author seemed to have trusted too much to recollection: a love of theory had sometimes prevailed injuriously; and a wish to please the reader by surprising him, was detrimental on more than one occasion. In the present edition, the editor explicitly and honourably acknowledges these blemishes, and sundry of them are corrected; some by Mr. B. himself; and more, as it seems, by his editor. This gentleman having examined the original journals, and made himself fully master of the subject, has elucidated various obscurities, and has added much information, for which he is well intitled to the thanks of the literati. To most of the books into which the work is divided, he has composed addenda, which include much valuable matter : and in some places his notes are calculated to remove injurious imputations from the author. We might particularly instance the eclipse of the moon at Teawa, Vol. VI. p. 330, [where the word before, ought to have been printed after, a certain hour of the day;] because this has been the subject of critical animadversion. Also Mr. B's account of the eating of raw flesh in Abyssinia, is compared by the Editor, with the testimonies of other writers, to the same effect. And, in short, we think the whole edition is greatly improved, as well as augmented.

The plates are the same as before; with some additions. We must confess that we should have preferred to have seen the portraits of several Abyssinian chiefs and ladies, in the same state as Mr. B's drawings of them were. We cannot think them improved by highfinishing. A few subjects of natural history are added; and some augmentations are made in the maps, mostly from direct authorities of the original journals, or other satisfactory memoranda.

Advantages of Russia in the present Contest with France. With a short Description of the Cozacks. Jordan and Maxwell, price 2s. 6d. 1807.

THIS interesting pamphlet, partly political and partly military, is written by a Russian residing in England; and well acquainted with our language. A laudable partiality for his native country, with a prevalent admiration of the exalted virtues of its august sovereign, evidently influence his discussions in the political department of his tract. We shall there

fore, only notice a few incidental observations, which we think judicious, on the unfortunate miscarriage of the last coalition, and then consider our author's representation of sundry indisputable advantages of the military forces of Russia over those of France, in their present respective situations. By a short adver tisement, the reader is informed that this pamphlet was sent to the press and nearly ready for publication, before the late intelligence of the successes of the Russians, in Poland, had reached this country. The author has had the satisfaction to find that an assertion with which he opens his political dissertation, has the prospect of being fully justified.

Our author thinks it important in an early stage of his discussions, to remove an error universally prevalent, that Russia is not equal to France in the field. This error, which has a mischievous tendency, he refutes, by references to the records of history, and the testimony of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in his me moirs: from these premises, he draws this conclusion-that, "Russia, however behind she may be in other branches of civilization, is inferior to no nation in the art of war.-War has been the cradle of her prosperity, the instrument of her sudden, yet uninterrupted greatness." This subject is continued through several pages, with much animation, and leads to a report of the splendid train of victories gained by the Russian General Suwarow, and to an eulogium, which surpasses all ordinary effusions of esteem, veneration, and gratitude.

"His steps outstripped the wind. His army seemed to move on wings.-The most famed chiefs and defenders of the sanguinary French Republic, felt how resistless was the power of his vigorous arm. Macdonald, Joubert, Moreau, and other celebrated generals of that time, were successively defeated by Suwarow."

1

Military coalitions, in other words, mixed armies composed of troops and generals of different nations, and often of discordant opinions, our author justly condemns. The opposition of Austria to the common enemy he asserts was weak; because one half of her forces were secretly, as far as opinion and principle go, in the interest of France. The withdrawing of the Austrian army under the Archduke Charles from Switzerland, and the con

Grim horror shook awhile the living hill Heav'd with convulsive throes ;-and all was still.

A second enemy, not less formidable, was the Simoon: which Mr. B. thus describes.

I saw from the S. E. a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation.

A third enemy, at least equally to be dreaded, was the barbarous tribes which inhabit the various spots of this inhospitable wild that afford a scanty growth of pasture. To what is the human mind redu ced, when man can plunder the way-worn pilgrim, murder the passing traveller, and leave unoffending fellow men perish, by bunger and thirst, on a wide expanse of sand!

to

Indeed, Mr. B's work brings us aequainted with numerous nations of men some of which, who profess christianity, we cannot recognize as Christians: and most of them have nothing even of the semblance of humanity, but the exterior form and figure. These we cannot now particularize.

