and was introduced to Lord Byron, and to our present lord chancellor Brougham:

"Pellico had, shortly before, translated the Manfred of Byron. The latter requested to see the manuscript of his drama of Francesca, which had not then publicly appeared. Two days after his Lordship received it, he himself returned it into Pellico's hands, observing, "You won't be angry, if I have translated it?" He had, in fact, transferred it into English verse; and he then added, "You ought to have translated the Manfred into verse. Pellico disputed this opinion, believing that in a language like the Italian in particular it could not be done without adding to, or taking away so much as very greatly to impair the effect of the original. In 1819, Lodovico Breme put forth an edition of the Francesca, with which he united the above-mentioned translation of Lord Byron's Manfred."-p. xliv.

In order to elevate the sentiments of his countrymen, when, after the fall of Napoleon, they were depressed under the deadening weight of Austria, he, in concert with some literary friends, established a periodical work, entitled "the Conciliator," a work of high-toned sentiment in its moral, religious, and social views, and extensively comprehensive in what relates to science and art. The associated friends met at Count Porro's, where Pellico acted as secretary, and anticipated with patriotic ardour the benefits which his country must derive from the diffusion of knowledge, and the calm dictates of a religion of love. But the jealousy of the Austrian government was speedily alarmed. Despotism is mistrustful of the sweetest sounds; nay, of the calmest and most placid thoughts. Under its dominion the human intellect must remain in a dumb and inanimate stupor, or must be employed solely in organising armies, and in devising means to increase the revenue and the power of the crown. But, in the following elegant passage, Mr. Roscoe has expressed, with perspicuity and eloquence, what every man, who looks for the social improvement of mankind, must feel on this occasion:

"If the power of knowledge might with safety have been entrusted into the hands of any people, it was the people of modern Italy; and when based on the system of conciliation, of moral dignity, and discipline of the faculties, as opposed to violence and anarchy, we are doubly at a loss to perceive any just or rational grounds for its suppression, and for the bitter persecution which laid the heads of its noblest promoters in the dust. Had the system of education attempted to be introduced been far in advance of the moral spirit and capacity of the people; had it consisted in placing at their command an

engine of mighty power they knew not how to direct-in the diffusion of knowledge, which may make a discontented and rapidly increasing population wise, but not wise unto salvation-render them keenly sensible of their condition, without imparting moral courage and christian consolation to support them under it-the jealousy of any government might justly be excited. Had Pellico and his illustrious friends not connected their conciliatory doctrines with popular education, founded on a solid religious basis, and by the previous establishment of moral and elementary schools had they sought to diffuse the light of nature without the light of revelation-science without religion-reason and truth without the moral vigour and judgment to wield them, thus creating a fertile source of evil in the fermentation of the intellectual elements without the restraining force of religious and moral discipline-impelling the people to employ their knowledge in crude misdirected combinations, in a restless and morbid activity to equal those above them, whom they believe they equal in point of intellect;-letting loose, in short, a fearful power when unregulated by moral cultivation and religious discipline, the conductors of the conciliatory system need not have felt astonished at the failure of their plans."→ p. xlix. to l.

A short time only elapsed before the devoted conciliators were seized upon, and condemned to dungeons and the scaffold, for the crimes of inculcating the truths of science, the higher truths of religion, and the love of one another. Pellico, on entering Milan, was accosted by a person, who "whispered in his earthe police are after you." "They know where I am to be found,' was the answer. 'I am going to wait for them.' He went, and they were in readiness for him! His papers, his poems, tragedies, romances, correspondence, were all seized. He was conducted to the police prisons of Santa Marghereta, and, subsequently, "hurried from dungeon to dungeon, under every variety of physical and moral suffering, until he found himself in the subterranean caverns (sentenced to fifteen years' close, confinement,) of the castle of Spielberg."

In turning to the work which is prefaced by this memoir, we are struck by the clearness of the deductions with which "the duties of men" are shewn to be, in their perfection, derivable from the sublime, the sacred, and the benevolent doctrines of christianity. The translator has done justice to the clear and calm style, so suitable to the subject, in which the divine stream of a holy morality is traced from its source through all the connexions of the individual with his race-of man with mankind. It

is difficult to select a passage for an extract from a work, where all the parts possess a depending excellence upon each other, and we are led to the following, chiefly because it contains the record of one of the better sentiments of the unhappy and brilliant Byron.

