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point of dress and state, but to have exerted that sort of ingenuity of examination that is calculated to entrap the simple or the timid, as well as to make the innocent criminate themselves. The author's manners and habits, which were said to be purely Spanish, the darkness of his complexion, and especially the breadth, length, and blackness of his whiskers were circumstances that were detailed, to his disadvantage, because such evidences were supposed to militate against his own account of himself, when he said that he travelled for the sake of pleasure, of antiquarian research, or the acquisition of the language, and a knowledge of the manners of the people in foreign parts.

It is our general rule to abstain from religious or political controversy, and only to express a cautious opinion upon all points of angry disputation, unless the nature of the work submitted to our review demand our marked notice. We have before intimated that our author's political sentiments admit of question, on certain matters of absorbing interest as regards the state of Spain and Portugal. They are expressed, however, in such a polite manner, with so much candour and sincerity, that even his opponents in doctrine and argument must respect his principles; certainly it is not our purpose to impugn or contradict them; neither shall we attempt to particularize them. It cannot but be acceptable to every one, however, to learn from him, what were some of the circumstances which he witnessed at the period when Don Miguel returned to Portugal.

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"The Infantas proceeded to the royal frigate to receive their brother, but when he saw them approaching he sprung into a boat, and embraced them with tears of affection. As he landed, the soldiers cried out Long live the Infant!' the people replied with vivas' for the absolute King. At the Palace of Ajuda he was welcomed by his mother. Falling upon one knee he imprinted the most fervent kisses on her hand, and said, taking from his bosom an image of the Virgin of the rock, Behold this relic, your parting gift. Mother, you see before you the same child you lost in 1824.' From that moment the royal attendants knew that his political tendencies were unaltered, her influence over his mind unimpaired, and the fate of the Charter sealed. In the evening the palace was surrounded by people shouting for the absolute King. The officer on duty sent a message to the Infanta Regent requiring instructions, and offering to disperse the crowd; but her Royal Highness referred the messenger to the Infant, saying, 'Brother Miguel, you hear.' 'Let it pass,' replied the Infant, and the people, emboldened by his obvious approbation, reiterated their shouts.

"That night the city was brilliantly illuminated. On the following day Don Miguel repaired to the Cathedral; again he was treated with 'vivas' for the absolute King, more generally and vehemently expressed; and some soldiers who attempted to stifle those cries were severely reproved. I conversed with some Constitutionalists in the evening, and even then they were greatly dispirited, and predicted the overthrow of the Constitution. The Infant's ambiguous reply to the Portuguese deputation in London, his

actual encouragement of the rioters, and the absence of any proclamation, were justly considered as no slight indications of his real feelings. Don Miguel's intention of taking the oath to the Constitution was, however, known on the following morning, and revived the drooping hopes of the Imperial party.

"I repaired on the 26th of February to the great saloon of the Ajuda. The Peers, attired like Roman senators, occupied the front benches on the right hand; immediately above sat the Peeresses, among whom the Countess of Villa Flor and the Countess of Alva were undoubtingly the most distinguished by their personal attractions: the Deputies were ranged along the benches on the left hand, and the space above was reserved for strangers. At one o'clock Don Miguel entered the saloon, accompanied by his sisters. The Infanta Regent seated herself on the throne; the Prince at first stood by her side under the royal canopy; but taking him familiarly by the arm she forced him to occupy part of her seat, during the delivery of the speech. She expressed her sincere desire for the welfare of the Charter, and assured her hearers of the upright intentions which had uniformly actuated her conduct in the administration of the Government; and of the pleasure with which she now resigned it into her brother's hands. She was frequently interrupted by shouts proceeding from the court below, and her voice was at one time so completely lost in the clamour, that she was obliged to pause; upon which occasion Don Miguel's flashing eyes gave indications of that impatient temper which has characterized him from his earliest years. Having concluded her speech she arose, and retiring from the throne, which she appeared to resign with the utmost cheerfulness and good humour, she placed herself by her sister, an interesting young person, seated on the right hand bench immediately above the Peeresses.

