1823.

more accurately known from the apes having no tails, the baboons having short ones, and the monkeys long. Their moral qualities, too, are understood to differ, and we have some derivatives formed from this hypothesis. To ape is to imitate. An Ape is, metaphorically, a clumsy imitator, and Apisliness is mimicry. Apish and apishly are the adjective and adverb. An impertinent coxcomb is reproachfully termed a jackanapes, which, however, would not well apply to a man of a large size. Monkey is used occasionally without reference to the animal. In that case, like all other diminutives, it expresses either contempt or endearment, as the speaker feels. It is supposed to be more tricking and wanton than the ape. A foolish fellow, whose manners are similar to those of an overgrown child, is sometimes termed a baboon. Writers have occasionally confounded the distinctions here given, but were we to follow the mistakes of every author in laws of language, our definitions, by denoting every thing, would cease to have a meaning."

FINE ARTS.

The Works of Canova engraved in outline. By H. Moses. No. I. Price 4s. and 6s.

tion.

27

It is anonymous, and we have not hitherto made a single inquiry with respect to its author. Our verdict in its favour is connected with no partiality, no tenderness, no politeness to any individual. The subject of these Essays also is considerably abstracted and metaphysical, so that without possessing ingenuity they could not reward the mind for perusing them. The fact is, that our author establishes a metaphysical theory on the nature of human belief, with so much force and clearness as to make that theory tenable, if not irrefragable, ground for any practical politician to assume in carrying speculation into prac. tice with regard to social laws and institutions. We say this in a general sense, not meaning to affirm that in the chain of arguments which he has drawn between his first premises and last conclusion, every individual link is the very strongest and most unobjectionable that could have been wrought out of the subject, but willing to express upon the whole that he makes out a pretty fair and clear concatenation of arguments, some of which point at conclusions of momen. tous consequence to the interests of society. It is not always that metaphysics can be thus fortunate in bringing their intricate path to an outlet, if we may use the similitude, within sight of the

GEOLOGY.

A succinct account of the Lime Rocks of Plymouth, &c. with Plates. By the Rev. R. Hennah, royal 8vo. 12s.

HISTORY.

The First Volume of a History of the late War in Spain and Portugal. By R. Southey, Esq. 4to. 21. 10s.

An Historical and Topographical Essay upon the Islands of Corfu, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zante, &c. By William Goodisson. A. B. 8vo. 12s.

Memoir of the Operations of the Allied Armies under Prince Scwartzenberg and Marshal Blucher, in 1813 and 1814. By a General Officer. 8vo. 1. 1s

HORTICULTURE.

Journal of a Horticultural Tour through Flanders, Holland, and the north of France. By a deputation of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. With plates. 8vo. 16s.

metaphysical questions must, from their nature, for ever remain points of mere speculation. But the nature of human belief is not one of those questions. Even abstract human belief leads to actions and consequences good or evil. Belief has its dangers and diseases, and there are modes of treatment more or less wholesome or pernicious in the treatment of it. Its abstract nature is therefore as important a subject of study for the

leading minds who are to regulate for the moral welfare of the species, as osteology and anatomy are to those who provide for our bodily health. On the subject of tolerating belief different from our own, the cause of liberality (let the word be here stript of all association with any self-called and profligate liberals) has made for a century or two past a progress so steady and distinct, that society may be said to have been really acting upon most of the principles which our author advances; and whilst we laud the agreeable and simple and elegant manner in which he arranges his matter,

we may say without disparagement that little of that matter is new. But he is, nevertheless, in our eyes an useful labourer in the vineyard of

JURISPRUDENCE.

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MEDICINE, SURGERY.

Select Dissertations on several Subjects of Medical Science. By Sir G. Blane, Bart. 8vo. 12s.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Essays on the formation and publication of Opinions, and on other Subjects.

In the scarcity of interesting and perfectly recent publications, we have thought it not unfit to notice this work, which is one that we ought to have attended to at an earlier period, and to have given it the trifling meed of our approba

nions that contradict each other, even in the breast of their owner? Hence so many men are unsettled in their ideas of what it is best for society to do with regard to curbing pernicious creeds on the one hand and respecting on the other, the right of conscientious election in mat

ters of faith. Still, taken all in all, men may safely be pronounced to be apparently proceeding in their ideas of the wholesomeness of toleration ; and among its advocates there is one class peculiarly entitled to the reverence and esteem of the philanthropist, namely, men imbued with a pious belief in tenets which the advancement of toleration exposes to be called in question. A great many weak but well-meaning men, are alarmists on this subject; but the former superior-minded

