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France the immediate necessity of a parliamentary reform; which, indeed, M. Charles Malo represents as so undeniable, that it is thought, by well-informed persons, that the government itself means to introduce his system of reform, or, at least, some parts of it, into the next elections;' (p. 170.) which is not surprizing, as much of the plan is supported, he says, by the doctrines du célèbre Blackstone,' as well as by those d'un autre célèbre jurisconsulte très connu, Sir William.' (p. 152.)

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The next division of M. Charles Malo's work is the 'Red Book of England-the looking-glass of John Bull.' This is also a copy from some of the jacobin catchpennies of the day; in which, in a list of placemen, pensioners, and sinecurists, are included the names of not only all the public men now alive, but of several who have been long dead, of others who never had places nor pensions, and of all the bishops, deans, and other dignitaries of the church. This valuable document is introduced to the reader by an extract of a speech of John Horne Jooke (so M. Charles Malo carefully spells the name) to the electors of Westminster, in 1796, and all the speeches of Mr. Jooke, and of such others, are quoted as 'irrécusable' evidences of the general corruption of England. How well fitted M. Charles Malo is for treating these matters, our' readers will judge from hearing that Lord Ellenborough is clerk in chief to the court of King's Bench; that Sir Philip Stevens, Baron, has not been dead these fifteen years, as we supposed, but is at this hour a commissioner for executing the office of admiral of the fleet with a salary of 1,500l. per annum; that all the official persons whose names are in the patent of the Board of Controul have 1,500l. per annum each from that department, &c. We have no doubt M. Charles Malo will say that he found all this in the 'Independent Whig,' or some similar work: we only quote them as instances of the talents and information which he brings to the work of building a monument to the glory of France on the inferiority of England.

The pleasantest account, however, which he gives, is of the bishoprics. He has found in some old calendar the ratings of them in the king's books, and on this authority he sagaciously states that, in 1782, all the bishoprics of England put together only cost the government 21,000l.; but that now they occasion an expense to the government of 169,000l.-that is, an increase of 137,000l. in thirty-five years. But this (he adds) is not the only reflection which this table excites.' (p. 247.) The last observation suggests one reflection which perhaps is not amongst those to which M. Charles Malo alludes, namely, that it is hardly possible to make more mistakes in a small space than he has here contrived to assemble.

VOL. XVIII, NO. XXXV.

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M. Charles

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M. Charles Malo's next division is Miscellaneous;' and here again, though he only copies or translates from English newspapers, he contrives to show that he understands English pretty much as Lady Morgan does French. Of a gross caricature of the order of the bomb M. Charles Malo gives us an engraving; and yet, with this engraving before his eyes, which, God knows, seems intelligible enough, he so little comprehends the filthy equivoque on which it is founded, that he assures us it is only a quiz upon the insignificant part which the bomb-vessels played in the attack on Algiers; which M. Charles Malo represents as one of the most ridiculous, ineffective, and deceptive parades that was ever made. Then follow thirty-one pages of extracts from the daily papers, full of such important information as the following:

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2d Sept. There was no exchange yesterday, being the anniversary of the fire of London.

30th Sept.

A watch-maker, of Northampton, having been lately called to examine a clock which had stopped, found in it a mouse's nest which had interrupted the movements.

28th Dec. The new pantomime of the Christmas Pie, produced last night, was successful: the plot is taken from an old nursery story. 16th Jan. The daughter of a celebrated physician has died lately of an inflammation of the bowels, caused by a plum-stone which she had swallowed.

30th Jan. The Duke of Marlborough died this morning, aged 84: his eldest son, the Marquis of Blandford, succeeds to his titles and

estates.

7th April. To-day the Lord Mayor gives his usual dinner.'

Such is the rare intelligence which M. Charles Malo preserves in his perennial pages from the too hasty fate which awaits it in the public journals.

But he also adds a few remarks on the fine arts, which are just what our readers would expect. In the last exhibition of sculpture at the Royal Academy, there were only three pieces worth looking at, or at which any body looked, and they were all three by foreigners, two by Canova and one by M. Goblet, a Frenchman,'p. 292. Mr. Chantry's group, it seems, attracted no attention. In painting, his taste is equally good. Sir Lawrence and Sir Beechy he thinks moderate (médiocres); but he assures us that Mr. Phillips is in England compared to Titian, on account of his extreme high finish.

The only trace we can find in this whole volume, of the author's having been in England, we think it fair to give.

He says, that having gone into the pit of the Circus, he regretted to find himself in such bad company, until he was astonished and pleased to hear the persons behind him addressing one another as gentlemen and ladies. He looked round for this good company,

and

and was quite surprized to see two persons, of the lowest class, who were amusing themselves, in an interval of the entertainment, with a bottle of gin and a piece of cheese. In spite,' M. Malo adds, ' of the English apathy and phlegm, no, never did I laugh so heartily!'-p. 58.

We do not exactly see why the English phlegm should have impeded the Frenchman's inclination to laugh; but we readily admit that the promiscuous use of the terms lady and gentleman is ridiculous enough: but has M. Charles Malo never heard a poissarde and a fort de la Halle address one another as monsieur and madame? and does he not know that the lowest ranks of people in France bandy these titles from one to another with the most punctilious ceremony? thus this, which is the only fruit we see of M. Charles Malo's visit to England, is one which he might have found in still greater perfection in all the blind alleys of Paris.

