304 
man, not God, that works the miracle.’’— 
Anticyram ratio illi destinet omnem! At 
Naples he describes the church, where— 
taking his own phrases—“ the precious trea- 
sure, or precious trickery, as faith orincredu- 
lity may decide, of the blood of St. Januarius 
isseen. Kneeling at the rails of the altar, I 
touched with my lips, and, by consequence, 
had very near to my eyes a phial, in which 
was a liquid substance resembling blood. 
Persons of my family testify to having seen 
this substance in a solid state a few minutes 
before, when the phial was turned in every 
direction by the hands of the priest.” 
Speaking of the late Pope Pius VII., he 
observes he was a man of great mildness and 
urbanity, and of a tolerant spirit; of which 
an instance occurred a few years before his 
death. The Duchess of Devonshire, then 
at Rome, said to an Anglican clergyman, 
“Tt would be a great comfort, if, on a Sun- 
day, you would read prayers to us ;’? mean- 
ing by us those English in Rome who might 
wish to attend. The clergyman assented, 
with some apprehension of giving offence to 
the papal government. The duchess under- 
took to speak to Cardinal Gonsalvi, and the 
cardinal communicated her wishes to his 
holiness. The pope quietly answered, 
“ Meglio il parlo senza—Better, that is, do 
at, and don’t ask.” 
It is very much, he observes, in the style 
of Italian finesse to let a deceit work its 
own way. An English gentleman at Flo- 
rence had a fall from his horse; besides 
some slight bruises, he felt great pain in one 
of his thumbs, which was soon attended with 
inflammation ; and the surgeon continued 
to dress this thumb after the other hurts 
were cured. One day his son attended in 
his stead“ Have you visited the Signor In- 
glese ?”? said the father to the son in the 
evening. ‘“* Yes, I have drawn out the 
thorn, and 72% Pazzo che sei !”’ ‘cried 
the father, “ ecco finita la bottega—Block- 
head that thou art! then there is an end of 
the shop !” 
The volume is full of churches and pic- 
tures; but really, after all, we find nothing 
to distinguish it above the common run of 
tours, which he inclines so much to depre- 
ciate ; nor any thing that shews very con- 
spicuously the advantage of a residence over 
a tour. 
The Cambrian Tourist; 1828.— For 
touring people, little compendiums of this 
kind, if not absolutely indispensable, are at 
least very useful reminders of local histori- 
cal events; and of the existing state of 
things, if they do not always make the most 
accurate reports, they enable you, by sug- 
gesting on the spot the specific subjects of 
interest, to do more for yourself by personal 
inquiry than you would without them. Nor 
are they altogether useless to the stay-at- 
home—for our own parts, we, who must 
always be supposed to be spell-bound in the 
centre of the publishing circle, glanced over 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Serr. 
the pages of the Cambrian Tourist not with- 
out pleasure, from the reminiscences it sug- 
gested, and which without it might have 
been extinguished for ever. 
The similarity of productions of this kind. 
is worth remarking.—One might readily 
believe them all written by one person— 
they have all the same tone—see with the 
same eyes, and think (!) with the same 
soul: but as they cannot all be the pro- 
ducts of the same pen, there must be some 
common cause, and that, we suppose, is to 
be sought for in the means which are uni- 
yersally had recourse to, to make the book 
sell—to please those, that is, who are likely 
to buy the book, or to recommend it. <Ac- 
cordingly, every where, especially at water- 
ing-places—all the establishments—libraries 
—rooms—nhotels—baths, are of the most 
admirable kind—skilfully arranged, and 
capitally and courteously conducted. Then 
as to the magnificoes in a neighbourhood, 
their houses and grounds are all beantiful 
and in excellent order—their manners con- 
ciliatory and affable—their liberality un- 
bounded, &c. Next, as the great are all 
tories, and those who cater for their accom- 
modation, of course, tories also—there are 
no limits to the extollings of our excellent 
constitution—our laws—our liberties—and, 
above all, our unparalleled sovereign. All 
this is supposed to hit the taste of the 
wealthy—and who but the wealthy travel— 
and who-but the traveller buys a Tourist ? 
But be the taste, or the sentiments, or 
the composition, what they will—books of. 
this kind are next to indispensable, and 
this is as good as any of its class. It is 
strictly a tour—with a single exception, 
from Abergavenny to Caermarthen—cours- 
ing the boundaries only—from Chepstow to_ 
Chepstow again. There are maps of North 
and South Wales, and a view of the beauti- 
Menai bridge, to this sixth edition of the 
Cambrian Tourist, and rules for uttering 
unutterable Welch. 
Lilustrations of the Literature of the 
Eighteenth Century, by J. Nicholls. 
Vol. V.; 1828.—This is a posthumous vo- 
lume of that incomparable scraper-together 
of odds and ends—good, bad, and indif- 
ferent—the veteran John Nicholls: two 
more are still to come. Nicholls was an ex-’ 
cellent man of business, with a good deal of 
bonhommie and simplicity about him, cu- 
riously mixed up with conceit and coxcom- 
bry—a collector and compiler, equally inde- 
fatigable and indiscriminating—connected, 
beyond any man of his time, with the minor 
fry of authors—topographers, and antiqua- 
rians, and black-letter folks—the peddlers 
and pioneers of literature—critics, and edi- 
tors, and publishers—himself the Cerberus 
of a bottomless pit, into which were thrown 
monthly the rags and fag-ends of the learned 
and unlearned—the very refuse of which 
grew into piles and pyramids, convertible ars 
to iit purposes. 
all 
