"Though extremely young, I am, nevertheless, a widow-all cold and inaccessible to love as I am believed to be, I have felt sentiments as lively as your's.

'You have often heard tell (entendu parler) of the illustrious Fædor. Hardly had I contracted the habit of thinking daily of my chimera of the man whom I fancied to myself as made for me, when Fædor appeared to my eyes, and so fulfilled my wishes and my expectations, that my astonishment at this inconceivable conformity will last all my life-p. 23.

We hope our female readers understand this exposition of the lady's everlasting sentiments on the subject of inconceivable conformity; we confess we find it rather abstruse, and hardly less incomprehensible than a matter of fact which she proceeds to relate of the precocity of this inconceivable husband, which we really dare not pretend to translate.

Il était parvenu au grade d'amiral presqu'au sortir de l'adolescence! Il paraissait avoir pris à tâche, dès son enfance, d'essayer jusqu'à quel point de perfection morale l'homme peut parvenir quelle aimable et joyeuse raison que la sienne! quelle facile et agréable vertu!'-p. 24.

This picture of a Dutchman, promoted to the rank of an admiral just as he outgrew his first jacket and trowsers-of a Dutch admiral exhibiting, even in his childhood, the perfectibility of human nature-of a Dutch admiral, whose mind and character exhibited the union of the most amiable good sense with the most elegant gaiety, is, we believe, altogether original, and as ingenious as it is credible. What follows is still more delightful, and at any risk we shall venture to transfer it to our own language.

"Unhappily the States-General chose my Fædor to command a fleet, which, in circumnavigating the globe, should augment our possessions and the number of our establishments, and by the solution of several important problems, advance the progress of astronomy and geography. ―p. 25.

This is a very important passage, and in reading it we cannot but bless our stars that Luigi is no longer king of Holland. What might not England have had to dread from a monarch so powerful at sea, and of such sound and enlightened views!—who, we may perceive, would not have hesitated to send a fleet under his greatest admiral on a voyage of discovery, who would have united an expedition for colonial conquest with the circumnavigation of the globe, -and who would have made the whole subservient to the advancement of astronomy and geography by the solution of certain important PROBLEMS!

Thank heaven! Louis is no longer the director of the enterprises of the Dutch navy and if the Prince of Orange should be inclined to make any such attempts, we trust he has no admiral of the con

summate perfection of Fædor,-who, as we shall see, died early in this famous voyage. The account of his departure and his death cannot fail to excite in the feeling heart, even of a British rival, the tenderest emotions.

'He set out. On the dyke of the Helder, we made a solemn vow never to contract any other alliance-these were his last words. He set out in a hunting-jacket, fancied for his voyage, (il partit en habit de chasse imaginé pour le voyage.) I see him still, at the helm of his barge, (the admiral had no coxwain, it seems,) exhibiting the greatest emotion, putting aside his floating flag with an air at once martial and melancholy, pressing my picture to his heart, and repeating these words, which for ever resound in my ears, to thee or to it,' he raised at the same time his looks to the sky, pure but brilliant with a dazzling obscurity, (éclatante obscurité.) His words were a prophecy; I never saw him more. Six months after he was attacked by a terrible storm-his vessel dismasted, s'entrouvrit,-he immediately ordered the boats out -placed every body in them and on rafts, except one single pilot who had remained in the hold-no one dared to go and seek him-Fædor returns to the ship, flies to him, brings him upon the deck, and has hardly thrown the old man into the boat which received him, than the. vessel foundered under Fædor's feet;-half-drowned, he exclaimed, God, Hermacinthe and Holland !"-Let's dry our tears, my friends.' -p. 27.

We hope our readers require no farther proofs of the power of just observation and accurate delineation of the quondam king. We admit we can produce nothing superior to the foregoing passages, yet an additional extract or two will maintain his Majesty's reputation. Adolphus is invited, for the first time, to an evening assembly at the house of a lady in Paris-she pleases him, he pleases her; the company retires-her uncle, a nobleman in a cordon bleu, falls asleep-Adolphus makes love to the lady, the uncle awakens, and Adolphus must go; he wishes good night, but, instead of leaving the house shrinks back and hides himself behind the window curtain of the drawing-room.

'I there fell asleep, without project or design; but I was soon awakened by the noise of opening the door, and saw a chamber-maid coming out of her mistress's room, she was going for a very pretty watch-light, with which she soon returned. I stirred my chair; the maid, alarmed, dropped the lamp, which went out, and while she returned to re-light it I crept into the bed-chamber on tip-toe, and very silently established myself in a great arm-chair, which I found by groping: the maid returned, placed the. watch-light in the chimney, and retired without seeing me. Behold me then in the chamber of Corinna, who slept tranquilly, and believed herself to be alone.'-p. 47.

We dare not conclude the scene-but again beg our readers to observe, that it occurred in a house in which all the fashion of Paris

had

had been collected at an assembly, and the mistress of which this modest and excellent young man (that is his character') never saw before in his life. This trait of morals is only to be excelled by the physical anomaly of the lady's being, while she was fast asleep, so far awake, as to believe that she was alone.

Of Julius, our hero, an author and a soldier, the following picture, drawn by his own hand, and describing his departure from Paris, to join his regiment, will satisfy our readers.

