The Sun.
London, England, 1818-12-02 00:00:00

LITERARY REVIEW.

The SUBSTANCE of some LE fTERS written 1) as ENG-
LISHMAN resident at PARIS during the last RLIUN of
NAPOLEON. With an Appendix of Official Documents.

2 cols. St'o.

%Viten our attention was first drawn to these
volumes, we felt much regret in hearing that they
were written by an Englishman, and still more to
hear that they were written by a son of Sir -BEN-
' Jaailrr 1-1081-10U5k, a worthy Baronet, Who en-
joys-the confidence, and has obtained the favour of
our Government, but we were most agreeably re-
. licved when we perused The Quarterly Reviek,which
treated the work as the production of some French
Jacobin who had artfully circulated a report that
Mr. HoBHOUSE was the author. We fully adopt
this notion of The Quarterly neview, but as' that
••
ReView, however justly admired, and however
widely circulated, is not within the reach of the
people at large, we do not think that we can at
present more suitably occupy our CRITICAL, Da-
i,ARTIENT than by taking the whole of its obser=
vations on the work in question. By this means
we shall give Mr. HostsousE all opportunity of
• • •
dtisclaiming the work altogether, and of follfina-
nifestihg his political prihciples and vie* to the
loyal City Of Westminster, the immediate, abode
•
of his Boveieign, and thereby enable it to judge
whether he is entitled to the honour of becoming
one of its Representativei in Parlititnent, and
of being entrusted with a share in that Legislative
Power upon which essentially depend the security
of the Constitution and the happiness of the
Empire.
" We had read a considerable portion of these
volumes with equal diSpleasure and disgust—they
seemed to its to be the work of one of the elves of
Citizen Sai'ary, translated into English by one of
the disciples of Tom Paine, or of the missicoaries
of Mr. Jefferson ; but iii the midst of Our indig-
nation we had the godd fortune to learn that the
real meaning and object of these Letters Wefe any
thing but what we at first sight suspected them to
be ; and that the author, in fact, was no other
than an amiable and accomplished English tra-
veller,. Mr; Hobliouie, the son of the worthy
baronet Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, long known in
the House of CommonS as Chairman of the Com-
mittee of Ways anti Means. This information
was at once a key to the enigma, and our indigna-
tion instantly subsided into applause, if not ad.
miration. We then discovered (what cettainlyra
more attentive perusal ibight have found out from
the internal evidence) that this work is,- from be-
ginning to eodi under a thin veil of ironical praise,
a bitter satire against the Maratists, the Robe
spierrists, Boonapartists, and all the other moo="
stets of the French Revolution, as well as agt.tinst
their friends; followers, and imitators in this
country.
Eiery body must have observed that an object
which is dligusting or afflicting in real life may—'
like Laiarus or CEdipos=in a picture or ttagedy,
excite agreeable ideas and pleasurable ethotions ;
and in the seine way this work, which; while it '
seemed to convey the real sentiments of its author,
was in the last degree loathsome and offensive, be-
came at once a pleasant and amusing perform-
ance; In fact, it is not possible to imitate with
more force and accuracy the style of these wretch-
ed tools and rogues, than Mr. Hdbliouse has dune;
the very anger With which we perused the greater
part of his•book, is one of the best proofs we can
adduce of the success of his satire, and the per-
fect illusion which his irony created.

A great deal, however, of the humour of IIR
work will be lust, if the reader does not carefully
recollect the assumed character in which Mr,
Hobhouse writes, and that, though his book has
been but very lately published, more than one
half of it affects to have been written before the
battle of Waterloo—=so that what, if now Coin.;
posed, would be mere dulrmalignity, is, with re-
ference to the supposed date of the letters, a
lively and pleasant parody on the gloomy pro-
phecies of the Buonapartists at bottle, and on the
prestimptuoits boastings of the Buonapartists
abroad.

The following observations on seeing the King
of the Netherlands in his box at the Brussels
theatre, in April, 1815, 'is a happy imitation of
Jacobin slang and Whig prophecy.
The royal boat was surmounted with a paper crown, like
that of Shakspeare's Duke of York, which those in the upper
lodge looked as• if inclined to clip; and the tongueS of the
lions, supporters of the arms; seemed contrived by the artist
to kill out at the bawble above, with an air of archness not
justified by heraldry or loyalty. To an eye accustomed to tke
substantial shows of English royalty, the state of the Dutch
monarch cannot but appear most pitiful; and connected with
the very general notion, that, such as it is, it will dissolve at
the first thunder of the French cannon, nothing can be less
enviable than the condition of William the First—ridiculous
as Bubb Doddington on his late Peerage—a young king, but
an old man.'—p. 15.
The happy pleasantry of imagining that the
painted lions actually lolled out their tonghes in
contempt of the Kiug, and the-at-once bold and
ignorant allusion to heraldry, are in the best style
of the school which Mr. Flobliouse ridicules
they are worthy of the fantods atheist, renegado,
stay-maker and patriot, whom we have just men-

The folldwing sentiments ate stampe'l in the
Same Mould.
' There has been but one nation in the world, as far as I
am aware, notorious fut loyalty or love of a Sovereign, as
Such ; and that nation has long repented of so mean and Un-
CaSdil;thie attachment.'—vol. i. p. 18.
"rhe royal rice of ingratitude finds no place in the bosons
of van usurper; .this baseness belongs to suck as ate born
There
.is something magical in that power of per-
sonal attachment which is proved by a thousand notorious
facts to belong to tkis extraordinary man (Buonaparte), and
never bad one who wore a crown so many friends, nor te,
tabled them so p. 45.
'One Journal asserts, that an order to arrest the King
and Princes arrived at Lille both before and atter the King's
departure. If it be true, I arm one of those who regret that
it was not carved into effect.'—vol. I. p. 139.
The detention of the dethroned family within the- French
territory would, perhaps, have been a guarantee against
the unjust interference.of the Allies.'-=vol. i. p. 160.
1 repeat, it is to be regretted that the flight of Louis
and the Royal Family has nut been prevetned.l-,-vol. i.
p. 161.

But it is whenever he has occasion to speak of