without interrogation, which is made in secret without other witnesses than the tipstaff of the tribunal, the secretary, and, in case of inquisitorial interrogation, of the executioner who applies the rod. The manner of whipping criminals is different; sometimes the criminal stands before a column with the arms free, and sometimes he is suspended by his hands with his body in the air. At the first blow the blood flows, and, in extraordinary cases, they use sticks or the skin of an ox, instead of rods. The number of blows is not limited. It is also customary to put the accused for five, eight, or ten days, into a damp, cold, and small prison, where he can neither lie down, stand up, nor see a ray of light; and the consent of the accused to his own condemnation is absolutely exacted by the law, even when he is clearly proved to be guilty."

Since this work was written, a modification has taken place in criminal procedures in the canton of Zurich; and though torture is not abolished, nor blows with the oxhide suppressed, yet the number of blows is not left as heretofore to the will of the executioner, but is fixed by the special order of the judge. This has been all that good sense and humanity could gain over custom and barbarity. The judges of the Russian tribunals are more humane towards their serfs, than the magistrates of Zurich are to their fellow-citizens.

We think that the best way of appreciating the moral state of a nation is to ascertain to what degree of perfection its legislation is arrived; and this subject, together with matters relating to public economy, form the principal features of the work before us. The agricultural institution of M. de Fellenberg, at Hoswyl, particularly attracted the attention of our traveller. He enters largely into the studies of the young people under the care of this clever and judicious master, and upon the discoveries of the learned agriculturist. We think M. Simond has already published this part of his travels in the Edinburgh Review.

M. Simond devotes his second volume to the history of Swit

It

zerland. We very much approve this division, as it prevents the confusion of subjects and adds to the excellenee of the work. The first volume is not, however, deprived of historical interest. contains some curious anecdotes relative to historical facts. He mentions the military manœuvres of Generals Sowarof and Massena to take advantage of the best positions in the mountains, or to avoid the dangerous roads, scarcely accessible even to Chamois hunters. M. Simond also relates, on the authority of M. Ebel, an anecdote of French courage; when at the famous passage of Simplon, in March, 1800, General Bethencourt was sent with a thousand men, in order to clear the way for the army. They arrived at the edge of a precipice sixty feet wide; the bridge of which had been destroyed by snow and falling pieces of rock. A volunteer offered to attempt reaching the other side by the help of the holes in the rock, which formerly served to receive the beams of the bridge. Thus passing his feet from one hole to the other, he safely arrived to the opposite side of this frightful precipice. A cord, one end of which he had carried over, was fixed on the top of the two sides of the rock. General Bethencourt went after him suspended by the cord over the precipice, resting his feet in the holes of the wall. Soon after the thousand soldiers followed with their arms and knapsacks.

Five dogs, who were with this detachment, fell down the preci pice; three of them were carried away by the impetuous torrent from the glacier: the other two struggled against the tide, and landed on the opposite shore; they climbed up to the top of the wall, and arrived excessively hurt at the feet of their

masters.

M. Simond's work contains many interesting anecdotes upon various subjects. What particularly distinguishes it from other productions of the present day is, its freedom from party-spirit. We shall add no qualification to this praise, though the author appears to retain many prejudices relative to the French revolution; and he has, it appears, great reason to deplore

its excesses. M. Simond has been absent from France thirty years. This long space of time has been employed by him in visiting the North Americans and England, which has enabled him to judge of France, both as to her former and present state; and therefore a man, so enlightened as he is, ought to bless the great political reformation, even while he sheds tears over its accompanying misfortunes.

There are many faults in the style of M. Simond; and it is easy to perceive that he is but little acquainted with French literature. He mistakes when he supposes that Rousseau, in his Nouvelle Heloïse, makes St. Preux, on the rocks of Meillerie, see what passed at Clarens. Rousseau was too well acquainted with those places, which he describes with so much warmth and truth, to make such a mistake. It is not Clarens but Vevay, which the lover of Julia constantly ob served when he was at Meillerie. These two places are directly opposite each other, only separated by the lake. Nor do we think that M. Simond's opinion of Madame de Stael's style would be adopted by people of taste:

His work deserves to be read; much instruction, as well as interest and amusement, will be found in it, for the author has profited by the celebrated precept-utile dulci.

