as a subscriber. I have much to say to you about Bishop Gleig, and about the Edinburgh Episcopalians. Oh! it gladdens my heart to find such enlightened teachers, such truly Gothic churches, though lately built, such well-dressed, and such well-disposed hearers, such dignity, and solemnity in the service. Alas! we are retrograde in England; and now, Mrs. Shepherd, I will gratify first her curiosity in knowing what were the contributions to my birth-day feast, and secondly, her love of mischief against heretics in finding that I am obliged to fast while others feasted. Four pheasants and a hare from the Duke of Bedford; a fine side of venison from Mr. Leigh of Stoneleigh; a gigantic chine, a gigantic turkey, a brace of pheasants, six partridges, and a stupendous wildgoose from Mr. Coke of Norfolk; a codfish larger than Juvenal describes, in his fourth satire, as decorating the table of Domitian, from my pupil Mr. Phillips; the jaws were spacious enough to swallow a child of three years old; the length was such that if we had seen it alive and swimming in the water, we should have applied to it what Milton said of the old dagon swinging the scaly horror of his folded tail; and, besides this, a barrel of oysters, four soles white as snow and shining as jasper, and all these from Mr. Phillips, jun.; and then from Mr. Phillips, sen. a luscious Stilton cheese, fit for the table at the Brighton Pavilion, and the very largest haunch of vension I ever saw at this season of the year; and then comes in the procession a barrel of oysters from Birmingham, and then come two fine grouse from Lord Dormer; and the whole series is closed by two large luxurious pies, with stuffings and balls, and turkies and tongues, kai μvpia oσa, from my cousin Robert Foster. The banquet was not episcopal, nor archiepiscopal, but pontifical. It required no apology, even if Wolsey had been my guest. I cannot hold a book, I cannot hold a pipe; I was obliged to turn Orientalist, and employ a village boy to be the bearer of my hookah. But my namesake and my friend, Sam. Butler of Shrewsbury, turned his mathematics to account and sent me a sketch for a machine to sustain my pipe; and on the day his letter reached me a machine, from a plan formed, I am sure, previously by him at Kenilworth, was brought by the organist to the parsonage. It stands now before me; you would smile, Mr. President, and your sisters would stare, and boobies would giggle, and females would tattle, and I should puff away. I shall soon write to you again, and am, most sincerely and affectionately your friend.

S. PARR.'vol. vii. pp. 673-675.

These extracts will sufficiently indicate to our readers the sort of entertainment to be found in Dr. Johnstone's volumes. The correspondence he has published, is almost throughout exceedingly interesting. It embraces a great variety of topics, both political and literary; and will be found particularly deserving of the attention of the students of literary history and classical criticism. The publication is altogether got up in a style well calculated to do honour to the memory, and to gratify the friends of Dr. Parr. We are particularly pleased to see so complete a collection as is given at the end of volume fourth of those Latin inscriptions, in the composition of which the skill of the learned Doctor was so deservedly

celebrated. We are rather disposed, however, to question the expediency of publishing the sermons by which the fifth and sixth volumes are occupied.

ART. VII.—Memoires du Duc de Rovigo, Ministre de la Police, sous Napoleon. Vol. iv. 8vo.

Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, (M. Savary,) written by himself, illustrative of the History of the Emperor Napoleon. Vol. iv. Parts 1 and 2. 8vo. London: Colburn. 1828.

