the feelings of the reader, though he will still find them tried in the account of the sufferings endured by those who were left on board the Medusa, as well as those who had to cross. the deserts in order to reach St. Louis. But above all, he will be disgusted with the total want of common humanity and decency displayed towards the unhappy sufferers on the raft, by the Governor, Mr. Schmaly, and the Commander, Captain Chaumareys, as well as by the cruel neglect shewn them by the French Government, who, taking every complaint made by these unfortunate men against the conduct of their superior officers, as a reflection upon its choice of such inefficient persons for situations so important, magnified their plain statements into disaffection and disrespect towards the reigning powers, tried every artifice to prevail upon them to give their signatures to accounts which completely falsified the truth, and contradicted the painful evidence of their own sad experience; and when it could not succeed, unjustly and ungratefully added to all their afflictions, by disregarding their petitions, and consigning them, after lives of brave and active service, to contempt, neglect, and poverty.

It is pleasing to see, amid such revolting views of human nature, corrupted by power, and hardened by luxury and selfishness, the tribute of gratitude which is paid by our Author to the humanity and disinterested generosity of some individuals of our own country, among whom the names of Major Peddy and Captain Campbell, both of whom have since perished on their expedition into Africa, claim a distinguished place. The former of these gentlemen sufficiently evinced his knowledge of the world, in dissuading the unfortunate Correard from going to Paris, under the vain hope of finding any redress for bis sufferings and losses, at the hands of the minister by whose ill-judged choice of officers for the expedition, they had been occasioned. "Remember," said he, "that a minister who has committed

a fault, never will suffer it to be mentioned to him, nor the per"sons or things presented to him that might remind him of his "want of ability." The sequel proved that Major Peddy had founded his opinion on correct observation, and the fate of other expeditions organized by the same minister will sufficiently attest, to impartial judges, that the complaints of our Authors respecting him, have likewise truth for their basis.

We cannot close our remarks on this article, without pointing out the negligence, or exceeding ignorance of the Translator. In a work professedly nautical, and therefore written with a free indulgence in technical terms, it is surely unpardonable not to have a due regard to the correct rendering of expressions relative to depth, height, and distance. What idea can an English reader, whether seaman or landsman, form of the situation of a

vessel, by being told that when she grounded, the sounding line marked only five metres, and sixty centimetres; and at low water it marked four metres, sixty centimetres; the frigate therefore saved by a metre.' p. 32. Or how are we to be affected with the description of a personage thus spoken of: 'What a sublime image is a fine man almost two metres in 'height, who sheds tears of pity at the sight of an unfortunate 'man.' p. 224. The imagination with nothing to guide it but this unknown standard of sublimity, is apt to run riot, and figure to itself a kind of Gulliver, which of course does not add to the consequence of the comparative Lilliputian over whom he is represented as condescending to shed the tear of pity. There are also several sentences in the course of the narrative so feebly rendered, that if they do not absolutely pervert the sense, they certainly do not convey the spirit of the original. We must, however, do our Authors the justice to say that their account of this ill-fated expedition is given with clearness and simplicity, with modesty as far as their own conduct is concerned, and with apparent impartiality respecting the conduct of others; for that of the men by whom they were most injured, appears to have been quite deserving of every degree of reprehension that can be bestowed upon it.

Art. V. Early Blossoms, or Biographical Notices of Individuals distinguished by their Genius and Attainments, who died in their Youth; with Specimens of their respective Talents. By John Styles, D. D. 12mo. pp. 316. Price 5s. 1819.

DE

EEPLY as we share in the regrets common to every benevolent mind on the early removal from our world of individuals eminent for their talents and virtue, we are not prepared to admit that they, more than others of the species, are peculiarly liable to such immature removal. We are not convinced that there is any such fatality in youthful genius and youthful worth. There appears to be nothing in the nature of such endowments, to induce a suspicion that their possessors shall not complete the average term of human life; nothing in the nature of a pre-eminently fine mind and a good heart, necessarily inimical to a healthy and durable frame of body; nor can we believe that a transcendency of this kind is granted, as it is fabled of Achilles, on the condition only of a brief though brilliant career.

We should be truly grieved to find such a position at all provable; yet it would seem, that not a few persons have suffered an impression of this kind to gain upon them. As often as an instance of precocious excellence has fallen within their observation, they have irresistibly connected with it the apprehension of a rapid course and a speedy extinction. They seem to feel

that genius is too often allied with some mor bid quality that quickly wastes the bodily frame, to be contemplated without aların; and from the melancholy examples of such an alliance that they have either witnessed or heard of, they have assumed it as a kind of destiny from which an escape is but rarely permitted. We have frequent occasion to lament the prevalency of this notion. Who, indeed, has not observed the tendency to painful apprehension, when the future prospects of a promising youth have been the subject of conversation among his friends. The pleasing satisfactions in which they would otherwise indulge, are commonly dashed with gloomy forebodings of a short-lived splendour, and an untimely grave. We are persuaded that this feeling of solitude is, in most cases, very needlessly excited. It seems, therefore, desirable to remove it by reasoning, on every proper occasion, against the notion which gives it birth.

