immoral habits and contracted mode of thinking which often pervade this youthful assemblage; and he very properly deprecates the prac tice of sending out these young adventurers at too early a period, before their minds are fortified with wholesome lessons of virtue and honour, from those whose love and regard are most likely to make a deep impression on them. We have no hesitation, then, in earnestly advising the parents and friends of youths who are designed for the navy to furnish them with this little work; in which the admonitions are forcibly conveyed, and at the same time with such evident marks of a benevolent intention that they cannot fail of their object, except with the most depraved. We would even go farther, and say that we consider this book as worthy of the notice of the Admiralty; and that it would be well if each Captain were supplied with a number of copies, to be given to his midshipmen when they join the ship. On a point on which the friends of these young gentlemen are very liable to form a mistaken judgment, the writer remarks: Some of you may send your son with fathers, brothers, &c. then you feel certain he will be attended to. All you that are about to do so, revoke the sentence; send him rather to the greatest stranger than to his nearest relation, under whom he is always looked upon with the eye of suspicion by all his messmates. He is frequently branded with the name of tell-tale (which on board a man of war is properly the most disgraceful and detested appellation) whether he deserves it or not. His spirit is cowed, if it is not broken, and he is at any rate made wretched and miserable.' In speaking of education, it is stated that Navigation and Geography are the two simple attainments absolutely necessary. To those who can act liberally, I strongly recommend drawing and mathematics, charting, and a knowledge of taking plans of coasts, harbours, headlands, &c. French is a language so universally spoken, and of such essential use to every officer in the navy; as by it he may render himself of conspicuous service to his country by obtaining information or otherwise; that I would strongly recommend all those who design their sons for the profession, always, if possible, to give them the advantage of a French master.' With regard to equipment, the writer advises an ample stock of clothes, to the amount of at least fool.; and not less than 40l. a-year for current expences. For the information of those most ignorant of naval matters, it is proper to remark that the pay a young gentleman receives on first coming on board a man of war does not amount to more than 81. per annum, until he obtains a rating as midshipman, when his pay in a first-rate is about 361.'-Chap. 2. treats impressively on Idleness; and in chap. 3. on Obedience, the author very properly observes, 'whoever cannot obey a commanding officer ought never to become one himself. It is not sufficient simply to obey an order: but to do it right it should be done with spirit and with pleasure: this will bring you into notice and establish your merit.' - Chap. 4. On Attention to Duty. 'It will be of the utmost importance to your future prospects in life, to entertain an early H 3 early idea of the consequence of paying particular attention to the duties of your profession in all its branches; with a steady. resolution to adhere to it, and a little practice in the beginning, you will easily acquire the habit, which you will ever after retain. To make you feel more readily the extreme happiness arising from a cheerful attention to duty, I recommend you to take the first opportunity that may occur, from any particular service you may be ordered on; and try how far you can give satisfaction to your senior officers by entering into it with spirit and alacrity; strive to astonish them by doing it particularly quick, and particularly well.' › Replies always aggravate and never mend matters between junior and senior officers. I advise you then never to reply to reproofs which, on cooler reflection, you will generally find not to be so undeserved as in the heat of the moment they might have appeared to be. - Act with the confidence and firmness authorised by your consciousness of innocence, and at the same time with the respect due to difference of rank, and the becoming humility expected from your youth.' Chapter 5., on volunteering on Service against an Enemy, is replete with good sense and energy; and the writer's observations on the spirit of jealousy which is occasionally found in the navy, with his admonitions on that subject, are very just: but we trust that, as the young men become more enlightened, and their minds more enlarged, this meanest of all feelings will disappear from the service. 