the process amusingly: he described the souls of men quitting their primal habitations in the skies, gliding along the zodiac in the space betwixt Cancer and Capricorn, descending to the earth like meteors, and lodging in mortal bodies. All these phantasms are here well contrasted with the simple theology of Revelation. The immortality of the soul was admitted by Pythagoras and Plato, and by many of inferior note, by the Indians, Egyptians, Germans, and Gauls; the latter sometimes lending money, on condition of its repayment in the other world. How has this sublime faith declined in the money-markets of modern times! M. Tissot observes, that all the punishments in a future state were, in the Pagan theologies, little more than the mere negation of enjoyment, the pain only of simple ennui. What then is his interpretation of the wheel of Ixion, the thirst of Tantalus, and many other of their fables? The whole scheme of future retribution was no doubt with the ancients a work of pure, but not unmeaning, imagination; and, if it be the genius of fiction, as critics maintain, to throw a veil over physical agonies, or to reject them altogether, the remark of M. Tissot ought to be correct. It is certain, indeed, that the Greeks and Romans indulged far more in fancying the future recompense of virtue, than the punishments of vice. M. Tissot goes through the whole drudgery of the parallel most conscientiously. 'Quae desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas,' is not one of his rules. The oddest phantoms of heathen superstition he sallies forth to combat as in duty bound, and with a Quixotic solemnity; and after dispatching them with a thousand strokes, he never fails to submit them deliberately to a process of comparative anatomy. Witness his treatment of the foolish old fashions of apotheosis and canonizing. Their entire unreasonableness is demonstrated by many a sober syllogism. If the heathens really believed the souls of men immortal, how could they pretend to know like the gods, what individuals were worthy of being deified; and how could any just man countenance an apotheosis of himself, which he knew to be a deception on his race? This reasoning of M. Tissot is undeniably sound; and yet it is perfectly decisive of the feebleness of his understanding. That other harmless fancy of the Epicureans, that the gods enjoy a state of endless repose, has not escaped his inexorable logic. To enjoy repose implies a previous sensation of fatigue; but fatigue can only be the result of exercising the bodily organs,-while the gods are only of pure intelligence, and have no incumbrance of bodies at all: ergo, the gods can neither feel fatigue, nor enjoy repose. Q. E. D! The best part of the parallel is unquestionably that which refutes the ancient and modern doctrines of Pantheism. Spinoza's Absolute Being was neither pure intelligence, nor extension, but a being of which these were the attributes. Then, says M. Tissot, this Absolute Being is a mere abstraction, and can, therefore, be no proper foundation for a system of cosmogony. This book, on the whole, falls very far short of what we could have wished for, on such a spacious and momentous subject. An extensive acquaintance with the philosophies of the ancients-a just appreciation of those parts of them which are essentially consonant, or essentially at variance with revealed religion, -a candid abasement of reason to the mysteries of faith,-a comparison, in short, either more profoundly conducted, or with less dialectic formality,-these are desiderata in such an undertaking as this; and we look for them in vain in the work of M. Tissot. Mélanges de Littérature et de Politique. Par Mons. Benjamin Constant. 1 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1829. THIS work is to be regarded as only a relaxation from the graver duties of M. B. Constant, and as such, is highly creditable to him. In the 'Mélanges' a few pages pages are devoted by the author to an eulogium on the universally admitted inerits of Mad. de Staël. This celebrated woman, gifted with the most brilliant talents and a masculine energy of character, shed lustre on the literature of her country, and, indeed, of all Europe; and by her undaunted spirit amid the turmoil of revolution, and under the severest personal trials, formed her faith in that moral and political creed, which she so eloquently preached to others. We fully coincide with M. Constant in his denunciation of the petty policy adopted by Napoleon towards this distinguished woman-distinguished by a genius greater, and a patriotism far purer than his own. But his power for evil has passed away, while hers for good remains, and must remain in the immortal works for which she suffered, and which she left, a legacy of love,' to France and to the world. 'Corinne' and 'Les Considérations sur la Révolution Française,' are the works which M. Constant conceives to be the most imperishable monuments of the mental glory of de Staël. With Corinne' all readers are well acquaintedall have felt and eulogized the beauties in which it abounds. The 'Considérations sur la Révolution are less generally known, yet are they the strongest proofs of the all-comprehensive mind of the authoress. From this work M. Constant gives copious and judicious extracts, accompanied by enlightened commentaries, which want of space obliges us to pass over. The philosophical opinions of M. B. Constant are advocated with earnestness and sincerity, and his arguments are of the most liberal. His political opinions are sometimes distinguished by that kind of liberality which hath a leaning all one way and hence he puts forth assertions-very liberal no doubt-which we will not require him to verify upon oath. For instance, the following: The English aristocracy,' he says, had never till our times proved itself the enemy of the people. Family bonds united it almost with the democracy, and it was, not rarely, found in the ranks of opposition. Now-a-days matters are altered. It is evidently a remnant of feudalism which is falling, and which must give rise to a new state of things.' This palpable nonsense may be left to itself; as the diurnals write, comment is superfluous.' M. Constant thinks that Europe suffered by the ministry of Pitt, because that statesman was more English than cosmopolitan. In the Utopia of the author there may be a corps de reserve of cosmopolitan ministers, and, without undervaluing them, we must say that the more English our ministers have been, the more have they done the state good service,' and ameliorated the condition of mankind at large. 