we were again to entangle ourselves in another quarter, where the difficulties must needs be infinitely more embarrassing?

We own that, in a domestic and constitutional point of view, the objections to such an alliance strike us as being yet stronger. It is repugnant to the whole spirit of our laws, and the analogies to be traced through their provisions, in a degree, perhaps, not always clearly perceived. If there is any thing about which the English law is more scrupulous than another, it is the admission of foreigners to influence within the realm. An alien has scarcely more existence, in its contemplation, than a person attainted or deceased. He can hold no lands, not even an acre, by himself, or by trustees, or in trust for others. He can enjoy no office of trust, from the place of Minister and Legislator down to the employment of a petty constable. + Even a denizen can hold no office; nor can an alien naturalized: § and, to shut them out the more completely, it is not lawful to introduce a naturalization bill into Parliament, without a clause expressly disabling the party to hold any office. Such is the law with respect to common persons, whose chance of ever holding high offices are indeed slender, and the probability still more remote of their using them against this country. But by an inconsistency somewhat startling, this rigorous spirit of exclusion wholly evaporates when a foreign Prince is to be naturalized, whose advancement to office is almost certain, and whose retaining a predilection for his own country can hardly be doubted: For the general rule is here suspended almost regularly; and the bill passes without the disabling clause. This deviation from the principle, however, is as nothing, compared with the inroad made upon it by the admission of an alien to the very highest station, one excepted, in the country; to the station which may give him all but the name of King, and most probably will give him many of the royal powThat the law should be silent upon this point, is strange; but, since the settlement of the English government, no case has ever occurred where constitutional jealousy could be called upon to supply the defect; for Queen Anne was married some time before the Revolution, ¶ when her succession was far from certain,-during a four years' intermission of Parliaments,-at a period the least favourable to liberty,-in a court the least jealous of foreign influence. We contend, however, that the whole spirit of the law and constitution, as now established, inculcates

ers.

It has been expressly decided to be a place of trust within the 1 Geo. I. c. 4.

statute.

12 Will. III. c. 2.

Ibid.

¶ In 1683.-There was no Parliament from March 1681 to 1685.

a repugnance, if not to any foreign match, at least to a match with a foreign Sovereign; who cannot fail to have interests clashing with those of England, and who cannot possibly become English by obtaining a high station amongst us. It might be going too far, to attempt the dissolution of an alliance already formed, upon the succession unexpectedly devolving. But when there is a question how the Presumptive Heiress shall contract this most important connexion, surely the time is opportune for bringing into view those constitutional principles, which are grounded in the uniform analogies of the law, and rest upon the soundest, as well as the most obvious, views of expediency.

In touching upon these topics we have avoided all details, and pressed as lightly as was possible, in order to avoid all unnecessary offence or irritation. We have omitted some subjects closely connected with the question, because there was no occasion at present for going more fully into it. Our object has been, to direct the attention of the country to a most momentous branch of state policy, insidiously attempted to be withdrawn from public discussion, and veiled from the eyes of the people, the parties most vitally interested in it, under the hollow pretext that it does not concern them at all. In truth, its importance can hardly be over-rated. How the Crown shall be transmittedwhether peaceably, or through the storms of a contested succession:-By what manner of person it shall be worn-whether by one carefully prepared for its duties, or, as it were, purposely unfitted to discharge them, are among the most interesting questions which can occupy the minds of a free people. They involve the contemplation of the worst evils felt in political society-a civil war, and an incapable ruler. Nor can we imagine a more signal service to his country, than that man renders, who contributes to save it from the infliction of those two unspeakable calamities.

ART. XI. Paris in Eighteen Hundred and Two and Eighteen Hundred and Fourteen. By the Rev. WILLIAM SHEPHERD. 8vo. pp. 280. Longman & Co., London. 1814.

MR

R SHEPHERD, who is well known to the literary world as an accomplished scholar, and to the political as an inflexible lover of liberty and friend of the Constitution, has, in our opinion, conferred a real obligation upon the common run of readers and travellers, by the publication of this little work. It is ushered into notice without any pretensions, either in the form of the edition, or in the author's tone. He plainly tells his reasons for

printing, which, independently of external evidence, bear the stamp of truth. His journal, kept on his first tour to Paris in 1802, according to a practice always, it seems, adopted by him when travelling, was in continual requisition among his friends for several years. When he returned from a recent excursion to the same place, it was natural that a still greater demand should be made upon his kindness; and he foresaw much trou ble in superintending its circulation. Nothing could be more obvious than the suggestion of giving it at once to the public. In my embarrassment,' says he, I recollected to have heard of an honest Quaker, who resided in the back settlements of • America, and who, finding himself absolutely eaten up by transient passengers, set up the sign of the Dun Cow; after which, though he made no profit, he enjoyed the comforts of a quiet house. Upon this hint I have committed both my journals to the press. If any thing more than what accrued 6 to the American accrues to me, 66 Lucro apponam. (p. viii.)

