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or organize an infurrection? Or what attainable or conceivable obje could be aimed at by fuch a measure? Almoft every individual who has any reputation, influence, or notoriety in the coun try, owes it to the exifting government, and must stand or fall along with it. Among all his generals and minifters, there is none poffeffed of fame, popularity or power, to rival Bonaparte. The generation of republicans is extinct already among that light and profligate people: and the caufe of the Bourbons may fairly be regarded as utterly defperate. If the exiled monarch is to be reftored to his throne, his exiled nobles must be reftored to their ef tates and privileges; but the thoufands and tens of thousands who now hold thofe properties, will fubmit to many oppreffions and many confcriptions rather than give them up. Be fides, the government of the Bourbons was bad; and very few Frenchmen, we fuppofe, would give even a vote for replacing them on the throne. of Bonaparte. A generation indeed has grown up which has been taught to look on their pretenfions as ridiculous; and there has been nothing heroic or captivating in the conduct of any existing branch of the family, to win mens hearts to their caufe, or to prevent the total fuppreffion of their party in the country by which they have been rejected. If there were no infurrections in France, in fhort, when Bonaparte marched its armies acrofs the Viftula and the Niemen, we do not perceive any likelihood of fuch an event from his carrying them acrofs the Pyrenees. The people of France, we apprehend, care as little for the rights of the Spanish patriots, as for thofe of the citizens of Hamburgh; and, at any rate, are not very likely to feel much admiration for the champions of fuch a fovereign as Ferdinand the VII. From France itfelf, therefore, we hold it to be altogether extravagant and unreafonable to look for any cooperation.

Secondly, With respect to peace, Mr Whitbread says merely, Send a negotiator to Bayonne to treat for peace to yourselves; but do not give up, in any the smallest particular, the interests of your Spanish allies. We cannot approve of such a proposition; because no man could persuade the Spaniards, and surely our

own conduct on former occasions would not countenance the be lief that we were not giving them up, and making for ourselves a peace which should leave them at the mercy of France. If, indeed, we could suppose a manifesto issued by royal authority, proclaiming our willingness to treat upon the basis of France withdrawing all her forces from Spain, and making it known to all the world, that, for the independence and safety of that country, we were willing to give up our own quarrel with France, this indeed could lead to no mistake, and leave nothing obscure to serve as the ground of suspicion. And no man surely

can

can deny, that if we could gain such terms, and could put an end to the present war, stopping the conquests of the enemy, and leaving Europe as it now is, with Spain, revolutionized, independent, and hostilely disposed towards France,—it would

blessing to ourselves and to the whole world, abundantly more valuable than any thing which could result from the greatest successes to which any reasonable man can look forward from the prolongation of hostilities. On the other hand, it is, to be sure, most likely that the enemy will reject such an offer, and refuse to treat. He never treats when he is in the way of being worsted; he is a skilful gamester, and leaves his play only when he is winning. Then we shall gain nothing, it may be said, for ourselves and our allies by having made the proposal. At all events we shall lose nothing. But it is not clear that that will be all. Will the people of the Continent not begin to think us in the right-for the first time? Will the French themselves not begin to murmur against their leader, or at least to follow him with less ardour in his conquests? Above all, will the Spaniards, for whom we shall have offered to yield every thing,-will they not stand by us with increased steadiness, and fight their own battle with new spirit? These things, it appears to us, are worth the consideration even of the most sanguine speculators in Spanish victories. But we are aware, at the same time, that they are unhappily almost as chimerical as some of the expectations which we have described in the course of the present discussion. They are little suited to the feelings of the English multitude; or the correspond. ing views and policy of the present race of English statesmen. Nor can we help feeling a melancholy presentiment, that, in a few months, the fortunes of France will have prevailed over the most righteous cause that ever fixed the attention of mankind; that the armies of Bonaparte will carry rapine and carnage into every corner of Spain; and that the fleets of our unhappy allies will, some how or other, find their way into an English port,

Before concluding, we may be permitted to add one sentence in explanation of such parts of the preceding observations as may appear to lead to utter and incurable despondency. If Germany and the North, combined against France, with Spain and England, would only provoke a repetition of defeat, what hope, it may be said, can Europe ever entertain of deliverance; since her whole force is thus supposed to be ineffectually exerted against her oppressors? Now, to this we answer,-That though we can indeed anticipate no other result from any exertions that can at present be made by those powers, or from any combination into which they are now likely to enter, we are at the same time persuaded, that there is in Europe a fund both of power and of spirit, far more

VOL. XII. NO. 24.

