İt would, indeed, have been hard to pass through this garden of the north of Europe with only Joe Miller in his head. We shall extract a specimen of the descriptions which he attempts here, and shall then give the only tolerably good story which he tells during his whole journey in the country of the Rhine.

Soon after our departure from Coblentz, we paffed the island of Obewerth; and a little further on, on our left, the difemboguement of the river Lahn, which flows between two ancient and picturesque towns, called the Upper and Lower Lahnsteins, where the Rhine forms a confiderable curve, and expands into the resemblance of a placid lake, as dorned with two vaft mountains, one crowned with a hoary watch-tower, and the bafe of the other half encircled by a village, and the whole adorned by the captivating combinations of foreft fcenery, rich meadows, and hanging vineyards and orchards, amidft which, half embosomed in their foliage, the peafant's peaceful dwelling every now and then gladdened the eye. This lovely view was foon exchanged for one of gloomy magnificence. Before we reached Boppart, we entered a melancholy defile of barren and rugged rocks, rifing perpendicularly from the river to an immenfe height, and throwing a fhade and horror over the whole fcene: here all was filent, and no traces of man were to be found but in a few difperfed fishermens' huts, and crucifixes. Fear and fuperftition, "when the day has gone down, and the stars are few," have long filled every cave with banditti, and every folitary recefs with apparitions.

In the courfe of my paffage I frequently, when the boat came very near the land, fprung on fhore with two or three other passengers, and varied the fcene by walking along the banks for a mile or two, and during thefe excurfions had frequently an opportunity of admiring the aftonishing activity and genius of the French, who have, fince they be came mafters of the left bank of the Rhine, nearly finished one of the finest roads in the world, extending from Mayence to Cologne, in the course of which they have cut through many rocks impending over the river, and triumphed over fome of the most formidable obstacles nature could prefent to the achievement of fo wonderful a defign. This mag nificent undertaking, worthy of Rome in the most fhining periods of her hiftory, was executed by the French troops, who, under the direction of able engineers, preferred leaving thefe monuments of indefatigable toil and elevated enterprize, o paffing their time, during the ceflation of arms, in towns and barracks, in a state of indolence and inutility.

The fombre fpires of Boppart, furrounded by its black wall and towers, prefented à melancholy appearance to the eye, relieved by the rich foliage of the trees in its vicinity, and the mountains behind it irregularly interfected with terraces covered with vines to their very fummits. The antiquity of this city is very great'; it was one of the fifty places of defence erected on the banks of the Rhine by Drusus Germa nicus, and in the middle ages was an imperial city.

Not far from Boppart we faw, on the right bank of the river, a proceffion of nuns and friars returning to a convent, the belfry of which

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juft peeped above a noble avenue of walnut-trees; they were finging, and their voices increafed the folemn effect of the furrounding fcenery. We put up for the night at a little village, amid mountains half covered with vineyards, tufted with forests, and checkered with convents and ruined catles. The evening was ftormy, and a full moon occafionally brightened the scene. p. 423-425.

The anecdote to which we allude regards General Murat, now Grand Duke of Berg, one of the ablest of the great commanders whom the Revolution and its wars have raised from the lowest ranks of life. It is as follows.

After his elevation to the rank of a prince of the French empire, he halted, in the close of the laft war, at a fmall town in Germany, where he stayed for two or three days; and on finding the bread prepared for his table of an inferior kind, he despatched one of his suite to order the beft baker in the town to attend him, to receive from him his directions refpecting this precious article of life. A baker who had been long established in the place was felected for this purpofe; and upon the aide-de-camp ordering him to wait upon the prince immediately, he observed, to the no little furprife of the officer" It is ufelefs my going, the prince will never employ mé. Upon being preffed to ftate his reafons, he declined affigning any; but as the order of the meffenger was peremptory, he followed him, and was immediately admitted to Murat, with whom he stayed about ten minutes, and then retired. As he quitted the house in which the prince lodged, he obferved to the aide-de-camp, "I told you the prince would not employ me— he has difmiffed me with this," difplaying a purse of ducats. Upon being again preffed to explain the reason of this fingular conduct, he replied, "The Prince Murat, when a boy, was apprenticed to a biscuit baker in the fouth of France, at the time I was a journeyman to him, and I have often thrashed him for being idle: the moment he saw me just now, he inftantly remembered me, and without entering into the fubject of our antient acquaintance, or of that which led me to his prefence, he haftily took this purse of ducats from the drawer of the table where he fat, gave it to me, and ordered me to retire.' p. 356, 357.

