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HOLLAND.

The attention of the public in the Netherlands has been attracted to the Ancient Chronicles; and a Collection of Memoirs, relative to the History of the Low Countries, is announced for publication, by M. de Reiffenberg, who has commenced his useful undertaking by giving to the world the Memoirs of Jacques Du Clercq, from the hitherto inedited manuscripts of the King's Library. Though much inferior to Comines, these volumes are interesting and

important. They relate part of the wars between France and England; the flight of the Dauphin, son of Charles VII, into the Belgic provinces; the ambitious views of Philip, the good Duke of Burgundy; the violence of the Count de Charolais; the seditions of the Flemings; the beginning of the reign of Louis XI.; and the dreadful catastrophe of the Liegeois. M. de Reiffenberg, who has bestowed laudable pains on his author, intends, we understand, to publish Molinet, Dinterus, Antoine de Lalain, and several other Chroniclers, whose works have never yet been printed.

We have to record this month the death of a King and the execution of an Emperor, events which in a less marvellous age than ours has been, would have been deemed remarkable enough; but Kings and Queens in this day have been created with as much facility and shuffled away with as little concern as their motley representatives on a pack of cards. Louis XVIII. has departed to the same bourne with the exile of St. Helena, and Iturbide has followed with remarkable similitude the fate of the unfortunate Murat. Although Louis died a natural death on the morning of Thursday the 16th of September, he was put out of the world on the preceding Monday very circumstantially and unanimously by our exclusive intelligencers of the London journals. The day after they had formally announced his decease, a bulletin arrived stating that he had taken broth" three times within a few hours-a fact, which, if our brethren of the daily press can establish their account, will furnish a very striking proof of a person after death indulging vigorously in the propensities of his life-time. The statement, however, certainly does seem to require confirmation. It is not our intention to give the daily or rather hourly bulletins with which the French physicians prepared the people for this event; they clearly show that nature had been for a long time almost exhausted, and that for the last months of his existence at all events the royal

sufferer was merely the creature of medicine. That he endured much pain is clear from the expression in the dispatch of the English Ambassador who styles his complaint "a protracted agony; and that he endured it firmly and piously, it is only justice to him to state that all accounts concur in re

presenting. The first public declaration of his danger was contained in the following notification from his physicians dated at the Tuilleries, September 12, "six in the morning." "The old and permanent infirmities of the King having sensibly increased for some days past, his health has appeared extremely impaired and has been the subject of more frequent consultations. The constitution of his Majesty, and the attention that is paid him, have maintained for some days the hope of seeing his health restored to its habitual state, but it cannot now be dissembled that his strength has considerably declined, and that the hope that was entertained must be also weakened." This was signed by four physicians, and by the Comte de Damas, First Gentleman of the Chamber, and was sufficiently expressive of the event which, we have seen, took place in four days after. On the 13th the danger became so imminent that the King received the holy viaticum and the extreme unction, solemn rites of the Catholic church which are never administered except when the patient is considered as just departing. At

five minutes after eight, say the French papers, the Grand Almoner entered the chamber of the King, accompanied by the Bishop of Hermopolis, First Almoner, and one of the clergy of the chapel. His Royal Highness Monsieur, the Duke d'Angoulême, Madame, and the Duchess of Berri, attended the sacramental ceremony, carrying the lighted tapers. The Prince de Castelcicala, the President of the Council, the Ministers, the Grand Officers of the household, and generally all the persons in the service of his Majesty and their Royal Highnesses, were present at this august and affecting service! Such a concourse around a death-bed might in our mind have just as well been spared, unless it was imperatively demanded by some state necessity. Private details indeed concur in stating that Louis, though eminently pious throughout, showed great aversion to this public reception of the priesthood. After this service had ended, the Princes and Princesses of the Royal Family heard a mass in the chapel on acts of mercy. They then returned to the King, and received on their knees his blessinghis Majesty said, "Adieu, my children, may God be with you." They then heard mass for the sick, and again returned to the Royal chamber at the request of his Majesty, who raised his hand from the bed, saying, "In bidding you adieu, I wish to give you my blessing-may God be with you." Louis evinced throughout this scene remarkable calmness. Subsequently to this, the King's strength continued to decline, and at times the crisis became so alarming, that all around thought death inevitable at the moment; it, is said, however, that he himself predicted the day of his dissolution. On the morning of the 15th he desired that the prayers for the dying might be recited, and being unable verbally to deliver the responses, he told those around him that he would do so mentally. He requested that a crucifix might be given him, which he kissed repeatedly. When the Grand Almoner arrived to receive his confession, the King, turning to his successor, said, "My Brother, you have affairs which claim your presence-I have also duties to fulfil." The French journals, which are

