Windham and Burke School; though Mr. Bowles cannot be called a servile copyist of either of these gentlemen, as he has rejected the logic of the one, and the eloquence of the other, and imitated them only in their headstrong violence, and exaggerated abuse. There are some men who continue to astonish and please the world, even in the support of a bad cause. They are mighty in their fallacies, and beautiful in their errors. Mr. Bowles sees only one half of the precedent; and thinks, in order to be famous, that he has nothing to do but to be in the wrong. War, eternal war, till the wrongs of Europe are avenged, and the Bourbons restored, is the masterprinciple of Mr. Bowles's political opinions, and the object for which he declaims through the whole of the present pamphlet. trample on every nation which co-operates with the Divine intention. meant by Jacobinism; and, as a concluding proof of In the 60th page, Mr. Bowles explains what is the justice with which the character is drawn, triumphantly quotes the case of a certain R. Mountain, who was tried for damning all kings and all govern. ments upon earth; for, adds R. Mountain, I am a Jacobin. No one can more thoroughly detest and despise that restless spirit of political innovation, binism, than we ourselves do; but we were highly which, we suppose, is meant by the name of Jacoamused with this proof, ab ebriis sutoribus, of the prostration of Europe, the last hour of human felicity, the perdition of man, discovered in the crapulous eruc tations of a drunken cobler. caped a common observer: but this is not all; there This species of evidence might certainly have esare other proofs of treason and sedition, equally remote, sagacious and profound. Many good subjects are not very much pleased with the idea of the Whig Club dining together; but Mr. Bowles has the merit of first calling the public attention to the alarming prac tice of singing after dinner at these political meetings. He speaks with a proper horror of tavern dinners, The first apprehensions which Mr. Bowles seems to entertain, are of the boundless ambition and perfidious character of the First Consul, and of that military despotism he has established, which is not only impelled by the love of conquest, but interested, for its own preservation, to desire the overthrow of other states. Yet the author informs us, immediately after, that the life of Buonaparte is exposed to more dangers than that of any other individual in Europe who is not actually in the last stage of an incurable disease; and that his death, whenever it happens, must involve where wine serves only to inflame disloyalty-where toasts where conviviality is made a stimulus to disaffectionthe dissolution of that machine of government, of are converted into a vehicle of sedition-and where the which he must be considered not only as the sole di- powers of harmony are called forth in the cause of Discord rector, but the main spring. Confusion of thought, by those hireling singers, who are equally ready to invoke we are told, is one of the truest indications of terror; the Divine favour on the head of their King, or to strain and the panic of this alarmist is so very great, that their venal throats in chanting the triumphs of his bitterhe cannot listen to the consolation which he himself est enemies.' affords: for it appears, upon summing that we are in the utmost danger of being destroyed with appopriate remedies. If Parliament, or Catarrh, up these perils, All complaint is futile, which is not followed up by a despot, whose system of government, as dread- do not save us, Dignum and Sedgwick will quaver away ful as himself, cannot survive him, and who, in all the King, shake down the House of Lords, and warble human probability, will be shot or hanged, before he us into all the horrors of republican government. can execute any one of his projects against us. upon those with which our national happiness is meWhen, in addition to these dangers, we reflect also naced, by the present thinness of ladies' petticoats (p. 78), temerity may hope our salvation, but how can reason promise it? us in reading the solemn devotion of this modern ĈurOne solitary gleam of comfort, indeed beams upon tius to the cause of his King and country We have a good deal of flourishing in the beginning of the pamphlet, about the effect of the moral sense upon the stability of governments; that is, as Mr. Bowles explains it, the power which all old governments derive from the opinion entertained by the people of the justice of their rights. If this sense of ancient right be (as is here confidently asserted) strong enough ultimately to restore the Bourbons, why are we to fight for that which will be done with- 'My attachment to the British monarchy, and to the out any fighting at all? And, if it be strong enough reigning family, is rooted in my "heart's core."