My post-chaise was stopped on the Boulevards-with regret and grief I alighted, and sitting down on the grass (quere, on what part of the Boulevards does grass grow ?) I looked with sorrow at the house you inhabit, and which I was about to quit. I felt my head grow heavy, and lying on the earth, my eyes turned up to heaven, the immensity and depth of the celestial vault and the rapid passage of the clouds struck me with a new sensation. The thoughts of the nothingness of all human things suddenly came over me,-struck for the first time with this terrible idea, I thought I discovered in it a frightful abyss. What, sáid I to myself, life is but a shadow, it flies more quickly than clouds driven by impetuous winds-every instant, however little it be, carries away with it a portion of our existence. It passes quicker than the quickest arrow, since that only arrives after it has departed; whatever be its celerity, time always precedes it. It (quere, time or the arrow?) is a torrent which flows incessantly with incommensurable swiftness.'-p. 145.

In this style our literary warrior proceeds at great length to expatiate on the extraordinary discovery which he has made on the fragility of human life- Moi qui croyais la vie, sinon une chose sûre, stable, interminable, au moins d'une longueur prodigieuse, je découvre qu'elle est incertaine et fragile.' It is much to be regretted that this ingenious young gentleman had not discovered this fact before he wrote his Essai sur le Bonheur, en deux petits volumes in-12,' as the subject would have been worthy of a discussion in that interesting work.

Mr. Julius and his inconceivable sister get into a correspondence on the subject of the French, their poetry, manners, and character-Julius objects to them several very grave offences :-he asserts, that, as to poetry, they never will have, he will not say a Virgil, a Homer, but a Klopstock ;—they have no tragedians like the immortal Shakspeare;-and Iphigenia, in Racine's best play, calls Achilles Seigneur, and Achilles answers her with a Madame, p. 157. The wise Hermacinthe, however, soon pulverises all Julius's objections, and concludes a long defence raisonnée, (very generous in a Dutchwoman, who had been sentenced to transportation for life,) with a tolerably comprehensive assertion, 'que, placée sur le plus heureux sol, douée des qualités les plus aimables et les plus en harmonie avec sa position, la France est, de toutes les nations, la

première

première par la grandeur, l'éclat, la perfection humaine, comme la nôtre (la Hollande) l'est pour le bonheur.'

We need not proceed any farther with our extracts from this dull and disgusting trash; we will only add, that the language is every where of the lowest scale, and the only merit the book has, is the vulgar consistency of its matter, its personages, and its style. We long hesitated to believe that the advertisement which we have quoted was not a forgery; it seemed impossible that a man, however ill educated or ill endowed, should have passed through such a life as Mr. Louis Buonaparte has lived, and such stations as he has filled, without acquiring, if not more literature, at least more knowledge of the world; if not more good taste, at least more discretion; if not more talents, at least more judgment than to write, and above all to publish, such a wretched performance as this.We cannot but suspect that the greater part of Napoleone's kings, princes, dukes, marshals, counts, barons, and chevaliers, may be fairly estimated by a comparison with King Louis. What must the nation be where a monkey is the god?-When the flower of the Buonaparte dynasty is the author of Marie, what must be the Savarys, Clarks, Fontanes, and Marets?

ART. V.-A Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire, in every Quarter of the World, including the East Indies; the Rise and Progress of the Funding System explained; with Observations on the National Resources for the beneficial Employment of a redundant Popula tion; and for rewarding the Military and Naval Officers, Soldiers, and Seamen, for their Services to their Country during the late War: illustrated by copious Statistical Tables, &c.By P. Colquhoun, LL.D. London, 1814.

MR. COLQUHOUN contrives to arrest the attention of his

readers, rather by the magnitude and distribution of his subjects, than by their novelty. The objects exhibited in his Police of the Metropolis' were familiar to every reader. No inhabitant of this great town could be ignorant that its vast population was mixed up with swindlers and pickpockets, thieves, vagrants, "beggars, and prostitutes; but Mr. Colquhoun enabled us to trace them to their lurking-places-he gave to each class a 'local habitation;' -he brought them to our view in groups amounting to thousands, and their pilfering and plunder to millions. Familiar as such objects rust have been to him, from his official situation, the systematic villainy which he disclosed was so monstrous, and at the same time

SO

so methodically planned, the scale of operations was so extensive, that the truth of his statements was called in question; we believe, however, it has been pretty well ascertained, that there was more foundation for them than the superficial observer had ever imagined.

Mr. Colquhoun has now taken a bolder flight, and entered upon a research of a much wider range. With uncommon labour, and some ingenuity, he has attempted to collect into one great mass, the sum total of the wealth, power, and resources, of the British empire, in every quarter of the world. This splendid view is exhibited in four Tables, elucidated by explanatory notes; and the principles on which they are constructed are explained in four corresponding chapters. These tables and chapters occupy about one-fourth part of the volume; the remainder being employed on historical accounts of the public revenue and expenditure, and the public debt; on the settlements and colonies of Great Britain; and the territories under the management of the East India Company.

The first chapter is dedicated to the interesting and important subject of population. The increase in that of Great Britain, according to the census taken in 1801 and 1811, appears to be as under :

The extraordinary addition of nearly a million and a half to the population of Great Britain in the period of ten years, and in the midst of a widely extended war, created some doubt as to the accuracy of the returns made in 1801. It was objected, that the novelty of the measure necessarily produced imperfect returns; and some affected to say, that the apprehension of an intention on the part of government to lay on a poll-tax influenced those returns, and that many concealed the real number of their families. There are, however, several facts, which, coupled with collateral circumstances, amount almost to proof, that the increase is not more than might be expected. It is true, that in great towns, false returns might easily be made without fear of detection-a man might sink a part of his family, though he would not find it quite so feasible to bury his house out of sight. Now, it appears from the same returns, that the houses in Great Britain had increased from 1,937,489 in 1801 to 2,163,946, in 1811, being 226,457 in the