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obligations to the victorious party-would have biassed his mind and his pen against the royal family; but such was their admirable and irreproachable conduct, and such, we willingly add, is the candour of M. Roederer, that there are very few expressions of which even a royalist would complain, and scarcely a statement, except as to his own conduct, which requires correction. On other points M. Roederer's offences are not of commission, but of omission-he is erroneous, not in fact, but in feeling-he tells, perhaps, nothing but the truth, but he does not tell all the truth-he states minutely enough whatever he thinks favourable to his own case, but he takes little notice of a variety of other persons and circumstances which influenced, though not in so great a degree as M. Roederer, the events of that night; and the way in which his anti-royalist bias most strongly shows itself is in the dry, cool, and almost sneering spirit in which he saw and records scenes of such pathetic heroism as would have touched the heart and softened the style of any one but a doctrinaire.

It is, however, fair to recollect, that M. Roederer professes to write only a chronicle, and a chronicle, moreover, limited to his own share of the transactions, and with a view to the defence of his own individual character. This in strictness may be a sufficient excuse, but it is a dry hard line, to which no man of feeling would have adhered—and we will even say, that his own conduct cannot be fairly estimated, without a fuller exhibition of the emotions and sentiments-the fears-the hopes-the courage-the weaknessby which he was surrounded, and which ought to have had their respective influences on his conduct. The truth we are convinced is, that he takes little notice of such circumstances, because he knew that they had nothing to do with his determination. That had been already taken in the councils of the Palais Royal or the Gironde, and Roederer's mission was, we have no doubt, to drag the King to the Assembly'-by advice-by persuasion-by intimidation-any how. Without taking upon ourselves to censure too decidedly this policy, which had at least the momentary merit of removing the King from the scene of the conflict, we may be allowed to express our distaste of the mean and fraudulent spirit in which it was conceived and executed.

As to the prudence of a different course and the probabilities of the success of resistance, they can now be but matters of argument and opinion; but as we live in times in which similar questions have been and may again be brought to practical experiment, it may not be useless shortly to consider the subject. It suited M. Roederer's policy to think, on the 10th August, that all resistance was impossible. We have seen, however, that on the 20th June, when he was a more impartial judge, he was of a quite

VOL. LV. NO. CX.

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quite contrary opinion, and alleged his own experience in the case of Metz, where 600 men, without the shelter and advantage which the Tuileries would have afforded its defenders, repelled 6000 assailants. In the next place, it is admitted on all hands that the very project of the insurrection was founded upon, and its execution confided to, the battalion of Marseillais, who did not exceed 800. It is certain, too, that, whether from pusillanimity or from better feelings, the Parisians could not have been brought to assault, except in the train of the Marseillais. Equally certain it is, that when, after the retreat of the King, the Marseillais and their followers had advanced into the courts,-possessed themselves of the guns,-occupied the very vestibule of the palace, and had there murdered five of the Swiss on the staircase when, we say, under all these disadvantages, the Swiss were driven, in the extremities of self-defence, to retort hostilities and to attack the assailants, the Marseillais and their supporters were utterly defeated. This is undeniable-and M. Ræderer not only admits but corroborates it by the evidence of an eye-witness, whose authority on such a point as this is equally unquestionable and interesting

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Napoleon told me in the month of December, 1813, that he was present at the affair. "As an officer of artillery, Sire?" I asked.

No," said he;" as an amateur. The Swiss [who had in their first sally retaken the guns] served the artillery vigorously. In ten minutes the Marseillais were driven back as far as the Rue de l'Echelle, [that is, not only out of the courts of the palace, but out of the Carousel,] and only came back after the Swiss had retreated by the King's order!” '—p. 405.

This is decisive as to the facts as they were; but how much more effective would the resistance of the Swiss have been if it had been made under the eyes of the King-by order of the magistrates at the command of their proper officers, and supported and aided by the National Guards, of whom two or three battalions were staunch to the last, and the greater part of whom would probably have been so if they had been encouraged by the constituted authorities?

But, on the other hand, we do not deny to M. Roederer that there was an enormous risk-and that few men would have ventured to incur the fearful responsibility of exposing not merely the Royal Family but a great palace-full, not of soldiers, but of women and old men, servants, and other non-combatants—to the chances of an assault. Besides M. Roederer was not in any way responsible for the King's conduct-his Majesty's ministers were all present, and should not have allowed Roederer to interfere in what was really the business of his constitutional advisers. And after all it must be confessed that it would have required an in

finitely

finitely more powerful mind than Roederer possessed, either to have inspired the King himself with an energy adequate to the emergency, or to have assumed the burden of saving his Majesty in spite of himself. Passive courage, personal fortitude, the King possessed in the highest degree, but the danger of his wife and family unnerved him, as it might have done more energetic men; and he had, above all, a fixed determination-laudable in feeling, but fatal in practice-to suffer anything rather than have recourse to bloodshed. On the 4th August one of his old ministers, M. de Montmorin, showed him the approaching danger, and urged him, as the only means of avoiding an actual conflict, to leave Paris under the escort of the Swiss and of his still numerous friends-the King, after some consideration, replied

No; I am less afraid of the personal danger with which I am threatened than of a civil war.'-Peltier, ii. 293.

