BOOKS.

20SWELL'S LETTENs TO TEMPLE.*

TuE discovery of these lifelong letters of James Boswell to his very intimate friend the Reverend J. W. Temple, is one of the strangest stories ever yet prefixed either to the real or the fictitious.

"A few years ago, a clergyman haying occasion to buy some small articles at the shop of Madame Noel at Boulogne, observed that the paper in which they were wrapped was the fragment of an English letter. Upon inspection, a date and some names were discovered; and further investigation provei that the piece of paper in question was part of a correspondence, carried on nearly a century before between the biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson and his early friend the Reverend William Johnson Temple. On making inquiry, it was ascertained that this piece of paper had been taken from a large parcel recently purchased from a hawker, who was in the habit of passing through Boulogne once or twice a year for the purpose of supplying the different shops with paper. Beyond this no further information could be obtained. The whole contents of the parcel were immediately secured. The majority of the letters bear the London and Devon post-marks, and are franked by well-known names of that period."

An equal mystery attaches to the editor, whose name if published might be a voucher. Nor does there seem any reason for his suppression. Abetter-edited book is rarely met with. Indeed, this volume is less the Letters than the Life of Boswell. By an arrangement of the chapters into periods, introducing the letters, and slightly filling up the intervals of time between, a very good biography is produced—as good, in fact, as could be produced unless by an intimate of the man.

• Neither is there any• conceivable motive for imposition : but in reality, imitation of Bozzy is impossible—" none but himself can be his parallel." If we strip Macaulay's hyperbolical " character " of Boswell of all that is Macaulayish, it will still remain a monstrous exaggeration. A man could neither have formed nor retained the acquaintance, if not the friends, that Boswell did, who had been so utterly mean and contemptible as the essayist paints him. Nor could a man who had been so ineffably foolish have written the biography he did, especially as it was done upon a principle which he thus lays down in a letter to his friend Temple.

"Mason's Life of Gray is excellent, because it is interspersed with letters which show us the own. His Life of Whitehead is not a life at all, for there is neither a letter nor a saying from first to last. lane absolutely certain that my mode of biography, which gives not only a history of Johnson's visible progress through the world, and of his publications, but a view of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a life than any work that has ever yet appeared."

Within certain limits, Boswell's judgment was sound enough ; his style was clear and vivid; nor did he want a something approaching to pathos. He contrived to mar the effect of these qualities by the same want of reticence that exposed him to unbounded ridicule for social follies, and to censure for his immorality. Thus, when life was waning, and his mind was depressed by the death of his wife, the failure of his hopes, and more than all by the constitutional result of his excesses in wine and, women, he writes thus gloomily to Temple.

"Your kindness to me fairly makes me shed tears. Alas ! I fear that my constitutional melancholy, which returns in such dismal fits, and is now aggravated by the loss of my valuable wife, must prevent me from any permanent felicity in this life. I snatch gratifications, but have no comfort, at least very little ; yet your encouraging letters make me think at times that I may yet, by God's blessing, attain to a portion of happiness, such as philosophy and religion concur in assuring us that this state of progressive being allows. I get bad rest in the night, and then I brood over all my complaints,—the sickly mind, which I have had from my early years; the disappointment of my hopes of success in life ; the irrevocable separation between me and that excellent woman, who was my cousin, my friend, and my wife; the embarrassment of my affairs ; the disadvantage to my children in having so wretched a father ; nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy after death, the sure prospect of which is frightful. No more of this !

"Wednesday, 6th April. "Thus far I wrote-on Saturday ; when, feeling myself unhappy and restless, I sallied out with intention to go to the play."

