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THE 


MONTHLY     MAGAZINE 


OR 


BRITISH   REGISTER 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCES,  AND  THE  BELLES-LETTRES. 


Series, 


JANUARY   TO    JUNE,   1827. 

___    RESENTED 

=  8  DEC  1848 

VOL.  III. 


LONDON: 
PUBLISHED  BY  GEO.  B.  WHITTAKER,  AVE-MARIA  LANE. 

1827. 


LONDON: 
MIACKELL  AND  BAYL1S,  PRINTERS,  JOHNSON's-COURT,  FLEET-STREET, 


PREFACE 

TO    THE    THIRD    VOLUME. 


IN  commencing  the  Third  Volume  of  our  NEW  SERIES  of  the  MONTHLY 
MAGAZINE,  we  take  leave — perhaps  at  the  hazard  of  being  deemed  obtru- 
sive— to  offer  a  few  words,  on  our  own  account,  to  the  public.  We  have 
no  disposition,  in  general,  to  talk  about  ourselves  ;  for,  besides  that  there 
prevails  (we  understand)  a  considerable  distaste  in  the  world  to  read  upon 
such  subjects,  they  are,  of  all  others  in  the  world — as  every  author 
knows  who  has  tried  the  experiment — the  most  difficult  and  unmanage- 
able to  write  about.  But  there  are  "occasions  when  it  becomes  almost 
the  unavoidable  duty  of  men  conducting  a  literary  speculation  of  some 
magnitude,  to  remind  their  friends  of  what  their  pretensions — great  or 
small— to  patronage,  are ;  as  well  as  to  return  those  friends  thanks  for 
the  favours  which  they  have  received. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  latter  task,  as  the  most  grateful.  We  have 
to  return  thanks  for  that  patronage  which  has  enabled  us — starting  with 
our  NEW  SERIES  as  we  did,  at  a  period  of  unexampled  depression  in  the 
Book-trade — to  congratulate  ourselves,  from  the  commencement  of  our 
labours,  upon  a  steadily,  and,  of  late  upon  a  rapidly,  increasing  circula- 
tion. It  would  be  ridiculous  to  publish  any  documents,  as  apparent  evi- 
dence of  this  fact.  On  such  evidence  the  public  can  never  have  any 
check;  and  that  circumstance  alone  would  be  a  sufficient  reason  for 
our  not  proposing  it ;  even  if  it  were  not  the  case— as  we  regret  to  say 
it  is — that  the  gross  fallacies  daily  set  forth  to  the  same  purpose, 
have  long  made  such  declarations  worthless  in  the  eyes -of  persons  of 
experience  and  judgment.  The  evidence  of  our  prosperity  we  wish  to 
be  found — that  is,  as  far  as  the  public  is  concerned  in  finding  it  at  all— - 
not  in  statements  got  up  as  to  the  sale  of  our  Magazine,  but  in  the  qua- 
lity and  character  of  our  Magazine  itself, — in  the  increased  talent 
which  that  success  enables  us  to  employ  in  our  original  papers ;  in  the 
information,  foreign  as  well  as  domestic,  which  it  enables  us  to  provide 
upon  all  general,  interesting,  and ,  particularly  upon  scientific  subjects; 
and  in  the  general,  typographical  arrangements  of  the  work — a  point 
which,  in  these  days,  becomes  of  no  mean  importance  ; — all  these  advan- 
tages having  been  afforded — as  far  as,  in  the  opinion  of  our  friends,  they 
may  have  been  attained— with  a  very  trifling  alteration,  indeed,  it  will 
be  recollected,  to  our  price. 

We  commenced  our  NEW  SERIES,  as  we  have  already  observed,  under 
circumstances  of  some  difficulty.     The  Magazine  had,   up  to  that  time, 
M.M.  Nevt  Series VoL.III.  B 


2  PREFACE. 

been  produced  at  a  very  cheap  rate ;  but  then  it  was  certainly  pretty 
stupid.  In  fact,  there  does  seem  to  be  a  spell  upon  the  gratis  contri- 
butors :  they  would  be  invaluable,  if  they  could  write ;  but,  unhappily, 
it  generally  happens  that  they  cannot.  It  was  obvious  that,  in  the 
improved  state  of  literary  periodical  publications  generally — weekly 
newspapers  invading  the  once  high  occupation  of  reviews — and  three- 
penny brochures  digging  out,  wholesale,  all  those  mines  of  various  infor- 
mation, which,  in  a  more  golden  day  for  Magazine  writing,  used  to  make 
up  the  celebrity  of  our  own  publication,  and  "  The  Gentleman's  " — it  was 
clear  that,  under  such  an  altered  state  of  things,  the  Magazine  must  alter 
too, — or  it  must  die.  The  voyages  to  Brighton  and  Margate  of  "  Philo- 
Aquaticus;"  the  historical  and  interminable  queries  of  "An  Investigator ;" 
the  inventions  of  "  Humanitas  "  for  catching  mice,  not  by  their  necks,  but 
their  tails ;  or  the  poetic  effusions — united- — of  all  the  initials,  from 
A  to  Z,  in  the  alphabet, — could  not  stand  against  such  writers  as  were 
dashing  and  skirmishing,  in  "  Blackwood's  Magazine,"  or  the  "  New 
Monthly,"  or  even  in  the  "  London." 

Under  such  circumstances,  and  having,  both  from  our  capital  and  our 
connexions,  the  means  of  commanding  the  best  writers  of  the  day,  we 
determined  to  change  the  system  of  the  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE  :  and 
we  are  gratified  in  being  able  to  say  that  our  experiment  has  been  suc- 
cessful. Of  the  names  of  our  contributors,  custom  forbids  us  to  speak  ; 
— we  trust,  however,  that  their  writings  will  speak  for  them  ;  and  thus 
much  we  will  venture  to  say — the  truth  of  which  will  be  sufficiently  ascer- 
tainable  by  those,  who  will  not  be  backward  in  proving  it  an  exag- 
geration, if  it  be  so — that  they  consist  not  only  of  the  most  esteemed 
writers,  who  have  distinguished  and  are  distinguishing  themselves  in  the 
first  periodicals  of  the  day — but  from  a  list,  which,  taken  in  its  collective 
strength,  no  similar  publication  will  be  found  able  to  excel. 

Of  course,  a  system  like  this — as  it  was  not  commenced  without  risk — 
so  it  will  not  be  maintained  without  exertion.  But  the  risk  has  succeeded  ; 
and  the  exertion — in  success — will  not  fall  off.  Nor  can  we  safely  state 
that  our  new  course  has  not  given  offence  to  some.  We  speak  not  of  our 
rivals  in  public  attention — but  to  some  who  were  our  constant  and 
esteemed  subscribers.  There  are  persons  to  whom  the  tone  of  our 
politics  has  been  displeasing.  Others  have  regretted  the  substitution  of 
our  present  more  humorous,  poetical,  or  literary  dissertations,  for  those 
"  matter-of-fact"  discussions,  which — as  a  late  correspondent  reproaches 
us — used  to  be  the  staple  commodity  of  the  Magazine. 

"  Who  builds"  (as  the  proverb  says)  "  in  the  way  where  all  go  by, 
Shall  make  his  house  too  low  or  too  high." 

To  the  first  class  of  these  objectors,  we  scarcely  hope  to  answer  quite  satis- 
factorily ;  for  we  cannot  hold  out  any  prospect  of  our  departure  from  opi- 
nions, which  have  been — be  they  correct  or  erroneous — founded  upon 
our  best  view  of  public  advantage.  We  pin  our  political  faith,  not  upon 


PREFACE.  3 

individuals,  but  upon  facts  and  principles.  We  have  no  party — nothing 
to  gain  from  one  interest,  or  to  apprehend  from  the  other.  Our  broad 
object,  as  we  have  already  declared,  is  the  general  good ;  our  endeavour 
always  to  give  our  aid  to  that  party  which  seems  most  in  need  of  it. 
Under  such  feelings,  it  will  not  be  deemed  extraordinary,  if  we  fre- 
quently find  ourselves  in  the  situation  of  opposing  the  wealthy,  who  are 
our  natural  friends  and  supporters — and  siding  with  the  poor,  from  whom 
we  can  gain  nothing.  The  general  good,  however,  it  is  that  forms  the 
safety — and  the  only  real  safety — of  any  country.  Those  advantages 
which  one  part  of  society  holds  at  the  expense,  and,  unfairly  to  the 
detriment  of,  the  rest,  are  pregnant  to  themselves,  no  less  than  to  their 
opponents,  with  danger  and  with  mischief;  and  our  aim — for  which  we 
challenge  the  strictest  scrutiny — though  it  may  be  by  the  freest  dis- 
cussion to  elicit  truth,  will  never  be  to  kindle  discord,  to  agitate  or  to 
inflame. 

Above  all,  we  trust  that  our  Magazine  will  never  be  found  a  vehicle 
for  that  low  malignity — that  spirit  of  private  detraction — that  base  and 
scandalous  style  of  personal  slander — whether  we  treat  on  politics,  lite- 
rature, or  education — which  is  too  prevailing  a  vice — we  regret  to  say 
so — of  the  present  day- 

We  desire  here  not  to  be  mistaken.  We  set  up  no  charge  of  per- 
sonality ourselves ;  nor  acquiesce  in  any  of  the  vulgar  ones  which,  from 
interested  and  obvious  motives,  have  been  attempted  to  be  set 
up,  in  some  quarters,  by  other  people.  We  object  to  no  discussion, 
however  severe,  of  any  man's  public  conduct.  We  see  no  crime  in  the 
amplest  canvas  of  his  political  or  literary  claims,  nor  to  the  freest 
declaration  of  opinion  upon  them ;  to  the  comment,  in  fact,  upon  any_ 
thing,  which  a  man's  own  act  has  brought  before  the  public  eye.  But  we 
deprecate  and  detest  the  thought  of  pandering  to  an  appetite,  which 
naturally  rules  to  royalty  among  the  bad,  and  which  has  an  existence, 
perhaps,  even  in  the  very  best  examples  of  human  nature ;  the  search- 
ing into  private  life  for  anecdotes  and  misfortunes,  to  feed  the  ear  of 
malice  or  unthinking  curiosity — with  a  species  of  attack  against  which  the 
most  cautious  man  in  society  has  no  shield,  and  by  which  the  most  ho- 
nourable and  virtuous  may  be  distressed,  and  made  the  butt  of  vulgar 
insult.  We  trust,  in  the  same  way,  that,  in  our  general  dissertations,  we 
shall  ever  be  found  to  speak  reverently  of  those  authorities  which  custom 
maintains — and  which,  while  they  are  maintained,  he  violates  good 
breeding  who  refuses  his  respect  to.  Our  principle  will  be  this,  upon 
every  emergency— that  the  course  generally  received  is  right,  until  it 
shall  be  shewn  that  it  is  wrong ;  and,  whatever  our  differences  may  be, 
for  this  we  pledge  ourselves  to  the  utmost — that  they  shall  be  managed 
always  in  a  spirit  of  courtesy,  of  fairness,  and  of  liberality. 

Therefore,  if  we  cannot  convict  those  who  think  differently  upon  poli- 
tical subjects  from  us,  we  hope  to  conciliate  them ;  if  we  do  not  get  them 
to  read  us,  we  at  least  hope  for  their  candid  construction  and  esteem. 


4  PREFACE. 

But  those  who  merely  dislike  the  general  change  of  system  in  our  Maga- 
zine, we  hope  to  do  better  with ;  and  to  assure  them  that,  along  with 
some  matters  of  literary  amusement,  and  perhaps  instruction,  which  they 
had  not  before,  we  shall  continue  to  give  them  at  least  as  "  much  mat- 
ter-of-fact" as  they  possessed  under  the  reign  of  our  predecessors. 
For  the  truth  is — "all  is  not  gold," — our  matter-of-fact  friends  will 
be  aware  of  this, — "  that  glisters ;"  and  a  very  great  deal  of  the 
"  fact "  which  used  to  delight  them  in  this  Magazine,  we  are  very 
much  afraid  was  apochryphal.  There  never  could  have  been,  we 
suspect,  all  that  great  number  of  extraordinary  oysters,  and  hens 
with  one  leg,  and  gooseberries  as  big  as  pumpkins — with  which 
they  used  to  be  delighted,  month  after  month,  in  the  way  of  "  fact  j" 
and  the  discussions  of  "  A."  and  "  B."  about  curing  smoky  chimnies, 
and  managing  household  servants,  the  world  may  be  assured  had  abso- 
lutely no  truth  in  them :  for — here  is  the  proof— chimnies  continue  to 
smoke,  and  housemaids  to  be  slatternly,  to  this  day. 

We  do,  therefore,  intreat  these,  our  good  friends — many,  for  instance, 
who  have  personally  written  to  us — to  look  at  us  again.  We  do  think  that 
they  will  find,  in  the  way  of  serious  discussion,  more,  a  great  deal,  in  the 
Magazine  now  than  they  even  used  to  find  before.  And  for  the  Wonders — 
why  they  ought  to  be  noticed  ;  and  we  have  engaged  a  gentleman  every 
month,  to  write  a  "  Letter  to  a  Friend  in  the  Country  "  upon  that  parti- 
cular subject,  which  we  publish  for  the  comfort  of  our  provincial  corres- 
pondents. And,  besides — as  we  wish  to  hit  all  tastes  as  well  as  we  may — 
we  hereby  give  notice, — that  we  will  do  something,  now  and  then,  about 
curing  the  tooth-ache,  and  pickling  onions,  in  the  small-letter  paragraphs 
at  the  end. 

For  the  rest — having  detained  our  readers  long  enough — we  have 
only  to  assure  them,  in  sober  earnest,  that  no  branch  of  information  or 
amusement  shall  be  neglected  in  the  Magazine.  An  addition  has 
recently  been  made  to  our  foreign  correspondence,  which  will  enable  us 
to  give  increased  novelty  and  interest  to  our  article  of  "  Varieties ;"  and 
the  various  matters  of  domestic  information,  for  which  our  work  has  long 
been  esteemed — the  Medical,  Agricultural,  Meteorological,  and  Com- 
mercial Reports — the  Biographical  Memoirs — Proceedings  of  Learned 
Societies — Lists  of  Promotions,  Patents,  &c.  &c., — will  continue  to  be 
derived  from  such  sources  as  form  the  most  perfect  guarantee  for  their 
correctness  and  authenticity.  With  which  assurance  we  take  our  leave, 
with  every  respect,  of  the  Public  for  this  time;  wishing  them  all,  according 
to  the  phraseology  of  the  season,  "  a  Happy  new  year."  And  to  our 
SUBSCRIBERS  especially— towards  whom  a  little  partiality  may  be  excu- 
sable— very  sincerely  adding,  "  a  great  many  happy  returns "  (pro- 
vided they  continue  to  subscribe)  of  the  same  salutation. 

1st  January  1827. 


THE 

MONTHLY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  III.]  JANUARY,  1827.  [No.  13. 


THE    CATHOLICS    OF    IRELAND. 

IT  is  a  heartless  task,  even  for  the  most  zealous  advocate,  to  plead  the 
cause  of  any  set  of  men,  whose  personal  conduct,  however  unquestionable 
their  political  claims  may  be,  must,  in  the  public  mind,  create  a  preju- 
dice against  them.  Human  nature  is  always  slow  to  recognize — how- 
ever obvious  the  fact  may  be — either  title  or  virtue  in  the  thing  which 
it  dislikes  ;  and  men  may  reasonably  be  difficult  of  belief,  when  any  indi- 
vidual comes  forward  complaining  of  injustice,  whose  general  bearing 
they  know  (practically)  to  be  that  of  violence  and  offence. 

And  in  this  predicament — whatever  may  be  the  excuse  set  up  for  it — 
it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  now  stand,  Were 
England  the  only  party  concerned,  the  cause  of  "  Emancipation  "  might 
be  carried  to-morrow.  Our  Catholic  countrymen — the  poorest  of  them — 
are  too  far  educated  and  informed,  for  us  to  be  very  apprehensive  of  their 
being  charmed  with  seditious  insolence,  or  biassed  by  priestly  craft.  Their 
complaints,  until  of  late  years,  were  little  heard,  because,  individually, 
they  felt  little  inconvenience  from  their  disabilities.  And,  as  a  body,  they 
had  no  "leaders,"  because  they  were  hardly  numerous  enough  to  be  created 
into  an  "  aggrieved  faction,"  by  brawling  on  behalf  of  which,  obscure 
people  might  erect  themselves  into  notice.  In  Ireland,  however,  the 
pressure  of  the  "  exclusions  "  operated  differently ;  and  the  temper  in 
which  they  were  treated,  therefore,  took  a  different  aspect.  The  heavy 
amount  of  interests  at  stake,  made  the  trade  of  emancipation,  there,  a  game 
worth  following ;  and  these  are  not  times,  even  in  Ireland — thanks  to 
the  effect  of  our  "  general  education  " — in  which,  when  an  opportunity 
offers  for  six  men  to  ride  into  consideration  upon  the  shoulders  of  sixty 
thousand,  such  directors  are  backward  to  be  found.  So  that,  in  Ireland, 
the  fact  being,  that  the  "  wrongs  "  of  the  Catholics  have  (perhaps  fortu- 
nately) placed  a  good  number  of  persons  on  horseback,  who  must  walk  on 
foot  again  whenever  those  wrongs  cease  to  be  discussed,  it  becomes  tole- 
rably certain  that  their  discussion  will  never  cease,  short  of  their  redressal. 
And,  however  obstinately  England  may  persist  to  exercise  her  power  of 
refusing  concession,  as  long  as  "  rent "  can  be  collected,  and  the  cost  of 
holding  meetings,  at  which  speeches  can  be  made,  sustained,  she  has 
small  chance  of  being  delivered  from  importunity. 

For  ourselves,  we  cannot  stir  one  step  upon  this  subject,  without 
plainly  declaring,  that  we  protest  against  any  inference,  that  we  couple  or 

M.M.  Neiv  Series.— VOL.!!!.  No.  13.  B 


6  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [JAN. 

mix  up  the  question  of ««  Catholic  rights  "  with  the  conduct  of  the  Catho- 
lic leaders,  or  even  with  the  conduct  of  the  Catholics  themselves.  What- 
ever excuses  may  go  to  palliate  the  conduct  of  the  Irish  Catholics  within 
the  last  five  years,  we  have  no  choice  but  to  avow  our  disapprobation  of 
that  conduct,  and  our  more  than  disapprobation  of  the  individuals  by 
whom  it  has  been  advised.  We  have  not  a  word  to  say  in  favour  of 
Catholicism  as  a  system  ;  and  we  take  it  to  be  an  error  which  time — and 
not  a  very  long  time — will  be  sufficient  to  disperse.  We  look  upon  Mr. 
O'Connell  and  his  friends  as  disturbers,  on  whom  the  law  should  keep 
its  eye  ;  and — for  any  thought  of  growing  authority,  or  ascendancy, 
attaching  to  their  creed — we  would  hazard  the  peace  of  England  almost 
upon  the  bare  suspicion  of  any  such  event  to-morrow.  But  we  believe 
it  has  been  shewn,  by  all  history,  and  all  experience,  that  men's  opinions 
— it  matters  little  upon  what  subject — are  seldom  to  be  changed  by 
coercion,  and  still  less  by  advice  or  importunity.  The  conduct  of  the 
Catholic  is  repulsive,  and  his  faith  (we  think)  is  that  of  ignorance  and 
error ;  but  he  labours  for  the  common  sustenance,  and  he  has  fought  for 
the  common  safety.  The  true  question  is,  then,  not  whether  we  like  his 
demeanour  ? — for  he  will  hardly  improve  it,  on  being  told  that  we  do  not. 
Nor  yet,  whether  what  he  demands  (ungraciously  enough)  will  benefit 
him? — for  of  that  it  is  for  himself  to  judge.  But  the  question  is,  whe- 
ther we  are  withholding  from  the  Catholic— no  matter  how  his  manners 
seem  to  us — that  which  is  his  due  9  For  we  have  no  right  to  punish  inso- 
lence with  the  penalty  belonging  to  treason ;  or  to  refuse  payment  of  a 
creditor's  money  (especially  where  it  has  been  long  owing),  because  we 
quarrel  with  the  way  in  which  he  happens  to  bring  in  his  bill.  If  we 
withhold  from  the  Catholic  even  the  slightest  privilege — the  smallest 
point  of  freedom  or  immunity — more  than  we  are  compelled  to  bar  him 
from,  for  the  public  safety  and  the  public  good  ;  then,  at  once,  without 
more  argument,  we  are  doing  him  injustice,  and  he  is  entitled  to  relief. 

Our  opinion  is  favourable  to  the  removal  of  many  of  the  restrictions 
which  now  affect  the  Catholics  ;  but  it  does  not  extend  to  the  conceding 
quite  all  the  liberties  which  they  claim  ;  nor  does  it  arise  from  any  expec- 
tation of  immediate  advantage  to  be  gained  by  such  concession  to 
Ireland. 

It  seems  frivolous  to  us,  for  instance,  and  almost  impertinent,  that 
Catholics  should  talk  of  being  allowed  to  "  practise  as  lawyers  "  in  our  Pro- 
testant Spiritual  courts ;  and  still  more  unreasonable  that  they  should 
think  of  holding  "  beneficial  offices " — say  teacherships,  or  church- 
livings  ? — in  the  universities  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  To  talk  of  ground- 
ing any .  such  "  claim  "  upon  the  fact  that  those  universities  were 
"  founded  by  Catholics,"  is  just  as  absurd  as  if  Dr.  Doyle  were  to  claim 
a  right  to  turn  the  Protestant  clergy  out  of  three-fourths  of  the  churches 
and  Cathedrals  in  England,  and  convert  them  into  chapels  for  Roman 
Catholic  worship — for  they  also  were  "  founded  by  Catholics." 

In  the  same  way  with  respect  to  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  which  the 
English  Catholics  complain  can  only  be  legally  solemnized  by  a  Pro- 
testant clergyman.  Looking  at  this  point  fairly,  marriage  partakes  so 
materially  of  the  nature  of  a  civil  contract,  that  it  becomes  highly  con- 
venient, with  reference  to  civil  interests  merely,  that  some  fixed  rule 
should  be  laid  down  for  its  execution.  And,  for  the  satisfaction  of  scru- 
pulous consciences,  there  is  the  immediate  remedy — the  ceremony  may 
be  performed  twice  over — performed  by  a  Catholic  clergyman,  either  after 
the  solemnization  of  the  Protestant  rite,  or  previous  to  it. 


1827.]  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  7 

A  third  point— and  one  of  far  more  consequence — upon  which  we  are 
opposed  to  the  demands  of  the  Catholics,  rests  upon  the  plain  expression, 
and,  as  it  seems  to  us,  unavoidable  interpretation,  of  a  very  important 
document  in  their  cause — the  Catholic  Bishop's  Ordination  oath.  If  it 
is  said  that  we  stand  here  upon  a  "  question  of  words," — then  we  must 
answer,  that  to  the  giving  up  of  "  words  "  (which  have  no  meaning),  there 
can  be  no  rational  difficulty  or  objection  ;  and  that  when  we — who  are  the 
stronger  party — are  prepared  to  concede  so  much  which  has  real  meaning 
to  the  Catholics,  it  looks  suspicious  any  pride  or  refusal  on  their  part 
about  giving  up  a  very  little  (which  is  said  to  have  no  meaning)  to  us. 
The  oath,  however,  sworn  by  every  Catholic  Bishop  to  the  court  of 
Rome  on  his  appointment,  shall  speak  for  itself.  And  it  stands  thus  : 

"  I,  from  this  time  forward,  will  be  obedient  to  my  Lord  the  Pope,  and  to 
his  succssors." — 

To  this  there  is  no  objection. 

"  The  counsels  with  which  they  trust  me  /  will  not  disclose  to  any  man." — 

To  this,  we  will  not  take  any  objection. 

"  I  will  assist  to  maintain  the  royalties  of  St.  Peter  against  all  men"— 

This  might,  perhaps,  be  a  little  doubtful. 

"  I  will  carefully  preserve,  defend,  and  promote  the  rights,  privileges,  and  au- 
thorities of  the  Pope." — 

Even  this  we  will  suppose  to  be  meant  merely  in  a  spiritual  sense ; 
though,  seeing  that  spiritual  objects  are  attained — and  always  have 
been — by  temporal  means,  we  are  not  so  clear  as  we  could  desire  to 
be,  about  the  "  great  gulph"  which  parts  an  ecclesiastical  from  a  civil 
ministry. 

But  our  immoveable  objection  arises  upon  the  next  clause : 

"  I  will  not  be  in  any  action,  council,  or  treaty,  in  which  any  thing  prejudicial 
to  the  person,  right,  or  power  of  the  Pope  is  contrived  ;  and,  if  I  shall  know  any 
such  things  treated  of,  by  any  whomsoever,  I  will  to  the  utmost  of  my  power 
hinder  them,  and  with  all  speed  signify  them  to  the  Pope.** 

Now  the  question  here  is  not  a  question  of  expression.  In  the  old 
Latin  copy  of  the  oath  before  us,  the  line, — "  prejudicial  to  the  power  of 
the  Pope,  &c.  is  contrived,"  would  read  more  strictly  "  is  plotted " — the 
latin  word  used  being  "  machinentur"  But  there  is  a  plain,  direct,  and 
obvious  undertaking,  in  the  whole  meaning  of  the  paragraph,  to  "hinder" 
and  "  give  information  of"  all  policies  treated  for  purposes  hostile  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Catholic  faith.  Thus  much,  then?  seems  certain.— 
(We  are  coming  now  to  the  question  of  admitting  Catholics — or  making 
them  eligible  to  be  admitted — to  the  Privy  Council.) — That  right  of  admis- 
sion could  never  be  enjoyed  by  Roman  Catholic  subjects  universally ; 
because  Catholic  Bishops — of  their  own  act — must,  we  apprehend,  be 
shut  out  and  exempted  from  it.  No  man  who  had  taken  the  oath  which 
we  have  just  copied,  could— as  it  seems  to  us — without  direct  perjury, 
afterwards  take  the  Privy  Counsellors  oath ;  because,  having  already 
stuorw  to  communicate  and  disclose,  to  a  particular  individual,  everything 
(upon  a  particular  subject)  which  should  come  within  his  knowledge,  he 
would  there  have  to  swear,  most  deeply  and  unequivocally,  never  to  dis- 
close any  thing  to  any  individual,  or  upon  any  subject,  of  that  which 
should  come  within  his  knowledge.  The  words  of  the  Privy  Counsellor's 
oath  are  these : — 

"  You  shall  keep  close  and  secret  all  such  matters  as  shall  be  treated,  dis- 
puted, detailed,  or  resolved  on  in  council,  without  disclosing  the  same,  or  any  part 
thereof.'*— 


8  The  Catholics  of  Ire] and .  [,!AX. 

And  even  "  if  any  matter  which  is  propounded  shall  touch  any  person 
sworn  of  the  council,  you  shall  in  nowise  open  the  same  to  him,  but  keep  it 
secret" 

Now,  if  this  be  a  question  of  "  words,"  it  is  such  a  question  of  words 
as  Catholic  honour  and  Catholic  conscience  are  very  deeply  interested  in 
properly  arranging ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  clear,  we  apprehend,  than 
that,  while  the  Ordination  oath  remains  in  its  present  state,  no  Catholic 
Bishop  could  take — much  less  keep — the  Privy  Council  oath.  But  we 
go  beyond  this ; — we  think,  upon  a  very  little  consideration,  it  will 
appear  incontrovertible  that  Catholics  must  be  excluded  from  the  Privy 
Council  altogether.  Because,  practically,  we  know  that  the  duty  of 
"confession"  must  place  that  which  is  in  the  knowledge  of  every  Catholic 
— especially  where  the  interests  of  religion  were  at  stake — within  the 
knowledge  of  his  priest.  And  it  seems  hardly  questionable,  that  what- 
ever knowledge  the  priest  acquires  under  such  circumstances,  he  must 
find  it  his  duty  to  communicate  that  knowledge  to  his  superior,  the 
Bishop ; — who  is  already  siuorn  to  "  signify  the  same,"  with  "  all  possible 
speed,"  to  the  Pope.  To  admit  any  Roman  Catholic  nobleman  or  gen- 
tleman, therefore,  into  a  council,  in  which  matters  directly  important  to 
Protestant  safety  and  Protestant  advancement,  at  home  and  abroad — 
matters  "  clearly  prejudicial  to  the  power  of  the  Pope  "—may,  in  all  or- 
dinary probability,  be  treated  of,  while  there  exists  a  prescribed  and 
certain  line  of  communication  open,  by  which  the  views  of  that  council 
will  be  conveyed  to  the  power  most  vitally  interested  in  frustrating  them, 
— and  through  that  power,  in  all  probability,  directly  to  a  foreign 
enemy — to  do  this  would  be  to  go  to  an  extent  of  liberality — or,  more 
properly  speaking,  of  rashness — for  which  we  say,  unhesitatingly,  we 
are  not  prepared.  Independent  of  the  two  objections  which  present  them- 
selves more  immediately  to  any  such  admission— first,  that  (to  shorten 
the  channel  of  mischief)  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  a  nobleman, 
who  was  a  Privy  counsellor,  might,  at  once,  have  a  Bishop,  personally, 

*  A  good  deal  of  fencing,  and,  we  might  almost  say,  quibbling,  appears  to  have  been 
used  in  the  course  of  the  examination  before  the  House  of  Lords,  as  to  the  statement  or 
production  of  this  "  Catholic  Bishop's  oath ;"  and  Dr.  Doyle,  who  does  not  produce 
the  oath,  states  a  clause  lately  inserted,  which  he  thinks  removes  all  possible  objection 
toit:  — 

i"  HCRC  omnia,  et  singula  eo  inviolabilius  observabo,  quo  certior  sum  mini  in  illis  con- 
tineri  quod fidelitati  mece  erya  Serenissimum  Magnce  Britannia  et  Hibernian  Rcycm  ejusque 
ad  Thronum  successor es  debite  adversari  possit ,-" — 
which  Dr.  Curties,  the  titular  Bishop  of  Armagh,  translates  thus  : 

"  I  so  much  the  more  willingly  take  this  oath,  because  I  see  that  it  contains  nothing 
but  what  is  perfectly  consonant  to  the  duty  I  owe  to  the  Serene  King  of  Great 
Britain." 

Dr.  Curties,  however,  gives  the  oath  itself;  from  which  we  extract,  in  the  reve- 
rend gentleman's  own  words,  the  following  passage  : — 

"  Neque  ero  in  consilio,  vel  facto,  seu  tractatu,  in  quibus,  contra  ipsum  Dominum  nos- 
trum, vel  eandem  Ecclesiam,  aliqua  sinistra  vel  prejudiciulia  personarum,  juris,  honoris, 
status,  et  POTESTATIS  eorum  machinentur.  Et  si  talia  a  QUIBUSCUNQUE  tractari  vel 
procurari  novero,  IMPEUIAM  hoc  pro  posse;  et  quanto  citius  potero  SIGNIFICABO  eidem 
Domino  nostro,  vel  alteri  per  quern possit  ad  ipsius  notitiam  pervenire." 

Now,  if  any  person  deems  this  oath  "  perfectly  consonant"  with  the  oath  and  duty 
of  a  British  state-minister,  or  Privy-counsellor,  we  will  only  say  at  present — with 
that  person  we  are  at  issue. 


1827.]  -     The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  9 

fo:-  his  spiritual  director;  in  which  case  much  of  the  circuit  of  informa- 
tion is  spared,  and  the  communication  with  the  foreign  court  is  direct 
and  ready: — and,  secondly,  that,  subject  merely  to  the  understood  and 
admitted  obligation  of"  confession,"  we  do  not  see  how  any  Catholic  could 
conscientiously  take  the  Privy  Council  oath — or  any  tether  oath — by  which 
he  would  swear  never  to  "  confess  " — or,  in  other  words,  to  "disclose" — 
any  thing  of  that  which  shall  pass  in  his  hearing  to  any  human  creature  ! 

We  know  perfectly  well  that  this  is  not  a  line  of  argument  likely  to  be 
popular ;  and  that  politicians  always  make  the  most  impression  when  they 
look  at  only  one  side  of  the  subject.  Indeed  it  is  curious  to  see  how 
completely  the  convenience  of  that  course,  in  public  affairs,  is  recog- 
nized, by  the  very  parties  who  would  shrink,  with  the  greatest  horror,  from 
it,  in  any  matter  of  private  inquiry.  The  noble  and  learned  Lord  who 
occupies  the  woolsack,  and  who  is  understood,  of  all  men  in  the  country, 
to  have  made  up  his  mind  the  most  irreversibly  against  the  claims  of  the 
Catholics,  is  proverbial — and  perhaps  honourably  so — for  the  difficulty 
which  he  finds  in  making  up  his  mind,  in  the  most  trifling  claims  of 
individual  right.  If  our  speculations  are  to  tend,  however — even 
remotely — to  any  practical  or  profitable  purpose,  that  object  can  only 
hope  to  be  advanced  by  our  exhibiting,  not  merely  the  arguments  on 
one  side  of  the  case,  but  a  balance  of  the  difficulties  or  advantages 
attendant  upon  both  ;  and  therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  while  we  are 
favourable  to  the  conceding  nearly  all  the  material  eligibilities  demanded 
by  the  Catholics  ;  on  the  other,  we  are  bound  to  say,  that  there  are  some 
which  we  should  refuse  to  yield  them.  And,  moreover,  disposed  as  we 
are  for  the  safety  and  benefit  of  Ireland,  to  go  to  the  very  farthest 
point  that  we  dare,  in  favour  of  the  Catholic  body,  yet  it  would  be  dis- 
guising the  difficulty  of  our  case  if  we  were  not  distinctly  to  avow,,  that 
we  look  for  very  little  of  that  sudden  advantage  to  Ireland,  from  such  a 
course,  which  some  of  the  more  thorough-going  advocates  of  emanci- 
pation so  confidently  anticipate. 

Now  we  should  be  ready,  were  it  in  our  power,  to  grant  to  the  Catho- 
lics, immediately,  their  admission  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  to  the 
House  of  Peers ;  their  elective  franchise  in  England  ;  and  full  corporate 
rights  in  Ireland.  We  would  allow  them  to  claim  silk  gowns  at  the  bar  ; 
and  all  the  Judgeships,  except  the  highest  in  Chancery,  and  those  of 
the  Ecclesiastical  courts ;  and,  in  short,  give  them  every  material  privi- 
lege which  they  claim,  excepting  only  the  rights  of  sitting  in  the  Privy 
Council ;  of  being  chosen  to  the  highest  active  offices  of  State,  and  to  the 
first  commands  in  the  army  and  navy.  And  yet  we  have  no  belief  that, 
if  all  this  were  done  to-morrow,  Ireland  would  at  once  be  materially 
benefited — or  even  that  the  factious  clamour,  which  makes  the  thought 
of  that  country  so  loathsome  to  the  souls  of  all  people  in  this,  would  be 
likely  to  cease. 

We  are  quite  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  any  immediate  benefit,  in 
the  way  of  "  conciliation,"  can  be  expected  to  accrue — from  the  granting 
to  one  fierce  and  irascible  body,  that  power,  which  another  body,  nearly 
as  fierce  and  unmanageable,  has  for  years  been  striving,  life  and  soul, 
to  keep  from  them.  For  any  relief  expected  to  the  worn-out  ears  of 
the  people  of  England  !  — Out  of  the  "Emancipation"  itself,  on  the 
contrary,  new  matter — in  profusion — for  trading  orators  to  make  ha- 
rangues about,  would  arise.  Something — and  this  would  not  be  a  trifle 
— would  have  to  be  sakl  in  the  way  of  triumph,  for  what  had  been 

M.M.  New  Series.  VOL.  III.  No.  13.*  C 


10  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [  jAtf. 

gained.  Something,  too,  on  the  possibility — and  this  might  very  fairly 
lead  to  a  fresh  dispute — on  the  possibility  of  taking,  by  special  pleading, 
a  little  more  than  had  really  been  conceded.  A  great  quantity  of  argu- 
ment would  still  be  marketable — purely  because  so  much  had  been 
granted — in  disputing  for  the  remainder  which  was  still  denied.  And 
the  division  of  the  "  loaves  and  fishes  " — the  complaint  that,  after  right 
to  office  was  admitted,  appointment  to  it  was  withheld— that  some  Pro- 
testant was  made  attorney  general,  when  the  post  ought  to  have  been 
given  to  a  Catholic — or  that  some  Catholic  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of 
constable,  merely  because  he  neglected  his  religious  duties,  and  had  been 
three  Sundays  together  absent  from  mass — these  would  be  grievances, 
not  only  to  go  on  in  discussion  incessantly  for  many  years,  but  such  as 
something  might  be  said  from  time  to  time  upon,  absolutely  to  eternity. 

The  evils  too,  unhappily,  under  which  Ireland  labours,  are  too  many 
and  too  real  to  be  cured,  as  by  a  charm,  by  the  passing  of  any  single 
bill  through  the  English  Houses  of  Parliament.  We  have  never  looked 
at  "  Emancipation "  as  at  a  question  which,  in  that  country,  would 
merely  affect  the  few :  but  its  success  this  hour  would  not,  in  one  mo- 
ment, give  peacefulness  and  education  to  the  lower  classes  of  the  Irish — 
temperance  and  charity  to  the  few  resident  gentry — or  a  disposition  to 
live  among  those  by  whom  they  live,  to  the  wealthy  absentees.  A  soil, 
which  its  owners  have  abandoned  to  mercenary  strangers  to  rack  and 
make  their  profit  of — upon  which  not  even  any  stranger  will  live,  who 
has  a  competence  to  live  any  where  else.  A  population  so  dense  and 
crowded,  as  to  be  lowering  the  market  for  labour — to  ruin — upon  each 
other :  desperate  from  having  no  evil — scarcely  even  death  as  an  evil — 
to  fear;  and  lawless,  even  from  that  very  perfect  destitution,  which 
leaves  them  nothing  to  hope  for,  nothing  to  protect.  A  disregard,  com- 
mon to  all  ranks,  of  neatness,  decency,  and  of  that  peculiar  quality 
which,  in  England,  we  call  "  comfort."  Crimes  of  a  nature  the  most 
savage  and  ferocious  ;  a  constant  trust  in  falsehood,  and  in  some  jobbing, 
crooked  policy  ;  and  an  almost  insane  propensity  about  the  whole  people 

their  wants  absolutely  apart — to  acts   of  violence  and  fury.     These 

causes  of  ill — relieved  by  some  few  bright  qualities  (but  scarcely  useful) 
— the  virtues  of  a  barbarous  age — are  the  great  features  which  present 
themselves  to  a  stranger  in  his  first  view  of  the  state  of  Ireland  :  and 
these  are  not  calamities  which  the  removal  of  Catholic  restrictions 
(alone)  can  cure. 

The  mistake  of  the  argument,  however,  here — as  upon  too  many  other 
subjects — seems  to  us  to  be  the  pressing  always  for  immediate  and 
extreme  results.  If  we  can  do  little,  by  any  single  measure,  for  the 
relief  of  Ireland  in  the  present,  a  time  must  come,  at  which  we  shall 
have  to  lay  a  groundwork  for  improvement  to  that  country  in  the  future. 
Admit  the  statement,  that  the  Catholic  restrictions  do  not,  "  in  fact," 
touch  one  in  five  thousand  of  the  Irish  population  ;  yet,  do  we  not  know 
that,  "  in  fact,"  it  is  not  for  "  fact"  alone — for  reality — and  for  something 
which  may  be  "  had  and  received  " — that  men  cut  one  another's  throats 
by  thousands  ?  How  many  more  than  the  "  one  in  five  thousand,"  in 
any  society,  are  really  affected  by  their  admissibility,  or  non-admissibility, 
to  posts  of  power  and  distinction  ?  and  yet,  who  would  venture  to  pro- 
pose an  Act  of  Parliament  in  England,  by  which  the  meanest  mechanic 
was  to  be  shut  out  from  his  right  of  competing  for  that  power  and  dis- 
tinction ?  The  first  step — begin  when  we  will — taken  towards  improving 


1827.]  '  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  1 1 

the  resources  and  condition  of  Ireland,  must  be  the  annihilation — cause 
and  effect — the  tearing  up  by  the  roots,  and  casting  forth — of  that 
accursed  Party  spirit,  which  no  man  but  one  who  has  lived  in  Ireland  can 
credit  the  extent  of.  Our  first  step  must  be  to  make  the  country  habi- 
table—endurable to  others  than  those  who  have  no  power  to  escape  from 
it.  For  it  is  trash  to  talk  of  Absenteeism — of  the  non-residence  of  the 
wealthy — as  other  than  as  a  stab  to  the  very  heart  of  prosperity  in  Ireland. 
Does  she  not  want,  to  degradation  and  to  starving,  that  better  order  of 
labour — that  more  profitable  employment — which  would  arise  from  the 
expenditure  of  large  sums  annually,  in  objects  of  convenience,  of  luxury 
and  splendour  ?  Does  she  not  want,  still  more  pressingly,  the  presence 
and  example  of  a  class  of  persons,  whose  tastes  (at  least)  convenience, 
habits  and  advantage,  are  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  order,  moral 
sense,  and  general  security,  about  them  ?  She  will  never  obtain  this 
advantage — she  never  can  obtain  it — while  every  village,  every  parish, 
in  her  dominions,  is  the  hourly  scene  of  personal  and  party  discord ;  or 
while  the  bare  suggestion  of  religious  or  political  discussion  raises  her 
whole  population — like  the  sound  of  a  tocsin — in  fury,  and  thirst  for 
bloodshed,  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  Ireland  is  a  fertile 
country — a  cheap  country — blessed  with  a  mild  and  wholesome  climate  ; 
governed  (as  far  as  transactions  between  man  and  man  are  regulated)  by 
equitable  laws  :  what  foreigner — for  ease,  for  economy,  or  retirement — 
takes  up  his  residence  in  Ireland  ? 

As  Irish  society  stands  now,  neither  creed  or  dogma  form  any  real 
matter  of  consideration  ;  the  name — the  mere  nominal  distinction — 
Catholic  or  Protestant — is  enough.  Those  who  are  the  most  regardless 
upon  the  religious  part  of  the  question,  do  not  hate  each  other  the  less 
savagely — the  less  part  thought  of  mercy  or  forbearance — on  the  political 
part  of  it.  Every  Catholic,  as  the  law  at  present  stands,  is  born  a  marked 
'  and  an  excluded  man  :  this  fact  alone,  though  he  possessed  the  virtues  of 
an  apostle,  is  enough  to  blast  his  moral  sensibilities,  and  warp  and 
influence  his  conduct  throughout  life.  His  Protestant  neighbour — no 
more  than  his  equal  in  wealth,  in  lineage,  or  in  acquirement — perhaps  his 
inferior  in  every  one  of  these — is  born  to  rule  over  and  surpass  him  ! 
And  there  is  no  strength  in  human  sufferance  to  submit  to  this.  From 
students,  they  come  together  to  the  Bar ;  ten  years  are  passed,  and  the 
Protestant  must  step  before  his  Catholic  rival — take  precedence  of  him  in 
the  court — give  the  law  to  him  from  the  Bench,  in  his  profession. 
In  political  life,  the  first  may  sit  within  that  House,  from  which  the 
last  must  be  excluded.  As  a  churchman,  he  succeeds  to  high  dignities, 
to  wealthy  revenues  and  emoluments,  which  his  proscribed  neighbour 
may  never  hope  to  enjoy  ;  but  which  his  proscribed  neighbour  must  help 
to  pay  for.  Now,  where  the  common  chances  of  fortune  produce  this 
inequality,  the  loser  forgives  the  triumph  ;  but  we  repel  the  insolence  of 
a  superiority,  which — apart  from  merit  or  exertion — is  provided  for  by 
law.  A  man,  without  wealth — without  talent — character — without 
visible  superior  pretension  of  any  kind,  cannot  be  tolerated — merely  in 
virtue  of  his  belonging  to  a  particular  class,  or  faction — to  bestride,  and 
overbear,  and  bully,  and  soak  up  all  countenance  or  authority  from  the 
otherwise  more  naturally  powerful,  and  more  meritorious  individuals 
who  surround  him.  Wherever  any  unfair  job  of  this  kind  is  attempted, 
wherever  a  system  of  favoritism  (backed  merely  by  superior  force,  or 
undue  influence)  is  contrived  to  be  introduced,  the  unfailing  conse- 

C  2 


12  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [JAX. 

quence  is,  that  it  gives  birth,  not  merely  to  a  state  of  constant  discord 
and  of  party  warfare,  but  to  a  warfare  of  the  meanest  malevolence,  of 
the  most  dishonourable  fraud  and  artifice  ;  of  insult — slander — trea- 
chery— in  short,  a  warfare  which  brings  every  baser  passion  of  our 
nature  into  play.  Thus  it  is  that  an  Irish  political  quarrel  exhibits  fea- 
tures which  fill  every  man  but  an  Irishman  with  astonishment :  there  is  a 
savage  ferocity  about  all  its  details  which  shocks  him,  and  always  a  spirit 
of  low  stratagem — of  falsehood  or  equivocation — from  which  he  recoils. 

It  is  folly,  or  wilful  sophistry,  to  speak  of  these  dissensions  as  agitating 
the  higher  classes  of  Ireland  only.  The  quarrel  of  the  master  must 
become  the  quarrel  of  the  servant,  even  where  the  interests  of  both 
were  not  identified,  and  the  same.  Who  is  there  can  doubt,  that  the 
rich  Catholic  must  have  influence  with,  or  over,  his  poorer  neighbour 
or  dependant  ?  That  he  will  use  that  influence,  by  all  means — law- 
ful, or  unlawful — to  counteract  the  power  that  unjustly  galls  and  presses 
upon  him?  That  the  Catholic  peasant,  on  his  part,  will  think  and  act 
in  concert  with  his  Catholic  landlord,  whom  he  sees  shut  out  from  his 
natural  place  and  birthright,  for  the  maintenance  of  their  common  faith  ? 
Our  first  object  then  should  be;  if  we  have  a  thought  seriously  to  benefit 
Ireland,  to  cut  off  that  source  of  eternal  feud  and  quarrel — that  scourge 
to  all  prosperity  in  the  country — the  distinction  and  preferment  of  one 
class  of  its  inhabitants  to  another.  If  that  object  cannot  be  obtained 
entirely,  then  our  aim  should  be,  to  obtain  it  as  nearly  as  possible  ;  to 
abolish  all  preferences,  as  far  as  the  very  boldest  policy  will  permit,  so 
as  to  give  to  the  Catholics  the  greatest  possible  interest  (consistent 
with  security)  in  maintaining  our  existing  system,  if  we  cannot  give 
them  a  disposition  to  be  entirely  content  with  it.  And  this  is  what  ive 
would  understand  by  the  term  "  Emancipation." 

For  the  extent,  then,  to  which  farther  concession  might  be  carried,  we 
have  already  intimated  our  belief,  that  to  seats  in  the  Privy  Council, 
and  to  some  few  situations  of  high  and  direct  authority  in  the  state,  it 
would  be  incongruous  that  Catholics  should  be  admitted.  We  cannot 
admit  into  those  particular  councils  of  a  State,  the  very  essence  of  the 
proceedings  of  which  is  secrecy,  an  individual  whose  first  principles  of 
faith  would  render  the  keeping  secret  those  proceedings  a  spiritual 
crime.*  But  to  the  concession  of  all  the  other  material  immunities 
demanded — the  admission  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament — (councils  the 
proceedings  of  which,  however  important,  are  not  directly  secret) — the 
right  to  places,  generally,  of  honour  and  profit  in  the  law — and  to  the 
privilege  and  freedom  of  all  corporations  ;  to  all  these  admissions  we  are 
disposed  readily  to  consent,  nor  can  we  find  any  danger  capable  of  arising 
out  of  them,  even  deserving  to  be  mentioned. 

For,  admitting  all  the  worst  religious  tenets  ascribed  to  the  Catholics 
to  be  founded  in  fact,  and  that  we  have  every  danger  to  apprehend  as  far 
as  concerns  their  will,  we  cannot  see  how  these  new  privileges  would 
give  them  the  power  of  doing  any  mischief. 

Catholic  barristers,  for  instance,  are  excluded  from  receiving  silk 
gowns; — how  is  it — unless  a  danger  is  created  wherever  people  have  cause 
given  them  to  be  satisfied — that  the  same  man  is  more  politically  dange- 

*  The  course  which,  since  this  paper  went  to  press,  the  English  government  has 
found  it  expedient  to  resolve  on  with  respect  to  Spain,  is  one  in  which  the  "  power" 
of  the  Pope  is  more  than  likely  to  stand  very  seriously  "  prejudiced." 


1827.]  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  .18 

rous  in  a  silk  gown  than  in  a  stuff  one  ?  The  silk  gown  gives  no  title—- 
not even  any  claim — to  farther  promotion.  Judges  and  attorney  gene- 
rals are  as  commonly  taken  from  the  stuff  gown  as  from  the  silk  ;  and  the 
advanced  rank  depends  for  its  value  entirely  upon  the  man :  for  the  silk 
gown  inevitably  beggars  any  barrister,  who  has  not  sufficient  public  estima- 
tion to  support  it.  The  real  difference  between  the  silk  gown  and  the  stuff 
one  is  simply  this— that  the  gentleman  who  wears  the  first  takes  double 
the  amount  of  fee,  upon  any  given  brief,  which  is  taken  by  the  second. 
And,  although  much  general  inconvenience  is  known  to  be  sustained  in 
the  course  of  legal  business,  by  keeping  any  counsel  behind  the  bar 
whose  popularity  entitles  him  to  promotion  :  it  is  difficult  to  perceive  how 
the  tranquillity  of  a  country  can  be  interested,  in  compelling  Mr.  Donovan 
to  be  content  with  half-a-crown,  where  Mr.  O'Shaughnessy  receives  five 
shillings ! 

Let  us  take  for  the  next  point  the  case  of  the  Judgeships.  Why 
should  we  close  against  the  Catholics  (in  England  and  Ireland  together) 
thirty  places  of  honour  and  profit,  which  it  is  impossible  to  call  parts  of 
direct  political  authority  ?  The  office  of  Judge  is  to  a  lawyer  an 
honourable  retreat  from  active  labour ;  it  is  a  rank  which  stamps — or 
ought  to  stamp — as  meritorious  the  individual  who  receives  it ;  and  it 
has  a  pecuniary  value  of  from  four  to  eight  thousand  pounds  a  year. 
There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  such  an  office  should  not  be  as  compe- 
tently filled  by  a  person  of  one  religious  persuasion  as  by  a  person  of 
another  ?  The  office  of  Judge  embraces  the  performance  of  no  political 
duty,  in  the  execution  or  neglect  of  which  the  security  of  the  State 
could  be  suddenly  endangered ;  and  a  sudden  peril — one  which  should 
do  much  mischief  at  a  blow,  and  before  it  can  be  checked  or  remedied—- 
is all  that  we  are  entitled,  in  the  consideration  of  a  question  like  this,  to 
guard  against.  And,  for  undue  prejudice  or  partiality  in  private  cases 
— suppose  any  such  disposition  likely  to  manifest  itself — how  would  it  be 
more  difficult  of  correction  and  punishment  in  a  Catholic  Judge  than  ia 
a  Protestant  one  ?  No  one  supposes  the  danger  of  misconduct  from  a 
Protestant  Judge  throwing  the  country  into  insecurity  or  confusion* 
We  know  that  such  conduct  might — and  certainly  would — lead  to  the 
ruin  of  the  offender  himself;  but  we  should  find  it  difficult  to  point  out 
any  course  by  which  it  would  be  likely  to  be  the  ruin  of  the  State. 

Then,  for  the  third  point  of  restriction  which  we  propose  to  get  rid  of 
— the  law  which  excludes  Catholics  from  sitting  in  both  Houses  of  Par- 
liament— we  think  that  exclusion  will  be  the  most  impracticable  for 
defence  of  all  the  three.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  assumed  by  the  oppo- 
nents of  Emancipation,  that,  if  once  Catholics  were  eligible  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  not  a  single  Protestant  member — or  at  least  scarcely 
a  single  one — would  ever  again  be  returned  from  Ireland.  Now  we  do 
not  well  understand  from  what  data  this  consequence  is  inferred.  When 
one-half  of  the  Protestant  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  are 
already  voting  in  favour  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  why  is  it  so  impos- 
sible that  wealth  and  character  should  continue  (as  they  have  always 
done  in  elections)  to  maintain  their  sway ;  and  that  some  Catholics  in 
Ireland  should  vote  in  favour  of  Protestants,  who  had  merit  to  deserve 
their  votes — not  to  say  any  thing  of  power  to  command  them  ?  We 
hardly  think  too  favourably  of  Irish  stability,  nor  yet,  wrecked  as  the 
national  character  has  been,  too  confidently  of  Irish  principle  ;  but  yet 


14  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [JAN. 

we  scarcely  believe  that,  if  they  had  the  right  to  elect  Catholics 
to-morrow,  the  voters  of  Ireland  would  displace  all  the  Protestants  who 
have  supported  their  cause  in  the  House  of  Commons.  And,  for  those 
Protestants  who  have  opposed  their  claims  there,  they  obviously  stand  in 
still  less  danger ;  because,  if  there  had  been  any  earthly  power  to  ex- 
clude them,  they  would  all  have  been  turned  out  long  ago. 

The  real  probability  is,  that  the  number  of  Catholic  members  returned 
by  Ireland  would  never  exceed  thirty  or  forty ;  the  number  returned 
in  England  would  proceed  only  from  the  holders  of  a  few  close  boroughs, 
perhaps  there  might  be  a  dozen,  probably  not  so  many.  But,  even  sup- 
pose every  member  returned  by  Ireland  to  be  a  Catholic — what  are  their 
numbers  ?  one  hundred — not  quite  a  sixth,  of  the  whole  strength,  or 
number,  of  the  House.  Added  to  the  systematic  "  Opposition,"  it  is 
said,  the  force  of  these  new  members  would  be  overpowering  !  It  would 
amount — in  a  House  composed  of  six  hundred  members — to  a  hundred 
and  thirty,  or  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  at  most.  But,  even  set  aside  the 
comparative  strength  or  weakness — these  terrors  are  founded  on  a  fear  of 
what  the  Catholics  could  do,  united  with  the  "  Opposition  ?"  Does  any 
man  out  of  Bedlam  believe,  that  the  "  Opposition "  in  the  House  of 
Commons — that  is  to  say,  the  monied  and  aristocratic  party  out  of  office 
for  the  time  being — would  join  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  to  overturn  the 
Protestant  religion,  and  pull  down  the  State  ?  Of  what  would  such  per- 
sons suppose  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  composed — that  assembly 
which  governs  and  protects  the  interests  of  the  whole  people  of  Great 
Britain  ? — Of  what  do  they  take  it  to  be  made,  who  suppose  that,  by  the 
influence  of  forty,  or  fifty,  or  sixty  fresh  members  of  a  particular  persua- 
sion, it  can  be  brow-beaten,  or  persuaded  into  acts  contrary  to  the  well- 
doing of  the  community  ?  What  a  particularly  imbecile,  as  well  as 
disloyal,  "  six  hundred,"  we  must  have  contrived  to  select  from  the 
whole  mass  of  the  British  population,  if  such  could  be  the  case  !  Such 
a  House  ought  not  to  be  "  reformed,"  but  to  be  "  turned  out  of 
window."  We  would  venture  to  pronounce,  that  there  is  not  a  common 
club  of  journeymen  carpenters,  sitting  at  the  sign  of  the  "  The  Three 
Compasses,"  in  any  street  between  Hyde  Park  Corner  and  Ratcliff  High- 
way, who  would  not  laugh  at  the  notion  that  their  measures  were  likely 
to  be  influenced  by  the  admission  of  a  tythe  of  Catholic  joiners  within 
their  pale.  It  is  unnecessary  for  us  to  labour  a  point  so  clear  as  this  ;  but 
the  real  fact,  we  strongly  suspect,  would  be — that,  to  the  weight  of  the 
Opposition,  the  Catholics  would,  for  a  long  time,  add  nothing.  Every 
body  knows  that  the  strength  of  the  Parliamentary  Opposition  does  not 
lie  in  its  numbers,  but  in  its  character — not  in  the  vote  of  Mr.  Moore  or 
of  Mr.  Harvey :  but  in  the  voices  of  Mr.  Brougham,  of  Mr.  Tierney,  of 
Sir  Francis  Burdett,  and  of  some  dozen  other  individuals,  whose  talents 
or  honour  (as  the  quality  may  be)  give  confidence  to  the  country  in 
the  opinions  which  they  support.*  Now,  from  these  persons,  the  great 
odds  are,  that  the  enrage  Catholics  first  elected  would  receive,  after  the 
first  half  session,  little  or  no  countenance  at  all.  Mr.  O'Connell,  as 


*  Again,  we  may  refer  to  the  events  which  have  occurred  since  this  paper  was 
written.  The  support  of  the  "  Opposition  "  leaders  to  the  course  pursued  by  Ministers 
with  respect  to  Portugal,  was  not  merely  constitutional  and  ample — it  was  instantaneous 
—enthusiastic. 


1827.]  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  15 

the  active  agent  of  a  rather  desperate  and  very  ill-treated  cause,"  is 
looked  at  with  a  very  different  eye  by  the  Whigs  of  England,  from  that 
with  which — pursuing  the  same  conduct — he  would  be  regarded  if  he 
were  the  representative  of  a  fairly-dealt-with  party,  and  a  member  of 
the  British  House  of  Commons.  A  very  considerable  failing  in  the 
Irish  character  generally,  is  a  want  of  that  quality  which  we  designate 
by  the  name  of  "  tact ;"  and  we  strongly  suspect  that  the  first  generation 
of  Irish  Catholic  members  would  have  those  among  them  who  would  be 
very  excessive  about  the  interests  of  Ireland;  and  (by  consequence) 
very  unpopular.  Their  merciless  speeches  would  cease  to  be  reported  in 
a  week  ;  their  questions  would  be  cut  in  a  month  ;  and  in  two  sessions 
we  should  see  them  turning  Ministerialists,  to  avoid  desertion  and  insig- 
nificance altogether.  The  event  would  be — when  they  found  their 
senses — that  the  Catholic  members  in  the  House  of  Commons  would 
enjoy  precisely  that  quantity  of  influence  which  properly  belonged  to 
them.  By  their  exertion,  the  interests  of  Ireland  (in  detail)  might 
perhaps  be  more  accurately  looked  after  than  they  are  at  present — which 
no  one  can  doubt  would  be  a  circumstance  of  advantage. 

And  it  is  not  by  the  apprehension  of  trifling  difficulties,  or  of  merely 
possible  contingencies,  that  we  should  be  deterred  from  doing  an  act 
which  is  one  of  general  policy  and  justice.  There  never  was  a  law 
passed,  never  a  principle  admitted,  in  which  the  existence  of  some 
imperfection  might  not  be  shewn.  We  ask  for  no  faith  in  the  intentions 
of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  ;  we  will  take  their  case  in  the  most  difficult 
view  ;  we  will  suppose  that  they  have  no  respect  for  oaths,  and  that  they 
believe  they  can  obtain  absolution  from  them ;  that  they  refuse  to 
renounce  particular  tenets,  merely  from  pride — not  because  to  do  so 
would  be  a  waver  of  their  faith,  but  because  it  would  be  a  desertion  from 
their  party  ;  and,  taking  all  this  to  be  true — of  which  we  do  not  believe 
any  thing  like  one-half  to  be  true — still,  in  what  way  can  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland  be  more  dangerous  to  us,  after  they  are  emancipated,  than 
they  are  at  present  ? 

Surely  no  individual  of  common  mind  or  education,  can  fancy,  in  these 
days,  that  it  is  possible  either  to  improve,  or  to  convince  men,  so  long  as 
we  proscribe  them?  Let  the  pride  of  such  people,  or  their  principle,  be 
their  impelling  motive,  what  does  it  matter,  when  we  see  that  they  are 
impelled — and  impelled  into  a  course  which  we  have  no  earthly  hope 
of  arresting  ?  We  believe  the  impelling  motive  of  the  Catholics  to  be 
a  mixed  one  ;  and  we  are  glad  to  believe  so,  for  it  mends  our  case.  A 
Catholic  gentleman  can  hardly  turn  to  Protestantism  (as  the  law  stands) 
— even  though  his  reason  should  incline  him  to  do  so — without  incurring 
the  suspicion  of  interested  motives.  It  is  hardly  possible  for  him,  under 
any  conviction,  to  desert  the  cause  to  which  he  has  been  born  ;  which 
his  ancestors  have  maintained ;  and  which  his  friends,  round  him,  are 
suffering  for  ;  while  the  law  of  the  country  renders  him  a  gainer  by  the 
exchange.  The  very  existence  of  the  Penal  Laws  against  Catholics, 
must  confirm  a  Catholic  of  high  and  honourable  feeling  to  his  side  ;  and, 
so  far  from  finding  any  thing  disheartening  in  this  view,  we  repeat,  that 
we  are  well  pleased  to  take  it — well  pleased  if  we  have  only  to  satisfy  the 
honourable  scruples  of  a  man,  instead  of  having  to  over-convince  his 
bigotry  or  his  superstition.  But  the  very  centre-stone  of  our  position — 
no  matter  what  we  have  to  satisfy — is  still — as  it  has  been  from  the  begin- 


1-6  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [JAN, 

ning — this — in  Ireland,  nothing  can  be  done  without  concession  to  the 
Catholics  :  and  England  runs  no  risk  in  making  such  concession. 

In  Ireland,  unity  can  never  be  attained  without  some  measure  approach- 
ing to  Emancipation  ;  unless  it  were  by  the  other  decisive  measure  of 
Extermination — which  the  spirit  of  the  times  will  not  permit  us  to  apply. 
Six  millions  of  persons — or  five — or  four — will  never  be  persuaded — 
though  they  might  be  fried — into  a  quiet  resignation  of  their  civil  rights. 
This  very  fact,  that  we  must  not  be  "  executive,"  it  is  that  makes  our 
attempting  to  be  "  unjust,"  so  peculiarly  absurd.  If  we  mTght  hang  or 
drown  the  whole  five  millions  of  Irish  Catholic  population ;  or — what 
would  be  better — bane  all  the  men  with  Prussic  acid,  keeping  alive  the 
female  children,  and  the  grown  women  under  forty ;  then,  whatever 
might  be  thought  of  the  humanity  of  our  project,  there  would  be  some 
show  of  common  sense  and  reason  in  it.  But,  what  folly — "  more  gross 
than  ever  ignorance  made  drunk  " — would  be  that  of  any  military  com- 
mander, who  should  voluntarily  march  into  the  field  of  battle,  at  the 
head  of  an  army  of  twenty  thousand  men — knowing  one  brigade,  of  seven 
thousand  among  them,  to  be  disaffected  to  himself,  and  to  the  cause  they 
had  to  fight  for  ? 

Then,  for  the  risk  which  England  would  encounter,  in  granting  to  the 
Catholics  those  concessions  which  we  have  described — except  some  little 
ebullition  of  triumph  (which  would  be  offensive,  perhaps,  to  the  eyes 
and  ears  of  Irish  Protestants)  in  the  outset — a  little  vulgar  insolence 
from  falling  demagogues,  which  men  of  sense  would  smile  at — and  a  few 
bonfires  (not  of  houses)  among  the  peasantry,  which  a  posse  of  extra 
constables  would  put  down — what  more  should  we  have  to  fear  from  the 
people  of  Ireland  (emancipated)  than  we  have  to  fear  at  present  ?  The 
same  means — the  same  physical  force — would  keep  the  country  then 
that  keeps  it  now.  We  should  still  have  the  bayonets  of  the  military  to 
repress  violence  ;  the  sentence  of  the  jcdge,  and  the  hand  of  the  hang- 
man, to  punish  offence.  We  do  not  shrink  from  the  mention  of  these 
remedies  ;  let  them  be  used — so  they  be  used  justly  ;  let  them  be  used 
firmly  and  freely  :  we  are  better  content  that  fifty  men  should  die  for  wil- 
fully violating  the  law,  than  that  five  hundred  thousand  should  be  kept  in 
bondage  or  surveillance  from  an  apprehension  that  they  may  violate  it. 
If  we  have  strength  to  keep  Ireland  down  now — with  every  Catholic  in 
it  necessarily  disaffected  to  our  system — why  not,  at  least,  have  equal 
power  to  keep  it,  when  all  the  moderate  party  of  the  Catholics — to  put 
our  hopes  upon  the  most  modest  footing — would  have  cause  to  be 
content  ? 

For,  eligibility  to  trust  and  office,  it  must  be  recollected,  does  not  give 
men  election  to  trust  and  office ;  and  we  should  no  more  make  a  Catholic 
lawyer  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  than  we  do  a  Protes- 
tant, without  first  being  well  assured  that  he  was  a  fit  man  for  such  a 
situation.  The  Catholics,  after  they  were  eligible  to  elevation,  would 
still  have  to  earn  their  elevation,  like  other  people,  by  their  talents,  or  by 
meritorious  service ;  impertinence  and  dullness — after  it  had  obtained 
all  the  eligibility  in  the  world — would  remain  practically  just  in  the  same 
place  where  it  is  at  present.  And,  for  any  apprehension  of  the  increase 
— of  the  progress — of  Catholicism  in  these  days,  when  reason  and  educa- 
tion are  rapidly  advancing  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  !— when  Catho- 
licism in  Spain  and  Portugal — even  out  of  the  operations  of  the  late 


1827.]  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  17 

disastrous  war— has  received  a  wound,  which  it  may  linger  on  with,  but 
from  which  it  never  can  recover — when,  in  France,  the  same  seeds  of 
knowledge  have  more  than  taken  root — have  shot  up,  and  will  never  be 
eradicated,  whatever  may  be  the  transient  absurdities  of  bigots  in  power 
for  a  time — when,  by  a  singular  example  of  the  generalizing  spirit  of 
intellect,  the  very  same  party — the  liberal  party — which  in  England  i« 
calling  for  Catholic  Emancipation,  is  in  Spain,  at  the  very  same  mo- 
ment, fighting — to  the  loss  of  life  and  country — against  those  very 
abuses  which  Catholicism  most  prizes  and  esteems  most  dear ! —  to 
talk  of  any  apprehension  of  the  advance  of  Catholicism  in  England  or 
Ireland,  under  such  circumstances,  is  literally  to  talk  of  an  event  so 
opposite  from  all  ordinary  probabilities,  as  to  seem  to  convey  an  imputa- 
tion of  apathy  or  weakness  upon  the  Ministers  of  our  British  Protestant 
Established  Church. 

For  what  can  there  be  to  us  Protestants,  so  seducing  in  the  apparently 
absurd  dogmas  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith — what  can  there  be  so 
attractive  about  the  chains  which  it  puts  upon  a  man,  both  mind  and 
body — that  we  should  think  the  members  of  our  own  Established 
Church— with  all  their  attributes  of  wealth,  supremacy,  and  talent — 
unable  to  make  head  against  it  ?  Into  the  value  of  the  Roman  Catholic's 
Creed  it  is  not  our  intention  now  to  enter  ;  in  a  religious  view,  we  shall 
never  use  the  freedom  of  discussing  its  worth  at  all :  but  to  us  it  does  seem 
as  impossible  that  darkness  should  resist  the  daylight,  as  that  the  Catholic 
faith  should  resist  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  education.  We  desire 
neither  to  print  sermons  for  the  people  of  Ireland,  nor  to  attack  them  by 
missionaries ;  all  we  demand  is — that,  which  in  the  long-run  cannot  be 
prevented — that  the  people  should  be  taught  to  read.  We  care  very 
little  about  their  reading  the  Scriptures  in  the  first  instance — if  there  be 
any  question  raised  upon  it.  Let  them  read  only  the  "  Farmer's  Maga- 
zine," Cobbett's  "  Cottage  Economy,"  the  "  Complete  Letter- Writer," 
the  "  Whole  Duty  of  Man,"  or  even  the  "  Footman's  Directory."  This 
reading  alone  will  bring  with  it  a  great  deal  of  knowledge :  if  it  only 
brought  a  little — having  a  little,  they  will  soon  contrive  to  have  more. 
Cobbett's  book,  above  all  others — the  "  Cottage  Economy  " — well  dis- 
tributed in  Ireland,  would  do  ten  times  more  good  in  that  country — we 
speak  it  with  no  irreverence — than  the  distribution  of  the  Scriptures. 
No  peasant  will  read  the  contents  of  that  book  without  being  excited  to 
search  farther.  The  running  stream  might  as  easily  be  bound  in  fetters, 
as  that  natural  operation  of  the  human  mind  be  prevented.  The  pea- 
santry of  Ireland  are  acute  enough — stupidity  is  the  last  of  their  failings 
— on  all  matters  where  once  they  see  their  interests  concerned.  And 
for  the  effect  of  Concession — would  it  be  possible,  we  ask,  for  Catholic 
gentlemen  to  sit  in  an  assembly  like  the  House  of  Commons,  and  go  on 
there,  either  maintaining  the  superstitions  of  a  dark  and  barbarous  age,  or 
justify  the  wilfully  keeping  their  poorer  countrymen  in  hopeless  and 
degraded  ignorance  ? 

We  know  that  the  Catholic  cause  is  guided  badly ;  that  it  is  urged  in 
one  quarter  by  bold  and  furious  enthusiasts  ;  and,  in  another,  sought  to  be 
made  a  stepping-stone  by  pretenders,  whom  it  would  be  a  waste  of  atten- 
tion even  to  name.  But  by  every  act  of  justice,  let  it  be  remembered,  which 
we  perform — by  every  step  which  goes  to  the  redressal  of  real  and  well- 
founded  complaints — so  much  is  done  towards  putting  down  impudence 
and  quackery  into  the  obscurity  which  such  qualities  properly  inhabit. 

M.M.  New  Series.—VoL.llL  No.13.  D 


18  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  [JAN. 

And — we  dislike  in  general  arguing  from  what  are  called  "  facts,"  for 
the  cause  and  effect,  as  regards  these,  is  always  liable  to  be  disputed — 
but  surely  the  system  of  coercion — as  far  as  we  can  dare  to  try  it — has 
been  long  enough,  and  obstinately  enough,  tried  in  Ireland.  It  has  cursed 
the  Protestant  inhabitant  of  that  country — who  looked  for  advantage 
from  it — with  the  hourly  fears,  as  well  as  with  the  hideous  passions,  which 
belong  to  an  oppressor.  To  the  Catholic  it  has  given  the  blood-thirsty, 
vindictive,  treacherous  spirit  of  a  man,  who  feels  that  he  is  injured,  and 
feels  that  no  fair — no  honest,  candid  means  of  redress,  or  of  relief,  are 
open  to  him.  It  is  this  system  which  has  brought  us  to  the  misery,  of 
hearing  one  portion  of  a  people  publicly  adjured  by  the  hatred  which  they 
bore  to  another  portion  ! — -and  answering  that  adjuration.  It  is  under  this 
system  that  we  have  heard  the  painful  bodily  affliction — the  deep  and 
calamitous  personal  suffering — of  at  least  a  brave  and  open — of  a  firm  and 
noble  political  opponent — made  the  subject  of  laughter — of  ribald  jest — of 
horrible  exultation,  merriment,  and  triumph.  It  is  under  this  system  that 
we  have  seen  a  public  petition  presented  against  a  gentleman  eighty  years 
of  age, — and  one  who,  in  his  day,  it  is  well  known,  was  used  to  put  up  word 
for  no  man, — to  remove  him  from  a  post,  which  he  could  scarcely  hope 
to  occupy  a  great  while  longer,  upon  the  published  statement  that  his 
age  and  infirmities  made  him  unjtt  any  longer  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  it. 

Acts  like  these  arise  out  of  feelings  which  Englishmen  cannot  com- 
prehend. It  is  no  wonder  ;  for  those  feelings  are  the  fruits  of  a  political 
system,  which — Heaven  be  praised  ! — has  been  unknown  to  us.  It  is  only 
by  abolishing  and  putting  an  end  to  that  system  which  makes  the  two 
parties  in  Ireland — Catholic  and  Protestant — the  born  enemies  of  each 
other,  that  we  can  ever  hope  to  eradicate  those  feelings,  or  cut  down 
that  accursed  poison-tree  of  party-spirit,  which  blasts  and  withers  all 
the  wholesome  existence  of  Ireland,  and  of  Irishmen — rendering  their 
society  an  offence,  and  their  country  a  desert. 

Catholic  Emancipation  will  not  produce  a  result  like  this  instantly; 
but,  until  Emancipation  is  granted,  that  result  can  never  be  produced. 
When  attained,  that  result  will  not  cure  all  the  evils  and  miseries  of 
Ireland !  but  it  will  allay  the  burning  fever  that  consumes  her,  and 
allow  to  other  remedies  the  chance  of  operation  and  fair  play.  At  least, 
the  fury — lawlessness — the  disaffection  of  the  general  population  of  the 
country — will  then  no  longer  be,  as  it  is  now — the  boast,  and — the 
RELIANCE — of  a  large  class  of  its  inhabitants  ! 

The  length  to  which  this  article  has  already  extended  itself — joined 
to  the  impossibility  of  competently  discussing  the  Catholic  Question 
within  the  limits  of  any  single  essay — compels  us  to  close  our  argument 
for  the  present,  though  we  leave  many  important  circumstances  connected 
with  it  untouched.  We  are  no  friends  to  the  Catholic  faith  or  system. 
None  will  be  better  content  than  we  should,  to  see  not  a  wreck  or  a  frag- 
ment of  that  religion  remaining ;  and  upon  some  of  the  tenets  and 
usages  upheld  by  it — viewed  with  reference  to  their  effect  merely  upon 
the  temporal  interests  of  mankind — we  may  hereafter  take  occasion  to 
observe.  But  it  is  because  we  are  convinced  that  it  is  in  the  very  nature 
of  every  creed  which  is  held  by  six  millions  of  men,  to  gain  additional 
strength  and  compactness  from  the  restraints  imposed  upon  it,  that  we 
are  disposed  to  weaken  those  restraints — to  untwist  the  string  that  holds 
the  faggot — to  withdraw  the  pressure  which  binds  the  Catholics  toge- 


1827.]  The  Catholics  of  Ireland.  19 

ther.  And  it  is  because  we  do  not  understand  the  strange  anomaly  of 
alarming  us  about  the  advance  of  bigotry  and  priestcraft  at  one  extre- 
mity of  a  kingdom,  while  we  are  instituting  prosecutions  to  check  the 
march  of  open  infidelity  at  the  other,  that  we  apprehend  no  proselytism 
from  the  utmost  exertions  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy,  except  of  such 
sucklings  as  would  become  followers  of  Richard  Taylor,  or  Joanna 
Southcote. 

In  this  view,  therefore,  it  is,  finally,  that  we  intreat  our  readers  to 
look  at  the  Catholic  Question — to  look  at  it  as  a  whole,  not  as  a  series  of 
unconnected  items — to  attend  to  the  grand  result,  not  to  the  working  of 
isolated  parts.  We  intreat  them  to  consider  in  what  a  position — how 
contrary  to  nature — the  existing  system  places  all  parties  in  Ireland ! 
Catholic  ministers  going  from  house  to  house,  exhorting  and  influencing 
the  Catholic  tenant  to  break  his  solemn  compact  with  his  Protestant 
landlord  ;  Protestant  landlords  marching  up  their  Catholic  tenants,  to  vote 
for  that  member  as  their  representative  in  Parliament,  who  stood  pledged 
to  maintain  the  exclusion  of  all  Catholics  from  the  rights  and  privileges 
which  their  fellow-subjects  hold  for  ever ! 

Let  the  gentlemen  of  England  ask  their  own  hearts  and  senses,  if  any 
system  under  which  men  are  placed  in  a  situation  such  as  this,  can 
ever  prosper  ?  We  ask  them — do  they  believe  that,  while  the  people  of 
Ireland  have  no  leisure  for  any  other  employment  but  to  hate  and  curse 
each  other,  any  improvement  in  the  state  of  that  country  can  rationally 
be  hoped  for  ?  Our  own  object  has  been  to  take  a  view,  less  of  the  legal 
quibbles  incident  to  the  Catholic  Question,  than  of  its  broad  and  general 
bearing.  The  exact  extent  to  which  we  think  concession  should  be  car- 
ried, we  have  not  opportunity  here  to  lay  down  in  detail ;  but  we  have 
stated  our  principle,  that  such  concession  should  be  large — free — ample 
— such  as  would  give  almost  every  thing  that  the  Catholics  demand,  and 
every  thing  from  which  the  security  of  this  country,  in  its  operations 
with  foreign  powers,  does  not  necessarily  exclude  them.  Our  main 
anxiety  has  been  to  establish  the  principle  of  relief.  To  shew  that  no 
real  danger  can  result  from  that  course  ;  and  that,  as  regards  Ireland, 
without  it,  practically,  we  may  dismiss  the  question  of  improvement 
altogether.  With  our  last  line  we  repeat,  that,  of  apprehension  from 
the  consequences  of  Emancipation,  no  particle  approaches  us.  If 
England  is  strong  enough  to  keep  down  Ireland  now,  and  still  to 
persevere — as  she  has  so  long  persevered — in  a  course  of  wrong  ;  she 
has  at  least  the  same  strength  to  maintain  that  unhappy  country  with, 
if  she  were  to  try  the  experiment  of  doing  justice. 


D  2 


20 


THE    RETROSPECT. 

I  HAVE  not  heard  thy  name  for  years; 

Thy  memory  ere  thyself  is  dead ; 
And  even  I  forget  the  tears 

That  once  for  thy  loved  sake  were  shed. 

There  was  a  time  when  thou  didst  seem 
The  light  and  breath  of  life  to  me — 

When  e'en  in  thought  I  could  not  dream 
That  less  than  mine  thou  ere  couldst  be : — 

Yet  now  it  is  a  chance  that  brought 

Thy  image  to  my  heart  again ; 
A  single  flower  recalled  the  thought  r 

Why  is  it  still  so  full  of  pain  ? 

The  jasmine,  round  the  casement  twined, 
Caught  mine  eye  in  the  pale  moonlight; 

It  broke  my  dream,  and  called  to  mind 
Another  dream — another  night. 

As  then,  I  by  the  casement  leant ; 

As  then,  the  silver  moonlight  shone; — 
But  not,  as  then,  another  bent 

Beside  me — I  am  now  alone. 

The  sea  is  now  between  us  twain, 
As  wide  a  gulph  between  each  heart ; 

Never  can  either  have  again 

An  influence  on  the  other's  part. 

Our  paths  are  different ;  perchance  mine 
May  seem  the  sunniest  of  the  two : 

The  lute,  which  once  was  only  thine, 
Has  other  aim,  and  higher  view. 

My  song  has  now  a  wider  scope 

Than  when  its  first  tones  breathed  thy  name; 
My  heart  has  done  with  Love — and  hope 

Turned  to  another  idol — Fame. 

'Tis  but  one  destiny ;  one  dream 

Succeeds  another — like  a  wave 
Following  its  bubbles — till  their  gleam 

Is  lost  and  ended  in  the  grave. 

Why  am  I  sorrowful  ?    'Tis  not 

One  thought  of  thee  has  brought  the  tear : 
In  sooth  thou  art  so  much  forgot, 

I  do  not  even  wish  thee  here. 


1927.]  The  Retrospect.  21 

Both  are  so  changed,  that  did  we  meet 

We  might  but  marvel  we  had  loved  : 
What  made  our  earliest  dream  so  sweet  ? — 

Illusions — long,  long  since  removed. 

I  sorrow — but  it  is  to  know 

How  still  some  fair  deceit  unweaves— 
To  think  how  all  of  joy  below 

Is  only  joy  while  it  deceives. 

I  sorrow — but  it  is  to  feel 
Changes  which  my  own  mind  hath  told  : — 

What,  though  time  polishes  the  steel, 
Alas !  it  is  less  bright  than  cold. 

I  have  more  smiles,  and  fewer  tears  ; 

But  tears  are  now  restrained  for  shame  : 
Task-work  the  smiles  my  lip  now  wears, 

That  once  like  rain  and  sunshine  came. 

Where  is  the  sweet  credulity, 

Happy  in  that  fond  trust  it  bore, 
Which  never  dreamed  the  time  would  be 
When  it  could  hope  and  trust  no  more  ? 

Affection  springing  warmly  forth — 

Light  word,  light  laugh,  and  lighter  care ; 

Life's  afternoon  is  little  worth 

The  dew  and  warmth  of  morning  air. 

I  would  not  live  again  Love's  hour; 

But  fain  I  would  again  recall 
The  feelings  which  upheld  its  power — 

The  truth,  the  hope,  that  made  its  thrall. 

I  would  renounce  the  worldliness, 

Now  too  much  with  my  heart  and  me; 
In  one  trust  more,  in  one  doubt  less, 

How  much  of  happiness  would  be  ! — 
Vainer  than  vain  !    Why  should  I  ask 

Life's  sweet  but  most  deceiving  part  ? 
Alas  !  the  bloom  upon  the  cheek 
Long,  long  outlives  that  of  the  heart. 

L.E.L. 


C       2*       ]  [JAN. 

LOVE'S  LAST  MEETING: 

L Modernized  from  an  old  Manuscript,  found  among  the  Records  of  the  Medical 
School  at  Bologna.] 

THE  days  of  my  youth  !  the  days  of  my  youth  ! — how  deeply  do  your 
recollections  dwell  within  my  soul ! — how  vividly  does  memory  recall 
you,  and  the  deeds  to  which  you  gave  rise  I — your  bright  hopes,  your 
burning  wishes,  your  blight  of  heart,  your  absolute  despair  !  He  who 
receives  a  stunning  blow  early  in  life,  will  probably,  through  physical 
strength,  rise,  after  a  time,  from  under  it ;  and,  if  he  be  thrown  into 
full  collision  with  the  world,  the  wound  will  heal  over,  though,  from  time 
to  time,  the  scar  which  it  leaves  will  ache.  In  his  breast  there  will  be 
the  reverse  of  the  oasis  of  the  desert ;  for,  however  the  larger  portion 
of  the  soul  may  bloom — to  what  extent  soever  it  may  be  fertile — there 
will  be  always  one  spot  of  barren  and  burning  waste,  to  contrast  with 
and  to  check  the  flowering  meads  around  it. 

Oh,  Florence  I  thou  whited  sepulchre  of  outward  beauty — thou  in- 
ward charnel-house  of  all  my  happiness — of  my  soul's  hopes ! — how  bit- 
terly do  I  hate  what  others  love  so  much — thy  streets  of  palaces,  and 
thy  flowing  Arno  !  With  what  a  leaden  heart  have  I  looked  down,  from 
thy  surrounding  amphitheatre  of  hills,  upon  thy  fair  villas,  glittering 
among  the  dusky  olives ;  and  thy  noble  church,  rising  like  a  crown,  to 
complete  this  scene  of  queenly  beauty  I  What,  indeed,  is  the  loveliness 
of  a  natural  object,  if  the  associations  connected  with  it  be  sad  ?  If  the 
tidings  be  mournful,  of  what  avail  is  the  speaker's  voice  ? 

When  I  went  again  to  Florence,  after  long  years,  it  was  recalling 
into  new  life  the  great,  the  one  misfortune  of  my  youth.  My  heart  beat 
against  my  side  with  the  tumultuous  throb  of  re-awakened  agony  ;  I  felt 
once  more  the  desolation  of  a  bruised  spirit.  Alas  !  how  strong  are  the 
impressions  of  local  memory  !  A  sick  shudder  came  over  me  as  I  passed 
the  house  where I 

Beauty  beamed  upon  her  brow — Love  flashed  from  her  eyes,  and 
mantled  on  her  glowing  lips.  The  full  confidence  and  utter  unreserve 
of  young  affection,  gave  to  her  the  dignity  of  their  own  singleness  and 
simplicity.  What,  indeed,  is  more  holy  than  female  love  in  its  first  force 
and  purity — before  the  world  has  chilled  it,  or  repetition  sullied  the 
exquisite  bloom  of  its  unity  and  abandonment !  It  is  one  of  the  high- 
est and  most  intense  of  the  mysteries  of  hnman  nature — one  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  its  phenomena — the  most  engrossing  of  its  impulses  ! 
The  sophisticated  may  sneer  at  its  simple  feelings — the  corrupt  may  mis- 
take its  purity  for  coldness ;  but  that  very  simplicity  is  the  cause,  at 
once,  and  the  effect  of  its  strength  and  condensation :  the  very  purity 
of  the  flame  betokens  its  intense  heat  I 

How  beautiful  she  was  I Beauty  !  oh,  beauty  !  which  makest  the 

senses  drunk,  and  the  spirits  reel  under  thy  influence — which,  like  the 
wild  honey  of  the  ancient  story,  art  delicious  to  the  taste,  but  madden- 
ing to  the  brain  I — how  thy  force  and  thy  sweetness,  are  they  not 
increased  when  we  behold  thee  in  the  woman  of  our  soul's  love  I  Here 
is  her  picture  I  How  lovely  are  their  features! — their  fine  outline — 
their  rich  development — their  placid  expression  I  How  the  eye  feasts 
upon  them  ! — how  the  soul  is  fed  by  the  deep,  calm  thoughts  which  that 
countenance  exhales !  Yet  does  not  this  treasured  image  more  excel 
the  most  ill-favoured  of  the  daughters  of  Eve,  than  it  falls  short  of  the 


1827.]  Loves  Last  Meeting.  2$ 

same  face  when  lighted  with  the  fire  of  love's  heaven — when  the  cestus 
of  affection  added  to  it  the  lustre  of  its  charm-conferring  spell !  In 
my  bosom  hast  thou  been  nestled  for  years  ;  the  pulses  of  my  heart  have 
beat  under  thee ;  thou  hast  been  to  me  what  the  figure  of  his  patron- 
saint  is  to  an  anchorite — a  treasure  far  more  than  earthly !  Yet  couldst 
thou  but  for  a  moment  possess  that  look  of  love  which  those  eyes  were 
wont  to  shed  upon  me — that  smile,  which  spake  of  fondness,  as  the 
glance  did  of  intensity,  — I  would  be  content  to  part  from  thee  for  ever, 
— aye,  even  though  my  heart  should  burst  in  the  effort  it  would  need ! 

Truly  have  I  compared  the  feelings  with  which  I  regard  this  image 
to  those  excited  by  devotion.  "  Buried  love "  has  all  the  force  and 
warmth  of  earthly  passion,  freed  from  all  the  grosser  particles  of  earth ; 
— it  has  all  the  ethereal  purity  of  spiritual  adoration,  with  a  fervour  and 
reality  superadded,  which,  alas  !  our  corporeal  nature  can  scarcely  ever 
feel  towards  that  which  is  only  spiritual.  Our  thoughts  are  turned  to- 
wards a  being  whom  we  have  adored  when  in  the  flesh,  who  now  is  raised 
to  a  state  more  exalted  and  purer  than  our  own.  The  passion  we  feel 
for  the  woman,  is  tempered  by  the  reverence  with  which  we  regard  the 
spirit ;  and  the  two  feelings  united,  form,  probably,  the  highest  and  best 
which  enter  into  the  bosom  of  humanity. 

The  moon  was  struggling  through  a  swift  rack  which  drifted  over  her ; 
her  light  fell  fitfully  upon  the  stream,  and  on  the  distant  dome  of  the 
cathedral ;  the  water  rushed  past  our  feet,  as  though  swelled  by  the  tor- 
rents from  the  mountains  ; — but  we  heeded  not  the  gloom ;  we  did  not 
note  the  marks  of  recent  tempest ;  our  hearts  communed  with  each  other 
— ive  "were  together  ! 

We  parted  that  night  in  youth,  in  health,  in  high  hope.  For  once, 
"  the  course  of  true  love  seemed  to  run  smooth."  It  is  true,  we  could 
not  yet  be  united ;  I  was  as  yet  only  a  student  at  Bologna,  and  I  had  a 
mother  and  sister  who  mainly  depended  on  my  exertions  for  support. 
But,  in  a  few  years,  my  studies  would  be  finished ;  I  should  be  settled  in 
a  sphere  of  humble  usefulness ;  my  hopes,  my  wishes,  were  fixed  on 
domestic  enjoyments — on  that  happiness  which  is  to  be  tasted  nowhere 
but  in  a  happy  home  !  It  is  one  of  the  frequent  effects  of  a  strong  and 
virtuous  passion  in  early  life  to  accelerate,  by  many  years,  that  taste 
for  simple  and  domestic  pleasures,  which  all  men  feel  as  they  approach 
the  decline  of  years.  I  have  since  been  a  wanderer — I  have  travelled 
over  a  large  portion  of  the  earth ;  but,  if  the  hopes  of  my  youth  had 
been  realized,  I  should  have  been  happy — oh  !  more  than  happy — in  the 
narrow  circle  around  my  humble  home — for  she  would  have  been  its 
centre. 

We  parted  that  night  in  youth,  in  health,  in  hope 1  never  saw  her 

again  alive  ! 

It  was  midnight ;  I  was  returning  home  from  the  lecture  which  I  had 
been  attending — for  I  had  lately  devoted  much  of  my  time  to  the  prose- 
tion  of  my  studies,  as  a  celebrated  professor  of  medicine  was,  at  that 
time,  resident  in  Florence.  As  I  approached  the  Piazza  di  St.  Maria 
Novella,  I  perceived  an  unusual  crowd  and  bustle  in  the  street,  and  I 
advanced  hurriedly  to  ascertain  the  cause — for  that  square  held  all  that 
was  most  dear  to  me  on  earth  !  My  eager  inquiries,  as  to  the  cause  of 
alarm,  were  speedily  answered.  When  I  entered  the  Piazza,  I  perceived N 
several  houses  in  flames— her's  was  one  of  them  !  I  rushed  through  the 
crowd  who  flocked  round  the  place ; — a  man  inspired  with  such  feelings 


24  Loves  Last  Meeting.  [JAN. 

as  those  which  instigated  me,  can  make  his  way  through  any  obstacle. 
I  gained  the  door ;  smoke  and  flames  were  pouring  through  the  aperture 
as  from  the  crater  of  Vesuvius.  I  pulled  my  bonnet  over  my  brows,  and 
rushed  up  the  stairs.  On  the  first  landing  the  chamber  of  Beatrice  was  to 
the  left — that  of  her  mother  to  the  right.  I  turned  to  the  left — the  room 
was  vacant  I  I  began  to  hope  she  had  escaped — I  rushed  into  the  oppo- 
site room.  As  I  entered,  I  stumbled  over  something  on  the  floor :  it 
was  her  body,  with  that  of  her  mother  in  her  arms  ! — She  had  sunk  in 
attempting  to  save  her.  It  was  only  now  that  I  perceived  the  terrible 
density  of  the  smoke — to  remove  her  was  the  only  hope  left.  In  an 
instant  I  bore  her  though  the  smoke,  and  flames,  and  crumbling  ruins  into 
the  street. — She  was  dead  ! 

What  were  my  feelings  ?  Heaven  only  knows  I  In  its  mercy  it  has 
decreed  that  a  blow  like  this  shall  numb  the  heart  it  crushes,  Those 
who  have  gone  through  the  ordeal  can  give  no  account  of  it ;  those  who 
have  not,  can  form  no  idea  of  it.  The  first  thing  which  made  any 
impression  upon  me  was  a  fellow-student,  who  was  to  me  as  a  brother, 
pointing  out  the  effect  which  the  indulgence  of  my  despair  had  upon  my 
mother  and  sister.  "  They  have  claims  upon  you,"  he  said ; — "  the 
nearest,  the  most  holy — live  for  them !"  The  truth  of  what  he  said 
struck  me  to  the  heart ;  and,  like  most  persons  whose  minds  are  shaken 
by  some  great  sorrow,  I  rushed  from  one  extreme  into  the  other.  I  had 
passed  the  few  days  which  had  elapsed  since  the  night  in  a  state  of  alter- 
nate desperate  despair  and  stupor.  I  could  not  now  restore  myself'  to 
calmness.  I  needed  a  violent  resolution,  and  I  formed  one.  I  deter- 
mined, in  despite  of  all  my  friend  could  say  to  dissuade  me,  to  resume 
my  studies  at  once ;  and  I  determined  to  accompany  him  that  very 
evening  to  a  lecture  which  the  professor  was  to  give. 
.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  been  in  the  fresh  air  since  the  catastrophe 
had  happened.  The  state  of  the  atmosphere,  the  aspect  of  the  heavens, 
were  precisely  similar  to  what  they  had  been  when  I  looked  upon  them 
with  her.  The  clouds  racked  over  the  moon — the  Arno  looked  dark  and 
troubled,  and  rushed  by  with  a  moaning  noise.  When  I  had  last  seen 
these  sights — when  I  had  last  heard  these  sounds — she  was  my  side. 
Oh  God !  where  was  she  now  ?  Those  who  have  suffered  a  great 
affliction  can,  I  am  sure,  full  well  recall  to  mind  the  impression  of  cutting 
pain  which  the  contrast  between  the  present  time  and  a  few  short  days 
before  has  made  upon  them.  Every  thing  in  the  external  world,  every 
thing  on  the  surface  of  society,  seems  to  be  proceeding  in  its  usual  train. 
No  length  of  time  has  passed  to  account  for  so  vast  a  change  ;  a  few 
days  only  have  elapsed — but  life  is  closed  for  them :  one  expanse  of 
impenetrable  gloom  is  all  that  the  future  is  to  them  ! 

We  walked  hastily  onward — I  had  no  inclination  to  loiter  on  the  way. 
We  entered  the  room  just  as  the  lecture  was  beginning.  A  crowd  of 
students  had  gathered  round  the  table  on  which  the  "subject"  lay.  I 
joined  them;  and  having,  by  degrees,  penetrated  the  circle,!  carelessly  cast 

my  eyes  upon  the  body  which  lay  before  me. — It  was  hers  / The 

room  reeled  round  with  me — I  fell  senseless  ! 

L. 


1827.]  [     25     ] 

TASTE. 

A  THOUSAND  persons  have  asked  me — "  What  is  Taste  ?"  I  answer — 
as  far  ('which  perhaps  is  not  far)  as  a  definition  can  convey  a  meaning — 
Taste  is  the  faculty  of  perceiving,  and  appreciating,  the  approach  to, 
or  deviation  from,  perfection,  in  all  things. 

This,  power  though  doubtless  nature  has  a  hand  in  it,  is  chiefly  the 
gift  of  cultivation — as  a  proof  of  which  we  find  it  possessed  almost  ex- 
clusively by  the  higher  classes  of  society  ;  and  by  hardly  any  in  such  ge- 
neral perfection  as  by  the  English.  It  is  displayed  in  their  houses,  grounds, 
estates,  animals  of  all  sorts,  equipage,  servants,  table,  manners,  and 
innumerable  other  things  too  minute  to  mention,  but  all  showing  the 
quality  as  much  as  the  most  important.  For  true  taste  is  not  only  the 
gold  coin  to  be  used  on  great  occasions,  but  it  is  also  the  silver  con- 
tinually called  into  play,  and  spent  upon  the  most  trifling  objects.  It's 
possessor  will  not  merely  be  a  judge  of  the  merits  of  a  painting,  of  a 
singer,  or  of  a  statue,  but  will  be  equally  a  critic  of  the  framing  of 
the  one,  the  dress  of  the  other,  or  the  drapery  of  the  third. 

And  this  it  is  which  makes  taste  so  invaluable  a  possession  :  of  all 
others,  perhaps,  the  most  important  qualification  for  the  true  enjoyment 
of  existence  ;  for  although  it  subjects  its  possessor  to  a  variety  of 
annoyances  from  which  the  herd  of  mankind  is  free,  yet  it  is  the 
property  chiefly  distinguishing  the  man  from  the  brute,  opening  to  him 
pure  and  copious  springs  of  unpalling  enjoyment,  and  supplying  him 
'with  a  strong  bias  towards  the  agrcmens  of  life. 

The  man  of  taste  will  find  something  to  admire  in  almost  every 
corner  of  the  globe — he  can  never  be  long  enmiye,  for  although  he  may 
by  accident  be  thrown  into  situations  diametrically  opposite  to  his 
nature,  and  into  the  company  of  persons  whose  every  look,  word  and 
gesture  must  be  grating  to  his  feelings,  yet  he  will  commonly  escape 
the  one  and  avoid  the  other,  as  it  were  instinctively,  and,  by  contrast, 
even  gain  something  in  the  occasional  collision. 

Taste  is  the  discriminating  talisman,  enabling  its  owner  to  see  at  once 
the  real  merits  of  persons  and  things,  to  ascertain  at  a  glance  the 
true  from  the  false,  and  to  decide  rightly  on  the  value  of  individuals. 

Nothing  escapes  him  who  walks  the  world  with  his  eyes  touched  by 
this  ointment— they  are  open  to  all  around  him  :  to  admire  *  or  to 
condemn — to  gaze  with  rapture,  or  to  turn  away  with  disgust,  where 
another  shall  pass  and  see  nothing  to  excite  the  slightest  emotion.  The 
fair  creation  of  nature  and  the  works  of  man  afford  him  a  wide  field  of 
continual  gratification.  TJie  brook,  brawling  over  its  bed  of  rocks  or 
pebbles  half  concealed  by  the  over-hanging  bushes  that  fringe  its  banks 
— or  the  great  river  flowing  in  unperturbed  majesty  through  a  wide 
vale  of  peace  and  plenty,  or  forcing  its  passage  through  a  lofty  range 
of  opposing  hills — the  gentle  knoll,  and-  the  towering  mountain — 
the  rocky  dell  and  the  awful  precipice — the  young  plantation  and 
the  venerable  forest — are  alike  to  him  objects  of  interest  and  of 
admiration. 

So,  in  the  works  of  man,  a  foot-bridge,  thrown  across  a  torrent,  may 
be,  in  its  way,  as  gratifying  to  the  man  of  taste  as  the  finest  arch, 
or  most  wonderful  chain-bridge  in  the  world  ;  and  a  cottage  of  the 
humblest  order  may  be  so  beautifully  situated,  so  neatly  kept, 

M.M.  A^rc  Scri.es.  VOL.  III.  No.  13         E 


23  Taste.  [JAN. 

and  so  tastefully  adorned  with  woodbine  and  jessamine,  as  to  call 
forth  his  admiration  equally  with  the  princely  residence  of  the  British 
landholder,  in  all  its  pride  of  position  and  splendour  of  architecture. 

In  short,  this  faculty  is  applicable  to  every  object — and  he  who 
finds  any  thing  too  lofty  or  too  humble  for  his  admiration,  does 
not  possess  it.  It  is  exercised  in  the  every-day  affairs  of  life  as 
much  as  in  the  higher  arts  and  sciences. 

The  true  connoisseur  is  the  universal  connoisseur — who  will  admire 
beauty  in  all  the  animal  creation — elegance — in  equipage,  dress,  and 
style,  as  well  as  in  person  and  manners — the  picturesque,  in  the 
wilderness  of  nature  as  well  as  in  the  aptitude  of  art — music,  in  the 
murmur  of  a  stream,  and  the  wild  meanings  of  an  autumnal  gale,  as  well 
as  in  the  cathedral  conclave,  or  the  Philharmonic  Society.  And,  in 
the  less  intellectual  affairs  of  the  table,  the  man  of  taste  will  not  be  more 
insensible  to  the  rational  enjoyment  of  a  well-served  dinner,  nor  to  the 
quality  of  the  wines  and  elegance  of  the  dessert,  than  to  the  manners 
and  conversation  of  his  companions  at  the  social  board. 

O  most  invaluable  of  all  possessions !  thou  who  teachest  the  true 
enjoyment  of  prosperity,  and  whisperest  consolation  in  adversity — who 
in  the  one  wilt  select  our  associates  from  the  flower  of  society,  and  in 
the  other  wilt  teach  us  to  avoid  the  degradation  into  which,  without 
thee,  we  must  inevitably  fall — precious  companion  in  crowds,  and 
most  refined  sweetness  of  solitude — in  wealth  the  wand  of  happiness, 
and  in  poverty  the  spring  of  comfort  and  content — grant  that  I  may 
never  be  insensible  to  thy  influence,  and  that  I  may  never  wilfully 
sin  against  thy  chastening  dictates  ! 

A.  N, 


THE    PALM-TREE. 

Has  his  heart  forgot,  so  far  away, 

Those  native  scenes— those  rocks  and  torrents  grey ; 

The  tall  bananas  whispering  to  the  breeze  ; 

The  shores— the  sound  of  those  encircling  seas 

Heard  from  his  infant  days— and  the  piled  heap 

Of  holy  stones,  where  his  forefathers  sleep  ?  BOWLES. 


IT  waved  not  through  an  eastern  sky, 
Beside  a  fount  of  Araby  ; 
It  was  not  fanned  by  southern  breeze, 
In  some  green  isle  of  Indian  seas; 
Nor  did  its  graceful  shadow  sleep 
O'er  stream  of  Afric,  lone  and  deep  : 

But  fair  the  exiled  palm-tree  grew, 
'Midst  foliage  of  no  kindred  hue ; 
Through  the  laburnum's  dropping  gold 
Uprose  that  stem  of  orient  mould, 
And  Europe's  violets,  faintly  sweet, 
Purpled  the  moss-beds  at  his  feet. 


1627.]  The  Palm  Tree.  27 

Strange  looked  it  there  ! — the  willow  streamed 
Where  silvery  waters  near  it  gleamed; 
The  lime-bough  lured  the  honey-bee 
To  murmur  by  the  Desert's  tree  ; 
,  And  showers  of  snowy  roses  made 

A  lustre  in  its  fan-like  shade. 

There  came  an  eve  of  festal  hours — 
Rich  music  filled  that  garden's  bowers  ; 
Lamps,  that  from  flowering  branches  hung, 
On  sparks  of  dew  soft  colours  flung  ; 
And  bright  forms  glanced — a  fairy  shew — 
Under  the  blossoms  to  and  fro. 

But  one,  a  lone  one,  'midst  the  throng, 
Seemed  reckless  all  of  dance  or  song : 
He  was  a  youth  of  dusky  mien, 
Whereon  the  Indian  sun  had  been  ; 
Of  crested  brow,  and  long  black  hair — 
A  stranger,  like  the  Palm-tree,  there. 

And  slowly,  sadly,  moved  his  plumes, 
Glittering  athwart  the  leafy  glooms  : 
He  passed  the  pale  green  olives  by, 
Nor  won  the  chestnut-flowers  his  eye ; 
But  when  to  that  sole  Palm  he  came, 
Then  shot  a  rapture  through  his  frame  ! 


To  him,  to  him,  its  rustling  spoke, 

The  silence  of  his  soul  it  broke  ! 

It  whispered  of  his  own  bright  isle, 

That  lit  the  ocean  with  a  smile ; 

Aye,  to  his  ear  that  native  tone 

Had  something  of  the  sea-wave's  moan  ! 

His  mother's  cabin-home,  that  lay 
Where  feathery  cocoas  fringed  the  bay  ; 
The  dashing  of  his  brethren's  oaf ; 
The  conch's  wild  note  along  the  shore ; — 
All,  through  his  wakening  bosom  swept : 
He  clasped  his  country's  tree,  and  wept.* 

Oh  1   scorn  him  not  ! — the  strength,  whereby 

The  patriot  girds  himself  to  die — 

Th'  unconquerable  power,  which  fills 

The  freeman,  battling  on  his  hills — 

These  have  one  fountain,  deep  and  clear, — 

The  same  whence  gushed  that  child-like  tear  !  F.H. 

This  incident  is,  I  think,  recorded  by  De  Lille,  in  his  poem  of  "  Les  Jardins.' 


[     28     ]  [JAN. 


THE  multiplication  of  books,  upon  all  subjects,  in  the  present  day,  amounts 
to  a  feature  in  the  history  of  the  time.  No  sooner  does  one  original  publica- 
tion— no  matter  of  what  character — succeed,  than  the  town  is  inundated  with 
fifty  speculators,  breaking  their  necks  which  shall  be  first  in  imitation  of  it. 
Thus  we  have  Brummagem  Scotts  writing  novels;  and  Brummagem  Byrons 
making  verses;  and  Brummagem  newspapers  out  of  number;  all  outvying 
each  other  in  doing  wretchedly,  that  which  somebody  else  has  already  made  a 
hit  by  doing  well.  And  so — from  matters  of  fancy  coming  down  to  matters  of 
fact — no  sooner  did  Mrs.  Rundall  and  Dr.  Kitchener  acquire  a  name  by  their 
standard  works  upon  "  roasting  and  boiling," — than  new  "  Cookery  Books  " 
sprang  up  faster  than  the  mushrooms  which  they  were  to  ordain  the  pickling  of, 
in  every  publisher's  window  in  town :  of  which  last  extemporaneous  creations, 
the  volume  now  before  us — "  Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery,  for  Rich  and 
Poor,"  in  700  pages,  price  nine  shillings — presents  rather  an  interesting 
specimen. 

We  make  it  a  principle  never  to  comment  upon  any  book  in  this  Magazine 
(except  in  the  "  small  letter"  notice  at  the  end),  unless  it  be  a  book  very  admi- 
rably excellent,  or  very  particularly  bad :  and  therefore  it  may  be  as  well  to  set 
out  on  this  occasion  by  stating,  that  the  work  now  in  question  is  not  only 
"  very  particularly,"  but  rather  too  bad.  Because,  if  a  great  accumulation  of 
worn-out  recipes  upon  the  "  aptest"  manner  of  dressing  beef-steaks,  is  to  be 
exposed  in  booksellers'  shops,  at  the  price  of  "  nine  shillings," — a  cost,  by  the 
way,  at  which  we  confess  we  do  not  well  see  how  the  "  Domestic  Economy  "  for 
"  Rich  and  Poor  "  is  to  find  its  way  readily  into  the  hands  of  the  last  class  of 
persons,  to  whose  attention  it  is  recommended-?— is  it  not  too  much  to  demand 
that  the  book — if  there  is  neither  novelty  nor  talent  in  it — should  be  got  up 
with  some  share  of  human  reason,  and  common  sense,  and  respectability. 
Now,  how  far  the  "Domestic  Economist  "  brings  himself  within  the  limit  of 
this  very  open  principle, — as  "  Reviewing  "  at  length  is  a  little  out  of  our  metier — 
a  few  extracts  from  the  more  comprehensible  and  unculinary  parts  of  the  book 
shall  "  frutiiy." 

In  the  first  place,  the  "  Domestic  Economy  "  purports  to  be  written  by 
a  "  Lady ;"  and,  we  sr.pjo.se,  we  need  not  ask  whether  she  is  a  Married  lady, 
lor  she  sports  the  st}4e  of  the  ring  in  the  her  first  puge.  The  immediate  topic 
is  some  unheard-of  po.ssible  extension  of  the  powers  of  "  butchers'  meat  "  in 
affording  sustenance.  And  the  "  Lady,"  after  intreating  the  use  of  all  the 
faith  her  readers  can  afford,  breaks  out  ns  follows  : 

"  I  once  saw  a  French  family,  consisting  cf.ix  grown  persons,  a  child,  and  a  jackdaw — 
who,  by-the-bye,  was  the  heaviest  of  tJic  d(.!tt  upon  the  meat — dine  on  one  pound  of 
lean  veal,  made  into  a  rieh  rcyout,  with  UMK-hrooms,  morels,  £c.  and  goose  fat—  the 
properties  of  which  I  have  amply  enlarged  Upon.  This  may  astonish  my  country  folks, 
as  I  assure  them  it  did  me:  and,  in  the  expectation  that  the  moral  of  it  may  impress 
itself  on  others  as  it  did  on  myself,  I  place  it  thus  forward,  as  being  the  first  thing  that 
opened  my  eye  to  the  advantages  of  French  cookery.  I  may  farther  add,  that  this  entire 
family  was  enjoying  perfect  health  ;  and  had  never  heard  of  many  of  those  disorders 
which,  under  the  different  appellations  nervous,  bilious,  £c.,  are  too  prevalent  in  this 
conn  try." 

This  style  is  ccri;\h;!v  peculiar,  for  a  lady;  but  we  suspect  that  the  authoress 
of  the  "  Domestic  Economy  "  knows  that  her  forte  lies  particularly  in  it :  for 
as  soon  n.s  we  get  into  the  common  phraseology  in  which  people  talk  about 
matters  of  business,  \\e  fail  in  our  English  so  fati.lly,  as  to  become  unin- 
telligible. 

As  for  example.     After  complaining  that  "  the  poor"  will  not  understand, 

*  Domestic  Economy  anil  Cookery,  for  Rich  and  Pcor  j  by  a  Lady.  Longman's 
London,  ]' 


1827.]  Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery.  29 

"  That  three  pounds  of  one  sort  of  meat  may  be  had  for  the  same  price  as  one  of 
another — " 

A  proposition  which,  in  justice  to  "  the  poor,*'  we  declare  we  think  very 
few  of  them  would  be  hardy  enough  to  contradict ; — and  assuring  them  that 

"  They  may  make  wholesome  beer  for  themselves,  at  one-eighth  of  the  price  which 
they  pay  for  poisonous  porter — " 

A  statement  which  we  are  afraid  is  perfectly  untrue— our  "  Domestic  Econo- 
mist" proceeds  to  break  out  into  the^  following  very  eloquent — but,  to  us,  per- 
fectly incomprehensible — tirade  : 

"  In  cookery,  generalization  has  certainly  been  recommended,  but  very  little  prac- 
tised; because  that  art,  though  indebted  to  some  professional  men,  as  Dr.  Hill  (MRS. 
GLASSE),  Dr.  Hunter,  and  Dr.  Kitchener— for  the  three  best  cookery  books  we  have 
at  present,  engages  still  less  than  any  other  the  attention  of  those,  whose  education 
renders  them  best  calculated  to  simplify  and  improve." 

Now,  what  the  word  "generalization"  means  here—unless  as  far  as  it  is 
exemplified  by  making  Mrs.  Glasse  a  "professional  man" — puzzles  us — almost  as 
much  as  it  does  to  guess  what  we  should  understand  by  the  following  sen- 
tence : 

"  Not  that  cookery  is  in  itself  any  ways  inferior  to  many  others,"  [other  sciences,  we 
presume]  "in  what  they"  [those  who  are  "calculated  to  improve"]  pride  them- 
selves in  excelling ;  but  they  neglect  it  from  the  very  reason  that  should  have  induced 
them  to  lend  their  assistance  to  it — namely,  its  universal  practice ;  and,  in  this  consi- 
deration, I  perhaps  may  be  excused  when  I  say,  that  I  treat  more  ofuniversals,  than  the 
Jew  who  have  restricted  that  term  to  themselves,"  &c. 

Now  these  "  universals  "  are  worse  to  us  than  the  "  generals :" — but  we 
go  on. 

"  It  is  worse  than  ridiculous  to  hear  the  English  boasting  of  their  charitable  and 
benevolent  institutions,  and  valuing  themselves  on  a  comparison  with  the  virtuous  and 
unobtrusive  frugality  of  the  French,  when  there  is  twice  as  much  wasted  by  their 
menials  as  would,  if  fitly  administered,  maintain  in  honest  independence  the  wretches 
whose  name  is  a  sanction  for  drunkenness  in  a  tavern,  or  dissipation  at  a  masquerade  !" 

What  are  these  persons — of  what  class — who  have  a  claim  to  be  "  maintained 
in  honest  independence"  and  whose  "  names  "  are  "a  "  sanction  "  for  "  drunken- 
ness" in  one  place,  and  "  dissipation"  in  another  ?  for  we  profess  ourselves  at  a 
loss  even  to  imagine  ! 

The  lady  then  proceeds  to  ascribe  the  "  manifest  decline  of  cookery,"  visible  in 
the  present  age,  to  "  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion;"  as  the  frequency 
of  fasts,  meagre  days,  &c.  "  forced  the  people  to  exert  their  ingenuity."  In 
which,  if  there  were  any  force,  the  science  of  cookery  ought,  by  all  analogy, 
to  have  been  higher,  all  over  the  world,  three  centuries  ago,  than  it  is  now  ;•-— 

higher  now  in  Ireland  than  in  England; — higher  in  Italy  than  in  France; and 

highest  of  all  in  Spain — where  it  io  as  nearly  as  can  be  detestable.  The  fol- 
lowing exquisitely  probable  anecdote  is  here  appended  in  the  shape  of  a  note. 

"  The  monks  on  the  Continent  at  this  moment  are  reported  the  best  of  cooks.  I 
may  say  that  I  never  saw  a  better  dressed  or  better  served  dinner,  than  one  that  was 
begged,  cooked,  and  served,  by  a  mendicant  friar.  He  came  to  Rome  once  a  wreek, 
went  his  rounds,  and  brought  his  gleanings  to  an  abbate  who  patronized  him.  The  door 
was  then  shut,  the  outer  cloak  thrown  off,  and  half  a  dozen  bags,  plump  as  their 
carrier,  displayed  themselves  to  the  enraptured  eyes  of  the  benevolent  host.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that,  for  a  dinner  of  ten  dishes,  no  one  ingredient  was  wanting,  not  even  oil. 
The  receipt  for  one  of  them — baked  curds— I  regret  I  have  lost.  I  shall  refer  to  the 
receipts  for  a  quarter  of  kid,  dressed  a  V Isaac,  which  was  truly  savoury.  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  witnessing  several  sights  of  the  kind,  being  introduced  by  the  friendly 
abbate,  as  the  Soretta /"  &c. 

Truly  has  it  been  said,  that  travellers  do  see  strange  things. — But  this  story  is 
yet  nothing  to  one  which  follows.  We  are  now  on  the  fitness  and  necessity 
of  ladies  informing  themselves,  as  to  their  husbands'  affairs. 

"  If  example  be  required,  I  will  produce  that  of  a  lady,  of  more  than  patrician  birth, 


30  Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery.  [JAN. 

and  of  a  mind  as  elevated  as  her  rank.  Suspecting,  from  several  circumstances,  the 
embarrassed  state  of  her  husband's  affairs,  she  went  into  the  steward's  office,  and, 
locking  the  door  after  her,  declared  that  she  -would  not  quit  the  place  till  he  made  her 
acquainted  with  her  real  situation.  Her  suspicions  being  more  than  confirmed,  she 
prevailed  on  her  husband  to  go  and  pay  some  visit,  and  then  immediately  dismissed  the 
carriages,  horses,  servants,  hounds — [these  last  were,  of  course,  sent  packing] — and  at 
his  return  received  him  with  open  arms— [open  house  too,  it  would  appear,  for  any 
thing  that  was  left  in  it] — to  a  state  of  peace  and  comfort,"  &c.  &c. 

"  The  creditors,  by  wisely  trusting  their  honour  and  discretion,  saved  their  own 
money,  and  prevented  the  ruin  of  the  family — " 

This  is  certainly  the  true  sort  of  generosity — where  a  man  is  a  gainer  by  the 
charity  which  he  gives  away — 

"  It  was,  however,  a  long  and  painful  task  of  fourteen  years :  with  less  labour,  the 
fortune  might  have  been  triply  earned — " 

As  Hamlet  says  of  Guildenstern's  compliment,  "  We  do  not  well  understand 
that." 

"  Had  the  lady  been  a  merchant's  daughter,  in  all  probability  the  family  would  have 
been  ruined;  for  "what  judgment  or  feeling  can  be  expected,"  &c.  &c. 

Here  is  a  declaration,  for  a  book  printed  at  the  back  of  Fetter-lane,  and 
published  in  Paternoster  Row  ! 

We  leave  fried  mutton,  however,  now,  for  the  work  of  legislation  ;  and 
various  substitutes  are  suggested,  for  the  ordinary  articles  of  food  in  consump- 
tion, when  these  last  happen  to  be  dear  or  scarce.  Though  "  servants,"  it  is 
truly  observed — in  shewing  the  obstinacy  with  which  such  discoveries  are 
resisted — "  suffer  with  great  difficulty,  even  trifling  reductions." 

"  Snails  and  frogs— [we  are  alluding  now  to  some  late  time  of  distress]— might-have 
greatly  assisted  us  at  that  period."  "  I  regret  this  prejudice— [against  them]— very 
much ;  as  in  this  country,  so  liable  to  consumption—  [physiologically  '  consumption'] — 
they  might  be  of  great  service.  I  give  receipts  for  preparing  them  ;  and  should  recom- 
mend that  broths  be  made  of  them  for  consumptive  patients ;  and,  if  necessary,  WITHOUT 

THEIR   KNOWLEDGE." 

We  need  hardly  intreat  our  consumptive  friends  to  be  upon  their  guard  ! 
If  any  one  of  them  has  a  pond — or  even  a  suspicious  duck-puddle — within  a 
mile  of  his  house,  let  him  remove  upon  the  sudden,  before  he  swallows,  unwit- 
tingly, the  produce  of  it.  We  trust,  moreover,  that  all  consumptive  persons— 
in  mere  gratitude  for  the  exposure  of  this  iniquitous  plot  against  them — will 
in  future  push  this  Magazine  in  every  direction.  N.B.  Those  who  are  likely 
soon  to  die,  can  make  it  a  condition  in  their  wills  that  their  heirs  shall  take  it 
for  ever. 

"  Beech  mast,  acorns,  and  horse-chestnuts,  by  steeping,  might  be  made  useful 
for  food." 

This  is  very  true  j  and  it  would  be  no  fraud  now  upon  the  hogs,  for  they  are 
fed  with  barley-meal  and  potatoes. 
"  Ass  and  horse-flesh  might  be  used." 
But  this  is  rather  confined,  we  apprehend,  to  "  times  of  scarcity." 

"  The  physician  of  one  of  the  embassies  to  China  told  me,  that  he  had  seen  children 
lying  upon  the  sides  of  tanks,  gathering  every  tiling  that  had  life,  and  putting  what  they 
collected  into  little  boxes,  to  prevent  their  escape  :  the  produce  was  put  into  the 
rice  pot." 

We  have  observed  the  same  gathering  principle  exercised  in  some  parts  of 
Europe;  but  the  "  produce"  was  never  (within  our  knowledge)  applied 
exactly  to  the  same  purpose. 

The  "  poor,"  it  appears,  have  peculiar  tastes,  which  the  world  in  common, 
we  dare  say,  are  not  aware  of— 

"  I  find  that  poor  people  (the  women  especially)  prefer  porter  negus  to  porter."  And 
4k  gruel  to  either  !" 


1827.]  Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery.  31 

But  the  fact  is,  that — 

"  What  one-half  of  the  community  pays  any  price  for,  the  other  will  not  eat  for  pay." 

And  then  comes  another  delicious  morceau,  in  the  shape  of  an  anecdote. 
The  "  rice  pot  "  (literary)  never  picked  up  a  richer  bit  than  this — 

"  A  gentleman,  travelling  to  Scotland,  found  in  Aberdeen  the  turbot  so  cheap,  that  he 
determined  to  remain  some  time  there ;  and,  wishing  his  servants  to  enjoy  the  luxury  with 
him,  lie  ordered  turbot  and  lobster  sauce  for  them  all.  Some  days  after  the  coachman 
gave  up  his  place,  feigning  some  necessity  to  return  to  London.  Another — [probably 
the  footman] — appeared,  to  take  his  leave.  The  master  asked  what  was  the  matter. 
The  servants  said,  that  though  their  master  could  live  upon  fish,  they  could  not.  So 
he  very  properly  discharged  them," 

Beech  mart  and  horse-flesh,  however,  are  not  our  only  substitutes  for  beef 
and  mutton — 

"  Sauces  and  ketchups  are,  also,  a  great  saving  and  comfort  to  the  lower  classes  ,• 
particularly  to  artisans,  who  labour  from  morning  till  night,"  &c.  &c.  — "  To  this 
valuable  class,  I  anxiously  wish  to  give  instruction  with  respect  to  proper  diet.  Were 
they  to  use  soups,  and  little  ragouts,  seasoned  with  ketchups,  they  would  be  better  fed 
than  upon  chops  and  porter." 

A  similar  hint  is  before  conveyed,  in  page  13,  that  the  "  poor  "  might  make 
their  own  "  soy"  But  we  wonder  that  our  Domestic  Economist  should  have 
omitted  to  recommend  turtle  to  their  consideration  !  It  is  true  that,  not 
having  been  accustomed  to  it,  indeed,  they  might  not  like  it  at  first;  but,  with 
a  couple  of  glasses  of  iced  punch  between  every  other  mouthful,  they  would 
soon  be  able  to  get  it  down ;  and  it  would  be  — if  they  could  be  brought  to  it — 
a  most  palatable  and  nutritious  food. 

Any  little  change,  indeed,  of  this  kind,  we  have  no  doubt  would  soon 
become  the  more  grateful  and  agreeable  to  "  the  poor ;"  because,  certain  it  is — 
even  to  an  extent  we  protest  we  know  nothing  of — that  they  are  monstrously 
ill-treated  under  the  existing  regime. 

"  It  is  a  notorious  fact,  that  the  poor  pay  much  more  than  the  rich.  As  to  tea, 
which  is  one  of  their  greatest  comforts,  if  a  poor  woman  goes  to  buy  it,  she  approaches 
the  counter  as  if  it  were  for  charity,  and  receives  for  her  money  the  most  abominable  trash. 
When  the  poor  go  to  market,  they  are  absolutely  blackguarded  into  buying;  and,  though 
they  are  forced  to  pay  much  more  than  the  middling  classes,  they  receive,  as' if  it  were 
a  charitable  contribution,  the  meat  that  is  absolutely  thrown  at  them  !  In  their  coals,  they 
are  in  the  same  manner  brorv-beaten  and  cheated.  What  wonder  is  it  that  they  are 
degraded  below  savages  and  slaves  /" 

We  ought  almost  to  apologize  to  our  readers;  but  there  is  such  an  obvious 
veracity  about  the  anecdotes  in  this  book,  that  we  absolutely  must  have  one 
more  of  them — 

"  For  the  honour  of  humanity,  I  am  glad  to  have  found  some  noble  actions  of  ser- 
vants. One  instance  I  shall  relate,  of  a  servant  "who  was  cook  in  the  family  of  an 
officer,  the  son  of  a  nobleman,  who  went  to  a  very  particular  friend  of  her  mistress's, 
and,  after  exacting  the  strictest  sccresy,  told  her  that  her  mistress  was  in  the  utmost 
want ;  that  she  pretended,  before  her  husband,  that  she  could  make  every  thing  meet, 
but  that  it  was  impossible  ;  that  she  would  order  dinner  before  him,  but,  upon  getting 
him  to  go  out,  she  would  countermand  it,  saying  that  she  was  too  ill  to  eat, — *  and  shall 
I,  madam,'  continued  the  faithful  creature,  '  see  her  living  upon  gruel,  and  we,  her 
servants,  taking  our  tea  and  hot  dinners,  and  not  dare  to  speak  of  it  to  any  one  !'  By 
the  conduct  of  this  faithful  servant,  the  poor  mistress  was  preserved  a  little  longer, 
though  she  certainly fett  a  sacrifice  in  the  end  !" 

The  sufferings  of  those  persons  who  have  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year  are 
indeed  great ;  but  we  had  not  imagined  their  state  had  been  so  desperate,  as 
that  any  of  them  absolutely  died  of  hunger.  We  live,  however — as  the  pro- 
verb says — to  learn ;  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  our  readers,  as  well  as  our- 
selves, will  have  learned  a  good  many  things  from  the  "  Domestic  Economist," 
which  they  had  never  learned  before. 

It  is  impossible  for  us,  as  we  observed  in  the  beginning,  to  go  at  length  into 


32  Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery.  [ JAX» 

such  a  book  as  this.  And  with  the  "  cookery  "  recipes  we  have  not  troubled 
ourselves :  for  two  reasons — first,  because  it  would  be  too  tedious  to  make 
proof,  by  actual  experiment,  of  their  quality ;  and  next,  because  nothing  can 
be  more  simple  or  easy,  from  the  vast  number  of  cookery  books  already  in 
print,  than  for  any  person  to  extract  a  sufficient  number  of  unobjectionable 
ones.  But  a  new  book,  which  depends  upon  competition,  fortunately  (and 
fairly)  for  publications  which  have  already  acquired  standing,  becomes  subjected 
to  this  test — either  it  has  some  novelty— some  original  matter — contained  in  its 
Instructions,  or  it  has  not.  Now,  if  there  is  any  novelty  in  the  book  before  us,  the 
extracts  which  we  have  already  given  may  seem  to  shew  of  what  character,  or 
value,  that  novelty  is  likely  to  be.  If  there  be  no  novelty  in  it — nothing  more  than 
has  appeared  in  other  works — then,  upon  what  merit — as  a  mere  compilation 
(disfigured  with  a  great  deal  of  nonsense) — is  it  presented  to  the  public  ?  Our 
opinion  is,  that  the  book— good  or  bad — has  not  been  written  by  a  female. 


SONG    OF    A    SEA-FAIRY   TO    A   LAND-FAIRY. 

COME  unto  our  coral  caves, 

Where  winds  ne'er  blow, 
But  the  smoothly-stealing  waves 

Like  soft  songs  flow  ! 
We  have  many  a  pearly  shell, 
Where  you  may  enhoused  dwell 

Safe  as  in  the  perfumed  chamber 
Of  the  lily  or  red  rose, 
And  be  fair  and  sweet  as  those  : — 

We  have  paths,  too,  paved  with  amber, 
And  your  tiny  feet  may  tread 
On  golden  sands  unto  your  bed, 

Or  on  thickly-sprinkled  pearls, 

White  as  are  the  teeth  of  girls 
In  their  tender  virginhed. 
We  have  grots  of  shining  spar, 
Light  as  lit  with  moon  and  star, — 
Vast  of  arch  and  high  of  dome, 
Where  the  Triton-people  come 
To  disport  them,  in  still  seas, 
With  such  pastimes  as  most  please 
Creatures  made  for  happy  ease. 

Come — by  this  they  have  begun  ; 
For  the  wan,  way-wearied  sun, 
Turns  the  beauty  of  his  smile 
From  the  green  hem  of  your  isle  ! 
Faster  than  his  smile  doth  fade 
Comes  black  Night,  with  cloud  and  shade, 
To  dusk  the  western  world,  whilst  he 
Upon  the  silent,  shining  sea, 
Wafted  in  the  sea-horsed  car 

Of  the  great  Jove  of  the  deep 
(Sedge-haired  Neptune),  still  doth  run, 

With  swift  wheels,  along  the  steep 
Declining  waters,  to  the  far 
Unseen  chamber  of  his  rest, 
In  the  day-delighting  east — 
There  to  pause,  until  the  call 
Of  Hesper,  coming  from  the  hall 


1827.]  Song  of  a  Sea-Fairy  to  a  Land-Fairy.  33 

Of  the  young,  impatient  Day, 

Bid  him  take  his  wonted  way 

Through  that  bright  arch,  which  doth  span 

Wider  than  the  eye  of  man 

Can  o'ermeasure,  though  it  strain 

Over  earth  and  over  main. 

Come — ere  yet  his  westering  wheels 
Dip  in  the  gold-sprinkled   sea, 

And  dusk  Night,  like  Comus,  reels 
From  his  lewd  lair,  lustfully  !  — 
We  have  fields  of  emerald-green 
(Such  as  are  by  seamen  seen 
When  they  plunge  into  the  sea, 
In  some  sick-brained  fantasy, 
Dreaming  their  home-fields  they  see), 
Wherein  many  an  unknown  flower 
Blooms,  and  feels  no  seasons's  power, 
But  are  ever  sweet  and  fair, 
Though  the  sun  shines  never  there, 
But  only  the  pale-lided  moon 
(Coming  forth  to  hear  the  tune 
Of  nightingale,  by  waters  near 
Warbling  to  the  dull  Night's  ear) 
Blesses  them  with  milder  beams, 
As  devote  to  her  deep  streams  !  — 
There  you  may  those  flowers  behold, 
Which  our  spring  has  dropt  with  gold  ; 
Others  shining,  night  and  day, 
With  a  silvery,  star-like  ray, 
Making  every  step  you  tread 
Bright,  and  soft,  and  essenced  : — 
Daisies  white,  like  water-stars, 
Beaming  brighter  than  the  spars 
That,  when  Neptune  is  a-bed, 
Light  his  sea-cave  overhead  : 
Lilies,  white  as  thy  cool  hand  ; 
Violets,  sweet  as  those  on  land, 
And  as  delicately  blue 
As  the  fair  veins  running  through 

Thy  white  brow,  that  whitest  wonder 
Fields  among  whose  verdant  weed 
Harmless  creatures  sport  and  feed, 

Gliding  wave  and  billow  under ; 
Where,  indeed,  no  monstrous  thing, — 
Dolphins,  rudely  gambolling ; 

Rough  sea-lions,  roaring  thunder ; 
Slimy  serpent,  and  sleek  seal  ; 
Savage  sea-wolf,  sinuous  eel ; 
Crocodiles,  which  covert  keep, 
Dealing  death  when  feigning  sleep  ; 
Water-throwing  whales,  that  make 
Ocean  vibrate  like  a  lake ; 
Crafty  sharks,  that  slily  steal 
To  snatch  their  savage,  sudden  meal ; 
Wild  sea-horses,  spurning  strong 
The  sands,  as  fierce  they  scour  along, 
Till  the  frothing  waters  foam  ; — 
None  of  these  will,  wanton,  come 
M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.lIl.  No.13.  F 


SI  Song  of  a  Sea-Fairy  to  a  Land-Fairy.  [JAN. 

In  the  pearly  paths  which  lead 
To  your  coral  cell,  or  tread 
Where  your  feet  will  ever  stray, 
To  affright  you,  night  or  day  ! 
Nothing  noxious  there  will  move, 
Only  such  things  you  may  love  : — 
Timid  mermaids,  p'rhaps,  may  there 
Comb  the  pearls  from  their  sleek  hair, 
And,  remote  from  rude  alarms, 
Nicely  dress  their  modest  charms: — 
These  are  Ocean's  gentlest  daughters, 
And  disturb  not  its  still  waters — 
Waters  clear,  of  cleanly  tide, 
Through  whose  depths  may  be  descried 
All  the  stars  which  course  the  sky, 
All  that  stand  there  fixedly ; 
All  that  under  water  moves — 
Sluggish  shells,  and  finny  droves  ; 
Every  harmless  thing  that  there 
May  please,  but  not  affright  my  Fair  ! 

Come,  sweet  Fay,  and  follow  me 
To  the  deepest-sanded  sea, 
Where  you  may  by  day  conceal 
Charms  you  would  not  all-reveal, — 
Safe  among  the  finned  droves, 
As  among  a  flight  of  doves 
(Such  as  Venus,  with  much  pains, 
More  by  love  than  luring,  trains 
To  teach  her  Loves  their  winged  way 
From  the  groves  of  Paphia) ; 
And  when  Night  grows  dark  again, 
And  the  Fairies'  moon  doth  reign, 
And  the  dark  Hours'  lonely  bird 
Over  land  and  sea  is  heard, 
Creep  from  chamber  of  your  house, 
Until  morning  to  carouse 
In  the  camp  of  Oberon, 
Till  his  nightly  sports  be  done, 
And  the  first  voice  of  the  day 
Bid  us  to  our  homes  away  ! 

Come — and  ask  no  more  persuading  ! 
Every  fay  and  fairy  maiden 
Have  by  this  their  court  begun — 
Now  the  wan  and  weary  sun 
Bathes  his  brow  in  the  fresh  sea, 
Sinking  there,  and  so  must  we  : — 
See  the  light-sailed  Nautilus 
Waits  to  be  a  barque  for  us ; 
And  the  fays  and  fairies  slim, 

From  their  halls  and  sea-shells  hollow, 
Call  us  with  their  choral  hymn, 

And  a  gentle  whoop  and  halloo, 

Crying,  "Follow,  fairies,  follow  !" 


1827.]  [     35.  ] 


ON    THE    WANT   OF   MONEY. 


IT  is  hard  to  be  without  money.  To  get  on  without  it  is  like 
travelling  in  a  foreign  country  without  a  passport — you  are  stopped, 
suspected,  and  made  ridiculous  at  every  turn,  besides  being  subjected 
to  the  most  serious  inconveniences.  The  want  of  money  I  here  allude 
to  is  not  altogether  that  which  arises  from  absolute  poverty — for  where 
there  is  a  downright  absence  of  the  common  necessaries  of  life,  this 
must  be  remedied  by  incessant  hard  labour,  and  the  least  we  can 
receive  in  return  is  a  supply  of  our  daily  wants — but  that  uncertain, 
casual,  precarious  mode  of  existence,  in  which  the  temptation  to  spend 
remains  after  the  means  are  exhausted,  the  want  of  money  joined  with 
the  hope  and  possibility  of  getting  it,  the  intermediate  state  of  difficulty 
and  suspense  between  the  last  guinea  or  shilling  and  the  next  that  we 
may  have  the  good  luck  to  encounter.  This  gap,  this  unwelcome  in- 
terval constantly  recurring,  however  shabbily  got  over,  is  really  full  of 
many  anxieties,  misgivings,  mortifications,  meannesses,  and  deplorable 
embarrassments  of  every  description.  I  may  attempt  (this  essay  is  not 
a  fanciful  speculation)  to  enlarge  upon  a  few  of  them. 

It  is  hard  to  go  without  one's  dinner  through  sheer  distress,  but 
harder  still  to  go  without  one's  breakfast.  Upon  the  strength  of  that 
first  and  aboriginal  meal,  one  may  muster  courage  to  face  the  difficulties 
before  one,  and  to  dare  the  worst :  but  to  be  roused  out  of  one's  warm 
bed,  and  perhaps  a  profound  oblivion  of  care,  with  golden  dreams  (for 
poverty  does  not  prevent  golden  dreams),  and  told  there  is  nothing  for 
breakfast,  is  cold  comfort  for  which  one's  half-strung  nerves  are  not 
prepared,  and  throws  a  damp  upon  the  prospects -of  the  day.  It  is  a 
bad  beginning.  A  man  without  a  breakfast  is  a  poor  creature,  unfit  to 
go  in  search  of  one,  to  meet  the  frown  of  the  world,  or  to  borrow  a 
shilling  of  a  friend.  He  may  beg  at  the  corner  of  a  street — nothing 
is  too  mean  for  the  tone  of  his  feelings — robbing  on  the  highway  is  out 
of  the  question,  as  requiring  too  much  courage,  and  some  opinion  of  a 
man's  self.  It  is,  indeed,  as  old  Fuller,  or  some  worthy  of  that  age, 
expresses  it,  "  the  heaviest  stone  which  melancholy  can  throw  at  a 
man,"  to  learn,  the  first  thing  after  he  rises  in  the  morning,  or  even  to 
be  dunned  with  it  in  bed,  that  there  is  no  loaf,  tea,  or  butter  in  the 
house,  and  that  the  baker,  the  grocer,  and  butterman  have  refused  to 
give  any  farther  credit.  This  is  taking  one  sadly  at  a  disadvantage. 
It  is  striking  at  one's  spirit  and  resolution  in  their  very  source, — the 
stomach — it  is  attacking  one  on  the  side  of  hunger  and  mortification 
at  once  ;  it  is  casting  one  into  the  very  mire  of  humility  and  Slough 
of  Despond.  The  worst  is,  to  know  what  face  to  put  upon  the  matter, 
what  excuse  to  make  to  the  servants,  what  answer  to  send  to  the 
tradespeople  ;  whether  to  laugh  it  off,  or  be  grave,  or  angry,  or  indif- 
ferent ;  in  short,  to  know  how  to  parry  off  an  evil  which  you  cannot 
help.  What  a  luxury,  what  a  God's-send  in  such  a  dilemma,  to  find  a 
half-crown  which  had  slipped  through  a  hole  in  the  lining  of  your 
waistcoat,  a  crumpled  bank-note  in  your  breeches-pocket,  or  a  guinea 
clinking  in  the  bottom  of  your  trunk,  which  had  been  thoughtlessly  left 
there  out  of  a  former  heap !  Vain  hope  !  Unfounded  illusion !  The 
experienced  in  such  matters  know  better,  and- laugh  in  their  sleeves  at 
so  improbable  a  suggestion.  Not  a  corner,  not  a  cranny,  not  a  pocket, 

F  2 


36  On  the  Want  of  Money.  [JAN. 

not  a  drawer  has  been  left  unrummaged,  or  has  not  been  subjected  over 
and  over  again  to  more  than  the  strictness  of  a  custom-house  scrutiny. 
Not  the  slightest  rustle  of  a  piece  of  bank-paper,  not  the  gentlest  pressure 
of  a  piece  of  hard  metal,  but  would  have  given  notice  of  its  hiding-place 
with  electrical  rapidity,  long  before,  in  such  circumstances.  All  the 
variety  of  pecuniary  resources,  which  form  a  legal  tender  on  the  current 
coin  of  the  realm,  are  assuredly  drained,  exhausted  to  the  last  farthing 
before  this  time.  But  is  there  nothing  in  the  house  that  one  can  turn 
to  account  ?  Is  there  not  an  old  family-watch,  or  piece  of  plate,  or  a 
ring,  or  some  worthless  trinket  that  one  could  part  with  ?  nothing  be- 
longing to  one's-self  or  a  friend,  that  one  could  raise  the  wind  upon,  till 
something  better  turns  up  ?  At  this  moment  an  old-clothes  man  passes, 
and  his  deep,  harsh  tones  sound  like  an  intended  insult  on  one's  distress, 
and  banish  the  thought  of  applying  for  his  assistance,  as  one's  eye 
glanced  furtively  at  an  old  hat  or  a  great  coat,  hung  up  behind  a  closet- 
door.  Humiliating  contemplations  !  Miserable  uncertainty  !  One  he- 
sitates, and  the  opportunity  is  gone  by ;  for  without  one's  breakfast,  one 
has  not  the  resolution  to  do  any  thing  I—  The  late  Mr.  Sheridan  was 
often  reduced  to  this  unpleasant  predicament.  Possibly  he  had  little 
appetite  for  breakfast  himself;  but  the  servants  complained  bitterly  on 
this  head,  and  said  that  Mrs.  Sheridan  was  tometimes  kept  waiting  for 
a  couple  of  hours,  while  they  had  to  hunt  through  the  neighbourhood, 
and  beat  up  for  coffee,  eggs,  and  French  rolls.  The  same  perplexity,  in 
this  instance  appears  to  have  extended  to  the  providing  for  the  dinner  ; 
for  so  sharp-set  were  they,  that  to  cut  short  a  debate  with  a  butcher's 
apprentice  about  leaving  a  leg  of  mutton  without  the  money,  the  cook 
clapped  it  into  the  pot :  the  butcher's  boy,  probably  used  to  such  en- 
counters, with  equal  coolness  took  it  out  again,  and  marched  off  with  it 
in  his  tray  in  triumph.  It  required  a  man  to  be  the  author  of  THE 
SCHOOL  FOR  SCANDAL,  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  such  disagreeable  occur- 
rences every  hour  of  the  day.  There  was  one  comfort,  however, 
that  poor  Sheridan  had  :  he  did  not  foresee  that  Mr.  Moore  would  write 
his  Life  I* 

*  Taylor,  of  the  Opera- House,  used  to  say  of  Sheridan,  that  he  could  not  pull  off 
his  hat  to  him  in  the  street  without  its  costing  him  fifty  pounds ;  and  if  he  stopped 
to  speak  to  him,  it  was  a  hundred.  No  one  could  be  a  stronger  instance  than  he  was 
of  what  is  called  living  from  hand  to  mouth.  He  was  always  in  want  of  money,  though 
he  received  vast  sums  which  he  must  have  disbursed ;  and  yet  nobody  can  tell  what 
became  of  them,  for  he  paid  nobody.  He  spent  his  wife's  fortune  (sixteen  hundred 
pounds)  in  a  six  weeks'  jaunt  to  Bath,  and  returned  to  town  as  poor  as  a  rat.  When- 
ever he  and  his  son  were  invited  out  into  the  country,  they  always  went  in  two  post- 
chaises  and  four  ;  he  in  one,  and  his  son  Tom  following  in  another.  This  is  the  secret 
of  those  who  live  in  a  round  of  extravagance,  and  are  at  the  same  time  always  in  debt 
and  difficulty — they  throw  away  all  the  ready  money  they  get  upon  any  new-tangled 
whim  or  project  that  comes  in  their  way,  and  never  think  of  paying  off  old  scores,  which 
of  course  accumulate  to  a  dreadful  amount.  "  Such  gain  the  cap  of  him  who  makes 
them  fine,  yet  keeps  his  book  uncrossed."  Sheridan  once  wanted  to  take  Mrs.  Sheri- 
dan a  very  handsome  dress  down  into  the  country,  and  went  to  Barber  and  Nunn's  to 
order  it,  saying  he  must  have  it  by  such  a  day,  but  promising  they  should  have  ready 
money.  Mrs.  Barber  (I  think  it  was)  made  answer  that  the  time  was  short,  but  that 
ready  money  was  a  very  charming  thing,  and  that  he  should  have  it.  Accordingly,  at 
the  time  appointed  she  brought  the  dress,  which  came  to  five-and-twenty  pounds,  and 
it  was  sent  in  to  Mr.  Sheridan  :  who  sent  out  a  Mr.  Grimm  (one  of  his  jackalls)  to  say 
he  admired  it  exceedingly,  -and  that  he  was  sure  Mrs.  Sheridan  would  be  delighted 
with  it,  but  he  was  sorry  to  have  nothing  under  a  hundred  pound  bank-note  in  the 


18*17.]  On  the  Want,  of  Money.  37 

The  going  without  a  dinner  is  another  of  the  miseries  of  wanting 
money,  though  one  can  bear  up  against  this  calamity  better  than  the 
former,  which  really  "  blights  the  tender  blossom  and  promise  of  the 
day."  With  one  good  meal,  one  may  hold  a  parley  with  hunger  and 
moralize  upon  temperance.  One  has  time  to  turn  one's-self  and  look 
about  one — to  "  screw  one's  courage  to  the  sticking-place,"  to  graduate 

house.  She  said  she  had  come  provided  for  such  an  accident,  and  could  give  change 
for  a  hundred,  two  hundred,  or  five  hundred  pound  note,  if  it  were  necessary.  Grimm 
then  went  hack  to  his  principal  for  farther  instructions  :  who  made  an  excuse  that  lie 
had  no  stamped  receipt  hy  him.  For  this,  Mrs.  B.  said,  she  was  also  provided  ;  she 
had  brought  one  in  her  pocket.  At  each  message,  she  could  hear  them  laughing 
heartily  in  the  next  room  at  the  idea  of  having  met  with  their  match  for  once  ;  and 
presently  after,  Sheridan  came  out  in  high  good-humour,  and  paid  her  the  amount  of 
her  bill,  in  ten,  five,  and  one  pounds.  Once  when  a  creditor  brought  him  a  bill  for 
payment,  which  had  often  been  presented  before,  and  the  man  complained  of  its  soiled 
and  tattered  state,  and  said  he  was  quite  ashamed  to  see  it,  "  I'll  tell  you  what  I'd 
advise  you  to  do  with  it,  my  friend,"  said  Sheridan,  "  take  it  home,  and  write  it  upon 
parchment  /"  He  once  mounted  a  horse  which  a  horse-dealer  was  shewing  off  near  a 
coffee-house  at  the  bottom  of  St.  James's-street,  rode  it  to  Tattersall's,  and  sold  it, 
and  walked  quietly  back  to  the  spot  from  which  he  set  out.  The  owner  was  furious, 
swore  he  would  be  the  death  of  him ;  and,  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  afterwards  they  were 
seen  sitting  together  over  a  bottle  of  wine  in  the  coffee-house,  the  horse-jockey  with 
the  tears  running  down  his  face  at  Sheridan's  jokes,  and  almost  ready  to  hug  him  as 
an  honest  fellow.  Sheridan's  house  and  lobby  were  beset  with  duns  every  morning, 
who  were  told  that  Mr.  Sheridan  was  not  yet  up,  and  shewn  into  the  several  rooms  on 
each  side  of  the  entrance.  As  soon  as  he  had  breakfasted,  he  asked,  "  Are  those  doors 
all  shut,  John  ?"  and,  being  assured  they  were,  marched  out  very  deliberately  between 
them,  to  the  astonishment  of  his  self-invited  guests,  who  soon  found  the  bird  was 
flown.  I  have  heard  one  of  his  old  City  friends  declare,  that  such  was  the  effect  of 
his  frank,  cordial  manner,  and  insinuating  eloquence,  that  he  was  always  afraid  to  go 
to  ask  him  for  a  debt  of  long  standing,  lest  he  should  borrow  twice  as  much.  A  play 
had  been  put  off  one  night,  or  a  favourite  actor  did  not  appear,  and  the  audience 
demanded  to  have  their  money  back  again :  but  when  they  came  to  the  door,  they 
were  told  by  the  check-takers  there  was  none  for  them,  for  that  Mr.  Sheridan  had 
been  in  the  mean  time,  and  had  carried  off  all  the  money  in  the  till.  He  used  often 
to  get  the  old  cobler  who  kept  a  stall  under  the  ruins  of  Drury  Lane  to  broil  a  beef- 
steak for  him,  and  take  their  dinner  together.  On  the  night  that  Drury  Lane  was 
burnt  down,  Sheridan  was  in  the  House  of  Commons,  making  a  speech,  though  he 
could  hardly  stand  without  leaning  his  hands  on  the  table,  and  it  was  with  some  diffi- 
culty he  was  forced  away,  urging  the  plea,  "  What  signified  the  concerns  of  a  private 
individual,  compared  to  the  good  of  the  state  ?"  When  he  got  to  Covent- Garden,  he 
went  into  the  Piazza  Coffee-house,  to  steady  himself  with  another  bottle,  and  then 
strolled  out  to  the  end  of  the  Piazza  to  look  at  the  progress  of  the  fire.  Here  he  was 
accosted  by  Charles  Kemble  and  Fawcett,  who  complimented  him  on  the  calmness 
with  which  he  seemed  to  regard  so  great  a  loss.  He  declined  this  praise,  and  said — 
"  Gentlemen,  there  are  but  three  things  in  human  life  that  in  my  opinion  ought  to 
disturb  a  wise  man's  patience.  The  first  of  these  is  bodily  pain,  and  that  (whatever 
the  ancient  stoics  may  have  said  to  the  contrary)  is  too  much  for  any  man  to  bear 
without  flinching :  this  I  have  felt  severely,  and  I  know  it  to  be  the  case.  The  second 
is  the  loss  of  a  friend  whom  you  have  dearly  loved ;  that,  gentlemen,  is  a  great  evil : 
this  I  have  also  felt,  and  I  know  it  to  be  too  much  for  any  man's  fortitude.  And  the 
third  is  the  consciousness  of  having  done  an  unjust  action.  That,  gentlemen,  is  a  great 
evil,  a  very  great  evil,  too  much  for  any  man  to  endure  the  reflection  of;  but  that" 
(laying  his  hand  upon  his  heart,)  "  but  that,  thank  God,  I  have  never  felt!"  I  have 
been  told  that  these  were  nearly  the  very  words,  except  that  he  appealed  to  the  mens 
conscia  recti  very  emphatically  three  or  four  times  over,  by  an  excellent  authority, 
Mr.  Mathews  the  player,  who  was  on  the  spot  at  the  time,  a  gentleman  whom  the 
public  admire  deservedly,  but  with  whose  real  talents  and  nice  discrimination  of  cha- 
racter his  friends  only  are  acquainted.  Sheridan's  reply  to  the  watchman  who  had 
picked  him  up  in  the  street,  and  who  wanted  to  know  who  he  was,  "  I  am  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce !"— is  well  known,  and  shews  that,  however  frequently  he  might  be  at  a  loss 
for  money,  he  never  wanted  wit ! 


38  On  the  Want  of  Money.  [JAN. 

the  scale  of  disappointment,  and  stave  off'  appetite  till  supper-time. 
You  gain  time,  and  time  in  this  weather-cock  world  is  every  thing. 
You  may  dine  at  two,  or  at  six,  or  seven — as  most  convenient.  You  may 
in  the  mean  while  receive  an  invitation  to  dinner,  or  some  one  (not 
knowing  how  you  are  circumstanced)  may  send  you  a  present  of  a 
haunch  of  venison  or  a  brace  of  pheasants  from  the  country,  or  a  dis- 
tant relation  may  die  and  leave  you  a  legacy,  or  a  patron  may  call  and 
overwhelm  you  with  his  smiles  and  bounty, 

"  As  kind  as  kings  upon  their  coronation-day ;" 

or  there  is  no  saying  what  may  happen.  One  may  wait  for  dinner — 
breakfast  admits  of  no  delay,  of  no  interval  interposed  between  that 
and  our  first  waking  thoughts.*  Besides,  there  are  shifts  and  devices, 
shabby  and  mortifying  enough,  but  still  available  in  case  of  need.  How 
many  expedients  are  there  in  this  great  city  (London),  time  out  of  mind 
and  times  without  number,  resorted  to  by  the  dilapidated  and  thrifty 
speculator,  to  get  through  this  grand  difficulty  without  utter  failure  ! 
One  may  dive  into  a  cellar,  and  dine  on  boiled  beef  and  carrots  for  ten- 
pence,  with  the  knives  and  forks  chained  to  the  table,  and  jostled  by  greasy 
elbows  that  seem  to  make  such  a  precaution  not  unnecessary  (hunger 
is  proof  against  indignity  !) — or  one  may  contrive  to  part  with  a  super- 
fluous article  of  wearing  apparel,  and  carry  home  a  mutton-chop  and 
cook  it  in  a  garret ;  or  one  may  drop  in  at  a  friend's  at  the  dinner-hour, 
and  be  asked  to  stay  or  not ;  or  one  may  walk  out  and  take  a  turn  in  the 
Park,  about  the  time,  and  return  home  to  tea,  so  as  at  least  to  avoid  the 
sting  of  the  evil — the  appearance  of  not  having  dined.  You  then  have 
the  laugh  on  your  side,  having  deceived  the  gossips,  and  can  submit  to 
the  want  a  sumptuous  repast  without  murmuring,  having  saved  your 
pride,  and  made  a  virtue  of  necessity.  I  say  all  this  may  be  done  by  a 
man  without  a  family  (for  what  business  has  a  man  without  money  with 
one  ? — See  English  Malthus  and  Scotch  Macculloch) — and  it  is  only  my 
intention  here  to  bring  forward  such  instances  of  the  want  of  money  as 
are  tolerable  both  in  theory  and  practice.  I  once  lived  on  coffee  (as  an 
experiment)  for  a  fortnight  together,  while  I  was  finishing  the  copy  of  a 
half-length  portrait  of  a  Manchester  manufacturer,  who  had  died  worth 
a  plum.  I  rather  slurred  over  the  coat,  which  was  a  reddish  brown, 
"  of  formal  cut,"  to  receive  my  five  guineas,  with  which  I  went  to 
market  myself,  and  dined  on  sausages  and  mashed  potatoes,  and 
while  they  were  getting  ready,  and  I  could  hear  them  hissing  in  the  pan, 
read  a  volume  of  Gil  Bias,  containing  the  account  of  the  fair  Aurora. 
This  was  in  the  days  of  my  youth.  Gentle  reader,  do  not  smile  ! 
Neither  Monsieur  de  Very,  nor  Louis  XVIII.,  over  an  oyster-pate,  nor 
Apicius  himself,  ever  understood  the  meaning  of  the  word  luxury,  better 
than  I  did  at  that  moment  I  If  the  want  of  money  has  its  drawbacks 
and  disadvantages,  it  is  not  without  its  contrasts  and  counterbalancing 
effects,  for  which  I  fear  nothing  else  can  make  us  amends.  4-men^'s 
hashed  mutton  is  immortal ;  and  there  is  something  amusing,  though 
carried  to  excess  and  carricature  (which  is  very  unusual  with  the  author) 
in  the  contrivances  of  old  Caleb,  in  "  The  Bride  of  Lammermuir,"  for 
raising  the  wind  at  breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper-time.  I  recollect  a 
ludicrous  instance  of  a  disappointment  in  a  dinner  which  happened  to  a 

*  In  Scotland,  it  seems,  the  draught  of  ale  or  whiskey  with  which  you  commence 
the  day,  is  emphatically  called  "  taking  your  morning." 


1827.]  On  the  Want  of  Money.  39 

person  of  my  acquaintance  some  years  ago.  He  was  not  only  poor  but 
a  very  poor  creature,  as  will  be  imagined.  His  wife  had  laid  by  four- 
pence  (their  whole  remaining  stock)  to  pay  for  the  baking  of  a  shoulder 
of  mutton  and  potatoes,  which  they  had  in  the  house,  and  on  her  return 
home  from  some  errand,  she  found  he  had  expended  it  in  purchasing  a 
new  string  for  a  guitar.  On  this  occasion  a  witty  friend  quoted  the  lines 
from  Milton : 

"  And  ever  against  eating  cares, 

Wrap  me  in  soft  Lydian  airs !" 

DEFOE,  in  his  Life  of  Colonel  Jack,  gives  a  striking  picture  of  his 
young  beggarly  hero  sitting  with  his  companion  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  at  a  three-penny  ordinary,  and  the  delight  with  which  he  relished 
the  hot  smoking  soup,  and  the  airs  with  which  he  called  about  him — 
"  and  every  time,"  he  says,  "  we  called  for  bread,  or  beer,  or  whatever 
it  might  be,  the  waiter  answered,  *  coming,  gentlemen,  coming ;'  and  this 
delighted  me  more  than  all  the  rest  I"  It  was  about  this  time,  as 
the  same  pithy  author  expresses  it,  "  the  Colonel  took  upon  him  to 
wear  a  shirt !"  Nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  whole  of  the  feeling 
conveyed  in  the  commencement  of  this  novel,  about  wealth  and  finery 
from  the  immediate  contrast  of  privation  and  poverty.  One  would 
think  it  a  labour,  like  the  Tower  of  Babel,  to  build  up  a  beau  and  a  fine 
gentleman  about  town.  The  little  vagabond's  admiration  of  the  old 
man  at  the  banking-house,  who  sits  surrounded  by  heaps  of  gold  as  if 
it  were  a  dream  or  poetic  vision,  and  his  own  eager  anxious  visits,  day 
by  day,  to  the  hoard  he  had  deposited  in  the  hollow  tree,  are  in  the  very 
foremost  style  of  truth  and  nature.  See  the  same  intense  feeling  ex- 
pressed in  Luke's  address  to  his  riches  in  the  City  Madam,  and  in  the 
extraordinary  raptures  of  the  "  Spanish  Rogue"  m  contemplating  and 
hugging  his  ingots  of  pure  gold  and  Spanish  pieces  of  eight :  to  which 
Mr.  Lamb  has  referred  in  excuse  for  the  rhapsodies  of  some  of  our 
elder  poets  on  this  subject,  which  to  our  present  more  refined  and  tamer 
apprehensions  sound  like  blasphemy.*  In  earlier  times,  before  the  dif- 
fusion of  luxury,  of  knowledge,  and  other  sources  of  enjoyment  had 
become  common,  and  acted  as  a  diversion  to  the  cravings  of  avarice, 
the  passionate  admiration,  the  idolatry,  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  wealth 
and  all  its  precious  symbols,  was  a  kind  of  madness  or  hallucination,  and 
Mammon  was  truly  worshipped  as  a  god  ! 

It  is  among  the  miseries  of  the  want  of  money,  not  to  be  able  to  pay 
your  reckoning  at  an  inn — or,  if  you  have  just  enough  to  do  that,  to  have 
nothing  left  lor  the  waiter ; — to  be  stopped  at  a  turnpike  gate,  and 
forced  to  turn  back ; — not  to  venture  to  call  a  hackney-coach  in  a  shower 
of  rain — (when  you  have  only  one  shilling  left  yourself,  it  is  a  bore  to 
have  it  taken  out  of  your  pocket  by  a  friend,  who  comes  into  your  house 
eating  peaches  in  a  hot  summer's-day,  and  desiring  you  to  pay  for  the 
coach  in  which  he  visits  you) ; — not  to  be  able  to  purchse  a  lottery-ticket, 
by  which  you  might  make  your  fortune,  and  get  out  of  all  your  difficul- 
ties ;— or  to  find  a  letter  lying  for  you  at  a  country  post-office,  and  not  to 
have  money  in  your  pocket  to  free  it,  and  be  obliged  to  return'for  it  the 
next  day.  The  letter  so  unseasonably  withheld  may  be  supposed  to  con- 
tain money,  and  in  this  case  there  is  a  foretaste,  a  sort  of  actual  possession 

*  Shylock's  lamentation  over  the  loss  of  "  his  daughter  and  his  ducats,"  is  another 
case  in  point. 


4:0  On  the  Want  of  Money.  [JAN. 

taken  through  the  thin  folds  of  the  paper  and  the  wax,  which  in  some 
measure  indemnifies  us  for  the  delay :  the  bank-note,  the  post-bill  seems 
to  smile  upon  us,  and  shake  hands  through  its  prison  bars  ; — or  it  may 
be  a  love-letter,  and  then  the  tantalization  is  at  its  height :  to  be  deprived 
in  this  manner  of  the  only  consolation  that  can  make  us  amends  for  the 
want  of  money,  by  this  very  want — to  fancy  you  can  see  the  name — to 
try  to  get  a  peep  at  the  hand-writing — to  touch  the  seal,  and  yet  not 
dare  to  break  it  open — is  provoking  indeed — the  climax  of  amorous  and 
gentlemanly  distress.  Players  are  sometimes  reduced  to  great  extremity, 
by  the  seizure  of  their  scenes  and  dresses,  or  (what  is  called)  the  pro- 
perty of  the  theatre,  which  hinders  them  from  acting  j  as  authors  are 
prevented  from  finishing  a  work,  for  want  of  money  to  buy  the  books 
necessary  to  be  consulted  on  some  material  point  or  circumstance,  in  the 
progress  of  it.  There  is  a  set  of  poor  devils,  who  live  upon  a  printed 
prospectus  of  a  work  that  never  will  be  written,  for  which  they  solicit 
your  name  and  half-a-  crown.  Decayed  actresses  take  an  annual  benefit 
at  one  of  the  theatres ;  there  are  patriots  who  live  upon  periodical  sub- 
scriptions, and  critics  who  go  about  the  country  lecturing  on  poetry.  I 
confess  I  envy  none  of  these ;  but  there  are  persons  who,  provided  they 
can  live,  care  not  how  they  live — who  are  fond  of  display,  even  when  it 
implies  exposure  ;  who  court  notoriety  under  every  shape,  and  embrace 
the  public  with  demonstrations  of  wantonness.  There  are  genteel  beg- 
gars, who  send  up  a  well-penned  epistle  requesting  the  loan  of  a  shilling. 
Your  snug  bachelors  and  retired  old-maids  pretend  they  can  distinguish 
the  knock  of  one  of  these  at  their  door.  I  scarce  know  which  I  dislike 
the  most — the  patronage  that  affects  to  bring  premature  genius  into 
notice,  or  that  extends  its  piecemeal,  formal  charity  towards  it  in  its 
decline.  I  hate  your  Literary  Funds,  and  Funds  for  Decayed  Artists — 
they  are  corporations  for  the  encouragement  of  meanness,  pretence,  and 
insolence.  Of  all  people,  I  cannot  tell  how  it  is,  but  players  appear  to 
me  the  best  able  to  do  without  money.  They  are  a  privileged  class.  If 
not  exempt  from  the  common  calls  of  necessity  and  business,  they  are 
enabled  "  by  their  so  potent  art "  to  soar  above  them.  As  they  make 
imaginary  ills  their  own,  real  ones  become  imaginary,  sit  light  upon 
them,  and  are  thrown  off  with  comparatively  little  trouble,  Their  life  is 
theatrical — its  various  accidents  are  the  shifting  scenes  of  a  play — rags 
and  finery,  tears  and  laughter,  a  mock-dinner  or  a  real  one,  a  crown  of 
jewels  or  of  straw,  are  to  them  nearly  the  same.  I  am  sorry  I  cannot 
carry  on  this  reasoning  to  actors  who  are  past  their  prime.  The  gilding 
of  their  profession  is  then  worn  off,  and  shews  the  false  metal  beneath  ; 
vanity  and  hope  (the  props  of  their  existence)  have  had  their  day ;  their 
former  gaiety  and  carelessness  serve  as  a  foil  to  their  present  discou- 
ragements ;  and  want  and  infirmities  press  upon  them  at  once.  "  We 
know  what  we  are,"  as  Ophelia  says,  "  but  we  know  not  what  we  shall 
be."  A  workhouse  seems  the  last  resort  of  poverty  and  distress — a 
garish-pauper  is  another  name  for  all  that  is  mean  and  to  be  deprecated 
in  human  existence.  But  that  name  is  but  an  abstraction,  an  average 
term — "  within  that  lowest  deep,  a  lower  deep  may  open  to  receive  us." 
I  heard  not  long  ago  of  a  poor  man,  who  had  been  for  many  years  a 
respectable  tradesman  in  London,  and  who  was  compelled  to  take  shelter 
in  one  of  those  receptacles  of  age  and  wretchedness,  and  who  said  he 
could  be  contented  with  it — he  had  his  regular  meals,  a  nook  in  the 
chimney,  and  a  coat  to  his  back — but"  he  was  forced  to  lie  three  in  a  bed, 


1827.]  On  the  Want  of  Money.  41 

and  one  of  the  three  was  out  of  his  mind  and  crazy,  and  his  great  delight 
was,  when  the  others  fell  asleep,  to  tweak  their  noses,  and  flourish  his 
night-cap  over  their  heads,  so  that  they  were  obliged  to  lie  awake,  and 
hold  him  down  between  them.  One  should  be  quite  mad  to  bear  this. 
To  what  a  point  of  insignificance  may  not  human  life  dwindle  !  To  what 
fine,  agonizing  threads  will  it  not  cling  !  Yet  this  man  had  been  a  lover 
in  his  youth,  in  a  humble  way,  and  still  begins  his  letters  to  an  old-maid 
(his  former  flame),  who  sometimes  comforts  him  by  listening  to  his 
complaints,  and  treating  him  to  a  dish  of  weak  tea,  "  MY  DEAR  Miss 
NANCY  I"  ' 

Another  of  the  greatest  miseries  of  a  want  of  money,  is  the  tap  of  a 
dun  at  your  door,  or  the  previous  silence  when  you  expect  it — the 
uneasy  sense  of  shame  at  the  approach  of  your  tormentor ;  the  wish  to 
meet,  and  yet  to  shun  the  encounter  ;  the  disposition  to  bully ;  the  fear 
of  irritating ;  the  real  and  the  sham  excuses ;  the  submission  to  imper- 
tinence ;  the  assurances  of  a  speedy  supply ;  the  disingenuousness  you 
practise  on  him  and  on  yourself;  the  degradation  in  the  eyes  of  others 
and  your  own.  Oh  !  it  is  wretched  to  have  to  confront  a  just  and  oft- 
repeated  demand,  and  to  be  without  the  means  to  satisfy  it ;  to  deceive 
the  confidence  that  has  been  placed  in  you  ;  to  forfeit  your  credit ;  to  be 
placed  at  the  power  of  another,  to  be  indebted  to  his  lenity ;  to  stand 
convicted  of  having  played  the  knave  or  the  fool ;  and  to  have  no  way 
left  to  escape  contempt,  but  by  incurring  pity.  The  suddenly  meeting 
a  creditor  on  turning  the  corner  of  a  street,  whom  you  have  been  trying 
to  avoid  for  months,  and  had  persuaded  you  were  several  hundred  miles 
off,  discomposes  the  features  and  shatters  the  nerves  for  some  time.  It 
is  also  a  serious  annoyance  to  be  unable  to  repay  a  loan  to  a  friend,  who 
is  in  want  of  it — nor  is  it  very  pleasant  to  be  so  hard-run,  as  to  be  induced 
to  request  the  repayment.  It  is  difficult  to  decide  the  preference  between 
debts  of  honour  and  legal  demands  ;  both  are  bad  enough,  and  almost  a 
fair  excuse  for  driving  any  one  into  the  hands  of  money-lenders — to  whom 
an  application,  if  successful,  is  accompanied  with  a  sense  of  being  in 
the  vulture's  gripe  -  a  reflection  akin  to  that  of  those  who  formerly  sold 
themselves  to  the  devil — or,  if  unsuccessful,  is  rendered  doubly  galling 
by  the  smooth,  civil  leer  of  cool  contempt  with  which  you  are  dismissed, 
as  if  they  had  escaped  from  your  clutches — not  you  from  their's.  If  any 
thing  can  be  added  to  the  mortification  and  distress  arising  from  straitened 
circumstances,  it  is  when  vanity  comes  in  to  barb  the  dart  of  poverty — 
when  you  have  a  picture  on  which  you  had  calculated,  rejected  from  an 
Exhibition,  or  a  manuscript  returned  on  your  hands,  or  a  tragedy 
damned,  at  the  very  instant  when  your  cash  and  credit  are  at  the  lowest 
ebb.  This  forlorn  and  helpless  feeling  has  reached  its  acme  in  the  prison- 
scene  in  Hogarth's  RAKE'S  PROGRESS,  where  his  unfortunate  hero  has 
just  dropped  the  Manager's  letter  from  his  hands,  with  the  laconic 
answer  written  in  it  : — "  Your  play  has  been  read,  and  won't  do."*  To 
feel  poverty  is  bad  ;  but  to  feel  it  with  the  additional  sense  of  our  inca- 
pacity to  shake  it  off,  and  that  we  have  not  merit  enough  to  retrieve  our 
circumstances — and,  instead  of  being  held  up  to  admiration,  are  exposed 
to  persecution  and  insult — is  the  last  stage  of  human  infirmity.  My 
friend,  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  (no  one  is  better  qualified  than  he  to  judge) 

*  It  is  provoking  enough,  and  makes  one  look  like  a  fool,  to  receive  a  printed  notice 
of  a  blank  in  the  last  lottery,  with  a  postscripUioping  for  your  future  favours. 

M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.III.  No.is'  G 


42  On  the  Want  of  Money.  [JAN, 

thinks,  that  the  most  pathetic  story  in  the  world  is  that  of  Smollett's 
fine  gentleman  and  lady  in  goal,  who  have  been  roughly  handled  by  the 
mob  for  some  paltry  attempt  at  raising  the  wind,  and  she  exclaims  in 
extenuation  of  the  pitiful  figure  he  cuts,  "Ah  !  he  was  a  fine  fellow  once  ! 
It  is  justly  remarked  by  the  poet,  that  poverty  has  no  greater  incon- 
venience attached  to  it  than  that  of  making  men  ridiculous.  It  not  only 
has  this  disadvantage  with  respect  to  ourselves,  but  it  often  shews  us 
others  in  a  very  contemptible  point  of  view.  People  are  not  soured 
by  misfortnne,  but  by  the  reception  they  meet  with  in  it.  When 
we  do  not  want  assistance,  every  one  is  ready  to  obtrude  it 
on  us,  as  if  it  were  advice.  If  we  do,  they  shun  us  instantly. 
They  anticipate  the  increased  demand  on  their  sympathy  or  bounty, 
and  escape  from  it  as  from  a  falling-house.  It  is  a  mistake,  how- 
ever, that  we  court  the  society  of  the  rich  and  prosperous,  merely 
with  a  view  to  what  we  can  get  from  them.  We  do  so,  because  there  is 
something  in  external  rank  and  splendour  that  gratifies  and  imposes  on 
the  imagination ;  just  as  we  prefer  the  company  of  those  who  are  in 
good  health  and  spirits  to  that  of  the  sickly  and  hypochondriacal,  or  as 
we  would  rather  converse  with  a  beautiful  woman  than  with  an  ugly 
one.  I  never  knew  but  one  man  who  would  lend  his  money  freely  and 
fearlessly  in  spite  of  circumstances  (if  you  were  likely  to  pay  him,  he 
grew  peevish,  and  would  pick  a  quarrel  with  you).  I  can  only  account 
for  this  from  a  certain  sanguine  buoyancy  and  magnificence,  of  spirit, 
not  deterred  by  distant  consequences,  or  damped  by  untoward  appear- 
ances. I  have  been  told  by  those,  who  shared  of  the  same  bounty,  that 
it  was  not  owing  to  generosity,  but  ostentation — if  so,  he  kept  his  osten- 
tation a  secret  from  me,  for  I  never  received  a  hint  or  a  look  from  which 
I  could  infer  that  I  was  not  the  lender,  and  he  the  person  obliged. 
Neither  was  I  expected  to  keep  in  the  back-ground  or  play  an  under- 
part.  On  the  contrary,  I  was  encouraged  to  do  my  best ;  my  dormant 
faculties  roused,  the  ease  of  my  circumstances  was  on  condition  of  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  my  mind,  my  lucky  hits  were  applauded, 
and  I  was  paid  to  shine.  I  am  not  ashamed  of  such  patronage  as  this, 
nor  do  I  regret  any  circumstance  relating  to  it  but  its  termination. 
People  endure  existence  even  in  Paris :  the  rows  of  chairs  on  the  Boule- 
vards are  gay  with  smiles  and  dress  :  the  saloons,  they  say,  are  brilliant ; 
at  the  theatre  there  is  Mademoiselle  Mars — what  is  all  this  to  me? 
After  a  certain  period,  we  live  only  in  the  past.  Give  me  back  one 
single  evening  at  Boxhill,  after  a  stroll  in  the  deep-empurpled  woods, 
before  Buonaparte  was  yet  beaten,  "  with  wine  of  attic  taste,"  when 
wit,  beauty,  friendship  presided  at  the  board  !  Oh  no  !  Neither  the 
time  nor  friends  that  are  fled,  can  be  recalled  ! — Poverty  is  the  test  of 
sincerity,  the  touchstone  of  civility.  Even  abroad,  they  treat  you 
scurvily  if  your  remittances  do  not  arrive  regularly,  and  though  you 
have  hitherto  lived  like  a  Milord  Anglais.  The  want  of  money  loses  us 
friends  not  worth  the  keeping,  mistresses  who  are  naturally  jilts  or 
coquets ;  it  cuts  us  out  of  society,  to  which  dress  and  equipage  are  the 
only  introduction;  and  deprives  us  of  a  number  of  luxuries  and  advan- 
tages of  which  the  only  good  is,  that  they  can  only  belong  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  a  large  fortune.  Many  people  are  wretched  because  they 
have  not  money  to  buy  a  fine  horse,  or  to  hire  a  fine  house,  or  to  keep  a 
carriage,  or  to  purchase  a  diamond  necklace,  or  to  go  to  a  race-ball,  or 
to  give  their  servants  new  liveries.  I  cannot  myself  enter  into  all  this. 


1827.]  On  the  Wani  of  Money.  43 

If  I  can  live  to  think,  and  think  to  live,  I  am  satisfied.  Some  want  to 
possess  pictures,  others  to  collect  libraries.  All  I  wish  is,  sometimes, 
to  see  the  one  and  read  the  other.  Gray  was  mortified  because  he  had 
not  a  hundred  pounds  to  bid  for  a  curious  library  ;  and  the  Duchess  of 
— —  has  immortalized  herself  by  her  liberality  on  that  occasion,  and 
by  the  handsome  compliment  she  addressed  to  the  poet,  that  "  if  it 
afforded  him  any  satisfaction,  she  had  been  more  than  paid,  by  her 
pleasure  in  reading  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church-yard." 

Literally  and  truly,  one  cannot  get  on  well  in  the  world  without 
money.  To  be  in  want  of  money,  is  to  pass  through  life  with  little 
credit  or  pleasure ;  it  is  to  live  out  of  the  world,  or  to  be  despised  if  you 
come  into  it ;  it  is  not  to  be  sent  for  to  court,  or  asked  out  to  dinner, 
or  noticed  in  the  street ;  it  is  not  to  have  your  opinion  consulted  or  else 
rejected  with  contempt,  to  have  your  acquirements  carped  at  and 
doubted,  your  good  things  disparaged,  and  at  last  to  lose  the  wit  and 
the  spirit  to  say  them  ;  it  is  to  be  scrutinized  by  strangers,  and  neglected 
by  friends  ;  it  is  to  be  a  thrall  to  circumstances,  an  exile  in  a  foreign 
land  ;  to  forego  leisure,  freedom,  ease  of  body  and  mind,  to  be  dependent 
on  the  good-will  and  caprice  of  others,  or  earn  a  precarious  and  irksome 
livelihood  by  some  laborious  employment :  it  is  to  be  compelled  to  stand 
behind  a  counter,  or  to  sit  at  a  desk  in  some  public  office,  or  to  marry 
your  landlady,  or  not  the  person  you  would  wish  ;  or  to  go  out  to  the 
East  or  West-Indies,  or  to  get  a  situation  as  judge  abroad,  and  return 
home  with  a  liver-complaint ;  or  to  be  a  law-stationer,  or  a  scrivener  or 
scavenger,  or  newspaper  reporter ;  or  to  read  law  and  sit  in  court  with- 
out a  brief,  or  be  deprived  of  the  use  of  your  fingers  by  transcribing 
Greek  manuscripts,  or  to  be  a  seal  engraver  and  pore  yourself  blind  ; 
or  to  go  upon  the  stage,  or  try  some  of  the  Fine  Arts ;  with  all  your 
pains,  anxiety,  and  hopes,  most  probably  to  fail,  or,  if  you  succeed,  after 
the  exertions  of  years,  and  undergoing  constant  distress  of  mind  and 
'fortune,  to  be  assailed  on  every  side  with  envy,  back-biting,  and  false- 
hood, or  to  be  a  favourite  with  the  public  for  awhile,  and  then  thrown 
into  the  back-ground — or  a  jail,  by  the  fickleness  of  taste  and  some  new 
favourite;  to  be  full  of  enthusiasm  and  extravagance  in  youth,  of  cha- 
grin and  disappointment  in  after-life  ;  to  be  jostled  by  the  rabble 
because  you  do  not  ride  in  your  coach,  or  avoided  by  those  who  know 
your  worth  and  shrink  from  it  as  a  claim  on  their  respect  or  their  purse; 
to  be  a  burden  to  your  relations,  or  unable  to  do  any  thing  for  them  ; 
to  be  ashamed  to  venture  into  crowds ;  to  have  cold  comfort  at  home  ; 
to  lose  by  degrees  your  confidence  and  any  talent  you  might  possess  ; 
to  grow  crabbed,  morose,  and  querulous,  dissatisfied  with  every  one, 
but  most  so  with  yourself;  and  plagued  out  of  your  life,  to  look  about 
for  a  place  to  die  in,  and  quit  the  world  without  any  one's  asking  after 
your  will.  The  wiseacres  will  possibly,  however,  crowd  round  your 
coffin,  and  raise  a  monument  at  a  considerable  expense,  and  after  a  lapse 
of  time,  to  commemorate  your  genius  and  your  misfortunes ! 

The  only  reason  why  I  am  disposed  to  envy  the  professions  of  the 
church  or  army  is,  that  men  can  afford  to  be  poor  in  them  without  being 
subjected  to  insult.  A  girl  with  a  handsome  fortune  in  a  country  town 
may  marry  a  poor  lieutenant  without  degrading  herself.  An  officer  is 
always  a  gentleman  ;  a  clergyman  is  something  more.  Echard's  book 
On  the  Contempt  of  the  Clergy  is  unfounded.  It  is  surely  sufficient  for 
any  set  of  individuals,  raised  above  actual  want,  that  their  characters 

G2 


44  On  the  Want  of  Money.  [JAN. 

are  not  merely  respectable,  but  sacred.     Poverty,  when   it  is  voluntary, 
is  never  despicable,  but  takes  an  heroical  aspect.     What  are  the  begging 
friars  ?  Have  they  not  put  their  base  feet  upon  the  necks  of  princes  ? 
Money  as  a  luxury  is  valuable  only  as  a  passport  to  respect.     It  is  one 
instrument  of  power.     Where  there  are  other  admitted  and  ostensible 
claims    to  this,  it  becomes  superfluous,  and  the  neglect  of  it  is  even  ad- 
mired and   looked  up    to  as  a   mark  of  superiority   over  it.     Even  a 
strolling  beggar  is  a  popular  character,  who  makes  an  open  profession  of 
his  craft  and  calling,  and  who  is  neither  worth  a  doit  nor  in  want  of 
one.     The  Scotch  are  proverbially  poor  and  proud :  we  know  they  can 
remedy  their  poverty   when  they  set   about  it.     No  one  is   sorry  for 
them.     The   French   emigrants   were    formerly   peculiarly   situated  in 
England.     The  priests    were    obnoxious  to    the    common    people    on 
account    of    their    religion ;    both    they    and    the  nobles,    for    their 
politics.     Their  poverty   and    dirt  subjected    them   to    many  rebuifs ; 
but    their  privations   being  voluntarily  incurred,   and   also  borne  with 
the  characteristic  patience   and  good-humour  of  the  nation,    screened 
them   from  contempt.     I  little  thought,  when    I   used  to   meet  them 
walking    out  in    the    summer's-evenings   at     Somers'  Town,    in    their 
long  great-coats,  their  beards  covered  with  snuff,  and  their  eyes  gleaming 
with   mingled   hope   and   regret   in  the  rays  of  the    setting  sun,  and 
regarded  them  with  pity  bordering  on  respect,  as  the  last  filmy  vestige 
of  the  ancient  regime,  as  shadows   of   loyalty   and    superstition   still 
flitting  about  the  earth  and  shortly  to   disappear  from  it  for  ever,  that 
they  would  one  day  return  over  the  bleeding  corpse  of  their  country, 
and  sit  like  harpies,  a  polluted  triumph,  over  the  tomb  of  human  liberty  ! 
To  be  a  lord,  a  papist,  and  poor,   is  perhaps  to  some  temperaments  a 
consummation  devoutedly  to   be  wished.     There  is   all  the    subdued 
splendour   of  external  rank,   the  pride    of  self-opinion,    irritated   and 
goaded  on  by  petty  privations  and  vulgar  obloquy  to  a  degree  of  morbid 
acuteness.     Private  and  public  annoyances  must  perpetually  remind  him 
of  what  he  is,  of  what  his  ancestors  were  (a  circumstance  which  might 
otherwise  be  forgotten)  ;    must  narrow  the  circle    of  conscious  dignity 
more  and  more,  and  the  sense  of  personal  worth  and  pretension  must 
be  exalted  by  habit  and  contrast  into  a  refined  abstraction — "  pure  in 
the  last   recesses  of  the  mind" — unmixed  with,  or  unalloyed  by  "  baser 
matter  !" — It  was  an  hypothesis  of  the   late    Mr.  Thomas  Wedge  wood, 
that  there  is  a  principle  of  compensation   in  the   human   mind   which 
equalizes  all  situations,  and  by  which    the  absence  of  any  thing  only 
gives  us  a  more  intense  and   intimate  perception  of  the  reality ;  that 
insult  adds  to  pride,  that  pain  looks  forward  to  ease  with  delight,  that 
hunger  already  enjoys  the  unsavoury  morsel    that    is    to    save    it   from 
perishing ;  that  want  is  surrounded  with  imaginary  riches,   like  the  poor 
poet  in  Hogarth,  who  has  a  map  of  the  mines  of  Peru  hanging  on  his 
garret  walls  ;  in  short,  that  "  we  can  hold  a  fire  in  our  hand  by  thinking 
on  the  frosty  Caucasus" — but  this  hypothesis,   though  ingenious  and  to 
a  certain  point  true,  is  to  be  admitted  only  in  a  limited  and  qualified 
sense. 

There  are  two  classes  of  people  that  I  have  observed  who  are  not  so 
distinct  as  might  be  imagined — those  who  cannot  keep  their  own  money 
in  their  hands,  and  those  who  cannot  keep  their  hands  from  other 
people's.  The  first  are  always  in  want  of  money,  though  they  do  not 
know  what  they  do  with  it.  They  muddle  it  away,  without  method  or 


1827.]  On  the  Want  of  Money.  45 

object,  and  without  having  any  thing  to  shew  for  it.  They  have  not, 
for  instance,  a  fine  house,  but  they  hire  two  houses  at  a  time ;  they  have 
not  a  hot-house  in  their  garden,  but  a  shrubbery  within  doors  ;  they  do 
not  gamble,  but  they  purchase  a  library,  and  dispose  of  it  when  they 
move  house.  A  princely  benefactor  provides  them  with  lodgings,  where, 
for  a  time,  you  are  sure  to  find  them  at  home :  and  they  furnish  them 
in  a  handsome  style  for  those  who  are  to  come  after  them.  With  all 
this  sieve-like  economy,  they  can  only  afford  a  leg  of  mutton  and  a  bottle 
of  wine,  and  are  glad  to  get  a  lift  in  a  common  stage  ;  whereas  with  a 
little  management  and  the  same  disbursements,  they  might  entertain  a 
round  of  company  and  drive  a  smart  tilbury.  But  they  set  no  value 
upon  money,  and  throw  it  away  on  any  object  or  in  any  manner  that 
first  presents  itself,  merely  to  have  it  off  their  hands,  so  that  you  wonder 
what  has  become  of  it.  The  second  class  above  spoken  of  not  only 
make  away  with  what  belongs  to  themselves,  but  you  cannot  keep  any- 
thing you  have  from  their  rapacious  grasp.  If  you  refuse  to  lend  them 
what  you  want,  they  insist  that  you  must :  if  you  let  them  have  any 
thing  to  take  charge  of  for  a  time  (a  print  or  a  bust)  they  swear 
that  you  have  given  it  them,  and  that  they  have  too  great  a 
regard  for  the  donor  ever  to  part  with  it.  You  express  surprise 
at  their  having  run  so  largely  in  debt ;  but  where  is  the  singularity 
while  others  continue  to  lend  ?  And  how  is  this  to  be  helped,  when  the 
manner  of  these  sturdy  beggars  anlounts  to  dragooning  you  out  of  your 
money,  and  they  will  not  go  away  without  your  purse,  any  more  than 
if  they  came  with  a  pistol  in  their  hand  ?  If  a  person  has  no  delicacy, 
he  has  you  in  his  power,  for  you  necessarily  feel  some  towards  him ; 
and  since  he  will  take  no  denial,  you  must  comply  with  his  peremptory 
demands,  or  send  for  a  constable,  which  out  of  respect  for  his  character 
you  will  not  do.  These  persons  are  also  poor — light  come,  light  go — and 
the  bubble  bursts  at  last.  .  Yet  if  they  had  employed  the  same  time  and 
pains  in  any  laudable  art  or  study  that  they  have  in  raising  a  surrepti- 
tious livelihood,  they  would  have  been  respectable,  if  not  rich.  It  is 
their  facility  in  borrowing  money  that  has  ruined  them.  No  one  will 
set  heartily  to  work,  who  has  the  face  to  enter  a  strange  house,  ask  the 
master  of  it  for  a  considerable  loan,  on  some  plausible  and  pompous 
pretext,  and  walk  off  with  it  in  his  pocket.  You  might  as  well  suspect  a 
highway-man  of  addicting  himself  to  hard  study  in  the  intervals  of  his 
profession. 

There  is  only  one  other  class  of  persons  I  can  think  of,  in  connexion 
with  the  subject  of  this  Essay — those  who  are  always  in  want  of  money 
from  the  want  of  spirit  to  make  use  of  it.  Such  persons  are  perhaps 
more  to  be  pitied  than  all  the  rest.  They  live  in  want,  in  the  midst 
of  plenty — dare  not  touch  what  belongs  to  them,  are  afraid  to  say  that 
their  soul  is  their  own,  have  their  wealth  locked  up  from  them  by  fear 
and  meanness  as  effectually  as  by  bolts  and  bars,  scarcely  allow  them- 
selves a  coat  to  their  backs  or  a  morsel  to  eat,  are  in  dread  of  coming  to 
the  parish  all  their  lives,  and  are  not  sorry  when  they  die,  to  think  that 
they  shall  no  longer  be  an  expense  to  themselves — according  to  the  old 
epigram  : 

"  Here  lies  Father  Clarges, 
Who  died  to  save  charges  !" 


[    46     ]  [JAN. 


VILLAGE     SKETCHES. 
No.  V. 


A  Christmas  Party. 

THE  wedding  of  Jacob  Frost  and  Hester  Hewitt,  commemorated  in 
my  last,  took  place  on  a  Monday  morning ;  and,  on  the  next  day  (Tues- 
day), as  I  was  walking  along  the  common — blown  along  would  be  the  pro- 
perer  phrase,  for  it  was  a  wind  that  impelled  one  onward  like  a  steam- 
engine — what  should  I  see  but  the  well-known  fish-cart  sailing  in  the 
teeth  of  that  raging  gale,  and  Jacob  and  his  old  companions,  the  grey 
mare  and  the  black  sheep-dog,  breasting,  as  well  as  they  might,  the  fury 
of  the  tempest.  As  we  neared,  I  caught  occasional  sounds  of  "  herrings- 
oysters  !  oysters — herrings !"  although  the  words,  being  as  it  were  blown 
away,  came  scatteringly  and  feebly  on  the  ear ;  and  when  we  at  last  met, 
and  he  began  in  his  old  way  to  recommend,  as  was  his  wont,  these  oysters 
of  a  week  old  (note  that  the  rogue  was  journeying  coastwise,  outward- 
bound),  with  a  profusion  of  praises  and  asseverations  which  he  never 
vented  on  them  when  fresh, — and  when  I  also  perceived  that  Jacob  had 
doused  his  old  garments,  and  that  his  company  had  doffed  their  bridal 
favours, — it  became  clear  that  our  man  of  oysters  did  not  intend  to  retire 
yet  awhile  to  landlordship  of  the  Bell;  and  it  was  soon  equally  certain 
that  the  fair  bride,  thus  deserted  in  the  very  outset  of  the  honey-moon, 
intended  to  maintain  a  full  and  undisputed  dominion  over  her  own,,  terri- 
tories— she  herself,  and  her  whole  establishment — the  lame  ostler,  who 
still  called  her  Mistress  Hester — the  red-haired  charity  girl,  and  the 
tabby  cat,  still  remaining  in  full  activity ;  whilst  the  very  inscription  of 
her  maiden  days,  "  Hester  Hewitt's  home-brewed,"  still  continued  to 
figure  above  the  door  of  that  respectable  hostelry.  Two  days  after  the 
wedding,  that  happy  event  seemed  to  be  most  comfortably  forgotten  by 
all  the  parties  concerned — the  only  persons  who  took  any  note  of  the 
affair  being  precisely  those  who  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter ;  that 
is  to  say,  all  the  gossips  of  the  neighbourhood,  maie  and  female — who 
did,  it  must  be  confessed,  lift  up  their  hands,  and  shake  their  heads,  and 
bless  themselves,  and  wonder  what  this  word  would  come  to. 

On  the  succeeding  "Saturday,  however,  his  regular  day,  Jacob  re-ap- 
peared on  the  road,  and,  after  a  pretty  long  traffic  in  the  village,  took  his 
way  to  the  Bell ;  and,  the  next  morning,  the  whole  cortege,  bride  and 
bridegroom,  lame  ostler,  red-haired  lass,  grey  mare,  and  black  sheep- 
dog, adorned  exactly  as  on  the  preceding  Monday,  made  their  appear- 
ance at  church ;  Jacob  looking,  as  aforetime,  very  knowing — Hester,  as 
usual,  very  demure.  After  the  service  there  was  a  grand  assemblage  of 
Master  Frost's  acquaintances  ;  for,  between  his  customers  and  his  play- 
mates, Jacob  was  on  intimate  terms  with  half  the  parish — and  many  jokes 
were  prepared  on  his  smuggled  marriage  and  subsequent  desertion  ; — but 
he  of  the  brown  jerkin  evaded  them  all,  by  handing  his  fair  lady  into  the 
cart,  lifting  the  poor  parish  girl  beside  her,  and  even  lending  a  friendly 
hoist  to  the  lame  ostler  ;  after  which  he  drove  off,  with  a  knowing  nod, 
in  total  silence ;  being  thereunto  prompted  partly  by  his  wife's  intreaties, 
partly  by  a  sound  more  powerful  over  his  associations — an  impatient 
neigh  from  the  old  grey  mare,  who,  never  having  attended  church  before, 
had  began  to  weary  of  the  length  of  the  service,  and  to  wonder  on  what 
new  course  of  duty  she  and  her  master  were  entering. 

By  this  despatch,  our  new-married  couple  certainly  contrived  to  evade 


1827.]  A  Christmas  Parti/.  47 

the  main  broadside  of  jokes  prepared  for  their  reception  ;  but  a  few  ran- 
dom jests,  flung  after  them  at  a  venture,  hit  notwithstanding  ;  and  one 
amongst  them,  containing  an  insinuation  that  Jacob  had  stolen  a  match 
to  avoid  keeping  the  wedding,  touched  our  bridegroom,  a  man  of  mettle 
in  his  way,  on  the  very  point  of  honour — the  more  especially  as  it  pro- 
ceeded from  a  bluff  old  bachelor  of  his  own  standing — honest  George 
Bridgwater,  of  the  Lea — at  whose  hospitable  gate  he  had  discussed 
many  a  jug  of  ale  and  knoll  of  bacon,  whilst  hearing  and  telling  the  news 
of  the  country  side.  George  Bridgwater  to  suspect  him  of  stinginess  ! 
— the  thought  was  insupportable.  Before  he  reached  the  Bell  he  had 
formed,  and  communicated  to  Hester,  the  spirited  resolution  of  giving  a 
splendid  party  in  the  Christmas  week — a  sort  of  wedding-feast  or  house- 
warming  ;  consisting  of  smoking  and  cards  for  the  old,  dancing  and  sing- 
ing for  the  young,  and  eating  and  drinking  for  all  ages  ;  and,  in  spite  of 
Hesters  decided  disapprobation,  invitations  were  given  and  preparations 
entered  on  forthwith. 

Sooth  to  say,  such  are  the  sad  contradictions  of  poor  human  nature, 
that  Mrs.  Frost's  displeasure,  albeit  a  bride  in  the  honey-moon,  not  only 
entirely  failed  in  persuading  Master  Frost  to  change  his  plan,  but  even 
seemed  to  render  him  more  confirmed  and  resolute  in  his  purpose.  Hester 
was  a  thrifty  housewife ;  and  although  Jacob  was  apparently,  after  his 
fashion,  a  very  gallant  and  affectionate  husband,  and  although  her  interest 
had  now  become  his — and  of  his  own  interest  none  had  ever  suspected 
him  to  be  careless — yet  he  did  certainly  take  a  certain  sly  pleasure  in 
making  an  attack  at  once  on  her  hoards  and  her  habits,  and  forcing  her 
into  a  gaiety  and  an  outlay  which  made  the  poor  bride  start  back 
aghast. 

The  full  extent  of  Hester's  misfortune  in  this  ball,  did  not,  however, 
come  upon  her  at  once.  She  had  been  accustomed  to  the  speculating 
hospitality  of  the  Christmas  parties  at  the  Swan,  whose  host  was  wont 
at  tide  times  to  give  a  supper  to  his  customers,  that  is  to  say,  to  furnish 
the  eatables  thereof — the  leg  of  mutton  and  turnips,  the  fat  goose  and 
apple-sauce,  and  the  huge  plum-puddings — of  which  light  viands  that 
meat  usually  consisted,  on  an  understanding  that  the  aforesaid  custo- 
mers were  to  pay  for  the  drinkables  therewith  consumed ;  and,  from  the 
length  of  the  sittings,  as  well  as  the  reports  current  on  such  occasions, 
Hester  was  pretty  well  assured  that  the  expenditure  had  been  most 
judicious,  and  that  the  leg  of  mutton  and  trimmings  had  been  paid  for 
over  and  over.  She  herself  being,  as  she  expressed  it,  "  a  lone  woman, 
and  apt  to  be  put  upon,"  had  never  gone  farther  in  these  matters  than  a 
cup  of  hyson  and  muffins,  and  a  cup  of  hot  elder-wine,  to  some  of  her 
cronies  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  but,  having  considerable  confidence  both 
in  the  extent  of  Jacob's  connexions  and  their  tippling  propensities,  as 
well  as  in  that  faculty  of  getting  tipsy  and  making  tipsy  in  Jacob  him- 
self, which  she  regarded  «f  with  one  auspicious  and  one  dropping  eye," 
as  good  and  bad  for  her  trade,  she  had  at  first  no  very  great  objection  to 
try  for  once  the  experiment  of  a  Christmas  party ;  nor  was  she  so  much 
startled  at  the  idea  of  a  dancing — dancing,  as  she  observed,  being  a  mighty 
provoker  of  thirst ;  neither  did  she  very  greatly  object  to  her  husband's 
engaging  old  Timothy,  the  fiddler,  to  officiate  for  the  evening,  on  con- 
dition of  giving  him  as  much  ale  as  he  chose  to  drink,  although  she 
perfectly  well  knew  what  that  promise  implied,  Timothy's  example 
being  valuable  on  such  an  occasion.  But  when  the  dreadful  truth  stared 


48  A  Christinas  Party.  [JAN. 

her  in  the  face,  that  this  entertainment  was  to  be  a  bona-Jide  treat — that 
not  only  the  leg  of  mutton,  the  fat  goose,  and  the  plum-puddings,  but 
the  ale,  wine,  spirits  and  tobacco  were  to  come  out  of  her  coffers,  then 
party,  dancing,  and  fiddler  became  nuisances  past  endurance,  the  latter 
above  all. 

Old  Timothy  was  a  person  of  some  note  in  our  parish,  known  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  place,  of  which,  indeed,  he  was  a  native. 
He  had  been  a  soldier  in  his  youth,  and  having  had  the  good  luck  to 
receive  a  sabre  wound  on  his  skull,  had  been  discharged  from  the  service 
as  infirm  of  mind,  and  passed  to  his  parish  accordingly  ;  where  he  led  a 
wandering  pleasant  sort  of  life,  sometimes  in  one  public-house,  some- 
times in  another — tolerated,  as  Hester  said,  for  his  bad  example,  until 
he  had  run  up  a  score  that  became  intolerable,  at  which  times  he  was 
turned  out,  with  the  work-house  to  go  to,  for  a  pis  alter,  and  a  com- 
fortable prospect  that  his  good-humour,  his  good  fellowship,  and  his 
fiddle,  would  in  process  of  time  be  missed  and  wanted,  and  that  he 
might  return  to  his  old  haunts  and  run  up  a  fresh  score.  When  half 
tipsy,  which  happened  nearly  every  day  in  the  week,  and  at  all  hours, 
he  would  ramble  up  and  down  the  village,  playing  snatches  of  tunes  at 
every  corner,  and  collecting  about  him  a  never-failing  audience  of  eight 
and  ten-year-old  urchins  of  either  sex,  amongst  which  small  mob  old 
Timothy,  with  his  jokes,  his  songs,  and  his  antics,  was  incredibly  popular. 
Against  Justice  and  Constable,  treadmill  and  stocks,  the  sabre-cut  was 
a  protection,  although,  I  must  candidly  confess,  that  I  do  not  think  the 
crack  in  the  crown  ever  made  itself  visible  in  his  demeanour  until  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  ale  had  gone  down  his  throat,  to  account  for  any 
aberration  of  conduct,  supposing  the  broadsword  in  question  never  to 
have  approached  his  skull.  That  weapon  served,  however,  as  a  most 
useful  shield  to  our  modern  Timotheus,  who,  when  detected  in  any  out- 
rageous fit  of  drunkenness,  would  immediately  summon  sufficient  recol- 
lection to  sigh  and  look  pitiful,  and  put  his  poor,  shaking,  withered  hand 
to  the  seam  which  the  wound  had  left,  with  an  air  of  appeal,  which  even 
I,  with  all  my  scepticism,  felt  to  be  irresistible. 

In  short,  old  Timothy  was  a  privileged  person  ;  and  terrible  sot  though 
he  were,  he  almost  deserved  to  be  so,  for  his  good-humour,  his  content- 
edness,  his  constant  festivity  of  temper,  and  his  good-will  towards  every 
living  thing — a  good-will  which  met  with  its  usual  reward  in  being 
heartily  and  universally  returned.  Every  body  liked  old  Timothy,  with 
the  solitary  exception  of  the  hostess  of  the  Bell,  who,  having  once  had 
him  as  an  inmate  during  three  weeks,  had  been  so  scandalized  by  his 
disorderly  habits,  that,  after  having  with  some  difficulty  turned  him  out  of 
her  house,  she  had  never  admitted  him  into  it  again,  having  actually 
resorted  to  the  expedient  of  buying  off  her  intended  customer,  even 
when  he  presented  himself  pence  in  hand,  by  the  gift  of  a  pint  of  home- 
brewed at  the  door,  rather  than  suffer  him  to  effect  a  lodgment  in  her 
tap-room — a  mode  of  dismissal  so  much  to  Timothy's  taste,  that  his 
incursions  had  become  more  and  more  frequent,  insomuch  that  "  to  get 
rid  of  the  fiddler  and  other  scape-graces,  who  vrere  apt  to  put  upon  a 
lone  woman,"  formed  a  main  article  in  the  catalogue  of  reasons  assigned 
by  Hester  to  herself  and  the  world,  for  her  marriage  with  Jacob  Frost. 
Accordingly,  the  moment  she  heard  that  Timothy's  irregularities  and  ill 
example  were  likely  to  prove  altogether  unprofitable,  she  revived  her  old 
objection  to  the  poor  fiddler's  morals,  rescinded  her  consent  to  his  adiuis- 


18:27.]  A  Christmas  Party.  49 

sion,  and  insisted  so  vehemently  on  his  being  unordered,  that  her  asto- 
nished husband,  fairly  out-talked  and  out-scolded,  was  fain  to  purchase  a 
quiet  evening  by  a  promise  of  obedience.  Having  carried  this  point, 
she  forthwith,  according  to  the  example  of  all  pfudent  wives,  began  an 
attack  on  another,  and,  having  compassed  the  unordering  of  Timothy, 
began  to  bargain  for  uninviting  her  next  neighbour,  the  widow  Glen. 

Mrs.  Martha  Glen  kept  a  baker's  and  chandler's  shop  in  a  wide  lane, 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Broadway,  and  adorned  with  a  noble  avenue 
of  oaks,  terminating  in  the  green  whereon  stood  the  Bell,  a  lane  which, 
by  dint  of  two  or  three  cottages  peeping  out  from  amongst  the  trees,  and 
two  or  three  farm-houses,  the  smoke  from  whose  chimneys  sailed  cur- 
lingly amongst  them,  might,  in  comparison  with  that  lonely  nook,  pass 
for  inhabited.  Martha  was  a  buxom  widow,  of  about  the  same  standing 
with  Mistress  Frost.  She  had  had  her  share  of  this  world's  changes,  being 
the  happy  relict  of  three  several  spouses;  and  was  now  a  comely  rosy 
dame,  with  a  laughing  eye  and  a  merry  tongue.  Why  Hester  should 
hate  Martha  Glen  was  one  of  the  puzzles  of  the  parish.  Hate  her  she 
did,  with  that  venemous  and  deadly  hatred  that  never  comes  to  words ; 
and  Martha  repaid  the  obligation  in  kind,  as  much  as  a  habitually  genial 
and  relenting  temper  would  allow,  although  certainly  the  balance  of 
aversion  was  much  in  favour  of  Mrs.  Frost.  An  exceedingly  smooth, 
genteel,  and  civil  hatred  it  was  on  both  sides ;  such  an  one  as  would 
have  done  honour  to  a  more  polished  society.  They  dealt  with  each 
other,  curtsied  to  each  other,  sate  in  the  same  pew  at  church,  and 
employed  the  same  charwoman — which  last  accordance,  by  the  way, 
may  partly  account  for  the  long  duration  of  discord  between  the  parties. 
Betty  Clarke,  the  help  in  question,  being  a  sharp,  shrewish,  vixenish 
woman,  with  a  positive  taste  for  quarrels,  who  regularly  reported  every 
cool  inuendo  uttered  by  the  slow  and  soft-spoken  Mrs.  Frost,  and  every 
hot  retort  elicited  from  the  rash  and  hasty  Martha,  and  contrived  to 
infuse  her  own  spirit  into  each.  With  such  an  auxiliary  on  either  side, 
there  could  be  no  great  wonder  at  the  continuance  of  this  animosity  ; 
how  it  began  was  still  undecided.  There  were,  indeed,  rumours  of  an 
early  rivalry  between  the  fair  dames  for  the  heart  of  a  certain  lame 
shepherd,  the  first  husband  of  Martha ;  other  reports  assigned  as  a 
reason  the  unlucky  tricks  of  Tom  Martin,  the  only  son  of  Mrs.  Glen  by 
her  penultimate  spouse,  and  the  greatest  pickle  within  twenty  miles ;  a 
third  party  had,  since  the  marriage,  discovered  the  jealousy  of  Jacob  to 
be  the  proximate  cause,  Martha  Glen  having  been  long  his  constant  cus- 
tomer, dealing  with  him  in  all  sorts  of  fishery  and  fruitery  for  herself  and 
her  shop,  from  red-herrings  to  golden  pippins ;  whilst  a  fourth  party, 
still  more  scandalous,  placed  the  jealousy  to  which  they  also  attributed 
the  aversion,  to  the  score  of  a  young  and  strapping  Scotch  pedlar, 
Simon  Frazer  by  name,  who  travelled  the  country  with  muslins  arid 
cottons,  and  for  whom  certain  malicious  gossips  asserted  both  ladies  to 
entertain  a  lacking  penchant^  and  whose  insensibility  towards  the  maiden 
was  said  to  have  been -the  real  origin  of  her  match  with  Jacob  Frost, 
whose  proffer  she  had  accepted  out  of  spite.  For  my  own  part,  I  disbe- 
lieve all  and  each  of  these  stories,  and  hold  it  very  hard  that  an  innocent 
woman  cannot  entertain  a  little  harmless  aversion  towards  her  next 
neighbour  without  being  called  to  account  for  so  natural  a  feeling.  It 
seems  that  Jacob  thought  so  too — for  on  Hester's  conditioning  that  Mrs. 
Glen  should  be  excluded  from  the  party,  he  just  gave  himself  a  wink 

M.M.  New  SmVs.— VoL.III.  No.13.  H 


50  A  Christmas  Party.  [JAN. 

and  a  nod,  twisted  his  mouth  a  little  more  on  one  side  than  usual,  and 
assented  without  a  word ;  and  with  the  same  facility  did  he  relinquish 
the  bough  of  misletoe,  which  he  had  purposed  to  suspend  from  the  bacon 
rack — the  ancient  misletoe  bough,  on  passing  under  which  our  village 
lads  are  apt  to  snatch  a  kiss  from  the  village  maidens  :  a  ceremony  which 
offended  Hester's  nicety,  and  which  Jacob  promised  to  abrogate ;  and, 
pacified  by  these  concessions,  the  bride  promised  to  make  due  prepara- 
tion for  the  ball,  whilst  the  bridegroom  departed  on  his  usual  expedition 
to  the  coast. 

Of  the  unrest  of  that  week  of  bustling  preparation,  words  can  give  but  a 
faint  image — Oh,  the  scourings,  the  cleanings,  the  sandings,  the  dustings, 
the  scoldings  of  that  disastrous  week  !  The  lame  ostler  and  the  red-haired 
parish  girl  were  worked  off  their  feet — "  even  Sunday  shone  no  Sabbath 
day  to  them  " — for  then  did  the  lame  ostler  trudge  eight  miles  to  the 
church  of  a  neighbouring  parish,  to  procure  the  attendance  of  a  celebrated 
bassoon  player  to  officiate  in  lieu  of  Timothy ;  whilst  the  poor  little  maid 
was  sent  nearly  as  far  to  the  head  town,  in  quest  of  an  itinerant  show- 
woman,  of  whom  report  had  spoken  at  the  Bell,  to  beat  the  tambourine. 
The  show-woman  proved  undiscoverable;  but  the  bassoon  player  having 
promised  to  come,  and  to  bring  with  him  a  clarionet,  Mrs.  Frost  was  at 
ease  as  to  her  music ;  and  having  provided  more  victuals  than  the  whole 
village  could  have  discussed  at  a  sitting,  and  having  moreover  adorned 
her  house  with  berried  holly,  china-roses  and  chrysantherums  after  the 
most  tasteful  manner,  began  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing,  and  to 
wish  for  the  return  of  her  husband,  to  admire  and  to  praise. 

Late  on  the  great  day  Jacob  arrived,  his  cart  laden  with  marine  stores 
for  his  share  of  the  festival.  Never  had  the  goodly  village  of  Aberleigh 
witnessed  such  a  display  of  oysters,  muscles,  perriwinkles  and  cockles, 
to  say  nothing  of  apples  and  nuts,  and  two  little  kegs,  snugly  covered 
up,  which  looked  exceedingly  as  if  they  had  cheated  the  revenue,  a 
packet  of  green-tea,  which  had  something  of  the  same  air,  and  a  new 
silk  gown,  of  a  flaming  salmon-colour,  straight  from  Paris,  which  he 
insisted  on  Hester's  retiring  to  assume,  whilst  he  remained  to  arrange 
the  table  and  receive  the  company,  who,  it  being  now  about  four  o'clock 
P.  M. — our  good  rustics  can  never  have  enough  of  a  good  thing — were 
beginning  to  assemble  for  the  ball. 

The  afternoon  was  fair  and  cold,  and  dry  and  frosty,  and  Matthews's, 
Bridgwaters',  Whites'  and  Jones's,  in  short  the  whole  sacmerage  and 
shopkeepery  of  the  place,  with  a  goodly  proportion  of  wives  and  daugh- 
ters, came  pouring  in  apace.  Jacob  received  them  with  much  gallantry, 
uncloaking  and  unbonneting  the  ladies,  assisted  by  his  two  staring  and 
awkward  auxiliaries,  welcoming  their  husbands  and  fathers,  and  apolo- 
gizing, as  best  he  might,  for  the  absence  of  his  helpmate ;  who,  "  per- 
plexed in  the  extreme  "  by  her  new  finery,  which  happening  to  button 
down  the  back,  she  was  fain  to  put  on  hind  side  before,  did  not  make  her 
appearance  till  the  greater  part  of  the  company  had  arrived,  and  the  music 
had  struck  up  a  country  dance.  An  evil  moment,  alas  !  did  poor  Hester 
choose  for  her  entry !  for  the  first  sound  that  met  her  ear  was  Timothy's 
fiddle,  forming  a  strange  trio  with  the  bassoon  and  the  clarionet ;  and  the 
first  persons  whom  she  saw  were  Tom  Martin  cracking  walnuts  at  the  chim- 
ney-side, and  Simon  Frazer  saluting  the  widow  Glen  under  the  misletoe. 
How  she  survived  such  sights  and  sounds  does  appear  wonderful — but  sur- 
vive them  she  did — for  at  three  o'clock,  A.  M.,  when  our  reporter  left  the 


1827.]  The  Return  of  the  Golden  Age.  51 

party,  she  was  engaged  in  a  sociable  game  at  cards,  which,  by  the 
description,  seems  to  have  been  long  whist,  with  the  identical  widow 
Glen,  Simon  Frazer  and  William  Ford,  and  had  actually  won  fivepence- 
halfpenny  of  Martha's  money ;  the  young  folks  were  still  dancing  gayly, 
to  the  sound  of  Timothy's  fiddle,  which  fiddle  had  the  good  quality  of 
going  on  almost  as  well  drunk  as  sober,  and  it  was  now  playing  solo,  the 
clarionet  being  hors-de-combat  and  the  bassoon  under  the  table.  Tom 
Martin,  after  shewing  off  more  tricks  than  a  monkey,  amongst  the  rest 
sewing  the  whole  card-party  together  by  the  skirts,  to  the  probable 
damage  of  Mrs.  Frost's  gay  gown,  had  returned  to  his  old  post  by  the 
fire,  and  his  old  amusement  of  cracking  walnuts,  with  the  shells  of 
which  he  was  pelting  the  little  parish  girl,  who  sate  fast  asleep  on  the 
other  side ;  and  Jacob  Frost  in  all  his  glory,  ?ate  in  a  cloud  of  tobacco 
smoke,  roaring  out  catches  with  his  old  friend  George  Bridgwater,  and 
half  a  dozen  other  "  drowthy  cronies,"  whilst  "aye  the  aye  the  ale 
was  growing  better,"  and  the  Christmas  party  went  merrily  on. 

M. 


THE     RETURN     OF     THE     GOLDEN     AGE. 
[From  the  French  of  the  President  Henaut.] 

WHEREFORE  regret  those  happy  days, 

When  Love  was  lord  the  wide  world  o'er  ? 
Our  hearts  from  Time's  dull  tomb  can  raise 
Those  days,  and  all  their  bliss  restore  : 

Let  us  love — let  us  love — and  again  behold 
The  happy  times  of  the  Age  of  Gold. 

The  flowers  still  flourish  in  our  fields, 

As  beautiful  as  then  they  were ; 
The  rose  the  same  sweet  odours  yield  ; 
The  birds  the  same  bright  plumage  bear  : 

Let  us  love — let  us  love — and  again  behold 
The  happy  times  of  the  Age  of  Gold. 

Still  in  the  spring  the  nightingale 

Sings  in  the  flower-enamelled  meads  ; 

And  still  the  brooks  love's  same  sweet  tale, 

Whisper  amidst  the  answering  reeds — 

Let  us  love — let  us  love — and  again  behold 
The  happy  times  of  the  Age  of  Gold. 

Still  Zephyr  breathes,  and  still  doth  he 

For  Flora  feel  unchanging  love  ; 
And  still  doth  th*  enamoured  bee 
Amongst  the  fair  young  lilies  rove : 

Let  us  love — let  us  love — and  again  behold 
The  happy  times  of  the  Age  of  Gold. 

H.N 


H 


[       52       ]  [JAN. 

WAR  : — ITS    USES. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Monthly  Magazine. 

I  BEL i  EVE,  Mr. Editor,  it  is  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague  who  says  that 
she  considers  the  world  as  having  now  attained  the  age  of  FIFTEEN;  and 
that  our  wars  remind  her  of  the  boxing  matches  of  schoolboys,  who  fight 
without  very  well  knowing  for  what.  I  do  not  remember  this  lively 
lady's  words ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  she  has  said  in  ten  syllables  as 
much  as  such  a  dull  dog  as  I  am  would  require  ten  lines  for.  "  At  some 
future  day,"  I  think  she  goes  on  to  say,  "  the  world  will  arrive  at  the 
age  of  FIFTY  or  SIXTY:"  and  then,  I  presume,  we  shall  discover  that 
all  this  was  very  foolish  ;  and,  like  Pyrrhus,  be  content  to  sit  down  to 
our  winev  and  be  happy. 

How  many  lustrums  go  to  a  minute  of  the  world's  life,  is  a  problem 
in  calculation  which  the  Phoenix  and  the  Sun  fire-offices  have  not  yet 
pretended  to  solve  ;  and  therefore  I  should  be  much  obliged  to  Mr. 
Morgan,  or  Mr.  Babbage,  if  they  could  throw  any  light  upon  the 
matter. 

The  divine  gentlemen,  indeed,  have  at  times  offered  us  a  variety  of 
calculations  on  the  subject ;  but  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  they  do  not 
agree.  They  go  on  squabbling  about  the  Millenium,  which  answers,  I 
suppose,  to  about  FOURSCORE  of  this  tedious,  halting,  snail-paced  globe, 
or  to  a  hundred  and  thirty  (for  aught  I  know),  if  it  was  originally  built 
on  the  proportional  model  of  old  Parr.  Probably  that  is  the  very  reason 
why  this  said  Millenium  is  not  yet  arrived,  as  it  ought  to  have  done  a 
long  time  ago. 

When  it  is  to  come,  I  really  cannot  inform  you  :  yet  when  it  does 
come,  I  shall  be  very  sorry  ;  though  I»  have  been  a  good  deal  fatigued 
and  deafened  in  my  life-time  with  "  gun,  drum,  trumpet,  blunderbuss, 
and  thunder."  The  fact  is,  Mr.  Editor,  that  I  am  on  half  pay  ;  so  that 
while  old  "  FIFTEEN"  is  at  this  vagary,  there  is  nothing  left  for  us,  her 
children,  but  to  go  on  beating  each  other's  eyes  to  a  state  of  caliginosity 
and  nigirescence.  For  in  time,  we  must  hope,  the  old  fool  of  FIFTEEN 
will  begin  again  to  divide  itself  against  itself;  gaining  just  as  much  by 
that  operation  (but  that  is  between  you  and  me)  as  Beelzebub  would 
do  if  he  was  ass  enough  to  try  the  same  experiment:  eating  off 
its  own  head,  mining  its  own  intestines,  crimsoning  its  own  green  waters, 
obscuring  its  own  fair  sunshine  with  fiery  and  sulphureous  vapours ; 
sinking,  burning,  cutting,  slaying,  hacking,  hewing,  marauding,  thieving, 
plundering,  bombarding,  trumpeting,  spearing,  shooting,  thundering, 
smoking,  starving,  fortifying,  besieging,  drumming,  ravishing,  taxing, 
debating,  bullying,  diplomatizing,  cannon-founding,  ship-building,  making 
treaties,  breaking  treaties,  digging  up  villanous  saltpetre,  tailoring 
uniforms,  amputating  legs,  trepanning  skulls,  issuing  brevets,  and  per- 
suading itself  that  it  is  a  noble,  glorious,  chivalrous,  brilliant,  honourable, 
generous,  enviable,  immortal  thing,  to  put  on  a  fool's  coat,  sell  itself  to 
slavery  fora  guinea,  and  run  its  head  into  the  mouth  of  a  cannon  for  a 
shilling,  whenever  it  is  ordered. 

What  a  glorious  thing  is  war !  What  are  its  causes,  what  are  its 
proceedings,  what  are  its  effects,  what  are  its  uses  ?  Are  these  all  the 
categories  which  the  question  involves  ? — the  quo,  quomodo,  quando, 
f/uarc,  and  all  the  other  Q's  which  the  Magister  and  his  followers  have 
regimented  ?  No  What  are  its  beauties,  its  blessings,  its  delights,  its 


1827.]  War  .-—its  Uses.  53 

pains,  its  deformities,  its  gains,  its  losses,  its? — Heavens!  there  is  no 
end  to  the  categories.  I  guess  that  I  have  not  time  to  be  so  lengthy. 
Besides,  the  Aristotelian  logic  is  apt  to  be  inconvenient  to  us,  degene- 
rated dogs  of  these  evil  days,  who  have  not  learnt  how  to  dance  horn- 
pipes in  fetters.  Pray,  Mr.  Editor,  allow  us  to  reason  and  arrange  in 
our  more  gentleman-like  modern  ways  ! 

The  beauty  of  boxing  is  plain  and  palpable.  Crimson  is  the  most 
beautiful  colour  in  the  rainbow,  in  the  first  place.  A  black  eye  pro- 
duces variety  in  the  human  face  divine ;  and  variety,  all  the  world 
knows,  is  one  of  the  great  sources  of  beauty.  Consult  Burke,  if  there 
is  any  doubt.  Besides,  have  not  all  the  poets  written  about  black  eyes  ? 
Had  not  Juno  black  eyes — even  when  there  were  no  boxing  matches  ? 
Ask  Homer.  Read  the  Koran :  you  will  find  that  the  houris  (dear 
creatures  !  I  wish  I  had  a  few)  had  black  eyes.  "  Eyes  of  the  gazelle," 
(not  the  gazette,  Mr.  Compositor,)  says  Lord  Byron  :  ofyhe  antelope, 
says  another  :  stag's  eyes,  says  a  third.  Black  eyes,  says  Solomon ; 
black  eyes,  says  Hafiz.  Look  at  Spain — look  at  Italy — as  well  as 
Persia :  do  not  they  even  make  their  eyes  black — like  the  boys  at  Eton  ? 
It  is  a  hollow  case. 

Such  is  the  beauty  of  boxing.  But  that  is  the  physical  beauty : 
there  is  a  moral  beauty,  besides,  in  the  institution. 

The  boxings  of  the  young  fools  of  fifteen,  are  typical  of  events  to 
come  :  they  serve  also  for  the  education  and  organization  of  the  old  fool 
of  FIFTEEN.  Who  shall  doubt  the  moral  beauty  of  boxing,  when  it 
levels  a  lord  with  a  link-boy,  a  duke  with  the  driver  of  a  stage  coach  ? 
Men  are  born  equal  by  nature  ;  aristocracy  is  a  tyranny  :  abas  le  tyran  ! 
Teach  him  to  box,  at  Eton  ;  send  him  to  the  Fives  Court ;  conduct  him 
to  Crib,  and  Molyneux,  and  the  Chicken,  that  he  may  learn  to  respect 
the  rights  of  man. 

Perhaps,  Sir,  you  think  that  I  am  jesting  ?  I  never  was  more  serious 
in  my  life.  I  say,  Sir,  that  the  moral  beauty  of  boxing  consists  in  its 
being  generative  of  courage  ;  and  I  sincerely  hope  that  it  will  never  be 
abolished — at  least  not  till  OLD  FIFTEEN  gives  up  war-making.  I 
assure  you,  Sir,  upon  my  honour,  that  I  served  in  the  Peninsula,  and 
that  the  only  men  of  honour  and  spirit  in  the  army  were  the  Eton  men ; 
at  least  they  topped  the  whole — though  we  had  some  good  officers,  too, 
from  the  other  great  schools.  But  as  sure,  Sir,  as  you  saw  a  fellow 
ducking  in  action,  making  himself  snug  under  a  merlon,  or  sideling  along 
by  a  hedge,  you  would  have  found  that  he  was  brought  up  at  a  country 
school.  There  was  one  regiment,  Sir,  where  every  officer  ran  away, 
and  left  the  men  drawn  up  in  face  of  the  French :  I  found  ten 
of  them,  Sir,  hid  in  a  gravel  pit.  Every  man  of  them  had  been  at 
private  schools.  I  dare  say  they  never  boxed  in  their  lives.  One  of  our 
Eton  lads,  Sir,  rallied  the  men,  and  led  them  on  by  himself.  The  fact 
speaks  volumes — as  they  say. 

Well,  Sir,  does  it  not  follow  that  no  man  can  have  any  courage  who 
has  not  been  well  boxed  and  boxed  well  ?  What  if  you  kill  a  stupid 
fellow,  now  and  then  ?  that  shews  game,  Sir, — game  on  both  sides.  And 
then  the  young  Fifteens  get  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  blood  ;  which, 
let  me  tell  you,  Sir,  is  a  very  good  thing. 

It  is  another  great  advantage  of  boxing  that  it  makes  boys  quarrelsome 
and  honourable  :  that  is,  tender  of  their  honour — susceptible.  What 
would  an  officer  be  without  his  honour  ?  The  true  man  of  spirit  and 


54?  War: — its  Uses.  [JAN. 

honour  is  the  man  who  imagines  that  every  body  means  to  insult  him : 
who  is  always  on  the  watch,  therefore,  for  an  affront ;  and  who  never 
forgives  till  he  has  washed  it  out  in  his  enemy's  blood.  That  is  what 
I  call  true  honour ;  and  if  a  man  of  this  noble  spirit  happens  to 
make  a  little  slip  of  the  tongue,  he  defends  it  with  his  life,  as  a  man  of 
honour  ought.  Is  not  this  the  way,  too,  that  my  friend  Lady  Mary's 
OLD  FIFTEEN  makes  war  ?  And  how  shall  young  Fifteen  learn  what  is 
right  and  honourable,  if  he  does  not  begin  with  boxing  ? 

Now,  Sir,  it  is  another  great  merit  of  the  system  of  boxing,  that  it 
tries  the  spirit  of  a  fellow.  A  little  boy  comes  from  his  mamma's  apron- 
string,  and  we  try  him  by  means  of  the  big  lads,  who  are  reposing  on 
their  well-earned  laurels.  He  is  boxed  all  round  ;  pitted  against  the 
steady  hands  ;  and  we  learn  to  know  his  calibre  and  his  bottom :  we  fit 
him  for  promotion  and  prepare  him  for  the  army — for  the  reality  of  war. 
Nothing  is  ta  be  done  with  such  a  fellow  unless  you  thrash  him  well, 
particularly  if  he  is  a  Lord :  and  another  great  advantage  is,  that  the 
emeriti,  the  big  boys,  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  how  he  stands  it.  How 
should  they  learn  to  delight  in  carnage,  else ;  and  what  would  OLD 
FIFTEEN  do  if  they  did  not  ? 

How  are  boys  to  settle  their  quarrels,  if  they  do  not  box  ?  No  more 
than  OLD  FIFTEEN  can,  without  gunpowder.  And  why  does  OLD  FIF- 
TEEN quarrel  ?  Why,  to  be  sure,  because  he  knows  that  his  arsenals 
are  well  filled,  and  his  men  well  drilled.  Depend  upon  it,  Sir,  that 
personage  never  thinks  of  quarreling  unless  he  can  bear  it  out.  There 
is  just  the  beauty  of  boxing  !  It  makes  young  Fifteen  quarrelsome ; 
and  how  would  the  world  get  on  without  quarreling,  I  should  be  pleased 
to  know?  It  has  never  done  that  yet.  Nay,  how  would  OLD  FIFTEEN 
get  on  without  bullying  ?  Did  not  England  bully  Copenhagen  ?  Napo- 
leon bully  Spain  and  the  Pope  ?  Does  not  Leadenhall-street  bully  all 
India  ?  Are  not  Lady  Amherst  and  Dr.  Abel  bullying  the  Birman 
empire  ? 

And  here  is  another  advantage  of  boxing,  in  young  Fifteen,  Mr. 
Editor  :  if  makes  a  coward  pass  for  a  boy  of  courage  ;  and,  consequently, 
he  learns  to  do  the  same  when  he  is  a  man. 

But  I  shall  dismiss  young  Fifteen,  because  I  am  afraid  of  becoming  lengthy. 
As  to  OLD  FIFTEEN,  what  we  shall  do  when  he  comes  to  fifty,  heaven 
only  knows  !  Promotion  is  slow  enough  as  it  is  ;  heaven  forbid  that  he 
should  ever  live  to  be  eighty  ;  for  then,  indeed,  will  Othello's  occupa- 
tion vanish. 

But  he  does  some  foolish  things  in  the  midst  of  his  wisdom.  Let 
Lady  Mary  sift  out  the  good  and  the  bad,  as  she  can  best :  that  is  her 
affair ;  I  give  you  my  commentaries  in  the  lump.  One  mighty  foolish 
thing — that  cannot  be  denied — is,  that  he  does  not  every  where  follow 
the  same  rule  that  he  does  in  New  Zealand.  Only  consider  how  the 
roads  are  cut  up  with  those  cursed  bullocks  :  look  at  the  rascally  drivers, 
and  thieves  of  peasants,  and  the  infernal  broad  wheeled  waggons,  ham- 
pering the  passage  of  our  guns,  and  all  the  tag-rag  and  bobtail  of  com- 
missaries' clerks.  Many  a  good  victory  does  he  lose  every  day,  be- 
cause the  country  has  been  cleared  and  the  supplies  cannot  come  up. 
The  enemy  should  be  eaten. 

Beat  him  first,  and  eat  him  afterwards.  And  consider  how  a  man 
would  fight  when  he  saw  his  dinner  before  him ! — the  reward  of  his 
victory  I  Only  consider  an  army  without  incumbrances  ;  not  even  hos- 


J827.]  War;— its  Uses.  5.5 

pitals.  Why  should  our  tombs  be  "  the  maws  of  crows  and  kites  ?" — 
Far  more  honourable  would  be  a  sepulchre  in  the  enemy's  body.  On  the 
principles  of  political  economy,  the  present  system  is  bad.  Consider  the 
quantity  of  produce  that  is  wasted  :  the  quantity  of  beef  and  bread  con- 
sumed to  rear  animals,  only  that  you  may  afterwards  kill  and  bury  them ! 

The  truth  is,  that  Signer  FIFTEEN  takes  occasional  fits  of  retrogra- 
dation  ;  or  is  wiser  in  certain  places  than  in  others :  in  times  and  places 
both.  He  had  more  sense  at  thirteen  than  he  has  now — somewhat  more 
still  at  ten — or  I  am  much  mistaken.  He  sentimentalizes,  here  and 
there,  and  now  and  then,  which  is  abundantly  silly ;  as  if  war  was  not 
war.  Bless  my  soul  I  when  he  had  invented  gunpowder,  he  had  just 
touched  the  point  of  perfection  ;  and,  like  a  fool,  he  has  surrendered  all 
the  advantages. 

Defenceless  women  and  children  ! — forsooth — that  is  the  cant.  Why, 
the  very  beauty  of  a  place  is  to  be  defenceless ;  because  we  march  into 
it.  When  he  was  ten,  among  the  Jews,  he  understood  these  things 
better.  Think  of  the  convenience  of  getting  women  and  children  for 
nothing — of  getting  slaves  without  sending  to  Sierra  Leone  for  them, 
and  having  to  squabble  with  Mr.  Wilberforce  and  Mr.  Macaulay.  No 
wages,  no  month's  warning,  no  mutinies  in  the  kitchen  and  the  servants' 
hall.  Think,  Sir,  what  noble  opportunities  we  have  lost;  all  the  conse- 
quences of  losing  sight  of  the  first  principles  of  just,  glorious,  and  ne- 
cessary war. 

There  is  no  end  of  the  follies  of  OLD  FIFTEEN  ;  but  let  us  look  a 
little  after  his  wisdoms  ;  for,  heaven  be  praised,  there  is  always  a  com- 
pensation of  good  and  evil  in  him,  whether  he  is  making  war  or  love- 
laws  or  leather  breeches.  Think  of  full  pay,  bat  and  forage-money, 
rations,  two  horses,  an  orderly,  coals  and  candles,  wine  allowance,  and 
all  the  delights  of  glorious  reviews,  glorious  quarters,  glorious  wine  ! 
Dear  OLD  FIFTEEN,  I  hope  you  will  soon  begin  again  to  the  old  work  ; 
to  be  the  admiration,  the  delight,  of  the  dear,  dear  sex,  to  carry  them 
off  from  all  competition  by  means  of  a  red  rag  and  an  ounce  of  gold 
bullion.  To  be  tailored  at  once,  in  an  hour,  into  a  gentleman,  a  soldier, 
and  a  man  of  honour — to  have  nothing  to  do — good  Lord!  I  should 
never  have  done. 

And  war  it  is  that  brings  us  taxes :  and  what  should  we  do  but  for 
taxes  ?  are  they  not  the  spur  to  industry,  the  stimulus  to  commerce, 
the  reward  of  the  brave,  the  cause  of  the  circulation  of  money — which  is 
nothing  when  it  stagnates — the  estate  of  tax-gatherers,  and  the  ex- 
chequer, and  the  custom-house,  and  the  excise  office,  and  the  tax 
office,  and  the  stamp  office,  and  all  the  offices  and  officers  ?  And  are 
not  taxes  the  absolute  produce  of  war  ?  Do  they  ever  flourish  as  they 
flourish  in  war  ? 

Not  to  speak  of  the  necessity  of  diplomacy ; — and  what  need  should 
we  have  of  diplomacy,  without  war?  And  diplomatists — they  could  not 
enjoy  themselves  with  twelve  thousand  a  year  and  a  service  of  plate, 
and  a  pension  of  four  thousand,  if  there  was  no  diplomacy  ?  and  there 
could  be  no  diplomacy  if  there  was  no  war. 

And  then  what  would  Lord  Palmerston  do  if  there  was  no  War-office  ? 
and  all  the  clerks  ;  to  say  nothing  of  Mr.  Barrow,  and  Mr.  Croker,  and 
the  Admiralty,  and  the  Navy-board,  and  the  rest  of  it.  Why,  Sir,  OLD 
FIFTEEN  would  fall  to  pieces  ;  he  would  pine,  languish,  melt  clown,  fuse 
away  to  nothing — the  order  of  things  would  be  subverted. 


56  War: — its  Uses.  [JAN. 

Then,  Sir,  there  would  be  no  officers,  no  army ;  we  should  all  be 
Jesuits  ;  we  should  get  under  the  Pope  and  the  Lord  Chancellor ;  the 
parsons,  and  the  doctors,  and  the  lawyers,  would  rule  us :  we  should  do 
nothing  but  pray,  and  take  physic,  and  go  to  law.  No,  Sir,  I  do  not 
want  to  be  governed  by  the  Pope,  and  to  have  a  millenium.  And  if 
the  Chancellor  was  to  get  the  command,  we  should  never  have  the  day 
of  judgment  at  all ;  for  he  would  never  be  able  to  make  up  his  mind 
about  it. 

Sir,  I  ask  you  as  a  candid  man,  and  I  will  abide.  We  must  have  kings  ! 
that,  I  hope,  Sir,  you  grant ;  as  I  know  you  are  not  a  radical.  Would 
you  have  a  king  to  be  a  parson  ?  why  that  would  be  rank  popery,  to 
begin.  You  would  not  have  him  a  doctor,  I  am  sure  ;  for  he  would 
be  soon  shaving  and  blistering  all  his  subjects.  The  prime  minister 
would  be  an  apothecary,  and  the  Chancellor  a  midwife  ;  and  a  pretty 
midwife  he  would  make,  Sir,  when  he  does  not  deliver  a  suit  in  a 
century. 

No,  Sir,  a  king  must  not  be  a  parson,  nor  a  doctor.  Suppose  him  a 
lawyer  !  Why,  Sir,  he  would  levy  twenty  battalions  of  bumbailiffs  and 
sheriffs'  officers  ;  there  would  be  no  men  left  out  of  prison  in  the  country  ! 
Gallowses  would  grow  up  like  poplars  ;  and  I  should  like  to  know  which 
would  be  cheapest,  a  thousand  suits  of  the  uniform  of  the  Guards,  or  a 
thousand  suits  in  equity.  Why,  Sir,  the  people  would  soon  be  stripped 
stark  naked.  There  would  not  be  a  suit  of  clothes  in  the  country  shortly  ; 
for  we  should  be  dressed  up  in  in  law  suits,  and  trimmed  with  red  tape. 

As  to  a  king  being  the  editor  of  a  journal,  even  of  your  journal,  Sir, 
I  suspect  that  the  sale  would  soon  fall  off,  and  the  worthy  publisher 
would  look  very  blue.  .  Why  then,  Sir,  a  king  must  be  a  soldier  :  nothing 
else  can  he  or  shall  he  be  ;  and  therefore,  Sir,  OLD  FIFTEEN  must  keep 
on  in  the  old  way :  he  must  keep  up  war,  depend  upon  it. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  war,  we  should  have  had  no  saltpetre  for  our 
hams.  We  should  have  no  courage,  which  is  of  more  consequence  still. 
We  should  soon  turn  into  sheep,  and  the  foxes  would  eat  us  up  ;  the 
very  rats  would  make  their  nests  in  us.  It  is  war  that  makes  the  courage 
of  a  man,  as  it  makes  his  honour,  and  his  generosity,  and  all  his  fine 
sentiments  and  his  humanity. 

War,  Sir,  war  !  It  is 'war  that  gives  us  our  colonies  :  and  it  is  our  colo- 
nies that  give  us  tea,  coffee,  and  rum-punch,  and  maintain  the  bulwark 
of  our  island,  our  navy. 

War,  Sir !  it  was  by  war  that  OLD  FIFTEEN  propagated  religion. 
Did  he  not  propagate  Mahomet,  and  Flanders,  and  old  Saxony,  and 
Paraguay  ?  Lord,  Sir !  I  should  never  end  if  I  was  to  describe  the 
blessings  of  war,  if  it  was  only  in  this  particular  case. 

And  how  do  you  civilize  nations — and  what  would  the  world  be  without 
civilization  ?  Have  we  not  civilized  America,  and  taught  Paris  a  great 
moral  lesson  ?  And  did  not  Old  Rome  civilize  Britain,  and  all  the  world  ? 
The  sword — the  sword,  Sir,  is  the  true  engine  of  civilization.  A  ton  of 
gunpowder  is  worth  ten  tons  of  sermons,  even  though  they  should  be  Mr. 
Irving's.  The  cannon-law — (cannon  with  two  n's,  Mr.  Corrector) — is  the 
law  of  nations :  it  is  law,  gospel,  civilization,  moralization,  commerce, 
humanization,  colonies,  tea,  sugar,  rum,  and  every  thing  else.  All  good 
is  founded  on  war — all  benefits  spring  from  it.  OLD  FIFTEEN  under- 
stands his  trade  better  than  Lady  Mary  thought  for. 

Sir,  I  relieve  you  from  more  advantages,  lest  I  should  suffocate  you. 


1827.]  War:— its  Uses.  57 

Else  I  might  shew  you  how  war  makes  us  rich,  in  many  ways — how  it 
makes  proctors,  with  bills  five  yards  long — prize-agents,  army-agents, 
commissioners,  contractors,  stock-jobbers — and  bankrupts,  who  are  the 
richest  of  all  people,  since  they  live  splendidly  on  less  than  nothing, 
which  is  much  more  clever  than  living  on  nothing — a  thing  likely  to  be 
my  case  shortly. 

For  what  do  nations  go  to  war  ?  A  foolish  question  enough !  For 
what,  but  that  they  may  fight ;  and  they  fight  that  they  may  make  peace 
— without  which  they  could  not  make  war  again :  for,  if  it  was  not  for 
that,  peace  would  be  a  very  bad  thing.  Per-se,  it  is  bad ;  but,  being 
accessary  to  war,  it  is  good.  JBellum,  pax  rursum — then  war  again — and 
so  on. 

But  this  is  another  matter,  in  which  OLD  FIFTEEN  is  duller  now  than 
he  was  at  thirteen.  The  Romans  managed  it  all  without  peace.  Ah ! 
those  were  glorious  days  !  Now,  too,  we  must  find  reasons  for  war ;  or, 
if  we  cannot  find  them,  we  must  invent  them.  That  is  the  curse  of  sen- 
timent again,  which  is  the  disease  of  the  age.  These  original  noble  old 
thieves  never  troubled  themselves  about  "  reason  ;"  they  made  war  when 
they  pleased,  and  left  any  body  else  (that  pleased)  to  guess  the  reason. 

I  could  tell  you  a  good  deal  about  the  Romans  ;  but  it  makes  me  me- 
lancholy whenever  I  think  of  those  times.  Besides,  I  have  something 
else  to  do  ;  because  I  must  tell  you  of  the  reasons  for  going  to  war  in 
these  degenerate  and  piping  times  of  reason  and  justice.— •"  But  dinner 
waits,  and  I  ara  tired ;"  says  your  reader,  so  am  I.  H.  I. 


STANZAS. 
O  HEART  !  thou  child  of  sun  and  shade, 

I  value  thee  but  as  the  shrine, 
Wherein  the  sweetest  gifts  are  laid 
That  ever  fell  from  lip,  betrayed 
To  thoughts  whereof  it  felt  afraid — 
And  these  are  thine  ! 

O  !  hide  thy  wealth  from  worldly  eyes 

That  fascinate  with  shame  and  sin, 
That  seek  the  things  they  cannot  prize, 
And  ask  me  where  this  love-pearl  lies, 
And  drain  my  meanest  arteries : — 
It  is  within. 

Ah  !  thou,  whose  looks  my  moonlight  make, 

Whose  truths  upon  thy  tongue  lie  curled, 
And  now  and  then  with  witcheries  wake 
My  soul, — shall  blood  of  thine  e'er  slake 
The  thirstings  of  this  human  snake  ? 
I  dread  the  world  ! 

Can  we  not  launch  a  spirit-bark 

Until  the  tide  of  tears  shall  cease, 
And  make  it  as  Affection's  ark, 
Where  some  untired,  redeeming  spark 
May  find  us  through  the  trackless  dark — 
A  thing  of  Peace  ? 

Or  if  the  moonless  wave  should  bear 

Our  hearts  where  not  a  hope  can  fly, 
There's  triumph  in  such  lone  despair; 
And  all  our  mutual  lifetime  there 
Shall  be  a  long  and  pensive  prayer 

That  we  may  die  !  S.L.B. 

M.M.  Afai»  Seriss— VoL.IIL  No.  1.3.  I 


[       58       ]  [JAN. 

FULL-LENGTHS,    N°.    III. THE    TAX-GATHERER. 

WE  have  somewhere  heard  or  read  of  a  laudable  custom  existing  in 
some  foreign  states,  by  which  all  the  public  executioners  are  gathered 
into  one  family  compact,  and  from  which  stock  government  always  looks 
for  and  meets  with  a  due  supply  of  rope-men  and  wheel-men,  making  of 
the  younger  branches  turnkeys  and  assistants.  It  is  a  most  wise  ordina- 
tion— a  splendid  invention  to  blunt  the  naughty  prejudices  of  the  world — 
to  make  the  otherwise  sufferers  smirk  and  whistle  in  the  sour,  hard-lined 
face  of  public  opinion.  Thus  hangmen  are  great  and  invulnerable  in  their 
connexions  ;  each  may  trace  "  a  long  line  of  ancestry."  Moreover,  he 
has  a  living  world  of  his  own,  ample  enough  to  supply  all  the  wants  of 
mutual  recognizance,  sympathy  and  praise,  which  poor  human  nature, 
whether  breaking  stones  in  the  highway,  or  cracking  filberts  in  a  regal 
hall,  desires  and  pines  for.  With  what  delicate,  yet  peculiar  care,  must 
the  education  of  the  future  hangmen  be  directed;  what  parental  lessons 
on  tender-heartedness  and  the  locality  of  the  jugular,  must  be  needful, 
in  order  to  sustain  the  renown  of  the  house,  and  to  make,  as  Dryden  has 
it,  a  gentleman  "  die  sweetly."  How  ideas  of  self-importance  must 
grow  up  with  the  young  rogues  !  how  they  must  leer  at  and  speculate 
on  the  unhanged  part  of  the  community  !  perhaps  some  little  Caligula  in 
corduroy  wishing,  in  all  the  yearnings  of  early  genius,  that  the  whole 
township  had  but  one  neck.  How  complacently  these  puny  varlets  must 
play  at  marbles  in  the  parth-way  of  a  field  of  hempseed  ;  what  significant 
looks  they  may  send  after  the  passengers  !  Can  any  one  doubt  the  benefit, 
both  political  and  social,  of  such  constant  intermarryings  of  the  families 
of  these  humble  branches  of  the  executive  ?  We  think  not. 

It  is  now,  perhaps,  high  time  that  we  speak  of  our  Tax-gatherer  ;  we 
have,  indeed,  from  the  first,  been  making  an  indirect,  crab-like  advance 
to  him :  some  men  are  not  to  be  run  at  full  butt ;  and,  we  think,  no  man 
less  so — here  we  put  it  to  the  candour  of  our  readers — than  a  Tax-gatherer. 
We  have  spoken  of  the  republican  coalition — the  Owen,  New-Harmony- 
like  establishment  of  foreign  hangmen.  We  think  a  hint  might  be  taken 
from  it  for  the  benefit  of  our  Tax-gatherers  ;  they  are  an  ill-used  race  ;  a 
reviled,  abused  genus.  We  feel  for  their  privations  ;  our  pen  weeps  ink 
over  their  injuries.  We  roundly  assert,  that  Tax-gatherers' should,  like 
the  unassuming  law-officers  before  noted,  make  head  against  the  mocks 
and  scoffings  of  the  world — they  ought  to  consolidate — to  become  one 
body. 

We  have  said  Tax-gatherers  were  an  injured  race ;  our  proof,  like  a 
dutiful  page,  follows  close  upon  the  heels  of,  and  gives  his  weapons  to,  the 
knight  Assertion.  There  are  two  broad  ways — not  to  mention  the  hun- 
dred alleys,  the  sweet  green  lanes — to  a  man's  comfort  and  good  opinion  : 
firstly,  the  road  of  praise  to  his  covering  of  flesh ;  secondly,  the  high- 
way of  approbation  to  its  intellectual  co-mate.  Are  there  such  ways  to 
a  Tax-gatherer  ? — alas !  we  think  not.  Or  if  there  be,  are  they  tra- 
velled— are  they  gone  over  ? — never.  The  Muck  slush -heath  of  honest 
Brulgruddery  is  not  less  frequented.  Our  proof  is  ready.  We  once 
more  put  it  to  our  readers — at  least,  to  our  housekeeper-readers,  for  we 
are  not  to  be  tricked  by  the  gratuitous  candour  of  the  tenants  of  lodgings 
for  single  gentlemen,  "  within  twenty  minutes  walk  of  'Change" — but  we 
put  it  to  those  experienced  persons,  who  really  know  what  the  face  of  a 
Tax-gatherer  is — who  have  stared  at  it,  pondered  on  it,  speculated  on 


18-27.]  fJie  Tax-Gatherer.  59 

every  feature  and  line  of  it — we  put  it  to  them,  whether  they  ever  saw  a 
handsome  Tax-gatherer?  We  would  not  be  dogmatic,  but  we  think  not. 
Now,  is  not  this  an  afflicting  state,  that  a  man  should,  by  absolute  preju- 
dice, be  thus  "  curtailed  of  his  fair  proportions?"  for  it  matters  not,  let 
the  humble  compiler  of  the  revenue  be  bright  and  glistening  as  Sol,  he 
is  set  down  and  noted  as  foul  and  murky  as  Erebus.  We  repeat  it :  no 
Tax-gatherer  was  ever  thought,  save  by  his  wife,  a  good-looking  man. 
(We  much  doubt  whether  a  pawnbroker,  knowing  his  customer,  would 
advance  a  single  doit  on  his  miniature.)  We  now  aim  at  proof  the 
second.  Did  any  of  our  readers  (housekeepers  again)  meet  with  a  really 
urbane,  amiable,  and  milky -hearted  Tax-gatherer  ?  If  so,  were  ever 
his  good  qualities  brinted  ? — No.  His  highest  praise  has  been  couched 
in  "  the  man  is  well  enough  :"  a  great  eulogium  certainly,  if  philoso- 
phically solved — but  philosophy  rarely  mingles  in  our  transactions  with 
Tax-gatherers  :  there,  all  is  £.  s.  d.  and  matter-of-fact. 

Let  us,  however,  take  "  one  victim  :"  let  us  set   out  with  our  Tax- 
gatherer  on  his  morning's  round. 

#  *  *  *  * 

Well,  the  Tax-gatherer  has  for  the  last  hour  been  the  unresisting 
victim  of  two  battledores,  a  negative  and  an  imperative  ;  he  has  been 
struck  from  house  to  house  by  "  Not  at  Home  "  and  "  Call  Again." 
And  here  let  us  for  a  moment  sympathize  with  the  feelings — (if  he  hath 
any  feeling  left) — of  the  poor  pedestrian,  than  whom  the  unclosed  door 
no  sooner  reveals  to  the  giggling  servant,  or  to  the  daughter,  who  has 
come  skipping  and  shaking  her  curls  along  the  passage,  and  perhaps 
dwelling  on  the  last  note  of  Di  Tanti  Palpiti,  or  of  Arne's  Monster  Aivayf 
— no  sooner  does  the  Tax-gatherer  stand  confessed,  than  the  inhabitant 
looks  blank — the  visage  lengthens — a  business-like  seriousness  over- 
spreads the  face,  and  either  set  of  the  above  three  syllables  drop 
heavily  as  bullets  from  the  lips  of  beauty:  sometimes,  indeed,  the  trans- 
action may  be  enlivened  by  a  querulous  shrillness  of  voice,  a  sudden^ 
bodily  whisk  of  the  party  called  upon,  and  at  length,  the  conference  be 
impressively  terminated  by  a  slamming-to  of  the  door.  Indeed,  a  curious 
man  might  find  some  employment  in  remarking  on  the  entrance  of  a 
Tax-gatherer  into  a  retired  and  quiet  street,  how  many  of  these  portal 
concussions  should  attend  him  on  his  route.  And  then  narrowly  to 
observe  the  features  of  the  visited,  when  they  glance  from  the  face  of 
the  Tax-gatherer  to  the  missile  in' his  hand;  that  dreadful  little  book — 
that  key  to  the  History  of  England — and,  like  that  history,  the  record 
of  so  many  departed  sovereigns.  How  the  parties  recoil  from  that  puny 
volume  !  they  shrink  back  as  they  look  on  its  unloosed  brazen  clasp,  as 
though  the  jaws  of  a  griffin  were  distended  before  them.  If  the  man 
stood  ready  at  the  threshold,  to  hurl  into  the  dwelling-house  a  Congreve- 
rocket,  the  habitant  could  not  behold  either  the  Tax-gatherer  or  his 
instrument  with  greater  trepidation.  Ingenuity  might  be  goaded  to  find 
pertinent  similitudes  to  the  book  of  a  Tax-man,  with  so  many  and  such 
conflicting  attributes  is  it  endowed  by  its  beholders.  A  sleeping  snake, 
the  paw  of  a  leopard,  the  bill  of  the  butcher-bird,  are  all  common  and 
inexpressive  similes.  Its  sober  and  harmless-looking  covers,  of  humble 
sheep,  are,  in  imagination,  transformed  into  the  skin  of  a  tyger,  that  has 
desolated  a  village,  swallowing  a  rajah,  his  body-guards,  men,  women^ 
and  young  children;  or  to  that  of  a  swine  that  has  "eaten  her  nine 
farrow:"  its  pages  are  held  to  be  veritable  leaves  from  the  upas-tree ; 

12 


60  The  Tax-Gatherer.  [JAN. 

there  is  also  thunder  in  their  rustling.  Hard  lot  to  be  deemed  thus 
terrible,  both  in  person  and  in  agents.  We  feel  for  the  Tax-gatherer ; 
we  feel  for  the  slights  which  are  put  upon  him,  the  ready  white  He  which 
is  hourly  served  up  to  him.  Even  infants  that  can  scarcely  stammer, 
the  mere  babes  of  the  poor  housekeeper,  are  taught  to  note  his  person 
well — to  become  deeply  acquainted  with  his  coat  and  gaiters,  in  order  to 
give  the  "  not  at  home  "  without  error  or  prevarication. 

But,  say  our  readers — and  doubtless  feelingly  they  say — a  day  of 
reckoning  does  come.  Truly,  it  does ;  but  the  Tax-gatherer  is  almost 
the  only  man  to  whom  the  taking  of  money  is  not  altogether  a  pleasur- 
able process.  Alas,  the  coin  told  into  his  hand  awakens  no  delirious 
throb  which,  communicating  with  the  neighbouring  arteries,  by  some 
means  (we  are  no  anatomist)  arrives  at  the  heart,  and  awakens  that 
internal  music,  which  the  eyes  and  mouth  of  a  plodding  dealer  frequently 
indicate  to  be  stirring  within  him.  The  payment  is  too  often  embittered 
by  comment ;  whilst  counting  out  the  money,  there  are  some  grievous 
interpolations.  It  may  be,  too,  that  he  is  the  unwilling  hearer  of  divers 
snatches  of  sentences,  which  an  ill-minded  man  might  brand  as  disaf- 
fected, nay,  as  being  dwarf  cousin-germans  to  the  blood-streaked  giant, 
Treason.  Perhaps  he  has  to  deal  with  a  sturdy  old  gentleman,  who  has 
magnanimously  kept  up  a  consistent  growl  against  all  parties,  for  the 
last  forty  years ;  a  man,  of  substance,  but  close  withal :  one  who 
was  never  guilty  of  any  shew  or  extravagance,  save  in  the  binding  of  the 
nine  hundred  volumes  of  Mr.  Cobbett  in  extra-calf.  Must  we  not  sym- 
pathize with  the  poor  Tax-gatherer  as  the  servant,  closing  the  door, 
leaves  him  closetted  with  this  antiquated  malcontent?  Why  does  not 
Wilkie  strike  off  such  a  scene  ?  Let  us  fancy  the  man  of  office  a  thin — 
(thin  men  of  office  are,  we  allow,  anomalies) — meagre,  unassuming  per- 
son—his antagonist,  rotund  and  red-faced  :  the  first  recognizing  glance 
of  the  parties  is,  with  the  short,  fitful  grunt  of  the  householder,  worth 
all  the  remainder  of  the  meeting.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 
official  visitor  quits  this  house  with  feelings  too  much  pampered  with 
kindness  and  courtesy.  His  next  interview  may  be  with  some  bitter- 
witted  wight,  marvellously  deep  in  history ;  who,  to  while  away  the 
time  whilst  the  receipt  is  being  written,  asks  our  humble  revenue  officer, 
if  he  ever  heard  of  Wat  Tyler  ?  and  then,  without  waiting  for  a  reply, 
adds,  "  he  was  a  blacksmith,  and  with  his  hammer  once  knocked  out  the 
brains  of  a  Tax-gatherer" — at  the  same  time  looking  our  subject  full  in 
the  face,  to  discover  whether  sympathy  for  the  departed,  or  a  feeling  of 
self-preservation  preponderates. 

There- are,  to  be  sure,  a  few  bright  moments  in  the  practice  of  our 
Tax-gatherer.  Some  of  these  may  be  in  his  visit  to  a  rare  old  lady, 
whose  husband  was  loyal  to  the  very  eye-brows,  and  who  was,  in  some 
way  or  other,  disposed  of  for  the  benefit  of  his  country — or  perhaps  her 
great-grandfather  was  footman  at  the  palace,  or  breeches-maker  to  one 
of  the  young  princes.  These  persons  are,  however,  we  grieve  to  record 
it,  rare  as  unicorns.  Our  Tax-gatherer  is  also,  in  some  few  places,  con- 
sulted as — next  to  the  newspaper — the  greatest  oracle.  Some  quiet, 
lone,  political  widow,  who  has  little  else  to  do  but  to  keep  her  eye  on 
the  movements  of  Messrs.  Peel,  Huskisson,  and  Canning,  holds  no  mean 
opinion  of  our  subject :  this  loquacious  dame  always  dives  into  the  very 
depths  of  finance,  and  perforce  takes  our  Tax-gatherer  along  with  her. 
After  buffeting  with  him  all  the  conflicting  billows  of  our  home  and 


1827.]  The  Tax-Gatherer.  61 

foreign  policy — after  duly  touching  on  the  price  of  sugars,  the  imperial 
measure,  and  Catholic  Emancipation,  she  startles  him  with  this  subtle 
question — "  when  does  he  think  the  window-lights  will  come  off?"  This 
is  a  query  of  some  weight,  and  our  Tax-gatherer  begs  leave  to  defer  his 
solution  until  the  next  meeting.  Our  officer  does  not,  however,  quit  the 
widow,  without  first  gallantly  acquiescing  in  her  acute  deduction,  that 
"  if  tobaccos  fall,  snuff  must  come  down." 

Yet,  what  are  these  few  blissful  moments  of  relaxation  compared  to 
the  many  days  of  hard  enduring  of  our  Tax-gatherer !  What,  if  for  a 
brief — alas  !  how  brief — space  his  mental  eye  reposes,  on  what  Mr. 
Burke  calls  "  the  soft  green  of  the  soul,"  displayed  by  meek  and  pla- 
cable woman,  what  "  antries  vast "  he  meets  with  in  the  ruder  sex  I 
How  his  loyalty  is  shocked  and  jarred  by  base  and  disaffected  compari- 
sons !  One  customer,  whose  knocker  our  Tax-gatherer  could  swear  to, 
even  to  the  minutest  scratch  or  perforation,  having  many  a  time  surveyed 
it  for  fifteen  minutes  in  a  shower,  shocks,  beyond  expression,  the  patrio- 
tism of  his  official  visitor.  He  declares,  whilst  bringing  forth  his  rate 
by  sixpences,  that,  "  for  his  part,  he  is  always  paying — he  knows  not 
where  the  money  goes  to  :"  he  then,  with  a  groan  and  much  physical 
determination,  thrusts  the  receipt  into  his  fob ;  and  then  concludes  his 
homily,  by  declaring  that  "  he  hears  America  is  very  prettily  governed 
for  five  hundred  a  year,  and  potatoes  are  just  as  dear  there  as  in  Eng- 
land." These,  and  a  thousand  like  these,  are  what  our  man  of  the 
little  book  is  doomed  to  suffer. 

It  may  be  urged,  that  we  have  endowed  our  Tax-gatherer  with  too 
much  meekness — that  he  is  a  collector  for  a  romantic  tale — and  that  our 
real,  mundane,  gaitered — (he  mostly  wears  gaiters) — Tax-gatherer,  is 
of  a  more  repelling  and  dogmatic  kind.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  if,  in 
the  end,  he  really  become  so  ?  Let  the  above  narrated  exigencies  account 
for  the  transition.  If  a  man's  heart  be  soft  as  the  back  of  a  glow-worm, 
there  are  buffettings  and  affronts  which  will  render  it  repulsive  as  the 
mail  of  the  armadillo ;  if  the  features  of  the  young  Tax-gatherer  display 
candour  and  good-nature,  can  we  wonder  if  the  cheeks  of  the  more 
experienced  collector  be  wholly  official ;  be,  in  fact,  like  the  royal  arms, 
adorned  with  a  Dieu  et  mon  Droit  ?  Verily,  Tax-gatherers  are  not  the 
folks  that  carry  away  the  enviable  posts  of  this  world. 

We  trust  we  have  done  some  little  service  to  the  Tax-gatherer.  And 
yet,  perhaps,  we  may  not  be  altogether  considered  a  candid  advocate, 
being  a  housekeeper  of  twenty  years'  standing,  and  the  parent  of  ten 
small  children. 

We  will  conclude  by  repeating,  that  a  Tax-gatherer  is  to  be  compas- 
sionated. In  the  metropolis,  indeed,  and  in  large  cities,  his  fate  may  be 
more  endurable ;  but,  in  a  provincial  district,  where  he  calls  on  every 
inhabitant,  it  is  an  employment  not  befiting  mere  mortal  bones  and 
sinews.  We  have  said,  that  a  Tax-gatherer  is  shunned,  and,  in  a  man- 
ner, generally  maltreated  ;  so  rooted  in  us  is  this  opinion,  that  we  should 
hold  the  man  to  afford  a  splendid  instance  of  magnanimity  and  absence 
from  vulgar  prejudice,  who  could  have  it  indisputably  authenticated,, 
that  he  ever,  during  his  official  visit,  invited  the  Tax-gatherer  to  take 
— wine  and  cake.  J* 


[  62  ]  [JAN. 

THE  HOURI  ; 
A  PERSIAN  SONG. 

SWEET  Spirit  !   ne'er  did  I  beholJ 
Thy  ivory  neck,  thy  locks  of  gold ; 
Or  gaze  into  thy  full  dark  eye, 
Or  on  thy  snowy  bosom  lie ; 
Or  take  in  mine  thy  small  white  hand, 
Or  bask  beneath  thy  smilings  bland; 
Or  walk,  enraptured,  by  the  side 
Of  thee,  my  own  immortal  bride. 

. 

I  see  thee  not — yet  oft  I  hear 
Thy  soft  voice  whispering  in  my  ear; 
And  when  the  evening  breeze  I  seek, 
I  feel  thy  kiss  upon  my  cheek ; 
And  when  the  moonbeams  softly  fall 
On  mead  and  tower,  and  flower-crowned  wall, 
Methinks  the  Patriarch's  dream  I  see — 
The  steps  that  lead  to  heaven  and  thee.  • 

I've  heard  thee  wake,  with  touch  refined, 
The  viewless  harp-strings  of  the  wind  ; 
And  on  my  ear  their  soft  tones  fell, 
Sweet  as  the  voice  of  Israfel  !* 
I've  seen  thee,  in  the  lightning's  sheen, 
Lift  up  for  me  heaven's  cloudy  screen, 
And  give  one  glimpse,  one  transient  glare, 
Of  the  full  blaze  of  glory  there. 

