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toms of the general distribution of property. As our author has caused the word general to be printed in italics, we presume that word to be very significant, and that under it may be couched some secret known only to himself and others equally illuminated, whereby property may be kept at a level throughout a whole community, in spite of all the inequalities of strength, intellect, industry, and prudence to be found among the individuals that compose it. Every village has its public walk; and wherever there is a fine view or a shady tree you will find a public bench where you may rest and enjoy yourself without being afraid of an action of trespass." We are apprehensive that Mr. Matthews, with his implements of mensuration in his hands for an agrarian division of the lands of this country, could never accomplish this beneficial arrangement as to walks and benches. He might indeed, with large property in his own possession, make the public a present of shady trees, and benches, but he could not ensure their continuance a single night: his trees and seats would probably be exchanged for steel traps and spring guns, as soon as his woods and fences, and orchards and gardens, had felt the full consequences of his courtesy to the public. We are afraid Mr. Matthews has a hankering after some state of unattainable bliss which no form of human government, of which the world has had experience, can confer on man. From many parts of his volume we should suspect him of a strong predilection for a polity founded upon the doctrine of equality and unrestrained freedom; but when the question is fairly before him, his good sense, and academical acquaintance with history, compel him to relinquish the point, to admit the triumph of practice over theory, and even to doubt the safety of trying the virtues of the great specific-universal suffrage, and annual elections.

In the route from Schwytz to Art, our traveller passed the valley of Goldau, "the fatal scene of the terrible ecroulement of the mountain of the Rossberg; which, in the year 1806, slipped from its foundations. This overwhelming catastrophe swallowed up, in a moment, five of the most industrious villages in Switzerland, with some hundreds of their inhabitants, and a party of unfortunate travellers: the moving masses which came thundering down are described as being a league in length, 1000 feet in breadth, and 200 feet high; which in a few minutes converted this once cheerful and populous valley into a shapeless chaos of rocks and desolation."

The visit to the valley and mountains of Chamouni, is over ground so familiar to our readers, that we shall pass it in silence. Stationers' clerks, and milliners' apprentices, have all ascended Montanvers, and perambulated the Mer de Glace, so

well compared by Coxe, to "a raging sea suddenly frozen in the midst of a storm."

Mr. Matthews returned by way of Lyons, where he arrived on the 28th Sept. 1818.-A city full, as he says, of Buonapartists, notwithstanding the recollections of Collot d'Herbois, Fouché, and Chatier; and such being the bias of their political feelings, it can give us no umbrage to be told that England and Englishmen are odious among them. Nothing is noticed here except the great hospital, the cleanliness and comfort of which is properly commended. The journey of our traveller, indeed, through France produced but little of entertainment to himself, and less to his readers. The following are his first impressions as he advances into the country.

"The more I see of France, the less am I able to understand how it has gained the title of La belle France. The phrase cannot certainly refer to picturesque beauty, of which no country has less to boast. Perhaps this deficiency may in some measure account for the utter want of taste for the beauties of nature, in the English sense of that phrase, which is so remarkable a feature in the French cha

racter.

"A Frenchman cannot understand the feeling, that is delighted with the contemplation of picturesque beauty; it is as unintelligible to him, as the pleasure of music to a man, who has no ear.

"His beau ideal of landscape is that, which produces the greatest quantity of corn, wine, and oil. He will indeed chatter about les belles horreurs of a Swiss scene, but, the very terms he uses, prove how incapable he is of communing with nature, and interpreting the language she speaks, in the sublime scenes, which she there addresses to the imagination.

"4th. La belle France grows dirtier and dirtier. Sunday is no sabbath here. All the shops are open, and every thing goes on as usual. Even the butchers are at work, elbow-deep, in their horrid occupation." (P. 378, 379.)

If this was the impression of our author as to physical France, he appears to have seen and heard enough of its moral condition to justify him in even more contempt for it than he seems altogether to have entertained. It is thus he describes some of the characteristic atrocities of their revolutionary warfare.

"We halted at night at Montelimart.

"6th. Near Montelimart was the Chateau de Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné fell a victim to maternal anxiety, and was buried in the family vault. The Chateau was destroyed during the fury of the Revolution, and the leaden coffins in the vaults presented too valuable a booty to be spared by the brutal ruffians of those days. The body of Madame de Sévigné had been embalmed, and was found in a state of perfect preservation, richly dressed;-but no respect

was paid to virtue even in the grave; every thing, even to the dress she wore, was pillaged and taken away; and the naked corpse left to mingle, as it might, with its native dust.

"This unnatural war with the dead is one of the most revolting features of the French revolution. What must be the character of that people, who could find gratification in rifling the sanctuary of the tomb, and who, carrying their enmity beyond the grave, could glut their brutal and cowardly revenge, in offering insults to the defenceless remains, of the most illustrious characters in the history of their country? No respect was paid to rank, or sex, or virtue; and this was not a solitary outrage, committed at a single place, but the general practice throughout France.-A fellow passenger tells me that he saw the body of Laura the mistress of Petrarch, exposed to the most brutal indignities, in the streets of Avignon. It had been embalmed, and was found in a mummy state, of a dark brown colour. It was the same every where; and the best, and the worst of the Bourbons, Henry IV., and Louis XI., were exposed to equal indignities, nor could the deeds of Turenne himself protect his corpse from the profanation of these ferocious violators. All the cruelties committed upon the living, during the reign of blood and terror, will not stamp the French name with so indelible a stain, as these unmanly outrages upon the dead; the first may find some palliation, weak as it is, in the party rage, and political animosity, of an infuriated populace. But what can be urged in extenuation of the last? it is worse than the fury of the beasts; for of the Lion, at least we are told, that he 'preys not upon carcases.' (P. 382-384.)

