in London,-no Palais-royal, as at Paris,-no rue du Pe, as at Turin,-where in wet weather the loungers can saunter under arched porticoes.

An antiquarian history of London is given in Chapter VI. The derivation of the name has hitherto been sought in Cimbric language, under the mistaken idea that Britons speaking Welsh once inhabited the eastern coast: but of this we have neither historic evidence nor natural probability. The Romans had already appointed a comes litteris Saxonici, (see the Notitia in Gale's Scriptores, 1591,) long before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa; and in this Saxon coast they included the entire eastern promontory, from Kent to Norfolk. Consequently, the Saxon language was domesticated along the Oriental shore during the Roman domination. We ought, therefore, to derive the name of London, which first occurs in Tacitus, from Saxon words, such as long town, and not, with Camden, from Welsh words.

Chapter VII. treats of the principal churches; and St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, St.Stephen's, Walbrook, and St. Martin's, are severally praised. In the eighth chapter, the hospitals, and in the ninth the courts of justice, are introduced. Westminster Hall and Newgate are noticed as fine monuments of architecture. The rest of our public buildings, with the exception of two bridges, are treated with excessive contempt. No doubt, a want of simplicity, a want of magnitude, and a want of wholeness, are betrayed in many of our public buildings: but taste in architecture is not easily reduced to fixed prin ciples. We might wish to see churches and courts of justice in the Gothic style; an India-house with Hindoo decorations of architecture; academies and theatres in the Greek taste; and the dwellings of the nobility in the newest European fashion. In a commercial town which has intercourse with the antipodes, the Chinese merchant should build on a model from Canton, and the Greek merchant on a model from Smyrna. Every manner may be good, because it is adapted to its purpose, which implies no breach of costume; it is the motly, the incongruous, the mixture of distinct ages and nations, which is chiefly reprehensible. Any pure manner, ap plied appropriately, may be defended by the critic.

The attack on the British Museum at p.198 is, we fear, in some respects justifiable. Why not devote separate establishments to a national library, to a cabinet of natural history, and to a museum of antiquities? No one of these collections is good of its kind, nor well conducted, because it is jumbled together in such heterogeneous partnership. Many foolish objects of curiosity are shewn at the British Museum, which a

a private

a private collector would throw into a rubbish-cart, but which, because they belong to the public, must continue to make us ridiculous.

In the tenth chapter, M. DE LEVIS gives a better idea of the practical nature of the British constitution than most foreign writers have afforded. The author is clearly conversant with our political condition from actual and skilful observation.. The eleventh chapter treats of the royal prerogative; the twelfth, of the house of peers; and the thirteenth and fourteenth, of the house of commons. The fifteenth examines the effects of the constitution on interior prosperity; and the sixteenth discusses its effects on the administration of justice. All these political chapters display a knowlege of the subject that has hitherto been very rare among continental writers; and though superfluous to us, they deserve to be welcomed in France, where liberty is yet in its infancy, and the art of educating it deserves the attention of its parents.

This book is yet incomplete, and is to be extended to four volumes, in which the writer intends to exhaust the topic of Britain. Though it is not written with vivacity, it is drawn up with judgment. The author has been a great traveller; and calls in the aid of remote comparison to illustrate his descriptions. He can compare the miserable wharfs on the Thames with the magnificent quays of the Neva, or the Garonne; he can contrast the landscapes of Swisserland and Italy, with the lakes in Cumberland or with Richmond-hill; and he can measure our Monument against the Trajan column, or that of the Place Vendôme: but, alas! his verdict is not flattering to our vanity. Among our works of art, he seems bewildered by multiplicity of insignificance; and his applause is reserved for the police of our hospitals, and the polity of

our constitution.

It is of no small importance to the reputation of nations, that a minister of the interior should be a man of taste: - that, if buildings are to be erected at the public expence, he should know how to choose between plans which will do honour to a country with posterity, and plans which excite the sneer of every travelled stranger on the public taste. A rage for accommodating some political friends with jobs has occasioned, in this nation, repeated sacrifices of the artist of talent to the artist of influence. From the London docks, which Revely had conceived so magnificently, to the recent naumachia and fire-works in the Park, the question is not whose plan is the noblest, but by whom is this plan supported? We are contented with the nursling of Patronage, whether or not it be Merit, the child of Genius. "Pudet hac opprobria nobis," &c.

ART. IV. Voyage aux Antilles, &c. ; i.e. A Voyage to the Antilles, or Windward Islands, and South America, begun in 1767, and finished in 1802; containing Historical Notices of the Revolts, Wars, and memorable Exploits witnessed by the Author; new Details of the Manners of the different Nations which he visited ; an Account of the Diseases occurring in each Climate; statistical Notices; Observations on the Influence of Climate on Men, Plants, and Animals; Geological Researches on the Primitive State of the Globe, and the Changes which it continues to undergo; and Remarks on the Effects of the general Current of the Ocean, Tides, Winds, Monsoons, &c. By J. B. LE BLond, Physician and Natural Historian, Correspondent of the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Imperial Institute, &c. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 474. Paris. 1813. Imported by De Boffe. Price 12s.