Here is bathos with a vengeance. Many men have had recourse to worse excitements than the theatres as then exhibited, when depressed by gloom or affliction; but few would bring Heraelitan philosophy and the playhouse into such close conjunction. None but Bozzy would couple even the theatre of Garrick with meditations on death and futurity. In addition to want of reticence, some charitable allowance should be made for the frailty not only of his age, but of the human race. Allowances have to be made for the weaknesses or faults of the most intimate friends. Nay, in the dearest connexions, perhaps worse than such things have to be overlooked or pardoned. Family affection and friendship may suppress them. But when the fair-minded biographer discovers them, it is one of the hardest tasks to exhibit

Letters of James Boswell, addressed to the Reverend W. Temple. Now ,first published from tlw Original MSS. With an Introduction and Notes, Published by Bentley.

them in their due proportion, as blemishes, not as features. Boswell might make this allowance for a friend, but not for himself. No mortal ever so completely exhibited his mind "in purls naturalibus "—and a mind smi generis in its inordinate vanity, its buoyant self-sufficiency, its pious theories, and its wish to find philosophical reasons for the violation of the moral laws which the man was continually indulging in. His leading follies as shown in conduct or behaviour have been condensed by Macaulay into a vigorous paragraph, and others are preserved in print. The letters in the work before us deal with mind and character ; although many refer to doings—and some very naughty doings the recorder infuses himself into his report : a large part of them consist of sentiments, projects, aspirations, feelings, and the like. Beyond their exhibition of character, the personal part of the letters have not much value ; but we think they bring out a quality of Boswell which was highly useful to lum in Johnson's biography. He seems to have had, within the range of his mind, a strong possession of the present, whether in life or in idea, and a vivid sense of the actual. Whatever the value of his conceptions may be, they are clearly and characteristically expressed ; whatever the real importance of the passing event, he threw himself wholly into it. or must his sustained industry be omitted. Many men perhaps could write as good a life of as good a talker if they would 4=o through the same drudgery. Strip Boswell's Johnson of what is rather reminiscences than biography, and you have an average "life."

Perhaps it was this vivid sense of the present that was a main cause of his follies and his vices. He could not resist the pleasure before him. There is no doubt that his religious feelings, though utterly ridiculous when contrasted with his conduct, or with reason, (we speak of his undisguised bigotry towards other persuasions,) were sincere so far as they went.

Mr. Temple, to whom these letters were addressed, was a clergyman of the Church of England, who ultimately obtained a living in Cornwall, where he settled with his family. If his name is known at all, it is known for his character of Gray, quoted by Mason, and afterwards by Johnson in the Lives of the Poets. He published some works, but the editor of this volume cannot find one even at the British Museum. If the reader of these letters judges of what is suppressed by what is printed, he will be apt to consider the Reverend Mr. Temple a rather loose fish for a divine. But much allowance should be made for the age—look to the periodicals, or to the broader dramatic pieces of the day. The "parson" of a century ago was not the pattern man of our time. Mr. Temple, moreover, appears to have been a certain kind of spiritual director to Bossy. The moral diseases were exposed, for treatment, though the prescriptions were not attended to.

The letters extend, with frequent intervals, over the whole of what is really life. They begin in 1758, when Boswell was eighteen and continue till he could, write no longer. Of course the predominant subject is Bozzy himself: his amours and his various matrimonial projects occupy a large portion of the whole ; then his worldly schemes' his quarrels with his father, his repentances and resolutions to amend, and his meditations upon this world and the next. Of the worser part of Boswell's life,his first appearance in London touches the key-note of the whol. Here is his own account of himself at twenty-one, apparently written in reply to some admonition. "Indeed, any dear Temple, you wrong me; you are, and ever shall be, dear to Boswell, who reckons himself highly honoured by an intimacy with Mr. Temple, and, while he comforts himself with that, can calmly smile at the attacks of envy or of malevolence. I find that you have had a very disagreeable account of my conduct for some time by post. I flatter myself that the apologetic epistle, which I wrote you lately, may have put matters in a more favourable light. I grant you that my behaviour has not been entirely as it ought to be. A young fellow whose :happiness was always centred in London, who had at least got there, and had begun to taste its delights, who had got his mind filled with the most gay ideas, .getting into the Guards being about Court, enjoying the happiness of the beau monde and die company of men of genius, in short, everything that he could wish,—consider this poor fellow hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every Scoteh custom or be laughed at, Will you hae ROW jeel ? oh lie! oh lie!' his flighty imagination quite cramped, and he obliged to study Corpus Juris Civilis, and live in his father's strict family,— is there any wonder' sir, that the unlucky dog should be somewhat fretful? Yoke a Newmarket courser to a dung-cart, and I'll lay my life on't he'll either caper and kick most confoundedly, or be as stupid and restive as an old, battered post-horse. Not one in a hundred can understand this : you do. "Your insinuation about my being indelicate in the choice of my female friends, I must own, surprises me a good deal. Pray, what is the meaning of it . . . If there is anything more serious couched under your admonition, please to inform me I will surely clear it up."

