three hundred and twenty-eight religious houses, all of which, as our readers know, have been abolished, and their property ftolen by the revolutionary thieves, who always act in the name of the nation; "and how," adds Mr. H. is this multitude difperfed and reduced at prefent !"

"Government has organized religion. At the head of the Church no Pope is placed; no cardinal governs under him: the chief conful of France will not admit of competitor in Church or ftate; he can brook no controul; he can imagine no understanding fufficiently vaft to give him inftruction. Citizen Portalis, lately an emigrant, acts under the fupreme Buonaparté: by him les affaires des cultes are fuperintended, and what manner of man is Citizen Portalis? His political career is too public to need any report of mine concerning its progrefs: but his private opinions are, perhaps, something lefs notorious.

"After he fled from France, he visited various cities of Germany; where the general tone of his converfation declared him to be what is called entirely free from religious prejudices; for him no opinion, merely as an opinion, was too licentious. But this was not because he wished to probe error, and to profit by acquired knowledge: he held it a folly to talk of corrupt ages, or corrupt nations. Though every fact of historical and individual experience prove the pernicious falfhood of the opinion, he maintained that men are and ever were the fame, and that, being acted upon folely by felf-intereft, the act of governing them is the act of profiting by their felt ifhnefs. Popery he affirmed to be the only state-religion: becaufe, as he emphatically added, it is a fieve that will fuffer any politics to pass. Citizen Portalis is become the secret and one of the most intimate counsellors of the Chief Conful. That thefe, and the whole train of their relative opinions, were the daily topics of his converfation I have the word of a man of mild manners, ftrict probity, and no lefs famous for the powers of his mind than the purity of his morals.

"Under politicians fo profound, the Church has been wrefted from the precarious patronage of the pious; and once more joined to the ftate. What the fum of the benefits may be, which the state is to receive from religion, and religion from the ftate, time must determine, prefent appear ances augur but faintly. That lordly hoft, whofe voices combined inspired even Majefty with awe, and fo frequently drove ignorance frantic, is now replaced by twelve parochial Churches, one for each municipality, and twenty-feven chapels of eafe, for the Catholic worship. The Proteftants are allowed three Chapels; the total for Catholic and Proteftant is fortytwo; and befide thefe there is at present no other place of religious worthip in Paris."

By this account of citizen Portalis it appears that he has no reli gion at all; and therefore he is a very fit adviser for his imperial mafter, whofe whole life has difplayed an utter contempt of religion But we fear it will be found that this citizen, in his eftimation of mankind, has fhewn a greater knowledge of the world, and a more correct opinion of its inhabitants, than our philofophizing traveller, notwithstanding his allusion to historical and individual experience. The subject, however, includes too many important confiderations to

be

be difcuffed incidentally; a proper investigation of it would require a volume of no mean fize.

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At the close of the chapter, whence the preceding paffage is extracted, are fome general reflections on priefts which must not be fuffered to pass without notice.

"Many a priest," fays Mr. H. "knows not how to become a priest; fufpects not that there can be error in things which the parroted affertions of mankind have taught him to confider as facred; and, with great innocence of intention, would hold that man as a monster, who fhould tell him that the functions, which he daily performs, as no lefs than the emanations of divine wisdom, are the extreme of abfurdity, the inventions of fe fifhness in a ftate of infanity, and totally deftructive of thole fimple and pure moral principles which the gospel contains; and which the worst man on earth reveres, how much foever he may infringe them."

