the absence of his brother, who might have served for a protector to the woman he had so much injured; she occupied, indeed, his latest thoughts. 'Sent herself to prison in her turn, she there learned the frightful death of M. de Beauharnois. "In spite of myself," said she to us, "I thought continually of my prediction. Habituated to occupy myself with it, what had been foretold me appeared by degress less absurd, and I ended by almost considering it quite simple. "One morning the jailor entered a chamber, where I slept, along with the Duchess d'Aiguillon, and two other ladies. He informed me he came to take my hair mattress, to give it to another prisoner. How to give it? said Madame d'Aiguillon, eagerly; Madame de Beauharnois, then, is surely to have a better?—No, no, she will not need, answered he, with a diabolical smile; for they are coming to take her to the Conciergerie, and thence to the guillotine. I "At these words my companions in misfortune screamed aloud. consoled them in the best way I could; at last wearied with their eternal lamentations, I told them that their grief was destitute of common sense; that not only I should not die, but I should yet be Queen of France. Why not name your household? asked Madame Aiguillon, angrily-Ah, that is true, I did not think of it. Very well, my dear friend, I will name you dame d'honneur, I give you my promise. And the tears of these ladies only flowed more rapidly, for they thought me mad, seeing me so cool at such a moment. I assure you, ladies, that I was not acting the heroine, for I was at the time fully persuaded of the realization of my oracle. "Madame d'Aiguillon feeling almost unwell, I led her to the window which I opened to give her a little air; I observed a woman of the lower orders, who made a variety of signs to us which we did not comprehend. She every moment took hold of her robe, without our being able to conceive what she meant by it. Seeing that she continued to do so, I called out to her Robe; she made a signal that I was right; then she picked up a stone, put it into her apron, which she again shewed us, lifting up the stone with the other hand; Pierre, I again called out to her. Her delight was extreme on being assured that we comprehended her at last; joining her robe to the stone, she several times eagerly went through the motion of cutting her throat, and then began dancing and clapping her hands. This singular pantomimist excited in us an emotion which it is impossible to express, since we dared not believe that she announced to us the death of Robespierre. ""At the moment while we were thus suspended between fear and hope, we heard a great noise in the corridor, and the formidable voice of the turnkey, who was saying to his dog, while giving him a blow, with his foot, Will you go on, you S Robespierre? This energetic phrase proved to us that we had nothing to fear, and that France was saved. "In fact, a few moments after, our companions in misfortune entered the apartment, and gave us the details of this great event. It was the 9th thermidor. "They brought me back my hair mattress, on which I passed the best night that could be. I fell asleep, after having repeated to my friend, You see, I am not yet guillotined, and I shall yet be Queen of France. When I became Empress I wished to keep my word. I requested to have Madame de Girardine (formerly Madame d' Aiguillon) for dame d'honneur, but the Emperor would not permit it, as she had been divorced. 6.66 The Such, ladies, is the exact truth as to this celebrated prophecy. latter part of it gives me little disquietude; I live here in tranquillity and retirement; I never interfere in politics; I do as much good as I can; so I hope to die in my bed. It is true that Marie Antoinuette !"-Here Josephine stopped, and we hastened to change the conversation. 1 This story may be true; but it is throughout so deficient in the vrai-semblable, that, we confess, we cannot altogether reconcile ourselves to it. The miserable episode of the woman with the stone and the apron, is, to our taste, particularly nauseous. We do hold this paltry fragment to be quite unworthy of forming a sequel to the really romantic adventure with the sorceress. Besides the characters we have mentioned, the work contains a great many anecdotes, about a great many people whose names even we cannot now pretend to enumerate. A considerable number of those, however, who figure in the table of contents, the reader will find merely named in the body of the volume. But about others, particularly Talleyrand, Perignon, Eugene Beauharnois, the Duke de Laval, Sismondi, M. Huber and his lady, La Maréchale Lefebvre, M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, Moreau, Madame Tallien, M. Portalès, Le Prince Kourakin, M. de Czernicheff, &c. &c. there are some interesting details. The book is written, as such books should be written, without any elaboration of style; but is often, we are sorry to say, so inaccurately printed as to be almost unintelligible. NOTICES. ART. XI.