the Spanish people celebrate their assemblies, I behold your exquisite taste, your delicate sensibility.'

⚫ Bull-feasts are the links of our society; the food of our patriotism; the seminaries of our political manners. These feasts, which characterise us among all the nations of the earth, embrace as many agreeable and instructive objects, as it is possible to desire; they temper our excessive parsimony, enlighten our tender understandings, sweeten our humane inclinations, divert our laborious application, and prepare us for generous and magnanimous actions. The arts and sciences combine to render them perfect, and they materially assist in improving the arts and sciences; they procure, even for the lower order, the blessings of. ease and diversion, and prevent the evils of toil and labour; they encourage hospitals which (to the honour of modern nations be it related) they not only supply with medicines for the relief of the sick, but also with sick for the consumption of the medicines, which are the two indispensable requisites to their prosperity; they mortify the body with fatigue and patience under inconvenience, and fortify the mind by the most dreadful and tragic scenes.

'Who, accustomed in cold blood to see a man suspended on the horns of a bull, his entrails falling through an immense wound, and his blood overflowing the whole place; a wounded horse that has thrown his rider, writhing and struggling in the agonies of death; a troop of affrighted bull-fighters, flying from an enraged animal, pierced with darts; the tumultuous shouting of an innumerable multitude, mingled with the harsh grating sounds of warlike instruments, augmenting the confusion ;-who, I say, after this, would be moved at a battle or a defeat?who will not conceive sublime ideas of our nobles, eager to patronise these barbarous spectacles; to honor the bull-fighters; to reward desperation and madness; and to vie with each other, in protecting the most villanous characters in the republic ?—who would not be delighted with the numerous assemblage of both sexes, crowded together, without reserve; tavern-keepers and grandees; barbers and dukes; courtezans and matrons; laymen and clergy--where luxury, profligacy, shamelessness, libertinism, stupidity, and, in short, every vice which disgraces human nature, hold their court? There the licentious fop inflames the incautious damsel, by indecent words and gestures; there the base husband places his wife by the side of her gallant; there the cowardly bully musters up all his insolence; there the smutty blacksmith utters words even more indecent than himself, and the impudent fishwoman makes a boast of her effrontery; there the pressure, noise, heat and dust, joined with the aromatic sweets of tobacco, wine and garlic, are sufficient to cause suffocation.

'Who will not acknowledge the innumerable benefits of these feasts? Were it not for them, the tailor, ironmonger, and shoemaker, would pass their Mondays in the vulgar labour of their trades; mothers would not have a plea for leaving their houses and children to the neglect of some hireling; in it they would lose a most barbarous market of modesty; physicians, a most fruitful seminary for diseases; husbands, a scene of their own iniquity and dishonour; wives, an opportunity of improving

improving themselves in prodigality and extravagance; ecclesiastics, an excuse for spending among sinners the price of their sins; philosophers, a most perfect compendium of human weakness; magistrates, the sure means of destroying all idea of civil liberty; tradesmen, the consolation of beholding the death of animals which, if living, would find them constant employment; and the whole kingdom, the advantage of seeing the most fruitful lands (which should be exclusively appropriated to diversion and amusement) laid out in pasture.'

After running over, in the same strain, the instruction which all ranks and descriptions of people receive at a bull-feast, he exclaims-

'O magnificent feasts! O useful feasts! O delectable feasts! O pious feasts! O feasts which are the most perfect crown of our wisdom! Strangers abominate you, because they know you not; but Spaniards prize you, for they alone can appreciate your value!

'If Rome lived contented with "bread and arms"-Madrid feels quite satisfied with "bread and bulls!”

'O happy Spaniards! who, content with your own estate, envy not that of others, who, accustomed to govern nobody, obey all! Pursue these enlightened maxims-despise (as you have hitherto done) the idle babbling of envious strangers-abhor their turbulent maximscondemn their free opinions-prohibit all their books, which have not passed the "holy table”—and sleep in peace, lulled by the hisses that deride you!'

ART. X. A Letter on the Conduct and Situation of Denmark, from a Dane to an Englishman; written 30th May, 1813. London: Richardson. pp. 48.

THE pamphlet before us may appear almost too slight for notice;

but such publications, like small shot, sweep away numbers who are not assailable by more powerful ordnance; and the press can furnish nothing so worthless on political subjects as not to attract some degree of attention. Who the author is we pretend not to know, but we shrewdly suspect, in spite of his expressions of goodwill towards England, (in which he apparently resides at this moment,) that his feelings on that subject are in unison with the bulk of his countrymen; and though, as a foreigner, we may pardon the obscurities of his style, and the insincerity of his professions, as a Dane we should counsel him not again to take up his pen in defence of his country.

The most respectable adherents to the ancient order of things in France were compelled, during the horrors of the Revolution, to seek refuge in Great Britain. They were received on their arrival, and have been since maintained, with a degree of attention and kindness worthy of that generous spirit so characteristic of the English nation. This race has, however, nearly disappeared; old

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age has taken off many, others have fallen victims to sorrow and disappointment. Their quiet demeanour and general respectability of conduct, materially contributed to wear out the prejudice against foreigners, formerly so prevalent amongst us; and that benevolent feeling which was excited by the distresses of the French emigrants has been extended to the natives of other countries who, from various causes, have of late made England their asylum. We trust that we shall not be considered as wanting in Christian charity if we venture to hint that this protection should not be granted without considerable caution. There are many who fatten on our bounty, who scruple not to employ the opportunities which they enjoy for the purpose of injuring their benefactors.