There is a rather long-continued story of Bozzy's amour with a Married woman at Edinburgh ; which might Seem to he the = "The writer here enters upon detailed, but not very satisfactory extenuations of his conduct ; into which it is not at all desirable to follow him," source of some of his conversations with Dr. Johnson, one cif which the Doctor closed with the remark, "This lady of yours, sir, seems very well fitted far a brOthel." There 'ate indications of some similar affairs, and a full account of several matrimonial adventures, which, if pursued in a more decorous way, are animated by a similar spirit. In sooth the repetition gets somewhat tiresome, though it is perhaps better that the volume should stand as it does. There are other topics than himself, though he is conspicuous as the writer ; notices of passing occurrences, and of characters more or less celebrated. Here is David Hume at Edinburgh in the summer of 1775, limned as nicely as anything in the Life.

"Since I came down I have seen Mr. David Hume several times. I know you love to hear little anecdotes of him, so I ehall endeavour to cull as many as I can. I first saw him one forenoon that I called on him : he had Macpherson's History before him, and he said it was the worst style he had ever read, and that Maephereon had written his two volumes in quarto in six weeks; he said he himself did not like to continue the History of England further down, because we have not yet had access to papers sufficient to let us know, with authenticity, the state of affairs; and it was disagreeable to write history which afterwards might be proved not to be true. He spoke highly of the ' Histowe Philosophmue et Politique,' and I wondered to find him excuse very easily the author of that book for translating long passages from English writers without quoting them, but just ingrafting the passages into his text ; he said there are about fifteen pages translated from his History : but he complained of one mistake. He has mentioned that the clergy carried their claim of tithes to so strange an excess that they insisted to have a tenth of the gain of courtesans; the Frenchman, mistaking courtesans for courtisans (courtiers) in his own language, makes the tenth to be of the gains 'de eeux qui avaient des emplois a la Cour.' This, said David very justly, takes the salt from the observation. He says Abbe ltaynal cannot have written that book himself ; the eloquence must have been borrowed : he is, said he, a dull man in conversation : that however, is not a certain rule for judging that a man cannot write well ; but ho has written ill ; his ' liistoire du Parlement d'Angleterre 'is very ill written. He says when he was at Paris, Abb6 Raynal was making collections for a work on says, and he supposed the materials have been supplied by him. "On Wednesday last I dined at Sir Alexander Dick's; where we had the Wyv.ill family, a:M. de Septch6nes, a very young Parisian, introduced to me in London by Mr. Burke, and who brought letters to me and some others here from Sir John Pringle, and was also recommended by H. Buffon. Mr. Hume was there too. Wyvill was glad to meet with him, as he had never seen him before. Ho said Mr. Pitt [Chatham] was an instance that in this country eloquence alone, without any other talents or fortune, will raise a man to the highest office. On Thursday I supped at Mr. Hume's; where we had the young Parisian, Lord Karnes, and Dr. Robertson,. an elegant supper—three sorts of ice-creams. What think you of the Northern Epicurus style ? I can recollect no conversation. Our writers here are really not prompt on all occasions, as those of London. "On Saturday, the Parisian and Mr. Hume and some gentlemen supped with me. No fruit that night either. But the word fruit makes me recollect that Hume said Burke's speech on Reconciliation with the Colonies, which I lent to him, had a great deal of flower, a great deal of leaf, and a little fruit.

