got. Do you know who he is ?" "Not I, indeed." "Well, I will tell you it is the king." That he had means of knowing this, was no secret to me. For a considerable length of time, a regular journal of what passed at the queen's house, had been received by him he had mentioned to me the persons from whom it came. The answer was, of course, a trumpery one. The word check, applied to the power of Russia, formed the whole substance of it. The communication produced on me the sort of effect that could not but have been intended. Junius had set the writings of the day to the tune of asperity. I fell upon the best of kings with redoubled vehemence. I sent the two Anti-Machiavels to Pitt the second. The war was given up. Who Anti-Machiavel was, became soon known to this same "best of kings," for that was the title which the prolific virtues of his wife had conferred upon him. Imagine how he hated me. Millions wasted were among the results of his vengeance. In a way too long to state, he broke the faith of the Admiralty Board pledged to my brother. After keeping me in hot water more years than the siege of Troy lasted, he broke the faith of parliament to me. But for him all the paupers in the country, as well as all the prisoners in the country, would have been in my hands. A penal code drawn by me would have become law. Of the Panopticon establishment, the character to which it owed its chief value in my eye, was that of a means leading to that end.

We shall next present a specimen of Bentham's sketches of public characters:

Saturday Night, September 15th, (half after 10), 1781.-Arrived here a little before Lord Chatham, his brother, Will. Pitt, and Pratt, Lord Camden's son, Member for Bath. I find they had none of them ever been here before. Do you know Lord Chatham? In his appearance, upon the whole, he puts me in mind of Dan Parker Coke; but he has his father's Roman nose, and, if events should concur to make him have a good opinion of himself, will soon, I dare say, acquire his commanding manner: at present, one sees little more than a kind of reserve, tempered with mildness, but clouded with a little dash of bashfulness. Will. Pitt you know for certain; in his conversation there is nothing of the orator-nothing of that hauteur and suffisance one would expect; on the contrary, he seems very good-natured, and a little raw. I was monstrously frightened at him, but, when I came to talk with him, he seemed frightened at me; so that, if anything should happen to jumble us together, we may, perhaps, be good pax; which, however, is not very likely: for I don't know very well what ideas we are likely to have in common. After beating Miss V, I have just been beating him at chess; an inglorious conquest, as he is scarce so much in my hands as I am in yours. Ernest and the rest of the people have been playing at crown whist. Supper being announced, I stole up here. Ernest, it seems, is the Saxon minister-an honest, goodhumoured kind of man. I find it necessary to rise before six, and for that purpose go to bed by eleven. I lie on straw. Pratt has more distance and more suffisance than either of the others; yet there is a sort of giggishness about him too; he puts me in mind of a young Jew-broker in the

city. About an hour after dinner passes now quite happily; as I have established a habit of accompanying Lady S. on the harpsichord, and she is pleased with it. She has nothing at present here but a shabby little spinnet, that I should be ashamed to use myself; but I have set her agog after a variety of new-fashioned harpsichords, and she vows to have some of them. There being nothing here in the fiddle way that is tolerable, she has made me send for mine to town.

The following are sententious extracts from Bentham's Note Book:

Truth can operate only by supporting evidence: it cannot change sensation; it cannot change the sentiment of truth and falsehood. It is the ignorance of the powers of nature, of the extent of them, and of their limits, that is the cause of the credulity of the common people. Miracles and the secrets of nature to these behove to stand upon the same footing. To remove mountains by a word, may seem as easy as to draw fire from the clouds, that is, according to vulgar speech, from heaven,-or to make iron swim.

Offering rewards for faith, and punishments for the want of it, is, therefore, like offering rewards for, and punishing the want of, prejudice and partiality in a judge. To say, believe this proposition rather than its contrary, is to say, do all that is in your power to believe it.

Now, all that is in a man's power to do, in order to believe a proposition, and all that all that is so, is to keep back and stifle the evidences that are opposed to it. For, when all the evidences are equally present to his observation and equally attended to, to believe or disbelieve is no longer in his power. It is the necessary result of the preponderance of the evidence on one side over that on the other.

If it be true, according to the homely proverb, "that the eye of the master makes the ox fat," it is no less so that the eye of the public makes the statesman virtuous. The multitude of the audience multiplies for disintegrity the chances of detection.