Voyage en Perse, &c.

Travels in Persia in 1812 and 1813, by Colonel Drouville, in the Russian Service, 2 vol. 4to.

This work treats of the manners, customs, and religious ceremonies of the Persians; their military state, ancient as well as modern, and of every thing relative to the regular and irregular forces of that Empire. Notwithstanding the excellent work of M. Joubert, which was read with great avidity in France; the work of Sir G. Ousely, so remarkable for its numerous and learned quotations; and Sir R. Ker Porter's travels, the first volume of which is so remarkable for the beauty of its engravings; yet, after all, these volumes by Colonel Drouville must be read with pleasure. A stay of three years in

Persia, the protection of the prince Abbas-Mirza, and the friendship of Askeri Khan, formerly Ambassador to the court of France, enabled this officer to make some interesting observations. Every thing relative to the military force of the Chah, his government, the extent of his empire, his last war with the Turks, his different connections with the Russian and English Embassies, are treated of in a very satisfactory manner; and a great many new and exact costumes form another merit of this work. We regret that we cannot bestow similar praise on that part of the work where the author treats of Persian literature and poetry, and particularly the different kinds of writing, the Taalik, the Neskhy, and the Chekesteh, which he calls Taleeb, Niski and Schekestab. But these slight inaccuracies are redeemed by many new and interesting details.

Recherches sur l'origine des ordres de chevalerie du royaume de Danemarck, &c.

Enquiries into the origin of the orders of Chivalry in the kingdom of Denmark. By Doctor Frederic Munter. 8vo. pp. 132.

The venerable author of these en

quiries is well known to all Europe for his very learned works; amongst others, for his treatise on the religion of the Carthaginians, the second edition of which, enlarged, we are expecting. We were sorry not to find at the end of these inquiries a list of all the works of M. Munter, and of the very curious editions for which the public are indebted to him. He allows that the time is past when discussions upon the orders of chivalry might have had a political importance. But all that relates to ancient manners, customs and privileges, must interest philosophical observers, and those persons who are fond of exterior distinctions, independant on the functions of public utility. We are at a loss to conjecture the origin of the order of the Elephant, and of that of Dannebrog. On these points we have neither title, monument, nor historical relation exempt from contradiction; but it

pears from the traditions collected by M. Munter, that probably these two orders originated about the 13th century in one or two fraternities or religious congregations; one created for the purpose of fighting against the pirates, the other for the defence of the Brog, or the great standard of the Danish army formerly carried on a car upon a moving altar. French chivalry also began by fraternities of the virgin, instituted to maintain public peace in the midst of public or private wars, at least during the days of La Tréve de Dieu, and to protect those who were in danger of being robbed by the Great Men of that day or their dependants. But the author assures us that, in Sweden, there were no robbers that infested the highway; that no Danish gentleman ever attacked or pillaged any traveller, It was not thus in Germany, France, and elsewhere. However it might be, the most ancient orders of chivalry have every where derived their origin from simple fraternities, congregations, or ecclesiastical communities.

The pope and the king authorised them by diplomas, and both honored them with peculiar marks of distinction. The members of these corporations were clothed in a sort of uniform indicating their fraternity, and confessed solemnly, communicated, walked in procession, and even rendered themselves useful to the state by public services, and most of them gratuitously. But every thing changes with time! Sometimes their public services only consisted in inaking processions; and rents and pensions were assigned

to the fraternities generally, and even to individuals, as rewards for real or pretended services, and even as payment to hired spies, These public services ceased with the barbarity of the middle age in which they originated; but confes sions, communions, and useless processions, are still left in catholic countries. Thus in France, if the number of sinecurist knights be not so numerous, yet still they are almost all pensioned, and every one of them decorated with orders, and subjected by a feudal oath to their king, although feudal law is abolished. This is, in few words, the exact history of European knighthoods, and the reason of the contempt into which they are fallen. North America rejected them, the constituent assembly of France suppressed them; Napoleon thought necessary to revive them in order to facilitate his conquests, and the restoration of Louis XVIII. has confirmed and multiplied them. Throughout France are seen innumerable persons who belong to so many orders, that they have a great deal of trouble to fulfil the rigorous duty of wearing all their insignia. To ease their conscience in this respect, and to diminish the trouble and expense of their daily costume, it has been necessary to invent variegated ribbands with colours almost invisible, and little metal hooks to suspend their crosses upon. Many stupid erudites, contemporaries of past times, seri. ously employ themselves in the endeavour to discover the first traces of these brilliant bagatelles in the rusty monuments of the ages of ignorance and oppression. Oh! vanity.

