ftated by our author, as involved in the antiphlogiftic explanation. of the decompofition of ammonia; with this difference, that it is rather more hard to conceive how nitrogene with oxygene fhould take oxygene from nitrogene, than it is to conceive how nitrogene with hydrogene fhould take oxygene from hydrogene. The difficulty, we prefume, is generally explained by faying, that the various degrees of latent heat contained in the fame body vary its elective affinities. In fact, this difficulty belongs to a clafs of phenomena by no means of fmall extent. Carbon, for example, takes oxygen from phofphorus in reducing phofphoric acid; and phofphorus decompofes carbonic acid. In like manner, fulphur reduces the oxides of feveral metals, which, in their reguline ftate, decompofe fulphuric acid. We are far from faying that these phenomena are unattended with difficulty, on whichever theory we attempt to explain them. We would only fuggeft, that the difcovery of the Swedish chemifts, and its extension by Mr Davy, has added no new difficulty to the lift, and offers no new anomaly to the modern theory.

Befides the experiments which form the body of the paper now before us, there are various important facts introduced incidentally. We have already noticed the decompofition of carbonic acid by the electric agency. There are fome very interesting experiments on the conftitution of the muriatic acid, which we truft may hereafter lead to a full folution of that problem. A long and curious note is also given upon the discovery of Meffrs Gay, Lufac and Thenard, that the alkalis may be decomposed by the action of iron in a ftate of ignition;-a new example, by the way, of the difficulty above mentioned; for potaffium and fodium eafily reduce the oxides of iron. But we should give a very unfatisfactory account of this curious matter, were we to take it at fecond hand. We hope to be able, in our next Number, to Jay before our readers an abstract of the history of the discovery from the authors themselves.

ART. XI. Memoirs of John Lord de Joinville, Grand Seneschal of Champagne. Translated by Thomas Johnes, Esq. At the Hafod Press. 1807.

TH HE Memoirs of Joinville have always held a high rank among writings of that class. They are indeed entitled to particular notice, as the earliest specimen of history in a modern language; except Ville-Hardouin, which is not a very common. book; and the French original of William de Nangis, which is

still

still less known. From the dissolution of the Roman empire to the 13th century, the charge of perpetuating past transactions fell to the share of narrow and bigoted monks, who treat the affairs of mankind only by the way; and treat, at large, of nothing but their own spiritual squabbles, or the miracles of their saints. Those who praise the natural simplicity of antient writers, and regret their lively portraiture of manners, are very partially acquainted with the great mass of chroniclers. No man has ever turned over, with weary patience, the folio pages of the Benedictine collection of French historians-of Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum-of Reibomius, Frehorus, or Urstisiuswithout acknowledging the worthlessness, generally speaking, of these annalists, in any other view than as dry compilers of public transactions. Yet it is a common piece of affectation, in those who pretend to be learned, to deride all modern abridgements of history, and to send the student at once to the fountain-head,-in which, if we may trust these counsellors, he will find a stream more full, as well as more pure, fresh from truth and nature, without any sophistication of philosophy. But, without the assistance of those who have brought together and arranged whatever is important in the records of antient times, we are bold to say, that little profit indeed could be reaped by their study, unless by those who should undergo the same labour with the same ability.

The greater part, by far, of those who wrote history before the 13th century, were not only ecclesiastics, but men separated from secular concerns. We have just noticed (and without exaggeration, though sarcastically) the effect which their condition had upon their tone of writing. During the midnight of Europe, scarce any layman possessed competent learning for the easiest literary work; and no modern language was applied to any species of composition. A few songs and romances appear in the French and Provençal, in the 12th century; and, if Mr Southey is not deceived, the Spanish poem of the Cid, which he has lately published, is of the same age. In the 13th century, the twilight became brighter: a good deal of French prose of that time is extant; chiefly indeed laws and law-books, besides the history of Ville Hardouin. Joinville, the companion of St Louis in his youth, from 1248 to 1251, finished, in his old age, these celebrated Memoirs. They are dedicated to Louis Hutin, eldest son of Philip le Bel; and, at the date of the dedication, the author must have been more than fourscore years old. Gibbon imagines him, inded, to have been not less than ninety; but this is founded upon a miscalculation of his age. He could not have been born later than 1227, ince he was a knight in 1248; but there

is no proof that he was older, though he had two children living in the last mentioned year.

The Memoirs of Joinville are read with exceeding pleasure, from their interesting subject, as well as the peculiar simplicity. and liveliness of the narration. They do not impress the mind, however, with any high notion of the writer's talents. Joinville is naïf in an eminent degree; but it is the naïveté of a child, recommended only by innocence and sprightliness; not that which is mixed with archness or sagacity. It is just to allow something for the advanced age at which he wrote; but, with all candour on this score, it must be confessed, that the biographer of St Louis, like his master, shone much more in the virtues of the heart, than in strength of understanding. He has precisely what the French term bonhommie. His goodness of disposition, fidelity and openness, show themselves in every page; and no one ever can have risen from his Memoirs without loving the man, though many may smile at his odd simplicity, which makes him confess what few soldiers would, the chattering of his teeth with fear, when he was first made prisoner, and felt the Saracen scymitars at his throat. With all Joinville's natural goodness, he had some curious morality of his times and condition. Witness the surprize he plainly felt at Louis's never violating his word, even with infidels! Witness, too, his praise of Henry the Generous, Count of Champagne, whose right to that epithet he clinches, by the story of a certain distressed gentleman, whom he relieved at the expense of a wealthy citizen, and friend of his own, who, with well-intended awkwardness, had interfered to rid the Count of his importunate suitor. No objection to this cheap species of liberality seems to have entered the mind of our worthy Seneschal.

