The impulse which was communicated to the democratic principle of the constitution by the result of the events of the 7th of July gave birth to a third party, who called themselves Communeros. The leaders of this party, Palarea, Ballasteros, Romero Alpuente, Morales, and others, who participated by their personal exertions in the victory which was obtained over the royal guards, conceived that they deserved equally well of their country for having preserved the constitution, as the Freemasons did for having restored it. They soon gathered around them a very numerous party, which assumed to itself an exclusive interest in the third article of the Constitution, that is to say, in the sovereignty of the people. Some time after the Freemasons came into office with San Miguel, the differences between them and the Communeros grew every day more prominent. The latter outstripped the former in numbers, and drew up a regular constitution, which was calculated to organise a popular confederation throughout the Peninsula. pp. 61-5.

Mr. Quin followed the government to Seville, and he made. some inquiries, he says, into the feeling of the Sevillians with regard to the Constitution: the answers which he received from persons resident there was to this effect.

That when the Constitution was first proclaimed, a number of rich proprietors, and of steady commercial men, embarked ardently in the cause, under the hope that liberal institutions would tend greatly to the amelioration of their different interests. Within the last year, however, the frequent changes of ministry produced corresponding alterations in all the offices within the reach of their power; and the displacements and successions directed by the actual ministry soon after they came into office, were particularly peremptory and extensive. The new employes, it was said, consisted mostly of that half-educated gentry, who, after leaving school, had spent the greatest part of their lives in the coffee houses, and billiard and gamblingrooms; and when they found themselves invested with authority, they exercised it in a rude and sometimes oppressive manner, assuming to themselves the character of exclusive and ultra zealous Constitutionalists. The early and rational friends of the Constitution frequently experienced causes of disgust in the conduct of these new men; and they found, according to their views and feelings, fifty petty tyrants, where only the influence of one was formerly distantly felt. They, in consequence, retired from the scene of public affairs altogether, and yielded it to the Exaltados-so the new men were here, as elsewhere, styled. The result of these proceedings upon the general spirit of Seville was to render it exceedingly indifferent towards the Constitution.

• One might suspect that this view of the matter had come from interested, and therefore questionable sources; but, though I made many inquiries, I could hear no representation differing essentially from what is above stated. The frequent and ineffectual applications which the authorities were making every day for money, legally due

from the inhabitants, in order to enable them to prepare for the reception of the government, tended rather to corroborate this statement." pp. 312, 13.

Yet, amid this universal apathy, it seems that some sparks of enthusiasm have been kindled, and that both music and poetry have been enlisted on the side of the patriot feeling. Beautiful,' says Mr. Quin, as many portions of their ancient music may be, there are none superior, nor perhaps equal in 'point of melody, to some of the new patriotic compositions.

There is a fire, and at the same time a tenderness, in the best of these pieces, which, whatever becomes of the Constitution, promise them an immortality. I was detained a full hour one day in the streets, listening to two itinerant musicians performing a war song. One of them sung the air, and played it at the same time on a violin, while his companion sung also and performed the accompaniment on the guitar. Both were blind, and neither sung nor played with much skill, and yet it was surprising how much effect they threw into the words of the song. The air had occasional bursts of grandeur, which animated their sightless countenances with a flush of inspira tion. In the intervals between the verses, the leader recited passages from a prose rhapsody, the object of which was to rouse the Spaniards to the remembrance of those injuries which France inflicted on the Peninsula, during the last war, to flatter them with the event of the contest, and to bid them bind on their swords for the extermination of the approaching invaders. One would be surprised at the attention with which these two bards were listened to. Tears glistened frequently in the eyes of those who were crowded around

them.'

Our Author's notices of Spanish painting and music are, ás might be expected, meagre and vague. He is not at home in the subject, nor had he time to collect the requisite information. He should not have ventured upon these topics, especially in his title-page.

Art. VII. Memoirs of the Baron de Kolli, relative to his secret Mission in 1810 for liberating Ferdinand VII. King of Spain, from Captivity at Valencay. Written by Himself. To which are added, Memoirs of the Queen of Etruria, Written by Herself. 8vo. pp. 340. Price 10s, 6d. London. 1823.

THE Sieur de Kolli appears to have been one of the most

loyal, trusty, brave, and unlucky agents that were ever selected by a wise government for a secret and delicate mission. We find it hard to persuade ourselves, that the Marquess Wellesly placed any confidence in the discretion and adroitness of the individual to whom he entrusted the task of eluding and

baffling the police of Bonaparte, and achieving the liberation
of the royal prisoner. And yet, the Baron tells us, that he
had been selected for the execution of this great enterprise, in
preference to a colonel of indisputable merit,' we know not
in what service, whose disinterestedness was not sufficiently
' relied upon.'
The deliverer of Ferdinand was expected to
be a person guided neither by interest nor ambition.' Thus
far the preference was justified: the Baron seems to have been
as pure and devoted a loyalist as ever risked his neck in the
cause of Legitimacy. Having at different periods been em-
ployed in secret missions in France, Italy, and Germany, he
had moreover given, he says, sufficient pledges of his fidelity
and devotion to the cause of the Bourbons and of royalty,
to prevent the English ministers from being afraid to entrust
him with the plan they had conceived to liberate Ferdinand.
We should have liked exceedingly to know the nature and
issue of some of these secret missions; but the Baron ob-
serves a tantalizing silence respecting the whole of his previous
history up to this period of Nov. 1809. It was an ominous
time; the English expedition was off Walcheren; and the
same wisdom which presided over that most disastrous of
enterprises, seems to have guided the Cabinet in the
execution of this notable scheme for liberating Ferdinand.
It is stated, that the late Duke of Kent requested permis-
sion from the King to become the principal in this plan,
but that his Majesty could not consent to it. If this be correct,
it affords a fine instance of chivalrous spirit and magnanimity
in that distinguished and lamented individual; but one feels no
surprise that the monarch's paternal feeling and good sense
should have concurred in dictating his decided refusal, or that
his ministers should have been equally unwilling to incur the
responsibility of accepting so rash, though spirited a proposal.
His majesty, however, appears to have taken no slight interest
in the project; and the Baron was entrusted with a letter from
King George 111. to Ferdinand VII. in Latin, and in French,
a copy of which is given in the present volume. The success
of the measure seems, indeed, to have been very confidently
anticipated. A squadron was appointed to act in concert with
the Baron; Admiral Sir George Cockburn was to have made
⚫ his descent on the coast at the moment of his catholic ma-
'jesty's arrival, and the king of Spain would then have been
at liberty.'

