use of vaccination, though claimed by our eminent countryman as an original discovery. It was in 1784, according to his averment, that he made the disclosure to a Mr. Pugh, and Sir James Ireland, who communicated the precious counteraction of one of the greatest scourges of humanity to Dr. Jenner. So it is stated in the "Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales," article Vaccine; but it is thus that the fruits of British ingenuity are ever contested by our neighbours.

Madame Tallien, (vol. i., page 139,) is said to have married M. de Fontenoy; (it should be Fontenay,) the son of a Counsellor of the Parisian Parliament, whose family name was Devin. This union occurred in 1789, when she was only sixteen; but the bond was not of long continuance, though, with no apparent rupture of friendship; for, in 1793, I more than once heard her introduce him, with gay emphasis on the distinctive titles-as, "mon cidevant mari, aujourd'hui mon meilleur ami." She was then, truly, a most fascinating being; a lovely creature; and Tallien, whose appearance was genteel, and person elegant, little accordant, as it struck me, with his pre-gone acts and reputation, in yielding to the seduction of her charms, felt and submitted to their humanising inspirations, though the remembrance of his misdeeds fixed on her their terrible reflection, in the designation of "Notre Dame de Septembre;" which I may explain, by observing, that on the 8th of September, the Blessed Virgin's birth is celebrated, and called, "Notre Dame de Septembre;" but as Tallien was implicated in the horrible massacres of September, 1792, his wife (or mistress,) had this significant designation applied to her. To this transformation not only did many a

doomed individual owe his safety, but to it may be mainly assigned the deliverance of France from the fell thraldom and desolating rule, which have classed that epoch amongst the most terrific in the annals of time-the most atrocious in act, the most humiliating to advanced civilisation. His wife's imprisonment by Robespierre was, to Tallien, the signal of his own impending danger, which he could only dispel by the subversion of the despot; and he fortunately succeeded in the mortal strife. But the union, so productive of public good, ceased in 1802; and in

*The happy exercise of the ascendancy of their wives over Bonaparte and Tallien, has been the just and constant theme of public felicitation. Josephine, when Madame de Beauharnais, lived on terms of the closest intimacy with Madame Tallien, who always maintained that it was in her hotel that Bonaparte, of whose destitute condition, at that time, she related some curious facts, met his future empress. The character and conduct, indeed, of both ladies, presented many features of resemblance; for Josephine's life, even before her first husband's execution, had scarcely been more correct, though less defiant of public censure, than that of her beautiful, and, in her sphere, equally benevolent friend. But, should the stern obligation of history refuse to cast over those early aberrations a veil of oblivion, a redeeming counterpoise, as in the ulterior course of Augustus Cæsar, may be offered in the benign and beneficent influence of her imperial station. The acts and character of Octavianus gave, in like manner, little promise of the generous pardon granted by Augustus to Cinna, which Seneca, "De Clementiâ," lib. i., cap. 9, fondly dwells on, and which constitutes the plot of Corneille's noble drama, as well as in the opera, "Clemenza di Tito," of which the music was the last effort of Mozart's genius, as previously mentioned. Power, it is said, as love, should be maintained as it was acquired; but, fortunately for the Roman world, the emperor, when in possession of supreme authority, pursued not the path by which he had ascended to it. (See Seutonius, cap. i. 28; Dio Cassius, lib. 52, 58.) Tacitus, Annal. i., cap. 9, 10, poises in impartial balance both sections of his life. How often, too, does history record the humane concessions of Napoleon to his amiable partner, still more resistless, if possible, in grace of manner, than her beauteous compeer, in the perfection of feature and form. Amongst her numerous acts of beneficence may be specially mentioned the pardon of the two Polignacs, obtained by her in 1804, when found guilty, with the Vendean Chief, George Cadoudal, Moreau, Pichegrue, and others, implicated in a conspiracy against Bonaparte's life and government.

1805, this still attractive lady espoused the Count Joseph Riquet de Caraman, afterwards Prince de Chimay, whom she left a widower in January, 1835, not in 1836, as reported by Mr. White. She had children by M. de Fontenay, by Tallien, by her last husband, and, I am compelled to add, tutti quanti, most of whom are respectably settled; but some scandalous suits at law have sprung from this confusion of paternity, in which, however, the old axiom of jurisprudence-" Pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant," has prevailed, and triumphed over truth.

