may be safely encouraged upon a moderate scale, and on a more rational principle than the preposterous scheme of 1820, which has been attributed to Mr. Barrow. The detailed information which the Author has furnished on this point, may prove peculiarly valuable, (derived as it evidently is from actual observation and practical experience,) in the event of more settlers being sent out by Government; an event actually in contemplation, we understand, at the Colonial Office, on the ground of the evidence recently furnished to the Emigration Committee of the House of Commons.

The Appendix contains some curious and highly amusing matter; especially, an Account of the Amakosa or Southern Caffers,' by the Rev. J. Brownlee, an intelligent Missionary, and Notices and Anecdotes of the African Lion,' by Mr. T. Pringle. The latter gentleman, whose name is not unknown to our readers,* has also furnished Mr. Thompson with a variety of amusing notices and some elegant poetical illustrations, which are scattered over the work. Of the latter, we must make room for a specimen. The following spirited verses are designed to express the sentiments with which the persecuted tribes of natives may be supposed to regard the colonists.

'SONG OF THE WILD BUSHMAN.

'Let the proud Boor possess his flocks,
And boast his fields of grain :

My home is 'mid the mountain rocks,
The desert my domain.

I plant no herbs nor pleasant fruits,
Nor toil for savoury cheer:
The desert yields me juicy roots,
And herds of bounding deer.

The countless springboks are my flock,
Spread o'er the boundless plain:

The buffalo bends to my yoke,

And the wild horse to my rein.
My yoke is the quivering assagai,
My rein the tough bow-string;
My bridle-curb is a slender barb,—
Yet it quells the forest king.
The crested adder honoureth me,
And yields at my command,
His poison-bag, like the honey bee,
When I seize him on the sand.

* See E. R. vol. xxi. p. 571. Art. Pringle's Account of Albany. Mr. P. is also the Author of a pleasing volume of poems noticed in an earlier volume of our Journal.

Yea, even the locusts' wasting swarm,
Which mightiest nations dread,
To me brings joy in place of harm,
For I make of them my bread.

• Thus I am lord of the Desert Land,
And I will not leave my bounds,
To crouch beneath the Christian's hand,
And kennel with his hounds;

To be a hound, and watch the flocks
For the cruel white-man's gain-
No! the swart Serpent of the Rocks
His den doth yet retain;

And none who there his sting provokes,
Shall find its poison vain.'

The map which accompanies the work, appears to have been diligently improved by a variety of new materials; but it is on too confined a scale, and very indifferently lithographed. The other engravings (amounting together to about forty, in aquatint, on wood, and on stone) are of various merit,-some being excellent, others very poor indeed. Altogether, however, the work is pleasingly illustrated; and may be equally recommended to those who seek for information, and to the more numerous class of readers who merely ask for innocent entertainment.

Art. IV. The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French. With a preliminary View of the French Revolution. By the Author of Waverley,' &c. In nine volumes, post 8vo. Price 4l. 14s. 6d. Edinburgh. 1827.

W E have always been much disposed to question the practicability of giving a fair and impartial estimate of character and circumstances, during the existence of the coeval generation. Passions and immediate interests must pass away, before even the semblance of truth can be obtained from the secernment and valuation of evidence. The most important and, after all, the most really trustworthy kind of statement, is that which is obtained from individuals actually engaged in the scenes which they describe. For prejudice, we are, of course, prepared; and we must expect much of unconscious, and somewhat of intentional, misrepresentation; but, amid all these, there will subsist the elements of truth, the more evident, perhaps, from the very attempt to colour and to conceal. It becomes, however, an entirely different matter, when a writer professes to take all this direct information, and, checking it by collateral and incidental testimony, to fabricate

from it a story of his own. We pause in such a case, and, before committing ourselves to his guidance and influence, we feel it expedient to institute a previous examination into his qualifications for his task.

The Emperor Napoleon and Sir Walter Scott are both entitled to the highest consideration as men of extraordinary ability, each in his own way; but we much doubt the relative or positive competency of either to write the life of the other. How the former might have succeeded, it is impossible now to say; but, after bestowing some attention on the speculation of Sir Walter, we regret our inability to commend it as a successful enterprise. It will be thought, probably, by general and superficial readers, a work of great research and interesting execution; but, to those who have made themselves more intimately acquainted with the subject, these volumes will appear the result of extensive reading, rather than of acute investigation, and to exhibit much more of ready composition, than of the higher gifts that should distinguish the writer of history. It might, indeed, have been anticipated, that the Author of Waverley' and the historiographer of • Napoleon Buonaparte,' would not be equally successful in both instances; and the very qualities which gave him the mastery in one order of composition, would be, not merely unavailing, but injurious in the other. The varying tone, the inventive faculty, the arrangement for effect, which give so admirable a character to the romances in question, must yield, in the history, to a style vigorous and precise, to a mind habitually conversant with the elicitation of truth from conflicting statements, and to a simple, lucid, and consecutive distribution of well-sifted materials. Neither is the Baronet sufficiently free from prejudice for the unbiassed execution of a task so full of difficulty, in this respect, as that which he has undertaken. He is by temperament a fautor of antiquated institutions, and an especial partisan of distressed sovereigns -of legitimate ones, at least; for his sympathies seem much less easily excited when the sufferings of an imperial parvenu are in question. We believe that he has been intent upon giving a fair and impartial exhibition both of character and of events; but his views-and who can have a higher right to form and cherish his own views than such a man as Sir Walter Scott? -seem to us neither extensive enough, nor calm enough, for the management of a subject which, more than any other, demands the effective combination of science and practical skill, with coolness and precision in their application.