Oft,  'midst  my  wanderings  wild  and  wide, 
I  know  that  thou  art  by  my  side ; 
For  flowers  breathe  swectlier  'neath  thy  tread, 
And  suns  burn  brighter  o'er  thy  head ; 
And  though  thy  steps  so  noiseless  steal, 
And  though  thou  ne'er  thy  form  reveal, 
My  throbbing  heart  and  pulses  high 
Tell  me,  sweet  Spirit,  thou  art  nigh. 

'     io  -';'•  ii  '•  v  •'; 

O  for  the  hour,  the  happy  hour, 
When  Azracl's-f-  wings  shall  to  thy  bower 
Bear  my  enfranchised  soul  away, 
Unfettered  with  these  chains  of  clay  ! 
For  what  is  he  whom  men  so  fear — 
Azrael !  the  solemn  and  severe — 
What  but  the  white-robed  priest  is  he, 
Who  weds  my  happy  soul  to  thee. 

Then  shall  we  rest  in  bowers  that  bloom 

With  more  than  Araby's  perfume, 

And  list  to  many  a  lovelier  note 

Than  swells  th'  enamoured  Bulbul'sJ  throat ; 

And  gaze  on  scenes  so  fair  and  bright, 

Thought  never  soared  so  proud  a  height, — 

And  one  melodious  ziraleet  § 

Through  heaven's  unending  year  repeat.  H.  N. 

*  Israfel,  the  angel  of  music.  ±  Bulbul,  the  nightingale, 

t  Azrael,  the  angel  of  death.  $  Ziraleet,  a  song  of  rejoicing. 


1827.]  [     63     ] 


LETTER    UPON    AFFAIRS    IN    GENERAL,     FROM   A   GENTLEMAN    IN 
LONDON    TO    A    GENTLEMAN     IN    THE    COUNTRY. 

Give  me  a  brick,  Sir,  for  my  bolster ; 

Ail  armourer  is  my  upholster.  ,  Cjunter-Rat. 

WAR — "  horrid  war  !" — has  driven  all  other  matters  out  of  men's  heads 
here  since  the  12th  of  this  last  month.  In  the  House  of  Commons, 
Mr.  Hume,  and  his  calculations  together, — with  one  long,  simultaneous, 
unceremonious  groan — even  from  the  Opposition, — have  been  voted  a 
"  bore"  Corn  disputes,  currency  questions,  and  measures  of  economy, 
and  all  such  fitting  topics  for  a  "  piping  time  "  of  leisure,  have  been 
sent  pell-mell  to  the  devil.  -The  whole  of  the  leading  people  on  the 
cot&  gauche  have  behaved  nobly  ;  and  Mr.  Baring,  as  the  representative 
of  the  mercantile  interest,  in  a  most  sound  and  constitutional  speech,— 
and  Mr.  Brougham,  as  the  organ  of  the  Wh'g  aristocracy,  in  a  short 
speech,  the  effect  of  which,  however,  was  absolutely  tremendous, — both 
agreed,  that  to  doubt  the  capability  of  England  to  sustain  a  war,  or  the 
propriety  of  its  instantly,  under  the  existing  circumstances,  making  ac- 
tive preparations  for  one,  would  be  to  compromise  our  own  safety  as  an 
independent  nation,  and  to  disgrace  ourselves  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  for 
ever.  All  the  speeches  on  this  occasion — except  the  opening,  upon  the 
"  message  " — were  short.  The  general  feeling  seemed  to  be,  that  it  was 
time  now  to  be  acting—not  shaping  sentences,  and  talking.  Mr.  Brough- 
am's speech  was  one~/)f  the  most  impressive  that  ever  I  heard  even  him 
deliver.  There  was  not  one  word  in  it  that  was  not  straight  to  the  point ; 
and  the  manner  was  even  more  powerful  than  the  substance  spoken.  I 
certainly  never  saw  or  heard  any  man — except,  perhaps,  Kean  the  actor, 
in  some  of  his  most  successful  efforts  — whose  points  seemed  visibly  to  tell 
upon  his  audience  — falling  like  the  huge  strokes  of  some  vast  machine 
that  drives  piles,  or  beats  out  native  iron — like  those  of  the  member  for 
Winchelsea.  The  thing — as  a  mere  exhibition — is  worth  travelling  an 
hundred  miles  to  see.  It  is  not  eloquence — unless  thunder  be  eloquence. 
It  is  real  power,  of  the  most  terrific  calibre,  applied  to  and  moving  the 
real  affairs  of  life. 

Of  course,  it  would  be  absurd  here  to  attempt  any  speculation  as  to 
the  probable  results  of  the  impending  contest ;  but  the  very  jobbing  in 
the  Greek  Committee  never  was  more  transparent  than  the  necessity  for 
undertaking  it.  How  far  circumstances  should  have  led  us  to  interfere 
two  years  back,  when  the  French  first  occupied  Spain,  may  be  matter  of 
question  ;  but,  as  that  measure  has  operated,  I  am  quite  sure  we  ought 
not  to  regret  any  emergency  which  (in  good  time)  re-raises  the  point 
between  ourselves  and  France.  There  is  a  fable,  about  "  a  bitch  that  lent 
her  kennel."  I  don't  recollect  whether  it  is  in  j?Esop  or  Phaedrus;  but  it 
is  a  very  good  one;  and  it  seems  to  me  to  have  been  written  very  much 
with  a  view  to  cases  like  the  present.  I  can't  give  the  precise  words ; 
but  it  goes  something  to  the  following  effect : — 

"  A  bitch  that  was  heavy  with  whelp  caine  to  another  bitch,  who  had 
a  convenient  kennel,  and  begged  leave,  because  she  was  poor  and  house- 
less, to  lie  in,  and  bring  forth  her  puppies  in  it.  The  wealthy  bitch,  who 
was  of  an  easy  temper,  consented,  and  gave  up  her  kennel,  allowing  the 
other  to  take  possession.  In  about  two  months,  however,  the  owner  of 


64  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN. 

the  dwelling,  thinking  it  was  time  to  return  home,  called  at  her  kennel, 
to  request  that  the  new  tenant  would  remove.  The  latter  received  her 
with  great  courtesy — expressing  much  gratitude  for  the  favour  that  had 
been  shewn  her — but  begged  the  indulgence  of  only  one  more  month,  as 
her  puppies  were  yet  young  and  feeble — unable  to  go  abroad,  and  to  shift 
for  themselves.  To  this  farther  delay  the  mistress  of  the  kennel  con- 
sented, though  to  her  own  personal  inconvenience  ;  and  went  away,  rely- 
ing, at  the  time  appointed,  to  find  her  house  clear,  and  set  in  order  for 
her  reception.  But  she  reckoned  without  her  host ;  for,  when  she  re- 
turned, at  the  end  of  the  third  month,  and  declared  that  f  she  was  sorry 
to  disturb  any  body,  but  could  absolutely  wait  no  longer ' — «  Then,  in 
that  case,'  said  the  strange  bitch,  looking  to  her  puppies,  who  were  now 
grown  up  fierce  and  strong,  and  able  to  back  their  mother — « in  that 
case,  come  on  !  and  get  possession  how  you  can — for,  I  promise  you,  you 
shall  never  again  set  foot  in  this  kennel,  unless  you  are  strong  enough  to 
turn  me  out  of  it — me,  and  my  litter  of  pups.'  " 

Now  France  is  the  bitch  that  has  borrowed  the  kennel  ;  she  has  got 
possession  of  Spain — getting  that,  peaceably,  by  negociation,  which  she 
could  never  (we  should  say)  have  got  by  war.  She  need  never  want  an 
argument  or  excuse—as  long  as  arguments  or  excuses  will  serve — for 
keeping  possession  of  it ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  she  fixes  herself  and  her 
interests  more  firmly  in  the  country  every  day.  By-and-bye,  we  shall 
plainly  request  her  to  "  turn  out ;"  and  it  is  not  quite  impossible  that, 
when  we  put  the  question,  "  Peace  or  war  !  are  you  prepared  to  evacuate 
Cadiz  ?"  she  may  reply,  "  1  am  prepared  to  do  so,  provided  you  will,  on 
the  same  day,  walk  out  of  Gibraltar."  Now,  I  confess,  I  should  .like  to 
see  this  question — if  it  is  to  be  one — set  at  rest  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
intention  of  the  French  king  may  be  sincere — I  think  it  must  be  sincere. 
Princes  are  not  bound  quite  by  the  same  ties  that  attach  individuals  ;  but 
the  Bourbon  family  can  hardly  forget — not  perhaps  that  it  was  England 
that  replaced  them  on  their  throne— but  that  England  sheltered  and  sus- 
tained them,  in  their  seemingly  hopeless  reverse  of  fortune.  On  France, 
too,  as  a  country,  we  have  claims.  We  were  moderate  with  her — and  not 
"  light-fingered"— in  our  day  of  victory.  From  the  very  hour  after  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  upwards,  England  was  her  friend  and  her  protector — 
not  her  foe.  All  this  seems  to  assure  us,  that  France  can  have  no  dispo- 
sition to  go  to  war  with  England ;  but— I  am  very  much  of  Macbeth's 
opinion — something  inclined  to  "  make  assurance  doubly  sure  ;"  and  I 
think  we  might  as  well  now,  in  Spain,  wait  upon  the  French,  as  it  were, 
to  the  door — see  them  at  Bayonne  —  and  then  all  parties  will  be  satisfied, 
and  there  will  be  no  occasion  for  any  "assurance''  at  all.  I  do  not 
believe  that  France  has,  or  has  had,  any  intention  of  seizing  Spain ;  but  it 
is  written,  that  you  shall  not  lead  nations — any  more  than  "  men  " — 
"  into  temptation ;"  and,  if  any  such  caprice  were  to  occur  to  her,  it 
would  be  a  monstrous  convenience  to  commence  operations  upon  it,  with 
the  disputed  ground  already  in  her  possession. 

Next  to  the  Spanish  question,  the  law  of  LIBEL  has  been  the  most 
popular  late  subject  of  discussion.  All  the  world  almost  has  been  indict- 
ing or  indicted  ;  and  there  have  been  two  cases  tried — one,  an  indictment 
by  M.  Bochsa,  against  the  Examiner  newspaper,  tried  before  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  ; — and  the  other,  an  action 
for  damages  agaiast  the  Timest  in  the  matter  of  "  the  ideot  Smith,"  tried 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  05 

before  the  Chief  Baron  in  the  Court  of  Exchequer ;  upon  which  a  few 
words,  I  think,  might  be  said  with  advantage  to  the  public. 

The  facts  of  both  cases  I  assume  to  be  in  every  body's  recollection. 
M.  Bochsa,  who  is  a  harp-player  and  musical  composer,  was  appointed 
one  of  the  principal  directors  in  a  new  scientific  institution,  under  "  fa- 
shionable patronage,"  which  is  called  the  "  Academy  of  Music,"  and  of 
which  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (I  believe)  is  a  patron.  The  Exa- 
miner newspaper,  which  thought  the  whole  institution — as  I  think  it — 
rather  a  tweedle-dum  sort  of  affectation,  expressed  some  surprise  that  M. 
Bochsa,  who  (as  it  stated)  was  a  **  fugitive  felon,"  and  had  been  con- 
demned in  France  to  the  galleys,  to  be  branded,  &c.,  should  be  associated 
iri  any  undertaking  with  one  of  the  first  dignitaries  of  the  church  of  En- 
gland. M.  Bochsa  then  indicts  the  Examiner  newspaper.  The  publication 
of  the  paragraph  complained  of,  and  its  offensive  character,  are  proved. 
These  proofs,  in  a  case  of  indictment,  are  sufficient  to  constitute  LIBEL ; 
and  they  are  all  the  proof  at  which  the  court  will  look.  No  evidence  of 
the  truth  of  the  paragraph  complained  of  can  be  received;  because  the 
statement,  although  it  be  true — if  it  be  calculated  to  injure — is  never- 
theless a  LIBEL.  Accordingly,  the  jury  is  not  permitted  to  declare  any 
thing,  but  that  "  an  offensive  paragraph  " — (they  know  not  why  or  where- 
fore)— "  has  been  published;"  and  the  judge  then  convicts  Mr.  Hunt,  who 
will  receive  sentence,  by  fine  or  imprisonment-^ — or  both — to  any  extent  or 
amount  that  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  shall  think  fit. 

The  second  case  is  an  action  for  damages — not  an  indictment.  And 
here,  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  statement  published  maybe  received, 
and  Will  form  an  answer  (or  "  justification  ")  to  the  action.  But,  then, 
that  "justification"  or  proof  of  truth — by  the  practice  of  the  court—- 
must be  to  the  LETTER.  Your  statement  must  not  only  have  a  founda- 
tion in  truth,  but  all  the  circumstances  of  it  must  be  strictly  borne  out,  or 
you  have  a  verdict  against  you  ;  the  effect  of  which  practice  is,  that  no 
man,  whatever  his  caution,  could  ever  write  an  account  of  any  transac- 
tion which  he  had  not  (at  least)  seen  with  his  own  eyes,  without  being 
saddled  with  costs  and  damages,  if  the  account  were  offensive,  and  an 
action  for  LIBEL  were  brought  against  him.  In  the  present  case,  the 
facts  were  shortly  these.  In  January  1825,  a  Staffordshire  magistrate, 
of  the  name  of  Broughton,  heard  that  an  ideot,  or  lunatic,  named  George 
Smith,  who  had  been  confined  for  many  years  in  the  private  house  of  his 
brother  and  sister,  was  treated  with  great  neglect  and  inhumanity— a 
variety  of  particulars  being  stated  to  this  effect,  some  of  which  were  exag- 
gerated, and  into  which  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  enter.  Mr. 
Broughton,  who  is  a  clergyman  as  well  as  a  magistrate,  upon  this,  pro- 
ceeded to  the  house  of  the  Smiths;  and  there  found  such  a  state  of 
things,  as  he  thought  made  it  his  duty  to  take  the  lunatic  at  once  out  of 
the  hands' of  his  relatives,  and  to  send  him  to  the  county  asylum  for  secu- 
rity." The  whole  impression  upon  this  gentleman's  mind — as  appears  af- 
terwards, from  his  own  evidence  on  the  first  trial — was  of  a  very  unfavour- 
able description.  Then,  subsequent  to  this  public  proceeding  by  the  ma- 
gistrate, and  when  the  affair  of  the  lunatic  was,  of  course,  already  bruited 
through  the  country,  a  paragraph,  purporting  to  be  a  general  account  of 
the  case,  appeared  in  a  paper  called  the  Salopian  Journal ;  in  which  the 
neglect  of  the  Smiths  towards  their  relative  was  described  with  a  variety 
of  circumstance,  and  at  considerable  length.  For  that  paragraph  an  ac- 

M.M.  New  Scries.— .VoL.llI.  No.13.  K 


66  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN. 

tion  was  brought  against  the  Salopian  Journal,  in  which  the  plaintiff 
obtained  £100  damages.  Another  action  against  the  Birmingham 
Journal,  for  copying  that  paragraph  (and,  I  rather  think,  adding  some 
remarks),  was  tried  at  Gloucester,  and  the  verdict  was  for  £400  da- 
mages. Subsequently,  a  third  action  is  brought  against  the  Times,  for 
copying  the  Birmingham  Journal.  The  Times  does  not  "  justify,"  or 
offer  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  copied  statement;  because  the  Birmingham 
Journal,  in  the  former  action,  had  tried  to  "  justify,"  and  the  justification 
had  been  incomplete.  The  verdict  for  the  plaintiff,  however,  against  the 
Times,  (in  the  court  at  Westminster),  was  only  for  £5 ;  and  ten  of  the 
jury  were  disposed  to  give  him  only  a  farthing. 

Now  it  will  occur  to  every  body,  1  think,  who  reads  Mr.  Hunt's  case 
(the  Examiner),  that  the  law  of  LIBEL  in  this  country  stands  in'  a 
most  extraordinary  position.  The  power  which  it  gives  to  courts  in  cases 
of  indictment  is  terrific  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  law  itself  is  so  absurd 
— so  monstrous — that  it  needs  only  to  be  a  little  more  hotly  acted  upon 
than  it  has  been,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  must  be  altered.  The 
peculiarity  of  the  law  of  LIBEL,  applicable  to  cases  of  indictment — and 
that  in  which  it  differs  from  the  law  of  every  other  known  offence — is 
that  it  brings  the  defendant  into  court — not  to  be  tried — but  to  be  con- 
victed. It  is  not  merely  that  the  plaintiff's  proof  of  the  publication  of  some- 
thing calculated  to  injure  or  provoke  him,  shall  constitute  the  offence — 
but  that  it  shall  conclude  the  trial.  The  Examiner  has  stated  that  M. 
Bochsa  is  a  •<  convicted  felon."  On  the  trial  that  single  statement  is 
proved ;  and  the  defendant  cannot  open  his  mouth  — and  he  must  be  found 
guilty.  Mr.  Hunt  has  stated  that  M.  Bochsa  was  convicted  of  felony  ;  the 
Times  newspaper,  on  the  day  after  Mr.  Hunt's  trial,  publishes  an  extract 
from  the  Moniteur  of  February  the  17th,  1818,  purporting  to  be  a  report 
of  the  sentence  pronounced  by  the  Court  of  Assize  of  Paris  upon  Nicholas 
Bochsa,  for  seven  distinct  forgeries.  The  conclusion  of  that  report  runs 
thus :  "  The  court  pronounces  Nicholas  Bochsa  guilty  of  all  these  for- 
geries "  (there  being  still  others,  upon  which  he  is  not  tried),  "  and 
condemns  him  to  twelve  years  of  forced  labour— to  be  branded  with  the 
letters  T.  F.,"  &c.  &c. ;  and  yet,  if  Mr.  Hunt  had  offered  the  record  of 
that  very  conviction  and  sentence,  as  evidence  in  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  *to  justify  that  which  he  had  said,  he  could  not,  BY  LAW,  have 
been  heard,  even  so  far  as  to  say  that  they  existed. 

Then  what  a  precious  state  of  affairs  will  this  law — if  it  be  only  well 
acted  upon — place  us  in  !  It  is  a  LIBEL  to  say  that  a  man  has  been 
convicted  of  felony,  who  has  been  convicted  of  felony ;  and  you  cannot 
be  heard — nor  even  allowed  to  produce  his  conviction— in  your  defence. 
There  is  not  a  thief  sentenced  to  be  transported  at  the  Old  Bailey,  who 
has  not  a  clear  case  of  indictment — and  the  certainty  of  a  verdict — 
against  every  newspaper  that  publishes  his  trial ;  and  Heaven  knows  what 
would  become  of  the  people  who  print  the  "  Dying  Speeches,"  if  it  were 
not  that  dead  men  bring  no  indictments,  any  more  than  they  tell  tales ; 
for  even  the  rope  which  cuts  short  Thomas  Huggins*  or  Alexander  Sprig- 
gins's  breath,  is  no  estoppal  to  his  right  of  action.* 

*  The  restriction  does  not  stop  here.  It  is  not  at  all  confined  to  newspapers — if  the 
law  is  to  be  acted  upon.  The  law  laid  down  in  Sir  Francis  Burdett's  case  distinctly 
was,  that  putting  a  letter  into  the  post  amounted  to  "publication;" — in  which  case, 

any 


16-27.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  67 

And  the  defendant,  too,  in  a  case  of  LIBEL — here  lies  the  monstrous 
incongruity— is  treated  by  the  Court  in  a  manner  entirely  the  reverse  of 
that  which  it  treats  a  man  upon  his  trial  for  every  other  crime.  In  every 
offence  but  LIBEL,  five-sixths  of  the  crime  is  taken  to  lie — as  it  must 
lie — not  in  the  simple  act  done — but  in  the  spirit,  or  circumstances,  under 
which  that  act  was  committed.  A  man  on  his  trial  for  Murder  has  the 
act  of  having  done  that  which  caused  death  proved  against  him.  But 
this  is  not  "  murder  ;"  and  he  proceeds  at  once  to  explain  away  the  act 
— to  change  its  apparent  signification.  He  shews  that  the  blow  which 
killed  was  accidental — that  death  was  not  intended — that  there  was  a 
fair  fight  — that  what  he  did  was  in  self-defence  ; — and  the  act  of  *«  kill- 
ing," which,  done  maliciously,  might  have  been  "murder" — as  the  ma- 
licious publication  of  an  offensive  fact  may  be  LIBEL — is  reduced  to 
"  manslaughter,"  or  he  is  entirely  acquitted. 

So,  in  a  case  of  robbery.  The  prisoner  took  the  goods  :  this  is  the  act 
— like  the  act  (in  libel)  of  publication.  But  he  shews  that  the  goods  were 
his  own,  and  had  been  got  from  him  by  fraud — that  he  was  on  such 
terms  with  the  prosecutor  as  gave  him  some  constructive  right  in  the 
property  ; — and  the  value  of  the  offence  is  changed,  So,  in  forgery :  the 
writing  of  a  man's  name  is  proved — but  the  prisoner  shews  that  he  had 
an  authority  to  write  it.  But,  in  LIBEL,  the  mere  dry,  single  act — 
the  "  publication  "  being  shewn — no  explanation  can  be  heard  from  the 
defendant — no  defence — no  account  of  the  really  important  point,  the 
MOTIVE.  But  we  proceed  to  conviction. 

Now,  why  not  let  an  indictment  for  LIBEL  go  to  the  jury  like  any 
other  indictment  ?  Why  not  let  the  truth  of  the  statement  complained 
of  be  sheivn — not  as,  of  itself,  a  necessary  justification,  however  fully  it 
may  be  made  out — but  as  shewing  the  defendant's  intent  — being  his 
defence ;  and  leaving  the  jury  to  consider — as  they  do  of  every  other 
defence — whether  it  amounts  to  a  justification  or  not  ?  This  is  not  pro- 
posing to  make  the  truth  of  any  statement —of  necessity— its  defence  ; 
because  we  know  that  there  are  abundant  cases  in  which  the  "  truth  "  is 
no  honest  or  fair  subject  of  publication  ;*—  as,  for  instance,  in  the  case 
now  pending  of  Madame  Vestris,  the  actress ;  who,  whatever  her  private 
habits  may  be,  has  never  obtruded  those  habits  upon  the  public ;  and 
whom  no  one  will  suppose  a  common  pennyless  blackguard  ought  to  be 
allowed  to  make  money  of.  by  putting  forth  a  mass  of  scandalous  filth, 
under  the  title  of  her  "  Memoirs."  But  still,  though  you  will  not  let  the 
"  truth  "  amount  to  a  claim  (under  indictment  for  LIBEL)  for  necessary 
acquittal,  why  not  let  it  form  (where  it  can  be  shewn)  that  which  it  is — a 
matter  for  consideration  ? 

The  real  legislative  answer  to  this — and  it  is  an  answer  which  I  am 
not  quite  prepared  to  deny — is  the  possible  inconvenience  in  a  case  of 
political  libel.  The  press  is  an  engine  of  terrific  power ;  and  if  you  give 
to  juries  the  power  of  choosing,  it  is  possible  that  some  jury  may,  at 
some  time  or  other,  acquit  a  man  whom  it  is  material  for  the  public 
peace  to  have  found  guilty.  But  then — if  we  grant  this  tremendous 
licence  to  courts  of  law— giving  up,  in  fact,  as  regards  LIBEL,  the 


any  man  who  wrote  to  his  friend  in  the  country  that  he  had  seen,  Mr.  So-and-So,  their 
mutual  neighbour,  tried  and  convicted  of  forgery,  might  as  certainly  (though  the  fact 
were  true)  be  indicted  for  a  libel,  and  must  as  certainly  he.  found  guilty-r-as  Mr.  Ilu-at 
has  been  found  guilty  of  a  libel  upon  M.  Bochsa. 

K  2 


68  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN. 

safety  of  trial  by  jury  altogether — what  a  paramount  necessity  does  this 
create  for  the  most  absolute  freedom  from  prejudice — the  most  cautious 
moderation,  always — on  the  part  of  the  judge  !  And  this  point  (with 
which  I  must  wind  up)  brings  me  to  a  few  words  upon  the  seeming  incli- 
nation of  the  Lord  Chief  Baron's  mind  upon  the  subject  of  LIBEL,  as 
expressed  the  other  day,  in  the  trial  against  the  Times,  in  the  Court  of 
Exchequer. 

In  the  first  action,  in  the  matter  of  the  ideot  Smith  -tried  against  the 
Birmingham  Journal,  at  Gloucester — the  verdict  was  for  the  plaintiffs, 
with  damages  £400.  It  struck  most  persons,  I  believe,  as  a  very  extra- 
ordinary verdict ;  not  at  all  of  necessity,  because  they  believed  "all  the 
circumstances  which  the  paragraph  complained  of  had  stated  against  the 
Smiths— but  because  there  was  not  the  smallest  ground  for  supposing 
the  existence  of  any  malice  in  the  defendant.  On  the  "justification"  set 
up,  it  was  sworn  by  Mr.  Broughton,  the  magistrate,  a  man  of  considera- 
tion, and  a  clergyman,  and  on  whose  veracity  there  could  be  no  impeach- 
ment,— that  he  found  the  lunatic,  at  his  first  visit,  in  a  most  wretched 
condition— such  as  induced  him  immediately  to  order  his  removal  to  the 
county  asylum,  where  his  health  and  condition  very  rapidly  improved ; 
and  this  statement  was  corroborated  by  two  or  three  perfectly  respectable 
and  apparently  disinterested  witnesses — one  of  whom  was  the  keeper  of 
the  asylum,  who  fetched  the  patient  from  the  house  of  his  relatives.  Now, 
after  these  events,  I  should  say  it  was  the  absolute  duty  of  any  journalist 
— if  newspapers  for  any  useful  purpose  ought  to  be  permitted  to  exist 
(which  is  a  question  that  I  will  not  stop  to  discuss  here);  — that,  having 
before  him  so  many  unquestionable  facts,  any  newspaper  editor  would 
have  exposed  himself  to  a  fair  charge  of  cowardice — and  probably  to 
suspicion  of  corruption — who  had  omitted  to  publish  an  account  of  the 
case.  If  such  a  case  was  not  to  be  published,  to  what  end  does  a  news- 
paper exist  ?  I  am  far  here  from  losing  sight  of  the  interests  of  the 
Smiths.  No  case  can  be  more  pitiable  than  that  of  a  family  upon  whom 
(under  such  circumstances)  the  care  of  a  human  being  bereft  of  reason 
devolved.  But  we  cannot  lose  sight  of  the  common  advantage.  No  per- 
sons suffer  a  heavier  affliction  than  those  upon  whom  the  keeping  of  luna- 
tics devolves ;  but  all  experience  has  shewn  us,  that  there  is  no  earthly 
duty  in  which  persons  require  more  vigilance  exercised  over  them,  and 
more  attention.  All  people  who  have  the  guardianship  of  those  who 
have  no  means  of  resistance,  live  in  danger  of  themselves.  The  cases 
are  endless— every  day  recurring — in  which  keepers  of  schools — masters 
of  workhouses  and  prisons — tradesmen  taking  parish-apprentices — 
masters  of  ships  at  sea— possessors  of  slaves  abroad— and,  more  than  all, 
keepers  of  lunatics  at  home — are  found  either  offending,  or  negligent  of 
their  duty.  Now  here  is  a  case  in  which  strange  circumstances  are  pub- 
licly  reported  :  the  newspaper  writer  is  cognizant  of  some  most  important 
and  undisputed  facts.  If  it  so  happens  that  he  mixes  up  in  his  account 
some  incidents  which  turn  out  to  be  untrue— is  not  the  most  that  can  be 
fairly  said,  that  he  has  made  use  of  some  reports  which  strict  caution 
would  have  avoided?  And  this  is  an  error  to  have  given— against  an 
original  writer— £50  damages  for ;  not  against  a  man  who  «  copied,"  in 
the  course  of  business,  £400. 

But  now  hear  the  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer :  his  Lordship  is  of 
another  way  of  thinking.  The  £400  damages  gained  against  the  Bir- 


1-827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  69 

mingkam  Journal  encourages  the  Smiths  to  bring  actions  all  round  the 
kingdom;  and,  among  others,  one  against  the  Times  ;— in  which  his 
Lordship  treats  the  case  as  if  it  were  one  of  the  most  atrocious—one  of 
the  "  blackest," — as  Mr.  Scarlett  said  of  an  action  brought  once  by 
Messrs.  Day  and  Martin  of  Holborn, —  ever  presented  to  a  jury. 
The  Times  cut  two  paragraphs  out  of  a  country  newspaper ;  and  the 
Chief  Baron  says  such  an  act  is  an  "  offence  against  God  and  man  1" 

The  jury  may  as  well"  open  their  houses  at  night  to  house-breakers,  as 

not  prevent  the  proprietors  of  newspapers,  when  they  repeat  such  atro- 
cious libels  as  these  !" — It  is  his  Lordship's  duty  to  tell  the  jury,  that 
"  the  law  implies  malice  from  a  man's  acts." — When  they  warrant  such 
an  inference,  I  presume  ? — though  that  they  may  very  easily  be  made  to 
do,  where  he  is  not  permitted  (as  in  a  proceeding  by  indictment)  to  ex- 
plain them.*  The  general  respectability  and  honesty  of  a  libeller,  more- 
over, is  a  reason  why  he  should  pay  two  thousand  pounds  instead  of  one. 
"  The  Times"  his  Lordship  says,  "  is  a  highly  respectable  paper -in 
general  very  free  from  libel  ;  but,  if  a  paper  be  highly  respectable,  its 
readers  therefore  give  the  more  credit  to  any  libel  which  may  be  found 
within  its  columns."  This  is  rather  hard  ;  but  the  best  point  is  to  corne. 
The  Times  merely  copied  the  article  in  question  from  another  paper. 
At  worst,  it  only — being  "  in  general  very  free  from  libel " — cut  out  a 
paragraph  from  a  country  paper  too  negligently,  without  taking  the  cau- 
tion to  be  sure  that  what  was  there  stated  was  strictly  true.  Now  mark 
what  follows!  His  Lordship—the  very  Chief  Baron,  who  is  insisting 
upon  never-varying  punctuality,  and  tewing  the  Times  so  mercilessly  for 
its  little  omission  on  this  occasion  of  duty— goes  on,  the  very  next  mo- 
ment, in  the  teeth  of  all  caution  and  punctuality,  to  pronounce  against 
the  Times  itself  a  most  grievous  and  unquestionable  LIBEL  !  In  a  case 
tried  some  years  ago  against  the  Observer  newspaper,  for  a  paragraph 
copied  from  a  country  paper,  and  headed  "  Infamous  Conduct  of  an 
Attorney  !"  I  recollect  it  laid  down  in  the  strongest  terms  by  the  judge 
who  tried,  that  the  heading  of  the  paragraph — which  was  not  copied  from 
the  country  paper,  but  added  by  the  Observer  itself — was  the  most  scan- 
dalous and  unjustifiable  portion,  and  merited  the  heaviest  punishment,  of 
the  whole  libel.  Now,  the  Chief  Baron — misere  sucurrere! — let  his 
Lordship  pity  the  imperfection  of  our  common  nature! — the  Chief  Baron, 
sitting  as  a  judge,  actually  goes  on  to  charge  the  Times  (in  his  charge  to 
the  jury)  with  the  heavy  offence  of — absolutely  and  directly — having  added 
the  Heading  at  the  top  of  their  paragraph — from  the  Birmingham  Journal, 
which  is  "BARBAROUS  OUTRAGE!"  He  inveighs  against  the  act  as  an 
addition  which  "  made  the  paragraph  the  defendant's  own,"  and  "  pledged 
their  credit  to  its  veracity."  And  it  is  not  until  the  end  of  his  summing  up, 

*  Lord  Chief  Justice  Best  (of  the  Common  Pleas)— who,  though  he  is  considerably 
hotter  than  Cayenne  pepper,  always  seems  to  me  to  have  a  peculiarly  free  and  liberal 
feeling  of  common-sense,  and  justice,  and  manly  reason,  running  through  his  law — 
has  lately  adverted  to  this  point  of  "  malice,"  in  one  or  two  actions  for  libel  which 
have  come  before  him.  In  "  Stockley  v.  Clement,"  for  instance,  a  few  days  back 
only,  his  Lordship  observes,  "  that  he  does  not  see  how  the  law  can  imply  malice 
where  the  circumstances  of  the  case  are  not  such  as,  in  some  degree,  to  raise  the  pre- 
sumption that  malice  existed."  But  there  are  a  class  of  lawyers  who  are  "  reputed 
wise,"  as  Gratiano  puts  it,  "  for  saying  nothing ;"  who  are  always  perfectly  content  to 
lay  down  the  most  self-evident  absurdity,  if  it  can  only  be  proved  that  a  given  number 
of  "  authorities  "  have  laid  it  down,  or  abided  by  it,  before  them. 


70  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN, 

that  his  Lordship  is  reminded  by  the  defendant's  counsel  — that  he  is 
entirely  wrong  as  to  all  this  wickedness  he  has  been  accusing  the  Times 
of; — and  that  the  words  "  BARBAROUS  OUTRAGE,"  as  well  as  all  those 
in  the  body  of  the  libellous  paragraph,  are  not  added,  but  copied  from 
the  Birmingham  Journal ! 

Then  only  suppose — if  such  a  thing  may  be  supposed  without  irreve- 
rence— an  action  biought  against  the  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer  for 
this  libel  on  the  Times  ;  and  me — in  the  character  of  the  Chief  Justice  of 
any  court  we  please — "  summing  up  "  to  the  jury  :— 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury  ! — This  is  an  action,  brought  by  the  plaintiffs, 
the  proprietors  of  the  Times  newspaper,  against  Sir  William  Alexander, 
Knight,  Chief  Baron  of  his  Majesty's  Court  of  Exchequer,  for  a  LIBEL. 
You  have  heard  the  offending  matter  read ;  and  I  think  you  will  agree  with 
me,  that  '  it  is  a  libel  of  such  atrocity,  that  its  equal  is  not  often  seen.'  It 
is  '  an  offence  against  God  and  man,'  for  any  person  to  sit  upon  a  bench 
and  utter  charges  of  this  description,  without  being  sure  that  they  are 
well-founded.  It  may  be  said  here,  that  '  what  the  defendant  did  was 
the  effect  of  accident,  and  that  you  have  no  proof  that  he  acted  with 
malice ;'  but  *  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  you  that  the  law  implies  malice  from 
a  man's  acts,'  where  they  are  such  as  are  likely  to  produce  mischief.  The 
defendant,  no  doubt,  is  a  highly  respectable  and  honourable  person — a 
person  whose  learning  and  qualifications  are  undoubted,  and  whose  con- 
versation is  *  in  general  very  free  from  libel.'  But  this  very  respectability 
and  high  character  of  the  defendant  only  increases  the  extent  of  the 
evil ;  for,  if  a  gentleman  be  *  highly  respectable,'  those  who  hear  him 
speak,  only  *  give  the  more  credit '  to  '  any  libel  which  may  be  found ' 
in  his  discourse. — Gentlemen !  *  you  may  as  well  open  your  houses  at 
night  to  house-breakers,  as  not  punish '  persons  in  high  trust  and  office, 
when  they  are  guilty  of  uttering  such  *  atrocious  libels '  as  this  which  has 
been  brought  before  you !" 

I  won't  say  any  more  upon  this  point ;  because — the  dwelling  of  com- 
mon-sense is  in  towns  and  cities ;  and  a  Westminster  Jury,  after  his 
Lordship's  heavy  charge,  gave  £5  damages,  instead  of  £400— and  wanted 
to  give  A  FARTHING!  But  will  not  the  Chief  Baron  feel — upon  mature 
reflection — that  the  temper  which  he  displayed  upon  this  occasion,  car- 
ried generally  into  proceedings  under  the  existing  law  of  libel,  must  de- 
feat its  own  purpose  ? — For  that  it  would  inevitably  lead  to  a  modification 
of  the  libel  law,  as  too  absurd  and  too  oppressive  for  the  affairs  of  society 
to  go  on  under  ? 

Speaking  of  libel,  I  see  that  Mrs. Rochfort— " late'  Wilson— as  they 
write  it  in  the  play-bills  at  the  theatres,  when  Miss  Kickup,  the  Colum- 
bine, has  married  Mr.  Flipflap,  the  Clown,  is  going  on  regularly  sending 
her  "  threatening  letters"  round,  menacing  people  with  filthy  accusations, 
and  so  forth— if  they  do  not  send  her  money — £200,  and  so  forth.  This 
Jezabel  now  is  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  English  courts  at  present; 
but  she  is  a  woman — no  one  would  prosecute  her  (criminally)  if  she  were 
within  it.  There  are  no  such  thick-and-thin  protectors  of  petticoats  as  the 
English  !  I  wish  rather,  however,  we  could  get  Mister  Wilson  napping  ; 
for  there  would  be  no  scruples  about  giving  him  a  little  exercise  in  the 
Tread-mill — or  a  slight  rustication — Rus  in  urbe — in  Coldbath-fields  ; 
and  it  would  be  of  incomparable  service  to  him. 

A  strange  untoward  accident  has  happened  in  Norfolk.     Two  gentle- 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  71 

men — one  a  clergyman — being  out  shooting  until  late  in  the  evening, 
met  each  other  in  a  wood — mutually  fired — wounded  each  other  des- 
perately— and  both  ran  off  crying  out  "  I  have  shot  a  poacher  !"  Now 
this  is  very  shocking ;  and  the  last  sort  of  event  that  we  could  laugh  at. 
But,  each  running  off,  and  crying  out  "  I  have  shot  a  poacher  !" — what 
the  deuce  did  either  of  them  take  upon  themselves  to  "shoot 
poachers"  for?  J  rather  think,  if  either  had  "shot  a  poacher,"  he  would 
have  stood  a  very  fair  chance  of  being  hanged  for  it. 

We^iave  medical  books  written  now,  and  legal,  and  even  philoso- 
phical—(for  the  use  of  the  unenlightened) — purposely  divested  of 
"  technical"  expressions :  I  wish  somebody  or  other  would  induce  the 
MILLINERS  to  write  in  a  language  that  mortal  man  might  comprehend. 
The  Belle  Assembled  magazine,  for  example  (of  the  contrary  style),  which 
is  potential  in  all  matters  of  costume  and  fashion,  gives  the  following 
paragraph,  which,  I  protest,  entirely  exceeds  me : 

"  WALKING  DRESS.— (This  I  believe  is  for  the  last  month.)— A 
pelisse  of  gros  de  Naples  of  a  pomegranate-red.  A  full  wadded 
rouleau  finishes  the  skirt  next  the  feet ;  over  this  rouleau,  at  a 
suitable  distance,  and  down  each  side  of  the  front,  is  a  trimming, 
en  volan,  pinked  at  the  edge,  and  set  on  in  a  serpentine  wave;  the 
trimming  headed  by  a  narrow  rouleau.  The  pelisse  fastens  close  down 
the  front  with  full  rosettes  of  gros  de  Naples.  The  body  is  made  plain, 
with  a  narrow  pelerine  cape,  partially  scolloped,  and  trimmed  at  the  edge 
in  a  correspondent  manner  to  the  sides  in  front  of  the  skirt.  The  sleeves 
are  en  gigot,  but  not  very  full.  A  Jailing  collar  of  fine  India  muslin, 
trimmed  with  British  lace,  encircles  the  throat,  and  is  fastened  in  front 
with  a  rosette  of  broad  pink  ribbon.  With  any  other  red  this  would  be 
incongruous,  but  one  great  quality  in  the  beautiful  and  becoming  pome- 
granate-red is,  that  it  is  suited  to  every  colour.  The  bonnet  worn  with 
this  pelisse  is  correspondent  to  it,  and  is  finished  by  a  narrow  ruche  at 
the  edge  of  the  brim  ;  the  trimming  on  the  crown  is  of  the  same  ma- 
terial, and  is  put  on  in  arcades,  which  are  edged  with  a  narrow  ruche,  of 
a  shade  lighter.  The  strings  are  in  a  loop  of  ribbon,  variegated  with 
pomegranate-red  and  green  chequers  on  a  white  ground." 

What  a  fool  is  a  philosopher !  Now  have  I  no  more  notion  what 
"rouleau" — and  "  volan" — and  "ruche" — and  "pelerine" — and  "ar- 
cades," mean,  than  I  have  comprehension  of  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation !  And  yet  I  suppose  there  is  not  a  cook-maid  in  the  house 
but  could  explain  every  line  of  the  paragraph — and  argue  on  it — if  it 
were  read  to  her. 

By  the  way,  the  engravings — portraits  of  <c  Lady  Susan"  this,  and 
"  Lady  Jane"  the  other — in  this  Magazine  of  Modes,  are  really  exqui- 
site :  they  are  the  best  specimens  of  the  kind  that  are  produced.  And  I 
don't  mean  at  all  to  decry  the  business  of  the  "  volans,"  £c. :  for  I  know 
a  family  of  young  ladies,  who — although  they  buy  the  book,  always  copy 
out  all  the  descriptions  of  the  quilted  petticoats,  and  so  forth,  by  way  of 
amusement. 

Elliston,  the  actor,  has  appeared  among  the  list  of  bankrupts  (in  last 
night's  gazette)  in  the  character  of  a  bookseller.  And  his  chattels  have 
been  sold  by  auction,  moreover,  at  his  house  in  Stratford-place :  his  two 
"  suits  of  armour" — one  of  steel,  and  one  of  brass — being  bought  by 
George  Robins — to  the  surprise  of  every  body — (unless  it  were  to  sell 


72  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [  JAN. 

again) — what  George  Robins  could  want  with  the  latter.  There  were 
some  jokes  in  the  newspapers — not  much  amiss — about  the  comments 
of  the  Jews  who  attended  the  sale,  and  the  "  bottles"  in  the  wine-cellar 
being  all  found  empty  \  but  for  my  own  part,  I  think  it  a  wonderful  proof 
of  Elliston's  moderation,  that  he  had  not  drank  the  bottles  and  all.  But 
we  should  not  let  a  man  slip  too  fast— even  if  he  does  happen  to  be 
falling — while  he  has  any  pretensions  to  stand  at  all — out  of  public  favour. 
And  Elliston's  debts — if  the  case  be  fairly  looked  into  —  make  a  very  poor 
matter  of  accusation  indeed  against  him  !  He  has  traded,  within  the  last 
five  and  twenty  years,  as  a  manager,  and  builder,  and  buyer  and  seller  of 
theatres,  to  the  amount  of  full  a  million  of  money ;  and,  after  all  the 
architects,  and  bricklayers,  and  carpenters,  and  lamplighters,  and  tailors, 
and  decorators,  and  such  artists  (independent  of  actors)  with  whom  he 
has  been  dealing,  have  been  making  large  profits — a  hundred,  or  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  pounds  upon  this  extensive  outlay  of  capital  — 
now,  he  is  deficient — how  much  ? — Five  and  twenty  thousand  pounds  ! 
Elliston's  habits  of  personal  carelessness  and  irregularity  have  left  him 
few  friends  ; — and  I  never  knew  a  "  good  companion"  in  all  my  life,  who 
did  not  eventually  fall  into  the  same  predicament; — but  for  his  bank- 
ruptcy, there  has  been  no  personal  or  fraudulent  extravagance  operating  to 
produce  that ;  because,  if  we  look  at  what  he  has  paid  upon  the  cost  of  his 
various  speculations  (independent  of  what  he  owes) — and  at  what  he  has 
received  from  them — we  shall  soon  see  that,  so  far  from  having  aided 
his  personal  expenditure  by  contracting  debts — a  very  large  portion  of  his 
private  property,  or  personal  theatrical  earnings,  must  have  been  handed 
over  from  time  to  time,  as  he  went  on,  to  the  various  persons  with  whom 
he  was  dealing.  Besides,  with  all  his  rash  trading — as  a  play-house 
manager,  he  knew  his  business.  He  left  the  proprietors  of  the  Drury 
Lane  building  a  better  theatre — and  a  theatre  in  better  repute — than  that 
which  he  took  from  them.  I  hope  to  see  him  make  money  yet. 
-  But  the  Morning  Post  is  my  darling  authority  in  all  subjects  of  thea- 
trical discussion  !  Those  criticisms- — is  it  possible  that  there  is  any  body 
in  the  world  who  has  not  read  them  ? — in  which — from  the  crack  per- 
formance of  a  Prima  Donna,  down  to  the  peculiar  twist  of  a  candle-snuffer 
— the  gentle  "  small  letter  "  seems  to  want  epithets  always  to  express  the 
exuberance  of  its  delight ; — as,  for  example,  to  take  the  journal  of  last 
Friday :  — 

"  Royal  Academy  of  Music  " — (this  is  the  place  where  M.  Bochsa  was  I) 
— "  The  pupils  of  this  institution  performed  a  concert  on  Wednesday 
evening,  to  shew  tfieir  patrons  what  progress  they  had  made.  The  first 
act  commenced  with  Mozart's  fine  Sinfonia,  No.  2,  which  was  given  with 
a  spirit  scarcely  credible  !  The  next  performance  was  a  concerto  on  the 
violin  by  young  Mawkes,  who  displayed  a  vast  deal  of  talent !  Miss 
Dorrell  performed  a  very  difficult  concerto  on  the  piano-forte  in  capital 
style.  It  is  evident  that  her  master  has  exercised  her  left  hand  well !  for 
she  executed  some  brilliant  passages  exceedingly  neat  and  distinct.  Miss 
Childe  sung  'Ah!  che  forse,'  with  a  taste,  style,  finish"  &c.-—  (what  fol- 
lows may  be  conceived !)  "It  was  observed  by  a  professor  present,  that 
she  was  a  child  by  name — and  a  child  in  appearance — but  a  woman  in 
talent  !  Dr.  Crotch  was  at  the  helm,  guiding  his  bark  of  tyros — to  whom 
we  wish  success  and  prosperity." 

A  dulcet  pun  that,  upon  the  "  WOMAN"  and  "  CHILD  !"     The  salt  of 


Lclier  on  Affairs  in  general.  73 

this  writer's  wit  (as  an  Irishman  would  say)  is  all  sugar.  But  "  Dr« 
Crotch,"  and  the  "  helm,"  and  the  "  tyros,"  enable  us  to  conclude  "  tro- 
pically "  (as  Lord  Hamlet  calls  it),  which,  in  a  poetical  style,  is  apposite 
and  judicious, 

Our  admiration,  too,  is  not  confined  to  the  "  Academy  of  Music  :"  on 
the  contrary,  at  Drury  Lane,  it  appears,  by  the  same  paper,  that  "  The 
delectable  Stephens  made  her  first  appearance  last  night !" 

And  even  at  the  "  Adelphi,"  we  learn — "  the  receipts  of  the  first  four 
nights  of  the  *  Flying  Dutchman '  have  exceeded  those  of '  The  Pilot  /' 
— The  disappearance  of  the  Phantom-ship  is  nightly  accompanied  by  the 
cheers  of  the  audience  /" — who  appear  presently  to  consist,  among  others, 
of  "  the  Countess  of  Howth,  the  Marchioness  of  Sligo?  the  Marquis 
Clanricarde,  Lord  Blaney,"  &c.  &c.  I  rather  think,  myself,  that  the 
"  Flying  Dutchman  "  must  have^cmm  away— for  I  never  see  him  now 
in  the  bills  ;  but,  to  be  sure,  I  never  look — which  may  account,  for  it. 

Christmas-Day  has  passed  over ;  and  we  are  in  the  season  when  the 
streets  are  impassable  with  crowds  of  urchins,  clad  in  their  "  best  clothes," 
and  come  to  "  make  HOME  hideous"  for  what  are  called  the  "  holidays." 
God  knows  !  the  schoolmasters,  I  believe,  are  the  only  people  who  find 
the  six  weeks  after  the  20th  of  December  a  holiday  !  It  is  quite  impossi- 
ble to  endure  the  infliction,  I  think,  of  children  —  that  is  to  say,  of  BOYS— ~ 
I  don't  dislike  GIRLS  ;  but  I  would  as  soon  be  left  in  a  room  alone  with  a 
rattle-snake  as  with  a  boy  of  ten  years  old !  I  was  obliged  to  call  at  a  friend's 
house,  about  four  days  ago,  who  lives  a  few  miles  out  of  town  ;  and,  be- 
fore I  could  get  from  the  lower  gate,  though  I  kept  the  straight  path, — 
through  the  shrubbery,  I  felt  myself  seized  by  the  tail  of  my  coat ;  and  a 
voice  like  a  penny  trumpet  in  fits  yelled  out, — "  You  shall  DRAW  me  in 
that  cart  /"—the  house-dog  had  refused  to  do  it  already  !  By  the  way, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  mention—  now  I  am  speaking  of  Christmas — that 
those  persons  are  in  error  who  buy  turkies  too  large  or  too  fat.  Poultry 
should  be  full  of  flesh,  but  never^/ta  .•  the  fat  of  all  fowls  is  both  unplea- 
sant and  unwholesome.  And — nota  bene—ifyou  are  ill  at  this  season, 
there  is  no  occasion  to  send  for  the  doctor — only  stop  eating.  Indeed, 
upon  general  principles,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  mistake  for  people,  every 
time  there  is  any  little  thing  the  matter  with  them,  to  be  running  in  such 
haste  for  the  "  doctor ;"  because,  if  you  are  going  to  die,  a  doctor  can't 
help  you  ;  and,  if  you  are  not — there  is  no  occasion  for  him. 

There  is  no  suiting  all  interests  in  a  great  metropolis  like  this.  Crowded 
streets,  which  passengers  curse,  make  fortunes  to  the  shopkeepers  who 
live  in  them  ;  and  what  would  comfort  him  who  rides  a-horseback,  he 
who  walks  a-foot — like  Macheath's  second  wife — "  would  take  ill."  But 
it  is  hard  that  those  who  ride  a-horseback  are  not  agreed  even  among 
themselves.  I  spoke  with  a  hackney-coachman  the  other  day,  who  was 
driving  me  down  the  Haymarket*  over  the  stones;  and  asked  his  "  most 
exquisite  reason "  why  he  did  not  go  down  Waterloo-place,  over  the 
IVIeAdam?  His  choice  astonished  me  the  more,  because  I  would  rather 
myself  drive  a  valuable  horse  four  miles  over  the  McAdam  than  three 
over  the  stones,  and  I  know  I  should  shake  him  less :  he  would  last 
longer,  and  keep  sounder  on  his  feet,  at  such  a  rate  of  work.  But  the 
rogue  nonsuited  me  in  a  moment,  when  I  put  this  point  to  him.  Ne 
sutor  —  /  Men  are  apt  to  know  their  oivn  business  better  than  ve  give 
them  credit  for.  His  answer  was,  "  that  the  draught  was  lighter  over  the 

M.M.  New  Series^-Voi.111.  No.13.  L 


74  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAX. 

stones  than  over  the  McAdam,  except  in  very  dry  weather  indeed  ;  and 
that,  for  the  matter  of  shaking — his  horses  were  shaken  as  much  as  they 
could  be  before  he  ever  had  them  !"  Thus  we  see— those  who  can 
see — the  wisdom  of  Providence  !  The  misfortune  that  seems  to  over- 
whelm us  to-day,  becomes  a  shield  against  that  which  might  impend  to- 
morrow !  "  Upon  the  ground,"  says  Rowe,  in  some  part  of  his  play  of 
"  Jane  Shore," — and  the  reflection  that  follows  always  seemed  to  me  to 
be  admirable. — "  Thy  miseries  can  never  bring  thee  lower!" 

All  the  second-rate  newspapers  I  see  are  full  of  puffery  about  a  novel, 
published  by  Saunders  and  Otley,  called  "  Almack's."  One  assures  us 
that  it  is  written  by  "  Lady  Foley;"  another,  that  "  Lady  Westmoreland  " 
denies  it,  &c.  &c. ;  and  all  agree  that  it  is  the  production  of  a  "  peeress." 
I  don't  know  who  it  is  written  by ;  and— for  being  written  by  a  "  peeress" 
— it  is  bad  enough  to  have  been  written  by  six.  More  pitiful  nonsense 
I  never  recollect  to  have  dipped  into. 

Miss  Porter's  novel  ("  Honor  O'Hara  ")  is  out.  It  is  not  so  good  as 
some  that  the  lady  has  done  before.- 

An  evening  paper  says  that  Mr.  Gillies'  tale  of  the  "  Siege  of  Antwerp  " 
(German  Tales,  lately  published  in  Edinburgh)  is  in  preparation  as  a 
melo-dramatic  play  at  Covent  Garden.  Another  (I  think  the  Sun)  says, 
that  they  are  not  doing  very  well  yet  at  Drury  Lane,  The  houses  are 
so  thin  on  some  nights,  that  they  seem  to  have  adopted  the  motto  of 
the  French  (Subscription)  Theatre  :  "  On  ne  revolt  pas  d' argent  a  la 
portc." 

The  second  volume  of  M.  Ouvrard's  Memoirs,  is  out ;  and  contains  a 
great  deal  of  matter  which  present  circumstances  render  very  interest- 
ing. While  the  recent  events  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  has  made  every 
man  (in  England,  at  least)  very  anxious,  to  judge  whether  we  were  over- 
reached or  not  two  years  ago,  when  we  suffered  the  French  to  enter 
Spain— just  at  this  moment,  M.  Ouvrard's  book,  written  long  before  the 
occurrence  of  these  events  could  have  been  contemplated,  conies  out, 
bearing  the  strongest  testimony  to  the  fair  and  pacific  intentions  of 
France  at  the  time  of  the  "  Occupation,"  and  to  the  personal  deep 
anxiety  of  the  Duke  d'Angouleme  that  Ferdinand  should  give  the 
Spanish  people  a  Constitution.  The  "  second  volume"  of  the  Memoirs 
pursues  the  history  of  the  author's  "  contracts,"  but  abounds  in  bold 
and  vigorous  novelties  of  the  general  state  of  Spain,  and  of  the  various 
parties  which  have  held  power  there,  since  the  beginning  of  the  year 
182-1.  All  the  evidence  is  honourable,  in  a  very  high  degree,  to  the 
Duke  d'Angouleme  ;  who  appears  to  have  conducted  himself  as  tem- 
perately as  it  was,  possible  for  a  man  in  his  situation  to  do. 

The  new  conundrum  of  "  Bread  seals  " — as  the  ladies  call  the  little 
epigrammatic  impressors  that  their  work-boxes  are  always  full  of  now — 
pleases  me  mightily.  Nothing  could  be  more  stupid  than  the  old  style 
of  qffiche — an  initial— carefully  engraved  in  a  hand  always  perfectly  unin- 
telligible ;  or  a  crest — necessarily  out  of  its  place,  nine  times  in  ten,  in 
female  correspondence — because  nothing  could  be  more  un-"  germane  " 
than  a  "  bloody  dagger,"  alarming  every  body  it  met,  on  the  outside  of 
an  order  for  minikin  pins !  or  a  "  fiery  dragon,"  threatening  a  French 
mantua-maker  for  some  undue  degree  of  tightness  in  the  fitting  of  a 
sleeve  !  and  then  the  same  emblem,  running  through  the  whole  letter- 
writing  of  a  life,  became  tedious.  But  now  every  lady  has  a  selection  of 
axioms  (in  flour  and  water)  always  by  her,  suited  to  different  occasions. 


#7.]  Letter  on 

"  Though  lost  to  sight,  to  memory  dear !" — when  she  writes  to  a 

riend  who  has  lately  had  his  eye  poked  out ; — "  Though  absent,  unfor- 
gottcn  !"  to  a  female  correspondent,  whom  she  has  not  written  to  for  per- 
haps the  last  three  (twopenny)  posts  ; — or,  "  Vous  le  meritez  /"  with  the 
figure  of  a  "  rose" — emblematic  of  every  thing  beautiful — when  she  writes 
o  a  lover.  It  was  the  receiving  a  note  with  this  last  seal  to  it  that  put  the 
subject  of  seals  into  my  mind  ;  and  I  have  some  notion  of  getting  one  en- 
graved with  the  same  motto,  "  vous  le  meritez,"  only  with,  the  personi- 
fication of  a  horseivhip  under  it — instead  of  a  "  rose" — for  peculiar  occa- 
sions. And,  perhaps,  a  second  would  not  do  amiss — with  the  same  em- 
blem ;  only  with  the  motto  "  Tu  I' auras  .'"  as  a  sort  of  corollary  upon  the 
first,  in  case  of  emergency !  At  all  events,  I  patronize  the  system  of  a 
variety  of  "  posies ;"  because,  where  the  inside  of  a  letter  is  likely  to 
be  stupid,  it  gives  you  the  chance  of  a  joke  upon  the  out. 

Two-thirds  of  the  distinction  between  wit  and  impertinence — it 
always  struck  me — lies  in  the  character  of  the  individual  by  whom 
the  given  matter  happdns  to  be  uttered.  All  the  world  has  been  most 
affectedly  delighted  with  the  conversations  about  "  acting,"  lately  retailed, 
between  Buonaparte  and  Talma ;  and  the  true  knowledge  and  taste  for 
the  drama,  &c.  displayed  in  them  by  the  former,  &c.  &c. 

u  Come!"  said  the  leader  of  men — or  this  is  the  purport  (for  I  quote 
from  memory)  of  what  he  is  reported  to  have  said — "  to  my  levee  in  a 
morning.  You  will  there  see  kings,  who  have  been  deprived  of  their 
crowns ;  soldiers,  who  are  ambitious  candidates  for  sovereignty ;  prin- 
cesses, who  have  lost  their  lovers,  &c.  &c.  All  this  is  undoubtedly  Tra- 
gedy. I  am  myself  incomparably  the  most  tragic  person  in  existence. 
But  you  will  see,  in  the  demeanour  of  these  personages,  no  rage — no 
fury — no  violence — no  seeming  despair.  All  bear  themselves  calmly,  like 
other  people,"  &c.  From  which  the  reallyadmirable  soldier  is  held  to 
have  deduced,  that  the  style  and  manner  of  Tragedy  upon  the  stage 
should  not  "  overstep  the  modesty"  of  that  which  was  seen  in  the  Thuil- 
leries.  Now  Comic  acting  I  take  to  be  so  perfectly  national — so  local 
— that  it  is  impossible  to  try  or  discuss  it  with  any  reference  to  general 
principles.  No  Englishman  can  have  more  than  a  very  imperfect  view 
of  the  merits,  or  demerits,  of  a  French  actor  of  humorous,  or  what  we 
call  "  low  "  comedy,  as  compared  with  those  of  an  actor  of  the  same 
school  in  his  own  country.  But  Tragedy  stands  in  a  different  situation. 
Tragedy  belongs  not  to  nations,  but  to  nature  :  the  passions  of  rage  and 
grief  are  every  where  (even  in  their  expression)  pretty  nearly  the  same  ; 
and,  therefore,  as  we  may  have  an  opinion — for  the  WORLD — with  respect 
to  Tragedy,  I  think  that  what  Buonaparte  is  related  to  have  said — unless 
it  is  to  be  taken  in  a  very  limited  line  of  application  indeed — -would  only 
shew  that  he  had  bestowed  no  consideration  upon  the  subject  that  he 
talked  about.  , 

Because  every  body  knows,  I  take  it,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  would 
be  perfectly  absurd  to  justify  or  applaud  any  exhibition  or  representation 
upon  the  stage — any  more  than  one  would  applaud  such  a  presentation  in 
a  picture — merely  because  the  thing  presented  was  perfectly  natural.  No 
attributes  or  qualities  are  more  natural  than  those  of  heaviness,  clumsi- 
ness, ugliness,  or  vulgarity  ;  but  when  we  produce  a  "  hero  "  upon  the 
stage,  we  endeavour  to  exhibit,  not  that  merely  which  may  be  "  Nature," 
but  that  which  is  nature  in  its  most  striking  and  curious  shape — the  thing 
observe  what  a  vtist  number  of  these  persons,  who  cry  out  for  "cheap 


76  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN. 

which,  under  powerful  impulse  and  excitement,  the  more  marked  and  dis- 
guished  specimens  of  "  our  nature  "  are  capable  of  becoming.  For  in- 
stance, I  saw  Richard  the  Third  quite  "  in  nature,"  as  I  saw  him  when 
Mr.  Young  acted  the  character  a  few  nights  since — which  he  did  very  ill. 
Or,  I  see  him  equally  "  in  nature,"  if  I  see  him  represented  ASLEEP  ;  but 
that  is  not  the  situation  in  which  I  desire  to  see  him.  Nature  is  necessary 
perhaps  on  the  stage,  to  the  justification  of  every  thing ;  but,  of  itself,  it 
justifies  nothing. 

So,  the  "  real  potentates  "  of  tragedy,  of  Buonaparte's  chamber — they 
are  no  doubt  the  personages  of  tragedy — but  they  are  not  yet  in  tragic 
situations.  They  are  tyrants — captives — warriors  ;  but  the  audience- 
chamber  is  not  their  scene  of  tragic  action.  They  are  the  puppets ;  but 
they  are  not  wound  up : — they  are  the  straws  that  will  dance  upon  the 
electric  plate  ;  but  the  "  charge"  is  not  yet  applied  which  puts  them  into 
motion.  Persons  may  be  permanently  wretched,  but  they  cannot  be  per- 
manently "  tragic,"  The  stage,  or  the  poet,  selects  them  at  the  peculiar 
moment  when  they  happen  to  be  so.  And  here  is  the  error.  Buonaparte 
is  not  tragic  while  he  converses  with  M.  Talma  about  exits,  and  entrees, 
and  gold  lace.  But  I  will  make  him  tragic  in  a  moment — it  is  but  to 
change  the  scene — only,  with  it  (mark  !)  how  I  shall  change  his  quiescent 
aspect ! 

I  will  take  him— not  talking  about  "  acting  "  to  M. Talma  in  the  Louvre ; 
— but  sending  off  L***** — in  the  teeth  of  all  probability,  and  even  of  all 
hope-^-with  threats  that  the  messenger  could  scarcely  listen  to  without 
admiration, — and  arguments  so  insane,  as  could  impose  upon  no  human 
creature  out  of  a  madhouse  but  the  proposer, — on  a  last  desperate  mission 
-^such  as  even  desperation  itself  could  hardly  have  thought  to  wait  the 
answer  of — to  NEGOCIATE  with  Alexander  (and  seven  hundred  thousand 
Russians  in  arms)  after  the  destruction  of  Moscow  !  I  will  take  him — 
not  talking  of  himself  as  "  the  most  tragic  person  in  the  world  " — but 
beginning  to  doubt  very  horribly  how  much  longer  he  should  be  any  per- 
son in  the  world — tragic  or  not  tragic — at  all.  I  will  take  him  as  he 
stands  in  that  very  curious  work  of  Segur's — driving  from  him,  on  the 
retreat  out  of  Russia,  those  messengers  who  brought  him  accounts  of  the 
real  state  of  his  affairs.  It  is  the  very  identical  condition  of  Macbeth : 

"  Bring  me  no  more  reports — let  them  fly  all !" 

And,  like  the  last,  it  is  said  there  was  a  fate  in  which  he  trusted  ; — a  fact 
not  unlikely  ;  for  the  minds  of  men  so  circumstanced  must  be  wound  up 
— if  not  to  a  species  often  of  frenzy — yet  to  a  state  of  feeling  of  which 
individuals  ordinarily  situated  can  have  little  comprehension. 

"  Provisions  for  forty  thousand  men,  and  forage  for  the  horses  !"  (He 
writes  the  arrangements  which  are  to  mislead  his  troops  collected  at 
Witepsk). — "  Sire,  there  are  not  supplies  for  two  thousand  men,  and  to 
collect  an  ounce  of  forage  is  impossible.". ..."  The  division  of  Ney,  with 
sixty  thousand  men  !" — "  Sire,  the  Marshal  has  not  two  thousand  men 
in  arms.". ..."  The  division  of  Marshal  Ney,  with  sixty  thousand  men, 
will  cover  the  passage  of  the  Beresina  I" 

These  are  the  moments  in  which  I  will  take  him — those  of  hurry — 
bankruptcy — confusion — ruin  I — when  he  dictated  despatches,  every 
syllable  of  which  was  false  ;  commanded  services,  notoriously  impossible ; 
and  disposed  of  corps,  which  he  knew  were  no  longer  in  existence.  I 
will  take  him,  'surrounded — not  by  Generals  soliciting  crowns ;  but  by 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  77 

Generals — like  Murat — furious  at  losing  them  ! — Hearing  the  news — not 
of  fresh  kings  dethroned,  and  waiting  humbly  on  his  order;  but  of  kings 
in  arms  again — roused  to  revenge,  and  thundering  at  the  gates  of  Paris  ! 
I  will  take  him,  in  the  midst  of  snow  and  ashes,  bivouaced  amid  the 
wreck  of  his  "  Old  Guard,"  on  the  field  of  Borodino  (I  forget  whether 
he  re-crossed  it)  at  midnight.  I  will  take  him  in  flight — ruined — 
ashamed — disgraced — leaving  his  friends  to  their  fall — his  soldiers  to 
destruction  !  This  will  look  like  TRAGEDY  !  Then  I  will  take  him, 
once  more — meeting  his  ministers  in  the  cabinet  at  Paris  ; — once  again — 
Abdicating  ; — once  more — at  Waterloo ; — and,  after  Waterloo,  he  ceases 
to  be  Tragic,  for  all  the  higher  purposes  of  the  theatre,  again.  It  is  but  the 
difference  of  a  day,  or  an  hour.  I  only  take  my  choice  of  the  situation  : 
the  character  is  the  same. 

How  TO  GET  INFORMATION.  An  odd  accident  occurred  in  the  Court  of 
Exchequer  the  other  day,  when  Baron  Garrow  (I  believe  it  was  Sir  W. 
Garrow)  was  sitting  at  Nisi  Prius.  A  strange,  huge,  half-farmer,  half- 
horse-jockey-looking  man,  dressed  in  double  great-coat,  dark  topped  boots, 
and  breeches  hanging  very  loose  about  his  lower  person  (with  his  hands, 
crammed  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  pockets  of  them),  was  called  to 
prove; some  fact  in  a  cause  ;  and  it  was  not  discovered,  when  he  was  first 
put  into  the  witness  box,  that  he  was  considerably  more  drunk  than  a 
person  under  such  circumstances  might  be  desired  to  be.  The  counsel  for 
the  plaintiff,  however,  began  to  examine  him.  —  "  Your  name  is  John 
Hawkins  ?"  The  witness  made  a  face,  as  if,  like  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet, 
"  addressing  himself  to  speak ;"  but  answered,  eventually,  only  with  a 
nod. — "Do  you  know  the  defendant,  Thomas  Wilson ?" — The  witness 
nodded  again.  "  And  the  plaintiff,  William  Waters  ?" — A  third  nod. 
"  Well,  now  then,  did  you  see  them  both  at  Kingston  fair,  on  the  15th 
of  November?" — "My Lord,  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,"  said  the 
gentleman  in  the  top-boots,  "  if  you'll  give  me  leave — I'll  tell  you  all 
about  it !"  This  offer  "  dissolved,"  as  Mrs.  Malaprop  says,  the  pro- 
poser's "  mystery."  And,  aftei%  the  usual  expression  of  merriment — as  a 
little  joke  makes  a  great  laugh  always  in  a  grave  assembly — the  learned 
Judge  very  good-humouredly  took  up  the  parole. — "Witness  ! — witness! 
attend  to  me, — what  have  you  drank  this  morning— d'ye  hear?" — "I 
haven't  had  a  drop  within  my  lips  since  I  came  into  Court." — "Aye — but, 
what  did  you  drink  at  the  public-house,  before  you  came  into  Court?" — 
"  At  the  public  house,  before  I  came  into  Court?" — "  Yes  — at  the  last 
public  house?" — "Humph!  Why,  what  I  drank  there  was  one  pint  of 
mulled  porter — that's  just  what  I  called  for." — "Well — a  pint  of  porter; 
but  that  was  not  all  ?  Come,  it  was  a  cold  morning,  you  know — what  did 
you  put  into  your  porter  ?  Did  not  you  put  a  glass  of  brandy — or  was  it 
a  couple  of  glasses  of  gin  ?"  The  witness  paused  for  a  minute,  and 
looked  at  the  speaker,  as  though  he  did  not  very  distinctly  see  him ; 
then  buttoned  the  front  of  his  coat,  and  turned  the  quid  in  his  mouth 
with  his  tongue  ; — and  answered — not  at  all  insolently — but  like  a  man 
that  felt  the  joke  was  being  carried  rather  too  far: — "  Why,  then, 
since  you're  so  partic'lar  to  know  all  about  it — you'd  better  send  to  the 
public-house,  and  ask." 

Consistency.  While  all  the  world— excepting  the  mere  agricultural 
people — are  making  an  outcry  about  the  "  Corn  Laws,"  it  is  curious  to 
observe  what  a  vast  number  of  those  persons  who  cry  out  for  cheap 
food,"  will  do  nothing  but  cry  out  for  it.  They  make  a  great  fuss,  that 


?8  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  •   [JAN. 

the  grazier  shall  be  compelled  to  take  a  penny  a  pound  off  his  beef, 
and  then  suffer  the  butcher  to  put  three-halfpenee  on.  It  is  scarcely 
adverted  to,  what  a  number  of  people  there  are,  who  while  they  grumble 
lustily  about  "  taxes,"  and  the  "  times,"  have  still  an  affection  at  the 
same  time — some  out  of  stupidity,  but  many  from  impertinence — for 
paying  always  what  they  call  "  the  highest  price."  This  is  not  to  speak 
of  the  crowd  of  other  idiots,  who  are  compelled  to  pay  any  price,  because 
their  negligence  or  extravagance  prevents  them  from  being  able  to  pay  in 
ready  money.  A  man  opens  a  shop,  to  sell  goods  at  low  prices,  at 
No.  55,  Oxford-street ;  and  one  to  sell  the  same  goods  at  high  prices,  at 
No.  56 ;  and  one,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  has  as  much  trade  as  the  other. 
These  last  description  of  speculators  it  is  who  every  day  sustain  enormous 
"  losses,"  and  yet  go  on,  and  thrive  as  well  as  their  neighbours,  who  lose 
nothing  at  all.  It  is  only  a  conventional  mode  of  conducting  business  ; 
both  the  buyer  and  the  seller  mean  to  cheat  each  other;  and  the  only 
question  is — which,  in  the  long  run,  will  succeed. 

The  manner  in  which  "  Intelligence"  is  given  in  newspapers — espe- 
cially "  Sporting  Intelligence" — is  sometimes  amusing.  I  copy  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph  from  the  Globe  and  Traveller  : 

"  GALLOPING  MATCH. — On  Wednesday  Mr.  Bullock  undertook,  for 
a  stake  of  200  sovereigns,  to  ride  eight  horses  82  miles  in  four  hours  and 
a  half.  The  first  horse  did  10  miles  to  Barnet  in  34  minutes  and  a  few 
seconds;  the  second  horse  reached  Hatfield  (the  other  10  miles), in  35 
minutes  ;  the  third  went  eight  miles  to  Woolmer  Green,  in  25  minutes  ; 
the  fourth  did  to  Baldoek,  10  miles,  in  34-  minutes  ;  the  fifth  reached  Gir- 
ford,  11  miles,  in  34  minutes;  and  the  sixth  went  to  Bugden,  12  miles, 
in  37  minutes.  Three  hours  and  19  minutes  it  took  to  do  the  60  miles 
in  ;  and  the  other  22  were  rode,  so  that  the  match  was  won  by  a  quarter 
of  an  hour." 

Now  from  the  punctuation  of  the  last  two  lines — "  the  other  22  were 
rode,  so  that,  &c." — it  would  seem  that  the  first  part  of  the  distance  had 
not  been  rode.  But  this  is  the  least  part  of  the  curiosity  of  the  para- 
graph ;  because,  upon  the  historian's  own  words,  either  he  must  have 
mistaken  the  matter  from  beginning  to  end,  or  he  leaves  out  of  his  descrip- 
tion the  most  extraordinary  part  of  the  whole  race.  Now,  if  the  distance 
of  82  miles  was  to  be  performed  in  four  hours  and  a  half,  and  the  match 
was  won  by  "a  quarter  of  an  hour,"  then,  the  82  miles  were  performed  in 
Jour  hours  and  a  quarter.  And,  if  it  took  three  hours  and  nineteen 
minutes  to  do  the  first  60  miles  in — then,  if  the  account  be  true,  the  last 
22  miles  must  have  been  performed  in  four  minutes  less  than  one  hour  ; 
which  is  an  increase  of  speed  hardly  credible  !  At  the  rate  of  60  miles 
in  3  hours  and  19  minutes,  to  do  the  22  miles,  would  take  1  hour  and 
13  minutes, —  whereas  it  is  said  to  have  been  done  in  56  minutes  ! — At 
the  most  rapid  rate  accomplished  in  any  part  of  the  match — say,  from 
Girford  to  Bugden,  12  miles  in  37  minutes — the  22  miles  would  take  68 
minutes ;  so  that  the  speed  must  have  been  raised  more  than  TWENTY 
PER  CENT,  upon  this,  to  do  it  in  56.  Or  say,  that  the  first  12  miles  of 
the  22  were  done  in  37  minutes,  the  last  10  must  have  been  accomplished 
in  19  !  Either  the  account  is  totally  wrong,  or  the  most  curious  part  of 
the  match  is  omitted  to  be  described. 

A  LITERAL  INTERPRETATION.  Monsieur  Louis,  the  "  French  giant," 
who  is  near  seven  feet  high,  going  down  to  Portsmouth  two  days  since, 
took  a  place  in  the  Mail,  and  found  himself  (as  might  be  supposed  in  so 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  79 

confined  a  description  of  vehicle),  not  over  conveniently  accommodated. 
Add  to  this,  the  bulk  of  M.  Louis's  person,  besides  proving  a  source  of 
annoyance  to  himself)  was  a  serious  affliction  to  the  three  individuals 
(even  of  more  reasonable  dimension)  who  were  his  fellow-passengers. 
French  good  humour,  however,  is  not  easily  at  fault ;  the  Monsieur 
screwed  himself  into  the  smallest  possible  compass  ;  so  as  not,  in  fact,  to 
occupy  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  entire  coach — and  all  went  on  in 
general  silence,  if  not  in  general  contentment,  until  the  Mail  reached  the 
end  of  the  tirst  stage, — When  he  observed —that  as  the  coach  was  so 
narrow,  he  would  get  out  a  little,  "  to  stretch  his  legs."—  But  this  pro- 
posal was  too  much. — "  Ah  !  for  Heaven's  sake,  Sir,  spare  me  that !" — 
cried  an  old  lady  who  had  been  sitting  opposite,  and  whose  endurance, 
at  length,  was  utterly  exhausted — «  Be  assured,  that  your  legs  are  of  a 
length  perfectly  intolerable  already  !" 

The  accounts  of  the  Waterloo  Bridge  Company,  for  the  last  year, 
have  been  published.  From  which  it  appears  that  the  returns  of  this 
edifice,  which  cost  A  MILLION  AND  A  HALF  of  money,  are  about  seven 
thousand  pounds  a  year — or  seven  shillings  for  each  hundred  on  the 
whole  outlay.  An  evening  paper,  however,  holds  out  to  the  company 
some  prospect  for  reimbursement.  It  observes  that  "  Government  has 
never  yet  paid  any  thing  for  calling  the  bridge  *  Waterloo  Bridge  !'  " 

The  French  papers,  during  the  whole  of  the  latter  part  of  the  last 
month  and  the  earlier  portion  of  this,  have  been  filled  with  strange  ac- 
counts of  almost  nightly  robberies,  attended  with  violence,  and  often 
with  murder,  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  I  should  almost  be  inclined  to 
think  that  some  of  these  stories  were  invented  or  exaggerated ;  for, 
those  who  know  the  police  of  Paris,  will  scarcely  conceive  how  such 
thefts  could  be  committed  there  and  the  plunder  disposed  of.  But  that 
murder,  or  maltreatment,  should  often  accompany  robbery,  where  it 
does  take  place  at  Paris,  will  not  be  surprising  to  any  one  who  has  ob- 
served the  French  scheme  of  criminal  judicial  arrangement. 

For,  in  the  commission  of  crime,  as  in  all  other  proceedings,  there  is  a 
disposition  about  the  human  mind  to  be  biassed  by  the  circumstances  im- 
mediately about  it,  and  by  taught,  or  pre-conceived,  opinions :  and  in 
England,  there  is  a  deferential  aversion  to  the  sight  of  Death  in 
every  shape  among  the  people,  which  arises  in  a  great  degree,  I 
suspect,  from  the  circumstance  of  its  being  always  treated  with  great 
reverence  and  solemnity  by  the  public  authorities,  and  kept,  with  all 
the  matters  connected  with  it,  as  much  as  possible  from  before  the  eyes 
of  the  multitude.  All  our  arrangements,  in  fact,  tend  to  this  last  object. 
We  see  less  of  Death,  than  perhaps  any  people  in  Europe.  We 
have  no  drunken  feasts  over  the  body  of  the  dead — as  in  Ireland.  No 
public  exposure  in  the  street  for  charity,  &c.,  as  was  the  case  in  France, 
and  still  is  in  many  Catholic  countries.  The  burial  of  our  POOR  is 
prompt,  decent,  and  certain.  The  robbery  of  graves — convinced  as 
we  are  that  a  certain  advantage  results  from  the  practice — is  vi- 
gorously repressed,  and  punished  by  the  law.  And  the  slightest  ap- 
pearance of  crime — the  finding  of  a  body — though  but  that  of  an  in- 
fant— with  marks  of  violence  upon  it — or  any  evidence,  however  slight, 
which  seems  to  shew  that  murder  has  been  committed — becomes  the 
subject,  instantly,  of  the  most  unwearied,  indefatigable  canvas,  by  every 
engine  of  judicial  power,  all  over  the  country.  No  MURDERER  can 
ever  be  safe  in  England,  until  he  has  been  tried,  and  acquitted. 


80  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [JAN. 

And,  even  in  our  Executions — our  only  public  exhibitions  of  death — 
we  cautiously  avoid  the  infliction  of  any  seeming  torture  upon  the 
victims,  or  the  public  shedding  of  blood,  which  is  the  custom  in  France. 
I  know  that  some  objection  has  been  taken  to  these  spectacles,  as  they 
exist ;  and  that  it  is  said  (with  perfect  truth,  occasionally)  that  pockets 
are  picked  even  under  the  gallows.  But  I  do  not  go  quite  this  length 
myself;  and  indeed  I  should  rather  say  that  a  salutary  impression  is 
produced  by  our  public  executions — as  they  are  arranged.  An  exe- 
cution, of  course — like  every  other  public  spectacle-*-becomes  a  focus 
of  assemblage  to  the  idle,  the  dissolute,  and  the  unprincipled  ;  but  they 
look  at  it  with  a  feeling  of  horror,  of  which  they  cannot  divest  themselves, 
though  they  affect  to  do  so.  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  thief  but  quails 
in  his  in  ward"  heart,  every  time  he  passes  a  gibbet,  and  sees  a  man 
hanging  upon  it.  The  sight  does  not  prevent  thieving ;  but  I  think  it 
abates  it.  Pockets  are  picked  under  the  gallows ;  but  it  may  be 
observed — that  picking  pockets  is  not  an  offence  for  which  people  are 
brought  to  the  gallows.  Thieves  are  great  calculators. 

But,  in  Paris,  to  return  to  my  argument — Death  seems  to  be  made 
familiar  to  the  people  on  purpose  ;  and  devices  are  imagined  by  which 
they  shall  be  made  accustomed  to  hold  it  in  disregard,  and  as  of  no 
weight.  Dead  bodies  are  openly  sold,  as  "  subjects"  for  dissection,  in 
the  city — any  person  may  purchase  the  thing  that  ive  shudder  here  to 
look  at,  for  the  cost  of  a  few  shillings.  Again — murder,  and  obvious 
murder — excites  no  proceeding — no  emotion  on  the  part  of  the  criminal 
law.  Unless  some  individual  applies  to  put  the  law  in  motion,  it  stirs 
very  little  of  itself.  The  late  murder  of  the  two  poor  people — the  Ake- 
hursts — at  Fetcham,  has,  without  the  interference  of  any  one  interested, 
excited  the  most  formidable  exertion  all  through  England.  Hand-bills 
are  circulated — rewards  offered — officers  travelling  the  country — ma- 
gistrates every  where  corresponding  and  on  the  alert.  In  Paris,  a  man 
might  be  found  dead  in  the  streets,  with  his  skull  split ;  and,  unless  some 
private  individual  stirred  in  the  affair,  the  body  would  be  exposed  for 
two  days,  at  the  end  of  which  it  would  be  buried  ;  and  the  assassin  (if 
he  pleased)  might  attend  the  funeral. 

And,  even  above  all  this— as  tending  to  weaken  the  surprise  and 
aversion — the  dislike  of  the  nerve  which  humanity  acknowledges  at 
scenes  of  blood  and  horror — I  object  to  that  regular  establishment  in  the 
city — the  Morgue — into  which  men,  women,  and  children  walk — in  and 
out — as  they  would  in  and  out  of  a  market  in  this  country,  and 
which  actually  seems  provided  in  order  that  the  population  of  Paris 
shall  accustom  itself,  from  childhood,  to  the  contemplation  of  Murder 
or  Suicide  from  day  to  day.  It  is  impossible  that  any  people  can  look, 
from  day  to  day,  at  a  succession  of  human  bodies — constantly  with  such 
marks  upon  them  as  shew  that  they  must  have  been  assassinated,  or  self- 
destroyed — see  the  remains  of  MAN  exposed,  coarsely  and  slovenly,  to 
the  gaze  of  all — and  the  causes  of  his  death — though  obvious  to  every  one 
— treated,  by  AUTHORITY,  as  not  worth  inquiries  or  consideration — no 
human  beings  can  receive  impressions  of  this  character  from  childhood, 
and  arrive  at  maturity  with  that — as  it  were  instinctive — horror  of  the 
thought  of  violent  or  bloody  death,  which  makes  many  a  needy  wretch, 
in  England,  who  would  rob  and  plunder,  without  remorse,  recoil — 
though  without  understanding  the  impulses  which  withhold  him — from 
shedding  the  blood  of  his  fellow-creature. — But  I  will  speak  of  this  again. 


1827.]  [     81     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN. 


Histnry  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England, 
from  £/,<?  Commencement  to  the  Restoration  of 
'Charles  I  I,  Vd.  //,  by  W.  Godwin;  1826. 
— Godwin  write  a  History  of  the  Common- 
wealth—of a  period  »f  political  conflict, 
when  the  principles  of  monarchy  and  re- 
publicanism were  in  fierce  encounter — when 
presbyterians  and  independents,  though  not 
united  in  opposition,  were  both  opposed, 
the  one  to  an  episcopal  hierarchy,  the  other 
to  hierarchies  of  every  kind  ; — lie  write  a 
history  of  any  period,  whose  hostility  to 
the  institutions  of  society,  both  civil  and 
religious,  are  on  record  1  Why  not  ?  His 
readers  will  he  his  judges,  and  closely  will 
they  scrutinize  his  performance.  This  he 
knows,  and  his  knowledge  of  this  is  almost 
a  guarantee  for  the  exercise  of  a  rare  qua- 
lity in  historians,  common-honesty.  Nor 
is  this  the  only  presumption  in  his  favour : 
more  than  thirty  years  have  rolled  over  his 
head  since  the  memorable  period  of  his 
early  publications — years  spent  in  retreat — 
in  close  study  and  indefatigable  industry. 
Time,  which  brings  with  it  a  succession  of 
less  turbulent  fancies,  and  more  acquain- 
tance with  realities,  has  dispersed  his  visions 
of  perfectibility  without  bereaving  him  of 
all  anticipations  of  progressive  amendment. 
He  has,  at  all  events,  not  suffered  his  ta- 
lents to  rust  by  disuse  ;  and  the  task  he  has 
undertaken  is  one  eminently  calculated  to 
check  the  tendency  of  his  younger  days  to- 
wards theoretical  conclusions.  At  every 
turn  he  has  evidence  to  weigh,  and  his 
"  Age  of  Chaucer,"  and  "  Lives  of  the 
Phillips,"  prove  him  to  possess  a  spirit  of 
research,  and  a  patience  of  judgment,  qua- 
lified to  weigh  that  evidence,  and  entitle 
him  to  the  respect  of  his  cotemporaries. 

The  present  volume  extends  to  the  death 
of  Charles,  and  completing  the  personal 
history  of  that  luckless  monarch,  embraces 
his  full  conclusions  on  the  character  of 
Charles.  Those  conclusions  are  very  de- 
cidedly unfavourable  ;  but  the  judgment  he 
pronounces  is  carefully  built  upon  the  best 
existing  evidence.  In  the  course  of  our 
reading,  we  never  met  with  a  book  where 
less  is  hazarded ;  every  event  is  backed  by 
authorities ;  and  the  deductions  of  the 
writer  are  such  as  every  unbiassed  person 
must  draw  from  the  same  premises.  The 
Journals  of  the  House  are  constantly  be- 
fore him — a  source  of  information  which 
has  been  hitherto  singularly  neglected. 
The  volume  is  not  one  of  controversy ;  it  is 
a  new  narrative,  resulting  from  the  study 
of  the  original  materials.  Plume's  narra- 
tive has  been  well  sifted  by  Brodie  ;  but 
Godwin  has  nothing  to  do  with  either 
Hume  or  Brodie.  Vou  would  not  know 
that  he  had  read  either  one  or  the  other. 

We  will  very  briefly  sketch  Glamorgan's 
case,  as  it  is  represented  in  Hume  and 
Godwin.  Every  body  knows  Hume's 

M.M.  New  Series.-  VOL.  1 1 1.  No.  13. 


story ;  but  every  body  will  not  read  God- 
win's, deserving  as  it  is  of  being  read  by 
every  lover  of  truth.  Glamorgan  (after- 
wards Marquis  of  Worcester,  and  better 
known  by  his  "  Century  of  Arts")  was  a 
Catholic,  and  a  person  of  considerable  in- 
fluence in  Ireland.  He  was  a  favourite 
with  Charles ;  and,  after  the  battle  of 
Naseby,  when  Charles  turned  his  last 
thoughts  to  Ireland  for  aid,  employed  by 
him.  According  to  Hume's  version,  Or- 
mond,  the  lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland,-  was 
directed  to  conclude  a  peace  with  the  Ca- 
tholics, and  Glamorgan  was  to  make  a  kind 
of  supplementary  treaty — conceding  to  the 
Catholics  such  conditions  as  it  might  not 
be  prudent  for  Ormond's  name  to  appear 
in.  Glamorgan  was,  however,  to  act  in 
subordination  to  Ormond;  he  was  to  con- 
sult him — to  do  nothing,  in  short,  without 
his  advice  and  consent.  Glamorgan,  a  hot- 
headed fellow,  suffered  his  zeal  to  outstrip 
his  commission  ;  and  he  finally  concluded  a 
treaty  with  the  Catholics  at  Kilkenny,  on 
terms  which  neither  Charles  nor  Ormond 
could  sanction.  The  treaty  and  its  terms 
became  public ;  and  Ormond,  with  the 
concurrence  of  Digby,  secretary  of  state, 
threw  Glamorgan  into  prison.  The  cla- 
mour of  the  English  parliament  about  the 
treaty  was  great,  and  the  King  was  charged 
with  a  design  to  deliver  up  the  Protestants 
to  the  Catholics^  Charles  assured  them, 
that  Glamorgan's  commission  extended  only 
to  the  raising  of  troops ;  and  that  in  every 
thing  which  he  had  stipulated  for  the  re- 
ligion or  property  of  the  Catholics,  he  had 
exceeded  his  orders,  &c.  Though  this  de- 
claration, says  Hume,  seems  agreeable  to 
truth,  some  historians  represent  this  inno- 
cent transaction  as  a  stain  on  the  memory 
of  the  unfortunate  prince. 

Hume,  however,  must  have  felt  his  own 
representation  to  be  somewhat  unsatisfac- 
tory ;  for  in  a  note  he  says,  Dr.  Birch  lias 
written  a  treatise  on  this  matter  ;  but  it  is 
not  my  business  to  oppose  any  facts  in  that 
gentleman's  performance.  It  was,  how- 
ever, his  business  to  consult  the  authentic 
documents  of  that  gentleman's  publication, 
and  to  make  a  fair  use  of  them.  Hume's 
note  is  a  very  elaborate  one,  attempting  to 
invalidate  Birch's  story— full  of  evasion— 
never  once  coming  to  the  essential  point. 

Now  what  is  Godwin's  account?  That 
Ormond  was  empowered  to  negotiate  a 
treaty — one  that  miuht  be  published — with 
the  Catholics,  on  condition  of  their  fur- 
nishing 10,000  men.  That  Glamorgan  was 
privately  commissioned — with  the  most 
ample  powers — to  command  by  sea  and 
land — with  blank  patents  of  nobility,  from 
marquises  to  baronetcies — with  a  promise 
of  the  King's  daughter,  <£3GO,000,  and  a 
dukedom — to  make  large  concessions  to  the 
Catholics,  any  thing  indeed  to  secure  their 


Monthly  Review  of.  Literature, 


[JAN. 


assistance  ;  and  in  other  commissions  again 
and  again  confirmed — Charles  assuring  him, 
should  he  exceed  his  commission,  or  violate 
any  law,  that  he  would,  on  the  word  of  a 
Christian  and  a  sovereign,  support  him. 
That  Charles  wrote  to  Ormond,  commend- 
ing Glamorgan  to  his  confidence,  without 
breathing  a  word  of  the  extraordinary  com- 
mission with  which  he  was  furnished.  That 
Glamorgan  pursued  the  objects  of  his  com- 
mission without  consulting  Ormond,  and 
granted  to  the  Catholics  all  they  desired. 
That  the  papers  containing  the  conditions 
of  the  treaty  were  discovered,  and  Ormond 
and  Digby  threw  him  into  prison,  really 
believing  him  to  have  acted  without  autho- 
rity. What  was  Charles's  conduct?  To 
Ormond  and  Digby  bis  public  letter  ex- 
presses amazement  at  the  audacity  of  Gla- 
morgan's conduct.  In  his  private  letter  to 
Ormond,  he  assures  him,  on  the  word  of 
a  Christian,  he  never  intended  Glamorgan 
should  act  without  his  approbation,  much 
less  without  his  knowledge.  To  Glamor- 
gan himself,  in  a  letter  which  was  to  be 
seen  by  Ormond  and  Digby,  he  says,  "  he 
must  tell  him,  he  has  much  exceeded  his 
instructions  ;  had  he  consulted  with  Or- 
mond, all  might  have  been  helped."  To 
Glamorgan,  as  soon  as  he  was  released,  in 
a  private  letter  sent  through  his  cousin,  Sir 
John  \yinter — referring  him  first  to  the 
bearer  for  satisfaction,  why  he  had  not  done 
in  every  thing  as  Glamorgan  desired,  he 
says,  "  want  of  confidence  was  so  far  from 
being  the  cause,  he  was  every  day  more 
confirmed  in  the  trust  he  had  in  him — it 
not  being  in  the  power  of  any  to  make 
him  suffer  in  his  opinion  by  ill-offices." 
This  was  in  February  164<6 — the  discovery 
of  the  treaty  had  occurred  in  the  previous 
December,  and  Glamorgan  was  confined 
but  a  very  few  weeks.  In  April  the  King 
writes  again—"  As  I  doubt  not  but  you 
have  too  much  courage  to  be  dismayed  at 
the  usage  you  have  had,  so  I  assure  you 
my  estimation  of  you  is  nothing  diminished 
by  it,  but  that  it  rather  begets  in  me  a  de- 
sire of  revenge  and  reparation  to  us  both." 
In  July  a  third  letter  was  written,  in  which 
the  King  expresses  an  earnest^  hope,  that 
he  may  once  come  into  the  bands  of  him 
and  the  Nuncio — "  since  all  the  rest,  as  I 
see,  despise  me.  And,  if  I  do  not  say  this 
from  my  heart,  may  God  never,  &c." 

Of  the  April  letter  Hume  himself  speaks, 
and  remarks,  that  it  was  written  after  there 
had  been  a  new  negotiation  entered  into 
between  Glamorgan  and  the  Irish — the 
King's  assurance  therefore  relates,  says  he, 
to  this  recent  transaction : — thus,  taking 
no  manner  of  notice  of  the  February  letter, 
which  is  just  as  explicit,  and  indisputably 
refers  to  the  first  transaction,  and  his  treat- 
ment by  Ormond  and  Digby.  Such  is 
Hume's  fairness. 

"  It  was  necessary,"  says  Godwin,  "  up- 
on this  matter,  to  insert  these  letters  some- 
what at  length,  both  as  tending  eminently 


to  develope  the  character  and  habits  of  the 
writer  :"— certainly,  for  this  purpose  quite 
indispensable  ;  but  then,  he  adds,  "  and  as 
reflecting  a  strong  and  instructive  light  on 
the  nature  of  the  kingly  functions  and  of- 
fice"— a  little  bit  of  nonsense,  of  which  we 
assure  our  readers  there  are  very  few  speci- 
mens in  the  volume. 

Le  Barbier  de  Paris  ,•  par  M.  Charles  P. 
de  Kock;  1826— This  tale  fell  accidentally 
into  our  hands  the  other  day.  It  is  the 
production  of  a  M.  de  Kock,  evidently  of 
the  school  of  Pigault  Lebrun,  and  the 
author  already,  we  believe,  of  six  or  seven 
novels— of  which,  we  imagine,  little  or 
nothing  is  known  in  this  country.  We 
ourselves  have  but  a  slight  acquaintance 
with  them— of  "  Soeur  Anne  "  we  have  a 
favourable  impression— but  if  the  rest  be  at 
all  equal  to  the  one  before  us,  we  may 
wonder  once  more,  at  the  strange  caprice 
with  which  literary  celebrity  gets  distri- 
buted. The  story  is  admirably  put  toge- 
ther, and  told  in  an  animated,  but  easy 
style.  The  life  and  vigour  pervading  the 
whole,  is  exceedingly  attractive.  The  viva- 
city springs  very  much  from  the  piquancy 
and  rapidity  of  the  dialogue,  through  the 
means  of  which  much  of  the  story,  and 
much  of  the  character  is  conveyed.  Our 
own  tale- writers,  who  are  multiplying  every 
day,  may  take  an  useful  hint.  They  are 
too  much  disposed  to  indulge  in  the  nar- 
rative ;  and  when  they  venture  to  dialogize, 
it  is  generally  for  the  purpose  of  discussing 
points — doctrines,  principles  and  politics — • 
and  very  apt  indeed  are  they  to  prose  in 
long  speeches,  almost  as  bad  as  French 
tragedies. 

The  tale  of  Le  Barbier  de  Paris  turns 
upon  the  profligate  intrigues  of  a  wealthy 
noble,  whose  chief  agent  is  the  Barber — 
both  of  them  meet  with  their  deserts. 

The  scene  is  laid  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIII,,  not  particularly  for  any  historical 
purpose,  but  mainly  because,  by  throwing 
the  manoeuvres,  which  the  writer  delights 
to  describe,  into  the  obscurity  of  a  distant 
age,  he  is  better  able  to  give  them  an  air  of 
probability.  He  has  the  opportunity  of 
representing  the  state  of  Paris  two  centu- 
ries ago,  which  he  makes  use  of  with 
almost  as  much  care  and  research  as  our 
own  great  novelist,  in  exhibiting  the  con- 
dition of  London  in  the  reign  of  James. 
Contrary  to  the  manners  of  his  class,  the 
Barber  is  not  at  all  a  coxcomb,  or  a  bab- 
bler—quite the  contrary,  reserved  and 
repulsive.  There  is  a  cause  for  this,  of 
course.  The  only  inmates  of  his  house 
are  an  old  housekeeper,  full  of  supersti- 
tions ;  and  a  young  girl,  left  upon  his  hands 
by  the  murder  apparently  of  her  parent, 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  his 
house.  She  is  supported  by  the  Barber, 
but  never  permitted  to  leave  the  house. 
He  prosecutes  his  business  assiduously, 
and  carries  himself  like  a  man  well  to  do 


18:27.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


83 


in  the  world.  The  story  opens  with  the 
Barber's  impatience  for  the  arrival  of  a 
visitor.  The  visitor  comes — the  Marquis 
of  Villebelle  ;  and  the  conversation  between 
them  discovers  that  the  Barber  has  formerly 
been  the  Marquis's  confidential  agent  in 
conducting  his  intrigues.  The  object  of  his 
present  visit,  after  a  lapse  of  years,  is  to 
re-employ  him  in  the  same  way.  He  has 
tracked  a  very  beautiful  girl  to  a  certain 
point,  and  he  now  commands  the  Barber 
to  find  her  out,  and  take  her,  by  fair  means 
or  foul,  to  a  retired  place  of  his  in  the 
suburbs — a  place  fitted  up  in  a  style  of 
luxurious  elegance  a  little  too  modern.  This 
delicate  commission  the  Barber  has  too 
much  respect  for  appearances  to  execute 
himself;  but  among  his  customers  is  one 
whom  he  has  employed  in  odd  jobs  before, 
and  over  whom  just  now  a  long  account  of 
some  seventy  or  eighty  shavings  gives  him 
some  authority.  This  personage  plays 
henceforth  a  conspicuous  part  through  the 
tale.  He  is  at  every  body's  service,  and  is 
employed  by  all,  aad  plays  booty  to  all ; 
a  low  gambler  and  bully,  vain  and  boastful, 
essentially  a  rogue  and  coward-  The  Bar- 
ber's commission  is  at  once  accepted. 
Chaudoreille  discovers  the  lady ;  no  diffi- 
culty occurs  ;  she  accedes  ;  she  knows  the 
character  and  story  of  the  Marquis,  and  the 
Barber's  too.  Confident  in  her  charms, 
she  trusts  to  her  power  of  fascinating  the 
Marquis  to  her  own  terms.  She  does  no 
such  thing  ;  his  admiration  soon  cools,  and 
he  abandons  her  ;  she  rages  with  a  double 
disappointment.  She  is  an  Italian,  and, 
Italian  like,  is  resolved  upon  revenge. 

In  the  mean  while,  a  youth,  a  student 
at  Paris,  catches  through  the  window  a 
glimpse  of  the  orphan  at  the  Barber's ; 
falls  desperately  in  love ;  and  makes  a 
variety  of  attempts  to  approach  her.  At 
last,  in  the  character  of  a  country  girl 
wanting  service,  he  gets  admission  to  the 
old  housekeeper  and  her  young  charge. 
An  intimacy  grows  up  betwen  them— he  is, 
of  course,  very  entertaining — he  tells  the 
old  lady  ghost  stories,  and  sings  the  young 
one  love  songs  ;  and  the  intercourse  is  kept 
up  by  evening  visits,  till  one  wet  night  he 
is  persuaded,  by  the  united  intreaties  of 
the  women,  to  pass  the  night  with  them, 
and  is  to  share  Blanche's  bed.  Blanche  is 
delighted ;  she  has  been  shut  up  with  the 
old  woman,  now  to  her  sixteenth  year;  is 
of  extreme  simplicity  and  frankness,  with 
all  her  affections  ready  to  expand,  and  a 
companion  of  nearly  her  own  age  seems  a 
charming  thing.  A  scene  follows  of  very 
felicitous  execution.  The  youth  is  tempted 
by  the  apparent  opportunity ;  but  his  better 
genius  rules  the  hour.  An  explanation 
takes  place,  and  at,  perhaps,  in  spite  of  no- 
bler resolutions,  a  critical  moment,  the 
Barber  knocks,  and  demands  admittance. 
Chaudoreille  has  been  the  marplot.  A 
compact  ensues;  the  Barber  consents  to 
the  nuptials  of  the  young  people,  on  con- 


dition that  the  lover  takes  her  forthwith  to 
a  distant  province,  where  the  young  man, 
who  is  his  own  master,  has  a  small  pro- 
perty. All  seems  propitious. 

Before  the  day  of  marriage,  however, 
Chaudoreille  being  by  circumstances  driven 
into  difficulties,  to  extricate  himself  gives 
the  Marquis,  who  is  ever  on  the  look-out 
for  a  new  object,  intelligence  of  Blanche. 
No  sooner  does  he  hear  of  her,  than  he 
resolves  to  see  her;  and,  eluding  the  Bar- 
ber's watchfulness,  he  does  see  her,  and 
resolves  to  carry  her  off.  The  Barber  re- 
sists; but  money,  to  the  accumulation  of 
which  he  is  devoted,  melts  his  scruples, 
and  he  aids  him.  Poor  Blanche  is  deluded 
by  some  story  of  her  lover's  being  obliged 
to  fly  on  account  of  a  duel,  and  is  hurried 
off  the  same  night  to  a  castle  of  the  Mar- 
quis's, in  the  heart  of  the  country. 

The  next  day  the  luckless  lover  discovers 
his  misfortune,  but  can  get  no  satisfaction 
from  the  Barber.  He  meets  with  Chaudo- 
reille. Chaudoreille  engages  to  learn  the 
fate  of  Blanche,  and  appoints  a  meeting 
the  following  day.  The  lover  falls  into  a 
fever,  and  is  unable  to  keep  the  appoint- 
ment. In  the  mean  while,  the  jealous  and 
enraged  Italian,  who  has  her  eye  constantly 
upon  the  Marquis's  actions,  discovers 
through  Chaudoreille  the  deportation  of 
Blanche.  She  effects  an  entrance  into  the 
Barber's  house,  and,  getting  possession  of 
certain  papers  and  documents  of  importance 
to  her  scheme,  she  sets  out,  accompanied 
by  Chaudoreille,  for  the  Marquis's  castle. 
By  this  time  the  lover  recovers,  and,  after 
losing  many  days  in  fruitless  inquiries,  he 
pays  the  Marquis  a  visit,  at  the  very  castle 
to  which  Blanche  was  taken,  knowing 
nothing  about  the  Marquis's  conduct,  but 
meaning  to  ask  his  aid — he  is  not  quite  a 
stranger  to  him — in  recovering  his  lost 
bride.  The  plot  thickens.  The  Marquis 
misleads  the  lover,  and  repels  the  Italian. 
He  makes  no  progress  with  the  wretched 
Blanche.  The  Barber  comes,  and  urges 
him  to  violence.  He  attempts  it,  but  his, 
nerves  fail,  and  Blanche  is  saved.  The 
next  night,  the  Italian  again  forces  herself 
upon  the  Marquis,  who  is  closeted  with  his 
agent.  She  seats  herself  between  them. 
She  is  come  for  vengeance.  She  pro- 
duces her  evidence  — her  tale  is  complete. 
Blanche  proves  to  be  the  Marquis's  own 
daughter,  by  a  lady  to  whom  he  had  been 
passionately  devoted,  and  whose  memory 
he  still  fondly  cherishes.  The  person  by 
whose  murder  she  was  thought  to  have 
been  left  in  the  Barber's  hands  was  the 
Barber's  own  father,  whom  he  had  always 
treated  infamously,  and  finally  murdered, 
On  the  impetus  of  sudden  indignation,  the 
Marquis  shoots  the  Barber  on  the  spot, 
and  then  rushes  to  his  daughter's  chamber. 
She  is  alarmed,  expecting  another  attack, 
and  throws  herself  out  of  the  window  into 
the  lake  below.  The  Marquis  hears  the 
appalling  splash  :  the  door  is  locked  ;  time 

M  2 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[JAN. 


is  lost ;  he  flies  to  the  water  by  another 
way;  plunges  in  to  rescue  her;  and,  at 
the  same  moment,  on  the  opposite  bank, 
the  lover  springs  in.  Together  they  bring 
her  to  the  bank,  in  agony,  in  despair — all 
too  late. 

Roman  Tablets;  containing  Facts,  Anec- 
dotes, and  Observations,  on  the  Manners, 
Customs,  Ceremonies,  and  Government  of 
Nome,  byM.  da  Santo  Domingo ;  1826.  Pub- 
lished by  T.  F.  Hunt,  Burlington  Arcade. — 
Though  very  tar,  upon  the  whole,  from 
being  ill-written,  the  book  has  disappointed 
us.  It  was  suppressed  by  an  act  of  autho- 
rity in  Paris,  and  the  author  fined  and  "im- 
prisoned. A  translation,  unusually  well 
executed,  has  just  been  published,  under 
the  notion  that  a  suppressed  work  every 
body  must  be  eager  to  read.  The  writer 
has  made  very  free  with  the  Jesuits,  and 
their  influence  just  now  being  paramount 
at  court,  they  have  employed  it  in  attempt- 
ing to  crush  the  writer.  Cunning,  past 
finding  out,  as  this  society  is  supposed  to 
be,  it  is  fast  over-reaching  itself.  Persecu- 
tion will  not  do.  It  is  almost  proverbial  to 
say,  it  defeats  its  own  object.  It  is  natural 
for  a  sufferer  to  wish  to  silence  the  man 
who  exposes  him  to  ridicule,  by  exercising 
the  power  which  nature  or  station  fur- 
nishes him  ;  and  naturally  are  all  of  us  dis- 
posed to  go  what  seems  the  shortest  way 
to  work ;  but  in  this  matter  experience  has 
long  been  sufficiently  ample  to  teach  all 
but  the  wilfully  blind.  If  men  will  not 
learn,  let  them  take  the  consequence. 

For  our  own  parts,  the  perusal  of  the 
book  has  added  very  little  to  our  impression 
of  the  wiles  of  the  Jesuits,  or  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  court  of  Rome ;  nor  have  we, 
with  the  translator,  risen  from  it  with  any 
particular,  at  least  any  new  disgust  against 
the  Catholic  religion.  The  strongest  im- 
pression upon  our  minds,  at  this  moment 
that  we  lay  aside  the  book,  is,  that  the 
writer's  first  object  has  been  to  produce 
effect.  Through  the  volume  there  is  con- 
spicuously an  air,  not  of  "  pungent  irony," 
as  he  is  pleased  to  call  it,  but  of  elaborate 
caricature.  He  is  for  ever  on  the  hunt  for 
smart  things,  searching  for  contrasts,  and 
arranging  antitheses— efforts,  that  almost  of 
necessity  involve  a  straining  of  facts.  He 
is  perpetually  tasking  his  memory  for  an- 
cient remembrances  to  parallel  and  embel- 
lish his,  we  must  think  them,  insidious  re- 
presentations. The  priests,  from  the  car- 
dinal to  the  capuchin,  are  ignorant,  glut- 
tonous, profligate ;  the  women,  married 
and  single,  calculating  voluptuaries,  or 
burning  sensualists  ;  wives  universally  un- 
faithful, and  husbands  universally  accom- 
modating ;  the  government,  through  thick 
and  thin,  enriching  the  treasury,  ruining 
the  country,  pillaging  foreigners,  and  pro- 
tecting the  brigands,  Nothing  of  this  is 
new,  but  we  do  not  the  more  believe  it. 
It  has  been  reported,  till — we  had  almost 
said,  for  that  very  reason— we  are  com- 


pelled to  distrust.  That  the  principles 
of  civil  government  are  ill  understood ; 
that  the  hold  of  the  government  upon  the 
respect  of  the  people  is  feeble;  that  the 
standard  of  private  morals  is  low ;  that 
there  are  hypocrites  among  the  intelligent, 
and  dupes  among  the  ignorant,  we  are 
little  inclined  to  doubt;  but  these  sweeping 
averments  of  the  Roman  Tablets  are  little 
entitled  to  secure  our  confidence — particu- 
larly where  the  writer,  notwithstanding  all 
disguises,  and  notwithstanding  his  own  pro- 
fession of  Catholicism,  is  obviously  predis-  *'>* 
posed  to  ridicule  more  than  the  forms  of 
religion,  and  where  his  manifest  love  of 
the  prurient  and  voluptuous,  makes  his  own 
respect  for  the  sanctions  of  morals  more  than 
questionable. 

The  most  striking  passages  of  the  book, 
after  all,  regard  not  the  Jesuits,  nor  the 
court  of  Rome,  but  the  women.  His  ima- 
gination riots  in  "  chambering  and  wanton- 
ness." His  reflections  on  the  old  Romans, 
wherever  they  occur,  are  very  agreeable ; 
but  the  most  agreeable  are  his  descriptions 
of  works  of  art — always,  however,  more  or 
less  fantastical — always  labouring  for  effect. 
He  is  in  Canova's  studio — 

By  a  natural  transition,  we  passed  from  the  horses 
to  the  Centaur  vanquished  by  Theseus.  Canova  put 
a  fine  horse  to  a  lingering  death,  that  he  might  re- 
present all  the  gradations  of  agony,  and  take  death 
in  the  fact.  Theseus  has  his  knee  firmly  fixed  on 
his  rival's  chest ;  he  is  seizing  him  by  the  throat 
with  his  left  hand,  with  the  other  he  is  lifting  his 
formidable  club.  The  Centaur  is  on  his  haunches  ; 
his  belly  touches  the  ground ;  from  the  trembling  of 
his  nerves,  and  the  tension  of  his  muscles,  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  his  painful  efforts,  and  we  participate  in 
his  anguish.  What  torment  that  marble  is  suffering ! 
Like  the  Laocoon,  it  is  in  agony  from  head  to  foot. 
I  touched  it,  to  convince  myself  that  it  wus  not  pal- 
pitating :  it  was  not  the  cold  from  the  marble,  but 
the  chill  of  death  which  I  felt,  and  which  had  already 
seized  the  unfortunate  Centaur.  Hold,  Theseus ! 
suspend  that  mortal  blow ;  do  not  destroy  that  su- 
perb creature,  which  does  so  much  honour  to  its 
author.  I  have  some  hope  that  the  hero  will  listen 
to  my  prayer,  for  his  arm  is  not  lifted  high  enough ; 
he  is  not  in  the  act  of  striking  the  blow,  but  of  rais- 
ing his  club :  this  perhaps  is  a  defect.  It  would  be 
better  also  if  Theseus  had  a  little  more  animation, 
and  the  efforts  he  has  made  in  this  terrible  conflict 
were  more  perceptible.  Theseus  was  only  a  demi- 
god :  it  was  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the  gods  to  be 
calm  in  the  midst  of  victory.  The  countenance,  ac- 
tion, and  attitude  in  general  of  the  hero,  are  not 
sufficiently  heroic ;  Theseus  is  not  quite  disengaged 
from  the  marble.  But  the  Centaur  has  struggled 
dreadfully  before  being  thrown  to  the  ground,  and 
insults  his  conqueror  even  in  his  last  moments. 

The  Young  Rifleman's  Comrade :  a  Nar- 
rative of  his  Military  Adventures,  Captivity, 
and  Shipwreck,-  1828.— The  value  of  me-* 
rr.oirs  depends,  of  course,  entirely  upon 
their  genuineness.  If  the  individual  be 
conspicuous  in  the  ranks  of  life,  or  eminent 
for  respectability  of  character,  we  have  a 
guarantee — to  be  depended  upon  to  a  cer- 
tain extent.  Such  a  person,  we  are  sure, 
will  riot  write  a  romance  and  pass  it  off  for 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


85 


reality,  becauso  his  fictions  must  be  easily 
detectible ;  but  in  the  case  of  one  of  no 
kind  of  distinction  among  his  fellows,  we 
are  without  any  security.  With  respect  to 
the  memoirs  before  us,  professing  to  be 
those  of  a  common  soldier,  we  have  not 
even  the  name,  and  if  we  had,  we  should 
be  but  where  we  were.  Are  these  memoirs, 
then,  to  be  considered  as  utterly  unworthy 
of  regard  ?  No :  unknown  to  fame,  as  the 
writer  is,  he  comes  forth,  like  the  Young 
Rifleman,  under  the  auspices  of  Goethe — 
a  name  of  splendid  authority  through  the 
literary  world  of  Europe.  He  is  the  avowed 
editor.  He  must  know  something  of  the 
writer;  he  must  have  inquired  into  the 
character  of  the  man,  and  have  ascertained 
the  genuineness  of  the  production,  before 
he  committed  himself  so  far  as  to  lend  the 
weight  of  his  name.  Whether  Goethe  himself 
has  assisted  we  know  not — the  bbok  bears 
marks,  we  think,  of  patching  and  polish- 
ing. The  general  association  of  thought, 
and  the  general  run  of  the  narrative,  indi- 
cate a  man  who  is  simply  able  to  tell  what 
passes  before  his  eyes.  The  occasional  re- 
finements, thepanni  purpurei  scattered  here 
and  there— descriptions  of  external  nature 
and  varieties  of  feeling—  look  like  the  work 
of  another  mind. 

The  subject  of  the  memoirs  was  the  son 
of  a  butcher,  and  born  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Strasburg.  His  earliest  recollec- 
tions concern  the  sufferings  of  his  family 
on  the  bursting  of  the  French  revolution  — 
his  father's  imprisonment  as  an  '  aristocrat,' 
his  mother's  and  brothers^rlight  to  Man- 
heim,  and  their  subsistence  by  public  cha- 
rity. In  1806,  he  was  drawn  a  conscript 
at  Strasburg,  and  for  some  time  not  sent 
upon  active  service.  In  the  latter  part  of 
1807,  he  went  to  Spain  with  the  force 
under  Murat,  and  was  present  at  the  mas- 
sacre of  Madrid,  on  the  memorable  2d  May. 
He  was  with  the  troops  which  marched  to 
Toledo  to  suppress  the  tumult  there,  and 
was  afterwards  one  of  the  14,000  of  Du- 
pont's  division,  which  surrendered  to  the 
Spaniards  in  Andalusia.  The  difficulties 
and  privations  of  the  soldiers,  from  the  first 
moment  of  their  entrance  upon  the  Spanish 
territory,  must  have  been  horrible,  and,  if 
any  thing  could  check  the  passions  of  men, 
the  description  might  be  instructive.  The 
rage  with  which  the  French  were  every 
where  received,  seems  beyond  all  parallel- 
corresponding,  indeed,  with  all  we  have 
authentically  heard,  but  no  where,  perhaps, 
so  emphatically  given,  or  marked  by  so 
many  striking  facts.  After  the  surrender 
of  Dupont,  the  prisoners  were  conveyed  to 
Majorca,  and  from  thence  to  Cabrera,  a 
small  island,  or  rather  ridge  of  rocks,  a 
little  to  the  south  of  Majorca,  an  account 
of  which  our  readers  will  recollect,  as  the 
remarkable  scene  of  the  French  Serjeant's 
memoirs.  The  narrative  before  us  confirms 
the  Serjeant's  statement.  He  enters  more 
particularly  into  the  organization  of  the 


captives  ;  he  was  among  the  first  who  were 
thrown  upon  the  island — the  Serjeant  came 
in  one  of  the  after  divisions.  After  a  resi- 
dence of  three  years  on  this  prison-island, 
worn  and  wearied  with  privation  and  ennui, 
he  entered  the  English  service,  and  joined 
the  German  legion  then  in  Sicily,  where  he 
continued  till  the  restoration  of  the  legiti- 
mate Sovereign  of  Naples,  in  replacing 
whom  upon  the  throne  the  German  legion 
was  employed.  The  filth  and  profligacy  of 
Palermo  are  described  in  a  lively  manner ; 
but  the  description,  of  course,  must  be 
received  with  some  distrust.  The  writer, 
from  his  station,  could  mingle  only  with 
the  lowest,  and  he  concludes,  of  course  ig- 
norantly,  that  what  he  does  not  see,  must 
be  like  what  he  does  see.  From  Naples  he 
passes  to  Genoa,  and  from  Genoa  to  Eng- 
land. At  Portsmouth  he  remains  for  some 
time  after  the  German  legion  was  broken 
up,  and  in  1818  enters  into  the  service  of 
an  English  officer,  and  comes  to  London. 
The  style  and  tone  in  which  he  speaks  of 
London,  and  the  manners  of  London,  will 
enable  us  to  estimate  the  standard  by  which 
he  judges  of  Spain  and  Sicily.  After  a 
short  stay  in  London,  he  sails  in  a  Conv 
pany's  ship,  the  Cabalva,  for  China.  The 
Cabal  va  was  wrecked  off  the  Mauritius,  and 
the  crew  saved  themselves  on  a  sand-bank, 
from  which  perilous  situation  they  were, 
after  long  sufferings,  finally  rescued :  tlie 
details  of  this  voyage  and  disaster  are  taken 
from  the  journal  of  a  young  German,  who 
was  a  midshipman  on  board,  and  constitute 
the  most  interesting  part  of  the  book.  He 
returns  to  the  English  shores,  and  speedily 
revisits  his  native  home. 

The  Last  of  the  Lairds ;  by  the  Author  of 
the  Provost,  fyc.  fyc. ;  1826. — With  our  mir 
feigned  respect  for  the  author,  it  is  reluc- 
tantly we  give  expression  to  any  feeling  of 
disappointment ;  but  the  unconcealable  fact 
is,  that  the  '  Last  of  the  Lairds '  is  rather  a 
dull  performance.  The  quaintness  of  phrase- 
ology in  which  he  delights,  whilst  fresh,  had 
something  like  a  charm  in  it,  but,  like  all  other 
charms,  its  fascinations  vanish  by  familiarity. 
The  characters  too,  which  he  delights  to 
delineate,  never  were  of  a  very  attractive 
kind,  and  certainly  not  of  a  kind  to  bear  a 
frequent  re-appearance.  The  Lust  of  the 
Lairds  is  simply  a  very  foolish  person,  with 
little  or  no  peculiarity  worth  recording. 
He  is  involved  in  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments, merely  by  living  beyond  his  means, 
as  we  say;  but  which  he,  having  lately 
visited  the  Athens  of  the  North,  the  seat 
of  political  economists  and  everlasting  scrib- 
blers, attributes  to  the  ignorant  or  the  in- 
sidious dabbling  of  the  Government  with 
the  currency.  Mr.  Rupees,  a  wealthy  na- 
bob, has  a  mortgage  upon  the  estate,  and 
is  upon  the  point  of  foreclosing  —  an  event 
which  must  finish  the  Laird.  The  Laird's 
sole  expedient  for  '  ridding  the  seals  from 
the  bonds '  is  writing  his  life,  as  many 
others  have  done  before— and  some,  as  he 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[JAN. 


learns  at  Athens,  gotten  a  thousand  pounds. 
In  this  desperate  condition,  his  neighbours, 
some  from  one  feeling  and  some  from 
another,  are  active  in  excogitating  more 
efficient  expedients.  The  most  promising 
'  one  seems  to  be,  to  persuade  the  mortgager 
to  suspend  operations.  Mr.  Rupees  has 
his  oddities,  and  is  not  thought  to  he  very 
accessible  to  the  promptings  of  sympathy. 
The  narrator,  a  sort  of  disengaged  old  gen- 
tleman, who  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  watch 
his  neighbours,  makes  the  first  attempt, 
and  is  repulsed  by  a  banter.  Then  follows 
the  minister,  who  urges  and  moralizes,  and 
is  equally  foiled.  The  last  resource  is  Mrs. 
Sorrocks,  a  very  busy  person,  who  knows 
every  one's  concerns,  and  knows,  moreover, 
that  every  thing  has  two  handles.  By  a 
little  well-timed  admiration  of  fine  things 
and  Indian  wonders,  she  gains  her  point. 
Mr.  Rupees  softens,. and  the  proceedings 
of  the  law  are  suspended.  In  the  mean- 
while, the  Laird's  friends  have  been  push- 
ing their  object  in  another  direction,  and 
labouring  to  bring  about  a  marriage  with 
one  of  two  ancient  sisters,  with  some  pro- 
perty. Reluctantly  he  accedes — having 
once  before,  from  another  cause,  been  driven 
into  marriage — and  empowers  one  of  the 
parties  to  negociate  ;  but,  on  learning  their 
success  with  the  nabob,  he  retreats.  Un- 
luckily comes  a  sudden  claim  upon  Mr. 
Rupees,  to  the  amount  of  half  his  fortune, 
and  he  is  compelled  to  enforce  the  fore- 
closing. The  matter  of  marriage  is  re- 
sumed ;  and  the  Laird  is  at  last  '  brought 
to  the  scratch.'  Mr.  Rupees  takes  pos- 
session ;  the  Laird  and  his  bride  remove  to 
Edinburgh,  to  finish  his  life ;  and  the  nar- 
rator and  Mrs.  Sorrocks  are  left  to  look 
after  the  rest  of  their  neighbours. 

The  plan  of  the  story  is  of  too  contracted 
a  nature,  and  the  characters  too  unpeculiar 
or  too  unattractive  for  even  this  very  able 
writer  to  make  any  thing  of  them.  There 
is  a  good  scene  or  two  with  Mrs,  Sorrocks 
and  the  maiden  sisters.  She  is  an  able  re- 
torter — skilful  in  insinuating  what  she 
professes  to  withhold,  and  in  the  war  of 
contentious  words  handles  her  weapons 
with  great  dexterity. 

PaulJones,  a  Romance,  &?/  Allan  Cun- 
ningham; 3vols.  ]2mo.,  1826.— What  was 
the  real  history  of  Paul  Jones  we  know 
not.  The  general  impression  of  the  times, 
in  which  he  made  himself  known,  was,  that 
he  was  a  pirate  of  the  West-Indies,  and  a 
fellow  of  uncommon  resolution  and  enter- 
prize  ;  that  he  commanded  an  American 
sloop  of  war ;  fought  bravely  and  success- 
fully Captain  Pearson  of  the  Serapis;  and 
threw  the  coast,  pretty  generally,  into  con- 
fusion and  alarm.  Lately,  by  an  anony- 
mous biographer — really,  there  should  be 
no  anonymous  writers  on  matters  of  fact — 
he  has  been  claimed  as  a  son  of  Scotland, 
and  something  of  his  history  has  been  traced 
up — with  what  accuracy  is  more  than  we 


can  tell.  The  memoirs  to  which  we  al- 
lude, represent  him  to  have  been  not  only 
a  man  of  extraordinary  activity,  but  of  ex- 
traordinary endowments — a  gentleman,  in 
manners  and  acquirements  ;  no  pirate,  but 
regularly  commissioned  in  the  States,  where 
he  had  been  legally  naturalized ;  to  have 
been  driven  from  his  country,  by  the  ty- 
ranny of  the  magistrates,  first  into  the  ser- 
vice of  America,  and  then  by  the  jealousy 
of  the  Americans  into  that  of  Russia ;  to 
have  distinguished  himself  under  the  flag  of 
Russia,  and  finally  to  have  fallen  in  the  tu- 
mults of  the  French  Revolution.  He  had 
a  sister  too,  who  fled,  or  was  carried  away 
from  her  country ;  and  taking  refuge  among 
the  Indians,  or  back  settlers  of  America, 
became  the  chieftainess  or  princess  of  the 
tribe. 

Now,  also,  we  have  the  life  of  Paul  Jones 
at  full  length,  professedly  in  the  shape  of  a 
romance,  but  laying  claim  at  the  same  time 
to  the  fidelity  of  history,  as  to  facts.  It  is 
written  by  Mr.  Allan  Cunningham,  a  gen- 
tleman already  favourably  known  to  the 
world  by  other  publications,  and  this  very 
able  performance  will  not  lessen  his  reputa- 
tion. The  more  active  and  bustling  scenes 
are  described  with  much  truth  and  vivacity; 
the  sea-fights,  and  the  storming  of  Ockazow, 
are  scenes  of  great  vigour,  well  conceived 
and  well  executed.  He  has  looked  too 
with  a  learned  eye  on  human  dealings,  and 
keenly  developed  the  feelings  of  an  aspir- 
ing and  unbending  spirit.  The  tale,  upon 
the  whole,  however,  is  too  elaborately 
worked  up ;  the  effect  of  which  is,  to  retard 
the  flow  of  the  narrative.  It  is  hard  to  find 
fault  with  what  is  in  itself  an  excellence — 
but  all  is  relative  ;  a  man  writes  to  be  read. 
It  is  mortifying  to  think  that  the  very  finish 
of  the  thing  will  prevent  its  being  fully 
read  The  pains  spent  upon  it  will  not  be 
fairly  estimated  ;  what  has  cost  him  most, 
will  be  least  valued.  There  is,  besides,  a 
good  deal  of  coarseness — more  than  will  be 
tolerated  :  arid  in  Paul  himself,  there  is, 
we  think,  scarcely  relief  enough.  He  might 
have  been  made  more  decidedly  in  love  with 
an  aristocrat.  His  motives  of  action  are 
scarcely  of  sufficient  weight.  He  has  but 
one  compelling  feeling — revenge  against  his 
country,  because  her  aristocratic  institutions  \ 
shut  him  (the  plebeian)  out  from  distinc- 
tion—which is  not  true— to  a  sufficient  ex- 
tent. We  are  not  disposed  to  cavil  at  Mr. 
Cunningham's  performance  :  he  might  have 
chosen  better ;  but  he  has  made  the  best  of 
his  choice — few  would  have  done  so  well. 

The  hero  is  introduced  to  us  fighting 
with  Lord  Ualveen,  between  whom  and 
himself,  from  boyhood,  there  appeal's  to 
have  been  an  extraordinary  antipathy.  Paul 
is  just  returned,  still  very  young,  after  an 
absence  of  some  years  in  the  West — spent 
apparently  in  piratical  excursions,  in  which 
he  gained  money  and  a  name.  At  a  village 
bridal,  where  Paul,  his"  sister,  and  Lord 
Dulvccn  were  all  present,  Lord  Dulvcen 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


87 


'  conducts  himself  towards  Paul  with  into- 
lerable hauteur,  and  addresses  Paul's  sister 
in  a  style  not  at  all  agreeable  to  him.  On 
Paul's  invitation,  they  walk  down  to  the 
shore,  to  give  themselves  a  little  "  breath- 
ing" with  their  swords,  but  are  interrupted 
before  much  mischief  ensues.  This  Lord 
Dalveen  is  quite  a  personage  of  romance  — 
Paul  himself,  indeed,  bedevilled— self- 
willed  in  his  pursuits,  and  daring  in  accom- 
plishing them ;  a  very  Lovelace  among 
women,  and  a  Paladin  among  fighters. 
Paul's  mother  played  false  to  her  husband 
with  Lord  Dalveen's  father  ;  and  both  Paul 
and  his  sister  bear  a  family  resemblance  to 
my  Lord.  In  America,  Paul  had  imbibed, 
high  notions  of  independence  and  the  rights 
of  men  ;  and  his  own  haughty  spirit  led 
him  to  a  belief  in  the  "  dispensing  power  " 
of  genius,  and  a  clear  conviction  of  his  own 
title  to  its  rights.  He  came  home  with  a 
thorough  contempt  for  all  distinctions  of 
birth,  and  the  exclusions  of  rank.  Lord 
Dalveen,  though  himself  professing  to  de- 
spise, and  actually  trampling  upon  all  dis- 
tinctions, feels  with  full  force  the  advan- 
tages of  his  own  superiority  in  rank,  though 
property  he  has  but  little ;  his  family  having 
been  ruined  by  taking  part  with  the  Stuarts, 
and  himself  wearing  a  coronet  only  by 
courtesy.  Paul  and  he  are  .perpetually 
meeting,  and  perpetually  at  daggers-draw- 

,  ing.  As  much  in  defiance  of  Paul,  as  in 
fondness  for  the  sister,  Lord  Dalveen  lays 
a  plan  for  carrying  her  off.  He  employs 
the  crew  of  a  pirate  vessel  — most  of  whom 
are  known  to  Paul.  The  Captain  takes 
the  Lord's  money,  seizes  the  lady,  and  puts 
to  sea  without  my  Lord.  This  produces 
another  encounter ;  and  Paul  is  actually 
carried  before  a  magistrate  :  who,  indignant 
at  the  scandal  of  a  peasant  boy,  a  miserable 
plebeian,  measuring  swqrds  with  a  peer, 
orders  him  on  board  the  tender — a  very 
common  summary  penalty  in  the  hands  of 
magistrates  in  those  days. 

This  is  the  event  which  explodes  the 
combustible  materials  of  the  hero.  His 
sister  is  betrayed  by  a  lord — he  demands 
satisfaction  of  that  lord — and  for  his  pre- 
sumption, is  ignominiously  consigned  by  a 
magistrate  to  a  ship  of  war,  to  serve  be- 
fore the  mast.  His  high  spirit  cannot 

/  brook  the  treatment :  he  escapes  from  the 
officers  of  justice,  and  flies  to  America. 
From  America  he  speedily  returns  with  a 
sloop  of  war  under  his  command,  commis- 
sioned by  the  insurgent  Americans,  and 
prepares  to  lay  waste  the  shore  of  his  na- 
tive district,  the  bay  of  Solway.  He  ac- 
tually burns  Whitehaven ;  and  effects  a 
landing  in  St.  Mary's  Isle  to  seize  the  Earl 
of  Selkirk,  meaning  to  make  use  of  him  as 
an  hostage.  The  Earl  is  fortunately  from 
home  ;  but  the  crew  proceed  to  the  castle 
to  seize  the  family  plate,  and  Paul  has  some 
difficulty  in  preventing  further  excesses.  He 
engages  an  English  vessel  in  the  bay,  and 
sinks  her.  Quickly  after  he  is  joined  by  a 


French  frigate,  of  which  he  takes  the  com- 
mand, as  commodore,  and  fights  the  memo- 
rable battle  with  the  Serapis,  commanded 
by  Captain  Pearson,  and  takes  her.  On 
board  the  Serapis  was  Dalveen,  and  Paul 
and  he  again  tilt  at  each  other. 

Flushed  with  triumph,  he  goes  now  to 
Paris — is  welcomed  by  Franklin  and  La 
Fayette ;  is  presented  to  the  king  and  queen 
— honoured,  feted,  courted  and  petted  by 
lords  and  ladies ;  and  recommended  by 
Franklin  for  the  command  of  the  French 
fleet.  Foiled  in  his  proudest  hopes,  by  the 
intrigues  of  courtiers,  he  suddenly  quits 
Paris  for  America— where  again  the  jea- 
lousy of  the  Americans  excludes  him  from 
any  distinguished  appointment.  He  is  use- 
ful, however,  to  Washington  in  an  engage- 
ment ;  and  again  encounters  Dalveen. 
Washington,  after  the  battle,  commissions 
him  to  negotiate  for  assistance  with  some 
Scotch  settlers  in  a  remote  district,  where 
he  finds  his  sister  invested  with  authority 
over  the  settlement,  served  like  a  queen, 
with  a  guard  of  three  hundred  men  at  her 
devotion.  She  mocks  his  proposals,  and 
sharply  reproaches  him  for  fighting  against 
his  country.  Here  too  again  he  finds  Dal- 
veen, who  had  come  to  offer  his  repentance, 
and  claim  the  heroine's  hand.  She  re- 
fuses ;  some  attempt  at  violence  follows  on 
the  part  of  Lord  Dalveen,  and  he  escapes 
from  her  defenders  with  difficulty. 

Now  change  we  the  scene,  and  find  Paul 
in  the  service  of  Russia,  rear-admiral  of  the 
fleet  destined  to  aid  Suwarrow  in  the  taking 
of  Ockazow.  His  division  of  the  fleet  cap- 
tures several  of  the  enemy's  ships  ;  and  by 
his  suggestions  and  activity,  he  materially 
assists  in  storming  the  town.  In  Ockazow, 
the  Vizier  himself  commands.  He  is  taken, 
and  proves  to  be  Dalveen  again.  The  com- 
mander-in-chief,  Prince  Nassau,  is  jealous 
of  Paul,  and  takes  no  notice  of  him  in  his 
despatches,  which  he  forwards  to  the  Em- 
press by  Paul.  To  him  also  Suwarrow  en- 
trusts his  despatches,  but  he  does  Paul  full 
justice.  The  Empress  receives  him  witli 
distinction,  and  confers  on  him  the  order 
of  St.  Anne,  and  the  rank  of  full  admiral ; 
but  the  jealousies  of  the  Scotch  officers  in 
her  service,  three  hundred  of  whom  tender 
their  resignation,  induce  her  to  recommend 
him  to  go  to  France,  with  an  assurance  of 
the  punctual  remittance  of  his  pay. 

He  lands  at  Havre,  in  the  heat  of  the 
revolution ;  and,  being  recognized  by  a 
mob  of  raving  women,  he  is,  on  the  spot, 
named  •  Deputy  for  Havre.  In  Paris,  he 
several  times  narrowly  escapes  amid  the 
clash  of  parties.  Here,  once  more,  he 
meets  with  Lord  Dalveen,  himself  a  de- 
puty, and  here  ends  Dalveen's  career — 
stabbed  by  the  dagger  of  a  girl  in  a  fit  of 
jealous  revenge.  And  here  also,  at  last, 
disgusted  by  scenes  of  turbulence  and  blood- 
shed ;  driven  from  his  native  and  his  adopt- 
ed country;  envied  by  competitors,  and 
deserted  by  employers ;  treated  by  some  as 


88 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[JAN. 


a  pirate,  nnd  by  others  as  an  intruder,  the 
ill-fated  Paul  dies  apparently  of  disappoint- 
ment and  a  broken  heart— a  pitiable  victim 
to  aspiring  views  and  ill-regulated  passions, 
He  is  found  dead  by  his  faithful  attendant, 
without  any  marks  of  violence. 

Tales  by  the  O'Hara  Family:  Second 
Series;  3  vols.  Svo.,  1826. — This  second 
series  consists  of  two  tales — the  "  Now- 
lans,"  and  "  Peter  of  the  Castle;"  of  which 
the  first,  the  best  of  the  tales,  occupies  two 
volumes,  and  the  second  the  remaining 
volume.  Neither  of  these  tales  are  re- 
markable for  being  skilfully  constructed. 
The  writer  scarcely  sees  through  his  own 
complications,  and  certainly  does  not  dis- 
entangle them  well.  In  the  "  Nowlans" 
there  are  details  and  conversations  which 
are  superfluous,  because  they  do  not  help 
on  the  story;  and  injurious,  because  they 
waste  and  weaken  the  interest ;  and  any 
thing  of  this  kind  is  a  blot  in  a  good  tale. 
The  reader  will  see,  at  a  glance,  the  writer 
is  a  very  able  person  ;  and  who  will  care 
for  the  critics  ?  We  ourselves  have  read 
willingly,  and  unrepulsed  ;  and  thousands 
will  do  the  same. 

Barnes,  one  of  the  O'Hara  family,  tra- 
velling to  the  South,  takes  shelter  from  a 
storm  in  a  small  farm-house,  where  he  finds 
a  family  consisting  of  the  master,  his  wife, 
and  two  very  pretty,  well-behaved  girls. 
The  cares  of  the  women  are  absorbed  by 
attendance  on  a  sick  person,  confined  to 
his  bed  ;  but  he-finds  a  hospitable  reception, 
and  continues  with  them  some  days.  This 
sick  person  proves  to  be  a  son  of  the  old 
people,  lately  returned  after  an  absence  of 
seven  years,  commenced  under  singular 
circumstances.  The  subject  of  the  tale  is 
this  young  man's  story,  involving  that  of 
Peggy  the  eldest  daughter.  These  are  the 
"  Nowlans."  John  had  been  destined  from 
a  boy  for  a  Catholic  priest ;  but  going  at 
fourteen,  to  live  with  an  uncle,  a  man  of 
coarse  and  ruinous  habits,  his  Latin  gets 
neglected,  and  his  early  integrity  a  little 
corrupted.  In  his  uncle's  house  is  a  very 
beautiful  girl — wild  and  wilful ;  from  whose 
seductions,  and  her  mother's  designs,  John, 
as  he  grows  up,  escapes  by  miracle.  By- 
and-bye  the  uncle  squanders  his  property, 
and  John  returns  to  his  home ;  resumes 
his  studies,  and  proceeds  to  ordination — 
not  final  ordination,  but  what  is  called  tak- 
ing the  vows  -of  celibacy. 

About  this  time,  while  he  is  yet  with  his 
friends,  he  rescues  a  Mr.  Long,  a  gentle- 
man of  the  neighbourhood,  accompanied  by 
his  nephew  and  niece,  from  imminent  peril. 
The  rescued  party  repose  at  the  house  of 
the  Nowlans  —there  is  some  remote  rela- 
tionship between  them,  but  difference  of 
station  and  manners  has  kept  them,  though 
living  very  near,  apart.  The  young  people 
are  very  much  struck  with  each  other. 
Letty,  the  niece,  is  delighted  with  Peggy's 
simplicity  and  propriety,  and  Peggy  charm- 


ed with  Miss  Letty's  elegance  nnd  affability. 
The  nephew,  Frank,  plays  the  agreeable  to 
Peggy,  and  proposes  to  John  a  fishing  ex- 
cursion ;  and  John,  who  knows  little  of 
other  manners  than  those  of  his  own  fa- 
mily fire-side,  is  struck  not  only  by  Letty's 
beauty,  but  by  an  ease  and  grace  and  intel- 
ligence, which  to  him  are  altogether  new. 
The  result  of  this  acquaintance  is  a  visit  to 
the  Hall.  Letty  takes  John  under  her 
wing,  and  initiates  him  in  music  and  poetry. 
To  such  matters  he  is  quite  a  stranger ;  his 
studies  .have  been  among  Greek  and  Latin, 
and  theology ;  but  he  has  a  soul  under  the 
ribs  of  death,  which  the  Promethean  fire  of 
the  lady  quickly  kindles  into  life.  At  the 
end  of  a  month  Peggy  returns ;  but  John 
remains.  The  young  lady  wishes  to  learn 
Latin,  and  John  undertakes  to  teach.  They 
are  now  constantly  together.  John  is  a 
handsome  looking  fellow,  a  little  awkward 
or  so,  full  of  feeling,  with  a  touch  of  the 
romantic  about  him  ;  and  the  rustj  with  so 
delicate  a  file,  is  of  course  soon  worn  away. 
His  fascinations  are  not  without  their  ef- 
fect. She  also  is  beautiful,  graceful,  and 
withal — irresistible ;  and  John  is  over  head 
and  ears  in  love  long  before  he  knows  any 
thing  of  his  danger.  At  last,  at  their  studies, 
all  at  once  he  discovers  his  hand  locked  in 
her's,  and  catches  his  own  sigh  responding 
to  her's.  Alarmed,  he  starts  from  his  seat ; 
he  institutes  a  severe  self-scrutiny;  he  re- 
collects his  solemn  engagements,  and  re- 
solves to  fly.  To  resolve  is  one  thing,  to 
accomplish  another.  In  the  meanwhile  lie 
encounters  Maggy,  the  girl  with  whom  at 
his  uncle's  he  had  so  nearly  been  entangled. 
She  has  been  seduced  by  Frank;  she  is 
now  jealous  of  Frank's  attentions  to  Peggy, 
and  in  revenge  warns  John  to  look  after  his 
sister.  Forthwith  he  taxes  Frank  with  insi- 
sidious  designs;  Frank  assures  him  of  his  ho- 
nourable intentions,  and  in  return  rallies  him 
on  the  progress  he  is  making  in  Letty's  aflfoc- 
tions.  The  truth  flashes  upon  his  heart 
with  fuller  conviction  ;  he  is  violating  his 
vows,  and  must  fly  from  the  presence  of  the 
too  lovely  one.  He  does  fly;  but  too 
soon,  trusting  to  his  own  strength,  he  meets 
her  again.  That  meeting  only  produces  an 
explosion  of  feeling,  and  an  avowal  of  mu- 
tual fondness.  They  part  again,  and  meet 
again— worse  and  worse.  The  struggle  is 
tremendous ;  but  John  wrestles  bravely, 
and  finally  resolves  upon  travelling  into 
Spain.  He  arranges  with  his  clerical  supe- 
rior. Strong  and  fixed  in  his  final  resolu- 
tion, he  now  communicates  his  purpose  to 
Letty,  and  proposes  a  last  interview  on  his 
way  to  Dublin,  to  bid  her  farewell.  They 
meet,  and  retire  for  a  few  moments  to  a 
green  and  sweet  retreat ;  but  soon,  alas  ! 
from  that  green  and  sweet  retreat  is  seen 
the  wretched  John  rushing  forth  in  a  state 
of  desperation,  distraction  —  a  maniac. 
Temptation  had  been  too  mighty.  The 
vious  Maggy,  too,  had  been  upon  the  watch ; 
she  encounters  John,  and  tells  him  Frank 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


\ 


91 


had  actually  Reduced  his  sinter,  mid  that  he 
and  Peggy  were,  at  that  very  moment,  at 
no  great  distance.  He  springs  forward  to 
the  place  ;  he  meets  a  friar  of  his  acquain- 
tance, hurries  him  along  with  him ;  sees 
his  sister  in  entreaties  at  the  feet  of  Frank, 
mistakes  the  object  of  those  entreaties, 
presents  a  pistol  at  Frank's  head,  and  on 
the  spot,  and  in  spite  of  all  remonstrance  on 
the  part  of  priest,  sister,  and  Frank,  he 
forces  the  priest  to  marry  them.  Then 
flying  hack  to  the  place  where  he  had  left 
the  unhappy  Letty,  he  finds  her  in  a  sense- 
less state ;  he  catches  her  in  his  arms,  puts 
her  into  the  carriage,  which  was  waiting  to 
take  him  on  his  distant  journey,  and  whirls 
away  to  Dublin.  At  Dublin,  in  despera- 
tion, and  in  defiance  of  all  his  vows,  he  pro- 
cures a  Protestant  clergyman,  and  marries 
the  poor  Letty  without  delay.  Soon,  soon 
are  they  brought  to  woeful  reflection.  The 
little  money  they  have  quickly  vanishes. 
Letty's  letters  to  her  uncle  are  unanswered. 
John  goes  a  teaching  ;  she  does  the  same. 
Presently,  suspicions  fall  upon  them  :  he  is 
recognized  by  some  one  ;  and  pupils  fall  off 
one  by  one-  No  friend  in  the  world;  debts 
accumulating  ;  the  miserable  girl  near  con- 
finement. The  last  pupil  fails  them— and 
houseless,  pennyless,  almost  clothesless, 
they  quit  Dublin  ;  and  no  more  is  heard  ef 
them — till  a  few  weeks  after,  she  is  delivered 
of  an  infant,  under  a  shed,  by  the  road-side, 
amidst  cold  and  rain,  and  misery,  not  to  be 
described,  and  dies  ;  and  of  him  is  nothing 
known  for  seven  long  years.  The  whole 
of  this  harrowing  tale  is  worked  up  to  tor- 
ture ;  it  is  the  experimentum  crucis  of  the 
author's  powers. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  scoundrel  Frank 
exults  in  his  good  fortune.  He  has  long 
been  plotting  against  Peggy,  and  now  avails 
himself  of  this  forced  marriage,  which  the 
laws  of  the  country  enable  him  to  set  at 
nought,  and  only  begs  it  may  be  kept  from 
his  uncle.  The  character  of  this  fellow  is 
now  displayed  at  large  :  he  is  a  thorough- 
paced villain.  At  Oxford  he  had  been 
leagued  with  a  set  of  gambling  connections, 
and  by  degrees  got  involved  deep,  deep,  be- 
yond all  redemption.  His  uncle's  property 
he  knows  is  to  be  divided  between  himself 
and  sister.  This  division  will  not  serve  his 
purpose.  The  sister  must  be  gotten  rid 
of.  With  this  view,  he  gladly  seconds  any 
thing  that  is  likely  to  alienate  her  from  her 
uncle's  affections.  Her  flight  with  John 
was  beyond  his  hopes  ;  and  he  takes  espe- 
cial care  to  intercept  her  letters.  His  diffi- 
culties, however,  come  too  quick  upon 
him.  In  his  extremity,  with  some  of  his 
desperate  companions  he  robs  the  mail. 
He  abandons  Peggy.  She  discloses  her 
case  to  the  uncle ;  and,  before  he  is  able  to 
take  any  steps  to  force  his  nephew  to  do 
her  justice,  the  robbery,  in  spite  of  all 
Frank's  cautions,  is  traced  up  to  him.  He 
is  every  way  baffled,  exposed,  ruined.  A 
few  months,  and  the  uncle  receives  a  letter 

M.M.  AV«:  S.'rics—  VOL.  1 1.  No.  13. 


from  him,  written  under  the  k 
he  was  about  to  suffer  a  sh\ 
and  would  be  heard  of  no  mort 
are  made,  and  he  is  believed  t( 
executed  for  forgery.  This,  howe^ 
not  to  be  true ;  and  in  three  or 
after  he  returns,  a  soldier,  to  Dubf 
quickly,  with  some  of  his  worthies 
panions,  lays  a  plan  for  robbing  and 
dering  his  uncle.  One  of  them  impeac\ 
and  the  result  is,  Frank,  in  the  presence, 
his  uncle,  stabs  himself.  In  the  same  reg\ 
ment  also  is  discovered  poor  John.  He  iV 
instrumental  in  the  detection  of  Frank's 
villaines.  He  returns  to  his  family ;  and, 
at  the  time  of  Barnes's  visit  to  the  father's, 
he  is  confined  to  his  bed  by  a  fever.  Peggy 
is  soon  after  married  to  an  old  admirer; 
Mr.  Long  provides  hansomely  for  her;  John, 
is  restored  to  the  bosom  of  the  church,  and 
resumes  his  clerical  profession-  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  confusion  in  the  denouement  of 
the  story ;  but  the  detail  of  the  flight  and 
fate  of  John  and  Letty  would  redeem  scores 
of  dreaming  and  perplexing  pages. — For 
any  account  of  "  Peter  of  the  Castle-,"  we 
have  no  room.  The  story,  though  of  in- 
ferior interest,  is  better  told ;  that  is,  it  is 
better  bound  together — still  defective  in 
compactness, 

Time's  Telescope  for  1827.— Should  any 
of  our  readers  be  quite  unacquainted  with 
this  publication,  let  them  read  the  title- 
page.  '*  A  complete  Guide  to  the  Alma- 
nack ;  containing  an  explanation  of  Saints' 
days  and  Holidays;  with  Illustrations  of 
British  History  and  Antiquities,  notices  of 
Obsolete  Rites  and  Customs,  sketches  of 
comparative  Chronology,  and  cotemporary 
Biography.  Astronomical  Occurrences  in 
every  Month  ;  comprising  Remarks  on  the 
Phenomena  of  the  Celestial  Bodies :  and 
the  Naturalist's  Diary  ;  explaining  the  va- 
rious appearances  in  the  Animal  and  Vege- 
table Kingdoms,  and  including  a  View  of 
Scotian  Botany." 

This  is  the  fourteenth  impression — a 
feet,  which  is  itself  a  sufficient  proof  of  some 
degree  of  merit.  From  first  to  last  too,  it 
has  been,  we  believe,  favourably  received, 
and  certainly  abundantly  extolled ;  for  the' 
editor  is  enabled  to  reprint  no  less  than 
thirteen  pages,  in  very  small  type,  of  eulo- 
gies, collected  from  newspapers  and  reviews, 
from  1814  to  1820;  and  1827  will  no  doubt 
add  more  of  these  laurels  to  tjie  wreath — 
it  seems  to  deserve  it  too,  as  well  as  any 
of  its  precursors. 

A  miscellany  of  this  kind,  with  ordinary 
care,  must  always  contain  something  worth 
looking  at.  It  falls  chiefly  into  the  hands 
of  young  people;  and  innumerable  little 
matters  of  curiosity,  or  even  of  real  utility, 
are  thus  presented  to  them,  which  other- 
wise would  scarcely  ever  be  heard  of,  and 
which,  but  upon  some  particular  impulse, 
are  seldom  inquired  about.  It  is  not  a 
thing  which  has  any  real  claim  to  literary 


Monthly  lii'vit'w  of  Literature, 


[JAN. 


jn,  notwithstanding  certain  verses, 

ts  known  no\v-a-days  not  by   tljeir 

j  at  full  length,  or  in  the  vernacular 

acter,  but  by  initials,  English  or  Greek  : 

*  notwithstanding  the  editor  talks  very 

,    /mplacently  of  the  "  intellectual  feast"  he 

Annually  prepares,  and  from  the  task  of  still 

annually  purveying  which  feast,  he  gallantly 

professes  himself  resolved  not  to   shrink, 

"  while  life  and  health  permit." 

The  present  volume,  adds  the  editor  (al- 
most entirely  a  new  work),  will  be  found 
to  exhibit  much  novelty,  as  well  as  variety, 
in  the  selection  of  the  materials  :  a  very  in- 
ter ,:sting  series  of  papers  on  Scotian  Botany 
(does  this  mean  the  botany  of  Scotland  ?), 
by  Mr.  Young,  of  Paisley ;  a  description  of 
the  most  rare  and  remarkable  British  In- 
sects, by  Mr.  Curtis,  author  of  the  "  British 
Ornithology ;"  Ornithological  Notices,  by 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Jenyns,  of  Bottisden-Hall ; 
and  Sketches  of  the  various  appearances  of 
Nature,  by  W.  Howett ;  &c.  &c. 

AUa  Giiirnata,  or  To  the  Day,-  1826.— 
Ildegarda,  daughter  of  the  Marchese  Ghe- 
rarrlesca,  became  heiress  to  his  large 
property  in  consequence  of  the  death  of 
her  only  brother — this  brother  having  been 
poisoned,  as  was  suspected,  by  one  Mon-- 
tescttjado,  who  sought  Ildegarda's  hand. 

The  young  lady's  father  was  unhappily 
tinged  with  several  anti-catholic  notions, 
which  he  had  gathered  from  Germany,  and" 
brought,  to  settle  with  him,  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood  of  Pisa.  He  was  not  content 
with  the  imputation  and  reality  of  being 
a  heretic  himself,  but  imbues  his  daughter's 
mind  with  the  same  obnoxious  opinions — 
for  the  obvious  purpose  of  producing  a 
sufficient  train  of  disastrous  consequences 
upon  her  innocent  head  to  swell  out  three 
volumes. 

Duly  then,  upon  her  parent's  demise, 
and  her  own  installation  into  his  posses- 
sions, she  not  only  takes  no  pains  to  con- 
ceal her  inheritance  of  his  Protestant  in- 
clinations also,  but  forces  her  crude  notions 
upon  public  and  private  animadversion, 
with  the  pertinacious  assiduity  of  a  clai- 
mant for  martyrdom. 

With  all  the  circumstance  of  established 
wealth  and  power, — with  a  fool,  a  dwarf,  a 
poet,  and  a  painter,  in  her  train,  and  other 
attendance  proportioned  to  such  appen- 
dages, she  held  up  her  chin  above  public 
opinion,  and  would  not  keep  within  her 
own  bosom  the  contempt  she  entertained 
for  the  popish  religion  as  received  by  her 
compatriots ;  but  amused  herself  with 
making  the  existing  superstitions  constant 
themes  of  obloquy.  In  vain  her  friends, 
a  priest  among  the  number,  urged  caution 
and  moderation ;  she  replied  to  them, 
either  with  the  insolent  sarcasm  of  power, 
or  the  no  less  insolent  silence  of  greatness, 
that  fancied  itself  beyond  reach.  She  was 
a  genius,  too,  devoted  to  the  arts— a  blue- 
stocking, long  ere  that  character  was  for- 


tified by  its  multitudes  against  the  envy 
and  derision  which  first  innovators  must 
ever  encounter. 

The  lady  gave  a  splendid  fete ;  whoever 
had  the  least  claim  to  rank  or  distinction 
for  many  miles  around  were  invited  to  it. 
At  prodigious  cost,  she  had  collected  all 
the  adornments  of  luxury  which  the  arts 
and  her  own  cultivated  taste  could  supply 
to  delight  and  astonish.  Towards  the  con- 
clusion of  the  day  a  sort  of  masque, 
founded  on  a  legend  of  the  church,  was 
about  to  be  performed  by  hired  exhibitors. 
At  this  critical  moment,  a  procession  of 
priests,  from  the  near  convent,  entered  on  the 
stage,  anathematizing  the  whole  procedure, 
preremptorily  prohibiting  its  continuance  ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  admonishing  the  large, 
brilliant  and  illustrious  audience,  that  their 
own  disapproval  of  such  a  spectacle,  and  con- 
sequently their  own  safety,  could  only  be 
proved  by  a  speedy  removal  of  themselves 
home.  The  church  was  irresistible  :  the 
crowd  having  tasted  her  hospitality,  one 
and  all  departed,  glad  of  such  authority, 
in  support  of  their  own  dislike,  for  exer- 
cising their  contempt  upon  her.  No  sooner 
were  the  guests  departed  than  her  castle 
was  shaken  to  its  centre.  Thunder  and 
lightning  commenced  —  the  building  be- 
gan to  totter, — with  difficulty  are  she  and 
her  immediate  attendants  rescued  from 
quick  destruction;  but  nothing  could  rescue 
her  from  the  damnatory  conclusions  sug- 
gested by  so  plain  an  interposition.  Al- 
ways feared,  slighted,  hated,  whispering 
enemies  now  shook  off  their  restraints  ;  and 
her  ancient  lover,  the  imagined  mur- 
derer of  her  brother,  and  for  that  cause 
rejected, — foaming  for  revenge,  conspired 
with  the  ruling  powers  of  Pisa  for  strip- 
ping Ildegarda  of  her  estates,  and  pro- 
curing the  imprisonment  of  her  person,  on 
the  ground  of  her  contempt  for  religion  (for 
which  there  was  certainly  some  plea) ;  arid 
also,  on  that  of  her  connivance  in  a  late 
projected  resistance  of  Volterra  and  its 
territory  to  the  Pisan  dominion. 

Now  Ildegarda  was  not  without  a  fa- 
voured lover  :  the  son  of  a  prouder  house 
than  her  own,  and  of  a  mother,  whose 
Spartan  prayer  had  rather  been  to  sec  him 
on  his  bier  than  Ildegarda's  husband.  His 
mother's  steady  and  contemptuous  avoid- 
ance of  an  introduction  to  Ildegarda, 
notwithstanding  her  unwearied  efforts  to 
attain  that  lady's  regard  and  acquaintance, 
her  public  scorn  of  Ildegarda's  character 
and  sentiments,  her  prohibition  of  her  son's 
connexions,  were  the  bitterest  draughts 
of  humiliation  our  heroine  had  to  gulp. 
Upright,  however,  and  generous,  and  dis- 
daining to  employ  the  power  she  really 
possessed  against  an  anxious  parent's  will, 
she  gradually  rendered  that  will  less  vio- 
lent in  its  manifestations,  and  the  impli- 
cation finally  of  the  proud  mother  and  the 
beloved  son  in  the  Volterra-tumnlt,  by 
rendering  the  two  families  fellow  gufferers 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


91 


in  the  same  cause,  afforded  an  additional 
bond  of  conciliation  to  many  other  healing 
circumstances,  which  had  slowly  prepared 
the  way  for  friendship. 

Her  beloved  Kanieri  would  have  found 
some  difficulty  in  clearing  himself  with  his 
Pisan  rulers  but  for  the  fortunate  event  of 
tl)L»  Florentines  taking  unjust  possession  of 
the  territory  in  question,  which  afforded 
him  (the  youth  having  been  reduced  to 
hide  and  seek  for  some  time  past)  a  glo- 
rious opportunity  of  winning  the  city  back 
for  Pisa.  Since  it  must  have  a  master, 
his  conscience  determined  that  he  might 
as  well  suit  his  own  convenience  as  to  who 
should  bear  the  sway ;  and  by  this  timely 
exercise  of  patriotism,  he  rescues  his  cha- 
racter from  every  shadow  of  distrust,  and 
his  person  from  apprehended  durance, 
while  his  mother  ana  Ildegarda,  his  pre- 
sumed advisers,  are  purified  in  him. 

The  characters  are  -extravagantly  drawn 
— the  public  events  operating  clumsily  upon 
individuals ;  and  a  monstrous  underplot, 
which  entangles  itself  with  the  history  of 
Montesctijado,  the  murderer  of  Ildegarda' s 
brother,  is  too  troublesome  to  be  under- 
stood ;  while  from  the  perpetual  interfe- 
rence of  this  man  with  the  main  story,  and 
of  two  queer  beings,  whose  rights  of  pro- 
perty and  rank  he  usurps,  and  who  are 
finally  to  be  righted  by  a  tedious  denoue- 
ment of  fresh  and  unguessed  circum- 
stances, (would  they  were  all  in  the  Red 
Sea!)  render  the  whole  novel  heavy — im- 
probable— inflated — complicated. 

Shrewd  remarks  are,  however,  scattered 
about,  and  a  simpler  frame- work  would 
have  left  the  natural  powers  of  the  autho- 
ress— no  common  ones — a  much  more  ad- 
vantageous action. 

Two  Charges  delivered  to  the  Clergy  of  the 
Archdeaconry  of  Derby,  1825  and  1826,  Inj 
the  Rev.  S.  Sutler,  Archdeacon  of  Derby, 
and  Hend  Master  of  Shrewsbury  School ; 
182G. — Charges  delivered  by  archdeacons 
and  bishops  are  seldom  remarkable  for  any 
thing  that  can  concern  the  general  reader : 
but  one  of  these  before  us  contains  some 
statistical  information,  certainly  of  some 
value,  as  exhibiting  the  state  of  the  church 
with  respect  to  its  property ;  and  of  some 
value  also  to  those,  who,  while  they  respect 
the  church,  are  too  often  left  unfurnished 
with  materials  for  a  valid  defence  of  defects 
charged  upon  the  clergy,  which  really  ori- 
ginate not  with  the  clergy,  but  in  corrup- 
tions, with  which  they  have  nothing  to  do. 
These  charges  too  are  the  production  of  a 
very  able,  and  a  very  learned  individual- 
learned  not  merely  in  the  knowledge  of 
Greek  and  Latin,  but  of  the  state  and  spirit 
of  his  own  times  ; — to  whom  his  avocations, 
as  a  highly  and  deservedly  popular  school- 
master, must  have  rendered  the  undertake:;; 
peculiarly  onerous. 

On  entering  upon  the  office,  he  conceiv- 
ed it  to  be  his  duty,  as  it  undoubtedly  was, 
to  visit  his  archdeaconry  thoroughly,  and 


lie  has  accordingly  visited  it  thoroughly. 
He  has  not  only  collected  valuable  informa- 
tion, but  he  has  taken  active  measures  for 
reforming  abuses,  and  repairing  dilapida- 
tions, to  the  full  extent  of  his  limited 
power. 

The  archdeaconry  of  Derby  is,  as  you  know  (says 
the  archdeacon,  addressing  his  clergy),  commensu- 
rate with  the  county,  and  divided  into  three  deaneries 
— Derby,  Ashbourne,  and  Chesterfield  There  are, 
however,  about  thirty  churches,  which,  being  either 
peculiar  or  donative,  are  not  under  archideacon;  1 
jurisdiction.  The  greatest  part  of  these  lie  in  the 
north-western  side  of  the  county,  from  about  Bake- 
well  towards  Buxton  and  Ashbourne. 

Of  those  which  come  under  the  archdeacon's  juris- 
diction, being  163  parishes,  there  are  52  rectories,  52 
vicarages,  and  59  curacies  or  chapels.  There  are 
also  three  or  four  small  chapels  in  some  parochial 
townships  within  the  archdeaconry,  which,  being 
served  only  once  a  fortnight,  or  even  less  frequently, 
by  the  incumbent,  or  curate  of  the  mother-church, 
and  not  being  entered  in  the  process  paper,  I  have 
not  taken  into  the  present  account. 

The  whole  income  of  these  103  churches,  accord- 
ing to  the  returns  I  have  received,  and  which  I  be- 
lieve are  tolerably  correct,  being  divided  by  the 
whole  number  of  churches,  gives  an  income  of  £239 
for  each,  omitting  fractions  of  pence  and  shillings ; — 
but  as  four  of  the  churches  are  consolidated,  their 
number  is  reduced  in  fact  to  159,  instead  of  163, 
and  thus  the  average  income  of  each  church  is  raised 
to  near  £245 ;  a  sum  which  may  be  considered  as 
not  much  differing  from  the  average  value  of  churches 
throughout  the  kingdom. 

Of  these  159  livings,  53  are  above  the  average  of 
£245,  and  101  below  it.  The  tithes  of  90  churches, 
being  considerably  more  than  one-half  the  number 
in  the  archdeaconry,  are  in  the  hands  of  lay-impro- 
priators ;  and  those  of  ]  8  more,  though  in  ecclesias- 
tical hands,  are  not  in  those  of  the  incumbent  of  the 
church  to  which  they  belong. 

These  159  livings,  comprising  1G3  churches,  are 
served  by  135  clergymen,  either  as  incumbents  or  cu- 
rates: for  28  churches,  being  for  the  most  part- 
chapels  of  ease,  are  served  by  the  incumbent  or  cu- 
rate of  the  mother-church,  or  by  the  minister  of  a 
neighbouring  parish. 

Of  the  above  163  churches,  91  have  houses  fit  for 
the  residence  of  a  clergyman  ;  20  have  houses,  but 
unfit  for  the  residence  of  a  clergyman ;  and,  indeed, 
nearly  all  these  last-mentioned  are  mere  cottages, 
just  capable  of  accommodating  a  labourer  and  his 
family;  and  52  have  no  heiise.  So  that,  in  fact, 
there  are  72  churches,  which  virtually  have  no  place 
of  residence  for  their  minister. 

Of  the  91  livings  which  have  houses,  there  are  re. 
sident  60  incumbents,  and  21  curates.  In  the  re- 
maining ten  cases,  in  which  neither  incumbent  nor 
curate  appear  resident,  the  incumbent,  generally,  is 
so  virtually  ;  either  living  in  his  own  house  in  the 
parish,  instead  of  the  parsonage,  and  doing  himself 
the  duty,  or  residing  on  an  adjoining  living,  and 
doing  also  the  duty  of  that  on  which  he  does  not 
reside. 

Of  the  20  livings  which  have  no  fit  houses,  and  the 
12  which  have  no  house  at  all,  many  are  of  small 
value ;  and  being  themselves  insufficient  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  clergyman,  and  of  small  population,  re- 
quiring only  single  duty,  are  served  by  the  curate, 
or  incumbent  of  a  neighbouring  parish.  There  are, 
however,  5  which  have  their  incumbent,  and  .5 
which  have  their  curate  resident  in  the  parish ;  and 
of  the  remaining  62,  the  duty,  in  3D  cases,  is  per- 
formed  by  the  incumbent  himself. 
N  2 


03  Monthly 

The  average  value  of  these  159  livings 
tlien,  proves  to  be  .£245;  101  are  below 
that  average,  80  are  below  £150,  49  below 
jfelOO,  and  19  not  exceeding  .£50,  which 
means  very  considerably  below  that  paltry 
$um.  Nearly  two-thirds  of  the  tithes  are 
in  lay  hands ;  and  very  nearly  one-half  of 
the  parishes  are  without  parsonage-houses. 
Under  these  circumstances,  can  more,  in 
the  way  of  residence  and  attendance,  be  ra- 
tionally expected  from  the  clergy  ?  Let  the 
Saddle  be  placed  on  the  right  horse.  The 
existing  clergy,  at  least,  are  not  to  blame. 
Some  measures  are  loudly  demanded  for 
equalizing  church  property. 


<>f  Literature. 


[JAN. 


The  object  of  the  second  charge  is  to  en- 
force education,  by  calling  upon  the  clergy 
to  promote  the  extension  of  national  schools, 
and  themselves  to  superintend  them :  not  so 
much  for  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  of 
which  he  justly  speaks  contemptuously,  for 
the  mass  of  the  people,  as  of  religious  edu- 
cation ;  and  he  replies  to  those  who  so  re- 
peatedly allege  the  Scotch  as  proofs  of  the 
advantages  of  the  "  diffusion  of  knowledge," 
by  affirming/that  the  cause  of  the  sober  and 
industrious  habits  of  that  people  is  to  be 
looked  for  rather  in  the  attention  paid  by 
the  clergy  to  their  religious  education,  than 
to  that  vaunted  "diffusion  of  knowledge." 


MONTHLY  THEATRICAL  REVIEW. 


THIS  is  proverbially  a  month  of  theatrical 
nonentity.  No  author  would  produce  a 
piece  on  the  boards  in  December  on  pain  of 
death,  and  that  which  follows  ;  no  actress 
•would  study  a  new  part ;  no  manager  would 
frame  a  bill,  containing  any  thing  better 
than  the  obsolete  fare  which  has  run 
through  the  season.  The  very  tailors 
would  be  surprised  by  an  order  for  a  new 
pair  of  pantaloons,  even  for  Jones,  who 
delights  in  "  that  sort  of  thing,"  and  who 
has  notoriously  the  best  legs  and  the  best 
taste  in  exhibiting  them  of  any  man  alive. 
In  short,  all  before  the  curtain  is  much  of 
the  same  fashion  with  all  in  the  street : 
dulness,  frigidity,  and  fog.  Even  the  Ameri- 
can manager,  who  passes  over  oceans  with 
the  agility  of  the  time  when  witchery  and 
broomsticks  were  the  instruments  of  navi- 
gation, has  found  it  difficult  to  get  over  this 
month — gives  us  in  his  despair  two  farces 
and  a  Dutch  dance  for  a  night's  subsis- 
tence, and  bids  us  live  on  the  promise  of 
"  II  Turco  in  Italia  "  metamorphosed  into 
an  English  opera. 

Covent- Garden  is  In  exactly  the  same 
condition.  It  has  indulged  itself  during 
the  month  with  a  remarkably  dry  succession 
of  performances,  and  disdaining  to  take  an 
unfair  advantage  of  its  gilt  and  burnished 
rival,  has  seemed  to  enter  into  a  compact, 
as  vigorous  against  novelty  of  performance 
as  against  novelty  of  actors.  For  all  this, 
however,  we  are  to  be  consoled  by  the 
glories  of  pantomime.  If  heroes  and  heroines 
are  asleep  before  the  curtain,  all  is  life 
behind.  Every  chisel  and  brush,  every 
artificer  in  drapery  and  automatons,  every 
manager  of  screws  and  wires,  and  every 
genius  of  tumbling  and  grimace,  is  in  daily 
and  nightly  activity  in.every  lamp-lit  cavern, 
in  every  square  foot  of  the  theatre  and  its 
appurtenances.  Harlequin  is  rotatory, 
from  dusky  morn  to  foggy  eve  ;  clowns 
pursue  him  with  never-ceasing  awkward- 
ness, and  gibes  uncheered  by  a  smile 
through  walls  of  canvas  and  ships  of  paper  ; 
Pantaloons  neither  "  lean  nor  slippered," 
but  fugatory  and  ferocious  beyond  the  lot  of 
man,  are  in  perpetual  spring,  and  Colum- 


bines all  unkerchiefed,  and  as  unfitted  for 
the  eye  as  a  Frenchwoman  at  her  breakfast, 
learn  new  tricks  of  toilsome  captivation, 
and,  like  the  ladies  at  Almack's,  dance 
with  a  desperate  and  indefatigable  toe,  till 
they  tire  down  their  partner  into  matri- 
mony. Of  the  result  we  must  live  in 
hope.  In  the  mean  time  we  must  live  how 
we  can,  for  managers  have  shut  up  their 
granaries ;  and,  unless  we  chuse  to  be 
bored  by  eternal  repetition— a  thing  which 
ought  to  be  taken  into  consideration  in 
coroners'  inquests  as  a  handsome  plea  for 
departing  this  life  summarily — there  is  no 
reason  why  a  man,  in  possession  of  seven 
shillings  and  his  senses,  should  employ 
either  in  theatres  during  this  present  month 
of  December.  We  could  pledge  ourselves 
that  all  this  management  is  the  twin  brother 
to  bad  policy,  and  begotten  of  a  mistake, 
in  its  turn  begotten  of  the  dead  and  gone 
habits  of  London. 

Fifty  years  ago,  and  in  every  fifty  years 
preceding,  it  is  true,  that  the  month  before 
Christmas  was  busied  in  other  things  than 
looking  at  the  best  of  all  possible  plays. 
The  men  were  all  plunged  ears  deep  in 
ledgers  and  will-making.  London  was  a 
general  scene  of  retribution,  winding  up  ac- 
counts, claiming  good  debts,  extracting  bad 
by  those  legal  screws  whose  ailing  absorbs 
so  much  of  the  material  extracted;  or  re- 
ceiving the  little  exiled  branches  of  the  fa- 
mily at  home,  plumed  in  all  the  honours  of 
those  schools  in  which  the  rising  generation 
of  our  forefathers  and  mothers  learned 
cyphering  and  cross-stitch. 

The  ladies  of  London  were  plunged  in 
cares  equally  overwhelming.  Plumb-cake 
and  mince  pies  in  a  proud  profusion  that 
shames  the  narrow  provisionally  of  our  de- 
generate day,  siit  heavy  on  their  souls. 
The  matron's  thoughts  were  up  early  and  to 
bed  late,  in  council  with  her  cook,  a  kind  of 
she-chancellor,  and  not  the  less  fitted  for 
the  office  by  reason  of  her  sex  or  antiquity  ; 
who  kept  her  receipt-book  and  her  con- 
science ;  and  set  herself  against  all  culinary 
innovation  with  the  vigour  of  an  irrefra- 
gable principle.  This  was  the  day  of  the 


1627.] 


Monthly  Theatrical  Report. 


lady's  levee  ;  butchers  in  full  costume  ap- 
proached her  presence,  confectioners  paid 
their  annual  respects,  and  the  dealers  in 
made-wines  were  invited  to  leave  their 
cards.  Beef  in  all  its  forms  was  submitted 
to  the  most  accurate  inspection  ;  sentence 
of  death  was  passed  upon  turkies,  and  ale 
was  put  under  the  most  rigorous  confine- 
ment capable  by  cask  and  bottle,  until  the 
general  jail-delivery  of  all  similar  captives, 
that  was  to  take  place  on  or  before  Twelfth- 
day. 

Was  not  this  enough,  and  more  than 
enough,  to  keep  every  man  and  woman  at 
home  ?  The  householder,  male  and  female, 
who  was  seen  much  even  in  the  streets  was  at 
such  times  suspected  of  being  either  verging 
on  bankruptcy  or  bad  dinners,  and  men  shun- 
ned them  by  a  prophetic  instinct  of  debt  and 
famine.  They  were  abroad,  because  they 
had  nothing  to  do  at  home.  The  con- 
clusion was  natural ;  and  a  man  might  in 
our  gentle  days  run  away  with  his  neigh- 
bour s  wife,  embezzle  the  national  money, 
ruin  some  tons  weight  of  old  maids  and 
country  squires,  by  shareholding  in  a  bubble, 
with  more  popularity,  to  say  nothing  of 
more  character,  than  he  might  then  have 
been  seen  frequenting  houses  of  amusement 
in  the  month  of  December.  As  for  the 
nobility,  they  were  all  keeping  Christmas 
in  grand  style  at  their  palaces  in  the  country. 
In  such  days,  of  course,  the  audience  con- 
sisted chiefly  of  amateurs  behind  the  scenes ; 
or  a  few  gentlemen  of  those  light  and  easy 
habits  to  which  the  play-house,  the  watch- 
house,  and  the  high-way,  were  only  pro- 
fessional varieties  ;  or  a  few  young  Tem- 
plars, of  whom  mankind  in  general  were 
cautious,  by  a  natural  horror  of  their  future 
trade  ;  or  a  few  country  visitors,  who,  after 
having  spent  their  morning  in  Smithficld, 
came  to  doze  out  their  evening  at  some  de- 
cent distance  from  their  own  beeves.  The 
theatres  knew  their  men,  gave  them  en- 
tertainment fitted  for  such  guests,  and  dis- 
tairied  to  supply  with  novelties  an  audience 
to  which  dulness  was  congenial,  or  plunder 
was  the  much  pleasanter  play. 

But  what  an  alteration  has  taken  place 
since  !  Who  now  makes  any  difference 
between  one  month  and  another  ?  What 
man,  above  the  brains  of  a  parish-clerk, 
/  knows  any  thing  about  Christmas  but  its 
fog  ?  What  noble  family  knows  more 
about  it  than  that  it  is  just,  of  all  seasons, 
the  most  inconvenient  to  be  seen  in, 
either  in  country  or  in  town — the  former 
being  a  bore  inexpressible,  and  clogged 
with  feasts  to  the  neighbouring  gentry — 
civilities  to  the  dowdy  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  voters  in  the  past  election — rug- 
cloaks  to  old  women,  and  food  and  firing  to 
the  cottagers,  that  expect  it  as  "due  as  the 
Turk's  tribute."  Town  is  not  less  a  bore — 
for  the  name  of  the  thing.  The  "durance 
vile"  of  that  season  in  which  visiting  is  not 
quite,  etiquette,  and  St.  James's  is  deserted 
for  Windsor.  Yet  in  London  they  are  at 


this  hour;  or  all  arc,  who  cannot  escape 
to  hide  their  heads  at  Brighton  or  Rams- 
gate,  or  some  outlying  comer  of  the  earth, 
where  the  peerage  goes  for  what  the  peerage 
is  worth,  and  a  man  with  a  star  or  a  title  is 
not  sunk  into  the  utter  invisibility  into 
which  noble  persons  of  moderate  faculties 
and  high  pretensions  go  plump  down  in  the 
unceremonious  multitude  of  London.  We 
will  venture  to  lay  our  critical  laurels  that 
nine-tenths  of  the  human  noblesse  of  the 
Grosvenor  and  Portman  Squares  world ;  the 
very  exclusives  of  the  earth — that  superfine 
and  sublime  portion  of  man  and  woman- 
kind which  respire  high  blood,  and  think 
that  every  coach  without  a  coronet  is  to  be 
hired  for  a  shilling;  the'  very  celestials  of 
society ;  and  at  this  hour  closeted  up  in 
their  mansions  in  as  much  dread  of  being 
recognised  in  Town  as  any  insolvent  that 
ever  wore  moustaches  in  Bond-street.  The 
playhouses,  we  will  allow,  can  expect  but 
little  now  from  their  "  supremacies."  But 
from  those,  the  playhouse  generally  gets 
as  little  as  any  other  claimant,  public  or 
private.  But  let  them  recollect  the  mul- 
titude ;  the  abiding  million  of  London 
itself;  the  locomotory  host,  the  rotatory 
tens  of  thousands  that  come  in  daily  from 
the  ends  of  England  and  the  earth,  on  the 
tops  and  bottoms  of  stage  coaches ;  the 
endless  tide  of  idlers  who  will  go  any  where 
for  tolerable  amusement ;  the  new  genera- 
tion of  officiels,  who  after  three  o'clock 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  sleep,  or  hunt  for 
amusement.  The  natural  play-loving  spirit 
of  the  people,  "  Merry  England,"  as  it  was 
of  old,  and  merry  as  it  would  be  anew,  if 
the  masters  of  public  pleasantry  would  take 
the  trouble  to  give  them  something  worth 
their  shillings  and  their  smiles.  We  should 
think  that  of  all  months  in  the  year,  De- 
cember was  the  very  best  for  the  national 
theatres.  But  managers  will  not  take  our 
advice,  and  they  will  therefore  have  the  re- 
ward due  to  those  who  despise  the  Oracle. 
They  will  play  bad  pieces  to  empty  benches, 
and  when  people  ask  why,  they  will 
answer :  "  because  London,  fifty  years  ago, 
had  riot  a  fifth  part  of  the  population  of 
London  now."  So  will  they  speak,  act, 
weep,  and  sigh  over  an  empty  treasury,  and 
die  in  their  sins. 

The  Opera  House  has  made  the  bold 
experiment  of  opening  before  Christmas. 
But  this  our  oracle  would  have  discouraged, 
if  the  manager  had  the  precaution  to  ask 
humbly  what  we  thought  about  the  matter. 
The  Opera  House  is  not  democratic.  The 
haut  ton,  or  by  whatever  silly  name  it  de- 
lights to  be  called,  are  its  food,  its  shew,  its 
subscription,  its  five  senses.  But  in  this 
season  the  people  of  the  "exclusive  world," 
are,  like  the  sparrows,  hid  in  their  own 
nooks,  as  dead  and  buried.  There  is 
neither  song  nor  supper  among  them  till 
spring.  The  casual  call  of  parliament  fop 
a  week  was  not  enough.  The  few  who 
ventured  out  have  slunk  in  again,  and  nv» 


Monthly  Theatrical  Report, 


[JAN. 


congealed  in  furs  and  torpidity  until  the  sun 
and  St.  James's  come  round  again. 

Yet  the  manager  is  as  enterprizing, 
spirited,  and  well-intentioned  entrepreneur 
us  any  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  singers 
and  dancers  on  the  face  of  the  dramatic 
world  ;  and  we  honour  him  for  the  gallantry 
of  the  adventure.  His  company,  with  a  few 
additions,  would  be  fully  adequate  to 'popu- 
larity and  profit.  We  are  convinced  that 
the  true  policy  would  he,  to  make  the  com- 
pany generally  equal.  There  is  no  worse 
policy  than  that  of  indulging  the  caprice 
and  avarice  of  some  exibitious  signer  or 
signora,  by  a  price  which  no  talent  can 
repay,  which  disgusts  the  other  performers, 
at  once  throws  them  down  in  the  public 
scale,  and  ultimately  impoverishes  the 
theatre.  There  are  a  dozen  singers  on  the 
Continent,  at  this  hour,  who  could  execute 
any  thing  that  music  ever  made,  and 
execute  it  most  pleasingly.  But  a  Pasta 
comes,  and  the  whole  corps  are  ab- 
solutely stinted  to  fill  her  salary.  She 
bravuras  for  a  few  months,  and  then 
walks  away  with  a  purse  that  breaks  down 
the  diligence,  calling  us  English  Mtcs  all  the 
way  to  the  Apennines.  With  her  the  sea- 
son is  slain  at  once.  Who  will  go  to  hear 
the  Opera,  when  the  only  singer  heard  of 
during  the  season  is  gone?  None  but  a 
country  gentleman,  overtaken  by  a  tavern- 


dinner.  We  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  ma- 
nager could  persuade  those  noble  persons, 
who,  having  no  occasion  for  advice  in  their 
respective  callings,  honour  him  with  so 
much,  to  let  him  follow  the  dictates  of  his 
common-sense  in  this  case,  he  would  have 
a  more  productive  Opera  than  all  the  Pas- 
tas, present  or  to  some,  would  ever  make 
for  him.  The  actual  difference  between 
singers,  or  dancers  either,  is  not  so  much  as 
that  the  second  class  of  both  might  not  sup- 
ply very  sufficient  theatrical  attraction.  The 
true  secret  would  be  in  having  pretty  operas 
— not  long-winded  bravuras;  and  pretty 
ballets — not  the  solitary  jumps  or  twistings 
cf  an  Albert  or  a  Paul,  at  fifty  pounds  a 
dance.  Let  him  choose  good  composition 
in  both.  There  are,  in  the  repertoirs  of  the 
foreign  theatres,  ten  thousand  operas  and 
ballets  that  have  been  popular  in  their  day 
and  country — but  which  we  have  not  ever 
seen  here.  What  we  have  not  seen  is  to 
us  of  as  much  value  as  if  it  had  come  wet 
from  the  pen  of  Rossini.  Let  him  give  us 
the^c,  and  punish  petulance  of  composers, 
and  bring  down  the  "  stars,"  or  put  an  ex- 
tinguisher on  them. 

The  only  performance  of  the  Opera- 
House  has  been  Spontini's  La  Vf stale — a 
clever  performance,  but  which  destroys  a 
pleasanter  thing,  by  destroying  the  ballet. 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC 

New  Inflammable  Substance. — The  fol- 
lowing singular  fact  is  stated  in  the  Bulletin 
Universel.  At  Doulens,  near  Amiens,  is  a 
large  manufactory  for  spinning  cotton, 
which  is  lighted  by  oil-gas ;  this  gas,  on  its 
return  from  the  cast-iron  cylinder  filled  with 
red  hot  coal,  where  it  is  formed,  traverses 
a  reservoir  of  oil,  in  which  it  deposits  a 
white  liquid  matter,  which  can  be  taken 
away  by  means  of  a  spigot  situated  at  the 
lower  part  of  the  reservoir.  The  workmen 
employed  in  this  duty  having  dropped  some 
of  it  to  the  ground  upon  water,  the  matter 
took  fire  spontaneously,  and,  having  run  to 
a  neighbouring  rivulet,  it  spread  itself  upon 
the  surface  of  the  water,  which  appeared  to 
be  on  fire.  The  proprietor  of  the  factory 
intends  to  send  a  bottle  of  this  singular  sub- 
stance to  M.  Gay  Lussac,  to  have  it  che- 
mically analyzed. 

Improved  Melting  Pots. — The  last  volume 
of  the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Arts 
contains  the  following  direction  for  the 
composition  of  melting-pots,  which  will 
bear  a  higher  degree  of  heat  than  others 
without  softening,  and  will  therefore  de- 
liver the  iron  in  a  more  fluid  state  than  the 
best  Birmingham  pots.  Take  two  parts  of 
fine  ground  raw  Stourbridge  clay,  and  one 
part  of  the  hardest  gas  coke,  previously  pul- 
verized and  sifted  through  a  sieve  of  one- 
eighth  of  an  inch  mesh  ;  if  the  coke  be 
ground  line,  the  pots  are  very  apt  to  crack. 


AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 

Mix  the  ingredients  together  with  a  proper 
quantity  of  water,  and  tread  the  mass  well : 
the  pot  is  then  moulded  by  hand  on  a 
wooden  block. 

Figure  of  the  Earth. — Mr.  Ivory,  whose 
name  will  ever  be  associated  with  those  of 
the  first  mathematicians  of  which  Europe 
can  boast,  has  inserted  in  the  Philosophical 
Journal  a  paper  on  this  subject,  of  which 
the  following  is  an  abstract.  The  number 
of  stations  at  which  experiments  with  the 
pendulum  for  ascertaining  the  figure  of  the 
earth  have  been  made,  is  now  thirty-nine  : 
of  these,  twenty-eight  concur  in  giving  the 
same  ellipticity  3^7,  with  very  small  dis- 
crepancies ;  but,  if  we  take  the  whole  in- 
discriminately, and  make  certain  combina- 
tions of  them,  we  may  obtain  any  ellipticity  \ 
we  choose.  Now  if  it  can  hereafter  be  in- 
disputably proved  by  experiments,  so  con- 
ducted that  it  shall  be  impossible  to  enter- 
tain a  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the  re- 
sults, that  inequalities  so  great  as  the  pre- 
sent experiments  indicate  take  place  in  the 
distribution  of  gravity,  we  can  hope  to  gain 
little  in  point  of  accuracy  by  employing  the 
pendulum  for  investigating  the  figure  of  the 
earth.  This  objection  of  Mr.  Ivory's  to 
the  use  of  the  pendulum  for  the  determina- 
tion of  the  earth's  ellipticity,  is  considerably 
strengthened  by  the  unavoidable  physical 
and  mechanical  difficulties  which  must  ever 
stand  in  the  way  of  ascertaining  such  very 


1827.] 


Varieties. 


95 


minute  quantities  as  enter  into  the  elements 
of  this  calculation. 

Method  of  Softening  Cast-Iron. — A  way 
has  lately  been  discovered  of  rendering  cast- 
iron  soft  and  malleable  ;  it  consists  in  plac- 
ing it  in  a  case  or  pot  along  with  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  soft  red  ore  found  in  Cum- 
berland and  other  parts  of  England,  which 
pot  is  then  placed  in  a  common  oven  built 
with  fire-bricks,  and  without  a  chimney, 
where  they  are  heated  with  'coal  or  coke 
placed  upon  a  fire-grate.  The  doors  of  the 
oven  being  closed,  and  but  a  slight  draft  of 
air  permitted  under  the  grate,  a  regular 
heat  is  kept  up  for  one  or  two  weeks,  ac- 
cording to  the  thickness  and  weight  of  the 
castings.  The  pots  are  then  withdrawn, 
and  suffered  to  cool,  and  by  this  operation 
the  hardest  cast  metal  is  rendered  so  soft 
and  malleable  that  it  may  be  welded  toge- 
ther, or,  when  in  a  cold  state,  bent  into 
almost  any  shape  by  a  hammer  or  vice.— 
Newton's  Journal 

New  Alloy  of  Metal. — Several  alloys  have 
been  proposed  as  substitutes  for  brass,  the 
very  rapid  corrosion  of  which  renders  it 
unfit  for  the  construction  of  valuable  instru- 
ments. A  German  proposed,  some  time 
since,  a  combination  of  copper  and  plati- 
num ;  but  without  stating  the  proportions, 
which  we  believe  vary  from  one  to  two  parts 
of  platinum  to  three  of  copper.  It  is  ra- 
ther singular,  that  even  in  the  present  ad- 
vanced state  of  chemical  analysis,  the  exact 
proportions  of  the  materials  which  enter 
into  the  composition  of  tutenach  cannot  be 
assigned,  although  it  seems  probable  that 
few  substances  are  better  calculated  to  re- 
pay the  discovery. 

Indian  Diamonds. — From  some  researches 
by  Mr.  Voysey,  published  in  the  last  vo- 
lume of  the  Asiatic  Researches,  it  is  ascer- 
tained that — the  matrix  of  the  diamonds 
produced  in  Southern  India,  is  the  sand- 
stone breccia,  of  the  "clay-slate  forma- 
tion"— that  those  found  in  alluvial  soil  are 
produced  from  the  debris  of  the  above  rock, 
and  have  been  brought  thither  by  some 
torrent  or  deluge,  which  could  alone  have 
transported  such  large  masses  and  pebbles 
from  the  parent  rock,  and  that  no  modern 
or  traditional  inundation  has  reached  to 
such  an  extent —that  the  diamonds  found 
at  present  in  the  beds  of  the  rivers  are 
washed  down  by  the  annual  rains.  It  will 
be  an  interesting  point  to  ascertain  if  the 
diamonds  of  Hindustan  can  be  traced  to  a 
similar  rock.  It  may  also  be  in  the  power 
of  others,  more  favourably  situated  than 
the  writer,  to  ascertain  if  there  be  any  foun- 
dation for  the  vulgar  opinion  of  the  con- 
tinual growth  of  the  diamond.  Dr.  Brew- 
ster's  opinion  that  it  probably  originates 
like  amber,  from  the  consolidation  of  per- 
haps vegetable  matter,  which  gradually  ac- 
quires a  crystalline  form  by  the  influence  of 
time,  and  the  slow  action  of  corpuscular 
forces,  is  rather  in  favour  of  it  than  other- 
wise :  it  is  certain  that,  in  those  hot  climes 


crystallization  goes  on  with  wonderful  ra- 
pidity ;  and  it  is  hoped  that,  at  some 
future  period,  undeniable  proofs  may  be 
produced  of  the  re-crystallization  of  ame- 
thyst, zeolite,  and  feldspar  in  alluvial  soil. 

Ranking' s  Theory  of  Fossils.  —  In  a  for- 
mer number  of  this  journal,  we  alluded  to 
Mr.  Ranking's  Theory  of  Fossils,  of  which 
the  following  is  a  correct  summary,  as  well 
as  of  the  arguments  upon  which  it  rests. 
Whatever  fossil  bones  have  been  disco- 
vered"^ Europe,  are  those  of  animals  em- 
ployed in  the  wars  of  the  Romans,  and  in 
their  sports  of  the  circus,  or  of  such  as 
indigenous  to  the  countries  in  which  they 
have  been  found,  might  have  perished  from 
natural  causes — by  a  coincidence  which  can- 
not be  ascribed  to  chance,  the  remains  of 
beasts  inhabiting  at  present  only  distant 
countries,  are  never  located  except  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  some  place  where  the 
Romans  possessed  a  permanent  establish- 
ment, and  consequently  a  circus ;  and  ele- 
phants in  particular,  only  where  there  is 
historical  evidence  to  show  that  it  is  in  the 
track  of  a  Roman  or  Carthaginian  army. 
With  regard  to  .Asia,  in  the  northern  re- 
gions of  which  are  such  innumerable  fossil 
remains  of  mammoths,  elephants,  rhino- 
ceros's, &c.  It  is  satisfactorily  shewn,  that 
countless  elephants  were  slain  in  the  wars 
of  the  Mongols,  who  overran  the  whole, 
and  especially  laid  waste  the  north  of  Asia ; 
that  rhinoceros's  were  constantly  kept  at 
the  magnificent  but  migratory  courts  of  the 
Mongol  Khans,  and  that  mammoth  is  only 
the  Siberian  name  for  a  walrus,  which  am- 
phibious monster  abounds  along  the  shores 
of  the  frozen  ocean,  and  whose  vast  tusks, 
resembling  those  of  the  elephant,  having 
given  rise  to  the  belief  in  an  extinct  species 
of  that  mighty  animal.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  fossil  and  living  animals  is  shown 
not  to  be  greater  than  what  at  present  exists 
between  animals  of  the  same  species,  or 
other  than  in  a  few  years  influence  of  cli- 
mate "and  circumstances  might  occasion  ; 
while  to  account  for  the  great  depths  at 
which  these  remains  have  been  found,  Mr. 
Ranking  considers  the  agency  of  natural 
causes  during  very  many  centuries  is  suffi- 
cient; particularly  when  it  is  remarked 
that  no  distance  below  the  earth's  surface 
at  which  animal  bones  have  hitherto  been 
discovered,  exceeds  that  at  which  fragments 
of  pottery  and  instruments  of  war  have 
been  met  with. 

Specific  Gravities. — Professor  Leslie,  of 
Edinburgh,  having  invented  an  extremely 
delicate  apparatus  for  ascertaining  the  spe- 
cific gravity  of  powders,  has  deduced  the 
following  novel  results,  which  have  been 
communicated  to  the  public  through  the 
medium  of  the  Scotsman  newspaper.  Char- 
coal, which,  from  its  porosity  is  so  light, 
that  its  specific  gravity  as  assigned  in  books 
is  generally  under  0'5,  less  than  half  the 
weight  of  water,  or  one-seventh  the  weight 
of  diamond  ;  taken  in  powder,  by  the  above 


Varieties* 


[JAN. 


instrument,  exceeds  that  of  diamond,  is 
one-half  greater  than  that  of  wkinstone, 
and  is  of  course  more  than  seven  times 
heavier  than  has  usually  been  supposed. 
Mahogany  has  usually  been  estimated  at 
1  '36 ;  but  mahogany  sa\v-dust  proves  by 
the  instrument  to  be  1  68.  Wheat  flour  is 
1  '3(> ;  pounded  sugar  1  '83 ;  and  common 
salt  2*15  :  the  latter  agrees  very  accurately 
with  the  common  estimate.  Writing-paper 
rolled  hard  by  the  hand  had  a  specific  gra- 
vity of  1  *78,  the  solid  matter  present  being 
less  than  one-third  of  the  space  it  appa- 
rently filled.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
results  was  with  an  apparently  very  light 
specimen  of  volcanic  ashes,  which  was 
found  to  have  a  specific  gravity  of  4*4 : 
these  results  are,  however,  given  as  ap- 
proximations merely  by  the  first  instrument 
constructed. 


GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

§i  . 
£1* 

°ii 
»fil 

f~t    <** 

°ii 

!»! 

Prague  (the  most  ancient)  

1348 
1305 

13fiO 
1403 
1409 

1419 

1450 
145(5 
14(>0 
1477 
152/ 
1544 
Io5,'{ 

ll>(>7 
ir><;5 
1004 
17'tf 
1734 
1743 
If  1(13 
1810 
1818 

55 

77 

55 
31 

81 

34 

35 
30 
24 
44 
38 
23 
51 
30 
2<> 
«4 
49 
89 
34 
48 
86 
42 

1449 
NJ88 

tea 
ode 

1384 
201 

550 
227 

L>14 

827 

304 
303 
432 

371 

23!! 
1119 
710 
1545 

4W 

023 
12*5 
526 

Heidelberg    (Grand  Duchy  of 

Roztoeh  (Mecklenburg  Schwe- 

Friburg  (Grand  Duchy  of  Ba- 

Tubingen  (Wirtemberg)    
Marburg  (Hesse  Tassel)    
Kcenitrsberfc  (Prussia)    
Jena  (Grand  Durhy  of  Weimar) 
G  lessen  (Hesse  Tassel)  

Halle  (Saxon  Prussia)   

Gottfngen  (  1  lanover)    

J^annsnut     (  lia\  ana) 

Bonn  (Rhenish  Prussia)  
Tot 

il-... 

105.5 

1574G 

So  that  for  a  population  of  about  thirty- 
six  millions,  there  are  in  Germany  twenty- 
two  universities,  six  belonging  to  Prussia, 
three  to  Bavaria,  two  to  the  Austrian  states, 
two  to  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden,  two  to 
the  Electorate  of  Hesse  Cassel,  and  one  to 
each  of  the  following  states — Saxony,  Wir- 
temburg,  Denmark,  Hanover,  the  Great 
Duchies  of  Mecklenburg  Schwerin  and 
Saxe-\Veimar  and  Switzerland. 

Among  the  professors  are  enumerated 
not  only  the  ordinary  and  extraordinary 
ones,  but  also  the  private  masters,  whose 
courses  are  announced  in  the  weekly  pro- 
grammes. Popish  Germany,  containing 
about  nineteen  millions  of  inhabitants,  pos- 
sesses only  MX  universities;  while  Protes- 
tant Germany,  for  seventeen  millions  of  in- 
habitants,  has  no  less  than  seventeen  :  it 
hiss  thus  been  calculated,  that  the  pronor- 

*  The  King  of  Bavaria  has  ordered  this  university 
to  be  transferred  to  Munich,  a  capital  which  offers 
many  more  resource's  for  instruction  than  the  small 
town  of  Lan:isViut. 


tion  of  studonta  is  149  to  250,000  inhabi- 
tants, in  the  Protestant  parts  of  the  country, 
and  only  sixty-eight  to  the  same  number  in 
the  Popish  states.  But  it  should  be  stated, 
that  no  mention  is  here  made  of  the  Popish 
ecclesiastics  who  study  not  in  the  univer- 
sities, but  in  seminaries.  Many  other  cities 
formerly  possessed  universities— established 
and  suppressed  as  follows  :  — 


Jl* 

M 

c      *.     Jl 

17ttl 

r  i 

U-l  '  ?            •      11      ,      • 

1*104 

Rinteln,  in  the  Electorate  of  Hesse 
t'assel  

nfUtziHirg,  in  Austria 

goistaat,  in  Havana 

ir»n9 

It 

Those  of  Paderborn  and  of  Munster  both 
belonging  to  Prussia,  each  of  which  had 
only  two  faculties,  those  of  theology  and 
philosophy  have  been  suppressed,  the  first 
in  1818,  the  second  in  1819;  but  that  of 
Munster  was  re-established  last  year,  with 
the  three  faculties  of  theology,  philosophy, 
and  medicine. 

Antiquities. — A  work,  written  in  the 
fourteenth  century  by  a  nun  of  the  convent 
of  Gunsthersthal,  fell  a  short  time  since 
into  the  hands  of  Dr.  Schreiber,  a  German 
antiquarian  of  much  celebrity.  In  this 
book,  designed  only  as  a  complete  catalogue 
of  the  revenues  of  the  convent,  were  nume- 
rous remarks,  &c.  of  the  highest  importance 
to  history  and  archaeology ;  with  one  branch 
of  the  objects  thus  pointed  out,  Dr.  S.  has 
been  particularly  occupied — it  concerns  the 
Hiinengroeber,  or  ancient  tombs.  'Many 
rents  were  specified  as  arising  from  lands  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  these  monuments. 
Now  it  was  known  that  there  were  many  of 
them  in  the  north  of  Germany,  but  none 
had  as  yet  been  discovered  in  Fribourg  nor 
the  southern  provinces.  Mr.  Schreiber's 
first  researches  were  fruitless :  what  in  tho 
fourteenth  century  was  a  common  direction, 
could  no  longer  be  followed  ;  but  at  length, 
at  Elringen,  on  a  piece  of  ground  belonging 
to  an  ancient  family,  which  had  been  pointed 
out  as  appertaining  to  the  convent,  a  plough 
struck  upon  some  tombs,  the  objects  of  the 
Doctor's  inquiry.  They  occupy  a  space  of 
362  paces  in  circumference,  and  there  are 
more  than  forty  rows  of  burying-places.  Jt 
is  evident  that  formerly  there  rose  above  the 
ground  some  monuments  which  showed 
their  exact  situation.  The  number  of 
tombs  examined  was  106  (of  which  forty- 
five  were  of  men,  forty-four  womeTi,  and 
seventeen  children),  and  it  is  presumed 
there  are  about  as  many  more.  They  con- 
tained neither  inscriptions  nor  any  vestige 

»  Re-united  to  that  of  Landshut  5n  li!03. 
t  Uo-unitod  to  that  of  Halle  in  18KJ. 


of  characters ;  but  what  was  especially  wor- 
thy of  remark,  charcoal  was  spread  over  the 
corpses,  as  if  its  antiseptic  properties  were 
even  then  known.  There  are  some  frag- 
ments of  pottery,  but  very  much  injured ; 
and  a  small  piece  of  glass  was  found  orna- 
mented with  plates  of  silver,  but  there  were 
neither  stone  nor  brazen  vases. 

Auriscope. — The  difficulty  of  inspecting 
the  meatus  auditorius,  or  passage  of  the 
ear,  from  its  peculiar  winding  structure,  is 
well  known  ;  hence  the  uncertainty  that 
often  arises  in  ascertaining  the  cause  of 
diseases  of  this  organ.  In  consequence  of 
n.  greater  attention  being  paid  to  diseases  of 
the  ear  than  formerly,  an  ingenious  French 
aurist  has  lately  invented  a  novel  instru- 
ment, termed  an  auriscopc,  which  allows  a 
complete  inspection  of  the  parts.  It  con- 
sists of  a  circular  brass  plate,  with  straps 
that  go  completely  round  the  head,  and  at 
the  angle  over  each  ear  is  affixed  a  hook 
and  srrew,  together  witli  a  lever,  so  as  to 
pull  the  ear  backwards  and  forwards  in 
different  directions,  and  thus  lay  the  ineatus 
open  to  the  membrane  of  the  tympanum. 
But  this  instrument  being  complex  in  its 
mechanism,  and  painful  in  its  application, 
has  been  reduced  to  greater  simplicity  and 
effect  by  Mr.  J.  Harrison  Curtis,  the  Sur- 
geon to  the  Royal  Dispensary  for  Diseases 
of  the  Ear,  where,  since  making  these 
alterations,  he  has  had  ample  opportuni- 
ties of  appreciating  its  merits. 

Ancient  Roman  Foot. — From  the  inquiries 
of  M.  Cagnazzi,  to  whom  the  scientific  ex- 
amination of  the  monuments  of  antiquity 
found  in  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  was 
intrusted  by  the  Neapolitan  government, 
it  appears  that  the  ancient  Roman  foot  was 
0-29624  of  a  metre,  or  131  '325  lines  French 
measure- 

Statistical  Account  of  Warsaw  in  1826. — 
The  extent  of  Warsaw,  and  of  the  suburb 
of  Prague  situated  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Vistula,  is  156  or  157  acres.  The  city  is  di- 
vided into  eight  districts,  containing  214 
streets,  3, 132  houses,  112  palaces,  61  public 
edifices,  5,818  manufactories.  The  value 
of  the  whole  property  insured  against  fire  is 
51-,512,528  Polish  florins,  about  ,£141,670. 
The  population  amounts  to  126,433  persons 
(62,851  males,  63,582  females)  without 
reckoning  the  imperial  royal  guards,  the 
garrison,  nor  the  persons  without  any  per- 
manent residence.  The  population  may  be 
thus  divided :  15,306  nobles,  83,083  of  the 
middle  and  lower  class — Jews  forming  a  se- 
parate nation,  deprived  of  the  rights  of  citi- 
zens, having  a  distinct  language,  &c.  Ac- 
cording to  their  religions,  the  population 
may  be  thus  classed  :  92,132  papists,  469 
Greeks,  5,170  Lutherans,  593  protestants 
of  the  Ausburg  confession,  274  regular 
popish  clergy,  282  monks,  94  nuns,  3  pro- 
testant  ministers,  6  Greek  ecclesiastics,  and 
50  Jews.  There  are  inscribed  on  the  civil 
registers  — 19,631  married  men,  19,303 
married  women,  2,176  widowers,  7,062 
M.M-  New  -Strips..-. VOL.  III.  No.  IS. 


widow*,  901  women  and  800  men  divorced, 
40,578  bachelors,  34,092  spinsters.  The 
most  aged  persons  are,  one  of  101  years, 
one  of  102,  one  of  103,  two  of  104,  one  of 
105,  two  of  110. 

Spontaneous  Combustion  of  Lamp-  JBIick. 
— We  insert   from  the  Indian  Gazette  the 
following  extract  from  the  ship  Catherine's 
log-book,  Feb.  3,  1826 :  "  Lat.  1°.  37  N. 
long.  86°.  55'  E.,  at  1  p.  M.,  a  strong  smell 
of  burning,  and  an  appearance  of  smoke, 
as  if  rising  from  the  fore-hold,  was  observed 
by  some  of  the   people    between   decks ; 
this  was  immediately  reported  to  the  officer 
on    the  quarter-deck,   in   consequence   of 
which    the    fore-hatches    and  fore-scuttle 
were  taken  off,  when  a   suffocating  smell 
of  fire  and  clouds  of  smoke  began  to  issue 
from  both  places.     On  going  into  the  fore- 
hold,  and  clearing  away  the  goods  near  the 
hatchway,  found  that  a  large  cask  of  lamp- 
black, in  the  starboard  wing,  had  taken  fire, 
and  was  giving  out  dense  columns  of  smoke ; 
the  cask,  although  not  in   a  blaze,  was  too 
hot  to    be  handled.     All  the  ship's  com- 
pany and  passengers   were   instantly  em- 
ployed in   handing  down  water  and  wet 
blankets,   the   latter  being    found   of    the 
greatest  use  in  stifling  the  smoke :    these 
enabled  the  officers  and  people  in  the  hold, 
who  were  indefatigable  in  their  exertions, 
to  remove  the  surrounding  articles,  chiefly 
large    jars    of  linseed  and    neat's-foot  oil, 
which  were  immediately  hoisted  on  deck 
by    the    prompt    assistance    of    the   pas- 
sengers, and  at  the  same  time  a  constant 
supply  of  water  passed  down  the  hatchway; 
and  although  the  people  in  the  hold  were 
frequently  driven  back  by  the  strong  suffo- 
cating smell,   they  at  last    succeeded  in 
getting  the  cask,  which  was  on  fire,  and 
muffled  by  wet  blankets,  brought  to  the 
hatchway.     This  was  instantly  hoisted  on 
deck  and  thrown  overboard,   before  it  had 
completely   ignited  or  burst  into  a  flame ; 
had  it  done  so  in  the  hold,  instant  destruc- 
tion must  have  inevitably  followed,  it  being 
surrounded  by  200  barrels  of  tar,  and  up- 
wards of  80  large  jars  of  oil.   As  no  apparent 
cause  could  be    assigned    for   this    catas- 
trophe, as  no  leak  either  from  the  deck  or 
from  any   of  the  jars   could  be  perceived, 
and  as  no   light  had  ever  been  suffered  in 
the    hold    since   leaving    England,  it  wag 
reasonable  to   conclude  that  spontaneous 
combustion  must  have  taken  place  in  the 
cask  ;  and  as  there  were  many  more  casks  of 
the  same  material   on  board,  it  was  con- 
sidered absolutely  necessary,  for  the  safety 
of  the  ship  and  cargo,  as  well  as  the  lives 
of  the  crew  and  passengers,  to  throw  the 
whole  overboard.      Employed   during  the 
rest  of  the  day  in  hoisting  up  and  throwing 
overboard   the  remaining    casks  of  lamp- 
black, sixty-one  in  number." 

"  N.  B.  Two  other  casks  of  lamp-black 
were  observed  to  smoke,  while  floating 
past  the  ship." 

0 


[JAN. 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 
DOMESTIC.  FOREIGN. 


ROYAL    SOCIETY. 

The  Royal  Society  re-assembled  for  their 
next  session  on  the  16th  November.  The 
President,  Sir  H.  Davy,  announced  that 
the  apartments  in  Somerset-House,  in  the 
occupation  of  the  late  Commissioners  of  the 
Lottery,  had  been  placed  by  His  Majesty 
nt  the  disposal  of  the  society.  He  also  an- 
nounced the  resignation  of  W.  T.  Brande, 
Esq.,  one  of  the  secretaries.  Lieut -col. 
Denham,  Capt.  W.  H.  Smith,  R.N.,  and 
N.  Brown,  Esq.,  were  admitted  Fellows 
of  the  Society.  The  Croonian  Lecture,  by 
Sir  E.  Home,  V.P.R.S.,  was  read.  "On 
the  generation  of  the  common  oyster  and 
the  river  muscle,  with  microscopical  illus- 
trations," by  Mr.  Bauer.  The  reading  of 
a  paper  was  commenced,  "  on  a  percussion 
shell,  to  be  fired  from  a  common  gun,"  by 
Lieut-col.  Millar;  communicated  by  R. 
T.  Murchison,  Esq.,  F.R.S. 

Nov.  23d.  — Charles  Bell,  Esq.,  was  ad- 
mitted Fellow  of  the  Society.  MM.  Bou- 
vard,  Chevreil  and  Dulong  were  elected 
Foreign  Members;  and  the  reading  of 
Lieut. -col.  Millar's  paper  concluded. 


LINNJEAN   SOCIETY. 

Nov.  7th.— A.  B.  Lambert,  Esq.,  V.P., 
in  the  chair.  A  continuation  of  Dr.  Ha- 
milton's "  commentary  ou  the  Hortus  Ma- 
labaricus"  was  read.  Jos.  Woods,  Esq. 
was  elected  Member  of  the  Council  in  the 
place  of  the  late  Sir  T.  S.  Raffles. 

Nov.  2 1st. — Part  of  a  paper  was  read, 
entitled  "  remarks  on  the  comparative  ana- 
tomy, &c.  of  certain  birds  of  Cuba/'  by  W. 
S.  Macleay,  F.L.S. 

GEOLOGICAL   SOCIETY. 

A  paper  was  read,  entitled  "  additional 
remarks  on  the  nature  and  character  of  the 
limestone  and  slate,  composing  principally 
the  rocks  and  hills  round  Plymouth,"  by 
the  Rev.  R.  Hcmiah,  F.G.S.  The  -inference 
tliat  the  author  deduces  is,  that  the  slate 
beyond  the  Plymouth  limestone,  as  far- 
southward  as  Wlutcsand  Bay,  is  not  primi- 
tive ;  and  he  has  found  no  animal  remains 
in  the  slate  north  of  that  limestone.  Ex- 
tracts were  read  from  letters  from  Capt. 
Franklin,  R.N.,  and  Dr.  Richardson,  dated 
5th  Nov.  1825,  at  Fort  Franklin,  on  the 
Great  Bear  Lake.  Capt.  Franklin  states, 
that  he  had  reached  the  sea  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mackenzie  river,  in  lat.  69°  29', 
long.  135°  40',  and  gives  a  general  account 
of  the  course  of  that  river.  Dr.  Richard- 
sou  had  been  employed  in  examining  the 
northern  shore  of  the  Great  Bear  Lake, 
#nd  ascribes  the  principal  physical  and  geo- 
li>g!f»]  features  of  that  part  of  the  country. 


INSTITUTE ACADKMY  OF   SCIENCES. 

Paris,  September  <k — M.  Ampere  read  a 
note  on  a  new  electro  dynamic  experiment, 
which  proves  the  action  of  a  metallic  disc 
in  motion  on  a  portion  of  the  voltaic  con- 
ductor, l)cnt  into  a  spiral  form.  Messrs. 
Molard,  Dupin  and  Navier,  made  a  favour- 
able report  on  a  new  method  of  weaving 
all  sorts  of  stuffs,  invented  by  M.  Augustin 
Corant,  manufacturer  at  St.  Julien.  M. 
Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire  read  a  memoir,  en- 
titled "  an  exposition  and  explication  of  the 
facts  and  phenomena  of  monstrosity  by  ex- 
cess. "  The  result  of  this  gentleman's  own. 
observations  confirms  the  law  of  the  eccen- 
tric development  of  the  organs,  so  ably  ex- 
plained by  M.  Serres.  M.  Audoin  read  an 
essay  on  the  history  of  cantharides.  M. 
Louyer  Villerme  read  a  memoir  on  the 
principal  causes  of  the  insalubrity  and  mor- 
tality in  prisons,  and  on  the  intensity  of 
the  action  of  these  causes ;  referred  to 
Messrs.  Sylvestre,  Fourier,  and  Coquebert- 
Monteret. — September  11.  A  note  was  read 
from  M.  Bouvard,  containing  the  elements 
of  the  parabolic  orbit,  calculated  by  M. 
Gambart,  of  the  comet  discovered  by  him 
in  August  1826.  M.  Segalas  announced 
the  results  of  his  researches  on  a  method 
of  simplifying-  the  operation  for  the  stone, 
and  of  curing  urinary  fistula  of  the  bladder. 
Au  Italian  memoir  by  M.  Hildenbrandt 
was  presented,  "  experiments  to  discover  a 
more  efficacious  method  of  preserving  ana- 
tomical and  pathological  preparations,  and 
the  advantages  thence  resulting."  M.  de 
Candolle  was  elected' a  foreign  member,  in 
the  place  of  M.  Piazzi.  A  human  monster, 
received  the  preceding  week  from  Chaillot, 
was  presented  by  M.  St.  Hilaire.  M.  Am- 
pere performed  the  experiments  described 
at  the  last  meeting. — Sejitenifcr'18.  An  ir- 
delible  ink,  invented  by  M.  Taraj",  was 
.presented  by  the  minister  of  justice ;  re- 
ferred to  the  commission  already  sitting  on 
the  subject.  M.  Segalas  communicated 
several  experiments  on  the  action  of  nux 
vomica  and  other  poisonous  Fiibstances  on 
the  nervous  system.  Dr.  Pastre  read  a 
memoir  on  the  cause  of  the  protracted  sleep 
of  certain  animals  in  winter.  —  September  2£ 
A  verbal  report  was  made  by  M.  DumeriJ, 
on  a  memoir  by  M.  Frederic  Cuvier,  en- 
titled "  observations  on  the  structure  and 
development  of  feathers.  A  very  highly 
favourable  report  was  made  by  M.  Dupin, 
on  the  Marquis  de  Poterat's  "  theory  of 
shipping."  Dr.  Teraube  presented  the 
first  part  of  a  work  on  the  practices  inju- 
rious to  health.  Messrs.  Henschel,  bro- 
thers, of  Berlin,  wrote  to  say  that  they  had 
discovered  a  paper  from  which  writing 
could  not  be  removed,  without  traces  re- 
maining of  what  had  been  effaced.  A  de- 


1827.] 


Proceedings  ef  Learned  Societies. 


claration  of  this  being  the  ease,  was  an- 
nexed by  a  member  of  the  Berlin  Aca- 
demy; referred  to  a  commission  already 
sitting.  —  October  2.  M.  Plana,  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Science's  of  Turin,  is 
named  correspondent  in  the  section  of  geo- 
metry, and  M.  Brunei  in  that  of  mechanics. 
A  favourable  report  by  Messrs.  Cuvier  and 
Latreille  was  made  on  a  memoir  by  Messrs. 
Quoy  and  Gaymard,  on  the  raolluseae  and 
loophytes  obse.  ved  in  the  hay  of  Algesiras. 
Messrs.  Dumeri),  Latreille,  and  De  Blain- 
ville,  made  a  highly  commendatory  report 
on  the  work  of  M.  llobinot  Desvoisy,  on 
the  insects  which  he  calls  rm/odaire,  the 
genus  fiy  of  Linnaeus.  M.  Chevreul  in- 
formed the  Academy,  that  M.  Ch.  S.  Du- 
mas Iras  discovered  a  chlorate  of  iodine, 
possessing  all  the  properties  of  Brome,  de- 
scribed in  a  memoir  presented  to  the  Aca- 
demy by  M.  BalurcL— •  October  9.  Mr.  W. 
Bolles  forwarded  from  New  York- a  trigo- 
nometrical instrument ;  referred  to  Messrs.. 


Mnthieu  and  Damoiseau.  The  death  of 
the  celebrated  Scarpa,  foreign  associate  of 
the  Institute,  was  announced.  Messrs. 
Bouvard  and  Damoiseau,  who  had  been 
appointed  to  examine  the  new  method  of 
determining  the  orbits,  of  comets  by  M. 
MeiirotF,  of  Russia,  reported  that  he  had 
failed  in  his  object.  M.  Lenormand  read  a. 
memoir  on  a  cloth  of  a  new  sort  made  by 
caterpillars,  and  he  exhibited  a  specimen 
which  had  been  sent  by  M.  Brebenstrecht, 
inventor  of  the  process,  which  serves  to  di- 
rect the  labours  of  these  insects  j  referred 
to  Messrs.  Boscand  Latreille.  Mr.  G.  St. 
Hilaire  ;read  a  memoir  on  the  question 
whether  the  various  cases  of  monstrosity 
are  exactly  confined  within  certain  fixed 
limits,  and  if,  in  this  case  these  monstro- 
sities be  susceptible  of  a  regular  classifica- 
tion as  the  beings  which  are  the  object  of 
regular  zoology.  M.  Dumas  read  a  me- 
moir on  some  points  of  the  atomic  theory. 


POLITICAL  OCCURRENCES,  &e. 


THE  earlier  weeks  of  the  month  were  de- 
ficient, as  the  major  part  of  the  last  year  has 
been,  in  action,  energy  or  character.  A 
few  complaints  from  the  northern  provinces, 
a  grumble  or  two  from  Glasgow,  together 
with  some  strong  speeches  from  those  ap- 
proved Catholic  demagogues,  Sheill  and 
O/' Council,  made  up  the  sum  total  of  our 
domestic  intelligence.  While,  however, 
public  interest  seemed  thus  fast  asleep  it 
was  roused  as  by  a  thunderclap  from  its 
drowsy  slumbers,  by  the  information  that 
Portugal — our  closest  and  oldest  ally — was 
attacked,  that  we  were  consequently  on  the 
eve  of  a  war  with  Spain — perhaps  with 
France,  and  thus  by  no  remote  contingency 
with  Europe,  and  that  British  troops  who 
on  the  one  day  were  slumbering  at  head 
quarters,  peaceful  and  at  case,,  ou  the  next 
were  on  their  way  for  Portugal,  that  frequent 
theatre  of  their  troubles  and  their  triumphs. 
On  the  evening  of  December  31th,  Mr. 
Canning  brought  down  to  the  House  of 
Commons  a  message  from  his  Majesty,  in 
which  it  was  simply  but  emphatically  stated 
that  in  consequence  of  letters  received  from 
/  the  Cortes  at  Lisbon,  wherein  by  virtue  of 
its  treaty,  assistance  was  requested  at  the 
hands  of  the  British  Government,  he  had 
been  induced  to  despatch  immediate  help  tQ 
his  ally,  and  as  a  necessary  consequence  to 
declare  war  against  Spain,  her  aggressor. 
On  this  spirited  declaration  being  read,  the 
house  was  adjourned  till  the  ensuing  night, 
when  its  necessity  was  to  be  thoroughly  de- 
bated and  sifted  with  the  consideration  due 
to  its  importance.  Accordingly  on  Decem- 
ber 12th,  Lord  Bathurst  in  the  Upper 
House,  entered  into  a  minute  and  elaborate 
detail  of  the  nature  of  our  connections  with 
Portugal — he  stated  that  the  treaty  was  of 
very  old  standing  and  had  been  renewed 


solemnly  and  explicitly  in  1815,  at  which 
time,  among  other  unimportant  articles  it 
was  agreed,  that  whenever  Portugal  was 
invaded  by  a  foreign  force,  no  matter  whom, 
it  should  instantly  be  assisted  .by  British 
troops— and  more  important  still — by  Bri- 
tish money.  This  pledge  his  lordship  now 
called  on  the  House  to  fulfil— nobly  and  dis- 
interestedly to  fulfil — the  time,  he  stated, 
was  arrived  when  Portugal  stood  in  need 
of  our  active  aid  j  she  had  been  entered  on 
the  Spanish  side  by  an  armed  body  of  in- 
surgents under  the  command  of  the  Mar- 
quis de  Chaves,  and  from  the  circumstance 
of  the  whole  line  of  the  Spanish  frontier 
having  been  crossed  at  one  moment,  it  was 
evident  that  the  plan  of  attack  was  the  re- 
sult of  serious  and  mature  deliberation,  and 
as  his  lordship  feared  commenced  under  the 
immediate  directions  of  the  Jesuitical  Spa- 
nish Government.  Mr.  Canning,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  made  a  similar  decla- 
ration, and  in  a  speech  of  unusual  length 
and  eloquence — which,  by  those  who  heard 
it  will  never  be  forgotten— contended  that 
the  ccs&us  faderis  had  been  distinctly  made 
out ;  and  that  prompt  assistance  must 
consequently  be  given  to  our  ally.  Mr. 
Brougham  followed  on  the  same  side  :  in- 
deed there  was  but  one  sentiment — if  we 
except  some  twaddling  about  the  expencea 
by  Messieurs  Hume,  Bankes,  and  Wood — 
throughout  the  whole  house;  and  that  un- 
divided sentiment  was  one  of  enthusiastic 
admiration  sviid  approval.  The  subject  of  this 
impending  war  with  Spain  involves  one  im- 
portant considertion,  namely,  how  far  it  will 
be  restricted  in  its  character.  "  Engla.nd," 
as  MX-.  Canning  justly  observed,  cannot 
"  raise  her  arm  without  involving  nation* 
in  the  contest ;"  more  than  this,  she  cannorf 
even  (at  least  in  the  present  ins>tuu«e)  uu 
02 


100 


Qwurrenoes. 


lift  her  roioe,  although  k  be  but  in  whispers, 
without  having  its  softest  notes  re-echoed 
from  shore  to  shore  of  the  continent — from 
the  blood-bedewed  plains  of  Greece  and 
Italy,  to  the  remotest  regions  of  European 
and  Asiatic  Turkey.  England  then — thro* 
her  eloquent  representative,  Mr.  Canning — 
stands  fearlessly  forward  as  the  upholder  of 
opinions  which,  if  presevcred  in,  will  most 
assuredly  shake  to  its  basis  the  whole  mighty 
fabric  of  continental  despotism.  Italy,  de- 
graded Italy,  will  plead  the  high  sanction  of 
England  in  extenuation  of  her  revolutionary 
movements:  Greece  will  look  to  the  same 
nation  as  its  polar  star  to  guide  it  to  freedom, 
and  should  but  one  little  wandering  gleam 
of  liberty  find  its  way  undimmed  to  the  far- 
off  Russian  dominions,  it  will  glow  and 
sparkle  even  amid  the  Cimmerian  darkness  of 
that  worst  of  despotism,  as  a  beam  which 
will  one  day  under  favouring  auspices  expand 
into  a  full  unclouded  sun.  To  drop  meta- 
phor :  let  it  suffice  to  say  that  Mr  Canning 
has  unhesitatingly  advocated  the  bold  doc- 
trines of  freedom— he,  the  accredited  war 
minister  of  England,  has  stated— not  in 
words  it  is  true,  but  by  inference  — that 
every  nation  has  a  right  to  select  its  own 
form  of  government,  and  that  should  the 
prejudices  of  aristocracy  impede  the  advance 
of  such  innovation,  resistance  is  not  merely 
lawful  but  commendable.  This  doctrine  it 
is  manifest  will  go  far — for  the  mere  allusion 
to  it  seemed  to  startle  Mr.  Canning,  who 
apologized  for  England  as  heing  unavoidably 
called  on  to  advocate^  opinions  which  must 
be  both  general  and  electrifying  in  their 
character— this  doctrine  we  repeat,  will  go 
far  to  subvert  the  principles  that  now  up- 
hold the  majority  of  the  continental  govern- 
ments. It  is  probable,  however,  that  the 
war  may  end  in  mere  smoke  :  no  matter, 
the  free  opinions  of  England  have  gone 
forth  ;  and  like  seed  sown  on  a  fruitful  soil 
we  have  no  doubt  they  will  fructify  seven- 
fold.  With  the  exception  of  this  impend- 


ing crisis,  the  continent  k  genarally  tran- 
quil, France  still  continues  to  hold  out 
professions  of  amity  towards  Portugal  and 
this  country  :  and  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
withdraw  her  ambassador  from  Madrid  in 
token  of  her  displeasure  towards  the  wretch- 
ed Ferdinand  and  his  sycophantic  advisers  ; 
Holland  has  despatched  emissaries  to  our 
government  to  assure  them  of  her  cordial 
co-operation :  and  Russia,  quiet  and  inac- 
tive to  all  appearance,  looks  forward  with 
intense  interest  to  the  important  results 
that  a  few  days  may  serve  to  bring  forth. 
At  present  she  is  engaged  in  a  skirmish 
with  the  Persians,  but  as  this  is  mere 
child's  play  for  her  gigantic  strength,  it- 
scarcely  deserves  further  comment  than  the 
notice.  At  Constantinople  a  sort  of  tempo- 
rary torpor  prevails,  which,  looking  to  the 
spirit  that  influences  its  present  govern- 
ment, must  at  no  distant  period,  we  should 
conceive,  awake  into  tremendous  energy. 
The  sultan  still  perseveres  in  his  favourite 
amusement  of  executions  and  confiscations, 
at  which,  from  long  practice,  he  is  wonder- 
fully expert — and  but  the  other  day  a  sack 
of  ears  was  sent  him  from  Adrianople,  as 
the  most  acceptable  peace-offering  to  his 
apprehensions.  This  cannot  last,  and  we 
already  find  that  hordes  of  refractory  Janis- 
saries are  insinuating  their  subtle  treason, 
silently  but  successfully,  into  the  hearts  of 
the  discontented  provinces.  In  America, 
whether  north  or  south,  the  policy  is  tran- 
quil and  prosperous  ;  our  ambassador,  Lord 
Ponsonby,  has  lately  arrived  in  the  latter 
country,  at  Brazil ;  the  first,  we  believe, 
important  Plenipotentiary  that  has  been 
yet  despatched  from  England.  This  up 
to  the  26th,  concludes  our  monthly  sum- 
mary; although  so  stirring  are  the  times-, 
that  every  hour  almost  we  may  look  for  in- 
telligence which  in  one  short  pregnant  mo- 
ment may  change  the  whole  character  of 
of  our  political  speculations. 


PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL 

New  Patents  sealed,  1826. 

To  Thomas  Machell,  Berner's-strect, 
surgeon,  for  improvements  on  apparatus 
applicable  to  the  burning  of  oil  and  other 
inflammable  substances— Sealed  8th  Dec. ; 
6  months. 

To  Robt.  Dickenson,  New  Park-street, 
Southwark,  in  consequence  of  a  commu- 
nication made  to  him  by  a  foreigner,  for  the 
formation,  coating,  and  covering  of  vessels 
or  packages,  for  containing,  preserving, 
conveying,  and  transporting  goods,  whether 
liquid  or  solid,  and  for  other  purposes— 8th 
Dec.  ;  6  months. 

To  Chas.  Pearson,  the  younger,  Green- 
wich, Esq.,  Rich.  Witty,  Hanley,  Staf- 
ford, engineer;  and  Wm.  Gillman,  White- 
ehayel,  engineer,  for  new  or  improved 


AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 

methods  of  applying  heat  to  certain  useful 
purposes — 13th  Dec. ;  6  months. 

To  Chas.  Hartsleben,  Great  Ormond- 
street,  Queen-square,  Esq.,  for  machinery 
for  facilitating  the  working  of  mines,  and 
the  extracting  of  diamonds,  &c.  from  the 
ore,  which  machinery  is  likewise  applicable 
to  other  purposes — 13th  Dec. ;  6  months. 

To  J.  Costigin,  Collon,  Louth,  civil 
engineer,  for  improvements  in  steam  ma- 
chinery— 13th  Dec.  j  6  months. 

To  P.  Mackay,  Great  Union-street, 
Surrey,  gent.,  in  consequence  of  a  com- 
munication made  to  him  by  a  foreigner,  of 
improvements  by  which  the  names  of  streets 
and  other  inscriptions  will  be  rendered 
more  durable  and  conspicuous  — 13th  Dec. ; 
6  months. 


10B7.] 


List  of  Patents. 


101 


To  Wm.  Johnson,  Drottwich,  Worces- 
ter, gent.,  for  improvements  in  the  process 
and  form  of  apparatus  for  manufacturing 
Bait,  &e. — 18th  Dec.  ;  6  months. 

To  M.  De  Jongh,  Warrington,  cotton 
Hpinner,  for  improvements  in  machinery  or 
apparatus  for  preparing  rovings,  and  for 
spinning,  twisting,  and  winding  fibrous 
substances — 28th  Dec. ;  6  months. 

To  Clias.  Hartsleben,  Great  Ormond- 
street,  Queen-square,  Esq.,  for  certain 
improvements  in  constructing  ships,  and 
other  vessels,  applicable  to  useful  purposes, 
and  in  machinery  for  propelling  the  same — 
20th  Dec. ;  6  months. 

To  Tlios.  Quarrill,  Peter's-hill,  Doc- 
tors' Commons,  lamp  manufacturer,  for 
improvements  in  the  manufacture  of  lamps 
—20th  Dec.  ;  6  months. 

To  Wm.  Kingston,  master  millwright, 
Dock-yard,  Portsmouth ;  and  Geo.  Steb- 
lung,  mathematical  instrument  maker, 
High-street,  Portsmouth,  for  improve- 
ments on  instruments,  or  apparatus  for 
more  readily  or  certainly  ascertaining  the 
time  and  stability  of  ships— 20th  Dec.; 
6  months. 

To  M.  Wilson,  Warnford-court,  Throg- 
raorton  -street,  merchant,  in  consequence 
of  a  communication  made  to  him  by  a  fo- 
reigner, of  certain  improvements  in  ma- 
chinery for  cleaning  rice — 20th  Dec. ;  6 
months. 

To  Chas.  Seidler,  Crawford-street, 
Portman-square,  merchant,  in  consequence 
of  a  communication  made  to  him  by  a 
foreigner,  of  a  method  of  drawing  water 
out  of  mines,  pits,  £c — 20th  Dec. ;  6 
months. 

To  Fred.  Andrews,  Stanford  Rivers, 
Essex,  gent.,  for  improvements  in  the 
construction  of  carriages,  and  in  machi- 
nery to  propel  the  same,  to  be  operated 
upon  by  steam,  or  other  suitable  power, 
which  are  also  applicable  to  other  purposes 
— 20th  Dec.  ;  6  months. 

To  Chas.  Random  Baron  de  Berenger, 
Target  Cottage,  Kentish  Town,  for  im- 
provements in  gunpowder-flasks,  powder- 
horns,  &c.  of  different  shapes,  such  as  are 


used  for  carrying  gunpowder  In,  to  load 
therefrom  guns,  pistols,  &c. — 20th  Dec.  ; 
6  months. 

To  Val.  Bartholomew,  Great  Marlbo- 
rough-street,  gent.,  for  improvements  in 
shades  for  lamps,  &c.  —  21st  Dec.  ;  2 
months. 

To  J.  G.  Hancock,  Birmingham,  plated 
bedding  and  canister-hinge  manufacturer, 
for  invention  of  a  new  elastic  rod,  for  um- 
brellas, &c.  —  21st  Dec.  :  2  months. 


List  of  Patents,  which,  having  been  granted 
in  January  1813,  c.T]rirc  in  the  present 
month  of  January  1827. 

1.  Joseph  Raynor,  Sheffield,  for  improved 
machinery  for  winding  and  spinning  cotton, 
silk,  flax,  and  wool, 

5.  William  Wilkinson,  Grimesthorpe,  for 
his  horse,  wool,  and  (/loves  shears. 

15.  Thomas  Rylarid,  Birmingham,  for  a 
fender  for  fire-places. 

—  John  Shorter  Morris,  Kennington,  for 
a  machine  on  a  new  and  superior  principle  for 
enabling  a  man  to  use  his  power  and  strength 
to  give  a  rotatory  motion  to  any  engine. 

—  Robert    Dickinson,   London,  for  an 
improvement  in  vessels  for  containing  liquids. 

—  William  Bundy,  Camden-town,  for  a 
new  manufacture  of  lint. 

—  Matthew   Bush,    Longford,    for  im- 
provements for  printing  calicoes. 

—  William  Allen,    London,  for  an  im- 
provement on   machinery  to  be   worked    by- 
wind. 

—  Richard    Cawkwell,     Newark-upon- 
Trent,  for  an  improved  iv asking  machine. 

22,  Charles  Groll  and  Frederic  Dizi, 
London,  for  improvements  on  harps. 

30.  Marc  Isambard  Brunei,  Chelsea,  for 
an  improved  saw  mill. 

—  Francis   Crow,    Feversham,   for  im- 
provements in  the  mariner's  or  boat  compass. 

—  Robert -Dunkin,  Penzance,  for  a  me- 
thod for  lessening  the  consumption  of  steam 
mid  fuel  in  working  fire-engines  ;    also  me- 
thods for  the  improvement  of  certain  instru- 
ments useful  for  mining  or  other  purposes. 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS     IN    Pit  EVA  RATION. 


The  History  of  the  Church  of  England  from  the 
Reformation  to  the  beginning  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  in  4  vols.  «vo.,  by  J.  1).  S.  Carwithen,  B.D. 
Is  in  the  press. 


Sir  William  Jardine,  Bart.,  and'P.  J.  Selby,  Esq., 
the  author  of  the  splendid  work  on  British  Ornitho- 
logy, with  the  co-operation  of  the  most  distingu  shed 
Naturalists  in  the  country,  are  about  to  publish  a 
Work,  the  plan  of  which  is  to  give  coloured  plates 
of  all  the  known,  or  most  remarkable  Birds,  accom- 
panied by  descriptions.  The  Drawings  and  Engrav- 
will be  made  by  the  Authors,  and  the  Plates 


Mr.  Hawkesworth  has  been  some  time  engaged  in      inSs  will  be  made  by  the  Authors,  and  the  Plates 
llecting  materials  for  a  History  of  France  from  the      Wl11  .be  carefully  coloured,  and  finished  from  living 


collecting  materials  for  a  History  of  France  from  the 
earliest  period. 

In  a  few  days  will  be  published  in  8vo.  the  fabu- 
lous History  of  the  Ancient  Kingdom  of  Cornwall, 
with  copious  Notes  by  Thomas  Hogg,  Master  of  the 
Grammar  School,  Truro,  author  of  Institutes  of 
Mathematical  Geography,  &c.  &c. 

Early  in  January  will  be  published  the  Busy 
Bodies,  a  novel,  in  3  vols.,  by  the  authors  of  the 
Odd  Volume. 

Another  Odd  Volume,  by  the  authors  of  the  Odd 
Volume,  will  shortly  appear. 

Stories  of  Chivalry  and  Romance,  in  1  vol.;  is  an- 
•euHcctl  for  publication  Wiiiy  in  the  new  year. 


specmens,  wherever  they  can  be  obtained.  The 
work  will  be  published  in  Quarterly  Parts,  and  the 
first  Part  will  appear  early  in  January  18*27- 

Nearly  ready,  the  Book  of  Spirits,  and  Tales  of 
the  Deacl  ;  with  Plates,  in  Gold  and  Colours,  and  an 
ornamental  Title. 

Mr.  Richard  Burdekin  announces  the  Memoirs  of 
the  Life  and  Character  of  Mr.  Robert  S  pence  (late 
Bookseller  of  York)  ;  with  some  information  re- 
specting the  introduction  of  Methodism  into  York 
and  the  Neighboiirhood,  &c.  «kc. 

The  Citizens'  Pocket  Chronicle,  exhibiting  the' 
laws,  tustdms,  privilege*  and  exemptions  connected 


102 


List 


[JAIL. 


nun:  the  charters,  courts,  companies,  dignities, 
offk-es-,  pnbfic  functionaries,  foundations,  and  other 
Civic  Institutions  ;  and  a  Register  of  Events  from, 
the  earliest  period  to  the  present  time.  With  an 
Appendix  of  References,  and  general  information  for 
the  we  of  citizens*  merchant^  Grangers,  &c.  Will 
IK  published  in  January,  in  1  vol.  12mo. 

Mr.  Bowring  has  very  nearly  ready  for  publication: 
a  volume  on  the  Literature  and  Poetry  of  Poland. 

Mr.  W.Jevons  jun.  ha*  in  the  press*  in  2  vols. 
8vo.,  Systematic  Morality  ;  or,  a  Treatise  on  the 
Theory  and  Practice  o'f  Human  Duty,  on  the 
grounds  of  Natural  Religion. 

The  author  of  London  in  the  Olden  Time  is- 
engaged  on-  a  second  Volume,  comprising  Tales. 
Blustrative  of  the  manners,  habits,  and  supersti- 
tions of  its  Inhabitants*  from  the  twelfth  to  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  work  will  appear  early  in 
the  spring- 

A  Series  of  Views  in  the  West-Indies,  to  be  pub- 
lished in  Parts,  engraved  from  Drawings  taken 
recently  in  the  Islands,  with  letter-press  explanation 
made  from,  actual  observation,  will  appear  in 
February. 

Instructive  Poems  for  Yoang  Cottagers,  by  Mary 
R.StockdaVe,  are  in  the  press. 

A  -work  is  announced  for  publication  hi  January, 
entitled  England's  Historical  Diary;  detailing  the 
most  important  Events  connected  with  the  grandeur 
and  prosperity  of  the  British  Empire  every  Act  or 
Deett  numerated  having  taken  place  on  the  day  to 
which  ft  is  appTfed. 

Preparing  for  the  press,  a  PoprrTar  Exposition-  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  by  Robert  Wilson,  A.M., 
apthor  of  a  Treatise  on  the  Divine  Sovereignty,  &c. 
Mr-  Barnet,  the  author  of  Practical  Hints  on 
Gwnpesition  and:  Light  and  Shade  in  Painting,  has 
In  the  press  a  work  on  the  General  Management  of 
t'olour  HI  a  Picture,  which  will  appear  eaily  in  the 
ensuing  spring.  '  . 

A  work  will  be  published  in  the  course  of  January, 
entitled  the  Poctiy  of  Milton's  Prose,  selected  from 
hfe  various  writings,  with  instances  of  parallel  Pas- 
sages from  his  Poems  :  Notes,  and  an  introductory 
Essay. 

A  new  historical  novel,  to  be  entitled  Dame  Re- 
becca Berry,  or  Court  Scenes  in  the  Reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  is  -announced  for  early  publication. 

.Mr.  Pierce  Kgan  has  just  ready,  a  Trip  to  Ascot  . 
Races.:  upwards  of  seventeen  feet  in  length,  and 
coloured  after   Life  and  Nature,    dedicated  to  his 
Majesty,  George  IV.  The  Plates. designed  and  etched 
Iby  Mr.  Theodore  Law. 

A  Treatise  on  the  Origin  of  Expiatory  Sacrifice, 
fejt  G«orge  Stanley  Faber,  B.  D.,  Rector  of  Long 
Newton,  m  8vo.,  is  nearly  ready. 

Narrative  of  a  Tour  through  the  Interior  Provinces 
ef  Columbia,  by  ColqneV  J.  P.  Hamilton,  late  Chief 
Commissioner  from  his  Britannic  Majesty  to  the  Re- 
pubfic  of  Columbia,  in  2  vols.  post  Uvol,  is  in  the 
press. 

Capt.  Walter  Badenach,  5?th  Bengal  N.  I.,  is  pre- 
paring, Inqniry  into  the  Sta  e  of  the  hulian  Army, 
with  Suggestions  for  its  Improvement,  and  the  Esta- 
blishment of  a  Military  Police  in  India,  In  8vo. 

Travels  in  Norway,  Sweden,  Finland,  the  Coasts 
cf  the  Sea  of  Azof,  and  the  Black  Sea  ;  v/ith  a  Re- 
view of  the  Trade  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  of  the  sys- 
tems, of  Manning  the  Navy  in  different  Countries" of 
Europe,  compared  with  that  of  England.  2  vols.  »vo. 
The  H  istory  of  the  Glorious  Return  of  the  Vau- 
dois  to  their  Valleys,  in  1H89,  by  Henry  Arnaud, 
their  Pastor  and  Colonel.  Translated  froin  the  ori- 
ginal of  II.  Arnaud,  by  Hugh  Dyke  A  eland,*  Esq. 
Embellished  with  Original  .Sketches  of  that  singular 
country,  beautifully  engraved  by  Finden.  8vo. 

The  Life   and    Adventures  of  Giovanni  Finati, 
a  Native  of  Italy,  in  2  vols.  past  <ivo.,  is  in  the  press. 
An  Officer  in    the  late  Staff  Corps  Regiment  of 
Cavalry,  announces  his  Personal  Narrative  of  Ad- 
ventures in  the  Peninsula  during  the  late  War.  8vo. 
The  Present  State  of  Columbia,   by  an  Officer, 
late  in  the  Columbian  Service,  in  8vo.,  is  nearly 
ready. 

A  History  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  held  A.D. 
1545-1504,  is  in  preparation,  in  1  vol.  Ovo. 

The  Rev.  David  M'Nicholl  is  preparing  for  publi- 
cation, an  Argument  for  the  Bible,  drawn  from  the 
Character  and  Harmony  of  its  subjects. 

Dr.  Arnott's  work  on  General  and  Medical  Physics, 
is  nearly  ready  for  publication.  It  imports  to  be  a 
System  of  Natural  and  Experimental  Philosophy, 
with  strictly  Scientific  Arrangement ;  but  made 
easily  intelligible  to  those  who  have  never  learned, 
ot  who  hav.e.fcigoucn  ths  math&rnarLcG. 


G.  Thomson 

is  about  to  publish  an  Account  of  his  Travel*  and. 
Adventures  in  Southern  Africa. 

An  Indian  Romance,  entitled  the  Natchez,  by- 
Viscount  Chateaubriand,  is  printing  in  French  and 
English. 

Mr.  Cooper,  tfte  author  of  the  Spy,  the  Pilot, 
&c.,  has  announced  a  new  Romance*  to  be  called; 
the  Prairie. 

The  Rev.  F.  Thackeray,  A.M.,  has  nearly  ready 
A  History  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  William  Pitt,  Earl  of 
Chatham,  containing  hjfi  Speeches  in  Parliament, 
and  a  portion  of  his  Correspondence  never  before 
published,  with  a  Portrait,  in  2  vols.  4to. 

Mr.  Ughtfoot  will  soon  publish.  Mercantile  Tida 
Tables,  in  small  folio. 

Dr.,  Blair  of  Edinburgh  announce*  a  volume  of 
Scientific  Aphorisms. 

MrX'olnaghi  ispreparing  anEngraving  from  a  beau- 
tiful Miniature  by  Collen,  of  the  Right  Hon.  Lady 
Jonston,  being  the  Twenty-Sixth  of  a  Series  of 
Portraits  of  the  Female  Nobility. 

The  Brazen  Serpent,  a  Poem,  is  in  the  press. 

Nearly  ready,  an  Early  Chronicle  of  London,  writ- 
ten in  the  1,5th  Century,  and  now  for  the  first  time- 
printed  from  the  original  M..S.  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum ;  to  w.hich  will  be  added  several  curious  con- 
temporary Letters  and  Poetical  Pieces  (the  greater 
part  of  which  have  been  hitherto  inedited)  illustra- 
tive either  of  some  important  Events  in  the  History 
of  England  and  of  the  Metropolis,  or  of  the  Man- 
ners of  the  Period  to  which  they  sejate. 

.An.  Accoant  of  Public  Charities,. digested  from  the 
Reports  of  the  Commissioners  on  Charitable  Foun- 
dations; with  Notes  and  Comments.  By  the  Editor 
«xf  The  Cabinet  Lawyer :  will  be  published  January 
1st,  and  continued  in  monthly  Parts  unlE  completed, 
in  about  10  Parts. 

Mr.  H.  J.  Prior  has  in  the  press,  in  1  vol.  12mo. 
Practical  Elocution,  or  Hints  to  Public  Speakers. 

The  new  work  by  the  author  of  the  English  in 
Italy,  entitled  Historiettes,  or  Tales  of  Continental 
Life,  is  expected  to  appear  early  in  the  present 
month. 

The  Zenana,  or  a  Newab's  Leisure  Hours,  by  the 
author  of  Pandurang  Hari,  or  Memoirs  of  a  Hin- 
doo, containing  a  Series  of  Tales  translated  from 
the  Narrations  of  Indian  Natives,  will  be  ready  for, 
publication  on  the  lyth  instant. 


LIST  OF  NEW  WORKS. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Mrs.  Siddons.  By  J.  Boa- 
den,  Esq. ;  with  a  Portrait  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence. 
2  vols.  }{vo.  28s. 

EDUCATION SCHOOL-BOOKS. 

Barley's  Popular  Geometry.  12mo.  4s.  6d.  bds. 

Mrs.  "Williams*  Summary  Method  of  Teaching. 
12mo.  Is.  Od.  bound. 

Triumphs  of  Genius  and  Perseverence  exemplified;, 
in  the  History  of  Persons  who,  from  the  lov/cst  state 
of  Poverty  and  early  Ignorance  have  risen  to  the 
highest  Eminence  m  the  Arts  and  Sciences.  By 
Elizabeth  Strutt,  author  of  Practical  Wisdom,  &c. 
12mo.  7s-  bds. 

The  Elements  of  the  Theory  of  Plane  Astronomy. 
By  W.  Maddy,  M.A.  Bvo.  Price  7s.  Cd.  bds. 

Euripkles  Tragasdia*  priores  Quatuor  ad  fidem 
manuscriptorum  emendata?  et  brevibus  notis  emtn-  \ 

rtationum  potissimum  rationes  edidit  Ricardus  Por- 
son,  A.M.,  rectnsuit  suasque  notulas  subjecit.  Ja- 
cobus Scholefield,  A.M.  8vo.  Price  12s.  Cd.  bds. 

Lectures  on  Astronomy  ;  illustrated  by  the  Astro- 
nomicon,  or  a  Series  of  Mov cable  Diagrams,  exhi- 
biting a  more  familiar  r.nd  natural  elucidation  of  the, 
real  and  apparent  Motions  of  the  Heavenly  Bodies 
than  is  to  be  met  with  in  any  other  work  on  this 
valuable  Science.  By  W.  II.  Prior.  Price  of  the, 
Astroiiomicon,  i'3. 13s.  Gd. ;  Lectures,  10s.  Gd. 

TINE  ARTS. 

A  Portrait  of  the  Hon.  Mrs,  Pakenham,  engraved 
by  Cochran,  from  a  painting  by  G.  Hayter,  M.A.S.L. 
being  the  Twenty-fifth  of  a  Series  of  Portraits  of  the 
Female  Nobility.  4to.  Columbia  India  proofs,  5s.  ; 
plain,  4s. 

.  London  and  its  Vicinity,  in  a  Series  of  Plates,' 
engraved  bv  O.  Cooke,  from  original  Drawings. 
Np.  I.  Impl.  8vo.  4s.,  4tc.  6s.  6*1. 


1827.] 


List  of  Nm  Works*. 


10* 


Designs  for  Architectural  Buildings; 
including  Labourers'  Cottages,  Farm-houses,  and 
Out-buildings;  conveniently  arranged  arcrund  Fold 
Vards,  and  adapted  to  Farms  of  various  Sizes  and 
•Dimensions,  By  Joseph  J  op  ling,  Architect.  4to. 
£l.  10s.  lids. 

Select  Views  In  Greece;  cngi  avert  in  the  best  line- 
Twanner,  from  Drawings  by  H.  W.  Williams,  Esq. 
Edinburgh.  Part  VI.  In  Impl.  8*rp.  12i, ;  Proofs,  on 
India  Paper,  royal  4to.  ±M.  IK. 

The  Tour-,  or  Select  Views  round  the  Southern 
•Coast  of  England  and  Ireland,  &c".  &c..  from  the 
.Sketches  of  R.  Havell,  Jun. ;  embracing  Sixty  Views, 
beautifully  Coloured,  and  neatly  half-bound,  Price 
S2s. ;  or  plain,  7*- 

HISTORY  AND  TOPOGRAPHY. 

Historical  Antiquities  of  Hertfordshire.  By  .Sir 
H.  Chauncey,  Kt.  2  vols.  ttvo.  36's...  ryl.  4.r.>:. 

Roman  Tablets,  containing  Facts,  Anecdotes,  and 
Observations  on  the  Manners,  Customs,  Ceremo- 
nies and  Government  of  the  Court  of  Rome  at  the 
present  Day-  By  M,  de  Santo  Domingo;  translated, 
from  the  original  French  M.S.  PostSvo.  ijs.  fc.L 

Historical  Defence  of  the  Waldenses  or  Vaudois* 
Inhabitants  of  the  Valleys  of  Piedmont-  By  Jean 
Rodolphe  Peyran,  late  Pastor  of  Pomaret,  and 
Moderator  of  the  Walden&ian  Church  ;  with  an  In- 
troduction and  Appendixes,  by  the  Rev,  Thomas 
Sims,  M.A.  8vo.  iPrice  15s.  bds. 

Mantell's  Illustrations  of  the  Geology  of  Sussex, 
containing  a  general  View  of  the  Geological  Relations 
of  the  South-Eastern  Part  of  England  ;  with  figures 
and  descriptions  of  the  Fossils  of  Silgate  Forest. 
Royal  4to.  VoL  2.  £2.  15s. 

A  Visit  to  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  in  1800  ;  with  Nine 
^Engravings.  By  John  Maude,  Esq.  Royal  8vo. 
"bound  in  calf,  31s.  fid. 

Narrative  of  the  Burmese  War.  With  a  Map.  By 
Major  Snodgrass.  Svo.  12s. 

MEDICINE   AND   STJRGERY. 

Observations  on  the  Causes,  Symptoms  and  Treat- 
ment of  Derangement  of  the  Mind,  founded  on  an 
extensive  moral  and  medical  Practice  in  the  Treat- 
ment of  Lunatics.  By  Paul  Slade  Knight,  M.D. 
Price  7s.  Cd.  bds. 

Outlines  of  Midwifery.,  for  the  use  .of  Students. 
By  J.  Hamilton,  M.D  8vo  7s.  (jd.  bds. 

An  Oration  delivered  before  the  Ilunterian  So- 
ciety;  with  supplementary  Observations  and  Engrav- 
ings. By  Sir  W.  Blizard,  Knt.  4to.  5s. 

A  Dissertation  on  the  Institutes  of  Medicine ;  par- 
ticularly relating  to  the  Pathology  of  Fever.  By 
William  Stoker,  M.IX,  Senior  Physician  to  the  Fever 
Hospital  and  House  of  Recovery,  Cork  Street,  Dub- 
lin, &.c.  Svo.  4s.  sewed, 

A  Grammatical  Introduction  to  the  London  Phar- 
macopoeia ;  to  which  is  added  anAppendix,  containing 
the  Words  most  frequently  occuring  in  Physicans* 
Prescriptions.  By  S.  F.  Leach,  Price  5s. 

Modem  Domestic  Msdicine.  By  T.Graham,  M.D. 
&c.  Thick  voL  8vo.  15s.  bds. 

An  Introductory  Lecture  on  Human  and  Compa- 
rative Physiology.  Delivered  at  the  New  Medical 
School  in  Aldersgate-street.  By  Peter  M.  Roget, 
M.D.  F, U.S.,  &c.  8vo.  4s.  (3d.  bcls. 

An  Introductory  Lecture  on  Anatomy,  delivered 
at  the  New  Medical  School,  Aldersgate-street,  Octo- 
ber 2t  182<i  By  Frederick  Tyrrel.  8vcu  3s,  6(L 

MISCELLANIES. 

The  Pastor's  Sketch  Book,  or  Authentic  Narra- 
tives of  real  Characters.  By  George  Buider,  A.M. 
12mo.  Ms.  5s. 

The  Secret  Correspondence  of  Mde.  de  Mainte- 
non  and  the  Princess  des  Ursins,  from  the  original 
M.S.  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke  de  Choiseul. 
S  vote.  Svo.  3(is.  bds. 

Concise  Forms  in  Conveyancing.  By  T.  Coventry, 
Barrister  at  Law.  5s.  bds. 

Index  to  the  First  Twenty  Volumes  of  the  Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Science.  8vo.  7s-  (id.  bds. 

Notes  of  the  War  in  Spain,  with  a  Map  and  Plan 
of  Cadiz  Bay,  Isle  of  St.  Leon,  &c.  By  T.  Steele, 
Esq.  !)$.  bds. 

Memoir  on  the  Duty  of  Picquets.  By  Lieut.  CoL 
Fitzclarence. 

Transalpine  Memoirs.  By  an  English  Catholic. 
2  vols.  I2mo.  15s.  bds. 

British  Entomology.  Vol.  III.  By  J.  Curtis,  F.L.S. 
54s.  extra  bds. 

Mortgage  Precedents.  By  T.  Coventry,  Esq., 
Barrister  at  Law.  Royal  Svo.  31a.  6d-  bds. 


Tha  Scot's  CompoYKtmrn,  or  Pocket  Peerage  of 
Scotland  ;  with  Engravings  of  all  the  Armorial  Bear- 
ings, &r.  2  vols.  Ittmo.  21s.  bds.  •- 

Index  to  Dodsley's  Annual  Register*  from  17581* 
181(1.  Rvo.  24s.  bit;- 

Popular  Philosophy.  2  vols.  10s.  M. 

The  Domestic  Account  Book  for  1827,  upon  t 
new  and  simple  plan,  for  the  use  of  Large  or  Small 
Families.  15s.  half-bound. 

Remarks  on  an  Address  to  the  Menfbers  of  the 
New  Parliament,  r>n  the  Proceedings  of  the  Colonial 
Department,  with  respect  to  the  West-India  Ques- 
tion. By  a  Member  ot  the  last  Parliament. 

A  New  System  of  Astronomical  Mnemonics. 
forming  a  new  ami  truly  original  Method  of  acquir- 
ing a  complete  Knowledge  of  the  Constellations.  Bj 
R.  Machan,  Svo.  f.s.  bds. 

Elements  of  Theoretical  Mechanics,  "being  the 
Substance  of  a  Course  of  Lectures  on  Statics  and 
Dynamics.  By  Thomas  Jackson,  UL.  D.  Svo. 
10s.  fid.  bds. 

The  Metropolitan  Magazine.   No.  IV.   Gs. 

The  Quarterly  Review.    No.  LXIX.  (is. 

Stuarf  s  Arrec'dotes  of  Mechanics  and  Philosophy, 
Parts  I.  II.  andllL  Is.  6d.  each. 

Europe  in  Miniature,  a  Geographical  Amusement, 
consisting  of  15  coloured  Maps  and  58  Cards,  in  a 
Box,  !5e. 

PetersdorlFs  Law  Reports.  RyL  8vo.  VoL  V, 
Sls.6d.  bds. 

•    The  Natural  arid  Agricultural  History  of  Peat- 
Moss  or  Turf  Bog.  Svo.   10s.  6d.  bds. 

An  Exposure  of  the  Hamiltonian  System  of  Teacli- 
ing  Languages  ;  in  a  Letter  addressed  to  the  Author 
of  an  Article  recommending  that  System  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  No.  87.  By  J.  Jones,  L.L.D. 
€vo.  Is.  3d. 

Letter  from  George  Combe  to  Francis  Jeffrey, 
Esq.,  in  Answer  to  has  Criticism  on  Phrenology,  con- 
tained in  No.  88.  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Svo. 
Is.  <!d. 

Verbatim  Report  of  th-e  Action  for  Libel  in  the 
Case  of  Buckingham  versus  Banks.  Tried  in  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench,  October  19,  182G.  Svo. 
2s.  fid.  sewed. 

Christmas  Trifles  ;  consisting  principally  of  Geo- 
graphical Charades,  Valentines,  and  Poetical  Pieces, 

thor  of 
Flscp. 
f!vo.   2s.  6d,  bds. 

The  Lord  Mayor's  Visit  to  Oxford,  in  the  montfe 
of  July,  1826;  written  at  the  desire  of  the  party,  by 
the  Chaplain  to  the  Mayoralty.  Post  Svo.  with  two 
Mates.  Price  7s.  6d.-in  extra  bds. 

A  Vindication  of  certain  Passages  in  the  Third  and 
Fourth  Volumes  of  the  History  of  England,  By  J, 
Lingard,  D.D.  2s.  G&.  sewed. 

A  Scriptural  View  of  the  Catholic  Question,  in 
Remarks  upon  a  Petition  presented  to  the  House  of 
Lords  against  Emancipation.  8vo.  5s.  bds, 

Hints  for  procuring  Employment  for  the  "Labour- 
ing Poor,  for  the  better  Managing  of  Parish  Con- 
cerns, and  for  reducing  the  Rates.  By  Thos.  Lovell, 
Estate  Ageut.  Svo.  Is.  (KL 

Old  English  Sayings  newly  Expounded,  in  Prose 
and  Verse.  By  Jefferys  Taylor,  author  of  Harry's 
Holiday,  &c.  12mo.  4s. 

New  Tables  for  facilitating  the  Computation  of 
Precession,  Aberration  and  Notation  of  Two  Thou- 
sand Eight  Hundred  and  Eighty-One  principal  fixed 
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MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT. 

THE  atmosphere  has  been  saturated  with  moisture  during  the  greater  part  of  the  last 
month,  and  very  few  days  have  passed  without  vain.  Hitherto,  however,  there  has 
t>een  scarcely  any  fog.  The  temperature  of  the  air  too  has  been  comparatively  mild,  and 
M*hat  is  of  at  least  equal  importance  with  reference  to  our  subject,  uniform.  No  violent 
or  sudden  changes  of  atmospheric  temperature  have  occurred  ;  and  to  this  circumstance 
principally  we  are  bound  to  ascribe  the  freedom  from  general  or  epidemic  disease  which 
lias  characterized  the  period  of  which  we  are  Creating.  It  has  been  long  known  and  felt, 
that  the  great  evil  of  our  climate  is  its  variableness-  The  thermometer  falls  much  lower 
and  rises  much  higher  in  other  places,  taking  the  year  round  ;  but  in  no  country  in  the 
world  probably  are  the  daily  and  weekly  variations  of  the  thermometer  so  considerable  as 
in  England.  To  delicate  constitutions  these  sudden  extremes  of  atmospheric  tempera- 
ture are  thoroughly  destructive,  and  scarcely  any  system,  however  naturally  strong,  will 
be  found  able,  for  any  length  of  time,  to  withstand  them. 