THESE lively Memoirs have, from the commencement of their publication, awakened considerable curiosity among political readers; and it is fortunate that the interest of the story has deepened in its progress, proceeding from the detail of events which are now a part of the common material of history, to the unfolding of secrets hitherto involved in the impenetrable cloud of state mystery, or the fogs of political intrigue. On both sides the channel, men have been recalled by this work to examine over again the causes of events, which, though recent and fearful, were beginning to be practically forgotten. They have been incited to contemplate, with revived party feelings, the conduct of men who have for ever left the great stage of human action, and to gather together the memoranda of transactions which were long since forgotten in the general summing up of history. In France, as might be expected, this is especially the case. There M. Savary's confessions and recollections have given birth to others, esteemed almost as important. The contents of his book seem to have been gathered from the archives of every family. Scarcely a Frenchman can be found, who has not some anecdote which could enrich its pages, or who could not comment for some time, with spirit and enthusiasm, on the different portions of its narrative. It is not like a digested or proper historical narrative, in which individual likenesses, and the little heart-awaking, passion-stirring circumstances of life, are hidden, but it is an almost faithful transcript of the journal of an official, busy, and gossiping man. It delays us just where and when we would be delayed, by the lengthening of its details; it answers questions, or at least attempts to do so, which have started all quick and anxious into the mind; and the thousands that were, in one way or the other, engaged in the battles or the policy of the last thirty years, feel a fresh interest as they turn over every new page, from the possibility that their own names, characters, and actions may form its substance.

Although this extreme interest must necessarily be diminished by the transfer of the work from its native soil, a considerable part of it will remain, in whatever European country it be read, nor will a very few years diminish it. Much of Rovigo's narrative is the very romance of modern history. It has led the reader over the

most celebrated battle fields, making him acquainted with the voices of the men that fought the most desperately against us; and it has laid open the whole vast schemes of that tyrannical yet popular government, which, while it held a mighty nation in the close-drawn chains of a stern policy, was so artfully planned, that it was for a long period regarded as a sure and worthy means of national glory.

How far Rovigo is himself an object of interest, is a question of not much importance as it affects the character of his work. He is not the first instance among many, of the professed subject of a biography being the least valuable portion of the treatise. With not much of what is commonly called talent; with no very clear original views on any one of the great questions involved in his narrative, and without possessing any claim to a strong feeling of sympathy in his readers, he is as bad a hero for a long and romantic record, as could have possibly been drawn from the disbanded ranks of the Imperial army. But with all this, Rovigo had an eye that could discern signs, and read their interpretation. Though there is a mixture of simplicity and narrow mindedness in most of the commentaries he makes on passing events, it is at the same time evident that none escaped his watchfulness; and this also may be said, that he has omitted to mention none in his Memoirs. A more philosophical and unprejudiced man would doubtless have seen things under a very different aspect from that in which they were presented to the mental eye of M. Savary; but what he lost in not possessing the power of theorizing or reasoning better, he gained, it is probable, in that kind of sharpness or shrewdness which we so generally find in men of his character, and which, in his case, not only fitted him for the offices which he held, but render him better adapted for the task he has at present undertaken. He was a violent partisan, and his zeal and principles still remain without abatement, blinding him in the past and in the present, and allowing him to possess few sound general principles of benevolence; but while a reader of very moderate penetration and knowledge may clearly see that more than one or two parts of the narrative have taken a strong bias from these passions of the author, it is at the same time to be observed, that if Rovigo was too humble and fawning while rising or seeking office, he was as constant, grateful, and devoted after he gained his point as he was before. But what makes an Englishman dislike him, and feel the strongest aversion to every thing he can say, is, his having been engaged in the worst service by which a wrong-minded man can rise to distinction, or in which a monarch can by any means employ a devoted subject. But Rovigo had not many refined scruples to overcome. We have little doubt he would have as readily accepted the office of executioner, as he did that of minister of police, could the former by any method have been made honourable in the eyes of the emperor. But even this easi

ness of mind regarding the intrinsic sameness of a courtier's service is not unfavourable to Rovigo as an author, in the only line in which it is probable his authorship will be ever exercised. Had he been more scrupulous he would never have possessed the information he has given us; and, had he been somewhat more refined in feeling, he would have shrunk from revealing the secrets of his prison house, because they were in some measure a testimony of his debased state. But M. Savary could find nothing wrong in any thing which his master thought right or expedient to do. The Code Napoleon was the code of morals, the law of honour, the deed of right, and every thing to him. The glory of the emperor dazzled him first, and his own desire of advancement blinded him afterwards; and as he did every thing under the confused ideas of honour, and right, and profit, which he thus acquired, it is not to be wondered at that he should write his Memoirs without wishing or taking pains to conceal any thing out of attention to those feelings which would rise in another man's bosom, not previously tutored to the same system of moralizing. From all these considerations we are disposed to regard M. Savary as a better author than hero, and his book as infinitely more interesting than his own talents or character is exalted. We should, however, be greatly erring did we not give M. Savary credit for many qualities as a man, for which he deserves respect. He was one of the best soldiers in the French army; he was bold, persevering, and determined in the execution of his duty, to whatever exertion it called him. If he flattered his master in prosperity, he did not vilify him in adversity; and in his fidelity to Napoleon, and his continued veneration of his memory, he has shown himself to be far superior to many a one who would have carried their subserviency to one degree lower, but have made up for it by a baser infidelity to their fallen master.

