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submission, while his native character was such as bade defiance to the apprehension of danger. In that situation, indeed, he found various incitements to a purer faith. The monastery in which he sought a retreat from the world was one of the Augustinian order, in which he naturally acquired a respect for the writings of Augustine. In the second year after he had entered the monastery, he discovered a Latin Bible, and then, for the first time, learned that there were other passages of Scripture besides those which were recited in the offices of the church; soon afterwards, being visited in sickness by an aged monk, he received from him the doctrine of the remission of sins through faith, and, from that time, was indefatigable in searching the sacred Scriptures, and the works of the patron of his order. Still, he had no idea of questioning the faith of the Romish church, and seven years elapsed before he was, as he has himself represented, forced into an open opposition, by the impossibility of retreating. Luther has been censured as coarse and violent, when he had at length found himself engaged in the great struggle of the reformation; but with more moderation, he could not have held on his way through the difficulties which he had encountered; and, with all his violence, he was most adverse to the principle of maintaining by arms the cause of religious truth." The forty-fourth lecture contains the History of Spain and Portugal, between 1516 and 1598; and exhibits a short review of the rise and decay of the cortes of Castille and Arragon. In that part of the philosophy of modern history, which refers to England, we find passages, illustrating the great struggle between the commons and the royal prerogative, worthy attention.

In referring to the times preceding the commonwealth and the struggle they originated, we cannot help being struck with the evidence, how certainly a reformed church and commerce have gone hand-in-hand in producing the general enlightenment and distinguished amelioration of the English people, and how certainly the indolence and non-inquiry of the Catholic worship have circumscribed the spread of light, and, in some cases, almost extinguished it.

Dr. Miller's style, in general, is clear and precise, and assists the methodical arrangement of his materials, by impressing his facts and inferences on the reader. He has very properly (page 4, vol. 5) deprecated the pressing too closely, as is often done, a comparison between masses of unorganized matter, and associations of intelligent and moral beings. However advantageous such metaphorical illustrations may be deemed in declamation, they afford the most loose and slippery ground for inferences relative to the moral paths of philosophy, or matter of fact. The sober style of history requires that the wing of fancy should be restrained, or, at least, trained to the present lure of the immediate object of research. Yet our historian has himself fallen into the fault he deprecates; and we have found him, in several places, hunting down a metaphor, drawn from the anatomical peculiarities of animal structure, in order to use it as a material for his historical deductions; for instance, at page 3, we have the following strange illustration of this ambitious figure of speech, in which the unintelligible is mixed up in equal proportions with the pretensive. These two combinations, the incipient tendency of an organization to be completed in a subsequent period, may be regarded as the ramifications of a vascular structure spreading through a large mass of gross and unorganized matter, which it gradually assimilates to itself, &c. Now, "this is affectations," as Fluellin says, and should be reformed altogether! The defect is the more inexcusable, since the ancients

have left us such excellent módels for history. That a metaphorical illustration uniformly ornaments where it is not required to corroborate, is a mistaken and a vulgar opinion. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more disadvantageous to a poor or bald style, since pretence and ambition exhibit its poverty more strongly by their contrast; and to a style purely historical, or logical, it is scarcely less disadvantageous; the cold severity of judgment being painfully decorated, and appearing to the eye of taste like a sculpture, or statue, painted with tawdry colours. It has the effect of gawdy trimming and embroidery on a quaker's coat. The attempt, moreover, is almost sure to be accompanied with failure, since a logical or philosophical inquiry is not calculated for supplying that glow and vivida vis of fancy, necessary to fuse metaphorical ornament with argument, so as to mould it into a brilliant and homogeneous mass, worthy of the impress of genius, and the unalloyed appreciation of public taste.

Notes on the War in Spain; detailing Occurrences, Military and Political, in Galicia, and at Gibraltar, and Cadiz, from the Fall of Corunna to the Occupation of Cadiz by the French. By Thomas Steele, Esq. M. A. of Magdalen College, Cambridge, a Member of the Spanish Committee.-1 vol. 8vo. pp. 362. 9s. Sherwood and Co. THE Communications made to the public by this volume, concerning the late affairs in Spain, are arranged under a great variety of heads, and include whatever is prominently important and interesting on a subject that has powerfully arrested contemporaneous attention. The account Mr. Steel gives of the occasion and manner of his visiting the Peninsula, cannot be more properly expressed than in his own words:"Having formed," says he, "the resolution of joining the Spanish constitutional army, about the middle of last July, I went on board the Iris, then lying in the Thames, near the Tower, where she was taking in her lading, consisting of some thousand stand of arms, &c. &c., the donation of the Spanish Committee to the army which I was about to join. I went on board in London, at the request of our secretary, Colonel Grant, who, in his anxiety for the service of the constitutional cause, was eager for the sailing of the vessel, and hoped that I, by my presence, might have some influence in hastening the captain's preparations. The vessel sailed two days afterwards. In its passage to Corunna, she was impeded by the hostility of two ships of the French blockading squadron, and with difficulty affected a landing."

