three o'clock in the morning, and will go to bed without having it in her power to see half of the company she has received. . . . This is an -assembly à l'Anglaise !'-Vol. vii. pp. 8, 9.

Our English routes we will not defend. They are truly so absurd in the manner in which they are conducted, they are the causes of so much unnecessary extravagance, and they are so directly calculated to banish from society every feeling of friendship and cordiality, that we freely surrender them to all the castigation which they can receive from Madame de Genlis, or any other philosopher, male or female, foreign or domestic. Even in this respect it is ridiculous enough to remark the efforts which our neighbours have made to outstrip us. Our author relates that Madame d'Osmont, not long since, gave a route, to which she invited a great many more persons than her hotel could contain. What was to be done? She issued numerous printed notes, requesting many of those, the honour of whose company she had desired, "not to come!" Such a thing, Madame de Genlis exclaims, was never before heard of since the deluge!

We are not of course disposed to lay much stress on any political opinions advanced by Madame de Genlis. She has shown herself such a perfect weathercock in every change which has taken place in France, that it would be useless to try her by any ordinary rule of consistency. In one point of view her principles, however, are uniform-she always conforms with eagerness to the feeling which she supposes to be fashionable at court, no matter who the head of that court may be. Thus in 1821, she conceived that it was very just that each nation should have the power of publicly defending its natural rights, and of complaining of oppression, but, she observes, I thought that this object might be obtained by a form of government less turbulent than our own.' She then pro

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ceeds to develope her opinions on this subject-opinions which seem to have been instilled into her by her great political guide, M. Fievée, though it will be seen that she claims them as her own.

The debates of the Chambers, the dangerous privilege of talking and making daily speeches, the ridiculous right given to so many individuals of expressing their thoughts of the moment, that is, thoughts without reflection, will always produce among us pernicious sophistry that will throw into confusion every principle of morals and politics, that will render us as mad as we are inconsiderate and thoughtless, and will give continual rise to factions, troubles, distrust, and quarrels without end. M. Fievée very judiciously remarked, that each peer and deputy cared for nothing but the chamber in which he had a seat, for the opinions of his own party, for the effect of his own speeches; in short, that he saw nothing but the Chamber, and totally forgot the rest of France, or rather, reckoned of no consequence whatever was not within the Chamber. There is much truth in this idea, and the fact it indicates is well worthy of ridicule.

It seemed to me further, that nothing could go on well in a state when every one has the right of publicly blaming and abusing the

government and ministry every morning. Every thing great, that is, every thing that has a powerful influence over the happiness of man-kind, requires some portion of mystery. The Creator has placed mystery in all the most sublime things he has formed and revealed: creation and religious doctrines are full of impenetrable mystery; the whole universe is full of it; and the most learned man is he who knows best how many incomprehensible things there are in nature and science.

Mystery is childish and ridiculous in those things that are of no importance, but it is majestic and necessary in all that is grand; it resembles not the darkness with which vice and crime seek to shroud themselves, for it conceals great things, without denying their existence; it is a sacred veil drawn solemnly by a skilful hand in the sight of the universe.

Kings and ministers may despise the charges of factious and unimportant characters; but to give public authority and a legal sanction to their declamatory complaints is an act of madness that cannot fail to sap the foundation of thrones, and to overthrow them at last. These are my politics; and I have never had any other.' pp. 19-21.

Vol. vii.

That similar opinions were at one time prevalent in the court of Louis XVIII. we entertain no sort of doubt. But it is as little to be doubted that the advance of public opinion, together with the increased maturity of institutions which at first were not unattended with inconveniences in France, have extinguished every hope that the ultra-royalists might have entertained, of restoring the principle of absolute government in that country. The improvement which has generally taken place in the minds of all thinking persons on this subject, is incidentally, but decidedly marked out by Madame de Genlis, who states in a note to the passage just quoted, that at the time the present work was revised by her (1824), she might soften the above observations, as being too unconditional.' It must be admitted,' she adds, that the representative mode of government has many advantages, and that its abuses might be very easily restrained and destroyed.' This concession overturns the whole of the political system which she avows in the text. We notice it, however, not for its value in this respect, but because we look upon it as an unquestionable evidence of the progress of sound political notions in France, and a signal instance of the power of public opinion.

