Their canoes and habitations are equally rude; and their cookery as rude as either.

From hence a pleasing transition is made to the Archipelago of the Caroline islands, through which the navigators pass. They are visited by the natives, who appear familiar, docile, and inoffensive, and differ in every respect from those of New Guinea. Pursuing their course they reach Guam, one of the Marianne islands, and are welcomed at Agagna by the Spanish governor. This miserable place scarcely deserves the name of a town, for nine-tenths of the habitations are covered with the mid-ribs of the cocoa. The palace of the governor was newly whitewashed, and decorated for their reception; but the guards of his excellency presented the most ludicrous burlesque on military parade which it is possible to conceive. The officers appeared with swords of the days of Charlemagne; spatterdashes, in which the legs were left at their ease; coats, trailing on the ground; and an opera hat, of which the corners descended to the shoulders. The condition of the natives is in every way deplorable. Huddled together, with their domestic animals, in their confined and wretched habitations, they are almost universally tainted with leprosy, which here assumes its most disgusting aspect. They sleep two-thirds of the day, and work the other third by constraint; so that the country bears, even in the very vicinity of the town, the cheerless garb of neglect. Nor are their moral better than their physical habits. Immersed in the grossest superstition and ignorance, they have little notion of religion, beyond its processions and ceremonies; while the character of both sexes is exceeding ly licentious. Foundations are instituted bearing the titles of a college, and secondary schools; but nothing appears to be taught, except reading and singing. The value attached to education is shown by the mode in which its labours are rewarded. The superior of the college receives six dollars a month, with a shirt, and an allowance of provisions; and the stipend of the masters, attached to the secondary schools, amounts only to two dollars monthly. Still, however, before they were de

based by Spanish rule, the natives of these islands must have attained a considerable degree of civilisation. The vestiges of their ancient monuments prove that they were not deficent either in genius or industry: their original language partakes also of a florid and poetical character.

From Agagna the voyagers make excursions to Rota and Tinian, in the flying proas of the Caroline islands, manned by Carolinians. Rota is a miserable dependency of Agagna; the town contains only eighty houses, and the population of the whole island does not exceed 500. Still it is fertile, shaded by magnificent trees, and producing delicious fruit and vegetables; but the same apathy and indolence prevail, as in the parent settlement. Here our author examined the remains of a native edifice, situated on the slope of a mountain. Its consequence is shown, by numerous fragments of pillars, three feet in girth, and its diameter appears to have extended to 800 paces. It is yet called "the House of the Ancients," though its origin is unknown.

Tinian is a place of exile, and occupied by about fifteen solitary inhabitants. It has attained celebrity through the voyage of Anson; but its appearance is far from answering the glowing description of Rousseau, in the Nouvelle Heloise. It is, however, covered with wrecks of ancient architecture, which attest its former consequence, and the perseverance and power of its original inhabitants. The impression which these remains produce, is heightened by its present solitary and dreary aspect. The surface is an uninteresting waste, broken only by a few stunted and feeble cocoa trees; the coast is uninteresting, while a scorching wind destroys vegetation, and seems to deprive the soil of the power of reproduction. Numerous swarms of flies and ants contribute also to recal to memory the plagues of Egypt.

Raynal has combated the opinion, that in the Marianne Islands, the women enjoy that superiority, which in other countries is vested in the men. Our author, however, gallantly vindicates the prerogatives of the fair sex. He asserts, that a man who marries a woman of superior fortune, is compelled to perform the

and guarded by soldiers armed with muskets.

Soon afterwards they received an invitation to visit O Riou Riou, the reigning sovereign, who had established his residence at Toyai. They repaired thither, and found him a fat, heavy, dirty man, and a prey to unsightly disease. His dwelling was a poor straw-built hut, 25 or 30 feet long, and half as many wide; and the roof covered with cocoa leaves and sea-weed. The same military indications prevailed here as at Kayerooa: guns were mounted to command the shore, and abundance of soldiers paraded in every direction. At a subsequent interview his majesty appeared in the uniform of a colonel of hussars, with a hat like those worn by the marshals of France. From Mr. Young, an Englishman, long domiciliated here, as well as from a talkative, conceited Gascon, who assumed the character of a physician, they obtained much information on the politics of the island; and from the indolent and inefficient character of the reigning sovereign, were led to anticipate an approaching convulsion and change of govern

ment.