The journey to Montpellier affords but little interest. Languedoc has nothing of the picturesque: no meadows, no cattle, no fences but stone walls, and no trees but the olive, which has no beauty of growth or foliage. Of the wretchedness and dirt of the habitations and provisions, we have the following humourous specimen.

"The kitchen of a village inn in Languedoc is enough to damp the strongest appetite. I wished for the pencil of Wilkie at Remoulins, a little village where we breakfasted this morning. While the host, who played as many parts as Buskin in the farce, was killing the devoted fowl, his cat ran away with the sausages intended to garnish it; poor Chanticler was laid down to finish his death-song as he could, while the host pursued puss to her retreat, which was so well chosen, that a third of the sausages were gone before he discovered her. Puss however paid dearly for it in the end, for in endeavouring to make her escape under a door, the aperture was so small that her hinder legs and tail were left on the hither side of it, upon which mine host wreaked his vengeance, by stamping most unmercifully. At last we sat down to Grimalkin's leavings, and though the landlord had no appliances and means' to help him, nor scarcely a stick of wood with which to make a fire, he did contrive, somehow or other, to furnish a very tolerable breakfast; and this seems to be the great merit of French cook

ery,-that it can make something out of nothing. Moliere observes that any body can dress a dinner with money and materials, and if a professed cook cannot do it without, his art is not worth a farthing." (P. 385, 386.)

When at Montpellier, Mr. Matthews is surprised at the character it has acquired for the salubrity of its air. He complains much of the constant prevalence of its sharp and biting winds. The place was peculiarly dull. It was vacation, and all the lecture rooms were shut. Our author therefore takes occasion to fill out his pages with a tedious account of the mode of electing deputies for the department, a general consideration of the arguments for and against a property tax, and a dissertation upon the treatise of Buffon sur la Nature des Animaux, which treatise, as to the view which it takes of the passion of love, stripping it of all its sentiment, and all its refinement, he reprobates with proper English disgust. Mr. Matthews visits the important cities of Toulouse, Bourdeaux, and lastly Paris, before his return, places with which every summer traveller is now familiar; we shall therefore now feel ourselves at liberty to part company with him. We finish with an extract of the account of two trials at the assizes at Toulouse.

"Attended the assizes. A prisoner was brought up for horsestealing. The president of the court, and three other judges were present, dressed in robes of scarlet, but without any flowing horsehair on their heads. The Procureur Général, or public accuser on the part of the crown, in the same costume, sat at the same table with the judges, and so close to the jury, that he was continually communicating with them in an under tone, and even during the defence, he from time to time suggested something aside to them, as it seemed, to do away the impression of what was urged in the prisoner's favour. The jury consisted of the principal inhabitants of Toulouse, and of the professors of the university. The whole court seemed to consider themselves as pitted against the poor devil at the bar. The president acted throughout as counsel against him; and even his manner, in the frequent cross-examination to which he made the prisoner submit, was what in England would be called unfeeling and indecent. Though the charge involved so serious a punishment, the judges and Monsieur le Procureur seemed to think it a very facetious circumstance, and laughed heartily, when the culprit aided his own conviction by some ill-considered answer.

"Even the jury, and the spectators, seemed to be without any feelings of sympathy for the accused, and the address of his counsel was not listened to with a decent attention by any body; though it ought to be added in their excuse, that the address was a villanously stupid one. I could not help being shocked at the apparent want of fair play in the whole procedure.

"The spirit of equality, which pervades every thing in France since

the revolution, seems to have found its way into the courts of Justice, in some of their observances, and in these instances at least, we cannot condemn its influence. The prisoner and the witnesses are accommodated with seats, not as matter of favour, but as matter of right; and the witnesses give their evidence sitting. This is surely nothing more than just, it is a sufficient evil that a man, without any fault of his own, should be liable to the inconvenience of attending as a witness, without being subjected to the additional punishment of standing up in a witness-box, during an examination of as many hours, as it may please the counsel to inflict upon him.

"The witness is not sworn upon the Bible; but he holds up his hand, and to the charge of the president, Vous jurez, sans haine, et sans crainte, de dire la vérité, toute la vérité, et rien que la vérité,' he answers,' Je le jure.'

"No evidence was taken down, and the summing up of the judge was only a recapitulation of the proofs against the prisoner.

"The jury always retire to deliberate, and bring in their verdict, in writing.

"The prisoner was found guilty, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

"29th. Assizes again.-A very interesting trial of a man for shooting at another, with an intent to kill him. Before the commencement of a trial, the names of the witnesses are called over, and they are then sent out of court, that one may not hear the evidence of the other. The President, opened the case to the jury. The proof was defective; at least, it was a very nice case, as to the identity of the man; and yet, one of the questions of the Procureur Général to the prisoner, in a cross-examination, in aid of the proof against him was, are you possessed of a gun?'!!! No evidence was taken down. When the evidence closed, the Procureur General spoke in support of the prosecution; the prisoner's counsel then spoke in his defence; and lastly the President summed up, remarking, in this instance, upon what had been advanced on both sides, but still it was the speech of an advocate against the prisoner, in which character the French judge seems to consider himself. In the course of this trial, the President examined the witnesses for the prosecution, as to the character of the prisoner, in this sort of way.

"Do you know any thing of the prisoner's character?

"Have you ever heard any thing against him?

"Do you think it likely from what you know of him, that he would commit the crime with which he is charged?" (P. 432-435.)

We have now done with Mr. Matthews, who, it must be acknowledged, with little effort of understanding, has, by dint of lively observation and a certain playfulness of allusive description, furnished an entertaining volume of his travels through countries and places where it would be difficult to place one's foot out of the tracks worn by Englishmen. He has told us little new, and refreshed what is old with little of new remark; but he has placed before us many accurate and striking pic