"In human nature we esteem those who, testifying in themselves to its moral grandeur, point out to us that which we ought to emulate. We may be unable to equal them in fame; but this is not necessary. In genuine worth we can always aspire to the highest standard. I mean in the cultivation of noble sentiment, so soon as we can think and reason, when born under common advantages, for ourselves.

"If ever, therefore, we feel tempted to despise humanity from what we behold with our own eyes, or from what we read in history of its baseness and its excesses, let us turn our attention to those numerous and venerable names which threw lustre round the periods in which they lived. The irritable but generous Byron used to tell me, that this was the only method he could adopt, to save him from falling into absolute misanthropy: "The first great man,' he ohserved, "who thus occurs to my mind is always Moses; Moses, who restored to greatness a people immersed in utter degradation; who rescued it from the opprobrium of idolatry and slavery; who dictated to that people a law full of wisdom, a wonderful bond between the religion of the patriarchs and the religion of civilised periods,-I mean the gospel. The great qualities, with the institutions, of Moses, were the means by which Providence produced among that people the distinguished men, brave warriors, excellent citizens, prophets zealous for the right, who foretold the fall of the haughty and hypocritical, and the future civilisation of all nations.

"When I think of some of these great men, and in particular my favourite Moses,' added Byron, I always repeat with enthusiasm that splendid line of Dante

'Che di vederli, in me stesso m'esalto!' 'Whom to behold is to exalt myself,' and I then am enabled to resume my good opinion of this race of Adam, and of the spirits which it enshrines.'

"These words of the greatest of England's poets, remained impressed indelibly upon my mind, and I confess that I have derived no inconsiderable aid by adopting his own noble thoughts whenever assailed by the temptation of falling into misanthropical views.

"In truth, the grand minds which have appeared, and continue to appear, amply refute the assertions of those who entertain mean opinions of the nature of man. Let us only cast a glance upon the splendid list furnished us by antiquity! Look at the Roman annals! How many, during the barbarism

of the middle ages, and in the succeeding periods of civilization, throw lustre upon their race! There the martyrs to truth; here the benefactors of the afflicted; in other parts, the fathers of the church, presenting in themselves a miracle of gigantic philosophy, united to the most ardent charity; and everywhere valiant patriots, the advocates of justice, restorers of light and truth, learned poets, men of profound science, and skilled artists. Yet neither the remoteness of ages, nor the glorious destinies of these individuals, should strike our imagination as something belonging to a different nature from ourselves. No: they were in their origin no more demigods than ourselves. They were the offspring of woman; they were troubled, and they wept, like ourselves; they were bound like us to struggle against their evil inclinations at times they felt humiliated, again to triumph over themselves."-p. 23

to 26.

REVIEW. Tales about Europe, Asia, Africa and America. By Peter Parley, Author of the Tales about Natural History, &c. With numerous Engravings. Tegg and Son, London. 1834. DISTINGUISHED as is the present period for useful and interesting accessions to the juvenile library, the claims of Peter Parley to a welcome reception by the anxious and inquiring youth of every family cannot for a moment be doubted. Although an American by birth, he will be greeted here, in England, with as many smiling faces as in his own country, and be listened to with as much attention.

Unfortunately, in his budget of very amusing geographical and historical tales, those about England happen, in our opinion, to be the most erroneous and the worst selected of all the rest. The idea of the work is altogether excellent, and the public have much reason to thank Messrs. Tegg for this importation from America, which has been got up in a very attractive manner, and at great expense; but we cannot help thinking, that by the aid of a little job-authorship (particularly if some of our female writers, so eminent in the literature of childhood, would have undertaken the task) the worthy Yankee might have been better adapted to British society. change that has been made in his appearance is rather an unfortunate one; on purpose to preserve the order of the four quarters of the globe as they stand in our old continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, the order assumed by the author and other American writers, is reversed, and so we have the preface and the introduction at

The

hydrogen, extracted from vegetable matter. Some of the yellow rivers, however, properly class with white waters. The yellow (flavus) or tawny Tiber, for instance, is of a whitish colour, leaving a considerable deposite on the vegetation on some part of its banks, and occasionally producing singular petrefactions: its waters are very impure and muddy; so are those of the sulphureous Nar, to which Virgil gives the epithet white:

'Sulfured Nar albus aquá.'