Madame de Genlis has amused her imagination a good deal of late years with a favourite project which she seems still to entertain, of re-writing the Encyclopédie. Her plan is to purify it of all the impiety which has been interwoven through the whole mass of its contents by the infidel compilers of that work. If she lives to execute her intentions, and if she merely purges the Encyclopédie of its blasphemy, she will have rendered good service to the rising generations of her country. But she, or rather a body of able assistants, might do a great deal more, by adding to each article

which is susceptible of it a digest of all the improvements that have recently taken place in almost every branch of science, literature, and art. We hope at least that her idea will not be lost sight of in a country which has so much literary industry at its disposal as France has at the present moment.

As we have already shown, Madame de Genlis omits no opportunity of inveighing against the social degeneracy of the present age. The following summary of the items which compose the false magnificence' of the day is ingenious, and not unamusing considering the serious air with which she pursues the subject.

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Besides plated silver, (which, after all, is but the renewal of an old fashion, for it was known to the ancients, as may be seen by the remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii,) imitation Cashmere shawls, fictitious mineral waters, false jewels, pearls, lace, and silks; besides these, paintings have been taken by a process that imitates them so perfectly, that all the good copyists of paintings must necessarily be ruined; factitious engravings (lithographic prints, now brought to such perfection), false hair made of silk, which has this advantage, that it may be a preservative against electric fire, and is more agreeable to wear than the hair of a villain executed at the Place de Grève; false wine, (made with prime-verts,) false fruit, false bread (made with potatoes and chesnuts); false perfumery, which is easily manufactured, for instance, burn some coffee and lavender water on a shovel, and you will obtain the perfume of the hawthorn, false transparent agates, lapis lazzuli, red and Siberian jaspers, herbals, and innumerable other imitations of the works of nature. We have also factitious marble (stucco), factitious colours, false teeth and veins, factitious free-stone, false china gilt with false gold, imitation mahogany, mosaics, skeletons, shells, windows, madrepores, and, in short, all the subjects of natural history and many other branches of knowledge. All this effort is vain and fruitless; for how perfect soever these imitations may be, they will never equal the productions of nature. I do not speak of false torquoises, because they are rather a theft made from nature than a real imitation. Lastly, to such perfection has the art of imitating pearls, crystals, and precious stones been brought, that nobody now wears real diamonds or pure gold, except to quiet their conscience; so that what was formerly regarded as the most wretched taste, is now not even noticed. The effects of this will be, that no one will henceforth be able to distinguish himself by magnificence or the luxury of dress, and this is certainly no great evil; but it is also to be noticed that people will leave to their children no furniture or jewels but what are fictitious; - this change of fashion was introduced because a party wished to destroy the distinctions of birth and rank. Vanity (which all the decreès in the world will never annihilate) has betaken itself to the hope of dazzling by all the external signs of wealth; but as commercial industry snatches this resource from it, it will soon have nothing left but the pure love of money.-Vol. vii. pp. 287-289.

The personal anecdotes which Madame de Genlis has given in this portion of her Memoirs are so very insignificant, that we shall pass them over without any further notice. The reader would receive little pleasure or information from knowing how frequently

the author was obliged to change her lodgings, and what were the particular attractions or disadvantages of the different apartments which she occupied. Equally slight would be the benefit he might derive from the catalogue of undistinguished persons who were among the author's visiters, for each of whom she has a high-flown compliment, in return doubtless for some elegant tribute of flattery which they paid at her shrine. She adds to her Memoirs a critical dialogue upon them, comprising a conversation which she asserts was really held between herself and the Countess de Choiseul. We know not why it was ushered in with so much parade, as it contains nothing of the slightest consequence beyond an admission that there are one or two errors in the Memoirs admission for which Madame de Genlis fully repays herself by inserting at full length many compliments which the friendly critic bestows upon her work. This dialogue is followed by twentythree chapters in which Madame de Genlis informs us that she says something of her literary opinions.' She says' a great deal, but we confess that when we arrived at the concluding chapter we were as little able to comprehend the nature of her literary opinions' as we were at the commencement. A severe judge would be inclined to suspect, that these chapters were appended to the Memoirs for the purpose of completing the last volume.