-My anxito restore, why was it weak enough to render restora-ety for the British throne, pending the dangers to which, in tion necessary? common with every other throne, it has lately been exsolemnly vow, before Almighty God, to devote myself, to posed, has embittered my choicest comforts. And I must the end of my days, to the maintenance of that throne." To notice every singular train of reasoning into which Mr. Bowles falls, is not possible and in the copious choice of evils, we shall, from feelings of mercy, take the least. It must not be forgotten, he observes, 'that those rights of government, which, because they are ancient, are recognized by the moral sense as lawful, are the only ones which are compatible with civil liberty.' So that all questions of right and wrong, between the governors and the governed, are determinable by chronology alone. Every political institution is favourable to liberty, not according to its spirit, but in proportion to the antiquity of its date; and the slaves of Great Britain are groaning under the trial by jury, while the freemen of Asia exult in the bold privilege transmitted to them by their fathers, of being trampled to death by elephants. Whether this patriotism be original, or whether it be copied from the Upholsterer in Foote's Farces, who sits up whole nights watching over the British constitution, we shall not stop to inquire; when the practical effect of sentiments is good, we would not diminish their merits by investigating their origin. We seriously life to the service of his King and country; and commend in Mr. Bowles this future dedication of his more in their defence. No wise or good man has ever consider it as a virtual promise that he will write no That they should be exposed to that ridicule, by the thought of either, but with admiration and respect. forward imbecility of friendship, from which they appear to be protected by intrinsic worth, is so painful a consideration, that the very thought of it, we are persuaded, will induce Mr. Bowles to desist from writing on political subjects. In the eighth page, Mr. Bowles thinks that France, if she remains without a king, will conquer all Europe; and, in the nineteenth page, all the miseries of France are stated to be a judgment of heaven for their cruelty to their king and in the 33d page, they are discovered to proceed from the perfidy of the same king to this country in the American contest. So that certain misfortunes proceed from the maltreatment of a DR. LANGFORD. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.) person, who had himself occasioned these identical Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society. By W. misfortunes before he was maltreated; and while Langford, D. D. Printed for F. and C. Rivington, Providence is compelling the French, by every species of affliction, to resume monarchical government, they gaged in reviewing this sermon proves, in the most AN accident, which happened to the gentleman enare to acquire such extraordinary vigour, from not striking manner, the importance of this charity for acting as Providence would wish, that they are to restoring to life persons in whom the vital power is प 7 suspended. He was discovered, with Dr. Langford's | discourse lying open before him, in a state of the most profound sleep, from which he could not, by any means, be awakened for a great great length of time. By attending, however, to the rules prescribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the smoke of tobacco, applying hot flannels, and carefully removing the discourse itself to a great distance, the critic was restored to his disconsolate brothers. The only account he could give of himself was, that he remembers reading on, regularly, till he came to the following pathetic description of a drowned tradesman, beyond which he recollects nothing. But to the individual himself, as a man, let us add the interruption to all the temporal business in which his interest was engaged. To him indeed now apparently lost, the world is as nothing; but it seldom happens, that man can live for himself alone: society parcels out its concerns in various connections; and from one head issue waters which run down in many channels. The spring being suddenly cut off, what confusion must follow in the streams which have flowed from its source? It may be, that all the expectations reasonably raised of approaching prosperity, to those who have embarked in the same occupation, may at once disappear; and the important interchange of commercial faith be broken off, before it could be brought to any advantageous conclusion.' interfere, it would be presumptuous and impious to pronounce the purposes for which he interferes; and then adds, that it has pleased God, within these few years, to give us a most awful lesson of the vanity of agriculture and importation without piety, and that he has proved this to the conviction of every thinking mind. Though he interpose not (says Mr. Nares) by posi tive miracle, he influences by means unknown to all but himself, and directs the winds, the rain, and the glorious beams of heaven to execute his judgment, or fulfil his merciful designs.'