FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH: AND LONDON. 1816. CONTENTS. OF No. LII. ART. I. The Speech of Charles C. Western Esq. M. P., on moving that the House should resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House, to take into Con- sideration the distressed State of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom, March 7th, 1816. And The Speech of H. Brougham Esq. M P., in the House of Commons, April 9th, 1816, upon the State of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom II. The History of Persia, from the most early Period to the present Time: Containing an Account of the Religion, Government, Usages and Character of the Inhabitants of that Kingdom. By Colonel Sir John Malcol, K. C. III. Aus Meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit Von IV. The Representative History of Great Britain and Ire- land, being a History of the House of Commons, and of the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs of the Historical Reflexions on the Constitution and Repre- sentative System of England, with Reference to the Popular Propositions for a Reform of Parlia- V. The Narrative of Robert Adams, a Sailor, who was wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa in the Year 1810; was detained three Years in Slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert; and resided se- veral months in the City of Tombuctoo VI. The Life of James the II., &c. collected out of Me- VIII. The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale. Robert Southey Esq., Poet-Laureate, &c. &c. IX. A Letter to a Member of Parliament, on the Slavery 4.58 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, FEBRUARY, 1816. ART. 1. Mémoires de MADAME LA MARQUISE DE LAROCHEJAQUELEIN; avec Deux Cartes du Théatre de la Guerre de La Vendée. 2 tomes. 8vo. pp. 500. Paris, 1815. THIS HIS is a book to be placed by the side of Mrs Huchison's delightful Memoirs of her heroic husband, and his chivalrous Independents. Both are pictures, by a female hand, of tumultuary and almost private wars, carried on by conscientious individuals against the actual government of their country:and both bring to light, not only innumerable traits of the most romantic daring and devoted fidelity in particular persons, but a general character of domestic virtue and social gentleness among those who would otherwise have figured to our imaginations as adventurous desperadoes or ferocious bigots. There is less talent, perhaps, and less loftiness, either of style or of character, in the French than the English heroine. Yet she also has done and suffered enough to entitle her to that appellation; and, while her narrative acquires an additional interest and a truer tone of nature, from the occasional recurrence of female fears and anxieties, it is conversant with still more extraordinary incidents and characters, and reveals still more of what had been previously malignantly misrepresented, or entirely un known. Our readers will understand, from the title-page which we have transcribed, that the work relates to the unhappy and san guinary wars which were waged against the insurgents in La Vendée during the first and maddest years of the French Republic; but it is proper for us to add, that it is confined almost entirely to the transactions of two years, and that the detailed A VOL. XXVI, No. 51. |