affection of a friend towards a disposition and character well entitled to such regard.

On that disposition and character the editor forbears to enlarge.Their best panegyric will be found in the following pages. Lord Camelford is there described such as lord Chatham judged him in the first dawn of his youth, and such as he continued to his latest hour. The same suavity of manners, and steadiness of principle, the same correctness of judgment and integrity of heart, distinguished him throughlife; and the same affectionate attachment from those who knew him best, has followed him beyond the grave.

Quæ Gratia vivo— -Eadem sequitur tellure repôstum!

Of the course of study which these letters recommend, little can be necessary to be said by their editor. He is, however, anxious that a publication, calculated to produce extensive benefit, should not in any single point mislead even the most superficial reader: nor would he, with all the deference which he owes to the authority of lord Chatham, willingly appear to concur in the recommendation or censure of any works, on which his own judgment is materially different from that, which he is now the instrument of delivering to the world.

Some early impressions had prepossessed lord Chatham's mind with a much more favourable opinion of the political writings of lord Bolingbroke, than he might himself, have retained on a more impartial reconsideration. To a reader of the present day, the "Remarks on the History of England" would pro

bably but ill appear entitled to the praises which are in these letters so liberally bestowed upon them. For himself, at least, the editor may be allowed to say, that their style is, in his judgment, declamatory, diffuse, and involved: deficient both in elegance and in precision, and little calculated to satisfy a taste formed, as lord Chatham's was, on the purest models of classic simplicity. Their matter he thinks more substantially defective: the observations which they contain display no depth of thought or extent of knowledge; their reasoning is, for the most part, trite and superficial; while on the accuracy with which the facts themselves are represented, no reliance can safely be placed. The principles and character of their author, lord Chatham himself condemns with just reprobation. And when, in addition to this general censure, he admits, that in these writings the truth of history is occasionally warped, and its application distorted for party purposes, what farther notice can be wanted of the caution with which such a book must always be regarded?

Lord Chatham appears to have recommended to his nephew, at the same time, the study of a very dif ferent work, the history of Clarendon: but he speaks with some distrust of the integrity of that valuable writer. When a statesman traces, for the instruction of posterity, the living images of the men and manners of his time; the passions by which he has himself been agitated, and the revolutions in which his own life and fortunes were involved, the picture will doubtless retain a strong impression of the mind, the character, and the opinions of its author. But there will always be a wide in3P 2

terval

terval between the bias of sincere conviction, and the dishonesty of intentional misrepresentation.

Clarendon was, unquestionably, a lover of truth, and a sincere friend to the free constitution of his country. He defended that constitution in parliament, with zeal and energy, against the encroachments of prerogative, and concurred in the establishment of new securities, necessary for its protection. He did, indeed, when these had been obtained, oppose with equal determination those continually increasing demands of parliament, which appeared to him to threaten the existence of the monarchy itself; desirous, if possible, to conciliate the maintenance of public liberty with the preservation of domestic peace, and to turn aside from his country all the evils, to which those demands immediately and manifestly tended.

The wish was honourable and virtuous, but it was already become impracticable. The purposes of ir reconcileable ambition, entertained by both the contending parties, were utterly inconsistent with the re-establishment of mutual confidence. The parliamentary leaders openly grasped at the exclusive possession of all civil and all military authority; and, on the other hand, the perfidy with which the king had violated his past engagement, still rankled in the hearts of his people, whose just suspicions of his sincerity were continually renewed by the unsteadiness of his conduct, even in the very moments of fresh concession: while, amongst a large proportion of the community, every circumstance of civil injury or oppression was inflamed and aggravated by the utmost violence of religious animosity.

In this unhappy state, the calamities of civil war could no longer be averted; but the miseries by which the contest was attended, and the military tyranny to which it so naturally led, justified all the fears of those who had from the beginning most dreaded that terrible extremity.