-Now, either the wind, the rain, and the beams, are here represented to act as they do in the ordinary course of nature, or they are not. If they are, how can their operations be consid ered as a judgment on sins? and if they are not, what are their extraordinary operations, but positive miracles? So that the Archdeacon, after denying that any body knows when, how, and why the Creator works a miracle, proceeds to specify the time, instrument, and object of a miraculous scarcity; and then, assuring us that the elements were employed to execute the judg ments of Providence, denies that this is any proof of a positive miracle. Having given us this specimen of his talents for theological metaphysics, Mr. Nares commences his This extract will suffice for the style of the sermon. avarice; raises the old cry of monoply; and expresses attack upon the farmers; accuses them of cruelty and The charity itself is above all praise. some doubts, in a note, whether the better way would not be, to subject their granaries to the control of ar exciseman; and to levy heavy penalties upon those, in whose possession corn, beyond a certain quantity to ARCHDEACON NARES. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, be fixed by law, should be found.-This style of rea 1802.) soning is pardonable enough in those who argue from the belly rather than the brains; but in a well fed, and well educated clergyman, who has never been disturb A Thanksgiving for Plenty, and Warning against Avarice. A Sermon. By the Reverend Robert Nares, Archdeacon of Stafford, and Canon Residentiary of Litchfield. Lon-ed by hunger from the free exercise of cultivated don: Printed for the Author, and sold by Rivingtons, St. Paul's Churchyard. talents, it merits the severest reprehension. The farmer has it not in his power to raise the price of corn; he never has fixed and never can fix it. He is unques tionably justified in receiving any price he can obtain: for it happens very beautifully, that the effect of his efforts to better his fortune, is as beneficial to the public, as if their motive had not been selfish. The poor are not to be supported, in time of famine, by abatement of price on the part of the farmer, but by the subscription of residentiary canons, archdeacons, and all men rich in public or private property; and to these subscriptions the farmer should contribute according to the amount of his fortune. To insist that he should take a less price when he can obtain a greater, is to insist upon laying on that order of men the whole burden of supporting the poor; a convenient system enough in the eyes of a rich ecclesiastic; and objec tionable only, because it is impracticable, pernicious, and unjust. FOR the Swarm of ephemeral sermons which issue from the press, we are principally indebted to the vanity of popular preachers, who are puffed up by female praises into a belief, that what may be delivered, with great propriety, in a chapel full of visitors and friends, is fit for the deliberate attention of the public, who cannot be influenced by the decency of a clergyman's private life, flattered by the sedulous politeness of his manners, or misled by the fallacious circumstances of voice and action. A clergyman cannot be always considered as reprehensible for preaching an indifferent sermon; because, to the active piety, and correct life, which the profession requires, many an excellent man may not unite talents for that species of composition; but every man who prints, imagines he gives to the world something which they had not before, either in matter or style; that he has brought forth new truths, The question of the corn trade has divided society or adorned old ones; and when, in lieu of novelty and into two parts-those who have any talents for reason. ornament, we can discover nothing but trite imbecility, ing, and those who have not. We owe an apology to the law must take its course, and the delinquent suffer our readers, for taking any notice of errors that have that mortification from which vanity can rarely be ex-been so frequently, and so unanswerably exposed; but pected to escape, when it chooses dulness for the mini- when they are echoed from the bench and the pulpit, ster of its gratifications. some degree of importance to the silliest and most the dignity of the teacher may perhaps communicate The learned author, after observing that a large army praying would be a much finer spectacle than a large army fighting, and after entertaining us with the old anecdote of Xerxes, and the flood of tears, proceeds to express his sentiments on the late scarcity, and the present abundance: then, stating the manner in which the Jews were governed by the immediate interference of God, and informing us, that other people expect not, nor are taught to