ity that has hitherto been made known, and even to launch out occasionally into new regions of nonsense, with a boldness which well entitles him to the merit of originality in folly, and discovery in impertinence. We consider Mr. Fievée's book as extremely valuable in one point of view. It affords a sort of limit or mind-mark, beyond which we conceive it to be impossible in future that pertness and petulance should pass. It is well to be acquainted with the boundaries of our nature on both sides; and to Mr. Fievée we are indebted for this valuable approach to pessimism. The height of knowledge no man has yet scanned; but we have now pretty well fathomed the gulf of ignorance.

We must, however, do justice to Mr. Fievée when he deserves it. He evinces, in his preface, a lurking uneasiness at the apprehension of exciting war between the two countries, from the anger to which his letters will give birth in England. He pretends to deny that they will occasion a war; but it is very easy to see he is not convinced by his own arguments; and we confess ourselves extremely pleased by this amiable solicitude at the probable effusion of human blood. We hope Mr. Fievée is deceived by his philanthropy, and that no such unhappy consequences will ensue, as he really believes, though he affects to deny them. We dare to say the dignity of this country will be satisfied, if the publication in question is disowned by the French government, or, at most, if the author is given up. At all events, we have no scruple to say, that to sacrifice 20,000 lives, and a hundred millions of money to resent Mr. Fievée's book, would be an unjustifiable waste of blood and treasure; and that to take him off privately by assassination would be an undertaking hardly compatible with the dignity of a great empire.

To show, however, the magnitude of the provocation, we shall specify a few of the charges which he makes against the English. That they do not understand fireworks as well as the French; that they charge a shilling for admission to the exhibition; that they have the misfortune of being incommoded by a certain disgraceful privilege, called the liberty of the press; that the opera band plays out of tune; that the English are so fond of drinking, that they get drunk with a certain air called the gas of Paradise; that the privilege of electing members of Parliament is so burthensome, that cities sometimes petition to be exempted from it; that the great obstacle to a Parliamentary

reform is the mob; that women sometimes have titles distinct from those of their husbands, although, in England, any body can sell his wife at market, with a rope about her neck. To these complaints he adds-that the English are so far from enjoying that equality of which their partisans boast, that none but the servants of the higher nobility can carry canes behind a carriage; that the power which the French kings had of pardoning before trial, is much the same thing as the English mode of pardoning after trial; that he should conceive it to be a good reason for rejecting any measure in France, that it was imitated from the English, who have no family affections, and who love money so much, that their first question, in an inquiry concerning the character of any man, is, as to his degree of fortune. Lastly, Mr. Fievée alleges against the English, that they have great pleasure in contemplating the spectacle of men deprived of their reason. And indeed we must have the candour to allow, that the hospitality which Mr. Fievée experienced seems to afford some pretext for this assertion.

One of the principal objects of Mr. Fievée's book, is to combat the Anglomania, which has raged so long among his countrymen, and which prevailed at Paris to such an excess, that even Mr. Neckar, a foreigner (incredible as it may seem) after having been twice minister of France, retained a considerable share of admiration for the English government. This is quite inexplicable. But this is nothing to the treason of the Encyclopedists, who, instead of attributing the merit of the experimental philosophy and the reasoning by induction to a Frenchman, have shown themselves so lost to all sense of duty which they owed their country, that they have attributed it to an Englishman,* of the name of Bacon, and this for no better reason, than that he really was the author of it. The whole of this passage is written so entirely in the genius of Mr. Fievée, and so completely exemplifies that very caricature species of Frenchmen from which our gross and popular notions of the whole people are taken, that we shall give the whole passage at full length, cautiously abstaining from the sin of translating it.

'Quand je reproche aux philosophes d'avoir vanté l'Angleterre, par haine pour les institutions qui soutenoient la France, je ne hasarde

* 'Gaul was conquered by a person of the name of Julius Caesar,' is the first phrase in one of Mr. Newberry's little books.

rien, et je fournirai une nouvelle preuve de cette assertion, en citan les encyclopédistes, chefs avoués de la philosophie moderne.

