the rash statesman whose impolicy promoted by war the extension of Gallic power, not that of the prudent minister whose endeavours were exerted for the restoration of peace." Dr. Coote appears in this passage to have laid the burden on the shoulders that ought to carry it: we object now, and we ever have objected, to the conditions acceded to, but the times were importunate; the crisis was already formed, and however dishonourable those conditions may have been, Mr. Pitt would not have retreated, could he have obtained as good. He even admitted them to be as favourable as he could have expected. The giant refreshed, however, is now once more in of fice. May the evidence of facts and the result of experience induce him never more to trifle with golden opportunities, should they ever be presented to him in the course of the present war as they were in that of the last.

In the more voluminous detail of Dr. Bisset we have a sort of audi alteram partem. His " History of the Reign of George III., to the Termination of the late War," is extended to not less than six octavo volumes. He is in every respect the church and court apologist; but notwithstanding his evident partiality, he is polite to the opposite parties, and indulgent to their motives. Dr. Bisset is a strenuous disciple of Mr. Burke; but he improves upon the soil which was first opened by his illustrious leader, and hence, though Mr. Burke avowed his attachment in the strongest terms to catholic emancipation, and his warm and worthy disciple the earl of Fitzwilliam acted upon such avowal, Dr. Bisset attempts to vindicate the conduct of the cabinet in resisting

such a step, although it is well known to have been a point formally conceded to lord Fitzwilliam upon his acceptance of the viceroyalty. To accomplish such vindication, indeed, it is necessary for our author to cross the Irish Channel, take a journey to Dublin, and analyse the secret views of the catholics at their own homes; and here he finds, or pretends to find, that their direct motives were very different from what they were openly professed to be; and that while a parliamentary reform and catholic emancipation were ́the ostensible pursuits, separation and independence were the real objects. We want facts, however, to substantiate this conclusion; those hitherto advanced are in diametrical opposition to it. Differing as, we do in politics from Dr. Bisset's creed, we have, nevertheless, in the main, been pleased with his history, and we have seen no work of any party that possesses more merit, and rarely any one that possesses so much.

Before we altogether quit our own shores for the continent, we cannot avoid noticing Mr. Hay's "History of the Insurrection of the County of Wexford in 1798," which extends indeed to an account of various transactions which preceded that event. This gentleman has drunk largely of the phial of wrath which has been poured out upon his countrymen in general. Long prior to the rebellion, and even during its existence, he appears to have been regarded by all parties in the amiable character of a conciliator; and at times, even against his will, he seems to have been compelled into some public office which had a prospect of benefiting his country. A government-man himself, although libeT 2 ral

ral in his political views towards the catholics, his connexions were chiefly of the government class, and lay principally among the officers of the different corps employed in government service: among these was lord Kingsborough, and the officers acting in conjunction with him. Yet Mr. Hay could not escape the common misfortune of possessing private enemies, and on the declaration of martial law he was unexpectedly arraigned before a committee appointed by lieutenantgeneral Lake, and still more unexpectedly, and without any sort of proof, or even trial, was arrested, sent to prison, and hurried on board a hulk that had been condemned to be broken up but a few days before, in consequence of her leaki,ness and rottenness.. After a long period of severe persecution, his undeserved punishment at length reached the ear of general Lake, who immediately interfered, and the trial of Mr. Hay, to which he most ardently looked forwards, succeeded his condemnation and punish ment by about five weeks, during which period he endured so much suffering, sickness, and misery, that he avers it would have been a mercy to have shot him. In the course of this trial every stratagem appears to have been effected to inculpate him. He might indeed have escaped from it altogether, by pleading the act of amnesty; but knowing and wishing to vindicate his innocence, he would not avail himself of this act of royal indulgence. Mr. baron Smith, the judge on the occasion, was aware of this plea, and alluded to it in the course of his observations; he was aware also, and equally alluded to, the villany with which the trial was conducted against him; and the result was, that Mr. Hay

