education. Hence the multiplied editions of works in numbers; the introductions and grammars every day poured from the press; the newlyinvented interrogative systems, and Hamiltonian methods of teaching languages. All these are intimations of the eager desire existing in the public mind of seeing knowledge universally diffused, and of having such facilities offered for its attainment as may render it the common possession, as well as common property, of the public. In countries that want either wealth, or the strong and vigorous public feeling that draws and cements large bodies of men together, the people will be obliged to remain contented with the helps they are able to obtain from the occasional improvements that are made in the institutions already established, or from such inventions as we have been mentioning; but, in a nation circumstanced like our own, and in which no strong desire after improvement can long exist without producing a change of one kind or the other, it is almost a necessary consequence of such a state of things, that a plan should be organised, insuring these benefits of knowledge to the people not only of this, but of future times. When the desire merely exists, or is only founded on the awakened intelligence of the public, it may

soon possibly be worn out, or be restricted to a few narrow efforts after improvement; but when it has a better and more durable foundation on which to work: not the theories of speculatists and philosophers only to support, and carry its designs into execution, but the large resources which the wealth of the country, and the wellskilled spirit of a commercial people, supply; it is then to be expected, from these uniting causes the active intellectuality of the community, and the means which riches present

on that an

afford the middle ranks those advantages of academical instruction, which had so long been confined, in a great measure, to the higher; and to fix science among them, as an object worthy their constant and unvarying regard. An attentive observer of the state in which the public mind has been during the last few years, by pursuing such a course of reasoning as this, would easily have come to the conclusion, that, long before the century was half spent, an institution would be designed and completed, similar to that which we now see rising before us; that the old Universities, after having so long enjoyed the exclusive right of dispensing knowledge, would have to share it with a new candidate for public patronage; and that, venerable as they are, and useful as has been their career, they would at length be obliged to compete with an establishment possessing capabilities of more extended usefulness, and supporting its claims on professions of an open and sincere devotedness to public advantage.

office;

Price 8d.

literature through times when its original patrons, the monks, had become unfit for the charge, and when its only protection was found in the zeal with which the schoolmen and their followers pursued sometimes its real and legitimate objects, though, frequently, nothing besides its shadow. To the Universities, therefore, we would have all the honour ascribed which they deserve for being the best and most constant preservers of learning. But it should be carefully considered in what respect they preserved it, and what was the character of the times during which they so successfully executed this most important of their offices, before we decide as to what ought to be their present character, or what are their most important uses. Whoever has made himself acquainted with the literary history of this country, is well aware that learning made no advances for a very long period of time; that it was confined within the trammels of the scholastic or Aristotelian system of logic; that natural science was confined to the fancies of the astrologer, or the speculations of the profounder and more enthusiastic alchemist; and that, though much good was done by thus keeping alive, as it were, the sense of intellectual existence, there was no progress made in the enlargement of knowledge, or the development of the mental faculties. Roger Bacon made advances in physical science, which were so far from being the fruit of academical encouragement, that the success of his studies was regarded by even the learned men of his time as evidence of an illicit communication with the powers of darkness; and it was not till his great nameverted ingenuity had been rivetting round it―htat sake, the great reformer of science, the champion who freed it from the fetters which ages of perit was not till Lord Bacon, by the power of his mighty intellect, comprehended the great circle of the sciences in its grasp, and demonstrated truth to be one and universal, that learning took any step towards improvement, or bore any signs of becoming a means of great and general benefit to mankind. But no more in this, than in the former instance were the discoveries or improvements made to be traced to the influence of the Universities, or their advancement in the free and unrestrained cultivation of knowledge. They were still confined within the narrow bounds they had set themselves, and would, to all appearance, have continued so to this day, had not the great master of the inductive system of philosophy risen in the world, and given a life and vigour to science hitherto unknown. It is not, therefore, to

