Monthly Review of Literature, 



[DEC. 



northward he reached the Radack Is- 

 lands, a group, in about ten degrees 

 north and one hundred and seventy east 

 from Greenwich, which he himself, we 

 believe, discovered in 1816. Landing 

 at Otdia, he was joyfully recognised by 

 many of the natives, and the name of 

 Totabu (their articulation of Kotzebue) 

 was echoed with delight. The natives 

 of these beautiful islands are represented 

 as gentle and well disposed very much, 

 indeed, as the O Tahaitians were origi- 

 nally. They have not yet got the mis- 

 sionaries among them. 



On the captain's arrival at the Russian 

 company's settlement, at Ross, on the 

 north-west coast of America, he found 

 his services not required for some 

 months, and he filled up the interval by 

 an excursion to California and the Sand- 

 wich islands. In a few months after his 

 return to Ross, he was very agreeably 

 relieved from a most unpleasant station 

 the description of which is, we believe, 

 quite in tact, but we have no space for 



Quotation and he prepared to return 

 ome by the sea of China, and the Cape 

 of Good Hope. In his way, he a se- 

 cond time called at O Wahi (Owhyee). 

 The bodies of Rio Rio, and the Queen, 

 had since his first visit arrived. He 

 found a considerable change. Queen 

 Nomahanna who stands six feet two, 

 without shoes or stockings, (for none 

 from Europe can she get on, and none, 

 of course, are made at^ home,) and two 

 ells round, is governed by the American 

 missionaries, and the island, like O Ta- 

 haita, is rapidly going backwards. The 

 chief charm of the Christian religion 

 seemed to the women to be that they 

 might now eat pork as much as they 

 liked, and not be confined solely to dogs' 

 flesh. He met an old man with a book 

 the captain inquired if he was learning 

 to read No, he was only making be- 

 lieve, to please the Queen. What is 

 the use of B, A, Ba? Will it make 

 yams and potatoes grow ? Another old 

 man was imploring the Queen's assist- 

 ance ".If you won't learn to read," says 

 she, "you may go and drown yourself." 

 All this is enforced by Bingham, the 

 missionary discontents spread among 

 the Yeris they set fire to the church 

 lately Captain K. looks for nothing but 

 a general revolt. The Captain, in his 

 passage to the Ladrones and Philippines, 

 made some new discoveries, and visited 

 St. Helena in his way home, and has 

 made a very pleasant book. 



The Life and Times of George IV., by 

 Rev. G. Crdy. There is scarcely any 

 separating the private from the public 

 life of a sovereign, or of one born to 

 sovereignty, and in the case of George 

 the Fourth least of all, for though fifty 

 years old before his accession to power, 



from his earliest youth he was mixed 

 up with a party, 'who seized upon the 

 heir-apparent as a ready instrument for 

 worrying the minister, and promoting 

 their own selfish purposes. The whole 

 complexion of his life to the very hour 

 of the regency was tinged with the 

 colours of this restless party ; they 

 prompted his political actions, and en- 

 couraged his private expense ; their 

 leaders were his table companions, and 

 even the blacklegs and demireps who 

 hemmed him in on every side, were but 

 the dregs of this absorbing faction. His 

 purse and his credit were drained by 

 excesses thus excited ; they were the 

 persons who flung his debts in the minis- 

 ter's face, and upbraided the sovereign's 

 penuriousness as the source of all the 

 mischief. Deeply impressed with the 

 pernicious influence of this party on the 

 conduct and character of the prince, Mr. 

 Croly fills his spirited pages with the 

 political history of the whigs ; he is 

 merciless in detecting their intrigues 

 and exposing their obliquities ; he tri- 

 umphs in their defeats, and exults in 

 their shame. The whole blame of the 

 prince's first rushings into extravagance 

 they threw upon the king, whom they 

 chose to represent as keeping so tight a 

 hand upon the youth that till the hour 

 of emancipation, he knew not what 

 relaxation meant no wonder he leaped 

 the fences of moderation while the fact 

 seems to have been, that though he and 

 his brother of York were brought up with 

 due observance of domestic regularity, 

 they were early enough initiated in the 

 decorous gaieties of their rank ; and balls, 

 and parties, and amusements, with those 

 of their own age, were of sufficiently 

 frequent occurrence to satisfy any class. 

 Education at a public school, Avhere they 

 might have roughed it a little with their 

 fellows as the present king did with 

 his brother middies Mr. Croly justly 

 thinks, would have been all the better 

 for them and the country. They would 

 scarcely have thought of laying the 

 birch about the master of Eton, as it 

 seems they did on the back of Arnold ; 

 or have been in after-life so fond of 

 unworthy associates, as at least one of 

 them was. 



Scarcely had three years elapsed from 

 the prince's first establishment at Carl- 

 ton -House, when debts to the amount 

 of triple his income were found to have 

 been incurred the subject came before 

 parliament the sovereign, vexed at an 

 outbreak that seemed to reflect on his 

 parental management, and the minister 

 annoyed by the caballings of the whigs, 

 concurred in venting their angry feel- 

 ings upon the young and scarcely cen- 

 surable victim, and studiously made the 

 arrangement a source of lasting annoy- 

 ance. The turbulent efforts of the 