The painful apprehension of which we are speaking, may be traced, perhaps, to a well known principal of our nature. We are tenacious of our possessions, in proportion to the value we set upon them. We reluctantly part with them; and our regret is more or less poignant according to the time and circumstances of the privation. If an object be suddenly, and in our view of it, prematurely torn from our admiration, our hopes, and our affections, the grief it occasions becomes impatient, and breaks out into complaint. We are apt to consider ourselves as hardly dealt with, and to feel as if the power by which we are deprived, has aimed at the object precisely on account of the excellence which had attracted our partiality. The application of this principle, and of the feelings arising from it, to the case in hand, is obvious. Genius and worth, especially when known to distinguish a very early period of life, cannot fail to procure admiration and esteem. We naturally interest ourselves in a character that does honour to our species. We hail its coming to us as a subject of no common exultation, and the movements and destiny of an individual so distinguished, carry along with them a proportionate intenseness of public regard. But our best possessions, our dearest relatives, he most admired specimens of human excellence, are all held at the will of Him who gave them. Man is mortal, and that at every stage of his present existence, and under every character of which he is susceptible. The young and the old, the good and the bad, the illustrious and the obscure, are alike exposed to the ravages of death. But it is when the great and the good are cut off, that society feels the deepest and the keenest wounds. When especially the calamity has taken place at an early period of life, when the bright prospects of opening genius, the fond anticipations of an eminently virtuous career, are for ever blighted at a stroke, we express our regrets with peculiar emphasis. Every such visi

tation is watched with a jealous anxiety. In the poignancy of our disappointments we complain of a disproportioned severity against this ennobled class of individuals, and are ready to persuade ourselves that it is of such victims that death is most impatiently covetous. Still, as we are called to lament one instance after another of these early extinctions, this impression deepens and spreads. The dread of speedy destruction awaiting every phenomenon of intellectual beauty and splendour, becomes general, and with some it settles into a melancholy assurance that such is to be considered, for whatever reason, the almost inevitable appointment.

In accounting for this impression, however, it is further to be remarked, that it gains upon the mind chiefly from omitting the consideration that death is by no means engrossed with the favourites of mankind. While he is at work on our high places, he is no less actively employed in all the lower and more numerous walks of life. But we take no particular note of his doings in the crowd. It is the superior few alone whose names are recorded in the pages of fame, and whose memory is cherished in the eulogies of the biographer, or the poet. It is to them that the public attention is chiefly attracted, while the many are falling, unnoticed and unknown, except in their own little circles. Thus it is that death is reckoned most cruelly active in one particular quarter, because there we mark his ravages with the deepest interest; and while we are either heedless or ignorant of the breaches he is making every where else, there our sympathies and our regrets are most powerfully excited.

The fear, then, so generally entertained for the fate of youthful genius, appears to us to originate in our partiality to the object which makes us overlook the actual state of the case. The mind, in yielding to such a fear, does not stop to reflect that, as death is the common lot of mankind, the wise, as well as the foolish, the bright, as well as the dull, are included in it; but that there is really no evidence to prove that a brief existence is more frequently allotted to individuals of the one class than to those of the other. We should, we confess, be rather inclined, a priori, to ascribe sound health and longevity to those bodily frames in which the highest gifts and graces reside. A clear head and a good heart may, in general, be expected to ensure a regular, and therefore, durable constitution of body; and in cases where it appears to have been otherwise, the cause is not always to be traced to what is called the temperament of genius.

But not to be further tedious on this subject, suffice it to add, that the peculiarities of constitution to which the brief existence of some individuals of superior talents has been assigned, are by

no means the exclusive concomitants of such talents. Similar peculiarities inimical to health and long life, are found in the nervous system of many where the influence of superior genius is not to be blamed. If we appeal to facts, we can happily enumerate many, in every age of the world, since the works of genius have been known, who have been distinguished by their longevity. Homer, who is styled the father of Poetry, is particularized 'by. Cicero, with a host of other illustrious personages, as having lived and enjoyed life, to a very advanced age. Sophocles had almost attained his hundredth year when he composed his tragedy of Oedipus Coloneus, esteemed by the ancients as a masterpiece of dramatic poetry. Pindar, celebrated as the first of Lyric poets for sublimity of sentiment and expression, reached his eighty sixth year. Anacreon died at the advanced age of eighty five, and Simonides, the philosopher and poet, lived to see his ninetieth year. But many men of genius of our own country, and near our own times, may be brought in evidence to the same effect. Waller lived to the age of eighty-two; Milton to sixty-six; Watts to seventy-five; and Young to eighty-four.

We have been led to make these remarks, from the train of reflections with which the Editor introduces us to his "Biogra"phical Notices." We would not say he has directly encouraged the gloomy impression we have songht to remove; but we think that minds previously disposed to it, might freely indulge it in following out these reflections.

Among the mysteries of Providence,' says Dr. S. may be justly reckoned the early departure of individuals, distinguished by their talents and virtue, from a world which they seem eminently qualified to enlighten and bless.-Why should those who would be (might have been) moral suns and stars in the dark hemisphere of time, be no more than shooting meteors athwart the gloom, into an eternity where their splendor is lost in the infinitely surpassing glories which

surround them?'

This language, figurative and poetical as it is, seems to convey something like a reflection on the wisdom of the Power that snatches these highly gifted individuals from us; as if, in their case, there was a waste of intellectual excellence; and as if the haste with which they were hurried from a station of eminent usefulness, had frustrated their original destiny, and quenched their useless splendours in superior glories. These events, however deplored, can only be resolved, as all the varied lengths of human existence ought to be, into the sovereignty of the Creator. His wisdom and goodness sufficiently guarantee against error and injustice; and in this conviction it is for his

Sophocles ad summum senectutem tragoedias fecit. Num Homerum, num Hesiodum, &c. coëgit in suis studiis obmutescere senectus ?'