Chimay, situate within thirty odd miles of Mons, in Belgium, was erected into a principality by Charles the Bold of Burgundy, in 1480. in 1480. In 1250, it had belonged, as a lordship, to the house of Nesle-Soissons, and successively, in female transmission, to Jean de Haynault, Sire de Beaumont; to the Chastillons, Comtes de Blois, &c. In 1612, the principality devolved from the family of Croy to the Belgian stock of De Ligne Aremberg, and, from them, in 1686, to the Hénins-Liétard of Alsace, one of whom became the son-in-law of Saint Simon. (Mémoires, xx., 224.) Finally, in 1750, it passed to Victor Riquet de Caraman, a descendant of Pierre Paul de Riquet, the constructor of the Canal of Languedoc, that magnificent monument of the Great Reign, by his marriage with the heiress of the Hénins; and, on his death, in 1805, he was succeeded by the Princess's husband, almost immediately after their marriage. The close of this remarkable female's career, whom I frequently met in society, I think it right to add, was distinguished by a happy recurrence to religious feelings, and their resulting consolations. (See her article in the Biographic Universelle.)

At page 151, Mr. White confounds Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland,* with Pauline Bonaparte-one the daughter-in-law, the other the beautiful sister of Napoleon. And, in page 164, he makes the battle of Marengo, which occurred the 14th June, 1800, the anniversary of a day so fatal to the fortunes of Charles at Naseby, (1645,) precede the surrender of Mantua, here prematurely announced by Mr. Swinburne, the 3rd of December, but which did not take place till the 2nd of the ensuing February.

Mr. Chenevix (at page 189,) was son to Doctor Richard Chenevix, bishop of Waterford, who died in 1779, and was the friend and correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, as may be seen in his lordship's Miscellaneous Works.

*In the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XLI., under the article of "Mémoires sur la Reine Hortense, par Mademoiselle Cochelet," at page 294, it is stated that, during the occupation of Paris, in 1814, by the Allied Powers, this Queen's hôtel was taken possession of by the Prussians. "The floor," adds the reviewer, "on which was situated her apartment, was inhabited," &c., which is precisely the reverse of the original, where, inhabité, contrary to what would strike an English eye or ear, means uninhabited, as it always does, and as the tenor of the sentence equally proves.

The errors of our periodicals would, in fact, afford ample materials for a quarterly volume of no inconsiderable dimensions; and, perhaps, a more useful one could not be undertaken, in order to check the carelessness of critical writers; for they mislead, in place of informing, the unconscious reader, whose guidance is the professed, and should be the unvaried object of the reviewers themselves; but, "quis judicabit ipsos judices?"

In the Dublin University Magazine, No. CI., a fair anonymous traveller, (Miss Dickson, it is understood, niece to Sir William and Lady Chatterton,) in her entertaining "Letters from the Coast of Clare," (page 349,) asserts, that she found in the scanty book-furniture of a poor country priest, Bossuet's tragedies in French! Though rather familiar, I may say, with the works of the great prelate, the last Father of the Church, as he is distinguished by his countrymen's admiration, I never heard that the tragic muse had inspired any of them; unless, indeed, some exposures in his Variations may be mournfully viewed. But, as remarked by Erasmus, in these instances a comic conclusion generally crowned the originally tragic drama. The young lady, of course, mistook Bossuet for Racine.

The editor, I perceive, mistakes Barthelemy, the medalist, as he is called, and brother of the director, (letter of 7th June, 1797,) for their uncle, the author of "Les Voyages du Jeune Anacharsis," who died the 30th April, 1795, and, consequently could not have been the person mentioned by Mr. Swinburne as alive above two years after, at the date of his letter. I may also inform Mr. White that the "little Frenchman of the army of Condé," who managed Sir Sidney Smith's escape from the Temple, (vol. ii., page 288,) was Phélippeaux, educated with Bonaparte at the College of Brienne, but of opposite political principles in after-life. He was the companion of Sir Sidney at Acre, and greatly contributed to the defence of that citadel against his former school-fellow, in 1799. French partiality, indeed, assigns to the talents of Phélippeaux, as an engineer, the chief merit of that event, so important in its results; for this first check to Bonaparte's victorious career averted his ambitious aspirations from Asia to Europe, which then became the field of those achievements that have astonished and dismayed the world.

Madame de Houdetot, mentioned in volume ii., page 213, is lauded by Marmontel as a paragon of virtue, (Mémoires, tome iii., page 184,) because, though a married woman, and the avowed mistress of Saint Lambert, as represented in the article on Rousseau, she was satisfied with that one lover.*

"Une femme qui n'a qu'un galant," says La Bruyère, who is classed among the French moralists, "croit n'être point coquette." See also, Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, (11th December 1675,) where she refers to La Rochefoucault's maxim, stating that it was more common to find a woman without a lover than one who confines herself to a single favorite-" qu'il était plus rare de trouver une femme, qui n'eût qu'un amant, que d'en trouver une qui n'en eût point eu." In fact, the barrier of virtue once broken, the passions let loose spurn all restraint.