Those princes,' says Gibbon, (speaking of such as were suffered to reign for a short time in the provinces of the Roman empire,) whom the ostentation of gratitude, or generosity, permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed the appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.' The monarchs of Spain, Naples, Westphalia, Sweden, or of any other of the separate kingdoms, which Buonaparte has deemed it expedient to create, may expect to receive a like treatment, when they have performed the same task, or answered other temporary purposes of their master. I have long since predicted, that the measures of this description, which he has taken, were but preparatory to the establishment of his own immediate authority. It is his object to form one vast empire, embracing the largest and fairest portion of Europe, united under one system of military government, and connected by the same language, usages, and civil institutions. After having meditated not a little upon the practicability of this plan, I must confess to you, that I see no invincible obstacles to its execution. When I contemplate the changes which have been wrought during the last three or four years, and those which daily occur in Europe, I feel almost a persuasion, that it may be so far matured, even during the life-time of the French Emperor, as to render inevitable its final accomplishment. MR. (To be continued.) OMNIANA.-No. VI. R. JACOB, in his late Travels, has the following remarks on the natural resources of Malaga, and on the hopes which some of the inhabitants allow themselves to build on them:-It is not, however, the edifices constructed by human labour that render Malaga an interesting spot, but the benign climate and fruitful soil with which Providence has blessed it, and which the industry of the people has been exerted to improve. The rivers Guadalmedina and Guadalorce, which empty themselves at this place into the ocean, wind round the mountains, and pass through the valleys the richest and most fertile in the world, and it is upon the banks of these rivers that the prodigious quantity of figs, almonds, oranges, lemons, olives, sumach, juniper-berries, wax, and honey, are produced, which, with the dried raisins and wines from the mountains, and the cork of the hills, form the foundation of the natural external commerce of Malaga. The productions with which Europe is supplied from the western world, such as coffee, cotton, cocoa, indigo, and pimento, had been all cultivated in this part of Spain for many ages before America was was discovered; and though it has only been of late years that any great increase in their cultivation has taken place, yet, from the productiveness of the soil, from the specimens that have been produced, and the political prospects of the world, the hope is entertained, that this part of Spain may, in time, be rendered capable of superseding the necessity of cultivating the West India Islands by the labour of slaves. The most intelligent persons I have conversed with have been zealous patriots, and have entered with the warmest feelings into the cause of their country; but the conduct of the Junta has deadened their enthusiasm, and checked the energy of their exertions. They now scarcely dare hope for success; and the dread of being captured by the French is more strongly felt than any expectation of successful resistance. Amidst the gloom of these prospects, however, they seek consolation from the nature of their productions, and the сараbilities of their soil; they reason thus :— If this country be conquered by the troops of Buonaparte, if the antient institutions, the public bodies, and the religious establishments, be destroyed, and if, by being under the yoke of France, the English should become our enemies, and prevent us from enjoying any external commerce, still our fruitful fields must remain to us; and even our conquerors, with all their ferocity, will, for their own advantage, protect our agriculture from destruction. Europe, under the dominion of Buonaparte, will be completely excluded from all connection with the transatlantic world: the tropical productions, which habit has rendered almost indispensable, will be sought for with increased avidity; and as our coffee, cotton, and sugar, will have to contend with no competition from the western world, the prices which they will produce must act as a stimulus, sufficiently powerful, to induce every man to labour in the cultivation of tropical productions, and thus turn the commerce of Malaga from foreign to internal objects. It would be cruel to lessen this only consolation which the wretched feel; to diminish that hope which is now their sole enjoyment. I do not, therefore, disturb speculations which I feel to be delusive, nor discover a want of faith in those more distant expectations, by which they amuse their minds under the prospect of impending evils. It is impossible, however, not to foresee, that the conquest of the kingdom of Granada by France would produce miseries which no short interval could remove. The growers are now supplied with capital to subsist themselves and their labourers till the productions are ready for the various markets. The capitalists would, by the requisitions of France, be deprived of the power of administering to the wants of the agriculturists. The agriculturists could not subsist while the change is going on from the cultivation of vines to that of sugar-canes; and when the canes were ripe, the erection of mills would be necessary before a much greater quantity