The National Register.
London, England, 1817-07-21 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

instructive liturgy; and, by Ibis participation of personal
and individual benefit, seem ing tlicie attachment to the
Church, and obedience to the tiovernment ; which, they %s ill
thus be made sensible by experience' ate of co much value
and importance to their lweseut welfare and future happi-
ness."

The liberal and candid Author then proceeds
to a general view of the national habits in all
these cases, and !thews, that legislative, literary,
and clerical attention, has not been sufficiently directed
to this cause. He proceeds to a statement of the Par-
liamentary documents on the population, and capacity
of the churches, his researches for which have been
favoured by the highest authority. The necessity of
legislative aid is most apparent ; and the outline of a
Bill is snggested, on the basis of the 10th of Anne,
and he concludes with a copious extract from public
authorities given to his plan.
We cannot but congratulate the Author on the suc-
cessful and able manner in which he has urged his
cause, and on the effect of it, which has, in one very
extensive neighbouring parish, already taken place—
, we mean the parish of St. Mary-le-bonne ; which, from
having been once merely pasture, is now covered with
a population of 62,000 souls. A large church has very
recently been completed, eight chapels of ease have
been erected and served, and a Bill has passed the
House of Commons to vest the advowson in the Crown,
for the purpose of dividing it into four distinct parishes
after the demise of the present aged incumbent. Dr.
Heslop; and we cannot but add our fervent hope that
the Rev. Author may be fbund worthy to participate in
one of the divisions, as a reward for his very conscien-

tious exertions.—The large free church, to be erected
in the fields at Stepney, is another instance of the be-
nefit to the community, which has been derived from a
candid investigation of the same case, :n which the
Rector of that parish most laudably appears at the head
of the list of the subscribers; and we understand that
the same plan is to be adopted in several of the coun-
ties where there is the same necessity.

FRANCE.

BY LADY MORGAN.

This lady (better known perhaps as Miss Owenson)
has just favoured the country avith a bully quarto
intitled France. It is chiefly remarkable for its pane-
gyrics and anecdotes of Buonaparte and his government,
set off with studied abuse of the ancient institutions of
that country, and of every thing anti-revolutionary.—
We do not pretend to say where Lady Morgan "fished
up" her anecdotes ; but this we can assert, that persons
who lived in and about the Thuilevies, during the
greater part of Buonaparte's elevation, and who were
well acquainted with most of Isis Ministers, have de-
clared that they never heard of the greater past of what
is to be found in this book, and we believe them. This
good woman, it is evident, had betaken herself' to the
French Capital with the fixed resolve of admiring and
applauding every thing she might.hear or see of the god
of her idolatry ; wherever she went he was her theme ;
nothing had any interest with her that was not con-
nected with the Grand Napoleon or his exploits ; every
idle tale, no matter whence the source, whether a
farmer's wife by the way side, or a porter of the faux-
bong St. Antoine, finds a nich in this precious volume,
till sheatlengthbecomesso infittuated, or stupifiedrathcr,
in his .adminitian that she absolutely relates many
things-with a view to the eulogium of him and his go-
vernment, which never could have been told her with
any other view than to throw ridicule and contempt
upon the circumstances to which they have relation.—
We confess, we know bt.t of one other English writer
who can contest with Lady Morgan the el. to Boo-
naparte's gratitude, we mean his St Helena Chronicler,
Mr. Warden. But with what ineflitble contempt, and
derision, must the rest of Europe, and numbers of the
French themselves, peruse such pnaluetions as these
from the pens of English writers! they have 'how-
ever, their reward; and it is their deserved pun-
ishment to be marked by the virtuous and the ,good,
in every .country, as the admirers of a foreigner,
who waded to the throne of his benefactor and king
through the the blood of a nation, with whom, he had
no one common feeling; who annually tore away the
youth of the fairest portion of Europe, to be decimated
by the sword, in unavailing struggles •to fill up the
measure of his own ambition, and to prop his usurrd
authority ; who deserted in tiro hour of adversity,
one army to perish on the burning sands of Africa, and
the fragments of another to freeze in the dreary regions
of the north ; of a man, in fine, who possessed no one
virtue, either moral or political, to redeem the mass of
- wickedness, cruelty, duplicity, and Lad &hit, which
made up his character.

We cannot h surprised at the gr( wing •restrictions
every where laid upon the importation of English
publications intd the Continent-, our press is daily
pouring forth eulogiums in all shapes, and under all co-
lours on revolutionary France, and upon the most attro-
cious and bloody actors of 1. cr:bloodiest days; again bold-/
ing up their deeds as the models of imitation for the re-
generation of mankind ; again .teaching •the ignorant,
and encouraging the wicked to deride all that is sacred,
to view .the existing laws as -the instruments of op-•