182£.] New Edinburgh 



which we ooafoss we cannot approve 

 in a philosophical en<juiry, — not to 

 speak of the author's constitutional 

 slowness and longthiness of manner, 

 which appears to us rather xinfavour- 

 able to the exercise of this species of 

 liuniour. We may probably be both 

 fastidioas and sinj^ular in our taste on 

 the subject, but we do not scruple to 

 say, that much as we like a good joke, 

 — especially if we ourselves do not 

 furnish the ground-work of it, »e pre- 

 fer our author in liis sedate moments, 

 when tLe necessity for coolness of 

 judgment and explicUiiess of feeling 

 suspend a propensity to the comic and 

 the ridiculous, which we suspect iwt a 

 liUle to endanger hit character for siii- 

 cerily." The truth is, that the humour 

 of the physician difi'ers u aterially from 

 that of the divine. The former is cha- 

 racteristic of a philosopher ; the latter 

 of a persecuting bi^ot. 



The thirteenth (a review of Hodg- 

 son's Account of the Mosquito Terri- 

 tory, aud Strange way's Sketch of the 

 Mosqidla Slwre, including the Territory 

 of Poyaie, fi-c.) is a short but w<ll- 

 writteu article. The flattering descrip- 

 tions of soil and elLmate, that are so 

 frequently exhibited by interested 

 speculators, for the purpose of alluring 

 ' emigrants to unsettled countries, and 

 the miserable disappointments of tho 

 victims of these daugerous delusions, 

 are feelingly and rationally depicted. 

 .The country known under tlie designa- 

 tion of the Mosquito Shore, (on the 

 coast of the Bay of Honduras,) to 

 wliieh Kir Gregor M'Gregor proposes 

 to carry his settlers, lies between 

 lo° It/ and 10° "25' north latitude, and 

 is therefore wholly uusuited to Euro- 

 peans. " From all the information 

 (sajB tlie reviewer,) we have received 

 of this di sort country, we cannot con- 

 ceive what inducement it can possibly 

 hold out, liable as it must be to all the 

 plagues of a tropical climate, to disease 

 and death, and to the continual tor- 

 ment of c(juntlcs8 varieties of loath- 

 some insecl.s, which, in a woody coun- 

 try more especially, must piey upon 

 tlie settlers. '1 ho productions and 

 modes of history are also all foreign 

 to l<iUrop<<m habits; and what is to 

 become, in this case, of the new set- 

 tlers wiien they first arrive ? I lov/ can 

 they cultivate tropical productions? 

 Where is their capital ? Where is their 

 skill or experience? These are rpies- 

 tions which must naturally be u.<9ked 



Monthly Mac. No, 3t)3. 



Review, No. 8. 505 



by every one ; but io wh:ch we in Tain 

 look, in any of the works which have 

 been put forth by the chieftain or any 

 of his agents, for any satisfactory 

 answer." 



We have next a splendidly written 

 eulogium on the principles and con- 

 duct of tlie Holy Alliance, an ana- 

 thema against popular rights in gene- 

 ral, and those of Spain in particular. 

 Of the pamphlet (Reviarhs on the 

 Declaration of the Allied Powers from 

 Verona,) which gives occasion to this 

 liurkean harangue nothing is said ; 

 but we presume that it, too, advocates 

 the expiring cause of despotism. This 

 ultra-royalist reviewer contends for 

 the divine rights of kings, and denies 

 the legality of the Spanish Constitution 

 of 1812, even although sanctiomd by 

 the other powers of Europe. "The 

 old government of Spain (says he,) 

 may be the most frightful despotism 

 upon earth, and Ferdinand the Se- 

 venth may be an idiot, or worse ; but 

 we are speaking at present not of 

 power, but of rights ; and the public 

 troubles which gave the Cortes the 

 power, could never also give them the 

 right, to do what they chose with their 

 country." Did this reviewer ever 

 read the "Diversions of Purley"? 

 We will answer for him — never; 

 otherwise ho would not have blun- 

 dered so egregiously in the use of the 

 word right. 



The fifteenth and last article, falsely 

 termed a review of Elmes's Lectures 

 on Architecture, gives us another fifty 

 pages on the never-ending subject of 

 the Scottish national monument. We 

 dwelt sufficiently on that topic in our 

 notice of the last Edinburgh Re- 

 view, (Monthly Mag. for May, page 

 314,) and we will not again tire our 

 readers with the controversy. The 

 Scotch Committee have, it seems, got 

 a large .Mim to expend upon a useless 

 building; and we care not whether 

 they render it a facsimile of the Par- 

 thenon of Athens, or of the largest of 

 tho Pyramids of Egypt. 



To the Editor of the Monthbj Magazine. 



SIH, 



YOUR correspondent Common 

 Sense, in referring to the effects 

 of the belief of witchcraft, so brutally 

 manifested by some of tho female in- 

 habitants of Wivilsconibc, in Sonier- 

 selsliire, has justly described others 

 who are as much under tho influence 

 3 T of 



