executed by Mr. Stanier Clarke. Any thing like a judicious selection we could not expect from this gentleman, after his History of Maritime Discovery; but we did expect that he would have shown more knowledge of the subject upon which he was writing. Not one of the most extraordinary shipwrecks which have taken place are to be found in his collection: but the novels of Robert A-Machin, and Captain Richard Falconer, are unsuspiciously inserted as true history; Philip Quarle is just as credible, and just as authentic as either. Here we might dismiss this meagre compilation, were there not in the first section a Dissertation' on the real author of Robinson Crusoe, which requires some comment. The following extract is the whole of this dissertation: "Before I conclude this section, I wish to make the admirers of this Nautical Romance mindful of a report, which prevailed many years ago; that Defoe, after all, was not the real author of Robinson Crusoe. This asser tion is noticed in an article in the seventh voJume of the Edinburgh Magazine. Dr. Towers in his Life of Defoe in the Biographia, is in clined to pay no attention to it: but was that writer aware of the following letter, which also appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine* for 1788? at least no notice is taken of it in his Life of Defoe. In the course of a late conversation with a nobleman of the first consequence and information in this kingdom, he assured me, that Mr. Benjamin Holloway, of Middleton Stony, assured him, some time ago, that he knew for fact, that the celebrated romance of Robinson Crusoe was really written by the Earl of Oxford, when confined in the tower o: London; that his lordship gave the manuscript to Daniel Defoe, who frequently visited hin during his confinement: and that Defoe, having atterwards added the second volume, published the whole as his own production.This anes dote I would not venture to send to your va luable magazine, if I did not think my information good, and imagine it might be acceptable to your numerous readers; notwithstanding the work has heretofore been generally at tributed to the latter." W. W. "It is impossible for me to enter on a dis cussion of this literary subject; though I thought the circumstance ought to be more generally known. And yet I must observe, that I always discerned a very striking failing off between the composition of the nrst and second volumes of this Romance--they seem to bear evident marks of having been the work of different writers." Mr. W. W. dating from Dublin, informs Mr. Urban of the Gentleman's him that he was assured by Mr. Benjamin Magazine, that an Irish nobleman assured Holloway, of Middleton Stony, that he, for fact, that the earl of Oxford wrote the said Mr. Benjamin Holloway knew, the first volume of Robinson Crusoe! Admirable evidence! Mr. W. W. one; the Irish nobleman two; Mr. Benjamin Holloway three-here there is a gap, and we know not through how many generations this ridiculous falsehood had passed before it reached Middleton Stony. And Mr. Clarke, though it is impossible for him to enter into the subject, thought this tes timony ought to be more generally known, and adds, in support of it, that he always thought the second volume of Robinson Crusoe inferior to the first. Admirable critic! Nothing can more strongly characterize a mean and little mind than an eagerness to believe and propagate such idle calumnies as this! What would a court of justice say to Mr. Stanier Clarke if he were to make his appearance before them with a story that Mr.A. B. had written him an anonymous letter, to say that a worthy friend of his had assured him that John a-Nokes knew for fact that John-a-Stiles had picked his pocket! False accusation offence as the value of a good name is in the present case is as much heavier an greater than gold. Mr. Clarke's memory may help him to this comparison in verse, Something is said of Alexander Selkirk in this same section. The reader who would wish to know every thing that can little volume upon the subject, published. be known concerning him, may consult a four or five years ago, by Mr. Isaac James of Bristol. The account is authentic, and highly curious. 