If Mr. H. intended to confine his remarks to thofe fuperftitious practices of the Church of Rome, which are juftly claffed among the corruptions of Chriftianity, we should have little to object to them on the Icore of juftice. But they are worded fo generally, as apparently to comprehend all the functions of the priesthood, confequently extending to the very fundamentals of Chriftianity. We should fcarcely have admitted the poffibility of fuch an intention in the author, had we not before had occafion to reprove him for his impious affertions respecting vices inherent in the inftitution of the priesthood, of which he is not, we should hope, to be told our bleffed Saviour him. felf was the founder. Does he really mean to fay, as it is natural to infer from his language, that the gofpel contains nothing more than Jimple and pure moral principles; or that thofe are the only objects worthy the attention of a Chriflian? We readily admit that fcripture morals, like fcripture politics, are the beft, as, indeed, every thing muft be which proceeds from divine knowledge and from divine wif tom but, if Mr. H. can defcry nothing elfe, of great, or vital, importance, if we may be allowed to ufe fuch an expreffion on fuch an occafion, in the gospel of Chrift, he must bear to be told that he has profited but little from the perufal of the feriptures, and is very ill qualified to give advice to others. We hope the loof nefs of his language has deceived us as to his meaning, ince, if our inference were just, he would have no pretenfions even to the character of a Christian. A man may adopt all the fimple and pure moral principles of the gospel, without admitting the divinity of Chrift, or the doctrines of redemp tion, atonement, and juftification; but, without fuch admiffion, it is needlefs for us to ouferve, he is no Christian. A writer cannot be too guarded, nor too explicit, in his reflections on religious fubjećts, as a mifconception of his meaning may be highly prejudicial not only to himself but to his readers. To fay the truth, Mr. H. feems, as far as we can collect his fentiments from the incidental reflections scattered through these volumes, to have very vague and loofe notions on the subject of religion; and, therefore, the less he fays about it, perhaps MNO, LXXIII. VOL. XVIII.

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the better. It would give us great fatisfaction, however, to know that we have formed a falfe eftimate of his religious knowledge, and of his religious principles. As to the monftrous affertion, that the worst man on earth reveres the moral principles of the gospel, it is fo much at variance with common fenfe, and with " historical and individual experience," that we were aftonished to fee it.

The chapters devoted to the delineation of the character, qualities, and actions, of Buonaparté are highly interefting. The author fpeaks of his present tyranny with juft indignation, though he difplay an unaccountable incredulity refpecting fome of his paft vices and enormities, which are established beyond all poffible doubt. Indeed, in nothing, but crime and oppreffion, has this upftart Corfican been confiftent. Truly does Mr. H. fpeak of him as

"The man who, by the disordered and wild accidents of the times, appears to have swailowed up all other men, and to stand aloof; they crawling in existence only at his mercy, and having no will, none of the attributes of men, nor of their corporeal or mental faculties, deprived and robbed by him of that which diftinguishes them from the reptiles that ruins and that dunghills breed. When prefumptuous power is thus abfurd, thus frantic, indignation is virtue."

Mr. H. does not fcruple to affert, that the French government would fall in pieces, if England were at peace with France; and makes this fuppofition of his own a ground of cenfure of the British cabinet. But must he not admit, that, if his reprefentation be juft, it is the intereft of France to provoke a war, and, being actuated invariably by her own sense of intereft, without any regard to principle, the will, as he has done, force us into a war in fpite of ourselves? Nobody could poffibly fufpect Mr. Addington of temerity, or of harbouring a wifh to break that peace, on which he built his political reputation, and in which he continued to rejoice, even when its ruinous confequences were manifeft to the whole world. But this is an old argument (revived by Mr. H.) which has been advanced, and confuted again and again.

The anecdotes of Buonaparté are, many of them, curious; fome of them new; and all of them inftructive. From thefe, therefore, we fhall be rather copious in our extracts.

"That he had the fufpicions of a man who was confidered as a ufurper, or who confidered himself as fuch, was evident. If he went to the play, house, it was not known what streets he would pafs through; different turnings were taken at different times; the horfemen that preceded him hurried all obftruction from his paffage; the door that he entered at was furrounded by guards; the avenues from the Palais Royal that led to it were fhut; and no perfon was allowed to approach.

"I was not in Paris till after the attempt had been made upon him by the infernal machine; and he appears never fince to have had any confidence but in his guards. Stories were in circulation concerning his fear of poison, his change of beds, and other unquiet precautions: but I know no

thing of their truth: I only found his feclufion was now fo great that I could not hope to obtain a fight of his perfon, except at the parade. His motions were defultory; no notice was given when he went to the theatres, and when there he fo placed him elf that he was little feen.

The first anecdote I heard, which regarded him, was one already related of a woman who was feized for calling him the chief of a band of robbers. I was grieved, but not furprised. I fhall recite others in the order they occurred.

"Fouché, at this period, was the protector of the republicans; and, while defending their caufe, the Chief Conful one day. answered him with fome afperity.

"The republicans do not love me.'

True,' replied Fouché: they fay you are the high priest of fuperftition: however they remain quiet. But how do the emigrants, the royalifts, and the priests, whom you protect, act?".

"Fouché, then taking various papers out of his pocket, which contained proofs of the evil intentions of the parties he had named, added-' Look here, and here, and here: these papers will afford you fufficient informa tion!'

