some disturbances in Italy in the spring of 1831. Like most Italian revolutions, in which, as Byron, who had a little experience of them, used to say, the heroes chiefly distinguish themselves by "shooting round a corner," this affair was over in a day or two, leaving matters just where they were. Long, therefore, before Börne's letters were even in types, this great effort of regenerated Italy was numbered with the thousand other paltry local disturbances which have thrown an air of ridicule round the very name of revolution as connected with that country, so that the enthusiastic allusion to its probable consequences, printed as it was after its miserable failure, operates as a severe satire, though in the guise of praise.

"Oh Italy! Italy! do you hear the accents of my joy? Why have I not a trumpet which can reach even to your ears? Yes, this spring will atone for a hundred winters. Liberty, a nightingale with the accents of a giant, awakens with her noise even the profoundest sleeper. We shall now see what the strength of liberty is, since it dares to attack even the powerful Austria!"

The "strength of liberty" by this time had evaporated in some squabble in Modena; one or two of the leading champions had fallen victims to their rashness, and the strong grasp of Austria was only tightened around Italy by the premature and ridiculous effort which had been made to emancipate her.

It is equally impossible, we think, to mistake the true views of Börne in the sentiments which he puts into the mouth of his hero as to some of the domestic attempts at revolution in Germany. Indeed, the sneer is sometimes almost too obvious even for the purpose of satire.

"I have my room," says he, " often filled with young Germans anxious for a revolution, But nothing is to be made of them, for they neither know their wants nor their capabilities. Yesterday, at Lafayette's, I met one of them who had been living at *** when the troubles broke out. He came here to visit and consult Lafayette, B. Constant, Quiroga, and others, as if these men were possessed of some revolutionary powders which he might administer to the Germans." He hears of disturbances at Hamburg, at Brunswick, at Dresden, and his heart leaps up for joy. "Am I deceived," he exclaims, ❝or is Germany riper than I believed? Have I been unjust towards this people? Have they really been carrying a helmet and a cuirass beneath a night cap and a robe de chambre ? Oh, with what pleasure should I find myself in error?" He reads a report of the University Library at Göttingen being attacked, and he halloos on the rabble, and, in the true spirit of Omar, exults in " the destruction of all these useless lumbering folios." He looks with delight on the spectacle of the Archbishop of Paris's library floating down the Seine, while the people are smoking him in effigy

with the censers taken from the cathedral. He anticipates, with transport, the arrival of the time when “ a dozen of eggs shall be dearer than a dozen princes," and when "the cooks of kings shall ask each other every morning, Well, whose dinner are we to cook to day?"" This blessed consummation, he thinks, will be decidedly accelerated by the cholera, the approach of which he anxiously awaits.

"The plague," he exclaims," may do what nothing else could. By preventing princes from assembling great armies, it will stimulate and encourage the most inert and timorous people on the face of the earth. The plague and liberty never had so hideous a mother-so fair a daughter. What calamities may not the spring scatter over the world? Tears will not suffice, we must laugh at misery."

The idea of invoking a destroying pestilence as a convenient political agent is in the best style of Börne's models.

The genuine ultra affects a contempt for literature, and particularly that of his own country. The loftier spirits of literature are, of course, too completely at issue with him on almost every point, not to be visited with the choicest abuse. Conspicuous among these, not only by his pre-eminent talent, and by the calm wisdom, tolerance, and true liberality (not liberalism) of his views, but also for the spirit of reverence and attachment with which he regarded existing institutions and opinions, was the immortal Goethe. He, of course, along with Tieck, Schlegel, Hegel, Raumer, every one, in short, who either by his life or writings has attempted to stem the career of innovation, have, for some time past, been the objects of the most bitter and persevering attacks. The false and despicable nature of these is well exposed in the following pretended character of Goethe. What German, on reading it, would not blush to think that similar expressions should ever have been applied by the savage spirit of faction to the greatest, and in the latter part of his tranquil and glorious career, one of the best of her sons!

"This man is a perfect pattern of baseness; you may search the history of the world before you find his equal. It is ridiculous in people always to couple Schiller and Goethe, like Voltaire and Rousseau. Goethe is as much worse than Voltaire, as Rousseau is better than Schiller. Goethe was always the servant of despots; his satire is wisely directed against the weak; he pays his court to the great. This Goethe is a very cancer in the German body, and the worst is, that every one takes the disease for the perfection of health, places Mephistophiles on the altar, and hails him as the prince of poets. His proper title should be the poet of despots."

These passages may give an idea of the manner in which Börne's work is written. But to form a perfect notion of the force with which his satire is brought home to all the weak

oints of his opponents, and the skill with which their own jargon , imitated and turned against them, the book must be perused as whole.

Meantime we must say a passing word of his collaborateur, Heine, who, though his object be the same, has directed his attack more against the impiety and polissonerie of the German ress, than its political tendency. Now and then, no doubt, he kes up the same strain as his Jewish coadjutor, and exposes ith success some of the doctrines of the ultra liberals, particuarly that singularly consistent attachment which they avow for the most determined, the ablest and most unrelenting enemy of liberal principles and the freedom of the press in modern times, Napoleon Bonaparte. He is more successful, however, we think, where he caricatures the scoffing irreligious tone and brutal personalities with which these literary bravos systematically adorn their articles for the press, though unfortunately the nature of the subject prevents us from quoting any of those passages in which the imitation is the most complete. The satirist has allowed himself liberties in this respect which indeed the nature of his plan rendered imperative, but which could not be permitted to an English review. Thus, for instance, one of the best hings in the Reisebilder is a mock critique upon the poems of Count Platen Hallermund, the clever parodist of Müllner's Schuld.* Platen has the misfortune not to be a liberal, and has consequently enjoyed the distinction of a more than usual portion of abuse. Heine has given us a specimen of a review of his poems in the ultra liberal vein, extending to some thirty pages and upwards, and in which the critique consists simply in deducing from some ambiguous phrases in a sonnet or two, that the Count is addicted to unnatural crimes! As a satirical caricature the article is exceedingly clever, but of course such jeux d'esprit do not bear translation. Neither can we venture on many specimens of that tone of profanity as applied to religious subjects, against which his efforts are so perseveringly directed. On such subjects, however, one instance is as good as a thousand; take the following as a liberal's account of his Christian faith.

