gentry, Lord Eglinton, Lord Cassillis, Lord Archibald Hamilton, &c. and pressed very kindly to spend some time with them. "Poor Burns !-his cabin could not be passed unvisited or unwept; to its two little thatched rooms-kitchen and sleeping place a slated sort of parlour is added, and 'tis now an alehouse. We found the keeper of it tipsy; he pointed to the corner on one side of the fire, and, with a most mal-à-propos laugh, observed, there is the very spot where Robert Burns was born.' The genius and the fate of the man were already heavy on my heart; but the drunken laugh of the landlord gave me such a view of the rock on which he foundered, I could not stand it, but burst into tears. "On Thursday we dine with Lord Eglinton, and thence I hope to pursue our little tour to Lochlomond, Glasgow, Edinburgh, &c. These places are, at this time of the year, much deserted: however, we shan't feel it quite a solitude; and, at all events, public buildings, &c. do not go to watering places, so that still something will be visible," &c. "The preceding, (says his biographer,) is not the only record that Mr Curran has left of his admiration of Scotland. His defence of Mr Hamilton Rowan contains a short but glowing eulogium upon the genius of that country, for whose splendid services in the cause of the human mind no praises can be too great. After speaking of the excessive terror of French principles, by which juries were governed in their verdicts, he proceeded: There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its best ground of faith. To what other cause ean you ascribe that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing those resolutions to which the present minister of that kingdom had actually subscribed his name? To what other cause can you ascribe what, in my mind, is still more astonishing :-in such a country as Scotland -a nation cast in the happy medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive poverty and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth-cool and ardentadventurous and persevering-winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks and a wing that never tires-crowned as she is with the spoils of every art, and decked with the wreath of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her 'Hume to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, morality of her Burns-how from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and character, and ta lents, should be banished to a distant barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and baseborn profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life?'"* pp. 253–262. Curran's bad health and his tendency to depressed spirits increased upon him so much, that he threw up his judicial office, and went for his amusement to Paris immediately after the fall of Napoleon. We insert his observations on the manners of the English in his way through London, and of the French on his arrival at Paris. He does not seem to regard either people with so favourable an eye as he had thrown upon our own countrymen; but it is astonishing with what uncertain optics a man subject to variations of spirits looks upon the objects around him. You can never trust his judgment; he is either in a heaven or a hell. Yet the pictures drawn by a man of genius under such feelings are, perhaps, the most interesting of any they are given always with their full colouring; and in reading them a mild sentiment of pity mingles with our admiration of their author. "London, June 1814. "I am not many days in London; yet am I as sick of it as ever I was of myself. No doubt it is not a favourable moment for society; politics spoil every thing; it is a perpetual tissue of plots, cabals, low anxiety, and disappointment. Every thing I see disgusts and depresses me; I look back at the streaming of blood for so many years; and every thing every where relapsed into its former degradation. France rechained-Spain again saddled for the priests-and Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider; and what makes the idea the more cutting, her fate the work of her own ignorance and fury. She has completely lost all sympathy here, and I see no prospect for her, except a vindictive oppression and an endlessly increasing taxation. God give us, not happiness, but patience! "I have fixed to set out for Paris on Tuesday with Mr W. He is a clever man, pleasant, informed, up to every thing, can discount the bad spirits of a friend, and has undertaken all trouble. I don't go for society, it is a mere name; but the thing is to be found nowhere, even in this chilly region. I question if it is much "Mr Curran alludes to the sentence of Mr Muir, Palmer, &c. who had been transported for sedition." better in Paris. Here the parade is gross, and cold, and vulgar; there it is, no doubt, more flippant, and the attitude more graceful; but in either place is not society equally a tyrant and a slave? The judgment despises it, and the heart renounces it. We seek it because we are idle, we are idle because we are silly; the natural remedy is some social intercourse, of which a few drops would restore; but we swallow the whole phial, and are sicker of the remedy than we were of the dis ease. We do not reflect that the variety of converse is found only with a very few, selected by our regard, and is ever lost in a promiscuous rabble, in whom we cannot have any real interest, and where