The period of their arrival was, indeed, peculiarly critical; for it was soon after the death of Tamahaamah, who was long before known to Europe by the narrative of Vancouver, The character of this chief excites at once surprise and admiration. By native energy of mind he raised himself and his country from barbarism and ignorance-judiciously turned to advantage the example and assistance of Europeans and Americans-curbed the turbulent spirit of his chiefs established a police, and put a stop to the sanguinary rites of his subjects. He laid also the foundation of a naval power, and formed an army, which he reduced to the most rigorous discipline. His very virtues, however, were tinctured with the savage character. He was severe in his punishments; and actuated with a spirit of conquest, which was not bounded to the Sandwich islands, for he meditated the invasion of the more distant groupes of the Friendly and Society Isles, when death put a period to his career. His memory is cherished with a degree of respect amounting almost to adoration, and his name is

never mentioned without awakening the most lively emotions of grief and regret. This feeling is heightened by the contrast between his heroic character and that of his indolent and inefficient son. He purchased a brig and two fine schooners from the Americans, increased the number of his double or war canoes, built forts, and collected magazines of arms and ammunition; and, at his death, left the sum of 500,000 dollars in his treasury.

It would be unreasonable to expect, from voyagers of the present day, any important addition to that knowledge of these islands which we have derived from Cook, Vancouver, and others. The want of chastity among the women is, however, strongly marked; and, from the account of M. Arago, this failing pervades every rank of society, not excepting the wives of the chiefs, who appeared by no means disposed to repel any degree of familiarity. Their system of domestic polity is yet ill understood; but it appears, that the most severe and frequent punishments are inflicted for breaches of the taboo. Their modes of execution are, by dashing out the brains of the offender with a club, or fastening him to a tree and strangling him with a cord passed round the neck. As if to add to the poignancy of suffering, the criminal is previously subjected to a fast of forty-eight hours. Women are punished with death for eating of bananas, hogs, or cocoa nuts for tasting food dressed at a fire kindled by a man, or even for smoking a pipe which a man has lighted.

From the Sandwich isles the crew of the Uranie expected to proceed to Otaheite; and they had scarcely put to sea before they revelled in imagination in the delights of that abode of licentious pleasure, but, to their regret and disappointment, their course was directed to New South Wales. On reaching Sydney, our author was surprised to discover the arts and refinements of Europe in a country which, a few years ago, was a mere wilderness, and brought into cultivation by the hands of felons. speaks in the warmest terms of the attention which he and his fellowvoyagers experienced, but his descriptions offer no novelty to the English reader. We shall therefore

He

merely observe, that they sailed for Cape Horn; but, on approaching that point, they were shipwrecked on one of the Malouine, or Falkland, islands. Here their voyage of discovery may be said to terminate. After struggling some time with the difficulties of their situation, they were enabled to hire an American vessel, which was employed in the seal fishery at a neighbouring island. They proceeded to Monte Video, where they made a short stay-then

to Rio Janeiro-and, finally, disembarking at Havre, had again the satisfaction of breathing their native air.

We have only to add, that the narrative is illustrated with a series of plates, in the lithographic style, which appear to be spirited and accurate representations; and that the translation, in general, is well executed, though the diction of the original is occasionally deformed with a little national affectation.

FROM the last of these lines, which we have selected as our motto, some of our readers will perhaps conclude that this book is a jocular performance, or, as it has been termed of late years, a hoax. But it was put into our hands very seriously, with a desire that we should review it; and it is our intention to treat it with all due gravity. The writer tells us in his preface that he has lived in Italy many years, and (to use his own phrase) that "he is likely to continue;" that he has attached himself entirely unto the chief of the celebrated Tuscan triumvirate," and "proposes an historical, philosophical, critical elucidation of his author's sentiments and intentions, because the different works, historical or literary, to which the reader may recur, have too lengthened a way before them to allow of their delaying on the same topics more than more or less cursorily." "The variety, shortness, and independence of the articles" of his work, "would," he says, "render it as fit to be taken up and thrown down, and taken up again, as Montaigne's Essays; not that he supposes any one will be so ungenerous as to suspect him of presuming to compare himself to Montaigne, except merely as to the unconnected nature of the parts of their compositions." In a short

Commentator's Translation, p. 430. account of Dante's writings, he enumerates his "Historical Tracts, in Italian, of which very little now remains (we believe so, having never before heard of any), and omits the Vita Nuova; which is of the less importance, as all other biographers have noticed it. He then gives us some information, touching Dante himself, which is equally novel and curious; that " of the various remarkable men of his day, whether Italians, French, Germans, Spaniards, or Saracens, there was scarcely one with whom he was not personally acquainted." The writer does not tell us how he found out this; but it is sufficient that he says so. reasons for concluding that Dante was intimate with Marco Polo are so strongly put, that it would be vain to dispute them: "With Marco Polo, the earliest modern who performed a famous voyage of discovery, Dante must have been intimately acquainted, and learned from him many things about the countries beyond the Line, which are not to be found in Polo's book." Nothing indeed is easier to show, if we admit this proof (and who will question it?), that Dante must have been intimately acquainted with all the authors of his own time, and learned from them many things not to be found in their books.

His

London.