voyage from Pittsburgh to St. Louis have not as yet been received in Philadelphia, but are daily expected.

The sketches, executed by Mr. Peale, amounted to one hundred and twenty-two. Of these, twenty-one only were finished; the residue being merely outlines of quadrupeds, birds, insects, &c. The landscape-views, by Mr. Seymour, are one hundred and fifty in number; of these, sixty have been finished.'

In submitting to our readers a rapid'sketch of the movements and proceedings of this trans-Atlantic expedition, we have suppressed various particulars which are repeatedly stated in the journals; such as the occurrence of violent thunder-storms, the presence of rattle-snakes, and other incidents which can be readily conceived by all who are in the least conversant with the climate and productions of North America. For the distances and bearings of the stations particularized, we would refer our readers to the map prefixed to the work, on which the various routes are carefully traced; and, for a lively coup d'œil of groupes of Indians, we would request them to consult the plates, which are no doubt characteristic. The style is plain and unadorned, and more nervous than correct or harmonious; while the narrative, which never deviates into digression, but presents an unbroken series of statement and observation, may, by the general and fastidious reader, be deemed somewhat dull and monotonous. British ears, too, may not be easily reconciled to such Columbianisms as eventuated in complete success,'-Lieutenant Graham concluded to exhibit the boat with the engine in action,' 'were raised together from their infancy,'' having infracted the injunctions,'-' necessitated for food,'-'oberrating Tartars,'—'impetrating oblations,' — populated by the whites,' 'tested the confidence,' &c. It is, however, of far more consequence to remark that none of the recitals appear to be tinctured by national partialities, or by the spirit of religious or political party; and that the tenor of these unpretending volumes will justify the gratifying inference that, under a series of hardships and privations which fall to the lot of few, the officers must have discharged their respective duties with accuracy and zeal: co-operating, by their spirited exertions and uninterrupted good understanding, to the attainment of the objects of their laborious mission.

ART. VIII. Europe and America in 1821: with an Examination of the Plan laid before the Cortes of Spain for the Recognition of the Independence of South America. Translated from the French of the Abbé de Pradt, by J. D. Williams. 8vo. 2 Vols. Boards. Cowie and Co. 1822.

NATURALISTS assert of the aphis, that a single impregnation is sufficient to give birth to six or eight successive generations of aphides; who, moreover, are brought into the world all pregnant! In the economy of certain insects, what a deal of trouble does this save! Happily for the anti-populationists, we have nothing of this fecundity in the human species: but we might approach to it in literary produce if we were all like the Abbé de Pradt, who is gifted with part of the enviable fertilization of an aphis, each of his literary productions coming into existence already parturient of another progeny. On such wonderous powers we gaze with astonishment! Before we have had time to register the name, announce the subject, and describe the features of one of his works, another is brought forth almost in time to dispute the honors of primogeniture. Indeed we have a suspicion that, with all our efforts, he has published some things of which we have never been able to take cognizance.

To the general character of the Abbé's compositions, our readers can be no strangers, for we have allotted to many of them at least as large a space as they deserve*, and have given him ample credit for the merit which he possesses. Bonaparte, speaking of the "Manuscrit venu de St. Hélène," of which he was not the author, and being asked by Mr. O'Meara whether he thought that it was written by the Abbé de Pradt, said, "No, I do not think that he is the author. De Pradt may be said to be une espèce de fille de joie qui prête son corps to all the world for payment. Once, when he was giving vent to his customary bavardage and extravagant projects in my presence, I contented myself with humming a part of an air,

"Ou courez vous donc, Monsieur l'Abbé,

Vous allez vous casser le nez ;

which disconcerted him so much that he had not another word to utter." (See O'Meara's Napoleon in Exile; or, Voice from St. Helena, vol. ii. p. 208.)

See particularly vol. lxxxiv. p. 174, &c.; and vol. xc. p. 522. See also the Appendix to our last volume, published with this Number, for an account of M. de P.'s Comparative View of the Power of England and of Russia.

We,

--

We certainly meet with a prodigious degree of bavardage and extravagance in the Abbé's speculations. He speaks of the affairs of nations as if he had the eye of Omniscience itself to penetrate the interior of every cabinet in Christendom, and pronounces his judgment concerning their relative powers and policy with oracular confidence. Europe, according to him, is at this moment actually spell-bound; in a constrained attitude, but one which she must continue to preserve for this plain reason, that she cannot change it. On his magical chess-board, he has at one and the same instant given check-mate to all her kings and potentates: on whatsoever side we turn, nothing is to be perceived from which the least reform or important change can be expected; and the intimate connection of the great powers among themselves excludes all possibility of their encroachment on one another! Henceforth, from want of means to satisfy it, what is properly termed State-ambition can no longer exist in Europe; and henceforth no opportunity will present itself to the ambitious, and lovers of conquests! The three great northern powers, mutually supporting each other, says the Abbé, with fifteen hundred thousand bayonets to engage in a va-tout, have thrown over Europe a net of iron,' and opposed to it a mass as inaccessible as immovable: in these powers is concentrated the true strength of Europe, which excludes every possibility of opposition. The loss of the great sway of France, effected in 1812 and 1814, shifted the balance of power, and removed it from the western to the eastern part of the Continent: the north has risen as the south has declined; Italy and the southern states of Germany are destitute of any influence over Europe; and Spain and Portugal are equally impotent. Their sole weight in the balance of European power arises from their connection with France; but for this, it seems, they would be political non-entities; and destined, as they really are, soon to lose their colonies, both of them will shortly cease to have any effective existence in Europe. They are two states deprived of all public importance.' All states, indeed, except Russia, Austria, and Prussia, are now but secondary. Separated from their councils, says the Abbé in one of his lively sallies, where are they? What are they about? What can they or what dare they do? - To Russia in particular he is bowing the suppliant knee; burning incense before the throne of the Muscovite, and presenting to him the fragrant censer with obsequious smiles. 'Russia,' he says, forms a class by herself in European sovereignty, she is sufficient to herself, she requires no alliance, dreads none, and thus obtains the mastery of