look for, miraculous interference, to Danish or reward them, he proceeds to talk of the visitation of Providence, for the purposes of trial, warning, and correction, as if it were a truth of which he had never doubted Still, however, he contends, though the Deity does To this exceedingly foolish man, the first years of Etonian Education were intrusted. How is it possible to Inflict a greater misfortune on a country, than to fill up such an office with such an officer? extravagant doctrines. No reasoning can be more radically erroneous than that upon which the whole of Mr. Nares's sermon is founded. The most benevolent, the most Christian, and the most profitable conduct the farmer can pur sue, is, to sell his commodities for the highest price he can possibly obtain. This advice, we think, is not in any great danger of being rejected: we wish we were equally sure of success in counselling the Reverend Mr. Nares to attend, in future, to practical, rather than theoretical questions about provisions. *If it is pleasant to notice the intellectual growth of an individual, it is still more pleasant to see the public growing wiser. This absurdity of attributing the high price of corn to the combinations of farmers, was the common nonsense talked in the days of my youth. I remember when ten judges out of twelve laid down this doctrine in their charges to the various grand juries on the circuits. Th This was another gentleman of the alarmist tribe.lowest attorney's clerk is now better instructed. He may be a very hospitable archdeacon; but noth-1 ing short of a positive miracle can make him an acute reasoner. Mr. Lewis will excuse us for the liberty we take in commenting on a few passages in his play which appear to us rather exceptionable. The only information which Cæsario, imagining his father to have been dead for many years, receives of his existence, is in the fol MATTHEW LEWIS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.) lowing short speech of Melchior. Alfonso King of Castile. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By M. 'MELCH. The Count San Lucar, long thought dead, but s It seems, by Amelrosa's care.-Time presses- To this laconic, but important information, Cæsario makes no reply, but merely desires Melchior to meet him at one o'clock, under the Royal Tower, and for some other purposes. gene rally asked a few questions-though we do not go the CESARIO. ALFONSO, king of Castile, had, many years previous to the supposed epoch of the play, left his minister and general, Orsino, to perish in prison, from a false accusation of treason. Cæsario, son to Orsino, (who by accident had liberated Amelrosa, daughter of Alfonso, from the Moors, and who is married to In the few cases which have fallen under our obserher, unknown to the father,) becomes a great favour-vation, of fathers restored to life after a supposed death ite with the King, and avails himself of the command of twenty years, the parties concerned have, on the of the armies with which he is intrusted, to gratify first information, appeared a little surprised, and his revenge for his father's misfortunes, to forward his own ambitious views, and to lay a plot by which he may deprive Alfonso of his throne and his life. Marquis Guzman, poisoned by his wife Ottilia in love with Cæsario, confesses to the King that the papers upon which the suspicion of Orsino's guilt was founded, were forged by him: and the King, learning from his daughter Amelrosa that Orsino is still alive, repairs to his retreat in the forest, is received with the most implacable hauteur and resentment, and in vain implores forgiveness of his injured minister. To the same forest, Cæsario, informed of the existence of his father, repairs, and reveals his intended plot against the King. Orsino, convinced of Alfonso's goodness to his subjects, though incapable of forgiving him for his unintentional injuries to himself, in vain dissuades his son from the conspiracy; and at last, ignorant of their marriage, acquaints Amelrosa with the plot formed by her husband against her father. Amelrosa, already poisoned by Ottilia, in vain attempts to prevent Cæsario from blowing up a mine laid under the royal palace; information of which she had re-nuine language of the passions? ceived from Ottilia, stabbed by Cæsario to avoid her Importunity. In the mean time, the King had been removed from the palace by Orsino, to his ancient retreat in the forest: the people rise against the usurper Cæsario; a battle takes place: Orsino stabs his own son, at the moment the King is in his son's power; falls down from the wounds he bas received in battle; and dies in the usual dramatic style, repeating twenty-two hexameter verses. Mr. Lewis says in his preface To the assertion, that my play is stupid, I have nothing to object; if it be found so, even let it be so said; but if (as was most falsely asserted of Adelmorn) any anonymous writer should advance that this Tragedy is immoral, I expect him to prove his assertion by quoting the objectionable passages. This I demand as an act of justice.' We confess ourselves to have been highly delighted with these symptoms of returning, or perhaps nascent purity in the mind of Mr. Lewis-a delight somewhat impaired, to be sure, at the opening of the play, by the following explanation which Ottilia gives of her early rising. 