The common-place morality which deals in assertions without proof, and rises in wrath when it should rise in argument, fights with poisoned weapons, and pleads the cause of truth with the tongue of falsehood.

We conclude our notice of, and extracts from, this valuable biography, with a few of Dr. Bowring's recollections of passages in the philosopher's conversation. The Bryant mentioned was the author of "Analysis of Ancient Mythology," &c.; and Richard Anthony Salisbury, of the "Icones Stirpium Rariorum."

"I remember Dr. Lawrence- —a man of harsh physiognomy: there was a roughness in his tout ensemble. We met at Phil. Metcalf's. There was a silk gownsman who had never any business, but who went by the name of Omniscient Jackson. I gave the title to Macculloch (Dr.), who was all omniscience, and preterea nihil.- Bryant was an acquaintance of mine. If he found in Judea a man whose name began with Col, he would swear he was the builder of Colchester.'' I remember hearing a trait of young

Beckford's profusion. When about to sleep at an inn, he ordered it to be papered for him, at an expense of 107., like Wolsey, who travelled with a set of gold hangings.'—' Dr. W. Hunter was the Garrick of lecturers.'— 'Dr. Swediaur brought Bentham and Baron Regenfeld together.' 'Regenfeld was the eternal secretary of the Austrian legation. He spoke English so well that he might be mistaken for an Englishman, and he got an illegitimate son of his into the English navy.' Through Regenfeld I got acquainted with the Tokay, which grew on his estate. He said he had still a finer wine, which he called the Essence of Tokay, and which could not come hither, the place of its production being so far inland. In my eagerness for exterior information, how glad I was to lay hold of Regenfeld,—and indeed of any body coming from that large place called abroad.' — Bishop Barnard was an unbeliever. I met him at Owen Cambridge's, who had a house of which he was very proud, near Pope's at Twickenham. The bishop was much among the aristocracy,-a man of the world, and a clever man. At the same party was Baron Nagel, from whom I learnt the word Bywerk, (bywork,) a word we want for a picture. I made a little quizzacious attack upon the bishop, which he took very well,-no offence in the slightest degree.'-' Salisbury is now compelled to write for the papers. He ruined himself by gossiping,-holding people by the button, and wasting his time.'-' Wickham was afterwards Under Secretary of State, and honourable. He and Charles Abbott had a project to make me fall in love with his sister. I went there once; and after dinner an appearance of business left me alone with his wife and daughter. The net was spread, but the fish was not caught.'-' Arthur Young owned a landed estate of the value of from 300l. to 400l. a year. He is preserved from oblivion by various works, the usefulness of which has not been obliterated by the hand of time. He held a situation of no inconsiderable altitude in the good opinion of George the Third. He was the editor of the "Annals of Agriculture," and among his correspondents, if what I have heard say be true, was the monarch, who borrowed for that purpose, the name of Robinson. In the number for January 1, 1787, there is a letter on 'Duckett's Husbandry,' entitled by Mr. Ralph Robinson of Windsor,' (p. 65-71;) there is another dated March 4, 1787, (p. 332-6.)"

ART. XI.-1. Trevor Hastinges. Saunders and Otley,

2. The Two Admirals. Bentley.

3: The Herberts. Saunders and Otley.

4. The Expectant. Newby.

EACH novel in three volumes; nor would we be overstepping the truth were it added that as many more might be named for the month. These however, have more than average merit; at least they excel several of their contemporaries. "Trevor Hastinges: or, the Battle of Tewkesbury," a tale of the "Wars of the Roses," is a historical novel, and by Major Michel, the author of " Henry VOL. II. (1842.) NO. I.

