462 



Monthly Review oj Lileralurc, 



[APRIL, 



country friends can enjoy these anonymous 

 disclosures their capacities of faith are 

 unfathomable and insatiable. 



Sydeaham, however, is a young man, 

 with large estates and a baronet's title 

 cool and mature intelligent and cultivated 

 with ambition not merely to shine by re- 

 flexion, but to be his own sun to be influ- 

 ential wherever he circulates, or in whatever 

 direction he bends his efforts. Coming 

 early to his property, he fell, on his first en- 

 trance into society, into that class of fashion- 

 ables over which Brummel was known to 

 reign ; and by treating the monarch with 

 something like his own indifference, piqued 

 him into extraordinary attentions, and be- 

 came prime favourite, or prime minister. 

 Frequently as that prince of coxcombs has 

 been of late exhibited, Sydenham presents 

 the most complete portrait of him we have 

 seen furnishing, indeed, the most amusing 

 part of the work. The declension of his 

 power, and his final abdication, are de- 

 scribed with something like the solemnity 

 of history ; to avoid a collision with the 

 leaders of two parties, he chose to cut both, 

 and make overtures to a third a very ex- 

 clusive set quite another caste ; and being 

 there repulsed the news spread the spell 

 broke his authority vanished like a dream, 

 and he himself withdrew. The author is 

 doubtless too young to have known any- 

 thing personally of Brummel, but the recol- 

 lections of many are still fresh, and he will 

 be thought to have conceived him well. A 

 very different story, however, is told of 

 Brummel's exile. 



Confident in the maturity of his know- 

 ledge, and trusting to his facility of expe- 

 dient for extricating himself from embar- 

 rassments, Sydenham ventures boldly to the 

 very brink of danger to study character. 

 He affected to fall into the snares of a 

 matchless match-maker and though drawn 

 further in than he meant to go, he finally 

 baffled the matron's manoeuvres, and the 

 brother's bullying, with admirable ease and 

 tact. With more difficulty he escaped the 

 arts of a noble lord, who threw his wife in 

 his way brought the cause into court, and 

 was nonsuited. During the first burst of 

 eclat, he withdrew from town, and visited 

 his mother in Bath, where an opportunity 

 is taken to shew up a coarser set visitors 

 of his mother's at " tea and turn out." 

 By and by a contest for the county intro- 

 duces him in electioneering scenes and in- 

 trigues. Though defeated, with the loss of 

 twenty thousand pounds, he obtains a seat 

 readily for a borough by family influence, 

 and now turns his attention to political dis- 

 tinction. He is eagerly courted by both the 

 leading parties, but eventually joins the 

 whigs to be one of " all the talents." 

 This was at a period when a great tory 

 leader had gone over to the whigs, and 

 hopes rose high through this new ally of 

 expelling the old tories. The new ally 

 (Canning), however, and the old leader of 



opposition (Brougham, without disguise) 

 soon clash, neither will give way to the 

 other. The old leader, consequently, coa- 

 lesces with the tories, and with some of his 

 friends takes office; while the new whig, 

 baffled by this treacherous desertion, breaks 

 into vituperation is coughed down by the 

 house he so recently commanded goes 

 home, takes to his bed, and dies. The 

 whole tissue of the intrigue is laboriously 

 unravelled, and Brougham, Canning, Tier- 

 ney, Sheridan together with Devonshire 

 House and its once brilliant mistress are 

 all dissected with considerable skill and ef- 

 fect. The intrigue is wholly, of course, 

 imaginary, but the incidents are all trace- 

 able in the last twenty or thirty years, only 

 thrown into new combinations. B 

 for a few months has the lead of the Com- 

 mons, and is then consigned to the bench 

 and the peerage this is prophetic. 



Records of Captain Clapperton's last 

 Expedition to Africa, by R. Lander, 2 vols., 

 small 8vo; 1830 Lander's Journal, it 

 will be recollected, was printed with Captain 

 Clapperton's. His sole purpose in present- 

 ing that Journal to the government was, he 

 says, to account for his conduct after his 

 master's decease, and for the property left, 

 by that event, in his hands at Soccotoo. It 

 was drawn up in haste by himself, with no 

 other aid than that of a younger brother 

 it was incomplete, ill-expressed, and more- 

 over not the medium for recording the ob- 

 servations which he also, as well as his 

 master, had made during his journey and 

 sojourn. He has now had time to get up 

 his recollections more voluminously, and 

 trimming and dressing up the original jour- 

 nal in a holiday suit, has aimed at " de- 

 picting in true colours the customs and ce- 

 remonies of the powerful nations or tribes, 

 inhabiting that vast tract of country lying 

 between Badagry and the beautiful king- 

 dom of Houssa." 



Young as Lander still is now only 

 twenty-six he has led a stirring life. At 

 eleven he went, as a servant boy, to St. Do- 

 mingo ; and returning, after an absence of 

 three years, to England, was in the service 

 of several persons for another four years, 

 and with one or other of them visited several 

 parts of Europe. In 1823 he accompanied 

 Major Colbrook to the Cape, and the settle- 

 ments of South Africa. The following year 

 he was again in England, and again in ser- 

 vice, when hearing of Captain Clapperton's 

 new expedition, he solicited to be taken into 

 his service, and was, with the qualifications 

 he obviously possessed, readily accepted. 

 Every person attached to the expedition, ex- 

 cept Clapperton and his man, it is well 

 known, quickly perished ; and the distinc- 

 tions between master and servant, in their 

 solitary state, were of course soon abandoned 

 Lander became the companion of his em- 

 ployer. Arrived at Kano, Captain Clapper- 

 ton found it impracticable to get to Bornou, 