'Comment nous ont-ils présenté l'Encyclopédie? Comme un monument immortel, comme le dépôt précieux de toutes les connoissances humaines. Sous quel patronage l'ont-ils élevé ce monument immortel? Est ce sous l'égide des écrivains dont la France s'honoroit? Non, ils ont choisi pour maître et pour idole, un Anglais, Bâcon; ils lui on fait dire tout ce qu'ils ont voulu, parce que cet auteur, extraordinairement volumineux, n'étoit pas connu en France, et ne l'est guère en Angleterre que de quelques hommes studieux; mais les philosophes sentoient que leur succès, pour introduire des nouveautés, tenoit à faire croire qu'elles n'étoient pas neuves pour les grands esprits; et comme les grands esprits Français, trop connus, ne ce prêtoient pas à un pareil dessein, les philosophes ont eu recours à l'Angleterre. Ainsi, un ouvrage fait en France, et offert à l'admiration de l'Europe comme l'ouvrage par excellence, fut mis par des Français sous la protection du génie Anglais. O honte! Et les philosophes se sont dit patriotes, et la France, peur prix de sa dégradation, leur a élevé des statues! La siècle qui commence, plus juste, parce qu'il a le sentiment de la véritable grandeur, laissera ces statues et l'Encyclopédie s'ensevelir sous la même poussière.'

When to this are added the commendations that have been bestowed on Newton, the magnitude and the originality of the discoveries which have been attributed to him, the admiration which the words of Locke have excited, and the homage that has been paid to Milton and Shakspeare, the treason which lurks at the bottom of it all will not escape the penetrating glance of Mr. Fievée; and he will discern that same cause, from which every good Frenchman knows the defeat of Aboukir and of the first of June to have proceeded-the monster Pitt, and his English guineas.

EDGEWORTH ON BULLS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.)

Essay on Irish Bulls. By Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and Maria Edgeworth. London, 1802.

WE hardly know what to say about this rambling, scrambling book; but that we are quite sure the author, when he began any sentence in it, had not the smallest suspicion of what it was about to contain. We say the author; because, in spite of the mixture of sexes in the title-page, we are strongly inclined to suspect that the male contributions exceed the female in a very great degree. The Essay on Bulls is written much with the same mind, and in the same manner, as a schoolboy takes a walk he moves on for ten yards on the straight road, with surprising perseverance; then sets out after a butterfly, looks for a bird's nest, or jumps back wards and forwards over a ditch. In the same manner, this nimble and digressive gentleman is away after every object which crosses his mind. If you leave him at the end of a comma, in a steady pursuit of his subject, you are sure to find him, before the next full stop, a hundred yards to the right or left, frisking, capering, and grinning in a high paroxysm of merriment and agility. Mr. Edgeworth seems to possess the sentiments of an accomplished gentleman, the information of a scholar, and the vivacity of a first-rate harlequin. He is fuddled with animal spirits, giddy with constitutional joy; in such a state he must have written on, or burst. A discharge of ink was an evacuation absolutely necessary, to avoid fatal and plethoric congestion.

The object of the book is to prove, that the practice of making bulls is not more imputable to the Irish than to any other people; and the manner in which he sets about it, is to quote examples of bulls produced in other countries. But this is surely a singular way of reasoning the question: for there are goîtres out of Valais, extortioners who do not worship Moses, oat cakes out of the Tweed, and balm beyond the precincts of Gilead. If nothing can be said to exist pre-eminently and emphatically in one country, which exists at all in another,

VOL. I.-5

then Frenchmen are not gay, nor Spaniards grave, nor are gentlemen of the Milesian race remarkable for their disinterested contempt of wealth in their connubial relations. It is probable there is some foundation for a character so generally diffused; though it is also probable that such foundation is extremely enlarged by fame. If there were no foundation for the common opinion, we must suppose national characters formed by chance; and that the Irish might, by accident, have been laughed at as bashful and sheepish; which is impossible. The author puzzles himself a good deal about the nature of bulls, without coming to any decision about the matter. Though the question is not a very easy one, we shall venture to say, that a bull is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity, of ideas, suddenly discovered. And if this account of bulls be just, they are (as might have been supposed) the very reverse of wit; for as wit discovers real relations, that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar, in which we suspected no similarity. The pleasure arising from bulls proceeds from our discovering two things to be dissimilar, in which a resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit, and to bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from an apparent relation between two actions, which more correct understandings immediately perceive to have no relation at all.

Louis XIV. being extremely harassed by the repeated solicitations of a veteran officer for promotion, said one day, loud enough to be heard, That gentleman is the most troublesome officer I have in my service.' That is precisely the charge (said the old man) which your Majesty's enemies bring against

me.'

6

'An English gentleman', (says Mr. Edgeworth, in a story cited from Joe Millar,) was writing a letter in a coffee-house; and perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty which Parmenio used with his friend Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the curious impertinent, the English gentleman thought proper to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with poetical justice. He concluded writing his letter in these words: “I would say more, but a damned tall Irishman is reading over my shoulder every word I write."

""You lie, you scoundrel," said the self-convicted Hibernian.'— (p. 29.)