4to. pp. 480. ART. XIX. 4 Northern Summer; or Travels Round the Baltic; through Denmark, he has now given us a light and agreeable account of his travels through the less fre * Vol. LVIII. Part I, page 208. quented countries which surround the Baltic. To afford amusement seems to have been a prime object with the author; he writes, currente calamo, and enters but slightly into the politics, religion, history, or statistics of the countries he visited. Mr. Carr is an artist, and the delineation of national characteristics is congenial with his taste and pursuits: his anecdotes are numerous and oftentimes illustrative. The first capital town worth stopping at is Copenhagen: en passant, we have a good picture at Husum. The fair was beld at the time Mr. Carr was there; the buckrammed bosoms of the women, together with the vast protuberant rotundities which they display behind, form a whimsical contrast to the fashionable dress of our English beauties. In the evening, a crazy violin and drum allured me into a public room, in which the merry peasants were dancing waltzes. Heavens! what movements! A Frenchman who resolves every thing into operatic effect, would have felt each particular hair stand erect had he contemplated the heavy solemnity of the performers. The females looked like so many tubs turning round, and their gallant partners never moved their pipes from their mouths.' This is not a bad picture; a Danish Jupiter making love to some tender female, fire issuing from his mouth, and the god himself, invisible, or dimly seen,' through clouds of smoke that curl around him. Bunbury might give it to our print shops. Dancing is a favourite diversion with our northern as well as our southern neighbours if the poorer classes of this country meet together it is to drink! A memorable day for Denmark was the 2d of April, 1801: we claim the honours of that hard-earned, if not dubious victory, and certainly in its consequences we had every reason for triumph; the battle off Copenhagen dissolved the confederacy of the northern powers, and produced the convention, in 1803, between his Brittanic Majesty, and the king of Sweden, respecting the search of neutral vessels, and regulating what should in future be deemed legitimate cargoes. The Danes, however, fought so valorously, and with such terrible effect, that for two years they commemorated their victory by an anniversary rejoicing. "On our return to the city, and about a mile from it, a turfed hillock of small poplars attracted our notice: it was the national tomb of the heroes who fell in the memorable battle of Copenhagen roads, on the 2d of April, 1801, and stood in a meadow about two hun dred yards from the road, and looked towards the crown battery. As we approachwhich was raised to the memory of caped it we saw a small monumental obelisk tain Albert Thurah, by the Crown Prince. It appeared by the inscription, that during the heat of that sanguinary battle, a signal was made from one of the block ships, that all the officers on board were killed; the Crown Prince, who behaved with distinguished judgment and composure during the whole of that terrific and anxious day, and was giving his orders on shore, exclaimed, who will take the command' The gallant Thurah replied, will, my Prince,' and immediately leaped into a boat, and as he was mounting the deck of the block ship, a British shot numbered him amongst the dead, which formed a ghastly pile before him, and consigned his spirit and his glory to the regions of immortality." A larger tomb is erected by their grateful country over her fallen heroes : "It is a pyramidal hillock, neatly turfed and planted with sapling poplars, corresponding with the number of officers who fell. At the base of the principal front are tomb stones recording the names of each of these officers, and their respective ships. A little above is an obelisk of grey northern marble, raised upon a pedestal of granite bearing this inscrip tion: "To the memory of those who fell for their country, their grateful fellow citizens raise this monument, April 2, 1801. "And beneath, on a white marble tablet, under a wreath of laurel, oak, and cypress bound together, is inscribed: "The wreath which the country bestows never withers over the grave of the fallen warrior. "The whole is enclosed in a square palisado: as a national monument, it is too diminu tive." The following anecdote is worthy to be recorded after the preliminaries of pacification were adjusted, at the impressive interview between lord Nelson and the Crown Prince, the latter took some refreshment at the palace: "During the repast Lord Nelson spoke in raptures of the bravery of the Danes, and particularly requested the prince to introduce him to a very young officer, whom he described as having performed wonders during the battle, by attacking his own ship immediately under her lower guns. It proved to be the gallant young Welmos, a stripling of seventeen; the British hero embraced him with the enthusiasm of a brother, and delicately intimated to the prince that he ought to make him an admiral, to which the prince very happily replied, "If, my lord, I were to make all my brave officers admirals, I should have no captains or lieutenants in my service.' This he roic youth had volunteered the command of a praam, which is a sort of raft, carrying six small cannon, and manned with twenty-four men, who pushed off from shore, and in the fury of the battle placed themselves under the stern of lord Nelson's ship, which they most