We are indebted to the work on the Continental System which was published in Sweden at the beginning of this year, for the composition before us. Some unpalatable truths which the Swedish pamphlet contained, have called up this literary champion in behalf of his countrymen; and we confess that until we had perused his impotent apology for their conduct, we had not given ourselves the trouble of reflecting how contemptible it has invariably been during the whole of this, and the preceding war.

For whom,' the Danish writer asks, is the history of a country more particularly written, but for its princes?'-We admit that they, of all people, ought to profit by its perusal; but we would counsel him also to direct the attention of his sovereign to the fate of other nations as well as his own. Had the king of Denmark done this, or had he not, as is more probable, allowed his better judgment to be led away by the counsel of insidious and corrupt advisers, it is scarcely possible that he could have been for so long a period blind to the examples of danger before his eyes. What has been the fate of the various states who professed their intention of remaining neuter at the opening of the revolutionary war? How did Spain profit by her entire submission to the mandates of Buonaparte? What regard was shewn to Prussia whom he compelled to become neuter, or to the other princes of Germany whom he successively overpowered? Where, in fine, has he respected in any one instance, the neutrality of a country when it suited his purposes to violate it?

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An enlightened minister of Denmark would have used this language to his sovereign; he would have told him further that it would be too late to prepare for war, when the French frontier bordered his own.' He would have pointed out to him that so far from the 'duties of a king being confined to his own country,' so far from its being incumbent on the sovereign of a small nation to avoid all other wars but those of immediate defence,' there are duties which he is called upon to perform as part of the commonwealth

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of Europe. We say nothing of the motives which may reasonably urge a sovereign to venture somewhat for the glory of his country. "The oldest unsubdued crown on earth' ought not to disappear, as anticipated by our author, without some struggle for independence and renown. Had every politician reasoned like the Dane, the continual wars against France would indeed have been productive of the still greater warlike establishments of that empire,'—and the French emperor would clearly, in spite of every coalition, have broken through every barrier which might have been opposed to him-We are told too that Denmark, by her geographical position, lies out of the great road of the continental nations who come to the conflict;' if England had been guided by similar maxims, she, too, lying still more out of this great road,' might have been contented to witness their successive subjugation by the power of France. The truth is, that by an adherence to this cautious policy, Denmark has shared the fate of every power which has carried the system of neutrality beyond its proper extent. She is entitled to no confidence from any belligerent, for she has granted none to any of them; to no protection, for she has afforded no assistance to the cause of Europe; to no respect, for her policy has been contemptible and selfish in the extreme: and instead of acquiring by repose that vigour which may fit her for future contests, she will find, when too late, that the limbs become rigid by long cessation from exercise, and the nerves relaxed by listless inactivity.

But it may be contended that every state is the best judge of its own resources, and that those of Denmark must not be estimated on the scale of those which Great Britain has at command. Granting, to a certain extent, the truth of these positions, we have still grievous cause of complaint against our brothers' the Danes. The very essence of the character of a neutral is to shew no leaning to either belligerent; but their neutrality has been of so perverse a nature, that whilst they appeared dead to all feeling, and palsied on the side which was exposed to aggression and insult from France, they have been tremblingly alive to those measures of retaliation against the common enemy which we have been compelled to adopt. A very little attention to those cases in which Denmark has of late years exhibited any signs of vitality, will be sufficient to prove the truth of our assertions.

The first offensive measure taken against this country by Denmark, was the occupation of Hamburgh by 15,000 men, under Prince Charles of Hesse, in 1801. This was of course for the purpose of excluding our vessels from the ports of the Elbe. Her unusual activity on this occasion, and the large share which she bore in the war with the northern powers, which was terminated by the decisive battle of Copenhagen, it is needless to remark; that confederacy,

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confederacy, as our author allows, was dissolved by England with that energy which fixes great events;' and Denmark again relapsed into her former supineness.

From this she was roused in 1803, by the advance of the French after the occupation of Hanover: but was the energy she displayed on this occasion at all correspondent to the danger with which she was threatened? No: it did not become Denmark alone to call France to account for the infraction of treaties;' and with strict adherence to these ideas of propriety, not a man was added to the boasted cordon of troops in Holstein till the army of England and Sweden were in force in Hanover; and though not a murmur escaped the all-enduring Danes at the closure by the French of the Elbe and Weser, their complaints were loud and frequent of the injustice of the blockade which we were in consequence compelled to establish on those rivers.

'When Prussia, in 1806, suddenly entered upon a war with France, could Denmark,' it is demanded, with her force have prevented the fate of Prussia on the fields of Jena? We do not pretend to say that she could; but if all the powers of Europe had reasoned in a similar manner, what resistance would France have experienced to her designs of universal monarchy! and no one, we should hope, but a Dane whose scale of excellence is not elevated to the highest standard, would be weak enough to produce as an instance of the tutelary aid of the Genius who presides over Denmark, that he prevented a war with France, though Danish blood was shed on the frontier, at the storming of Lubeck by the French! The affair here alluded to, took place whilst the enemies of the gallant Blucher were in pursuit of the small force which he had preserved with so much skill and intrepidity from the wreck of the Prussian army. The Danish General Ewald was taken prisoner and treated with every indignity by his friends the French; the neutral territory violated, and several Danish soldiers killed in the skirmish; yet the Crown Prince of Denmark contented himself with a remonstrance to which no attention was ever paid, and shortly after withdrew those troops from the frontiers of Holstein which he had kept there without intermission, whilst the forces of the allies were stationed in that quarter.

We shall refrain from entering at length into the merits of the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807. The subject has undergone much discussion, and many strong assertions respecting it have been hazarded on both sides. Those who will take the trouble of perusing the parliamentary debates of that day cannot fail of being convinced that the measure was not one of mere expediency but of absolute necessity; and we are not presumptuous enough to suppose, that any arguments we have to offer could have weight