thing to the contrary, but judging from my own experience, the character of women must be strangely altered since the days to which these works refer. There are no set of men more faithless to each other upon the face of the earth, than the family-men. When the strongest reasons are in force to keep them united and faithful to each other, every one, knowing his own character, suspects his companion, and would at any time hang a dozen of his associates to save himself.

Not so with their women, they would most of them sacrifice their own lives to save the life of the man with whom they cohabited. If we except the immorality in every way of such a connexion on the part of the woman-but even looking at it in that point of view, it must be taken into consideration, that they do not descend to the degradation, but are born in the society where it is looked upon as no departure from established custom-if, I say, we except the immorality of the connexion, I am sure that no book could be written which would reflect more honour on the sex than the lives of those connected with the fraternity of robbers for these last fifty years, during which I know of no instance of betrayal of a man by a woman, although I have known many to have been so ill used by men, as to justify any retaliation on their part. There is a great outcry against loose women, but there would be no loose women, if there were no loose men. Remember, that we are open declaimers against the unfortunate females in general, but encouragers of them in secret. I remember the case of poor Riviere, who came into my hands down in Somersetshire, just after I took office; he was executed for forging a West India bill. There was a woman blamed for that affair; but the gentleman, it is now well undersood, fell a sacrifice to three men, well known at the west end of the town-an auctioneer of notoriety, an hotel-keeper, since dead, and an attorney; who all shared the property of the man, when I had finished the law upon him.

(To be continued.)

TELESFORO DE TRUEBA.

THE diurnal press has, during the past month, announced the death of Telesforo de Trueba-we purposely omit his worldly titles; giving to him only that more simple designation by which he was well known, and will be long remembered both in the social and literary world. He was born of one of the noblest families in Spain; early in life he came to England. In the cause of the constitution given to his country he was always stedfast, even to proscription. Upon the elevation of Martinez de la Rosa, he ventured into the arena of politics; was chosen member of the Cortes, and more, its secretary. We have no further detail of his onward political life, saving what the spot (it was at Paris) where his ashes are entombed may tell us, that when his patron fell, and his party gave way, he again turned his thoughts to England, where he knew that many would welcome him, and none more cordially than ourselves.

We profess not to write an accurate memoir of our poor friend's life: all that we know has been gleaned during moments when we little cared to note the incidents, because we never anticipated the painful task that has devolved upon us. We now weave them together as they occur to us, because there is no portion of the contemporary press that should more readily attest his merits, or lament his loss.

We will not pause to question the degree of excellence he may have arrived at in his compositions. His story may be a very useful page in the history of man. When others would have desponded, his best energies were called forth. Deprived of his family resources, banished from his own home, he has lived honourably in two foreign countries by his pen alone. Having written many plays in Spanish, he was well versed, as his countrymen ever are, in the art of the dramatist; and when in Paris he did not quail before the difficulties of the language, but ventured forthwith "into the interior of the drama's hot and dangerous territory," and was successful.

Thus emboldened, upon his arrival in England he wrote several novels; amongst which we would enumerate "The Castilian," "Sandoval," "The Guerilla," &c. &c. in all twenty volumes or more; besides the "Romance of Spanish History," which now lives not the least eminent in that ingenious series of historical fictions. As an English dramatist, we will note him as the author of two five-act plays-" The Exquisites," and " The Men of Pleasure:" of several minor pieces of varied success, "Mr. and Mrs. Pringle," at Drury Lane, "Call again To-morrow," at the English Opera House, and many others. We will ask of those who would gauge his merits as an English writer, to appreciate the difficulties under which he laboured, and however the critic may refine upon the niceties of language, we will ever abide by the unerring decree of public opinion, for "all who live to please, must please, to live."

Beckford wrote his "Vathec" in French, and Townley translated Hudibras into the same language; although both were excellent, and especially the latter, (upon whom Voltaire passed the high encomium that he had overcome the greatest of all difficulties, for that "la plaisanterie expliquée cesse d'être plaisanterie ;") still they were their only works in that language, to each, one great effort perfected to success!