successfully attacked, in such a manner that, although they were below the reach of his stern chasers, the British marines made terrible slaughter amongst them: twenty of these gallant men fell by their bullets, but their young commander continued kuce-deep in dead at his post, until the truce was announced. He has been honoured, as he most eminently deserved to be, with the grateful remembrance of his country and of his prince, who, as a mark of his regard, presented him with a medallion commemorative of his gallantry, and has appointed him to the command of his yacht, in which he makes his annual visit to Holstein." : Copenhagen does not present many objects of high interest and curiosity: the city is between four and five English miles in circumference, containing about four thousand houses: the royal palace fell a victim to the flames in the year 1794; it was an immense and splendid pile of building. Its internal decorations were of the highest magnificence: the ritta saal, or knight's saloon, was one hundred and eighteen feet long, and fifty-eight feet broad nine windows lighted it by day, and at night twelve hundred wax-lights, distributed in three lustres, shed a brilliant blaze over the room; on each side was a gallery richly gilded, and supported by forty-four columns of cinnamon wood, the base and capitals of which were also richly gilded. The paintings of Abilgoad on subjects of Danish history embellished the hall: the library of the king contained one hundred and thirty thousand volumes, and three thousand manuscripts, and was much injured by the fire. Part of the castle of Charlottenburg is devoted to the royal academy of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Those of its productions which Mr. Carr had an opportunity of seeing, gave him no very high opinion of the fine arts in Denmark. The palace of Fredericsberg, where the king resides, is small, and the gardens are tastefully arranged; his majesty has for many years been unable, from the infirmity of his mind, to perform the royal functions, which devolve on the crown prince, who is de-. servedly beloved by all his subjects. The Danes are a grateful people: a few miles from the capital on one side of the public road is a plain and simple monument, erected by the peasants of the late count Bernstorff, in gratitude of their liberation. The crown battery is an interesting object: it is square, stands about half an English mile from the shore, the water flowing into it. It is undergoing alteration and enlargement; government has it also in contemplation to raise a fresh battery to the southward. Among the charitable institutions is an hospital where pregnant women, who have reason for seeking concealment, are received upon paying a small stipend: they but by those who are necessary to their enter at night in masks, and are never seen comfort, nor are their names ever required. This interesting asylum seems far preferable to foundling hospitals, which offer a premium to the violation of maternal feelings: it is said to have produced a visible diminution in the crime of infanticide. The mild laws of Denmark punish not even the murderer with death. Taking leave of Denmark, we cross the Sound, and enter into the Swedish territories: the sight of Cronenberg castle recals to mind the unhappy fate of the amiable Matilda, who fell a sacrifice to the political jealousy of Juliana Maria, the monster step-mother of his present majesty. The story of her misfortunes excited so deep an interest at the time that Mr. Carr has introduced it. Cronenberg castle now forms the residence of the governor of Elsineur: it mounts three hundred and sixty-five pieces of cannon, and its subterranean apartments will hold more than a regiment of men. Its strength, however, is not so formidable as its appearance: the British fleet under adnirals Parker and Nelson passed it with perfect impunity, and disdained to return a shot: it stands on a peninsular spot, the nearest to Sweden. The next place we stop at is Stockholm, but in travelling from capital to capital we must not forget the intermediate country the appearance of the peasantry and of their cottages, indicates poverty: covered with fir: hence the cottages, which "Sweden is one continued rock of granite, are only one story high, and many of the superior houses, are constructed of wood, the planks of which are let into each other in a layer of moss, and the outside is painted of a red colour; the roof is formed with the bark of the birch, and covered with turf, which generally presents a bed of grass sufficiently high for the scythe of the mower. The floors of the rooms are strewed with the slips of young fir, which give them the appearance of litter and disorder, and the smell is far from being pleasant. Nothing can be more dreary than winding through the forests, which every now and then