And he is now at liberty, this same Ferdinand, though neither Baron de Kolli nor the English ministry has the merit of letting him loose this time on his subjects! But at the period referred to, it is very doubtful whether the royal petti

coat-embroiderer would have accepted of the proffered services of his heretical friends, and have co-operated in the plan for, his deliverance. This the English ministers seem to have taken for granted, without, so far as appears, thinking it worth while to ascertain the inclinations of the ex-monarch; or else they trusted it to the Baron de Kolli's eloquence, to overrule alike his fears, his scruples, and his indolence. They had, however, exercised their foresight so far as to provide, if not for his escape, yet, for his reception.

Every thing which was regarded as conducive to the comfort and convenience of the king, was put on board; the admiral sent his own plate, his best wines, chests filled with linen and clothes, an excellent selection of books, astronomical instruments and valuable maps, consecrated plate and ornaments for Divine service, a catholic priest to officiate; in a word, every thing which it was thought, would the princes whom it expected to carry back to Spain.'

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All this was doubtless very considerate; yet, the issue makes these details appear somewhat ridiculous. The Baron de Kolli had picked up a young man at Antwerp, whom, on the strength of his open and expressive features, he had admitted to his confidence in the capacity of his secretary. In this indiscreet and unknown youth, strange to say, our ministers seem to have reposed a measure of confidence which there appears nothing in the circumstances of his introduction to warrant. The Baron exculpates his secretary from having betrayed the cause of Ferdinand; but, whether he had played the traitor or not, to the full extent of deliberate perfidy, it is plain that he had blabbed. Albert,' says the Writer, had committed more than one fault, and the police furnished me with ocular demonstration of it.' From what other person, indeed, could the French police have obtained information as to De Kolli's secret interviews with lord Wellesley at Sir George Coekburn's? On his examination before the minister of police, M. Desmarest informed the Baron, doubtless to his surprise and chagrin, of the arrest of several persons with whom he had been politically connected. He adds: He gave a most accurate account of my transactions in London, of my ar ́ ́ rival in Quiberon, and of my slightest movements in France up to the moment of my arrest.' The Baron imputes the treachery, in the first instance, to a M. de Ferriet, whom he fell in with off the coast of Quiberon, and whom he says he suspected from the first, he does not know why; his being a Frenchman, however, and pretending to be unfortunate, combated his suspicions, and so he contented himself with making him half a confidant and half an enemy. M. de Ferriet was to have been detained on board an English vessel for some

time, and then to have been put on shore at a different point. But this was not done; and though the Baron was told that the police were on the look-out for two strangers who were expected to land, and Sir George Cockburn thought it might be more prudent to choose another point of the coast, our hero inflexibly persisted in adhering to his first orders. On his arrival at Paris, he contrived to make another worthy acquaintance in the Sieur Richard, whom,' he says very frankly, I was weak enough to believe a man of honour, because his previous conduct had been honourable.' That is to say, he had served, or said he had, under the Prince de Talmont. To this man, whom there is some reason to suspect to have been a spy of the police, he disclosed so much of his project as led to the supposition that it involved an attempt on the life of Bonaparte. At length, the day before the Baron intended to set out for Valençay, when, all confidence and security, he had just given the faithful Richard 2700 francs to make sonie purchases in Paris, a knocking was heard at the door, and on its being opened, eleven armed emissaries of the police entered, and took them both into custody. De Kolli, on being asked who he was, immediately confessed the nature of his mission; as uperfluous disclosure, as it afterwards appeared, and, under the circumstances, a very indiscreet one. It is easy to perceive that the Baron was proud of his commission, and that vanity had some share in inducing him to repeat his answer aloud. The trusty Secretary contrived to be out of the way, informed, there can be little doubt, of the intended visit; for he does not appear to have been molested. De Kolli in his first examination was led, he distinctly admits, without perceiving it, to answer questions he had previously determined to evade completely. The method of interrogation, he complains, jumbled all his ideas. Once, however, he sufficiently' regained his self-possession to give a directly false answer, in a matter, it seems to us, not worth the poor stratagem of a fie. It was subsequently proposed to him by Fouché, still to complete his mission to Ferdinand, under the sanction of the French police, that they might know whether the King had any wish to make his escape.

I should have an opportunity of seeing the prince, and hearing from his own mouth an admission or a disavowal, of the interest which the King of England expressed to him in his letter; and if, in spite of the reasons which led them to imagine one rather than the other, the prince consented to seize the opportunity of escaping, in that case only slight impediments would be thrown in the way of his flight; and that then would be the time to avail myself of the funds placed to his credit.

. II

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