One of the principal causes, it appears to us, of error respecting Universities, either old or new, is a mistaken idea of their true nature and uses. Instead of being regarded as seminaries of general education, they are often erroneously considered as places where learning and philosophy grow up into the fulness of their stature. The veneration they thus obtain is not the veneration they should aim at, and it is not the veneration they have a right to. The use they have been of is in the protection they have afforded to learning; the solid learning and sound moral instruction. We usefulness they should aim at, is the diffusion of have gradually become less efficient as seminaries are inclined to think that the old Universities of education from forgetting their proper and it may not be altogether uninteresting to look a little nearer at a subject of such importance. When learning was regarded by mankind in general as something to be venerated, rather than made use of as an agent of good to the world at large, it found a safe and happy retreat in the cloister and the schools. It was there nurtured and permitted to flourish, while every thing else belonging to civilised life was annihilated amid the havoc of war, or the cruel spoliations of tyranny; and after-times have to rejoice in the establishment of a system of monachism, which, but for the performance of its stewardship in this respect, would have no virtue to redeem its character, which so much vice and superstition had blackened. It is well known, however, that, during the dark ages, learning had not what may be termed an existence. The men who, from their leisure, mothers of our most useful branches of learning, privacy, and the protection afforded them under or as the originators of those great and enlarged every form of government, might have been continu-systems of truth to which we owe so much, both ally advancing its interests, sank by degrees into the of our happiness and our philosophy. We have, most frightful and unalleviated ignorance, and all it would appear, if we rightly consider the subthey effected for learning was the protection they ject, to regard them as the depositories of learngave to the valuable relics of antiquity. It was a ing, such as it existed, and such as they found it ; happy thing, therefore, for a nation, (and ours to venerate them, as having taught the system was so situated,) when its monarch happened to be which was considered at the time as embracing a man whose mind was superior to the debased the truest philosophy; as executing the office character of his contemporaries, and when his of great national preceptors, when learning exeducation in a foreign country, not so far sunk isted no where else; and as finding employment in darkness as his own, enabled him to gain a for active minds, when in no other place besides relish for any of the pursuits of literature. could be found any thing but the dull and It is usually believed that Oxford owes its foun- changeless torpor of ignorance, and gross superdation to the celebrated Arthur; but, however this stition. But we must not regard themas having been be, to the foundation of this University, and that of the active ministers of truth and knowledge, as havCambridøe. which took place shortly afterwards.ing enlarged the boundaries of philosophy, as being

the Universities we have to look back as the

This being so, the Seraglio Palace and the Temple Palace were united together in two ways, the one apparent, and the other occult, but constituting together a somewhat stupendous work. The first, was a bridge thrown across the river Euphrates to connect them, supported by strong piers, which were only twelve feet apart, and made in a sort of oval shape, and covered with planks of cedar, cypress, and palm; and the entire length of the bridge (if we may believe it) was five

stadia. Strabo fixes the river's breadth at one stadium, and four more seems to be a very liberal allowance for its overflowings. The second was of a more surprising nature, and consisted of an arched tunnel of brickwork, fifteen feet wide and twelve high, carried along

the bottom of the river, the waters of which had been previously diverted from their bed. This is what Philostratus calls the ineffable bridge of the Euphrates, ἐν ἀποῤῥητος ὑποστεῖχει γέφυρα, τα βασίλεια τα ἐπι ταις ὀχθαις ἀφανῶς ξυνάπτουσα.

'Mr. Claudius Rich endeavoured to throw contempt upon this statement, saying, "we have only the very questionable authority of Ctesias for the wonderful tunnel under the river," but he was bound to take notice, that Herodotus records the diverting of the course of the river, in order to make the bridge nearly in the same terms as Ctesias does; and when once that enormous labour was achieved, there remained no difficulty,

and no insuperable amount of labour, to construct a covered way across its dry bed. If that was wonderful in Mr. Rich's estimation, his sense of admiration was strangely acute; but if he meant, that the really wonderful exertion, the getting at the dry bed of the Euphrates, rested upon the words of Ctesias alone, it is quite an unfounded assertion. Ctesias, I should add, by way of explanation, is the author from whom Diodorus seems to have obtained his information upon this subject.

The plan which Nimrod laid out for the city which was the beginning of his kingdom, and which the woman (spiritually called Semiramis, or the Dove

of the Mountain,) continued after his departure, was not completed in those very ancient times, because the Lord interposed to dissolve the bands which united mankind in one confederacy, and "scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city." But, as far as we can judge from history, the design of the founders was accomplished under Nebuchadnezzar the Great.'-Pp. 231–236.

sufficient to bring prodigies to light, to which future times will, perhaps, refuse credit. But as it is liberty that creates great nations, so it produces great men; and the history of every age has proved that it is from the plebeian class, left untouched by the corruption and intrigues of courts and the somnolency of riches, much rather than from the castes of nobility, (that rotten trunk of parasite plants,) that in the day of danger come forth the great Ministers, the able Generals, and the powerful Statesmen, to whom is referred the glory of governing, de fending, and saving their respective countries. The people are much less apt to mistake the proper object of their choice than Kings are, and a man of real merit is almost as rare in the councils of Kings, as a fool at the head of a Republican Government. This sentiment of Rosseau, to which Machiavel had undoubtedly first given birth, when he observed, that the Roman Emperors that came to the throne by hereditary right were all bad characters, except Titus, while those who were advanced to it by adoption (a species of election) were all excellent Sovereigns; as, for instance, Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius-this sentiment, we may observe, has received a new sanction from the French revolution, of which the work that we have now before us, furnishes us with the last episode; that revolution that was ascribed to the plebian class, but was not really its work, as Louis XIV., in short, was its first author; that revolution which the depravity of the Noblesse, the Ministers, the Court favourites, and the concubines, had rendered inevitable, and in which the plebeian class took no actual share, till the Clergy, by their avarice, and the Nobility, by their baseness, having driven all France into insurrection, invited the Foreign powers against the tiers-etat, and compelled the population to rise in a mass in their own defence.

