*694 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. DEC. 



given great satisfaction to Russia, and drawn a military cordon in front 

 of the Russian border, which is said not to be so agreeable in that quarter. 

 The pretence is the danger of infection from the cholera morbus" 



The point here is a play on the finesse of those sages, who call them- 

 selves ministers, and perpetuate blunders, loans, and war, through the 

 nations. It is here shewn how Prince Metternich can at once give 

 satisfaction and dissatisfaction to the same court, and how Russia can 

 be at once pleased and angry. The infection is of course a pretence, and 

 a happy example of how much may be made by a politician of a cholera 

 morbus. Here instead of slaying a population, it will create an army. 



Another, on the late outcasts : 



" The rest of the Administration have really occupied so little 

 of public attention, that their names are hardly known. The Under- 

 lings who served under the Earl of Liverpool, then under Mr. Canning, 

 next under Lord Goderich, and last under the Duke of Wellington 

 though they talk of acting in a body will join the present, or the next 

 Administration, or both, if they can. These convenient bodies must be 

 in place, if possible, and if they only take subordinate offices, the public 

 care nothing about the matter." 



The sting here is, an attempt to insinuate that there are attached to 

 administrations in this country, a set of poor devils called by the various 

 names of Under Secretaries of the Treasury, Under Secretaries of State, 

 &c. &c., whose only idea of public duty is that of scraping together 

 their salary, and whose best notion of public honour is to cringe 

 and kiss the toe of any man who will give them any thing. We disclaim 

 the cruelty of this insidious imputation altogether. 



Among the multitude of childish works that the press pours out, there 

 appear from time to time some which are worth preserving. Among 

 those are the adventures of Giovanni Finati and of Van Halen. 

 Finati was the interpreter, or Janizary, who accompanied Mr. Bankes 

 through Egypt and Syria. He is an Italian, who being seized by 

 Napoleon's universal conscription, deserted from his army in Dalmatia to 

 the Turks, and was by them, after some cruel treatment, compelled to 

 turn Mahometan. The narrative is a mere outline, and yet it is amusing ; 

 its truth is fully vouched for, and the scenes through which it leads 

 (the war of Mahomet Ali in Upper Egypt, and against the Wahabees 

 in Arabia,) are totally new to the European reader. 



Van Halen's story is not less curious from the scene in which a large 

 portion of it lies, the Caucasus, during the wars of the Russians with the 

 mountain tribes. He w r as originally distinguished in his native service, 

 the Spanish, during the peninsular war. On the return of the King he 

 was thrown into prison as a republican, from which he escaped in a most 

 romantic manner ; he then volunteered into the Russian service, and 

 was employed in its Georgian army. There, however, some unexplained 

 jealousy pursued him, and he was sent across the front: jr under a guard, 

 delivered to the Austrian court, and by it, after some delays, set at 

 liberty, but with orders to keep clear of its boundaries in future. Ho 

 returned to Spain, was forced to fly again ; went to America, came back 

 to England, settled in Belgium, where he had some relatives, headed the 

 late insurrection and beat the Dutch : was still unaccountably exposed 

 to jealousies, and after having achieved this victory was thrown into 

 prison in order to be tried for some offence to the patriotic cause. From 

 that prison he has just been liberated, and he has the world before him 

 once more. The book is spirited and interesting. 