"Yesterday I met Mr. Hume at Lord limes's, in the forenoon. He said it was all over in America : we could not subdue the colonists, and another gun should not be fired, were it not for decency's sake ; he meant in order to keep up an appearance of power. But I think the lives of our fellow subjects should not be thrown away for such decency. He said we may do very well without America ; and he was for withdrawing our troops altogether and letting the Canadians fall upon our colonists. I do not think he makes our right to tax at all clear. He says there will in all probability be a change of the Ministry soon ; which he regrets. Oh, Temple,. while they change so often, how does one feel an ambition to have a share in the great department ! but I fear my wish to he a man of consequence in the state is much like some of your ambitious sallies. " Mr. Ilume and Lord Names joined in attacking Dr. Johnson to an absurd pitch. Mr. Hume said he would give me half-a-crown for every page of his Dictionary in which he could not find an absurdity, if I would give him half-a-crown for every page in which he did not find one : he talked so insolently, really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I repented, by way of telling that Dr. Johnson could be touched, the admirable passage m your letter, how the Ministry had set him to write in a way that they ' could not ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to write.' Upon honour, I did not give the least hint from whom I had the letter. When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said, No, it was from an English gentleman. ' Would a gentleman write so ?' said lie. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my revered friend ; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to so great a character and for his talking so before me (!)."

The interest attached to BoswelPs name arises solely from his Johnson's Life, and any particulars respecting it are welcome. This was the labour of revisal and verification after the work was written.

"My apology for not coming to you, as I fully intended and wished, is really a sufficient cite; for the revision of my 'Life of Johnson ' by so acute and knowing a critic as Mr. Malone is of most essential consequence, especially as he is lohnsonianissimas; and, as he is to hasten to Ireland as soon as his Shakspere is fairly published, I must avail myself of him now. His hospitality and my other invitations, and particularly my attendance at Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings: but I reckon that a third of the work is settled, so that I shall get to press very soon. You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in aifferent masses and Al this besides the exertion of composing and polishing : many a time have I thought of giving it up. However, thoughI shall be uneasily sensible of its many deficiencies, it will certainly be to the world a very valuable and peculiar volume of biography."

According to Boswell's own account, the latter years of his life I

were passed. in comparative penury. After quitting the Edinburgh and not succeeding at the ndon bar, (which was not, indeed, likely at his time of life,) f • ' g to get into Parliament for Scotch county or English borough, and being ill-used, as he thinks, if not deceived, by Dundas and Pitt and other patrons, he was reduced to 350/. a year. In these days that sum was probably equivalent to 5001. now. Boswell's mode of calculation, if generally adopted, would reduce the income of many family and estated men. The rent of Auchinleck was 1600/. a year ; "but, deducting annuities, interest of debts, and expenses absolutely necessary at Auchinleck, I have but about 8501. to spend. I reckon my five children at 500/. a year. You see what I have to spend." His gloomy inward feelings were probably of a less exaggerated kind when they occurred, which perhaps was only on occasions of physical exhaustion. To draw any warning from his life would be useless : James Boswell could not have been other than he was. The moral it illustrates is that of excesses. With stamina for eighty, he died at fifty-five ; and from the glimpses in this volume it seems to have been a physically painful deathbed, since for aught that appears BozzYs mental confidence did not fail him at the elov. 1,1 this gloomy scene one thing stands out credital, amid the chances and changes of life—his adherence to the friend of his youth. The last thing he attempted was to write to Temple. " dear Temple—I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really cannot. [These words, which are hardly legible, and probably the last poor Bogy/ell ever wrote' afford the clearest evidence of his utter physical prostration.] Alas, my friend, what a state is this ! My son James is to write for me what remains of this letter, and I am to dictate. The pain which continued for so many weeks was very severe indeed, and when it went off I thought myself quite well ; but I soon felt a conviction that I was by no means as I should be—so exceedingly weak, as my miserable attempt to write to you afforded a full proof. All then that can be said is, that I must wait with patience. "'But, 0 my friend, how strange is it that, at this very time of say illness, you and Miss Temple should have been in such a dangerous state. Much occasion for thankfulness is there that it has not been worse with you. Pray write, or make somebody write, frequently. I feel myself a good (hal stronger today, notwithstanding the scrawl. God bless you, my dear Temple! I ever am your old and affectionate friend, here and I trust hereafter

JAMES BOSWELL.'

