called other means to his assistance. Three infamous dignitaries of the patriarchal church issued a pastoral letter, under his orders, denouncing excommunication against all persons who directly or indirectly assisted the patriots. This was dispersed over the provinces, accompanied by a letter from the French intendant General in which he asked the Portugueze why they subjected them. selves to the weight of the French power, at a moment when the Almighty Authority* thought only of laying aside the rights of conquest, and of governing with mildness. Is it,' said he, 'before a few handfuls of Portugueze that the star of the great Napoleon is to be darkened, or the arm deadened of one of his most valiant and skilful captains ?It is but too well known how deeply the baneful superstition of the Romish church has rooted itself in Portugal; but in this instance the threat of excommunication was regarded with contempt;-the people knew that their most sacred duty was to deliver their country, that no devotion could be so holy as the sacrifice of their own lives in such a cause, no offering so righteous as the blood of an invader.

Basely as the Spaniards have been calumniated here, the fate of the Portugueze has been still harder. The writers who have been most successful in slandering the Spaniards, and deadening that generous ardour in their cause, which was at one time as universal in Great Britain as it was honourable to the British character, are persons who having professed the most opposite opinions, as they happened to suit their own immediate purposes, have proved themselves to have no other principle whatever than that of self-interest. But the Portugueze have been hastily condemned by men of a far different stamp. Even so truly profound and philosophical a writer as Ardnt, speaks of them with contemptuous injustice in the work for which Palm was murdered. The Spaniards,' he says, 'will again become what they once were, one of the most admired and powerful nations in Europe: but Portugal will remain in a state of servitude as it deserves; for separated from Spain, it is a wen on a sound body.' The German philosopher truly prophesied the regeneration of the Spaniards; and had he known the character of the Portugueze equally well, his opinion of them would have been more favourable and less erroneous. The people are uncorrupted, and their courage and patriotism were abundantly proved by the manner in which they rose against the French, at a time, when, to use the words of Lord Wellington, their troops had been completely dispersed, their officers had gone off to Brazil, and their arsenals had been pillaged, or were in the power of the enemy. Their revolt,' says that competent judge, 'under the circumstances

This phrase is literally translated from the original blasphemy of the proclamation.

in which it has taken place, is still more extraordinary than that of the Spanish nation. While Kellerman and Avril were ravaging Alem-Tejo, Margaron attacked Leiria, where a handful of students from Coimbra had proclaimed the Prince Regent. Six hundred patriots, according to the French bulletin, were left upon the field of battle. According to the Portugueze, the French, while they were opposed to an undisciplined and half-armed peasantry, divided their force, which consisted of nearly 5000 men, entered the city on every side, and put to the sword all whom they found in the streets, without distinction of age or sex. It was stated in the bulletin that the banners of the insurgents were taken and presented to his Excellency the Duke of Abrantes. The real history of these banners is a curious proof of the manner in which the French bulletins are fabricated: the soldiers on their march fell in with a party of devotees going to the Cirio da Ameixoeira, mounted upon mules and asses, with music playing, and flags flying, such as are to be seen at an English puppet-show. The sight of the French put the whole procession to the rout, and the flags which they threw away in their flight were picked up, to form an article in the next bulletin.

Loison mean time was laying waste the north of Portugal. Alfedrinha was burnt by him, and above 3000 patriots killed in battle. His own loss was said to be only twenty killed, and from thirty to forty wounded. This bulletin, however, is said by the Portugueze author to be notoriously false-that which followed will only provoké a smile in England. On the 10th of July forty English landed at the foot of the village of Costa, to obtain provisions. That post was defended by only five of the 31st regiment of light infantry. Notwithstanding the disproportion of numbers, these five men, in sight of all the inhabitants, attacked the forty English, forced them to leave upon the beach all that they had purchased, and pursued them to the sea. Three conscript-lads of the 66th regiment saw a boat from the English squadron making towards the land, near Cascaes. They hid themselves till it reached the shore, then rose up from their ambush, fired upon it, killed the pilot, who was the master of Admiral Cotton's ship, and obliged two English officers, and six sailors, or marines, who were in the boat, to lay down their arms and surrender as prisoners of war, an instance of presence of mind and courage which does great honour to these three lads.' When the French Admiral Latouche, during the blockade of Toulon, boasted in an official letter that the whole British fleet had fled before him, Nelson said, if his character for not being apt to run away, were not established by that time, it was not worth his while to put the world right. Nevertheless, he swore that if he took the Frenchman he would make him eat his letter. General Thiebault, who signed the bulletin, fell

at Vimieira-had he been made prisoner, it certainly ought to have been administered to him in a sandwich.

