known as an antiquarian, a medallist, a geographer, and the most inveterate foe whom these modern days have produced, to that remnant of the Celtic nations, that yet inhabit part of the western edge of this island and a considerable portion of Ireland. Notwithstanding his prejudices, however, this gentleman has had no scruple to trust the safety of his person to the guardianship of the French, who are at least as Celtic as the greater part of our own countrymen, and form the most numerous portion of the descendants of the ancient Gael. Not only has he thus confided in their generosity, but with unexampled candour has returned divested of his ancient inveteracy, and fuil to the very brim of French manners and French cookery. This new stock of ideas was too valuable to be buried in oblivion, or to serve only to embellish the petty details of a dinner-table; and our author, nothing loth, has suffered himself to be persuaded by the advice of his friends to share his feelings with the public. Here, however, he professes to reveal no secrets of families, to attempt no violation of domestic secrecy, but in soberness and sadness to contemplate the character of a people, who have hardly yet reposed from the storms of a sanguinary revo lution. Let us consider how far this has been effected.

We do not learn in these volumes in what manner Mr. Pinkerton found his way to France, but we guess that he was one of the many unfortunates, whom the arbitrary violence of the new emperor converted from guests into prisoners, to gratify an impotent rage, unable to vent itself upon more serious objects. Our author assures us, however, with some complacency, that his treatment was more favourable than that of many others; an advantage which he owed to his literary reputation. The kindness does not appear to have been lavished upon an ungrateful object, and throughout this work we hear more of the good qualities of our neighbours than it is usual to meet with in English writers. It appears to have been the intention to avoid as much as possible the hackneyed topics of former travellers, and to present a view, if not complete, at least peculiar; and we think it would be unfair to deny that Mr. Pinkerton has produced a very amusing work, in which also some useful information is contained. But it is equally true that many symptoms of bad taste are every where apparent, that we find long and irrelevant digressions, an idle parade of learning, and an unreasonable adiniration of the French, to use no harsher terms. There is little grouping in this sketch. The figures are occasionally well shewn, they sometimes singly shew sufficient expression, but they do not harmonize; they have little connexion with each other, and re- ·

semble rather a series of detached pencillings stuck on one piece of canvass, than the finished picture of a master.

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One consequence of this patching system, is to prevent the possibility of our giving any general view of the contents of these volumes We can only offer a few remarks on particu lar passages, which differ from the rest in novelty, excellence, or defects. We are first of all presented with some general ideas on the subject of Paris, which might have been col lected without any great difficulty on this side of the straits. In the second chapter, which treats of the environs of the French metropolis, a few observations more reculiar to the author are to be found. He meets a Frenchman, to whom he descants with enthusiasm on the beauties of the Seine; the Frenchman coldly replies that he sees nothing in it, except that it is brown in winter and green in summer. Mr. Pinkerton notes down that the French ingeneral do not seem to be much impressed with the beauties of nature.' Is it in the heart of a crowded capital that we are to expect that enthusiastic admiration of the forms of nature, which often approaches in lively minds to a minor degree of insanity; or at least resembles madness in its vehemence, as it does superstition in its intolerance? But if our author's taste exceeds that of the French in appreciating the beauties of nature, he is resolved that he will not fall behind, where the elegancies of art deinand his praise.

On a visit to the porcelain manufacture at Seyres, he is overwhelmed with delight, and concludes a paragraph of admiration with the following observations

Even in trifling objects there are a taste and fancy characteristic of the French gaiety and amiability For example, from a bed of Tight blue rises a charming girl of the porcelain called white biscuit, who is withdrawing her shift from her bosom, and looking down with great avidity, as if in search of a little frisking animal, that haunts the fair while from the bottom of the bed peeps out a little malicious cupid, the real author of the sting. The grey headed guide observed with a sinile, See, sir, she believes it is a flea, and it is Love?

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Te presume it requires a six months' residence in France to feel a just admiration of the delicacy of flea-catching. But people, when they are resolved to admire every thing, must. sometimes give better proof of their good will than their good taste..

Tu the third chapter Mr. Pinkerton endeavours to commu-nicate to the reader the delight which he has received from Fench manners and society, and he launches forth into praises, which betray some warmth of feelings towards the Patis sian dames, who, be observes, are perpetually and intensely

eonscious of their sex. Their qualities indeed seem to exceed those of our countrywomen in every character, but those of wife, mother, daughter, or sister. We can readily conceive a man to prefer a French woman as a mistress or a friend, but to persuade us to believe in their superiority in any of the more sacred and important duties of life, would require something more than plain reasoning, and could hardly be atchieved even by the influence of French wines, which Mr. Pinkerton assures us are so efficacious in exciting the amo rous passions. We have here a singular proof exhibited of the chastity of the French matrons, which we present to our readers.

• Let it not, however, be supposed, as not unfrequently happens to the unexperienced traveller, that the French fair grant their favours without previous selection, difficulty, and devotion. Innumerable are the young and beautiful females who of the marriage-bed, and amidst a charming freedom of manners, and preserve the sanctity even a great friendship for another man, are models of maternal ten derness, and conjugal fidelity. "No, my good sir, it would infalli. bly be the death of my husband, the father of my children, and I should never survive the consciousness of having caused such a disaster," was the answer of an enchanting Parisian lady, after long solicitation, to a youthful admirer.'

What are we to think of this? Must we consent to admit feelings of prudence in place of those of honour? There is, in the estimation of this enchantress, no turpitude in adultery; she resists the solicitations of her lover, not from the want of a wish to yield to them, but from fear of the consequences This lady is just as chaste as is the villain honest, whom fear of the halter deters from stealing when he is likely to be detected.