present to the weary eye little patches of cleared ground, where tirs had been felled by fire, the stumps of which, to a considerable height, were left in the ground, and, at a distance, resembled so many large stones. Inexhaustible abundance of wood induces the peasant to think it labour lost to root them up, and they remain to augment the general dreariness of the scenery. "The population in both the provinces of Scania and Smaland is very thinly diffused: except in the very few towns between Flensborg and Stockholm, the abode of man but rarely refreshes the eye of the weary traveller. At dawn of day, and all day long, he moves in a forest, and at night he sleeps in one. The only birds we saw were woodpeckers. The peasantry are poorly housed and clad; yet, anidst such discouraging appearances, their check boasts the bloom of health and the smile of content. Their clothes and stockings are generally of light cloth; their hats raised in the crown, pointed at top, with large broad runs, and round their waist they frequently wear a leathern girdle, to which are fastened two knives in a leather case. The country in these provinces appeared to be very sterile; only small portions of its rocky surface were covered with a sprinkling of vegetable mould." The peasants bake their bread only ence, or, at most, twice in the year: in times of scarcity they add the bark of the birch well pounded; and Mr. Carr says, that thus prepared, their cakes require the jaws of a stone-eater to penetrate them. They are made round and flat, with a hole in the middle, through which a stick or string is passed, and they are suspended from the ceilings, Stockholm is under infinite obligations to the taste and genius of the late illustrious monarch-Gustavus III. who not merely gave encouragement to science and the fine arts in his metropolis, but to commerce and agriculture throughout his kingdom. The manner, however, in which he effected the revolution of 1772, and the absolute power with which he invested himself at the expence of the aristocracy, are not consistent with the character to which he aspired, namely, that of a patriot king. The power which Gustavus gained he employed for the benefit of his people; this cannot be questioned; but to effect a revolution by his sole intrigues, and in that revolution to destroy the legitimate, though abused power, of the states, and make himself a despot, was an act of violent hostility against the principles of liberty. Mr. Carr is dazzled by the splendour of his genius and the exhaustless resources of his mind; he is lost in astonishment and admiration. In a temporary building at the house of 103 Sergell the statuary, Mr. Carr saw the colossal pedestrian statue of this monarch, in bronze, which had just been cast, and was then polishing. It is a present from the citizens of Stockholm; and will cost forty thousand pounds; it is, perhaps, the last effort of the art of Sergell, who, although every tribute of honour has been paid to the sublimity of his genius, and the delicacy of his taste, is now become insensible to admiration, disgusted with him, self, and disgusted with the world. His Cupid and Psyche is not to be sold till after his death. The palace at Stockholm is an elegant edifice, begun by Charles XI. and finished by Gustavus III; within its walls is the king's museum, which Mr. Carr was for tunate enough to see, immediately after the opening of several packages containing five hundred valuable paintings and antique statues from Italy, where they had been purchased by the latter sovereign about eleven years since, and had been prevented from reaching their destination by the French revolution. They lay in great confusion, and some of them were much damaged. In the pa lace of Drottingholm there are also some exquisite statues in alabaster and marble, and Etrurian vases, purchased in Italy by Gustavus III. Haga was the favourite retreat of this illustrious monarch: the little palace, or rather chateau, which is of wood, and is extremely elegant, was built after his designs, with the assistance of Masrelier. The gardens are laid out with great taste, and the surrounding scenery is remarkably picturesque. Haga is about a mile and a half from Stockholm: in the year 1791 Gustavus laid there the foundation of a vast palace, but the undertaking was discontinued at his death, as being on too large a scale, and too expensive for the country. The laws of Sweden are mild and simple; capital punishments are seldom inflicted, and the prosecutor sustains no share of the expence of prosecuting a criminal. England would do well to adopt this system of indemnification, as Sweden would to imitate from her the adjustment of costs in civil causes by reference to a jury, In Sweden each party pays his own costs. Mr. Carr made an excursion to Upsala, and paid a visit to the mines of