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subject of northern geography and the north-ened, should avoid the straits and shores, and west passage. Numerous propositions having keep to the broad and open sea, wholly free vi been made to the Royal Geographical society on ice in summer and but partially covered in winter; the subject, they appointed a committee to col- he instances the firunrille Buy whaler, as being lect the opinions of those best acquainted with shut up and drifted in the ice six hundred in what has been done and what still remains to be without any naterial injury—and argues that a done. Three letters, one from Sir John Barrow, king's ship has therefore little to apprehend if su the President, a second from Dr. Richardson, shut up. and a third from Sir John Franklin, have been He next asks, · Where is this open sea to be printed, and copies of them are now before us. found!' and answers the question by referring

Sir John Barrow sets out by stating that the to the accounts given by Franklin, Richardson, honour which England has acquired among the Elson (the master of Leechey's ship) and Capt

. continental nations of Europe by her successful James Ross. From these it appears, that along exertions in extending our knowledge of the the whole coast of America no land was seen to globe, both by sea and land, has very naturally the northward, that the see was mostly free from created in the public mind an ardent desire that fur- ice, and that the few small detached masses of ther endeavours should be made to complete what fered no obstruction to the navigation even of has been left unfinished. He states his opinion the Esquimaux canoes. Captain James Ross that the practicability of a north-west passage, proceeded along the western coast of what has after the experience that has been acquired, will been improperly called Boothia (for Parry had scarcely admit of a doubt;—that England would discovered and wintered on it,) first to the northbe held altogether inexcusable were she to suffer ward, where he fixed the place of the magnetic any other nation, by her own indifference, to rob pole, and then to the southward, where he erecther of all her previous discoveries, by passing

ed his obelisk; but in no part of his journey did through the door which she herself had opened;

he see any land to the westward, nor any im—that the honour would pescend upon him who pediment to the navigation of that sea : this offirst stepped over the threshold, and not on him ficer also states his opinion that this west coast who led the way to it; just as Vasco de Gama trends northerly to Cape Walker, where Parry has run away with the honour of having disco- has described a wide opening to the southward. vered the Cape of Good Hope which had been Sir John therefore concludes, and we think passed ten years before by Bartholomew Diaz. reasonably enough, that between the coast of He observes, that this is a question which has America and the nothern islands (Melville and never been lost sight of by the government; that others) there is a broad open sea, open enough it was the favourite object of Elizabeth ; that it for a ship of war to make her way through it has met with encouragement from almost every As it has been proved that no difficulty exists in succeeding sovereign; that rewards have been the passage through Lancaster Sound and Baroffered by Parliament for its completion; and, in row's Strait, that open sea, it may be presumed, a word, that it has become distinctly and une- is easily attainable; and in such case,' says the quivocally a national object. He tells us there President, 'I do not think it too much to express is at the Russian settlement close to Behring's a hope that the passage (the north-west) would Strait a bold, intelligent, and enterprising gover- be accomplished, and perhaps in one year." nor (the Baron Wrangel), whose mind is turned The other two papers are purely geographical. to geographical discovery, who has passed fifty- Dr. Richardson recommends that an expeeight days on the Arctic Siberian Sea, and has dition should be sent over the same ground altwo corvettes on his station—and that there is ready traversed, to take up its winter quarters every reason to believe he waits only the con- at the eastern end of Great Bear Lake; that from sent of his government to try his fortune on an hence it should complete the survey of the coast enterprise, the success of which would confer on to the westward of the Mackenzie River, and his name immortal honour.