-1. The New Year's Gift and Juvenile Souvenir. Edited by Mrs. Alaric Watts. 12mo. pp. 240. Twelve illustrations. London: Longman and Co. 1829. 2. The Christmas Box. An Annual Present to Young Persons. Edited by J. Crofton Croker, Esq. With several wood cuts. 12mo. London: Ebers and Co. 1829. pp. 244. THE Success which attended Mr. Crofton Croker's experiment last year, has this year procured for him more than one fair rival. Mrs. Watts has produced a little volume, which from the number and beauty of its illustrations, as well as the pretty little tales and verses with which it abounds, promises, if he does not look about him, to beat him fairly out of the field. We understand that Mrs. Hall, the lady of the editor of "The Amulet," has in preparation a similar present for young folk; and that Mr. T. Roscoe intends to produce a work that will occupy the generations who are neither young nor old, the middle race, who are just setting out for school, and whose tears are likely to be dried by a handsome, light, amusing pocket book, with which they can beguile the first hours of their journey. We have as yet seen neither of the latter VOL IX. 2 E publications-except in sheets-and in that state we must leave them until they come before us in a more perfect form. Mrs. Watts's Souvenir bears, as was to be expected, a strong familylikeness to the volume that is edited by her husband. The plates are not, indeed, of the first class, nor need they be; they are quite as good as it is fit to put into the hands of children. One of them, Rosalie, is perhaps too good for such a work; it is a charming engraving, and might have found a place, not undeservingly, in the elder Souvenir. The subjects of these prints are all suitable to young minds. 'The Children in the Wood,' the Marriage of the Infant Richard, Duke of York, to the Lady Anne Mowbray,'' the Boy and the Dog,' the Blind Grandfather,'' the Dead Robin,' Hubert and Arthur;'--these, and other subjects, are represented in the engravings, and add very much to the other attractions which the volume contains, and really render it quite captivating for every body who is just able to read, and not yet wholly out of the trammels of the nursery. We would take the liberty to suggest that the accomplished editor should endeavour, in her next volume, to render the style, of the prose tales particularly, a little more familiar and colloquial. We would point out expressions, such as "elongated," elongated," "mocassius," " taciturn,” “ mactachering," and a great many others, which very few boys, or girls either, can understand without explanation. But this is not all. The stories are written too plainly with an intention to instruct and admonish; the object would be better accomplished, if the intention were veiled a little more; for children, who will not like to be lectured, will derive all the benefit that is proposed for them from an interesting allegory, or tale, more immediately addressed to their imaginations. Mrs. Watts will, we hope, excuse us for making this suggestion, as we have every reason to hope that the success of her present work will enable her to have many opportunities of putting its practical utility to the test. The composition that comes nearest in her collection to the model which we prefer, is The Spider and the Fly,' by Mrs. Howitt. There is not one little urchin in a hundred that will forget this playful version of an old story,' while the whole hundred would peruse as a task, and the next moment consign to forgetfulness, Mrs. Hoffland's learned tale of the 'Stolen Boy.' They might not, perhaps, be indifferent to some of the facts, but they could never remember the hard names, and above all, the 'mactachering.' We shall copy the story to which we allude :— "Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly; "Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy. The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to show when you are there." "Oh no, no!" said the little fly, "to ask me is in vain, For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." "I'm sure you must be weary, with soaring up so high, Will you rest upon my little bed ?" said the spider to the fly. There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin; And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in." "Oh no, no!" said the little fly, " for I've often heard it said, They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!" 