Immediately, at least foon after this converfation, Fouché addreffed a paper to the prefect of Bruffels, and I believe to other prefects, which appeared in the journals, and might be called a philippic against the priests: it accufed them of turbulence, intolerance, and practices unworthy of the morality of the gospel; and required that fuch conduct should be reproved, and in future prevented. This paper was no lefs offenfive to one party than flattering to the hopes of the other: the Concordat was then firft in contemplation, and the republicans would not fuffer themselves to believe that the country was again to be taxed, for the fupport of a ftate religion. Bonaparte was of a different opinion; and I had it from indubitable authority that Fouché was reprimanded, with marks of confiderable diffatisfaction, and filence was impofed upon him: the viceroy muft not govern the king.

"About this time, I heard that the Chief Conful would not fuffer the leaft familiarity; and that his temper daily became more irritable.

"I occafionally met feveral Italians, moft of them people of rank, and fome who had been high in office; they all fpoke of Bonaparte with bitter nefs; and related tales which, if true, would prove him to have been a treacherous tyrant at the time he began to command in Italy.

"When Bonaparte first came to Milan, profeffing himself the deliverer of a once great people, but now and long fince miferably enchained by priestcraft and petty delpotifm, thofe, who earneitly detired the emancipation and the happiness of their country, received him with open arms. One of them, a Milanese nobleman of great influence, devoted his whole means and power to the cause which he fuppofed the French fincerely intended to promote; and for that purpofe in giving aid to Bonaparte, by whom he was then treated with the moft flattering attention.

"This nobleman had none but virtuous motives for his conduct; and he was too foon convinced that it was not for the cause of freedom, which Bonaparte and the armies of France fought: the avarice of individuals, the plunder of rich and poor, and the worst of motives, which selfishness, egotism, and national vanity could infpire, were daily more and more apparent. After fome reverfe of fortune, which the French fuftained in Italy,

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Bonaparte

Bonaparte once more came to Milan; and the indignant patriot, instead of again promoting the views of the conqueror, openly upbraided him with his want of good faith, his total dereliction from the cause of freedom, and with the atrocities committed or countenanced by him. The affront was unpardonable: to reprove a man who had armies at his command, though, it thewed a noble and a virtuous fortitude, the loyal Milanele foon found was a fatal ftep: Bonaparte caufed him to be feized, put him under a guard, and fent accufations of him to the directory, accompanied by pretended proofs that he was a traitor to freedom and to France. The end of this tragedy was the death of the Italian: he was fhot; and the pallions of his enemy were thewn to be dangerous to the prefent, and ominous to the future.

"This account I had from a man of rank and honour, an Italian, who afsured me he abfolutely knew all that he had related to be true."

In 1801, after the independence of the Cifalpine republic had been fecured by treaty, the French commander exercifed the most complete defpotifm over the people of that country. In a favourite opera, exhibited at Milan, in the autumn of that year, there were fome paffages which were fuppofed to refer to the paft depredations, and to the exifting tyranny, of the French, which were received with enthufiaftic applaufe. But "it was fuddenly prohibited by the French commander."

The indignant feelings of the inhabitants of thofe countries which the French revolutionifts have generously emancipated from flavery, and restored to liberty and equality, our author depicts in lively colours."

"Oh that I could imprefs upon my countrymen a picture of the ftrong fenfe of injury, the bitterness of regret, and the determined hatred (indeed it is not too ftrong a word) against the French, as I found these feelings to prevail, in Holland, and among all with whom I converfed, who were natives of any of the countries which, under the pretence of giving them freedom, have been tormented by thefe conquerors! There is not a man on earth who could truly witnefs this, and forbear to form the inftantaneous with that they might be for ever expelled, and confined to their own limits. I would not incite the world to take up arms, for this purpofe; but tranquilly to wait that courfe of events which, if fufered to proceed, were they not disturbed, by calling the attention of the people of France to foreign occurrences and felf-defence, would accomplish all that force will attempt in vain to effect.

"The Italians will never pardon France, for having deprived their country of its nobleft works of art: this is the only facrilege of which in general they complain."

These people, it seems, are not very grateful for the effects of a revolution in which, as our author has before affured us, the good has predominated over the evil. He next gives fome anecdotes of individual oppreffion in France, where the people do not appear to be much more grateful, than the inhabitants of other countries. Citizen Mehée, whofe name is now fo well known to the British public, was editor of a republican paper which did not bestow fufficient praifes

on