perfectly rhapsodical at Louis's conduct, compare this expression to that used by Henry the Fourth to his confessor during the ceremony of the Queen's coronation, "I am thinking of the last judgment and of the account which we must render to God." Really it does seem to us no very flattering compliment to crowned heads to consider such thoughts or expressions coming from them as laudatory. We know of no king who is not quite as much interested in the "last judgment," as the very meanest of his subjects. It cannot be denied, however, that the final conduct of the late King of France eminently became him; were we obliged to point out the passage in his life which reflected on him most credit, we should select the period subsequent to the belief in his approaching dissolution. Immediately after the fatal event, the new King Charles the Tenth, the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and the Duchess of Berri, set out for St. Cloud. The manner in which the French papers speak of the late King and the present one is highly amusing and characteristic; they are peculiarly careful that their panegyrics on the dead shall show the survivor that they have some still to spare. The following is a fair specimen, or rather epitome of the entire: "How glorious, how holy is the agony of the most Christian King! Monarchs of the earth come and learn how to die. Sorrow is spread among the people; the father of the family is dyingweep all-weep. A new reign approaches; the noble son of Francethe model of honour and loyalty is called to the throne-Frenchmenlet us console ourselves." To say the truth of them, the good people of Paris are very facile of consolation-they were consoled by the Bourbons when Napoleon went to Elba-consoled by Napoleon when Louis went to the Holy Allies-consoled by Louis when Napoleon went to St. Helena, and no doubt, now that Louis and Napoleon are gone on the same journey, they will be as thoroughly, as tenderly, and as truly consoled by the Count d'Artois. About the personal character of the late monarch, there was nothing at all conspicuous, except his great appetite and proportionate digestion.

During the early years of the Revolution, he had, as is said, the ambition to become Regent, and he headed an opposition to Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette-he failed, and fled to Coblentz, of which flight he has left a bad literary but characteristic account; he attempted to organize the emigrants, but failed also; wandered about, occasionally a pensioner of Russia and Prussia, and an outcast of both; and then be came a guest of England, from which dependant situation he was rescued by the madness of Napoleon and the winter of 1814. The most remarkable circumstance which occurred to him during his dethronement, and a remarkable one certainly it is, is that at an obscure inn near Úloa, in Germany, his forehead repelled a horse pistol ball which was fired against it from an opposite window! There was not even a mark left upon his legitimate os frontis. His chief vanity, was an ambition of literature and mistresses-that the Muses fairly jilted him, his own publications are proof, and there certainly has been published nothing to prove any success in his less spiritual devotion: Madame du Cayla was his last avowed favourite, she was an acquisition subsequent to his restoration, which, having been accomplished at the age of sixty, it is only fair to her to say that in all probability her chief sin was its ostentation. Politically there is nothing to be said of Louis; his faults and his merits were adopted or rather dictated-the creation of the Holy Alliance: he had neither the power nor the inclination to rebel against those who created him, and therefore perhaps the sarcasm that "he learned nothing and forgot nothing," is more severe than just. Upon the whole, we sincerely hope we may never see a worse King either in France or elsewhere. The Christian fortitude of his death is undoubtedly an example to all men. Nothing has occurred in Paris since the death, except the ceremonies consequent upon every royal demise in France-the closing of the public places, the court mourning, the sprinkling of the corpse with holy water, &c. &c. There has been as yet no intimation anticipatory of any political change; indeed, there has been scarcely time for any. On the Sun

