Our author's eighth Iter is devoted to Tenby. On the road from Pembroke the ruins of Lanfey Court, once a favourite residence of the bishops of St. David, attract the traveller's attention, and bear ample testimony to the magnificence in which these prelates lived. Manorbeer Castle is mentioned, and the small round tower near Penaley, which, though less important, appears to be as paradoxical as the Irish edifices of the same name. Tenby, like many other Welsh towns, exhibits numerous traces of having been of much greater extent and importance in former times than at present; it however also shews symptoms of being again in a state of gradual increase, and affords excellent accommodations for bathing company.

Mr. Fenton also visits the remarkable island of Caldey.

• The principal mansion,' says he consists of a handsome modern building joined to a curious aggregate of miscellaneous masonry, the greater part being evidently of the age of the first monastic pile, enlarged by additions of a later date, though very old and some of a castellated form. The ancient tower of the priory church, crowned with a stone spire, still remains entire, and all the lower apartments of the old house and its offices are vaulted, and seemingly coeval with it."-p. 458.

Our author here gives us an account of the society of seaserjeants, consisting of twenty-five members, and holding an anniversary meeting which lasted a week, at different seaports of the four maritime counties in South Wales in rotation. As their rules were kept secret they were naturally obnoxious to opprobrious imputations of all kinds, but according to Mr. Fenton's account very undeservedly.

They had some striking regulations, which to have formed did them honour as men of humanity, and British subjects in general, and Welshmen in particular, sufficient to silence the calumny thrown out against them by the cold blooded and invidious, who condemn every sort of association that springs from sensibilities they are strangers to, and is not cemented by some sordid interest or other.'

From the form of examination, we find that "bearing allegiance to his majesty," and "being members of the church of England as by law established," were essential requisites; the whole institution seems to be at present abandoned, and the very name hastening to oblivion.

In the ninth Iter Mr. Fenton skirts the eastern boundary of the county, making a short incursion into Caermarthenshire, or rather crossing a part of that county which was "swindled away" from Pembrokeshire by an act of 34 Henry the Eighth.

This tour, as well as the next affords much beautiful scenery, much barren moor, and numerous antiquities resembling those already mentioned, but we must refer such of our readers as

are not already satisfied with the enumeration which we have given to the work itself.

In the eleventh iter, we find the curious circumstance noticed, that formerly even the lowest class of inhabitants were remarkably skilful at the game of chess, and much ingenuity is displayed in discovering when it was first introduced into these remote parts; some ascribing it to the Romans, others to Oriental settlers, and others to the time of Arthur.

The town of Newport is merely the skeleton of a decayed place, yet still gives the idea of extent and dignity at a dis

tance.

With the twelfth iter, concluding with a description of Fishguard, Mr. Fenton ends his rambles. This town possesses the best harbour on the northern coast of the county, in population it is only exceeded by Haverfordwest, having increased of late very rapidly; but is devoid of regularity and exhibits no object of superior interest. It is however probable that it may in time, if assisted by judicious improvements in the harbour, become a place of considerable importance.

We need not inform our readers, after the numerous specimens we have given, that our author's style is laboured and frequently incorrect, its defects, however, we own are overbalanced by his acuteness of observation and diligent research. The numerous plates which accompany the volume are well executed, and as far as we can judge, accurate representations of real scenes; Mr. Fenton informs us in his dedication that the originals are from the pencil of Sir Richard Hoare.

Art. II. The Martyrs; or, The Triumph of the Christian Religion. By F. A. de Chateaubriand, Author of the Genie de Christianisme, Átala, &c. Translated from the French, by W. Joseph Walter, late of St. Edmund's College. To which is added, an Appendix, consisting of Extracts from his "Itineraire." 8vo. 2 vols. pp. xxviii, 744. Price 11. 1s. Ebers and Booker. 1812.

THIS romantic Frenchman has been very advantageously

introduced among us by means of his Travels in Greece and Palestine ;-if indeed it may be deemed an advantageous introduction of an author, who has written several works and proposes writing more, to become first extensively known by means of that one of his productions which surpasses in interest every thing he has written or is destined to write; for this, we may think, may be safely affirmed of his Itinerary. When, however, it is recollected that the bold, protracted, and diversified expedition which that work briefly narrates, was undertaken expressly on account of the work at present Vol. VIII.

4 D

before us, and prosecuted with a daily and almost hourly reference to it, so unparalleled a circumstance in literary history will be thought sufficient, even alone, to engage a particular attention to the performance. And it will justly excite a very favourable prejudice. For the sparing of labour, both in the preparations for authorship and in the actual operation, is so prevailing and grievous a vice in our present literature, that we are predisposed to revere, as quite a literary saint, the writer who brings along with his work the evidence of having bestowed on it a long and costly labour, especially, if at the same time, he has declined taking the advantage of making his work immoderately large.

