blackest stigma on human nature with which the annals of politics or religion have been stained.

"Though they live under a monarchy, they have contrived, with the sacrifice of all temporal favours, to erect themselves into a government of their own, approaching as near to republic as is consistent with any sort of allegiance to the current government. This is a master-piece of policy which has gained them a firm standing in the midst of their enemies, and which ought to teach the rest of mankind that it is practicable for a virtuous, persevering few to counteract the many. The quakers have contrived to render themselves happy in the midst of misery, and free, in a great measure, in the midst of slavery.... Hence they have all that natural, unaffected dignity, and all that manly, cordial spirit of accommodation which man discovers to man before he becomes degenerate: and hence they regard mankind pretty much as that Cherokee did, who, being introduced at Paris, and shown every thing which was supposed capable of delighting or surprising him, was asked, after his eyes had swallowed the objects of a whole week's exhibition, "What astonished him most?" answered, "The difference between man and man:" and then being questioned "With what he was most delighted?" answered, "He was most delighted to see a passenger help a heavy burden upon the back of another."

"Although the quakers approach nearer to the religion of nature, notwithstanding their correspondence with the world, than any systematic sect which has ever appeared, they still hold to the great principles of the christian religion, though, in point of orthodoxy, they can hardly be termed christians. Most others, whether eastern sages or western saints, have retired from the world in the degree they have approached brama or Jesus, while the quakers, contented with this world until they

can find a better, have found the secret of living in the midst of society, and of mingling as much of this world as is consistent with heaven, and as much of heaven as is consistent with making the most of this world.

"I have been led to these observations from a petty circumstance which occurred yesterday. I found, on my table, the following printed notice: "Some of the people, called quakers, intend to hold a meeting this evening, at their place of worship, in Martin's court, St. Martin's Lane, to which the neighbours are invited." In expectation of something extraordinary, I attended..... At the door I was received by one of the friends, who introduced me to a seat among the elders. The house was soon filled, and a profound silence reigned for a few minutes, when one of the brethren rose, and began to speak, but he had not spoken a minute, when an elder said, "We would take it kind of thee, friend, to sit down." The speaker looked up to see whence the disapprobation proceeded, then nodding, in acquiescence, sat down. Presently, a fine looking, elderly lady, of matronly appearance, dressed in the most elegant simplicity, rose, and, after a warm and impressive prayer, delivered, extempore, an animated and edifying discourse, with a flow of elocution, and grace of manner, which, had she been forty years younger, might have inflamed those passions she sought to allay.

"There is one defect in the polity of the quakers, which will for ever subject them to the tyranny of the times....they love peace so well they will not even fight for their liberty. This known principle divests them of all political consequence, when those great political movements are agitated, which sometimes involve the deepest consequences to society: otherwise, the quakers would gradually effect a revolution throughout the world."

inland nations, having no navy, and little shipping. The remaining three, Great Britain, France, and Spain, are naval and maritime nations, to whom many millions of men, and immense territories, in Asia and America, are or have been subject. France, though a maritime nation, and a naval power, next to England, and far above Spain, is without any foreign possessions....... Great Britain possesses, in Asia, territories equal to 300,000 square miles, with 40,000,000 of subjects. In North America, about 300,000 square miles of territory, and 300,000 subjects. Spain possesses, in Asia, about 75,000 square miles of territory, and 30,000 subjects. In North and South America, about 7,500,000 square miles of territory, and 7,500,000 subjects. Hence it appears that the Spanish empire is far beyond the territorial extent of the Russian, whose immensity has been so often vaunted. The population, European and American, of the first, being compared with the population, European and Asiatic, of the second, is at least equal, while, in all natural advantages, the American provinces of Spain are infinitely superior to the Siberian provinces of Russia.

The whole extent of the British empire, in both hemispheres, including its nominal allies, but real tributaries, in Hindoostan, is upwards of 1,000,000 square miles, and its subjects above 55,000,000, eminent in wealth, arts, and commerce. The habitable part of the Russian empire does not exceed 1,000,000 square miles. No mean portion of its inhabitants are savages, and only nominally subjects; but the whole population is less than half of that of the British empire.

