most savage cruelty, the details of which are too horrible to be conceived, far less described! And yet these inhuman miscreants, in the event of their vessel being captured, are generally allowed to go unpunished. We cannot, or at all events we do not, punish them: that is left for the laws of their own country, and they are consequently suffered to escape. "This is but one instance of the numerous unheard of horrors entailed on the native Africans by the Slave Trade, as it is at present carried on. I shall relate another which also occurred very recently. His Majesty's ship Medina, cruising off the river Gallinas, descried a suspicious sail, and sent a boat to examine her, the officer of which found her to be fitted for the reception of slaves, but without any on board, and consequently allowed her to proceed on her course. It was discovered some time afterwards, by one of the men belonging to the vessel, that she had a female slave on board when the Medina made her appearance, and knowing that, if found, this single slave would condemn the vessel, the master (horresco referens) lashed the wretched creature to an anchor, and ordered it to be thrown overboard! This is an instance of the additional inhumanity indirectly entailed on the slave trade by the benevolent exertions of England. Had our Government been able to obtain from Spain, by the firmness and determination of her remonstrances, permission to seize all vessels under her flag fitted for the reception of slaves, this vessel could by no means have escaped, and no object could have been gained by the atrocious murder. As it is, our treaty with Spain limits us to the seizure of vessels with slaves actually on board; and this single slave, if found by the Medina, would have made the vessel a legal capture; to prevent which the poor creature was cruelly sacrificed, the life of a slave being considered by these wretches as no better than that of a dog, or one of the brute creation." The author's speculations on the civilization of Africa are ingenious, and breathe a good spirit; but the recent discoveries throw all previous conceptions into the back ground, and we now await the issue of the first promising attempt yet made for the improvement of a country with which our intercourse has hitherto been unmarked by much advantage. We, however, entirely subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Leonard, that, till the Slave Trade is effectually annihilated, no progress can be made in civilization; and to this the obstacles he enumerates are indeed formidable; nor can it be questioned that the limited right of interference Britain has acquired, though it may prevent the slavery of numerous individuals, really aggravates the evils of the traffic. In the month of October, 1830, the Black Joke boarded no fewer than five French vessels, with one thousand six hundred and twenty-one slaves on board, from the river Bonny alone; and, in the following month, there were ten French vessels lying in the Calebar river ready to take slaves on board, the French preventive squadron giving them no molestation. And this must go on till Britain obtains from France the right of search. Our boasted" excellent understanding" with the new French government has hitherto produced no advantage to the Africans. Were this power once granted, and the right of search of vessels under Portuguese colors extended to the southward of the equator, Mr. Leonard thinks the expectation of suppression feasible. "Were there," he says, no obstacles to the suppresssion of the slave trade, were every vessel, of whatever nation, found fitted out for, or engaged in it, liable to capture, were our squadron on the coast, small as it is, ordered to go on in the glorious work of emancipation, without fear of risk by legal processes and diplomatic squabbles, and entirely unhampered, were the simple unfettered order, Suppress the slave trade,' issued by government to the officer commanding our ships of war here, there is not the slightest doubt that the trade on this part of the coast would be immediately and permanently put an end to. Not a single vessel could escape us. While it is otherwise, all our exertions are mere farce, a perfect mockery of emancipation. We liberate a few of those embarked in Spanish vessels, while tens of thousands are embarked, and the vessels allowed insolently to pass us unmolested, under the infamous shelter of the French flag to the northward of the equator, and the Portuguese flag to the southward. Upwards of sixty thousand slaves, it is calculated, are annually exported from Africa. In 1826, we emancipated only two thousand five hundred and sixty-seven; in 1827, two thousand eight hundred and sixty-one; in 1828, three thousand nine hundred and twenty-four; and in 1829, five thousand three hundred and fifty were liberated, being a year of uncommon success, which arose from the great number of Brazilian vessels running prior to the operation of the convention of 1826, which made the trade under the Brazilian flag piracy. Since then, no vessel has appeared under that flag on the coast. In 1830 the number consequently again fell off; and in the present year little or nothing can be done. Almost every vessel laden with slaves is under the French flag, and the people on board, confident of being privileged, literally laugh at us as they pass, and often favor the escape of vessels under another flag liable to capture, by leading us a dance after them. But, besides the many other impediments to the complete suppression of the Slave Trade, while the