all is monotony. We have had it sometimes at the Priory, notwithstanding the bias of the ball that still made it roll to a particular side. I have enjoyed it, not long since, for a few hours in a week with as small a number, where too there was no smartness, no wit, no pretty affectation, no repartee; but where the heart will talk, the tongue may be silent-a look will be a sentence, and the shortest phrase a volume. No; be assured if the fancy is not led astray, it is only in the coterie that the thirst of the animal being can be slaked, or the pure luxury and anodyne of his life be found. He is endeared and exalted by being surpassed; he cannot be jealous of the wealth, however greater than his, which is expended for his pleasure, and which, in fact, he feels to be his own. well might an alderman become envious of the calapash in which his soul delights As before the Lord. But we are for ever mistaking the plumage for the bird: perhaps we are justly punished by seeking happiness where it is not given by nature to find it." "We sat down at eight, sixteen strong, but it had nothing of a coterie. I sat next a pleasantish sort of lady; but, alas! a look of attention is not a look of affiance: there are graciousnesses that neither identify nor attract; and as to the atmosphere that sported on her dimples, I would just as soon have had a thimbleful of common air. After all, how rare the coincidences that conciliate affection and exclusive confidence!-how precarious! 'For either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mis take; Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain. Or if she love, withheld By parents, or his happiest choice too late Shall meet already linked and wedlockbound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame.' "Milton, you see, with all his rigour, was not insensible of these lachrymæ rerum. There is one thing that ought to make us humble and patient. When we are close enough for the inspection of others, we soon find that life is eternal war with woe.' Many, too, are doomed to suffer alone;' and, after all, would not a truly generous nature prefer the monopoly of its own ills rather than fling any part of them upon a kindred bosom? "You ask me about politics. Regarding myself, my answer is I had no object in Parliament except the Catholic question, and that I fear is gone. Westminster will probably be a race of bribery, equally disgraceful and precarious. * Burdett's conduct has been quite that of a friend and a man; he would have been most ardent, and what was to me most grateful, on a public ground. I dined with him yesterday;-at first the party was nume rous-the masquerade, about ten, drained them down to three, my compagnon de voyage and myself; till one it was quite a coterie, with no wine; there's no playing on an instrument with many strings; half of them form only base accompaniments. "I thought to have gone incog. to Paris, but my excellent friend, the Duke of Sussex, insisted on my taking a letter to Monsieur : "So now cocked hats, and swords, and laces, And servile bows and low grimaces; Weighed 'gainst the crouchings of a ras cal? "As to my stay there, everywhere is to me nowhere; therefore, if it depends on me, I shall drop off when I'm full, or Mr W. will haul me along. If our friends have any wish, it ought to decide, and shall do so. I cannot endure to be conscious of any retaliating sulk in myself; and I know that heaven loveth the cheerful giver. Yours," &c. In another letter he says, "Since my arrival here my spirits have been wretchedly low: though treated with great kindness, I find nothing to my mind. I find heads without thinking, and hearts without strings, and a phraseology sailing in ballast-every one piping, but few dancing. England is not a place for so "It was expected at this time that there would shortly be a vacancy in the representation for Westminster, in which event Mr Curran had been encouraged to offer himself as a candidate, but he never entered warmly into the scheme. This is the political project to which he adverts more than once in his subsequent letters." ciety; it is too cold, too vain, without pride enough to be humble, drowned in dull fantastical formality, vulgarised by rank without talent, and talent foolishly recommending itself by weight rather than by fashion-a perpetual war between the disappointed pretension of talent and the stupid overweening of affected patronage; means without enjoyment, pursuits without an object, and society without conversation or intercourse: perhaps they manage this better in France-a few days, I think, will enable me to decide." pp. 345, 316. ris. your your shoes, in your plate, almost in mouth. Such community of secretions, with, I think, scarcely any exception, is not to be borne. Then the contrast makes is worse-gaudiness more striking by filth: the splendid palace for the ruler, the hovels and the sink for the ruled; the fine box for the despot, the pigeon-holes for the people; and it strikes me with sadness, that the women can be little more than the figurantes, much more the property and that a very abused property, than the proprietors; receiving a mock reverence, merely to carry on the drama, but neither So much for London-now for Pa- if, as I fear, it is true that the better half of cherished nor respected. What a reflection, "Paris, Aug. 3, 1814. "DEAR L.