6 In Chap. 6., on learning the Profession,' the author very properly recommends practice in all its branches, as preferable to theory, which indeed can be of no use without the former: but Darcy Lever's book on seamanship, as he justly remarks, is the best aid to practical exertions. Chapters 7. and 8., on Navigation, and Gunnery, with the candid inquiry into the cause of our late failure in our attacks on the Americans, (which are deduced partly from our ignorance of gunnery,) are marked by that coolness which is manifest throughout the work. Chap. 9. On keeping a Journal; 10. ' On your Conduct to your Equals; and 11. On your Conduct to your Superiors.' The next and last chapter, On your Conduct to your Inferiors,' which breathes a spirit of mercy untainted by weakness, is followed by some observations on the practicability of an improved system for the education of youth, by establishing an academy at each of the naval arsenals; where every boy on admission should pay 40k. or 50l. a-year, to diminish the expence to Government. If those boys who are educated at the academy at Portsmouth enter the service with qualifications superior to others, there can be no doubt that an extension of that limited number to 300, consider. ing such an increased navy as we possess, must be attended with great benefit to the service: but we must beg leave to differ with the author on the subject of exclusion. He conceives that the regulation for each youth to pay 40l. or 50l. on admission would exclude low birth, and consequently boys of inferior education, minds, 8* minds, and manners. Though this objection has its weight, does it not close the door also against officers' sons of all ranks? while, with such an extent of numbers, none should be excluded but by a deficiency in the necessary qualifications on examination. It also militates against the spirit of our constitution, which leaves the avenues open to honours in all professions, from the highest to the lowest. We perfectly accord with the author on the necessity of preserving the mind untainted by vice or meanness : but it would be the duty of the Governor to exclude any boy of an objectionable description, when found to be an unfit associate for gentlemen. The same power existed with the Captain of every ship in the navy; and we are inclined to think that the late regulations, depriving them of the privilege of selecting the officers of their own quarter-decks, will be neither pleasing nor beneficial to the navy. If the Captain has not wisdom enough to choose those officers who are best suited to his habits, who are most known to him on service, and whose qualifications intitle them to his approbation, he is not fit for his situation in a command of such responsibility; and the more these discretionary powers are abridged, the more the service will suffer. The effect of the new rule is to transfer the patronage from experienced and practical men to those who, with the exception of a few naval members, have little knowlege of the subject; and these latter are as likely to be injudicious in their selection as the Captain, who is more interested in the management of his ship, and equally concerned for the welfare of his country and the dignity of his profession. POLITICS. Art. 20. The Question of the Necessity of the existing Corn Laws, The work of Dr. Parry must, we fear, be classed in the same list with the lately noticed publications of Mr. Cuninghame on Government and Mr. Craig on Political Science. Like them, it contains a great accumulation of fact and argument without much attention to method, and with scarcely any conception of the pains which are necessary to render a book attractive. This closely printed volume will consequently be interesting only to those who will be contented to sit down and pass several days in studying the subject, working over the writer's arguments in their own minds, and forming for themselves a new and approved classification of his ideas. The inquiry is divided into six chapters; 1. On Rent; 2. On real Price; 3. The Case of the Farmer; 4. The Labourer's Case; 5. The Landholder's Case; 6. On an independent Supply of Corn. Each of these, particularly the last, is discussed at great length: but the author must not expect that the merchant, the landholder, or the member of parliament, will be induced to travel over this uninviting ground with him, though well satisfied of the candour and, in several cases, of the justice of his course of reasoning. How often H 4 1 1 often shall we have occasion to recommend to candidates for lite. rary repute an unsparing retrenchment of the ideas that crowd on the mind on the first preparation of a MS.; and, above all, the consideration that many points of great interest to them possess very little attraction with the bulk of readers! All these arrimadversions are applicable to the publication of Dr. Parry. Oссаsionally, however, he enlivens a wearisome passage with anecdotes, of which the following may be taken as a specimen : Mr. A. Young has favoured us with a story in order to exhibit the effects which the restoration of Bonaparte last year is reported to have had upon the labourers in several parts of the kingdom. It appears that they received the news with unequivocal expressions of approbation. By way of companion, I offer him the following particulars. A gentleman, calling, at a somewhat late hour, upon a friend, in a well-known inn in a large city of the west of England, was surprised at hearing much noise and riot in an adjoining room. On enquiring of the waiter as to its cause, he was answered, " It is only the farmers rejoicing at Bonaparte's return, and drinking his health in an additional bottle."" 