was most honourably acquitted, and instantly discharged from his unjust imprisonment. The testimony of a man whose character has thus stood the ordeal of torture and se. vere examination, cannot but be received as sound and authoritative evidence; and we rejoice to find another and a most damning proof of the falsehood of sir Richard Musgrave's libels upon the great body of the Irish catholic clergy. "The conduct of the Roman-catholie clergy of the county of Wexford," observes our author," however unjustly reviled, was, during the insurrection there, guided by the true dictates and principles of Christianity, really exemplary and meritorious. They comforted the afflicted with all the zeal of Christian charity, and in the most trying and critical period practised every deed that must be considered benevolent by every liberal and enlightened man, whatever brawlers of loyalty may assert to the contrary, endeavouring, with indiscriminate abuse, to brand their conduct in general with the stain of infamy." If any thing wete wanting to destroy the credit of sir Richard, after the lie indirect which has been given to him by lord Cornwallis, the existing viceroy, who expressly commanded that his own name, as a patron of the work, should be withdrawn from it, this volume, in conjunction with the pamphlets of Dr. Caulfield and Mr. Townshend, must be altogether sufficient; and we trust we shall now never hear again of sir Richard or his labours. The volume before us is entitled to a general circulation and a close inspection: it is, in some instances, rather too ardent in its language, but much allow ance ought to be made for the irritability of feeling under which it

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has been written, while, at the same time, its veracity is unimpeachable.

"The History of France from the Year 1790 to the Peace concluded at Amiens in 1802, by Jolin Adolphus, Esq." 8vo. 2 vols. Mr. Adolphus has already acquired a fair reputation for historic narrative; and in the work before us is pursuing the same beaten path, without materially descending, and certainly without any advance. To his references, such as they are, he adheres with fidelity; but he does not embrace his subject with sufficient scope, in consequence of which, names and facts of the utmost importance are either not adverted to at all, or hurried over with the most unsatisfying conciseness; or the sources from which he derives his information are too secondary to claim the notice of a writer who pretends to the high character of a national historian. From the paucity of observations, moreover, which lie scattered throughout these volumes, we are induced to observe that the mere narrator of progressive events is not an historian, but a chronicler, or chronologist; while, from the partiality which is too generally, and at times too grossly discovered, we also think it expedient to add that the man who writes under an undue bias of mind is a partial and prejudiced reporter, upon whose authority no reliance whatever can be placed. The abbé Barruel is an ignis fatuus, the deceit of whose light has been sufficiently proved as well in his own country as in almost every other part of Europe. Mr. Adolphus, in exploring the causes of the French revolution, has suffered himself to be chiefly guided by it; and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he

should be decoyed into many an error, and fall into many a slough. Upon subjects, however, unconnected with political or party considerations, Mr. Adolphus is a respectable, an instructive, and a judicious writer; and there are many parts of the history before us with which we have been highly pleased.

Miss H. M. Williams has given us, in three volumes Svo., "The Political and Confidential Correspondence of Lewis XVI., with Observations on each Letter;" a most useful, instructive, and entertaining series of documents relative to perhaps the most eventful period in the whole scope of French history. There is still a considerable mystery attached to the means by which miss Williams became possessed of these letters; and, notwithstanding that they bear every internal proof of authenticity, we confess we had some lurking doubts on their first appearance. A pamphlet however which M. Bertrand de Molleville has since written upon these letters themselves, although intended, in a few minuter points, to question their homogeneity, has established, in our opinion, the very fact he intended to controvert. The entire drift of his opposition, excepting in one or two instances, is directed to the diction, which he conceives to be generally revised and purified, but nevertheless to contain not only the sentiments of the unfortunate monarch whose name they bear, but in other respects his unquestionable correspondence; with the exception of not more than two letters, of the writing aud dispatch of which he may nevertheless have been ignorant. These letters represent Lewis XVI. in a most favourable and dignified point of

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view: we behold in him, during his misfortunes, a regeneration of that virtue and piety which characterised the earlier part of his life, when the seductions of the most voluptuous and lascivious court that France ever witnessed, displayed under the patronage, or rather led on by the example, of that abandoned and hoary debauchee his grandfather, Lewis XV., could neither entice himself nor the dauphiness from the shade of virtuous retirement, and an uninterrupted series of pious and benevolent acts. Happy, if they had thus continued faithful to their first Vows-faithful to the fair promises which they had inspired thoughout the nation! thrice happy, if the pomp of personal aggrandisement, and the snares with which its paths are ever beset by hordes of titled villains in the form of courtiers, had not succeeded in ravishing from them that heartfelt happiness which they never afterwards experienced! The subjoined observations are full and explicit, as to every point that seems to require elucidation; in many of them the fair author has indulged an unnecessary developement of her own political creed, and discovered herself to be in this as well as in other instances, not directly qualified for the high office of being a commentator upon the letters of Lewis XVI. Coined to the immediate subject of the late tedious and sanguinary war, we have received from Mr. A. Stephens two quarto volumes, entitled "The History of the Wars which arose out of the French Revolution." The work commences with a review of what the author apprehends to have been the causes of that event; and we here meet with an historical survey of the conquests and jurisprudence

