error, particularly when the very next sentence explains that "Cugnet had been plotting and intriguing in our garrisons "on the frontiers of the Pyrenees, and had collected some "deserters around him."

There is a passage about Valencia which puzzles us so much that we are almost afraid to hazard the conjecture which suggests itself to our mind as the solution of the translator's meaning; we cannot help suspecting that he mistakes the beautiful province of Valencia for some lady of great personal attractions but of terrible reputation; however, the reader shall judge for himself: "Valencia la bella is deceitful. "Her beauty is that of Venozza and Lucretia; her intrigues "and murders of Alexander and Borgia." page 68. The meaning of the author is by no means so obscure, nor does it admit of the curious construction which we are inclined to put upon the words of the translator: the author intended to designate Valencia as the birthplace of Alexander Borgia and of Rosa Vanozza his mistress, before he was raised to the popedom, and the mother of the notorious Lucretia Borgia. "Valence "la belle est trompeuse: fille des Maures elle a donné sa "beauté à Venozza et à Lucrèce, ses intrigues et ses cruautés "à Alexandre VI. et à Borgia." This is tolerably plain, but in the mysterious sentences of the translation we are convinced that there is far more than meets the eye.

The chapter in which M. de Chateaubriand describes the personages attending the congress of Verona is that in which the translator has contrived to introduce the most blundersblunders of all sorts-in geography, history, and the meaning of some of the author's least obscure sentences. In the original a sarcastic allusion is made to the marriage of Maria Louisa with her chamberlain in the following words: "Parme "envoya l'archiduchesse d'Autriche duchesse de Parme, dite ❝ veuve de Napoléon, avec le comte de Neiperg, dit chambellan "et chevalier d'honneur de l'archiduchesse." In the translation the point is completely omitted, the words being: "Parma sent the Austrian Arch-duchess Maria Louisa, now "Duchess of Parma, and called the widow of Napoleon. She "was accompanied by Count Neiperg, who filled the posts of "chamberlain and gentleman of honour to the Arch-duchess." "The Arch-duke and Arch-duchess of Modeno came from

"Calais:" almost every word in this short sentence is a blunder. In the first place it ought to be Arch-duke, duke of, &c., as it is in the original; he is only duke of Modena, but he is Arch-duke as belonging to the imperial family of Austria; in the second place it is not Modeno but Modena of which he is duke; and finally, they did not come from Calais but from Cataïo, a beautiful villa on the banks of the Brenta. "The Arch-duke and Arch-duchess, together with the ViceKing and Vice-Queen, arrived with their courts:" the insertion of the two little words together with makes this passage perfectly unintelligible. They do not occur in the original; the arch-duke here designated and his lady are themselves the viceroy and vice-queen of Lombardy. The whole of this chapter abounds in mistakes of the same kind, but we fear that we have already enumerated only too many.

In another place we are told that Austria "might have "shown herself less uneasy, less inexorable, and more skilful, "by betraying less suspicion of secret understandings:" whatever may be the intention with which the word secret is here introduced, the effect of the introduction is to show that the translator has no understanding, secret or public, of the author's meaning. By betraying less suspicion of talent, “en suspectant moins les intelligences" are the very simple words of the original.

But the most stupendous, the most incredible of his blunders remains to be told, and with this we propose to conclude our notice of the performances of the translator. In the earlier pages of the work, where M. de Chateaubriand gives a short, but eloquent, sketch of the rise and fall of the greatness of Spain, the following passage occurs: "Enfin elle tomba; sa fameuse in"fanterie mourut à Rocroi, de la main du grand Condé ; mais "l'Espagne n'expira point avant qu'Anne d'Autriche n'eût mis "au jour Louis XIV., qui fut l'Espagne même transportée sur "le trône de France, alors que le soleil ne se couchait pas sur "les terres de Charles-Quint." We must refer our readers to page 4 of the translation for proof of the incredible fact,― a fact which we could hardly expect to be admitted on a bare assertion, that the lines of this passage marked in Italics are actually rendered in the following terms: "But the down"fall of Spain was not complete until Anne of Austria gave

"birth to Louis XIV., WHO FROM HIS NATIVE LAND WAS "TRANSPORTED TO FRANCE, before the sun had set on the "dominions of Charles-Quint."!!

Those who carefully examine the present work of M. de Chateaubriand will find in it three ideas predominating apparently over all others: the first in importance, or that, at least, which seems to exercise the greatest influence over his mind, and to have chiefly contributed to the publication of these memoirs, is a desire to elevate himself above the heads of all his contemporaries in statesmanship, diplomacy, oratory and literature. Of the two other prevailing ideas it is not easy to say which lies the nearest to his heart, if indeed one be not the exact correlative of the other, and both, therefore, operating with exactly equal force upon his intellect and imagination. They are hatred of England, and subserviency to the policy of Russia.