We have mentioned Mr. B's. departure from Syene, Dec. 11. He reached Cairo, Jan. 10, 1773. From Egypt he sailed to Marseilles was received with great in

:

terest by the literati of France; in July visited Italy; returned to Paris in 1774, and arrived in England, from whence he had been absent about 12 years, in June, that year. In autumn he left London for Scotland; where he settled on his estate, rebuilt his house, and arranged his do mestic establishment.

May 20, 1776. Mr. B. married Mary Dundas, daughter of Thomas Dundas, of Fingask, Esq. who dying in 1785, he endeavoured to soothe his affliction by revising his journals, and preparing them for publication. They were published in 1790, in five volumes 4to. By this lady he had a son, the present Mr. Bruce of Kinnaird, and a daughter married to John Jardine, Esq. Advocate.

On Saturday, April 26, 1794, having entertained some company at Kinnaird, as hé was going down stairs, about eight o'clock in the evening,, to hand a lady into a carriage, his foot slipped, and he fell down headlong, from about the sixth or seventh step from the ground. He was taken up in a state of apparent insensibility, with no marks of contusion, one of his hands only being a little hurt. Medical assistance was immediately procured, with no advantage. Though some hours after the accident happened, there ap peared a few symptoms of recovery, these gradually vanished, and he expired early next morning.

Mr. B.'s stature was six feet four inches. The editor has drawn an advantageous picture of his general character; which we are not inclined to dispute: but willingly acknowledge his prudence, foresight, courage, and magnanimity. His management, in short, was excellent. The public is under great obligations to him, for communicating a variety of information, which well deserves the encomium due to novelty. It is also interesting; and we hope to see this interest augmented by those accounts from Abyssinia which the world of letters expects from Lord Valentia, whose return to England from the Red Sea is noticed in our work, p. 864. appears that Mr. Salt and Major Arundel have visited Gondar.

It

It is now proper that we attend to the merits of the edition before us.

We must acknowledge that however we might do justice to the general merit of Mr. B.'s work, at its first appearance, yet we were sensible that in several places it suffered from neglect: in others the

sequent recal of Suwarow, by the Emperor Paul, in resentment for the fatal controul of the council of war at Vienna, over the Archduke, are placed among the prominent causes of the failure of the coalition. "Disasters followed disasters; five days more, and France would have been at the feet of the conquerors." To those who are disposed to investigate the events of the campaigns prior to the battle of Austerlitz, and the issue of that battle, we recommend the statements from p. 20 to p 36. We come now to the main point. "To bring Buonaparte to a fair trial, his opponent must stand on the same ground with himself. A power undivided and unimpaired in her resources, kept in perfect unity by the reciprocal, strong, and constant attraction of its constituent parts; formed only of the two congenial elements soldier and chief; and equal in strength, whether depending on numhers, or discipline, alone can cope with him successfully-Russia is that power. Her armies are commanded by a chief (Field Marshal Kamenskoy) whose word is their spring of motion, their signal for action. His authority as commander in chief is equally absolute. He has no one to retard the execution of his purposes, or to thwart the activity of his mind; no one to betray his plans to the enemy. He has no strangers to consult, or to depend upon. He has no quarter-master-generals to mislead him, because he knows the men he commands, and will not suffer a fool to guide him. His army and himself form one inseparable body, united by nature, by principle, and by duty. So far Russia meets the enemy on equal terms." The advantages which Russia possesses over Buonaparte at the present

moment, are

Our limits will only admit of giving the heads of these important advantages in the order they occupy in the pamphlet; they are supported by strong reasoning.

1. Loyalty of the people. The Rus sians have ever been distinguished for devotion and attachment to their sovereigns: and there is no apparent reason why this principle should be abated in respect to the sovereign at present on the throne.

2. Impossibility of corruption to a dangerous extent. "It is not too much to say, that the French have gained more by it than by the sword." The instances of their success in the art of intriguing, which the French so eminently possess, and which has penetrated into almost every state, form a curious article under this head. The ignorance of the French language among the Russian troops and lower officers, is a solid barrier; in its nature almost impenetrable. It was not so, in other European armies.

3. The individual superiority of the Russian soldier. The author inserts a copicus explanation of the several causes of this superiority. The situation of the Poles is represented to be such as to induce them to prefer their present connection with Russia to the dominion of Buonaparte. The actual political state of Poland, is certainly in favour of this proposition.

