J827.J 



Domestic and Foreign. 



419 



It is considered, adds the report, a rare 

 occurrence for a person to survive the 

 second infliction of this species of cruelty. 

 In this instance, however, the sufferer did 

 not perish. His property was confiscated ; 

 but that has been since restored, in con- 

 sequence of representations which have 

 been made from this country to the proper 

 authorities. 



Many parts of the Continent are now 

 alive to the enormous evils of unregulated 

 prisons ; and to the Prison-discipline So- 

 ciety of England or rather to the exer- 

 tions of two or three individuals excel- 

 lent, active, indefatigable neither known, 

 nor seeking to be known but to the few 

 around them, is to be attributed all the im- 

 provements that have already taken place, 

 and that will ultimately do so. May they 

 meet with their reward they do meet 

 with it in the admiration and affection of 

 those who know their worth, and who, 

 while they may not be able to imitate, can 

 feel and appreciate their excellence. 



State of Portugal. By an Eye Wit- 

 ness. Land. 1827. 1 vol. 8vo. A work 

 better calculated to answer the end it 

 proposes we have not often met with than 

 this " Historical View of the Revolutions 

 of Portugal since the Close of the Penin- 

 sular War," &c., as the title more at length 

 expresses it. It is by an English officer, 

 who witnessed the scenes he describes, 

 and is qualified by seventeen or eighteen 

 years personal experience in the country 

 to offer his own views of affairs. 



A clear and succinct statement of the train 

 of events which have led to the present state 

 of things in Portugal, with the honest opi- 

 nions of an unprejudiced observer, could 

 not fail of being both interesting and in- 

 structive ; and though we cannot enter so 

 warmly into the cause of the late imbecile 

 king as the author of the work before us 

 does, nor go so far as he does in our objec- 

 tions to the Constitution of 1820, yet we 

 coincide with him, as far as we are com- 

 petent to judge, in many things that he 

 recommends, and in many that he objects 

 to, for the future management of that 

 country. With narrative will be found 

 interspersed many characteristic anec- 

 dotes, and sketches of character; the con- 

 cluding chapters of the work contain con- 

 siderations on the future prospect- of Por- 

 tugal, and an examination of the Portu- 

 guese Charter of 1826, with a comparison 

 between it and the constitution of 1822, 

 and they appear to us pregnant with sound 

 philosophic views and reasonings on those 

 subjects. The Appendix contains a tran- 

 slation of the former very interesting do- 

 cument, the present charter of Don Pedro. 

 The following remarks from page 198 can- 

 not be too widely circulated, touching on 

 a point which the most ardent friends 

 of Lusitanian liberty here have been more 



or less puzzled in discussing, from igno- 

 rance of the real state of things and par- 

 ties there : 



1 have been induced to make these remarks, be- 

 cause I know that in England a very erroneous 

 view is takrn of the whole subject; it is here sup- 

 posed that a great majority of the Portuguese na- 

 tion is decidedly hostile to the present charter, or 

 to any moderate form of government, that checks, 

 without rendering nugatory, the royal preroga- 

 tives. The fact is, certainly, that the number of 

 those who would from choice adopt a reasonable 

 and sensible constitution, like that given by Don 

 Pedro, is not so great as the numbers of the two 

 other parties combined, into which the country is 

 generally divided. Of these factions, one, which 

 has diminished to a small body, still cleaves to the 

 old despotic form of government, and would prefer 

 a king perfectly absolute, with an ascendant priest- 

 hood, and all the dark bigotry of former ages; the 

 other deserves only a return of anarchy, and of all 

 the licentiousness which, under the prostituted 

 name of liberty, was practised during the reign of 

 the Cortes of 1820. But these two parties, vio- 

 lently as they are opposed to each other, would 

 sooner meet on neutral ground [that of the charter 

 we presume to be understood] than that either 

 should behold the other triumphant; and the old 

 constitutionalists, seeing the impracticability of 

 restoring- their favourite system of jacobinism, and 

 feeling that any thing short of despotism is desir- 

 able, are tolerably ready to coalesce with the few 

 sensible men who see the superiority of the present 

 charter. 



Stray .Leaves, including Translations 

 from the Lyric Poets of Germany ; 1827. 

 While the British public is familiar with 

 the theatre, the novels and the epics of 

 Germany, the lighter productions of her 

 muse are almost unknown to them ; some 

 acknowledgments are therefore due to a 

 writer who opens a new path in the field 

 of literature j and although we scarcely 

 think the pieces which appear in this small 

 volume the most favourable specimens of 

 the minor German poets, we receive them 

 with pleasure as the harbingers of a more 

 choice and ample selection. Interspersed 

 with the translations are some original 

 pieces a few, in the Scotch dialect, with- 

 out the brilliant imagination of Burns, 

 breathe his soothing, tender melancholy ; 

 but we have room only for the following, - 

 from Herder, by which an estimate may be 

 formed of the merit of the work : 



POSTHUMOUS FAME. 

 No charm for me hath such a fame 



As braying trumpets swell ; 

 Whose every echo seems to shame 



The silence of the vale : 

 The fame that like a tempest flies 

 Even like that tempest quickly dies. 



But well I love the modest meed 



That seeks not for regard ; 

 The thanks that from the heart proceed 



The muse's best reward ; 

 The tear that starts into the eve, 

 Tells me that a brother's nigh! 

 3 H 2 