6 From politics M. B. Constant proceeds to poetry, and bears testimony to the great merits of the literary men in Germany. It is not the least of triumphs achieved by those indefatigable labourers, that France herself-France, who had treated the Germans with unceasing levity and scorn-now acknowledges their superior and vast attainments. In the following passage we fully coincide, and with it conclude our notice on the Mélanges.' Stationary minds may declare, as they will, that innovations corrupt the taste of the public. Public taste becomes not corrupted-it approves what is natural and true-it rejects what outrages truth, or departs from nature by exaggeration. The public has an instinct truly admirable, one which has already traced the necessary limits for reconciling order with liberty in political exigencies. This instinct labours, and succeeds, in placing religion in its proper sphere between incredulity and fanaticism, and it will succeed in influencing literature, and restraining the writer, without fettering him.' Essai sur les Anciennes Assemblées Nationales de la Savoie et du Piémont, &c. political political history of Italy during the middle ages, and necessary for any one who wishes to know what was the political state of Upper Italy before the times of Charles V., the sovereign whom the Italians ought to detest more than any other; for it is from him that the decline of the Peninsula has its date, and it is owing to his accursed bigotry and despotism, that the nation has been reduced to the deplorable political condition under which it at present groans. It is, moreover, a book possessing the great quality of being à propos, since it comes to show that no one acquainted with these matters can honestly say that Piedmont and Savoy were always a despotic government. This absurd and wicked thesis has been lately supported by a certain Count Napione di Coccinato, a man with great pretences to erudition, and a still greater degree of court adulation and jesuitical gloss about him. He, the keeper of the royal archives in Piedmont, has given us to understand that the Etats Généraux of Piedmont were nothing but insignificant meetings of persons, very humbly petitioning the sovereign, who might entirely and without any difficulty reject their addresses. This noble writer thought, perhaps, that history could not be studied out of the Piedmontese archives, when he tried to pass off such a wilful and unworthy perversion of facts. But wherever men exist who have paid any attention to the subject, they all are found to agree that the governments of the middle ages, throughout Europe, were as far from being despotic as Count Napione is from being a candid author and a learned critic, although he may be believed to be both where his nonsense about the importance of the Etats-Généraux du Piémont is taken for sterling gold. We are greatly indebted to the author of the little Essai at the head of this notice, for his clever and unanswerable exposition of Napione's bad faith, as well as for his gentlemanly manner in giving it. We, indeed, can more admire than imitate his temper; for though we can behave mildly to writers concerning opinions, the wilful perversion of facts by historians, who affect such hypocritical veneration for truth, makes our very blood boil. Count dal Pozzo has with great patience collected from authentic documents abundant proofs that the Etats Généraux in Piedmont were, as nearly as possible, like all other political assemblies of the same age. He has shown whence it comes to pass that it is so difficult to collect evidence of this fact, and has given a general importance to his work by proving in what manner the liberties of the country of which he speaks have been annihilated. It must, moreover, be of interest for his countrymen, and it is not without some for ourselves, to remark the way in which a rebellion of the nobility in Savoy, about the middle of the fifteenth century, was at length settled to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The rebels, who had been condemned, were recalled, their estates were restored to them, and all party dissensions were for ever buried in oblivion; in consequence of which, the issue rendered the state more firm and powerful than it was before the explosion. This conduct of the then sovereign certainly forms a strong contrast with that of the present Piedmontese government. But in those days men of a more patriotic mind were at the helm of the affairs. The real service of their sovereign was what the ministers had most at heart, and the treacherous and wily councils of a rival power, like the Austrian, whose interests are the very reverse of those of Piedmont, were not listened to, as they are at present by the Cabinet of Turin. Now the advisers of his Sardinian Majesty play the game of Prince Metternich, betraying their trust and their country, and persecuting their fellow-citizens, to please a foreign tyrant. But if the fruit of misgovernment fall on the nation, the disgrace does not fail to attend the name of the Piedmontese administration, which has misgoverned that country from 1821 to our own days. We shall for the present take leave of the book before us, strongly encouraging the author to pursue his useful and praiseworthy labours, We purpose to to speak somewhat at length of the work, when completed, and to lay before our readers an abridgement of the important information, which we expect it will contain, judging from the able manner in which the subject is handled in this first volume. La Musique mise à la Portée de tout le monde. Par M. Fetis, Redacteur de la Revue Musicale. Paris, 1830. 