The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-09-03 00:00:00

And make him fight. 'end do him good;
I --- him doff his

. long to see wig,
And clench his lift 11W Ben the Big:
And If you'll make the champions snip,
And lend my drunken clerk your whip,
ft-m-me, it he sha'nt round the ring go,
iVhile I bold stakes, and guard the stingo.
Bother. This is nur case: my Lord, we've done—
So Botleruin spoke, and Bors'um thus begun.

MR. O'CONNELL.

An aggregate meeting was lately held at Cork, to vote an
address to Mr. O'Connell. A Mr. Ronayne opposed it,
and dwelt with great force on those peculiaritiri in Mr.
O'Connell's conduct, which had been previously animad-
verted upon elsewhere. This Mr. Ronayne, besides being
related, avows great personal attachment to Mr. O'Connell ;
yet he, anxious as he must naturally have been to soften
matters, and make his opposition to the proposed address as
inoffensive as possible, thus expressed himself:—
" I would hive no sense of honourable feeling, of sterling
integrity, of honest principles, if I yielded to a sort of compro-
mise, a hase compromise, with my sentiments and opinions,
avowed in private, and not publicly nod fearlessly avow then,
here. I would for ever reproach myself if I sat silent, and
thereby give a tacit assent to praise a man, who has, in my mind,
by various acts, not only greatly injured the Catholic cans?, but
has, by the proffered compromise of the Wing measure of I)is.
franchisement, betrayed such a criminal indifference to the Rights
of all Setts, and, by the other, such an entire disr,gard to th,
future character and reputation of the Catholic Priesthood, to
say nothing more at present as to the evils to liberty and to re-
ligion itself, which, surrendering up our Clergy to the State would
cause."

--
Mr. Ronayne subsequently asserted that nothing which
I had transpired
" Could remove from any observant mind the conviction that
Mr. O'Connell fell by the stiles, the artificees, the affected blan-
dishments of fake friends and men in power; or he undertook to
reconcile the Irish people to the vile NVings for his patent of pre-
cedency, will' other promises and expcvations. Well, then, he
has been either wicked or weak. Let him prove, by his own
solemn denial, subscribed with his name, and not in speeches that
may not be fairly reported. fortified by the testimony of Lord
Killeen and Mr. Shell, or the whole Deputation, from wham the
country has fleece heard any account of their mission, that in
'this transaction he is an innocent anti injured man; and then
will ail men, and not one with more delight than myself,
think him as pure as we did when he went to England, and
without stain as to his integrity, though doubtless guilty of many
indiscretions, and great and injurious inconsistencies."
Th'the progress of his speech, Mr. Ronayne expressed
his surprise that no formal vote of censure has yet been
passed on Mr. O'Connell, by those whose affairs he so
strangely mismanaged. His words arc these:—
" All history has proved that Clubs and Coteries, Jamas,
Boards, and Associations, instituted for political purposes, though
begun with pure intentions, and composed, in part, of the best and
wisest mett. have invariably, in all countries, failed of their ob.
jetty, by the intrigues and selfish machinations of turbulent and
designing, anti ambitious men, or their want of sound sense and
discretion. What a recent proof of this have we not had in
the • business' of the late Catholic Association, who closed their
career without a single word or remonstrance against the acts of
these nerviest', who brought each odium and signal defeat upan
our Cause.

7encir
A dreadful accident ha the day before yesterday,
in the family of Mlle. , obi , principal dancer at the
Royal Academy of Music. It as nine in the morning,
and the breakfast being placid on the table, the mother
called one of her daughters, who ran to the window of the
third floor with the view to answer, when she fell out upon
the pavement of the court below. Mr. Noblet standing in the
court, looked up on hearing his wife's voice, when he saw
his daughter falling. He ran towards her, and every body
followed, bur they were not in time. The unfortunate
lady's list struggle, 'showed them the full extent of their
unhappiness. Mademoiselle Leonore Noblet was the wife
of an upholsterer of Paris, and the mother of three chil-
dren; she was only twenty years of age, and was of a
most amiable character. No human foresight could have
prevented this fatal event. Her features were not at all
disfigured, nor were any of her limbs fractured by the fall,
but an internal bleeding ensued, which put a speedy ter-
mination to her life.. Joariul des Debats.

