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mus," &c. Why this severe attack upon Brunck? We are sorry to find Mr. Monk appreciating so low the merits of such a man, whom we do not fear to call the " spes altera."-One of the best critical scholars of the age has not hesitated to give his opinion of that great critic in terms of the strongest admiration. Speaking of Brunck, he says,-" cui tantum debent Græcæ literæ, quantum haud scio an nemini, uno excepto Porsono." Mr. Monk ought to have recollected that Brunck had not the advantage of having Porson for his predecessor; he had his own battles to fight, and was his own pioneer. Brunck was certainly not a bad metrical scholar, though much inferior in that respect to Porson; he never had occasion to think himself deficient in that department of literature, much less to proclaim and avow it." Homo, vel se judice, metri imperitissimus !"is a censure as harsh as it is unmerited.

V. 977, Valckenaer, says Mr. Monk, observes that eppw is of frequent occurrence, that its compounds are more rare. Mr. Monk however recollects to have seen an instance in the Herc. Fur. 259. Was Mr. Monk then ignorant that that very line is referred to by Valckenaer in his note on the passage? See Aristoph. Nub. 785. Eccles. 169. Pax. 1291.

V. 1089. Kλdw] "'Asì, Piersono jubente, Brunckio non nolente, semper sine diphthongo scripsi, idem facturus in deròs, xλaw and now." Pors. iv. Pref. Hecub.

Among the instances of xaipwv in the sense of impunè, it is surprising that Mr. Monk should have quoted the famous line from the Medea (399) without referring to Toup's celebrated note on the lines from Eupolis which ridicule that passage. See Toup on Longin. § xvi. p. 318-19.

Having now, as we apprehend, pointed out to our readers, what we may call a fair specimen of the merits and demerits of Mr. Monk's edition of the Hippolytus; we conclude with strongly recommending to the Regius Greek Professor, a system less tedious, and more original. In avoiding the brevity of Porson, he has fallen into a prolixity exceeding that of some of our German editors: he is too fond of foisting into his notes (as Dr. Bentley would call it) a multifarious mass of omnigenous matter; and not fond enough of declaring the sources of his borrowed criticism. The style which we should recommend, is exactly that, which has been suggested by a learner'i critic of the present day;-" cum eo annotationum & variarun lectionum delectu, qui medium quodammodo locum teneret inter largum illud & prolixum interpretationis genus, quo ad Euripidis Phoenissas & Hippolytum usus est Valckenaerius, & nimiam, ut quibusdam videtur, brevitatem, quam in quatuor primis ejusdem poetæ fabulis recensendis studiose coluerat Porsonus.

ART. XII.-The Situation of Great Britain in the Year 1811, by M. M. de Montgaillard; Author of Remarks on the Restoration of the Kingdom of Italy, by the Emperor Napoleon; of the Right of the Crown of France to the Roman Empire, &c. &c. &c.-Faithfully translated from the French. London, 1812. Sherwood, Richardson, Ridgway. 8vo. Pp. 225. We think it was Dr. Johnson who observed, that if you took a Frenchman to St. Paul's Church-yard, and told him it was lawful to walk half round the church, but that he would be hanged if he walked entirely round it, he would believe you. Meaning thereby, as we presume, that the habits, manners, prejudices, and general turn of thinking of a Frenchman ran in currents so directly opposite to those, in which our laws and institutions bear along with them the happiness and prosperity of the people, that there is no common medium of mental intercourse, by which he can be made to understand or judge of the real tendency of any part of our political arrangements. If this were true before the French revolution, when the intercourse between the countries was comparatively free, and a general system of cour tesy pervaded the European republic, it must be emphatically so at the present moment, when a strict separation has subsisted for near twenty years, during which an inveterate enmity to the national character of England has been diligently inculcated in France, without an attempt to found it upon any results of deliberate inquiry; and when in point of fact, the habits, the morals, the government, and the polity of the two countries have been more and more diverging from a common centre. The prejudices of education have, therefore, assisted the views of the French1 rulers, in estranging the minds of their people from all dispassionate contemplation of the English system.

A curiosity, however, concerning this anathematized nation of shopkeeping Islanders, seems throughout the whole of this latter' period to have existed in the minds of the people, if not of the rulers of the continent, and of France. Certain rumours of engagements by sea, of victories or defeats by land, in various and distant quarters of the world, seemed to announce a display of power, that had the effect of casting a shade of doubt over the incessant official predictions concerning the immediate ruin andsubjugation of England. At once to satisfy the curiosity and remove the doubt, it has been at various intervals the custom of the creatures of the French government to put forth, by means

of hired pamphleteers, exposés of the state of England and of her colonies; interspersed with a great deal of good advice to our domestic parties. During the last war we had many obligations of this sort to Mr. Talleyrand; conferred upon us, no doubt, out of gratitude for the asylum which was afforded him here, as ex-bishop of Autun, in the first periods of the revolution. M. Hauterive and several inferior hands have since taken up their pens with the same laudable view, and have afforded many a wise apophthegm to the politicians of the continent, and many a hearty laugh to those of England. Thus we recollect having read of a French gentleman, who having, during his visit to England, been squeezed into the gallery of the House of Commons, where he heard the usual call of "Places, Places," to produce order in the house when the Speaker makes his appearance, very gravely informed his nation upon his return, that the venality of which the democratic members accused the House of Commons had "effectivement" risen to such a pitch of grossness, that upon the appearance of the minister he was actually assailed with one general outcry "pour des benefices."

