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PRINTED BY D. WILLISON, CRAIG'S CLOSE,

FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. EDINBURGH,

AND

CONSTABLE, HUNTER, PARK, & HUNTER,

LONDON.

1809.

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THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OCTOBER 1808.

No. XXV.

ART. I. Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle and Town, Representative of the County of Nottingham in the Long Parliament, and of the Town of Nottingham in the First Parliament of Charles II, &c.; with Original Anecdotes of many of the most distinguished of his Contemporaries; and a Summary Review of Public Affairs: Written by his widow, Lucy, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, &c. Now first published from the Original Manuscript, by the Rev. Julius Hutchinson, &c. &c. To which is prefixed, the Life of Mrs Hutchinson, written by herself, a fragment. pp. 446. Quarto. Longman & Co. London. 1806.

WE E have not often met with any thing more interesting and curious than this volume. Independent of its being a contemporary narrative of by far the most animating and important part of our history, it challenges our attention as containing an accurate and luminous account of military and political affairs from the hand of a woman; as exhibiting the most liberal and enlightened sentiments in the person of a puritan; and sustaining a high tone of aristocratical dignity and pretension, though the work of a decided republican. The views which it opens into the character of the writer, and the manners of the age, will be to many a still more powerful attraction.

Of the times to which this narrative belongs-times to which England owes all her freedom and all her glory-we can never hear too much, or too often: and though their story has been transmitted to us both with more fulness of detail and more vivacity of colouring than any other portion of our annals, every reflecting reader must be aware that our information is still extremely defective, and exposes us to the hazard of great misconception. The work before us, we think, is calculated in a good degree to supply these deficiencies, and to rectify these errors.

VOL. XIII. NO. 25.

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