of the Romans, as though transac tions so remote could have reflected any influence upon the politics of the present day. The writer might as well have carried us into the Baltic Sea, with the Argonauts, or landed us at Eziongeber, with the fleets of Hieram. To his account of the origin, extent, and subver sion of the feudal system, and his picture of the progress of the phi losophists or anti-christian sect, we pay more deference, as exhibiting subjects more immediately connected with the history before us, and especially as upon these points our author's views are extensive, his reasoning sound, and his documents indisputable. The first of the two volumes, upon the close of this introductory essay, conducts us from the declaration of war to the prodigious and perhaps unparalleled successes of the French in 1794 and 1795; the re-possession of Austrian Flanders, the conquest of Holland, the maintenance of both banks of the Rhine, and the seizure of all the strong posts of Italy. It also gives us, by way of relief, a statement of the glorious and equally unparalleled success of the British marine. The second volume opens with the treaties of peace between the French republic and Tuscany, Prussia, Spain, Hanover, Hesse, and the Vendean insurgents. We advance, through our own capture of Ceylon, the Cape, the West-India islands, and the various events, the successes and reverses, that alternately filled up the interspace, to the muchdisputed and highly disputablę treaty of Amiens. The work closes with an appendix of valuable and authentic documents; and is amply interspersed and enriched with illustrative maps. The spirit with which it is written is highly

worthy

worthy of commendation; there is a dignified impartiality, a manly independence of principle, which cannot fail to secure in future ages, as well as to attract at the present hour, a very considerable portion of public notice and approbation. The arrangement moreover is peculiarly clear and economical; the diction is select and elegant; and the observations, at all times worthy of attention, flow fairly and spontaneously from the subject which forms their basis.

Upon the same topic we are indebted to Mr. Ritchie for three octavo volumes, containing the "Political and Military Memoirs of Europe from the Renewal of the War on the Continent in 1798 to the Peace of Amiens in 1802." The author is a warm friend to popular liberty, and his warmth sometimes hurries him a little beyond the bounds of discretion and prudence. The conduct of Mr. Pitt's administration is severely condemned from the beginuing to the end; and, as an inscription on the pedestal of the statue which it was once professed to raise to this celebrated statesman, our author proposes that it should be recorded that the British annals, since the time that a Stuart occupied the throne, afford not an instance of imbecility in the cabinet and the field, or an ignominious result, equal to those in the war against the independence of the French nation, and the liberties of mankind." To speak the truth, no party has been benefited by the revolutionary war; the cause of popular liberty has received a wound from which it cannot recover for centuries; and the cause of crowned heads has been cajoled and ridiculed in a manner unparalleled in the annals of universal history.

We are nevertheless much disposed to think with our author that a great portion of the madness exhibited in France was excited by the impolitic interference of surrounding nations. We know not now what France would have been, if left to the uncontrouled exercise of her own fermenting spirit. For the prime cause of the affliction of herself, as well as that of Europe at large, we must look without rather than within the extent 'of her own boundaries.

In diction rivaling that of Mr. Gibbon, but with less attention to original documents, Mr. Card

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has given us, in one volume octavo, a History of the Revolutions of Russia to the Accession of Catherine I." The work is accompanied with a concise review of the manners and customs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and is the most interesting, and bids fair to become the most popular, account we possess in our own language of the barbarous ages of a people who are now progressively assuming importance in the general politics of Europe.

Whilst throwing a glance at France and Russia, we cannot omit noticing an anonymous and unfinished work entitled "Sketches of the intrinsic Strength, Military and Naval Force of France and Russia; with Remarks on their present Connexion, political Influence, and future Projects." Of this book, the first part only is published; and it offers to us views so just and comprehensive, and evinces an acquaintance with the different cabinets of Europe so profound and familiar, that we shall receive the subsequent part with no small degree of satisfaction. The object of the author is to represent the two empires in

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