class, to which we have alluded, are too proud and too firm in their belief to tremble at the breath of free discussion. Their toleration stands on a pedestal that does them more honour perhaps than pillars to their memory as martyrs could have done.. It is grounded either on a calm philosophic and historic conviction of the truth of their creed, or in a sentiment of confi dence that the Deity, who has given a pure religion to their hearts, needs not the arm of flesh and of secular power to protect the welfare of that religion. And this sentiment is mixed with a love of their fellow-creatures, through which they look with the eyes of charity on their errors, and hold themselves bound to persuade and exhort them to think more rightly, but never to persecute them. It is, in truth, believers of this bigh description, including both those who have heads for learned and deep discussion and those who have hearts for converting men by persuasion, who are alone and exclusively capable of making converts. A religion of love was neve, yet, and never will be, inculcated by anger. Indignation at the buffoonery of the scoffer must be no plea for hating men who conscientiously fall short of us in matters of faith. For, whilst the advocate of religion feels himself pleading for the Word of God, he must remember that he is still himself a fallible man; and that he has to deal with men who are so fallible as to be prone to wrathful feelings in return for insult. All public institutions of religion have undoubtedly a right to repel unmerited reproach. But if they wish to gain over the voluntary opinion of the public, and to spread the vital spirit of religion, they are using the very worst weapon that can be employed, if they revile those unbelievers who are not reviling them, but only dissenting from them in conclusions of the understanding.

Happily both the church and the sectaries have exhibited preachers possessed of this intrepid and revered height of liberality; and without disputing the real conscientiousness of many who have it not, the heart may at least be pardoned for a glorying and proud exultation in the worth of human nature, as it was exhibited by that Bishop, who in his robes and in the highest assembly of the empire declared to this effect, " 1 would die, my lords, if my death were necessary to evince my faith in our holy religion, or to promote its interests; but 1 would also die before I would consent to see any man persecuted for not believing it." So thought not Mrs. Hannah More when she wrote about errors that were to be extirpated by the sword. Had she thought like a true Christian, she would have extirpated this error from her own pages with a pair of scissors. Such opinions as hers, however, serve as excellent foils to the Christianity which would 'accomplish all conversion by persuasion, and deprecate all persecution for opinion, from the torch of the inquisitor down to the abuse of the blackguard journalist. Of any Christian of this tolerating cast, where can the conscientious enemy exist? Men may differ from him in points of abstract belief; but who, with a heart or understanding, would treat him irreverently? Such Christians disarm opponents, at least all respectable opponents, and do inexpressible good to their own cause. For if the sceptic has a generous feeling left in his bosom, they call it forth by their moderation, and itis possible, that many well-meaning men whose faith

may be against them in abstract speculation would think (and think rightly) that they act more for the interests of virtue and society, in abstaining from theoretical disputes with such men, than by assailing them in conjunction with writers who nauseate the world by mixing up free opinions with lewdness and libertinism. Such liberals may well be left to fight it out with the bigots who are their polar opposites, but still as like them as pole to pole-the one party converting the fountains of philosophical truth into puddles of obscenity -the other turning the sacramental cup into a vessel for pouring out their filthy abuse on the heads of all whom they consider as enemies.

We are aware, that even after the general benefits of toleration have been admitted, much matter for

argument may still remain. The right of secret belief, if it can be called the exercise of a right, is hardly disputed at the present day, and its culpability is at least allowed to rest on the individual's own conscience. But it is still a moot point with many men who are not deliberately intolerant, how far the expression of all conscientious opinion ought to be full and free; since a man may be a well-meaning zealot, even in pernicious speculation. It is still also a disputed poiut, how far opinions, not only conceived to be abstractedly pernicious, but propagated argumentatively from the suspected impulse of vanity and selfish designs, should not be coerced by the hand of authority. Could we prove men's motives with any thing like permanent certainty, the distinction between malevolence and mere opinion would speedily guide us to solve this last question. But this is not the case; and the problem then remains, how far it is right to restrict the freedom of argumentative speculation, where opinion is apparently sincere and involuntary, though the act of publishing it be an act of the will. Our author, with great clearness, argues the moral inculpability of sincere belief, and the general utility of suffering it to be published. His metaphysics we have not attempted to abridge, as his style is not redundant, and all metaphysical language suffers much by being foreshortened. We recommend our readers to peruse the treatise for its candour and explicit reasoning; and we have no hesitation in coinciding with our author's theory, that the dangers arising from free discussion are by no means comparable in extent to its advantages. "The terrors of the law (as he justly observes) are wretched replies to argument. If there was any fixed and unquestionable standard by which the validity of opinions could be tried, there might be some sense and some utility in checking the extravagance of opinion by legal interference. But since there is no other standard than the ge neral reason of mankind, discussion is the only method of trying the correctness of all doctrines whatever and it is the highest presumption in any man, or in any body of men, to erect their own tenets into a criterion of truth, and overwhelm dissent and opposition by penal inflictions. Such conduct can proceed on no principle which would not justify all the persecutions that disgrace the page of ecclesiastical history. Let established opinions be defended with the utmost power of reason; let the learning of schools and colleges be brought to their support; let elegance and taste display them in their most enchanting colours; let no labour, no expense, no argument, no fascination be spared, in upholding their autho

1823.

