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In contrasting the habits of the English and the Irish, the author gives by a few touches (p. 165,) an animated idea of their opposite character and tendency. With the one, all is the gratification of the moment; while, with the other, a provision for the future appears the foremost consideration. The Irishman delights in the "present moment, the present spot, the present company;" while the Englishman has comparatively a limited enjoyment of these, "and lives in the future, the distant, and the absent." Fortunate, however, as the disposition of the former is in some respects, it seldom fails to be attended, in advanced life, with the general consequences of improvidence. This fact is strikingly illustrated by a conversation which is represented (p. 172,) as taking place between the author and a lady, whose residence gave her the means of knowing the history of the companions of his youth:

"We talked of times that were long past, and of persons I had once well known-there was not one family among whom great changes had not taken place; and so much I fear does misery predominate over happiness, that not even in one of them was the change for the better,—many whom I left children, were grown up to men and women, and had turned out ill; many whom I left old and infirm, were alive still, a burden to others, as well as themselves ;-while the healthy and vigorous, in the bloom of youth and fulness of manhood, had been snatched away, and now mouldered in the tomb.-There had been considerable emigration to America, a desire of change had taken some; poverty and drunkenness more.-This latter vice had made great progress among the youth, and several promising young men were destroyed by it."

In the exposition of the character of the citizens of Dublin, the author dwells with much energy (p. 81,) on their charity; "a charity not founded on acts of parliament, nor weighed and measured by the standard of law, but the offspring of a sympathetic heart." He has the candour, on the other hand, to acknowledge that the progress of reason is abundantly slow in Ireland, and that much of what is really vice is not so deemed. Drunkenness among the lower orders is not accounted a sin; nor is quarrelling :-but we have had enough of these ungracious topics, and willingly relinquish them in order to transcribe the author's opinion of the ladies:

"In general they are fair and well-looking-They are not unsuccessful copyists of English fashions, and have a good deal the appearance of English women. If there is a shade of difference, it is that their features are harsher, and their persons rather more masculine. They are very fond of dancing, in which they display more vivacity and rapidity of movement than elegance or grace. This, perhaps

may be no evil. Young women who are taught the steps of opera dancers, are often apt to learn their tricks. They are more acute and knowing than English women.-They have not (I think) by any means, so much sensibility; their passions are not so easily inflamed. They can play about a flame, therefore, which would singe and consume an English woman. They have probably more vanity, and they have certainly more pride. In an Irish country town, there are four or five different degrees in female rank, and each class looks down with sovereign contempt on the one below it. Yet so strange a thing is human nature-so admirably are disadvantages, balanced by corresponding advantages, that I have doubts whether the negative qualities of this very vice of pride do not do as much good, as any positive virtue ;—at least, if female chastity is the essential virtue that people are disposed to think it. Irish pride gives chastity to the females, in a degree that hardly any country this day in Europe can boast of. Adultery, or an intrigue even, is unknown among females in the middle class. A married woman may be violent, may be a termagant. -An unmarried one, may be pert, may be ignorant, may be flippant, --but they are,

'Chaste as the icicle,

That hangs on Dian's fane.'

Pride, pride is the buckram and whalebone in the stays of Irish chastity, which enables it to walk through life, as stately as a duchess at a coronation."

Our readers would be led to pronounce too favourable an opinion on the compositions of this traveller, were they to judge of the volume at large by the passages which we have extracted. From a wish to exhibit the useful parts of the book, we have hitherto avoided dwelling on the author's eccentric declamations and wandering digressions: but we are bound, in critical justice, to admit that they constitute a considerable proportion of the printed matter before us. Meeting accidentally with a friend who had been one of his comrades in the expedition to Holland, in 1799, he enters into a long detail of that unfortunate enterprize; and much of the well-known political disturbances of Ireland in late years is here repeated :—but the theatre affords him the principal fund for extraneous dissertations; and that topic seems uppermost to his recollection in his leisure moments, from the beginning of his peregrinations at Liverpool till they approached to their close at Omagh. Another charge that we must prefer against him is a redundance of common-place quotations. He draws largely for this purpose on Shakspeare and Goldsmith; while the rapidity with which he flies from one subject to another, and the abrupt appeals which he occasionally makes to his reader, may be said to afford an amusing exemplification of that irregularity which he is so ready to lament in the character of

his countrymen. Our third subject of complaint is of a different nature, and regards his inaccuracy in the observation of external objects. He acknowledges (p. 16,) that he is remarkably shortsighted; and as he does not appear to have called in the indispensable aid of glasses, he is apt to make remarks (p. 148,) on the illegibility of direction-posts, which would scarcely occur to any but a short-sighted traveller. On this charge, however, we are not disposed to lay much stress; the chief drawback of the book is the oddity already mentioned in the style, which is so conspicuous from the commencement, as to create a very unfavourable preposition in regard to the general merit of the production. It is to be apprehended, therefore, that many readers may lay down the work in disgust: but those who persevere will have the satisfaction of discovering that the writer, however volatile, is no where tedious, and that his sudden aberrations are generally followed by sound and liberal observations.

FROM THE BRITISH CRITIC.

The Geographical, Natural, and Civil History of Chili. Translated from the original Italian of the Abbe Don J. Ignatius Molina. To which are added, Notes from the Spanish and French Versions, and two Appendixes, by the English editor; the first, an account of the Archipelago of Chiloe, from the Description Historical of P. F. Pedro Gonzalez de Agueros; the second, an account of the native Tribes who inhabit the southern extremity of South America, extracted chiefly from Falkner's description of Patagonia. 2 vols. Svo. pp. 746. 188. Longman, & Co. 1809.

