length pens, ink, and paper, and then the author of the "Notes" occupied much of his time in writing, having a talent for literary composition in a variety of walks. Still, the want of fresh air and bracing exercise threatened to destroy him; but the following expedient was resorted to:—

One day, after dinner, being in a state of depression and heaviness, and unable either to read or write, I threw myself upon my bed, and fell asleep. When I awoke, I heard the clock striking six. Well, the idea of having spent two hours without feeling the weight of my chains, of having, in oblivion of my misfortunes, diminished by two hours the time destined for my sufferings, was enough to fill my heart with joy. Necessity is the mother of invention. Conscious that exercise was by all means indispensable to me, I fell upon the idea of making myself a ball for playing. I picked up accordingly all the hair which fell from my head, added to it that of my beard, and my servant made me a ball of it; every morning I played with it for an hour, so as to be tired, and to perspire copiously over all my body; I then changed my linen, and reposed. It is, perhaps, to this schoolboy exercise that I am indebted, not for having borne my captivity with less difficulty, but even for having survived it.

At length liberty came, the empress having departed this life. Niemcewicx accompanied Kosciuszko to America, at the desire of the general himself. Literature continued to be our author's solace, and he was soon elected, on the motion of Jefferson, a member of the American Philosophical Society. Some years afterwards he returned to Poland, but went back again to the United States, having married a lady of New York. Once more he came to Europe, and filled stations of public eminence in his native country. But he had again to take refuge in a foreign country, in Germany. This was in 1811. We must close with a few concluding sentences relative to the distinguished individual from whose Notes we have been culling. Having been told that Niemcewicx was called by the notables of Warsaw to the presidency of the society of benevolence of that city, he finding therein a vast field for honourable and useful labours, the account goes forward in these words:

But a still more conspicuous proof of public respect awaited him. The Royal Society of the Friends of Science at Warsaw, after the death of the learned philanthropist, Starzye, elected him their president; and it was in this capacity that, in 1829, he conducted the imposing ceremony of the statue of Copernicus, from the chisel of Thorwaldsen, which was elected before the mansion of the royal society, in one of the principal places of the capital. The day after the revolution of the 29th November, 1830, he was called into the council of the administration of the kingdom, which surrounded itself with justly popular names. In the stormy times which followed, Niemcewicx contributed more than once to preserve the national movement from excesses which might have weakened its force and tarnished its purity. When he was afterwards elected Senator Castellan, the

Diet, by a special bill, dispensed with the proof of his eligibility. The following year, in the month of July, Niemcewicx being acquainted with the English language and manners, was sent by the national government to plead the cause of his country before the British cabinet; this was just at the time when the French cabinet made proposals in Londen regarding the common mediation of the two courts in the affairs of Poland. But the obstacles which were thrown in his way by Prussia did not allow him to arrive in time at London; and soon the fatal intelligence of the capitulaion of Warsaw gave a deadly blow to the hopes of the Poles. Niemcewicx, more than seventy years old at that time, did not, however, hesitate to undergo his fourth exile, and share the fate of his countrymen who left Poland. He continued, at first, to labour in order to influence public opinion in England and Ireland in favour of his country, and contributed to the establishment of the Literary Society of the Friends of Poland in London. He afterwards came to reside in Paris, where his noble efforts in the cause, which he had already served upwards of half a century, were to terminate only with his life. As a member of the Polish Literary Society at Paris, he delivered speeches, read his various works, and took part in the struggles of the press, on the affairs of Poland, in which that society was engaged. Niemcewicx, always actively occupied with historical studies regarding his country, established at Paris an Historical Committee, which has already collected a great number of manuscripts, and to which he has bequeathed all his papers. He was a political speaker, a poet, and a prose writer; as a poet, he tried the art in all its branches, and wrote satires, fables, epigrams, idyls, &c.; as a prose writer, he was historian, author of memoirs, and of political works. Active to the last, in spite of his advanced age and his infirmities, he died at Paris, the 21st of May, 1841, at the age of eighty-four years, respected by his countrymen, by foreigners. and even by his enemies.