On Sunday last part of the small church of the parish of
Panarew, near Monmouth, fell down during divine ser-
vice, but happily without any worse consequences than
the temporary alarm of the congregation.
CAPTORS OF JOHNSON, TOE HORSE-STEAT.FR.--Thill
man, against whom so many charges are tnade of stealing
horses, arrived in town on Thursday morning, in the custody
of the officers.

A CANNIPA r .—A brutish looking fellow, at Manchester,
named Joseph Renshaw, has been ordered to find sureties
to appear at the Sessions, to answer a charge of biting off a
part of the finger of James Cooper, with whom he had a
quarrel the other evening,

LITERATVI2E.

A SIONTII IN FRANCE AND suriTzEn:,:mo.
BY JOIN SMITH, or CSAY..; INM, &C.
hingsbury and Co.

" I read in Livy," says Montaigne. " what another man
does not, and Plutarch reads there what Ido not." So in
travelling, one man is struck by objects which another had
passed unnoticed and a third observes things which former
travellers had overlooked. The minds of all men are dif-
ferenrly framed, and what passes before them will conse-
quently beget a diversity of reflections, which will be more
or leis valuable according to their preparatory information,
and their respective portions of natural sagacity. It is
therefore no valid ohjection to a traveller, that he has
chosen a beaten track. France ar.d Switzerland present an
ample field of moral and political, reflection, which is in no
danger of being &mused ; and thos,. whose only aim is
to furnish infortnation and amusemeatt may always, if they
are fitted to the task, find wherewithal to provide a fair
supply of both.
Mr. John Smith is of that class of tourists who, to na-
tural good sense, join a very enviable share of easy good
nature. lie seems to have taken the world " for better or
worse;" and his reflections upon what passes before him as
he journeys onward partake of the cast of his mind—sober
and sensilde. He goes placidly on, with a most com-
panionable open-heartednesa, whether the inns be good or
bad, the roads rough or smooth. We envy him this dis-
position ; it places a man at the fountain-head of felicity.
We extract the following sample from this amusing
volutoe in proof of our opinion:—
. "We passed the limit (marked by a stone on each side
the road, one bearing the fleur-de-lis) which divides
France and Switzerland, and soon arrived at Ferney. It
seems that this spot, so near to several different States,
was chosen by Voltaire for the greater ficility•ef flight,
should persecution on account of his opinions render flight
iodispaasabla. •It was wisely done ;44-'the evasions he
entertained and proclaimed, and the time when they were
circulated, wete not calculated to conciliate his enemies,
or convert them into friends. _ The house is inhabited now
by the farifily of whom Voltaire originally bought it; and
they have the good taste anti the good sense to leave the
apartments he occupied exactly us he occupied them. His
curiosity must be dull indeed who does not feel it in-
creasing as he approaches this celebrated residence. Mine,
I confess, was eagerly on the alert, and I gratified it.
The first room we were introduced to was the Salon a
Manger. This was decorated with a bust of the philoso-
pher and six paintings.
" The next was his chanthre-a-coucher. Here also was a
bust of Voltaire, with the following inscription under it:—
" !tles manes sent. consols
" Parceque non cccur
" Est au milieu devoua."
" Son esprit est parlous et sun eceur eat id."
notifies that once the heart of the Philosopher reposed thdre,
although his spirit had departr.l.
" A portrait of Fast:trams TILE GREAT (1111 the world
miscall that Monarch), decorated this room, as well as one
of the MarAtioness of Chatilly, and another of the ' bril-
liant Frenchman' himself. 'f he bed whereon the restless
soul of this remarkable man sought repose still remains;'
and, on the looking-glass near it, also Voltaire's, we found
a written paper, the contents of which appeared to us as,
remarkable as was the spot where we found it. It was in
substance, an appeal to strangers, setting forth that the
church, built by Voltaire, was too small—that a larger one'
was necessary—that funds to accomplish the pious purpose
was needed ; and it solicited the aid of all well-disposed
persons, in order that this might be accomplished. Taltna
had been before us, and had subscribed his name. 'We
entered our mite as troll Anglais, and shall remember long,
with witch satisfaction, the subscription fur enlargement of,
a church in the bed-room of the infidel Voltaire.

There was a tomb by the side of the church, where,
we were t0'..1, he wished to have been buried ; and over a
door near the gardener's house, was inscribed—
' " Ostium—non hostium."