The preliminary sketch of the French Revolution, which occupies the first and second volumes, affords, as it appears to us,

a sufficient exemplification of the feeling to which we have adverted. With a great air of impartiality, it is really written in a spirit of high-wrought Burkism, that would have been more palatable twenty years ago, than it is likely to prove at present. We have, for instance, a gorgeous picture of the French monarchy, with a marvellous qualification of the servile and crawling subserviency of the court and people, as a' generous, patriotic, and disinterested' attachment; extravagant ' and Quixotic,' indeed, but still the lofty submission of a 'people misled to their disadvantage, by high and romantic ideas of honour and fidelity.'

6

The character of Louis XVI.-unfortunate and estimable he certainly was-is made to appear to far higher advantage by Sir Walter, than either sympathy in his calamities, or the most favourable view of his conduct, will warrant our admitting

as accurate.

It is remarkable, that Louis resembled Charles I. of England, more than any of his own ancestors, in a want of self-confidence, which led to frequent alterations of mind and changes of measures, as well as in a tendency to uxoriousness, which enabled both Henrietta Maria, and Marie Antoinette, to use a fatal influence upon their counsels. Both sovereigns fell under the same suspicion of being deceitful and insincere, when, perhaps, both, but certainly Louis, only changed his course of conduct from a change of his own opinion, or from suffering himself to be over-persunded, and deferring to the sentiments of others.'

These sentences would of themselves be sufficient to shew the bias under which the whole passage has been written. We have no disposition to accuse the unhappy and well-intentioned Louis of deliberate insincerity, though there were portions of his reign, in which his conduct can, we fear, be explained in no other way; but we must express our undisguised astonishment at the hardihood that can even hint a plea of extenuation, when the character of Charles I. is, in this matter, brought in question. If one point of that monarch's history be more clear than any other, it is, we apprehend, that his habitual evasions rendered him an object of suspicion to all; and that the severity of his ultimate fate was the result of a prevailing conviction that, in dealing with a man of his cast, security was to be found only in extreme counsels. Sir Walter does not, however, carry the parallel any further. He rejects, with just indignation, every attempt to palliate the atrocities of the French Revolution, by the violence which marked the progress of our own; and when he has to record the issue of the mock trial of Louis, he follows up his citation of the verdict, by a

spirited expression of sentiments which do him honour as a man and a Briton.

Let none dishonour the parallel passage in England's history, by comparing it with this disgraceful act of murder, committed by a few in rabid fury of gain, by the greater part in mere panic and cowardice. That deed, which Algernon Sydney pronounced the bravest and justest ever done in England,-that facinus tam illustre of Milton,-was acted by men, from whose principles and feelings we differ entirely; but not more than the ambition of Cromwell differed from that of the blood-thirsty and envious Robespierre, or the political views of Hutchinson and his associates, who acted all in honour, from those of the timid and pedantic Girondists.'

As a specimen of the loose way in which Sir. Walter gets up his facts, we shall cite a part of his description of the outrages committed on the royal person and family at Versailles, in October, 1789.

The presence of this great force seemed to restore a portion of tranquillity, though no one seemed to know with certainty how it was likely to act. La Fayette had an audience of the King, explained the means he had adopted for the security of the palace, recommended to the inhabitants to go to rest, and unhappily set the example by retiring himself. Before doing so, however, he also visited the Assembly, pledged himself for the safety of the royal family and the tranquillity of the night, and, with some difficulty, prevailed on the president Mounier to adjourn the sitting, which had been voted permanent. He thus took upon himself the responsibility for the quiet of the night. We are loath to bring into question the worth, honour, and fidelity of La Fayette; and we can, therefore, only lament, that weariness should have so far overcome him at an important crisis, and that he should have trusted to others the execution of those precau tions which were most grossly neglected.

A band of the rioters found means to penetrate into the palace about three in the morning, through a gate which was left unlocked and unguarded. They rushed to the queen's apartment, and bore down the few gardes de corps who hastened to her defence. The sentinel knocked at the door of her bed-chamber, called to her to escape, and then gallantly exposed himself to the fury of the murderers. His single opposition was almost instantly overcome, and he' himself left for dead. Over his bleeding body they forced their way into the queen's apartment; but their victim, reserved for further and worse woes, had escaped by a secret passage into the chamber of the king, while the assassins, bursting in, stabbed the bed she had just left with pikes and swords.'

Now, if Sir Walter Scott had duly examined, or chosen to follow the most competent authorities, he would have omitted this last tremendous appendage to a statement sufficiently appalling without it. M. de St. Priest, one of the ministers of state,