Most of the white waters are charged with a whitish clay or calcareous matter. This is the case with the Bahr el Abiad or White River of Sennaar,

which meets the Blue River of Abyssinia nearly at a right angle; and for many miles below the confluence, the eastern part of the Nile is black, and the western white. The turbid water of the White River, however, is said to be very sweet and agreeable, as is that of the Nile itself. The latter, notwithstanding the mud with which it is impregnated, is one of the purest waters known. It contains the carbonates of magnesia, lime, and iron, the muriate of soda, and a small portion of silex and alumine. The addition of pounded almonds causes it to precipitate the substances it holds in imperfect solution, and it is then extremely clear. Its natural colour undergoes a singular variation at different seasons of the year. When the waters begin to rise, they first assume a greenish colour, and are then corrupt and unwholesome. In thirty or forty days, they change to a brownish red, and become very turbid. This continues till the waters subside, when the river resumes its natural muddy appearance. The ancients styled its waters black, from the slime which it deposited:

occur

'Et viridem Ægyptum nigra fæcundat arenâ.' But it can scarcely be classed with black rivers. Rivers which run over limestone, have been observed to have a green colour: and the snow waters of the Swiss Alps are sometimes of an emerald colour, approaching to grass-green. Several lakes of Savoy have a brown colour, approaching to black; and both white and black waters among its streams. The green waters are generally pure, if at the same time clear, but not if turbid. Some rivers, for instance the Rhone, near Geneva, have a decidedly blue colour. The subject of the coloration of rivers is, however, involved in great obscurity, the colouring principle seeming to elude all chemical analysis. The Greeks were struck with the blue waters of Thermopylæ, the red waters of Joppa, and the black waters of the hot baths of Astyra, opposite Lesbos. The various tints of different seas present a not less striking phenomenon."-p. 78 to 80.

lives-the science of laying out their money with advantage to themselves and others. Two brothers, Henry and Arthur have received from their uncle half a soverign apiece as a present. Henry immediately has an abundance of imaginary wants, and reduces his ten shillings, by numerous inconsiderate purchases, from which he derives scarcely any gratification, to a few pence. On the contrary, Arthur spends his money in a way to obtain information, amusement, and permanent pleasure to himself and his companions. The style of the book is spirited, and the circumstances are well imagined.

ANNIVERSARIES OF BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS IN THE METROPOLIS.

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THE gratification which the friends of humanity and religion experience at this season of the year, either in assisting in those proceedings of the societies which are now taking place, or in observing the progress of that spirit, which, under the influence of Divine love, is increasing the benefits of instruction and charity among mankind, calls us to the pleasing task of adapting the accounts of the several meetings to the pages of the Imperial Magazine. Early in the career of these institutions, we ventured to anticipate in our notices of them, the great blessings of which they have been the prolific sources, and we earnestly strove silence the apprehensions of those who looked upon them only as the temporary manifestations of good intentions in their warm-hearted promoters. The public movements of society, however beneficent and sacred the impulse by which they are actuated, are certain of alarming the timid, and of incurring the disapprobation of the irresolute; but society, now in the enjoyment of the earliest fruits of these meetings and establishments, is awakened to a full sense of their importance, and seeks to possess, by means of the press, a record of transactions so deeply influential in the present pursuits and future prospects of mankind. Under such impressions, we have felt it to be our duty to give as full an abstract of these meetings, as the nature of our publication will permit; and while we regret that we are compelled to be very succinct in our abridgments, we assure our readers, we spare no pains in selecting those particular points and passages, which appear to us to be most replete with interest and information. The meetings of this spring have been numerous, and their proceedings long and important; hence, we feel all the difficulty of satisfying either ourselves or our friends, in the execution of the task

which it is the more imperative, we should immediately proceed without wasting any more time in apologies.

BRITISH REFORMATION SOCIETY.

