"Her Grace's amusements became yearly more and more circumscribed. In former years she had occupied her shrewd and masculine mind with purchases of land, which she bought in the firm belief, or at least with the excuse of belief to her own mind, that a 'sponge' might do away with all the funded property, and that land would hold longest.' It appears from her will, that she was incessantly making additions to the immense landed property in which she possessed a life interest, and even went to the city herself, when nearly eighty years of age, to bid for Lord Yarmouth's estate. Her quarrels with Sir Robert Walpole began, as we have seen, upon the subject of trust money,' and they seem to have hinged upon that same matter even so late as the year 1737. As the darkened day drew to its close, the poor Duchess was fain to be contented to amuse herself by writing in bed, in which shackled position much of her Vindication' was penned by her. She frequently spoke six hours a day, in giving directions to Hooke. Then she had recourse to a chamber-organ, the eight tunes of which she was obliged to think much better than going to an Italian opera, or an assembly. Society seems to have afforded her little pleasure. Like most disappointed and discontented persons, she became attached to animals, especially to her three dogs, who had those virtues in which human beings, in her estimation, were so greatly deficient. Satiated with the world, the Duchess found, in the numerous visitants to Marlborough House, few that were capable of friendship. Hers was not a mind to cull sweetness from the flowers which spring up amid the thorns of our destiny. She knew no enjoyment, she declared, equal to that accompanying a strong partiality to a certain individual, with the power of seeing the beloved object frequently; but she now found the generality of the world too disagreeable to feel any partiality strong enough to endear life to the decrepit being that she describes herself to have become. The Duchess, during the latter years of her life, changed her residence frequently. Sometimes she remained at Marlborough House, but exchanged that central situation for the quiet of Windsor Lodge or of Wimbledon. Yet at Windsor Lodge she was tantalized with a view of gardens and parks which she could not enjoy; and Wimbledon, she discovered, after having laid out a vast sum of money on it, was damp, clayey, and consequently unhealthy. Wrapped up in flannels, and carried about like a child, or wheeled up and down her rooms in a chair, the wealthy Duchess must, nevertheless, have experienced how little there was, in her vast possessions, that could atone for the infirmities of human nature."

We think that the Duke's extreme regard, so often expressed in his letters to his lady, may as to its reality be doubted. It is pretty clear that she rendered his domestic life anything but tranquil. We transcribe a portion of one of these strongly worded documents, which concludes with a reservation that is significant, we suspect, on this point :

The first campaign in Ireland called Marlborough away from the home and the wife whom he loved so well. Every letter to the Countess which he penned during his absence breathes, a devotion which time and

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distance seem only to have heightened. In the hurry of military movements, in the excitement of unparalleled triumphs, his heart was ever with her. I am heart and soul yours,' was his constant expression. I can have no happiness till I am quiet with you.' 'I cannot live away from you.' Again, he beautifully concludes one letter: Put your trust in God as I do, and be assured that I think I can't be unhappy as long as you are kind.' So true and elevated was the attachment of that affectionate heart. Pray, believe me,' he says, writing in 1705, immediately after the battle of Ramilies, when I assure you that I love you more than I can express.' These and other innumerable fond asseverations, even when his wife had passed the bloom of youth, and, it appears, no longer possessed (if she ever did) equanimity of temper, speak an attachment not based upon evanescent advantages. With a candour inseparable from a great mind, he generously took upon himself the blame of those contentions by which the busy and harassing middle period of married life, that period in which love often dies a natural death, is, in all stations, apt to be embittered. On one occasion, after thanking her, as for a boon, for very many kind expressions' to him in a letter, he says, 'in short, my dear soul, if I could begin life over again, I would endeavour every hour of it to oblige you. But as we can't recal what is past, forget my imperfections, and as God has been pleased to bless me, I do not doubt but he will reward me with some years to end my days with you; and if that be with quietness and kindness, I shall be much happier than I have ever yet been."