It was during that period, when the Noblesse and the Priests, the first promoters of the revolution, had basely gone over to the foreigners, This curious work, of the style of which some instead of lending their assistance to extinguish idea may be formed from the foregoing extract, the flames that they had kindled, that plebeian is divided into chapters, in each of which either France arose, and that from the ranks of that some great period of history is examined, the order, issued forth the new men, without a name, origin of important changes pointed out, or the without titles, or exclusive privileges, but who mystical allusions of remarkable circumstances astonished Europe by their valour, their eloand character explained. For the learned inquence, and above all, by their patriotism. It quirer, it is rich in most curious and interesting was then, first, that two men of humble birth, matter; and the general reader who has resolution Barnaire and Vergniaud, appeared at the tribune, to approach a work, nearly every page of which is and disputed with Mirabaud the palm of elospread with of Greek quotation, will find enough quence; it was then that truly patriotic Minisof remarkable and intelligible information to jus-ters appeared, the plebeian Roland, Carnot, the tify his attempt at separating it from the less obviously useful portions.

MEMOIRS OT THE DUKE OF ROVIGO.

son of an obscure lawyer, Merlin, from the class of the peasantry, Gohier, Servan, and Lambrechi, who, bidding defiance to the dangers attendant on their state, with an astonishing intrepidity, afforded Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, (M. Savary,) written the most striking proofs of probity and disinterestby Himself, illustrative of the History of the Emperoredness towards their country, which was frequentNapoleon. Vol. i., Parts 1 and 2. Colburn. Lon-ly ungrateful and unjust towards them. It was then don, 1828. that General Kellerman, who issued from the humble classes, saved France at Valmy, that General Jourdain, originally a serjeant, gained the battle of Fleuris, that Pichegru, another serjeant under the ancien regime, that Moreau, the son of a tradesman at Morbihan, led forward in the career of victory the republican troops; among whom Brune, a corrector of the press, Lannes, the son of a dyer at Lectourre, Soult, a native of the peasantry, Murat, the son of a petty publican, Berthier, the son of a porter at the War Office; the builder Kleber, and the stable-boy Hoche; the drummer Victor, now Duke of Belluno; Massena, Ney, Mortier, Bessieres, Moncey, Lefebyre, Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, all born in the lower classes, (all, with the exceptions of Kleber and Hoche,) afterwards Marshals of France, had already acquired renown and celebrity, driving from the frontiers the enemies of their native land.

AT no period of modern history, nor in any one country, has there appeared at once, on the public scene, so great a number of statesmen and military commanders of eminent ability as France presented to us in the first years of the Revolution. That turbulent period, which the Royalists stigmatised with the terms of convulsion and anarchy,' witnessed the revival of public spirit in the hearts of Frenchmen, and the sentiments of national glory spread with rapidity in every direction throughout the country, while, in the presence of the dangers presented by the invasion of confederated Europe, in the midst of disorder and civil war, the purest patriotism was displayed, and the most justly acquired renown was the consequence of these patriotic efforts. Hardly can the previous fourteen centuries of the French monarchy supply history with a few half-dozen of superior men whose names are worth recording, and whom so extensive a state would justly boast of, while six years only of the Republic have been

We discover these renowned personages in the Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, while they were yet republican warriors and upright states

men, when, at the commencement of the ir

career

Ces rubans, ces cordons, ces chaines dorées, Des esclaves des rois trop pompeuses livrées, had not as yet enervated their hearts, and corrupted their patriotism; and we behold them again, when a despot chained them to his car of victory, and converted them into the vile instruments of his ambition.

As Savary became a creature of Napoleon's, we must naturally expect that he would become the apologist of the man of the 18th Brumaire, and the defender of the apostacy of his companions in arms. He fulfils this task con amore, and proves to us, by his own example, as well as by the details into which he enters on the secret causes of the principal events that have occurred under the imperial Government, that despotism corrupts every thing that it touches, and that its poisonous breath tarnishes the glory, and degrades the virtue of the same souls that had been purified, inspired, and elevated by the love of liberty :

Sous les lois des tyrans tout gémit, tout s'attriste.