of sugar than the present supply could be produced. The political feelings of the great body of the people would operate to prevent any of these dreams of the Malagueños from being realized; the bulk of the people would retire to the fastnesses of mountains inaccessible to their enemies, and there, in spite of the French, who could only occupy the towns, would carry on a war of extermination, from which those who remain in the valleys would not be exempt. Instead of requias of mules and asses peaceably traversing the mountains, and conveying various productions to Madrid, and thence to France, the passes would be filled by bodies of insurgent Spaniards, which would make communication impracticable without the protection of an army. In the French extract from Mercier's Nouveau Tableau de Paris, which occurs a few pages back, in one of the notes by the author of the Letters on France, (p. 39,) there is one passage too eloquent to be left concealed under a foreign language from any part of our readers. The whole extract describes the universal and headlong passion of the Parisians for dancing:-'They dance,' says M. Mercier, at the monastery of the Carmelites, where they cut throats; they dance at the Noviciate des Jesuites; they dance at the Convent of the Carmelites du Marais; they dance at the Seminary de Saint-Sulpice; they dance at the Filles de Sainte-Marie; they dance in three ruined churches in my neighbourhood, and on the stones of all the graves that are not yet opened: the names of the dead are under the feet of the dancers, who perceive them not, and who forget that they kick the dust of sepulchres.' This is a picture at least as strong in its kind as Burke's-' They unplumb the dead, to assassinate the living;' and it is an example safely to be produced of what is fine in writing. The frightful contrast, of dancing and cutting throats, prepares us, at the beginning, for the temper in which the author writes; the catalogue of religious houses gives extent and substance to the composition, on which afterward to lay the more prominent figures; and this part of the picture, while it progressively raises and fixes our indignation, is still left without any of those particular touches which might lay hold on our imagination. The author does not yet apply himself, either to the imagination or to the heart. He is content to relate simply what is agreed to be contrary, first to nature, and then to decorum. Here is an anticlimax, an art of sinking, inimitably beautiful; for the anticlimax occupies the middle of the piece. 'But,' says he,' they dance in three ruined churches.' Had they been merely said to dance in churches, we should have been struck but ruined but with the impiety of the dancers. But the three churches' fill the mind with the public decay of religion-three ruined churches in one neighbourhood!--the mouldering away of altars, impiety, desolation, and dancing! Then--they dance on the very graves-all that are not yet opened--and, with these images of grief and horror, are mingled those of a noisy dance, and giddy dancers. this The following are three statistical views of the wars in which country has been engaged since the Revolution : A Chronological Account of Commerce in Great Britain, with the computed Balances of Trade, the Amount of Customs, and Money coined, for the same period, will be found at the end of the preceding volume of this Magazine. At page 78 of this volume, is an account of Charles Witte, of the university of Gottingen. Had this prodigy appeared in a coun * In this peace of nine years the debt increased 26,000,0001. try try where the doctrine of transmigration of souls is held, it might have been hailed as an evidence of its truth. 6 All the Tuinians, (Manicheans,)' according to William de Rubruquis, an early traveller in Tartary, believe that souls pass from body to body. In confirmation of this, the goldsmith told me,' says he, they had brought a person from Kathay, (China,) who, by the size of his body, appeared to be only three years old, yet was capable of reasoning, and knew how to write, and who affirmed that he had passed through several bodies.'* All the kings of China and the Indies believe in the metempsychosis, says a Mahommedan commentator, as an article of their religion, of which the following story, related by a person of credibility, is a singular instance. One of these princes having viewed himself in a mirror, after recovering from the small-pox, and noticing how dreadfully his face was disfigured, observed, that no person had ever remained in his body after such a change, and as the soul passes instantly into another body, he was determined to separate his soul from its present frightful body, that he might pass into another. Wherefore he commanded his nephew to mount the throne, and calling for a sharp and keen scymitar, ordered his own head to be cut off, that his soul might be set free, to inhabit a new body. His orders were complied with, and his body was burnt, according to the custom of the country.'+ The following lines, unpublished at the time, were written during the public rage for Master Betty, by the late Richard Cumberland, Esq. Kemble, whilst thus you give us to behold Acting that would have grac'd the days of old, Parrots can talk, but is the world so weak, Το say that parrots think, because they speak? "Tis nothing strange, good folks! that boys can spout; *Travels of William de Rubruquis into Tartary. Commentary on an Account of India and China by a Mahomedan Traveller, by Abu Zeid al Hasan. ORIGINAL |