If the victories of the French over the Portugueze be not more truly related than these exploits against our sailors, the patriots sustained little loss. It was not however possible that they could withstand such a force of regular troops,-and the French soldiers made full use of the license which their rascally commanders allow them in the field: they returned to Lisbon with cart loads of plunder, and every man with his knapsack full-the pillage which Loison and Margaron brought back amounted to more than half a million of cruzados. This, however, was the least mischief which they committed. Junot talked of houses delivered over to desolation and death, of flourishing cities transformed into heaps of ashes and wide sepulchres-he did not enumerate among the triumphs of his troops the outrages committed upon the women. Their vengeance fell next upon Evora. Loison, with Margaron and Solignac under his command, and a powerful detachment marched for that city :-the patriots had collected a few regular troops, with the militia of the country, and some Spaniards came to their assistance; they posted themselves advantageously about a mile from the town, and sustained an attack of some hours before the position was forced. Junot asserted that 1000 were left dead on the field, 4000 wounded, and 3000 made prisoners-the Portugueze with equal exaggeration, affirmed the victory cost the French 3000 slain. The city was given up to be pillaged, nine hundred persons of different sexes and ages were put to the sword in the streets and churches, eight and thirty clergymen were murdered, among them the Bishop of Maranham. The nunneries were broke open, and women were equally the victims of their cruelty and their lust.-Loison himself shook his sabre over the head of the Archbishop, a venerable man, nearly ninety years of age, of distinguished learning, and still more eminent for his virtues. He promised him, however, that his property should not be touched; yet after this promise, Loison himself, with some of his favourite officers, entered by night the Archbishop's library, which was one of the finest in Portugal; they threw down every book, in hopes of discovering valuables behind them, broke off the gold and silver clasps from the magnificent bindings of the rarest part of the collection, and in their rage that they found so little plunder, tore in pieces a whole file of manuscripts. They took every gold and silver coin from his cabinet of medals, and every jewel and bit of the precious metals in which the relics were set, or which decorated any thing in his oratory. And when the Archbishop was taking his afternoon sleep, and had laid his episcopal ring upon the table as usual at such times, Loison's prowling eye fixed upon the jewel as he past through the

room, and he was seen to pocket it. These facts are not mentioned in the work before us, but they are related upon the most unquestionable authority.

Evora was sacked on the 30th of July; two days afterwards Sir Arthur Wellesley landed, and the subsequent events are sufficiently notorious. The iniquity of Buonaparte's conduct towards Portugal has been put out of sight by his blacker wickedness towards Spain. Conscience, says a state-villain, in one of Ben Jonson's plays,

'Conscience!

Poor plodding priests and preaching friars may make
Their hollow pulpits and the empty aisles

Of churches ring with that round word: but we
That draw the subtile and more piercing air

In that sublimed region of a court,

Know all is good we make so, and go on
Secur❜d by the prosperity of our crimes.'

At present this might be the Corsican's motto. Such has been the career of that imperial barbarian, that he obtains an amnesty for his old crimes by perpetrating new ones; and his perjuries and assassinations have ceased to excite astonishment in Europe, because they are now looked upon as regular parts of his political system. Even in this country there are men who, when they are reminded of his guilt, think it a sufficient reply to tell us of his greatness; and would have us fall down and worship the golden image at the very time when the Spaniards are walking through the burning fiery furnace. These men serve the tyrant whom they flatter, and are more truly and efficiently his agents than the miserable wretches in his pay. They are never weary of exaggerating the wisdom and the power of Buonaparte; according to them, it is still the English who disturb the quiet of the continent; he is the regenerator and benefactor of Spain and Portugal, who reforms their laws, purifies their religion, and puts an end to the abuses of their governments. The Spanish chiefs have only a little hour to strut and fret,' and we ought to congratulate ourselves upon their fall. Callous and cowardly sophists! it is thus that while they belie the feelings, they labour to deaden the courage, and sacrifice the honour of England.

ART. II. Elements of Geometry, Geometrical Analysis, and plane Trigonometry. With an Appendix, Notes, and Illus trations. By John Leslie, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh. 8vo. pp. xvi. 494. Edinburgh: Brown and Crombie. London: Longman and Co.

ROFESSOR Leslie presents himself to the notice of the scien

PROFE

tific world with pretensions of no ordinary kind. He advances with a bold, unhesitating step, as if he rather meant to extort applause, than to abide the award of sober criticism. Such of our readers as recollect the controversy which agitated the minds, and wrecked the patience, of the Edinburgh literati in 1805, will not greatly wonder at this deviation from the usual courtesy of authors. Those who may not have heard of this controversy, notwithstanding the anxiety of the disputants to make it known, will thank us for the following particulars. In the year 1804, Mr. Leslie published an Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat,' a work which, as we have already had occasion to observe, contained some very interesting results, together with sundry disquisitions on topics not very immediately connected with the subject, nor always well understood by the author. In one of these, he recommended Hume's Essay on necessary Connexion, as a model of clear and accurate reasoning,' and especially as it made the relation of cause and effect nothing more, at bottom, than a constant and invariable sequence.' This remark, which doubtless implies an approbation of the most dangerous parts of Hume's philosophism, might have sunk into oblivion, had not Mr. Leslie offered himself for the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, vacant by the removal of Professor Playfair on the death of Doctor Robison. On this occasion, the clergy of Edinburgh, illiberal, narrow-minded men,' were weak enough to suppose that a person who could step out of his way to recommend an atheistical writer, in a work of pure science, might, in like manner, wander from his duty, and infuse similar poisons into his mathematical lectures; nor would they give him credit for being a man of religion, although he declared, that he regarded the religious institutions of his native country as at once rational, decent, and impressive.' The philosophers of Edinburgh entered warmly into his defence: a contest was thus produced between them and the divines; in which the latter, notwithstanding the violence of their assailants, maintained their ground with the coolness of men who had the better side of the question both