"10 this letter the following lines from his son James are appended" ' Postscript. "'Dear Sir—You will find by the foregoing, the whole of which was dictated by my father, that he is ignorant of the dangerous situation in which he was, and, I am sorry to say, still continues to be. Yesterday and today he has been somewhat better ; and we trust that the nourishment which he is now able to take, and his strong constitution, will support him through, "'I remain, with respect, JAMES BOSWELL junior.'

Thus ends "this strange eventful history." •

London, 19th May 1795.

" My dear Sir—I have now the painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morning at two o'clock : we have both lost a kind, affectionate friend, and I shall never have such another. He has suffered a great deal during his illness, which has lasted five weeks, but not much in his last moments. May God Almighty have mercy upon his soul, and receive him into his heavenly kingdom ! He is to be buried at Auchinleck, for which place his sons will set out in two or three days. They and his two eldest daughters have behaved in the most affectionate, exemplary manner, during his confinement. They all desire to be kindly remembered to you and his Temple, and beg your sympathy on this melancholy occasion, tun, my dear Bir, your affectionate humble servant,

" T. D. Boswr.r.L.'

"The remains of Boswell were removed to Auchinleck to be interred. On his coffin-plate was inscribed his name, the date of his death, (May 19th, 1795,) and his age, fifty-five years."

HALLORAN'S CHINA, LOOCHOO, AND JAPAN.* MR. HALLORAN is a naval veteran, who has kept a journal of his thirty years' observations and adventures in foreign parts. The volume before us contains an eight-months account of what he noted during some service at the Chinese ports of Shanghae and Ningpo, a visit to Loochoo to assist a stranded merchant-vessel, a kind of small spying voyage to Japan, and a final call at the island of Pootoo. The freshness of the subjects he thought might be acceptable to the reading public : nor was he, we think, mistaken. His observations are not very profound, nor were the services on. which he was engaged eventful ; but the field is to a great extent new ; his position and his sojourn at some of the places gave him opportunities of remarking many things; and he has always the daily work and adventures of the service. The book opens "in medias res," like an epic or a drama. A wrecked skipper appears suddenly on board as day is closing, with an order from the captain, who was lodging on shore, to get ready for sea, that they may sail to the rescue of the good ship Henry and Eli7abeth. In reading of the spirit and promptitude displayed., the mind exults at belonging to a country where avessel of war instantly puts to sea on a task of toil and risk to help a merchant-ship. "Great nation ! gallant tars !" one is ready to exclaim, when the humblest skipper receives from her Majesty's navy attention like this. Unluckily, the dream is dissipated at the close by the word " salvage " : the skipper, too, refused to do what was right, and drove his rescuers to the Admiralty Court. Yet if payment was to be made for such a service, it was certainly deserved. The vessel could not be got off; but this is a day's work. "The following day, the wind not permitting us to sail, I was sent on board of her once more to save anything I could ; and, after five hours' hard work, succeeded in getting the windlass (which was a very valuable one into the long-boat, and manned her with four of the barque's crew. The wind having shifted to the Southward, blowing a fresh gale, with every appearance of bad weather, I was very anxious to get the boat off as quickly as possible, and therefore sent our pinnace to tow her ; but the two boatshad not left me an hour before they cast off the tow-rope, and the long-boat becoming unmanageable in the short cross sea, she foundered with the windlass in her ; but, providentially, her crew were picked up by the pinnace. "By this time the weather had become so bad that I was obliged to recall the pinnace; and at three p. m. embarked with my party in her, and finally bade adieu to the Elizabeth and Henry. We had a large quantity of broken iron and other stores in the boat, more than the half of which I was obliged to heave overboard; and it was with much difficulty that, after a pull of above four hours against a strong gale and through a most terrific sea, 'Woe lOng Jin Right Months' Journal kept on board one of her Majesty's Sloops of War during visits to Looehoo, Japan, and Pootoo. By Alfred „Laurence Halloran, Hasler Royal Nary. Published by Longmans and Co.

which I expected every moment would have swamped us, we at length succeeded in reaching our ship : but when we got alongside of her our danger was far from over, for the was pitching and rolling so heavily, that had it not been for the coolness and steadiness of the boat's crew, the pinnace must have been knocked to pieces, and every soul lost, as the darkness would have prevented the possibility of saving life in such weather."