The republic of France had produced great citizens, but the imperial system transformed them into mere valets *

It is not in the production of the Duke of Rovigo that we would naturally wish to read the history of the last thirty years of the French Revolution. Like every one else who has written on that epoch, and on the man who is the hero of it, he is full of prejudice and passion. As he was a principal actor in the scene which he describes, he cannot prevail on himself to distribute, with equal justice and with equal frankness, both censure and blame: all the errors and all the censures are attached to the enemies of his own party,-all the glorious actions, and all the excuses, are reserved for his master, and for those who embraced his ambitious system of politics, when carried to the most fatal extremes. Were we to follow the Duke of Rovigo through the course of his Memoirs, we should be compelled to engage in a refutation of his statements and sentiments, which would lead us into an endless digression and deviation from our path. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves to the disclosure of some anecdotes which they contain; and thus they will contribute to the amusement of our readers. We shall next explain how this quondam Minister of Police, under Napoleon, relates the death of Pichegru, and that of Captain Wright. We must add, that he apologises for his Master's assassination of the Duc d'Enghein, and that will be sufficient to enable us to estimate the spirit with which the work now before us has been written and sent forth :

Death of General Pichegru.

'I have said that Pichegru was just dead: his death

has given rise to so many reports, equally stupid and calumnious, that it needs some explanation. What I know about it is this:

'Pichegru, after his apprehension, had been closely confined in one of the ground-floor rooms in the tower of the Temple. His examination was deferred a few days, in order to gain time to collect the materials for his interrogatory; and this delay proved fatal to the Duce d'Enghein.

'Pichegru was separated from George merely by a small room, which was the common ante-chamber to their abode.

"The keeper of the Temple had the key to their rooms; and to prevent their communicating to each instructeur, this same judge had directed a sentinel to other the questions put to them severally, by the jugebe placed in this ante-chamber, where, by means of a little noise, any conversation which they might have attempted to keep up, could be rendered ineffectual. Both were sent for, several times a day, to be confronted; that is to say, whenever they were implicated by a fresh disposition of the accused, or of witnesses.

land, Servan, Kleber, who perished before the establish* We must except, however, Barnave, Vergniaud, Roment of the imperial system. Carnot, Lambresci, and Jourdain, who still maintained republican principles, were always out of favour with Napoleon.

George had doubtless made up his mind respecting the issue of the proceedings; but General Pichegru, with different preceding circumstances, probably felt himself in a different predicament. Every time that he was sent for into court, he perceived that his situation grew worse, and that an abyss was opening before him at every step, and he could not help changing countenance.

'He had perhaps flattered himself that, in the judicial investigation of this affair, it might not be possible to obtain sufficient proofs of his participation in a crime, against which the public opinion of all France revolted en masse; but he must soon have been convinced that it would be impracticable for him to touch the sensibility of even the most generous hearts; and that, moreover, his presence before a criminal court, as a co-operator in George's project, would carry back the conviction of his guilt to the circumstance in which Moreau had denounced him to the Directory (in 1796 or 1797), after the latter had caused him to be transported to Cayenne; and that he would thus lose even the interest which some of his assembled friends had manifested for him at that period of his career.

'I presume that this afflicting consideration, continually present to his mind beneath the vault of his prison, powerfully influenced his determination to put an end to his life.

General Pichegru was naturally gay, and fond of the pleasures of the table, but the horrors of his situation had altered him. He had sent to request M. Real to come and see him; and after the conversation which he had with him, he begged that he would send him some books, and among others, Seneca.

'Some days afterwards, being at the Tuileries, about eight o'clock in the morning, I received a note from the officer of the gendarmerie d'élite, who that day commanded the guard posted at the Temple. He informed me that General Pichegru had just been found dead in his bed; and that this had occasioned a great bustle in the Temple, where they were expecting some one from the police, to which intelligence of the circumstance had been sent.

'This officer communicated the fact to me, as well on account of its singularity, as because I had made it a rule in the corps which I commanded, that all the officers employed in any duty whatever should give me an account of what they had done, seen, or heard, during the twenty-four hours. I forwarded this note to the First Consul: he sent for me, supposing that I had further particulars; but, as I had none, he sent me to make inquiries, saying, "This is a pretty end for the conqueror of Holland!"

'I arrived at the Temple at the same time as M. Real, who came on behalf of the grand-judge to learn the particulars of this event. I went with M. Real, the keeper and the surgeon of the prison, straight to General Pichegru's room; and I knew him again very well, though his face was turned of a crimson colour, from the effect of the apoplexy with which he had been struck.

6 His room was on the ground-floor, and the head of his bed was against the window, so that the seat served to set his light upon for the purpose of reading in bed. On the outside there was a sentinel placed under this window, through which he might easily, upon occasion, see all that was passing in the room.

