been able to procure any of these papers at Paris, on account of their extreme rarity, and their old date; but I perfectly remember the fact, and request such persons as have access to these papers, to be good enough to verify it. I recommend them particularly to look at the Diario Fluminense.

"Sifted as his dates have been, what becomes of the whole work; and are we not justified in regarding it as a wanton and bungling invention, from beginning to end? In that case, there is but one difficulty to be got over. If M. Douville was not in Congo, whence did he derive the information which he gives about the country, and the maps which accompany his voyage. Here, I confess, I am reduced to mere conjectures, but which, to my mind, have all the force of certainties. At Rio Janeiro there are a great number of persons who have been in Congo, and a multitude of documents on the Portuguese possessions in Africa, which were partly brought thither from Lisbon, when King John VI. quitted Portugal, and established his court in Brazil. These documents are deposited in the public archives, and it is almost impossible, I admit, to procure copies of them: but there is no longer the same impossibility with regard to works in the hands of private individuals. Is it not probable, therefore, that M. Douville has, by some means, been enabled to procure some manuscript accompanied with maps, which he has converted to his own purposes? and if I admit that he really was in Congo, without proceeding into the interior of the country, was it not more easy for him there, even than in Brazil, to obtain information in writing, or by word of mouth, from the Portuguese slave traders?

"This last conjecture appears to me by far the most probable, for I think I can distinguish here and there, amidst the fictions of the work, passages which indicate a person who has been upon the spot. I will therefore concede this much to M.Douville-that he has really set foot in Africa, but not an atom more. In fact, it is only necessary to read the book, to be satisfied that the author almost every where describes countries which he never saw, and relates events which never happened. First of all, what are these caravans, or rather these armies, which he had in pay, and with whose assistance he cuts in pieces hostile armies, burns villages, makes prisoners of their chiefs, and a hundred other feats of the same kind? I would only remind him, that at the period he pretends to have undertaken his expedition, he had not at his disposal, I will not say the 150,000 francs which he asserts to have expended in it, but-the fiftieth part of that sum.* Moreover, it is impossible to avoid remarking the enormous disproportion that events bordering on fiction bear to the scientific observations which the author is constantly telling us he made, but are only to be found here and there. Disputes with the negroes, thefts of rum, conversations between the chiefs, manners, customs, battles, all these are described with the most tiresome prolixity. The rest, on the contrary, and which ought to have been the principal, is so dry and meagre, that the whole might be compressed into a few pages, and I venture to affirm, that in no book of the same extent would be found such a mass of silliness and absurdities. Here is evidently a man wishing to speak the language of science, who has not even made himself master of the letters of its alphabet, who stammers at their pronunciation, and who is incessantly turning himself round in a narrow circle of expressions of which he knows not the meaning. To be convinced of the author's profound ignorance, it is only sufficient to examine his labours in all the branches of natural history. I say all, for M. Douville has actually no less pretensions than to be, like M. de Humboldt, a universal man."

"M. Douville says 150,000 franks; but if we calculate the expenditure according to his mode of travelling, we shall find, with the Foreign Quarterly Review, that it must have amounted to nearly 400,000 franks. This is one of the smallest contradictions of the work."

The writer then goes on to point out some of these blunders and absurdities; a task which we have already performed at so much greater length, as to render it unnecessary for us to repeat what is here said. The following are the concluding remarks of the French critic :

"The book falls from my hand when I reflect that a man has been bold enough to print such things at the present day, and to submit them to the approbation of learned Societies. I should weary the reader's patience, were I to continue quoting passages of a kind similar to those which I have already given; they are therefore sufficient. It is needless for me to say, that no motive of personal interest has induced me to reveal the facts I have here stated; M. Douville has never personally given me the slightest cause of complaint; but for the honour of France, for the honour of the learned body which would finally become an object of derision if its error was further prolonged, it is absolutely necessary that this unheard of mystification should have an end; it has already lasted too long-and is it not even a deplorable thing, that it should have ever happened? Let M. Douville then reply to the accusation which I have preferred against him; but let him reply in the same tone which I have adopted towards him-without violence, without incoherence, by precise dates and facts. I am in a condition to maintain the combat; and if he interrogates his recollection, he will find that I have not exhausted the subject. If he will take my advice, he will act discreetly in throwing off the character which he has usurped, and preserving a prudent silence."

To these last words the following note is appended:-" This article should have appeared in the number for the 15th of October last; but circumstances, independent of the wish of the Editor and myself, have retarded its publication till now. In the interval, M. Douville has brought out a short pamphlet of a few pages, entitled Ma Defense, &c. of which he has addressed two copies to the Revue, accompanied with a letter, requesting its insertion, and saying that the national honour required this publicity."