Bronchial  affections,  characterized  by  cough  and  wheezing,  and  exhibiting  those  other 
features  which  were  specially  noticed  in  the  last  report,  have  been  very  general  during 
the  past  month.  In  one  case  only  however  has  the  reporter  witnessed  the  occurrence  of 
the  complaint  in  its  aggravated  form,  that  is  to  say,  with  huffy  blood,  and  general  op- 
pression. Depletion  from  the  jinn  has  seldom  been  warranted  hy  the  violence  of  the 
symptoms.  Where,  as  a  matter  of  precaution,  it  was  thought  advisable  to  adopt  it,  the 
blood  exhibited  no  marks  of  general  inflammatory  excitement-  Active  purging,  by 
senna  and  salts,  has  proved  extremely  beneficial.  This,  with  Dover's  powder  at  bed 
.time,  and  some  mucilaginous  mixture,  containing  antimonial  or  ipecacuanha  wine,  has 
generally  succeeded  in  restoring  health.  Other  varieties  of  thoracic  disease  have  been 
fully  as  prevalent  as  bronchial,  inflammation,  viz.  common  catarrh,  and  peripulmonary.  Ca- 
tarrhal  complaints  have  been  very  frequent  in  the  upper  classes  of  society.  They  are  easily 
distinguished  from  the  more  serious  affections  of  the  bronchial  membrane  by  the  sudden- 
ness of  their  attack,  by  the  greater  rapidity  of  their  course,  and  by  the  circumstance  of 
their  being,  in  almost  all  cases,  accompanied  by  a  vesicular  eruption  of  the  lips,  the 
herpes  lubialis  of  medical  writers.  These  catarrhal  disorders,  whether  appearing  in  the 
form  of  a  liead.  or  of  a  chest  cold,  have  hitherto  demanded  no  other  treatment  than  what 
the  Family  Medicine  Chest  safely  supplies  :  viz.  half  a  paper  of  James's  powder  at 
night,  and  a  dose  of  salts  the  following  morning.  They  have  generally  run  their  course 
in  five  or  six  days,  nor  has  the  reporter  met  with  any  cases,  in  which  the  dregs  of  the 
disease  have  occasioned  any  uneasiness. 

Si-vend  instances  of  deep -seated  peripulmonary  have  lately  fallen  under  the  reporter's 


1327.]  Monthly  Medical  Report.  105 

observation,  and  he  is  inclined  to  think  that  this  form  of  thoracic  disease  will  speedily 
shew  itself  more  generally,  und  require  the  utmost  exertion  of  medical  skill  both  in 
detecting  its  insidious  approach,  and  in  checking  its  gradual  but  certain  and  formidable 
advances.  It  is  at  this  season  of  the  year  when  the.  foundations  of  consumption  are  for 
the  most  part  laid;  and  there  is  no  principle  in  medical  practice  so  universally  acknow- 
ledged, as  the  necessity  of  combating  these  cases  (if  they  are  to  be  combated  at  all  \\iih 
success)  at  a  very  early  period  of  their  course.  When  the  blood-vessels  of  the  lungs 
have  once  begun  to  throw  out  (however  slowly)  inflammatory  deposits,  the  danger  is 
certainly  great.  The  practitioner,  therefore,  cannot  be  too  much  on  his  guard  against 
allowing  the  disease  to  gain  that  ascendancy  when  such  a  termination  is  inevitable.  But 
though  fully  ready  to  acknowledge  this,  the  reporter  is  inclined  to  believe  that,  upon  the 
whole,  medical  men  are  too  much  alarmed  in  this  respect,  and  are  unwilling  to  place 
sufficient  reliance  on  the  efforts  of  art  in  the  relief  of  this  state  of  disorder.  Frequent 
blistering,  farinaceous  diet,  perfect,  quiet  of  body  and  composure  of  mind,  with  the  use 
of  deobstruent  and  diuretic  remedies,  have,  in  the  reporter's  practice,  been  of  infinite 
service  in  restoring  persons  who  were  evidently  far  advanced  towards  consumption.  But 
of  all  measures  the  most  important  is  the  defence  of  the  body  from  external  cold,  and 
knowing  this,  it  is  truly  melancholy  to  observe  how  systematically  this  rule  is  broken 
through,  especially  by  females  of  the  upper  ranks  of  life.  Their  evening  dresses 
appear,  indeed,  to  be  contrived  for. the  especial  purpose  of  extending  the  empire  of  con- 
sumption in  this  island. 

General  fever  is  still  to  be  met  with  in  tlie  metropolis,  but  it  has  lost  all  that  character 
of  intensity  which  caused  it  to  be  so  much  noticed  of  late  in  these,  reports.  The  fever 
now  prevailing  is  of  the  kind  called  common  continued,  and  is  usually  accompanied  by 
headache,  -yielding,  for  the  most  part  without  difficulty,  to  the  application  of  leeches. 
The  eruptive  fevers  also  are  both  mild  and  rare.  The  admissions  into  the  Small  Pox 
Hospitals  during  the  last  month  have  been  greatly  below  the  usual  average. 

The  only  other  kind  of  disease  which  can  fairly  be  ranked  among  the  epidemics  of  the 
season  is  Rheumatism.  This  complaint  has  lately  exhibited  itself  in  more  than  its  usual 
proportion,  some  cases  being  accompanied  by,  and  others  altogether  devoid  of  fever. 
The  side  of  the  face  has  been  one  of  the  most  frequent  seats  of  this  rheumatic  affection, 
which  has  been  designated  therefore  under  the  several  titles  of  tooth-ache,  ear-ache,  and 
face-ache. 

A  case  lately  fell  under  the  reporter's  observation  sufficiently  curious  to  deserve  some 
mention.  A  child,  three  years  old,  was  brought  into  the  Small  Pox  Hospital,  and  died 
the  following  .day.  Gu  .examination  of  the  body,  the  'liver  was  found  enlarged  to  an 
enormous  size.  In  the  language  of  the  •common  people,  the  child  was  liveryrown. 
Little  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  this  disease  was  congenital,  for  within  three  months 
after  birth  the  enlargement  of  the  body  was  plainly  perceived  by  the  mother,  who  soon 
afterwards  contrived  a  pair  of  stays  for  the  child,  which  appeared  to  afford  it  much 
comfort.  .  The  singularity  of  the  case  consisted  in  this,  that  up  to  the  day  of  its  seizure 
by  small  pox,  the  child's  appetite,  general  aspect  and  health  were  unimpaired.  The 
child  had  never  spoken,  but  was  lively  and  good-tempered.  The  parents  appear  healthy 
nor  has  any  similar  disease  appeared  in  their  other  children. 

.  GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 

8,    Upper  John-afreet)   Gulden-square,  December  22, 


MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

DURING  the  present  week  will  depart  this  mortal  life,  one  of  the  most  favourable 
autumnal  seasons  for  all  the  operations  of  agriculture,  which'  the  oldest  living  man 'has 
witnessed.  Some  inconveniences,  however,  must  of  necessity  have  been  expe- 
rienced. In  the  maritime  counties,  there  has  been  so  much,  moisture  from  rain  and 
fog,  that  the  lands  have  poached,  arid  the  grasses  have  become  sodden  and  innutritions, 
indeed  unwholesome.  This  has,  in  course,  accelerated  the  period,  of  home 
folding;  but  we  do  not  find  that,  the  former  earnest  and  practical  recommendation 
of  the  continental,  indeed  old  English  practice,  of  including  sheep  in  the  winter  pro- 
tection, has  yet  had  any  influence  with  the  flockmasters  of  the  noble  county  of  Kent ; 
notwithstanding  their  recent  bitter  experience  of  the  ROTS,  and  the  certainty  of  its  re- 
currence, should  the  winter  prove  moist.  On  favourable  soils,  the  stock  of  all  kinds 
have  done  well,  the  stubbles  have  been  eminently  productive,  arid  cattle  are  still  abroad. 
Some  light  lands  are  yet  dry  and  firm,  notwithstanding  the  great  quantity  of  rain  that 
has  fallen,  and  the  springs  even  are  yet  defective.  There  has  been  little  frost,  and  that 
of  short  duration.  Wheat-sowing  finished  successfully,  excepting  on  some  wet  apd 
poachy  soils,  further  retarded  by  the  drill  process.  A  vast  breadth  of  wheat  and  winter 
tares  sown ;  the  early  sown  is  equal  to  any  thing  ever  witnessed,  for  luxuriance  and 
stoutness,  ..  Much  of  the  forward  wheats  fed  down  by  sheep..  The  great  plenty  of  green 
food  has  economized  the  hay  and  straw,  and  prevented  an  inordinate  rise  of  price'.'  The 

M.  M.  —Nsw  Series.  VOL.  1 1 1.  No.  13.  P 


106  Monthly  Agricultural  Report*  £  JAN. 

turnip?,  however,  as  well  might  be  expected,  have  produced  little  else  but  green  tops, 
those  in  plenty  :  and  should  the  winter  prove  severe,  it  will  be  one  of  the  most  difficult 
and  expensive.  Mangold-wurzel  is  now  the  root  crop  of  the  greatest  consequence,  and 
in  general,  got  up  and  stored.  Mr;  Lawrence's  old  plan  of  the  mixed  grass  and  straw 
stacks  is  now  under  experiment,  particularly  in  those  parts  where  the  out  crop  has  been 
most  successful.  Potatoes,  two-thirds  of  a  crop.  Two  to  three  shillings  and  sixpence 
a  head  given  for  beasts  at  straw  yard,  and  seven  to  ten  guineas  per  aero  for  ordinary 
turnips.  Winter  tillage,  generally,  was  never  more  forward,  nor  the  lands  in  finer  con- 
dition for  the  reception  of  seed  for  the  spring  crops.  Clover  seed,  various  in  quality  and 
low  in  price. 

There  are  complaints  in  some  parts  of  the  country,  that  wheat  does  not  come  out  to 
satisfaction,  either  in  quantity  or  quality ;  and  that  there  is  a  quantity  of  black  wheat, 
in  despite  of  the  most  regular  steeping  ot  seed.  But  there  never  was  a  crop  without; 
some  tail  or  falling  off;  arid  we  still  abide  by  our  darly  opinion  of  the  last  crop,  having 
seen  samples  from  various  parts,  of  uncommon  fineness  and  weight,  the  great  object ;  and 
which,  comparative  measured  quantities  equal,  must  add  greatly  to  oiir  estimation  of 
quantity.  From  all  the  most  productive  districts,  we  are  informed  that  the  stocks  of  this 
most  precious  grain  are  unusually  large.  Great  complaints  still  of  the  Imperial  bushel, 
but  not  with  reason  equally  great,  since  a  short  period  of  time  must  necessarily  equalize 
all  the  difference ;  and  we  repeat,  it  was  something  very  like  an  absurdity  in  the  legis- 
lature to  make  a  rule  and  not  render  it  imperative;  The  tacking  of  a  rider,  is  the  one 
thing  needful.  Bruised  wheat,  the  most  plentiful  grain,  has  now  become  food  for  horsfes 
and  pigs,  and  barley  the  substitute  of  oats.  On  the  fortunate  sods,  barley  and  oats  will 
prove  nearly  an  average  crop,  and  they  are  held  back  by  the  farmers,  for  the  sake  of  straw 
fodder  for  the  spring.  During  the  summer  drought,  the  dairies  came  exceedingly  short 
of  produce,  whence  butter  and  cheese  must  continue  at  a  high  price.  The  wool  trade 
has  finished  without  improvement.  Stores  and  half  fat  stock  have  been  low  throughout 
the  season,  the  prospect  for  winter  provision  being  so  dubious^  or  rather  certain  as  to  its 
heavy  expense. 

There  are  reports,  real  or  pretended,  of  a  cessation  of  improvements  in  husbandry, 
from  apprehension  of  the  ill  consequences  of  an  expected  change  in  the  corn  laws; 
also  of  a  general  discharging  of  labourers.  But  as,  in  any  case,  farming  concerns  must 
be  retained,  they  who  retain  their  lands,  will  find  it  more  to  their  profit,  to  employ 
labourers  in  duly  working  and  keeping  those  lands  clean,  than  in  pauperizing  and  sub- 
sisting those  really  unfortunate  men.  A  month  or  two  since,  we  were  not  a  little  amused 
at  perusing,  in  a  celebrated  magazine,  a  borrowed  article  on  destroying  thistles,  by  the  ex- 
hibition to  them,  individually,  of  doses  of  salt ;  and  moreover,  by  a  recommendation  to  dig 
store  tnrnips  in  February !  We  have  since  heard,  from  various  quarters,  this  process  of 
thistle-killing,  boasted  as  a  recent  discovery.  Now  experience  has  long  since  proved  such 
application  of  salt  in  the  fields  to  be  most  uncertain  ;  and  all  such  temporary  half-measures 
are  most  impolitic,  since  they  form  so  rare  an  excuse  for  those  (and  they  are  a  majority)  who 
cannot  be  induced  to  undertake  any  measure  radically.  After  all,  why  do  our  farmers 
continue  to  grow  such  immense  loads  of  weeds  ?  Is  their  land  of  so  rampant  a  nature 
that  it  cannot  be  tamed  by  corn  cropping,  and  are  they  thence  under  the  necessity  of 
calling  in  the  effectual  assistance  of  weed  vegetation  ?  It  appears  extraordinary  that 
flesh  meat  should  be  quoted  so  low  in  the  country,  and  yet  bear  so  great  a  price  in  the 
metropolis.  The  London  Christmas  prices  are  excessive  for  the  best  meat  of  all  kinds, 
which  is  scarce  ;  the  inferior  bearing  a  proportionate  value.  At  the  cattle  show,  the 
quality  of  the  animals  was  fully  equal  to  the  usual  standard ;  but  the  number  considerably 
inferior ;  and  the  number  of  amateur  visitants  of  rank,  reduced  indeed. 

Smithfield.—Beef,  4s.  6d.  to  6s.  6ef.  —  Mutton,  3s.  Sd.  to  4s.  Sd. Veal    4s.  8d. 

to  6s.  Od.— Pork,  4s.  2d.  to  5s.  Sd.— Dairy- fed,  6s.  6d,— Raw  Fat,  2s.  9±d.  per  stone. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  45s.  to  68s. — Barley,  Sis.  to  44s. — Oats,  26s.  to  44s. — 
Bread,  4lb.  loaf)  9$d.  —  Hay,  60s.  to  105s.— Clover,  ditto  80s.  to  130s.  Straw,  21s. 
to  40s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  28s.  Od.  to  36*.  per  chaldron. 
Middlesex,  December  18/A,  1826. 


MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

THE  war  declared  against  Spain  has,  as  yet,  had  no  effect  on  the  prices  of  Spanish 
produce,  and  there  is  at  present  in  the  London  Docks  upwards  of  five  years'  consumption 
of  Sherry,  and  of  all  other  sorts  of  Spanish  wines. 

Sugar — at  this  part  of  the  year  the  consumption  being  great,  the  demand  by  the  grocers 
continues  brisk,  and  prices  keep  a  fair  average,  say  from  50s.  to  70s.  per  cwt. 

Tea — keeps  its  price,  and,  like  sugar,  in  full  demand-. 

Rum — is  rather  dull  in  the  market  at  2s.  Sd.  to  4s.  for  strong  per  imperial  gallon. 

Coffee — has  been  in  demand  for  the   Continent,  and  the  Grocers  have  for  the  past 


}827.]  Monthly  Commercial  Report,  107 

month  bought  freely.  Prices,  from  45*.*  to  80*.  per  cwt,  and  fine  Mocha  120*.  tq 
130s.  per  c\vt. 

Cotton  — \*  very  dull,  both  in  our  market  and  Liverpool,  and  prices  arc  nominal. 

Apices — are  rather  advanced,  and  in  pretty  good  demand. 

'fruit.—  The  last  vintage  has  proved  very  fine  in  Spain,  and  the  quality  of  the  Raisins, 
&c.  turn  out  very  fine,  and  the  market  opens  at  reasonable  prices,  but  the  purchasers 
hold  out,  and  buy  sparingly  at  present. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow — remain  steady,  without  any  alteration,  but  dull  at  this  season 
of  the  year. 

Indigo. — This  article  has  advanced  4rf.  to  Gd.  per  Ib.  in  the  India-House,  and  some 
considerable  purchases  have  been  made  for  the  continental  market,  to  advantage, 

Course  of  Foreign  Exchanges. — Amsterdam,  12.  7. — Rotterdam,  12.  7.— Antwerp, 
12.  8.  — Hamburg,'  37.  6.—  Aitona,  37.  7.— Paris,  25.  65.  —  Bourdeaux,  25.  65.— 
Berlin,?.  — Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154^.  — Petersburg,  8^. — Vienna,  10.21. — Trieste, 
JJO.  24. -Madrid,  3*.— Cadiz,  34f.— Bilboa,  33.— Barcelona,  33.— Seville,  33.— 
Gibraltar,  43.  —Leghorn,  47i— Genoa,  43f-.— Venice,  46.— Naples,  38|-.  —Palermo,  1 14*. 
— Lisbon,  48f- —  Oporto,  48j. —  Rio  Janeiro,  43£. — Bahia,  43|. — Buenos  Ayres,  43.— e 
Dublin,  \\.~ Cork,  H. 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d  —  New  Doubloons,  £3.  Os. — 
New  Dollars,  4s.  9d. — Silver  in  bars,  standard 4s.  lid. 

Premiums  on  Shares  and  Consols,  and  Joint-  Stock  Companies,  at  the  Office  of  WOLFED 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley,  Cornliill. — Birmingham  CANAL,  260/.  — Coventry,  1100/. — 
EHesmere  and  Chester,  100/. — Grand  Junction,  295^. — Kennet  and  Avon,  25/. — Leeds 
and  Liverpool,  3SOJ.—  Oxford,  68QA— Regents,  367.  — Trent  and  Mersey,  1,850/.— 
Warwick  and  Birmingham,  250/. — London  DOCKS,  85Z.  10s.— West-India, '200/.— East 
London  WATER-WQKKS,  120/.— Grand  Junction,  74/.  10s.— West  Middlesex,  66Z— 
— Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE,  £<ftj.  —  Globe,  140?.  —  Guardian,  197. — 
Hope,  51 — Imperial  Fire>  90^  —  GAS-LIGHT  Westminster  Chartered  Company,  57/. — 
City  Gas-Light  Company,  157/. — British,  III.  djs. — Leeds,  J95/. —Liverpool,  par. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMQJRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 

THE  MARQUIS  OF  HASTINGS.  of  which  estate,  with  the  mansion-house,  is 

Francis  Ravvdon  Hastings,   Marquis  of  still  in  possession  ot  the  family  : — 

Hastings,     Earl    of     Rawdon,     Viscount  ,,  T  T,T.,,.         T,. 

Loudon,    Baron  Hastings  and  Rawdon,  in  I3*™*?   *&$*+**  thurd  yere  of  my 

the  Peerage  of  the  United  Kingdom ;  Earl  _.           g"'          .       „      ,        „ 

of  Moira,  and  Baron  Rawdon,  in  the  Peer-  Glve  *°  the  Paulvn  Roydon,  Hope  and 

age   of  Ireland,   and   a    Bart,    of  Ireland,  ....  .  Wopetownc, 

K.  G.,  G.  C.  B.,  F.  R.  S.,  F.  S.  A.,  and  Wlth  alltlie  bou^  s  b.oth  "P  an^r  do^ne  ? 

M.  R.  I.  A.,    was   born    on    the    7th   of  Irom . Heven  to  Yerthe'  from  Yerthe  *<* 

December,  1754.     He  succeeded  his  mo-  ,      '   . 

ther,  Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Moira,  &c.,  in  ^or  the  and  ,th>^  ther  .to  d^e!' 

the   ancient  Barony  of  Hastings,  &c.,  on  £s  trulv  as  *1S  Kvn£  nSht  1S  mynJ 

the  12th  of  April,  1808;  and  his   father,  I  or  a  crossebo w  and  an  arrow, 

John,  the  late  Earl  of  Moira,  in   Ireland,  ^h,e?  *sal  com1e  t:>  lun^  ?n  yarro^ 

on  the  20th  of  June,  1793      On  the  7th  of  ^nd  in  Token  that  thlf  thm«  1S  s,°ot^ 

December,  1816,  he  was  created  Marquis  I  b,t  the  whyt  wax  with  my  tooth, 

of  Hastings,  Earl  of  Rawdon,  and  Viscount  ?et?re  Mf£'  ffvd'  and  Margery, 

Loudoun.  And  my  thui'd  (Sonne,  Hepry." 

The  family  of  Rawdon,  from  which  this  The  Rawdons  either  gave  their  name 
nobleman  was  paternally  descended,  is  of  to,  or  received  it  from,  a  town  in  York- 
great  antiquity.  If  a  tradition,  preserved  shire,  about  three  miles  from  Leeds.  Raw- 
in  the  family,  and  which  is  corroborated  by  don  Hall  formerly  contained  several  very 
their  armorial  bearings  and  motto— Et  tws  remarkable  monuments  of  antiquity.  Sir 
quoque  tcla  sparsimus  may  be  relied  on,  Marmadtike  Rawdon,  Knt.,  was  a  staunch 
the  first  of  the  name  in  England,  came  royalalist,  and  a  most  active  and  intrepid 
over  with  the  Duke  of  Normandy,  and  commander,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I. ;  Sir 
commanded  a  band  of  archers  under  him.  '  George  Rawdon,  also,  the  first  Baronet, 
This  tradition  is  further  strengthened  by  was  famous  for  his  loyalty  and  his  eminent 
the  subjoined  title-deed  of  their  estate,  services  in  Ireland,  during  the  great  rer 
(copied  from  Wcever's  "Funeral  Monu-  beHion. 
nipnts,")  granted  by  the  Conqueror,  part  The  Hastings'  family,  maternal  ancestprfs 

«r    T 


108 


Meywirs  &f  Eminent   Persons. 


[JAN. 


of  the  late  Marqness,  are  descendants 
irom  William  de  Hastings,  summoned  to 
Parliament  by  the  title  of  Baron  Hastings, 
of  Ashby  de  la  Zouch,  in  the  county  of 
Leicester.  He  was  murdered  in  the  Tower 
of  London,  by  order  of  Richard,  Duke  of 
Gloucester. 

John  Rciwdon,  created  Baron  Rawdon, 
in  1750,  and  advanced  to  the  dignity  of 
Earl  of  Moira,  in  17C1,  was  thrice  married. 
His  third  wife  was  the  Lady  Elizabeth 
Hastings,  eldest  daughter  of  Theophilus, 
ninth  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  and  sole 
heiress  of  her  brother,  Francis,  the  tenth 
Earl,  on  whose  death,  without  issue,  she 
became  Baroness  Hastings,  &c.,  in  her 
own  right.  The  first  male  offspring  of  this 
marriage,  was  Francis,  the  late  Marquess, 
to  whom  this  sketch  relates. 

As  soon  as  his  lordship  had  completed 
his  education,  he  made  a  short  tour  on  the 
Continent;  then  entered  the  army,  and 
embarked  for  America.  He  distinguished 
himself  at  Bunker's  Hill,  and  subsequently 
in  the  attack  of  Fort  Clinton.  He  after- 
wards purchased  a  company;  and,  in  1778, 
he  was  advanced  to  the  rank  of  lieutenant- 
colonel  in  the  army,  and  appointed  adju- 
tant-general to  the  forces  commanded  by 
Sir  He.iry  Clinton.  He  exerted  himself 
greatly  in  the  retreat  through  the  Jerseys- 
embarked  with  the  troops  for  Charlestown 
— was  active  in  the  siege  of  that  place — 
after  its  surrender,  joined  Lord  Cornwallis, 
with  a  detachment — and  participated  in  the 
victory  at  Camden.  Lord  Rawdon  was 
now  left  with  a  small  division  in  South 
Carolina;  whence,  after  much  active  and 
successful  service,  against  the  American 
Generals  Gates  and  Greene,  he  returned 
to  Charlestown  in  1781.  .,  During  his  com- 
mand at  that  place,  an  unpopular  act  of 
public  justice  was  executed.  Isaac  Haynes, 
an  American,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner, 
voluntarily  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  British  Government,  and  was  set  at 
liberty.  In  violation  of  his  oath,  however, 
he  obtained  a  colonelcy  of  miiitia  in  the 
enemy's  army.  He  corrupted  a  battalion  of 
our  militia  -  was  taken  in  the  act  of  carry- 
ing them  off— tried  by  a  court  of  inquiry, 
found  guilty,  and  executed.  Lord  Raw- 
don privately  exerted  himself  to  obtain  his 
pardon,  but  without  effect ;  and,  notwith- 
standing his  exertions,  he  was  actually 
charged  with  being  the  author  of  the  man  s 
death,  which  was  termed  a  wanton  act  of 
military  despotism.  The  affair  made  con- 
siderable noise  at  the  time,  both  in  and  out 
of  Parliament ;  but  his  lordship  amply  vin. 
dicated  himself,  and  obtained  an  apology 
from  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Richmond. 

^Severe  illness  compelled  his  lordship  to 
return  to  England ;  when,  in  1783,  he  was 
elevated  to  the  British  Peerage,  made 
aid-du-cam  )  to  the  King,  and  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  colonel  in  the  army.  "In 
Parliament  Lord  Rawdon  proved  himself 
a  man  of  l>n«in»«?«« ;  he  spoke  with  ease  and 


ihiency,  and  appeared  master  of  the  sub- 
jects on  which  he  entered.  In  1789,  his; 
maternal  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon, 
died,}  and  left  him  the  bulk  of  his  fortune  ; 
a  very  seasonable  acquisition,  as  by  his 
great  liberality  he  had  involved  himself  in 
considerable  pecuniary  difficulties.  His 
lordship  attached  himself  closely  to  the  in- 
terests of  his  present  Majesty,  then  Prince 
of  Wales;  a  circumstance  which  brought 
him  into  connexion  with  the  opposition 
party.  He  was  also  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  the  Duke  of  York,  to  whom  he  acted 
as  second  in  his  Royal  Highness's  duel 
with  Colonel  Lennox,  afterwards  Duke  of 
Richmond.  In  the  memorable  discussions 
on  the  Regency,  his  lordship  took  an  active 
part. 

When  the  war  with  France  broke  out  in 
1793,  his  lordship,  then  Earl  Moira,  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  a  force  in- 
tended to  make  a  descent  on  the  coast  of 
France.  However,  having  been  kept  for  a 
long  time  inactive  at  Southampton,  the 
situation  of  the  allied  forces  in  Flanders 
rendered  it  necessary  to  send  a  reinforce- 
ment thither.  The  enterprize  was  hazard- 
ous ;  but  his  lordship  landed  at  Ostend  in 
the  very  face  of  a  formidable  force,  and, 
without  artillery,  made  a  forced  march, 
and  effected  a  junction  with  the  Duke  of 
York  at  a  very  critical  moment.  He  soon 
afterwards  returned  to  England ;  had  a 
command  little  more  than  nominal  at 
Southampton ;  was  regular  and  active  in 
the  discharge  of  his  parliamentary  duties ; 
was  accustomed  to  take  the  chair  at  Ma- 
sonic  and  other  anniversary  meetings;  and 
acquired  great  popularity  throughout  the 
country.  In  1805  he  was  sent  as  com- 
marider-in-chief  into  Scotland. 

His  lordship  having  acted  steadily  with 
the  opposition,  when  they  came  into  power 
in  1806,  he  was  made  master-general  of 
the  ordnance ;  in  which  he  continued  till 
the  Tory  partly  regained  their  ascendancy. 
In  the  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the 
Princess  of  W'ales,  he  took  a  most  active 
part  in  favour  of  the  Prince,  and  co-operated 
in  promoting  the  inquiry  into  circumstances 
which  he  considered  as  implicating  the 
honour  of  his  royal  friend. 

When  the  Prince  became  Regent,  in 
1811,  the  Earl  of  Moria  received  a  carte 
bla/iche  from  his  Royal  Highness  to  form 
an  administration  of  able  and  independent 
statesmen.  It  was  found  impracticable, 
however,  to  form  a  coalition  of  the  oppos- 
ing parties,  and  the  object  was  abandoned. 
Soon  afterwards,  the  Regent,  under  very 
flattering  circumstances,  conferred  upon  his 
lordship  the  Order  of  the  Gaiter.  As 
Lord  Moira  could  not  act  with  the  ministry 
then  in  power,  he  was  appointed  to  the 
Governor-generalship  of  India.  Soon  after 
his  departure,  he  was,  by  the  first  civil 
creation  under  the  Regency,  raised  to  the 
rank  of  Marquess  of  Hastings.  Under  his 
lordship's  government  in  India,  the  glory 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


109 


of  our  arms  was  sustained  in  the  field,  and 
justice  and  benevelence  distinguished  every 
measure  of  the  cabinet  of  Calcutta.  The 
noble  Marquess's  health  being  affected  by 
his  prolonged  residence  in  India,  he  re- 
turned to  England,  in  the  summer  or  au- 
tumn of  1812. 

From  his  lordship's  excessive  liberality — 
his  unbounded  generosity — he  is  considered 
to  have  been,  notwithstanding  his  exten- 
sive estates  and  splendid  income,  more  or 
less  embarrassed  through  life.  Pecuniary 
difficulties  were  indeed  said  to  be  the  chief 
cause  of  his  appointment,  soon  after  his  re- 
tufn  to  England,  to  the  comparatively  in- 
significant governship  of  Malta. 

His  lordship  married,  on  the  12th  of 
July,  1804,  Flora  Muior  Campbell,  Coun- 
tess of  Loudon,  in  his  own  right ;  by  whom 
he  had  issue  :  —  1,  Flora  Elizabeth,  born  in 
1805;  2,  George  Augustus  Frederick,  his 
successor,  now  Marquess  of  Hastings, 
born  in  1808;  3,  Selina  Constantina,  born 
in  1810;  and  4,  Adelaide  Augusta  La- 
vinia,  born  in  1812. 

His  lordship  some  weeks  before  his 
death,  which  occurred  on  board  his  Ma- 
jesty's ship  the  Revenge,  at  Naples,  on 
the  28th  of  November,  met  with  a  fall  from 
his  horse,  which  produced  very  distressing 
eifects  upon  the  hernia,  under  which  he  had 
loiJg  laboured.  It  was  against  the  advice 
of  the  medical  men  by  whom  he  was  at- 


tended, that,  upon  the  20th  of  the  month, 
he  was  brought  down  from  the  palace  at 
Malta,  to  the  shore,  upon  a  sofa,  and  put 
into  the  admiral's  barge,  and  towed  along- 
side the  Revenge.  He  was  then  in  an  ex- 
tremely weak  state.  The  Revenge  had  a 
quick  and  quiet  passage  of  only  three  days ; 
but,  on  her  arrival,  his  lordship  was  so  ill, 
that  it  was  found  impossible  to  remove 
him.  He  expired  in  firmness  and  resigna- 
tion, surrounded  by  his  wife  and  daughter?. 
Of  the  latter,  however,  he  had  taken  leave 
some  days  before.  It  is  mentioned,  in  a 
letter  from  nn  officer  of  the  Revenge,  that, 
among  the  Marquess's  papers  found  after 
his  death,  was  a  memorandum  requesting 
that  on  his  decease,  his  right  hand  might  be 
cut  off,  and  preserved  till  the  death  of  the 
Marchioness,  to  be  interred  in  the  same 
coffin  with  her  ladyship  !  The  letter  adds, 
that,  in  compliance  with  this  request,  the 
Marquess's  hand  was  amputated.  The 
body  was  conveyed  back  to  Malta,  for  in- 
terment, in  the  Ariadne,  Captain  Fitz- 
clarence. 

The  Marquess  of  Hastings  was  a  genera), 
in  the  army,  Colonel  of  the  27th  regiment 
of  Foot,  constable  and  chief  Governor  of 
the  Tower  of  London,  Lord-lieutenant  and. 
Gustos  Rotulorum  of  the  Tower  Division  ; 
a  Governor  of  the  Charter  House,  and 
one  of  the  Council  of  the  King,  in  Corn- 
wall and  Scotland. 


POLITICAL  APPOINTMENTS. 


3  Di:  G«. — Ens.  A.  L.  Bourke,  from  13  F.  (Riding- 
mast.),   Corn.,  and  placed  in  his  orig.  situation  in 
corps,   v.   W.  C.  Trevelyan,   who   rets,  on   h.  p., 
7  Dec. 

4  Dr.  Gu.— Lt.  S.  R.  J.  Masham,  from  37  P.,  Lt. 
v.  Cunningham,  who  exch.,    16  Nov. ;  B.  Burrell, 
Corn,  by  purch.,  v.  Vaughan,  prom.,  14  Nov. 

6  Dr.  Gu Corn.  H.  R.  Jones,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 

Richards,  prom.,  14  Nov. ;  F.  Q.  Turner,  Corn,  by 
purch.,  v.  Jones,  23  Nov. 

1  Dr Lt.  D.  P.  Webb,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Mar- 
ten, prom,,  12  Dec. ;  Capt.  P.  Phipps,  maj.  by  purch., 
v.  Stisted  prom.  ;  Lt.  W.  Hibbert,  Capt.  by  purch, 
v.  Phipps,  both  19  Dec. 

2  Dr — Lt.  A.  W.  Wyndham,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Wyndham  prom. ;  Corn.  C.  Norman,  Lt.  by  purch., 
V.  Wyndham  prom. ;  VV.  D.  Steuart,  Corn,  by  purch., 
v.  Norman,   all  12  Dec. ;    Tr.  Serj.  Maj.  W.  Perry, 
(j)u.  Mast.,  v.  Lennox  dec.,  7  Dec. 

4  L.  Dr — Capt.  W.  Parlby,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  v. 
G.  Parlby,  who  exch.,  rec.  dif.,  7  Dec. 

9  L.  Dr — Capt.  J.  A.  Lord  Loughborough,  Maj. 
by  purch.,  v.  Richardson  prom. ;  Lt.  P.  B.  Williams, 
Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Lord  Loughborough  ;  Corn.  E. 
S.  Trower,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Williams,  all  12  Dec. ; 
J.  Micklam,  Corn,  by  purch.,  v.  Trower  prom.,  12 
Dec. 

11  L.  Dr. — Lt.  H.  French,    Corn,  by  purch.,    v. 
Pearson  prom.,   16  Nov  ;     T.  Salkeld,    Corn,  by 
purch.,  v.  Lewis  prom.,  7  Dec. 

12  L.  Di- — J.  H.  Touchet,    Corn,  by  purch.,  v. 
Pole  prom.,  30  Nov. 

13  L.  Dr.— Com.  B.  MacMahon.  Lt.  by  purch.,  v, 
Campbell  prom,  in  Cape  Corps  of  Cav.,  30  Nov. 

14  L.  Di: — Corn.  J.  M.  Dawson,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Duff  prom. ;    C.  J.  Griffiths,   Corn,   by  purch.,  v. 
Dawson,  both  12  Dec. 

15  L.  £)>.-— Lt.  K.  A.  Percival,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Temple  prom. ;  Corn.  J.  C.  Baird,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Percival,  both  12  Dec. 

17  L.  Dr. — Maj.  G.  Lord  Bingham,   Lt.  Col.    by 

Erch.,  v.  Rumpler,  who  rets. ;  Capt.  J.  Scott,  Maj. 
purch.,  v.  Lord  Bingham  ;  Lt.  M.  C.  D.  St.  Quin- 
,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Scott,  all  9  Nov. 

3  F.  Gu — Lt.  Col.  J.  Elrington,  from  h.  p.,   Capt. 
and  Lt.  Col.,  v.  Sir  G.  H.  F,  Berkeley,  who  exch., 
Ifi  Nov. 


I  F.— Lt.  R.  Bennett,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Carter, 
whose  prom,  has  been  cancelled,  3  Aug. ;  Hosp.  Ast 
E.  Greatrex,  As.  Surg.,  v.   Finnic  prom,  in  1  W.  I. 
Regt.,  16  Nov.  ;  Lt.  H.  C.  Fraser,  Capt.  by  purch., 
v.  Anderson  prom  ,  12  Dec. 

3  F.— Lt.  C.  Walker,  from  h.  p.  4  F.,  Lt.,  v.  An, 
trobus,  whose  app.  has  not  taken  place,  16  Nov.  i 
Lt.  J.  S.  Hughes,  Capt.,  v.  Woods,  dec. ;  Ens.  J, 
Hanna,  Lt.,  v.  Hughes ;  C.  H.  Darling,  Ens.,  v. 
Hanna,  all  7  Dec. 

5  F.—E.  C.  Giffard,  Ens.,  v.  Phibbs,  prom,  in  2  W, 
I.  Regt.,  23  Nov. 

6  F — Ens.  A.  Connor,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Curteis 
prom.,  7  Dec. 

7  F.— Capt.  E.  W.  Bell,  Maj.  by  purch.,  v.   Mair 
prom.;     Lt.   L.   Carey,  Vise.  Falkland,    Capt.  by 
purch.,  v.  Bell,  both  19  Dec. ;    Lord  H.  F.  Chiches- 
ter,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Liddell  prom.,  7  Dec. 

8  F.— Ens.  J.  Howard,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Pickwick 
prom.,  30  Nov. ;  J.  J.  E.  Hamilton,  Ens.  by  purch., 
v.  Howard,  7  Dec. 

10  F— Ens.  M.  C,  Golden,  from  h.  p.,  Ens.,  v.  H. 
A.  C.  Pilkington,  who  exch.,  rec.  dif.,  30  Nov. 

II  F. — D.  Richmond,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Gambler 
prom,  in  38  F.,  9  Nov. 

12  F.— Capt.  Hon.  A.  F.  Southwell,  from  h.  p.  6 
Dr.  Gu.,  Capt.,  v.  W.  L.  Crowther,  who  exch.,  rec. 
dif.,  9  Nov. 

14  F.— Capt.  W.  Turner,  Maj.  by  purch.,  v.  Eus- 
tace prom. ;    Lt,  G.  ?«Iackenzie,   Capt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Tumor,  both  19  Dec. 

15  F.— Corn.  A.  L.  Bourke,  from  3  Dr.  Gu.,  Ens., 
v,   Elliott  prom,  in  2  W.  I.  Regt.,  30  Nov. ;    Ens. 
Hon.  W.  H.  Drummond,  from  h.  p.,  Ens.,  v.  Bourke 
app.  to  3  Dr.  Gu.,  7  Dec. 

18  F.— Ens.  R,  A.  Haly,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Spencer 
prom. ;  F.  Ness,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Haly,  both  19 
Dec. 

19- F. — G.Baldwin,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v. Mills  prom., 
12  Dec. ;  Lt.  F.  Tvdd,  from  h.  p.  4  Ceyl.  Regt., 
Paym.,  v.  Farewell,  app.  to  29  F.,  16  Nov. ;  C.  San- 
ders, Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Clarke  prom.,  30  Nov. 

20  F— Maj.  Hon.  E.  Cust,   from  h.  p.,   Maj.,  v. 
Jackson  prom.,  12  Dec.;    Capt.  C.  J.  Deshon,  from 
h.  p.,  Capt,  v.  Tovey,  prom.,  16  Nov. ;  Capt.  E.  B. 
Brooke,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  v.  Crokat  prom,,  23  Nor. 

21  F— Capt.  C.  Yeoman,  frdm  h.p.,  Capt.,  v.  C, 


110 


MHita ry  Promoi ions. 


[JAN\ 


UlfM*ltWUgClll,       Itl*  LCL3.,       r7       I-fUV.,          J.     iTI.     f  CI  ^  U^&Ul  I  , 

Ens.  by  punch.,  v.  Macfarlane.  9  Nov. ;  Cape.  J.  M. 
Garthshore,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  payingdif.,  v.  Camp- 


L.  Appelius,  who  oxch,,  rec.dif.,  35  Nor.;  Capt.  F. 
V.  Smith,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  v.  E.  H.  Hill,  who 
exch.,  rec.  dif.,  7  Dec. 

22  F.— Dep.    Purveyor    R.    Barlow,    from  h.  p., 
Paym.,    v.    E.   Biggs   placed  upon  h.  p.,  25  Nov. ; 
Capt.  T.  Tait,  from  2  W.  I.  Regt.,  Capt.,  v.  Camp- 
bell prom.,  7  Dec. 

23  F.— 2d  Lt.  F.  J  Phillott,   1st  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Beauclerk  prom. ;    F.  W.  Smith,  2d  Lt.   by  purch., 
v.  Phillott,  both  12  Dec. 

24  F— Capt.  J,  Adair,  Maj.  by  purch.,  v.  Hogg 
prom.  ;  Lt.  C.  F.  Barton,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Adair ; 
Ens.  A.  G.  Blackford,   Lt.   by   purch.,   v.    Barton ; 
D.  Hunter,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v."  Blachford,  all  12  Dec. 

25  F.— As.  Surg.  S,  Bell,  from 2  Dr.  Gu.,  Surg.,  v. 
Whyte  app.  to  69  F.,  15  Nov. 

33  F.-  Lt.  S.  Lowe,  Capt.  by  purch.,   v.  Trevor 
prom.,  12  Dec. 

34  F.— Ens.  B.  J.  Hook,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Upton 
prom. ;    Ens.  J.  Reed,    Lt.  by  purch.,   v.   Houstoun 
prom.  ;  Ens.  E.  S.  Bayly,    Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Milner 
prom.,  all  12  Dec.;   "T.  W.  Newcomen,    Ens.  by 
purch.,  v.  Reed,  12  Dec. ;  W.  Colt,  Ens.  by  purch., 
v.  Hooke,  13  Dec. ;    T.  W.  Howe,  Ens.  by  purch., 
v.  Bavly,  14  Dec. 

35  F.— J.  G.  Alleyne,    Ens.  by  purch,,  v,  O'Hara 
prom,  in  47  F.,  7  Dec. 

36  F.— Lt.  M.  J.  Gambier,  from  38  F.,  Lt,,    v.  J. 
Colcroft,  who  rets,  upon  h.  p.  74  F.,  0  Nov. 

3/  F — Lt.  W.  Cunninghame,  from  4  Dr.  G\\,,  L.t., 
v.  Marsham,  who  exch,  l(i  Nov. ;  Ens.  J.  Brad- 
shaw,  Lt.  by  purch  ,  v.  Fraser  prom.,  12  Dec. ;  J. 
W.  D.  Hebson,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Rradshaw,  12 
Dec.;  C.  O'Beirne,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Yea  prom., 
19  Dec. 

38  F.— Capt,  T,  D,ely,   Maj.  by  purch.,  v.  Finch 
prom. ;    Lt,   H.  Fothergill,   from  64  F.,  Capt.  by 
purch.,  v.  Dely,  both  12  Dec. ;  Lt.  C.  Stewart,  from 
h.  p.  74  F.,  Lt  ,  v.  Gambier  app.  to  30  F.,  9  Nov. 

39  F.— W.  K.  Child,   Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Moore 
prom.,  12  Dec. 

41  F.— Ens.  E.  J.  Vaughan,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Tat- 
well  prom.,  9  Nov. 

42  F.— Ens.  W.  D.  Macfarlane,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Macdougall,  who  rets.,  9  Nov. ;    J.  M.  Fergusson, 
Ens. 

GJ 

bell  app.  to  74  F.,  7  Dec. 

4tJ  F.— Ens.  H.  E.  B.  Hutchinson,  from  76  F.,  Lt. 
by  purch.,  v.  Sutherland  prom. ;  Serj.  Maj.  —  Wil- 
liams, Qu.  Mast.,  v.  Madigan  dec.,  both  7  Dec. 

47  F.-.— Hosp.  As.  S.  Teevan,  As.  Surg.,  v.  M'Cur- 
dy 'dec.,  23  Nov. ;  Ens.  W.  O'Hara,  from  35  F.,  Lt., 
v.  J.  R.  Scott,  whores.,  7  Dec. 

4»  F — Capt.  P.  Macdougall,  Maj.  by  purch.,  v. 
Morisset  prom.;  Lt.  C.  H.  Roberts,  Capt.  by  purch., 
v.  Macdougall,  both  19  Dec. 

49  F. — J.  Macnamara,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Lord  W. 
Russell,  who  rets.,  9  Nov. 

50  F.— Brev.  Lt.  Col.   G.  L.  G  oldie,    from  h.  p., 
Maj.,  v.  distance  prom.,   12  Dec. 

51  F. — Hon.  W.  T.  Law,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Camp- 
bell prom.,  23  Nov. 

52  F.— Ens.  G,  W.  Birch.  Lt.  by  purch.,    v.  Eden 
prom. ;   A.  T.  Eustace,  Ens.  by  purch.,   v.  Birch, 
both  12  Dec. 

54  F.— Ens.  F.  W.  Johnson,    Lt    by  purch.,   v. 
Clarke  prom.,  7  Dec. 

55  F.— Ens.  S.  P.  Bonnes,   Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Mills 
prom. ;    W.  F.  Wake,    Ens.  by  purch.,    v.   Peck 
prom.,  both  12  Dec. 

60  F.— T.  Morris,  2d  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Harvey 
app.  to  17  F.,  2.'5  Nov. 

161  F.— Ens.  W.  Jones,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Bower 
prom. ,  J.  C.  I.  M.  Ross,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Jones, 
both  12  Dec. 

62  F.— Ens.  and  Adj.  J,  Buchan,   rank  of  Lt.,  16 
Nov. 

63  F.— Brev.  Maj.  W.  Snape,  Maj.;   v.   T,  Fair- 
lough  dec.;    Lt.  J.  Duport,  Capt.,  v.  Snape;   Ens. 
W.  M.  Carew,  Lt.,  v,  Dupqrt,  all  16  Nov. ;  W,  T. 
N.  Champ,  Ens.,   v.   Carew,  16  Nov.  ;     E.  Loder, 
Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Smith,  who  rets.,  23  Nov. ;    Lt. 
Hon.  G.  A.  Spencer,  Capt.  by  purch.,    v.    Dickson 
prom. ;  Ens.  W,  Pedder,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v.  Spencer, 
both  19  Dec. 

64  F.— Ens Mandeville,   Lt.  by  purch.,  v,  Mi- 
chel prom. ;    Ens.  D.  H.  Laurell,   Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Fothergill   prom,    in  3H  F.  :    J.  Douglas,   Ens.  by 
purch  ,  v.  Mandeville,  all  12  Dec. ;   J.  W.  Verbury, 
Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Laurell  prom.,  12  Dec. 

65  F.— A.  F.  W.  Wyatt,  Ens.  by  purch,,  v.  Crqmp- 
ton  prom.,  12  Dec. 

W.— Lt.  C.  Herbert,  from  h.  p.,  Lt.,  v.  F.  Fielde, 
who  exch.,  rec.  dif.,  9  Nov. 

68  F.— Lt.  D.  Macdonald,  Capt.  by  purch.,  v.  Fer- 
guson prom. ;  Ens.  R.  W.  Huey,  Lt.  by  purch.,  v. 
Macdonald;  J.  M'G.  Strachan,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v. 
»uey,  all  W  Dec. 


69  F— Surg.  C.  Whyte,  from  23  F.,  Snrg.,  T. 
M'Kechnie,  app.  to  R.  Staff  Corps,  15  Nov. 

75  F. — Capt.  J.  II.  England,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  v. 
J.  C.  Dumas,  who  exch.,  rec.  dif.,  9  Nov. 

7<!  F. — D,  Munro,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Hutchinson 
prom,  in  46  F.,  7  Dec. 

77F.— G.  B.'Whalley,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Jones 
prom.,  12  Dec. 

79  F. — W.  L.  Scobell,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Binney 
app.  to  63  F.,  7  Dec. 

83  F. — Ens.  R.  Kelly,   Lt.  by  purch.,   v.  Hotham 
prom.;  H.  S.  G.  Bowles,   Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Kelly, 
both  19  Dec. 

84  F. — Capt.  J.  Cameron    from  92  F.,  Capt.,  v. 
Stewart,  who  exch.,  9  Nov. 

86  F. — A.  C.  Chichestcr,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Brooke 
prom.,  12  Dec. ;  Capt.  T.  Fitzgerald,  from  h.  p.  4  W. 
I   Regt.,  Capt.,    v.  Le  Merchant,  app.  to  98  F.,  30, 
Nov. 

87  F.— Surg.  A.  Armstrong,    from    Ceyl.    Regt.* 
Surg.,  v.  Leslie  dec.,  24  Apr. 

88  F.— Capt.  O,  Phibbs,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  paying 
dif.,  v.  Southwell,  \vhose  app,  has  not  taken  place, 
9  Nov.  ;  W.  Jones,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Sutton  prom., 
7  Dec. 

89  F.— Ens.  S.  I.  Sutton,  from  88  F.,  Lt.  by  purch.^ 
v.  Van  Bearlepiom.,  16  Nov. 

90  F.— Capt.  M.  J.  Slade,  from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  pay- 
ing dif.,  v.  Beckwith  app.  to  Rifle  Brigade,  20  Dec. 

91  F.— Capt.  H.  T.  Hearn,  from  h.  p.  6  W.  I.  Regt.,, 
Capt.,  v.  Snodgrass  prom.,  14  Nov. 

92  F.— Capt.  H.  W.  S.  Stewart,  from  84  F.,  Capt., 
v.  Cameron,  who  exch.,  9  Nov. 

93  F— Serj.   Maj.  W.  M'Donald,    Qu.  Mast.,  v. 
Gunn  dec.,  6  Nov. 

95  F — .G.'I.  Austin,  Ens.  by  purch.,  v.  Alcock 
prom.,  12  Dec.;  Lt.  T.  St.  L.  Alcock,  from  h.  p., 
Lt.,  v.  J.  Cusine,  who  exch.,  rec.  dif.,  13  Dec. 

97  F.— Capt.  T.  Reeves,  from  h.  p.  15  F.,   Capt., 
v.  Cave  prom.,  12  Dec. 

98  F.— Capt.  J.  G.  Le  Merchant,  from  86  F..  Capt., 
v.  Clinton,  whose  app.  has  not  taken  place,  9  Nov. 

2  W.  I.  Reg*.— Ens.  C.  Phibbs,  from  5  F.,  Lt.,  v. 
Morgan  dec.,  23  Nov. ;  T.B.Thompson,  Ens.  by 
purch.,  v.  P.  C.  Codd  prom.,  16  Nov. ;  Ens.  R.  El- 
liott, from  15  F.,  Lt.,  v.  Redman  dec.,  30  Nov. 

Ceylon  Regt — As.  Surg.  A.  Macqueen,  from  83  F., 
Surg.,  v.  Armstrong  prom  in  87  F.,  24  Apr. 

Cape  Corps  Cav — Corn.  R.  Bolton,  from  h.  p.  4  Dr, 
Gu.,  Corn.,  v.  J.  F,  Watson,  who  exch.,  30  Nov. 

R  Afr.  Col.  Corps. — A.  Yeakell,  Ens.,  v.  Rishton, 
whose  app.  has  not  taken  place,  30  Nov. 

Vet.  Conips.  for  service  in  Newfoundland. — Ens.  J. 
Bell,  fromh.  p.  61  F.,  Ens.,  v.  Philpot  dec.,  9  Nov. 
Rtgt.  of  Artillery.— Maj.  R.  H.  Birch,  Lt.  Col.,  v. 
Macdonald,  who  rets. ;  Br.  Maj.  C.  H.  Godby,  Maj., 
v.  Birch ;  2d  Capt.  A.  Maclachlan,  Capt.,  v.  Godby ; 
2d  Capt.  T.  Scott,  Capt.,  v.  Napier;  2d  Capt.  C. 
Blachley,  Capt.,  v.  Maxwell ;  Br.  Lt.  Col.  A.  Mac- 
donald, Capt.,  v.  Baynes ;  2d  Capt.  A.  Wright,  from 
h.  p.,  2d  Capt.,  v.  Maclachlan  ;  2d  Capt.  G.  Mathias, 
from  h.  p.,  2d  Capt.,  v.  Scott;  IstLt.  J.  T.  Ellison, 
2d  Capt.,  v.  Blachley;  1st  Lt.  T.  F.  Strangways,  2d 
Capt.,  v.  Macdonald  ;  2d  Lt.  S.  W.  May,  1st  Lt.,  v. 
Ellison;  2d  Lt.  G.  P.  Haywood,  1st  Lt.,  v.  Strang- 
wajs,  all  12  Dec. 

Corps  of  Engineers.— 2d  Lt.  R.  Boteler,  1st  Lt.,  v. 
Ker  dec.,  20  Oct. ;  1st  Lt.  A.  D.  White,  2d  Capt.,  v, 
Worsley  ret.  on  h.  p. ;  2d  Lt.  E.  Frome,  1st  Lt.,  v, 
White,  both  6  Dec. 

Rifie  Brigade.— Lt.  J.  Kincaid,  Capt.,  v.  Middle- 
ton  app.  Paym.,  25  Nov. ;  Capt.  J.  FitzMaurice, 
from  h.  p.,  Capt.,  v.  Smith  prom.,  19  Dec. ;  Capt. 
T.  S.  Beckwith,  from  90  F.,  Capt.,  v.  Gray  prom., 
20  Dec. ;  Capt.  J.  Middleton,  Paym.,  v.  Cadouxdec., 
25  Nov. 

ft.  Staff  Corps Surg.  A.  M'Kechnie,  from  69  F., 

Surg.,  v.  Stewart  prom.,  15  Nov. 

Brevet. — To  have  local  rank  ofLt.  Col.  on  Continent 
of  Europe  only:  J.  Dunn,  late  on  h.  p.,  9  Nov. ; 
A.  Rumpler,  late  17  L.  Dr.,  9  Nov, ;  J.  D'Arcy,  late 
R,  Artil. ;  W,  Ingleby,  late  53  F. ;  A.  Geils,  late  73 
F.;  W.  Thornhill,  late  7  L.  Dr.,  all  16  Nov.;  H. 
W.  Espinasse,  late  4  F. ;  F. 


Wilkie,  late  40  F.,  both 


30  Nov. — To  have  local  rank  of  Maj.  on  Continent  of 
Europe  only :  G,  T.  Brice,  late  93  F, ;  T.  Dent, 
late  h.  p.  unattached ;  D.  MacGregor,  late  33  F. ; 
B.  Lutyens,  late  11  L.  Dr. ;  T.  H.  Morice,  late  h.  p. 
Marines;  E  H.  Garthwaite,  late  ditto;  R.  M'Crea, 
late  5  R.  Ye  ,  Bat,  all  9  Nov. ;  T.  Pipon,  late  7  L. 
Dr.;  C.  Wayth,  late  17  L.  Dr, ;  R.  Abbey,  late 
Ceyl.  Regt. ;  P.  D.  FdWwes,  late  1  R.  Vet.  Bat.,  all 
16  Nov. ;  W.  Hames,  late  32  F.,  30  Nov. 

£ta#:_Brev.  Lt.  Col.  H.  G.  Smith,  Dep.  Qu.  Mast, 
Gen.  to  forces  serving  in  Jamaica,  v.  Lt.  Col.  Cock- 
burn,  who  res.,  23  Nov. ;  Maj.  T.  Drake,  Dep.  Qu, 
Mast.  Gen.  to  forces  serving  in  Mediterranean,  with 
rank  of  Lt.  Col.  in  army.  v.  Sir  W.  L.  Herries; 
Maj.  W.  Vincent,  fiom  h.  p.  82  F.,  Permanent  A^ 


18S?.] 


ft  HI  it  a  ry  1-  row  vtio  us. 


Ill 


Vu.  Mast.  Gen.,  Y.  Drake  prom.,  both  16  Nov.; 
Mai.  C.  Yorke,  on  h.  p.,  Inspecting  Field  Off.  of 
Militia  in  Nova  Scotia,  (with  rank  of  Lt.  Col.)  v. 
Huxley  dec.,  30  Nov. 

Hospital  Staff. — To  bo  Inspector.?  nf  Hasps. :  Brev. 
Dep.  Inspectors  J.  Skey,  G.  Denecke,  and  J.  A. 
Knipe  all  2(1  Oct.— To  be  Deputy  Inspector  ofHosps.  : 
Dep.  Insp.  J.  D.  Tully,  from  h.p.,  16  Nov.— To  be 
Physician  to  forces:  Staff  Surg.  M.  Sweeney,  v. 
Cartan  dec.,  7  Dec. — Tobe  Surg.  to  forces:  Surg.  A. 
Stewart,  from  Staff  Corps,  9  Nov.— To  be  Hasp, 
^twists,  to  forces:  G.  Ferguson,  v.  Dickson  app.  to 
30  F. ;  G.  Allman,  v.  Casement  app.  to  31  F. ;  J. 
Wilkinson,  v.  Rankin  app.  to  84  F.,  all  8  Nov. ;  L. 
Grant,  v.  W.  Smith,  prom,  in  41  F.,  7  Dec. 

Unattached. — To  be  Lt.  Cols,  of  Inf.  by  purch.  : 
Maj  J.  Hogg,  from  24  F. ;  Maj.  'H.  Custance,  from 
H)  F.  ;  Maj.  E.  Jackson,  from  20  F. ;  Br.  Lt.  Col. 
Hon.  J.  Finch,  from  38  F. ;  Maj.  H.  J.  Richardson, 
from  9  L.  Dr.,  all  12  Nov. ;  Maj.  J.  H.  Mair,  from 
7  F. ;  Maj.  J.  T.  Morisset,  from  48  F.  ;  Maj.  H. 
Stisted,  from  1  Dr. ;  Maj.  Sir  J.  R.  Eustace,  from 

54  F.,   all  19  Dec — To  be  Majs.  of  Inf.  by  purch.  : 
Capt.  T.  O.  Cave,   from  97  F. ;    Capt.  T.   Marten, 
from  1  Dr. ;  Capt.  C\  Wyndham,  from  2  Dr. ;  Capt. 
G.  T.  Temple,  from  15  L.  D. . ;    Capt.  J.  Anderson, 
from  1  F. ;    Capt.  A.  H.  Trevor,  from  33  F.,  all  12 
Dec. ;   Capt.  H.  R.  Ferguson,  from  <>8  F. ;    Capt.  R. 
L.  Dickson,  from  63  F.,  both  19  Dec—  To  be  Capts. 
of  Inf.  by  purch. :  Lt   E.  B.  Fraser,  from  3?  F. ;  Lt. 
T.  B.  Bower,  from  61  F. ;  Lt.  J.  Grover,  from  89  F. ; 
Lt.   Hon.  G.  Upton,   from  34  F.  ;     Lt.  W.  Flood, 
from  13  F.  ;    Lt.  G.  Beauclerk,   from  23  F. ;    Lt.  A. 
Houstoun,  from  34  F. ;  Lt.  G.  M.  Eden>  from  52  F. ; 
Lt.  R.  H.  Milner,   from  34  F. ;    Lt.  C.  Mills,   from 

55  F. ;    Lt.  J.  Michel,  from  64  F. ;    Lt.  A.  G.  Duff, 


from  14  L.  Dr.,  all  12  Dec. ;  Lt.  E.  C.  Spencer,  from 
18  F. ;  Lt.  J.  E.  Muttlebury,  from  40  F. ;  Lt.  A. 
Hotham,  from  83  F. ;  Lt.  G.  M.  Keane,  from  4  Dr. 
Gu. ;  Lt.  J.  Douglas,  from  1(5  L.  Dr.,  all  19  Dec.— 
To  be  Lts.  of  Inf.  by  purch. :  Ens.  J.  Mills,  from  19 
F. ;  Ens.  J.  S.  Brooke,  from  86  F.  ;  Ens.  T.  St.  L. 
Alcock,  from  95  F.  ;  Ens.  C.  F.>B.  Jones,  from  77 
F. ;  Ens.  W.  J.  Crompton,  from  65  F. ;  Ens.  W.  Y. 
Moore,  from  39  F.,  all  12  Dec. ;  Ens.  L.  W.  Yea, 
from  37  F.,  19  Dec — To  be  Ens.  by  purch. :  Hon.  — • 
O'Callaghan,  12  Dec. 

Allowed  to  dispose  of  then-  half-pay Lt.  Gen.  L. 

Maclean ;  Lt.  Col.  H.  Lee,  marines ;  Lt.  Col.  R. 
Macdonald,  Artillery ;  Lt.  Col.  H.  llalkett,  7  line 
bat.  King's  Germ.  Leg. ;  Maj.  Gen.  J.  Murray ;  Mai. 
B.  Handley,  63  F. ;  Maj.  P.  Johnstone  (Lt.  Col.), 
60  F. ;  Maj.  W.  Gray,  unattached  ;  Maj.  G.  Muller, 
2  line  bat.  King's  Germ.  Leg. ;  Capt.  J.  Kirkmanj 
6  F. ;  Capt.  C.  Andrews,  (Jape  regt. ;  Capt.  F. 
Blaeme,  R.  Waggon  train  ;  Capt.  W.  Becher,  Inde- 
pend.  Comps. ;  Capt.  A.  Daly,  12  F.  ;  Capt.  E.  Vin- 
cent, 39  F. ;  Capt.  V.  Bernardi,  Corsican  Ranger*  ; 
Capt.  L.  Crawley,  48  F. ;  Capt.  C.  D'Estienne,  60  F. ; 
Lt.  C.  Wolseley.  100  F. ;  Lt.  W.  Strangways,  3  Gar. 
Bat. ;  Lt.  D.  Manson,  72  F. ;  Lt.  W.  Kemble,  Mi- 
litia of  Upper  Canada ;  Lt.  F.  Stenton,  35  F.  ;  Lt. 
M.  B.  Thornton,  12  F. ;  Corn.  W.  E.  F.  Sharpe,  18 
L.  Dr.,  all  12  Dec. ;  Maj.  P.  Macdougall,  unattach- 
ed ;  Maj.  J.  Campbell,  ditto  ;  Lt.  Gen.  Sir  H.  de 
Hinuber ;  Capt.  H.  P.  Cox,  iO  F.  ;  Lt.  Col.  A.  Rot- 
tiger  (Col.),  artil.  King's  Germ.  Leg.;  Lt.  Gen.  M. 
Head ;  Col.  Baron  Cockhoorn,  late  For.  Engin. ; 
Capt.  F.  Wilkie  (Lt.  Col.),  40  F. ;  Paym.T.  Perry, 
2.i  L.  Dr.;  Capt.  W.  B.  Scully,  101  F.  ;  Paym.  S.  Bv 
Inglis,  2  L.  Inf.  bat.  King's  Germ.  Leg. ;  Lt.  E. 
Nash,  21  F.,  all  19  Dec. 


ALPHABETICAL  LIST  OF  BANKRUPTCIES,  announced  between  the  23d  of  November  and  the 
20th  of  December  1826;  extracted  from  the  London  Gazettes. 

Beckley,  J.  Old  Fish-street,  wine-merchant.    [Rice, 

Jermyn  street,  Piccadilly 
Beal,  W.  Thrapston,  Northampton,   

[Hardwick,  Lawrence-lane,  Cheapside 
Baker,    C.  St.  John-street,    Clerkenwell,    distiller. 

[Rearson  and  Davis,  Corbet-court,  Gracechurch- 

sireet 
Boulter,  D.  Reading,  draper.    [Green  and  Ashurst, 

Sambrook-court,  Basinglmll-street 
Barnes,  L.    Heywood,    Lancashire,   cotton-spinner. 

[Wheeler  and  Bennett,  John-street,  Bedford-row ; 

Halsall,  Midclleton 

Bannister,  J.  Merthyr  Tydvil,  Glamorganshire,  cur- 
rier.   [Bicknell  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn ;  Bold  and 

Vaughan,  Brecon 
Burman,  R.  Southam,  Warwick,  money-scrivener. 

[Patterson,  Leamington  Priors 

Brown, T.Myton,  York,  merchant.  [Scholefield,  Hull 
Burckhardt,  J.  C.  Northumberland-street,  Strand, 

goldsmith.    [Gucht  and  Co.,  Craven-street 
Biggs,  J.   Lewtsham,   Kent,  builder.    [Smith,    Ba- 

singhall-stieet 
Bird,  W.  Cheltenham,  plasterer.    [King,  Serjeant's- 

inn  ;  Stratford,  Cheltenham 
Barnard,  J.  Glamford  Briggs,  Lincolnshire,  draper. 

[Nicholson  and  Co.,  Glamford  Briggs ;    Eyre  and 

Co.,  Gray's-inn 


BANKRUPTCIES   SUPERSEDED. 

BARTER,  J.  and  H.  Poole,  timber-merchants 

Barter,  J.  Poole,  timber-merchant 

Cocks,  J.  Norwich,  tailor  and  draper 

Coupland,  G.  Bristol,  dealer 

De  Pass,  Dan.  King's  Lynn,  Norfolk,  draper 

French,  N.  iun.  Cardiff,  linen-draper 

Goold,  H.  M.  F.  Brighton,  Sussex,  dealer 

Hankins,  E.  Hereford,  dealer 

Hopkinson,  T.  Ashton-under-Line,  oil-merchant 

Lay,-  J.  Cheltenham-place,  Lambeth,  stationer 

Noakes,  J.  Watling-street,  dealer  in  cloth 

Wain,  R.  and  W.  Languor,  Staffordshire,  groce;s 

Watson,  Alice,  Blackburn,  draper  [turer 

Wigglesworth,  T.  Colne,  Lancashire,  rope-manufac- 

BANKRUPTCIES.    [This  Month 208.] 

Solicitors'  Names  are  in  Brackets. 

ANDERSON,  A  jun.  East-street,  Walworth,  baker. 
[Thomas,  Dean-street,  Southwark 

Ashton,  J.  Tottenham-court-road,  mercer.  [An- 
drews and  Bradley,  Temple-chambers,  Fleet-street 

Annett,  T.  Almnout,  Northumberland,  corn-mer- 
chant. [North  &  Smart,  Temple;  Pringle,  Alnwick 


chant.  [North  &  Smart,  Temple;  rnngte,  AffiwicK          W;  ways-inn 
Astbury,  E.  Stone,  Stafford,  scrivener.  [Barber, Fet-       Bouker,  J.  Bolton-le-Moors,  Lancashire,  innkeeper. 


ter-lane ;    Brandon  and  Catlow,  Cheadle.  Stafford 

Almosnino,  S.  and  M.  Bevis  Marks,  merchants. 
[Lane,  Lawrence-Pountney-place 

Adcock,  H.  \V.  Birmingham,  gilt-toy-maker.  [Nor- 
ton and  Chaplin, Gray's-inn  ;  Hawkins, Birmingham 

Armstrong,  W.  'Great  Qu»ea-street,  Lincoln's  inn- 
fields,  auctioneer.  [Brooking,  Lombard-street 

Billings,  J.  Bristol,  dealer.  [Poole  and  Co.,  Gray's- 
hm-square ;  Pailin,  Bristol 

Blanchnay,  L.  Pall-mall,  wine-merchant.  [Hamil- 
ton and  Ullithorne,  Tavistock-ro«,  Covent-garden 

Bowers,  J.  East-street,  Spitalh'elds-market,  victual- 
ler. [Glynes,  Burr-street,  East-Smithfield 

Bishop,  J.  East  Church,  Kent,  farmer.  [Cole,  Char- 
lotte-street, Blackfriars 

Bullock,  G.  Congleton,  Cheshire,  silk-throwster. 
[Kaye  and  Whittaker,  Thavies-inn;  Pickford, 
Congleton 

Beaumont,  G.  H.  Commercial-place,  City-road,  coal- 
dealer.  [Young  and  Gilbert,  Mark  lane 

Badnall,  R.  jun.  Ashenhurst-hall,  Stafford,  dealer. 
[Spenceand  Desborough,  Si/e-lane 

Blake,  W.  and  J.  Rutherford,  Shewingsheals,  Nor- 
thumberland, sheep-salesman.  [Leadbitter,  Buck- 
lersbury;  Charlton,  Morpeth 


[Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row ;  Jardine  and  Co., 
Bolton-le-Moors 

Coates,  J.  Long  lane,  Bermondsey,  fellmonger. 
[Humphreys,  New-road.  St.  George's  East 

Cross,  F.  iun.  Birtsmorton,  Worcester,  coppice- 
wood-dealer.  [Clarke  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane ; 
Higgins,  Ledbury 

Clark,  W.  Paterno'ster-row,  bookseller.  [Green  and 
Ashurst,  Sambrook-court,  Basinghall  street 

Cope,  C.  Birmingham,  wine-merchant.  "[Bourdillcn 
and  Hewitt,  Bread-street,  Cheapside;  Simcox, 
Birmingham 

Cooms,  S.  Shepton-mallet,  Somersetshire,  brewer. 
[Willett,  Essex-street,  Strand ;  Chard,  Somerton, 
Somersetshire 

Clark,  A.  jun.  Liverpool,  merchant.  [Mawdsley, 
Liverpool ;  Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row 

Coulson,  G.  Derby,  slater.  [Few  and  Co.,  Henrietta- 
street,  Covent-garden ;  Clerke,  Derby 

Clisby,  G.  Crown-court,  Pall-mall,  perfumer.  [Pop- 
kin,  Dean-street,  Soho 

Cayzer,  J.  John-street,  Oxford-street,  tailor.  [Burra 
and  Nield,  King-street,  Cheapside 

Calvert,  S.  Fore-street,  Cripplegate,  flax-dresser. 
.  [Smith,  Carthusian-street 


(ootn,  J.  Plymouth-grove,  Chorlton-How,  Lanca-  L.astle,G.(jOole,  York,  ship-bin  Iner.  [Capes, Redness 
shire,  cotton-spinner.  [Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-  Chapman,  W.jSt*  Neot's,  Hutiogdon,  currier.  [Car- 
lane;  Duckworth  and.,Co-j  Manchesicr  terj  Lord  Mayor's  court  office 


112 


Bankrupts  and  Dividends. 


[JAX. 


Chapman,  W.  Newoutle-strect,  victualler.  [Tcague, 

Cannon-street 

Crichley,  R.  Gloucester,  carpenter.  [Lediard  and 
( .o.,  Cirencester ;  Thompson  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn- 
square 

Clarke,  C.  Nantwich,  hatter.  [Roachc,  Furnival's- 
mn;  Broadhurst,  Nantwich 

Dean,  G-  L.  Kensington,  boot  and  shoemaker. 
[Bebb.  Furnival's-inn 

Dillon,  J.  Hereford,  brazier.  [Church,  Great  James- 
street,  Bedford-row  ;  Patesnall,  Hereford 

Dally,  R.  Chichester,  ironmonger.  [Sovvton,  Great 
James-street,  Bedford-row;  Sowtou  and  Fuller, 
Chichester 

Duncan.  J.  and  W.  Clegg,  Liverpool,  and  T.  Hollins, 
Manchester,  merchants.  [Battye  and  Co.,  Chan- 
cery-lane; Crumps,  Liverpool 

Dwyer,J.  New-street,  Covent-garden,  tailor.  [Crowe, 
King-street,  Cheapside 

Dodson,  J.  Over,  Cheshire,  salt-manufacturer.  [Tur- 
ner, Middlewich 

Evelyn,  G.  M.  Skinner-street,  Snow-hill,  chip-hat- 
manufaclurer.  [Parker,  Dyer's-buildings,  Holborn 

ElHston,  H.W.  late  of  the  Theatre  Royal  Diury- 
lane,  bookseller.  [Miller,  New-inn;  Pulleu  and 
Son,  Fore-street 

Eagle,  W.  W.  High-street,  Southwark,  hop-factor. 
[Collins,  Spital-square 

Elwin,  C.  Norwich,  baker.  [Bujhtude,  Norwich; 
Taylor  and  Co.,  Kin.oc's-bench  walk,  Temple 

Ferns,  R.  Meller,  Derby,  J.  Langford,  Manchester, 
and  J.  Hadfield,  lloworth,  Derby,  merchaius. 
[Perkins  and  Frampton,  Gray's-inn ;  Lewlas,  Man- 
ches'er;  Lingard  and  Co.,  Heaton-Norris 

Franklin,  VV.  Jermyn-street,  tailor.  [Reeves,  Ely- 
place,  Holborn 

Firth,  R.  Almondbury,    Yorkshire,  clothier.    [Ste- 

S'lenson,  Holmfirth,  Huddersfield;  Battye  and 
o.,  Chancery-lane 

Fryer,  B.  Bristol,  timber-dealer.    [Evans  and  Shear- 
man, Hatton-garden ;  Haberfield,  Bristol 
French,  J.  sen.  Frome  Selwood,  Somerset,  clothier. 

y Ellis  and  Hlackmoore,  Gray's-inn;  Rotton  and 
ush',  Frome  Selwood 

Finch,  R.  Egham,  grocer.  [Henrich  and  Stafford, 
Buckingham-street,  Strand 

Fuller,  J.  Frederick-street,  Hampstead-road,  builder. 
ILoveland,  Symond's-inn 

Fox,  G.  L.  Sunderland,  Durham,  grocer.  [Hind- 
marsh  and  Son,  Crescent,  Jewin-street 

Fry,  J.  Artillery-street,  Bermomlsey,  currier.  [Piercy 
and  Oakley,  Three-Crown-square,  Southwark 

French,  N  Cardiff,  linen-draper.  [Clarke  and  Co., 
Chancery-lane;  Clarke,  Bristol;  and  Savery, 
Bristol 

Gcoch,  R.  Southampton,  merchant.  [Roe,  Temple- 
chambers,  Fleet-street ;  Barney ,  Southampton 

Grua,  A.  Albermarle-street,  music-seller.  [Cook  and 
Hunter,  New-inn 

Garbett,  R.  Wellington,  Shropshire,  builder.  [Wil- 
liamson, Gray's-inn ,  Brown,  Shitthal 

Griffin,-!,  and  J.  M.  Adams.  Strand,  goldsmiths. 
[Tilliard,  Old  Jewry 

Gordon,  J.  Spring- gardens,  army-agent.  [Hodgson 
and  Burton,  Salisbury-street,  Strand 

Gunn,  J.  T.  Foley-place,  Mary-le-bone,  coachmaker. 
[Vincent,  Bedford-street  Bedford-square 

Grubb,  A.  Great  Russell-street,  Covent-garden,  ta- 
vern-keeper. [M'Ghie,  New-inn 

Griffiths,  T.  Abergele,  Denbighshire,  corn-factor. 
[Douglas,  Temple ;  Williams  and  Co.,  Denbigh 

Grant,  J.  Barnsley,  York,  grocer.  ^Pocock,  Bar- 
tholomew-close; Monce,  Barnsley 

Grimshaw,    J.     Manchester,     check-manufacturer. 


[Morris  and  Co.,  Manchester 
Hill,  J.   1'ater 


1'aternoster-row,  printer.  [Topping,  Bart- 
lett's-buildings 

Hill,  R.  High-street,  Southwark,  stationer.  [Ri- 
chardson, Walbrook 

Hopkins,  S.  Wootton-under-Edge,  Gloucester,  clo- 
thier. [Smith  and  Bailey,  Basinghall-street 

Hooper,  G  Eldon-street,  Finsbury,  builder.  [Hutch- 
inspn,  Crown-court,  Threadneedle-street 

Harris,  J.  Leamington-Priors,  Warwickshire,  che- 
mist. [Patterson,  Leamington-Priors;  Platt,  New 
Boswell-court,  Lincoln's-inn 

Harrison,  W.  Nottingham,  grocer.  [Buttery,  Not- 
tingham; Wolstou,  Furnival's-inn,  Holborn 

Hill,  W.  B.  Manchester,  shopkeeper.  [Chew,  Man- 
chester ;  Adiington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row 

Hammerton,  W.  Barnsley,  York,  innkeeper. 
[Walker,  Lincoln's-inn-fields ;  Cloughs  and  Co., 
Barnsley 

Higgins,  S.  C.  Gloucester,  upholsterer.  [Battey, 
John-street,  Bedford-row 

Jjinton,  J.  Eyre-Arms  tavern,  St.  John's- Wood- 
road,  victualler.-  [Vandercom  and  Comyn,  Bush- 
Lnc,  Cannon-street 


Heywood,  J.   Great  Eastcheap,  merchant.    [Elsie, 

Poultry 

Howard,  C.  Shackelwell,  victualler.  [Cranch,  Union- 
court,  Broad-street 

Hillyard,  W.  and  J.  Morgan,  Bristol,  booksellers. 
[JonagOj  Shannon-court,  Bristol ;  PooleandCo., 
Gray's-inn 

Horn,  R.  (Oxford,  baker.  [Holmes  and  Elsam, 
Great  James-street,  Bedford-row  ;  Taunton,  Oxford 

Hyde,  G.  Chapel-street,  Tottenham-court-road,  che- 
mist. [Benton,  Union-street,  Southwark 

Holt,  M.  and  R.  Hulme,  Manchester,  dyers.  [Hurd 
and  Johnson,  Temple;  Buckley,  Manchester 

Hudson,  G.  New  Malton,  York,  ironmonger.  [Wil- 
son, Greville  street ;  Allen,  Malton 

Hulme,  T.  Museum -street,  pawnbroker.  [Tanner, 
New  Basinghall-street 

Hayn,  J.  Fleet-market  and  Red  Lion-square,  wine- 
merchant.  [Hutchison,  Crown-court,  Thread- 
needle-street 

Harvey,  T.  Warwick,  horse  dealer,  [Heydon  and 
Co.,  Warwick 

Halls,  S.  Stowmarket,  plumber,  f  Dixon  and  Sons, 
New  Boswell-court ;  Ransom,  Stowmarket 

Holl,  S.  Lakenham,  Norfolk,  beer-brewer.  [Abbott, 
Rolls-yard;  Day,  Norwich 

Heath,  J.  New-street-square,  victualler.  [Pcntifex, 
St.  Andrew's  court,  Holborn 

Hitching,  W.  Oxford,  painter.  [Looker,  Oxford ; 
Miller,  Ely-place 

Haviland,  R.  and  R.  Cheltenham,  distillers.  [Dax 
and  Co.,  Holborn-court,  Gray's-inn 

Jones,  T.  Shrewsbury,  victualler.  [Yates,  Vyrnv- 
bank,  Shropshire 

James,  J.  Adam's  -  place,  Southwark,  f  Vincent, 
Clifford's-inn 

Jones,  T.  Ynsmarchog,  Llywell,  Brecon,  cattle- 
dealer.  [Thomas,  Llandilo 

Jarman,  W.  Thayer-street,  Manchester-square, 
boarding-housekeeper.  [Partington,  Change-alley, 
Cornhill 

James,  T.  Birmingham,  draper.  [Scckerson,  Staf- 
ford 

Ince,  C.  Craven-street,  Strand,  wine-merchant.  {"Cla- 
bon,  Mark-lane 

Ives,  C.  Cumberworth,  York,  clothier.  [Battye 
andCo., Chancery-lane;  Stephensons,  Huddersfield 

Jones,  O.  Liverpool,  draper.  [Chester,  Staple-inn ; 
Finlow,  Liverpool 

Jackson,  G.  V.  Royal  Arcade,  Pall-mall,  bookseller. 
[Taylor,  Lyon's-inn 

Larmuth,  A.  W.  Exmouth-street,  Spa-fields,  linen- 


sion-broker.  [Pritchard,  Bridge-street,  Blackfriars 

Leigh,  E.  and  E.  Chiddingstone,  Kent,  victuallers. 
[Lingard  and  Co.,  Tonbridge;  Bigg,  Southamp- 
ton-buildings, Chancery-lane 

Lock,  W.  Edward»stixet  Dorset-square,  builder. 
[Webber,  New  North-street,  Red  Lion-square 

Lane,  C.   Oxford,   builder.    [Bridger,  Angel-court.  - 
Throgmorton-street ;  Cecil,  Oxford 

Levett,  J.  Rowley  Regis,  Stafford,  farmer.  [Jessop 
and  Jordan,  Thavies-inn ;  Goode.  Dudley 

Low,  A.  and  R.  Thomas,  Stockport,  Cheshire,  ma- 
chine-makers. [Lingard  and  Co.,  Heaton  Norm 

Line,  W.  St.  Paul's-terrace,  Camden  town,  builder. 
Fisher  and  Co,  Walbrook 

Leigh,  A.  Manchester,  builder.  [Allison,  Hudders- 
field 

Moss,  J.  Tothill-street,  shoemaker.  [Farris,  Surrey- 
street,  Strand 

Martin,  J.  sen.  Bath,  carrier.  [Jones,  Crosby- 
square;  Hellings,  Bath 

Musgrave,  J.  Bramlny;  York,  cloth-manufacturer. 
iSmithson,  Old  Jewry;  Kenyon,  Leeds 

Mundy,  S.  jun.  Bradford,  Wilts,  fuller.  [Daxand 
Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Stone,  Bradford 

Miller,  J.  Norwich,  chemist.  [Goodwin,  Norwich  ; 
Abbott,  Rolls-yard,  Chancery  lane 

Mitchell,  VV.  Meeting-house-court,  Old  Jewry,  mer- 
chant. [Oliverson  and  Denby,  Frederick's-place, 
Old  Jewry 

Mellor,  J.  Micklehurst,  Cheshire,  dealer  in  wool. 
[Jaques  and  Battye,  Coleman-street ;  Battye  and 
Hesp,  Huddersfield 

M'Leod,  J.  Clement's-lane,  Lombard-street  leather- 
seller.  [Rankin  and  Richards,  Basinghall-street 

Moon,  E.  Worthing,  Sussex,  grocer.  [Milliard  and 
Hastings  Gray's-inn;  Tyler,  Petworth 

Mulcock,  S.  Farringdon,  Berks,  draper.  [Green 
and  Ashurst,  Sambrook-court,  Basinghall-street 

Manigher,  A.  Mincing-lane,  merchant.  [Swain  and 
Co.,  FredeVick's-place.  Old  Jewry 

Morling,  D.  Great  Yarmouth,  grocer.  ["Kelt,  Great 
Yartriouth 


1827.] 


and  Dividends. 


113 


Maude,  J,  L.  Andover,  maltster.  [Bousfleld,  Chat- 
Ham-place;   Man,  Andover 
Merrick,  W.  Bristol,  flax-dresser.  [Greville,  Bristol ; 

Hicks  and  Co.,  Bartlett's  buildings 
Mackrill,  G.  Romsey,  Estia,  Hampshire  scrivener. 

[Pike,  Queen-square 

Major,  R.  Frome   Selwood,    Somersetshire,    wool- 
stapler.     [King  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-square 
Newton,  R.  Liverpool,  tailor.    [Wheeler  and  Ben- 
nett,  John-street,   Bedford-row;    Holden,   Liver- 
pool 

Nelson,  M.  Preston,  Lancashire,  innkeeper.  [Nor- 
ris,  John-street,  Bedford  row;  Barron,  Preston 

Neale,  H.  Percy-street,  Rathbone-place,  warehouse- 
man. [Burt,  Percy -street 

Nangle,  W.  Liverpool,  jeweller.  [Chester,  Staple- 
inn;  Williams,  Liverpool 

Nickolls,  J.  Kidlington  Mills,  Oxford,  miller.  [Mil- 
ler, Ely-place;  Looker,  Oxford 

Nichols,  S,  Liverpool,  woollen-draper.  [Few  and 
Co.,  Henrietta-street,  Covent-garden ;  Heming- 
way, Leeds 

Oliver,  J.  W.  Cambridge,  jeweller.  [Goddard, 
Thavies-inn 

Osborne,  C.  and  J.  Pall-mall,  tailors.  [Tanner,  New 
Basinghall-street 

Potter,  H.  S.  Bridge-street,  Southwark,  cabinet- 
maker. [Fairthorne  and  Lofty,  King-street.  Cheap- 
side 

Peaker,  R.  Mirfield,  Yorkshire,  shopkeeper.  [Alex- 
ander, Halifax;  Walker,  Lincoln's- inn-fields 

Prout,  J.  Bath,  innkeeper.  [Bridges  and  Mason, 
Red  Lion-square ;  Wingate,  Bath  ;  and  Hare  and 
Little,  Bristol 

Peters,  S.  Sheepshead,  Leicestershire,  grocer.  [Fos- 
brook,  Loughborough ;  Allen,  Bouverie-street, 
Fleet-street 

Proctor,  J.  and  S.  Leeds,  machine-makers.  [Tottie 
and  Co.,  Leeds 

Percy,  H.  Whaddon,  Wilts,  horse-dealer.  [Sandys 
and  Sons,  Crane-court 

Parsons,  J.  High-street,  Shoreditch,  butcher.  [Kurd, 
Great  Prescot-street,  Goodman's-fields 

Potter,  G.  Fenchurch- street,  wine-merchant.  [Dicas, 
Pope's-head-alley,  Cornhill 

Park,  M.  Old  Trinity-house,  Water-lane,  merchant. 
[Vincent,  Clifford's-inn 

Parkes,  G.  Dudley,  nail-ironmonger.  [Wimburn 
and  Collett,  Chancery-lane ;  Robinson  and  Son, 
Dudley  . 

Protheroe,  J.  Bristol,  hatter.  [Clarke  and  Co., 
Chancery-lane ;  Stephens  and  Goodhind,  Bristol 

Parkinson,  J.  Bolingbroke,  Lincoln,  stuff-manufac- 
turer. [Dax  and  Alger,  Bedford-row ;  Bracken- 
bury  and  Babington,  Spilsby 

Parker,     S.     Whitchurch,      Salop,     ironmonger. 

ystocker    and     Dawson,       New    Boswell-court ; 
rookes  and  Lee,  Whitchurch 

Russell,  A.  March,  Isle  of  Ely,  grocer.  [Long  and 
Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Day,  St.  Ives 

Roebuck,  W.  Huddersfield,  cloth-dresser.  [Walker, 
Lincoln's-inn.fields ;  Allison,  Huddersfield 

Rogers,  J.  Shrewsbury,  grocer.  [Clarke  and  Co., 
Chancery -lane;  Williams,  Shrewsbury 

Robertson,  J.  Tottenham,  surgeon.  [M'Ghie,  New- 
inn 

Ross,  J.  Wynardsbury,  Bucks,  flock-manufacturer. 
[Thwaites,  Carter-lane 

Rodel,  R.  Ci  own-court,  Threadneedle-street,  wine- 
merchant.  [Robinson,  Walbrook 

Robinson,  J.  Derby,  tape  manufacturer.  [Few  and 
Co.,  Henrietta-street,  Covent-garden 

Reed,  J.  Bristol,  tiler.  [King  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn- 
square  ;  Vernon,  Stone,  Staffordshire 

Radcliffe,  J.  Burnley,  Lancashire,  painter.  [Walker, 
Exchequer-office,   Lincoln's-inn-fields ;    Hammer-  . 
ton,  Burnley 

Richardson,  A.  Manchester,  victualler.  [Teague, 
Cannon-street 

Reynard,  R.  C.  New  Bond-street,  tailor.  [Mayhew, 
Chancery-lane 

Richards,  W.  Fifehead  Magdalen,  Dorset,  dealer. 
[Bowles  and  Co.,  Shaftesbury 

Ross,  J.  sen.  Horfield,  Gloucester,  farmer.  [Mere- 
dith, Fish-Ponds,  near  Bristol 

Ryder,  W.  H.  Norton  Falgate,  tailor.  [Dalton, 
Union-street,  Bishopsgate-street 

Sibson,  J.   Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  draper.    [Dunn, 


Princes-street,  Bank ;    Wilson,    Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne 

Sweetman,  W.  Westow-hill,  Norwood,  Surrey,  car- 
penter. [Gee  and  Drawbridge,  New  North-street, 
Red  Lion-square 

Stanley,  I.  Charlton-Kings,  Gloucester,  baker.  [Le- 
diard  and  Thompson,  Cirencester;  Thompson 
and  Hurley,  Gray's-inn-square 

Shelley,  S.  Oulton,  Stone,  Stafford,  flint  grinder. 
[Willis  and  Co.,  Tokenhouse  yard ;  Vernon, 
Stone,  Staffordshire 

Salter,  J.  Lyncombe  and  Widcombe,  Somerset,  flo- 
rist. [Price,  Lincoln's-inn ;  Turner,  Bath 

Strong,  J.  and  I.  Dodds,  Durham,  engine-builders. 
[Williamson,  Gray's-inn ;  Moor,  Durham ;  Ingle- 
dew,  Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

Smith,  P.  Liverpool,  hatter.  [Norris,  John-street, 
Bedford-row  ;  Rymer  and  Norris,  Manchester 

Strange,  T.  Cheltenham,  plasterer.  [Pruen  and  Co., 
Cheltenham 

Simonds,  J.  Bartholomew-lane,  stock-broker.  [Swain 
and  Co.,  Frederick 's-place,  Old  Jewry 

Sutton,  W.  Beaumont-street,  Mary-le-bone,  coach- 
maker.  [Whitehouse,  Thavies-inn 

Scholfield,  J.  Outrington,  Cheshire,  victualler.  [Law 
and  Coates,  Manchester ;  Adlington  and  Co.,  Bed- 
ford-row 

Shepherd,  J.  L.  and  H.  Fricker,  Southampton,  linen- 
drapers.  [Green  and  Ashurst,  Sambrook-court, 
Basinghall-street 

Till,  T.  Minster,  Kent,  farmer.  [Cole,  Charlotte- 
street,  Blackfriars-road 

Trehern,  T.  .Hereford,  carpenter.  [Pateshall,  He- 
reford ;  Church,  Great  James-street,  Bedford-row 

Thorne,  T.  Frome  Selwood,  Somersetshire,  brewer. 
[Miller,  Frome ;  Hartley,  Blackfriars 

Tennant,  J.  Malmsbury,  grocer.  [Ross  and  Cooke, 
New-inn;  Ross,  Chalford-hill 

Thompson,  A.  New-grove,  Mile-end-road,  nursery- 
man. [Philips  and  Bolger,  St.  Swithin's-lane 

Thompson,  L.  Great  St.  Helens,  printer.  [Scargill 
and  Rothery,  Hatton-court,  Threadneedle-street 

Tate,  J.  Manchester,  grocer.  [Hurd  and  Johnson, 
Temple;  Kershaw,  Manchester 

Turner,  N.  Allhallows-lane,  fish-dealer.'  [Saunders 
and  Heawood,  Upper  Thames-street 

Taylor,  E.  Dodwor.th,  York,  linen-manufacturer. 
[Pocock,  Bartholomew-close ;  Mence,  Barnsley 

Taylor,  J.  W.  Exchange-buildings,  merchant.  [Ra- 
venhill,  Poultry 

Taylor,  J.  Balham-hill,  Surrey,  builder.  [Fisher 
and  Co.,  Walbrook 

Taylor,  G.  Melcham,  York,  clothier.  [Battye  and 
Co.,  Chancery-lane ;  Stephensons,  Holmfirth 

Thompson,  L.  Hessle,  Kingston-upon-Hull,  miller. 
[Kaye  and  Whittaker,  Thavies-inn;  Rushworth, 
Hull 

Vining,  J.  Pall-mall,  jeweller.  [Wood,  Richmond- 
buildings,  Soho 

Watson,  J.  T.  Stepney,  master-mariner.  £Cox, 
Poultry 

Wood,  H.W.  and  J.  W.,  and  M.  W.  Wakefield, 
woolstaplers.  [Few  and  Co.,  Henrietta-street,  Co- 
vent-garden 

Wallis,  W.  H.  Carlisle-street,  Soho,  perfumer. 
[Burra  and  Nield,  King-street,  Cheapside 

Williams,  M.  Tring,  builder.  [Williams  and  Be- 
thell,  Gray's-inn 

Wright,  J.  Peckham-rye,  brick-maker.  (;Helder, 
Clemerit's-inn 

Whicher,  G.  Petworth,  Sussex,  apothecary.  [Hil- 
liard  and  Hastings,  Gray's-inn ;  Tyler,  Petworth 

Webb,  J.  Nailsworth,  Gloucester,  grocer.  [Adling- 
ton and  Co.,  Bedford-row ;  Wathen,  Stroud 

Wilkinson,  G.,  S.  Bateson,  and  J.  Meggs,  King's- 
arms-yard,  merchants.  [Spurr,  Copthall-buildings 

Walker,  R.    Preston,    Lancashire,    corn-merchant. ' 
[Blakelock,  Serjeant's-inn ;  Blanchard  and  Bickqr- 
staflf,  Preston 
Winkly,  H.    Chorlton-row,   Lancashire,   victualler. 

[Owen  and  Co.,  Manchester 
Warner,    H.     Lamb's-conduit-street,    linen-draper. 

[Jones,  Size-lane 

Wasbrough,  M.  Bridges-street,  Covent-garden,  sta- 
tioner. [Hodgson  and  Cd  ,  Salisbury-street, 
Strand 

Wain,  R.  and  W.  Longnor,  Staffordshire,  grocers. 
[Brittlebank  and  Son,  Oddy,  Derbyshire ;  Holme 
and  Co.,  New-inn 


DIVIDENDS. 

Asdell,  J.  Oxford-street,  Dec.  15 

Albany,  J.  Ware,  Dec.  10 

Airey,  J.  and  N.  Aspinall,  Liver-    Atkinson,  E.  Morpeth,   Northum-    Abbott,  P.  D.  Powis-place,  Great 

pool,  Dec.  27  berland,  Jan.  6 

M.  M.  N«w  Series.  —  VOL.  III.  No.  1  3.  Q 


. 

pplegath,     A.     Stamford-street,    Atkinson,  J.  Liverpool,  Jan.  3 
Lambeth,  Jan.  9  Archer,  W.  Hertford,  Jan.  5 


Ormond-street,  Jan.  2 


Brown,  J.  Liverpool,  Jan.  10 
Best,  G.  Spring  gardens,  Jan.  12 
Bond,  W.   Altrincham,    Cheshire, 

Dec.  20 

Burbidge,  W.  and   Co.    Birming- 
ham,'Dec.  19 

Brathwaite,  J.  Leeds,  Dec.  1(5 
Browne,  G.  and  H.  Liverpool,  Dec. 

1!) 
Booth,  R.   Laundmill,  Lancaster, 

DM-.  2-2 

Bell,  W.  Fenchurch  street,  Dec.  19 
Booty,  J.  Newport,  Isle  of  Wight, 

Dec.  1!) 
Batger,    W.     Henley-on-Thames, 

Dec.  19 

Bray,  T.  Chelsea,  Dec.  19 
Booth,  H.  Laund-inill,  Lancashire, 

Dec.  22 
Bunn,   R.   Ncwcastle-upon-Tyne, 

Dec.  20 
Barber,  J.  and  E.  Cowper's-court, 

Cornhill,  Dec.  *» 
Biggs,  E.  Birmingham,  Dec.  30 
Blagg,  K.  Yarmouth,  Dec.  19 
Beve'rlev,  B.  Bncklersbury,  Dec.  29 
Baker,  J.  Bristol,  Jan.  3 
Bardon,  W.  York,  Dec.  13 
Baker,  J.   West-street,   St.  Philip 

and  St.  Jacob,  Gloucester,  Jan.  3 
Barrow,  H.  Thavies-inn,  Dec.  5 
Burnett,  W  S.  New  London-street, 

Jan.  5 

Brown,  J.  Godmanchester,  Jan.  5 
Barker,    A.    Somers-place,    New- 
road,  Jan.  5 

Blagg,  E.  Yarmouth,  Dec.  22 
Burdwood,  J.  and  W.  H.  Coltman, 

Devonport,  Jan.  8 
Cannan,  D.  Lothbury,  Dec.  15 
Cooke,    T.  and   J.    Cheltenham, 

Dec.  18 

Comfort,  E.  Hosier-lane,  Dec.  1 
Coxhead,    B.    L.    Cannon-street, 

Dec.  19 

Chubb,  W.  Bristol,  Dec.  27 
Children,  G.  Tonbridge,  Dec.  22 
Crowther,  J.  Liverpool,  Jan.  9 
Cundey,  W.  and  J.  Holymoorside, 

Derby,  Jan.  3 
Clarke,  W.  and  A.  Dimsdale,  Fre- 

derick's-place,   Old  Jewry,  Dec. 

29 
Cockle,    J.    Deritend,    Warwick, 

Dec.  30 
Colton,  Rev.  C.  E.  Princes-street, 

Soho,  Jan.  5 
Cook,  H.  Lancaster-place,  Strand, 

Jan.  5 

Clarke,  J.  Worcester,  Jan.  10 
Coley,  W.  P.  and  H.  H.  Brown, 

Winchester-house,     Old  Broad- 
street,  Jan. 12 

Champion,  G.  Bristol,  Jan.  12 
Clarke,  G.  Basinghall-street,  March 

2 
Davidson,  J.  East-India-chambers, 

Dec.  15 

Dent,  J.  Stone,  Stafford,  Dec.  16 
Dubois,  C.  King-street,  Covent- 

garden,  Dec.  19 

Duncan,  H.  Portsmouth,  Dec.  22 
Deudney,  J.  Camberwell,  Dec.  19 
Dicken,  J.  Blithfield,Staffordshire, 

Dec.  20 

Damant,  W.  Sudbury,  Dec.  29 
Dobson,  J.  Hesketh-with-Beccon- 

sall,  Lancashire,  Dec.  29 
Dodd,   S.    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 

Jan.  5 

Daniel,  J.  Newgate-srreet,  Jan.  26 
Dow,  J.     Rhodeswell,    Bow-com- 
mon, Middlesex,  Jan.  9 
Dallman,  T.  Old-Bond-street,  June 

26 

Deabwell,  R.  Doncaster,  Jan.  18 
Evans,  H.  Cheapside,  Jan.  5 
Eaton,  R    Swansea,  Jan.  3 
Ford,  W.  Exeter,  Dec.  21 
Fleet,  F.  Aylesbury,  Dec.  26 
Foden,  E.  Warwick,  Jan.  1 
Friedman,  J.  W.  Finsbury-square, 

Dec.  29 
Fisher,  J.  Llanthewy,  Monmouth, 

Jan.  6 

Fry,  J.    Dorset-street,    Salisbury- 
quare,  Jan.  5 


Forsyth.  G.  Eton-court,  Carlisle, 

Jan.  22 
Ferguson,  G.  Catterick,  Yorkshire, 

Jan.  8 

Foster,  T.  Maidenhead,  Dec.  19 
Forsaith,  S.  Shoreditch,  Dec.  29 
Groom,  J.  Watford,  Dec.  ]"> 
Green  well,    J.  and  R.    Sherburn, 

Durham,  Dec.  22 
Godwin,  W.  Strand,  Dec.  22 
Gibbs,  T.  Devonport,  Jan.  1 
Gibbons,  T.  jun.   Wells,  Norfolk, 

Jan.  r> 
Gilbert,  J.  and  H.  Taylor,  Bristol, 

Dec.  30 

Guth,J.  jun.  Shad-Thames,  South- 
war  k,  Jan.  1!) 

Gray,  T.  March,  Cambridge,  Jan.  4 
Higginbotham,  S.  Macclesfield, 

Dec.  15 

Hodges, T.  Warebon,  Kent,  Dec.  15 
Hall,  T.  Chesterfield,  Dec.  19 
Harding,  T.  Poplar,  Dec.  19 
Harvey,   R.  C.    Allburgh,   and  E. 
Hill,  Wortwell,  Norfolk,  Dec.  2.3 
Haynes,  G.  sen.  and  Co.,  Swansea, 

Dec.  29 

Hyatt,  W.  Dorset-street,  Manches- 
ter-square, Dec.  2(i 
Hatfield,  J.  Cambridge,  Dec.  22 
Hodgson,  J.  Birmingham,  Dec.  30 
Hooper,  A.  Worcester,  Dec.  26 
Hudson,  J.  Birchin-lane,  Dec.  29 
Hetherington,    D.     King  -  street, 

Cheapside,  Dec.  29 
Harkness,  J.  Chapel -place,  Long- 
lane,  Southwark.  Jan.  5 
Humphreys,    S.    Charlotte-street, 

Portland-place,  Dec.  12 
Hibbert,  W.  Mount-street,   Gros- 

venor-square,  Jan.  2 
Haycock,  J.  St.  Albans,  Jan.  9 
Harker,  J.  C.  Old-Bond-street,  Jan. 

19 
Hooper,    C.    Throgmorton-street, 

Jan. 12  i 

Haslewood,  W.   Stratford,  Essex, 

Jan. 16 

Joll,  H.  Hadlow-street,  Dec.  15 
Jones,  J.  Cheltenham,  Dec.  18 
Jones,  R.  Romford,  Dec.  19 
Jones,    G.     Wootton-under-edge, 

Gloucester,  Jan.  1 
Ingram,  E.  Reading,  Dec.  19 
Jenkins,  T.  Cirencester,  Dec.  19 
Jones,  M.  London-road,  Dec.  22 
Jackson,  W.  Holbeck,  Leeds,  Dec. 

28 
Jellyman,   J.    and    J.    Downton, 

Wilts,  Jan.  1 
Jenkin,  J.  and  J.  W.  Cruttenden, 

Wapping,  Dec.  29 
Jackson,  W.   Deighton,  Hudders- 

field,  Jan.  3 

Jones,    S.    King's-Arms-buildings, 
Wood-street,  Cheapside,  Jan.  9 
Johnson,  G.    King  Stanley,  Glou- 
cestershire, Jan. 12 
Kite,  J.  and  B.  Best,  Macclesfield- 
wharf,  New-North-road,  Shore- 
ditch.  Dec.  29 

Keily,  J.  St.  James's-street,  Jan.  5 
Keating,  G.  Waterloo-road,  Jan.  5 
Little,  J.  Trowbridge,  Wiltshire, 

Dec.  21 

Leader,  W.  Wells-street,  Oxford- 
street,  Dec.  22 

Linsell,  W.  P.  Sun-street,  Dec.  22 
Le  Roy,  C.  Pali-Mall,  Jan.  9 
Launitz,  C.F.  Bucklersbury,  Jan.  5 
Langwith,  J.  Mottram,  Cheshire, 

Jan.  8 
Mead,  W.  and  C.  E.  Macomb,  Bat- 

ter«ea,  Dec.  15 
M'Cormick,  J.  Broad-street,  Dec. 

18 
Mcssiter,  N.  Frome  Selwood,  Dec. 

21 

Marshall,  W.  Regent-street,  Dec.  8 
Mackie,  E.  Maidenhead,  Berks, 

Jan.  9 

Meads,  G.  Bath,  Jan.  1 
Morgan,  T.  L.  Bristol,  Jan.  4 
Martelly,   L.   H.   and  J.    Dayne, 

Finsbury-square,  Dec.  19 
March,  M.  and  T.  Shute,  Gosport. 
Jan.  3 


Milligam,  T.  II anway- street,  Dec. 

12 
Mayor,  C.  Somerset-street,  Port- 

man-square,  Jan.  2 
Marsden,  W.  Salford,  Manchester, 

Jan. 11      , 
Meager,    W.     Newport,     Isle    of 

Wight,  Jan.  5 
Merryweather,  W.  Long-Acre,  Jan, 

Masterman,    J.      Hatton-Garden, 

Jan. 
Moxon,  R.  W.  G.  and  J.  Kingston- 

upon-Hull,  Jan.  10 
Morris,  J.jun.  Oxford-street,  Jan. 

12 
Machen,    E.  L.    Berkhampstead, 

Jan.  9 
Mason,  J.  Little  The/rock,  Essex, 

Dec.  22 
Nancolas,  E.   Tothill- street,  Dec. 

15 

Neville,  J.  G.  Sheffield,  Dec.  15 
Nash,  T.  Chesham,  Bucks,  Jan.  2 
Old,  J.  Bridgewater,  Dec.  28 
O'Hara,  M.  Watford,  Dec.  29 
Penny,  J.  Lymington,  Feb.  2 
Powell,  E.  Dover,  Jan.  1 
Pigott,  W.  Norwich,  Dec.  27 
Parker,  H.  Sheffield,  Jan.  1 
Powell,  J.  Worcester,  Jan.  4 
Pomeroy,  R.  jun.  Boixham,  De- 
vonshire, Feb.  2 
Richardson,  G.  and  J.  Henderson, 

West  Cowes.  Dec.  13 
Richardson,  W.  and  Farrow,  Ken- 
sington Gravel-pits,  Dec.  15 
Rose,  J.   Ibstock,   Leicestershire, 

Dec.  19 
Robinson,  P.    Claypole,  Lincoln, 

Jan.  2 

Rutlidge,  R.  Weedon  Beck,  North- 
ampton, Dec.  8 
Read,  J.  Regent-street,  Jan.  2 
Radford,    J.    S.     Kingston-upon- 

Hull,  Jan.  6 

Rutland,  J.  Oxford-street,  Dec.  29 
Redshaw,  T.  Fleet-street,  Jan.  2 
Raine,  J.  S.  Wapping  Wall,  Dec. 

Rowley,  W.  Regent-street.  Jan.  2 

Reyner,  E.  and  J.  Medley,  New- 
port, Isle  of  Wight,  Jan.  6 

Rice,  J.  Great  Torrington,  Devon- 
shire, Jan.  6 

Robinson,  T.  and  N.  Lawrence, 
Liverpool,  Jan.  6 

Robinson,  H.  T.  Gun-street,  Old 
Artillery  Ground,  Dec.  22 

Rossi,  R.  Harp-lane,  Tower-street, 
Jan. 12 

Rogers,  W.  Lad-lane,  Jan.  12 

Ridley,  W.  Whitehaven,  Jan.  8 

Rutter,  J.  Winterton,  Lincoln- 
shire, Jan.  9 

Smith,  F.  A.  and  J.  Allingham, 
New  Bientford,  Dec.  15 

Shaw,  J.  W.  and  A.  W.  Elmslie, 
Fenchurch-buildings,  Dec.  15 

Sprigg,  J.  Drury-lane,  Dec.  15 

Symonds,  N.  W.  Crutched-Friars, 
Dec.  19 

Stelfor,P.  Saddleworth,  Yorkshire, 
Dec.  22 

Sparrow,  I.  E.  Bishopsgate-street- 
within,  Dec.  1!) 

Starling,  S.  Poole,  Dec.  28  and  Jan. 
26 

Sadler,  H.  and  T.  Oxford,  Jan.  4 

Sumner,  T.  Clitheroe,  Dec.  30 

Smith,  S.  Liverpool,  Jan.  3 

Shepherd,  D.  and  J.  Haworth, 
Bury,  Lancashire,  Jan.  4 

Selden,  D.  and  W.  Hinde,  Liver- 
pool, Jan.  6 

Steadman,  C.  and  J.  McLean, 
Lamb-street,  Jan.  5 

Smith,  T.  Gordon-House,  Kentish- 
town,  Jan.  5 

Scholey,  R.  C.  Doncaster,  Jan.  18 

Shute,  T.  and  S.  Crediton,  Devon- 
shire, Jan. 11 

Tyrrell,  W.  East-Ilsley,  Berk- 
shire, Dec.  20 

Tuckett,  W.  Bath,  Dec.  10 

Turner,  M.  J.  Clonmel,  Ireland, 
Jan.  2 


1827.] 


Underdown,  J.  Ramsgate,  Deo.  15 

Were,  T.  Bucklersbury,  Dec.  15 

Whyte,  M.  and  J.  Great-Eastcheap, 
Dec.  12 

Williams,  T.  West  Smithfield,  and 
Union-street,  Southwark,  Dec. 
15 

Wood,  T.  Bilston,  Somersetshire, 
Dec.  20 

Walker, W.  andT.  Barker,  Cannon- 
street,  Dec.  15 

Wylam,  R.  Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 
Dec.  21 


Incidents,  Marriages,  fyc, 

Wheeler,  W.  Chenies-mews,  Bed- 
ford-square, Dec.  19 

White,  J.  jun.  Bishopswearmouth, 
Dec.  22 

Walker,  J.  Upper  Russell-street, 
Bermondsey,  Dec.  19 

Winbolt,  W.  St.  Paul's  Church- 
yard, Dec.  22 

Woolston,  S.  High-street,  Blooms- 
bury,  Jan.  5 

Walmsley,   W.   Manchester,   Dec. 

Washer,  J.  E.  Bristol,  Jan.  5 


115 

Winstanley,  R.  jun.  King-street, 
Cheapside,  and  G.Hudson,  Man- 
chester, Dec.  15  and  Dec.  22 

Ward,  D.  and  S.  Smith,  Liverpool, 
Dec.  30 

Wetherell,  J.  Litchfield  -  street, 
Westminster,  Dec.  2<) 

Wilkinson,  T.  and  T.  Mulcaster, 
Wood-street,  Jan.  5 

Wilson,  W.  jun.  Nicholas-lane, 
Jan.  5 

Woods,  W.  and  H.  Williams,  Has- 
tings, Jan.  9 


ECCLESIASTICAL  PREFERMENTS. 


Rev.  J.  Hitchings,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Wargrave, 
Berks — Rev.  M.  Riddle,  to  the  Living  of  Easton,  near 
Winchester— Rev.  R.  Pole,  to  the  Rectories  of  Saint 
Mary  Tavy,  and  Stevtocke,  in  the  diocese  of  Exeter 
— Rev.  D.  Evans,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Llanofanfawr, 
with  the  three  chapels  annexed,  Brecon^-Rev.  J. 
Kempthorne,  to  the  Rectory  of  St.  Michael,  Glou- 
cester— Rev.  J.  L.  Freer,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Was- 
perton,  Warwick — Rev.  W.  T.  Birds,  to  the  Rec- 
tory of  Preston-on-the-Wild-Moors,  Salop — Rev.  A. 
Smith,  to  the  Curacy  of  Knottingley — Rev.  Dr. 
Monk,  to  be  Speaker  of  the  Lower  House  of  Con- 
vocation— Rev.  J.  Jarvis,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Tut- 
tington,  Norwich — Rev.  C.  Thorp,  to  the  Prebend 
of  Llandrindod,  in  the  collegiate  church  of  Brecon — 
Rev.  W.  Davies,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Mount, 
Cardigan — Rev.  J.  Hamer,  to  the  Rectory  of  Llan- 
bedr,  with  the  Vicarage  of  Caerhun,  Carnarvon — 
Rev.  J.  W.  R.  London,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Braun- 
ton,  Devon— Rev.  T.  Cockayne,  to  the  Rectory  of 


Dogmersfield,  Hants— Rev.  W.  B.  Bere,  to  the  per- 
petual Curacy  of  Upton,  Somerset — Rev.  H.  Venn, 
to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Drypool,  York — Rev. 
A.  B.  Lechmere,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Bidersfield, 
Worcester— Rev.  W.  F.  Holt,  to  be  Minister  of 
Laura  Chapel,  Bath— Rev.  J.  Bockett,  to  the  Rec- 
tory of  Stoodleigh,  Devon— Rev.  W.  H.  C.  Lloyd, 
to  the  Rectory  of  Norbury,  and  Vicarage  of  Ron- 
ton,  both  in  Staffordshire— Rev.  T.  Wood,  to  the 
Vicarage  of  Ashford,  Kent— Rev.  W.  Bowen,  to 
the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Kenderchurch,  Hereford- 
shire—Rev. T.  Davies,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of 
Coelbren  chapel,  Brecon — Rev.  Mr.  Riddle,  to  the 
Living  of  Easton,  Hants — Rev.  Mr.  Kemp,  to  the 
Living  of  Eastmeon,  Hants — Rev.  Mr.  Renaud,  to 
the  Living  of  Messingham,  Lincoln — Rev.  T.  At- 
wood,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Hammersmith — 
Rev.  E.  Pendrill,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Llan- 
guick,  St.  David's. 


INCIDENTS,    MARRIAGES,     AND    DEATHS,    IN    AND    NEAR    LONDON. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

Nov.  23. — The  Recorder  made  a  report  to  the 
King  of  the  prisoners  under  sentence  of  death  in 
Newgate,  of  the  September  sessions,  when,  out  of 
4(>,  six  were  ordered  for  execution  on  the  29th  instant. 
The  rest  were  respited  during  the  Royal  pleasure. 

27 — His  Majesty  held  his  first  levee  for  the  season 
at  St.  James's. 

29. — The  six  criminals  were  hung  at  the  Old  Bai- 
ley, when  a  considerable  agitation  was  evinced  among 
the  unusually  great  crowd  who  attended.  The  cul- 
prits were  young  men. 

30 — Thanks  of  the  Common  Council  voted  to 
the  Right  Hon.  W.  Venables,  late  Lord  Mayor,  for 
his  conduct  during  his  mayoralty,  &c.  &c. 

Dec.  7.— Sessions  commenced  at  the  Old  Bailey. 

11.— Message  from  his  Majesty  to  both  Houses  of 
Pa-iliament,  relative  to  the  interference  of  the  Court 
of  Spain  with  the  internal  affairs  of  our  ally  the 
Court  of  Portugal. 

12 — Addresses  voted  by  both  Houses  to  H.M.  on 
the  same  subject. 

13 — Sessions  ended  at  the  Old  Bailey,  when  20 
were  condemned  to  death,  and  100  to  be  transported 
— besides  several  to  imprisonment. 

16 — Report  made  to  the  Privy-Council  by  the 
Recorder,  of  the  prisoners  under  sentence  of  death 
in  Newgate,  at  the  October  sessions,  when  five  were 
ordered  for  execution. 

17 — English  troops  sent  to  Lisbon,  to  repel  the 
ion  of  the  Spaniards  into  Portugal,  under  the 


iuvs 


command  of  Lieut.  General  Clinton. 

MARRIAGES. 

At  Langham-place,  Francis  Dugdale  Astley,  esq., 
»on  of  Sir  J,  D.  Astley,  Bart.  M.P.,  Wilts,  to  Emma 


Dorothea,  daughter  of  Sir  T.  B.  Lethbridge,  Bart. 
M.P.,  Somerset— At  East-Sheen,  J.  F.  V.  Went- 
worth,  esq.,  of  Wentworth-Castle,  York,  to  the 
Lady  A.  L.  B.  Bruce,  daughter  of  the  Marquis 
of  Aylesbury  —  At  Twickenham,  John,  eldest 
son  of  J.  Fane,  esq.  M.  P.,  Oxfordshire,  to  Ca- 
therine, daughter  of  Sir  Benjamin  Hobhouse, 
Bart— At  St.  Giles's  in  the  Fields,  the  Rev.  W. 
Start,  to  Louisa,  daughter  of  J.  Gurney,  esq.,  King's 
counsel. 


DEATHS, 

At  Highbury-place,  John  Nichols,  esq.,  82,  for 
nearly  50  years  editor  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine— 
In  Albermarle-street,  Lieut.-General  A.  Kyd,  73 — 
At  Maida-Hill,  Lieut-Colonel  W.  C.  Royall— In 
Wimpole-street,  Mathew  Raper,  esq.,  of  Wendover 
Dean,  Bucks,  85,  F.R.S.  and  V.P.A.S.;  he  had 
published  several  literary  and  philological  works 
for  the  amusemert  of  himself  and  friends — In  Great- 
Queen-street,  Lincoln's-lnn-Fields,  R.  Rudd,  esq., 
85 — In  Bishopsgate-street,  P.  A.  Maceroni,  esq.,  7(J ; 
he  was  the  only  remaining  son  of  a  Roman  noble- 
man, who  had  been  ruined  by  a  22  years'  lawsuit 
with  Pope  Pius  VI. — At  Broadstairs,  the  Right  Hon. 
Bridget  Lady  Teynham — At  East  Barnett,  Rear- 
Admiral  Henry  Warre,  74 — In  Buckingham-street, 
Fitzroy-square,  in  his  72d  year,  John  Flaxman,  esq., 
R.A.,  and  Professor  of  Sculptor  at  the  Royal  Aca- 
demy—Mr. W.  Ward,  A.R.A — At  Ham  Common, 
Major  Hook,  75 ;  he  kept  his  wile's  corpse  un.buried 
for  30  years,  as,  by  the  will  of  a  relation,  he  was  en- 
titled to  an  annuity  "  whilst  his  wife  was  above 
ground !" — C.  Griffiths,  esq.,  deputy  inspector  of 
hospitals,  &c.,  73 ;  he  had  been  46  years  in  H.M.'s 
service — At  Richmond,  Lady  Price,  wife  of  Sir 
Q2 


116 


Provincial  Occurrences :   Cumberland,  York, 


[JAN. 


Rose  Price,  Dart — Mrs.  Lewis,  75,  relict  of  the  late 
Mr.  W.  T.  Lewis,  principal  comedian  at  Covent- 
Garden  Theatre— Mrs.  George  Dorien,  sister  of  W. 
H.  Ashurst,  esq.,  M.P.  for  Oxfordshire—The  Right 
Hon.  Charles  Kimiaird,  Baron  Kinnaird— In  Arling- 
ton-street, Hon.  G.  Duncombe,  Grenadier-Guards, 
son  of  Lord  Feversham— Joseph  Cradock,  esq.,  85, 
senior  fellow  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries— At 
Pimlico,  Mrs.  Burnett,  83,  widow  of  the  late  Gene- 
ral Burnett. 

MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 
At  the  British  Ambassador's,  Paris,  the  Hon.  F. 


St.  John,  to  Selina  Charlotte,  daughter  of  Colonel 
Keatlnge,  and  niece  to  the  Earl  of  Meath. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 

At  Martinique,  Lieut.-General  Francis  Delaval — 
At  Florence,  Isabella  Langley,  wife  of  John  Moore 
Cave,  esq — At  Boulogne-sur-Mer,  John  Chalmers, 
esq.,  74 — At  Lisbon,  John  James  Stephens,  esq., 
79,  member  of  the  ex-British  Factory  of  that  city — 
The  most  noble  Erancis  Rawdon  Hastings,  Mar- 
quess of  Hastings,  72,  onboard  H.M.'s  ship  Revenge, 
in  the  Mediterranean— At  Berlin,  the  celebrated 
astronomer  Professor  Bode,  80. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES; 

WITH    THE    MARRIAGES     AND    DEATHS. 


NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

The  foundation-stone  of  the  intended  Suspension 
Bridge  across  the  Wansbeck,  near  Morpeth,  was 
laid  Nov.  20;  the  subscription  list  contains  the 
names  of  the  members,  the  late  candidates,  and 
most  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  county. 

Dec.  2,  a  meeting  of  the  coal-owners  of  the  Tyne 
was  held  at  Newcatle,  when  they  resolved  to  coope- 
rate with  the  ship-owners  in  their  project  to  retard 
the  selling  of  coals  in  the  London  market,  and  far 
this  purpose  appointed  a  committee  to  proceed  to 
the  metropolis. — Tyne  Mercury. 

Died.']  At  Swarland-house,  Mrs.  Harriet  Davi- 
son,  sister  to  W.  Gosling,  esq.  of  Portland-place— 
At  Newcastle,  Jane  Robson,  100 — At  Callaby  Castle, 
J.  Clavering,  esq.,  G2. 

CUMBERLAND  AND  WESTMORELAND. 

The  weavers  of  Carlisle  have  sent  a  petition  to  the 
House  of  Lords  on  the  subject  of  the  Corn-Laws, 
and  their  dreadful  distresses,  in  which  they  say, 
"  tens  of  thousands  of  suffering  persons  were  asking 
whether  it  would  be  better  to  die  on  the  scaffold  or 
to  die  of  hunger  ?" 

A  great  number  of  pictures  exhibited  at  the  late 
Exhibition  at  Carlisle  have  been  sold — a  very  flatter- 
ing proof  of  the  preeminence  of  this  northern  display 
of  the  Fine  Arts,  considering  the  state  of  the  times. 

YORKSHIRE  AND    CHESHIRE. 

A  meeting  at  Saddleworth  of  the  merchants, 
manufacturers,  and  other  inhabitants,  has  been 
held  in  the  Parish  Church,  at  which  petitions  passed 
for  the  Legislature,  praying  "  that  a  progressively 
decreasing  duty  should  be  laid  upon  the  import  of 
foreign  grain,  assuring  a  fall  of  from  10  to  15  per 
cent.,  and  to  be  slowly  decreased  until  the  importa- 
tion was' entirely  free. 

The  fund  subscribed  for  the  relief  of  distressed 
work  people  at  Sheffield,  amounts  to  £3,593.  2s.  6d. 
all  of  which  has  been  expended,  a  balance  of  about 
£13.  excepted.  One  subscriber  gave  £  1,000,  under 
the  appellation  of  Londinensis. 

On  the  29th  of  November,  the  foundation  of  an 
elegant  bridge  and  terrace,  to  be  erected  at  Scarbo- 
rough, for  the  purpose  of  making  the  ascent  and 
descent  from  the  cliff  easier,  was  laid  by  E.  Hebden, 
Esq.,  the  senior  bailiff  of  that  town.  The  projector 
of  this  useful  design  is  R.  Cattle,  Esq.,  of  York. 

There  are  between  80  and  90  prisoners  for  trial  in 
York-Castle :  a  larger  number  than  was  ever  remem- 
bered—as It  wants  nearly  three  months  to  the 
assizes. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Hull  Choral  Society,  on  the 
13th  of  December,  nearly  £1,200  were  subscribed  for 


the  purpose  of  erecting  a  new  suite  of  rooms  in  that 
town,  for  balls,  concerts,  &c. 

A  bazaar,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Archbishop 
of  York,  was  opened  in  the  Festival  Concert  Room, 
on  the  19th  of  December,  for  the  sale  of  Ladies' 
Work*— for  the  benefit  of  the  distressed  manufac- 
turers. 

Died.']  At  Blessington-Hall.  Yorkshire,  Harring- 
ton Hudson,  esq,,  member  in  the  last  two  parlia- 
ments for  Helston. 


LANCASHIRE. 

At  the  recent  Kirkdale  sessions,  two  boys,  one 
only  eleven  years  of  age,  were  tried  for  stealing 
10  Ibs.  of  manure.  They  were  in  the  habit  of  col- 
lecting manure  on  the  roads,  and  they  happened  to 
go  into  a  field  at  Ormskirk,  and  collected  a  small 
quantity  of  cow-dung,  for  which  offence  they  were 
taken  before  a  clerical  magistrate,  and  by  him  com- 
mitted for  trial.  The  poor  boys  were  confined  in 
gaol  nearly  two  months  upon  this  trivial  charge,  and 
put  upon  their  trial.  The  jury  very  properly  re- 
turned a  verdict  of  not  guilty,  and  they  were  dis- 
charged  We  recollect,  at  the  Leicester  assizes  a  few 

years  ago,  Mr.  Justice  Grose  exclaiming :  "  I  wish 
there  was  not  a  parson  xipon  the  bench  ;  discharge 
the  woman  immediately  !"  The  cause  of  his  warmth 
arose  from  the  situation  of  a  poor  woman,  who  had 
been  kept  in  goal  five  months  for  stealing  a  mutton 
pie  from  the  basket  of  an  itinerant  venckr  of  tfiose 
savoury  delicacies  at  Loughborough  ! 

The  inhabitants  of  Rochdale,  including  all  parties 
in  politics,  and  all  denominations  in  religion,  have 
presented  the  Rev.  J.  Aspinall,  curate  of  that  place, 
four  splendid  chased  silver  dishes  and  covers,  of  the 
value  of  £200,  in  testimony  of  their  esteem  for  his 
services  whilst  he  resided  among  them,  and  espe- 
cially for  his  exertions  in  behalf  of  the  poor  during 
the  severe  distress  of  1826  !!! 

The  length  of  the  two  late  petitions  from  the  inha- 
bitants of  Great  and  Little  Bolton  against  the  Corn- 
Laws  to  the  Legislature,  exceeds  66  yards — and  the 
number  of  signatures  to  each  petition  is  more  than 
8000.  They  were  signed  by  all  parties. 

A  dreadful  accident  has  happened  at  Liverpool, 
occasioned  by  the  fall  of  an  immense  chimney  of  the 
smelting  furnace  of  Messrs.  Acken  and  Co.  In  fall- 
ing, it  demolished  three  houses  in  Norris-court,  and 
the  whole  of  the  inmates  were  buried  in  the  ruins. 
Three  were  taken  out  dead,  and  seven  dreadfully 
wounded  and  bruised. 

Difid.l  Rev.  John  Yatcs,  of  Dinglchead,  71 — At 
Hawkcshead,  Mrs.  Park,  sister  of  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
Bart. 


1827.]  Staffordshire,  Nottimgluim,  Leicester,  Gloucester,  fyc.  117 


STAFFORDSHIRE    AND    WARWICKSHIRE, 

The  new  church  (an  elegant  specimen  of  the  flo- 
rid Gothic)  at  Hampton  Lucy  has  been  consecrated 
and  opened.  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  the 
Bishop  of  the  diocese.  It  has  been  erected  by  the 
liberality  of  the  Lucy  family ;  the  descendants  of 
the  prosecutor  of  Shakspeare  for  his  venison  pro- 
pensities. 

The  Court  of  King's  Bench  has  granted  a  rule  for 
a  criminal  information  against  the  present  mayor 
and  eight  aldermen  (out  of  12)  of  Warwick,  for  cor- 
ruption,  and  in  concert  omitting  to  attend  the  usual 
charter-day  of  presentation  and  election  of  mayor  (on 
29th  Sept.  last),  and  swearing  in  the  present  mayor  for 
his  third  successive  year,  the  charter  prescribing  the 
annual  new  election  of  an  alderman  for  the  office  of 
mayor,  who  had  not  served  that  office  within  two 
years.  The  burgesses  complained  that  one  of  the 
corporation  is  not  only  a  non-resident,  but  a  colonel 
in  active  service,  and  member  for  the  borough  also ; 
whilst  another  is  a  non-resident  clergyman  !  Since 
the  proceedings  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  the 
burgesses  have  met  and  chosen  another  mayor — and, 
we  understand,  that  ulterior  measures  will  be  taken 
by  them  relative  to  the  rights,  franchises  and  public 
charities  of  the  borough. 

A  rule  has  been  granted  against  the  mayor  of  Staf- 
ford, to  shew  by  what  authority  he  holds  the  office 
of  mayor  this  year,  he  having  held  it  last  year. 

Died.]  At  Winson  Green,  Mrs.  Steward,  82— At 
Rugby,  Mrs.  Scarborough. 

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE    AND    LINCOLNSHIRE. 
Died.]    At  Grantham,  R.  Holt,  esq.  68. 

LEICESTERSHIRE    AND    RUTLAND. 

The  Hinckley  Clothing  Society  has  distributed 
linen  and  flannel  to  upwards  of  300  aged  and  indigent 
women. 

lH-d.~\  At  Leicester,  W.  Harrison,  esq.  f>(i,  de- 
puty-registrar of  the  archdeaconry  court — At  Halla- 
toiij  the  Rev.  J.  Wilson. 

WORCESTERSHIRE  AND  HEREFORDSHIRE. 

Married.]  At  Worcester,  J.  Dimsdale,  esq.,  son 
of  the  late  Baron  Dimsdale,  to  Jemima,  daughter 
of  the  Rev.  H.  Pye,  prebendary  of  Worcester. 

GLOUCESTER    AND    MONMOUTH. 

Some  time  ago,  when  it  became  necessary  to  pur- 
chase a  tenement  to  improve  one  of  the  docks  of  the 
Bristol  Bridge,  the  proprietor,  a  person  in  humble 
life,  brought  forward  his  original  deed,  which  was  a 
grant  from  King  Stephen,  rudely  and  almost  unin- 
telligibly written  on  a  piece  of  parchment,  with 
that  monarch's  signature  attached. 

A  liberal  subscription  has  been  set  on  foot  at  Glou- 
cester (very  worthy  of  imitation  at  this  melancholy 
season  ! )  to  form  a  fund  to  assist  the  poor  in  the  pur- 
chase of  clothing. 

The  trustees  of  the  Wells  turnpikes  have  con- 
tracted for  making  a  new  line  of  road  from  Chewton 
Mendip  to  Bristol,  so  as  to  avoid  the  dangerous  hill 
leading  out  of  Chewton. 

The  Report  of  the  Bristol  committee  for  the  relief 
of  the  distressed  manufacturers,  claiming  the  public 
sympathy  for  an  additional  fund,  states — "  In  the 
townships  of  Blackburn  there  are,  at  this  moment 
(Dec.  7),  more  than  30,000  paupers,  rendered  such 
through  absolute  want  of  employment,  and  on  the 
remaining  70.000  inhabitants  so  heavy  is  the  pressure 
of  the  poor-rates,  that,  if  urged  much  further,  they 
also  will  be  reduced  to  the  class  of  pauperism  !  The 
employment  of  the  people  of  Blackburn  was  hand- 
loom  weaving — it  is  gone  for  ever  !!! — The  power- 
loom  has  entirely  superseded  it !!!" 


A  dreadful  fire  has  happened  at  Bristol,  at  the 
houseof  Mr.  Oxley — Mrs.  Oxleyand  threeof  her  chil- 
dren were  burnt  to  ashes  by  this  dreadful  calamity. 

Died.']  At  Cheltenham,  Sir  James  Monk,  for- 
merly Chief  Justice  in  Lower  Canada — At  Glouces- 
ter, Sarah  Weatherstone,  aged  105 — At  Bristol,  Mr. 
James  Bevan,  34 ;  he  had  occasionally  delivered  che- 
mical and  other  lectures  at  "  the  Inquirer's  Society," 
and,  although  his  early  education  was  a  very  slender 
one,  he  had  made  himself  a  proficient  in  the  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Latin,  Spanish  and  French  languages,  and 
had  compiled  a  Hebrew  dictionary. 

DERBYSHIRE. 

Married.']  At  Heanor,  H.  S.  Wilmot,  esq.,  eldest 
son  of  Sir  Robert  Wilmot,  Bart.,  to  Maria,  eldest 
daughter  of  E.  M.  Mundy,  esq.  of  Shipley-Hall ; 
and  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  F.  Curzon,  son  of  Lord 
Scarsdale,  to  Augusta  Marian,  second  daughter  of 
Mr.  Mundy. 

Died.']  At  Stanton-by-Bridge,  Mary  Holt,  82; 
she  was  aunt  and  great  aunt  to  140  persons,  and  has 
left  a  legacy  to  each  ! 

OXFORDSHIRE. 

Died.]  At  Oxford,  A.  Robertson,  D.D.  F.R.S. 
Savilian  Professor  of  Astronomy  and  Radcliffe  Ob- 
server, 75. 

BUCKS    AND    BERKS. 

The  number  of  prisoners  in  Aylesbury  goal  amount 
to  153 !  Among  these,  no  less  than  one-third  have 
been  committed  for  poaching  ! — Young  hungry  coun- 
try fellows  do  not  require,  at  this  pinching  season, 
to  be  dragged  to  goal,  when  they  can  get  but  4s.  or  5*. 
a  week  as  allowance  from  their  parish,  and  see  such 
ample  provision,  with  good  security,  before  them. 
On  Sunday  last,  three  men  of  this  description  exhi- 
bited a  curious  spectacle  on  their  way  to  goal.  The 
officer  in  whose  custody  they  had  been  placed  walked 
before  them  down  the  market-place,  and  they  fol- 
lowed him  very  orderly.  They  had,  on  Saturday, 
come  from  Sherrington,  about  27  miles  distant,  and, 
after  walking  with  their  conductor  20  miles,  they 
had  slept  that  night,  under  no  unnecessary  restraint, 
at  Wing.  From  such  a  case  as  this  the  general  state 
of  the  country  may  be  fairly  inferred!!! — Bucks 
Chronicle. 

The  question  whether  the  corporation  of  Reading 
had  aright  to  toll  on  corn,  was  decided  last  week  in 
the  Exchequer,  after  being  13  years  in  dispute, 
against  the  corporation,  who  have  expended,  it  is 
said,  about  £5,000  in  litigating  their  claim. 

Died.']  At  Terrier's-House,  Bucks,  the  Right 
Hon.  Lord  Dormer,  of  Grove-Park,  near  Warwick 
— At  Formosa-place,  Berks,  Sir  Samuel  Young, 
Bart.  01,  F.R.S.  and  F.A.S. 

NORFOLK    AND    SUFFOLK. 

Nov.  25,  a  numerous  and  respectable  meeting  of - 
the  owners  and  occupiers  of  land  was  held  at  the 
Shire-Hall,  Norwich,  for  the  purpose  of  resisting 
an  increase  in  the  county  rates,  "  for  appointing  dis- 
trict surveyers  of  the  highways,"  and  for  expressing 
their  sentiments  as  to  the  practice  which  prevail*  at- 
the  Shire-Hall  of  "  conducting  the  county  bu»inesa 
with  closed  doors,"  &c. ;  when  several  spirited  re- 
solutions were  passed  against  the  preceding  mea- 
sures, as  well  as  petitions  to  the  Houses  of  Lords 
and  Commons,  declaratory  of  the  same.  It  appears 
by  one  of  the  resolutions,  that  the  county  rate  in 
1807  was  £7,200— and  in  this  year,  viz.  at  Midsum- 
mer last,  it  was  at  the  enormous  sum  of  £20,406 !!! 
In  1781,  the  expenditure  for  Norwich  made  by  the 

chief-constable,  amounted  to  £334.  lite.  lOjd in 

1826,  to  £3,876. 125.  4rf.  !I! 

A  meeting  at  Yarmouth  has  been  held  at  the 
Town-Hall,  for  the  purpose  of  opposing  the  project 
of  making  a  harbour  at  Lowestoft,  and  a  ship  navi- 


118 


Provincial  Occurrences:  Hants,  Dorsetshire)  fyc. 


[JAN. 


gallon  from  thence  to  Norwich,  and  the  members  of 
the  town  have  been  requested  to  use  their  influence 
in  Parliament  to  oppose  the  same. 

Meetings  have  been  held  at  Norwich  and  Lynn  for 
the  purpose  of  not  altering  the  Corn-Laws. — At  the 
meeting  at  Bury,  for  the  petition  against  the  Corn- 
Laws,  it  was  asserted  by  one  of  the  speakers  that  the 
land  owners  were  driving  our  trade  to  America  and 
the  Continent !  at  a  time,  too,  when  distress  was 
never  so  general  and  extensive  as  at  present  I 

Died.']  At  Brundall,  Elisha  De  Hague,  esq.,  town 
clerk  of  Norwich  since  I/!*:?,  aged  72— At  Barham, 
John  Jennings,  5)3,  postman  for  C7  years:  he  had 
walked  in  his  occupation  440,000 miles,  or  17  times 
the  circuit  of  the  globe.  The  General  Post  Office 
had  very  properly  given  him  a  pension  of  £10  per 
annum  since  1796  to  his  death.  His  great-uncle  and 
his  father  had  been  postmen  in  the  same  place  for  62 
vears,  making  114  years  altogether  !— At  Hillington- 
Hall,  Mr.  J.  Harrison,  90;  he  had  lived  02  years  in 
the  service  of  three  generations  of  the  Folkes' 
family— At  Highnam,  Thomas  Batley,  75,  commonly 
called"  Blind  Tom,  who  had  been  deprived  of  sight 
from  his  youth.  He  was  the  regular  postman  for 
the  conveyance  of  letters  and  parcels  from  Gazely 
to  Highnam,  without  the  guidance  either  of  a  fellow 
creature  or  a  dog — At  North  Waltham,  Mrs.  Lacock, 
98. 

HANTS    AND    SUSSEX. 

There  are  no  less  than  50  prisoners  in  the  county 
(Hants)  Bridewell  for  offences  under  the  Game- 
Laws  ;  besides  several  persons  in  the  county  goal  for 
trial  on  charges  of  having  been  found  armed  for  the 
destruction  of  game,  contrary  to  the  statute,  which 
is  the  result  of  our  precious  system  of  Game-Laws  !!! 

The  Hampshire  Chronicle  says,  that  during  a  late 
visit  at  Somerly  1,463  head  of  game  were  killed  by 
four  guns  in  six  days,  viz.  842  pheasants,  334  hares, 
222  rabbits,  58  partridges,  5  woodcocks,  and  2 
snipes  !!!  Talk  of  the  Corn-Laws,  indeed  !  here  is 
an  evil  that  in  an  instant  tells  its  own  tale !  How 
many  families  are  ruined  and  goals  filled  with  offend- 
ers against  the  Game-Laws,  to  achieve  a  massacre 
like  this,  at  which  a  sportsman  of  the  old  school 
would  disdain  to  assist  ! ! ! 

Died.'}  At  Ashling,  near  Chichester,  Rear-Admi- 
ral  Stair  Douglas — At  Bramore,  Mrs.  Emma  Curtis, 
in  her  10?lh  year — At  Chichester,  Sir  Justly  Watson 
Green,  Bart.  72 — At  Southampton,  Matilda,  relict 
of  P.  C.  Methuen,  esq. — At  Brighton,  Mary,  sister 
ofSirHughPalliser,  Bart. 

DORSETSHIRE    AND    WILTS. 

The  Lords  of  the  Treasury  have  been  pleaded  to 
issue  then:  warrant  granting  an  annual  allowance  to 
the  widows,  as  well  as  to  the  children  under  14  years 
of  age,  who  .were  rendered  destitute  and  fatherless 
by  the  loss  of  the  crew  of  the  Francis  Freeling 
packet. 

The  repairs  of  the  Cobb  at  Lyme  have  just  been 
finished,  and  it  now  appears  a  piece  of  beautiful 
architecture. 

Dec.  5,  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  fiax  and  rope  fac- 
tory of  Mr.  Parsons,  at  Melksham,  which  was 
totally  destroyed ;  the  damage  is  supposed  to  amount 
to  £10,000,  and  200  people,  by  this  awful  calamity, 
will  be  thrown  out  of  employment.  One  of  the 
men  has  been  committed  to  goal  on  suspicion  of 
setting  the  premises  on  fire. 

Thirteen  persons  have  been  committed  to  prison 
at  Devizes  within  the  last  week  (Dec.  1C)  for  offences 
against  the  Game-Laws,  and  seven  to  Fisherton 
goal !!! 

Mr.  Estcourt  informs  us,  that  Long  Newnton  pa- 
rish contains  140  poor  persons,  divided  into  32 
families,  principally  labourers ;  and  that  the  cottage 
system  has  been  introduced  there  with  such  effect, 
as  to  occasion  the  following  difference  in  the  poor- 
rate— its  amount  the  last  six  months  before  this  plan 


took  effect,  was  £213.  Ife.,  of  which  sum  £206.  8*. 
was  applied  to  the  relief  of  the  poor — while  the 
amount  of  the  poor-rate  the  last  corresponding  six 
months  after  the  plan  took  place,  was  £12.  6*.,  of 
which  £4. 12s.  Gd.  was  applied  to  the  relief  of  the 
poor  !!!  May  this  plan  be  universally  followed,  that 
again  we  may  sing  with  the  poet — 
"  That  every  rood  of  ground  maintains  its  man!!!" 

Married.'}  At  Kingston  Magna,  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Manners  Sutton,  to  Miss  L.  S.  Mortimer. 

Died.]    At  Rowde,  J.  Sutton,  esq.  83. 

DEVONSHIRE  AND  SOMERSET. 
The  inhabitants  of  Wiveliscombe  have  entered 
into  a  subscription  for  pulling  down  their  old  church, 
and  for  erecting  an  elegant  new  Gothic  structure  in 
its  stead,  which,  from  its  superior  size,  will  give 
them  accommodation  for  full  500  additional  sittings. 
The  cottage  system  has  been  introduced  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Wells  with  the  happiest  results. 
The  Bishop  has  tried  the  experiment  on  44  acres, 
letting  them  at  the  rate  of  10s.  per  quarter  of  an  acre. 
112  families,  none  of  whom  receive  parish  pay, 
already  enjoy  its  benefits. 

The  blanket  manufactory  established  at  Frome, 
for  the  purpose  of  supporting  the  unemployed  ma- 
nufacturers, succeeds  beyond  the  original  expec- 
tations. 

A  society  has  been  formed  at  Bath  auxiliary  to 
the  Irish  Society,  for  promoting  the  education  of  the 
native  Irish  through  the  medium  of  their  own  lan- 
guage, it  appearing  that  at  [least  1,500,000  Irish  em- 
ploy the  ancient  language  of  their  country  as  the 
sole  and  natural  vehicle  of  their  thoughts. 

At  a  public  meeting  late  held  at  Wenmore,  it  was 
resolved  to  make  a  new  turnpike  road  from  Lang- 
port  through  Shapwick,  Wedmore,  Chedhar,  Ship- 
ham,  and  Rowberrow,  to  join  the  new  cut  of  the 
Bristol  turnpike  at  that  place. 

At  the  Consistorial  Court  at  Exeter,  Dec.  1,  the 
vicar  of  Maker  instituted  a  suit,  claiming  the  tytheof 
sea-fish  from  the  proprietors  or  occupiers  of  any  fish- 
ing-boat, scan,  net  or  fishing  croaft,  at  the  rate  of 
£l.  13,?.  4d.  yearly,  and  one  penny* out  of  every  shil- 
ling of  the  earnings  of  the  poor  men,  from  money, 
share  or  allowance  !!!  The  Judge  dismissed  the  de- 
fendants from  the  suit,  and  condemned  the  plaintiff 
in  their  costs.  We  need  scarcely  add,  that  the  deci- 
sion against  this  ne  plus  ultra  of  tythe-ism,  has  given 
great  satisfaction  to  the  natives. 

Lectures  on  Astronomy  have  been  delivered  at  the 
Bridgewater  Mechanics'  and  Apprentices'  Institution. 
Its  members  are  fast  increasing,  "and  its  usefulness 
rapidly  rising. 

Married."]  At  Dawlish,  P.  C.  de  la  Garde,  esq.  to 
Susan,  daughter  of  the  late  Rev.  J.  Lempriere,  D.D. 
Died.']  At  llfracombe,  Jesse  Foot,  esq.  83,  long 
known  in  the  medical  world ;  he  was  author  also  of 
a  Life  of  Arthur  Murphy,  the  celebrated  dramatic 
writer — At  Holme,  Sir  Bourchier  Wray,  Bart.,  76, 
of  Tavistock-Court,  and  of  Home-Chase,  Devon — 
At  Plymouth,  R.  Creyke,  esq.,  80,  commissioner  of 
the  Victualling  Board  at  that  place—  At  Holsworthy, 
T.  Pearse,  esq.,  76— -At  Bath,  Miss  Woodward, 
daughter  of  the  late  Bishop  of  Cloyne. 

NORTHAMPTON  AND  HUNTINGDON. 
A  petition  has  been  presented  to  the  Trustees  of 
Laurence  Sheriff's  Almshouses,  by  the  almsmen  at 
Rugby,  for  an  additional  Is.  Gd.  per  week,  ordered 
for  them  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  ever  since  August  1, 
1823!!! — These  poor  fellows  say,  "  they  are,  from 
age  and  infirmity,  in  a  great  measure  helpless  ;"  and 
well  they  may  say  so,  as  we  find  their  ages  in  Sep- 
tember last,  thus  designated — "  W.  Overton,  74; 
G.  Collis,  78 ;  A.  Parker,  78 ;  T.  Bachelor,  79 ; 
G.  Bachelor,  80 ;  T.  Brookes,  81 ;  J.  Buckland,  81 ; 
B.  Harrod,  82  ;  E.  Green,  95"  !!! 


1827.]          Bedford,  Cornwall,  Waks,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 


D/«/.]  At  Northampton,  Mr.  J.  Sanders,  84;  he 
had  been  parish. clerk  for  more  than  47  years— his 
predecessor  h;ul  filled  that  office  55  years — At  Wes- 
ton  Underwood,  the  Rev.  J.  Buchanan. 

BEDFORD    AND    HERTS. 

Dec.  6,  the  winter  assizes  commenced  at  Hertford, 
when  there  were  no  less  than  44  prisoners  for  trial. 
The  learned  Judge  (Bayley)  in  addressing  the  grand 
jury,  alluded  to  "  the  beneficial  effects  of  our  meet- 
ing together  for  the  purpose  we  do  at.  this  season  "— 
thereby  evincing  the  necessity  of  other  counties 
having  general  goal  deliveries  oftener  than  twice  in 
the  year ;  or,  at  least,  at  this  season,  thus  prevent- 
ing the  accused  from  being  kept  in  goal  all  the  winter 
before  they  are  tried. 

Died.']  At  Bedford,  J.  Wing,  esq.,  alderman ;  he 
had  filled  the  office  of  mayor  several  times. 

CORNWALL. 

A  beautiful  specimen  of  native  copper  has  been 
presented  to  the  Royal  Geological  Society  of  Corn- 
wall by  Mr.  Pendarves ;  it  weighs  120  Ibs.,  and  is  the 
produce  of  Condurrow  mine.  On  an  assay  of  a  part 
of  the  specimen,  it  was  found  to  contain  99  parts  in 
100  of  pure  copper. 

A  new  suite  of  rooms  (patronised  by  the  members 
of  the  county)  with  a  Doric  colonnade,  have  been 
opened  at  Falmouth  by  subscription,  for  the  con- 
venience of  proprietors  and  subscribers,  and  the 
general  accommodation  of  the  gentlemen  in  the 
army  and  navy,  and  other  strangers  who  may  visit 
the  town  and  neighbourhood.  We  understand  this 
institution  is  the  precursor  to  the  constructing  ma- 
rine and  other  baths  on  the  premises,  which  are  open 
to  a  fine  view  of  the  harbour. 

Lord  Mount  Edgecumbe  has  given  a  piece  of 
ground  at  Stonehouse  for  a  chapel  of  ease,  which  is 
to  contain  sittings  for  1,400  persons— 450  of  them 
free.  The  expense  of  building,  which  will  be 
£4,000,  is  to  be  defrayed  by  subscription,  aided  by 
the  Commissioners  of  Church  Buildings. 

The  late  mayor  of  Tregony  has  been  sentenced,  by 
the  King's  Bench  Court,  to  pay  "a  fine  of  £100,  and 
to  be  imprisoned  six  months  in  Bodmin  goal,  for  a 
contempt  in  disobeying  a  mandamus  to  elect  a  new 
mayor  for  that  borough. 

Dec.  7,  a  county  court  was  held  at  Penrith,  at 
which  there  was  not  a  single  cause  !!! 

A  memorial  is  about  to  be  presented  to  Govern- 
ment, for  the  improvement  of  Padstow  Harbour, 
at  the  entrance  of  which  so  many  melancholy  acci- 
dents have  happened. 

Died.]  At  Padstow,  Mr.  C.  Boney,  80,  celebrated 
for  his  scientific  ingenuity  in  astronomical  mecha- 
nism—At Marazion,  Mrs.  Grenfell,  relict  of  the 
late  Pascoe  Grenfell,  esq.,  aged  !)4-At  St.  Pinnock, 
Mr.  Little,  85-At  Truro,  J.Vivian,  esq.,  77,  vice^ 
warden  of  the  stanneries,  and  for  many  years  chair- 
man of  the  quarter  sessions— At  Penzance,  T.  Green- 
7!3^!P''t  Of  Warwick,  late  Master  in  Equity,  and 
Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Court  of  Requests  at 
Madras— At  Trevarno,  Helston,  C.  Wallis,  esq.,  82. 

SALOP    AND    WALES. 

A  subscription  has  been  entered  into  at  Shrews- 
bury for  the  purpose  of  building  a  new  Infirmary, 
and;more  than  £6,000  have  been  already  subscribed. 
The  list  of  the  contributors  to  this  laudable  under- 
taking, reflects  the  highest  credit  on  the  extreme 
liberality  and  high  public  spirit  of  the  county. 

A  Tradesman  and  Mechanic's  Institution  was  una- 
nimously determined  on  and  established  at  a  nume- 
rous assemblage  of  the  inhabitants,  at  the  Town- 
Hall  of  Swansea,  Nov.~29 — and  the  first  meeting  was 
held  at  the  Town-Hall,  Dec.  7,  when  an  introductory 
address  was  delivered,  including  a'concise  view  of  the 
first  principles  of  natural  philosophy — Geological 


119 


lectures  have  also  been  since  delivered.— Progressive 
increase  of  tonnage  on  the  Swansea-canal  of  stone, 
coal,  and  culm  :  101)),  77,243—1823,  96,028—1824, 
124,551—1825,  120,439—1826,  143,309.— Two  first-rate 
ships  of  war  are  ordered  to  be  immediately  laid 
down  at  the  Royal  Dock- Yard,  in  Milford  Haven. 

Died.]  At  Carmarthen,  Mrs.  Stacey,  82— At  Abe- 
rystwith,  Jane,  daughter  of  General  Davies  ;  and 
Mr.^V.  Jenkins,  90— At  Erivlatt,  Lieut.-ColonelJ. 

SCOTLAND. 

A  petition  to  the  Legislature  has  been  voted  by 
a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  county  of  Ren- 
frew, praying  «<  Parliament  earnestly,  withoutdelay, 
to  pass  a  law  authorising  the  free  importation  of  all 
kinds  of  human  food,  in  exchange  for  the  manufac- 
tures of  this  country."— The  petition  from  Lanark 
has  been  signed  by  upwards  of  2,000  signatures,  for 
the  repeal  of  the  Corn-Laws. 

One  of  the  most  tremendous  and  awfully  destruc- 
tive storms  of  wind  and  snow  ever  experienced  in 
this  country,  devastated  the  Highlands  of  Perth  and 
Inverness-shires  on  Friday  and  Saturday  last.  The 
loss  of  human  life  already  ascertained  is  deplorable, 
and  the  destruction  of  sheep  and  cattle  in  the  Highl 
land  districts  immense.  In  a  letter  from  Inverness, 
addressed  to  a  gentleman  in  this  town,  it  is  stated, 
that  "  such  a  dreadful  storm  had  never  been  known 
there  as  that  on  Friday— a  strong  north-east  wind, 
with  heavy  snow,  so  thick  and  dark,  that  one's  sight 
could  not  penetrate  it  a  dozen  of  yards.  This  con- 
tinued all  day.  In  -the  evening  less  snow  fell,  but 
the  wind  continued  awful  during  the  night.  It  being 
our  Martinmas  market,  numbers  of  poor  people  from 
the  country,  attending  the  fair,  lost  their  lives  on 
this  dreadful  night.  I  have  heard  that  30  dead  bodies 
have  already  been  found  among  the  snow.  Trees, 
that  had  for  ages  stood  the  storms  of  winter,  strewed 
the  forest  like  rushes.  The  snow,"  it  is  added,  "  in 
the  Highlands,  south  of  Inverness,  is  drifted  in 
some  places  to  the  depth  of  100  feet."  Among  the 
mountains  of  our  own  county,  the  storm  was  no  less 
dreadful.  The  accounts  from  sea  are  eqnally  disas- 
trous. — Perth  Courier. 

An  earthquake  was  very  sensibly  felt  and  heard  in 
the  isle  of  Arran,  Nov.  26,  a  little  before  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon.  The  motion  continuing  for  about 
four  seconds.  The  sky  was  serene  and  clear,  and 
scarcely  any  wind. 

.Died.]  At  Nigg  (Kincardineshire),  aged  82,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Cruden,  who  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury presided  over  that  parish  as  minister— At  Rose- 
mount,  Ayrshire,  Mrs.  Fullarton,  77,  sister  to  the 
late  Countess  of  Dumfries,,  and  aunt  to  the  Marquis 
of  Bute— At  Dumfries,  R.  Hope,  esq. ;  he  was  the 
most  extensive  cattle  dealer  probably  in  all  Scotland, 
his  yearly  transactions  averaged  £300,000— At  Edin- 
burgh, the  Hon.  Miss  Henrietta  Fraser,  daughter  of 
Lord  Saltoun. 

IRELAND. 

In  the  southern  districts  of  this  unfortunate  coun- 
try, a  very  alarming  extent  of  distress  at  present 
exists."""  The  public  may  guess  at  it  from  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  Rev.  M.  O'Callaghan,  in  his  report 
made  to  a  charitable  meeting  at  Cork:  "  Such 
wretchedness  and  misery  were  never  before  witnessed 
— besides  those  who  exhibit  their  poverty  in  the 
streets,  there  are  others  still  worse  off  housed  in 
lanes  and  garrets,  without  even  a  particle  of  straw 
or  covering,  much  less  of  food,  and  in  this  state 
they  remain  until  they  expire  of  absolute  famine. 
I  have  known  instances  of  what  I  state  to  occur 
within  this  week."!!! 

Died.]  At  Coonogue,  Wexford,  Hugh  Carill, 
103;  he  requested  to  be  buried  without  a  coffin, 
which  was  complied  with — At  Rathmines,  the  Right 
Hon.  Lord  Clonbrock,  of  Clonbrock,  Galway. 


[     120     ] 

DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 

.From  the  2lst  of  November  to  the  20th  of  December  1826. 


i 

Bank 
Stock. 

3  Pr.  Ct. 
Red. 

3  Pr.  Ct. 
Consols. 

3iPr.Ct.  3APr.Ct. 
Consols.     Red. 

N4Pr.C. 

Ann. 

Long 
Annuities. 

India 
Stock. 

India 
Bonds. 

Exch. 
Bills. 

Consols, 
for  Ace. 

21 

2033204* 

823      *    83}      3 

893 

881  894 

983    9* 

19g  9-16 

,  

41  42p 

22  24p 

83  5-8  3 

22 

2034  i'03; 

82*      g   823     3* 

883 

m    * 

98*      3 

19*           £ 

248  .  249 

21  24p 

82  7-8  8 

23 

203^ 

824      i   821    3* 

89 

984      * 

l!)i 

mm 

39  40p 

21  24p 

83* 

24 

202J 

823      8    83*       3 

894 

fiOJ     9 

98*      3 

19    5-16 

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•37  39p 

2023p 

83*    i 

25 

2023 

83$      *   834       j 

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973    8* 

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249 

36  38p 

1820P 

834     i 

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28 
29 

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98*      3 
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983  99 

193  M6 
19    7-16  g 
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248;249 

36  38p 
37  39p 

18  22p 
1721p 
18  22p 

83  5-8 
84  84  3-8 
84  3-8  i 

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89 

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3 

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825       $    833       8 

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3637P 

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844    4 
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6 

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E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  2,   CornhiU  and  Lombard  Street. 


MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  20th  Nov.  to  19th  Dec.  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50,  High  Holborn. 


Therm. 

Barometer. 

De  Luc's 
Hygro. 

Winds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

! 

. 

jj 

9A.M. 

10P.M. 

I 

ai 

9  A.M. 

10  P.M. 

9  A.M. 

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10  P.M. 

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a 

05 

% 

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0 

20 

44 

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30    24 

30    33 

~85~ 

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NE 

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Clo. 

Clo. 

21 

45 

4fi 

40 

30    35 

30    33 

75 

86 

NE 

NNE 

_ 

— 

— 

22 

§1 

44 

46 

43 

30    27 

30    17 

77 

81 

N 

N 

r     .-. 

Mp 

— 

23 

^jgy 

44 

49 

43 

29    97 

29    76 

93 

H8 

NNE 

NE 



—  « 

S.Rain 

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45 

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32 

29    41 

29    31 

90 

80 

WSW 

WSW 

-  -    - 

MM 

Fine 

25 

38 

42 

28 

29    08 

29    11 

74 

89 

wsw 

wsw 

Fine 



Clo. 

26 

81 

36 

30 

29    21 

29    40 

75 

83 

wsw 

w 

— 

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Foggy 

27 

33 

37 

32 

29    60 

29    64 

83 

88 

w 

sw 

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— 

28 

35 

48 

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29    68 

29    43 

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S.Rain 

S.Rain 

29 

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48 

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Rain 

30 

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46 

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36 

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94 

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Dec. 

45 

46 

39 

29    33 

29    13 

93 

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Rain 

2 

42 

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29    10 

29    10 

87 

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—  . 

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1  3 

40 

45 

34 

29    29 

29    31 

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85 

w 

w 

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Clo. 

Clo. 

4 

37 

39 

35 

29    31 

29    61 

88 

82 

WNW 

NW 

—  . 

— 

— 

5 

40 

41 

33 

29    62 

29    56 

84 

89 

NW 

NW 

—  .  , 

— 

Rain 

r, 

'^fe 

36 

50 

50 

29    60 

29    62 

98 

98 

ESE 

SSW 

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— 

7 

viy 

52 

54 

47 

29    50 

29    33 

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98 

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— 

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8 

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Clo. 
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12 

50 

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13 

48 

52 

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29    48 

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97 

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sw 

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— 

— 

16 

47 

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29    60 

98 

97 

E 

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Clo. 

M. 

_ 

17 

45 

46 

41 

29    75 

29    84 

98 

94 

E 

ENE 

_ 

—  . 

Fair 

18 

42 

43 

40 

29    87 

29    92 

89 

85 

E 

E 

MN 

— 

—  * 

19 

42 

44 

40 

29    92 

29    94 

87 

90 

E 

ENE 

~ 

Clo. 

Clo. 

The  Rain  Gauge  having  frozen,  no  account  was  taken  of  the  quantity  of  Rain  fallen 


THE 

MONTHLY    MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  III.]  FEBRUARY,  1827.  [No.  14. 


METROPOLITAN    IMPROVEMENTS. 

"  Oh,  the  wonderful  alterations  !"— CEOCKEBY. 

As  it  was  gratifying  to  our  national  pride  during  the  war  to  read  of  the 
progress  of  our  arms,  and  to  rejoice  in  the  glorious  result  of  the  exertions 
of  our  Government  to  procure  permanent  tranquillity ;  so  is  it  delightful 
to  the  lovers  of  the  arts  of  peace  to  see  the  leisure  and  means,  which  this 
tranquillity  has  procured,  employed  by  our  ministers  in  the  removal  of  the 
nuisances,  and  in  the  promotion  of  architectural  improvement  in  the  me- 
tropolis. 

That  metropolis,  which  was  known  to  be  the  richest  in  Europe — that 
London,  whose  very  name  was  synonymous  with  wealth, — from  the  walls 
of  which,  fiats  were  issued,  whose  power  was  felt  and  acknowledged  in  the 
remotest  parts  of  the  world, — was  little  thought  by  the  millions  who  bowed 
their  heads  in  obedience  to  its  dictates,  and  who  looked  with  eyes  of  envy 
at  those  who  visited  or  resided  in  it,  to  consist,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
merely  of  a  congregation  of  filthy  streets,  totally  unadorned  by  architec- 
tural beauty  ;  or  that  its  churches,  and  other  public  buildings,  were  so  hid 
from  view  by  such  an  accumulation  of  vulgar  dwellings  in  their  immediate 
vicinity,  that  nearly  all  the  specimens  of  good  architecture  which  the  me- 
tropolis of  England  possessed  remained  unknown  and  unnoticed  by  the 
inhabitants  themselves. 

That  they  were  sometimes  appreciated  by  strangers,  who  sought  for  the 
internal  beauties  of  edifices,  the  exteriors  of  which  were  concealed  from 
their  view  by  interminable  rows  of  brick  buildings  and  groves  of  chimney- 
pots, is  certain,  by  foreign  illustrations  of  London,  as  well  as  by  the  ob- 
servation of  one  of  the  Clements  to  an  English  nobleman  at  Rome,  who, 
on  being  presented  at  the  papal  court,  descanted  to  his  holiness  with  great 
fluency  on  the  beauties  of  Italian  architecture,  and  on  the  delight  he  had 
experienced  in  witnessing  the  numerous  and  superb  specimens  of  the  art 
which  he  had  observed  in  his  tour. — "  True,"  replied  the  Pope.  "  there 
are  many  noble  specimens  of  the  art  of  Vitruvius  in  Italy  ;  but  you  possess 
one  in  London  which  surpasses  most  of  them,  and  is  eclipsed  by  none.'* 
He  then  named  a  church  in  the  city  of  London,  of  the  very  existence  and 
name  of  which  the  English  nobleman  was  ignorant.  Ashamed  and  doubt- 
ing, this  true  enthusiast  in  the  art  immediately  quitted  Rome,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ascertaining  the  truth  of  what  he  had  heard,  and  was  astonished  to 

M.M.  New  Series.— VoL;III.  No. 1 4.'  R 


122  Met i  opohtan  Improvements.  [Fun. 

find  the  justice  of  his  holiness' a  observation  exemplified  in  a  church  buried 
amidst  the  crowded  houses  of  Lombard-street  and  the  lanes  in  its  vicinity. 

Such,  until  late  years,  has  been  the  fate  of  nearly  all  the  specimens  of 
architecture  which  our  metropolis  possesses.  Of  St.  Paul's,  it  is  impossible 
to  get  any  one  view,  which  can  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  its  magnificence 
to  the  beholder ;  so  that,  although  we  are  acquainted  with  the  beauty  of 
its  details,  we  actually  pass  our  lives  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  one  of 
the  finest  specimens  of  architectural  magnificence  in  the  world,  without 
ever  having  an  opportunity  of  judging  of  its  effect  as  a  whole. 

Twenty  years  ago,  the  very  doors  of  Westminster  Abbey  were  blocked 
up  by  the  contiguous  houses,  and  now  there  is  only  one  side  of  this  superb 
specimen  of  the  Gothic  open  to  the  inspection  of  the  artist;  and  the  effect 
of  this  is,  in  a  great  measure,  spoiled  by  the  bad  taste  which  could  place 
St.  Margaret's  Church  and  the  Westminster  Session-House  so  immediately 
contiguous  lo  such  a  building. 

The  alterations  in  this  part  of  Westminster  were  among  the  first  at- 
tempts to  unbury  some  of  our  architectural  beauties ;  and  by  the  plans 
at  present  in  agitation  of  removing  the  whole  pile  of  buildings  which  di- 
vides Parliament  and  King  streets,  as  well  as  those  which  adjoin  the 
Abbey  westward,  we  trust  a  very  few  years  will  accomplish  the  object  of 
presenting  Westminster  Abbey  to  the  eye  of  the  spectator  totally  unincum- 
bered  by  the  neighbourhood  which  at  present  conceals  and  disgraces  it. 

When  this  shall  be  the  case,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  contrast  between 
this  elaborate  specimen  of  Gothic  architecture  and  the  miserable  attempt 
on  the  opposite  side  of  Parliament-square,  will  induce  the  complete  altera- 
tion of  the  latter,  and  make  our  Houses  of  Parliament  and  Courts  of  Law 
what  they  ought  to  be — models  of  architectural  taste,  instead  of  ridiculous 
abortions,  in  which  bad  Italian  architecture  is  mixed  with  bastard  Gothic. 
Had  we  the  power  of  dictation  here,  we  would  have  the  interior  of  West- 
minster Hall  taken  as  a  kind  of  grammar  to  the  whole  pile  of  building,  and 
the  exterior  in  the  architecture  of  that  period  ;  by  which  means  we  should 
have  two  specimens  of  English  architecture  of  different  aeras,  and  the  eyo 
would  not  be  hurt  by  the  strong  contrast  of  Gothic  tracery  with  Italian 
columns. 

But,  to  have  done  with  improvements,  which  may  never  have  any  other 
existence  than  in  our  wishes  and  imaginations,  let  us  turn  to  those  which 
have  already  taken  place — to  those  which  are  in  progress — and  to  those 
which  are  in  projection. 

It  has  been  customary  to  judge  of  the  increased  civilization  of  a  country 
by  its  improvements  in  architecture.  By  monuments  of  this  art  the  progress 
of  the  ancients  is  traced;  the  power  of  the  Egyptians  is  deduced  from  the 
wonderful  labour  of  the  Pyramids  ;  the  taste  and  elegance  of  the  Greeks, 
from  the  Acropolis  and  the  temple  of  Athens.  Were  we  of  the  present  day 
to  be  judged  thus,  England  must  appear  to  have  advanced  a  century  within 
the  last  few  years ;  for,  I  suppose,  in  the  annals  of  the  world  there  have 
never  been  such  rapid  changes  and  such  vast  improvements  as  has  occurred 
in  this  metropolis  during  the  last  seven  years. 

We  have  no  occasion  now  to  refer  to  Pennant  to  produce  exclamations 
of  surprise  at  the  wonderful  changes  in  London ;  our  own  recollections  are 
sufficient.  Oxford-street  seems  half  a  mile  nearer  to  Charing  Cross  than  in 
the  days  of  our  youth  Swallow-street,  with  all  the  dirty  courts  in  its 
vicinity,  have  been  swallowed  up,  and  replaced  by  one  of  the  most  magni- 
ficent streets  in  Europe ;  a  street,  which  may  vie  with  the  Calle  d'Alcala 


1827.]  Metropolitan  Improvements.  123 

in  Madrid,  with  the  Quartier  du  Chapeau  Rouge  at  Bourdeaux,  or  the 
Place  de  Louis  Quinze  at  Paris.  We  must,  for  the  present,  overlook  the 
defects  of  the  architectural  detail  of  this  street,  in  the  contemplation  of  tho 
great  and  general  improvement  which  its  construction  has  produced  in  the 
metropolis. 

Other  streets  are  proposed  by  the  same  active  genius  under  which  Re- 
gent-street has  been  accomplished ;  the  vile  houses  which  surrounded  and 
hid  the  finest  portico  in  London — that  of  St.  Martin's  church — are  already 
taken  down  ;  a  square  is  to  be  forme .1  round  this  building,  with  two  large 
openings  into  the  Strand,  and  plans  are  already  in  agitation  to  lay  open 
other  churches  in  the  same  manner.  Even  the  economical  citizens  have 
given  us  a  peep  at  St.  Bride's — being  ashamed  again  to  hide  beauties  which 
accident  had  given  them  an  opportunity  of  displaying  to  greater  advantage. 
One  street  is  projected  from  Charing  Cross  to  the  British  Museum,  termi- 
nating in  a  square,  of  which  the  church  in  Hart-street  is  to  form  the  centre ; 
another  is  intended  to  lead  to  the  same  point  from  Waterloo  Bridge,  by 
which  this  structure,  which  is  at  present  almost  useless,  will  become  the 
great  connecting  thoroughfare  between  the  north  and  south  sides  of  the 
Thames :  this  street  is,  indeed,  a  desideratum  to  the  proprietors  of  the 
bridge,  as  well  as  to  the  public  at  large.  Carlton  House  is  already  being 
taken  down — by  which  means  Regent-street  will  terminate  at  the  south 
end,  with  a  view  of  St.  James's  Park,  in  the  same  manner  as  it  does  at 
the  north  end,  by  an  opening  into  the  Regent's  Park. 

Such  is  the  general  outline  of  the  late  and  the  projected  improvements 
in  the  heart  of  the  metropolis ;  but  they  have  not  stopped  here.  The  king 
has  been  decorating  Hyde  Park  with  lodges,  designed  by  Mr.  Decinaus 
Burton,  which  are  really  gems  in  architecture,  and  stand  unrivalled  for 
proportion,  chasteness,  and  simplicity,  amidst  the  architectural  productions 
of  the  age. 

Squares  are  already  covering  the  extensive  property  of  Lord  Grosvenor 
in  the  fields  of  Chelsea  and  Pimlico;  and  crescents  and  colonnades  are 
planned,  by  the  architect  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  on  the  ground  belonging 
to  the  diocese  at  Bayswater. 

But  all  suburban  improvements  sink  into  insignificance,  when  com- 
pared with  what  has  been  projected  and  attained  within  the  last  seven 
years  in  the  Regent's  Park.  This  new  city  of  palaces  has  appeared  to 
have  started  into  existence  like  the  event  of  a  fairy  tale.  Every  week 
shewed  traces  of  an  Aladdin  hand  in  its  progress,  till,  to  our  astonishment, 
we  ride  through  streets,  squares,  crescents,  and  terraces,  where  we  the 
other  day  saw  nothing  but  pasture  land  and  Lords1  Cricket  Ground ; — , 
a  barn  is  replaced  by  a  palace — and  buildings  are  constructed,  one  or  two  of 
which  may  vie  with  the  proudest  efforts  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

The  projector,  with  true  taste,  has  called  the  beauties  of  landscape  to 
the  aid  of  architectural  embellishment;  and  wre  accordingly  find  groves,  and 
lawns,  and  streams  intersecting  the  numerous  ranges  of  terraces  and 
villas  ;  while  nature,  as  though  pleased  at  the  efforts  of  art,  seems  to  have 
exerted  herself  with  extraordinary  vigour  to  emulate  and  second  the  efforts 
of  the  artist. 

In  so  many  buildings,  and  amidst  so  much  variety,  there  must,  conse- 
quently, be  many  different  degrees  of  architectural  excellence,  and  many 
defects  in  architectural  composition ;  but,  taken  as  a  whole,  and  the  short 
time  occupied  in  its  accomplishment,  the  Regent's  Park  may  be  consi- 
dered as  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  creations  of  architecture  that  has 

R  2 


121  Metropolitan  Improvements.  [FEB. 

ever  been  witnessed.  It  is  the  only  speculation  of  the  sort  where  elegance 
seems  to  have  been  considered  equally  with  profit  in  the  disposition  of  the 
ground.  The  buildings  are  not  crowded  together  with  an  avaricious  de- 
termination to  create  as  much  frontage  as  possible  ;  and  we  cannot  bestow 
too  much  praise  on  the  liberality  with  which  the  projector  has  given  up  so 
much  space  to  the  squares,  roads,  and  plantations,  by  which  he  has  cer- 
tainly relinquished  many  sources  of  profit  for  the  pleasure  and  convenience 
of  the  public. 

It  is  in  the  contemplation  of  these  additions  and  improvements  to  our 
metropolis,  that  we. doubly  feel  the  blessings  and  effects  of  that  peace 
which  has  enabled  the  government,  as  well  as  private  individuals,  to  attempt 
to  make  London  worthy  of  the  character  it  bears  in  the  scale  of  cities; 
and  we  are  happy  now  to  feel  proud  of  the  architectural  beauty,  as  we 
always  have  of  the  commercial  influence,  of  our  metropolis. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  parts  of  Napoleon's  government 
was,  that  amidst  all  his  ambitious  pursuits  of  conquest — all  his  warfare — 
all  his  hostile  expeditions — east,  west,  north,  and  south,  he  never  for  a 
moment  ceased  to  encourage  the  arts,  or  to  devote  a  certain  portion  of  his 
attention  to  the  improvement  of  Paris.  Thus  the  remembrance  of  every 
victory  was  perpetuated  by  a  monument,  and  the  memory  of  the  blood  that 
had  been  shed,  and  the  lives  that  had  been  sacrificed  in  its  attainment,  was 
lost  in  the  contemplation  of  the  splendour  of  the  fabric  by  which  it  was 
celebrated.  This  might  arise  from  his  ambition  to  perpetuate  his  own 
name  as  the  munificent  patron  of  the  arts  of  peace,  as  well  as  the  remem- 
brance of  his  victories.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  he  also  found  it 
necessary  to  place  some  visible  and  tangible  evidence  of  his  glory  under 
the  eyes  of  such  a  fickle  and  vain  people  as  those  he  governed,  who  con- 
soled themselves  under  the  horrors  of  the  conscription  by  ideas  of  the 
glory  of  the  "  grande  nation'1  and  by  the  delight  of  filling  their  own 
galleries  and  palaces  with  the  chefs  d'ceuvres  of  art  ravished  from  other 
countries  by  the  right  of  conquest. 

England  was  too  fully  occupied  during  the  war  to  devote  much  atten- 
tion to  the  arts,  and  she  refrained  from  erecting  monuments  to  her  victories 
till  they  were  complete,  and  till  their  result  was  peace.  From  the  moment 
that  has  been  accomplished,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  public  money 
Las  beeji  devoted  to  architectural  improvements ;  the  deficiency  of 
churches  has  been  supplied  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  as  well  as  in  the 
metropolis,  and  London  has  been  purged  of  many  of  its  nuisances,  while 
its  healthiness  and  comforts  have  been  increased  by  the  formation  of 
new  openings,  and  the  construction  of  new  sewers  and  the  regulation  of 
old  ones. 

Having  thus  considered  the  general  effect  of  the  late  and  projected  im- 
provements, and,  we  think,  justly  appreciated  their  general  excellence,  we 
will  now  proceed  to  an  examination  of  some  of  the  detail  of  their  exe- 
cution ;  and  here  we  cannot  help  regretting  that  there  is  not  a  competent 
committee  of  taste  as  well  as  an  efficient  board  of  works — a  committee 
to  whom  all  elevations  of  building  in  public  situations,  or  forming  portions  of 
new  streets,  should  be  submitted  before  they  are  permitted  to  be  executed. 
We  should  not  then  have  so  many  anomalies  in  architecture  as  at  present  dis- 
grace certain  portions  of  the  late  great  improvements.  We  should  not  then 
have  the  absurd  mixture  of  the  grotesque  with  the  elegant — the  Chinese  with 
the  Greek — and  the  Egyptian  with  Italian  architecture.  We  should 
not  see  columns  supporting  nothing,  or  pilasters  plastered  against  walls 


1827.]  Metropolitan  Improvements.  J25 

in  opposition  to  all  architectural  propriety,  and  to  the  destruction  of  ar- 
chitectural proportion.  We  should  not  then  see  attic  piled  on  attic,  and 
pediment  surmounting  pediment,  until  the  words  of  the  old  song  force  them- 
selves on  our  recollection  as  an  apt  illustration  : 

"  On  the  top  of  his  head  was  his  wig, 
On  the  top  of  his  wig  was  his  hat." 

In  this  criticism  we  are  far  from  blaming  the  architect  who  projects  the 
genera]  improvement.  We  know  the  difficulties  he  has  to  contend  with; 
we  feel  for  his  anxiety  to  realize  the  expectations  of  his  employers,  by 
letting  the  ground  at  the  rent  he  has  placed  upon  it,  and  we  know  the 
obstacle  which  an  arbitrary  determination,  as  to  the  style  of  the  building, 
might  throw  in  the  way  of  its  disposal,  where  the  speculation  was 
uncertain. 

These  observations  are,  however,  only  applicable  to  the  commencing 
works  of  the  improvement.  Now  that  the  success  of  one  great  street  has 
ascertained  that  great  public  thoroughfares  have  only  to  be  formed  to 
attract  inhabitants,  and  that  in  lieu  of  the  projector's  entertaining  fears 
that  his  ground  may  not  let,  he  is  inundated  with  applications  long  before 
the  old  build  ings  are  removed,  he  may  safely  insist  on  defining  the  ele- 
vations to  be  erected,  or  in  having  them  submitted  for  his  approbation. 
Under  these  circumstances,  we  should  not  have  carpenters  and  bricklayers 
turning  architects,  and  spoiling,  by  their  wretched  productions,  the  general 
effect  of  a  vast  improvement. 

While  we  are  on  this  subject,  we  cannot  help  stating  our  wish,  that 
those  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  possess  property  in  conspicuous  parts 
of  the  metropolis  would  adopt  the  same  system,  and  not  leave  the  designs 
for  their  elevations  to  be  made  by  the  builder,  who  takes  the  ground  upon 
speculation,  and  who  knows  nothing  of  architecture  but  its  mechanism; 
instead  of  submitting  them  to  the  taste  and  judgment  of  some  professor. 
By  this  means  we  often  find  an  architect  building  a  house  for  an  individual 
who  has  taken  an  urider-lease,  compelled  to  adopt  a  front  designed  by  some 
ignorant  builder,  and  mask  the  beauties  of  his  interior  by  an  elevation 
totally  devoid  of  beauty,  and  replete  with  architectural  defects. 

These  men  know  that  there  are  pilasters,  and  cornices,  and  columns, 
and  there  are  books  sufficiently  elaborate  to  furnish  them  with  models 
to  work  from ;  but  ignorant  of  the  propriety  of  their  application,  and 
having  no  ideas  of  proportion,  in  which,  after  all,  the  great  beauty  of  ar- 
chitecture consists,  they  place  a  column  here,  and  a  pilaster  there,  without 
rhyme  or  reason,  and  thus  many  fine  opportunities  for  architectural  display 
are  lost. 

One  miserable  instance  of  an  excellent  situation  being  sacrificed,  is 
exemplified  in  Richmond  Terrace,  Parliament-street,  which  might  have 
been  made  one  of  the  most  beautiful  features  of  the  architecture  of  the 
metropolis,  instead  of  a  mere  lump  of  stone  and  brickwork,  devoid  of 
every  elegance  and  out  of  all  proportion.  Yet  in  this  building  are  con- 
tained all  the  component  parts  of  good  architecture.  There  are  columns, 
cornices,  and  pediments,  but  put  together  without  any  regard  to  pro~ 
portion. 

The  sacrifice  of  such  a  situation  as  this  is  a  public  loss  to  the  metropolis, 
and  its  deformity  is  rendered  more  conspicuous  by  its  immediate  contrast 
with  the  Board  of  Trade,  which  is  erecting,  from  the  designs  of  Mr.  Soanc, 
at  the  corucr  of  Downing-street,  and  which  will  ultimately  form  a 


126  Metropolitan  Improvements.  [FEB. 

splendid  addition  to  the  architectural  beauties  of  London ;  but  while  it 
exhibits  so  much  elegance  in  the  proportion  of  the  columns,  and  the  exe- 
cution of  the  capitals  and  entablature,  it  is  impossible  not  to  regret  the 
confused  appearance  of  the  attic  and  chirariies,  and  the  smallness  of  the 
openings  under  the  architrave,  which  give  a  mean  appearance  to  the  whole 
design. 

It  is  perhaps  unfair  to  criticise  any  building  of  which  only  a  portion  is 
erected,  and  which,  of  course,  cannot  be  seen  in  its  general  connection  with 
the  whole  design.  But  it  is  impossible  not  to  perceive  the  defect  of  this 
building  to  consist  in  the  columns  not  having  been  placed  on  a  higher 
basement :  had  this  been  the  case,  their  beauty  would  not  only  have  been 
more  conspicuous,  but  a  superior  consequence  would  have  been  imparted 
to  the  whole  construction  ;  and  the  attic,  which  at  present  distresses  the 
eye,  and  deteriorates  so  much  from  the  beauty  of  the  design,  might  have 
been  hid,  if  not  totally  avoided.  The  colonnade  is,  however,  in  itself, 
truly  beautiful,  and  must  be  welcomed  by  the  lovers  of  the  arts  as  one  of 
the  chastest  specimens  of  Corinthian  architecture  that  we  possess.  In 
this  building  the  artist  has,  we  believe,  adopted  the  capitals  of  the  columns 
of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter  Stator;  and  the  whole  of  them,  together  with  the 
mouldings  of  the  cornices,  are  beautifully  executed.  We  wish,  however, 
that  be  had  dispensed  with  the  continuation  of  the  astragal  at  the  bottom  of 
the  capitals,  along  the  whole  building,  as  it  conveys  the  idea  of  a  sub-en- 
tablature, which  is  far  from  adding  to  the  beauty  of  the  design. 

The  next  new  public  building  in  this  quarter  of  the  town  is  the  College  of 
Physicians,  which  is  united  in  its  elevation  with  the  Union  Club-House. 
This  facade  is  intended  to  form  one  side  of  the  great  space  that  is  to  be 
laid  open  to  Charing-cross  ;  in  the  centre  of  which  it  is  Mr.  Nash's  wish  to 
accomplish  a  correct  restoration  of  the  Parthenon,  adapted  to  the  uses  of 
some  public  exhibition. 

Here  the  artist  had  decidedly  one  of  the  finest  situations  for  architectural 
display  that  can  present  itself  among  the  new  arrangements.  It  stands 
directly  in  front  of  one  of  the  grandest  approaches  to  the  new  street,  and 
catches  the  eye  of  the  beholder  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  before  he  arrives 
at  its  porticos.  He  was  likewise  sure,  from  his  knowledge  of  the  ulterior 
arrangement  of  this  part  of  the  plan,  that  this  view  of  his  work  could 
never  be  intercepted,  and  he  ought  to  have  devoted  his  acknowledged 
talent  to  the  formation  of  some  design  worthy  of  such  a  conspicuous 
station,  and  that  might  have  been  ranked  among  the  proudest  specimens 
of  the  art.  Instead  of  this,  however,  we  have  an  immense  monotonous 
range  of  attached  columns  and  pilasters,  unwieldy  in  their  appearance, 
and  crowded  together  without  any  effect.  The  recesses  seem  made  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  creating  room  for  the  attached  columns,  and  the  pro- 
jections formed  as  mere  apologies  for  the  introduction  of  pilasters.  The 
only  good  part  of  this  pile  of  building  is  the  portico  at  the  end  next 
Dorset-place,  where  it  is  almost  concealed  from  observation,  comparatively 
with  what  it  would  have  been  in  either  of  the  other  fronts  of  the  building. 
At  the  other  end  it  would  have  formed  a  fine  object  from  New-street, 
Charing-cross,  and  Pall-mall,  or  it  might  have  been  used  judiciously  to 
break  the  monotony  of  the  principal  fa9adc. 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  we  turn  from  this  erection  to  the  elegant  Ionic 
.€lub-House  of  the  University;  both  the  interior  and  exterior  of  which 
do  the  artists,  Messrs.  Wilkins  and  Gandy,  the  greatest  credit.  We  should 
have  wished  for  greater  projection  in  the  Ionic  pediment,  but  we  presume 


1827.]  Metropolitan  Improvements.  127 

this  was  prevented  either  by  the  New  Street  Act,  or  from  the  want  of 
space  ;  and  we  would  have  transferred  the  honeysuckle  ornament,  which 
now  runs  round  the  building,  as  a  continuation  of  that  on  the  caps  of  the 
pilasters,  to  the  freize,  where  it  would  have  been  more  appropriate,  and 
have  become  a  more  consequential  decoration  to  the  building.  But  these 
are  faults  which  are  lost  or  overlooked  in  the  general  beauty  of  the  design, 
and  the  justness  and  elegance  of  its  proportions.  The  two  other  sides  of 
this  great  square  are  to  be  occupied  by  the  National  Gallery  and  the 
Heralds'  College,  with  a  wide  opening  to  admit  a  complete  view  of  St. 
Martin's  Church.  We  have  seen  the  plans  of  this  improvement  with 
great  pleasure,  and  heartily  hope  that  the  great  projector  of  them,  to  whom 
the  metropolis  is  so  much  indebted,  will  regulate  the  elevations  by  the 
chaste  rules  of  his  art,  instead  of  permitting  the  introduction  of  arabesque 
cupolas,  which  are  useless  and  ugly. 

We  have  no  objection  to  the  exertion  of  the  architect's  imagination,  or 
to  his  travelling  out  of  the  established  rules  of  his  art,  where  improvement 
attends  his  innovation  ;  but,  till  some  design  is  made  superior  to  the 
models  of  antiquity  from  which  we  have  so  long  copied,  we  think  that 
the  ingenuity  of  the  architect  cannot  be  exerted  more  beneficially  than  in 
their  restoration.  With  these  ideas,  we  wish  that  many  of  the  architects 
of  the  new  churches  had  imitated  the  industry  which  Mr.  Inwood  has 
exhibited  in  St.  Pancras,  rather  than  have  put  up  such  unworthy  compo- 
sitions as  many  of  those  which  have  passed  the  fiat  of  the  Commissioners. 

Voltaire,  has  argued  on  the  superiority  of  the  moderns  over  the  ancients. 
He  cites  passages  in  Racine,  Corneille/and  Moliere.  as  being  superior  to 
any  in  Euripides  or  Sophocles,  in  Aristophanes  or  Terence.  In  painting 
he  draws  a  favourable  comparison  of  the  pictures  of  Rubens  with  the 
celebrated  painting  of  Timantes,  which  is  only  known  by  tradition ;  and 
in  architecture,  he  alludes  to  thn  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  the  Great  Wall 
of  China,  as  proofs  of  the  superiority  of  the  moderns  in  the  architectural 
productions  of  the  present  day.  But,  had  Voltaire  written  after  the  re- 
searches of  Stuart  and  Revett  had  laid  before  the  public  the  beautiful 
specimens  of  Greek  architecture — had  he  seen  correct  representations  of 
the  Parthenon,  the  Acropolis,  the  Temples  of  the  IHssus  and  Minerva 
Polias,  he  would  have  said  it  was  well  for  the  moderns  to  imitate  the 
ancients,  until  they  could  do  something  better. 

From  the  period  of  Stuart's  publication,  it  has  therefore  been  the  prin- 
cipal aim  of  architects  to  apply  the  different  models  which  the  traveller's 
researches  have  furnished  from  the  stores  of  antiquity  to  modern  buildings ; 
and,  though  they  may  vary  the  application  of  them,  yet  there  is  nothing 
new  in  their  component  parts. 

In  this  there  may  be  no  genius,  but  there  is  good  taste  ;  and  we  trust, 
that  in  the  plans  for  the  new  improvements,  there  will  be  such  a  regulation 
of  the  external  architecture  as  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  the  anomalies 
which  offend  our  eyes,  in  a  variety  of  specimens  of  design  between  Jer- 
myn-street  and  Portland-place. 

In  many  of  these  specimens  the  builders  seem  to  have  worked  with 
models  of  excellence  before  their  eyes,  but  they  have  so  contrived  to  distort 
the  proportions  of  the  various  parts,  that  we  no  longer  feel  our  accustomed 
ndmiration  for  the  simple  Doric,  the  chaste  Ionic,  and  the  rich  Corinthian. 
The  fact  is,  that  these  bunglers  know  only  the  rudiments  of  their  art, 
without  having  attained  any  knowledge  of  their  application,  and  go  to 
work  with  their  pencil,  in  design,  as  a  man  would,  in  composition,  who  had 


12S  Metropolitan  Improvements.  [FEB., 

learned  a  language  only  by  a  vocabulary  instead  of  a  grammar.  There 
is  one  excellence  in  Mr.  N ash's  designs,  which  is,  that  he  seldom  violates 
that  great  desideratum  of  architectural  beauty,  the  proportion  of  his  out- 
line ;  thus,  we  are  pretty  sure  of  a  good  general  effect,  though  we  may  be 
offended  with  the  detail.  The  only  two  instances  in  which  he  has  failed 
in  this  particular  in  the  new  street,  are  the  spire  and  tower  of  All  Soul's 
Church,  which  we  understand  he  was  compelled  to  lower,  either  to  meet 
the  desires  or  pecuniary  circumstances  of  those  under  whose  controul  he 
was  placed  ;  and  in  the  Quadrant,  in  which  the  superstructure  of  the 
houses  above  appear  mean  and  petite  in  comparison  with  the  colonnade 
below. 

To  enter  into  particular  criticism  of  all  the  buildings  erected  during  the 
late  improvements,  would  occupy  more  room  than  we  can  spare  to  the 
subject,  and  would  be  to  fill  our  pages  with  dry  technicalities,  uninteresting 
to  any  but  the  architect.  We  can  only  look  upon  them  en  grande,  and 
confess,  that  with  all  the  little  faults  which  the  architectural  critic  may 
discover,  that,  as  a  whole,  we  ought  to  be  grateful  both  as  Londoners  and 
Englishmen.  S.  S. 


A    MORNING    SALUTATION    BETWIXT    SOUL    AND    BODY. 
BODY. 

TELL  me,  my  Soul,  where  hast  thou  been 

Wand 'ring  the  livelong  night; 
What  hast  thou  done — what  hast  thou  seen 

la  the  course  of  thy  silent  flight  ? 

SOUL. 

I  have  been  over  the  wide,  wide  sea — 

Have  over  the  waters  crost ; 
Seeking  for  ever  so  mournfully 

Her  whom  I  have  lost. 

I  have  been  to  visit  the  silent  tomb, 

Where  my  hopes  all  buried  lie  ; 
Fairer  flowers  in  my  pathway  bloom —    ' 
But  dearer  to  me,  though  lost  in  gloom, 

Are  those  that  have  past  me  by. 

I  have  been  wandering  all  alone 

'Mid  the  ruins  of  happier  days  j 
Fairy  palaces  overthrown — 
Shining  visions  all  scattered  and  gone, 

Lost  in  the  desolate  maze. 

I  have  been  wand'ring  I  know  not  where, 
Seeking  for  something  that  was  not  there — 

Comfortless,  void,  and  vain  : 
But  I  heard  from  afar  the  distant  hum 
Of  the  wakening  multitude — and  I  come — 

I  come  to  thee  again. 

LYRA. 


1827.]  [     129     ] 


ETIQUETTE. 

"  Us  eor;t  li  a  fairs  dee  famous  ot  rntreos  on  sorties,  et  font  plus  de  fricasses  dc  fesses,  iju'il  n'y 
faudroit  U'&offes  si  faire  un  paucrie  de 


WHEN  the  Emperor  Charles  made  his  entry  into  Douai  in  great  state, 
under  festoons  of  flowers  and  triumphant  arches,  the  magistrates,  to  do 
honour  to  the  occasion,  put  a  clean  shirt  upon  the  body  of  a  malefactor, 
that  was  hanging  in  chains  at  the  city  gate.  This  may  seem  an  absur- 
dity, but  it  contains  the  very  essence  of  etiquette.  All  ceremony  means 
the  same  thing;  being  nothing  more  than  the  hiding  out  of  the  filthy 
nakedness  of  society,  by  a  decent  clothing  of  forms  and  conventions. 
Between  equals,  a  frank  and  open  carriage,  and  a  little  plain  dealing,  are 
all  that  is  necessary  to  the  business  of  life  ;  and  a  man  of  sense  would 
no  more  dream  of  introducing  ceremony  into  such  intercourse,  than  a 
pedestrian,  walking  against  time,  would  think  of  adopting  the  capers  and 
conges  of  a  French  dancing-master.  But  when  there  is  any  thing  to 
conceal,  any  thing  to  misrepresent,  and  the  human  mind  is  in  too  direct 
a  march  towards  the  discovery  of  truth,  etiquettes  and  ceremonials  form 
a  convenient  and  an  effectual  outwork,  for  keeping  inquiry  at  a  distance, 
and  preventing  too  scrutinizing  a  glance  at  the  realities  they  envelope. 
Etiquettes,  therefore,  abound  in  society,  in  direct  proportion  to  its  cor- 
ruption ;  and  from  the  king  on  his  throne,  to  the  conjurer  in  his  circle, 
the  complexity  of  the  pageant  increases  with  each  new  difficulty  in  carry- 
ing on  the  farce,  and  making  the  worse  appear  the  better  cause.  Perhaps 
the  free-  masons  alone,  of  all  mankind,  form  an  exception  to  this  rule  : 
arid  have  involved  themselves  in  a  maze  of  ceremonies,  to  which  fraudu- 
lent self-interest  affords  no  golden  clue.  In  all  probability,  the  first 
conception  of  ceremonials  was  developed  in  the  service  of  religion  ;  and 
resulted  from  the  attempt  to  ensure  uniformity  and  combination  in 
solemn  acts  of  national  worship:  but  their  practice  could  not  fail  to  suggest 
the  advantage  to  be  derived  from  interposing  them  between  the  people, 
and  the  log  or  stone  which  was  set  up  for  their  adoration.  From  the 
altar  to  the  throne  is  but  a  step;  and  the  arrogation  of  divine  rites  to  the 
purposes  of  royalty,  is  accordingly  observable  in  the  despotism  of  the 
rudest  monarchies.  What  pride  began,  fear  continued.  The  pretenders 
to  an  higher  nature  than  that  of  ordinary  humanity.  —  the  brothers  of  the 
sun,  and  husbands  of  the  moon,  —  could  ill  afford  a  familiar  contact  with 
those  even  the  nearest  to  them  in  dignity  ;  and  the  ov  TOIX-VTU  Xao-avoQofvs 
o-woiSsv*  must  have  promplly  occurred,  as  a  source  of  danger  and  alarm  to 
the  would-be  god.  To  guard  against  sudden  surprises,  there  is  nothing 
like  calculating  before-hand,  every  step  and  gesture  which  shall  be  em- 
ployed by  those  who  approach  us  ;  and  when  neither  boldness  nor 
curiosity  are  permitted  to  break  through  the  magic  circle  of  etiquette, 
greatness  is  less  thrown  upon  itself  for  the  maintenance  of  its  own  dignity  ; 
and  may  the  more  safely  dispense  with  these  personal  qualities,  which 
are  at  once  difficult  to  acquire,  and  troublesome  to  exercise.  On  the 
other  hand,  such  arrangements  are  not  without  their  advantages  to  the 
slaves  who  submit  to  them  :  for,  where  every  step  is  prescribed,  all 
personal  responsibility  ceases.  If  the  nine  knocks  of  the  forehead  were 
not  "  de  rigeur,"  in  the  Chinese  ceremonial  of  "  kotou,"  we  should  have 

*  A  thousand  pardons  for  this  "  dub  of  Greek."  It  is,  we  can  assure  the  country 
gentlemen,  perfectly  harmless  ;  meaning  simply,  that  "  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet  de 
cbiimbre." 

M.  M.  New  Series.—  VOL.  III.  No.  14.  S 


130  Etiquette.  [FEB. 

some  persons  giving  eighteen,  and  others  eight  and  twenty  :  and  so 
insatiable  is-  human  vanity,  so  immeasurable  is  human  baseness,  that  no 
limits  could  be  set  to  the  race  between  the  lust  for  homage,  and  the 
eagerness  of  subserviency.  The  same  evil  has  occurred  in  the  intercourse 
of  the  literary  world,  and  is  evinced  in  the  dedications  of  the  old  school; 
whoso  writers  toiled  and  panted  in  vain  to  overtake  the  soaring  vanity  of 
their  patrons,  for  want  of  an  established  doxology,  or  scale  of  pro- 
portions, which  might  regulate  the  eulogium  upon  some  compound  ratio 
of  the  rank  and  the  generosity  of  the  party  addressed.  So,  likewise,  with 
respect  to  the  authors  themselves  :  it  is  impossible  for  a  friend  to  satisfy 
them  by  any  measure  of  the  most  ingenious  flattery;  for  vanity  will  cavil 
with  phrases  and  with  looks,  and  will  go  in  search  after  concealed  hints 
at  faults,  even  in  the  most  decided  and  uncompromising  eulogies.  A 
very  worthy  man,  a  friend  of  ours,  but  somewhat  too  much  given  to 
punctilio,  came  one  day  with  an  open  letter  in  his  hand,  and  in  a 
paroxysm  of  grief  and  despair,  lamented  the  dire,  but  unconscious 
offence  he  must  have  given  to  his  correspondent;  "for  see,"  said  he, 
pointing  to  the  expanded  sheet,  "  see  here!  he  only  calls  me  '  dear  sir;' 
he,  who  never  before  omitted  the  *  my'  in  the  whole  course  of  his  cor- 
respondence." Tn  all  other  respects,  the  letter  was  as  freindly  as  heart 
could  desire.  In  much  the  same  spirit,  authors  too  frequently  review  the 
critiques  of  their  friends ;  so  that  it  would  be  immensely  convenient  to 
establish  some  courtly  etiquette  for  the  occasion,  some  rubrick  of  praise, 
which,  like  the  "  e  per  fino,  le  bacio  con  ogni  reverenza  il  lembo  della 
sacra  porpora"  with  its  "  umilissimo  divotissimo  ed  obligatissimo 
servidere"  which  concludes  a  letter  to  a  cardinal,  the  more  laconic  and 
pithy  "  high  consideration".,  of  diplomacy  might  be  considered  d*  obli- 
gation, and  pass  current  for  as  much  or  as  little  as  the  respective  parties 
think  good;  so  as  to  gratify  vanity,  without  compromising  independence. 
Take  the  matter  then,  both  as  it  respects  tyrant  and  slave,  ceremony  is  a 
mark  only  of  weakness  and  insecurity ;  and  etiquettes,  like  habiliments, 
(to  go  back  to  the  clean  shirt  of  the  surveyor  of  the  highways),  are  adapta- 
tions to  the  imbecility,  rather  than  the  dignity,  of  our  nature.  It  is  an 
established  rule,  that  grandeur  must  do  nothing  for  itself,  and  that  every  grade 
of  dignity  should  add  something  to  the  helplessness  of  the  subject ;  inso- 
much, that  the  Pope,  during  the  ceremony  of  mass,  is  not  intrusted  even 
with  the  blowing  of  his  own  nose,  but  has  an  officer  ad  hoc,  who 
carries  his  "hand  kerchief,  and  holds  it  up  from  time  to  time,  at  a  small 
distance,  to  receive  the  sacred  rheum,  '  Cato  and  Scipio,'  says  Voltaire, 
were  to  each  other,  neither  '  my  lord'  nor  the  '  honourable,'  but  plain 
Cato  and  Scipio  :  neither  was  Rome's  immortal  senate  an  assemblage  of 
'  high  mightinesses.'  "  Even  the  better  part  of  our  feudal  despots,  either 
from  want  of  leisure  or  of  inclination,  have  treated  ceremonies  with 
contempt.  By  an  elaborate  etiquette,  life  is  reduced  to  a  mere  theatric 
exhibition ;  which  increases  in  exaggeration,  until  the  part  only  serves  to 
betray  the  actor  :  and  the  curtain  which  it  drops  between  the  monarch  and 
his  people,  at  length  only  stimulates  curiosity  to  pry  more  closely  into 
the  rags  and  paint  it  is  spread  to  conceal.  To  the  state-puppet  it  is 
pregnant  with  ennui  and  vexation ;  and  it  requires  a  strong  sense  of  per- 
sonal insufficiency,  latent  beneath  an  inordinate  quantum  of  personal 
vanity,  to  render  its  chains  endurable.  There  needs  not  a  better  standard 
of  the  puny  intellect  of  Louis  XIV.  and  his  successors,  than  the  multi- 
plicity of  trifling  and  absurd  practices  to  which  they  subjected  themselves 


1827.]  Etiquette.  131 

and  their  court.  This  is  certainly  not  the  beau  c6te  of  monarchical  in- 
stitutions ;  nor  can  any  thing  more  strongly  mark  the  inadequacy  of 
restored  legitimacy  to  the  part  it  is  called  upon  to  sustain,  than  the 
eagerness  it  has  manifested  to  revive  such  worn-out  pageants,  to  restore 
"  les  grands  charges"  and  to  re-establish  etiquettes,  which  have  lost  all 
force  of  imposition  with  the  conventional  meaning  which  has  ceased  to  be 
assigned  to  them.  Accustomed,  as  mankind  has  been,  to  witness  dis- 
cussions turning  upon  the  fate  of  kingdoms,  and  deciding  on  the  fortunes 
of  ancient  and  powerful  dynasties,  ..they  cannot  turn  back,  with  any 
complaicency,  to  the  old  diplomacy,  intriguing  for  the  right  hand  in  a 
procession,  or  stipulating  for  an  arm-chair  or  a  stool,  at  a  state  ceremony. 
Those  who  have  followed  Napoleon  over  Egypt,  or  witnessed  his 
triumphant  entry  into  the  capitals  of  vanquished  enemies,  would  scarcely 
suppress  a  sneer  at  a  monarch  who  should  figure  i»  a/£/£  Dieu,  or,  like 
Louis  XV.,  should  take  physic  in  state.  Between  the  kings  of  France 
and  the  German  electors,  precedence  and  etiquette  wrere  in  the  old 
times,  make-bates  sufficient  to  set  courts  by  the  ears,  and  to  disturb  the 
equanimity  of  the  very  serene  personages  who  inhabit  them,  beyond  all 
power  of  compromise.  When  the  elector  of  Bavaria  visited  Paris,  Louis 
XIV.  had  no  better  expedient  for  bringing  him  in  amicable  contact  with 
the  Dauphin,  than  by  arranging  a  rencontre  improvise  in  the  gardens  of 
Meudon,  and  making  them  both,  by  the  opposite  doors,  and  at  the  same 
instant  of  time,  enter  the  calash  in  which  they  were  to  ride.  Madame 
de  Maintcnon,  or,  as  she  was  better  named  by  the  envious  of  her  own  day, 
Madame  de  Maintenant,  was  a  great  stickler  for  state  etiquette,  like  all 
persons,  who  not  being  assured  of  their  place  in  society,  strive  to  make  good 
their  ground  by  assertion  and  pretence.  In  her  ambition  to  be  treated  as  a 
queen,  she  was  reduced  to  very  comical  shifts,  in  order  that  she  might 
avoid  the  necessity  of  rising  from  her  chair,  on  the  entrance  of  persons, 
who  might  not  be  disposed  to  accede  to  her  "  royalties."  This  probably 
was  her  inducement  jfor  receiving  in  bed,*  the  Czar  Peter,  who  visited 
her  at  St.  Cyr,  after  the  death  of  the  king.  What  a  strange  contrast  this 
scene  must  have  afforded,  between  the  representative  of  savage  despotism, 
and  the  type  of  all  the  "  finoteri"  of  the  "  monarchic  temporee  par  de 
chansons!"  What  a  subject  for  a  picture  !f  The  memoirs  of  Madame  de 
Montpensier  are  filled  with  never-ending  contests  for  high-backed  chairs, 
and  the  honors  of  the  door,  and  the  endless  disputes  between  "  les  princes 
legitimes"  and  "  les  princes  legi'limes,""  formed  next  to  the  bankruptcy 
of  law,  the  great  knot,  the  dignus  vindice  nodus  of  the  regent's  admi- 
nistration. The  possession  of  the  haut  du  pave,  in  like  manner,  set  am- 
bassadors in  a  flame,  cost  coachmen,  too  jealous  of  their  master's  honour, 
their  lives ;  and  endangered  the  peace  of  nations.  Even  as  recently  as 
the  epoch  of  the  revolution,  we  find  Segur,  a  man  of  sense  and  of  parts, 
assuming  merit  for  having  cheated  the  English  ambassador,  at  Peters- 
burgh,  out  of  the  post  of  honour  at  court,  without  compromising  himself, 

*  This  ruse  she*probably?borrowed  from  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  who  adopted  the  same 
expedient,  to  settle  a  dispute,  which  had  nearly  broken  off  the  marriage  of  our  Charles 
the  First  with  Henrietta  of  France. 

t  It  was,  probably,  to  resent  this  slight  in  the  would-be  queen,  that  Peter  treated  her 
with  so  much  rudeness.  "  Le  Czar,"  says  Duclos,  "  en  entrant,  tira  les  rideanx  des 
fenctres,  puis  ceux  du  lit,  la  considera  attentivement,  et  sortit  nans  dire  wi  mot,  et 
nans  lui  J'aire  la  moindre  politesse.  Mad.  de  M.  jut,  pour  le  mains,  e'tonnee  d'tine  &e 
e  trail  ge  visite  ct  dut  scntir  la  difference  le  dcs  temps."— Memoirs  de  Louis  XV. 

S  2 


132  Etiquette.  [FEB. 

or  involving  the  rival  cabinets  in  a  dispute.  In  the  old  times,  the 
struggles  for  precedence  in  the  French  parliaments,  not  unfrequently 
ended  in  boxing  matches — not  quite  as  regular,  perhaps,  but  quite  as 
bloody  as  those  of  our  own  "  Game  Chickens/'  our  "  Champions,"  and 
our  "  Snowballs."  Ludicrous  arid  absurd  as  the  disputed  points  of  these 
contests  may  seem,  they  must,  in  their  origin,  have  had  some  solid  meaning, 
— not  always,  indeed,  worthy  of  a  quarrel,  but  at  least  something  in- 
telligible. The  point  of  precedence  involves  in  it  the  saving  or  the  loss  of 
time,  the  avoiding  or  encountering  the  annoyance  defaire  antichambre,  of 
cooling  one's  heels  in  the  waiting  room  of  the  great  man.  Voltaire  deduces 
the  French  quarrel  for  an  armed-chair,  from  the  rudeness  of  ancient  times,  in 
which  even  kings  had  but  one  or  two  such  accommodations  among  the  fur- 
niture of  their  palaces.  Even  in  our  own  times,  these  conveniences  in  the 
simple  menages  of  remote  farm-houses,  retain  the  appellation  of  sick-chairs. 
The  haut  du  pave,  and  the  right  to  the  wall,  were  likewise  points  of 
substantial  comfort,  when  streets  were  narrow  and  ill  paved;  and  when, 
to  resign  the  honourable  post,  implied  being  over  shoes  in  wet  and  mud. 
The  seals  of  deeds,  those  important  etiquettes  which  give  validity  and 
effect  to  the  parchment,  were  in  the  beginning  ciphers,  cut  for  the  use 
of  those  who  could  not  write  their  names,  or  badges  of  cognizance,  to 
identify  the  unlettered  individual,  the  prototypes  of  coats  of  arms,  which 
were  but  hieroglyphics,  standing  in  the  place  of  cyphers,  such  as  the 
North  American  savages  still  employ  for  the  same  purpose.  The  placing 
both  seal  and  signature  to  a  deed,  is  a  consequence  of  that  tendency  to 
surplusage  which  is  the  besetting  sin  of  lawyers.  Robes  of  state  were 
undoubtedly  in  their  origin  mere  robes  de  chambre,  comfortable,  warm 
envelopes,  for  domestic  use,  of  costly  and  rare  materials,  and  conse- 
quently within  the  reach  only  of  the  rich.  They  were,  therefore, 
suitable  presents  to  make;  and  the  oriental  kings  having  acquired  the 
habit  of  conferring  a  robe  with  each  honorific  appointment,  an  association 
of  idea  was  formed,  which  passing  into  the  west,  scarlet  and  ermine 
became  in  time  the  appropriate  distinction  of  office,  applicable  alike  to 
the  peer,  the  judge,  the  alderman,  or  the  doctor  of  the  faculties.  So,  too, 
the  cowl  and  frock  of  the  monk,  whimsical  as  they  now  appear,  were 
originally  the  dress  of  the  common  people,  and  so  too  was  the  quaker's 
simple  vestment,  without  buttons.  Both  were  continued  in  use,  after  the 
mode  had  changed  with  the  rest  of  society,  from  a  spirit  of  humility  and 
contempt  for  the  vanities  of  fashion.  The  tallies  still  employed  as  an 
etiquette  of  the  Exchequer,  were  once  the  only  mode  of  book-keeping 
intelligible  to  the  people.  Latin,  retained  in  the  service  of  the  catholic 
mass,  was  originally  adopted  as  the  language  best  understood  by  the 
clergy ;  and  the  use  of  Norman  French,  in  our  law  proceedings,  derived 
from  the  fact  of  property  being  vested  in  Norman  proprietors.  Many  of 
the  absurdities  of  etiquette,  have,  therefore,  arisen  from  that  dread  of 
innovation  which  attaches  to  all  establishments,  and  prevents  an  aban- 
donment of  practice  from  following  a  change  in  the  circumstances 
which  give  to  a  custom  utility  and  meaning.  Such  is  the  case  with  the 
continued  assemblage  of  convocations,  to  hear  bad  sermons  in  Latin,  and 
to  abuse  rival  sects,  after  all  real  business  and  power  have  been  taken  from 
the  clergy  so  assembled.  Such  also,  is  the  conge  d'elire  sent  to  chapters, 
with  the  nomination  of  bishops,  no  longer  elected  by  those  corporations. 
Overloaded  ceremonies  may,  on  this  account,  be  safely  taken  as  certain 
indications  of  a  bad  government,  which  learns  nothing,  and  forgets 


1827.]  Etiquette.  133 

nothing :  accordingly,  the  court  of  Rome  is  the  head-quarters  of  cere- 
monial. Voltaire  was  mistaken  when  he  said,  "  Cette  important  affmre 
du  punctilio,  qui  constitue  la  grandeur  des  Romaines  modernes, 
cette  science  du  nombre  des  pas  qu'on.  doit  faire,  pour  reconduire  un 
monsignore^  &c.  &c.  Commence  ci  baisser  et  les  caudataires  des  Car- 
dinaux  se  plaignent  que  tout  annonce  la  decadence"  Sometimes  the 
permanence  of  usages  and  etiquettes  affords  a  piquant  contrast  between 
the  sign  and  the  thing  signified.  The  absurd  and  preposterous  wigs,  still 
of  necessity  worn  by  our  protestant  bishops,  are  made  in  imitation  of  the 
shaven  head  of  a  catholic  priest ;  and  it  may  amuse  a  philosophical 
humourist  to  listen  to  a  fierce  anti- catholic  tirade  thundered  forth  from 
the  pulpit,  or  in  the  house,  from  beneath  the  very  flag  and  banner  of 
Popery  and  Babylonish  superstition.  Something  similar  may  likewise 
occur  to  the  imagination,  when  the  eye  falls  upon  a  court  sword.  Swords 
are  a  part  of  court  dress,  simply  because  they  were  once  worn  on  all  occa- 
sions ;  and  they  were  so  worn,  because  in  rude  times  no  man  was  safc 
but  when  his  weapon  was  within  his  reach.  Now  they  are  not  only 
unnecessary,  but  a  solecism  and  a  contradiction.  The  courtier,  the 
most  tame  and  submissive  of  God's  creatures,  is  distinguished  by  his 
military  geer ;  and  he  cannot  approach  his  sovereign  without  a  weapon, 
to  draw  which  within  the  precints  of  the  palace  is  an  heinous  offence. 
In  the  marriage  ring  there  is  often  concealed  a  cruel  irony.  In  the 
primitive  ages,  the  king's  signet  or  ring  was  a  very  natural  warrant  for  the 
person  bearing  it,  that  he  acted  by  royal  command.  Hence  rings  became 
the  types  of  authority ;  and  they  were  introduced  into  the  ceremonies  of 
investiture,  m as  an  emblem  of  power.  They  were  part  of  the  distinction 
of  a  Roman  knight ;  and  to  this  day  they  are  employed  in  the  ceremony 
of  creating  doctors  in  our  universities.  The  use  of  the  ring  in  marriage, 
is  as  a  type  of  the  wife's  authority  in  the  household,  and  of  her  right  to  a 
community  of  goods,  and  not,  as  is  often  imagined,  a  mark  of  subser- 
viency, and  indenture  to  her  husband. 

The  more  completely  a  nation  is  free,  the  fewer  and  the  more  simple 
are  its  ceremonies  ;  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  decided  the 
demarkation  of  ranks  in  society,  the  less  pertinacious  are  the  qualified  in 
asserting  their  pride  of  place.  An  English  nobleman  is  infinitely  more 
haughty  and  distant  in  his  intercourse  with  his  inferiors,  than  a  French- 
man of  equal  rank ;  because  the  law  of  England,  having  put  all  ranks 
on  a  footing  of  civil  equality,  the  lower  classes  are  apt  to  forget  their 
distance,  when  not  reminded  of  it  by  the  repulsive  manners  of  those 
above  them.  The  intercourse  between  master  and  servant  in  France  is 
generally  remarkable  for  amiability  ;  their  tutoyer  being  less  a  mark  of 
hauteur,  than  of  familiarity  and  affection.  On  the  same  account,  there 
reigns,  all  the  world  over,  a  greater  jealousy  between  ranks  but  little 
separated,  than  between  the  members  of  the  two  extremes  of  the  aris- 
tocratic scale;  of  which  the  eternal  squabble  for  the  "  monseignenr"  in 
France,  is  a  pregnant  example.  "  Why,"  said  one  noble  to  another,  a 
shade  his  superior,  "  why,  when  I  call  you  monseigneur,  do  you  call  me 
monsieur ;  and,  when  I  call  you  monsieur,  why  do  you  call  me  mon- 
seigneur?" "  Any  thing,"  replied  the  other,  "  but  equality."  Excessive 
punctilio  always,  indeed,  implies  this  sort  of  jealousy.  A  plain,  untitled 
gentleman,  is  never  more  forcibly  reminded  of  the  deference  expected  from 
him,  than  when  addressed  by  the  noble,  with  an  emphaticand  ceremoni- 
ous "  Mr."  Among  equals,  it  is  plain  Devonshire,  Lansdo \vne,  Bedford  ; 


134  Etiquette.  [FfiB- 

and  "  your  grace"  or  "  your  lordship  "  is  an  indication  of  coldness  and 
reserve.  The  parvenu  nobility,  on  the  contrary,  doubtful  of  the  ad- 
mission of  their  new  claims,  are  remarkable  for  their  "  marque"  and 
punctiliousness.  "  What  am  I  to  call  you  now  ?"  asked  a  most  intimate 
friend  of  Cambaceres,  on  the  establishment  of  Napoleon's  aristocratical 
hierarchy.  "  In  society,"  he  replied,  "  you  must  call  me  mon  prince,  of 
course  ;  mais  entre  amis,  monseigneur  suffira."  There  is  no  country  in 
Europe,  where  etiquette  is  more  burdensome  in  society  than  in  England, 
because  vanity  and  pride  are  more  closely  put  to  their  shifts  to  escape 
from  the  equality  of  republican  institutions.  A  private  party  cannot  sit 
down  to  dinner,  without  as  much  marshalling  as  at  a  coronation  feast ; 
and  as  the  great  must  be  imitated  at  all  costs,  the  unqualified  are  some- 
times puzzled  to  find  grounds  for  precedence.  First  goes  the  church,  then 
the  law.  The  captain  of  a  volunteer  corps  takes  the  pas  of  the  lieu- 
tenant; and  Mrs.  Colonel  Pattypan  is  mortally  offended  if  she  is  not 
handed  out  before  Mrs.  Major  Sturgeon.  A  merchant  or  a  banker  looks 
down  with  infinite  disdain  upon  the  richest  member  of  the  Stock  Exchange, 
and  expects  to  go  before  him  ;  and  an  attorney  claims  precedence  of  a 
retail  tradesman.  In  ball-rooms  it  is  still  worse :  red  elbowed  misses, 
and  their  mammas,  fret,  and  fume,  and  jostle  each  other,  for  their  place 
in  the  dance ;  and  God  help  the  poor  towns-woman  who  has  the  pre- 
sumption to  mingle  among  the  dea?  majorum  gentium  of  estated  and 
county  rank.  All  this  is  very  laughable,  when  it  does  not  end  in 
duelling  and  bloodshed ;  and  it  forcibly  reminds  one  of  the  chimney- 
sweeper, who,  when  under  the  gallows,  and  on  the  point  of  undergoing 
the  sentence  of  the  law.  being  desired  by  his  punctilious  partner  in 
calamity,  to  move  farther  off,  replied  with  an  angry  "  I  shan't — • 
I've  as  much  right  here  as  you."  The  worst  of  it  is,  however, 
that  all  this  is  very  natural ;  and  that  it  would  be  as  difficult  to  cure 
the  lower  classes,  of  their  love  of  personal  distinction,  and  of  their 
reverence  for  stars  and  garters,  and  other  outward  and  visible  signs  of  the 
weakness  and  imposition  of  the  great,  as  to  cure  the  great  of  the  desire  to 
impose.  The  Americans  narrowly  escaped  from  an  hereditary  aristocracy 
and  the  order  of  Cincinnatus  ;  and  O1Connell  has  tried  hard  to  establish  his 
"  liberators  "  of  a  country  still  the  most  enslaved  in  Christendom,  as  a 
compensation  for  those  honorific  distinctions  of  which  protestantism 
chooses  to  retain  the  monopoly  in  its  own  hands.  Philosophy  may  rave 
as  it  will,  "these  little  things  are  great  to  little  men,"  and  the  less  the 
man,  the  greater  is  the  object.  A  king  at  arms  is,  in  his  own  estimation, 
the  greatest  king  in  Europe,  and  a  German  baron  is  not  more  punctilious 
than  a  master  of  the  coternonies.  The  first  desire  with  all  men  is  power, 
the  next  is  the  semblance  of  power;  and  it  is  perhaps  a  happy  dispensation 
that  those  who  are  cut  off  from  the  substantial  rights  of  the  citizen,  should 
find  a  compensation  in  the  "  decorations  "  of  the  slave;  as  in  all  other 
moral  cases  the  vices  of  the  individual  are  repressed  by  those  of  the  rest  of 
the  community.  The  pride  of  Diogenes  trampled  on  the  pride  of  Plato  ; 
and  the  vanity  of  the  excluded  may  be  trusted  for  keeping  within  bounds 
the  vanity  of  the  pre-eminent  and  the  privileged.  The  great  enemy,  how- 
ever, of  etiquette  is  civilization,  whicli  is  incessantly  at  work,  simplifying 
society.  Knowledge,  by  opening  our  eyes  to  the  substances  .of  things, 
defends  us  from  the  juggle  of  forms ;  and  Napoleon,  when  he  called  a 
throne  a  mere  chair,  with  gilt  nails  driven  into  it,  epitomised  one  of  the 
most  striking  results  of  the  revolutionary  contest.  Strange  that  he  should 


1827.]  Etiquette.  135 

have  overlooked  or  disregarded  the  fact  in  the  erection  of  his  own  institu- 
tions !  Ceremonial  is  a  true  paper  currency,  and  passes  only  as  far  as  it 
will  be  taken.  The  representative  of  a  thousand  pounds,  unbacked  by 
credit,  is  a  worthless  rag  of  paper,  and  the  highest  decoration  which  the 
king  can  confer,  if  repudiated  by  opinion,  is  but  a  piece  of  blue  ribband. 
Here  indeed  the  sublime  touches  the  ridiculous,  for  who  shall  draw  the 
line  of  demarkation  between  ray  Lord  Grizzle  and  the  gold  stick  ?  be- 
tween Mr.  Dymock,  in  Westminster  Hall,  and  his  representative  "  on  a 
real  horse  "  at  Covent  Garden  ?  Every  day  the  intercourse  of  society  is 
becoming  more  and  more  easy,  and  a  man  of  fashion  is  as  little  likely  to 
be  ceremonious  in  trifles,  as  to  appear  in  the  costume  of  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,  or  to  take  up  the  quarrels  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury, 
While  such  is  the  state  of  society,  the  more  formal  etiquettes  of  church 
and  state  policy  can  hardly  thrive.  True  it  is,  that  in  falling,  they  will 
only  make  room  for  others  more  congenial  to  the  instruction  of  the  age  ;  for 
human  passions  being  unchanged,  they  must  continue  to  produce  their  usual 
effects,  and  "  a  mesure  que  la  philosophic  fait  des  progres,  la  sottise 
redouble  ses  efforts  pour  etablir  r  empire  des  prejuges."1  Still,  however, 
it  is  something  gained,  when  the  prejudices  of  a  nation,  as  well  as  its 
institutes,  attain  to  an  harmony  with  its  moral  condition,  its  knowledge, 
and  its  wants.  Exemption  from  the  infirmities  of  humanity  is  too  much 
to  ask  at  the  hands  of  philosophy ;  all  that  can  be  expected  from  her  is 
some  little  consistency  and  skill  in  turning  them  "  to  commodity."  But 
if  nothing  else  were  to  be  gained  by  her  lessons,  "  il  est  don  d'incul- 
quer  ces  choses  pour  corriger  au  moins  qmlques  coqs-d'wde  qui  pas  sent 
leur  vie  a  fair  e  la  roue."* 

T. 


EPITAPH    ON    RYENVETT, 
AN  UNPOPULAR   DUTCH   JUDGE   AT   THE    CAPE    OF   GOOD   HOPE. 

Here  lies  in  death,  who  living  always  lied, 

A  base  amalgam  of  deceit  and  pride; 

A  wily  African  of  monstrous  shape, 

The  mighty  Quinbus  Flestrin  of  the  Cape. 

Rogue  paramount,  ten  thousand  rogues  among:, 

He  rose  and  shone  like  phosphorus  from  dung ; 

The  wolf  and  fox  their  attributes  combined, 

To  form  the  odious  features  of  his  mind : 

Where  kennelled  deep,  by  shame,  by  fear,  unawed, 

Lurked  rapine,  villany,  deceit,  and  fraud  j 

Hypocrisy,  servility,  and  lust, 

A  petty  tyrant,  and  a  judge  unjust. 

Partial  and  stern  in  every  cause  he  tried, 

He  judged  like  Pilate,  and  like  Pilate  died. 

Urged  to  despair,  by  crimes  precluding  hope, 

He  chose  a  bullet,  to  avoid  a  rope. 

Consistent  knave !  his,  life  in  cheating  past, 

He  shot  himself,  to  cheat  the  law  at  last. 

Acme'  of  crimes :  self-murder  crowded  the  whole, 

And  gave  to  worms  his  corpse,  to  fiends  his  soul. 


•  Voltnire. 


[     13C     ]  [FER. 

A    DISSERTATION   UPON    DINNERS. 

***•«* 

Alderman, — Bravo,  bravo,  master  Mayor,  there  was  a  mouthful  for  you  ;  w!iy,  man,  it  would  have 
done  justice  to  a  shark.     Grumercy  I  but"  I  would  give  my  best,  jerkin  to  swallow  the  like. 
Lord  Mayor. — Aye,  aye,  master  Fatsides,  see  what  it  is  to  have  a  genius. 
Alderman.— By  Saint  Magnus!  but  this  is  :i  rare  dinner.        The  Guildhall  Festival:  an  old  Play. 

THIS  we  clearly  perceive  will  be  an  excellent  article.  The  subject  is 
mixed  up  witii  such  social  and  savoury  associations,  is  so  redolent  of  per- 
fume (like  Gray's  "  Spring11),  and  so  intimitately  linked  in  the  "  mind's 
eye  "  with  all  the  leading  political  topics  which  have  stirred  England, 
and  consequently  Europe,  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation, 
that  it  must  quicken  even  stupidity  itself.  A  Dissertation  upon  Dinners! 
inspiring  theme  !  Other  subjects  appeal  each  to  its  particular  class  ;  but 
this,  like  the  air  we  breathe,  is  universal.  It  has  been  said,  peradventure 
correctly,  that  England  is  the  land  of  dulness :  a  fact  which,  however 
true,  is  yet  neutralized  by  the  saving  circumstance  of  its  being  also  the 
land  of  dinners.  Nothing  can  be  -here  done  without  a  dinner.  It  is 
John  Bull's  Utopia,  or  Fairy  Land  ;  his  "  Paradise  of  dainty  devices," 
where  his  fancy,  feeling,  wit,  and  good-humour  keep  pace  with  his  appe- 
tite, and  are,  by  a  logical  consequence,  exhaustless.  Is  he  low-spirited? 
hefl  ies  instinctively  to  a  consolatory  sirloin,  or  to  the  first  aboriginal  cut  of  a 
fillet  of  veal  (weighing,  say  eight  pounds,  exclusive  of  the  skewer  and 
stuffing).*  Is  he  rapt,  like  master  Stephen,  in  a  graceful  melancholy?  he 
bids  it  evaporate  during  the  process  of  carving.  Is  he  uninformed  on  any 
particular  topic  ?  he  applies  for  information  to  a  joint  of  meat,  or  a  bottle 
of  elderly  port,  by  whose  joint  assistance  he  contrives  to  obtain  the  requi- 
site edification.  In  public  life,  a  good  dinner — that  is  to  say,  a  jollification 
made  up  of  what  Justice  Greedy,  with  appropriate  felicity,  would  call 
"  the  substantials," — is  still  more  immediately  serviceable,  inspiring  alike 
the  poet  and  the  philanthropist,  the  peer  and  the  peasant,  *he  divine  and 
the  diplomatist.  It  is  a  sort  of 'vantage-ground  on  which  all  parties  stand 
— sit,  we  should  say — with  equal  advantage  to  themselves  and  satisfaction 
to  the  universe.  The  exultation  of  Toryism,  the  bile  of  Whiggism,  the 
vulgarity  of  Radicalism,  the  prejudice  of  Deism,  the  bigotry  of  Method- 
ism, and  the  agony  of  Rheumatism,  subside  under  its  resistless  influence  ; 
factions,  stripped  of  reality,  become  fictions, — and  all  because,  as  a  modern 
minstrel  characteristically  observes, 

"  The  road  through  the  stomach's  the  way  to  the  heart." 

For  ourselves,  never — never  shall  we  forget  the  first  time  that  we  at- 
tended, what  is  called,  a  public  dinner,  The  very  recollection  of  that 
delectable  epoch  is,  like  Gibbon's  love,  a  shrine — a  Mecca — a  Jerusalem 
• — which  none  but  our  purest  and  holiest  sensibilities  dare  approach.  Poets 
remember  the  first  kindling  of  their  embryo  genius,  politicians  their  first 
speech,  divines  their  first  tythe,  lawyers  their  first  cause,  warriors  their 
first  battle,  young  ladies  their  first  love — but  we,  with  deeper  reverence, 
recal  our  first  dinner.  Let  us  describe  the  blissful  ovation ;  and  forgive  us, 
my  Public,  if,  while  conjuring  up  its  manifold  addittaments,  a  tear  bedews 
our  optics.  Mortality  is  weak — very  weak — and  God  knows  we  are  but 
man.  It  took  place— this  dulcet  symposium — at  Reading,  in  the  Town- 
hall,  just  behind  St.  Laurence's  church,  A.  D.  1818,  arid  was  given  by  the 
Mayor — a  cheesemonger,  of  superb  dimensions — to  those  young  gentlemen 

*  It  should  weigh  ten  pounds  at  least. — Ed. 


1827.]  4  Dissertation  upon  Dinners.  137 

of  Reading  School  who  had  distinguished  themselves  before  the  Vice  Chan- 
cellor of  Oxford,  at  the  usual  scholastic  visitation.  We  formed  one  of  the 
youngsters  thus  distinguished  ;  and  precisely  at  half-past  five  o'clock  took  our 
seats  among  "  the  elect,"  close  heside  two  corpulent  clergymen  in  dingy 
small-clothes,  a  tureen  of  turtle-soup,  and  live  dishes  of  wild  fowl.  It  is 
not  for  us  to  describe  emotions  on  this  occasion,  which  even  the  mind  of 
a  Milton  might  fail  in  pourtraying:  but  we  can  assert  upon  our  honour 
that,  as  we  gazed  up  through  the  long  vista  of  aldermen  towards  the 
Mayor,  whose  beautiful  proportions,  like  a  sculptured  Silenus,  graced  the 
upper  end  of  the  hall,  and  saw  at  least  two  hundred  jaws  scientifically 
and  symmetrically  at  work,  we  thought  we  had  never  till  then  witnessed 
a  definition  of  the  "  sublime  and  beautiful."  The  ecstacy  of  Bruce,  when 
he  first  knelt  beside  the  fountains  of  the  Nile — or  of  the  Bond-street 
breeches-maker  (name  unknown),  when  paid  for  his  inexpressibles 
by  Sheridan — can  alone  compete  with  our  enthusiasm.  These  ecsta- 
cies  lasted  upwards  of  two  hours ;  but  their  memory — like  Ossian's 
departed  joys,  "pleasant,  yet  mournful  to  the  soul" — will  outlive  eter- 
nity itself.  Nay,  even  up  to  the  present  moment,  we  often  wake  at  mid- 
night with  the  apparatus  of  a  mayors  feast  (your  only  acceptable  night- 
mare) dancing  before  our  youthful  and  susceptible  imagination ;  turtle- 
soup  simmers  on  either  side  our  optics  ;  venison  sends  up  its  unctuous  steam 
into  our  nostrils  ;  aldermen  bestride  our  bosoms  in  vigorous,  but  visionary 
circumference  ;  till,  roused  by  the  beatific  sight,  we  wake  up  with  the 

appetite  of  a  crocodile,  and  the  digestive  capacity  of ;  but  forgive  us, 

my  Public — the  recollection  of  this  ovation  overcomes  us  :  we  will  weep 
awhile. 

To  resume :  we  are  no  Solomons,  but  we  take  a  good  dinner  to  be  a 
sort  of  dietetic  Ecclesiastes — a  homily  replete  with  sentiment.  What  infi- 
nite associations  of  life  and  death  are  suggested  by  the  introduction  at  table, 
and  subsequent  extinction  of  a  roast  goose  !  It  cometh  up  like  a  flower 
(from  the  kitchen),  smelleth  daintily  awhile,  and  lo !  it  passeth  away! 
In  like  manner,  what  Chrisiian,  who  has  been  properly  baptized,  can  fail 
to  draw  a  parallel  between  the  devilled  drum-stick  of  an  octogenarian 
turkey-cock  and  age's  "  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon  ?"  Both  are  pep- 
pery, dry,  and  indigestible  ;  both  skinny  and  sinewy ;  both  "  stale  and 

unprofitable;"  both But  enough  :  the  analogy,  like  Sir  William  Cur- 

tis's  circumference,  is  obvious  to  the  meanest  capacity.  Looking  then  upon 
a  dinner  as  a  meet  emblem  of  mortality,  we  are  surprised,  not  to  say 
shocked,  that  our  modern  divines  have  passed  it  by  with  such  iniquitous 
contempt.  The  Bishop  of  London,  in  particular,  though  he  has  explored 
every  other  polemic  track,  has  never  once,  in  his  charges  to  the  clergy, 
done  justice  to  a  rump-steak  and  oyster-sauce.  But,  indeed,  we  do  not 
think  he  has  yet  immortalized  gin  punch  ;  and  the  only  plea  we  can  offer 
for  such  neglect  "is,  that  the  subject  stirs  up  "  thoughts  that  do  often  lie 
too  deep  for  tears,1'  and  consequently  for  description.  Our  elder  writers 
knew  better:  they  invariably  paid  homage  to  the  palate.  Ben  Jonson 
never  penned  a  line  till  becomingly  moistened  with  the  tipple  of  his  times 
(in  our  respect  for  antiquity  we  have  tasted  it,  and  it  is  really  not  bad), 
and  well  lined  with  beef;  Rabelais  drew  his  purest  morals  from  the  table; 
Marlowe  from  the  tavern  ;  and  even  Shakspcare  himself,  who  surpassed 
them  all  in  mind,  makes  Falstaff  speak  sneeringly  of  a  man  for  daring  to 
decry  the  philosophy  of  the  stomach.  In  our  own  days,  a  select  few  only 
have  condescended  to  dietetic  themes;  among  whom  Kitchiner,  the  tasty, 

M.M.  New  Scries.— VoL.III.  No.14.  T 


138  A  Dissertation  upon  Dinners.  [FEB. 

the  imaginative — Rundall,  the  vulgar — Glass,  the  indigestible — shino  pre- 
eminent. Of  these,  Kitchiner  is  manifestly  the  best — the  Lucifer  of  the 
culinary  galaxy.  His  receipts  alone  (those  gifted  products  of  a  refined 
aesophagus)  give  one  an  appetite  to  read  them — so  that  cutting  up  the 
pages  of  his  duodecimo  is  like  cutting  up  ragouts  with  the  Barmecide,  or 
shoulders  of  mutton  with  Lord  Peter:  you  acquire  instantaneous  vora- 
city. 

There  arc  shades  of  difference  in  dinners,  as  in  devotion  ;  and  although 
we  cannot  find  it  in  our  hearts  to  speak  ill  of  any  masticating  sect  (we 
are  no  bigots,  but  look  charitably  on  every  kind  of  eating,),  yet  neverthe- 
less we  have  our  preferences.  There  is,  for  instance,  the  civic — the  diplo- 
matic— the  legal — the  literary — the  biblical — and,  lastly,  the  pastoral  din- 
ner, or  that  given  to  his  tenantry  by  some  sycophantic  landowner,  just  two 
weeks  before  his  election.  This  last,  notwithstanding  our  vaunted  tolera- 
tion, we  pronounce  detestable — we  would  add,  diabolical,  were  we  riot 
afraid  of  being  called  plagiarists  from  the  newspapers.  What  can  be  more 
afflicting  than  to  see  a  parcel  of  vulgar,  villainous  mouths,  stretched  in  sar- 
donic cachinnation  from  ear  to  ear,  while  their  owners,  stuck  sixty  in  a 
barn,  with  an  overseer  in  corderoy  shorts,  at  the  head,  keep  fighting  like 
game-cocks  for  the  first  slice  of  a  superannuated  mutton,  cold  as  charity, 
or  an  underdone  wedge,  from  some  unhappy  prize  ox,  who  died  about  ten 
days  before  of  the  dropsy  •  Yet  this  is  a  country  gentleman's  ovation,  given,  as 
we  have  seen  ii  ourselves,  to  some  sixty  small  farmers,  who,  after  scram- 
bling through  its  starveling  compounds,  are  required  to  toast  their  landlord 
in  swipes.  Far  different  is  the  civic  dinner  (not  the  last),  that  beau-ideal 
of  gastric  civilization.  We  pity  the  senseless  soul  who  can  uninspired  sur- 
vey such  a  symposium  :  he  must  be  more  or  less  than  man.  With  what  an 
air  the  aldermen  bestir  themselves  for  the  skirmish !  with  what  dexterity 
they  arrange  their  weapons  !  how  they  lick  their  lips,  and  twinkle  their 
peepers,  in  all  the  manifest  expressiveness  of  genius !  Would  you  not 
swear  that  they  had  been  bound  apprentices  to  their  appetite  from  child- 
hood,— were  clerks  in  the  house  of  Bacchus  &  Co.,  articled  by  indentures 
never  to  be  cancelled  but  with  life?  The  fact  is,  that  the  appetite  is  the 
chief,  indeed  the  only  requisite  for  an  alderman.  He  is  (or  should  be) 
chosen  like  Mahometan  mistresses,  by  the  pound,  and  venerated  solely  in 
proportion  to  his  circumference.  Thus  an  alderman  weighing  twenty 
stone  should  be  more  honoured  than  one  weighing  only  nineteen  ;  but  he 
who  lifted  up  the  scale  with  a  ton  attached  to  it  should  be  deified.  For 
ourselves,  we  look  upon  a  Guildhall  dinner  to  be  an  epoch  to  date  from  ; 
we  think  of  it  as  a  subject  too  awful  for  superficial  meditation ;  and 
that  such  is  the  popular  opinion  is  manifest,  from  the  fact  that  your  true 
citizens,  however  sportive  at  other  times,  are  invariably  in  earnest  at  din- 
ner. No  man  ever  yet  seated  himself  at  the  Mansion- House  who  was  not 
seriously  bent  on  plying  his  grinders  to  the  utmost  :  if  he  did,  he  was  a 
tuneless  string,  at  discord  with  the  harmony  of  the  place,  which  has,  from 
time  immemorial,  prescribed  one  uniform,  unchanging  music.  Indeed, 
now  we  come  to  reflect  on  the  subject,  we  are  convinced  that  the  only 
genuine  "national  melodies"  are  those  resulting  from  an  alderman's 
mouth,  when  properly  tuned  at  Guildhall.  We  ourselves  are  no  discredit- 
able musicians  in  this  respect ;  but  we  bow  reverently  to  his  scientific 
superiority.  t  Independently  of  such  vocal  attractions,  a  civic  dinner — or, 
indeed,  any  dinner  at  all — is  remarkable  for  tho  waveless  calm  that  it 
spreads  over  the  most  stormy  mind.  Let  a  man  sit  down  to  table  in  a 


] 827."]  A  Dissertation  itpfm  Dinners.  139 

passion,  and  he  all  at  once  finds  himself  imbued  with  its  social  spirit;  with 
the  very  first  mouthful,  his  voice  sinks  from  the  tempestuous  tones  of  the 
north  wind  to  the  melodious  modulations  of  the  zephyr  ;  his  face  softens 
down  into  an  ingenuous  simper,  and  finally  he  becomes  as  purely  angelic 
as  the  imperfect  limits  of  human  nature  will  allow.  The  hypochondriac 
in  Nightmare  Abbey,  who  delayed  cutting  his  throat  till  he  had  previously 
discussed  a  beaf-stcak  and  a  bottle  of  port,  only  exemplified  a  general  rule : 
Candide  deferred  his  suicide  for  a  similar  reason,  and  was  astonished  to 
find,  after  the  digestion  of  a  creditable  meal,  how  reconciled  he  had  be- 
come to  existence.  Talk  not  to  us  then  of  care,  and  its  countless  atten- 
dants :  life  knows  but  one  pleasure  and  one  sorrow — a  dinner,  or  no  din- 
ner. We  at  least  conceive  so — we  who  at  this  present  moment  are 
scribbling  our  dissertation  with  a  swinging  symposium  in  the  perspective. 
Could  the  Public  see  our  intelligent  face,  as  we  note  down  these  amusing 
thoughts,  they  would  be  quite  charmed  with  its  benevolence  ;  but  let  the 
scene  change — let  our  servant  enter  the  parlour  with  information  that  our 
dinner  is  spoiled  :  heavens  and  earth,  what  an  alteration  !  Our  Vesuvius 
countenance  would  instantly  put  forth  its  most  volcanic  passions ;  and  this 
Essay,  now  so  agreeable,  would  be  converted  into  a  Jeremiad,  with  a 
fiendish  sarcasm  running  through  it,  like  quicksilver  through  a  diseased 
frame.  But  we  will  not  anticipate  affliction. 

We  are  staunch  admirers  of,  Milton — we  admire  his  purity,  his  sublimity, 
his  luxuriant  imagery,  his  learned  illustrations ;  but  while  we  confess  thus 
much,  while  we  do  justice  to  his  descriptions,  we  think  but  meanly  of  his 
dinners.  Adam  and  Eve — (hear  it,  ye  misbelieving  citizens) — dined  at 
one  o'clock,  on  dried  figs  and  spring  water.  We  wonder  they  were  not 
carried  off  by  a  bowel  complaint!  For  our  own  parts,  our  sophisticated 
stomachs  would  have  spurned  even  Paradise  without  a  larder ;  but,  fur- 
nished with  good  cellars,  kitchens,  and  pantries,  why  we  think  it  might 
have  been  made  a  pretty  place.  The  Public  will  perceive  from  this  that, 
notwithstanding  the  general  opinion  to  the  contrary,  we  are  no  Miltons  ; 
indeed,  our  mind  is  any  thing  but  ambitious — but,  were  we  addicted  to 
verse,  certes  we  would  make  a  point  of  enriching  our  friend  Watts's  next 
Souvenir  with  "  Lyrics  of  the  Stomach"  (notes  by  Kitchiner),  as  a  sequel 
to  his  "  Lyrics  of  the  Heart,"  And  this  brings  us  to  the  subject  of  pcets, 
under  which  head  we  have  one  maxim,  founded  on  experience,  to  put 
forward,  viz.  NEVER  DINE  WITH  A  POET.  Of  all  dietetic  miseries  this  is 
the  worst.  In  the  first  place,  you  are  invited  at  five  o'clock,  when  the 
bard  himself  does  not  deign  to  make  his  appearance  till  half-past  six.  He 
then  comes  in  without  his  cravat,  pops  down  in  front  of  a  cold  joint  Conce 
the  left  leg  of  a  sheep  of  genius  like  himself),  which  he  saws  into  square 
wedges  with  a  knife  eccentric  as  its  master,  and  forthwith  commences  a  con- 
versation upon  L.  E.  L.  But  this  is  not  all, — ten  to  one  he  is  married  ;  in 
which  case  you  are  sure  to  be  overlooked,  for  women  never  fail  to  be  vacci- 
nated with  the  genius  of  their  husbands — a  genius  which  notunfrequently 
runs,  like  a  typhus-fever  (only  infinitely  more  alarming),  through  the  house- 
hold. We  ourselves  muttoned,  a  few  days  since,  with  an  esteemed  friend  in 
the  verse  line,  and  were  waited  on  by  a  fat  footman,  who  was  himself  a  poet 
of  no  slight  consideration,  inasmuch  as  he  had  contributed  to  the  Literary 
Gazette  sixteen  sonnets,  under  the  signature  of  "  Adonis."*  The  conse- 

*  This  promising  young  poet  has  been,  we  are  grieved  to  add,  within  the  last  few 
months,  transported  for  life  :  he  was  always  eccentric  and  ii regular  in  his  motions. 

T  2 


140  A  Dissertation  upon  Dinners.  [FEB. 

*lucnces  were  obvious  :  when  we  called  for  beer,  we  were  helped  to  brandy 
— presented  with  a  quartern -loaf,  instead  of  a  clean  plate — and  nearly 
suffocated  with  half-a-pint  of  castor  oil,  which  we  had  swallowed  in  mis- 
take for  noyeau.  How  opposite  to  all  this  is  a  dinner  given  by  a  parson  ! 
By  a  parson,  wo  mean  one  who  loves  church  and  state,  and  never  fails  in 
a  certain  steady — not  voracious — appetite,  becoming  a  Christian  and  a 
preacher.  Dissenters  we  abhor  ;  and  until  we  find  from  experience  that 
they  pay  more  attention  to  gastronomy,  shall  always  look  upon  them 
shuddeiingly,  yet  pityingly,  as  men  without  the  pale  of  redemption. 

Among  the  ancients,  Vitellius  was  perhaps  the  most  gentlemanly  epi- 
cure that  ever  existed :  Heliogabulus,  too,  knew  how  to  give  a  good  dinner  ; 
so,  indeed,  did  Lucullus  :  but  there  was  a  scientific  propriety  about  the 
first,  which  modern  times  have  never  equalled.  Even  Sardanapalus 
was  not  without  talents  as  a  gastronomist ;  and,  had  the  darkness  of  his 
times  permitted,  might  have  endeared  himself  to  the  palates  of  posterity. 
At  the  present  day,  O'Doherty  and  Kitchiner  are  almost  the  only  living 
authors  who  have  studied  the  philosophy  of  the  stomach  with  the  atten- 
tion due  to  its  importance.  Of  the  former  we  have  already  made  honourable 
mention  ;  it  remains  to  say,  that  the  latter  has  published  "  Directions  for 
Diners  out,"  characterized  by  a  calm  and  enlarged  spirit,  feelingly  alive 
to  the  epicurean  prejudices  of  mankind.  Nothing,  indeed,  is  so  difficult 
as  to  know  how  to  give  a  good  dinner ;  one,  we  mean,  that  shall  please 
the  most  fastidious  palate,  and  tickle  the  amateur  of  mutton,  while  it 
shocks  not  the  sensibilities  of  the  connoisseur  of  beef.  Our  late  friend, 
the  lamented  Robert  Edkins,  was  a  genius  of  this  stamp ;  for  we  have 
actually  known  him  invite  half-a-dozen  bigotted  epicureans  to  his  table ; 
the  first  of  whom  professed  an  hereditary  aversion  to  rump-steak — the 
second  to  pork — the  third  to  venison — the  fourth  to  veal — the  fifth  to  roast 
goose — while  the  sixth  was  a  staunch  seceder  from  that  orthodox  sect  who 
believe  in  the  infallibility  of  a  sirloin.  But,  alas !  how  transitory  is  hu- 
man glory !  This  interesting  young  man  was  cut  off  in  the  flower  of  his 
youth,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two,  in  consequence  of  apoplexy,  occa- 
sioned, like  the  consumption  of  Kirk  White,  by  too  zealous  a  devotion  to 
his  art.  Ill-fated  friend!  it  has  been  our  painful  lot  for  years  to  dine  with- 
out thee — for  years  to  sit  beside  a  table  unenlightened  by  thine  expressive 
features;  but,  nevertheless,  the  soothing  reflection  remains,  that  it  is  here 
permitted  us  to  close  a  Dissertation  upon  Dinners  with  an  appropriate 
apostrophe  to  thy  shade  : — Si  quis  Epicitrorum  Manibus  locus  (we  quote 
from  memory),  si,  ut  sapientibus  placet,  non  cum  corpore  extinguuntur 
magnae  animae,  placide  quiescas,  nosque  domum  tuam,  a  muliebri  lamenta- 
tione,  ad  contemplationem  virtutem  tnarum,  voces,  quas  neque  lugeri 
neque  plangi  fas  est.  Nam  multos  veterum  velut  inglorios  et  ignobiles 
oblivlo  obruet,  EDKINS  posteritati  narratus  et  traditus,  superstes  erit.* 

D. 

*  Tucitus,  de  Vit&  Agricolae. 


1827.]  <     HI     ) 

THE    SPELLS    OF    HOME. 


There  blend  the  ties  that  strengthen 

Our  hearts  in  hours  of  grief, 
The  silver  links  that  lengthen 

Joy's  visits  when  most  brief  ! 
Then,  dost  thou  sigh  for  pleasure? 

O  !  do  not  widely  roam  ! 
But  seek  that  hidden  treasure 

At  home,  dear  home  !  BARNARD 


BY  the  soft  green  light  in  the  woody  glade, 

On  the  banks  of  moss  where  thy  childhood  play'd  j 

By  the  waving  tree  thro'  which  thine  eye 

First  look'd  in  love  to  the  summer  sky ; 

By  the  dewy  gleam,  by  the  very  breath 

Of  the  primrose-tufts  in  the  grass  beneath, 

Upon  thy  heart  there  is  laid  a  spell — 

Holy  and  precious — oh!  guard  it  well! 

By  the  sleepy  ripple  of  the  stream, 
Which  hath  lull'd  thee  into  many  a  dream ; 
By  the  shiver  of  the  ivy-leaves, 
To  the  wind  of  morn  at  thy  casement-eaves  ; 
By  the  bees'  deep  murmur  in  the  limes, 
By  the  music  of  the  Sabbath-chimes ; 
By  every  sound  of  thy  native  shade, 
Stronger  and  dearer  the  spell  is  made. 

By  the  gathering  round  the  winter  hearth, 

When  twilight  call'd  unto  household  mirth  j 

By  the  fairy  tale  or  the  legend  old 

In  that  ring  of  happy  faces  toU  $ 

By  the  quiet  hours  when  hearts  unite 

In  the  parting  prayer,  and  the  kind  "  good-night  j" 

By  the  smiling  eye  and  the  loving  tone, 

Over  thy  life  has  the  spell  been  thrown. 

And  bless  that  gift !— it  hath  gentle  might, 
A  guardian  power  and  a  guiding  light ! 
It  hath  led  the  freeman  forth  to  stand 
In  the  mountain-battles  of  his  land  ; 
It  hath  brought  the  wanderer  o'er  the  seas, 
To  die  on  the  hills  of  his  own  fresh  breeze ; 
And  back  to  the  gates  of  his  father's  hall, 
It  hath  won  the  weeping  prodigal. 

Yes!  when  thy  heart  in  its  pride  would  stray, 
From  the  loves  of  its  guileless  youth  away ; 
When  the  sullying  breath  of  the  world  would  come, 
O'er  the  flowers  it  brought  from  its  childhood's  home  j 
Think  thou  again  of  the  woody  glade, 
And  the  sound  by  the  rustling  ivy  made, 
Think  of  the  tree  at  thy  parent's  door, 
And  the  kindly  spell  shall  have  power  once  more ! 

F.  H, 


[     H2    ]  [FEB, 

NORTH-EAST  BOUNDARY  OF  AMERICA.* 

WE  beg  our  readers  not  to  be  alarmed.  Our  heading  has  a  dry, 
uninviting  aspect,  we  know ;  but  the  subject,  we  assure  them,  is  one  of 
growing  importance,  and  already  involves  practical  consequences.  It 
requires  to  be  distinctly  understood  too,  for  it  must  quickly  become 
matter  of  public  discussion.  Attractive  we  may  not  be  able  to  make  it; 
but  it  shall  not  weary  by  its  length.  Without  farther  preluding  then  we 
begin. 

For  three  and  forty  years,  with  some  interruptions,  has  this  question  of 
boundary  been  in  the  hands  of  negotiators.  Why,  was  not,  it  will  be 
asked,  the  matter  of  boundary  among  the  very  first  articles  of  the 
treaty  of  1783,  between  defeated  England  and  her  triumphant  colonies  ? 
Yes,  it  constitutes  the  subject  of  the  second  article  of  that  humbling 
treaty.  Then,  what  occasions  the  existing  dispute  ?  Some  ambiguity  in 
the  terms  ?  No ;  the  terms  are  unambiguous  enough,  but  those  terms 
direct  the  boundary  to  be  drawn  through  regions  then  unexplored.  The 
treaty  speaks  of  highlands,  the  existence  of  which  was  conjectural,  and 
their  direction  unknown.  It  proceeds  upon  presumptions,  instead  of  facts. 
The  American  commissioners  themselves  knew  little  of  the  country,  and 
the  English  still  less.  With  an  extensive  tract  of  unsettled  country 
intervening  between  the  cultivated  parts  of  each  empire,  it  was  originally 
of  little  importance  where  precisely  the  line  of  demarcation  was  drawn  ; 
and  the  framers  of  the  treaty,  therefore,  ran  the  boundary  through  the 
middle  of  the  unsurveyed  territory,  just  as  they  ran  it  through  the  centre 
of  the  lakes.  But  colonization  has  rapidly  progressed  :  and  is  now 
actually  working  up,  on  both  sides,  towards  the  boundary-region,  and  it 
becomes,  of  course,  an  object  of  practical  importance  to  determine  the 
claims  of  each  country.  The  Americans  are  impatient;  they  are 
assailants — the  British  resisting  encroachments. 

We  will  first  look  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  and  then  see  what  has 
been  done  towards  settling  the  points  in  dispute.  The  boundary  in 
question  is  thus  described  in  the  original  treaty: — 

"  From  the  north-west  angle  of  Nova  Scotia,  viz.  that  angle,  which  is 
formed  by  a  line  drawn  due  north  from  the  source  of  St.  Croix  river  to 
the  highlands — along  the  said  highlands,  which  divide  those  rivers  that 
empty  themselves  into  the  river  St.  Lawrence,  from  those  which  fall  into 
the  Atlantic  Ocean — to  the  north-western-most  head  of  the  Connecticut 
river." 

Well,  what  are  the  grounds  of  dissension?  1.  The  St.  Croix  itself: 
2.  The  true  source  of  the  St.  Croix  ;  3.  The  supposed  highlands  running 
between  the  waters  which  flow  into  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  those  which 
flow  into  the  Atlantic. 

Of  the  St.  Croix — the  river  fixed  upon  as  the  eastern  boundary 
between  the  now  separated  nations — all  was  unascertained — from  its  mouth 
to  its  source.  A  river  had  been  thus  named  ;  but  which  was  this  river, 
and  how  it  was  to  be  distinguished  from  some  other  streams,  were  undeter- 
mined? Weil,  what  was  to  be  done  ?  After  long  canvassing,  the 
question — by  the  treaty  of  1794 — was  referred  to  commissioners.  The 
commissioners  disagreed.  They  were  empowered  to  appoint  an  umpire. 

»  Considerations  of  the  Claims  and  Couduct  of  the  United  States,  respecting  their  North 
Eastern  Boundary,  &c.  1820. 


1827.]  North-East  Boundary  of  America.  143 

The  British  commissioner  had  the  idle  honour  of  naming  the  umpire — but, 
on  the  insidious  condition  of  naming  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  This 
citizen  of  the  United  States  decided  the  river,  generally  called  the  Schoo- 
die,  to  be  the  St.  ( -roix  of  the  treaty — a  river,  that  is,  farther  to  the  east 
than  the  one  which  had  been  claimed  by  the  English  commissioner.  This 
might  or  might  not  have  been  an  honest  decision. 

But  the  river  was  not  all.  Of  many  rivers  it  is  difficult  to  say  exclu- 
sively this  is  the  source  ;  one  seems  to  have  no  better  pretension  to  the 
distinction  than  another;  and  so  here,  when  the  St  Croix  was  determined, 
a  second  question  arose, — which  was  to  be  considered  as  the  original  or 
main  source  ?  The  umpire — American — decided  on  the  most  easterly 
branch.  Here  peeps  forth  the  graspingness  of  America,  with  a  rich 
display  of  the  dupery  of  our  diplomacy.  The  river  alone  was  the  proper 
question  for  this  commission.  The  province  of  Nova  Scotia  already  had 
its  definite  boundaries  in  words  ;  for  in  the  original  charter,  the  boundary 
is  expressly  described  to  be  the  u  most  westerly  fountain  or  spring."  To 
Nova  Scotia  itself  America  laid  no  claim.  The  N.  W.  angle  of  Nova 
Scotia  was  specifically  the  commencement  of  the  boundary.  Therefore, 
when  the  commission  had  determined  which  river  was  the  St.  Croix,  the 
terms  of  the  Nova  Scotia  charter  should  have  been  allowed  to  decide  the 
boundary,  and  that  was  the  "  most  westerly  fountain  or  spring."  In  point 
of  territory,  the  difference  made  by  this  concession  was  very  considerable. 
But  it  was  conceded;  we  yielded  to  importunity  or  dexterity;  and  no 
more  was  to  be  said  about  the  matter.  The  commission  had  accomplished 
the  object  for  which  it  was  appointed,  and  was  dissolved. 

Does  this  settle  the  boundary  ?  No  ;  but  it  settles  the  source  of  the 
St.  Croix ;  and  from  that  point  a  line  is  to  be  drawn,  due  north,  extending 
till  it  reaches  the  highlands,  which  are  supposed  somewhere  or  other  to 
stretch  from  west  to  east  between  the  rivers  that  fall  into  the  St.  Lawrence 
on  the  one  hand,  and  into  the  Atlantic  on  the  other  ;  and  then  along  these 
highlands  is  the  boundary  to  be  continued  till  it  comes  to  the  N.  W. 
head  of  the  Connecticut — a  point  about  which  there  is  no  dispute. 

Well,  but  all  this  seems  definite  enough.  But,  says  the  American, 
there  are  no  such  highlands  to  meet  our  north  line.  Why,  how  is  that  ? 
That  part  of  the  Atlantic  called  the  Bay  of  Fundy;  and  the  river  St. 
Lawrence,  are  parallel ;  and  into  the  Bay  of  Fundy  flow  the  Penobscot, 
the  Kennebec,  &c.,  and  into  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Chaudiere,  the 
Madawasca,  &c.  A  ridge  of  highland  therefore  must  run  between,  and 
this  highland  it  is,  whatever  be  its  elevation,  less  or  more,  which 
constitutes  the  boundary  contemplated  in  the  treaty.  Yes,  yes,  replies  the 
American,  highland  there  will,  of  course,  be  ;  but  the  fact  is,  there  is  no 
such  highland  as  the  treaty  supposes.,  stretching  continuously  from  the 
head  of  the  Connecticut  till  it  meets  our  north  line,  That  highland 
declines  in  its  course  from  the  head  of  the  Connecticut  towards  the  east, 
subsiding  all  the  way  more  or  less,  and  before  it  reaches  our  north  line, 
is  apparently  lost  in  the  broad  and  general  level  of  the  country. 

Well,  what  in  this  difficulty  is  to  be  done?  The  American,  placing  his 
foot  on  the  source  of  the  St.  Croix,  says — here  is  the  point  upon  which  we 
are  agreed  to  draw  a  north  line.  I  go  on  with  this  line,  and  shall  stop, 
according  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  at  highlands,  if  1  meet  with  any ; 
and  if  not,  as  soon  as  I  arrive  at  a  stream  flowing  into  the  St.  Lawrence. 
At  that  point  I  shall  make  a  bend  to  the  west ;  and  keep  advancing, 
always  leaving  on  my  right  the  waters  that  fall  into  the  St.  Lawrence,  till 


144  Ncrlh-Easl  Boundary  of  America.  [FEB. 

I  reach  the  head  of  the  Connecticut ; — and  thus  I  conceive  I  fulfil  the 
intention  of  the  treaty. 

No,  no,  replies  the  British  commissioner.  To  the  equity  of  this  course 
we  can  never  submit.  It  is  in  the  very  teeth,  if  not  of  the  words  of  the 
treaty,  yet  of  the  principles  and  implications  of  the  treaty. — It  is  a  first 
principle  of  the  treaty,  that  of  each  river  which  falls  to  each  country,  the 
whole,  from  source  to  mouth,  shall  belong  to  the  same  country.  This 
principle  is  not  only  obviously  implied  in  the  treaty,  but  it  has  been 
explicitly  admitted  as  conducive  "to  the  reciprocal  advantage  and  mutual 
convenience  of  both  nations  ' — "  to  exclude  partial  advantages,  those  seeds 
of  discord1'  Now  in  pursuing  your  north  line,  before  you  have  gone  fifty 
miles,  you  cross  the  river  St.  J  ohn  ;  and,  regardless  of  that  impediment, 
you  still  advance  along  a  beautiful  and  well-wooded  country,  of  gentle 
undulations  of  hill  and  dale,  crossing  again  other  streams  that  fall  into 
the  Chaleur,  a  branch  of  the  St.  Lawrence  gulf,  nor  indeed  stop  till  you 
come  within  a  few  miles  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ;  and  then,  at  last,  but  not 
till  then,  you  stop  :  because  then,  and  not  before,  you  arrive  at  the  banks  of 
a  stream  which  falls  into  the  St.  Lawrence.  We  go  with  you,  in  your 
line  till  you  come  to  the  St.  John  ;  but  beyond  that  point  we  budge  not, 
We  say  there  are  highlands,  before  you  come  to  that  point — lands 
sufficiently  elevated  to  be  regarded  as  those  contemplated  by  the  treaty. 
But  beyond  the  St.  John  we  budge  not.  You  can  have  no  legitimate 
pretence  for  going  beyond.  The  St.  John's  is  our  river  ;  it  falls  into  the 
Atlantic  to  be  sure,  but  within  our  territory ;  and  it  was  manifestly  the  origi- 
nal intention  of  the  treaty,  and  indeed  its  admitted  principle,  that  the 
country  which  has  the  mouth  of  a  river  shall  have  its  source.  By  crossing 
the  stream,  and  attempting  to  go  beyond  that  point,  you  cut  off  our  stream, 
and  thus  violate  the  principles  of  the  treaty. 

