however, was unable to do so, and three months afterwards his creditor was constrained, for the want of any better security, to take his bills for the amount, the first of which did not become due till the following August. In June or July, however, passing accidentally along Gerrard Street, and observing the house shut up, our informant became alarmed, and on inquiry found the house entirely stripped, and his debtor vanished. He applied to M. Le Comte's solicitor, but could obtain no redress or satisfaction, and from that time till the beginning of last month, (nearly nine years) neither he nor any of M. Le Comte's other creditors have ever been able to get any intelligence of him; and it is curious enough that the only dates given by M. Douville to his previous voyages are precisely subsequent to that of M. Le Comte's departure from England.* Happening to read the statement of M. Lacordaire in our last number, the idea all at once occurred to our informant that the African traveller Douville could be no other than his old debtor. The impression at that time being that M. Douville had left Paris, he waited till be obtained positive information that he was still there, and immediately proceeded thither. M. Douville, however, had by some means or other got scent of his arrival, ordered himself to be denied, and the answer to be given that he had left Paris and was gone to Portugal. Chance, however, the very same day, brought them into contact; our informant instantly recognized his debtor, and the identity of M. Le Comte with M. Douville; the latter at first attempted to run away, but finally plucked up courage, and had the hardihood, at two successive interviews, to deny his identity, and to maintain that, at the time alluded to, he was in another part of the world; but he would exhibit no document whatever to prove this. His creditor offered to pay his expenses to, and during his stay in England, to bring the matter to the test; but this, as might be expected, he refused. Independent of the personal identity, to which our informant would swear before any court in Christendom, we have ourselves seen and compared letters of the soidisant Le Comte, and the soi-disant Douville, the handwriting of which affords not less strong evidence of the same fact. Mr. Leftley, the managing partner of the house of Dulau and Co. of Soho Square, is the gentleman here referred to. It is needless to add a word of comment on the insight which this transaction gives into the character of M. Douville.

We should have here concluded, but for some documents which the Geographical Society of Paris has published in the No. of its Bulletin for February last; one of them is a "Reclamation" from M. Jomard, a Vice-President of that Society, disclaiming having had any part whatever direct or indirect, in the preparation, correction, or publication of M. Douville's Voyage, or in the act of awarding him the Society's prize. The members of the Central Commission who made that award, were Messrs. Eyriès, d'Avezac, Brué, Warden, and Corabeuf. We have not

It is only incidentally that we learn from M. Douville, that he had ever been in England before his visit to it in December 1831. He says that he found London greatly embellished since he last saw it, and that one of the objects of his visit was to embrace a brother, whom he had not seen for fifteen years.

seen the article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, which has led M. Jomard to make this disclaimer; we fancied that it was patent to the world that M. Eyriès was the redacteur, the correcteur, and every thing else of the work in question; that he was also the writer of the Prospectus, and the rapporteur of the commission; and that the late M. Brué had the charge of preparing and engraving the map. It is for M. Eyriès then to explain how so veteran and experienced a litterateur and geographer as himself could, as well as M. Brué, become the dupes of this clumsy and bungling forgery. M. Jomard thinks that the Commission might, in case of need, donner des explications, des motifs tres plausibles. We do not hesitate to say that they owe it to themselves and to the Society, whose dignity they have compromised, to give these explanations without further delay.*

There is one sentence, however, in M. Jomard's "Reclamation" which we cannot pass over without remark, and we give it in his own words: "D'ailleurs, la Societé Géographique d'Angleterre, tout considéré, ne semblerait pas moins compromise que celle de Paris, puisque, non contente d'avoir accueilli le voyageur avec une haute distinction, elle a ordonné qu'il serait acheté 200 exemplaires de son ouvrage." The circumstance here assumed as a fact is without a shadow of foundation; the London Geographical Society has not only not bought 200 copiesit has not purchased one copy-the only one which it possesses being that which was presented to it by the author. It is surprising to find a person like M. Jomard hazarding a statement which he could have so easily ascertained to be groundless. As little is the London Society compromised by having elected M. Douville as an honorary member; he was indebted for that "haute distinction" to the letters of introduction which he brought with him from Paris, and to the official sanction given to the importance and authenticity of his discoveries in the Discourse read to the Society by M. Jouannin at their anniversary meeting, on the 25th of November, 1831, immediately previous to M. Douville's arrival in London.