1 vol. 8vo. Ir is sometimes asked whether the just perception of harmonious effect be the result of study only. M. Fetis thus replies to the question. If,' he says, 'I were to speak en artiste, I should answer in the affirmative, and I should say with pride that, for me, there are certain delights in music, which will never be the portion of men of the world; I would maintain that these delights were the liveliest of all, in order to show more forcibly the kind of superiority, which a special knowledge gives me. But it is not with this view that I have written my book. My object is to indicate the means for increasing enjoyment, and directing the judgment, without the necessity of submitting to a novitiate which few have time, or inclination to perform.' M. Fetis continues in the same spirit of plain speaking throughout the work, which, after some introductory remarks on the object, origin, and power of music, initiates the reader in the mysteries of intonation, vocalization, &c. Then follow the author's notices of melody and harmony, and on the employment of the voice, which latter closes this part of the work. M. Fetis has furnished some highly curious details on the subject of instrumental music. Each instrument is the subject of a separate dissertation, in which its origin, history, object, resources, and effects, are accurately given; to all which are added biographical notices of the artists who have contributed to the improvements and success of particular instruments. His reflections on instrumental execution, will be read with advantage both by amateurs and artists. The work concludes with remarks on the prejudices of the learned and unlearned in musical matters; and here M. Fetis is very happy in his criticisms. In style this volume is a gratifying exception to the generality of works on music. M. Fetis is evidently an erudite scholar, a liberal critic, and learned professor of his art; and we doubt not that his work will be extensively circulated, possessing, as it does, every quality which can recommend it to enlightened patronage. Préjugés des Réputations. Par J. B. Salgues. Paris, 1829. THIS is a work full of satirical power. Vanity, hypocrisy, and political quackery are 'shown up' in their native beauties. But the author is equally ready to acknowledge the claims of genuine ability, wherever he finds it. He is a friend to genius, to plain speaking, and plain dealing, and of course a foe to pretension, to intrigue, to all the damnable practices which constitute the sçavoir vivre of these unrivalled days. One extract we shall make from the work to show that the author loves women much, but truth more,' as Madame de Genlis will acknowledge with less than her ordinary equanimity. 'I know,' says M. Salgues, all that can be said by men known in France by the name of Frondeurs. They will contend that Madame la comtesse de Genlis, with some talent and very little knowledge, has given herself up to such an excess of self-love, that she has become perfectly ridiculous; that she has perceived no greater merit than her own; that she has simply believed herself one of the towers of the social order; a pattern of the church militant; a fortunate rival of the celebrated magpie, which maintains a thesis de omni re scibile scibile-that is, on all that can be known; that, in attacking all reputations, in meddling with all kinds of interests, she has justly drawn upon herself the most pointed reprisals; that, like the mountain in labour, she pretended to call the attention of all Europe to her parturition of trifles; that of the hundred volumes from her pen, scarcely eight or ten will descend to posterity; that her style is habitually easy and flowing, but that it is also deficient in splendour and power; that her verse is still weaker than her prose; and that by giving herself such abundant praise, she has prevented others from giving her any. That her pretensions to piety, that the war which she has declared against philosophy have filled up the measure of ridicule; because piety without charity, and the practice of the evangelical virtues, is generally nothing but quackery, to which hypocrisy and vice have recourse to conceal their deformity, and because sincere piety is humble, gentle, affectionate, and tolerant, while Madame de Genlis is constantly vain, jealous, full of hatred, meddling, intolerant,' &c. Several others are disposed of in an equally merciful manner; and we would observe, that though, in many instances, the severity has been well deserved, yet occasionally it falls on follies which are harmless, and on faults that must be more leniently judged, or verily, few men will be justified in the eyes of Mr. Salgues. L'Espagne sous les Rois de la Maison de Bourbon, ou Mémoires relatifs à l'Histoire de cette Nation depuis l'Avénement de Philip V. en 700, jusqu'à la Mort de Charles en 1788. Ecrits en Anglais sur des documens originaux, inédits, par W. Coxe, Auteur de l'Histoire de la Maison d'Autriche, traduits en Français avec des notes et des additions par Don Andres Muriel. 6 vols. 8vo. Paris. THIS is a work which will reward the attention of those interested in the Spanish history, during the eighteenth century. Senhor Muriel is a Spanish ecclesiastic long resident in Paris, but in the improvement and completion of Coxe's work, he has evinced no party spirit, nor any other distinctive quality than those belonging to him, as a learned and judicious Spaniard. Without altering the text of his original, he corrects in some cases by notes, in others by supplementary remarks, all that calls for such animadversion in the British author, who, though conscientious and candid, has, perhaps, taken a somewhat partial view of the diplomatic transactions between England, France, and Spain, during the eighteenth century. The views of Senhor Muriel on the present state of Spain, and on the effects of the Bourbon dynasty, are sound and well digested. It is manifest that the writer must have made his subject the study of years, and that he has consulted those well acquainted with the events of the reign of Carlos III., an important epoch in the modern history of Spain, as pointing out the means to be pursued for restoring that misgoverned country to that state, for which its great resources so eminently qualify it. The minute designation of the practical steps to be taken towards this end, given by Senhor Muriel, is worthy of serious attention from all patriotic Spaniards of what party soever. The opinions of the writer as to points of literature are not so unexceptionable. Nor will many Spaniards agree with him on the subject of the Spanish expeditions, and the efforts made for the re-establishment of Spanish influence in Italy. But these slight matters form no essential drawback on the general merit of the work, which is fully deserving of the appreciation which it has met with from the government in Spain-the author having been rewarded with the decoration of the royal order of Carlos III. |