But our readers are tired of M. Charles Malo, and so are we. They have long since seen that he is a poor, catchpenny scribbler, who makes a book with the assistance of the last year's newspapers, a pair of scissars and a little paste. We have noticed his impudent niaiseries, for the same reason which induced us to chastise the malignity of General Pillet and Lady Morgan. We are anxious to cultivate a good understanding between France and England; they are (whenever the morals and politics of the revolution do not infect them) worthy of each other's esteem and respect; and it is the duty of the honnêtes gens of both countries to expose the prejudices, follies and falsehoods which a horde of ignorant scribblers and a nest of exasperated jacobins so industriously propagate in each country to the disparagement of the other.

ART. XIII.-Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, D.D. Bishop of Landaff, written by himself at different intervals, and revised in 1814. Published by his Son, Richard Watson, LL.B. Prebendary of Landaff and Wells. 4to. 1817. THIS is an original and unblushing account of a character,

which has had no parallel in the compass of the English hierarchy. The eccentric and extravagant conduct of Bishop Watson, as a politician and as a prelate, the undisguised boldness of his conversation, and the incessant clamours of disappointment with which he deafened every company, after being advanced to the highest rank of his profession, have excited a very general and anxious curiosity for the appearance of the present work.

Many self-biographers have sought the protection of the grave, to rescue their persons at least, whatever became of their memories, from the consequences of publishing memoirs far more harmless than the present. In this instance Dr. Watson himself per

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ceived the necessity of reserve; but the use which he has made of posthumous impunity is such as must fill every feeling mind with indignation at the man who, in the decline of life, and under the shade of retirement, has, by a moral chemistry of his own, been employed for more than twenty years in collecting and concentrating intellectual poison, leaving the stopple to be drawn, and the composition to be vended, by his executors.

These are the fruits of an indolent and unlearned retreat from the duties of two important functions, the dignities and emoluments of which this prelate continued to enjoy till his death. In contemplating the history and character of this extraordinary man, we can only recollect one other bishop with whom, by the remotest approximation, he can be compared. This was Burnet; but even with him Bishop Watson afforded more points of contrast than of similitude. Both were indeed men of great natural abilities, great reformists, much given to obloquy, violent whigs, busy meddlers in politics, and of arrogant over-weening tempers.-Both too had been professors of divinity in their respective universities, and both were gifted with the talent of natural, copious, and overflowing eloquence. But here, unfortunately for the latter prelate, all resemblance ceases at once; for Burnet was profoundly learned in his own science of theology, while Watson was a mere smatterer. Burnet was conscientiously resident in his own diocese, and most diligent in the discharge of his episcopal functions—the late bishop of Landaff was, of all diocesans, the most remiss. Burnet was an indefatigable preacher-Watson seldom appeared in the pulpit but for the purposes of display. The former, with all his political prejudices, had a deep and awful sense of religion— in the latter, all the detachment and disengagement from the world, which ought to adorn and consecrate the declining age of a bishop, were lost in secularity and self-interest. Moreover, this violent declaimer against sinecures and non-residence was the first who converted the regius professorship of divinity into a sinecure: this enemy of pluralities held in his own person at least fourteen places of preferment; this man of moderation in his wishes, and calm contentment under the shade of retirement, spent the last twenty-nine years of his life in execrating those who, for his factious obstinacy, had left him to that retirement, while he was occupied in nursing up a fortune, till, according to his own boast, with the poorest bishopric in the kingdom, he became the richest bishop upon the bench.

For these enormous inconsistencies, however, between conduct and profession, something is in justice due to his memory by way of explanation. He exercised the functions of Regius Professor in person for a period of sixteen years, and did not quit it till an inveterate disease, the fruit perhaps of his chemical operations,

warned

warned his physicians to prescribe relaxation and retirement in the country. Had he been possessed of any other see in the kingdom, that retirement might have been found at his proper post, and in his episcopal house; but the see to which he had been consecrated possessed not a house in which the bishop could shroud his head. The see of Landaff is, indeed, in this and another respect, the opprobrium of our episcopal establishment. Once an archbishopric, and one of the most wealthy sees in Christendom, like its sister St. David's, but more deeply, this decayed and dilapidated church

'plorat

Curtatos mitræ titulos et nomen inane
Semisepultæ urbis,'

having long lost its metropolitan honours and been stripped of its castle and domains by Kitchin, its first Protestant bishop, whom his successor Godwyn, with no undue asperity, has recorded as 'fundi nostri calamitatem.'

Still, however, had a bishop not disdained to take up his abode, after St. Paul's example, ev tidie podwμari, he might have found on the salubrious coast of his own diocese,

'some elegant retreat,

Some hireling senator's deserted seat,'

which, in the person of Dr. Watson, would have
'Given to St. David one true Briton more.'

But a translation was then contemplated, and its diocesan, reckoning without his host, considered himself as a mere bird of passage, like his predecessors. But, while a shattered frame demanded relaxation, a growing family claimed a provision: with this imperious call upon his mind, our original and independent prelate withdrew to his native country among the mountains of Westmoreland, where, bidding adieu to duty and to study, (for he brought no books, the proper companions of a scholar's retirement, along with him,) he betook himself to blasting rocks, planting trees, improving barren lands, and abusing the administration of his country. The last occupation of his tongue and of his pen, requiring no aid from the stores of antiquity, was pursued at Calgarth without impediment and without intermission. But as health was in this retirement his ostensible object, he might have reflected that a mind corroded by increasing bitterness and disappointment was not the happiest restorative of a broken constitution, and that while the column of sixty inches of rain, which annually falls on Winandermere, was pouring its periodical tribute on the domains of Calgarth, and the salutary pursuits of planting and agriculture were necessarily intermitted, the activity of a mind like that of our prelate, worn down in early life by attrition, would be in danger,

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