pr ae "ue 
a 
1826.] 
introductory Essay by the Translator. 1826. 
—Than the indefatigable Sismondi, whom 
all the world knows, and indeed respects, 
no man was ever more solicitous not to 
suffer himself to be lost sight of, or to be 
forgotten. .. We have, him. on eyery side of 
us—the most, hic-at-ubique person we 
ever encountered, physically and literally 
—we were thinking of literaturely. Go to 
Geneva, you find him of course ; return to 
Paris, it is his domicile; or come to Lon- 
don, and visit the hustings of Covent 
Garden, te re-elect. the ‘glories of West- 
minster,’ andlo! there he is again; and as 
to the faculty of scribbling, scarcely emerg- 
ing from laboriously disentangling the chaos 
of the Italian Republics, and analyzing the 
masses of Southern literature, he plunges 
into the depths of French history, and, 
while actually throwing up countless vo- 
Jumes of it, ever and anon, like a flying- 
fish, springing upwards in short flights to 
breathe a fresh air, we see him flinging be- 
fore him and around him his lighter artillery 
—now rattling tirades against our blessed 
India Company for their oppressions, and 
at the Government for its connivance; and 
now discharging congreyes at every nation 
of Europe, for deserting the virtuous 
Greek, and shrinking from a crusade; 
which, successful or unsuccessful, must 
furnish materials for a new history, and 
compel the exciting Quixote, in his softer 
character of historian, by-and-bye, in com- 
mon consistency, to brand the follies and 
principles. which prompted the fool’s errand. 
What magazine, again, is not fattening on 
the produce:of his: brain? » What review, 
French, English, or Italian, shares not 
the redundancy of his fertilizing ink ? 
>» (Quigurges; aut que fumina lugubris 
_ Ignara styli ? 
The translator presents us with a preface 
of some length, in which he is manifestly 
alarmed about the re-establishment of the 
Catholic hierarchy, and all its obsolete 
authority, not only in Ireland, but in En- 
gland: he may be assured that no such 
danger is to be apprehended ; if the Pro- 
testant church in England fall, it will fall, 
not by the efforts of the Catholic, nor will 
the Catholic replace it. The tendencies of 
the times are rather to the abolition of 
ecclesiastical establishments altogether ; 
and the right point of alarm is not against 
Catholies, but against Deists, 
Of Sismondi’s. History of the Crusades 
little need..be said. The) story is well 
known ; the subject is. one of little interest 
_ NOW,.-Lox.is.it susceptible of becoming so— 
we cannot apprehend a recurrence of like 
enormities... Sismondi’s narrative-power is 
> st Selicitous, generally, but the flow of 
story of the Crusades is comparatively 
fogrepiay 
2erta 
Aphorisms, eT Tee . 
the te Dr. Parr, with a Sketch of his Life. 
1 collaborateur of ours has very sig- 
om suggested that there must be some 
Domestic and Foreign. 
43.1 
mistake about these aphorisms, and that, 
unexceptionable though they be, they must 
rather have been old Parr’s than Dr. Part’s ; 
and the truth is, that, with the exception 
of three or four characters, dissected With 
all the Doctor’s well-known skill and dex- 
terity in this species of anatomy, never did 
there appear a more pitiful collection of 
‘ good things,’ where such collection was 
made for the very purpose of exhibiting. 
proofs of extraordinary power, both of 
thought and expression. These aphorisms 
consist of extracts from the Spital Sermon, 
a Discourse on Education, and the Warbur-. 
tonian Tracts, and very faithfully condense’ 
whatever could be found stale, flat, and 
eyen unprofitable, in those learned and 
laboured performances. oh A 
By the way, what are the Doctor’s bio- 
graphers about? Afraid of each other? 
The Magazines are anticipating them all, 
and fairly exhausting the interest of the 
subject. They will be, or rather already 
are, forestalled, and their tardy publications 
will drop, as Hume said of his history, 
dead-born—which means, we suppose, un- 
heeded—from the press. Is the Warwick 
preacher, all this while, elaborating proofs 
of Unitarianism? Is the Queen’s chaplain 
cutting down the sacerdotal robes into the 
philosopher’s kirtle? Is the smotherer of 
Henry Stephens shewing him up a miracle 
of discretion and gossiping? If so, it is 
reserved, we trust, for Dr. J. Johnson, 
with his ample materials, and the zealous 
aid of some of the Doctor's warmest and 
ablest friends, to give us a fair and unpre- 
judiced representation of a man whose - 
heart—we speak with some knowledge of 
the excellent individual—was better than. 
his head; whose benevolence surpassed 
his sagacity ; whose power and facility of 
acquiring, extraordinary as they were, were 
outstripped by his force and felicity of com- 
maunicating ; but whose judgment was the 
sport of his passions, whose wit was at 
least a match for his prudence, and whose 
powers of benefiting mankind were frittered 
away by an amiable but weak compliance 
with the importunities of puny correspon- 
dents. f 
Twentieth Report of the Directors of the - 
African Institution, read 19th May 1826. 
—It has been asked, of what use “is 
this society? What does it do, or what 
does it hope to do? Much; it collects 
and embodies intelligence respecting the 
trade; it keeps the subject alive; it stimu- 
lates the Government, who, unstimulated, 
would do nothing to urge other govern- 
ments, and thus every way spreads mate- 
rially and widely the sense of the intolera- 
ble iniquity of this intolerable traftic. 
The present report has no strong and 
striking facts to produce, as irresistible 
evidence of the success of its labours: but 
the spirit and agency of the society’ are 
silently working ; aiid’ they have the satis- 
faction of feeling, that all which has been 