No,  says  the  American,  the  words  of  the  treaty  are  expressly  in  our 
favour  ;  the  rivers  which  flow  into  the  Atlantic  are  ours  ;  the  rivers  that 
flow  into  the  St.  Lawrence  are  yours.  This,  replies  the  Briton,  is  but  a 
quibble.  The  St.  Croix  is  your  eastern  boundary  ;  you  can  have  no 
pretence  to  any  thing  more  easterly.  The  mouth  of  the  St.  John  is  more 
easterly,  and  in  our  admitted  territory;  and  by  the  principles  of  the 
treaty,  and  the  received  interpretation  of  it,  we  claim  the  source  as  well 
as  the  mouth. 

It  is  seriously  to  be  regretted  that  the  terms  of  the  treaty  so  specifically 
marked  highlands  as  the  boundary  ;  but  then  it  should  be  remembered,  that 
highlands  are  not  the  only  mark  by  which  that  boundary  was  to  be 
determined.  The  sources  and  mouths  of  rivers  were  manifestly  intended 
to  go  together.  The  boundary  was  not  to  cut  through  any  stream  ;  but 
the  boundary  drawn  by  the  American  does  cut  through  many  streams. 
The  treaty  gives  two  directions,  hills  arid  rivers ;  if  the  hills,  as  is  alleged, 
fail,  the  rivers  do  not ;  and  where  there  are  two  conditions,  the  failure  of 
the  one  does  not  surely  involve  the  annihilation  of  the  other.  If  we  give 
up  the  highlands,  which  we  do  not,  but  for  the  sake  of  argument,  we 
should  abide  by  the  principle  of  alloting  mouths  and  sources  of  rivers  to 
the  same  country,  and  that  principle  will  bring  the  matter  very  much  to 
the  same  thing.  It  will  not  suffer  the  American  to  protract  his  north  line 
across  the  St.  John's;  and  observe,  a  line  drawn  from  the  head  of  the  Con- 
necticut to  the  point  of  the  St.  John's,  when  that  north  line  comes,  will 
pass,  a  considerable  space,  along  acknowledged  highlands,  cutting  between 
the  streams  that  flow  right  and  left ;  and  we  see  not  why  the  direction  of 


1827.]  Norlh-East  Boundary  of  America.  145 

these  highlands  should  be  left,  because  they  gradually  or  occasionally  sink 
lower  and  lower,  particularly  when  this  very  direction  will  intersect  the 
north  line  near  the  point  where  it  reaches  the  St.  John,  and  where  the 
lands  are  still  at  an  elevation  of  from  1,500  to  2,000  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  sea — known  lands,  bearing  the  name  of  Mars'  Hill. 

This  is  manifestly  the  spot  where  the  north  line  should  stop,  and  where 
the  boundary  should  turn  towards  the  west,  passing  along  a  tract  of 
country  certainly  elevated,  though  it  be  not  all  along  equally  mountainous. 
This  is  the  spot,  whether  it  be  determined  by  pursuing  the  direction  of  the 
highlands  from  the  head  of  the  Connecticut,  or  whether  it  be  decided 
solely  by  the  admitted  principle  of  giving  source  and  mouth  to  the  same 
country. 

The  allowed  object  of  the  boundary  was  the  best  defensive  one, 
arcifinious,  as  the  diplomatists  phrase  it — to  be  obtained  in  these  regions. 
High,  mountainous  ridges,  are  the  best  boundary  ;  and  the  original  framers 
of  the  treaty  supposed,  for  none  of  them  knew,  from  the  known  outlets  of 
many  rivers,  that  such  ridges  extended  somewhere  between  the  Bay 
of  Fundy  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  those  they  destined  for  the  bound- 
ary. Upon  actual  survey,  such  a  continuous  and  mountainous  ridge  does 
not  exist,  but  a  line  of  elevated  lands,  though  with  considerable  interrup- 
tions, and  irregular  in  height  and  width,  does  exist,  and  of  course  is 
essentially  the  line  contemplated  by  the  treaty,  and  is,  at  all  events,  the 
best  arcifinious  boundary  that  can  in  that  quarter  be  obtained,  for  the 
reciprocal  advantages  and  mutual  conveniences  of  both  parties,  and  such 
the  parties  have  solemnly  recorded  to  be  their  objects. 

Such  are  the  pretensions  of  the  contending  parties,  and  thus  were  they 
argued  by  the  members  of  the  second  commission,  appointed  after  tho 
peace  of  1815.  The  commissioners  could  come  to  no  understanding,  and 
the  matter,  according  to  a  provision  of  the  treaty,  not  this  time  left  to 
the  cunning  of  the  American  and  the  dupery  of  the  Briton,  was  referred 
to  the  Emperor  of  Russia.  After  long  delays,  according  to  the  fashion  of 
such  matters,  the  Emperor  finally  declined  the  invidious  office,  and 
leaving  the  parties  where  he  found  them,  recommended  them  to  arrange 
the  matter  by  negociation.  That  negociation  is  still  pending. 

But  though  this  negociation  be  still  confessedly  pending,  the  states 
which  border  on  the  debateable  territory  refuse  to  wait  the  slow  march 
of  diplomacy.  The  bond  of  union  between  the  United  States  is  well 
known  not  to  be  of  a  very  binding  nature.  The  authority  of  the  execu- 
tive is  frequently  treated  with  contempt  by  the  several  states,  who  seem 
to  feel  themselves  at  liberty,  when  it  suits  their  convenience,  to  act  inde- 
pendently of  the  general  government,  even  in  matters  which  really  involve 
the  credit  and  safety  of  the  whole ;  and  this  is  the  case  now  with  respect 
to  Maine  and  Massachusetts,  which  have  given  their  own  interpretation  to 
the  treaty,  fixed  themselves  the  boundary,  and  actually  taken  sovereign 
possession  of  the  land. 

Before  the  separation  of  the  United  States,  England  of  course;  hold  the 
sovereignty  of  the  country  now  in  debate,  as  well  as  of  the  rest  of  America, 
and  till  the  question  should  be  legitimately  decided,  held  herself  entitled 
to  continue  the  exercise  of  that  sovereignty.  On  the  cession  of  Canada, 
and  the  rest  of  the  French  provinces,  to  England,  little  of  the  country 
being  occupied,  that  sovereignty  was  almost  nominal ;  but  as  the  course 
of  colonization  has  advanced,  the  rights  of  sovereignty  became  active 
M.M.  New  Stries—VoL.  III.  No.  14.  U 


146  North-East  Boundary  of  America.  [FEB. 

and  actual.  She  granted  lands,  she  issued  writs,  she  trained  militia,  she 
gave  licenses  to  cut  timber,  &c.,  exactly  as  at  Elalifax  or  Quebec.  Of 
late,  however,  and  on  the  very  account  of  the  pending  negociation, 
licenses  for  cutting  timber  have  been  discontinued  and  recalled.  The 
English  government  complied  with  the  request  of  the  American  govern- 
ment, and  actually  suspended  the  exercise  of  this  right  of  sovereignty. 

What  is  the  consequence?     The  states  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts, 
regardless  of  the  pending  negociation,  regardless  of  the  common  customs 
of  national  intercourse,  regardless  of  the  authority  of  the  general  govern- 
ment of  which  they  are  federalists,  these  states  have  themselves  taken 
actual  possession,  sovereign  possession  of  the  disputed  territory.     They 
unite — to  establish  the  extent  of  our  assertion — they  unite  in  a  resolution 
of  the  legislature  of  each  state,  "  to  ascertain  the  extent  of  the  depredations 
committed  on  the  lands  of  Massachusetts  and  Maine,  by  whom  committed, 
and  under  what  authority,  and  to  bring  the  offenders  to  justice."     They 
unite  in  giving  directions   "  to  execute  good  and  sufficient  deeds,  conveying 
to  the  settlers — in  actual  possession  of  the  undivided  public  lands  on  the 
St.  John's    and   Madawasca  rivers— their  heirs   and  assigns,    100  acres 
each  of  the  land  by  them  possessed — they  paying  for  the  use  of  the  said 
states  (of  Maine  and  Massachusetts)  five  dollars  each,  and  the  expense  of 
surveying."     They  unite  also,  in  directing  their  agents   •«  to  sell  the  timber 
on  the  lands  contiguous,  or  near  to  the  St.  John's,  whenever  they  deem  it 
expedient  for  the  interests  of  the  said  states 

Now,  observe,  the  "  depredations"  here  spoken  of  are  acts  of  cultivation 
by  British  subjects.  The  persons,  who  "  commit"  them  are  the  King's 
grantees.  The  "  authority,"  is  that  of  the  king's  representative,  who  fixed 
his  great  seal  to  the  grants.  These  are  the  parties  to  be  "  brought  to  justice" 
by  the  states  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts.  The  undivided  public  lands 
on  the  St.  John's  and  Madawasca  rivers,  are  the  private  estates  of  British 
subjects,  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  date,  in  lots  of  from  five  hundred  to  two 
thousand  acres,  one  hundred  acres  of  which  to  include  improvements — 
cultivated  portions,  that  is — are  to  be  confirmed  to  the  owners,  by  these 
generous  states,  by  "  good  and  sufficient  deeds,  on  the  payment  of  five 
dollars,  and  the  expense  of  surveying.''  The  timber,  too,  which  is  thus 
to  be  sold,  is  either  the  property  of  private  individuals — theirs  by  purchase, 
or  is  as  much  part  and  parcel  of  the  king's  demesnes,  as  the  trees  in 
Windsor  forest. 

These  resolutions,  which  passed  in  February  and  June  1825,  the  public 
land-agents  of  the  two  states  were  directed  forthwith  to  enforce,  and  carry 
into  execution.  The  reports  of  their  labours,  dated  November  of  the 
same  year,  have  been  presented  to  the  respective  governments  of  Maine  and 
Massachusetts ;  and  conclude  with  recommending  that  justices  of  the 
peace  be  commissioned,  and  a  deputy  sheriff,  or  constable  be  appointed  ; 
that  one  or  more  military  districts  be  formed  on  the  Madawasca  ;  and  that 
at  a  suitable  time,  the  settlers  should  send  a  representative  to  the  legislature 
of  Maine.  These  recommendations  also,  it  seems,  have  met  with  the 
entire  approbation  of  messieurs  the  governors  of  the  said  states. 

From  these  reports,  it  appears,  the  land  agents  have  surveyed  several  of 
the  settlers  lots  of  100  acres;  made  deeds  in  conformity  with  the  resolu- 
tions; and  placarded  the  intentions  of  the  states  on  the  Mills,  and  at 
Fredericton,  on  the  Catholic  church.  They  traversed  the  country  between 
the  St.  John's  and  the  Madawasca — making  "domiciliary  visits,"  as  they 
pleasantly  call  them— explaining  the  objects  of  these  visits  and  taking  the 


J827.]  North-East  Boundary  of  America.  .    147 

amount  of  the  population, — with  all  which,  it  is  gravely  stated,  the  said 
population  were  exceedingly  delighted  :  why  and  <  wherefore,  is  not  very 
intelligible.  All  this  we  learn,  from  the  body  of  the  report ;  and  from 
other  quarters  we  find  they  endeavoured  to  dissuade  the  colonists  from 
mustering  at  the  militia  trainings,  offering  even  to  pay  their  fines,  to  seduce 
them  from  their  allegiance ;  and,  in  consequence,  very  narrowly  escaped 
being  seized  by  a  party,  who  went  in  pursuit  of  them,  to  carry  them  before 
the  courts  of  New  Brunswick. 

But  things  do  not  surely  remain  in  this  lawless  state !  Have  no  remon- 
strances been  mpde  on  the  part  of  the  colonies  ?  Yes ;  a  remonstrance  was 
addressed  by  the  Governor  of  New  Brunswick  to  the  British  Minister  at 
Washington  ;  and,  in  consequence  of  the  representation  made  by  him  to 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  the  states  of  Maine  and  Massachu- 
setts appear  to  have  suspended  the  further  execution  of  their  magnificent 
resolutions  of  February  and  June,  1825,  till  their  session  of  June  ]826; 
and  there,  so  far  as  our  intelligence  goes,  the  affair  stands. 

In  the  mean  while,  the  Council  and  House  of  Assembly  of  New  Bruns 
wick  have  forwarded  an  urgent  representation  of  the  state  of  affairs  to  the 
king  at  home ;  but  what  steps  are  taken  at  home,  or  are  likely  to  be  taken, 
we  know  not.  It  is,  however,  a  matter  of  prime  importance  to  the  inte- 
grity and  welfare  of  the  colonies,  and  surely  a  matter  touching  very  closely 
the  dignity  of  the  empire.  What  would  those  have  done,  who  dispatched 
a  fleet  against  the  Spaniards,  for  taking  possession  of  the  obscure  corner  of 
Nootka  Sound  ? 

But  these  invasions  which  we  have  described,  are  not.  it  will  be  said,  the 
acts  of  the  government  of  the  United  States.  No ;  but  they  are  the  acts 
of  two  of  their  federal  states,  for  whose  acts  the  United  States  must  be  held 
responsible  to  all  other  countries.  The  general  government  will  probably 
disavow  the  acts  of  usurpation,  and  deny  the  right  of  the  two  states  to 
seize  upon  the  debateable  territory  without  the  concurrence  of  the  Congress. 
What  then  ?  The  two  states  will  likewise  deny  the  right  of  Congress  to 
concede  the  territory,  or  determine  their  claims  for  them.  The  difficulty  of 
dealing  with  America — constituted,  as  it  is,  of  so  many  distinct  legislatures 
— is  very  great.  A  treaty  ratified  by  the  executive  may  be  rejected  by  the 
senate;  when  accepted  by  the  senate,  the  representatives  in  Congress  may 
refuse  their  sanction  ;  and,  again,  when  confirmed  and  sanctioned  by  Con- 
gress, the  obedience  of  the  several  states — voluntary  as  it  is,  and  indepen- 
dent as  in  some  measure  they  are — is  not  of  course  to  be  calculated  upon. 
Let  the  general  government  act  as  it  will,  the  probability  is  the  two  states 
will  disregard  its  authority.  The  territory  in  dispute  is  of  high  importance 
to  them,  cribbed  and  cabined  as  they  are  by  the  neighbourhood  of  other 
states.  They  will  prosecute  their  views  ;  and  the  province  of  New  Bruns- 
wick declares  itself  resolved  upon  repelling  aggression,  A  little  war  will 
thus  be  kindled  on  the  frontiers  between  these  petty  powers,  which  will 
quickly  set  the  provinces,  north  and  south,  in  a  blaze.  The  question  of 
boundary  must  be  determined  forthwith :  and  if  concessions  of  territory 
must  be  made  by  us,  let  some  equivalent  be  offered,  in  other  regions,  in  less 
vital  quarters. 

For  of  vital  importance  we  affirm  it  to  be  to  the  interests  of  our  surviving 
colonies,  to  insist  upon  the  boundary  contemplated  by  the  original  treaty, 
and  marked  by  one,  if  not  by  two,  indisputable  criteria.  To  prove  the 
strength  of  our  proposition — that  the  enforcement  of  the  line  of  boundary 

U  2 


I -J8  North-East  Boundary  of  America.  {[FEB. 

for  which  we  have  been  arguing  is  of  vital  importance — we  have  only  to  cal- 
culate what  we  lose  or  compromise  by  abandoning  the  claim. 

We  lose,  1st,  a  tract  of  land  of  high  value  for  its  extent,  and  quality,  and 
position.  It  comprises  upwards  of  10,000  square  miles — an  extent  of 
which  the  public  probably  are  little  aware — covered  with  a  thick  and 
lofty  growth  of  timber,  well  watered  by  numerous  lakes,  and  with  streams 
communicating  with  the  sea  by  safe  and  uninterrupted  navigation — except- 
ing only  the  Grand  Falls  of  St.  John's,  an  impediment  easily  removable — 
and  flowing  through  countries  actually  occupied  by  our  own  colonists. 

2d.  We  lose  also — what  is  of  still  higher  importance — a  defensible  line 
of  frontier.  If  we  concede  to  the  Americans  their  demands,  and  thus  suffer 
them  to  pass  the  St.  John's,  or  even  to  come  up  to  its  western  bank,  the 
whole  province  of  New  Brunswick  lies  at  their  mercy ;  and  if  New  Bruns- 
wick, Nova  Scotia  ;  and  if  Nova  Scotia,  Halifax,  &c.  &c.  In  these  coun- 
tries Great  Britain  is,  of  course,  the  weaker  party. 

3d.  We  lose  again — what  is  surely  of  not  less  importance — the  connect- 
ing medium  between  our  colonies.  The  territory  involved  in  the  American 
demands  drives  up  between  Canada  and  New  Brunswick,  almost  to  the  very 
banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  fairly  cuts  off  all  communication  between 
the  upper  and  lower  divisions  of  our  American  possessions,  and  exposes 
Canada  as  much  on  the  one  side,  as  it  does  New  Brunswick  on  the  other. 
A  strip  of  thirteen  miles  is  all  that  would  be  left  us  between  the  American 
boundary  and  the  St.  Lawrence ;  and  how  long  would  that  be  left  us  ? 
It  endangers  the  navigation  of  the  St.  Lawrence  itself;  the  passage  of  the 
mails  must  run  circuitously,  and  that  passage  itself  become  precarious  and 
perilous. 

4th.  But  not  only  do  we  lose  the  medium  of  connection  between  the 
colonies,  but  between  the  Canadas  and  the  seas — between  the  Canadas 
and  Great  Britain.  For  eight  months  in  the  year,  not  even  an  answer 
from  England,  to  any  intelligence  from  Quebec,  can  be  received,  except 
through  the  United  States,  or  New  Brunswick.  An  enemy  has  only  to 
commence  hostilities  before  the  frosts,  and  have  nearly  a  twelvemonth  to 
over-run  the  colonies,  perfectly  undisturbed  ;  and  not  merely  is  a  direct 
route  for  the  mails  thus  cut  off,  but  a  military  line  of  communication  for 
troops  and  stores  from  St.  John's  or  Halifax  to  Quebec.  The  advantage 
of  such  a  line  of  communication  was  very  decidedly  felt  in  the  late  war, 
when  troops  in  the  depth  of  winter  passed  through  these  debateable  regions 
to  the  Upper  Provinces. 

These  are  no  mean  consequences  ;  and  we  say  boldly,  if  we  do  not  resist 
the  spirit  of  encroachment  so  visible  in  the  councils  of  America,  and  insist 
upon  the  boundary  of  the  treaty,  we  shall  soon  have  to  contend,  at  still 
greater  disadvantages,  for  the  possession  of  all  our  provinces.  America 
has  a  lurking,  and  scarcely  a  lurking  fancy  for  them.  "  The  Americans 
have  no  conscience,  father,"  said  the  Indian  chief,  in  his  talk  to  Sir  George 
Prevost:  "  they  have  no  heart;  they  will  drive  us  beyond  the  setting 
sun  ;" — language  which  the  intelligent  author  of  the  pamphlet,  to  which 
we  refer  at  the  head  of  our  article,  is  disposed  to  apply  to  them,  with  re- 
spect to  ourselves  ;  adding — "  and  they  will  push  you  into  the  sea ;  for, 
unless  a  stand  be  now  made  to  prevent  it,  they  eventually  will."  The 
pamphlet,  to  which  we  thus  allude,  contains  fuller  information  than  we 
have  been  able  to  compress  within  our  narrow  limits — particularly  with  re- 
spect to  the  rising  importance  of  the  colonies  commercially. 


1827.]  [     149     ] 


QUESTIONS    ANSWERED. 

Oh  !  what  is  pleasure,  in  whose  chase 
Life's  one  brief  day  is  made  a  race 

Of  vanity  and  lightness  ? 
A  star,  to  gaze  on  whose  bright  crown, 
We  wait  until  the  sun  goes  down, 
And  find,  when  it  has  o'er  us  shone, 

No  warmth  in  all  its  brightness. 

And  what  is  Friendship  ?    That  false  flow'r 
Which  spreads  its  leaves  at  daylight's  hour, 

And  closes  them  at  eve ; 
Opening  its  petals  to  the  light, 
Sweet-breathing  while  the  sun  shines  bright, 
But  shut  to  those  who,  'midst  the  night 

Of  doubt  and  darkness,  grieve. 

And  what  is  Fame  ?  the  smile  that  slays, 
The  cup  in  which  sweet  poison  plays ; 

At  best,  the  flowery  wreath, 
That's  twined  around  the  victim's  head, 
When,  'midst  sweet  fiow'rs  around  it  spread, 
And  harps'  and  timbrels'  sounds,  'tis  led 

Melodiously,  to  death. 

And  what  are  Hopes  ?     Gay  butterflies 
That  en  the  breath  of  fancy  rise, 

Where'er  the  sun -beam  lures  them; 
For  ever,  ever,  on  the  wing, 
Mocking  our  faint  steps  following, 
And  if  at  last  caught,  perishing 

In  the  grasp  that  secures  them. 

And  our  Affections,  what  are  they  ? 
Oh !  blossoms  smiling  on  the  spray, 

All  beauty,  and  all  sweetness ; 
But  which  the  canker  may  lay  bare, 
Or  rude  hands  from  the  branches  tear, 
Or  blighting  winds  leave  withering  there, 

Sad  types  of  mortal  fleetness. 

And  what  is  Life  itself?    A  sail 
With  sometimes  an  auspicious  gale, 

And  some  bright  sunbeams  round  it, 
But  oft'ner  amidst  tempests  cast, 
The  low'ring  sky,  the  howling  blast, 
And  'whelm'd  beneath  the  wave  at  last, 
Where  never  plummet  sounded. 

H.  N. 


[     150    ]  [FED. 

LUCK  AND  ILL-LUCK. 

ABOUT  the  end  of  the  year  1749,  two  vehicles  were  rolling  rapidly, 
one  close  after  the  other,  on  the  road  from  Paris  to  Versailles.  The  fore- 
most was  the  cache  public,  which  contained  only  one  passenger,  M.  Piga- 
fet,  a  man  of  much  merit ;  the  other,  a  brilliant  equipage,  drawn  by  two 
superb  and  vigorous  horses,  drove  towards  the  dwelling  of  power,  convey- 
ing thither  Comte  de  M ,  a  nobleman  renowned  throughout  Europe 

for  his  talents,  his  opulence,  and  his  singular  adventures.  The  noble 
coursers  were  on  the  point  of  passing,  and  leaving  far  behind  them  the 
poor  hacks  of  the  public  coach — when  the  wheels  knocked  together ;  and  the 
shook  was  so  violent,  that  the  public  vehicle,  its  conducteur,  its  horses,  and 
its  solitary  passenger,  were  rolled  pell-mell  into  the  middle  of  the  road. 

M.  Pigafet,  in  his  fall,  dislocated  his  right  hand  ;  Comte  de  M ,  who 

was  naturally  a  good  and  feeling  man,  made  him  all  the  apologies  pos- 
sible, expressed  his  sincere  regret,  and  offered  him  a  place  in  his  carriage  to 
finish  his  journey.  The  driver  was  recompensed  for  his  misadventure  ; 
arid,  as  soon  as  they  arrived  at  Versailles,  the  Comte  sent  for  a  surgeon, 
who  dressed  M.  Pigafet's  hand.  Pigafet,  touched  by  the  constant  atten- 
tions of  his  new  host,  and  with  the  chagrin  which  he  seemed  to  feel  for 
being  the  cause  of  this  trifling  accident,  thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to 
relieve  his  conscience,  and  assured  the  Comte  that  the  clash  of  the  two 
vehicles  was  not  to  be  attributed  either  to  the  restiveness  of  the  horses,  or 
the  maladresse  of  the  driver — but^to  the  pertinacity  of  his  own  evil  destiny, 
which  had  always  placed  a  ditch  between  him  and  the  object  at  which  he 
aimed — a  rock  ahead  at  the  mouth  of  every  harbour  he  tried  to  enter. 
"  My  journey  to  Versailles  was  to  destroy  or  realize  a  great  hope,"  said 
he:  *'  I  had  just  arrived  at  the  object,  and  I  am  rolled  in  the  ditch.  I 
ought  to  have  expected  as  much — all  is  as  it  should  be;  and  it  really  is 
more  honour  than  I  am  accustomed  to,  to  see  a  noble  Comte  in  the  number 
of  the  causes  of  my  thousand-and-one  catastrophes.  Once,  a  curst  lap-dog 
made  me  lose  the  object  of  my  affections — a  bon-mot  closed  the  doors  of 
the  Academy  upon  me,  perhaps,  for  ever — and  a  contemptible  insect,  I 
may  say,  hurled  me  from  a  throne." 

Cornte   de  M ,  astonished  at  this  speech,  looked  steadily  at  M. 

Pigafet,  he,  nevertheless,  appeared  to  speak  with  calmness  and  since- 
rity. His  look  was  tranquil  and  undisturbed:  in  fact,  he  shewed  no  symp- 
toms of  being  out  of  his  mind.  His  host,  whose  curiosity  had  been  strongly 
excited,  again  expressed  all  the  interest  he  took  in  his  fate,  sought  to  dis- 
suade him  from  drawing  such  sinister  presages  from  his  late  accident,  and 
concluded  by  requesting  to  be  informed  on  the  subject  of  those  surprising 
adventures,  of  which  he  appeared  to  be  the  victim. 

M.  Pigafet,  as  may  be  conjectured  from  his  preamble,  was  as  much  dis- 
posed to  speak  as  the  Comte  to  hear,  and  did  not  wait  to  be  asked  twice. 
*'  I  was  born  in  Paris,"  said  he;  "  my  father,  an  honest  but  theorizing 
man,  had  discovered  in  me  some  aptitude  for  intellectual  labours,  and 
thought  he  was  providing  for  my  future  welfare  in  setting  me  to  acquire,  all 
at  once,  superficial  information  in  a  great  number  of  arts  and  sciences — 
being  persuaded  that  an  acquaintance  with  these  different  branches  of 
knowledge  would  qualify  me  to  choose  a  path  suited  to  my  genius  and  my 
abilities. 

"  The  progress  of  civilization  among  nations — the  gradual  consolidation 
of  societies  in  the  midst  of  barbarism  and  disturbance— this  voluntary  curb 


1827.]  Luck  and  III- Luck.  151 

which  force  imposes  on  itself ; — in  a  word,  all  the  benefits  of  legislation 
strongly  affected  my  mind.  1  accordingly  betook  myself  to  the  study 
of  law,  and  became  an  avocat.  I  had  acquired  some  reputation  at  the 
bar,  when  I  was  called  on  to  plead  at  the  Chatelet,  in  a  cause,  of  the 
justice  of  which  I  was  perfectly  convinced.  My  antagonist,  a  man  of  the 
name  of  Bernard — as  mere  a  blunderer  as  ever  existed,  but  who  contrived 
to  conceal  his  ignorance  and  fatuity  under  a  false  air  of  modesty — pro- 
nounced, in  a  stammering  way,  a  very  bad  pleading,  which,  nevertheless, 
was  the  production  of  some  one  else.  His  voice  lowered  so  much  during 
the  course  of  reading,  that  not  a  word  was  heard  at  the  end ;  and  a  buzz  of 
private  conversation  got  up  among  the  public,  in  the  hall,  and  even  on  the 
bench.  I  spoke  in  my  turn,  and  was  heard  with  the  greatest  attention : 
but  in  the  heat  of  delivery,  a  vehement  gesture  which  I  made,  deranged 
my  wig,  arid  gave  me  so  grotesque  an  appearance,  that  an  universal  laugh 
burst  from  all  quarters,  which  was  augmented  by  the  unlucky  efforts  I 
made  to  repair  the  disorder  in  my  legal  head-dress.  I  not  only  lost  my 
cause,  but  every  time  that  I  appeared  at  the  bar,  the  same  laugh  awaited 
me  on  my  occupying  the  tribune.  I  lost  courage,  and  quitted  a  career  in 
which  an  equivocal  gesture  is  sufficient  to  compromise  the  rights  of  the 
widow  aud  the  orphan. 

"  Physical  and  moral  inquiries  into  the  nature  of  man  had  always  great 
attractions  for  me  ;  I  was  acquainted  with  some  branches  of  natural  science,, 
and  the  medical  system  then  in  fashion  seemed  to  me  susceptible  of  im- 
portant ameliorations.  I  devoted  myself  to  medicine  with  ardour :  I  com- 
pared Hippocrates,  Galen,  and  Avicenna  with  the  moderns,  and  fancied  I 
perceived  that  that  the  sublime  science  had  degenerated,  by  losing  its  sim- 
plicity in  the  hands  of  doctors  of  the  bolus,  and  elixir.  I  had  the  courage 
to  combat  inflammatory  diseases  by  water,  regimen,  and  bleeding ;  I  even 
dared  to  proscribe  Jesuits'  bark,  which  then  was  in  the  height  of  its  popu- 
larity. I  obtained  numberless  enemies  among  apothecaries,  wine  mer- 
chants, and  my  brother  physicians;  but  proud  of  the  unexpected  success, 
which  every  day  awaited  my  exertions,  I  boldy  pursued  ray  course. 
Being  called  one  day  to  consult  with  a  physician  no\vly  admitted,  1  recog- 
nized in  him  Bernard,  my  old  antagonist  at  the  bar.  He  also  had 
become  a  doctor:  and  differing  with  me  as  to  the  manner  of  treating  our 
patient,  he  declared  him  a  dead  man  if  I  managed  him  according  to  my 
system.  The  patient,  however,  confided  in  me,  in  which  he  did  right, 
for  he  was  speedily  growing  convalescent;  when,  having  taken  some 
grapes  by  my  direction,  a  cursed  grape-stone  stuck  in  his  oesophagus,  and 
occasioned  such  violent  efforts  in  his  attempts  to  get  rid  of  it,  that  it  in- 
duced apoplexy,  and  he  died  suddenly,  to  the  great  joy  of  Bernard,  who 
boasted  every  where  of  his  prediction,  and  prated  about  what  he  called 
the  fatal  effects  of  my  system.  My  reputation  suffered,  and  his  increased. 
In  the  wine-rooms  and  the  apothecaries'  shops,  the  clamours  against  me 
redoubled.  It  was  in  vain  that  I  proved  that  the  unlucky  grape-stone 
alone  had  destroyed  the  beneficent  effects  of  my  care — nobody  would 
listen  to  me.  To  add  to  my  misfortune,  Gil  Bias  appeared  about  the  same 
time,  and  it  was  thought  that  Dr.  Sangrado  was  drawn  for  me.  Every 
body  gave  me  the  nick-name,  and  ridicule  finished  what  ill-luck  had  begun. 
I  lost  all  credit — and  with  me,  I  scruple  not  to  say,  the  rising  edifice  of  the 
real  art  of  curing  disorders  fell  to  the  ground. 

"  A  nick-name  in  France  often  hurts  more  than  a  bad  action.  The 
wound  inflicted  by  the  weapon  of  ridicule  is  only  to  be  cicatrized  under 


152  Luck  and  Ill-Luck.  [FEB. 

other  skies,  and  in  different  cliraatos.  I  realised  my  little  fortune,  and 
resolving  to  speculate  upon  it,  1  became  a  voluntary  exile  from  my  jeering 
country. 

"  Commerce,  the  link  of  nations,  the  parent  of  civilization,  the  perpetual 
source  from  which  all  the  blessings  and  luxuries  of  life  are  supplied,  is,  to 
a  thinking  man,  an  object  worthy  of  the  most  profound  meditation.  In 
spite  of  the  contempt  which  little  people,  with  great  airs,  or  great  names 
affect  to  feel  for  it,  it  is,  said  I,  to  extend  or  protect  commerce  that  all 
wars  are  undertaken,  that  kings  risk  the  security  of  their  thrones,  and 
shed  the  blood  even  of  their  nobles ;  that  diplomacy  supplies  all  the  re- 
sources of  genius  and  cunning;  that  the  useful  arts  are  perfected,  and  that 
an  external  correspondence  of  emulation  and  activity  is  kept  up  in  all  the 
civilized  world.  I  became  then  a  merchant :  I  established  myself  in  the 
West-Indies,  into  which  I  imported  the  productions  of  French  manufac- 
tures, and  sent  back  to  France  in  return  trans-atlantic  commodities,  always 
excepting  Jesuit's  bark :  for,  superior  to  Coriolanus,  I  did  not  wish  to  injure 
my  ungrateful  compatriots.  My  commercial  transactions  prospered  beyond 
my  expectations ;  and  in  a  few  years,  my  funds  having  increased  tenfold, 
permitted  me  to  revisit,  with  a  large  fortune  honourably  acquired,  the  dear 
spot  where  I  was  born,  and  to  brave  the  jokes  and  nick-names  of  my  old 
rivals.  With  the  hope  of  making  a  still  more  considerable  addition  to  my 
fortune,  I  employed  the  greatest  part  of  my  capital  in  the  purchase  of  India 
stuffs,  then  very  fashionable  in  Paris,  and  embarked  immediately  for 
France,  with  my  mind  full  of  the  most  flattering  projects  of  future  happi- 
ness. The  voyage  was  prosperous :  but  on  disembarking  T  found  that 
almost  all  my  goods  had  been  pierced  and  gnawed  through  by  a  little 
worm  which  had  got  into  the  bales.  I  was  ruined.  The  next  day 
another  ship,  freighted  by  that  same  Bernard,  who  seemed  destined  to 
pursue  me  every  where,  arrived  with  a  cargo  of  the  same  stuffs — he  had 
the  market  to  himself,  and  for  the  third  time  he  profited  by  my  disaster. 

"  Despair  seized  on  me.  A  Russian  general,  with  whom  I  had  returned 
from  the  West  Indies,  advised  travelling  to  rally  my  spirits,  and  proposed 
to  me  to  accompany  him  into  his  own  country,  where,  he  said,  I  could 
not  fail  to  obtain  an  advantageous  employment  from  my  varied  knowledge, 
and  the  protection  which,  at  that  time,  the  Russian  government  held  out 
to  the  French.  I  accepted  his  proposal,  and  set  out  for  St.  Peters- 
burg, where  I  soon  became  acquainted  with  the  most  powerful  men  of 
the  court.  I  asked  for  a  professorship — a  seat  in  the  judicature— or  a  place 
in  the  administration  ;  but  a  war  with  Sweden  occupied  every  body's 
attention,  and  the  only  answer  I  received  was,  we  want  soldiers,  not  pro- 
fessors ;  we  want  soldiers,  not  judges ;  we  want  soldiers,  not  secretaries. 
J  called  on  my  friend  the  General,  and  he  made  me  his  aide-de-camp. 
The  war  broke  out.  I  distinguished  myself  in  some  smart  engagements, 
and  was  fortunate  enough  to  save  the  li'fe  of  Marshal  Lacy,  at  the  battle 
of  Willmanstrand.  From  that  time,  he  became  my  declared  patron,  and 
I  cherished  a  hope  of  acquiring  fame  in  a  military  career.  I  commanded 
the  corps  which  was  tho  first  to  penetrate  into  the  Isle  of  Aliand ; 
and  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  on  the  conclusion  of  peace,  deigned  to  write 
me  a  letter,  with  her  own  hand,  expressing  of  her  satisfaction  at  my  con- 
duct, and  appointing  me  governor  of  Astracan. 

"  Every  thing  was  going  on  in  the  most  favourable  way  possible  for  me  : 
and  I  had  no  further  ambition  but  the  honour  of  commanding  in  chief  in  an 
action  of  sufficient  importance  to  prove  my  capacity,  and  to  give  me  a 


1827.]  Luck  and  Ill-Luck.  153 

rank  among  the  illustrious  warriors  of  the  north.     An   opportunity  was 
soon  presented.      The  famous  Tliamas  Kouli  Khan,  who  had  usurped  the 
throne  of  Persia,  covered  all  of  a  sudden  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  with 
.his  warlike  hordes.     A  considerable  body  of  independent  Tartars,;  excited 
by  him,  threatened  the   banks   of  the  Volga,  and  I   marched  to  oppose 
them,  at  the  head  of  veteran  troops,  trained   in   the  Swedish  wars,  rein- 
forced by  some  brave  Circassian  Tartars,  who  had  just  implored  the  pro- 
tection of  Russia.     The  prospect  of  success  did  not  appear  to  me  even 
doubtful,     Thamas  was  still  far  distant ;  my  adversaries  were  not  soldiers, 
but  brigands,  without  discipline,  commanded  by  chiefs  without  experience. 
.Nevertheless,  not  dazzled  by  such  brilliant   appearances,  I   called  to  my 
assistance  all  the  resources,   all  the  stratagems  of  tactics  :  I  harassed  and 
disturbed  the   enemy  by   false  marches,  I  deceived  him  by  false  reports, 
and  chose  the  most  advantageous  point  of  attack,  after  having  drawn  up 
.on  his  flanks  a  strong  ambuscade,  to  divert  him  if  he  obtained  any  ad- 
vantage  at  first,   and  to  destroy  him  on  his  retreat.     Well,  Monsieur  le 
Comte !  would  you  believe  it,  I  was  beaten  after  all !     In  the  middle  of 
the  action,  when  the  battalions   of  the  enemy  were  on  the  very  point  of 
running  away,  a  north-easter  arose  all   on  a  sudden,   and  drove  at  once 
into  our  ranks  a  cloud  of  dust  so   thick,   and   burning,  that  they  were 
blinded,  and  could  not  distinguish  allies  from  adversaries.     The  Circas- 
sians and  Russians  fell  upon  one  another ;  and  the  enemy,  recalled  to  the 
battle  by  the  advantage  of  his  position,   conquered  us  without  any  diffi- 
culty, alter  having,  I  know  not  how,  destroyed  the  ambuscade  which  I 
had  prepared  with  so  much  skill.     Thus  were  the  hopes  of  a  great  name-, 
the  confidence  of  an  empress,  the  fruits  of  many  years  of  glory  and  danger, 
.blown  away  by  a  cloud  of  dust!     Dust  rendered  useless  the  superiority  of 
my  troops,  the  wisdom  of  my  measures,  and  the   efforts  of  my  provident 
tactics.     But  judge  what   was  my  astonishment  and  indignation,  when  I 
learned  that  the  miserable  vagabonds,   my  conquerors,  had  been  com- 
manded during  the  action  by  that  eternal  Bernard,  who  came  across  me 
every  where  in   my  days  of  misfortune!      I  shall  not  explain  to. you 
by  what  chance  he  was  in  Asia,  as  head  of  a  horde  of  bandits — for  I  do 
not  know  it.     I  had  little  time  to  think  of  him  at  that  moment ;  I  had 
enough  to  do  to  think  of  myself.     My  government  of  Astracan  was  taken 
away  from  me ;  and,  fearing  something  worse  than  disgrace,   I  hastened 
to  return  to  Europe,  with  a  design  of  speedily  regaining  France.     But  my 
destiny  had  decreed  otherwise.     A  new  misfortune  awaited  me  in  Ger- 
many :  I  fell  in  love. 

,  "  You  will  not  ask  how  a  young,  handsome,  rich,  and  romantic  x;o- 
quette  had  the  art  of  winning  ray  heart,  by  affecting  alternately  the 
tone  of  sentiment,  or  the  airs  of  reserve  and  coldness.  By  means  of  atten- 
tions, tendresses,  and  sacrifices  of  all  kinds,  I  thought  that  I  at  last 
had  succeeded  in  disarming  her  rigour.  One  day,  in  a  delicious  iite-a-t&te, 
she  deigned  to  shew  me  that  I  was  not  hated/  I  knew  that  the  pathetic 
alone  pleased  her  in  love.  1  was  violently  smitten,  and  became  eloquent : 
I  prayed,  conjured,  wept,  and  I  saw  her  becoming  gradually  more  and 
more  tender ;  when,  to  put  a  seal  on  this  scene  of  delirium,  I  thought  it 
necessary  to  fall  at  her  feet.  I  did  so ;  and,  as  ill-fate  would  have  it,  I 
put  my  knee  on  the  paw  of  her  pet  lap-dog,  who  barked  and  bit  me. 
There  was  an  end  of  the  pathetic  !  My  beauty  burst  out  into  an  immoderate 
fit  of  laughter,  which  was  my  formal  dismissal ;  for  she  respected  herself 
too  much  to  give  her  hand  to  a  lover  who  made  her  laugh,  and  thereby 
M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.HI.  No.14.  X 


154  Luck  and  Ill-Luck.  [FEB. 

dishonoured  her  course  of  life,  devoted  to  pensiveness  and  contemplation. 
You  have  already  guessed  that  Bernard,  the  vulture  ceaselessly  clinging  to 
his  continually  re-growing  prey,  was  riot  far  off.  Again  he  profited  by  my 
mishap;  and  I  learned  that,  in  some  time  after,  he  married  my  fair  co- 
quette. 

*'  My  love,  although  foolish,  was  sincere.  All  taste  for  retirement,  all 
desire  of  returning  to  France,  had  left  me.  I  felt  an  ardent  necessity  for 
new  emotion?,  which  would  extinguish,  or  at  least  alleviate,  the  regret  oc- 
casioned, in  spite  of  myself,  by  my  silly  passion.  I  learned  that  a  new 
colonial  company  was  organizing  to  explore  the  coasts  of  Guinea,  from  the 
Volta  to  Jacldn ;  and  I  soon  became  one  of  the  passengers  on  board  the 
first  vessel  bound  on  this  expedition.  After  having  sojourned  some  time  in 
tho  fertile  kingdom  of  Juida,  and  finding  that  my  companions,  whom  until 
then  I  considered  as  new  argonauts,  destined  to  carry  tho  blessings  of 
civilization  among  barbarous  tribes,  were  only  busy  in  carrying  on  the 
slave  trade,  I  wished  to  realize,  by  my  own  exertions,  the  honourable  in- 
tentions which  I  had  so  generously  supposed  for  them  ;  and  traversing  the 
territory  of  Ardra,  I  pushed  forward  into  the  continent.  The  first  Africans 
I  met  in  this  excursion  fled  at  my  approach,  terrified  at  such  a  sight ;  but 
they  speedily  returned  in  greater  numbers,  surrounded  me  with  piercing 
shouts,  formed  a  circle  round  me,  seized  me,  manacled  me,  and  brought 
me  before  their  chief.  I  was  in  the  kingdom  of  Dahomay,  which  had  not 
till  then  been  visited  by  any  European. 

*'  The  great  Dahomay,  king  of  the  country,  was  himself  a  little  terrified 
when  he  saw  me  :  but  he  recollected,  as  I  learnt  afterwards,  that  his  grand- 
father, Trudo  Audati,  the  hero  of  that  part  of  Africa,  had  often  related  to 
him  that,  in  his  time,  white  men  had  fallen  into  his  power  during  the 
course  of  his  conquests.  This  idea  encouraged  him,  and  it  was  so  much  the 
better  for  me ;  for  at  first  he  was  more  inclined  to  consider  me  a  devil  than 
a  man.  In  some  months-^-thanks  to  the  scanty  vocabulary  and  syntax 
which  compose  the  jargon  of  savage  tribes — I  was  able  to  converse  with 
bim.  Initiated  by  me  into  the  mysteries  of  the  civilization  of  our  wonder- 
ful Europe,  he  took  a  great  affection  towards  me.  A  terrible  distemper, 
of  which  I  cured  him  (by  means  of  water,  regimen,  and  bleeding),  ad- 
vanced me  still  further  in  his  good  graces.  I  became  his  most  intimate 
counsellor,  and  I  hoped  to  become  at  last  the  legislator  of  these  unknown 
regions.  This  idea  pleased  my  imagination  ;  and  I  exerted  all  my  ener- 
gies to  destroy  in  Dahomay  the  atrocious  and  superstitious  customs  which 
infect  that  quarter  of  the  African  continent. 

"  The  king,  who  was  a  man  of  good  sense  and  excellent  disposition, 
seemed  to  enter  sometimes  into  my  projects  ;  but  his  belief  in  his  fetiches 
—that  power  of  consecration  which  time  gives  to  the  most  absurd  things — 
opposed  continual  obstacles  to  my  philanthropic  views.  Nevertheless,  I 
triumphed  over  every  thing.  Slaves  were  no  longer  sacrificed  on  the  tomb 
of  their  masters,  with  his  favourite  wives  ;  human  victims  were  no  longer 
offered  up  to  shapeless  gods  of  wood  or  stone ;  punishments,  proportioned 
to  transgressions,  no  longer  crushed  and  confounded  together  crime  and 
error;  armies  were  recruited,  without  devouring  all  the  active  part  of  the 
population ;  and  agriculture,  hitherto  confined  to  feeble  women,  incapable 
of  sustaining  fora  long  time  such  labours,  devolved  upon  the  men  who  no 
longer  thought  that  cultivating  the  earth,  and  forming  provident  habits, 
were  unworthy  of  them,  when  they  saw  abundance  and  comfort  succeeding 
to  misery  and  ennui. 


1827.]  Luck  and  Ill-Luck.  155 

As  these  good  effects  speedily  followed  my  advice,  the  king  transferred 
to  me  the  marks  of  gratitude  which  he  received  from  his  people  for  these 
unexpected  changes,  lie  wished  to  associate  me  in  his  power;  and  tlie 
proposal,  when  he  made  it  to  the  elders  of  the  nation,  was  received  with 
unanimous  acclamations.  Nothing  remained  but  to  proceed  to  my  installa- 
tion. From  time  immemorial,  the  consecration  of  the  kings  of  Dahomay 
consists  in  marching  them  before  the  people  and  the  army,  mounted  upon 
a  superb  white  elephant,  one  of  the  fetiches  of  the  country,  according  to 
the  movements  of  which  the  priests  prognosticate  the  brilliancy  and  dura- 
tion of  the  commencing  reign.  I  give  this  warning  to  legislators.  I  thought 
I  should  respect  some  ancient  prejudices  of  the  country :  I  raised  my  new 
laws  on  the  foundation  of  the  old,  and  when  I  was  on  the  point  of  obtain- 
ing the  object  of  all  my  cares  and  all  my  toils,  the  old  bases  shook 
under  me,  and  afterwards  the  new  edifice. 

'*  An  insondo,  a  miserable  insect  about  the  size  of  one  of  our  ants,  but 
the  most  formidable  enemy  of  the  elephant,  had  insinuated  itself  into  the 
proboscis  of  the  animal  on  which  I  was  mounted  in  triumph.  Irritated  by 
the  stinging  of  the  insect,  my  elephant  at  first  shewed  great  impatience, 
to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  populace  :  but  the  pain  he  suffered  soon 
raised  his  fury  to  the  highest  pitch.  Uttering  the  most  dreadful  cries,  and 
rushing  forward  in  rage,  he  dashed  to  pieces  his  huge  forehead  on  a  neigh- 
bouring rock.  I  was  saved;  but  another  danger,  of  no  less  magnitude, 
awaited  me.  The  priests  declared  me  unworthy,  not  only  of  the  throne, 
but  of  life :  the  prosperity  of  the  state  had  been  compromised ;  my 
innovations  had  raised  against  me  the  shade  of  Trudo  Audati,  and  tho 
mortal  gods  of  Dahomay.  The  king  was  attached  to  me — he  owed  mo 
his  life ;  but  the  death  of  his  fetiche  had  alarmed  his  superstition.  Ho 
balanced  for  a  while,  but  gratitude  finally  prevailed  ;  and  he  commuted  my 
punishment  to  exile,  after  ordering  me  a  very  tolerable  bastinadoing,  to 
quiet  his  conscience. 

"  An  insect  which  bred  on  the  shoals  in  the  midst  of  the  Adriatic  exposed 
Venice,  in  the  height  of  her  power,  to  more  danger  than  all  the  kings  of 
Europe  leagued  against  her  ;  an  insect  flung  me  from  a  throne,  and  changed 
perhaps  the  destinies  of  an  entire  continent ! 

"  I  afterwards  learnt  that  the  people  of  Dahomay  regretted  me:  they 
sent  after  me  into  the  kingdom  of  Juida — but  I  had  already  left  the  coasts 
of  Guinea.  Their  emissaries  thought  they  could  fill  my  place  by  any 
man  of  the  same  colour,  and  proposed  to  one  of  the  Europeans,  whom  they 
met,  to  accompany  them.  He  accepted  it ;  my  services  to  Dahomay  were 
turned  over  to  him  ;  he  was  loaded  with  riches  and  honours.  That  man 
was. . .  Bernard  !  tf  1  was  fond  of  revenge,  I  should  have  rejoiced  at  the 
accident  which  placed  my  ungrateful  subjects  under  the  power  of  a  mere 
intriguer,  without  any  capacity. 

"  I  have  not  much  more  to  say.  I  returned  to  France,  and  turned  au- 
thor, in  the  hope  of  finding  in  literary  labours  that  repose  and  happiness 
after  which  I  had  so  long  sighed.  I  thought  I  had  only  to  write  for  poste- 
rity— but  was  soon  disabused  by  my  contemporaries.  An  interesting 
work  which  I  composed,  on  the  manners,  customs,  and  politics  of  the  bar- 
barous kings  of  Africa,  was  regarded  by  the  censors  as  a  satire  against  the 
sovereigns  of  Europe.  The  work  was  forbidden,  and  the  author  was  in 
no  small  danger  of  being  sent  to  the  Bicetre  or  the  Bastille.  I  still,  how- 
ever, panted  after  glory ;  and  not  being  able  to  be  a  great  physician  or  a 
great  general,  I  wished,  at  all  events,  to  have  my  name  inscribed  on  the 

X  2  " 


156  Luck  and  III- Luck.  [FEB. 

list  of  the  forty  immortals — and  I  wrote  a  tragedy  By  means  of  ranch 
care  and  trouble,  I  had  it  performed  ;  but  a  wit  of  the  parterre  damned 
it  in  the  third  scene  by  a  joke ;  a  very  good  joke,  I  confess,  but  not  at  all 
conclusive  as  to  the  merits  of  the  piece,  In  the  mean  time,  Bernard,  having 
returned  to  Paris,  modestly  enjoyed  there  the  high  reputation  of  a  war- 
rior, a  lawgiver,  and  a  philosophical  traveller.  Thinking  to  repair,  as 
muoli  as  possible,  ray  theatrical  failure,  I  endeavoured  to  bring  together 
some  people  of  fashion,  and  many  of  the  literati,  to  hear  my  play  read. 
An  optra  dancer,  who  was  protected  by  Bernard,  gave,  on  the  same  day,  a 
grand  souper ;  all  the  literati  were  engaged  to  it;  and  T  had  no  other 
auditors  but  some  young  dandies,  and  some  old  rakes  of  the  Regency,  who 
listened  to  me  with  affected  grimaces,  yawning,  or  dosing,  and  ratified  the 
decree  of  the  public  by  pronouncing  unanimously  my  play  detestable.  I 
was  not  discouraged  :  arid  an  epic  poem  was  the  fruit  of  this  poetical  resig- 
nation. No  bookseller  would  print  it :  my  reputation  had  preceded  me; 
and,  on  going  out  of  one  of  their  shops,  I  learned  that  Bernard  had  been 
just  named  a  member  of  the  Academy — for  admission  into  which  illus- 
trious body  he  offered  no  other  title  than  that  of  having  composed  a 
quatrain  in  honour  of  that  high  and  handsome  lady,  whom  Maria-Theresa 
had  called  her  friend  and  good  cousin  (Madame de  Pompadour). 

•'After  having  exercised  all  employments,  with  some  talent,  and  much 
honesty,  I  began  to  think  that  intriguing  mediocrity  has  the  best  chance 
of  success.  A  man  of  this  class  has  gathered  the  fruit  of  all  my  talents — 
all  my  toils  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.  I  was  growing  old,  and  felt 
the  necessity  of  securing  my  future  prospects.  It  was,  however,  with 
some  pain  that  I  decided  on  falling  into  the  common  track.  Soliciting  for 
place,  I  frequented  the  anti-chambers  of  the  great ;  I  wrote  petitions  to 
them,  and  bouquets-d-Chloris  for  their  mistresses.  I  made  friends  in  the 
newspapers,  in  the  public  offices — even  in  the  king's  garde-robe.  Finally, 
I  obtained  zealous  patrons,  and  all  the  necessary  steps  to  obtain  the  em- 
ployment which  I  solicited  were  made.  The  road  to  the  court  was  opened, 
and  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  present  my  petition  to  the  king :  it  is  only 
natural  that  the  hand  which  was  to  have  presented  it  should  be  struck 
powerless  all  at  once.  I  foresaw  my  fate,  and  do  not  complain.  The 
clashing  of  our  vehicles  has  overturned  with  me,  in  the  middle  of  the  way, 
the  result  of  all  my  assiduity  with  the  great,  and  my  verses  to  Chloris  ; 
but  for  once,  my  ill-luck  be  praised  !  ]  t  would  have  been  too  painful  a 
reflection,  that  the  only  blameable  action  of  my -life  should  be  the  only 
one  attended  with  success.  From  every  little  check  a  great  good  results, 
when  considered  from  a  proper  point  of  view.  If  my  different  catastrophes 
have  hurt  my  fortune  and  my  reputation — things  in  themselves  frail  and 
perishable — they  have  also  developed  my  mind,  and  enlarged  the  sphere  of 
my  understanding.,  by  compelling  me  to  exercise  my  moral  powers  in  dif- 
ferent ways  among  different  nations  :  they  have  taught  me,  not  to  squander 
either  esteem  or  disdain,  without  a  profound  knowledge  of  men  and  things, 
according  to  vain  appearances ;  for  many  men  of  talent  and  merit 
must  exist  in  the  world  whom  unfavourable  circumstances  and  unlucky 
chances  have  cast,  like  myself,  into  the  obscure  ranks  of  the  poor  and 
unknown.  The  eclat  of  grand  titles  and  great  reputations  do  not  now  im- 
pose upon  me.  A  trifle  is  sufficient  to  raise  or  destroy  all  human  glories, 
as  I  have  often  experienced.  The  shape  of  Cleopatra's  nose  (as  Pascal 
has  observed  with  so  much  sagacity)  caused  the  fortune  of  Augustus  and 
the  ruin  of  Antony,  and  deranged  the  face  of  the  world.  According  to  the 


1827.J  Luck  and  Ill-Luck.  ,       157 

academician,  Duclos,  the  vermin  which  torment  the  Roman  conclaves 
have  frequently  triumphed  over  intrigues  and  seductions,  and  made  popes  of 
people,  who  bat  for  them  never  would  have  attained  the  dignity.  A  child 
playing  in  the  shop  of  a  spectacle-maker,  is  the  cause  of  discovering  my- 
riads of  suns  and  new  worlds,  and  prepares,  without  thinking  of  it,  the  way 
for  the  reputation  of  Simon  Marius,  of  Galileo,  of  twenty  other  great  astro- 
nomers. A  falling  apple  demonstrated  to  Newton  the  laws  of  the  universe, 
and  perhaps  revealed  to  him  the  extent  of  his  own  genius.  As  for  me, 
who  seem  to  have  been  cast  into  the  world  to  prove  the  influence  which 
can  be  exercised  over  the  destinies  of  man,  the  master  of  the  earth,  by  the 
most  subaltern  and  contemptible  causes ;  such  as  an  aukvvard  gesture,  a 
nick-name,  a  grape-stone,  a  worm,  a  blast  of  dust,  a  puppy-dog,  an  in- 
sect, or  a  censor :  I  say,  as  for  me,  have  not  these  trifles  closed  before 
my  footsteps  twenty  paths  to  glory  or  honour  ?  1  might  have  become  a 
fatalist;  but  I  will  not.  Mad,  a  thousand-fold  mad,  are  they  who  refuse 
to  believe  that  an  infinite  mind  presided  over  the  creation  of  these  beings, 
so  low  in  the  scale  of  creation  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible,  yet  alMmpor- 
tant  in  the  great  proceedings  of  the  universe.  The  harmony  of  the  world 
is  kept  up  only  by  apparent  irregularities.  I  shall  not  cry  out:  All  is  right; 
but  1  will  say,  nothing  is  useless  or  contemptible.  An  atom  acquires  im- 
portance by  its  position,  like  a  cypher  [0]  in  arithmetical  calculation. 
Every  thing  has  its  power  of  action ;  every  thing  may  become  a  lever  in 
its  turn ;  every  thing  has  been  produced  to  keep  up  that  eternal  re-action 
of  good  and  evil  which  alone  gives  motion  and  life  to  the  creation." 

M.  Pigafet  concluded  ;  and  Comte  de  M ,  after  having  heard  in  si- 
lence his  long  philosophical  tirade,  replied,  "  Your  history  has  surprised 
and  interested  me  more  than  you  can  imagine.  Your  profound  understand- 
ing, however,  M.  Pigafet,  does  not  appear  to  have  yet  made  you  comprehend 
that,  if  unmerited  misfortunes  may  continually  cling  to  a  man  without 
tarnishing  him,  fortune  often  smiles  also  on  men,  perhaps  unworthy  of  her 
favours,  from  the  weakness  of  their  capacity,  but  who  yet  would  not  con- 
descend to  look  for  them  by  intrigue  or  baseness. 1  am  Bernard  I—- 
that Bernard  who  profited  by  your  disasters  without  having  caused  them — 
who  was  sometimes  your  rival,  never  your  enemy — who  has  obtained  a 
great  reputation  without  having  looked  for  it,  and  arrived  at  honours  with- 
out caring  about  them — and  who  has  no  more  reason  to  blush  for  his  pros- 
perity than  you  for  your  misfortunes !"  Here  M.  Pigafet  attempted  to  in- 
terrupt the  Comte,  or  Bernard,  if  you  so  please  to  call  him  ;  but  the  latter, 
having  implored  his  silence  by  a  gesture,  went  on  thus- — "  It  is  my  turn 
to  tell  you  the  principal  events  of  my  life  :  1  shall  be  brief — for  my  history 
is  but  the  supplement  of  your's. 

"  It  may  be  a  good  thing  to  follow  one's  vocation  in  the  choice  of  a  pro- 
fession ;  but,  as  I  had  no  particular  vocation  for  one  thing  more  than 
another,  I  only  consulted  the  taste  of  my  father,  and  became  a  lawyer  to 
oblige  him.  If,  however,  I  wanted  eloquence,  I  did  not  want  common- 
sense  ;  and  I  soon  felt  that  nature  had  denied  me  the  gifts  of  oratory. 
Hence  arose  that  timidity — that  confusion — that  feebleness  of  voice,  which 
struck  you  so  forcibly  in  my  first  pleading.  The  accident  of  your  periwig 
made  me  share  in  the  general  laugh,  in  which  I  own  I  was  wrong  ;  but 
people  cannot  always  contain  themselves,  and  your  appearance  was  really 
most  comical.  My  unexpected  success  did  not  blind  me  as  to  my  want 
of  capacity  for  the  bar;  for.  a  few  days  afterwards,  one  of  ray  uncles,  a 
rich  and  fashionable  physician,  having  proposed  to  make  me  his  heir  at  law, 


158  LncA  and  Ill-LucL  [FEB. 

provided  that  I  was  in  a  condition  to  inherit,  at  the  same  time,  his  fortune 
and  his  practice,  1  became  a  physician  to  oblige  my  uncle,  as  I  had  be- 
come a  lawyer  to  oblige  my  father.  In  my  new  profession,  I  just  knew 
as  much  as  entitled  me  to  put  on  the  medical  robe ;  I  knew  what  I  had 
learned — nothing  more  :  and  every  innovation  appeared  to  me  a  sacrilege. 
You  should  not  wonder,  then,  that  I  was  indignant  on  seeing  you  touch  the 
very  ark  of  our  profession,  and  I  darted  my  prediction  of  death  against 
your  patient  as  an  anathema.  The  grape-stone  gave  me  a  triumph,  but 
did  not  dazzle  me  nevertheless ;  for  my  uncle  having  died  about  this  time, 
I  inherited  his  fortune,  gave  up  his  practice,  and  resolved  to  pass  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life  in  that  dolce  far  niente,  which  was  the  only  object  of 
my  indolent  ambition. 

"  My  agent — a  man  honest  enough,  considering  his  situation — placed 
my  capital  in  commerce,  and  made  a  very  fair  profit  upon  it  for  us  both ; 
I  got  my  share,  and  did  not  complain  of  his.  Your  unlucky  worm  might 
certainly  have  assisted  me  in  getting  off  my  commodities;  but,  as  I  cannot 
plead  guilty  to  conspiring  with  it,  I  am  not  called  on  for  my  defence  on 
this  point.  Years  rolled  on,  and  idleness  was  becoming  burthensome,  and 
I  accordingly  determined  to  travel.  Veracious  travellers  and  most  pecu- 
liarly inspired  poets  had  informed  me,  that  the  East  was  the  empire  of 
roses  and  beauty  ;  and  as  1  happened  to  like  very  much  both  pretty  flowers 
and  pretty  women,  I  set  out  for  Persia,  after  having  read  over  again  my 
travellers,  my  poets,  and  the  Arabian  Nights,  that  I  might  be  quite  informed 
on  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  countries  which  I  was  to  traverse.  On 
getting  there,  however,  I  found  few  roses,  and  no  women — but,  in  their 
stead,  general  misery,  terror  in  every  face,  and  continual  massacres  be- 
tween the  Usbecks  and  the  Persians.  Kouli  Khan,  otherwise  called  Nadir 
Shah,  was  then  in  the  height  of  his  renown  ;  and  I  fled  before  his  arms, 
which  were  ravaging  every  thing  as  they  went  along.  I  arrived  among  the 

^dependent  Tartars,  who  at  first  determined  on  cutting  off  my  nose  and 
ears — but  having  perceived  on  my  left  cheek  a  wart,  which  they  consider 
as  a  certain  presage  of  good  fortune,  they  changed  their  views,  and  ap- 
pointed me  commarider-in-chief  of  the  troops  which  they  were  assembling 
to  second  the  efforts  of  Nadir  against  Russia. 

-  "  My  dear  Monsieur  Pigafet,  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  the  event  of  that 
campaign  ;  but  you  do  not  know  that  I,  who  am  not  gifted  with  a  very 
warlike  disposition,  thought  of  nothing  from  the  beginning  of  the  action  but 
to  save  myself  from  all  risk,  and  turned  my  bridle  to  run  away.  A  part 
of  my  troops,  filled  with  confidence  in  my  wart,  followed  all  my  motions, 
and  galloped  after  me  into  a  little  grove  of  palm-trees;  where,  by  the  great- 
est chance  in  the  world,  we  surprised  your  fine  ambuscade,  who  did  not 
expect  us.  They  had  surrendered  at  the  moment  when  that  terrible  cloud 
of  dust  drove  us  back  again  to  the  field  of  battle,  where  we  found  you  in 
the  greatest  disorder,  one  part  of  your  troops  fighting  against  the  other.  We 
let  you  amuse  yourselves  in  this  way  for  some  time,  and  then  easily 
despatched  you.  I  was  brought  back  in  triumph  by  ray  Tartars,  loud  in 
the  praises  of  my  valour  and  my  wart. 

"  I  got  my  share  of  the  plunder;  but  tired  with  glory,  as  I  had  been 
with  idleness,  I  left  my  Tartars,  and  visited  the  north  of  Europe.  1  mar- 
ried, as  you  know,  a  charming  woman  in  Germany,  who  fell  in  love  with 
me  for  no  other  reason  but  because  I  was  a  Frenchman.  Your  hasty  quar- 
rel with  her  had  made  a  noise  ;  slander  was  beginning  to  be  busy  with  the 
affair,  and  she  was  getting  frightened  :  but  you  had  been  only  a  short  time 


1827.]  Luck  and  III- Luck.  159 

in  that  part  of  the  country.  She  lived  solitary  and  retired  ;  few  people  had 
been  witnesses  of  your  flirtation  ;  and  she  thought  that,  in  giving  her  hand 
to  a  countryman  of  your's,  the  adventure  would  blow  over.  All  your 
cares  and  attentions  reverted,  therefore,  to  me.  I  was  thus  exempted 
from  all  the  long  trials  to  which  she  put  you ;  and,  having  speedily  replaced 
you  in  her  affections,  our  marriage  had  all  the  air  of  a  reconciliation.  She 
is  dead  :  I  was  sorry  for  her  loss — for,  in  spite  of  her  whims,  she  had  an 
excellent  heart. 

"  In  the  course  of  some  years  afterwards,  I  furnished  a  great  part  of  tho 
capital  for  that  colonial  company,  the  projects  of  which  so  splendidly  de- 
ceived you.  I  felt  a  new  desire  for  an  active  life  ;  but  this  time  I  did  not 
go  in  quest  of  the  land  of  roses  and  beauty :  I  went  to  Africa,  at  the  head 
of  a  large  expedition,  into  Guinea*  Our  affairs  prospered,  and  might  have 
become  still  more  successful ;  for  we  had  certain  intelligence  that  immense 
gold  mines  existed  in  the  interior  of  the  country.  But  how  could  we  pene- 
trate among  barbarous  negroes,  the  most  of  whom  were  cannibals  ?  I  was 
thinking  on  the  subject,  when  I  was  all  at  once  met  by  the  deputies  of  the 
great  Dahomay,  who,  on  examining  my  countenance,  proposed  to  me  to 
accompany  them.  Of  course,  I  did  not  let  so  fair  an  opportunity  slip ; 
and  the  descendant  of  Trudo  Audati  received  me  with  the  most  lively  de- 
monstrations of  joy  and  friendship.  He  offered  to  sacrifice  a  thousand 
slaves  to  do  me  honour,  and  to  present  me  with  six  hundred  negresses  for 
my  seraglio.  I  thanked  him  for  his  kind  offers,  but  told  him  1  did  not 
think  bloodshed  any  honour;  and,  as  for  the  ladies,  I  assured  him  that 
six  hundred  mistresses  were  by  no  means  necessary  for  me.  He  replied, 
that  my  humanity  and  modesty  pleased  him,  but  that  he  himself  had  two 
thousand  ladies,  and  contrived  to  manage  them  without  much  trouble. 
He  then  asked  me  my  name,  and  when  he  heard  it,  he  was  going  to  pros- 
trate himself  before  me;  for  it  seems  that  Berr-Nahr,  in  the  language  oi 
the  Algemis,  which  is  commonly  spoken  in  Dahomay,  signifies  the  most 
divine.  We  became  the  best  friends  in  the  world:  I  found  that  he  had 
the  greatest  affection  for  you,  and  he  employed  me  to  revise  your  laws,  a 
little  discredited  by  the  accident  of  the  insondo.  I  made  scarcely  any 
change ;  but  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  shew  some  proofs  of  capacity. 
Accordingly,  I  gathered  your  laws,  and  gave  them  the  name  of  the  Code 
Bernard,  or  rather  Berr-Nahr— and  this  inspired  the  people  with  the  high- 
est opinion  of  my  talents.  Finally,  having  made  use  of  my  power  to  work 
the  gold  mines  of  Dahomay,  I  left  Africa  loaded  with  wealth,  and  accom- 
panied by  the  blessings  of  all  the  population,  to  return  to  France. 

"  On  my  arrival  at  Paris,  I  became  the  object  of  general  curiosity.  I 
was  the  modern  Cicero,  or  Hippocrates — the  hero  of  the  Volga — the  Lycur- 
gus  of  Africa.  The  truth  was,  1  was  immensely  rich.  Of  course,  I  had 
a  great  number  of  friends,  who  spoke  of  nothing  but  my  wit  and  talent,  and 
I  swallowed  the  flattery  without  opposition.  Patrons  presented  themselves 
in  all  directions,  who  told  me  that  an  ex-king  of  Dahomay  ought  at  least 
to  be  a  count  in  France,  and  I  purchased  the  title  which  I  bear.  My  friends 
assured  me  that  fashion  required  that  I  should  keep  an  opera-girl :  fashion 
also  required  that  the  lady  should  receive  the  literati  at  her  suppers ;  and 
these  gentlemen  persuaded  me  that  fashion  required  that  a  great  nobleman 
like  me,  should  be  a  member  of  the  Academy.  I  had  written — God  knows 
why — a  quatrain  on  the  Marquise  de  P ,  and  I  was  made  an  acade- 
mician. 

"  Thus,  my  dear  Monsieur  Pigafet,  without  intrigue  or  cabal — led  by 


160  Luck •  and  Ill-Luck.  [FEB. 

fortune  or  chance — guided  by  the  subaltern  causes  which  occasioned  your 
misfortunes — seconded  by  my  wart,  my  name,  my  country,  the  colour  of 
inyskinj  the  suppers  of  my  dancing-girl — I  have  honestly  arrived  at  this 
pitch  of  prosperity.  I  was  always  at  your  heels,  to  gather  the  fragments 
of  your  shipwrecks — and  always  disposed  to  aid  and  succour  you,  if  I  had 
known  of  your  existence  and  misfortunes.  You  ran  after  glory  and  for- 
tune— they  ran  after  me.  Henceforth  let  us  hope  that  their  favours  will 
be  more  impartially  distributed,  and  that,  so  far  from  being  an  injury  to 
you,  I  shall  be  at  the  post,  to  keep  you  out  of  the  ditch — and  near  the 
harbour,  to  warn  you  of  the  rock  a-head." 

On  this  they  embraced,  as  if  to  reconcile  their  contrary  destinies.  M. 
Pigafet  was  ashamed  of  the  unjust  opinion  which  he  had  hitherto  enter- 
tained of  a  man  so  honourable  and  compassionate.  '*  What  was  it  brought 
you  to  Versailles  ?"  asked  the  Comte. — "The  Minister  had  promised 
me,"  said  Pigafet,  «'  the  place  of  Counsellor  of  State,  just  vacant." 

The  Comte  looked  astonished.  "  The  place  of  Counsellor  of  State!11 
cried  he ;  "  alas  !  the  .Minister  himself  gave  it  to  me  this  very  morning." 
And  Monsieur  Pigafet  replied  quite  tranquilly,  "  I  only  expected  as  much 
— every  thing  is  as  it  should  be." 


THE    LEGEND    OF    ST.    VALENTINE. 

FROM  Britain's  realm,  in  olden  time, 
By  the  strong  power  of  truths  sublime, 

The  pagan  rites  were  banish'd  ; 
And,  spite  of  Greek  and  Roman  lore, 
Each  god  and  goddess,  famed  of  yore, 

From  grove  and  altar  vanish'd. 

And  they  "(as  sure  became  them  best) 
To  Austin  and  Paulinius'  hest 

Obediently  submitted, 
And  left  the  land  without  delay — 
Save  Cupid,  who  still  held  a  sway 
Too  strong  to  passively  obey, 

Or  be  by  saints  outwitted. 

For  well  the  boy-god  knew  that  he 
Was  far  too  potent,  e'er  to  be 
Depos'd  and  exil'd  quietly 

From  his  belov'd  dominion  ; 
And  sturdily  the  urchin  swore 
He  ne'er,  to  leave  the  British  shore, 

Would  move  a  single  pinion. 


1 827.]  The  Legend  of  St.  Valentine.  1 6 1 

The  saints  at  this  were  sadly  vex'd* 
And  much  their  holy  brains  perplex'd, 

To  bring  the  boy  to  reason  ; 
And,  when  they  found  him  bent  to  stay, 
They  built  up  convent  walls  straightway, 

And  put  poor  Love  in  prison. 

But  Cupid,  though  a  captive  made, 
Soon  met,  within  a  convent  shade, 

New  subjects  in  profusion  : 
Albeit  he  found  his  pagan  name 
Was  heard  by  pious  maid  and  dame 

With  horror  and  confusion. 

For  all  were  there  demure  and  coy, 
And  deem'd  a  rebel  heathen  boy 

A  most  unsairatly  creature  j 
But  Cupid  found  a  way  with  ease 
His  slyest  vot'ries  tastes  to  please, 

And  yet  not  change  a  feature. 

For,  by  his  brightest  dart,  the  elf 
Affirm'd  he'd  turn  a  saint  himself, 

To  make  their  scruples  lighter ; 
So  gravely  hid  his  dimpled  smiles, 
His  wreathed  locks,  and  playful  wiles 

Beneath  a  bishop's  mitre. 

Then  Christians  rear'd  the  boy  a  shrine, 
And  youths  invok'd  Saint  Valentine 

To  bless  their  annual  passion  j 
And  maidens  still  his  name  revere, 
And,  smiling,  hail  his  day  each  year — 
A  day  to  village  lovers  dear, 

Though  saints  are  out  of  fashion. 

A.S. 


M.  M.  Netv  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  14. 


[     162     ]  [FBB. 

THE   RE- ASSEMBLING  OF   PARLIAMENT. 

As  this  number  of  our  journal  will  be  but  one  week  in  the  hands,  even 
of  those  readers  to  whom  it  arrives  the  earliest,  before  the  senators  of  our 
country  re-assemble,  we  know  not  that  we  can  discharge  a  more  useful  or 
a  more  appropriate  duty,  than  by  throwing  out  a  few  hints  in  anticipation 
of  what  should,  and,  as  we  hope,  will  be  its  decisions,  upon  some  of 
the  most  important  questions  that  ever  were  entertained  by  the  parliament 
of  the  united  kingdom. 

To  this  we  are  the  more  induced,  from  the  very  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances under  which  that  parliament  will  meet:  circumstances  which 
have  placed  this  country  in  an  attitude  which  is  new,  and  which  is  as 
proud  and  delightful  as  it  is  new.  Every  assembling  of  parliament 
is  an  event  to  which  the  people,  who  are,  or  at  least  should  be, 
represented  by  that  parliament,  look  forward  with  greater  interest 
than  they  do  toward  any  other  common  and  periodical  occurrence. 
Sometimes  they  have  looked  forward  with  hope,  sometimes  with  fear. 
Their  hopes  have  frequently  been  blasted ;  their  fears  have  as  often 
been  realized ;  and  sometimes  the  conduct  of  the  houses  has  been  of  so 
unexpected  and  contradictory  a  nature,  that  no  man  could  tell  the  end  of 
it  from  the  beginning.  For  very  many  year?,  the  feeling  has  partaken 
more  of  suspicion  than  of  safety ;  and  even  in  those  times,  when  there 
was  no  dread  that  an  additional  burden  should  be  laid  upon  the  industry 
of  the  country,  or  an  additional  fetter  imposed  upon  its  liberty,  liberal 
men  were  not  in  the  habit  of  expecting  that  the  ministerial  part  of 
parliament  would  devise,  or  the  majority  of  it  perform,  liberal  things. 
Even  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  there  was  a  lingering 
dread,  too,  of  some  sort  of  leaning  toward  the  principles  of  arbitrary  power. 
It  was  feared  that  while  our  armies  had  been  fighting  the  battles  of  despotism 
on  the  continent,  our  administration  at  home  had  been  smitten  a  little 
with  the  love  of  it ;  and  that  thus  their  object,  whenever  they  could  carry 
it,  would  be  to  sacrifice  privilege  to  power,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  people 
to  their  own  individual  aggrandizement.  These  apprehensions  are  now  at 
an  end  ;  the  minister  of  England  is  one  of  freedom's  foremost  champions  ; 
and  even  in  very  despotic  kingdoms,  the  echo  of  his  eloquence  has  done  more 
for  her  than  the  most  powerful  army  could  have  achieved  by  the  sword. 
Nor  has  he  contented  himself  with  mere  eloquence,  mighty  though  its 
effect  has  been  ;  for  the  fire  and  the  winds  have  conspired  to  waft  the 
strength  of  England  to  the  continental  shores,  in  a  manner  more  prompt, 
and  for  a  cause  more  praiseworthy  than  any  for  which  they  aforetime, 
on  those  shores,  either  fired  a  shot  or  pointed  a  bayonet. 

The  effect  of  this  sound,  this  truly  magnanimous,  truly  English  pro- 
cedure, has  been  to  touch,  as  with  the  spirit  of  life,  all  the  springs  and 
energies  of  British  activity.  The  figure  is  no  forced  one,  when  we  say, 
that  as  the  thunders  of  Mr.  Canning,  in  the  cause  of  freedom,  reverbe- 
rated over  these  islands,  the  shuttle  sped  at  a  swifter  pace,  the  clangor  of 
the  anvil  was  more  loud  and  moro  musical,  the  wheels  of  every  machine 
were  accelerated,  eloquence  came  upon  the  pens  of  those  who  ere  while 
had  been  dull,  the  wavering  became  established,  the  weak  became  strong, 
and,  for  the  best  of  purposes,  the  whole  inhabitants  of  the  united  king- 
dom were  awakened,  inspirited,  and  united.  Nor  did,  nor  can  ihe 
advantage  stop  here.  The  spirit  of  genuine  liberty  is  like  the  sun  in 
the  firmament,  "  it  shines  upon  the  evil  and  the  good :"  like  the  fer- 


1827.]  The  Rc-assemlling  of  Parliament.  163 

tilizing  dew  of  heaven,  it  falls  "upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.11  Every 
nation  which  it  has  reached,  (and  where  is  the  nation  which  it  has  not,  orsball 
not,  to  some  extent  reach?)  it  must  have  been  like  that  breathing  from  the 
Almighty, which  passed  over  the  dry  bones  in  the  valley  of  desolation,  clothed 
them  with  the  lineaments,  and  ombued  them  with  the  power  of  life.  And, 
at  every  spot  on  the  earth's  surface,  where  there  is  a  man  that  can  read 
that  which  was  then  spoken,  or  where  what  has  arisen  out  of  it  can  reach 
him,  there  will  be  another  added  to  those  who  desire  the  spread  of 
intellectual  knowledge,  and  the  establishment  of  rational  liberty.  Hence 
there  has  been  laid  a  foundation,  which,  while  it  gives  us  hope  that  ero 
many  years  have  passed  away,  there  will  be  a  reciprocity  of  kind  feelings 
and  peaceful  intercourse  throughout  the  civilized  world,  is  precisely  that 
upon  which,  with  the  utmost  facility  and  safety,  there  may  he  built,  during 
the  approaching  session,  such  reforms  as  may  make  this  country  feel 
light  and  happy  under  all  its  burdens. 

A  season  when  the  liberal  part  of  the  cabinet  stands  so  transcendently 
high,  when  the  country,  as  one  man,  will  support  them,  when  faction  of 
every  kind  has  so  got  its  quietus,  and  when  the  most  foolish,  and  the  most 
bigotted,  dare  hardly  moot  an  opposition — may  not  soon — may  never 
again  return  ;  and,  therefore,  the  advantage  should  not  be  lost  to  the 
country,  the  good  day  should  not  be  allowed  to  pass  away,  lest  when  time 
and  death  have  spoiled  us  of  them  in  whom  we  now  glory,  the  night 
should  come  in  which,  to  good  purposes,  no  man  can  work.  It  is  to 
contribute  what  in  us  lies  to  the  furtherance  of  this  noble  purpose,  that 
we  shall  proceed  to  enumerate  a  few  of  the  important  questions  which 
stand  on  the  parliamentary  record  for  discussion,  a  few  which  will  be 
brought,  and  a  few  more  which  should  be  brought  there. 

In  the  first  place,  and  cotemporaneous  almost  with  the  meeting  of 
parliament,  arises  the  question  of  the  com  laws ;  a  question  in  which  tho 
interests  of  every  man  who  eats  bread,  are  most  deeply  concerned, — a  ques- 
tion, too,  upon  which  much  practical  light  has  recently  been  thrown.  In 
theory,  there  never  was  a  time  when  a  man  who  had  any  sense  or 
reflection  at  all  in  him,  could  look  upon  the  exclusion  of  grain  from  the 
ports  of  these  kingdoms,  as  any  thing  else  than  a  gross  and  palpable  ab- 
surdity. Even  in  the  remotest  and  darkest  ages  of  political  science,  when 
restriction  and  restraint  wore  the  fashion  of  the  time,  and  when  men  be- 
lieved that  making  other  men  little,  was  precisely  the  way  to  make  them- 
selves great,  a  restriction  on  the  corn  trade  was  never  resorted  to.  They 
prohibited  the  free  circulation  of  many  things,  but  they  never  had  the 
barbarity  to  prohibit  the  free  circulation  of  bread.  That  was  a  refinement 
in  folly  left  for  the  wise  legislators  of  the  age  in  which  we  live.  And  what 
have  been  the  effects  of  it?  Has  it  brought  the  proprietor  of  the  soil  out  of 
tho  difficulties  into  which  his  extravagance  had  plunged  him  ?  Has  it 
enabled  the  man  whose  labours  tend  to  nothing  more  valuable  than  the  shoot- 
ing of  a  pheasant,  the  worrying  of  a  fox,  or  the  gallopping  of  a  horse  to  death, 
to  procure  wealth,  and  all  the  enjoyments  which  wealth  brings,  with  the 
same  facility,  and  the  same  certainty,  as  the  man  who  establishes  a 
manufacture,  gives  bread  to  thousands,  enriches  and  adorns  his  country, 
and  does  the  highest  honour  to  his  kind  ?  No — the  very  men  who  procured 
this  nonsensical  law  to  be  enacted,  have  been,  since  its  enactment,  in  a 
worse  condition  than  they  were  before,  it  is  a  law,  and  an  unalterable 
law  of  human  nature,  that  the  honour  shall  be  to  the  intelligent,  and  the 
wealth  to  the  industrious ;  and  though  as  many  statutes  were  enacted  a* 

Y  2 


164  The  Re-assembling  of  Parliament.  [FEB. 

would  build  the  chapel  of  St.  Stephen's,  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling, 
they  would  never  enable  an  ignorant  and  idle  squire,  to  fare  better  than 
an  intelligent  and  industrious  merchant  or  manufacturer.  Adam  Smith's 
definition  of  the  sources  of  national  wealth  will  ever  remain  the  true  one, 
they  are  "  the  land  and  the  labour"  of  the  country  and  nation.  These 
two  are  in  no  certain  ratio  to  one  another.  When  the  people  are  few, 
and  their  manners  rude,  the  spontaneous  productions  of  the  soil  supply 
all  the  cravings  of  their  savage  appetites ;  and  then  the  land  is  the  chief 
source  of  wealth.  But  as  civilization  proceeds,  and  as  the  desires  and 
devices  of  men  multiply,  the  value  of  the  land  always  sinks  in  proportion 
to  the  value  of  the  labour ;  and  in  a  country,  circumstanced  as  England 
is  now,  the  land  really  forms  a  very  small  part  of  the  source  of  the 
wealth,  while  the  labour  of  the  people  constitutes  the  whole  of  the 
remainder.  The  mere  proprietor  of  the  soil  is,  whatever  he  might  be 
supposed,  lord  only  of  the  entangled  wood,  or  the  barren  heath ;  for  it  is 
the  labour  of  the  people  which  have  stamped  its  agricultural  value  on  the 
soil ;  and  with  the  exception  of  what  the  land  was  originally,  a  quarter 
of  wheat  is  just  as  much  a  manufactured  article  as  a  bale  of  woollen 
cloth,  or  a  steam-engine.  Nay,  if  the  matter  were  fairly  gone  into,  and 
allowance  made  for  the  long  preparation  of  the  field,  and  all  the  labours 
of  the  husbandman,  it  would  be  found  that  there  is  not  a  greater  frac- 
tion of  the  value  of  the  wheat  immediately  resolvable  into  the  abstract 
and  intrinsic  production  of  land,  than  there  is  in  the  other  two  com- 
modities that  have  been  cited. 

Now,  the  question  of  the  Corn  Laws,  is  not,  as  has  been  absurdly 
supposed  and  said,  a  question  between  the  mercantile  and  manufacturing 
interest,  and  the  agricultural  interest.  It  is  a  question  between  labour  and 
land,  between  all,  w7hether  they  produce  food,  or  clothing,  or  houses,  or 
ornaments,  or  any  thing  else,  wTho  live  by  the  exertion  of  their  intel- 
lects, or  the  application  of  their  hands ;  and  those  who,  without  pro- 
ducing any  thing  by  their  own  skill,  or  their  own  industry,  live  upon 
the  rent  of  the  soil.  Such  being  the  case  :  arid  that  it  is  the  case  is  as  clear 
as  any  proposition  in  political  economy  can  be,  it  is  obviously  just  as 
much  for  the  interest  of  the  farmer  and  the  agricultural  labourer,  that  the 
corn  laws  should  be  repealed,  as  it  is  for  that  of  the  manufacturer  or  the 
artizan ;  because  in  proportion  as  each  of  these  can  get  cheaper  food,  so  in 
proportion  must  he  enjoy  more  luxuries,  or  have  more  leisure  tospend  in  amuse- 
ment, or  in  the  cultivation  of  his  mind.  Nor  does  the  advantage  stop  even 
here ;  for  the  people  who  live  by  labour,  are  so  prodigiously  superior  in  num- 
bers and  intelligence,  and  consequently  in  power,  to  those  who  live  upon 
the  mere  rent  of  land,  that  it  would  be  contrary  to  every  principle  of  philoso- 
phy, every  deduction  of  logic,  and  every  result  of  experience,  to  suppose  that, 
in  the  matter  of  prices,  they  should  not  be  the  controlling  party ;  and 
that,  whatever  the  owner  of  the  land  may  impose  upon  them  in  the  form 
of  rent,  they  will  take  back  from  him,  with  all  the  interest  that  he  can 
spare,  in  supplying  him  with  those  necessaries  without  which  he  cannot 
exist.  Experience  has  shown  clearly,  that  though  it  be  true  that  the 
corn  lawTs  have  kept  land  at  a  forced  rent,  the  other  interest  have  advanced 
more  rapidly  in  wealth  and  comfort  than  the  land-holders.  Compare  any 
great  proprietor  of  the  soil  with  the  majority  of  the  people  now ;  and  in 
as  far  as  history  affords  data,  make  the  same  comparison  two  hundred 
years,  or  even  fifty  years  backward,  and  see  what  the  soil-man  has 
gained  by  all  his  legislation.  It  is  of  no  consequence  how  much  a 


J827.]  The    Re-asssemUing  of  Parliament.  165 

man  demands  in  his  receivings,  if  the  party  of  whom  the  demand  is  made 
have  more  power  of  enforcing  their  demand  in  his  disbursings  ;  or,  if  there 
be  any  effect,  it  is  merely  the  keeping  up  of  an  artificial  rate  of  every 
product  of  industry  and  the  soil,  in  consequence  of  the  artificial  rent 
which  the  owner  demands  for  the  latter.  In  this  way  the  country  loses 
much  in  the  general  commerce  of  the  world ;  while  the  landlord  is  forced 
to  bear  more  than  his  average  share  of  the  loss. 

This,  we  apprehend,  is  the  sound  and  philosophical  view  of  the  Corn 
Laws;  and  if  that  view  could  be  but  taken,  as  it  ought  to  be  taken,  their 
repeal  should  be  carried  by  acclamation,  and  regarded  as  a  boon  equally 
by  the  man  who  lives  by  land,  and  the  man  who  lives  by  labour.  It  is 
true  that,  in  a  country  paying  taxes  foreign  grain  should  not  come  in 
without  paying  an  impost.  Comparing  the  whole  taxes  with  the  whole 
productions  of  the  country,  the  taxes  will  be  some  fraction — say  one-fourth. 
Now,  if  corn  were  to  be  freely  imported  at  a  duty  corresponding  to  this 
fraction  upon  its  price,  as  taken  in  the  continental  markets,  for  an  average 
of  (say)  the  last  ten  years,  that  duty  would  satisfy  every  demand  which 
justice  or  sound  policy  could  require;  and  if  the  Houses  of  Parliament 
come,  as  we  hope  they  will,  to  some  such  conclusion  as  this,  they  will 
deserve,  and  they  will  receive,  the  gratitude  of  that  community  whose 
servants  they  are. 

In  the  second  place,  Parliament  will  have  to  entertain  the  great  ques- 
tion of  admitting  the  Catholic  population  of  Ireland  to  a  free  participation 
in  the  benefits  of  the  constitution.  Last  month  we  delivered  our  opinion 
at  great  length  in  favour  of  the  liberal  side  of  this  question  :  but,  from  cir- 
cumstances which  have  occurred  since  what  was  there  inserted  was  written, 
the  question  has  assumed  a  new  form,  more  favourable  (in  some  respects) 
to  emancipation  than  the  case  exhibited  four  weeks  ago. 

In  the  third  place,  there  will  come  before  Parliament  a  measure  for  ren- 
dering the  police  in  the  environs  of  the  metropolis  more  efficient  than  it  is 
under  the  present  system;  and,  it  must  be  allowed,  that  no  measure  of 
local  policy  is  more  called  for,  or,  if  wisely  and  judiciously  framed,  and 
vigorously  executed,  will  be  productive  of  ha.ppier  consequences.  The 
suburban  villages,  by  which  the  metropolis  is  surrounded,  form  at  present 
any  thing  but  a  cordon  sanitaire.  They  are,  in  very  many  instances,  the 
receptacles  of  bands  of  midnight  plunderers,  and,  as  such,  call  loudly 
for  the  interference  of  the  legislature  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of 
the  people.  Mr.  Peel  has  already  done  good  service  to  the  country,  by 
the  reform  which  he  has  introduced  into  the  mode  of  appointing  juries,  and 
the  form  of  proceeding  in  the  courts  of  law ;  and  if  he  shall  exert  the 
same  skill  and  the  same  integrity  in  the  matter  of  the  police,  he  will  confer 
a  most  substantial  advantage  upon  the  country. 

In  the  fourth  place, — the  law  of  libel — the  most  absurd,  unaccountable, 
and  inconsistent  section  even  in  that  chequered  code  which  makes  up  the 
laws  of  England,  and  in  which  the  wisdom  and  the  folly  of  many  ages 
are  blended  in  the  most  inharmonious  incongruity — calls,  perhaps,  more 
loudly,  not  merely  for  revision,  but  for  a  total  remodelling,  than  any  other 
portion  of  the  thousand-and-one  heavy  tomes  ;  and  although  no  announce- 
ment— no  formal  announcement  of  a  project  to  this  effect  has  yet  been 
made,  we  know,  from  the  information  of  a  senator,  the  very  best  qualified 
for  framing  such  a  measure,  and  carrying  it  (if  sound  philosophy  and  splen- 
did eloquence  can  carry  it),  that  such  a  measure  will  be  brought  forward 
in  the  course  of  the  session,  and,  we  hope,  at  no  remote  part  of  it.  We 


166  The  Re-assembling  of  Parliament.  [FEB. 

grant  that  a  power  go  tremendous  as  that  of  the  press  of  England  may  be 
used  against  individuals,  not  for  the  purpose  of  annoyance  merely,  but  for 
absolute  annihilation;  and  that,  let  a  man  be  ever  so  fortified  with  the 
attributes  of  wealth,  rank,  talents,  or  even  virtues,  the  press,  malignantly 
used,  can  expel  him  from  society.  Hence,  we  admit  that  the  public — 
that  is,  the  law  which  is  made  for  the  protection  of  the  public — should 
have  some  means  of  taking  care  that  the  administration  of  a  thing  so  potent 
should  be  honest  and  judicious,  Like  the  more  vigorous  medicines — the 
treasures  of  the  healing  art — those  energies  which  render  the  press  the 
balsam  of  life  in  the  hands  of  the  upright  and  the  skilful,  turn  it  into  the 
poison  of  death  when  it  is  ignorantly  or  maliciously  given ;  and,  therefore, 
there  ought  to  be  some  security  that  it  shall  never  be  applied  with  a  bad 
intention.  As  the  law  stands,  however — or  rather  as  the  total  want  of  all 
law  stands — the  good  and  the  evil  of  the  press  are  subjected  to  the  same 
restriction  ;  and  the  man  who  administers  it  in  the  most  skilful  manner, 
and  with  the  most  beneficial  intention,  for  restoring  or  furthering  the  public 
health  of  the  country,  is  liable  to  the  very  same  punishment  as  the  wretch 
who,  for  the  gratification  of  private  malice  or  revenge,  uses  it  for  felonious 
and  murderous  purposes.  Any  thing  that  is  written  respecting  any  man 
may  be  construed  into  a  libel;  and,  in  extreme  cases,  the  only  facts  that 
have  to  be  proved  are  the  fact  of  publishing,  and  the  identity  of  the  person 
who  makes  the  complaint.  If,  indeed,  the  complainant  seeks  damages 
in  a  civil  action  at  common  law,  the  party  may  plead  the  truth ;  but  even 
there  the  truth  does  not  go  to  the  jury  as  matter  of  evidence.  If,  again, 
the  proceeding  be  by  criminal  information,  the  party  complained  of  may 
expatiate  upon  the  justice  of  what  he  has  published;  but  here,  again,  the 
truth  and  propriety  of  the  matter  complained  of  are  not  received  as  evi- 
dence. In  obtaining  a  rule,  indeed,  there  may  be  cause  shewn  against 
the  rule ;  and  if  that  cause  shall  happen  to  satisfy  the  reason^  or  fall  in  with 
the  feelings  of  the  /judge  before  whom  it  is  shewn,  he  may  dismiss  the 
application;  but  this  places  the  whole  matter,  which  ought  in  strict  jus- 
tice to  be  with  the  jury,  in  the  power  of  the  judge  as  an  individual ;  and 
as  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived  when  public  men  can  look  upon  the  press 
in  a  perfectly  fair  and  disinterested  manner,  the  discretionary  power  of 
the  judge  does  not  tend  in  any  way  to  the  safety  of  an  honest  man,  who 
stands  forward,  and,  for  the  general  good  of  the  public,  calls  a  villain  a 
villain.  These  cases — these  two  several  modes  of  applying  the  same  rule 
and  the  same  punishment  to  the  innocent  and  to  the  guilty — are  bad 
enough  :  but  worse  remains  behind.  The  party  who  feels  or  fancies  that 
he  is  libelled,  may  proceed  by  indictment  at  the  sessions  ;  and  the  grand 
jury,  who,  from  the  general  construction  of  mankind,  cannot  be  presumed 
to  be  intuitively  gifted  with  a  clear  discernment  of  the  intentions  with 
which  the  publication  is  made  ;  and  as  they  receive  no  evidence  that  can 
throw  the  smallest  light  upon  this — the  only  important  point  of  the  case — 
they  must  confine  themselves  to  the  simple  finding  that  John  Doe  is  the 
publisher,  and  Richard  Roe  the  party  meant:  and,  if  they  find  thus  far, 
the  case  must  go  to  the  sessions,  where  the  party  accused  is  denied  even 
the  benefit  of  counsel,  in  any  other  way  than  for  cross-examining  the  pro- 
secutor's witnesses  ;  and,  as  these  witnesses  have  nothing  to  prove,  the 
defendant  is  left  open  to  the  certainty  of  a  verdict  procured  by  all  the  inge- 
nuity, all  the  quibbling,  and  all  the  sophistication  which  the  prosecutor 
can  hire  against  him.  In  consequence  of  this,  the  law  of  libel  is  one  of 
those  breaches  in  the  security  of  individuals,  through  which  the  brigands  of 


1827.]  The  Re-assembling  of  Parliament.  167 

the  profession  can  make  their  most  successful  and  murderous  inroads;  and 
no  matter  how  black  may  be  the  character  of  the  party  which  the  press 
has  had  the  honesty  to  expose,  or  how  unequal  he  may  be  to  the  payment 
of  a  single  six-and-eight-perice,  there  is  always  to  be  found  some  heartless 
and  hungry  attorney,  who  will  undertake  the  case  for  a  share  of  the  plun- 
der. We  need  not  go  far  back  into  the  annals  of  pettifogging,  or  probe 
into  the  darkness  of  ignorant  ages,  to  find  instances  of  this  legal  and  moral 
abuse.  We  could  quote  them,  recent  almost  as  the  last  new  moon,  were  it 
not  that  the  quotation  would  also  be  libel ;  and,  instead  of  exposing  the 
villains,  we  would  be  made  to  pay  the  wages  of  their  villany. 

The  proposal  to  which  we  allude  will,  if  carried  into  effect  (and  he 
who  means  to  propose  it  has  great  confidence  of  its  success),  not  tend 
to  take  away  or  to  mitigate  the  punishment  of  libel  in  cases  where  it  is 
malignant;  but  it  will  enable  the  jury  to  decide  upon  the  case  itself,  and 
not,  as  they  do  at  present,  upon  an  ex-parte  statement,  framed  by  the  one 
party  to  answer  his  own  purposes.  It  will  place  the  criminality  in  the 
obvious  intention — the  only  thing  in  which  there  can  be  much  crime ;  and 
thus,  while  the  press  will  still  be  restrained  from  doing  violence  to  the 
innocent,  it  will  be  left  to  operate  in  a  full,  wholesome,  and  efficient  man- 
ner for  the  correction  or  punishment  of  the  guilty.  The  substance  of  the 
proposal  lies  in  these  few  words  :  "  the  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  matter 
stated  shall,  in  all  cases,  go  to  the  jury;  and  if  it  be  satisfactory,  and  no 
malignant  purpose  be  shewn,  then  the  verdict  shall  be  for  the  defendant : 
but  if  the  proof  fail,  or  if  malignant  intention  be  apparent,  then  the  verdict 
shall  be  for  the  prosecutor."  This  would — we  hope  it  will — make  the  law 
of  libel  as  wholesome  as  it  is  at  present  pernicious  ;  and  the  man  who  brings 
it  forward  will  have  his  name  recorded  among  those  who  have  devoted  their 
talents  to  the  honest  service  of  mankind. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  topics  which  will  come  before  the  senate  at  its 
meeting ;  and,  if  it  shall  dispose  of  them  in  a  proper  manner,  it  may  bo 
reckoned  one  of  the  best  parliaments  that  ever  met.  If  not,  the  public 
will  bear  in  mind,  when  time  or  chance  shall  send  the  hon.  members  back 
again  to  the  hustings,  who  did  and  who  did  not  take  the  liberal  side. 


MR.    GIFFORD. 


THE  life  of  a  literary  man,  must,  in  general,  be  looked  for  in  his  literary 
successes.  If  he  has  done  nothing  that  impressed  his  name  on  the  public 
mind,  he  has  failed  in  his  purpose  of  life  ;  he  has  virtually  not  lived  at  all. 

But  the  circumstances  of  Mr.  Giffbrd's  life  have  some  peculiarities  more 
favourable  to  memory  than  the  dubious  and  perishing  merits  of  author- 
ship. He  began  the  world  in  the  humblest  condition.  By  activity  of 
mind,  seconded  by  an  instance  of  remarkable  good  fortune,  he  was  placed 
on  that  fair  level  of  society  from  which  our  ablest  men  start.  By  integrity 
of  spirit,  and  by  unwearied  diligence,  he  still  forced  his  way  upwards,  until 
from  poverty  he  had  risen  to  competence.  He  continued  till  an  advanced 
period  of  life,  to  labour  with  the  same  industry  which  had  bean  the  habit 
of  his  early  years,  and  at  the  age  of  71,  and  withdrawn  from  all  official 
occupation,  he  died  almost  with  the  pen  in  his  hand. 

Of  the  character  of  a  man  who  had  so  long  identified  himself  with  a 
party,  exaggeration  on  both  sides  may  be  expected.  Whatever  virtues  or 


368  Mr.  Gi ford.  [FEB. 

capabilities  he  possessed  will  probably,  on  the  one  side  be  elevated  into 
disproportioned  dignity,  and  on  the  other,  degraded  into  unjustifiable  scorn. 

Having  neither  partialities  to  indulge,  nor  offences  to  retaliate,  we  are 
the  more  qualified  to  give  an  honest  and  plain  sketch  of  Mr.  Gilford's 
career. 

He  was  born  at  Ashburton,  in  Devonshire.  There  was  some  recollection 
of  his  family,  as  having  once  possessed  property  in  the  county.  But  tho 
property  had  been  squandered  generations  before.  The  family  had 
acquired  no  name  beyond  that  of  having  struggled  and  died,  and  if  all 
ancestry  is  scarcely  better  than  a  burlesque,  of  such  an  ancestry  Gifford 
probably  felt  that  the  less  was  said  the  better.  Gilford's  first  employment 
was  that  of  a  cabin-boy  on  board  a  Devonshire  coaster.  How  his  frame, 
decrepit  and  feeble  at  all  times  could  have  endured  the  severe  privations 
and  labours  of  the  sea,  is  not  easily  conceivable.  But.  after  some  expe- 
rience of  this  misery,  he  is  found  on  shore,  apprenticed  by  his  godfather 
to  a  shoemaker,  with  whom  he  continued  long  enough  to  be  thought  at 
least  master  of  his  trade,  so  far  as  the  wit  of  man  has  advanced  it  in 
Devonshire ;  for  he  continued  to  wield  the  awl  until  he  was  twenty  years 
old. 

During  this  more  than  Egyptian  slavery  to  a  mind  of  any  elevation, 
accident,  propitious  to  him  through  life,  and  now  in  its  most  propitious  shape, 
threw  literature  in  his  way.  A  young  woman  who  took  compassion  on 
the  unhappy  shoemaker,  lent  him  a  book.  Whether  prompted  by  a 
passion  for  the  muse,  or  by  the  more  natural  influence  of  regard  for  the 
person  who  had  alone  exhibited  any  consideration  for  him,  he -became  a 
writer  of  verses.  The  verses  of  a  village  poet  were  then  rare  things. 
Gifford's  lines  met  the  eye  of  a  good-natured  man  in  the  neighbourhood,  of 
the  name  of  Cooksley.  There  is  some  benevolence  still  remaining  in  the 
world,  and  much  may  be  done  by  a  little  goodwill  united  with  activity. 
Gifford  was  in  the  natural  road  to  perishing  of  asthma,  disgust,  and  disap- 
pointed longings,  when  the  obscure  philanthropist,  this  Devonshire  "  Man 
of  Ross,"  took  him  by  the  hand,  made  interest  enough  in  the  vicinity  to 
raise  a  small  subscription,  bought  out  his  indentures,  and  sent  him  to 
school.  His  protege  was  acute,  naturally  diligent,  and  probably  conscious 
of  the  necessity  of  peculiar  exertion.  In  the  short  space  of  two  years  and 
a  half  he  was  entered  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford. 

The  qualifications  for  entry  at  that  time  were  not  very  high,  and,  once 
inside  the  wall§  every  student  might  labour  or  lounge,  according  to  his 
own  will  and  pleasure..  The  diligent  might  indulge  in  boundless  study, 
and  the  idle  might  lie  on  their  oar,  and  wait  till  the  tide  of  time  brought 
liberty  and  their  degrees.  But  Gifford,  through  life,  loved  reading  for  its 
own  sake,  and  caring  little  for  society,  deprived  of  the  means  of  excess, 
temperate  by  nature,  and  incited  to  the  pursuit  of  literary  distinction  by 
the  hopes  and  wishes  of  his  patrons,  must  have  been  a  vigorous  student. 
Accident,  which  seems  never  to  have  failed  him,  here  stood  his  friend  in 
a  remarkable  degree.  His  natural  fate  would  have  been  a  fellowship, 
which  has  been  called  a  thirty  years  walk  to  a  church  with  a  church- 
yard close  beside  it.  The  optics  of  human  nature  are  said  to  have 
been  made  for  "  near-sighted  glasses,"  and  perhaps  no  man  ever  worked 
his  way  through  an  University,  without  at  some  time  or  other 
thinking  that  a  fellowship  was  one  of  the  most  magnificent  things  in  the 
world.  The  awe  of  the  menials,  the  uncapping  of  the  students,  the 
absolute  supremacy  of  the  Common  room ;  and  the  stately  looks  and 


1827.]  M.Gifford.  169 

attitudes  generated  of  moving  in  an  atmosphere  of  perpetual  submission, 
have  even,  on  the  most  self-denying  spirits,  produced  the  feeling,  that  there 
is  a  "  Divinity  that  doth  hedge  a  Fellow."  Giffbrd  might  have  soared  to 
this  height  of  snugness  and  supremacy ;  have  been  inducted  into  all  the 
lazy  honours  and  local  glories  oiMhe  full  sleeved  gown,  and  worn  the  cap 
of  defiance  of  all  mankind  on  his  erudite  and  angular  nostril ;  he  might 
have  brow-beat  sophisters  during  the  week,  and  on  Sundays  rode  to  his 
curacy  five  miles  otf,  and  returned  in  exact  time  for  Commons  ;  he  might 
in  short,  have  led  a  haughty,  easy,  book-worm  life,  equally  well  fed,  and 
obscure,  and  gone  down  to  the  grave  to  slumber  with  the  congenial 
Doctor  Drowseys  of  Alma  Mater.  Such  was  Oxford  in  the  days  of  his 
youth:  times  and  things  are  changed  since;  and  might  be  changed  still 
more  without  injury  to  the  fame  of  that  most  ancient  "  Mother  of  mighty 
men." 

But  he  was  resolved  to  be  of  some  use  in  his  generation.  A  college 
friend  of  his  had  gone  to  reside  in  the  family  of  the  late  Lord  Grosvenor, 
their  letters  were  sent  under  his  lordship's  frank.  By  the  omission  of  the 
second  address,  a  letter  of  Gifford's  was  opened  by  Lord  Grosvenor. 
His  lordship  was  struck  by  something  in  it,  and  inquired  the  circumstances 
of  the  writer,  and  finally  included  him  in  his  household  as  tutor  of  Lord 
Belgrave,  the  present  Earl. 

Travel,  in  the  early  days  of  Gifford,  was  like  travel  in  the  days  of 
Pythagoras.  Every  man  was  to  learn  for  himself.  If  he  was  to 
know  what  Rome  held,  or  what  was  the  art  and  mystery  of  foreign  life, 
nay,  what  were  the  pomps  of  Paris,  or  the  frolics  of  Versailles,  he  must 
hunt  his  knowledge  down  in  person.  The  world  had  not  then  become 
the  world  that  it  is  ;  a  map  spotted  over  with  clusters  of  tourists  and  of 
those  tourists,  every  soul  devoted  to  the  eternal  use  of  pen  and  paper. 
Note  books  were  things  unheard  of  in  the  generation  of  fifty  years  ago.  No 
printer  waited  with  his  Press  stopped,  for  the  arrival  of  the  postman ;  and 
no  publisher  lauded  and  magnified  his  own  forthcoming  treasure,  and 
tantalized  the  curiosity  of  newspaper  mankind,  by  daily  announcements  in 
every  form  of  stimulation,  from  the  simple  name,  to  the  expanded  title,  and 
from  the  expanded  title,  to  the  Critique  anticipatory. 

Yet  the  change,  ludicrous  as  it  is  in  some  points,  is  on  the  whole,  infinitely 
for  the  better;  to  the  traveller  better:  for,  though  one  hundred  or  one  thousand 
may  publish  only  to  the  affliction  of  their  booksellers,  yet  all  keep  at  least 
their  own  eyes  open  while  they  are  abroad ;  objects  of  rational  curiosity 
exercise  a  rational  interest ;  discourses  of  real  value  in  ancient  learning,  or 
modern  peculiarities,  are  the  fruit  of  the  fortunate ;  and  to  all  the  very 
act  of  employing  their  minds  in  the  more  manly  and  interesting  recollec- 
tions which  alone  they  dare  commit  to  the  public,  is  an  important  and 
improving  occupation. 

With  the  ^  gentleman"  of  fifty  years  ago,  he  was  of  another  calibre. 
Nominally  going  abroad  for  knowledge  of  mankind,  he  came  back  with  no 
knowledge  but  of  some  French  gamblinghouse  or  Italian  Casino.  If  hewent 
out  a  clown,  he  returned  a  coxcomb.  If  his  habits  at  home  were  moderate  and 
manly,  he  became  infected  with  the  frivolity,  the  impertinence  and  tho 
aristocratic  pride  of  a  Continent  on  which  a  man  without  a  title,  or  a 
frippery  decoration  at  his  button-hole,  passed  for  nothing.  PJis  native 
tongue  was  turned  into  a  bastard  dialect  of  bad  French,  bad  Italian,  and 
bad  German ;  and  whatever  religion  he  might  have  taken  with  him,  was 
corrupted  into  the  open  infidelity  that  was  then  rotting  the  Continent  to  tho 
M.M.  Neiv  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  14.  Z 


170  Mr.  Clifford.  [FEB- 

core.  It  was  from  this  school  that  the  Charles  the  Second's  sto'ck  was 
propagated  through  England;  that  popery  lost  its  repulsiveness  to  the 
British  statesman  ;  that  slavery,  its  inseparable  companion,  was  gradually 
sliding  its  way  into  the  constitution ;  that  Walpole  was  enabled  to  make 
his  infamous  and  impious  boast,  that  "  Every  man  had  his  price/'  and  that 
Chesterfield's  Letters  did  not  put  their  writer  in  the  pillory. 

Pope,  in  some  of  his  fine  lines,  describes  the  travelled  man  of  his  day,  and 
the  character  was  but  little  changed  long  afterwards, — we  quote  from 
memory,  and  imperfectly. 

. "  He  travelled  Europe  round, 

And  gathered  every  vice  on  Christian  ground: 
Saw  every  court,  heard  every  king  declare 
His  royal  sense  of  operas,  and  the  fair. 
Till  home  regains  him,  perfectly  well  bred, 
With  nothing  but  a  Solo  in  his  head, 
Stol'n  from  a  duel,  followed  by  a  nun, 
And,  if  a  Borough  choose  him,  not  undone" 

The  Revolutionary  war  put  a  stop  to  this  intercourse,  and  the  character 
of  the  higher  orders  of  England  became  from  that  moment  of  a 
manlier,  more  intelligent,  and  more  elevated  spirit.  The  frivolities 
of  the  Continent  were  cut  off  from  us,  a  wall  of  iron  was  suddenly 
thrown  up  between  what  remained  to  us  of  idle  opulence  and  what 
remained  to  it  of  easy  temptation,  and,  before  that  wall  was  broken  down, 
there  was  time  for  the  follies  of  the  past  age  to  perish  out  of  our 
memories,  to  lose  their  hold  on  the  fashionable  life  of  England,  and  with 
it  to  lose  their  power  of  evil. 

Our  men  of  education  and  rank  travelled  in  the  interval,  but  it  was  into 
countries  divested  of  the  profligate  indulgencies  that  had  made  up  the  life 
of  the  old  roues  of  the  grand  tour.  Classic  researches,  the  curious  spectacle 
of  civilization,  advancing  and  barbarism  receding  in  the  north  ;  the  natural 
treasures  and  wild  beauty  of  the  countries  bordering  on  the  Baltic ;  the 
strange  splendours  and  ferocious  dignity  of  the  Oriental  sovereignties  ;  the 
imperishable  grandeur  and  lofty  recollections  of  Greece;  formed  the 
contemplation  and  knowledge  of  our  travellers.  With  nobler  subjects  and 
a  higher  education  for  feeling  and  transmitting  them,  the  narratives  of 
British  travel  became  more  accurate,  intelligent,  and  vivid  ;  and  we  now 
possess,  in  our  own  tongue,  a  greater  extent  of  interesting  and  true  infor- 
mation on  the  general  state  of  the  Globe  than  is  to  be  found  in  all  the 
languages  of  all  its  other  nations. 

The  observations  of  a  man  like  Gifford,  travelling  with  the  advantages 
afforded  by  his  association  with  the  heir  of  one  of  the  most  opulent  nobJes 
of  England,  must  have  been  valuable  in  whatever  age  or  country  they 
might  be  formed.  But  it  was  not  the  fashion  of  the  day  to  publish 
travels.  Lord  Sandwich's  "  Voyage  up  the  Mediterranean,'''  was 
almost  the  only  tour  written  by  a  man  of  condition  ;  and  the  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  tutors,  not  ill-named  bear-leadei  s,  who  danced  their  noble 
pupils  about  the  courts,  thought  that  they  had  done  all  that  could  be 
expected  of  mortal  man,  when  they  brought  their  future  patron  home 
unamerced  in  life  or  limb,  not  utterly  scandalized  in  character,  nor 
incurably  decayed  in  constitution. 

Gifford's  first  attempt  at  public  notice,  had  been  "  Proposals  for  a  Trans- 
lation of  Juvenal,"  by  subscription.  It  was  begun  early,  probably,  in  his 
College  life.  But  the  interruptions  of  travel,  studies,  ill-health,  the  various 


J827.]  Mr.Gi/ord.  171 

changes  which  break  up  the  purposes  of  the  man  of  literature  more  than 
any  other,  and  gain  him  the  imputation  of  fickleness  or  indolence,  while 
he  is  groaning  under  the  anxiety  to  resume  his  original  pursuit,  and  out- 
rageous at  the  obstacles  that,  as  if  by  magic,  start  up  to  wring  the  pen  out  of 
his  hand,  delayed  the  completion  of  his  Juvenal  for  nearly  twenty  years. 
It  was,  however,  finished  at  last ;  and  in  it  the  English  reader  may  enjoy 
the  full  vigour  of  the  greatest  of  all  satirists.  Lie  will  find  all  the  force, 
and  nearly  all  the  pungency,  but  he  will  not  find  the  elegance  of  phrase. 
Juvenal,  in  all  the  grossness  of  his  pictures,  is  distinguished  for  finish  of 
language.  The  sternness,  haughty  dignity,  and  axiomatic  power  of  the 
matchless  original,  are  visible  in  the  cast,  moulded  by  Gifford ;  but  the 
brillancy  and  polish  have  escaped  his  artist  hand. 

The  "  Baviad  and  Maeviad  "  brought  him  into  more  direct  publicity. 
A  childish  newspaper  interchange  of  complimentary  verses,  in  the  genuine 
style  of  the  "  Verses  by  a  Person  of  Quality,"  had  at  first  attracted  tho 
curiosity,  then  excited  the  ridicule,  and  then  inflamed  the  wrath  of  the 
worldly  criticism.  The  feebleness  of  the  poetry  might  have  escaped ;  but 
it  had  risen  into  fashion,  and  fashionable  people  had,  by  degrees,  become 
contributors.  The  crime  of  the  "  Delia  Crusca  "  school  was  now  past  all 
patience,  and  Gifford  sharpened  his  pen  for  stinging  it  to  death.  He  pro- 
duced a  bitter  succession  of  verses,  and  obtained  for  himself  some  reputa- 
tion as  a  literary  scarifier.  But  the  object  of  his  fury  was  worth  neither 
his  fears,  his  wrath,  nor  his  verses.  It  was  dying  before  he  attacked  it ; 
and  he  only  assisted  to  give  a  little  publicity  to  its  funeral.  The  chief 
Muses  of  the  Delia  Crusca  were  women,  and  therefore  not  the  legitimate 
object  of  attack;  or  careless  and  idle  men,  to  whom  attack  was  amusing, 
as  giving  them  something  to  stir  up  the  languor  of  a  life  spent  about  the 
Clubs.  Mrs.  Robinson  was  too  pretty,  and  too  unfortunate  for  the  ven- 
geance of  a  poet.  Mrs.  Cowley  had  deserved  too  well  of  the  drama,  to  be 
justifiably  charged  with  debasing  literature.  Major  Topham,  Andrews, 
Merry,  and  the  rest,  probably,  cared  nothing  on  the  subject,  and  only 
scoffed  at  the  remote  irritation  of  a  writer,  who  "  lived  somewhere  out  of 
the  knowledge  of  any  gentleman  of  their  acquaintance." 

The  French  Revolution  was  one  of  the  fortunate  accidents  of  Gilford's 
life.  It  swept  away  kings,  nobles,  bishops,  and  generals,  in  all  directions. 
But  it  urged  him  upwards  into  a  connection  with  those  whose  praise,  though 
it  may  not  always  be  Fame,  is  generally  Fortune.  The  violence  and  ac- 
tivity of  the  republican  newspapers  had  totally  beaten  down  the  lazy 
loyalty  and  insipid  decencies  of  the  ministerial.  The  Revolution  was  the 
reign  of  newspapers.  It  was  the  first  time  that  their  importance  began  to 
be  thoroughly  felt.  It  happens  by  a  curious  anomaly  in  nations,  and  in 
individuals,  that  they  generally  go  wrong  before  they  go  right.  The 
Wrong  is  the  impulse,  the  Right,  the  lesson.  England,  to  which  repub- 
licanism must  be  ruin,  was  mad  for  republicanism.  The  Whigs,  to  every 
man  of  whom  worth  plundering,  or  leading  to  the  block,  it  would 
have  been  confiscation  and  the  guillotine  :  the  Whigs,  the  chief  land- 
holders and  exclusive  boroughmongers  of  England,  in  their  usual  defe- 
rence to  the  wisdom  of  the  mob,  cried  out  for  "  Reform,"  which  their 
ragged  masters  in  the  streets  more  honestly  called  "  Revolution  : "  All 
the  newspapers  that  were  not  expressly  intended  for  circulation  among  the 
chambermaids  of  the  West  End,  and  the  lords  of  the  household,  were 
Whig;  all  the  aspirants  for  popularity  were  Whigs;  all  who  thought  this 
change  must  come,  and  wished  to  secure  an  interest  with  the  new  Repub- 

Z  2 


172  Mi.  Gijford.  [FEB. 

lie ;  all  who  Lad  their  fortunes  to  make  by  trafficking  with  their  principles ; 
all  who  were  afraid  to  declare  theirfaith  in  a  God,  or  their  loyalty  to  a 
king;  and  all  who  cared  for  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  ;  all  the  disap- 
pointed, the  bankrupt,  the  profligate,  the  bloodthirsty,  the  atheist,  the 
mad,  were  Whigs, sworn  on  the  altar  of  republicanism,  and  stretching  out 
their  arms  to  give  the  fraternal  embrace  to  the  revolutionary  state  that  stood 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  dripping  with  regicide. 

In  this  crisis,  the  Anti-jacobin  Newspaper  was  commenced.  Its  principal 
contributors  were  men  of  scholarship,  pleasantry,  and  what  was  of  more 
importance  to  success  than  either,  of  intimate  intercourse  with  the  higher 
ranks  of  both  the  country  and  the  administration.  This  enabled  them  to 
speak  with  a  decided  tone,  that  gave  them  the  most  immediate  advantage 
over  the  adverse  journals,  which  pre-eminent  in  impudence  as  they  were, 
dared  not  always  affirm  or  deny  with  the  vigour  essential  to  popular  con- 
fidence. The  Anti-jacobin  had  a  corner  expressly  for  the  "  the  Lies  "  of 
the  opposition  papers,  which  it  dashed  in  the  teeth  of  the  Whigs,  with  the 
least  conceivable  ceremony.  A  considerable  succession  of  pleasant  bur- 
lesques on  the  puffs,  fooleries,  sentimentalities  and  sublimities  of  the  Whigs 
and  their  instruments,  made  the  Anti-jacobin  amusing  even  to  those  who 
hated  its  politics.  And  some  bold  and  polished  specimens  of  poetry,  unat- 
tainable by  the  opposite  journals,  completed  its  superiority.  A  burlesque 
of  the  German  drama ;  The  Loves  of  the  Triangles,  a  burlesque  of  Dar- 
win's Loves  of  the  Plants.  "  Morality,"  a  powerful  poetic  satire  on  the 
new  fantasies  of  reform,  were  among  the  finer  features  of  the  work  ;  and 
its  effect  in  repelling  their  insolence,  and  blunting  the  mischief  of  the  re- 
volutionary journals,  was  beyond  question.  But  it  ceased  at  the  close  of 
the  year.  Its  contributors  had  gradually  become  known,  as  is  the  inevit- 
able case  in  all  joint  contributions  of  public  writing.  The  names  of  Can- 
ning, Ellis,  Frere,  Lord  Morrington,  and  others,  had  involuntarily  made 
their  way  through  the  disguise  of  Gifford's  editorial  cloak.  And  whether 
their  decorum  was  touched,  or  the  time  was  suddenly  employed,  they 
gave  up  the  Anti-jacobin.  It  is  curious  that  Mr.  Pitt  began  an  Essay  on 
Revolutionary  Principles,  which  he  had  not  the  patience  to  extend  beyond 
a  single  page,  it  breaks  off  abruptly.  The  most  fluent  and  deep-thinking 
speaker  of  his  aera ;  he  was  probably  disgusted  with  the  tardiness  of  the 
pen.  Like  Michael  Angelo,  he  scorned  to  waste  on  oils,  the  genius  that 
in  fresco  was  Creation. 

But  this  connection  served  the  pecuniary  interests  of  the  editor.  Govern- 
ments are  in  general  careless  of  services,  where  the  servant  is  not  powerful 
enough  to  establish  his  claim  to  compulsory  gratitude  ;  and  of  all  govern- 
ments of  the  globe,  that  of  England  has  at  all  times  exhibited  the  most 
exemplary  delicacy  of  finance  in  the  recompence  of  literature.  The  minis- 
terial recollection  of  Gifford's  services  was  not  a  signal  exception  to  the 
rule  ;  yet  he  obtained,  we  believe,  on  this  occasion,  the  paymastership  of 
a  department  of  the  Household. 

The  final  and  luckiest  accident  of  his  life,  was  the  rise  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  The  Whig  papers  had  been  bruised,  if  not  yet  altogether 
crushed,  when  their  spirit  started  up  in  another  shape.  The  Dragon  ap- 
peared in  the  northern  hemisphere,  and  its  appearing  "  portended  disastrous 
eclipse  "  to  constitutional  literature.  In  England,  as  was  observed  before, 
the  first  impulse  is  always  wrong.  The  first  impulse  was  -to  receive  the 
Northern  Review  as  an  oracle.  It  was  cleverly  compiled  ;  was  always 
showy;  often  learned;  sometimes  eloquent;  it  dashed  boldly  into  the 


1827.]  Mr.Gifford.  173 

tossing  tide  of  public  opinions,  and  won  its  way  with  a  vigorous  arm,  and 
a  head  always  kept  high.  At  length  the  mind  of  England  grew  tired  of 
being  lectured  in  politics,  religion,  and  all  other  things,  by  a  convocation 
of  Scotch  doctors  and  lawyers,  throwing  off  the  refuse  of  their  leisure  hours 
in  the  abuse  of  the  constitution.  The  Quarterly  Review  was  the  fruit  of 
this  weariness ;  and  Gifford,  from  his  connection  with  some  of  the  principal 
ministerialists,  was  appointed  its  editor.  He  was  now  in  his  vocation. 
He  was  born  for  editorship.  He  gave  the  Review  a  vast  circulation,  and 
it  returned  the  service  by  the  indulgence  of  his  pen,  by  reputation,  and  by 
the  wish  of  Pangloss  in  its  fullest  hope — "  nine  hundred  pounds  a  year." 


ON    DOGS. 

. 

HALF  a  century  ago,  the  sect  of  the  "  DOGGISTS  "  was  so  numerous, 
that  it  was  the  fashion  to  say,  no  house  was  more  than  half  furnished  that 
had  not  more  than  one  dog  in  it.  At  length  the  frequency  of  the  horrible 
and  incurable  disorder  occasioned  by  the  bite  of  these  useless  animals,  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  a  wag  of  the  day,  who  drew  a  caricature,  called 
the  "  Dog  Worshipper."  Another  lover  of  his  own  species  wrote  a  son- 
net, the  burthen  of  which  was — "  Instead  of  a  lap-dog,  take  me  to  your 
arms."  These  squibs  blew  up  the  dog  mania  for  that  time ;  but  it  is 
reviving  again  now,  and  becoming  an  enormous  evil.  However,  it  is  hoped 
that  the  public  press — that  powerful  guardian  of  the  manners  and  morals 
of  the  people — will  again  pour  out  its  eloquence,  and  render  dog-keeping 
as  ridiculous  to  individuals  as  it  is  offensive  to  the  community. 

Who  has  not  seen  instances  where  cruelty  is  shewn  to  all  the  animated 
works  of  the  Almighty,  except  half  a  dozen  pugs,  and  twice  as  many  kit- 
tens or  parrots  ?  Retty  and  John  are  inferior  beings  to  Tabby  and  Pom- 
pey  !  Fowls  are  boiled  for  the  dog,  and  fish  fried  for  the  cat,  by  gentle- 
folks who  never  think  of  giving  a  morsel  to  relieve  the  hunger  of  the  human 
being!  This  is  most  monstrous  ! 

The  following  description  of  a  doggery  is  an  extract  from  the  <(  Invisible 
Spy,"  a  periodical  work  which  appeared  in  1754  : 

"  A  maid  is  sitting  in  a  low  chair,  with  a  large  tray  before  her,  filled 
with  a  great  number  of  combs,  one  of  which  she  is  making  use  of  in 
smoothing  and  setting  in  order  the  hair  of  a  spaniel  she  is  nursing  upon 
her  lap.  Sir  Simon  and  Lady  Loved og  come  in,  and  seeing  the  comb  she 
is  using,  snatch  it  out  of  her  hand,  and  strike  it  into  her  face. 

Lady  Lovedog. — Monster !  how  dare  you  touch  Hector  with  that 
comb? 

Maid. — Indeed,  my  Lady,  they  were  all  here;  I  did  not  know  any 
difference. 

Lady  Lovedog. — Oh,  fie!  you  nasty  hussy  ;  you  must  have  heard  that 
each  of  my  dear  dogs  has  a  set  of  combs  to  ijimself,  marked  with  his 
name!  Can't  you  read,  oaf? 

Maid. — Indeed,  Madam,  I  did  not  see  it. 

Lady  Lovedog. — Take  that,  perfunctory  slave  !  and  that !  and  that — 
to  clear  your  sight,  and  make  you  remember  another  time. 

These  sharp  words  were  accompanied  with  pretty  smart  blows,  first  on 
one  shoulder,  then  on  the  other;  then  turning  to  her  dogs,  who  were  cry- 
ing and  yelping  all  this  time,  her  Ladyship  addressed  them  in  these  terms  : 


174  On  Dogs.  [FEB. 

Lady  Lovedog. — Dear,  good-natured  darlings  !  you  hate  to  see  me 
angry,  don't  ye,  though  it  he  in  your  own  cause  ?  Come  hither,  my  poor 
Psyche  ;  you  have  lost  you  lover,  havn't  you,  dear  ?  but  I'll  soon  get  you 
another  Cupid.  Prince,  what  makes  you  so  dull  this  morning?  you  don't 
frisk  and  caper  about  as  you  used  to  do  :  I  suppose  your  bed  was  not  half 
made,  any  more  than  Pompey's.  Pretty  boys,  you  look  as  if  you  had  lain 
rough  all  night.  Here  is  my  poor  Bully,  too,  as  I  live,  not  so*  much  as  the 
black  tuft  on  the  tip  of  his  tail  combed  out! — Beauty,  why  do  you  bark, 
love  ?  I  can  see  by  your  eyes  that  you  have  something  to  tell  me,  now, 
if  you  knew  how,  Well,  to  be  sure,  you  have  all  been  cruelly  used  these 
two  days,  since  your  own  maid  has  been  from  you.  Come,  Chloe,  come, 
pretty  girl,  give  me  a  kiss — poh!  your  mouth  is  all  dirty.  Why,  I  declare 
that  nasty  hussy  has  neither  washed  your  face  nor  cleaned  your  teeth. 

Maid. — Indeed,  Madam,  I  washed  every  one  of  them  ;  your  Ladyship 
may  see  the  towel  s  all  wet. 

Lady  Lovedog. — The  towel !  why,  you  filthy  creature  !  why  you  nasty 
wretch!  have  you  actually  washed  all  their  sweet  faces  with  one  and  the 
same  towel  ?  Get  you  out  of  my  sight,  you  vile  toad,  or  I  shall  break 
your  neck  down  stairs ;  and,  what  will  be  worse, — burst  my  own  heart 
with  passion. 

Seeing  a  lady  very  warmly  caressing  a  dog,  I  said,  "  you  must  be  an 
excellent  friend  to  human  beings,  if  you  are  so  fond  of  beasts !"  The 
reply  was,  "  I  love  this  dog  better  than  all  the  human  beings  in  the 
world  !"  I  immediately  made  a  mem. : — 

"  If  you  see  people  furiously  fond  of  dogs  and  other  animals,  be  sure 
they  are  unfortunate  beings,  whose  minds  have  been  soured,  and  whose 
society  is  rather  to  lie  shunned  than  sought  after." 

A  common  excuse  for  keeping  these  pests  is,  "  Oh  !  but  you've  no  idea  ; 
he's  such  a  nice  Dog  !  if  any  body  comes  near  our  house  at  night,  he  barks 
for  half  an  hour  together !"  Or  else  it  is,  "  He  is  such  an  affectionate 
creature,  that  he  never  hurt  no  body  !"  Take  no  doggist's  word  on  this 
last  point.  Do  as  that  famous  fox-hunter,  old  Frank  Foresight,  always 
did.  No  hunter  loved  his  horse  or  his  dog  better  than  old  Frank ;  but  he 
was  a  staunch  friend  to  "  rule  and  order;"  and,  said  he,  "  every  thing  in 
its  place."  When  he  called  at  a  house,  if  a  Dog  came  to  the  door,  he  used 
to  say  to  the  person  who  opened  it — "  I  guess  that's  a  favourite — master  of 
the  house,  may  be  ?  Well,  lock  him  up  safely,  honey — lock  him  up  safely 
till  I  am  gone.  Not  that  I  am  afraid  of  his  hurting  ME  ;  not  at  all,  1 
assure  you ;  and  if  he  did,  I  dare  say  you  would  not  care  much  about  that. 
I  am  only  afraid  that  I  may  hurt  HIM  !  Only  consider  for  a  moment,  if  he 
should  bite  a  bit  out  of  ray  leg,  and  it  should  make  him  sick  !  now  think 
o'that  what  a  sad  thing  that  would  be  !  And  (throwing  a  tuck  out  of  his 
his  stick,  which  he  always  did  the  moment  he  saw  a  dog)  if  my  elbow 
should  be  seized  with  a  sudden  spasm,  and  I  should  accidentally  poke  this 
sword  down  Darling's  throat !  now  think  o'that,  what  a  shocking  thing 
that  would  be !  Therefore,  as  you  love  Darling,  while  I  stay  let  him  be 
locked  up  carefully,  honey." 

Mr.  Vale,  in  his  System  of  Husbandry,  computes  the  number  of  these 
useless  animals  kept  at  present  to  be  not  less  than  two  millions ;  the  keep 
of  which  voracious  creatures,  besides  depriving  the  poor  of  many  a  basin 
of  milk,  raises  the  price  of  meat,  as  they  have  bought  up  for  them  many 
of  the  inferior  joints,  which  only  requires  good  cooking  to  make  as  delicate 
a  meal  as  the  best. 


1827.]  On  Dogs.  175 

But  Mr.  V.  reckons  the  expense  of  keeping  them  at  twenty  shillings  each 
annually  !  Two  millions  of  money  thrown  away  annually,  and  the  na- 
tional debt  what  it  is  !  Why,  what  will  keep  a  dog  will  keep  a  pig ;  and 
it  is  easy  to  see  which  would  be  the  most  serviceable  in  a  poor  man's  fa- 
mily. Therefore,  let  the  dog-tax  be  levied  without  exception — excepting 
only  on  those  dogs  who  lead  blind  men.  Let  due  rewards  be  given  to 
those  who  inform  against  such  as  evade  the  tax ;  of  whom  there  are 
not  a  few  :  and  he  who  by  fraud  avoids  a  tax  which  by  the  laws  of  his 
country  he  is  commanded  to  pay,  commits  a  greater  Crime,  and  deserves 
a  greater  punishment,  than  he  who  by  force  breaks  into  the  Treasury,  and 
takes  so  much  money  out! 

It  is  notorious  that  the  majority  of  these  mischievous  animals  are 
maintained  by  persons  who  have  hardly  the  means  of  maintaining  them- 
selves !  These  hungry,  half-starved  Curs,  are  the  very  Dogs, which,  from 
spare  and  bad  food,  are  most  mischievous,  and  most  apt  to  run  Mad  : 
besides  going  yelping  about,  and  disturbing  the  public.  "  So  many  beg- 
gars, so  many  dogs,"  is  one  of  our  true  old  sayings ;  and  it  is  written, 
that  f<  those  who  lie  down  with  dogs  shall  rise  with  fleas  P  Besides,  every 
one  knows  that  when  men  go  mad,  they  always  hate  most  those  that  they 
loved  best ;  and  it  is  a  frightful  truth,  that 

"  A  mad  dog  always  bites  his  master  first  J" 

that  is  the  very  first  token  of  his  being  mad. 

About  ten  years  ago,  there  dwelt  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Uxbridge  a 
lady  of  fortune,  who  devoted  most  of  her  time  to  the  pleasing  and  providing 
for  half-a-dozen  lap-dogs,  entertaining  their  palates  with  fowls,  legs  and 
shoulders  of  lamb,  &c.  &c. :  considering  that  to  be  the  best  food  for  them 
which  she  liked  best  for  herself,  and  which  was  generally  the  most  expen- 
sive. There  was  another  old  gentlewoman  in  the  neighbourhood,  nearly 
as  far  gone  as  herself  in  this  species  of  canine  madness ;  and  they  amused 
themselves  by  permitting  their  favourites  to  receive  and  pay  visits,  and  to 
have  regular  dinner  parties  ;  on  which  grand  occasions  they  (the  bipeds) 
acted  as  mistresses  of  the  ceremonies,  and  grand  carvers,  &c.  They  had  a 
cloth  laid  for  the  dinner  of  their  darlings  ;  who  ate  off  plates,  and  were  in 
all  things  waited  upon  as  their  owners  were  !  And  they  acted  this  farce 
for  some  years ;  until  one  of  the  favourite  performers,  at  a  dinner-party, 
was  suddenly  seized  with  hydrophobia,  and  flew  from  his  dinner  (a  leg  of 
lamb)  to  the  leg  of  his  mistress — and  bit  it  very  severely. 

There  have  been  many  arguments  about  the  dreadful  disease  the  bite  of 
these  creatures  produces.  But  is  it  not  enough  to  know  that  multitudes  of 
men,  women,  and  children  have  died  in  consequence  of  being  bitten  ? — 
What  does  it  matter  whether  they  were  the  victims  of  bodily  disease  or 
mental  irritation  ?  The  life  of  the  most  humble  human  being  is  of  more 
value  than  all  the  dogs  in  the  world. 

Semi-drowning  in  the  sea,  and  all  the  pretended  specifics,  are  mere  de- 
lusions, and  there  is  no  real  remedy  but  cutting  the  part  out  immediately. 
If  the  bite  he  near  a  large  blood-vessel,  that  cannot  always  be  done;  nor, 
when  itcan  be  done,  however  well  done,  will  it  always  prevent  the  miser- 
able victim  from  dying  the  most  dreadful  of  deaths. 

Well  might  St.  Paul  tell  us  to  «  beware  of  dogs!"— (1st  Epistle  to 
Phillipians,  chap,  iii.,  verse  2.)  K. 


[     176     ]  [FEB. 


A    SONG. 
I. 

YOUNG  Joe,  he  was  a  carman  gay, 

As  any  town  could  shew ; 
His  team  was  good,  and,  like  his  pence, 

Was  always  on  the  go ; — 
A  thing,  as  every  jackass  knows, 

Which  often  leads  to  wo! 

II. 
It  fell  out  that  he  fell  in  love, 

By  some  odd  chance  or  whim, 
With  Alice  Payne — beside  whose  eye* 

All  other  eyes  were  dim  : 
The  painful  tale  must  out — indeed, 

She  was  A  Pain  to  him. 

III. 

For,  when  he  ask'd  her  civilly 

To  make  one  of  they  two, 
She  whipp'd  her  tongue  across  her  teeth, 

And  said,  "  D'ye  think  it  true, 
I'd  trust  my  load  of  life  with  sick 

A  waggoner  as  you  ? 

IV. 

"  No,  no — to  be  a  carman's  wife 

Will  ne'er  suit  Alice  Payne  ; 
I'd  better  far  a  lone  woman 

For  evermore  remain, 
Than  have  it  said,  while  in  my  youth* 

My  life  is  on  the  wain  ."' 

V. 
"  Oh,  Alice  Payne!  Oh,  Alice  Payne  ! 

Why  won't  you  meet  with  me  ?" 
Then  up  she  curl'd  her  nose,  and  said, 

"  Go  axe  your  axle  tree  ; 
I  tell  you,  Joe,  this — once  for  all — 

My  joe  you  shall  not  be." 

VI. 

She  spoke  the  fatal  "  no,"  which  put 

A  spoke  into  his  wheel — 
And  stopp'd  his  happiness,  as  though 

She'd  cry  wo  !  to  his  tccal  :• — 
These  women  ever  steal  our  hearts, 

And  then  their  own  they  stcrl. 


J827,]  A  Song. 

VII. 

So  round  his  melancholy  neck 
Poor  Joe  his  drag-chain  tied, 

And  hook'd  it  on  a  hook — "  Oh !  what 
A  weight  is  life !"  lie  cried  ; 

Then  off  he  cast  himself — and  thtu 
The  cast-off  carman  died! 

VIII. 

Howbeit,  as  his  sun  was  set, 
(Poor  Joe !)  at  set  of  sun, 

They  laid  him  in  his  lowly  graw, 
And  gravely  that  was  done; 

And  she  stood  by,  and  laugh'd  outright-r- 
How  wrong — the  guilty  one! 

IX. 

But  the  day  of  retribution  eome» 
Alike  to  prince  and  hind, 

As  surely  as  the  summer's  sun 
Must  yield  to  wintry  wind  : 

Alas  !  she  did  not  mind  his  peace — 
So  she'd  no  peace  of  mind. 

X. 

For  when  she  sought  her  bed  of  rest, 
Her  rest  was  all  on  thorn*; 

And  there  another  lover  stood, 
Who  wore  a  pair  of  horns  : 

His  little  tiny  feet  were  cleft, 
And  cloven,  like  a  fawn's  ; 

XI. 

His  face  and  garb  were  dark  and  black, 
As  daylight  to  the  blind; 

And  a  something  undefinable 
Around  his  skirt  was  twin'd — 

As  if  he  wore,  like  other  pigs, 
His  pigtail  out  behind. 

XII. 

His  arms,  though  less  than  other  men's, 
By  no  means  harm-less  were: 

Dark  elfin  locks  en-locked  his  brow — 
You  might  not  call  them  hair ; 

And,  oh  !  it  was  a  gag-fly  sight 
To  see  his  eye-balls  glare. 

M.  M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  14.  2  A 


J78  A  Song. 

XIII. 

And  ever,  as  the  midnight  bell 
Twelve  awful  strokes  had  toll'd, 

That  dark  man  by  her  bedside  stood, 
Whilst  all  her  blood  run  cold ; 

And  ever  and  anon  he  cried, 
"  I  could  a  tail  unfold !" 

XIV. 

And  so  her  strength  of  heart  grew  less, 
For  heart-less  she  had  been ; 

And  on  her  pallid  cheek  a  small 
Red  hectic  spot  was  seen : 

You  could  not  say  her  life  was  spent 
Without  a  spot,  I  ween. 

XV. 

And  they  who  mark'd  that  crimson  light 
Well  knew  the  treacherous  bloom— 

A  light  that  shines,  alas  !  alas ! 
To  light  us  to  our  tomb  : 

They  said  'twas  like  thy  cross,  St.  Paul's, 
The  signal  of  her  doom. 

XVI. 

And  so  it  prov'd — she  lost  her  health, 
When  breath  she  needed  most — 

Just  as  the  winning  horse  gets  blown 
Close  by  the  winning-post: 

The  ghost,  he  gave  up  plaguing  her— • 
So  she  gave  up  the  ghost ! 

H.L 


1827.]  [     179     ] 

LETTER    UPON    AFFAIRS    IN    GENERAL,    FROM    A    GENTLEMAN.    IN 
LONDON    TO    A    GENTLEMAN    IN    THE    COUNTRY. 

"  Now  men  in  cloaks  muffle  their  noses," 
The  garden  grutinds  afford  no  posies, 
The  alehouse  reckoning  mounteth  hig-her, 
With  item — '  so  much  more  lor  fin-/ 
And  many  a  mornings  work  is  lost, 
In  drinking  ale.  with  nut  brown  toast." 

Mysteriet  of  the  Season. 

1  HE   regretted  death  of  His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  York  has 
occupied  the  attention  of  persons  in  London  more  than  any  other  topic 
during  the  last  month  :  but  the  public  and  private  character  of  the  noble 
Duke,  and  the  details  of  his  "  lying  in  state,"  and  the  ceremonial  of  his 
snbsequent  burial,  have  been  so  often  repeated,  over  and  over  again,  and  in 
so  many  different  shapes,   by  the  newspapers,  that  I  shall,  at  a  hazard, 
assume  a  discretion,  and  avoid  the  subject  altogether.     A  prodigious  deal 
has   been   written  and  narrated  about  the  merits,  and  demerits,  of  His 
Royal  Highness  that  is  very   absurd.     And   all  sorts  of  views   of  his 
title  to  regret,  and  of  the  sensation  produced  in  the  public  mind  by  his 
decease,  have  been  taken ;  from  the  Radical  affectation  of  the  "  Examiner" 
newspaper,  which  was  so  superfluous  as  to  use  no  "  mourning  lines," 
on  its  first  day  of  publication  after  the  death,  while  every  other  paper 
observed  that  decent  mark  of  ceremony — (a  piece  of  Cockney  conceit,  about 
as  ridiculous  as  though  we  should  read  of  a  "  Resolution"  passed  by  all 
the  birds  of  the  air — the  eagle,  the   vulture,  the   raven,  and  £the  crow — 
"  Dissentient,"  the  MAGPIE  !)  down  to  the  profound  adoration,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  that  pink  of  good  breeding,  the  "  Post" — which  not  only 
kept  up  its  crape  and  weepers  for  the  whole  fortnight  between  the  death 
and  the  funeral,  but  actually  heads  a  discussion,  whether  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  or  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  shall  be  the  next  Commander-in- 
Chief,  with  a  line  stuck  up,  as  for  a  motto — "  LAMENTED  FREDERICK  ! 
WHO'LL  THY  SUCCESSOR  BE?"     Perhaps  thereat  state  of  the  fact,  with 
respect  to  the  Duke's  private  character,  has  never  been  more  truly  stated 
than  in  the  "  Times  "  newspaper,  on  the  morning  after  his  death : — to  wit, 
that  he  had  an  ample  share  of  the  follies,  and  some  portion  of  the  faults, 
which  are  apt  to  attach  themselves  to  individuals  whose  wealth,  or  high 
station,  render  them  something  independent  of  public   opinion;    mixed, 
however,  with  a  great  many  gallant,  and  good,  and  generous  qualities,  which 
persons  in  the   same  situation  do  not   quite,  so  invariably  exhibit.     As 
Commander-in-Chief,  he  was  popular  with  the  army ;  and  there  was  a 
certain   bonhommie  about  him,  together  with  an  absence  of  foppery  or 
affectation,  which  always  kept  him  in  favour  with  the  people;  and  thero 
was  probably  no  member  of  the  Royal  Family  who,  in  the  event  of  the 
death  of  our  present  King,  would  have  ascended  the  throne  with  more 
general  satisfaction   to  the   country.     The  demonstrations    of  mourning 
upon  the  death  of  royal  personages — unless  under  peculiar  and  unlooked- 
for  circumstances — may  be    more    properly  described  as   expressions  of 
respect  on  the  part  of  the  people,    than   of  regret.      These  tokens — for 
whatever    they   are   worth — were  universally  exhibited  in   London  for 
"  the  Duke  of  York,"  and  I  believe  they  were  little  less  general  in  any 
part  of  the  country. 

A  "  Letter  on  the  subject  of  Life  Assurance"  appeared  in  our 
Magazine,  (I  think,  two  Numbers  back,)  from  a  correspondent  who 
recommended  the  attention  of  a  condition  called  the  "  Duelling  Clause," 

2  A2 


180  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [FEB. 

as  it  now  stands  in  life  Assurance  policies.  The  effect  ot  that  clause 
(without  going  here  into  a  discussion  of  the  question  over  again)  being 
to  deprive  every  man  who  insures  his  life  of  all  benefit  from  his  policy, 
in  case  he  be  killed  in  a  duel. 

Since  that  letter  appeared,  T  see  that  there  has  been  a  notice  published  in 
the  advertisement  of  the  "  County"  Assurance  Office,  signifying  that  all 
persons  assured  in  that  establishment,  who  dio  by  duelling,  will  receive — 
that  is  their  representatives  will  receive — the  "  value  which  their  respective 
Policies  bore  on  the  day  prior  to  their  decease."  And,  as  this  promise  will 
not  be  at  all  comprehended  by  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  persons 
who  read  it,  I  will  just  take  occasion  to  observe,  that,  however  plausible 
it  may  sound,  it  is  not  worth  consideration. 

The  object  of  a  man  who  insures  his  life — and  the  object  for  which  he  is 
content  to  pay  a  high  price — is  not  to  accumulate  a  certain  sum  of  money, 
but  to  protect  himself  against  the  RISK  of  an  early  death ;  and,  therefore, 
although  the  whole  amount  of  premium  received,  were  paid  back,  and 
with  interest,  where  such  an  individual  dies,  the  grand  purpose  for  which 
he  became  an  insurer  is  still  defeated.  But  the  paying  the  "  value  of  the 
policy"  contemplates  no  return  at  all  approaching  to  this.  The  "  value" 
of  a  policy  varies  according  to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  which  it  would 
be  tedious  here  to  enumerate  :  but  it  does  well  when  it  amounts  to  a  return 
of  one  fifth  of  what  the  insurer  has  paid  in  premiums.  The  "  value"  of  a 
policy,  according  to  the  calculation  of  an  Assurance  office — is  the  value 
of  such  an  annuity,  as  is  equal  to  the  difference  of  the  annual  premium 
taken  from  the  insurer  at  the  age  at  which  his  assurance  was  first  effected, 
and  that  which  would  he  demanded  at  the  time  when  such  calculation  of 
value  is  to  be  made.  This  interpretation  is  about  as  clear  as  the  original 
statement  ?  but  the  fact  is,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  make  the  thing 
intelligible  by  statement,  and  I  will  give  an  example,  therefore,  which  will 
come  sufficiently  near  the  mark.  According  to  a  table  now  before  me, 
(that  of  the  **  Amicable"  Society)  the  annual  premium  required  from  a 
man  25  years  of  age  for  an  insurance  for  the  whole  of  life,  is  £2.  5s.  6d. 
per  cent.  The  premium  demanded  for  a  man  30  years  of  age  under  the 
same  circumstances,  would  be  £2.  10s.  6d.  Now  the  man  who  insured 
at  25,  and  broke  his  neck  out  of  a  window — or  was  squeezed  to  death  in 
going  to  see  (he  Duke  of  York  "  lie  in  state" — at  30,  would  receive  from 
the  assurance  office  £100.,  having  paid  in  premiums  (including  the 
compound  interest  of  his  money,)  in  round  numbers,  say  £15.  Rut,  if  his 
policy  were  to  be  "  valued"  at  that  same  period — as  it  would  be  in  case  he 
wished  to  sell  it,  or  was  "  killed  in  a  duel" — the  value  put  upon  it  by  the 
office  would  be  that  of  an'  annuity  of  6s.  a  year — being  the  difference 
between  the  premium  (£2.  5s.  6d.)  at  which  lie  was  entitled  to  go  on 
maintaining  his  insurance,  having  commenced  it  at  25  years  of  age,  and  the 
£2.  JOs.  6d.  which  would  be  required  of  him,  now  (at3u)  if  he  were  now 
only  beginning  to  insure:  and  the  "  value"  of  this  annuity — that  is  the 
"  value*'  of  his  £100  policy — would  be  certainly  not  so  much  as  £3. — 
or  one-fifth  of  the  £15.  which  he  had  actually  paid.  Offices  are  entitled 
to  covenant  to  pay  just  what  they  please :  but  it  is  a  pity  that  people  should 
not  understand  what  it  really  is  that  they  do  covenant  to  pay. 

Still  the  grand,  and,  in  fact,  the  only  real  object  of  Assurance,  is  the 
entire  security  from  RISK  ;  and  if  there  be  any  casualty  to  which  the 
insurer  remains  exposed,  the  whole  institution  (to  him)  becomes  worth 
nothing.  And  the  more  extensive  description  of  insurance  undertaken  by 
these  very  Assurance  companies — to  wit,  the  insurance  from  tire — affords  a 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  181 

peculiarly  striking  illustration  of  that  fact.  The  annual  fire  premium 
charged  in  ordinary  cases  for  the  insurance  of  £100.  upon  any  house  or 
lot  of  goods,  amounts  only  to  two  shillings — which  is  just  one-thousandth 
part  of  the  sum  assured.  Therefore,  allowing  for  the  accumulation  of 
money  by  interest,  a  house  insured  at  this  rate  must  go  on  paying  its 
premiums  for  five  centuries  in  safety,  before  the  Assurers  would  receive 
enough  to  indemnify  them  in  case  of  loss.  The  number  of  "  fires'* 
seem  to  be  very  great  to  persons  who  live  in  London,  and  who  regularly 
find  such  accidents  quoted  as  they  occur  in  the  newspapers  of  the  day :  but 
the  truth  is  they  are  so  few  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  property  existing, 
as  scarcely  (one  might  think)  to  be  worth  making  an  item  in  account. 
For  if  the  annual  premium  of  insurance  taken  by  a  company  upon  each 
house,  or  lot  of  property,  valued  at  £100,  be  only  two  shillings,  it 
follows  that,  if  out  of  every  thousand  such  lots  so  insured  and  paid  for,  one 
only  annually  were  destroyed,  still  the  assurers  (who  would  have  received 
two  thousand  shillings,  and  would  have  to  pay  £100.)  would  merely  have 
taken  up  the  same  amount  which  they  have  to  lay  down,  without  having 
got  one  farthing  either  for  profit,  or  to  defray  the  expences  of  their 
business  ?  and,  consequently,  when  we  find  such  companies  enabled  to 
live,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  number  of  losses  by  fire,  at  more  than 
one  in  every  fourteen,  or  fifteen  hundred  divisions  of  property.  And  yet 
fire  insurance  associations  do  live  and  thrive :  for,  against  this  RISK, — 
small  as  it  is — with  fifteen  hundred  chances  to  one  already  in  their 
favour — so  valuable  is  absolute  certainty,  that  all  the  world  is  contented 
to  insure. 

The  Dissenters  of  England — who  are  a  highly  respectable  as  well  as 
numerous  body  of  persons  (and,  therefore,  able  to  command  attention,) — 
are  making  a  great  disturbance  now  about  the  hardship  of  being  com- 
pelled to  "  be  married,'*  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Established  Church. 
This  seems  to  me,  however,  to  be  a  very  uncomplimentary  proceeding  (as 
far  as  the  gentlemen  are  concerned)  towards  their  ladies :  for  there  are  times 
at  which  an  honest  man  might  be  content  to  bo  married,  although  even  a 
certain  dignitary  who  shall  be  nameless,  had  to  perform  the  ceremony  — 
and  never  be  the  worse  Christian,  in  my  estimation,  neither.  .But 
your  people  who  have  "  a  conscience" — that  is  the  devil  of  them — never 
have  any  conscience:  whence  it  is,  I  am  sure,  and  for  no  other  reason,  that 
VIRTUE  has,  time  out  of  mind,  been  unpopular;  and  that  many  men 
now-a-days  are  frightened  at  the  thought  of  any  pretensions  to  it.  If 
ever  any  very  particular  rogue  is  taken  up  and  carried  to  a  police  office, 
the  "  reporter" — fined,  perhaps,  at  some  period  of  his  life  for  having 
been  drunk — is  sure  to  describe  him  as  "  Hezekiah,"  whatever  his  name 
may  be — a  person  having  much  the  air  and  appearance  of  a  "  preacher.*' 
And  Falstaff,  speaking  with  the  public  voice  three  centuries  ago,  cries  out — 
"  Praised  be  these  rebels!  they  offend  none  but  the  VIRTUOUS  :  I  laud 
them — I  praise  them !  "  N.  B.  To  prevent  any  possibility  of  mistake — 
as  a  great  deal  that  we  do  in  this  publication  is  remarkably  sound  and 
honest,  and  might  be  liable  to  such  misconstruction — I  really  think  I 
ought  to  take  this  opportunity  of  announcing,  that  ours  is  not  a  VIRTUOUS 
Magazine. 

By  the  way — speaking  of  "Magazines" — I  don't  think  it  is  at  all  a 
bad  way  for  a  periodical  to  get  on,  to  puff  the  books  now  and  then  of  some 
good,  speculating,  advertising,  publisher.  But  then  you  should  be  careful 
to  select  only  those  books  which  are  such  stuff  that  nobody  else  will  touch 


182  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [FEB. 

them  ;  because,  if  nobody  else  has  praised,  there  is  no  choice,  and  you  must 
be  quoted.  Thus  I  see  the  "  Monthly  Review"  pronounces  that — "we 
look  upon  Almacks'  as  one  of  the  most  delightful  novels  in  our  "  (pro- 
bably the  English)  "  language."  And  Messrs.  Saunders  and  Otley — 
authorities  on  the  subject  running  rather  scarce — publish  that  declaration 
three  times  a  week  in  almost  every  London  newspaper.  Which  pleasing 
arrangement  of  reciprocity,  in  fact,  enables  the  parties  to  get  the  work  of 
two  advertisements  performed  by  one ;  teaching  the  public  at  the  same  time, 
that  the  "  Monthly  Review  "  thinks  Almacks'  the  most  delightful  novel  in 
our  language,  and  that  there  is  such  a  publication  as  the  "  Monthly  Re- 
view" the  pronouncements  of  which  are  oracular. 

But  the  operation  of  a  spirit  of  that  which  is  right,  is  sometimes  pleasing 
to  behold,  as  well  as  of  that  which  is  merely  graceful  and  conciliatory ; 
on  which  account  I  am  rather  satisfied  to  find  that  the  "  Mr.  Begg,"  who 
shot  a  miserable  sheriffs'  officer  in  Ireland,  the  other  day,  in  the  execution 
of  his  duty,  (and  who,  by  a  merciful  jury,  was  found  guilty  only  of  man- 
slaughter,) is  sentenced  to  transportation  for  life.  Nothing  in  the  world 
can  be  more  proper  than  that  we  should,  as  the  wise  man  says,  "  temper 
our  justice  with  mercy:"  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  neces- 
sary that  we  should  "  temper  our  mercy  with  justice.  There  has  been 
an  unlucky  taste  for  shooting  bailiffs  upon  a  point  of  law,  for  a  long 
time,  among  a  certain  class  of  our  friends  on  the  other  side  the  Channel :  a 
taste,  by  the  bye,  that  has  a  great  deal  of  very  atrocious  feeling — and  no 
necessary  courage — about  it;  but  looks  very  much  like  a  disposition  to 
commit  murder,  merely  because  there  seems  to  be  a  chance  of  doing  it  d 
bon  marche.  If  Mr.  Begg  acted  in  passion,  he  is  to  be  pitied;  but  no 
earthly  consideration  ought  to  save  him  from  punishment.  It  is  not  much 
more  than  two  years  since,  that  a  Mr.  Conolly,  here  in  England,  was 
transported  for  life  for  a  similar  offence. 

All  the  newspapers  are  filled  with  terrible  accounts  of  the  crowding  and 
mischief  which  took  place  at  St.  James's,  during  the  two  days  that  the 
body  of  his  late  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  York,  "  lay  in  state."  The 
most  inexcusable  part  of  the  affair  seems  to  have  been  that  a  great  number 
of  apparently  respectable  females,  were  permitted,  by  those  who  should 
have  exercised  better  control  over  them,  to  thrust  themselves  into  associa- 
tion with  a  riotous  and  brutal  mob,  for  the  gratification  of — to  say  the 
best  of  it — but  a  vulgar  curiosity.  Ladies  may  be  assured — and  the  devil 
take  the  taste  they  have,  from  highest  to  lowest,  for  seeing  all  that  is  to  be 
seen  ! — that  no  woman  ever  yet  exhibited  herself  in  the  degrading  position 
of  mixing,  and  contending — no  matter  for  what  object — with  a  crowd, 
without  exciting  sensations  of  disgust  and  aversion  in  the  mind  of  every 
man  of  decent  feeling  who  beheld  her.  The  Morning  Chronicle,  how- 
ever, lays  all  the  blame  upon  the  mis- arrangements  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  office,  and  complains  heavily  that  no  accommodation  was 
furnished  to  the  writers  for  the  newspapers ;  which  was  (if  such  were  the 
fact)  very  bad  judgment.  The  pressure  was  so  tremendous — the  same 
paper  adds — that  "  within  their  own  knowledge,  one  literary  gentleman 
narrowly  escaped  suffocation  from  it."  I  have  known  one  or  two  "  literary 
gentlemen  narrowly  escape  suffocation  "  from  other  causes  :  but.  that  is  by 
the  bye. 

New  books,  for  the  last  three  or  four  months,  have  beon  rather  dull; 
something  is  expected  from  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Life  of  Buonaparte :  but 
that  ground  has  been  a  good  deal  beaten  already  ;  and  there  is  an  idea 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  183 

abroad,  that  so  voluminous  a  work — executed  in  so  short  a  time— must 
consist,  in  a  great  measure,  of  compilation.  Still  Sir  Walter  Scott  will  do 
nothing  that  will  not  have  some  novelty  and  interest  about  it — independent 
of  his  style  of  relation,  being  the  pleasantest  in  the  world.  In  the  list 
of  the  London  publishers,  "  Recollections  "  out  of  number  afflict  us,  in  pre- 
sence and  in  prospect.  Mr.  Boaden  has  already  inflicted  a  "  Life  "  of 
Mrs.  Siddons ;  and  Mr.  Dibdin,  the  farce  writer  and  play-house  manager, 
is  going  to  write  the  annals  of  Sadler's  Wells  and  the  Circus,  in  the  shape 
of  a  "  Life  "  of  himself.  Of  a  better  order,  there  is  Mr.  Southey's  second 
volume  of  the  History  of  the  Peninsular  War,  just  out :  and  the  events 
of  the  time  just  now  will  make  that  a  work  of  strong  interest :  and  Black- 
wood's  Elizabeth  de  Bruce  is  a  hit-rit  has  a  toucn  of  the  real  vein  of 
romance  writing  about  it. 

The  New  Quarterly  Review  is  out ;  but  it  does  not  strike  me  as  being 
quite  so  good  as  the  last  number  was :  though  I  like  the  paper  on  the  Ser- 
vian Minstrelsy ;  and  the  article  on  the  Corn  Laws  is  very  ingeniously 
written.  Here,  too,  there  is  a  long  and  elaborate  paper  upon  the  uses  and 
abuses  of  Life  Assurance;  but  I  dun't  quite  go  along  with  the  writer  in  all 
his  views  upon  the  subject.  The  objection  taken  to  the  allowance  of 
"  commission,"  or  brokerage,  by  the  Assurance  companies,  upon  assurances 
brought  to  them,  seems  to  me  to  be  untenable.  The  custom  of  all  trades 
has  been  for  those  who  follow  them  to  attract  preference  by  holding  out 
all  advantages — even  one  beyond  another — that  they  fairly  can  ;  and  this 
"  commission," — which,  by  the  way,  may  be  received  by  the  principal 
who  insures  for  himself,  just  as  readily  as  by  the  agent — is  made  no  secret, 
but  forms  a  regular  part  of  the  proposals  of  Assurance  companies  in  their 
public  advertisements.  In  the  instance  quoted  of  the  clergyman  who  had 
his  policy  effected  upon  unfavourable  terms,  by  employing  an  attorney 
who  had  a  predilection  for  the  commission  given  by  a  particular  Assur- 
ance office,  no  doubt,  in  the  bargain  there  made,  the  insurer  was  very 
much  injured ;  but  what  earthly  description  of  bargain  is  there  in  which  a 
man  may  not  be  injured,  who  will  not,  or  cannot,  do  his  business  himself, 
.and  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  entrust  it  to  a  dishonest  agent  ?  There  are  one 
or  two  other  points  (of  fact)  as  to  which  the  writer  in  the  Quarterly,  if  he 
argues  with  a  view  to  practice,  is  mistaken.  Take  that,  for  instance, 
where  he  complains  that  the  Assurance  societies  make  their  calculations 
of  premium,  upon  the  understanding  that  the  interest  of  money  accruing  to 
them  is  three  per  cent.,  while,  in  fact,  they  get  four  or  five !  This  writer 
can  hardly  have  forgotten  that,  hardly  more  than  twelve  months  since, 
there  was  a  difficulty  in  obtaining  even  three  per  cent. — or  even  two  and  a 
half — for  money  ?  If  that  state  of  things  had  continued,  or  were  to  re- 
turn, the  only  result  of  any  company's  having  framed  its  calculations  upon 
the  supposition  of  a  constant  interest  of  five  per  cent.,  would  be,  that  such 
a  company  must  become  unable  to  meet  its  engagements,  and  must  declare 
itself  bankrupt.  The  charge  which  follows — that  the  Assurance  compa- 
nies have  an  advantage  out  of  the  manner  in  which  their  tables  of  mor- 
tality are  framed — to  wit,  that  they  form  these  tables  from  an  average  of  the 
mortality  in  society  in  general — among  rich  and  poor — sickly  and  healthy 
— while  their  trade,  in  fact,  arises  almost  entirely  among  the  rich  (and 
least  exposed.),  and  even  there,  is  restricted  to  the  best,  and  selected  lives — 
this  charge  is  well  founded,  and  very  ingeniously  put.  But  I  don't  at  all 
agree  in  the  view  of  the  writer,  as  to  the  probability  (or  advisableness)  of 
the  "  statutary  interference  "  which  he  recommends.  The  best  security  for 


184  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [FEB. 

the  public  in  every  trade  is  the  competition  between  one  dealer  and  another ; 
and  of  that  competition  in  life  assurance,  we  already  have  a  great  abun  - 
dance,  and  are  likely — if  the  trade  be  really  a  profitable  one— soon  to  have 
a  great  deal  more. 

That  excellent  paper,  the  Morning  Post,  which  is  always  occupied  with 
some  scheme  for  the  public  advantage,  contains  an  admirable  letter  this 
morning,  (23rd  of  January,),  on  the  impropriety  of  boys  making  slides  in 
frosty  weather  in  the  kennels.  There  is  an  eloquence  about  the  writer's 
manner,  which  assures  us  that  he  speaks  from  a  full  understanding  of  the 
evil  against  which  he  declaims :  that  he  has  had  at  least  three  falls,  for 
instance,  during  the  present  winter,  and  perhaps  a  snow-ball  or  two,  by  way 
of  accompaniment,  into  the  bargain. 

Music. — A  punster  the  other  day,  speaking  of  Mr.  Bochsa's  indictment 
against  the  Examiner  newspaper,  and  expressing  surprise  that  Mr.  Bochsa, 
after  all  that  had  passed,  should  bo  continued  in  his  office  at  the  Opera 
House,  a  gentleman  present,  observed,  that  "  he  thought  Mr.  B.,  whatever 
his  faults  were,  had  been  hardly  attacked ;  and  that  such  persons — being 
merely  public  exhibitors — might  well  enough  be  admitted  within  a  certain 
pale."  "  You  are  right,*'  returned  the  first — "  It  should  be  a  very  large 
pail — and  very  full  of  water.1* 

MORE  Music. — Boieldieu's  opera  of  the  White  Maid,  which  there 
was  a  great  fuss  set  up  about  Miss  Paton's  refusal  to  play  in,  has  been 
brought  out  at  Covent-Garden  Theatre,  and  sufficiently  explained  the 
cause  of  the  lady's  contumacy — it  was  laughed  at  on  the  first  night  of 
performance,  and  withdrawn  on  the  fifth.  It  is  best,  I  rather  think,  to 
leave  the  managers  and  the  actors  to  settle  their  differences  among  them- 
selves as  they  can  :  because  it  is  always  very  difficult,  in  any  dispute,  to 
determine  which  is  in  the  right ;  especially  if — as  generally  is  the  case — 
both  are  in  the  wrong.  And,  as  for  calling  performers  the  '*  servants  of 
the  public" — they  get  a  great  deal  more  money,  very  often,  than  their 
comparative  merits,  or  importance  in  society  would  seem,  perhaps,  to 
entitle  them  to — but  the  notion  of  their  being  the  "  servants  of  the  public" 
— or  owing  any  thing  to  the  public — is  trash — cant  fit  to  use  no  where 
but  at  a  "  Theatrical  Fund'*  Dinner — mere  "  subscription  benefit'*  cant. 
No  actor — nor  any  author — is  read — or  run  after — from  any  charitable 
feeling  towards  himself;  or  from  any  end  beyond  the  gratification  of  those 
persons  who  read,  or  run  after  him.  He  is  commended  and  received  by 
men  of  sense,  because  his  merit  in  his  calling  renders  him  valuable  and 
acceptable  to  such  men  :  and  fools  follow  him  because  they  must  follow 
something,  and  because  they  fortunately  have  an  instinct  to  be  led  by 
those  who  are  wiser  than  themselves.  *  But  what  duty,  or  service,  can 
any  artist  owe  to  the  public,  when  that  public  never  notices  him,  until 
his  powers,  by  gratifying  their  appetite,  have  made  his  presence  a  luxury 
for  which  they  are  content  to  pay !  An  actor,  like  every  other  trader,  is 
entitled  to  take — both  in  meal  and  malt — in  money,  and  money's  worth — 
which  is  the  privilege  to  be  impertinent — for  the  talent, — which  is  the  com- 
modity that  he  has  to  dispose  of— just  the  highest  price  that  it  will  fetch. 

It  is  said  that,  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  His  Royal  Highness 
the  Duke  of  York,  and  of  some  unfortunate  occurrences,  which  will  be 
generally  recollected,  which  took  place  during  his  illness,  the  Catholic 
question  is  to  be  abandoned  for  the  present  Session  of  Parliament.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  but  that,  under  existing  circumstances,  this  course  is  the 
politic  one ;  for  it  would  be  impossible  to  mention  the  claims  of  the 


]  827.  J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  185 

Catholics  in  the  House  of  Commons,  while  the  Royal  Duke's  death,  is 
still  fresh  in  men's  thoughts  and  remembrances,  without  provoking  re- 
ference, and  drawing  forth  comment,  as  to  events  and  declara- 
tions, which,  for  the  interest  of  Catholicism,  should  be  allowed  to  sink 
as  fast  as  possible  into  oblivion.  The  opinions  or  expressions  of  persons, 
whose  business  or  amusement  it  is,  to  utter  gratuitous  harangues,  would 
be  in  themselves  too  valueless  and  unimportant  ever  to  be  repeated ;  but, 
while  the  Catholic  body  persists  to  acknowledge  those  individuals  as  its 
leaders,  or  fails  to  reject  and  disavow,  publicly  and  formally,  the  sen- 
timents which  they  assume  to  utter  on  its  behalf,  their  follies  and 
opinions  unhappily  acquire  a  consequence,  for  the  hopes,  and  claims, 
of  millions  of  ill-judging  individuals  become  endangered  by  them. 
Against  such  conduct  as  that  which  has  lately  been  pursued  by  some 
of  the  Catholic  representatives,  it  is  impossible  for  the  best  cause  ever  to 
thrive ;  and  those  parties  who  are  the  warmest  advocates  of  Catholic 
emancipation,  as  a  measure  of  policy,  cannot  disguise  from  themselves, 
that  it  would  be  a  measure,  at  the  present  moment,  highly  offensive  to 
the  people  of  England.  A  curious  instance  of  the  state  of  popular 
feeling  on  this  subject,  took  place  but  a  few  nights  since — while  the  Duke 
of  York  lay  dead — during  the  performance  of  the  tragedy  of  King  John, 
at  Covent-Gardea  Theatre.  Those  passages  in  the  play  which  displayed 
a  defiance  to  Catholic  pretension,  were  cheered  loudly  by  great  numbers 
of  persons  in  the  house ;  while  those  points  which  urged,  or  favoured,  iia 
claims,  were  received  with  hisses  and  laughter.  These  demonstrations 
proceeded  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  from  persons  in  the  lower,  or  middle 
classes  of  society ;  in  which  classes,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  tho 
greatest  quantity  of  dislike  to  the  Catholic  cause  is  to  be  found ;  but, 
those  classes,  it  will  have  to  be  recollected,  compose  the  great  bulk  of 
the  community,  and  that  very  bulk,  which  the  party  that  most  vigorously 
supports  Catholic  emancipation  in  the  House  of  Commons,  has  ever  in- 
sisted should  be  considered  and  listened  to.  There  can  be  no  prudent 
man,  who  wishes  well  to  the  Catholic  cause,  but  must  feel  the  paramount 
necessity  of  allowing  it  to  sleep  for  the  present.  If  it  is  brought  forward, 
whatever  may  be  its  fate,  by  a  few  votes  one  way  or  the  other,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  majority  against  it  out  of  that  house  will  be 
signal  and  overpowering. 

Apropos  of  Catholics,  and  Ireland — a  query  suggests  itself  to  me. 
The  watchmen  in  London,  are  all  Irishmen.  How  does  it  happen  that 
those  men  are  employed  to  keep  the  peace  in  a  foreign  country,  who 
never  can  keep  it  in  their  own  ?  This  .fact  forms  a  curious  contradiction 
to  the  theory  of  Spurzheim,  who  said,  after  his  visit  to  Ireland,  that  un- 
less the  /wads  of  the  people  could  be  altered,  it  was  in  vain  to  pass  any 
laws  to  improve,  or  tranquillize  the  country.  I  always  thought,  myself, 
that  Spurzheim  was  wrong  here  ;  and  that  by  a  judicious  attention  to  the 
necks  of  the  population  (as  their  heads  could  not  be  altered),  a  great  deal 
might  be  effected. 

The  Bollon  Chronicle  contains  a  complaint  against  the  practice  of 
compelling  persons  to  attend  divine  service,  on  Sundays,  in  that  town ; 
a  process  which  is  carried  into  effect,  it  seems,  by  the  chief  constable  and 
his  assistants  going  forth  while  service  is  performing,  and  et  sweeping'1  the 
streets  of  Bolton — sending  the  idle  (in  custody)  to  church,  and  the 
drunken  to  the  cage.  They  use  this  compulsory  ceremony,  however,  very 

M.  M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  14.         X 


186  Letter  *n  A  fairs  in  general  [FEB. 

generally  in  the  larger  towns  of  Lancashire ;  and  in  some— in  Manchester 
tor  instance — very  rigidly ;  although  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  the  devotion 
so  forced  is  of  a  very  valuable  character — or  that  the  law  enacting  it,  is 
carried  quite  impartially  into  effect.  I  recollect  I  was  on  a  visit  oncer  at 
Manchester — at  the  house  of  the  borough-reeve,  or  mayor;  and,  being 
at  church  on  the  Sunday,  with  my  host,  was  honoured  with  the  carrying 
of  a  wand,  and  invited  to  take  a  place  in  his  magisterial  procession* 
About  the  middle  of  the  service,  accordingly,  we  sallied  forth ;  and 
presently  met  with  two  pigs,  whom  we  apprehended,  and  sent  to  the 
green-yard.  Shortly  after,  we  met  a  man  in  the  street,  who  looked  like 
a  labourer;  and  my  friend  immediately  accosted  him,  with  an  air  of 
authority  ;  asking  "  why  he  was  not  at  church  ?'*  The  fellow  tried  to 
excuse  himself,  by  saying  that  he  was  "  going  on  a  journey ;" 
but  this  plea  was  not  admitted  ;  and  he  was  threatened  with  a  fine,  and 
sent  to  church  in  the  charge  of  a  constable.  By  and  bye,  we  met 
another  labourer,  who  was  asked — "  why  he  was  not  at  church  ?"  And 
the  man  answered — "  that  his  wife  was  ill,  and  he  was  going  to  fetch  a 
midwife;'*  and  even  this  excuse  had  some  trouble  to  prevail.  And  in  the. 
same  way,  going  on,  we  met  five  or  six  more  poor  looking  people,  in  the 
course  of  our  round,  of  all  whom  my  friend  asked  the  same  question,  and 
with  some  severity,  "  why  they  were  not  at  church  ?"  But  presently 
when  we  met  a  well-dressed  gentleman,  in  boots  and  spurs,  who  appeared 
to  be  making  ready  to  go  out  for  a  morning's  ride,  I  observed  then,  that 
my  friend  only  nodded,  and  asked  him — "  what  was  the  news  ?" 

IMPORTANT  WORKS  IN  PREPARATION. — Proposals  have  been  issued, 
for  "  publishing  by  subscription  a  "  series  of  BUSTS"  of  the  "  principal 
THEATRICAL  PERFORMERS,  whose  talent  has  rendered  them  the  admi- 
ration of  their  country  !"  It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  any  thing  in 
furtherance  of  this  important  object ;  and  among  the  names  of  the  distin- 
guished individuals  thus  already  immortal,  and  to  be  further  immortalised, 
appear  those  of  "  Mr.  Cooper,  Mr.  Wallack,  Mr.  Browne,  Mr.  Bennett, 
Mr.  J.  Russell,  Mr.  Gattie,  Mr.  Reeve,  Mr.  Penson,  &c.  &c. ;  Miss 
Love,  Miss  Graddon,  Mrs.  West,  Mrs.  Orger,  Mrs.  Bunn,  &c.  &c." 
People  cannot  make  too  much  haste  in  contributing  to  this  very  laudable, 
and  indeed  nationally  indispensable  public  undertaking.  But  what  has 
Mr.  Claremont  done,  that  his  bust  is  not  to  be  taken  ? 

It  is  a  particularly  needless  fulsomeness,  I  think,  that — whenever  any 
member  of  the  royal  family  is  dead — of  cramming  every  newspaper  and 
periodical  publication,  for  the  three  months  next  ensuing,  with  dull  stories 
of  his  life  and  private  conversation.  My  only  consolation,  every  time  I 
have  taken  up  a  newspaper  for  the  last  three  weeks,  has  been  that  the 
Duke  of  York  in  his  life  was  not  a  WIT.  Anecdotes,  which  end  in 
nothing,  are  bad  enough  in  .conscience !  but  posthumous  JOKES — those, 
for  instance,  which  were  (most  treasonably)  imputed  to  the  late  King 
after  his  death — the  little  paragraphs  that  used  to  be  headed,  in  the  Post 
and  Courier,  "  ROYAL  BON-MOT!" — it  makes  one's  blood  run  cold  to 
recollect  them ! 

Letters  from  the  peninsula,  up  to  this  day,  bring  nothing  important  or 
decisive ;  but  the  aspect  of  our  foreign  affairs,  in  the  main,  is  pacific. 
France  does  not  appear  anxious  to  go  to  war ;  and  we  need  not  give  our- 
selves a  great  deal  of  uneasiness  as  to  any  very  trying  contest  with  Spain. 
In  Portugal  itself,  neither  of  the  native  parties  seems  inclined  to  measures 
of  great  activity  :  probably  the  soldiers,  on  both  sides,  feel  that  it  would 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in' general  187 

be  rather  a  needless  expenditure  of  life  and  limb  to  fight.     Tho  chief  seat 
of  war — such  as  it  is — lies  now  in  one  of  the  most  romantic  tracts  of 
country  in  the  whole  Spanish  continent — and  a  country  strong  in  its  natu- 
ral   capabilities   for   defence ;  the   country  between   Coimbra  and  Vize  ; 
the  high  road  through  which  lies  over  the  Siezza  of  Busaco.     Mort-agoa, 
the  present  quarter  of  the  Constitutionalists,  consists  of  little  else  than  a 
ibw  straggling  huts,    lying  in  the  very  heart  of  rugged  and  stupendous 
mountains.     Tondella,  which  is  in  the  possession  of  the  insurgents,  is  a 
larger  village,  containing  a  few  houses  belonging  to  persons  of  moderate 
fortune,  and  not  unpleasantly  situated.     Vizeu,   about  nir.e   miles  further 
north  still,  is  one  of  the  neatest  towns  in  that  part  of  the  peninsula,  but 
small — not  near  so  extensive  as  Richmond,  and  of  dull  appearance,  without 
much  advantage  of  position.     Cea,  which   the  Royalists  were  holding, 
1  perceive,  the  other  day,  is  one  of  the  most  beautifully-situated  spots  in 
the  country.     Is  lies  on  the  side,  and  nearly  at  the  base,  of  a  mountain — 
just  under  the  great  Siezza  do  Estrella,  on  the  top  of  which  the  snow  lies 
during  three-fourths  of  the  year,  while  the  people  are  scorching  in  the  val- 
ley below ;  and  looks  over  a  plain,  the  very  richest  and  most  extensive  in 
the  province  of  Beira — very  fertile,   and  highly  cultivated — the  prospect 
wants  nothing  but  a  bold  river,  to  make  it  one  of  the  most  delicious  in  the 
world.     Cea  consists  only  of  a  few  houses  ;  but  all  these  are  handsome  : 
it  amounts  rather  to  an  assemblage  of  country  seats,   than  to  what  we 
should  call  a  village.     Goveia,  situated  in  the  same  line,  is  a  more  popu- 
lous place,  and  looks,  at  a  distance,  one  of  the  most  picturesque  towns  in 
Portugal.     It  lies,  like  Cea,  upon  the  side  of  a  mountain,  but  is  so  formed 
as  to  be  seen   all  at  one  view,  and  like  one  building,  as  a  stranger  ap- 
proaches it ;  and  the  view  lies  across  a  richly-cultivated  flat,  which  sepa- 
rates, by  about  the  width  of  a  mile,  from  the  high  road.     Going  still  fur- 
ther north,  the  scene  changes,  and  we  get  into  a  barren,  and,  in  many 
parts,  into  a  frightful  country.      Celerico  and  Guarda  arc  dreary    resi- 
dences both:  the  first  is  a  poor  straggling  town,  scarcely   worthy  of  the 
title,  standing  ^ibout  a  mile  from  the  banks  of  the  Mondego ;  and  in  the 
centre -of  a  country  where,  looking  as  far  as  the^yc  can  reach,  in  many 
directions,  you  find  nothing  but  masses  upon  masses — piled  almost  to  the 
sky — of  black  granite,  and  a  soil  of  the  same  inhospitable  material,  or  of 
sand.     Guarda  stands  higher  in  situation,  I  believe,  than  any  town  in  Por- 
tugal, and  is  subject  to  almost  incessant  rains.     It  was  said  in  the  last 
war,  that  the  French  occupied  Guarda,  in  their  first  campaign,  for  three 
months,  and  that  it  rained,  without  exception,  every  day  while  they  were 
there.     In  the  next  campaign,  they  entered  it  again  ;  and  the  first  excla- 
mation of  the  advanced  guard  that  marched  into  it  was,  "  Par  bleu  !  it  is 
raining  here  still!"     Whether  the  Frenchman  spoke  English  on  this  occa- 
sion, or  whether  the  comment  was  translated,   I  do  not  pretend  to  chtcr- 
mine.      All  these   places  almost— Vizeu,  Cea,  Celerico,  and  Goveia — 
were  by  turns  the  head-quarters  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,    during  the 
last  war.     When  he  was  in  Goveia — -just  before  the  retreat  to  the  lines  of 
Torres  Vedras — he  had  sent  his  last  effective  detachment — a  small  party 
of  the  Foot  Guards — to  the  advance  ;  and  a  few  ill-dressed  soldiers;of  the 
95th  (Rifle  corps) — just  sufficient  to  furnish  the  sentries — were  doing  duty 
at  his  Excellency  the  Commander-in-chief's  own  door.     From  this  point, 
towards  the  Spanish  frontier-^that  is,  towards  Ciudad  Rodrigo— the  course 
lies  by  Almeida,  through  Alverca  and  Pin  hell.     Descending  towards  Lis- 
bon, you  may  pass  through  a  mountainous  but  rich  country,  by  Pcnhaii- 

.A     -• 


188  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general  [FEB. 

cos,  Galezes,  and  Venda  da  Vallee;  and  from  thence  it  is  out  a  few  miles 
to  Fozdao,  a  small  village  on  the  edge  of  the  Mondego — from  whence  the 
river  is  navigable  for  boats  of  small  burthen  to  Coimbra.  From  Coimbra, 
excepting  only  about  two  leagues  of  deep  sand  and  pine-forest  between 
Alcoentre  and  Rio  Maior,  and  about  five  leagues  more  of  bad  chaussve  and 
liills  between  Condeixa  and  Coimbra,  and  three  from  Sacavem  to  Lisbon, 
you  have  one  of  the  finest  roads  in  the  world  running  all  the  way  to  the 
capital. 

DEAD  IN  LAW. — 

"  Yet,  all  thy  goods  being  forfeit  to  the  state, 

Thou  hast  not  left  the  value  of  a  cord  !  '' 

Merchant  of  Venice. 

A  singular  defence  to  an  action  of  debt  was  set  up  at  the  Court  of  Requests 
in  Holborn,  a  few  days  since.  Mr.  Brown,  (the  plaintiff,)  a  "licensed 
victualler,"  claimed  eight  shilling?  from  the  defendant,  (Mr.  Pearce),  being 
the  amount  of  a  public-house  score;  and  Mr.  Pearce,  pleaded  that,  since 
the  debt  accrued,  he  had  been  condemned  to  le  hanged  for  robbery ;  a 
sentence,  which,  though  not  carried  into  effect,  had  balanced  accounts  be- 
tween him  and  all  the  world  at  large.  The  commissioners  held  that  the 
defence,  though  new  in  its  character,  a  good  one  ;  and  Mr.  Pearce,  who 
had  a  little  "national  debt,"  in  different  places,  outstanding  in  chalk 
against  him,  went  away  obviously  regarding  the  judge  who  had  passed 
sentence  upon  him,  as  the  very  best  friend  he  ever  had  in  the  world. — 
Query :  As  a  sentence  to  be  hanged  dissolves  all  contracts — whether  in 
chalk  or  otherwise — into  which  a  man  has  previously  entered — would  it 
be  of  power,  I  wonder,  to  dissolve  his  marriage,  and  divorce  him  from  his 
wife  ?  As  it  was  the  custom,  in  former  days,  for  persons  to  submit  knotty 
points  to  each  other  in  this  Magazine — I  shall  feel  obliged  to  any  "  Cor- 
respondent" who  can  give  a  solution  of  my  question. 

There  is  a  great  dispute  in  the  French  newspapers,  which  of  the  con- 
tending parties  in  Portugal,  at  this  moment  should  be  called  the  "  rebels." 
The  "  rebels,"  I  take  it,  must  always  be  the  beaten  party ;  terms  of  re- 
proach are,  in  general,  more  descriptive  of  a  man's  position  than  of  his 
quality.  Thus,  Sir  Joseph  Banks  properly  objected  to  Johnson's  defini- 
tion of  the  word  "  weed — a  wild,  worthless  herb."  The  knight's  own  de- 
finition was  a  great  deal  more  like  the  thing — "  weed/'  sub.  from  Veod, 
Saxou.  "  A  plant  that  grows  in  the  wrong  place," 

The  Globe  of  last  night  states,  that  "early  yesterday  morning,  as  some 
boys  were  skaiting  on  the  canal  in  the  Park,  the  ice  gave  way,  and  one  of 
them  was  unfortunately  drowned" — and  goes  on  to  "  lament  that  the 
Police  officers  are  not  more  vigilant  in  preventing  such  accidents."  The 
Police  officers  must  be  negligent  of  their  (ulterior)  interests,  as  well  as  of 
their  duty,  if  they  really  are  negligent  in  preventing  them.  I  am  surprised, 
however,  that  the  "  Patent  Skaiting,"  which  was  exhibited  a  few  years 
since  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  did  not  make  more  way.  It  was,  at 
least,  as  pleasant  an  exercise,  I  should  think,  as  skaiting  in  the  natural 
way  ;  and  had  the  peculiar  advantage  that  it  could  be  executed  in  a  warm 
room. 

A  filthy  wrangle  is  going  on,^ promoted  it  appears  by  the  Dean  and 
Chapter  of  Windsor  against  the  executors  of  the  late  Duke  of  York,  as  to 
the  property  of  the  Field  Marshall's  baton,  of  which  his  highness  died 
possessed.  This  baton,  which  appears  to  be  a  moveable  of  considerable 
value,  the  Dean  and  Chapter  claim  as  their  PERQUISITE.  It  would  be 


3827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  189 

particularly  convenient  if  the  system  of  "  perquisites  "  (by  which  the  private 
revenues  of  the  Sovereign  are  devoured)  could  be  got  rid  of  entirely  about 
the  court ;  as  it  has  already  been  got  rid  of — because  it  was  found  an  in- 
tolerable nuisance — pretty  nearly  every  where  else.  The  fees  and  perqui- 
sites attached  to  some  state  offices  are  so  enormous,  that  ceremonials  are 
omitted  in  order  to  escape  them.  Those  arising  out  of  the  late  coronation 
were  so  large,  that  I  cannot  venture  to  state  them,  not  having  a  calculation 
immediately  at  hand ;  and  I  recollect  that  when  the  "  Bank  Tokens " 
were  issued,  about  ten  years  ago,  one  of  the  causes  assigned  for  circulating 
that  silver  currency,  in  preference  to  coining  the  metal  into  shillings  and 
sixpences,  was  the. heavy  sum  which  would  become  payable  in  fees  to  the 
officers  of  the  Mint !  Every  system  of  "  vails,"  too,  has  a  natural  tendency 
to  run  into  abuse.  Purchases  are  swelled,  and  consumption  straightened, 
in  order  to  increase  the  amount  of  the  remainder,  I  rather  believe  that 
the  accounts  of  Carlton  House,  if  they  could  be  practically  checked,  would 
exhibit  some  whimsical  illustrations  of  this  truth.  All  the  leading  news- 
papers, I  observe,  speak  of  the  absence  of  flambeaux ,  for  instance,  at  tho 
Duke  of  York's  funeral.  They  were  handed  to  the  soldiers  in  the  proces- 
sion in  great  numbers,  but  very  few  were  lighted.  The  Times,  I  think 
it  is,  says  that,  in  some  of  the  streets  of  Windsor,  the  hearse  at  some  parts 
could  scarcely  be  distinguished  from  the  mourning  coaches,  except  by  an 
occasional  glimpse,  afforded  by  the  flickering  of  the  few  torches,  held  at 
considerable  distances  by  the  troops  which  lined  the  way.  These  torches 
were  of  white  wax,  and  of  a  costly  description :  it  would  be  curious  to 
know  to  what  officer,  the  torches  employed  in  the  ceremony,  and  not 
consumed  (as  a  perquisite)  reverted  ? 

A  WIFE  BY  ADVERTISEMENT. — A  French  paper  says,  "  The  gentle- 
man who  advertised  some  few  weeks  ago  in  our  paper  for  a  wife,  was  mar- 
ried on  Monday  last,"  (the  paper  is  of  Saturday)  "  to  a  lady  procured  by 
means  of  the  advertisement — and  has  a  son.  We  wish  him  joy,"  &c.  &c. ! 
I  am  sure  I  wish  the  gentleman  joy  too.  "  Domus  et  placens  uxor  /"•  as 
the  quack  doctors  in  their  hand  bills  say  ! 

The  New  Edinburgh  Review  is  out :  a  weak  number,  I  think,-  as  tho 
Review  stands  now — not  to  speak  of  the  rank  that  it  held  formerly.  Some 
of  the  papers  are  on  subjects  which  have  grown  stale,  and  most  of  the 
others  upon  matters  not  of  much  general  entertainment  or  interest.  The 
best  article  is  that  upon  the  "  Counsel  to  Prisoners  charged  with  capital 
offences,"  which  contains  a  great  deal  of  sound  argument  and  acute  reason- 
ing ;  though  I  don't  think  it  is  so  entirely  conclusive  as  the  author  seems 
to  assume.  The  question,  at  best,  appears  to  be  one  which  only  leaves  a 
choice  of  difficulties.  There  may  be  mischief  as  the  law  stands  at  present, 
but  there  would,  pretty  certainly,  continue  to  be  mischief  (though  of  a 
different  character)  if  the  law  were  altered  in  the  way  proposed ;  and  the 
only  doubt  can  be,  in  which  course  we  shall  be  open  to  the  least  quantity 
of  evil. 

It  is  true  that,  in  Scotland,  (where  the  reviewer  perhaps  lives)  a  prisoner, 
charged  with  felony,  is  already  allowed  to  address  the  jury  by  his  counsel, 
and  no  inconvenience — as  it  is  stated — ensues.  But  there  is  some  difference 
between  the  being  even  satisfied  that  a  system  works  perfectly  well  in 
one  place  (where  it  is  already  long  established)  and  the  being  convinced 
that  it  would  be  expedient  to  establish  it  as  a  new  arrangement,  in  another. 
Scotland,  it  will  be  recollected,  has  a  great  deal  less  to  do  in  the  way  of  ex- 
ecuting criminal  justice  than  England.  The  country  affords  less  temptation, 


1 90  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [FEB. 

and  less  opportunity,  for  the  commission  of  crime ;  and,  consequently,  has 
her  market  far  less  crowded  with  those  speculators  whose  business  it  is  to 
live  by  the  defence  of  crime,  than  ours  is  here.  The  thieves — alone — of 
Edinburgh,  do  not  pay  (as  those  of  London  do)  ten  thousand  pounds  a 
year  to  counsel  and  attornies  :  all  the  rogues  of  the  three  kingdoms  do  not 
flock  to  her  shops  and  dwellings  to  plunder  ;  nor  all  the  adventurers  to  her 
bar,  to  struggle — no  matter  how— for  briefs,  and  fortunes.  The  quantity 
of  crime  to  be  dealt  with  in  Scotland,  the  temper  of  the  people,  and  the 
style,  and  regime  established  at  the  bar,  all  differ  widely  from  the  state  of 
things  which  prevail  in  England ;  and  yet  Scottish  advocates,  I  believe, 
are  well  aware — and,  unless  I  am  misinformed,  no  man  has  a  better  right 
to  know  the  fact,  than  Mr.  Jeffery  himself — that  culprits  are  sometimes 
acquitted,  even  in  Scotland,  by  the  ingenuity  of  their  counsel,  where  they 
ought  to  have  been  punished  ? 

Because — we  have  not  made  our  arrangements — dull  as  we  are — in 
England,  without  some  meaning  of  our  own,  if  we  could  be  allowed  to 
explain  it.  When  we  allow  a  man  to  defend  himself  in  an  action  for  tliq 
price  of  a  pair  of  breeches,  by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Scarlett — but  not  against 
an  indictment  in  which  his  life  is  implicated — for  murder — our  motive, 
right  or  wrong,  has  been  this — we  say,  "  it  matters  very  little,  (in  the  first 
instance,  which  way  the  trial  goes ;  but  in  the  last,  society  has  too  deep  an 
interest  at  stake,  to  permit  any  babbling,  or  trifling,  or  equivocation,  which 
may  interfere  with  the  course  of  justice.  We  will  allow  more  latitude  to 
the  shewing  of  real  truth — no  great  matter  as  to  the  strict  regularity  of  the 
method  by  which  it  is  got  at — in  a  trial  for  felony,  than  we  do  in  a  civil 
case :  but  at  the  same  time,  we  shut  out,  more  peremptorily,  the  chance  of 
any  miscarriage  by  juggling  or  by  quibble." 

I  do  not  mean  at  all  to  decide  that  the  law  ought  to  remain  as  it  is ; 
or  even  to  say  peremptorily  that  the  balance  of  argument  may  not  be  in  fa- 
vour of  giving  full  liberty  to  counsel  to  address  the  jury  in  capital  cases, 
as  upon  inferior  indictments ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  the  case  for  doing 
this  is  quite  so  clear  as  the  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  seems  to 
make  it. 

The  first  effect  of  allowing  counsel  to  address  juries  in  capital  cases, 
would  be  the  introduction  of  a  new  style  of  forensic  display,  which  would 
be  at  least  unseemly,  if  not  very  mischievous.  The  getting  a  "  prisoner's 
brief"  for  some  capital  crime,  in  that  case,  woul  be  the  getting  an  oppor- 
tunity of  making  a  speech :  and  that  opportunity  would  be  used,  by  a 
great  number  of  persons  who  have  little  general  hope  in  cases  of  import- 
ance to  be  entrusted,  without  the  slightest  regard  to  any  object  beyond 
that  of  doing,  or  saying,  something  which  should  relieve  them  from  obscu- 
rity. We  should  have,  from  the  counsel  for  the  prisoner,  abuse  of  prose- 
cutors ;  denouncement  of  witnesses :  appeals  to  all  the  prejudices  and 
passions  of  juries.  This  would  lead,  of  absolute  necessity,  to  counter  ap- 
peals— to  inferences  of  extreme  severity — to  arguments  addressed  to  men's 
fears  of  robbery  or  wrong — and,  in  fact,  to  a  merciless  pleading  against  the 
prisoner's  life,  by  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution.  We  should  have  just 
the  same  description  of  squabbling,  and  defiance,  and  recrimination — only 
of  a  more  vulgar  description — in  a  court  of  life  and  death,  that  we  have  in 
the  court  of  Common  Pleas :  one  advocated  prospects  being  built  upon 
acquitting  a  prisoner — right  or  wrong ;  and  the  other's  reputation  at  stake 
— right  or  wrong — upon  the  hanging  him :  all  which  sort  of  hdte,  and 
combat,  may  be  well  calculated  to  do  eventual  justice,  and  has  nothing 


]  827.]  Letter  on  djfairs  in  general.  191 

objectionable  about  it  when  the  question  is  as  to  the  price  of  a  great  coat, 
or  the  quality  of  a  cask  of  blubber,  but  would  be  something  offensive  to 
decency  ar,d  good  taste,  where  the  matter  at  stake  was  a  human  creature's 
life. 

This  would  only  be  unseemly;  but— whatever  it  is — it  is  mere  non- 
sense to  say  that  a  judge  would,  or  could,  repress,  or  stop  it.  No  judge 
would  be  found  to  stop  any  defence — made  by  a  prisoner,  or  made  by  a 
prisoner's  counsel — where  the  life  of  the  culprit  was  at  stake.  It  is  true 
the  judge  would  have  a  new  duty  to  perform ;  and  not  of  a  very  agreeable 
nature :  he  would  have  to  reply  to  the  arguments  of  counsel,  and  to  argue 
with  the  jury  against  the  prisoner — which  would  be  something  unpleasant  ? 
It  would  sound  oddly  to  hear  the  lord  chief  justice  pleading  as  hard  against 
a  dying  wretch  in  a  case  of  highway  robbery,  or  burglary,  as  the  Chief 
Baron,  for  instance,  pleaded  against  a  defendant  the  other  day,  in  a  case  of 
libel.  But  another  objection  arises,  far  more  important  than  that  of  un- 
seemliness ;  1  think  it  more  than  likely  that  the  ends  of  justice  would 
frequently  be  compromised  by  the  alteration  proposed.  It  is  not  the  "  ma- 
kers of  speeches"  alone  who  would  be  employed  as  counsel  in  the  defence 
of  prisoners.  Their  custom  would  be  worth  the  having  of  better  people — 
of  men  of  real  ingenuity,  subtlety,  and  discretion.  And  if  there  be  a  case 
or  a  subject  upon  which  such  a  man  might  easily  get  up  an  argument 
which  should  mislead  and  perplex  twelve  persons  of  weaker  intellect  than 
himself,  it  is  that  very  description  of  case  or  subject  which  is  presented  in 
in  three-fourths  of  the  most  important  trials  which  arise  in  the  criminal 
judicature  of  the  country. 

Of  all  descriptions  of  proof  or  evidence,  that  given  in  criminal  cases,  is 
generally  the  most  open  to  cavil,  and  the  most  easy  to  perplex.  And  the 
higher  we  go  in  the  scale  of  enormity,  the  more  difficult  it  is  generally,  by 
plain  and  direct  evidence  to  bring  guilt  home  to  the  culprit.  Murder  is  a 
crime,  almost  invariably  proved — and  necessarily — by  the  mere  evidence 
of  circumstances.  By  evidence,  which,  when  we  come  to  canvass  it, 
seems  frequently  frightfully  slight :  and  yet  which  is  the  very  best  that, 
under  the  circumstances,  can  exist  to  be  adduced.  To  take  the  case  of 
Thurtell  for  instance — a  case  that  will  be  in  general  recollection — nobody 
has  ever  doubted  the  justice  of  the  verdict  in  that  case;  and  yet  I  cannot 
be  persuaded  that,  to  a  lawyer  of  a  certain  description  of  talent — to  such  a 
man  as  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas  was — who  might  have  ad- 
dressed the  jury,  something  almost  more  than  a  chance  for  a  verdict  of  ac- 
quittal was  presented.  The  poor  wretch  himself  who  was  tried,  was  a 
coxcomb  as  well  as  a  villain.  Some  strangely  judging  person  wrote  a 
speech  for  him,  every  word  of  which  was  out  of  the  way  which  pointed 
to  his  safety :  he  fancied  that  he  spoke  it  like  Kean  the  actor ;  was  de- 
lighted— and  hanged.  But  how  fragile  was  all  the  proof  in  that  case,  if 
it  had  been  handled  by  an  advocate,  who,  instead  of  uttering  tropes, 
would  have  pointed  out  difficulties  and  discrepancies'? 

Two  men — by  their  own  admission,  accomplices  after  the  murder — 
beyond  much  reasonable  question,  to  all  moral  purpose,  accomplices  before 
it— the  one  having  concealed  the  body  of  the  murdered  man  in  his  house — 
the  other,  the  man  who  first  shewed  that  he  knew  the  place  in  which  it 
had  been  eventually  disposed  of — both  these  fellows,  notorious  villains, 
long  before  the  murder  in  question — both  having  shared  the  plunder  gained 
by  the  murder — both  these  had  been  absolutely  pardoned  (when  it  was 
found  that  one  would  not  do) — a  course  almost  unprecedented — to  get 


1 92  Lett*   on  djfairs  in  general.  [FEB> 

evidence  against  the  prisoner.  The  next  witnesses  were  a  boy,  the  servant 
of  one  of  these  accomplices  and  approvers  ;  and  two  women,  of  habits 
almost  infamous ;  one,  the  same  man's  wife,  and  the  other  his.  sister. 
The  only  evidence — independent  of  the  statements  of  these  wretches — 
\vaspurelycircumstantial:  and,  even  as  circumstantial,  of  a  slight  and 
uncertain  character.  That  the  murder  had  been  committed  by  some  one, 
or  more,  of  the  three  ruffians  concerned,  there  could  be  no  doubt;  but, 
supposing  the  man  at  the  bar  to  have  been  really  not  present  at  the  deed 
- — which  was  not  impossible  upon  the  circumstantial  evidence — he  could 
have  had  no  human  means  of  proving  that  fact,  for  the  only  living  crea- 
tures who  could  have  proved  it,  would  have  been  the  actual  criminals, 
who  were  saving  their  lives  by  swearing  against  him.  The  question 
which  an  able  counsel  would  have  argued  upon  that  occasion,  would 
not  have  been  whether  the  prisoner  was  altogether  clear  from  guilt. 
but  whether  the  evidence  which  the  jury  had  heard,  and  the  circumstances 
before  them,  were  such  as  they  could  safely  condemn  a  man  to  suffer  death 
upon  ? 

Now  this  is  a  case,  not  singular,  but  of  every  day.  The  proof  in  most 
cases  of  felony  is  slight ;  and  juries,  where  death  is  likely  to  follow,  will 
always  be  nervously  cautious  how  they  convict.  And,  although  it  is  an 
excellent  maxim  in  criminal  justice,  that  "  ten  guilty  men  had  better 
escape,  than  one,  being  innocent,  should  suffer,"  yet,  if  we  are  not  to 
take  care  that  the  "  ten  guilty"  do  not  escape,  the  utility  of  criminal  law 
is  at  an  end.  I  do  not  mean  to  rely  at  all  upon  the  argument  "  that  the 
present  system  works  well."  I  admit  that  the  prisoner  now,  is  no  match 
for  the  counsel  employed  against  him.  That  though  the  judges  do,  in 
almost  every  instance,  most  cautiously  and  earnestly  protect  prisoners  ; 
yet  that  they  cannot  be  "  of  counsel"  for  them  (that  is  that  they  cannot 
comment  upon  the  prosecutor's  evidence,  as  they — the  prisoners — if  they 
possessed  the  power  of  expressing  themselves  clearly — would  comment 
upon  it).  And  that  though  the  existing  system,  checked  as  it  is  by  a 
guarded  and  humane  surveillance,  after  the  verdict  is  pronounced,  perhaps 
does  ample  justice — that  yet  the  prisoner  has  too  many  odds  against  him, 
and  is  entitled  to  be  placed  in  a  better  situation.  JBut,  even  admitting  all 
this — and  not  at  all  assuming  upon  this  hasty  glance,  even  to  prejudice 
the  Edinburgh  Reviewer's  question — yet  I  am  not  convinced  that  the 
cause  of  substantial  justice  would  be  aided  by  the  introduction  of  a  set 
of  artists  into  its  conduct,  wrhose  avowed  business,  and  duty,  is  to  per- 
plex, and  confound,  and  mislead,  and  puzzle,  and,  in  fact,  defeat  justice 
as  far  as  possible.  The  law  proposed,  it  must  be  recollected — the  giving 
to  prisoners  the  full  power  of  employing  counsel  to  address  the  jury  for 
them — still  does  not  at  all,  of  necessity,  place  the  culprit  and  his 
prosecutor  upon  a  level — nor  all  culprits  upon  a  level  one  with  the" other  ; 
for  those  prisoners  who  are  without  money  to  employ  counsel,  will  remain 
as  liable  to  be  hanged  without  just  cause,  as  ever  !  Where  the  object  is 
to  attain  the  truth,  I  think,  the  less  interference  we  have  from  those 
who  are  hired  to  perplex  and  defeat  the  truth,  the  better;  and,  as  a 
course  better  calculated  to  place  all  parties  upon  an  equality,  instead  of  a 
Bill,  to  enable  counsel  to  make  speeches,  in  capital  cases,  on  behalf  of 
prisoners,  I  should  be  well  pleased  to  see  a  law  passed,  prohibiting 
counsel  from  addressing  the  jury,  in  criminal  cases,  altogether. 


1827.]  [     193     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN. 


The  Bhurmhese  I^ar,  by  Major  Snod- 
grass;  182T. — Bringing  the  events  of  the 
whole  war  together,  this  will  of  course  be  a 
welcome  narrative.  Nothing  new — nothing 
but  what  is  confirmative  of  the  despatches, 
scraps  of  which  have  been  from  time  to  time 
doled  out  to  us  through  the  public  prints,  is 
to  be  expected — tbe  writer  was  himself  the 
Commander-in-chiefs  political  secretary. 
We  do  not  affirm  the  narrative  is  not  sub- 
stantially correct,  we  only  hint,  that  if 
aught  required  concealment,  the  station  of 
the  writer  precludes  Mm  from  exposing  it. 
We  are,  however,  content  with  the  narrative ; 
whether  all  be  told  or  not,  enough  is  told, — 
which  is  what  we  most  wanted — to  account 
for  the  tardiness  of  the  conquest.  The  ene- 
my, though  known  to  be  capable  of  bringing 
large  bodies  into  the  field,  was  also  known 
to  be  incapable  of  sustaining  the  efforts  of 
disciplined  troops.  And  the  fact  is,  at  last, 
that  the  Commander  with  an  army  never  ex- 
ceeding six  or  seven  thousand,  and  that  num- 
ber never  effective,  defeated  assemblages  of 
sixty  and  seventy  thousand.  Then  why  were 
three  campaigns  required  ?  To  make  up  for 
lack  of  information  in  the  planning,  and  lack 
of  means  in  executing  the  plans.  The  truth 
appears  to  be,  that  those  who  planned  and 
sanctioned  the  war,  presumed  upon  a  spirit 
of  dissatisfaction  through  the  Bhurmhese  ter- 
ritory, which  did  not  exist.  The  Bhtirmbese 
had  encircled  themselves  with  conquered  pro- 
vinces— Pegu  on  the  south,  Assam  on  the 
north,  Arracan  on  the  west ;  of  course,  each 
of  these  provinces  would  hail  the  arrival  of — 
an  invader,  and  welcome^any  one,  who  came 
— to  exchange  the  yoke  of  slavery.  It  never 
entered  into  the  pericraniums  of  the  India 
council,  that  these  provinces,  though  con- 
quered, might  not  be  in  a  state  of  slavery 
— that  they  might  be  fairly  incorporated 
with  their  conquerors,  and  as  free  (if  tbe 
word  can  be  used)  as  the  Bhurmhese  them- 
selves. And  the  fact  proved  to  be,  that 
none  of  these  discontented  people  had  the 
least  wish  to  throw  off  the  intolerable  yoke. 
But,  however,  in  the  style  in  which  we  so 
often  do  things,  the  expedition  was  despatched, 
to  take  its  chance,  against  Rangoon— unfur- 
nished with  the  means  of  advancing  up  the 
country,  either  by  land  or  by  water ;  neither 
with  boats  to  pass  up  the  rivers,  nor  waggons 
to  carry  provisions  by  land.  The  malcontent 
natives  were  to  find  all  for  us.  All  too  was 
to  be  ended  at  once — the  capture  of  Rangoon 
involved  the  conquest  of  the  empire ;  or  even 
Ava  was  to  be  stormed,  if  it  were  necessary, 
before  the  rains  set  in.  The  forces  landed 
in  May,  and  the  rains  began  in  June. 

But  we  will  give  our  readers  a  sketch  of 
the  war.  In  May  1824,  troops  to  the  amount 
of  five  or  six  thousand  were  assembled  at  the 
Great  Andaman  Isles,  and  forthwith  set  sail 
for  Rangoon — some  small  detachments  being 
previously  despatched  to  take  possession  of 

M.M.  New  Series.— VOL. III.  No.  14. 


an  island  on  the  Arracan  coast,  and  another 
point  or  two — thus  weakening  their  strength 
in  the  outset,  for  no  very  obvious  advantage. 
A  feeble  resistance  was  made  to  their  land- 
ing, and  Rangoon  was  quickly  evacuated — 
quite  abandoned,  and  left  without  provisions 
or  inhabitants — a  miserable  place— a  vast 
assemblage  of  wooden  huts  raised  from  the 
ground,  with  a  few  brick  buildings,  aud  one 
splendid  and  conspicuous  pagoda.  The  dock- 
yards too,  of  which  report  spoke  so  magnifi- 
cently, were  found  with  one  sloop  on  the 
stocks,  and  nothing  but  a  few  wretched  coast- 
ers was  to  be  seen  in  the  harbour.  At  Ran- 
goon the  army  were  forced  to  continue,  unable 
to  advance — joined  by  not  a  soul  of  the  discon- 
tented, but  hoping  still  that  the  natives  would 
think  better  of  the  matter — would  discover 
their  own  interests,  and  supply  our  wants. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  enemy's  troops, 
which  had  been  assembled  in  the  north,  ex- 
pectingthe  attack  on  thatside,  collected  round 
Rangoon;  and  several  encounters  now  follow- 
ed, in  which  the  Bhurmhese  were  invariably 
repulsed — their  stockading  system  being  but 
a  feeble  resistance  against  artillery.  These 
stockades,  by  tbe  way,  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much  in  the  Bhurmhese  war,  were 
lines  of  defence,  consisting  of  trunks  of  trees 
set  firmly  in  the  ground,  as  closely  together 
as  possible,  and  sometimes  sixteen  or  eigh- 
teen feet  high.  In  June,  a  force  under  one 
of  the  principal  ministers  was  routed  ;  in 
July  and  August,  another  of  a  more  formi- 
dable description,  under  the  command  of  the 
King's  brother,  backed  by  a  suite  of  astrolo- 
gers, &c.,  was  in  like  manner  defeated.  Tha 
Bhurmhese  now  became  alarmed,  and  Bun- 
doola,  u  commander  of  the  highest  reputa- 
tion for  skill  and  luck,  was  summoned  from 
Arracan  to  take  the  command,  and  by  him  a 
force  of  sixty  thousand  was  brought  to  bear 
Upon  Rangoon  in  December.  f  The  rains  bad 
set  in  in  June,  and  continued  till  October. 
The  British  army  during  this  period  suffered 
greatly,  subjected  to  continual  harassings 
through  the  whole  rainy  season,  when  "  no 
European  troops  could  have  kept  the  field 
twenty-four  hours,"  and  disease  spreading 
rapidly  among  them.  Very  soon  after  the 
landing  at  Rangoon,  detachments  had  been 
sent  to  the  south  to  take  possession  of  Tavoy 
and  Mergue ;  and  to  these  places,  towards 
the  end  of  the  rains,  had  the  sick  been  con- 
veyed ;  and,  quickly  recovering,  were  re-as- 
sembled by  the  time  Bundoola  had  collected 
his  overwhelming  hosts  for  the  attack  of 
Rangoon  io  December.  These  attacks  were 
of  the  same  impetuous,  but  unskilful  kind 
with  the  former ;  and,  by  the  middle  of  the 
month,  the  army  was  completely  routed,  and 
the  invincible  Bundoola  himself  slain. 

Reinforcements  had,  before  this  event,  ar- 
rived from  Bengal ;  and  preparations  were 
now  made  for  advancing  up  the  country, 
some  by  water  up  the  Irrawaddy,  and  some 

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by  land.  In  February  1825  they  set  out; 
but  the  land-division,  when  mid-way  between 
Rangoon  and  Prome,  found  themselves 
obliged  to  return  to  Donooben,  to  aid  the 
detachment  by  water,  which  had  failed  in 
repulsing  the  enemy's  force;  and  thus  it  was 
not  till  late  in  April,  the  whole  of  the  troops 
arrived  at  Prome,  about  two  hundred  and 
fifty  or  three  hundred  miles  up  the  Irra- 
woddy.  Here  the  campaign  of  1825  may  be 
said  to  close.  The  rains  set  in  early  in  June, 
and  no  farther  advance  was  thought  of  till 
November.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  Bhur- 
mhese  made  desperate  effortsto  assemble  new 
forces.  Attempts  at  negotiation  were  also 
made;  but  the  object  of  the  Bhurmhese,  in 
these  negocia(ion«,  was  palpably  to  gain 
time ;  and,  in  November,  an  army  of  seventy 
thousand  was  actually  brought  up  before 
Prome.  To  these  the  British  commander 
had  only  about  three  thousand  Europeans  and. 
two  thousand  Sepoys  to  oppose,  but  they 
finally  routed  and  dispersed  these  numerous 
forces. 

Alter  this,  which  seemed  the  decisive  de- 
feat, the  little  armv  prepared  for  marching 
upon  Ava,  the  capital  of  the  empire;  and, 
by  the  end  of  December,  arrived  at  Mellooni. 
Here  the  terms  of  a  peace  were  concluded, 
but  not  finally  ratified  by  the  King ;  and  here 
another  force  of  the  Bhurmhese  were  routed. 
On  the  25th  January,  1826,  the  army  again 
moved  forward  upon  Ava.  They  were  soon 
met  by  Dr.  Price,  one  of  the  American  mis- 
sionaries (who  had  been  thrown  into  prison 
on  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  on  the 
supposition  of  his  being  an  Englishman),  and 
a  surgeon  of  the  name  of  Sandford,  who  had 
been  taken  prisoner  about  a  month  before, 
commissioned  by  the  government  to  open  a 
new  negotiation  for  peace,  and  to  take  back 
the  terms.  They  were  accordingly  informed 
of  the  terms ;  and  the  commander  promised 
in  the  mean  time  not  to  advance  beyond 
Pagham-new  for  twelve  days,  a  place,  which 
he  could  not  possibly  reach  in  less  than  ten. 
When  within  a  day's  march  of  this  Pagham- 
new,  intelligence  was  received  of  a  new  army 
assembled,  which,  to  the  amount  of  eighteen 
or  twenty  thousand,  in  fact,  they  encountered 
the  very  next  day,  the  9th  February,  and 
routed  as  before.  Again  the  army  advanced, 
and  finally  were  met  at  Yandaboo,  only  forty- 
five  miles  from  Ava,  by  two  ministers  of 
state,  and  peace  was  concluded,  much  to  the 
disappointment  of  the  British  army,  who 
were  looking  to  the  spoils  of  Ava,  as  some 
compensation  for  (he  long  and  painful  harass- 
ings  of  three  campaigns,  to  which  ignorance 
or  presumption  bad  exposed  them. 

Major  Snodgrass  left  the  army  at  Mel- 
looni, with  the  treaty  concluded  at  that 
place. 

A  very  interesting  narrative  has  just  been 
published,  addressed  to  the  late  Mr.  Butter- 
worth,  by  Mrs.  Judson,  the  wife  of  one  of  the 
American  missionaries  in  Bhurmha,  detailing 
"the  miseries  suffered  by  her  husband  from  tho 


cruelties  of  the  Bhurmhese ;  with  some  de- 
scriptive particulars  of  the  Bhurmhese  court. 
These  excellent  and  resolute  individuals — 
still  pursuing  their  purpose— have  established 
themselves  in  Arracan  under  British  protec- 
tion. 

"Life  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  by  James  Boaden, 
Esq.;  1827.  —  This  gentleman's  Life  of 
Kemble,  last  year,  fairly  exhausted  our  pa- 
tience ;  and  we  turned  to  these  two  volumes 
— made,  it  seems,  to  match  the  former — 
with  a  kind  of  loathing  reluctance,  which 
nothing  but  our  respect  for  the  once  conspi- 
cuous subject  of  the  memoir  would  enable  us 
to  strive  against.  As  our  duty  bade  us,  we 
began  at  the  beginning,  and  read — yes, 
reader,  we  read  the  "  Dedication  to  the 
King ;"  and  we  trust  but  one  other  mortal  will 
read  it, — may  he  resolve  to  discountenance 
for  ever  the  crawling  fawningness  of  the 
language.  What  but  disgust,  does  the  writer 
think,  can  it  excite  in  a  manly  spirit  to  be 
told  to  his  face,  not  only  that  his  VIRTUES 
are  read  in  the  GLORIES  OF  HIS  EMPIRE, 
but  that  these  virtues  stoop  even  to  the  de- 
coration of  his  CAPITAL  ;  that  the  vigilance 
of  his  MAJESTY'S  observation  is  EVERY 
WHERE  ;  and  his  government,  in  the  atten- 
tion to  the  condition  of  his  subjects,  PATRI- 
ARCHAL?*— OHE  ! 

Then  follows  an  "  Introduction,'5  of  seve- 
ral pages,  to  account  for  the  author's  writing 
a  life  before  the  life  terminates—all  in  the 
worst  possible  taste — with  a  deal  of  talk 
about  Alcides  and  Achilles;  and  the  impor- 
tant information  that  he  did  not  himself  ven- 
ture upon  a  "justum  vohtmen"  till  he  was 
sixty— of  course  we  are  to  expect  the  bene- 
fits of  discretion  and  judgment  in  full  matu- 
rity.  If  he  had  been  twice  sixty,  it  would 
not  very  much  have  surprised  us. 

But,  though  we  are  in  no  very  good  hu- 
mour with  Mr.  Boaden,  the  book  is  better, 
than  the  last.  He  talks  himself,  we  believe, 
of  having  benefited  by  the  remarks  of  the 
critics,  and  that  be  has  in  consequence  made 
his  book  more  compact— no,  no,  we  recol- 
lect—it has  more  unity,  he  says.  Unlucky 
phrase— for  the  work,  while  professing  to  be 
memoirs  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  actually  suspends 
these  memoirs  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pages,  to  give  the  general  history  of  the 
London  stage  from  1770  to  1782,  the  inter- 
vening years  between  Mrs.Siddon's  first  re- 
tirement and  her  final  return.  But  the  book 
is  an  improvement  still.  When  he  does  get 
into  the  heart  of  the  memoir,  he  sticks  to  it ; 
and  gives  no  bad  conception  of  her  peculiari- 
ties and  excellencies  in  some  of  her  leading 
characters.  We  could  select  Lady  Mac-? 
bcth  ;  not  that  we  incline  to  attach  any  im- 
portance to  the  opinions  of  a  man,  so  mani- 
festly bent  upon  extravagant  eulogy  as  he  is. 
Mrs.  Siddons  was,  doubtless,  an  actress  of  ex- 
traordinary powers,  but  that  she  surpassed 
all  of  "  woman  born,"  we  do  not  choose  to 

*  It  is  with  tliis  swelling  type  Mr.  Boaden  en- 
forces his  flummery. 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


1827.] 

affirm,  because  wecannot  make  the  necessary 
comparison ;  nor  exactly  to  confide  in  the 
eulogist,  because,  when  we  meet  with  eulo- 
gies, we  feel  a  disposition  to  look  to  the 
judgment  of  the  parties  making  the  eulogies, 
as  well  as  to  the  merits  of  those  respecting 
whom  they  are  made. 

Mrs.  Siddons  was  born  in  17<5.5.  Her  pa- 
rents, it  is  very  well  known,  were  managers 
of  a  country  theatre.  She  herself  was  suckled 
and  cradled  on  the  stage;  and,  in  her  thir- 
teenth year,  possessing  an  agreeable  voice, 
sustained  the  heroines  of  all  the  operas,  and 
sang  the  incidental  music  of  other  pieces. 
The  person  to  whom  she  was  afterwards 
married  was  the  leading  performer  of  her 
lather's  theatre,  playing  every  thing  from 
Hamlet  to  Harlequin ;  and,  before  Miss 
Kernble  was  fifteen,  there  was  between  them 
a  declared  attachment.  The  father  disap- 
proving of  so  early  an  union,  removed  her, 
and  placed  her  under  the  "  protection  of  Mrs. 
Greathead  ;''  what  this  "  protection"  means 
we  know  not,  or  why  so  ambiguous  a  phrase 
should  be  used.  If  Miss  Kemble  was  a  ser- 
vant, no  body  will  suppose  that  condition  of 
life  to  reflect  any  real  disgrace  on  her  after- 
superiorities.  But  Mr.  Boaden  twaddles  of 
her  father's  expecting  her  to  look  beyond  the 
precarious  profession  of  the  stage — which 
must  be  nonsense  ;  turning  her  upon  the 
stage,  as  he  had  done,  from  her  very  leading- 
strings,  for  what  else  was  she  likely  to  be 
fit?  And  again,  of  the  brighter  prospects 
opening  to  her  under  the  protection  of  Mrs. 
Greathead,  which  must  be  a  little  flight  of 
imagination.  With  Mrs.  G.  however,  let  the 
situation  have  been  what  it  may,  the  young 
lady  resolved  not  to  remain — her  soul  was  in 
the  scenes — an  intercourse  by  letter  had  been 
kept  up  with  Siddons ;  and,  at  the  end  of  two 
years,  an  application  was  made,  not  of  course 
likely  then  to  succeed,  to  Mr.  Garrick; 
which  failing,  she  resolutely  quitted  Mrs. 
Greathead,  returned  to  the  stage,  and  married 
Mr.  Siddons  before  she  was  eighteen. 

When  about  twenty,  she  did  succeed  in  her 
attempts  to  present  herself  on  the  London 
boards,  in  the  character  of  Portia  ;  and,  in 
the  course  of  the  season,  in  a  few  other  less 
significant  ciiaracters,  but  made  little  sensa- 
tion. This  Mr.  Boaden  attributes  to  "  esta- 
blished favourites.'5  In  his  opinion  she  was 
then  equal  to  any  thing,  and  any  body,  <fec. 
This,  of  course,  is  highly  improbable.  The 
sensation  she  made  six  years  after  was  in- 
stantaneous and  unequivocal ;  and  there  were 
reigning  favourites  still.  At  the  end  of  the 
season,  feeling  her  disappointment,  she  with- 
drew to  the  country,  and  was  for  some  time 
the  popular  performer  at  Bath.  No  attempt 
was  made  to  return  to  London  for  six  years. 
This  interval  of  six  years— not  to  be  lost — 
Mr.  Boaden  occupies,  not  with  any  account 
of  Mrs.  Siddons,  but  with  the  history  of  the 
stage  ;  and  her  absence  he  compares,  after 
liis  manner,  to  the  retirement  of  Achilles 
from  the  field  of  Troy,  when  insulted  by 
Agamemnon  ;  and  himself  to  Homer.  Homer 


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compensates  the  absence  of  his  hero  by  th 
catalogue  of  commanders  and  ships,  and  Mr- 
Boaden  that  of  his  heroine  with  a  catalogue 
of  all  the  actors  and  actresses  that  strutted 
their  hour  till  the  recall  of  Mrs.  Siddons. 

IB  1782 — under  better  auspice^  perhaps, 
and  doubtless  much  improved — she  re-ap- 
peared in  London,  and  was  at  once  acknow- 
ledged the  first  actress  of  her  day  ;  an  emi- 
nence which  she  maintained  till  her  final  re- 
treat in  1812. 

The  manifest  superiorit}'  of  the  young  per- 
former— she  was  not  twenty-seven  on  her 
return— excited  the  envy  of  some,  and  the 
jealousy  of  others  among  her  competitors; 
and  some  very  base  means  were  used  to  turn 
the  tide  of  popularity  against  her,  particularly 
by  charging  her  with  refusing  to  play  for  a 
charity,  and  a  decayed  actor,  except  at  a  higher 
price  than  was  usual ;  the  effects  of  which 
were,  however,  averted  by  the  promptitude 
of  her  friends,  and  still  more  by  her  own 
firmness.  From  her  first  introduction  too — 
we  speak  of  1782— she  met  with  extraordi- 
nary attentions  from  the  higher  classes  of  so- 
ciety, and  maintained  from  the  first  a  bearing 
of  equality  among  them,  which  speaks,  as 
we  say,  volumes  of  her  for  strength  of  cha- 
racter, and  propriety  of  demeanour.  With 
the  power  of  moving  in  this  elevated  sphere, 
so  flattering  to  the  vainer  feelings  of  the 
lowly-born,  it  is  no  wonder  she  shunned  the 
society  of  her  compeers ;  but  this  alienation 
again  excited  the  ill-will  of  those  with  whom 
she  was  compelled  to  come  in  close  contact, 
and  occasioned  her  frequent  vexation.  Her 
dresses,  too,  were  magnificent,  and  were  said 
to  dip  deep  into  the  treasury  ;  and  inacces- 
sible as  such  splendour  was  to  the  rest  of  the 
ladies,  was  another  source  of  envy,  and  one 
which  finally  involved  her  in  her  brother's 
unpopularity.  On  two  or  three  occasions, 
after  her  retirement  in  1812,  particularly  her 
brother  Charles's  benefit,  she  presented  her- 
self again  to  the  public  ;  and,  for  a  season  or 
two,  gave  her  readings  from  Milton  and 
Shakespeare,  in  a  style  of  excellence  which 
has  never  been  surpassed,  and  will  long  be 
remembered. 

Transalpine  Memoirs,  or  Anecdotes  and 
Observations,  shewing  the  actual  State  of 
Italy  and  the  Italians.  By  an  English 
Catholic;  1826. 

"  A  curious  sight, 

And  very  much  unlike  what  people  write." 

So  quotes  the  writer ;  for  our  own  parts  we 
have  not  been  able  to  discover  this  mighty 
difference.  The  author's  remarks  bear 
chiefly  upon  Rome  and  Naples ;  and  not- 
withstanding the  imposing  title-page,  are 
confined,  pretty  much,  to  the  description 
of  buildings  and  the  detail  of  ceremonies; 
but  these  buildings  have  been  described,  and 
these  ceremonies  detailed,  a  thousand  times  ; 
and  the  only  difference  appears  to  us  to  be 
in  the  tone  in  which  the  said  ceremonies 
are  spoken  of.  He  does  not,  and  as  a  Ca- 
tholic, he  could  not,  ridicule  them  ;  and  though 
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by  implication  he  is  occasionally  free  enough, 
he  has  always  a  word  or  two  of  apology  for 
them  ;  the  whole,  however,  is  touched  with 
a  light  and  lively  pencil  —  never  prosing 
enough  to  weary.  For  the  occasional  free- 
doms, not  amounting  perhaps  to  more  than 
flippancies,  we  leave  him  to  his  confessor. 

Of  the  Romans,  (says  he.)  after  living  among 
them  many  months,  I  know  little  more  than  their 
general  feelings.  Though  I  was  acquainted  with 
some  of  them,  they  are,  very  naturally,  unwilling 
to  put  themselves  out  of  their  way,  to  receive 
successive  flights  of  birds  of  passage  ;  whom,  from 
all  I  perceived,  they  do  not  like,  even  as  passen- 
gers. Those  whom  I  met  in  company,  T  generally 
found  amiable,  discontented  people.  —  (Vol.  I. 
p.  155). 

Discontented  with  the  government,  we  sup- 
pose, he  means  ;  for  elsewhere,  he  says  : 

They  complain,  and  with  reason,  that  every 
branch  of  the  administration  is  entrusted  to 
the  clergy,  the  chief  of  the  goverment  being  of 
that  order.  But  why  not  admit  his  secular  sub- 
jects to  secular  charges?  The  Pope  is,  indeed, 
head  of  the  Church,  and  as  such,  chief  of  a  re- 
ligious government  ;  but  he  is  also  temporal 
sovereign,  and  as  such,  head  of  a  secular  govern- 
ment. These  reflections  are,  however,  of  no  avail 
to  the  laymen  who  want  places,  and  they  pass 
their  lives  as  best  they  may.  —  (Vol.  I.  p.  75). 

Though  professing  thus  to  know  little  of 
the  Romans,  he  speaks  of  the  Italians,  with 


to  the  strictness  of  its  rules,  and  to  its  being 
unable  to  possess  any  landed  property,  its  mem- 
bers subsisting  only  on  voluntary  charitable  con- 
tributions, this  order  is  mainly  supplied  by  poor 
men.  Then  as  to  their  laziness,  these  capucins' 
convents  have  generally  very  large  parishes 
attached  to  them,  which  are  served,  with  great 
zeal  and  attention,  by  their  priests:  Yet  an 
Italian  secular  priest  remarked  to  me  —  for  the 
secular  have  a  sort  of  enmity  against  the  conven- 
tual clergy—  that  St.  Francis  was  very  astuto— 
cunning,  in  not  having  allowed  his  order  to  possess 
landed  property  ;  as  on  that  account,  no  one  had 
any  interest  in  dispersing  it,  and  when  dispersed 
with  others,  it  was  always  the  first  to  re-establish 
itself.  One  would,  however,  have  expected  "  cun- 
ning" to  be  the  last  epithet  applied  to  the  founder 
of  this  useful  order  of  self-denial.—  (Vol.  II.  p.  69). 

The  author  was  at  Rome  soon  time  after 
the  election  of  Leo  XIL—  an  event  which 
he  found  to  be  the  subject  of  general  con- 
versation. He  details  the  on  dits  of  the  day, 
which  amount  to  this,  that  Leo's  election 
was  the  surprise  of  everybody.  The  courts 
of  France,  Austria,  and  Spain  have  each  of 
them  a  veto  against  any  particular  cardinal  ; 
but  as  this  veto  can  only  be  once  exercised, 
the  exercise  of  it  is  usually  delayed  to  the 
latest  moment.  Two-thirds  of  the  conclave 
decide  the  election.  Cardinal  Sevaroli,  it 
seems,  was  ©n  the  point  of  being  elected, 
when  the  representative  of  Austria  inter- 
posed, on  the  ground,  it  was  understood, 
that  Sevaroli,  when  legate  at  Vienna,  had 


respect  to  their  religious  belief,  in  these  ge-     refused  to  be  present  at  Napoleon's  mar- 
neral,  but  probably  pretty  correct  terms:  ri age  with  the  Archduchess.    Sevaroli,  on 

his  rejection,  had  influence  enough  to  re- 
commend his  friend  Gerga,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  following  night  collected  votes  suffi- 
cient to  secure  his  election  the  following 
morning,  before  the  French  representative, 
who  had  orders  to  prevent  Gerga's  election, 
had  time  to  interpose.  This  is  the  story  re- 
ported, says  tiie  writer  ;  yet  Cardinal  de  la 
F.,  the  French  representative,  speaks  much 
in  praise  of  Leo  XII.,  and  asserts  that  his 
election  was  decreed  by  Providence ;  and 
in  truth,  adds  he,  it  seems  to  have  been  quite 


The  religious  belief  of  the  Italians  is  like  that 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  world  ;  with  this  dif- 
ference, however,—  #  is  free  from  scepticism.  They 
receive,  and  profess  to  believe,  all  the  articles  of 
the  Catholic  faith  ;  they  question  nothing  :  they 
deny  nothing  ;  they  admit  every  thing  ;  but  this 
admission,  this  belief  alters  nothing  in  their  morals 
or  conduct,  they  themselves  never  think  of  it  ;  they 
have  been  brought  up  so;  they  have  be*n  told  that 
it  is  the  religion  they  are  to  belong  to  ;  they  see  it 
professed  by  all  around  them  ;  none  do,  none  ever 
have  arraigned  fits  truth,  they  have  never  been 


called  upon  to  decide  between  adverse  opinions,  and     providential,  if  the  court  of  France  was 


they  therefore  allow  those  they  found  to  continue 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Although  many  adopt  the 
modern  spirit  of  philosophy,  yet  the  generality  seem 
to  think  their  easy  and  inconclusive  manner  of 
professing  the  established  religion  to  be  less 
troublesome  than  would  be  a  philosophical  oppo- 
sition.— (Vol.  II.  118). 

Speaking  of  monks,  he  says  : 

I  believe  that  the  remarks  of  English  travellers 
on  the  "  dirty,  lazy  monks,"  apply  generally  to 
those  capucins,  one  of  whom  now  stood  on  the 
rock  before  nie.  As  to  their  dirtiness,  poverty 
is  the  spirit  of  their  order;  before  the  institution 
of  which,  all  convents,  if  not  exclusively  reserved 
for  nobles,  required  of  those  admitted  into  their 
communities  at  least  a  good  education,  and  a 
dowry  more  or  less  considerable.  St.  Francis, 
therefore,  founded  his  order  chiefly  for  the  re- 
ception of  the  poorer  classes,  of  working  men  and 
peasants,  who  are  certainly  capable  of  as  much 
devotion  *s  the  higher  ranks  of  society  ;  and  owing 


opposed  to  it. 

Gerga,  Leo  XII.  is  said  to  be  of  a  poor  gentle- 
man's family  of  Spoleti.  In  his  youth  he  had 
been  a  great  chasseur,  and  followed  the  chase  as 
an  exercise  beneficial  to  his  health.  On  this  ac- 
count, as  soon  as  his  exaltation  was  made  known, 
it  was  hailed  by  the  following  epigram  of  the 
still  subsisting  Pasquins: 

«  Se  il  Papa  e  cacciatore 

Son  cani  i  Cardinal!, 

Son  selve  leProvincie, 

Ed  i  sudditi  animali." 

Leo  XII.  is  supposed  to  be  a  great  admirer  and 
advocate  of  the  ancien  regime  —  of  ancient  man- 
ners and  customs  —  and  of  wishing  to  bring  his  sub- 
jects to  a  great  severity  of  morals  and  appearance. 
Tim?,  according  to  the  plan  of  reform,  he  has  pub- 
lished edicts,  by  which  he  forbids  drinking  in 
wine-houses  ;  those  who  are  dry,  are  obliged  to 
buy  through  a  grate  the  measure  of  wine,  and 
either  to  drink  it  standing  in  the  street,  or  to  carry 


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Domestic  and  Foreign. 


197 


it  home.  You  may  conceive  the  discontent  this 
ordonnance  could  not  fail  to  cause  amongst  the 
lower  classes ;  one  or  two  sbirri  have  been 
stabbed  in  a  late  contest  in  a  transteverian  wine 
shop. 

A  woman  announced  to  me,  the  other  day,  in 
great  agitation,  that  an  order  was  about  to  be 
published,  commanding  the  different  classes  of 
subjects,  to  wear  particular  dresses,  by  which 
they  might  be  distinguished.  My  informer  la- 
mented, therefore,  at  the  prospect  of  being  obliged 
to  cast  aside  all  her  present  wardrobe,  and  con- 
sidered how  she  should  look  when  dressed  in 
yellow  stockings  and  blue  cap ;  for  it  had  been 
settled  what  was  to  be  the  dress  of  each  order. 
The  whole,  however,  turned  out  to  be  a  fudge — 
a  Roman  laugh  against  themselves  and  their  con- 
dition. The  promoter  and  encourager  of  these 
dispositions  that  are  lent  to  the  Pope,  is  said  to 
be  the  Cardinal  della  Somaglia,  the  secretary  of 
state.  He  is  reported  to  have  had  the  intention — 
but  to  have  been  deterred  from  it  by  embassies 
from  the  different  towns — of  diminishing  the  public 
expenditure,  by  abolishing  the  charge  of  lamp- 
lighting;  because,  he  is  related  to  have  said,  in 
his  youth  no  streets  were  ever  lighted  at  night, 
and  that,  nevertheless,  all  went  on  just  as  well. 

I  now  hear  that  the  committee  for  vaccination 
has  thus  been  lately  suppressed  as  an  innovation. 
Talking  lately  with  some  Romans,  the  conver- 
sation turned  on  Cardinal  della  Somaglia.  Some- 
body affecting  to  mistake  the  name,  called  him 
Somarella— a  little  ass— Indeed  I  myself  had  had 
with  him  a  recent  interview,  from  which  I  had 
retired  penetrated  with  due  respect  for  his  age 
and  station ;  but  the  person  to  whom  the  other 
was  speaking,  immediately  caught  up  the  pun, 
repeating:  II  Cardinale  della  Somarella  !  Oh, 
questo  mi  piacet  — Oh,  I  like  that ! 

When  the  French  were  in  possession  of  Rome, 
they  cleared  away  the  shabby  buildings  that  en- 
cumbered the  ground  around  the  beautiful  column 
of  Trajan:  and  the  earth  being  dug  away  as  low 
as  the  base  of  that  column,  twenty  or  thirty  pil- 
lars, broken  off  at  a  greater  or  less  distance  from 
their  pedestals,  were  exposed  to  view  ;  they  are 
all,  however,  without  capitals.  These  mutilated 
pillars,  the  remains  of  the  Forum  of  Trajan,  are 
known  to  modern  Roman  wits  by  the  appellation 
of  the  Consistory. 

I  was  this  morning  stopped  in  the  street  by  a 
procession  of  children,  two  of  whom  carried  a 
cross,  which  the  others  followed  singing — a  very 
common  amusement  at  Rome ; — approaching  the 
wall  to  make  room  »or  them,  I  saw  an  edict  per- 
mitting the  exportation  of  gunpowder,  as  the 
manufacture  of  that  article  exceeded  *  bisogni 
dello  stato — the  wants  of  the  state.  How  good  ! 

We  must  find  space  for  a  few  words  on 
the  papyri  manuscripts.  The  author  visited 
the  apartment  in  Naples,  whepe  the  process 
of  unrolling  is  carried  on. 

The  rolls,  (says  he),  are  completely  burnt ;  but 
they  are  no  more  consumed  than  would  be  a  sheet 
of  coarse  writing  paper  by  being  lighted  into  a 
flame,  which,  soon  dying  away  of  itself,  would 
leave  what  was  written  still  legible  on  the  un- 
broken cinder.  These  rolls  of  papyri  are  only 
written  on  one  side,  and  that  side  is  innermost. 
On  the  outward  and  uninscribed  side,  a  steady 
hand,  with  a  small  paint-brush,  attaches  with  glue, 


goldbeater's  skin,  and  the  piece  of  scorched  pa- 
pyrus, thus  backed,  is  picked  off  from  the  roll 
with  a  small  pointed  steel  instrument.  When  a 
sheet,  twelve  or  fifteen  inches  long,  is  thus  de- 
tached, it  is  inframed  behind  glass,  and  carefully 
copied  as  inscriptions  are  drawn.  The  few  gaps 
and  words  destroyed  in  the  original  manuscript 
are  then  supplied  by  a  jury  of  learned  men. 

Notwithstanding  the  simplicity  of  the  process, 
which  was  carried,  on  before  me,  but  three 
volumes  of  the  many  rolls  have  been  printed.  A 
society  has  the  monopoly  of  these  manuscripts  ; 
otherwise,  I  have  been  assured,  private  individuals 
of  Naples  would,  long  since,  have  published  them 
all. 

The  late  administrator  of  this  museum  never 
entered  the  building  either  before,  or  during,  or 
after  his  administration. — (Vol.  I.  p.  207). 

The  Revolt  of  the  Bees ;  1827.— This  is 
an  eccentric  kind  of  thing — a  political  alle- 
gory, painfully  but  blunderingly  elaborated. 
The  Bees,  it  will  be  supposed,  represent 
society.  Impelled  by  restless  and  ambitious 
spirits,  the  said  Bees,  once  upon  a  time, 
changed,  not  only  the  form  of  their  govern- 
ment, but  the  very  principles  of  society ;  for 
instead  of  all  working,  as  before,  for  the 
common  good,  each  was  now  to  pursue  his 
own — to  appropriate,  that  is,  his  gains,  and 
further  his  own  interests  to  the  full  extent  of 
his  abilities  and  opportunities.  The  speedy 
consequence  of  this  change,  was  the  orders 
of  rich  and  poor.  Hence  arose  quarrels  and 
disorders;  and  hence  also  arose  laws  and 
lawyers.  Masters  and  servants  pulled  dif- 
ferent ways.  Inequalities  of  property  be- 
came every  day  more  conspicuous  and  perni- 
cious ;  and  power  augmented  with  augmenting 
wealth.  The  right  of  legislation  was  all 
with  the  rich,  and  they  of  course  studied 
their  own  advantage,  and  made  laws  to  suit 
their  own  purposes.  Those  who  shrunk 
from  labour  courted  the  patronage  of  the 
great,  and  to  secure  it,  exerted  their  abilities 
in  contributing  to  their  pleasures  and  ad- 
vocating their  schemes.  The  interests  of  the 
poor  were  forgotten,  or  rather  were  disre- 
garded. The  priests  inculcated  submission, 
resignation — passive  obedience  ;  the  econo- 
mists, while  professing  to  develope  the  in- 
terests of  the  whole,  laboured  to  point  out 
the  most  effective  mode  of  expressing  the 
maximum  of  virtue  from  the  bones  and  si- 
news of  the  poor,  and  to  make  the  great  still 
greater.  By  them  the  genius  of  mechanism 
was  invoked,  and  steam  and  machinery 
quickly  threw  myriads— helpless  and  dis- 
contented— upon  the  world.  Starvation 
covered  the  land,  and  the  execrations  of 
misery  echoed  around  it.  The  rich  became 
alarmed,  and  schemes  of  every  kind,  wicked 
or  wild,  were  caught  at  and  promulgated ; 
and  gladly  would  they  have  expelled,  or  ex- 
terminated, or  annihilated  the  surplus  popu- 
lation. In  the  midst  of  this  confusion  of 
expedients  appeared  a  sage  of  a  Bee,  who 
announced  the  existence  of  a  society  insti- 
tuted upon  co-operative  principles,  and 
flourishing  under  the  exercise  of  them — 
principles  manifestly  calculated  to  sweep 
away  the  fatal  evils  introduced  by  the  late 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


198 


revolt  of  the  Bees  from  the  good  old  govern- 
ment of  their  ancestors.  The  existence,  or 
the  possibility  of  .such  a  society  was  scouted — 
it  was  unintelligible— it  was  fantastic— it 
was  ideal,  and  all  the  while  it  was,  never- 
theless, the  very  institution  from  which  the 
Bees  had  revolted. 

Every  expedient  failed,  and  a  civil  war 
ensued,  ol'the  most  deadly  kind— poor  against 
rich.  And  now  suddenly  to  the  contending 
armies  appeared  an  awful  vision  of  Allan 
Ramsay,  whose  happy  valley  between  the 
ridges  of  the  Pentland  Hills,  had  been  the 
scene  of  the  Bee  Society,  and  now  of  their 
ware.  The  spirit  of  the  poet  undertakes  to 
cure  all  ills,  and  exhibits  to  their  wondering 
gaze  the  very  society  announced  by  the  Bee 
Owen  ;— and  the  rest  of  the  book  is  occupied 
in  tracing  the  marvels  of  the  new  establish- 
ment— which  new  establishment,  reader, 
proves  to  be  the  co-operative  one — a  reali- 
zation, in  short,  of  Mr.  Owen's  reveries  on  a 
most  magnificent,  luxurious,  enchanting,  ir- 
resistible scale.  The  object  of  the  book, 
then,  is  to  contrast  the  vices  of  existing  so- 
ciety— the  competitive  system,  as  it  is,  not 
unaptly,  termed,  with  the  corrections  and 
virtues  of  the  "  new  view" — the  co-ope- 
rative system  ;  but  this  object  is  pursued  in 
a  style  of  childish  romance — exhibiting  the 
effects  of  the  system  in  an  incompatible 
union  of  passionless  equanimity,  and  vo- 
luptuous elegance — fitted  only  to  make  ab- 
surdity more  absurd. 

That  the  vices  of  society  are  rapidly  mul- 
tiplying by  inequalities  of  properly  and  se- 
parations of  ranks,  cannot  for  one  moment 
be  doubted  ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  by  any 
unbiassed  person,  that  these  inequalities  are 
augmenting  by  the  acts  ol'the  legislature— 
the  members  looking  mainly  to  their  own 
interests— or  that  the  economists  are  playing 
blindly,  or  designedly,  into  the  hands  of 
the  great ;  but  that  any  removal  of  the  real 
evils  of  society  can  be  accomplished  by  the 
institution,  general  or  partial,  of  co-ope- 
rative societies ;  or  any  good  effected  by 
inculcating  the  belief  that  society  could  by 
possibility  be  cut  down  into  thousands  of 
little  independent  coteries,  and  all  made  to 
act  alike,  as  if  men  were  made  of  pasteboard 
instead  of  passion,  and  as  if  all  were  born 
alike,  instead  of  no  two  being  so — every 
atom  of  experience  warring  against  the 
nonsense — the  very  supposition  of  these 
things,  we  say,  proves  the  persons  enter- 
taining such  puerilities  neither  know  them- 
selves, nor  their  fellows — neither  the  stuff  of 
which  society  is  made,  nor  the  actual  con- 
dition of  it. 

But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  warm  upon 
it, — and  if  we  speak  sharply  of  the  book, 
it  is  with  reference  to  the  pretended  utility 
Of  it—for  we  believe  the  writer  serious.  He 
is,  we  doubt  not,  a  man  of  excellent  feeling, 
and  obviously  a  person  of  no  mean  culti- 
vation—a man  prompted  by  the  sympathies 
of  his  nature  to  deplore  the  evils  of  life,  but 
not  destined  to  alleviate  them.  The  writing 


[FEB. 


is  carefully  polished  ;  and  through  the  whole 
there  runs,  nevertheless,  a  sleepy — slow- 
winding  flow,  not  unsuited,  it  may  be 
said,  to  the  visionariness  of  the  subject. 

Let  the  reader  contemplate  the  beautiful 
vignette  in  the  title-page,  drawn  by  Corbould, 
and  engraved  by  Wallis ;  it  is  worth  the 
whole  volume  ten  times  over. 

The  Fluximial  Calculus  :  an  elementary 
Treatise,  designed  for  the  Students  of  the 
Universities,  and  for  those  who  desire  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  Principles  of  Analysis  ; 
by  Thomas  Jephson,  B.D.  Baldwin,  London. 
—Partly  from  the  effect  of  ancient  preju- 
dice, and  partly  from  the  want  of  elementary 
books  in  our  own  language  on  the  subject, 
analytical  science  hus  only  of  late  been  suc- 
cessfully cultivated  in  this  country.  But,  as 
if  during  her  protracted  torpor  from  the 
death  of  Newton,  the  genius  of  England  had 
been  collecting  strength  for  such  an  effort, 
she  at  once  attained  a  proud  pre-eminence ; 
and  our  philosophers  do  not  yield  to  those  of 
the  continent  in  the  extent  of  their  researches, 
or  in  their  ability  in  conducting  them.  Now 
on  no  subject  of  human  learning  is  a  per- 
fectly clear  perception  of  first  principles  so 
indispensable  as  in  the  mathematics  ;  and  an 
elementary  work  on  any  of  the  branches  of 
them  requires  not  only  clearness  of  demon- 
stration and  perspicuity  of  expression,  but  to 
be  as  far  as  possible  independent  of  every 
other  one,  and  complete  in  itself— this  is  not 
the  case  with  Mr.Jephson's  treatise,  pre- 
tending to  require  in  "the  student  merely  a 
little  previous  knowledge  in  algebra  and 
geometry  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  unintelligible  except 
to  those  well  versed  in  there  sciences,  while 
the  generally  obscure  and  frequently  equivo- 
cal manner  in  which  the  author  expresses 
himself,  renders  his  work  unfit  for  a  beginner 
in  the  science  of  which  it  professes  to  treat. 
Now,  yielding  Mr.  Jephson  full  credit  for  a 
perfect  acquaintance  with  his  subject,  though 
the  value  attached  by  him  to  the  infinitesimal 
method  of  Leibuitz,  affording  at  best  but  a 
compensation  of  errors,  is  almost  unaccount- 
able, we  conceive  that  the  sole  purpose  to 
which  his  book  can  be  applied  is,  to  serve  as 
a  magazine  of  the  abstruse  but  useless  ques- 
tions which  form  so  prominent  a  part  of  an 
academical  examination.  For  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  calculus,  as  well  as  an  ele- 
mentary one,  recourse  must  be  had  to  the 
work  of  Mr.  Lardner,  by  far  the  best  tbut 
has  appeared  on  the  subject  since  analysis  has 
attracted  the  English  mathematicians,  who, 
we  may  reflect  with  pride,  have  sedulously 
avoided  the  error  so  prevalent  on  the  conti- 
nent, of  rendering  analysis  a  substitute  for 
geometry,  instead  of  its  assistant ;  and  have 
not  been  misled  by  the  illusion— that  a  cnl- 
culus  can  elicit  new  principles,  and  is  not 
confined  to  facilitating  the  combination  of 
those  which  already  exist. 

Euclid's  Elements  of  Geometry ;  contain- 
ing the  whole  twelve  books':  translated  into 
English  from  the  edition  of  Peyvard.  To 


J827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


109 


tvhic/i  arc  added,  Algebraic  Demonstra- 
tions to  the  second  and  fifth  books  ;  also 
Deductions  in  the  first  **>,  eleventh  and 
twelfth  books;  with  Notes,  critical  and 
explamtory.  By  George  Phillips,  Queen's 
College,  Cambridge;  Parti,  Jiooks  1  to  6. 
Baldwin,  London,  1826.— When  there  are  so 
many  works  on  the  elements  of  geometry, 
which,  either  by  supplying  a  few  links,  and 
thus  rendering  more  continuous  the  chain  of 
demonstration,  or  by  presenting  a  more  per- 
spicuous arrangement,  are  superior  to  the  ele- 
ments of  Euclid  ;  and  when  there  already 
exist  in  our  language  such  excellent  editions 
of  that  work,  we  cannot  see  the  reason 
which  could  have  induced  Mr.  Phillips  to 
undertake  this  new  translation.  He  has  fol- 
lowed, it  is  true,  the  most  modern  and  ap- 
proved text  of  the  author  ;  but,  as  far  as  he 
has  hitherto  gone,  what  benefits  result  from 
it  ?  A  few  deductions  are  annexed,  and  al- 
gebrnic  demonstrations  to  the  second  and 
fifth  books— mere  puerilities.  The  pleonasm 
in  Euclid's  definition  of  an  angle,  and  in  that 
of  an  isosceles  triangle,  is  overlooked;  the 
fifth  postulate  is  left  without  note  or  com- 
ment, although  involving  a  subject  which 
has  engaged  the  ablest  mathematicians  ;  and 
the  difficulties  arising  cut  of  the  doctrine  of 
proportion  are  barely  removed  by  the  assis- 
tance of  Dr.  Robertson.  In  his  preface,  he 
favours  the  ridiculous  pretensions  of  the 
Greeks  (quicquid  Grcecia  mendax  audet  in 
historia),  whose  vanity  led  them  to  claim,  as 
of  their  own  invention,  whatever  could  em- 
bellish the  mind  or  benefit  society.  Thale?, 
for  example,  first  teaching  the  Egyptians  1o 
measure  the  height  of  the  pyramids  by  the 
extent  of  their  shadows — although  the  con- 
struction of  these  pyramids  implies  some 
knowledge  of  the  mechanical  arts,  and  their 
position  involves  the  tracing  of  a  meridian 
line,  and  some  acquaintance  with  the  projec- 
tion of  shadows,  &c.  If  the  Greeks  were  in 
every  respect  so  superior  to  the  Egyptians, 
why  was  it  that  in  the  country  of  the  latter 
the  former  uniformly  sought  to  acquire  infor- 
mation. We  agree  with  Sir  William  Drum- 
mond  in  something  more  than  suspecting  the 
originality  of  the  discoveries  of  Pythagoras, 
and  of  the  school  of  which  he  was  the  foun- 
der, and  think  it  as  likely  that  a  hecatomb 
was  offered  by  the  philosopher,  at  least  if 
there  be  any  truth  in  the  report,  upon  re- 
membering the  demonstration  of  a  truth  he 
had  formerly  been  taught,  as  for  having 
found  out  the  truth  itself.  The  Greeks,  like 
the  Romans,  are  their  own  historians ;  and, 
when  the  instances  of  their  bad  faith  are 
confessedly  so  numerous,  we  must  receive 
with  extreme  distrust  whatever  is  advanced 
on  such  doubtful  authority. 

Greek  and  English  Lexicon,  by  Rev.  J. 
Groves;  1826. — We  have  now  four  Greek 
lexicons  ia  English,  one  by  Dr.  Jones,  a 
second  by  Dr.  Donuegan  ;  a  third,  published 
by  Valpy,  professedly  a  translation  of  Schre- 
velius's,  arid  clandestinely  a  pillaging,  more 
or  less,  of  Dr.  Jones,  who  has  been  unwise 


enough  to  throw  away  his  time,  temper,  and 
money  upon  the  Chancery  Court,  and  all  to 
no  purpose  ;  for  ho\v  was  he  to  prove  a  case 
like  his  to  the  technical  specifications  re- 
quired by  the  Court? — and  a  fourth,  the  one 
before  us,  by  Mr.  Groves.  On  the  respective 
merits  of  these  bulky  productions,  it  will  not 
be  expected  that  we  should  give  a  detailed, 
or  scarcely  a  specific  opinion  ;  let  it  be 
enough  for  us  to  say  generally,  as  we  may 
truly,  that,  on  a  cursory  glancing  over  the 
whole,  and  an  occasional  comparing  of  parts, 
all  of  them  seem  to  be  respectably  exe- 
cuted, and  will  prove  to  be  eminently  useful  in 
the  furthering  the  attainment  of  the  lan- 
guage— Dr.  Jones's  the  most — though  in 
schools  the  least  so.  He  has  the  merit  of 
coming  first  into  the  field  ;  but  his  successors 
have  had  the  advantage — and  they  have  all 
of  them  taken  that  advantage — of  his  pio- 
neering. He  has  also,  for  his  own  emolu- 
ment, put  too  much  of  what  he  will  call 
philosophy,  first  into  the  arrangement  of  the 
words,  and  next  into  the  deductions  and 
transitions  of  words  from  their  original  to 
their  derivative  and  associated  meanings.  All 
this  "  philosophy,"  as  the  book  was  intended 
mainly  to  circulate  in  schools,  was  labour 
lost,  and  should  have  been  reserved  for  the 
more  extended  lexicon  the  indefatigable  ver- 
balist has  in  view.  In  his  lexicon,  words  are 
not  to  be  found  in  their  places  alphabetically, 
but  derivatively — a  serious  disadvantage  to 
learners — and  of  no  possible  advantage  to 
any  body  else.  It  requires  the  clumsy  ap- 
pendix of  a  second  alphabet — an  index  to 
tell  us  where  the  stray  sheep  are  1o  be 
found— like  Scapula's.  The  inflected  parts 
of  words,  too,  Dr.  Jones  has  disdained  to 
insert ;  but  the  absence  of  them  will  balk 
the  beginner,  and  will  be  sure  to  exclude 
his  book — not  merely  from  schools.  It  pre- 
supposes too  much.  It  is  to  these  deficien- 
cies Dr.  Jones  should  attribute  the  falling 
off  in  the  sale  of  his  book,  and  to  the  finer 
tact  of  his  competitors — not  to  the  pillagings 
of  Mr.  Valpy  and  his  employes. 

Every  one  of  Dr.  Jones's  successors  have 
stuck  close  to  Schrevelius,  and  preserved 
all  the  inflections — we  mean  the  oblique 
cases  of  nouns,  pronouns,  and  participles, 
and  the  tenses  and  moods  of  verbs,  the  in- 
sertion of  which,  indeed,  many  of  them 
varying  so  irregularly,  and  so  widely  from 
the  "  theme,"  is  indispensable  for  learners. 

Mr.  Groves  has  spared  no  pains  ;  but  his 
lexicon  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  piles  of 
English  words,  indicating  what  are  deemed 
to  be  different  meanings— more  than  thirty 
for  such  a  word  as  ^^o^at,  forty  for  *x,w> anc^ 
still  more  for  other  words,  whose  general 
sense  is  equally  obvious,  and  of  which  the 
particular  sense,  when  not  obvious,  must  be 
gathered  from  the  context,  and  not  by  re- 
ferring to  clusters  of  unconnected  words, 
calculated  rather  to  perplex  than  to  inform. 
In  a  pretty  long  preface,  Mr.  G.  has  not 
found  room,  we  see,  to  mention  poor  Dr. 
Jones's  name,  though  it  is  quite  manifest, 


200 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


he  had  his  book  before  him.    We  do  like  a 
little  acknowledgement,  where  it  is  due. 

Head-pieces  and  Tail-pieces,  by  a  Tra- 
velling Artist;  1826. — And  very  good  vi- 
gnettes they  make ;  the  artist  is  no  no- 
vice. He  handles  a  sombre  and  a  some- 
what ponderous  pencil,  b:it  with  good 
discretion.  The  strokes  are  decisive.  The 
best  of  the  set  is  perhaps  the  "  Guerilla 
Brothers."  These  brothers  are  both  of  them 
jn  love  with  the  same  lady.  The  interests 
of  their  country  summon  them  to  arms. 
She  promises  her  hand  to  him  who  brings 
home  the  brighter  laurels,  and  dismisses 
them  each  with  her  portrait  bound  round  his 
neck,  to  be  brought  back  by  the  survivor. 
Hating  each  other,  as  rivals,  with  a  deadly 
hatred,  and  resolved  to  outstrip  each  other's 
deeds,  they  quickly  distinguish  themselves 
among  their  fellows.  In  a  desperate  en- 
counter with  the  enemy,  one  of  them  is 
overpowered,  and  is  just  on  the  point  of 
sinking,  when  the  other  comes  in  sight ;  his 
first  feelings  are  exultation — self-triumph — a 
desire  and  resolve  to  leave  him  to  his  late ; 
his  next,  the  promptings  of  a  more  gene- 
rous nature— the  struggle  within  is  of  the 
most  rending  kind — he  flies  to  his  brother's 
rescue,  but  too  late ;  the  blow  descends,  and 
he  falls.  The  moment  of  hesitation  was 
fatal.  After  the  battle,  he  is  found  clinging 
to  the  body,  with  a  miniature  clasped  in  his 
hand;  his  senses  have  fled;  and  not  till 
long,  long  after,  is  it,  that  he  is  seen  hover- 
ing round  the  house  of  the  lady.  That  house 
appears  lighted  up,  and  the  signs  of  merri- 
ment are  seen  and  heard.  It  is  the  lady's 
bridal.  The  death  of  both  brothers  had  been 
reported.  He  bursts  into  the  midst  of  the 
assembly,  and  lays  the  portraits  at  her  feet, 
and  rushes  from  the  house.  She  is  left  the 
image  of  misery ;  and  he  is  found,  ia  a  few 
days,  stretched  dead,  on  the  brow  of  a  hill, 
that  overlooked  the  scene  he  had  just 
quitted.  The  story  is  exceedingly  well  told. 
The  "  Return"  is  a  good  story,  too,  of  a 
less  sombre  cast,  though  still  of  the  disap- 
pointing kind.  "  The  Way  to  Rise,  or  the 
Cunning  Clerk,"  is  of  still  another  descrip- 
tion, and  terminates  with  an  attempt  at  hu- 
mour, better  conceived  than  executed. 