"I have read with attention M. Douville's Defence, and shall not waste my time in discussing it. His answers are no answers, but a mere succession of vicious circles, of begging the question, of assertions which he gives as proofs, and which, of themselves, would require proofs. Besides, the question has altogether changed faces. It is no longer his work, but his moral character, and, as a sequel, the confidence which his narrative deserves, that M. Douville must defend. Let him prove that in the course of the year 1827 he was at Rio Janeiro, and not at Buenos Ayres, and in March, 1828, in Congo, and not in Brazil; let his proofs be as positive as mine; let him oppose dates to dates, facts to facts, newspapers to newspapers, witnesses to witnesses; and after he has done all that, there will not be one error the less in his work.

"I will only add a single word as to the proposition which M. Douville has made to the government to undertake a second journey into Africa. There are two methods of getting one's self out of a scrape, in which one has got imprudently involved; the first, and the most vulgar, is to beat a retreat, keeping up appearances as well as one can; the other is to put a bold face on the matter, and march forward, regardless of the wounds one has received in the fight. I leave it to the public to decide, whether the last is the best plan, and if M. Douville has done right to adopt it."

In the number of the Revue des Deux Mondes immediately following this, M. Lacordaire has published the Pièces justificatives of this narrative; but owing to some mistake, that number has never reached us, although we have received the two subsequent ones for December.

To complete the history of this extraordinary imposture, we have only to add, that according to the information we have received, M. Douville left Paris almost immediately after the publication of his Defence, (of which we gave an account in our last Number), with the avowed intention of coming to this country, to

clear up his character. In England, however, he has not ventured again to show his face, and the catastrophe may now, we believe, be fairly described in

one memorable line

"Away he ran, and ne'er was heard of more!"

NECROLOGY.-JEAN BAPTISTE SAY, the celebrated Political Economist. M. Say was born in 1767 at Lyons, where his father was a respectable merchant, who afterwards removed to Paris about the commencement of the revolution. He himself was educated for commercial pursuits, and was in business for some time, but soon relinquished it, with a view to devote himself entirely to literary labours. He made his debut as a poet in the Almanach des Muses. Shortly after, he was engaged by Mirabeau as one of his collaborateurs in the Courier de Province; subsequently he became secretary to Clavière, the minister of finance. At the most stormy period of the revolution, when men's minds were entirely engaged with the events of the day, he attempted to recall the public attention to matters of pure speculation, and with that view established, in conjunction with Chamfort and Ginguené, a periodical work under the title of Decade philosophique, litteraire, et politique. He was very soon, however, deprived of his two associates by the revolutionary persecutions, but was joined by several others, such as Andrieux, Amaury-Duval, &c. with whom he continued this journal, which was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable literary productions of that period. The part which M. Say took in it began to draw the public attention towards him; and when Bonaparte was about to depart for Egypt, he employed M. Say to collect all the works which the nature of that expedition was likely to render necessary to him. This contact with the future head of the state procured his nomination to be a member of the Tribunate, on the first formation of that body. He did not at all distinguish himself in this assembly, and he has since accounted for the silence which he then maintained by the consciousness of his total want of power to oppose effectually the developement of a political system which he condemned. He did not on that account give up the idea of serving the public interests, but had recourse to another channel than the tribune. "Enouncing my ideas," he says, "in the shape of general formulæ, I gave currency to truths which might be useful at all times and in all countries." It was then that he began the composition of his "Treatise on Political Economy, or a Plain Exposition of the Formation, the Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth,” the first edition of which appeared in 1802, and signalized his entrance into the career of political economy, on his labours in which his reputation has been entirely founded. Having refused to sanction by his vote the creation of the empire, he was excluded from the tribunate, but appointed shortly after to be receiver of the droits reunis (assessed taxes) for the department of the Allier, a place which he very soon resigned, from a scruple of conscience, "being unwilling," he says, "to assist in impoverishing his country." He then established a manufactory, in which it appears he was not successful. But he was not induced by this failure to resume the career of public employments, and his subsequent life was entirely devoted to science. His Treatise on Political Economy is the most important of his works, and that which has contributed to make his name known throughout Europe. At the time when it first appeared, very few persons in France or in any other part of the continent cultivated economical knowledge. Although Adam Smith's work had been translated, it was little read or comprehended, and the labours of his predecessor Quesnay, and the first economists, were almost entirely forgotten. There were even strong prejudices against the study among the leading men of France, headed by Bonaparte himself, whose policy it was to proscribe all intellectual labours not immediately connected with mathematical science, as mere reveries, and their cultivators as idéologues,

a term in his vocabulary synonymous with dreamer. M. Say's work produced an entire change in public opinion. Its merits are thus briefly and forcibly characterized by one of the most distinguished of our own economists. "The Traité d'Economie Politique of M. Say would deserve to be respectfully mentioned in a sketch of the progress of political economy, were it for nothing else than the effect that his well digested and luminous exposition of the principles of Dr. Smith has had in accelerating the progress of the science on the continent. But in addition to the great and unquestionable merit that it possesses, from its clear and logical arrangement, and the felicity of many of its illustrations, "it is enriched with several accurate, original, and profound discussions."* Of these, the explanation of the real nature and causes of gluts is decidedly the most important and valuable.”†

