1822.] 
{[ 425 ] 
Aj STEPHENSIANA. 
vidie aie a, cute BORON OV EB 
The late ALEXANDER STEPHENS, Esq. of Park House, Chelsea, devoted an active and 
well-spent life in the collection of Anecdotes of his contemporaries, dnd generally entered in a 
book the collections of the passing day ;—these collections we have purchased, and propose to 
present, a selection from. them to our readers, 
As Editur of the Annual Obituary, and many 
other biographical works, the Author may probubly have incorporated many of these scraps; 
but the gi 
neater part.are unpublished, and all stand alone as cabinet pictures of men and 
manners, worthy of a place in a literary miscellany. 
¢ site 3.9 j 
BONAPARTE, OSWALD, AND OSSIAN. 
KNEW the American Colonel 
Oswald. He resided in London 
between 1787 and 1790, and published 
an eloquent tract, called “the Cry of 
Nature,” the object of which was to ex- 
pose the cruelty of killing and eating 
animals. He was such an enthusiast 
in favour of liberty, that he went to 
Paris soon after the taking of the Bas- 
tille, and raised a corps of pikemen, in 
which his two sons were officers. In 
1794, when the ignorant ceuntry peo- 
ple of La Vendee were seduced by the 
arms and money of England, and led 
on by the arts of their priests and no- 
bles, to raise a civil war of extermina- 
tion, the zeal of Oswald carried him 
and his regiment among these barba- 
yous fanatics; ‘and in‘one of those 
bloody affairs, in which no quarter was 
given, this philosophical soldier and 
his two sons were slaughtered, fighting 
at the head of their regiment. 
This. catastrophe was not confirmed 
in England for three or four years, 
and, in the mean time, Bonaparte be- 
gan his career in Italy. - The first por- 
traits of him resembled Oswald, and 
several anecdotes accorded with Os- 
wald’s character. He was, in par- 
ticuiar, represented as devoted, like 
Oswald, to the study of Ossian,—an 
edition of which he was said to carry 
in his pocket. These circumstances 
led many persons to believe that 
Bonaparte was no other than Os- 
wald, under an assumed name; a 
pamphlet was published in proof of it, 
and the coincidence was believed, till 
Paoli and some Corsican relatives of 
Bonaparte came to England, and gave 
accounts of his family. Tio Ossian this 
great man continued attached through 
life: Ossian and Homer were his con- 
stant companions ; and when his car- 
riage was intercepted by the Prussians 
after ihe victory of Blucher, Bulow, 
and Wellington at Planchenoit and 
Mont St. Jean, a much-worn copy. of 
Ossian was found init. 
MontTHLY Maa, No, 368. 
—— 
THE TWO MARATS. 
Other actors in the French revolu- 
tion were also mistaken for other men. 
Thus a hundred books stated that 
Marat had travelled as an empiric in 
England ; but it afterwards turned out 
that the Marat who so travelled conti- 
nued to reside in Dublin, as a profes- 
sor of the French language, for many 
years after his name-sake had been 
assassinated. A literary gentleman, 
who had been very active in propaga- 
ting English stories of Marat, met this 
very person by accident at Dublin, 
seven years after the death of the 
apostle of liberty. 
LETTER OF DR. CAMPBELL TO LORD 
CARDROSS. 
My pear Lorp,—I return those’ 
two pamphlets you were so kind to 
lend me and my son. As tothe Rights 
of |the British Colonies, whatever the 
author’s motive might be in publishing 
it, he plainly, and in express words, 
gives up their cause on the basis upon 
which they have now put it; for he 
says that resisting the legislature of 
Great Britain in the colonies is high 
treason. The great point he labours 
is, that they ought to have representa- 
tives in Parliament. He does not per- 
ceive that this very notion subverts all 
his abstracted reasoning from the natu- 
ral rights of mankind. For, my lord, 
if they are to. be represented in Parlia- 
ment, this plainly’ supposes that they 
have no other right to their lands than 
what they derive from the, grants made 
them as British subjects, If I remem- 
ber right, some of their charters were. 
produced to the House of Comnions 
last sessions, in which express mention — 
was made, that they were to be subject 
to Acts of Parliament; and, if so, their 
right to their lands, and to all that they: 
possess, stands precisely upon the same 
foundation with the right of the British 
Parliament to tax them, as well as the 
other British subjects, wherever they 
are settled ; and indeed it seems to be 
3H apreposterous 