An  historical  Defence  of  the  Waldenses, 
or  Vaudois,  inhabitants  of  the  Valleys  of 
Piedmont,  by  Jean  Rodolph  Peyran,  late 
Pastor  of  Pomaret,  and  Moderator  of  the 
fValdensian  Church  :  with  an  Introduction 
and  Appendixes  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Sims  ; 
182«. — The  public  attention  has  of  late  been 
drawn  to  the  history  and  condition  of  the 
Waldenses,  and  considerable  exertions  have 
been  made  to  contribute  to  the  relief  of  their 
secular  and  ecclesiastical  exigencies.  We 
are  not  at  all  sure  that  either  were  very  im- 
perative ;  but  we  are  quite  sure  there  can  be 
no  occasion  for  Englishmen  to  go  a  thousand 
miles  off  in  search  of  distress ;  and  we  are 
equally  sure,  that  foreign  provision  for  the 
ministers  of  religion  is  not  likely  to  make 


those  ministers  in  any  respect  more  effective. 
This  forwardness  of  strangers  to  pour  in  re- 
lief will  only  ruin  the  simplicity  of  the  little 
establishment,  will  only  tend  to  multiply  the 
number  of  the  ministers,  and  suggest  am- 
bitious views.  Whether  the  humble  natives, 
thy  laymen  of  the  valleys,  whose  advantage 
one  might  suppose  was  mainly  concerned, 
will  be  benefited,  is  a  very  questionable 
point. 

Certain  persons,  clergymen  all,  traverse 
theee  valleys,  and  find  Protestants  in  the 
midst  of  Catholics  ;  and  what  is  to  them 
matter  for  marvel,  pastors  among  them  very 
poor,  scarcely  distinguishable  from  their 
flocks.  The  first  thought  is,  how  unlike 
ourselves;  and  the  next,  let  us  do  something 
to  make  them — unlike  themselves.  A  bustle 
ensues,  subscriptions  are  raised,  and  a  hand- 
some sum,  by  way  of  earnest,  is  transmitted. 
What  follows?  the  ministers  are  encouraged 
to  look  for  farther  transmissions;  the  pros- 
pect expands — schools  are  to  be  opened — 
fresh  labourers  for  the  vineyard  are  to  be 
hired — every  little  hamlet  must  have  its  own 
pastor;  and  what  will  be  the  result?  new 
measures  will  outstrip  the  new  funds ;  the  en- 
thusiasm of  contribution  will  cool ;  neglect, 
disappointment,  and  dissatisfaction  ensue. 

The  history  and  actual  condition  of  the 
Waldenses  constitute  a  real  curiosity  ;  but  no 
sufficient  ground  see  we  for  attempting  to 
warm  the  sympathies  of  a  distant  land  in  their 
favour.  The  pastors  are  poor ;  but  not  the 
worse  for  being  poor,  nor  the  less  influ- 
ential as  pastors.  The  volume  before  us  is 
valuable  for  the  authentic  information  it  con- 
veys of  these  people.  It  is  styled  an  histori- 
cal defence.  The  volume,  in  fact,  comprises 
three  or  four  original  pieces,  in  French,  of 
Jean  Rodolph  Peyran,  late  pastor  of  Poma- 
ret,  and  moderator  of  the  church,  who  died 
in  1823.  These  pieces  are — 1st,  Letters  in 
defence  of  the  Waldenses,  addressed  to  Car- 
dinal Pacca,  at  the  time  confined  by  the  Em- 
peror of  the  French  as  a  state  prisoner  in  the 
fortress  of  Fenestrelle,  within  a  few  miles  of 
Pomaret:  2d,  A  reply  to  the  Bishop  of  Pe- 
nerola's  charge,  in  which  that  bishop  ad- 
dressed the  Waldenses  in  favour  of  the  church 
of  Rome — the  Wuldenses  came  within  the  li- 
mits of  his  diocese:  3d,  An  address  to  his 
colleagues  on  the  contents  of  the  same 
charge :  4th,  A  controversial  letter  to  a  M. 
Ferrary  :  and  5th,  A  late  Waldensian  con- 
fession of  faith,  in  Latin  ;  the  whole  consti- 
tuting what  the  editor  calls  an  historical  de- 
fence. The  editor  himself  has  added  a  pile 
of  commentary,  in  the  shape  of  an  appendix, 
to  each  of  the  pieces,  at  least  equal  in  bulk 
to  the  pieces  themselves,  and  in  our  opinion 
generally  very  superfluous.  He  has  also 
prefaced  M.  Peyran's  works  with  a  sketch 
of  his  life  ;  and  followed  up  the  preface  with 
an  "introduction,"  including — 1st,  A  view 
of  the  valleys  of  Piedmont,  and  of  the  cha- 
racter and  employment  of  the  inhabitants: 
2d,  An  epitome  bf  the  history  of  the  Wal- 
denses :  and  3d,  An  account  of  the  recent  at- 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


201 


tempts  for  their  benefit.  This  introduction 
will  furnish  the  reader  with  ample  informa- 
tion on  the  several  subjects  of  which  it  pro- 
fesses to  treat,  in  a  brief  and  agreeable  form  ; 
and  this,  together  with  the  very  able  state- 
ments and  defences  of  M.  Peyran  himself, 
will  supply  to  the  full  the  curiosity  of  the 
public.  The  editor  leaves  us  nothing  farther 
to  wish,  than  that  the  Vaudois  themselves 
may  be  left  undisturbed,  and  their  pastors 
uncorrupted. 

We  can,  perhaps,  in  a  few  lines  furnish  a 
sketch  of  these  somewhat  interesting  people. 
With  respect  to  their  present  condition — the 
Vaudois  occupy  the  valleys  of  Piedmont, 
known  by  the  names  of  Luzerny,  Perosa,  and 
San  Martino,  neither  of  them  of  veiy  consi- 
derable extent,  at  the  very  foot  of  the  Alps. 
The  present  population  of  these  valleys 
amount  to  about  twenty- two  thousand,  occu- 
pying fifteen  villages,  and  one  hundred  and 
three  hamlets.  The  villages  are  in  the  val- 
leys ;  the  hamlets  chiefly  on  the  declivities. 
Of  the  population,  about  seventeen  hundred 
are  Catholics  ;  the  rest,  of  the  Waldensian 
persuasion — professing  doctrines  not  essen- 
tially differing  from  Protestants.  The  fif-' 
teen  villages  are,  or  rather  were,  under  the 
pastoral  care  of  thirteen  ministers,  whose  re- 
ligious duties  extend  over  the  numerous,  but 
vety  small  hamlets. 

With  respect  to  their  ecclesiastical  history 
— they  claim  an  original  independence.  They 
have  never  formed  a  part  of  the  Roman  Ca- 
tholic church.  After  the  second  Council  of 
Nice,  when  the  use  of  images  was  sanction- 
ed, Claudius,  bishop  of  Turin,  resisted  ;  and 
his  successors  continued  their  resistance  to 
the  profane  introduction.  Persecution,  how- 
ever, they  seem  not  to  have  suffered  so  early 
as  the  Albigenses,  a  people  professing  pre- 
cisely the  same  sentiments,  in  the  south  of 
France  ;  but  in  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
storm  broke  upon  them.  The  Inquisitor 
Aquapendente,  in  1475,  made  many  martyrs ; 
and  numbers  were  butchered  in  an  invasion 
of  two  thousand,  headed  by  a  nuncio  of  In- 
nocent VIII.  in  1477.  In  1534,  in  1560,  in 
1602,  in  1624,  and  in  1655,  successive  at- 
tacks were  made  upon  them,  and  their  num- 
bers greatly  reduced.  The  barbarities  exer- 
cised in  the  year  1655  excited  the  indigna- 
tion and  sympathy  of  Protestant  Europe. 
Cromwell  commanded  a  collection  to  be 
made  in  their  favour,  which  amounted  to 
£38,241.  1*.  6rf.;  and  bestirred  himself  in 
remonstrating  with  the  courts  of  France  and 
Turin.  The  effect  of  this  remonstrance  of 
Cromwell,  and  the  Protestant  courts  of  Eu- 
rope, checked  the  oppressions  of  their  mas- 
ters, till  the  Dragoonades  of  Lewis  in  the 
south  of  France  encouraged  the  court  of 
Turin  to  play  the  same  pranks  upon  the 
Vaudois.  A  brave  resistance  was  made  ; 
but  bravery  vsould  have  been  in  vain,  but  for 
the  fortunate  quarrel  between  the  courts  of 
Versailles  and  Turin,  which  preserved  them 
from  extermination,  at  the  very  moment  when 
all  seemed  hopeless.  The  miserable  fugi- 

M.M.  New  Series.-VoL.UI.  No.  14. 


lives  returned  to  their  valleys,  and  the  relics 
have  from  that  period  been  undisturbed,  at 
least  by  the  fire  and  sword  of  religious  perse- 
cution. 

On  this  last  occasion,  reduced  as  they  were 
to  the  deepest  misery,  relief  was  forwarded 
from  several  quarters.  Among  the  principal 
was  an  annual  grant  of  Jt'500.  by  our  William 
and  Mary ;  of  which  sum  £266.  was  appro- 
priated to  the  ministers  and  their  widows,  and 
the  remainder  for  the  repair  of  the  churches, 
and  the  support  of  schoolmasters.  This  an- 
nuity continued  to  be  paid  till  1797,  when 
Piedmont  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  French. 
lu  1814  an  attempt  was  made  by  Mr.  Wii- 
berforce  and  his  friends,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Mr.  Si  ins,  the  editor  of  the  work  before  us, 
to  get  a  renewal  of  the  grant,  which  was  re- 
sisted by  Lord  Castlereagh.  Another  effort, 
more  vigorously,  or  at  least  more  efficiently 
made,  was  last  year  successful.  For  our  own 
parts  we  must  be  permitted  to  remark,  our 
public  efforts  should  have  been  directed  to 
stimulate  the  court  of  Turin.  If  foreign 
countries  provide  for  the  ministers  of  any 
persuasion,  why  should  the  natives  trouble 
themselves  ?  Not  only,  however,  is  this  an- 
nuity of  £500.  renewed  to  them,  but  the  in- 
terest of  £10,000.,  three  per  cent.  Bank  An- 
nnities,  is  regularly  remitted  to  them  by  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  parts;  a  sum  which  was  originally 
raised  in  1768  by  letters  patent  from  the 
King  for  collecting  in  the  churches.  Not 
content  with  these  rather  ample  sums — ample 
we  mean  of  course  with  reference  to  the  oc- 
casion— a  subscription  was  last  year  opened, 
which  amounted,  in  January  1S26,  nearly  to 
£5,000,  since  considerably  augmented,  and 
which  is  to  be  appropriated,  we  believe,  to 
the  support  of  an  hospital,  students  and 
schools. 

What  has  their  own  government  done? 
Much,  after  what  we  have  detailed,  was  of 
course  superfluous.  But  what  is  it  ?  A  gra- 
cious permission  to  solicit  contributions  in  fo- 
reign countries;  but,  lately,  something  more 
substantial,  500  francs  per  annum  to  e;ich  of 
the  Vaudois  pastors.  The  King  of  Prussia, 
besides,  has  given  £500 ;  and  the  late  Em- 
peror of  Russia  another  £500,  and  a  third 
£500.  has  been  recently  bequeathed  by  the 
Bishop  of  Durham.  Altogether,  we  must 
confess,  the  bounds  of  prudence  have  been 
overslept.  Let  Englishmen  look  at  home. 

The  Secret  Correspondence  of  Madams 
de  Maintenon  with  the  Princess  des  Ursins, 
3  vols.  800. ;  1826. — Madame  de  Mainte- 
non's  story  and  character  every  body  knows. 
The  Princess  des  Ursins,  though  historically 
known,  is  not  so  familiarly  known.  She  was 
a  native  of  France,  the  widow  of  two  hus- 
bands of  the  families  of  Talleyrand  and  Ur- 
sini.  On  her  second  widowhood  she  was 
sent  to  Spain,  probably  through  the  influence 
of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  to  attend  on  the 
Queen  of  Spain,  and  through  her  to  manage 
her  husband  Philip,  the  new  king,  and  keep 

2  D 


202 


Review  of  Literature^ 


[FEB. 


him  steady  to  the  interests  of  France,  and  the 
vio\vs  of  his  grandfather.  Her  letters  consti- 
tute the  larger  part  of  the  present  collection. 

Of  the  genuineness  of  this  correspondence 
there  is,  we  believe,  no  reason  to  doubt ; 
they  are  said  to  be  published  from  the  ori- 
ginal MSS.  in  the  possession  of  the  D:ike  de 
Cfcoiseul,  and  indeed  seem  to  carry  with  them 
their  own  vouchers.  Though  interesting  and 
valuable  documents,  they  serve  rather  to  con- 
firm than  to  correct  our  conceptions  of  the 
court  of  France,  or  materially  to  add  to  our 
information.  Madame  de  Maintenon's  are 
placed  in  ihe  foreground,  though  not  com- 
mencing so  early  as  those  of  the  Princess. 
The  Princess  went  into  Spain  in  1705,  and 
began  her  correspondence  with  Madame  in 
July  of  that  year;  the  first  letter  is  dated 
from  Bourdeaux,  on  her  way  to  Spain,  and 
continued  it  very  steadily  to  the  end  of  1714 
— the  period  in  which  she  was  daily  expect- 
ing the  arrival  of  the  new  queen  ;  the  first,  the 
Princess  of  Savoy,  had  died  a  few  months 
before.  The  first  act  of  the  new  Queen,  and 
her  confessor,  Alberoni,  was  to  dismiss  the 
Princess.  Of  this  act  we  have  no  account 
from  the  Princess  herself.  Madamede  Main- 
tenon  offers  her  condolence  on  the  occasion, 
and  continues  the  correspondence  till  the 
death  of  Louis,  a  few  months  after,  and  her 
own  final  retirement  to  St.  Cyr.  The  par- 
ticulars of  the  Princess's  expulsion  from  Spain, 
we  remember,  among  the  best  morsels  of 
Lacreielle's  history. 

The  period  of  the  correspondence  between 
these  two  distinguished  women  was  one  of 
great  anxiety  for  both  courts.  War  raged, 
after  the  manner  of  those  days — now  and 
then  a  battle — now  and  then  a  siege — with 
Marlborough  in  Flanders,  Eugene  in  Savoy, 
and  the  Archduke  (Philip's  competitor)  in 
Spain.  For  many  campaigns  disasters  befell 
the  French  on  all  sides.  General  after  gene- 
ral succeeded  to  the  command  of  the  French 
army—  all  boasting  and  all  failing  alike — 
Villeroy,  and  Vendome,  and  Villars,  and 
Boufflers.  The  new  King  of  Spain  was 
driven  more  than  once  from  Madrid,  and 
more  than  once  seemed  on  the  point  of  losing 
all.  The  letters  are  occupied  with  the  cur- 
rent events ;  Madame  de  Maintenon's  ere 
generally  lugubrious ;  she  is  perpetually  in 
despair,  and  always  anticipating  the  worst, 
and  puzzling  herself  in  wonderment  that  Pro- 
vidence should  desert  the  cause  of  truth  in 
favour  of  heretics.  The  Princess  seldom  in- 
dulges in  lamentation,  and  seems  to  take  the 
good  and  the  bad  with  much  sang-froid. 
She  was  evidently  a  clever,  active  woman  ; 
fit  for  counsel,  and  delighting  in  it ;  engaged 
in  business,  and  taking  a  natural  tone — nei- 
ther affecting  to  despise  it,  nor  disguising  her 
share  in  it.  Madame  de  Maintenou  is  al- 
ways professing  her  ignorance  of  the  mobile 
of  affairs;  nothing  is  communicated  to  her, 
because  her  advice  is  not  expected  ;  it  is  mere, 
matter  of  accident  she  knows  any  thing  that 
is  passing.  But  nothing,  however,  escapes 
her  ;  and  the  trouble  she  gi/es  herself  is  itself 


pretty  good  evidence  it  was  not  all  in  vain, 
or  without  an  object.  Her  friends  and  con- 
nections were  not  forgotten  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  favours.  Notwithstanding,  she  no 
doubt  met  with  vexations  enough.  She  was 
in  an  equivocal  position ;  and  though  with  the 
greater  part  of  the  royal  family  she  was  on 
terms  of  confidence,  real  or  aftected,  all  who 
were  disappointed  were  probably  her  ene- 
mies, and  would  make  her  feel  their  enmity 
one  way  or  another.  The  querulous  tone  of 
her  letters,  when  speaking  of  herself,  is  suffi- 
ciently significant. 

I  confess  to  you,  says  she,  on  one  occasion,  that 
the  females  of  the  present  day  are  to  me  insup- 
portable: their  ridiculous  and  immodest  dress, 
their  snuff,  wine,  gluttony,  coarseness,  and  indo- 
lence, are  all  so  opposite  to  my  taste,  that  it  is  na- 
tural for  me  to  dislike  them.  I  prefer  modest, 
sober,  and  sprightly  women,  who  can  be  both 
serious  and  playful,  of  a  raillery,  which  conveys 
praise,  whose  hearts  are  good  and  conversation 
lively,  and  artless  enough  to  confess  to  me  that  they 
recognize  themselves  in  this  portrait,  which,  though 
drawn  unintentionally,  I  think  extremely  correct. 

The  Princess  de  Vandemont  is  to  be  at  Paris,  but 
I  think  she  will  come  to  Marly  very  soon  ;  we  shall 
remain  tl.ere  during  the  whole  of  July.  I  dare 
say  I  shall  see  her  oftener  than  her  husband  ;  I  am, 
not  dissatisfied  to  have  been  able  to  dispense  with 
his  society,  however,  it  has  not  occupied  my 
thoughts :  he  has  not  intimated  a  wish  to  see  me  ; 
but  you  know  that  I  am  not  anxious  for  visitors. 

Of  her  influence  and  interference,  in  the 
midst  of  disclaimers,  take  her  own  account. 

It  is  true,  that  the  archbishopric  of  "Lyons  is  al- 
most hereditary  in  this  family  (that  of  Villeroi),  as 
well  as  all  the  higher  charges  of  the  province, 
which  is  not  too  good  in  policy,  for  all  the  Ville- 
rois  will  not  perhaps  be  like  those  we  know.  As 
to  the  AbbL-  de  Villeroi,  I  do  not  know  enough  of 
him  to  meddle  with  his  establishment.  Places  in 
the  church  interest  the  conscience  of  those  who  be- 
stow them,  and  one  has  sins  enow  of  one's  own, 
without  being  answerable  for  those  of  others  : 
however,  1  know  nothing  which  should  exclude 
him,  but  the  King's  inclination  is  wholly  in  favour 
of  the  Marshal.  It  is  true,  that  do  not  like  to 
meddle  with  affairs,  that  I  am  naturally  timid  ; 
but  it  is  also  true,  that  1  have  interfered  too  much 
with  them.  It  is  I  who  have  brought  forward  the 
Abbe  de  Fenelon,  upon  the  sole  reputation  of  his 
merit— what  displeasure  has  that  not  cost  me  !  It 
is  I,  who  ardently  desired  the  see  of  Paris  ;  what  a 
dreadful  business  we  have  now  againit  a  prelate 
(de  Noailles),  who,  though  irreproachable  in  his 
morals,  tolerates  the  most  dangerous  party  (Janse- 
nist?)  which  could  rise  in  the  church  ;  who  renders 
his  family  miserable,  and  sensibly  afflicts  the  king 
at  a  time  when  his  preservation  is  so  necessary. 
These  faL'ts  increase  my  natural  timidity,  &c. 

Of  the  effect  of  Fene.lon's  lessons  on  his 
pup;],  and  the  consequences  to  himself,  we 
have  often  heard.  The  following  extract  is 
of  some  interest.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy 
(Pension's  pupil)  commanded  in  Flanders 
in  the  campaign  of  1708,  and  was  equally 
unsuccessful  with  his  nredecessors. 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


203 


What  could  our  Prince  do,  who  lias  not  yet  ac- 
quired much  experience,  and  who  finds  himself  in- 
volved in  a  situation  the  most  difficult,  but  fall  on 
the  advice  of  a  man  (Duke  of  Berwick),  who  enjoys 
the  confidence  of  the  king  his  father  (grandfather)  ? 
How  can  he  discriminate  and  judge  of  himself, 
that,  the  counsels  he  receives  are  too  timid,  and 
that  he  must  give  himself  up  to  M.  do  Vendome, 
against  whom  three-fourths  of -the  army  are  en- 
rage.l?  This  is  the  cause  of  the  outcry  against  our 
Prince  ;  he  has  not  thought  of  justifying  himself; 
he  has  not  given  any  explanation,  nor  has  he  charg- 
ed any  person  to  take  up  his  defence  :  events  have 
been  unfortunate,  the  minds  of  the  people  are 
soured,  his  virtue  has  excited  all  the  discontented 
against  him;  while  his  declaration  about  the  Jan- 
senists  makes  all  that  party  his  enemy  ;  the  hatred 
against  the  Jesuits  falls  upon  him,  on  account  of 
his  confessor  ;  the  cabal  which  M.  de  Cambrai 
(Fenclon)  t*  said  to  have  at  court,  brings  still 
more  obloquy  upon  him.  Nothing  is  now  spoken 
of  but  Telemachus,  in  which  he  has  taught  the 
Prince  to  prefer  a  pacific  king  to  a  conqueror  : 
all  this  causes  the  outcry  of  which  you  hear  ;  some 
say  that  he.  wished  Lisle  to  be  captured,  in  order 
that  we  might  be  forced  to  make  peace ;  while 
others  assert  that  he  wanted  to  restore  the  place, 
because  the  King  had  taken  it  unjustly;  others 
again  say,  that  he  docs  not  wish  for  any  fighting, 
from  the/t-ar  of  losing  human  l.ves,  $c. 

The  letters  will  illustrate  the  account 
given  of  Madame  de  Mairitenon's  character, 
by  the  Due  de  St.  Simon— who  to  be  sure 
was  no  friend  of  hers,  but  still  a  very  honest 
man. 

On  the  days  of  business,  says  he,  Madame  de 
Maintenon,-  in  whose  apartment  the  ministers 
transacted  affairs  with  the  king,  sat  by,  reading 
or  working  tapestry.  She  quietly  heard  all  that 
passed,  and  rarely  threw  in  a  word.  The  word 
was  still  more  rarely  of  any  consequence.  The 
king  often  asked  her  advice,  addressing  her  in  a 
playful  tone,  as — your  solidity,  or — your  reason- 
ableness. She  answered  slowly  and  coldly,  scarcely 
ever  betraying  a  prepossession  for  any  thing,  and 
never  for  any  person  ;  but  the  ministers  had  their 
cue  If  by  chance  the  king  at  first  fixed  on  her 
candidate,  it  was  well,  the  ministers  were  sure  to 
agree  ;  and  they  contrived  to  hinder  the  mention 
of  any  other.  If  he  showed  a  preference  for  any 
other,  the  minister  read  over  his  own  list,  rarely 
recommending  any  one  directly,  but  hinting  at  the 
objections  to  all,  so  as  to  leave  the  king  perplexed. 
In  this  embarrassment  he  often  asked  the  advice 
of  the  minister,  who,  after  balancing  the  good  and 
bad  qualities  of  all,  shewed  a  slight  preference  for 
one.  The  king  hesitated,  and  frequently  in  that 
stage  referred  to  Madame  de  Maintenon;  she 
emiled,  affected  to  be  incapable  of  judging — said 
||  something  in  favour  of  another  candidate,  but  at 
last,  sometimes  slowly,  as  if  deliberating,  some- 
times, as  if  hy  a  sudden  accidental  recollection, 
returned  to  the  candidate  whom  s-hc  had  prompted 
the  minister  to  recommend  ;  and  in  this  manner 
she  disposed  of  all  favours  in  France. 


Recollections  of  Eyypt,  by  ftarones?  I'on 
Minutoli ;  18$7.— These  very  agreeable  re- 
collections are  recorded  by  the  lady  of  Baron 
AJinutoli,  known  by  his  splendid  work  on 


Egypt.  She  accompanied  her  husband  in 
his  voyage  up  the  Nile  to  the  Isle  of  Ele- 
phant! na.  The  party  landed  at  Alexandria, 
proceeded  to  Cairo,  and  were  received  with 
the  most  courteous  attention  by  Mahomet 
Ali.  Under  his  auspices,  with  every  accom- 
modation that  regenerated  Egypt  could  sup- 
ply, they  Fet  out— after  -visiting  the  Pyra- 
mids, of  course — for  the  upper  provinces. 
Visiting  Thebes,  and  other  places  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  on  their  way,  they  reached 
Syeni,  from  which  place  they  proposed  still 
to  work  up  to  the  Cataracts.  But  Syeni 
was  destined  to  bound  their  progress  to  the 
south  ;  for  Mahomet  Pacha,  son  of  Mahomet 
Ali,  and  governor  of  Upper  Egypt,  to  whose 
protection  the  party  had  been  especially  re- 
commended by  his  father,  refused _ his  per- 
mission, on  the  ground  that  the  island  of 
Philae  was  occupied  by  Albanian  troop?,  and 
that  as  he  could  not  answer  for  their  safety, 
he  would  not  lake  the  responsibility.  They 
were,  therefore,  obliged  to  return  to  Cairo  ; 
from  which,  place,  after  a  short  stay,  they 
proceeded  homeward  by  the  way  of  Da- 
mietta. 

The  subject  of  antiquities  the  lady  leaves 
very  much  to  her  lord,  and  confines  herself 
chiefly  to  a  narrative  of  the  tour— detailing, 
in  an  animated  style,  the  few  events  they  en- 
countered— some  perils  and  more  frights — 
some  peculiarities  in  costume  and  manners, 
and  a  visit  to  the  Pacha's  harem.  Of  the 
women  she  says  generally — and  not  at  all 
according  to  the  usual  representation — 

All  that  I  have  been  able  to  learn  by  personal 
observation,  and  what  I  was  told  by  several  Le- 
vantine ladies,  concurs  to  prove  that  the  situation 
of  the  women  in  the  East  is  not  so  unhappy  as 
we  generally  fancy  it  to  be.  The  different  races, 
and  sects,  of  which  the  present  population  is  com- 
posed, have,  it  is  true,  this  in  common,  that  they 
shut  up  their  women  ;  and  the  Cophts,  though 
Christians,  observe  this  custom  with  much  more 
rigour  than  even  the  Arabs  themselves  ;  but  thia 
privation  of  liberty  is  only  imaginary,  and  extends 
no  farther  than  to  prohibit  them  from  appearing 
i:i  public  without  a  veil,  which  is  a  kind  of  cloak 
of  black  silk,  which  hides  their  form  and  their  face 
in  a  frightful  manner,  and  to  exclude  them  from 
the  society  of  the  men.  They  are,  notwithstanding, 
perfect  mistresses  at  home,  and  exclusively  com- 
mand the  slaves  in  their  own  service,  who,  in  spite 
of  the  favours  of  their  masters,  are  no  less  depen- 
dent on  the  wife  than  on  the  latter.  As  their 
dwelling  is  always  separated  from  that  of  their 
husband,  they  have  a  right  to  prevent  him  from 
entering  it,  by  placing  before  the  door  a  pair  of 
slippers,  which  is  a  sign  that  they  have  company. 
The  husband,  who  dares  not  appear  in  the  pre- 
sence of  another  person's  wife,  is  obliged  to  respect 
this  indication  ;  and  the  German  proverb,  which 
says — that  a  man  is  under  his  wife's  slipper — may  be 
perfectly  applicable  in  the  East.  When  they  wish 
to  visit  any  of  their  friends  or  relations,  the  husband 
has  not  the  right  of  opposing  them  ;  and,  attended 
by  a  faithful  slave,  they  sometimes  absent  them- 
selves from  home  for  several  weeks  together. 
Under  the  pretext  of  these  visits,  I  was  assured 
that  they  allow  themselves  incredible  liberty ;  i0 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


204 

spite  of  their  veils,  an  I  the  locks  under  which  they 
are  shut  up,  they  find  means  to  indemnify  them- 
selves for  this  constraint ;  and  it  is  here  that  we 
roust  see  the  truth  of  that  maxim,  which  says— 
"  that  virtue  protects  itself,  and  that  good  prin- 
ciples are  the  best  dowry  of  a  female," — &c. 

We  were  amused  with  the  following — 
speaking  of  Cairo : 

Men  in  office,  says  the  writer,  and  the  rich,  have 
a  kind  of  amusement,  which  was  in  great  vogue 
in  Europe  during  the  middle  ages,  namely,  that  of 
buffoons,  or  professed  fools.  They  often  tell  their 
masters  very  plain  truths,  &c.  I  was  told  the  fol- 
lowing trait  of  ingenuity  in  one  of  these  buffoons. 
This  man  one  day  seeing  his  master  cat  pillaw,  a 
favourite  dish  among  the  Turks,  which  he  would 
not  have  dared  to  touch  before  the  end  of  the  re- 
past, amused  himself  meantime  with  holding  over 
the  dish  pieces  of  bread,  which  he  swallowed  after 
they  were  imbued  with  the  steam  of  the  rice,  to 
shew  how  desirous  he  was  to  have  what  was  left. 
When  the  Turk  had  finished  eating,  he  said  to 
him,  in  an  angry  tone,  "  You  have  been  robbing 
me  of  the  steam  of  my  dish  ;  you  shall  pay  me  for 
it  ;  this  pillaw  was  worth  a  piaster  ;  you  shall  pay 
me  four."  "  Nothing  is  more  just,"  answered  the 
buffoon  ;  "  I  will  pay  you  immediately  for  what  I 
have  taken  from  you."  He  then  drew  from  his 
purse  a  Spanish  dollar,  which  he  balanced  on  the 
top  of  his  finger,  and  made  it  ring  in  the  ear  of  his 
master.  The  latter,  not  knowing  what  this  meant, 
at  length  asked,  impatiently,  when  he  was  to  be 
paid  ?  "  Are  you  not  paid  already?"  said  the  buf- 
foon ;  "  surely  the  sound  of  this  dollar  is  as  good 
as  the  smell  of  your  rice!" 

The  whole  volume  may  be  soon  read,  and 
it  is  worth  reading.  It  is  singularly  well 
translated  by  a  lady. 

Specimens  of  Sacred  and  Serious  Poetry, 
from  C/wucer  to  the  present  day,  by  John 
Johnstone;  1827.— This  very  neat  little 
volume  has  all  the  merit  a  compilation  of 
the  kind  can  have— judicious  and  unhacknied 
selection.  It  embraces  the  whole  of  Gra- 
hame's  "  Sabbath"  and  Blair's  "  Grave,"  as 
being,  we  suppose,  wholly  applicable  to  his 
purpose— a  selection  of  sacred  and  serious 
poetry— and  neither  of  them  very  long  ex- 
tracts, from  eighty  or  ninety  poets,  fill  up  the 
rest  of  the  volume,  from  Chaucer,  the  "  Prio- 
ress's Tale,"  down  to  some  of  the  more 
conspicuous  poets  of  the  present  day — among 
whom  we  observe,  to  our  surprise,  the  Secre- 
tary for  Foreign  Affairs — the  merit  of  the 
little  piece  attributed  to  him,  we  leave  to  the 
compiler,  who,  perhaps,  has  read  it,  and  to 


[FEB. 


those  who  can  read  it,  to  discover.  To  many 
of  the  extracts  is  prefixed  a  memoir  of  the 
author,  accompanied  with  remarks  on  the 
genius  and  character  of  his  writings — written 
generally  with  sound  discrimination. 

The  music  of  the  following  lines  appear  to 
us  to  be  singularly  sweet.  They  are  taken 
from  two  small  volumes  of  great  merit,  en- 
titled the  "  Harp  of  Zion,''  and  "  Songs  of 
Israel,"  by  the  late  Mr.  W.  Knox. 

DIRGE  OF  RACHEL. 

And  Rachel  lies  in  Ephrath's  land, 
Beneath  her  lonely  oak  of  weeping  ; 

With  mouldering  heart,  and  withering  hand, 
The  sleep  of  death  for  ever  sleeping. 

The  Spring  comes  smiling  down  the  vale, 

The  lilies  and  the  roses  bringing  ; 
But  Rachel  never  more  shall  hail 

The  flowers  that  in  the  world  are  springing. 

The  Summer  gives  his  radiant  day, 
And  Jewish  dames  the  dance  are  treading; 

But  Rachel,  on  her  couch  of  clay, 
Sleeps  all  unheeded  and  unheeding. 

The  Autumn's  ripening  sunbeam  shines, 
And  reapers  to  the  field  is  calling  ; 

But  Rachel's  voice  no  longer  joins 
The  choral  song  at  twilight's  falling.' 

The  Winter  sends  his  drenching  shower, 
And  sweeps  his  howling  blast  around  her  ; 

But  earthly  storms  possess  no  power 
To  break  the  slumber  that  hath  bojind  her. 

Neither  Mr.  Knox,  nor  his  poetry,  we  be- 
lieve, is  much  known.  He  was  the  son,  it 
seems,  of  a  respectable  farmer  in  Roxburgh- 
shire. The  latter  part  of  his  life  was  em- 
bittered by  that  unsteadiness  and  uncertainty 
of  pursuit,  in  which  a  man  without  any  fixed 
profession  is  but  too  apt  to  become  involved, 
however  great  may  be  his  talents,  and  which 
has  too  often  a  pernicious  influence  in  un- 
settling the  social  habits  of  those,  who  pos- 
sess more  facility  of  temper  than  decision  and 
firmness  of  mind.  Knox  was  of  this  class 
—a  man,  of  whose  faults  the  best  and 
worst  thing  that  can  be  said  is,  they  injured 
no  one  so  deeply  as  himself.  His  failings 
were  those  of  habit — his  virtues  had  a  deeper 
root.  He  died  in  Edinburgh,  in  1 825,  after  an 
illness  of  three  days,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six, 
affording  yet  another  melancholy  lesson  of 
the  inefficacy  of  mere  genius  to  impart 
either  happiness  to  life,  or  grace  or  dignity  to 
character. 


1827] 


[     205    ]-• 
MONTHLY  THEATRICAL  REVIEW. 


AMONG  the  memorabilia  of  the  month, 
has  been  the  return  of  Kean  to  Drury  Lane. 
What  would  our  forefathers,  those  stubborn 
independents,  who  went  out  an  hundred  years 
ago,  with  scrip  and  staff,  to  drain  the  swamps 
of  Pensylvania,  or  shiver  on  the  banks  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  have  said,  if  some  news- 
paper, prophetic  of  the  wonders  of  their  chil- 
dren, had  announced,  that  the  freightage  of 
every  sloop  should  have  its  proportion  of  the 
profane,  even  the  men  of  the  drama;  that 
if  the  good  ship  contained  nothing  else,  it 
was  as  sure  to  have  actors  as  pickled  beef, 
and  that  the  cargo  should  be  passed  through 
the  Custom-house  without  a  rebellion,  and 
distributed  through  the  country,  without 
bringing  a  pestilence  packed  up  along  with  it. 
America  will,  in  spite  of  fate,  and  the  me- 
mory of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  George  Fox, 
be  in  course  of  commerce,  a  singing,  and 
dancing,  and  dramatizing  country,  as  by  the 
help  of  cheap  gin,  and  maple  sugar,  it  has 
become  a  drinking  and  a  toothless  one.  The 
vices  of  Europe  will  clothe  savages  in  silk 
stockings,  and  send  squaws  to  the  school 
of  copper-coloured  D'Equilles.  The  toma- 
hawk will  degenerate  into  the  foil,  and 
Signor  Angelo  will  "  teach  the  young  ideas 
of  the  tribes  how  to  shoot."  Gymnastics 
will  thicken  from  Pittsburg  to  Pensacola : 
and  the  bargeman  floating  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi, will  be  heard  cheering  his  solitary 
hours,  with  "  Di  tanti  palpiti;"  or  some 
coffee-complexioned  sentimentalist,  saturated 
with  green  tea,  and  the  "  Sorrows  of  Werter," 
will  be  seen  cultivating  melancholy  and 
moonlight  in  a  veranda,  to  the  sound  of  a 
triple-action  harp,  glittering  from  the  ware- 
house of  a  transatlantic  Erard.  Those 
will  be  sad  doings  beyond  the  Alleghanies  ; 
formidable  tidings  for  the  church-yards, 
where,  guiltless  of  so  much  as  the  profane- 
ness  of  a  head- stone,  the  forms  of  the  old 
Republicans  sleep,  not  much  stiffer  than 
when  they  were  alive.  But  the  thing  is 
inevitable,  and  will  come  to  pass,  probably 
before  any  European  reader  will  have  time 
to  get  over  above  half  the  speech  of  any 
American  president  of  the  race  of  Adams. 

Kean's  last  experiment  beyond  the  Atlantic 
was  better  managed  than  his  former.  In 
the  original  instance,  he  went  out  merely  to 
teach  the  New  World  what  the  perfection  of 
actingwas ;  he  moved  forth,  bending  under  his 
weight  of  British  laurels,  merely  to  show 
America  how  he  looked  in  his  glory.  He  tra- 
velled to  play  the  genius :  but  his  later  trip  was 
under  other  colours.  He  was  driven  out  to  do 
penance  as  the  exile.  The  public  had  set  its 
face  against  his  gross  contempt  of  matters  in 
which  the  public  opinion  is  still  active,  and  as 
right  as  it  is  active;  and  Kean's  voyage  to  the 
colonies  was  as  regularly  sentenced,  as  if 
Drury  Lane  had  been  the  Old  Bailey,  the  au- 
dience any  impanelled  jury,  and  the  culprit 
hud  been  conveyed  to  the  dock  by  the  men 


of  the  handcuffs,  instead  of  nag-canted  round 
the  stage  by  trumpeter  and  drummer. 

On  all  this  odious  affair  too  much  has 
been  said  and  unsaid  for  us  to  touch  it,  were 
the  subject  even  more  fitting  to  be  touched. 
But  on  the  general  question  of  the  public 
right  to  mulct  an  actor  for  personal  mis- 
conduct, what  individual  in  the  possession  of 
that  quantity  of  brains,  without  which  a 
man  is  not  properly  qualified  to  walk  the 
streets,  without  an  escort  from  St.  Luke's,  can 
have  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  right  exists 
in  the  fullest  degree.  The  public  has  an 
interest  in  the  suppression  of  crime  of  all 
kinds.  If  public  disapprobation  could  reach 
and  suppress  the  crimes  of  even  the  most 
private  society,  it  would  be  a  benefit  so  far 
as  the  suppression  of  crime  was  an  advan- 
tage. And  the  fear  of  the  public  opinion 
does  undoubtedly  deter  many  offences,  and 
particularly  those  which  are  most  likely  to 
see  the  light.  But  in  the  general  case  of 
private  life,  the  advantage  of  the  public 
supervision  would  be  more  than  counter- 
balanced by  the  evil  of  the  espionage  to 
which  it  must  have  recourse.  Thus  public 
opinion  can  be  legitimately  exercised,  only 
where  all  espionage  is  out  of  the  question, 
and  the  crime  forces  itself  on  the  eye. 

The  King's  Bench  Court  made  no  mys- 
tery of  the  matter.  The  crime  came  before 
the  world  in  its  full  proportions  ;  and  if  the 
world  would  not  shut  its  eyes  and  ears,  it 
must  have  known  the  offence  and  the  offen- 
der. Men  change  neither  their  rights  nor 
their  nature  by  sitting  under  the  roof  of  a 
theatre  ;  and  the  crime,  which  under  every 
other  roof  they  would  have  stigmatized,  and 
the  individual  whom  they  would  have  shun- 
ned in  every  other  place  of  assemblage^  is 
not  to  pass  muster,  because  the  criminal  is 
before  them,  susceptible  of  being  reached 
by  their  contempt,  and  being  taught  that 
offences  to  public  feeling,  are  perilous  to 
popularity  no  less  than  to  purse.  In  these 
observations,  we  do  not  peculiarly  allude  to 
the  actor  on  the  tapis.  His  offence  is  pastr 
and  his  purgation  may  be  expected  to 
come.  But  no  actor  condemned  by  a  court 
of  justice,  under  the  circumstances,  should 
be  suffered  to  believe,  that  the  public  are 
indifferent  to  the  conduct  of  those  who  live 
on  its  patronage. 

But  this  supervision  is  even  essential  to 
the  respectability  of  the  stage.  It  is  so  far 
from  being  a  severity,  that  it  is  a  positive 
boon.  The  mere  evidence  that  no  gross 
breach  of  propriety  is  tolerated  by  the  public, 
is  equivalent  to  a  character  of  good  conduct 
to  all  who  remain  uuaccused.  Suppose  that 
swindling  or  picking  pockets  were  not  to  be 
cognizable,  provided  the  artist  was  proved 
to  belong  to  the  stage.  The  profession 
must  instantly  sink  ten  thousand  fathom 
deep,  and  be  abandoned  by  every  man  ca- 
pable of  honesty,  or  acquainted  with  the 


206 


Monthly  Theatrical  Report. 


[FED- 


value  of  character.  Let  it,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  supposed,  taut  any  provision  of 
law  had  determined  that  no  rmm  under  a 
certain  rank  of  education  and  morals  could 
be  an  actor.  The  whole  profession  would 
be  instantly  raised  in  public  estimation.  It 
is,  in  truth,  not  less  an  act  of  kindness  to  the 
stage,  than  of  justice  towards  the  trans- 
gressor, that  public  opinion  should  be 
quick  to  mark,  and  slow  to  forgive  the  irre- 
gularities of  men  whom  it  has  the  power  to 
punish,  without  injuring  the  privacy  of  so- 
ciety. If  the  actor,  in  the  moment  of  ba- 
lancing between  the  indulgence  and  the 
h  izial,  were  to  be  compelled  to  feel  "  I 
shall  be  not  only  mulcted  by  the  law,  and 
shunned  in  private  life;  but  I  shall  incur  a 
more  formidable  penalty  than  both, — beg- 
gary ! — 1  shall  be  driven  from  the  stage.-" 
It  must  operate  as  an  additional  motive 
against  the  crime,  and  might  often  turn  the 
scale. 

Kean  says  that  his  offence  has  cost  him  ten 
thousand  pounds.  And  if  his  pounds  and 
his  exile  have  taught  him  a  determination  to 
combine  personal  propriety  with  his  public 
talents,  the  money  will  not  have  been  too 
much  for  the  lesson.  We  desire  to  be  under- 
stood as  saying  all  this,  in  no  possible  hosti- 
lity to  the  individual :  we  took  no  part  in  the 
violence  against  him.  We  look  upon  him 
as  possessing  very  fine  qualities  for  the 
drama,  great  vividness  of  conception,  great 
strength  of  expression,  a  remarkable  insight 
into  some  of  the  more  subtle  workings  of 
character ;  and,  with  whatever  defects  of 
voice  and  figure,  an  extraordinary  power  of 
realizing  the  noblest  imaginations  of  tra- 
gedy. 

His  first  appearance  was  in  Shylock — the 
origin  of  his  reputation.  The  character  is 
one  of  the  most  seizable  by  an  actor  of  any 
powers.  The  outline  is  of  admirable  force, 
and  the  contrast  of  the  passions  is  so  clear, 
that  perhaps  no  performer  ever  failed  of  ex- 
citing an  interest  in  the  Jew.  But  it  seems 
to  have  been  made  for  Keaa.  His  figure, 
his  physiognomy,  his  hollow  voice,  his  re- 
luctant yet  animated  movements  are  all 
modelled  by  nature  in  Shylock. 

His  performance  was  received  with  loud 
applause  by  an  immense  audience,  and  he 
has  since  played  Richard  with  no  diminu- 
tion of  his  popularity. 

This  is  the  pantomime  season,  and  both 
the  theatres  have  exerted  their  energies  in 
the  usual  way  of  scenery,  machinery,  the 
hazard  of  rival  tumblers,  and  the  jumps  and 
miracles  of  rival  harlequins.  Covem  Gar- 
den has  exhibited  "  Mother  Shipton,"  a 
pleasant  extravaganza,  with  a  great  deal  of 
good  scenery ;  and  young  Grinmldi  in  full 
spring,  and  transformations  enough  to  charm 
the  most  intractable  audience  that  ever 
crowded  from  school  and  country  during  the 
sight-seeing  month  of  Christmas.  But  it  is 
Lot  enough  for  Covent  Garden  to  be  equal 
to  her  neighbour  and  competitor.  Superior 
since  the  days  of  Rich,  and  dictator  to  all  eyej 


of  wonders  by  land  and  sea,  by  machinery 
and  painting,  by  man  and  brute,  she  must 
more  than  sustain  her  hereditary  honours, 
or  she  is  more  than  conquered.  "  There  is 
something,5'  as  the  philosophic  Francis 
Moore  says,  "  to  be  mended,  otherwise  men 
and  kinj;s  must  suffer  thereby."  Covent 
Garden  is  a  noble  theatre,  and  has  some  of 
our  very  best  actors.  But  Achilles  himself 
died  of  a  shot  in  the  heel  from  a  hand, 
which  if  it  had  lived  in  our  days,  would  pro- 
bably have  done  nothing  more  warlike  than 
leading  a  Court  Debutante  down  a  cotillon, 
or  at  best,  shone  as  the  appurtenance  of  a 
captain  of  the  Local  Militia.  Covent  Gar- 
den must  not  perish  through  the  heel  of  pan- 
tomime ;  so  let  h^r  beware  :  let  Mr.  Farley 
stimulate  his  imagination  by  a  voyage  to  the 
continent,  or  a  conscientious  study  of  the 
absurdities  of  London  for  the  next  six 
months  ;  or  if  nature  and  fancy,  even  in  him, 
are  sinking  under  the  course  of  time,  let  him 
refo  dilate  his  chilled  vigour  by  an  infusion 
of  the  youthful  brains  of  some  auxiliary 
genius. 

The  Drury  Lane  pantomime,  during  the 
last  two  or  three  years,  has  been  running 
neck  and  neck,  iu  more  senses  than  one, 
•with  Covent  Garden.  Its  present  show,  the 
"  Man  in  the  Moon,''  is  amusing  and  va- 
rious ;  but  even  arnusementbecomes  trouble- 
some to  every  human  being  but  a  woman  of 
the  first  fashion,  from  twelve  to  one  at  night ; 
and  the  shortening  of  the  "  Man  in  the 
Moon  "  would  be  among  the  happiest  expe- 
dients for  lengthening  his  life.  The  panto- 
mine  begins  in  nonsense,  as  we  suppose  it 
ought  to  begin,  if  experience  be  the  rule. 
Dog-headed  figures,  moon-faced  monsters, 
and  a  whole  battalion  of  hideous  Sunnites, 
with  faces  of  copper  and  monstrosity,  march 
and  re-march  without  any  discoverable  object 
under,  or  rather  in,  heaven.  But  when  the 
fable  is  broken  to  pieces  by  the  principal 
Genii,  and  Harlequin  is  extricated  from  his 
shell,  and  Columbine  flings  off  her  super- 
fluous petticoat,  and  in  the  glee  of  her  volta- 
tory  soul,  whirls  about  nearly  as  nature  left 
her  ;  when  the  Clown  developes  his  striped 
physiognomy  and  his  cossack  breeches  from 
the  solar  orb,  and  Pantaloon,  delivered  from 
hisrnagic  obesity  and  his  nondescript  visage, 
receives  his  first  kick,  and  rolls  in  rapture  un- 
der the  heels  of  Harlequin,  then  begins  the 
true  triumph  of  the  night.  Pleasantries,  re- 
peated during  the  last  three  centuries,  are 
riot  less  pleasantries  again  :  the  chase  of 
Columbine  charms  the  city  sentimentalists  in 
the  pit-,  and  the  infinite  blows,  tricks,  and 
overthrows  of  the  Clown  and  Pantaloon 
electrify  the  galleries  into  continued  ex- 
plosions of  laughter.  Some  of  the  scenery 
is  beautiful,  as  might  be  expected  from 
Stanfield.  And,  on  the  whole,  Mr.  Barry- 
more,  who  is  understood  to  bsthe  presiding 
genius  of  pantomime  here,  has  done  himself 
great  credit,  or  as  the  novelists  say,  has 
"  dyed  his  laurels  green  again  in  the  tide  of 
popular  applause." 


1827.] 


Monthly  Theatrical  Report. 


207 


There  ;ire  rumours  of  a  change  of  perfor- 
mers in  the  companies,  and  Jones,  the  live- 
liest actor  among  the  living,  is  said  to  bo 
suspended,  like  Mahomet's  coffin,  between 
the  two  theatres.  If  his  engagement  at  his 
old  theatre  is  out,  and  he  can  get  more  by 
going  to  the  new,  he  is  perfectly  right  in  so 
going.  The  life  of  an  actor  is  precarious, 
like  ever} body  else,  and  his  powers  are  still 
more  so.  The  actor's  talents  are  his  stock 
in  trade,  and  no  man  mu«t  expect  him  to 
turn  away  from  the  best  bidder.  ButCovent 
Garden  would  be  more  than  foolish  to  lose 
him,  his  place  could  not  be  filled  up.  There 
are  still  actors  who  approach  his  style,  but 
none  of  them  possessing  his  style  ;  the  pub- 
lic expect  to  see  him  wherever  comedy  is  in 
question,  and  the  managers  may  be  assured 
that  at  whatever  house  the  popular  taste  for 
comedy  can  find  Jones,  it  will  be  sure  to 
follow  him. 

Morton's  comedy  "  The  School  for  Grown 
Children,"  still  fights  its  way.  The  panto- 
mime brings  up  its  rear  with  good  effect ; 
and  the  choice  of  the  time  does  credit  to 
Morton's  veteran  sagacity.  His  work  is 
pleasant  enough  on  the  whole ;  but  the 
talent  of  the  author  is  Farce,  and  he  has 
made  a  five  act  Farce  His  habit  is,  plun- 
dering the  French ;  and  the  foreign  scribblers 
are  already  crying  out  on  the  English  gipsy, 
who  decoys  away  their  dramatic  children. 
His  taste  is,  unfortunately,  moralizing  on 
all  subjects,  in  the  most  long-winded  and 
unwarrantable  manner.  To  compensate  for 


the  extraordinary  quantity  of  virtue  forced 
into  the  lips  of  the  ladies,  he  dresses  uj> 
Farren  as  a  rake  of  sixty,  makes  him  win  a 
boat-race,  and  do  half-a-dozen  other  acts 
worthy  of  boyhood  and  brainlessness,  wind- 
ing up  all  by  a  hornpipe,  in  which  Farren 
must  have  astonished  himself.  Jones  is  the 
young  rake  reformed  into  an  ceconomist,  in 
proportion  as  his  uncle,  the  old  one,  grows 
youthful  and  ridiculous.  He  made  the  most 
of  it ;  but  the  plot  is  already  before  the 
public.  The  comedy  is  feeble,  yet  it  is  still 
worth  going  to  see,  and  Morton  worth  so- 
liciting to  write.  Covent-Garden  should  not 
let  him  loose  while  he  can  hold  a  pen,  or 
pluck  the  feather  of  a  French  drama. 

A  Miss  Hargrave  has  appeared  in  tragedy. 
She  has  hitherto  acted  under  disadvantages. 
The  appearance  of  a  powerful  female  trage- 
dian would  be  a  new  era  to  the  stage. 
Why  did  not  the  managers,  when  Mr. 
Beecher  came  bewitching  Miss  O'Neill,  get 
an  order  for  his  traasportaioH  for  the  term  of 
his  natural  life ;  or  if  that  were  too  tardy, 
appear  at  the  altar,  and  boldly  forbid  the 
banns. 

The  King's  Theatre,  which,  with  great 
propriety,  closed  for  the  melancholy  loss  of 
the  Duke  of  York,  has  opened  since,  with 
"  La  Schiava  en  Bagdad/'  an  Opera  by 
Paccini ;  popular  abroad,  and  likely  to  be 
a  favourite  here.  The  management  proceeds 
with  spirit,  is  making  new  engagements, 
and  will,  it  is  expected,  have  a  triumphant 
season. 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 


DOMESTIC. 
ROYAL    SOCIETY. 

Nov.  30th.—  Being  St.  Andrew's  day,  the 
anniversary  meeting  was  held  for  the  election 
of  council  and  officers,  and  the  awarding  of 
the  new  Royal  and  Copley  medals.  The 
first  royal  prize  was  adjudged  to  Mr.  John 
Dalton,  of  Manchester,  for  the  development  of 
the  chemical  theory  of  definite  proportions, 
usually  called  the  atomic  theory ;  and  for  his 
various  other  labours  in  chemical  and  physical 
science.  The  second  medal  on  the  royal  foun- 
dation was  awarded  to  James  Ivory,  A.M.,  for 
bis  papers  on  the  laws  regulating  the  forms 
of  the  planets,  on  astronomical  refractions, 
and  on  other  mathematical  illustrations  of  im- 
portant parts  of  astronomy.  The  medal  on  Sir 
Godfrey  Copley's  foundation,  for  this  year, 
was  given  to  James  South,  esq.,  for  bis  paper 
on  the  observations  of  the  apparent  distances 
and  positions  of  458  double  and  triple  stars, 
published  in  the  last  volume  of  the  transac- 
tions. 

Dec.  7. — A  paper  was  read  on  the  compo- 
sition of  James's  powder,  and  of  Pulvis  an- 
timonialis,  by  J.  Davy,  M.D. 

14. — On  the  relative  powers  of  various 
metallic  substances,  regarded  as  conductors 


of   electricity,  by  W.  S.  Harris,  esq.,   com- 
municated  by  J.  Knowles,  esq. 

21.— On  an  improved  differential  ther- 
mometer, by  A.  Ritchie,  M.A.,  communi- 
cated by  Sir  H.  Davy.  The  society  inert 
adjourned  over  the  Christmas  vacation. 

GEOLOGICAL    SOCIETY. 

Nov.  17. — A  notice  was  read  on  some  beds 
which  extend  through  Yorkshire  and  Dur- 
ham, associated  with  the  magnesian  lime- 
stone, and  on  some  fossil  fish  found  in  them, 
forming  a  suit  more  nearly  resembling  that 
of  the  carboniferous  limestone  than  has  gene- 
rally been  imagined,  by  the  Rev.  Adam  Sedg- 
wick,  Woodwardian  professor.  Some  "  ob- 
servations" were  read  on  the  bones  of  hyenas 
and  other  animals,  in  the  cavern  of  Lunel, 
near  Montpellier,  and  in  the  adjacent  strata 
of  marine  formation,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Buck- 
land,  professor  of  mineralogy  at  Oxford.  The 
result  of  the  professor's  personal  investiga- 
tions, was  to  establish  nearly  a  perfect  iden- 
tity between  this  cave  and  the  one  at  Kirk- 
dale,  both  in  their  animal  and  mineral 
contents,  as  well 'as  in  the  history  of  their 
introduction. 

Dec.  1.— An  extract  was  read  from  a  letter 
of  B.  de  Basterd,  esq.,  to  Dr.  Fitlon, 


203 


Varieties. 


[FEB. 


giving  a  short  account  of  the  succession 
of  strata  in  the  vicinity  of  Folkestone. 
Also,  the  reading  of  a  paper  by  Dr.  Fitton 
was  commenced,  entitled,  "additional  notes 
on  part  of  the  opposite  coasts  of  France  and 
England,  including  some  account  of  the 
lower  Boulonnuis. 


ASTRONOMICAL    SOCIETY. 

"  At  the  last  meeting  of  ibis  society,  there  was 
read  a  letter,  addressed  to  the  president  by 
Lieut. Foster,  R.N.,  on  the  method  of  determin- 
ing the  longitude  by  moon  culminating  stars, 
which  was  found  subject  to  many  inconve- 
niences in  the  expedition  under  Captain 
Parry.  There  was  also  read  a  communica- 
tion from  Dr.  Rumker,  of  Stargard,  Para- 
matta, to  Dr.  Gregory,  containing  an  ac- 
count of  some  observations  made  at  the 
observatory  there,  on  the  great  comet  in 
1 825,  from  October  1 8th  to  December  20th, 
and  the  elliptic  elements  thence  deduced.  On 
the  comet  in  Leo  in  1825,  from  July  9th  to 
15th,  and  the  resulting  parabolic  elements. 
On  the  lunar  eclipse,  May  21st  1826,  at  Pa- 
ramatta, and  observations  on  Mars,  near  this 
opposition,  from  May  5th  to  May  12th, 
1826. 

FOREIGN. 

INSTITUTE — ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Paris,  October  10;  1826.— M.  de  Mont- 
ferrand  gave  an  account  of  a  man  being 
struck  by  lightning,  in  the  streets  of  Ver- 
sailles, at  the  same  time  that  it  fell  upon  the 
farm  of  Gaily.  M.  P.  Laurent  addressed 
some  new  essays  on  the  method  of  engraving 
he  had  invented.  Messrs.  Audouin  and 
Milne  Edwards  depose  with  the  secretary, 
the  result  of  an  anatomical  and  physiological 
work  they  had  completed.  Messrs.  De  Prony, 
Frenel,  and  Harris  delivered  a  favourable 
report  on  the  system  of  tonnage  duties  and 
flood-gate  tolls,  proposed  by  M.  Sartois. 
M.  Moreau  de  Jonues  read  a  memoir,  en- 
titled "  researches  for  determining  the  cha- 
racters and  the  effects  of  the  small-pox, 
and  discovering  its  origin."  M.  Legalas, 
another  on  a  new  method  of  exploring  the 
canal  of  the  urethra.  M.  du  PetitThouard, 
one  on  the  question,  "  what  are  to  be  called 
organs  in  vegetables." — 23.  A  question  re- 
garding the  imposition  of  duty,  was  pro- 


posed from  the  minister  of  the  interior,  to 
ascertain  the  quantities  of  cotton  and  wool 
which  enter  into  the  texture  of  certain  stuffs. 
A  commendatory  report  was  made  upon  the 
proceedings  of  Dr.  Dulau,  the  younger,  to- 
wards  those  born  deaf  and  dumb,  who  under 
his  care  had  recovered  the  former  sense,  and 
a  sum  was  awarded  him,  from  the  legacy 
bequeathed  by  M.  de  Monthyon.  Messrs. 
Guy-Lussac,  and  Fournier  reported,  that  the 
process  of  engraving  invented  by  Mr.  Lau- 
rent, had  not  as  yet  attained  the  requisite 
degree  of  perfection,  and  recommended  him 
to  continue  his  experiments. — 30.  Sir  Gilbert 
Blane  and  Mr.  Hufrland,  at  Berlin,  were 
iicimed  correspondents  in  the  section  of  medi- 
cine, in  the  place  of  Messrs.  Paulet  and 
Baraillon.  M.  Dutrochet  read  a  memoir, 
entitled  (f  researches  on  the  progress  of  the 
sap  in  plants,  and  on  the  causes  of  its  pro- 
gression." A  paper  was  communicated  from 
M.  Abel,  a  Norwegian,  on  a  general  pro- 
perty of  a  very  extensive  class  of  transcen- 
dental functions. — November  6.  A  letter  was 
read  from  Mr.  Raspail,  on  the  subject  of  the 
experiments  referred  to  by  M.  Dutrochet,  at 
the  last  meeting.  M.  M.  Ostrogradsky  com- 
municated a  memoir  on  the  propogation  of 
waves  in  a  cylindric  basin.  M.  G.  St. 
Hilaire  made  a  verbal  report  on  a  work  of 
M.  Passalacqua,  in  which  he  gave  an  ac- 
count of  various  domestic  ornaments,  utea- 
sils,  <fec.  that  he  had  discovered  in  Egypt. 
A  memoir  was  communicated  by  Messrs. 
Robiquet  ami  Colin,  (<  on  the  colouring  matter 
of  madder."  M.  Milne,  in  his  own  name, 
and  that  of  M.  Milne  Edwards,  read  a 
memoir  on  an  animal  of  a  new  genus,  which 
sucks  the  blood  of  the  lobster,  and  which 
is  usually  called  hicottroe. — 13.  M.  Gambart 
communicated  some  observations  on  the 
comet  he  had  discovered,  and  the  orbit  he 
had  thence  deduced ;  and,  in  a  letter,  it  was 
stated  that  he  had  found  another  comet. 
M.  Cuvier  read  a  memoir  on  the  genus 
amphiuma,  and  on  a  new  species  of  this 
genus,  a  tridactylum.  M.  de  Blainville 
made  some  observations  on  the  same  subject. 
M.  Cauchy  read  a  memoir  on  the  nature  of 
the  roots  of  some  transcendental  equations, 
and  in  particular  of  those  to  which  the 
physicomathematical  problems  lead.  M.  Du- 
petit  Thomas  communicated  a  memoir  on 
the  action  which  electricity  produces  upon 
vegetation. 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC 

Mineralogy. — A  description  of  two  new 
mineral  species  has  recently  appeared  in 
the  Annales  de  Chimie.  The  first  Thenar- 
ditcj  was  discovered  nearly  nine  years  ago 
by  M.  Rodes,  five  leagues  from  Madrid,  and 
two  and  a  half  from  Aranjuez,  in  a  place 
called  the  salt  mines  of  Espartines,  and  con- 
sidered by  him  as  a  sulphate  of  soda,  mixed 
with  a  small  quantity  olsubcarbonateof  soda. 


AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 

Mr.  Casaseca  of  Madrid,  by  whom  it  has  been 
recently  analysed,  and  received  its  present  ap- 
pellation, found  it  to  consist  of  sulphate  of 
soda  99-78  subcarbonate  of  soda  0'22.  Form. 
A  scalere  four-sided  pyramid,  whose  base  is  a 
shomb  of  nearly  125°  and  55°,  the  ratio 
between  the  axis  and  a  side  of  this  rhomb 
being  =7-3  nearly.  Crystals  frequently  have 
the  apex  of  the  pyramid  taken  off'  by  a  plane. 


1827.] 


Varieties. 


209 


It  cleaves  readily  in  a  direction  perpendicular 
to  the  axis  of  this  pyramid,  and  likewise 
parellel  to  planes  replacing  its  lateral  edges. 
It  is  not  transparent,  und  its  specific  gravity 
approaches  to  that  of  glauberite,  which  is 
2-73.  The  second,  Halfoysite,  occurs  in 
more  or  less  regular  globular  masses,  some- 
times larger  than  the  first,  in  tho«e  aggre- 
gated masses  of  ores  of  iron,  zinc,  and  lead, 
which  frequently  are  found  filling  the  cavities 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Liege  and  Narnur. 
It  was  first  observed  by  M.Omaliusd'Halloj', 
in  compliment  to  whom  it  has  been  named 
by  M.  Berthier.  When  analyzed  by  the 
latter  gentleman,  its  component  parts 
were,  silica,  0'395 ;  alumina,  0'340 ;  water 
0-265. 

Improved  Barometer.— Much  ingenuity 
has  been  displayed  in  contriving  methods 
whereby  the  mercury  in  the  cistern  of  a 
barometer  may  be  kept  at  a  constant  level; 
floating  gages,  moveable  bottoms,  &c.,  £c. 
have  been  had  recourse  to,  all  more  or  less 
objectionable,  either  from  the  insufficiency  of 
the  means  employed,  or  the  difficulty  of 
their  application.  An  extremely  simple,  but 
admirable,  contrivance  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
has  supplied  the  desideratum.  The  pinion 
that  raises  the  vernier  by  which  the  height 
of  the  mercury  is  led  off,  depresses  at  the 
same  time,  and  in  the  same  degree,  into  the 
reservoir,  a  steel  plunger,  the  size  of  which 
exactly  corresponds  to  the  interior  diameter 
of  the  tube  of  the  instrument. 

New  White  Paint, — A  colour-manufac- 
turer in  Derbyshire,  by  name  Duesbury,  has 
discovered  a  mode  of  preparing  from  the 
impure  native  sulphate  of  barytes,  or  what 
is  commoniy  known  by  the  name  of  cawkj 
heavy  spar,  ponderous  earth,  &c.,  which  is 
found  in  several  parts  of  this  country  in  large 
quantities,  a  material,  to  be  employed  as  a 
substitute  for  white  lead  in  painting,  which 
material,  when  prepared  according  to  a  pro- 
cess for  which  he  has  obtained  a  patent,  is 
found  not  to  be  susceptible  of  decomposition, 
or  of  changing  its  hue  in  .situations  which  are 
exposed  to  damp  or  sulphurous  effluvia.  Jt 
is,  however  more  particular!}'  designed  for 
water  colour  than  for  oil,  and  when  em- 
ployed on  flatted  or  distempered  walls,  and 
as  the  ground  washes,  or  in  the  patterns  of 
printed  paper  hangings,  it  is  found  to  be  a 
constant  white,  that  is,  to  retain  its  snowy  hue, 
unimpaired  and  unaffected  by  any  chemical 
action  to  which  a  humid  atmosphere  might 
expose  it. — Newton's  Journal. 

Artificial  Cold. — Several  methods  of  pro- 
ducing artificial  cold  are  generally  known, 
but  the  following,  by  the  mixture  of  metals, 
is,  we  conceive,  a  novel  result;  it  is  stated, 
in  the  Annalesde  Chimie,thatM.  Dobereiuer 
dissolved  207  grains  of  lead,  118  of  tin,  and 
284  of  birmuth  in  1617  grains  of  mercury,  at 
a  temperature  of  64°  5  of  Fahrenheit.  The 
mixture  immediately  fell  to  14°  Fahrenheit. 
Botanical  Curiosity. — A  leaf  of  the  tal- 
lipot.  tree  has  lately  been  brought  to  this 
MM.Nf-w  Scries.— VOL.  III.  No.  14. 


country  fron  Ceylon,  of  which  island  it  is  a 
native.  The  leaf  is  in  a  good  state  of  pre- 
servation ;  it  measures  fully  eleven  feet  in 
height,  sixteen  feet  and  a-h;ilf  in  its  widest 
spread,  and  from  thirty-eight  to  forty  fe«t 
in  circumference.  If  expanded  as  a  canopy, 
it  is  sufficient  to  protect  a  dinner  party  of 
six  from  the  rays  of  the  sun,  and  in  Ceylon 
is  carried  about  by  the  natives  for  that  pur- 
pose.— Asiatic  Journal. 

Enormous  Fossil  Vertebra. — It  is  stated 
in  the  last  number  of  the  Philosophical  Jour- 
nal, that  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bridport,  in 
Dorsetshire,  a  short  time  ago,  a  labourer, 
digging  for  an  ingredient  used  in  mortar, 
found  a  vertebra  of  an  enormous  animal, 
larger  than  that  of  the  whale,  and  supposed 
to  belong  to  a  land  animal.  This  curiosity 
is  in  the  possession  of  a  gentleman  at  Brid- 
port,  who  generously  rewarded  ihe  finder 
with  ten  guineas.  Search  has  been  made 
after  the  other  parts  of  the  same  animal, 
but  without  success.  The  perforation  for  the 
spinal  marrow  is  stated  to  be  nearly  equal 
in  circumference  to  the  body  of  a  man. 

Strength  of  Cohesion  of  Wood.— The 
following  results  of  his  experiments  on  the 
strength  of  cohesion  of  wood  have  been  ar- 
ranged by  Mr.  Bevan,  in  a  tabular  form, 
and  communicated  by  him  to  an  eminent 
scientific  journal.  Mr.  B.  having  occasion- 
ally found  part  of  the  larger  end  of  the 
wooden  bars  drawn  out  in  a  cylindrical 
shape,  when  the  lateral  adhesion  was  less 
than  the  longitudinal  cohesion,  the  number 
of  pounds  expressive  of  the  cohesion  is  in 
these  cast's  short  of  what  is  due  to  the  spe- 
cimen, and  in  the  table  these  are  expressed 
by  + ,  as  to  the  other  bearing ;  sometimes 
the  specimen  broke  during  the  motion  of 
the  weight,  and  therefore  would  have  se-  . 
parated  under  a  less  force  with  more  time : 
these  are  marked — 

c      .       f  ,.,r     ,        Specific         Cohesion 
Species  of  Wood.       rfnvKy        .„  Poundg. 

Acacia '85  ..  16,000  + 

Ash    -84  ..  16,700 

Ditto -78  ..  19,600 

Beech    -72  ..  22,200 

Birch -64  ..  15,000— 

Box   '99  ..  15,500— 

Cane '40  . .  6,300 

Cedar '54  ..  11,400 

Chestnut  (horse)   ..  -61  ,.  12,100— 

Ditto  (sweet)    '61  ..  10,500  — 

Damson    '79  ..  14,000 

Deal  (Norway  spruce) -34  ..  13,100  + 

Ditto,  ditto 17,600  + 

Ditto  (Christiana)..  '46  ..  12,400 

Ditto,  ditto -46  ..  12,300 

Ditto,  ditto -46  .  14,000 

Ditto  (English) -47  ..  7,000 

Elder -73  ..  15,000 

Hawthorn -91  ..  10,700— 

Ditto 9,200 

Holly -76  ..  16,000 

Laburnum '92  . .  10,500 

Lance-wood 1-0 1  ..  23,400  + 

Lignum-vitw 1-22  ..  11.80U 

2E 


2JO 


Varieties. 


[FEB. 


23,500  + 

Mahogany  -87 

21,800  + 

Ditto  -80     ., 

16,500 

Maple    -66     .. 

17,400 

Mulberry    -66     .. 

10,600 

Oak  (English)  ....     -70 

19,800  + 

Ditto  -76 

15,000 

Ditto,  old  '76 

14,000 

Oak    pile  out  of£       ,u 
the  river  Cam    S 

4,500 

Oak  (black  Line,  log)  -67     .  . 

7,700— 

Oak  (Humboro')  ..     '66     .. 

16,300  + 

Ditto,  ditto  '66     .. 

14,000 

Pine  (Petersburg!))      -49     .. 

13,300- 

Ditto  (Norway)  ....      *59 

12,400— 

Ditto,  ditto    '66 

14,300 

Ditto  (Petersburg!!)     '55     .. 

13,100  + 

Poplar   '36     .. 

7,200- 

Sallow  -70     .. 

18,600  + 

13,000 

Teak  (old)  -53     .. 

8,200 

Walnut  -59     .. 

7,800 

Willow  -35)     .  . 

14,000 

Yew  -79     .. 

8,000 

Revolution  of  a  Comet. — The  zeal  with 
which*  (he  interests  of  science  were  forwarded 
in  New  Holland,  by  Sir  T.  Bresbarie,  de- 
serves the  warmest  acknowledgments  of 
every  liberal  mind.  Among  the  most  cu- 
rious results  obtained  under  his  patronage, 
by  Mr.  Dunlop,  at  the  observatory  of  Para- 
matta, may  be  considered  the  one  arising 
from  the  observations  on  the  comet  of  Au- 
gust, September,  and  October  1825,  and  on 
the  changes  which  took  place  in  the  figure 
of  the  tail,  tending  to  establish  the  existence 
of  a  rotation  round  its  axis.  The  periodic 
variations  in  the  appearance  of  the  tail, 
seemed  to  indicate  the  time  of  revolution  to 
be  about  nineteen  and  a-half  hours.  Simi- 
lar appearances  were  observed  by  Le  Pere 
Cyrat,  in  the  tail  of  the  comet  of  1618  ;  by 
Hevetius,  in  the  tails  of  the  comets  of  1652 
and  J661,  and  by  Pingre",  in  the  tail  of  the 
comet  of  1769. 

Ornithology.— AgeA  females  of  the  phea- 
sant species,  who  have  probably  attained  the 
age  of  five  or  ten  years,  not  only  cease  to  be 
prolific,  or  are  so  in  a  very  slight  degree,  but 
assume  a  plumage  which  becomes  more  and 
more  similar  to  that  of  the  male  the  older 
they  grow,  so  that  they  resemble  males  with 
dull  and  discoloured  plumage,  and  in  some 
instances  the  resemblance  is  absolutely  per- 
fect. The  ovary  is  so  much  obliterated  in 
many  of  such  females  as  to  be  no  longer 
perceptible;  the  voice  too  changes  at  the 
same  time  as  the  plumage,  and  becomes,  as 


has  been  long  known,  like  that  of  the  male  : 
and  the  spur  itself  is  not  among  pheasants 
the  exclusive  property  of  the  male,  but  exists 
occasionally  in  the  female ;  so  that  a  hen 
pheasant  may,  after  a  certain  lapse  of  time, 
not  only  become  clothed  with  the  exact  plu- 
mage of  the  male,  but  acquire  all  the  external 
characters,  the  trifling  development  of  the 
red  circumabital  membrane  remaining  the 
only  index  of  its  true  sex.  To  the  observa- 
tions of  M.  de  St.  Hilaire  it  may  be  added, 
that  Mr,  Butler  has  collected  a  number  of 
instances,  not  only  among  the  Gallinae,  but 
al*o  among  tbe^Palmipedes  and  Waders,  of 
similar  changes;  and  he  thinks  that  this 
change  is  not  confined  to  one,  two,  or  three 
different  species,  but  that  probably  the  same 
disposition  is  common  to  numbers  of  the 
feathered  race,  and  that  the  change  is 
almost  always  natural,  produced  either  by 
the  effects  of  age,  of  sterility,  or  other  causes, 
which  tend  to  work  some  changes  in  the 
constitution  of  birds. — Edinburgh  Journal. 

Mexican  Manuscript, — An  Italian  travel- 
ler of  the  name  of  Beltrami,  has  discovered, 
in  an  old  convent  in  the  interior  of  Mexico, 
a  manuscript,  which  maybe  regarded  unique, 
and  of  the  most  rare  and  interesting  descrip- 
tion. It  is  the  gospel,  or  rather  a  gospel 
such  as  it  was  dictated  by  the  first  monks, 
coriquestadores,  translated  into  the  Mexican 
tongue  by  Montezuma,  who,  alone,  of  his 
family,  escaped  the  massacres  of  the  con- 
quest, and  Ion  gre  mal  grc  was  converted 
to  the  popish  faith.  It  is  a  large  volume  in 
folio,  most  beautifully  written  upon  Mangey 
or  Agave  paper,  as  highly  polished  as  parch- 
ment, and  surpassing  papyrus  in  flexibility. 
By  this  great  monument  of  the  ancient 
Mexican  language,  the  learned,  by  compar- 
ing it  with  the  manuscripts  in  the  oriental 
tongues,  may  be  enabled  to  throw  some 
light  upon  the  origin  of  the  nations  who 
inhabited  these  vast  countries. 

Method  of  restoring  Wine.— A.  method 
of  restoring  wine  that  has  been  turned,  has 
been  in  practice  for  some  years  in  France. 
It  consists  in  adding  from  half  an  ounce  to 
two  ounces  of  tartar ic  acid  to  a  hectolitre 
of  wine,  according  to  its  state  of  decompo- 
sition. The  tartaric  acid  reproduces  the 
tartar,  disengages  the  carbonic  acid,  and 
consequently  destroys  the  alkaline  character 
given  to  the  wine  by  the  sub-carbonate?. 
From  the  impossibility  of  determining  the 
exact  quantity  for  every  case,  this  method  is 
not  always  successful. 


POLITICAL  OCCURRENCES. 


OUR  summary  of  this  month,  must  of  ne- 
cessity be  brief.  Nothing  of  moment  has  oc- 
curred— scarcely  even  a  probability  on  which 
we  may  venture  to  speculate.  At  home,  all  is 
pacific;  ministers  are  deservedly  popular; 


Mr.  Canning,  in  particular,  is  the  "inter  mille 
rates  millesimus,"  the  one  paramount  idol  of 
his  day,  to  whom  all  parties  bow,  with 
nearly  equal  admiration;  and  his  late  speech, 
which  has  since  become  the  fashion  in  For- 


1827. 


Political  Occurrences. 


tngal  (into  which  language  it  has,  we  are 
told,  been  very  ably  translated),  has  set  hun- 
dreds of  aspiring  spirits  on  the  watch.  The 
ultras,  indeed,  of  France,  profess  to  hold  it 
in  contempt ;  and  lo  discover  beneath  the 
broad  fruitful  surface  of  its  principles,  a  sort 
of  substratum  of  democracy  and  revolution  j 
this  opinion,  however,  is,  by  good  luck, 
confined  to  the  Jesuits ;  the  majority  of 
Fiance  have  a  different  tone  of  thinking  on 
the  subject  of  its  merits  as  a  composition, 
and  its  liberality  is  an  official  declaration  of 
principles.  With  respect  to  our  commercial 
distresses,  we  are  pleased  to  have  it  in  our 
power  to  state,  from  the  first  authority,  that 
though  slowly  they  are  yet  surely  ceasing ; 
a  gentle  re-action  has  taken  place  within  the 
last  few  weeks :  the  great  northern  manu- 
facturing districts  have  put  on  a  more  cheer- 
ful appearance;  Manchester  presents  no 
longer  the  squalid  scenes  of  abject  wretch- 
edness, which  it  displayed  towards  the  close 
of  last  year.  There  has  been  a  brisk  de- 
mand for  most  of  the  staple  goods  of  the 
place  (cottons  in  particular),  the  consequence 
of  which  is,  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
operatives,  are  once  again  in  full  employ. 
Nottingham  is,  by  all  the  provincial  accounts 
we  have  hitherto  been  able  to  glean,  busy 
in  exporting  its  local  manufactures;  Shef- 
field is  full  of  business,  and  Preston  (more 
wonderful  still),  contented.  At  Glasgow, 
however,  we  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that 
distress  is  superlatively  great,  probably  un- 
equalled at  any  former  national  cr.sis  of 
suffering.  Hundreds,  both  there  and  at 
Paisley,  are  perishing  from  absolute  want ; 
so  much  so,  that  a  committee  has  been  des- 
patched by  these  unhappy,  destitute  opera- 
tives to  London,  with  the  professed  view 
of  organizing,  under  ministerial  sanction, 
some  plan  to  ensure  emigration.  The  sub- 
ject, we  understand,  will  be  brought  fully 
before  the  House,  at  an  early  period  in  the 
ensuing  session  ;  but  at  present  a  disinclina- 
tion evidently  exists  on  the  part  of  govern- 


[211 

ment,  towards  it.  We  refer  the  reader,  for 
further  particulars  respecting  the  benefits 
likely  to  result  from  emigration,  to  an  able 
article  (probably  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 
Brougham),  in  the  present  number  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review.  He  will  there  find  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  very  fairly 
canvassed,  their  merits  carefully  summed 
up,  and  an  adroit  deduction  drawn  from  them. 
With  respect  to  Ireland,  we  have  little  or 
nothing  in  the  shape  of  intelligence  or  spe- 
culation to  communicate.  Messrs.  Shlels 
and  O'Connell  still  continue  unimpeded  in 
their  -vigorous  and  eloquent  opposition  to 
Protestant  ascendancy.  The  former  e-pe- 
cially,  seems  nervously  solicitous  to  stir  up 
the  already  inflamed  minds  of  his  country- 
men to  desperation,  if  we  may  judge  at  lea  t 
from  his  eloquent,  but  misguided  speech,  in 
explanation  of  some  points  in  the  character 
of  the  late  Irish  revolutionist,  Wolfe  Tone. 
On  the  continent  all  is  tranquil ;  but  it  is, 
we  fear,  the  tranquillity  that  precedes  the 
tempest ;  the  hush  that  heralds  the  volcano. 
France  holds  out  the  right  hand  of  amity, 
while  with  the  left  she  conceals  the  poig- 
nard  ;  Spain  professes  to  be  penitent,  pretty 
much  after  a  fashion  of  her  own;  Portugal 
has  received,  but  without  any  manifest  signs 
of  exultation,  the  late  promised  support  of 
British  troops  ;  and  Russia,  gigantic,  vaunt- 
ing Russia,  casts  an  eye,  timorous  but  vigi- 
lant towards  our  Indian  possessions,  of 
which  she  hopes  to  effect  the  conquest, 
through  the  medium  of  Persia,  whose  fate 
she  has  already  half-sealed.  America, 
jealous  of  our  reported  attempts  on  the 
Havannah,  as  an  indemnity  for  the  loans 
owing  to  us  by  its  present  occupant, 
(Spain),  has  despatched  an  agent  to  England 
to  remonstrate :  and  we  fear  that  clouds  are 
lowering  fearfully  in  this  distant  quarter ;  but 
at  present  all  is  surmise,  a  few  months  will 
decide  whether  the  world  is  to  be  fired,  or 
peace  preserved . 


PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL  AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 


List  of  Patents  lately  Granted. 

To  Thomas  Morrison,  Esq.,  of  Vale- 
grove,  Chelsea,  for  a  process  of  rendering 
bools,|shoes,  and  other  articles,  water-proof 
— Sealed  22d  Dec  ;  for  inrolrnent,  6  months. 

To  David  Redmund,  of  Greek-street, 
Soho,  engineer,  for  certain  improvements  in 
the  construction  and  manufacture  of  hinges 
— 22d  Dec  ;  6  months. 

To  Elijah  Galloway,  of  the  London-road, 
engineer,  for  an  improved  rotary  steam 
engine — 29th  Dec  ;  6  months 

To  John  Whiting,  of  Ipswich,  architect, 
for  certain  improvements  in  window  sashes, 
sashes  and  frames — 9th  Jan.  1 827  ;  2  months 

To  James  Fraser,  of  Houndsditch,  for  an 
improved  method  of  constructing  capstans, 
and  windlasses. —  IHh  Jan. ;  0  months. 


To  James  Fraser,  of  Houndsditch,  engi- 
neer, for  an  improved  method  of  constructing 
boilers  for  steam  engines — llth  Jan.;  0 
months. 

To  William  Wilmot  Hall,  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  of  Westminster, 
attorney  at]  law,  for  a  new  invention  of  an 
engine  for  mooring  and  propelling  ships, 
boats,  carriages,  mills,  and  machinery  of 
every  kind — 15th  Jan.  ;  2  months. 

To  William  Hobson,  of  Stamford-hill, 
gent.,  for  an  improved  method  of  paving 
streets,  lanes,  roads,  arid  carriageways — 15t4i 
Jan. ;  2  months. 

To  James  Neville,  of  New-walk,  Strand, 
Thames,  Surrey,  engineer,  fora  new  invent- 
ed carriage,  to  be  worked  or  propelled  by 
means  of  steam — 15  Jan. ;  6  months. 

To   William  Mdson,  of   Oxford -market, 

2E2 


212 


List  of  Patents. 


[FEB. 


Westminster,  patent  axletree-maker,  for  cer- 
tain improvements  in  the  construction  of 
those  axletrees  and  boxes  for  carriages,  which 
are  usually  termed,  or  known  by  the  name  of 
mail  uxletrees  and  boxes— 15th  Jan.  ;  2 
months. 

To  Robert  Copland,  of  Wilmington-square, 
gent.,  for  certain  improvements  upon  a 
patent  already  obtained  by  him  for  gaining 
power — 16th  Jan.;  15  months. 

List  of  Patents,  which,  having  been  granted 
in  February  1813,  expire  in  the  present 
month  of  February  1827. 

4.  George  Alexander,  Leitb,  for  his  im- 
proved mode  of  suspending  thj  cord  of  the 
mariner's  compass. 


4.  William  Broughton,  London,  for  a 
new  and  better  sort  of  canvass. 

20.  Peter  Ewart,  Manchester,  for  a  me- 
thod of  working  weaving  looms  by  machi- 
nery. 

—  Joseph  Hamilton,  Dublin,  for  a  new 
method  of  constructing    and    connecting 
earthen  building  materials. 

—  Charles  Plimley,  Birmingham,  for  an 
improved  method  of  making  files,  and  va- 
rious other  articles. 

—  John  Roberls,  Macclesfield,  for  a  me- 
thod of  contracting  or  reducing  into  small 
compass  such  part  of  malt  and  hops  as  are 
requisite  in  making' ale,  beer,  and  porter. 

24.  Joseph  Smith,  Coveley,  Stafford,  for 
an  improved  construction  and  manufacture 
of  chains. 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS, 


WORKS    IN    PREPARATION. 

The  Secret  Report  on  South  America, 
made  to  the  King  of  Spain,  by  Don  Antonio 
de  TJlloa  and  Don  Jorge  Juan.  In  the  ori- 
ginal Spanish.  Ed'ted,  with  illustrative 
Notes,  by  David  Barry.  Superbly  printed  in 
one  large  Volume,  royal  4to.  With  Por- 
traits of  Ulloa  and  Juan. 

Mr.  Murray  announces  a  Dictionary  of 
Universal  Knowledge,  comprising  every  word 
that  is  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  various  En- 
cyclopedias which  have  been  published  down 
to  the  present  time,  either  at  home  or 
abroad ;  and  under  each  word  will  be  given 
the  information  and  explanations  which  the 
ordinary  course  of  conversation  in  common 
life  render  desirable.  To  consist  of  Twenty- 
five  closely  printed  volumes,  with  Plates, 
in  8vo. 

Mr.  Colburn  is  preparing  for  publication 
Memoirs  of  His  late  Royal  Highness  the 
Duke  of  York;  from  the  pen  of  a  distin- 
guished Writer.  With  original  and  authen- 
tic Documents,  &c.  &c. 

A  Translation  of  the  Paris  Barber,  from 
the  French  of  M.  De  Kock,  which  was  re- 
viewed in  a  number  or  two  back,  is  announced 
for  early  publication. 

The  Writer's  and  .Student's  Assistant,  or 
a  Compendious  Dictionary,  rendering  the 
more  common  Words  and  Phrases  in  the 
English  language  into  the  more  elegant  and 
scholastic,  will  shortly  appear. 

There  is  nearly  ready,  a  series  of  Twenty- 
five  Views  of  Pompeii,  drawn  on  stone,  after 
Drawings  by  Wm.  Light,  Esq. 

Part  I.  of  the  History  and  Description  of 
the  Ancient  and  highly-interesting  Parish  of 
Clerkenwell,  io  be  completed  in  two  small 
volumes,  and  Illustrated  with  60  copper-plate 
Engravings. 

,  Sketches  in  Ireland  ;  de.-criptive  of  inter- 
esting and  hitherto  unnoticed  Districts  in  the 
North,  West,  and  South,  in  one  volume, 
post  8vo. 


A  general  View  of  the  Present  System  of 
Pubiic  Education  in  France,  and  of  the 
Laws,  Regulations,  and  course  of  Study  in 
the  different  Faculties,  Colleges,  &c.  by 
David  Johnston,  M.D.,  in  1  vol.,  8vo. 

Mr.  Edward  Laws,  R.N.,  announces  as 
nearly  ready,  a  Practical  Treatise  on  Naval 
Book-keeping  in  all  its  Branches  connected 
with  a  Clerk's  duty,  with  hints  for  safe  Cus- 
tody, Shipment,  Transhipment,  and  final  Dis- 
posal of  Treasure  received  on  board  his  Ma- 
jesty's Ships  ;  Sketch  of  a  Secretary's  Duty, 
Duties  of  Officiating  Judge- Advocate,  and 
a  copious  Appendix,  containing  a  variety  of 
Forms,  Orders,  Letters,  Returns,  Certifi- 
cates, and  other  Documents  of  practical 
utility  in  his  Majesty's  Naval  Service. 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Warren,  LL.D.  is  pre- 
paring for  publication  Memoirs  and  Select 
Letters  of  the  J.tie  Mrs.  Anne  Warren  ;  in- 
cluding Biographical  Sketchesof  her  Family. 

Mr.  Allen's  History  of  Lambeth,  the 
major  part  of  which  is  printed,  will  ba 
finished  the  latter  end  of  this  month,  it  will 
form  one  volume  of  near  five  hundred  pages 
closely  printed,  with  upwards  of  One  Hun- 
dred engravings  of  curious  objects  connected 
with  the  Parish. 

The  Author  of  Babylon  the  Great  an- 
nounces a  new  Edition,  with  an  additional 
volume. 

Preparing  for  publication,  National  Tales, 
by  Thomas  II bed,  author  of  Whims  and  Od- 
dities; with  Illustrations  by  Thomas  Digh- 
ton. 

A  Poem  on  Idolatoy,  in  4  cantos,  by  the 
Rev.  W.  Swan,  Missionary  and  Author  of 
the  Memoir  of  Mrs.  Patterson,  is  in  the 
press. 

A  new  Poem  from  the  pon  of  Bernard  Bar- 
ton, to  be  entitled  the  Widow's  Tale,  and 
founded  on  the  melancholy  loss  of  the  five 
WesJeyan  Missionaries  in  the  mail  boat  off 
the  Island  of  Antigua,  will  shortly  be  pub- 
lished. 

Memoirs,  Biographical  and  Critical,  of 
the  Wits  and  Courtiers  of  the  reign  of  Charles 


1827.] 


List  of  New  Works. 


213 


II.,  with  Notes  and  Illustrations,  in  2  vols. 
8vo.  with  Portraits,  is  announced. 

Van  Halen's  Flight  from  the  Dungeons  of 
the  Inquisition  to  the  Foot  of  the  Caucasus, 
with  an  Account  of  his  Adventures  in  Russia, 
&c.  In  2  vols.  8vo.,  with  Portraits  and 
other  Plates. 

The  Life  of  George,  Lord  Jeffreys,  some- 
time Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench, 
and  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England  in  the 
reign  of  James  II.  By  Humphrey  W.  Wool- 
rych,  Esq.  8vo. 

The  Autobiography  of  Thomas  Dibdin,  of 
the  Theatres  Royal  Drury-lane,  Covent- 
garden,  Haymarket,  <fcc.  and  Author  of  the 
'  Cabinet/  the  '  Jew  and  the  Doctor/  &c. 
<fee.  In  2  vols.  8vo  ,  with  a  Portrait. 

Recollections  of  an  Officer  of  the  King's 
German  Legion;  being  an  account  of  his 
Campaigns  and  Services  in  the  Peninsula, 
Sicily,  Italy,  and  Malta,  England,  Ireland, 
and  Denmark.  Extracted  from  his  Diary. 
In  2  vols., post  8vo. 

Retrospect  of  the  Life  of  a  Man  of  Letters. 
In  2  vols.,  8vo. 

Confessions  of  an  Old  Bachelor.  In  3vol. 
post  Svo. 

The  Author  of  "Granby''  announces  a 
Tale  of  Fashionable  Life.  In  3  vols.  post 
Svo. 

Courts  and  Courtiers.  A  series  of  Memoirs 
and  Anecdotes  In  2  vols.  Svo. 

Richmond  ;  or  Scenes  in  the  Life  of  a 
Bow-street  Officer.  Drawn  up  from  his 
Private  Memoranda.  In  3  vols.  post  Svo. 

That  indefatigable  Dr.  Kitchiner,  the  au- 
thor of  that  best  of  all  Cookery  Books,  the 
Cook's  Oracle,  announces  the  Traveller's 
Oracle,  or  Maxims  for  Locomotion,  being 
Precepts  for  promoting  the  Pleasures,  Hints 
for  preserving  the  He;ilth,  and  Estimates  of 
the  Expenses  of  Persons  travelling:  on  Foot, 
on  Horseback,  in  Stages,  in  Post  Chaise?, 
and  in  Private  Carriages.  And  also  the 
Horse  and  Carriage  Keeper,  and  Hackney 
Coach  Hirer's  Guide,  containing  Rules  for 
Purchasing  and  Keeping,  or  Jobbing  Horses 
and  Carriages,  in  the  easiest  and  most  eco- 
nomical manner,  with  accurate  Estimates  of 
every  expense  occasioned  thereby.  Also  an 
easy  Plan  for  ascertaining  every  Hackney 
Coach  Fare. 

Tales  of  an  Antiquary,  chiefly  illustrative 
of  the  Traditions  and  Remarkable  Localities 
of  London.  In  3  vols.  post  Svo. 

Memoirs  illustrative  of  the  History  of  Eu- 
rope during  the  last  Twenly-five  Years.  By 
a  distinguished  political  Character.  In  5 
vols.  Svo. 

Yesterday  in  Ireland  ;  a  series  of  Tales. 
By  the  Author  of  To-Dny  in  Ireland.  In 
3  vols.  post  Svo. 

Forty  Years  Diary  of  a  Celebrated  Non- 
Conformist  Divine.  With  illustrative  bio- 
graphical Notes.  In  3  vols.  Svo. 

Allan  Cunningham  announces  a  Romance, 
entitled  Sir  Michael  Scott. 


Sketches  of  the  Irish  Bar.     In  1  vol.  Svo. 
A  new  Novel.     By  the  Author  of  a  Winter 
in  London.     In  3  vols.  12mo. 

The  Rev.  J.  B.  Samner  announces  a  new 
Volume  of  Sermons  in  Svo. 

W.  Newnham,  Esq.  is  preparing  in  two 
volumes  Svo.,  a  Treatise  on  Moral,  Physical, 
and  Intellectual  Education. 

Six  Discourses  delivered  before  the  Royal 
Society  at  their  Anniversary  Meetings,  on 
the  award  of  the  Royal  and  Copley  Medals  ; 
preceded  by  an  Address  to  the  Society,  de- 
livered in  1800,  on  the  Progress  and  Pros- 
pects of  Science,  4to.  by  Sir  Humphrey 
Davy,  Bart.,  are  in  the  press. 

The  first  Number  of  a  Quarterly  Naval 
and  Military  Magazine  is  to  appear  in 
March. 

Mr.  Grote,  jun.  of  the  banking-house  of 
Grote,  Prescott,  and  Co.,  has  made  great 
progress  in  a  new  History  of  Greece,  in 
which  the  Literature,  Science,  and  Arts  of 
that  country  are  treated  of  in  a  much  more 
detailed  and  prominent  manner  than  in  Mr. 
Mitford's  Work,  which  is  more  of  a  political 
nature. 

Arwed  Gyllensterna;  a  Tale  of  the  18th 
Century,  from  the  German  of  Van  Der 
Velde,  in  2  vols.  post  8vo.,  is  nearly  ready. 

Elements  of  Geometry,  plane  and  solid, 
with  Notes,  critical  and  illustrative,  and  an 
examination  of  the  Theory  of  Parallels,  by 
M.  Legendre,  Professor  Leslie,  and  others, 
are  nearly  ready. 

Transactions  of  the  Perth  Literary  and 
Antiquarian  Society;  including  some  very 
curious  and  original  MSS.,  among  those  are 
a  Historical  Chronicle  from  the  year  1560; 
and  Scotland's  Teares,  by  W.  Lithgow,  the 
Traveller,  in  the  press. 

Tales  of  Welsh  Society  and  Scenery,  con- 
taining many  Descriptions  of  the  Manners 
and  Holiday  Pastimes  of  the  Natives  in  the 
Upland  Districts  of  the  Principality,  is  an- 
nounced. 

The  Rev.  W.  Carpenter's  Reply  to  the 
Accusations  of  Piracy  and  Plagiarism  ex- 
hibited against  the  Author,  in  the  Christian 
Remembrancer,  in  a  Review  of  Home  anil 
Carpenter's  Introductions  to  the  Study  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures. 

Dr.  Hooker  and  Dr.  Greville  are  prepar- 
ing a  new  Botanicsil  work,  of  which  the  first 
faciculus,  in  folio,  with  20  Plates,  will  be 
published  immediately. 

Moods  and  Tenses ;  a  Volume  of  Miscel- 
laneous Poems,  by  One  of  Us,  is  in  the 
press. 

Library  of  Useful  Knowledge ;  or  a  series 
of  Elementary  Treatises  upon  the  various 
branches  of  Philosophy,  Historj',  and  Art. 
The  First  Treatise,  on  Elementary  Astrono- 
my, will  be  published  on  the  J5th  of  Feb- 
ruary ;  and  there  will  be  given  gratis,  on 
th?it  day,  an  Introductory  Discourse  upon  the 
Advantages  and  Pleasures  derived  from  the 
pursuits  of  Science.  Each  Treatise  will 


214 


List  of  New  Worlis. 


[FEB. 


consist  of  about  thirty-two  pages  octavo, 
printed  so  as  to  contain  above  one  hundred 
ordinary  octavo  pages,  with  neat  Engravings 
on  Wood,  and  Tables.  It  will  be  sold  for 
Sixpence,  and  two  will  appear  every  Month 
— on  the  First  and  Fifteenth. 

Philosophy  in  Sport  made  Science  in 
Earnest ;  being  an  Attempt  to  illustrate  the 
first  Principles  of  Natural  Philosophy,  by 
the  aid  of  Popular  Toys  and  Sports.  By 
Peter  Whiffle,  Esq.  In  2  vols.  12mo. 

The  Epicurean;  a  Tale.  By  Thomas 
Brown,  the  Younger. 

The  Loves  of  Alma  and  Brione ;  a  Poem. 
Canto  I.  and  II. 

The  Vallies ;  or  Scenes  and  Thoughts  from 
Secluded  Life.  2  vols.  I2mo. 

Commentaries  on  some  of  the  more  im- 
portant of  the  Diseases  of  Females.  In 
3  parts.  Part  I.  on  the  Diseases  incident  to 
Female  Youth.  By  Marshall  Hall,  M.  D., 
F.  R.  S.  E.,  (fee. 

The  Institutions  of  Physiology.  By  J.  F. 
Blumenbach,  M.  D.,  Professor  of  Medicine 
in  the  University  of  Gottengen.  Translated 
from  the  last  Latin  Edition.  With  copious 
Notes,  by  John  Elliotson,  M.  D. 

The  History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of 
the  United  States  of  North  America  till  the 
British  Revolution  in  1688.  By  James 
Grahame,  Esq.  In  2  vols.  8vo.,  is  in  the 
press. 

Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Queen  Anne. 
By  a  Lady. 

Dublin  Hospital  Reports.  Vol.  IV,  is  in 
the  press. 

Dublin  Dissector,  for  the  Use  of  Students, 
is  in  the  press. 

The  Rev.  Archdeacon  Wranglmm  an- 
nounces the  Antiquarian  Trio  ;  consisting  of 
Views  and  Descriptions  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham's  House,  Kirkby ;  Rudston 
Church  and  Obelisk ;  Effigy  at  Scarborough; 
to  which  will  be  added  the  Poet's  Favourite 
Tree. 

Mr.  Cole  is  preparing  a  Tour  round  Scar- 
borough ;  historically  and  bibliographically 
unfolded. 

The  London  Catalogue  of  Books,  with 
their  Sizes,  Prices,  and  Publishers.  Con- 
taining the  Books  published  in  London,  and 
those  altered  in  Size  or  Price  since  the  year 
1800,  to  December  1826,  is  in  the  press. 

Travels  of  the  Russian  Mission  through 
Mongolia  to  China,  and  Residence  in  Pekin, 
in  the  Years  1820-21.  By  George  Tim- 
kowski,  with  Corrections  and  Notes,  by 
M.  J.  Klaproth.  In  2  vols.  Svo.  illustrated 
by  Maps,  Plates,  <fec.  <fec. 

Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  in  Colom- 
bia ;  by  Baron  de  Humboldt.  From  the 
original  French,  by  Helen  Maria  Williams. 
Vol.  VII. 

Muscologia  Britannica;  containing  the 
Mosses  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  sys- 
tematically arranged  and  described ;  with 
Plates  illustrative  of  the  Character  of  the  Ge- 
nera and  Species.  By  William  Jackson 
Hooker,  F.R.S.,  A.S.L.,  &c.  und  Thomas 


Taylor,  M.  D.,  M.  R.  I.  A.,  and  F.L.S.  ifec. 
In  Svo.  with  Plates. 

Mr.  Arthur  Capell  Brook,  M.A.,  has  in 
the  p  es ;,  a  Winter's  Journey  through  Lap- 
land ;  nd  Sweden,  with  Thirty-one  Engrav- 
ings, 4to. 

Sir  Thomas  More  ;  a  series  of  Colloquies 
on  the  Progress  and  Prospects  of  Society. 
By  Robert  Southey.  With  Engravings, 
2  vols.  Svo. 

TJie  Present  State  of  the  Island  of  Sar- 
dinia, with  Plates.  By  Capt.  Win.  Henry 
Smyth,  R.N.,  Svo. 

Messrs.  Longman  announce  a  work,  to  be 
published  in  Monthly  Numbers,  entitled  the 
National  Library  of  Popular  Knowledge  ; 
comprising  Original  Treatises,  in  the  follow- 
ing divisions: — 1st.  History.  2d.  Science 
and  Art.  3.  Miscellaneous  Literature. 


LIST    OF  NEW   WORKS. 

FINE    ARTS,    &C. 

Cuvier's  Theory  of  the  Earth.  New  Edi- 
tion, translated  by  Dr.  Jamieson,  Svo.  IGs. 
bds. 

Yorkshire  Scenery;  or  Excursions  in 
Yorkshire,  with  Delineations  of  some  of  the 
most  interesting  Objects,  engraved  by  G. 
Cooke,  Esq.  and  other  eminent  Artists,  from 
Drawings  made  for  the  purpose,  by  T.  C. 
Hofland,  Esq.  W.  Cowen,  (fee.  <fcc.  By  E. 
Rhodes.  Royal  Svo.  18s. ;  small  4 to. 
11.  4s.  bds. 

Engravings  from  the  Ancient  Marbles  in 
the  British  Museum.  Part  V.  4to.  11.  Is. ; 
large  paper,  11.  11s.  6d.  bds. 

Description  of  the  Anglo- Gal  lie  Coins  in 
the  British  Museum.  4 to.  11.  4s.  bds. 

Baron  Tayler's  Views  in  Spain  and  Por- 
tugal, (fee.  Part  I.  imperial  Svo.  10s.  Od. ; 
roj-al  4to.  15s.;  India  proofs  11.  Is.;  impe- 
rial 4to.  11.  11s.  6d. 

Batty's  Views  on  the  Rhine.  In  Twelve 
Parts,  imperial  Svo.  71.  4s. ;  royal  4to. 
proofs  101.  16s.;  India  paper  181.  18s. 

NOVELS,  TALES,    (fee. 

Les  Natchez,  Roman  Indian.  Par  le 
Vicomte  de  Chateaubriand.  Three  vols. 
small  Svo.  in  French.  18s. 

Cosmorama ;  or,  A  View  of  the  Pecu- 
liarities and  Costumes  of  all  Nations.  12mo. 
9s.  plain  ;  10s.  6d.  coloured. 

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MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT. 

THE  new  Year  was  ushered  in  by  some  days. of  clear  beautiful  weather  with  slight  frost, 
but  to  this  succeeded  a  close,  damp,  and  comfortless  state  of  atmosphere,  which  added 
greatly  to  that  gloom  which  other  circumstances  contributed  to  throw  around  the  metro- 
polis. It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  this  period  has  been  marked  by  any  unusual  in- 
roads upon  the  public  health.  On  the  contrary,  the  reporter  seldom  remembers  a  January 
so  free  from  acute  and  epidemic  malady.  The  principal  febrile  diseases  which  have  fallen 
under  his  notice  and  professional  management  during  the  last  month,  are,  simple  fever,  in- 
flammations of  the  chest,  diarrhce,  measles,  small  pox, — and  among  chronic  disorders, 
those  of  the  stomach  have  been  particularly  prominent. 

It  was  remarked  by  Sydenham,  that  measles  usually  shews  itself  early  in  January,  and 
the  observation  of  that  acute  and  most  intelligent  author  is,  in  this  instance,  amply  con- 
firmed by  later  experience.  The  disease,  as  it  has  hitherto  been  met  with,  presents  no  un- 
common features.  Its  symptoms  have  been  mild  and  manageable,  and  in  one  instance 
only  has  the  Reporter  found  it  to  withstand  the  exertions  of  medical  art.  In  this  case  deep 
seated  inflammation  of  the  lungs  took  place  from  an  early  period,  and  the  weakness  of  the 


1827.1  Monthly  Medical  Report.  217 

child's  constitution  precluded  the  employment  of  those  active  means  which  alone  could 
have  promised  a  successful  result.  Leeches  failing  to  afford  relief,  a  blister  was  applied. 
To  those  who  know  the  effects  of  blisters  when  there  is  a  tendency  to  effusion  in  the  lungs, 
it  is  unnecessary  to  say  what  happened  in  the  sequel.  The  blistered  surface  sloughed,  the 
pulse  sunk,  the"  countenance  became  livid,  and  death  quickly  closed  the  scene. 

Small-pox  has  lately  appeared  in  several  districts  in  the  west  end  of  the  town,  especially 
about  Burton  Crescent,  and  in  the  narrow  streets  adjoining  Golden  Square.  In  very  many 
cases  it  has  proved  fatal,  nor  does  there  appear  the  slightest  disposition  in  this  disease  (when 
occurring  in  the  natural  way  among:  those  wholly  unprotected,)  to  relax  even  in  the  faintest 
degree  from  that  virulence  which  distinguished  it  in  former  times.  It  is  peculiarly  gratify- 
ing to  the  Reporter  to  beable  to  say,  that  3010  persons  were  vaccinated  under  bissiipennleud- 
ance,  between  the  1st  January  and  31st  December,  1826, — a  number  which,  though  it 
falls  far  short  of  the  year  preceding,  may  yet  be  received  as  an  (incontrovertible  proof  of 
the  general  esteem  in  which  vaccination  is  still  held  by  the  lower  and  middling  classes  in 
the  metropolis.  It  is  very  desirable  that  the  young  women  who  come  up  from  the  country 
to  London,  as  domestic  servants,  should  be  tested  (or  re-vaccinated)  prior  to  taking  a  situa- 
tion. Partly  from  change  of  air,  and  partly  from  the  imperfection  of  the  vaccine  lymph 
in  some  counties,  persons  under  these  circumstances  are  peculiarly  prone  to  suffer  (and  that 
seriously)  from  small-pox ;  and  the  Reporter,  in  thus  calling  public  attention  to  the  fact, 
is  anxious,  as  far  as  possible,  to  lessen  a  calamity  of  which  he  has  lately  seen  too  many 
distressing  instances.  The  Bills  of  Mortality  announce,  that  in  the  year  1826,  only  503 
persons  died  in  London  of  small-pox,  a  number  which,  compared  with  that  of  1825  (1309), 
is  wonderfully  small.  The  Reporter  has  generally  observed  that  his  professional  brethren, 
are  distrustful  of  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  but  he  is  well  convinced  that  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  the  causes  of  death  are  fairly  reported,  and  that  the  information  they  convey  is  at 
once  instructive  and  authentic.  Nothing  can  shew  more  strikingly  than  they  do  the  gra- 
dual but  great  improvements  which  are  taking  place  in  the  value  of  human  life.  Almost 
every  succeeding  table  shews  an  increase  in  the  excess  of  the  christenings  over  the  burials. 
It  may  not,  perhaps,  be  irrelevant  to  the  professed  object  of  this  report  to  point  out  a  few 
of  the  principal  facts  which  the  last  published  Bill  of  Mortality  affords  us. 

The  total  number  of  deaths  for  1826  amounts  to  20,758,  of  which  more  than  one-fourth 
(5290)  are  by  consumption  alone,— a  melancholy  proof  (if  any  were  wanting)  of  the  ex- 
tent and  fatality  of  this  wid<?-spreading  malady.  The  deaths  under  five  years  of  age 
amount  very  nearly  to  8000,  of  which  2588  are  by  convulsions.  This  is,  next  to  con- 
sumption, the  most  fatal  of  all  diseases.  The  Reporter  hud  occasion  to  witness  a  remarka- 
ble instance  of  the  kind  in  the  course  of  the  last  month.  The  child,  one  year  and  a  half 
old,  was  very  engaging  and  pretty,  and  had  been  far  too  much  petted  by  the  parents  and 
neighbours.  Indulged  in  every  thing  which  her  appetite  fancied,  the  child's  system  became 
quickly  too  full  of  blood,  and  when  the  cold  weather  set  in,  the  brain  was  the  part  to  suffer, 
and  a  sudden  convulsion  put  a  period  to  the  child's  life.  On  examination  of  the  body,  the 
substance  of  the  brain  appeared  very  soft,  and  in  a  state  of  excessive  vascularity.  The 
membranes  of  the  brain  too  were  deeply  suffused  with  blood,  while  every  other  part  of  the 
body  was  sound  and  well  formed.  These  facts  are  interesting,  inasmuch  as  they  suggest 
measures,  both  of  prevention  and  of  cure,  for  this  scourge  of  infantile  life.  They  point  out 
the  danger  that  may  accrue  from  the  indiscriminate  employment  of  the  warm  bath  in  cases 
of  convulsion.  What  could  it  have  done  in  this  instance,  and  what  did  it  actually  do  ?  but 
augment  the  determination  of  blood  to  the  head,  and  accelerate  the  fatal  event.  The  ap- 
plication of  leeches  to  the  head,  and  of  cold  cloths,  is  what  science  dictates,  and  what,  at 
the  same  time,  the  experience  of  the  Reporter  has  found,  in  many  case?,  to  be  most  emi- 
nently useful. 

Measles,  water  in  the  head,  and  hooping-cough,  would  seem,  from  the  Bills  of  Mortality, 
to  be  about  equally  fatal  to  young  persons.  Each  of  these  complaints  has  carried  off,  dur- 
ing the  past  year,  about  seven  hundred  victims,  the  common  average.  It  is  a  very  striking 
circumstance,  that  the  deaths  by  small-pox  should,  this  year,  fall  so  far  short  of  the  mortality 
by  those  three  complaints,  which,  though  occurring  at  the  same  period  of  life,  are  viewed 
by  the  public  with  so  much  less  uneasiness. 

Fever  has  proved  more  than  usually  fatal  during  the  last  year,  the  numbers  being,  in  1825, 
896,  in  1826,  1025.  This  is  no  more  than  might  reasonably  have  been  anticipated  from  the 
tenor  of  former  Reports  in  the  Magazine.  Inflammation  is  always  a  prominent  disease  in 
the  Bills  of  Mortality,  taking  its  place  third  in  the  series  of  fatal  disorders.  2412  is  the 
number  reported  as  having  died  of  inflammation  in  1826.  Asthma,  or  chronic  bronchitis 
is  the  next  in  succession,  which  is  followed  by  the  other  principal  complaints  affecting  the 
advanced  periods  of  life,  viz.  dropsy  885,  apoplexy  363,  mortification  244.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark,  as  a  satisfactory  criterion  of  the  public  health  in  Loudon,  that  one-fifth  of  the 
total  mortality  of  the  past  year  has  occurred  in  persons  who  have  passed  then1  sixtieth 
year. 

8,   Vppcr  John  Street,  Golden  Square,  GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 

January  22,  1827. 

M.M.-vtew;  Series,  VOL.  III.  No.  14.  2  F 


[     218     ]  [FEB. 

MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

THB  past  autumnal  season,  succeeding  the  drought  of  summer,  was  eminently  favourable 
to  vegetation,  and  grass  on  good  soils  was  actually  growing  at  Christmas.  The  state  of 
the  lands  has  been  equally  favourable  for  all  the  various  operations  of  husbandry,  which 
were  never  more  forward,  and  the  lands  never  worked  better,  that  the  spring  culture, 
should  no  future  obstruction  arise  from  tbe  weather,  will  be  among  the  earliest.  This  is 
an  addition  to  a  considerable  series  of  propitious  autumns.  The  late  change  to  frost,  the 
commencement  of  which  was  severe,  had  a  favourable  effect  on  the  too  forward  and  luxu- 
riant wheats  of  rich  lands  ;  at  the  same  time,  withering  and  discolouring  the  foliage  of 
those  on  lands  of  an  opposite  character,  particularly  poor  cold  clays.  The  mildness 
of  the  frost  subsequently,  and  some  cover  of  snow,  have  thus  far  prevented  any  damage  to 
the  root.  This  forwardness  of  business,  moreover,  affords  good  opportunity  for  the  pre- 
paration of  manures  for  top-dressing  and  future  use.  The  considerable  and  constant  supply 
of  grass,  the  land  at  the  same  time  being  not  too  wet  to  carry  stock,  has  enabled  the 
farmer  to  economize  both  hay  and  straw,  which  may  be  in  high  requisition  in  latter  spring, 
though  the  present  frost  augurs  favourably  for  mildness  in  the  season  which  is  to  follow. 
Straw,  nevertheless,  which  has  been  used  freely,  in  order  to  the  greatest  possible  saving  of 
hay,  is  at  an  uncommon  price.  The  worst  feature  in  the  husbandry  of  live  stock,  is  the 
condition  of  sheep,  penned  upon  poor  turnips,  or  rather  turnip  tops.  One  would  suppose, 
that  the  sheep  would  pay  for  more  comfortable  lodging,  and  for  the  expence  of  drawing 
and  carting  the  turnips  to  them  ;  and  more  especially  to  those  who  had  occasion  to  send 
their  sheep  to  a  market. 

In  several  hilly  poor  land  districts,  the  proprietors  have  commenced  plantations — a  good 
and  solid  boon  to  their  posterity,  and  at  the  instant  affording  employment  to  labourers, 
in  such  bitter  request.  The  accounts  of  the  state  of  the  agriculturist  labourers,  long  since 
too  numerous  a  class  to  obtain  a  just  and  fair  support,  under  the  present,  or  any  expected 
state  of  farming  concerns,  yet  remain  most  distressing.  This  distress  is,  in  a  degree, 
alleviated  by  the  judicious  plan  adopted  in  some  few  counties,  of  the  farmers  employing 
all  the  labourers  of  the  parish,  each  in  proportion  to  his  occupation.  When  it  is  considered 
that  those  unfortunate  people,  in  no  way  contributing  to  their  unfortunate  lot  in  society, 
have  become  outcasts  and  beggars,  in  a  land  super-abounding  in  all  the  necessaries  and 
luxuries  of  life,  can  it  be  wonderful  that  they  became  alienated  and  desperate,  and  that 
the  country  is  overrun  with  thieves  and  poachers.  With  respect  to  the  latter  class,  they 
allege,  in  excuse  for  their  delinquency,  in  the  first  place,  their  starving  and  desperate 
situation  ;  in  the  next,  that  they  are  making  seizures  from  a  stock,  which  is  monopolized 
and  unjustly  withheld  from  public  use.  The  complaints  also  of  the  farmers,  from  almost 
all  quarters,  against  the  immense  waste  of  corn  occasioned  by  game  preserves,  if  not  loud 
are  deep  ;  and  should  any  unfavourable  turn  occur  in  the  agriculture  of  the  country,  these 
complaints  will  be  loud.  Were  it  allowable  to  wonder  at  any  thing,  surely  an  impressive 
feeling  of  that  kind,  must  be  excited  by  the  marvellous  patience  of  the  good  people  of.  this 
country,  under  this  flagrant  feudal  breach  of  their  rights,  with  all  its  concomitant  enor- 
mities, dissolution  of  morals  in  the  labourers,  corruption  in  the  keepers,  petty  warfare  in 
society,  murders,  horrible  and  apalling  accidents.  These  national  disgraces,  too,  are  evidently 
on  the  increase.  A  further  degree  of  admiration  may  fairly  be  indulged,  at  the  equanimity 
and  forbearance  with  which  the  country  submits  to  the  organized  body  (a  regular  concern) 
of  HOUSE  STEALERS.  To  preserve  the  old  proverb  from  being  obsolete,  we  regularly 
shut  tbe  stable-door  after  the  steed  has  been  stolen. 

•  We  regret  to  hear  from  several  quarters,  that  landlords  are  withdrawing  the  power  of 
the  per  centage  allowance  on  rent.  Surely  this  is  premature,  considering  the  present 
situation  of  the  great  majority  of  the  tenantry,  who  have  suffered  the  entire  loss  of  their 
spring  crops,  which,  with  the  depressed  state  of  the  market,  has  most  unfortunately 
balanced  the  advantage  of  a  productive  crop  of  wheat.  There  is  little  or  no  alteration 
in  the  price  of  cattle  or  horses,  excepting  that  cows  in  calf  are  in  request,  at  somewhat 
•more  money.  The  markets  of  late  have  been  fully  supplied  with  sheep,  which  has  kept 
mutton  considerably  under  the  price  of  beef.  As  the  spring  advances,  meat  must  advance 
.in  price,  from  the  great  expence  at  which  it  is  produced. 

'•  Smithfield.—Eetf,  3s.  lOd.  to  5s.  4d.— Mutton,  3s.  4d.  to  4s.  Veal,  4s.  6d.  to  5s.  2d.— 
Pork,  5s.  5d.  to  8s.— Dairy-fed,  6s.  to  6s.  4d.— Raw  fat,  2s.  10d. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  40s.  to  60s. — Barley,  33s.  to  43s. — Oats,  2<5s.  to  42s. — 
Bread,  9d.  the41b.  loaf.— Hay,  80s.  to  120s.— Clover  ditto,  90s.  to  1 3«5s.— Straw,  30s. 
•to  40s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  25s.  Gd.— 34s.  6d. 
January  22d,  1827. 


1827,]  [ 


219    ] 


MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

Cotton  —At  London,  Liverpool,  and  Manchester,  the  markets  are  so  dull  that  there  has 
been  no  alteration  since  oar  lust  month's  report,  the  holders  of  the  article  demand  the  late 
prices;  but  the  manufacturers  refuse/and  thue  the  market  is  completely  at  a  stand.  Bowed 
ordinary  to  full  fair,  sold  for  6}d.  to  6|d.  and  7d.  per  Ib.  New  Orleans  6£d.  to  7£d.  pet 
Ib.  Sea  Island  7d.  to  10|d.  per  Ib.  Maranhams,  Bahia,  &c.  7d.  to  1  Id.  per  Ib.  Demerara 
9d.  to  lOd.  Burbadoes  7d.  to  7|d. 

Coffee — is  steady  at  last  quotation,  and  a  few  purchases  made  for  exportation  to  the 
Continent. 

Sugar. — The  holders  having  submitted  to  a  reduction  of  Is.  per  cwt.,  has  caused  con- 
siderable purchases  to  be  made,  particularly  by  the  Grocers.  In  Foreign  Sugars  little 
has  been  done. 

Rum,  fyc. — remains  steady,  good  Jamaica  at  2s.  4d.  to  2s.  6d.  ;  in  consequence  of  which 
Leeward  Island  is  in  very  little  demand. 

Brandy — is  held  up  upon  speculation,  and  the  prices  asked  cannot  be  obtained. 

Hollands— hi  no  demand,  our  own  British  manufacture  superseding  in  a  great  degree 
the  consumption  of  the  article. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow. — The  Tallow  market  has  been  rather  heavy;  Candle  Tallow 
38s.  6d.  to  39s.  per  cwt.  Hemp  is  advancing,  Flax  without  alteration.  The  Exchange 
from  St.  Petersburg  has  fallen  to  9|d.  per  rouble. 

Spices — continue  at  last  quotation,  very  dull,  and  few  purchases  made  for  exportation. 

Course  of  Foreign  Exchange. — Amsterdam,  12.  7. — Rotterdam,  12.  7. — Antwerp, 
12.  8. — Hamburgh,  37.  6.— Altona,  37.  7.— Paris,  25.  65. — Bourdeaux,  25.  65. — Berlin, 
7.— Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154$.  -Petersburg,  3$ —Vienna,  10.  21.— Trieste,  10.24.— 
Madrid,  34  —Cadiz,  34f, — Bilboa,  33.— Barcelona,  33.— Seville,  33. — Gibraltar,  33. — 
Leghorn,  47 J. — Genoa,  43|. — Venice,  48. — Naples,  38|. — Palermo,  114J. — Lisbon,  48|. 
Oporto,  48£.—  Rio  Janeiro,  43|. — Bahia,  43^.— Buenos  Ayres,  43. — Dublin,  If. — 
Cork,  1$. 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d.— New  Doubloons,  £3  Os.— New 
Dollars,  4s.  9d.— Silver  in  bars,  standard  4s.  lid. 

Premiums  on  Shares  and  Consols,  and  Joint-Stock  Companies,  at  the  Office  of  WOLFE, 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley,  Cornhill.— Birmingham  CANAL,  2 65 /.—Coventry,  1100/. — 
Ellesmere  and  Chester,  100L — Grand  Junction,  288. — Kennet  and  Avon,  25Z.  10*.—  Leeds 
and  Liverpool,  3802.—  Oxford,  680?. —  Regent's,  3'^.— Trent  and  Mersy,  1,850/.— 
Warwick  and  Birmingham,  260/. —  London  DOCKS,  83J. —  West-India,  1951. —  East 
London  WAUTRH  WORKS,  121A— Grand  Junction,  631.  10*.— West  Middlesex,  65/.— 
—Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE.— If  dis.— Globe,  140/.  10s. — Guardian,  181. 
—Hope,  «5/.- -Imperial  Fire,  90/.— GAS-LIOHT,  Westminster  Chartered  Company,  561. — 
City  Gas-Light  Company,  157^. — British,  12  dis.— Leeds,  195^.— Liverpool,  par. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 


HIS   ROYAL    HIGHNESS   THE   DUKE   OF 

YORK. 

His  late  Royal  Highness  Prince  Frederick 
was  the  second  son  of  his  Majesty  George  III. 
He  was  born  on  the  17th  of  August,  1763 ; 
on  the  27th  of  February  following  he  was 
elected  Bishop  of  Osnaburgh,  and  on  the 
27th  of  November,  1784,  he  was  created 
Duke  of  York  and  Albany,  in  Great  Britain, 
and  Earl  of  Ulster  in  Ireland.  He  was  also 
a  knight  of  the  most  noble  order  of  the 
Garter,  of  the  most  honourable  order  of 
the  Bath,  and  of  the  order  of  Saint- Esprit 
in  France,  D.C.L.  and  F.R.S.,  a  Field- 
Marshal,  Comrminder-in-Chief  of  all  His 
Majesty's  forces  in  the  United  Kingdom, 
Colonel  of  the  1st  regiment  of  Foot  Guards, 
Colonel-in-Chief  of  the  60th,  or  Royal  Ame- 
rican regiment  of  Foot,  and  of  the  Dublin 
Regiment  of  Infantry,  Lord  Warden  of 
Windsor  Forest  and  Great  Park,  High 
Steward  of  New  Windsor,  and  Warden 


and  Keeper  of   the   New  Forest,    Hamp- 
shire. 

It  may  be  as  well  also  to  mention  in  this 
place,  that  His  Royal  Highness  entered  the 
military  service  on  the  1st  of  November, 
1786,  as  Colonel  by  Brevet;  was  appointed 
on  the  23d  of  March,  1782,  Colonel  of  the 
2d  Regiment  of  Horse  Grenadier  Guards ; 
was  made,  on  the  20th  of  November,  1782, 
Major-General;  on  the  27th  of  October,  1784, 
Lieutenant-General ;  on  the  27th  of  October, 
1784,  Colonel  of  the  Coldstream s Regiment 
of  Guards;  on  the  12th  of  April,  JT93, 
General ;  on  the  18th  of  February,  1795, 
Field-Marshal;  on  the  23d  of  August,  1797, 
Colonel-in-Chief  of  the  60th  Regiment  of 
Foot;  and  on  the  5th  of  September,  1805, 
Colonef  of  the  Grenadier  Regiment  of 
Guards. 

His  Royal  Highness  was,  with  his  present 
Majesty,  educated  under  the  paternal  eye  of 
George  III.  He  was  at  ell  times  affec- 
tionately attached  to  his  elder  brother. 

2F2 


220 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[FEE 


They  studied  and  played  together,  nud  were 
devoted  to  ench  other's  society. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  May,  1789,  that 
the  Duke  of  York  fought  a  duel  with  Col. 
Lennox,  afterwards  Duke  of  Richmond.  The 
Duke  was  reported  to  have  said  that  in  a 
political  conversation  that  occurred  at  Dau- 
biguy's  Club,  some  words  had  been  made 
use  of  to  the  Colonel  Ihnt  no  gentleman 
ought  to  submit  to.  Not  obtaining  an  ex- 
planation from  his  Royal  Highness,  Colonel 
Lennox  called  upon  him  for  the  satisfaction- 
due  from  one  gentleman  to  another.  Waving 
all  distinction  of  rank,  the  Duke  nssented 
to  the  meeting  required.  The  parties  met 
on  Wimbledon  Common ;  the  Prince  attend- 
ed by  Lord  Rawdon  (the  late  Marquess  of 
Hastings),  and  Colonel  Lennox  by  the  Earl 
of  WincbeL-ea.  It  wns  agreed  that  both 
parties  should  fire  by  signals,  and  the  signal 
haying  been  given,  the  Colonel  fired,  and 
the  ball  grazed  one  of  the  Prince's  curl?. 
The  Duke  did  not  fire,  he  said  it  was  not 
his  intent  ion  to  fire— he  had  come  out  to 
give  Colonel  Lennox  satisfaction,  he  had  no 
enmity  against  him,  if  the  Colonel  were  not 
.satisfied  he  might  fire  again.  This  was,  of 

jcourse,  declined,  and  the  parties  left  the 
ground. 

At  the  birth-day  ball,  given  soon  after- 
wards, which  was  more  splendid  than  usual, 
in  consequence  of  the  king's  recovery,  Col. 
Lennox,  in  violation  of  the  established  rule, 
stood  up  in  a  country  dance  with  Lady  Ca- 
therine Barnard.  This  gave  great  offence 
to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who,  when  became 
to  the  Colonel's  place  in  the  dance,  took 
.the  hand  of  his  partner,  the  Princess  Roynl, 

|  just  as  ahe  was  about  to  be  turned  by  the 
Colonel,  and  led  her  to  the  bottom.  The 
Duke  of  York  and  the  Princess  Augusta 
turned  the  Colonel  without  notice,  but  the 
Duke  of  Clarence  and  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth followed  the  example  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  when  the  Colonel  came  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales  at  the  bottom,  his  Royal 
Highness  led  his  sister  to  a  chair  by  the  side 
of  the  Queen,  and  the  ball  was  abruptly  ter- 
minated by  the  retiring  of  her  Majesty  and 
the  Princesses.  The  King,  in  consequence 
of  the  shock  which  he  had  received  from  the 
duel,  wau  not  present. 

On  the  20tb  of  September,  179J,  the 
Duke  married  the  Princess  Frederica  Char- 
lotte Ulrica,  eldest  daughter  of  the  late 
King  of  Prussia;  but  by  her,  who  died  on 
theCth  of  August,  1820,  his  Royal  High- 
ness bad  no  issue.  In  consequence  of  his 
marriage,  Parliament,  at  the  commence- 
ment of  its  ensuing  session,  voted  to  him 
in  addition  to  bis  then  income  of  £12,000 
3-year,  an  additional  annuity  of  £25,000. 

In  1793,  his  Royal  Highness  was  called 
into  active  serve.  The  war  of  the  French 
Revolution  having  broken  out,  he  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  British  troops  which 
it  was  judged  expedient  to  send  to  the  con- 
tinent, to  join  the  combined  army  under  the 
Prince  of  Saxe  Cobourg.  The  siege  and 


capture    of    Valenciennes    by   his    Royal 
Highness,    the    unsuccessful   attempt   upon 
Dunkirk,  <fec.  are  matter  of  history.     In  the 
spring  of  1 794  he  returned  ro  England,  for 
instructions   relative    to   the   ensuing   cam- 
paign.    On  his  return,  the  allies  were  for  a 
time  successful.     The  Duke  acquitted  him- 
self with  great  spirit,  promptitude,  aud  skill 
but  the  British  interests  were  not  adequately 
sustained  either  abroad   or  at   home;  and 
after  a  variety  of  reverses,  his  Royal  High 
ness  was  ultimately  compelled  to  re  treat. 

He  returned  to  England  in  December.  In 
the  month  of  February  following  (1795)  his 
Majesty  was  pleased  to  nominate  him  to  the 
situation  of  Commander-in-Chief  to  the 
army.  His  Royal  Highness  undertook  the 
duties  of  bis  high  office  with  the  determina- 
tion to  correct  the  errors  and  abuses  which 
had  crept  into  the  military  department,  am 
the  zeal  and  indefatigable  attention  with 
which  he  persevered  in  his  task,  were  equall- 
ed only  by  the  judgment  which  directed, 
and  the  success  which  crowned  his  la- 
bours. 

In  the  autumn  of  1799,  the  Duke  of 
York  assumed  the  command  of  an  expedi- 
tion projected  for  the  deliverance  of  Holland. 
The,  force  consisted  of  30,000  British  troops, 
to  be  joined  by  17,000  Russians.  The  Dutch 
fleet  in  the  Texel  having  surrendered  to  Ad- 
miral Mitchell  on  the  28th  of  August,  the 
Duke  landed  his  troops  and  advanced  into 
the  country.  At  first  his  efforts  were  *uc- 
cessful;  but  the  conduct  of  the  allies  was 
not  staunch,  his  Royal  Highness  was  not 
properly  sapported  by  the  government  at 
home,  the  Dutch  would  not  join  him, 
winter  was  approaching,  and  he  was  com- 
pelled to  agree  to  a  suspension  of  arms, 
by  which  he  surrendered  his  prisoners,  and 
then  returned  to  England. 

In  1803,  when  the  volunteer  system  pre- 
vailed throughout  the  empire,  the  Prince  of 
Wales  expressed  great  anxiety  that  he  might 
be  allowed  to  occupy  some  important  and 
responsible  station.  He  addressed  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief on  the  subject,  who,  in  the 
first  instance  pleaded  his  Majesty's  solemn 
injunctions  not  to  mention  the  point,  and 
subsequently,  finding  that  the  affair  resolved 
itself  into  a  political  consideration,  he  most 
affectionately  conjured  the  Prince  no  longer 
to  press  him.  The  goodness  of  the  Duke's 
heart  and  his  kind  feeling  towards  his 
brother,  were,  strikingly  apparent  on  this 
occasion. 

In  1809,  a  conspiracy  appears  to  have  been 
formed  for  depriving  the  country  of  the 
services  of  the  Duke  of  York  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief. A  Colonel  Wardle  direct- 
ly accused  him  of  malversation  in  his  office, 
in  having  suffered  a  Mrs.  Mary  Anne  Clarke 
to  sell  commissions.  A  parliamentary  in- 
quiry was  instituted,  and  the  House  of  Com- 
mons resolved  that  Mrs.  Clarke  had  received 
money,  but  that  the  Duke  had  had  no  part 
in  that  transaction.  However  on  the  20th 
of  March,  his  Royal  Highness  gave  in  his 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Emirient  "Persons. 


221 


resignation,  but  in  May,  1811,  the  voice  of 
the  country  having  been  expressed  in  favour 
of  his  return,  he  was  restored  to  a  station, 
which  until  his  death,  he  continued  to  fill 
with  the  highest  honour  and  ability.  Twice, 
for  bis  long  and  valuable  services  rendered 
to  the  army,  did  his  Royiil  Highness  receive 
the  unanimous  thanksof  the  House  of  Com- 
mons :  first,  at  the  conclusion  of  a  general 
peace  in  1814;  secondly,  in  1815,  after 
the  memorable  battle  of  Waterloo.  The 
arm)'  was  indebted  also  to  his  Royal  High- 
ness for  the  establishment  near  Chelsea,  for 
the  orphans  of  soldiers,  and  also  for  the  mili- 
tary school  at  Sam! hurst.  One  of  the  latest 
objects  of  his  attention  was  the  advance- 
ment of  the  old  lieutenants  in  the  army, 
who  were  unable  to  purchase  promotion,  to 
the  rank  of  captiiin. 

The  most  conspicuous  political  act  in  his 
Royal  Higbriess's  life  was  the  speech  which, 
on  the  25th  of  April,  1825,  he  delivered  in  the 
House  of  Peers  on  presenting  a  petition  from 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  St.  George's  Wind- 
sor, against  any  further  concessions  to  the 
Roman  Catholics.  For  the  boldness  with 
which  he  stood  forward  on  that  occasion,  in 
maintaining  the  supremacy  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  he  was  most  enthusijistically  eulogised 
by  one  party,  and  as  furiously  assailed  by  the 
other. 

The  Duke  had  laboured  under  the'  de- 
cription  of  dropsy  termed  ascites,  the  dis- 
ease which  terminated  his  existence,  since 
the  month  of  July  last,  and  for  which  he 
underwent  an  operation  on  the  3d  of  Sep- 
tember. During  his  illness  he  preserved  a 
serenity  and  even  cheerfulness  of  temper, 
and  continued  to  the  last  in  the  sedulous, 
discharge  of  his  official  duties. 

Until  the  morning  of  his  departure,  he  was 
not  aware  of  the  actual  a  pproach  of  death ; 
he  then  faintly  said,  "  now  I  know  that  I 
am  dying!  "  He  expired  at  twenty  minutes 
past  nine  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  Friday, 
the  ,5th  of  January.  The  affectionate  atten- 
tions which  his  Royal  Highness  experienced 
during  his  last  illness,  from  his  Majesty  and 
from  other  branches  of  the  Royal  Family, 
were  alike  honourable  to  the  survivors  and  to 
the  deceased. 

The  requisite  measures  were  immediately 
taken  for  embalming  the  body,  <fec.,  prepa- 
ratory to  its  lying  in  state  at  St.  James's 
Palace.  Orders  were  also  issued  for  a  court, 
general,  military,  and  naval  mourning. 
From  the  time  of  his  death  till  the  day  of  his 
funeral  the  principal  shops,  not  only  in  the 
metropolis,  but  in  the  provinces,  remained 
partially  closed,  and,  on  that  day,  all  busi- 
ness was  suspended. 

The  body  lay  in  state  on  Thursday  and 
Friday,  the  18th  and  19th  of  January;  but, 
from  the  shortness  of  the  time  allowed,  and 
the  immense  assemblage  of  the  populace, 
only  a  comparatively  small  number  of  per- 
sons could  be  admitted.  On  the  state  coffin, 
which  resembled  that  of  the  late  Duke  of 
Kent,  was  a  plate,  bearing  the  following 


inscription,    issued    from    the    College    of 
Arms : — 

"Depositum, 
Illustrissimi  Principis 

FREDERICI, 
De  Brunswick  Lunenburg, 
Ducis  Ehoraci  ct  Albania;, 

Comitis  Ultonise, 
Nobilissimi  Ordinis  Periscelidis, 

et 
Honoratissimi  Ordinis  Militaris  de  Balneb 

Equitis, 
Fratris  Augustissimi  et  Potentissimi  Monarchae, 

GEORGK  QUARTI, 
Dei  Gratia  Britanniarum  Regis, 

Fidei   Dcfensoris, 
Regis  Hanoverse,  &c. 
«  Obiit  quinto  die  Januarii, 

Anno  Domini  MDCCCXXVIL 

Stalls  suse  LXIV- 

On  the  morning  of  the  20th,  as  the  clock 
struck  eight,  the  funeral  procession  began 
to  move  from  St.  James's  Palace,  on  its  des- 
tination for  St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor, 
where  it  arrived  at  nine  o'clock  at  night. 
The  first  portion  of  the  procession  was  en- 
tirely military  ;  but,  regarding  it  as  a  spec- 
tacle, the  general  impression  on  the  public 
mind  was,  that  due  honour  was  not  paid  to 
the  illustrious  departed.  At  Windsor,  the 
body  was  received  by  the  dignitaries  of  the 
church.  Whilst  the  service  w^as  performing, 
his  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Clarence, 
as  chief  mourner,  was  seated  at  the  head  of 
the  coffin ;  Earl  Harcourt,  who  bore  the 
baton  of  his  late  Royal  Highness,  stood  at 
the  foot ;  the  Lord  Chamberlain  was  in  the 
same  position,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
who  supported  the  pall  first  on  the  left  hand, 
retained  his  place  with  the  other  five  dukes, 
who  were  pall  bearers,  on  the  sides  of  the 
coffin.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  service,  the 
coffin  was  lowered  into  the  vault  by  ma- 
chinery, and  moved  at  once  into  the  niche 
prepared  for  its  final  reception.  At  that 
moment,  Garter  King  at  Arms  proclaimed 
the  style  and  titles  of  the  departed,  and  thus 
the  ceremony  closed. 


DR.  ABRAHAM  ROBERTSON. 
Abraham  Robertson,  D.D.,  F.R.S.  Savi- 
lian  professor  of  astronomy,  and  Radcliffe 
observer  at  Oxford,  was  a  native  of  Scot- 
land. He  was  educated  at  Westminster  and 
Christ  Church.  As  a  mathematician  he  ob- 
tained a  very  high  reputation.  He  publisbec 
"Sectionum  Conicarum,  lib.  vii.  4to.  1793  ' 
— "  A  Geometrical  Treatise  on  Conic  Sec- 
tions,'* 8vo.,  1802 — and  "A  Reply  to  a 
Critical  and  Monthly  Reviewer,  in  which  is 
inserted  Euler-s  Demonstration  of  the  Bino- 
mial Theorem,"  Svo.,  1808.  Dr.  Robert- 
son was  also  a  contributor  to  the  Philoso- 
phical Transactions.  He  died  at  Oxford,  on 
the  4th  of  December. 


LORD  DORMER. 
John  Evelyn  Perpont  Dormer,  Lord  Dor- 
mer, of  Wenge,  in  the  county  of  Bucks,  a 
captain  in  the  army,  was  born  in  the  year 
177|.  He  succeeded  his  brother  Charles, 
the  late  lord,  in  1819.  In  1795,  he  married 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[FEB. 


Elizabeth  Kerr,  daughter  of  William  John, 
fifth  Marquess  of  Lothian  ;  by  whom,  who 
died  in  1822,  he  had  no  issue.  It  is  re- 
markable of  Lord  Dormer,  that  having  re- 
jected the  errors  of  Popery,  and  conformed 
hirmelf  to  the  established  religion,  he  was 
the  first  of  his  family  who  sat  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  although  the  peerage  has  existed 
upwards  of  two  centuries. 


LORD   KINNAIRD. 

Charles  Kinnaird,  Lord  Kinnaird,  of  Inch- 
hire,  in  the  county  of  Perth,  a  counsellor  of 
state  to  the  king,  in  Scotland,  F.R.  and 
A.  S.,  was  a  descendant  from  Rodolphus, 
surnamed  Rufus,  who  had  a  charter  from 
King  William,  the  Lion,  of  Scotland,  of  the 
barony  of  Kinnaird,  in  Perthshire,  whence 
the  family  assumed  their  swrname.  His 
lordship  was  born  on  the  7th  of  April,  1780, 
and  he  succeeded  his  father  George,  the 
late  lord,  on  the  2 1st  of  October  1805. 
His  mother,  the  late  Lady  Kinnaird,  was  the 
danghter  and  sole  heir  of  Griffin  Ransom, 
of  New  Palace  Yard,  Westminster,  Esq. 
He  married,  in  1806,  Lady  Olivia  Lelitia 
Catherine  Fitzgerald,  youngest  daughter  of 
William  Robert,  second  Duke  of  Leinster  ;  by 
whom  he  bad  issue  George  William  Fox,  his 
successor,  two  other  son*,  and  two  daugh- 
ers. — In  the  year  J802,  his  lordship  offered 
himself  a  candidate  for  the  borough  of 
Leominster,  and,  in  conjunction  with  Mr. 
Lubbock,  he  stood  a  warm  contest,  and 
was  successful.  He  sat  in  the  Commons 
during  only  one  parliament,  but  he  proved 
himself  a  good  speaker  and  an  active  mem- 
ber. It  was  considered  that,  in  consequence 
of  his  political  sentiments,  the  influence  of 
ministers  was  exerted  against  him  to  prevent 
his  being  elected  one  of  the  representative 
peers  of  Scotland.  Some  years  ago,  his  lord- 
ship sold  off  bis  effects  in  England,  gave  up 
his  share  in  the  banking-house  to  his 
brother,  the  Hon.  Douglas  Kinnaird,  and 
retired  lo  the  continent,  where  he  was  much 
distinguished  for  his  patronage  of  the  fine 
arts.  Latterly  he  had  suffered  much  from 
ill-health  ;  but  although  he  had  long  been 
in  a  hopeless  state,  his  death,  which  took 
place  in  Regency  Square,  Brighton,  was 
unexpected.  His  lady  survives  him. 

PROFESSOR    BODE. 

John  Elert  Bode,  a  distinguished  astro- 
nomer, was  born  at  Hamburgh,  in  the  year 
1747.  At  an  early  period  he  displayed  a 
love  of  the  mathematical  sciences,  and  he 
was  only  nineteen  when  tbe  eclipse  of  1766 
furnished  him  with  an  opportunity  of  ma- 
nifesting his  astronomical  knowledge.  In 
1772,  he  was  appointed  royal  professor  of 
astronomy  at  the  academy  of  Berlin  ;  he 
soon  became  a  correspondent  of  all  the 
most  celebrated  astronomers,  and  he  re- 
tained bis  professor's  chair  until  the  day  of 
his  death,  a  period  of  fifty-four  years. 
Bode's  works,  written  \vith  clearness  and 
precision,  are  numerous  and  valuable. 


Amongst  the  principal  of  them  are,  his 
"  Introduction  to  the  Knowledge  of  the 
Starry  Heavens;" — his  " Elements  of  the 
Astronomical  Sciences  ;  v  and  his  "  Atlas 
Caelistis,"'  in  twenty  sheets,  containing 
17,240  stars,  and  12,000  more  than  had 
been  previously  laid  down.  Amongst  the 
great  men  with  whom  Bode  was  most 
closely  connected,  was  Sallande,  who  is 
said  to  have  entertained  a  higher  opinion  of 
the  professor  than  of  any  of  his  rivals  in  the 
same  science.  The  professor  was  so  inde- 
fatigable in  his  studies,  that  he  was  found 
dead  at  his  desk  a  short  time  since  ;  or,  as 
his  Berlin  biogrnpher  observes,  "  he  was 
sitting  at  his  writing-desk  when  the  angel 
of  death  gently  summoned  him  away  to 
eternal  life,  and  conducted  his  spirit  to  the 
stars,  among  which  he  has  been  no  stranger 
for  these  fifty  years." 

LORD  RIBBLESDALE. 

The  Right  Hon.  Thomas  Lister,  Baron 
Ribblesdale,  of  Gisburne  Park,  in  the  county 
of  York,  D.C.L.,  and  colonel  of  the  Craven 
Legion,  was  born  on  tbe  22d  of  March,  1752, 
and  raised  to  the  peerage  on  the  26th  of 
October,  1797.  The  house  of  Lister  bus  had 
its  chief  residence  in  the  parish  of  Gisbnrne, 
in  Craven,  for  nearly  500  years.  Its  posses- 
sions on  the  borders  of  the  river  which  gives 
origin  to  the  title,  are  by  descent  of  extraor- 
dinary antiquity  ;  having  been  acquired  about 
the  year  1312,  by  the  marriage  of  John, 
son  of  Sir  Thomas  Lister,  with  Isabel, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  John  de  Bolton, 
from  whom  Thomas  Lister,  the  present  and 
second  baron,  is  the  eighteenth  in  lineal 
descent.  The  above  Isabel,  it  is  believed, 
also  was  descended,  through  the  illustrious 
families  of  Clare,  Gaut,  and  Roumare,  from 
the  old  Saxon  Earls  of  Mercia  ;  Willfam  de 
Roumare,  one  of  the  great  Norman  barons, 
having  after  the  conquest,  married  Lucy, 
sister  and  heiress  of  Edwin,  the  last  earl. 

The  deceased  nobleman  was  the  son  of 
Thomas  Lister,  Esq.,  M.P.  for  the  borough 
of  Clilheroe,  and  of  Beatrix,  daughter  of 
Jessof  Hulton,  of  Hulton  Park,  in  the 
county  of  Lancaster,  Esq.  During  the 
American  war  he  raised,  at  his  own  expence, 
a  regiment  of  horse  for  the  service  of  go- 
vernment, called  Lister's  Light  Dragoons ; 
aud  afterwards,  at  the  commencement  of 
the  French  Revolution,  be  became  colonel 
of  the  Craven  Legion  of  Yeomanry  Caval- 
ry. For  these,  and  other  services,  he  was, 
as  already  stated,  raised  to  the  peerage  in 
1797.  His  lordship  married,  in  J789,  Re- 
becca, daughter  of  Joseph  Fielding,  Esq., 
of  the  kingdom  of  Ireland,  by  Elizabeth, 
daughter  of  Christopher  Jackson,  Esq.,  of 
the  county  of  Nottingham.  By  her  lady- 
ship,  who  died  in  1816',  he  had  one  son, 
Thomas,  his  successor  in  the  peerage,  born 
in  1790,  and  two  daughters. 

Lord  Ribblesdale  was  a  patron  of  the 
fine  arts,  and  possessed  a  valuable  collection 
of  pictures  at  Gisburne  Park.  Amongst 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


223 


some  very  fine  portraits,  were  one  of  General 
Lambert,  and  one  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  by 
Sir  Peter  Lely ;  said  to  have  been  taken  by 
the  Protector's  own  order,  and  exhibiting 
all  his  remarkable  warts  and  protuberances. 
Gisburne  Pfirk  is  remarkable  lor  a  herd  of 
wild  cattle,  descendants  of  the  indigenous 
breed  which  once  crowded  the  forests  of 
Lancashire.  This  rarity,  which  is  without 
horns,  differs  from  those  of  Lyme,  in  Cheshire, 
aud  Chillingham  custle  in  Northumberland  : 
they  are  white,  excepting  the  tips  of  their 
noses  which  are  black,  and  they  are  mis- 
chievous, and  invidious  in  approaching  the 
object  of  their  resentment. 

His  lordship  died  at  Gisburne  Park  on  the 
22nd  of  September ;  and  on  the  30th  his 
remains  were  deposited  in  the  family  vault  at 
the  parish  church.  In  conformity  with  his 
own  directions,  his  funeral  was  as  private  as 
possible,  and  his  corpse  was  carried  on  foot 
by  bis  own  tenants  from  the  house  to  the 
church,  the  tenants  relieving  each  other  at 
intervals  by  relays  of  ten  each.  The  mour- 
ners were,  his  son,  the  present  Lord  Ribbles- 
dale,  his  daughter,  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Parker, 
her  husband,  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Parker,  Tho- 
mas Lister,  Esq.,  of  Armitage  Park,  and 
Thomas  Lister  Parker,  Esq.  late  of  Brows- 
Hall. 

Thomas  Lister,  Esq.,  one  of  his  lord- 
ship's relations,  is  said  to  be  the  author  of 
"  Granby." 

JOHN  FLAXMA.N,  ESQ.,  R.A. 
This  eminent  sculptor  was  born  at  York,  in 
the  year  1755.  His  father  afterwards  kept  a 
small  plaister  figure  shop  in  the  Strand  ;  and  it 
was  during  his  attendance  there  that  he  taught 
himself  Latin.  It  was  not  until  he  travelled 
in  Italy,  that  he  found  leisure  to  study  Greek  ; 
and  though  he  never  became  what  might  be 
termed  an  elegant  classical  scholar,  his  know- 
ledge of  the  history  and  philosophy  of  the 
ancients,  as  well  as  of  sacred  subjects,  was 
profound.  Possessing  a  mind  highly  intellec- 
tual, it  was  not  surprising  that  his  conversation 
should  be  luminous.  Mr.  Flax  man  studied 
for  a  long  time  at  Rome,  where  his  statues 
and  basso  -elievos  were  held  in  high  estima- 
tion. While  in  Italy,  the  late  Earl  of  Bristol 
engaged  him  to  execute,  in  marble,  his 
magnificent  group  of  Alhamas  and  lo,  for 
which  he  advanced  him  £600 ;  a  sum  so 
short  of  the  actual  cost  that  the  work  beg- 
gared him ;  and,  being  married,  he  was  glad 
to  accept  Mr.  Nayler's  offer  to  execute 
drawings  to  illustrate  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
at  a  guinea  each,  comprising  about  eighty 
plates. 

Notwithstanding  his  great  simplicity  of 
character,  be  was  not  insensible  to  the  honours 
of  ancient  descent.  He  used  to  relate,  with 
complacency,  an  anecdote  of  one  of  his  an- 
cestors,  a  cavalry  officer  in  Cromwell's  army, 
who,  having  been  wounded  in  the  left  arm, 
fought  with  his  bridle  in  his  mouth,  at  the 
battle  of  Naseby.  Yet,  after  his  return  from 
Italy,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  reputation,  when 


he  was  appointed  in  his  turn  collector  of  the 
watch  rates  in  his  parish,  he  performed  the 
duties  ofuthe  humble  office  with  the  most 
scrupulous  exactness.  His  friends  smiled  to 
see  this  distinguished  artist,  his  ink-horn  tied 
to  his  button,  cheerfully  and  zealously  collect- 
ing his  dues,  from  house  to  house. 

Mr.  Thomas  Hope  engaged  Mr.  Flaxmau  to 
illustrate  Dante  by  drawings  similar  to  those 
with  which  he  had  illustrated  Homer.  Those 
drawings  are,  we  believe,  still  in  Mr.  Hope's 
collections.  JEschylus  aud  Hesiod,  were 
subsequent  works.  He  has  since  published 
his  illustrations  of  the  writers  mentioned  in 
four  series  ;  and,  had  he  never  produced 
any  thing  else,  he  must  have  descended  to 
posterity  as  a  man  of  splendid  and  powerful 
genius.  He  established  his  fame  among  the 
critics  and  cognoscentis  of  Italy  and  Germany, 
with  whom  he  enjoyed  a  higher  reputation 
than  has  been  acquired  by  any  of  our 
countrymen,  with  the  exception  of,  perhaps, 
Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds. 

As  a  sculptor,  Mr.  Flaxman's  works  are 
chiefly  of  that  higher  order  which  is  not 
calculated  to  confer  immediate  popularity. 
He  never,  we  believe,  executed  busts,  except 
as  portions  of  sepulchral  monument? ;  for  the 
production  of  which,  from  the  devotional 
character  of  his  mind,  he  Was  particularly 
disposed.  Amongst  his  numerous  works  of 
this  class,  are  the  monument  of  Collins,  at 
Chichester;  of  Lord  Mansfield,  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey  ;  of  Sir  William  Jones,  at  Oxford  ; 
the  statue  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  &c. 
Several  of  his  pieces  are  in  St."  Paul's  Ca- 
thedral. 

In  the  year  1800,  Mr.  Flaxman  addressed 
a  letter  to  the  Committee  for  raising  a  Naval 
Pillar,  or  Memorial,  to  which  a  reply  was 
made  by  Alexander  Bulfour,  an  architect. 
Mr,  Flaxman's  proposition  was,  to  form  a 
colossal  statue  of  200  feet  in  height,  to  be 
placed  on  Dover  Cliff. 

Mr.Vlaxman  had  long  been  a  member  of 
the  Royal  Academy,  and  professor  of  sculp- 
ture to  that  institution.  Having  survived  his 
wife  several  years,  he  lived  a  very  retired 
lif<-.  He  did  not  publicly  associate  with  the 
congregation  founded  by  Emanuel  Sweden- 
berg;  but,  on  the  contrary,  though  he  did 
not  scruple  to  avow  to  his  friends,  that  he 
adopted,  in  general,  the  doctrines  promulgated 
by  that  celebrated  mystical  theologian,  he 
professed  himself  a  member  of  the  established 
church.  His  habits  were  singularly  modest 
and  retired  ;  and  in  all  pecuinary  matters,  he 
was  so  severely  scrupulous  against  his  own 
interest,  that  his  profession  was  far  less 
productive  to  him,  than  to  most  artists 
enjoying  equal  rank. 

Mr.  Flaxman  contracted  a  severe  cold  by 
leaving  his  house  in  Buckingham  Street, 
Fitzroy  Square,  on  Sunday  the  3d  of  Decem- 
ber ;  but  he  was  sufficiently  well  on  Monday 
to  receive  a  few  friends  at  dinner.  Medical 
advice  was  called  in  the  same  evening. 
His  constitution,  however,  had  been  weak- 


224 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[FEB. 


ened  by  a  gradual  decline  of  henlth,  which 
had  for  several  years  excited  the  apprehen- 
sions of  his  professional  and  personal  friends; 
he  was,  therefore,  spared  the  suffering  of  a 
severe  and  procrastinated  illness;  and, on  the 
morning  of  the  9th  he  departed. 

It  was  the  intention  of  the  members  of  the 
Royal  Academy  to  follow  the  remains  of 
their  late  professor  of  sculpture  to  the  grave, 


In  a  manner  becoming  the  respect  which  they 
entertained  for  his  virtues  and  talents.  This 
mode  ot  interment,  however,  was  found  to  be 
contrary  to  the  express  will  of  the  deceased, 
and  to  the  wishes  of  the  survivors;  and, 
therefore,  the  funeral  was  private.  It  took 
place  on  the  15th  of  December,  many  of 
the  members  of  the  Academy  attending  as 
mourners. 


ALPHABETICAL     LIST    OP    BANKRUPTCIES,   announced  between  the  2lst  of  December 
1826,  and  the  2lst  of  January  1827  ;  extracted  from  the  London,  Gazette. 


BANKRUPTCIES  SUPERSEDED. 

ALEXANDER,  A.  Rashcliffo,  York,  dyer 

Brown,  T.  Mvfon,  York,  merchant 

Burgess,  T.  and  Hill,  T.  Great  Windmill-street, 
booksellers 

Dickins.F.  Bow-lane,  scrivener 

Essex,  G.  Bristol,  bookseller 

Holl,  S.  Lakenham,  Norwich,  brewer 

Hulme,  James.  Museum-street,  Bloomsbury,  pawn- 
broker 

Kerridge,  G.  Beccles,  Suffolk,  grocer 

M'Leod,  J.  Cleinent's-lane,  Lombard-street,  lea- 
ther-seller 

Shepherd,  J.  L.  and  Fricker,  H.  Southampton, 
linen-drapers 

BANKRUPTCIES.     [This  Month  1,58.] 

Solicitors'  Names  are  in  Brackets. 

ANDERSON,  W.  Portsea,  oilman.  [Brooks 
andBeuwell,L'mcoln's-inn-fields ;  Hinton,  Bristol 

Alexander,  A.  Huddersn't'ld,  York, brewer.  [Van- 
sandan  and  Tindale,  Dowgate-hill  ;  Jacomb, 
Hudderstidd 

Atkinson,  W.  \  Haslingden,  Lancaster,  currier. 
[Makiuson  and  Sanders,  Temple;  Atkinson, 
Manchester 

Allwright,  H.  R.  Coleman  street,  packer.  [Loxley 
and  Co.,  Cheapsidc 

Bore,  J.  jun.  Kidderminster,  plumber.  [Holme 
and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Slater,  Birmingham 

Bailey,  W.  Belper,  Derbyshire,  haberdasher. 
[Bicknell  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn  ;  Rigley,  Not- 
tingham 

Badnall,  R.  jun.  and  F.  G.  Spilsbury,  Leek,  Staf- 
fordshire, silk  manufacturers.  [James,  Buck- 
lersbiiry 

Bright,  P  Handley,  Derby,  lime  burner.  [Rod- 
gers,  Bucklersbury  ;  Staniforth,  Sheffield 

Badnall,  R.  jun.,  F.  G.  Spilsbury,  and  R.  Cruso, 
Leek,  Staffordshire,  silk-manufacturers.  [Amory 
and  Coles,  Throgmorton-street 

Bennett,  C.  A.  Liverpool,  surgeon.  [Blackstock 
and  Bunce,  Temple;  Deane,  Liverpool 

Baugh,  J.  High-holborn,  clothes-salesman.  [Gee 
and  Drawbridge,  New  North-street,  Red-Lion- 
square 

Bennett,  T.  W.  Great  Mary-le-bcne-street,  car- 
penter. [Hallctt,  Northumberland-street,  Mary- 
le-bone 

Burge,  J.  and  R.  St.  Philip  and  Jacob,  Gloucester, 
soap  boilers.  [Hicks  and  Braikeuridge,  Bai  t- 
lett's-buildings ;  Hinton,  Bristol 

Burkinyoung,  P.  Old  Kent-road,  coach-maker. 
[Whitehouse,  Thavies-inn 

Blogg,  W.  Norwich,  haberdasher.  [Austin,  Buck- 
ingham-street ;  Parkinson  and  Staff,  Norwich 

Barrett,  H.  Old-street-road,  timber  merchant. 
[Green  and  Ashurst.Sambrook-court,  Basinghall- 

Broomrield,  W.  M.  Isabel-place,  New  Camberwell- 
rpad,  builder.  [Bostock,  George-street,  Man- 
sion-house 

Bakewell,  G.  W.  Manchester,  glue-manufacturer. 
[Tooke  and  Carr,  Gray's  inn  ;  Flint,  Uttoxet<-r 

Bridge,  W.  Deerhurst,  Gloucester,  cattle-dealer. 
[Watson  and  Broughton,  Falcon-square  ;  'Small- 
ridge,  Gloucester 

Backhouse,  D.  Aldmondbury,  York,  and  J.  Wood- 


cock, jun.  Wakclield,  dyers.     [Battyc  and   Co. 
Chancery-lane  ;  Sykes>  Milnsbridge 

BantocK,  W.  J.  Clcmenl's-lane,  timber-merchant. 
[Atkins  and  Davis,  Fox-Ordinary-court,  Nicho- 
las-lane 

Bateson,  John  and  Joseph,  Wortley,  York,  cloth- 
manufacturers.  [Few  and  Co.,  Covent-garden  ; 
Hemingway,  Leeds 

Brumwell,  W.  C.  Natland,  Westmoreland,  currier. 
[Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row  ;  Wardle,  Kcn- 
dal 

Barnett,  W.  Sheerness,  draper.  |  Ashlield,  Law- 
rence-lane, Cheapside 

Chaffey,  J.  Bow-street,  victualler.  [Young  and 
Gilbert,  Mark-lane 

Cox,  J.  Commerce- place,  Brixton-road,  chinaman. 
[Vincent,  Bedford-street,  Bedford-square 

Cohen,  M.  Devonshire-place,  Commercial-road, 
paper-stainer.  [Hutchinson,  Crown-court, 
Threadneedle-street 

Cox,  E.  Wednesbury,  Staffordshire,  corn-factor 
[White,  Lincoln'a-inn  ;  Tomes,  Oxford 

Coales,  W.  Wisbeaoh,  Cambridge,  grocer.  [Hind- 
man  and  Goddard,  Basinghall-street 

Clark,  J.  Montague-street,  Russel-square,  dentist. 
[Wade,  Polygon,  Somers-town 

Chadwick,  J.  Manchester,  commission  agent.  [Ad- 
lington and  Co.,  Bedford-row  ;  Morris  and  Gool- 
den,  Manchester 

Clarke,  J.  S.  Austin-friars,  printer.  [Witherbv 
Nicholas-lane 

Clarkson,  J.  Whitecross-street,  victualler.  [Mar- 
tineau  and  Molton,  Carey-street 

Croaedill,  H.  Hackingron,  Kent,  farmer.  fWin- 
burn  and  Collett,  Chancery-lane  ;  Sandys,  Can- 
terbury 

Cook,  W.  Newton-upon-Onse.  York,  waterman. 
[Battve  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane:  Robinson 
Wakefipld 

Colbeck.G.  Hatton-wall,  grocer.  [Fisher,  Queen- 
street,  Cheapside 

Clarkson,  J.  late  of  Gower-street,  Bedford-square, 
and  Austin-l'riars,  ship-owner.  [Alliston  and 
Hundleby,  Fieeman's-court,  Cornhill 

Coe,  J.  W.  Bath,  haberdasher.  [Evan*  and  Shear- 
man, Hatton -garden 

Cridland,  T.  C.  Piggott -wharf,  King's-stairs,  Ro- 
therhithe,  coal-merchant.  [Smith  and  Weir,  Ba- 
singhall-street 

Dawson,  S.  R.  Water-lane,  Tower-street,  wine- 
merchant.  [Osbaldeston  and  Murray,  London- 
street,  Fenchurch-stre  t 

Dodd,J.  Norfolk-street,  Middlesex  Hospital,  cheese- 
monger. [Popkin,  Dean-street,  Soho 

Dickins,  F.  Queen-street,  scrivener.  [Stevens 
and  Co.,  Little  St.  Thomas  Apostle,  Queen-street 

Drury,  C.  Whetstone,  Leicester,  hosier.  [Benbovv 
and  Co.,  Lincolu's-inn ;  Veinon,  Bromsgrove, 
Worcestershire 

Dods,  A.  Worcester,  vender  of  medicines.  [Hil- 
liard  and  Hastings,  Gray's-inn  ;  Godson,  Wor- 
cester 

Eld,  J.  Walsall,  Stafford,  draper.  [Long  and  Co., 
Gray's-inn  ;  Jesson,  Walsall 

Ewart,  F.  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  hatter.  [Bell 
and  Broderick,  Bow-Church-yard  ;  Dawson, 
Newcastle 

Elswoith,  J.  Bowling,  York,  corn-dealer.  [Wal- 
ker, Lincoln's-inn-lields  ;  Alexanders,  Halifax. 


1827.] 


Bankrupts. 


325 


Fisher,  C.  Ramsejate,  chemist.  [Smith  and  Weir, 
Cooper* s-hall,  Basinghall-strect 

Fussell,  J.  Stoke-lane,  Somerset,  paper-maker. 
[Edmunds,  Symond's-inn  ;  Phelps,  Wells 

Frost,  J.  Manchester,  cotton-spinner.     [Adlington 

-  and  Co.,  Bedford-row ;  Morris  and  Gooldcn, 
Manchester 

Fisher,  R.  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  Suffolk,  dealer. 
[ Bromley,  Gray's-inn  ;  Leech,  Bury  St- Edmunds 

Fisher,  J.  Canterbury,  brazier.  [Gatty  and  Co., 
Angel-court,  Throgmorton-street 

Fricker,  W.  jun.  Bradford,  Wilts,  plumber.  [Pop- 
kin,  Dean-street  ;  Seymour,  jun.  Frome 

Fowler,  E.  Neptune-street,  Rotherhithe,  silkmai:. 


[Thomas,  Dean-street,  Sonthwark 
oiks,  J\; 


Folks,  Mary,  Wells-yard,  Goodman's-fields,  smith. 
[Baddeley,  Leman-street,  Goodman's-fields 

Gay,  J.  Bristol,  carpenter.  [Hendi-rson,  Lincoln's* 
inn-fields  ;  Taylor,  Bristol 

Grafftey,  S.  Cannon-street,  umbrella-maker.  [Ash- 
ley and  Goodman,  Token-house-yavd 

Grist,  T.  Aston,  Birmingham,  corn-dealer.  [Holme 
and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Parker  and  Timmins,  Bir- 
mingham 

Gibson,  R.  H.  Alborough,  Norfolk,  surgeon.  [Lyth- 
gore,  Essex-street,  Strand  ;  Unthank,  Norwich 

Griffiths,  W.  Carmarthen,  ironmonger.  [Vizard 
and  Blower,  Lincoln's-inn-flelds  ;  Haven,  Bjistol 

Giblett,  S.  Sltepton  Mallet,  Somerset,  currier. 
[Berkeleys,  Lincoln' s-inn  ;  Craddock,  Shepton- 
Mallet 

Goddard.  J.  Russell-street,  Bloomsbury,  merchant. 
[Oliverson  and  Denby,  Frederick-place,  Old 
Jewry 

Harris,  J.  Bristol,  brick-maker.  [Poole  and  Co., 
Gray's-inn 

Hooper,  H.  Bognor,  Sussex,  grocer.  [Tilson, 
Coleman-street 

Heath.  W.  Hatneld-place.Westminster-road,  coach- 
maker.  [Watts,  Dean-street,  Southward 

Herring,  J.  F.  Doncaster,  picture-dealer.  [Ma. 
kinson  and  Sanders,  Middle  Temple  ;  Heaton, 
Doncaster 

Harrison,  W.  Arundel-street,  Strand,  merchant. 
[Dods,  Northumberland-street,  Strand 

Heath,  R.  Paradise-row,  Chelsea,  ironmonger. 
[Farris,  Surrey-street,  Strand 

Hallett,  W.  Northumberland-street,  Mary-le-bone, 
bill-broker.  [Tanner,  New  Basinghall-strePt 

Hawker,  J.  A.  Birmingham,  merchant.  [Tooke 
and  Carr,  Gray's-inn  ;  Unett  and  Son,  Birming- 
ham 

Haynes.  J.  H.  Aston,  Warwick,  grocer.  [Becke, 
Devonshire-street,  Queen-square ;  France,  Wor- 
cester 

Hodgson,  T.  Pendleton,  Lancaster,  schoolmaster. 
[Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Higson  and  Co., 
Manchester 

Hine,  T.  B.  Jeffries-square,  St.  Mary  Axe,  mer- 
chant. [Bennett,  Scot's-yard,  Bush-lane 

Hooker,  W.  Liverpool,  victualler.  [Hicks  and 
Braikenridge,  Bartlett's-buildings ;  Beswick, 
Birmingham 

Hill,  J.  Stapleford  Abbots,  Essex,  dealer.  [Eicke, 
Old  Broad-street 

Hannay,  J.  Park-street,  Dorset-square,  wine-mer- 
chant. [Farris,  Surrev-street,  Strand 

James,  T.  Nottingham,  maltster.  [Smith,  Basing- 
hall-street 

James,  S.  Nottingham,  maltster.  [Smith,  Basina- 
hall-street 

Johnson,  F.  Nottingham,  lace-manufacturer. 
[Long  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Percy,  Nottingham 

Jones,  H.  Woolstanton.  Stafford,  dealer  in  hav. 
[Dax  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Jones,  Stafford  and 
Hanley 

Kirkrnan.C.and  F.  late  of  Henley-upon-Thames, 
linen-drapers.  [Wheeler  and  Bennett,.  John- 
street,  Bedford -row 

Leech,  J.  Barnsley,  linen-manufacturer.  [Pocock, 
Bartholomew-close 

Leicester,  P.  Liverpool,  timber-merchant.  [Tay- 
lor and  Roscoe,  Temple  ;  Prest,  Liverpool 

Leaver,  J.  Reading,  shoemaker.  [Jenkins  and 
Abbots,  New-inn  ;"  Vines,  jun.  Reading 

Lacy,  J.  f'ranbourne-street,  Leicester-square,  mer- 
cer.   [Birkit  and  Co.,  Cloak-lane 
MM.  New  Serie*.— VOL.  III.  J? o.H. 


Littler,  C.  Gutter-lane,  warehouseman.   [Turner, 

Basing-lane 
Levine,    H.  Merthyr-Tydvil,  Glamorgan,  dealer. 

[Tripo,  Gray's-inn  ;  Williams,  Bristol 
Lawrence,   S. 'Cheltenham,    grocer.    [Evans  arid 
Shearman,  Hatton-garden  ;  Haberfield,  Bristol. 
Mindham,  W.  Holt,  Norfolk,  carpenter.    [Surman, 

Lincoln's-inn 
Mynn,  J.  York-street,  Southwark,  coal-merchant. 

[Fisher  and  Spencer,  Walbrook 
Moorliouse,  T.    Sheffield,    victualler.     [Duncan, 

Gray's-inn 

Muggeridge,  J.  sen.  Brixton-road,  builder.  [Far- 
den,  New-inn 

Marsden,  W.  Sheffield,  saw-manufacturer.  [Blake- 
lock,  Serjeant's-imi  ;  Smith,  Sheffield 
M'Leod,  J.  Cli-menfs-lane,  leather-seller.  [Rankia 

and  Richards,  Basinglnll-street 
Moore.G.  Carey-street,  colfee-house-keeper.  [Price, 

Lincoln's-inn 

Marsden,  G.  Cartworth,  York,   woollen-manufac- 
turer.   [Wilson,    Southampton-street,     Bloomg- 
bury  ;  Coupland  and  Shavve,  Leeds 
Wilier,   J.    Liverpool,     silversmith.    [Tooke     and 

Carr,  Gray's-inn  ;  Burnish,  Birmingham 
Nichol.J.  Preston, draper.    [Holme  and  Co. .New- 
inn  ;  Willis,  Lancaster 
Nicoll,  E.  jun.   Hendon,  hay  and  straw-salesman. 

[Shuter,  Millbank-street,  Westminster 
Nind,  John  Pitt,  Led  bury,  Hereford,  tanner.   [Be* 

verley,  Temple  ;  Phelps,  Ledbury 
Neate,   W.    Sweeting's-alley,   Cornhill,    jeweller. 

[James,  Charlotte-row,  Mansion-house 
Nixon,  F.  Rowarth,  Derby,  cotton-spinner.  [Fran- 
cis, New  BosweH-court 

Oddy,  R.  and  W.  Brown,  London-wall,  horse- 
dealers.  [Baddeley,  Leman-street,  Goodman's- 
fields 

Pritchard,  C.    Walcot-place,    Lambeth,    plumber. 
[Sherwood  and  Son,  Canterbury-square,  South- 
wark 
Poole,  T.  Colwall,  Hereford,  dealer.     [Clarke  and 

Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Higgins,  Ledbury 
Pearson,      R.     High-holborn,      money-scrivener. 

[Duncombe,  Lyon's-inn 
Phillips,  R.   Brecon,  tailor.     [Bicknell   and  Co., 

Liueoln's-inn  ;  Bold  aud  Vaughan,  Brecon 
Parsons,  J.  St.  Clements,   Oxon,   brewer.    [Ellis, 

Gray's-inn  ;  Walsh,  Oxford 

Peake,    M.     Arbour -terrace,     Commercial-road, 
agent.     [Holme  and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Slater,  jun, 
Birmingham 
Purcell,    J.    New-Cross,   Camberwell,   victualler. 

[Benton,  Union-street,  Southwark 
Pool,  W.  Lisson-street,  Paddington,  stage-master. 

[Duncombe,  Lyon's-inn 
Peters,   J.    Ranelagh-walk,    Chelsea,    victualler. 

[Parnell,  Spitalfields 
Powis,    R.    Grosvenor-mews,    New    Bond-street, 

farrier.    [Hurl  and  Johnson,  Temple 
Plaw,  T.  Fulham,    carpenter.    [Richardson  and 

Pike,  Golden-square 
Pyrke,  T.  Chelmsford,  linen-draper.     [Fisher  and 

Spencer,  Walbrook 
Raffan.G.Covent-garden, fruit-salesman.  [Hughes, 

Clifford's-inn  ' 
Robison,  J.  M.  Hampstead,  wine-merchant.     [Ro- 

bison,  Walbrook 
Rixon,    R.     Stoken-Church,    Oxford,     innholder. 

[James  and  Whitelock,  Ely-place 
Riddick,    T.     Penton-place,    Pentonville,    baker. 

[Bridges:  Angel-court,  Throgmorton-street 
Rohde,  S.  Mansell-street,  Goodman's-fields,  dealer 

in  sail-c'oth.    [Lang,  Fenchurch-street 
Roach,   J.    St.  George,  Gloucester,  brick-maker. 
[Poole  and   Co.,   Gray's-inn-squarc ;     Cornish, 
Bristol 

Robinson,  T.   Porter-street,  Newport-market,  up- 
holsterer.    [Richardson,  Ironmonger-lane 
Russell.  E.  WSiite-horse-eourt,    Southwark,   hop- 
merchant.      [Green    and    Ashurst,    Sambrook- 
court,  Basingball-Btreet 
Rice,  J.  L.  Taunton,  builder.     [Clowes  and  Co., 

Temple  ;  Buncombe  and  Stone,  Taunton 
Stamper,      W.      Goswell-street,       coach-painter. 

[Brough,  Shoreditch 

Spencer,  J.  Belper,  Derby,  nail-maker.    [Wolaton, 
Furnival's-inn  ;  Ingle,  Belper 
2G 


226 


Incidents,  Marriages,  fyc. 


[FEB. 


Simon*,  W.  Fobbing,  Essex, barge-master.  [Noy 
and  Co.,  Great  Tower-street 

Scanrill,  G.  Barnsley,  York,  linen-manufacturer. 
[Wilson, Southampton-street  ;  Smith  and  Moore, 
Leeds 

Sheath,  T.  jun.  Birmingham,  brazier.  [Holme 
and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Slater,  Birmingham 

Shurmer,  J.  Shirley,  Hants,  cattle-dealer.  [De- 
verell,  Gray's-inn-square 

Stickland,  J.  B.  Wareham,  Dorset,  linen-draper. 
[Gadsden  and  Barlow,  Austin-friars 

Shepherd,  J.  Beaumont-street,  Mary-le-bone,  hack- 
neyman.  [Goven  and  Price,  Orchard -street, 
Portman-square 

Spilsbury,  E.  H.  Walsall,  Stafford,  apothecary. 
[Long  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Hayi-s  and  Hench- 
liffe,  Halesowen 

Snigth,  T.  Bilstone,  Stafford,  surgeon.  [Hunt, 
Craven-street;  Willim  and  Son,  Bilstone 

Shepherd,  J.  L.  and  H.  Fricker,  Southampton, 
linen-drapers.  [Hicks  an^  Braikenridge,  Bart- 
lett's-buildings  ;  Clement,  Southampton 

Spratt,  H.  Thurston,  Norfolk,  miller.  [Lythgoe 
and  Chapman,  Essex-street ;  Winter,  jun.  Nor- 
wich 

Saunders,  J.  Nottingham,  cordwainer.  [Taylors, 
Featherstone-buildings,  Holborn;  Payne  and 
Dart,  Nottingham 

Smith,  G.  and  T.  Holmes,  jun.  Bristol,  linen-dra- 
pers and  haberdashers.  [Bourdillon  and  Hewitt, 
Bread-street,  Cheapside ;  Bevan  and  Brittain, 
Bristol 

Stones,  S.  Pontefract,  York,  innkeeper.  [Smith- 
son  and  Ramskill,  Pontetrai-t 

Swanncll,  J.  Chatteris,  Cambridge,  draper.  [Long 
and  Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Day,  St.  Ives 

Stafford,  T.  jun.  John-street,  West-Smithfield, 
pawnbroker.  [Hinrich  and  Stafford,  Bucking- 
ham-street, StrandJ 

Steele,  S.  V.  Bucklersbury,  agent.  [Hurd  and 
Johnson,  Temple 


Btollard,  J.  P.  Shcpton-Mallet,  Somerset,  wine* 
merchant.  [King  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Phipps, 
Shepton-Mallet 

Todd,  J.  Sheffield,  printer.  [Walter,  Symonds- 
inn  ;  ParVer  and  Co.,  Sheffield 

Todd,  W.  Sheffield,  printer.  [Walter,  Symonds- 
inn  ;  Parker  and  Co.,  Sheffield 

Tate,  W.  South-Shields,  draper.  [Clayton  and 
Co.,  Lincoln's-inn  ;  Clayton,  Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne 

Tucker,  I.  Amwell-street,  Pentonville,  ironmonger. 
[Bean,  Friar-street,  Blackfriars-road 

Turner,  T.  Pemberton,  Lancashire,  house-carpen- 
ter. [Gaskill,  Wigan;  Norris,  John-street,  Bed- 
ford-row 

Tcague,  W.  Redruth,  Cornwall,  merchant.  [Vi- 
zard and  Blower,  Lincoln's-inn-ftelds ;  Heaven, 
Bristol 

Wesson,  J.  jun.  Dudley,  currier.  [Robinson  and 
Son,  Dudley 

Williams,  W.  Bristol,  grocer.  [Poole,  GreenfielJ, 
and  Gamlen,  Gray's-inn  ;  Williams,  Exchange, 
Bristol 

Weall,  D.  Preston,  woollen-draper.  [Norris,  John- 
street,  Bedford-row  ;  Haworth,  Blackburn 

Wheadon,  H.  Beaminster,  Dorset,  clothier.  [Hicks 
and  Braikenridge,  Bartlett's-buiidings  ;  Hinton, 
Bristol 

Wagstaff,  W.  Mottram,  Cheshire,  corn-dealer. 
[Clarke  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Higginbottom, 
Ashton-under-Line 

Wood,  B.  Pitchcomb-mill,  Gloucester,  clothier. 
[King,Serjeant's-inn  ;  Hawker,  Stroud 

Walker,  J.  Ley-Moor,  Huddersfield,  York,  cloth- 
manufacturer.  [Edmunds, Lincoln's-inn;  Sykes, 
Milnsbridge,  Hudderslield 

Wynn,  H  and  A.  Wyke,  late  of  Manchester,  and  of 
Baghilit,  Flint,  brewers.  [Milne  and  Parry, 
Temple  ;  Ainsworth  and  Co.,  Manchester 

Wild,  J.  W.  Leeds,  dyer.  [Tottle  and  Co.,  Poultry, 
and  Leeds. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  PREFERMENTS. 


Rev.  J.  Parsons,  to  the  consolidated  Rectory  of 
Ashwicken  and  Leziate,  Norfolk.— Rev.  S.  Black- 
hall,  collated  to  a  Prebend  in  Wells' Cathedral.— 
Rev.  R.  W.  Allix,  to  the  Rectory  of  Great  War- 
ley,  Essex.— Rev.  R.  Gape,  to  the  Vicarage  of 
Sibsey,  Lincoln. — Rev.  J.  Hodge.«,  to  the  Rectory 
of  Chiicomb,  Hants.— Rev.  H.  Alford,  to  the  Rec- 
tory of  Ampton  Suffolk.— Rev.  W.  M.  Ward,  to 
the  Vicarage  of  Hartington,  Derbyshire. — Rev. 
O.  H.  Williams,  to  the  Rectory  of  Clavelleigh, 
Devon. — Rev.  S.  Rowe,  to  the  perpetual  Cure  of 
St.  Budeaux,  Devon.— Rev.  W.  Davison,  to  the 
Deanery  or  Peculiar  of  Hartington,  Derby.— Rev. 


M.  Thomason,  to  the  Curacy  of  Trinity  Church, 
Cheltenham.— Rev.  F.  Baker,  to  the  Rectory  of 
Wylye,  Wilts.— Rev.  L.  R.  Brown,  to  the  Rectory 
of  Saxmundham,  Suffolk. — Rev.  W.  Browne,  to 
the  Rectory  of  Little  Glemham,  with  the  perpetual 
Curacy  of  Great  Glemham  annexed,  Suffolk.— 
Rev.  C.  Day,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Playford, 
Suffolk.— Rev.  R.Firmin,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Fiu- 
gringhoe,  Essex.— Rev.  J.  Coyte,  to  the  perpetual 
Curacy  of  Farnham,  Suffolk.— Rev.  J.  Macdoiigal. 
to  the  Second  Charge  of  the  parish  of  Cambeltoun. 
— Rev.  W.  Airey,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Hex- 
ham,  Northumberland. 


INCIDENTS,   MARRIAGES,   AND   DEATHS,   IN  AND   NEAR  LONDON. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

Dec.  18.— The  Right  Hon.  R.  Peel,  Secretary  of 
State,  transmitted  to  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York  a  letter,  signed  by  the  King,  authorizing 
them  to  take  proper  measures  for  promoting 
subscriptions  within  their  provinces,  for  the  relief 
of  the  manufacturing  classes  in  some  districts  of 
the^United  Kingdom. 

Jan.  2.— T.  White  and  Amelia  Roberts,  exe- 
cuted at  the  Old  Bailey.  Three  other  culprits, 
ordered  for  execution,  were  respited. 

5.— His  Royal  Highness  Frederick,  Duke  of 
York  and  Albany,  died,  at  twenty  minutes  past 
nine  o'clock,  P.M.,  after  a  lingering  illness. 

12. — The  Sessions  commenced  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
before  the  Lord  Mayor,'  Chief  Baron  Alexander, 


Baron  Hullock,  Mr.  Justice  Burrough,  and  the 
Recorder.  Their  Lordships  wore  black  robes  and 
weepers,  on  account  of  the  Duke  of  York's  death. 

Dec.  31. — British  troops  arrived  at  Lisbon 
under  the  command  of  Sir  W.  Clinton. 

Jan.  18  and  19.— The  remains  of  H.  R.  H.  the 
Duke  of  York  lay  in  state  at  St.  James's  Palace. 

20.— The  funeral   of  H.R.H.  the  Duke  of  York 
took  place,  at  St.  George's,  Windsor  Castle. 
MARRIAGES. 

At  the  King  of  the  Netherlands'  Ambassador's, 
Lieut.-Col.  Nahuys,  Knight  of  the  Belgic  Lion,  to 
Ellen,  daughter  of  B.  Hodgson,  esq. — J.  Nind.esq., 
to  Louisa,  widow  of  the  late  W.  Paton,  esq.,  mem- 
bor  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  Calcutta.— W. 
Wakeman,  esq.,  to  Miss  Sibylla,  Philadelphia  Pas- 


1827.] 


Provincial  Occurrences :  Cumberland,  York, 


227 


more.— At  Paddington  Church,  W.  S,  Sewell,  esq., 
sheriff  of  Quebec,  son  of  the  Hon.  M.  Sewell,  chief 
justice  of  Lower  Canada,  to  Miss  Mary  Isabel 
Smith. — At  Mary-le-bone  Church,  H.  Robinson, 
esq.,  to  Miss  Maria,  eldest  daughter  of  N.  Kir- 
wan,  esq. — Edwin  Maddy,  esq.,  to  Maria,  Eliza- 
beth, eldest  daughter  of  Alderman  Wood,  M.P.  for 
the  City  of  London.— Captain  G.  Baker,  R.N.,  son 
of  Sir  R.  Baker,  of  Berners-street,  to  Miss  E. 
Harding. 

DEATHS. 

At  Tooting,  Lady  Welsh,  relict  of  the  late  Sir 
R.Welsh,  of  Eltham,  Kent,— At  Pimlico,  71,  W. 
<»ifford,  esq.,  author  of  the  Maviad  and  the  Ba- 
viad,  &c. — At  Shepperton,  63,  Dr.  John  Mason 
Good.— In  Lincoln's-Inn  Fields,  77,  H.Cline,esq.— 
John  Dent,  esq.,  formerly  M.  P.  for  Lancaster. — 
Miss  Stourton,  sister  to  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
Stourton. — In  Great  Coram-street,  Dr.  J.  Jones, 
atithor  of  a  Greek  Lexicon  and  other  learned 
works. — At  Putney  House,  Heneage  Legge,  e.«q. — 
At  Batlle-Bridge,  100 !  Mrs.  Margaret  Rule.— At 
Hays,  80,  Mrs.  Elliot ;  she  has  left  nine  children, 
fifty-eight  grand-children,  and  forty-three  great- 
grand-children.— At  Stratford,  Samuel  West,  esq., 
a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends ;  he  was  76 


years  of  age,  and  his  death  wai  occasioned  by 
being  upset  in  his  gig,  in  company  with  Mr.  Mar- 
tin, partner  of  the  Lord  Mayor. — Mr.  Serjeant 
Lens.— In  Piccadilly,  91,  Mrs.  Vaillant,  relict  of 
Paul  Vaillant,  esq.,  Pall-Mali.— At  the  palace, 
Waterford,  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Bourke,  lady  of  the 
Lord  Bishop  of  that  diocese.— At  Denton  Park, 
the  lady  of  Sir  Charles  Ibbertson,  bart.— At  Chel- 
sea, 83,  Captain  Abraham,  formerly  of  the  63d  re- 
giment.—At  Bolton  Row,  68,  Mrs.  Angela. 

MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 

At  the  British  Ambassador's,  Paris,  James 
Dawes,  esq.,  equerry  to  the  Duke  de  Bourbon, 
Prince  de  Conde,  to  Mary  Harcourt,  eldest  daugh- 
ter of  Rear-Admiral  Manby. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 

At  Mittau,  Cornelia,  wife  of  Baron  de  Fircki", 
and  eldest  daughter  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Byam. — 
At  Malaga,  80,  Mrs.  M.  Doudeuil.— At  Barrack- 
pore,  24,  the  Hon.  Jeffery  Amherst,  eldest  son  of  Lord 
Amherst— At  Paris,  M.Malte  Brun,  author  of  va- 
rious works  on  geography  and  politics,  and  one  of 
the  editors  of  Le  Journal  dcs  Debats.—At  Quito, 
in  Columbia.H.  Wood,  esq.,  his  Britannic  Majesty's 
consul  at  Guayaquil. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES; 

WITH    THE   MARRIAGES  AND    DEATHS. 


NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

The  report  of  the  Morpeth  Savings'  Banks  an- 
nual  statement,  20th  Nov.  1826,  states  the  amount 
reccived.at  that  period,  at  the  sum  0^28,89123. Id. 

At  the  Durham  Christmas  quarter  sessions, 
there  were  upwards  of  thirty-three  felons  for  trial, 
exclusive  of  assault  cases,  which  were  numerous  ; 
a  number  unequalled  in  any  similar  occasion  in 
that  county. 

A  public  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  North 
Berwick  was  held,  on  the  28th  December,  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  a  subscription  library,  also 
a  debating  society  for  the  free  discussion  of  every 
subject,  religion  and  politics  exempted  ;  when  re- 
solutions were  entered  into,  and  unanimously  car- 
ried, and  a  committee  formed  for  the  aforesaid 
purposes. 

The  snow  storm  which  visited  Yorkshire,  ex- 
tended into  Durham,  and  was  accompanied  by  a 
tremendous  gale  from  the  north.  The  coaches 
were  impeded  greatly  beyond  their  usual  time. 

Married.']  At  Stockton,  Benjamin  Ord,  esq., 
to  Miss  Anne  Hutchinson. 

Died.'}  At  Newcastle,  100,  Mrs.  Tewart;  and, 
96,  Mrs.  M.  Turner.— At  Hexham,  /O,  Rev.  M. 
Sharp,  Roman  Catholic  minister  ol  that  place. — 
At  North  Shields,  89,  Mr.  A.  Dunn.— At  Berwick, 
Rear  Admiral  D.  Stow.— At  Leaton  Carew,  102, 
Mrs.  Isabella  Elener. 

CUMBERLAND    AND    WESTMORLAND. 

Never  in  the  memory  of  man  were  crimes  so 
abundant  in  the  north  of  England  as  they  now  are 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Carlisle.  "  The  state  of 
affairs  is  really  most  deplorable." — Carlisle  Journ. 

Unfortunately,  robberies  have  been  more  pre- 
valent in  all  other  parts  of  the  kingdom  than  for- 
merly, and  poaching  has  taken  the  lead. — Query. 

Will  the  horrors  of  the  last  three  months  awaken 


the  legislature  to  a  due  sense  of  the  necessity  of 
altering  the  game  laws,  or  will  a  project  again  be 
brought  forward,  to  be  discussed  in  "  desultory" 
conversations,  and  to  be  got  rid  of  on  some  night 
of  scanty  attendance,  and  still  more  scanty  atten- 
tion, by  a  miserable  majority  of  twenty  or  thirty 
individuals?  We  have  been  told  that  the  "giant 
smuggler"  of  the  coast  must  be  put  down,  by  the 
only  means  of  subduing  him — by  a  removal  of  the 
temptation.  But  the  poacher,  the  smuggler  of 
our  villages,  still  remains  unassailed,  except  by 
force  against  force. 

Died.}  At  Maryport,  in  her  106th  year,  Mrs. 
Sarah  Harrison. 

YORKSHIRE   AND    CHESHIRE. 

The  amount  of  the  produce  collected  at  York 
for  the  distressed  weavers,  at  the  Bazaar,  and  at 
the  public  ball,  held  for  that  purpose,  amounted  to 
£2,300! 

A  meeting  of  land-owners,  tenants,  &c.,  has 
been  held  at  the  New  Town  Hall,  at  Rotherham, 
when  several  resolutions  were  passed,  and  the 
following  is  one  of  them  :  "  Resolved,  that  it  is 
highly  expedient  that  petitions  should  be  imme- 
diately prepared  to  both  houses  of  Parliament, 
expressing  the  firm  conviction  of  this  meeting, 
that  a  free  trade  in  corn  will  be  prejudicial  to  the 
interests  of  the  farmer,  as  well  as  of  the  com- 
munity at  large." — A  similar  meeting  has  .been 
held  at  Doncaster,  and  several  reaolutiens  passed, 
and  a  petition  prepared  to  the  Legislature,  in 
which  the  petitioners  "  earnestly  implore  protec- 
tion from  any  alteration  that  will  afford  the  im- 
porters of  foreign  cum  any  further  privileges  op 
advantages." — The  merchants  of  Hull  have  joined 
the  agriculturalists  of  Holderness  to  petition  Par- 
liament.— Their  opinion  is,  that  nothing  short  of  a 
2G  2 


228 


Provincial  Occurrences  :  Stafford,  Lancashire, 


[FEB. 


duty  of  26s.  per  quarter,  on  foreign  wheat,  can  se- 
cure the  British  grower  from  a  ruinous  com- 
petition. 

Agreeable  to  new  regulations  adopted  by  the 
General  Post  Office,  the  mail  between  Hull  and 
London  was  despatched  across  the  Humber,  for  the 
first  time,  on  Saturday  the  6th  January. 

Married.']  At  Sculcoates,  Lt.  John  Horseley, 
R.  N.,to  Miss  Sophia  Barnes.— At  York,  the  Rev. 
Thos.  Richardson,  to  Miss  Mary  Grainger. — At 
Shipton,J.  B.  Leolywrich  es<|.,  to  Sarah  Hannah, 
second  daughter  of  John  Greenwood,  esq. — At  Tar- 
vin,  the  Rev  C.  Mytton,  to  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
the  late  Hon.  Borth  Grey. 

Died.]  At  Whitby,  Ann,  wife  of  the  Rev.  John 
Husband.— At  York,  Henry  Presly,  esq.  —  The 
lady  of  the  Rev.  J.  Fynes  Clinton. — At  Halifax, 
the  RPV.  L.  Knight.— At  Bolton  Lodge,  Christo- 
pher Marriott,  Esq.— At  Hotham,  86,  the  Rev.  J. 
StillingfiVet,  rector  of  that  place  for  above  fifty 
years.  He  was  a  lineal  descendant  from  Bishop 
flillingfleet. 

STAFFORD    AND    SALOP. 

Died.']  At  Clee  Stanton,  79,  E.  Walker,  esq.  ; 
and  within  the  week,  77,  his  relict,  Mrs.  Walker. 

LANCASHIRE. 

The  number  of  vessels  reported  at  the  custom 
house,  at  Liverpool,  for  the  last  six  months,  is 
4,771,  exclusive  of  236  at  the  port  of  Runcorn. 
Of  these,  1,717  were  from  foreign  parts ;  1,317 
from  Ireland  ;  1,737  coastwise,  tonnage  628,187  ; 
236  to  Rnncorn,  tonnage  13,906;  making  in  all 
642,093  tons,  which  is  a  decrease  in  the  present 
year,  compared  with  the  last,  of  313  vessels,  and 
60,947  tons.  Cotton  alone  amounted  to  488,1/0 
bags ;  while  in  1825,  the  quantity  was  703,400 
bags. 

We  call  our  readers'  attention  to  the  perusal  of 
the  following  heart-rending  extract  of  a  report 
made  by  the  Rev.  D.Whitle,  curate  of  Church 
Kirk,  near  Blackburn.  Good  Heaven1  what  a  re- 
port to  be  made  in  England,  and  that,  too,  on  New 
Year's  Day! 

•«  Having  been  appointed  one  of  the  committee 
for  the  distribution  of  relief  in  this  district,  I  have 
thought  it  right  personally  to  visit  every  house, 
and  see  the  situation  of  every  family ;  and  this  is 
the  real  state  of  those  by  whom  I  am  surrounded  : 
Here  are  numbers  of  our  fellow  creatures,  re- 
duced, by  circumstances  over  which  they  had  no 
controul,  to  the  very  lowest  condition  in  which  it 
is  possible  for  human  nature  to  exist.  English- 
men and  women,  toiling  from  day-break  to  mid- 
night, without  intermission  except  on  the  Sab- 
bath ;  and  with  all  their  labour  unable  to  obtain 
sufficient  for  their  families  to  live  upon.  And  what 
Is  the  food  which  all  this  labour  cannot  procure  ? 
A  little  meal,  a  little  flour,  a  few  potatoes,  and  a 
little  milk  as  a  luxury.  I  know  it  to  be  true  that 
whole  families  of  eight  and  ten  souls  are  now 
existing  upon  thin  porridge  of  meal  or  flour,  ge- 
nerally eaten  twice  a  day;  and  even  with  this 
they  dare  not  satisfy  the  cravings  of  hunger. 
Formerly  no  cottage  was  without  a  place  to  hang 
their  oaten  cakes  upon,  which  any  member  might 
go  to  as  he  had  occasion.  Now,  to  have  a  baking 
of  oaten  bread,  is  a  luxury  which  very  few  fa- 
milies can  indulge  in  !  Butcher's  meat  is  not  to 
be  thought  of,  except  it  has  been  overkept,  and  is 
sold  at  a  low  price.  But  to  describe  the  state  of 
their  clothing  is  simply  impossible.  When  I  speak 
•f  rags  and  shreds  of  garments,  1  cannot  convey 


an  idea  of  the  truth.  No  one  who  lias  not  wit- 
nessed an  assemblage  of  four  or  five  hundred 
emaciated,  squalid  objects,  begging,  praying,  in 
the  most  moving  language,  for  a  few  articles  of 
apparel,  can  form  a  notion  of  it.  I  am  sure  no 
man  of  common  humanity  can  witness  it  without 
feeling  his  heart  moved  with  compassion.  Disease 
has  already  commenced  its  work  in  many  parts  ! '." 

NOTTINGHAM    AND    LINCOLN. 
Died.]     At  Spital,   104,   Mrs.  Thornhill.—  At 
Bucknall,  106,  Mr.  W.Carter.   He  was  ..formerly  a 
farmer,  and  retained  his  mental  and  coporeal  fa- 
culties to  the  last. 

LEICESTER    AXD    RUTLAND. 

Died.]  At  Launde  Al:bey,  J.F.Simpson,  esq. 
deputy-lieutenant  of  Leicestershire. — At  Raven- 
stone  Hospital,  74,  Mrs.  T.  Mart:  her  father  is 
still  living,  at  the  age  of  100  !— At  Leicester  poor- 
house,  100,  J.  Bunney.— At  Oversea!,  72,  Mrs. 
Joanna  Lucena,  only  sister  of  the  late  Chevalier 
John  Charles  Lucena,  consul-general  from  the 
court  of  Lisbon. 

WARWICK    AND    NORTHAMPTON. 

As  a  proof  of  the  general  revival  of  trade  at  Bir- 
mingham and  its  neighbourhood,  it  appears  that  the 
tonnage  upon  the  Old  Birmingham  Canal  has*  lately 
exceeded,  in  amount,  the  like  period,  since  it  first 
opened.  The  iron  trade  keeps  very  brisk,  which 
renders  the  situation  of  those  employed  by  it  com- 
paratively comfortable. 

We  arc  sorry  to  see  the  noble  trustees  of  that  ex- 
cellent establishment,  Rugby  School,  "should  have 
been  under  the  necessity  of  lamenting  the  apathy 
and  prejudice  of  the  country  gentlemen  of  War- 
wickshire, many  of  whom,  without  reasonable 
ground  of  complaint,  have  removed  their  sons 
from  the  School  ;  and  having  investigated  the 
cause,  they  find  no  reason  to  complain,  and  cannot 
but  hope  that  the  prevailing  unpopularity  of  the 
School,  unjust  as  it  is  unfounded,  will  shortly  sub- 
side." 

Vied.]    At  Kettering,  61 ,  M.  Wilson,  esq. 
WORCESTER    AND    HEREFORD. 

The  advantages  of  effecting  the  arrival  of  the 
London  mail  at  Hereford  by  twelve  o-'clock  at 
noon,  and  its  return  at  half-past  two,  are  so  great 
and  obvious,  that  the  most  practical  mode  of  car- 
rying it  into  practice  is,<  we  understand,  now 
under  the  consideration  of  the  Postmaster-General. 
In  consequence  of  the  improvements  by  Dowdes- 
well-hill,  &c.,  a  coach  might  convey  the  mail  in 
sixteen  hours.  Memorials  have  been  presented  to 
the  Treasury  on  this  subject  also. 

There  has  been  such  an  obstinate  contest  for  the 
coronership  at  Worcester  as  is  almost  without 
precedent,  particularly  when  it  is  considered  that 
the  last  year's  allowances  to  the  three  county  co- 
roners amounted  only  to  ^£203.  The  contest  lasted 
ten  days,  and  the  numbers  on  the  final  state  of  the 
poll  were  3875,  and  3685. 

Married.']  At  Inkborough,  H.  Ranking,  esq. 
to  Miss  F.  II.  Heath. 

Died.]  At  Earl's  Croome,  80,  T.  Amott,  esq.— 
At  Hereford.  79,  Miss  Ariana  Leigh,  daughter  of 
the  late  Archdeacon  Egerton  Leigh. — At  Weston, 
Hereford,  84,  Mrs.  E.  Clarke  ;  she  had  lived  as 
servant  and  housekeeper  in  the  family  of  the  late 
Mr.  Smith,  of  that  place,  and  his  ancestors,  sixty- 
eight  years ! ! ! 

GLOUCESTER    AND    MONMOCTH. 

The  sums  invested  in  the  Gloucester  Savings' 
Bank  amounted,  on  November,  20,  1826,  to 


1827.] 


Derby,  Oxford,  Buckingham,  Berkshire, 


229 


.£31,275  4s.  4d.— In  the  Tcthury  Savings'  Bank, 
November  1, 1826,  to  ^26,702  9s.— In  the  Dursley 
ditto,  November  20,  1826,  to  .£14,428  2s.  5d.— In 
the  Stow  ditto,  on  November  1,  1826,  to  the  sum 
of .£43,231  3s.  lid.— In  the  Monmouth  ditto,  on 
the  20th  November,  1826,  to  .£26,177  5s.  JOd.— 
In  the  Chepstow  ditto,  November  20,  1826,  to 
.£12,835  5s.  3d. 

It  appears,  by  the  report  recently  made  of  the 
Visitors  of  the  General  Lunatic  Asylum  for  the 
city  and  county  of  Gloucester,  for  1826,  that  the 
annual  expense  was  .£2,960  9s.  9d.,  and  the 
amount 'per  board  of  patients  .£2,554  Os.  2d., 
leaving  a  deficiency  of  £i06  9s.  7d  ;  and  the 
committee  have  to  regret  that,  from  this  circum- 
stance, they  were  under  the  necessity  of  applying 
to  the  county  and  city  for  pecuniary  assistance. 

There  were  no  less  than  133  prisoners  in  con- 
finement at  Gloucester,  for  the  purpose  of  trial, 
to  commence  the  new  year  with  !  ! ! 

Notwithstanding  the  great  distress  and  stagna- 
tion of  trade  which  generally  prevailed  throughout 
the  kingdom  last  year,  it  appears  that  the  receipt 
of  customs  at  Bristol  were  .£65,836  more  than  in 
the  year  1825,  which  has  ,ariscn  solely  from  the 
large  importation  of  sugar,  the  increase  of  that 
article  being  about  3,646  additional  casks. 

Died.']  At  Clifden,  R.  Nicholas,  esq.,F.S.A.  of 
Ashton  Keynes,  Wilts,  formerly  M.P.  Cricklade, 
and  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Excise. — At  Fair- 
ford  Park,  in  the  85th  year  of  his  age,  John  Ray- 
mond Barker,  esq. 

DERBYSHIRE. 

At  the  late  annual  meeting  of  the  trustees  and 
managing  committee  of  the  Derby  Savings'  Bank, 
held  in  the  Town  Hall,  it  appeared  that  the  amount 
In  the  hands  of  government  and  their  treasurer, 
was  .£92,464  8s.  t«Jd. 

A  public  dinner  took  place  recently  at  Chester- 
field, at  which  the  inhabitants  celebrated  the  im- 
portant event  of  the  introduction  of  water  and 
gaslight  into  that  town. 

At  the  Epiphany  Sessions  for  this  county,  the 
chairman,  after  lamenting  the  number  of  prison- 
ers to  be  tried,  said  to  the  grand  jury  :  "  I  la- 
ment to  see  in  the  calendar  a  large  proportion 
of  cases  under  the  game  laws;  this,  I  fear,  proves 
the  increase  of  the  crime  of  poaching.  1  may  here 
say,  that  I  am  of  opinion  that  some  modification 
of  those  statutes  is  required,  and  I  hope  that  a 
great  amelioration  of  them  will  shortly  be  de- 
cided upon  in  parliament;  this  must,  sooner  or 
later,  be  the  case." 

OXFORDSHIRE. 

A  large  and  respectable  meeting  of  persons  as- 
sessed to  the  poor-rates  has  been  held  at  Oxford, 
when  resolutions  were  entered  into,  to  oppose  the 
proceedings  of  the  Boar.l  of  Guardians,  "  who 
have  prepared  a  bill,  for  regulating  the  poor, 
within  the  united  parishes  of  Oxford,"  without  dis- 
closing to  the  town  one  word  of  its  contents,  and 
held  out  their  intention  of  carrying  it  through 
Parliament,  this  session. 

It  appears,  by  the  report  of  the  Oxford  Savings' 
Bank,  made  up  to  the  end  of  December  1826,  that 
the  produce  amounted  to  .£60, 135  4s.  lOd. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Epiphany  Sessions 
for  this  county,  there  were  no  less  than  182  cul- 
prits in  imprisonment ! 


Married.]  At  Studley  Priory,  Sir  Charles 
Wetherall,  his  Majesty's  Attorney-General,  to  Jane 
Sarah  Elizabeth,  second  daughter  of  Sir  Alexan- 
der Cooke. 

Died.}  At  Oxford,  88,  W.  Fletcher.  He  served 
the  office  of  mayor  three  times,  and  had  been 
sixty  years  member  of  the  council-chamber.— At 
Sibford,  90,  Jeremiah  Lamb,  one  of  the  Society  of 
Friends. 

BUCKS    AM)    BERKS. 

Nocturnal  depredations  in  Bucks  have  been 
more  frequent  than  usual  in  any  former  winter, 
and  the  consequence  has  been,  that  the  number  of 
prisoners  in  Aylesbury  goal  has  continued  fright- 
fully to  increase  ;  and  at  the  commencement  of  the 
new  year  (Jan.  1),  they  amounted  to  2001 

Died.  At  Clayton-House,  near  Winslow,  84, 
Mrs.  C.  Vern°y,  relict  of  the  Rev.  R.  Verney. 

BEDFORD    AND    HERTS. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  trustees  and  directors  of  the 
HeitfordshSre  Savings'  Bank,  held  at  the  Shire 
Hall,  in  Hertford,  January  .5,  it  appeared  by  the 
re  port,  that  the  sum  of  .£123,766  10s.  8d.  had  been 
paid  into  their  hands  since  its  original  establish- 
ment, and  is  now  invested  in  the  Bank  of  England 
and  their  treasurer's  hands.  The  last  year's  re- 
ceipts alone  amounted  to  £25,618  6s.  8d. 

Died.}  At  Chorley  Wood,  73,  Edmund  Morris, 
esq. — At  Clifton,  where  he  had  been  rector  thirty- 
sixyears,  71,  the  Rev.  D.S.  Olivier.— At  Cheshunt, 
Jane  Frances,  youngest  daughter  of  the  lute  Sir 
Richard  Bickerton,  hurt. 

NORFOLK    AND    SUFFOLK. 

A  meeting  has  been  lately  held  in  the  Guildhall 
at  Lynn,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Society  for 
Relieving  the  Sick  and  Indigent  at  their  own 
houses,  when  it  was  resolved,  that  it  should  be 
under  the  management  of  a  lady's  committee,  with, 
the  Mayoress  as  president ;  and  upwards  of  .£300 
was  subscribed  upon  this  praiseworthy  institution. 

Various  meetings  have  been  held  by  the  occu- 
piers of  land  in  the  hundreds  of  Erpingham,  Lod- 
don,  Clavering,  and  Launditch,  (Norfolk),  when 
petitions  to  the  Legislature  were  unanimously 
voted  against  altering  the  corn  laws. 

It  is  highly  honourable  to  the  public  spirit  and 
delicate  feeling  of  the  county  of  Norfolk,  that  so 
many  of  its  respectable  inhabitants  have  come 
forward  in  support  of  the  widow  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Drew,  late  rector  of  Sandringham,  whose  over- 
whelming misfortunes  and  death  have  left  her 
and  ten  children  without  the  means  of  decent 
support.  Nearly  .£3,000  have  been  subscribed. 
We  trustthe  list  .vill  finally  amount  to  a  sum  suffi- 
cient to  attain  its  well-intended  object. 

The  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  have  undertaken  to 
give  every  support  to  the  plan  of  making  Norwich 
a  port  by  way  of  Lowestoffe. 

Died.}  At  Holkham,  90,  Mr.  W.  Jones,  up- 
wards of  fifty  yi-ars  huntsman  to  T.  W.  Coke,  esq. 
—At  Assington  Hall,  Rev.  J.  Hallward,  forty-six 
years  vicar  of  Assington. 

HANTS    AND    DORSET. 

A  county  meeting  has  been  held  at  the  Town 
Hall,  Blandford,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing 
"  The  Dorset  Friendly  Society,"  which  was  at- 
tended by  the  principal  gentry  of  the  county,  all 
of  whom  took  a  decided  interest  in  its  success. 
The  advantages  arising  from  the  proposed  plan  of 
this  institution  appears  to  be  very  superior  to  the 
old  societies.  Directors  and  trustees  were  chosen, 


230 


Provincial  Occurrences : 


subscriptions  received,  and  it  was  resolved,  that 
the  Society  immediately  commence  active  opera- 
tions. This  is  worthy  the  imitation  of  every  county 
in  the  United  Kingdom. 

On  St.  Thomas's  Day,  the  annual  distribution 
of  clothing  took  place  at  St.  James's  Church, 
Shaftesbury,  when  ninety-two  poor  persons  were 
relieved,  from  the  funds  of  the  Penny  Club,  insti- 
tuted  there  in  1825. 

In  the  quarterly  report,  made  by  the  magistrates 
at  Winchester,  they  regretted  to  find  so  large  a 
number  of  prisoners  for  offences  against  the  game 
laws;  and  expressed  a  hope,  that  during  the 
present  session  of  parliament  some  measures  would 
be  adopted  for  the  suppression  of  this  growing 
evil.  Before  the  march  of  civilization  and  im- 
provement, the  Forest  Laws  sunk  (the  barbarous 
remains  of  feudalism  !)  and  unfortunately  left  be- 
hind them  ttiis  bastard  branch  to  curse  and  de- 
grade society ;  but  we  trust  the  time  is  not  far 
distant  when  all  good  men  will  unite  to  remove 
this  opprobrium  of  our  statute  book,  this  bane  of 
the  morals  of  our  peasantry,  and  initiation  into 
robberies  of  every  kind  ! 

Died.]  At  Wimborne  Minster,  82,  Rev.  J.  Bas- 
Vett,  senior  minister  of  that  church,  in  which  he 
had  officiated  upwards  of  fifty  years !— At  South- 
ampton, 104!  Sarah  Millar,  widow.  She  was  at 
the  taking  of  Quebec,  with  General  Wolfe,  and 
at  various  other  battles ;  her  first  and  second  hus- 
bands both  having  been  in  the  army. — 75,  Dame 
Henrietta  Champneys,  of  Exton,  relict  of  Sir  T. 
Champneys,  bart.— At  Lyme,  82,  Colonel  Williams  ; 
he  was  brother  to  Admiral  Williams,  the  oldest 
admiral  in  the  service. 

WILTS.   AND    SOMERSET. 

The  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  has 
issued  his  warrant  to  the  Mayor,  to  allow  an  in- 
spection of  all  the  documents  relating  to  the  bo* 
rough  of  Marlborough. 

At  the  last  meeting  of  the  Devizes  Savings' 
Bank,  it  appeared  that  .£41,451  Os.  3d.  had  been 
received— .£15,863  Is.  3d.  of  which  had  been  re- 
paid.—At  the  last  meeting  of  the  West  Somerset 
Savings'  Bank,  at  Taunton,  the  total  balance  in 
favour  of  the  contributors,  this  year,  amounted  to 
.£196,282  11s.  7d.,  being  only  .£6,000  less  than 
the  balance  at  the  corresponding  period  of  1825. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Epiphany  Ses- 
sions, held  at  Wells,  there  were  about  200  pri- 
soners for  trial!! !  numbers  of  them  for  offences 
against  the  game  laws  ! 

Jan.  8.  An  excellent  stone  arch,  of  sixty-six  feet 
span,  over  the  river  Parret,  at  Burrow,  was  opened 
for  the  use  of  the  public,  which  will  prove  of  very 
great  advantage  in  point  of  convenience. 

The  trustees  of  the  Sherborne  turnpike  roads, 
resolved,  at  their  last  meeting,  Jan.  1,  to  make 
two  great  improvements — one,  to  lower  Crackmore 
Hill  (on  the  London  road)  thirty  feet  at  the  crown, 
so  as  to  make  trotting  ground  of  what  is  now  a 
steep  and  dangerous  hill ; — the  other,  a  new  line  is 
to  be  cut,  two  miles  in  length,  on  level  ground, 
from  the  foot  of  Cattle  Hill  (on  tke  Bath  and 
Bistol  road)  to  near  Grove  Farm  or  CaryHill. 
This  will  save  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  distance,  and 
avoid  two  steep  hills. 

The  Bridgewater  and  Taunton  Canal  was  opened 
the  latter  end  of  December  last,  with  great  re- 
joicings. The  first  vessel  was  the  Hope,  from 
London,  which  arrived  after  a  voyage  of  eight 
days. 
Married.]  At  Priston,  Major  St.  J.  Blacker,  to 


Wilts,  Somersetshire,  $c.  [FEB. 

\,  daughter  of  Sir  C.  Morgan,    of 


Died.]    At  Babington,  82,  C.  Knatchbull,  esq 
cousin    to    Sir  E.  Knatchbull,    M.  P.  Kent  —  it 
Bemerton   83,  Mrs.  C.  T.  Pelham,  elcle  t  dauRhteJ 
Hants?    ejreS9°f  A-Thi8tIctJ'«'aite,  esq.  late  M  P. 

DEVON   AND    CORNWALL. 

So  successful  have  been  the  exertions  to  in- 
troduce economy  into  the  administration  of  the 
poor-rate  funds  at  East  Stonehouse,  that  they 
have  been  reduced,  since  March  last,  nearly  .£500. 

The  corner  stone  of  the  new  market  at  Exeter 
has  recently  been  laid. 

The  county  sessions  commenced  January  8,  irt 
the  Castle,  at  Exeter,  when  there  were  fifty-seven 
prisoners  for  trial  in  the  gaol-six  in  the  bridewell, 
three  vagrants,  four  bastardy  cases,  and  forty- 
seven  for  trial  at  the  Lent  assizes  ;  besides  thirty- 
two  remaining  in  the  gaol,  and  168  in  the  bride- 
well, on  former  orders.— In  toto*  317 !  !I 

The  quarter  sessions  for  Cornwall  commenced 
at  Bodmin,  January  9,  when  the  number  of  pri- 
ioners  on  the  calendar  was  unusually  large. 

Married.]  At  Eggesford,  J.  Chichester,  esq.,  to 
Fd'lowe?  Car°line'  dau?hter  of  the  Hon.  Newton 

Died.]     At   Bucklan  Court,  Sarah  Catharine 

a£Ufiltern°fitbe  late  Sir  H'  Martin.— At  Exeter, 
89,  Mrs.  Barlowe.— At  Stoke  Cottage,  Devonport, 
77,  Major-General  Sir  Cl  avles  Holloway,  of  the 
royal  engineers.— At  Tavistock,  Mr.  E.  Smith  ;  he 
was  for  many  years  employed  in  writing  a  history 
of  the  abbey  and  town  of  Tavistock,  which  was 
nearly  complete  at  the  time  of  his  death.— At 
Compton  Gifford,  Alexander  son  of  Sir  Edward 
Thornton,  of  Wembury  House. 

WALES. 

A  numerous  meeting  of  gentlemen,  concerned 
with,  and  interested  in  shipping,  has  been  held 
at  Swansea,  when  it  was  unanimously  resolved  to 
present  a  petition  to  Parliament,  praying  for  its 
interference  in  devising  and  adopting  some  means 
to  protect  sailing  vessels,  against  the  farther  in- 
crease of  steaming  vessels  for  the  conveyance  of 
grods. 

The  amount  of  sums  received  up  to  November 
20,  1823,  on  account  of  the  Abergavenny  Savings' 
Bank,  was  .£9,985  13s.  5£d. 

Petitions  are  forwarding  to  Parliament  from 
Brecon,  Monmouth,  and  Waterford,  praying  for  a 
communication  of  the  mails  between  the  metro- 
polis and  the  southern  and  western  parts  of  Ire- 
land, by  the  way  of  Milford  Haven  and  Dunmore, 
&c.,  connecting  the  manufacturing  districts  of 
South  Wales  and  the  west  of  England  with  Cork, 
Waterford,  and  the  adjoining  counties. 

A  meeting  of  the  trustees  of  the  Cardiff  Savings' 
Hank  was  held  at  the  Guildhall,  December  22, 
when  it  appeared,  by  the  printed  statement,  that 
they  hold  government  debentures  to  the  amount 
of  .£14,767  6s.  8£d. 

The  Bishop  of  St.  David's  has  appointed  a 
principal  to  the  College  of  St.  David's,  Lampeter, 
(founded  in  1822,  by  the  present  Bishop  of  Salis- 
bury); a  vice-principal,  and  a  divinity  professor  ; 
a  classical  tutor,  professor  of  Welsh,  and  libra- 
rian of  the  College.  Benefits  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, we  trust,  will  accrue  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  principality  from  his  Lordship's  laudable 
exertions.  It  will  be  opened  in  February,  when  it 
will  b«  incorporated  by  royal  charter.  It  is  cal- 
culated to  accommodate  about  seventy  persons, 


1827.] 


Scotland  and  Ireland. 


231 


whose  annual  expense  each,  It  U  supposed,  will 
not  exceed  jf  55. 

Upwards  of  sixty  miners  and  smiths,  from  the 
districts  of  Merthyr  and  Monmouthshire,  have  em- 
barked for  South  America.  They  are  to  be  landed 
at  Honduras,  and  from  thence  they  are  to  proceed 
by  land,  to  the  mines  of  St.  Miguel. 

Married.']  At  Manerdivy, Pembroke,  W.  H.  W. 
Parry,  esq.,  only  son  of  Capt.  W.  Parry,  of  Noyadd 
Trcfawr,  Cardigan,  to  Miss  C.  Angharad.  —  At 
Swansea,  Lieut.-Col.  W.  I.  Jones,  of  Veranda,  to 
Miss  Sproule,  daughter  of  the  late  Lieut.-Col. 
Sproule, 

Died.'}  At  Flemstone,  Glamorganshire,  Mr. 
Edward  Williams,  better  known  by  his  bardic  ap- 
pellation— lolo  Morganwg.  He  was  by  trade  a 
common  mason  ;  and  although  purely  self-taught, 
never  having  been  a  single  day  at  any  school,  his 
literary  acquirements  were  extensive.  He  pub- 
lished,'in  1795,  two  volumes  of  English  Lyric  and 
Pastoral  Poems.  He  contributed  largely  to  va- 
rious other  publications  relating  to  Wales  ;— pub- 
lished a  volume  of  Welsh  Psalms  (his  own  com- 
position) for  Unitarian  worship.  He  also  wrote 
the  elaborate  preface  to  the  Myvyrian  Archaiology, 

of  which  he  was  one  of  the  editors. At  Dolgel- 

ley,  43,  Francis  Roberts,  esq.,  late  High  Sheriff  of 
the  county  of  Merioneth.  —  At  Llandaff,  74,  W. 
Lewis;  for  forty  years  the  faithful  gamekeeper 
under  the  Weuvoe  family— 90,  Mr.  J.  Lewis,  of 
Aberystwith. 

SCOTLAND. 

His  Majesty,  as  Baron  of  Renfrew,  has  given 
.£100  to  the  assembly,  held  in  that  district,  for 
relieving  the  distresses  of  the  manufacturers. 

The  improvement  in  the  trade  of  Paisley,  we 
are  happy  to  state,  is  at  length  manifest,  and  a 
great  number  of  the  unemployed  weavers  have 
got  webs  ;  and  although  the  number  of  the  unem- 
ployed is  still  considerable,  such  a  rapid  improve- 
ment could  scarcely  be  expected,  especially  as  it  is 
confined  to  no  particular  branch.  Many  of  the 
shawl  mannufacturers  who  have  been  in  a  manner 
retired  from  business,  for  the  last  ten  or  twelve 
months,  have  recommenced,  although  on  a  limited 
scale.  The  flower  drawers  and  lashers,  who  have 
had  scarcely  any  employment  for  a  long  time  past, 
ate  now  thronged,  and  from  the  preparations 
making,  a  good  number  of  weavers  must  be  taken 
on.  The  shawls  which  have  been  manufactured 
during  the  last  year,  were  mostly  of  an  inferior 
description,  whereas  those  that  are  now  making, 
are  upon  the  very  richest  principle  that  goods  of 
that  kind  have  ever  been  made  in  Paisley.  Thus 
a  great  number  of  hands  are  required,  and  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money  must  be  expended  (not- 
withstanding the  cheapness  of  labour)  before  any 
quantity  of  these  goods  can  be  brought  to  market. 
The  figured  muslins  of  various  descriptions,  are 
likewise  a  great  deal  brisker  ;  but  at  prices  which 
make  it  quite  impossible  for  the  weavers  to  sup- 
port their  families.  The  transparent  silk  trade, 
which  has  been  very  flat  for  several  weeks,  has 
improved  a  little,  but  there  is  still  a  great  number 
of  weavers  of  this  kind  of  goods  out  of  employ; 
and  numbers  of  them  have  been  obliged  to  take 
the  low  priced  muslin  webs,  which  are  giving  out. 
The  manufacturing  of  India  imitation  shawls  has 
been  the  staple  trade  of  Paisley  for  many  years, 
and  they  are  now  carried  to  a  state  of  perfection, 
which  ranks  them  amongst  the  most  beautiful  pro- 
ductions of  the  loom.  The  quantity  of  these  goods 
in  the  market  has  not  been  so  limited  for  many 
years.  Whilst  the  manufacturers  have  scarcely 


any  atock  on  hand.  These  tlihigi  combined  with  the 
low  price  at  which  they  can  be  sold,  give  every 
reason  to  anticipate  a  steady  and  permanent  re- 
vival in  the  trade  of  that  spirited  town. 

The  fishing  on  the  Frith  of  Forth  has  lately 
much  improved,  both  in  the  take  and  quantity  of 
the  fish,  which  were  large,  resembling  those  taken 
in  the  West  Highland  lochs. 

Died.}  At  Aberdeen,  78,  G.  Hogg,  esq.  of 
Shannaburn.  He  has  bequeathed  the  following 
sums  for  charitable  purposes  : — To  Gordon  Hos- 
pital in  Aberdeen,  .£2,000  ;  to  the  Pauper  Lunatic 
Fund,  .£1,200  ;  to  the  Education  Society  of  Aber- 
deen, .£1,  000;  to  the  Kirk  Session  of  Aberdeen, 
the  interest  to  be  paid  to  three  old  and  indigent 
persons,  as  mentioned  in  his  settlement,  .£300 ;  to 
found  a  Bursary  in  Marischal  College,  .£300  ;  to 
the  poor  of  the  parish  of  Banchory  Devenick, 
.£100;  for  .an  additional  school  in  said  parish, 
and  school-house,  .£200  ;  to  the  poor  of^the  parish 
of  Maryculter,.£50.The  whole  of  the  above  to  be  paid 
free  of  legacy  duty. — At  Lesmahagow,  Lanark,  was 
lately  committed  to  the  grave,  an  old  man  of  86 ; 
four  of  his  relatives,  each  above  80,  lowered  him 
to  his  bed  of  rest.  There  is  another  person  living 
in  the  parish,  aged  104.  The  last  of  the  Core- 
house  ladies  died  lately,  aged  102.  She  was  of 
age  at  the  time  of  the  Rebellion  ;  one  of  her  sis- 
ters was  married  to  Theodore,  King  of  Corsica. 

At  Cumloden,  Wigton,  Lieut.-Gen.  the  Hon.  Sir 
W.  Stewart,  G.C.B.  and  K.T.S.,  Colonel  of  the 
rifle  brigade,  and  brother  to  Earl  Galloway. — At 
Edinburgh,  Count  G.  H.de  St.  George,  of  Changins^ 
in  Switzerland, 

IRELAND. 

Dr.  Doyle  writes  from  Carlow,  Januarys,  rela- 
tive to  the  difficulty  or  unwillingness  of  collecting 
the  Catholic  rent  by  the  clergy,  in  the  following 
terms;—"  This  unwillingness  on  their  parts  arises 
from  many  causes — amongst  these  are,  apprehen- 
sions that  they  would  appear  not  only  active  but 
prominent  in  public  affairs ;  a  want  of  time,  for 
their  number  is  not  at  all  proportioned  to  the 
wants  of  the  ministry;  the  necessity  they  are 
under  of  soliciting  constantly  from  an  impoverished 
people,  contributions  for  the  building  and  im- 
provement of  chapels  and  school-houses,  alms  for 
the  support  of  the  sick  and  indigent,  and  occa- 
sionally relief  for  the  widows  of  poor  people, 
who,  without  exaggeration,  are  dying  in  great 
numbers,  of  a  slow  but  progressive  famine!" 

During  the  present  week  there  has  been  some 
improvement  in  the  calico  trade ;  considerable 
sales  have  been  made,  and  holders  of  stock  seem 
unwilling  to  part  with  their  goods,  at  any  sacrifice, 
which  sometime  ago  they  would  willingly  have 
made.  We  are  sorry  that  weavers'  wages  are  still 
distressiully  low,  and  that  there  is  but  little  prospect 
of  a  speedy  augmentation.  The  average  amount 
of  the  utmost  that  weavers  can  earn  weekly,  is 
about  six  shillings,  from  which  have  to  be  de- 
ducted loom-rent,  candles,  &c.,  leaving  a  miserable 
pittance  for  the  support  of  a  family. — Belfa  t 
Chronicle. 

Married.}  Captain  R.  Newcomen  Algeo,  pre- 
sumptive heir  to  the  dignities  of  the  late  Lord  Vis- 
count Newcomen.to  Eliza,  niece  of  Admiral  Ross 
Donnelly. 

Died.}  At  Newry.  76,  Mr.  George  Stuart ;  a 
man  very  generally  known  for  his  extensive  reading 
and  singularly  tenacious  memory.  Few  men  could, 
with  such  «ase  and  facility,  and  yet  with  such  cor- 
rectness, sketch  out  with  his  wet  finger  on  the 
table  (being  blind  for  the  last  23  years),  the 
marches  and  countermarches  of  Tamerlane,  Khouli 
Khan,  and  other  conquerors  down  to  NapoU  on. 


[    232    ] 

DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 
From  the  26th  of  December  1826,  to  the  25th  of  January  182T. 


3  Pr.  Ct. 
lied. 


Pr.  C  t. 

onsols. 


LOllSols. 


jN4Pr.C 
Red.    I    Ann. 


Long 
Annuities. 


India 
Stock. 


India 
Bonds. 


Exch. 

Bills. 


onsols 
9f  Ace. 


78|    9 


86 


47ii 

4  7 


87 
86* 

as* 

86 
86 

87| 


8    9-16 
8    9-16  | 


13-16 
15-16 
18-16 


94J  95J 
94?  5' 


94* 


85J  6£     914  3-j 
85*  86      93|  fl 

933  4j 


19  1-16 
1-16 


1815-16191-16 
18|  19 

18  15-16    19 


18  13-16 

182 


11-16 


18§    15-16 
18  15-16  f 
18  13-16  19 


236i 


233| 


234} 
234 


ssop 

38p 


4043p 

4245p 

43  46p 

46p 

46  p 
46  47p 

44p 

46  p 

41  45p 
384lp 

36  39  p 
3740p 


1720p 
1720p 


2024p 
22  25p 
2126p 
2529p 


2627p 

23  26p 
2527p 
2526p 

24  2<>p 
24  2'Jp 

2325p 
22  24  p 
19  23p 
21  23p 
2022p 


21  24  p 
23  26  p 
25  27  p 


E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  2,  Cortihill  and  Lombard  Street. 


MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  20th  Dec.  to  19th  Jan.  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50.  High  Holborn. 


1 

1 

Therm. 

Barometer. 

)e  Luc's 
Hygro. 

Winds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

1 

0 

e 

g 

jji 

S 

j 

9  A.  M. 

10  P.M. 

* 

& 

9A.M. 

10  P.  M. 

9P.M. 

2P.M. 

10  P.M. 

Q 

d 

g 

O 

i 

9> 

'O 

20 

42 

43 

38 

29    79 

29    42 

93 

95 

E 

SE 

Foggy 

Clo. 

Rain 

21 

39 

41 

33 

29    56 

30    00 

91 

85 

NNW 

N 

Clo. 

Fine 

Fair 

22 

€ 

35 

42 

42 

30    14 

30     11 

83 

94 

NNW 

WSW 

Foggy 

Fair 

Clo. 

23 

45 

48 

45 

30    12 

30     16 

98 

97 

W 

W 

Clo. 

— 

24 

47 

52 

45 

30     17 

30     19 

98 

89 

WNW 

NNE 

Rain 



_ 

25 

46 

46 

42 

30    22 

30    25 

96 

98 

NNE 

NE 

Clo. 

— 

— 

26 

43 

45 

41 

30    32 

30    35 

96 

92 

NE 

NE 

_ 

'.  — 

__ 

27 

42 

45 

34 

3:»    41 

30    43 

89 

85 

NNE 

NNE    , 

Fair 

Fair 

Fair 

28 

O 

40 

34 

30     39 

30    37 

85 

89 

NW 

NW 

— 

— 

— 

29 

41 

47 

44 

30    28' 

30     17 

95 

89 

WNW 

WNW 

Foggy 

— 

—  . 

30 

45 

49 

42 

30     10 

30     11 

89 

93 

WNW 

WNW 

Fair 

Fine 

Fine 

31 

45 

49 

45 

30     09 

30     01 

96 

90 

W 

W 

_^ 

Fair 

Fair 

1827. 

Jan. 

1 

47 

49 

39 

29    82 

29     43 

90 

93 

W 

WNW 



_ 

Rain 

2 

39 

43 

25 

29    42 

.29  .48 

87 

90 

W 

WNW 

__ 



Fail- 

3 

26 

29 

18 

29    41 

29    40 

81 

74 

W 

W 

— 

— 

Fine 

4 

23 

30 

28 

29    58 

29    70 

74 

90 

W 

N 



Snow 

Snow 

5 

/^ 

™ 

29 

30 

28 

21)    97 

30     18 

91 

87 

N 

NNW 



Fair 

Faii- 

6 

29 

36 

37 

30     16 

30     08 

88 

97 

N 

SW 

— 

Sleet 

Sleet 

7 

42 

46 

42 

30    00     29     96 

98 

98 

SW 

wsw 

Rain 

_- 

— 

8 

49 

50 

38 

29    87 

29    67 

98 

98 

WSW 

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Clo. 

Clo. 

Clo. 

9 

46 

51 

42 

29     79 

29    78 

86 

86 

W 

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Fair 

Fair 

Fine 

10 

45 

49 

34 

29    70     29    34 

85 

80 

wsw 

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— 

Rain 

— 

11 

3H 

49 

34 

29    23     29    23 

88 

91 

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WSW 

Rain 

— 

— 

12 

38 

40 

31 

29    37 

29    83 

90 

90 

W 

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Fair 

Fair 

_ 

13 

o 

34 

47 

4t> 

29    74 

29    66 

90 

90 

wsw 

SW 

_ 

Rain 

Clo. 

14 

51 

53 

33 

29    29 

29    65 

84 

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SW 

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Clo.    ' 

Fair 

Fine 

15 

34 

38 

34 

30    64 

30     16 

76 

76 

NNW 

W 

Fair 

_ 

_ 

16 

43 

48  !  36 

29    92 

29    90 

91 

97 

W 

WNW 

Clo. 

Rain 

Rain 

17 

38 

41 

35 

30    13 

30    15 

85 

66 

N 

NNW 

Fair 

Fair 

Clo. 

18 

37 

38     32 

30     15 

30     16 

89 

95 

ENE 

NNE 

Clo. 

— 

_ 

19 

34 

38  I  25 

30    16 

30    20 

85 

96 

ENE 

E 

— 

— 

— 

THE 

MONTHLY  MAGAZINE. 

gems. 


VOL.  III.]  MARCH,  1827.  [No.  15. 


MOVEMENTS    IN    PORTUGAL. 

THE  result  of  our  military  demonstration  in  Portugal  has  been  exactly 
that  which  every  man  acquainted  with  the  Peninsula  anticipated  it  would  be 
—  provided  France  was  sincere  in  her  professions  of  pacification,  and  was 
not  secretly  plotting  to  stir  up  a  general  continental  war.  The  Insurgent 
army  has  dispersed  itself,  or  retreated  across  the  frontier,  without  attempt- 
ing to  strike  a  blow  ;  and  our  troops  probably  by  this  time  will  be  quietly 
garrisoned  in  some  of  the  border  fortresses  of  the  country,  to  keep  an  eye 
for  the  present  upon  the  dispositions  of  Spain.  Thus  a  complete  shock  has 
been  given  to  the  infallibility  of  that  unhappy  class  of  politicians,  who 
never  anticipate  any  thing  less  than  defeat  and  bankruptcy,  when  resistance 
to  any  attack  made  upon  this  country  is  proposed;  and  who  in  the  pre- 
sent instance  (as  usual),  would  have  sacrificed  the  national  honour,  and 
the  national  safety,  to  their  favourite  system  of  '*  Economy"  —  upon  some 
paltry  consideration  of  shillings  and  pence.  The  arguments  of  such  persons  — 
if  they  require  any  answer  from  reasonable  people  —  received  it  in  the  mere 
question  which  was  being  mooted  through  all  England  while  their  opinions 
were  delivered.  Apart  from  the  existence  of  the  treaty  that  bound  us, 
no  minister  in  his  senses,  at  the  time  when  our  assistance  was  applied  for, 
would  have  ventured  to  allow  Spain,  or  Spanish  interests,  to  take  possession 
of  Portugal  :  the  only  doubt  that  existed  through  the  whole  country,  as 
soon  as  such  an  attempt  appeared  even  probable,  was,  not—"  Should  we 
interfere  to  preserve  Portugal?"  —  nobody  questioned  that:  —  but  —  4t  Had 
we  not  already  been  negligent,  and  had  not  our  ministers  been  culpable, 
in  not  having  interfered,  two  years  earlier,  to  prevent  the  occupation  of 
Spain  ?"  Though  our  immediate  object  in  Portugal,  however,  is  accom- 
plished, people  of  common  sense  will  not  suppose  that  the  contest  which 
carried  us  there  is  over;  or  that,  because  a  crowd  of  insurgents  have  dis- 
persed at  the  appearance  of  a  force  which  they  knew  was  too  strong  for 
them,  tranquillity  is  therefore  necessarily  to  follow  throughout  a  kingdom. 
To  go  into  any  deep  speculation  as  to  the  final  result  of  the  troubles  in  that 
country  —  which  are  precisely  the  same  with  those  which  agitate  the 
Peninsula  generally  —  would  be  beyond  our  present  time  and  limits;  but 
perhaps  some  light  may  be  thrown  upon  the  probable  duration  of  the 
quarrel,  if  we  look  shortly  to  the  causes  by  which  it  has  been  produced. 

The  commencement  of  Bonaparte's  operations  against  the  Spanish  Pen- 
insula generally,  found  Portugal  certainly  the  weakest,  and  perhaps  among 
the  most  degraded,  of  the  States  of  Europe.  Spain,  'en  slaved  and  beggared  as 
she  was  by  her  system  of  government,  and  duped  by  her  superstitious  creed, 
was  a  nation  yet  of  more  active  habits,  of  prouder  temper,  and  of  a  better 

M.  M.  Nsw  Series.—  VOL.  III.  No.  15.  2  H 


234  Movemen is  in  Portuga  I.  [MARCH 

physique:  her  people  had  bolder  national  and  legendary  recollections ; 
they  ranged  over  a  wider  and  more  varied  tract  of  country ;  her  military 
establishment  was  not  at  all  points  contemptible ;  and  her  peasantry — single 
handed — were  a  fierce,  and  an  indomitable  race.  In  all  its  relations  and 
positions,  Portugal  was  enfeebled  and  depressed.  Its  government  was  as 
bigotted  as  that  of  Spain  ;  and,  if  a  little  less  ignorant,  even  still  more 
slothful.  Its  internal  regulations  and  police,  were  clogged  with  abuse,  to 
absolute  uselessness  and  stoppage.  Its  army,  a  ragged  and  pauperised 
rabble,  scarcely  worthy  of  the  military  name.  One  circumstance  alone 
made  the  Portuguese  available, — and  in  the  end  highly  valuable — allies  : 
their  ignorance  and  imbecility  were  so  hopeless  and  incontestable,  that  they 
did  not  (like  the  Spaniards)  refuse  to  be  guided  by  those  who  were  wiser 
and  stronger  than  themselves.  In  this  state  however  it  was  of  sluggish 
and  shameful  unreadiness  that  the  French  invasion  rushed  over  Portugal, 
in  all  the  horrors  of  a  merciless  and  predatory  warfare.  Her  capital  was 
possessed  and  plundered  by  the  enemy.  Her  finest  provinces  stripped  as 
by  common  bandits;  swept  of  their  population,  and  wasted  even  with  lire 
and  sword.  The  foot  of  a  master  and  of  a  robber,  was  upon  the  neck  of 
every  Portuguese.  The  history  of  every  house  became  that  of  shame  or 
mourning  :  fortunes  were  ruined  ;  feelings — all  the  best  ties  which  hold 
humanity  together, — outraged  and  trampled  upon.  The  whole  state,  in 
short,  of  the  country — both  as  to  interests  political  and  private — was  dislo- 
cated, and  broken  up,  and  cast  again  almost  into  original  elements ;  and 
its  inhabitants  were  only  rescued  from  confirmed  and  permanent  bondage, 
by  calling  in  an  army  of  strangers  to  their  very  hearth-stones,  and  blindly 
trusting  to  them  for  protection  and  relief. 

A  people  like  ourselves,  who  stand  in  the  enviable  situation  of  conquer- 
ing our  enemies  always  at  a  distance ;  and  in  fact  know  very  little  of  the 
operation  of  a  war,  more  than  that  it  increases  the  number  of  Extraordinary 
Gazettes,  and  raises  the  price  of  soap  and  candles  ;  have  little  conception 
of  such 'a  possibility  as  the  meeting  an  enemy  at  our  own  fire-sides — far 
less  of  what  it  would  be  to  be  vanquished  in  that  last  position  by  one.  In 
three  generations,  the  events  of  the  "  French  invasion,"  and  of  the  "  Bri- 
tish occupation,"  will  not  be  forgotten  by  the  people  of  Portugal.  There 
will  not  be  a  family  that, — beyond  that  date — will  not,  by  some  bitter 
token,  cherish  their  remembrance.  For  six  years  of  incessant  warfare,  the 
country  was  exhausted  and  beggared ;  not  by  *'  taxes"  levied  upon  pro- 
perty, but  by  the  seizure  of  every  property  in  possession,  and  by  the  stop- 
5 age  or  destruction  of  every  source  from  which  future  property  could  be 
erived.  A  conflict  was  carrying  on  within  it,  wliich  the  best  exertions  of 
those  who  fought  in  its  aid  could  not  prevent  from  ruining  and  devastating 
almost  every  acre  of  its  surface.  The  presence  even  of  our  friends  became 
a  horror  inferior  only  to  that  of  our  enemies ;  and  the  only  hope  which 
could  sustain  us  under  the  trial  was,  that  with  the  victory  of  ihefonner, 
their  assistance — and  our  suffering — would  cease. 

As  that  must  be  an  "  ill  breeze,"  however,  according  to  the  adage, 
"  which  blows  good  no  where,"  so  a  ruin,  and  bankruptcy  so  complete  as 
this — produced  by  no  hidden  or  doubtful  causes,  but  by  the  clear  direct  ope- 
ration of  strength  and  knowledge  opposed  to  a  system  radically  weak,  and 
bad- — could  hardly  fail,  great  as  the  evil  was,  to  bring  with  it  somo 
portion  of  future  advantage  to  Portugal.  In  spite  of  the  prejudices  of 
habit,  and  of  that  pride  which  is  the  especial  companion  everywhere  of 
ignorance,  the  Portuguese  could  not  help  seeing  at  least  this — that  the 
system  to  which  they  had  trusted,  and  which  they  believed  invincible,  had 


J827/J  Movements  in  Portugal.  235 

totally  failed  them,  They  could  hardly  escape  a  conviction — with  the 
immediate  example  of  the  fact  before  their  eyes — that  a  population  used 
always  to  submit,  would  want  to  feel  the  weight  of  an  invader's  hand, 
before  it  understood  the  advantage  of  resisting  him.  They  found  that  the 
means  of  defence  could  not  he  organized,  or  the  execution  of  orders  relied 
on,  where  all  the  relations  of  government  were  fraudulent  or  weak :  and 
that  the  power  which  was  sufficient  to  tyrannize  over  a  citizen,  might  be 
contemptibly  inadequate  to  protect  him.  They  saw  that  prayers  and 
masses  might  be  said  and  sung,  and  images  exhibited,  and  miracles  per- 
formed, in  vain,  when  the  hour  for  trial  and  execution  approached.  They 
saw  their  "  Catholic"  churches  plundered  and  burned  by  "  Catholic" 
troops  :  the  sanctity  of  a  saint — even  in  the  eyes  of  "  believers" — no  proof 
against  the  value  o*f  his  weight  in  silver.  They  saw  themselves  conquered 
and  enslaved  by  "  true  believers,"  who  treated  all  belief  with  infamous 
and  blasphemous  derision  ;  and  saved  and  protected  by  "  Heretics,"  who 
viewed  their  belief  with  respect,  although  they  held  it  in  pity  or  indifference. 
They  saw — all  that  were  not  besotted  to  very  stone-blindness — that 
Popery — except  when  used  against  its  worshippers — was  not  the  mighty 
engine  which  they  had  taken  it  to  be.  That  spiritual  thunders  had  no 
power  against  fleshly  bayonets.  That  their  "  vicar  on  earth"— he  who 
could  "  keep  the  keys  of  heaven" — wanted  the  keys  of  his  own  dungeons, 
and  was  the  prisoner  of  a  tyrant  and  an  infidel.  They  found  that  Faith 
was  no  bond  of  union  as  to  worldly  interests :  Heretics  were  striking  on 
their  side,  and  Catholics  against  them.  Catholics  and  Protestants  fought, 
man  by  man,  in  the  ranks  of  their  enemies  ;  and  differed  upon  no  point, 
but  as  to  which  should  shed  the  most  of  their  blood,  or  gather  the  most  of 
their  property.  Catholic  and  Protestant  fought  side  by  side  in  the  ranks  of 
their  allies,  firmly  united  in  the  purpose  of  defending  them.  They  saw  their 
churches  broken  and  plundered;  and  yet  the  curse  of  the  priest  did  not 
kill  the  sacrilegious  robbers.  They  saw  convents  burst  and  fired,  and  their 
inhabitants  driven  forth ;  and  yet  the  Abbot's  malediction  passed  away 
powerless.  They  saw,  in  short,  that  those  who  would  attain  the  human 
"  end,"  must  use  the  human  "means:"  that  when  the  wolf  threatened 
the  sheep-fold,  it  was  the  shepherd's  dogs,  and  not  his  prayers,  that  must 
keep  the  flock.  They  found  their  whole  scheme  of  array,  religious  and 
political,  broken  in  an  instant — laughed  at,  scattered,  and  disgraced :  a 
system  opposed  to  it  at  all  useful  and  practical  points,  mowing  them  down 
without  remorse  as  without  difficulty ;  and  a  system  that  they  held  still 
more  abominable, — a  system  at  once  practical  and  "  heretical" — their  only 
hope  for  safety  and  for  restoration. 

Of  course  all  these  truths  would  not  be  perceived  in  their  full  extent  at 
once.  Even  with  time,  they  would  not  be  seen  by  all  men ;  and  by  many 
who  saw  them  very  clearly,  they  would  still  be  strenuously  denied.  The 
first  impulse  of  the  people  of  Portugal — of  any  people  restored  to  liberty- 
after  such  a  struggle — would  be  to  rush  back — with  the  force  of  a  river 
rushing  to  its  level — into  all  the  tastes,  habits,  and  prejudices — whatever 
they  might  be — from  which,  for  the  time,  they  had  been  driven.  Not 
a  hallucination  but  would  be  sacred,  if  it  only  was  exclusively  "  Portu- 
guese." Not  an  abuse  but  would  be  ten  times  more  dear  by  the  persecu- 
tion that  it  had  suffered.  Our  enemies  had  scoffed  at,  and  insulted  our 
usages.  Our  allies  had  treated  them  with  forbearance,  but  not  always 
with  perfectly  disguised  contempt.  When  once  a  people  so  excited  felt 
that  they  held  their  homes  and  their  country  again  in  their  own  hands—- 
when once  more  they  could  find  some  object  before  their  eyes  other  than 

2H2 


235  Movements  in  Portugal.  [MARCH, 

the  bayonets  of  foreigners,  contending  upon  their  floors  for  mastery — every 
trait  of  peculiarly  national  character  would  be  born  as  it  were  anew — with 
fresh  youth  and  vigour — in  their  hearts.  The  land  of  our  forefathers  ! 
their  faith  !  their  institutions — and  more  than  all,  their  follies — would  he 
hallowed!  Our  country  is  delivered — we  are  free!  Can  we  be  free,  if, 
in  our  very  madness,  we  are  not  '*  Portuguese'*  again  ?  To  be  French 
(even  in  taste)  would  be  to  be  embowellcd.  To  be  English — little  better 
than  to  be  a  traitor.  Though  the  strangers  had  left  the  secret  of  making 
gold  behind  them,  we  may  doubt  almost  if  any  citizen  would  have  "  filed 
his  mind"  to  use  it. 

These  are  feelings  which  would  infallibly  arise ;  but  they  would  not 
last.  Nothing  could  he  more  certain  than  that  they  would  have  their  course, 
and  cease ;  that  they  would  endure,  in  spite  of  all  reason,  for  a  specific 
time,  at  the  end  of  which  no  exertion  could  maintain  them  any  longer. 
In  the  beginning,  all  that  had  been  done  by  the  strangers,  would  be 
detestable.  By  degrees  some  persors  would  perceive  the  advantage  of 
copying,  or  adopting,  a  great  deal  of  it.  In  a  little  more,  as  affairs 
developed  themselves,  new  rights,  as  well  as  new  knowledge,  would  be 
found  to  have  grown  up  under  the  provisional  regime,  which  would  be 
destroyed  by  an  unqualified  return  to  the  old  one.  And  thus  two  political 
parties  would  be  regularly  established  in  the  state ;  each  of  which  felt  its 
interests  or  safety,  compromised  by  the  ascendancy — and  perhaps  by  the 
very  existence — of  the  other. 

To  imagine  therefore  that  we  should  find  all  Portugal  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  the  '*  Constitution"  was  perfectly  absurd ;  a  very  large  proportion 
—perhaps  a  numerical  majority — of  the  population  of  the  country,  would 
beyond  doubt  be  capable  of  being  arrayed  against  it.  The  Church,  shorn 
as  it  was  of  its  beams,  was  still  incomparably  the  most  powerful  party  in 
the  state,  and  was,  for  very  life,  opposed  to  any  departure  from  the  ancient 
system.  Popery  would  feel  that  Intelligence,  in  any  shape,  pointed  surely 
to  its  downfall.  Of  the  higher  nobility,  some  would  take  one  side,  and  some 
the  other.  The  brains  of  some  would  get  the  better  of  their  avarice  and 
their  pride ;  and  they  would  tremble  at  the  rottenness — the  insecurity — 
the  imbecility — the  approved  incapacity  for  a  single  hour  to  protect  their 
own  persons  or  possessions — which  had  been  fatal  to  the  old  government. 
Others,  on  the  contrary,  would  be  blinded  by  bigotry  and  insolence; 
and  others  would  be  doubtful;  for  it  requires  an  effort  by  those  who  parti- 
cipate in  despotic  power — although  they  see  the  evil  of  its  abuse — to  con- 
sent to  its  reduction.  For  the  peasantry,  they  were  destitute  of  the  merest 
elements  of  education;  ignorant  of  what  would  be  meant  by,  far  less  con- 
stitute, a  "  political  right ;"  taught  from  their  infancy  to  look  for,  listen 
to,  abide  by,  and  revere,  no  guidance  or  opinion  but  the  declaration  of 
their  landlords,  and  their  clergy  ;  it  needed  but  a  cry,  that  "  the  church 
was  in  danger!"  and  these  men  were  sure  to  declare  for  any  object  which 
their  habitual  directors  might  think  fit.  The  constitutional  party,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  embrace  almost  all  the  people  of  the  middle  ranks — the 
people  engaged  in  commerce,  and  the  members  of  professions — those  persons 
who,  in  every  country,  being  the  most  engaged  in  the  real  business  of  life, 
are  always  found  the  most  clear-sighted  in  discovering  their  real  interests. 
People  of  this  class  have  not  much  affection  for  a  despotic  government;  for 
it  may  oppress  them,  arid  they  hold  no  share  in  it.  In  spite  of  superstition,  a 
rapacious  church  is  suspicious  and  unpleasing  to  them ;  for  they  estimate  the 
value  of  the  money  taken  from  them  by  the  exertion  with  which  they  acquire 
it.  Besides  these,  the  cause  of  reform  would  have  some  advocates  in  the  army ; 


1827.]  Movements  in  Portugal.  237 

among  men  whose  sense  of  personal  interest — to  speak  of  no  spark  of  mili- 
tary spirit — would  reject  the  return  to  a  system  under  which  private 
soldiers  begged  their  bread  in  the  public  streets ;  and  officers  waited  as 
footmen  behind  the  chairs  of  nobles.  It  woulci  be  sustained  also  by  as 
many  of  the  lower  classes  and  of  the  peasantry,  as  the  influence  of  those 
persons  of  rank  who  were  engaged  in  it,  could  detach  from  the  dominion  of 
the  priest.  But  these  last  would  not  be  very  many ;  and  we  repeat — 
though  without  being  in  the  slightest  degree  discouraged  by  the  fact — that 
we  believe,  if  Portugal  could  be  polled — though  the  wealth,  and  the  in- 
formation would  be  greatly  in  favour  of  the  constitutional  cause — the 
numerical  balance  would  be  against  it. 

And  this  position  of  parties  fully  explains  a  circumstance,  which  six 
weeks  since  excited  some  degree  of  surprise  and  disgust  in  this  country—- 
to wit — that  the  British  troops  were  not  received  with  acclamations  and 
embraces  on  their  first  landing,  by  the  people  of  Lisbon.  The  fact  is,  that 
men's  personal  feelings — speaking  of  the  community — three  times  in  four, 
are  stronger  than  their  political  ones ;  and  the  classes  that  formed  the  con- 
stitutional party  in  Portugal,  were  just  those  to  whom  the  importation  of  a 
foreign  army  was  sure  to  be  the  most  particularly  distressing  and  offensive. 
To  the  nation  at  large,  scarcely  any  measure  could  be  so  peculiarly  un- 
grateful. All  the  recollections  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  connected  with 
British  "  occupation,"  were  of  a  bitter  and  degrading  character.  They 
were  recollections  of  a  time  when  the  Portuguese  seemed  intruders  in  their 
own  land.  When  their  very  enemy  looked  only  to  the  legions  of  a  stranger  ; 
and  treated  their  alliance,  or  their  hostility,  as  a  matter  almost  of  contempt. 
When  a  host  of  foreigners,  too  powerful  to  be  very  courteous,  disposed  of 
the  strength — of  the  resources — of  the  very  honours,  of  their  country  ;  and 
the  natives  relied  on  them,  in  helplessness,  for  that  protection,  which — how- 
ever compelled  to  receive  it — the  human  heart  may  repay,  but  seldom  can 
forgive.  Then  the  constitutional  party  (par  preference)  was  made  up  of 
a  set  of  individuals,  who  had  still  more  paramount,  because  more  personal, 
aversions  to  the  appearance  of  a  British  force.  If  the  mob  had  been 
"  constitutional"  we  should  have  been  cheered  in  the  streets  ;  the  nobility 
could  not  have  been  very  immediately  annoyed  by  us;  and,  if  we  had  had 
the  monks,  we  should  have  commanded  a  high  mass  or  a  Te  Deum.  But 
the  soldiers  of  the  constitutional  cause,  had  no  desire  for  the  presence  of  a 
body  of  troops,  beside  whose  splendour  they  could  not  stand  for  a  moment, 
without  a  mortifying  exhibition  of  their  own  inferiority.  And  the  citizens 
had  no  glimpses  of  "the  English  again  in  Portugal,"  except  of  their 
houses  filled,  and  their  streets  beset,  by  a  crowd  of  overbearing  strangers  ; 
with  all  the  horrible  nuisances  of  the  former  occupation,  grown  ten  times 
more  intolerable  upon  subsequent  reflection,  than  they  had  been  in  the 
turbulent  time  of  their  first  endurance.  We  stood  in  Portugal  pretty 
nearly  as  the  Irish  Catholics  stand  in  England :  our  cause  (political)  had 
the  sanction,  and  good  wishes,  of  the  best  of  the  country,  the  constitu- 
tional :  our  persons,  the  affection  hardly  of  any  body.  And  there  will  be 
nothing  very  surprising  to  any  of  the  officers  who  served  in  the  Peninsula 
during  the  last  war,  although  it  should  be  believed  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  constitutional  party — but  for  the  seasonable  apprehen- 
sion of  vengeance  to  be  exacted  by  their  opponents  if  victorious — would 
have  been  content  to  let  their  cause  fail,  rather  than  encounter  the  alterna- 
tive of  supporting  it  by  foreign  interference. 

These  suspicions  and  apprehensions  however,  before  this  time,  have 
disappeared.  The  Portuguese,  no  doubt,  would  soon  discover  that  it  was  one 


238  Movements  in  Portugal.      i  [MARCH, 

thing  (practically)  to  receive  assistance  from  an  ally,  and  another  to  be 
cast  upon  him  for  entire  maintenance  and  protection.  And  the  internal 
struggles  of  the  country — for  so  long  a  time  as  the  English  troops  remain 
there — probably  are  over :  how  long  after  our  retirement  they  will  con- 
tinue so,  becomes  another  question. 

With  reference,  therefore,  to  that  question,  we  take  at  least  one  fact  to  be 
perfectly  clear — to  wit,  that,  unless  under  a  government  far  more  vigorous 
and  efficient  than  any  which  Portugal  has  possessed  for  a  very  long  time 
indeed,  nothing  like  permanent  tranquillity  there  (at  present)  is  to  be  hoped 
for.  The  real  causes  of  insurrection  in  the  kingdom  arc  not  dead,  nor  likely 
to  die  speedily  ;  and  the  state  of  the  country  affords  facilities  for  getting  it 
up,  of  a  very  peculiar  description.  The  elements,  in  the  first  place,  of 
turbulence  and  tumult — it  matters  very  little  to  what  end  or  for  what  object, 
provided  the  immediate  danger  of  the  attempt  be  not  too  great — must— - 
from  the  mere  schooling  which  they  had  to  go  through  in  the  course  of  the 
last  war — be  ripe  in  the  minds  of  great  numbers  of  the  younger  people. 
For  seven  years  the  country  was  a  camp ;  and  every  man  in  it,  capable  of 
bearing  arms,  in  some  shape  or  other  a  follower  of  the  army.  Thousands 
upon  thousands  of  youths,  taken  or  drawn  from  their  homes  as  they  were 
rising  into  manhood,  received  their  first  impressions  of  life,  from  examples 
only  of  riot,  licentiousness,  and  contamination.  The  peasantry,  especially, 
were  exposed  to  this  contagious  and  destructive  influence.  They  were  all 
soldiers  :  two-thirds  of  them  little  other  than  guerilla,  or  predatory  troops ; 
acquiring  more  than  the  common  vices  incident  to  the  military  character, 
without  any  of  its  habits  of  discipline  or  regularity.  These  persons,  after 
being  for  years  accustomed  to  a  life  of  leisure  and  freedom — although  of 
occasional  peril — would  not  easily — at  least  such  would  be  the  case  in  a 
great  many  instances — settle  again  to  their  ordinary  puisuits  of  rather  ill- 
paid  labour.  The  change  from  their  character  of  field  labourers,  to  that  of 
irregular  soldiers,  became,  at  any  time,  the  work  only  of  a  moment: 
the  change  back  again — by  simply  dropping  the  pike  or  musket,  and  re- 
turning home,  or  hiding  themselves  for  a  short  time  among  the  mountains — 
was  almost  equally  easy  and  expeditious.  As  peasants,  poverty  compels 
them  to  feed  poorly  and  abstemiously ;  to  lie  at  night  in  a  hut  upon  a  mat ; 
and  to  have,  for  luxuries,  at  best  but  a  little  bad  spirits,  and  worse  tobacco. 
As  guerilla  soldiers,  the  climate  would  allow  them  to  live  three-fourths  of 
the  year  in  the  open  air,  without  inconvenience;  they  have  no  property  to 
lose  by  leaving  home ;  and  they  never  propose  to  fight  any  farther  than 
they  "  see  reason  "  abroad.  We  must  not  estimate  the  characters  or  dis- 
positions of  these  people,  from  any  consideration  of  what  would  be  those  of 
men  who  have  served  in  tbe  armies  of  our  own  country :  perhaps  there  are  not 
two  human  creatures  whose  conditions  are  much  more  widely  opposed  than 
a  4<  regular"  soldier,  and  an  "  irregular  "  one.  An  English  soldier  ought 
in  equity  to  gain  something  in  the  way  of  honour;  for — excepting  danger 
an  d:j  hardship — he  gains  very  little  in  the  way  of  any  thing  else.  But  it  is 
far  otherwise  with  an  avowed  predator,  whose  license  as  soon  as  he  takes  up 
arms  becomes  almost  unbounded ;  and  who  acquires  the  same  liking  for  his 
trade,  and  the  same  indisposition  to  forsake  it,  as  we  find  in  England 
attaching  to  a  smuggler  or  a  poacher.  While  the  Portuguese  government 
continues  in  its  present  state,  there  will  always — at  least  for  a  considerable 
time  to  come — be  a  sufficient  number  of  these  unsettled  and  demoralized 
people  ready  to  join  the  stanuard  of  any  popular  leader,  who  can  give  them 
present  pay,  or  even  free  quarter,  with  the  prospect  of  plunder.  If  the 
enterprise  fails,  the  peasantry  have  merely  to  disperse ;  and  the  government 


: 


1827.]  Movements  in  Portugal.  239 

is  too  weak  irrall  its  distant  relations  long  to  pursue  or  molest  them.  The 
chiefs,  and  any  small'  body  of  militia,  or  regular  troops,  which  they  may 
have  influenced  to  follow  them,  need  but  cross  the  Spanish  frontier — to  which 
their  retreat,  unless  by  the  most  gross  mismanagement  is  always  easy  and 
certain  :  and  although  England  may  determine  that  Spain  shall  no  longer 
give  military  aid  to  the  refugees  of  Portugal,  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  she 
shall  be  prohibited  from  receiving  and  protecting  them. 