The question of missionaries is not a very easy one to settle, where the government—that is, for all international purposes, the nation—is unwilling to receive them. Yet persons who object to war, as a general rule, seem to have no sort of objection to compel a country to receive heralds of peace and good-will to the sound of trumpet and drum, The English Government does not adopt this idea as a 'principle, but it allows its officers to use a species of moral force that with weak states answers pretty much the same purpose ; though how the mere residence of this missionary at Loochoo could effect any useful object, seems difficult to conjecture.

"After remaining here for a quarter of an hour, waiting for the appearance of the Governor, our captain determined to proceed to the missionary's house and receive him there, sending at the same time a message to tile effect that he should not return to his ship until he (the Governor) had paid his respects. "We found Mr, Bethleen's family, consisting of a wife and three children, residing in a temple or josshouse, close outside of which was a policestation, where officers were kept day and night, nominally to protect him, but obviously to watch his proceedings ; and so jealous were they of his making himself at all acquainted with the country, that they would not allow him to procure provisions or any other articles but through these spies of the Government; thus confining his family and himself as little better than prisoners." A great point with the Loochoo authorities was to induce the commander of her Majesty's ship to remove Mr. Bethleen ; but, instead of complying, he gave a lecture on the comity of nations. The vessel in which Mr. Halloran sailed visited Japan before the great American expedition. The object of the visit is not very clear, unless it was to make a survey of certain ports. This was accomplished, to the manifest terror of a mandarin. "Our commander sent his card (written in Japanese characters on red paper) to his Highness the Governor of Jeddo : but he returned it, saying it was against the law to hold communication with foreigners ; that they would send us water, fire-wood, vegetables, and fowls, if we required them, and then as we should have received all that we could desire, we must go I away. n the afternoon, the commander, wishing me to sound the bay, mentioned the subject to the head mandarin, who had just come on board ; and he, being jealous of my landing, insisted on going with me. Indeed, I was not sorry to have him, as I had to pull within the range of several forte, some of which would very probably have fired on the boat had not one of their own officers been in it.

"Accordingly, I started at one p.m. in the second gig with my twosworded companion and a well-armed crew, and attended by the interpreter Otto. I first landed on some rocks, called Aska-Sima or Seal Island, about a mile and a half from the ship, and procured a base-line by measuring the angle subtended by the brig's mainmast. Here I took a round of angles and several sets of eights for determining the longitude; my worthy mandarin friend looking on with undisguised wonder, and, I tanoy, firmly believing that I was performing sonic diabolical act of conjuration which was to bring destruction to the whole of the Japanese empire.

"Trembling with fear and alarm, he entreated me to return on heard; assuring me, as well by signs as through the interpreter, that should the Emperor hear that he had sanctioned my proceedings, he would infallibly lose his head. I continued, however, sounding and taking bearings until near sunset; and by the time I returned on board at about six p. m. my poor companion was nearly frightened to death, lying along the stern-sheets of the boat, sobbing and moaning most piteously. On reaching the deck, he turned to me, and, as well as he could speak for tears, assured me that the Emperor would politely request him to rip up his own bowels, or send an invitation for his head without his both', as soon as we were gone. But after drinking a glass or two of cherry-brandy, he appeared to forget his troubles, and I doubt not will live many years, to boast of having been the first Japanese mandarin who ever went out surveying."

There are some remarks on the Chinese religion, and a good many descriptions of their ceremonies, on which last Mr. Halloran is a better authority than on matters of theology. He picked up a little information respecting the religion of the Japanese ; but, coming through a very imperfect medium, it is not of much account. Of their honesty he can speak more conclusively ; and. if the visitors were average specimens, that perhaps is a valid reason for their non-intercourse with strangers. Such abstinence would not be shown among the Celestials, or many "outside barbarians."