'ACT I. SCENE I.—The palace garden.-Day-break. OTTILIA enters in a night-dress: her hair flows dishevelled. OTTIL. Dews of the morn descend! Breathe, summer gales: My flushed cheeks woo ye! Play, sweet wantons, play Ottilia at last becomes quite furious, from the conviction that Cæsario has been sleeping with a second lady, called Estella; whereas be has really been sleeping with a third lady, called Amelrosa. Passing across the stage, this gallant gentleman takes an opportunity of mentioning to the audience that he has been passing his time very agreeably, meets Cttilia, quarrels, makes it up; and so end the first two or three scenes. Amelrosa, who imagines her father to have banished her from his presence for ever, in the first transports of pardon, obtained by earnest intercessions, thus exclaims: 'Lend thy doves, dear Venus, What judge of human feelings does not recognize in these images of silver wings, doves and honey, the ge. If Mr. Lewis is really in earnest in pointing out the coincidence between his own dramatic sentimerts and the Gospel of St. Matthew, such a reference (wide as we know this assertion to be) evinces a want of judg ment of which we did not think him capable. If it pro ceeded from irreligious levity, we pity the man who has bad taste enough not to prefer honest dulness to such paltry celebrity. We beg leave to submit to Mr. Lewis, if Alfonso, considering the great interest he has in the decision, might not interfere a little in the long argument carried on between Cæsario and Orsino, upon the propriety of putting him to death. To have expressed any decisive opinion upon the subject, might perhaps have been incorrect; but a few gentle hints as to that side of the question to which he leaned, might be fairly allowed to be no very unnatural incident. This tragedy delights in explosions. Alfonso's empire is destroyed by a blast of gunpowder, and restored by a clap of thunder. After the death of Casario, and a short exhortation to that purpose by Orsino, all the conspirators fall down in a thunderclap, ask pardon of the king, and are forgiven. This mixture of physical and moral power is beautiful! How interesting a water-spout would appear among Mr. Lewis's kings and queens! We anxiously look forward, in his next tragedy, to a fall of snow three or four feet deep; or expect that a plot shall gradually unfold itself by means of a general thaw. All is not so bad in this play. There is some strong And kneeling greet your blood-annointed king, A page who clasped thy knees: And Melchoir there But what did I this night? Hear, hear, and reverence! There was a breast on which my head had rested wine there? For my soul's joyous !'-p. 86. The resistance which Amelrosa opposes to the firing of the mine, is well wrought out; and there is some good poetry scattered up and down the play, of which we should very willingly make extracts if our limits would permit. The ill success which it has justly experienced, is owing, we have no doubt, to the want of nature in the characters, and of probability and good arrangement in the incidents; objections of some force. AUSTRALIA. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.) Account of the English Colony of New South Wales. Lieutenant-Colonel Collins of the Royal Marines. Vol. II. 4to. Cadell and Davies, London. By To introduce an European population, and, consequently, the arts and civilization of Europe, into such an untrodden country as New Holland, is to confer a lasting and important benefit upon the world. If man be destined for perpetual activity, and if the proper objects of that activity be the subjugation of physical difficulties, and of his own dangerous passions, how absurd are those systems which proscribe the acquisitions of science and the restraints of law, and would arrest the progress of man in the rudest and earliest stages of his existence! Indeed, opinions so very extravagant in their nature must be attributed rather to the wantonness of paradox, than to sober reflection and extended inquiry. sure of novelty has ceased. For these reasons, it is humane to restore him to sight. mankind the civilization of barbarous countries may But, however beneficial to the general interests of be, in this particular instance of it, the interest of Great Britain would seem to have been very little consulted. With fanciful schemes of universal good we have no business to meddle. Why are we to erect penitentiary houses and prisons at the distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous expense of