"The written oath of adherence to the Charter was then presented to the Infant, who regarded it with apparent confusion, and seemed unable or unwilling to read it: at the same time the Duke de Cadoval drew near with a missal to administer the oath; but his Excellency's wide-spreading mantle so effectually concealed the Infant from the general observation, that it was impossible to see him kiss the Sacred Book, or hear him pronounce the solemn words. I was not far from the Royal party, but cannot give any decided opinion upon that much debated point, whether Don Miguel really went through, or evaded the forms prescribed. Many of his adherents declared then, and still assert, that he neither repeated the words nor kissed the book; and the Infant himself is said to have assured his favourite nurse, on the same day, that in subverting the Charter he should incur no moral guilt, as he had not bound himself by any oath to maintain it."—vol. i, pp. 280-283.

It can matter little, we think, whether the words of the oath were repeated, and the book kissed, or not. The hypocrite and the traitor's duplicity were in effect the same; and so long as the wickedness of a lie consists in the attempt and the success with which a person deliberately misleads those whose interest and desire it is to understand him precisely, Don Miguel's crime must be construed to be one of the most atrocious and cowardly that ever was perpetrated by a public man. But we must not forget, when

speaking of its turpitude, to denounce the defence set up for him, as referred to, in the concluding sentence of the last extract, and to declare that it is worthy of the abettors of the arch-criminal himself.

Well may our author add, that during the whole ceremony connected with the scene, he has just been describing, "Don Miguel's countenance was overcast." But we are glad to escape from this vile affair, and turn our notice to something less revolting, were it only belonging to that race of wild looking men, compounded of the beggar and marauder which the author has described as belonging to a particular province of Portugal.

"A curious superstition attaches to this rambling race in those parts of Alentejo, where the little landholders dwell in isolated houses upon their estates. When a child is born, crowds of wild-looking beggars assemble from different, and even remote parts of the great Alentejo wastes, and collect around the house; barefooted, and occasionally bareheaded, they frequently carry devotional pictures in their hands, and sometimes a charm or talisman in the bosom. If invited to partake of the good man's cheer, they heap innumerable blessings on his infant heir; but if the door is sternly closed against their intrusion, they successively approach the inhospitable threshold, denounce the guiltless object of the day's rejoicing, and consign their victim to an early grave, or to a lengthened life of sorrow. In some parts of the district, a christening concluded without their presence and approval, is considered by the superstitious inhabitants as fearfully incomplete, and even by strong minded men as wanting in a kind of moral sanction. The mother dreads the scowl of a rejected wanderer of the wild ; his curses, sometimes defied but never disregarded, return in seasons of domestic grief with all the terror of their original impression. Years afterwards, the conscience stricken parent, seated by her drooping child, hears on the midnight blast the voice that warned her of her present woe, and sees again the evil eye that froze the current of his blood, and numbered his young days; and as the terrible remembrance wakes, her hopes decline; her care abates under the certainty of a predestined doom, and thus the prophecy works out its own fulfilment."-vol. ii, pp. 169, 170.

Salvator Rosa or Sir Walter Scott could have made a grand picture or story out of such a tribe; but the historian will find Don Miguel's career a blot on his pages, and a scar in warfare unredeemed by one trait of magnanimity.

One extract more and we have done; and it is such as one has pleasure in copying from these admirable volumes, because it speaks of the author's adventures, and because he is the writer.

"So terminated an expedition fraught with interest, full of varying incident, attended with difficulty and danger, and singularly disastrous towards its close. The most sumptuous and the most scantiest fare had been alternately my lot; the Republican and the Ultra-Royalist, the peasant, the priest, and the noble, successively my hosts; my race had been run through sunshine and through storm, amid the greatest warmth of apparent friendship, and the utmost violence of real hate; the heated room and the luxu

rious couch, the hard plank and the cold night of heaven, the palace and the prison, I had alternately experienced in rapid revolution. In the morning I frequently knew not where I could rest my head at eve in safety, and I often lay down to rest without any certainty of passing the night uninterrupted by alarm.”—vol. ii, p. 173.