In the courte of our author's route through this part of Germany, he gives us feveral facts, not uninterefting, with refpect to the conftitution of the French armies, and the fyftem of police which they exercife on the German frontier. At Cologne, he faw the parade every morning and evening, for feveral days. The confcripts underwent a very fhort and fimple courfe of drilling. They were taught to wheel; form clofe column; load, fire, and charge with the bayonet: in five days, they were qualified to march with the veteran troops. Very little attention was paid to forming the line. A more flovenly one' (fays Sir John, and he was a keen volunteer, if we remember well his former tour), A more flovenly one I never witneffed.' Little attention, too,

was

was paid to the drefs of the men, who were uniform only in wearing a fhort jacket; and, in every other article, feemed to confult their taftes or pockets. How beautifully clothed, and elegantly drilled, were the Pruffian foldiers, in comparison of this! Our author travelled feveral days in company with a confcript, an elegant young man, fon of a gentleman of fortune, and nephew of a general in that part of the army where he was going to serve. He had no hopes, he faid, of raising himself from the ranks, but by good conduct and good fortune. He neither blamed his father for not paying the price of a fubftitute, nor repined at the conscription.Tout ce qu'il me faut maintenant,' (he faid), c'eft, de devenir bon foldat.

The rigour of Bonaparte's government, in matters of commercial police, is in proportion to the exclusively military view which he takes of all the objects of policy. At Cologne, our author, by mistake, opened the door of a room, where certain matrons of the police department were examining a number of females who had come across the river, to search for concealed articles of contraband. In his progrefs up the Rhine, he one day went afhore to take a walk; and getting into a thicket, was a good deal furprised by coming upon a French chaffeur, whom he at first took for a robber; but who informed him that he was one of forty thousand, ftationed along the left bank of the river, at the dif tance of a gunshot from each other, to prevent fmuggling. They are dreffed in green, for concealment; and hide themselves in the wood, wherever the nature of the ground permits them. It is needless to add, that where there are so many precautions against offending, the temptations to offend must be great, and that the precautions are infufficient after all.

Sir John Carr proceeded to Mentz and Frankfort, where he faw the fair, and terminated his journey. We truft he will excufe us for expreffing a wifh that he had given more of the kind of information which we have extracted or abridged, than of those portions of his volume which we have hinted at, or left unnoticed. He had many opportunities of gratifying a laudable curiofity; and it was not fitting that he fhould waste them upon matters which a tour to any of our watering places would have furnished in abundance. We greatly refpect him for fome good qualities which we have noticed in his writings, particularly those which we have already mentioned, of liberality and good nature. He alfo poffeffes a certain portion of induftry and enterprise. When he travels again, as he is probably now about to do, let him turn thofe qualities to better account; and, inftead of barely amusing the most trifling of all claffes of readers, he may confer a real benefit on his countrymen, by introducing them to a more familiar acquaintance with the prefent fituation and habits of other people.

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ART. III. An Essay on the Theory of Money, and Principles of Commerce. By John Wheatley. 4to. pp. Cadell & Davies, London, 1807.

