have nothing to do with their time but to get rid of it in amusement, are always much more impatient of any kind of tediousness in their entertainers, than those who have but little leisure for entertainment. The reason is, we suppose, that familiarity with business makes the latter habitually tolerant of tediousness; while the pursuits of the former, in order to retain any degree of interest, require a very rapid succession and constant variety. On the whole, we do not think Mad. de Staël very correct in her notions of English gayety; and cannot help suspecting, that she must have been rather unfortunate in her society during her visit to this country.

Her estimate of our poetry, and our works of fiction, is more unexceptionable. She does not allow us much invention, in the strictest sense of that word; and still less grace and sprightliness in works of a light and playful character :-but, for glowing descriptions of nature-for the pure language of the affectionsfor profound thought and lofty sentiment, she admits that the greater poets of England are superior to any thing else that the world has yet exhibited. Milton, Young, Thomson, Goldsmith, and Gray, seem to be her chief favourites. We do not find that Cowper, or any later author, had come to her knowledge. The best of them, however, she says, are chargeable with the national faults of exaggeration, and "des longueurs." She overrates the merit, we think, of our novels, when she says, that with the excep tion of La Nouvelle Heloise, which belongs exclusively to the genius of the singular individual who produced it, and has no rela tion to the character of his nation, all the novels that have succeeded in France have been undisguised imitations of the English, to whom she ascribes, without qualification, the honour of that meritorious invention.

"Ce sont eux qui ont osé croire les premiers, qu'il suffis oit dú tableau des affections privées, pour intéresser l'esprit et le cœur de l'homme; que ni l'illustration des personages, ni l'importance des intérêts, ni le merveilleux des événemens n'étoient nécessaires pour captiver l'imagination, et qu'il y avoit dans la puissance d'aimer de quoi renouveler sans cesse et les tableaux et les situations, sans jamais lasser la curiosité. Ce sont les Anglais enfin qui ont fait des romans des ouvrages de morale, où les vertus et les destinées obscures peuvent trouver des motifs d'exaltation, et se créer un genre d'héroïsme.

"Il règne dans ces écrits une sensibilité calme et fière, énergique et touchante. Nulle part on ne sent mieux le charme de cet amour protecteur, qui dispensant l'être foible de veiller à sa propre destinée, concentre tous ses desirs dans l'estime et la tendresse de son défenseur." Tome 1. p. 321.

The last chapter upon English literature relates to their philo sophy and eloquence; and here, though the learned author seems VOL. II. New Series.

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aware of the transcendent merit of Bacon, we rather think she proves herself to be unacquainted with that of his illustrious cotemporaries, or immediate successors, Hooker, Taylor and Barrow-for she places Bacon as the only luminary of our sphere in the period preceding the Usurpation, and considers the true era of British philosophy as commencing with the reign of King William. We cannot admit the accuracy of this intellectual chronology. The character of the English philosophy is to be patient, profound, and always guided by a view to utility. They have done wonders in the metaphysic of the understanding; but have not equalled De Retz, La Bruyere, or even Montaigne, in their analysis of the passions and dispositions. The following short passage is full of sagacity and talent.

"Les Anglais ont avancé dans les sciences philosophiques comme dans l'industrie commerciale, à l'aide de la patience et du temps. Le penchant de leurs philosophes pour les abstractions sembloit devoir les entrainer dans des systêmes qui pouvoient être contraires à la raison; mais l'esprit de calcul, qui régularise, dans leur application, les combinaisons abstraites, la moralité, qui est la plus expérimentale de toutes les idées humaines, l'intérêt du commerce, l'amour de la liberté, ont tonjours ramené les philosophes anglais à des resultats pratiques. Que d'ouvrages entrepris pour servir utilement les hommes, pour l'éducation des enfans, pour le soulagement des malheureux, pour l'économie politique, la législation criminelle, les sciences, la morale, la métaphysique! Quelle philosophie dans les conceptions! quel respect pour l'expérience dans le choix des moyens !

"C'est à la liberté qu'il faut attribuer cette émulation et cette sagesse. On pouvoit si rarement se flatter en France d'influer par ses écrits sur les institutions de sons pays, qu'on ne songeoit qu'à montrer de l'esprit dans les discussions même les plus sérieuses. On poussoit jusqu'au paradoxe un systême vrai dans une certaine mesure; la raison ne pouvant avoir un effet utile, on vouloit au moins que le paradoxe fût brillant. D'ailleurs sous une monarchie absolue, on pouvoit sans danger vanter, comme dans le Contrat Social, la démocratie pure; mais on n'auroit point osé approcher des idées possibles. Tout étoit jeu d'esprit en France, hors les arrêts du conseil du roi : tandis qu'en Angleterre, chacun pouvant agir d'une manière quelconque sur les résolutions de ses représentans, l'on prend l'habitude de comparer la pensée avec l'action, et l'on s'accoutume à l'amour du bien public par l'espoir d'y contribuer." II. 5-7.