To conclude-M. Douville (who, we observe, although no longer secretary, still figures among the office-bearers of the Paris Society, in the section de Comptabilité) informs us at the end of his last book, that the sum of 14,000 francs is all that is wanting to complete the subscription which is to enable him to proceed on his new journey into the interior of Africa. It appears from the same number of the Bulletin in which M. Jomard's paper appears, that the Minister of Marine had applied to the Central Commission of the Society for its opinion of M. Douville's proposals relative to this journey, and that the Commission

expressed in its reply, that it had crowned as a discovery M. Douville's Voyage to Congo; that since the publication of the work, upon which the press had entered into a controversy, the Central Commission had invited the author to communicate to it the elements or astronomical data which had produced the

It is more incumbent on M. Eyriès than others to give these explanations, because, as the redacteur of the Annales des Voyages, he must have been aware of the remarkable discrepancies between the statements given in that periodical relative to M. Douville's discoveries, and those in the Voyage itself. See the Annales des Voyages, in the articles referred to above, p. 520.

results stated in that work; that M. Douville not having yet transmitted any such communications, the Commission must remain in doubt as to the certainty of the astronomical results stated in the Voyage to Congo."

Sufficient, we think, has appeared to enable the Commission to pronounce a much stronger opinion than it has here done; it is not the astronomical results merely, but the truth of the whole second journey, which it crowned as a discovery, that is at issue. It had been well if the Geographical Society, or its leading organ, had imitated the wise reserve of the Academy of Sciences, to which M. Douville first submitted his MSS. for their opinion. After several months' delay, no report was made upon them, and when the author, tired out, demanded their return, they were instantly delivered up to him. Had M. Douville's volumes been published by himself, divested of the sanction that has been given to them, he never would have sold fifty copies, and the public would only have laughed at him as a second Munchausen. Already we have one pregnant instance of the permanent mischief which has been the result of the Paris Society's rash and precipitate meed of approbation. In an Abridgment of Geography, of formidable size, for the use of schools, recently published by a respectable author, who we believe would have been ashamed to publish anything he did not conceive to be true, we find the whole of these wonderful discoveries incorporated in the description of that portion of Africa to which the " Voyage au Congo" relates; every page is studded with the names of M. Douville and of M. Eyriès, singly and in conjunctionlike Castor and Pollux-the first is lauded for his "decouvertes importantes sous tous les rapports," and the second, for the "lumière" which has been thrown by his labours on the geography of Africa.

The French historical literature of the present day is getting more and more degraded by the quantity of fabricated Memoirs, published as the authentic productions of authors of the very highest rank, and in which every quality which can recommend them to attention, except truth, has been acknowledged; matters are now come to that pass, that no one knows which to believe, and which to doubt. If in the kindred science of geography, in which truth is of so much higher importance, such societies as those of Paris and London do not protect us from impositions like M. Douville's, their existence, instead of being a benefit, would be a positive injury to its progress. If this exposure has the effect, as we are inclined to hope it will, of giving a lesson of greater caution in future, we shall be perfectly satisfied with the part we have taken in it.

No. XXII.

DENMARK.

Oehlenschläger has commenced the publication of a new monthly literary journal at Copenhagen, under the title of Prometheus.

The Museum for Scandinavian antiquities, established at Copenhagen by the celebrated antiquaries Münter, Thorlacius, and Nyerup, who are all now dead, and which has been since upheld with the greatest efforts and indefatigable zeal by Councillor Thomsen, received, in the course of last year, an accession of four hundred articles, some of which are of great interest. Instead of the confined space in which the Museum was formerly contained in the Round Church, the king has allotted to it several rooms in the palace of Christianburg, in which the Gallery of Paintings is contained.

The royal frigate Galathee will sail this summer for Leghorn, to receive the Twelve Apostles executed by Thorwaldsen.

FRANCE.

M. Thiébaut de Bernéaud, one of the librarians of the Mazarine Library, has just concluded a work on the manners, customs, laws, political systems, religion, and literature of the ancient inhabitants of the North.

Charles Nodier has a new work in the press intitled Les Girondins.

