Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

to awake and talk of it; then the events were embodied as realities. Many an action had I been in, wherein the individual exertions of our regiment had been much greater, and our fighting more severe; but never had I been where the firing was so dreadful, and the noise so great. When I looked over the field of battle, it was covered and heaped in many places; figures moving up and down upon it. The wounded crawling along the rows of dead was a hor rible spectacle yet I looked on with less concern, I must say, at the moment, than I have felt at an accident when in quarters. I have been sad at the burial of a comrade who died of sickness in the hospital, and followed him almost in tears: yet have I seen, after a battle, fifty men put into the same trench, and comrades amongst them, almost with indifference. I looked over the field of Waterloo as a matter of course a matter of small concern.'

Such is the consequence of familiarity with scenes which, while the feelings obey the unvitiated dictates of nature, are viewed with horror and dismay.

The writer's style, it will be seen, is simple and unassuming. As another example of it, we shall allow him to relate one of his "hair-breadth 'scapes" in his own words.

I shall ever remember an adventure that happened to me towards the afternoon. We were in extended order, firing and retir ing. I had just risen to run behind my file, when a spent shot struck me on the groin and took the breath from me. "God receive my soul!" I said, and sat down resigned. The French were advancing fast, I laid my musket down, and gasped for breath. I was sick and put my canteen to my head, but could not taste the water: however I washed my mouth and grew less faint. I looked to my thigh, and seeing no blood, took resolution to put my hand to the part to feel the wound. My hand was unstained by blood; but the part was so painful that I could not touch it. At this moment of helplessness the French came up. One of them made a charge at me as I sat pale as death. In another moment I would have been transfixed, had not his next man forced the point past me: "Do not touch the good Scot," said he; and then addressing himself to me, added, " Do you remember me?" I had not recovered my breath sufficiently to speak distinctly; I answered, "No."—"I saw you at Sobral," he replied. Immediately I recognized him to be a soldier whose life I had saved from a Portuguese, who was going to kill him as he lay wounded. "Yes, I know you," I replied. "God bless you!" cried he; and, giving me a pancake out of his hat, moved on with his fellows; the rear of whom took my knapsack, and left me lying; I had fallen down for greater security. I soon recovered so far as to walk, though with pain, and joined the regiment in next advance.'

This relation has a little of the romantic in it.

We grieve to see that, after so much service, this poor fellow has been able to save so little money as to be a burthen on his brother and sisters. He longs to return to South America, the first stage of his career.

Art.

Art. 38. A Description of modern Birmingham; whereunto are annexed Observations made during an Excursion round the Town in the Summer of 1818, including Warwick and Leamington. By Charles Pye *; who compiled a Dictionary of Ancient Geography. 12mo. pp. 194. 68. Boards. Richardson.

Though this is not a very elegant, it is a very useful guide. Its description of the most interesting objects in the "Toyshop of England" seems to be full and faithful; and we doubt not, as we have the author's own word for it, that the information was collected in the most 'genteel' manner.

Art. 39. The Instructive Pocket Companion: containing a great Variety of Anecdotes, Observations, Maxims, Calculations, and Experiments, Philosophical, Historical, Literary, and Scientific: from the most eminent Authors. By Joseph Taylor. 12mo. pp. 192. 48. Boards. Baldwin and Co. 1819.

If this work deserves only half the praise which the high-sounding epithets in the title-page would justify, the compiler has done well; and in truth we like such little olios: they are invitations for youth to the temple of science, and finger-posts to direct thém on their path. Mr. Taylor has turned to good account the few books which he quotes, and has selected some useful and amusing anecdotes and observations. The following is a fair specimen:

To connect in the mind things difficult to be remembered, with things easily remembered; so as to enable it to retain and to recollect the former, by means of the latter.

[ocr errors]

In travelling along a road, the sight of the more remarkable scenes we meet with, frequently puts us in mind of the subject we were thinking or talking of when we last saw them. Such facts which are perfectly familiar even to the vulgar might very naturally suggest the possibility of assisting the memory, by establishing a connection between the ideas we wish to remember, and certain sensible objects, which have been found from experience to make a permanent impression on the mind. "I have been told (says Dugald Stewart) of a young woman in a very low rank of life, who contrived a method of committing to memory the sermons which she was accustomed to hear, by fixing her attention during the different heads of the discourse, on different compartments of the roof of the church, in such a manner as that when she afterwards saw the roof, or recollected the order in which its compartments were disposed, she recollected the method which the preacher had observed in treating his subject. This contrivance was perfectly analogous to the topical memory of the ancients; an art which, whatever be the opinion we entertain of its use, is certainly entitled, in a high degree, to the praise of ingenuity.

"Suppose I were to fix in my memory the different apartments in some very large building, and that I had accustomed myself to think of these apartments always in the same invariable order. Suppose, farther, that, in preparing myself for a public discourse, in which I had occasion to treat of a great variety of particulars,

*See M. R. vol. xxix. p. 239., and vol. xlviii. p. 210.

I was anxious to fix in my memory the order I proposed to observe in the communication of my ideas. It is evident, that, by a proper division of my subject into beads, and by connecting each head with a particular apartment, (which I could easily do, by conceiving myself to be sitting in the apartment while I was studying the part of my discourse I meant to connect with it,) the habitual order in which these apartments occurred to my thoughts, would present to me, in their proper arrangement, and without any effort on my part, the ideas of which I was to treat. It is also obvious, that a very little practice would enable me to avail myself of this contrivance, without any embarrassment or distraction of my attention."— Dugald Stewart's Elements of Philosophy.'

The whole of Professor Von Feinagle's system of Mnemonics (noticed in M. R. vol. lxxi. p. 35.) is entirely founded on the principles laid down in the latter of these passages.