"In personal appearance, the Japanese are fair, and have a pleasing expression of countenance ; and their urbanity and kindness to strangers, as well as to each other, is very remarkable. During the time we were in their ports, although our decks were daily crowded with them, I never saw the smallest expression of annoyance or bad temper; and whenever anything that was likely to be curious or interesting to them was pointed out to their notice, instead of pushing and crowding to get a eight of it, as the English would do under similar circumstances, each man seemed most anxious to occupy as small a space of room, and to impede his neighbour's view of the object, whatever it might be, as little as possible. In short, they appear to be naturally a kind-hearted and polite people. Dr. Ainslie, in his report to Sir Stamford Raffles, states that the Japanese females mix freely in society, and are under none of the restrictions imposed by the Chinese on the ladies of the Flowery Land' ; but though several of the fair sex are said to have gone on board the Morrison, not one favoured us with a visit, although hundreds of men were continually on our decks. It may readily be supposed that the numbers coming in and going out of the ship would give an easy opportunity to any one of them, so disposed, to steal such small articles as he might take a fancy to ; but, much to their credit, not a single instance of even an attempt at theft occurred while they were with us."

WILLIAMSON'S MEMORIALS OF THE WATT FAMILY.* THESE Memorials are the result of a feeling which connects in some mysterious manner the glory of a fellow townsman with ourselves. The late "perpetual President of the Watt Club of

• Memorials of the Lineage, Early Life, Education, and Development of the Genius of fames Watt. By George Williamson, Esq., late Perpetual President of the Watt Club of Greenock. Printed for the Watt Club, by Thomas Constable.

Greenock " felt so much veneration for the distinguished townsman who gave a name to his Club, that he devoted a portion of his life to the collection of information connected with James Watt, his family and ancestors ; but he died before finishing his task. His son undertook the completion, the Club the publication; and a very handsome volume they have produced. There are two portraits of Watt, a portrait of Papin and his "digester," curious maps, views, and models, besides several fac-similes of letters, Sze. The Queen's critical coup-d'aiil selected the true point of praise, when she commanded Sir Charles Grey to write to " John Gray, Esq.," the Secretary of the Club, that "Her Majesty cannot but admire the manner in which this volume is got up." The literature is less remarkable. The leading outlines of James Watt's life, the extent of his discoveries, and the nature of his character' had been exhibited by men like Arago and Brougham. The details unsupplied by these and other biographers had been furnished by Mr. Muirhead's elaborate "Memoirs and Correspondence," with a fulness which left little for anybody else. Mr. Williamson's additions to the life are chiefly contained in letters relating to private matters or to local affairs—as the foundation of a scientific library at Greenock ; and these would appear to have been privately printed in 1840. The author hunted up several topographical particulars relating to James Watt's actual, probable, or possible haunts in boyhood, but very little that throws light upon his character or circumstances.

There is somewhat fresher information as to his ancestors. The pedigree can go no higher than the great-great-grandfather of James. Of him nothing is known beyond that he was killed in the fight that ensued in 1644 on Montrose's advance upon Aberdeen. From the subsequent religious principles of his family, it is inferred that he was on the side of the Parliament. The grandfather was denounced in 1683, as a "disorderly schoolmaster, who had not taken the test" (prescribed by the act of the Scottish Parliament of 1681). He was then residing at Crawfordsdyke, a little town in the parish of Greenock; and as Thomas Crawford, the feudal superior of the town, was appointed one of the Commissioners to enforce the test, "Thomas Watt, it is feared, took the oath," to preserve his place and his livelihood. He appears to have been a man of some acquirements, especially in mathematics ; and he became "bailie of the barony "—a species of magistrate not greatly differing from our stewards of the manor if the English lord, had had the Scottish heritable jurisdiction. The name of the mathematician appears frequently on the barony records, but the matters in dispute were not momentous.

"20th November 1697.—It being complained that seal' wt. in [several within] the toun kelps bens to yr. neighbours prejudice, Thairfor it is statut and ordained yt. in all tyme comemg if any persons keip hens, and they doe prejudice to any neighbour, that the owner sell mak up the damnage attour lyable in fourtie shilling toties quoties. This act extends to

all sorts of taim foules, "Tno. WATT.

"WILL. CAMPBELL, Cir."

" Crawfordsdyke, 21st Nov. 1698.—It is tatut and ordained, yt. in eaise any horses, as, or mair, be found wt'in any mans inclosed ground or yeard that the owner yrof is not onlie to pay for the skaith done but lykeways fourtie shilling scots toties quoties ; as also, that heirafter if there be any hens upon thatch houses or yeards, that the owners of the house or yeard justlie shoot the same attour the former fyinis.

