1828.] [ 585 ] 



44 MEXICO;" AND "MEXICAN ILLUSTRATIONS."* 



THE outward appearance, as well as the internal manner, of these two 

 books, differ as it were, characteristically, and in accordance with the 

 different position and profession of their authors. Mr. Ward is a man in 

 office, and a diplomatist ; and he comes out in the form of two massive 

 volumes, containing each at least six hundred ' solidly-printed pages ; 

 with an appendix of historical and political documents ; maps, corrected 

 to the latest dates or discovery ; elaborate tables of calculations ; and 

 drawings of some of the most considerable points which the author visited. 

 It is a book which most persons will read with pleasure and with instruc- 

 tion ; but which,, when they do read it, they must sit down to. 

 Mr. Beaufoy is quite another sort of person ; formerly a captain in the 

 Guards, and obviously very sorry that he is not so still : transparently 

 averse to thinking, or writing (long) upon any subject : holding no com- 

 parison, we can venture to pronounce, between the perils of leading a 

 storming party, and those of listening to a parliamentary speech : and he 

 waits on the public in the likeness of a sharp, three hundred page, post- 

 chaise volume ; a pleasant, red-hot, rhodomontade, irregular production ; 

 sometimes very superficial, but never very tedious ; an affair to look over 

 in running down by the fast coach to Brighton, but not necessarily to lose 

 all recollection of in the course of a week's stay there. The tone, too, 

 in which the two books are written differs, as, from the circumstances of 

 the writers, it would be likely to do. Mr. Ward always speaks like a man 

 who speaks under a certain quantity of responsibility. He is an employe 

 of the state ; what he says will be judged, here and in the place where 

 he comes from. From his " position," too, he has mixed in circles, and 

 probably received attention from persons, whom it would be neither 

 very wise nor very grateful that he should offend. Consequently, as 

 far as the public affairs of Mexico its political condition or commercial 

 prospects are concerned, he speaks plainly, and, no doubt, with good 

 opportunities for judgment ; but, in his notices of comparative civiliza- 

 tion, and general sketches of society, he is something meagre j passing 

 over many points with a paucity of comment, which looks as if he were 

 \ery well disposed to omit them altogether. Mr. Beaufoy, on the other 

 hand, on both these points, makes ample amends for his contemporary 

 traveller's silence ; and speaks right out with all the prejudices of a man 

 who sees a new country for the first time, and all the freedom of one who 

 does not propose to see it a second. His business in Mexico is over : and, 

 why he should not be merry, especially as he often makes his readers merry 

 also at its expense, he clearly cannot see ! and we profess that we are 

 not inclined to shew him. Accordingly, he writes on, almost as freely 

 as Captain Head rode though not with quite so much good temper ; 

 jotting down a circular curse for all poetical tourists (and Mr. Bullock 

 at their head), every time a hard peach sets his teeth on edge, or he finds 

 an Indian changing his shirt only once a week ; and taking a long shot at 

 the imaginative surveyors of new countries and Baron Humboldt 

 whenever a fresh fall scars the knees of his horse, or a rut coaxes a 



* Mexico, in the years 1825, 1826, and part of 1827, by H. G. Ward, Esq., His 

 Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in that country. 2 vols. Royal 8vo. Colburn. 



Mexican Illustrations for 1825, 1826, and 1827, by M. Beaufoy, late of the Coldstream 

 Guards. 1 vol. 8vo. Carpenter. 



M.M. New ?. VOL. V. No. 30. 4 F 