Danmora, which, notwithstanding they have been wrought for three hundred years, yet produce a vast quantity of ore of a superior quality, much used in the British steel manufactories. The ancient town of Upsala was once the capital of Sweden, and the residence of the high-priest of Odin: in the cathedral, which is a prodigious and unwieldy pile of brick and of heterogeneous architecture, repose the ashes of Linnaeus. The following simple epitaph points out the spot : "Ossa CAROLI A LINNE marito optimo SARA ELIZBETA MOREA. "The affectionate reverence of the pupils of this distinguished expounder of nature, and the powers of his celebrated friend Sergell, have endeavoured to supply the humility of the preceding tribute, by raising, in a little recess, a monument of Swedish porphyry, supporting a large medallion of the head of the illustrious naturalist, which is said to be an admirable likeness of him; under it is the following inscription:" CAROLO A LINNE Botannicorum principi Amici et discipuli, 1798." In a private chapel of the cathedral is the tomb of Gustavus Vasa, whose effigy is placed between that of his two wives, Catherine and Margaret. Mr. Carr should have transcribed the inscription which is sacred to the memory of such a hero, such a patriot, and such a man. From the Swedish Mr. Carr proceeds to the Russian territories: his talents for description are pleasingly displayed in the following passage: "At five o'clock in the evening of the sixth of July, with very little wind, we slowly withdrew from Stockholm. Before night we were completely becalmed; our captain rowed us up to a rock, and throwing out a gang-board, tied the vessel to a fir-tree for the night. Here we landed, and ascended the rocks, which, sparingly clothed with grey moss, rose from the water's edge in the most grand, romantic, and picturesque disorder. Before us the rich crimson suffusion of the sun, just sunk behind a dark undulating line of fir forests, gave at once tranquillity and tone to the lake appearance of this arm of the Baltic, which was enlivened by the white-lagging sails of a few boats, that on the opposite side softly and slowly creeped through the deep shadows of the shores, crowned with the woods of Liston cottage; whilst in the south, the tower of St. Catherine's, mounted upon her airy summit, the houses, the palace, and the spires, seemed composed of light cloud and mist. The s lence of this delicious repose of nature was only faintly broken by the dashing of the oar, and the carol of the distant boatinen; in the language of the divine Milton: Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad: now glowed the firmament With living saphirs.' "Seated upon a rock, we for a long time contemplated this exquisite scene, till at lengta the call of sleep induced us to descend into our cabin, where our accommodations were very comfortable. With the sun, which was an early riser, we unmoored, and advanced but very slowly; as we proceeded, misery in a new shape presented itself. From a wretched hovel, upon one of the islands which began to appear in clusters, hanging over the edge of the water, and ready to drop into it, an old man in rags, and nearly blind, put off in a little crazy boat, and rowing towards us implored our charity in the most touching manner, and seemed very grateful for the tride we gave him. 6 "In the evening, having made but little way, the master again moored the vessel to another island for the night: as I found was the custom, on account of the danger and difficulty of the navigation. This island was indeed a most enchanting scene; upon its ro mantic summit of grey rock we found a little cottage, embowered in trees of fir, ash, and elder, that might well be called the peasant's nest." A fisherinan, his aged mother his wife and his children, formed the population of this beautiful spot. A little field of grass, in which a cow was grazing, another of corn, a garden, and the waters of the Baltic, which again re sembled a lake, supplied them with all their wants, and all their riches. Here it seemed as if the heart could no longer ache, as if ambi tion might wish to be what he beheld, and that love might ponder on the past without a pang. The inside of the cottage was neat and chearful; the good old lady, with the children in their shirts playing round her, sat knitting by the light of a sprightly fire, and under locks of snow presented a face at peace with all the world. Upon hearing that we wished to have some supper, the fisherman, with a countenance of health and gaiety, de scended into a little creek, where his boats were moored, for some perch, confined in a wicker well in the water, whilst his young wife, who had a pair of very sweet expressive eyes, laid the cloth in a detached room facing the cottage. Whilst supper was preparing rambled over this little paradise. Night came |