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THE KING OF SWEDEN.-March 8.-At Stockholm, His Majesty Charles John XIV. King of Sweden and Norway, and Sovereign of the Order of the Seraphim.

Of all that brilliant race of warriors and of statesmen called into sudden life by the terrible forces of the French revolutionary war to scour and sack the plains and cities of Europe, few were gifted with the more dignified and enduring energy which survived the crisis of their youth-one alone retained by his own deserts the kingly prize which had been flung to him. Of all the phantasmagoria of the French revolution, and the King-vassals of Imperial France, Bernadotte alone preserved to our day the position to which he had been raised; but he preserved it because, in a country jealous of its ancient liberties and of its national independence, he learned faithfully to observe the conditions of a constitutional government, and to maintain, even at the sacrifices of his personal sympathies, the honor and freedom of the land which had adopted him.

he flatly refused to serve in the army of England. With some difficulty he was persuaded to accept an embassy to Austria, from which he shortly returned. On the establishment of the Consulate, he received the staff of a Marshal of France, and in 1806 the title of Prince of Ponte Corvo was added to his other honors. In the German campaigns, as well as in the command which he held for a short time against the Chouans in the west of France, he was distinguished from all his military comrades by his consideration and generosity towards the conquered enemy. From 1806 to 1809 he commanded the first corps d'armée in the north of Germany; and it is recorded that his personal kindness to a body of 1500 Swedes, who had fallen as prisoners into his hands, first awakened among the younger officers of that nation those feelings of gratitude which led to his nomination as a candidate for the reversion of the crown of Sweden.

Of all the Imperial generals (for the sterner Republican spirits of the army had long been reJohn Baptiste Julius Bernadotte was born at moved from the scene) Bernadotte was the least Pau, the capital of Bearne, Jan. 26, 1764. His inclined to yield to Napoleon that servile deferparents were humble, but not of the very humblest ence which he so strictly exacted. The blemishes condition, as appears from the superior education of the Imperial regime, the abuse of military they were enabled to give him. Some accounts power, and the jealousies which had sprung up say that he was designed for the bar; but, in his between the grandees of that transitory court, had 16th year, he suddenly relinquished his studies, alarmed his caution, and, perhaps, offended his and enlisted as a private soldier into the Royal sense of justice. Suddenly, and by a personal Marines. Notwithstanding his superior acquire-impulse rather than by any subtle combination of ments and his good conduct, the year 1789 found Bernadotte only a sergeant; but after the revolutionary torrent swept away the artificial distinctions of society, and cleared the military stage for the exhibition and success of plebeian merit, his rise was most rapid. In 1792 he was Colonel in the army of General Custines. The year following he served under Kleber with so much ability and zeal, that he was promoted to the rank of General of Brigade, and almost immediately afterwards to that of General of Division.

In the ensuing campaigns, the new General served both on the Rhine and in Italy, and on every occasion with distinguished reputation; but he kept aloof from the conqueror of Italy-having even thus early taken up an ominous foreboding of his designs.

The weakness of the existing government, the talents, popularity, and character of the hero, and, above all, the contempt which he exhibited for the orders of the Directory, when opposed to his own views, might well create distrust in a mind so sagacious as Bernadotte's. He was so little disposed to become the instrument of Bonaparte's ambition, that, after the peace of Campo-Formio,

policy or intrigue, his name was mentioned at the Diet of Orebro, where the deputies of Sweden were assembled to choose a successor to Charles XIII. The consent of the Prince de Ponte Corvo had already been privately implied; that of the Emperor Napoleon was, not without misgivings, extorted from him. Bernadotte said, with characteristic acuteness, "Will your Majesty make me greater than yourself, by compelling me to have refused a crown?" Napoleon replied, "You may go; our destinies must be accomplished."

From that hour Bernadotte, or, as he was thenceforward styled, Charles John, Crown Prince of Sweden, turned with no divided affection to his adopted country. The first acts of his government were to refuse to recruit the French fleet at Brest with Swedish sailors, and to struggle against the oppressive exigencies of the continental system. In 1812 a secret alliance was formed between Sweden and Russia; and in the following year the Crown Prince assumed the command of the combined forces of Northern Germany against the French Empire. The reward of these services which he had rendered to the cause of European freedom, and to the armies of Sweden,

was his undisputed succession to that crown, which he owed neither to the sword nor to the arbitrary policy of his former master, but to the deliberate choice of the Swedish people. He showed himself worthy of the confidence of Europe by his undeviating adherence to those principles of order, justice, and forbearance, by which the maintenance of the general peace has been happily secured; and, by his frank and judicious compliance with the obligations imposed upon a sovereign by the free constitutions both of Sweden and of Norway, he earned the unbounded veneration of those nations. If we look back upon the annals of Sweden in the preceding half century, we are confounded by the perpetual revolutions which agitated the state and menaced the existence of its Kings. But since the accession of Charles John to the throne of Sweden, although the whole of Europe has at various times been shaken by important changes in the internal constitutions of its states, Sweden has continued to enjoy uninterrupted tranquillity and prosperity.

he did not intend, on that account, to forego his
own claim, as well as that of his family, to the
throne of Sweden."-Gent's Mag.