Besides the merits of the historian, there is a great deal to engage attention in his subject. What indeed can be more interesting than the fortune of an army of such surpassing bravery as that which Louis IX led to Egypt,-the flower of French chivalry,-while individual courage was easily conspicuous, not yet checked by tactical plans, or lost in the confusion of modern warfare? How pathetic is the story of their disasters, when we follow their steps, defeated, retreating, unnerved by sickness, and bowed down even to pusillanimous despondency, till all is ended in captivity and massacre! There is no parallel to this melancholy story, except the retreat of the Athenian army from Syracuse, in the seventh book of Thucydides-the most beautiful and highly wrought narration of antiquity. Nor is that part of Joinville which describes the private life and the administration of St Louis, destitute of interest;-it gives so thorough an insight into the

man,

man, and acquaints us so intimately with perhaps the very best, though not the most enlightened, sovereign that ever reigned in Europe. Even the strange and chiefly fabulous anecdotes of the East, which he has introduced in many places, are often curious as well as amusing.

Though Joinville has long been known, it is not long, that his features have been undisguised. After the invention of printing, a custom long prevailed, excusable enough in popular works, however repugnant to strict notions of accuracy, of reforming the language of early writers according to that of the age in which the editor gave them to the world. Thus Dante, if we are not mistaken, has never yet been printed from any authentic manuscript: the orthography, at least of his time, had grown obsolete before the close of the 15th century. But the change of French during the corresponding period, was much greater than that of Italian; though Joinville wrote in the langue d'Oil, which most resembled the modern dialect. Hence, when the Memoirs of Joinville were first printed at Poitiers in 1547, the editor, Antoine Pune, followed the fashion of his time in rectifying the obsolete idiom and mode of spelling. Claude Menard, who, from a different manuscript, as it appears, gave another edition in 1617, made use of the same liberty. But this liberty became license, when both Pune and Menard presumed to interpolate, as well as interpret; and made an infinite number of petty alterations in the text, which, though commonly of no great importance, could never be justifiable; and the existence of which, when it is known, diminishes the pleasure arising from any peculiarity' or naturalness of expression. Meanwhile, no manuscript of Joinville was supposed to be extant. Those used by the former editors could not be traced; and P. Hardouin, in his usual way, set down the whole work as a forgery of the 11th century. Hardouin's reasons for this, it must be owned, were not without acuteness, and grounded on the modern cast of language, and some other anachronisms, such as justly to induce, in critics of less temerity, the suspicion of interpolation, which is certainly akin to forgery, though of a younger branch.

At laft a manufcript, in the original purity of text, was difcovered in the Royal Library, and published at the Louvre prefs in 1761 It was then that the unfaithfulness of the two former editions, which alfo differ much from each other, was brought to light. But the French of the 13th century was not legible by any native; and Voltaire had truly predicted, that the real Joinville would not be understood. There were, indeed, as we have mentioned, feveral writings of that age extant; the Affizes de JerufAn, the Etabliffements de St Louis, Beaumanoir's Coutumes de

Beauvoifis,

Beauvoifis, and a good deal of metrical romance, and fmaller poetry. But thefe were in the hands of few but antiquaries; while Joinville feemed to intereft the general reader. Hence, in the large collection of Memoires relatifs à l'histoire de France, it was thought expedient to reprint Renard's edition, to which Du Cange had affixed his excellent notes and differtations. The editors fup port their choice, fur la difficulté, nous ofons dire meme l'impof fibilité, de lire le texte de l'edition de 1761. A moins d'être très verfé dans notre vieux langage François, elle fatigue & degoute.

Mr Johnes's tranflation is made altogether from the edition reprinted in this collection of Memoirs. He has prefixed two dif fertations by M. de Baftie, from the Academie des Infcriptions, and fubjoined a verfion of all Du Cange's obfervations, and his twenty-feven differtations. Two memoirs by Mers Falconet & Ravaillere, on the affaffins of Syria, conclude the work; but there is not a fingle line from the tranflator himself by way of introduc tion or commentary. His learning is fo clofely concealed, that, according to Horace, paullum sepulta distat inertiæ; and we cannot help faying, that the meaneft drudge, who knew a little of French, was as competent to have produced this publication as the proprietor of the Hafod prefs. We have not remarked three places in which he has even ventured fo far as a word or two in a note: and whatever value may be fet on these attempts from their rarity, their usefulness will not be prized greatly by thofe who find (p. 190.) Poulains defined to be offspring of a Syrian father and and French mother.' It would be as correct to fay, that the Mulattoes of Jamaica are fprung from a black father and white mother. The Poulains were a mixed race, derived from the intercourfe of the Crufaders with Eaftern wornen. It is true that Mr Johnes quotes the gloffary of the Louvre Joinville for this interpretation; but it is fo plainly abfurd (fince the Poulains formed a confiderable part of the people in the Christian kingdoms of the Eaft, which the defcendants of European women alone could never have done), that we cannot think him juftified in taking it up. 'Pullani dicuntur,' fays Du Cange (Glofs. ad voc.) from an old writer, qui de patre Francigenâ & matre Syriana, vel de patre Syriano & matre Francigenâ generati erant.' In 150 years poffeffion of Palestine, it is eafy to believe, that the Crufaders flocking thither in great armies without women, had caufed this hybrid population to multiply very much : accordingly, Joinville calls the Syrian peafants indifcriminately by the name of Poulains. They were, however, fubjected to that contempt which is always attached to difference of colour; and deemed, by the real Franks, little better than Pagans.

In the next place, we think there is just reason to complain of VOL. XIII. NO. 26.

Hh

Mr