victim of the Prince of Peace, and queen, of whose strange and unnatural cruelties towards him, the absurdest tales were then, and still are credited in the country: according to which, after the most infamous expedients had failed to preclude him from the possibility of being a father, his wife was dispatched by poison. These monstrous imputations are not referred to as believed in, but as shewing the state of public feeling in Spain. The strange occurrences of October 1807, roused the people from their long lethargy; all classes of men began to take an interest in public events, and from that hour the prince of the Asturias became the idol of the nation: a circumstance which has given great offence to an enlightened party in this country, who thinking that the prince had few claims to that love, consider its being lavished upon him, as a proof that the nation were unworthy to enjoy freedom; and in spite of the notorious fact, that all the reformers of Spain, the Duke del Infantado, Cevallos, Jovellanos, the enemies of the Inquisition, &c. attached themselves to the prince, while only the corrupt and profligate courtiers, the placemen and pensioners of the minister, adhered to the side of the father, and since transferred their allegiance to Joseph Buonaparte: this same party have not ceased to misrepresent the present war, as a war in defence of the Inquisition, and all the corruptions of the old government; to which it has been shamelessly added, that the declarations in favour of Ferdinand the VIIth. have been insisted on by the British government, as conditions of the assistance they were disposed to afford the patriots :-falsehoods these, as malignant as they have been mischievous. It was after the prince of Asturias had publicly appeared as the consolation and hope of the country, that Buonaparte conceived and carried on that exquisitely contrived system of delusion and fraud, by means of which, he succeeded in persuading both father and son of his attachment to his cause, and under pretence of retaining them in his se1vice, obtained possession of the bulwarks of the country. It

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is some indemnity to the world which suffers from these iniquities, and will prove to a future age (if endued with a power of deriving instruction from the events of history, which the present age has not evinced,) an inestimable blessing, that an authentic record of the artifices practised by Buonaparte, exists in the memoir of the minister Cevallos: a memoir, the absolute and unimpeachable truth of which is proved by every concurrent testimony; by internal evidence, by the assent of all men of honour in Spain, and by the silence of all the partisans of the Usurper. The unqualified arraignment of this exposé, with no better support than a shallow commonplace remark, has brought merited reproach upon a distinguished literary institution, and while unrecanted and unproved, reduces that establishment to the level which is occupied by those who do not join the pretensions of integrity, to the admitted claim of talent. "If we allow them only their merit, what will be their praise?"

The anti-jacobin character of Buonaparte's invasion of Spain, is the most remarkable feature of that most outrageous and profligate transaction, which bears no resemblance to any of his preceding aggressions against the rights of independent nations. The moral qualities of this unparalleled act; the moral character of that resistance which so unexpectedly sprang up in the peninsula, notwithstanding the state of unexampled abandonment and disorganization, in which, through the arts of the oppressor, the people of Spain were sunk; and the moral relations which thence arose between that people and the British government, which with laudable promptitude came forward to their succour, form the theme of Mr. WORDSWORTH's very striking and original performance.

It is necessary to assign the specific character of this work, that the reader may not be disappointed; it is not a political pamphlet, but an ethic essay on a political subject, in which the philosophy of human nature, and the principles of an high-toned and pure morality, are applied to the conduet and

fate of nations: it depends so little upon temporary and local feelings, though the subject embraces the occurrences of the day, that the reader would do well to forget the last gazette, the fate of Sir John Moore, and the dispatches of Sir Arthur Wellesley. But he who does sit down to the perusal of this pamphlet, with the feelings with which we all read, for instance, those of Burke, less for the political matter they treat of, than the great philosophical truths with which they abound, and the splendid eloquence with which they have adorned and elevated our language, will not fail to enjoy a kindred satisfaction from it. It is to be feared however that there will be few such readers. Mr. Burke's spirit-stirring publications provoked the discussion of first principles, both moral and psychological, by which the opinions of every man in this country have been since more or less affected; but in the mean while, the lamentable issue of the political revolutions of the Continent have laughed all speculations to scorn, and the fatal result of the terrible conflict abroad, with the apprehension of its consequences coming at length feelingly home to ourselves, have filled us with so great solicitude concerning the issue of events, that we no longer trouble ourselves concerning their principle. REVIEWER apprehends that the strong emotions which were raised in this country, by the unparalleled invasion of Spain, proceeded principally from the proof it afforded of the absolute and frightful power of France; and that it operated more upon our selfish than our moral feelings. He suspects that our disinterested sympathy with the sufferers under this last monstrous violation of justice, was weaker than that which was excited by the far less atrocious, but still, in those days, pre-eminently villainous combination against Poland. Such is the mournful effect upon a whole nation of a long continued and constant exhibition of the gigantic and successful crimes of statesmen and rulers, by which an apathy and indifference to the moral character of public events have been produced, resembling the baneful effects of repeated