There is perhaps a still higher praise than what we have yet given to our late friend. The almost chivalrous honesty of all his acts and all his intentions. We will not pay his memory the poor compliment of dwelling on that upon which he never for an instant doubted. It is indeed in sorrow we part with him, and our fervent prayer shall be, May the dust lie lightly upon him!

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MEMOIRS OF LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR THOMAS PICTON.

Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, G. C.B., &c. including his Correspondence, from Originals in Possession of his Family. By H. B. ROBINSON. 2 Vols. Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street.

To which is added, by the Editor of this Magazine, many hitherto unpublished Letters from the gallant General.

It is our unshaken opinion that in all ages, and in every country, the civilian has been ungrateful to the men who have interposed with their energies, their blood, and their lives, between their country, and plunder, ravage, and slaughter. England is not exempt from her share of the obloquy contained in this charge. When the storm threatens, and the shadow of hostility seems to darken over our hearth-stones, we look up with awe and reverence to the devoted few, whose courage is to turn consternation into safety; we honour them-we laud them-we love them-and when the blood-stained victory is won-we idolize them. But the flush of gratitude is soon over. Then follows the pause of indifference, to indifference succeeds ignorant examination, and self-sufficient cavil. The merit of the battle that saved us, is first debated, and then denied. The hero who fought

"the imminent deadly breach," finds, to his surprise and just indignation, that he has to fight his battle over again with those who never saw, or intend to see, a shot fired in anger, or lose his hardlyearned laurels; but even this period lasts not long. The dull stream of oblivion flows over all, and in the apathy of security, the ungrateful, secured, forget at once the victory and the victors.

This is an ingratitude-a deep, a damning one-and, of all men, the gallant, the cool, the intrepid Picton, has had the most to complain of it. Undervalued, infamously undervalued in his life, he has, until now, remained uncommemorated after his death. True, there is the storied sculpture in the cathedral of the metropolis, and the monumental column, erected by private affection, at Carmarthen; but something more durable than the crumbling stone, and the provincial memento, is due to a reputation such as is Picton's. The imperishable records of the pen should, long ere this, have woven the garland of immortality round the hero's sword. Twenty years have elapsed, and till now, no biographer has generously and patriotically stepped forward to do justice to the memory of the Duke of Wellington's selfacknowledged "right hand."

Independently of the excellence of the work, we heartily thank Mr. Robinson for the mere act of attempting it. The tribute should have been sooner paid, but it is gratifying to find that it has been paid at all.

Of the merits of this biography it is our duty to descant. With Picton's brilliant career before him, the accessibility to public documents, and the glorious pages of our history open, the author could hardly have failed. With talent, industry, a good tact of discriminaDec. 1835.-VOL. XIV.—NO. LVI.

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tion, and an unbounded zeal for the subject, he has succeeded-completely we will not say-for we are perhaps rather too much inclined to proportion our demands upon the biographer, by the elevation of character and the noble qualities of the hero sought to be commemorated.

We come to the pleasing task of reviewing this work, with perhaps more numerous and better materials for writing the life, than the author of the life itself. Had we known of his purpose in time, those materials should have been heartily at his service, for we have no other wish than that ample justice should be done to the private, as well as the military, character of the man whom we so much admire, and to whom the country is so largely indebted. Of these materials our limited space will necessarily compel us to make but a limited use; but should Mr. Robinson's work attain to a second edition, to the letters we are about to insert, and all other information in our possession, he is freely welcome. These letters were written to the father of Captain Marryat, with whom he was on terms the most intimate.