after that to the eastward of Point Turnagain. The water communication between the Atlan- He then lays down the plan to be pursued, the tic and Pacific being fully established, the Presi- number of men and boats to be employed, and dent goes on to explain the causes of the failures cuts out work enough for at least a three years that have hitherto occurred. He says, the at- expedition. He admits, however, that the eastern tempts can only be considered as experimental; portion falls under the plan of Sir John Franklin, that the proper route was unknown; that to and that no better plan could be suggested. pass the winter in the frozen ocean was new; This plan of Sir John Franklin is as follows: that it was therefore quite natural to cling to that a ship, or two small vessels, with two boats, some shore-and that hence originated the fail- be sent to Wager River, which he supposes can. ures; that the heavy ice grounding on the coasts, not be more than forty miles from the extremity especially on those of narrow straits, into which of Prince Regent's Inlet; each boat to carry it has been drifted, not only endangered the safety eight persons, with two months' provisions: the of the ships, one of which was totally wrecked, one to be employed in tracing the coast westa second nearly so, and a third abandoned—but, ward towards the part reached by Captain Back, after being shut up for nine or ten months of the and thence onwards to Point Turnagain ; the year, any attempt to make progress the second other to follow the east shore of Prince Regent's season was utterly paralyzed. He therefore re- Inlet, up to the Strait of Hecla and Fury. He commends that king's ships, properly strength- lays down the detail of the plan for regulating

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the proceedings of the two parties, and their return to the ship or ships in Wager Bay. He

From the Quarterly Review.

recommends Captain James Ross and Captain FRENCH NOVELS AND FRENCH MORALS.

Back as the most proper officers for carrying his plan into execution; and adds, 'in case 11. either of them not being at hand when the expedition ought to sail, I should feel the greatest. pleasure in filling his place.' Since this, however, Sir John Franklin has obtained a more eligible employment, and a well-deserved reward 3. of his noble career, in the appointment of go-4.

vernor of Van Diemen's Land.

PAUL DE KOCK-Œuvres Complètes. 80 vols.
Paris, 1835.

1835.

VICTOR HUGO-Bug Jargal. Hans d' Islande. 2 vols. Notre Dame de Paris. 3 vols. Dernier Jour d'un Condamné. Paris, 1820-1835. ALEX. DUMAS-Souvenirs d' Antony. Paris.DE BALSAC-Le Vicaire des Ardennes. 2 vols. Annette et le Criminel. 2 vols. Physiologie du Mariage. 2 vols. Cent Contes Drolatiques. 2 vols. Le Dernier Chouan. La Peau de Chagrin. 2 vols. Le Médecin de Campagne. 2 vols. Scènes de la Vie privée. 6 vols. Scines de la Vie Parisienne. 4 vols. Scènes de la Vie de Province, 2 vols. Le Livre Mystique. 2 vols. Paris, 1822-1835.

MICHAL RAYMOND-Le Macon. 2 vols. Les Intimes. 2 vols. Le Secret. 2 vols. Simon le Borgne. 2 vols. Contes de l'Attelier. 2 vols. Le Puritain de Seine et Marne. Paris 18311835.

Captain Beaufort, the masterly hydrographer of the Admiralty, appears to have been called in to pronounce an opinion on the above plans.He commences by observing that every year seems to bring forward some accession of interest to the great question of the north-west passage, and of the northern configuration of America.' He says 'that there is an open and, at times, a navigable sea passage between the 5. Straits of Davis and Behring there can be no doubt in the mind of any person who has duly weighed the evidence; and it is equally certain that it would be an intolerable disgrace to this country were the flag of any other nation to be 6. borne through it before our own;' that he is satisfied that the mode proposed by Sir John 7. Barrow is the most prudent that could be adopted; that the eastern attempt by Cape Horn, advocated by some, would be highly imprudent, for reasons which he states: but he thinks the Geographical Society should recommend to his Majesty's government a humble and more tem- In the exposure, in our CIst Number, of the porary field of action, more appropriate to the profligacy of the modern French drama-which nature of the institution, more easy and economi- must have so much surprised our English readcal in its execution, and more certain and rapid ers, and which we are glad to repeat,* has not in its result; that to fix the proper moment for been without its beneficial influence in Franceeffecting the ambitious object of the north-west we stated that, though we began with the drama passage is solely the duty of government, and as the most urgent evil, 'the novels of the day the resulting credit, both at home and through-exhibited similar extravagances, absurdity, and out the world, ought to be solely theirs. He immorality.'