'Said the cunning spider to the fly, "Dear friend, what shall I do, To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you? I have, within my pantry, good store of all that's nice; I'm sure you're very welcome---will you please to take a slice?" "Oh no, no!" said the little fly, "kind sir, that cannot be, I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.' ""Sweet creature!" said the spider, "you're witty and you're wise. How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes! I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf, If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself." The spider turned him round about, and went into his den, And set his table ready to dine upon the fly. Then he went out to his door again, and merrily did sing, Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly, Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by; 'He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den, And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.' If all the poetry of the Juvenile Souvenir had been like this, it could not fail to overrun the country; even as it is, it has a good chance of reaching as far as Johnny Groats. For our part, we wish it every success. As Mr. Crofton Croker is not a lady, one may tell him plainly at once, that his Christmas Box for the new year is not half so harmonious, or so agreeable a book, as his last affair. It looks too much like a school book, with its sketches in natural history, and its interminable tale of the Snow Woman. We are inclined, however, to excuse much of the dullness of this volume, in consideration of the farcical sketch, Much coin, much care.' The man or boy who can read that piece without laughing till his sides cry out for mercy, must be in a condition that requires the attention of a doctor. The wood-cuts are as droll as the dialogue itself. We would not exclaim, O si sic omnia! but we do think, that a little more of the sprightliness which animates this piece, would have been usefully applied in the earlier pages of The Christmas Box.' ART. XII. Anti-Tooke; or an Analysis of the Principles and Structure of Language, exemplified in the English Tongue. By John Fearn. 8vo. Vol. ii. pp. 444. London. 1827. WE really do not know very well in what terms to notice this volume, or the work of which it is a part. There are, it appears to us, at least two inquiries upon the subject of language, which may rationally engage the attention of philologists. A scrutiny may be instituted into the existing state of language, and a correct description given of its parts and properties; or an attempt may be made to investigate the origin and derivation of its different forms from those mental operations or tendencies to which they owe their birth, and to trace the history and causes of the successive changes they have undergone in the course of their employment among the affairs, and on the lips of men. From the first inquiry will spring such a science of language, as botany is of plants, or ornithology of birds; a science which accurately divides and arranges words into their several classes, according to whatever essential differences may be found to exist among them. From the second would arise such a science or theory of language, as that which geologists labour to establish in regard to the origination and growth of the various mineral substances which compose the mass of the earth, and the causes of those phenomena by which they are marked. Now in the one as well as in the other of these fields of research, it is manifest that we can only proceed safely under the united guidance of both the facts of language, and the principles of our own mental constitution. Language is altogether the offspring of mind, and inherits its whole nature and character from its parent. Whether, therefore, we are to describe its existing state, or to investigate the manner in which it was originally formed, and has since grown up from infancy to maturity; while of course we do not suffer ourselves ever to overlook the known and unquestionable facts of the case, we must turn always to the constitution and tendencies of the human mind for their explanation. If we cannot reconcile the facts to the principles, we must just do as we would do in any other philosophical inquiry. The fact having been first carefully ascertained, and placed beyond the reach of doubt or controversy, we must, if possible, so enlarge or otherwise modify the principle, that while it remains in as much harmony as ever with all the other ascertained facts or phenomena to which it refers, it shall embrace also this hitherto undiscovered or unexplained one. In this case the investigation of language will have contributed to the extension and improvement of metaphysics. If we cannot manage the matter in this way, there is assuredly no other way of managing it. The difficulty remains unsolved, that is all. We must just do as the natural philosopher would, if he should encounter a phenomenon in nature which by all his ingenuity he could not reconcile to the principle, for instance, of gravitation; while he was unable on the other hand so to correct the principle as, while he made it comprehensive of the new phenomenon, to keep it in agreement with all the old ones. We must confess that we do not understand the matter. But we must not attempt to get over the difficulty by disregarding either the fact or the principle. But it is abundantly evident that, however obstinately this agreement between the realities of human speech and the ascertained constitution of |