At the restoration, the same virtuous statesman protected the constitution against the blind or interested zeal of excessive loyalty: and, if Monk had the glory of restoring the monarchy of England, to Clarendon is ascribed the merit of reestablishing her laws and liberties, a service no less advantageous to the crown than honourable to himself; but which was numbered among the chief of those, offences for which he was afterwards abandoned, sacrificed, and persecuted, by his unfeeling, corrupt, and profligate master.

These observations respecting one of the most upright characters of our history, are here delivered with freedom, though in some degree opposed to so high an authority. The habit of forming such opinions for ourselves, instead of receiving them from other, is not the least among the advantages of such a course of reading and reflection, as loid Chatham recommends.

It will be obvious to every reader, on the slightest perusal of the following letters, that they were never intended to comprise a perfeet system of education, even for the short portion of time to which they relate. Many points in which they will be found deficient, were undoubtedly supplied by frequent opportunities of personal intercourse, and much was left to the general rules of study established at

an English university. Still less, therefore, should the temporary advice addressed to an individual, whose previous education had laboured under some disadvantage, be understood as a general dissuasive from the cultivation of Grecian literature. The sentiments of lord Chatham were in direct opposition to such an opinion. The manner in which, even in these letters, he speaks of the first of poets, and the greatest of orators; and the stress which he lays on the benefits to be derived from their immortal works, could leave no doubt of his judgment on this important point. That judgment was afterwards most unequivocally manifested, when he was called upon to consider the question with a still higher interest, not only as a friend and guardian, but also as a father.

A diligent study of the poetry, the history, the eloquence, and the philosophy of Greece, an intimate acquaintance with those writings which have been the admiration of every age, and the models of all succeeding excellence, would undoubtedly have been considered by him as an essential part of any general plan for the education of an English gentleman, born to share in the councils of his country. Such a plan must also have comprised a much higher progress than is here traced out in mathematics, in the science of reason, in natural and in moral philosophy; including in the latter the proofs and doctrines of that revelation by which it has been perfected. Nor would the work have been considered by him as finished, until on these foundations there had been built an accurate knowledge of the origin, nature, and safeguards of government and

civil liberty; of the principles of public and municipal law; and of the theory of political, commercial, financial, and military administration; as resulting from the investigations of philosophy, and as exemplified in the lessons both of ancient and of modern history.

"I call that," says Milton, "a complete and generous education, which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.”

This is the purpose to which all knowledge is subordinate; the test of all intellectual and all moral excellence. It is the end to which the lessons of lord Chatham are uniformly directed. May they contribute to promote and encourage its pursuit! Recommended, as they must be, to the heart of every reader, by their warmth of sentiment and eloquence of language; deriving additional weight from the affectionate interest by which they were dictated; and most of all enforced by the influence of his own great example, and by the authority of his venerable name.

Dropmore, Dec. 3, 1803.

Travels in China, containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, made and collected in the Course of a short Residence at the Imperial Palace Yuen-min-Yuen, and in a subsequent Journey thro' the Country, from Pekin to Canton. By John Barrow, Esquire, late private Secretary to Earl Macartney. 4to.

The gentleman to whom the public is indebted for the valuable work before us, has already creditably 3 P 3 distinguished

distinguished himself as the author of travels into the interior of Southern Africa, and will lose none of the reputation he has there acquired by the present publication. His situation as private secretary to the embassador, gave him an opportunity of acquiring much and accurate information, and it is but justice to him to add, that he seems to have been eminently endowed with all the varied talents which would enable him not only to increase his own fund of intellectual acquirement by this advantage, but to communicate his discoveries to the world, with that perspicuous and scientific arrangement, which must secure to him the applause of the scholar, the citizen of the world, and the philosopher.

