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as an emigrant; acquired the language, and diligently studied the institutions, of that country. He has undertaken to lay before the world the result of his observations on all that he saw about him and on the English character and manners. His rank gave him access to the best society, and his early studies of the most liberal cast brought within his reach the objects of intellectual dignity which are of most importance in the investigation of the concerns of a great nation. He has furnished an ample account of England at once instructive and amusing. It evinces impartiality, sagacity and habits of close observation, and although there are scattered through it many opinions and statements open to contradiction, or evidently erroneous, it may on the whole be recommended strongly to the public attention and considered as a particularly useful present to his countrymen. M. de Levis is the author of another work entitled Souvenirs et Portraits-Recollections and Portraits. He traces the portraits of a number of the most remarkable personages of the last twenty-five years, with whom he was personally acquainted. There is much point in his manner and shrewdness in his observation of characters. Neckar, Franklin, Gustavus III. of Sweden, Mirabeau, George III. of England, are in the list of his portraits.

Of all the books written on England by foreigners we consider this as decidedly the best,-The Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain in 1810 and 1811, by a French traveller, &c. printed in London in 1815, and simultaneously at New York. The author is known to be a Mr. Simon, a French gentleman who had resided for twenty years in or near

the city of New York, previous to his visit to England. He had here made himself master of our language, so far as to be able to write his work in English with a purity and elegance of style which would do credit to any native English scholar of the most refined and cultivated taste. It is, indeed, with the authority and judgment of one of this description, that he touches upon English literature in the course of his work. There is scarcely a topic connected with the government, political economy, science, literature, fine and mechanical arts of Great Britain, which he does not treat and in a manner which presupposes a great fund of well digested general knowledge, and a carefully improved taste.

The fine arts especially attract his attention, and he generalizes, as those of England, or the specimens which she possesses, fall under his notice, so as to give to the memoranda of his journal, the value of an abstract disquisition. He goes into all the great questions of finance, politics, domestic government, &c. which occupied the British nation when he wrote, deeply enough to instruct, and yet not so much so as to oppress the reader. We could cite his exposition of the paper currency controversy, of that concerning geology which divided the learned world of Edinburgh, as a model of what we would call itinerant dissertation. Though any kind of dissertation may, in strictness, appear misplaced, in a book of travels, or in what is here modestly called a journal, we are far from viewing in this light, those which M. Simon has introduced. The reader finds himself, as the author seems, insensibly engaged in them, and is carried easily through

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with the strong, sound, natural sense of the latter as his guide.

We are not disposed to condemn the discussion of general topics in books of travels, provided they do not occupy a space disproportionate to the descriptive and narrative parts, and be treated in a popular form. A judicious employment of this privilege blends the useful with the agreeable more efficaciously than can be done in any other department of literature. Narrative description constitutes, however, the essence of travels, and remarks or general enquiries should be but accessary and incidental. It must be confessed that this order of things has been sadly reversed in several recent instances, which, instead of travels, in the old sense, present us with a series of essays of the most elaborate and complicated texture. Dr. Clarke may be accused of this license on the score of archaelogical enquiries; Eustace as to his classical disquisitions and antiquarian history, and above all Humboldt in his personal narrative so admirably translated by Miss Williams, which is, in fact, only a learned treatise.

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with the best literary society of London and Edinburgh, frequents the theatres and fashionable rendezvous, visits the galleries of pictures, the libraries, and all the great public monuments; surveys the natural beauties of Wales, and Scotland and the English lakes: and if we find him tedious any where it is in his delineations of a scenery his fondness for which, however, furnishes a proof of excellent feeling no less than of intellectual refinement.

This Journal has been translated by the author himself and published in Paris, where, as in England, it has received the loftiest encomiums from the critics of the highest reputation, and has been sought with great avidity. A book distinguished by more moderation, impartiality, good sense, appropriate intelligence, and unpresuming independence of mind we have never read, nor one which we would more gladly' see in the hands of all Americans, because we are assured that it faithfully represents England, and that it must make upon every ingenuous mind the impression which truth and taste demand. We view it with the more satisfaction as it may be considered to belong to American literature. Twenty years of uninterrupted residence among us has made the author our own. He travelled as an American citizen, and caused his work to be printed from the manuscript at New York. We fear that it has not had a circulation at home commensurate with that which it en

