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very high duties. This is really perfectly absurd; that a man of science cannot bring a pickled armadilla, for a collection of natural history, without paying a tax for it. This surely must have happened in the dark days of Nicolas. We cannot doubt but that such paltry exactions have been swept away by the manly and liberal policy of Robinson and Huskisson. That a great people should compel an individual to make them a payment before he can be permitted to land a stuffed snake upon their shores, is, of all the paltry Customhouse robberies we ever heard of, the most mean and contemptible-but Major rerum ordo nascitur.

The fourth journey of Mr. Waterton is to the United States. It is pleasantly written; but our author does not appear as much at home among men as among beasts. Shooting, stuffing, and pursuing are his occupations. He is lost in places where there are no bushes, snakes, nor Indians—but he is full of good and amiable feeling wherever he goes. We cannot avoid introducing the following passage:

'The steam-boat from Quebec to Montreal had above five hundred Irish emigrants on board. They were going "they hardly knew whither," far away from dear Ireland. It made one's heart ache to see them all huddled together, without any expectation of ever revisiting their native soil. We feared that the sorrow of leaving home for ever, the miserable accommodations on board the ship which had brought them away, and the tossing of the angry ocean, in a long and dreary voyage, would have rendered them callous to good behaviour. But it was quite otherwise. They conducted themselves with great propriety. Every American on board seemed to feel for them. And then, "they were so full of wretchedness. Need and oppression stared within their eyes. Upon their backs hung ragged misery. The world was not their friend." Ireland," exclaimed an aged female, as I was talking to her, "I shall never see it any more!"-(pp. 259, 260.)

"Poor dear

And thus it is in every region of the earth! There is no country where an Englishman can set his foot, that he does not meet these miserable victims of English cruelty and oppression-banished from their

country by the stupidity, bigotry, and meanness of the English people, who trample on their liberty and conscience, because each man is afraid, in another reign, of being out of favour, and losing his share in the spoil.

We are always glad to see America praised (slavery excepted). And yet there is still, we fear, a party in this country, who are glad to pay their court to the timid and the feeble, by sneering at this great spectacle of human happiness. We never think of it without considering it as a great lesson to the people of England, to look into their own affairs, to watch and suspect their rulers, and not to be defrauded of happiness and money by pompous names, and false pre

tences.

By

Our western brother is in possession of a country replete with every thing that can contribute to the happiness and comfort of mankind. His code of laws, purified by experience and common sense, has fully answered the expectations of the public. acting up to the true spirit of this code, he has reaped immense advantages from it. His advancement, as a nation, has been rapid beyond all calculation; and, young as he is, it may be remarked, without any impropriety, that he is now actually reading a salutary lesson to the rest of the civilised world.’· (p. 273.)

Now, what shall we say, after all, of Mr. Waterton? That he has spent a great part of his life in wandering in the wild scenes he describes, and that he describes them with entertaining zeal and real feeling. His stories draw largely sometimes on our faith; but a man who lives in the woods of Cayenne must do many odd things, and see many odd things-things utterly unknown to the dwellers in Hackney and Highgate. We do not want to rein up Mr. Waterton too tightlybecause we are convinced he goes best with his head free. But a little less of apostrophe, and some faint suspicion of his own powers of humour, would improve this gentleman's style. As it is, he has a considerable talent at describing. He abounds with good feeling;

and has written a very entertaining book, which hurries the reader out of his European parlour, into the heart of tropical forests, and gives, over the rules and the cultivation of the civilised parts of the earth, a momentary superiority to the freedom of the savage, and the wild beauties of Nature. We honestly recommend the book to our readers: it is well worth the perusal.

GRANBY. (E. REVIEW, 1826.)

Granby. A Novel in Three Volumes. London, Colburn, 1826.

THERE is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present day, than to see the Sir John's and Sir Thomas's of the House of Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise novelties of Mr. Huskisson and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Treason, Disaffection, Atheism, Republicanism, and Socinianism-the great guns in the Noodle's park of artillery they cannot bring to bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment of ancestors is not quite so efficacious as it used to be; and all that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and Political Economy! In the mean time, day after day, down goes one piece of nonsense or another. The most approved trash, and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. Twopenny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive omnipotence; and the exhausted common-placemen, and the afflicted fool, moan over the ashes of Imbecility, and strew flowers on the urn of Ignorance! General Elliot found the London tailors in a state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cavalry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfactory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request their attention to the Novel of Granby written, as we have heard, by a young gentleman of the name of Lister*, and from which we have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment.

*This is the gentleman who now keeps the keys of Life and Death, the Janitor of the world.

The main question as to a novel is-did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not-story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seeins to us to answer this test extremely well; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentive, -even if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman, lately from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when they are well done, is, that it is impossible to do any thing, or perform any human duty, while we are engaged in them. in them. Who can read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impossible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr. Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan ? How can the boy's lesson be heard, about the Jovenourished Achilles, or his six miserable verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn? Common life palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when the book is open-all dull, flat, and feeble when it is shut.

Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gentleman is not rich, having discovered, by long living in the world and patient observation of its ways, that young people are commonly Malthus-proof and have children, and that young and old must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. The young people, however, both go to town-meet at balls-flutter, blush, look and cannot speak - speak and cannot look, suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond and foolish; but the passion, after all,

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