General Pichegru was lying on his right side; he had put round his neck his own black silk cravat, which he had previously twisted like a small rope: this must have occupied him so long as to afford time for reflection, had he not been resolutely bent on selfdestruction. He appeared to have tied his cravat, thus twisted, about his neck, and to have at first drawn it as tight as he could bear it, then to have taken a piece of wood, of the length of a finger, which he had broken from a branch that yet lay in the middle of the room (part of a faggot, the relics of which were still in his fire-place): this he must have slipped between his neck and his cravat, on the right side, and turned round till the moment that reason forsook him. His head had fallen back on the pillow and compressed the little bit of stick, which had prevented the cravat from un-' twisting. In this situation apoplexy could not fail to supervene. His hand was still under his head, and almost touched this little tourniquet.

"On the night-table was a book open and with its back upward, as if laid down for a moment by one who had been interrupted while reading. M. Real found this book to be the Seneca which he had sent to him; and he remarked that it was open at that passage where Seneca says, that the man who is determined to conspire ought above all things not to fear death. This was probably the last thing read by General Pichegru,

who, having placed himself in a situation to lose his life on the scaffold, or under the necessity of having recourse to the clemency of the First Consul, had preferred dying by his own hand.

While I was at the Temple, I questioned the gendarme who had passed the night in the antechamber which separated George from Pichegru: he told me that he had heard nothing all night, except that General Pichegru had coughed a good deal from eleven to twelve o'clock; that, not being able to get into his room because the keeper had the key, he was unwilling to rouse the whole tower on account of that cough. The gendarme was himself locked up in this ante-chamber; and had any thing occurred to oblige him to give the alarm, it was by the window that he was to apprize the sentinel who was at the door of the tower; the sentinel was to give notice to the post, and the latter to the keeper.

I questioned also the gendarme who had been on duty under the window of General Pichegru from ten o'clock till twelve, and he had heard nothing.

'M. Real then said to me, "Well, though nothing was ever more clearly proved than this suicide, yet, in spite of all we can do, it will be said that, because he could not be convicted, he has been strangled." For this reason, the grand-judge determined from that moment to have a guard without arms placed in the room of each of the persons implicated in George's business, to prevent any attempt on their own lives: 0 Course O such thing was ever thought of as to take them away by secret executions. Party spirit, which always welcomes whatever is likely to be prejudicial to power, publicly circulated a report that Pichegru was strangled by gendarmes. This opinion obtained to such a degree, that a high functionary, a friend of mine, mentioned it several years afterwards as a fact of which he had not the least doubt; and notwithstanding all I could say to convince him of the contrary, I am not sure that I succeeded. For the rest, it was not from a carping disposition that he had adopted this opinion: he had heard it repeated so often, that he at length believed it.

'It would have argued an absolute want of sound sense to employ for such an office subordinate persons, who would have divulged this crime on the first occasion of discontent, or who would every day have set a fresh price on their silence.

There was no necessity to destroy Pichegru; his presence was even requisite for the instruction of the process. Besides, having come to France with George, he was inseparable from him before justice, which would not have failed to condemn him, in spite of the talents of the ablest advocate; but I cannot think that the First Consul would have suffered him to perish : of this I need no other proof than the pardon which he granted to those who were condemned to death in this affair, and who had nothing to recommend them to the public opinion, as was the case with the conqueror of Holland. Besides, Pichegru, condemned in a criminal court before the face of the world, could no

longer prove dangerous, and would have been worthy of pity alone.'

Nomination of Napoleon to the Institute-Portrait of

Talleyrand-Anecdote of Madame de Stael. 'General Bonaparte having been elected member of the Institute, was received by M. Chénier, and his reception took place at night, in the hall of the Louvre, where the Institute then held its sittings. That hall is on the ground-floor: there is before it a balcony or large wooden tribune, worked in the old style. The body of Henry IV. had been deposited here after his assassination. I attended, with General Desaix, at the reception of General Bonaparte. He was in costume, and sitting between Monge and Beothollet: it was, I think, the only occasion on which I saw him in the dress of that learned body. His nomination had all the effect which he expected from it: it placed the newspapers, the literary characters, all the enlightened part of the nation, at his disposal. All felt beholden to him for having added the academic laurels to the palms of victory. As for himself, of plain and retired habits, almost a stranger to the noise which his name made in Paris, he avoided taking any part in business; seldom appeared in public; and only admitted a few generals, learned men, and diplomatic characters, into his intimacy.

'M. de Talleyrand was of the number he was a man of amiable intercourse; had great facility for business; a mind possessed of resources such as I have not discovered in any other man. Clever at frustrating and winding up an intrigue, he had all the art and ability which the times required: he was incessant in his attentions to General Bonaparte, and acted for him

the character of mediator, orator, and master of ceremonies. Yielding to so much zeal, the General accepted his attentions. This mode of proceeding brought on balls and evening parties, where the minister had taken care to bring together the remains of the old nobility.