The digressions or dissertations of M. Simon admit of an easy transition to the liveliest or most familiar scenes of common life. You find yourself at once seated within doors, and the domestic economy, manners, virtues and vices of the English characteristically before you in the minutest detail. The author describes external objects and movements of every kind as particularly, and graphi-joys abroad. There should be no cally as is requisite to make his time lost, by the booksellers at reader his travelling companion, least, in giving it the due chance and this primary end is promoted for success, by enabling us to pro by the excellent drawings from cure it in all our cities. his own pencil with which he has enriched his volumes. He mixes

This Journal of M. Simon is the proper antidote to the crude

pretence of keeping the wind out of her stomach."

"All the young women of England live in a state of incontinence, and neither the peasant, the squire, nor the lord, has ever the least scruple in the choice of a wife from what may have occurred previously to marriage."

speculations of Say, to the rhap- | every night of her life, under the sodical work of M. Rubichon on England, and to the still more absurd account of the same country by the French general Pillet, entitled "England seen at London and in her Provinces."L'Angleterre vue à Londres et dans ses Provinces." It is meant, we understand, to publish in this country a translation of the work of Pillet, and it is to be regretted that we can be supposed capable of bearing such a mass of extravagant falsehoods, destitute of any leven but malignity. Parkinson, Janson, and Ashe, whose wretched libels on the United States were but too well received in England, are models of truth and justice when compared with this general Pillet. What reception should we give to a book which contains such statements as the following, and is written throughout in the same strain?

"Shop-lifting in England is very much in fashion, but more particularly among ladies of rank!"

"Every one may remark, that in an English drawing-room, about tea time, the ladies are tipsy (entre deux vins) though they are seldom seen to drink more than one little glass of wine at dinner. The opportunity for those ladies is when they retire from the gentlemen. A mysterious temple is destined to the same bacchanal uses as the gentlemen's diningroom, and the only difference is the liquor drank-the gentlemen drink Port, Madeira, Claret, and Champaigne the ladies drink only the best French brandy."

"Young ladies are only admitted to this circle of sobriety after a sort of trial and a certain age namely, about forty; after which period every English woman of rank or fashion gets drunk

"The least dissolute class of women in England are, undoubtedly, waiting women in great families, who speculate on marrying the young lord, or some old rich and gouty voluptuary, if they keep a kind of character."

No Frenchman or foreigner had before so fully and accurately described England, as M. Simon, but there are several French works of a prior date concerning that country, which deserve to be cited. These are the works of Grosley, Lacoste, Ferry de St. Constant, Fievée and the valuable sketch of Pictet of Geneva. The letters of the Abbé Le Blanc on the same subject, of which the fifth edition in 3 vols. was published in 1758, are to be read over even now with great profit and satisfaction. They are replete with just views of the English national character, with sagacious remarks in morals and politics, with acute, unprejudiced criticism, of the institutions, morals and tastes, of both England and France. We should be happy to find in the French and English 'who describe each other now a days, the same liberal, courteous spirit which animated Le Blanc, together with the same patient earnestness of investigation. It would be an injustice not to mention another work on the same subject, which we hoard as a treasure. We allude to the Letters upon the English and the French, written in French

and published by a Swiss gentle- | man in the year 1727. All the great national traits on both sides are seized with unerring sagacity in this work, and described in the details with admirable exactness and naiveté. The picture furnishes a striking likeness for the present and indeed, for all times, since, as all the writings of the sort which develope the internal, fundamental character show, the genius, temper, general moral physiognomy of the two nations have always been the same.

History of Christina, queen of Sweden, by Catteau Calleville, 2 vols. octavo. Not long after the revival of letters, several princes of the North endeavoured to familiarize the Muses with the Northern regions. In Poland, Sigismond Augustus welcomed the learned at his court, and enabled them to devote themselves to useful researches. In Denmark, Frederick II. and after him, Christian IV. assisted and stimulated talents by the most flattering distinctions, and by their bounties to the university of Copenhagen. In Sweden, Gustavus Vasa, and at a later period, Gustavus Adolphus, opened colleges, drew from abroad eminent savans to diffuse knowledge, and lent material aid to the university of Upsal. But there had not been seen in the North, a court where the arts and sciences were so munificently patronized as in that of Christina;-a court which might be compared to that of Leo X. and Francis I. Although the efforts of the Northern monarchs who preceded Christina were not fruitless, those of the daughter of Gustavus produced much more striking and valuable effects, em

braced a larger sphere, and established a more intimate communion between the learning of the North and the South.