MICHEL MASSON-Nouveaux Contes de l'Attelier. 2 vols. Un Cœur de Jeune Fille. 1834-1835. GEORGE SAND.-Indiana. 2 vols. Le Secrétaire Intime. 2 vols. Metelia. La Marquise. Lavinia. Valentine. 2 vols. Rose et Blanche 2 vols. Lelia. 2 vols. Jacques. 2 vols. André. Leone Leoni. Paris, 183-1835.

therefore recommends the Society to endeavour It was not without considerable hesitation that to prevail with the government to fit out a small we undertook to bring that mass of profligacy expedition this summer for Wager Bay, accord-before the eyes of the British public. We feared ing to the general plan of Sir John Franklin; that the very names now transcribed might seem and that it should leave England in May. to sully our page, and we were not without ap

This recommendation, conveyed by a deputa-prehension that some of those whose feelings it tion of the Council of the Society, has, we un-is at once our desire and our duty to consult derstand, been favourably received by the two might think that more of harm might be done by departments concerned-the Colonial Office and advertising, as it were, such works, than of good the Admiralty. As regards the present year, it by their exposure. These opinions were not is obviously too late to make preparations for without their weight on our minds, but we the grand object of accomplishing the north- thought, on the whole, and we are, on re-considwest passage. But we do confidently trust iteration, more and more satisfied, that the prewill not be abandoned, and that the plan and ponderance is the other way. The habit of laroute pointed out by the President of the Geo-belling vials or packets of POISON with that cau- graphical Society, and sanctioned by the approbation of Captain Beaufort, will be adopted, and brought to a successful issue.

* See Quarterly Review, vol. lii. p. 276, note,-to which we have to add, that the absurd decision there mentioned as having been given, by one of the tribunals, in favour of M. Dumas-'obliging the manager of the Théâtre Français to play "Antony," or to pay Dumas a nightly indemnity,'-has been (but only lately) reversed, on appeal. By the laws passed in consequence of the Fieschi plot, the government have now the power of controlling dramatic representations.

tionary description may, though very rarely, the careless or short-sighted, it may appear have prompted or facilitated a murder or a sui- trivial or remote. cide—but how many ignorant and heedless per- Warburton attributes to the French the inven. sons has it not saved from destruction! Since tion of the whole art of novel-writing, from the we cannot prohibit the sale of poison, and since great heroical romance down to the little arraevery one knows that opium and arsenic are to tory novel, which,' he says, 'succeeded these be had at every apothecary's shop, the common voluminous extravagances, and introduced, sense of mankind demands that the danger should worse evil than the corruption of the tastea be pointed out in legible characters. These con- corruption of the heart;' but from this licentious siderations induce us to bring to the attention of style, he adds, they also first escaped by discoour readers the novelists of the modern French vering the true secret by which alone fictitious school, who as we shall see, are, if possible, still narrative could be made really amusing or immore immoral than the dramatists. If, indeed, proving—and this was by a faithful and chaste ours was the only channel by which the existence copy of real life and manners.' of such works could be known, no consideration Without entering into the claims of Spain to would induce us to mention them; but when it the invention of the heroical romance, or of Italy is notorious that they are advertised in a thou-to that of the little amatory norel, (by which we sand ways over the whole reading world—when suppose Warburton must have meant the old we see them exhibited even in London in the fabliaux or tales in the Boccaccio style, *) we windows of respectable shops—when they are doubt whether he is quite correct in the chronoloto be had in circulating libraries—when we gical order which he assigns to these styles.know, as we do know—that they find their way, The vogue of the Decameron and the Nourelles under the specious title of the last new novel, de la Reine de Nararre was contemporaneous into the hands of persons wholly or partially with that of the great body of the heroic romance. ignorant of their real character-nay, into ladies' The elegant little novels of Madame de Lafaybook clubs-we feel that it is our duty to stigmatize ette, and the immortal works of Lesage, followthem with a BRAND which may awaken the atten- ed close behind the pompous march of Le Grand tion of those who, not condescending themselves Cyrus and Pharamond; and Madame de Sevigné, to read what they may consider as mere harm- the friend and admirer of Madame de Lafayette, less trash, might and do unconsciously permit still loved to linger in the interminable labyrinths these conductors of moral contagion to infect of Clélie and Cassandre. Nor do we understand their dwellings.

