French nobility, and never mentioned the old, generous Maréchal de Biron without a degree of enthusiasm. In the lighter species of poetry and memoir-writing he considered the French as excelling all others. But their graver poets were not equally the objects of his admiration. Altogether, their literary character, and the romantic courtesy and high honour, which in the superior classes were so often blended with that character, peculiarly engaged, and even fascinated his attention. But the general mass of Frenchmen he was not attached to. His life, when in Dublin, and not engaged by the volunteers, was extremely uniform. He was on horseback every morning, and afterwards employed in various business till about one o'clock: at that time, or soon after, he went to his library, and remained there till almost dinner time. His friends had then constant access to him; and considering the frequent interruption of visitors, it is a matter of some surprise, that he was enabled to write so much as he did. But it is a proof that not one moment of his time was unemployed. When Parliament was sitting, he regularly attended his duty there; and as the Lords, if not detained by particularly important business, rose rather early, he was to be met every day in the House of Commons, where, from long usage, he was almost regarded as a member. Those who have sat next to him, during a debate, cannot forget the vivacity and justness of his remarks, on the dif ferent speakers.

As president of the academy, he equally attended their meetings, and when his health was interrupted, the academy, from their respect to him, adjourned their sittings to Charlemont House. At home, and in the bosom of his family, he enjoyed domestic society, with tranquil unruffled satisfaction and pleasure. From continued study during part of his life, his eyes had suffered irreparable injury, and on that account, some of his family constantly read to him every evening which was not given to mixed company.'-p. 425.

We have thus given an imperfect sketch of a work from which we have derived a considerable share of amusement and information, and we again recommend the perusal of it to all those who are desirous to acquire in an agreeable way, some notion of the history of Ireland in recent times. We are sorry, however, that we cannot take our leave without making one complaint, that is, against Mr. Hardy's style. Our readers need not be told, that there is no more grievous offence of which our critical courts take cognizance, than the affectation of fine writing. Classing our authors according to their nations, we should say that the Scotch are remarkably free from this defect, that the English have a moderate share, but that the Irish fall into it continually. The strong feelings and glowing imagination of this lively ingenious people, naturally expose them to a fault which claims a certain affinity to that genuine eloquence of which they have so large a share. Besides, we suspect that example has combined with nature in leading them astray. Their most illustrious countrymen in these days are Mr. Burke and

Mr. Grattan; both great orators, and one a writer not surpassed in any age or in any country: both however are dreadfully dangerous models; both endowed with taste not quite in proportion to their other extraordinary gifts, and both continually treading upon the utmost bounds of eloquence, upon those 'flammantia moenia,' where that which is best touches close upon that which is worst, where the most perfect success is reared upon the very brink of the most deplorable failure; both, in short, guilty of occasional faults, which could only be atoned for by the overpowering force, and the dazzling splendour of the whole composition. To the imitation of these distinguished persons must, we believe, in some measure be ascribed, that excessive passion for epigram, and point, and metaphor, and learned allusions, which is characteristic of the Irish writers of the present day. They cannot be content with telling a common thing, or expressing a common sentiment in a common way, but they must needs try to give it an interest, which after all can never belong to it, by some forced turn, some novel or obscure phrase, or some antithesis introduced merely for its supposed brilliancy, and without any foundation of real contrast. The Irish are rich beyond most other nations in natural endowments, and they are daily advancing in education and knowledge. Their great defect is bad taste. This is the rock upon which the best talents among them are wrecked; and this will continue to be the case, as long as they insist upon decoration and sublimity in works which properly belong to the middle style.' As a first step towards improvement, we would humbly recommend them to chuse some safer and less brilliant object of imitation. If they seek it among their own countrymen, the name of Swift will at once occur; and in more recent times, they will find in the prose of Goldsmith, as perfect a model as any that exists in our language, of purity, facility, and grace, of clear, lively narration, of the most exhilarating gaiety, of the most touching pathos, in short, of almost every merit that style can possess, except in those comparatively few instances, in which the subject calls for a display of higher and impassioned eloquence.

Of almost all those faults which we have noticed as characteristic of the Irish mode of writing, Mr. Hardy has his share. He prefers long unusual words to those that are short and common. His reflections are generally distinguished for their candour and good sense, but we are often at a loss to recognise their true character, in the strange affected metaphysical garb in which he is at such infinite pains to disguise them. Indeed if it were not an ungracious task, we could extract some sentences which are almost unintelligible to ourselves, and which, we believe, would be equally so to our readers. But these blemishes, though striking, are by no means sufficient to outweigh the merits which we have already pointed out; and we mention

them chiefly for the sake of protesting against what appears to us, a growing evil among the writers of a country from which we expect great contributions towards the literary glory of the empire. The work contains strong internal evidence, of having proceeded from the pen of a gentleman and a scholar, and does honour to his feelings and principles, as well as to his talents and industry. If we were to fix on any quality which gives a tameness and insipidity to the composition, it would be the laudatory strain employed in describing the principal characters of the story. Every nobleman is either generous, or accomplished, or upright, or munificent. We are always presented with some favourable feature, even of those personages who are incidentally mentioned, while every thing faulty and disagreeable is studiously kept out of sight. Perhaps, however, the author is not to blame for this. It is an imperfection inseparable almost from the nature of his undertaking. To speak of living characters exactly as they deserve, is often literally impossible; and even where it might be done with safety, there is something offensive to the best feelings of our nature in being the herald of disgrace, and something near akin to arrogance in assuming the office of censor on the lives and conduct of our contemporaries. The writer of memoirs, therefore, is placed in a very perplexing dilemma. If he writes altogether for posterity, he must incur the displeasure of many of his own time; if he wishes to avoid offence, he must, in proportion as he gives way to this feeling, surrender something of the severer virtues which can alone entitle his work to immortality. We cannot in our hearts condemn Mr. Hardy for making choice of the latter part of the alternative, but he must be content to purchase this exemption from private animosity, by some loss of fame and credit as an historian.