"I love him, not because he is a legitimate God, whose father was God before him and ruled the world from the infinity of time; but because be, though the heir apparent of heaven, having a democratic turn of mind, dislikes all court ceremonial, because he is not the God of an aristocracy of tonsured priests and gold-laced officers, and because he was the God of the people, un bon dieu citoyen. In fact, were he not a God at all, I would choose him for one and obey him, the elective God,

Platen's parody is entitled "Der Verhängnissvolle Gabel," (the Mysterious Fork,) and is an excellent specimen of broad yet good humoured caricature.

VOL. X. NO. XIX.

M

as the God of my choice, much rather than any compulsory absolute Deity."

This idea of treating the Deity as an ultra-liberal Heine seems to have thought too good to be lost, for he avails himself of it again in an article on Don Quixote. "The tears which the boy wasted over the mischances of the crazy cavalier, the youth has shed to the same purpose, many a night in his student's chamber, over the death of the sacred heroes of freedom, over Agis of Sparta, over Caius and Tiberius Gracchus of Rome, over Jesus of Jerusalem, over Robespierre and St. Just of Paris!" Here, we must say, we think the caricature a little too broad; in fact it has not even that thin vein of plausibility which we think the plan of the work required, because none but an absolute madinan could have written the passage above quoted, and none but a fool would have thought of echoing the madman's remark.

We may observe, that it is chiefly in the last volume of the Reisebilder that these satirical tirades against the profligacy and impiety of the periodical press are to be found. The other three volumes are more devoted to sketches of character and scenery, written frequently with much liveliness and poetical beauty of style. In fact, it seems to have been his intimacy with Börne that has suggested to Heine the idea which both these authors have so successfully brought out. Each seems to play into the other's hands; and we really find it difficult to say which wears the masquerade garment of a literary sansculotte with most nature and ease. To the negligent observer they seem, in fact, to use the free translation of Byron, to be

"Arcades ambo-that is, blackguards both."

And the only way of adjusting their respective claims, we think, is to divide the laurel between them.

With these views of the real object of both writers, we, of course, feel exceedingly surprised that any one should consider these works as serious bona fide productions, indicating the real sentiments of Heine and Börne. The passages we have adverted to must settle that question, we think, with every one who reads them; but if any obstinate persons still persist in believing, after all, that these are the genuine sentiments, and such the natural style of thought and expression of two of the great organs of the German democratic press, or if we could persuade ourselves that such was really the fact, we should consider no words too strong to express the mingled indignation, disgust, and contempt which such productions deserve to inspire.*

Perhaps it may be necessary to state that this article was written, and in types, some time before the appearance of the Resolutions of the Diet of Frankfort.-EDITOR.

ART. VIII.-Voyage au Congo et dans l'interieur de l'Afrique Equinoxiale, fait dans les années 1828, 1829 et 1830. Par J. B. Douville, Secrétaire de la Sociéte de Géographie de Paris pour l'année 1832, et membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes Françaises, et étrangères. Ouvrage auquel la Sociéte de Géographie a décerné le prix dans sa séance du 30 Mars, 1832. 3 tom. 8vo. Paris. 1832.

AFRICA, distinguished in all ages as a land of prodigies and wonders, has never given birth to any thing more extraordinary than the volumes now before us. A private gentleman has travelled 3,500 miles, at an enormous expense, through countries hitherto deemed inaccessible. He has visited and won the admiration of great kings, has discovered rich gold mines, has seen volcanoes both active and in all stages of extinction; has cleared up many problems of African geography, and even caught a glimpse of a river, which an adventurous critic might pronounce to be the true Nile; and finally, he has brought home, it appears, such irrefragable proofs of the reality of his travels that the highest honours have been already awarded him by scientific Europe. The Société de Géographie at Paris has bestowed on him its first prize, a gold medal of a thousand francs value, and, deeming that a distinction below his merits, has also appointed him one of its foreign secretaries. On the motion of Mr. Barrow (who has always enjoyed the reputation of being a gentleman of shrewd discerument,) M. Douville has been elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Geographical Society of London. M. Douville's narrative we acknowledge to be extremely wonderful, but the honours which he has obtained appear to us still more so. cannot yet enlarge on our suspicions; but if the reader will take the trouble to peruse the following pages, we can promise that he will find in them, not only an abstract of M. Douville's very remarkable discoveries, but also some, not less amazing, of our own.

We

"Hardly rested," says our author," from the fatigues of my preceding travels in various parts of the world, I left Paris on the 1st of August, 1826, and embarked at Havre on the 6th of the same month, with the intention of proceeding to the eastern peninsula of India, and afterwards, if possible, of penetrating into China."

From this first sentence of M. Douville's narrative, the reader will perceive that he is a man of mettle and a determined traveller. He does not acquaint us explicitly (indeed he is never explicit) with the extent and direction of his preceding travels, but it may be collected from scattered sentences in his volumes,