Besides five editions of the original, enlarged and improved in each, it has been translated into almost all the languages of Europe. The following are the titles of M. Say's other works:-1. Olbie, an Essai sur les Moyens de reformer les Mœurs d'une Nation, 1800. 2. De l'Angleterre et les Anglais, 1815. 3. Catechisme d'Economie Politique, 1815, 5th edition, 1826. 4. Petit Volume, contenant quelques aperçus des Hommes et de la Société, 1817. 5. Lettres à Malthus sur differens sujets d'Economie Politique. 6. Cours complet d'Economie Politique pratique, 6 vols. 1829, &c.; besides a variety of articles in the Decade Philosophique, Revue Encyclopedique, &c. He also contributed notes to a republication of Storch's Course of Political Economy at Paris, and to a translation of Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. He died in the middle of November last, aged 67.

We cannot close this notice more appropriately than by quoting some sentences from a tribute to his memory which appeared in the Examiner newspaper: coming from the pen of one who had the best means of knowing and appreciating his character, we value the testimony accordingly.

"M. Say was one of the most accomplished minds of his age and country. Though he had given his chief attention to one particular aspect of human affairs, all their aspects were interesting to him, not one was excluded from his survey. His private life was a model of the domestic virtues. From the time when with Chamfort and Ginguené he founded the Decade Philosophique, the first work which attempted to revive literary and scientific pursuits during the storms of the French Revolution-alike when courted by Napoleon and when persecuted by him, (he was expelled from the Tribunat for presuming to have an independent opinion); unchanged equally during the sixteen years of the Bourbons and the two of Louis-Philippe--he passed unsullied through all the trials and temptations which have left a stain on every man of feeble virtue among his conspicuous contemporaries. He kept aloof from public life, but was the friend and trusted adviser of some of its brightest ornaments; and few have contributed more, though in a private station, to keep alive in the hearts and in the contemplation of men a lofty standard of public virtue."

A French translation of Mr. M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary is announced as in preparation. In Germany and Italy we have understood it is to receive the same honours. Certainly no book better deserves them, whether we consider the immense body of useful practical information which the author has there brought together, or the liberal and enlightened spirit which pervades every part of it. Its diffusion throughout Europe will tend more to dissipate the

Preface to Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy.

+ M'Culloch's Discourse on the Rise, Progress, &c. of Political Economy.

delusions and prejudices to which both governments and masses of individuals still cling in matters of commerce, and enlighten them as to their real interests, than any theoretical work that has yet appeared.

All poetical antiquaries will, we are sure, be glad to hear that the Abbé de la Rue, the learned Professor of History, at Caen, has at length in the press his long promised work "On the Norman and Anglo-Norman Poets. To those readers of our own country, who delight in such matters, the volumes in question must be doubly acceptable, if they contain, as we believe they do, fresh proofs in confirmation of the opinion which their learned author promulgated in the Archæologia, during his residence among us, namely "that it was from England and Normandy that the French received the first works which deserve to be cited in their language."

Dr. Desgenettes has been elected an associé libre of the French Academy of Sciences, in room of M. Henri Cassini, deceased.

M. Flourens has been elected professor of human anatomy at the Museum of Natural History, in the Jardin des Plantes.

M. Guibourt has been elected professor of natural history at the Ecole de Pharmacie.

M. Elie de Beaumont has been elected professor of natural history in the Collège de France, in the room of M. Cuvier.

M. de Blainville has been promoted from the chair of zoology to that of comparative anatomy, at the Museum of Natural History in the Jardin des Plantes; and M. Valenciennes (the coadjutor of Cuvier in the Natural History of Fishes) has succeeded him in the former chair.

Dr. Double has been elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, Section of Medicine, in the room of Dr. Portal, deceased.

M. Salfi, the continuator of Ginguéné's History of Italian Literature, and author of several other esteemed works, died recently of the cholera at Paris.

Professor Lemaire, editor of the well-known collection of the Latin classical writers, died at Paris in September.

The works of the celebrated Lanjuinais are now in a course of publication at Paris, under the editorship of his son M. Victor Lanjuinais, who discharges his arduous undertaking with sound judgment and ability. The volumes already published contain many works of permanent interest and utility, as, for example, the admirable Traitè Historique et Politique sur la Charte; and even those of Lanjuinais' writings which were composed for temporary objects, are all remarkable for that constant reference to the great principles of morals and politics which form the chief excellence of Burke. A spirited aud remarkably well-written biographical notice has been prefixed to the first volume by the editor.

We have observed a new feature in a recently established French journal, in which a department is appropriated to Correspondence with the Working Classes, by which means the feelings and opinions of that useful body are