That amiable but erroneous feeling produced all the miseryand in an aggravated extreme-that it desired to avoid; and, whatever may have been the political motives of M. Roederer's conduct, it is, we think, impossible to deny that, considering the personal character of the King and the posture of affairs at the moment, the retreat to the Assembly was—after the murder of Mandat-the most prudent course which could be adopted. But we have no approbation to express of M. Roederer's share in the events which produced this crisis, and we cannot but deplore that, when he quitted the palace with his appointed prey, he did not, agreeably to the King's humane suggestion, take some measures to prevent a collision between the hostile parties,-to ensure the safe retreat of the faithful Swiss, and to protect the lives of the crowd of non-combatants who were left behind in the palace. He might not have been successful in such an effort-but he ought to have made it—or at least when he was writing an apology for his share in the 10th of August, he ought to have explained by what overpowering control he was prevented from making even the slightest exertion to save the palace and its defenceless inhabitants from plunder and massacre.

NOTE.-Since the foregoing pages were printed, we have learned that Count Ræderer died at Paris in the night of the 18th December, suddenly, after having attended the evening before a sitting of the procès monstre; in which, as in every other monstrosity of the successive usurpations he has lived under, he was a ready and subservient instrument. Our readers will have seen that our article was written in the idea that we were examining a witness who was capable of answering us. Could we have foreseen that this was not to be the case, the style of our article would of course have been somewhat different-though there is nothing to change in the substance.

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ART. III-1. Provincial Glossary. By Francis Grose, Esq. London. 1811.

2. Supplement to the Provincial Glossary of Francis Grose, Esq. By Samuel Pegge, Esq. London. 1814.

3. An Attempt at a Glossary of some Words used in Cheshire. By Roger Wilbraham, Esq. London. 1826.

4. Observations on some of the Dialects in the West of England. By James Jennings. London. 1825.

5. The Hallamshire Glossary. By the Rev. Joseph Hunter. London. 1829.

6. The Dialect of Craven. With a copious Glossary. By a Native of Craven. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1828.

7. The Vocabulary of East Anglia. By the late Rev. Robert Forby. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1830.

8. A Glossary of North Country Words. By John Trotter Brockett, F.S.A. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1829.

9. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. By John Jamieson, D.D. 2 vols. 4to. Edinburgh. 1808.

10. Supplement to ditto. 2 vols. 4to. 1825.

11. Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words. By the late Rev. Jonathan Boucher. 4to. Parts I. and II. London. 1832, 1833.

IT

is justly observed by Johnson-whose theoretical ideas of philology were, like those of many teachers and preachers, much better than his practical performances that the language of our northern counties, though obsolete, (i. e., discontinued in written compositions,) is not barbarous. On another occasion the Doctor told Boswell, that his meditated dictionary of Scottish words would be a very useful contribution towards the history of the English language. For our part, we never refer to that extraordinary work, Cotgrave's French Dictionary-the value of which is perhaps now better known in France than in England-without a feeling of regret that its author did not employ the same industry and research in collecting the obsolete and dialectical words of his native tongue. Not a few works, both in verse and prose, current in his time, and containing, doubtless, valuable materials for the illustration of the literature of the Elizabethan period, are irretrievably lost; and since then many genuine Saxon words have gradually disappeared from the language of common life, especially in the southern and midland counties, which, if carefully preserved, would have freed the present race of antiquaries and critics from a great deal of uncertainty and error. However, it avails nothing to lament the archaisms which have sunk in the ocean of oblivion, together with Wade and his boat Guingelot. We cannot, perhaps,

repair the injury we have sustained in this way, but we may check its increase by making a diligent collection of those which still survive. The books named at the head of the present article show that various attempts of this sort have been made, aud in various quarters. They possess, as might be expected, different degrees of literary merit; but all furnish materials of some value to the philologist and the critic, and will doubtless be thankfully received by those who are aware of the importance of the subject.

We consider it superfluous to discuss the causes of dialect in the abstract, or to attempt to establish a clear and positive distinction between the vaguely employed terms dialect and language. The apparently simple question,-Is Gaelic a tongue per se, or a mere dialectical variety of Irish? is not without its intricaciesnay, not without its perils-to a peaceably disposed man. Within the English pale the matter is sufficiently clear; all agree in calling our standard form of speech the English language, and all provincial deviations from it—at least all that assume a distinct specific character-dialects. How and when those different forms originated has never yet been fully explained: there is, however, no doubt that some of them existed at a very early period. Bede observes, that Ceawlin was the West Saxon form of Calin; and a nice observer may detect diversities of grammatical and orthographical forms in our Anglo-Saxon MSS., according to the province of the transcriber.* The remarks of Higden on the subject, though neither very profound, nor, as we think, quite correct, are by no means devoid of interest :

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Although the English, as being descended from three German tribes, at first had among them three different dialects; namely, southern, midland, and northern: yet, being mixed in the first instance with Danes, and afterwards with Normans, they have in many respects corrupted their own tongue, and now affect a sort of outlandish gabble-(peregrinos captant boatus et garritus). In the above threefold Saxon tongue, which has barely survived among a few country people,† the men of the east agree more in speech with those of the west-as being situated under the same quarter of the heavens -than the northern men with the southern. Hence it is that the Mercians or Midland English-partaking, as it were, the nature of the extremes-understand the adjoining dialects, the northern and the southern-better than those last understand each other. The whole speech of the Northumbrians, especially in Yorkshire, is so harsh and rude, that we southern men can hardly understand it.'‡

The late Mr. Price promised a work on the Anglo-Saxon dialects: we do not know whether his collections on the subject are still in existence. This, literally interpreted, would denote that the Anglo-Saxon language was not yet quite extinct.

Polychronicon R. Higdeni, ap. Gale, pp. 210, 211.

We

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