The great object of the noble writer seems to be to vindicate to himself the authorship of the war with Spain in 1823; to represent the first idea of that outrage upon morality and the law of nations as a suggestion of his romantic mind, made at the time when he was discharging the functions of ambassador in London; to show that the negotiations which ended in the declaration of war were shaped by his genius, and conducted to their successful issue by his skilful diplomacy; and to assert his claim to the glory resulting from the duke of Angouleme's triumph over the Cortes, and the deliverance of King Ferdinand from the hands of the liberals in Cadiz. Upon this important point the world has hitherto laboured under a mistake which M. de Chateaubriand rejoices in having lived long enough to remove. His memory, as he very judiciously observes, if it endure at all, must outlast his life; and it is well therefore for him to have been enabled to make disclosures which will act as a defence against all attempts, posthumous or present, to deprive him of the fame arising from the authorship of the Spanish war.

"The grand question discussed at the Congress of Verona was the war with Spain. It has been said, and it is still repeated, that that war was forced upon France. This is precisely the reverse of the truth. If any one is deserving of blame in that memorable enterprise, it is the author of this narrative. M. de Villêle was averse to hostilities. It is but just

to render to his wisdom, and to his spirit of moderation, the honour of having, on that subject, concurred with three-fourths of the alliance, with France and with England. A remark which was never uttered by the president of the council, or which, if really made, has been misunderstood, seems to have misled public opinion; we shall speak of this in the proper place.

Thus, therefore, all that the opposition has promulgated on this subject, in salons, in Parliament, in newspapers and in pamphlets, whether in London or Paris, is erroneous. We feel happy in having lived long enough to correct this prodigious mistake.

"The war with Spain, we repeat the assertion, was in a great measure our work; and we do not hesitate to declare our conviction that future statesmen will applaud us for it. We do not imagine ourselves to belong to that small and select class of men who, as Seneca says, float upon the surface of the waves of time; neither do we imagine that the affairs of this world interest those who are beyond the tomb; but by an illusion of our present existence, we attach greater importance to our memory hereafter than to the opinion that may be entertained of us during our lifetime. Our memory, if it endure at all, must outlive our present existence; and as we shall not be at hand to protect it, we are bound to furnish it with the means of self-defence."

The motives by which he was led to desire to see his country engaged in this difficult and dangerous undertaking are expounded at considerable length. Upon these points we shall allow the author to speak for himself, reserving, of course, the right of expressing, when the fitting time comes, our opinion of the wisdom, and, above all, of the morality of his views.

"At length we arrive at the Spanish war, a subject upon which public opinion has so singularly erred. This war had been foreseen long before the assembling of the congress of Verona. We are not now alluding to the cordon sanitaire, first established as a precaution against the yellow fever, and converted, quite naturally, into an army of observation; our allusion is to the subversive ideas which, breaking out beyond the Pyrenees, threatened to revive in France the revolutionary excesses repressed by the despotism of Bonaparte, but which, favoured by our new institutions, were about to revive in the liberty of the charter of the Bourbons.

"So early as the period of our London embassy we communicated with M. de Montmorency on the possibility of this war. We traced out for him a plan nearly similar to that which we shall presently be seen submitting to M. de Villêle. Since the restoration we had been beset by two sentiments; namely, hatred of the treaty of Vienna, and the wish to give to the Bourbons an army capable of defending the throne, and of emancipating France. Spain, exposing us to danger alike by the principles of her revolution and her separation from the kingdom of Louis XIV.,

seemed to be the field on which we might, with great peril, it is true, but with great honour, restore at once our political importance and our military power.

"Such was the disposition of our mind when we were named to attend the congress. The president of the council, some of whose best qualities tended to limit the extent of his views, did not perceive that legitimacy was perishing for want of victories to compare with those of Napoleon, and especially after the diplomatic transaction (the treaty of Vienna) by which it was disgraced. The idea of liberty in the head of a Frenchman, who will never comprehend very exactly what liberty means, will not compensate him for the absence of glory, which is his natural idea. Why did the age of Louis XV. sink so low in contemporary estimation? Why did it give birth to those systems of exaggerated philosophy which have been the destruction of royalty? Because, with the exception of the battle of Fontenay, and of some good conduct of our troops at Quebec, France had been suffering an uninterrupted series of humiliations. If the baseness of Louis XV. and the partition of Poland were visited on the head of Louis XVI., what might not be feared for Louis XVIII., or for Charles X., after the humiliation of the treaty of Vienna ?

"This thought oppressed us like a night-mare during the first eight years of the restoration, and we did not begin to breathe with ease until after the success of the Spanish war."

Here then we have it explicitly stated, under M. de Chateaubriand's hand, that the pretences for this war put forward in his correspondence with England were all false and fraudulent. It is now evident that the charge of perfidy so vehemently urged against the French Government by Mr. Brougham and the other parliamentary orators of that day fell really far short of the mark; but it is also plain that the leaders of the Opposition were carried, by the spirit of party, far beyond the truth, when they accused Mr. Canning of being duped by the shallow manœuvres of the French statesmen. Mr. Canning knew the men, and he knew also that their policy was as foolish as their declarations were false. He was not for a moment the dupe of their perfidy. “I am not now alluding," says our author, "to the cordon sanitaire, afterwards so naturally converted into an army of observation." No; but M. de Chateaubriand was protesting, with all possible solemnity, that the cordon never would be converted into an invading army at the very moment when he was "foreseeing the possibility of this war," and furnishing M. de Montmorency, from the French embassy in London, with a plan for conducting its operations. Afterwards, when