1823.] 



and polJtically connected niong vf itii Gene- 

 ral Paoli in the Corsican tionl)les of 1791. 

 In 1793 Napoleon attaclied liimself to the 

 Convention, and Rlassaria raine to Eui;- 

 land. HaviUL' formerly saved Bonaparte 

 from being arrested by Faoli, Maiisaiia 

 was selected by our ministry to rnn the 

 risk of landing in France at the close of 

 1799, from whence he returned with the 

 memorable letter ot the First Consul to 

 his Majesty Geor^je III. In April 1801, 

 Massaria was ajjain dispatched to France, 

 and procured an interview with Napoleon; 

 the consequence of which was the treaty, 

 concluded through the medium of M. 

 Oito. AccDrding to Mr. M.'s narrative, 

 the rnler of France was most sincere in his 

 wishes for peace ; but we were before suf- 

 ficiently convinced of his sincerity in that 

 respect. The Preface and Appendixes of 

 Mr. Moore are long ; and, we think, use- 

 less, since they endeavour to make more 

 certain what is already indubitable. 



Heraldic Anomalies, oT Rank Confusion in 

 our Orders of Precedence, is an amusing 

 collection of anecdotes, printed in two 

 , volumes, and distributed under different 

 heads, the titles of which have some direct, 

 or distant, analogy to heraldic distinctions; 

 such as Lady, Lord, Doctor, Bishops, Old 

 Maids, Quakers, Precedence, &c. 'I'liese 

 anecdotes are taken, indiscriminately, 

 from sources of every kind, foreign and 

 domestic, ancient and modern, and are 

 strung together by the remarks of the au- 

 thor, which are generally pertinent, play, 

 ful, and instructive. No order is pre- 

 served in the arrangement. The whole is 

 a medley of the most varied subjects, from 

 the grave to the ludicrous; and this, for 

 those readers who take up a book merely 

 for the amusement of a moment, is pioba- 

 bly its most valuable characteristic. The 

 author himself, however, must be a man of 

 extensive reading ; and there are innu- 

 merable passages, in the perusal of which 

 we wish him at our elbow, for the pni.po'-e 

 of procuring additional information, either 

 upon the matter itself, or tlie sources 

 from which he received it. Should he, for 

 instance, chance to see these observations, 

 he might, peihaps, take the trouble lo 

 tell us, where he found the four lines in 

 his Preface, beginning with " () if it were 

 a mean thing, 6cc." We have seen verses 

 to the same purport in the German lan- 

 guage, and we have often found national 

 refcemblaiic es, which weie not owing to 

 translailon. 



ReUUite Taxation, or Oh.iervations on the 

 impolicy of Toxin;; Malt, Hops, Beer, Soap, 

 Candleii, and Leallier, Sfc. by Thomas 

 Vadx, contains a number of sensible 

 remarks, mingled with many that are of 

 little value, and some that are wholly use- 

 less. It is not a grain of wheat in a bushel 

 of chaff, but wheat and chaff of all sorts of 

 qualities mixed in nearly equal quanlities. 



M ONTIII.Y Mac. No. 3b^ 



hiterary and Critical ProHmium. 449 



The chief cause, we believe, ia, that the 

 book is too long. The author had deter- 

 mined to make a volnme ; and, wanting 

 matter to fill it, was obliged to repeat the 

 same thought again and again. The Pre- 

 face and early part of the work are well 

 written, and contain the substance of the 

 whole. The endeavour of the author is to 

 show, that the unequal pressure of the 

 taxes that he has enumerated, by bearing 

 harder on poor than on rich soils, is a 

 chief cause of the present agricultural 

 distress. These taxes, therefore, he 

 would abolish, and substitute a property- 

 tax in their stead. There are many per- 

 tinent observations on the nature of ma- 

 chinery; and the feelings of the author are 

 always on the right side, that is, favourable 

 to humanity. 



The Novel-readers have of late been 

 abundantly supplied. Tlie Great Unknown 

 (as he is blasphemously called) has fa- 

 voured them with his Quentin Durward, of 

 which it would be idle to speak, as it is in 

 the hands of every body; and Mr. Galt, 

 who follows in his footsteps, has given us 

 three volumes, under the title of Ringan 

 Gilhaize, or the Covenanters. Ringan is a 

 pseudo-history of the Scottish saints dur- 

 ing the turbulent times of the reformation.' 

 The style is throughout equable and grave, 

 as befitting the serious character of the 

 narrator. But it is merely a history. 

 There is no domestic tale ; and the events 

 crowd before us without exciting the least 

 degree of personal interest. The volumes, 

 notwithstanding, are not wearisome. We- 

 are carried from page to page by the 

 diversity of the incidents, without thinking 

 of the weakness of the thread by which 

 they are strung together. 



Such of our readers as have occasion to 

 make very accurate calculations, or who 

 speculate for amusement on the properties 

 of numbers, will not fail to possess them- 

 selves of two thin octavo volumes, which 

 have lately appeared, anonvmously, but 

 which are from the pen of Henry Goou- 

 WYN, esq.* a gentleman who, in a forced 

 retirement from active business, through 

 a painful disease, has performed prodigies 

 of arithmetical labour, far outstripping 

 those of our famed countryman, Abraham 

 Sharp. The first of these works is enti- 

 tled, " A Table of the Citcles, arising from 

 tlic division of a unit, or of any other 

 whole number, by all the integers from 1 

 to 1021;" exhibiting the circulating or 

 repetenti part of every possible quotient, 

 resulting from applying a divisor of three 



* It is with regret the Editor finds, ou 

 turning to his forty-seventh volnme, that 

 this gentleman's " First Centenary of a 

 Series of concise useful Tables,'' &c. pub- 

 lished in Feb. 1818 (Richardson), was 

 omitted to be noticed amongst the New 

 Publications. 



3 M figure* 