The whole extent of the
above four kingdoms
in Europe is, in square
miles
Extent of their empire
beyond sea exceeds.
Which, together, is equal

to

4.

865,000

8,435,000

9,320,000

the truth of the vulgar representations, in history and poetry, of Richard's character and person. Mr. Laing, a very eminent writer, has, at a later period, pursued the vindication of Richard much further, and has displayed great sagacity and

For the Literary Magazine.

RICHARD THE THIRD AND PER

KIN WARBECK.

THE folly and the fallacy of fame is an old theme of observation; but there are few instances of its absurdity and injustice more memorable than in relation to the character of Richard the third. Happening to be unfortunate in battle, and a rival king and family stepping into his place, his character has been maligned and mangled without mercy. One historian after another has repeated the tale of his murders, perjuries, and usurpations; and what the grave historian relates to a few, the poet has rendered familiar to all mankind.

If the opinions of mankind were really of any importance to those who died a century or two ago, poor Richard would have a heavy charge to bring against Shakespeare, whose play is one of the most enormous libels that ever was uttered against a human being: enormous not only as to the degree of guilt ascribed to the object of it, but as to the lasting and extensive nature of the infamy it heaps upon the object. Shakespeare's popularity has made the ambition of Richard and the revenge of Shylock equally proverbial, though both are equally calumnious, and equally without foundation in history or probability: Shylock, indeed, is an imaginary character, but in Shylock the Jewish nation is traduced.

Horace Walpole was the first in England who suggested doubts as to

Richard was really well-founded; that it was preferable to that of the sons of his brother Edward, because their mother bore them at a time when Edward was lawfully married to another; that the personal singularities of Richard are, if not wholly untrue, yet greatly exaggerated; that the cruelties ascribed to him in early youth were never committed; and that, in particular, it was not Richard but his successor, Henry the seventh, who was the murderer of the duke of York, in the person of Perkin Warbeck. Mr. Laing thinks that one or both the princes, whom Richard is commonly supposed to have murdered in the tower, were in reality alive at his death, and that the youngest re-appeared long after, in the person of Warbeck. This conclusion is supported by facts and arguments, which, if they do not make it certain, give it at least far more probability than the opposite conclusion can lay claim to.

I am somewhat surprized that the curious in these matters have wholly overlooked a publication which appeared at Paris, about 1738, written by Claude Du Bois, a jesuit, librarian to the count of Lauenstein. His book is voluminous; and the title may be translated, Historical Collections from the Lauenstein Library. Among various extracts and dissertations, purely local, in this work, is one which attempts to throw some light upon the dark points of English history respecting Richard and Warbeck.

The compte of Lauenstein, the author tells us, is in the province of Cambrai; a princely domain, which has been in possession of the same family since the days of Louis Hutin. In the archives of this family,which he represents as remarkably

copious and entire, from a period anterior to the crusades, he found a series of papers, connected with the history of Edward the fourth and Richard the third. Lauenstein, it seems, was a populous and wealthy district, where arts and trade had immemorially flourished. At the accession of Edward, Charles XVII was count or lord of Lauenstein; he was famous for his attention to the manufactures of the lordship, one branch of which he entirely engrossed into his own hands, and transacted business at foreign marts, like the Medicean princes, by means of factors or agents. He drove a great trade at London, where he maintained a commercial agent, whose command of ready money made him extremely useful to the English princes, and gave him no small influence at the English court. At the accession of Richard, this agent was named Mark Prague, a man of learning and ability, and who was a careful and intelligent observer of all public transactions. Mark Prague maintained a frequent correspondence with his principal, and detailed all political transactions in his dispatches, with great miuuteness. From this correspondence Du Bois forms the narrative he has given to the world in this collection.