The career and close of life in the case of other exalted personages, who were the contemporaries of the Duchess, were not much more tempting. The Queen's latter days were greatly embittered, -the very Ministry which she had brought in in an unworthy manner, by the quarrels which arose among its members, having hastened, there is much reason to believe, her death. Harley himself was unhappy in his political history, and Bolingbroke's fortunes were unstable and disastrous; so that the conclusion at which we arrive is, that the life of a courtier, especially of any one whose ways are tortuous and principles concealed, is sooner or later made to feel the poetical justice observed in the drama,-that there is no exemption in favour of Ladies of the Bedchamber,-and that a Queen Regnant is still more than a sovereign of the hardier sex exposed to the duplicities of selfish advisers and the misconduct of unfaithful servants. Had Mrs. Thompson more forcibly brought out these moral lessons her work would have been much livelier, as well as profitable to the reader, than we have found it. As it is, one has for the most part to trace her facts to an issue which she has not fully apprehended; and also, for the sake of allowing these their full weight, to recast their description, and clothe more pithily and briefly their amount. Some of her statements too are contrary to historical truth. Take for example a notice of the wife of James the Second, who, it was notorious at the time, died in communion with the Church of Rome :

"She had virtue and delicacy sufficient to appreciate the prudence and good conduct of those around her, and to set an example of propriety and dignity in her own demeanour, becoming her high station. United to a husband who, in the midst of depravity, had,' says Burnet, a real sense of sin, and was ashamed of it. Anne, had she lived, might have possessed, as a PROTESTANT, and as a woman of understanding, a salutary influence over the mind of her husband;—an influence which prudent women are found to retain, even when the affections of the heart are alienated on both sides. But her death, which happened in 1671, deprived England of a queen-consort who professed the national faith; and, in her, James lost a faithful and sensible wife, and the court a guide and pattern which might have checked the awful demoralization that prevailed."

With the sentiments we have frequently felt inclined to quarrel, on account of unsoundness and their maudlin tone, which the spirit of "Old Sarah," had there been no other stimulus in the theme, should have prevented. We have neither felt cheerful in going through the work, nor much enlightened by what is new in it; while what is old is not placed so advantageously before us as it previously stood.

ART. V. Reconnoitering Voyages and Travels, with Adventures in the New Colonies of South Australia; a Particular Description of the Town of Adelaide, and Kangaroo Islands, &c. By W. LEIGH, Esq. Late Surgeon of the Australian Company's Ship "South Australian." London Smith, Elder, and Co. (1839. CERVANTES Smiled Spain's chivalry away-Voltaire laughed down the mighty power of the Romish priesthood-Gibbon sneered Christianity itself out of countenance, and here is an intelligent and vivacious man of medicine lustily employing the same weapons for the destruction of the "germ of a mighty nation of British origin," (or, as it is irreverently termed by its enemies "the prosperity bubble,") and the neutralization of the grand euraka of Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, which was "to establish a hopeful era in the history of modern colonization." We confess we should view with sincere regret the annihilation of the Eldorado of the south; we should mourn over the prostration of those airy fabrics which our imaginations have delighted to contemplate rising majestically on the banks of the Torrens and the shores of gulf St. Vincent: we should lament over the departure of those blissful visions of rural felicity and plenteous contentment which were to signalize the Arcadia of the southern seas, and it is not without a pang that we proceed to commit Mr. Leigh's accounts to paper. But, fiat justitia ruet cælum. If delusion has been practised, it is but just that it should be exposed. If a course of systematic puffing has been persevered in for the interest of certain individuals, it is but

fair that the public should be put upon their guard against the deception. However unpalatable it may be to ourselves, we must respect an honest attempt to tell the truth. This, of course, Mr. Leigh assures us he does, and yet there is such an evident tendency towards caricature running through the whole of his narrative, that we feel at times a little suspicious.

He tells us, indeed, he left England warped by no party and biassed by no prejudices; and that it has been his endeavour to give a plain and simple narrative of facts as they came under his view. He is quite aware that his statements and views are greatly at variance with existing interests and opinions, and that he is prepared for the wrath which his volume is calculated to draw upon him from modern theorists and speculators. He will, however, be amply indemnified for any attacks to which he may be subjected if it shall have the effect of deterring even one individual from embarking on a rash and untried adventure, or of warning those who have so embarked against the shoals and quicksands which beset their course. This is a highly praiseworthy object, and fearlessly and spiritedly proclaimed.