The long-expected death of the Duke of Angoulême took place at Goritz on the 3d instant, after months of suffering. The Duchess and Duke of Bordeaux were with the expiring exile. It is stated that the French Court have gone into mourning.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

Annuaire des Voyages et de la Geographie pour
l'année 1844, par une réunion de géographes et
de voyageurs, sous la direction de M. Frederic
Lacroix. Paris. 1844.

THIS is the first of a promised series of little It was on his birthday in the year 1840, after a works to be published annually, and which are reign of nearly 30 years, that Charles John XIV. to comprise a popular survey of whatever, worthy took occasion, in a speech from the throne, to of note, shall have been done in each year towards survey with parental satisfaction the condition of extending and enriching the field of geographical his dominions. The population of the kingdom knowledge. The design is excellent, and the was so much increased, that the inhabitants of execution of this first part is, on the whole, very Sweden alone are now equal in number to those creditable. As a specimen of cheap literature it of Sweden and Finland before the latter province is a marvel, even as considered with reference to was torn from the former. The commerce and the average rate of price for French publications. the manufactures of the country have been The body of the work opens with a 'Resumé des doubled, agriculture improved, instruction dif- Voyages de l'Année,' occupying fifty pages. Next fused, the finances raised from a state of great we have fourteen articles (170 pages), either oriembarrassment to complete prosperity, the na-ginal essays, or extracts from books of travels not tional debt almost paid off, a civil and a penal code proposed for promulgation, the great canals which unite the ocean with the Baltic have been completed, and lastly, the secular hostility of the Swedish and Norwegian nations has given way to mutual confidence, cemented by kindred institutions, and the enlightened government of the

same sceptre.

Such are the claims of the late sovereign to the respectful and grateful recollections of his people. Of all the princes of his time, he sought most steadily and effectually to concentrate the whole energy of his government on the internal duties which it had to perform. He found Sweden exhausted by centuries of foreign war, which were followed by endless reverses abroad and convulsions at home; he has left her at the head of the secondary powers of Europe, and well prepared to uphold her interests and her dignity in those important questions which the course of events may, at no distant period, open for discussion on

the shores of the Baltic.

A very interesting memoir of Bernadotte will be found in the volume entitled "The Court and Camp of Napoleon," but it is too long and too well known to be transferred to our columns on

this occasion.

Bernadotte married the sister of the wife of Joseph Bonaparte. His son and heir has assumed the royal authority, under the style of Oscar the Second, and announced his intention of continuing the government of Sweden and Norway in the footsteps of his late father. The Prince of Vasa, the heir of the old dynasty, has written from Darmstadt to all the great powers, to say that, "in the present position of affairs, he should certainly abstain from all demonstration; but that

yet published, some of which are highly interest-
ing. The rest of the volume is taken up with
reviews of recent works, of which twenty-seven
are noticed, and with useful tabular matter, lists
of books, &c. The following statement, put forth
on the authority of M. Hommaire de Hell, is
startlingly at variance with opinions hitherto re-
ceived. That traveller spent five years in ex-
ploring the countries between the Black Sea and
the Caspian. His work has recently begun to be
published in parts; we purpose giving our readers
some account of it when it shall have reached a
more advanced stage of publication.

"M. Hommaire has ascertained that the differ-
ence of level between the Sea of Azov and the

He

Caspian, is 18.304 millimètres (7.3 English inches)
not 108 mètres (354 English feet) as asserted by
Parrot and Engelhart in 1812, nor 25 mètres (82
English feet) as declared in 1839 by three mem-
bers of the Academy of St. Petersburg.
proves that this difference of level is not the con-
geologists suppose, but results simply from the
sequence of a depression in the land, as some
diminution of the waters in the Caspian. This
diminution he traces partly to the separation of
the two seas, and partly to the loss sustained by
the waters of the Oural, the Volga, and the Emba,
since the Oural mountains have been denuded of
their forests, and the regions along the banks of
the Volga have been brought into cultivation.
Every thing combines to prove that the Caspian
was formerly connected with the Black Sea in a
line passing through the basins of the Manitch
and the Kouma; and this junction would be re-
newed were the Bosphorus suddenly blocked up,
as is found by an easy calculation of the amount
of evaporation from the surface of the Black Sea,

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and of the quantity of surplus water that flows SELECT LIST OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

from it into the Mediterranean. The numerous salt lakes covering considerable spaces in the provinces of southern Russia, prove that the Caspian was formerly much more extensive than it is at the present day. It was the gradual retirement of the waters of that sea, that left behind those remarkable hollows from which the Russians extract vast quantities of salt."-Foreign Quarterly.

