riving at Paris, ordered, it seems, cards of visit to be sent to all the foreign ministers. One of them, on which was written, 'Le Compte du Nord et le Prince Bariatinski,' was brought to me. It was on Monday evening last. Being at court the next day, I inquired of an old minister, my friend, what was the etiquette, and whether the Compte received visits. The answer was, Non, on se fait écrire. Voilà tout. This is done here by passing the door, and ordering your name to be written in the porter's book. Accordingly, on Wednesday, I passed the house of prince Bariatinski, ambassador of Russia, where the Compte lodged, and left my name on the list of each. I thought no more of the matter. But this day, May 24, comes the servant who brought the card, and in a great affliction, saying he was like to be ruined by his mistake in bringing the card here, and wishing to obtain from me some paper, of I know not what kind, for I did not see him. In the afternoon came my friend, M. Le Roy, who is also a friend of the prince's, telling me how much he, the prince, was concerned at the accident,—that both himself and the Compte had great personal regard for me and my character, but that our independence not yet being acknowledged by the court of Russia, it was impossible for him to permit himself to make me a visit as a minister. I told M. Le Roy, it was not my custom to seek such honors, though I was very sensible of them, when conferred on me; that I should not have voluntarily intruded a visit, and that in this case I had only done what I was informed the etiquette required of me. But if it would be attended with any inconvenience to prince Bariatinski, whom I much esteemed and respected, I thought the remedy was easy, he had only to erase my name out of his book of visits received, and I would burn their card."'

pp. 355, 356.

A very considerable portion of the volume is necessarily devoted to the negotiations with France and England, which have occupied so large a share of the time and talents of our wisest statesmen. These chapters are the most valuable and important in the work. If there be any American, who still cherishes those undue foreign partialities, which once distracted the councils and divided the hearts of the nation, let him pause, and study the tone and temper of the courts of Versailles and St. James, in their diplomatic intercourse with the United States previous to the treaty of Ghent, or previous, we should rather say, to the victories of Jackson and Brown, of Hull, M'Donough, and Perry. What the undeviating policy, the dying admonitions of Washington; what the reiterated advice of Jefferson could not effect, it was reserved to the last war to accom

plish. The war of independence was the birth of the nation; the war of 1812, its emancipation from nonage. Until then, although penetrating statesmen saw clearly the true policy of the country, and deprecated all political sympathy with either of the great belligerents, yet we could not, or did not, as a whole nation, listen to the warning voice of wisdom. We constantly were assured, but we would not believe, while England was preaching up a crusade against the independence of France, and while France was moving heaven and earth to unite the nations in a league to destroy the ascendancy of England, that neither of them cared for us, but as she might make us the instrument of her hostile fury against the other. "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," was the impressive injunction of Jefferson's inaugural Message. "Why quit our own, to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world," said the Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address to the people. We needed, nevertheless, the wholesome chastisement of experience to convince us of these truths.

But we will not pursue these reflections. We cordially recommend the work before us to the notice of our readers, as abounding with useful information upon this and other topics. The great statesmen of our country will there be found coping successfully with the ablest negotiators of Europe; and their state-papers, founded in truth and justice, and wrought out with manly good sense, will sustain an advantageous comparison with those of veteran diplomatists, trained in the indirect arts of European cabinets.

Memoirs and Poetical Remains of the late Jane Taylor: with Extracts from her Correspondence. By ISAAC TAYLOR. BOSton. 1826. pp. 316.

THIS is not the first time that we have been disappointed in our expectations of pleasure from the memoirs of writers with whose works we had been charmed in our earlier years, and

of whom we were of course anxious to know more than those works could tell us. We believe few, perhaps none, of our readers are unacquainted with the "Essays in Rhyme, on Morals and Manners," republished in this country in 1816. Other works of the same author and of her father's family, subsequently published, have kept alive the interest, which those Essays had excited in our minds, for a family, all the members of which seemed so highly gifted, and so disposed to improve their talents aright. It was, therefore, with a chill of our expectations, that we read the following passages in the preface to these Memoirs, which is addressed to a particular friend of the deceased.

"So far as it may be done consistently with my avowed design, I shall detach what relates to the subject of this Memoir from the interests of those with whom, in fact, she was always most intimately joined. Let it then suffice once to say, that, wherever it may well be done, an exemption is claimed for the living from the demands of that curiosity which it is usual to gratify relative to the dead, who have occupied a place in public esteem. Nor, I must add, is it solely on behalf of survivors that an exemption from the demands of public curiosity may be claimed; for even in what relates to the deceased, a biographer must be considered as free to give or to withhold the facts of personal history. There may have been events of the deepest interest to the party, in reference to which he may be silent; even though the full narration of such facts might serve, beyond any others, to display the strength or Christian fortitude of the character he has to exhibit. The common cares and griefs of life may be described for the edification of others; but there are sorrows that are sacred; and sorrows still fresh in the memory of survivors are especially so: for though the subject of them be passed where there is no more pain, neither sorrow nor weeping,' yet as for our own feelings' sake, we hide the mortal remains of the dead, so should we shroud their recent griefs. By the indulgence of her friends, I have had the perusal of nearly* the entire mass of letters written by my sister during the course of five and twenty years; from this mass it would have been easy to furnish volumes, without admitting any less interesting than those which have been selected.