The last few months have been signally fruitful in these efforts of French genius and patriotism. Not long ago we cast a hasty glance over a large octavo published by a Frenchman, for some time past and now resident in this country; in which absolute power is the theme of great eulogy, and the character of James the Second held up as the pattern of every kingly virtue; the English are very much derided for their folly in supposing, that they have gained any real benefit by the liberties acquired at the revolution; advised to curtail the freedom of speech, and of the press; accused of propensities, which upon accurate data he finds to be just sixteen times more cruel, unnatural, and dishonest, than those of the French; and finally given to understand, “ qu'ils avoient encore des larmes de sang a verser, de ce que Henri VIII. ait réussi d'annihiler a jamais la portion démocratique du gouvernement, en detruisant, ce que je répête etre le principe vital et unique de la liberté, les etablissemens monastiques."

We find however to our surprise, that this gentleman still continues to prefer an asylum in our degraded and dilapidated country, to one where his ideas might have been more completely carried into execution, and their consequences more fully exemplified; and we find also, that the alien office gives him no disturbance.

Next comes M. de Montgaillard, who kindly informs us in a very long and logical dissertation, that England must be

inevitably ruined by France in thirty years or thereabouts, unless she will consent to ruin herself at the present moment, by laying her maritime superiority at the feet of France, leaving the possession of the continent and of the world to "the Emperor Napoleon, the invincible child of victory, whose power has begun the real race of the Cæsars; that which will never end; that which will never have an Augustulus nor a Louis le Debonnaire; that which will direct the fate of the world for a long series of ages." (P. 125.) In a word, he cannot help stating for the sake of the continental nations, and if we will allow him, out of pure love and regard to the English people also, that it is "by peace and by the measures of a wise and enlightened administration, one that is alive to the real interests of the nation," (as they are stated by M. de Montgaillard, and corroborated by the jacobinical English pamphlets), that the British people can yet avoid the misfortunes, the revolutions, and the calamities of every kind, which threaten Great Britain with total subversion." (P. 225.) Again he observes, " in the present financial, political and commercial exposé, our only object is to remove, if possible, the film which obscures the sight of the people of England, and thus to prevent the sanguinary catastrophe which threatens them." Thus the exuberant benevolence and humanity of this philanthropic Frenchman extends even to the enemies of bis country.

We shall not toil through the whole tissue of lying absurdities by which M. de Montgaillard arrives at his conclusions. Many of them are so gross, that no British mind could be perverted by them; they are evidently intended only for the benefit of the continental nations, and perhaps to flatter Buonaparte concerning the efficacy of a system of policy, exclusively of his own contrivance, but which he begins to perceive not quite likely to answer his impatient views for the subversion of English power and happiness. To these a French answer should be written, and if possible circulated on the continent. The nations should be told that England, so far from being the cause of their distress, affords their only remaining chance of escaping from it. But as that is not our task or office, we shall confine our observations to such parts of the argument as (rotten as they are) may yet be used as pillars to the failing sophistry of some particular parties or individuals in the state. We shall hope thus to secure the less informed of our countrymen from any possible bad effects of this Frenchman's fallacies.

To begin then, we cannot help considering the pamphlet before us as the first (continental) fruits of the Bullion Report; the whole argument is evidently built upon reasoning and asser

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tions to be found in that document, or in the several pamphlets written in its support; misunderstood indeed ridiculously enough in some instances, and illustrated (as the Frenchman would pro. bably say) by extracts, equally misapplied, from the reports of the finance committee, and various pamphlets on the same subject. But we are well persuaded, that the principal effect, which this contemptible work may produce either at home or abroad, will be chiefly ascribable to the impression previously made upon the minds of the ignorant by the Bullion Report. A French disquisition on the state of England is perhaps the only disguise, in which the exhausted mind of the public would not now nauseate a further dissertation on the Bullion question; and the present translation may therefore be compared to those placards of the dealers in lottery tickets, which attract the unwary passenger by announcing A CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION, in large capitals; and repay his neverfailing pofitical curiosity by a notice in small type, that Lady Branscomb has removed her lottery-office to Holborn-bars.

The following extracts will give our readers some idea of the propositions which M. de Montgaillard considers as data with respect to the political systems of France and England.

"Nature has decreed that the French empire should be the centre of power and protection for all the nations of the continent: this political decree is fixed and immutable. Hence it will be evident that the momentary transfer of the sceptre of the ocean to the hands of England has been occasioned by circumstances radically false, corrupt, and unstable; and by these alone. Such adven titious circumstances on the one part, and the maritime tyranny of Great Britain on the other, have caused all the ravages, and engendered all the plagues, under which both the sovereigns and the people have groaned, down to the present hour.

"Every impartial man, of a correct understanding, whatever may be his country, profession, or political opinion, is forced to acknowledge in the conduct and will of the government of France, the fixed and liberal intention of giving freedom to the commerce and industry of the people of Europe; of protecting their sovereignty and their maritime independence, and of ensuring to them the honourable enjoyment of those commercial rights inherent in every crown."

This is the faithful picture of France and the continent. Then follows that of England and her allies.

"It is necessary to explain the naval power and the commercial riches of England, and to explode in the face of all Europe, this phantom of prosperity which has deluded every government, which oppresses every people, and which might have enchained the universe by the most scandalous and rigid laws, if, amidst all the prodigies and every kind of glory which can do honour to human na

VOL. III. NO. Y.

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