SINGLE SERMON.

Art. 40. The present State of religious Parties in England represented and improved; delivered in Essex-street Chapel, May 17. and repeated October 18. 1818: also in Renshaw-street Chapel, Liverpool, September 20. By Thomas Belsham. 8vo.

Hunter.

The religious parties in this country may be arranged under the two great and comprehensive classes of Churchmen and Dissenters; which may again be subdivided in proportion to the diversity of dogmas which they maintain, or the principles of belief which form separate bonds of union among individuals of the same class. Mr. Belsham speaks of the Established Church as at present divided into two great parties: of which he considers the first and most numerous to be composed of those who adhere to the Church upon the ground of political expedience;' and the second to consist of those members of the establishment who are denominated Evangelical.

These persons,' says he, seriously believe the doctrines of the Articles, and publicly profess and teach them. They are generally pious in their conversation, and exemplary in their morals; and are very zealous, active, and liberal, in propagating what they conceive to be the doctrines of the Gospel and those of the Established Church. These greatly prefer the discipline of the Church and its modes of worship to those of any class of nonconformists, and cultivate a popular strain of preaching which commonly fills the churches, wherever they are settled. One would naturally suppose that this description of churchmen must be in high estimation with the ruling powers, and with those who profess the warmest zeal for the prosperity of the Church. But the fact is otherwise: and the reason is this. The Evangelical churchmen, though they are true and ardent friends to the order and discipline of the Church, justly lay a still greater stress upon purity of faith and seriousness of spirit; and these qualities they love and honour wherever they are found, whether among churchmen

or Dissenters. They are therefore ready to join cordially with. nonconformists in every scheme the object of which is to promote what they believe to be the truth and spirit of their common Christianity, whether within or without the pale of the Establishment, and whether immediately conducive or not to its separate interest. This highly meritorious and truly Christian liberality is exceedingly offensive to those who prize the interest of the Church as paramount to all other considerations; and for this reason the Evangelical clergy and laity of the established religion are held in greater aversion by what are called the High Church party than even the most obnoxious of the nonconforming sects.'

In addition to these parties in the bosom of the Establishment, Mr. B. mentions a third; which, while outwardly conforming to the worship of the Church, is anxious to effect a reformation in its Articles and its Liturgy, and to render both more spiritual and comprehensive.-The Dissenters, though branching into a multiplicity of sects, may yet be considered as principally composed of the Arminian and the Calvinistic Methodists.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The letter of Mr. T. D. Worgan, on the subject of his pamphlet reviewed in our Number for December last, duly reached us. That gentleman wishes to disavow any intention of stating in his work, that he considered the Philharmonic Society as inWe did not stituted, or qualified, to judge of music as a science. impute any such statement to him: but we conceive that, when a person addresses a publication on a given subject to a particular body of men, it is not too much to infer that he considers them both as qualified and instituted to judge of that particular subject. Mr. W. also disclaims all supposition that he had made any discovery in the art of musical tuition not previously known to any qualified master. Neither did we impute to him this assumption; merely stating (as we knew the fact to be) that many well quali fied masters had paid attention to the points of education, of the neglect of which he complained. We did not touch on the merits of Mr. W.'s Vocal Sonatinas, and must beg to be excused from entering into any criticism on them now.

The signature of Juvenis seems to be appropriate, and the judgment which led to the writing of his note to be excusable only on the score of youth. We have sufficiently, both in word and deed, paid deference to the great merits of the works in question, and have pointed out their imperfections only as spots in the sun.

We would gladly gratify a reasonable wish, but that which is expressed by Quiz is both unreasonable and inconsistent with our duties.

The APPENDIX to Vol. XC. of the M. R. was published with our last Number, and contained numerous interesting articles, in Foreign Literature.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For MARCH, 1820.

ART. I. The Life of William Lord Russell; with some Account

By Lord John Russell.
il. IS.
Boards. Long-

of the Times in which he lived. 2 Vols. 8vo. each about 290 pp. man and Co. 1820. ART. II. Some Account of the Life of Rachael Wriothesley, Lady Russell; by the Editor of Madame du Deffand's Letters; followed by a Series of Letters from Lady Russell to her Husband, William Lord Russell, from 1672 to 1682, &c. &c. Published from the Originals in the Possession of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. 8vo. pp. 400. 128. Boards. Longman and

Co. 1820.

SIR JOHN DALRYMPLE remarks, in the preface to the second volume of his "Memoirs," that, when he found the French dispatches of Barillon displaying Lord Russell as intriguing with the court of Versailles, and Algernon Sidney as taking money from the same traitorous source, he felt very nearly the sort of shock that he should have experienced if he had seen a son turn his back in the day of battle. There is something so magnificent in this burst of patriotic indignation, something so imposing, in the double sense of the word, in this theatrical start, that any reader who had gone no further than the preface, and was imperfectly acquainted with the Baronet's heroic style and insidious views, would actually suppose him to be in earnest, and would believe that, instead of chuckling at an opportunity of bringing suspicion on two illustrious Whigs, he actually felt the pang which he could so happily feign at the imputed dishonour of his countrymen.

* The distinction of parties into Whigs and Tories did not take place till the year 1680. As Sir John Dalrymple has exposed himself to the rebuke of Lord John Russell by applying these terms to the leaders and the opposers of the second Dutch war in 1672, we shall in course stand convicted of a similar anachronism: but the terms are so short, so convenient, and so well known, that we shall not scruple to anticipate the application of them, especially as the essential principles of the distinction have always existed among us, under some denomination,

REV. MARCH, 1820.

Q

A vague

« ZurückWeiter »