'It was at one of these parties that General Bonaparte saw Madame de Stael for the first time. The hero had always excited a lively interest in that celebrated woman. She attached herself to him, entered into conversation with him, and in the course of their colloquial intercourse, in which she attempted to soar above her height, she suffered a question to escape her which betrayed the ambition nourished in her breast. "Who is the first woman, in your eyes?" she asked him. "Madam," he replied, "the woman who brings the most children into the world." Madame de Stael was stunned she expected a totally different answer.' -Vol. I., part i., pp. 17-18.

The Young Damsel of Vienna-The Countess

People have talked a great deal about a decided passion of the Emperor's for women: it was not predominant in him. He loved them, but knew how to respect them; and I have witnessed the delicacy of his intercourse with them, when his long absences placed him in the same case with all the officers of his army.

During his residence at Vienna, between the battle of Austerlitz and the signature of the peace, he had occasion to remark a young female who pleased him. As chance would have it, she had herself taken a particular fancy to the Emperor, and she accepted the proposal made to her to go one evening to the palace of Schönbrunn. She spoke only German and Italian; but as the Emperor himself spoke the latter language, they soon became acquainted. He was astonished to learn from this young woman, that she was the daughter of respectable parents, and that in coming to see him she had been swayed by an admiration which had excited in her heart a sentiment she had never yet known or felt for any person whatever. This, though

a rare circumstance, was ascertained to be a fact: the Emperor respected the innocence of the young lady, sent her home, caused arrangements to be made for her settlement in life, and gave her a portion.

He delighted in the conversation of an intelligent woman, and preferred it to every kind of amusement. A few days after the adventure just related, the following occurrence took place.

A French agent, who resided at Vienna, had had occasion to distinguish there a certain Countess, to whom an English ambassador (Lord Paget) was said to have paid particular attentions. There could scarcely be found a more fascinating woman than this Countess, who, at the same time, carried the love of her country to enthusiasm. The agent took it into his head to prevail upon her to go and see the Emperor, by causing it to be insinuated, that the proposal was made by the order of that sovereign himself, who, however, had never harboured such a thought.

'An officer of the horse-police of the city of Vienna, who was acquainted with this Countess, was employed to speak to her. She listened to the proposal, which carried into effect in the evening; but she could not was made to her one morning, with a view to its being decide immediately, and required a day for consideration, adding, that she wished to ascertain whether it really was by the Emperor's order that this overture

had been made to her.

In the evening, the carriage being in waiting at the appointed place, where the officer was to receive the Countess, and to consign her to the care of another person, who was to accompany her to Schönbrunn, he called upon her she told him that she had been unable to make up her mind that, day, but she pledged her word that she would do so without fail the following day; desiring him to come in the afternoon to be informed of her determination.

'The carriage was bespoken for the same hour the next day. The officer, apprehensive of another whim, called the following day, according to appointment, on the fair lady. He found her fully resolved: she had arranged her affairs, as if preparatory to a long journey; and she said, in a decisive manner, addressing him familiarly in the second person, "Thou mayst come and fetch me this evening; I will go and see him; thou mayst rely upon it. Yesterday I had business to settle; now I am ready. If thou art a good Austrian, I will see him. Thou knowst what injury he has done to our country! Well, this evening, I will avenge it; come and fetch me without fail.”

'Such a confidence startled the officer, who would not incur the responsibility; he afterwards went and communicated the matter, and was rewarded. The

carriage was not sent to the place of rendezvous, and the Countess was spared the opportunity of acquiring a celebrity which would doubtless have blasted her reputation as a lovely woman.

'This adventure took place the day preceding that on which the Emperor set out from Schönbrunn for Paris. Death of Captain Wright.

A multitude of depositions had re-echoed the name of the English captain, Wright, and the newspapers had talked of him in all sorts of ways. This captain, who had landed George and his people at the cliff of Biville, had afterwards gone to cruise off the coast of Quiberon. Having had the misfortune to be wrecked on the coast of Morbihan, he was conducted with all his crew to Vannes, where nothing was just then talked of but was passing at Paris. The administration of that department reported the shipwreck, and was ordered to send Captain Wright and all his crew to Paris. They entered the court of the Temple when

George and his people were walking there: the English and French officers did not seem to recognise one another; but the English seamen, not supposing there could be any harm in it, frankly accosted some of their acquaintance among George's subalterns.