"I ought to mention a large exception made by the suppression of the whole of her letters to one much loved friend. This suppression occasions, besides the loss, as I doubt not, of many interesting passages, a very important deficiency in the materials of the Memoir; as my sister's intimacy with this one friend constituted, of itself, a great part of the history of her mind, during many years. That so little trace of this friendship appears in the Memoir, or among the Extracts from the Correspondence, is not attributable to the option of her biographer."

But many reasons forbade so copious and indiscriminate a publication. You have seen enough of your late friend's letters to know that the lively interest she felt in every thing that concerned her friends, filled a great part of almost all of them with allusions to their concerns; and, of course, the publication of such passages would have been a violation of the confidence reposed in me by her correspondents. Hence it is, that there is scarcely an entire letter in the collection; but the exscinded parts will not often seem wanting to the reader. The constitutional pensiveness of my sister's mind was, as you know, relieved by a peculiar playfulness of fancy; so that she turned in an instant, from the pathetic to the humorous, without any violence to her own feelings, and, to those who knew her intimately, without any unpleasing abruptness of manner; yet, to many readers, some of these sudden transitions might give offence, or seem to require explanation.' pp. vi, vii.

We readily agree with the author, that the feelings of the living must be always spared in recording the actions of the dead; but further than this requires, we cannot agree with him, that a biographer should suppress facts important to the right understanding of the character which he is commemorating. As a general rule, suppressio veri is equivalent to suggestio falsi. Why should "a full narration of facts," which "might serve, beyond any others, to display the strength or Christian fortitude of the character he has to exhibit," ever be omitted by a biographer, unless such facts, if published, might wound the feelings of surviving friends? We see no reason- -on the contrary, there is a reason, why such facts, "beyond any others," should be made known. The value of the example is materially diminished by the suppression of facts, which," beyond any others," illustrate the virtue of the departed. If a historian "for his own feelings' sake," and for that alone, omit to record important facts, he is unjust to the subject on which he writes; he is unjust to the world for whom he writes; he is violating a fundamental rule of morals-to tell the whole truth, as well as nothing but the truth; he does, indeed, deceive, and that wilfully, and is consequently unfit for the office which he has assumed. We do not mean to accuse this author of having suppressed aught of his sister's history from unworthy motives; we believe, notwithstanding the passage on which we have thus commented, that his regard, perhaps a mistaken regard, for the feelings of others, has guided him in every instance of suppression of facts; we mean only to enter our protest against his doctrine. Still more strenuously do we protest against the doctrine of the last para

graph which we have quoted. That "playfulness of fancy," that power to turn instantly, without violence, from the pathetic to the humorous, which Mr. Taylor mentions as a characteristic of his sister, is vividly displayed in her writings which she herself published, and is so far from being unpleasant, that it is rather one of their chief beauties. We regret, most sincerely, that any motive should have induced him to withhold other specimens of this power. The reason which he gives, appears to us altogether inadequate. Does he, or can he believe, that the public reverence for Cowper is at all diminished, by the same quality as manifested in his published letters? On the contrary, not felt that reverence softened into love by the affectionate playfulness, and gay good humor, alternating with the lofty censure of vice, and the outpourings of his own grief, which those letters occasionally exhibit?

has he

Jane Taylor in several respects bears a greater resemblance to Cowper, that any other writer with whom we are acquainted. Her Essays, to which we have already alluded, are evidently modelled according to his style of writing; but they are not servile imitations. She has the same power of minute description of every-day life, so as to make the tritest matters interesting; the same strong sarcasm against folly and vice; the same wit and irony in attacking error, and the same lofty flights of imagination and language, in displaying the hopes of a Christian, and the sublime consolations of our holy religion. The tale towards the close of her poem, called " Experience," is almost unrivalled in pathos; he who can read it without a swelling of the heart, must be destitute of the kinder feelings of humanity. According to her biographer, she had in common with Cowper, and, indeed, with many sincere Christians, long and anxious doubts respecting her own religious safety. Here happily the parallel ends,―her peace was vouchsafed to her on this side the grave, and she died with the full hope of happiness hereafter, calmly looking back upon a life well spent, in which, while in the habitual performance of every domestic duty to her family and her friends, she had censecrated her high endowments of mind, in the employment of her leisure, to the glory of her Maker, and the good of her fellow-creatures at large. Of such a life, we would gladly know more than her brother has thought proper to communicate; and we cannot but think, that more might have been told with increased benefit to most of his readers, and without

injury to any. Of this however, he may say, that he is the better judge, and we ought in justice to him to add, that he has