Having spent three weeks among the Spaniards, and sought in vain to open a communication with Sir Robert Wilson, the British party contrived to sail for Gibraltar. Corunna and other places had submitted to the French, and an attack upon Cadiz was daily expected. Before this attack was realized, the Iris, however, paid a visit to the temporary residence of the cortes and their constitutional king; and the description our author gives of that town and its inhabitants is so highly picturesque and gratifying, that we wish our space would allow us to transcribe it, instead of compelling us to refer our readers to his

volume.

It was here that Mr. S. and his companions found Sir Robert Wilson, under whose command, as volunteers in the cause of Spanish freedom, they immediately enlisted. The bombardment of Cadiz was preceded by the fall of the Trochadero, which led to an open negociation between Ferdinand and the Duke of Angouleme; a negociation, the conducting of which could not but open the eyes of *he most confiding of the cortes, and that, after serving to evince the bad faith of the sovereign, was followed by his departure from Cadiz to the French camp, and the entrance of the French army into that city. The description of the king's removal is minutely described, and too interesting to be omitted:

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Major Dickson, Mr. Chinery, and I,” says Mr. Steel, “went to the ramparts, near the palace (Aduana); and, as we passed the soldiers who lined the bastion, we remarked the regularity of their appointments, and excellent order. After taking a rapid view of the preparations, we descended, and at the Mole took a boat, in which we rowed close to the wharf, where the royal barge was prepared for Ferdinand's reception. The barge was white, ornamented with gilding, and with a blue silk awning very richly decorated. She carried two masts, and there were sixteen rowers. Several very indifferent-looking boats, with variegated awnings, attended near the barge. The quay, from the wharf to the gloomy portal under the bastion, in proximity to the Aduana, was lined with soldiers. The bastions towards the left, and the Mole, were crowded with spectators, and above the ramparts, along their whole line, the windows of the houses, the balconies of every story, the house-top terraces and galleries, and the innumerable turrets, which rose above the whole, were also occupied. Four heralds, and some of the officers of the household, the general-in-chief, Burriel, Lattre, &c. &c. came down in procession; and, after a considerable interval, the guns began to fire, and the king, the queen, Carlos the infant, and the royal family, with an attendant train, issued from a portal near the water. Not a banner was displayed, nor garland of flowers, nor scarf waved, nor was there one voice of congratulation heard from the houses. As the family walked to the wharf, the soldiers presented arms; bút, except for the cannonade, all would have been dead silence. They took their places hastily under the awning, and the guns of the batteries fired, and were answered by the artillery of the Asia, a seventy-four, of a war-brig, and the gun-boats and launches in the harbour, and by the French cannon, at Porta Maria, on the opposite side.

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"General Valdes, the military governor of Cadiz, stood uncovered at the helm; and, after the royal barge had receded about thirty yards from the wharf, the rowers dully and mechanically heaved out (not shouted) Viva el Rey!' Not a single voice was heard to respond from the land, nor, except those of a few of the very lowest of the rabble, in three or four small boats, was their a voice on the water.

'No man cried, God bless him!""

"Sauve qui peut," adds Mr. Steele, "was now the principle of action in Cadiz, among the constitutionalists." Sir Robert Wilson, learning that an order for his arrest had been prepared, left the city early the next morning, and found refuge on board the Royal George steam-packet, then lying at anchor in the harbour. The fact was, that Ferdinand, in direct contravention of his most solemn and positive promise of safety to all the friends of Spanish freedom, no sooner arrived at Porta Maria, than he signed a proclamation, annulling all the acts of government from the year 1820, and rescinding all his recent engagements with the cortes. Upwards of two hundred Spaniards were glad to escape from Cadiz; among whom were Quiroga, Lopez, Bagnos, Alava, Valdes, Calatrava, and most of the distinguished patriots, who, when they reached the Bay of Gibraltar, were regarded with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of that place, and, while performing quarantine, complimented with presents of fruits and other acceptable articles.

After all that has been thought and said of the last acts of the Cortes, their yielding up their king to the demands of the French, commander-in-chief, and leaving Cadiz and their country to their fate, it clearly appears, that bribery, and the defection of the troops, rendered all further attempts to defend themselves and their cause utterly hopeless; that cowardice, bigotry, and perfidy, were united against Spanish liberty; and that the only measure left to their choice was that which they adopted.

This narrative of a series of events, singularly important, and which will make a conspicuous figure in the future histories of Europe, is full, clear, and satisfactory; and in its every part wears the aspect of verity and unexaggerated description. The facts are disposed in their just order; no circumstance worthy of notice has been omitted; and the whole is couched in that chaste, sober, and unaffected language, which best becomes the nature of the relation.