1 This publication discovers, both in the text and the notes, the marks of very extensive reading, as well as (p. 168, &c.) various proofs of liberal and judicious views: but the minuteness of detail and the verbosity of the author's illustrations seem almost infinite. Art. 21. On the State of Europe in January 1816. By George Ensor, Esq. 8vo. pp. 133. Hunter. We were lately required to notice, (see our number for June,) with very slender approbation, a tract by this author on the state of Ireland; and we find him unluckily just as unsuccessful in discussing the wider range of European politics. Though fundamentally right in some of his positions, such as the severe measures of the Congress of Vienna with regard to Saxony and Genoa, or (p. 132.) with respect to the enormous expences to this country of the last two wars, such a tissue of error pervades his reasonings, and suchastrange mixture of heterogeneous views occurs in almost every page, that we cannot be uncharitable in pronouncing him to be " right in the wrongest way possible." A French critic remarked lately of a countryman of his own, that to aim at a variety of objects was the sure way to be médiocre en tous. Why will not Mr. E. take a gentle hint from our brother abroad, or from equally unceremonions critics at home; and abstain from grasping at a monopoly of literary discussion by writing at one time on law, at another on education, afterward on government and the Catholicquestion, crowning all by undertaking a work on the ' developement of the faculties which constitute moral and intellectual excellence,' with as much sang froid as if it were a subject to be analyzed by the lucubrations of a few weeks, or settled by a few flourishes of the pen ! Art. 22. TRAVELS. Travels through the Interior of the Provinces of Provence and Languedoc, in the Years 1807 and 1808. By LieutenantCol. Col. Pinkney, of the North American Rangers. zd Edition. 8vo. 145. Boards. Purdy and Son. The first edition of this work was noticed by us with considerable minuteness in our lxvith Vol., at a time when travels in France were a matter of much greater rarity than they are at present; and we expressed our suspicions, towards the end of our report, of the accuracy and even the fidelity of certain passages, having detected the author in the stale trick of borrowing from his predecessors, and of seeking to entrap the attention of the public by a specious, we might almost say a fallacious, titlepage. We are now to add that farther information, obtained since France has become open to the personal observation of ourselves and our countrymen, confirms the unfavourable part of our remarks, and makes it incumbent on us to apprize our readers that Col. P. is very erroneous in many of his statements. Among other things, he dwelt with great ardour on the advantages of Tours as a family-residence, and the place is certainly superior to the generality of provincial towns in France: but the prices of every thing are double, or very nearly double, those which he stated; and the same remark applies to Angers, Saumur, and the banks of the Loire generally: where, we understand, many of our countrymen are at present, and loud in their invectives against this traveller. Still, from the fairness of his observations in other respects, we are inclined to ascribe his mis-statements rather to inaccuracy and vanity than to deliberate intention: but, whatever may be the cause, it is important that the reader should be apprized of their erroneous nature. The saving of house-keeping expence in France, compared with this country, may be set down, not at one-half, as Col. P. and others assert, but at something more than one-third; 100l. in the one country going about as far as 160l. in the other. In applying this rule to particular spots, we must not put the capital in the one against a retired district in the other, but establish our comparison between towns of similar size, or between counties at a corresponding distance from the metropolis; the latter being in either country the great focus of expence. MEDICINE, &C. Art. 23. A Treatise on the Medicinal Leech; including its Medical and Natural History, with a Description of its Anatomical Structure; also, Remarks upon the Diseases, Preservation, and Management of Leeches. By James Rawlins Johnson, M.D. F.L.Š. &c. &c. Illustrated with two Engravings. 8vo. pp. 147. Longman and Co. 1816. We are told in the preface that the basis of this essay was an inaugural dissertation, which the author wrote previously to his graduation in the University of Edinburgh; and that its superior merit having induced some of his friends to wish that it might have a wider circulation than is generally allotted to works of that description, he translated it into English, made some additions and corrections, and published it under its present form. He has thus produced |