The annexed account of those irregular auxiliary troops, which act as a constant corps de reserve of the Russian armies, is new and interesting: manifestly written by one well acquainted with the subject. It describes a formidable and terrific force,

Ferocious by nature, lawless, intrepid, inured by habit, to fatigue and peril, despe rate in all enterprizes, composed of robbers and other public offenders, some classes of which are said to be suffered to exist merely on account of the mischief they do to an enemy. The Tartars and Calmuks are so interspersed with the other tribes of Cozacks, that they form the most conspicuous and prominent feature of that description of people.

They eat horse-carcasses, without any other preparation of the flesh than warming it under the saddle of the horse they ride, for this reason they have in general two or three horses, so that their provisions and the means of travelling proceed with them without any incumbrance. They are a valuable appendage to a regular army; they are its guides and satellites. It is their par ticular business to obtain intelligence from the enemy. This they do in the same man

ner as they catch wild horses. As soon as a Cozak comes near enough to the object of his search, he throws a loop of cord round the man's waist, fastens the other end to his saddle and gallops off with his prisoner. The lucre of gain, that is booty, is the main spring of their actions, and a Cozak will attack two opponents, if he sees the probability of plunder.

They disperse in such small parties, that it is almost impossible to stop their incursions, and for this reason they are the most dangerous set of men that can enter a hostile country. Nor are they less so to a routed enemy, for, though they do not fight in the line, they are the first in pursuing, and the last in desisting from it. They performed wonders in Italy, under the command of Suwarow, who knew how to employ them to the best advantage.

The full description of these savage warriors in this pamphlet, is sufficient to make the feeling mind shudder at the relation of the redoubled horrors of war, when executed by such monsters in the image of men!

A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade; addressed to the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of Yorkshire. By W. Wilberforce, Esq. pp. 396. Price 6s. Cadell and Davis. London. 1807.

WE were somewhat startled at the bulk of the volume before us on its first appearance: but, on reflection, we are convinced that the benevolent writer had reasons for entering more at large into the subject, than might appear requisite, on a cursory view of it. A considerable proportion of the Commons House of Parliament is, of course, new after a general election, and those who are called for the first time to examine a question confessedly of great moment, might wish for information of a general and comprehensive kind. To vote on such a question without a thorough, or at least, a satisfactory knowledge of particulars must be extremely painful. To peruse attentively any adequate proportion of the publications which have appeared on this discussion, is next to an impossibility. To remedy this uncertainty, which in the present instance amounts to an evil, Mr. Wilberforce has arranged in the work, before us, an orderly view of the matter, and has stated in a very convincing manner those arguments which he regards

as decisive in favour of the abolition of this traffic in human life.

We confess, that, so far as the procuration of the necessary evidence, and the indispensable conviction which should be produced by that evidence is concerned, we do not regret the length of time during which this subject has been under investigation. Had the abolition been effected during the reign of terror, and the supremacy of the rights of man, the outcry for perfect equality, and philosophical liberty-it might have been liable to suspicion, as an unworthy compliance with unworthy principles; then might the same power as enacted be requested to repeal, and the subject would have been as far as ever from its entire quietus. Whereas, after a discussion approaching towards twenty years, the plea of suddenness cannot be urged; neither can it be denied that there has been time to make experiments of sundry kinds, as to several propositions which bear on the main question. There has also been ample opportunity for softening that shock which the islands expected to feel when the traffic should be abolished; and there has been almost the interval of a whole generation, in which the competency of the present black population to maintain itself, might be brought to the test of experiment. In short, the perturbation among the whites, and the activity of Jacobinism among the blacks, have had time to subside, and, we hope, that cool dispassionate deliberation will conduct matters to a more beneficial result for all parties. than could have been expected from the sudden impulse of philanthropic zeal, or the enthusiasm of Les Amis des Noirs.

As we consider the subject of the slave trade as almost brought to a conclusion, we shall not advert to the restatement of former arguments, or to the reconsideration of evidence which has been so long and so repeatedly urged, that our readers must be supposed to have met with it in various shapes. A succinct account of some of the more remarkable particulars, is all which we propose to offer at pre

sent.

Whether the slave trade has originated wars among the inhabitants of the coast of Africa, may be left undecided; if it perpetuates feuds, and prolongs contests and bloodshed, that is enough to decide its doom among christians. The effects