Naval Battles, from 1714 to 1814, critically reviewed and illustrated. By Charles Ekins, Rear Admiral.-1 vol. 4to. pp. 425. 31. 3s. Baldwin and Co.

THAT " England is a land which can never be conquered, whilst the kings thereof have the dominion of the sea," we are as fully of opinion, as was Sir Walter Raleigh, whose words our author has adopted as one of his mottos; and further, we think, that "whilst the kings thereof" duly foster and encourage the naval strength of England, the dominion of the sea will continue to be her own. But, still, without the remotest intention to depreciate a book, the perusal of which has afforded us much pleasure, we repeat, that, after the maturest consideration, we are incapable of perceiving, that its appearance can produce any essential benefit to our naval strength. That that strength is our natural and our best strength, we have always been convinced; and when, some twenty years since, it was proposed to erect a public monument in memory of the many glorious exploits of our invincible tars, we honoured the project as the suggestion of real patriotism, and the generous and ungovernable wish for the perpetuation of British freedom. Notwithstanding her occasional military successes, and their results, it is on her Navy that England must ultimately rest for the security of her constitution and her liberties. Should that fail, which Heaven, whose service is perfect freedom, ever forefend, adieu to her independence, her public spirit, and the noblest of her virtues: but, even were her armies annihilated, she could not fall, while her ships are triumphant, and the ocean is her own.

In regard to the style in which the Admiral has acquitted himself, not as a marine champion, but as a naval compiler and author; as a collector of facts that furnish materials for the naval history of his country, and as a professional commentator on the nature and merit of those facts; we must say, that it is evident, from the bulk of his book and the facts selected, that the writer has spared no diligence in the task of research, nor, in the choice he has made, been deficient in judgment. They are numerous, and eligibly amassed; and their arrangement announces an attention to that lucidus ordo, without which

the richest and best accumulated articles may, by the confusion they exhibit, be deteriorated in their value, and deprived of their due and intended effect.

To specify all the glorious engagements here enumerated and analysed, would neither suit the space we can allow to the consideration of these "Naval Battles," nor quadrate with the measure of patience, to which our readers would deem the narration of such events to be entitled. The descriptions of such actions, like sea-pieces, assume too general a resemblance to be interestingly distinguished from one another, or to excite those particular and exclusive feelings which properly belonged to each. We shall therefore content ourselves with pointing out the principal and most memorable of these contests. We believe, that most naval men will agree with us in saying, that they consist of that between Hawke and M. de L'Etendiere, Oct. 14, 1747; that between Rodney and the Count de Grasse, April 12, 1782; that of Duncan over the Dutch Admiral de Winter, in October, 1797; Nelson's battle of the Nile; and that in which, at the price of his life, he purchased the conquest that added twenty ships to the British

navy.

The strictures of the rear-admiral on these battles, given in de-. tail, are, for the most part, very just; and, in our opinion, so illustrative of their characters, and explanatory of the means by which the English fleets gained their respective advantages, that no shrewd foreign admiral can read them, and not learn how to cope with us hereafter, with more prospect of success than, without such information, he might reasonably have expected. The skill and acuteness with which many of the engagements and their various manœuvres are examined, evince a profound knowledge of naval tactics; and, by pointing out how some of our losses, if not defeats, might have been prevented, as well as by what means certain of our victories might have been enhanced, do, undoubtedly, throw a light upon the general subject of maritime warfare, which demonstrate deep thinking, and an intimate acquaintance with the most efficient methods of securing victory. We will, however, let Admiral Ekins speak for himself; and this cannot better be done, than by quoting the concluding section of his work; in which his opinion on some important points is unreservedly given, and his general style fully exemplified:

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In taking leave of the subject it is expedient to call the attention of the young officer to what may be considered the leading and most important points in the present inquiry; and these will naturally fall under four separate heads; namely, first, of the best modes of attack at sea; secondly, of the attack at anchor; thirdly, of the modes of defence at sea; and, lastly, of the best defence to be made at anchor.

"

By a reference to the plates before us, in which it is attempted to display the plan of attack in all our principal battles, with the reasoning and judgment given upon them, it may probably appear, that, for attack at sea, the examples of Hawke, Rodney on the 12th of April, Howe, Nelson's intended plan of attack at Trafalgar, with those of Duncan at Camperdown, and Duckworth at Saint Domingo, may be selected as the best models for imitation. And, of plans for defence at sea, we have but two; they are that of Van Tromp, off Portland, and a masterly one by Sir Edward Hughes, in his first engagement with Monsieur Suffrein.

"For resolution, steady bravery, and perseverance, we may indeed include the celebrated retreat of Admiral Cornwallis; although it does not appear, that he had formed any regular disposition of his little force. Even without this he proved himself

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