ART. VIII.-The Life, Progress, and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth. By GEORGE ROBERTS, 2 vols. Longman.

MR. ROBERTS deserves great credit for his diligence and care, for his right judgment and impartiality in treating of the times and the life of James, Duke of Monmouth. He is especially to be recommended as dealing with the periods of the restoration in an open and enlightening spirit. And it is of importance, especially at the present period that sound notions should be propagated with regard to, perhaps, the most important era in the annals of British history. True, Monmouth was not a first-rate character in any sense of the word; but he was a man, by his birth, and from his rash intrusions, of mark sufficient, independently of the events which gathered around him, or into which he pitched himself, to render a history of his fortunes a subject worthy of the space of two volumes. And we have to add that, in an age when the cry of some men young England" is, that there was a sin of 1688, it is especially necessary that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

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should be told, regarding all the actors, and all the incidents which belonged to that epoch.

Monmouth was born in a bad age, and amid circumstances bad for that age. He does not seem to have been naturally of an unamiable disposition, but he was certainly quite incompetent for the accomplishment of those great political and social revolutions which he undertook; and when his rashness and incapacity must have been rendered manifest even to his own eyes, he displayed such weakness and selfishness that, but for the mockery he mercilessly encountered, he ought not to excite much interest beyond the pity and the sorrow which consummate folly and a direful end must ever awaken.

James, Duke of Monmouth, was the eldest son of Charles II., and was born at Rotterdam in 1649. Lucy Walters, described as a beautiful but insipid creature, previously the mistress of Colonel Sidney, was his mother. But worthless and insignificant though she might be, her sway over the heartless prince was so great, and threatened such important consequences, that it cost Hyde and Ormond considerable pains to break off the connexion; nor was it before the year 1656 that Lucy and her child were sent over to England, having been paid off with a pension of £400 a year. No small ado was occasioned at home by her arrival, according to the hopes and the principles of the different factions; for, it has been said that some deemed her to be Charles's wife. At any rate, she was committed for a short time to the Tower, from which she was liberated on condition of passing over to France, where she did not long survive. Charles seems by this time to have, in wonted manner, forgotten her. It was probably, however, the tidings of her death that touched him so far as to bethink him of his son; for it was then that the child was committed to the care of Lord Crofts, whose name was given to him. While at Paris the boy also attracted the partial notice of the Queen Dowager; and, in fact, it was with her that James Crofts returned to England on the Restoration, being provided with apartments at Hampton Court and Whitehall. By this, and by much that followed, from the notice taken of the lad by the court, and the indiscreet honours showered upon him, many people appear to have been led to suppose that he was really legitimate; and, subsequently, the belief was strenuously urged. The indiscretion which marked the treatment of the youth may be imagined when it is stated that by the time he had reached his sixteenth year, the daughter and wealthy heiress of the Earl of Buccleuch not only had been selected for, but had become, his wife, and the title of Duke of Monmouth conferred upon him. Still some pains were taken to keep him from aspiring to the privileges of legitimacy; but had it not been for Clarendon, it is probable that the words "natural son" would not have found their way into the marriage contract; VOL. I. (1845.) NO. I.

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nor that when the patent was granted for allowing him to bear the royal arms," the baton sinister" would have been introduced.