The Seventh Anniversary of this Society was held at Exeter Hall, on May 2d, George Finch, Esq. M.P. in the chair.

After prayers, by the Rev. Mr. Thelwall, the chairman, in addressing the meeting, combated the idea, that the world could not be evangelized by societies; and expressed his regret, that the support of this Society had so much diminished, that it was £700 in debt. The Society was not exclusively episcopolitan, but the dissenters did not support it as a body. Its want of general patronage, was on account of its being opposed to the popery of the human heart, as well as to that of Rome. Persecution and political agitation, though apparently opposed to their efforts in Ireland, were in reality favourable to their endeavours, for as they set men's minds at work, they would lead them, under the Divine blessing, to the adoption of truth. He concluded by urging the Society to make strenuous exertions for the abolition of popery.

The Rev. Mr. Farrell, the acting secretary, read the report. It stated, that there are about 500 Roman Catholic chapels in Great Britain, 8 colleges, and 30 preparatory schools. In the large towns the Roman Catholic population is considerable, amounting sometimes to a fourth or a third of the whole. There are great accessions to the Catholic church. The adult converts publicly received into the bosom of the papal church, by Dr. Walsh and other apostolic vicars, amount to nearly 300. The Secretary then gave an interesting account of a controversy at the Roman Catholic College, Bath, between the advocates of protestantism and popery. In Scotland the Society was making successful exertions, but in Ireland they had been able to accomplish but little. The income of the Society during the last year, had exceeded £2000, and the rev. gentleman concluded by anticipating the downfall of popery.

The Marquess of Cholmondeley moved that the Report be adopted and printed.

The Rev. Mr. Bickersteth seconded the motion. He viewed the Society as a protest against the church of Rome: the national protest was lost, and the Society stood forward in place of that protest. He was glad to see all classes of protestants engaged in this union.

The Rev. John Cumming of the Scotch church, moved the second resolution, which referred to the increase of popery in these kingdoms.

Captain Gordon seconded the resolution. He said there were 8,000,000 persons in

these kingdoms professing soul-destroying doctrines. It was difficult to convince Protestants of the rapid spread of popery; and he must, therefore, in the Catholic fashion, address them through the senses. He held a map of England in his hand, prepared so as to show its state of moral ulceration. He found it covered with chapels for the spread of popery. In England and Wales there were 423 chapels, and in Scotland 74, and, adding some recently erected, they exceeded 500. In 1796, there were but two Catholic chapels in London, exclusive of those belonging to the ambassadors; and only 24 throughout Great Britain, without a single college. They had now 9 colleges. Even in Scotland, where such struggles had been made for the preservation of the reformed religion, the Catholic church was rising rapidly. When he was last in Edinburgh, he found that a nunnery was about to be established; and Scotch provosts and magistrates were actually patronising the oratorios in Catholic chapels. The gallant Captain then noticed the spread of liberalism in parliament, in measures actively in progress against the interests of the Protestant church. The liberals had proposed the endowments of the Catholic Colleges; £8000 a year had been settled on the college of Maynooth, to let loose upon unhappy Ireland swarms of Catholic priests; and an act had authorised the payment of the Catholic clergy in the colonies. Every principle of protestantism had been silently swept away. Infidels, Socinians, and Catholics were united in their attacks on the established church; even protestants had madly contributed for the erection of Catholic chapels. There was great danger of this bias to papal superstition sinking into infidelity, as in France, and of infidelity leading to sanguinary revolution. To avert this, the friends of Christianity should contribute to the support of the Reformation Society.

The Right Hon. Lord Mountsandford moved a resolution, relative to the unchanging and dangerous tendency of popery, which was seconded by the Rev. E. Tottenham, who, in a long speech, rebutted the assumptions and misrepresentations of the Catholic Magazine, and referred to the Bible as the palladium of our liberties.

The other speakers were the Rev. J. R. Brown, of the Scotch church, the Rev. T. Myers, the Rev. G. W. Phillips, and the Rev. A. S. Thelwall. The chairman, on retiring, gave a cheque for £50 as his subscription.

CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION SOCIETY. THE Ninth Anniversary was held at Finsbury Chapel, on the 6th of May, T. F. Buxton in the chair. The proceedings were begun by prayer and a psalm.