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Monthly Review of Literature, 



was at the summit of his wishes nothing 

 seemed to Stand between him and his hopes ; 

 but, again, before the ship was out of sight 

 of land, a government order overtook her, 

 and the voyage was broken off and the 

 matter left unexplained. 



Nothing daunted still, he revived his 

 Siberian scheme, and a subscription was set 

 on foot by Sir Joseph Banks and his friends 

 to start Ledyard with a certain sum, which 

 seems not to have been very magnificent ; 

 for in a few weeks he was at Hamburgh, in 

 high spirits, sound health, and ten guineas 

 in his pocket. At Hamburgh he heard of 

 Major Langhorne's being at Copenhagen, 

 and from the accounts he received of him 

 there and at London, he was seized with 

 one of his irresistible impulses to see, and 

 persuade him to go with him to Siberia. 

 No sooner said than done to Copenhagen 

 he flew, and at Copenhagen, on the 1st 

 January 1787> ne found Langhorne, from 

 the neglect of common precautions, in dis- 

 tress and difficulty. Without a care or a 

 thought, Ledyard's ten guineas were in- 

 stantly advanced ; but no arguments could 

 prevail on Langhorne to accompany him. 

 Ledyard had now lost time, and gone out of 

 his way, to no purpose ; and finding the 

 passage across the Gulf of Bothnia, from 

 the state of the ice, unsafe, he determined 

 forthwith, in spite of all perils and obstacles, 

 to go round the head of it ; and, nobody 

 knows how, actually reached Petersburgh in 

 March. The Empress was then on her 

 well-known tour to the Crimea, and he was 

 compelled to wait for a passport, which was 

 at length, though with difficulty, obtained, 

 and hickily he was allowed, how brought 

 about does not appear, to join Dr. William 

 Brown, a Scotch physician, going to the 

 province of Kolyvan, in the service of the 

 Empress. He had thus a conveyance and a 

 companion for 3000 miles. At Yututsk, 

 however, where he arrived in September, 

 he was detained, almost perforce, for the 

 winter, under pretence of the impracticability 

 of reaching Okotsk a period which he 

 spent in active inquiries relative to matters 

 which he was fond of contemplating. Here, 

 too, he met Bilh'ngs, who had been an 

 officer of Cook's, and was then employed by 

 the Empress, to very little purpose, on a 

 voyage of discovery. In the spring, when 

 preparing for the prosecution of his purpose, 

 he was suddenly arrested by an order from 

 the Empress, forced back through Siberia, 

 with little attention to his accommodations, 

 placed upon the frontiers, and bidden to go 

 where he pleased, so that he did not return 

 to Russia. The cause of this violent abduc- 

 tion was, probably, some apj rehension?, that 

 eventually the fur-trade in the Aleutian 

 islands would be interfered with. 



Again defeated, when almost within sight 

 of the very coast he had so long laboured to 

 revisit though what he was to do when he 

 got here is not very obvious he returned 



again to England ; and immediately on his 

 arrival, Sir Joseph Banks introduced him 

 to Beaufoy, Secretary of the African Asso- 

 ciation, who proposed his going into the 

 interior of Africa, under the auspices of the 

 Association. The route proposed was from 

 Cairo to Sennaar, and from that point 

 westward, in the same latitude, and in the 

 supposed direction of the Niger. Beaufoy 

 asked him when he would be ready " To- 

 morrow morning" was the prompt reply ; 

 and in a few days he actually set out, and 

 in a short time, by the way of France, 

 arrived at Cairo, where, when just on the 

 point of setting out for Sennaar under the 

 most favourable circumstances, he was taken 

 ill, and swallowing an over-dose of vitriolic 

 acid, he died some time in November 1788, 

 in his 38th year a very memorable example 

 of determined purpose and defeated hopes. 



Wherever it was practicable, the narrative 

 is carried on by means of Ledyard's own 

 letters, and extracts from his journals very 

 agreeably relieving the somewhat heavy 

 style of the biographer for Ledyard's lan- 

 guage is striking and his thoughts distinct 

 and direct. Some of his speculations on 

 the affinity of nations are well worth read- 

 ing, and his remarks on the Nile, and the 

 prepossessions and the blindness of travellers 

 relative to it, good. " You have the travels 

 of Savary," he says " Burn them." 



The White Hoods, by Mrs. Bray. 3 

 vols. 12/no. , 1828 Mrs. Bray, late Mrs. 

 C. Stothard, is in full activity. In the 

 course of last year we noticed her De Foix, 

 and here in a few little months we are 

 called on again ; and, moreover, a third story 

 is already announced, as " preparing for the 

 press." This, perhaps, is no bad policy. 

 Activity may be a good thing in novel- 

 writing as well as in war. The novel-read- 

 ing world is very likely to give way before 

 reiterated attacks, where the assailant shews 

 no symptoms of self-distrust where no time 

 is given to breathe to recover the shock, 

 and close up the breach again. The con- 

 fidence of the garrison is shaken at the 

 valour that quails not at a first repulse, but 

 resolutely, with fresh and fresh vigour, re- 

 turns to the charge ; and Mrs:. Bray will 

 evidently lose nothing by relaxing she is 

 indeed more likely to carry the fort than 

 keep it. 



To speak soberly, Mrs. B., we fear, lacks 

 the essential quality of a successful novelist ; 

 she has no creative power ; but she has in- 

 dustry, and is capable of acquiring, and in no 

 ordinary degree of retailing and recasting 

 her materials. She has seized upon Frois- 

 sart, and means to novelize him, we sup- 

 pose, from beginning to end. He is, in- 

 deed, a treasure for the purpose ; he is full 

 of details and petty occurrences, and of in- 

 comparable value to the describer and the 

 transcriber. War must be as much out of the 

 lady's beat as of ours, and she must know 