transporting their inhabitants to and at such a distance, it is extremely difficult to discover. It certainly is not from any deficiency of barren is. lands on our own coast, nor of uncultivated wastes in the interior; and if we were sufficiently fortunate to be wanting in such species of accomodation, we might discover in Canada, or the West Indies, or on the coast of Africa, a climate malignant enough, or a soil sufficiently sterile, to revenge all the injuries which have been inflicted on society by pick-pockets, larcenists, and petty felons. Upon the foundation of a new colony, and especially one peopled by criminals, there is a disposition in Government (where any cir cumstance in the commission of the crime affords the least pretence for the commutation) to convert capital punishment into transportation; and by these means to hold forth a very dangerous, though certainly a very unintentional encouragement to offences. And when the history of the colony has been attentively perused in the parish of St. Giles, the ancient avoca tion of picking pockets will certainly not become more discreditable from the knowledge that it may eventually lead to the possession of a farm of a thousand acres on the river Hawkesbury. Since the benevolent Howard attacked our prisons, incarceration has not only become healthy but elegant; and a county jail is To suppose the savage state permanent, we must precisely the place to which any pauper might wish suppose the numbers of those who compose it to be to retire to gratify his taste for magnificence as well stationary, and the various passions by which men as for comfort. Upon the same principle, there is have actually emerged from it to be extinct; and this some risk that transportation will be considered as is to suppose man a very different being from what he one of the surest roads to honour and to wealth; and really is. To prove such a permanence beneficial, (if that no felon will hear a verdict of not guilty without it were possible), we must have recourse to matter of considering himself as cut off in the fairest career of fact, and judge of the rude state of society, not from prosperity. It is foolishly believed, that the colony the praises of tranquil literati, but from the narratives of Botany Bay unites our moral and commercial inteof those who have seen it through a nearer and better rests, and that we shall receive hereafter an ample medium than that of imagination. There is an argu- equivalent, in bales of goods, for all the vices we exment, however, for the continuation of evil, drawn port. Unfortunately, the expenses we have incurred from the ignorance of good; by which it is contended, in founding the colony, will not retard the natural prothat to teach men their situation can be better, is to gress of its emancipation, or prevent the attacks of teach them that it is bad, and to destroy that happi- other nations, who will be as desirous of reaping the ness which always results from an ignorance that any fruit, as if they had sown the seed. It is a colony, greater happiness is within our reach. All pains and besides, begun under every possible disadvantage; it is pleasures are clearly by comparison; but the most de- too distant to be long governed, or well defended; it plorable savage enjoys a sufficient contrast of good, to is undertaken, not by the voluntary association of inknow that the grosser evils from which civilization dividuals, but by Government, and by means of comrescues him are evils. A New Hollander seldom pas-pulsory labour. A nation must, indeed, be redundant ses a year without suffering from famine; the small-in capital, that will expend it where the hopes of a just pox falls upon him like a plague; he dreads those return are so very small. calamities, though he does not know how to avert It may be a very curious consideration what we are them; but, doubtless, would find his happiness in- to do with this colony when it comes to years of dis creased, it they were averted. To deny this, is to sup-cretion. Are we to spend another hundred millions pose that men are reconciled to evils because they are inevitable; and yet hurricanes, earthquakes, bodily decay, and death, stand highest in the catalogue of human calamities." of money in discovering its strength, and to humble ourselves again before a fresh set of Washingtons and Franklins. The moment after we have suffered such serious mischief from the escape of the old tiger, Where civilization gives new birth to new compari- we are breeding up a young cub, whom we cannot rensons unfavourable to savage life, with the information cer less ferocious or more secure. If we are gradualthat a greater good is possible, it generally connects ly to manumit the colony, as it is more and more ca. the means of attaining it. The savage no sooner be- pable of protecting itself, the degrees of emancipation, comes ashamed of his nakedness than the loom is and the periods at