South Australia has excited considerable interest in every part of the kingdom, and more especially in Scotland and Ireland. The unsettled state of affairs in Canada, and the commercial embarrassments of the United States, have arrested the current of western emigration, so that the stream is now directed towards the Great South Land. Many are the respectable families and individuals at present engaged in planning the erection of a new home in some one of our many colonies; and it certainly is of the utmost importance that the advantages and disadvantages of each should be clearly laid before them, that they may be guided in the choice of their future destination-a step of paramount importance, which once taken cannot easily be recalled. Hitherto, all the accounts that have reached us from the colony have, with one or two exceptions, come from persons interested in the success of the " great experiment." In their eagerness to promote their own views, they may have been insensibly led to exaggerate the capabilities, and soften down or entirely suppress the drawbacks of their " land of promise." Hence many have, and many more may hereafter be induced to yield implicit credence to their representations, and thus give a preference to South Australia, without sufficient knowledge and consideration, which they may afterwards have occasion to repent of. To supply these persons with the proper data upon which to found their selection, is a very laudable object; and if it be executed with impartiality and fairness, it is justly entitled to respect. Let us see how Mr. Leigh has acquitted himself. Here is a passage in the very outset which we look upon as particularly good:

"Men that emigrate I should take to be divided into two classes: first, those that emigrate from a mature conviction that another land holds forth advantages which their own does not possess, and who are resolutely determined to rough it,' come what will; and these are the people who will find emigration to answer. They will, with due exertion, meet with success, whether they be gentlemen with large families and small capital, labouring men, mechanics, and tradesmen.

The second class are those wild visionaries who court any new light, and snatch at any bubble which is more attractive than the last they followed. These restless and dissatisfied beings fancy every one is better off than themselves, and that every land enjoys advantages superior to their own. To such I would recommend the work of that industrious and persevering emigrant, Mr. Moore, which should be read by every one that proposes moving to a new colony. They will find not only some very valuable information as regards the agriculture of Australia, but the results of his experience during his many struggles and difficulties when he first settled in the colony. In one part he writes thus: I find in emigration but very little of the romance. It is nothing but downright laborious plodding.' And, in this observation, as in the most others of his work, I do heartily concur.

"Whilst I was at Kangaroo Island a vessel came in from England, bringing emigrants to South Australia. They were all, without exception, wild flighty young fellows; being about such another cargo as one would expect to have seen unshipped for the service of Donna Maria, Don Miguel, or any other Don, Don Quixote included. It did not require a very clear sight to perceive that they were not the sort of goods for the market.' However, emigration was all the go, and all their conversation was of bullocks, &c. &c.; away they packed, and I heard no more of them till about three months after their arrival, when I visited their location, and found these mighty tillers of the soil, all sitting very cozily round a large fire, in a reed hut, smoking their pipes, on the floor, à-la-grand-Turk.' They laughed when I entered, nor could I better retain my gravity, for I never saw such an alteration in men in so short a time. Instead of being the exquisites' they were twelve weeks ago, they were dirty, shabby, and had a suspicious bandit-like appearance, which, as I told them, would make a man pull his cravat an inch or two higher when he found himself in their company.

In answer to my jests upon their toilet, they one and all exclaimed, 'Oh, what does it matter in such a place as this?-who sees you?'.

"I naturally inquired how they got on. One answered, Why, I get on queerly; I get a few pickings out of the kangaroos I kill-look, those are my hounds!'.

"Well,Tom, and how do you manage?'- Why, sometimes I join the hunting, sometimes I go and dine with B- --sometimes he comes here, and so on.' This was the situation of these magnificos--disappointed at the commencement of their romance..

“They remained in Adelaide a considerable time, expensive as it then was, spending money which might, if they had chosen, have been laid out very advantageously; but, like the proud steward of old, they could not dig.' The result was-one became a clerk, another went to Sydney