ART. IX. Notices respecting Jamaica, in 1808, 1809, 1810. By Gilbert Mathison, Esq. 8vo. pp. 117. London. Stockdale. 1811.

HILST the press is constantly teeming with accounts of voyages and travels in almost every direction, it is remarkable that the distant provinces of our own empire appear to have been excluded, by a very general, though silent consent amongst the sons of curiosity, from their regular list of visits. It is true that about twenty thousand persons, who are annually passing to and from the West Indian islands for commercial purposes, would, if questioned on the subject, be ready to testify that the said islands continue to exist within the same boundaries of latitude and longi

tude which they have always occupied ; but these mercantile travellers are usually distinguished by qualities which form a striking contrast with the character of their literary brethren: they are proverbially incurious and taciturn; and though sometimes compelled to 'speak' some brother itinerant during their voyage, they carefully abstain from all superfluous questions, and take care to record these rare and anomalous deviations from their habitual silence in language which evinces their abhorrence of useless and wanton loquacity.

We therefore seized with avidity this little volume which a solitary observer has thought fit to afford us, and which is, as the author tells us in his advertisement, addressed to all descriptions of persons who may, in any way, be interested in the island of Jamaica, as well as others who, from curiosity, or humanity, or duty, wish to investigate the affairs of that island." We thought ourselves most specially included in this rather general description, because it is the first duty' of reviewers to examine and report upon every appeal to humanity;' besides which our 'curiosity' also was excited; because we consider the prosperity or decline of our remote colonies as affording no inaccurate criterion of the wisdom or weakness of the British government, and even as furnishing no bad test of the improvement or degradation of the British character. That country must be lost indeed in which a deficiency of health and vigour is perceptible in the vicinity of the metropolis: it is at the extremities that debility and stagnation first become apparent; and it is there that regular pulsations and increasing warmth most immediately denote the returning strength of the vital system.

Mr. Mathison is himself a planter, who, after an absence of thirteen years, was induced to revisit the island of Jamaica by his anxiety to contemplate, on the spot, the effects of the abolition of the slave trade; and we were sincerely rejoiced to find him avowing, almost at the outset of his work, his conviction of the wisdom of that measure, and his admiration of the patience, talents, and virtue with which its original advocates carried it forward to its final completion. But we had not proceeded far before we found sufficient reason, if not to question the sincerity of Mr. Mathison's professions, at least to deduct very largely from his own apparent estimate of the value of his opinions. Of these we will, in the first instance, submit to our readers a few specimens.

The improved condition of the plantation negroes is obvious to the most ordinary observer. No man who has resided many years in Jamaica can fail to see it; nor is any man hardy enough to deny that the previous discussions in Parliament, and the final abolition of the slave trade by law, have actually accomplished, to a certain extent, one of the

important objects intended by the first movers of that question.'(p. 10.)

'Certainly, under present circumstances, the humane interference of Parliament, in putting a stop to the atrocious methods of obtaining negroes on the coast of Africa, has undesignedly served, in a partial manner, to accumulate new miseries on large bodies of the same description of people, who may have been long established comfortably in our West India islands.'-(p. 16.)

One immediate effect of the abolition of the slave trade has been a most astonishing diminution of the number of slaves throughout the island. By returns to the Colonial Assembly in October last, it appears that the number of negroes charged with poll-tax in the year 1809 was 323,714; and in the year 1810, 313,683; leaving a deficit of no less than 10,031! a most frightful instance of depopulation, which will probably be handled by the assembly as a proof of the impolicy and injustice of the law for abolishing the slave trade, while by the advocates of that measure it will be considered as affording a clear demonstration of gross mismanagement on the part of the planters; and of the wisdom, as well as moral necessity, of completely subverting a system under which the propagation of the human race had been most curiously kept out of its natural and regular course.'-(p. 18.)

It would be easy, by multiplying our extracts, to show that Mr. Mathison, whilst he declares himself convinced of the wisdom and necessity of the abolition law, retains a firm belief in the validity of all the objections to the measure which were urged against it by its opponents during a very long parliamentary discussion. But the last of the passages just quoted is amply sufficient for our purpose.

The papers presented to the Privy Council and the House of Commons had shewn that the annual waste of negroes, which the slave trade annually repaired, was usually, in the island of Jamaica, about two per cent. on the whole Black population. This, at least, was the proportion on a medium of two years to 1805, at which time the whole number of negroes on the island was 280,000. But, during the short space of four years ending in 1809, no less than 43,000 negroes were imported and retained; and it appears from the document quoted by our author, that the mortality immediately increased from two to three per cent. on this unusual augented population. Such is, simply, the fact on which Mr. Mathison has grounded his inferences.

Now this increased mortality, however frightful,' was certainly not astonishing; it was the natural and necessary result of that increased activity with which the slave trade was carried on antecedently to its final termination; it was precisely the evil of which the abolition law was intended to prevent the recurrence, and of which, according to Mr. Mathison's own testimony, the mere prospect and anticipation of that law was calculated to mitigate