He is not unreasonably ostentatious of this labour, and. might well have been allowed to refer to it in terms of greater parade than the following:

I have no wish to make a vain display of my exertions, insignificant as they have been: nevertheless I trust that when I am seen tearing myself away from my friends and my country, enduring fatigue and fever, traversing the seas of Greece in a small bark, while exposed to the fire of wanton barbarians, influenced only by my respect for the public, and in the hope to present it with a work less imperfect than the Genie de Christianisme; I trust, I say, that some credit will be allowed me for my exertions. Not content with all my studies, all my sacrifices, and all my scruples, I undertook a voyage on purpose to inspect with my own eyes the scenes which I wished to describe. Should my work, therefore, have no other merit, it will at least possess the interest of an accurate description of some of the most famous places of antiquity. I commenced my journey from the ruins of Sparta, and after passing through Argos, Corinth, Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Memphis, I finished my tour at the mouldering fragments of what once was Carthage. The reader therefore may rest assured that the descriptions which he finds in the Martyrs, are not mere vague and fanciful combinations of imagery, but were fathfully sketched on the spot. Some of these descriptions are entirely new: no modern traveller, with whom I am acquainted, has given a picture of Messenia, of a part of Arcadia, and of the valley of Laconia. That of Jerusalem and of the Dead Sea is equally faithful. The church of the Holy Sepulchre, the way of. sorrows, Via Dolorosa, are exactly such as I have described. Such have been my endeavours to render the Martyrs not entirely unworthy of the public attention. Thrice happy should I feel if my work breathed any portion of that poetical inspiration which still animates the ruins of Athens and Jerusalem. It is not through any vain ostentation that I thus speak of my studies and my travels; it is to shew the laudable dis trust I have in my own talents and the care I have taken, by all means in my power, to supply the deficiency. By these my labours too I think I have evinced my respect for the public, and the importance I attach to every thing that in any degree concerns the interests of religion.'

It does not appear whether the intention of travelling to

the East in order to acquire accurate and lively images of the scenes in which the supposed events were to be represented as having taken place, was coeval with the first projection of the work; but in the course of prosecuting the adventure, and when the acquisition was made, it was impossible but the interesting pictures which were forming by degrees into a compleat enchanting oriental world in the author's imagination, must have grown into so much importance in his account, that the delineation of them in his work would become one of the leading objects in composing it. Still, the plan must have some one object decidedly and substantially predominant. What that is, we should have considerable difficulty in defining, if we were not allowed to avail ourselves of the author's own explanation.

I advanced in a former work that Christianity appeared to me more favourable than Paganism for the developement of characters, and for a display of the passions; I added, moreover, that the marvellous of this religion might contend for the palm of interest with that borrowed from mythology: these opinions, which have been more or less combated, it is my present object to support, and to illustrate by an example.-To render the reader an impartial judge in this great literary process, it was necessary to make choice of a subject that would allow me to throw upon the same canvass the predominant features of the two religions; the morality, the sacrifices, and the ceremonies of both systems of wor ship: a subject, where the language of Genesis might be blended with that of the Odyssey, and the Jupiter of Homer be placed by the side of the Jehovah of Milton, without giving offence to piety, to taste, or to probability.

Having once conceived this idea, I had no difficulty in finding an historical epoch where the two religions met in conjunction. The scene opens toward the close of the third century, at the moment when the persecution of the Christians commenced under Diocletian. Christianity had not yet become the predominating religion of the Roman empire, though its altars arose near the shrines of idolatry.

The persons who make a figure in the work are taken from the two religions. I have in the first place made the reader acquainted with the leading characters, and thence proceeded to describe the state of Christianity through the then known world, as it stood at the time of the action; the remainder of the work develops a particular catastrophe that is connected with the general massacre of the Christians."

Such scheme evidently gave an exceedingly wide scope to a writer extensively acquainted with ancient history. As the author himself observes, it placed all antiquity sacred and profane at his disposal; so far as it should be possible to bring its nations, its personages, and its customs, within the compass of such a fable as might be fairly constructed upon the life and adventures of two or three individuals

contemporary with one another at a particular epoch. And the Travels of Anacharsis,' and some other works, had sufficiently shewn to what a vast extent and diversity of things a little ingenuity might dilate the circumference of such a fable, without any violent excess of confusion or anachronism.

His personages, he observes, are almost all taken from history; and among them are Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, Constantius, Constantine, Hierocles, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. He offers an allowable apology for the anachronism of making Jerome contemporary with Diocletian, and for some other little freedoms taken with chronological truth. And he should rather have apologized for, than pretended to justify, his fancy for exonerating Diocletian from almost all the guilt of the tenth persecution of the Christians. He professes to have conformed very carefully to historical matter of fact in his representation of the manners and ceremonies of the primitive Christians; of the public exhibitions of the Romans; of the persons and manners of the Gauls, Franks, and other barbarians; and of the geographical curiosities respecting the Gauls, Greece, Syria, and Egypt.' He names collectively his authorities; but the readers will wish that in some instances he had yielded to the advice which he says was given him, to subjoin notes, with specific historical references and illustrations.

As the work claims to rank in the Epic class, and therefore professes to give a dignified history of extraordinary transactions, we cannot be excused from attempting a brief

abstract of the narrative,

It should seem that a French style is one of those precious things which it is worth an author's care to preserve inviolate throughout his wanderings in all the four quarters of the world; for after having been exposed to the danger of a modified diction among the people and tongues of all those quarters, Chateaubriand comes back to commence in the following manner :

Nine times had the church of Jesus Christ seen the spirits of darkness leagued in conspiracy against her; nine, times had this favoured vessel, which storms assail in vain, escaped the fury of the tempest. The earth reposed in peace: with skilful hand Diocletian swayed the sceptre of the world. Under the protection of this great prince the Christians enjoyed a state of tranquility to which they had before been strangers. The altars of the true God began to contest the honours offered on the shrines of idolatry; the number of the faithful increased daily; and honours, riches, and glory, were no longer the exclusive inheritance of the worshippers of Jupiter. Hell, threatened with the loss of its empire, wished to interrupt the course of these heavenly victories; and the Eternal, who saw the virtues of his people languish in prosperity, per.