IT must be perfectly unnecessary to state how very scanty our information has hitherto been, relative to the actual condition of Spanish America, both with regard to its natural history and civil policy. The vigilance and the jealousy of that government has systematically checked and suppressed any attempt to make that very interesting portion of their possessions more familiarly known, and very few publications at present exist at all calculated to throw light upon the subject.

The original author of this work was Don Juan Ignatius, a native of Chili, and a member of the celebrated order of the Jesuits. On the suppression of that subtle and powerful society, he was expelled from the territories of Spain, and took refuge at Bologna in Italy. As he was particularly eminent for his literary accomplishments, and above all for his knowledge of natural history, it is not surprising that he should be deprived of his collec

tions and his manuscripts. But it is a real matter of astonishment, that these last, or at least the more important part of them, should ultimately find their way to their author at the place of his Italian residence. As soon as he recovered them, he employed himself in writing the History of Chili, which he published at different periods. The Natural History appeared first in 1787; that of its Civil Policy and Government not till some years afterwards. They were received with particular eagerness in various parts of Europe, and have been translated into the French, German, Spanish, and finally into the English language. The present translation, we understand, was executed in America, but the publication of it here was intrusted to the judgment and superintendance of a gentleman well known in the literary world, and who has performed his part in a manner that must be highly satisfactory to the public and creditable to himself.

The first volume exhibits the natural history of Chili, which is comprised in four chapters. The first comprehends the situation, climate, and natural phenomena of the country. The second treats of waters, earths, stones, salts, bitumens, and metals. The third describes the herbs, shrubs, and trees. The fourth gives the history of the worms, insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, and quadrupeds. Of these last the author thinks that a very great number, greater indeed than is already known, exist as yet undiscovered, and particularly in the region of the Andes. From this part we give the following extract:

"The pagi (felis puma) called by the Mexicans mitzli, and in Peru puma, the name by which it is best known to naturalists, has by the Spaniards been denominated the lion, which it resembles in its shape and its roaring, but is wholly destitute of a mane. The hair on the upper part of its body is of a grayish ash colour, marked with yellow spots, and is longer than that of the tiger, particularly on the buttocks, but that on the belly is of a dusky white. Its length from the nose to the root of the tail is about five feet, and its height from the bottom of the foot to the shoulder twenty-six and a half inches. It has a round head, shaped much like that of a cat, the ears are short and pointed, the eyes large with yellow irides, and brown pupils. Its nose is broad and flat, the muzzle short, the upper lip entire and furnished with whiskers, the mouth deep, and the tongue large and rough. In each jaw it has four incisors, four sharp-pointed canine teeth, and sixteen grinders. Its breast is broad, the paws have each five toes armed with very strong nails, and its tail is upwards of two feet in length, and like that of the tiger.

"The number of toes on the hinder feet would alone be a sufficient characteristic to distinguish it from the real lion, which has but four. The pagi may, however, be considered as an intermediate species between the lion and the tiger. Its cry, although not so loud, differs not materially from the roaring of the African lion, but in the season of

its loves, becomes changed into a shrill whistle, or rather a frightful hiss like that of a serpent. The female is rather less than the male, and is of a paler colour; like the African lioness, she has two dugs, and brings forth but two young at a time. The season of copulation is the end of winter, and the period of gestation three months.

"Such is the lion of Chili; it may, perhaps, in other parts of America offer some shades of discrimination, as I have been informed that those of Peru have a longer and more pointed muzzle. The pagi inhabits the thickest forests and the most inaccessible mountains, from whence it makes incursions into the plains to attack domestic animals, particularly the horse, whose flesh it prefers to that of any other. In its mode of seizing its prey it resembles the cat; it approaches it by drawing itself upon its belly, glides softly through the shrubs and bushes, conceals itself in the ditches, or, if it shows itself, assumes a mild and fawning appearance, and, watching the favourable opportunity of seizing the animal which it has marked for its victim, at one leap fastens itself upon its back, seizes it with its left paw and teeth in such a manner as to render it impossible for it to escape, while with the right paw in a few minutes it tears it to pieces. It then sucks the blood, devours the flesh of the breast, and carries the carcass into the nearest wood, where it conceals it with leaves and boughs of trees, in order to eat it at its leisure.

"As it is a common practice for the husbandmen to fasten two of their horses together in the fields, whenever the pagi finds them in this situation it kills one and drags it away, compelling the other to follow by striking it from time to time with its paw, and in this manner almost always succeeds in getting possession of both.* Its favourite haunts are the streams to which animals usually repair to drink, where it conceals itself upon a tree, and scarcely ever fails of seizing one of them. The horses, however, have an instinctive dread of these places, and even when pressed by thirst approach them with great precaution, carefully examining upon every side to discover if there is danger. At other times one of the boldest goes forward, and on finding the place secure, gives notice to his companions by neighing in a sprightly manner.

"The cows defend themselves well against the pagi; as soon as he appears they range themselves in a circle round their calves, with their horns turned towards their assailant, await his attack in that position, and not unfrequently destroy him.

"The mares, when there are a number of them, place themselves in the same manner, though in an inverted order, around their colts, and attempt to repel their enemy with their heels; but one of them almost always becomes a victim to this proof of maternal love. All

"The wolf is said occasionally to adopt a similar mode of securing its prey. I have been assured by an intelligent foreigner, that it is not unfrequent in France for that animal, when the presence of the shepherd, or any other circumstance, prevents it from killing the sheep which it has singled out for its victim at its leisure, to seize it by the wool of the neck, and compel it to go off with it by striking it with its tail.-Amer. Trans.”

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