For  these  reasons  it  is,  as  it  seems  to  us,  that,  in  the  work  of  reform, 
and  organization,  and  in  short,  regeneration,  no  moment  ought  to  be  lost  by 
the  constitutional  government  of  Portugal.  Enterprises  of  sedition  and 
rebellion  will  not  fail  to  be  abundant  in  that  country,  so  long  as  the  incom- 
petency  orsupineness  of  the  executive  system,  offers  a  premium  for  their  forma- 
tion. How  little  these  attempts  need  alarm  an  administration  of  the  most 
moderate  strength  and  vigour  has  been  sufficiently  proved.  The  mere 
landing  of  six  thousand  British  soldiers  in  Lisbon,  put  the  Portuguese  in- 
surgents— at  a  distance  of  two  hundred  miles — to  flight.  The  power  of 
only  ten  available  regiments  of  such  troops  as  our  officers,  at  the  close  of 
the  last  war,  had  made  tbe  native  Portuguese — would  have  left  the  con- 
stitutional government  nothing  to  apprehend  from  the  Marquis  de  Chaves's 
enterprise  ;  and,  in  all  probability,  under  such  circumstances,  it  would  never 
have  existed.  Within  what  period,  or  to  what  extent,  such  an  improved 
state  of  things  may  be  capable  of  being  brought  to  bear,  it  might  be  diffi- 
cult to  predict ;  but,  decidedly,  there  is  nothing  impracticable  in  the  task  : 
and  in  candour,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  some  steps  have  been  taken 
towards  its  accomplishment  already.  In  some  of  those  very  circumstances 
which  those  who  opposed  our  interference  were  ready  to  quote  the  moment 
they  took  place,  as  an  evidence  that  the  constitutional  cause  was  indifferently 
held  in  Portugal,  a  more  sound  and  liberal  construction  perhaps  would  be 
inclined  to  see  the  first  proofs  of  an  increasing  energy  in  the  national  cha- 
racter. The  very  aversion  which  the  people  displayed  to  the  thought  of 
being  protected  by  the  presence  of  foreign  troops,  may  fairly  be  taken  as  the 
first  evidence  of  that  feeling  which  would  induce  them  to  take  a  position  in 
which  they  could  protect  themselves.  So  again  for  the  little  accusation  of 
"  insensibility,"  which  one  of  the  daily  papers  whimsically  brings  against 
the  populace  of  Lisbon,  because  they  witnessed  the  reviews  and  parades  of 
our  British  lancers  and  dragoons  without  "  acclamation,  whose  appear- 
ance was  so  far  superior  to  that  of  their  own  " — it  may  fairly  be 
questioned,  at  least,  whether  this  conduct  was  not  an  equal  evidence  of 
the  sensibility  of  the  people — that  they  were  rather  ashamed  of  a  comparison 
which  did  so  little,  credit  to  themselves?  The  provisions  too  of  the  consti- 
tution, however  below  the  desires  and  demands  of  a  people  whose  boast  for 
centuries  has  been  that  they  are  "free,"  amounts  at  least  to  a  recognition, 
which  Portugal  never  enjoyed  before,  that  those  classes  have  some  "rights" 
in  her  community  whose  numbers  form  four-fifths  of  it. 

Whatever  may  be  the  extent  however  of  that  which  has  been  done,  as  to 
that  which  must  be  done,  there  ought  to  be  no  delay,  as  there  can  be  no 
question.  The  country  must  have  the  advantages  of  a  change,  as  well  as 
the  name  of  one,  if  the  new  powers  hope  to  hold  out  against  the  spirit  which 
is  resisting  and  opposing  them.  There  must  be  a  change  from  bigotry  and 
tyranny  to  free  and  enlightened  legislation,  and  not  from  the  rule  of  one 
party  of  imbecile  despots  to  that  of  another  party.  The  abuses  that  dis- 
graced the  old  system  must  not  be  perpetuated  under  the  authority  of  the 
new.  The  whole  scheme  of  rottenness,  and  pride,  and  falsehood,  and  job, 
and  favouritism,  and  insolence,  and  implicit  submission,  must  be  cast  away : 


240  Movement*  in  Portugal  [MARCH, 

and  men  in  Portugal  must  be  allowed  to  become  men,  if  their  country  i* 
to  remain  a  country,  in  the  existing  state  of  Europe  and  of  the  world. 
Those  who  hold  power  must  avoid  imagining  that  they  can  hold  it,  in 
point  of  fact,  by  sermons  and  proclamations.  They  must  get  rid  of  that 
taste  for  sloth  and  ignorance  which  dictated  the  memorable  reply  of  their 
predecessors  not  a  century  since,  to  some  projector  who  offered  to 
render  great  advantage  by  making  a  part  of  the  Tagus  navigable — 
"  That,  if  it  had  been  designed  that  the  river  should  be  navigable  there, 
Heaven  would  have  it  so."  They  must  believe — however  impossible  it 
appears — that  events  have  raised  a  spirit  of  general  knowledge,  as  well  as 
of  political  turbulence,  within  their  country,  which  the  dreaming  policy  of 
its  old  governments  would  never  again  probably  be  able  to  contend  with. 

In -the  meantime,  the  existing  crisis  affords  an  opportunity  peculiarly 
favourable  to  the  constitutional  government.  Its  opponents  are  controlled 
and  kept  down  by  our  strength ;  and  time  is  afforded  to  it  for  preparation 
to  controul  and  deal  with  them  by  energies  of  its  own.  It  seems  probable  too, 
that  for  the  present,  this  opportunity  may  continue  ;  for,  whatever  may  be 
our  view  of  the  civil  differences  of  Portugal  herself,  we  shall  no  doubt  feel 
bound  to  protect  her  from  any  aggressions  by  her  neighbour.  And  without 
distrusting  any  more  than  sound  policy  should  compel  us,  the  sincerity 
of  King  Ferdinand  or  the  apostolic  party,  it  probably  would  hardly  be 
deemed  worth  while  to  withdraw  our  forces  from  Portugal,  while  any  of 
the  French  regiments  remain  in  Spain'.* 


*  Since  this  article  went  to  press,  intelligence  has  been  received  from  Portugal,  announc- 
ing the  sudden  re-appearance  of  the  Marquis  de  Chaves's  party  in  that  country  ;  which  had 
advanced  so  far  as  to  threaten  Oporto.  The  latest  accounts  add,  that,  by  the  exertions  of 
the  Portuguese  Commandant  atOporto,  General  Stubbs,  the  enemy  had  been  driven  back  ; 
and  that  this  movement  may  be  considered  as  "  a  last  effort  on  the  part  of  the  insurgents.'' 
This  new  attempt,  on  the  part  of  the  Marquis  de  Chaves,  no  more  disturbs  than  it  sur- 
prises us  ;  but,  for  the  suggestion  of  its  probably  being  the  "  last  effort"  of  the  Royalists, 
we  sincerely  hope  that  the  Constitutionalists  are  not  really  deluding  themselves  with  any 
such  belief.  The  only  chance  that  the  Constitutional  Government  has  for  success,  will  be 
found — not  in  any  wild  or  fantastic  hope  that  it  is  to  remain  unassailed — but  in  the  realiz- 
ing, without  a  moment's  delay,  such  strength  and  means  as  shall  be  competent  to  its  pro- 
tection. Without  an  army  perfectly  different  from  that  which  it  possesses  now — an  army 
skilfully  organized,  disciplined,  and  paid — the  Constitution  will  not  maintain  itself  one 
month  after  it  ceases  to  have  the  English  force  to  back  itself  upon.  Letters  from  Lisbon 
state,  that  the  "  impressment"  of  soldiers  tor  the  Constitutional  regiments  is  going  on  there 
rapidly.  This  is  one  mode  certainly  of  doing  business — raising  troops  by  compulsion  to 
serve  in  a  civil  contest.  It  is  just  sending  so  many  men,  armed  and  equipped  (if  they  are 
armed  or  equipped),  from  Lisbon,  to  go  over  immediately  to  the  Marquis  de  Chaves*  in 
Tras  os  Montes.  This  is  a  sample  of  a  system  which  will  not  do;  and  if  the  Constitu- 
tionalists can  find  no  means  of  mending  it,  the  moment  the  British  force  departs,  their 
government  will  fall  to  pieces.  In  the  meantime,  although  our  troops  have  a  part  of  some 
nicety  to  act,  yet,  of  the  necessity  of  keeping  them  where  they  are,  there  can  hardly  be  a 
doubt.  The  task  of  quelling  any  slight  disturbances  will  devolve  of  course  upon  the  Por- 
tuguese themselves,'  as  far  as  possible,  and  in  the  first  instance.  And,  for  one  circumstance 
which  goes  to  make  our  neutrality  the  easier,  we  may  be  pretty  secure  that  no  part  of  the 
country,  in  which  British  soldiers  are  actually  placed,  will  be  very  hastily  molested.  The 
eventual  success  of  the  Constitutional  cause,  however,  if  it  is  to  succeed,  must  depend 
upon  the  Constitutionalists  themselves.  Exertions  must  be  used,  and  personal  sacrifices 
made,  of  a  different  character  from  any  which  they,  or  any  of  their  countrymen,  have  re- 
cently been  in  the  habit  of  contemplating.  And,  however  liberally  we  may  desire  to 
viewi  their  jealousy  of  English  interference  ;  and  their  aversion — if  they  feel  such  an  aver- 
sion— to  be  protected  by  a  foreign  force  ;  yet  we  are  afraid  their  best  chance  for  safety, 
until  the  improvement  both  of  their  political  and  military  state  is  farther  advanced,  will 
be  to  let  English  knowledge,  as  far  as  possible,  ^arrange  their  warlike  operations,  and 
English  influence  direct  their  councils. — ED. 


1827.]  [     241     ] 

HUSH    POLEMICS. 

,'-'••'•  *•  s  .  •  .. 

Vous  saureztantot  quo  c'est,  et  jugerez  que  je  ne  passe  point  les  limit.es  de  raison  :  ainsi  qup  je 
galope  ces  gubdeurs  de  theologic,  qui  ne  trouvent  bon,  que  ce  qui  quadre  a,  leur  palliarde  opinion. 
— Moy.  11  K  PAUVENIR. 

THE  English  have,  in  all  ages,  been  desperate  theologians ;  and  they 
were  never  more  so  than  at  present.  This  peculiarity  of  temper,  which 
we  inherit  not  improbably  with  the  thick  blood  of  our  northern  ancestors, 
will  be  ridiculed  or  eulogized  According  to  the  varying  estimate  men  make 
of  the  relative  value  of  things  spiritual  and  things  temporal.  If  our  most 
efficacious  struggles  for  liberty  have  begun  in  religious  dissentions,  it  is  no 
less  true  that  our  passion  for  polemics  has  led  us  into  some  serious  scrapes^ 
Certain  it  is,  that  the  national  hatrod  which  plunged  us  into  the  slough  of 
the  revolutionary  war,  was  directed  *.s  much  against  the  atheism  as  the 
democracy  of  our  graceless  neighbours;  arid  dearly  have  we  paid  for  reviving 
religion  amongst  them  d  coup  de  canon,  and  propagating  popery  and 
Jesuitism  on  the  continent,  by  the  preachings  of  our  red-coated  missionaries. 
Jf  moral  results  are  to  be  added  to  pecuniary  losses,  Protestant  ascendancy 
in  Ireland  is  a  scarcely  less  expensive  toy  :  to  say  nothing  of  what  it  costs 
the  country  in  tithes  and  incidentals  at  home,  for  the  pleasure  of  dog- 
matizing with  effect,  and  of  shutting  the  door  of  the  constitution  in  the 
face  of  all  dissenters  from  the  church  establishment. 

Liberty  of  religious  opinion  is  as  necessary  to  man  as  his  daily  bread. 
His  senses  can,  by  the  assistance  of  art,  detect  the  existence  of  animal- 
culae — so  small,  that  thousands  of  them  might  expatiate  on  the  point  of 
a  needle  ;*  and  he  possesses  chemical  tests  capable  of  demonstrating  an 
adulteration  of  the  smallest  quantities  of  a  foreign  substance :  but  Provi- 
dence has  bestowed  upon  him  no  such  instruments  for  investigating  moral 
complexes  ;  and  certainty  of  knowledge  and  uniformity  of  judgment,  in 
this  department,  are  physical  impossibilities.  With  this  conviction  strongly 
impressed  on  our  minds,  the  more  sharply  we  English  feel  the  injury  of  a. 
force  put  on  our  own  thoughts,  the  more  anxiously  we  seek  to  place  the 
yoke  of  authority  on  the  necks  of  others,  and  to  render  our  own  conceits 
the  measure  of  the  ideas  of  the  rest  of  mankind.  This  infirmity  has  rendered 
us  proverbially  the  dupes  of  the  designing ;  arid,  while  it  has  made  us  un- 
just and  unfeeling  to  others,  it  has  blinded  us  to  our  own  interests,  and 
made  us  false  to  ourselves. 

The  insane  desire  of  England  to  impose  her  faith  and  her  establishment 
on  the  reluctant  population  of  Ireland  has  been  productive  of  manifold 
injury  to  both  countries.  Every  year  that  the  effort  is  persevered  in, 
increases  the  disquiet  of  the  one,  and  the  expense  and  the  debility  of  the 
other ;  and  we  have  now  to  deplore,  in  addition  to  all  ancient  grievances, 
a  rising  spirit  of  polemical  dispute  arid  proselytism,  which  is  spreading  a 
flame  throughout  all  Ireland,  and  is  multiplying  discontents  and  heart- 
burnings, till  they  leave  no  one  of  its  teeming  population  at  ease,  save  the 
man  who  is  absolutely  indifferent  to  every  system  and  every  creed. 

In  disputation,  there  is  a  disposition  to  arrangements,  somewhat  resem- 
bling the  polarity  produced  by  electricity.  No  sooner  does  a  party  arise, 
and  become  violent  in  favour  of  any  opinion,  than  it  occasions,  as  it  were, 
by  induction  (to  use  a  phrase  of  the  electricians),  a  corresponding  violence 
in  an  opposite  party  hostile  to  that  opinion;  and  society  is  divided  into 


*  Beucfcmt,  Cours  des  Sciences  Physiques,  p.  98. 
M.M.  New  Series.— V01..IU.  No.15.  2  I 


242  Irish  Polemics.  [MARCH, 

insulated  groups — instead  of  framing  one  homogeneous  whole — to  the  utter 
destruction  of  order,  industry,  and  internal  quiet.  Thus  it  has  happened 
in  Ireland,  that  the  dispute  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  (which, 
in  fact,  is  a  mere  matter  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence — a  contest 
between  monopoly  and  justice,  for  power,  as  the  instrument  for  distributing 
wealth)  has  gradually  exalted  the  religious  sensibilities  of  both  parties ; 
which  have  acted  and  re-acted  upon  each  other,  till  both  have  been  lashed 
to  an  highly-excited  pitch  of  fanaticism.  The  consequence  is,  that  an 
Irish  Catholic  is  more  a  Catholic  than  his  co-religionists  in  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope, Spain  excepted ;  and  an  Irish  Protestant  is  more  a  Protestant  than 
an  English  one.  Unfortunately,  this  excess  of  religious  feeling  turns  much 
less  to  the  account  of  morality,  than  to  punctuality  of  ceremonial,  and  to 
jealousy  of  dogma.  An  Irish  Catholic  is  shockod  at  the  laxity  of  the  con- 
tinentalists  in  discipline,  in  fastings,  and  confessions ;  while  the  general 
tendency  of  the  whole  Protestant  church  in  Ireland  is  towards  what  is 
called  high  church  methodism.  There  is,  on  both  sides,  a  greater  zeal  and 
earnestness  in  religious  matters — but  a  zeal  unaccompanied  by  charity,  and 
ungoverned  by  discretion.  In  this  state  of  rivalry,  it  will  not  seem  strange 
that  proselytism  should  become  a  favourite  engine  for  gratifying  the  angry 
passions ;  and  that  occasional  conversions  from  among  the  ranks  of  the 
hostile  creed  should  be  a  matter  of  ambition  and  of  noisy  boasting.  This 
condition  of  things  has,  perhaps,  more  or  less,  prevailed  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  unhappy  schism  ;  but.  within  a  very  recent  period,  it  has 
been  materially  aggravated  by  an  importation  of  foreign  venom,  and  by  the 
interference  of  the  English  missionary  societies  with  the  national  quarrel. 
To  those  who  are  determined  in  their  opposition  to  all  concession,  there  are 
but  two  ways  of  dealing  with  the  Catholics,  so  as  to  heal  the  religious 
heart-burnings  of  the  Irish  :  they  must  be  exterminated,  or  they  must  be 
converted.  The  former  alternative  is  impossible;  and  though  fanaticism 
in  its  madness  would  fain  provoke  the  attempt,  the  humanity  of  the  times 
will  not  allow  it  the  opportunity.  On  this  account,  a  leading  individual 
belonging  to  that  portion  of  the  cabinet  which  opposes  the  Catholic  claims, 
has  embraced,  it  is  said,  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma  ;  and  has  evinced 
considerable  anxiety  that  the  experiment  of  conversion  should  be  tried. 
This  is,  perhaps,  the  secret  of  the  encouragement,  not  only  which  the  esta- 
blishment has  received  in  its  efforts  to  introduce  Bible  reading,  but  which 
also  has  been  afforded  to  the  wildest  sectarians,  in  their  attempts  to  force 
open  the  eyes  of  the  Papists,  and  to  inoculate  them,  bon  gre.  mal  gre, 

with any  other  faith  it  may  please  Heaven,  provided  it  leads   them 

away  from  Popery,  and  the  red  lady  of  Babylon.  In  this  quixotic  enter- 
prize,  each  party  has  chosen  its  own  peculiar  grounds.  The  established 
clergy,  having  the  ear  of  government,  have  naturally  enough  seized  upon 
the  clepartment  of  public  education,  which  their  habits  of  thinking  have 
led  them  to  suppose,  of  right,  within  their  own  peculiar  jurisdiction.  A 
society  for  teaching  the  poor  of  Ireland  to  read  and  write,  founded  by  a 
few  well-meaning  individuals,  was  thought  a  fit  engine  for  the  purpose,  in 
hand ;  and,  having  been  enlarged  by  a  powerful  accession  of  parsons,  it 
received  from  the  government,  in  aid  of  its  own  paltry  subscriptions,  annual 
grants,  which  bad  gradually  increased  till  they  attained  to  nine  thousand 
pounds,  or  more,  per  annum.  How  far  such  an  engine  was  adapted  to  the 
education  of  the  poor— the  professed  objects  of  its  labours — is  a  distinct 
question.  The  supposition  that  intellectual  acquirement  can,  or  ought,  to 
precede  the  possession  of  physical  comforts  and  civilizing  ease,  is  among 


1827.]  Irish  Polemics.  243 

tho  many  absurdities  which  will  deliver  modern  statesmen  to  the  cQntempt 
of  posterity.     This  physical    amendment  they  either  cannot  or  will  not 
produce ;  while  the  rising  spirit  of  the  times  will  not  allow  them  to  remain 
idle.     To  suffer  acknowledged  evil  to  prevail  unchecked,  belongs  neither 
to  the  philosophy  nor  to  the  Christianity  of  the  age:  so  to  work  they  have 
gone,  to  educate  the  wild  Irish,    cramming  them  with  science  when  they 
want  food,  and  giving  them  instruction  when  they  want  lahour.     To  kill 
two  birds  with  one  stone,  and  to  engraft  proselytism  upon  gratuitous  edu- 
'cation  was  deemed  a  deep  stroke  of  policy  ;  but  this  concealed  intention 
is  not  better  fulfilled  than  that  which  is  put  forward  to  meet  the  public 
eye.     To  effect  this  purpose,  the  polemic  turn  of  mind  of  the  English  was 
again  made  subservient  to  party  politics ;  and  there  was  little  difficulty  in 
persuading  Parliament  to  make  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  schools  a 
condition  of  their  grant.     Thus  a  new  battery  was  opened  against  the  Ca- 
tholic church,  of  slates  and  pencils ;  and  tradition  and  infallibility  were, 
in  imagination,  destined  to  fall  before  a  well-directed  fire  of  "  Dilworths/' 
and  "  Reading-made-Easyes."     It  so  happens,  however,  that  the  Popish 
clergy — not  a  whit  behind-hand  with  their  Protestant  rivals  in  the  desire 
of  ruling  education,  and  of  giving  to  that  flexible  twig,  the  human  mind, 
the  precise  bend  which  their  interest  requires  it  should  maintain  through 
life — have,  right  or  wrong,  a  deep  and  rooted  objection  to  the  perusal  of 
the  Scriptures  by  the  laity,  except  under  certain  conditions  ;  and,  indeed, 
s  are  strongly  averse  from  making  the  holy  volume  a  class-book,  upon  any 
terms.     To  enforce  Bible-reading  in  schools  is,   therefore,  in  itself  an  act 
of  proselytism,  which  renders  all  denial  of  the  principle  nugatory.     Both 
the  jealousy  and  the  orthodoxy  of  the  priests  took  the  alarm.    A  warm  and 
acrimonious  dispute  arose,  which  terminated  in  a  positive  determination 
on  their  part  to  use  their  influence  in  preventing  the  children  of  their  flock 
from  attending  these  schools,  kept,  in  by  far  the  majority  of  instances,  by 
Protestant  masters,  and  in  which  the  perusal  of  Scripture  extracts  violated 
the  discipline  of  their  church,  while  it  opened  a  wide  and  inevitable  door 
to  insidious  and  under-hand  proselytism.  With  great  justice  they  protested 
against  the  administration  of  a  national  grant  being  entrusted  to  the  manage- 
ment of  a  party,  and  that  party  of  a  religious  persuasion  hostile  to  the  creed 
of  the  subjects  upon  whom  they  were  to  operate.     To  do  the  Protestants 
justice,  the  Kildare  Society  sported  \isfrenum  in  cornu  with  a  most  osten- 
tatious openness.     No  attempts  were  made  to  erect  Catholic  schools  upon 
Catholic  principles ;  nor  were  Catholic  masters  admitted  to  teach  the  ABC 
under  the  inspection  of  Protestant  superintendents,  in  numbers  at  all  pro- 
portionate to  the  respective  population.  If,  after  that,  the  Catholic  bishops 
chose  to  trust  the  education  of  their  flocks  to  such  hands,  it  at  least  could  not 
be  said  that  they  were  otherwise  than  purchasers,  with  notice.   The  result 
was,  as  might  be  expected,  that  they  did  not  so  trust  their  children  ;  and, 
if  report  lie  not,  the  muster-roll  of  Falstaff  's  ragged  regiment  is  a  poor  and 
cold  type  of  the  enumerations  which  have  been  gotten  up,  of  schools  that 
never  were  in  operation,  and  of  scholars  that  never  attended.     Amidst  all 
their  poverty,  privation^  and  depression,  the  Catholics  have  made  immense 
efforts  to  educate  their  own  children  ;  and  the  Kildare-street  Association, 
with  its  parliamentary  grant,  and  all  its  other  "  means  and  appliances  to 
boot,"  has  utterly  failed  as  an  instrument  of  national  instruction.     One 
fatal  consequence  to  the  tranquillity  of  Ireland  has  arisen  out  of  this  un« 
handsome  juggle ;  a  little  war  has  been  created  by  it  in  almost  every 
parish  where  there  is  a  resident  Protestant  parson.     An  army  of  observa- 

2  I  2 


'-Ml  Irish  Polemics.  [MARCH, 

tion  is  levied  on  cither  side,  to  watch  the  proceedings  of  the  other.  Tracts 
are  dropt  on  the  highway,  and  Bihles  are  wrapped  up  in  frieze  cloaks  and 
ilannel  petticoats.  Every  artifice  of  affected  candour  and  liberality  is 
adopted,  to  seduce  the  peasants  into  disobedience  to  their  church  ;  and 
charity  roams  through  the  village,  for  the  purpose  (as  the  poor  people  them- 
selves assert^  of  "  doing  them  out  of  their  devotion."  In  some  instances 
it  has  been  loudly  proclaimed  by  the  Catholics,  that  even  threats  have 
been  employed  to  force  their  children  into  the  Bible  schools;  that  rents 
have  been  distrained,  and  indulgences  have  been  withheld,  in  cases  of 
non-compliance  with  the  unreasonable  demand.  The  visits  of  the  esta- 
blished clergy,  of  the  Protestant  agent,  or  of  the  pious  Lady  Bountiful 
of  "  the  great  house  '*'  to  the  poor,  are  closely  followed  by  those  of  the 
priest,  who,  like  another  Penelope,  unravels  the  web  they  have  wove, 
comforting  the  weak-hearted,  and  encouraging  the  strong  to  resist  this  novel 
species  of  persecution  ;  and  it  rarely  happens  that  an  enforced  compliance  is 
continued  beyond  a  few  days.  Ill-will  and  disputation  are  thus  widely 
disseminated.  The  Protestant,  jealous  for  the  honour  of  his  Bible,  bitterly 
reproaches  the  Catholic  for  his  neglect  of  the  sacred  volume  :  tho  Catholic 
angrily  resents  the  infringement  of  his  right  of  conscience  ;  and  both,  per- 
haps, might  assert  of  each  other  with  equal  reason,  that  "  leur  savoir  ri 'est 
qne  beterie,  et  leur  sapience  rfest  que  mouffles,  bdtardissant  les  bons 
et  nobles  esprits  et  corrompant  tottte  jleur  de  jeunesseS'*  It  has  been 
made  a  matter  of  public  charge  against  the  Clancarthy  family,  by  Mr. 
Eneas  Mac  Donnell,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Balinasloe,  that  they  have 
used  their  power  as  landlords  in  the  unworthy  mariner  above  noticed  ;  and 
the  charge  has  been  met  by  a  prosecution  for  libel !  The  accusation  may 
be  ill-grounded  ;  or,  being  true,  the  facts  may  be  as  methodistically  correct, 
as  they  are  legally  justifiable  ;  but  the  effects  of  such  squabbles  upon  tho 
minds  of  the  Catholics,  cannot  but  be  the  most  galling  and  offensive. 
The  duty  of  reading  the  Scriptures  is  no  matter  for  political  discussion. 
Protestants  think  the  obligation  binding,  because  they  believe  the  Bible  to 
be  the  exclusive  revelation  of  Heaven  ;  and  Catholics  as  reasonably  object 
to  the  practice,  because  they  believe  in  revelations  from  other  sources.  To 
what  end  should  they  read,  who  are  forbidden  by  their  creed  to  interpret? 
Which  are  in  the  right,  I  shall  not  take  upon  myself  to  assert ;  but  if  we  can- 
not convince  the  Catholics,  to  force  the  book  upon  their  children  is  a  manifest 
act  of  cruelty  and  oppression — a  persecution  as  violent  and  unjust  as  an 
auto-da-fe,  though  not  perhaps  as  execrable  and  inhuman.  Nor  is  the 
policy  of  tho  attempt  less  aukward  and  inefficient.  We  all  know  the  homely 
proverb  of  trie  horse  and  the  water.  If  the  Catholics  who  want  gratuitous 
instruction  will  not  learn  to  read  upon  our  terms,  it  is  not  very  clear  how 
we  can  ever  bring  them  to  read  the  Bible ;  but  it  is  demonstrable,  that,  by 
waving  our  Jfegulations,  and  teaching  the  Catholics  to  read  in  other  books, 
we  shall  at  least  give  them  a  chance  of  stumbling  upon  the  Bible,  from 
which  those  who  cannot  read  are  for  ever  precluded.  It  must  be  well 
known  to  those  who  follow  the  proceedings  in  Parliament,  that  the  use 
which  the  Kildaie-street  Society  have  made  of  the  public  money  was  tho 
subject  of  severe  animadversion ;  and  that  a  commission  was  appointed, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  liberal  part  of  the  cabinet,  for  the  especial  pur- 
pose of  remedying  this  abuse.  This  commission  was  fairly  selected — one 
member  of  it  even  being,  par  extraordinaire,  a  Catholic — and  the  majority 

*  Rabelais. 


1827.]  Irish  Polemics.  '245 

were  enlightened,  liberal,  and  practicable  men  :  but  the  leaven  of  fanaticism 
still  works.  The  principle  of  forcing  the  Bible  is  still  acknowledged  in 
Parliament ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  discord  still  prevails,  while  the 
business  of  education  is  deplorably  impeded.  The  commission  is  now  fast 
hastening  to  the  close  of  its  third  year ;  and  it  may  serve  to  illustrate  the 
working  of  a  divided  cabinet,  and  the  spirit  of  faction  and  intrigue,  which, 
prevailing  in  that  cabinet,  is  propagated  throughout  all  Ireland — to  remark, 
that  not  all  Lord  Wellesley's  power  and  influence  can  induce  the  esta- 
blished clergy  to  abate  one  iota  of  their  fanatical  pretension  of  interfering 
with  the  religion  of  their  opponents.  The  Catholic  bishops  have  offered 
large  concessions :  they  have  offered  to  permit  certain  extracts  from  the 
Douai  Bible  to  be  used  in  the  classes  ;  and  Mr.  Blake,  it  is  said,  has  even 
taken  the  pains  to  draw  up  a  work  for  this  purpose,  with  a  view  to  meet  the 
wishes  of  both  parties.  But  the  orthodox  are  inflexible  ;  and  the  commis- 
sion seem  as  far  from  the  termination  of  their  labours  as  ever.  While  the 
established  clergy,  with  the  nominee  of  the  Attorney-General  at  their 
head,  are  thus  defying  authority,  and  manufacturing  discontent  and  dis- 
loyalty, by  wholesale,  with  the  public  money,  the  sectarians  have  not 
been  idle,  either  in  Ireland  or  at  home.  The  English  missionary  societies, 
acting,  it  is  affirmed,  under  the  protection  of  the  same  noble  lord  who  has 
encouraged  the  biblicals  of  the  church,  have  been  loud  and  vehement  of 
their  abuse  of  the  Catholic  religion,  in  order  to  increase  the  subscriptions  of 
the  faithful,  by  the  portraiture  of  the  forlorn  condition  of  those  whom  they 
have  undertaken  to  convert.  From  vituperation  to  scandal,  and  from 
scandal  to  calumny,  are  scarcely  a  step.  Such  vituperation,  if  founded  on 
truth,  is  offensive,  and  more  calculated  to  rivet  the  chain,  than  to  loosen 
the  allegiance  of  the  Catholics  to  their  clergy  ;  but,  when  built  upon  ex- 
parte  stories,  and  upon  direct  and  palpable  misrepresentations,  its  effect 
upon  the  population  can  be  better  imagined  than  Described.  Not,  how- 
ever, contented  with  this  distant  velitation,  missionaries,  at  least  as  remark- 
able for  their  want  of  discretion  as  for  the  purity  of  their  designs,  have 
more  than  once  crossed  the  sea,  to  engage  hand  to  hand  with  the  priests 
of  Dagon.  Challenges  passed,  de  part  et  decilitre — debating  shops  were 
opened  in  the  midst  of  the  Catholic  population,  to  try  the  faith  in  which 
the  people  had  been  educated — and  the  walls  of  the  thickly-crowded 
assemblies  rang  with 

,  "  Disco urs  pieux,  violens,  emphatique?, 

Assaisonn£  d'injures  scholastiques ; 
Partout  Tmjure  est  style  de  divots." 

To  say  that  these  hot-headed  fools  were  not  stoned  on  the  spot,  is  to 
declare  explicitly  the  moderation  and  forbearance  of  an  unlettered  and  pro- 
voked populace,  and  the  virtue  and  patriotism  of  a  priesthood,  who,  by  a 
word  or  a  look,  might  have  ensured  for  themselves  an  ample  vengeance — 
could  they  but  have  been  brought  to  place  at  issue  the  lives  and  the  few 
remaining  liberties  of  their  miserable  flocks.  These  efforts  of  the  mission- 
aries have  been  zealously  seconded  by  domestic  associations,  which  have 
given  occasion  to  an  episode  that  deserves  mention.  Upon  taking  the 
Held  in  any  district,  a  requisition  from  the  friends  of  biblicism  is  ostenta- 
tiously advertised  ;  and  a  meeting  is  convened  in  the  very  enemy's  camp, 
for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  demerits  of  Catholicism,  and  devising 
means  for  conversion.  As  general  principles  can  only  be  illustrated  by 
particular  examples,  stories  are  eagerly  sought  for,  credulously  received, 


246  Irish  Polemics.  [ MARCH, 

and  triumphantly  narrated,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
character  of  the  population.  The  parties  interested,  and  for  whose  souls  this 
tender  anxiety  is  avowed,  not  unnaturally  think  that  they  have  a  right  to  be 
present  at  such  discussions,  notwithstanding  any  formal  technicalities  in  the 
requisitions,  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  excluding  them.  "  Nostra  res 
agitur,"  they  exclaim;  '*  and  we  have  a  right  to  be  heard."  In  some 
instances,  accordingly,  they  have  forced  themselves  into  the  meetings,  and 
have  replied  to  the  speakers.  At  Balinasloe,  more  especially,  Mr.  Eneas 
Mac  Donnell,  if  not  «'  le  plus  grand  diseur  de  rien  qui  aitjamais  ete^ 
at  least  the  "  deadest  hand  "  at  a  seven  hours'  speech,  so  completely  ex- 
hausted the  patience  and  the  temper  of  his  auditory,  that  the  secular  power 
was  called  in,  in  order  that  the  whole  Catholic  portion  of  the  assembly 
might  be  turned  out  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  This  outrageous  appeal 
to 

"  The  holy  text  of  pike  and  gun," 

gave  very  little  satisfaction,  and  more  particularly  to  those  individuals  who 
had  been  beaten  and  cut  in  the  process.  An  immense  explosion  of  popular 
feeling  followed,  and  a  formal  complaint  of  the  illegality  of  the  outrage 
was  forwarded  to  the  Irish  government.  The  official  reply  was  a  reference 
to  the  courts  of  law.  To  understand  the  full  value  of  this  reply,  we  must 
be  intimately  acquainted  with  the  sort  of  redress  which  the  Irish  law 
courts  too  often  afford  in  such  cases.  We  must  understand,  not  only  the 
expense  common  to  all  procedures  in  all  the  courts  of  this  happy  empire, 
but  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  honest  juries,  and  the  certainty  of  finding 
witnesses  prepared  to  swear  any  thing  and  every  thing  that  suits  the  in- 
terest of  their  party.  It  is  the  curse  of  religious  dissension  that  it  demo- 
ralizes its  victims.  The  most  upright  judge  in  Ireland  would  be  unable  to 
contend  with  party  intrigue,  if  the  cause  were  only  supported  by  a  private 
purse.  Such  an  appeal  to  the  laws  would,  in  the  opinion  of  most  Irish- 
men, be  wholly  nugatory,  and  the  reference  was,  the  addition  of  insult  to 
injury.  How  the  Orange  party  in  the  administration — for  to  them  it  must 
be  attributed — "can  reconcile  it  to  their  conscience  thus  to  trifle  with  the 
public  peace,  and  leave  so  scandalous  a  scene  unsifted  and  unexplained, 
they  best  can  tell.  To  common  apprehension,  the  crown  lawyers  receive 
their  salaries  for  this,  among  other  purposes — that  they  should  interfere 
to  protect  those  who  are  too  poor  and  friendless  to  help  themselves,  in  cases 
of  public  injury;  and  to  watch  that,  as  far  as  law  is  concerned,  ne  quid 
detriments  res  pub  lie  a  capiat. 

Every-day  scenes  of  this  nature — sometimes  sanguinary,  sometimes  only 
ludicrous— occur.  At  the  moment  at  which  I  write,  a  spiritual  tourna- 
ment is  in  preparation,  between  six  sable  combatants  of  the  Catholic  church, 
and  as  many  knights  of  the  woeful  countenance,  friends  of  the  reformation 
—to  be  fought  a  I'outrance,  at  Derry  •  the  one  party  protected  by  the 
"  simple  rondash"  of  the  Bible — the  other,  "armed  at  all  points*'  in  the 
panoply  of  the  fathers.  If  humanity  did  not  bleed  for  the  follies  of  men, 
nothing  could  be  more  truly  comic  than  these  displays  of  that  "too  much 
learning"  which  makes  folks  mad.  The  dull,  sombre,  demure  counte- 
nance of  the  disputants,  gradually  kindling  by  mutual  attrition — the  flash 
of  triumph,  shot  from  beneath  the  lanky  dark  locks  of  the  atribilious  sec- 
tarian— the  rising  and  falling  of  hope  in  the  anxious  faces  of  the  simple 
auditory,  as  blows  are  given  or  parried — the  frantic  zeal,  the  sleek  self- 
complacency,  the  honest  good  faith  with  which  both  parties  misquote, 


J827,]  Irish  Polemics.  247 

misapply,  and  draw  the  weakest  conclusions  from  the  falsest  premises — 
the  obstinacy  with  which  each  abounds  in  his  own  sense — the  saintly  dia- 
lect and  jargon — the  papist  brogue — are  traits  to  make  the  two  philoso- 
phers of  antiquity  change  their  parts,  and  laugh  and  cry  in  very  spite  of 
spite.  To  imagine  that  such  controversies  can  end  in  any  thing  but  the 
respective  confirmation  of  each  disputant  in  his  own  opinions,  is  to  reject 
the  whole  evidence  of  history  :  to  expect  that  any  solicitings  to  reform 
will  be  listened  to,  when  offered  by  the  persecutor  to  the  oppressed,  is  to 
be  ignorant  of  the  first  elements  of  human  nature.  Truth  flies  from  such 
ill-judged  contests;  and  anger  and  blows,  and  jealousies  and  discontents, 
are  their  only  possible  results.  One  very  necessary  effect  of  this  intem- 
perance of  Protestant  zeal  has  followed,  from  its  tendency  to  excite  the 
Catholic  clergy  to  reprisals.  Considerable  and  successful  attempts  have 
been  made  to  convert  the  lower  classes  of  Protestants ;  and  as  the  act  of 
protesting  implies  iutellectual  strength,  while  obedience  to  authority  is  a 
refuge  for  the  weak,  the  Catholic  has  a  decided  advantage  with  the  illite- 
rate. There  is,  however,  another  consequence,  which  some  will  deem  of 
greater  concernment  than  the  souls  of  a  few  dozen  of  splapecns ;  and  that 
is — the  political  zeal  which  has  been  awakened  among  the  Catholic  priests, 
by  the  inroads  of  reforming  missionaries.  To  this  cause  we  must,  in  a 
great  measure,  attribute  the  rebellion  which  has  been  hatched  among  the 
forty-shilling  slaves  against  their  Egyptian  task-masters — the  elan  which 
has  been  given  to  Catholic  associations — the  amount  of  the  Catholic  rent, 
and,  in  general,  the  increased  activity  of  the  whole  Catholic  body,  insti- 
gated and  encouraged  by  the  irritated  clergy.  Those  who  could  patiently 
brook  the  tyranny  of  the  British  lion,  could  not  endure  with  temper  the 
kickings  of  the  missionary  ass ;  and  those  who  were  not  to  be  stirred  \>y 
the  obstinacy  of  (the  for-once-undoubting)  Lord  Eldon,  have  gone  off 
like  a  sky-rocket,  when  kindled  by  a  spark  from  the  murky  scintillations 
of  Messrs.  Pope  and  Gordon.  This  unexpected  reaction  has  aroused  the 
slumbering  Orangemen,  and  reacted,  in  its  turn,  upon  the  establishment. 
In  the  face  of  the  King's  conciliation  letter,  Dr.  Magee  has  again  buckled 
on  the  armour  of  faith  against  his  Catholic  brethren  ;  and  the  virulence  of 
his  hostility  assumes  as  many  and  as  various  shapes  and  forms  as  the 
materiel  of  a  pantomime.  The  other  day  he  followed  up  his  far-famed 
antithesis,  with  an  order  to  revive  throughout  his  arch-diocese  the  long- 
obsolete  practice  of  reading  the  gunpowder-plot  service — an  idle  and  an 
useless  insult  to  the  population  which  feeds  him.  Recently,  too,  he  has, 
it  is  said,  been  stopped  in  a  pious  attempt  to  cause  the  demolition  of  a 
Catholic  chapel,  part  of  which  he  had  discovered  to  stand  upon  ground 
belonging  in  the  old  time  to  a  Protestant  cemetery.  His  spiritual  warfare, 
active  and  meddling,  partakes  of  all  the  infirmity  of  his  personal  character. 
Impetuous,  splenetic,  overbearing,  and  uncalculating,  it  is  irritating  even 
when  it  does  not  injure — and  it  annoys,  where  it  does  not  compress.  Per- 
petually en  evidence,  ho  seems  urged  by  the  memory  of  his  former  liberal- 
ism, only  to  a  more  ostentatious  display  of  high  church  pretension.  We 
may  say  of  him,  in  the  words  of  Rousseau,  "  je  ne  sais  de  combien 
d'hommes  il  faisait  le  travail,  mais  il  faisait  toujours  le  bruit  de  dix  ou 
douze ;"  and  his  noise  has  the  additional  demerit  of  being  the  more  offen- 
sive, on  account  of  the  eminence  on  which  he  stands.  To  the  reaction 
produced  by  the  Catholic  elections,  must  also  be  attributed  the  virulent  and 
tumid  harangues  of  Doctors  Millar  and  Robinson — not  to  mention  the  other 
less  striking  effusions  of  clerical  fear  and  hate,  emitted  at  the  various 


248  Irish  Polemics.  [MARCH, 

Orange  dinners  in  the  north;  for,  though  all  have  not  imitated  the  candour 
of  Dr.  Robinson,  a  provocation  to  bloodshed  is  the  common  spirit  of  all 
their  speeches.  A  rebellion,  weakly  plotted  and  hastily  executed  (with 
whatever  horrors  it  might  be  accompanied),  would  paralize  the  Catholic 
body,  and  put  off  for  half  a  century  the  possibility  of  emancipation.  This, 
in  the  eyes  of  faction,  is  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished ;  and 
though  all  do  not  look  murder  and  plunder  full  in  the  face,  and  seek  to 
found  the  triumph  of  their  party  upon  the  smoking  ruins  of  cities,  and  the 
mangled  remains  of  their  fellow-citizens  ;  yet  many,  in  the  excitement  of 
the  moment,  are  too  apt  to  overlook  these  consequences. 

Thus  every  day  is  the  breach  between  the  two  religions  widening — the 
exaltation  of  the  passions  increasing ;  while  the  bonds  of  society  become 
more  and  more  relaxed; — so  that  the  whole  political  system  of  the  country 
is  rapidly  approaching  to  the  constitution  of— a  rope  of  sand.  Reli- 
gious feeling  in  a  community  is  like  vital  force  in  the  human  body  :  in  a 
certain  quantum  it  produces  vigour  and  health — while  a  trifling  excess  is 
the  cause  of  fever,  delirium,  and  disorganization.  To  this  excess  the 
alliance  of  church  and  state,  with  its  concomitants — privilege  and  exclusion 
— inevitably  leads ;  yet  are  we  told  that  the  Catholic  question  concerns 
only  a  few  briefless  barristers  and  disappointed  demagogues  !  It  concerns 
every  man,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  in  Ireland,  who  prefers  order  to  anarchy, 
industry  and  wealth  to  idleness  and  starvation,  religious  peace  to  fanatical 
excitement,  and  the  British  constitution  to  legalized  despotism.  Unless 
something  be  speedily  done  to  calm  the  passions,  and  to  dilate  the  zeal  of 
all  the  religious  parties  of  Ireland,  scenes  of  tumult  and  disorder  must 
ensue;  and  the  government  qf  the  British  Parliament,  though  not  perma- 
nently overturned,  will  at  least  be  temporarily  suspended.  Here,  indeed, 
the  church  is  in  danger — in  urgent  and  imminent  danger!  While  the 
great  question  remains  unsettled,  it  is  idle  to  expect  a  subsidence  of  the 
troubled  waters,  or  to  look  for  an  abatement  of  local  bigotry,  jealousy, 
and  intrigue.  At  least,  therefore,  let  folks  be  left  to  their  own  passions — 
and  not  hallooed  on  to  aparchy  and  riot  by  strangers.  ,  It  is  provoking  to 
find  those  in  England,  who  are  hostile  to  an  amicable  arrangement,  the 
most  active  in  increasing  the  agitation  of  Ireland,  by  their  indiscreet  and 
silly  attempts  at  proselytism.  It  is  by  the  slow  but  certain  operation  of 
opinion  that  religious  sects  are  created  and  overthrown.  Time  and  cir- 
cumstance in  this  are  all  powerful — individual  and  corporate  exertion, 
nothing.  Surely  philanthropy  and  religion  have  either  of  them  enough 
to  work  upon  at  home,  in  the  domestic  misfortunes  of  England,  without 
wasting  money  in  pouring  oil  on  the  flames  of  Irish  discontent,  under  the 
absurd  and  impracticable  notion  of  "  converting  the  benighted  Papists." 

As  Protestants,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  the  conversion  of  the  Irish  pea- 
santry is  a  consummation  most  devoutly  to  be  wished  ;  and,  for  that  very 
reason,  we  the  more  deplore  that  the  attempt  should  have  been  made  in  so 
injudicious  a  way.  That  attempts  at  conversion,  however  undertaken, 
should  have  some  partial  successes,  must  reasonably  be  expected.  Accord- 
ingly, "  de  part  et  d'autre,"  proselytes  are  from  time  to  time  made,  which 
the  newspapers  connected  with  the  respective  creeds  egregiously  exagge- 
rate. In  Cavan,  more  especially,  where  solid  bank  bills  have  been  thrown 
into  the  scale  against  airy  speculative  theology — where  the  articles  of  reli- 
gion have  been  swallowed  between  slices  of  beef  sandwiches,  and  the  bitter 
pill  of  recantation  washed  down  by  draughts  of  brown  stout — some 
transitory  successes  may  with  truth  bo  boasted.  But  while  religion  han 


J827.]  Irish  Polemics.  24'J 

thus  gained,  how  greatly  morality  has  suffered  the  clearly-sighted  will 
easily  surmise.  All  sorts  of  roguery  and  deception  have  been  played  off 
by  mock  proselytes,  for  the  sake  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  :  and  the  number 
of  relapsed  Papists  bear  a  fearful  proportion  to  the  number  of  those  who 
have  permanently  embraced  the  reformation.  To  expect  that  things  should 
be  otherwise,  is  to  be  ignorant  of  the  human  heart ;  it  is  to  expect  the 
results  of  wisdom  from  the  combinations  of  folly;  it  is  to  sow  tares,  and 
look  for  a  harvest  of  wheat.  When  Catholic  emancipation  shall  have 
been  obtained,  the  two  religions  will  come  fairly  into  contact,  and  the  best 
will  eventually  triumph.  That  this  change  will  be  in  favour  of  Protestant- 
ism, we  firmly  believe  ;  and  this  is  not  among  the  least  of  the  motives  which 
influence  our  feelings  in  advocating  the  cause.  The  matter  is  well  worth 
the  consideration  of  Protestants  on  both  sides  the  Channel.  T. 


TO 


THE  heavens  are  blue,  and  earth  is  springing 
With  flow'rets  bright  and  gay  ; 

And  tuneful  little  birds  are  singing 
The  sunny  hours  away. 

'Tis  gladness  all — around — above  ; 

But  nought  can  charm  me  now  : 
For  thou  art  sorrowful,  my  love — 

A  cloud  is  on  thy  brow. 

Oh !  quickly  let  this  gloom  be  past ; 

'Twas  never,  never  meant 
Features  like  thine  should  be  o'ercast 

With  shades  of  discontent. 

For  thou  art  like  the  morning  star-r- 

So  radiant  and  so  bright ! 
I  follow  in  thy  train  afar, 

Rejoicing  in  thy  light. 

Thou  art  my  sun!  and  I  do  borrow 

My  very  life  from  thee : 
Now,  if  thy  beams  be  quench'd  in  sorrow, 

How  dark  my  soul  must  be! 

Oh!  give  me  then  one  sunny  smile! 

So  shall  that  blessed  ray 
The  sorrows  of  my  heart  beguile, 

And  dry  my  tears  away. 

LYRA. 


M.M.  New  Series~VoL.  III.  No.  15.  2  K 


[    2*0    ]  [MARCH, 

THE  DEAD  WATCH     A  LKGKND  OF  SWEDEN. 

THE  last  moments  of  Ulrica,  Princess  of  Sweden,  approached.  A  film 
obscured  her  eye;  but  her  voice,  though  weak,  was  clear.  "  I  thought  I 
scarcely  could  have  died  without  bidding  a  last  farewell,"  she  said,  "  to 
my  beloved  Emelinde— but  life  recedes  apace.  How  many  days  have 
elapsed  since  the  messenger  was  despatched  to  Saxony?" — "  But  three,  my 
dearest  princess!'*  replied  an  aged  attendant,  whose  accents  were  scarcely 
more  distinct  than  those  of  her  dying  mistress  : — "  but  three; — as  many 
weeks  must  pass  before  Countess  Emelinde,  of  Schoenberg,  can  arrive." — 
"  I  have  not  as  many  hours  to  live,  and  must  forego  this  hope,"  resumed 
the  lady ;  "  oar  vow  to  meet  again,  before  the  tomb  closed  over  us,  has 
past  unfulfilled.  My  faithful  friends,  farewell !  when  I  am  gone,  think 
kindly  of  your  princess!" 

It  was  three  in  the  morning  when  Ulrica  expired  :  the  next  day,  the 
body  lay  in  state,  and  all  Stockholm  repaired  to  take  a  last  look  at  their 
beloved  princess.  The  crowd  was  so  great,  that,  towards  evening,  the 
officer  on  guard  found  it  difficult  to  enforce  the  order  for  closing  the  doors, 
and  that  none  should  be  admitted  until  the  following  day.  This  officer 
was  Baron  Frederic,  of  W. — a  young  Swede  of  undoubted  courage.  The 
eleventh  hour  had  struck  ;  and,  as  he  walked  up  and  down  an  anti-chamber,, 
separated  from  the  room  where  the  princess  lay  merely  by  a  glass  parti- 
tion, he  often  paused  to  gaze  at  the  idle  pomp  which  surrounded  the  royal 
corpse,  where  the  shades  of  death  and  the  glare  of  a  thousand  tapers 
seemed  engaged  in  ghastly  combat — and  then,  his  head  sunk  on  his 
breast — and  again  he  moved  slowly  on,  wrapt  in  his  own  reflections. 

So  passed  the  next  hour,  and  the  palace  clock  struck  twelve  :  as  its  last 
vibration  ceased,  a  lady,  dressed  in  black,  whom  the  baron  immediately 
recognized  as  the  Countess  Emelinde  of  Scho2iiberg,  the  absent  friend  of 
the  princess,  entered. — "  Noble  Countess,"  said  Baron  Frederic,  (i  the 
chamber  of  her  highness  is  closed,  and  no  one,  until  the  morning,  can  be 
admitted.  Nay,  advance  not,  lady — my  orders  are  severe ;  and,  were  I 
even  to  infringe  them,  it  would  but  afford  you  the  means  of  augmenting 
.your  sorrow.  I  pray  you,  refrain!" — and,  seeing  the  pale  figure  advance, 
he  moved  to  oppose  her  entering. 

A  cold  hand  was  laid  on  his — an  icy  shudder  pervaded  his  whole  frame 
—and  he  remained  motionless  !  For  a  moment's  space,  his  sight  was 
obscured ;  and,  when  he  recovered  it,  he  saw  the  figure  approach  the 
bed  of  the  princess.  The  corpse  arose,  and  opened  its  heavy  eyelids  ; 
but  its  glance  was  fixed  and  glassy.  The  arms,  which  before  were  crossed 
on  the  breast,  spread  slowly,  to  embrace  the  pallid  form  which  moved  to 
meet  them ! 

When  Baron  Frederic  recovered,  he  found  himself  lying  on  the 

ground  :  he  was  alone.  The  corpse  had  resumed  its  former  attitude;  but 
on  the  lips,  which  had  retained  the  convulsive  contraction  of  the  last 
agony,  now  sate  a  placid  smile.  Inquiries  were  made  in  the  palace  ;  and 
their  only  result  was,  thaton  that  night,  at  the  midnight  hour,  a  mourning 
coach,  drawn  by  four  horses,  had  entered  the  palace  court :  a  female,  in 
black  attire,  alighted  from  it,  and  ascended  the  stairs.  In  what  manner 
either  the  carriage  or  the  lady  had  disappeared,  could  none  explain.  In 
the  course  of  a  month,  the  messenger  despatched  to  Saxony  returned, 
and  also  with  tidings  of  the  death  of  the  Countess  Schcenberg.  The  story 
is  to  this  day  well  remembered  in  Stockholm,  and  recounted  as  often  as  a 
rude  basso-relievo,  representing  this  mysterious  circumstance,  arrests  the 
attention  of  the  traveller. 


J827.J  [     251     ] 


TERRA    INCOGNITA. 
No.  I. 

THE  nineteenth  year  is  now  rolling  away  since  the  bright  July  morning 
when  I  looked  on  the  "  Land's-End,"  fading  from  the  view,  as  we  dashed 
along  before  a  fresh  north-eastern  breeze  —  one  of  a  hundred  ships  con- 
voyed by  the  Polyphemus,  and  destined  for  various  ports. 

By  a  series  of  events  my  father  had  been  ruined  :  several  attempts  to 
re-establish  himself  proved  abortive,  and  he  eventually  came  to  seek  his 
fortune  in  London.  The  first  thing  that  presented  itself  he  accepted  —  an 
employment  of  small  consequence,  and  of  smaller  emolument,  in  the  dis- 
tant colony  of  New  South  Wales.  Nineteen  years  ago,  the  name  of  Botany 
Bay  was  enough  to  frighten  an  honest  man;  but  with  the  "  mens  conscia 
recti"  my  father  embarked  with  my  mother  and  their  three  infant  sons. 
Sixty  female  convicts  occupied  the  ship  between  decks  ;  and  an  officer  of 
the  New  South  Wales  corps,  with  his  family,  held  one  part,  and  we  the 
other,,  of  the  great  cabin.  Spithead  was  the  rendezvous  for  ships  that  were 
to  sail  with  the  West  India  convoy  ;  and  there  we  waited  with  our  consort, 
till  a  signal  from  the  Polyphemus  loosened  the  canvas  of  more  than  a 
hundred  sail. 

We  had  flitted  by  the  picturesque  and  beautiful  coast  of  my  own  native 
county  ;  and  it  was  the  next  day  after  that  on  which  we  sailed,  I  think, 
that  we  saw  the  Land's-End;  and  thoughtfully  I  gazed,  a.s  it  lessened  in 
the  distance.  Many  a  time,  during  the  day,  I  mounted  on  a  gtm,  and 
strained  my  eyes  for  the-  long  grey  streak  in  the  horizon,  which  many 
saw  then  that  will  never  see  it  again.  Land's-End  has  lived  in  my  mind's 
eye,  though  I  have  never  seen  it  since  ;  and  the  emotion  connected  with 
seeing  it  for  the  last  time,  must  have  been  strong  in  a  child  of  seven  years* 
old,  to  remember  it  as  I  do  now.  They  talked  of  it,  I  suppose  ;  and 
some  more  sentimental  sailor  may  have  warbled,  as  he  stood  at  the  wheel, 
and  gazed  around  him  (the  M  -  had  no  poop),  "  Adieu  !  my  native 
land,  adieu  !" 

The  following  day  we  had  quite  lost  sight  of  land,  and  the  whole  fleet 
was  standing  steadily  on,  on  a  wind,  led  by  the  convoy  —  when,  about 
mid-day,  she  suddenly  made  signal  for  the  headmost  ships  to  lay-to;  and, 

the  rear'—' 


going  about,  cracked  on  all  the  sail  she  could  carry  towards 
where  a  French  privateer  was  just  about  to  make  free  with  some  of  her 
charge.  W"e  had  been  sailing  abreast  of  the  commodore  ;  and  I  remember 
watching  the  whole  proceeding  with  great  interest,  as  we  lay-to  with  the 
rest,  till  she  should  return.  The  Frenchman  shewed  the  white  feather,  and 
ran  with  alacrity.  Defence  being  the  object  of  our  protector,  of  course  the 
pursuit  was  not  kept  up  ;  but  all  the  fleet  again  got  under  weigh,  and  the 
Polyphemus  returning  steadily,  in  a  few  hours  was  in  her  place  a-head  — 
like  a  hen  followed  by  a  brood  of  chickens. 

A  fleet  of  merchantmen,  convoyed  by  a  man  of  war,  necessarily  sails  no 
faster  than  the  slowest  ship  in  it  can  go  ;  so  that  frequently,  as  it  was  with 
us,  the  commodore  and  other  fast  sailers  will  be  under  topsails,  while  the 
lumberers  are  carrying  every  stitch. 

The  Bay  of  Biscay  brought  on  that  pleasant  sensation,  which  fresh- 
water sailors  generally  feel  at  the  first  breeze  after  the  commencement  of  a 
voyage.  Arriving  at  Madeira,  we  stood  off  and  on,  in  the  Funchal  Roads., 
ior  the  greater  part  of  a  day,  sending  on  shore  for  refreshments  ;  and  then 

2-K  2 


262  Terra  Incognita.  [MARCH, 

stood  on  for  Rio  do  Janeiro  with  our  consort  alone,  parting  company  with 
the  West  India  fleet.  Ours  was  the  smaller  ship,  and  our  captain  the 
junior ;  so  that  the  other  was  commodore,  and  was  generally  a-head:  she, 
too,  was  bound  for  Australia — though  that  classic  name  was  not  then  in 
vogue — and  was  laden  with  male  convicts  and  a  military  guard.  J  think 

it  could  not  have  been  many  days  after  we  passed  Madeira,  that  the  G 

made  signal  of  a  strange  sail  in  sight,  and  both  ships  cleared  the  decks  for 
action.  All  the  women  and  children  were  started  below,  and  the  hatches 
were  battened  down  ;  though,  I  believe,  that  we  abaft  were  on  parole,  not 
to  shew  our  noses  above  the  companion-ladder.  Report  said  that  the 
stranger  was  a  man-of-war,  and,  of  course,  a  Frenchman,  and  that  she  was 
bearing  down  upon  us ;  but,  nothing  daunted,  we  did  not  run  away,  and, 

in  the  course  of  two  hours,  she  had  spoke  the  G ,  after  shewing  British 

colours — and  then  we  were  enfranchised.  I  saw  her,  and  she  must  have 
been  a  line-of-battle  ship — for  she  was  larger  than  the  Polyphemus  (a 
sixty-four) :  and  yet  we — twO'Convict  craft — the  one  carrying  si  teen,  and 
the  other  twelve  carronades,  with  not  men  enough  in  both  ships  to  work  a 
tythe  of  that  number — had  dared  to  clear  the  deck  for  action  !  Cutlasses 
and  boarding-pikes  were  strewed  on  the  quarter-deck  ;  so  that,  I  suppose, 
we  were  to  have  carried  the  enemy  by  storm ! 

After  that  "  hair-breadth  escape  " — "  of  being  taken  by  the  insolent 
foe/*  I  do  not  remember  any  other  "  moving  accident/'  till  we  reached 
the  line ;  when  Neptune  boarded  us,  and  went  through  the  ordinary  cere- 
monies of  the  occasion.  For  us  younkers,  his  godship  took  fees ;  so  that 
we  saw  the  fun,  without  smarting  from  its  effects. 

Nine  weeks  sojourn  at  Rio  somewhat  impressed  the  place  on  my 
memory  ; — the  noble  harbour,  with  the  magnificent-looking  city — the 
batteries  among  the  rocks — the  convent,  perched  beautifully  on  the  high 
south  coast — and  the  islands  behind ; — indeed,  I  think  it  must  be  very 
much  like  the  Gulph  of  Naples  in  its  general  character ;  but  my  idea  is 
necessarily  a  confused  one  :  however,  the  picture  on  my  mind  is,  that  of 
a  very  fine  subject,  though  very  faintly  impinged.  Several  English  line- 
of-battle  ships  lay  there,  under  the  command  of  Sir  Sydney  Smith,  who 
had  his  flag  in  the  Foudroyant,  or  Bellerophon — I  forget  which  :  both  were 
there. 

But  such  narrow,  dirty  streets ! — the  women,  peeping  through  the  grated 
windows,  too !— sweetmeats — fruits — religious  processions — sour  and  gritty 
bread — lean,  carrion-looking  beef; — all  stand,  more  or  less,  distinctly 
marked  on  the  picture  of  the  city's  interior. 

Just  about  the  time  we  were  to  have  sailed,  some  of  our  sailors  went  on 
shore — at  one  of  the  islands,  it  strikes  me — arid  stole  some  goats,  and 
rabbits,  and  poultry,  and  brought  them  on  board.  The  captain,  fearing 
that  an  exposure  would  detain  him,  winked  at  it — but  that  would  not  do ; 
— it  came  out.  The  admiral  (Sir  Sydney)  took  it  up ;  the  captain  and 
his  first  mate  were  turned  out,  and  new  ones  put  on  board  ;  and  all  the 
men  concerned  were  removed  to  Sir  Sydney's  ship.  I  very  well  remember 
the  gallant  and  chivalrous  admiral  coming  on  board  of  us  several  times  ;  for 
I  had  the  honour  of  attracting  his  notice,  and  of  being  patted  on  the.  head 
by  him,  and — more  than  that,  too — of  eating  oranges,  which  he  sent  on 
board  in  profusion  ;  but,  I  think,  they  were  for  the  convict  women — not 
for  me.  However,  "  dogs  and  children  are  in  every  body's  mess,  and 
nobody's  watch."  For  nine  long  weeks,  we  ate  lean  Brazilian  beef,  sour 
Brazilian  bread,  and  were  broiled  by  a  tropical  Brazilian  sun ;  and  then 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  253 

we  went  to  sea  again — but  single-handed ;  for  the  G sailed  when  our 

misfortune  happened.  Long  and  tedious  was  the  passage,  and  rough  was 
the  sea,  from  Rio  de  Janeiro  to  Bass's  Straits,  which  divide  Van  Dieman's 
Land  from  New  Holland ;  but  the  gales  off  the  Cape,  and  across  the 
great  Indian  Ocean,  were  not  so  tedious  as  the  sailing  along  with  a  ridge 
of  low  land  in  sight,  never  changing  in  appearance,  and  apparently 
interminable.  At  length  we  reached  "  the  Heads;"  but  Macquarrie 
Tower  was  not  then  built,  with  its  revolving  lights  ;  and  we  lay-to  till 
next  morning — when  we  entered  the  finest  harbour  in  the  world  ! 

The  north  and  south  Heads  are  right  and  left  of  the  entrance  to  Port, 
Jackson,  and  about  a  mile  apart ;  the  former  is  a  high  and  almost  perpen- 
dicular cliff;  but  the  south  head  is  comparatively  low,  and  is  the  end  of 
a  promontory  that  shelters  the  port  from  easterly  gales.  Immediately 
within  the  entrance  there  is  a  mass  of  sunken  rock,  which  appears  above 
water  at  flood  tide  only  in  insulated  blocks — one  of  which,  being  consi- 
derably larger  than  any  of  the  rest,  the  group  is  called  the  Sow  and  Pig*. 
Passing  between  the  Sow  and  Pigs,  and  the  land  which  forms  the  south 
head,  it  is  about  two  miles  to  Bradley's-head,  where  this  arm  of  the  sea 
changes  from  a  south  to  a  directly  west  course. 

It^was  a  bright  unclouded  summer  morning,  in  the  month  of  January, 
when  we  passed  this  antipodal  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  and  the  ship  had 
just  rounded  Bradley's-head,  when  I  went  on  deck  to  gaze  with  delight  on 
"  land :"  she  was  beating  up  for  Sydney  Cove,  against  the  light  land- 
breeze  of  the  Australian  summer  morn  ;  and,  I  suppose,  with  the  tide — 
for  she  made  way*  I  remember  now  with  what  anxiety  I  ran  forward, 
whenever  the  ship  approached  the  north  shore,  which  I  felt  confident  she 
must  run  upon,  for  she  went  so  close — when  the  "  ready  about,"  and 
"  helm's  a-lee,"  of  the  pilot,  threw  her  head  to  the  wind,  and  then  filled 
her  off  for  the  sand-hills,  and  the  intervening  islands,  which,  in  their 
turn,  we  stood  for.  The  first  of  them  bears  a  thievish  name — Shark's 
Island;  the  second  is  named  after  Cook's  colleague — Clerk's  Island; 
the  next  in  the  same  line,  and  near  Anson's  Point,  is  the  beautiful 
and  romantic  island,  called  Garden  Island  :  many  a  holiday  afternoon 
have  I  spent  there,  convoyed  by  Billy  Blue,  hunting  five  corners  and 
jebungs,  and  breaking  oysters  from  the  rocks,  and  fishing  for  bream  and 
mullet  in  the  deep  waters  around  it.  About  half  way  across,  from  Garden 
Island  to  the  north  shore,  is  the  little  sterile  rocky  mound,  which  bears 
the  beggarly  unpropitious  name  of  Pinchgut;  and  in  the  highest  point  of 
it,  at  the  time  I  refer  to,  stood  a  gibbet,  from  which  dangled  "  a  mur- 
derer's banes  in  gibbet  aims."  There  it  stood — a  standard  that  civilization 
had  erected,  on  reclaiming  the  territory  from  the  hand  of  nature — a  sign- 
post, with  an  appropriate  sign,  to  this  inn,  "  where  the  wicked  cease  from 
troubling."  Many  were  the  stories  I  heard,  in  after-times,  of  the  crimes 
and  of  the  punishment  of  the  man  whose  bones  hung  there,  and  of  the 
marvellous  things  that  were  effected  by  his  ghost,  which  mounted  guard 
every  night  by  the  gibbet-foot,  till  it  was  dismantled  in  the  following  reign. 
I  heard,  too,  many  reasons  for  the  name  that  the  island  bore ;  and  the 
best-authenticated  is  to  this  effect.— In  the  earliest  years  of  the  settlement, 
when  the  little  colony  of  marines  and  convicts — guards  and  the  guarded — was 
dependant  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  even  to  the  bread  they  ate,  on  supplies 
from  Europe,  it  not  unfrequently  happened  that  all  hands  were  on  very 
short  allowance.  On  these  occasions,  the  governor  punished  minor  crimes 
by  banishment  to  this  little  island,  and  a  still  shorter  allowance  than  was 
given  in  the  settlement — whence  it  obtained  the  name  it  now  bears.  Just 


254  Terra  Incognita.  [MARCH, 

above  Pinchgut,  Rennelongs'  Point  stretches  out  parallel  to  the  south- 
head,  and  about  five  or  six  miles  in  a  direct  line  from  it,  and  forms  the 
east  side  of  Sydney  Cove :  the  shore  from  Bradley 's-head  runs  in  an  almost 
unbroken  line  about  the  same  distance,  and  then  throws  out  a  high  bluff 
point,  called  Ball's-head.  The  whole  of  that  coast  is  high  and  rocky,  but 
covered  with  lofty  trees  and  thick  brushy  underwood ;  it  forms  the  north 
side  of  the  harbour,  and  is  familiarly  called  the  North  Shore.  Dawes' 
Point,  with  its  flag-staff  and  batteries,  is  opposite,  and  parallel  to  Benne- 
longs',  and  is  high  and  rocky — while  the  latter  is  low,  and  covered  with 
underwood  and  green  sward,  till  they  near  the  bottom  of  the  Cove,  when 
their  height  approximates  somewhat,  and  they  finish  in  the  two  long  hills, 
on  and  between  which  the  capital  of  the  infant  empire  of  Australia  is 
rising.  I  thought  it  a  lovely  sight,  when  we  came  to  anchor  in  the  Cove, 
before  mid-day  of  one  of  the  finest  days  I  ever  remember.  On  one  side, 
the  native  forests  of  the  north  shore  bounded  the  view ;  thence,  Dawes' 
Point,  with  a  battery  on  its  lofty  front,  led  the  eye  over  a  mass  of  dwell- 
ings on  the  rocks,  surmounted  by  Fort  Philip,  and  bordered  by  a  line  of 
wharfs,  stores,  hospitals,  and  docks.  Further  on,  in  the  half-distance, 
stood  the  gloomy  and  massive  gaol ;  and  above  appeared  a  high  stone 
windmill,  and  the  little  church  of  St.  Philip,  with  its  square  clock  tower. 
The  barracks,  in  long  white  rows,  crowned  the  hill  behind  the  church  ;  and 
the  space  between  was  filled  up  with  houses  and  gardens,  and  the  one- 
arched  bridge  striding  across  the  stream,  which  comes  down  the  valley 
between  the  two  hills ;  and  near  that  stood  the  wonder  of  the  place — a 
four-storied  stone  house,  with  an  infinity  of  little  windows,  giving  it  the 
appearance  of  a  granary  ;  and,  a  short  distance  above,  shrouded  by  a  grove 
of  trees,  appeared  the  modest  little  villa  called  the  government-house:  the 
same  stands  there  now.  I  say  the  same — though,  I  believe,  that  it  is  like 
the  boy's  knife,  that  had  had  two  new  blades,  and  one  new  handle ;  for 
Governor  Macquarrie  was  never  tired  of  altering  and  improving  it — and 
yet  he  never  pulled  it  down  and  rebuilt  it.  On  the  top  of  the  hill,  behind 
the  government-house,  stood  the  windmills  ;  and  from  them  the  whole  of 
Bennelongs'  Point,  stretching  out  to  where  it  almost  meets  the  north 
shore,  was  unoccupied,  except  by  the  vagrant  tribes  of  aboriginals,  whose 
black  figures  we  could  see  among  the  bushes,  about  the  thin  columns  of 
smoke  from  their  fish-fires. 

The  beautiful  peaches  and  delicious  water-melons  that  we  ate,  on 
first  landing  in  the  town  of  Sydney,  made  us  forget  the  imprisonment  of  a 
seven  months'  voyage ;  and  the  fine  white  bread  seemed  like  manna,  after 
the  sour  and  sandy  rolls  of  Rio  Janeiro,  and  the  hard  biscuits  of  the 

M . 

No  place  in  the  world  can  have  undergone  a  greater  change  in  the 
same  space  of  time,  and  under  equally  forbidding  circumstances,  than  the 
shores  of  Sydney  Cove  have,  since  the  foundation  of  the  colony.  Forty 
years  ago,  there  was  not  a  civilized  community  within  eight  or  ten  weeks* 
voyage  of  the  site :  it  was  a  "  vast  howling  wilderness,"  occupied  only 
(if  occupation  it  may  be  called)  by  a  straggling — worse  than  Caffro 
population  ;  a  people,  more  vagrant  than  gypsies,  idler  than  monkies, 
meagre  from  starvation — in  a  country  as  fertile  as  Egypt,  and  with  the 
climate  of  Naples — who  knew  only  how  to  procure  fire,  but  not  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  autumnal  rains,  or  the  frosts  of  July.  Now  a  city 
stands ! — built  truly  by  the  refuse  and  scum  of  a  nation  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  globe — but  occupied  by  a  thriving  and  industrious  population, 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  255 

composed  of  free  emigrants  and  reclaimed  convicts,  which  already -rivals,  in 
commerce  and  arts,  the  oldest  establishments  in  Europe.  The  sea-breezes 
which,  forty  years  ago,  had  never  filled  a  sail,  now  daily  waft,  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  ships  of  all  sizes,  and  of  every  nation.  The  bright 
waters  of  Sydney  harbour  had  then  never  reflected  but  the  fragile  bark 
canoe  of  the  native,  with  the  black  naked  figures  of  himself  and  his 
degraded  mate; — now  the  Cove  is  filled  with  ships — some  bearing  the  pro- 
ducts of  Europe  and  India,  and  others  lading  with  the  products  of  the 
colony,  and  the  seas  and  islands  about  it,  to  reciprocate  by  return. 

Eighteen  years  ago,  the  settlement  had  just  attained  its  majority;  and 
then  stood  in  the  mid-distance  of  its  original  and  present  state.  Fabrics, 
which  were  then  of  wood,  are  now  of  stone ;  gardens  and  orchards  of 
that  time  are  now  occupied  by  the  busier  haunts  of  men ;  hospitals, 
churches,  barracks  for  military  and  convicts,  public  and  private  buildings, 
of  all  descriptions,  now  appear  on  every  side  ;  dirty  lanes,  with  irregularly- 
built  hovels,  have  been  changed  into  well-built  streets ; — at  that  time, 
roads  were  made  by  cutting  away  the  trees,  and  leaving  the  carts  to  mark 
the  track  on  the  green  turf;  now,  stage-coaches  run  over  turnpike-roads ! 
Eighteen  years  ago,  the  arrival  of  a  ship  from  England  was  an  era ;  now, 
not  a  week  passes  without  arrivals  and  departures  from,  and  for,  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Then,  almost  every  ship  bore  an  unhappy  expatriated  freight; 
and  now,  there  is  not  more  than  one  so  laden,  to  two  or  three  which  bear 
merchandize,  and  willing  emigrants,  seeking  to  ameliorate  their  fortunes  in 
the  sunny  clime  of  Australia.  Hundreds  of  colonial  vessels,  too,  of  various 
burden,  manned  and  conducted  by  Austral- Europeans,  carry  on  an  exten- 
sive trade  between  the  various  parts  of  the  colony,  and  between  the  two 
colonies  of  New  South  Wales  and  Van  Diemen'sLand — among  the  islands 
of  the  South  Seas — to  China — India — the  Indian  Archipelago — to  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  —  South  America  both  in  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
— and,  indeed,  some,  I  believe,  have  reached  even  to  England  ! 

When  we  arrived  in  New  South  Wales,  the  means  of  education  were 
necessarily  very  scant ;  now,  there  are  public  schools,  and  asylums  for 
the  poor  and  the  orphan,  and  schools  of  every  degree  for  the  richer  part  of 
the  community.  At  that  time,  our  miserable  little  quarter-sheet  issued 
from  the  press  once  a  week,  with  government  orders,  and  a  few  advertise 
raents,  and  year-old  intelligence  from  Europe;  now,  the  "  Sydney 
Gazette  "  is  a  full  sheet,  well  and  closely  printed,  published  twice  a  week, 
and  containing  all  the  colonial  intelligence  of  interest — and  news  from 
England,  which  may  be  read  in  England  again,  within  eight  months  of  its 
first  publication.  The  "Australian."  a  journal  of  the  same  description, 
published  also  twice  a- week,  has  been  established  now  between  two  and 
three  years,  and  has  met  with  deserved  success :  indeed,  it  is  fully  equal 
in  merit  to  any  provincial  newspaper  in  England.  The  "  Monitor," 
lately  established,  cannot  fail  of  success,  from  the  acknowledged  talent  of 
its  editor.  But,  indeed,  time  and  space  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the  wonder- 
ful changes  that  not  only  forty  years,  but  the  last  eighteen  of  them,  have 
wrought  on  the  shores  of  Australia.  The  corrobera  of  the  naked  savage 
by  the  light  of  the  moon,  on  the  green  sod,  to  the  beating  of  sticks,  and  the 
monotonous  drawl  of  a  few  old  withered  hags  (their  women  do  not  join  in 
the  dance),  has  given  place  to  quadrilles  and  waltzes,  in  bright  saloons — to 
the  music  of  military  bands,  and  danced  by  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
Albion. 

However,  it  was  nearer  the  pristine  state  at  the  time  I  refer  to.     The 


256  Terra  Incognita.  [MARCH, 

governor — the  always  unfortunate  Captain  Bligli  — had  lately  been  deposed 
by  military  violence,  and  the  rebel  government  *'  reigned  in  his  stead." 
Not  long  after  our  arrival,  Governor  Macquarrie  arrived  ;  and,  during  a 
long  administration  of  twelve  years,  effected  almost  all  that  has  been  done 
from  that  time  to  the  present — though,  of  course,  when  the  plant  had 
taken  root  in  a  good  soil,  it  could  not  but  thrive. 

The  house  in  which  we  were  at  first  domiciliated  was  one  of  the  best 
in  Sydney,  having  been  built  for — and,  I  believe,  occupied  by — Governor 
Hunter :  its  situation,  too,  was  one  of  the  finest  in  the  town  ;  but — it  was 
haunted !  Near  the  spot  on  which  it  stood,  the  first  executions  had  taken 
place;  and  tradition  said,  that  some  marines,  who  had  been  half-hanged 
for  robbing  the  stores,  were  buried,  half-alive,  just  where  the  house  was 
afterwards  built;  their  ghosts  had  been  exorcised,  but  not  laid  :  I  suppose 
the  Red  Sea  was  too  far  off!  I  have  heard  them  often,  but  never  saw 
them — though,  I  am  sure,  our  big  house-dog  did;  for,  as  soon  as  ever 
the  house  was  shut  up  at  night,  he  would  take  his  station  by  the  cellar- 
door,  and  howl  so  frightfully,  that  at  length,  as  a  common  disturber  of 
both  the  dead  and  the  living — he  was  hanged.  At  nine  o'clock  every 
night,  the  drums  beat  off  before  the  barracks,  preceded  and  followed  by 
the  bugles.  Many  a  scene  of  fear  and  real  danger  have  I  passed  through 
since  the  days  I  refer  to ;  but  in  no  one  have  I  ever  felt  so  intensely,  as 
when,  in  a  bleak  winter's  evening,  after  having  listened,  as  I  lay  in  bed, 
to  the  last  long  wind  of  the  bugle,  followed  by  a  simultaneous  cry  of 
"  All's  well !"  from  all  the  sentinels  in  the  town  ;  and  then,  when  every 
thing  was  hushed  in  darkness  and  in  solemn  silence — except,  perhaps,  the 
whistling  of  the  wind,  and  the  pelting  of  the  rain  on  the  windows — I  have 
heard,  in  the  room  below  me,  mysterious  noises,  as  of  skeletons  tumbling 
and  scampering  about  the  floor,  and  scratching,  with  a  crackling  sound, 
against  the  cedar  wainscot;  and  the  dismal  howl  of  the  tawny  dog, 
couched  by  the  cellar-door  under  my  bed-room  window — I  cannot  think 
of  it,  even  now,  without  quaking  ! 

For  the  first  few  months,  I  could  not  pass  any  of  the  natives  in  the 
streets  without  trepidation,  and,  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  they  were 
to  me  for  some  time  objects  of  terror:  indeed.,  though  they  are  as  harmless 
as  a  fangless  serpent,  yet  neither  the  one  nor  the  other — neither  a  naked 
savage,  nor  a  poisonous  reptile — could  be  encountered  at  large,  without 
disagreeable  sensations,  by  a  child  who  had  never  heard  either  spoken  of 
but  as  objects  of  fear  and  aversion. 

Alas!  for  the  poor  black-fellows!*  At  that  time  they  ranged  the 
country  as  they  pleased,  got  drunk  whenever  they  could  get  the  means, 
and  broke  each  other's  heads  when  and  where  they  pleased !  They  car- 
ried their  spears  and  their  waddies  with  them  wherever  they  went,  molested 
by  and  molesting  no  one.  Fish  and  mud-oysters  were  their  staple  com- 
modities, and  these  they  exchanged  for  bread  or  rum.  Wearing-apparel 
they  would  take,  but  it  was  merely  as  an  article  of  merchandize  :  a  shirt 
or  a  pair  of  trowsers  might  pass  through  their  hands,  but  seldom  rested  long 
on  their  limbs — it  would  be  disposed  of,  at  the  earliest  opportunity,  for 
rum  or  bread.  It  was  a  custom  with  the  inhabitants  of  Sydney,  parti- 
cularly, to  reserve  the  coarse  sugre-loags,  in  which  sugar  is  sent  from  India, 
to  give  to  the  first  lot  of  black-fellows  that  might  pass  after  it  had  been 
emptied,  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  them  get  very  drunk,  and  fight ;  for, 

*  The  colonial  generic  name  for  the  aborigines, 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  2.17 

strange  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  a  fact,  that  they  would  soak  a  bag  of  the 
kind  in  a  common  pail  of  water;  and  then,  each  being  furnished  with  a 
piece  of  the  sugee,  or  with  a  corner  of  the  bag,  eight  or  ten  of  them  get 
quite  tipsey,  by  sucking  the  liquor  out — not  sucking  it  up,  with  their  noses 
in  it,  like  pigs — nor  drinking  it  like  civilized  human  beings — but  by  dip- 
ping the  piece  of  stuff  to  saturate  it  with  the  juice,  and  then  sucking  it 
out,  as  one  might  suck  the  juice  out  of  an  orange  ;  to  prolong  the  pleasure 
they  did  it,  and  to  promote  intoxication,  one  would  think — for  it  certainly 
had  that  effect — and  then  quarrels  would  arise,  and  broken  heads  ensued. 
To  what  a  pitch  of  degradation  have  I  seen  humanity  reduced !  White 
savages,  having  given  the  filthiest  means  of  inebriation  to  black  savages — 
who,  unconsciously,  remunerated  their  benefactors  by  an  exhibition,  in 
the  public  streets,  of  their  naked  persons  in  gladiatorial  show  ! — the  men 
actively  engaged  in  thrashing  each  other  with  clubs,  hand  to  hand ;  and 
the  women,  unarmed,  but  receiving  blows  on  their  heads  from  both  par- 
ties, as  they  happened  to  interfere — all,  at  the  same  time,  vociferating,  in 
their  loudest  tones,  all  the  abuse  that  their  own  language  was  capable  of; 
and  (out  of  compliment  to  their  benefactors],  making  up,  for  its  want  of 
force,  by  the  use  of  English  words — opprobrious  terms — oaths — curses — 
and  blasphemies ! 

The  swillings  of  a  rum-puncheon  made  a  liquor  called  bull,  winch  was 
a  powerful  rival  of  sugar-bag.  Bull,  however,  would  more  frequently  find 
its  way  down  the  throats  of  the  convict-servants  than  those  of  the  poor 
black  fellows. 

Revolting  as  such  a  state  of  things  appears,  it  had  existed  from  the 
earliest  establishment  of  the  colony,  and  did  exist  for  several  years  after 
the  late  excellent  Governor  Macquarrie's  arrival  there.  At  length  (In  the 
year  1812,  I  think),  a  government  order  appeared,  which  put  an  end  to 
the  exhibition  of  such  scenes,  in  the  towns  at  least ;  and  a  later  order  has 
prohibited  the  natives  from  appearing  in,  or  within  a  certain  distance  of, 
any  of  the  townships,  with  offensive  weapons  about  them.  To  the  present 
day,  though,  I  believe,  they  wander  about  the  streets,  naked  as  they  were 
born  !  The  women,  of  late  years,  are  frequently  covered  with  a  blanket, 
which  they  either  hang  over, their  shoulders,  like  a  cloak — or  tie  round  the 
waist,  like  a  petticoat — leaving  the  bust  exposed.  The  notion  the  men 
have  of  the  use  of  clothes,  may  be  inferred  from  this — that  they  will  as 
soon  accept  a  coat  as  a  pair  of  trowsers — supposing  them  to  be  previously 
possessed  of  neither.  Nothing  can  have  a  more  ludicrous  effect,  than  to 
see  a  man  (and  I  have  seen  many  of  them)  strolling  about  the  town,  with 
a  stick  drawn  across  the  back  of  his  neck,  held  at  the  ends  by  both  hands, 
and  with  not  a  single  article  of  clothing  on  him,  but  an  old  coat — perchance 
it  may  be  a  short  jacket,  or  a  waistcoat,  a  hat,  or  a  single  stocking  or  shoe ; 
sometimes  it  may  be  a  shirt,  or  a  pair  of  trowsers — but  seldom  any  two 
articles  on  the  same  man — and,  as  often  as  any,  stark  naked !  Custom 
and  habit  may  reconcile  one  to  almost  any  thing ;  and  I  am  sure  that  no 
ideas  of  indelicacy  or  impropriety  obtrude  themselves  on  the  minds  of  the 
Austral,  or  long- resident,  European  females,  more  than  on  the  minds  of 
those  in  this  part  of  the  world,  who  are  in  the  habit  of  frequenting  sculpture 
or  picture  galleries,  where  the  human  form  is  commonly  displayed  without 
covering. 

The  first  Easter  holidays,  I  went  to  spend  at  Parramatta.  Two  of  my 
school-fellows,  brothers,  whose  father  was  a  justice  of  the  peace,  living  at 
the  Hawkesbury,  had  to  go  home  by  the  market-cart ;  and  as  Parramatta 

M.  M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  15.  2  L 


258  Terra  Incognita.  [ MARCH, 

lay  in  their  road,  it  was  thought  too  favourable  an  opportunity  to  be 
neglected,  of  sending  me  to  my  destination.  The  cart  had  been  sent  down 
a  distance  of  more  than  forty  miles,  with  articles  for  the  Sydney  market, 
and  to  bring  back  such  things  as  were  only  procurable  in  the  principal  town 
— such  as  tea,  sugar,  spirits,  and  manufactured  goods ;  indeed,  all  such 
things  as,  in  this  country,  are  to  be  found  at  a  village-huckster's.  It  was 
in  the  charge  of  a  convict,  or — as  the  term  used  there  is — a  "  government 
servant".  Horses  were,  at  that  time,  only  used  for  the  saddle,  and  to  run 
in  harness ;  but  seldom,  indeed,  for  heavy  draught — for  which  oxen  were 
employed.  The  cart  in  which  I  began  my  travels  in  Australia,  was  drawn 
by  a  bullock,  whose  utmost  speed  would  never  exceed  two  miles  an  hour, 
on  the  best  of  roads ;  but  on  that  we  had  to  go  over,  at  least  for  the  first 
day,  1  do  not  believe  he  netted  one  ! 

We  started  from  Sydney  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  a 
fine  autumnal  day,  intending  to  stop  for  the  night  at  Brown's  Half- way- 
house,  which  was  not  more  than  seven  miles,  or  seven  and  a  half  at  the 
utmost,  on  the  road  ;  but,  after  having  safely  passed  through  Blackwattle- 
swamp,  which  then  had  no  bridge — and  over  Grose's-hill,  the  steepest  in 
the  line — we  found  ourselves,  at  seven  or  eight  o'clock,  abreast  of  Dobryde, 
with  a  broken  felloe,  and  not  less  than  a  mile  short  of  our  destination. 
Hungry  and  tired — for  we  boys  had  been  obliged  to  walk  up  every  hill, 
and  over  every  bad  part  of  the  road,  which  did  not  comprise  a  very  small  part 
of  the  whole  distance — frightened,  too,  of  bush-rangers  (the  runaway  con- 
victs are  so  called) — tempted  by  the  sight  of  a  comfortable  house,  standing 
by  a  grove  of  orange-trees,  and  close  at  hand r- my  companions,  who  were 
considerably  my  seniors,  determined  on  seeking  there  an  asylum  for  the 
night,  and  the  means  of  repairing  our  damage.  The  proprietor  of  Dobryde 
resided  in  Sydney  ;  but  his  absence  did  not  prevent  us  from  being  received 
with  hospitality.  Johnny-cakes  were  fried,  and  tea  made ; — tea,  the 
universal  beverage  of  an  Australian  settler — at  breakfast — at  dinner — at 
tea — and  at  supper — and  sometimes  oftener!  In  no  part  of  the  world,  I 
believe,  is  tea  so  much  used  as  in  that  country,  in  proportion  to  the  num- 
ber of  inhabitants — leave  comparative  wealth  out  of  the  question.  Malt 
liquors  are  hardly  known  out  of  two  or  three  of  the  principal  towns.  Peach 
cyder  (apple  cyder  is  not  made)  forms  the  field-beverage  of  the  country 
people,  but  cannot  be  put  into  competition  with  tea,  which  is  preferred  to 
it,  both  in  summer  and  winter.  Rum  is  so  great  a  favourite,  that  it  never 
gets  a  day  older  after  it  has  become  the  property  of  a  settler — so,  for  the 
ordinary  purposes  of  life,  cannot  be  compared  with  tea.  But  it  is  settlers 
of  the  old  school  that  I  am  speaking  of,  and  they  are  now  getting  scarcer 
every  day.  I  remember  the  time,  when  it  was  no  uncommon  case  for  a 
man  and  his  wife  to  leave  their  farm  with  a  load  of  grain,  vegetables,  or 
fruit,  for  the  Sydney  market — arrive  there  steadily  enough — dispose  of 
their  wares,  and  expend  the  proceeds  in  the  purchase  of  necessaries  and 
comforts,  including  a  few  gallons  of  rum — reach  their  home  again  in  two, 
three,  or  four  days  after  their  departure  from  Sydney,  according  to  their 
distance  from  it — with  an  empty  keg,  and  an  empty  cart!  But  turripike- 
roads — the  use  of  horses  instead  of  oxen — and  the  tighter  rein  by  which 
the  convicts  are  held — together  with  the  great  influx  of  respectable  and 
industrious  emigrant  settlers — have  tended  to  make  such  scenes  much  less 
frequent. 

If  England  had  been  a  wine  country,  wine  would  have  been  flowing 
through  tho  streets  of  Sydney  twenty  years  ago  :  but,  even  now,  the  grape- 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  t  259 

vine  is  almost  treated  like  an  exotic  where  geraniums  run  wild,  and  whore 
peaches  are  as  plentiful  as  blackberries  are  in  this  country.  In  our  garden 
at  Sydney,  there  were  vines  in  the  open  air,  under  which  I  have  seated 
myself  to  devour  clusters,  which  might  have  ripened  in  the  vallies  about 
Etna — so  fine  and  luscious  were  they!  But  yet,  they  import  ivinefrom 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope!  Several  individuals  have,  however,  lately  turned 
.their  attention  to  the  culture  of  the  vine ;  and  I  know  of  one  gentleman 
who,  three  years  ago,  took  some  people  from  Madeira  to  assist  him  in  it. 
I  think,  too,  that  I  have  heard  of  some  French  vine-growers,  who  have 
gone  there  to  settle  ;  so  that  it  may  reasonably  be  expected,  that,  in  a  few 
years  more,  they  will  not  only  have  wine  for  their  own  consumption, 
instead  of  vile  Bengal  and  Mauritius  rum — but  that  they  may  be  able  to 
send  to  England,  Austral- Madeira  and  Burgundy! 

It  may  easily  be  imagined,  that,  with  such  a  community,  the  road 
between  the  two  principal  towns  of  the  colony  could  not  have  been  tra- 
velled, for  one-arid-twenty  years,  without  frequent  robberies  and  frequent 
murders :  indeed,  there  was  hardly  a  turn  or  winding  in  the  old  line,  of 
which  an  old  resident  had  riot  someHale  of  horror  to  tell ;  —here,  he  him- 
self had  been  robbed,  and  left  for  dead; — and  there,  such-an-one  had 
been  murdered. 

At  a  short  distance  beyond  Dobryde,  the  road  wound  down  the  steep 
banks  of  Iron  Cove,  or,  rather,  of  the  creek  at  the  head  of  the  Cove.  Both 
sides  of  the  creek  were  covered  with  a  thick  scrub,  affording  an  almost 
impenetrable  retreat  to  bush-rangers — who  found,  too,  the  best  possible 
scene  of  depredation  in  the  bottom  of  the  glen,  and  even  in  the  bed  of  the 
creek  itself,  by  the  difficulty  of  escape  for  the  traveller,  arid  the  warning 
that  the  thumping  of  wheels,  or  the  clattering  of  hoofs  on  the  iron  rocks 
above,  would  give  of  the  approach  of  any  one,  who  might  be  better  armed  ; 
for  they  seldom  consorted  but  in  couples,  and  at  that  time  were  not 
always  furnished  with  fire-arms. 

Long  rays  were  streaming  from  the  east  through  the  dense  forests,  and 
the  bell-birds  were  ringing  their  peals  from  the  branches  of  the  tall  sap- 
lings, which  spring  above  the  thick  brushwood,  when  we  sallied  forth 
from  our  hospitable  covert,  with  renewed  spirits,  and  little  fearing,  by 
broad  daylight,  the  dangers  which  darkness  had  aggravated.  We  reached 
Powells  (about  three  miles  on  our  road)  to  breakfast,  having  passed  Iron 
Cove  in  safety ;  and,  though  twitted  by  the  mocking-bird  (vulgo, 
"  laughing  jackass  "),  we  were  cheered  by  the  chirping  of  a  thousand 
other  feathered  minstrels,  as  they  hopped  from  spray  to  spray — ranging 
from  the  loftiest  gum  to  the  lowliest  honeysuckle — and  soothed  by  the 
plaintive  cooing  of  the  wild  pigeon,  from  the  leafiest  branch  of  the  thickly- 
foliated  apple-tree.  Now  and  then,  a  flight  of  screeching  Rosehil I  parrots, 
coloured  like  the  wings  of  Cupid,  would  rise  from  the  road  before  us, 
where  they  had  been  devouring  the  scattered  grains  of  Indian  corn, 
which  had  fallen  from  the  market  carts — followed  by  their  more  daring 
rivals,  a  troop  of  magpies ;  while  a  shrill  sound  in  the  upper  regions 
would  call  our  eyes  to  the  solitary  flight  of  a  black  cockatoo— or,  per- 
chance, of  three  or  four  in  a  line — rushing  swiftly  along,  at  ten  times  the 
height  of  the  highest  trees. 

About  two  miles  on  the  other  side  of  Powells  (I  could  find  the  spot  at 
this  moment,  if  I  were  there — a  four-railed  fence  runs  along  by  it  now), 
there  is  a  small  round  hole,  about  the  size,  of  the  back  of  a  man's  head, 
under  a  little  scrubby  tea-tree  :  th,e  grass  grew  around  it,  and  hung  over 

2  L  2 


260  Terra  Incognita.  [MARCH, 

it ;  but,  by  some  chance,  it  had  never  been  filled  up — nor  had  grass  ever 
grown  in  it  since  it  was  made,  eleven  or  twelve  years  before,  by  the  head 
of  an  old  man,  a  gardener,  who  had  there  been  robbed  and  murdered,  and 
whose  murderer  had  fairly  driven  the  scull  half  its  depth  into  the  ground 
— the  indent  had  never  been  tilled  up,  as  I  have  said,  and  grass  had 
never  grown  in  it,  at  least  for  twenty-two  years  after  it  had  been 
made.  The  murderer  was  never  discovered ;  and  a  superstitious  notion 
prevailed,  that,  till  the  murder  should  be  avenged,  the  mark  would 
remain.  I  have  heard  that,  some  years  ago,  a  man  who  was  about  to 
suffer  the  sentence  of  the  law  in  England,  for  some  robbery  committed  on 
returning  from  transportation,  had  confessed  himself  guilty  of  that  crime. 
However,  the  indent  still  remained,  and  for  aught  I  know  does  to  the 
present  day. 

In  four-arid-twenty  hours  from  the  time  of  our  starting  from  Sydney,  we 
reached  Parramatta — a  distance,  perhaps,  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  miles, 
though  now  the  road  makes  it  but  fifteen.  I  have  since  seen  it  trotted 
over,  from  turnpike  to  turnpike  (say  fourteen  miles),  within  the  hour, 
by  a  black  mare  not  more  than  fifteen  hands  high,  rode  by  a  gentleman 
not  less  than  thirteen  stone  weight ! 

The  township  now  called  Parramatta,  was  at  first  named  Rose-hill ;  but 
before  he  had  transmitted  his  despatches  to  England,  after  the  establishment 
and  naming  of  that  place.  Governor  Phillip  discovered  that  the  native  name  of 
the  site  of  his  new  town  was  more  appropriate  than  that  which  he  had  given 
it.  Parramatta  is  a  compound  word,  signifying  the  "  head  of  the  river." 
Port  Jackson  continues  above  Sydney,  to  form  bays  and  coves,  some  of 
which  run  inland  considerably,  and  finish  in  creeks,  but  no  one  in  what  can 
properly  be  called  a  river :  it  is  navigable  for  craft  of  considerable  burden 
for  eight  or  ten  miles  above  Dawes'  Point ;  but,  at  that  distance,  it  widens 
very  much,  and  becomes  very  shallow — so  as,  at  neap  tides,  to  have  but  a 
very  narrow  (navigable)  channel  even  for  boats,  leaving  immense  beds  of 
mud  uncovered.  Mangroves  cover  the  low  banks,  and,  indeed,  grow  in  the 
salt  mud,  detached  from  the  main  land,  and  are  not  only  insulated  by  the 
flowing  tide,  but  are  bathed  by  it  to  one-third  their  height.  Above  "  the 
flats,"  the  course  is  much  narrowed,  and  its  banks  become  alternately  low 
and  lofty,  till  it  has  extended  to  about  eighteen  miles  above  Sydney,  when 
the  bed  is  changed  from  mud  to  slaty  rock,  on  which  the  ebb-tide  fails 
to  leave  a  channel.  On  its  left  bank,  ascending,  is  the  town,  at  the  "  head 
of  the  river/'  Parra-matta.  Above  the  bridge,  connecting  the  town  with 
a  suburb  on  the  right  bank,  all  character  of  a  river  is  entirely  lost,  even 
at  high  tide ;  it  becomes  a  mere  creek,  or  rather  a  chain  of  ponds,  without 
current,  and  in  dry  summers,  almost  without  water. 

The  town  is  just  a  mile  in  length,  from  the  wharf  to  the  government- 
house,  by  a  street  which  runs  nearly  parallel  to  the  river.  I  have  said  the 
government-house — confusing  it,  perhaps,  with  the  real  one  at  Sydney — 
for  this  is  no  more  than  a  country  residence  of  the  governor's,  though  Sir 
Thomas  Brisbane  lived  there  almost  entirely.  It  is  pleasantly  situated  on 
a  rising  ground,  in  what  is  now  a  handsome  park. 

The  width  of  the  town  is  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  and  it  is  bounded 
on  two  sides  by  a  long  hill,  which  runs,  for  its  whole  length,  parallel  to 
George-street  and  the  river,  and,  bending  round,  forms  the  acclivity  on 
which  the  government-house  is  seated.  The  plain  on  which  the  town  is, 
though  very  level,  is  sufficiently  above  the  river  to  afford  the  means  of 
keeping  it  perfectly  dry  and  well  drained  ;  yet  Parramatta  is  not  con- 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  261 

sidered  very  healthy — and  one  reason  for  its  insalubrity,  I  believe  to  be, 
a  sort  of  malaria,  occasioned  by  the  continual  dampness,  which  might,  I 
have  said,  be  easily  remedied.  Parramatta  has  increased,  however,  almost 
in  the  same  ratio  that  Sydney  has  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  it  will  continue 
to  do  so.  At  present,  the  high  road  to  the  fertile  districts  on  the  Hawkes- 
bury  necessarily  lies  through  it ;  but  if,  at  any  time,  a  communication 
should  be  obtained  from  Sydney  to  the  north  shore — and  a  chain  bridge 
would  easily  effect  it — the  distance  to  that,  and  many  other  very  improving 
parts  of  the  colony,  will  be  greatly  shortened ;  and  Parramatta  will,  at 
best,  but  stand  still. 

The  only  public  buildings  in  the  town  are  a  church  and  a  hospital.  On 
the  hill  to  the  south  are  the  military  barracks ;  and,  higher  up,  towards 
the  government- house,  is  the  parsonage — a  neat  cottage-villa.  On  the 
opposite,  or  north  bank  of  the  river,  are  the  gaol  and  factory — the  latter  a 
sort  of  barrack  for  the  female  convicts  who  are  not  at  service,  where  they 
are  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  a  sort  of  coarse  woollen  cloth.  On 
the  same  side,  but  considerably  lower  down,  there  are  some  neat  cottage 
residences  ;  and  below  them,  and  below  the  town  altogether,  opposite  Mr. 
Macartbur's,  is  the  Female  Orphan  Asylum.  Mr.  Macarthur's  is  at  the 
other  extremity  of  the  town  from  the  government-house,  and  is  more  like 
the  establishment  of  an  English  country  gentleman,  than  perhaps  any  thing 
in  the  colony  besides. 

At  the  time  when  I  first  arrived  in  Parramatta,  it  was  little  more  than 
a  mere  straggling  hamlet ;  and  even  now  it  is  not  a  properly  condensed 
town — but  it  has  its  hotels  (and  very  good  ones,  too),  its  market,  and  its 
fair.  It  is  to  Parramatta  that  stage-coaches  regularly  run  from  Sydney; 
and  thither  the  mates  of  merchant-ships  hie,  to  spend  a  holiday  and  to  see 
the  country  ! 

The  friend,  to  whose  family  I  went  on  a  visit,  had — what  was  then, 
and  what,  I  believe,  is  now — the  finest  orchard  in  the  town.  In  front, 
towards  George-street,  the  house  was  shrouded  in  n  grove  of  orange-trees 
and  laburnums  ;  and  from  the  back  of  it  there  was  a  beautiful  avenue  of 
orange,  lemon,  and  lime-trees,  which  finished  in  a  large  Cape  mulberry 
arbour.  To  the  right  and  left  were  evergreen  and  deciduous  peach  trees, 
mingled  with  apricot,  nectarine,  apple,  pear,  pomegranate,  fig,  chestnut, 
English  mulberry,  and  a  great  variety  of  other  fruit-trees — some  still  with 
bending  boughs,  and  others  turning  to  the  *'  sere  and  yellow  leaf."  The 
walks  were  bordered  with  rose-trees,  geraniums,  and  a  hundred  beautiful 
and  odoriferous  shrubs,  that  in  this  country  bloom  but  to  die. 

My  holidays  there  were  among  the  pleasantest  I  ever  passed  ;  there  the 
ghosts  haunted  me  not — although,  in  the  very  next  house,  a  murder  had 
been  committed  not  very  long  before,*  and  the  house  itself  had  frequently 
been  broken  into  by  midnight  burglars!  I  lived  in  the  colony  long 
enough  to  see  great  changes  in  that  place,  and  in  the  persons  who  rendered 
it  to  me  most  interesting.  Time,  and  his  great  auxiliary — Death — has 
since  made  much  greater.  W G. 


'  1 

• 

: 


*  An  anecdote  occurs  to  me  connected  with  that  murder,  that  I  cannot  pass  over. 
The  man  who  committed  it  suffered  for  the  crime,  and  his  body  was  hung  in  chains  on  the 
hill  to  the  south  of  the  town,  near  the  spot  where  the  military  barracks  now  stand.  He 
had  two  children — a  boy  and  a  girl :  the  latter  was  put  into  the  Orphan  Asylum,  and  the 
lad  remained  at  Parramatta,  I  think,  apprenticed  at  the  Lumber-yard.  At  the  time  of  their 
father's  execution,  the  poor  boy  was  not  more  than  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age ;  but, 
within  a  very  short  time  after  the  body  was  gibbetted,  he  went  alone  one  night,  took  it 
flown,  and  buried  it! 


[    262    ]  [MARCH, 


THK    FAR-HOME. 

I  LOOK'D  on  the  bright  and  burning  sun, 

When  he  set  beneath  the  wave, 
And  red  clouds  o'er  the  dark  earth  hung. 

Like  banners  o'er  a  grave : 
The  ocean,  in  its  farthest  bound, 

Had  a  wild  and  fiery  hue ; 
And  I  thought  I  heard  a  living  sound 

From  the  lands  I  might  not  view.— • 

It  spoke  not  to  my  inward  thought, 

As  if  on  land  or  sea 
There  lay  the  home  my  heart  had  sought, 

Or  where  its  rest  could  be ; 
And  I  felt  as  if  the  hopes  were  gone, 

That  sooth'd  my,  heart  before, 
When  I  thought  the  sense  of  woe  and  wrong 

Might  be  lost  on  some  far  shore. 

I  watch'd  till  the  stars  of  ev'ning  shone 

In  the  blue  vault  of  the  sky — 
But  I  felt  my  spirit  dark  and  lone, 

'Mid  their  infinity  ; 
For,  in  that  vast  and  glorious  shrine, 

Where  a  thousand  bright  worlds  hung, 
Could  I  single  out  that  world  of  mine, 

To  which  my  thought  had  clung  ? 

I  turn'd  me  to  the  earth  again — 

To  a  lone  and  silent  dell, 
Where  a  fountain  hush'd  the  sleepless  brain, 

As  its  gushing  waters  fell : 
A  quiet  grave  was  at  my  feet, 

Where  one  I  had  cherish'd  slept ; 
And  the  calm  of  that  resting-place  was  sweet 

As  the  thoughts  of  him  I  wept. 

And  where  then  found  my  heart  its  home  ? — 

'Mid  the  bright  isles  of  the  main  ? — 
Or,  was  it  where  whate'er  may  roam, 

Hath  now  no  mark  of  pain  ? 
Oh !  was  it  not  in  that  quiet  place, 

Where  the  suffering  heart  might  see 
The  repose  of  that  which  bore  the  trace 

Of  its  own  mortality  ? 

H.S 


1827.]  [     2(53     ] 

VILLAGE    SKETCHES  I 

No.  VI. 
The  Two  Valentines. 

VALENTINE'S  Day  is  one  of  great  stir  and  emotion  in  our  little  village. 
In  large  towns — especially  in  London — the  wicked  habit  of  quizzing  has 
entirely  destroyed  the  romance  and  illusion  of  that  tender  anniversary.  But 
we  in  the  country  are,  for  the  most  part,  uninfected  by  "  over-wiseness," 
or  •'  over-niceness,"  (to  borrow  two  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  quaint  but 
expressive  phrases),  and  are  content  to  keep  the  gracious  festival  of  love- 
making  and  Ullets-doux>  as  simply  and  confidirfgly  as  our  ancestors  of 
old.  I  do  not  mean  to  say,  that  every  one  of  our  youths  and  maidens  pair 
on  that  day,  like  the  <e  goldfinch,  bullfinch,  greenfinch,  and  all  the  finches 
of  the  grove." — Heaven  forbid ! — Nor  that  the  spirit  of  fun  hath  so  utterly 
evaporated  from  us,  that  we  have  no  display  of  innocent  trick  or  harmless 
raillery  on  that  licensed  morn  : — all  that  I  contend  for  is,  that,  in  our 
parts,  some  truth  may  be  found  lurking  amidst  the  fictions  of  those  annual 
rhymes — that  many  a  village  beaux  hath  so  broken  the  ice  of  courtship — 
and  that  many  a  village  belle  hath  felt  her  heart  throb,  as  she  glanced 
at  the  emblematic  scroll,  and  tried  to  guess  the  sender,  in  spite  of  the 
assumed  carelessness,  the  saucy  head-tossings,  and  the  pretty  poutings 
with  which  she  attempted  to  veil  her  real  interest.  In  short,  there  is 
something  like  sincerity  amongst  us,  even  in  a  Valentine ; — as  witness  the 
number  of  wooings  began  on  the  Fourteenth  of  February,  and  finished  in 
that  usual  end  of  courtships  and  comedies — a  wedding — before  Whitsun- 
tide. Our  little  lame  clerk,  who  keeps  a  sort  of  catalogue  raisonnee  of 
marriages,  as  a  companion  to  the  parish-register,  computes  those  that 
issue  from  the  bursting  Valentine-bag  of  our  postman,  at  not  less  than 
three  and  a  half  per  annum — that  is  to  say,  seven  between  two  years. 

But — besides  the  matches  which  spring,  directly  or  indirectly,  from  the 
billets  commonly  called  Valentines — there  is  another  superstition  connected 
with  the  day,  which  has  no  small  influence  on  the  destinies  of  our  country 
maidens.  They  hold,  that  the  first  man  whom  they  espy  in  the  morning 
— provided  that  such  man  be  neither  of  kin  to  them,  nor  married,  nor  an 
inmate  of  the  same  house — is  to  pass  for  their  Valentine  during  the  day ; 
and,  perhaps  (for  this  is  the  secret  clause  which  makes  the  observation 
important),  to  prove  their  husband  for  life.  It  is  strange  how  much  faith 
they  put  in  this  kind  of  sortes  vitgilianOB — this  turning  over  the  living  leaf 
of  destiny ;  and  how  much  pains  they  will  take  to  cheat  the  fates,  and  see 
the  man  they  like  best  first  in  spite  of  the  stars  !  One  damsel,  for  instance, 
will  go  a  quarter  of  a  mile  about,  in  the  course  of  her  ordinary  avocations, 
in  order  to  avoid  a  youth  whom  she  does  not  fancy ;  another  shall  sit 
within  doors,  with  her  eyes  shut,  half  the  morning,  until  she  hears  the 
expected  voice  of  the  favourite  swain  ; — whilst,  on  their  part,  our  country 
lads  take  care  to  place  themselves  each  in  the  way  of  his  chosen  she ;  and 
a  pretty  lass  would  think  herself  overlooked,  if  she  had  not  three  or  four 
standing  round  her  door,  or  sauntering  beneath  her  window,  before 
sunrise. 

Now,  one  of  the  prettiest  girls  in  our  parish  is,  undoubtedly,  Sally 
North.  Pretty  is  hardly  the  proper  phrase — Sally  is  a  magnificent  girl ; 
— tall,  far  above  the  common  height  of  woman,  and  large  in  proportion — 
but  formed  with  the  exactest  symmetry,  and  distinguished  by  the  firm, 


264  The  Two  Valentines.  [MARCH, 

erect,  and  vigorous  carriage,  and  the  light,  elastic  step,  peculiar  to  those 
who  are  early  accustomed  to  walk  under  burthens.  Sally's  father  is  an 
eminent  baker — the  most  celebrated  personage  in  our  village ;  besides 
supplying  half  the  next  town  with  genuine  country  bread,  which  he  car- 
ries thither  himself  in  his  huge  tilted  cart,  he  hath  struck  into  other  arts 
of  the  oven,  and  furnishes  all  the  breakfast-tables,  within  five  miles,  with 
genuine  London  rolls.  No  family  of  gentility  can  possibly  get  through  the 
first  meal  without  them.  The  rolls,  to  be  sure,  are — just  like  other  rolls — 
very  good,  and  nothing  more  ;  but  some  whim  of  a  great  man,  or  caprice 
of  a  fine  lady,  has  put  them  in  fashion  ;  and  so  Sally  walks  round  the 
parish  every  morning,  with  her  great  basket,  piled  to  the  very  brim,  poised 
on  her  pretty  head — now  lending  it  the  light  support  of  one  slender  hand, 
and  now  of  another ;  the  dancing  black  eyes,  and  the  bright  blushing  smile, 
that  flash  from  under  her  burthen,  as  well  as  the  perfect  ease  and  grace 
with  which  she  trips  along,  entirely  taking  away  all  painful  impression  of 
drudgery  or  toil.  She  is  quite  a  figure  for  a  painter,  is  Sally  North — and 
the  gipsy  knows  it.  There  is  a  gay,  good-humoured  consciousness  of  her 
power  and  her  beauty,  as  she  passes  on  her  morning  round,  carolling  as 
merrily  as  the  lark  over  her  head,  that  makes  no  small  part  of  her  charm. 
The  lass  is  clever,  too — sharp  and  shrewd  in  her  dealings — and,  although 
sufficiently  civil  and  respectful  to  her  superiors,  and  never  actually  wanting 
in  decorum,  is  said  to  dismiss  the  compliments  of  some  of  her  beaux  with 
a  repartee  generally  brusque,  and  frequently  poignant. 

Of  beaux — between  the  lacqueys  of  the  houses  that  she  takes  in  her 
circuit,  and  the  wayfarers  whom  she  picks  up  on  the  road — Sally  hath 
more  than  a  court  beauty ;  and  two  of  them — Mr.  Thompson,  my  lord's 
gentleman,  a  man  of  substance  and  gravity,  not  much  turned  of  fifty ; 
and  Daniel  Tabb,  one  of  Sir  John's  gardeners,  a  strapping  red-haired 
youth,  as  comely  and  merry  as  herself — were  severally  recommended,  by 
the  old  and  the  young,  as  fitting  matches  for  the  pretty  mistress  of  the 
rolls.  But  Sally  silenced  Mr.  Thompson's  fine  speeches  by  a  very  stout, 
sturdy,  steady  "  No  ;"  and  even  inflicted  a  similar  sentence  (although  so 
mildly,  that  Daniel  did  not  quite  despair)  on  his  young  rival ;  for  Sally, 
who  was  seventeen  last  Candlemas- day,  had  been  engaged  these  three 
years ! 

The  love  affair  had  begun  at  the  Free  School  at  Aberleigh  ;  and  the 
object  of  it,  by  name  Stephen  Long,  was  the  son  of  a  little  farmer  in  the 
neighbourhood,  and  about  the  same  age  with  his  fair  mistress.  There  the 
resemblance  ceased ;  for  Stephen  had  been  as  incomparably  the  sharpest 
and  ugliest  boy  in  the  school,  as  Sally  was  the  tallest  and  prettiest  girl — 
being,  indeed,  of  that  stunted  and  large-headed  appearance  which  betokens 
a  dwarf,  and  is  usually  accompanied  by  features  as  unpleasant  in  their 
expression  as  they  are  grotesque  in  their  form.  But  then  he  was  the  head 
boy:  and,  being  held  up  by  the  master  as  a  miracle  of  reading,  writing, 
and  cyphering,  was  a  personage  of  no  small  importance  at  Aberleigh  ;  and 
Sally  being,  with  all  her  cleverness,  something  of  a  dunce,  owed  to  S'te- 
phen  much  obligation  for  assistance  in  the  school  business.  He  arranged, 
cast  up,  and  set  in  order  on  the  slate,  the  few  straggling  figures  which  poor 
Sally  called  her  sum — painted  over,  and  reduced  to  something  like  form, 
the  mishapen  and  disjointed  letters  in  her  copy-book — learnt  all  her 
lessons  himself,  and  tried  most  ineffectually  to  teach  them  to  her — and, 
finally,  covered  her  unconquerable  want  of  memory  by  the  loudest  and 
boldest  prompting  ever  heard  out  of  a  theatre.  Many  a  rap  of  the 


J827.]  The  Tivo  Valentines.  265 

knuckles  have  Sally  North's  blunders  cost  Stephen  Long,  and  vainly  did 
the  master  admonish  him  to  hold  his  tongue.  Prompt  he  would — although 
so  incorrigibly  stupid  was  his  fair  mistress,  that,  even  when  the  words 
were  put  into  her  mouth,  she  stumbled  at  repeating  them  ;  and  Stephen's 
officious  kindness  commonly  ended  in  their  being  punished  in  company — 
a  consummation,  for  his  share  of  which  the  boy  was  gallant  enough  to 
rejoice.  She  was  fully  sensible  of  this  flattering  devotion,  and  repaid  it, 
as  far  as  lay  in  her  power,  by  taking  him  under  her  protection  at  play- 
times, in  return  for  the  services  which  he  rendered  her  in  school ;  and, 
becoming  more  and  more  bound  to  him  by  a  series  of  mutual  good  offices, 
finished  by  vindicating  his  ugliness,  denying  his  pedantry,  and,  when 
twitted  with  his  dwarfish  ness,  boldly  predicting  that  he  would  grow. 
They  walked  together,  talked  together,  laughed,  romped,  and  quarrelled — 
in  short,  it  was  a  decided  attachment ;  and  when  our  village  Romeo  was 
taken  as  an  apprentice  by  a  cousin  of  his  mother's — a  respectable  hosier  in 
Cheapside — it  is  on  record,  that  his  Juliet — the  lightest-hearted  personage 
in  the  neighbourhood — cried  for  an  hoof,  and  moped  for  a  day.  All  the 
school  stood  amazed  at  her  constancy  ! 

Stephen,  on  his  side,  bore  the  test  of  absence,  like  a  knight  of  Amadis 
his  day.  Never  was  preux  chevalier  so  devoted  to  the  lady  of  his  love. 
Every  letter  home  contained  some  tender  message  or  fond  inquiry ;  arid 
although  the  messages  became  gradually  less  and  less  intelligible,  as  the 
small  pedantry  of  the  country  schoolboy  ripened  into  the  full-blown  affec- 
tation of  the  London  apprentice,  still  Sally  was  far  from  quarrelling  with 
a  love  message,  on  so  small  a  ground  as  not  understanding  it ;  whilst, 
however  mysterious  his  words  might  seem,  his  presents  spoke  his  affection 
in  a  more  homely  and  convincing  language.  Of  such  tokens  there  was 
no  lack.  The  very  first  packet  that  he  sent  home,  consisting  of  worsted 
mittens  for  his  old  grandmother,  a  pair  of  cotton  hose  for  his  sister,  and 
a  nightcap  for  his  father,  contained  also  a  pair  of  scarlet  garters  for 
Sally ;  which  attention  was  followed  up  at  every  opportunity  by  pin- 
cushions, ribbons,  thimbles,  needle-cases,  and  as  great  a  variety  of  female 
ware  as  that  with  which  Autolycas's  basket  was  furnished.  No  wonder 
that  Sally,  in  spite  of  occasional  flirtations  with  Daniel  Tabb,  continued 
tolerably  constant;  especially  as  one  of  Stephen's  sisters,  who  had  been 
at  service  in  London,  affirmed  that  he  was  so  much  improved,  as  to  be  one 
of  the  smartest  beaux  in  all  Cheapside. 

So  affairs  continued  until  this  identical  Valentine's  Day.  Last  spring, 
a  written  Valentine,  exceedingly  choice  in  its  decorations,  had  made  its 
appearance  at  Master  North's;  rather  out  of  date,  it  must  be  owned,  since, 
being  enclosed  in  a  packet,  to  save  postage,  and  sent  by  an  opportunity, 
as  the  country  phrase  goes,  it  had  been  detained  either  by  accident  or 
waggery  till  the  First  of  April:  but  this  was  none  of  Stephen's  fault; 
there  was  the  Valentine  in  the  newest  London  taste,  consisting  of  a  raised 
groupe  of  roses  and  heartVease,  executed  on  a  kind  of  paper  cut- work, 
which,  on  being  lifted  up,  turned  into  a  cage,  enclosing  a  dove ; — tender 
emblem ! — with  all  the  rapidity  of  a  change  in  a  pantomime.  There  the 
Valentine  was  equally  known  for  Stephen's,  by  the  savour  of  the  verses 
and  the  flourish  of  the  signature — the  finest  specimen  of  poetry  and  pen- 
manship, as  my  friend  the  schoolmaster  triumphantly  asserted,  that  had 
ever  been  seen  in  Aberleigh.  "  The  force  of  writing  could  no  farther 
go;"  so,  this  year,  our  "  good  apprentice"  determined  to  come  himself  to 

M.  M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  15.         2  M 


266  The  Two  Valentines.  [MARCH, 

be  her  personal  Valentine,  and  to  renew  if  not  complete  their  early 
engagements. 

On  this  determination  being  announced  to  Sally,  it  occasioned  no  small 
perturbation  in  that  fair  damsel,  equally  alarmed  at  the  mental  accomplish- 
ments and  the  personal  defects  of  her  constant  swain.  In  fact,  her  feeling 
towards  Stephen  had  been  almost  as  ideal  and  unsubstantial  as  the  shadow 
of  arainbow.  She  liked  to  think  of  him  when  she  had  nothing  better  to  do ;  or 
to  talk  of  him,  when  she  had  nothing  better  to  say  ;  or  to  be  puzzled  by  his 
verses  or  laughed  at  for  his  homage;  but  as  a  real  substantial  Valen- 
tine, a  present  wooer,  a  future  husband,  and  he  so  ugly  and  a  poet  too. 
Oh  dear!  she  was  frightened  to  think  of  it!  This  impression  first  broke 
forth  to  his  sister — who  communicated  the  news  of  his  intended  arrival  — 
in  a  variety  of  questions,  as  to  Stephen's  height,  and  size,  and  shape,  .and 
complexion  ;  especially  as  compared  with  Daniel  Tabb's  ;  and  was  after- 
wards displayed  to  that  rustic  adorer  himself;  not  by  words,  indeed,  but 
by  the  encouraging  silence  and  saucy  smile  with  which  she  listened  to 
his  account  of  the  debarkation  of  his  cockney  rival,  from  the  top  of  the 

B stage.  "  He's  tinier  than  ever,"  quoth  Daniel,  "  and  the  smartest 

dandy  that  ever  was  seen.  I  shall  be  your  Valentine,  after  all,  Sally/' 
pursued  her  swain  ;  "  for  I  could  hide  him  with  the  shadow  of  my  fist." 

This  was  Valentine's-eve.  Valentine's-morn  saw  Sally  eyeing  the  two 
rivals,  through  a  peep-hole  in  her  little  check  curtain,  as  they  stood  side- 
by-side,  on  the  green,  watching  for  the  first  glimpse  of  their  divinity. 
Never  was  seen  such  a  contrast.  Stephen,' whose  original  square  dwarf- 
ish ness  had  pined  down  into  a  miniature  dandy — sallow,  strutting,  and  all 
over  small — the  very  Tom  Thumb  of  apprentices! — Daniel,  taller,  bigger, 
ruddier,  and  heartier  than  ever — the  actual  Goliath  of  country  lads  !  Never 
was  such  a  contrast  seen.  At  length,  Sally,  laughing,  blushing,  and 
bridling,  sallied  forth  from  the  cottage — her  huge  roll  basket,  but  not  as 
usual  filled  with  rolls,  carried,  not  on  her  head,  but  in  her  hands.  "  I'm 
your  Valentine,  Sally !  am  I  not  ?"  exclaimed  Daniel  Tabb,  darting 
towards  her,  "  you  saw  me  first;  1  know  you  saw  me  first,"  continued 
the  ardent  lover,  proceeding  to  claim  the  salute  usual  on  such  occasions. 
"  Pshaw!  nonsense!  let  me  alone  then  Daniel,  can't  you?"  was  the 
reply  of  his  mistress,  advancing  to  Stephen,  who  perhaps  dazzled  by  the 
beauty,  perhaps  astounded  by  the  height  of  the  fair  giantess,  remained 
motionless  and  speechless  on  the  other  side  of  the  .road.  "  Would  you 
like  a  ride  in  my  basket  this  fine  morning,  Mr.  Stephen  ?"  said  the  saucy 
la«s,  emptying  all  his  gifts,  garters,  pincushions,  ribbons,  and  Valentines 
from  their  huge  reservoir,  and  depositing  it  on  the  ground  at  his  feet.  "  Don't 
be  afraid ;  I'll  be  bound  to  carry  you  as  easily  as  ihe  little  Italian  boy 
carries  his  tray  of  images ;  he's  riot  half  the  weight  of  the  rolls — is  he, 
Daniel  ?"  pursued  the  unmerciful  beauty.  "  For  my  part,  I  think  he 
has  grown  shorter. — Come,  do  step  in  !"  And,  with  the  word,  the 
triumphant  Daniel  lifted  up  the  discomfited  beau,  placed  him  safely  in 
the  basket,  and  hoisted  the  burthen  on  Sally's  head — to  the  unspeakable 
diversion  of  that  saucy  maiden,  and  the  complete  cure  of  Master  Stephen's 
love. — No  need,  after  this,  to  declare  which  of  the  two  rivals  is  Sally 
North's  Valentine.  I  think,  with  the  little  clerk,  that  they  will  be  married 
a,t  \Yhitsuntide,  if  not  before.  M. 


1827.]  (     267     ) 

ON    THE    FEELING    OF    IMMORTALITY    IN    YOUTH. 

"  Life  is  a  pure  flame,  and  we  live  by  an  invisible  sun  within  us." — SIR  THOMAS  BROWN. 

No  young  man  believes  he  shall  ever  die.  It  was  a  saying  of  my 
brother's,  and  a  fine  one.  There  is  a  feeling  of  Eternity  in  youth,  which 
makes  us  amends  for  every  thing.  To  be  young  is  to  be  as  one  of  the 
Immortal  Gods.  One  half  of  time  indeed  is  flown — the  other  half  re- 
mains in  store  for  us  with  all  its  countless  treasures ;  for  there  is  no  line 
drawn,  and  we  see  no  limit  to  our  hopes  and  wishes.  We  make  the 
coming  age  our  own. — 

"  The  vast,  the  unbounded  prospect  lies  before  us." 

Death,  old  age,  are  words  without  a  meaning,  that  pass  by  us  like  the 
idle  air  which  we  regard  not.  Others  may  have  undergone,  or  may  still 
be  liable  to  them — we  "  bear  a  charmed  life,"  which  laughs  to  scorn  all 
such  sickly  fancies.  As  in  setting  out  on  a  delightful  journey,  we  strain 
our  eager  gaze  forward — 

'•  Bidding  the  lovely  scenes  at  distance  hail," — 

and  see  no  end  to  the  landscape,  new  objects  presenting  themselves  as  we 
advance;  so, in  the  commencement  of  life,  we  set  no  bounds  to  our  in- 
clinations, nor  to  the  unrestricted  opportunities  of  gratifying  them.  We 
have  as  yet  found  no  obstacle,  no  disposition  to  flag ;  and  it  seems  that  we 
can  go  on  so  for  ever.  We  look  round  in  a  new  world,  full  of  life,  and 
motion,  and  ceaseless  progress ;  and  feel  in  ourselves  all  the  vigour  and 
spirit  to  keep  pace  with  it,  and  do  not  foresee  from  any  present  symptoms 
how  we  shall  be  left  behind  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  decline  into 
old  age,  and  drop  into  the  grave.  It  is  the  simplicity,  and  as  it  were 
abstractedness  of  our  feelings  in  youth,  that  (so  to  speak)  identifies  us 
with  nature,  and  (our  experience  being  slight  and  our  'passions  strong) 
deludes  us  into  a  belief  of  being  immortal  like  it.  Our  short-lived  con- 
nection with  existence,  we  fondly  flatter  ourselves,  is  an  indissoluble  and 
lasting  union — a  honey-moon  that  knows  neither  coldness,  jar,  nor  sepa- 
ration. As  infants  smile  and  sleep,  we  are  rocked  in  the  cradle  of  our 
wayward  fancies,  and  lulled  into  security  by  the  roar  of  the  universe 
around  us — we  quaff  the  cup  of  life  with  eager  haste  without  draining  it, 
instead  of  which  it  only  overflows  the  more — objects  press  around  us, 
filling  the  mind  with  their  magnitude  and  with  the  throng  of  desires  that 
wait  upon  them,  so  that  we  have  no  room  for  the  thoughts  of  death. 
From  that  plenitude  of  our  being,  we  cannot  change  all  at  once  to  dust 
and  ashes,  we  cannot  imagine  "  this  sensible,  warm  motion,  to  become  a 
kneaded  clod" — we  are  too  much  dazzled  by  the  brightness  of  the  waking 
dream  around  us  to  look  into  the  darkness  of  the  tomb.  We  no  more 
see  our  end  than  our  beginning :  the  one  is  lost  in  oblivion  and  vacancy, 
as  the  other  is  hid  from  us  by  the  crowd  and  hurry  of  approaching  events*. 
Or  the  grim  shadow  is  seen  lingering  in  the  horizon,  which  we  are  doomed 
never  to  overtake,  or  whose  last,  faint,  glimmering  outline  touches  upon 
Heaven  and  translates  us  to  the  skies!  Nor  would  the  hold  that  life  has 
taken  of  us  permit  us  to  detach  our  thoughts  from  present  objects  and 
pursuits,  even  if  we  would.  What  is  there  more  opposed  to  health,  than 
sickness  ;  to  strength  and  beauty,  than  decay  and  dissolution ;  to  the  active 
search  of  knowledge  than  mere  oblivion  ?  Or  is  there  none  of  the  usual 
advantage  to  bar  the  approach  of  Death,  an>l  mock  his  idle  threats ; 

2  M  2 


268  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in  Youth.  [MARCH, 

Hope  supplies  their  place,  and  draws  a  veil  over  the  abrupt  termination  of 
all  our  cherished  schemes.  While  the  spirit  of  youth  remains  unim- 
paired, ere  the  "  wine  of  life  is  drank  up,"  we  are  like  people  intoxicated 
or  in  a  fever,  who  are  hurried  away  by  the  violence  of  their  own  sensa- 
tions :  it  is  only  as  present  objects  begin  to  pall  upon  the  sense,  as  we  have 
been  disappointed  in  our  favourite  pursuits,  cut  off  from  our  closest  ties, 
that  passion  loosens  its  hold  upon  the  breast,  that  we  by  degrees  become 
weaned  from  the  world,  and  allow  ourselves  to  contemplate,  "  as  in  a 
glass,  darkly,"  the  possibility  of  parting  with  it  for  good.  The  example 
of  others,  the  voice  of  experience,  has  no  effect  upon  us  whatever.  Ca- 
sualties we  must  avoid:  the  slow  and  deliberate  advances  of  age  we  can 
play  at  hide-and-seek  with.  We  think  ourselves  too  lusty  and  too  nimble 
for  that  blear-eyed  decrepid  old  gentleman  to  catch  us.  Like  the  foolish 
fat  scullion,  in  Sterne,  when  she  hears  that  Master  Bobby  is  dead,  our 
only  reflection  is — <c  So  am  not  I  P  The  idea  of  death,  instead  of  stag- 
gering our  confidence,  rather  seems  to  strengthen  and  enhance  our  pos- 
session and  our  enjoyment  of  life.  Others  may  fall  around  us  like  leaves, 
or  be  mowed  down  like  flowers  by  the  scythe  of  Time :  these  are  but 
tropes  and  figures  to  the  unreflecting  ears  and  overweening  presumption 
of  youth.  It  is  not  till  we  see  the  flowers  of  JLove,  Hope,  and  Joy, 
withering  around  us,  and  our  own  pleasures  cut  up  by  the  roots,  that  we 
bring  the  moral  home  to  ourselves,  that  we  abate  something  of  the  wanton 
extravagance  of  our  pretensions,  or  that  the  emptiness  and  dreariness  of  the 
prospect  before  us  reconciles  us  to  the  stillness  of  the  grave ! 

"  Life !  thou  strange  thing,  that  hast  a  power  to  feel 
Thou  art,  and  to  perceive  that  others  are."* 

Well  might  the  poet  begin  his  indignant  invective  against  an  art,  whose 
professed  object  is  its  destruction,  with  this  animated  apostrophe  to  life. 
Life  is  indeed  a  strange  gift,  and  its  privileges  are  most  miraculous.  Nor 
is  it  singular  that  when  the  splendid  boon  is  first  granted  us,  our  gratitude, 
our  admiration,  and  our  delight  should  prevent  us  from  reflecting  on  our 
own  nothingness,  or  from  thinking  it  will  ever  be  recalled.  Our  first  and 
strongest  impressions  are  taken  from  the  mighty  scene  that  is  opened  to 
us,  and  we  very  innocently  transfer  its  durability  as  well  as  magnificence 
to  ourselves.  So  newly  found,  we  cannot  make  up  our  minds  to  parting 
with  it  yet,  and  at  least  put  off  that  consideration  to  an  indefinite  term. 
Like  a  clown  at  a  fair,  we  are  full  of  amazement  and  rapture,  and  have 
no  thoughts  of  going  home,  or  that  it  will  soon  be  night.  We  know  our 
existence  only  from  external  objects,  and  we  measure  it  by  them.  We 
can  never  be  satisfied  with  gazing ;  and  nature  will  still  want  us  to  look 
on  and  applaud.  Otherwise,  the  sumptuous  entertainment,  "  the  feast  of 
reason  and  the  flow  of  soul,"  to  which  they  were  invited,  seems  little  better 
than  a  mockery  and  a  cruel  insult.  We  do  not  go  from  a  play  till  the 
scene  is  ended,  and  the  lights  are  ready  to  be  extinguished.  But  the  fair 
face  of  things  still  shines  on ;  shall  wTe  be  called  away,  before  the  curtain 
falls,  or  ere  we  have  scarce  had  a  glimpse  of  what  is  going  on  ?  Like 
children,  our  step-mother  Nature  holds  us  up  to  see  the  raree-show  of 
the  universe ;  and  then,  as  if  life  were  a  burthen  to  support,  lets  us 
instantly  down  again.  Yet  in  that  short  interval,  what  "  brave  sublunary 
things"  does  not  the  spectacle  unfold;  like  a  bubble,  at  one  minute 

*  Fa\vcett's  ART  OF  WAR,  a  poem,  1704. 


1827.]  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in  Youth.  269 

reflecting  the  universe,  and  the  next,  shook  to  air  1 — To  see  the  golden  sun 
and  the  azure  sky,  the  outstretched  ocean,  to  walk  upon  the  green  earth, 
and  to  be  lord  of  a  thousand  creatures,  to  look  down  giddy  precipices  or 
over  distant  flowery  vales,  to  see  the  world  spread  out  under  one's  ringer 
in  a  map,  to  bring  the  stars  near,  to  view  the  smallest  insects  in  a  micro- 
scope, to  read  history,  and  witness  the  revolutions  of  empires  and  the 
succession  of  generations,  to  hear  of  the  glory  of  Sidon  and  Tyre,  of 
Babylon  and  Susa,  as  of  a  faded  pageant,  and  to  say  all  these  were,  and 
are  now  nothing,  to  think  that  we  exist  in  such  a  point  of  time,  and  in 
such  a  corner  of  space,  to  be  at  once  spectators  and  a  part  of  the  moving 
scene,  to  watch  the  return  of  the  seasons,  of  spring  and  autumn,  to  hear 

"  The  stockdove  plain  amid  the  forest  deep, 

That  drowsy  rustles  to  the  sighing  gale" 

to  traverse  desert  wildernesses,  to  listen  to  the  midnight  choir,  to  visit 
lighted  halls,  or  plunge  into  the  dungeon's  gloom,  or  sit  in  crowded 
theatres  and  see  life  itself  mocked,  to  feel  heat  and  cold,  pleasure  and  pain, 
right  and  wrong,  truth  and  falsehood,  to  study  the  works  of  art  and  refine 
the  sense  of  beauty  to  agony,  to  worship  fame  and  to  dream  of  immor- 
tality, to  have  read  Shakspeare  and  belong  to  the  same  species  as  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  ;*  to  be  and  to  do  all  this,  and  then  in  a  moment  to  be 

*  Lady  Wortley  Montague  says,  in  one  of  her  letters,  that  "she  would  much  rather  be  a 
rich  cffendi,  with  all  his  ignorance,  than  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  with  all  his  knowledge/' 
This  was  not  perhaps  an  impolitic  choice,  as  she  had  a  better  chance  of  becoming  one 
than  the  other,  there  being  many  rich  effendis  to  one  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  The  wish  was 
not  a  very  intellectual  one.  The  same  petulance  of  rank  and  sex  breaks  out  every  where 
in  these  "  Letters.''  She  is  constantly  reducing  the  poets  or  philosophers  who  have  the 
misfortune  of  her  acquaintance,  to  the  figure  they  might  make  at  her  Ladyship's  levee  or 
toilette,  not  considering  that  the  public  mind  does  not  sympathize  with  this  process  of  a 
fastidious  imagination.  In  the  same  spirit,  she  declares  of  Pope  and  Swift,  that  "  had  it 
not  been  for  the  good-nature  of  mankind,  these  .two  superior  beings  were  entitled,  by 
their  birth  and  hereditary  fortune,  to  be  only  a  couple  of  link-boys."  Gulliver's  Travels, 
and  the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  go  for  nothing  in  this  critical  estimate,  and  the  world  raised  the 
authors  to  the  rank  of  superior  beings,  in  spite  of  their  disadvantages  of  birth  and  fortune, 
out  of  pure  good-nature  !  So,  again,  she  says  of  Richardson,  that  he  had  never  got  be- 
yond the  servants'  hall,  and  was  utterly  unfit  to  describe  the  manners  of  people  of  quality  ; 
till  in  the  capricious  workings  of  her  vanity,  she  persuades  herself  that  Clarissa  is  very 
like  what  she  was  at  her  age,  and  that  Sir  Thomas  and  Lady  Grand ison  strongly  re- 
sembled what  she  had  heard  of  her  mother  and  remembered  of  her  father.  It  is  one 
of  the  beauties  and  advantages  of  literature,  that  it  is  the  means  of  abstracting  the  mind 
from  the  narrowness  of  local  and  personal  prejudices,  and  of  enabling  us  to  judge  of 
truth  and  excellence  by  their  inherent  merits  alone.  Woe  be  to  the  pen  that  would  undo 
this  fine  illusion  (the  only  reality),  and  teach  us  to  regulate  our  notions  of  genius  and 
virtue  by  the  circumstances  in  which  they  happen  to  be  placed  !  You  would  not  expect  a 
person  whom  you  saw  in  a  servant's  hall,  or  behind  a  counter,  to  write  Clarissa  ;  but 
after  he  had  written  the  work,  to  pre-judge  it  from  the  situation  of  the  writer,  is  an  un- 
pardonable piece  of  injustice  and  folly.  His  merit  could  only  be  the  greater  from  the 
contrast.  If  literature  is  an  elegant  accomplishment,  which  none  but  persons  of  birth 
and  fashion  should  be  allowed  to  excel  in,  or  to  exercise  with  advantage  to  the  public,  let 
them  by  all  means  take  upon  them  the  ,t ask  of  enlightening  and  refining  mankind  :  if  they 
decline  this  responsibility  as  too  heavy  for  their  shoulders,  let  those  who  do  the  drudgery 
in  their  stead,  however  inadequately,  for  want  of  their  polite  example,  receive  the  meed 
that  is  their  due,  and  not  be  treated  as  low  pretenders  who  have  encroached  on  the  pro- 
vince of  their  betters.  Suppose  Richardson  to  have  been  acquainted  with  the  great  man's 
steward,  or  valet,  instead  of  the  great  man  himself,  I  will  venture  to  say  that  there  was 
more  difference  between  him  who  lived  in  an  ideal  world,  and  had  the  genius  and  felicity 
to  open  that  world  to  others,  and  his  friend  the  steward,  than  between  the  lacquey 
and  the  mere  lord,  or  between  those  who  lived  in  different  rooms  of  the  same  house, 
who  dined  on  the  same  luxuries  at  different  tables,  who  rode  outside  or  inside  of  the 
'  same  coach,  and  were  proud  of  wearing  or  of  bestowing  the  same  tawdry  livery.  If  the 


270  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in   Youth.  [MARCH. 

nothing",  to  have  it  all  snatched  from  one  like  a  juggler's  ball  or  a  phantas- 
magoria ;  there  is  something  revolting  and  incredible  to  sense  in  the 
transition,  and  no  wonder  that,  aided  by  youth  and  warm  blood,  and  the 
flush  of  enthusiasm,  the  mind  contrives  for  a  long  time  to  reject  it  with 
disdain  and  loathing  as  a  monstrous  and  improbable  fiction,  like  a  monkey 
on  a  house-top,  that  is  loath,  amidst  its  fine  discoveries  and  specious  antics, 
to  be  tumbled  head-long  into  the  street,  and  crushed  to  atoms,  the  sport 
and  laughter  of  the  multitude  ! 

The  change,  from  the  commencement  to  the  close  of  life,  appears  like 
a  fable,  after  it  has  taken  place;  how  should  we  treat  it  otherwise  than 
as  a  chinfora  before  it  has  come  to  pass  ?  There  are  some  things  that 
happened  so  long  ago,  places  or  persons  we  have  formerly  seen,  of  which 
such  dim  traces  remain,  we  hardly  know  whether  it  was  sleeping  or  waking 
they  occurred ;  they  are  like  dreams  within  the  dream  of  life,  a  mist,  a  film 
before  the  eye  of  memory,  wThich,  as  we  try  to  recall  them  more  distinctly, 
elude  our  notice  altogether.  It  is  but  natural  that  the  lone  interval  that  we 
thus  look  back  upon,  should  have  appeared  long  and  endless  in  prospect. 
There  aro  others  so  distinct  and  fresh,  they  seem  but  of  yesterday — their 
very  vividness  might  be  deemed  a  pledge  of  their  permanence.  Then, 
however  far  back  our  impressions  may  go,  we  find  others  still  older  (for 
our  years  are  multiplied  in  youth)  ;  descriptions  of  scenes  that  we  had 
read,  arid  people  before  our  time,  Priam  and  the  Trojan  war;  and  even 
then,  Nestor  was  old  and  dwelt  delighted  on  his  youth,  and  spoke  of  the 
race,  of  heroes  that  /were  no  more; — what  wonder  that,  seeing  this  long 
line  of  being  pictured  in  our  minds,  and  reviving  as  it  were  in  us,  we  should 
give  ourselves  involuntary  credit  for  an  indeterminate  period  of  existence  ? 
In  the  Cathedral  at  Peterborough  there  is  a  monument  to  Mary,  Queen  of 

lord  is  distinguished  from  bis  valet  by  any  thing  else,  it  is  by  education  and  talent,  which 
he  has  in  common  with  our  author.  But  if  the  latter  shews  these  in  the  highest  degree, 
it  is  asked  what  are  his  pretensions  ?  Not  birth  or  fortune,  for  neither  of  these  would 
enable  him  to  write  a  Clarissa.  One  man  is  born  with  a  title  and  estate,  another  with 
genius.  That  is  sufficient ;  and  we  have  no  right  to  question  the  genius  for  want  of 
the  gentility,  unless  the  former  ran  in  families,  or  could  be  bequeathed  with  a  fortune, 
which  is  not  the  case.  Were  it  so,  the  flowers  of  literature,  like  jewels  and  embroidery, 
would  be  confined  to  the  fashionable  circles  ;  and  there  would  be  no  pretenders  to  taste 
or  elegance  but  those  whose  names  were  found  in  the  court  list.  No  one  objects  to 
Claude's  Landscapes  as  the  work  of  a  pastrycook,  or  withholds  from  Raphael  the  epithet  of 
divine,  because  his  parents  were  not  rich.  This  impertinence  is  confined  to  men  of 
letters;  the  evidence  of  the  senses  baffles  the  envy  and  foppery  of  mankind.  No  quarter 
ought  to  be  given  to  this  aristocratic  tone  of  criticism  whenever  it  appears.  People  of 
quality  are  not  contented  with  carrying  all  the  external  advantages  for  their  own  share, 
but  would  persuade  you  that  all  the  intellectual  ones  are  packed  up  in  the  same  bundle. 
Lord  Byron  was  a  later  instance  of  this  double  and  unwarrantable  style  of  pretension — 
monstrum  ingens,  biforme.  He  could  not  endure  a  lord  who  was  not  a  wit,  nor  a  poet 
who  was  not  a  lord.  Nobody  but  himself  answered  to  bis  own  standard  of  perfection. 
Mr.  Moore  carries  a  proxy  in  his  pocket  from  some  noble  persons  to  estimate  literary 
merit  by  the  same  rule.  Lady  Mary  calls  Fielding  names,  but  she  afterwards  makes 
atonement  by  doing  justice  to  his  frank,  free,  hearty  nature,  where  he  says  "  his  spirits 
gave  him  raptures  with  his  cook-maid,  and  cheerfulness  when  be  was  starving  in  a  garret, 
and  his  happy  constitution  made  him  forget  every  thing  when  he  was  placed  before 
a  venison-pasty  or  over  a  flask  of  champagne."  She  does  not  want  shrewdness  and  spirit 
when  her  petulance  and  conceit  do  not  get  the  better  of  her,  and  she  has  done  ample  and 
merited  execution  on  Lord  Bolingbroke.  She  is,  however,  very  angry  at  the  freedoms 
taken  with  the  Great;  smells  a  rat  m  this  indiscriminate  scribbling, and  the  familiarity 
of  writers  with  the  reading  public  ;  and  inspired  by  her  Turkish  costume,  foretells  a  French 
or  English  revolution  as  the  consequence  of  transferring  the  patronage  of  letters  from 
the  quality  to  the  mob,  and  of  supposing  that  ordinary  writers  or  readers  can  have  any 
notions  in  common  with  their  superiors. 


1827.]  On  the  Fueling  of  Immortality  in  Youth.  271 

Scots,  at  which  I  used  to  gaze  when  a  boy,  while  the  events  of  the  period, 
all  that  had  happened  since,  passed  in  review  before  me.  If  all  this  mass  of 
feeling  and  imagination  could  be  crowded  into  a  moment's  compass,  what 
might  not  the  whole  of  life  be  supposed  to  contain  ?  We  are  heirs  of  the  past ; 
we  count  upon  the  future  as  our  natural  reversion.  Besides,  there  are  some 
of  our  early  impressions  so  exquisitely  tempered,  it  appears  that  they 
must  always  last — nothing  can  add  to  or  take  away  from  their  sweetness 
and  purity — the  first  breath  of  spring,  the  hyacinth  dipped  in  the  dew,  the 
mild  lustre  of  the  evening-star,  the  rainbow  after  a  storm — while  we  have 
the  full  enjoyment  of  these,  we  must  be  young ;  and  what  can  ever  alter 
us  in  this  respect  ?  Truth,  friendship,  love,  books,  are  also  proof  against 
the  canker  of  time  ;  and  while  we  live,  but  for  them,  we  can  never  grow 
old.  We  take  out  a  new  lease  of  existence  from  the  objects  on  which 
we  set  our  affections,  and  become  abstracted,  impassive,  immortal  in  them. 
We  cannot  conceive  how  certain  sentiments  should  ever  decay  or  grow 
cold  in  our  breasts ;  and,  consequently,  to  maintain  them  in  their  first 
youthful  glow  and  vigour,  the  flame  of  life  must  continue  to  burn  as 
bright  as  ever,  or  rather,  they  are  the  fuel  that  feed  the  sacred  lamp, 
that  kindle  "  the  purple  light  of  love,"  and  spread  a  golden  cloud 
around  our  heads  !  Again,  we  not  only  flourish  and  survive  in  our  affec- 
tions (in  which  we  will  not  listen  to  the  possibility  of  a  change,  any  more 
than  we  foresee  the  wrinkles  on  the  brow  of  a  mistress),  but  we  have  a 
farther  guarantee  against  the  thoughts  of  death  in  our  favourite  studies 
and  pursuits,  and  in  their  continual  advance.  Art  we  know  is  long; 
life,  we  feel,  should  be  so  too.  We  see  no  end  of  the  difficulties  we  have 
to  encounter:  perfection  is  slow  of  attainment,  and  we  must  have  time  to 
accomplish  it  in.  Rubens  complained  that  when  he  had  just  learnt  his 
art,  he  was  snatched  away  from  it :  we  trust  we  shall  be  more  fortunate  ! 
A  wrinkle  in  an  old  head  takes  whole  days  to  finish  it  properly  :  but  to 
catch  "  the  Raphael  grace,  the  Guido  air,"  no  limit  should  be  put  to 
our  endeavours.  What  a  prospect  for  the  future  !  What  a  task  we  have 
entered  upon  !  and  shall  we  be  arrested  in  the  middle  of  it  ?  We  do  not 
reckon  our  time  thus  employed  lost,  or  our  pains  thrown  away,  or  our 
progress  slow — we  do  not  droop  or  grow  tired,  but  "  gain  new  vigour  at 
our  endless  task ;" — and  shall  Time  grudge  us  the  opportunity  to  finish 
what  we  have  auspiciously  begun,  and  have  formed  a  sort  of  compact 
with  nature  to  achieve?  The  fame  of  the  great  names  we  look  up  to  is 
also  imperishable  ;  and  shall  not  we,  who  contemplate  it  with  such  intense 
yearnings,  imbibe  a  portion  of  etherial  fire,  the  divince  particula  aura, 
which  nothing  can  extinguish  ?  I  remember  to  have  looked  at  a  print 
of  Rembrandt  for  hours  together,  without  being  conscious  of  the  flight 
of  time,  trying  to  resolve  it  into  its  component  parts,  to  connect  its  strong 
and  sharp  gradations,  to  learn  the  secret  of  its  reflected  lights,  and  found 
neither  satiety  nor  pause  in  the  prosecution  of  my  studies.  The  print 
over  which  I  was  poring  would  last  long  enough  ;  why  should  the  idea  in 
my  mind,  which  was  finer,  more  impalpable,  perish  before  it  ?  At  this, 
I  redoubled  the  ardour  of  my  pursuit,  and  by  the  very  subtlety  and 
refinement  of  my  inquiries,  seemed  to  bespeak  for  them  an  exemption 
from  corruption  and  the  rude  grasp  of  Death.* 


*  Is  it  not  this  that  frequently  keeps  artists  alive  so  long,  viz.  the  constant  occupation 
of  their  minds  with  vivid  images,  with  little  of  the  wear-and-tear  of  the  body  ? 


272  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in  Youth.  [MARCH, 

Objects,  on  our  first  acquaintance  with  them,  have  that  singleness  and 
integrity  of  impression  that  it  seems  as  if  nothing  could  destroy  or  obli- 
terate them,  so  firmly  are  they  stamped  and  rivetted  on  the  brain.  We 
repose  on  them  with  a  sort  of  voluptuous  indolence,  in  full  faith  and 
boundless  confidence.  We  are  absorbed  in  the  present  moment,  or  return 
to  the  same  point — idling  away  a  great  deal  of  time  in  youth,  thinking 
we  have  enough  and  to  spare.  There  is  often  a  local  feeling  in  the  air, 
which  is  as  fixed  as  if  it  were  of  marble  ;  we  loiter  in  dim  cloisters,  losing 
ourselves  in  thought  and  in  their  glimmering  arches ;  a  winding  road 
before  us  seems  as  long  as  the  journey  of  life,  and  as  full  of  events. 
Time  and  experience  dissipate  this  illusion  ;  and  by  reducing  them  to 
detail,  circumscribe  the  limits  of  our  expectations.  It  is  only  as  the 
pageant  of  life  passes  by  and  the  masques  turn  their  backs  upon  us,  that 
we  see  through  the  deception,  or  believe  that  the  train  will  have  an  end. 
In  many  cases,  the  slow  progress  and  monotonous  texture  of  our  lives, 
before  we  mingle  with  the  world  and  are  embroiled  in  its  affairs,  has  a 
tendency  to  aid  the  same  feeling.  We  have  a  difficulty,  when  left  to 
ourselves,  and  without  the  resource  of  books  or  some  more  lively  pursuit, 
to  "beguile  the  slow  and  creeping  hours  of  time,"  and  argue  that  if  it 
moves  on  always  at  this  tedious  snaiPs-pace,  it  can  never  come  to  an  end. 
We  are  willing  to  skip  over  certain  portions  of  it  that  separate  us  from 
favourite  objects,  and  irritate  ourselves  at  the  unnecessary,  delay.  The 
young  are  prodigal  of  life  from  a  superabundance  of  it;  the  old  are  tena- 
cious on  tlie  same  score,  because  they  have  little  left,  and  cannot  enjoy 
even  what  remains  of  it. 

For  my  part,  I  set  out  in  life  with  the  French  Revolution,  and  that  event 
had  considerable  influence  on  my  early  feelings,  as  on  those  of  others. 
Youth  was  then  doubly  such.  It  was  the  dawn  of  a  new  era,  a  new 
impulse  had  been  given  to  men's  minds,  and  the  sun  of  Liberty  rose  upon 
the  sun  of  Life  in  the  same  day,  and  both  were  proud  to  run  their  race 
together.  Little  did  I  uream,  while  my  first  hopes  and  wishes  went  hand  in 
hand  with  those  of  the  human  race,  that  long  before  my  eyes  should 
close,  that  dawn  would  be  overcast,  and  set  once  more  in  the  night  of 
despotism — "  total  eclipse !"  Happy  that  1  did  not.  I  felt  for  years, 
and  during  the  best  part  of  my  existence,  heart-whole  in  that  cause,  and 
triumphed  in  the  triumphs  over  the  enemies  of  man !  At  that  time,  while 
the  fairest  aspirations  of  the  human  mind  seemed  about  to  be  realized, 
ere  the  image  of  man  was  defaced  and  his  breast  mangled  in  scorn,  phi- 
losophy took  a  higher,  poetry  could  afford  a  deeper  range.  At  th'at  time, 
to  read  the  *'  ROBBERS,"  was  indeed  delicious,  and  to  hear 

"  From  the  dungeon  of  the  tower  time-rent, 
That  fearful  voice,  afamish'd  father's  cry," 

could  be  borne  only  amidst  the  fulness  of  hope,  the  crash  of  the  fall  of 
the  strong  holds  of  power,  and  the  exulting  sounds  of  the  march  of 
human  freedom.  What  feelings  the  death-scene  in  Don  Carlos  sent 
into  the  soul !  In  that  headlong  career  of  lofty  enthusiasm,  and  the 
joyous  opening  of  the  prospects  of  the  world  and  our  own,  the  thought 
of  death  crossing  it,  smote  doubly  cold  upon  the  mind ;  there  was  a 
stifling  sense  of  oppression  and  confinement,  an  impatience  of  our  present 
knowledge,  a  desire  to  grasp  the  whole  of  our  existence  in  one  strong 
embrace,  to  sound  the  mystery  of  life  and  death,  and  in  order  to  put  an 


1827.]  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in  YoHth.  273 

end  to  the  agony  of  doubt  and  dread,  to  burst  through  our  prison-house, 
and  confront  the  King  of  Terrors  in  his  grisly  palace!....  As  I  was 
writing  out  this  passage,  my  miniature-picture  when  a  child  lay  on  the 
mantle-piece,  and  I  took  it  out  of  the  case  to  look  at  it.  I  could  perceive 
few  traces  of  myself  in  it ;  but  there  was  the  same  placid  brow,  the 
dimpled  mouth,  the  same  timid,  inquisitive  glance  as  ever.  But  its 
careless  smile  did  not  seem  to  reproach  me  with  having  become  a  recreant 
to  the  sentiments  that  were  then  sown  in  my  mind,  or  with  having  written 
a  sentence  that  could  call  up  a  blush  in  this  image  of  ingenuous  youth! 

"  That  time  is  past  with  all  its  giddy  raptures."  Since  the  future  was 
barred  to  my  progress,  I  have  turned  for  consolation  to  the  past,  gathering 
up  the  fragments  of  my  early  recollections,  and  putting  them  into  a  form 
that  might  live.  It  is  thus,  that  when  we  find  our  personal  and  substan- 
tial identity  vanishing  from  us,  we  strive  to  gain  a  reflected  and  substituted 
one  in  our  thoughts :  we  do  not  like  to  perish  wholly,  and  wish  to  bequeath 
our  names  at  least  ,to  posterity.  As  long  as  w'e  can  keep  alive  our 
cherished  thoughts  and  nearest  interests  in  the  minds  of  others,  we  do  not 
appear  to  have  retired  altogether  from  the  stage,  we  still  occupy  a  place  in 
the  estimation  of  mankind,  exercise  a  powerful  influence  over  them,  and 
it  is  only  our  bodies  that  are  trampled  into  dust  or  dispersed  to  air.  Our 
darling  speculations  still  find  favour  and  encouragement,  and  we  make  as 
good  a  figure  in  the  eyes  of  our  descendants,  nay,  perhaps,  a  better  than  we 
did  in  our  life-time-  This  is  one  point  gained;  the-demands  of  our  self- 
love  are  so  far  satisfied.  Besides,  if  by  the  proofs  of  intellectual  superiority 
we  survive  ourselves  in  this  world,  by  exemplary  virtue  or  unblemished 
faith,  we  are  taught  to  ensure  an  interest  in  another  and  a  higher  state  of 
being,  and  to  anticipate  at  the  same  time  the  applauses  of  men  and  angels, 

"  Even  from  the  tomb  the  voice  of  nature  cries; 
Even  in  our  ashes  live  their  wonted  fires." 

As  we  advance  in  life,  we  acquire  a  keener  sense  of  the  value  of  time. 
Nothing  else,  indeed,  seems  of  any  consequence ;  and  we  become  misers ' 
in  this  respect.  We  try  to  arrest  its  few  last  tottering;  steps,  and  to  make 
it  linger  on  the  brink  of  (lie  grave.  We  can  never  leave  off  wondering 
how  that  which  has  ever  been  should  cease  to  be,  and  would  still  live  on, 
that  we  may  wonder  at  our  own  shadow,  and  when  "  all  the  life  of  life  is 
flown,"  dwell  on  the  retrospect  of  the  past.  This  is  accompanied  by  a 
mechanical  tenaciousness  of  whatever  we  possess,  by  a  distrust  and  a 
sense  of  fallacious  hollowness  in  all  we  see.  Instead  of  the  full,  pulpy 
feeling  of  youth,  every  thing  is  flat  and  insipid.  The  world  is  a  painted 
witch,  that  puts  us  off  with  false  shews  and  tempting  appearances.  The 
case,  the  jocund  gaiety,  the  unsuspecting  security  of  youth  are  fled:  nor 
can  WGy  without  flying  in  the  face  of  common  sense, 

"  From  the  last  dregs  of  life,  hope  to  receive 
What  its  first  sprightly  sunnings  could  not  give." 

If  we  can  slip  out  of  the  world  without  notice  or  mischance,  can  tamper 
with  bodily  infirmity,  and  frame  our  minds  to  the  becoming  composure  of 
still-life,  before  we  sink  into  total  insensibility,  it  is  as  much  as  we  ought 
to  expect.  We  do  not  in  the  regular  course  of  nature  die  all  at  once  :  we 
have  mouldered  away  gradually  long  before ;  faculty  after  faculty,  attach- 
ment after  attachment,  we  are  torn  from  ourselves  piece-meal  while 
living;  year  after  year  takes  something  from  us;  and  death  only  con  - 
M.M.  New  Series— VoL.Hl.  No.]  5.  2  N 


274  On  the  Feeling  of  Immortality  in  Youth.  [MARCH, 

signs  the  last  remnant  of  what  we  were  to  the  grave.  The  revulsion  is 
not  so  great,  end  a  quiet  euthanasia  is  a  winding-up  of  the  plot,  that  is 
not  out  of  reason  or  nature. 

That  we  should  thus  in  a  manner  outlive  ourselves,  and  dwindle  imper- 
ceptibly ijrito  nothing,  is  not  surprising,  when  even  in  our  prime  the 
strongest  impressions  leave  so  little  traces  of  themselves  behind,  and  the 
last  object  is  driven  out  by  the  succeeding  one.  How -little  etfect  is  pro- 
duced on  us  at  any  time  by  the  books  we  have  read,  the  scenes  we  have 
witnessed,  the  sufferings  we  have  gone  through!  Think  only  of  the 
variety  of  feelings  we  experience  in  reading  an  interesting  romance,  or 
being  present  at  a  fine  play — what  beauty,  what  sublimity,  what  soothing, 
what  heart-rending  emotions  !  You  would  suppose  these  would  last  for 
ever,  or  at  least  subdue  the  mind  to  a  correspondent  tone  and  harmony — 
while  we  turn  over  the  page,  while  the  scene  is  passing  before  us,  it  seems 
as  if  nothing  could  ever  after  shake  our  resolution,  that  "treason  domestic, 
foreign  levy,  nothing  could  touch  us  farther !"  The  first  splash  of  mud  we 
get,  on  entering  the  street,  the  first  pettifogging  shop-keeper  that  cheats  us 
out  of  two-pence,  and  the  whole  vanishes  clean  out  of  our  remembrance, 
and  we  become  the  idle  prey  of  the  most  petty  and  annoying  circum- 
stances. The  mind  soars  by  an  effort  to  the  grand  and  lofty :  it  is  at 
home,  in  the  grovelling,  the  disagreeable,  and  the  little.  This  happens  in 
the  height  and  hey-day  of  our  existence,  when  novelty  gives  a  stronger  im- 
pulse to  the  blood  and  takes  a  faster  hold  of  the  brain,  (I  have  known  the 
impression  on  coming  out  of  a  gallery  of  pictures  then  last  half  a  day) — 
as  we  grow  old,  we  become  more  feeble  and  querulous,  every  object 
"  reverbs  its  own  hollowness,"  and  both  worlds  are  not  enough  to  satisfy 
the  peevish  importunity  and  extravagant  presumption  of  our  desires !  There 
are  a  few  superior,  happy  beings,  who  are  born  with  a  temper  exempt 
from  every  trifling  annoyance.  This  spirit  sits  serene  and  smiling  as  in 
its  native  skies,  and  a  divine  harmony  (whether  heard  or  not)  plays  around 
them.  This  is  to  be  at  peace.  Without  this,  it  is  in  vain  to  fly  into 
deserts,  or  to  build  a  hermitage  on  the  top  of  rocks,  if  regret  and  ill-humour 
follow  us  there :  and  with  this,  it  is  needless  to  make  the  experiment. 
The  only  true  retirement  is  that  of  the  heart;  the  only  true  leisure  is 
the  repose  of  the  passions.  To  such  persons  it  makes  little  difference 
whether  they  are  young  or  old  ;  and  they  die  as  they  have  lived,  with 
graceful  resignation. 


JS27.]  £     273     ] 

NUG.E    LlTERARI.fi. 
A    CHAPTER    ON    DREAMS, 


HAVE  you  ever  wandered  into  the  bright  fairy  land  of  dreams  ?  Has  your 
mind  ever  risen  from  its  dark  ashes  of  wearisoraeness  into  that  glorious 
atmosphere  of  ideal  magnificence  ?  How  many  of  the  dull  cold  hours  of 
midnight  have  sullenly  flitted  on,  while  you  lay  steeped  in  all  the  wild 
witcheries  of  dreamy  romance  !  But  who  equipt  you  with  your  plumes  ? 
I  would  fain  discourse  a  little  on  this  subject. 

Causaubon  informs  us,  that  the  word  dream  is  derived  from  ^a//.a  rS  £<«  ; 
i.  e.  the  "  comedy  of  life."  But  this  seems  rather  fanciful  than  correct. 
He  appears  to  contend,  that  the  ideas  of  dreams  have  no  archetypes  in 
actual  life.  With  him  they  are  wonderful  and  fantastic  combinations  of 
unreal  scenery  :  he  would  needs  assign  to  them  a  distinct  province  from 
the  ordinary  realities  of  e  very-day  existence.  But  here  his  hypothesis 
fails  :  for  who  knows  not  that,  in  a  vast  majority  of  instances,  the  aspect 
of  dreams  is  on  the  past  occurrences  of  life?  And  there  are  many  extra- 
ordinary and  well-attested  narratives  of  dreams,  which  have  even  antici- 
pated the  course  of  human  events,  and  met  with  a  most  marvellous 
corroboration. 

"  Dreaming,"  says  Locke,  V  is  the  having  ideas  while  the  outward 
senses  are  stopped  —  not  suggested  by  any  external  objects,  or  known 
occasion,  nor  under  the  rule  or  conduct  of  the  understanding."  This  last 
seems  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  dreams  —  freedom  from  the  control 
of  judgment.  In  the  day-time,  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind  are  exactly 
balanced  :  at  night,  the  equipoise  is  destroyed.  Judgment  slumbers  on  its 
lofty  throne,  while  imagination  makes  head  against  it,  and  carries  away 
captive  all  its  fellow-laculties.  Assuming  the  general  fact  —  that  the 
majority  of  dreams  are  of  a  pleasing  character  —  I  have  often  thought  that, 
as  the  body  requires  repose  after  its  physical  exhaustion,  so  the  mind  seeks 
a  respite  from  its  severer  duties,  by  wandering,  unfettered,  amidst  the 
unbounded  latitude  of  dreams.  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  men  are  often 
visited  with  the  most  enchanting  dreams,  after  suffering  a  complete  prostra- 
tion of  their  mental  and  physical  energies.  I  remember  it  was  said  of  the 
murderer  Thurtell,  that,  on  the  morning  of  his  execution,  to  a  person  who 
inquired  whether  he  had  not  been  dreaming  about  his  death,  he  replied, 
"  Far  from  it  ;  I  have  dreamed  very  pleasantly  of  past  times  ;''  or  words 
to  that  effect. 

Many  of  the  phenomena  of  dreaming  are  very  obscure  and  difficult  to 
be  accounted  for.  This  interesting  branch  of  mental  philosophy  is  too 
generally  neglected.  Men  commonly  will  not  think  twice  on  a  subject, 
whose  apparently  irreconcileable  anomalies  occasioned  them,  at  first 
thought,  perplexity  and  disappointment.  Who  can  tell  what  parts  of  a 
human  body  are  exercised  in  dreaming  ?  Why  do  we  sometimes,  but  not 
always,  dream  ?  In  short,  why  do  we  dream  at  all  ? 

I  go,  at  midnight,  into  a  bed-chamber,  where  all,  is  silent  except  the 
ticking  of  a  watch  ;  I  gently  draw  aside  the  dusky  drapery  of  the  bed  — 
and  there  is  disclosed  to  me  the  figure  of  a  man  —  pale,  noiseless,  motion- 
loss  —  closely  hugged  in  the  embraces  of  death's  mimic  —  in  a  word,  asleep. 
1  examine  him  more  narrowly  ;  it  is  evident  that  his  senses  —  those  inlets 

2  N  2 


276  A  Chapter  on  Dreams.  [MARCH, 

to  the  antlerstanding — are  closed ;  and,  consequently,  cen  convey  to  the 
mind  no  information  from  without.  I  touch  him — rather  roughly  ;  but  he 
is  insensible  of  the  contact.  I  whisper— I  speak  loudly  :  he  hears  me  not. 
The  light  of  my  candle  flares  on  his  eye-ball,  through  the  half-opened  lid  ; 
but  his  powers  of  vision  are  not  roused  into  exertion.  His  powers  of  smell 
are  not  excited  on  exposure  to  fragrant,  or  even  stimulating  odours ;  and 
— though,  of  course,  the  experiment  would  be  rather  difficult — I  may 
fairly  infor,  that  his  organs  of  taste  for  a  while  forego  their  operation.  I 
gaze  on  this  strange  figure — a  man  cut  off,  pro  tempore,  from  all  inter- 
course with  the  external  world — a  substantial  abstraction  ;  and  may  I  not 
well  be  amazed,  when,  on  suddenly  awakening  the  subject  of  myspecula- 
lations,  he  peevishly  exclaims,  "  Why  did  you  disturb  me?  I  have  been 
dreaming  gloriously!  You  have  plucked  me  from  a  paradisiacal  scene  of 
fruits,  and  flowers,  and  golden  sun-light — fragrant  odours,  bewildering 
melody — from  throngs  of  playful  sylphs  and  houris; — why  did  you  awake 
me?"  I  do  insist  upon  it,  that  this  circumstance — dreaming — affords  a 
very  powerful  evidence  of  the  soul's  immortality,  and  capacity  for  a  sepa- 
rate existence. 

We  have  thus  seen,  that  the  mind  is  deprived  of  the  assistance  of  the 
senses,  and,  as  it  were,  locked  up  in  a  dark  dungeon.  Yet,  is  it  in  this 
state  inert? — Far  from  it.  Although  excluded  from  the  perception  of 
external  objects,  the  imagination  roves  amidst  scenes  of  incessantly -varying 
splendour.  Next  to  imagination — if  it  be  not  before— the  most  powerful 
faculty  called  into  exertion  is — memory.  It  flares  its  torch  amidst  ali  its 
avenues  ,  of  secret  and  long-cherished  images  and  associations ;  whilst 
imagination  moulds  them  into  innumerable  gorgeous  and  grotesque  com- 
binations. The  researches  of  memory  are  very  deep;  it  often  elicits  a 
series  of  impressions,  which,  like  figures  on  the  sea-shore,  one  fancied  the 
tide  of  active  mental  exertion  had  long  since  obliterated.  I  have  often 
been  startled,  when,  on  waking,  I  have  found  that  a  train  of  thoughts 
— which  I  afterwards  recollected  to  have  flitted  through  my  mind  many, 
many  years  ago — has  started  into  sudden  and  vivid  reminiscence  in  my 
last  night's  dream. 

WOLFIUS  supposes  that  dreams  originate  in  a  preternatural  irritation  of 
the  organs  of  sensation;  that  those  of  smell,  touch,  or  taste — of  sight  or 
hearing — communicate  information  in  some  secret  and  inexplicable  manner, 
and  thus  superficially  arouse  the  lethargic  faculties,  and  call  them  into 
confused  and  irregular  exertion.  This  hypothesis  is  explaining  ignotum, 
per  ignotius,  and  goes  but  a  very  little  way  towards  elucidating  the  phe- 
nomena of  dreaming.  The  very  first  aspect  is  misty  and  indistinct,  and  so 
far  partakes  of  the  character  of  dreams.  Other  physiologists  would  per- 
suade us,  that,  in  dreaming,  the  mind  is  to  be  considered  as  in  a  state  of 
delirium. — Sleep,  say  they,  is  attended  by  a  collapse  of  the  brain,  during 
which  its  nerves  are  unable  to  carry  on  the  communication  between  the 
mind  and  the  organs  of  sensation  ;  and,  when  only  half  the  brain  is  thus 
collapsed,  we  are  neither  asleep  nor  awake,  but  in  a  sort  of  delirium 
between  the  two  :  and  this  (say  they)  is  dreaming. — This  theory  supposes 
the  mind  to  be  incapable  of  action  without  the  aid  of  sensation,  and  would 
represent  dreams  to  be  merely  a  confused  chaos  of  images — disjecta  membra 
of  real  and  artificial  objects — which  is  at  variance  with  the  known  fact. 
But  it  would  be  endless  and  supererogatory  to  discuss  the  thousand-and- 
one  philosophisms  to  which  dreams  have  given  birth. 

In  dreaming,  the  mind  is  passive  :  uncateriated  by  the  will,  ideas  glide 
on  before  the  fancy,  like  leaves  and  straws  on  the  surface  of  a  rapid  river. 


1627,]  A  Chapter  on  Dreams.  Til 

This  state  of  the  mind  has  been  happily  compared,  by  an  able  writer,  to  a 
person  sitting  at  a  window,  who  idly  stares  at  the  crowd  passing  before 
him — but  has  no  influence  on  those  who  are  running  to  and  fro,  passing  and 
repa»s4ng,  or  standing  still  before  him.  And — "  Tales  sunt  aqua,"  says 
Pliny,  somewhere  in  his  Natural  History,  "  qualis  terra,  per  quam 
Jiuunt"  It  is  the  same  river  whose  surface  glitters  in  the  rich  sunlight  of 
noon,  and,  in  a  few  hours,  booms  through  dreary  darkness.  The  conso- 
nance existing  between  one's  sleeping  and  waking  thoughts,  is  known  to 
every  man's  experience.  The  heated  imagination  of  the  lover  transports 
him  into  the  presence  of  his, mistress  ;  and  he  chaunts,  in  the  still  moon- 
light, beneath  her  vine-wreathed  lattice  ; — the  snaky  statesman  wriggles 
his  tortuous  folds  through  the  inexplicable  labyrinths  of  his  endless  plots 
and  counterplots,  and  outwits  half  the  courts  of  Europe  in  a  night ; — a 
Napoleon  climbs  the  blood-slippery  hill  of  his  ambition,  timing  his  steps  to 
the  thunder  of  the  distant  cannonade,  and  wakes  while  the  laurel  is  binding 
on  his  brow  ; — the  philosopher  returns  to  his  h're-fed  alembic,  or  confounds 
himself  with  the  fancied  trisection  of  the  triangle,  or  quadrature  of  the 
cir.de ; — the  knave  runs  his  customary  round  of  chicanery,  and  awakes  in 
the  pillory  or  the  Ifalter.  When  "the  pious  and  learned  Chrysostom 
dreamed — 'immured  in  the  solemn  solitude  of  his  monastic  cell — he  did  not 
launch  into  the  libidinous  latitude  of  sensual  indulgence,  but  trod  in  the 
ensanguined  footsteps  of  his  bleeding  Master — fainting,  though  glorying, 
in  his  "  cross  and  reproach."  The  pale  scholar  does  not  tramp  to  the 

exchange  or  the  market;  nor  does  a  R hunt,  with  aching  brain,  after 

the  Greek  metres,  or  the  ./Solic  digamma. 

Jt  is  also  certain,  that  the  state  of  a  person's  health,  and  the  manner 
in  which  the  vital  functions  are  carried  on,  exert  a  considerable  influence 
in  determining  the  character  of  dreams.  The  atrabilarious  invalid  stares 
with  dim,  jaundiced  eyes  on  shrouds  and  funeral  processions;  and  the 
obese  carcass  of  the  dyspeptic  alderman  groans  beneath  the  hideous 
incubus  of  ten  thousand  turtles.  A  friend  of  mine — a  classical  young 
spark,  as  it  were — in  a  recent  fit  of  the  hypochondriasis,  beheld,  written 
every  where — on  night-cap,  bed-clothes,  curtains,  wainscot,  windows — 
every  where  grinned  those  hateful  lines — '*  Pallida  mors  <zquo,  pulsat 
pede  pauperum  tabernas,  regumque  turres."  If  he  sate  down  to  dinner 
— if  he  went  out — his  eye  was  sure  to  settle  on  something  inscribed  with 
the  hateful  words,  "  Pallida  mors  /"  Though  this  was  a  dream,  he  has 
mortally  loathed  poor  old  Horace  ever  since. 

1  have  often  compared  the  mind,  when  dreaming,  to  a  harp  sending 
forth  fitful  and  mysterious  melody,  %eneath  the  superficial  undulations  of 
the  midnight  wind  ;  but,  at  length,  the  impulse  becomes  gradually  louder 
and  stronger- — till,  by  the  sudden  and  startling  recollection  of  some  thrilling 
passage  of  past  life,  the  whole  internal  mechanism  of  the  mind  is  dis- 
turbed, and  the  sleeper  awakes  in  consternation.  Or,  it  may  be  compared 
to*  a  mirror,  held  up  to  some  dim,  mysterious,  and  unearthly  scenery — 
and  reflecting  transient  images  of  ghastly  horror,  or  regal  splendour,  linked 
and  commingled  with  all  that  is  ludicrous  and  grotesque  in  nature.  An 
ingenious  friend  near  me,  to  whom  I  happened  to  mention  the  subject  of 
my  thoughts,  compares  the  mind  to  that  once-popular  plaything — the 
kaleidoscope  ;  in  which  tube  the  due  collocation  of  a  few  simple  pieces  of 
coloured  glass,  will  afford  an  incalculable  number  of  changes. 

There  is  one  more  fact  connected  with  the  economy  of  dreams,  which 
I  cannot  omit  to  notice.  It  is  universally  supposed,  that,  if  the  mind  is 
more  than  ordinarily  occupied  and  excited  with  some  subject  of  intense 


278  //  Chapter  on  Dreams.  [MARCH, 

and  overwhelming  interest,  this  is  sure  to  become  the  ftieme  of  dreaming  ; 
—e.g.  a  man  is  condemned  to  die  on  this  day  fortnight.  Instead  of 
meditating  on  the  interesting  fact — quotidie  quotnoctibusque — behold,  his 
excursive  imagination  can  settle  on  any  subject  except  that  of  his  approach- 
ing dissolution,  and  lead  him  many  an  ignis-fatuus  dance  to  scenes  of  past 
gaiety  and  happiness.  Witness  the  case  of  Thurtell,  to  which  I  alluded 
at  the  commencement  of  this  article.  So  it  is  with  myself.  When  my 
mind  has  been  hourly,  daily,  and  monthly  fixed  in  intense  contem- 
plation on  some  object  of  high  concernment,  I  have  been  amazed  to  think 
that  I  have  never  once  dreamed  of  it ;  whilst,  on  the  contrary,  a  casual 
and  almost  imperceptible  impression  received  in  the  day-time,  has  afforded 
occupation  to  my  erratic  fancy  all  the  night  long.  I  have  been  frequently 
puzzled  by  this  anomaly. 

It  so  came  to  t  pass,  that,  once  upon  a  time,  1  was  sitting  pen- 
sively in  my  study.  The  wind  blustered  without,  and  the  rain  spit  on  the 
closed  shutters,  as  though  envious  of  the  merry  blazing  fire,  whose  comfortable 
light  flickered  fitfully  over  many  a  solemn  folio  ranged  around.  On  my 
desk  lay  an  ancient  copy  of  the  Stagyrite's  Metaphysics.  His  subtleties 
had  fairly  done  me,  as  the  saying  is :  so — quid  muita  ? — after  half  an  hour 
of  irrepressible  oscitancy,  I  fell  into  an  abstraction,  i.  e.  asleep.  I  expe- 
rienced a  strange,  momentary  shudder,  as  I  felt  myself  in  rapid  motion  ; 
but  whether  upward  or  downward,  I  could  not  divine.  At  length,  I 
found  myself  sitting  at  the  porch  of  an  ancient  temple.  A  strange  light 
beamed  through  its  colossal  pillars  and  architraves.  I  entered,  and  looked 
about  me.  On  several  of  the  pillars  were  bound  slips  of  parchment, 
inscribed  with  Greek  :  one  of  them  was — 

p.v$lv   I'*  roy   ju»jx  ovroff  yT»a7&au'   pi^sv  EJCT  TO  (j.rj  oy   $ 

and,  from  other  similar  passages,  I  concluded  the  place  in  which  I  stood 
to  be  the  scene  of  philosophical  discussions.  Whilst  I  was  gazing  around 
me,  and  wondering  at  the  profound  stillness  which  every  where  prevailed, 
I  beheld,  at  the  further  end  of  a  long  vista,  a  strange  figure  approaching, 
with  rapid  but  noiseless  steps.  In  a  twinkling,  he  was  at  my  side.  His 
face  was  of  a  cadaverous,  or  rather  bronzed  hue ;  and  his  unearthly  eyes 
"  burned  like  two  decaying  stars."1  The  crown  of  his  head  was  bald  ; 
and  a  few  straggling,  dirty-looking  locks  hung  carelessly  behind.  He  had 
a  coarse  dark  cloak,  confined  by  a  broad  leathern  girdle. 

"  What  think  you  of  the  metempsychosis  ? — what  think  you  of  the 
metempsychosis,  my  good  friend  ?"  inquired  the  stranger,  with  startling 
abruptness. 

"The  metempsychosis — metempsychosis! — hem!  hem!  There  may 
be  something  in  it,"  stammered  I. 

"Pshaw!"  replied  the,  stranger,  hastily;  "  do  you  believe  in  spiritual 
interchanges  ?  Are  you  of  the  creed  of  my  worthy  friend,  Pythagoras  ?" 

"  Why,  I  have  not  exactly  made  up  my  mind  on  that  subject;  it  is 
deep  and  difficult,"  said  I,  striving  to  collect  my  scattered  wits. — "  But, 
if  it  please  you,  may  I  inquire  who  or  what  you  are?" 

'*  ..Humph ! — I  ?"  replied  the  stranger,  passing  his  pale  and  sinewy  hand 
over  his  brow;  "  I  am  many  persons  at  once* — one  successively,  and  two 
interchangeably— and  so  on,  as  it  were.  Dost  thou  understand  me?" 

"  Excellently — excellently  well !"  replied  I,  striving  to  laugh  at  what  I 
conceived  to  be  the  old  man's  drollery.  However,  he  went  on  rapidly. 

*  Di'mocritus. 


J827,]  A  Chapter  on   Dreams.  279 

"  Who  am  I,  i'faith  ? — I  was  once  Hesiod ;  then  I  migrated  into  Con- 
fucius ;  from  thence  into  Aristotle.  I  then  animated  the  carcass  of  an  old 
ass,  ridden  by  Epictetus;  but  shifted  my  quarters  into  Ptolemy — till  I 
was  weary  of  sines,  and  tangents,  and  ellipses.  But,  in  short,  I  have  to 
make  thee  a  proposal :  if  thou  wilt  be  me,  I  will  be  thee;  we  will  reciprocally 
animate  one  another.  What  sayest  thou  ?  Shall  we  come  into  one 
another,  and  each  be  somebody  else?"  (!!!) 

"  Obstnpui  stcteruntque  coma,  et  vox  faucibus  hcesit." 

This  interesting  but  inexplicable  proposal  well  nigh  unmanned  me. — 
"  Come  into  one  another,  and  each  be  somebody  else!" — Forsooth!  was 
ever  such  a  thing  heard  of  before  ?  I  had  rather  too  great  a  partiality 
to  myself,  to  give  myself  away  in  this  hasty  manner.  How  did  I  know  but 
that,  if  I  once  opened  the  gate,  I  might  commence  an  almost  endless 
series  of  migrations,  and  end  in  a  flea  ?  However,  on  pondering  the  pro- 
posal in  my  mind,  it  struck  me  that  he  might  possibly  be  some  person 
worth  interchanging  lots  with.  What  might  be  his  wisdom — what  his 
power? 

"  If  I  thought  it  were  worth  my  while "  said  I,  stammeringly. 

— — "  In  short,  you  want  to  know  whether  such  an  old  fellow  as  I,  am 
worth  changing  with  ?" 

"  Exactly." 

"  Then  a  trial  would  set  you  at  ease — eh  ?  What  would  you  wish  to 
know  ?" — 

Just  the  issue  I  wanted.  Now  it  must  be  known,  that  my  thoughts  had 
been  long  occupied  on  an  inquiry  into  the  relative  claims  to  profundity  of 
wisdom,  which  had  been  allowed  to  certain  great  men  figuring  in  the 
philosophy  of  my  country.  I  told  him  this. 

"  Very  good,  i'faith  !  a  modest  demand !  But  you  shall  be  gratified  for 
once — and  then  for  the  metempsychosis." 

With  a  faint  smile,  I  followed  whither  he  led  me,  to  a  large  chamber 
in  the  interior  of  the  temple — if  such  it  might  be  called;  over  the 
entrance  of  which  glittered,  in  golden  letters, 

eAI  TH2  ZOOIAS  BA0YTHTES. 

I  scarcely  know  how  to  describe  the  odd,  but  striking  scene  that  pre- 
sented itself.  From  what  seemed  a  ceiling  above,  through  innumerable 
punctures,  depended  a  vast  number  of  ropes,  of  different  degrees  of  thick- 
ness, to  the  extremities  of  which  were  attached  little  golden  buckets.  When 
I  looked  beneath,  I  beheld  a  stupendous  profundity  of  space,  as  it  were, 
illuminated  with  mild  but  clear  effulgence,  whose  source  could  be  nowhere 
discerned.  The  deeper  seemed  the  brighter.  Many  of  the  ropes  were 
knotted  and  twisted  together;  and  some  descended  to  a  little  depth,  and 
then  were  enveloped  in  little  clouds,  through  which  their  buckets  were 
scarcely  visible ;  these  were  sceptics — who  knew  enough  to  cloud  their 
intellects,  and  no  more.  But  I  am  anticipating. 

After  gazing  on  this  strange  scene  in  silent  wonder,  I  inquired  of  my 
conductor — "  What  can  be  the  meaning  of  all  these  bell-ropes  ?" 

"  Each  rope  is  the  measure  of  the  wisdom  of  any  given  philosopher.  Do 
you  see  that  central  rope,  of  immense  length  and  thickness  ?  It  is  Sir 
Isaac  Newton's." 

I  remembered  the  "  PRINCIPIA,"  and  looked  with  reverence.  But  I 
observed  with  surprise,  that,  within  a  few  feet  of  its  commencement,  it 
deviated  from  its  rectilinearity,  towards  another  rope,  at  a  little  distance, 


280  A  Chapier  on  Dreams*  [MARq»> 

and  of  equal  thickness,  round  which  it  coiled  several  times;  but  it  soon 
reached  its  extremity,  and  then,  in  solitary  strength  and  magnificence, 
depended  to  an  amazing  depth.  Its  golden  bucket  hung  incalculably  lower 
than  any  of  the  thousand-and-one  glittering  around,  like  so  many  planets. 

"  Whiat  is  indicated  by  the  deviation  from  the  perpendicular  towards 
another  rope,  to  which  it  seems  to  cling  for  support,  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
rope  ?"  said  I,  anxiously. 

"  That  a  considerable  share  of  his  discoveries  was  stolon  from  another. 
You  observe,  it  leaves  its  own  track,  and  goes  to  another,  round  which  it 
twines  for  support." 

"  And  whose  rope  may  that  be  ?"  I  inquired,  with  somewhat  scornful 
incredulity. 

"  Good  old  JACOB  BEHMEN.  Do  you  know  any  thing  of  my  friend 
Jacob's  Three  Properties  of  Eternal  Nature,  most  learned  disciple  ?" 
inquired  the  stranger,  with  a  bitter  and  subtle  smile. 

This  question  rather  staggered  me.  I  certainly  was  familiar  enough 
with  the  name  of  Behmen — but  entirely  innocent  of  any  acquaintance  with 
the  writings  of  that  mysterious  philosopher.  So  I  answered  sheepishly — 
striving  to  appear  as  though  I  did  not  choose  the  extent  of  my  acquirements 
to  be  known  at  once — in  the  negative. 

"  Go,  then,  and  read  them — and  understand,  if  you  can,"  said  the  old 
man.  "  But,  you  see,  Sir  Isaac  soon  leaves  the  leading-string  of  Behmen, 
and  plunges  alone  to  a  depth  that  is  bewildering — 'to  you,  at  least." 

My  attention  was  now  directed  to  a  huge  cable  of  four-fold  thickness., 
to  whose  extremity  was  attached  a  broad  and  comprehensive  golden 
bucket;  it  reached  the  nearest  to  Sir  Isaac's  depth ;  its  chief  distinction- 
was,  that  innumerable  little  ropes  clung  round  it  for  a  few  feet  down. 

"  And  what  means  this?"  I  inquired. 

"  That  rope  signifies  the  wisdom  of  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  :""  and  the 
old  man's  eye  kindled,  and  his  shrunk  frame  seemed  to  swell,  at  the 
mention  of  that  lofty  name. — "Here  you  may  behold  the  subratum  of  all 
the  philosophy  of  yonder  earth."' — ["  Yonder  earth!"  thought  I,  and 
trembled.] — "  His  is  the  oak,  and  your  modern  philosophers  are  the  ten- 
drils of  the  ivy  clasped  round  it.  He  possessed  the  key  of  creation;  he 
unlocked  its  deepest  mysteries  ;  and  thousands  have  followed  him — but 
forgotten  their  great  guide." 

I  observed  many  curious  things  connected  with  this  rope  of  Bacon's— 
particularly  that,  round  it,  were  closely  wreathed  and  twisted  the  ropes  of 
many  great  personages,  who  have  hitherto  passed  as  men  of  profound  and 
original  research,  but  whose  names  it  would  not  be  decorous  to  mention. 
At  a  little  distance  was  ray  Lord  Bolingbroke's  rope,  which,  after  dangling 
a  little  way  down  in  a  zig-zag  fashion,  ended  in  a  confused  and  unseemly 
knot,  with  that  of  Lord  Shaftesbury.  .  Lord  Monboddos  hung  down 
with  a  lanky,  unmeaning  curve,  very  like — (parvis  componere  magna) — 
the  rigid  tail  of  a  dead  ape**  On  looking  above,  there  seemed  to  be  an 
absolute  forest  of  little  ropes  (pardon  the  comparison  !).  reaching  only  one 
or  two  feet  from  the  ceiling  :  these  belonged  to  the  mere  tirones,  or  duck- 
lings of  science. 

I  was  gazing  thoughtfully  on  this  whimsical  spectacle,  when  the  old  man 
abruptly  called  me  away  to  behold  his  CABINET  OP  SECRETS,  as  he  called 
it.  After  passing  through  many  a  dim  avenue,  we  entered  a  sort  of 
laboratory,  where  were  all  sorts  of  philosophical  instruments — as  dials., 

*  See  Monboddq's  Origin  of  Languages,  &c. — passim. 


1827.]  A  Chapter  on  Dreams.  281 

astralobes,  compasses,  quadrants,  alembics,  &c.  &c.  But  there  was  one 
quarter  more  interesting  than  any  other  of  this  mystic  chamber.  On  a 
few  shelves,  which  were  defended  by  a  stout  grating,  were  divers  little 
silver  boxes,  on  each  of  which  were  inscribed  certain  characters,  declara- 
tory of  their  contents. 

"  Here/'  said  my  companion,  "  are  all  those  great  secrets  in  lite- 
rature and  philosophy,  which,  like  so  many  ignesfatui,  have  led  learned 
men  into  clouds  and  darkness — till,  despairing  of  success,  they  have  sunk 
into  quagmires  of  doubt  and  error,  or  toppled  headlong  down  the  preci- 
pice of  presumptuous  disbelief.  Here  are  all  those  magna  studii  indus- 
triceque  prcemia,  which  have  turned  men's  heads,  from  Plato  down  to 
David  Hume.  I  know  them  all ;  yet  they  afford  me  no  pleasure.  Verily, 
to  me  they  seem  nothing  else  than  as  the  gilded  toys  of  an  infant.  I  often 
sit  unseen  by  the  profound  and  laborious  philosopher,  and  view  with  pity 
his  fruitless  investigations  after  mysteries*  which  must  ever  be  occult, 
till"  —  (and  here  a  strange  smile  flitted  over  his  ancient  features) — "  till 
they  cease  to  toil  beneath  the  incumbrance  of  mortality." 

My  curiosity  was  whetted  to  agony  as  the  old  man,  with  a  somewhat 
melancholy  air,  concluded  his  brief  interpretation  of  that  which  lay  before 
me.  I  peered  anxiously  through  the  grating,  and  distinguished  a  number 
of  small  packets,  as  it  were,  or  small  boxes ;  one  of  which  bore  the 
letters,  "  Solution  of  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  ;"  another,  "  Transmu- 
tation of  Metals  ;"  another,  "  Author  of  Junius  " — "  Quadrature  of  the 
Circle"—"  Mind  and  Matter  "—"Elixir  of  Life" 

"  Now,  which  of  these  should  you  wish  to  know  ?"  asked  the  old 
man. 

I  had  lately  taken  some  interest  in  the  controversies  respecting  the 
identity  of  "  Junius :"  so  I  answered  directly — 

"  Let  me  know  the  author  of  Junius." 

He  opened  the  grating,  and  reached  down  the  box  which  contained 
the  object  of  my  wishes.  It  felt  ponderously  heavy,  in  comparison  of  its 
magnitude.  I  opened  it — when  a  great  toad  leaped  out ;  and  I  let  fall 
the  box  with  disgust. 

*'  And  this  suffices,  at  present,  to  amuse  the  curious  in  your  world," 
said  the  old  man,  reaching  down  a  box  inscribed,  "  North- West  Pas- 
sage." I  opened  it  with  great  curiosity — but  found  only  a  little  smoke ! 
"  I  wish  Captain  Parry  knew  this!"  thought  I,  as  my  eye  fixed  on  a 
small,  dingy-hued  box,  which  bore  the  magical  superscription,  "  Human 
Happiness  /" — "  Let  me  know  but  that,  and  1  am  content,"  I  asked,  in 
an  earnest  and  imploring  tone.  He  fixed  on  me  an  inexplicable,  soul- 
searching  glance,  and  then  reached  me  the  wondrous  packet ;  but  he  no 
sooner  put  it  into  my  hand,  than  he  spit  furiously  in  my  face;  his 
countenance  was  frightfully  metamorphosed  into  the  hideous  snout  of  a 
boar — he  leaped  upon  me — his  tusks  crunching  over  my  shoulder ;  and 

we  both  fell  down — down — down 

*  *  *  #  * 

Behold,  my  fire  was  out,  and  my  candle  flickering  fitfully  in  the 

socket,  diffusing  a  disagreeable  odour.  Q.  Q.  Q. 


*  Ut  ait  Cicero — "  Duo  vitia  vitanda  sunt,  in  cognitionis,''  etc.—"  alterum  est  vitium, 
quod  quidam  nimis  magnam  operam  conferunt,  in  res  obscuras  atque  difficiles— eas  de-tu- 
que non  necessarias. "—  DE  OFFICIIS. 


M.M.  New  SmW.—VoUII.  No.15.  2  O 


[    282    ]  [MARCH, 

THE  DOUR  NATIONS. 

"  Quatuor  homines — quatuo-  char  tec 


The  nations  arc  an  Atlas:  every  man 

Hears  in  his  face  the  outlines  of' a  map. 

Here,  in  the  soil  bland  visage,  you  may  trace. 

The  fertile  meadow  and  tbe  fattening  stream, 

Which  drawls  its  oozy  course  ;  there,  in  perk'd  bone?, 

And  sharpened  nasal  prominence,  you  ken 

The  man  o'the  mountains  ;  while  there,  puckered  features, 

Pursed  up  as  each  were  forging  of  an  oath, 

Proclaim  the  bullying  trooper  of  the  bog  ; 

An-!  that,  hard  front,  flattened  at  top  and  square. 

Has  Snowdon  or  Plinlymmon  plain  upon  it. 

Head  laces,  and  you  are  a  shrewd  geographer ; 

See  countries,  and  you  instantly  shall  know 

The  gauge  of  their  inhabitants. 

GODOLPHI 

IN  the  whole  range  of  physiological  science,  there  is  not  a  truth  more 
demonstrated  by  every  day's  experience,  in  every  country  and  in  every 
county,  than  that  "  man  is  formed  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth."  Nor 
does  this  apply  only  to  the  external  form  ;  for  the  qualities  of  the  clay, 
either  directly,  or  by  being  its  organs,  stamp  upon  the  mind  their  own 
characteristics  ;  and,  if  you  have  attended  closely  to  this  curious  science, 
you  shall  be  enabled,  from  the  knowledge  of  a  man,  to  tell  directly  in 
what  kind  of  locality  he  was  born  ;  and  indirectly,  if  you  are  well 
acquainted  with  any  locality,  you  shall  be  enabled  at  once  to  estimate  the 
general  character  of  its  inhabitants.  A  certain  portion  of  this  philosophy 
is  intuitive  in  every  human  heart ;  and,  perhaps,  that  is  the  reason  why 
it  has  never  been  formally  admitted  into  the  circle  of  the  sciences.  But 
this  want  of  respect  for  it  in  the  schools,  how  much  soever  it  may  make 
against  the  acumen  and  good  sense  of  those  who  have  legislated  there, 
detracts  nothing  either  from  the  curiosity  or  the  utility  of  the  study. 

No  where  are  there  finer  opportunities  of  practising  one  branch  of  this 
philosophy,  and  of  profiting  by  the  practice,  than  in  the  British  metro- 
polis— in  the  various  associations  and  circles  of  whose  inhabitants  the 
ends  of  the  earth  are  brought  together,  and  every  variety  of  human  cha- 
racter made  to  pass  before  you  in  a  single  day.  Go  to  the  haunts  of 
business,  the  halls  of  feasting,  the  saloons  of  gaiety,  or  the  dens  of  vice ; 
and,  whether  at  one  or  at  another,  the  map  of  the  world  is  still  spread 
full  before  you — not  only  in  its  continents  and  its  empires,  but'in  its  small 
islands  and  smaller  provinces. 

Upon  the  general  geography,  I  shall  not  enter  in  the  mean  time  ;  but 
shall  confine  myself  to  those  provinces  which  are  the  most  easily  studied, 
and  which  it  is  of  the  greatest  practical  use  to  know — the  Four  Nations 
that  make  up  the  British  Public.  In  whatever  place  you  meet  them — 
whatever  be  their  occupation,  their  relative  talents,  or  their  relative 
virtues,  there  is  not  the  smallest  danger  of  your  confounding  the  one  with 
the  other.  Your  Englishman  stands  with  his  feet  as  firmly  planted,  as 
though  the  earth  felt  upon  its  surface  nothing  valuable  or  weighty,  but 
that  body  of  which  they  form  the  base  :  his  facial  line  deviates  not  from 
the  perpendicular  by  the  twentieth  part  of  a  degree  ;  and  you  are  instantly 
impressed  with  the  idea,  that  here  is  a  being  who  counts  himself  superior 
to  every  being  around,  and  who  must  stand  or  fall  openly  and  in  the 
light,  and  would  be  unworthy  of  himself  were  he  to  resort  to  any  thing 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations.  283 

partaking  of  cunning.  You  at  once  perceive  that  he  has  no  ideas  of  what 
it  is  to  be  shadowed  by  a  hill,  or  sheltered  by  a  cave  ;  but  that,  from  the-, 
beginning  of  life,  he  has  had  his  horizon  equally  level  throughout,  and 
could,  with  equal  freedom,  turn  his  observation  to  every  point  of  the- 
compass.  Your  Scotchman,  on  the  other  hand,  places  himself  hesitatingly 
upon  the  ground,  as  if  he  were  trying  to  persuade  it  either  that  he  is  not 
there,  or  that  the  pressure  of  his  corpus  can  give  it  no  inconvenience.  His 
feet  are  brought  close  together,  by  a  contrary  flexure  at  the  top  and 
bottom  of  his  femeral  bones  ;  he  assumes  somewhat  of  a  Z-shape,  or  rather 
that  of  the  long  Italian  / — while  his  facial  line  falls  almost  as  much  in 
front  of  the  perpendicular,  as  that  of  a  young  bride  receiving  her  first 
visitors.  Instead  of  that  straight-forward,  cannon-like  gaze,  which  the 
Englishman  directs  towards  whatever  strikes  his  fancy,  the  eyes  of  the 
Scotchman  twinkle  from  under  his  depressed  brows,  just  like  poachers 
peeping  through  a  hedge,  or  scouts  reconnoitreing  a  battered  wall  by 
moonlight.  Your  Cambrian  takes  an  attitude  different  from  both,  and 
bears  himself — not  with  that  admiration  and  possession  of  his  own  person, 
which  are  characteristic  of  the  Englishman  ;  or  with  the  pliant  litheness 
of  the  Scot — but,  as  if  he  scorned  all  about  him,  and  belonged  to  the 
elder  house,  which,  by  primogeniture,  is  destined  to  bear  rule  over  all  the 
rest.  His  face  is  thrown  just  as  much  in  the  rear  of  the  perpendicular  as 
that  of  the  Scotsman  is  deflected  to  the  front ;  and  this,  together  with  the 
peculiar  construction  of  the  lower  part  of  his  face,  gives  him  an  air  of 
sensuality  and  animal  irrascibility,  of  which  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in 
either  of  his  co-islanders.  Your  Irishman  is  still  different :  he  is  a  bird 
perpetually  on  the  wing — an  atom  always  in  motion ;  and  his  whole 
body,  as  well  as  every  individual  member  of  it,  retains  not  the  same 
posture  for  two  seconds.  If  he  has  any  point  to  carry,  or  any  purpose  to 
serve,  the  knobs  and  prominences  which  are  native  to  his  features  are  lit 
up  with  smiles,  which,  to  a  shallow  observer,  have  all  the  appearance  of 
a  visage  blessed  with  perpetual  sunshine — although,  to  those  who  can- 
scan  a  little  deeper,  the  gleaminess  is  nothing  more  than  an  occasional 
glare  thrown  upon  habitual  sterility  and  storm  ;  and,  under  what  he  con- 
ceives to  be  his  most  fascinating  aspect,  shrewd  observation  may  always 
find  out  that  there  is  a  masked  battery,  or  a  mine  ready  prepared ;  and 
that  he  will,  without  much  knowledge  or  care  how,  discharge  the  one,, 
or  explode  the  other,  against  the  very  subject  of  his  highest  adulation. 

Such  are  the  Four  Nations  in  a  single  line  of  their  appearances ;  and 
many  have  hereupon  built  the  whole  structure  of  their  several  characters — 
have  said;  that  the  Englishman  is  bold,  open,  and  manly,  but  haughty 
withal,  and  not  over-prone  to  reason  sagaciously,  or  to  draw  his  inferences 
with  very  sound  logic ; — that  the  Scotsman  is  cold,  cautious,  and  cunning 
— ever  on  the  watch  to  worm  himself  into  place  and  profit,  by  anticipating 
the  wishes  of  his  superiors,  and  paralysing  and  supplanting  the  efforts  of 
his  equals  ; — that  the  Welchman  is  a  mule  in  labour,  and  the  father  of  a 
mule  in  mind — that  he  is  laborious,  trustworthy,  and  conscientious  to  a 
proverb — but  that,  while  his  god  is  his  belly,  his  brains  are  there  to  wor- 
'ship — and  that,  morever,  he  is  ever  prone  to  brawl  and  fight,  and  the 
more  so,  the  less  important  the  subject  in  dispute  ; — that  the  Irishman,  all 
passion  and  impulse — at  the  mercy  of  the  moment- — uncertain  -what  may 

be  his  opinions,  and  reckless  what  may  be  his  destiny  the  next  hour 

pretends  to  every  thing,  arrogates  every  thing,  and  always  concludes  by 
being  little  or  nothing. 

2  O  2 


284  The  Four  Nations.  [MARCH, 

Conclusions  like  these,  drawn  from  a  single  circumstance,  and  that 
perchance  not  general  to  the  nation  but  peculiar  to  one  or  two  individuals, 
are  really  of  little  value ;  and  though  they  be  by  no  means  uncommon, 
they  are  undeserving  of  the  name  of  philosophy.  Nor  do  we  fare  better 
if  we  admit  the  parties  to  plead,  and  take  the  character  of  each  nation  as 
that  nation  fashions  and  puts  it  on  for  itself.  John  Bull,  indeed,  is  not 
very  guilty  in  this  respect ;  for  though  he  boasts  a  great  deal  about  Eng- 
land and  Englishmen,  his  England  is  narrower  and  less  populous  than  the 
world  of  the  midwife  in  "  Tristram  Shandy  :"  she  took  in  a  circular  mile, 
of  which  her  own  dwelling  was  the  centre,  while  John  Bull's  own  pre- 
mises are  England,  and  he  himself  is  the  nation.  With  the  Scot,  it  is 
very  different ;  and  if  you  receive  him  as  he  offers  himself,  you  would 
imagine  that  out  of  Scotland  there  is  found  neither  wisdom  nor  virtue,  save 
what  is  smuggled  thence  by  the  natives.  His  country  is  the  foremost 
and  the  finest  of  all  countries ;  his  hovel  overtops  and  outshines  the  palaces 
of  other  nations ;  a  single  dip  in  his  springs  of  knowledge  conveys  more 
than  repeated  plungings  in  those  of  any  other  country ;  his  women  are  all 
lovely ;  his  very  hind  is  a  philosopher,  his  husbandman  is  equally  master 
of  the  flail  and  the  lyre ;  none  are  invincible  but  his  soldiers ;  none  are 
eloquent  but  his  orators ;  none  are  profound  but  his  philosophers ;  and,  in 
short,  if  you  would  bless  yourselves  by  visiting  a  people  who,  by  the  ex- 
press inspiration  of  heaven,  and  without  any  effort  of  their  own,  can  "  do 
all  deeds,  and  know  all  knowledge,"  why,  you  must  cross  the  Tweed, 
or  bore  into  the  Land  of  Cakes  by  some  arm  of  the  eastern,  the  western,  or 
the  hyperborean  sea.  Do  you  wish  to  be  bled  or  blistered,  or  have  your 
leg,  or  even  your  head,  amputated  secundum  artem,  where  can  you  pos- 
sibly find  a  craftsman,  if  he  has  not  drudged  in  "  Surgeon's  Square,"  or 
attended  the  midnight  orgies  in  the  charnel-houses  beneath  that  most 
classical  of  all  structures,  the  new  University  of  Edinburgh  ?  If  you  would 
bo  served  honestly,  faithfully,  or  successfully  in  any  one  respect,  and  be 
yourself  honoured  by  the  service,  the  man  for  your  money  is  a  subtle  Scot; 
and  if  you  need  advice,  your  Caledonian  is  an  Hushai,  who  shall  instantly 
overturn  for  you  the  sagest  opinion  of  the  Achitophel  of  any  other  land. 
In  fine,  to  sum  up  the  whole  in  the  opinion  of  those  who,  proverbially 
speaking,  should  know  best,  there  is  neither  honour  nor  success  in  this 
world  but  what  springs  from  Caledonian  soil ;  and  in  nasal  strains,  there 
is  no  salvation  in  the  next  world  beyond  the  pale  of  the  Presbyterian  kirk. 

Your  Cambrian  boasts  not  so  much  of  the  passing  generation ;  but  he 
contrives  to  base  Lhimself  upon  a  pyramid  founded  at  or  before  the  begin- 
ning  of  time,  and  considering  himself  as  a  legitimate  part  and  parcel  of 
this,  uncontaminated  by  foreign  admixture,  he,  in  his  own  person  comes 
down  upon  you  charged  with  the  whole  importance  of  "  Cadwallader  and 
all  his  goats."  He  sets  not  much  store  by  his  learning,  he  boasts  not  of  his 
individual  deeds ;  but  every  mountain  has  its  story,  and  a  thousand  ages 
have  their  annals,  all  of  which  are  his  by  direct  inheritance,  and  according 
to  his  reply  to  the  king  when  distanced  in  the  race,  "  Hur  keffel  is  not  so 
good  a  keffel,  but  hur  is  a  better  gentleman."  In  consequence  of  this 
immense  coma  of  glory  which  the  Welchman  trails  behind  him  from  distant 
and  even  oblivious  antiquity,  and  which  is  not  very  manageable,  because  of 
its  great  magnitude,  he  has  to  make  every  passion  of  his  nature  a  sentinel 
continually  upon  duty;  and  for  this  reason,  he  avows  himself  at  once  the 
most  deservedly  proud,  and  the  most  determinedly  pugnacious  of  God's 
creatures. 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations.  285 

Bid  an  Irishman  sit  down  and  limn  for  you  his  national  portraiture,  and 
you  shall  be  rapt  by  the  effort  of  his  wonderful  pencil.  He  is  an 
ethereal  essence — a  something  lent  to  this  world  for  its  especial  glory  and 
blessing ;  and  that  benediction  of  St.  Patrick  which  banished  every  thing 
poisonous  from  the  green  isle,  banished  also  every  thing  mean  and  malig- 
nant from  its  airy  inhabitants.  Irish  heart,  Irish  honour,  Irish  kindness, 
and  Irish  independence,  are  the  theme  of  his  every-day  song ;  and  though 
you  may  convict  him  of  having  just  hidden  the  gun,  dropped  the  dagger,  or 
flung  away  the  shilelah,  he  is  ready  to  demonstrate  to  you,  and  confirm  that 
demonstration  by  "  blood  and  wounds,"  that  even  these  were  used  from 
an  overflowing  of  the  milk  of  human  kindness — a  delightful  ebullition  of 
that  most  Irish,  and  therefore  most  amiable  of  all  qualities — a  heart  always 
warm  and  generous,  whether  on  the  lip,  the  lead,  the  steel,  or  the  cudgel. 
The  business  habits — the  steady  and  straight-forward  prosecution  of  one 
purpose,  together  with  its  concomitant  personal  comfort  and  independence 
of  the  Englishman,  he  scorns,  as  being  of  too  tame,  mechanical,  and  every- 
day a  nature  for  a  heart  so  warm,  and  a  soul  so  attuned  to  ethereal  feeling 
as  his.  The  close,  metaphysical  wrigglings  of  the  Scotsman  are  his  abhor- 
rence ;  and  he  despises  alike  the  ancestry  and  the  perseverance  of  the 
Welchman.  It  was  the  boast  of  the  Roman  that  he  came,  saw,  and  con- 
quered; but  the  Hibernian's  is  a  more  daring  boast — be  it  over  man, 
woman,  or  thing,  he  requires  not  to  come  or  to  see,  but  conquers  in  antici- 
pation, and  as  it  were  by  report. 

These  characters,  which  three  at  least  out  of  the  Four  Nations  take  to 
themselves,  may  well  be  questioned,  inasmuch  as  the  inhabitant  of  any 
country  is  as  incapable  of  faithfully  pourtraying  the  character  of  his  nation 
as  he  is  of  doing  the  same  for  his  own  character  as  an  individual.  The 
mental  superiority  of  the  Scot  exists  nowhere  but  in  his  own  idea  ;  neither 
is  he,  abstractedly  considered,  one  jot  more  sagacious  or  trustworthy  than 
his  fellows.  No  doubt,  from  the  peculiar  nature  of  his  institutions,  and  it 
may  be  also  from  his  more  limited  means  of  natural  indulgence,  and  from 
the  whip  of  necessity  being  more  early  and  more  continually  extended  over 
him  than  the  Englishman  ;  he  aims  at  a  greater  breadth  of  knowledge  and 
speculation  than  the  native  of  the  Southern  part  of  the  island ;  but,  when 
we  wish  to  determine  their  usefulness,  knowledge  and  speculation,  like  all 
other  things,  must  be  estimated  according  to  their  solid  contents  and  not 
their  mere  surface ;  and,  therefore,  for  every  good  purpose  in  life,  the 
knowledge  of  the  Englishman,  which  extends,  it  may  be,  to  a  single  sub- 
ject, but  embraces  every  quality  and  circumstance  in  that,  is  vastly  more 
efficient  than  the  more  rambling,  but  the  more  superficial  speculation  of  the 
inhabitant  of  the  north.  The  very  fact  of  a  preliminary  argumentation 
about  every  thing  which  is  in  any  way  co-relative  with  the  matter,  is  in 
itself  presumptive  evidence  of  a  less  accurate  perception  of  the  real  matter 
itself;  and  perhaps  the  most  just  and  equitable  decision  between  the 
Scotsman  and  the  Englishman  upon  any  single  point  or  subject  would  be — 
that  the  former  can  say  more  about  it,  and  the  latter  can  do  it  better. 

The  Welchman,  again,  evidently  does  not  value  himself  upon  those 
qualities  which  constitute  his  real  value.  All  the  world  have  had  just  as- 
many  ancestors  as  he  has  had  ;  and  if  we  may  judge  from  existing  circum- 
stances, thej  have,  in  every  thing  valuable  which  sire  can  transmit  to  son, 
been  as  fortunate  as  he.  But  the  Welchman  is  still  a  sober,  laborious, 
and  steady  animal ;  and  while  his  habits  fit  him  for  a  very  large  share  of 


285  The  Four  Nations.  [MARCH, 

sensual  enjoyment,  his  dispositions  qualify  him  for  bringing  that  enjoyment 
within  his  reach. 

The  Irishman,  however,  is  the  grand  mystery;  and  one  would  be 
almost  tempted  to  rank  him  with  those  persons  who  can  see  value  only  in 
that  which  they  do  not  possess.  He  has  his  good  qualities;  and  many  of 
his  bad  ones  may  be  well  accounted  for,  from  the  political  circumstances 
under  which  he  has  been  placed ;  but,  when  an  Irishman  comes  forward 
and  lays  claim  to  a  kinder  heart  and  a  warmer  susceptibility  of  friendship 
than  any  of  his  compatriots,  the  whole  history  of  his  race  rises  up  in  con- 
demnation of  the  assertion.  For,  without  any  cause  which  can  be  dis- 
covered by  an  ordinary  application  of  philosophy,  without  any  necessity 
which  can  be  established  from  any  induction, — the  Irishman  turns  his 
friend  iato  his  foe,  and  his  benefactor  into  his  victim. 

If  we  were  to  take  a  single  feature  in  each  of  the  nations,  and  upon  that 
to  build  a  character  of  them,  we  would  say,  that  the  Englishman  is  an 
isolated  being  in  mind,  in  habits,  and  in  pursuit — that  his  feelings,  his  dis- 
position, and  his  occupation  tend  to  a  single  object;  but  that  in  the  pursuit 
of  that  object  he  is  more  at  home,  more  skilful,  more  steady,  and  less  dis- 
posed to  interfere  with  the  progress,  or  disturb  the  enjoyment  of  others, 
than  the  inhabitant  of  any  other  country  under  the  sun.  The  English- 
man forms  his  own  plan,  keeps  it  to  himself,  and  in  the  prosecution  of  it, 
relies  upon  his  own  powers,  not  by  sudden  or  miraculous  impulse,  but  by 
perseverance  and  assiduity.  The  Scotchman,  on  the  other  hand,  appears 
to  exist  in  those  about  him.  He  communicates  his  own  secret,  pries  into 
the  secrets  of  others,  and  attempts  to  make  them  auxiliaries  toward  his  own 
purpose,  while  he  is  all  the  time  appearing  and  offering  to  render  himself 
subservient  to  them.  The  great  difference  between  them  appears  to  be,, 
that  the  Englishman  is  a  world  to  himself,  and  with  that  world  he  i»  per- 
fectly satisfied  ;  while  the  Scotchman  is  ever  attempting  to  mould  to  his 
purposes  a  certain  number  of  those  about  him.  The  Welchman  partakes 
a  little  of  the  qualities  of  both  ;  but  he  is  less  isolated  than  the  English- 
man, and  less  prying  than  the  Scot ;  and  while  he  does  not  possess  in  per- 
fection the  peculiarities  of  either,  he  is  without  the  more  striking  virtues 
and  vices  of  both — not  pretending  to  the  independence  of  the  one,  or  the 
acumen  of  the  other,  and  being  less  gruff  and  overbearing  than  the  Eng- 
lishman, and  less  subtle  and  undermining  than  the  Scot.  The  Irishman,, 
again,  is  without  any  fixed  principle,  save  that  of  endeavouring  to  enjoy 
as  much  of  what  he  calls  pleasure  at  as  little  expense  as  possible.  Ho 
wants  the  steadiness  and  the  perseverance  of  the  Englishman  and  the 
Welchman,  and  though  he  makes  a  greater  parade  of  flattery  than  the 
Scot,  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  be  so  successful  in  the  practice  of  it ;  at  all 
events,  it  is  certain,  that  passion  alters  his  mode  of  operation,  much  .more 
readily  or  frequently  than  it  alters  that  of  the  others.  It  is  not,  however, 
from  any  single  point,  or  from  any  combination  of  points,  taken  theoretically, 
that  we  can  arrive  at  any  accurate  character  of  the  Four  Nations.  One  must 
see  them  upon  the  same  arena,  find  them  placed  in  as  nearly  as  possible 
the  same  circumstances,  and  then,  while  one  is  never  in  the  least  danger  of 
confounding  the  one  with  the  other,  one  can  by  study  arrive  at  their  several 
characteristics;  arid  when  this  is  done,  one  has  only  to  turn  to  the  pecu- 
liarities, natural,  social,  and  political,  of  their  several  countries,  in  order 
t  o  iiud  an  explanation  of  the  differences  which  one  has  observed. 

The  most  remarkable,  and  by  no  means  the  worst  subject,  from  which 


1 827.]  The  Four  Nations.  287 

to  form  at  least  one  portion  of  his  subject,  is  the  eloquence  of  the  Four 
Nations,  as  displayed  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Stephens  ;  because,  amid  abun- 
dance of  chaff,  it  is  presumed  that  one  may  find  there  the  choicest  wheat 
of  each.  Go  then  to  that  great  mansion  of  words,  cast  your  eyes  around 
the  benches,  and  though  you  may  not  be  acquainted  with  the  name  of  a 
single  individual,  you  will  find,  ere  yet  a  tongue  be  loosed,  no  difficulty 
in  apportioning  each  mass  of  the  wisdom  to  the  country  to  which  it 
belongs.  Wherever  you  observe  a  man  sitting  cool  and  collected,  and  pre- 
pared to  enjoy  in  himself  his  speech  or  his  vote,  with  all  his  muscles  un- 
ruffled, and  all  his  limbs  at  their  ease,  you  may  be  sure  that  that  man  is  a 
real  representative  of  merry  England.  When  you  find  a  figure  half- 
doubled  up,  with  its  hands  delved  into  its  pockets,  and  its  eyes  stealing 
slowly  and  cautiously  towards  every  crevice,  you  may  bo  just  as  sure  that 
here  there  is  afac  simile  of  the  Land  of  Cakes.  When,  again,  you  find 
a  short,  burly  figure,  with  its  arms  folded,  its  features  relaxed,  and  its 
muzzle  turned  upward,  gazing  upon  the  vacuity  towards  the  ceiling,  be 
certain  that  that  figure  is  a  Welchman.  Yet,  again,  if  any  one  be  fidget- 
ting,  twisting  its  arms  to  this  side  or  to  that,  looking  every  way,  and  no 
way  long,  and  alternately  rolling  and  unrolling  its  face  as  it  were,  there 
cannot  be  the  least  doubt  that  that  is  an  Irishman.  Even  in  their  phy- 
siognomy there  is  something  which  you  cannot  mistake.  There  is  always, 
even  in  the  most  querulous  Englishman,  a  taciturnity  of  face — a  placid 
satisfaction  with  himself,  which  is  quite  alien  to  the  others.  There  is  in 
the  Scotsman  a  lowering  of  the  head,  a  lengthening  of  the  visage,  and  a 
watchman-like  steal  of  the  eye,  which  are  just  as  peculiar;  there  is  an. 
indescribable  heat  and  love  of  the  table  about  the  Welchman,  which 
cannot  undeceive  yon  ;  and,  the  most  accomplished  Irishman  has  a  cast  of 
face,  which  fails  not  to  put  you  in  mind  of  a  shilelah  or  a  row. 

Thus  they  are  in  their  external  lineaments,  and  you  may  judge  of  their 
active  powers  just  as  you  would  do  of  the  flame  and  heat  of  so  many  different 
species  of  coal,  by  attending  to  the  form  and  gloss  of  the  surface.  But 
when  an  animating  subject  kindles  .them  up,  and  they  blaze  in  turn,  then 
you  come  to  know  them  as  well  by  the  varied  brilliance  of  the  flame,  as 
you  do  by  their  different  tendencies  to  produce  smoke.  It  would  be  unfair, 
however,  to  form  a  judgment  from  the  more  elevated  characters  which  be- 
long wholly,  or  partially,  to'any  of  the  nations  ;  because  none  of  them  can 
be  a  type  of  the  general  character  'of  the  nation.  Canning,  for  instance, 
though  he  inherits  all  .the  better  qualities  of  the  English  character,  has 
something  superadded  which  properly  belongs  to.no  one  people,  or  rather, 
which  is  above  what  can  be  predicated  of  the  common  nature  of  men. 
His  characteristic  is  out  of,  or  rather  above,  every-day  humanity,  and  is 
not,  therefore,  available  as  a  standard.  Nearly  the  same  may  be  said  of 
Brougham  :  the  first  lines,  both  of  his  character  and  his  eloquence,  are 
perhaps  just  as  much  Scotch  as  those  of  Canning  are  English  ;  but  then  so 
much  more  has  been  added  as  to  raise  him  above  fair  comparison.  Eloquent 
and  commanding  Welchrnen,  there  is  none  in  the  House  ;  and  transcendent 
geniuses  from  the  principality  visit  the  world  like  angels  ;  neither  is  there 
any  one  who  can  be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  the  Welch  character.  Plun- 
kett,  again,  is  radically  Irish :  but  he  is  refined  from  those  peculiarities 
which  are  most  characteristic  of  the  disposition  and  the  eloquence  of  his 
countrymen. 

But,  in  like  manner,  as  it  would  be  unfair  to  judge  of  the  national  cha- 
racter from  the  stars  of  the  House,  so  would  it  also  be  unfair  to  judge  from 


288  The  Four  Nations.  [MARCH, 

the  firmament — the  blue  vacuity,  as  it  were — of  simple  voters,  by  con- 
trast with  whom  those  stars  are  made  to  shine ;  because,  what  Pope  says 
ironically  of  the  fair  sex,  may  be  said  of  them  without  much  irony — most 
of  them  have  no  character  at  all.  To  get  at  the  real  character,  one  must 
take  a  bustling  member  who  loves  to  hear  himself  talk,  and  who  lays  claim 
to  occasional  or  habitual  independence. 

Taking  such,  the  substrata  of  the  three  (omitting  the  Principality)  are, 
freedom  or  business  on  the  part  of  the  Englishman,  economy  on  the  part 
of  the  Scot,  and  Ireland  on  the  part  of  the  Irishman.  The  Englishman's 
speech  proceeds  chiefly  upon  matters  of  fact,  keeps  to  the  single  point  at 
issue,  and  though  it  often  be  cold  and  shallow,  it  is  always  clear.  He  has 
one  aim,  and  one  way  of  arriving  at  that.  Be  his  deportment  what  it  may 
among  the  varied  subjects  which  come  before  the  legislature,  he  keeps  him- 
self to  it ;  and  if  you  have  heard  him  once,  you  have  no  great  difficulty  in 
predicting  what  he  shall  say  upon  another  occasion.  The  disposition  to 
keep  his  own  ground  and  to  respect  that  of  others,  is  apparent  in  every 
thing  that  he  says ;  his  propositions  are  very  often  mere  truisms  ;  he  is  occa- 
sionally mistaken  in  his  facts ;  and,  in  the  less  fortunate  specimens,  there 
is  a  very  obvious  want  of  logical  concatenation,  though  an  abundance  of 
common  sense  runs  through  the  whole,  and  all  tends  directly  to  practical 
usefulness. 

The  Scottish  speechman  goes  to  work  in  quite  another  manner.  He 
tries  every  subject,  whether  he  happens  to  understand  it  or  not,  and  so 
mixes  together  an  attempt  to  be  acute  and  plausible,  with  lame,  lengthy, 
and  lumbering  execution,  that  he  invariably  leaves  the  subject  darker 
than  he  finds  it.  Instead  of  proceeding  upon  tacts  like  the  Englishman,  he 
invariably  proceeds  by  hypothesis,  and  that  hypothesis  is  generally  so  very 
wide  and  vague,  that  h  e  really  produces  less  effect  than  an  Englishman  of 
inferior  powers.  Amid  all  his  apparent  caution,  too,  there  is  a  much 
greater  admixture  of  passion  than  in  the  Southern,  and,  if  he  does  not  suc- 
ceed in  exciting  his  audience  very  strongly,  he  cannot  speak  for  any  length 
of  time  without  having  excited  himself. 

The  Irishman  wants  the  facts  of  the  Englishman  and  the  hypothesis  of 
the  Scot,  and  you  require  to  listen  for  a  long  time  before  you  can  find  out 
what  he  would  be  at.  If  the  debate  happens  to  be  respecting  Ireland,  the 
chance  is  that  party-feeling  shall  prevent  him  from  seeing  where  the  real 
gist  of  it  lies;  and  if  it  be  not  about  Ireland,  then  Ireland  is  sure  to  come 
in  and  dismiss  the  other  subject  whatever  it  may  be.  At  a  general  glance 
one  would  say  that,  in  St.  Stephen's,  the  Englishman  appears  a  native,  the 
Scotsman  an  alien,  and  the  Irishman  an  enemy. 

These  characteristics,  which  have  been  taken  without  any  directly 
private  or  personal  application,  have  only  to  be  received  according  to  place 
and  profession,  and  they  will  serve  for  all  classes  of  society.  The  English- 
man is  detached  both  in  his  habits  of  life,  and  his  modes  of  thinking  ;  and 
this,  though  it  makes  him  appear  a  cold  neighbour  and  rather  an  indifferent 
friend,  is  yet  the  very  quality  which  has  placed  Englishmen  foremost  in 
knowledge,  in  the  arts,  and  in  personal  comforts  and  engagements.  In  as 
far  as  mechanical  talent  and  mere  industry  are  concerned,  the  Cambrian 
bears  a  considerable  resemblance  to  the  Englishman  ;  .but  his  mental 
powers  are  less  elevated  in  kind,  and  more  confined  in  range,  which  a  strong 
bias  of  credulity,  or  rather  perhaps  of  superstition,  clashed  with  much  ardour 
and  shortness  of  temper,  form  the  real  characteristic  of  his  race.  The  Scots- 
man, superficially  acquainted  with  a  greater  range  of  subjects,  and  also 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations. 

perhaps  possessing  more  curiosity  and  thirst  after  knowledge  than  the 
Englishman  or  the  Welchman,  and  appearing  in.  consequence  more 
shrewd;  is  yet  not  so  successful,  inasmuch  as  other  persons  and  other  sub- 
jects are  continually  distracting  his  attention  from  his  own  concerns.  It 
has  been  remarked,  and  perhaps  justly,  that  an  Englishman  always  succeeds 
best  in  the  management  of  his  own  affairs,  and  that  a  Scotsman  makes  the 
best  manager  for  another.  The  Irishman  has  neither  the  unity  and  con- 
stancy of  purpose  of  the  Englishman ;  and  altogether  presents  a  character 
which  cannot,  perhaps,  be  so  well  described  as  by  a  compound  term  fitting 
the  vocabulary  of  his  country — "  restless  indolence  "—immense  bustle, 
activity  and  pretence — all  the  noise  of  the  water-fall,  with  very  little  of  its 
efficiency  for  turning  the  wheel.  If  you  are  to  choose  a  friend  for  life,  let  him 
fee  English ;  if  for  a  season,  let  him  be  Scotch  ;  and  if  for  a  day,  let  him 
by  all  means  be  Irish.  The  Englishman  you  cannot  know  till  you  have 
been  for  a  considerable  time  in  juxta  position  with  him ;  he  does  not  as  it 
were,  hang  out  a  sign-b6ard,  and  you  must  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  his 
character  by  that  slow  and  patient  process  which  himself  employs  in  the 
making  of  his  fortune.  At  every  single  transaction  you  see  him  fully  and 
undisguisedly ;  and  thus  when  you  have  collected  a  sufficient  number  of 
instances,  your  judgment  may  be  reckoned  as  perfectly  secure.  The  Scots- 
man, with  a  great  affectation  of  concealment,  comes  out  much  more  rapidly, 
and  shews  you  more  than  you  ask,  or  even  wish  for:  but  it  requires  some 
reflection  in  order  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff;  and  though  there  are 
many  instances  in  which  this  character  improves  upon  experience,  there 
are  not  a  few  in  which  the  result  is  directly  opposite.  For  the  moment  an 
Irishman  seems  the  most  disinterested  of  God's  creatures ;  and  while  you 
are  merely  introduced  to  him,  he  will  persuade  you  that  his  labour  and  his 
life  are  to  be  constantly  devoted  to  your  service,  and  that  other  than  your 
happiness,  he  has  not  a  single  object  in  the  world.  The  next  casual 
acquaintance,  however,  receives  precisely  the  same  protestations  of  friend- 
ship ;  and  thus,  though  the  man  may  have  all  the  sincerity  in  the  world 
when  he  makes  his  promises,  the  carrying  of  the  twentieth  part  of  them  into 
effect,  would  be  a  moral  impossibility.  Milton's  "  dark  with  excessive 
brightness,"  finds  something  corresponding  in  the  Irish  character,  which  i» 
*'  heartless  from  excess  of  heart."  It  would  be  injustice  to  suppose  that 
there  is  in  the  people  of  this  nation  less  disposition  to  perform  what  they 
promise  than  in  the  more  solid  sons  of  the  southern  parts  of  the  sister  island, 
or  in  the  more  smooth-tongued  sons  of  the  northern.  Nor  is  there  any 
necessity  for  assuming  so  uncharitable  a  hypothesis,  inasmuch  as,  espe- 
cially in  an  ardent  people,  the  very  scrambling  after  and  promising  to  do  a 
number  of  kind  offices,  involves,  or  at  least  soon  generates  a  habit  of  non- 
performance.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  penury  or  prodigality  in  the  ele- 
ments of  a  man's  character,  as  well  as  in  the  items  of  his  expenditure;  and 
it  is  true  in  the  or  .  case  as  well  as  in  the  other,  that  "the  waster  must 
come  to  want." 

It  would  now  remain  to  inquire  what  are  the  circumstances  which 
stamp  upon  the  Four  Nations  those  great  lines  of  their  several  characters ; 
and,  in  order  to  do  this,  no  single  theory  would  be  of  much  utility.  Geo- 
graphical position  may  have  some  effect,  although  not  much ;  and  so  also 
may  have  the  relative  fertility  of  the  different  divisions.  Original  race, 
too,  may  come  in  for  a  share,  and  a  considerable  share,  because  thpugh 
each  nation  be  more  or  less  mixed,  there  is  still  as  much  of  a  different 
stock  as  stamps  a  peculiar  physiognomy  upon  each ;  and  though  this 

M.M.  New  Series— VOL,  Ilf,  No.  15.  2  P 


290  The  Four  Nations.  [MARCH, 

science  cannot  solve  all  the  mysteries  which  its  devotees  pretend,  there  is 
far  more  in  it  than  the  greater  proportion  of  mankind  are  willing  to 
allow. 

The  greater  portion,  however,  of  the  character  of  each  nation  is  to  be 
sought  for  in  its  social  and  political  state — in  its  institutions — its  mode  of 
education — its  means  of  employment — its  religion — its  internal  laws — and 
the  habits  of  its  various  classes.  This  is  a  difficult  though  a  curious  sub- 
ject of  inquiry,  inasmuch  as  it  is  little  else  than  studying  a  thing  through 
the  medium  of  itself.  The  same  difficulty  meets  one  at  the  threshold,  as 
one  finds  at  the  threshold  of  political  economy,  in  the  doctrine  of  "  supply 
and  demand."  We  know  that  these  two  are  connected,  and  that  they 
reciprocally  promote  each  other;  but  we  are  unable  to  fix  upon  the  one 
which  in  all,  or  even  in  a  majority  of  cases,  is  entitled  to  tho  precedence. 
It  is  just  the  same  with  the  institutions  of  a  people  and  their  character. 
We  know  from  every  day's  experience,  that  where  the  institutions  are  bad 
so  also  is  the  character,  and  that  the  character  is  good  where  they  are 
good ;  but  we  cannot  lay  it  down  as  a  general  principle  that  the  good  insti- 
tutions briginally  made  a  good  people,  neither  are  we  warranted  to  go  en- 
tirely into  the  opposite  hypothesis.  Still,  however,  the  passing  generation 
must  be  materially  influenced  by  the  circumstances  alluded  to  :  and  there- 
fore it  may  not  be  amiss  in  a  subsequent  paper  to  throw  together  a  few  con- 
jectures as  to  how  far  education,  employment,  opinion,  intellectual  state, 
and  political  condition  may  go  toward  forming  the  peculiarities  of  charac- 
ter which  distinguish  the  Four  Nations. 

X. 


THE  ASTROLOGER'S  HYMN. 

• '  Ye  stars !  which  are  the  poetry  of  heaven — 
If  in  your  bright  leaves  we  would  read  the  fate 

Of  men  and  empires — 'tis  to  be  forgiven " 

CMlde  Harold,  Canto  iii. 

TELL  me,  oh !  ye  Stars  of  Heaven- 
Countless  fires  that  flame  on  high ! 
Tell  me,  if  to  ye  'tis  given 
To  rule  our  mortal  destiny  ? 
Is  the  colour  of  our  days 

From  your  beams  mysterious  caught? 
Are  the  wand'rings  of  our  ways 
By  your  evolutions  wrought  ? 
Tell  me— tell  me — as  ye  roll— 
Our  changeful  fate  can  ye  control  ? — 
Ye  Stars  of  Heaven! 

When  lone  I  gaze  the  livelong  night, 
When  ye  on  high  are  gleaming — 
Watching  your  pale  prophetic  light 
Athwart  the  darkness  streaming — 

Then  gath'ring  thoughts  across  my  soul, 

Like  troubled  waves,  flow  darkly  on — 
Creating  fancies  as  they  roll, 

Wild  as  the  scene  I  gaze  upon  ; 
For  then  I  deem  ye  can  bestow 
On  mortal  man  or  weal  or  woe — 
Ye  Stars  of  Heaven! 


1827.]  [    291     ] 

LETTER    UPON   AFFAIRS    IN   GENERAL,    FROM   A   GENTLEMAN   IN 
LONDON    TO   A    GENTLEMAN   IN    THE    COUNTRY. 

PARLIAMENT  has  assembled  since  my  last ;  but  up  to  this  day  (the  18th 
of  February)  nothing  very  material  has  been  done.     The  question  of  the 
Corn   Laws  is  to  come  on  next  week,  and  will   be  decided  before  this 
paper  is  printed :  it  is  understood,  that  the  terms  and  effect  of  the  new  ar- 
rangement— each  party  of  course  meaning  to  take  as  much  more  by  the 
debate  as  it  can  get — are  agreed  upon  already.     The  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation too,  it   appears,  after  all,  is  to  be  brought  forward:  this  is  not 
surprising,  because  it  has  for  a  long  time  seemed  to  be  the  particular  object 
of  the  people  who  manage  this  qnestion,  to  take  every  step  which  can 
bring  it  into  more  dislike  and  discredit.     In  the  meantime,  the  monstrous 
folly  of  a  "  prosecution"  is  getting  up,  against  M.  &hiel,  for  saying  some- 
thing about  "the  best  mode  of  invading  Ireland" — something  so  needlessly 
and  sedulously  indictable,  that  it  could  only  have  been  pronounced  in  the 
hope  of  attracting  that  description  of  notice.     On  the  whole — though  a 
great  deal   of  business  was  threatened — the  session  of  Parliament  is  not 
likely  to  be  a  very  heavy  one.     The  war  question — except  as  regards  the 
maintenance  of  perhaps  seven  or  eight  thousand  troops  in  Portugal — that 
will  be  requisite  for  some  time  probably — is  over.     The  Chancery  business 
will  take  three  or  four  nights  debating;  and  end,  probably,  in  nothing 
material  being  done :  there  are  too  many  interests  compromised  in  any 
attack  upon  the  enormities  of  that  court:  the  nineteenth  century — what- 
ever other   characteristics   may  distinguish   it — is   beyond  question,   the 
golden  age  of  law.     Mr.  Serjeant  Onslow  has  also  a  promise  that  the 
usury  laws  this  year  shall  receive  the  attention  of  the   government:   if 
there  be  any  doubt  as  to  opportunity  to  do  every  thing,  the  attention  of 
government,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the   Game  laws,  would  perhaps  be 
better  applied. 

The  Impressment  of  seamen,  too — among  some  other  subjects  of  im- 
portance which  have  been  rather  artfully  shunned  from  time  to  time — gave 
rise  to  a  smart  discussion  the  other  night  on  the  first  bringing  up  of  the  Navy 
Estimates ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  session  will  not  go  over  without  some 
serious  inquiry  as  to  the  possibility  of  getting  rid  of  the  practice.  Some  very 
strong,  and.  indeed  almost  unanswerable  arguments  on  this  question,  have 
appeared  in  the  Times  and  Globe  newspapers  of  the  14th  and  15th  inst.,  in 
a  comment  upon  the  queries  put  by  Mr.  Hume  and  other  members  on 
the  subject  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  be  mere  non- 
sense to  lay  it  down  at  once  as  a  principle — even  as  matters  stand — that  we 
cannot  man  our  navy  without  impressment :  the  truth  is,  we  don't  try.  But, 
beyond  this,  when  men  are  found  in  abundance — and  more  than  abundance 
—to  undertake  the  most  laborious,  unwholesome,  personally  repugnant,  and 
seriously  dangerous,  employments  every  day  on  shore — if  the  service  of  the 
Navy  be  still  such  as  men  decidedly  will  not  undertake,  there  is  some  mistake 
in  the  system  of  that  service  ;  there  is  no  need  that  it  should  be  so  repul- 
sive— it  ought  not  to  be  so.  And  one  part  of  the  secret,  we  believe  those 
who  know  the  navy  best  are  perfectly  well  agreed,  is,  that  the  service  is 
one  of  most  needless  tyranny  and  hardship  :  and  that,  from  some  absurd 
notion — as  a  certain  class  of  physicians  used  to  have  an  idea  that  the  pecu- 
liarly filthy  flavour  of  a  medicine  constituted  a  circumstance  in  its  excel- 
lence— there  has  been  a  sort  of  silly  pride,  never  completely  argued  out  of 
those  who  command  in  it,  that  it  should  be  so — and  be  so  understood  and 
considered.  The  very  name  of  "  the  discipline  of  a  Man  of  War,"  has 

2  P  2 


232  Lttier  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MARCH, 

been  made  a  sort  of  bugbear  term — synonimous  with  every  idea  of  a  scheme 
of  wanton  ferocity  and  oppression— a  sort  of  legalized  "  Reign  of  Terror/' 
The  Midshipman  of  twelve  years  old,  is  understood  to  walk  about,  strap- 
padoing — by  way  of  morning  exercise — the  able  seaman  of  forty;  and  the 
Captain's  eye  is  an  object  of  alarm — such  as  the  very  cats  of  the  ship — 
proverbially  privileged  to  look  even  upon  Royalty — dare  not  venture  to 
encounter.  Now,  all  this  is  very  sad  stuff:  no  necessary  part  of  any  public 
system;  but  merely  impertinence;  and  such  impertinence  as  we  certainly 
ought  not  to  countenance  a  most  gross  and  oppressive  violation  of  the 
liberty  of  British  subjects,  for  the  sake  of  supporting.  The  short  fact 'is 
that  the  service  of  the  Navy  ought  to  be  improved :  sailors  should  be 
both  better  paid  than  they  are,  and  better  protected  against  wanton  in- 
solence and  injustice.  It  is  trash  to  talk  of  the  impossibility  of  "  dis- 
ciplining" men  unless  by  blows  and  curses.  We  used  to  hear  the  same 
stuff  forty  years  ago  about  the  Army.  The  power  to  inflict  corporal 
punishment,  I  believe,  can  never  be  got  rid  of  entirely  in  either  service  ; 
but  the  suggestion  that  blows  must  be  inflicted  upon  men,  even  for  the  most 
trifling  offences — that  they  must  be  so  used  as  to  form  part  of  every  man's 
daily  expectation  and  understanding — is  an  insult  to  one's  common  sense. 
Let  it  only  once  be  understood  that  naval  officers  must  be  found  who  can 
accomplish  their  discipline  without  this  resource ;  and,  my  life  on  it,  they 
will  soon  be  found  in  ve*y  sufficient  numbers :  we  shall  have  no  need  (even 
then)  to  "  impress"  Captains,  whatever  we  may  have  to  do  by  foremast 
seamen. 

There  are  one  or  two  points  on  which  I  think  the  Times  writer  is  not 
quite  correctly  informed :  for  instance,  as  to  the  comparative  advantages 
(immediate)  of  the  Government,  and  Merchant  naval  services.  Excepting 
as  to  the  provision  of  a  pension,  and  the  chance  of  Prize-money,  I  think  the 
merchant  service  has  the  superiority.  The  pay  of  an  able  seaman  on 
board  a  West-India  ship,  during  the  last  war,  was  as  high  often  as  from 
four  pounds  ten  shillings,  to  five  pounds  a  month :  that  of  a  man-of-war's- 
man  not  more  than  forty-five,  or  fifty,  shillings.  The  men  live  better,  too, 
upon  the  whole — at  least,  the  allowance  is  more  ample  on  board  mer- 
chant vessels  :  and  though  the  quantity  of  useful  work  for  the  ship  which 
each  man  performs  is  greater,  yet,  as  he  is  not  harassed  by  needless 
exertion,  his  actual  labour,  I  should  be  inclined  to  say,  is  less. 

These  last  two  circumstances,  however,  are  not  those  which  throw  any 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  Government  navy's  getting  seamen — the  real 
causes  of  the  difficulty  are  equally  incontestible  and  obvious — they  are  the 
higher  wages  given  by  the  Merchant  service — the  absence  even  of  the  com- 
mon inducement  of  a  "  Bounty" — and/still  more,  the  needlessly  and  osten- 
tatiously oppressive  and  arbitrary  character  of  the  "  discipline."  We  offer 
Twelve  or  Fifteen  guineas  Bounty  to  a  soldier,  for  a  limited  service — say 
seven  years,  or  during  the  war;  and  only  Three  or  Four  guineas  to  a  sailor, 
whose  service  is  to  have  no  limit — but  the  mere  fact  of  his  having  served 
once  (although  voluntarily),  is  a  sure  certificate,  if  he  can  be  laid  hold  of, 
high  or  low,  to  his  being  compelled  to  serve  again.  It  is  impossible  not 
to  see  that  this  is  a  course  of  the  most  manifest  cruelty  and  injustice;  and 
that,  if  we  ever  wish  to  get  rid  of  the  odium  which  sailors  attach  to  our 
navy,  every  seaman  who  voluntarily  enters  it  ought  to  be  enlisted  for  a 
given  period  ;  at  the  end  of  which,  he  is — without  any  sort  of  excuse  or 
equivocation — to  be/m?.  For  the  argument,  that  in  time  of  war — without 
the  power  of  impressment — "  Government  will  always  be  outbid  by  the 
jaw-chant  ships" — this  argument,  which  I  believe  is  Sir  G.  Cockburn's — 


1 827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  293 

seems  to  be  the  very  worst  that  could  be  used  upon  the  subject ! — "  Govern- 
ment" must  not  be  "  outbid"  by  the  merchant  ships.  On  what  principle 
should  the  labour  of  a  sailor,  more  than  that  of  any  other  artisan — if  the 
question  is  to  be  one  merely  of  money— be  seised  at  a  lower  rate  of  payment 
than  he  can  obtain  for  it  in  the  market  ?  The  argument  is  precisely  that 
which  would  justify  a  colonist  in  retaining  his  slaves — to  wit,  "  that  he 
believes  it  to  be  manifestly  to  his  interest  to  do  so." 

In  fact,  however,  A  never  could — since  the  world  was  created — possibly 
get  on  without  the  power  of  tyrannising  over  B  and  C,  until  D,  E.  and  F, 
agreed  that  he  should  do  so  no  longer — the  difficulty  of  the  case  is  not  half 
so  great  as  persons  are  pleased  to  suppose.  We  have  twenty-one  thousand 
seamen,  enlisted,  and  paid,  and  maintained  upon  the  peace  establishment. 
These  men,  taking  them  all  to  be  able  seamen,  joined  to  an  equal  number 
of  landsmen  (who  constitute  always  full  one-half — and  often  more — of  a 
ship  of  war's  complement)  would  give  us,  if  a  war  were  to  break  out  to- 
morrow— without  the  necessity  of  competing  with  the  merchant  ships  at 
all  (who  cannot  employ  any  landsmen) — a  force,  at  starting,  equal  to 
forty  thousand  men.  And  to  say  that  this  supply,  or  even  an  unlimited 
supply,  could  not  be  obtained,  under  a  more  just  and  humane  system  of 
regulation  in  the  Navy,  without  coercion,  is  just  to  assert  that  there  is 
something  about  the  Navy  which  distinguishes  it  from  every  other 
pursuit  in  the  world.  Every  military  man  knows  what  it  is  that  enlists 
two-thirds  of  the  recruits  for  the  army;  it  is  not  a  preference  (upon 
reflection)  for  fourteen  pence  a  day  and  a  musquet,  before  five  shillings 
a  day  and  a  loom  ?  And,  of  all  men  in  existence,  sailors — from  every 
circumstance  about  their  tastes  and  habits — would  be  the  least  proof 
against  such  attractions,  as  bring  in  our  soldiers — the  "  Grog — Good 
usa^e — and  Ten  guineas  of  gold  in  hand!" 

The  truth  is,  my  case  of  A  and  B  explains  the  real  difficulty.  In  the 
days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  when  bear-baiting  was  a  court  diversion, 
the  master  of  the  royal  bears  was  authorised  to  "  impress  dogs,  bulls,  and 
bears/'  for  the  king's  diversion,  all  over  the  country.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  if  Edward  Alleyne  had  been  asked  whether  bear-baiting  could  bo 
maintained  without  the  power  of  "  impressment,"  he  would  have  declared 
that  it  was  impossible  for  a  week.  I  hope,  however,  that  before  parliament 
separates,  this  subject  will  receive  the  serious  consideration  which  its  im- 
portance deserves.  And,  at  least — if  we  forbear  to  strike,  at  once,  at  the 
ultimate  power  of  Impressment — there  can  be  no  excuse  for  suffering  that 
practice  systematically  to  be  resorted  to,  while  all  the  more  just,  constitu- 
tional, and  equitable  modes  of  manning  our  Navy,  remain  out  of  operation, 
and  even  untried. 

Qualification  for  a  Juror. — In  consequence  of  the  operation  of  Mr. 
Peel's  Bill,  which  makes  every  man  possessed  of  a  certain  property  liable 
to  be  summoned  on  juries,  a  chimney  sweep  presented  himself  a  few  days 
since  on  the  tally  at  the  Westminster  Sessions.  John  Bull  says  that  he 
ought  to  have  been  admitted,  and  that  he  would  have  sooted  his  fellow- 
jurymen  to  admiration.  I  think  John  is  wrong,  and  that  he  was  properly 
rejected;  because  it  is  a  principle  that  every  juror  should  "come  into  court 
with  clean  hands" 

The  simplicity  of  the  following  description,  in  an  advertisement  of  to- 
day's Herald,  is  admirable.  "  Wanted  Two  Reporters  for  Newspapers. 
The  Situations  to  be  filled  are  not  of  a  reporting  nature,"  &c.  The  con- 
clusion of  the  "  Want"  is  excellent — except  that  it  seems  lamentably  in 
the  teeth  of  the  proverb — that  "  Learning  is  better  than  House  and 


294  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MARCH, 

Land." — "  A  thorough  knowledge  of  the  classics,  arithmetic,  with  the 
ability  to  speak  French,"  applicants  are  informed  is  required.  "  Salary — 
two  pounds  a  week!""  v 

Nice  Calculation. — A  nice,  and  even  laborious  exactness,  in  the  state- 
ments and  computations  of  persons  high  in  office,  is  often  exceedingly 
commendable.  Mr.  Peel,  in  his  speech  to  the  House  of  Commons,  moving 
the  Address  of  Condolence  to  the  King  on  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
on  Monday  night  last,  had  actually  taken  the  trouble  to  count  the  number 
of  days  which  His  Royal  Highness  had  been  in  office  as  Commander-in- 
Chief!  They  were  ten  thousand  in  number;  not  one  of  which  the  Right 
Honourable  Secretary  con  linuedto  assure  the  House,  had  passed  without  some 
portion  of  it  being  devoted  to  the  duties  of  His  Royal  Highness's  situation. 

The  Address  of  Condolence  passed,  of  course,  unanimously.  And  the 
vote  of  £9,000  a  year  more  to  the -Duke  of  Clarence,  also  passed  on  the  fol- 
lowing Friday ;  against  a  minority  of  sixty-five,  and  some  sturdy  opposition 
from  Mr.  Hume  and  Lord  Althorpe.  The  chief  questions  in  the  matter  seem 
to  be  two — First,  whether  there  was  any  thing  in  the  Royal  Duke's  change 
of  situation  to  make  the  additional  allowance  necessary  ? — And  next,  whether 
it  had  been  the  custom,  under  similar  circumstances,  to  grant  to  the  Heir 
Presumptive  such  an  additional  allowance  ?  To  neither  of  which  facts — 
as  a  plain  man  would  understand  the  discussion — any  very  satisfactory  case 
was  made  out.  But  I  don't  think  that  Mr.  Hume's  argument  upon  the  state 
of  the  country — to  wit,  that  the  House  improperly  votes  ,£9,000  a  year  to  the 
already  large  income  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  after  having  just  refused  the 
prayer,  for  a  small  sum,  of  the  weavers  of  Blackburn,  who  were  starving  for 
want  of  bread — quite  fairly  applies.  Because  it  is  to  avoid  establishing 
a  dangerous  principle — and  not  from  want  of  money — that  a  parliamentary 
grant  is  refused  to  the  distressed  manufacturers.  It  is  not  because  the  nation 
cannot  afford  to  give  away  £5,000  :  but  because,  dreadful  as  the  present 
calamity  is,  it  is  held  inexpedient  to  hold  out  a  premium  for  the  creation  of 
future  distress — more  than  those  which  already  exist — and  which  many 
sound  politicians  believe  are  already  too  many — in  the  country.  If  the  grant 
to  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  upon  its  own  merits,  were  a  fit  one,  the  state  of 
the  country  is  not  yet  quite  such  as  should  prevent  its  being  passed.  There 
seems  to  be  no  reason  why  His  Royal  Highness  should  bear  the  weight  of 
the  distress  out  of  his  income,  any  more  than  any  body  else.  But  it  is 
a  glorious  state  of  things,  to  see  sixty-five  of  the  first  gentlemen  in  a 
country,  who  can  venture  to  stand  up  publicly,  and  refuse  a  grant  of 
additional  income  to  an  individual,  whom  the  lapse  only  of  a  single  life 
will  make  their  sovereign  ! 

Lunacies  for  February. — Lunacy  1.  On  Saturday  the  lOthinst.,  Mr. 
Pickman,  a  Coffee-house  keeper,  in  Smithfield,  being  opposed  in  his  opinion 
on  some  point  of  political  economy,  said  that  f<  he  would  as  soon  stab 
himself  as  be  argued  out  of  his  senses;"  and,  taking  up  a  carving  knife, 
killed  himself  on  the  spot.  I  think  a  fact  like  this  deserves  a  place  in  the 
History  of  England.  A  person  still  more  irascible,  about  the  middle  of 
last  summer,  got  up  out  of  bed  and  hanged  himself  because  the  bugs  bit 
him.  I  think  I  mentioned  this  case  at  the  time  when  it  occurred. — 
Lunacy  2.  A  gentleman  who  dropped  a  purse  in  Cheapside,  containing  a 
five  pound  note,  four  sovereigns,  and  some  silver,  pays  six  shillings  to  ad- 
vertise in  the  Post — that  "  Whoever  will  bring  back  the  purse  and  the 
note,  shall  have  the  sovereigns  and  the  silver  for  their  trouble."  I  should 
like  to  know  if  this  advertiser  got  a  customer.— Lunacy  3.  Dr.  Borthwick 
Gilchriston  Tuesday  last,  made  a  seven  hours1  speech  on  the  study  of  the 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  295 

Oriental  languages,  at  the  India  house. — Lunacy  4.  The  people  staid  to 
hear  him.  But  I  must  not  continue  this  article  :  the  subject  is  too  fruit- 
ful, and  would  lead  me  to  too  great  a  length. 

IMPORTANT.—"  Brighton,  Feb.  12th.  The  King  is  perfectly  well,  and 
highly  pleased  with  the  Pavilion,  His  majesty  says  it  looks  just  as  it  did 
when  he  was  last  here  ;  and,  speaking  of  the  music  room  the  other  day,  he 
declared  there  was  no  room  like  it !  The  Baroness  de  Robeck,  whose 
elopement  with  Lord  Sussex  Lennox  has  made  so  much  noise  in  the 
fashionable  world,  was  very  recently  one  of  the  gayest  among  the  gay 
circles  of  Brighton.  His  lordship  was  staying  at  an  hotel  here  at  the  same 
time ;  and  the  flirtations  of  the  amorous  pair  were  even  then  the  subject 
of  much  conversation  and  scandal.  His  lordship  paid  the  Baroness  great 
attention,  and  was  always  to  be  seen  at  her  side,  whether  on  the  Steine, 
at  Almack's,  the  theatre,  or  concerts."  (Whose  side  the  Baron  was  to  be 
"  seen  at "  does  not  appear.)  "  The  Prince  Pucklerchuscan  has  left  his 
name  in  the  Palace  book."  (I  am  sure,  if  he  has,  it  must  have  taken  up 
a  whole  page  of  it.)  His  Majesty's  Chapel  will  in  all  probability  be  shortly 
opened  for  the  celebration  of  Divine  service;  it  has  hitherto  been  deferred, 
on  account  of  the  cold  weather.  The  Duchess  of  Clarence,  as  well  as  the 
Duke, will,  it  is  expected,  pay  a  visit  to  the  King  shortly  at  the  Pavilion ; 
but  their  Royal  Highnesses  have  not  received  an  invitation  yet  !  Colonel 
Camac  (who  was  swindled  out  of  £1,500,  a  short  time  ago,  in  trying  to 
obtain  a '  seat  in  Parliament)  was  in  the  theatre  last  night,"  &c.  &c. — 
"  Fashionable  Intelligence  "  from  the  Globe.  - 

The  quantity  of  tobacco  consumed  in  France  has,  of  late  years,  increased 
considerably.  In  1 8 1 2  the  whole  amount  of  tobacco  smoked  was  4,800,000 
francs — about  £192,000;  Fast  year,  the  amount  was  11,000,000  francs — 
or  £440,000.  Tobacco  must  be  on  the  increase  considerably  with  us,  too. 
"  Divans  "  are  making  progress  in  all  quarters.  And  as  I  passed  along  the 
Quadrant  the  other  evening,  even  in  "  shop  hours,"  I  saw  something  at  a 
linen-draper's  door  that  looked  as  if  it  had  a  cigar  in  its  mouth.  Puns 
for  the  month — "  How  my  corns  shoot  this  cold  weather !"  said  a  gentle- 
man at  a  public  dinner,  at  the  Free-Mason's  Tavern  the  other  day. — "  Do 
you  find  that  they  kill  any  thing  ?"  asked  Dr.  Kitchener  who  sat  opposite. 
That  was  not  bad  of  the  Doctor.  I  noticed  a  little  way  back,  that 
bears — for  the  purpose  of  baiting — had  at  one  period  of  English  history 
been  subject  to  impressment.  Bear-baiting  was  then  esteemed  the  highest 
sport  in  the  country ;  and  bears  obtained  great  personal  notoriety  when 
they  exhibited  peculiar  strength  or  prowess.  One  animal,  named  "  George 
Stone,"  flourished  in  James  the  First's  time;  and  was  known  for  "the 
single  combat,"  from  Hockley  in  the  Hole  to  the  Land's  End.  Shakspeare, 
in  his  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  mentions  another,  whom  he  calls  '•"  Sac- 
kerson,"  no  doubt  a  person  of  reputation  in  his  time.  And,  as  late  as  the 
day  of  James  the  Second,  a  third,  known  as  "  Young  Blackface,"  who 
belonged  to  an  Irishman  named  O'Snllivan,  fought  the  extraordinary  num- 
ber of  twenty-two  "  single  and  double*'  combats,  in  one  day,  against  the 
best  dogs  in  the  country.  This  excellent  champion  was  killed  at  last,  by 
being  fought  against  three  dogs  at  once,  without  his  "  protection,"  as  the  iron 
collar  was  called,  which  he  wore  ;  and  which,  as  he  always  fought 
muzzled,  formed  a  very  efficient  part  of  his  defence.  And  a  song,  cele- 
brating his  virtues,  was  written  upon  his  death,  part  of  which  is  to  be 
found  in  a  collection  of  old  ballads,  most  of  them  imperfect,  in  the  British 
Museum.  The  title  of  the  poem  is  "  O'Sullivan's  Bear."  And  it  begins — 


296  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MARCH, 

The  lamps  in  the  cockpit  no  longer  burn  brightly. 
At  the  cockpit  the  rum  ones  no  longer  chaunt  nightly, 
No  more  to  the  fancy  is  Tufton -street  dear, 
Since  the  death  of  our  darling,  O'Sullivan's  bear  '.  " 

The  second  verse  is  wanting ;  but  the  third  alludes  to  the  unfair  manner  of 
"  Blackface's  "  death,  and  chastises  his  master. 

" to  muzzle  the  baste,  and  take  offhis  « protection."* 

Och  Sully— you  spalpeen — was  that  your  affection  ! " 
The  fourth  runs  in  the  style  of  lamentation  over  the  body. 
"  In  that  pit  where  the  bull  dogs  so  many  times  pinned  ye, 
To  make  muffs  for  the  ladies,  my  Blackface,  they've  skinned  ye  !  "t 
And  those  claws  that,  in  life,  you  could  flourish  so  hardy, 
Some  tailor  will  stick  on  the  cloak  of  a  dandy."  J 

Another  verse  calls  down  retribution,  for  this  merciless  proceeding  upon 
the  head  of  the  bear-keeper,  O 'Sullivan  himself. 

"  Och  Sully-— you  divel !  bad  luck  overtake  ye, 
The  neat  bear  that  ye  lead,  divil  send  he  may  shake  ye! 
For  the  swells  shall  fall  off,  and  the  fighting  coves  leave  ye ; 
And  the  butchers  go  too,  and  so  every  thing  grieve  ye." 

A  long  gap  then  ensues  ;  and  the  last  verse  only  remains,  which  seems  to 
glance  darkly  at  general  evils,  likely  to  result  to  the  purveyors  of  bear-bait- 
ing from  the  catastrophe. 

"  111  luck  had  Blue  Billy ;  ill  luck  had  his  daughter,* 
For  she's  married  a  Pig  after  all  that  he  taught  her  :§ 
But  worse  luck  than  ever  shall  Westminster  swear, 
Since  the  death  of  our  darling  O'Sullivan's  bear!" 