A work of this kind, putting forth no pretensions beyond those of a Diary actually kept for the traveller's own use, to point the accuracy of his observations, and record matters of information or recall agreeable recollections, ought in fairness to be judged according to those professions. Is it a good journal-apparently the work of a sensible and accomplished man---such as no well educated man need be ashamed of, if it by accident were found in his repositories, and perused by a stranger-calculated to serve its primary purposes with respect to the author, and to render future travellers a reasonable share of assistance in their journeys and observations? This is the fit question to be put; and we are enabled confidently to answer it in the affirmative; with the addition, which is not required of such a work, that it contains every where the traces of a vigorous mind, at once shrewd and bold, and of feelings and principles equally candid and pure. Political discussions, indeed, seem to be rather avoided than courted; nothing approaching to violence can be discerned; we might even say that the writer's impartiality is carried far enough to make his political bias on the questions which incidentally come in his way a matter of uncertainty.

Mr Shepherd's object, in first visiting the French capital, was wholly unconnected with party, or with political matters, except in so far as these must necessarily claim part of every man's observation. His principal object was the study of those wonderful monuments of ancient and modern genius which the conquests of France had enabled her to collect in one rich assemblage, such as never before existed within the same space. He was desirous of viewing the pictures and marbles, and of examining

the manuscript treasures of the libraries, principally with a reference to the favourite study of his leisure hours,—the revival of Letters in Europe after the dark ages. Formerly it was necessary to climb the Alps, and wander over whole provinces, in order to gratify this learned and dignified curiosity: The spoils of Italy are now brought together almost under the same roof, and there thrown open to the whole world. Justice may indeed complain; nor is it easy to repress a regret, not wholly romantic or sentimental, that the French did not rest satisfied with opening the road to the mine, and thus enabling each curious one to explore for himself the treasures, perhaps more precious while fixed in their native soil, and surrounded, as it were, with the delightful associations of the spot. But the prodigious gain, in point of ease and convenience, which has resulted from the pillage, not to the despoilers only, but to the Transalpine world at large, cannot admit of a doubt, how little soever it may be received as an excuse for the deed. The question of restoration lately excited some attention. Granting, however, that such a wound could safely have been inflicted upon the national feelings of the French people, in circumstances eminently critical; enormous, we may say inextricable, difficulties would have presented themselves in the detail of such a measure. Nor can any reasonable doubt remain, that a portion of the treasures would have been destroyed unavoidably in the removal, while a portion was wilfully spoilt by the conquered party; and, perhaps, a portion would have found its way to other places than those they had been taken from. Probably their remaining in Paris was a matter of necessity, as the only tolerably certain means of preserving them, independently of the political obstacles to that restoration which justice prescribed.

The correct taste every where exhibited in this Journal, makes us regret that Mr Shepherd treats so sparingly of the details of the Galleries. In his first journey, he dismisses the pictures with a single sentence, and does not enter at all into the particulars of his examination. He seems, indeed, to have experienced, as we believe every visiter of the Louvre does, a sort of distraction in his first visit, which does not allow a minute inspection; and a satiety from the immensity of the banquet served up all at once, so as to prevent the enjoyment of any of the individual luxuries. All persons who have frequented those rich collections, either in Italy or France, feel the desire strongly grow upon them, of singling out a few prime specimens of art, and poring over them separated from the rest. Every one who has travelled, must have felt how much more exquisitely he relished a visit to some place, where a single first

rate picture was to be seen,-some church, or convent, or chateau, remarkable only for this solitary jewel, than a surfeiting morning spent in devouring the richer wonders of a collection; in every compartment of which, might be found pieces of transcendent merit,-possibly as fine as the single ornament of the obscure altar, the distant refectory, or the comfortless and halfruined chateau. We the rather ascribe our author's slight no. tice of the paintings, in his first tour, to some such feelings; because, in his second, when, from the novelty being past, he had leisure and self-command to pursue the plan of taking a few studies each time he visited the Gallery, he enters somewhat more into detail. Still, however, we could have wished for a much fuller statement;-he might at least have told us what he feltand his remarks on the masterpieces, if not those of an artist, or a professed connoisseur, would have borne the stamp of a vigorous, original mind, and a just taste. In his first visit, the statues seem to have struck him still more forcibly than the pictures.

Here,' says he, when I found myself surrounded by the works of Phidias, Praxitiles, and Xeuxis,-works which, for so many centuries before the Christian era, had excited the enthusiastic admiration of enlightened Greece, and which the bold spirit of the Romans durst not aspire to emulate,-I could hardly persuade myself of the reality of the scene which was exhibited to my view:-And when I gazed with minute attention on the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Mirmillo-moriens, and the other pieces of sculpture with which the engravings and casts that I had consulted in the course of my élassical studies had made me familiar,-I soon found that no copy was adequate to represent the spirit of the august originals. What a lesson does this Collection give on the instability of human things! These breathing marbles were the splendid fruits of the victories gained by the armies of Rome over the degenerate Greeks. The Romans have degenerated in their turn; and the prize of valour has been wrested from their feeble hands, by the descendants of those Gauls, whom they once compelled to submit to the yoke of slavery. Who can deem it an impossible supposition, that, in the course of revolving years, it may be transferred by the hand of victory from the Seine to the Neva-from Paris to Petersburgh. p. 50, 51.

The concluding sentence contains a singular anticipation, though certainly an accidental one, of an event, which, twelve years afterwards, was undoubtedly very near taking place. Before quitting the Galleries, it is fair to remark with what praiseworthy liberality they are made accessible to the world. They are open, without any fee or reward, to strangers every day from ten to four, and to the Parisians three days in the week; a distinction which, however necessary, would not, in this country, We very well relished, nor, indeed, very patiently submitted to.

VOL. XXIII. No. 46.

Hh