strokes of adversity, a d extreme poverty, upon the integrity and honesty of rivate men.

The substitution of a confessed tyranny in France, in the place of a specious but spurious freedom, hasled, it is true, to this good effect, that there is no longer in this country a body of men who have an interest in opinions, apparently at war with the interest of their country; and Jacobinism, from being a party, has become a historic denomination. But still it cannot be denied that the survivors and successors of the original advocates of French liberty, are among the least zealous enemies of French tyranny; and that they betray a patient acquiescence in what they dare not and cannot actually assent to. This state of mind appears to REVIEWER SO pernicious, that he is anxious to draw the attention of the reader to one or two important, but disregarded topics, and he rejoices that Mr.. Wordsworth's publication furnishes him with resources which he knows not where he could elsewhere have found; for in this work the author displays a warm, or as some will say, a romantic attachment to the cause of liberty, a strength of patriotic feeling, a love of Britain, and of what is truly British, a depth of contempt towards France, and a vehemence of hatred and indignation against Buonaparte, which have never yet been publicly displayed together. It will however be right previously to point out the general scope and direct tendency of the book as laid downby Mr. W. himself. These are involved rather than explained in the uncouth title-page, which, if Mr. W. had preferred a plain and unostentatious, to antique phraseology, might have been somewhat of the following kind. An enquiry into the principle of the Spanish revolution, into the mode by which the British government may most successfully give aid to the Spanish patriots; and into the influence of the convention of Cintra upon the war.' The first striking and original point of view in which Mr W. considers these topics, is this, that he regards the French aggression rather as an insult than an injury. And, supported by the public documents, which issued from every province, he represents the Spaniards as acting under the impulse of wounded honour for the outrage committed, rather han from the fear of future suffering, and portrays them under the influence of the noblest enthusiasm.

"Was there ever since the earliest actions of men which have " been transmitted by affectionate tradition or recorded by faithful "history, or sung to the impassioned harp of poetry was there

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ever a people who presented themselves to the reason and the "imagination, as under more holy influences than the dwellers upon "the Southern Peninsula; as roused more instantaneously from

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a deadly sleep to a more hopeful wakefulness; as a mass fluctu"ating with one motion under the breath of a mightier wind; as " breaking themselves up, and settling into several bodies, in more " harmonious order; as re-united and embattled under a standard "which was reared to the sun with more authentic assurance of " final victory?" P. 113, 114.

In this divine fervour and holy spirit alone lay all hopes of redemption, and the great concern of the British government should have been to nourish and maintain them; but unhappily they wanted less the will than the knowledge requisite to render them the allies of the Spanish people. The English ministry had a sincere desire to assist in the deliverance of the peninsula from the enemy; but they were able only to add an auxiliary force of a few thousand men, and did not consider whether the physical aid they brought might not be more than outweighed by the moral energy they took away. Their generals too were utterly regardless of all that was characteristic and peculiar in the state of Portugal and Spain.* Of this, the convention of Cintra was the first lamentable proof.

* This complaint is too well founded. A flagrant instance of this error took place on the capture of Vigo in Galicia, subsequent to the departure of the English army from Corunna, which was not once the object of public animadversion. The French garrison being surrounded by the armed peasantry, capitulated to the captain of an English frigate as prisoners of war. The governor had