The  last  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  but  one — (and  the  subject  is 
referred  to  again  in  the  last  number  that  comes  out) — contained  the  following 
story  extrrcted  from  Mr.  Combe's  book  on  the  later  transactions  in  Phreno- 
logy. I  quote  from  memory ;  but  the  facts  of  the  case — which  was  well 
avouched — were  these : — 

A  bricklayer's  labourer,  who  had  fallen  from  a  scaffold  of  considerable 
height,  was  brought,  in  the  course  of  the  last  year,  to  one  (I  forget  which) 
of  the  London  hospitals.  The  man  was  senseless  when  he  was  taken  into 
the  house ;  and,  when  he  recovered  his  faculties  after  some  hours,  he  spoke 
a  language  which  no  person  about  him  could  understand.  Inquiries  were 
made  of  the  workmen  who  had  known  him,  and  had  brought  him  to  tho 
hospital ;  but  all  that  could  be  learned  was  that  he  was  an  Englishman  ; 
and  no  one  had  ever  heard  him  speak  any  other  language  than  English. 
At  the  end  of  two  days,  however,  a  milk  woman  came  into  the  ward  whero 
he  lay,  to  visit  another  [patient ;  and  she  understood  him  immediately ; 
the  language  which  he  spoke  was  Welch.  The  result  is,  that  this  man  had 
left  Wales  twenty  years  before  his  accident,  and  had  so  completely  for- 
gotten the  Welsh  language  at  the  date  of  it,  that  he  was  unable  to  speak 
that  tongue  at  all.  The  effect  of  the  injury  received  on  his  head,  however, 
had  been  to  revive  the  faculty  of  speaking  Welch,  which  he  had  lost;  and 

*  The  "  protection,"  was  the  heavy  iron  collar,  used  on  some  occasions  in  bear-.baiting 
to  this  day. 

J  From  this  line  it  would  appear  that  bears'  skin  muffs  were  already  worn  in  England, 

t  This  is  a  curious  point,  and  shews  how  fashions  are  revived  after  long  disuse.  The 
"  bears  paws  "upon  cloaks  (as  clasps)  were  used  universally  so  lately  as  two  years  ago. 

t  Blue  Billy  was  a  famous  clipper  and  coiner  of  that  day. 

§  A  "  Pig"  was  thetant  name  for  a  constable  or  police  officer. 


1S27.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  297 

entirely  to   deprive  him   of  that  of  speaking  English,  which,  up  to  the 
moment  previous  to  bis  fall,  he  had  possessed  completely. 

Now  this  stoiy,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  be  rather  too  good.  If  it  were 
offered  as  a  burlesque  case  upon  the  doctrines  of  the  Phrenologists,  it  would 
be  voted  excellent.  And  yet  a  great  many  very  strong  facts — and  well 
authenticated — may  be  found  in  support  of  it.  There  is  a  case  which  I 
believe  may  be  fully  relied  on,  of  a  gentleman  who  went  out  to  dine 
(it  was  in  the  country)  at  the  house  of  a  friend  ;  and  in  returning  home 
at  night,  was  thrown  out  of  his  gig,  and  fell  upon  his  head.  He  was  a 
good  deal  hurt,  and  lay  for  some  hours  stunned  by  the  blow  ;  and,  on  his 
recovery' — never  could  recollect  the  fact  of  his  having  gone  out  to  dinner. 

Another  case  came  within  my  own  knowledge ;  arising,  not  from  sudden 
violence,  but  from  an  affection  of  the  brain  by  temporary  disease.  An 
officer  on  service  in  Spain,  with  whom  I  was  well  acquainted,  became  ill 
from  brain  fever.  I  had  known  this  man  from  his  youth;  and  I  fully 
believe  that  he  had  never  thought  of  turning  a  rhyme  in  his  life,  much  less 
of  composing  poetry.  On  the  second  day  after  his  head  became  aifected, 
he,  to  every  appearance,  composed,  and  certainly  uttered,  verses,  which 
no  one  about  him  had  ever  heard  before.  The  matter  was  rambling ; 
but  the  rhyme  was  generally  correct ;  and  this  process  was  continued  for 
many  hours  with  the  most  inconceivable  rapidity.  As  this  gentleman 
recovered,  his  poetic  fever  left  him  ;  and  with  it  I  believe  the  faculty — he 
could  make  no  verses  afterwards^ 

Mr.  Southey's  second  volume  of  the  History  of  the  Peninsular  War 
which  is  just  published,  contains  an  account  too  of  two  very  curious  in- 
stances, pretty  nearly  to  the  same  purpose. 

"  Two  singular  cases  of  contusion  of  the  brain  was  observed  at  this  time 
in  the  hospitals."  (This  was  at  the  siege  of  Gerona.)  "  One  man  did 
nothing  but  count,  with  a  loud  and  deliberate  voice,  from  forty  to  seventy, 
always  beginning  with  the  one  number  and  ending  with  the  other,  during 
the  whole  night.  Another  continually  uttered  the  most  extraordinary 
'blasphemies  and  curses,  exhausting  the  whole  vocabulary  of  malediction, 
without  any  apparent  emotion  of  anger." 

I  certainly  never  myself  found  a  Phrenologist,  who  could  state  a  single 
rule  in  his  science  that  he  (or  any  body  else)  could  maintain.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  nothing  within  our  physiological  knowledge  at  all 
capable  of  explaining  facts  like  these. 

I  see  by  the  play  bills  that  Miss  Fanny  Ayton,  who  was  a  "  Miss"  (I 
believe)  when  she  lived  next  door  to  me  three  years  ago  in  Berner's-street, 
since  she  has  been  at  the  Opera  House,  has  become  "  Mademoiselle 
Fanny  Ayton."  I  don't  well  understand  this.  I  should  like  to  know  the 
nature  of  the  process  which  turns  a  "  Miss"  into  a  "  Mademoiselle." 

The  barbers  of  London  are  getting  to  be  great  people  now.  Their  shops 
are  almost  as  numerous,  and  as  splendidly  fitted,  as  those  of  the  chemists; 
and,  in  every  one — bolt  upright  behind  the  counter — you  see  either  the 
master  or  the  journeyman — with  his  hair  in  most  overpowering  buckle- 
stuck  up  for  a  sign !  I  always  wondered  how  it  was — on  what  sort  of  cus- 
tomers for  practice — that  the  apprentice  boys  to  this  calling  acquired  the 
power  of  frizzing  and  curling— running  a  pair  of  red  hot  pincers  open  along 
within  half  a  line  of  a  man's  ear^  and  never  scathing  the  "listener"  in 
their  progress  :  until  the  other  day,  passing  a  shop  in  the  Strand  which  has 
an  area  before  it,  I  happened  to  cast  my  eyes  downwards — and  saw, 
through  the  kitchen  window  two  urchins  in  the  very  act  of  a  first  expe- 

M,M.  New  Series,— VOL.  III.  No.  15.  2  Q 


298  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MARCH, 

riment — curling  and  frizzing  away,  with   both  comb   and  irons  at   the 
worsted  chevelure  of  a  new  mop. 

LAW  OF  LIBEL  :  THE  IDIOT  SMITH. — I  feel  great  pleasure  in  men- 
tioning  this  case  once  more,  in  order  to  shew  that  the  discussion  which  has 
arisen  upon  it  has  not  been  quite  without  its  utility  in  the  country.  The 
facts  were  stated,  I  believe  fully,  in  our  Magazine  for  January  last,  there- 
fore I  shall  not  repeat  them.  It  appears  by  the  papers  of  to-day,  that 
another  action — the  fifth  or  sixth  I  think  on  the  same  question — has  been 
brought  against  a  provincial  paper,  called  The  Wolverhampton  Chronicle. 
And,  for  the  v«ry  same  act — the  copying  a  paragraph  from  the  Salopian 
Journal — which  the  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  in  the  action 
against  the  Times,  called  "  an  offence,  against  God  and  man" — and  for 
which  the  jury,  in  the  case  of  the  Birmingham  Chronicle,  gave  Four 
hundred  pounds  damages — the  jury  in  the  case  of  the  Wolverhampton 
Chronicle,  have  given  a  verdict  of — Damages,  One  Farthing. 

Translators — especially  on  works  of  fancy — make  very  whimsical  mis- 
takes sometimes ;  where  they  know  only  the  language  which  they  are 
translating,  without  knowing  any  of  the  customs  or  peculiarities  of  the 
country  to  which  the  language  belongs.  And  the  selection  or  adoption  of 
proper  names  arid  localities  in  works  of  the  same  kind,  where  the  author  lays 
his  scene  in  a  country  of  which  he  is  ignorant,  or  half  informed,  are  often 
equally  ridiculous.  The  French  novelists,  until  within  these  few  years, 
always  gave  their  English  heroes  the  most  extraordinary  names — as, 
"  Milord  Brompton" — "  The  Marquis  Smith" — or,  "  The  Duke  of 
Jones.'*  And  probably,  very  often,  when  our  "  Minerva  Press"  romance 
writers  fancy  they  have  given  their  French  or  Italian  count  or  prince — for 
there  is  no  getting  on  in  a  story  with  any  dignitaries  less  than  these — the 
most  romantic  and  euphonious  title  in  the  world,  he  in  reality  enjoys—- 
considered by  a  native — some  particularly  vulgar  or  ridiculous  appellation. 
A  lady,  the  other  day,  publishing  a  novel  in  Paris,  and  placing  the  action 
in  England,  gives  an  exquisitely  pre-eminent  example  of  this  kind  of  error. 
Wishing  to  give  her  work  a  title,  which  shall  convey  the  very  extreme  of 
romance  and  horror,  she  calls  it — "  Les  Souterrains  de  Birmingham  /" 

The  exploits  of  that  abominable  class  of  persons,  called  the  Resurrec- 
tion men,  have  got  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  spread  consternation  through 
the  country.  And  the  medical  students,  too,  have  lately  become  so  presump- 
tuous on  the  subject,  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  mercy — and  the  extent  of  their 
charity — that  they  don't  take  possession  of  us,  as  we  walk  about  the  streets 
— staring,  and  alive  !  A  whole"surgical  academy  attended  the  other  day 
at  a  coroner's  inquest,  on  a  question  whether  some  unhappy  man,  who 
had  died  in  an  hospital,  should  or  should  not  be  opened — to  ascertain 
whether  it  was  really  the  falling  of  a  house  upon  his  head  that  had  killed 
him  or  riot !  and  one  incipient  rogue- — not  higher  than  a  pot  of  lenitive 
electuary — defied  the  coroner,  and  protested  he  should  like  to  have  the 
cutting  up  of  the  jury.  But,  in  our  desire  to  reconcile  appearances  with 
expediency  in  this  case,  as  in  many  others,  it  is  whimsical  to  see  the 
manner  in  which  we  administer  the  law.  We  punish  a  man  severely 
whom  we  find  keeping  two  dead  bodies  locked  up  in  a  stable  or  a  cellar ; 
but  we  say  nothing  to  any  body  when  we  find  ten  locked  up  in  a  surgeon's 
dissecting  room.  A  man  applies  to  the  magistrates  at  Bow-street  con- 
cerning his  "  lost  relative;"  and  is  sent  (as  of  course)  with  an  officer,  to 
look  for  him  at  St.  Thomas's  Hospital.  But,  among  the  «  various  sub- 
jects" which  are  met  with  there,  they  are  "  unable  to  identify  the  missing 


;1&27.]  Letter  on  Jljff airs  in  general.  299 

party." — This  is  the  statement  made  in  the  open  office,  at  twelve  o'clock ; 
and,  at  one,  a  hackney  coachman  who  is  found  with  a  single  "  subject" 
in  his  vehicle,  is  compelled  to  account  for:  it,  and  sent — -in  default  of  an 
answer — to  spend  six  weeks  in  the  Treadmill.  Our  neighbours  the  Pari- 
sians, by  the  way,  have  got  hold  of  this  question  ;  and  are  gibbeting  us  in 
quips,  and  "  particular  ballad?,"  out  of  number.  I  will  translate  one  of 
these  effusions — as  well  as  I  can  twist  an  imitation  of  French  verse — 
which  is  very  badly. 

A  doctor  there  lived  in  the  county  of  Fife, 

Physic  em,  tisic  em,  ho ! 
And  he  had  a  wife,  was  the  plague  of  his  life£ 

With  her  squallery,  bawlery,  ho  ! 
She  worried  and  teased  the  unfortunate  elf, 
Jf  his  patients  were  few,  he  was  patient  himself; 
But  at  last  she  fell  sick,  and  was  laid  on  the  shelf, 

With  her  sigh  away,  die  away,  ho ! 

Now  in  sables  the  doctor  had  often  rehearsed, 

Whine  away,  groan  away,  ho  ! 
And  he  always  wore  mourning  for  fear  of  the  worst, 

With  his  seem  to  grieve,  laugh  in  sleeve,  ho! 
So  a  coffin  he  bought  of  a  friend  in  the  trade, 
And  ma'am  under  ground  very  snugly  was  laid  ; 
And  the  very  next  night  Bolus  married  his  maid, 

With  her  fie  for  shame!  change  her  name,  ho! 

Now  it  happened  that  night  that  a  gentlemen,  bred, 

Dig  away,  in  the  clay,  ho  ! 
To  the  grave  occupation  of  raising  the  dead, 

With  his  coffin  crack,  spade  and  sack,  ho  ! 
Rang  at  one  in  the  morning,  the  doctor's  night  bell, 
And  said — "  Sir  I've  brought  you  a  subject  to  sell: 
But  the  watchman  is  near,  so  be  quick — or  he'll  tell ; 

With  your  cut  and  slash — pay  the  cash — ho ! 

The  doctor  had  scarcely  refastened  the  door, 

With  his  bolt  and  chain,  lock  again,  ho ! 

When  he  thought  in  the  sack  he  heard  somebody  snore, 
With  their  snoozle  em,  foozle  em,  ho ! 

But  who  shall  describe  the  poor  doctor's  surprise, 
'    When  he  opened  the  sack  to  examine  his  prize  : 

For  his  wife  was  come  back !   and  she  opened  her  eyes, 
With  her  squall ery,  bawlery,  ho  ! 

Et  Monsieur  le  docteur  !— he  ron  vid  his  legs — away — so  f 

Notwithstanding  the  imputed  small  means  of  the  country  just  at  this 
time  for  works  of  supererogation,  the  scheme  of  building  new  Churches 
in  all  quarters  of  the  metropolis  continues,  I  perceive,  in  active  operation. 
We  have  three  churches  now  in  the  parish  of  Mary-le-bone;  one  in  Port- 
land-place— one  at  the  top  of  Portland-road  —and  one,  about  two  hundred 
yards  farther  west,  at  the  end  of  High-street — all  within  sight,  and  within 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  as  to  distance,  of  each  other,  and  yet  they  talk  of 
more.  I  am  sure  I  hope  that  it  is  the  increasing  piety  of  the  country 
that  makes  all  this  expense  necessary;  but,  as  far  as  my  own  knowledge 
goes — certainly  1  do  not  understand  what  the  story  of  "  the  old  churches 
not  being  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the  people"  means.  I  am  sure — 
speaking  from  my  own  experience — /  never  was  refused  a  seat  in  a  church 
in  all  my  life.  But  there  are  some  people  who  never  can  find  accommo- 
dation any  where. 

Apropos  to  the  subject  of  Churches,  the  French  Globe  of  the  5th  of 

2  Q  2 


300  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general,  [MARCH, 

February  contains  a  ludicrous  deprecation  of  our  English  intolerance,  in 
compelling  the  Unitarians — (I  mentioned  this  matter  in  our  last  Magazine) 
— to  marry  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Protestant  Established  Church. 
According  to  my  friend  of  the  Globe,  the  horrors  of  conscience  which  these 
sincere  seceders  experience,  in  being  compelled  "  to  submit  to  ceremonies 
which  they  regard  as  idolatrous  and  superstitious,"  are  as  afflicting  as  those 
of  a  Jew,  who  should  be  induced,  by  the  fears  of  an  Auto  da  Fe,  to  swallow 
pork. — *'  Void  laformule"  says  the  editor,"  dont  Us  se  servent  ordinaire" 
ment :"  and  he  then  goes  on  to  give  an  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  get  through  the  repetition  of  the  ritual,  and  yet 
avoid  the  abomination. — Au  nom  dupere.  Et — (mais  en  protestant  contre 
lui) — dufils.  Et — (mais  en  protestant  contre  lui) — du  Saint  Esprit"  &c. 
&c.  This  protest  reminds  me  of  the  qualificatory  sentence  of  the  proud 
young  lady  in  the  story  books,  who  was  condemned  to  cry  "  Hot  grey 
Pease,"  in  order  to  bring  her  to  a  sense  of  humility  ;  and  cried — "  Hot  grey  • 
Pease! — (I  hope  nobody  hears  me  .'") — But  our  Frenchman's  conclusion  is 
scandalous.  He  says — "  Quelquefois  lepretre  Anglicane  sefdche  ;  et  alors 
1'eglise  devient  un  champ  de  bataillef"  1  think  this  is  an  exaggeration; 
I  don't  recollect  a  fight  in  a  church  since  the  "  Trial  by  battle,"  in  the  case 
of  the  Iron^Cottin  Company. 

An  evening  paper  (I  believe  the  Sun)  states  that  the  extensive  library  of 
the  late  Sir  Charles  Wilson,  turns  out,  on  examination  by  his  executors,  to 
be  almost  totally  destroyed  and  valueless.  Sir  Charles  was  an  extremely 
easy  and  liberal  man ;  and  there  appears  to  be  scarcely  a  copy  of  any 
voluminous  work,  of  which  some  portion  is  not  wanting — single  volumes 
having  been  borrowed  by  his  acquaintances,  and  never  returned.  This  is 
a  hard  case,  but  I  have  no  doubt  of  its  truth  ;  for  I  recollect  myself  a  still 
more  signal  instance  of  the  extent  to  which  the  system  of  borrowing  books, 
and  forgetting  to  return  them,  is  sometimes  carried ;  I  knew  a  man — 1  will 
not  mention  his  name — whose  whole  library  at  his  death  was  found  to  con- 
sist  of  odd  volumes,  which  he  had  borrowed  from  his  friends  and  omitted 
to  carry  back  again. 

Speaking  of  Phrenology,  a  little  way  back,  reminds  me — I  attended  two 
or  three  lectures  on  that  science  once  ;  and  I  recollect  it  was  argued  as  a 
strong  evidence  of  the  probable  divisions  of  the  brain  into  various  compart- 
ments— each  having  its  own  business  to  perform,  and  not  troubled  by  the 
operation  of  any  other — the  power  that  the  mind  possesses  of  relieving  itself 
by  a  change  of  subject  or  study. — As,  for  instance,  a  man  fatigued  with 
leading  law  or  mathematics,  takes  up  one  of  the  Waverley  novels,  or  even 
a  poem  which  excites  deep  reflection,  or  even  a  work  of  metaphysics,  like 
Mandeville's  Fable  of  the  Bees  ;  and  reads  on— as  if  with  new  strength — 
without  difficulty.  Now  this  is  a  curious  fact ;  but  if  it  will  support  a 
scheme  of  divisions  and  departments  in  the  head,  there  certainly  is  an 
opening  for  a  new  system  of  the  same  character  as  to  the  construction  of 
the  stomach.  Because,  just  as  certainly  as  a  man  who  can  read  no  more 
Coke  or  Newton,  will  get  on  again  with  Byron  or  Captain  Basil  Hall,  just 
as  certain  it  is  that  a  man  who  can  eat  no  more  turtle,  starts  afresh  when 
he  gets  upon  venison — then  upon  woodcock — then  ratafia  pudding — then  a 
little  macaroni  withparmesan — and  so  on  to  fruit — -devilled  biscuit, &c.  &e. 
&c.  through  his  four  removes.  I  think  this  is  a  new  point ;  and  I  wish 
Dr.  Kitchiner  would  apply  his  mind  to  it. 

It  seems  an  odd  habit  that  they  have  in  Ireland,  of  calling  every  man 
"  Counsellor,"  who  happens  to  have  paid  his  £120  for  admission  to  the 


1827.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  genera*  30 1 

Bar.  It  would  be  thought  very  strange  in  England  if  we  were  to  designate 
every  man  by  his  calling  :  and  direct  two  penny-post  letters  to — "  Tailor 
Weston!"  "  Barber  Truefit!"  "  Perfumer  Gattie!"  &c.  &c.  It  seems  to 
be  a  sort  of  insane  appetite  craving  for  imaginary  distinctions — the  straw 
crown  of  the  naked  Emperor  of  Bedlam.  But  I'll  consider  of  it  more 
maturely,  and  take  up  the  subject  at  some  other  time. 

Talking  of  Insanity — I  am  very  curious  to  know  what  the  Coroner's 
verdict  will  be  in  the  case  of  the  Coffee-man  in  Smithfield,  that  killed  him- 
self (because  he  was  out  argued  about  political  economy,)  with  his  carving 
knife.  I  think  it  must  be  "  Insanity.0  The  man  had  probably  been 
mad  for  some  time,  and  it  had  not  been  perceived.  I  recollect  a  commis- 
sion upon  the  case  of  a  gentleman  who  was  a  considerable  epicure ;  and 
whose  first  symptom  of  insanity  had  been  the  eating  some  cold  Fricandeau 
at  a  public  dinner.  A  friend — who  was  a  man  of  observation— -had 
noticed  the  fact,  notwithstanding  its  apparent  slightness ;  and  the  Jury 
found  the  lunacy — commencing  from  that  day.  The  theory  of  mind,  and 
its  operations,  are  abstruse,  and  little  understood ! 

The  Morning  Herald  newspaper,  a  few  days  back,  tells  the  following 
story,  under  the  title  of  HONESTY  REWARDED.  "  A  young  girl,  who  keeps 
a  stand  at  the  Bazaar,  in  Soho-square,  found  a  £20  note  on  the  ground 
some  time  back ;  and,  according  to  the  rule  of  the  house,  carried  it  imme- 
diately to  Mr.  Hopkinson,  the  steward.  Notices  were  put  up  of  the  money 
having  been  discovered,  but  no  claimant  appeared  ;  and,  a  few  days  since, 
six  months  having  expired  since  the  youg  woman  found  the  note,  Mr.  Hop- 
kinson returned  it  to  her  /"  This  is  a  very  praiseworthy  arrangement  on 
the  part  of  the  keeper  of  the  Bazaar;  but,  for  the  4<  Reward  " — it  is  some- 
thing like  "  Rewarding  "  a  man,  by  giving  him  two  farthings  for  a  half- 
penny. 

Johnson,  the  celebrated  informer,  is  plaguing  the  pawnbrokers  unmerci- 
fully just  now.  The  position  of  the  pawnbroker  is  an  offence.  His  trade 
implies  that  he  has  money  to  lend  ;  for  which  all  who  are  like  to  be 
borrowers  naturally  hate  him.  But  in  general,  informers  are  so  detested 
by  the  English,  that  I  have  often  thought  it  would  be  curious  matter  of 
inquiry  where  such  a  man  as  Johnson — or  the  common  hangman — any 
body  whose  sight  would  be  abhorrent  to  all  the  world,  and  who  could  not 
easily  conceal  his  real  character  (one  would  think) — could  live?  Now  the 
hangman,  on  consideration,  has  his  natural  gite — his  home  is  the  prison. 
But  still  I  cannot  conceive  where  a  man  who  is  known  as  a  common  in- 
former contrives  to  live ;  and  I  dare  say  there  is  some  very  cunning  and 
peculiar  arrangement  connected  with  it. 

The  third  volume  of  M.  le  Comte  de  Chabrol's  "  Recherches  Statis- 
tiques^  contains  some  curious  information  as  to  the  arrangements  of  the 
city  of  Paris.  The  following  points  are  collected  from  the  chapter  upon 
"  Burials." 

The  funerals  of  Paris  are  all  performed,  most  people  are  aware,  by  a 
Licensed  company ;  a  privileged  body  of  undertakers,  who  enjoy  a  mono- 
poly of  the  trade,  and  account  to  (Government  for  a  share  of  their  profits. 
The  charges  of  these  people,  however,  are  regulated,  and  they  have  six 
different  scales  of  magnificence  for  funeruls  ;  above  the  highest  of  which, 
or  under  the  lowest,  nobody  can  go ;  the  price  of  each  being  fixed  by 
Government,  and  liable  to  no  variation.  It  is  curious  to  observe-^-according 
to  M.  de  Chabrol's  tables — how  the  comparative  average  of  burials  stands, 
with  reference  to  the  different  characters  pr  degrees  of  price. 


302  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general,  [MARCH, 

The  first  (or  most  expensive)  manner  of  burial,  costs  4,303  francs,  or 
£175  ;  and  of  these,  the  average  number  in  the  year  is  55. 

The  second  price  is  1,825  francs,  or  £73  ;  and  here  the  number  is  31 1. 

The  third,  and  fourth,  at  725  francs,  and  275  francs,  or  £29,  and  £11  ; 
are  nearly  equal  in  number,  the  one  is  1,075,  and  the  other  979. 

The  fifth  class  has  the  numbers  higher  still.  Plere  we  get  lower  in  the 
scale  of  society.  The  price  is  125  francs,  or  £5  ;  and  the  number  1,531. 

And  in  the  sixth  class,  which  is  lower  still,  the  price  being  only  4 1  francs, 
we  have  almost  as  few  as  in  the  second  scale  of  expense,  at  1,825  francs — 
the  number  is  only  339. 

The  most  singular  fact,  however,  is  to  come.  The  whole  amount  of 
burials,  in  Paris,  in  these  six  classes,  is  4,290 :  and  the  pauper  burials 
(inhumations  sur  certijicats  cTindigence)  within  the  same  period,  are 
12,6(53!  So  that  more  than  three  in  four  of  the  people  who  die  in  Paris 
are  buried  by  charity  !  And  this  account  does  not  include  the  burials  from 
hospitals.  Some  of  the  French  political  and  statistical  writers  attempt  to 
account  for  this  circumstance  by  the  fact  of  the  monopoly  ;  and  by  the  tax 
that  the  Government  levies  (in  the  shape  of  sharing  the  Company's  profits) 
upon  funerals  generally.  But  the  sixth  class  of  burial — at  the  Company's 
prices—costs  only  41  francs,  or  about  .£!..! 4s.  British — "  tout  compris." 
It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  do  the  work  at  a  much  cheaper  rate  than 
that. 

Another  column  in  this  same  chapter  of  M.  Chabrol,  gives  a  curious 
calculation  upon  the  number  of  tombs  and  monuments  standing  in  the 
churchyards  of  Paris,  with  their  cost  and  value.  In  the  year  1824,  it 
appears  that  there  were  19,148  tomb-stones,  and  1,750  monuments,  in 
the  three  cemeteries  of  the  city ;  the  cost  of  which  was  estimated  at 
5,359,550  francs,  or  about  £223,300.  Four-fifths  of  these  erections  were 
in  Pere  la  Chaise — which  is  certainly  the  most  beautiful  specimen  of 
churchyard  scenery  in  Europe. 

Speaking  of  the  pawnbrokers  above,  puts  me  in  mind  that  Mr.  Peel 
promised  Mr.  Serjeant  Onslow  that  the  Usury  Laws  should  be  seriously 
considered  in  the  course  of  the  present  session.  I  only  hope  we  shall 
proceed  cautiously.  The  subject  is  one  of  very  great  importance.  And  a 
great  many  of  my  personal  friends — who  have  thought  about  it — declare 
that  they  don't  know  where  to  borrow  money  at  Five  per  cent,  already. 

While  1  am  on  the  subject  of  money,  too,  I  may  as  well  take  notice — 
there  have  been  some  odd  omissions  lately  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the 
King's  image  in  his  current  coin.  Two  persons  have  been  taken  up  as 
utterers  of  bad  money,  whose  money — just  as  they  were  going  to  Newgate 
as  forgers — was  discovered  to  be  perfectly  genuine;  and  such  as  the  prose- 
cutors— if  strict  justice  had  been  insisted  upon — had,  perhaps,  rendered 
themselves  indictable  by  refusing  to  accept.  In  fact,  the  practice  used  in 
these  cases  seems  to  be  monstrous.  A  tradesman  is  fairly  entitled,  if  he 
doubts  the  goodness  of  the  money  offered  to  him,  to  express  that  doubt,  and 
decline  parting  with  his  goods  for  it :  but  nothing  short  of  the  most  trans- 
parent proof  of  fraudulent  intent  can  warrant  his  even  accusing — far  less 
laying  hands  upon — a  stranger.  To  get  rid  of  this  growing  ill-habit,  1 
would  recommend — always  under  correction — to  the  next  gentleman  who 
shall  be  seized  upon  for  offering  a  shopkeeper  money — (provided  he  knows 
the  affair  will  bear  investigation) — that  he  shall  thrash  the  peccant  glover  or 
hosier,  simply — because  1  would  not  commit  murder — within  an  inch  of  his 
life.  In  doing  this,  he  would  do  the  public  a  service ;  and  himself — 4f  he  is  a 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  >       303 

man  of  proper  feelings — a  pleasure;  and  he  would  incur  no  legal  penalty 
whatever.  It  is  possible  that  respectable  females  might  be  exposed  to 
insult  and  violence  in  this  way;  and  such  instances,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
have  actually  occurred.  I  am  decidedly  of  opinion,  that  the  next  huckster 
who  does  these  things,  should  be  boned  and  potted  by  way  of  example  to 
the  other  scarecrows  of  his  kind. 

Spanish  Bon  Mot. — Monsieur  Adolphe  Blanqui,  in  his  recent  travels  in 
Spain,  confirms  the  accounts  of  M.  Ouvrard  and  others,  as  to  the  unpopu- 
larity of  the  French  in  that  country ;  and  complains  bitterly  of  the  neglect 
which  he  experienced  every  where  from  the  constituted  authorities.  At 
length,  being  worn  out  one  day  with  the  insolences  and  carelessness  of  half 
a  dozen  police  clerks,  or  officers,  who  had  some  duty  to  perform  for  him, 
and  who  were,  as  usual,  quite  determined  to  evade  it,  he  went  to  Venyolas, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Intendant,  and  insisted  on  knowing  what  was  meant 
by  such  treatment. — "  M.  Blanqui,"  said  Venyolas,  "  Your  countryman, 
General  Cambronne,  being  one  day  in  Italy  with  a  detachment  of  eight 
hundred  men,  demanded  five  thousand  rations  of  the  mayor  of  a  little  village 
in  which  his  troops  passed  the  night.  '  How,  General,'  said  the  Mayor, 
*  you  ask  for  five  thousand  rations?  you  have  only  eight  hundred  men.' — 
'  Mr.  Mayor/  answered  General  Cambronne — commanding  his  guard  to 
fix  their  bayonets — '  I  never  talk  politics.'.  Now,  M.  Blanqui,  as  the 
General  said — I  say  to  you  in  my  turn — '  I  never  talk  politics.'  " 

The  events  of  the  last  part  of  the  mohth  oblige  me  to  conclude  almost 
abruptly  ;  for  they  are  too  important,  and  lead  to  too  much  discussion,  to 
be  talked  about  at  the  end  of  a  letter.  The  (political)  death — as  I  fear  it 
must  be  called — of  Lord  Liverpool;  the  illness  of  almost  every  one 
(with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Peele)  of  the  other  leading  cabinet  minis- 
ters ;  a  report  of  the  decease  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland ;  and  some 
news  from  the  Peninsula,  which  seemed  to  make  hostilities  not  quite  im- 
possible still  with  Spain,  all  came  upon  the  country  at  once;  and  ex- 
cited for  the  day  considerable  inquietude.  The  Peninsular  news  ought 
not  to  surprise  any  body.  The  quarrel  in  Portugal  is  not  over;  but, 
while  the  British  troops  are  there,  unless  the  arrangements  of  the  two 
governments  are  to  tie  their  hands,  the  country,  and  the  cause  which  we 
support,  will  be  safe.  The  home  question  is  one  of  more  difficult  settle- 
ment. All  parties,  I  believe,  concur  in  the  opinion,  that  a  successor  for 
Lord  Liverpool  will  not  easily  be  found.  Whether  the* premiership  will 
be  filled  up  from  among  the  peers,  or,  whether  one  of  the  secretaries  of 
state  must  be  moved  from  the  lower  house- — or  in  fact,  what  are  the 
materials  of  the  new  govern ment-^-no  one  (before  the  curtain)  knows:  and 
every  newspaper  has  its  separate  speculation.  One  circumstance,  however, 
would  seem  to  make  it  likely,  that  the  perplexity  of  those  at  the  head  of 
affairs  is  not  quite  so  great,  under  the  dispensation,  as  has  been  supposed. 
If  it  be  true — as  it  is  stated — that  the  health  of  Lord  Liverpool  has  been 
such  for  some  time,  as  to  render  his  retirement  (or  failure)  a  matter  of 
likelihood  ;  the  event  has  not  occurred  without  something  like  a  con- 
sideration beforehand — in  case  such  an  accident  should  take  place — as  to 
to  who  should  be  the  noble  Lord's  successor. 


[    304     ]  [MARCH, 

THIt  THINGS  THAT  CHANGE. 

KNOW'ST  thou  that  seas  are  sweeping 

Where  domes  and  towers  have  been  ? 
When  the  clear  wave  is  sleeping, 

Those  piles  may  yet  be  seen  ; 
Far  down  below  the  glassy  tide, 
Man's  dwellings  where  his  voice  hath  died  ! 

Know'st  thou  that  flocks  are  feeding 

Above  the  tombs  of  old, 
Which  kings,  their  armies  leading, 

Have  iinger'd  to  behold  ? 
A  short  smooth  greensward  o'er  them,  spread, 
Is  all  that  marks  where  heroes  bled. 

Know'st  thou,  that  now  the  token 

Of  cities  once  renown'd, 
Is  but  some  pillar  broken, 

With  grass  and  wall-flowers  crown'd  j 
While  the  lone  serpent  reats  her  young 
Where  the  triumphant  lyre  hath  rung  ? 

Well,  well  I  know  the  story 

Of  ages  pass'd  away, 
And  the  mournful  wrecks  that  glory 

Hath  left -to  dull  decay; 
But  thou  hast  yet  a  tale  to  learn, 
More  full  of  warnings,  sad  and  stern. 

Thy  pensive  eye  but  ranges 

Thro'  ruin'd  fane  and  hail — 
Oh !  the  deep  soul  hath  changes 

More  sorrowful  than  all ! 
Talk  not,  while  these  before  thee  throng, 
Of  silence  in  the  place  of  song. 

See  scorn,  where  Love  hath  perish'd, 

Distrust,  where  Friendship  grew ; 
Pride,  where  once  Nature  cherish'd, 

All  tender  thoughts  and  true; 
And  shadows  of  oblivion  thrown 
O'er  every  trace  of  idols  gone. 

Grieve  not  for  tombs  far-scatter'd, 

For  temples  prostrate  laid  j 
In  thine  own  heart  lie  shatter'd 

The  altars  it  had  made  ! 
Go,  sound  its  depths  in  doubt  and  fear- 
Heap  up  no  more  its  treasures  here  ! 

F.  H. 


1827]  [     305     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN, 


The  Present  State  of  Columbia,  by  an 
Officer,  late  in  the  Columbian  Service ; 
1827. — The  writer  professes,  we  see,  to 
have  been  an  officer  in  the  Columbian  ser- 
vice ;  and  be  is  evidently  well  acquainted 
wot  only  with  the  military  concerns  of  Co- 
lumbia, but  with  its  political,  and  financial, 
nod  statistical  condition  generally.  He  with- 
holds his  name,  and  he  may  have  his  rea- 
sons lor  doing  so  ;  but  we  like  names  and 
stations,  on  all  matters  of  fact.  They  are 
something  like  pledges  for  integrity.  If  a 
man  have  not  the  fear  of  the  public  censure 
before  his  eyes,  he  must  have  that  of  his 
friends  and  acquaintance. 

The  object  of  the  publication  is  professedly 
to  sketch  the  history  of  the  independence 
of  Columbia,  and  exhibit  the  existing  con- 
dition of  the  country.  That  object  is  pretty 
fairly  accomplished,  though  little  can  be 
said  for  the  literary  execution  of  the  attempt. 
It  is  a  prosing,  though  not  indistinct  kind  of 
statement.  The  writer  has  no  notion  of 
rejecting  superfluities.  He  begins  *ab  ovo,' 
and  before,  with  every  thing.  He  un- 
dertakes to  epitomize  the  war  of  indepen- 
dence, and  thinks  it  necessary  first  to  dis- 
tinguish all  the  possible  classes  of  colonies; 
and  how  the  matter  stood  with  the  ancients, 
and  how  it  has  been  with  the  moderns.  All 
nothing  to  the  purpose.  As  little  almost  is 
it  to  dwell  upon  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
first  attempts  at  independence.  The  desire 
of  independence  is  inseparable  from  colonies, 
and  they  wait  for  nothing  to  gratify  that 
desire  but  the  growth  of  their  strength. 
Whether  the  mother-country  oppresses,  or 
not,  the  filial  affection  of  the  colony  vanishes 
at  the  first  fledging  of  its  pinions ;  but  in 
all  modern  cases,  and  as  far  as  we  know, 
in  all  ancient  cases,  the  mother  was  always 
for  controlling  the  daughter,  and  exceed- 
ingly slow  in  admitting  any  approaches  to 
equality  of  privilege,  and  always  resolute  in 
resisting  attempts  at  independence.  This 
was  the  fact  with  the  Spanish,  colonies — 
with  those  which  MOW  constitute  Columbia 
particularly.  During  the  revolt  of  our  own 
colonies,  several  attempts  at  little  revolu- 
tionary movements  were  made  at  Caraccas ; 
but  it  was  reserved  for  Miranda,  a  native  of 
Carraccas,  to  rouse  up  his  countrymen  to 
effectual  resistance.  Very  early  in  life  did 
he-enter,  heart  and  soul,  into  these  views. 
His  plans  were  approved  and  occasionally 
encouraged,  but  never  effectively  assisted  by 
our  own  government,  during  the  war  with 
Spain,  in  the  French  Revolution ;  but  when 
Buonaparte  invaded  Spain,  and  we  resolved 
on  repelling  him,  and  defending  the  Bourbons 
of  .Spain,  we  ceased  to  hold  communion 
with  the  malecontents  of  her  restless  colonies. 
But  that  same  invasion  of  Bonaparte  for  a 
time  absorbed  the  full  attention  of  Spain, 
and  interrupted  the  usual  intercourse  with 
the  colonies..  Juntas  were  in  consequence 
M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.Ul.  No.  15. 


.  formed  to  administer  the  several  govern- 
ments— this  was  in  1808  —  and  of  course 
greatly  facilitated  the  views  of  the  inde- 
pendents. The  Cortes  disapproved  of  these 
juntas ;  and  by  their  haughty  and  ill-timed 
disapproval,  and  worse-timed  severity,  com- 
pletely alienated  the  colonies. 

Miranda  skilfully  availed  himself  of  the 
state  of  exasperation  excited  by  the  Cortes, 
and  a  plan  of  defence  was  quickly  organized 
to  resist  the  aggressions  of  the  Cortes.  In 
1811,  a  regular  government  was  formed  by 
his  partizans  on  the  "federative  system;" 
and  on  the  5th  of  July  of  that  year,  the  con- 
federate provinces  proclaimed  their  independ- 
ence at  Caraccas.  In  the  following  year 
the  hopes  of  the  independents  were  suddenly 
damped  by  the  terrible  destruction  of  Ca- 
raccas— an  event,  which  spread  ruin  and 
dismay  through  the  country.  Twelve  thou- 
sand persons  were  buried  under  the  ruins  of 
the  city,  and  among  them  one  of  Miranda's 
finest  corps,  consisting  of  eight  hundred. 
Disaster  after  disaster  followed  ;  till  Porto 
Cabello,  then  under  the  command  of  Bolivar, 
was  lost,  and  Miranda  himself  was  forced  to 
capitulate  at  Laguira.  The  terms  of  this 
capitulation  were  violated  ;—  Miranda  was 
arrested,  conveyed  to  Cadiz,  and  there  pe- 
rished in  prison. 

The  royalists  had  now  military  possession 
of  the  whole  country ;  but  not  long  were 
they  suffered  to  keep  it  undisturbed.  Marino, 
Bolivar,  Paez,  and  others  were  quickly  in 
the  field  again.  An  active  campaign  en- 
sued, in  which  the  patriot  troops  were  gene- 
rally, at  least  in  the  commencement,  victo- 
rious. Eolivar  in  triumph  re-entered  Ca- 
raccas, and  on  the  2nd  Jan.  1814,  the  new- 
government  was  instituted — a  military  one — 
and  Bottvar  was  placed  at  the  head  of  it. 
These  advantages,  however,  the  patriots 
were  not  long  able  to  maintain  ;  Bolivar 
sustained  two  signal  defeats  at  La  Puerta, 
and  Driguita,  and  eventually  was  obliged  to 
abandon  Caraccas,  and  embark  for  Cartha- 
gena.  The  patriots  were  every  where  dis- 
persed. 

At  this  season  of  depression,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  181,5,  arrived  Morillo.  Ferdinand 
hadjust  been  restored.  The  resolution  was 
immediately  taken  in  the  councils  of  Spain 
to  reduce  the  colonies,  and  Morillo  was  dis- 
patched with  reinforcements  to  complete  the 
reduction.  Quickly  he  got  possession  of 
Carthagena,  and  Bolivar  then  fled  to  Ja- 
maica. Nothing  now  was  left  but  New  Gre- 
nada ;  and  that  country  Morillo  speedily 
over- ran. 

Bolivar,  however,  in  the  meanwhile,  was 
not  idle.  Quitting  Jamaica,  he  procured 
some  assistance  from  Boyer,  president  of  the 
republic  at  Port-au-Prince,  and  made. more 
than  one  vigorous,  but  fruitless  attempt  to 
get  a  footing  in  the  country,  and  stir  up  his 
countrymen  to  another  effort.  At  lait,  in 

2  R 


306 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MARCH, 


December  1810,  with  some  supplies  from 
Aux  Cnyes,  he  landed  at  Venezuela,  and 
traversing  ths  plains  to  the  Oronoco,  seized 
upon  Angostura,  on  the  banks  of  that  river, 
and  there  fixed  the  seat  of  his  new  govern- 
ment. Hither,  in  a  few  months,  he  was 
pursued  by  the  royalists,  and  an  harassing 
and  destructive  warfare  wa«  carried  on  for 
eighteen  long,  trying  months;  till  at  last, 
wearied  with  this  useless  waste  of  his  re- 
sources, he  resolved  to  make  one  despenite 
effort  to  cross  the  mountains,  which  separate 
Venezuela  from  New  Grenada,  and  sur- 
prise the  Spaniards  in  that,  province.  In  this 
effort  he  succeeded,  and  forcing  the  Spa- 
niards to  an  action,  defeated  them  at  the 
Pontanode  Bargas,  on  the  £ 6th  July  1819, 
and  on  the  7th  of  the  following  month,  gained 
the  great  and  decisive  battle  of  Boyaca,  and 
thus  opened  a  way  to  the  capital.  In  the 
numerous  conflicts  which  ensued,  the  inde- 
pendents were  eminently,  though  not  uni- 
formly, successful ;  and  at  last,  on  taking 
Porto  Cabello  by  storm,  on  the  9th  Novem- 
ber 1823,  the  Spaniards  were  completely, 
and,  we  hope,  finally  exterminated  from  the 
country. 

The  desolation  to  which  this  unhappy 
country  has  been  reduced,  must  be  manifest. 
The  contest  has  been  a  peculiarly  sanguinary 
one — plus  qu;,m  civile.  The  most  barbarous 
cruelties  have  been  practised  on  both  sides ; 
and  the  very  worst  features  of  revenge,  in 
hot  blood  and  in  cold,  are  visible  through 
the  whole  portentous  struggle.  "  Her  towns 
have  been  laid  in  ruins,''  says  the  writer  be- 
fore us,  "  and  her  provinces  depopulated  ; 
her  agriculture  has  languished,  the  working 
of  her  mines,  an  important  source  of  her 
wealth,  has  been  suspended  for  want  of 
hands  to  carry  on  the  necessary  operations,, 
and  the  commerce  of  her  maritime  cities  has 
been  completely  paralized  by  the  diminished 
quantity  of  her  produce,  and  the  contracted 
demand  for  the  supplies  of  foreign  merchan- 
dize."— "  But  such  is  the  fertility  of  the 
soil,"  continues  the  writer,  "  the  salubrity  of 
her  climate,  and. the  facility  with  which  the 
necessaries  of  life  are  procured,  thar,  under 
the  fostering  care  of  a  provident  and  patriotic 
government,  a  very  few  years  will  suffice  to 
recruit  her  exhausted  population,  repair  her 
losses,  and  spread  over  her  lands  that  abund- 
ance, with  which  nature  so  prodigally  re- 
wards the  exertions  of  man  in  those  favoured 
climes." 

Columbia,  however,  is  not  yet  at  rest.  No 
more  attacks  are  to  be  apprehended  from 
without— Spain  will  trouble  her  no  more — 
but  she  is  herself  divided.  The  territory,  in 
fact,  is  far  too  extensive — the  population  too 
thinly  an ^  remotely  distributed,  to  be  brought 
conveniently  under  one  superintendence.  New 
Grenada  and  Venezuela  wish  to  separate ; 
and  in  each,  some  are  for  one  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  some  for  another.  Bolivar  is 
hostile  to  the  federative,  and  Paez  the  ad- 
vocate for  separation.  Too  probably,  uothieg 
but  a  military  govemmen  t,and  perhaps  two, 


will  be  able  to  keep  things  quiet;  and  irre- 
proachable as  has  been  Bolivar's  conduct, 
and  temperate  as  appears  to  be  his  character, 
he  will  probably  be  driven,  even  in  his  own 
defence,  or  in  conviction  of  its  necessity  for 
the  peace  of  the  country,  to  carry  the  bayonet 
into  the  government  and  play  the  despot. 

The  finances  of  the  government  are  in  a 
most  deplorable  condition ;  and  without  an 
entire  change  in  the  system  of  administra- 
tion, matters  cannot  go  on.  The  whole 
concern  is  conducted  on  too  expensive  a 
scale.  It  is  not  that  the  official  personages 
are  individually  too  highly  pai.l,  but  that 
they  are  far  too  numerous — we  say  not  pre- 
cisely for  the  occasions,  but  for  the  resources 
of  the  country.  The  expences  of  a  people, 
Bot  amounting  to  three  millions,  actually 
surpass  those  of  the  United  States,  with 
a  population  quadrupling  that  number. 
The  revenues  seem  to  amount  to  about  six 
millions  of  dollars — more,  probably,  cannot 
be  raise;! — and  the  scale  of  expences  swells 
up  to  fifteen  millions.  Each  department, 
and  there  are  twelve  of  them,  sends  four 
members  to  the  senate;  now  each  of  these, 
an  \  each  of-  the  hundred  representatives,  are 
paid  nine  dollars  a  day  during  the  annual 
sitting  of  congress — varying  from  ninety 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  days — and  -their 
travelling  expenses ;  and  from  Bagota,  the 
present  seat  of  government,  to  Angostura, 
the  distance  is  1,200  miles;  to  Curcuma,  as 
many;  to  Guayaquil,  1,000 ;  and  to  Car- 
thagena,  900. 

The  government  has  shewn  itself  ex- 
tremely anxious  to  recover  its  credit  in  this 
country;  and  different  funds,  it  seems,  have 
been  appropriated  for  this  purpose;  but  of 
what  use  is  such  an  appropriation,  when  the 
revenue  falls  so  very  far  short  of  the  more 
immediate,  and  more  imperative  demands  of 
the  domestic  administration  ?  No  more  money 
can  be  borrowed.  Borrowing  to  pay  borrow- 
ings is  a  financial  manoeuvre  that  ceases  to  be 
any  longer  relished,  at  least  by  the  lender.  No, 
no;  Columbian  bonds — sanguine  as  the  writer 
before  us  seems  to  be— are  not,  a,nd  cannot 
be  worth  the  price  of  so  much  unsoiled 
paper  for  years  to  come.  It  is  just  possible, 
that  fifty  years  hence — supposing  all  along 
the  government  of  Columbia  filty  years 
hence  will  trouble  themselves  about  the 
matter — the  value  of  the  bonds  may  begin 
to  mount  up  again.  As  matters  are,  a  few 
months,  and  the  keenest  effor is  of  the  keenest 
jobber,  will  be  completely  baffled  in  any 
attempt  to  keep  up  any  assignable  value  to 
these  miserable  scraps  of  spoilt  paper. 

Very  little  is  generally  known,  we  be- 
lieve, of  the  English  officers  atd  soldiers, 
who  have,  from  first  to  last,  gone  into  the 
Columbian  service.  The  volume  before  us 
gives  an  interesting,  and  we  have  no  doubt 
a  very  authentic  account  of  the  matter.  The 
number  far  exceeds  the  notion  we  had  formed 
of  them.  Six  thousand  have  actually  em- 
barked from  this  country  ;  and  at  the  end  of 
1823,  not  more  than  160  survived — we  say 


JS27.J 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


307 


survived,  for  few,  we  believe,  ever  returned. 
The  miseries  incurred  by  them  are  scarcely  to 
be  paralleled.  We  had  intended  to  compress 
the  particulars,  but  have  already  exceeded 
our  limits,  and  must  refer  our  readers  for 
them  to  the  book  itself. 

A  Popular  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
I  fa  Holy  Scriptures,  by  JV»  Carpenter; 
184G. — ''The  design  of  this  work,"  says  the 
author — a  man  evidently  of  cultivated  ta- 
lents— "  is  to  furnish  a  digest  of  the  most 
valuable  information  on  the  subject  of  scrip- 
ture interpretation  and  antiquities,  adapted 
to  the  use  of  that  class  of  persons,  whose 
knowledge  of  language  is  confined  to"  the 
English  —  and  to  very  many  o(her.«,  we 
shall  add,  who  would  by  no  means  be 
thought  to  come  under  the  description  of 
such  as  know  none  but  their  mother-tongue. 
The  expression  is  somewhat  equivocal ;  but 
the  writer  alludes  to  ignorance  of  Greek 
and  Latin :  and  how  many,  or  rather  how 
few,  out  of  every  thousand,  who  are  ,set 
to  learn  these  languages  in  their  youth,  even 
know,  or  ever  retain  enough  of  them  to 
make  any  serviceable  use  of  them? 

The  book  is  intended  to  be  a  more  acces- 
sible, that  is  a  more  generally  useful  work 
than  Mr.  Home's  Introduction  to  the  Critical 
Study  and  Knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures;  and  it  will  prove  in  truth  to  be  really 
more  useful ; — not  that  the  writer  speaks 
or  is  at  all  disposed  to  speak  depreciatingly 
of  Mr.  Home — quite  the  contrary — as  indeed 
that  gentleman's  indefatigable  industry  can- 
not deserve.  We  would  accordingly,  warmly 
recommend  Mr.  Carpenter's  work  to  nine- 
tenths  of  those  who  are  enjoined  to  study  Mr. 
Home's,  but  to  whom  his  learning  is  rather 
an  incumbrance  than  an  assistance.  There 
is  none  of  the  parade  of  learning  in  it,  but 
»U  the  essence  of  it.  The  author  is  himself 
manifestly  a  man  of  learning  ;  and  he  gives 
us  quietly,  and  unaffectedly  the  fruits  of  it 
—  the  kernel  without  the  shell.  Learning 
indeed  was  not  required  forthe  undertaking  ; 
what  was  wanted,  and  what  the  writer  pos- 
sessed, is  sound  judgment  to  select  the 
useful,  and  stern  resolution  to  reject  the 
superfluous,  and  still  more,  the  ostentatious. 
To  the  orthodox,  the  volume  will  seem  to 
come  from  a  suspicious  quarter,  but  we 
assure  them — notwithstanding  the  panic  of 
the  "  Christian  Remembrancer'' — and  who 
more  orthodox  than  we  ? — there  is  no  of- 
fence in  it. 

The  work  is  divided  into  two  parts.  The 
first,  occupying  about  forty  pages,  enume- 
rates the  moral  qualities  for  the  profitable 
reading  of  the  Scriptures,  and  furnishes 
some  useful  rules  for  collecting  the  sense  of 
them  ;  and  the  other  part,  embracing  all  of 
what  may  be  termed  the  literary  helps  for 
a  right  understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  fill 
up  the  remaining  pages — full  six  hundred, 
closely  printed.  This  part  is  sub-divided 
very  judiciously,  and  distinctly,  into  chapters 
and  sections.  Of  the  larger  divisions,  there 


are  eleven.  The  1st  contains  prefatory 
observations  on  every  one  of  the  books  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  indicating  all 
that  is  known  of  the  several  writers,  with 
the  specific  object  of  each  piece,  and  ana- 
lizing  the  contents;  2,  a  sketch  of  what  is 
known  by  the  term  "sacred  geography;" 
3,  political  antiquities  of  the  Jews  ;  4,  laws 
of  the  Jews ;  5,  festivals ;  6,  sacrt'd  places, 
of  worship,  that  is ;  7,  sacred  things ;  8, 
members  and  officers  of  the  Jewish  Church ; 
9,  corruption  of  religion  among  the  Jews, 
including  the  sects;  10,  national  and  do- 
mestic customs,  including  divisions  of  time, 
weights,  measures,  coins  ;  their  literature, 
houses,  costumes,  marriages,  &c.  <fec.  ;  and, 
11.  an  enumeration  of  allusions  to  foreign 
customs  and  opinions. 

The  execution  of  the  whole  work  is  not 
only  creditable,  but  unexceptionable.  In 
pojnt  of  composition,  too,  Mr.  Home's  work 
will  bear  no  comparison  with  plain  William 
Carpenter's. 

Confessions  of  an  Old  Bachelor  ;  1827. 
— The  "  Old  Bachelor's  Confessions"  are 
mixed  up,  clumsily  enough,  with  the  inci- 
dents of  a  narrative.  The  Confessor  him- 
self is  a  nervous  and  vapoured  old  man — as 
a  man  without  a  wife  must  of  course  be— 
indulging  his  own  whims — retaining  tena- 
ciously his  opinions — professedly  at  least — 
his  habits  and  his  dress,  of  forty  years  ago, 
even  to  his  pig-tail,  and  railing  against  the 
changes  of  the  times,  which  annoy  and  exas- 
perate him,  and  prompt  floods  of  spleen  and 
bile.  He  is  a  valetudinarian,  too,  of  nearly 
seventy;  and  under  the  care  and  surveillance 
of  his  housekeeper,  he  undertakes  the  painful 
operation  of  a  visit  to  the  country,  and  the 
visit  is  extended  to  Bath,  and  a  return  by 
Cheltenham  and  Oxford.  The  Confessions 
are  written  on  the  several  stages  of  his  tour, 
and  fill  up  the  dearth  of  incident.  They, 
however,  amount  to  little  or  nothing — a 
few  school-boy  tricks — his  college  adven- 
tures are  reserved  for  a  separate  volume— 
his  tour  in  search  of  a  wife — the  opporUi- 
tunities  he  found,  or  made,  and  missed,  or 
lost,  or  disregarded — none  of  them  of  any 
interest  or  novelty  whatever. 

The  volume,  however,  has  a  great  deal  of 
sensible  and  well-founded  remark  in  it— com- 
mon enough  still,  but  always  judicious  in  itself, 
though  rarely  appropriate  to  the  assumed  and 
described  character.  The  spirit  of  the  re- 
mark, in  short,  is  manifestly  of  too  modern 
a  cast  for  the  antiquated  character  of  the 
bachelor,  and  too  liberal  and  vigorous  for 
the  enfeebled  and  querulous  invalid.  The 
sentiments  spring  from  a  yonnger  and  more 
active  mind,  than  of  one  who  has  done 
nothing  for  thirty  years,  but  pass  from  his 
lodgings  to  his  club — now  and  then  visiting 
a  bookstall, or  a  picture  shop— monosyllab- 
ising  with  the  members  of  the  club,  or  at 
home  with  his  nurse,  whining  over  his  aches 
and  his  plagues,  or  grumbling  at  his  disap- 
pointments. The  "  Old  Maid,"  whenever 

2  R  2 


308 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MARCH, 


she  comes  forth — and  that  will  not  be  long 
first — with  her  Confessions,  will  prove,  we 
doubt  not,  far  too  knowing  ;  and  the  "  Old 
Man,"  in  like  manner,  will  forget  he  has 
never  seen  forty. 

The  writer  is  too  apt  to  run  into  carica- 
ture—his  description  of  the  person  and  qua- 
lifications of  the  Schoolmaster  is  mere  ex- 
travagance, with  no  smartness  to  redeem  it. 
The  pic-nic  party  in  the  forest,  very  little 
better.  He  is  best  when  he  is  serious,  and 
warmed  into  argument ;  and  even  then  it  is 
questionable,  whether  he  is  not  really  quiz- 
zing. The  writing  has  frequently  all  the 
air  of  n  piece  of  magazine  embroidery — 
mistaking  flippancy  for  vivacity. 

Take  a  specimen  of  his  serious  remarks — 
whether  he  be  serious  or  not — no  matter — 
we  are.  Speaking  of  improvements,  he  says, 

1  fancy  1  know  as  much  about  the  merits  of 
modern  and  ancient  times,  as  those  who  pretend  to 
be  more  knowing  :  but  let  me  tell  them  this  ;  let 
me  tell  those  impertinents,  who  brag  of  their 
modern  improvements,  that  they  may  do  so  with 
a  little  more  justice,  when  they  have  rectified  the 
various  evils  of  the  present  day.  Yes,  when 
wretched,  bleeding,  and  lovely  Ireland  is  pacified, 
by  whatever  means  that  object  may  be  effected  ; 
when  the  present  fluctuations  in  the  price  of  pro- 
ductions have  been  smoothed  down  to  a  fixed  and 
level  standard ;  when  a  general  reformation  has 
been  made  in  the  laws,  both  civil  and  criminal,  in 
substance  and  in  practice  ;  and  a  new  code  has 
been  framed  ;  when  something  like  uniformity  has 
been  established  between  the  east  and  west  sides  of 
Northumberland  House,  which  will  only  be,  when 
the  prejudices  of  cockney  proprietors  is  overcome  ; 
when  the  projected  quay  is  erected  on  the  banks 
of  our  noble  river ;  when  quiet  people  can  walk  by 
the  side  of  the  docks  without  being  kidnapped, 
under  the  pretext  of  legal  impressment  and  public 
expediency ;  when  the  sale  of  game  has  been  le- 
galized, to  the  entire  abolition  of  poaching,  (for 
what  tradesman  will  not  sooner  buy  game,  brought 
him  by  the  proprietor,  than  purloined  for  him  by 
the  nightly  marauder?)  when  sweeping  boys  are 
able  to  wash  the  soot  from  their  faces,  and  heal 
the  wounds  of  their  raw  and  festering  knees  ;— 
why  then,  I  say,  when  all  this  has  been  done, 
people  may  indeed  talk,  with  reason,  of  improve- 
ment ;  I  shall  then  be  willing  to  listen  to  them 
with  a  little  more  patience.  When  all  this  has 
taken  place,  why  then — why  then — there  will  be, 
comparatively,  nothing  left  to  be  hoped  for,  but 
the  apotheosis  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon. 

The  Wolfe  of  Badenoch,  an  Historical 
Romance  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  by 
the  Author  of"  Lochandu."  3  vols.  12mo.  ; 
1827. — Of  "Lochandu/'  we  never  before 
heard.  If  the  reader  have  any  curiosity,  the 
writer,  we  are  assured  on  "good  authority," 
is  another  Scotch  Baronet,  and  not  one  of 
recent  creation,  but  one  who  can  count 
transmissions  of  the  title,  six  or  seven,  through 
a  distant  line  of  ancestors.  The  name  itself, 
though  already  known  to  some  few,  and  to 
ourselves  too,  happily  among  that  favoured 
few,  is  not  yet  to  be  bruited  to  the  vulgar'; 
and  decorum  forfend  (hat  we  should  indis- 


creetly, or  ungratefully  break  the  sacred 
silence. 

We  love  a  preface,  and  therefore  we 
glanced  at  the  writer's  preface — we  beg 
pardon  of  his  superior  taste — the  writer's 
"  preliminary  notice."  It  is  at  once  decla- 
rative and  exculpatory.  The  "Wolfe  of 
Badeuoch,"  it  seem?,  was  advertised  in  June 
1825,  at  which  time  it  was  ready  for  the 
press.  Since  then,  certain  circumstances, 
easily  guessed  at — meaning  perhaps — it  is 
only  a  guess  of  ours — Constable's  bank- 
ruptcy— have  subjected  it,  with  many  a  more 
important  work,  to  an  embargo,  tfec.  The 
author  himself  had  forgotten  it,  until  now 
that  it  has  been  unexpectedly  called  for  ; 
and  this  must  be  his  apology,  <fec.  Now 
what  silly  affectation  is  this  ?  Does  he  not 
know  that  no  man  of  common,  or  uncom- 
mon sense,  will  give  him  credit  for  the  truth 
of  this  declaration  ?  Then  why,  whether  true 
or  not,  does  he  make  it  ? 

"  But  he  has  been  accused,"  he  says,  "  of 
being  an  imitator  of  the  Great  Unknown. 
He  is  not  so  wilfully,  "  &c.  What  then  ?  His 
subjects  are  the  same,  his  scenes,  his  charac- 
ters. His  more  elaboratedescriptions  bear  upon 
the  same  topics — fires,  floods,  sieges,  battles, 
escapes,  scarcely  intelligible  and  utterly  in- 
credible; rocks  impassible,  and  precipices 
unsaleable,  by  limbs  and  sinews  of  mortal 
mould — detailed  indeed  with  some  vigour  of 
fancy,  and  intensity  of  conception,  but  with 
a  particularity,  and  labour,  and  length,  that 
not  one  reader  in  fifty  ever  peruses  or 
perusing,  surmounts  their  intricacies.  Of 
difficulties  and  embarrassments  by  flood  and 
field,  Mrs.  Rat  cliff e  treated  us  with  abund- 
ance ;  and  Godwin,  with  miraculous  escapes, 
that  every  witling  thinks  to  parallel ;  but  Sir 
W.  Scott  it  is  that  riots  in  these  and  similar 
scenes ;  and  this  author  of  u  Lochundu'' 
does  the  same.  All  his  energies  are  re- 
served for  these  momentous  descriptions, 
and  nothing  else  seems  deserving  of  his  exer- 
tions. We  do  not  say  that  he  imitates,  in 
his  sense  of  the  word;  but  Sir  Walter  has 
been  pre-eminently  successful  in  these  mat- 
ters, and  this  second  Sir  Something  Some- 
body must  try  his  powers  on  the  same 
topics ;  and  this  is  all  we  presume  that  is 
meant  by  the  charge  of  which  he  complains. 
But  is  not  this  imitation  ?  He  follows  Sir 
Walter;  and  but  for  his  predecessor,  he 
would  never  have  gone  over  the  ground  he 
has  gone.  If  he  wishes  to  escape  the  offen- 
sive charge,  he  must  originate. 

The  "  Wolfe  of  Badenoch"  is  a  good 
taking  title;  but  the  Wolfe  of  Badenoch  is 
not  the  subject  of  the  romance.  The  inci- 
dents of  the  Wolfe  are  strictly  an  episode, 
and  connected  with  the  main  story  by  the 
slenderest  threads.  This  "  Wolfe''  was  the 
noun  de  guerre  of  the  third  son  of  Robert 
the  Second  of  Scotland,  and  flourished,  as 
the  chronologers  have  it,  of  course,  in  the 
Fourteenth  Century.  He  must  be  made  to 
merit  his  ferocious  "  addition,"  and  all  rage 
and  violence,  and  vehemence,  we  find  him — 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


309 


full  of  fire  and  fury — an  active  volcano. 
With  a  boiling  spirit  of  impetuous  impa- 
tience, that  knows  no  control  from  within  or 
without,  he  has  a  son  of  the  same  blessed 
temperament — ready  4at  every  carouse  to 
fling  the  tankards  at  each  other's  heads; 
and  at  every  contradiction,  each  to  plunge 
his  sword  into  the  other's  bosom.  The 
"  Wolle"  had  deserted  his  wife,  and  living, 
as  he  does,  in  open  profligacy  with  a  leman, 
draws  on  him  the  censures  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  and  her  censures  he  sets  at  de- 
fiance, and  in  revenge — impelled,  besides  by 
a  desire  to  grasp  at  some  ecclesiastical  lands 
— he  sets  fire  to  the  town  of  Forres,  and 
burns  down  the  Archdeacon's  mansion,  and 
part  of  the  cathedral.  The  Church  retaliates 
with  her  final  censures,  an;l  again  the  "  Wolfe'' 
gives  free  course  to  his  vengeance,  and  wreaks 
it  upon  the  buildings  and  the  magnificent 
cathedral  of  Elgin.  On  this  occasion,  three 
of  his  sons  are  severely  wounded,  and  a 
fourth  is  in  imminent  peril  from  the  confla- 
gration. The  terrors  of  the  father  are  too 
mighty  for  his  energies,  and  he  is  seized 
•with  a  raging  fever.  In  the  agonies  of 
disease  and  apprehension,  sharpened  by  the 
activity  of  a  resolute  Franciscan,  who  ad- 
ministers to  both  soul  and  body,  he  is  finally 
brought  to  submission — is  reconciled  to  the 
Church  and  to  his  father ;  and  on  his  re- 
covery, undergoes  the  penance  of  walking 
barefoot,  in  public,  to  the  church — mani- 
festly in  the  determination  of  proceeding 
with  the  same  contumacy,  and  haughty,  and 
impetuous  spirit  as  before.  The  writer  pro- 
fesses to  adhere  rigorously  to  historical 
facts.  A 11  the  common  histories  of  Scotland 
represent  the  Wolfe,  after  the  outrage  upon 
Elgin,  as  being  thrown  into  prison  by  his 
father,  and  remaining  there  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  The  author  relies  upon  a  contempo- 
rary chronicle,  and  may  have  reason  for  his 
reliance.  Our  received  histories  are  full  of 
convicted  blunders.  The  Wolfe's  sarco- 
phagus is  still  in  the  cathedral  of  Dunkeld, 
from  the  inscription  of  \thich,  it  seems  he 
died  in  1394.  His  father  died  in  1390. 

The  story  of  the  Wolfe  is,  as  we  have 
said,  strictly  an  episode ;  but  it  is  by  far  the 
best  part  of  the  romance.  All  that  relates 
to  him  is  vigorously  and  effectively  exe- 
cuted. That  which  really  constitutes  the 
romance — that  with  which  the  volumes  begin 
and  end,  and  with  which  they  are  chiefly 
occupied,  is  of  far  inferior  interest,  and  much 
of  it  of  far  inferior  execution.  An  Hephorne 
returns,  with  a  friend,  from  the  wars  of 
France,  passes  through  England,  and  stops 
at  Norham  Castle,  on  the  borders.  Here  he 
gets  a  few  glimpses  of  a  lady,  and  being  red- 
hot  for  falling  in  love  with  the  first  fair 
form  he  meets,  is  at  once  desperately,  and 
as  it  proves,  perjnanently  enamoured.  He 
goes  on  to  Scotland  with  his  friend,  and 
visits  his  paternal  roof — marries  his  sister  to 
his  friend ;  sets  out  to  a  splendid  tournay — 
visits  the  court — joins  a  challenging  party 
to  London,  to  fight  on  London  Bridge — re- 


turns, and  accompanies  the  expedition  of  the 
Douglas'  to  Newcastle,  and  is  present  at  the 
fight  of  Otterboume,  where  the  Douglas 
is  slain,  and  Hotspur  and  his  brother  are 
taken  prisoners,  <fec.  tfec.  On  all  these  oc- 
casions, and  on  all  others,  be  is  distinguished 
by  his  gallant  bearing,  his  frank  and  cour- 
teous manner,  and  in  short  by  a  cluster  of 
generous  and  gentlemanly  qualities.  In  all 
these  places  too,  he  encounters  the  lady  of 
Norham  Castle— sometimes  believing  her  to 
be  one  person  and  sometimes  another — at 
one  time  she  attends  upon  him,  unknown,  as 
his  page ;  but  at  last  the  cloud  of  mystery 
clears  away,  and  the  parties,  in  the  wonted 
way,  are  blessed. 

Though  much  of  the  tale  may  be  said  to  be 
ably  done,  the  effect  is  heavy;  and  but  for  the 
relief  of  the  Wolfe,  would  be  intolerably  op- 
pressive. The  dialogue  of  the  leading  per- 
sons is  insufferable  from  the  affected  quaint- 
ness  of  the  language — a  medley  of  ancient 
and  modern — of  English,  and  Saxon,  and 
French,  and  Latin.  Does  the  writer  imagine 
the  gentlemen  of  the  age,  of  which  he  writes, 
spake  such  a  mag-pie  dialect?  But  the  lan- 
guage of  the  underlings  is  past  bearing1 
at  all. 

A  General  View  of  the  Present  System 
of  Public  Education  in  France,  and  of 
the  Laws,  Regulations,  and  Courses  of 
Study  in  the  Different  Faculties,  Collegcist 
and  inferior  Schools,  which  now  compose 
the  Royal  University  of  that  Kingdom.  By 
David  Johnston,  M.  D.  ;  1827.  —  Very 
early  in  the  French  Revolution,  the  Univer- 
sity of  Paris  was  broken  up — nil  its  privileges 
were  annihilated,  and  its  possessions  dis- 
persed ;  and  with  it  every  other  public  and 
protected  institution  for  education.  The 
common  resources  and  scenes  of  in- 
struction were  swept  away,  and  instruc- 
tion was  sought  for  from  any  quarter, 
from  pretenders  and  unpretenders — without 
authority,  since  it  couid  not  be  obtained 
with — by  hook  or  by  crook — any  way — 
wherever  it  could  be  procured.  There  were 
none  to  control  the  master  or  the  scholar  ; 
the  wonted  course  might  be  safely  aban- 
doned, and  another  method  as  safely  adopted. 
There  was  a  chance  for  getting  rid  of  the 
bad,  and  at  least  of  trying  a  better.  Edu- 
cation was  completely  unfettered,  and  left — 
as  surely  it  ought  to  be — to '  the  effects  of 
unthwarted  competition. 

This  free  state  of  things,  however,  was  not 
suffered  to  last  long.  The  essence  of  edu- 
cation is  not  enough  for  people.  They  re- 
quire certain  outward  and  visible  signs  to 
recognise  the  man,  who  is  qualified  to 
teach,  or  to  preach,  or  to  cut  oft'  a  limb,  or 
dabble  in  physic,  or  quibble  in  the  courts ; 
and  there  must  therefore  be  authorities,  under 
whose  control  men  may  graduate,  and  thus 
win  titles  to  confidence.  Besides,  among  the 
philosophers  of  the  national  convention,  edu- 
cation was  a  favourite  subject  of  specula- 
tion. Man  is  the  creature  of  habit.  Take 


310 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MARCH, 


the  management  of  him  into  your  own  bands, 
and  you  make  him  what  you  like.  He  is 
clay  in  the  potter's  hand.  Excogitate  then 
a  comprehensive  scheme,  of  education,  and 
give  the  bent  and  law  to  his  habits.  Make 
the  adoption  of  that  scheme  imperative, 
and  you  mould  your  people  into  just  what 
form  you  would  have  them.  Men  and  wo- 
men are  but  flesh  and  blood,  and  flesh  and 
blood  follow  the  laws  of  mechanics  as  stea- 
dily as  plants  and  fossils. 

Hence  originated  the  national  plan  of  edu- 
cation by  primary,  central,  and  special  schools 
in  1795,  which  was  to  pervade  the  whole 
territory  of  France ;  but  which,  however, 
was  never  carried,  to  any  considerable  extent, 
into  execution,  and  was  itself  superseded  by 
another,  in  1802 — the  work  of  Fourcroy, 
Roederer,  and  Regnaud.  Essentially,  perhaps, 
the  new  scheme  differed  from  the  first  more  in 
names  and  distinctions  than  in  realities.  The 
schools  were  now  divided  into  primary,  se- 
condary, Lycea,  and  special  schools,  each 
succeeding  one  risiBg'tin  importance  over  the 
other,  and  all  placed  under  the  superin- 
tendence of  the  civil  magistrate,  and  con- 
fined to  the  same  commanded  course  of 
study. 

This  second  institution,  however,  assumed 
a  new  and  more  imposing  aspect  under  the 
Emperor;  for,  in  1S08,  it  was  transformed 
into  the  Imperial  University.  To  the  control 
of  this  university — still  existing,  with  scarcely 
any  but  insignificant  changes,  though  of 
course  now,  with  the  title  of  "  Royal," — is 
exclusively  confided  the  public  instruction 
throughout  the  kingdom.  To  it  is  entrusted 
the  education  of  the  people  in  all  its  branches. 
The  Royal  University  is  no  longer  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  ;  but  is  a  body  that  stretches 
its  feelers  through  every  corner  of  the  king- 
dom— subject  solely  to  the  jurisdiction  of  a 
council  residing  at  Paris,  called  the  Royal 
Council  of  Public  Instruction,  the  head  of 
which  has  the  rank  and  title  of  Secretary  of 
State.*  No  establishments,except  those  con- 
nected with  the  public  service — military  ones 
— can  exist  in  France,  independent  of  the 
University.  Every  school,  of  whatever  na- 
ture, public  or  private,  high  or  low,  for  the 
great  or  the  little,  is  subject  to  its  statutes  or 
its  surveillance;  and  HO  one  can  open  a 
school,  without  being  a  member  of  the  Uni- 
versity, or  sanctioned  by  its  authority. 

This  university  consists  of  twenty-six  aca- 
demies, as  they  are  styled,  corresponding 
with  the  courts  of  appeal,  or  royal  courts. 
That  is,  the  limits  of  each  of  the  twenty-six 
royal  courts  constitute  the  limits  of  an  "  aca- 
demy.'* Its  schools  are  classed  thus: — i. 
Faculties,  of  which  there  are  five ;  theology, 
law,  medicine,  sciences,  and  letters.  These 
are  destined  to  the  teaching  of  science  and 
literature  in  their  highest  branches,  and  can 
alone  confer  the  highest  academical  honours. 
2.  Colleges,  in  which  are  taught  the  ele- 

*  The  present  head  is  Fraisainous,  Bishop  of 
Hermopolis,  and  is,  or  lately  was  the  King's  con- 
fessor. 


ments  of  philosophy  and  science.  3.  Pri- 
vate institutions  and  boarding-schools.  4. 
Primary  schools,  for  reading,  writing,  arith- 
metic, <fec.,  which  are  again  divided  into 
three  orders,  according  as  the  instruction  is 
more  or  less  advanced. 

The  author  of  the  volume  before  us — a 
gentleman,  apparently  well  acquainted  with 
France — enters  very  minutely  into  the  ope- 
rations of  this  magnificent  institution,  its 
mode  of  government,  and  course  of  study, 
of  the  whole  of  which  he  is  inclined  to  speak 
in  a  very  laudatory  tone.  The  total  silence 
he  observes,— we  cannot  forbear  remarking, — 
upon  the  facilities,  which  this  system  of  con- 
trol gives  the  clergy  of  France,  and  the  ac- 
tual use  they  are  known  to  be  making  of 
those  facilities  is,  for  an  Englishman,  and 
even  for  a  Scotchman,  to  say  tbe  least  of  it, 
something  singular.  Dr.  Johnston  must  know 
perfectly,  that  the  Royal  University  is,  under 
existing  management,  essentially  a  clerical 
institution,  and  altogether  in  the  hands, 'or 
at  least  uliogether  under  the  control  of  the 
clergy  Can  he  be  insensible  to  the  conse- 
quences ? 

But  he  has  a  particular  motive  for  this  pub- 
lication— at  leust  for  publishing  at  this  par- 
ticular period.  A  commission — a  "  royal" 
commission,  as  he  reverently  phrases  it — is 
actually  at  this  time  inquiring  into  the  state 
of  the  Scottish  universities  ;  and  the  author 
considers  the  publication,  therefore,  at  such 
a  time,  of  a  History  of  the  University  of 
France,  with  an  account  of  its  institutions 
and  arrangements,  and  particularly  its  course 
of  study,  in  the  higher  schools  and  the  lower, 
eminently  appropriate.  Bearing  these  things 
in  mind — but  one  conclusion  can  be  drawn — 
that  if  any  change  be  contemplated  in  Scot- 
land, it  is  desirable  to  assimilate  them  to 
that  of  the  Royal  University  of  France.  We 
know  but  little  of  Scotch  universities ;  they 
may  want  reforming ;  but  we  should  wish  to 
see  all  institutions  of  this  nature  with  fewer 
restrictions,  rather  than  more. 

Dr.  Johnston  introduces  his  view  of  the 
present  stute  of  education,  with  a  history  of 
the  origin  and  progress  of  the  old  University 
of  Paris,  which  is  well  enough  as  a  sort  of 
syllabus  of  the  succession  of  facts  relative  to 
that  once  conspicuous  and  formidable  insti- 
tution ;  but  in  any  other  light,  is  miserably 
dry  and  meagre.  In  the  course  of  his  after- 
statements  on  the  existing  system  of  educa- 
tion, he  speaks  of  the  remark  able  extension 
of  schools  for  mutual  instruction  in  France. 
Is  he  not  aware  that  these  institutions  are 
looked  upon  with  great  coolness  by  the  Uni- 
versity, and  have,  in  fact,  during  the  last 
year,  received  a  serious  check? 

We  quote  a  fact  or  two  relative  to  educa- 
cation,  incidentally  mentioned  by  Dr.  John- 
ston— page  228. 

The  King  of  Prussia,  by  a  late  edict,  calls 
upon  all  his  subjects,  under  penalties,  to 
send  their  children  to  school  at  a  certain 
age ; — and  the  King  of  Sardinia,  by  an  edict 
of  nearly  the  same  date,  forbids  all  persons, 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


311 


who  do  not  possses  a  certain  annual  income, 
from  attending  the  literary  institutions  of  his 
kmgdoir. 

So  much  for  sovereigns  meddling  with 
education ! 

Voltaire's  Philosophical  Dictionary ; 
1826.— This  is  tbe  first  time  Voltaire's  Phi- 
losophical Dictionary  has  been  translated; 
and  some  of  our  readers'  will  think,  perhaps, 
it  would  have  been  better  left  alone  now. 
We  are  not  precisely  of  that  opinion, 
though  we  do  not  think  the  translation  was 
called  lor.  Thosa  who  can  taste  Voltaire, 
will  prefer  him  in  the  raciness  of  his  own 
inimitable  language.  But  there  is  more 
good  than  harm  in  the  work;  and  we  are  not 
for  suppressing  good,  because  it  happens  to 
be  mixed  up  occasionally  with  what  is  less 
acceptable.  Every  thing  requires  sifting. 
What  good  is  unaccompanied  with  evil  ?  Or 
what  so  bad  from  which  good  may  not  be 
extracted  ?  If  Voltaire  is  to  be  proscribed — 
how  many  scores  of  admitted  denizens  should 
share  in  the  proscription?  Voltaire  was  a 
man  eminently/ree  from  prejudice — bad  as 
well  as  good.  He  looked  with  a  direct  and 
searching  eye  through  the  institutions  of  so- 
ciety; his  keen  and  penetrating  glance  de- 
tected absurdities,  perversions,  cruelties ; 
and  his  impetuous  activity  compelled  him 
irresistibly  to  expose  them.  The  ardour  of 
his  temperament  hurried  him  frequently  be- 
yond the  point  of  discretion,  and  the  desire 
of  victory,  no  doubt,  occasionally  beyond 
the  bounds  of  truth  and  propriety.  He  made 
war  upon  hypocrisy,  as  openly  as  he  dared. 
The  power  of  the  hypocrites  be  attacked, 
forced  himself  into  hypocrisy,  but  it  was  hy- 
pocrisy of  another  cast — a  different  texture. 
The  object  of  his  hypocrisy  was  not  to  de- 
ceive the  world,  but  to  screen  himself  from 
a  formidable  party.  But  in  how  many  in- 
stances did  he  not  dare  the  worst  resentments 
of  his  enemies;  and  how  much  did  he  not  in 
reality  suffer  from  them  ?  Were  thesepersecu- 
tions  encountered  in  the  pursuit  of  self-in- 
terest? No,  but  of  general  humanity.  He  had 
faults  enough  of  character,  perhaps ;  and  has 
offended  in  his  writings,  sometimes,  against 
truth,  and  delicacy,  and  accuracy,  but  never 
against  the  charities  and  kindly  feelings  of 
mankind.  Uniformly  he  inculcates  huma- 
nity, and  freedom,  and  intelligence;  and  if 
he  attack  the  priests  of  his  country,  it  is 
because  he  believed,  and  he  found  them  to  be 
hostile  to  these,  the  noblest  qualities  of  our 
nature. 

He  blunders,  npw  and  then;  but  looking 
to  the  mass,  and  ths  variety,  the  wonder  is, 
that  he  is  so  often  as  he  is,  just,  discerning, 
original,  and  sometimes  profound.  The  ar- 
tiples  on  religions  subjects— some  of  them,  at 
least — might,  and  should  have  been  omitted ; 
—  to  the  believer,  they  are  offensive ;  and  to 
the  unbeliever,  surely  superfluous 

"  The  Philosophical  Dictionary,"  says  the 
translator,  who  has  sketched  the  character  of 
Voltaire  with  a  good  deal  of  discrimination, 


"  is  one  of  the  most  lively,  amusing,  and 
various  books  of  fact  and  illustration  now  in 
existence;  comprising  information,  adapted 
to  every  taste  and  line  of  study,  delivered 
with  the  wit,  animation,  ease,  and  perspi- 
cuity, for  which  its  gifted  author  was  unri- 
valled. There  is  scarcely  a  topic,  which  has 
instructed  or  amused  the  world  of  letters, 
which  is  not  treated  of,  nor  any  part  of  the 
varied  shores,  which  bound  the  ever-revol- 
ving tide  of  human  opinion,  left  unexplored." 

Three  Months  in  Ireland,  by  an  Engliss 
Protestant;  1827.— This  "Three  Months 
in  Ireland"  has  very  much  disappointed  us — 
not  but  that  the  writer  has  very  correct  no- 
tions of  the  state  of  Ireland,  and  very  be- 
coming feelings  on  the  subject  of  her 
wrongs ;  but, because  the  materials,  on  which 
he  builds  his  opinions,  might  have  been  rea- 
dily obtained  at  home.  The  volume  contains 
nothing  which  might  not  have  been  com- 
piled in  Albemaile-street,  where,  after  all, 
perhaps,  the  materials  were  obtained,  and 
tbe  book  elaborated.  It  absolutely  has  no- 
thing to  mark  the  individual  observer.  We 
have  indeed  seldom  seen  such  a  specimen  of 
mere  book-making  from  Mr.  Murray's  la- 
boratory. If  the  statements  put  forth  really 
be  the  result  of  a  three  months'  residence, 
and  of  l(  very  favourable  opportunities,1'  the 
writer  must  be  regarded  as  a  new  convert  to 
liberal  sentiments  relative  to  Ireland  ;  for 
this  supposition  alone  can  account  for  his  re- 
capitulating, at  this  time  of  day,  the  grounds 
on  which  he  forms  the  opinions  put  forth,  on 
tithes,  and  absentees,  and  orangemen,  and 
charter-schools — opinions,  on  which  others 
have  made  up  their  minds  long,  and  long 
ago.  He  is  in  the  case  of  those,  who  make 
discoveries,  which  prove  to  be  what  every 
body  knows. 

These  novel  sentiments,  expressed  in  tole- 
rably plain  and  unobjectionable  prose,  we 
found,  to  our  surprise,  again  appearing  in 
another  style  of  prose — obscure  and  unread- 
able—with a  pair  of  rhymes  for  every  twenty 
syllables.  What  could  induce  the  writer 
to  trouble  himself,  and  plague  his  readers 
with  this  metrical  rechauffe,  is  beyond  all 
explanation.  Facit  indignatio  versus,  was 
Juvenal's  excuse,  and  verses  followed,  or 
at  least  there  was  no  want  of  the  fervour 
that  indignation  generates.  But  here  we 
have  neither  one  nor  the  other — indignation, 
nor  verses — the  indignation  evaporates  in 
the  preface,  and  the  verses  are  the  laborious 
result  of  the  shadows  of  indignation — the 
recollections  of  spent  enthusiasm,  and  not 
the  promptings  of  natural  feelings.  The 
lines  are  utterly  without  passion  or  vigour ; 
and  yet  quando  uberior  vitiorum  copia? 
The  writer  must  look  to  other  quarters  for 
inspiration — indignation  fails  him. 

In  the  appendix — the  book  is  all  preface 
and  appendix — tbe  verses  occupy  thirty  or 
forty  pages  only — is  given  a  return  of  the 
compositions  for  tithe,  made  in  consequence 
of  Mr.  Goulburn's  bill,  by  which  it  appears 


312 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MARCH, 


that  368  parishes  hnve  compounded  for 
£1 1 1,529  8s.  8d. ;  amounting  to  about  £300 
a  year  each.  Returns  usually  mislead.  The 
one  before  us  is  calculated  directly  and  de- 
signedly to  do  so.  These  368  constitute 
only  234  livings,  and  should  therefore  have 
been  returned  as  swell.  This  number  of  368 
is  reduced,  by  unions,  to  234 ;  that  i«,  two 
or  more  livings  have  been  from  time  to  time 
consolidated,  for  want  of  Protestant  congre- 
gations. This  234  brings  up  the  value  to 
£500 ;  but  even  this  is  no  criterion  of  the 
value  of  the  livings,  which  the  writer  before 
us,  and  others,  apparently  on  good  grounds, 
place  at  £800.  Take  the  writer's  particular 
statement.  We  are  sorry  it  is  so  prosy — 
ihe  facts  are  worth  something : — 

From  the  evidence  of  Justin  Mac  Cartby,  esq.,  a 
magistrate  of  the  county  of  Cork,  before  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  quoted  in  the  appendix,  it 
seems  that  it  has  been  usual  to  fix  the  new  in- 
comes, under  the  Composition  Act,  lower  than  the 
former  incomes,  on  account  of  the  additional  se- 
curity  and  increased  facility  of  collection.  The 
average,  therefore,  of  livings,  which  have  not 
compounded  must  be  higher  than  that  of  the 
livings  which  have.  Besides,  in  this  document  of 
compositions,  there  are  reckoned,  as  districtbene- 
fices,  parishes  which,  it  is  true,  are  not  joined  in 
an  union  with  others ;  but  which,  from  peculiar 
circumstances,  produce  so  very  small  an  income, 
that  they  cannot  possibly  be  held  alone,  and  must 
naturally  and  properly  occasion  pluralities.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  benefice  of  Vastinay  (diocese  of 
Meath)  produces  only  .£17  a  year  ;  and  this,  and 
similar  instances,  tend  unfairly  to  lower  the  appa- 
rent average  of  clerical  income.  Dismissing, 
however,  these  two  important  considerations,  it 
may  be  shewn  even  without  them,  that  the  average 
revenue  of  Irish  benetices  is  at  least  ,£800.  It 
appears  from  the  official  document  of  Compositions 
already  quoted,  that  the  averages  of  the  benefices 
that  have  compounded  must  be  much  higher  than 
.£500  a  year  ;  because  many  of  the  parishes  in 
unions  have  not,  while  others  have,  compounded. 
Thus  it  frequently  happens,  that  if,  for  instance, 
there  are  six  parishes  in  an  union,  and  only  three 
have  compounded,  the  incomes  of  these  three,  from 
the  official  document,  when  added  together,  seem 
to  form  the  whole  income  of  the  living,  instead  of 
which,  the  produce  of  the  other  three  should  be 
added  also.  Now  in  these  234  benefices,  there  are, 
as  appears  from  the  official  returns,  comprehended 
151  parishes,  which  have  not  compounded  for  their 
tithes,  but  of  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  know 
the  incomes,  before  we  can  ascertain  the  total 
profits,  and  therefore  the  real  average  of  the  bene- 
fices in  question.  Taking  these  parishes  at  the 
average  of  .£300  a  year  (which  the  advocates  of 
tfie  Irish  Church  have  themselves  stated  as  the 
average  of  the  total  yearly  income  they  afford, 
would  be  above  .£45,000 ;  and  dividing  this  sum 
among  the  234  benefices,  it  gives  each  of  them 
yearly  about  .£200.  Thus  it  raises  their  average 
to  .£700  a  year.  But  we  must  now  take  into  con- 
sideration the  glebes,  which  amount  to  above 
83,000  Irish  acres,  that  is,  to  more  than  120,000 
English  acres.  These  we  will  assume  at  the  very 
low  estimate  of  their  producing  only  one  pound  for 
•each  English  acre,  and  the  number  of  benefices  in 


Ireland  being  about  1,250,  this  computation  gives 
us  about  .£100  a  year  for  each  benefice  ;  that  is,  it 
raises  their  average  to  «£800  a  year. 

Triple  the  average  value  of  the  livings  in 
England  ! 

The  wriier  recommends  reduction,  and 
more  unions  of  bishoprics  and  deaneries — 
moreover,  to  abolish  tithes  altogether,  and 
apply  the  produce  of  superfluous  episcopal 
and  chapter  lands  to  compensate  the  clergy 
for  loss  of  tithes.  This  might  be  done  as 
lives  drop.  Unions  of  bishoprics  are  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  in  Irish  history  ;  Denn  and 
Connor  were  united  in  1441  ;  Waterford  and 
Lismore,  in  1536 ;  Cashel  and  Emley,  in 
1568:  Cork  and  Ross,  in  1583;  Leighton 
and  Ferns,  in  1600;  Cloufert  and  Kilmag- 
dnagh,  in  1602;  Tuam  and  Ardagh,  in 
1742;  and  Killaloe  and  Killenora,  as  lately 
as  1752. 

The  Golden  Fiolet,  by  L.  E.  L. ;  1827.— 
L.  E.  L.  and  Mrs  Hemans  divide  the  popular 
laurel  of  the  lady-poets  of  the  day.  They 
are  equally  ubiquitous  and  equally  intrepid. 
No  fears  of  exhaustion  disturb  or  retard  the 
flow  of"  words  that  breathe" — no  feeling  of 
weariness  in  themselves,  and  no  misgivings 
have  they  of  weariness  in  their  readers ;  they 
pour  forth  their  floods  of  nectar,  as  if  the 
sources  could  never  dry,  nor  the  streams  lose 
their  sweetness,  nor  their  price.  They  scatter 
— to  change  the  figure — there  is  no  talking 
of  poets  without  figures — they  scatter  their 
flowers  with  a  profusion  that  cares  not  for  the 
withering — forthe  loss  can  easily  and  instantly 
be  replaced.  The  rose-buds  are  yet  young  and 
vigorous  —  in  the  full  strength  of  their  bear- 
ing— of  the  Macartney  kind,  and  bloom  the 
year  round,  in  eternal  succession. 

"  Tell  the  same  tale  day  after  day,  and 
in  a  few  months  it  will  be  placed  beyond  the 
reach  of  contradiction."  The  ladies,  of 
whom  we  speak,  have  been  zealously  and 
ably  proneured.  Talents  far  less  effective, 
might  have  been  stimulated  to  successful  ex- 
ertion, and  have  gained  almost  the  same 
eminence,  by  the  same  means.  Far  be  it 
from  us  to  depreciate  their  performances. 
We  have  been  delighted  with  the  occasional 
felicities  of  their  smaller  efforts.  Short 
flights  are  all  they  should,  either  of  them, 
•aim  ut — their  pinions  are  of  too  slight  a 
texture  for  the  muscular  exertions  demanded 
for  towering  and  struggling  up  the  higher 
arid  more  ethereal  regions  of  Olympus — they 
are  of  Daedalian  manufacture,  tastily  con- 
structed and  skilfully  fitted  to  the  shape- 
adhesive  too — but  not  of  native  growth — 
neither  connate  nor  concrete,  and  will  not 
bear  too  near  approaches  to  the  sun. 

The  language  of  poetry  is  become  as  ac- 
cessible to  common  handling  as  that  of 
newspaper-prose.  Rhymes  are  of  the  prompt- 
est recurrence ;  phrases,  specific  and  general, 
of  every  kind,  are  ready-turned,  or  wearing 
down  to  smoothness,  which  flow  from  the 
pen  and  glide  along  the  paper,  leaving  in- 
deed little  or  no  impression,  but  yet  equally 
filling  up  the  page  ;  similies  accumulate  by 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


successive  inheritances  in  myriads;  and  ill  us. 
trntions  of  all  sii.es,  shades,  und  shapes  o| 
approved  propriety,  apt  and  pretty,  are  at 
every  one's  fingers'-ends,  and  always  at  hand, 
and  admitted,  as  of  course,  and  no  questions 
asked.  Practice  has  given  L.  E.  L.  consi- 
derable facility,  and  applause  and  success  no 
little  confidence;  and  l*t  her  write  of  what 
she  will,  it  will  take  a  poetical  air  that  will 
secure  readers,  and  frequently  admirers. 

The  "  Golden  Violet3'  is  the  prize  of  a 
poetical  contest,  and  several  tales  of  romance 
and  chivalry  are  told  by  the  competitors,  in 
a  variety  of  measures.  ToL.  E.L.,  indeed, 
it  seems  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference, 
into  what  metre  she  plunges — Trochaics, 
Iambics,  and  Anapnests — the  medium  is 
equally  navigable — her  agility  and  dexterity 
are  the  same,  and  she  floats  or  flows  with 
the  same  ease.  At  the  close  of  the  volume 
are  thrown  in  two  or  three  smaller  pieces, 
which,  to  our  own  taste,  are  the  best  of  the 
book  ;  and  of  these,  "  Love's  Last  Lesson," 
the  best.  It  tells  of  the  feelings  of  one  who 
is  bidden  by  her  lover  to  "  forget''  him.  The 
pathos  of  the  thing  is  true  and  deep.  It 
looks  less  like  the  mere  effort  of  fancy  than 
the  rest.  It  is  either  "inspiration,''  or  she 
knows  and  feels  what  she  tells  about.  It  is 
the  best  of  the  volume. 

Teach  it  me  if  you  can— i'orgetfulness ! 
I  surely  shall  forget,  if  you  can  bid  me ; 
I,  who  have  worshipp'd  thee  my  god  on  earth." 
I,  who  have  bow'd  me  at  thy  lightest  word. 
Your  last  command,  "  forget  me,"  will  it  not 
Sink  deeply  down  within  my  inmost  soul? 
Forget  thee  !— ay,  forgetfulness  will  be 
A  mercy  to  me.     By  the  many  nights 
When  I  have  wept  for  that  I  dared  not  sleep — 
A  dream  had  made  me  live  my  woes  again, 
Acting  my  wretchedness,  without  the  hope 
My  foolish  heart  still  clings  to,  tho'  that  hope 
Is  like  the  opiate,  which  may  lull  awhile, 
Then  wake  to  double  torture  ;  by  the  days 
Pass'd  in  lone  watching  a'nd  in  anxious  fears, 
When  a  breath  sent  the  crimson  to  my  cheek, 
Like  the  red  gushing  of  a  sudden  wound  ; 
By  all  the  careless  looks,  and  careless  words, 
Which    have  to    me   been  like   the   scorpion's 

stinging: 

By  happiness  blighted,  and  by  thee,  for  ever ; 
By  thy  eternal  work  of  wretchedness  ; 
By  all  my  wither'd  feelings— ruined  health, 
Crush'd  hopes,  and  rifled  heart,  I  will   forget 

thee! 

Alas !  my  words  are  vanity.    Forget  thee ! 
Thy  work  of  wasting  is  too  surely  done. 
The  April  shower  may  pass  and  be  forgotten, 
The  rose  fall,  and  one  fresh  spring  in  its  place  ; 
And  thus  it  may  be  with  light,  summer  love. 
It  was  not  so  with  mine  :  it  did  not  spring, 
Like  the  bright  colour  on  an  evening  cloud, 
Into  a  moment's  life,  brief— beautiful ; 
Not  amid  lighted  halls,  when  flatteries 
Steal  on  the  ear  like  dew  upon  the  rose. 
As,  soft— as  soon  dispersed,  as  quickly  pass'd  ; 
But  you  first  call'd  my  woman's  feelings  forth, 
And  taught   me   love  ere  I   had   named   Love's 

name. 

M.M.  Xcw  Serif  a. — VOL.  III.  No.  1,3. 


She  flung  asids  the  scroll,  as  it  had  part 
In  her  great  misery.    Why  should  she  write? 
What  could  she  write?— Her  woman's  pride  for- 
bade 

To  let  him  look  upon  her  heart,  and  see 
It  was  an  utter  ruin  ; — and  cold  words. 
And  scorn, xand  slight,  that  may  repay  his  own, 
Were  as  a  foreign  language, to  whose  sound 
She  might  not  frame  her  utterance.    Down  she 

bent 

Her  head  upon  an  arm,  so  white,  that  tears 
Seem'd  but  the  natural  melting  of  its  snow. 
Touch'd  by  the  flush'd  cheek's  crimson  ;  yet  life- 
blood 
Less  wrings  in  shedding  than  such  tears  as  those. 

And  this  then,  is  Love's  ending  !  it  is  like 

The  history  of  some  fair  southern  clime. 

Hot  fires  are  in  the  bosom  of  the  earth, 

And  thewarm'd  soil  puts  on  its  thousand  flower*, 

Its  fruits  of  gold,  summer's  regality, 

And  sleep  and  odours  float  upon  the  air  : 

At  length,  the  subterranean  element 

Breaks  forth  its   secret  dwelling-place,  and  lays 

All  waste  before  it ;  the  red  lava  stream 

Sweeps  like  the  pestilence;  and  that  which  wa» 

A  garden  in  its  colours  and  its  breath, 

Fit  for  the  princess  of  a  fairy  tale, 

Is  as  a  desert,  in  whose  burning  sands, 

And  ashy  waters,  who  is  there  can  trace 

A  sign — a  memory  of  its  former  beauty  ? 


Had  he  not  long  read 


Her  heart's  hush'd  secret  in  the  soft  dark  eye, 
Lighted  at  his  approach,  and  on  the  cheek, 
Colouring  all  crimson  at  his  lightest  look  ? 
This  is  the  truth  :     His  spirit  wholly  turn'd 
To  stern  ambition's  dreams,  to  that  fierce  strife 
Which  leads  to  life's  high  places,  and  reck'd  not 
What  lovely  flowers  might  perish  in  his  path. 

Mathematical  and  Astronomical  Tables, 
for  the  use  of  Students  of  Mathematics,  fyc. 
fyc.  by  William  Galbraith,  M.A.  Oliver 
and  Boyd,  Edinburgh. — "  The  application 
of  the  mathematical  sciences  to  practical  pur- 
poses, has  of  late  made  great  advances  in 
accuracy  and  precision,  the  perfection  also 
which  astronomical  and  geological  operations 
have  reached,  and  the  extreme  delicacy  of 
construction  to  which  instruments  have  been 
carried,  require  correspondent  improvements 
in  the  methods  of  computation  and  reduc- 
tion, and  therefore,  coHvenient  tables,  of 
moderate  expense,  must  be  of  great  value  to 
those  engaged  either  in  the  details  of  practice 
or  the  business  of  instruction.  There  are 
two  classes  of  tnbles  chiefly  IH  use ;  one 
either  larger  and  expensive,  or  attached  to 
expensive  works,  and  whick,  therefore,  can 
with  difficulty  be  procured  by  the  generality 
of  purchasers;  the  other  so  limited  and  de- 
fective as  to  be  totally  unfit  for  constant 
reference.  It  has  been  my  study  to  hold  a 
middle  course  between  these  two  extremes. 
By  making  such  additions  to  the  usual 
tables  as  to  render  their  application  more 
easy  without  great! y  increasing  their  bulk  ; 
hy  selecting  the  most  useful  from  larger 

Z  S 


314 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature. 


[MARCH, 


collections;  by  supplying  some  new  tables, . 
ami  simplifying  the  practical  rules,  several 
very  laborious  processes  have  been  rendered 
more  simple  and  precise,  while  the  requisite 
accuracy  for  the  nicest  purposes  has  been 
strictly  preserved."  Such  is  the  statement 
with  which  Mr.  Galbraith  has  submitted 
this  most  useful  work  to  the  public ;  and 
from  a  close  examination  of  the  tables  it 
contains,  as  well  as  the  preliminary  arid 
accompanying  matter,  we  feel  much  plea- 
sure in  declaring  that  the  expectations 
it  holds  out  are  amply  fulfilled  ;  and  \ve 
recommend  it  to  every  person  engaged  in 
practical  science,  ns  a  collection  of  tables 
supplying  a  gap,  which,  from  the  serious  in- 
convenience that  has  hitherto  arisen,  they 
alone  can  appreciate. 

Holland-  Tide.  or  Munster  Popular  Tales  ; 
J827. — We  have  here  apparently  a  new  can- 
didate for  the  laurel  of  Iri>h  novelist,  and 
one  of  no  common  pretensions — evidently 
familiar  with  the  features  of  the  country, 
and  the  habits  of  the  people,  and  capable  of 
exhibiting  their  peculiarities  with  truth  and 
vigour.  u  Holland-Tide,"  or  "  November- 
Eve,'*  is  a  season  of  enjoyment,  the  usual 
festivities  of  which,  though  no  longer  pur- 
sued to  the  same  extent  as  in  other  days,  are 
still  not  neglected  in  Ireland.  One  of  the 
amusements  consists  in  story  telling,  and  the 
volume  before  us  contains  the  tales  supposed 
to  be  told  on  one  of  these  cheering  anniver- 
saries. 

The  principal  tale — occupying  two-thirds 
of  the  volume — has  little  or  no  Munster  pecu- 
liarity, except  its  scenery,  about  it.  The 
same  combination  of  events  might  have  suited 
any  province  in  Ireland,  or  any  county  in 
England.  The  story,  we  suppose,  originates 
in  a  local  tradition,  anjj  thus  is  entitled  to 
the  name  of  a  Munster  tale.  Ayimer,  of 
Bally- Aylmer,  meets  with  his  death  on  board 
a  smuggling  boat,  at  ,a  time,  when  no  one 
is  on  deck  but  his  friend  Fitz-maurice.  Fitz- 
maurice  is  suspected  of  the  murder,  and  is 
brought  to  trial  on  the  suspicion,  but  ac- 
quitted fur  want  of  evidence.  The  degrading 
event  changes  the  character  of  Fitz-maurice, 
and  he  becomes  morose  and  melancholy.  He 
adopts,  however,  the  son  of  his  dead  friend  ; 
educates  him  at  his  own  expense,  and  by  ge- 
nerosity and  good  management  eventually 
clears  off  the  incumbrances  on  the  father's 
estate.  When  the  narrative  begins,  young 
Aylmer  is  returning  from  Dublin  College, 
nnd  crossing  the  Kerry  mountains,  where  he 
encounters  some  perils  from  storms  and 
sbeep-stealers,  on  his  way  to  Fitz-maurice's. 
On  his  arrival — after  an  absence  of  some 
years — his  suspicions  arts  in  a  variety  of 
ways,  awakened  against  his  guardian  as  the 
murderer  of  his  father.  He  is  enamoured  of 
the  daughter;  but  his  filial  remembrances 
and  duties  stimulate  him  to  clear  up  tiie  mys- 
tery. The  spirit  or  the  substance  of  his  fa- 
ther appears  by  the  bedside,  and  seems  just  on 
the  point  of  denouncing  Fitz-maurice  a*  the 


murderer,  when  an  interruption  occurs.  Ayl- 
mer wrings  from  bis  guardian  a  confession  of 
guilt,  and  brings  him  eventually  again  to  trial. 
At  the  trial,  young  Aylmer  deposes  to  the 
confession  of  his  guardian,  and  the  imperfect 
declaration  of  the  ghost.  To  confirm  this 
evidence,  the  ghost  is  summoned  by  the  crier 
of  the  court,  in  behalf  of  our  lord  the  king, 
and  the  elder  Aylmer — the  supposed  murdered 
person — forthwith  appears  in  proprid  per- 
sond.  Aylmer  had  actually  been  dashed  into 
the  water  by  his  friend;  but  had  escaped 
drowning.  He  had,  however,  found  it  ne- 
cessary to  withdraw,  from  the  fear  of  being 
himself  implicated  in  a  charge  of  murdering  a 
king's  officer  in  a  smuggling  affair.  His, 
however,  had  not  been  the  hand  that  dealt 
the  blow.  The  peril  of  his  ancient  friend 
now  prompted  him  to  run  all  hazards.  Dan- 
ger, however,  (here  was  now  none — the  evi- 
dence against  him  was  lost.  The.  friends  are 
reconciled  ;  Aylmer  is  restored  to  his  home, 
and  the  young  people  are  of  course  made 
happy. 

The  next  best  tale  is  the  "  Hand  and 
Word'1— extremely  well  told ;  but  entitled  to 
the  epithet  of  Munster  only  on  (he  same 
grounds  as  the  former.  The  remaining  four 
or  five  bear  more  upon  the  extraordinary — 
the  prevailing  belief  in  the  existence  of 
fairies — their  obliging  or  mischievous  qua- 
lities :  and,  though  less  attractive  as  stories, 
are  more  characteristic  of  the  habits  and  pre- 
judices of  the  province. 

Truckleborough  Hall:  3  vols.  12mo. ; 
1827.— This  is  a  political  tale,  and  the  object 
— blending  the  intemperate  terms  of  conflict- 
ing parties — to  shew  how  readily  a  red-hot 
radical  is  transmutable  into  a  treasury-tool. 
The  scene  is  thrown  back  into  the  French 
Revolution,  and  jacobins  are  substituted  for 
radicals — being,  we  suppose,  somewhat  more 
assailable.  The  aim  of  the  writer-  no  no- 
vice as  a  scribbler — manifestly  is  to  hold  up  to 
ridicule  every  species  of  opposition  to  the 
existing  government.  Extremes  tell  best ; 
and  the  ridicule,  which  extremes  will  always 
furnish,  is  easily  thrown  over  whatever  can 
be  twisted  into  alliance  with  them,  however 
foreign  it  in  reality  may  be.  There  is  no 
fierceness  about -him.  The  days,  indeed,  of 
anti-jacobin  truculence  are  gone  by  ;  but  the 
tory  contempt,  which  has  taken  its  place,  for 
all  pretensions  to  public  spirit,  and  zeal  for 
public  welfare,  is  scarcely  less  intolerable,  or 
less  to  be  lamented.  Through  the  whole 
volumes  runs  a  tone  of  h  irdened  levity,  ex- 
ceedingly revolting,  and  political  profligacy  is 
treated  as  universal.  Low  and  contemptible 
as  are  the  sentiments,  and  worthless  as  is 
the  tale  itself,  the  book  will  be  relished  by 
the  tories— particularly  tories  in  the  country, 
always  in  arrear — and  will  be  referred  to  by 
them  as  a  rich  treasury  of  detractive  abuse 
and  insinuation,  against  the  pretensions  and 
the  purity  of  reformers  of  all  kinds.  It  will 
answer  its  base  purpose  to  a  certain  extent. 

Truckleborough  Hall  is  the  residence  of  a 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


315 


whig  peer,  who  lias  just  purchased  the  inte- 
rest of  the  adjoining  borough.  His  lordship's 
eldest  son  takes  one  seat,  and  the  other  is  to 
be  filled  by  some  dependant  till  the  second  is 
of  age.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  the  borough 
resides  also  a  gentleman  of  some  property — 
tt  man  of  education — bitten  by  jacobin  prin- 
ciples ;  a  member  of  the  corresponding  so- 
ciety ;  assuming  the  cognomen  of  citizen ; 
shunningthe  society  of  his  equals,  and  spread- 
ing his  opinions  among;  the  vulgar — the  bar- 
bers' shops  and  pot-hou<es.  On  the  approach 
of  a  general  election,  he  receives  a  parcel 
from  an  old  political  crony  of  his,  containing 
*•'  Burke's  Reflections,'1  which  his  friend  ad- 
visps  him  to  read,  avowing  himself  not  merely 
shaken  in  his  revolutionary  views,  but  in- 
clined even  to  support  existing  establishments; 
and  intending,  moreover,  to  offer  himself  as 
a  candidate  for  the  borough,  under  the  pa- 
tron's wing.  The  patriot  North  is  disgusted 
at  this  tergiversation,  hurls  Burke  into  the 
fire,  resolves  upon  putting  more  vigour  than 
ever  into  his  exertions,  and  talks  of  itinerat- 
ing to  lecture  on  the  rights  of  the  people. 

On  the  eve  of  the  election,  Lord  Slender — 
the  patron,  and  his  son — accompanied  by 
the  apostate  Turnstile,  wait  upon  the  citizen 
North — addressing  him  with  all  possible  re- 
spect, and  inviting  a  further  acquaintance. 
The  citizen  has  a  very  amiable  daughter, 
and  the  peer  another.  The  young  people  are 
quickly  attached  to  each  other,  and  a  family 
intercourse  ensues.  The  jacobin  contemner 
of  rank  is  secretly  flattered  by  these  atten- 
tions ;  but  is  nevertheless  impelled  to  try  his 
strength,  or  rather  that  of  his  principles  in  the 
borough,  with  the  peer.  The  right  of  elec- 
tion is  solely  with  the  corporation — all  of 
whom,  with  the  exception  of  an  unemployed 
and  therefore  discontented  attorney,  and  ano- 
ther or  two  are  in  the  peer's  interest,  and 
North  of  course  fails.  Nothing  daunted,  after 
the  election  he  resolves  upon  carrying  "his 
itinerating  intentions  into  execution;  and 
coming  to  town,  he  gets"  up  a  meeting  for 
political  discussion,  at  the  Pig's-foot  and 
Pie-crust  in  Shoe-lane.  The  police  inter- 
pose— some  of  the  speakers  are  arrested  ; 
confusion  follows,  and  in  the  confusion  North 
escapes  through  a  window,  and  flies  for  re- 
fuge to  Lord  ^lender's,  the  patron  of  Truckle- 
borough.  He  is  assisted  in  his  flight  by  young 
Slender;  but,  at  Litchfield,  by  a  series  of  un- 
lucky encounters,  is  recognized,  brought  to 
town,  thrown  into  prison,  and  in  due  time 
tried  on  a  charge  of  high  treason.  Evidence 
fails,  and  the  citizen  is  acquitted.  A  public 
dinner  follows,  at  which  North,  now  cooling 
from  the  perils  he  has  incurred,  reluctantly 
attends,  and  makes  a  speech  professive  of 
unchangeable  sentiments,  but  in  terms,  if 
not  ambiguous,  at  least  accompanied  by  re- 
strictions, of  which  he  had  not  spoken  before. 

The  philosopher  now  visits  Lord  Slender, 
and  proposes  to  return  to  his  cottage,  and 
withdraw  from  the  storms  of  political  life. 
But  soon  in  his  way  falls  an  unexpected 
temptation.  Turnstile  is  ruined  by  gaming, 


and  obliged  to  accept  the  Chittcru  Hundreds. 
The  vacant  seat  of  the  borough  is  offered  to 
the  patriot,  and  the  adtocate  for  political 
purity  consents  without  difficulty  to-enter  the 
house  through  a  rotten  borough— the  better 
to  enable  him,  of  course,  to  promote  his  pa- 
triotic? views.  He  revisits  the  borough,  goes 
through  the  whole  farce  of  canvassing, 
speechifying,  dining,  balling,  with  the  same 
persons — then  his  violent  opponents — he  met, 
but  a  few  months  before — and  all  with  a  grave 
face,  professing  himself  to  have  irade  no 
change  in  his  sentiments — he  has  always  been 
mistaken ;  but,  nevertheless,  at  the  same 
time  applauding  what  he  had  before  con- 
demned. He  even  fraternises  with  the  or- 
thodox and  loyal  rector  of  the  borough,  and 
finally  marries  a  daughter  of  his. 

Now  arrives  the  period  lor  the  meeting  of 
parliament.  He  comes  to  town,  am!  waits 
upon  Lord  Veiium — high  in  office — to  pay 
his  respects  on  his  marriage  with  the  daugh- 
ter of  his  patron.  The  noble  lord  makes  a 
careless  inquiry  as  to  the  line  of  politics  Mr. 
North  proposes  to  take — concludes  hf  will 
vote  with  the  Slenders.  North  assures  him 
he  is  an  independent  man,  and  shall  of  course 
vote  with  his  conscience.  The  man  of  office 
approves  of  such  upright  principles ;  and 
mentions  he  has  a  place,  at  his  disposal,  not 
worthy  of  Air.  North's  merits,  or  perhaps  of 
his  acceptance ;  but,  if  he  will  accept,  it  is 
at  his  service.  The  apostate  accepts,  and 
triumphs  on  the  treasury  bench. 

An  introductory  Lecture  on  Human  and 
Comparative  Physiology,  by  Peter  M.  Ro- 
get, M.D.;  1826.— Dr.  Roget,  as  might  be 
expected,  has  here  given  a  very  distinct  and 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  subjects  of  phy- 
siology. The  same  thing  has  no  doubt  been 
done  before,  over  an>.l  over  again ;  but  Dr. 
Roget  is  not  a  man  merely  to  repeat — he  has 
suggested  valuable  hints.  Physiologists  have, 
most  of  them,  wandered  from  the  proper  ob- 
ject of  the  science.  That  object  is  the  search 
into  physical  causes — an  object  too  frequently 
lost  sight  of  in  the  pursuit  of  final  causes. 
They  have  trespassed  upon  the  territories  of 
the  anatomist  and  the  theologian — pardon- 
ably enough — but  still,  men  of  science  should 
know  and  keep  to  their  business.  The  phy- 
siologist thus  betrays  the  very  science  he 
professes  to  advance,  and  not  only  professes, 
but  believes  he  does  advance  it,  and  makes 
his  readers  believe  so  too.  How  is  vital  ac- 
tion produced  ?  By  an  archsius,  or  anima, 
say  Van  Helmont  and  Stuhl.  How  are  cer- 
tain morbid  changes  restored — without  the 
inierference  of  art,  we  mean  ?  By  th"e  vis 
medicatrix  naturte,  exclaim  Hoffman  and 
Cullen.  What  coagulates  the  blood?  The 
stimulus  of  necessity,  says  John  Hunter — 
replies,  all  of  them,  which  amount  to  no- 
thing. 

There  is  a  something,  which  sets  organized 
beings  in  action — a  something  in  them  which 
modifies  and  controuls  the  physical  laws,  to 
which  unorganized  matter  is  subject— a 

2  S  2 


316 


Mont ht/  Review  of  Literature^ 


[MARCH, 


something,  which  gives  new  cohesive  powers 
16  the  solids  of  the  body,  and  coagulable 
oues  to  the  fluids — a  something,  which 
changes  the  effects  of  chemical  affinities,  re- 
taining some,  contrary  to  their  wonted  ten- 
dencies, in  a  state  of  equilibrium,  and  check- 
ing in  others  the  course  of  agencies  destruc- 
tive of  that  equilibrium — a  something,  which 
produces,  in  degrees  corresponding  less  or 
more  apparently  to  the  wants  of  the  sys- 
tem, an  addition  or  deduction  of  caloric,  <fcc. 
<fec.  What  is  this,  or  these  ?  The  "  prin- 
ciple of  life,"  replies  the  physiologist,  with 
all  possible  complacency.  Just  as  if  this 
"  principle  of  life"  was  something  definable, 
simple,  specific — something  intelligible  or 
measurable — the  law  of  whose  action  was  un- 
derstood—and not,  as  it  really  is,  a  cover  for 
ignorance.  The  truth  is,  these  are  effects, 
for  which  no  physical  cause  can  at  present 
be  assigned,  and  in  the  room  of  which  there- 
lore  no  names  should  be  substituted,  but  such 
as  are  expressive  of  the  want  of  knowledge. 
Words  are  too  often  things — and  when  we 
hear  the  words  "  principle  of  life"  from  men 
of  science,  in  general,  conscious  of  our  own 
ignorance,  we  conclude,  in  all  humility, 
they  know  what  they  are  talking  about, 
though  we  do  not,  and  really  have  discovered 
something  beyond  the  ken  of  ordinary  mor- 
tals. Between  many  of  the  effects,  for  the 
cause  of  which  the  "  principle  of  life"  is  as- 
signed, as  Dr.  Roget  very  truly  observes, 
there  exists  not  the  remotest  analogy,  and 
therefore  it  is  unphilosophical ;  that  is,  it  is 
idle  to  assign  a  common  cause,  particularly 
when  the  cause  we  do  assign  is  a  mere  phrase, 
without  a  meaning.  It  is  one  thing  to  point 
out  the  relation  of  means  and  ends,  and  quite 
another  that  of  causes  and  effects.  These, 
however,  physiologists  perpetually  confound. 
Such  and  such  effects  are  manifestly  condu- 
cive to  the  welfare  of  the  individual — such  or 
such  things  are  destined  for  such  purposes ; 
something  directs  them  to  their  objects,  and 
that  something  is  the  cause.  No,  that  is  not 
forthwith  the  cause — it  is  not  the  cause  phy- 
siologically, and,  till  we  know  the  cause  in 
that  sense,  the  immediate  physical  cause,  we 
know  nothing  about  the  matter  physiologi- 
cally. 

This  is  the  business  of  physiology.  Here 
is  an  effect.  What  is  the  immediate  cause 
of  this  effect  ?  So  and  so :  and  what  is  the 
cause  of  that  cause?  and  so  on,  till  we  are 
able  to  determine  what  is  life — through  all 
the  intermediate  causes  of  action,  from  the 
first  movement  to  the  final  effect. 

We  are  in  too  much  haste  with  our  con- 
clusions; it  is  passible  there  may  be  scores  of 
intermediate  causes  still  traceable,  and  the 
more  of  these  we  actually  trace — the  more 
we  confine  our  views  to  immediate  causes — 
the  more  enlarged  will  be  the  conquests  of 
the  science  of  physiology. 

The  French  Genders  taught  in  Six  Fables ; 
being  a  plain  and  easy  sJrt  of  Memory,  by 
which  the  Genders  of  16,548  French  Nouns 


may  be  learned  in  a  few  hours;  1826. — 
The  genders  of  French  nouns,  present  a  se- 
rious difficulty  to  learners ;  and  in  fact,  not 
one  in  fifty  of  foreigners,  who  speak  the  lan- 
guage with  tolerable  fluency,  ever  get  over 
the  embarrassments  occasioned  by  the  im- 
practicability of  bringing  them  within  any 
principle  of  association;  and  even  with  the 
natives  themselves,  correctness  in  this  respect 
is  one  of  the  latest  attainments.  To  facili- 
tate is  something. 

There  are  15,548  nouns  it  seems;  8,415 
of  which  are  masculine,  and  7,133  feminine. 
Of  the  masculine,  Mr.  Goodluck  has  thrown 
7,747,  consisting  of  115  different  termina- 
tions, into  three  classes ;  and  for  each  class 
he  has  constructed  a  fable,  embracing  one 
word  of  each  termination  assigned  to  that 
class.  Of  many  of  these  1 15  terminations, 
there  are  exceptions ;  but  the  whale  are  enu- 
merated in  the  notes.  There  still  remain 
704  refractory  ones,  of  which  a  few  are 
classed  in  different  ways;  but  the  greater 
part  must  be  committed  singly  to  memory. 

By  way  of  specimen,  we  quote  the  first 
four  lines  of  the  first  masculine  fable. 

Un  tanglier,  tier  de  son  pouvoir, 
Prenant  \ejrais  dans  un  bosquet, 
Rencontra  un  beau  soir 
Par  hazard  un  bidet. 

Here  are  five  words  in  italics — these  are 
masculine  terminations.  Now  of  nouns  end- 
ing in  er  there  are  643  ;  in  oir,  144  ;  in  ais, 
24;  in  et,  315  ;  and  in  ard,  83 — all  mascu- 
line, excepting  only  two  in  er,  and  one  in  et ; 
so  that  the  beginner,  by  learning  these  four 
lines,  and  remembering  the  three  exceptions, 
will  be  in  possession  at  once  of  the  genders 
of  1,199  nouns.  The  exceptions,  Mr.  Good- 
luck  suggests,  might  be  formed  into  short 
sentences,  after  Feinagle's  manner.  "  For 
instance,  of  the  two  exceptions  in  er,"  the 
learner  might  say,  "  the  man  who  attempts 
to  learn  without  method,  is  like  one  who  tries 
to  empty  the  sea  with  a  spoon — vider  la  mer 
avec  un  cuiller." — The  more  absurd  the 
better. 

The  same  process  is  followed  with  the  fe- 
minines;  of  these  6,935  are  brought  within 
the  limits  of  three  other  fables,  and  the  re- 
maining 220  are  left,  of  necessity,  to  shift  for 
themselves.  A  useful  list  follows  of  words, 
masculine  in  one  sense,  and  feminine  in  ano- 
ther— of  which  there  seem  to  be  about  a 
hundred. 

The  author  has  done  as  much  as  appears 
to  be  practicable.  He  himself  is  "  convinced 
that  the  genders  may  thus  be  rearnt  in  a 
few  hours,  and  learnt  so  as  never  to  be  for- 
gotten." Luckily  we  are  not  bound  to  de- 
cide by  experiment.  Let  Mr. Goodluck  be 
content  with  the  credit  of  facilitating,  and 
measure  memories  by  an  average  standard. 

La  Divina  Commedia  di  DANTE  Alighieri; 
1827. — This  is  a  very  neat  little  edition  of 
Dante,  from  the  Chiswick  press,  published  by 
Arnold,  of  Tavistock -street.  The  whole  is 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


317 


compressed  into  one  volume  of  about  six 
hundred  pages  in  24mo. — by  no  means  of  an 
inconvenient  thickness.  The  paper  is  good  ; 
the  type  distinct,  and  the  price  very  moderate. 
Brief,  but  very  useful  notes — facilitating  the 
construction,  and  explanatory  of  obsolete 
terms — are  placed  at  the  foot  of  each,  eight 
or  ten  on  an  average,  by  Pietro  Ciochetti, 
professore  de  lingua  Italiana  dell'  Aecademia 


di  Arte  e  Scienze ;  and  all  the  words,,  the 
quantity,  or  rather  the  accent  of  which  is  ut- 
all  doubtful,  are  carefully  accented. 

The  preface  announces  the  speedy  publi- 
cation, in  a  similar  form,  of  La  Gerusalemme 
liberata;  leRime;  I '  Orlando  Furioso  ;  il 
Pastor  Fido  ;  la  Secchia  rapita  ;  and  some 
opere  scelte  of  Metastasio  and  others.  The 
attempt  is  deserving  of  support. 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 


DOMESTIC. 
ROYAL   SOCIETY. 

The  rumour  is  continually  gaining  ground 
that  a  new  president  will  be  appointed  to  the 
chair  of  the  Royal  Society. 

GEOLOGICAL    SOCIETY. 

Dec.  15th. — The  reading  of  a  paper  was 
concluded,  entitled  "  additional  notes  on  the 
opposite  coasts  of  France  and  England,  in- 
cluding some  account  of  the  lower  Boulon- 
nais,"  by  the  president  Dr.  Fitton. 

Jan.  <5. — A  notice  was  read,  accompany- 
ing some  specimens  from  the  Hastings  for- 
mation, with  a  copy  of  a  work  on  the 
fossils  of  Tilgate  forest,  by  G.  Mantell,  esq1. 
The  reading  of  a  paper  was  commenced  on 
the  coal-field  of  Brora,  Sutherlandshire, 
North  Britain,  and  upon  some  other  second- 
ary deposits  of  the  North  of  Scotland,  by  R.  J. 
Murehison,  esq. 


ASTRONOMICAL    SOCIETY. 

Dec.  8. — A  letter  from  Mr.  Flaugergues, 
of  Vivieres,  communicated  the  intelligence 
that  while  looking  for  the  comet,  in  the 
constellation  Taurus,  discovered  by  Mr.  Gam- 
bart,  of  Marseilles,  he  had  found  another 
under  the  left  arm  of  Orion.  A  letter  from 
Mr.  Gambavt,  dated  Marseilles,  October  29, 
announced  his  discovery,  the  preceding  even- 
ing, of  a  comet,  having  then  J 4  h.  38m. 
A.R.,  and  36.1°  Dec.  North.  A  letter  from 
Professor  Santini,  dated  Padua,  November 
6,  detailed  observations  of  a  comet,  disco- 
vered by  M.  Pon.s,  at  Florence,  the  7th 
of  October.  Of  the  planet  Aries,  near  its 
opposition  to  the  Sun,  in  1826,  and  of  Pallas 
and  Vesta,  under  the  same  circumstances. 
M.  Santini  has  compared  these  obversations 
with  the  geocentric  positions  of  Pallas  and 
Vesta,  as  computed  by  Professor  Encke, 
and  the  mean  differences  are,  for  Pallas  in 
A.R.  +  3.96",  in  decl. — 0..54"  ;  for  Vesta  in 
A.R.  +  1 1 .43',  in  decl — 4.32'.  A  postscript, 
dated  November  7.  The  discovery  of  ano- 
ther comet,  on  the  22d  of  October,  in  Bootes, 
by  Mr.  Pons,  was  announced.  An  account 
of  the  solar  eclipse  of  November,  as  ob- 
served by  Colonel  Beaufoy,  at  Bushey,  was 
read  to  the  society.  At  the  meeting  on  Fe- 
bruary 9,  after  the  seventh  annual  report  of 
the  council  had  been  delivered,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  the  election  of  officers  for  the  en- 
suing year,  when  the  following  list  was  de- 


livered in  by  the  scrutineers:  viz. — Presi- 
dent: J.  F.  W.  Herschel,  Esq.,  M.A.,  F.R.S., 
L.  and  E.,  M.R.I.A.,  and  F.G.S. — ^ice-Presi- 
dents :  Capt.  F.  Beaufort, R.N.,  F.R.S.  ;  Lieut.- 
Gen. Sir T.  M.Brisbane, K.C.B.,  F.R.S.,  L.  and 
F.  ;  Henry  ThomasColebrooke,  Esq.,  F.R.S., 
L.  and  E.,  F.L.S.,  and  o.s.  ;  James  South, 
Esq.,  F.R.S.  and  L.S. — Treasurer:  Rev.  W. 
Pearson,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. — Secretaries:  Olin- 
thus  G.  Gregory,  LL.D.;  Prof.  Math.  Royal 
Mil.  Acad.  Woolwich  ;  Lieut.  W.S.Stratford, 
R.N. — Foreign  Secretary:  Charles  Babbage, 
Esq.,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  L.and  E.,  and  M.R.I.A. — 
Council :  Francis  Baily,  Esq.,  F.R.S.,  L.S.  and 
G.S.,  and  M.R.I.A.  ;  Colonel  Mark  Beaufoy, 
F.R.S.  and  L.S.  ;  Lieut.-Col.  Thomas  Colby, 
R.E.,  LL.D.  and  F.R.S.,  L.  and  E.;  Capt. 
George  Everest ;  Davies  Gilbert,  Esq.,  M.P., 
V.P.R  s.,  F  L.S.,  and  G.S.;  Benjamin  Gom- 
pertz,  Esq.,  F.R.S.;  Stephen  Groombridge, 
Esq.,  F.R.S.  ;  JamesHorsburgh,  Esq.,  F.R.S.  ; 
Rt.  Hon.  Lord  Oxmantown  ;  Edward  Riddle, 
Esq. 

FOREIGN. 

INSTITUTE — ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Paris,  November  20. — A  letter  of  Mr. 
Achille  Richard  was  read,  offering  to  the 
academy  a  copy  of  a  posthumous  botanical 
work  of  his  father,  which  had  been  com- 
pleted by  himself.  The  work  was  referred  to 
M.  Desfontaines.  Messrs.  Thenard  and 
Chevreul  were  charged  with  the  examination 
of  a  note  of  M.  Moriu,  an  apothecary  at 
Rouen,  relative  to  a  concretion  found  in  the 
brain  of  a  man  who  had  died  of  an  affection 
in  the  stomach.  A  letter  from  Mr.Gambart, 
of  Marseilles,  detailed  some  observations  of 
the  last  comet.  A  memoir  on  the  attraction 
of  spheroids,  was  presented  by  M.  Poisson. 
M.  Jomard  communicated  some  geological 
remarks  on  the  countries  to  the  west  and 
south  of  Darfour,  from  the  notes  of  M. 
Koenig,  a  French  traveller.  A  memoir 
on  some  equations  in  physics  was  read  by 
M.  Cauchy,  and  another  by  M.  Vallot,  on 
the  living  animals  found  in  solid  bodies ;  the 
last  was  referred  to  Messrs.  Brongniard 
and  Beudant. — 27.  A  manuscript  entitled 
the  elements  of  arithmetic,  according  to  a 
new  system,  was  presented  by  M.  Bardel, 
and  referred  to  Messrs.  Legender  and  Poinsot. 
A  manuscript  treatise  on  the  mathematical 
knowledge  necessary  to  artists,  was  for- 
warded by  M.  Guibal,  and  referred  to 


318 


Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies. 


[MARCH, 


Messrs.  Lacroix,  Dupin,  and  Fresnel,  "  A 
theory  of  social  riches"  was  delivered  from 
Count  Skarbek,  and  Messrs.  Fourier  and 
Coquebert-Moutbret, appointed  commissioners 
to  examine  it.  Messrs.  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire, 
Latreille,  and  Dumeril,  reported  very  fa- 
vourably on  the  memoir  of  Messrs.  Audouin 
and  Milne  Edwards,  concerning  ilie  parasitic 
animal  which  sucks  the  blood  of  the  lobster, 
and  which  they  call  Nicothoe.  A  report  was 
delivered  by  Messrs.  Bosc  and  Latreille,  on 
the  memoir  of  M.  Le  Normand,  concerning 
the  tissue  produced  by  the  caterpillar  of  the 
moth  of  the  prunus  padus.  M.  Heben- 
streit  placed  many  of  these  insects  under  a 
bell  glass,  and  by  oiling  those  parts  of  the 
paper  which  were  to» remain  uncovered,  soon 
obtained  the  stuff  in  question.  The  Queen 
of  Bavaria  wore  a  robe  of  it,  which  was 
torn  by  the  slightest  breeze.  This  curious 
but  useless  discovery  received  the  thanks  of 
the  academy. — Dec.  14.  A  letter  was  re- 
ceived from  M.  Gambart  of  Marseilles  con- 
cerning the  comet  in  Bootes.  An  indelible 
ink,  with  some  specimens  of  its  performance, 
and  an  account  of  the  proofs  to  which  it  had 
been  subjected,  was  transmitted  from  M. 
Palm.  M.  Vincent  Portal,  a  physician  at 
Montmirail,  sent  a  manuscript  description 
with  plates,  of  several  human  monsters, 
referred  to  M.  de  Lamarck,  G.  St.  Hilaire, 
and  Boyer.  M.  Frederic  Cuvier  was  elected 
member  of  the  academy,  on  the  decease  of 
M.  Pinel.  A  second  memoir  was  read  by 
M.  Magendie,  on  the  liquid  which  is  found 
in  the  skulls  and  spines  of  man  and  other 
mammilerous  animals.  M.  Dupin  read  a 


memoir  on  the  slate  of  primary  instruction 
in  France  M.  De  Blainville  a  note  on  the 
paps  of  the  female  ornithorynchus,  and  on 
the  spur  of  the  male,  and  Mr.  Clement  one 
upon  steam  engines,  referred  to  Messrs,  de 
Prony,  Girard,  and  Dupin. — II.  A  work 
was  presented  from  M.  Vautro  relative  to 
money  and  finance ;  and  a  letter  from  M. 
Vail  on  the  comet  in  Bootes.  M.  Becquerez 
announced  that  by  physical  force  alone,  he 
had  succeeded  in  producing  some  new  com- 
pounds, of  which  each  had  its  own  peculiar 
system  of  crystallization,  and  most  of 
which  miirht  be  decomposed  by  water.  A 
favourable  report  was  made  by  Messrs. 
Legender  and  Poinsot,  on  the  elements  of 
arithmetic  of  M.  Bardel.  M.  Dureau  de  la 
Malle  presented  a  piece  of  the  root  of  a 
mulberry  tree,  which  when  deprived  of  its 
trunk  had  lived  in  the  earth  for  twenty-four 
years,  without  throwing  out  any  suckers, 
and  then  produced  some  in  1S26.  M. 
Poisson  road  a  memoir  on  the  numerical 
cukvilation  of  definite  integrals,  and  M. 
Vicat  some  physico- mathematical  observa- 
tions, on  some  cases  of  the  fracture  of  solid 
bodies;  also  M.  Segalas  a  note  on  a  method 
of  illuminating  the  urethra.  <fec.  so  as  to 
admit  of  tiie  inspection  of  the  interior  of 
these  organs. 

French  Academy — In  the  meeting  which 
took  place  on  the  14th  of  December,  the 
places  vacant  by  the  deaths  of  Messrs. 
Lemontey  and  Villar,  were  supplied  by  the 
appointment  of  M.  Fourier,  perpetual  se- 
cretary of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences, 
and  the  Abbe  Feletz. 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC  AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 


Greenwich  Observations. — A  short  time 
since,  an  ofler  of  sale,  was  publicly  made  of 
about  two  tons  and  a  half  of  Mr.  Pond's 
Greenwich  Observations, at  three  shillings  per 
annual  volume.  The  singularity  of  the  offer 
led  to  some  inquiry,  when  it  was  found  that 
the  original  quantity  of  waste  paper,  in 
which  shape  these  observations  had  been  sold, 
amounted  to  about  five  tons,  but  that  half 
had  been  disposed  of.  The  selling  price  of 
the  volumes  is,  we  believe,  two  guineas.  Sus- 
picion naturally  arose  as  to  the  honesty  of  the 
parties  implicated  ;  an  investigation  ensued, 
by  the  eminent  institution,  under  the  more 
immediate  superintendence  of  which  the 
Observatory  is  placed,  when  it  appeared  that 
the  unsold  copies  of  the  observations  being  the 
perquisite  of  the  Astronomer  Royal,  he  had 
disposed  of  them  as  he  thought  proper.  The 
funds  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  society  in 
question,  are,  for  the  most  part,  so  judici- 
ciously  managed,  and  abuses,  when  disco- 
vered, so  immediately  rectified,  that  we 
make  no  comment  upon  the  fact  of  five  tons 
of  the  finest  paper  and  printing,  which  on  an 
average  must  have  cost  about  two  shillings 
a  pound,  being  sold  for,  at  the  most,  three- 
pence, for  the  worth  of  waste  paper  is  in^ 


versely  as  its  goodness,  and  that  in  question 
could  be  used  for  little  else  than  the  manu- 
facture of  Bristol  board.  But  we  do  com- 
plain of,  and  strongly  reprobate  the  spirit 
displayed  by  Mr. Pond.  The  Greenwich  obser- 
vations are  published  by  a  scientific  body,  not 
for  the  private  emolument  of  their  servant,  but 
for  the  use  of  the  scientific,  and,  consequently, 
not  the  richest  part  of  the  community.  They 
are  published  in  a  style  and  at  an  expence 
that  defeats  the  main  object  of  their  publi- 
cation ;  an  opportunity  occurs  by  which  that 
error  may  be  repaired,  but  no  :  sooner  than 
allow  them  to  be  offered  at  a  reduced  rate  to 
those  for  whom  alone  they  were  designed, 
rather  than  permit  the  market  price  of  the 
article  to  be  lowered  ;  in  fact,  sooner  than 
advance  the  great  cause  of  science,  by  a 
nominal  sacrifice  of  his  vanity,  he  consigns 
all  his  observations  to  destruction.  We  are 
far  from  joining  in  the  hue  and  cry  against 
Mr.  Pond,  that  because  he  is  not  a  regularly 
educated  man,  therefore  he  is  unfit  to  be 
intrusted  with  the  management  of  a  national 
establishment.  The  charge  is  illiberal  and 
improper.  Mr.  Pond  is  an  accurate  observer, 
and  we  doubt  if  a  practical  astronomer 
ought  to  be  much  more.  But  we  have  very 


1827.]  Varieties. 

little  hesitation  in  guying  that  such  a  pro- 
ceeding as  we  have  just  mentioned,  would 
never  have  been  had  recourse  to,  except  by 
a  nominee  of  the  late  Sir  Joseph  Banks,  the 
greatest  incubus  that  ever  sat  on  the  scientific 
genius  of  a  country. 

'  Chinese.  Logarithms. — In  proportion  as 
our  knowledge  of  tbe  Chinese  is  augmented, 
are  we  led  to  suspect  their  title  to  the  inven-  .. 
tions  to  which  they  so  uniformly  lay  claim. 
An  eminent  historical  writer,  of  the  last 
century,  was  led,  oh  what  appears  just 
grounds,  to  doubt  the  very  ancient  use  of 
gunpowder  in  this  nation,  and  to  consider 
that  the  knowledge  of  its  composition  had 
been  communicated  to  them  by  some  Euro- 
pean traders,  about  the  time  that  this  de- 
structive matter  was  discovered  in  the  western 
world.  An  acquaintance  with  the  logariih- 
roic  canon,  and  the  possession  of  logarithmic 
tables,  boasting  a  much  higher  antiquity 
than  any  which  had  appeared  in  this  quarter 
of  the  globe,  were  among  the  scientific 
claims,  with  which,  for  a  long  time  they 
imposed  upon  the  credulity  of  the  learned. 
A  very  accurate  comparison  that  has  recently 
been  made  between  the  Chinese  and  Euro- 
pean logarithmic  tables,  has  satisfactorily 
shewn  that  they  had  translated  and  copied 
an  original  edition  of  those  by  Vega,  with 
such  scrupulous  fidelity  as  to  have  trans- 
ferred to  their  pages  the  errors  of  the  for- 
mer ;  ahd  some  of  them  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  leave  no  possible  doubt  of  the  fraud 
they  have  unblushingly  practised. 

New  Musical  Instrument.--  Mr.  G.  Gur- 
ney,  with  whose  chemical  labours  the  public 
are  not  unacquainted,  has  contrived  a  mu- 
sical instrument,  in  which  glass  tubes  are 
substituted  for  strings,  and  fiom  which  the 
sound  is  elicited,  by  an  endless  revolving 
band,  which  the  action  of  the  keys  brings 
into  contact  with  the  tubes.  The  effect 
produced  resembles,  but  is  superior  to  that 
of  thecelestina. 

Bismuth  Cobalt  Orr.  --The  following 
analysis  of  bismuth  cobalt  orr,  which  has 
hithertc^ been  found  only  at  Schurrberg,  in 
Saxony,  is  furnished  in  the  Edinburgh 
Journal. 

Arsenic  77.9602,  cobalt  9.8866,  iron 
4.7695,  bismuth  3.8866,  copper  1.3030, 
nickel  1.1063,  sulphur  1.0160—99,9282. 
The  characteristic  ingredients  of  this  ore 
are,  arsenic  cobalt,  and  arsenic  bismuth, 
a  combination  of  these  metals  not  being  met 
with  in  the  animal  kingdom. 

Mozart's  Requiem.  —  From  researches 
made  in  Germany,  relative  to  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  Requiem  of  Mozart,  it  appears 
that  an  anecdote,  which  has  been  injudici- 
ously repeated  by  all  the  biographers  of  this 
eminent  German  composer,  and  according 
to  which  he  died  of  poison,  immediately 
after  finishing  the  Requiem,  was  invented 
by  the  music-sellers,  after  the  death  of  this 
great  genius,  with  the  design  of  speculating 
upon  the  works  which  they  refused  during 
his  life.  However,  it  seems  that  the  Re- 


319 


quiem  was  far  from  complete  when  Mozart 
breathed  his  last,  and  that  Siissmayer,  with 
the  assistance  of  some  of  the  works  of 
Handel,  put  the  final  hand  to  this  inestimable 
production. 

American  Gold. — A  mass  of  native  gold, 
weighing  nearly  ten  ounces,  has  been  found 
on  the  bank  of  a  stream,  in  the  town  of 
Newfane,  Vermont.  In  its  general  appear- 
ance it  strikingly  resembles  the  North  Caro- 
lina gold.  Its  specific  gravity  is  16.<5,  con- 
sidered worth  i>9  cents  per  pennyweight. 
It  was  studded  with  crystals  of  quartz. — 
Newton's  Journal. 

Painting  on  Glass. — The  French  are  very 
loud  in  their  praises  of  a  mode  of  painting 
upon  glass,  equal  to  the  ancients,  invented 
by  the  Count  of  Noe,  a  peer  of  France. 

Scotch  Jet. — Beautiful  specimens  of  jet 
have  been  found  between  a  bed  ot  peat  and 
yellow  clay,  in  the  peninsula  formed  by 
Loch  Ryan  and  the  Irish  Channel. — Edin- 
burgh Journal. 

American  Aerostation. —  A  series  of  aero- 
static experiments  have  been  carried  on  in 
a  very  intrepid  manner,  by  Mr.  Robertson, 
of  New  York.  Neither  the  proximity  to 
the  sea,  nor  the  dangers  of  the  equinox, 
have  prevented  the  ascensions  of  this  gentle- 
man, even  by  night.  On  the  20th  of  last 
September,  he  rose  to  such  a  height  that 
the  fireworks  attached  to  his  balloon  were 
visible  to  a  vessel  at  the  distance  of  twenty- 
three  leagues.  The  result  of  his  inquiries 
are  looked  for  in  Europe  with  much  anxiety. 

Produce  of  the  Oural  Mines. — The  pro- 
duce of  the  new  discoveries  made  in  these 
mountains,  has  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
Mr.  Erdmann,  an  intelligent  and  accurate 
traveller,  relates  that,  in  1823,  the  whole 
produce  of  these  new  mines,  as  well  the 
royal  as  the  private  ones,  amounted  to  4,508 
Russisin  pounds,  about  40,035  English  ones  ; 
but  that  the  attendant  expences  would  reduce 
this  to  about  £2,434,  English,  so  that  the 
net  produce  of  these  mines  cannot  exceed 
£137,500  sterling.  The  number  of  work- 
men (for  the  most  part  children)  employed 
in  searching  for  the  gold,  amounts  to  about 
11,000. 

Discovery  of  an  Ancient  Manuscript.—. 
It  is  reported  that  the  Abbe  Angelo  Mai, 
to  whom  literature  is  so  much  indebted,  has 
discovered  in  the  royal  library,  at  Naples, 
the  manuscript  of  an  ancient  Latin  writer 
upon  Husbandry,  remarkable  for  the  purity 
of  its  style,  and  the  interesting  subjects  of 
which  it  treats. 

French- Egyptian  Medal. — Many  of  our 
readers  may  remember  an  impudent  hoax, 
played  oft'  some  thirty  years  ago,  by  an 
intriguing  Scotch  bookseller,  in  London,  in 
conjunction  with  an  alderman  of  some  ce- 
lebrity as  an  engraver,  regarding  an  edition 
of  Shakspeare,  too  splendid  for  use,  and 
too  costly,  even  for  the  unbounded  enthu- 
siasm for  that  author  which  Garrick  had 
manoeuvred  to  excite.  The  subscribers  to 
Boydell's  Shakspeare  were  to  have  their 


320 


Varieties. 


[iMAHCH, 


names  enrolled  upon  vellum,  and  the  docu- 
ment to  be  consigned  to  immortality,  in  the 
British  Museum,  while  a  medal  struck,  in 
honour  of  the  bard  of  Avon,  was  likewise  lo 
bear  each  subscriber's  name,  cfec.  <fee.  <fec. 
cfec.  A  similar  expedient  has  now  been  bad 
recourse  to  by  a  French  printer,  distinguished 
for  wearing  out  the  patience  of  all  the  sub- 
scribers to  the  interminable  works  which  are 
issuing  from  his  hands — this  is  M.  Pan- 
kouche.  The  voluminous  description  of 
Egypt  by  the  French  savans  is  well  known. 
Were  there  no  other  than  the  internal  evi- 
dence of  the  inaccuracy  of  this  work,  the 
Frenchified  air  of  all  the  figures,  would 
be  sufficient;  however,  this  work  is  to  be 
re-printed,  but  the  expense  is  great,  .and  it 
must  be  done  by  subscription.  A  medal  is 
announced,  to  perpetuate  the  names  of  all 
who  subscribe  to  this  truly  national  under- 
taking, <fec.  <fce.  M.  Champollian  design 
the  medal,  at  least  describes  it,  and  with 
the  characteristic  effrontery  of  his  nation,  and 
the  peculiar  assurance  which  has  fallen  to  his 
exclusive  share,  positively  denies  that  any 
other  nation  beside  his  own  has  contributed  to 
dispel  the  darkness  which  hung  over  Egypt ; 
or  any  person  except  himself  has  advanced 
one  step  in  decyphering  the  hieroglyphics. 
Why  will  France,  who  possesses 'so  much  of 
which  to  be  proud,  encourage  the  preten- 
sions of  this  weak  man  ?  Whatever  he  may 
have  subsequently  done,  Dr.  Young  first 
opened  the  path,  to  follow  it  was  compara- 
tively easy.  But  the  most  ridiculous  part 
of  this  farce  is  the  execution  of  the  medal ; 
on  the  obverse  side  of  which,  in  a  border  of 
Egyptian  gods  and  godesses,  is  the  genius  of 
France,  holding  a  standard  in  one  hand, 
with  the  singular  impertinence  of  a  cock  for 
its  device  ;  while  the  other  is  designed  to 
raise  a  veil,  beneath  which  the  genius  of 
Egypt  has  been  concealed ;  her  back  is 
supported  against  a  crocodile,  who  has 
turned  its  tail  upon  the  Frenchman,  but  in 
apparent  surprise,  has  moved  round  its  head 
into  a  position  parallel  to  its  body — a  degree 
of  flexibility  of  which  even  a  snake  might 
be  jealous. 

The  Institutes  of  Gaius.—This  work, 
recently  discovered  in  Italy  by  some  German 
literati,  is  the  elementary  book  of  Roman 
law,  which  the  professors  (antecessores)  at 
Rome,  placed  in  the  hands  of  youth,  as  we 
learn  from  one  of  the  constitutions  of  Jus- 
tinian, who  from  these  very  Institutes  of 
Gaius  derived  the  greater  number  of  those  to 
which  his  name  is  attached.  They  were 
known  to  the  world  only  by  some  fragments 
to  be  met  with  in  the  Digest,  and  by  what  is 
contained  in  the  Brevarium  Alaricianum, 
when  in  1816,  M.  Niebuhr  deciphered  in  a 
palimpsestus  of  the  library  of  the  chapter  of 
Verona  the  first  pages  of  a  book,  which  was 
at  length  entirely  restored  by  the  labours  of 
Messrs.  Goesched,  Bekher,  and  Hoburg. 
Soon  after  the  publication  of  this  discovery, 


this  new  classic,  containing  the  elements  of  a 
legislation  more  than  three  hundred  years 
anterior  to  that  of  Justinian,  and  of  which 
the  various  branches  ceased  to  be  in  harmony 
when  that  emperor  introduced  very  many 
innovations,  some  of  which  were  inconsistent 
with  the  ancient  principles,  was  introduced 
wherever  the  study  of  the  civil  law  was 
pursued.  A  corrupted  text,  however,  and 
general  inaccuracy  rendeied  the  work  at  least 
difficult  to  be  undesrtood ;  but  a  French 
advocate,  M.  Boulet,  has  just  succeeded  in 
amending  the  text  which  he  has  translated  for 
the  benefit  of  other  jurisconsults  ;  and  we 
may  now  express  a  hope  to  see  the  original 
work  issue  from  one  of  our  university  presses, 
a  worthy  companion  to  those  with  which 
classical  literature  has  been  enriched  by  the 
labours  of  the  Abbe  Maio. 

Mean  Equatorial  Temperature. — Baron 
Humboldt,  as  a  result  from  his  own  observa- 
tions in  America,  was  led  to  consider  the 
mean  temperature  of  the  Equator  as  81°  5. 
— Other  investigations  seem  to  indicate  that 
it  cannot  be  placed  higher  than  83°  Fahrenheit 
nor  lower  than  81°.  Generally  speaking 
let  T  represent  the  mean  temperature  of  any 
latitude  L,  then,  according  to  Mayer,  the 
equatorial  temperature  may  be  represented 
T 

by  = Dr.  Brewster  represents  it  as 

Cos2  L 
T 

CosL. 

Ornithology. — It  is  a  remarkable  circum- 
stance, that  in  works  on  zoology,  the  al- 
batross is  always  mentioned  as  peculiar  to 
the  southern  hemisphere.  Although  the 
occurrence  of  the  bird  in  the  north  Pacific 
has  attracted  but  little  attention,  it  was 
ascertained  long  ago  by  Mr.  Menzies,  is 
recorded  in  Vancouvre's  voyage,  nnd  was 
observed  near  the  shores  of  New  Albion,  foy 
Mr.  Scouler,  in  a  voyage  to  those  regions, 
performed  in  the  years  1824-5.  It  is  also 
worthy  of  notice,  that  though  the  albatross 
is  so  common  on  both  sides  of  the  tropics  in 
the  Pacific,  no  one  has  ever  detected  it  in 
the  Northern  Atlantic  Ocean.  After  repeat- 
ed examinations  and  dissections,  Mr.  S. 
could  detect  no  difference  either  in  its  ex- 
ternal appearance  or  internal  structure,  from 
that  of  the  D.  Fuliginora,  taken  off  the 
coast  of  Terra  del  Fuego. 

Nebula  in  Orion.— A  small  star,  between 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  magnitude, 
has  recently  been  discovered  by  Mr.  Struve, 
near  the  trapezium,  in  the  nebula,  in  the 
sword-handle  of  Orion,  and  if  it  be  not  a 
new  star,  which  seems  most  probable,  it  must 
occasion  some  surprise,  that  as  it  is  distinctly 
visible  with  a  mirror  of  twelve  inches  aper- 
ture, it  should  have  escaped  the  observation 
of  the  able  astronomers  in  this  country,  who 
have  directed  their  attention  to  this  magni- 
ficent object, 


1827.] 


[    321    ] 

MONTHLY  THEATRICAL  REVIEW. 


COMPETITION  is  good  in  all  things;  and 
the  rivalry  of  the  two  great  theatres  has 
stirred  them  up  to  more  activity  than  we  have 
seen  for  some  years.  A  farce  from  the 
French,  a  revival  from  some  obsolete  writer 
among  ourselves,  and  a  melodrame  from 
Heaven  knows  where,  were  the  usual  spring 
regimen  of  a  London  audience.  Times  are, 
however,  altered  ;  and  we  may  congratulate 
the  town  on  the  transatlantic  vigour  which 
lias  roused  up  the  diligence  of  Covent  Garden. 
Morton's  play  still  continues  in  the  land  of 
the  living,  has  passed  its  twentieth  night — a 
rare  longevity  for  merriment  five  acts  long; 
and  due  perhaps  to  a  little  skill  in  theatrical 
doctorship.  But,  let  the  cause  be  what  it 
will,  we  are  glad  of  it  for  the  sake  of  the  in- 
genious, dexterous,  and  pleasant  writer.  We 
hope  to  see  Morton  stimulated  by  this  suc- 
cess, and  that  he  will  give  us  another  Sir 
Abel  Handy  and  his  family  before  he  quits  ' 
the  pen,  and  draws  on  the  treasury  of  his 
good-humour  no  more. 

Mr.Peake,  who  is  rising  in  reputation,  has 
produced  an  amusing  farce,  "  The  £100 
Note,"  founded  on  the  adventures  of  Mr. 
James  Bradshaw  in  chase  of  Miss  Tree,  arid 
a  little  from  the  French — a  sin,  now  so  regu- 
larly practised,  as  to  have  become  perfectly 
venial,  and  therefore  not  recorded  with  any 
hope  of  putting  the  author  to  the  blush.  The 
adventure  was  natural  enough,  and  yet  suffi- 
ciently eccentric  for  the  artist's  purpose ;  and 
however  Mr.  James  Bradshaw  may  relish  this 
public  remembrance  of  his  flame,  or  his 
bride  hear  the  history  of  the  hundred  pounds 
with  which  he  tried  to  win  his  tardy  way, 
the  public  have  had  their  laugh ;  and  Mr. 
Peake,  we  may  suppose,  has  felt  his  genius 
plumed  for  a  new  flight  into  the  world  of 
ridicule. 

When  we  talked  of  venial  plunder,  we  li- 
mited ourselves  to  the  foreign  stage.  There 
the  spoil  is  from  the  Egyptians — they  can  af- 
ford it— the  thing  is  prolific;  and,  whatever 
might  have  been  thought  once  about  the 
want  of  invention — which  sends  men  to  ex- 
plore the  highways  of  the  continent,  pen  in 
hand — the  art  is  now  perfectly  common;  is 
rather  to  a  man's  credit,  as  it  implies  at  once 
the  being  able  to  read  French,  and  to  steal 
dexterously ;  and  has  become  even  gentle- 
man-like, if  b*ing  adopted  by  all  gentlemen 
who  contemplate  the  honours  of  farce,  can 
raise  it  into  such  distinction. 

But  we  rather  dislike  tricking- ;  if  we 
might  venture  on  any  opinion  on  this  delicate 
subject,  in  this  delicate  age  of  stock -jobbing, 
mining  companies,  and  the  glories  of  Greek 
speculations.  It  is  also  not  pleasant  to  us 
to  be  reminded  that  we  are  sinking  into' that 
time  of  life  when  gentlemen  are  presumed 
to  lose  their  memories,  nnd  the  act  of  yes- 
terday is  forgotten  before  to-morrow.  Xor 
is  it  altogether  grateful  to  our  feelings  of  the 
honour  duefrom  authors  to  the  muse,  to  see  an 
experienced  and  well  characteredjserson  of 

M.M.  New  Series. -i- VOL.  III.  No.  15. 


the  profession,  forced  to  mount  the  pillory  of 
all  the  newspapers,  and  after  a  persevering 
pelting,  compelled  to  a  tardy  acknowledg- 
ment of  trespass.  Yet  all  this  has  been 
inflicted  on  the  feelings  of  mankind,  in  the 
shape  of  the  piece  of  dexterity,  "  English- 
men in  India,  an  Opera."  This  performance 
was  brought  forward,  after  long  preparation, 
by  a  concealed  author;  was  to  produce  a 
prodigious  sensation,  and,  as  those  in  the 
secret  whispered,  such  was  the  manager's 
rapture,  that  he  had  gone  the  generous  and 
unparalleled  length  of  paying  for  it  before-, 
hand."  The  Opera  appeared.  It  was 
pleasant  enough,  had  some  very  good  scenes, 
mingled  with  some  which  were  very  suffi- 
cient foils  to  them.  The  music  was  of  that 
kind,  which  Bishop,  a  man  who  looks  with 
an  uncommonly  predictive  eye  through 
the  columns  of  modern  authorship,  appro- 
priates to  the  short-lived  ;  it  was  light,  plea- 
sant, transitory;  and,  if  it  could  not  give 
immortality  to  either  the  composer  or  the 
piece,  yet  did  credit  to  both.  The  acting 
was  as  good  as  the  dialogue  could  possibly 
sustain.  Miss  Kelly  was  all  animation,  and 
shewed  a  power  of  pleasant  mimicry,  which 
we  suppose  is  inherent  in  the  profession,  but 
which  this  cleverest  of  all  soubrettes,  flirts, 
and  boarding-school  misses,  had  not  condes- 
cended to  exhibit  before.  Mrs.  Davidson  was 
vulgarly  fashionable  and  fashionably  vulgar 
to  the  life.  Dowton,  the  perfection  of  rich 
yet  easy  acting,  as  he  always  is  ;  and  Har 
ley,  animated,  grotesque,  and  laughable  as 
ever,  was  tailor  turned  gentleman.  Gattie's 
Frenchman  had  but  one  fault,  but  that  was 
large  enough  to  hide  all  others.  His  broken 
French  is  so  completely  mumbled  into  jar- 
gon, that  he  might  as  well  have  been  playing 
on  the  Boulevards,  or  have  been  spouting 
Ethiopic.  Every  syllable  is  lost  to  the 
audience,  and  the  dialogue  is  restricted  to 
the  interval  between  the  actor's  mouth  and 
Dote. 

"  Englishmen  in  India"  prospered  in  the 
smiles  of  the  morning  critics,  with  whom 
a  rather  vigorous  canvass  is  supposed  ge- 
nerally to  take  place  on  those  occasions, 
and  the  amateur  world  was  congratulated  on 
the  turning  up  of  a  new  writer,  whose  jests 
were  not  the  palpable  evisceration  of  Joe 
Miller ;  and  whose  plot,  persons,  and  dia- 
logue, were  not  the  open  burglary  of  the 
Paris  Diligence.  Suddenly,  however,  a  light 
broke  in  upon  the  world.  A  paragraph 
shewed  its  ominous  face  in  some  morning 
paper,  announcing  that  the  new  opera  was 
an  old  opera,  written  by  Cobb,  of  the  India 
House,  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago; 
and  therefore,  as  being  presumed  to  be  fairly 
out  of  the  memories  of  the  mature,  and 
never  in  the  memories  of  the  young  at  all, 
was  taken  as  fair  game  for  some  theatrical 
hunter  after  the  stray  geese  of  our  forefathers. 
The  hint  set  the  angry  amateurs  on  the 
atert,  and  in  a  few  days  after,  the  public 
2  T 


322 


Monthly  Theatrical  Report. 


[MARCH, 


were  presented  with  the  whole  of  the  jests, 
and  three-fourths  of  the  dialogue  in  a  popu- 
lar work,  and  there  was  thenceforth  nothing 
to  do  but  to  confess  the  whole  plunder.  This 
was  done  at  last,  with  the  usual  grace  of 
gentlemen  detected ;  and  by  an  ingenious 
partition,  the  affair  was  divided  between 
Kelly,  who  was  dead,  and  Diamond,  who 
is  yet  among,  the  living.  A  third  partner 
should  have  been  taken  into  the  firm,  and 
we  hope  that  our  American  friend,  the 
manager,  will  feel  it  his  duty  on  similar 
occasions,  to  anticipate  public  discovery : 
and  if  he  does  produce  rechauffes,  at  least 
not  call  us  to  adore  them  as  fresh  provision. 
The  matter  might  have  been  done  without 
any  injury  to  the  piece  or  the  proprietor- 
ship. Cobb  was  at  least  as  pleasant  a  dra- 
matist as  Diamond ;  "  Love  in  the  East," 
as  lively  a  title  as  "  Englishmen  in  India," 
and  the  thing  besides  would  not  have 
required  such  an  expenditure  of  rival  para- 
graph, tardy  acknowledgment,  and  clumsy 
apology.  The  truth  is,  that  the  public  does 
not  like  the  look  of  deception;  and  we 
hope  that  the  parties  will  be  awake  to  the 
advantage  of  fact  in  future. 

Far  be  it  from  us  to  say  that  the  lesson 
has  worked  its  effect  beyond  the  walls  of 
Drury  Lane.  But  it  is  at  least  gratifying  to 
know  at  last,  that  the  "  new  comedy"  so 
long  announced  as  coming  from  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Poole,  a  writerxfrom  whose  pleasantry 
the  public  has  received  so  much  amusement, 
and  has  a  right  to  expect  so  much  more,  is 
at  length  announced  as  a  revival  from  Shir- 
ley. We  shall  thus  avoid  the  disappointment 
of  dulness  from  the  pen  of  our  best  farce 
writer — for  Shirley  will  of  course,  return 
speedily  to  the  shelf  whence  he  came — the 
ingenious  reviver's  popularity  will  be  still  in 
bloom  ;  and  we  shall  not  be  compelled  to 
puzzle  our  own  sagacity  in  the  detection, 
nor  extort  newspaper  apologies  from  a  man 
of  merriment,  who  is  so  much  better  em- 
ployed in  fabricating  Paul  Prys  from  the 
rude  material  of  mankind. 

The  "  Revenge"  has  been  played  at  Co- 
vent  Garden,  with  success.  Young's  Zanga 
is  capital.  It  is  no  high  compliment  to  the 
features  of  a  handsome  man  to  say,  that  he 
looks  the  perfect  villain.  But  Young's  fine 
countenance  is  singularly  capable  of  that 
mixture  of  scorn,  subtlety,  and  boldness, 
which  makes  him  the  unrivalled  repre- 
sentative of  the  logos  and  the  whole 
class  of  stage  dissemblers.  We  limit  this 
character  of  his  visage,  however,  to  the 
drama,  acd  leave  the  actor  to  pass  among 
the  other  well-looking  population  of  the  west- 
end,  for  the  very  respectable  and  gentleman- 
like personage  that  he  unquestionably  is. 

The  Oratorios  are  about  to  begin  at  both 
theatres,  and  at  both  to  be  under  the  conduct 
of  Bishop ;  a  Herculean  task,  which  if  the 
director  can  tolerably  accomplish,  will  do  no 
slight  credit  to  his  intelligence  and  activity. 
One  Oratorio,  the  usual  avant  courier 
of  the  season,  has  been  already  perform- 


ed, some  weeks  since.  It  was  a  clever 
and  popular  selection,  well  performed, 
and  what  makes  an  important  feature  in 
those  affairs,  well  attended.  A  fragment 
of  an  Oratoriq,,  or  Sacred  Cantata,  from 
Milton's  Battle  of  the  Angels,  produced  a 
strong  impression  of  Bishop's  future  success, 
should  he  turn  to  the  composition  of  a  full 
oratorio.  It  was  brief,  but  highly  animated, 
picturesque,  and  bold.  Some  of  its  bursts 
of  harmony  reminded  us  even  of  Handel ;  a 
high  praise  for  any  composer,  past,  present 
or  to  come;  and  which  if  Bishop  can  realize 
on  a  larger  scale,  will  place  his  name  in  a 
rank,  to  which  no  charm  of  canzonet  or 
cavatina,  neither  stage  chorus  nor  overture, 
will  raise  him  nor  any  man.  A  great 
oratorio  is,  like  a  great  tragedy,  the  consum- 
mation of  the  respective  triumphs  of  music 
and  poetry ;  and  we  may  well  congratulate 
the  age  when  it  shall  find  a  genius  compe- 
tent to  either. 

The  King's  Theatre  goes  on  spiritedly. 
"  La  Gazza  Ladra"  which  contends  for  the 
mastery  with  "  II  Barbiere  di  Sevilla,"  and 
contains,  perhaps,  as  much  characteristic 
and  delicious  music  as  Rossini  ever  crowded 
into  one  Opera,  has  been  played  with  much 
success.  Mademoiselle  Ayton,  a  new  singer, 
imported  from  the  foreign  stage,  andjcertai.nly 
highly  tasteful  and  accomplished  artiste, 
is  the  prima  donna  of  the  opera,  and  sus- 
tains the  part  with  a  skill  calculated  to  add 
to  the  popularity  of  the  singer  and  the  esta- 
blishment. "  La  Schiava"  has  been  played 
occasionally,  in  which  Madame  Caradori, 
as  the  heroine,  exhibits  the  same  delicacy 
and  feminine  grace  which  first  made  her  a 
favourite;  and  is  rapidly  adding  to  those 
merits,  an  improvement  in  the  volume, 
style,  and  facility  of  her  singing.  She  must 
still  throw  additional  animation  into  her 
acting;  for  languor  is  tolerable  only  in  fine 
ladies  who  have  nothing  to  do,  and  fine 
gentlemen  who  can  do  nothing.  The  cha- 
racter of  the  sleeping  beauty,  however 
romantic  in  description,  or  in  the  boudoirs 
of  high  life,  the  flattest  of  all  lives,  is  the 
least  attractive  on  the  stage  ;  and  if  it  be 
possible,  this  very  interesting  young  actress 
should  add  the  charm  of  movement  to  the 
charm  of  melody.  The  public  feel  an  in- 
creased interest  in  Madame  Caradori,  from 
the  respectability  of  a  conduct,  which 
throws  so  many  of  even  the  clever  persons 
of  the  drama,  to  such  an  unmeasureable 
distance.  We  wish  to  see  her  acquire  the 
only  merit  she  wants,  and  to  assume  the 
rank  upon  the  stage  to  which  she  is  entitled 
by  her  natural  gifts,  and  her  personal  pro- 
priety. A  new  ballet  is  promised,  which 
we  believe  has  been  the  rage  in  Paris.  A 
new  opera  is  in  rehearsal,  and  all  is  activity, 
the  true  secret  of  success.  Madame  Sontag, 
the  terror  of  all  fathers  whose  estates  are 
entailed,  and  the  admiration  of  German  and 
French  mankind,  is  eominrj  over;  and  on 
the  whole,  we  are  threatened  with  a  most 
brilliant  season. 


1827.] 


[    323     ] 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS    IN   PREPARATION. 

A  new  Comedy,  by  the  Author  of  Athens, 
is  very  nearly  ready  for  publication. 

Mr.  Sweet,  the  celebrated  botanist,  is  en- 
gaged preparing  a  work  to  be  entitled  Flora 
Australasia :  it  will  consist  of  Portraits  of  the 
finest  Plants  native  of  New  Holland  and  the 
South-Sea  Islands,  correctly  coloured  from 
living  specimens. 

Sir  Henry  Parnell,  Bart.,  M.P.,  has  in  the 
press,  and  nearly  ready,  a  volume  on  Paper- 
Money,  Banking,  and  Over- trading,  which 
•will  contain  those  parts  of  the  Evidence  taken 
before  the  Committee  of ,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons which  explain  the  Scotch  System  of 
Banking. 

At  the  Russell  Institution,  Great  Coram- 
street,  Three  Series  of  Lectures  are  now  in 
course  of  delivery — On  the  Application  of  the 
Chemical  Arts  to  the  Conveniences  of  Life, 
by  Mr.  C.  F.  Portington ;  Lectures  on  English 
Poetry,  by  H.  Neele,  Esq. ;  and  on  the  Sources 
and  Nature  of  Terrestrial  Heat  and  Light,  by 
E.  W.  Brayley,jun.,  Esq. 

In  one  volume,  post  8vo,  the  Lettre  de 
Cachet,  a  tale. 

The  Rev.  Julius  Hare,  and  C.  Thirlwall, 
Esq.,  Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
are  preparing  for  publication  a  Translation 
of  the  Second  Edition  of  Niebuhr's  Roman 
History,  undertaken  in  concert  with  the  Au- 
thor. 

Reynolds,  the  engraver,  is  at  present  em- 
ployed on  an  admirable  likeness  of  Captain 
Parry,  from  a  picture  by  Haines  ;  the  print, 
which  is  of  a  size  to  allow  of  its  being  placed 
in  a  4to  volume,  will  appear  in  March. 

Constable's  Miscellany  will  be  published  in 
the  order  as  follows : — 

1.  Adventures  of  British  Seamen  in  the 
Southern  Ocean :    Edited  by  Hugh  Murray, 
Esq.,  F.R.S-E.    Three  Numbers,   or  One 
Volume,  will  appear  on  10th  March. 

2.  Memoirs  of  the  Marchioness  of  Laroche 
Jaquelin,  the  War  in  La  Vendee,  <fec.  From 
the  French.     With  Preface  and  Notes  by  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  Bart. — Three  Numbers,  or  One 
Volume,  will  appear  on  31st  March. 

3.  Converts  from  Infidelity;    or  Lives  of 
Eminent  Individuals  who  have    renounced 
Sceptical  and  Infidel  Opinions,  and  embraced 
Christianity.     By  Andrew  Crichton,  2  vols., 
or  6  Numbers.     Volume  First  will  appear  on 
2 1st  April. 

4.  Table  Talk ;    or  Selections  from  the 
Ana  ;  containing- Extracts  from  the  different 
Collections  of  Ana,  French,  Italian,  and  Eng- 
lish.— -One  Volume  will  appear  on  June  2d. 

.5.  Birman  Empire. — An  Account  of  the 
Embassy  to  the  Kingdom  of  Ava,  in  the  year 
1795  ;  by  Michael  Symes,  Esq.,  Major  in  his 
Majesty's  76th  Regiment. — Narrative  of  the 
late  Military  and  Political  Operations  in  the 
Burmese  Territory;  from  Communications 
of  an  Officer  in  the  British  Army,  and  other 


Authentic  Sourcesof  Information.     Two  Vo- 
lumes will  appear  23d  June  and  14th  July. 

Mr.  Babbage  has  nearly  completed  for 
publication,  a  Table  of  the  Logarithms  of 
Natural  Numbers  to  Seven  Figures.  This 
work  was  undertaken  for  the  use  of  the  Tri- 
gonometrical Survey  of  Ireland,  and  has  been 
corrected  with  the  greatest  care  ;  in  doing 
which,  several  errors  have  been  detected, 
which  run  through  almost  all  known  tables. 

Nicholas  Harris  Nicolas,  Esq.,  will  shortly 
publish,  in  one  4to  volume,  beautifully  printed, 
and  illustrated  by  upwards  of  100  wood-cuts 
of  Arms,  The  Siege  of  Carlaverock  •  a  French 
Poem,  containing  an  account  of  the  Siege 
and  Capture  of  Carlaverock  Castle,  in  Scot 
land,  by  King  Edward  the  First,  in  June 
1301,  with  a  description  of  the  Arms  and 
Merits  of  each  Knight  in  the  English  Army 
who  was  present  on  the  occasion;  written 
soon  after  that  event.  With  a  Translation ; 
an  Historical  and  Topographical  Account  of 
the  Castle  ;  and  Memoirs  of  all  the  Indivi- 
duals who  are  mentioned. 

Davidica  :  Twelve  Practical  Sermons  on 
the  Life  and  Character  of  David,  King  of 
Israel,  by  Henry  Thomson,  M.A.,  of  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge,  Assistant  Minis- 
ter of  St.  George's,  Camberwell. 

Flirtation  ;  a  Novel.     In  3  vols.  post  8vo. 

Falkland.     In  1  vol.  postSvo. 

The  History  of  George  Godfrey,  related 
by  himself.  In  3  vols. 

Richmond,  or  Scenes  in  the  Life  of  a  Bow- 
street  Officer ;  drawn  from  his  private  Me- 
moranda. In  3  vols.  post  8vo; 

Tales  from  the  German,  with  Lithographic 
Sketches ;  by  a  Lady. 

Mr.  Bowring  has  in  the  press  a  volume  of 
the  Poetical  and  Popular  Literature  of  the 
Servians,  intended  to  fill  up  one  of  the 
chasms  which  have  hitherto  prevented  the 
English  reader  from  taking  as  comprehensive 
a  view  of  the  Modern,  as  contradistinguished 
from  Classical  Minstrelsy. 

The  Pocket  Road-Book  of  Ireland,  on  the 
plan  of  Reichard's  Itineraries,  intended  to 
form  a  companion  to  Leigh's  Road-Book  of 
England,  tfec. 

A  Life  of  the  eminent  Dr.  Jenner  is  in  pre- 
paration by  Dr.  Baron,  who  attended  him 
in  his  last  moments,  and  received  all  his 
papers,  to  enable  him  to  become  his  biogra- 
pher. 

Verbal  Analysis  of  L'Histoire  de  la  Con- 
juration contre  Venise  par  St.  Real,  adapted 
to  teaching  on  the  Hamiltonian  System,  as 
well  as  for  Private  Study ;  with  a  Treatise 
on  the  Conjugation  of  French  Verbs,  from 
the  Cours  de  Langue  Francaise  of  P.  A.  Le- 
mare,  by  Ph.  O.  Ske»e,  Esq. 

The  Comic  Songs  of  the  late  clever  Actor 
Mr.  Knight,  in  a  uniform  Collection ;  with 
the  Music,  chiefly  composed  by  bis  eldest  Son. 

Keeper  atHome ;  by  the  Author  of  Keeper's 
Travels  in  search  of  his  Master. 

2  T  8 


324 


List  of  New  Works. 


[MARCH, 


Latin  Manuscript :  M.  Angelo  Mai,  to  whom 
bibliography  is  already  under  so  many  obli- 
gations, has  recently  discovered  in  the  Royal 
Academy  at  Naples,  the  Manuscript  of  an 
ancient  Latin  Treatise  on  Agriculture,  re- 
markable for  the  purity  of  its  style,  and  in- 
terest of  its  subjects,  which  is  about  to  be 
printed. 

A  Guide  to  Phrenology,  with  an  illustra- 
tive Engraving,  by  Henry  W.  Dewhurst,  Sur- 
geon, T.A.S.,  Author  of  a  Dictionary  of  Ana- 
tomy, is  in  the  press- — Also  preparing  for 
publication,  by  the  same,  the  Anatomy  and 
Physiology  of  the  Eye,  with  an  explanation 
of  the  Theory  of  Vision,  with  Engravings. 

A  Posthumous  Poem,  ascribed  to  the  cele- 
brated Tom  Paine,  and  entitled  The  Religion 
of  the  Sun,  is  announced  in  a  recent  New 
York  paper. 

The  first  number  of  Mr.  Brockendon's  Il- 
lustrations of  the  Passes  of  the  Alps,  by  which 
Italy  communicates  with  France,  Switzer- 
land, and  Germany,  from  Drawings  made 
during  the  five  Summers  from  1821  to  1826, 
is  nearly  ready. — We  believe  that  this  able 
artist  lias  literally  crossed  the  Alps  forty 
times,  in  pursuit  of  this  object.  He  main- 
tains, that  the  pass  of  the  Little  Saint  Ber- 
nard was  undoubtedly  the  route  of  Hannibal. 

One  Hundred  and  Twenty  Engravings  of 
Views  in  England  and  Wales,  from  Drawings 
by  J. M.W.Turner;  with  Descriptive  and 
Historic  Illustrations  by  Mr.  Lloyd,  the  En- 
gravings by  Heath. 

The  Living  and  the  Dead,  by  a  Country 
Curate. 

Messrs.  Hosking  and  Jenkins,  architects, 
will,  in  the  course  of  next  month,  publish 
No.  1,  of  a  Selection  of  Architectural  and 
other  Ornaments,  Greek,  Roman,  and  Ita- 
lian, drawn  from  the  Originals,  in  various 
Museums  and  buildings  in  Italy.  The  work 
will  be  completed  in  eight  parts,  to  appear  at 
intervals  of  six  weeks. 

Professor  Lee's  Lectures  on  the  Hebrew 
Laiiguage:  which  have  been  so  long  in 
preparation,  are  now  nearly  ready  lor  pub- 
lication, and  will  appear  in  the  course  of 
the  ensuing  month. 

The  Rev.  Greville  Ewing  has  just  com- 
pleted a  new  Edition  of  his  Scripture  Lexi- 
con, very  considerably  enlarged,  and  adapt- 
ed to  the  general  reading  of  the  Greek 
Classics.' 

M.  W.  Orme  is  preparing  the  Memoirs, 
Correspondence,  and  other  Remains  of  Mr. 
John  Urquhart,  late  of  the  University  of  St. 
Andrews. 

The  Rev.  John  Noble  Coleman,  M.A., 
late  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  has  in  the 
press,  Sixteen  Sermons  ;  Doctrinal,  Prac- 
tical, and  Occasional ;  with  illustrative 
Notes  and  Authorities. 

Preparing  for  publication,  in  3  vols.  12mo. 
A  new  and  interesting  Work,  entitled  A 
General  Compendium  of  the  County  His- 
tories of  England  ;  compreheuding  the 
History,  Antiquities,  Topography,  drc.  of 
every  County  in  England. 


The  Rev.  T.  D.  Fosbroke,  M.A.  F.S.A. 
is  about  to  publish  Foreign  Topography, 
or  an  Encyclopedick  Account,  alphabeti- 
cally arranged,  of  the  Ancient  Remains  in 
Asia,  Africa,  Europe  (England  excepted), 
and  America. 

There  is  nearly  ready  a  Series  of  Twenty- 
five  Views  of  Pompeii,  drawn  on  stone, 
after  drawings  by  W.  Light,  esq. 

Colonel  Trench  proposes  publishing  a  Col- 
lection of  Papers,  illustrated  with  explana- 
tory Plates,  relating  to  the  Thames  Quay  ; 
with  Hints  for  some  further  improvements 
in  the  Metropolis. 

W.  Allen's  History  of  Lambeth,  with  up- 
wards of  a  hundred  engravings  of  curious 
objects  connected  with  the  Parish,  is  an- 
nounced as  nearly  ready,  by  J.  Nichols. 

Travels  from  India  to  England,  by  way 
of  the  Burmari  Empire,  Persia,  Asia  Minor, 
Turkey,  &c.  in  the  Years  182.5  and  26, 
containing  a  Chronological  Epitome  of  the 
late  Military  Transactions  in  Ava.  By 
James  Edward  Alexander,  esq.  H.P.  late 
H.M.  13th  Light  Dragoons,  in  4to.  Also 
by  the  same  Author,  Sigurf  Namah-I- 
Valaet,  or  Excellent  Intelligence  concern- 
ing Europe  ;  being  the  Travels  of  Shaikh 
Itesa  Moodeen  Moonshee  in  Great  Britain 
and  France.  Translated  from  the  Original 
Persian  Manuscript  into  Hindoostanee,  with 
an  English  Version  and  Notes. 

A  Reply  to  Dr.  Lingard's  "  Vindication" 
is  in  the  press.  By  John  Allen,  esq. 

No.  II.  of  Robson's  Picturesque  Views  of 
all  the  English  Cities,  will  be  ready  on  the 
1st  of  April. 

The  Union  of  Architecture,  Sculpture, 
and  Painting,  exemplified  in  a  Series  of  Il- 
lustrations of,  and  Descriptive  Dissertations 
on  the  House  and  Museum  of  J.  Soune,  esq. 
in  Lincoln's-Inn  Fields,  will  be  published  on 
the  1st  of  April,  by  J.  Britton. 

LIST    OF   NEW   WORKS. 
ARCHITECTURE,  &C. 

Specimens  of  the  Architectural  Antiqui- 
tie*s  of  Normandy.  By  Pugin  and  J.  and  H. 
Le  Keux.  No.  III.  containing  20  engravings 
illustrative  of  the  Ancient  Buildings  of  Caen, 
tfec.  The  editor,  Mr.  Britton,  announces  in 
the  present  Number,  that  the  whole  of  the 
letter-press  will  be  given  to  the  Subscribers 
with  the  next  number,  which  finishes  the 
work,  in  order  to  obviate  the  severe  tax  on 
literature  of  presenting  eleven  copies  to  so 
many  public  and  private  libraries,  that  are 
so  amply  endowed  with  the  means  of  pur- 
chasing them. 

No.  XVIII.  of  Illustrations  of  the  Public 
Buildings  of  London  ;  containing  Historical 
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Remarks  on  Modern  Gothic  Architecture, 
&c. 

Britton's  Cathedral  Antiquities.  Nos. 
XXXVIII.  and  XXXIX.,  the  first  being 
the  concluding  part  of  Exeter  Cathedral,  and 


1827.] 


List  of  New  Works. 


325 


the  other  commencing  the  Illustrations  of 
Peterborough. 

HISTORY,  &c. 

History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the 
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RELIGION  AND    MORALS,  &C. 

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326 


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BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 


MISS   BENGER. 

By  the  death  of  this  truly  estimable  wo- 
mnn,  the  literary  world  has  been  deprived 
of  one  of  its  most  useful  ornaments  ;  and  her 
extensive  circle  of  attached  friends,  has  ex- 
perienced a  loss  which  will  not  easily  be 
repaired.— By  an  affectionate  tribute  to  her 
memory,  from  the  pen  of  Miss  Lucy  Aikin, 
we  learn  that  Elizabeth  O.  Benger,  wus 


born  in  the  city  of  Wells,  in  the  year  1778. 
Her  father  was  a  purser  in  the  navy  ;  and, 
having  experienced  many  reverses  of  for- 
tune, he,  at  his  death  abroad,  in  1796,  left 
his  wife  and  his  daughter,  the  subject  of  this 
sketch,  with  a  very  slender  provision.  For 
some  years  after  this  event,  Miss  Benger 
continued  with  her  mother  in  Wiltshire, 
where  her  friends  and  relations  were  nu- 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons, 


327 


merous.  Though  her  connexions  were  not 
literary,  the  love  of  literature  was  her  early 
passion.  Miss  Benger  has  herself  related, 
"  That,  in  the  want  of  books  which  she  at 
one  time  suffered,  it  was  her  common  prac- 
tice to  plant  herself  at  the  window  of  the 
only  bookseller's  shop  in  the  little  town 
which  she  then  inhabited,  to  read  the  open 
pages  of  the  new  publications  there  dis- 
played, and  to  return  again  day  after  day,  to 
examine  whether  by  good  fortune,  a  leaf  of 
any  of  them  might  have  been  turned  over.'' 
About  the  age  of  twelve,  by  the  advice,  we 
are  told,  of  a  judicious,  though  unlearned 
friend,  she  was  sent  to  a  boy's  school,  to  be 
instructed  in  Latin.  In  the  country,  as  well 
as  in  London,  strange  things  are  sometimes 
done !  At  fifteen  she  is  said  to  have  written 
and  published  a  poem,  which,  though  im- 
perfect, evinced  considerable  genius. 

About  the  year  1802,  Miss  Benger  with 
her  mother  removed  to  London,  where, 
principally  through  the  friendship  of  Miss 
Sarah  Wesley,  she  immediately  found  herself 
in  superior  society.  By  the  late  Dr.  G. 
Gregory,  and  his  wife,  she  was  introduced  to 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Hamilton,  of  whom  she 
wrote  and  published  many  years  afterwards, 
a  highly  interesting  memoir.  By  the  same 
friends,  she  was  introduced  to  Mrs.  Barbauld, 
and  to  the  late  Dr.  Aikin,  with  the  various 
members  of  whose  family,  she  ever  preserved 
an  affectionate  intimacy.  To  the  family  of 
R.  Smirke,  Esq.  R.  A.,  especially  to  that 
gentleman's  accomplished  daughter,  she  was 
also  warmly  attached.  Amongst  her  nu- 
merous literary  connexions  should  be  parti- 
cularly mentioned  Mrs.  Joanna  Baillie,  the 
Misses  Porter,  &c. ;  and  Miss  Aikin  has 
most  truly  observed,  that  "  she  was  often 
able  to  assemble  round  her  humble  tea-table 
names,  whose  celebrity  would  have  at- 
tracted attention  in  th*  proudest  saloons  of 
the  metropolis." 

Miss  Benger's  first  wishes  were  to  write  for 
the  stage  ;  but  it  was  not  for  a  mind  like 
hers  to  submit  to  the  injustice  and  caprice  of 
managers,  or  the  insolence  of  upstart  players. 
Her  poem  on  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave 
Trade,  possessed  considerable  merit. 

She  afterwards  published  two  novels  anony- 
mously. Biography,  however,  appears  to 
have  been  her  forte.  Her  Memoirs  of  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Hamilton,  Memoirs  of  John  Tobin, 
Notices  of  Klopstock  and  his  Friends,  pre- 
fixed to  a  translation  of  their  letters  from  the 
German,  her  Life  of  Anne  Boley  n,  Memoirs 
of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and  Memoirs  of 
the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  each  in  succession 
experienced  a  highly  favourable  reception, 
and  are  all  standard  works.  At  the  period 
of  her  decease,  she  had  been  some  time  em- 
ployed on  Memoirs  of  Henry  IV.  of  France, 
which,  as  they  are  announced  for  early  pub- 
lication, were,  we  presume,  nearly  if  not 
quite  finished, 

Miss  Benger's  health  was  generally  deli- 
cate. She  had  been  confined  some  weeks  by 
a  rheumatic  fever ;  but  her  death,  we  believe, 


was  not  anticipated.  She  died  at  her  apart- 
ments in  Warren-street,  Fitzroy-square,  on 
the  9th  of  January.  Her  mother,  with  whom 
she  resided,  is  yet  living  and  in  active  health. 
— Miss  Benger's  mind  was  richly  stored  with 
historical  and  general  information ;  her  con- 
versation was  cheerful,  lively,  and  even  elo- 
quent. She  was  a  most  amiable,  kind,  and 
benevolent  minded  woman. 


MALTE  BRUN. 

Conrad  Malte  Brun,  distinguished  as  a 
geographical,  historical,  and  political  writer, 
was  born  in  1775,  in  the  Danish  province  of 
Jutland.  His  father's  family  was  one  of  the 
first  in  Jutland  ;  and  possessing  the  nomina- 
tion to  several  benefices  in  the  Lutheran 
church,  he  sent  his  son  to  the  University  of 
Copenhagen,  to  study  theology  and  take  his 
degrees.  While  there,  however,  he  suffered 
his  taste  in  the  Belles  Lettres  to  supersede 
theological  pursuits  ;  he  published  a  volume 
of  poems,  and  undertook  the  management 
of  a  Theatrical  Review.  At  the  University, 
however,  he  acquired  that  lofty  power  of 
reasoning  which  he  was  enabled  afterwards 
to  apply  with  so  much  success  on  various 
subjects.  His  father  was  of  the  aristocratic 
party  which  called  for  a  war  with  France  ; 
but  he  espoused  the  cause  of  freedom,  and 
wrote  in  favour  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
peasants  and  the  liberty  of  the  press ;  and, 
a  party  having  arisen  which  demanded  the 
establishment  of  a  free  constitution,  he  be- 
came one  of  its  most  active  members.  In 
1796,  he  published  The  Cathechism  of  the 
Aristocrats;  a  biting  satire  against  feu- 
dality and  the  coalition  of  sovereigns.  Me- 
naced with  a  prosecution,  he  took  refuge  in 
Sweden;  and  while  there,  he  published  a 
volume  of  poems  which  required  for  him  the 
encouragement  and  approbation  of  the  Aca- 
demy of  Stockholm.  When  Count  Bern- 
stoff  was  on  his  death  bed,  he  recommended 
to  the  Prince  Royal  to  recal  Malte  Brun,  and 
employ  him  in  some  diplomatic  capacity. 
Accordingly,  in  1797,  he  returned  to  Den- 
mark, and  was  favourably  received  ;  but, 
having  publicly  attacked  certain  ministerial 
measures,  he  was  again  under  the  necessity 
of  seeking  an  asylum  in  Sweden.  Soon 
afterwards  he  removed  to  Hamburgh  ;  and 
it  is  said  to  have  been  about  this  period  that 
he  became  either  the  founder,  or  one  of  the 
most  active  members  of  a  secret  society, 
called  the  United  Scandinavians;  the  object 
of  which  was  to  unite  the  three  kingdoms  of 
the  north  into  one  federative  republic.  This 
project  excited  so  much  alarm,  that  Paul  of 
Russia,  and  Gustavus  of  Sweden,  demanded 
from  the  Danish  government,  the  punishment 
of  its  authors.  In  consequence,  a  prosecu- 
tion was  commenced  against  Malte  Brun, 
who  was  then  in  Paris,  and  he  was  sentenced 
to  banishment.  He  settled  in  Paris  in  1799, 
devoting  himself  to  literary  employment.  In 
conjunction  with  Mentelle,  he  published,  be- 
tween 1804  and  1807,  "Political,  Physical, 
and  Mathematical  Geography,"  in  sixteen 


328 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[MARCH, 


volumes,  8vo.  On  the  reputation  obtained 
by  that  work,  the  proprietors  of  the  Journal 
Des  Debats,  requested  him  to  join  in  the 
editorship  of  that  paper.  He  accepted  the 
invitation;  and,  excepting  tor  one  brief  in- 
terval, ha  devoted  himself  to  that  laborious 
duty  to  the  very  day  of  his  death.  Only  one 
hour  before  he  expired,  he  traced  a  few  lines 
for  the  Journal,  but  had  not  strength  to 
finish  them. 

M.  Malte  Brun  was  acquainted  with  all 
the  languages  of  Europe ;  he  wrote  French 
with  the  facility  of  a  native  ;  and  he  had  a 
thorough  understanding  of  the  character  of 
all  the  European  Cabinets. 

In  1 807  appeared  his  Picture  of  Ancient 
and  Modern  Poland  ;  and  in  1808,  he  com- 
menced a  periodical  work  which  is  still  con- 
tinued, under  the  title  of  Annals  of  Voyages 
and  Travels,  and  of  Geography  and  History. 
It  is  a  faithful  and  learned  analysis  of  all  the 
voyages  and  travels,  and  of  all  the  discoveries 
in  modern  times.  In  1814  and  1815,  he  pro- 
duced another  periodical,  called  the  Specta- 
tor, which  was  completed  in  three  volumes. 
Of  his  great  work,  his  Summary  of  Universal 
Geography,  six  volumes  have  appeared ;  and 
the  printing  of  the  seventh  and  last  volume 
is  nearly  finished.  During  the  Hundred 
Days  he  published  his  Apology  for  Louis  the 
Eighteenth ;  and  in  1825,  appeared  his  Trea- 
tise on  Legitimacy.  During  the  last  few 
months  preceding  his  decease,  he  was  em- 
ployed in  the  drawing  up  of  a  Dictionary  of 
Univeral  Geography,  in  one  volume,  which 
is  in  part  printed.  His  labours  were  too 
great  for  his  strength.  His  physical  energies 
were  rapidly  giving  way.  An  interval  of  re- 
pose might  have  restored  him  ;  but  he  neg- 
lected the  counsels  of  friendship ;  and  the 
moment  that  was  to  terminate  hi's  existence 
speedily  arrived.  For  three  days  only  he 
kept  his  room.  He  died  on  the  14th  of 
December;  and  on  the  ITth  his  remains 
were  interred  in  the  Cemetry  of  the  West ; 
where  M.  Eyries  paid  the  tribute  of  his 
esteem  and  regret  to  his  colleague,  and  M. 
de  la  Renaudier6  bade  a  last  adieu  to  the 
man  who  had  preceded  him  in  his  office.  In 
the  church,  Rue  de  Billettes,  a  funeral  oration 
was  pronounced  by  M.  Boissand,  the  Lu- 
theran minister. — M.  Malte  Brun  has  left  a 
widow  and  two  sons. 


JOHN  NICHOLS,  ESQ.,  F.  S.  A. 
John,  son  of  Edward  and  Anne^Nichols, 
was  born  at  Islington,  on  the  2d  of  February, 
1744-5.  His. original  destination  was  the 
navy  ;  but,  in  consequence  of  the  decease  of 
his  maternal  uncle,  a  lieutenant  in  that  ser- 
vice, in  1751,  the  views  of  his  family  were 
altered;  and,  before  he  was  quite  thirteen, 
he  was  apprenticed  to  Mr.  William  Bowyer, 
the  celebrated  printer.  To  that  gentleman 
he  proved  a  most  valuable  and  confidential 
assistant.  He  was  not  only  a  good  classical 
scholar,  but  had  considerable  talent  in  poetry 
.and  general  literature.  During  his  minority, 


he  wrote  several  essays  on  the  manners  of  the 
age ;  and,  from  1701  to  1766,  his  productions 
in  prose  and  in  verse,  made  no  inconsiderable 
figure  in  the  Westminster  Journal,  and  other 
periodicals.  His  attention  to  business  was 
rather  increased  than  diminished  by  his  de- 
votion to  literature.  On  the  expiration  of  his 
term,  Mr.  Bowyer,  in  token  of  his  high  satis- 
faction, returned  a  moiety  of  his  apprentice 
fee  to  his  father;  and  us  early  as  the  year 

1766,  he  took   him    into  partnership.    In 

1767,  Messrs.  Bowyer  and  Nichols  removed 
their  office  from  Whitefriars  to  Red  Lion- 
passage,    FJeet-street,     where  it  remained 
until  a  very  few  years  since.     The  union 
existed  upon  the  most  cordial  terms  till  the 
death  of  Mr.  Bowyer,  in  1 777. 

In  1763,  Mr.  Nichols  published  two  poeti- 
cal pamphlets  ;  Islington,  a  Poem,  and  The 
Buds  of  Parnassus ;  but  his  first  publication 
of  consequence  was  a  work  on  the  origin  of 
printing,  in  two  essays,  in  1774.  This  ob- 
tained most  respectful  notice,  in  foreign  as 
well  as  in  English  literary  journals. — Lord 
Marchmont,  Drs.  Birch,  Parsons,  Warton, 
and  Farmer,  Sir  James  Burrow,  and  Sir 
John  Pringle,  were  now  among  the  friends 
and  patrons  of  Mr.  Nichols,  who  was  re- 
garded as  the  probable  successor  of  Mr. 
Bowyer.  Dean  Swift  was  one  of  his  great 
favourites;  and,  in  1775,  he  published  a 
supplemental  volume  to  Dr.  Hawkesworth's 
edition  of  that  writer.  He  afterwards  dis- 
played his  editorial  skill  in  a  newly  arranged 
edition  of  Swift's  works,  with  numerous  ad- 
ditions and  biographical  notes.  This  has 
long  been  regarded  as  the  standard  edition. 
In  this,  and  his  next  publication,  the  original 
works  in  prose  and  verse  of  William  King, 
L.L.D.  with  historical  notes,  in  1776,  he  was 
assisted  by  his  friend  Isaac  Reed,  the  com- 
mentator on  Shakspeare. — In  1778,  Mr. 
Nichols  obtained  a  share  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  of  which  he  became  the  editor, 
and  of  which  we  believe,  he  retained  the 
control  until  the  time  of  his  death. 

In  1779,  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  Ducarel, 
and  assisted  by  Richard  Gough,  Esq.  the 
celebrated  antiquary,  he  published  the  His- 
tory of  the  Royal  Abbey  of  Bee,  near 
Rouen ;  and  some  Account  of  the  Alien  Prio- 
ries, and  of  such  Lands  as  they  are  known 
to  have  possessed  in  England  and  Wales. 
Mr.  Gough  had  long  been  an  able  contributor 
to  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  ;  and  the  inti- 
macy and  friendship  which  subsisted  between 
him  and  Mr.  Nichols,  continued  till  his  death, 
in  1809.— In  1780,  Mr.  Nichols  published 
his  Collection  of  Royal  and  Noble  Wills — a 
Select  Collection  of  Miscellaneous  Poems, 
with  Historical  and  Biographical  Notes,— 
and  commenced  his  Bibliotbeca  Topogra- 
phica  Britannica,  the  completion  of  which 
employed  ten  years.  In  1781,  he  published 
his  Biographical  Anecdotes  of  William  Ho- 
garth, and  his  Biographical  Memoirs  of 
William  Jed,  Including  a  Particular  Account 
of  his  Art  of  Block  Printing.  In  1782,  first 
appeared  his  Anecdotes  of  Bowyer,  and  of 


1827.] 


Biographical  M'emoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


329 


many  of  his  Literary  Friends  which,  ujti- 
tnately,  'passing  through  many  succeeding 
editions,  beaune  one  of  his  most  important 
und  most  valuable  works.  His  next  great 
work,  which  grew  from  several  minor  and 
distinct  efforts,  was  bis  History  of  Leicester- 
shire, completed  in  1815,  in  four  large  folio 
volumes,  illustrated  by  numerous  plates. 
Amongst  his  other  literary  works  may  be 
particularly  mentioned  the  Progresses  and 
Royal  Processions  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  the 
Progresses  of  James  I.;  Illustrations  of  the 
Manners  and  Expenses  of  Ancient  Times  in 
England  j  the  History  and  Antiquities  of 
Canonbury,  with  some  Account  of  the  Parish 
of  Islington ;  the  History  and  Antiquities  of 
Lambeth  Parish ;  Illustrations  of  the  Literary 
History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  <fec. 

In  1784,  Mr.  Nichols  vms  elected  a  Com- 
mon Councilman  for  the  ward  of  Farringdon 
Without ;  a  situation  which,  with  the  interval, 
of  only  one  year,  be  held  until  1811,  when 
he  resigned  his  civic  honours.  In  1804,  he 
served  the  office  of  master  of  the  stationers' 
company.  The  rooms  of  that  company  are 
decorated  by  several  portraits  presented  by 
Mr.  Nichols. 

This  able  and  worthy  individual  was  not 
altogether  without  his  share  in  the  calamities 
of  life.  In  the  summer  of  1803,  he  partially 
withdrew  from  business  to  a  private  residence 
in  Islington,  hoping  to  pass  the  evening  of  a 
laborious  life,  in  the  calm  enjoyment  of  do- 
mestic tranquillit}'.  However,  on  the  8th  of 
January,  1807,  by  an  accidental  fall,  at  bis 
house  in  Red  Lion  Passage,  he  had  one  of 
his  thighs  fractured;  and,  on  the  8th  of 
February,  on  the  ensuing  year,  his  printing 
office  and  warehouses,  with  the  whole  of 
their  valuable  contents,  were  consumed  by 
fire.  Under  each  of  these  misfortunes,  he 
displayed  the  utmost  firmness  and  vigour  of 
mind. — It  is  remarkable  that,  only  three  days 
before  his  death,  he  affirmed  that,  though  be 
could  not  then  read  any  printed  book,  he 
could  read  manuscript.  Of  his  death,  which 
took  place  on  the  evening  of  Sunday,  No- 
vember the  26th,  he  had  no  presentiment. 
In  the  course  of  the  preceding  week,  he  had 
written  two  or  three  articles  for  his  Magazine. 
On  the  evening  mentioned,  he  had  passed 
some  cheerful  hours  with  his  family,  and  was 
retiring  to  rest  about  ten  o'clock.  On  reach- 
ing the  lower  staircase,  accompanied  by  his 
eldest  daughter,  he  said,  without  any  parti- 
cular alteration  of  voice — "Give  me  your 
hand,"  and  instantly  sunk  gently  on  his  knees, 
and  expired  without  a  sigh  or  the  slightest 
symptom  of  suffering. 

Mr.  Nichols's  disposition  was  mild  and 
amiable,  charitable  and  benevolent.  For 
many  years  he  was  Registrer  or  Honorary 
Secretory  to  the  Literary  Fund  ;  an  office 
which  frequently  enabled  him  to  gratify  the 
best  feelings  of  his  heart.  Mr.  Nichols  mar- 
ried, first,  in  1766,  Anne,  daughter  of  Mr. 
William  Cradock ;  by  whom,  who  died--in 
1776,  he  had  two  daughters,  one  of  whom 
married  the  Rev.  J.  Pridden,  M.A.,  F.S.  A., 

M.M.  New  Scries.-  VOL. III.  No.  1,5. 


and  died  in  1815;  and  the  other  is  yet-liv- 
ing: secondly,  in  1778,  Martha,  daughter  of 
Mr.  William  Green,  of  Hinckley,  in  Leices- 
tershire ;  by  whom,  who  died  in  1788,  he  had 
one  son,  John  Bowyer  Nichols,  and  four 
daughters,  the  eldest  of  whom  is  married  to 
John  Morgan,  Esq.  of  Highbury.  He  was 
interred  in  Islington  churchyard,  where  the 
remains  of  his  parents,  and  of  all  his  children, 
who  died  before  him,  had  been  buried.  His 
funeral,  though  private,  was  attended  by  011 
his  adult  male  relations  ;  and  by  his  friends 
J.  and  W.  Morgan,  and  W.  Herrick,  Esqrs., 
W.  Tooke,  Esq.  F.R.S.,  A.  Chalmers,  Esq. 
F.S.A.  ;  H.  Ellis,  Esq.  F.R.S. ;  C.  and  R. 
Baldwin,  G.  Woodfall,  and  J  Jeaffreson, 
Esqrs. 


J.  M.    GOOD,    M.ty.    F.R.S,    &C. 

Dr.  Good,  who  has  been  long  known  as  a 
learned  and  accomplished  writer  and  able  mem- 
ber of  the  medical  profession,  formerly  prac* 
tised  as  a  surgeon  and  apothecary  in  Guildford- 
street ;  but,  about  seven  years  ago,  he  took 
out  his  diploma  as  M.D.— -Dr.  Good  was  the 
author  and  editor  of  numerous  publications  ; 
amongst  which  were  the  following: — A 
Dissertation  on  the  Diseases  of  Prisons  and 
Poor  Houses,  8vo.  1794;— The  History  of 
Medicine,  as  far  as  relates  to  the  Profession 
of  an  Apothecary,  12mo.  1725  ;— On  the 
Best  Method  of  Employing  the  Poor  in 
Parish  Work-houses,  1798 ;— Memoirs  of 
the  Life  and  Writings  of  the  late  Dr.  Alex- 
ander Geddes,  8vo.  1803  ; — The  Triumph  of 
Britain,  an  Ode,  1803  ;— Song  of  Songs,  or 
Sacred  Idylls  from  the  Hebrew,  with  Notes, 
1803  ;— -Essay  on  Medical  Technology,  8vo. 
J810  ;— A  Complete  System  of  Medicine  ; — 
A  Translation  of  Lucretius  on  the  Nature  of 
Things,  2  vols.  4 to. ;— The  Book  of  Job, 
Translated  from  the  Hebrew,  tfec. — Dr. Good 
was  also  one  of  the  editors  and  principal 
writers  of  the  Pantalogia,  one  of  our  best 
cyclopaedias  on  a  small  scale. 

This  truly  valuable  member  of  society, 
died  on  the  2d  of  January,  at  the  house  of  his 
daughter,  at  Shepperton.  His  death  was  occa- 
sioned by  an  inflammatory  attack  brought  oil 
by  an  exposure  to  cold. 


JOSKPH    CRADOCK,    ESQ.,   F.  S.  A. 

This  gentleman,  the  senior  Fellow  of  the  ' 
Society  of  Antiquaries,  was  born  about  the 
year  1742.  He  served  the  office  of  High 
Sheriff  of  Leicestershire,  in  1767.  In  early 
life,  he  figured  both  in  the  fashionable  and 
literary  circles  ;  and  was  honoured  with  the 
friendship  of  Johnson,  Warburton,  Hurd, 
Halifax,  Parr,  Reynolds,  Burke,  Percy, 
Goldsmith,  Garrick,  Steevens,  Nichols,  and 
the  whole  of  the  Literary  Club.  About  a 
twelvemonth  ago,  he  published  the  first  vo- 
lume of  his  Literary  and  Miscellaneous 
Memoirs  ;  and  a  few  weeks  before  his  death, 
the  second  volume  appeared.  He  died  at  his 
apartments  in  the  Strand,  on  the  15th  t)f 
December ;  and  on  the  23d  his  remains  were 
interred  at  th .?  church  of  St.  Mary-le-Strnud: 

2  U 


330 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons.  [MARCH, 


Th9  funeral  service  was  performed  by  the 
Rev.  G.  T.  Andrews,  son  of  Mr.  Cradock's 
old  friend,  the  lute  Dean  of  Canterbury. 
The  Hon.  H.  Washington  Shirley,  J.  P. 
Stratford,  Master  in  Chancery,  L.  C.  Hum- 
pey,  Esq.,  Barrister,  A.  Chalmers,  Esq., 
F.S.  A.,  N.  Carlile,  Esq.,  F.  S.  A.,  and  T. 
G.  Pettigrew,  F.  S.  A.  Esq.,  were  pall-bearers 
on  the  occasion.  The  body  was  followed  by 
his  executors,  John  Bowyer  Nichols,  Esq., 
F.S. A.,  John  Pearson,  Esq.,  and  William 
Tooke,  Esq.,  F.  R.  S. ;  also  by  Geo.  Dyer, 
Esq.,  John  Britton,  Esq.,  F.S.  A.,  John 
Taylor,  Esq.,  John  Mayne,  Esq.,  Thomas 
Cadell,  Fsq.,  Dr.  Nuttall,  and  many  other 
gentlemen. 

THE  BISHOP  OF  OXFORD. 
The  Hon.  and  Right  Rev.  Edward  Leg^e, 
born  on  the  4th  of  December,  1767,  was  the 
seventh  son  of  William,  second  Earl  of  Dart- 
mouth, by  Frances  Catherine,  sole  daughter 
and  heir  to  Sir  Charles  Gunter  Nicholl,  K.B. 
He  was  consequently  brother  to  the  late  and 
uncle  to  the  present  Earl. — He  was  educated 
at  Rugby,  and  thence  became  a  member  of 
Christ  Church,  Oxford.  In  1789,  he  was 
elected  to  a  Fellowship  in  Ail  Souls'  Col- 
lege, where,  on  the  9th  of  June,  1791,  he 
took  the  degree  of  B.  C.  L. ;  and,  on  the  6th 
of  April,  1805,  that  of  D.C.L.  For  many 
years  he  enjoyed  the  family  living  of  Lewis- 
ham,  in  Kent,  together  with  the  Deanery  of 
Windsor.  The  former  he  resigned  at  an 
earlier  period,  the  latter  in  1811.  Dr.  Legged 
correct  conduct  recommended  him  much  fo 
the  notice  of  the  late  King  ;  and  a  bishopric 
was  consequently  expected  for  him  by  his 
friends,  some  time  before  he  was  raised  to 
that  dignity.  However,  upon  the  demise  of 
Dr.  Jackson,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  in  1815,  he 
was  appointed  to  that  See.  In  1817,  he 
was  elected  warden  of  All  Souls ;  and  from 
that,  period  to  the  time  of  his  decease,  on  the 
27th  of  January,  in  the  present  year,  be  re- 
sided chiefly  at  Oxford,  where  his  loss  is  uni- 
versally felt  and  sincerely  lamented.  His 
Grace  was  one  of  the  Governors  of  Green- 
wich Hospital. 

THE   BISHOP    OF   LINCOLN. 

The  Hon.  and  Right  Rev.  George  Pelham, 
was  the  third  son  of  Thomas,  first  Earl  of 
Chichester  by  Anne,  daughter  and  heiress  of 
Frederick  Meinhardt  Frankland,  Esq.,  son  of 
Sir  Thomas  Frankland,  Bart.  He  was  bro- 
ther to  the  late  Earl  of  Chi  Chester,  whose 
death  it  was  our  task  to  record  some  months 
ago,  and  uncle  to  the  present  Earl.  He  was 
born  on  the  13th  of  October,  1766 ;  and  he 
married  on  the  14th  of  December,  1792, 
Mary,  daughter  of  Sir  Richard  Rycroft,  Bart. 

This  nobleman  was  educated  at  Cam- 
bridge. He  was  at  first  intended  for  the 
army :  for  some  time  he  held  a  commission  in 
the  Guards;  but  afterwards  he  determined 
for  the  church.  After  his  ordination  he  was 
successively  promoted  to  be  a  Prebendary  of 
Chichester,  and  Vicar  of  Hellingley,  and  of 


Bexhill,  in  Sussex.  In  1802,  on  a  vacancy 
of  the  Sea  of  Bristol,  he  received  his  degree 
of  D.  D.  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  was  made  Bishop.  On  the  translation 
of  Dr.  Fisher  to  the  See  of  Salisbury,  in  1807, 
Dr.Pelharn  succeeded  him  at  Exeter  ;  and, 
on  the  removal  of  Dr.  Tomline  to  the  J»ee  of 
Winchester,  iu  1840,  Dr.  Pelham  was  elected 
Bishop  of  Lincoln. 

His  lordship  was  clerk  of  the  closet  to  the 
king;  and  visitor  of  King's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, and  of  Braaennse  and  Lincoln  Col- 
lege, Oxford.  He  published  a  Ch.-irge  to  the 
Clergy  of  the  Diocese  of  Bristol,  in  1804; 
and  a  sermon,  preached  at  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral at  tbe  yearly  meeting  of  the  charity 
schools  in  1805.— His  Lordship  in  general, 
was  not  a  prominent  speaker  in  the  House 
of  Peers;  but,  upon  the  trial  of  the  late 
Queen  Caroline,  he  shewed  himself  a  warm 
supporter  of  the  prosecution. — He  died  on 
the  7th  of  February  last,  in  consequence  of  a 
severe  cold  which  he  caught  in  attending  the 
funeral  of  the  late  Duke  of  York. 

The  Right  Rev.  Father  in  God,  Dr.  John 
Kaye,  Bishop  of  Bristol,  has  been  elected 
Bishop  of  the  See  of  Lincoln,  in  the  room  of 
Dr.  Pelham. 


DR.    COLLINSON. 

The  Rev.  Septimus  Collinson,  D.  D.  Pro- 
vost of  Queen's,  the  Lady  Margaret's  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  and  Prebendary 
of  Worcester,  was  born  about  the  year  1740. 
He  became  a  member  of  the  University  in 
June,  1759;  M.A.Mtiy,  13,  1767;  B.  D. 
February  10, 1792  ;  D.D.January  16,  1793  ; 
Provost  of  Queen's,  on  the  death  of  Dr.  Fo- 
thergill,  1796  ;  and  Margaret  Professor,  on 
that  of  Dr.  Neve,  in  1798. 

The  duties  of  his  provostship,  an  appoint- 
ment which  Dr.  Collinson  enjoyed  for  a  longer 
period  than  any  former  provost,  were  dis- 
charged by  him  with  just  ability,  diligence, 
and  discretion  ;  and  in  his  office  of  Professor, 
he  laboured  with  unexampled  efficiency  and 
zeal.  His  Lectures  on  the  39  Articles  of 
the  Church  of  England,  which  he  delivered 
in  that  capacity,  evinced  deep  research,  sound 
judgment,  correct  and  enlarged  views  of  re- 
ligion, and  great  moderation.  So,  great  was 
his  anxiety  to  be  useful,  that  he  delivered  a 
course  of  lectures  at  the  age  of  80  ;  and  he 
frequently  preached  before  the  University 
when  he  had  arrived  at  a  very  advanced 
period  of  life.  His  sermons  exhibited  deci- 
sive proofs  of  a  vigorous  and  acute  mind, 
habituated  to  calm  and  patient  inquiry,  to 
close  and  accurate  reasoning.  His  delivery 
was  peculiarly  impressive.  Dr.  Collinson's 
character  was  distinguished  by  independence, 
liberality,  and  benevolence.  Even  to  the 
close  of  his  long  life  he  retained  unabated 
cheerfulness,  and  unimpaired  energy  of  mind. 
His  frame  was  weak  and  delicate  ;  yet,  from 
regularity  of  habit  he  enjoyed  almost  unin- 
terrupted good  health  ;  and  he  closed  his 
earthly  career  at  his  lodge,  after  a  very  short 
illness,  on  tbe  23d  of  January. 


1827] 


[    331 


PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL  AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 


List  of  Patents  lately  Granted. 
To  Robert  Barlow,  of  Chelsea,  for  a  new 
combination  of  machinery,  or  new  motion, 
for  superseding  the  ordinary  crank  in  steam- 
engines,  and  other  purposes  where  power  is 
required — Sealed  1st  Feb.,  J827;  for  inrol- 
ment,  6  months. 

To  J.  F.  Daniel,  esq.,  of  Gower-street,  for 
his  improvement  in  making  gas — 1st  Feb. ; 
6  months. 

To  J.  Oldham,  of  Dublin,  for  improvements 
in  the  construction  of  wheels  designed  for 
driving  machines  which  are  to  be  impelled  by 
water,  or  by  wind,  and  which  improvements 
tire  applicable  to  propelling  beats  and  other 
vessels — l»t  Feb. ;  6  monies. 

To  Ralph  Hindmarsb,  of  Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne,  for  «n  improvement  in  the  construc- 
tion of  capstans  and  windlasses — 1st  Feb. ; 
6  months. 

To  R.  Clerk  and  J.  Stirling,  of  Glasgow, 
for  certain  improvements  in  air-engines  for 
moving  machinery — 1st  Feb. ;  6  months. 

To  J.  White,  of  Southampton,  for  certain 
improvements  in  the  construction  of  pistons 
or  buckets  for  pumps — 1st  Feb.;  6  months. 

To  S.  Parker,  of  Westminster,  for  improve- 
ments in  the  construction  of  lamps — 1st  Feb. ; 
2  months. 

To  Antoine  Adolphe  Marcellan  Marbott, 
of  Norfolk-street,  Strand,  for  an  improved 
machinery  lor  working  or  cutting  wood  into 
all  kinds  of  mouldings,  rebates,  cornices,  or 
any  sort  of  fluted  work — 3d  Feb;  6  months 

To  Sir  William  Congreve,  bart.,  of  Cecil- 
street,  Strand,  for  a  new  motive  power — 
8th  Feb. ;  6  months. 

To  William  Strnhan,  of  Limelmu.se,  for  an 
improved  apparatus  for  heating  air  by  means 
of  steam — 12th  Feb.;  6  months. 

To  J.  G.  Christ,  of  Bishopsgate-street,  for 
improvements  in  copper-plate  and  other  plate 
printing — 14th  Feb.;  6  months. 

To  P.  J.  Heicsh,  of  America-square,  for 
improvements  in  spinning  cotton — 20th  Feb.; 
2  months. 

To  C.  Barwell  Cotes,  esq.,  of  Duke-street, 
Manchester-square,  and  W.  Nicholson,  of 
Manchester,  civil  engineer,  for  a  new  method 
of  constructing  gasometers,  or  machines  or 
apparatus  for  holding  and  distributing  gas  for 
the  purpose  of  illumination — 20th  Feb. ;  6 
mc-okths. 

Tc  William  Benccke,  of  Deptford,  gent., 
for  a  machine  for  grinding  or  crushing  seeds 
and  other  oleaginous  substances,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  extracting  oil  therefrom — 20th  Feb. ; 
6  months. 

To  William  Jefferies,  of  Radcliffe,  for 
certain  improvements  in  calcining  or  roasting 
and  smelting,  or  extracting  metals  and  semi- 
metals  from  various  kinds  of  ores,  and  matter 
containing  metals  or  semi-metals — 20th  Feb. ; 
6  months. 

To  Pierre  Erard,  of  Great  Marlborough- 
street,  for  certain  improvements  in  the  con- 


struction of  piano-fortes  — 20th  Feb.;  6 
months. 

To  A.  Count  de  La  Garde,  of  St.  James's-' 
square,  for  a  method  of  making  paper  from 
the  bullen  or  ligneous  parts  produced  from 
certain  textile  plants:  in  the  process  of  pre- 
paring the  same  textile  plants  by  the  rural 
mechanical  brake,  and  which  substances  are 
to  be  employed  alone,  or  mixed  with  other 
suitable  materials  in  the  manufacture  of  paper 
— 20th  Feb.;  6  months. 

To  Wm.  Smith,  of  Sheffield,  for  an  im- 
proved method  of  manufacturing  cutlery  and 
other  articles  of  hardware,  with  or  by  means 
of  rollers — 20th  Feb. ;  6  months. 

List  of  Patents,  which,  having  been  granted 
in   March  1813,    expire  in   the  present 
month  of  March  1827. 
3.  John  White,  London,  for  his  machine 

for  cooking  without  wood  or  coal. 

—  James  Thomson,  Clithero,  Lancashire, 
for  a  method  of  producing  patterns  on  cloth 
previously  dyed  Turkey  red,   and  made  of 
cotton,  or  linen,  or  both. 

—  Alexis    Delahante,    London,     for    a 
method  of  making  a  green  colour,  and  the 
application  thereof  to  various  useful  pur- 
poses. 

—  Richard  Green,  London,  for  his  stirrup 
with  a  spring  in  the  eye,    and  a  spring 
bottom,  to  prevent  persons  being  dragged 
in  the  stirrup. 

—  Sir  Thomas  Cochrane  (Lord),  for  hi« 
method  of  mere  completely  lighting  citiest 
towns,  and  villages. 

—  Frederic  Hanek,  London,  for  his  im- 
provements in  musical  instruments. 

—  Joshua  Stopford,  Belford,  Northumber- 
land, for  his  mangle,    to   be  called  "  the 
complete  family  accommodation  mangle." 

—  William  Mitchell,  Edinburgh,  for  his 
important  discovery  in  the  manufacture  of 
soap. 

9.  Benjamin  Merriman  Combes,  London, 
for  an  improved  apparatus  for  the  cookiny 
or  dressing  of  victuals,  and  possessing  other 
advantages  in  lessening  the  consumption  of 
fuel. 

13.  George  Duncan,  Liverpool,  for  several 
improvements  in  the  different  stagey  of  rope 
making,  and  in  machinery  adapted  thereto. 

—  Sigismund   Rentzech,  London,  for  his 
hydrostatical  or  pneumatica I  chronometer. 

—  Robinson    Kitts,    Woolwich,    lor  his 
double  coned  revolving  axle  for  carriages. 

—  Benford  Decoa,  Islington,  for  an  im- 
proved method  of  applying  air  for  domestic 
and  manufacturing  purposes,  and  of  em- 
ploying therein   improved  fire-places   and 
bricks. 

—  William  Hedley,  Wylam,  Northumber- 
land, for  mechanical  means  of  conveying 
carriages  laden  with  coals  and  other  things. 

15.  Richard  Edwards,  Budock,  Cornwall, 
and  William  Williams,  of  Penryth,  for  cer- 
2  U  2 


332                                             List  of  Patents.  [  IVLt  R  f n, 

titin  processes  for  extracting  arsenic  from  of  raising  gravel  or  earth  from  the  bottom 

any  of  the  ores  or  other  substances  in  which  of  rivers  and  pits,  and  for  delivering  the. 

it  is  contained,  in  it  purer  state  than  it  is  same  into  bur  yes,  fyc. 

at  present  procured  in  tin's  kingdom.  29.  John   Henthcoat,  Loughborough,  for 

10.  George  Dodd.  Wandsworth,    for  im-  improvements  in  the  machine- for  making 

jtror emeu  fs  in  umbre lias,  which  renders  the  bobbin  lace,  nearly  resembling  foreign, 

same  more  portable  and  convenient.  30.  David  Thomas,  Bristol,  for   a  method 

~1'1.  William  Robert  Wale  King,  London,  of  burning  animal  bones,  for   the  purpose 

for  an  improved  application  of  heat,  to  boil  of  extracting  the  greasy  or  fat  property  and 

watery  $c.  and  to  other  useful  purpose*)  spirituous  quality  thertfrom,  ami  for  reduc- 

and  of  apparatus  for  performing  the  same.  ing  the  remainder  into  a  substance  sujjici- 

23.  Colonel  William   Congreve,   London,  ently  prepared  for  being  ground  into  ivory 

for  a  modi  of  constructing  locks  and  sluices  black,  all  which  is  done  by  one  process, 

of  canals,    fyc.  for  transporting  floating  Robert  and  Samuel   Hall,  Basford,  Not- 

bodies  front  one  level  to  another.  tingham,  for  a  machine  for  finishing  frame 

20.   Thomas  Brunton,   London,    for  im-  work  knittedgoodsy  manufactured jrom  the 

nrnrements  in  making  ships  anchors,  wind-  stocking  frame, 

lasses,  chain  cables,  and  moorings.  —  Joseph  Egg,  London,  for  his  method 

27.  John  Hughes,  Poplar,  lor  a  method  of  applying  and  improving  locks. 


MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT. 

COLD  and  dry  winds  from  the  East  and  North  East,  have  prevailed  almost  uninterruptedly 
since  the  date  of  the  last  report.  The  Thermometer  has  never  i'allen  very  low,  but,  in 
the  reporter's  remembrance,  there  has  seldom  been  felt  so  long  a  period  of  piercing  cold. 
This  intensity  in  sensation,  is  unquestionably  attributable  to  the  permanence  of  the  wind 
in  one  particular  quarter,  rendering  it  nearly  certain  that  that  which  we  have  lately 
experienced,  had  its  origin  in  some  of  the  great  mountainous  chains  of  the  continent,- 
The  effect  of  this  peculiar  condition  of  the  atmosphere  has  been  very  apparent  upon  the 
human  body.  Those  complaints  have  prevailed  which  have  their  source  in  a  constricted 
state  of  tie  capillary  vessels  of  the  skin',  while  others,  which  require  the  permanent- 
application  of  moisture  and  cold  for  development,  have  been  comparatively  rare. 

Severe  colds,  as  they  are  popularly  called,  have  been  very  general.  By  this  term  the  phy- 
sician understands  inflammatory  affections  of  the  raucous  lining  of  the  nose,  throat,  larynx, 
and  windpipe,  characterized  by  swelling  of  the  membrane,  diminution  in  its  secretion,  and 
general  fever.  Hoarseness,  dryness  of  the  throat,  long  continued  fits  of  coughing,  witb 
scanty  and  difficult  expectoration,  have  been  the  predominant  symptoms,  and)  their 
severity  and  obstinacy,  have  given  to  them,  in  many  instances,  an  unwonted  degree  of 
importance.  The  disease  next  in  frequency,  has  been  diarrhoea,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  the  same  principle  which  explains  the  occurrence  of  the  preceding  ailments  at 
this  season,  is. equally  applicable  to  the  pathology  of  this  A  mucous  membrane  is  in  botli 
cases  the  structure  primarily,  and  probably  alone  affected  ;  and  very  trifling  circumstances, 
such  as  the  clothing  of  the  individual,  his  habits  of  life,  his  mode  of  diet,  or  some  pre- 
existing weakness,  determine  the  particular  form  which  the  disease  in  that  individual 
assumes.  In  general,  the  dirrhceas  of  the  last  month  have  not  been  characterized  by 
unusual  severity,  but  in  two  or  three  instances  the  reporter  has  met  with  a  most  profuse 
discharge  of  blood,  unattended,  however,  by  those  other  symptoms  which  constitute  true 
dysentery.  The  third  and  only  other  well  marked  effect  of  cold  which  the  reporter  has- 
observed,  is  rheumatism  of  the  subacute  kind,  affecting  the  fibrous  and  muscular  structure.6, 
very  nugatory,  not  of  an  aggravated  character,  and  certainly  not  deserving  the  name  of 
an  inflammatory  affection.  He  has  principally  noticed  it  as  affecting  the  shoulders,  neck, 
and  thoracic  parietes. 

These  are  the  complaints  under  which  the  adult  population  of  London,  appear  of  late 
principally  to  have  suffered.  Among  children,  hooping-cough  arid  scarlet  fe*er  have  also 
been  prevalent,  and  many  instances  have  come  to  the  writer's  knowledge,  in  which  these 
disorders  have  proved  fatal.  Small-pox  very  seldom  occurs  extensively,  and  never  with 
any  portion  oi'  malignity  in  such  a  state  of  atmosphere  as  has  lately  been  experienced.  It 
is,  therefore,  in  strict  accordance  with  this  generally  received  principle,  that  the  wards 
of  the  Small-Pox  Hospital  have  been  nearly  deserted  during  the  last  month. 

The  remedies  which  have  been  most  in  request  within  this  period,  are  such  as  diffuse  the 
circulation,  and  excite  to  action  and  increased  energy,  the  torpid  and  constricted  vessels  of  the 
surface.  Of  these  the  most  decidedly  efficacious  is  ipecacuanha,  both  in  large  dud  small 
doses, — in  large  doses  to  excite  vomiting  and  restore  the  equilibrium  of  circulation,  in 
small  doses,  united  either  witb  white  opium,  or  with  calomel,  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  case,  to  act  as  an  aperient,  or  expectorant.  A  more  valuable  remedy  than  this,  or 
one  applicable  to  a  greater  variety  of  cases,  is  not  probably  to  be  found  on  the  shelf  of- 
toe  apothecary.  While  others  are  lauding  the  virtues  of  blue  pills,  and  insisting  on  the 


1827.]  Monthly  Medical  Report.  333 

prodigious  influence  of  the  alvine  secretion,  and  the  Indispensable  necessity  of  continual 
uttention-lo  it,  the  reporter  would  recall  the  thoughts  of  the  profession  to  the  recorded 
experience  of  times  long  pust,  and  acknowledging  the  paramount  influence  of  the  stomach, 
recommend  the  more  frequent  adoption  of  emetics  than  is  usual  in  the  present  day.  They 
have  i heir  use  when  the  stomach  is  perfectly  free  from  noxious  matters,  and  when  the 
medicine  brings  up  only  the  warm  water  by  which  it  was  accompanied  ;  but  it  is  chiefly 
when  the  stomach  is  loaded  with  sordes,  that  their  good  effects  are  observable.  These 
sot-desare,  first,  undigested  aliment,  secondly,  bile,  and  thirdly,  the  depraved  secretions  of 
the  stomach  itself.  It  is  very  necessary  that  the  practitioner  should  keep  in  view  these 
different  causes  from  which  foulness  of  the  stomach  originates,  the  very  different  character 
of  symptoms  to  which  each  respectively  gives  birth,  and  the  several  kinds  and  stages  of 
disease,  in  which  they  may  .occur.  Without  this  knowledge  he  will  never  thoroughly 
appreciate  the  great  variety  of  cases  to  which  ipecacuanha  is  applicable.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  frequent  employment  of  emetics  weakens  the  tone  of  the  stomach,  and  increases 
the  tendency  to  dyspepsia.  When,  however,  we  look  to  a  differeut  element,  and  observe 
the  small  amount  of  evil  which  is  ever  found  to  result  from  even  long  continued  sea- 
sickness, ample  reason  will  be  found  for  distrusting  this  doctrine.  The  writer,  indeed,  has 
long  been  convinced,  that  both  in  acute  and  chronic  diseases,  the  value  of  emetics  is  at 
present  underrated,  and  that  purgatives  are  too  often  exhibited  with  a  view  to  clear  the 
stomach  from  offending  matters  ;  an  effect,  which  in  very  many  cases,  they  are  quite 
incompetent  to  proJuce. 

Calomel  and  ipecacuanha  have  proved  of  the  greatest  service  in  the  treatment  of  the 
severer  kinds  of  bowel  complaints,  which  have  lately  been  so  common  ;  but  the  practitioner 
should  be  very  careful  not  to  push  the  employment  of  calomel  too  far,  as  the  mouth 
becomes  a  fleeted  rapidly,  and  to  an  extreme  degree  in  very  cold  and  dry  weather,  of  which 
numerous  instances  are  now  to  be  met  with  in  London.  The  warm  bath  has  proved  an 
useful  auxiliary  in  all  the  varieties  of  disease  of  which  mention  has  been  made  in  this  report. 
Opium  has  also  been  highly  serviceable,  but  some  delicacy  is  required  in  the  management  of 
this  powerful  medicine,  whenever  fever  is  present ;  and  the  secretions,  inconsequence,  both 
diminished  in  quantity,  and  vitiated  in  quality. 

8,  Upper  John  Street,  Golden  Square,  GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 

February  22,  1827. 


MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

Ouu  letters  in  reference  to  the  business  of  the  last  month,  afford  nothing  of  novelty  and 
matter  for  but  a  slender  report.  Christmas  found  the  lands  universally,  in  the  finest  state 
which  could  be  produced  by  a  most  favourable  autumn,  and  due  advantage  had  been 
taken  by  a  generally  sedulous  cultivation.  The  earliest  frost  quickly  alternating  with 
thaw  and  poaching  the  lands,  necessarily  became  an  impediment,  and  put  a  temporary  stay 
to  bean-setting,  which  had  commenced  both  here  and  in  the  North.  Th.  frost  has  con- 
tinued remarkably  dry  and  free  from  snow,  for  those  considerable  falls  which  occurred 
•were  local,  and  of  short  duration,  yet,  nevertheless,  sufficient  to  bury  and  destroy  a 
considerable  number  of  sheep,  in  certain  mountainous  districts,  where,  according  to  good 
old  custom,  it  is  deemed  an  admirable  property  in  those  animals  to  starve  well,  and  to 
escape  in  certain  proportions,  with  skin,  horns,  and  bone,  through  the  rigours  of  winter. 
This  dry  winter  following  a  droughty  summer,  has  failed  to  replenish  the  exhausted  springs, 
so  that  there  is  in  some  parts  yet  a  cry  of  the  want  of  water.  The  present  dry,  agreeable, 
and  sunny  frost,  seems  a  couMterpart  to  that  of  1774,  which,  according  to  our  recollection, 
lasted  until  within  a  day  or  two  of  Lady-day  ;  and  who  shall  say  the  similitude  may  not  be 
completed  ?  The  prevalence  of  Easterly  winds  is  favourable,  since,  if  the  stock  should 
be  exhausted,  we  shall  have  the  less  of  them  in  the  critical  growing  months  of  March  arid 
April;  but  a  Westerly  change  has  occurred  this  day.  The  continuance  of  frost  will,  in 
course,  retard  the  Lent  seed  season,  but  if  otherwise,  it  will  be  sufficiently  early,  the  lands 
being  in  a  fine  state  of  preparation, 

The  wheats  standing,  for  the  most  part,  thick  upon  the  soil,  may  probably  have  been 
benefited  rather  than  injured  by  the  frost,  the  discoloration  of  the  foliage  being  of  no 
importance.  Much  manure  has  been  carted  upon  the  land,  and  much  road-work 
done,  from  the  leisure  afforded  by  the  state  of-  the  weather ;  in  the  mean  time  the 
-provision  of  the  fold  yards  is  exhausting  in  a  most  alarming  degree,  and  many  feeders  are 
under  serious  apprehensions  of  being  at  all  able  to  support  their  stock  through  this  most 
critical  season.  Hay  and  straw  where  most  wanted,  are  either  tuo  dear,  or  cannot  be 
purchased  at  all.  Linseed  boiled,  and  mixed  with  cut  wheat  straw,  forming  a  jelly,  is 
successfully  given  to  store  cattle  at  the  cost  of  about  sixpence  per  day  each.  Store  sheep 
and  ewes  are  doing  badly.  Pigs  are  kept  at  great  expence,  yet  stores  are  getting  con- 
siderably dearer  in  some  parts.  A  number  of  cart  horses  have  died  suddenly  from  intes- 
tinal obstruction,  accompanied  by  violent  inflammatory  symptoms  ;  the  cause  assigned  by  a 
veterinary  surgeon,  is  indigestion,  occasioned  by  feeding  wi'.h  unthrashed  peas  and  tares. 
Beans  aud  Spring  tares,  fpr  seed,  rising  in  price,  The  anciejat  provender  for  cattle,  fvir^e 


334  Monthly  Agricultural  Report.  [MARCH, 

nml  beath-tops  getting  into  use,  but  the  expense  is  complained  of.  No  remarkable  variation 
in  either  the  cattle  or  horse  markets.  Fat  euttle  sell  readily  and  well,  and  good  horses  are 
fetching  Spring  prices. 

The  accounts  from  Lincolnshire,  that  great  cattle  and  sheep  district,  are  more  distressing 
nnd  of  a  deeper  unfortunate  interest  than  from  any  other  part  of  the  country.  The  Lincoln 
farmers  ore  not  only  suffering  from,  it  may  be  called  a  total  loss  of  their  turnip  crop,  of 
hue  years  their  great  dependence,  but  from  want  of  water  for  their  live  stock,  after  having 
had  the  most  ruinous  experience  of  the  same  wants  during  the  summer.  Many  of  thnin 
during  that  period,  from  the  parched  and  desolate  state  of  their  lands,  were  under  the 
necessity  of  putting  out  their  stock  to  keep,  in  the  adjoining  counties,  where,  numbers  of 
the  sheep  being  in  a  starved  and  exhausted  condition,  were  suddenly  destroyed,  instead  of 
being  improved  by  the  luxuriance  and  goodness  of  the  pasture.  Thousands  of  store  sheep 
«-tnd  lambs,  mere  skeletons,  were  either  lost,  or  sold  at  a  few  shillings  each.  But  even 
this  first  loss  was  besr,  for  the  calamity  is  still  raging  in  this  ill-starred  country,  for, 
particularly  in  the  vicinity  of  Horncastle,  multitudes  of  cattle  and  sheep,  and  many  horses, 
are  perishing  through  want,  farmers  losing  six  or  eight  beasts,  two  or  three  horses,  or 
twenty  or  thirty  sheep  per  week.  Hay  they  have  none,  and  the  straw  of  last  year  was 
necessarily  short  in  quantity  and  defective  in  substance.  Here  is  a  powerful  call 
upon  the  liberal  patronage  of  landlords  ;  and  it  is  a  public  object  of  no  slight  impor- 
tance, that  the  lands  in  I  incolnshire,  on  which  water  is  ruinously  deficient,  be 
thoroughly  examined  by  boring,  and  that  every  feasible  means  be  resorted  to,  for  obtaining 
ihat  indispensable  article,  in  a  country  which  produces  so  much  of  the  national 
provision. 

Those,  however,  are  temporary  calamities,  the  unavoidable  chance  of  the  seasons ;  our 
duty  leads  us  to  advert  to  one  of  infinitely  more  melancholy  and  serious  consequence,  and 
which  seems  at  length,  but  too  plainly,  to  have  cast  off  its  former  presumed  temporary  and 
local  character.  From  the  appalling  numbers  of  farming  labourers  out  of  employ,  through- 
out the  country,  it  can  no  longer  be  doubted,  that  the  number  is  too  great,  both  of  our 
agricultural  and  manufacturing  hands ;  and,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  country,  that 
number  must  continue  to  multiply,  whether  under  the  influence  of  good  or  ill  success.  No 
doubt  but  systematic  errors,  not  to  be  here  discussed,  have  mainly  contributed  to  this  end  ; 
and  as  little  doubt  remains  that,  in  the  ultimate,  no  efficient  remedy  can  be  found  but  in 
EMIGRATION,  or  rather,  colonization  ;  and  that  not  in  temporary  and  partial  acts,  but  in 
a  regular  national  system,  continuous  and  permanent.  The  introduction  of  this  principle, 
and  the  experiments  on  the  small  and  exploring  scale,  will  form  a  prominent  wreath  of  the 
laurels  of  our  patriotic  administration,  who,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  former  experience, 
appear  really  solicitous  for  the  public  good,  and  to  be  struggling  hard  in  its  promotion. 
The  laborious  assiduity  and  enthusiasm  of  Mr.  W.  Horton  does  him  signal  honour,  both 
as  a  politician  and  as  a  man.  The  experiments,  however,  have  had  their  critics  and  re- 
provers. ,  As  if  men  who  attempt  the  wild  and  the  wilderness,  must  colonize  on  velvet.  Our 
colonists,  it  seems,  were  annoyed  by  musquetoes.  Were  musquetoes  then,  new  settlers 
in  America?  Mercy  on  us,  this  is  surely  enough  to  remind  a  reader  endowed  with  any 
tolerable  share  of  the  animal  rinibile  of  the  old  punishment  of  being  fast  bound  to  a. 
daisy  and  baited  by  butterflies.  But  what  are  the  stings  of  natural  and  buzzing  musquetoes, 
in  comparison  with  the  cruel  and  deadly  goadings  of  the  metaphysical  musquetoes  of 
destitution,  hunger,  and  famine  ?  If  numbers  have  perished  from  casualty,  in  the  brave 
attempt  to  earn  subsistence  and  property  in  a  foreign  land,  it  did  but  save  them,  in  all 
probability,  from  dying  ignominously  at  home,  the  slow  and  lingering  death  of  starvation. 
This  materially  points  to  unfortunate  Ireland,  the  seat,  during  ages,  of  foul  oppression. 
Ireland — where,  in  some  parts,  "  men  have  noplace  in  which  to  bide  the  head  and  sleep, 
but  the  bog,  and  nought  to  cover  them  but  sedge ;  and  when  those  who  can  find  any 
employment,  must  exchange  their  labour  for  three-pence  and  five-pence  a  day."  Instead 
of  vainly  seeking  an  impossible  remedy  iu  those  unnatural  restraints,  which  are  the  disgrace 
and  ridicule  of  political  economy,  let  this  surplusage  of  the  people  be  constantly  and 
gradually  exported  to  fruitful  countries,  where  the  loud  cry  of  the  wilderness  is  for  human 
inhabitants,  and  where  they  may  cheerfully,  and  without  risk,  fulfil  the  old  and  sacred 
injunction — increase  and  multiply ;  and  where,  in  due  time,  they  may,  by  their 
consumption  of  manufactures,  and  their  commerce,  amply  reward  their  mother  country, 
for  the  fostering  care  of  its  administration.  Has  it  not  been  the  course  iu  all  ages,  for  a 
superabundant  population  to  seek  refuge  and  sustenance  in  foreign  lands? 

Smithfield.—Beef,  4s.  2d.  to  5s.  4d. — Mutton,  3s.  6d.  to  4s.  8d.  Veal,  5s.  to  5s.  lOd. — 
Pork,  4s.  6d.  to  5s.  8d.— Dairy-fed,  6s.  to  6s.  4d.— Raw  fat,  2s.  6£d. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  40s.  to  66s. — Barley,  36s.  to  45s. — Oats,  24s.  to  42s. — 
Bread,  9 Jd.  the  4 Ib.  loaf.— Hay,  75s.  to  112s.— Clover  ditto,  90s.  to  130s.— Straw,  30s. 
to  42s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  28s. — 40s. 

Middlesex)  February  19th,  18.27. 


1827.]  [    335    ] 

MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

Cotton. — The  markets  ut  London  and  Liverpool  continue  very  dull,  and  prices  nominal, 
.Orleans  OJd.  to  7d.  peril).  Sea  Island  7d.  to  10(1.  per  Ib.  Brazil  7d.  to  lid.  per  Ib. 
Demerara  9d.  to  lOd.  per  Ib  Barba<!oes  7d.  to  7|d.  per  Ib. 

Coffee — continues  steady  at  our  last  quotations,  and  in  little  demand  for  exportation,  but 
a  good  deal  has  been  done  for  home  consumption,  and  prices  keep  steady. 

Sugar. — The  Sugar  market  is  pretty  brisk,  and  the  grocers  have  bought  freely  this 
month,  good  and  line  Jamaica  52s.  o'6s.  Ordinary  dry  48s.  to  56s.  per  cwt. 

Rum. — Old  Jamaica  rum  is  scarce  and  in  demand.  Leeward  Island  of  good  strength 
2s.  2d.  to  2s.  OJ.,  and  inferior  Is.  8d.  to  Is.  lOd.  per  imperial  gallon. 

Brandy — of  fine  marks  scarce  and  held  upon  speculation,  but  purchasers  refuse  to 
give  the  prices  demanded. 

Hollands—  in  little  or  no  demand,  with  a  good  stock  on  hand,  and  likely  to  remain  so, 
unless  for  export. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow. — The  two  former  articles  remain  steady,  und  as  the  spring 
advances  the  latter  is  in  less  demand,  and  pricws  rather  declining. 

Course  of  Foreign  Exchange. — Amsterdam,  12.  7.— Rotterdam,  12.  7. — Antwerp, 
12.  8. — Hamburgh,  37.  6.— Altona,  37.  7.— Paris,  '25.  85. — Bourdeaux,  25.  85. — Berlin, 
7. — Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154^. -Petersburg,  8£ — Vienna,  10.  21.— Trieste,  10.24. — 
Madrid,  34$. —Cadiz,  34f.— Bilboa,  33.— Barcelona,  33.— Seville,  33.— Gibraltar,  33.— 
Leghorn,  47|. — Genoa,  43f. — Venice,  40. — Naples,  38f. — Palermo,  1H£. — Lisbon,  58^. 
Oporto,  48.^.— Buenos  Ayres,  43. — Dublin,  1|. — Cork,  14,. 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d. — New  Doubloons,  £3  Os.— New 
Dollars,  4s.  9d.— Silver  in  bars,  standard  4s.  1  Id. 

Premiums  on  Shares  and  Consols,  and  Joint- Stock  Companies,  at  the  Office  of  WOLFE, 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley,  Cornhill. — Birmingham  CANAL,  <:68/. — Coventry.  1100/. — 
Ellesmere  and  Chester,  99J. — Grand  Junction,  288/. — Kennel  and  Avon,  25/.  1,55.— Leeds 
and  Liverpool,  385/.—  Oxford,  68C/. — Regent's,  34/.  10s.— Trent  and  Mersey,  1,85()/.  — 
Warwick  and  Birmingham,  270/.  —  London  DOCKS,  83/. —  West-India,  195/.  10-s.— East 
London  WATKR  WORKS,  122/.— Grand  Junction,  641.  10s.— West  Middlesex,  68/.— 
: — Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE. — 1  din.— Globe,  142/. — Guardian,  18/.  10s. 
—Hope,  £/.— Imperial  Fire,  90/.— GAS-LIGHT,  Westminster  Chartered  Company,  56/. — 
City  Gas-Light  Company,  J57/. — British,  12  dis.—  Leeds,  195/. 


ALPHABETICAL     LIST    OF    BANKRUPTCIES,   announced  between  the  2lst  of  January 
and  the  2lst  of  February  1827  /  extracted  from  the  London  Gazette. 

.     BANKRUPTCIES  SUPERSEDED.  Baffgott,  R.  Ledbury,  breeches-maker.    [Beverley, 

BADNALL,    R,   jtitv.,    F.  G.  Spilsbury,   and  H.  Temple;  Phelps,  Ledbury 

Cruso,  Leek,  Stafford,  silk  manufacturers  Bell,  G.  Morent-gardens,  Lambeth,  dealer.    [Gib- 
Blake,  J.  Zeal's-green,  Wiltshire,  grocer  bard,  Stansrate-stneet,  Lambeth 
Dawson,  S.  R.,  and  W.  Matton.Water-lane.Tower-  Bancks,  W.  Brieiley,  Stafford,  dealer.    [Wimburn 
street  and  Collett,  Chancery-lane ;  Robinson  and  Son, 
Dentith,  R.  Butterbeach,  Cheshire,  farmer  Dudley 

Elvvin,  G.  Norwich,  baker  Burrow, T.  Worcester,  glover.     [Hilliard  and  Co, 

Grueber,  J.  H.  and  H.  Hope  Mills,  Denbigh,  spin-  Raymond-buildings,  Gray's-inn;  Godson,  Wor- 

nersoflin-n  cester 

Horn,  R.  Oxford,  baker  Buston,J.Mugg]eton,Derby,lime-burner.    fSmed- 

Moi pan,  D.  Neath,  Glamorgan,  ironmonger  ley,  Ely-place;  Jessop,  Derby 

Spawton,  C.  Northampton,  tallow-chandler  Beadle,  G.  Biihop-Stortford,  Hertfordshire, tailor. 

[Jackson,  New  Inn 

BANKRUPTCIES.      [This  Month  173.1  Bates,  T.  Thayer-street,  Manchester-square.linen- 

c,   ,.   ..       ,  ,T                   .     „       ,    .  draper.     [Jones,  Shoe-lane 

Solicitors'  J\  ames  are  in  Brackets.  Brow^  T   LLynil)  Norfolk>  iincn.drapcn     [JoneSf 

ARNITT,  T.  Thirsk,  Yorkshire,  tanner,     [Simp-  Size-lane 

son.  New  Malton  ;  Williamson,  Gray's-hin-sq.  Brittain,  J.  B.,  Charlotte-terrace,  New-cut,  Lnm- 

Atkinson,  J,  Lancaster,  grocer.      [Wheeler   and  beth,  oilman.    [Thomas,  Bernard's-inn 

Co.,  John-street,  Bedford-row;  Robinson,  Lan-  Booth,  W.  Manchester,  victualler.    [Bower, Chan- 

caater  eery-lane 

Brenell,  J.  H.   and  R.   B.  Anderson,   Liverpool,  Beard,  N.   Lambeth,    Surrey,    common    brewer. 

merchant*.    [Taylor  and  Roscoe, Temple  ;  Lace  [Fisher  and  Co.  ,Holborn-court,  Gray's-inn 

and  Co.,  Liverpool  Banks,  W.  Pain's-lane,  Wi  ockwardine,  Shropshire, 

Bennett,  J.  Wt.itecroft,  Gloucester,  grocer.  [King,  grocer  and  draper.    [E.  S.  Bigs,  Southampton- 

Serjeant's-inn;  Chadborne,  Newnham  buildings,  Chancery-lane ;     Nock,    Wellington, 

Board,  J.  Ham,  Somerset,  coal-merchant.    [Burl,  Shropshire 

Mitre-court,  Wood-street  Bottomley,    J.   Delph,   Saddleworth,   Yorkshire, 

Bunting,  J.  Liverpool,  hardwareman.    [Rogers,  merchant  and  manufacturer.     [Battye  and  Co., 

Bucklersbury  ;  Siddell,  Sheffield  Chancery-lane;  J.  Ainby,  Dclph,  Saddleworth, 

Banks,  P.  Bradley,  Stafford,  iron-master.  [Clarke  Yorkshire 

and  Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Mason,  Birlton  Brierley,  M.,  and  P.  Arrine,  Manchester,  machine- 

Bowen,  T.  (of  the  ship  Darius),  merchant,  [Cobb,  makers.     [Gorton,'  Chancery-lane  ;   Hampson, 

Finsbury-circus  Manchester;  Ellis  and  Co.,Wahnsley 


336 


Bankrupts. 


[MARCH, 


Chantlef.  T.  Pendleton,  Eceles,   Lancaster,  hop- 

merchant.     [Gorton,  Chanoery-lnne  ;    Ellis  and 

Co.,  Walmslcy  ;  Higsen  and  Co.,  Manchester 
Cox.E.  Ledbury,  Herefordshire,  currier.    [Clarke 

and  Co.,  Chancery-lane;  H  if  gins,  Led  buy 
Charlton,   F.    Blyth,    Northumberland,    draper. 

[Bell  and  Broderick,  Bow-church-yard;    Bain- 

bridge  and  Tappenden,  Newcastle 
Carpenter,  T.  St.  John-street,  Clerkenvvell,  butcher. 

[Scartb,  Lyon's-inn 
Chase,  J.W.  Eastington,  Gloucester,  shopkeeper. 

[Vizard  and  Blower,  Lincoln's-inn-fields  ;  Vizard 

and  Co.,  Dursley 
Collins,    R.    Chew  Magna,    Somerset,    surgeon. 

[Burfoot,  Temple  ;  Dowling  and  Marshall,  Chew 


Chambers,  W.  Ely,  tailor.     [Lillie,  Austin-friars 
Cash.  J.  Liverpool,  tailor.    [Adlington  and  Co., 

Bedford-row;  Mawdsleys,  Liverpool 
Cade,  T.  Shalford,  Surrey,  schoolmaster.    [Dyne, 

Lincoln's-inn-fields 
Clarke,  J.  H.  Holies-street,  Cavendish-square,  ap- 

praiser.   [Parker,  Dyer's-buildintrs,  Holborn 
Cottle,  J.  St.  John-street,  victualler.     [Vander- 

com  and  Coniyn,  Bush-lane,  cannon-street 
Crerar,  J.  Bagnigge-wells-road,  baker.  [Poutlfax, 

St.  Andrew's-court,  Holborn 
Cox.   W.   Burton-upon-Trent,    Stafford,   mercer. 

[Hurd  and  Johnson,  Inner   Temple;     Wright, 

Burton-upon-Trent 
Clarke,  H.    Rochester,   hatter.      [Collins,  Great 

Knighirider-street,  Doctors'  Commons 
Cogger,  T.  Wardrobe-terrace,  Doctors'  Commons, 

engineer.    [Gresham,  Barnard's-inn,  Holborn 
Clemence,  T.    Truro,    Cornwall,    cabinet-maker. 

[Patten,  Hatton  Garden 
Clarke,  T.  Oswe.stry,  Sbropshire.timber  merchant. 

[Wheeler  and  Co.,  John-street,  Bedford-row 
Crnekshank  W.  Bloomfield,   Somersetshire,  malt- 

ster. [Marson  and  Co.,  Church-row,  Newington 

Butts 
Cran^field,  J.  Newington-causeway,  tailor.    [Vin- 

cent, Clifford'  s-inn 
Drosier,  T.  Blakeney,  Norfolk,  miller.      [Bridger, 

Angel-court,  Throgmorton-street;  Withers,  jun. 

Holt 
Dentith,  R.  Huntington,  Cheshire,  butcher.  [Hux- 

ley and  Son,  Temple  ;  Leacroft,  Chester 
Dunham,  J.  Cook's-court,  Carey-street,  bill-broker. 

[Neale,  Great  Ormond-rtreet,  Queen-square 
Dawes,  S;  and  G.  Ballard,  and  C.  Yorke,  King- 

street,  Cheapside.  [Bowden  and  Walters,  Aldcr- 

manbury 
Dalton,  J.  Rathbone-place,  man-milliner.     [Law- 

rence, Dean's-court,  Doctors'  Commons 
Dyson,  J.  Ratcliffe-row,  Old-street,  builder.   [Col- 

lyer,  Lyon's-inn 
Danvers.T.  Gower's-walk,  Whitcchapel,  silk-dyer. 

[Bishop,  Chancery-lane 
Dunk,    D.    Brighthelmstone,     Sussex,     butcher. 

[Faithful,    Brighton;     Faithful,  Birchin-lane, 

Cornhill 
Dowding,  C.  Shadwell  Dock,  coopej.  [Armstrong, 

St.  John-square 
Escudier,    S.    Carpenter-street,    Berkley-square, 

coal-mer.[Lane,  Marshall-street,  Golden-square 
Elkington,  C.  Birmingham,  printseller.     [Tooke 

and  Co,  Holborn-  court,  Gray's-inn 
Fletcher,  J.  Liverpool,  merchant   [Adlington  and 

Co.,  Bedford-row  ;  Avison,  Liverpool 
Fentori,  J.Hanley,  Stafford,  engraver.     [Clowes 

and    Co.,    Temple;     Tomlinson,    Staffordshire. 

Potteries 
Farr,  G.   and  R.  Bread-street,  merchants.     [Ro- 

binson and  Hone,  Charterhouse-square 
Fairland,  R.  Willow-walk,  Bermondsey,  plue  ma- 

nufacturer.    [Brooking,  Lombard-street 
Fairhurst,  J.  Prescot,  Lancashire,  saddler.  [Ches- 

ter. Staple-inn 
Ferryman,  J.   B.  G.    Cheltenham,    brick-maker. 

[Vizard  and  Blower,  Lincoln's-inn  fields 
Goodrick,C.Etton,  York,  corn  factor.  [Jacques  and 

Battyc,    Colcman-street;    Wood   and   Oveiton, 

York 
Greenland,  S.  N.  Frome,  Sehvood,  Someisetshire, 

clothier.    [Hartley,  New   Bridge-street,  Bluck- 

friars  ;  Henry,  Frome,  Sehvood 


Gill,  O.  G.  Billinshay,  Lincolnshire,  miller.  [Frit- 

chard,  Bridge-street,  Blackmail 
Gibbon,  T.  and  D.  Kvans,  Marchmont-Mreet,  linen- 
drapers.    [Hewitt,  Tokenhouse-yard,  Lothbury 
Gardiner,  W.  Chalford,  Gloucestershire,  clothier. 
[•Dax  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

GouldenT  J.  Kendal,  Westmoreland,  auctioneer. 
[Addison,  Gray's-inn  ;  Wilson,  Kendal 

Hopkins,  J.  BristoUdealer.  [PooleandCo  ,  Gray'.*- 

inn;  Pullen,  Bristol 

Heywood,  E.  Abchurch-yard,  dentist.  [Virgo, 
Change-alley 

Hart,  J.  jun.  Birmingham,  coach-maker.  [Walker, 
Lincoln's-inn-fields  ;  Bnrinan.  Birmingham 

Hine,  W.  Bristol, innholdcr.  [Hartley,  New  Bridge- 
street,  Blackfriars  ;  Miller,  Frome 

Hindle.R.F.  Kendal, woollen-manufacturer.  [Mo- 
ser  and  Co.,  Chaucer) -lane 

Harvey,  J.  M.  Goole,  York,  innkeeper.  [Capes, 
Gray's-inn  ;  Capes,  Howden 

Hopson,  S.  Long-lane,  Smithfield,  turner.  [Smith, 
Carthusian-street,  Charter-hou?e-squa  re 

Hathway.E.  Pol  and -street,  books-eller.  [Hailstone- 
Devonshire-street,  Queen-square 

Holgate,  W.  Stanton-Cotes,  York,  grazier.  [Be- 
verley, Temple;  Hartleys,  Settle 

Hallewell,  W.  Little  Sheffield,  builder.  [King, 
Hatton-garden  ;  Hardy,  Sheffield 

Hacher,  S.  Canterbury,  builder.  [Plumher  and 
Sons,  Canterbury  ;  Nethersoles  and  Baron,Essex- 
street  1 

Hutchinson,  B.  B.  Wapping  -  wall,  victualler. 
[Fearnley,  Ratcliffe-cross 

Hodge?,  B.  Bristol,  bookbinder.  [Pooleand  Co., 
Gray's-inn;  Johnson,  Bristol 

Wilder,  J.  Charles  -  street,  City  -  road,  brewer. 
[Cranch,  Union-court,  Broad-street 

Hall,  C.  Andover,  Southampton,  builder.  [Bous- 
field,  Chatham-place  ;  Mann,  Andover 

Hague,  J.  Ashton-under-Line,  ironmonger.  [Gib- 
bon, Ashton-undex-Linc  ;  Battyc  and  Co.,  Chan- 
cery-lane 

Wodsell,  T.  late  of  Oxford-street,  auctioneer.  [Con- 
stable and  Co.,  SymondV-inn 

Hay  ward,  W.  Nottingham,  glass-merchant.  [Tay- 
lor, John-street,  Bedford-row;  Badger,  Rother- 
ham 

Harrop,  J.  AshtON-under-Line,  grocer.  [Clarke 
and  Co. .Chancery-lane;  Higginbottom,  Ashton- 
under-Line 

Jalland,  G.  Mansfield- Woodhouse,Nottingham,  mil- 
ler. [Alexander  and  Son,  Carey-street ;  Flower, 
Manstield 

Johnston,  W.  Caroline-street,  Bedford-square,  jew- 
eller. [Vincent,  Bedford-street,  Bedford-square 

Jones,  D.  High-street,  Southwark,  hatter.  [Ha- 
milton and  Co  ,  Berwick-street,  Solio 

Jackson,  W.  Rochford,  Ess-ex,  banker.  [Nelson, 
Essex-street,  Strand 

Jagulden,J.  Dover,  painter.  [Kennett,  Dover; 
Stocker  and  Co.,  New  Boswell-court,  Carey- 
street 

Johnson,  J.  Manchester,  victualler.  [Norris,  John- 
street,  Bedford-row  ;  Gray,  Manchester 

Latham,  R.  S.  Batli,  woollen-draper.  [Jones, 
Bishopsgate-^treet;  Hellings,  Bath 

Lomax,  B.  and  E.,  ST.  Maiy.  Rothcrithe,  ship- 
wrights. [Lawrence,  Dean's-court,  Doctors' 
Commons 

Ledgard,  W.  E.  Brighouse,  York,  merchant, 
Smiths,  Hatton-garden  ;  Taylor,  Mirfie  d 

Lees,  J.  Drury-lane,  smith.  [Harris,  Bruton-street, 
Berkeley-square 

Lenton;  W.  Vere-street,  Clare-market,  and  Shoe- 
Jane,  builder.  [Steele  and  Nicol,  Queen-street, 
Ciieapside 

Langley,  F.  Spring-gardens,  dealer.  [Hamilton 
and  Co.,  Tavistock-row,  Covent-garden 

Lambert,  J.  T.  Chalford,  Gloucestershire.  [King, 
Serjeant's-inn  ;  Newman  and  Co.,  Stroud 

Loagley,  P.  Ramsgate,  carpenter.  [Kennett,  Do- 
ver ;  Stocker  a;.d  Co.,  New  Boswell-court, 
Carey-street 

Lusty, S.  Stonehonse,  Gloucestershire,  corn-dealer 
and  tncaliiian.  [Card ale  and  Co.  (iray's-inn 

Messenger,  J.  Wigton,  Cumberland,  mercer. 
[Mounsey  and  Giay,  Staple-inn  ;  Hodgson.Wig- 
ton 


1S27.] 


