2 J 4 Xotef for the Month. [ A 0<i . 



surprising ; for certainly, to be taken to be so, they must have been taken 

 to be what it was shewn that they were not. The jury, however, who 

 probably had the nice dictinction taken in Sheen's case immediately 

 before their minds, refused this interpretation of his lordship, and acquitted 

 the defendant. 



The first volume of the French General Foy's posthumous work, the 

 "History of the War in the Peninsula," from which we gave several 

 extracts in our Magazine two Numbers back, has been published in the 

 course of the last month, and will lead to some sharp recrimination ber. 

 tween the " liberals" of the two countries. The General, who courted 

 English society, and paid great attention, and seeming respect, to English 

 institutions during his life, appears, in this book, published after his death, 

 to have abused them most unsparingly. The whole work, however, it is but 

 fair to admit, bears marks of having been written with extraordinary care- 

 lessness, as well as haste ; and the author, over and over again, involves 

 himself in wild assertions, and even self-contradictious, which the most 

 moderate share of caution would have enabled him to avoid. For instance, 

 in the latter part of his work, treating of the condition of Spain, and of 

 the character of the Prince of Peace, the same page (page 396) contains 

 the two following very irreconcilable paragraphs. 



Speaking of the country, the general says : 



" Of all .the great European nations, Spain is that in which there still exists the 

 largest portion of those morals and habits of private life, which are the basis of 

 public virtue.'"' 



This is the assertion. Now we will give the general's instance of 

 the fact. He is describing the conduct of the " Prince of the Peace," 

 -who, in this most " moral" country, was already to begin the avowed 

 paramour of the queen, and the husband, at the same time, of the king's 

 niece, Maria Theresa de Bourbon. But, besides this, the author goes on 

 telling us :- 



"He lived publicly with Donna Peppa Tudo, by whom he had two children, and 

 whom he made Countess of Castellapel. He married another of his mistresses to 

 his uncle, a major in the army. Public report too, accused him of having before 

 been privately wedded, and consequently of having committed the crime of 

 bigamy, when he received the hand of a grand-daughter of Louis the XlVth. !!!" 



And yet it is in the " most moral country of Europe," that, for a long 

 term of years, this pleasant person was first minister! It is not that 

 M. Foy could ever think, or mean to say, that in a country where any 

 thing like free or moral feeling existed, such a man's power could have 

 be tolerated for a week ; but that he is habitually very careless of the effect, 

 both of the terms and of the assertions which he uses. 



A riotous sort of Masquerading festival, which was got up some days 

 since in the King's Bench prison, and checked (upon symptoms of contu- 

 macy displayed by certain of the merry-makers) by the summary process 

 of calling in "the aid of the military" on the part of the marshal, has set 

 all the people that are confined in prisons throughout London, in arms 

 about " the liberty of the subject!" Whether there was a necessity for 

 having recourse to the aid of the military on this occasion that is to say, 

 whether the application of the civil power might not have been sufficient to 

 accomplish the object desired may, perhaps, be a subject for question: 

 but, as regards the merits of the parties in the case who complain, w& 