real

Europe

b

Europe. her real strength is, at present, tempered and as if veiled by the admirable qualities of a sovereign who prefers transplanting the influence of his power to a moral region, rather than employ it in the vulgar career of ambition. Place the ancient czars, with the manners of their times, on the throne filled by their successor, the eldest son of European civilization, whose delight it is to graft her on the wild stock of Muscovite barbarity,' &c. &c.

After having given what he calls the Moral Statistics of Europe,' and sketched with spirit and truth the pious and political features of the Holy Alliance, the Abbé disserts on the constitutional spirit' which is abroad; that is, the spirit now spreading among mankind over the whole surface of the civilized globe, for the establishment of constitutional governments. He makes a geographical division of Europe into two parts, the one in which the constitutional system more or less prevails, and the other the seat of absolute power.

The constitutional line extends from Stockholm to Cadiz, through Warsaw, leaving behind it Sweden, Norway, England, Holland, France, Southern Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal. There,exist within this enclosure from seventy-eight to eighty millions of inhabitants, for I do not reckon the Turks as Europeans; Naples also lately formed a part of it.

'The line of absolute power extends from Copenhagen to the extremity of Sicily, and reaches as far as the Volga and the Black Sea; Russia in Asia does not enter into my calculation; this division may also contain eighty millions of inhabitants. If it has the advantage in the number of its inhabitants, this inequality is compensated by the quality of the inhabitants, and the habitations of the first division; France and England being, in many respects, superior to the Hungarians, the Bohemians, to the general classes of Russians, to Russia, to Prussia, and to a considerable portion of the Austrian territories; in every calculation, we must take all things into consideration.

The first reflection arising from these two great divisions is, that the whole of the west of Europe belongs to the Constitutional System, and the east to absolute powers. In such a state of things we may imagine the west freed from the despotism, which has so long oppressed it, driving it towards the east from whence it came, and forcing it back to its birth-place. Take a geographical map and you may easily follow, from the borders of France and England, the line of liberty, which decreases as you approach towards Asia.'

The zone of absolute power cannot sympathize with that of rights it dreads to come in contact with it: the powers of light and darkness are not more hostile. In the first thirteen chapters of this work, the author is employed in laying down

general

general principles, and in illustrating general propositions on the nature of civilization, despotism, and the power of the aristocracy in various countries. If these are verbose, excursive, and tautological, what epithets can be found for those which follow? We can only use the same in the superlative degree, and say that they are the most verbose, the most excursive, and the most tautological specimens of historical composition, or rather of political speculation, that we ever encountered. The Abbé enters the congresses of Troppau and Laybach exactly as if he were in the personal presence of the allied despots, with a hundred bows and scrapes, and apologies for intrusion. He is infinitely courteous to the "three gentlemen of Verona" in their individual characters: but it would be doing him the greatest injustice not to observe that the principles of interference with independent states, which they have laid down as essential to the support of absolute monarchy, when those states deem it proper to declare that they will have a representative government, meet with his unqualified reprobation. He is not, however, sufficiently guarded in his prophecies. Old Francis Moore, when he predicts in the learned pages of his Almanack what weather we are to have at Christmas and Midsummer, takes care to protect himself against failure by simply stating. that we shall have more or less snow, more or less wind, more or less rain, on or about the time specified, a little before or afterward: he never tells us that we may play with snow-balls in July or make hay in December. It appears that M. de Pradt, unfortunately, did not foresee the hostilities now carrying on against Spain, but confided in the verbal recognition of the new constitution by the northern powers, and in the personal character of the autocrats; while France was so busied with her own internal affairs, that he little thought of her being made the cat's paw in this atrocious project. Like most rapid writers, he is very animated and desultory: like Rhulières, whom he describes, he dilutes rather than depicts: his genius is lively and keen, but he is wanting in profundity, and his touch is deficient in vigor; he dilates into ten pages what a vigorous hand would compress into one.-Yet, with all his faults, he displays so much ardor and eloquence in giving encouragement and support to the principles of freedom, and in advocating the emancipation of the human race from the thraldom of priests and despots, that it would be ungenerous not to allot to his writings the praise which they deserve. What degree of truth there may be in the reproach of Napoleon contained in the anecdote before related, we cannot determine but, if it ever came to the Abbé's ears, he is of a forgiving