The French Chamber of Deputies has sanctioned the purchase of the library of the late Baron Cuvier for 72,500 francs, and the Egyptian MSS. cf M. Champollion for 50,000. A pension of 6,000 francs has also been granted to the widow of Cuvier, and one of 3,000 francs each to the widows of the learned Orientalists Abel-Remusat, De Chezy, and St. Martin, who fell victims to the cholera of last year.

A Collection of Novels and Tales, the exclusive production of the most talented women in France, is announced to appear in four vols. Evo, uuder the title of Heures du Soir, Livre des Femmes.

CHAMPOLLION'S WORKS ON EGYPT.-M. Champollion's MSS. are now in the hands of his brother, M. Champollion-Figeac, and consist of more than 2,000 pages, accompanied with drawings. A commission, composed of Messieurs De Sacy, Letronne, Laborde, Daunou, &c., was intrusted with the examination of these materials, and to make a report on them to government. This has now been done, and as soon as the matter is brought before the Chambers and authority given by them, the work will be put to press. In consequence, however, of M. Champollion's death, the work will not be so extensive, and the price will be only one half what was originally announced. The Egyptian Grammar of M. Champollion is also in the press, and will be published in 4 livraisons. Considerable umbrage appears to have been given at Paris by the announcement of Professor Rosellini's work on the same sub

ject at Florence; it has been said, we know not with what justice, to evince a want of good faith and delicate feeling not very creditable in certain quarters. Its scientific merits rest on other grounds, and must be pronounced upon hereafter. Rosellini, it will be recollected, was one of Champollion's Italian coadjutors.

A new monthly botanical journal has been commenced at Paris, with this year, which will no doubt prove a valuable substitute for that section of Perussac's Bulletin, now discontinued, which was devoted to the natural sciences. The editor is M. Guillemin.

A complete edition of the works of Flaxman is announced for publication at Paris, by Reveil, uniform with the "Museum of Painting and Sculpture" and "the English School of Painting." It will be completed in 30 livraisons small 8vo., and will include the eleven designs which Flaxman published in 1805 as a supplement to his Iliad, as well as all the inedited works, such as the statues and bas-reliefs of Covent Garden, and the monuments of Chichester and Westminster.

A collection of inedited and authentic documents, intended to throw light on contemporary history, will shortly be published in monthly volumes, of which ten will probably be the extent.

A view of the metropolitan and provincial press of France has been recently published by Messrs. Bresson and Bourgoin, directors of the Office of Correspondence for the French and foreign journals. It appears from this that on January 1, 1833, there were 243 newspapers published in the departments, and 217 at Paris. The newspapers of the departments are published in 123 towns. Nearly one hundred were published for the first time in 1832; soine new ones have already appeared this year, and others are in preparation.

A resi

NECROLOGY.-M. Kieffer, late professor of Turkish at the College of France, and Vice-President of the Asiatic Society, was born at Strasburgh in 1767, where he studied under Oberlin, Schweighäuser, and Dahler. He was at first intended for the Church, but the study of the Oriental languages, a knowledge of which was required to qualify him for the sacred functions, so captivated him, that he resolved to devote himself wholly to them. dence of some years at Paris confirmed him in his resolution, and enabled him to carry it into effect. Admitted, in 1794, into the Bureau of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, he was sent, two years after, to Constantinople, as secretary and interpreter to the embassy, of which General Aubert du Bayet was the head. In 1798, when a rupture took place between France and the Porte, M. Kieffer, along with the Chargé des Affaires, was sent to the Castle of the Seven Towers, where his time was devoted to study, and the enjoyment of the society of M. Ruffin, whose instructions, combined with the unwearied perseverance of M. Kieffer himself, enabled the latter to acquire that profound knowledge of the Turkish language, which has since been so honourably displayed in the translation of the New Testament, published at the expense of the London Bible Society. As a proper reward for his services, he was appointed Professor of Turkish in the College of France, and in 1815 he received the decoration of the Legion of Honour. But it was not merely as a literary man that M. Kieffer distinguished himself, and we should have a very imperfect idea of his vast and useful activity to view him merely as an Orientalist. M. Kieffer found time to engage in many useful associations for the promotion of public morals and education, and to advance the interests of re