A chapter on neology, or the introduction, of new words into the French language, contains some amusing matter,and the same praise may be extended to that which treats of the state of literature in Paris. With natural yet just feelings, Mr. Pinkerton applauds the employment of literary men to discharge the duties of many of the first offices under government, to which, as he observes, talents and knowledge are certainly better adapted than impudence and ignorance.' It would be well for many countries if their governors un derstood this truth, and added practice to conviction, that without knowledge and talents no individual should be trusted with any important function, while a combination of strong powers and adequate cultivation, fits men for every arduous situation, and admits of being transferred to every human pursuit. Great part of mankind is yet beset with those prejudices of the darker ages, which considered an ap CRL. REV. Vol. 9. November, 1806.

prenticeship as indispensable in every occupation of life, and were ignorant of the unquestionable fact, that a man who shews mental talents in one thing will show them in all others, to which he may be induced to direct his exertions. It appears however, from the account of this traveller, that if the literary men have the advantage of living under a government which calls them to participate in the honours of the state, they receive in other respects a very inferior reward for the produce of their understandings. Works of literature are purchased for inadequate prices, and the whole tribe of booksellers, with few exceptions, are stigmatised as open rogues.

Not far from the beginning of the first of these volumes, our author, indignant at the perversions of reason which have roccasioned so much mischief in France in these latter years, is unable to resist the opportunity of attacking the principles inculcated by Rousseau. That eccentric and mistaken, but eloquent and ingenious writer is, accordingly, lugged in by the shoulders to suffer martyrdom in these Recollections of Paris; and his doctrines are considered and confuted in five entire chapters, which are introduced at various intervals without any relation to the rest of the work, and appear to have been interjected by some convulsion of book-making between the regular strata of chapters, which are obviously of a secondary kind and consist of the debris of former books. We do not pretend to assign the cause of this phænomenon any more than Mr. Pinkerton has pretended to explain the mineralogical appearances in the vicinity of Paris.

Some account is given of the palace of Luxembourg, in the gardens of which a tree of celebrated size planted by the hand of Mary de Medicis formerly grew, and gave occasion to the following occurrence: jayvorod iliw

I believe this was the genuine tree of Cracovia, so called by a pun, not from the Polish town, but from the old › word "craquer, which signifies to gossip, as we say to crack jokes. For here the politiciaus used to assemble, and sit like so many destinies, spinning the thread of nations on wheels of rotten wood. Among others an abbé, during the reign of Louis XV., rendered, himself remarkable by a daily boast that he would conquer England with; twenty thou sand men, A hoary patriot, impressed with the energy of this discourse, thought of the prating abbé on his death bed, and, introduced the following item into his will," I leave to an abbé, whose name I never knew, but well known in the gardens of the Luxembourg by the name of abbé twenty thousand men, the sum of twenty thousand francs." The abbé was so well known by this designa tion, that, attended by some witnesses from the garden, who affirmed that he was the genuine abbé twenty thousand men, he received the money, being probably the only person who had ever derived any advantage from chattering nonsense under the tree of Cracovia.

In the 14th chapter an interesting account is furnished of the excavations which run beneath a great part of Paris, and by the decay of their roofs and pillars, sometimes occasion the most serious accidents. Alittle farther on Buonaparte comes bon upon the stage, and is introduced while the author discusses the subject of the exhibition of pictures, of which many, as might of course be expected, regard the person and actions bof the French chief. One of these represented Buonaparte in Egypt, visiting an hospital where many of the soldiers wese ill of the plague, and endeavouring by touching their sores to dispel that contagious terror which threatened to overwhelm the courage of his troops. The rest of the story we give in Mr. Pinkerton's words and cat mona at 308

Such was the account given in France, and received without doubt or hesitation, at the time when it was reported here that Bonaparte had ordered the sick at Jaffa to be poisoned, in order to avoid the incumbrance. It was also said that Desgenets, a phy sician, who appears in this picture with Bonaparte, (and the strict resemblance was acknowledged by all Paris), was the very person who had reported that the general of the East had been guilty of this cruelty. It seems, however, little probable that in such a case the subject should have been permitted to be thus exposed to public observation and inquiry and this respectable physician has cer tainly not been rewarded for his silence, having no office or emolument that can bespeak the consciousness of such an action. I have also conversed with many literary men who went with the army of the East, and who spoke with great freedom and dislike of the Syrian campaign, as an enterprise equally rash and useless, but never heard any charge upon this account. It may be said that the honour of the French name induced them to this silence but no Frenchman forgets that Bonaparte is an Italian and a Corsican. The reader will, however, judge for himself; but those who have the best hearts will be the last to be persuaded of the truth of the accusation.'

The mineralogy of the neighbourhood of Paris, is consi dered by Mr. Pinkerton as extremely interesting, though the whole country is composed of those materials called secondary, and affords no illustration of the truth or falsehood of the hypotheses which now divide the public opinion, on the subject of the formation of the earth into its present form. Vegetable and animal exuviæ appear, however, to the bulk of observers as the greatest curiosities afforded by the mineral kingdom; and a remarkable instance of an immense collection of shells found at Grignon, near Versailles, is men. tioned in this part of the work. Nearly 200 varieties in the most perfect state of preservation, may be gathered with a moderate degree of trouble. The absurd idea of Voltaire is noticed, who would not allow the existence of mineral U a