day preceding the King's death, Villele is reported to have said in his saloon, "France is menaced with a great misfortune; she is going to lose her king; but Monsieur is in the secret of state, and every thing is so arranged that there will be no change or commotion." No commotion there certainly has been, and that there may be no change we as certainly give Monsieur Villele the full credit for wishing; we never knew a minister who did wish for any, but whether there will be any or not, does not quite depend upon his ipse dixit. His opponents are hard at work, each in their vocations; for instance, Decaze has burst into the chamber of the late king, thrown himself upon the dead body, bathed it in tears (a good set-off against the holy water) and been carried away in the extreme of Parisian sensibility! Chateaubriant has published a pamphlet, lauding the late king as a paragon of creation, only surpassed by the man who was to succeed him, and has done it so effectually that he was received with open arms at the new court, warmly welcomed by the Duchess d'Angoulême, and even smiled on through his sorrow by the new made monarch. It requires more than even M. Villele's philosophy to predict what all this will end in. Charles X. has been of course proclaimed, and has received several of the public functionaries and bodies, to whom he has declared his intention of following in the footsteps of his predecessor; he has also declared his intention of presiding in person twice a week in his council, and therefore he will not make any subject president. Charles is in his sixty-seventh year; he is said to be a devotée, which is not unlikely, recollecting as we do what he was in his youth, and therefore the clergy anticipate good tidings; but the clergy should recollect two things: France is greatly changed, and princes are apt to change greatly also when they become kings; it is not impossible that the clergy and M. Villele may both find themselves mistaken in their calculations. Paris is changeable both in its silks and its statesmen. Some of our readers may perhaps wish to see how the succession in the Bourbon family stands at present; we give the male succession of course,

the Salique law in that country excluding females from the throne. Louis is succeeded by his brother Charles Philippe Count d'Artois.

Louis Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême, his son (Dauphin) born Aug. 6, 1775.

Henry, Duc de Bourdeaux, (son of the Duc de Berri), born Sept. 29, 1820. Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, born Oct. 6, 1773.

This last prince has five sons, the eldest born in 1810, and the youngest in 1822. The ninth in succession is the Duc de Bourbon, the father of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghein, nearly 70 years of age; there is an anecdote told of him which is worth relating. His proper title is Condè, and when his father died, it of course devolved on him-he had no children left and refused to assume it. "No," said he, "I am not worthy to be the last of the Condè's." It is a pity that such a family should cease. Grand arrangements are spoken of in Paris with respect to the funeral of the late King and the coronation of the new one-the sooner the one follows the other the better; a sudden transition from grief to joy will not much embarrass the Grand Nation.

We shortly noticed in our first sentence the failure of Iturbide, and the consequent death of that adventurer. There never perhaps was so senseless or hopeless an expedition. Our readers are aware, that early in May last, Iturbide sailed from this country in the English brig, Spring, in company with his wife and two children, and a foreigner of the name of Beneski. He had been exiled from Mexico by the Congress, after his abdication, and allowed a large pen sion on condition of his residing with his family in Italy: after a short time he left Italy and came to England, upon information of which event the congress stopped his pension. His excuse for leaving Italy was, that the Counter-revolution in Spain render ed his residence there unsafe; it seems, however, that after his arrival here, he wrote to Congress detailing the circumstances of his departure, describing the accounts which he had received of the distracted state of Mexico, and offering his services there as a mere soldier and citizen to restore the peace of the country. The Congress no sooner received this communication than they immediate

ly issued a decree, declaring him a traitor from the moment he might land in the Mexican territory, and appointing General Bravo, dictator, to act in the emergency of the Republic. On the 14th July, the Spring arrived at Loto Marina, and Beneski landing, applied to General Garcia, the Commander in the province, New Santander, for passports for himself and another person, representing that they were come to the country on a mining speculation, deputed by some eminent houses in Ireland, who had also commissioned them to make purchases of land to a large extent. Garcia granted Beneski a passport, but refused to grant the second until he saw the person for whom it was intended. Next day, the General was informed that Beneski, after returning to the ship, had again landed with two other persons and proceeded to the interior. A party was immediately dispatched after them, and they were overtaken a few leagues from the place where they landed; Iturbide was of course instantly discovered by General Garcia, who had, it seems, been one of his old military comrades. The decree of the 28th of April, authorizing his execution as a traitor the moment he landed on the Mexican territory was read to him, but Garcia not choosing to act strictly up to its letter, dispatched him to abide the decision of the Congress of the State, Taumalipa. The Congress instantly ordered him to be shot, and their order was accordingly carried into force on the very evening of his arrival at Padilla. Thus has terminated this extravagant and Quixotic adventure. So far as it has been disclosed, Iturbide seems to have acted in the most senseless way possible. There does not appear to have been any previous plan, or the slightest notice of his intention given to any of his partisans in Mexico, so that his landing, discovery, and death, were without commotion, and almost simultaneous. The same post apprised his friends of his arrival and death. A document has been since published in a London paper, purporting to be a proclamation issued by him upon his landing ; it does not appear, however, that he himself ever put forth this paper, so that in all probability it is but the copy of an original, which circum<