on what grounds Warburton (writing about

1749) could congratulate the world that the But there is another more extended and not chaste picture of real life had driven the licenless important view of this question. Such pub- tious novel out of fashion. Crebillon the younger lications pervert not only private but public mo- --whom we take to be the first, or at least the rals—they deprave not only individuals but na- first remarkable novelist in the licentious line- ! tions, and are alternately the cause and the con- was only born in the same year (1707) in which sequence of a spirit which threatens the whole Lessage produced his admirable 'Diable Boiteux;' fabric of European society. The local position and was but eight years old when 'Gil Blas' apof France, in the centre of the civilized world-peared—the cleverest picture, we incline to think, her contact and communication with so many of real life and manners that ever has been drawn: nations—the universality of her language, and and the worst, and most popular, of Crebillon's the influence, moral as well as political, which pieces was posterior to the tedious moralities of she must necessarily have on all her neighbours Marivaux (which Warburton quotes as the eri-that is, on all Europe-give to all Europe an dence of the improvement of the public taste); interest in the principles with which the public and was indeed at the height of its favour about opinion of France may be imbued, almost as the time that Warburton was hazarding those great as that they feel for their own internal con-broad assertions on the subject of which he must dition. The unfortunate Revolution of 1830— have been, we are willing to suppose, but immore unfortunate, we fear, in morals than even perfectly informed. That Crebillon soon fell in politics-has, by the unanimous admission of into disrepute with all persons of good morals friends and foes, shaken not only all governments, and good taste—if indeed we can supposed that but all opinions. The Mountain which, in 1793, such persons could, even for a moment, have affrighted and desolated the world with its vol-tolerated his works-we readily admit; but every canic explosions, now pours from the same cra-one, at all acquainted with the popular literature ter a less noisy but more spreading and destruc- of France, knows too well that they extended to tive deluge of molten lava. Of the heat and direction of this new Phlegethon we believe that the literature of France is the least fallible index;

+ The Milesian Tales of the ancients were probably of and considering the extraordinary and dispro

this class. Ovid, reproacling Rome with his own exile, portionate share which plays and novels have says, usurped in that literature, and the demoralizing

“ Junxit Aristides Milesia carinina secum, characteristics which they exhibit, with, as re

Pulsus Aristides nec tanem urbe sua." gards novels, growing intensity, we cannot in But mark the consequence of such corruption, in the words justice to ourselves, our country, and the world, of Ovid's Annotator :-“ Milesiorum, deliciis et lascina refrain from endeavouring to expose a danger infamatorum, qui denique Miletum florentissimam urbem which is only the more formidable because, to perdiderunt !

a very late period their baneful influence in those highest. Candide and Zadig have had-fortu classes among which their contagion was most nately for society-nothing like a rival; Héloïsefatal to public morals. Indeed, it was not till the as unfortunately-has had a hundred-exemplar bolder, deeper, and more enthusiastic licentious-vitiis imitabile. There is hardly one of the crowd ness of modern authors had made Crebillon ap- of volumes enumerated at the head of this article pear 'fade' and tasteless that he ceased to be the which is not of the school of Rousseau; and M. delight of the youth of both sexes. Thirty years de Balzac, the most fertile, and not the most ofafter the publication of Les Egaremens du Cœur fensive of the fraternity of French novelists, in a et de l'Esprit, Sterne-(would that this were the work (the very name of which we do not venture only point in which this examination reminds us to specify) in which he pretends to examine some of Sterne!)-Sterne describes the fille de chambre important questions of social life, refers us, at of a lady of rank as asking for this work openly once, to Rousseau as the standard and text book at a bookseller's; and so it continued down to of public morals-Ouvrez,' he says, 'ouvrez the Revolution. Rousseau-car il ne s'agira aucune question de After Crebillon came Voltaire, who though he morale publique dont il n'ait, d'avance, indiqué can hardly be called a novelist in the limited la portée.' It cannot, therefore, be out of place sense in which we are now using the word, had or out of season to remind our readers of some a deplorable influence on this as on almost every portion of the personal history of this Apostle of other branch of literature. His Tales did not Disorder.