-I received your kind letter, and thank you for it; levius fit,' &c. When I came here, I intended to have scribbled some little journal of what I met. I am now sorry I did not. Things so soon become familiar, and appear not worth notice; besides I have not been well since I came here. If I had written, and sent it to you, it would have been a tissue of astonishment, or affliction, or disgust. I see clearly I am likely to be drummed out of this sad world. I fear war will soon unfold her tattered banners on the contiment. This poor country is in a deplorable state-a ruined noblesse, a famished clergy, a depopulated nation, a state of smothered war between the upstarts and the restored; their finances most distressed; the military spirits divided; the most opposite opinions as to the lasting of the present form of things--every thing unhinged: yet I really sympathise with this worried, amiable, and perhaps contemptible, people; so full of talent and of vice, so frivolous, so inconstant and prone to change, so ferocious too in their fickleness; about six revolutions within twenty years, and as fresh as ever for a new dance. These strange vicissitudes of mau draw tears, but they also teach wisdom. These awful reverses make one ashamed of being engrossed by mere self, and examining a louse through a microscope; complain of grief, complain thou art a man.' "I never so completely found my mind a magic-lantern; such a rapid succession of disjointed images! the past, the present, the future possible. One ought not to be hasty in taking up bad impressions, and I need not say that three weeks can give but little room for exact observation; but from what I do see, and learn from others who have seen long and deeply, I have conceived the worst of social Paris. Every thing on the surface is abominable; beastlinesses that even with us do not exist; they actually seem in talk and in practice to cultivate a familiarity with nastiness. In every public place, they are spitting on the species, (for such I really think them, In short, I with England the first, with France the other. We might have had a mollification, and the bolts lightened, and a chance of progression; but that I now give up. I really wish the thing with myself over; and trust me that wish is not irreligious or peevish, but rather a good-humoured feeling, that, not wishing to eat more, I may be better by rising from table; enough is as good as a feast.' "I am every hour more and more confirmed as to my ideas of society; it is not for those that think or feel; it is one fool getting on the back of many, to fly from himself. In France you can scarcely make even that experiment, for all here agree that at the present moment all society is dead. Nor is it wonderful, that, when all the actors on the great scene are changed, the parts should be badly performed; but still I have found society, as it is call ed, and met a great deal of kindness, and some persons of talent; but even there I found society an orchestra, where the fiddlers were putting one another out, or rather where one played a solo, and every other bow was soaped." pp. 348-354. There is still a great deal of interesting matter to be gleaned from these volumes, but we must stop for the present. (To be continued.) RECOLLECTIONS OF NAPOLEON. No man ever filled so great a space in the eye of the world as Napoleon, yet no man in so short a time has so completely disappeared from it. His hold was upon its wonder, not up on its affections. The anchor once weighed, the " ship imperial" disappeared, and was forgotten. If he had perished in the wreck at Waterloo, he would have been more talked of at the present day. His life has been the death of his name. Napoleon was certainly a hero, yet his notions of honour seem to have resembled, a good deal, Sir John Falstaff's; "Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday." He preferred life, even with St Helena and Sir Hudson. It is wonderful how little interest every thing in his present condition awakens. Although our national honour is undoubtedly implicated in the particulars of his treatment, very few among us will give themselves any trouble • Mes Souvenirs sur Napoleon, sa Famille, et sa Cour. Par Madame Ve. Du General Durand. Paris, 1819. about the matter. Yet this is not at all from the spirit of revenge-that feeling has long died away-it is from sheer indifference. We should have felt deeply any insult offered to the dead body of Napoleon. If it had been thrown out to the dogs and the vultures after he had fallen bravely in battle, not a man in Britain but would have cried shame, and have blushed to the bone. As for his living carcase, it is scarcely possible to make it an object of our concern. From such a point of view, it has a very singular and spirit-stirring effect to throw our eyes back upon the days of his magnificence: the little book, of which we shall now give an abstract, places us at once in the midst of his meridian splendour. Here is its first sentence: "It was towards the end of the year 1809, Napoleon had been just gathering new laurels; nothing was wanting to his glory, but an heir was awanting to his ambition." We have here, accordingly, his history from the time of his union with Marie-Louise. The book, consisting of two very small volumes, is written by Madame Durand, widow of one of Napoleon's generals, and who had the honour of being in the household of the Empress. It is a very simple and unexaggerated