According to this narrative, it appears that Mark Prague had advanced, at particular times, various sums of money to the duke of Gloucester. In consequence of this service, and of his personal merit, he had greatly advanced in the favour and confidence of the duke, and had become, in some respects, his confidential counsellor. This situation made him acquainted with the character and genuine motives of Richard, whom he represents as influenced by a firm persuasion of the illegitimacy of his nephews and nieces, and of his own legal right to the crown. After a detail of transactions leading to his elevation, to which the Lauenstein factor contributed in no small degree, both by

money and counsel, and in which the leading personages of the English court perform very different parts, and appear in very different lights from those assigned to them in the commonly received histories; he proceeds to explain the motives of the king in keeping the princes in a rigorous captivity, till the eve of the arrival of the earl of Richmond. When that event took place, it was concerted between the king and Prague, that the captive princes should be delivered to the latter, and transported by him to the Low Countries, where they were to remain, under the special guardianship of the count of Lauenstein. This removal was effected with the utmost secrecy, and the princes were safely lodged in the castle of Lauenstein, by the time that Henry VII was fully seated on the throne.

In this castle they were reared and educated with the utmost care. They were taught to consider Richard as their benefactor, not their enemy; first, in sparing their lives, and next, in placing them out of the reach of his jealous and sanguinary successor, from whose temper and views they had much more to dread than they ever had from Richard.

Edward, the eldest of these princes, was of a meek, pliant, devout temper, who willingly resigned all those hopes, with which the numerous partizans and great popularity of his house might have inspired him, not only through a conscientious belief of his defective right, but from an aversion to the crimes and perils of royalty. He readily consented to conceal his birth, and a marriage with the heiress of Lauenstein gave him in due time the sovereignty of that county.

The younger brother, Richard, was of a different disposition. He was restless, enterprising, and ambitious. He did not so easily acquiesce in his exclusion from dignities, to which popular opinion, with whatever reason, gave him a plausible and practicable claim. He rejected

the sober and prudent counsels of his brother, and, after he had risen to manhood, he left Lauenstein in pursuit of fortune, and went to his aunt, the duchess of Burgundy. The rest of his history is pretty well known, and his miserable fate tended only to confirm the unambitious principles of his brother, who at tained a great age in the quiet and prosperous administration of his little principality. We are told that he was present, in disguise, at the coronation of Elizabeth, when he was near ninety years of age.

Edward was desirous of consigning all the particulars of his early history to oblivion. This end he effected imperfectly. Instead of destroying, he only deposited the letters and archives connected with his history in a tower or closet, little frequented, and usually appropriated to antiquated and useless records. Here they were found, nearly defaced by time and neglect, in the eighteenth century, by the Lauenstein librarian, whose curiosity left no nook unvisited and unexplored. As this was now a point of mere curiosity, he easily obtained the consent of the ruling count, the lineal descendant of Edward, to publish them.

The truth or falsehood of this tale has no connexion with the interests or concerns of the present age, but the imagination easily identifies our own existence with that of men who flourished a thousand years ago. Hence it is that enlightened men have spent laborious years in clearing up the incidents of a remote age; in discussing the existence and settling the merits of Arthur and Charlemagne. There are many ingenious persons in the world, though perhaps there are few of them in America, who think it a matter of great importance to ascertain the true character of Richard the third and of Perkin Warbeck. To such I may venture to recommend Du Bois' book, as well worthy their attention.

CURIOSO.

For the Literary Magazine.

MEMOIRS OF CARWIN THE BILOQUIST.

Continued from vol. II, page 252.

THE books which composed this little library were chiefly the voya ges and travels of the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Added to these were some works upon political economy and legislation. Those writers who have amused themselves with reducing their ideas to practice, and drawing imaginary pictures of nations or republics, whose manners or government came up to their standard of excellence, were, all of whom I had ever heard, and some I had never heard of before, to be found in this collection. A translation of Aristotle's republic, the political romances of sir Thomas Moore, Harrington, and Hume, appeared to have been much read, and Ludlow had not been sparing of his marginal comments. In these writers he appeared to find nothing but error and absurdity; and his notes were introduced for no other end than to point out groundless principles and false conclusions..... The style of these remarks was already familiar to me. I saw nothing new in them, or different from the strain of those speculations with which Ludlow was accustomed to indulge himself in conversation with

me.

After having turned over the leaves of the printed volumes, I at length lighted on a small book of maps, from which, of course, I could reasonably expect no information, on that point about which I was most curious. It was an atlas, in which the maps had been drawn by the pen.

None of them contained any thing remarkable, so far as I, who was indeed a smatterer in geography, was able to perceive, till I came to the end, when I noticed a map, whose prototype I was wholly unacquainted with. It was drawn