which they are to take place, will ready to clothe him; the forge prepares for him more be judged of very differently by the two nations. But perfect tools, when he is disgusted with the awkward- we confess ourselves not to be so sanguine as to supness of his own; his weakness is strengthened, and his pose, that a spirited and commercial people would, in wants are supplied as soon as they are discovered; and spite of the example of America, ever consent to aban the use of the discovery is, that it enables him to derive don their sovereignty over an important colony with from comparison the best proof of present happiness. out a struggle. Endless blood and treasure will be A man born blind is ignorant of the pleasures of which exhausted to support a tax on kangaroos' skins; he is deprived. After the restoration of his sight his faithful Commons will go on voting fresh supplies to happiness will be increased from two causes ;-from support a just and necessary war; and Newgate, then the delight he experiences at the novel accession of become a quarter of the world, will evince a heroism, power, and from the contrast he will always be enabled not unworthy of the great characters by whom she to make between his two situations, long after the plea-was originally peopled, The experiment, however, is not less interesting in a moral, because it is objectionable in a commercial point of view. It is an object of the highest curiosity, thus to have the growth of a nation subjected to our examination; to trace it by such faithful records, from the first day of its existence; and to gather that knowledge of the progress of human affairs, from actual experience, which is considered to be only accessible to the conjectural reflections of enlightened minds. Human nature, under very old governments, is so trimmed, and pruned, and ornamented, and led into such a variety of factitious shapes, that we are almost ignorant of the appearance it would assume, if it were left more to itself. From such an experiment as that now before us, we shall be better able to appreciate what circumstances of our situation are owing to those permanent laws by which all men are influenced, and what to the accidental positions in which we have been placed. New circumstances will throw new light upon the effects of our religious, political, and economical institutions, if we cause them to be adop. ted as models in our rising empire; and if we do not, we shall estimate the effects of their presence, by ob. serving those which are produced by their non-exist ence. womb; which violence not unfrequently occasions the death of the unnatural mother also. To this they have recourse to avoid the trouble of carrying the infant about is the duty of the woman. The operation for this destrucwhen born, which, when it is very young, or at the breast, tive purpose is termed Mee-bra. The burying an infant (when at the breast) with the mother, if she should die, is another shocking cause of the thinness of population among them. The fact that such an operation as the Mee-bra was practised by these wretched people, was communicated by one of the natives to the principal surgeon of the settle ment.'-(p. 124, 125.) It is remarkable, that the same paucity of numbers has been observed in every part of New Holland which has hitherto been explored; and yet there is not the smallest reason to conjecture that the population of it has been very recent; nor do the people bear any marks of descent from the inhabitants of the numerous islands by which this great continent is surrounded. The force of population can only be resisted by some great physical evils; and many of the causes of this scarcity of human beings which Mr. Collins refers to the ferocity of the natives, are ultimately referable to the difficulty of support. We have always considered this phenomenon as a symptom extremely unfavoura ble to the future destinies of this country. It is easy The history of the colony is at present, however, in to launch out into eulogiums of the fertility of nature its least interesting state, on account of the great pre-in particular spots; but the most probable reason why ponderance of depraved inhabitants, whose crimes and a country that has been long inhabited, is not well inirregularities give a monotony to the narrative, which habited, is, that it is not calculated to support many it cannot lose, till the respectable part of the com- inhabitants without great labour. It is difficult to munity come to bear a greater proportion to the crimi- suppose any other causes powerful enough to resist the impetuous tendency of man, to obey that mandate for These Memoirs of Colonel Collins resume the history increase and multiplication, which has certainly been of the colony from the period at which he concluded better observed than any other declaration of the Diit in his former volume, September, 1796, and conti- vine will ever revealed to us. nue