ART. II.—The Political History of England, during the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. By F. VON RAUMER, Professor of History in the University of Berlin. Vols. I. and II. London: Ritcher and Co. 1837. THERE is one manifest advantage which a foreign author possesses over any native writer upon the political history of this country-he approaches the subject without being necessarily connected or identified with any of the great parties which divide the mind of the nation. On the other hand there is a strong probability that he will be deficient in that knowledge of the peculiar and national traits of character in the people, without which it is impossible to give a faithful interpretation of their conduct, or to balance the relative force of opposing sentiments and opinions. Von Raumer, however, is well known to be deeply versed, not only in English but modern European history; and nothing can be clearer, than that in the present work, there are to be found the fruits of unwearied and extensive research. These volumes, indeed, contain numerous documents and materials which but few have access to; for he has not confined his examination to the archives of England alone, but has in those of France discovered many snatches of evidence, during his visits to Paris, and in the course of his various historical investigations.

And yet with all these habits and advantages, English readers, we fear, will discover that the work is not altogether satisfactory. There is a deficiency of clearness in the arrangement of its contents; there is a skipping from one point to another; a vaulting over important intervals; and a want of a sufficiently strong, leading, and recognised principle in the purpose and the conduct of the writer, and of compression in the details to entitle the work to a first-rate place upon what are confessedly the most stirring and important eras in our history. Labour in collecting, diligence in seeking for abundant materials, and exemplary impartiality in weighing the value of each, and anxiety to adjust every minute relation, characterize the author's efforts, rather than any considerable portion of that grasping and philosophic power, which deals with particulars with the ease and confidence of a master-genius, and which finds every event and discovery naturally assume an illustrative position, by taking its appropriate rank under some comprehensive doctrine. It would appear that Von Raumer contemplated, although we fear vaguely, and not very constantly, one general principle of conduct in the present instance, both as his guide and his end; for, it is said, that he rejects everything in general history that "does not indi

cate the progress of human improvement, the predominance of ideas, and the distinguishing characteristics of eminent men." Now, we have felt that this principle is much more distinctly announced than experienced after a perusal of the work. At the same time there is a great deal in it, which will interest English readers, and which in future hands may be turned to important elucidation.

It is to be borne in mind that these two volumes only form a portion of the author's incompleted History of Europe since the End of the Fifteenth Century; and certainly a more diversified field and noble theme was never presented to the philosophic historian than the period in England's career that elapsed between the Reformation and the Revolution-a great proportion of which is traversed in the course of these volumes. Among the earliest remarkable events here discussed, the divorce of Henry VIII., and his renunciation of the authority of the Pope, properly take a prominent rank. And yet Von Raumer is of opinion that the King was in heart a Catholic, and that it was the Commons who were the real and efficient authors of the change in this country at that timetheir servility, bribes, and urgency, obtaining that which was reluctantly given by his Majesty. The reader will find strong reasons for entertaining these views in the author's recorded facts and carefully collected documents. Connected with the reign of the bluff King we quote the sketch of Wolsey's character, and certain observations on the Parliament's treatment of the Cardinal.

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'Wolsey was certainly not a man of the greatest elevation of mind and strength of character, nor superior to external influence and court favour; yet it cannot be denied, that after his fall everything went on much worse than before; and this fall was caused more by Henry's ingratitude and despotism than by any sufficient reasons. Nor does the conduct of the Parliament appear less free from blame; for while it accused the Cardinal of having ruined the kingdom, it extolled, in another bill, the happiness and prosperity of England; made a present to the King of all the money which he had borrowed from his subjects; and declared the pledges and securities given for it to be null and void."

In what regards the history of the suppression of the Monasteries by Wolsey's master, the means by which the surrender was brought about are not slightly characteristic of the times and the ruling power. The author is speaking of the title-deeds of the property of the establishment, and says

"It was desired, in the first place, to preserve appearances, as if the surrender had everywhere been voluntary. But as promises as well as threatenings were for the most part unavailing, the Abbots were frequently imprisoned; and a few, who persisted in maintaining that the King was not justified in taking these measures, were hanged. Intimidated by such acts of violence, the rest signed a deed of surrender which was laid before them, and in which they accused themselves of the most scandalous transgressions, and were obliged to declare that it was the

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