She returns again, however, to her former imputation of "longueurs," and repetitions, and excessive development; and maintains, that the greater part of English books are obscure, in consequence of their prolixity, and of the authors' extreme anxiety to be perfectly understood. We suspect a part of the confusion is owing to a want of familiarity with the language. In point of

fact, we know of no French author so concise as Hume or Smith; and believe we might retort the charge of longueurs, in the name of the whole English nation, upon one half of the French classic authors-upon their Rollin and their Massillon-their D'Alembert -their Buffon-their Helvetius-and the whole tribe of their dramatic writers-while as to repetitions, we are quite certain that there is no one English author who has repeated the same ideas half so often as Voltaire himself-certainly not the most tedious of the fraternity. She complains also of a want of warmth and animation in our prose writers. And it is true that Addison and Shaftesbury are cold; but the imputation only convinces us the more, that she is unacquainted with the writings of Jeremy Taylor, and that illustrious train of successors which has terminated, we fear, in the person of Burke. Our debates in parliament, she says, are more remarkable for their logic than their rhetoric; and have more in them of sarcasm than of poetical figure and ornament. And no doubt it is so--and must be so-in all the discussions of permanent assemblies, occupied from day to day, and from month to month, with great questions of internal legislation or foreign policy. If she had heard Fox or Pitt, however, or Burke or Windham, or Grattan, we cannot conceive that she should complain of our want of animation; and, warm as she is in her encomiums on the eloquence of Mirabeau, and some of the orators of the first revolution, she is forced to confess, that our system of eloquence is better calculated for the detection of sophistry, and the effectual enforcement of all salutary truth. We really are not aware of any other purposes which eloquence can serve in a great national assembly.

DISCOVERY OF THE BODY OF CHARLES I.

THE public curiosity, during the month, has been interested by the discovery of the body of Charles the First at Windsor.. Our readers will recollect that Lord Clarendon excited a strong feeling on this subject by his account of the vain endeavours to discover the body of Charles after the Restoration. It was said in his time that the republicans had had the address to bury Cromwell under the obelisk in Red-Lyon-square, and to place the body of Charles in the coffin of Cromwell in Westminster-Abbey; so that when the body of that great man was disgracefully condemned to be hung on the gallows at Tyburn, and the head separated from the body, it was conceived that the indignity had been offered to the body of the royal martyr. Such was the opinion in the time of Lord Clarendon, confirmed by the vain search after the body of Charles. Clarendon died in the year 1673, and his

history was not published till 1704. In the interim, however, about 1700, as Mapletop tells us in his History of Windsor, the vault of Henry the Eighth was opened to deposite in it the body of a still-born child of the Princess Anne, and in that vault was found the coffin of Charles the First, on which was placed that of the infant. This accorded, too, with the account published in Wood's Athena Oxonienses, and Saunderson's Life of Charles; yet Lord Clarendon's subsequent publication revived and continued doubts on the subject. However, it seems, that, while the workmen engaged in opening the royal vaults to deposite the body of the late Duchess of Brunswick, were making a subterraneous passage from the middle of the choir to the new Royal Mausoleum, they accidentally broke away a part of the vault of Henry VIII. which was not then intended to be opened. The precise spot of Henry's vault being thus ascertained, a strong desire prevailed to satisfy all doubts on the subject of Charles. The regent being therefore at Windsor, on the day after the funeral of the Duchess of Brunswick, he was consulted about the mode of exploring these royal remains, which he directed to be immediately done in his presence. The leaden coffin was cut open by the plumber from the head to a little below the chest, and a body appeared covered over with a cerecloth. On carefully stripping the head and face, the countenance of Charles I. immediately appeared, in features apparently as perfect as when he lived. His severed head had been carefully adjusted to the shoulders; and the most perfect resemblance to his portraits was remarked in the oval shape of the head, the pointed beard, &c. On lifting up the head the fissure made by the axe was clearly discovered, and the flesh, though somewhat darkened, was found to be in a tolerably perfect state. In the same vault was also found a decayed leaden coffin, containing the remains of Henry VIII. but they consisted of nothing more than the skull, with some hair on the chin, and the principal limb bones. But we have been favoured with the following interesting extract from Sir Henry Halford's Narrative, and have much satisfaction in submitting it to our readers:

"On removing the pall, a plain leaden coffin, with no appearance of ever having been enclosed in wood, and bearing an inscription, King Charles, 1648,' in large legible characters, on a scroll of lead encircling it, immediately presented itself to the view. A square opening was then made in the upper part of the lid, of such dimensions as to admit a clear insight into its contents. These were, an internal wooden coffin, very much decayed, and the body, carefully wrapped in cerecloth, into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or greasy matter, mixed with resin, as it seemed, had been melted, so as to exclude, as effectually as possible, the external air. The coffin was completely full; and,

from the tenacity of the cerecloth, great difficulty was experienced in detaching it successfully from the parts which it enveloped. Wherever the unctuous matter had insinuated itself, the separation of the cerecloth was easy; and when it came off, a correct impression of the features to which it had been applied was observed in the unctuous substance. At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discoloured. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately; and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the period of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of the unctuous matter between it and the cerecloth, was found entire.

"It was difficult, at this moment, to withhold a declaration, that, notwithstanding its disfigurement, the countenance did bear a strong resemblance to the coins, the busts, and especially the pictures of King Charles I. by Vandyke, by which it had been made familiar to us. It is true, that the minds of the spectators of this interesting sight were well prepared to receive this impression; but it is also certain that such a facility of belief had been occasioned by the simplicity and truth of Mr. Herbert's Narrative, every part of which had been confirmed by the investigation, so far as it had advanced; and it will not be denied that the shape of the face, the forehead, an eye, and the beard, are the most important features by which resemblance is determined.

"When the head had been entirely disengaged from the attachments which confined it, it was found to be loose, and, without any difficulty, was taken up and held to view. It was quite wet, and gave a greenish red tinge to paper, and to linen which touched it. The back part of the scalp was entirely perfect, and had a remarkably fresh appearance; the pores of the skin being more distinct, as they usually are when soaked in moisture; and the tendons and ligaments of the neck were of considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and, in appearance, nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is of a beautiful dark brown colour; that of the beard was a redder brown; on the back part of the head, it was more than an inch in length, and had probably been cut so short for the convenience of the executioner, or perhaps by the piety of friends soon after death, in order to furnish memorials of the unhappy king.

"On holding up the head, to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves considerably; and the fourth cervical vertebra was