pretend to be representations of real life. They A baser, meaner, filthier scoundrel never polare not novels but satires, in which a fable-luted society than M. de Balsac's standard of generally an extravagant one of Oriental features public morals,' nor one who better exemplified -is made the vehicle of all that wit, gaiety, and the divine warning- Do men gather grapes of malignity could combine to ridicule, discredit, thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so a good tree and destroy the civil and religious institutions bringeth forth good fruit, and a corrupt tree of his country. The mischief, however, that they bringeth forth evil fruit.' did was more political than moral,-they were We have called Rousseau a madman, and such calculated rather to pervert the mind than to in- he undoubtedly was. Originally mad, in some flame the passions; and though, as might be ex-degree, from constitutional infirmity, but compected, his sedition and impiety were mixed up pletely disordered with the drunken vanity of with gross indecencies, we cannot attribute to some accidental, and by no means creditable, them anything like the same deleterious effect successes which surprised and overset the course on individual morals that were produced by Cre- and projects of his earlier life. His father was a billon, or by some nearly contemporaneous poor watchmaker at Geneva, (where watchmakworks of a graver character and less offensive ing is the commonest trade), who, not without style-we mean those of Rousseau. pecuniary difficulty, sent him to an humble We confess that we never could feel what has school, and endeavoured to give him an honest been called the magic of Rousseau; we even go trade; but Rousseau-being detected in lying so far as to own that-putting out of the question and thieving-eloped from his business, his famithe moral depravity of his writings-we have ly, and his country; and, after some experimenthe misfortune to be somewhat heretical in our tal vagrancy, had recourse to apostacy to apopinion of his literary merit. The Nouvelle Hé-pease his hunger: he had been born a Protestant, loïse, his great work, and that which is princi-and took his religion to market to a Roman pally connected with our present subject, always Catholic Bishop in Savoy, who sent him to a wearied us-wearied us, even in our youth, by convent for instruction, where, having abandonwhat we thought its false sensibility and verbose ed his faith, and being compensated with-what eloquence, as much as, in our mature age, it dis-we dare say was a liberal equivalent for such a gusts us by its false reasoning and its perverted faith as he had-the sum of 17s. 6d., he again principles. Is this mere bad taste on our parts? became a wanderer. He entered successively or is it, as we of course are disposed to believe, two families as a footman; from the first he was that Rousseau's literary merit has little to do dismissed for his old propensities of thieving and with his present reputation, which may be rather lying, which grew with his growth and strengthattributed to the success of those revolutionary ened with his strength,' to an almost incredible paradoxes on the nature of government and the degree of depravity. In the second place he was constitution of society, which he first explained promoted, as he says, from being footman to be and familiarized, and which have since, by a dis- secretary; but he does not account, except by astrous combination of circumstances, obtained the plea of restlessness, for his having forfeited such an ascendency in the literary and political this extraordinary good fortune. Wandering opinions of France. But why should the influ- again, he renewed a casual acquaintance with a ence of Rousseau appear-as it certainly has of sensual widow, who hired him as footboy, but late done so much deeper and more permanent eventually exalted him-the poor wretch thought than that of Voltaire?-Voltaire is only read, it Olympic exaltation-to be her paramour. quoted and admired; but Rousseau has made a Expelled from this filthy elysium by the jeasect, and is followed and adored-Why?-Be-lousy of his rival-the gardener--he again took cause Voltaire was only a genius, and Rousseau to a vagabond life, till he found himself, at a was a madman. For one who has pretended to mature age, on the pavé of Paris. During all ape Voltaire even in his lowest qualities, there his vicissitudes, however, he had read whatever are hundreds who have imitated Rousseau in his came in his way, particularly romances, and acVOL. XXIX. JULY, 1836.-7 C