statement; it neither "extenuates nor sets down aught in malice." The Emperor appears in it not at all in an unamiable light, but there is no kind of absurd admiration of him. As a husband and a father his conduct seems to have been unexceptionable. We see more of him here in these domestic relations than, perhaps, we were ever permitted to do before; and it is pleasing to find that there were softer moments in the soul even of a man whose head was turned and whose heart was seared with the most self-idolizing ambition. His second marriage, it is true, was entirely dictated by that ruling passion. His desertion of Josephine was unfeeling. It was some time before he could resolve upon it, and probably he was happy to seize upon any little incident which could seem to justify it to himself. A circumstance of this kind occurred. "The Emperor, returning from Vienna, sent to her to join him at Fontainbleau. She was accustomed to appointments of this sort, which she regarded in the light of commands, and she had never failed of being the first to arrive at these rendezvous. On this occasion Napoleon had the start of her six hours. Displeased at having waited for her so long, he used reproaches in which he was not scrupulous about the terms. Josephine, hurt, allowed in return a few rather severe expressions to escape her. Some of those things were said on both sides which it is impossible ever to forget. The word divorce was pronounced. From that moment it became the object of the Emperor's serious thoughts. In four months afterwards it took place, and was probably the origin of his fall, in consequence of the immoderate spring which his second marriage gave his ambition." It was not at first known who was to be the new Empress. Negociations were entered into with Russia, for a sister of the Emperor Alexander: they failed, but there was no repugnance on the part of Marie-Louise. "She was at that time eighteen years and a half old ;-a majestic stature,-a noble gait,much freshness and lus tre, fair locks, which had nothing uninteresting, eyes blue, but animated, a hand and a foot which might have served as models,-perhaps a little too much fulness, a defect which did not long reinain with her in France: Such were her external advantages that were apparent at first sight. Nothing was more gracious, more amiable, than her deportment when she was at her ease, whether in the intimacy of friendly conversation, or in the midst of persons with whom she was particularly connected; but, in the world, especially on her first arrival in France, her timidity gave her an air of embarrassment, which many people erroneously took for pride. She had received a very careful education; her tastes were simple, her mind cultivated; she expressed herself in French with almost as much ease as in her native language, Calm, reflecting, good, and feeling, although with little show, she had every agreeable talent, loved to occupy herself, and was unacquainted with ennui. It was impossible any woman could suit Napoleon better. Gentle and peaceable, a stranger to every kind of intrigue, she never intermeddled with public affairs, and, in fact, for the most part, knew no thing of them, except through the medium of the newspapers. To put a finish to the happiness of Napoleon, destiny so ordered that this young Princess, who might naturally have seen him only in the light of the persecutor of her family, who had twice forced herself to fly from Vienna, felt herself flattered with having captivated the man whom Fame had.proclaimed as the hero of Europe; and she soon experienced towards him the most tender attachment." The Princess was accompanied by her own train as far as Braunaw, where she was met by the suite whom Napoleon had appointed for her; and of all her Austrian escort only a Madame Lajinski continued to accompany her. Her new household had been named by the sister of the Emperor, Madame Murat, then Queen of Naples, a designing woman, who was anxious, but unsuccessfully so, to obtain an ascendant over the young Empress. The Duchess de Montebello was placed at the head of the establishment, and many other ladies in inferior departments. Poor Madame Lajinski did not long keep her station. She was an object of jealousy to all the new ladies of honour, and Madame Murat was applied to to have her dismissed. Marie-Louise, who wished to be popular with her new attendants, made no opposition. Not only Madame Lajinski was sent back to Vienna from Munich, but likewise a favourite lap-dog, the Princess being made to understand that the passion of Josephine for such animals had contributed to deprive her of her husband's affections. As the young Empress approached nearer France, Napoleon practised & very refined piece of gallantry. Every morning when she rose, a page appeared bearing a letter from him, full of "honied words," which went very smoothly down, and she regularly returned an answer by the messenger. This elegant intercourse continued for fifteen days, and it was remarked, that every successive letter seemed to awaken a new interest in the breast of the Empress. If by any accident the messenger was later than his usual time of appearing, she was evidently disconcerted, and asked many questions as to the probable causes of his delay. Napoleon, in the mean time, was no less impatient to see his young wife. He was delighted with the belief that she had become volun |