are beft recompenfed by a communication of the wealth and prof perity which they have contributed to diffeminate; and that honour, the prize for which life is daily ventured, is naturally the exclufive and appropriate reward of hardy intrepidity. It is true that this quality may be fometimes coupled with the most odious vices,-with paltry cunning, with felfish ambition, and with malignant ferocity; and men thus endowed, and armed with power, may ravage the univerfe like a peftilence: yet to this defolating fpirit may be oppofed a faviour spirit of fill higher power, fo long as fuch a fpirit fhall be juftly valued, fo long as the rewards of enthusiastic heroism fhall not be bestowed on inventive ingenuity. Thefe, and many fimilar arguments might be urged in exculpation of the vulgar feelings of mankind on this subject, and might, perhaps, deferve confideration. But, be this as it may, we are very far from meaning to reprobate the favourite opinion of our venerable author, which, befides that we believe it to flow from the genuine benevolence of his heart, muft evidently have formed his principal inducement to undertake, and his chief encouragement to perfevere in a task, the completion of which required much severe labour, and has confumed many years of a useful life. No literary work, we believe, can be well performed, which is not performed with fome degree of conscious fatisfaction; and, as few things are less alluring in themselves than arithmetical calculations and commercial documents, we are perfuaded that no motive but a firm conviction of the importance and moral utility of his undertaking could have induced the learned editor of Wyntown to compile the Annals of Commerce.

Upon the whole, we have no hesitation in faying, that Mr Macpherson has, in our opinion, performed all that could be expected from an individual, and perhaps more than the public had a right to expect from him, because it is fcarcely poffible that his readers fhould be capable of appreciating the extent of his toil, with which therefore the increase of his reputation is not likely to be commenfurate. Numberlefs paffages of the ancient hiftorians, like certain problems in algebra, are fufceptible of an indefinite number of folutions; and on fuch occafions, it would be abfurd to fay, that he has never laid himself open to criticism, even fair criticism,—or that he has never deceived himfelf: but the internal evidence of every page convinces us, that he never means to deceive his reader. In our notice of his work, we have endeavoured to be as concife as poffible, because the praise of a critic is often fufpicious; and cenfure, we are afraid would, in this inftance, be useless, fince it is highly improbable that the author fhould ever attempt the Herculean talk of revif VOL. VIII. NO. ig.

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ing a fecond edition of fuch an enormous mafs of materials, even on the fuppofition that his attention fhould not be called off during the interval to fome newer object of inquiry.

ART. II. Travels after the Peace of Amiens, through Parts of France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. By J. G. Lemaitre, Efq. 3 vol. 8vo., pp. 1225. London, Johnfon. 1806.

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MR LEMAISTRE feems, as far as we can difcern, to be one of the great multitude of English idlers whom every fufpenfion of hoftilities pours over the face of the Continent, and who fortunately return, for the most part with as little inclination as talent, to become writers of travels. The interest excited by his adventures, is nearly fuch as might be expected from the domeftic narratives of thefe worthy gentlemen. His route is, of all others, the most beaten, being an integral portion of the grand tour of Europe. His movements were confined to the highway and the more eafy parts thereof, by the company of his wife. His intercourfe with the natives was limited by the rapidity of his movements, and his entire ignorance of the languages. His general remarks approach to the excellence of thofe which not unfrequently are heard to drop from country gentlemen. And the fpecies of information which he collects, may be with certainty found among the manufcripts of any given traveller, capable of committing his obfervations on manners and cities, to the paper of his pocket-book. Were it not, indeed, for the fmall number of thefe repofitories which ever fee the light, we should have found the tafk of penetrating through thefe volumes altogether intolerable. The genuine anglicifm of the chief objects of attention, eating, drinking, paying, quarrelling with drivers, innkeepers, and foreign cuftoms, would have been ill repaid by the few fcattered notices of more important matters which now and then forced themselves on the traveller's view; the omiffion of almost every thing which one could have wifhed to fee defcribed, would have been hardly compenfated by the minute infertion of almoft all that one could have fpared; and the fingular disqualification of the author, in all the great requifites of a traveller, would have been poorly counterbalanced by his various opportunities of procuring information. But while countries are changing their governments, their political relations, their boundaries, their manners, their very names and phyfical appearances, with a rapidity happily unknown in former times, the laft meagre account that can be procured of them, is in fome refpects preferable to the fulleft

and most ingenious works of an earlier date: and we have gene rally remarked, that though the labour of toiling through modern books of travels is feldom repaid by the detached scraps of information which they contain; yet this toil, when undergone by one, cannot fail to be of general utility, by faving other readers the bulk of the task, and extracting for their use the little that thofe works present. This confideration must form, at once, our reward for the ungrateful labour to which we have fubmitted, and our apology for troubling our readers with an account of Mr Lemaitre's three volumes.

It is not eafy to imagine a more dull and infipid series of letters than this honeft gentleman has managed to indite upon Switzerland and Italy. What he tells of one ftage, he almost invariably repeats of every other. His adventures confist of now a fhower of rain-now a late arrival; his views are fometimes a mountain, fometimes a valley; his calamities are always a bad dinner, or a dear bill, or a fulky landlord, and a lazy poftillion; things, we readily admit, most interesting in themfelves, and highly fit to occupy a man's ferious attention, as indeed they never fail to do, whether we permit them or not; but exceedingly apt to be undervalued by thofe who merely read the history of his journeyings. Then, upon every occafion, Mrs Lemaitre is afraid; whether the day is good or bad, by moonlight and in the dark,-on precipices or in, plains, by land and by water,this lady's fears are perennial. Not that we by any means doubt the fact, or are at all inclined to blame a husband for being anxious about his wife; but we conceive that printed books have little to do with fuch touching and domeftic points, and that they might all have safely been left out, and supplied by the reader's imagination.