......
" The father of the gardener had been in the service of
the philosopher—the son therefore not only knew much
i respecting him, but took great interest in showing to us'
his walking-cane, his richly-embroidered morning cap,
and a large collection preserved in a book of the seals of
tile great mao' correspondents. I wonder some honest
virtuoso, or still more honest member of the Antiquarian
Society, bas never taken it into his head to steal, I beg
pardonl I mean Sorrow", Iltfttp that 6,6141 stiCF chead:l
The Englisb'are proverbially a meddling race. They can
no where keep their hands from , I wonder, there•
fore, this relic should remain so long undisposed of.
Amongst the seals were those of Frederick the Great,
D'Alembert, Rousseau, Lord Littleton, Neckar, the Duke
of Orleans, the Duke de Villnrs, and D'lvernois.

" DeoCrexit VOLTAIRE,' was on a stone denoting that he
built the church, but it has been removed from its original
situation. This was a memorable visit—the house, as
well as as its former master, was memorable too. What a
mind was Voltaire's ! and, how lamentably, in the proud
consciousness of his own strength, did he stiffer it to aber-
rate into path 3 as devious as they were dark—and as dan-
gerous for the track of other human beings as they were
deceitful to himself! I speak not here of his political creed
—nor, alas! can I of his religious—for he was an infidel,
and had none—l allude to his utter contempt of all reli-
gion, his rejection of Christianity, into the truths of which
it may be doubted whether he had ever examined ; and the
mischief consequent upon such principles, when entertained
and promulgated to the world by such men.
" Vouratas's mind was of au order, before which the
minds of the multitude either bow in submission,; or against
which they set themselves in array ; and he ought to have
known that, with powers so transcendent as his, was linked
a heavy obligation to apply them earnestly, not to the
spread of infidelity, but to the advancement of Christian
virtue. Ile did know, that withont religion society becomes
a wreck and Anarchy tramples on the r uins.
"Politically what an influence did be exercise over that
revolution which deluged his country with blood and al-
most all other countries with war—a revolution which,
amid much of mischief, produced also much of good ! and
eventually gave to France a ruler such as the world never
saw—to Europe a scourge, such as she had never felt—and
to posterity a history, the details of which will with diffi-
culty be believe a. The storm has subsided—France and
Europe have settled down into peace ; but should war
break forth again, as break Jorth it will, France will be
found to have derived from her revolution such a portion
of liberty, and such a measure of intelligence too, as nei-
ther wars nor warriors will be able to take away from her.*
" The magnificence of mountain scenery again broke
upon our view as we passed amidst neat enclosures from
Ferney to Secheron. We were advised to make the hotel
d'Angleterre at Secheron our herd-quarters, and this might
have been advisable during a tnore prittneted stay than
ours. The situation of this hotel is delightful, and I have
reason to believe the accommodations it affords 'are good ;
but those whose sojourn in Geneva or its neighbourhood
does not exceed a week, will find it more convenient to
alight, as we did, at the hotel d'Ecu de Geneve. We had
' passed, near to the village of .Secheron, the pleasant cha-
teau of Madame Varembe—a fine avenue led as towards
this handsome dwelling, and as we wound round the
grounds belonging to it, the lake presented itself to our
view in its accustomed sweetness. An avenue of great
beauty leads from the hotel at Secheron to the borders of
the lake. We reached Geneva again to dinner, and paid
I for our ealeshe nine francs, adding to this sum a trifle for
the driver.

"The exhibition of Punch is universal. He is an inha-
bitant of every soil. He may be seen in all Magian, in the
island of Corfu ; and this aboriginal ancestor of all theatri-
cal eepmentation welcomed us at Geneva. I have heard
my grave friend P say, that he could never pass by
Punch in the streets of London without pausing to enjoy
his antin. A philosopher might be less profitably ern-
, ployed than in examining into the cause of this attraction.
Last night he was holding forth opposite to the CafD in
the square, where the music of the harp hail more of har-
mony in it than Punch's noise, and we decided then that
his Excellency at Geneva must yield the palm of comic
vivacity to his brother of London. To-day, however,
irrhile we here at dinner, lie re-appeared and redeemed his
i character. He =weeded in detaining even such grave
persons as we were from our dinner and wine. I have said
lam fond of mementos. My young friend, the Anglo-
, Genevese watch-maker, bought for rue a few of the coins of
• My mementos from Voltaire's garden were a prickly flower,
and in insect of riany colours. There are those in the world who
would designate these as appropriate mementos from such a place.