captains of his Majesty's ships are liable to heavy damages for the detention of vessels with slaves on board which are subsequently, by a decision of the Courts of Mixed Commission, declared, in accordance with the treaties, to be illegally detained, which not unfrequently happens, there must be much hesitation in the minds of these men concerning the detention of vessels whose cases are at all doubtful; and those illegally employed have, no doubt, often been allowed to escape in consequence of the heavy expenses which may be incurred should they not be condemned. It is therefore evident, that all attempts at suppressing the slave trade under the present system is a mere farce; that all our expenditure for that purpose is fruitlessly, nay, in many instances, injuriously, employed." The service which this book performs to suffering humanity, stamps it, in our esteem, with the highest value; but it has secondary merits, which, in another work, would be considered primary. [Abridged from "The Eclectic Review for May, 1833."] ART. VI. Whychcotte of St. John's; or the Court, the Camp, the Quarter-deck, and the Cloister. 2 voulmes, 12mo. London, 1833. * UNDER a title which looks too much like a bookseller's puff to lead us to expect much that is substantial in the work itself, these volumes contain a collection of very clever and entertaining original papers. In the getting up of the volumes, there is, indeed, a palpable air of book-making; and the publication has altogether the appearance of a catch-penny. We must say too, that we cannot entirely applaud the taste displayed in the concoction of the materials. The liberty that is taken with living characters, is scarcely allowable; although the writer may plead in extenuation, that his portraits are generally those of the panegyrist, not of the satirist. We know not what Professor Smythe will say at having his lectures and conversations surreptitiously reported. We wish that it might provoke him to publish in self-defence. Whatever fault, however, we may find with the author or supposed rédacteur of these Whychcotte papers, on these or other grounds, we cannot refuse to do him the justice of admitting, that we have been much amused with his biographical sketches, not a little interested by his stories and anecdotes, and often well pleased with the good sense of his graver observations. We should suspect him to be an indolent man of talent, capable of producing far better things. He has evidently (notwithstanding his choice of a publisher) received his education and formed his opinions in the Tory school; and his partialities bespeak him to be a real Cantab. We honor his courageous frankness in lauding Bishops Marsh and Phillpotts, the two least popular prelates on the bench, although we cannot sympathize in his admiration either of the Author of the Seventy-three Questions, or of the active and acute political bishop,' the Clerical Chesterfield' — and Proteus. As we do not share in the writer's partialities and opinions, he will consider himself, we hope, the more honored by our good opinion. An introductory memoir,' by no means the least engaging part of the work, but very slenderly related to the subsequent papers, describes the character of Aylmer Whychcotte, of whom his tutor argued but too prophetically: 'He has talent enough for any thing; he will attain nothing.' The portrait is evidently from the life, and conveys an instructive lesson. But alas! wrong headedness is, in most instances, incurable. The next paper introduces us to the Cambridge Professor of Modern History. [* Professor Smythe has as yet, we believe, been known as an author only by a volume of very pleasing poems in the highly-finished style of past days, entitled "English Lyrics." EDD.] "Whether it be the peculiar beauty of his style, or the noble, and generous, and elevated sentiments which his Lectures embody, or the feeling with which they are uttered, or the singular felicity with which he sustains the unflagging interest and attention of his youthful auditory, or to all these circumstances combined, certain it is, that no professor ever conciliated or retained, in a higher degree, the affectionate regard of those who, year after year, have attended his Lectures. - For him, even the idle will rise an hour earlier, rather than lose the lecture. For him, the gay, rather than forego the fund of information that awaits them, will desert their late breakfast party, or decline it altogether. 'He is precisely that sort of lecturer to influence the auditory he addresses. His object is, invariably and unweariedly, to inspire them with elevated sentiments and enlarged views, to lead them to regard with distrust, men of sweeping measures and daring experiments, to teach them to look for the security of a country in the lenity and justice of its administration, to think all vain but affection and honor, the simplest and cheapest pleasures, the truest and most precious, to impress on them, that virtue herself is becoming, and the pursuit of truth rational, and that generosity of sentiment is the only mental acquirement which is either to be wished for or admired. 