IAMES TA IELZEOR.'

"Complains the pror.-fiscall on James Taylor, merchant in Crawfordsdyke yt. qr. on this instant day the eel. James did set upon, bruise and wound the ad. Robert Caddel to the effusion of his blood, qch is a manifest contempt of the laws and breach of the peace, and yrfore the sd. James ought to be severely punisht for the terror of others to prevent the lyko in tylne

"The defender confesses the lybel as to the britterieLbut denies the blood. " JAMES TAILZOUR."

"The Baylis discerns the defender to make payment of five pounds Scots money, or find caution for the same.

" THOMAS WATT.

" Atux. PARK, Clk."

Thomas Watt had two sons, who lived to man's estate. John, the elder, died early : he appears to have been bred as a surveyor, and "made a large sheet-map of the river Clyde," which was published by his nephew, a brother of the great inventor. James, the father of the world's James Watt, was a shipbuilder, and followed various cognate trades. At one time he seems to have attained comparative opulence, but subsequently to have met some reverses of fortune. He filled the ofliee of Bailie of Greenock. Longevity was a characteristic of the family,. "The Professor of the Mathematics," as he called himself, died in 1734, aged about ninety-five years according to the register, ninety-two according to his tombstone. The father of James died in 1782, aged eighty-four ; James Watt himself lived to about the same age—born in 1736, died in 1819.

These leading points in the family history are told with a minuteness almost tedious. They are overlaid by digressional remarks, as well as by matter connected with the municipal life and doings of the time, and the commercial progress of Scotland. The most striking point is the amount of solid information and respectable ability existing in Scotland through the latter part of the seventeenth century and a large portion of the eighteenth, on

stipends miserably small according to the ideas of these days. It

is hardly conceivable, in fact, except on the principle of very low rents, very cheap living, and the last confined to the substa.ntials of life. The most curious point is the Doric plainness of manners which prevailed, and which is shown by instances. Here is a

clergyman's family with which James Watt the elder was acquainted.

"Up to the time of the excellent incumbent's death—a period of thirty years—the minister's family and Mr. Watt's had been very near neighbours, and the several members of both in daily and familiar intercourse. A good feeling and friendship of so long a standing was not likely to be easily broken up. We find it, accordingly, outlasting nearly a century more, terminating only in the death of the last survivor of the once pleasant and intellectual circle. Mrs. Shaw died in 1815, after forty-seven years of widowhood, three of her daughters having survived her. On occasion of his visits to his native town, the distinguished mechanician was wont to invite these amiable and accomplished ladies to dine with him at the inn where he put up ; and it may be easily imagined that the pleasantness of old reminiscences was not a little enhanced by the excellent sense of the elder sisters, as well as enlivened by the ready and sparkling wit of the younger of the two, Margaret, better known during her life as Miss Peggy. Mr. Watt's last visit to Greenock was in 1816. Margaret, the last of the minister's family, died in April 1852, in the ninetieth year of her age. "Miss Margaret, with maidenly-coyness, coyness, managed. to her last hour to keep her age a profound secret. Even considerably after she had arrived at such a period of life as made it evident that she had passed at least the threescore years and ten,' a point on the attainment of which it is not often that the few so favoured are careful to conceal the fact, she parried every inquiry on the point, however indirectly made, with the address of a girl just passing her teens. The dislike to revelations of this kind she seems to have inherited from her venerable mother, of whom an illustrative anecdote is recorded. The late Dr. Scott, for many years the respected incumbent of the new parish of Greenock, was in the practice of visiting Mrs. Shaw's family, and of introducing to those amiable and accomplished ladies such of his clerical brethren as preached for him. On one of these visits, a venerable minister thus introduced, having in the course of conversation, designedly or casually, made sonic allusion to the subject of ages,' glancing perhaps at Mrs. Shaw's two unmarried daughters, Agnes and Margaret, the old lady spiritedly rejoined by a quotation from Allan Ramsay's Genie Shepherd, 'Never ca' her auld that wants a man.' "