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N our review of Mr Wheatley's Obfervations on Currency and Commerce, we entered into a very ample detail of the errors and inaccuracies into which he had fallen. From a fhort preface to the work before us, we learn, that the theory which it is intended to establish, differs in no refpect from that of which a general sketch was given in his preliminary remarks; and we must candidly confefs, that this appears to us to be the cafe. Mr Wheatley has contrived to fill a quarto volume, chiefly by fpinning out his former fcanty materials into new paradoxes and repetitions, by overloading his reafonings with a mafs of inapplicable details, and by dwelling, even more copioufly than before, on thofe doctrines which have been already fo fatisfactorily explained. His imagination appears to have been heated with the expectation of making discoveries; and he has unluckily discovered nothing but obvious truths, and fallacious paradoxes. The extravagance of his conceits is, however, in fome degree difguifed by the perplexity of his arguments, and by the obfcure and affected phrafeology which he has adopted. Even in his most fimple modes of expreflion, Mr Wheatley's meaning is often fuficiently dark; but when his terms are gathered into combinations, he reaches a higher climax of obfcurity and confufion, and all traces of meaning difappear in a jargon of incomprehenfible phrafes. We cannot help remarking alfo, that, in the obfervations which he hazards on the merits of preceding writers, he is fingularly unlucky; and has, in almoft every inftance, moft perverfely misconceived the meaning of his author. His plan feems to be to break down a train of reasoning into infulated propositions, and, without attending to the spirit and fcope of the general argument, to comment on garbled quotations, enlarging or reftricting the fenfe of his author, according to his own fancy. It is hardly neceffary to observe, that the clofeft and most accurate reafoning muft fuffer by this fpecies of decompofition. Mr Hume, Dr Smith, Lord King, and Lord Liverpool, are alternately the objects of our author's criticifas; but the weight of his cenfure feems to fall on Dr Smith.

The grand principle, on which Mr Wheatley's discoveries hinge, appears to be, that, when the quantity of money, in any country, is greater than its internal circulation requires, its value will be diminished, and whatever is fuperfluous will be exported to a better market. The effective principle' (he remarks) which regulates, in all countries, the amount of their currency, is the ac

tion of money in conformity to the purport of its inftitution, as an uniform measure of value. He afterwards obferves, that this property directs its current where it will exchange to moft advantage; and, as it neceffarily follows, that money will exchange to moft advantage where there is the leaft relative quantity, it invariably caufes its remittance from the place where there is the greatest relative amount, to the place where there is the least.'

Of this principle, if we are to believe Mr Wheatley, Dr Smith was ignorant; for although he refers to it incidentally, yet he was not, it feems, fufficiently aware of its importance. Inftead of afferting, therefore, that no one nation could poffefs a greater relative currency than another, Mr Wheatley informs us, that he advanced the following inefficient propofitions.

Ift, That the quantity of money in every country depends upon the power of purchafing. 2d, That it is regulated by the fertility of the mines, which fupply the commercial world. 3d, That it is in proportion to the effectual demand. 4th, That it cannot exceed the fum which is neceffary for the purposes of circulation. 5th, That it cannot be accumulated beyond what the nation can afford to employ. 6th, And that, when the channel is full, what flows in muft run out again.'

These fix propofitions, Mr Wheatley takes the trouble to confider and mifreprefent, each in its order. In order that our readers may have fome idea of the perverfe induftry with which he has laboured to quibble away Dr Smith's meaning, we may fhortly ftate his arguments on the subject of currency, pointing out, at the fame time, the misconceptions into which our author has fallen.

When Dr Smith obferves, that the quantity of the precious metals, in any particular country, depends, partly upon its power of purchafing, and partly upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen at that time to fupply the commercial world, he evidently means, that the precious metals, unlike thofe perishable commodities of which the confumption is limited to the pot where they are produced, make their way to the most diftant markets; and that an abundant fupply will flow into the most remote countries, if they have wherewithal to pay for it, or if the state of their industry requires it. He does not mean to maintain, that the precious metals will be ufelefsly detained in any country; but that, from their durable nature, no diftance of place can prevent them from following the effective demands of commerce; and that, owing to the eafe with which they may be tranfported, their quantity throughout the whole extent of the civilized world, must be affected by the barrenness or fertility of the mines

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