IN

N reading this long title, the attention is naturally caught by the extraordinary time which was occupied in M.LE BLOND'S peregrinations. He went abroad, in the true spirit of adventure, at an early age; and, having passed thirty-five years under a vertical sun, he has had the singular good fortune to preserve a stock of health sufficient to enable him to communicate, in his declining years, a full account of his multifarious remarks. The present being only the first volume, much of the promise made in the title-page yet remains to be fulfilled: but enough is now exhibited to satisfy the public of the probability that the succeeding volumes will not be devoid of attraction. M. LE BLOND, however, has not studied the art of composition, and relates the substance of his observations without much attention to method: but he is an interesting writer, both for the variety and the general accuracy of his statements. He confines himself, in the present portion of his details, to the Antilles, or Windward Islands, and leaves the continent of Spanish America for his next volume. He begins by describing the sensations produced on perusing the labours of a celebrated Naturalist, and the hopes which they inspired in a young and enterprizing mind:

The works of Buffon,' he says, had impressed me with a strong desire to study that part of geology which exhibits the natural history of the world in its primitive state, and its subsequent changes; and I had hopes of succeeding in discovering the origin of the primary and secondary mountains, as well as of the vallies and plains in which the regularity of the strata shewed that they were formerly a part of the expanse of the ocean. Hence my attention was directed to the physical causes of the winds, the tides, and the chief phænomena resulting from their operation. The decomposi tion and consumption of the salt and the waters of the ocean by the first and second kingdoms of nature were the continual object of my meditations; and I was thence led to examine the influence of APP. REV. VOL. LXXIV.

I i

diffe

different degrees of temperature on plants, animals, and the human complexion.'

Animated by these projects, he set sail from Bourdeaux in 1766, and arrived at Martinique soon after the dreadful hurricane of that year. Here he had the good fortune to fall under the care of a planter who inhabited a healthy spot in the country, and enabled the youthful traveller to become seasoned to the climate with less than ordinary danger. M. La B. relates that, on surveying the garden and other grounds around his friend's house, he gazed with delight on the variety of beautiful plants and fruits which were scattered before his eyes, and could not help imagining that he had reached one of the most favoured regions in the universe. He was particularly struck with the discovery that this rich scenery underwent little alteration at any time of the year. On breaking forth, however, into effusions of transport at this magnificent sight, his experienced friend corrected his ideas by an explanation nearly in the following terms:

That non-interruption of our vegetation which delights you forms, in fact, a great deduction from the value of our gardens. lf your fine parterres in Europe were to preserve their flowers throughout all the year, and if the severity of your winter were not to withdraw their beauty during several months, the charm of novelty would be lost, and your passion for these pretty play-things would be succeeded by complete indifference. In this country, I candidly confess, we have no taste for such gratification; our plantations furnishing our only object, and our sole view being to produce as large a crop, and to make as much money, as we can. See these coffee-trees in flower, and observe the scent with which they perfume the air; examine that dazzling whiteness, so admirably contrasted with the dark green of their foliage, and say whether any thing in Europe be equal to this charming prospect? Still so little importance do we attach to all this, that sugar-canes take, in our estimate, the lead of these beautiful coffee-trees; and the ambition of the planter is to exchange the culture of the latter for that of the former. Now let us speak of more serious evils; you see before you the marks of hurricanes, the devastations of which are such as must put all prudent men on their guard; because, on the occurrence of such a calamity, the articles which we have to purchase rise in general to a very exorbitant price. Our rule consequently is to mind only that which is urgent, and to overlook matters of mere taste or elegant enjoyment. As we cannot possess the variety of amusements afforded by a town-life in Europe, we acquire an habitual indifference, in consequence of our uniform way of passing our time on a plantation. Even here, however, people insist on having pleasure of some kind; and the consequence is a shameful libertinism, or the habit of gambling, which leads both to extravagant expence and to the neglect of steady industry. Add to this the occasional losses of our slaves, and the reduction of the value of colonial produce, which is

frequent

frequent in a state of war; together with the unfortunate coincidence of an enhancement of the provisions which we are obliged to buy. The Creoles who succeed to property are in general improvident, and fall into embarrassed circumstances; while planters of European birth are too apt, after having acquired opulence by long exertion, to make a pompous display in England, and to commit their plantations to hired managers, whose misconduct frequently obliges the proprietor to come out again to the colony at an advanced period of life. From all these considerations, you will perceive that West India property is very precarious, and that you would form a very wrong opinion of it were you to judge from appearances."

Though not regularly educated as a physician, M. LE BLOND was soon induced to assume that character by the persuasion of his friend, who assured him that he would acquit himself better than most of the profession in the French colonies. The adoption of this advice flattered likewise the inquisitive tendency of the traveller, as it gave him an ostensible character under which he might visit a variety of places, and obtain access to the intimacy of the persons most likely to supply him with useful information. As his years and experience increased, the profession also afforded him the means of decent support, and enabled him to make the tour of most of the West India islands. We shall see presently the success with which he practised medicine at St. Lucia and Grenada : but the following narrative, connected with his early residence in Martinique, must not be passed over, since it places in a striking point of view the fatigue which he was ready to encounter in pursuit of knowlege :

I was accustomed to see a Creole come from time to time to the house in which I lived, whose appearance indicated great poverty, as he walked bare-footed, and had his body covered with only a miserable shirt. His subsistence was earned by selling large frogs, which were in regular demand in the market of St. Pierre, and which he caught in the neighbouring woods by torch-light. To hunt for frogs in woods that had neither lakes nor rivers was a strange mode of life; especially in the case of a person whose friends were respectable, and had made several attempts to put him in a better situation. However, although he had lost half of one foot in the pursuit of these reptiles by the bite of a snake, he could not settle himself in any other line, being addicted to drinking, and incapable of submitting to the least restraint. His plan was to provide himself with several torches of a very light kind of wood; and, between two and three o'clock in the morning, after the rain or fog had disappeared, to make his way into the forests, which were then in a moist state, in quest of the frogs that were scattered up and down. The appearance of the light made them leap or run towards it, on which the Creole seized the opportunity of striking them on the head with the flat side of his sabre, and threw them immediately into his sack. This sport is not a matter of great difficulty, but it is Ii 2 very