Peveril of the Peak. By the Author of Waverly, &c. Edinburgh, 1823. 4 vols. 12mo. pp.

IT would be supererogatory at this period to enter into any critical analysis of the general merits, and demerits, of the author of what are called the Scotch Novels. The publie judgment has long been passed, and we think accurately passed upon these works. We are not ourEur. Mag. Feb. 1823.

selves disposed to question the conclusion which the literary world and reading part of the community have come to upon the subject; and least of all, we conceive, can the author be inclined to disturb their decision; for it has allowed him a fame which we imagine he must acknowledge to be at least commensurate with his deserts. We must, however, concur with our brother critics in passing our severest censure upon the carelessness and rapidity with which

Y

this fortunate author protrudes his works upon the market; and we condemn yet more seriously the eking out of volumes by the intrusion of uninteresting details and vapid dialogues, and by the wearisome dilitation of every part but those primary, scenes upon which the author seems to be aware that the success of each publication must depend.

Under the first head of this charge the author appears to us to be more guilty in the present novel than in any of his preceding publications. The work is replete with instances of most culpable carelessness and negligence. Numerous sentences are inaccurately, as well as inelegantly, constructed; vulgarity of idiom often offends our taste and judgment; the dialogues are sometimes loaded with the superfluous replications of "answered she," "said he," " replied he," &c. There are many misquotations; such, for instance, as a notorious passage from Romeo and Juliet at the bead of the first chapter in the second volume, attributed to Otway; and there are yet more disgraceful errors; such, for instance, as printing "predecessors" instead of "successors" (page 53, vol. 2), and "portmantle" instead of "port manteau," (in page 215), and in other places of the same volume. In short, we much question whether more than the leading parts of this author's works are written by himself, and whether the interstices are not often filled up by some boarding-school relative.

But of the second part of the charge, that of spinning out the volumes by almost endless dilitations, it is the rock upon which this writer's fame will ultimately he, if not ship wrecked, at least most seriously injured. The same sort of tedious filling up of connecting, but uninteresting, links in the chain of stories has already so nearly consigned Richardson's novels to oblivion, that the few who now wade through them, form, in the esti mation of booksellers, a class of readers sui generis, and are technically called in the trade "The readers of Richardson!" We are convinced that, as soon as the copy

right of these Scotch novels is expired, they will be abridged to less than half their present bulk, and that the abridgment will throw the original works into disuse. How different in this respect are the works of Fielding, where almost every thing is expunged that is not absolutely necessary to the conduct of the story, or the few superfluous parts are made the vehicle of his humourous satire!

The present novel is preceded by an introductory letter of thirty-two pages, written in a style of attempted wit, which we must confess hardly compensates for the trouble of reading in thirty-two pages what might have been compressed into ten. But the object of the letter is to defend the author from the reiterated charge of violating the sanctity of historical truth, by selecting from history, subjects for the ground work of his novels, and for not strictly adhering to the original. This is a point which has been strenuously urged against his writings, but which, we think, has been swelled into unnecessary importance. No person, however dull or perverse of understanding, can enter upon these works without immediately perceiving that the plan is foreign to any precise conformity to historical facts. The author transports himself in imagination to the times and scenes in which his plot is laid; he sketches the characters of the day with some reference to their actions in history, but in a manner congenial to his imagination, and suited to produce a dramatic effect; and his incidents are often of a nature, and always filled up with a circumstantial minuteness and detail, which obviously never could have been transmitted to us by history. The apprehension that readers may confuse their notions of history by a perusal of these works, therefore, appears to us just as absurd as the charge of moral turpitude against Chatterton for his literary forgeries; or as absurd as the supposition that the readers of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews should expect to find the Westerns and Sir Thomas Booby identical personages in the history of Somersetshire.