stances did not allow of his distributing abroad according to his intentions. He lost little by its suppression; it is a jejune, meagre, ill-conceived production, which could not have imposed on the credulity of a less intelligent people than those it was composed to deceive. In this proclamation, published here without a date, he pretends that he comes as a mere citizen and soldier, with no views of personal aggrandisement, but merely to serve his country by giving her the benefit of the information he had acquired in Europe, and counteracting the combined plans of French and Spanish policy. It is quite unnecessary to comment on such a production-independent of the personal character of Iturbide, who proved himself, when in power, to be neither more nor less than amere military despot; it is a fact, that his departure from England was publicly spoken of in M. Villele's coteries at Paris as being in contemplation a month before it happened; so that he seems to have kept up a pretty good understanding, at least with one of the parties whose policy he would persuade the Mexicans he landed to counteract. His death can be considered in no other light than as a national blessing to Mexico; for, while he lived, his name would have been a rallying word to the ambitious and disaffected. As it is, the catas trophe seems highly popular with the country at large; public rejoicings every where took place, and the city of Mexico was illuminated on receipt of the intelligence. The national exultation at the loss of a sig nal enemy has had in it nothing of inhumanity; on the contrary, the very first deliberation of the Congress after Iturbide's death was the settlement of a provision on his family, and with a liberality which does them infinite honour an annual pension of 8000 dollars was settled upon his widow. "He was ambitious, and they slew him," but their subsequent conduct shows that the ambition to overthrow such a government was mere selfishness, and deserved its fate. Some circumstances consequent upon this event disprove many previous accounts which we have received as to the state of the interior of the country. Even in the most remote district from the metropolis, the per

sons in authority did their duty promptly, and the intelligence was transmitted throughout the state with a rapidity which proves that the roads are not so infested with banditti, as to impede for a moment the means of communication. Indeed, the chief of these bands, Gomez, who commanded 300 men, and who was considered a partisan of Iturbide's, had proposed the terms of surrender. There can be no doubt that this event will give additional stability to the Government, and therefore must prove satisfactory to the friends of freedom. Bolivar is still in Peru, and report assigns to him the recapture of Lima and Callao; this intelligence rests merely on report, and reports in which the Stock Exchange is so manifestly interested should be received with caution: we shall be most happy next month to be enabled to publish their confirmation.

Having just detailed the fate of one ambitious enemy to the cause of freedom, we turn with pleasure to the contrast which the arrival of the friend of freedom in the same hemisphere produces. We might fill an entire number with the compliments paid to General La Fayette on his landing in America. The whole population received him with open arms; and his progress through the country has been one continued triumph. The account of his meeting with the few surviving soldiers of the revolutionary war is peculiarly affecting. La Fayette seems to be considered in fact as the guest of the whole nation-a nation of which he may be said to be one of the parents. What, and how enviable, now must be his sensations! A few years since he found her a petty province, struggling fearlessly, but almost hopelessly, against oppression he now revisits her, free and flourishing, a mighty nation, likely to retrieve and transmit all that is valuable amongst men! How much better and nobler would it be to have died attempting this, than to have lived and achieved the enterprise of Iturbide! As their objects have been different, so happily has been their success.

We copy from one of the late French papers the following piece of refreshing information. "On Thursday the 9th inst. at eleven o'clock, conformably to orders transmitted to the Ambassador