'Rarely does a lecture close without containing in it some reference to man's higher destiny and the magnificent visions of Christian hope; apart from which his existence is a riddle, and his trials unmeaning. One is at this instant present to me. - He had been lecturing on the Flight to Varennes: and, in alluding to the various accounts which had been given of that unfortunate enterprise, took occasion to notice the difficulties and distrust which certain skeptics have attempted to throw over the mission of our Lord, from certain discrepancies, omissions, and apparent inconsistencies, in the accounts of the four Evangelists. "Paley, that most sensible writer, has noticed these attempts, and has most completely and triumphantly refuted them. If the argument which Paine and Hume have applied to the writers of the four Gospels, - - which are strictly and properly Memoirs of the Life and Sufferings of our Saviour, be applied to the narratives of writers on the French Revolution, we are bound to infer, upon their principle, that no such event as the French Revolution has ever occurred! "Discrepancies, contradictions, omissions, inconsistencies, present themselves, which it is impossible to reconcile or overlook. Take, for an instance, the fact of the Flight of Varennes. The queen is represented, in one account, as leaving the palace leaning on the arm of Monsieur de Moulins: in another, as leaning on the arm of M. de Mallery: by a third writer it is asserted positively, that she quitted it alone. Yet from this, are we to imagine that the queen did not leave it at all? "Again: one account states confidently, that M. de Bouillé was wounded in the side and in the shoulder. Monsieur de Damas says, that he was wounded only in the breast. A third writer affirms, that his sole injury was that of a slight contusion on the head. The fact of his illtreatment and butchery is beyond dispute. "Again: one writer of considerable authority says, that the queen was recognised, at St. Menehould, by Drouet's son: another, that she was observed by Drouet himself. In detailing the several features of this disastrous undertaking, one historian affirms, that Drouet entered the town of Clermont; another, that he passed by it; a third, that he rode into Varennes alone; a fourth, that his son was with him; a fifth, — and this is the true account, - that he was accompanied by a friend. Yet, of his detection of the royal party, of his journey to and arrival at Varennes, -- there can exist no doubt. All these are matters of indisputable truth. Yet is it on points slight and immaterial as these, that the veracity of the Gospel narratives has been attempted to be overthrown, and the reality of our Saviour's existence impugned!"" - pp. 2-7. 'You would like to see him? We are late: it wants but one minute to ten. Away to the anatomical schools. Here, in this dark, dingy lecture-room, his little black mahogany stand placed straight before him, his right arm a little extended, the left resting on the small portfolio which contains his lectures, his whole appearance indicating the gentleman of the old school, but strongly characteristic of extreme bonhommie and kindness of disposition,-stands the popular Professor. Hark! he has just finished some brilliant passage, a part of his well known lecture on Maria Theresa: - Who that has heard it can ever forget it? — or has summed up his elaborate analysis of Frederick the Great, -or has closed his exquisite portraiture of the follies and sorrows of the unfortunate Antoinette, and a murmur of applause which they cared not or could not control, has burst from his delighted auditory. 'Take another view. You see that tall and somewhat gaunt figure, in a green coat and black velvet collar, bright buff waistcoat, knee breeches, and white cotton stockings, powdered, with round shoulders, and rather a stoop in his gait, yes, he that is striding away before us on the Trumpington Walk, with his hands behind him, his master's gown curiously tucked up into a roll, and most unceremoniously disposed of, as if it fettered the motions of the wearer, and was an appendage he would gladly dispense with, there goes the boast of Peterhouse, totally abstracted from the present, and revelling in recollections of the past. 'His voice is peculiar. Your first impressions of it are unfavorable; that it is harsh, wiry, thin, and inharmonious. Yet, so completely does he identify himself with his subject, that those passages which require irony or pathos; lofty indignation, or winning intreaty; cutting rebuke, or generous pity, are delivered with a truth, a fire, a force, and feeling, which set criticism at defiance.' — pp. 11– 13. We are then favored with a few specimens of the Professor's style of lecturing, taken down in a note-book in the lecture-room. They are not hazarded with the intention of giving an adequate and complete idea' of the force and eloquence of the original; and the charm of delivery is wanting. Still, our readers will agree with us, that these stolen morceaux are samples of no ordinary compositions. We must make room for a few passages. ""Louis XIV. He was in some respects unfortunate. He became a ruler of the earth when quite an infant. His education was neglected. His ruling passion was vanity, the mere love of praise. He was an actor. He was eternally uneasy and anxious for an audience. He was incessantly desirous to exhibit. At his levees-in his drawingroom on his terrace- at his meals he was ever acting the grand posture-maker of Europe. Throughout the whole of the royal day he had his exits and his entrances. It was for ever a drama, and the hero of the piece was Louis. Even at the chapel it was the "grand monarque" at his devotions. No ideas, however overwhelming, no apprehension of the sanctity of the Being he was addressing, seems for one instant to have banished from his view, the tinsel trumpery of human grandeur. Yet his age was very famous. Several master spirits lived in it; and the splen |