By a good authority, the particulars of the leading incidents in Monmouth's life are thus given:- He was upon the Restoration, called over to England, where Charles received him with all imaginable joy, and created him Earl of Orkney, which was changed into that of Monmouth. He took his seat in the House of Peers, in the ensuing session of parliament; and on his marriage to Anne, heiress of Francis, Earl of Buccleuch, he had also the title of Buccleuch affixed to his other dignities, as well as the name of Scott, according to the custom of Scotland. In 1668, his father made him captain of his life guard of horse, and in 1672, he attended the French king in the Netherlands, giving proofs of bravery and conduct. In 1673, the king of France appointed him lieutenant-general of the army, with which he appeared before Maestricht; and he behaved with great gallantry in the attack of that place, being the first who entered it in the assault. He returned to England, and having been received with all possible respect, by the Puritan and Protestant party, was appointed Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. After this, he went to assist the Prince of Orange to raze the siege of Mons, and contributed not a little to the success of the enterprize. He again returned to England, and was sent, in quality of general, to quell an insurrection in Scotland, which he effected with singular clemency. Soon afterwards, he fell into disgrace, and certainly was deluded into schemes madly ambitious, upon the hopes of the exclusion of the Duke of York; conspiring not only against that prince, but his own father. A question here starts with regard to resistance.

In the last chapter of Fox's history of James II., which contains the history of the unfortunate and desperate expeditions of Argyle and Monmouth, and of the condemnation and death of their unhappy leaders, the great statesman expresses his conviction that although the misgovernment was such as fully to justify resistance by arms, yet that both those enterprises were rash and injudicious. He observes that "the prudential reasons against resistance at that time were exceedingly strong; and that there is no point, indeed, in human concerns, wherein the dictates of virtue and worldly prudence are so identified, as in this great question of resistance by force to established governments." This opinion seems to be too mildly stated; but it is characterictic of the candour of the historian. At any rate, the expeditions of Monmouth and Argyle, although they had been concerted together, and were intended to take effect at the same moment, were so mismanaged, or controled by unforeseen circumstances, that the duke was reluctantly forced upon the enterprise, and yet was not so soon ready as the other, who had landed in the Highlands with a very small force. "Add to all

this," as Fox remarks, especially referring to Argyle's little band of followers, "that where spirit was not wanting, it was accompanied with a degree and species of perversity wholly inexplicable, and which can hardly gain belief from any one, whose experience has not made him acquainted with the extreme difficulty of persuading men, who pride themselves upon an extravagant love of liberty, rather to compromise upon some points with those who have in the main, the same views with themselves, than to give power (a power which will infallibly be used to their own destruction), to an adversary, of principles diametrically opposite; in other words, rather to concede something to a friend, than everything to an enemy." As for Monmouth, personally, he appears to have been an idle, handsome, presumptuous, and incapable young man, with none of the virtues of a patriot, and none of the talents of a usurper. was in arms, indeed, against a tyrant; and that tyrant, though nearly connected with him by the ties of blood, sentenced him, with unrelenting cruelty, to death. He was plunged at once from the heights of fortune, of youthful pleasure, and of ambition, to the most miserable condition of existence-to die disgracefully after having stooped to ask his life by abject submission.

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But the most remarkable thing in the history of Monmouth's last hours, is the persecution which he suffered from the bishops who had been sent to comfort him. These reverend persons, it appears, spent the greater part of the time in urging him to profess the orthodox doctrines of passive obedience, and non-resistance; without which, they said, he could not be an upright member of the church, nor attain to a proper state of repentance. But it must never be forgotten, as Mr. Fox has said, if we would understand the history of this period,“ that the orthodox members of the church regarded monarchy not as human, but as a divine institution; and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as political measures, but as articles of religion."

It does not seem necessary to trace closely or consecutively the times, the life, or the progresses of Monmouth in the pages of the Review. We shall be able, however, to present a few paragraphs from the volumes of Mr. Roberts, that will not merely testify the pains and talent he has exercised upon his subject, but tend to illustrate the importance of the period and of the characters introduced. Monmouth, during his exile in Holland, being a great favourite, and especially on the part of the Nonconformists who had taken refuge in that country, became an object of no ordinary importance on returning to England, on undertaking, according to royal phraseology, his first progress. He paid He paid an early visit to Longleate, and this is part of the account and the results connected with that passage in his life :