Ff

than

than sufficient to repress the usurpations of France, if guided by better counsels, and husbanded in the mean time with economy and caution. All the great Continental powers have recently received a tremendous blow,-from the shock of which they are yet far from being recovered; and the truth is, that while their old governments are administered on the principles by which they have hitherto been guided, and while their coalitions are directed to such objects as have hitherto been aimed at, there does appear to us to be no chance of their making any effectual resistance to the solid power and energetic policy of the enemy. The fatal experience, however, which they have all had of the fruits of their old policy, joined to the improving intelligence of the great body of the people, and the mingled contempt and indignation with which they must regard the infatuation of their rulers, will, we have no doubt, produce an amelioration of all these governments, and gradually develop the powers and resources of those great and enlightened nations which in this great crisis have been administered with less wisdom and vigour than might have been expected in a confederacy of barbarians. A certain period of peace and tran quillity is necessary, however, to effect this amelioration; and will, at the same time, infallibly tend to relax the energy of the French administration, and to surround it with all those sources of weakness which ultimately disarm despotic governments of their power to injure. To provoke the combat prematurely, is to insure defeat and irremediable ruin. To force the old governments, while they are still clinging to the policy they have ceased to confide in,-to try their strength once more, against an enemy, who has not yet yielded to the corruptions which are daily assailing him,--is to make sure of the final overthrow of the former, and, by consolidating all Europe into one tyrannical and military despotism, to cut off, for ages yet to come, the great improvements which time itself would otherwise work among mankind. Let the Continent, therefore, preserve what it has left of independence, by peace; since, at present, it would be utterly ruined by war; and let us be persuaded, that if, by any exertions on our part, we could procure the same blessing for Spain in the present state of its tendencies and feelings, we should do more for the cause of liberty and national independence, than if we could once more array the courts of Vienna, and Petersburgh, and Berlin, in a jealous and unwieldy coalition.

ART

ART. XII. Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Antient Manners: with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on the Collection of Popular Tales entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris Dance. By Francis Douce. The Engravings on Wood by J. Berryman. In 2 vol. 8vo. Longman, &c. London. 1807.

THE HE real admirers of Shakspeare, we believe, care very little about his commentators. Yet, if we wish to understand every word of an author who wrote more than two hundred years ago, we must accept of the services of the antiquary and verbal critic. A short glossary, a few explanations of old usages, and a few suggestions for the restoration of a corrupted text, would be gratefully accepted, and generally consulted. But these helps become hinderances,-and nuisances indeed of the first magnitude, when they swell to six times the bulk of the original author, and engage us, at every tenth line, in the paltry polemics of purblind annotators, and grovelling transcribers of black letter. The great popularity of Shakspeare has held out such temptations to this industrious class of beings, that we have now an edition of his thirty-five plays distended into twenty-one thick octavos; in which the text bears such a slender proportion to the commentary, that he who wishes to read nothing but Shakspeare, must keep his forefinger constantly employed in turning over the leaves,-and frequently earn no more by the labour than a single line in a page. When we look into the mass which fills the remainder of it, we find it made up of long quotations from contemporary authors, tedious dissertations on old customs, and keen and solemn controversies upon the comparative merit of rival readings or projects of punctuation.

There is no doubt that we pick up, in this way, little odds and ends of information as to the manners and tastes of our ancestors; and occasionally attain to a more correct conception of some of the less interesting passages in the author under consideration. But this petty sort of antiquarianism probably is not the object of any one who takes up the volumes of Shakspeare; and the scanty elucidation which the poet now and then receives, makes us but poor amends for the quantity of trash which is obtruded upon us, with or without the apology of a difficulty. One great evil of this is, the encouragement of pedantry and laborious trifling. The name of Shakspeare sanctifies, to a certain degree, every thing that is closely connected with it; and that miserable erudition, which would otherwise have gone to enrich the Gentleman's Magazine, or to add weight to some county history, is in danger of acquiring a more extended reputation, when Ff 2

it

it appears as an illustration of his writings. The worst effect, however, of this extravagant system of annotation is, that it destroys a great part of the pleasure which we should otherwise receive from perusing the excellent authors upon whom it attaches itself. We are not only disturbed, as we go along, with the perpetual intrusion of the commentator; but can scarcely ever recal to our memory any of our favourite passages, without finding them defiled by the adherence of some of his filth and tatters. After poring over the elaborate and controversial elucidations which are fastened upon every page, we can never read or remember any passage in the book, without some unsuitable recollection of this base accompaniment; and, instead of having our minds filled with the sentiments and imagery of Shakspeare, find them fatigued and depressed by the ponderous feebleness of his commentators. There is no getting a morsel of pure Shakspeare, in short, when we have once mixed him with these viler ingredients; and we recollect the happy days when we knew nothing of commentators, and little of difficulties, with something of the same feeling with which we recal the irrecoverable innocence and simplicity of childhood.

Of these merciless annotators, however, some are more intolerable than others. Some keep their author, though at a distance, in sight; and obtrude fewer solid masses of antiquated stupidity, under the name of parallel passages, or authorities for a doubtful interpretation. Even when they do leave the author, too, they give us curious morsels of etymology, and select something entertaining from their stores of old absurdity. Mr Douce, we suppose, is as good as any of them. Yet we think him, upon the whole, very feeble and very dull; and must set down his book among those which it is impossible to peruse without feelings of compassion for the incredible labour which has been expended, with so little return either of instruction or amusement. We shall give a few specimens both of what appears trifling and foolish, and of what is curious and new in these volumes.

It seems to be a natural infirmity of all commentators, to suppose their author as destitute of originality or invention as themselves; and, consequently, they are perpetually on the alert to discover parallel passages in contemporary or preceding authors, and to suggest the probability of plagiarism or imitation, in the case of the most natural thoughts and most familiar expressions. Thus, because Prospero, describing his deportation, says that the

traitors

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast'-

Mr

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