Southey's Poetical Works, complete in one Volume. pp. 800. Double columns. Longmans.

Like the late popular edition of Moore, the publishers have here collected the poetical treasures of Southey into a single volume, together with the separate explanatory and highly interesting prefaces to former editions. These present much for the critic to reflect upon, and are peculiarly worthy of attention for the author's criticisms upon himself, and anecdotes connected with the composition of so many immortal writings. For Southey is one of the immortals; and when we view the vastness and variety of the productions contained within this volume, we feel that we are within the shrine of a genius of original character, great attainments, and extraordinary powers. To say more now would be superfluous. The public has every reason to rejoice in being enabled to possess such a monument of literary devotedness and magnificent talent. It is a library

in itself.-Lit. Gaz.

The Rebellion in the Cevennes. An Historical Novel, in two volumes. By Ludwig Tieck. Translated from the German by Madame Burette. Nutt.

Tieck is becoming better known and better liked in England every day. This is one of the best of his historical stories exceedingly well translated.

The rebellion of which it embodies the principal feature was one of that long succession of insurrections in which the small Protestant sects, such as the Albigenses and Waldenses, vindicated themselves to the death against the crusades and oppressions of the papal power. The characters in this narrative are nearly all historical, and Tieck exhibits considerable art in the way in which he blends his facts, and the dramatic incidents he interweaves with them, so as to produce a romance no less picturesque than true.

These rebellions and struggles for freedom of religious opinion are favorite topics with the German writers, but none of them exceed in interest the bold circumstances attending the movement headed by Roland, the hero of Tieck's plot. To the English reader these stories ought to be no less attractive. England is the champion of the protestant world. The dispersed and hunted protestants of all denominations in all parts of the earth look to England, with much the same feelings as the followers of the Greek church look to Constantinople-short of the historical tradition which consecrates it as the metropolis of their religion. It is hardly necessary to commend Madame Burette's labor to every body who takes an interest in such topics.-Court Journal.

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History of the Church of Scotland, from the Reformation to the Present Time. By Thomas Stephen, vol. 2.

System of Political Economy. C. H. Hagen, LL. D. Translated from the German by J. P. Smith.

Journal of a Missionary Tour through the Desert of Arabia to Bagdad. By the Rev. Jacob Samuel.

ick William III., King of Prussia, as narReligious Life and Opinions of Frederrated by the Very Rev. R. Egbert, D. D., Bishop in the United Evangelical Church of Prussia.

Varronianus: a Critical and Historical Introduction to the Philological Study of the Latin Language. By the Rev. John William Donaldson, M. A.

Researches on Light. By Robert Hunt, Secretary to the Royal Polytechnic Society.

GERMANY.

Bibliotheca patrum ecclesiast. latinorum selecta. Cur. E. G. Gersdorf. Vol. xi. Firmiani Lactantii Opera. Tom. ii. Leip.

Vierteljahrs- Schrift, kirchliche. No. 2, (Ap.-Ju. 1844.) Berlin,

Atlas Von Asia. No. 2.: Karte Von China u. Japan. Von H. Berghaus. Gotha Ueber das Verhältniss der ägyptischens Sprache zum semitischen Sprachstamm. Von Th. Benfey. Leipzig.

Ad Suida Lexicon, græce et latine. fidem optimorum librorum exactum post Th. Gaisfordum recensuit et annotatione I. Fasc. vii. et ult. Halle. critica instruxit Godofr. Bernhardy. Tom.

FRANCE.

Illustres Médicins et Naturalistes des Temps Modernes. Par M. Isid. Bourdon. Paris.

1688-1830, ou Parallèle Historique des Revolutions d'Angleterre et de France sous Jacques II. et Charles X. Par M. le Comte Maxime de Choiseul-Daillecourt. Paris.

L'Inde Anglaise en 1843. Par le Comte Edouard de Warren, Ancien Officier au Service de S. M. Brittanique dans l'Inde, Presidence de Madras. Paris.

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