Six colleges owed their birth to Christina, and were amply endowed for the most valuable professorships. New chairs were founded by her in the universities of Upsal in Sweden, of Abo in Finland, and of Dorpat in Livonia, and able professors brought to them from Germany. She often visited Upsal to attend the lectures, and it was in her presence that the celebrated Olaus Rudbeck, made, in one of his anatomical dissections, the discovery of the lymphatic vessels. There had existed for a long time in the palace of Stockholm, the beginnings of a library, which Gustavus Adolphus considerably enlarged. Christina made this one of the richest and most important collections of Europe. She bought the books and manuscripts taken by the Swedish generals at Prague, Olmutz, and other cities. She bought, also, the libraries of Grotius, Vossius, cardinal Mazarin, and employed a number of the most erudite men of Germany to travel throughout Europe in search of rare books and manuscripts. Her library ac quired the greatest celebrity, and the most illustrious writers of the day sought her, notice by letters, panegyrics, and dedications. Among these were Pascal, Gassendi, Balzac, Octavio Ferrario of Padua, Ménage, Benserade, Scuderi, Scarron, Gronovius, &c. None had reason to complain of her generosity. Her correspondence with them indicates great intelligence and liberality of senti

ment.

Scholars of every description were admitted familiarly, and flatteringly distinguished at her court.

Freinshemius the Latinist, was her librarian, and Saumasius her =guest: the celebrated Descartes

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fixed himself at Stockholm at her request, and died there, in the enjoyment of the highest favour. In the list of those who formed her society, were Huet of Avranches, Heinsius, Scheffer, &c. She encouraged, also, artists of every description, sent the most promising youths to study at Rome, made valuable collections in the fine arts, and by her example generally, gave a new character to the taste and ambition of the Swedes. The history of her abdication, of i her travels, and her residence at Rome, is familiar to most general readers. Whatever relates to the life of this extraordinary woman, to the learning which flourished under her auspices, and to the influence of her spirit, will be found conveyed and discussed in a manner equally agreeable and instructive, in the work of Mr. Calleville. He has prefixed to her life a compendium of the history of Sweden.

Description of the Hypogea or Grottoes of the city of Thebes, by M. Jomard, one of the French Institute of Cairo, and director of its great work on Egypt, Paris, 1814.

The works which the Egyptians executed under ground, can only be compared to those which they have left above. Rooms, wells, &c. condemned to eternal shade, have been adorned with as much care as the monuments illuminated by the sun. All of them have been covered with paintings in fresco. These grottoes were family repositories for the dead, and the paintings represent the customs of civil life. Each family caused a vault to be excavated for

itself in particular; the plans and decorations are therefore exceedingly various. The Hypogea are reached by winding passages, and now serve as an asylum to the robber Arabs. They have been before inhabited by rigid Cenobites. The images of Christian worship often cover the Egyptian, and upon figures of Isis, Osiris, and Harpocrates, sculptured with the greatest delicacy, you find coarse delineations of the Virgin, of Christ, and the Apostles. The number of these burial places and their contents, evince the vast population of the country. The mummies are shaken from their cases, and prostrate; you walk with difficulty through the remains of bones and swaddling clothes, the odour of which is not, however, offensive. The wells and vaults of the Hypogea are filled with bats, incessantly flying about and uttering piercing cries. The heat is at the same time excessive. Yet the Arabs brave the noise of the bats, the stench of their excrements, the unwholesomeness of the air, the difficulty of walking through the ruins, and the danger of fire amidst these bituminous masses; the object of most of them is, to search for small images and antiquities to sell at Cairo. The Hypogea are divided into several apartments supported by square pillars, have wells and cisterns, and most of them are from 400 to 600 feet long. The paintings which cover them display the domestic and social life of the Egyptians, in all its details. The work of M. Jomard treats largely of them, of the construction of the Hypogea, of the manuscripts which they contain, of the manner and art of preserving the mummies, of their varieties, &c. -It is replete with entertain

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