it down to August 1801. They are written in the There appears to be some tendency to civilization, style of a journal, which though not the most agreeable and some tolerable notions of justice, in a practice very mode of conveying information, is certainly the most similar to our custom of duelling; for duelling, though authentic, and contrives to banish the suspicion, and barbarous in civilized, is a highly civilized institution most probably the reality, of the interference of a book-among barbarous people: and when compared to asmaker-a species of gentlemen who are now almost become necessary to deliver naval and military authors in their literary labours, though they do not always atone, by orthography and grammar, for the sacrifice of truth and simplicity. Mr. Collins's book appears to be written with great plainness and candour; he appears to be a man always meaning well; of good, plain, common sense; and composed of those well-wearing materials which adapt a person for situations where genius and refinement would only prove a source of misery and of error. nal. sassination, is a prodigious victory gained over human passions. Whoever kills another in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay, is compelled to appear at an appointed day before the friends of the deceased, and to sustain the attacks of their missile weapons. If he is killed, he is deemed to have met with a deserved death; if not, he is considered to have expiated the crime for the commission of which he was exposed to danger. There is in this institution a command over present impulses, a prevention of secrecy in the gratification of revenge, and a wholesome correction of that passion We shall proceed to lay before our readers an ana-by the effect of public observation, which evince a sulysis of the most important matter contained in this volume. At periority to the mere animal passions of ordinary savages, and form such a contrast to the rest of the history The natives in the vicinity of Port Jackson stand ex- of this people, that it may be considered as altogether tremely low, in point of civilization, when compared an anomalous and inexplicable fact. The natives differ with many other savages with whom the discoveries of very much in the progress they have made in the arts Captain Cook have made us acquainted. Their no- of economy. Those to the north of Port Jackson tions of religion exceed even that degree of absurdity evince a considerable degree of ingenuity and contriwhich we are led to expect in the creed of a barbarous vance in the structure of their houses, which are renpeople. In politics they appear to be scarcely advan-dered quite impervious to the weather, while the inced beyond family-government. Huts they have none; habitants at Port Jackson have no houses at all. and, in all their economical inventions, there is a rudeness and deficiency of ingenuity, unpleasant, when contrasted with the instances of dexterity with which the descriptions and importations of our navigators have rendered us so familiar. Their numbers appear to us to be very small a fact, at once, indicative either of the ferocity of manners in any people, or more probably, of the sterility of their country; but which, in the present instance proceeds from both these causes. Gaining every day (says Mr. Collins) some further knowledge of the inhuman habits and customs of these people, their being so thinly scattered through the country ceased to be a matter of surprise. It was almost daily seen, that from some trifling cause or other, they were continually living in a state of warfare: to this must be added their brutal treatment of their women, who are themselves equally destructive to the measure of population, by the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscar riage, which their female acquaintances effect by pressing the body in such a way, as to destroy the infant in the Port Dalrymple, in Van Dieman's Land, there was eve ry reason to believe the natives were unacquainted with the use of canoes; a fact extremely embarrassing to those who indulge themselves in speculating on the genealogy of nations; because it reduces them to the necessity of supposing that the progenitors of this insular people swam over from the main land, or that they were aboriginal; a species of dilemma, which effectually bars all conjecture upon the intermixture of nations. It is painful to learn, that the natives have begun to plunder and rob in so very alarming a manner that it has been repeatedly found necessary to fire upon them; and many have, in consequence, fallen victims to their rashness. The soil is found to produce coal in vast abundance, salt, lime, very fine iron ore, timber fit for all purposes, excellent flax, and a tree, the bark of which is admira bly adapted for cordage. The discovery of coal (which, by the by, we do not believe was ever before discovered so near the line) is probably rather a disad |