G

of Monmouth," which was so well received as must have encouraged the same pen to proceed in this walk of fiction. Indeed, as we understand the Major, he not only contemplates a continuation of works of a similar sort, but considers himself bound to produce something better and more lasting than the amusement merely which transitorily arises from an exciting romance. He "is desirous, throughout any work that may issue from his pen, truly to delineate all historical facts connected with the times of which he may treat; that those who read his pages may rise from their perusal with a more ample and faithful knowledge of such events as he may have endeavoured to describe, than they had previously possessed. The author abjures the beaten track, which delineating historical characters under false colours, betrays the reader into an ignorance more gross, than ever an absolute want of knowledge could produce." Now, this laudable purpose has been accomplished with greater success than we could have anticipated, especially had the writer been entirely new to us, seeing the professed abjuration of "the beaten track;" a thing so much more easy to promise than perform satisfactorily, that the avowal might be apt to create distrust. The Major, we however think, wields his pen more happily when he draws characters, than when he pictures scenes or describes events. Perhaps we should rather express ourselves in this way: his dramatis persona are not only finished in respect of individual portraiture, but are well chosen, and distinctly contrasted; while his scenes, although often picturesque are given with too much detail,-his incidents too similar to admit of each being so minutely stated as he has given them. We also think that had his dialogues been compressed, had the effective points been mainly attended to, that more life would have been thrown into the story; in a word, that he would have more fully accomplished his laudable purposes than has been done. The only other general objection we have to offer to " Trevor Hastinges" is, that the Major has stumbled upon certain characters introduced by Scott in his "Quentin Durward;" viz., the subtle Louis, and his still more subtle minister Oliver Dain. Not that these are feebly or unfaithfully dealt with, but for obvious reasons. When our author presents to us the queen of Henry VI., the proud and austere Margaret, with the king-making Warwick, and with sundry other historical personages, it is seen how well he can walk alone, how easy it is for him to avoid a trodden path. His fictitious characters are happy creations, and illustrative of the manners as well as the costume of a period when the deadliest contests for a crown distracted Old England. In a word, "Trevor Hastinges" may be recommended as a novel of skilful construction, even as a historical romance of stirring interest and instructive effect.

"The Two Admirals, a Tale of the Sea, by J. Fenimore Cooper,"

may not rank with his early marine stories; but it is one which is creditable even to the author of the "Water Witch" and the "Pilot." The Tale carries us back to the middle of the last century, when the British fleet is commanded by Admirals Oakes and Bluewater, who, although sterling mutual friends, do not cherish precisely the same sympathies with regard to the Hanoverian succession. This diversity of feeling threatens to lead to serious consequences at the moment when Charles Edward lands in Scotland, Bluewater's Jacobinism tempting him to keep aloof from taking part in an action with the French, until friendship and remembered services in many a peril and victory where both had earned laurels, determined the reluctant hero to speed to his brother's aid, just as Admiral Oakes is about to lose the day. We have only to observe, before quoting the scene to which allusion has been particularly made, that whatever rivals Mr. Cooper may have on this side of the Atlantic in stories of love, -and we think many are superior to him, he certainly has no competitor the moment he takes to the sea. Now for our extract:

The reader will not overlook the material circumstance, that all we have related occurred amid the din of battle. Guns were exploding at each instant, the cloud of smoke was both thickening and extending, fire was flashing in the semi-obscurity of its volumes, shot were rending the wood and cutting the rigging, and the piercing shrieks of agony, only so much the more appalling by being extorted from the stern and resolute, blended their thrilling accompaniments. Men seemed to be converted into demons, and yet there was a lofty and stubborn resolution to conquer mingled with all, that ennobled the strife and rendered it heroic. The broadsides that were delivered in succession down the line, as ship after ship of the rear division reached her station, however, proclaimed that Monsieur des Prez had imitated Sir Gervaise's mode of closing, the only one by means of which the leading vessel could escape destruction, and that the English were completely doubled on. At this moment, the sail-trimmers of the Plantagenet handled their braces. The first pull was the last. No sooner were the ropes started, than the fore-top-mast went over the bows, dragging after it the main with all its hamper, the mizen snapping like a pipestem at the cap. By this cruel accident, the result of many injuries to shrouds, back-stays, and spars, the situation of the Plantagenet became worse than ever; for, not only was the wreck to be partially cleared, at least, to fight many of the larboard guns, but the command of the ship was, in a great measure, lost, in the centre of one of the most infernal mélées that ever accompanied a combat at sea. At no time does the trained seaman ever appear so great as when he meets sudden misfortunes with the steadiness and quiet which it is a material part of the morale of discipline to inculcate. Greenly was full of ardour for the assault, and was thinking of the best mode of running foul of his adversary, when this calamity occurred; but the masts were hardly down when he changed all his thoughts to a new current, and called out to the sail-trimmers to "lay over, and clear the wreck." Sfr Gervaise, too, met with a sudden and