If, however, we are fomewhat out of humour with Mr Lemaistre's manner of telling his tale, and getting together his materials, we are rather worse off when he ftops, as he has an unlucky habit of doing, to reflect and meditate the paffing scene.' There is not, we believe, within the four corners of his book, a position which the hardieft fceptic could find a moment's heGtation in admitting. He has no mercy on common topics, of unquestionable and most notorious truth. He drives you to abfolute distraction by his fenfible and utterly, irrefragable obfervations. You are perpetually stunned, not with the novelty, but certainly with the folid content of his remark. He equals, in this fpecies of cruelty, a whole country fquire and his maiden fifter. In fact, the evil which haunts one through the whole book, is a shopeless and unvaried mediocrity, for which there is never any -quiej; andīno palliative: but refignation We begin our extracts

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with a few fpecimens of this vein of reflection, which pervades Mr Lemaitre's writings. They will ferve as an excufe for confining our future attention to his defcriptions, and are taken almost at random.

Victor Amadeus erected a church on the expulfion of the French by Prince Eugene, from Piedmont. One might have hoped to view this building at peace from all moral reflections, and only annoyed by the monuments and veftry anecdotes which haunt all fuch places. But Mr Lemaitre has decreed otherwise. In recollecting,' fays he, this circumftance, in viewing this fplendid monument of a paft triumph over the French, one's pity for the prefent vanquished ftate of the Piedmontefe and their depofed fovereign, naturally increafes, and the mind is forcibly recalled to the ftrange mutability of human affairs.' (I. 182.) Again, talking of the natives of Turin, he remarks, that they have no industry, because they have no commerce, and confequently no fpirit or activity. And after noticing their exceffive bigotry, and conftant attendance at mafs, he judiciously warns us not to fuppofe, that on this account, they are proportionably virtuous; and all this, as if we had not to wade through fuch information as the following, in the very fame pages. Our journey from Turin to the Supurga, occupied nearly two hours; but on our return, being on a defcent, we performed the fame distance in half that time. We went to hear mass, being Sunday: the mufic did not answer the expectations which we had formed. In vifiting, for the fecond time, the chapel of St Suaire, I was much pleased with the marble rotundo, which is certainly beautiful. In returning, we were much furprised at perceiving the immenfe crowd which filled the road from Turin to the Valentin. It was, indeed, fo full of paffengers, that it reminded me of Hyde Park on a Sunday; I alfo counted five or fix good carriages,' &c. &c.

The fubject of invafion affords matter of harangue more than once. It was the apprehenfion of this event that forced our author home. Little does he believe fuch an attempt likely to be made; but who could bear to be abfent for an inftant, while our common country is menaced?' (II. 250-419.) But the whole force of Mr Lemaitre's genius is called forth by the ancient and established topic of death. In order to indulge upon this point, he properly visits the Capuchin convent at Vienna, where the Royal family are buried; and their tombs are calculated to create reflections, at once awful and inftructive.' We should ill difcharge the duty we owe to our readers, were we not to give them the benefit of thofe awful and instructive' observations. The fubject is highly important; it relates to matter of univer

fal

fal concernment. Every man is equally interested in it; for it is proved, by undoubted and conftant experiment, that death fooner or later happens to all: Wherefore, Mr Lemaitre has given vent to his mind in the following awful' paffage.

Sovereigns, heroes, and conquerors, who formerly filled the most diftinguished parts on the great theatre of public life, ftripped of the enfigns of power, of glory, and of triumph, are, in this manfion of death, ranged fide by fide, with undiscriminating regularity; and, no longer animated by an ambition that once. fpurned at the limits of the world, are here enclosed within the narrow compafs of a tomb; while their once revered perfons, rapidly mouldering into decay, are now but hideous and offenfive maffes of corruption! Such is the lot of humanity from which inevitable doom, neither the fplendour of rank, the charms of beauty, the applaufes of fame, nor the dignity of virtue, can for an hour fave the proudeft, the faireft, the greatest, or the best of human kind.' (II. 265.)

It is, indeed, the character of our author's reflections, in general, as in this inftance, to be at leaft as awful as they are inftructive. It is not indeed in every page that we are scared by any thing like the preceding fpectacle; yet we acknowledge, that his remarks on the death of the Queen of France (the rock on which fo many reflecting minds have lately fplit, vide our review of Hunter's Travels), are fufficiently dreadful; and even, as he himfelf is pleased to term them, melancholy.'

The Emprefs, and the ladies belonging to her fuite, wore a profufion of diamonds. The splendour of these ornaments, the lovely forms and coftly dreffes of the women, the folemn pace and fingular costume of the religious communities, the refpectable and ftriking appearance of the military, the crowds of perfons who filled every window, and the dignity of the illuftrious perfons who appeared as the principal actors in this fcene, prefented altogether a fpectacle of vaft and uncommon grandeur.

Beautiful, however, as was this scene, from a concatenation of circumstances it excited fome melancholy reflections in my mind. Thir teen years had elapfed fince, for the firft and only time before, I had feen the ceremony of the Corpus Chrifti. On that occafion, the lovely Marie Antoinette fhone like a fuperior star; and as the walked through the ftreets of Paris, and aftonished all beholders with the charms of her perfon and the dignity of her manner, every voice feemed ready to exclaim,

"Et vera inceffu patuit Dea. "

Who then imagined, though this beautiful Queen had already experienced fome revolutionary infults, that she was doomed to witness the murder of her royal husband; to languish on the straw bed of a difgraceful prifon; to be accused of crimes at which nature revolts; and to be carried in a cart, to end her days on a scaffold, like the lowest and baseft of her fex?—The virtuous and ill-fated Louis walked by her S 3