Mr. Barrow professes in his first chapter, not to give the history of the embassy, which has already been amply detailed by sir George Staun ton, but to lay before his readers such an account of the morals and manners of the inhabitants, and such facts with relation to the state of the sciences, arts, and agriculture of the country, as may enable the reader justly to appreciate what rank belongs to China in the scale of the civilized nations of the world; a point of considerable difficulty, and on which the opinions of mankind have continued to fluctuate for more than two centuries. "By Some, the Chinese have been extolled as the oldest and wisest, as the most learned and ingenious of nations; whilst others have derided their antiquity, condemned their government as abominable, and arraigned their manners as inhuman; without allowing them an element of science,

or a single art for which they have not been indebted to some more ancient and civilized race of men."*

Our traveller does not, however, lose sight of the incidents which belong to the progress of the embassy. In his preliminary chapter, he details the mistaken notions which prevailed with respect to its origin, conduct, and success: contrasts it with the fate of the subsequent Dutch mission to that country: refutes the mis-statements of a French missionary, with respect to the former: accounts for the different treatment of the two embassies: and gives a chronological catalogue of the different European embassies that have been sent to China within the last two centuries.

In the course of the following chapters, Mr. Barrow takes occasion to intermingle narrative, dissertation, and anecdote, as they occur, or are suggested by the nature of the differ. ent stages of the embassy, in a singularly entertaining and happy manner. Thus, in the second chapter, which professes to give the observations and transactions in the navigation of the yellow sea, and the passage up the Pei-ho, or yellow river, the system of Chinese navigation, their compass, their foreign voyages, and present state of commerce, naturally suggest themselves to the research of our author, and are investigated in a luminous and masterly manner. Some conjectures are then hazarded as to the connection of the Malays and Hottentots with the Chinese, and the remarkable coincidencies between the latter and the natives of Sumatra. The events which take place on entering the Pei-ho; the appearance of the country, and of

the

the inhabitants, and the occurrences during the navigation into the interior of the country to the period of disembarkation, are related with much liveliness, and excite a considerable degree of interest.

In the third chapter our author carries the reader with him most agreeably through the capital to a country villa of the emperor; during which he becomes still better acquainted with the physical and moral condition of the inhabitants, whilst the approach to Pekin and the description of that city will afford him a degree of entertainment, not easily to be paralleled in works of this kind. The description of the palace and gardens of Yuen-minyuen, and the remarks on the Chinese mode of gardening, are interesting features of this work; and the account, from lord Macartney's journal, descriptive of the emperor's great park of Gehol in Tartary, "unrivalled in its features of beauty, sublimity, and amenity," induce us to wish that more extracts from so valuable a source had enriched the present volume.

Having, during his residence at the capital and its neighbourhood, acquired a competent degree of information, Mr. Barrow enters, in his fourth chapter, upon the state of society in China, the manners, customs, sentiments, and moral character of the people." As this splendid book is out of the reach of the generality of readers, from its expensive form, we shall make no apology for the length of the following extract, which nearly embraces the whole of this chapter, and which, if not the most entertaining, is certainly the most instructive in the work. In it Mr. Barrow seems to have con

densed, with equal spirit and judgment, the results of his learned and highly meritorious researches.—

"It may, perhaps, be laid down as an invariable maxim, that the condition of the female part of society in any nation will furnish a tolerable just criterion of the degree of civilization to which that nation has arrived. The manners, habits, and prevailing sentiments of women, have great influence on those of society to which they belong, and generally give a turn to its character. Thus we find that those nations, where the moral and intellectual powers of the mind, in the female sex, are held in most estimation, will be governed by such laws as are best calculated to promote the general happiness of the people; and, on the contrary, where the personal qualifications of the sex are the only objects of consideration, as is the case in all the despotic governments of the Asiatic nations, tyranny, oppression, and slavery are sure to prevail; and these personal accomplishments, so far from being of use to the owner, serve only to deprive her of liberty, and the society of her friends; to render her a degraded victim subservient to the sensual gratification, the caprice, and the jealousy of tyrant man. Among savage tribes the labour and drudgery invariably fall heaviest on the weaker sex.

"The talents of women, in our own happy island, began only in the reign of queen Elizabeth to be held in a proper degree of consideration. As women, they were admired and courted, but they scarcely could be said to participate in the society of men. In fact, the manners of our forefathers, before that reign, were too rough for them. 3 P4

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