much concerned at the cloud which seemed to be over his country; but he hoped his death would do more service than his life could have done. After dinner, he signed the copies of his paper, and desired it might be sent to the press. He then received a few of his friends, and took his leave of his children. On this occasion, the fondness of a father did not prevent him from maintaining the constancy of his temper. A little before he went to eat his supper, he said to Lady Russell, Stay and sup with me; let us eat our last earthly food together.' He talked very cheerfully during supper on various subjects, and particularly of his two daughters. He mentioned several passages of dying men with great freedom of spirit; and when a note was sent to his wife, containing a new project for his preservation, he turned it into ridicule, in such a manner, that those who were with him, and were not themselves able to contain their griefs, were amazed. They could not conceive how his heart, naturally so tender, could resist the impression of their sorrow. In the day time he had bled at the nose, on which he said, I shall not now let blood to divert this: that will be done tomorrow." And when it rained hard that night, he said, 'Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull thing on a rainy day.'

Before his wife left him, he took her by the hand and said, 'This flesh you now feel, in a few hours, must be cold.' At ten o'clock she left him. He kissed her four or five times; and she so governed her sorrow, as not to add, by the sight of her distress, to the pain of separation. Thus they parted, not with sobs and tears, but with a composed silence; the wife wishing to spare the feelings of the husband, and the husband of the wife, they both restrained the expression of a grief too great to be relieved by utterance.'

"When she was gone he said, Now the bitterness of death is past.' And he then run out into a long discourse concerning her, saying, how great a blessing she had been to him, and what a misery it would have been to him, if she had not had that magnanimity of spirit, joined to her tenderness, as never to have desired him to do a base thing to save his life. Whereas, what a week he should have passed, if she had been crying on him to turn informer, and to be a Lord Howard!" (Vol. ii. p. 98-100.)

.

His views of eternity were solemn and affecting. He spoke with great animation of the new prospects which would open upon the soul on suddenly quitting this world, which he compared to a blind man couched for a cataract; " but what," he said, "if the first thing he saw were the sun rising!" His calm sleep the night before his execution, and from which he had not awoke when Dr. Burnet entered his room in the morning, is among the most exquisite touches of this deeply pathetic history. We could have wished our author had given us, as a companion to this affecting portrait, the parallel case of the Earl of Argyle, more especially as he might have done it by a passage of deep pathos from his favourite author, Mr. Fox, and one which does honour to the heart of that statesman. The

story must be familiar to all our readers. Argyle, though the fatal sentence had been passed, dined as usual, and conversed with his friends; after which, retiring to his chamber, he fell calmly asleep. While he was in bed, a member of the council applied for admittance to his presence, but was told he was asleep, and had desired not to be disturbed. Disbelieving the account, the door of the chamber was thrown half open, and there he beheld, "enjoying (says Mr. Fox) a sweet and tranquil slumber, the man who, by the doom of him and his fellows, was to die within the space of two short hours." Struck with the sight he hurried away, and hiding himself in the lodgings of an acquaintance who lived near the spot, he flung himself upon a bed with the appearance of a man suffering under excruciating torture. His friend, concluding he was ill, offered him wine: "No, no," he exclaimed, “that will not help me; I have been in at Argyle, and saw him sleeping as pleasantly as ever a man did within an hour of eternity: but, as for meWhat a satisfactory spectacle," exclaims Mr. Fox, "for a philosophical mind, to see the oppressor, in the zenith of his power, envying his victim! What an acknowledgment of the superiority of virtue! What an affecting and forcible testimony to the value of that peace of mind which innocence alone can confer! We know not who this man was; but when we reflect that the guilt which agonized him was probably incurred for the sake of some vain title, or at least of some increase of wealth, which he did not want, and knew not how to enjoy, our disgust is turned into something like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom the world calls wise in their generation."-We are almost angry with ourselves for wishing that Lord Howard had also been introduced to his victim under similar circumstances.

66

We must pass over the particulars of the last awful scene in which the sufferer was so supported by religion, that Burnet attests that he saw no change in his looks, and that there was no trembling, though at the moment in which he looked, the executioner happened to be laying his axe to his neck to direct him in giving him the fatal stroke.

ART. X.-A System of Education for the Infant King of Rome, and other French Princes of the Blood, drawn up by the Imperial Council of State, with the Approbation, and under the personal Superintendance, of the Emperor Napoleon. London. Lackington and Co. 1820. 8vo. pp. 173.

Go through all the predicables," exclaims a schoolmaster, anxious to prompt the tardy genius and invention of a dull pupil in the construction of a theme. We can honestly assure our readers, that we have "gone through all the predicables" relative to the work before us, without acquiring the information which may be expected at our hands. We have asked in due form, who is its author, and what is its object, and when it was written, and wherefore it was drawn up, without obtaining any more precise information than that conveyed in the title page, and which is no information at all. Such of our readers as have a taste for problems, may accompany us through the singular obscurities of these pages, which, for our better edification, are given both in French and English, but a great part of which we have found more difficult to comprehend than "downright heathen Greek."

Let us go back to the title page, and extract its information, such as it is, drop by drop. We there find a very familiar phrase employed in a very new sense: "A System of Edu-cation," means " a thing of shreds and patches;" a collection of hints and enigmas, political and metaphysical, without order, or connexion, or plan. All that we can collect really systematic is an attempt to make, by due course of art and artifice, a well-accomplished tyrant, haply, should fortune prove in a propitious mood, "a second Napoleon."