POETRY.

29

Ode on the Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, &c. 8vo. 3s.

Rogvald, an Epic Poem, in twelve books. Svo. 12s. By J. E. Pennie.

THEOLOGY.

8 vo.

Oeuvres de Platon, traduites en Français. Par M. N. Cousin. Vol. 1. Paris, 1822.

M. Cousin is one of the most remarkable men amongst the French literati of the present day. Though still young he has acquired an immense mass of varied information ; he has been gifted by nature with a fertile though somewhat irregular imagination, and an astonishing fluency and readiness of delivery. If his course of philosophical lectures had not been suspended by the orders of government, he might have renewed the times of the gifted but ill-fated Abelard, and have drawn hearers from all parts of France, if not from all Europe. While they did continue, it was more difficult to secure a place at them than at a representation of Talma's. It often happened that M. Cousin entered the lectureroom without having prepared a single sentence of the discourse which was to draw forth the plaudits of a numerous audience. This talent of public improvization is very rare in France, and M. Cousin may lay to the account of its novelty a considerable portion of his success. On these occasions the young professor only recollected that he was going to treat of the suul, or of liberty, and after the first few sentences his ideas flowed in an irrepressible torrent of rounded periods and ever varying illustrations, which if they did not produce conviction, were at least crowned with the inomentary admiration of his hearers. For poetic colouring, vivacity of invention, and fertility of imagination, we think he comes immediately after Messrs. Chateaubriand, Casimir de la Vigne, Lemercier, and Pigault Le Brun. As to his qualities as a philosopher we cannot speak so highly; his system is wanting in one of the most essential qualities of philosophy-common sense. He seems to have undertaken the Quixotical enterprise of resuscitating, for the edification of the nineteenth century, the exploded ideas of Plato, which, though poetically beautiful, are philosophically absurd. Indeed he seems himself not to know very well what he would be at, for this veneration for Plato is but a new passion. Last year M. Cousin's hero was an old

It

For

philosopher of Alexandria named Proclus. would be more candid and worthy of a devoted proselyte like M. Cousin, boldly to declare his intention, which appears to be to introduce the German philosophy into France-a project which has but a very slender chance of success. the self-love of the French, and their extreme dread of ridicule, is such, that they require the greatest possible clearness and precision from any one who pretends to instruct them, for fear of heing entrapped into the belief or adoption of any thing that might tend to exhibit them in a ludicrous light. Now, in developing the mysteries of German philosophy, how is it possible to be intelligible, or how to preserve perspicuity and precision in explaining the chimerical doctrines of Plato, who was either mystified himself, or sought to mystify posterity? M. Cousin's translation is elegant, nay eloquent and faithful, as far as such fantastical vagaries can be faithfully rendered.

Discours prononcé à l'Académie Française, par M. Fressinous, Evêque d'Hermopolis, le jour de sa reception

M. Fressinous was a very short time back a poor ignorant and obscure pri.st. He brought himself into notice by preaching controversial sermons in the church of St. Sulpice, in which he declaimed against the writings of Voltaire, Rousscau, Helvetius, &c. These sermons attracted a good deal of attention from the species of dramatic interest which was given to them by the preacher; for he introduced as interlocutors the above-mentioned writers, making them utter the most abominable impieties, and then triumphantly refuted them. In less than a year this wily polemic has been made grand almoner to the king, grand master of the university, bishop and peer of France, and member of the French academy, and it is said a cardinal's hat is fitting up for him! In modern times there has been no instance of so rapid an accumulation of honours upon the head of one individual, except in the case of the Duke of Wellington. The discourse of M. Fressinous is worthless in a literary point of view, but remarkable from the novelty of its tone. It resembles more an exhortatory reprimand than a