In the last volume of these Memoirs, we were presented with a remarkable account of that system of espionage which Napoleon brought into action, and which our author was a great instrument in carrying to perfection. But the fortune of his master was on the change, and there are very few circumstances omitted in the relation which preceded the final scene. In the volume at present before us, and to which we now turn, the narrative resumes the tone of deep and lively interest with which the last portion of it concluded. The empress prepares for her departure from Paris; the people rush together with expressions of the most loyal devotion, and desire to detain her still among them; but her retirement was determined on, and she set out with the King of Rome, who, it is said, manifested the most determined resistance to those who wished to put him into the carriage, crying out, as he caught hold of the curtains of the apartment, that his papa was betrayed, and that he was in his own house, and would not leave it. Scarcely had this occurrence taken place, when Paris saw itself surrounded

by the army of the Allies, and the city of the great nation, the capital of a kingdom which had pretended to the sovereignty of the world, was resigned to the enemy without the shadow of resistance. Whatever were the views of Napoleon Bonaparte, his fate at this time deserved commiseration. The men who betrayed him were not those who had originally been his enemies, or enjoyed only toleration at his hands; they had been made by him, received the patent of their nobility entirely from his word, and had seen their reputation and fame constantly growing under his ascendant star. The following passage, therefore, has not been read by us without much interest. It describes the situation of Bonaparte at the time of his being made acquainted with the capitulation of Paris.

The Emperor pushed on as far as a place called the Cour de France, which is the second stage from Paris on that road, and is at the distance of about three leagues from the gate of the capital. He met at the Cour de France General Hullin, who was on his way from Paris, which he had left after the capitulation concluded by Marshal Marmont with the enemy. He learned from that general officer that the capital had surrendered, that the French troops were to evacuate it in the night, and the enemy to take possession the next morning. It is impossible to form an idea of the painful impression which the news created upon his mind. He had anticipated the possibility of the enemy's marching upon Paris, and had mentioned the circumstance to the officers of the national guard previously to his own departure for the army. He had expressed to them his wish that they should hold out for a few days, so as to enable him to hasten to their assistance. He had kept his word, since Paris had only been at tacked that very morning; and before the close of day he was already at its gates with his whole army. But instead of a defence of a few days, the capital did not resist for the space of a few short hours. It was not yet mid-day, in fact, when the determination was adopted of coming to a capitulation. All this can only be ascribed to the cowardice of some, and to the blind eagerness of others to rely upon the enemy's generosity. After the rupture of the conferences at Châtillon, the Emperor, as I have already stated, had made a movement towards the fortresses of Lorraine, with the whole of his army. Being, however, informed on his way of the march of the grand army of the allies upon Paris, he instantly retraced his steps from the point at which he had arrived, for the purpose of forcing the passage of the Maine at Vitry-le-Français. But the enemy had provided for the defence of that place, and he would have lost too much time in attempting to carry it. He had, accordingly, to relinquish all hope of the important advantage which he might have derived from returning to Paris in the rear of the enemy's army, whose line of operations he had succeeded in cutting off; and he immediately took the surest road by following the banks of the Seine. He had certainly not loitered on his way. Had Paris held out for two days longer, his army would have entered it; and every one is well acquainted with his skill in the management of af fairs. He would have had no hesitation to throw the arsenals open to the people. His presence would have inflamed the multitude. He would have imparted a salutary direction to their enthusiasm, and Paris would