'Captain Wright was separated from them; and the court proceeded to confront the rest with George's subordinate, which confirmed the rigid truth of the information previously obtained. Wright persisted in declining to answer the question put to him, and said, "Gentlemen, I am an officer in the British navy; care not what treatment you reserve for me; I shall give no account of the orders which I have received: I know none of these gentlemen."

I

'From whom, then, could Wright, an officer in the royal navy of England, and moreover commanding a ship of war of that navy, have received orders to take on board George and his people, and to land them on our coast? Is there in England any other authority which issues orders to the navy than the government offices?

'Captain Wright had been thrown upon the coast by shipwreck; instead of making him a prisoner of war, a criminal prosecution might have been instituted against him by the procureur-general, on the ground of his being an accomplice in the conspiracy. Regard was nevertheless had to his devotedness and his character; he and his men were brought forward as witnesses, but no proceedings against him personally were commenced.

This unfortunate man remained in the Temple till 1805, when he died. So many stories have been told concerning his death, that I too was curious to learn the cause of it, when, as minister of police, the sources of information were open to me; and I ascertained that Wright cut his throat in despair, after reading the account of the capitulation of the Austrian general, Mack, at Ulm, that is, while the Emperor was engaged in the campaign of Austerlitz. Can one, in fact, without alike insulting common sense and glory, admit that this sovereign had attached so much importance to the destruction of a scurvy lieutenant of the English navy, as to send from one of his most glorious

fields of battle the order for his destruction? It has been added, that it was I who received from him this commission: now, I never quitted him for a single day during the whole campaign, from his departure from Paris till his return. For the rest, the civil administration of France is in possession of all the papers of the ministry of the police, which must furnish all the information that can be desired respecting that event.'— Pp. 59-61.

This volume contains only a part of the Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo; he stops shortly after the death of the Duc d'Enghein.

WALSH'S TRAVELS.

compiled from the letters which the author sent to his friends during his absence from England, and, consequently, manifests less of research than probably would have been the case had he set down to a more formal account of his But his work, notwithstanding, is journey. as full of useful information as it is replete with entertainment. Doctor Walsh formed part of Lord Strangford's suite during his Lordship's residence at Constantinople, and the present publication is the result of the observations which the author was enabled to make in the course of his long stay in the Turkish dominions. Fortunately for Doctor Walsh, circumstances occurred which enabled him to extend his observation far beyond the precincts of the capital; and the most valuable portion of his volume conobjects which attracted his attention during his sists of the details he has given of the different journey into the remote districts of the country: among the passages likely to be read with greatest interest, at present, is the following :

'As I was now in the centre of the scene of action between the Turks and Russians, in their last sanguinary campaign, perhaps you would think a local sketch of some of the events not uninteresting. In the year 1805 the Turks were in a state of great weakness, under their amiable but feeble monarch, Selim; their provinces in a state of insurrection abroad; their people turbulent and discontented at home; and pressed and harassed by the conflicting and peremptory demands of the great European powers. They had conceded to Russia, by the treaty of Yassi, 1792, an extraordinary right of interfering in the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, that their respective Hospodars should be continued in office seven years, and not removable but by the consent of Russia. To this agreement, however, they did not adhere. The then reigning Hospodars were deposed before their time; and when the Russians remonstrated, the Bosphorus was closed against their ships. Taking umbrage at these causes of complaint, General Michelson was despatched with an army of sixty thousand men, who crossed the Niester, took Bender and Chotzim with little resistance, and entered Yassi, the capital of Moldavia. From hence he proceeded to Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia, where he found a Turkish force which had been sent against him by Mustapha Bairactar, the energetic Ayan of Rutschûk. These, however, he soon defeated; when his approach was known, the inhabitants rose upon the Turks, attacked them suddenly with all kinds of weapons; and, with the aid of a small advanced guard of the Russians, drove them out of the town, leaving fifteen hundred dead in the streets: he then entered Bucharest, and took entire possession of the three provinces of Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; not leaving a Turkish corps or fortress on the north side of the Danube, with the exception of Giurdzio; and he prepared immediately to pass over to the other side.

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A tumultuary army was now hastily collected at Adrianople, of troops from the provinces of Asia, and moved forward with the Janissaries to the Danube; they mutinied, in their march, massacred some of the officers who wished to introduce European discipline among them, and when they at length arrived at the scene of action, were so disorganized, that they effected nothing against the Russians, who remained in almost undisturbed possession of the province, till the year 1810, when the armies on both sides were augmented to two hundred thousand men, and a fierce and sanguinary contest ensued, which, perhaps, never was surpassed.