This "System," we are next informed, was drawn up for the "Infant King of Rome, and other French Princes of the Blood." Who these other princes are, or were to have been, we are not told, but conclude they were put down by anticipation, and were reckoned as imperial chickens before they were hatched. The experiment was, however, in the first instance to have been tried upon the "Infant King of Rome." Writers have differed remarkably as to the time when the education of a child should commence. Rousseau, if we recollect rightly, would begin not only physical, but moral and even intellectual education "in cunabulis." Others would "trust these things to nature," and allow a child to pick up its religion and principles, and even to learn to read and write, as ducks learn to swim, or blackbirds to whistle:" we beg pardon, ducks and blackbirds are taught these accomplishments by their anxious parents, and with some invasion of their infant rights and liberties.

VOL. XVI. NO. XXXI.

66

Miss Appleton, the amiable authoress of "Private Education," in another work of her's just published, and entitled "Early Education, or the Management of Children considered, with a View to their future Character," has shewn very clearly that much may be done for the ultimate benefit of a child by attention to minute circumstances in its very infancy. Her work contains many valuable suggestions, and well deserves perusal, though it is somewhat long, and enters into too many trivial details and anecdotes, faults from which those justly-valued publications on nearly the same subject, the "Hints on Nursery Discipline" of Mrs. Hoare, (for why should we conceal her name any more than that of her benevolent sister, Mrs. Fry ?). and the "Practical View of Christian Education in its early Stages," by a highly-respected gentleman, who, although well known, chooses to be anonymous, are exempt. Mothers and elder sisters will, however, probably thank Miss Appleton for these little details, which we critics blame; and from which they may learn how to comport themselves with due propriety to their infant charges from the dangerous period in which they first become enamoured of kittens and lighted candles, to the time when the rudiments of the future character are clearly developed. Miss Appleton has devoted a chapter to a catalogue raisonnée of children's books. She does not, however, appear to have been very favourably situated for executing this part of her task, having depended on two or three booksellers to send her down into the country what they thought right. She has, in consequence, omitted some of the best little works in the language, and has substituted for them several second-rate productions. Her recommendations are, however, generally very good; but we are credibly informed, that she labours under great literary disgrace in the nursery, for her remark, that “ The Baby's Dance," in the Miss Taylors' " Rhymes," is proh pudor! very silly."

66

*

We do not profess to be accomplished judges of these grave matters; but as "babies," we suppose, must be danced and sung to, we are humbly of opinion that Miss Taylor's metrical quartette is a very wholesome substitute for the voluble nonsense which nurses are accustomed to pour into the ears of children. It violates no rule of syntax or prosody, which is more than can be said of the "nursery rhymes" of our ancestors; and the assertions contained in it, namely, that the subject of the experiment" capers," and "crows," and "dances," at the proper part of the cadence, is to the full as probable, and quite as elegant, as that "Mother Hubbard went to her cubbard,” fscilicet, cup-board,) or other rhymes which Miss Taylor probably had in her eye, and intended to supersede. We have not touched upon this subject, without mighty fears respecting

our dignity, and should not have ventured upon it at all, but under the safe conduct of " the infant King of Rome," and the "imperial council of state," and with "the approbation, and under the superintendance of the Emperor Napoleon.”

We have no means whatever of judging whether these parties were really the authors of the strange production before us. All that the anonymous editor informs us of on the subject, is, that "when the imperial family was obliged to abdicate the throne, the manuscript, with a great variety of state papers and original documents, which had been deposited at St. Cloud, fell into the hands of a gentleman who has enriched his countrymen with many things of a similar nature." The name of this benefactor to his country, this "leonum arida nutrix," is not added; but we are very suspicious of productions from such prolific sources. We must not, however, forget to add, that the newspaper advertisement which announced the work, stated, what the preface does not mention, that to obviate doubt or suspicion," the original manuscript of this extraordinary production is deposited at the publishers, where it may be seen." "My great grandfather," said an Irish witness, "built that wall with his own hands, and if your lordship does not believe my word, there is the wall still in existence to speak for itself." Of the probable authenticity of the work our readers will be able to judge from the remarks and extracts which we may have occasion to produce.

of

The publication is ushered in by a preface from the pen the editor or translator, in which he ascribes the "extraordinary events" of Bonaparte's life," rather to the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, than to a depravity of morals, or to any great superiority of genius." On this statement we should be inclined to remark, that no concurrence of circumstances could have placed Bonaparte in the situation of Emperor of France, and conqueror and arbiter of the continent, without the union of a considerable portion of the two other ingredients which are mentioned as scarcely entering into his character. Depravity of heart was indispensable for a man who was to wade through injustice and cruelty to a throne; nor was talent, at least of a certain sort, less necessary in order to discover the fit conjunctures of circumstances, to plan measures, and to fathom and guide men of various passions and interests, so as to render every thing subservient to the purposes of his personal ambition. Bonaparte possessed undeniably that species of talent, which, in any society, (except, indeed, among truly wise and virtuous men) would have made him a leader. He was prompt, daring, and intrepid; he could be cool and insinuating; and could assume a port and gesture well calculated to command, intimidate, or persuade. The multitude,