These memoirs are very properly dedicated to the Duke of Wellington, and are graced with a portrait, engraved by Dean, after a noble painting of Picton, by the present President of the Royal Academy. The countenance is marked with determination, replete with energy, and in our opinion, even handsome, which Picton was not, but still it is very like him. He then proceeds with a brief notice, all too brief, of his parentage, education, and early life. We find in this part of the work a paucity of anecdote, and a meagreness of information, that we cannot help deploring, and which, in this place, we are sorry we have no room to supply: yet, for merely puerile adventures, we have a great distaste. We too often find out, that, when a man has established his character as a hero, various childish anecdotes are brought forward to prove, that which requires no proof whatever, namely, that a man predestined to be a hero, will certainly turn out one. A ridiculous example of this occurred in respect to Lord Nelson, when, in his boyhood, it is reported that his mother, wondering why fear did not drive him back from some mischief, he replied, "that he never saw fear." A very childish answer. If the relator of this anecdote meant to imply that Nelson had no such feeling in his composition as fear, it is paying him no compliment, as true bravery consists in conquering, or rather sacrificing, for some good or great object, that jealous sense of self-preservation implanted in us all.

But, if we analyze this famous answer, it will appear to be merely the offspring of simplicity on the part of Nelson, and of his imperfect acquaintance with the liberties that might be taken with his own language. His mother made use of the figure of speech, termed the prosopopæia, or personification; and when she told him, that she wondered that fear did not drive him home, he understood her to mean some identical, living being, known by that name. Had she said to him, "I wonder that you were not afraid," we should have lost his immortalized answer, and his various and learned biographers, Dr. Southey included, would have had to seek a little farther for some wonderful indication of his future greatness.

Let it not be surmised, from these observations, that we are inclined to deny the existence of early symptoms of mental superiority. Far from it. We acknowledge their existence, but with some reservation. We consider that a child, who hereafter raises himself above the common herd of mankind, is naturally endowed with a mind more vigorous than is that of others, and that this mind expands in proportion with his body. If we would look for superiority in infancy, we should watch for it in the hours of play; and if we found, when left to its own discretion, that a child of three years old felt no pleasure in the amusements suitable to his early age, but sought those more calculated for one of twelve or fourteen, we should not hesitate to pronounce that that child was more gifted naturally than the others. We say, we must see this superiority in play, not in cultured acquirements; for, from the latter, it is a most uncertain method of judging of infant capacities, for these may be overstrained from compelled exertion, and after promising every thing, children thus overtasked, too often perform nothing, and many an intellect, which, if not too soon injudiciously overforced, might have eventually proved vigorous and superior, has been wasted away by a mental slow poison, occasioned by undue excitement in the early stages of its powers. The mind, to grow vigorously, requires relaxation and repose, as well as the body, and precocity is more a proof of docility than of power. We have been led into these remarks, from a wish that the public might have been indulged with some few observations upon the earlier years of a person who, altogether, presented such a singular aspect to society, so little studying the meretricious, and so nobly following up the really good and the grand.

As recorded in the biography we are now noticing, the first time that Picton showed the embryo fire of that spirit and unshaken resolution that so much distinguished him afterwards, was in his prompt suppression of a dangerous mutiny of his regiment, which refused to disband themselves, and for which he received the thanks of the ministry at that time.

Not succeeding in procuring employment, he proceeded as a volunteer to the West Indies, and assisted materially, in that capacity, in the reduction of many of the islands in that quarter of the world, then in the possession of the enemy.

It is but too often, as Shakspeare has beautifully recorded, that our virtues turn traitors to us, and instead of assisting us to what we should hope would be virtue's reward, plunge us into difficulties, dangers, and too often, into temporary disgrace. The abilities, the courage, the prudence, that Captain Picton had displayed in every operation, connected with his perfect knowledge of the French and English languages, induced General Sir Ralph Abercrombie to appoint him acting governor of the Island of Trinidad, to the reduction of which he had so materially contributed.

Than Picton, no man was better qualified to rule a newly-acquired conquest, inundated as it was by all that was depraved and savage in society. Let the reader bear in mind that he was enjoined, most. strictly enjoined by his orders, and by the very wording of his appointment, in all civil matters, to enforce the law then existing, that