WE remember having seen several little treatises by the author of these travels, which were a sufficient guarantee to us, before opening the publication on our table, that we should find it distinguished by a very amiable vein of sentiment, as well as by the interest of its contents. A traveller like Dr. Walsh, in whatever form he chooses to give the result of his observations, is seldom found to fail in affording his readers instruction and amusement. The little volume before us is

were steep and high, and defended with Turkish bat

near Widdin, and below it at Hirsova and Toutourkay, and laid siege to Rutschuk. The town was vigorously defended; and the Russians were repulsed in a desperate attack, in which they lost six thousand men. Kaminsky made also a similar assault on the entrenched camp at Shumla; but here, too, he was driven back with great carnage. The Turks, though unacquainted with regular discipline in the field, make a fierce and sanguinary resistance when attacked behind their ramparts. On these occasions they issued their memorable bulletin-" that they had taken such a number of infidels' heads, that they would serve as a bridge by which

the faithful night pass over to the other world." It is to the vigorous defence of these two places, and the losses sustained before them, and the final failure of the campaign, are generally attributed.

'In the month of September, Kaminsky left Langeron before Rutschûk, and with his disposable force suddenly attacked the Turks at Bayne. They defended themselves with desperate valour; but were at length defeated, with the loss of twelve thousand men in killed and wounded; and Rutschûk was compelled to surrender, with all the Turkish flotilla lying before it, and Giurdzio on the other side. In order to create a diversion,

the Turks now sent a fleet into the Black Sea, and threatened an attack on the Crimea: notwithstanding this, the Russians concentrated their forces in Bulgaria, and the Grand Vizier was obliged to retreat before

them, recross the Balcan, and take up a position at Adrianople; leaving, however, the strong and impregnable fortresses of Varna on the sea coast, and Shumla other side. on the ascent of the mountains, well secured at the

'The feeble Selim, and his successor Mustapha, had both been strangled, and Mohammed had been called to the throne, who, even then, displayed the vigour which since has distinguished him. He set up the standard of the prophet at Daud Pasha, a large plain two miles from Constantinople, and issued a Hatta Sherif, that all Mussulmen should rally round it. In this way he assembled, in a short time, a large army; appointed a new Grand Vizier, whom he sent on with the troops; and returned to the city. The new Vizier, Ahmed Aga, was a man of the same energy as the Sultan, and had distinguished himself by his defence of Ibrail. He immediately descended from the mountains, forced the detached corps of Russians in Bulgaria to re-cross the Danube, and made a fierce attack upon Rutschûk, defended by the Russian general Kutosov. The Russians, hard pressed, transported the inhabitants to the other side of the river, set fire to the town in four quarters, and then retreated themselves. Turks rushed into the burning town, put a stop to the conflagration, and took up their position there. The Grand Vizier, having thus driven the Russians to the opposite shore, was now determined to follow them; and he made the attempt in three places, Widdin, Rutschûk, and Silistria. He succeeded at Widdin, and established thirty thousand men in Wallachia. He also succeeded at Rutschûk, took possession of a large island in the river called Slobodsé, and, in perfect condence, passed the greater part of his army to the other side, and established them in an entrenched camp. Kutosov was not idle; he immediately availed himself of the Vizier's crossing over, and detached eight thousand men, under General Markof, to attack the camp he had left behind.

The

' A Turkish camp is formed without any regularity. The Grand Vizier's tent is always conspicuous in the centre, and becomes the nucleus round which all the rest are pitched, as every man chooses to place them. It is, however, their strong hold, to which they always retire, as a wild animal to its lair; and they defend it with the same fierceness and obstinacy. On this occasion, they were completely surprised; the whole of the camp, including the general's tent, fell into the hands of the Russians, and the fugitive Turks crowded into Rutschûk. Here they were cannonaded by the artillery of their own abandoned camp, and General Langeron, from the other side, directed one hundred pieces of cannon to bear upon them. The Vizier, having heard of this misfortune, threw himself into a little boat, and, availing himself of a storm of wind and rain, he pushed across, and landed in safety; but the Russians now brought up their flotilla, and intercepted all communication between the divided portions of the Turkish army. They next attacked and carried the island, and turned the guns on the entrenched camp of the Turks, who were thus cut off from, all communication or supply. In this state they endured the severest privations; and after feeding on the flesh of their horses, and giving up all hope of relief, they were compelled to surrender, having lost 10,000 men in the different assaults made on them. This was the last effort of the combatants. The Turks, who had entered Wallachia, at Widdin, retired to the other side, and the Grand Vizier, having received great reinforcements, concentrated them at Rutschuk; but while the combatants were preparing to renew the sanguinary conflicts, the exhausted state of the one, and the critical state of the other, invaded by the French, induced them to come to an accommodation; and the peace of Bucharest, concluded in 1812, gave another accession of territory to the Russians, extending their frontier from the Niester to the Pruth, and assigning to them all the country that