modest expression of thanks from a man who felt honoured by admission into a body once so justly esteemed. The style is harsh and heavy, and the matter full of absurdities. The discourse of M. Villemain, at this same sitting of the academy, offered a most striking contrast to the petulant and presumptuous address of the new member. M. Villemain is the author of a History of Cromwell, which rises not much above mediocrity, He owes his fortune and advancement to M. Decazes, of whom he had to speak in the presence of those who mainly achieved his downfall. The position was a difficult one, but M. Villemain got through it with the most felicitous tact and presence of mind. He contrived to praise his friend and patron the Duke Decazes before his mortal enemies, by the most fine drawn and delicate allusions, which were so adroitly introduced, as to render it impossible to mistake their import. This discourse alone renders him worthy of the academy, to which his history of Cromwell did not entitle him. Having mentioned this memorable sitting of the academy, which has occupied a good deal of the public attention, we shall take leave to mention another circumstance connected with it, which strongly characterizes the present state of manners in France, and may not be uninteresting to those who are distant from the scene of action. A great part of the sitting was occupied by an elaborate and pompous eulogy on the late Abbé Sicard, which was little more than the echo of those praises with which the public papers of every colour and every party were filled some months back on the demise of the abbé. After so unanimous and laudatory a chorus, it would be natural for a foreigner to suppose that the Abbé Sicard was a man of unexceptionable character and no little talent. But if that foreigner were to question any well-informed Parisian on the subject, he would be surprised to hear a totally different account. The truth is, that it was respect for les convenances that caused the Abbé Sicard to be so lauded in the journals and eulogized at the academy. This is a very singular and characteristic trait in the present state of French manners. Notwithstanding the liberty of the press, all the public journals wilfully misrepresented on this occasion, and the very writers of those full-blown eulogiums were the first to acknowledge their falsity and laugh at the mystification. The Abbé Sicard was something of Tartuffe in private life; he wrote a book upon the Sourds-Muets, in which he designedly sought to deteriorate a former work on the same subject by the excellent Abbé de l'Epée. object was to suppress this work, in which he mainly succeeded. These facts are very generally known here, yet, strange to say, no one will publish them, for fear, as they say, of wounding les convenances. However, they will not be lost to posterity, for posthumous memoirs are so much in vogue, and their publication so profitable, that many of the most distinguished literary characters here are employed in making the fortunes of their grandchildren by noting down what is now passing before their eyes. Besides others thus occupied, M. Lemontey is much talked of; he is one of the first historical writers that France at present possesses. He has ready for the press L'Histoire de France de 1688 a 1789; but its publication is likely to be deferred, as its appearance at the present moment would be most pro

His

bably followed by the loss of six thousand francs a year, which M. Lemontey enjoys as a dramatic censor. We have been present at the reading of several chapters of this History of France, which may be considered likewise as a History of Eng land. The reasoning and inductive part is most excellent, and may be pronounced a chef-d'œuvre in its way. The style is a little affected and involved, and aims too much at point. It resembles the manner of Fontenelle in his Eloges Academiques, or that of Horace Walpole in the first volume of his delightful Memoirs.

Diners du Baron d' Holbach. Par Mad. la Comtesse de Genlis. 2 vols. Paris, 1822.

This new production of the inexhaustible Madame de Genlis will give rise to no little scandal in the literary world. It offers, or affects to offer, a faithful description of the conversations of Diderot, Marmontel, Raynal, and the men of wit and talent who flourished during that brilliant period of French society, about the year 1778. The principles developed in these conversations being very different from those which Madame de Genlis ostentatiously puts forth at the present day, she of course is not very chary to the reputation of the interlocutors, and has so far forgot the respect due to some of the most distinguished writers of the close of the eighteenth century, as to attempt to revive many gross and calumnious imputations which were thrown upon them by contemporary jealousy and malevolence. But though she may have inaccurately appreciated their mental qualities, or misrepresented their moral ones, yet she has given their personal portraits with tolerable vividness and fidelity. For this task she was well fitted, having been one of the gayest and prettiest women of her time; she was intimately acquainted with many of those who figure in her work. This publication may interest, but cannot be altogether relied upon. For a true picture of the literary society of France in 1778, we must recur to the Memoirs of Marmontel and Madame d'Epinay, and the Correspondence of Grimm. All the survivors of that interesting and intellectual epoch agree in saying, that Grimm in particular has almost scrupulously observed the truth in speaking of his distinguished contemporaries. By this book it appears, that Madame de Genlis, though at present near eighty years of age, has not entirely lost her activity of mind, but her style has become stiff, affected, and dogmatical. It resembles rather the decided and despotic tone of a drawing-room oracle than the chastened style of closet composition. Besides, a little more charity, nay even justice, would not have been amiss in the composition of this child of her old age.

L'Esprit de l'Encyclopédie. 15 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1822

This is one of those works which the government regards with a most jealous eye. It is a reimpression of the remarkable and piquant articles which gave such renown to the famous Encyclopedia edited by Diderot and D'Alembert; an enterprise that put in the pockets of the publish- 、 ers about seven hundred thousand francs, but from which the two philosophers reaped little more than two thousand francs a year, during the fifteen years they were employed in it. It was a mortal blow struck at prejudices of every descrip