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quired what was thought, for a person in his into Switzerland to escape the storm. There he circumstances, a surprising degree of literature; published other works of the same tendency, so he had also a natural-though it is said a false-grossly insulting to all sense and feeling, that taste for music, and proposed to exist by his dis- even the mob of the little village in which he recoveries and compositions in that art: he failed, sided rose against him, and expelled their crazy indeed, in these musical projects, but contrived, and mischievous guest.

while prosecuting them, to make some respecta- David Hume-whose constitutional good-nable acquaintance, and obtained what he impu- ture was perhaps somewhat stimulated by symdently calls the secretaryship of the French mis-pathy for a persecuted deist-now obtained for sion at Venice-a gross exaggeration of the dig-him an asylum in England; but by this time nity of his employment; for it turns out that he Rousseau seems to have become entirely mad, had no diplomatic character whatsoever, but and he exhibited that most common and infalliwas only a kind of upper servant, who, knowing ble sympton, of believing that all mankind was how to read and write, and copy and even com- conspiring against him-his English friends bepose music, was treated on a footing superior to ing, in his disordered imagination, the chief conthe other domestics. Be that as it may, he con- spirators. He broke away from them in a frenzy trived to be dismissed from this situation also; of indignation; and at length was permitted to and had now, at near forty years of age, no re-return to France, where he was received with source but to return to Paris; where he existed kindness by his philosophical admirers, one of at first on a clerkship in the office of one of the whom, M. Girardin, established him in a cottage farmers-general of the revenue, and subsequently at his seat of Ermenonville. Here he put the by some literary and musical efforts, which at last hand to the extraordinary work published length brought him into notice-particularly a after his death, called his Confessions,' in which little dramatic scene of Le Devin du Village,' he avows with maniacal effrontery most of the which had a great success in Paris, and which turpitudes to which we have alluded; and here, Dr. Burney introduced, without any success, on in 1788—before he had time to quarrel with M. the English stage by the title of The Cunning Girardin, which he assuredly would soon have Man.' done, as he did with every other benefactor he During this time Rousseau formed a connexion ever had-he died suddenly, but whether by his with the vulgar, stupid, and ugly maid-servant own hand or not, is a still litigated question.* of the obscure house in which he lodged: by 'What,' it has been asked, 'must be the priest, her he had five children, whom, with a diabolical when a monkey is the God?' What must be egotism and inhumanity of which we know no the sect of which a devil is the idol! Rousseau's parallel, he abandoned as soon as they were born most devoted disciple was Robespierre! The to the foundling hospital, taking irrevocable pre- Contrat Social was the text book of Jacobin. cautions to prevent the possibility of their being policy: the Héloïse and Emile, the guides of Jaever recognized. This atrocity he defended in cobin morals; and 'the benign influence of the his writings by an excuse still more atrocious-Man of Nature,' as he was called, was piously All the world persecutes me, and if I had brought evoked during all the atrocities of the Reign of up these children, there is no crime which they Terror! His bones were removed from Ermemight not have been suborned to commit against nonville, and enshrined-the National Assembly me.' These mean amours he diversified, as he attending in a body the impious processionboasts, by some adulterous intrigues of a higher with those of Marat in the PANTHEON (as by a order, for which the extreme profligacy of the characteristic blunder it was called)-of a people philosophical society of Paris afforded too much who acknowledged no GOD, and canonized only opportunity. The reputation of one of his ex-the most worthless of mankind. The same spirit alted flames, who was not sufficiently complying, which carried Rousseau to the Pantheon, during he endeavoured to bring down to his own level the horrors of the first Revolution, has revived by calumniating her in anonymous letters, which his reputation in the impudent profligacy of the he had the additional baseness of attributing to last; and we shall see, by-and-by, that even the the lady's sister-in-law-his own best friend. least offensive of the recent publications of the These disorders probably suggested to him Parisian press are exaggerations of the worst his celebrated novel of La Nouvelle Héloïse, which faults of Rousseau-for odious as was his private appeared in 1759, when its author was near fifty, life, and mischievous as were his writings, there and may be characterized in three words as an is, even in the Héloïse, a certain decency of lanapology for incontinence and adultery. Two guage-a semi-opaque veil which diminishes the years after appeared his Contrat Social,-to