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ART. VII. Disquisitions upon the Painted Greek Vases, and their probable Connection with the Shows of the Eleusinian and other Mysteries. By James Christie, a Member of the Society of Dilettanti. 4to. pp. 146. 27. 2s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1825.

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HE subject of the Eleusinian and other mysteries of antiquity, concerning which no full and detailed account has been transmitted to us by the ancients, has, more or less, ever since the restoration of letters, engaged the attention of the curious and speculative, of the philosopher and the divine. For a long time enquiry had no sources of information but the scattered passages which occur in the classics, and in the Fathers of the Church; but, of late years, a new and strong light has been thrown upon these obscure and interesting subjects by the discoveries that have been made by antiquaries in Magna Græcia and Egypt, and by the remarkable similarity which has been traced out between the language and religion of India and those of Greece and Rome by Jones and other learned men, who, to an intimate acquaintance with classical antiquity, have united a knowledge of the languages, manners, and religious dogmas and ceremonies of the east.

The origin and cause of this similarity of religion and language, it is difficult, we might almost say impossible, to trace. The most probable hypothesis, as it appears to us, is that so well supported by Heeren and other learned writers, that a highly civilized race once inhabited the regions to the north of India, who spread themselves

in different directions, carrying with them religion and civilization. According to Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, this people, whom he denominates Indo-Germans, formed a white race, mingled themselves in different countries with the aborigines, and acquired the supremacy over them. They descended from two lofty mountainranges, the Himalaya and Caucasus, at two very distant points. The first branch spread itself over India, and mingled with the darkcoloured original inhabitants, communicating to them their language, and gradually acquiring their hue; the other peopled Persia, and spread itself still farther to the west; whilst a division of the first took its direction to the north and north-west towards the northern parts of Europe, and then formed the great nation of the Goths. This opinion receives a strong confirmation from the circumstance of the marked difference in colour and countenance between the Parias of India and the three superior castes, a difference, as Heeren observes, as great and striking as that between the Spanish Creoles and the native Peruvians.

This hypothesis would go a great way to account for the surprising affinity between the Sanscrit and Persian, and the Germannic and Greek and Latin languages, as also the affinities between their respective religious systems. But on the latter subject a more direct and later communication may we think be traced. Italy, we know, derived her religion in a great measure from Greece, and all the writers of the latter country concur in declaring that Greece is mainly indebted to Egypt for her theological system. Egypt had originally been like the neighbouring Arabian Gulph, an inlet of the sea, but it had gradually filled up, and become firm land by the depositions of the Nile, as the Yellow Sea is visibly doing at the present hour. The rude tribe which first inhabited it owed their religion and civilization to the Ethiopians, who dwelt farther to the south; and the resemblance between the religious and political institutions of Egypt and India is so great, that it leads to the necessary inference of some close connection between the two countries. The supposition of a colony from India having arrived in Ethiopia, will present itself to almost every mind as the most simple method of accounting for it. Egypt, it is well known, sent several colonies into Greece, and thus the religious dogmas of India may have made their way to that country.

A distinguishing feature in all these religious systems is the enveloping the leading dogmas in the veil of mystery, and only displaying them by symbol and allegory to those who had not, after a course of previous examination of their fitness, been judged worthy of having the true sense unfolded to them. Our readers will easily perceive, that we here speak of those celebrated institutions termed Mysteries, and solemnized in so many parts of Greece and Italy, but especially at Eleusis. in Attica, in honour of Ceres and Bacchus, under so many various names.