M'Knight.T.  Wellington-place,  West  India  Docks, 
merchant.  [Phillips,  Bedford-street,  Covent- 
garden 

Musgrave,  T.  C.,  and  T.  Garrctt,  Wincanton,  So- 
merset, bankers,  f  Hicks  and  Dean,  Gray's-inn  ; 
Buckland,  Shal'tesbury 

Morgan,  J.  Bottisham  Lode,  Cambridge,  baker. 
[Nicholl,  Stamford  street ;  Tabram,  Cambridge 

Moon,  J.  Manchester,  cotton  merchant.  [Milne 
and  Parry,  Temple  ;  Edge,  Manchester 

Matthews,  A.  .jun.  Chatham,  tailor.  [Haslem, 
Leadcnball-street 

Mitchell,  H.  Tottenham,  coach-master.  [Pope, 
Bloomneld-strcet,  London-wall 

Millor,J.  Aistonefield,  Staffordshire,  cheese-factor. 
[Holme  and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Brittlebank,  Ash- 
bourn 

Moye,  J.  Drury-lane,  oilman.  [Fyson  and  Beck, 
Lothbury 

Nash,  J.  Vassal-road,  Brixton,  builder.  [Glyne, 
Burr-street,  East-Sinithlield 

Nicholson,  S.  Ne w -street,  Covent-garden,  cheese- 
monger. [Hutchinson,  Crown-court,  Thread- 
needle-street 

Neely,  S.  D.  Regent-street,  bookseller,  [Nind  and 
Co.,  Turogmorton-stroet 

Neek,  II.  L.  P.  Beamidster,  Dorsetshire.  [Bart- 
lett,  West  Teignrnouth ;  Horie,  Serle-street,  Lin- 
coln'8-inn-h'elds 

Ogdcn,  T,  Manchester,  grocer.  [Appleby  and 
Charnock,  Gj>ay's-inn ;  Whitchead  and  Monk, 
Manchester 

Oliver,  T.  B.  Ipswich,  tallow-chandler.  [Rodwell 
and  Co.,  Ipswich  ;  Bridges  and  Co.,  Red  Lion- 
square 

Pierce,  J.  Mardon,  Kent,  carpenter.  [James  and 
Whitelock, Ely-place  ;  James  and Ottway,  Staple- 
hurst 

Pellatt,  II.  Queenborough,  Kent,  stone-merchant. 
[Wright,  Bucklerslmry 

Proffitt,  R.  Friday-street,  warehouseman.  [Eng- 
lish, Oxford-street 

Proud,  F.  J.  Upper  Thames  -  street,  merchant. 
[Pearce  and  Co.,  St.  Swithin's  lane 

Price,  J.  B.  Hereford,  timber-merchant.  [Robin- 
son, Walbrook 

Picard,  J.  K.  Russell-street,  Covent-garden,  white 
lead-maker.  [Rosen  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-place 

Pope,  W.  St.  John-street,  West  Smithfield,  tailor. 
[Richardson,  Ironmonger-lane.  Cheapside 

Pickering,  J.  F.  late  of  Wath,  Yorkshire,  tallow- 
chandler  and  grocer.  [Young  and  Co.,  St.  Mil- 
dred's-court,  Poultry 

Palmer,  T.  Manchester,  dealer  in  musie.  '[Clarke 
and  Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Smith,  Manchester 

Rymer,  J.  Ramsgate,  surgeon.  [Redaway,  Cle- 
ment's-inn  ;  Wells,  Ramsgate 

Rogers,  J-  Duncan-terrace,  City-road,  printer. 
[Goote  and  Son,  Austin-friars 

Raywood,  J.  Barnsley,  Yorkshire,  linen-draper. 
[Stocker  and  Co.,  New  Boswell-eourt ;  New- 
man, Burnsley 

Reynolds,  C.  Clapton-square,  Hackney,  apothe- 
cary. [Tebbutts,  Austin-friars 

Ray,  J.  Peel  Town,  Isle  of  Man,  merchant.  [James 
and  Co.,  Southampton-buildings,  Chancery-lane  ; 
North,  Liverpool 

Rohbins,  W.  Birmingham,  grocer.  [Long  and  Co. 
G!  ay's-inn  ;  Arnold  and  Co.,  Birmingham 

Smith,  S.  Manchester,  engraver.    [Bower,  Chan- 
cery-lane ;  Owens,  Manchester 
'Smith,  E.  Coventry,  coin-dealer.    [Wheeler  and 
Bennett,  John-street,  Bedford-row 

Sayner,  J.  and  G.  Leeds,  dyers.  [Maxon,  Little 
Friday-street;  Upton  and  Sons,  Leeds 

Silvester,  C.  S.  Maida-hill,  Edgeware-road,  build- 
er. [Cliff,  Gray's-inn 

Symes,  C.  and  A.  C.  Smart,  Bath,  cabinet-makers. 
[Elgies,  Poultry 

Skinner,  R.  Tiverton,  cabinet-maker.  [Constable 
and  Kirk,  Symond's-inn  ;  Partridge,  Tiverton 

Smith,  J.  P.  Cornwall-road,  Lambeth,  brewer. 
[Church. Great  James-sti-eet,  Bedford-row 

Stidolph,  W.  H.  Bagnor  Mill,  Berkshire,  paper- 
maker.  [Battye  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 

Sampson,  E.  and  J.  Greek -street,  Soho,  vitriol- 
manufacturers.    [Birkett  and   Co.,  Cloak-lane, 
Queen-street 
M.M.— New  Series,  VOL.  III.  No.  15. 


337 


Sharp,  H.  L.  Hornlo-i-strcdt.  Kensington,  chemist 

[Wells,  Dyer's-buildings,  Holborn 
Springford,   J.    Warminster,    Wilts.,  victualler. 

[Holders,  Clement's-inn  ;  Phelps  and  Co.,  War- 

minster 
Sharpe,  G.  M.   and  J.  Stroyan,  Newcastle  -upon- 

Tyne,  drapers.  [Dun,  Raymond-buildings.Gray's- 

inn  ,  Wilson,  Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
Sedden,    T.    Liverpool,  shoemaker.   [Kaye,  Liver- 

pool; Dean,  Palsgrave-place,  Temple 
Smith,  W.  Middleton-street,  Clerkenwell,  buiLler. 

[Dax  and  Co.,  Bedford-ro 
Slingsby.T,  Cheapside,   cotton-printer.    Steel  and 

Co.,Queen-stref't,  Cheapside 
Silcock,  M.  Graham-street,  Beresford.  street,  Wal- 

worth,  Surrey.    [Thomas  and  Co.,  New  Basing- 

hall-street 
Sp:  alley  W.  and  Co.,  Long  Acre,  coach-axle-manu- 

t'actufers.     [Hamilton  and  Co.,   Berwick-street, 

Soho 
Schotield,  G.   Farnley  Tyas,  Yorkshire,  clothier. 

[Willshue  and  Co.,'  Austin-friars 
Strickland,  A.New  Malton,  York,  banker.  [Wigles- 

worth&Ridsdale,  Gray's-iiin  ;  Smithson,  York; 

Simpson,  Malton 
Thomas,  W.  Ledbury,  maltster.     [Beverley,  Tetn- 

ple  ;  Gregg,  Ledbury 
Tyler,  W.  Barron-street.Pentonville,  builder.  [Wil- 

liams, Alfred-place,  Bedford-square 
Tootal,  J.   G.,   N.,  and  C.  T.,  Wakefield,   York. 

corn-mercbants.     [Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford- 

row  ;  Taylor,  Waketield 
Tripp,   J.   R   Caerleoii.    Monmouthshire,  money- 

scrivener.    [Greville,    Bristol;   Hicks    and    Co., 

Bartlett's-buiMings,  Holborn 
Taylor,  J.  Halifax,  Yorkshire,  innkeeper.  [Stocks, 

Halifax  ;  Battye,  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 
Trobridge,  J.  Exeter,  victualler.    [Turner,  Bed- 

ford-street, Bedford  row  ;  Turner  and  Co.,  Ex- 

eter 
Taylor,  J.  Somers'-place.  New-road,  baker.    [Win- 

ter and  Co.,  Bediord-row 
Touray,  M.  P.  and  Co.,  City-road,  mustard-manu- 

facturers. [Gattye  and  Co.,  Angel-court,  Throg- 

morton-street 
Underwood.  W.  M.  Nailsworth,  Gloucester,  mill- 

wright.  [Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row  ;  Wa- 

than,  Stroud 
Wickers,  H.  Greenwich,  victualler.     [Atkins  and 

Davies,  Fox  Ordinary-court,  Lombard-street 
White,  T.  Lower  Brook-street,  tailor.     [Hamilton 

and  Twining,  Berwick-street 
Wells,  H.  New  Bond-street,  tailor.  [Williams.Bond- 

conrt,  Walbrook 
Withy,  11.  B.  Phoenix-alloy,  T/ong  Acre,   coal-mer- 

chant.   [Brownes,  Furnival's-inn 
Williams,  J.  Half-Moon-street,  Piccadilly,   board- 

ing-housekeeper.     [Cunningham,   Bryanstone- 

street,  Portman-square 
Waite,  R.  Spilsby,  Lincoln,  maltster.     [Ellis  and 

Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Walker  and   Sons,  Spils- 

by 
Walker,  G.L.  Leeds,  commission-agent.    [Wilson. 

Southampton-street,    Bloomsbury  ;    Smith    and 

Co.,  Leeds 
Wells,  W.  Norwich,  tailor.      [Crowder  and  Co.  , 

Lothbury 
White,  J.  Baker-row,  Walworth,  tailor,  [Richard- 

son, ironmonger-lane 
Wharton,  T.  Finsbury-place,  South,  tailor.  [Pope, 

Bloomfleld-street,  London-wall 
Walker,  E.  Birmingham,  victualler.     [Swain  and, 

Co.,  Frederick's-place,  Old  Jewry  ;  Wall  and  Co., 

Birmingham 
Woodcock,  J.  Westharn,  Essex,  carpenter.   [Lang, 

Fenchurch-street 
West,.J.  sen.  Shepton-Mallett,  clothier.    [Evans 

and  Co.,  Hatton-garden  ;  Haberneld,  Bristol 
Weisby,  J.  Liverpool,  merchant.    [Adlington  and 

Co.,  Bedford-row;  Phillips,  Liverpool 
Wardell,  G.  R.   Liverpool,  team-owner.     [Raven- 

hill,  Poultry;  Wilson,  Liverpool 
Weston,  J.H.  and  R.  late  of  Manchester,  calen- 

derers   and   makers-up.       [Adlington  and  Co., 

Bedford-row 
Yeatherd,  W.  Jewry-street,    Aldgate,  wine-mer- 

chant. [Overtoil  and  Coombe,  Tokenhousc-yard. 

52  X 


[     338     ] 


[MARCH, 


ECCLESIASTICAL 

The  Hon.  and  Rev.  O.  Pellew,  to  the  Rectory  of 
St.  George,  with  St.  Mary  Magdalen,  Canterbury. 
— Rev.  C.  Musgrave,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Halifax, 
York. — Rev.  T.  Morgan,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Llau- 
sadwra,  with  Lanwrda  chapel,  Carmarthen. — 
Rev.  J.  Hca-'land,  to  be  Archdeacon' of  Richmond. 
— Rev.  W.  Vanghan,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of 
Astley,  Salop.— Rev.  Dr.  E.Nares,  to  the  Rectory 
ofNewchurcli,  Kent.— Rev.  R.  Martin,  to  the  Vi- 
carages of  Ratby  and  Breedon,  Leicester. — Rev. 
W.  E.  Coldwell,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Sandon,  Staf- 
.ford. — Rev.  F.  S wanton,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy 
of  St.  John's  Church,  Winchester.  —  Rev.  Dr. 
French,  to  the  Rectory  of  Moor  Monkton,  York. 
—Rev.  J.  Vernon,  to  the  Rectory  of  Shawley,  Wor- 
cester.—  Rev.  T.  H.  Coventry,  to  the  Rectory  of 
Croome  Montis,  Worcester.— Rev.  S.  Oliver,  jun., 
h>  the  Vicarage  of  Calverton,  Nottingham.— Rev. 


PREFERMENTS. 

R.  Burnaby  has  been  licensed  to  the  newcharch  of 
St.  George,  Leicester.  Rev.  O.  L.  Collins,  to  the 
perpetual  Curacy  of  Osset,  York.— Rev.  W.  Svvete, 
to  the  Rectory  of  St.  Leonard,  Devon. — Rev.  C. 
Lloyd,  to  the  Bishoprick  of  Oxford.— Rev.  C.  A. 
St.  John  Mildmay,  to  the  Rectory  of  Chelmsford. 
—Rev.  L.  M.  Halton,  to  the  Rectory  of  Wool- 
hampton,  Berks.— Rev.  L.  A.  Cliffe,  to  the  Vica- 
rage of  Sampford  Arundell,  Somerset. — Rev.  M. 
Croft,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Hutton  Bushel,  York.— 
Rev.  J.  Lupton.to  the  Vicarage  of  Black  Bouvton, 
Oxon.  Rev.  O.  H.  Williams  to  the  Rectory  of 
Clovelly,  Devon.— Right  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Kaye,  to  the 
Bishoprick  of  Lincoln. — Rev.  R.  Tweddell,  to  the 
Vicarage  of  Liddinton  with  Caldeeot,  Rutland.— 
Rev.  J.  B.  Atkinson,  t&  the  perpetual  Cure  of  West 
Cowes,  Isle  of  Wiarht.  — Rev.  J.  Vernou  to  the 
Rectory  of  Shrawley,  Worcester. 


APPOINTMENTS. 


January  22, 1827.— His  Majesty  appointed  Field- 
Marshall  Arthur  Duke  of  Wellington,  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  all  His  Majesty's  land  forces. 

Official  order  issued  by  His  Majesty  to  the  army, 
on  the  death  of.  the  Duke  of  York,  dated  January 
23, 1827. 

The  Commander-in  Chief  appointed  Lieut.  Gen. 
Sir  H.  Taylor,  to  be  his  military  secretary. 

Sheriffs  appointed  by  hisMnfcsfy  in  Council 

for  the  year  1827. 

Bedfordshire — George  Nigel   Edwards,  of  Hen- 
low.  Esq.  * 
Berks/lire — Thomas  Dufficld,  of  Marcham  Park, 

Esq. 
Buckinghamshire — Thomas  Saunders,   of  Aston 

Abbot,  Esq. 
Cambridgeshire  and  Huntingdonshire — J    Mar- 

getts.of  St.  Ives,  Esq. 
Cheshire— Peter  Legh,  of  Booth's,  Esq. 
Cumberland — William  James,  of  Barrock-Lodsre, 

Esq. 

Cornwall — Sir  Charles  Lemon,  of  Clarclow,  Bart. 
Derbyshire— E.  Sachevereli    Chandos    Pole,    of 

Radbourne,  Esq. 
Devonshire — Robert  William  Newman,  of  San- 

dridge,  Esq. 
Dorsetshire— J.  B.  Garland,   of   Stone  Cottage, 

Wimbourne,  Esq. 

Essex — Sir  John  Tyrell,  of  Boreham-house,  Bart. 
Gloucestershire— G.B.  Prowsc  Prinn,  of  Charlton 

King?,  Esq. 

Hertfordshire — John  Griffiths,  of  the  Weir,  Esq. 
Herefordshire — Joseph  Latour,  of  Hexton,  Esq. 
Kent— Isaac  Miiiet,  of  Baldwin's,  Esq. 
Leicestershire— Otho  Manners,  of  Goadby  Mar- 
wood,  Esq. 
Lincolnshire — John  Reeve,  of  Leadenham-house, 

"Esq. 
Monmouthshire — William    Addams    Williams,   of 

Llangibby,  Esq. 
A'or/o/A-r— Charles  Tompson,  of  Great-Witching- 

ham,  E*q. 
Northamptonshire— John  J.  Blencowe.of  Marston 

St.  Lawrence,  Esq. 
Northumberland— Dixon  Dixon,  of  Long  Benton, 

E»q. 


Nottinghamshire— Frederick  Robinson,   of  Wid- 

mcrpool,  Esq. 
Oxfordshire— Joseph  Wilson,  of  Nether  Wharton 

Esq. 
Rutlandshire — Thomas   John    Bryan,    of  Stoke 

Dry,  Esq. 
Shropshire— William  Tayleur,  of    Buntitigsdale, 

Esq. 
Somersetshire— Henry  P.  Collins,  of  Hatch  Beau- 

chanip,  Esq. 
Staffordshire— lingo  Charles   Meyneli,    of  Hoar 

Cross,  Esq. 
County  of  Southampton— George  Collins  Poore,  of 

Wickham,  E«<j. 
Suffolk— John  Francis   Leathes,  of  Herringfleet, 

Esq. 

Surrey — William  Crawford,  of  Dorking,  Esq. 
Sussex— Sir  Charles  Foster  Goring,  of  Highden, 

Bart. 
Warwickshire— William  Duke, of  Maxtock  Castle 

Esq.     . 
Ff'ilt^hire— Thomas  B.   Mynors   Baskerville.    of 

Rockley-house,  Esq. 

Worcester — George  Farley,  of  Henwick,  Esq. 
Yorkshire— Henry  Darley,  of  Aldby  Park,  Esq. 

SOUTH  WALES. 
CarmarlhvnsJiirc — Joseph  Gulstone,  of  Derwydd, 

Esq. 
Pembrokeshire — Anthony  Innys  Stokes,  of  Scoves- 

ton,  Esq. 

Cardiganshire — Arthnr  Jones,  of  Cardigan,  Esq. 
Glamorganshire— John  Henry  Vivian,  of  Marino 

Esq. 
Breconshire — Capel  Hanbury  Leigh,  ofLlanelly. 

Esq. 
Radnorshire — Samuel  Beaven.of  Glasscombe,  Esq. 

NORTH  WALES. 

^turlesey—R.   B.  W.  Bulke!ey,  of  Baronhill,  Esq. 
Carnarvonshire— William  Glynn  Griffith, of  Bode- 

Knies,  Esq. 

Merionethshire—  Thomas  Hartley,  of  Llywyn,  Esq. 
Montgomeryshire — John  Jones,     of   Maesmawr, 

Esq. 
Denbighshire— John  Price,  of  Plasoch  Llanychan, 

Esq. 
Ffinf^iirc— Jones  Panton,  of  Coieshill,  Esq. 


1827.] 


[     339     ] 


INCIDENTS,    MARRIAGES, 
CHRONOLOGY. 

J .in.  21.- The  City  of  London  voted  an  address 
of  condolence  to  His  Majesty  on  the  death  of  the 
Duke  of  York.— N.B.  Almost  all  the  cities  and 
principal  towns  of  the  kingdom  have  since  followed 
the  example. 

22. — The  Corporation  ot  Bath  voted  the  freedom 
of  that  city  to  Mr.  Canning,  in  a  gold  box,  oi  the 
value  of  fifty  guineas. 

24. — His  Majesty  arrived  at  Brighton. 

26. — A  preliminary  meeting  held  at  Freemason's 
Tavern,  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  a  monument 
to  the  memory  of  the  Duke  of  York. 

Feb.  4.-The  Duke  of  York's  stud  sold  at  Tat- 
tersall's,  producing  *£8,804  Os.  6d. 

Feb.  10. — The  shares  for  the  New  London  Uni- 
versity were  filled  up,  and  the  second  instalment 
paid,  or  a  large  portion  of  them. 

15. — Sessions  commenced  at  the  Old  Bailey  ;  248 
prisoners  formed  the  calendar.  Two  jurymen 
begged  to  be  excused,  as  they  could  not  (they  said) 
return  any  verdict  inflicting  the  penalty  of  death  ; 
they  were  ordered  to  attend  the  Court  during  the 
sessions,  it  not  being  deemed  a  sufficient  excuse, 
although  the  Court  would  endeavour  to  dispense 
with  them. 


AND  DEATHS,  IN  AND  NEAR  LONDON. 

Jones,  sister  to  the  late  Countess  of  Clermont  and 
Dowager  Lady  Rossmore. —  Major  Wall.  —  In 
Sloane-street,  72,  W.  M into,  esq.,  late  L>eut. -Colo- 
nel of  the  royal  marine  artillery. — Regent's  Park, 
Mrs.  Grant,  widow  of  C.  Grant,  many  years  a  direc- 
tor of  the  East  India  Company. — In  Bedford-row, 
Mrs.  F.  Pollock.— At  Islington,  the  Rev.  John 
Evans,  L.L.D.  author  of  several  works. — In  Con- 
naught-place,  the  Hon.  and  Right  Rev.  G.  Pelham, 
Bishop  ot  Lincoln,  in  consequence  of  a  severe  cold 
caught  by  attending  the  Duke  of  York's  funeral.— 
At  Southwood,  Highgate,  Miss  F.  Longman.— At 
Hoddeson,  82,  GeneralJ.  A.  Harris.— At  Roches- 
ter, the  Rev.  Dr.  Law,  Archdeacon  of  that  place. — 
At  Nottingham-place,  74,  General  W.  Cartwright; 
he  was  Colonel  of  the  King's  regiment  of  dragoon 
guards. — Lieut.-General  Ramsay,  royal  artillery. 
—At  Whitehall,  Lady  Carrington.— In  Wimpole- 
street,  Mary-Anne,  wife  of  Major-General  H.  F. 
Calcralt.  — Sir  W.  Rawson,  late  of  Albcmarle- 
street.  — At  Brompton.  Mr.  Branston,  the  cele- 
brated wood  engraver. — In  Woburn-place,  Mrs. 
Rouse,  widow  of  the  late  B.  Rouse,  esq.,  of  New 
Bridge-street. 


MARRIAGES. 

At  St.  Ann's  Blackfriars,  John  Frost,  esq., 
F.S.A.  of  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge,  to  Har- 
riott, only  daughter  of  the  late  John  Peter  Yo^y, 
esq.,  of  Berne.— At  St.  George's,  Hanover-square. 
Joseph  What  el  y,  esq.,  to  Charlotte,  widow  of  T. 
Crcspigney,  esq.,  formerly  M.  P.  for  Sudbury. — At 
St.  George's  Hanover-square,  the  Rev.  Joseph  . 
Wolff,  missionary  to  the  Jews,  to  Lady  Georgiana 
Mary  Walpole,  aunt  to  the  Earl  of  Orlord. 


DEATHS. 

At  Milbank-terrace,  Westminster,  Mr.  Vidler, 
the  celebrated  mail-coach  contractor. — At  Lovel- 
Hill  Cottage,  near  Reading,  J.  Gumming,  esq., 
F.  S.  A.  late  of  the  Board  of  Control.  It  was  to 
this  gentleman  the  public  were  indebted  for  the 
latter  editions  of  that  excellent  work  "  Owen 
Feltham's  Resolves."— At  Brix-Hill,  Dr.  Bleg- 
borough. — At  his  house  in  Harley-street,  the  Right 
Hon.  James  Sutherland,  Lord  DulTus,  at  an  ad- 
vanced age.— In  Duke-street,  Westminster,  78,  the 
Right  Hon.  Lady  Louisa  Macdonald,  widow  of  the 
late  Right  Hon.  Sir  Archibald  Maedonald,  bart. 
and  eldest  sister  of  the  Marquis  of  Stafford. — Mrs. 
Jones,  relict  of  the  late  Right  Hon.  Theophilus 


MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 

At  St.  George's  Church,  by  the  Bishop  of  Bar- 
badoes,  the  Rev.  S.  Isaacson,  Rector  of  St.  Paul's, 
Demerara,  to  A.M.M.  Killikelly,  youngest  daugh- 
ter of  the  late  B.  B.  Killikelly,  esq,.  of  Barbadoes.— 
The  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  Sir  B.  D'Urban,  Lady 
D*  Urban,  and  the  Archdeacon  of  Barbadoes,  ho- 
noured the  ceremony  by  their  presence  ;  and  it 
being  the  first  instance  of  a  Protestant  bishop 
having  performed  any  of  the  offices  of  the  church 
on  the  vast  continent  of  South  America,  its  no- 
velty excited  a  considerable  degree  of  interest,  and 
attracted  many  other  persons  to  the  ceremony. — 
Guiana  Chronicle  and  Demerara  Gazette,  JVov. 

27, 1826. At  Guernsey,  J.  Gimingham,  esq.,  to 

Ellen  Maria,  daughter  of  R.  Sauuiarez,  esq.,  and 
niece  of  Admiral  Sir  James  Saumarez. —At  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  John  Carlisle,  esq.,  to  Ca- 
therine, daughter  of  T.  Philips,  esq.,  late  of  Mil- 
ford  Haven,  but  now  of  Glendour,  Albany  district, 
Cape  of  Good  Hope. — At  Leipzic,  A.H.  Wolston, 
of  Torrenton  House,  Devon,  to  Henrietta  Semmel  . 
widow,  of  Leipzic. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 

AtTampico,  Mexico,  Commodore  Charles  Thur- 
low  Smith,  of  the  Mexican  navy,  late  Po.st  Captain 
in  the  British  service,  and  nephew  to  Sir  Sklney 
Smith.— At  Naples,  Lady  Emily  Montagu,  youngest 
daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Manchester. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES; 

WITH    THE    MARRIAGES   ANU    DEATHS. 


NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

A  meeting  has  been  held  at  the  Guildhall,  New- 
castle, for  the  purpose  of  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  propriety  oi  establishing  a  "Society  for 
the  Relief  of  the  Indigent  and  Sick,"  when  reso- 
lutions were  entered  into,  and  a  liberal  subscrip- 


tion made  for  immediate  relief — in  clothing,  food, 
money,  or  other  necessaries,  as  the  urgency  of 
the  different  cases  may  require. 

Another  meeting,  of  ship-owners,  has  been  held 
at  North  Shields,  when  a  petition  was  unani- 
mously agreed  on  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
against  the  Reciprocity  system,  and  praying  tk<t 


340 


Provincial  Occuirences :   Cumberland,  Yorkshire, 


[MARCH, 


Legislature  to  examine  into  the  cause  of  the  pre- 
sent depressed  state  of  the  shipping  interest  of  the 
country,  &c. 

A  splendid  silver  candelabrum  has  been  presented 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Hexham,  to  T.W.  Beau- 
mont, esq.,  M.  P.  for  Stafford.  v 

On  the  3d  of  February,  about  a  quarter  before 
twelve  o'clock  at  night,  there  was  observed  at 
Bishopwearniout.il,  in  the  north-west,  a  large  flat 
arch,  three  or  four  degrees  broad;  it  appeared 
like  a  cloud  illuminated  by  the  moon.  At  the  time 
of  observation,  strong  flushes  of  fire  darted  up- 
wards, beginning  at  the  western  end  of  the  arch, 
and  proceeding  eastward,  and  might  require  six 
or  eight  seconds  to  traverse  from  one  end  to  the  other. 
The  lower  end  of  the  arch  was  6°  below  the  hori- 
zon, and  extended  upwards  of  90',  and  the  upper 
end  was  about  80°.  This  aurora  borealis  had 
entirely  vanished  by  half-past  twelve  o'clock. 

There  are  forty-five  prisoners  for  trial  in  Dur- 
ham gaol. 

Married."]  At  Durham,  Wm.  Taylor,  esq.,  to 
Miss  M a'.tby. 

Died.]  At  Morpeth,  Mr.  J .  Watson ;  he  had 
been  !«enior  bailiff  of  that  borough  once,  and  five 
times  junior  bailiff.— At  Durham,  Miss  Jane  Pear- 
son.— At  South  Shields,  Thomas  Green,  esq. 

CUMBERLAND    AND    WESTMORELAND. 

A  sameness  continues  in  our  trade.  Ginghams 
are  most  wofully  depressed  ;  light  checks  and  other 
fancy  fabrics  maintain,  perhaps,  a  good  ground 
But  there  is  plenty  of  complaint,  little  work,  less 
wages,  and  no  satisfaction  on  any  side,  for  all  are 
grumbling.  To:  speak  plainly,  it  is  astonishing 
how  the  people  subsist.  When  we  think  on  the 
privations  of  the  middle  classes,  unknown  to  any 
save  the  sufferers  themselves,  how  many  sorrowful 
hearts  are  hidden  under  smiling  countenances,  we 
must  pursue  the  thought  further,  and  are  bound 
to  believe,  that  the  sufferings  of  the  poor  are 
greater  than  they  appear.  A  few  months  since, 
they  could  subsist  by  selling  their  all;  but  now 
that  all  is  gone,  and  where  can  they  procure  food  ? 
— Carlisle  Journal. 

A  widow  woman,  of  the  name  of  Mary  Dawson, 
who  has  six  children,  and  has,  we  believe,  seen 
better  days,  kept  a  horse  and  cart,  and  from  the 
work  of  the  animal  she  had  herself  and  family  to 
maintain.  She  ielt  herself  under  the  necessity  of 
applying  for  parish  aid  ;  and  Sunday,  the  14th 
January,  ^was  appointed  to  consider  her  claim. 
The  select  Vestry  met  in  Troutbeck  church.  The 
poor  woman  attended  ;  and  after  some  deliberation 
she  was  told  that  she  could  not  be  relieved  until 
"her  goods  and  property  were  sold.  To  this  she 
demurred,  begging  them  to  consider  her  destitute 
situation.  Remonstrance  was  in  vain,  and  her 
horse  and  three  cart  loads  of  hay  were  actually 
put  up  for  sale,  at  a  short  distance  from  the  altar 
table,  in  the  body  of  the  church,  on  Sunday  after- 
noon I  Ten  shillings  were  paid  down  in  the  church 
for  the  horse,  and  a  promise  was  made  that  the 
hay  should  be  paid  for  when  taken  away.  Thus 
far  the  Westmoreland  Advertiser. — Breathe  we 
in  a  Christian  land  ?  But  we  forbear  to  comment 
upon  the  matter,  as  we  understand  a  statement  of 
the  case  has  been  laid  before  the  Bishop. 

YORKSHIRE    AND    CHESHIRE. 

A  general  meeting  of  ship-owners  has  been  held 
at  the  lown   hall  ot  Whitby,  for  the  purpose  of 


preparing  petitions  to  Parliament  against  the  Re- 
ciprocity system,  under  which  the  shipping  inte- 
rests of  England  are  at  present  so  grieviously  suf- 
fering. The  petitions  pa«sed  unanimously. 

A  meeting  has  been  held  at  Sheffield,  to  take  into 
consideration  the  law  relative  to  the  exportation 
of  machinery  from  these  kingdoms,  when  it  was 
unanimously  resolved  to  form  a  committee  to  com- 
municate with  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  at  Man- 
chester, to  co-operate  in  any  way  that  might 
seem  desirable  to'  oppose  the  passing  any  Act  of 
Parliament  for  the  purpose  of  allowing  the  ex- 
portation of  machinery. 

A  memorial  to  the  same  effect  has  been  una- 
nimously passed  by  the  merchants,  manufacturers, 
and  machine  makers  of  Leeds,  at  their  Court- 
House,  to  be  presented  to  the  Lords  of  the  Trea- 
sury. 

Application  will  be  ma  !e  to  Parliament  for  an 
act  to  enable  several  gentlemen  (as  proprietors)  to 
effect  an  intended  canal  from  Wakefield  to  Ferry- 
bridge. This  very  useful  undertaking  will,  amongst 
other  advantages,  save  seven  miles  in  the  dis- 
tance. 

The  silk  trade  at  Macclesfieid  is  improving,  and 
the  people  fast  resuming  employment. 

An  exhibition  of  paintings  is  about  to  be  formed 
at  Hull,  on  the  same  plan  as  that  of  the  Northern 
Society,  at  Leeds. 

Abazzaar,  at  Leeds,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Dis- 
pensary, realized  upwards  of  .£1,400:  and  a  ball, 
for  the  same  purpose,  upwards  of  .£80. 

There  are  upwards  of  one  hundred  prisoners  in 
York  Castle  for  trial,  at  the  assizes,  which  com- 
mence the  24th  of  March. 

An  intention  exists  of  founding  a  joint-stock 
bank  at  Huddersfield,  on  the  Scotch  system. 

On  the  Slstof  January, the  head,  horns, vertebra 
of  the  neck,  and  some  rib  bones  of  a  large  animal,  of 
the  deer  kind,  which  may  now  be  regarded  as  a 
distinct  species,  were  discovered  in  the  cliff,  at 
Hornswa.  They  were  embedded  in  saponaceous  clay, 
overlaid  with  vegetable  matter,  about  five  inches 
in  thickness.  The  head,  with  the  upper  jaw,  con- 
taining a  row  of  fine  teeth  on  each  side,  is  entire  ; 
the  under  jaw  is  wanting.  The  horns  are  of  the 
following  dimensions  : 

Ft.  In. 

Length,  from  the  extreme  tip  of  each  horn    8    0 
From  the  tip  of  one   horn  to  its 

root 5    9 

From  the  tip  of  one  of  the  inner 
branches  to  the  tip  of  the  oppo- 
site branch 3  0 

The  breadth  of  one  of  the  palms  within 

the  branches 1    7 

The  length  of  the  head  from  the  back  of 
the  skull  to  the  extremity  of  the  upper 

jaw 1  10 

The  breadth  of  the  skull  010 

The  brow  antler*,  as  well  as  the  main  bones, 
are  palmated,  and  slightly  divided  at  the  ends; 
and  the  whole  may  justly  be  considered  as  a  rare 
and  interesting  specimen  of  organic  remains. 

A  young  woman,  named  Jane  Shaw,  the  daughter 
of  a  peasant,  at  Ailne,  near  Beverley,  was  lately 
in  a  profound  sleep  for  eighteen  days,  during 
.which  time  the  animal  functions  were  entirely  sus- 
pended. 


1827.] 


Stafford,  Lancashire,  Nottingham,  Leicester, 


241 


On  the  14th  of  February,  a  diocesan  committee 
of  the  Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel,  was 
formed  at  York.  President,  his  Grace  the  Arch- 
bishop. 

Married.]  Rev.  II.  Torre,  rector  of  Thornhill, 
to  Sarah  Caroline,  eldest  daughter  of  Sir  John 
Lister K aye,  bart.,  of  Denbigh  Grange. — At  Wake- 
flcld,  Edward  Fenton,  esq.,  to  Miss  Briscoe. — At 
Pickering,  Captain  Gray,  to  Miss  Bird.— At  York, 
Mr.  Gawson,  to  Miss  Wolstenholme. — At  Terring- 
ton,  John  Atkinson,  to  Miss  Tate. — At  Leeds, 
Thomas  Ferguson,  esq.,  to  Miss  Emma  Bevyen. 

Died.]  At  Holme-on-Spalding  Moor,  Mrs.  Fal- 
kingtiam,  widow ;  she  lett  behind  her  upwards  of 
160 children,  grand-children,  great  grand-children, 
and  great -great-grand-children  ;  and  she  occupied 
the  house,  in  which  she  died,  the  last  73  years  of 
her  life. — At  Easintrworth,  Thomas  Jackson. esq. — 
At  Whitby,  Mrs.  Walker.— At  York,  Miss  In- 
gram.-J-  At  Harden  Grange,  the  lady  of  Walker 
Ferrand,  esq. 

STAFFORD    AND    SALOP. 

The  foundation  stone  of  Wolverhampton  race 
stand  has  lately  been  laid. 

A  number  of  workmen  are  nowi  engaged  in 
lowering  the  hill  on  the  Bristol  road,  between  Bir- 
mingham and  the  first  turnpike. 

LANCASHIRE. 

The  distress  which  has  prevailed  so  extensively 
and  for  so  long  a  period  in  the  neighbouring 
towns,  appears  at  length  to  have  reached  Liver- 
poo!.  The  applications  for  parochial  relief  are 
numerous  beyond  any  precedent  for  several  years 
past.  More  than  four  hundred  individuals,  and 
the  families  of  many  of  them,  were  relieved  yes- 
terday at  the  parish  offices.  The  workhouse  is  al- 
most as  full  as  it  will  hold  :  it  contains  nearly  one 
thousand  six  hundred  pauper?.  Disease,  the  sure 
concomitant  of  starvation,  is  very  prevalent  ;  the 
fever  ward  is  full,  and  a  temporary  one  has  al- 
ready received  several  inmates. — Liverpool  C/tro. 
nicle. 

The  differences  which  have  so  long  existed  be- 
tween the  cotton-spinners  of  Oldham  and  their 
workmen,  have  at  length  beeh  accommodated,  by 
the  return  of  the  men  to  their  employment,  at  the 
prices  which  they  before  refused  to  accept.  Most 
of  the  men  signified  their  wish  to  return  to  work  ; 
and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few,  who  were  known 
to  have  been  active  instigators  of  the  late  riots, 
they  were  accepted  by  the  masters.  On  the  day 
before  this  event  took  place,  however,  there  were 
some  further  disturbances,  of  a  rather  serious 
character  ;  in  which,  the  civil  and  military  autho- 
rities displayed  great  decision  and  promptitude  ; 
which,  we  have  no  doubt,  had  considerable  eilect 
in  leading  to  accommodation. 

Died.]  At  Harrock  Hall,  77,  the  Rev.  Rigbye 
Rigbye. 

NOTTINGHAM    AND    LINCOLN. 

There  has  been  a  trifling  amendment  in  the  lace 
trade  at  Nottingham,  and  there  has  been  a  small 
advance  in  the  price. 

Such  is  the  extreme  scarcity  of  provender  and 
winter  keeping  in  many  parts  of  Lincolnshire, 
that  the  most  serious  apprehensions  are  feJt  by 
the  farmers  for  their  cattle,  and  the  horrors  of 
scarcity  are  prevalent.  The  calamity  has  been  in- 
creased by  severe  and  most  unfavourable  weather. 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  Horncastle,  the  sheep  and 
caitle,  both  beasts  and  horses,  are  dying  by  mul« 
titudes. 


Died.]  82,  Rev.  W.  Harrison,  vicar  of  Win- 
terton. 

LEICESTER    AND    RUTLAND. 

The  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  county  of  Lei- 
cester have  come  to  the  resolution  of  patronizing, 
on  an  extensive  scale,  a  grand  musical  festival, 
for  the  benefit  of  "the  Infirmary,  Lunatic  Asy- 
lum, and  Fever  House  of  Recovery,"  and  a  com- 
mittee has  been  formed  to  carry  their  benevolent 
intentions  into  effect  for  which  purpose  they  have 
already  engaged  some  of  the  first  performers  in 
the  kingdom.  It  is  to  be  solemnized  on  the  4th, 
5th,  and  6th  of  next  September,  at  Leice-ter. 

At  Lougliborough,  a  ball  lately  took  place,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Dispensary  ;  it  was  well  atten- 
ded, and  produced  .£90. ' 

Died.]  AtNewhall  Park,  86,  Mr.  Jackson  ;  and 
the  day  after,  Mr.  Gilbert,  an  inmate  of  his  house, 
and  for  whom  he  had  liberally  provided,  expired, 
after  a  few  hours  illness. — At  Loughborough,  87, 
Mr.  Nash.— At  his  seat,  Cole  Orion  Hall,  73,  Sir 
George  Beaumont,  bait.  He  was  well  known  as 
one  of  the  best  amateur  painters  in  the  kingdom, 
and  the  liberal  donor  to  the  nation  of  his  excellent 
collection  of  pictures. — At  Bisbrooke,  Rutland, Mr. 
Robert  Clarke,  a  man  well  known  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood for  his  singular  habits.  It  will  appeal- 
that  he  was  d?scended  from  an  eccentric  stock, 
when  our  renders  are  informed,  that  he  put  down 
a  grave-stone  to  the  memory  of  his  lather,  agreeably 
to  his  directions,  with  a  gorgeous  representation 
of  a  waggon  and  horses, a  waggoner,  a  gate, 'and 
a  green  hedge,  with  the  following  lines  : 
"  'Here  lies  the  body  of  Nathaniel  Clarke, 
Who  never  did  no  harm  iu  the  light  nor  in  the 

dark  ; 

But  in  his  blessed  horses  taken  great  delight, 
And  often  travell'd  with  them  by  day  and  by 
night." 

WARWICK. 

In  the  case  of  the  King  v.  the  Mayor  and  Cor- 
poration of  Warwick,  the  rule  for  a  criminal  infor- 
mation has  been  discharged,  the  defendants  paying 
all  the  costs:  "This,  I  think,"  said  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  "  will  be  sufficient  to  make  the  de- 
fendants know  that  it  is  their  duty  to  attend  on  the 
election-days  specified  in  the  Charter." 

The  Warwick  Gas  Light  Company  have  made  a 
dividend  of  five  percent. 

Died.]  Mrs.  Millicent  Ludford,  sister  pf  the 
late  J.  N.  Ludford, esq.,  of  Ansley  Hall.— At  War- 
wick, Mrs.  E.  Hudson. — At  Siitlon  Coldneld,  Mrs. 
Perkins. 

NORTHAMPTON    AND    HUNTINGDON. 

Died.]  At  Pitsford,  Charles,  second  son  of  E. 
Bouverie,  esq., of  Delapre  Abbey. 

WORCESTER    AND    HEREFORD. 

Died.]  At  Leigh,  102,  Catherine  Hill.  -  At 
Worcester,  97,  Philip  Lane  ;  he  was  known  by 
the  appellation  of  Blind  Phil,  and  had  been  bell- 
ringer  at  Hereford  Cathedral  for  upwards  of 
seventy  years. — At  Flagoner's  Green,  Bromyard, 
lOl,  Hannah  Smith,  widow;  and  at  Eccles  Gieen, 
100  !  Mary  Powles,  widow. 

GLOUCESTER  AND  MONMOUTH. 
His  Majesty  has  consented  to  become  the  patron 
of  the  miisical  festival,  called  the  "  Union  of  the 
Choirs  of  Worcester,  Hereford,  and  Gloucester." 
—The  Friends  congregational  collection  in  Bris- 
tol, for  the  relief  of  the  distressed  manufacturers, 
on  Sunday,  January  24,  amounted  to  .£159  5s.  2d. 
—It  appears,  by  the  third  annual  report  of  the  vi- 
sitors of  the  General  Lunatic  Asylum,  for  the 
County  and  City  of  Gloucester,  that  its  expense 
for  1829,  was .£2,%0.  9s<  9d.,  while  the  amount  for, 


342 


Provincial  Occurrences :  Derbyshire,  Wilts,  Sfc.  [MARCH, 


hoard  of  patients  was  only  .£2,564  Os.  2£d. ; 
leaving  a  deficiency  of  «£40:i  9s.  7d.  Thus  the 
committee  are  under  the  necessity  of  applying  to 
the  county  and  city  for  pecuniary  assistance.  We 
cannot  neglect  to  add,  that  the  deficiency  in  the 
finances,  the  committee  conceive,  are  in  a  great 
degree  to  he  attributed  to  causes  of  a  temporary 
nature,  the  incidental  expenses  of  the  year  having 
been  unusually  great,  while  the  necessity  have 
been  more  than  equal  to  the  ordinary  and  re~ 
gular  disbursements. 

Married."}  At  Cheltenham.  T.  Thistl<>thwaito, 
esq.,  late  M.  P.  for  Hants,  to  Typheua  Bathurst, 
daughter  of  the  Bishop  of  Norwich. 

'  Died.']  At  Pah-ford  Park,  85,  J.  R.  Barker. esq. 
— At  Lamb'8  Quay,  66,  R.  P.  Wilton,  esq.,  many 
years  town  clerk  of  Gloucester. — At  Hill  Court, 
64,  Miss  F.  Faust,  a  descendant  of  the  celebrated 
John  Faust, the  inventor  of  printing:  she  was  the 
niece  of  Sir  John  Faust,  hart.,  at  whose  decease 
this  ancient  baronetcy  became  extinct. 

DERBYSHIRE. 

Married.]  At  Kedleston,  W.  D.  Holden,  osq., 
to  Caroline  Esther,  youngest  daughter  of  Lord 
Scarsdale. 

OXFORDSHIRE. 

A  new  arrangement  has  just  been  made  at  our 
(Oxford)  "post-office,  by  which  means  all  letters  and 
papers  addressed  to  persons  in  the  following  coun- 
ties and  places,  will  arrive  twenty-four  hours  ear- 
lier than  before  this  establishment  took  place: 
Cheshire,  Cumberland,  Derby,  Durham,  Lancas- 
ter, Leicester,  Lincoln,  Northampton,  Northum- 
berland, Nottingham,  Rutland,  Stafford,  Salop, 
Warwick,  Westmoreland,  York,  North  Wales,  Ire- 
land, and  Scotland  ;  including  the  towns  of  Dud- 
ley, Stourbridge,  Bewdley,  Kidderminster,  and 
Stourport.  A  horse-post  also  will  be  established 
from  Oxford  to  Newbury,  to  meet  the  Bath  and 
Bristol,  and  Exeter  mails,  thus  delivering  the  let- 
ters Jo  Bath,  Bristol,  the  west  of  England,  and  the 
south  Welsh  road,  twenty-four  hours  earlier  than 
at  present. 

At  a  late  special  court  of  the  guardians  for  re- 
gulating the  poor,  at  Oxford,  it  was  unanimously 
resolved,  that  the  intention  of  the  new  bill  should 
be  abandoned,  the  sense  of  the  vestries  appearing 
decidedly  against  it. 

It  appears,  from  the  Summary  of  the-  University 
of  Oxford,  in  January  last,  that  there  were  2,312 
members  of  convocation,  and  4,923  members  on 
the  books.  In  some  of  the  colleges,  applications 
for  admission  have  been  answered  by  promises  of 
entrance  in  about  two  or  three  years  ;  whilst  in 
others,  the  list  of  applicants  is  so  long,  that  no 
time  can  be  held  out  for  certainty  when  new  mem- 
bers can  be  entered  ;  this,  at  all  events,  shews  the 
necessity  of  another  university! 

Died.]  At  Oxford,  Rev.  S.  Collin«on,D.D,,  Pro- 
vost of  Queen's  College,  Margaret,  Professor  of 
Divinity,  Prebendary  of  Worcester,  and  rector 
of  Dowlish  Wake  and  Dowlish  West,  Somerset. 
He  was  in  his  88th  year,  and  he  delivered  a  course 
of  lectures  on  the  thirty-nine  articles,  at  the  age  of 
80!— 99,  Mrs.  Jane  Trollope.— The  Hon.  and  Right 
Rev.  Edward  Legge,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and  War- 
den of  All  Souls  College.— At  Middle  Aston,  Mrs. 
Mary  Faithorn,  having  attained  the  age  of  100 
years  and  10  months,  without  illness,  except  the 
small-pox,  in  her  infancy. 

BUCKS    AND    BERKS. 

Died.'}  At  Reading,  in  the  100th  year  of  his 
age,  Mr.  Samuel  Stepney.  Until  within  a  few 
days  of  his  death,  he  could  sec  to  read  the  smallest 


print  without  the  aid  of  glasses,  and  'at  96,  was  in 
lull  possession  of  all  his  faculties.  He  has  left  a 
widow,  axed  96,  who  has  been  his  wife  for  three- 
score years  and  ten.  He  had  been  a  great-grand- 
fat her  fifteen  years,  and  his  greaf-grand-children 
had  a  great-grand-father  and  great-grand-mother, 
two  grand-fathers,  two  grand-mothers,  and  a  fa- 
iher  and  mother— all  living  at  the  the  same  time.— 
At  Parley  Hill,  near  Reading,  C.Dickenson,  esq.— 
AtAshtou  Clinton,  101,  Rebecca  Studram. 

KOKPOLK   AND   SUFFOLK. 

A  petition  for  the  revision  of  the  game  laws  was 
signed  by  some  of  the  magistrates  attending  the 
late  sessions  at  Bury.  The  object  of  the  petition 
is  to  represent  to  Parliament  the  lamentable  and 
increasing  evils  resulting  from  the  violation  of 
those  laws,  as  peculiarly  affecting  the  morals  of 
the  labouring  classes  ;  to  point  out  the  fact,  that 
although  the  sale  of  game  is  prohibited,  the  de- 
mands of  a  large  and  wealthy  class  of  the  commu- 
nity create  a  market  for  it,  which  can  at  present 
only  be  supplied  by  fraud  and  depredation  ;  and 
that  the  iiuiividu.il  thus  tempted  to  an  infraction  of 
the  law,  is  led,  by  degrees,  to  the  commission  of  the 
most  atrocious  crimes. 

By  the  abstract  of  the  receipts  and  disburse- 
ments of  the  treasurer  for  the  comity  of  Norfolk, 
from  Midsummer  1825  to  Midsummer  1S26, 
it'  appears  that  the  expenditure  amounted  to 
.£11,392.  Is.  2d. 

HANTS    AND    CtKSSKX. 

A  meeting  held  at  Brighton,  February  10,  of 
gentlemen,  inhabitants,  and  visitors,  it  was  re- 
solved to  erect  public  rooms,  for  balls,  concerts, 
and  other  amusements,  without  delay.  The  ex- 
penses are  calculated  at  .£15,000,  which  is  to  be 
raised  in  shares  of  .£100  each.  The  scite  is  in  the 
Grand  Parade,  and  the  building  is  to  be  in  the 
Grecian  style. 

Married.]  Robert  Stone,  esq.,  of  Gate  House, 
Sussex,  to  Louisa,  second  daughter  of  Alexander 
Donovan,  esq.,  of  Foramlield  Park. 

Died.]  At  Christchurch,  77,  Mr.  W.  Lockyer. 
He  was  the  h"ad  ringer  of  the  parish,  and  had  re- 
gularly attended  the  belfry  for  upwards  of  sixty 
years. 

DORSET   AND  WILTS. 

January  17,  the  foundation  stone  of  a  chapel  for 
a  sect  called  "  Ranters,"  was  laid  at  Shaftesbury. 
A  female  preacher  delivered  a  long  discourse  on 
the  occasion,  and  a  subscription  was  made  on 
the  spot. 

Died.]  At  Great  Bedwin,  Elizabeth  Sopp,  wi- 
dow, having  nearly  completed  her  102d  year! — 
At  Abbotsbury  Castle,  the  Hen.  Captain  GiU-s 
Digby  Robert  Fox  Strangcways,  7th  hussars,  bro- 
ther to  the  Earl  of  llchcster. 

DEVON  AND  SOMERSET. 
At  the  latter  end  of  January,  a  rigged  barge  ar- 
rived at  Taunton,  from  Newport  direct,  laden 
with  coals,  &c.  She  came  up  the  Bridgewater  and 
Taunton  canal ;  branched  in  the  river  Tone  ;  such 
a  sight  has  never  before  been  witnessed  in  Taun- 
ton, and  drew  a  great  concourse  of  spectators, 
with  bells  ringing  at  the  different  parish  churches. 
—A  concert  was  lately  given  at  Bridgewater,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Infirmary,  which  netted  between 
.£80  and  .£90.— The  last  report  of  the  Devon  and 
Exeter  Savings' Bank  states  the  sum  in  hand  to 
be  .£590,302  Is.  Id.  exclusive  of  the  surplus  fund 
of  5,386  5s.  7d.  The  receipts  of  last  year,  not- 
withstanding the  general  distress,  amounted  to 


1827.] 


Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 


343 


.£115,639  14a.  3d.!!!.— The  National  Benevolent 
Institution  of  Bath  received,  in  1826,  the  .sum  of 
.£416  8s.  Id. 

At  a  late  meeting  of  the  mayor  and  commonalty 
of  Plymouth  and  Devonport,  it  was  agreed  to  for- 
ward a  petition  to  Parliament  for  establishing  a 
court  of  requests  in  those  towns.— The  foundation 
stone  for  the  Plymouth  Mechanics'  Institute  has 
been  lately  laid,  with  all  the  due  formalities,  at 
that  place.  The  building  is  expected  to  be  finished 
in  November  next. 

By  the  late  decision  of  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench  relative  to  the  sewers  of  the  Bristol  Dock 
Company,  there  is  now  the  certainty  of  that  city 
being  probably  relieved,  even  before  another  hot 
summer  occurs,  from  the  abominable  nuisance 
which  of  -  late  years  has  so  infested  it. 

Married.']  At  Bath,  Lord  William  Paget,  to 
Fanny,  daughter  of  Lieut.-Gen.  Sir  Francis  de 
Rottenberg.— At  Clifton,  W.  M.  Reade,  esq.,  to 
Miss  Eliza  Maitland . 

Died.]  At  Axminster,  102,  S.  Pike.— At  Yeovil, 
G.  P.  Upton,  esq.,  mayor  of  Lyine  Regis.  —  At 
Compton  Gilford,  Alexander,  third  son  of  Sir  Ed- 
ward and  Lady  Thornton,  of  Wemburg  House.— 
At  Bath,  Lucy,  wife  of  John  Benett,  esq.,  M.  P. 
for  Wilts.— At  Barnstaple,  61,  Mary  Easton  ;  she 
had  been  a  servant  at  the  Bell-Inn  iifty  years !!!— 
At  Martock,  67,  Rev.  E.  Taylor. 

WALES. 

Great  ferments  have  been  created  in  several 
parts  of  Wales,  in  consequence  of  the  intention 
expressed  by  many  of  the  landowners  to  apply  to 
the  Legislature  for  acts  to  enclose  common  lands 
extensively.  The  act  which  has  been  applied  for 
to  enclose  the  wastes  in  the  parishes  of  Llanwnda 
and  Llandwrog,  Carnarvon,  will  be  brought  be- 
fore the  attention  of  Parliament  upon  claims  of 
vested  rights,  and  other  claims  to  compensation 
preferred  by  several  hundred  cottagers.  At  a 
vestry,  held  about  twenty  years  ago,  in  the  parish 
of  Llandwrog,  the  peasantry  were  encouraged  to 
build  cottages  upon  the  extensive  barren  wastes, 
as  the  example  which  had  been  exhibited  by  great 
numbers  who  had  built  cottages,  some  20  and 
others  30  years  before,  of  frugality  and  good  order, 
led  the  overseers  to  expect  that  similar  results 
would  be  experienced  from  the  settlement  of  those 
of  the  peasantry  who  then  began  to  be  troublesome. 
The  men  who  availed  themselves  of  this  encourage- 
ment, were  chiefly  those  working  in  the  slate  quar- 
ries in  the  neighbourhood ;  numbers  of  them  set 
to  work  accordingly.  The  common  was,  a  groat 
part  of  it  a  mere  rock  ;  they,  by  fire  and  gunpow- 
der, levelled  it.  The  whole  body  of  men  belonging 
to  a  quarry  wore  often  seen  united  at  moonlight, 
working  to  remove  huge  stones,  and  aiding  to 
clear  the  ground.  In  one  instance,  more  than  140 
heads  of  families  were  settled  in  this  manner ;  they 
built  cottages,  and  it  appears  that  the  present 
state  of  the  wastes  in  this  particular  is,  that  there 
are  141  tenements  on  337  acres,  which  aid  in  main- 
taining 683  inhabitants,  with  the  assistance  of  81 
cows.  As  an  instance  of  the  good  effected  by  this 
state  of  things,  the  cottagers,  from  being  burden- 
some, have  become  contributors  to  the  poors' rates. 
During  the  last  7  years,  they  have  contributed 
within  a  fraction  of  .£300  per  annum ;  and  the 
relief  afforded  to  the  same  district  amounts  only  to 
.£55.  Some  of  these  cottagers  have  been  in  pos- 
session 30,  40,  and  50  years  undisturbed  by  those 
who  have,  or  say  they  have,  legal  claims  upon  the 


lands.  The  manorial  rights  to  these  lands  belong 
to  the  Crown  ;  but  the  landowners,  who  have  only 
a  right  of  common  on  them,  have  applied  for  a  bill 
to  enclose  the  common,  and  allot  it  amongst  them- 
selves. The  cottagers  on  the  land  swear  they  will 
defend  what  they  call  their  property,  namely— the 
improvements  on  the  land  and  their  cottages,  to 
the  last  drop  of  their  blood  ;  but  they  declare  them- 
selves willing  to  pay  what  may  be  assessed  as  the 
value  of  the  lands,  (which  the  landowners  refused 
to  make  use  of,  for,  in  fact,  it  was  of  no  value  to 
them),  before  they  bestowed  their  labour  upon 
them.  They  contend  that  the  improvements  and 
buildings  upon  them,  at  least,  are  their  property, 
inasmuch  as  the  landowners  recognised  them,  and 
admitted  their  right  for  20  years,  by  not  inter- 
fering with  them  during  that  period.  The  great 
question  to  be  decided  by  the  Legislature  will  be, 
whether  such  recognition  of  the  labour  bestowed 
upon  land  will  entitle  the  cottagers  to  compensa- 
tion for  it.  There  is  also  the  general  principle  of 
cottage  settlement,  as  a  relief  for  poor-rates,  in- 
volved in  the  discussion  of  these  cases. 

A  valuable  piece  of  plate,  subscribed  for  by  the 
inhabitants  of  Brecon,  has  been  presented  to  Philip 
Vaughan,  esq.,  for  his  meritorious,  judicious,  and 
unceasing  exertions  as  Honorary  Secretary  to  the 
Cambrian  Society  inGwent. 

The  Bishop  of  St.  David's  has  given  notice;  that 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  expense 
of  educating  and  maintaining  a  young  man  at  the 
college  will  not  amount  to  more  than  .£55  a  year!!f 
Compare  this  with  Oxford  and  Cambridge!!!  The 
college  is  calculated  to  accomodate  70  students,  and 
is  to  be  opened  on  St.  David's-day. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Swansea,  and 
its  neighbourhood,  held  at  the  Guildhall,  February 
15,  for  the  purpose  of  petitioning  Parliament  for 
the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  British  Colonies, 
it  was  resolved  unanimously,  "  that  a  petition  be 
immediately  presented  to  Parliament,  praying  that 
during  the  present  session,  its  pledge  to  the  coun- 
try for  the  further  amelioration  of  the  condition 
of  the  unhappy  Slaves  be  redeemed,  and  that, 
without  farther  delays  some  speedy  and  determined 
period  be  fixed  for  the  final  extinction  of  Slavery 
throughout  the  British  dominions. 

The  shock  of  an  earthquake  was  felt  at  Carnar- 
von, and  miles  round  its  vicinity,  on  Saturday  Fe- 
bruary 10,  at  20  m.  past  7  o'clock,  p.  M.  Its  dura- 
tion was  only  a  minute.  It  was  felt  also  at  Ban- 
gor,  and  round  the  neighbourhood,  but  not  in  so 
great  a  degree. 

Married.]  Hugh  Jones,  esq.,  of  Rhuallt,  and 
Plastourbridge,  Denbigh,  to  Jane,  heiress  of  the 
late  R.  Jones,  esq.,  of  Dolgynlass. 

Died.]  At  Dolgelly,  76,  Henry  Owen,  esq.,  of 
Llwyn-du,  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.— At 
Ty-yn-y-Craig,  near  Aberpergwm,  in  the  vale  of 
Neath,  John  .tones,  better  known  by  the  name  of 
"  Colder  Jig,"  at  the  advanced  age  of  91.— At  Hay 
Brecon,  107,  Martha  Watkius. 

SCOTLAND. 

Died.]  At  Edinburgh,  64,  Mr.  P.  Marshall ;  he 
was  the  ingenious  inventor  of  the  Peristrephic 
Panorama. 

IRELAND. 

Died.]  At  Castle-Martyr,  Cork,  the  Countess 
of  Shannon. — 80,  Rev.  Dr.  Plunkett,  titular  Bishop 
of  Meath  ;  this  venerable  person,  for  nearly  half  a 
century,  presided  over  one  of  the  largest  bishoprics 
in  this  country. 


DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 
From  the  2Bth  of  January  to  the  25th  of  February  1821. 


Bank    3  Pr.  Ct. 


Stock. 


Red. 


{  Pr.  ft.  34Pr.Ct.  34Pr.Ct.  X4Pr.C. 

Consols,  consols,     lied.        Ann. 


Long; 

Annuities. 


India       India      Kxch.     Consols 
Stock.       Bonds.      Bills,     tor  Ace. 


2(5 
27 
18 
29 
30 
31 

Feb. 


2014202 


202  202£ 


202|203 
203^ 

2074 

207 
207A 


79£  80 
~ 


20/ 


/i 
?08 


208| 


208J 

208 

208 

207  298- 


804 


80i 


79J 
794 


79*    3 


82 


864  87 


81}  82 

82i    * 


86|  871 

I 

873 
884 

894 


893     I 


87i    I  '•  874 
88&     j  88| 

8!)|        bd 


19   1-16 
1-16 


9*4  954 


95J  964  194  5-16 


•(ii!  !)7 
'6*  97 


97*    J 

9/i  i. 

9/1  984 


5-16  | 
191  7-16 

19  7-16  A 
19  7-16  J 

19?9-16  ll  16 
19   5-16    9-16 

19  13-16  | 
19  13-16  |f 
19  13-16 

19  9-16   11-16 


95     96 
96§  97    19    3-16 
9oj£  97]  19    9-16 
68*  97i  K 
97?.  i4 


2314 


238J  240 


242^ 
24J. 


2444 


243     21j 


244 
2454 


46  48  p 
46  47p 


4749p 


49p 
48  50p 
5051p 
'r'l  rf P 

"'oSp  P 

52  54p 
54  50  p 

54  5.1p 

55  57  p 
S5  57  p 

53  55p 
5355p 


48  52p 
48  50  p 
50  52p 
52  54  p 
52  53  p 


25  2/p 
2o  27  p 


28  30p 
2830p 

28  30 p 
30  31  p 
30  31  p 
3031p 
30  33p 

30  31  p 

31  33p 
3235,j 
35  37p 
33  36  p 
3335p 
3234p 

2831p 
3031p 

32  33p 

33  34  p 
3334p 


91- 


792  80* 


814 

il%  82| 
824 


8-4 
' 


824 


79j  805 
814    f 
81 I  824 
82 


E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  2,  Cornhilt  and  Lombard  Street. 


MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  Jan.  20th  to  19th  Feb.  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50.  High  Holborn. 


V 

be 

Therm. 

Barometer. 

)e  Luc's. 
Hygro. 

Winds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

> 

3 

rt 

C 

o 

.5 

| 

* 

si 

£ 

9  A.  M. 

10  P.M. 

* 

eu 

9A.M. 

10  P.  M. 

9P.M. 

2  P.  M. 

10  P.M. 

pj 

s 

Cl 

3 

Oi 

2 

20 
21 

€ 

28 
27 

34 

28 

25 
28 

30     08 
29    72 

29    90 
29    57 

96 

84 

86 
95 

E 
NE 

E 

N 

Fail- 
Snow 

Fair 
Snow 

Snow 

•4 

29 

29 

29    45 

29    52 

95 

85 

E 

NNE 

— 

— 

Fine 

23 

28 

28 

29    52 

29    41 

90 

93 

NNW 

W 

— 

Fair 

Clo. 

24 
25 

30 
31 

33 

28 
18 

29    46 
29    52 

29    52 

29    58 

90 
93 

93 
93 

wsw 

E 

SW 
ENE 

Clo. 
Foggy 





26 

28 

33 

29    58 

29    68 

93 

88 

W 

N 

— 

Snoxv 

27 

£$ 

33 

M 

•75 

30    03 

30     15 

81 

89 

NNE 

NNE 

Fair 

— 

Fair 

28 

W 

33 

4<> 

42 

30    05 

29    84 

87 

96 

SW 

SW 

— 

— 

— 

29 

44 

46 

35 

29    79 

29    75 

98 

90 

SW 

W 

Clo. 

— 

— 

30 
31 

39 
42 

41 
46 

39 
42 

29    67 
29    61 

29    63 
29    62 

90 
98 

88 
98 

SSW 

ssw 

SW 

ssw 

S.Rain 

CloT 

Clo. 

Feb. 

43 

44 

35 

29    64 

29    67 

96 

98 

ssw 

NNE 

Clo. 

— 

S.Rain 

2 

36 

42 

99 

29    81 

29    96 

81 

85 

ENE 

N 

Fair 

,— 

Fine 

3 

fi 

30     30 

30    40 

75 

79 

NE 

NE 

— 

Fair 

— 

4 

5 
6 

7 

36 
JW 
33 
37 

38 
38 

41 

41 

34 

28 
34 

30    41 
31)    36 

3d     16 

30    29 

30    40 
30    27 
30    21 
30    31 

79 
83 
93 
90 

81 
84 
90 
85 

NE 
ENE 
NNE 
NE 

NNE 
ENE 
NNE 

NNE 

S.Rain 
Fair 

~ 

Fair 
Fine 

3 

35 

37 

t9 

30    34 

30    35 

78 

80 

E 

NE 

— 

— 

32 

36 

30     21 

30     18 

77 

75 

ENE 

NE 

— 

— 

— 

10 
j] 

34 
31 

37 
33 

30 
31 

29     97 
29    72 

29    93 
29    69 

82 
86 

87 
86 

NE 
ENE 

NE 
ENE 

Clo. 

Clo. 

Clo. 

12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 

0 

36 
35 
34 

36 
25 

26 
26 

39 
38 
40 
38 
31 
30 
30 
28 

33 
28 
34 
24 
20 
19 
24 
24 

29    74 
30    00 
29    94 
29    ^9 
30    02 
29    83 
•29    94 
29    81 

29    87 
30     17 
29    85 
29    92 
29    96 
29    87 
29    93 
29    66 

92 

82 
82 
87 
82 
85 
82 
82 

84 
80 
82 
85 
80 
83 
82 
81 

NE 
NNW 
WSW 
NNE 
EriE 
WSW 
E 
ENE 

NW 
NW 
WNW 
NNE 
WNW 
SW 
EXE 
ENE 

Sleet 
Clo. 

Sleet 

Fair 

Fine 

Fair 

Fine 
Foggy 
Fine 

THE 

MONTHLY   MAGAZINE. 

jeerfcs. 


VOL.  III.]  APRIL,  1827.  [No.  16. 


TRADE    AND    PROFESSION. 

"  In  nomine  Domini,  stude  artes  parcas  et  lucrosas :  non  est  mundus  pro  artibus  liberalibus, 
jam."— IGNORAMUS. 

THE  distinction  between  trade  and  profession  is  one  purely  technical. 
The  former  indicates  the  sale  of  wares,  and  the  latter  of  wits;  but  they 
are  both  alike  a  pure  matter  of  barter  and  exchange.  Money-getting  is 
the  end  of  both;  and  this  community  of  end  very  naturally  induces  a  con- 
siderable sameness  in  the  means.  Strictly,  the  term  profession  relates  to 
a  professor;  i.  e.  to  one  who  professes  or  pretends  to  the  possession  of  some 
intellectual  acquirements,  of  which  the  world  cannot  satisfactorily  judge 
for  itself.  The  tradesman,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  his  wares  for  public 
inspection;  and,  if  they  be  not  good,  his  chances  of  a  profitable  sale  are 
not  very  great.  "  Which  is  the  pleasantest,"  as  Moore  has  sung  on 
another  occasion,  "  no  one  need  doubt."  Excepting  in  this  slight  dif- 
ference, the  terms  are  evidently  convertible.  The  physician,  who  paints 
DR.  in  sesquiuncial  letters  on  his  street  door,  for  those  who  run  to  read, 
and  who'  sells  prescriptions  at  a  guinea  a-piece,  whenever  he  is  not  obliged, 
by  an  overstocked  market,  to  take  less,  is  as  intrinsically  a  "  dealer  and 
chapman,"  as  if  he  were  entitled  to  the  honours  of  the  gazette,  and  sold 
the  paper  on  which  he  scrawls  :  while  the  man,  who  posts  himself  on  the 
rubrick  of  his  shop  as  grocer,  or  linen-draper,  may  in  some  sense  be  styled 
a  professor  of  figs,  or  of  sheeting.  Professions  are  commonly  designated 
liberal,  in  allusion,  I  suppose,  to  the  liberal  arts,  which  were  once  deemed 
essential  to  the  attainment  of  an  academical  degree  :  for  I  can  see  no  other 
reason.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  more  liberal  in  passing  off  bad  law, 
physic,  or  divinity,  for  good,  and  retailing  the  commodities  at  the  highest 
prices,  than  in  measuring  out  yards  of  tape,  or  selling  beef  and  pudding  in 
a  cook's  shop.  Custom,  however,  has  declared  otherwise;  and  the  man 
whose  highest  contemplation  never,  perhaps,  extended  beyond  the  dif- 
ference between  a  pound  and  a  guinea  fee,  ranks  as  a  gentleman,  on  this 
score  of  liberality  ;  while  he  who  has  once  kept  a  shop,  is  for  ever  confined 
to  the  society  of  the  Dii  minorum  gentium,  who  cannot  call  themselves 

Al.M.  New  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  16.  2  Y 


316  Trade  and  Profession.  [A  i-  H  \  L, 

ever  esquire.  Distinctions  thus  arbitrary,  it  may  be  concluded,  have  been 
difficultly  and  imperfectly  maintained.  Every  tradesman  strives  hard  to 
establish  his  claims  to  gentility,  and  endeavours  to  raise  himself  to  an 
equality  with  his  professional  neighbours,  whenever  he  escapes  from  the 
counter.  There  are  two  descriptions  of  persons,  more  especially,  which 
hang,  like  Mahomet's  coffin,  between  the  two  classes,  the  apothecary  and 
the  attorney  (I  beg  his  pardon — the  solicitor),  and  whose  claims  to  pro- 
fessional rank  have  been  urged  with  a  pertinacity  that  has  ensured  partial 
success.  Of  these,  the  attorney,  however,  has  the  advantage,  inasmuch  as 
his  ware-room  is  called  an  office,  and  not  a  shop.  To  avoid  the  disagree- 
able sorites,  which  follows  from  this  term,  shop,  the  apothecary,  now-a- 
days,  christens  his  repository  of  poisons  and  pump-water  (aqua  pumpaginis] 
by  the  heathen  name  of  a  medical  hall.  But  it  wont  do  ;  any  one  who 
goes  in  for  a  pennyworth  of  liquorice  feels  the  truth  of  the  matter.  An 

apothecary  is  a  tradesman  by :   and,  maugre  his  customary  suit  of 

sables  and  his  demi-fortune — maugre  the  superiority  lie  maintains  over 
the  physician  by  his  domestic  influence  over  patient,  nurse,  and  lady's- 
maid — a  triumvirate  (if  that  be  not  a  blunder)  which  .^Esculapius  himself 
dare  not  resist — he  is  not  so  good  a  gentleman  as  the  attorney,  who  has  a 
legal  possession  of  that  honorific  distinction.  These  connecting  links, 
which  stand  between  the  two  classes,  as  a  mushroom  stands  between  the 
vegetable  arid  the  animal  kingdom,  serve,  like  it,  to  prove  that  natural 
things  will  not  submit  to  the  artificial  distinctions  of  our  scientific  methods; 
and  they  shew  that  the  dispute  is  altogether  de  lana  capruia.  If  a  trades- 
man is  not  a  gentleman,  the  gentleman — if  he  means  to  cut  a  slice  off  the 
professional  loaf,  and  live  by  his  wits — must,  in  action  and  spirit,  be  a 
tradesman.  Notwithstanding  his  lofty  pretensions  to  gentility,  the  pro- 
fessional man,  who  knows  only  his  profession,  is  as  unfit  for  his  business  as 
a  cobler  who  can  only  sing  psalms;  whereas,  if  he  understand  his  trade, 
it  is  no  great  matter  whether  he  knows  his  profession  or  not.  Take,  for 
example,  the  clergy  ;  to  whom  I  give  not  any  invidious  pre-eminence,  but 
put  forward  simply  because  their  practice  is  the  most  genteel  of  the  three 
learned  professions.  The  clergy  are,  indeed,  a  sort  of  bastard  landed- 
proprietors;  and  every  fool  knows  that  "  to  have  and  to  hold"  a  few  dirty 
acres,  is  more  noble,  elevated,  and  dignified,  than  to  have  discovered  the 
longitude.  Take,  I  say,  the  clergy,  and  see  what  a  man  can  do  among 
them,  who  knows  only  divinity,  and  who  practises  no  other  arts  than 
those  of  consoling  the  afflicted,  and  recovering  the  lost  sheep.  A  country 
curacy  of  seventy  pounds  a-ycar  is  his  delicicz  votontm,  his  millennium. 
But  put  him  up  to  the  trick  of  the  trade — launch  him  as  a  complaisant 
tutor  to  a  great  man,  as  a  supple  chaplain,  as  a  blustering  magistrate,  an 
intriguing  electioneer,  or  as  the  jackal  to  a  Bible  society,  and  his  fortune  is 
made,  though  he  should  scarcely  know  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  from  the 
Song  of  Solomon.  Preaching,  it  may  be  said,  is  strictly  professional ;  and 
to  be  a  good  preacher  is  no  more  than  an  integral  part  of  the  character  of  a 
good  parson.  But  preaching  a  sound  moral  or  doctrinal  sermon,  and 
preaching  at  a  bishoprick,  are  two  very  different  things  :  and  so  too  are 
printing  a  professional  work,  and  printing  polemical  politics,  or  political 
polemics,  levelled  at  the  prejudices  of  my  Lord  High  Chancellor,  the  great 
giver  of  clerical  good  things.  Few  persons  in  holy  orders  can  afford  to  be 
merely  professional;  and  even  those  lucky  persons  who  hold  livings  as  a 
family  estate,  and  who,  in  allusion  to  the  short-robed  jositits  of  France, 


1 S2  7.]  Trade  and  Prof  end  ion .  317 

might  be  styled  the  long-robed  laity,  must  hold  the  tra-ding  opinions  of 
the  craft,  or  be  looked  upon  in  no  other  light  than  what  Sir  Pertinax  Mao- 
sycophant  so  appropriately  calls  '*  a  d — d  black  sheep." 

Nor  are  things  better  managed  in  the  other  professions.  What  is  know- 
ledge of  the  law,  skill  in  cross-examination,  or  eloqnence  that  could  draw 
tears  from  a  judge  or  from  a  brother  barrister — (prceco,  alter  a  vel  mulier] — if 
unaccompanied  by  the  trading  slang  of  the  gown,  by  the  art  of  speaking 
at  attornies  in  court,  and  hugging  them  for  briefs  out  of  it  ?  What  are 
talents  without  a  dusty  set  of  murky  chambers?  and  what  is  genius 
without  impudence?  Nothing,  it  is  true,  can  be  done  without  a  prelimi- 
nary dancing  attendance  upon  the  courts  of  law,  with  an  empty  bag  and 
an  aching  heart :  but  this  may  be  done  for  years  in  vain  ;  and.  business 
ilow  in  at  last  in  a  full  tide,  from  one  night's  trading  waltz  with  an 
attorney's  daughter.  Here  again,  as  in  the  church,  politics  are  a  good 
item  in  the  professional  scheme.  Bettor  still  are  an  acquaintance  with 
usurers,  and  a  facility  in  the  practice  of  borrowing  arid  mortgage.  An 
essential  point  in  the  trade  of  a  barrister,  is  the  sedulous  concealment  of 
all  tastes  and  acquirements  foreign  to  the  study  of  the  law.  Music  is 
discord  in  the  ears  of  an  attorney ;  painting  is  impracticable  ;  and  as  for 
poetry,  Blackstone  himself  was  forced 


— -t_ «  from  her  to  part, 

Gay  queen  of  fancy  and  of  art ! 
Reluctant  move,  with  doubtful  mind;. 
Oft  stop,  and  often  look  behind."1 

A  lawyer  who  would  live  by  the  laws  must  be  '*  lotus  in  illis"  If  ho 
quotes  the  classics,  it  must  be  merely  as  schoolboy-recollections;  and  if 
he  indulges  in  a  well-applied  passage  from  a  play  or  a  modern  poem,  he 
must  contrive  to  give  it  the  air  of  a  newspaper  extract,  or,  by  some  studied 
inaccuracy,  prove  that  the  shew-off  is  not  the  result  of  habits  of  literary 
indulgence,  hostile  to  the  due  study  of  term-reports.  In  general,  it  is 
safer  for  junior  barristers  to  "  avoid  them  altogether."  Hie  nugce  seria 
ducunt  in  mala.  For  what,  in  a  senior,  is  only  a  testimony  of  the 
extent  of  capacity,  is,  in  him  who  is  not  overladen  with  briefs,  nothing 
better  than  a  positive  proof  of  idleness.  We  constantly  see  barristers,  it 
is  true,  figuring  in  a  thousand  non-professional  shapes — as  newspaper 
editors,  playwrights,  reviewers,  novel-writers,  highwaymen,  and  the  like : 
but  with  these  gentlemen  the  title  of  counsellor  is  purely  honorary;  for 
they  have  usually  *'  long  bid  a  last  and  a  careless  adieu  "  to  the  law, 
with  all  its  profits,  emoluments,  gains,  advantages,  or  earnings  whatsoever, 
be  the  same  more  or  less."  In  physics,  matters  are  still  worse;  for 
though  a  trading  M.  D.  may  do  well  to  get  himself  elected  F.  R.  S.  or 
F.  S.  A.,  or  even  to  become  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Arts  ;  yet  he  will 
be  ruined  and  undone  as  a  practitioner,  if  he  shews  any  strenuous  pursuit 
of  the  sciences  discussed  at  such  assemblies.  Even  to  be  a  decided  bota- 
nist— closely  allied,  as  the  study  may  seem,  to  the  writing  prescriptions — 
is  deemed  too  great  a  distraction  to  be  compatible  with  that  concentration 
of  faculties,  which  is  expected  from  a  practising  physician.  A  true  and 
genuine  trader  will  never  be  seen  out  of  his  chariot,  nor  shew  up  as  cogni- 
zant of  any  thing  in  style  more  beautiful  than  a  dog-latin  recipe — ((  donee 
ftlv.  pleni  respond,  swnend" — or  in  matter  more  deep  than  an  eight-ounce 
vial ;  or — with  modesty  be  it  spoken — an  urinal.  His  mind,  must"  be 

2  Y  2 


348  Trade  and  Profession.  [APRIL, 

supposed  to  correspond  with  his  person,  and  that  must  unite  the  priggish 
precision  of  dandyism  with  the  most  decided  opposition  to  all  modish 
innovation  in  dress.  Breeches  and  blue  silk  stockings,  and  a  pigtail,  are 
worth  at  least  £300.  per  annum  to  a  good  trader — more  especially  east  of 
Temple  Bar.  In  one  word,  he  must  be  unfashionable  "  a  qualre 
ep  ingles,"  and  avoid  suspenders  to  his  breeches,  as  he  would  practising 
without  a  license.  But  though  the  trader  must  not  sport  too  much  addic- 
tion to  science,  he  must  be  intimately  acquainted  with  whatever  else  is 
going  ;  for  it  is  a  most  essential  point  of  practice  to  be  amusing.  A  trading 
physician  is  the  (Edipus  of  his  circle.  He  can  fill  up  all  the  blanks  and 
asterisks  of  a  newspaper — knows  all  that  is  done  at  court  or  in  parliament 
— can  name  the  authors  of  all  anonymous  publications — corresponds  with 
Sir  Walter  Scott — can  criticise  the  last  new  play,  or  the  last  new  actor; 
not,  iudeed,  from  personal  knowledge  (for  he  has  no  time  to  go  to  plays), 
but  from  report.  He  can  talk  politics,  without  committing  himself,  to 
the  men — scandal  to  the  women — and  make  a  dissertation  on  the  adul- 
teration of  tea,  or  the  wholesomeness  of  brandy  arid  water,  to  a  fashion- 
able monthly  nurse.  He  is  always  overloaded  with  business,  and  regularly 
looks  over  his  list  in  every  house  he  enters  ;  but  he  finds  an  opportunity  of 
visiting  his  particular  friends  as  often  as  his  visits  are — paid  for.  If  he  be 
a  rising  young  man,  he  will  not  refuse  to  act  as  factotum  to  a  profitable 
patient :  he  will  procure  genuine  arrow-root,  go  in  search  of  unadulterated 
Epsom  salts,  or  trudge  to  Leaden  hall-street  for  a  particular  sort  of  calcined 
magnesia.  If  he  resides  in  a  watering-place,  his  sphere  of  activity  is  still 
more  extended  :  he  will  hire  your  house,  recommend  you  tradesmen,  and 
has  particular  reasons  for  putting  you  on  your  guard  against  professional 
roguery ;  and  tells  you,  as  a  profound  secret,  that  there  is  only  one  house 
in  the  town  where  the  drugs  are  genuine. 

In  the  practice  of  the  art  itself,  the  difference  between  trade  and  profes- 
sion is  immense.  The  sole  business  of  the  professor  is  to  prescribe  what 
will  benefit  the  patient :  the  great  object  of  the  trader  is  to  write  what  will 
do  good  to  the  apothecary.  A  trader  never  contradicts  a  nervous  lady,  but 
prescribes  according  to  her  imaginings ;  for  who  should  know  the  reality 
of  the  disease  more  than  she  who  suffers  it.  He  never  refuses  any  indul- 
gence that  is  asked  in  diet ;  for  nature  knows  best  .her  own  wants.  He 
never  abandons  a  case,  or  dismisses  it  to  the  country,  while  it  continues  to 
pay;  for  that  were  to  despair  of  his  art.  A  professional  physician,  if  he 
turn  author,  seeks  for  a  subject  which  requires  illustration,  or  one  with 
which  accident  or  the  course  of  his  studies  has  made  him  more  especially 
acquainted.  The  trader  looks  out  for  matter  that  will  bring  grist  to  the 
mill.  A  regular  practitioner  must  not  stoop  to  open  quackery,  because 
quacks  are  rivals,  who  must  be  discountenanced ;  but  it  is  fair  to  write 
hooks  ad  captandum  vulgus — treatises  on  fashionable  spa,  fashionable 
medicines,  and  fashionable  complaints.  Diseases,  it  is  well  known,  have 
their  vogue  ;  and  gout,  liver,  and  nerves  "  take  turn,  like  day  and  night." 
A  trader  will  always  take  care  to  time  his  publication  so  as  to  kill  the  most 
birds  at  a  single  shot — remembering  always,  that  "  scire  tuum  nihil  est," 
and  that  advertisement  is  the  high  road  to  notoriety.  Godwin,  in  his 
"  Enquirer,"  has  given  good  rules  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  trading 
physician,  which — mutatis  mutandis — will  serve  all  the  learned  profes- 
sions alike  : — "  The  fantastic  valetudinarian  is  particularly  his  prey:  he 
listens  to  his  frivolous  tale  of  symptoms  with  inflexible  gravity  ;  he  pre- 


1 827.]  Trade  and  Profusion.  349 

tends  to  be  most  wise  when  he  is  most  ignorant.  No  matter  whether  lie 
understand  any  thing  of  the  disease,  there  is  one  thing  in  which  his  visit 
must  inevitably  terminate — a  prescription.  The  regular  and  the  quack 
have  each  their  several  schemes  of  imposition ;  and  they  differ  in  nothing 
so  much  as  in  the  name." 

It  is  a  master-stroke  of  policy,  both  for  lawyer  or  physician,  to  attach 
himself  to  some  religious  sect.  Quaker-doctors,  for  a  long  time,  had  a 
vogue  ;  and  many  a  good  fee  was  given  on  the  faith  of  a  drab  suit  and  a 
broad-brimmed  hat.  But,  for  a  lawyer,  I  should  recommend  staunch 
Church-of-Englandism,  as  a  better  thing.  With  a  strong  dash  of  No- 
Popery,  it  will  infallibly  lead  to  a  Mastership  in  Chancery,  at  the  least : 
but  then  he  must  bring  to  the  establishment  the  zeal  of  a  sectarian,  and 
the  intolerance  of  an  inquisitor.  Above,  every  thing,  if  the  professional 
man  have  patience  and  face  for  the  farce,  it  is  useful  to  dive  deeply  into 
Methodism.  The  swaddling  line  "  is  sure  to  succeed."  Sanctity  is  your 
only  brevet  for  capacity.  The  blessing  of  the  Lord  follows  the  sharp 
practitioner  who  atones,  by  the  austerity  of  his  Sabbath,  for  the  sins  of  the 
six  working  days.  In  professions,  experiments  are  far  less  instructive 
than  experiences — labour,  less  efficacious  than  grace — and  intellect,  nothing 
to  be  compared  with  inspiration. 

Finger  conviene  il  santo  in,  apparenza 
E  col  yoffo  eyualment  e  coll'  atcorto 
Parlar  sempre  di  cielo  e  di  coscicnza. 

"  Woe  to  the  man,  who'd  rise  in  church  or  state, 
Who  earns  incautiously  the  bigot's  hate  5 
Who  'gainst  our  Tartuffes  dares  indulge  a  sneer — 
Too  proud  to  bend,  too  virtuous  to  fear  ; 
Or  who,  content  to  purchase  his  own  ease, 
Calmly  secedes,  and  lets  those  rave  who  please! 
Detraction  backward  scans  his  every  deed, 
And  lies,  repeated,  in  the  end  succeed  : 
Tainted  by  calumny,  his  means  decay — 
His  hollow  friends  take  flight  and  fall  away ; 
And  saints  exclaim,  while  the  mark'd  man  they  shew, 
*  Lo  !  Providence  itself  hath  struck  the  blow !' 
Not  so  the  man  who  courts  the  serious  crew, 
Who  shuns  the  theatre,  and  frequents  the  pew  ; 
Intriguing,  fluent,  gossipping,  and  sly, 
Well  skilled  a  ready  text  to  misapply  ; 
In  faith  too  steady  to  admit  a  doubt, 
And  yet  too  pliant  to  be  e'er  left  out. 
Thrice  happy  he,  by  Providence  thus  bless'd, 
By  saints  admired,  and  saintesses  caress' d  ! 
He  need  not  toil  nor  spin — his  fortune's  made — 
Subscribing  bigots  push  his  thriving  trade : 
Some  lend  him  money — some  discount  his  notes  j 
At  all  elections  he  commands  their  votes. 
]STay,  if  loo  free  with  his  friend's  wife  or  purse — 
A  third  time  bankrupt,  thief,  or  something  worse — 
To  hide  the  common  shame,  the  clique  unite, 
And. every  member  hastes  to  club  his  mite  ; 
Cajoles  and  threatens,  pays  the  lawyer's  fee, 
And  never  rests  till  he  and  they  are  free." 

MS.  Poem. 


3 JO  Trade  and  Profession.  [Ai'KtL, 

There  is  nothing  in  life  more  gauche,  more  impracticable,  more  helpless, 
than  a  purely  professional  man,  who  imagines  that  high  honour  and  deep 
feeling  are  the  proper  adjuncts  of  a  liberal  pursuit,  and  who  thinks  that 
whatever  degrades  the  man  detracts  from  the  practitioner.  His  fate  is 
sealed — his  destiny  is  spun.  Indignation,  and  contempt  of  successful 
unworthiness,  embitter  the  prime  of  his  life ;  hope  deferred,  sickens  the 
hours  of  his  repining  manhood  ;  and  disappointment  and  despair  close  his 
unuseful  and  unprofitable  career.  Too  late  he  finds  that  he  has  sacrificed 
his  life  to  a  chimera,  and  too  late  he  discovers  that  he  is  laughed  at  for  his 
honesty. 

It  is  not,  however,  my  purpose  to  be  pathetic  ;  but  simply  to  mark  the 
bounds  between  trade  and  profession,   or  rather  to  shew  that  such  bounds 
do  not  exist.  Look,  again,  at  literature  ! — is  that  a  liberal  art?  or  can  a  man 
safely  launch  himself  into  the  career,  as  a  means  of  existence,  without  a 
strong  spice  of  charlatanerie ?     In  these  days,  the  most  profitable  parts  of 
the  best  authors'  writings  are  the  paragraphs  he  indites  for  the  newspapers, 
to  illustrate  his  "  whereabouts,"  and  to  spread  the  note  of  his  own  notoriety. 
To-day,  he  tells   the  world   how  he  dined  with  princes ;  to-morrow,  he 
communicates,  under  the  modest  disguise  of  an  indifferent  third  person, 
how  much  (he  wishes  the  world  to  believe)  the  booksellers  have  paid  for 
his  manuscript — for  our  modern  logic  is,  that  large  prices  beget  large  sales, 
and  large  sales  make  good  books.     Formerly,  the  stream  of  cause  and 
effect  flowed  in  a  different  course  ;  but  '*  live  and  learn  "   is  a  good  pro- 
verb.    Then,  again,  he  "turns  diseases  to  commodity,"  and  converts  bul- 
letins into  advertisements ;  and  he  cannot  take  a  place  in  a  stage-coach 
without  the  world's  being  made  an  accessary  after  the  fact.     I   dwell  not 
upon  the  sordid,  mercantile  part  of  authorship — the   dealings  with   the 
booksellers — who,  by  dint  of  their  business-like  habits,  make  authors  as 
great  Jews  as  themselves.     But  what  can  be  more  tradesman  like  than  a 
subscription-list?  or  the   barter  of  time,  patience,  and  independence  for 
the  praise  of  a  blue-stocking  coterie?  or  the  sacrifice    of  principles  and 
predilections  to  conciliate  a  review  ?    Yet  all  these  things  are,  in  a  manner, 
forced  upon  original  writers  of  much  merit  and  pretension.     Far  worse  is 
it  with  the  paste-and -scissors  gentry,  who  fabricate  new  octavos  out  of  old 
folios,  and  who  make  goods  "  as  bespoke"  for  the  literary  market.  These 
men  will  do  any  subject — from  a  treatise  on  astronomy  to  a  "  Pastry- 
Cook's  Companion."     They  are  ready  for  metaphysics,  or  jest-books — a 
play,  or  a  Methodist  sermon.     "  Equal  to  both,   and  armed  for  either 
field,"  they  are  as  ready  for  an  epic  as  for  an  epigram — for  three  quarto 
volumes  of  travels  to  the  antipodes,  as  three  pages  of  a  voyage  "par  terre  et 
par  mer"  to  Richmond.  Nothing  comes  amiss  to  them ;  and  as  romances  give 
place  to  novels,  novels  to  tales,  tales  to  travels,  travels  to  "  reminiscences," 
and  reminiscences  to  whatever  may  become  the  vogue,  they  follow  in  the 
race  of  imitation ;  and,   always  equally  dull  and  equally  obedient  "  to 
orders,"  prove  themselves  at  least  te>  have  "  the  pen   of  a  ready- writer." 
But  I  am  wrong  in  confining  these  practices  to  scrubs  in  literature.     The 
very  best  writers   of  the   age  do  not  altogether  disdain  this  drudgery  of 
journey-work.     The  sons  of  poetry  descend  from  the  highest  flights,  to  edit 
a  ponderous  edition,  or  compose  a  quarto  of  biography,  at  the  bidding  of 
some  bibliopolio  Prospero,  and  "  do  this  spiriting  gently,"  in  whatever 
clement,  whether  of  "  sea  or  fire,  of  earth  or  air/'  his  potent  word  directs  ; 
using  "  no  power  expect  commanded  to  it."     Nor  is  this  the  worst  of  it. 


1827.]  Trade  and  Profession.  3,>1 

Do  not  some  of  them  also  review  any  thing  and  every  thing  at  five  minutes' 
notice  from  an  editor;  and  scatter  firebrands,  and  disseminate  scandal,  for 
the  purposes  of  faction,  with  the  true  fetch-and-carry  docility  of  a  French 
poodle  ?  I  can  hardly  help  exclaiming,  with  Jack  Eustace,  "  'Sdcath  ! 
why  should  I  carry  on  this  absurd  trade  any  longer  ?  Trade  and  profes- 
sion—  profession  and  trade — it  is  all  one;  and,  to  use  a  coarse  but  an 
appropriate  adage,  '  the  devil  a  barrel  the  better  herring.'  "  What  are  the 
hanging  committees  of  painters  but  arrant  tradesmen  ?  What  are  managers 
and  actors  but  tradesmen  ?  What  are  jobbing  dealers  in  army  commissions 
but  tradesmen?  What  licensing  justices  of  the  peace  ?  what  public  com- 
missioners ?  what  joint-stock  directors  and  committee-men?  To  sell  and 
to  be  sold,  are  in  reality  the  great  objects  of  the  great  mass  of  mankind, 
arid  he  who  makes  the  best  bargain  is  the  best  man  :  fashion  and  success 
making  the  whole  difference  between  knavery  and  gentility!  "Money, 
wife!"  says  Peachum — "money  is  the  true  fuller's-earth  :  there  is  not  a 
spot  or  stain  but  what  it  will  take  out.  A  rich  rogue  nowadays  is  fit 
company  for  any  gentleman."  I  beg  the  reader's  pardon  for  quoting 
from  so  immodest  a  play;  for  I  well  know  that  the  Beggar s  Opera  is,  in 
these  days  of  refinement,  voted  a  scandalous,  libellous,  and  indecent  pro- 
duction:  but  1  cannot  forget  that-  our  fathers  relished  it;  and  the  manner, 
in  the  present  instance,  is  "  germane  to  the  matter."  If  trade,  then,  be  the 
most  expeditious  mode  of  qualifying  for  good  company,  I  do  not  see  why 
it  should  derogate  from  gentility,*  or  why  retailing  behind  a  counter  should 
not  be  deemed  a  liberal  art,  arid  the  professions  be  thought  mean  and  sordid. 
If  money  be  a  god,  let  its  high  priests  be  esteemed  accordingly,  and  "let 
the  devil  be  honoured  for  his  burning  throne  ;"  or,  since  tradesmen  are  so 
much  of  the  gentlemen,  and  gentlemen  so  like  tradesmen,  why  might  they 
not  at  least  pass  on  cheek-by -jowl,  and,  like  the  other  unclean  beasts,  enter 
the  ark  of  society  in  couples  ?  These  are  questions  whi^h  I  beg  to  offer 
for  the  patient  consideration  of  my  readers ;  and  having  thus  furnished 
them  with  de  quoi penser — "  the  limited  office  of  an  essayist" — 1  shall 
for  the  present  take  my  leave. 


>2     ]  [APRIL 


NOVEMBER    WALK. 

I  GAXED  with  melancholy  eye    ' 
On  misty  hill  and  cloudy  sky. 
What  time  November's  chilly  blast 
O'er  all  the  leafless  groves  had  pass'd. 
The  distant  heath  was  lone  and  ban  — 
Nor  sheep  nor  shepherd  wand'ring  there. 
The  long  wet  grass  was  waving  rank 
Along  the  meadows  chill  and  dank, 
Where  shiv'ring  herds  had  ceased  to  graze, 
And  homeward  look'd  with  eager  gaze. 
The  willows  by  the  wild  brook's  side 
Droop'd  cheerless  o'er  the  sluggish  tide, 
That,  lately  swell'd  by  Autumn  rains, 
Rolled  heavy  through  the  marshy  plains. 
On  hills  beyond  the  moorlands  wide, 
The  pine-trees  waved  in  sullen  pride, 
And  all  was  gloomy ;  but  I  love 
Full  oft  at  such  an  hour  to  rove — 
Though  scarce  a  thought,  serene  or  gay, 
Awake  to  cheer  me  by  the  way. 

There  is  a  music  in  the  blast 
That  whistles  o'er  the  wintry  waste ; 
And  leafless  groves  a  charm  possess 
Beyond  their  summer's  greenest  dress ; — 
And,  oh !  what  pleasure  then  to  climb 
Some  mountain's  craggy  height  sublime, 
And,  while  the  winds  with  fury  blow, 
Look  o'er  the  trembling  vales  below  ; — • 
Or,  from  the  high  and  stormy  cliff, 
Through  mists  descry  the  fisher's  skiff 
Far  round  the  headland  work  its  way, 
To  sheller  in  the  rocky  bay  : — 
Or,  see  the  screaming  gull  spread  wide 
His  wings  o'er  Ocean's  ruffled  tide ; — 
Or,  from  the  headland's  chalky  crown, 
On  foaming  waves  look  fearless  down, 
And  hear  the  rolling  billows  dash 
Their  rocky  bounds  with  ceaseless  plash  ; — 
Or,  o'er  the  pebbly  margin  stray 
Alone,  and  wet  with  ocean  spray; 
Listening  the  winds  and  waves  rejoice, 
(All  sounds  extinguished  but  their  voice) — 
Then  borne  on  fancy's  pinions  high, 
Far  o'er  the  waste  of  waters  fiy, 
Where  bold  the  seaman  spreads  his  sail, 
And  bounds  before  the  rushing  gale- — 
Light  tossing  in  his  fragile  bark, 
On  mountain  billows  wild  and  dark. 
When  its  full  rage  the  tempest  pours, 
And  all  the  broad  Atlantic  roar? — 
And  almost  madly  wish  to  share 
His  terrors  and  his  perils  there! 

Such  were  my  thoughts,  as  deeper  ?f  ill 
Gathered  the  gloom  on  heath  and  hill, 


J827.J  November  Walk.  353 

Which  evening  spread  her  mantle  o'er, 
Till  cliff  and  crag  were  seen  no  more  ; 
Though  indistinct,  the  eye  might  mark 
Their  shadowy  outlines,  huge  and  dark. 
On  the  wind-beaten  heights  alone 
(Methinks  they're  Nature's  proudest  throne) 
Oft  do  I  love  to  linger  long, 
And  weave  my  wild  thoughts  into  song. 
But,  turning  now  my  steps  again, 
I  sought  once  more  the  lowland  plain  ; 
Till  where  the  ruined  abbey  gray 
In  scattered  fragments  round  me  lay — 
Where  now  the  owl  hath  built  her  bower 
O'er  prostrate  shrine  and  broken  tower. — 
I  paused  to  muse  on  times  gone  by, 
And  pay  the  tributary  sigh. 

Ye  roofless  halls  and  ruined  fanes, 
Ah !  what  of  all  your  pride  remains  ? 
Fair  monuments  of  matchless  art, 
And  home  of  many  a  gentle  heart ! 
Though  all  decayed  and  empty  now, 
Your  pomp  be  in  the  dust  laid  low, 
To  moulder  o'er  the  bones  of  those, 
To  crown  whose  fame  your  glories  rose — 
By  deepest  interests  once  entwined 
With  feelings  of  the  human  mind — 
From  what  far  different  cause  than  now, 
Did  all  your  wide  attractions  flow  ! 
The  aged  peasant,  weak  and  worn, 
On  his  hard  pallet  stretched  forlorn, 
His  weary  days  of  labour  o'er, 
Sped  his  last  message  to  your  door  ;— 
Oft  came,  perchance,  the  village  maid 
To  seek  some  holy  father's  aid, 
(Her  pale  cheek  wet  with  many  a  tear), 
To  bless  a  dying  parent's  bier  ; — 
The  baron  proud,  from  castle  tall, 
And  dying  knight  in  feudal  hall, 
As  anxious  looked  to  yonder  shrine, 
For  comfort  and  for  aid  divine. 
Then  oft,  on  many  a  solemn  day, 
Wound  through  these  aisles  the  dark  array 
Of  funeral  pomp— while  every  tongue 
Of  the  full  choir  the  death-psalm  sung  ; 
And  through  these  vaulted  roofs  the  knell 
Was  pealing  from  the  deep-toned  bell, 
As  passed  the  long  procession  slow, 
To  lay  departed  greatness  low. 
And,  'midst  the  stillness  of  the  night, 
Oft  as  some  high  and  holy  rite 
Bade  slumber  from  each  pillow  fly, 
What  pious  voices  hymned  the  sky ! 
And  many  a  knee  the  pavement  pressed, 
While  saints,  by  many  a  prayer  addressed, 
Seemed  from  each  silent  niche  to  bend, 
And  to  the  vot'ry's  cry  attend. 
And  when  the  Sabbath,  calm  and  bright, 
Shone  on  a  world  of  joy  and  light, 
How  sweet  the  music  of  the  bells 
Resounded  through  the  summer  dells ! 
M.M.  New  Series.-— VoL.III.  No.  16.  2Z 


354  'Nocemltw  Walk.  [APRIL, 

The  lonely  herd-boy  on  the  hill 
Would  couch  him  down,  and  listen  still, 
As,  borne  upon  the  fragrant  gale, 
Their  softened  tones  came  up  the  vale ; 
And  pious  bands  that  went  to  pray, 
Then  filled  this  long  devoted  way. 

What  though,  to  indolence  resigned, 
The  powers  of  many  a  noble  mind 
Within  these  walls  inactive  pined ; 
Though  worldly  strife  and  toil  demand 
The  youthful  heart  and  valiant  hand — 
Methinks,  at  age's  twilight  close, 
'Twere  pleasant  thus  to  seek  repose — 
When  those  we  loved  were  cold  in  clay, 
And  Fortune's  smiles  had  passed  away — 
How  blest,  amongst  the  calm  and  good, 
In  some  such  social  solitude, 
To  learn  Devotion's  deeper  tone, 
With  feelings  all  before  unknown — 
To  list  the  organ-peal  on  high, 
Those  notes  that  seem  to  pierce  the  sky ; 
Till  all  of  earth  should  disappear, 
And  Heaven  possess  heart,  eye,  and  ear! 
Or,  leaning  o'er  a  brother's  tomb 
In  pensive  evening's  silent  gloom, 
Look  back  on  many  a  year  passed  by, 
When  all  our  lost  loved  friends  were  nigh; 
When  blithe  we  passed  the  festive  night, 
O'er  flowing  wine-cups  sparkling  bright, 
And  woke  the  gay  or  plaintive  strain, 
That  never  shall  be  heard  again  ! 
And  then  to  dream  of  those  who  wore 

The  charms  that  won  our  hearts  of  yore 

Those  young  fair  forms,  with  whom  we  past 
The  hours  that  vanished  all  too  fast ; 
When  life  and  love  were  in  their  prime, 
And  hearts  unvexed  by  care  or  crime. 
Such  charms  as  theirs  can  others  wear  ? 
Is  aught  on  earth  so  good  and  fair? 
Ah !  no — the  face  of  beauty  now 
Hath  ceased  to  wear  its  magic  glow  ; 
Fainter  rays  from  young  eyes  break, 
And  paler  blushes  tint  the  cheek — 
As  if  the  fire  of  Nature  grew 
Exhausted,  faint,  and  powerless  too. 

Such  human  thoughts  might  sometimes  steal 
To  bosoms  that  were  wont  to  feel 
Friendship  and  love— and  Heaven  look  down 
On  such  frail  hour  without  a  frown  ! 

^  Twas  thus  I  mused !     Night  bhcker  grew; 
Each  object  faded  from  my  view. 
Far  back  my  long  and  lorrely  way 
By  wood  and  wild  all  darkly  lay  ; 
And  misty  rain  fell  fast  and  chill, 
As  rushed  the  loud  blast  from  the  hill. 
But  warm  in  wintry  veit  arrayed, 
And  cloak  of  Scotia's  mountain -plaid, 
Unheeding  of  the  storm,  1  passed, 
And  reached  my  lowly  home  at  last.  N.B. 


JS27.]  [     355     ] 

ON    THE    PLEASURES    OF    "  BODY-SNATCHINO." 

As  for  entering  into  a  defence  of  Resurrectionists,  before  expatiating  on 
their  pleasures,  it  is  out  of  the  question.  When  a  man  has  made  up  his 
mind  to  the  alternative  of  having  his  leg  cut  off,  or  of  being  lithotomised, 
instead  of  losing  his  life,  he  does  not  bother  himself  as  to  the  means  by 
\vhichthesurgeonacquired  his  dexterity;  he  does  not  care  a  straw  for 
the  morality  of  the  question.  All  he  knows  is,  that  it  could  not  have 
been  on  a  living  subject,  unless  operated  on  in  articulo  mortis,  or  when 
phlebotomy  had  been  used  ml  deliquium  animi — both  against  the  rules  of 
the  profession — that  his  knife  learnt  its  way  through  the  labyrinth  of 
muscles,  cartilages^  and  all  that,  which  envelope  the  human  frame ;  its 
obedience,  docility,  and  sweetness  to  the  hand  that  guides  it;  and  that 
calm  savageness  (if  you  understand  me)  of  its  flourish  at  the  critical 
moment,  which  does  any  one's  heart — but  the  patient's — good  to  sec  it. 
lie  would  not  give  a  straw  at  that  juncture  (lying  on  his  back,  with  his 
teeth  meeting  in  a  leaden  bullet)  to  know,  whether  his  defunct  predecessors 
had  found  their  way  to  the  dissecting- room  from  the  church-yard,  or  the 
gallows' -foot — in  a  shell  coffin,  or  in  an  old  sack.  But  when  the  opera- 
tion is  well  over,  and  the  man  begins  to  stump  about  the  world  again,  the 
case  is  altered.  Conscientious  scruples  make  their  appearance :  consider- 
ations— religious,  moral,  sentimental,  humbugical,  and  anti-surgical — 
especially,  the  thought  of  one's  friends  being  cut  up,  bring?  an  awkward 
feel  with  it — much  more  so,  of  one's-self.  This  is  the  whole  secret  of  tlio 
matter.  Would  any  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  world- say  a  syllable 
against  the  thing,  if  they  were  sure,  for  themselves  and  their  immediate 
relations,  of  escaping?  Certainly  not.  Selfishness  is  the  leading  prin- 
ciple of  our  opponents.  Relations'  are,  some  way  or  other,  a  part  of  our- 
selves— but  how  or  why,  is  past  even  the  surgeon's  finding  out;  and,  as 
for  ourselves,  I  grant  you,  one  likes  to  save  one's  bacon  even-  to  the  last 
day. 

For  ray  own  part,  I  became  an  amateur  at  a  very  early  age.  1  was 
apprenticed  to-lMr.  L — - — ,  a  surgeon,  in  a  small  town  about  forty  miles 
from  London.  He  was  a  clever  operator,  and  deeply  learned  in  the 
arcana  of  the  human  body,  but  yet  not  in  good  practice.  The  reason  • 
was,  that  he  attended  more  to  the  literature  than  to  the  business  of  his  pro- 
fession— he  spent  too  much  time  in  his  study;  and  in  place  of  busying 
himself,  like  a  sensible  man,  about  the  persons  and  pockets  of  the  present 
generation,  he  gave  himself  up  almost  wholly  to  the  next — writing  instruc- 
tions, forsooth,  to  future  anatomists,  in  place  of  turning  his  knowledge  to 
the  practical  benefit  of  his  own  time — and  of  himself.  My  father's  house 
was  at  some  distance  from  the  town,  and  the  nearest  road  to  it — thanks  to 
the  genius  who  presided  over  my  destiny! — was  through  the  church-yard. 
The  first  time  I  took  this  short  cut,  I  cannot  say  I  relished  it  very  well — 
particularly  as  my  visits  home  were  always  in  the  evening,  after  we  had 
shut  the  shop.  The  shadows  of  the  tomb-stones  in  the  moonlight  had  a 
queer  appearance;  the  waving  and  sighing  of  some  tall  willows  that  looked 
over  the  wall  disturbed  me  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  I  thought  the  scene, 
although  striking,  rather  unpleasant  than  otherwise.  It  was  some -nights 
before  I  could  prevail  upon  myself  to  take  the  same  road  again  ;  at  last, 
however,  I  ventured — not  influenced  solely  by  a  desire  to  save  the  dis- 
tance, but  also  impelled  by  a  kind  of  curiosity — or,  I  don't  know  what — 
t&e  first  stirrings,  I  have  no  doubt,  of  my  embryo  genius  towards  the  field, 

2  Z  2 


356  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body- Snatching.  [APRIL, 

of  its  future  glory.  I  got  home  without  meeting  with  any  adventure,  or 
with  any  thing  at  all,  except  a  cow,  which  had  found  its  way  through  a 
gap  in  the  wall,  and  was  philosophising  behind  a  large  monument  as  I 
passed.  I  remember,  when  I  burst  unawares  in  upon  her  ruminations 
(for  my  pace  was  somewhat  of  the  quickest),  and  the  meditative  animal 
received  the  intrusion  with  a  plunge  of  alarm,  I  thought  my  heart  would 
have  leaped  into  my  mouth.  After  this  night,  the  church-yard  was  my 
regular  road  home.  By  degrees,  my  pace  became  slower  as  I  passed 
through  it ;  and,  at  length,  I  even  stopped  to  look  about  me,  or  sat  down 
on  a  tomb-stone  to  rest.  This  place— so  unsuited  to  the  usual  habits  and 
feelings  of  youth — was  now  sought,  not  merely  as  being  the  shortest  cut  to 
iny  father's  house,  but  absolutely  for  its  own  sake,  as  affording  positive 
enjoyments  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Now,  what  was  this  ?  Was  the 
attraction  in  the  natural  situation  of  the  spot  ?  That  was  as  bad  as  could 
be.  Was  it  in  the  oblong  tomb-stones — some  standing  bolt  upright, 
some  sprawling  on  their  bellies,  some  painted  white,  and  some  painted 
black  ?  No— for,  even  in  the  eyes  of  a  boy,  these  exhibited  the  acme  of 
tastelessness  and  absurdity.  Tt  was  something  under  the  stones ;  it  was 
the  breath  that  exhaled  from  the  damp,  rich,  heavy  earth,  and  formed  the 
atmosphere  of  the  church-yard  ;  it  was  the  scent  which  allures  the  goule 
and  the  afrit  of  Eastern  story  to  the  new-made  grave,  arid  the  raven  of  real 
nature  to  the  field  of  battle ;  it  was  the  instinctive  struggling  of  genius, 
when  surrounded,  though  unconsciously,  with  the  objects  of  its  direction, 
and  the  future  spoils  of  its  powers ;  the  beating  of  the  young  bird — in 
darkness,  and  silence,  and  loneliness — against  the  shell  which  curtains  it 
from  the  world !  But  as  it  occasionally  happens,  owing  to  some  whim  of 
Nature,  that  the  said  bird  may  beat  its  heart  out  before  breaking  the  shell, 
and  consequently  depart  this  life — I  am  not  sure  if  it  be  a  bull — before 
coming  into  the  world ;  so  my  genius,  as  aforesaid,  might  have  struggled 
long  enough  with  my  ignorance  before  getting  its  possessor  initiated  into 
the  mysteries  and  pleasures  of  resurrectionizing,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
following  circumstance :  — 

One  dark  night— for  the  season  was  now  far  advanced,  and  there  was 
no  moon— when  wending  along  the  accustomed  path,  I  remembered  that 
the  funeral  had  taken  place  that  day  of  a  man,  an  acquaintance  of  my 
own,  who  had  been  killed  by  falling  down  his  own  stairs.  This,  by  the 
way,  is  as  foolish  a  death  as  a  man  can  die — before  dinner.  However,  the 
thought  struck  me — I  don't  know  why;  why  should  I? — that  I  would 
look  where  they  had  laid  him.  It  was  somewhat  dark,  as  J  have  said; 
but,  by  this  time,  I  cared  no  more  for  being  in  the  dark  in  a  church-yard, 
than  when  playing  at  hide-and-seek  in  my  father's  parlour.  I  examined 
first  the  town-ward  and  more  populous  district,  and  then  turned  my 
researches  towards  the  more  distant  and  less  fashionable  neighbourhood  of 
this  city  of  the  silent.  When,  approaching  the  wall,  near  the  upper  end  of 
the  ground,  I  fancied  that  I  observed  something  dark  and  moving  on  the 
top,  and  stopped  short,  I  confess,  in  a  sudden  uneasiness  approaching  to 
a  stew.  Presently  a  noise,  as  if  of  a  heavy  body  falling  on  the  ground, 
convinced  me  that  some  person  had  leaped  from  the  wall  into  the  church- 
yard; and  I  drew  back  behind  a  monument  to  watch  the  result.  That  I 
had  at  this  time  heard  of  resurrectionizing,  I  cannot  deny ;  but  as  for  that 

admirable  art  being  practised  in  the  small  and  precise  town   of ,  it 

had  never  entered  either  my  head  or  that  of  any  other  inhabitant  to  dream 
of  such  a  thing.     And  yet,  I  solemnly  aver  to  you,  that  the  thrill  which* 


1827.]  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body- Snatching.  357 

ran  through  ray  frame  at  that  moment,  was  caused  neither  by  bodily  nor 
superstitious  fear.  A  minute  of  suspense  ensued ;  all  was  silent,  and  the 
night,  as  it  seemed,  darker  than  ever.  But  my  own  heart  was  not  silent; 
my  soul  was  tossed  about,  as  it  were,  in  a  sea  of  thoughts — dark,  incom- 
prehensible, overwhelming *,  till  at  length  the  harsh  but  deadened  sound 
of  a  spade,  as  it  was  struck  into  the  earth,  threw  a  ray  of  light  upon  the 
confusion — terrible,  but  beautiful  as  the  flash  that  gilds  the  tempest !  I 
stretched  my  head  beyond  the  monument,  but  could  see  nothing;  I  moved 
forward  to  the  next — and  the  next.  I  was  now  in  such  a  state  of  excita- 
tion, that  I  scarcely  cared  for  concealment,  but  hurried  forward,  though 
with  suppressed  breathing,  and  step  as  silken  as  the  cat's,  boldly  and 
swiftly,  till  I  had  gained  almost  the  verge  of  the  new-made,  and  now 
unmaking  grave;  where,  leaning  on  a  tomb-stone,  which  was  at  once  my 
screen  and  support,  I  beheld  the  first,  but  not  the  last,  scene  of  resurrection 
it  has  been  my  lot  to  witness.  Three  dark  figures,  whose  very  outline  I 
was  unable  to  discern,  were  busily  engaged  before  me — two  in  shovelling 
the  earth  out  of  the  grave — and  one,  apparently,  in  directing  the  others, 
and  keeping  a  look-out.  In  as  short  a  space,  I  thought,  as  even  profes- 
sional grave-diggers  could  have  accomplished  it,  their  spades  struck  against 
a  hard  and  hollow-sounding  substance,  which  I  conjectured  rightly  to  be 
the  coffin ;  and  then  the  master  of  the  work  threw  a  sudden  glare  of  light 
from  a  dark  lantern,  till  then  hid  in  his  great  coat,  into  the  pit ;  and  I  dis- 
covered, to  my  no  small  surprise,  the  veritable  faces  of  the  sexton  and  his 

assistant  of .     The  earth  was  now  nearly  all  thrown  out ;  and  one 

of  the  party  attaching  a  rope  to  the  handle  at  one  end  of  the  coffin,  they 
began  to  draw  the  newly-entered  tenant  from  the  abode  so  fondly  termed, 
by  surviving  friends,  the  long  and  last  home  of  mortality.  I  cannot  help 
smiling  at  the  figure  I  cut  at  this  moment.  The  struggle  between  the 
prejudices  of  education,  the  attempted  perversion  of  my  genius,  and  the 
natural  bent  of  my  soul,  was  absolutely  ludicrous.  Every  damp  and 
heavy  shovelfull  of  earth  that  was  thrown  out  of  the  grave  seemed  to  fall 
as  damp  and  heavy  on  my  heart;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  was  with 
the  most  intense  longing  and  impatience  that  I  waited  for  the  end  of  the 
xvork.  The  coffin  at  length  was  fairly  again  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  ; 
and  the  adventurers  began  to  break  open,  with  something  that  sounded  like 
a  chisel,  this  strong  box  of  science.  I  cannot  say  that  I  saw  clearly  what 
it  was  that  they  drew  out  after  forcing  the  lid  ;*  for  the  labour  had  taken 
more  effect  on  me  than  on  the  actual  workmen,  and  the  perspiration  ran 
down  my  forehead  and  blinded  my  eyes  :  but  it  was  something  long,  and 
white,  and  stiff,  and  heavy,  and  indefinite.  "  Quiescat  in  pace !"  said 
the  chief  of  the  party,  as  he  kicked  the  broken  coffin  back  into  the  grave. 
The  voice  startled  me,  and  I  bent  my  eyes  with  a  painful  earnestness  on 
the  tall  and  shadowy  figure  of  the  speaker,  whom  a  sudden  flash  of  the 

lamp  now  enabled  me  to  identify:  it  was  Mr.  L ,  my  worthy  and 

learned  master!  The  two  grave-diggers  now  set  themselves  to  fill  up  the 
pit  again,  which  they  accomplished,  like  clever  workmen  as  they  were,  in 
a  very  short  time;  and  having  carefully  stowed  whatever  they  had  taken 
out  of  the  coffin  into  a  large  sack,  the  party  made  for  the  wall — followed 
closely,  almost  to  touching,  by  me.  The  contents  of  the  sack  was  the 
body  of  a  large,  heavy,  corpulent  man — thin  people  do  not  kill  themselves 
falling  down  their  stairs — and  they  had,  therefore,  some  difficulty  in  getting 
it  over  the  wall.  One  man  went  over  first,  to  be  ready  to  receive  it — and 
the  otheif  stood  on  the  top — -while  my  master  was  left  on  the  inner  side, 


358  Oh  the  Pleasures  of  Body-Snatching. 

shoving  up  with  all  his  might  the  ponderous  mass.  "  I  wish  to  God, 
Betson,"  said  he,  "  yon  had  brought  that  lazy  young  rascal,  your  son, 
with  you,  to  hold  the  lamp  ;  for  I  think  I  shall  break  my  legs  among 
these  cursed  stones  !" — "  I'll  hold  it,  Sir  !"  said  I,  stepping  forward,  and 
taking  the  lamp  from  his  hand.  At  the  sound  of  a  strange,  or  at  least 

unexpected  voice,   Mr.  L had  well  liigb  dropped  his  burthen  ;    and, 

indeed,  as  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  moment,  was  uncertain,  for  about  the 
twinkling  of  a  lancet,  whether  he  should  not  scramble  over  the  wall,  and 
leave  the  living  and  the  dead  together.  But  turning  back  his  head  for  an 
instant,  and  seeing,  by  the  sharp  light  of  the  lamp,  the  pale  features  and 
wild-staring  eyes  of  his  apprentice,  his  dismay  was  converted  into  simple 
vexation.  "  D — thee !"  said  he,  clenching  his  teeth;  and  these  were' 
the  only  words  that  passed  between  us  till,  with  our  prize,  we  had  reached 
his  own  house.  I  did  not  sleep  well  that  night :  I  was  hot,  but  not  fever- 
ish— or  else  it  was  a  sweating  fever.  After  the  first  trial,  I  dared  not 
sleep  again  ;  for,  in  my  dreams,  the  church-yard  scene  was  repeated  even 
more  distinctly  than  in  my  waking  recollections,  and  one  does  not  like  too 
much  of  a  good  thing*  I  thought  the  sun  had  forgotten  to  rise.  But,  at 
last,  when  I  fell  into  the  early  morning  dose  which  usually  follows  a 
sleepless  night,  and  opened  my  eyes  once  more  in  the  clear  and  joyful 
light  of  day,  my  fears  left  me  ;  and  1  got  up  from  the  bed,  which  was  not 
merely  damp,  but  absolutely  wet  with  perspiration — smoking  and  yet 
shivering — pale  and  yet  proud — with  heaviness  in  my  eyes,  but  joy  at  my 
heart.  At  night  we  were  to  reap  the  fruits  of  our  enterprise;  I  was  to 
be  present,  with  my  master's  permission,  for  the  first  time  at  a  dissection. 
It  was  necessary  to  preserve  the  most  profound  secrecy  on  a  circumstance, 
which,  if  known  to  the  swinish  multitude,  would  probably  have  been  the 

means  of  getting  Mr.  L and  myself  torn   to  pieces,   and  the  house 

razed  to  the  foundation — not  to  talk  of  the  consequent  destruction  of  my 
master's  manuscripts ;  and  our  measures  were  taken  accordingly.  I  pre- 
tended to  retire  to  bed  about  ten  o'clock,  putting  out  my  candle,  arid  bolt- 
ing my  door  as  usual.  I  could  hear  the  sounds  of  men  dying  away  in  the 
streets  and  in  the  house.  Every  thing  was  silent,  except  the  ticking  of 
the  house-clock,  whose  iron  tongue  telling  twelve  was  to  be  the  signal  of 
meeting.  I  thought  the  clock  was  not  so  lazy  as  the  sun  had  been  in  the 
morning ;  for,  after  a  very  trifling  lapse  of  time,  the  important  hour 
sounded.  A  Londoner  can  form  no  conception  of  the  associations  that 
are  attached  to  the  dead  and  awful  hour  of  twelve  in  the  country.  In 
town,,  it  is' the  funniest  of  the  four-and-twenty.  I  shivered  as  I  counted 
the  ominous  strokes,  but,  mustering  all-my  resolution,  cautiously  unbolted 
my  door,  and  groped  my  way  to  my  master's  study.  I  tapped  gently  at 
the  door,  and  he  let  me  in.  I  warmed  myself  at  the  fire  for  a  few  minutes, 

and  then  Mr.  L said,  in  a  jocular  manner,  "  You  can  go  in  to  the 

closet,  if  you  like,  and  pay  your  respects  to  your  friend  till  1  am  ready." 
My  pride  was  touched  ;  for,  when  a  man  is  frightened,  jocularity  in 
another  is  as  bad  as  a  tweak  by  the  nose.  So,  forcing  a  smile  in  reply.  I 
made  for  the  closet-door,  and  opening  it,  went  in.  The  cursed  door,  which 
was  accommodated  with  a  weight  and  pulley,  instantaneously  took  advan- 
tage of  my  back  being  turned,  and  shut  itself  again  with  a  clap  that  made 
me  spring  two  feet  from  the  ground.  A  table  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  on  which  wore  two  lighted  candles,  and  something  covered  with  a 
white  sheet.  My  eyes  sparkled  at  the  sight,  but  my  feet  would  not 
budge;  till,  recollecting  that  Mr.  L had  scut  me  in  for  the  express' 


1827.]  ^Oti  the  Pleasures  of  Body -^taU' hi  tig.  359 

purpose  of  looking  at  the  body,  I  forced  myself  to  advance  to  the  table, 
and,  willing  to  give  him  a  good  opinion  of  my  courage,  uncovered  the  face. 
I  cannot  help  laughing  at  it  now ;  but,  at  that  time/  it  was  an  awful 
moment.  I  had  forgotten  that  the  man  was  an  acquaintance  of  my  own. 
Even  since  the  moment  of  resurrection,  my  mind  had  been  absorbed  by 
the  one  simple  abstract  idea  of  an  anatomical  subject ;  all  thought  of  indi- 
viduality was  lost;  I  made  no  personal  reflections.  But  here  was  the 
strong,  heavy,  corpulent  man,  I  had  seen  alive  and  kicking  a  few  days 
ago,  lying  on  his  back,  naked  and  helpless, — straight,  stiff,  and  motion- 
less— waiting  to  be  cut  up!  Mr.  L came  into  the  room  with  his 

apparatus,  while  I  was  gazing  with  eyes,  mouth,  and  nostrils  at  the  dead 
face ;  and,  pushing  me  aside,  threw  off  the  sheet  and  commenced  work. 
For  my  part,  I  never  felt  so  comical  in  my  life — till  my  master,  wanting 
my  assistarce  to  hold  something,  turned  round,  and  seeing  me  pale  and 
gasping,  holding  on  by  the  door  for  support,  suddenly  caught  up  a  bason 
of  cold  water,  and  threw  the  contents  right  in  my  face.  "D — thee!" 
said  he,  a  second  time — for  this  was  a  favourite  expression.  After  this,  I 
got  on  very  well ;  but  .the  secrets  of  the  dissecting-room  are  not  for  the 

•    •  •         5 

uninitiated. 

I. -remember,  when  once  talking  to  a  friend  on  this  subject,   in  the  same 

rambling  way  in  which  I  write,  he  said  to  me,  "  Now, ,  although  I 

am  no  anatomist  myself,  yet  I  can  comprehend  very  well  what  are  the 
sources  of  a  scientific  man's  enjoyment,  when  exploring  with  his  knife  the 
intricate  and  awful  machinery  of  the  human  frame,  on  a  dead  subject ; 
but  where,  in  God's  name,  is  the  pleasure  of  scaling  walls,  and  scamper- 
ing over  the  bosoms  of  the  dead,  associated  with  the  lowest  and  most 
desperate  of  mankind — and  after  all,  for  what  purpose  ?— why,  to  commit 
what  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  downright  and  impious  robbery  !" — 
"Sir!"  said  I,  eyeing  the  spooney  with  a  smile,  half  contemptuous,  half 
triumphant — "  do  you  like  hare-soup  ?"  The  question  posed  him ;  he 
saw  the  drift  of  my  argument  at  once.  The  fact  is,  he  did  like  hare-soup ; 
but  he  liked  hunting  the  hare  better.  It  was  not  long  after  the  occur- 
rence noted  above,  that  my  anatomical  studies  became  so  public  as  to  ren- 
der it  convenient  for  me  to  leave at  five  minutes'  warning  ;  and  I  set 

out  for  London,  with  little  more  to  depend  on  than  a  letter  of  introduction 

to   Dr.  S ,  of street,  from   my  master.     As  for  Mr.  L ,  I 

have  never  seen  him  since,  although  it  is  now  twenty  years  ago;  but  1 
hear  he  is  still  alive,  and  still  going  on  with  his  great  work  on  anatomy. 
He  gets  a  very  old  man  now,  and,  .1  have  no  doubt,  will  find  every  chapter 
longer  and  emptier  than  its  predecessor — till  Death,  the  grand  dissector  of 
men  and  authors,  writes  Finis  at  the  bottom.  I  was  not  long  in  London 

before  my  letter  to  Dr.  S ,  my  provincial  Deputation,  and  fine  talents 

for  body -snatching,  introduced  me  to  the  first  professional  society.     Dr. 

S was  one  of  the  cleverest  men,  in  the  common  acceptation   of  the 

word,  I  ever  knew.  His  range  was  not  extensive;  but  what  he  had,  he 
had  at  hand :  there  was  no  dubitation — no  shilly-shallying  about  him  ; 
you  could  never  catch  him  unawares — for  his  mind,  such  as  it  was,  was  in 
a  perpetual  state  of  readiness.  He  was  a  Cockney,  and  pounded  medi- 
cines in  a  little  shop  within  the  sound  of  Bow  bells,  till  he  was  four  or 
five  and  twenty.  At  this  period  the  death  of  a  relation  put  him  in  pos- 
sefesion  of  a  little  money,  with  which  he  bought  a  country  practice.  He 
had  not  long  been  in  possession,  when  he  had  the  impudence  to  fall  in  love 
with  the  squire's  daughter — or  her  fortune — no  matter  which  ;  and  what 


3GO  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body-Snatching.  [APRIL, 

was  more  extraordinary,  the  young  lady  received  his  addresses.  Her 
father,  as  may  be  supposed,  was  rather  restive  on  the  occasion ;  but  as 
even  fox-hunters  will  be  unwell  sometimes,  and  as  there  was  no  other 
professsonal  man  in  the  neighbourhood,  he  was  obliged  to  have  S — • — 

occasionally  about  the  house.     S ,  unfortunately,  was  no  horseman  ; 

in  fact,  he  had  never  been  on  horseback  in  his  life  :  he  was  as  ignorant  of 
horses  as  an  ass  ;  and  the  very  idea  of  sitting  astride  on  so  formidable  an 
animal,  for  the  purpose  of  locomotion,  or  any  other  purpose  whatever,  made 
him  sweat  for  fear.  It  was  on  this  peculiarity  that  the  squire  formed  a 
plan  to  mortify  the  young  Cockney,  and  make  him  ridiculous  in  the  eyes 
even  of  his  daughter.  One  day  that  half  the  gentlemen  of  the  county 

were  assembled  at  his  house,  8 arrived,  panting   and  breathless,  in 

obedience  to  a  message  by  express  from  the  squire,  requesting  his  imme- 
diate attendance.  At  the  sight  of  so  many  horses  and  servants  about  the 
house,  apparently  in  hunting  train,  visions  of  broken  legs  and  collar-bones 
danced  gaily  through  the  surgeon's  imagination ;  and  he  sprung  up  the 
steps,  and  into  the  dining-room  where  the  company  were  assembled,  with 
even  more  than  his  usual  agility.  "  My  dear  Sir,"  said  the  squire,  running 
to  meet  him,  and  seizing  on  his  hand,  which  he  shook  with  all  the  vehe- 
mence of  a  fox-hunter,  "  you  are  the  kindest  fellow  in  the  world — we  shall 
never  forget  it.  But  the  fact  is,  we  have  this  moment  kicked  up  a  steeple- 
chase— our  horses  are  saddled,  and  we  are  just  ready  to  mount ;  the  ground 
is  not  a  dozen  miles  from  this  :  and  so,  as  it  would  be  mere  madness  to 
start  without  at  least  one  professional  gentleman,  where  there  is  a  prospect 
of  as  desperate  leaps  as  ever  were  seen  in  the  county,  I  took  the  liberty 
of  sending  for  you.  Come,  come!"  continued  he,  perceiving  the  blank 
look  of  the  surgeon  ;  "  don't  stick  upon  trifles  with  a  friend.  1  see  you 
have  not  brought  your  horse  with  you ;  but  you  shall  have  the  best  of  my 
poor  stud."  And  immediately  a  dozen  other  gentlemen  of  the  turf,  who 
were  in  the  secret,  gathered  round ;  and  seizing  on  the  victim's  arms,  in  the 
midst  of  his  scrapes,  and  acknowledgments,  and  excuses — from  the  get-off 
equivocal  to  the  lie  direct — hurried  him  through  the  hall  and  down  the 
steps.  A  horse,  ready  accoutred,  and  held  by  a  groom  in  rich  livery,  stood 
before  them  ;  and  the  squire,  with  many  compliments  and  caresses,  besought 
him  to  mount  without  more  loss  of  time.  The  animal  stood  with  his  head, 
not  his  side,  towards  his  intended  rider — or  even  the  inexperienced  eye  of 
the  Cockney  must  have  detected  the  trick.  He  was  a  superannuated 
hunter,  at  least  a  foot  higher  than  his  grandson's  breed ;  his  bones, 
although  every  care  had  been  paid  to  his  honourable  old  age,  seemed  to  be 
starting  through  his  skin  ;  and  even  if  the  recollected  spirit  of  his  youth, 
and  the  dying  instincts  of  nature  could  be  lighted  up  for  a  moment — as 
they  might  have  been,  by  the  sound  of  the  huntsman's  horn — into  some- 
thing perilous  even  to  an  experienced  rider,  there  was  nothing  about  him 

capable  of  making  the  danger  respectable  to  a  looker-on.     Poor  S , 

disguise  it  as  he  might,  trembled  from  head  to  foot,  as  he  suffered  himself 
to  be  led  on  towards  his  fate;  but,  just  as  he  arrived  within  parleying- 
distance,  the  animal,  as  if  weaned  by  the  delay  that  had  taken  place, 
opened  his  huge  mouth  into  a  yawn,  so  absolutely  unhorsical — and  dis- 
playing a  broken  range  of  teeth,  so  terrible  even  in  their  ruin — that  the  sur- 
geon, spite  of  his  habitual  self-possession,  started  back  in  dismay.  But, 
instantaneously  recovering  himself,  as  the  sudden  laugh  of  the  squire  and 
his  friends  burst  upon  his  ear,  he  resumed  his  ground,  and  said,  with  a  low 
bow  to  the  still  gaping  quadruped,  "  I  beg  your  pardon — I  travel  outside." 


J  827.]  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body-Snatching.  36 1 

The  squires — unsophisticated  souls  ! — laughed  still  louder  at  this  stroke  of 

humour;  and  S having  the  good  sense  to  confess  his  ignorance  of 

equestrian  performances,  and  to  meet  their  jokes  on  the  subject  half  \vay, 
got  off  with  flying  colours.  Soon  after,  he  married  the  girl,  and  returned 
to  London.  His  quickness  of  mind  was  frequently  attended  with  too 
much  quickness  of  to  ague — a  fault  which  a  medical  man  cannot  guard  too 
carefully  against.  Once,  when  passing  arm-in-arm  with  him  along  some 
street  near  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  "  Gadso !"  said  he ;  "  we  should  not 
have  come  this  way — I  have  a  patient  dead  here ;  I  told  his  wife,  yester- 
day morning,  that  he  would  never  eat  his  breakfast  again  in  this  world. — 
Hollo  !"  continued  ho,  catching  by  the  rails  with  one  hand  as  he  passed 
the  house,  "  Mrs.  Tibbs — or  Tibbetts — how  d'ye  do  ? — how  d'ye  do?" 
—  (as  the  woman  made  her  appearance  at  the  window)  "  nothing  wrong, 
eh.-*" — "  O  no,  Sir! — thank  God,  and  had  luck  to  yourself!"  answered 

Mrs.  Tibbs  or  Tibbetts  ;  "  my  husband  is  much  better  to-day."     S 

blushed  to  the  tips  of  his  ears,  and  went  into  the  house,  muttering,  "  Never 
was  mistaken  before  in  all  my  life!"  When  he  came  out  egain,  I  said  to 
him,  laughing,  "  Well,  doctor,  I  hope  you  have  killed  your  man  for 
living  contrary  to  orders!" — "  I  had  thoughts  of  it,"  said  he,  with  gravity; 

"  but  that  brimstone  b ,  his  wife,  will  punish  him  as  severely  here  as 

the  furies  could  below :  I  have  cared  for  him — he  will  not  die  this  bout." 
A  few  days  after,  happening  to  go  the  same  way  together,  we  chanced 
to  pass  the  house  at  the  very  instant  a  man  was  mounting  the  steps  with 

a  coffin  on  his  shoulder.     S —  ducked  his  head,   and  walked  quietly 

past — but  not  without  being  caught  by  the  lynx-eye  of  Mrs.  Tibbs,  or 
Tibbetts.  I  could  see  her  endeavouring  to  raise  the  window ;  failing  in 
which,  she  darted  her  clenched  fist  like  lightning  through  the  glass,  and 
shook  it  violently  at  the  false  prophet.  S never  forgave  me  for  wit- 
nessing this  scene.  I  called  on  him  twice:  the  first  time,  he  was  riot  at 
home  ;  and  the  second,  at  which  I  received  the  same  answer,  I  saw  him 
looking  at  me  through  the  blinds.  I  made  him  a  low  bow,  and  passed  on. 
He  is  dead  lately  ;  I  forgive  him  for  cutting  me — but  he  should  not  have 
looked  through  the  blinds. 

At  this  time,  there  was  established  a  society  of  Resurrectionists,  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  young  surgeons  and  students  of  anatomy — of  which,  of 
course,  I  became  a  fellow.  Some  of  these  gentlemen  have  since  risen  to 
notoriety  in  their  own  and  other  congenial  professions  ;  but  the  most  dis- 
tinguished members,  at  the  period  I  speak  of  (not  to  mention  myself),  were 

Messrs.  P ,  R ,   C ,    and  M .     On   second  thoughts,  I 

may  as  well  fill  out  the  two  last  initials — Clark  and  Malony — both  being 
public  characters ;  particularly  the  latter,  who  is  himself  "  among  the 
atomies  at  Surgeons'  Hall"  at  this  moment.  He  was  a  red-hot  Irish  stu- 
dent, and  a  fellow  of  fine  talents  in  his  degree.  Once,  when  a  subject  for 
dissection  had  been  brought  up  in  the  common  hum-drum  way — I  mean 
from  the  gallows — and  Malony,  myself,  and  other  eminent  persons  were 
present — when  every  thing  was  ready,  and  every  body  on  the  tip-toe  of 
expectation — a  sudden  inflation  of  the  subject's  chest  "  gave  us  pause." — 
"  O  Jasus  !"  cried  Malony — who  was  not  a  man  to  stick  at  trifles,  when 
the  interests  of  science  were  concerned — "  is  it  after  chating  the  law  he 
is  ?"  and  immediately  thrust  a  probe  into  the  temple  far  enough  to  set  the 
question  of  vitality  at  rest.  Some  people  took  it  upon  thorn  to  blame  the 
Irishman  for  his  precipitation  ;  but  I  beg  leave  to  differ  with  them.  The 
naan  was  dead  in  law,  and  that  was  enough  for  us:  besides,  if  we  had 
M.  M.  New  Series.^7 OL.  III.  No.  16.  3  A 


362  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body- Snatching.  [APRIL* 

suffered  him  to  get  up  and  walk,  it  is  ten  to  one  he  would  have  been 
hanged  over  again.  Poor  Malony  was  suspended  himself  not  long  after, 
for  trying  a  similar  operation  on  a  living  subject ;  but  that  is  nothing  to  the 
question.  Clark  was,  at  that  time,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  pro- 
mising young  men  I  ever  knew ;  and  it  was  with  heartfelt  satisfaction  I 
beheld  him  afterwards  ascending,  step  by  step,  to  the  eminence  he  at 
present  enjoys.  It  was  Clark  who  volunteered,  out  of  pure  philanthropy, 
when  Thistlewood  and  the  other  gentlemen  were  executed  for  lunacy,  to 
cut  off  their  heads  ;  and  the  British  public  can  bear  testimony  to  the  work- 
manlike manner  in  which  the  man  in  the  mask  did  his  duty.  We  next 
see  him  forming  and  executing  the  magnificent  project  of  supplying  the 
whole  body  of  London  anatomists  wholesale  with  subjects  from  the  coun- 
try ;  but  this  scheme,  although  it  did  very  well  for  some  time,  I  am  sorry 
to  say  has,  for  the  present,  received  a  check,  and  Clark  is  now  sojourning 
in  Ilchester  Jail.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  constitutional  activity  of  his  mind 
should  have  led  him  into  the  mistake  which  it  has  done  in  this  dreary 
situation.  Having  nothing  better  to  do,  he  amused  himself  by  forming  a 
conspiracy  among  the  prisoners,  to  knock  their  turnkeys  on  the  head  with 
stones  slung  in  their  stockings  ;  but,  on  cool  consideration,  perceiving  how 
inconsistent  this  would  be  with  the  respectability  of  his  profession,  he 

informed  against  his  adherents    in   time   to  prevent  mischief.      R , 

although  the  president  of  the  club,  was  of  an  indolent,  voluptuous  turn, 
which  prevented  him  from  being  of  much  use  in  active  service ;  but  his 
easy,  gentleman-like  deportment  was  an  admirable  cloak  for  us.  The 
plan  was  this :  M took  ready-furnished  lodgings  near  some  church- 
yard, where  we  all  met  three  nights  in  the  week  to  consult.  On  these 
occasions,  as  often  as  necessary,  a  detachment  was  sent  out  on  service; 

and,  if  successful,  M 's  house  was  the  dep6t  for  the  spoils. 

On  arriving  there  one  wet,  dark,  and  stormy  night,  although  it  was 
later  than  the  hour  of  meeting,  I  found  our  president  alone,  with  his  legs 
stuck  up  on  each  side  of  the  grate  to  keep  the  fire  warm,  a  novel  in  his 
hand,  and  a  bottle  of  gin  on  the  mantel-piece.  I  saw  it  was  of  no  use  to 
disturb  him ;  it  would  have  been  easier  to  move  the  ladies'  man  in  the 
Park:  so  I  just  took  a  sniff  out  of  the  bottle  to  warm  my  fingers,  and, 
with  a  heavy  sigh  at  the  effeminacy  of  the  times,  was  moving  away, 

when  P entered  the  room.     P     •     ,  next  to  myself,  was  the  most 

efficient  member  of  the  club.  He  was  not  one  of  your  milk-and-water 
fellows,  who  will  do  a  thing  for  such-and  such  a  reason — who  will  stay 
at  home  because  it  rains,  and  go  abroad  when  the  day  is  fine.  He  was  an 
enthusiast  in  his  trade,  which  he  followed,  not  for  the  lucre  of  gain,  but 
for  its  own  sake.  His  very  appearance  would  have  indicated,  even  to  a 
superficial  observer,  that  it  was  no  common  character  who  stood  before 
him.  His  nose — to  begin  with  the  most  prominent  feature — was  long  and 
pointed  ;  his  eyes,  of  a  dark  and  sparkling  grey — one  of  them  slightly 
twisted  in  an  opposite  direction  from  the  proboscis,  and  somewhat  smaller 
than  the  other;  his  mouth  was  drawn  up  a  little  at  the  corners,  so  as  to 
give  an  expression  of  humour  to  the  lower  part  of  the  face ;  and  if  you 
add  a  set  of  teeth  as  large  and  white  as  a  wolf's,  and  a  very  thin  drapery 
of  grizzled  hair  about  the  temples — for  the  rest  was  bald — you  have  a 

good  idea  of  my  dear  friend  P 's  head.    The  garb  of  his  outward  man, 

which  was  of  a  grey  colour,  shewed  that  he  held  the  opinion  of  another 
great  character — Mr.  Howard,  the  philanthropist — that  a  good  soaking 
shower  was  the  best  brush  for  broadcloth  ;  and  his  hat,  which  hung  over 


1827.J  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body -Snatching*  363 

him,  in  a  fashion  half  Quaker,  half  Spanish,  proved  that  the  rule  might 
be  applied  as  well  to  beaver,  having  retained  its  substance,  under  the 

same  discipline,  long  after  the  colour  and  shape  had  departed.     P 

was  a  man  of  few  words,  so  far  as  the  tongue  was  concerned;  but  his 
other  features  were  so  many  telegraphs,  which,  when  put  into  motion, 
kept  up  a  constant  flow  of  intelligence :  he  could  say  more  by  a  single 

motion  of  the  muscles  of  his  cheek  than  R ,  who  was  a  great  orator, 

could  have  spoken  in  an  hour.  On  coming  into  the  room,  he  commu- 
nicated, in  a  whisper,  a  piece  of  intelligence,  that,  under  other  circum- 
stances, would  have  been  highly  grateful  to  me,  viz.  that  his  long  nose 
had  smelt  out  a  most  promising  resurrection -job  within  a  very  convenient 

distance  of  the  house.     We  endeavoured,  in  vain,   to  persuade  R to 

take  a  hand  in  the  game.  All  we  could  gain  from  him  was  a  promise 
that  he  would  sit  up  for  us  till  three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  the 
event  of  our  falling  in  with  other  assistance,  and  prosecuting  the  adventure 
ourselves  ;  but  even  this  we  could  only  draw  from  him  by  the  temptation 
of  another  quart  of  his  favourite  evening  draught,  which  we  engaged  to 
send  in  from  the  wine-vaults  as  we  passed.  As  we  glided  down  the  street, 
the  cold  sharp  rain,  splashing  in  our  faces,  seemed  ready  to  cut  the  skin  ; 
and  I  almost  repented  having  left  the  comfortable  berth  we  had  just  quit- 
ted :  but  as  for  P ,  when  I  could  get  a  glimpse,  by  the  flickering 

glare  of  a  lamp  as  we  passed,  of  his  spare  figure  and  keen  thin  face,  he 
appeared  to  be  moving  on  as  steadily  as  the  Flying  Dutchman  in  the  eye 
of  a  gale  of  wind.  We  reached  the  church-yard,  which  was  to  be  the 
theatre  of  our  operations  ;  and  my  companion  leading  the  way,  as  we 
coasted  round  its  dark  walls,  or  looked  wistfully  in  through  the  bars  of  the 
iron  gate,  he  seemed,  like  Milton's  Satan,  gazing  for  the  first  time  on  the 
new  and  peaceful  world.  I  do  not  know  how  such  a  foolish  idea  entered 
my  head  ;  but  it  made  me  look  at  him,  for  the  moment,  with  an  interest 
not  unallied  to  fear,  as  I  followed  his  dark  person  and  noiseless  footsteps 
through  the  gloom.  At  length,  as  we  turned  the  corner,  we  were  chal- 
lenged by  a  watchman  :  P fixed  his  eye  on  him  as  we  passed,  but 

neither  of  us  spoke  ;  and  the  guardian  of  the  night,  without  making  any 
observation,  walked  hastily  away  to  the  lighter  and  living  part  of  the 
street.  We  saw,  however,  that  it  was  yet  too  early — and,  besides,  from 
the  nature  of  the  ground,  that  it  was  impossible  to  do  with  only  two  per- 
formers. To  pass  the  time,  therefore,  and  also  to  look  out  for  proselytes, 
we  went  into  the  tap-room  of  a  public-house  at  no  great  distance,  and. 
called  for  a  pot  of  porter,  warmed  at  the  fire,  and  seasoned  with  a  glass  or 
two  of  something  stronger.  There  was  only  one  person  in  the  room  besides 
ourselves,  and  he  appeared  to  have  just  come  in ;  he  was  a  fine,  ofF-hand- 
looking  fellow,  in  a  sailor's  dress — frank  and  careless  in  his  manner,  with  a 
dash  of  the  libertine  in  his  eye,  and  an  appearance  about  the  lips  which 
indicates  one  who  has  an  habitual  inclination  to  moisten  his  clay.  "  He 

will  do  !"  said  P ,  winking  at  me  with  the  off-eye  ;  but  I  had  my 

doubts.  We  soon  got  into  conversation,  and  had  no  difficulty  in  pumping 
out  the  whence  and  whither  of  our  chance-comrade.  He  belonged  to  an 
East-Indiaman  which  had  just  arrived,  and  was  hastening  home,  on  the 
wings  of  love  and  duty,  to  tell  his  mother  and  his  sweetheart  that  his 
apprenticeship  was  out,  and  that  he  was  now  promoted  to  be  a  man-before- 
the-mast.  Of  course,  he  was  to  get  married  immediately ;  and,  in  a 
month  or  two,  would  be  ready  for  sea  once  more,  with  high  hopes  of  being, 
at  least  captain  of  the  fore-top,  before  seeing  his  beloved  Susan  again.  .In 

3  A  2 


364  On  the  Pleasures  of  Bady- Snatching.  [APRIL, 

the  mean  time,  however,  both  she  and  his  mother  had  moved  from  their 
lodgings,  and  it  was  now  too  late  to  seek  them ;  he  had,  therefore,  tum- 
bled into  the  first  open  shop  he  had  found,  where  he  meant  to  anchor  for 
the  night.  There  was  not  much  encouragement  for  us,  I  thought,  in  this 
story  :  but,  as  the  stranger's  orders  were  executed,  and  a  measure  of  a 

colourless  liquid  set  before  him,  I  could  see  P 's    eyes  sparkle  ;  and 

he  turned  on  me  a  glance,  which,  assisted  by  a  certain  motion  of  his  cheek 
and  eyelid,  said,  as  plainly  as  tongue  could  speak  it,  "  Smoke  the  blue 
ruin  !"  The  sailor  did  not  «eem  at  once  to  like  the  turn  we  gave  to  the 
conversation ;  and  he  looked  stedfastly,  as  if  for  the  first  time,  at  my 
companion.  I  do  not  know  how  it  is,  but  there  is  something  peculiar 

about  P 's  eyes — something  that  one  looks  at  a  second  time,    not 

because  he  wishes  to  do  so,  but  because  he  cannot  help  it;  it  produces  a 
disagreeable  feeling — a  kind  of  chill — such  as  we  do  not  experience  when 
looking  at  Mr.  Irving's,  for  instance,  or  any  ordinary  squint.  The  stranger 
drew  his  glass  towards  the  upper  end  of  the  box,  and,  resting  his  back 
against  the  wall,  stretched  his  legs  upon  the  seat — but  observing,  at  the 
same  time,  as  if  not  choosing  to  give  offence,  that  his  walk  from  the 
Docks  had  fatigued  him.  By  degrees,  however,  he  seemed  to  get  accus- 
tomed to  my  companion's  peculiarity,  and  relaxed  from  the  defensive 
position  he  had  taken.  When  his  measure  was  emptied,  we  insisted  on 
filling  it  again,  and  drinking  together ;  and  then,  after  gradually  feeling 
our  way,  we  opened  the  business.  He  winced,  at  first,  like  a  patient 
under  an  operation ;  but  the  very  novelty  of  the  thing  induced  him  at 

least  to  hear  more  of  it.     P told  some  of  his  best  stories,  with  eyes, 

cheeks,  lips,  and  tongue  all  at  once;  the  gin  mounted  into  the  sailor's 
main-top ;  and,  at  length,  he  began  to  think  it  was  not  so  very  shocking 
an  affair.  His  pride  was  touched — for  he  felt  that  his  courage  was  ques- 
tioned. It  now  assumed  the  appearance,  under  my  friend's  rnagic  pencil, 
of  at  worst  a  spree  or  frolic ;  it  would  be  something  to  talk  of  ever  after — 
to  make  Susan  draw  closer  to  him  at  night,  as  she  hid  her  face  in  the 
bed-clothes — and  at  sea,  in  a  tropical  calm,  to  set  the  whole  forecastle 
a-gaping.  At  length,  he  consented  ;  and  we  went  out  together  to  collect 
our  tools,  and  proceed  to  work.  It  was  pitch-dark ;  but  the  wind  had 
died  away,  and  the  rain  fell  in  thick  and  heavy  drops.  As  we  walked 
along,  holding  him  fast  by  the  arms  on  each  side,  the  stranger  seemed 
rather  our  prisoner  than  our  companion — I  could  feel  his  heart  beat  hard 
against  my  arm  ;  and  at  length,  when  we  got  over  the  wall,  and  were 
among  the  tombs,  I  thought  he  would  have  fallen  from  our  support.  The 
weakness,  however,  was  only  physical — his  moral  courage  was  unsub- 
dued ;  and  at  length,  when  we  reached  the  grave,  as  if  resolving  to  con- 
quer his  feelings  by  main  force,  he  applied  himself  with  good- will  to  the 
spade-work,  that  no  sexton  could  have  brought  his  buried  treasure  to  light 
in  quicker  time.  By  the  time  we  had  got  the  coffin  open,  however,  and 
its  contents  deposited  in  the  sack,  his  spirit  seemed  to  desert  him  alto- 
gether; and  while  we  were  filling  up  the  grave,  and  putting  matters  in 
statu  quo,  he  leant  in  silence  against  a  tomb-stone.  When  we  were  pre- 
paring to  depart,  I  went  up  and  shook  him  violently,  to  rouse  him  from  the 
trance  into  which  he  seemed  to  have  fallen.  St-It  is  a  woman!'*  said  he, 
at  length,  in  a  whisper,  so  deep  and  horror-struck,  that  I  instinctively 

let  him  go.     I  could  hear  P chuckle  at  the  idea.     I  endeavoured  to 

explain  to  him  that  a  dead  body  was  of  no  sex ;  but,  notwithstanding,  it 
was  as  much  by  compulsion  as  any  thing  else,  that  we  got  him  to  assist  in 
removing  the  spoils. 


1 827.]  On  the  Pleasures  of  Body  Snatching.  .365 

On  arriving  at  our  destination,  which  we  did  without  interruption,  .we 
found  the  door  on  the  latch,  and  went  up  stairs  with  our  burthen  as  softly 
as  possible.  The  candle  had  burnt  out,  and  the  fire  was  just  about  follow- 
ing the  example ;  while  R ,  like  a  drunken  swine  as  he  is,  was  sitting 

fast  asleep  in  a  chair.  We  laid  the  sack  on  the  table,  in  the  midst  of  the 
fragments  of  his  supper,  and  endeavoured  to  get  a  fresh  light.  When  we 

had  succeeded,  P ,   with  one  of  his  diabolical  leers,  pointed  to  the 

stranger,  who  was  standing  by  the  door,  as  if  afraid  altogether  to  enter  the 
room,  and  gazing  on  the  sack,  till  his  eyes  seemed  ready  to  burst  from 

their  sockets.     At  this  moment,  R awoke,   and  turning  down  the 

mouth  of  the  sack,  held  the  candle  to  examine  our  prize  ;  and,  still  under 
the  gitieal  influence,  began  to  rhodomontade  like  a  mad  player.  "  A 

woman,  by  G • !"  cried  he  ;  "  aye,  and  a  fair  one,  too — beautiful  even 

in  death !  Her  auburn  ringlets  hanging,  in  love-like  languishment,  over 
her  neck  of  snow — her  pencilled  eyebrows — her  dimpled  chin — her  modest 
lips,  cold  even  as  chastity!"  At  every  disjointed  sentence,  the  stranger 
advanced  a  step  nearer  :  till,  at  length,  when  the  fair  and  dead  face  came 
completely  under  his  view,  his  hands  met  with  a  sound  like  the  report  of  a 
pistol — and,  in  something  between  a  shriek  and  a  convulsive  groan,  he 
exclaimed,  "It  is  Susan  /"-^-and  fell  senseless  on  the  floor.  L.  R» 


.FULL-LKNGTHS  : 
No.  IV. 


The  Jew  Slopseller. 

WE  know  not  if,  among  the  several  qualities,  to  the  possession  of  which 
philosophers  have  ascribed  our  superiority  over  frogs  and  jackdaws,  the 
spirit  of  commerce  has  been  duly  registered — whether  the  continually 
working  principle  of  barter,  wanting  in  all  other  animals,  has  given  a 
triumphant  distinction  to  humanity,  and  thus  proved  the  immortal  essence 
of  man  in  his  day-book  and  ledger.  We  think  the  fact  too  evident  to  have 
been  unknown  to  ancient  wisdom;  although  we  -cannot,  at  this  moment, 
take  upon  ourselves  to  particularize  the  discoverer. 

Of  course,  there  are  none  of  our  readers  that  have  not  seen  a  Jew  :  the 
sight  amounts  to  nothing — it  is  a  common  spectacle,  which  neither  does  nor 
ought  to  excite  an  unusual  thought.  Have  they,  -however,  beheld  a 
Jew  Slopseller?  The  sun  scarcely  attracts  a  momentary  gaze — so  gene- 
ral is  its  influence  :  let  a  rainbow  appear,  and  old  gray-headed  men  and 
crawling  children  stay  still  and  gaze  at  it.  So  with  the  common  Israelite, 
and  he  of  the  sea-port.  The  term  "  Jew,"  abstractedly — like  the  first  of 
the  two 'Words  "laurel  water,"  or  the  half  of  a  severed  viper — may  repre- 
sent an  object  useful  or  harmless ; — but  Jew  Slopseller — aye,  there  is 
the  deadly  meaning  of  the  united  words — there,  the  full  venom  of  the 
active  snake !  Those  who  would  pass  through  Rosemary-lane  without  the 
least  emotion,  would  start  and  turn  pale  at  an  Israelite  inhabitant  of  Gos- 
port  or  Sheerness.  -Lest,  however,  some  of  our  readers  should  not  wholly 
comprehend  the  term  "  Slopseller,"  we  may  briefly  inform  them,  that  it 
applies  to  those  individuals  who,  on  our  seamen  receiving  their  hard-earned 
pay,  infest  the  decks  of  English  men-of-war :  there  they  toil,  and  there 
they  fatten.  Let  us,  however,  strive  to  make  out  a  schedule  of  the  effects, 
natural  and  acquired,  which  compose  a  Jew  Slopseller. 


36G  The  Jew  Slopseller.  [APRIL, 

It  is  not  the  face  alone  of  our  hero  which  needs  delineation  :  the  painter 
who  would  simply  pourtray  the  visage  of  the  Slopseller,  and  afterwards  trust 
to  his  general  observance  of  other  men  whereby  to  supply  the  absent  mem- 
bers, would  err  most  criminally.  Horace  himself  never  imagined  such  a 
monster  ;  it  would  be  the  head  of  a  fox  on  the  body  of  a  mastiff — of  a 
cat,  fixed  on  the  neck  of  an  antelope.  There  is  such  a  subtle  and  con- 
stant communing  between  his  features  and  every  other  part ;  such  a  con- 
tinual, and  yet  repressed  agitation,  from  his  eyelids  to  his  toes;  such  a 
catching-up  of  the  fingers  and  acting  of  the  vertebrae,  that  it  would  seem 
some  spirit  of  gain  inhabited  his  every  tendon  and  nerve,  and  that  his 
body  echoed  and  throbbed  throughout  with  their  clamour  and  their  stir- 
ring. If  nature  has  ever  placed  the  least  principle  within  him,  like  Ariel 
in  the  pine,  it  requires  more  than  mortal  power  to  bring  it  to  the  light. 
There  is  no  looking  at  the  face  of  the  Slopseller — the  eye  can  take  no  hold 
of  his  features ;  they  do  not,  as  the  old  poet  says  of  amber,  "  stroke  the 
sight" — but  evade,  actually  slip  from  it.  He  is  only  to  be  rightly  viewed 
whilst  asleep — when  the  flaccid  lineaments,  untenanted  by  the  thousand 
antics  which  inhabit  the  waking  lines,  have  retreated  back,  and  lie,  like 
gorged  spiders  in  their  webs,  in  the  modicum  of  brain  which  engendered 
and  sustains  them.  Then,  and  then  only,  might  the  limner  take  the 
features  of  our  subject,  and  thus  the  likeness  could  only  be  known  to  a  few 
of  his  creed  and  craft — for  never  yet  did  customer  hear  a  Slopseller  snore. 
The  whole  life  of  our  Israelite  is  a  long  game  of  verbal  and  practical  lies 
— of  substitution  and  of  sycophancy.  His  prime  god  is  made  at  hia 
Majesty's  mint ;  a  bank-note  is  to  him  the  glorious  sky— —and  the  sum  it 
carries,  either  moon,  sun,  or  star,  according  to  the  amount.  If  he  can  give 
to  second-cloth  the  passing  freshness  of  superfine,  he  is,  in  his  own 
esteem,  a  second  Descartes ;  if  he  can  replace  copper  for  gold,  another 
Newton.  He  has  no  love  of  nature,  animate  or  still :  if  ever  he  stay  to 
look  at  a  bullfinch,  it  is  simply  to  reflect  on  the  possibility  of  painting  its 
hues  on  a  sparrow  ;  if  ever  he  gaze  at  the  veins  of  a  pebble,  it  is  to  see  if  it 
will  pass  for  an  agate  or  a  cornelian.  Shew  him  Mount  Vesuvius  in  full 
eruption,  and  he  will  speculate  on  getting  it  up  in  a  raree-show ;  point 
out  to  him,  by  the  glare  of  lightning,  a  ship's  crew  struggling  in  the 
billows,  and  he  will  instantly  ponder  on  what  the  men  have  in  their 
pockets. 

We  must  picture  a  seaman  about  to  pass  the  door  of  our  Slopseller :  he 
is  in  a  moment  captured,  and,  although  pennyless,  becomes  a  ready  prey 
to  the  Israelite,  who  buys  the  next  three  years1  pay  of  the  reckless  tar. 
The  seaman  laughs  within  himself — aye,  and  when  he  gets  aboard,  his 
mates  laugh  with  him — at  the  certain  trick  practised  on  the  Jew ;  for 
when  did  a  sailor  ever  think  of  time  ?  Did  he  ever  think  it  possible  for 
the  day  three  years  to  arrive  ?  If  he  have  money  in  one  hand,  he  thinks 
he  holds  the  skirts  of  Time  with  the  other.  The  Slopseller,  like  his  brother 
crocodile,  is  amphibious,  and  can  snap  up  a  mouthful  of  unwary  huma- 
nity ashore,  as  well  as  in  his  native  deep.  However,  it  must,  we  think, 
be  owned,  that  the  Slopseller  is  more  potent  at  sea.  By  sea,  we  mean 
the  waste  or  forecastle  of  a  man-of-war.  His  peculiarities  become  more 
startling.  Like  Charles  Brandon's  armorial  bearings,  the  gold  cloth  and 
frize  strike  out  a  contrast  sufficiently  powerful  to  awaken  the  poetry  of 
thought — philosophy.  To  the  proof. 

We  have  before  us  a  sailor,  who  hath  felt  the  swn  in  every  region  of  the 
world :  heat,  wind,  and  rain  have  so  worked  upon  his  face — have  here 


1827.]  The  Jew  Slopseller.  367 

so  seared  it,  and  there  so  adorned  it  with  protuberance — that  his  features 
are  like  a  patch  of  old  wall ;  here,  shewing  a  fearful  chink — and  here, 
tufts  of  red  and  brown  moss.  He  stands  before  us  the  very  embodied  idea 
of  unthinking:  valour  and  honesty :  there  is  a  reposing  strength  in  his 
legs,  which  straggle  from  each  other  like  two  clumps  of  leafless  oaks  ;  his 
hands  drop  before  him,  like  two  slabs  of  red  granite ;  his  hair — that  is, 
if  he  do  not  nourish  the  coxcombry  of  a  pigtail — mightily  resembles 
bell-wire  in  a  tangle;  his  very  hat  seems  dropped  upon  his  head  (as 
though  for  a  wager)  from  the  main-top.  This  man  appears  a  hard  creature 
to  digest ;  and  yet  our  Slopseller  shall  swallow  him,  as  though  he  were  a 
man  of  paste — the  mere  sugared  image  of  a  confectioner. 

Observe,  gentle  reader — and  also  ye  philosophers — if  here  you  would  see 
the  whole  deceit  and  trickery  of  the  world  :  if  here  you  would  look  upon 
the  game  where  is  pitted  craft  against  honesty — villainy  against  igno- 
rance— smiles,  assertions,  oaths,  and  pledges  of  reputation,  against  the 
profits  of  years  of  toil — perhaps  of  insult  and  of  bloodshed.  The  bit  of 
gold,  for  which  our  tar  hath  groaned  in  hopeless  agony  beneath  the  sur- 
geon— for  which  he  hath  been  literally  sheeted  in  his  own  gore — the  wages 
of  such  pain  and  terror  shall,  in  a  trice,  become  the  gain  of  the  Jew,  for  a 
wheedling  word — a  smiling  look.  Is  not  this  a  true  representation  of 
the  tragedy,  or — Uemocritus,  if  you  will  have  it  so — the  comedy  of 
Gain  and  Loss,  played  on  the  world's  wide  stage,  alike  by  emperors,  by 
lords  in  waiting,  and  by  chimney-sweepers?  Many  a  veteran  hath  gone 
down,  a  most  lean  subject,  to  the  grave  ;  whilst  a  musk-carrying  juvenile, 
who  could  sing  an  amorous  ditty  at  the  table  of  my  lord,  hath  died  of 
indigestion  or  of  apoplexy  :  the  shrill  pipe  of  a  boy  hath  carried  it  before 
the  indented  cicatrice  of  gray-headed  men.  We  repeat  our  assertion  : 
Our  Sailor  and  Slopseller  may,  in  their  simple  selves,  represent  the  whole 
two  parties  of  the  human  race< — the  tricksters  and  the  tricked.  Three  feet 
of  the  forecastle  of  the  Eellona  may  serve  for  the  whole  globe. 

We  beg  our  readers  to  keep  before  their  eyes  the  person  of  our  sailor, 
and  also  narrowly  to  observe  the  movements  of  the  Israelite,  now  preparing 
to  assail  and  attack  the  huge  round  tower  before  him.  See,  how  the  varlet 
makes  towards  the  tar !  how  he  curls  and  bends  himself  up,  as  though  he 
would  absolutely  make  himself  into  a  ball,  and  roll  into  the  confidence  of  the 
betrayed !  Now  this  Proteus  of  pinchbeck  and  stained  glass  alternately  flut- 
ters and  stoops,  and  his  eye  burns  with  brightness — not  with  a  common  bril- 
liancy— it  is  not  the  ray  of  honest  satisfaction — but  the  gleam  of  a  spear's 
point  held  to  the  heart  of  the  devoted.  As  yet,  however,  the  contest  has 
been  held  at  a  distance :  the  Slopseller  has  only  attacked  with  greetings, 
gentle  inquiries,  and  salutations ;  the  pike  is  only  hooked — the  grand 
beauty  of  tha  art  is  yet  to  be  displayed  in  playing  with  him,  and  bringing 
him  panting  to  the  shore.  Jack  himself  throws  a  dash  of  the  ridiculous  into 
the  business ;  he  checquers  with  individual  whim  the  else  unrelieved  baseness 
of  the  Slopseller.  As  the  Jew  advances,  the  Sailor  (and  we  would  be 
sworn  he  has  never  read  Sterne)  seems  "  pre-determined  not  to  give  him  a 
single  sous."  Jack  straightway  becomes  blunt  and  bristling :  he  puts  his 
memory  on  hard  duty,  and  summons  to  his  aid  a  recollection  of  the  grievous 
wrongs  he  has  before  endured  from  "the  tribe;" — he,  moreover,  doubly 
arms  himself  with  the  legendary  iniquities  of  every  slopseller,  from  Wap- 
ping  to  Spithead;  and  thus  strengthened,  Jack  receives,  with  deadly 
determination,  the  first  advances  of  the  aquatic  merchant.  Vain  man ! 
weak  in  your  vanity — lost  in  your  conceit!  Bound  and  delivered  up  to  the 


368  The  Jew  Slopseller:  [APRIL, 

enemy,  even  by  the  weapons  which  you  were  to  use  against  him  :  your 
strength  avails  you  not  with  him.  What  are  the  deep-set  grinders  and 
the  rigid  muscles  of  the  bull-dog  against  the  tortuous  faculty  of  the  worm  ? 
The  brute  may  startle  wolves  from  their  dens,  and  tear  into  powder  the 
hard  earth  beneath  it,  whilst  the  reptile  glides  through  a  crevice,  arid 
evades  pursuit.  It  is  almost  melancholy  to  observe  the  unsuccessful 
trials  of  the  sailor  to  look  cunning  and  business-like  ;  his  features  are  rebel- 
lious, and  will  not  submit  to  order — whilst  he,  unconscious  man  !  believes 
them  to  be  admirably  disciplined.  An  elephant,  inquiring  into  the  legiti- 
mate construction  of  a  sixpence,  is,  we  think,  a  ludicrous  object :  no  less 
whimsical  is  our  sailor,  attempting  to  be  shrewd.  He  has,  at  this  time, 
but  one  thought — security  against  the  Jew  ;  and  this  thought  runs,  dark- 
ling and  confused,  within  him,  like  a  half-smothered  mouse  in  the  body  of 
the  elephant  just  noted.  At  every  turn,  he  becomes  more  bewildered; 
and  our  Slopselier,  gaining  strength  as  the  Sailor  sinks  back  again  to  his 
accustomed  state,  in  the  moment  of  triumph  slips  the  article  of  purchase 
into  the  half-unresolved  hand  oF  the  man  of  the  waters.  And,  what  has 
Jack  purchased  ?  Of  course,  a  watch — one  that  hath  survived  a  three 
days'  possession  by  nearly  half  the  seamen  of  his  Majesty's  fleet.  The 
first  article  a  sailor  purchases,  and  the  last  he  parts  with,  is  a  watch  :  it  is 
the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  alphabet  of  prize  money ;  and,  even  if  it 
does  not  survive  the  first  winding-up,  still  the  outside  looks  creditable  and 
land-like;  and,  long  ere  Blue  Peter  is  flying  at  the  fore,  it  is  once  again 
duly  returned  to  the  Slopselier,  with  a  loss  of  pounds  not  to  be  thought  of 
in  the  middle-watch.  As  were  the  fatal  seeds  to  Proserpine,  so  is  the 
silver  monitor  to  our  tar:  having  once  tasted  the  fare  of  our  Slopselier, 
he  is  wholly  and  unreservedly  condemned  to  him. 

A  fox  comes  into  a  farm-yard  with  a  more  bold  and  upright  counte- 
nance than  does  a  Jew  Slopselier  enter  a  man-of-war;  there  is  a  vile 
slinking  principle  curling  about  his  lips — a  fitful  puckering-up  of  his  eyes 
— a  thrilling  of  chicane  at  the  very  tip  of  his  nose;  presenting,  on  the 
whole,  a  so  abject  and  contemptible  being,  that,  were  your  dog  to  leap 
from  your  side,  and  pin  down  the  trader,  we  fear,  instead  of  punishing  the 
animal,  your  momentary  feeling  would  be  to  pat  the  sides  of  the  brute, 
and  exclaim,  "  Well  done,  honesty  1" 

Our  Slopselier  is  not  avaricious  and  grasping  by  accident — he  is  trained 
up,  deeply  educated  in  the  game.  When  scarcely  the  height  of  his  father's 
knee,  the  watchful  parent  points  out  to  his  offspring  the  bluff  and  sturdy 
defenders  of  their  country,  and  tells  him  that  on  such  as  they  he  must  in 
due  time  thrive  and  fatten.  If  any  of  our  readers  doubt  the  fact,  let 
them  but  glance  at  the  young  pigmies  of  gain,  thriving  in  the  Minories. 
We  confess,  were  we  asked  to  instance  a  startling  contrast  of  the  vastness 
and  majesty  of  nature,  and  the  subserviency  and  meanness  of  man,  \ve 
should  incontinently  name  the  wide  and  wonder-striking  ocean,  bearing  on 
its  top  the  puny  shallop  of  the  Jew  Slopselier.  Certainly,  there  maybe  many 
such  dealers  imbued  with  overy  fair  and  benevolent  feeling  in  practices  of 
trade  with  the  ignorant  and  unthinking.  We  may  gather  peaches  from  a 
holly.  J. 


1827.]  [     369     ] 


WAR:  ITS  USES. 

No.  II. 


MR.  EDITOR: — I  told  you,  in  my  former  paper,  that  honour  was  tho 
breath  of  a  soldier's  nostrils.  I  would  much  rather  it  was  a  pipe  of  port 
a-year  than  such  an  empty  substance  as  breath — particularly  when  one  is 
on  half-pay.  But,  Sir,  I  gave  you  my  honour  to  furnish  you  with  reasons 
for  going  to  war,  and,  therefore,  I  shall  perform  ;  particularly  as,  I  hope, 
that  his  Majesty's  Cabinet  will  find  a  few  which  they  had  overlooked,  and 
that  I  shall  soon  get  some  other  occupation  than  that  of  hunting  rats  with 
Teazer,  and  wishing  for  dinner-time. 

I  told  you  that  the  noble  old  Romans  never  wanted  any  other  reason 
for  going  to  war  than  that  delightfullest,  charm  ingest,  dearest — best,  of 
reasons,  the  reason  of  the  dear,  delightful,  charming  sex — "  because"  (they 
chose  it.) 

Now,  forsooth,  one  king  declares  war  against  another  king,  lest  the 
other  king  should  declare  war  against  him :  which  is  a  good  reason  enough, 
certainly,  because  it  is  always  easy  to  find.  Sometimes  one  nation  makes 
war  against  another,  because  that  other  nation  has  desired  it  to  christen 
one  of  its  children  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  x\bednego :  a  very  justifiable 
reason.  Now  and  then,  it  is  because  a  drunken  captain  in  the  navy  mis- 
takes one  ship  for  another :  an  admirable  reason.  On  another  occasion, 
it  is  because  a  strumpet  finds  it  convenient,  or  is  jealous  of  another  strum- 
pet :  a  delectable  reason — as  strumpets  are  much  given  to  quarrelling— 
and,  therefore,  it  is  an  easy  reason.  Or,  in  the  matter  of  strumpets,  it  is 
proper  and  just  to  declare  war,  should  any  of  your  neighbours  draw  your 
picture  leading  one  in  each  hand. 

Sometimes  a  nation  makes  war  because  it  has  too  much  money,  and 
sometimes  because  it  has  not  enough  :  one  or  other  of  these  reasons  need 
never  fail.  Occasionally,  it  makes  war  about  cod-fish,  that  being  so  rare 
and  valuable  an  animal;  or  about  beavers,  for  fear  it  should  be  obliged  to 
wear  silk  hats ;  or  for  otters,  that  it  may  send  Lord  Amherst  a-Kotaoing 
to  Pekin,  to  serve  his  apprenticeship  against  Rangoon  ;  against  which  it 
makes  war,  for  a  far  better  reason  than  any  of  those,  since  it  is  one  that 
nobody  can  discover. 

Nations,  very  commendably,  war  in  their  own  kitchens,  and  about  their 
own  fire-sides,  to  settle  whether,  out  of  two  knaves  or  two  fools,  which 
knave  or  fool  it  is  to  be  fool  enough  to  invest  with  a  crown. 

Sometimes  it  is  a  little  modification  of  this  which  produces  a  great 
delectability  in  war ;  namely,  whether  it  is  best  to  have  a  fool  or  a  rogue — 
whether  the  old  fool  or  the  old  rogue  shall  be  put  down,  and  a  new  fool  or 
a  new  rogue  put  up.  This  is  sometimes  called  the  question  of  legitimacy. 

Sometimes,  too,  a  higher  interference  orders  the  nations  to  receive  a 
king — says  that  his  claim  is  divine — that  his  right  is  registered  above :  and 
this  produces  mutiny  in  tho  people,  who  are  seldom  backward  in  disobey- 
ing most  of  the  orders  that  are  promulgated  from  that  quarter. 

It  was  not  uncommon,  in  former  days,  to  make  war  to  determine  whe- 
ther bread  was  flesh,  or  not ;  whether  it  required  one  parson  to  teach  every 
ten  men ;  and  whether,  there  being  only  ten  loaves,  the  parson  had  a  right 
to  one ;  whether  a  man  prayed  best  in  a  black  gown  or  in  a  white  one  ; 
what  was  the  difference  between  consubstantiation  and  transubstantiation  ; 
whether  a  civil  sort  of  Italian  gentleman  in  a  scarlet  cloak  was  the  Supreme 
Being,  or  quasi  Deus;  whether  some  people  had  a  right  to  burn  a  maa 

M.M.  Net* Series.— VoL.Hl.  No.16.  3  B 


]Vtir  :   Us  Uses.  |_  APRIL, 

for  not  eating  pork,  because  they  liked  it  themselves;  whether,  of  three  or 
four  ruffians — one  born  at  Geneva,  one  in  Rome,  and  the  rest  elsewhere — 
the  whole  were  scoundrels,  or  only  one,  or  two,  or  more  ;  or  which  was 
the  greatest  scoundrel.  And  so  on,  Sir — so  on.  Old  Fifteen  used  to 
manage  all  these  matters  well  when  he  was  younger ;  but,  like  the  old 
giants  in  John  Bunyan,  he  is  either  become  crazy  in  his  joints,  or  oblivious, 
— or,  perhaps,  turned  sentimental — which  is  his  leading  fault  nowadays. 
But  I  hope  that  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  the  spawn  oi'  old  Loyola,  will 
work  him  up  to  his  bearings  again  before  long;  and  then  "  we  shall  see 
what  we  shall  see." 

As  to  other  matters,  nations  make  war  for  a  rock  that  no  one  ever 
thought  of  thinking  of  till  some  one  else  said  it  was  worth  something  ;  or 
for  an  island,  worth  sixpence  in  fee-simple  ;  or  for  the  plague,  or  the 
yellow  fever;  or  for  rum,  or  tea,  or  coffee,  or  tobacco;  or  a  tract  of  sand, 
or  a  marsh  ;  or  for  the  pleasure  of  keeping  a  red  rag  a  foot  higher  up  the 
mast  than  some  other  people.  They  make  war  thus  for  what  they  call  the 
dominion  of  the  sea;  which,  as  it  happens,  is  the  common  dominion  of  all 
the  world  and  which  they  can  neither  fortify,  defend,  nor  occupy,  nor 
legislate  for,  nor  tax. 

In  yet  other  modes,  they  make  war  that  they  may  take  possession  of 
islands  for  the  pleasure  of  returning  them  again;  which  serves  to  display 
their  generosity  :  sometimes,  that  they  may  make  a  people,  which  they 
care  nothing  about,  free,  as  they  call  it ;  at  other  times,  that  they  may 
make  them  slaves,  which  does  as  well. 

Two  nations  make  war  together,  that  neither  of  them  may  meddle  with 
a  third  nation  ;  or  else  because  both  are  desirous  of  meddling  with  it ;  or, 
reversely,  two  combine  and  war  upon  that  third  nation,  cut  it  in  two,  and 
put,  each,  a  half  in  their  respective  pockets.  Very  commonly,  a  nation 
drubs  another  into  such  a  state  of  gratitude,  as  to  compel  it  to  buy  all  its 
goods  at  the  said  nation's  shop ;  which  is  a  very  successful  mode — when 
it  succeeds.  Or  else,  a  nation  beats  another,  and  exterminates  half  the 
people,  that  it  may  increase  the  number  of  the  consumers  of  its  articles  ;  or 
else  it  beats  and  bullies  the  said  nation — or  any  other  nation — that,  by 
impoverishing  the  people,  it  may  increase  their  industry  and  production — 
and  thus  compel  them  to  sell  all  their  goods  to  the  victors,  instead  of  buy- 
ing ;  thus,  evidently,  enabling  itself  to  sell  so  much  more. 

And  if,  in  any  of  these  several  ways,  it  buys  ten  times  as  dear  as  it 
might  else  have  done,  or  spends  a  hundred  times  the  value  of  the  articles 
before  it  can  begin  to  buy  at  all,  or  does  not  sell  by  a  million  of  times  the 
value  of  what  it  has  spent  for  the  privilege  of  selling, — why,  so  much  the 
better :  because  then  it  will  get  poor,  and  make  peace,  or  be  quiet ;  by 
which  means,  it  will  be  able  to  go  to  war  again. 

It  is  particularly  good  policy — and  it  is,  indeed,one  of  Old  Fifteen's  new 
discoveries,  making  up  for  some  of  his  late  stupidity — to  send  abroad  the 
half  of  a  nation's  people,  at  a  great  expense  ;  to  nurse  them  up  into  wealth, 
make  them  powerful,  and  then  quarrel  with  them.  This  is  an  admirable 
receipt ;  because  it  makes  and  generates  a  bottom  and  foundation  of  per- 
manent hatred  and  ever-during  causes  for  war.  And  the  thing  is  certainly 
most  effectually  executed,  by  taking  care  to  stock  your  place  with  all  the 
convicts,  felons,  scoundrels,  mutineers,  rebels,  and  so  forth,  that  can  be 
mustered ;  because  it  is  probable  that  you  will  not  have  to  wait  quite  so 
long  for  an  enemy  as  if  you  had  stocked  it  with  honest  men. 

It  is  a  good  reason  for  war,  when  a  country  does  not  reach  to  a  particular 
river;  and  it  is  a  better  one  still,  when,  having  attained  that  river,  it  does 


War:  Us  Uses.  371 

not  reach  to  the  next ;  and  so  on,  "  totics  quoties?"1  It  is  a  much  better 
reason,  when  it  reaches  from  the  Baltic  to  the  sea  of  Kamtschatka,  because 
it  is  not  then  big  enough  ;  or,  when  your  country  is  too  cold,  and  you  prefer 
a  hotter  one ;  or  when  it  is  too  hot,  and  you  wish  to  cool  yourself. 

If  you  have  not  a  ship  in  all  your  dominions,  it  is  most  proper  to  make 
war  for  the  possession  of  a  sea-port.  Very  particularly  this  is  necessary,  if 
you  happen  to  live  at  the  other  side  of  the  world,  and  want  a  port  on  this 
side — as,  for  instance,  in  the  Mediterranean.  There  is  a  very  especial 
convenience  in  this  contrivance  ;  because  you  might  have  no  neighbours  to 
make  war  with  at  home,  and  are  sure  of  getting  abundance  in  your  new 
quarters. 

Nations  ought  always  to  make  war  on  people  that  wear  turbans  and 
beards ;  on  people  that  eat  rice ;  on  all  people  that  smoke  a  great  deal, 
and  say,  "  Allah,  Illah,  Allah  !" — whether  their  beards  are  long  or  *hort 
— whether  they  shave  their  heads  or  their  chins. 

When  nations  possess  gold,  it  is,  more  especially  than  any  tiling,  proper 
to  make  war  on  them,  if  it  is  possible  to  get  at  them  ;  and  it  may  not  be 
very  improper,  when  they  possess  any  other  thing  that  you  are  particularly 
fond  of — such  as  cloves  and  cinnamon  ;  that  is,  whenever  you  can  reach 
them,  by  sea  or  land. 

Generally  speaking,  it  is  the  best  of  all  policy — it  is,  indeed,  most  essen- 
tially politic — to  declare  war  against  a  country,  because  it  is  strong. 
Strength  is  dangerous,  and  it  is  your  business  to  reduce  it.  If  you  do  not, 
the  strong  man  may  fall  upon  you,  bind  you,  arid  spoil  your  goods.  But,  if 
the  other  nation  is  weak,  then  there  is  a  better  reason  still  for  making  war  ; 
because  you  may  bind  him,  and  spoil  his  goods — which  is  all  clear 
gain. 

For  the  same  reason,  when  there  are  two  parties  in  a  nation,  squabbling 
which  fool  out  of  two  shall  be  set  up  and  worshipped,  encourage  them 
to  tight  and  quarrel ;  encourage  them  alternately  :  countenance  first  one, 
and  then  the  other  ;  and,  by  the  time  they  have  laid  down  to  pant  over  the 
bone,  you  jump  on  them,  and  gobble  up  the  whole  three — nation,  bone, 
and  all. 

There  are  a  few  other  modes  of  promoting  this  divine  science,  directly 
or  indirectly;  but,  as  the  course  of  my  education  has  been  confined  to  the 
practice,  I  am  not  exactly  such  a  master  of  the  theory  as  I  ought  to  be. 
Nevertheless — 

When  you  have  done  with  a  war,  either  because  you  are  tired,  or  that 
the  people  are  tired,  or  that  you  have  no  more  men,  or  no  more  money,  or 
for  any  other  reason  why,  you  must  make  a  peace,  you  know.  In  that 
case,  you  always  take  care  to  have  a  flaw  in  the  treaty — an  unintelligible 
clause,  or  an  article  that  may  be  taken  in  two  senses — matters,  to  which 
the  diplomatic  gentlemen  can  help  you  at  any  time,  if  you  should  be  at  a 
loss.  Thus  you  can  begin  again  whenever  it  is  convenient — that  is,  as 
soon  as  you  have  money  enough,  or  are  tired  of  peace;  or  when  officers 
are  wan  ting  promotion,  or  friends  wanting  jobs;  or  when  the  people  begin 
to  be  mutinous,  arid  talk  about  changing  the  government ;  when  tailors 
and  shoemakers  begin  to  combine,  for  example  ;  orwhen  they  read  too  many 
books,  or  dispute  about  education,  or  what  not.  It  is  just  the  same  when 
you  make  a  commercial  treaty,  in  which  you  take  care  to  over-reach  your 
neighbour — by  which  you  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone.  Get  some  money 
out  of  him  first,  and  declare  war  against  him  afterwards ;  or  receive  his 
ucelarntion,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing. 

3  B  2 


«J  72  War:  its  limes.  [APRIL, 

I  said,  Mr.  Editor,  that  a  nation  ought  to  make  war  on  another  which 
possesses  gold  or  cinnamon  ;  because  it  likes  cinnamon  and  gold  too,  and 
because  every  person  ought  to  try  to  get  what  he  likes.  And  I  said  also, 
that  one  nation  ought  to  make  war  on  a  strong  nation,  partly  that  it  may 
try  to  take  the  strong  nation's  goods,  and  partly  lest  the  strong  nation 
should  seize  on  its  goods.  But  these  are  not  half  the  reasons  why.  Rich 
nations  are  apt  to  be  proud — riche  etfi^re — as  Venice  chose  to  be  once — 
as  England  chooses  to  be  at  present.  Now,  pride  is  a  bad  thing,  and  ought 
to  be  put  down.  Put  it  down,  by  all  means:  a  nation  has  no  business  to 
be  richer  than  its  neighbours — nor  a  man  neither.  Put  them  all  down. 

Then,  if  extending  a  boundary  to  the  next  degree  of  latitude,  and  so  on 
to  the  next,  is  most  reasonable  cause  of  war,  it  is  much  more  availing  to 
desire  to  possess  all  Europe,  or  all  America.  This  happens  when  the  spirits 
mount  aloft,  in  kings,  as  a  predecessor  of  mine  has  observed ;  and  it  suc- 
ceeds well,  unless  a  priest  or  a  conjurer  should  interpose,  and  let  them 
out  by  another  road. 

To  want  the  whole  world,  is  a  better  reason  still ;  because,  being  a 
wider  cause,  it  lasts  longer.  This  is  a  secret  that  has  thriven  well,  on 
various  occasions.  Kin^s  or  republics,  it  is  all  one — except  that  the  kingly 
project  may  be  ended  over  a  bottle ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  make  a  whole 
republic  dead  drunk. 

If  you  should  have  a  large  family  that  you  want  to  provide  for,  it  is 
proper  to  conquer  estates  for  them.  Your  grandson  has  no  house  to  live  in. 
for  example :  he  wants  one ;  or  a  better  one,  because  the  old  one  is  bad ; 
arid  his  neighbour's  is  very  convenient.  Lodge  him  in  it ;  kill  half  of  your 
own  people  in  pleading  the  suit,  and  half  of  his  intended  ones  in  defending 
the  house ;  the  advantage  of  which  is,  that,  when  he  gets  into  his  new 
lodgings,  he  finds  it  half  in  ruins,  and  all  the  world  wishing  him  at  the 
devil,  as  do  those  who  broke  open  the  doors  for  him. 

There  is  a  certain  utensil  called  a  crown — a  thing  somewhat  larger  than 
what  is  called  a  star,  but  made  of  much  the  same  materials.  Now  it  is 
very  pleasant  to  give  pretty  little  toys  to  your  friends,  on  the  Jour  de  fan, 
or  on  your  own  birth-day,  or  so  on.  As  a  crown  is  a  bigger  thing  than  a 
star,  so  it  is  much  pleasanter  to  give  away — and,  as  some  people  think,  to 
receive  also.  But  as  you  cannot  give  what  you  have  not  got,  you  must 
buy  it  first.  You  can  buy  one,  perhaps,  with  about  a  million  of  lives, 
more  or  less,  and  some  hundred  or  two  of  millions  of  livres  sterling : 
another  may  cost  somewhat  less ;  and  this  is  a  very  good  expedient — 
because,  perhaps,  the  other  people  do  not  choose  to  sell,  and  so  the  bar- 
gain takes  more  time  to  settle. 

And  then,  when  the  gift  is  given,  the  receiver  turns  tail — as  this  class  is 
apt  to  be  ungrateful ;  or  other  persons  are  jealous  ;  or  the  utensil  does  not 
fit  the  place  it  was  intended  for;  or  it  tumbles  off,  or  is  pulled  off;  or  the 
man  gets  tired  of  it:  and  so,  in  various  ways,  one  trouble  makes  many 
more :  whence  this  is  a  prolific  and  an  admirable  reciept  for  war. 

If  another  man  takes  it  into  his  head  to  build  ships,  you  must  fall  upon 
him  at  once  :  burn  his  ships — burn  his  towns — burn  him  !  What  right  had 
he  with  ships  ?  Make  him  beg  pardon  for  his  impertinence ;  and,  if  he 
will  not,  you  know  then  that  you  may  do  what  you  please.  It  is  unlucky 
if  he  should  prove  such  a  ninney  as  to  fall  down,  and  cry  peccavi,  because 
then  you  must  wait  for  a  new  excuse. 

Assure  a  people  that  their  king  is  a  fool  or  a  rogue,  and  order  them  to 
take  another.  If  they  are  tame  enough  to  believe  you,  there  is  no  help 
for  the  present ;  if  not,  thresh  them  into  submission.  And,  in  the  other 


1827.]  War:  its  Uses.  373 

case — or  if  they  really  will  put  up  with  him — it  is  likely  enough  that  tho 
new  man  will  not  do  all  that  you  ask  him ;  in  which  case,  you  have  a 
good  excuse  for  threshing  him — and  his  people  too. 

The  boundary  cause,  which  I  noticed  before,  answers  very  well,  under 
modifications  which  I  have  not  yet  treated  of. 

For  example  :  two  of  your  neighbours  have  no  right  to  be  pleased  with 
their  own  opinions  about  that  matter.  Desire  them  not  to  be  pleased — 
shew  them  how  they  ought  to  be  pleased.  If  they  are  unreasonable  enough 
to  think  for  themselves,  attack  them  both — or  one — as  it  may  be  most 
convenient.  Or,  order  one  to  make  a  present  to  another  of  a  river,  or  any 
thing  else  ;  and  if  he  refuses,  thresh  him  into  it. 

Under  this  head,  too,  whenever  you  feel  yourself  particularly  rich,  or 
proud,  or  insolent,  or  out  of  humour ;  or  when  you  have  been  reading 
books — (you  know  the  books  that  you  must  read,  as  well  as  I  do,  Mr. 
Editor) — take  a  map  and  a  pair  of  compasses,  and  a  pair  of  scales  and  a 
pair  of  scissors  :  cut  the  map  into  pieces — toss  the  bits  into  the  scales — 
and,  having  well  noted  the  vacillations  of  the  index,  go  to  war.  This 
method  is  called  the  Balance- of -Power  system.  The  varieties  are,  that, 
instead  of  your  doing  this  yourself,  one,  or  two,  or  more,  can  join  you ; 
and  this  is  called  the  Method  of  Alliances. 

The  Method  of  Alliances  is  a  peculiarly  commendable  one — because 
it  is  multiplicative,  divergent,  implicative,  pre-post-retro-  and  intro-active, 
unfailing,  eternal,  and  infallible.  Every  man's  insult  thus  becomes  your 
own  :  that  is  delightful.  Three,  four,  five,  or  six  can  unite  against  one — 
because  that  one  is  rich,  or  proud,  or  poor,  or  convenient.  And  as  it  is 
probable  that  you  cannot  all  agree  on  these  and  other  matters,  the  beauty 
of  it — to  come — is,  that  you  and  your  allies  can  all  quarrel  and  go  to 
loggerheads  in  ones,  twos,  threes,  or  any  other  number,  and  in  any  way 
that  is  most  agreeable. 

These  are  complicated  methods  ;  they  require  time,  ingenuity,  trouble. 
There  is  an  easier  one.  You  get  a  tailor  to  make  a  flag — it  shall  be  white, 
if  you  like  that  colour — with  a  few  bits  of  blue  or  red  rag ;  he  tacks  on 
some  letters  to  it  ("  Nee  pluribus  impar"  will  do  as  well  as  any  thing 
else),  and  puts  a  great,  stupid,  staring  face  upon  it,  copied  from  the  sign 
of  the  Sun,  at  the  alehouse  over  the  way.  Another  gentleman  takes  ano- 
ther piece  of  cloth — but  his  is  blue.  His  tailor  makes  other  letters,  with 
white  rags;  upon  which  you  become  raging  mad — fall  to  work,  and  burn 
ships  and  towns — march,  besiege,  countermarch,  and  make  people  wonder 
"  what  is  come  over  you."  And  when  you  are  tired,  you  sit  down  again 
under  your  sign  of  the  Sun; — and  so  does  Joshua. 

But  there  is  one  reason  and  motive  which  it  is  quite  disgraceful  to  me  to 
have  forgotten  so  long — seeing  that  it  can  never,  by  any  possibility,  be 
wanting.  This  is  the  reason  to  which  I  formerly  alluded — "  Because ;"  the 
Roman  reason  :  plain,  simple,  unaffected  "  Because" — vulgarly  esteemed 
the  lady's  reason  —  or  the  reason  without  reason — or  the  children's 
reason,  when  they  squall — the  reason  of  not  knowing  why.  The 
gentleman  who  lived  under  the  sign  of  the  Sun  understood  it  well;  and  the 
canaille,  canards,  and  canaux  were  dammed  or  undammed  accordingly. 
This  is,  however,  but  a  species  under  the  generic  causes  in  which  kings 
delight — penny  trumpets,  gingerbread  and  rattles,  or  wanting  "  to  have  the 
moon  in  my  own  hand." 

In  the  polite  or  civil  method  (I  am  sorry,  Mr.  Editor,  that  my  logic  is 
not  very  well  arranged),  the  following  is  an  approved  recipe  :  One  fool 
or  rogue  sticks  a  white  rose  in  his  button-hole ;  another  rogue  or  fool  sticks 


374  War  :  //*  Uses.  [ APRIL, 

a  red  one.  Which  is  the  greatest  rogue,  fool,  or  both,  nobody  cares ;  but 
which  rose  proves  reddest,  it  becomes  shortly  difficult  to  say  :  and  this  is 
good  for  a  century  or  two. 

A  very  pretty  little  private  war  can  be  manufactured,  in  the  polite  or 
civil  method,  by  taking  care  to  have  the  force  all  on  one  side  ;  because,  in 
this  case,  you  can  stop  whenever  you  like.  For  example  :  Your  people 
need  not  believe  in  God  unless  they  choose  ;  but  they  must  not  believe  in 
him  the  wrong  way.  And  so  on,  for  the  various  reasons  I  insinuated  for- 
merly— and  others,  make  war  on  them — exterminate  them. 

I  thought  that  I  had  discovered  the  best  of  all  the  reasons,  when  I  shewed 
you  how  you  could  never  want  one,  by  following  the  example  of  the  gen- 
tleman under  the  sign  of  the  Sun,  "  as  above." — "  Oh,  memory,  thou 
fond  deceiver !"  If  a  gentleman  should  write  you  a  letter,  and  forget  to  put 
three  etceteras  to  your  name,  it  is  a  justifiable  cause  of  war.  "  And  are 
etceteras  nothing  ?"  Indeed,  my  worthy  Antient  Pistol,  they  are  a  good 
deal.  There  are,  in  most  cases,  a  good  many  etceteras,  besides  the  declared 
one,  for  which  nations  amuse  themselves  in  this  manner.  To  go  to  war  for 
etceteras  alone,  and  for  even  one  single  naked  etcetera,  I  hold  to  be  a 
case  deserving  record.  You  will  find  it  all,  if  you  will  look  in  the  right 
place.  I  am  not  jesting,  good  Mr.  Editor.  If  you  do  not  know  where  to 
look,  drop  me  aline — as  the  people  say — and  I  will  tell  you.  What,  Sir! 
do  you  expect  me  to  give  you  an  abridgment  of  the  Universal  History  ? 

If  people  have  no  right  to  live  who  will  not  believe  that  bread  is  beef  and 
wine — or  who  shave  their  heads,  and  cultivate  their  whiskers — so  are  those 
unfit  to  go  on  breathing  who  admire  the  sun  and  moon—love  to  sit  down 
round  a  large  fire — look  at  the  ends  of  their  noses  till  they  see  them  burn 
kme — carve  great  figure-heads,  like  those  inhis  Majesty's  dock-yards,  but, 
instead  of  sticking  them  on  their  ships,  put  them  up  in  their  houses.  This, 
however,  depends  on  circumstances.  Some  people  may  put  up  those 
figure-heads  in  their  houses  :  others  must  not.  If  you  ask  me  the  reason 
why,  "  pon  honour,''  Mr.  Editor,  I  cannot  tell  you. 

Be  that  matter  as  it  may,  this  is  a  valid,  justifiable,  laudable,  praise- 
worthy, noble,  and  glorious  cause  for  war — "  etiam  ad  internee ionem" — 
(Ladies,  this  does  not  mean  international) — particularly  if  the  figure-heads 
have  gold  ear-rings  or  diamond  eyes. 

It  is  a  general  rule,  that  you  ought  to  make  war  upon  all  people  that  do 
not  choose  to  speak  your  language,  which  is  the  only  one  fit  for  a  gentle- 
man ; — and,  fo  r  similar  reasons,  on  all  people  that  sit  cross-legged,  which 
is  a  base  and  tailorish  method — or  on  people  who  are  so  affectionate,  that 
they  do  what  the  poets  only  talk  of — viz.  refuse  to  survive  those  whom 
they  loved — or  who,  in  any  way,  mode,  or  manner,  differ  from  you  in 
customs — as  your  customs  can  be  the  only  right  ones.  Particularly,  this 
is  necessary,  when  there  is  any  thing  to  be  gained  by  it ;  otherwise,  you 
may  pause,  or  wait  till  you  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  your  spare  money 
and  your  spare  people. 

Spare  people,  as  I  told  you  before,  are  always  a  good  reason  for  war ; 
partly  because  you  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  them,  partly  because  they 
are  apt  to  get  riotous;  just  as  they  do  when  they  are  too  well  off,  or  not 
well  ofFenough;  for  either  condition  answers. 

If  the  nations  that  deal  in  figure-heads  are  proper  objects  for  war,  so  are 
those  which  have  no  figure-heads — which  do  riot  know  where  they  came 
from,  or  whither  they  are  going— or  which  talk  of  Somebody  that  lives 
beyond  the  Great  Mountain.  If  they  have  no  diamonds  and  gold,  they 
may  have  land,  which  does  as  well.  Those  are  good  subjects',  because 


1827.]  Hrfir:  Us  Uses.  375 

you  can  make  war  cheap,  kill  a  good  many  men,  and  save  your  own 
gunpowder.  You  can  sell  them  gunpowder,  for  example,  and  then  they 
will  kill  each  other,  which  saves  trouble ; — or  bad  guns,  and  then  they 
will  kill  themselves ; — or  make  them  a  present  of  the  small  pox,  or  of 
rurn — and  then  you  step  in,  kill  the  rest,  and  seize  their  lands. 

It  is  convenient  to  possess  so  many  resources  ;  and  it  is  out  of  my  great 
kindness  for  kings  and  people  that  I  have  laboured — for  three  whole  hours, 
upon  my  honour,  Mr.  Editor — to  rake  them  up ;  though  I  have  missed  the 
half,  as  it  is. 

But  this  you  may  depend  on,  Mr.  Editor — war  is  the  only  science : 

"  To  give  a  young  gentleman  right  education, 
The  army's  the  only  good  school  in  the  nation  ;'' 

and  so  the  more  reasons  we  have  for  commencing  it,  always  ready,  the 
better. 

The  man  who  reads  is  always  a  doubtful  character.  Many  a  brave 
officer  has  been  spoiled  by  books.  There  shall  be  no  book-men  in  my 
regiment,  if  that  happy  time  (when  I  have  one)  ever  comes. — The  little  I 
do  in  this  way  is  by  stealth,  under  the  rose.  We  get  on,  indeed,  pretty 
well  in  this  matter — no  learning  to  be  ashamed  of.  Only  see,  Sir !  There 
was  a  dispute,  the  other  day,  between  Captain  Jories-andone  of  our  young 
cornets,  about  S.  P.  Q.  R.  Bets  ran  high  ;  a  good  many  dozens  were  staked 
on  both  sides ;  and  they  were  obliged  to  call  upon  me  to  settle  it.  Not 
one  of  them,  Sir,  knew  that  it  meant,  "  Si peu  que  rien  /"  These  are  fel- 
lows, Sir,  that  will  never  flinch  before  a  bayonet. 

I  really  must  give  in,  however — for  it  is  getting  late.  But,  Lord  bless 
you,  Mr.  Editor  !  I  have  not  half  done  yet — though  I  will  bave  mercy  on 
you.  But  are  not  all  these  good  and  valid  reasons  for  going  to  war  ? 
Old  Fifteen  has  many  more  reasons  than  Young  Fifteen,  whatever  Lady 
Mary  may  think ;  and  he  shews  his  sense  in  keeping  a  good  stock. 

"  And  they  do  not  know  what  they  have  gained  when  it  is  over,"  says 
her  Ladyship.  Indeed  !  they  know  that  pretty  well.  Honour  and  glory, 
to  be  sure — is  not  that  something  ?  And  have  not  I  got  a  premium  for 
a  musket-ball  through  my  elbow  ? — and  half-pay,  besides  ?  though  I  can- 
not say  much  for  that.  Arid  have  they  not  got  more  colonies  than  they 
can  manage  or  defend  ? — and  more  debts  than  they  can  pay  ? — and  more 
men  to  discharge  than  they  know  what  to  do  with  ? — and  statues  and 
monuments  ? — and  Peace  ?  Have  not  they  got  Peace,  Mr.  Editor  ? — 
Beautiful,  olive-branched,  white-robed,  cornucopiad  Peace  and  Plenty ! 
Quartern  loaves,  like  blackberries,  on  every  hedge — ditches  overflowing 
with  porter  and  ale ! 

And  plenty  of  grumbling,  too,  I  can  tell  you.  And  this  is  the  reason 
why  they  want  war  again,  I  tell  you,  Mr.  Editor,  it  is  the  natural, 
proper,  just,  and  necessary  state  of  man.  Old  Fifteen  is  a  cleverer  fellow 
than  they  take  him  for.  It  will  be  time,  indeed,  for  him  to  die  when  he 
comes  to  fourscore ;  there  will  be  nothing  left  for  him  to  do — nothing 
wise  and  rational,  at  least.  The  Millenium  may  come  as  soon  as  it  likes, 
when  that  day  arrives  :  I  shall  be  reduced,  for  one,  that  is  certain.  There 
will  be  no  living  in  the  world,  Sir ;  it  will  no  longer  be  the  place  for 
a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  honour.  Adieu  to  the  Eleventh  Dragoons ! 
Nature  will  expire ;  the  stars  will  burn  blue,  I  am  sure ;  the  moon  will 
be  eclipsed ;  comets'  tails  will  grow  a  mile  long ;  peace  and  the  devil 
will  shake  hands  ;  and  we  shall  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  lounge  about 
in  amaranthine  bowers — which,  I  take  it,  is  very  dull  work.  I  hate 
country  quarters. — Ever  your's,  H.  I. 


[     376     ]  [Ami, 


ODE    TO    FLATTERY. 

MADAM  Flattery !  polite  and  charming — 
Thy  doses  exhilarant  and  warming — 

Who  dare  thy  name  traduce? 
Or  with  grave,  formal  impudence,  pretend 
That  they  esteem  Sincerity  a  friend, 

And  load  thee  with  abuse  ? 

Now  these  folks  fib — Sincerity  all  hate — 
From  the  low  shed  to  canopies  of  state, 

All  like  sugar — honey : 

Self-dubbed  saints  take  praise,  not  by  compulsion — 
Huge  draughts  they  love  of  that  sweet  emulsion  ; 

But  these  next  to  money. 

I'll  be  frank.    Fate  grant  bat  this  petition — 
Deprive  me  not  of  dear  imposition, 

Nor  see  me  ill-treated 

By  ugly  scarecrow  truths,  so  blunt  and  plain, 
That  busy  conscience  echoes  them  again  : 

Rather  Pd  be  cheated 

By  dear  delusions  of  affection — 
Friendship !  Patronage !  Protection ! 

Love ! — pray  who'd  repel  it  ? 
A  fine,  rich,  capillaire  collection  ; 
Paris  or  London's  the  direction 

Where  they  buy  or  sell  it. 

Pray,  who  from  such  phant'sies  would  awake, 
Like  little  children  with  the  belly-ache, 

To  fret,  and  to  be  sore — 
When  the  old  fav'rite  recipe  again 
(In  somewhat  larger  dose)  would  ease  the  pain, 

If  taken  as  before  ? 

Save  me  from  Honesty,  vile  optician ! 
That  prys  and  looks  to  our  condition 

With  frightful  microscope; 
Save  me  from  nodders,  shruggers,  winkers, 
Give  me  thy  best  charming,  patent  blinkers, 

And  drive  me  on  with  Hope. 

Give  me  some  sweetly-sugared,  soothing  drop, 
Or  some  such  rich,  intoxicating  sop, 

As  would  charm  a  dragon : 
You'll  find  in  me  no  silly,  sulky  clown  ; 
Thy  largest  dose,  in  truth,  I'd  swallow  down, 

Though  it  were  a  flagon. 

Thou  soft  warm  water,  trickling  down  one's  back — 
Thou  luscious  draught  of  Malmsey,  or  of  sack — 

Or  whiskey-punch  of  Pat — 
Or  Martinique  noyau — or  rich  liqueur — 
Or  cordial  called,  in  France,  parfait  amour  ! 

You  take  me?     Verbum  sat. 

How  delightful !  when  some  tongue  rehearses, 
"  Really,  you  write  such  clever  verses  !" 

Let  them  this  flattery  call : 
Why,  Sir,  it  matters  not  to  me  a  rush ; 
No!  Jay  it  on  with  large,  thick,  rich  pound  brush! 
A  Poet  can  take  all. 

POLLIO. 


J827.J  [     377     ] 

THE    LORD    MAYOR'S    JOURNEY    TO    OXFORD.* 

"  Begin,  diverting1  muse,  a  comic  strain, 
Of  MY  LORD  MAYOR  conducted  o'er  the  main  I 

"  ALTHOUGH  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  as  Con-' 
servator  of  the  river  Thames,  has  extended,  time  immemorial,  from  Yant- 
let,  about  fifty  miles  below  London  Bridge,  on  the  east,  to  the  London 
Mark  stone,  about  thirty-six  miles  on  the  west :  it  has  yet  but  rarely 
happened  that  the  Court  of  Aldermen  have  thought  proper,  by  any  for- 
mality of  proceeding,  publicly  to  renew  their  claim  to  this  jurisdiction 
over  those  districts  of  the  river  lying  west  of  Richmond." 

There  are  some  instances  in  which  a  writer  tells  his  own  story  so  well, 
that  it  would  be  downright  malice  to  attempt  to  open  it  for  him.  The 
above  paragraph  stands  at  the  commencement  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Dil- 
lon's book ;  and  we  cannot  do  better  than  commence  our  notice  with  it. 

The  work  before  us,  then,  which  supplies  a  narrative — punctual  even 
to  the  minutest  details — of  the  "  moving  accidents,  by  flood  and  field," 
which  befell  the  last  Lord  Mayor,  Mr.  Venables,  and  a  select  body  of  the 
Court  of  Aldermen,  on  an  excursion  which  they  made  from  Cornhill  to 
Oxford,  in  the  course  of  the  last  summer,  was  written,  it  appears,  ex- 
pressly, by  "  the  desire  of  the  said  Lord  Mayor," — now,  unhappily, 
sic  transeant  glorife  ! — so  fugacious  are  civil  honours ! — a  "  LORD" 
no  longer ! — and  is  dedicated,  in  a  page  flowered  all  over  with  large  and 
small  capitals — so  disposed  as  to  form  a  perfect  chart,  or  vade  mecum, 
upon  every  future  point  of  civic  precedency — to  the  right  honourable 
late  chief  magistrate  in  person,  and  the  respectable  individuals,  generally, 
who  composed  his  party.  The  author,  Mr.  Dillon,  as  "  Chaplain  to 
the  Mayoralty,"  naturally,  and  most  properly,  felt — any  "  wishes"  to 
be  "commands!"  from  the  "distinguished  personage,"  to  whom  "he 
owed  the  honour  of  his  appointment;"  and,  after  trusting,  in  a  very 
brief  but  modest  preface,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  task  undertaken 
"  altogether  out  of  accordance"  with  the  sacred  profession  of  which  he 
is  "  the  unworthiest  member,"  the  reverend  narrator  proceeds  at  once—  • 
in  the  paragraph  above  quoted — to  "  incision." 

It  seems  that,  "  in  the  course  of  every  Mayoralty,"  as  far  back  as  the 
memory  of  the  City  Remembrancer  extends,  "  Courts  of  Conservancy  of 
the  river  Thames,"  have  been  used  to  be  held  by  the  "  chief  magistrates,", 
at  "  Stratford  and  Greenwich,  for  the  counties  of  Essex  and  Kent/' 
and  "  at  Richmond  for  those  of  Surrey  and  Middlesex;"  and  that  the- 
days  on  which  these  courts  were  held  have  been  used  to  be  considered 
"  as  some  of  the  pleasantest,  as  well  as  the  most  useful  in  the  course  of 
the  civic  year."  But,  notwithstanding  this  fact,  and  owing  probably  to, 
that  peculiar  disposition,  which  persons  in  high  office — (as  it  is  agreed  on 
all  hands) — have  to  neglect  the  duties  for  which  their  office  was  constitu- 
ted— it  appears  that  the  "  jurisdiction  of  the  Lord  Mayor  over  the  river 
Thames,  as  far  as  the  town  of  Staines,  in  the  county  of  Middlesex,"  had. 
only  once  been  asserted,  since  the  Mayoralty  of  Sir  Watkin  Lewis  in  the 
year  1781 — "  to  wit,  in  the  reign  of  *  Sir  Claudius  Stephen  Hunter, 
Baronet,'  in  the  year  1812  !" — up  to  the  present  time. 

In  such  an  improved  state,  however,  as  we  have  reached  lately  as  to 
all  facilities  connected  with  locomotion,  this  was  not  a  .state  of  things 

*  "  The  Lord  Mayor's  visit  to  Oxford,  in  the  month  of  July  ]  826.    Written  at  the  desire 
of  (he  party,  by  the  Chaplain  to  the  Mayoralty." — Longman  and  Co. 

M,M.  New  Series— VOL. III.  INo.  16.  3  C 


3/8  The  Lord  Mayor  s  Journey  to  Oxford. 

which  could  be  expected  to  continue.  New  seras  and  emergencies  give 
birth  to  new  spirits,  and  to  new  exertions.  And,  accordingly — 

"  Early  in  the  present  year  (1826)  it  was  proposed  to  the  Lord  Mayor,  by  some 
of  the  Aldermen,  and  others  connected  with  the  navigation  of  the  river  Thames, 
to  consider  the  propriety  of  again  asserting  the  civic  prerogative  over  that  part  of 
the  river,  at  the  city  stone,  nearStaines,  in  the  course  of  the  summer.  It  was  also 
proposed  to  connect  with  the  excursion  a  visit  to  Oxford." 

The  inception  of  great  undertakings,  however,  is  necessarily  gradual. 
The  proposed  expedition  is  not  resolved  upon  at  once.  Doubts,  in  fact, 
might  fairly  be  looked  for  in  the  shape  of  objections  to  "  the  length  of  the 
way."  A  home  thrust  put  by  the  town  clerk  would  be,  as  to — "  who 
knew  the  road  ?"  Two  4<  holes  in  the  bottom  of  the  city  barge,"  might  be 
mentioned — perhaps  that  would  be  answered — "  they  might  be  stopped." 
But,  in  the  end,  after  a  great  deal  of  question  and  discussion — "  Whether 
the  ox-tail  soup  would  be  good  at  Oxford,  or  whether  a  supply  ought  to 
be  sent  down  from  London  ?"  by  Mr.  Alderman  Birch — '•  What  would 
be  the  cost  of  the  lock  and  turnpike  tolls  on  the  way ;"  and  whether 
the  party  would  have  to  pay  them  or  "  be  entitled  to  pass  free  ?"  by  Sir 
Claudius  Stephen  Hunter— A  word  or  two  upon  "  the  danger  of  FIUK 
in  Mansion-houses  left  to  themselves,"  from  Mr.  Alderman  Atkins — And 
a  doubt,  especial  (on  the  part  of  the  author  in  person  probably)  as  to 
"  what  would  become  of  the  City  of  London  if  its  natural  sovereign 
were  absent  from  it?"- — For — 

"  As  tender  wives  their  husbands'  absence  mourn, 
And  with  impatience  wait  their  safe  return  ; 
So  widowed  "  wards"  with  equal  tears  should  grieve, 
When  Lord  Mayors,  like  our  own,  their  London  leave" — 

we  find  the  party  separating  abruptly,  without  any  thing  having  been 
resolved  upon !  The  thing  however  is  to  be.  Conversation  on  the 
subject  is  resumed' — > 

"  On  midsummer-day,  in  the  chamber  of  the  Guildhall,  whither  the  Lord  Mayor, 
after  having  opened  a  Common  Hall,  had  retired  with  the  Aldermen,  to  allow  the 
Livery  of  London,  there  assembled,  the  free  and  unbiassed  exercise  of  one  of  their 
undoubted  rights— the  election  of  sheriffs  of  London  and  Middlesex,  for  the  ensuing 
year." 

And  on  this  occasion 

"  The  last  week  in  July  was  ultimately  and  unanimously  fixed  for  the  ex- 
cursion." 

The  "  plan"  originally  designed  by  the  Lord  Mayor 

"  Was,  to  invite  the  heads  of  houses,  and  such  other  distinguished  members  of 
the  University,  as  might  be  in  residence  at  the  time— (for  it  was  foreseen  that  this 
visit  would  fall  in  the  long  vacation)  together  with  the  Mayor  and  Magistrates  ot 
the  city,  to  honour  his  Lordship  and  friends  with  their  company  at  dinner,  m 
Oxford,  on  Wednesday,  the  26th  of  July ;  to  leave  Oxford  on  the  morning  o 
27th,  and  so  to  arrive  in  London  on  the  Saturday  evening  following." 

But  this  arrangement  is  frustrated  by  a  premature  and  unexpected  dis- 
closure.    "  Pitchers,"    the  proverb   says,   "  have   ears."     And,   as    Mr 
Dillon  most  justly  observes  in  this  part  of  his  work— many  things  woi 
be  highly  extraordinary  if  they  did  not  happen  every  day.— 

"If  it  were  not  notorious  how  soon  the  rumour  of  any  measure  is  propagated, 
even  before  it  is  fully  matured,   it  would  be  almost  im-rcdible  that  this  excursion 
should  have  scarcely  been  determined  upoa  in  London,  before  it  was^fcno       - 
Oxford." 


J827.]  The  Lord  Mayor  a  Journey  to  Oxford.  379 


Yet  such  was  the  fact.  No  sooner  had  the  important  "'So  be  it," 
issued  from  the  lips  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  than  the  "  grasshopper"  on  the 
top  of  the  Royal  Exchange  (the  precaution  having  been  neglected  of 
swearing  him  to  secresy)  telegraphed  the  "  striking  boys"  of  the  clock  at 
Carfax  church.  And,  quick  as  apoplexy,  a  note  arrives,  with  the  wax 
yet  warm,  from  the  Mayor  and  Magistrates  of  Oxford,  asking  the  Lord 
Mayor  to  dine  with  them  on  the  26th  instant — the  very  day  on  which 
he  had  intended  that  they  should  dine  with  him  ! 

So— 

"  As  it  stands  agreed  by  all, 
That,  but  by  force  or  fraud, 
That  day  a  man  should  dine  at  home, 
He  cannot  dine  abroad." 

**  This  letter,  at  once  so  unexpected  and  so  welcome,  gave  occasion  to  a  very 
pleasing  sort  of  embarrassment,  on  the  part  of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen  of 
London.  They  felt  it  would  be  unkind,  if  not  improper,  to  decline  the  invitation 
so  han-dsomely  given  by  the  mayor  and  magistrates  of  that  ancient  and  most  loyal 
city  5  and  yet,  as  they  had  not  intended  to  prolong  their  stay  in  Oxford,  beyond  a 
single  day,  and  had,  moreover,  fixed  to  entertain  at  dinner,  the  chief  members  of 
the  University,  and  the  city,  they  know  not  how  they  could  accept  it !"' 

The  dilemma  will  be  admitted  to  be  a  critical  one ;  and  perhaps  the 
whole  party — Lord  Mayor,  Alderman,  and  all — might,  up  to  this  hour, 
have  been  unable  to  extricate  themselves  from  it — if  a  gentleman,  of  happy 
facility,  had  not  suddenly  suggested  a  resource,  by  the  question — 
"  Could  not  your  Lordship  go  a  day  sooner  to  Oxfoid  ?" 

This  admirable  stratagem,  of  which  we  rather  suspect  Mr.  Dillon  him- 
self, although  a  laudable  modesty  has  prevented  him  from  laying  claim  to 
it,  clears  up  the  difficulty.     A  letter  is  dispatched  to  Oxford,  requesting 
the  Mayor  and  Magistrates  to  "  make"  their  dinner  "  Thursday  the  25th 
.  instant." 

"  Instructions  were  given  to  the  town  clerk,  to  secure  such  accommodation  at  an 
inn  in  Oxford,  Reading,  and  Windsor,  as  might  be  adequate  for  the  civic  party  ; 
and  to  make  every  other  necessary  arrangements." 

And  nothing  remains  (after  making  the  Wills  of  all  the  travellers)  but 
to  fit  out  for  the  expedition. 

At  this  point,  if  we  could  write  any  poetry  we  would  :  for  the  subject 
rises  into  an  interest  which  can  only  adequately  be  sustained  by  verse. 
"  For  Brentford,  ho!"  is  the  cry,  from  Walbrook  to  Bishopsgate  with- 
out. The  Lord  Mayor's  trumpeter  blows  his  horn 

"  Tuba  dirum  spar  gens  so  num." 

with  a  force  that  shakes  the  city ;  till  the  hoarse  roar  of  the  Guildhall 
giants  answers  like  an  echo.  The  "  trysting  place"  is  Monument-yard; 
and  the  "  gathering"  commences. 

The  party  is  to  "  return  from  Oxford"  in  the  "  city  state  barge ;" 
but,  for  more  independence  and  delight,  it  is  agreed  that  the  individuals 
composing  it  shall  make  their  way  to  that  classic  and  venerable  city, 
each  in  the  way  which  best  suits  his  own  convenience.  Therefore 

"  Every  preliminary  arrangement  being  completed,  and  ample  accommodation 
having  been  secured  at  the  Star  Inn,  Oxford,  fur  his  Lordship  and  suite,  to  the 
number  of  about  thirty  persons,  Mr.  Alderman  Atkins,  accompanied  by  two  of  his 
daughters,  Miss  Atkins,  and  Miss  Sarah  Jane,  left  his  seat,  Haisiead  Place,  in  Kent, 
On  Monday, 'the  24th  of  July,  and  set  out  from  London,  for  Oxford,  in  the  cuol  of 
the  following  morning!  On  the  same  "day,  Mr.  Alderman  and  Mrs.  Lucas,  with 

3  C  2 


f380  The  Lord  Mayors  Journey  to  Oxford.  [APRIL, 

their  daughters,  Miss  Charlotte  and  Miss  Catharine,  left  their  house,  at  Lea,  in 
Kent,  and  went  by  land  as  far  as  Boulter's  Lock,  near  Maidenhead,  where  they 
embarked  on  board  the  Navigation  bhallop,  and  proceeded  by  water  to  Reading ; 
thus  selecting  some  of  the  finest  views  on  the  river.  From  Reading,  their  carriage 
brought  them  to  Oxford  before  three  o'clock  on  Tuesday." 

In  the  mean  time, 

"  The  city  state  barge,  which  had  recently  undergone  complete  repair,  was 
making  its  way  to  Oxford,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Saunders,  the  watei-baiiiff; 
and  expended  five  days  in  its  passage  thither." 

And,  on  the  morning  of  the  25th  instant,  the  Lord  Mayor,  having" 
found — for  the  consolation  of  all  Cheap  and  Candlewick — an  autho- 
rity in  "  Alderman  Sir  James  Shaw,  Baronet,"  to  *«  whose  mature  dis- 
cretion" might  be  safely  left  even  the  consideration  of  "  weightier  mat- 
ters" than  those  to  which  the  attention  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  city 
of  London  commonly  is  called — "  accompanied  by  the  Lady  Mayoress," 
and  "  attended  by  the  chaplain" — (our  author  in  this  distinction  is  too 
modest — surely  the  church  should  be  our  guide  !) — left  the  civic  taber- 
nacle, known  as  "  The  Mansion  Elouse,"  in  person,  soon  after  eight 
o'clock. 

"The  private  state- carriage,  drawn  by  four  beautiful  bays,  had  driven  to  the 
door  at  half-past  seven.  The  coachman's  countenance  was  reserved  and  thought- 
ful; indicating  full  consciousness  of  the  test  by  which  his  equestrian  skill  would  this 
day  be  tried,  in  having  the  undivided  charge  of  four  high  spirited  and  stately  horses, 
— a  circumstance  somewhat  unusual ;  for,  in  the  Lord  Mayor's  carriage, &  postilion 
usually  guides  the  first  pair  of  horses.  These  fine  animals  were  in  admirable  con- 
dition for  the  journey.  Having  been  allowed  a  previous  day  of  unbroken  rest,  they 
were  quite  impatient  of  delay ;  and  chafed  and  champed  exceedingly  on  the  bits, 
by  which  their  impetuosity  was  restrained." 

The  name  of  the.  coachman  is  not  given.  This,  we  think,  detracts 
a  little  from  the  otherwise  admirable  particularity  of  the  description. 
But— 

"  The  murmur  of  expectation,  which  had  lasted  for  more  than  half  an  hour, 
amongst  the  crowd  who  had  gathered  round  the  carriage,  was  at  length  hushed  by 
the  opening  of  the  hall  door!  The  Lord  Mayor  had  been  filling  up  this  interval 
with  instructions  to  thefemme  de  menage,  and  other  household  officers,  who  were  to 
be  left  in  residence,  to  attend  with  their  wonted  fidelity  and  diligence  to  their 
respective  departments  of  service  during  his  absence,  and  now  appeared  at  the  door. 
His  Lcrdship  was  accompanied  by  the  Lady  Mayoress,  and  followed  by  the  chap- 
lain." 

The  lady's-maid,  according  to  Swift,  should  in  all  great  households, 
deserve  a  place  in  the  heart  of  the  Chaplain  ;  and  the  Abigail  of  the  Lady 
Mayoress  is  defeased  of  none  of  her  titular  rights. 

"  As  soon  as  the  female  attendant  of  the  Lady  Mayoress  had  taken  her  seat 
dressed  with  becoming  neatness,  at  the  side  of  the  well-looking  coachman,  the  car- 
riage drove  away;  not,  however,  with  that  violent  and  extreme  rapidity,  which 
rather  astounds  than  gratifies  the  beholders;  but  at  that  steady  and  majestic  pace, 
which  is  always  an  indication  of  real  greatness.  Passing  along  Cheapside  and 
Fleet-street,  those  arteries,  as  Dr.  Johnson  somewhere  styles  them,  through  which 
pours  the  full  tide  of  London  population,  and  then,  along  the  Strand,  and  Picca- 
dilly, the  carriage  took  the  Henley  road  to  Oxford." 

The  due  distinctions  of  rank  and  state  are  well  observed,  it  will  be 
seen,  in  this  arrangement.    The  carnage  does  not,  like  the  mere  plebeian 
post-chaiso  in  John  Gilpin,  proceed  in  such  a  manner  that 


J  827.]  The  Lord  Mayor's  Journey  to  Oxford*  331 

"  The  stones  should  rattle  underneath, 
As  if  Cheapside  were  mad  !" 

but  travels  rather  with  a  seemly  soberness,  as  though  conscious  that  it 
carried  necks  of  price.  The  whole  country  indeed — let  alone  the  car- 
riage— seems  to  be  sensible  of  the  honour  it  is  about  to  receive  from  a 
"  Lord  Mayor's"  presence;  and  is  ready  to  jump  out  of  its  skin— ^f 
such  a  metaphor  can  fairly  be  used  with  reference  to  a  country — before 
we  reach  Kensington,  for  joy. 

"  The  weather  was  delightful!  t,he  sun,  as  though  it  had  been  refreshed  by  the 
copious  and  seasonable  showers  that  had  fallen  very  recently,  seemed  to  rise  more 
bright  and  elf ar  than  usual,  and  streamed  in  full  glory  all  around.  The  dust  of 
almost  a  whole  summer  had  been  laid  by  the  rain,  the  roads  were,  of  consequence, 
in  excellent  order,  and  the  whole  face  of  creation  gleamed  with  joy." 

By  extraordinary  good  luck  too,  (being  a  thing  which  hardly  happens 
once  in  seven  years)  a  powder-mill  seems  to  feel  a  sort  of  disinterested  gra- 
titude for  the  honour  done  to  its  vicinity,  and  blows  itself  up  as  the  Lord 
Mayor  approaches  Staines.  As  every  precaution  had  always  been  taken  in 
the  building  to  avoid  danger,  it  appears  that  there  was  no  way  of  account- 
ing for  the  accident — expept  by  supposing  this  spirit  of  self-devotion,  Jx> 
which  we  have  alluded.  And  instances  of  the  same  description  have 
occurred.  The  case  of  the  Irishman  who,  on  hearing  a  report  that  the 
Pope  was  at  Bally bricken,  said — "  Sure,  won't  I  throw  myself  out  of  this 
tree  for  joy !" — and  broke  his  leg  in  tke  performance — will  be  inime- 
;  diately  in  point. 

Horses  are  changed  at  Cranford-bridge  ;  and  it  is  recorded  that—       : 

"  Just  as  the  carriage  was  about  to  drive  away,  Mr.  Alderman  Magnay,  accom- 
pan;ed  by  his  lady  and  daughter,  arrived  in  a  post-chaise.  After  an  interchange 
of  salutations,  the  Lady  Mayoress,  observing  that  they  must  be  somewhat  crowdid 
in  the  chaise,  invited  Miss  Magnay  to  take  the  fourth  seat,  which  had  yet  been 
vacant,  in  the  carriage.  As  the  day  was  beginning  to  be  warm,  this  courteous 
ofter  of  her  ladyship  was  readily  accepted." 

And  from  hence,  driven  at  a  speed  which  "  betokens  a  desire  (even) 
on  the  part  of  the  postilions,  that  the  Lord  Mayor  should  have  no  cause 
to  complain  either  of  horses  or  drivers  on  the  Henley  road,"  the  happ-p 
party  arrives  in  Oxford  at  "  a  quarter  after  three  o'clock,"  and  sits  down 
to  dinner  with  the  dignitaries  of  that  place  at  a  quarter  before  seven. 

We  regret,  for  the  sake  of  our  readers,  that  a  view  even  already, 
to  our  limits,  compels  us  to  cut  short  Mr.  Dillon's  description  of  this 
dinner;  of  the  persons  who  attended  it,  and  the  speeches  which  were 
made  at  it.  We  are  also  obliged,  though  reluctantly,  to  take  the  same 
liberty  with  the  reverend  gentleman's  account  of  the  procession,  '"  two 
and  two" — (this  is  a  bad  mode  of  "  proceeding:"  FalstafT  has  a  com- 
ment upon  it,  if  we  do  not  mistake — '*  Yea,  two  and  two,  Newgate 
fashion!"; — of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  his  suite,  from  the  Star  Inn*  to  the 

*The  "  Star"  Inn,  in  the  street  of  Oxford  called  the  "  Corn  Market,''  used  to  be  one 
of  the  best  houses  in  England ;  iintl  will  be  well  known,  both  for  its  excellence  and  the 
enormity  of  its  charges,  to  every  Oxford  man.  Though,  of  lute,  I  hear  that  the  students 
affect  the  "  Angel,'7  which,  in  my  recollection,  was  not  near  so  good  an  hotel.  The 
<;  Star,"  however,  was  known  to  all  kinds  of  Oxford  people  ;  the  "  gown''  and  the 
"  town"  resorted  to  it  equally.  The  rich  knew  it  lor  the  flavour  of  its  wine ;  and  the 
poor  snufted  up  the  o  'our  of  its  soups  a«  they  passed.  So  that  men  of  every  rank  made 
it  a  token  of  amity  and  recognition  when  they  met.  And  one  night,  as  a  troop-sbip  was 
beating  about  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  with  two  of  her  topmasts  rolled  away  already,  and 
the  wind  increasing  every  moment — "Can  you  see  a  star,  George?"  suid  a  young 


1*hc  Lord  Mayors  Jo*r*ey  to  Oxford.  [  APRIL, 

Town  Hall.  With  the  further  description  of  the  room  in  which  the  repast 
was  provided;  of  the  pictures  hanging,  and  the  plate  set  out— even  to  the 
cup  presented  at  the  coronation  of  "  his  Most  Gracious  Majesty,  King 
George  the  Fourth — whom  God  preserve!"  And  no  less  with  the 
sketches  of  scenery,  moral  reflections,  &c.  &c.,  induced  by  the  entry  of 
the  writer  into  Oxford — the  sight  of  the  gardens  at  Magdalen — the  walks 
of  Christchurch,  &c.  &c.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  banquet  was  "  of 
sUch  a  grand  and  costly  nature,  as  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  whole 
neighbouring  country  had  been  pv^.  in  requisition  !"  That 

"  Wines  of  the  most  expensive  and  rarest  kind,  and  as  cold  as  the  most  refined 
])on  vivant  could  have  wished  them,  with  fruit,  were  then  placed  on  the  table. 
And  when  the  usual  toasts  of  loyalty, — "  the  King/' — "  the  Duke  of  York  and  the 
Army," — "  the  Duke  of  Clarence  and  the  Navy," — "  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  and  the 
rest  of  the  Royal  Family,1'  had  been  given,  and  drunk  with  becoming  enthu- 
siasm"— 

The  Mayor  of  Oxford  rose  and  proposed  the  Mayor  of  London's 
liealth  ;  and  the  Mayor  of  London  rose,  and  proposed  the  Mayor  of 
Oxford's  health;  and  so  the  healths  went  on,  through  the  aldermen  and 
the  sheriffs,  down  to  the  town  clerk,  and  the  city  solicitor. 

That 

4<  The  conversation  at  this  banquet,  in  the  intervals  of  the  several  toasts,  thouah 
naturally  of  a  desultory  nature,  was  yet  such  as  to  shew  that  good  taste,  good 
feeling,  and  good  sense,  are  by  no  means  limited  to  the  citizens  of  the  metropolis.'" 

A  matter  which— although  it  had  not  been  "  written  down" — perhaps 
we  might  have  suspected. 
And  moreover,  that 

"  The  Lady  Mayoress,  and  other  ladies  of  the  party,  to  the  number  of  eight 
ordered  dinner  at  the  Star,  and  spent  the  evening  in  their  own  society." 

Until 

"When  the  clock  had  nearly  sounded  within  an  hour  of  midnight,  the  Lord 
Mayor  rose  from  table,  and  was  followed  by  the  rest  of  the  company.  Coffee  was 
landed  round  in  the  withdrawing  room.  The  party  soon  afterwards  retired  •,  and 
the  Lord  Mayor,  accompanied  by  his  friends,  returned  to  the  inn,  where  they 
separated  to  their  respective  apartments  of  repose. — " 

Which  concludes  the  history  of  the  journey  to  Oxford,  "  on  Tuesday 
*'  the  25th  of  July  1826." 

The  day  of  Wednesday — which  forms,  written  down  in  large  capitals, 
the  title  of  the  second  chapter  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Dillon's  book — appears 
to  have  been  consumed  almost  entirely  in  eating  and  drinking.  And  the 
author  falls  into  his  subject  with  a  degree  of  correctness  well  becoming 
a  Christian  Divine — more  especially  one  who  held  the  place  of  Chaplain 
to  the  Mayoralty  :  mentally  seeming  to  exclaim,  at  least  at  the  end  of 
every  page,  if  not  oftener — "  Blessed  be  the  man  who  first  invented  stuf- 
fing a  turkey  with  truffles !" 

No  sooner  were  the  first  greetings  of  this  morning  exchanged — which 

cornetof  the  lOtb,  who  was  nn  Oxonian  born,  poking  his  head  up  through  the  corn- 
pa  aioo,  to  look  at  the  sky,  and  calling  to  a  private,  his  servant,  who  was  standing  on 
deck — "  I  wish  I  could  see  one  star,  your  honour,"  was  the  answer,  "  and  then  J'd  know 
that  we  were  safe  out  of  all  this.''—"  Why,  what  star  do  you  mean  ?"  returned  the  first 
speaker,  something  surprised  at  the  ustrouoniical  nicety  of  his  domestic.—  "  Please  your 
honour,-'  said  the  servant,  who  was  an  Oxford  man  as  well  as  his  master—"  1  meap 
the  Star  in  the  Corn  Market.'' 


1 82  T.]  •  The  Lord  Mayer's  Journey  to  Oxford, 

were  multiplied  by  the  arrival  "  of  Mr.  Alderman  Heygate  and  his  lady," 
accompanied  by  "  Miss  M'Murdo,   Mrs.  Heygate's  sister,"  than — 

"  An  ample  breakfast  was  provided  in  a  large  room,  on  the  first  floor,  overlook- 
ing the  street  called  the  corn-market.  The  table,  which  extended  through  the 
whole  length  of  the  room,  was  covered  with  as  elegant  linen  as  the  wardrobe  of 
the  inn  could  furnish,  and  was  loaded  'with  a  magnificent  breakfast.  The  tea  and 
coffee  were  accompanied  not  only  with  bread,  warm  and  cold,  in  the  shape  of 
loaves,  cakes,  and  biscuits,  with  other  varieties,  and  butter,  but  with  every  delicacy 
with  which  the  morning  meal,  when  sumptuously  provided,  is  usually  furnished.1' 

The  precise  hour  and  minute  at  which  this  repast  concluded,  is  not 
named ;  but  it  appears  that  it  did  not  render  the  party  incapable  after- 
wards "  of  doing  honour  to  a  copious  luncheon,  which,  at  two  o'clock, 
was  presented  at  the  Star." 

And,  again — the  "  hour  of  six"  had   "  scarcely  arrived" 

"When  the  company,  invited  by  the  Lord  Mayor  to  dine  with  him,  began  to 
assemble." 

By  times,  between  these  fierce  exertions  of  delight,  amusements  of  a 
lighter  and  more  various  character  were  served  up  : 

"  From  raised  crusts  levelled,  never  more  to  rise, 
From  murdered  ducks,  and  massacred  mince  pies," 

The  strangers  rose,  and  proceeded  to  nourish  the  mind  as  well  as  the 
body  by  viewing  some  of  the  curiosities  and  antiquities  of  the  place. 

Even,  here,  however,  the  peculiar  tact  of  the  Oxonians  enabled  them 
to  select  such  objects  for  display,  as  were  best  calculated  to  touch  the 
hearts  (through  the  stomachs)  of  their  visitors.  The  attention  of  Mr. 
Dillon  himself  seems  to  have  been  particularly  attracted  by  the  exhi- 
bition of — 

"  A  large,  old,  curious  gridiron,  apparently  about  four  feet  square,  supported  by 
four  wheels,  used  in  former  times  for  dressing  whole  joints,  betore  spits  and  ranges 
were  invented."" 

A  lecture,  illustrating  the  offices  of  "the  teeth,"   and  their  peculiarly 
apposite  location  for  all  the  various  descriptions  of  "  chewing,"   is  pro- 
uounced  to  have  afforded,  at  every  second  sentence,  new  insight  into 
"  The  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Creator !" 

But  the  crowning  display  of  the  whole  appears  to  have  been  an  exhi- 
bition, by  Dr.  Kidd,  the  Regius  Professor  of  Anatomy,  of  an  anatomical 
preparation  of  "  a  TURTLE  !" — the  arteries  and  veins  tilled  with 
wax,  and  the  absorbent  vessels  with  quicksilver!" 

Upon  the  effect  of  such  a  display  as  this,  to  such  a  company — and 
before  "luncheon"  too!"  it  is  unnecessary  for  us  to  speak.  It  must 
have  acted  upon  a  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  we  take  it — not  to  speak  of  its 
effect  upon  a  Chaplain— as  a  provocative  amounting  almost  to  insanity. 

" Petit  ille  dopes 

Oraqne  vana  movet,  dentemque  in  dcnte  fatigat, 

Exercetquecibo  deluyum  guttur  inani, 

Proque  epulis  tenues  necquicqnarn  devorat  auras." 

But  the  joys  of  this  world,  alas !  are  fleeting.     "  Flowers !"  says  Mr. 
Somebody,  the  poot,  somewhere- — "  why  bloom  ?"  And  the  answer  is — 

"  To  light  us  to  our  tomb  !" 

Or,  as  the  writer  of  "  Warnings,"  in  the  last  "  Amulet,"  more  melo- 
diously advises  us— 


384  The  Lord  Mayor  s  Journey  to  Or/ord.  [ 

44  Beauty— remember  that  change  and  decay, 

Will  pursue  in  your  path,  as  the  night  follows  day. 

Pride — bear  in  mind  that  your  form  is  of  clay, 

And  will  rot  with  the  meanest  that  stands  in  your  way. 

Wealth — that  you  are  like  the  rainbow's  bright  ray, 

Unsubstantial  as  clouds,  and  as  fleeting  as  they. 

Rank — let  your  name  he  as  high  as  it  may, 

That  the  mandate,  "  Be  dust!"  even  you  must  obey. 

Power — what  things  are  your  life  and  your  sway  ! 

Which  a  breath  can  destroy,  and  a  murmur  betray.1' 

Alas !  alas  !  why  does  a  man  eat  his  dinner  to-day,  but  to  be  h'flngry 
again  to-morrow !  And  what  does  a  Lord  Mayor  of  London  go  to  Oxford 
for— but  to  come  back  again ! 

On  THURSDAY, 

f  While  the  morning  was  yet  early  (for  the  Lord  Mayor  had,  the  night  before, 
requested  his  friends  not  to  devote  too  many  hours  to  repose),  the  sound  of  foot- 
steps, passing  and  repassing,  was  heard  through  the  inn,  accompanied  by  whisper- 
ing consultations  among  the  servants,  who  were  collecting,  at  every  chamber  door, 
the  luggage  of  the  party,  in  order  that  every  thing  might  be  in  readiness  for  em- 
barking as  soon  as  the  Lord  Mayor  had  risen. 

Long  before  severi  o'clock,  the  whole  city  was  in  motion ;  and  flocks  of  people 
were  seen  sweeping  along  the  streets,  and  hastening  to  the  banks  of  Christ  Church 
meadow— the  point  from  which  the  embarkation  would  best  be  seen. 

The  state  barge — on  the  sides  of  which  the  ten  splendid  scarlet  silk  banners  were 
brightened,  as  they  waved  gently  in  the  rising  sun,  was  attended  by  the  shallop,  of 
the  Thames  Navigation  Committee  of  the  City  of  London. 

In  another  large  boat,  half-covered  with  an  awning,  was  his  Lordship's  yeomen 
of  the  household,  who  had  charge  of  the  provisions  for  the  Lord  Mayor's  parly; 
together  with  the  cook,  who  was,  at  the  time  of  embarkation,  busily  engaged  in  pre- 
paring a  fire  in  a  grate,  fixed  in  the  bow  of  the  boat. 

About  seven  o'clock,  signals  of  the  approach  of  his  Lordship's  party  were  de- 
scried and  heard  !  The  populace,  thickly  stationed  on  the  road  through  which 
the  carriages  were  to  pass,  caught  up  the  acclamation,  and  announced  to  all  who 
thronged  the  margin  of  the  river,  that  the  Lord  Mayor  was  coming.  His  Lordship 
and  the  Lady  Mayoress  alighted  from  the  carriage  at  the  bridge,  and  walked 
through  the  respectful  c  rowel,  which  divided  to  give  them  passage ;  and  were  at 
once  conveyed  to  the  state  barge,  in  the  water  bailiff's  boat. 

The  whole  party  now  quickly  followed;  and  at  a  quarter  after  seven,  amidst 
shouts  of  reiterated  applause  from  the  surrounding  multitudes,  the  city  barge, 
manned  by  the,  city  watermen,  in  scarlet  liveries,  and  all  the  other  boats  in  atten- 
dance on  his  Lordship,  were  simultaneously  launched  on  the  broad  bosom  of  the' 
princely  Thames." 

The  ingenious  Tom  Brown  relates,  that,  being  once  much  in  love  with 
a  poctes.s,  there  came  on  him  such  a  morbid  appetite  to  write  verse,  as  he 
could  no  way  account  for,  and  which  he  was  only  cured  of  by  a  very 
peculiar  and  not  always  safe  operation.  In  the  same  way,  at  the  very 
reading  of  Mr.  Dillon's  prose,  we  find  the  mania  of  poetry  coming  upon 
ourselves.  We  must  resist  the  influence;  but,  nevertheless,  we  admit  its 
power.  If  ever  a  laureate  to  "  The  Mayoralty"  should  be  appointed, 
ibr  this  description  of  the  embarkation  alone,  we  decidedly  give  our  vote 
that  Mr.  D.  should  be  the  man. 

The  beauties  of  the  country  about  Oxford,  as  seen  from  the  river, 
appear  to  have  been  something  overlooked  in  the  commencement  of  the 
civic  homeward  voyage.  For  our  author  states,  with  some  seeming  regret, 
that 

"  About  nine  in  the  morning,  the  pirty  were  all  so  unitedly  engaged  in  the 
elegant  cabin  of  the  stale  barge,  in  doing  honour  to  the  delicacies  of  the  Lord 


1837.J  T/te  Lord  Mayors  Journey  to  Oxford.  38,5 

Mayor's  breakfast-tablet  that  the  beauties  of  Nuneham  were  not  seen  to  the  best 
advantage." 

And,  at  Clifton,  notwithstanding  "  the  expense  that  had  boon  incurred 
for  the  supply  of  water,"  the  country  having  been  "  comparatively 
drained  for  several  miles  along  the  upper  districts" — (it  is  well  that  great 
men  do  not  travel  very  often) — it  appears  that  the  City  Barge,  or  Shallop, 
"  was  detained  a  considerable  length  of  time" — or,  in  plain  English,  we 
apprehend,  stuck  in  the  mud. 

In  the  interim,  the  company  amused  themselves  with  throwing  half- 
pence to  the  children  as  they  ran  along  the  banks  of  the  water  by  the  side 
of  the  barge;  a  diversion  which  has  at  least  the  recommendation  of  some 
charitable  feeling  about  it,  and  in  which  Mr.  Alderman  Atkins  is  related 
to  have  entered  with  great  spirit. 

At  half-past  three,  "  dinner'  again  restores  the  exhaustion  produced  by 
this  exercise  ;  and  at  Caversham,  where  the  river  runs  close  along  the  side 
of  the  public  road,  a  vast  number  of  persons,  on  foot,  on  horseback,  and  in 
carriages,  were  collected  to  see  the  barges  as  they  passed,  aud  afford  enter- 
tainment to  the  voyagers. 

"  Among  the  equestrians,  two  are  deserving  that  their  looks  and  equipments 
should  be  alluded  to  in  more  than  general  terms.  The  animals  they  bestrode  were 
a  couple  of  broken-down  ponies,  gaunt  and  rusty,  who  had  possibly  once  seen 
better  days.  The  men,  themselves,  were  not  unsuitable  figures  for  such  a  pair  of 
steeds.  They  rode  with  short  stirrups,  that  brought  their  knees  almost  under 
cover  of  the  shaggy  mane,  that  overspread  the  ewe  necks  of  the  poor  creatures, 
and  carried  their  short  thick  sticks  perpendicular  in  their  hands  !" 

Persons  like  these,  were  of  course  very  proper  objects  for  a  display  of 
civic  wit.  And,  indeed,  it  turns  out  that 

"  So  mightily  pleased  was.  the  Lord  Mayor  with  their  uncouth  and  ludicrous 
appearance,  that  he  hailed  one  of  them,  and  asked  him  to  be  the  bearer  of  a 
message  to  Reading,  touching  his  Lordship's  carriage."' 

The  effect  of  this  jest  is  very  pleasantly  described  : 

"  The  fellow  seemed  to  feel  as  he  never  felt  before  !  An  honour  was  about  to  be 
conferred  "upon  him  alone — to  be  the  avant-courier  of  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London— - 
above  and  beyond  all  the  other  riders,  drivers,  .and  walkers,  of  whatever  quality 
and  degree,  who  had  thronged  to  the  view  of  the  civic  party.  And  no  sooner  had 
his  Lordship  flung  him  a  piece  of  money,  and  told  him  to  "  make  haste  to  the 
Bear  Inn,  Reading,  and  order  the  Lord  Mayor's  carriage  to  meet  the  barge  at 
Caversham  Bridge,"  than  the  fellow  instantly  belaboured  the  starveling  ribs  of  the 
poor  animal  that  carried  him,  with  kicks  and  cudgel,  who,  in  a  moment,  dashed 
briskly  forward,  snuffling  and  snorting  across  the  fields.  In  the  eagerness  of  his 
flight,  the  doughty  messenger  had  much  ado  to  maintain  his  seat ;  he  sometimes 
slipped  on  one  side  of  the  saddle,  and  sometimes  on  the  other  ;  while  the  skirts  of 
his  unbuttoned  coat  fluttered  far  out  behind  him,  &c.  &c." 

Again,  we  cannot  too  deeply  regret,  that  our  already  copious  extracts 
from  Mr.  Dillon's  work,  compel  us  to  omit  all  account  of  the  "  sump- 
tuous supper,"  which  took  place  on  this  night  at  Reading,  or  even  of  the 
re-embarkation  which  followed  it  on  the  next  morning.  Similar  oblivion 
must  await  the  reflections  at  Cliefden,  upon  the  character  of  the  (Charles 
the  Second)  Duke  of  Buckingham,  "  whom  Dryden,"  as  our  author  says, 
"  has  doomed  to  a  painful  immortality,**  but  whose  crimes  we  cannot 
afford  to  immortalise  any  further. 

It  is  right,  however,  that  we  should  state,  that  reports  having  been  cir- 
culated that— - 

MM.  New  Series.— VoiML  No.  16.  3  D 


386  The  Lord  Mayors  Journey  to  Oxford.  [  A 

"  The  Lord  Mayor  would  dine  at  Cliefden  on  his  way  to  London ;'  preparations 
had  been  made  for  that  fete  champetre,  in  a  manner  corresponding  with  the  rank 
of  the  guests  expected  to  be  present." 

That  the  Lord  Mayor,  and  Lady  Mayoress,  took  their  seats  "at  the 
upper  end  of  a  long  dining  table,  crowded  with  cold  dainties  ;''  that  the 
children  shouted,  and  "  threw  up  their  hats ;"  and  that  the  air  "  echoed 
with  the  sound  of  rejoicings  •"  and  that  the  very  Thames 

"  Seemed  to  awe  itself  into  stillness,  as  if  to  listen  more  attentively  to  the  high 
applause  with  which  the  arrival  at  this  spot  of  its  chief  conservator  was  welcomed." 

•  And,  if  the  mere  water  felt  all  this — "what — will  not  every  reader  ask 
—must  have  been  the  sensations  of  the  fishes?" 

In  giving  these  facts,  however,  we  give  nearly  the  last  lines  that  we  can 
afford  ;  we  must  refer  our  friends  to  the  book  itself,  for  the  comparison  be- 
tween Augustus  Caesar,  and  the  late  King  George  the  Third  ;  for  the 
description  of  Windsor  Castle,  as  shewn  to  the  travellers,  by  Mr.  Wyat- 
ville ;  for  the  tribute  to  the  merits  of  the  illustrious  Monarch  who  now 
fills  the  Throne  of  these  Realms;  and  for  the  prayer,  that  every  man  in 
England  may  sit  down  "  eating  of  his  own  vine  and  fig-tree ;" — in  which 
event — to  let  the  grapes  pass — he  must  unquestionably  eat  the  worst  figs 
that  are  grown  in  all  Europe. 

All  these  matters  (as  regards  their  detail)  must  be  omitted.  Nor  can 
we  afford  more  than  a  word  in  passing  to  the  column,  which  is  not  built  at 
Runnymede,  but  which  Dr.  Akenside  wrote  an  inscription  for,  against  it  is 
built — something  the  easier  task  of  the  two.  To  the  visits  to  the  "  city 
stone'*  atStaines,  round  which  the  whole  procession  walks  most  mystically 
three  times !  at  the  end  of  which  peregrination,  Lord  Henry  Beauclerk, 
one  of  three 

•*«  Nice  little  boys,  of  the  ages  of  nine,  twelve,  and  fourteen,  who  were  altogether 
devoid  of  that  petulant  volubility,  which  so  commonly  renders  the  young  impatient 
of  the  conversation  and  company  of  their  elders;  and  were  so  intelligent,  so  well- 
behaved,  and  unassuming  in  their  manners,  as  to  give  great  promise  of  their  future 
eminence  and  deportment  in  life." 

"  mounted  the  stone,"  and  held  the  city  flag,  while  the  Lord  Mayor 
broke  a  bottle  of  wine  upon  it,  and  drank — "  God  save  the  City  of  Lon- 
don !"  (a  prayer,  heaven  knows,  at  need  !) — and  "  scattered  abroad  somo 
hundred  newly  coined  sixpences ;" — and  then,  returning  on  board  the  barge, 
sat  down,  at  three  o'clock,  to  "  a  cold  collation  5" — which  is  the  last  MEAL 
commemorated  by  our  author — (the  Lord  Mayor  arriving  at  the  Mansion- 
House  a  few  minutes  before  ten  on  that  same  night) — and  with  which,  it 
can  hardly  be  necessary  for  us  to  add,  his  book  draws  near  to  a  conclusion. 

A  few  reflections  follow  upon  "  affairs  in  general ;"  and,  among  other 
matters,  on  the  cause  why  this  narrative  has  been  written.  Should  this 
question  be  asked,  there  needs  no  other  answer  than  that  it  records  the 
adventures  of  a  party  of  individuals,  who  "  are  never  likely  to  meet  again 
in  this  world,  all  together,  and  in  the  same  society." 

This  lamentable  truth,  the  force  of  which  is,  in  general,  too  much  ne- 
glected— notwithstanding  the  fact  that  it  applies  to  every  crowd  that  stands, 
though  but  for  a  minute,  round  a  ballad-singer  in  the  street — acquires  fresh 
strength  from  the  circumstance,  that,  before  the  sheets  of  the  present  work 
were  at  press,  one  of  the  groupe  chronicled — an  alderman  too ! — had  been 
gathered  to  his  fathers ! 

Downward,  we  may  imagine — as  the  great  bard  sings  of  the  departure 
of  aldermen  generally — 


1 827.]  The  Lord  Mayors  Journey  to  Oxford.  387 

"  Downward,  a  gormandizing  ghost  he  goes, 
And  bears  fresh  fire  to  1'art'rus  on  his  nose; 
For  Calipash  explores  th'  infernal  scene, 


And  fancies  Phlegethon  one  vast  tureen  !" 


Mr.  Dillon  finally  concludes,  by  cautioning  the  rest  of  the  aldermen—- 
who  met  at  Oxford,  and  who  still  remain  alive — that  there  is  but  one  way 
in  which  their  ever  meeting  again  can  be  ensured — which  is — "to  be  in- 
cluded in  t'ce  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born,,  whose  names 
are  written  in  Heaven."  In  the  promulgation  of  which  most  excellent 
and  moral  direction,  we  shall  take  leave  of  him,  with  many  thanks  .for  the 
entertainment  which  the  perusal  of  his  book  has  urforded.  Time  presses; 
and  Mr.  D.  will  be  aware  that  reviews,  as  well  as  rural  excursions,  must 
have  their  ends  ;  and  we  shall  come  to  ours,  in  parodying  the  last  verse  of 
a  work,  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  he  is  deeply  acquainted  with, 
but  which  we  pay  him  no  compliment  in  saying  he  has  entirely  surpassed — 
— the  travels  of  John  Gilpin  to  Edmonton.  As  the  poet  ceases  his  singing 
there,  so  cease  we  our  saying  here — with  a  wish  in  which  we  are  con- 
vinced every  one  of  our  readers,  and  of  Mr.  Dillon's  readers,  will  join  us  :-— 

"Now  let  us  sing,  long  live  the  King? 
The  Lord  Mayor,  lon^  live  he  ; 
And  when  he  next  to  Oxford  goes, 
May  we  be  there  to  see!" 


THE    WISH. 

I  ALWAYS  think — I  know  not  why — 
There's  nothing  half  so  sad  as  I. 

****** 

I  wish  I  was  yon  glorious  Star, 
That  shines  so  sweetly  from  afar ; 
Jt  looks  so  beautiful  and  bright. 
Shedding  its  soft  and  silvery  light  ; 
And  gazing  downwards,  seems  to  say, 
'*  I  pity  thee,  poor  child  of  clay  !" 

I  wish  I  was  yon  little  Cloud, 

Along  the  srky  so  gaily  driven  ; 
I'd  spread  my  milk-white  sails,  and,  proud, 

I'd  plough  theazuie  deep  of  heaven. 

Oh !  that  I  were  yon  glittering  Bubble 

That  dances  on  the  moonlight  sea! 
Without  a  thought,  without  a  trouble, 

It  swims  along  so  merrily. 
The  next  revolving  wave  may  sweep 
The  little  sparkler  from  the  deep  ; 
And  yet  I  would  its  fate  were  mine  ! 

Better  to  live  one  happy  day, 
Than  through  a  long,  long  life  to  pine 

For  very  weariness  away. 

Oh  !  that  I  were  some  Water-Spright — 

My  dwelling-place  a  coral  cave  ! 
I'd  weave  my  hair  with  gems  so  bright, 

And  ride  upon  the  watery  wave. 
Ah !  who  can  tell  what  I  may  be, 
When  death  hath  set  my  spirit  free  ? 
1  may  be  one  of  Ocean's  daughters, 
And  dwell  beneath  the  bright  blue  waters,  LYRA* 

3  D  2 


[     388     ]  [APRIL, 

THE    CATHOLIC    RESOLUTIONS. 

THE  Catholic  Question  has  been  brought  on  ;  and  has  met  with  the  fate 
which  we  anticipated,  two  months  since  (if  it  did  come  on)  it  must  meet 
with.  Sir  Francis  Burdett's  "  Resolutions  "'  were  negatived  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  Tuesday,  the  6th  of  March,  by  a  majority  of  four :  being 
a  division  worse  by  thirty-one  votes  for  the  Catholics  than  that  which  they 
obtained  last  year,  when  a  majority  of  twenty-seven  voted  in  their  favour. 
We  confess  that  we  are  not  very  sorry  for  this  result,  although  we  wish 
heartily  well  to  the  removal  of  Catholic  disabilities.  A  majority  of  four 
or  live  votes — or  even  of  ten  or  fifteen — the  other  way,  would  have  pro- 
duced no  practical  advantage  :  the  question  would  certainly  have  been 
lost  (upon  such  a  division)  in  the  House  of  Lords.  And  it  is  possible  that 
this  unequivocal  demonstration  of  the  mischief,  which  their  conduct  during 
the  last  year  has  produced  to  their  cause  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of 
England,  may  open  the  eyes  of  the  reasonable  part  of  the  Catholic  com- 
munity to  the  real  nature  of  the  course  which  they  are  pursuing.  Men 
will  be  men  sometimes,  in  despite  of  philosophy ;  and  the  Irish  people  may 
rely  upon  it,  that  England  will  not  be  bullied.  It  serves  very  little  to 
dispute  about  what  ought  to  happen  in  any  case,  when  every  day's  prac- 
tice, and  mere  common-sense,  are  sufficient  to  shew  us  what  inevitably 
will  happen  in  it ;  and  the  number  of  persons — in  any  country — whose 
politics  are  proof  against  all  provocation,  will  be  small.  The  Duke  of 
York,  their  great  supposed  "  enemy,"  is  dead  ;  and  the  Earl  of  Liver- 
pool, their  other  great  "  enemy,"  is  (politically)  removed ;  and  where 
are  the  claims  of  the  Catholics — with  all  this  accession  of  advantage — but 
cut  and  rejected  more  determinately  than  ever,  by  almost  three  people 
out  of  four  throughout  Great- Britain  ? 

The  truth  is,  that  the  existing  administration  of  the  Catholic  interests — 
as  regards  Ireland — is  of  a  character  which  will  not  do.  Mr.  Shiel  and 
Mr.  O'Connell,  and  the  minor  speculators  who  are  employed  by  or  hang 
about  them,  delude  themselves  very  abundantly ;  but  they  can  have  no 
hope  to  delude  any  body  else.  They  may  believe  that  the  parade-speeches 
which  half-a-dozen  orators  give  them  yearly  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
are  evidence  that  the  voice  of  the  country  is  in  their  favour :  but,  if  they 
have  any  such  belief  as  this,  they  are  most  wretchedly  mistaken.  What 
title  do  they  imagine  they  have,  in  fact,  to  any  support  from  dispassionate 
people  ? — what  step  have  they  ever  taken  on  behalf  of  the  Catholic  claims 
which  has  not  tended  to  bring  those  claims  into  ridicule  or  aversion  ?  If 
they  really  meant  to  serve  that  cause,  what  but  insanity  could  lead  them  to 
connect  themselves  with  Cobbett — a  man  notoriously  obnoxious  to  every 
party  in  the  legislature ;  and  whose  utmost  exertions — with  all  his  talents 
— were  unable  to  procure  him  a  seat  in  the  legislature  himself?  Mr. 
O'Connell  institutes  an  order  of  '«  Liberators  "  for  Ireland  !  gives  his  knight- 
hood a  uniform,  and  makes  his  grandson  (of  a  month  old)  a  member,  or 
grand  master,  of  the  party  ! — this  may  pass  for  business  in  Ireland;  but 
it  would  hardly  escape  being  taken  for  burlesque  any  where  else.  Mr. 
Shiel  makes  a  speech  to  the  Catholics  of  Mullengar,  in  which  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  Duke  of  York — as  he  lay  upon  his  death-bed — are  made, 
laboriously,  a  subject  for  triumph  and  ridicule  ! — Is  this  the  way  to  con- 
ciliate the  good-will — or  to  rouse  the  anger,  disgust,  and  indignation — of 
the  people  of  England  ?  We  will  not  dwell  upon  the  continued  language 
of  insult  and  menace,  that  has  been  poured  forth  from  the  Catholic  Asso- 


1827.]  The  Catholic  Resolutions.  389 

elation — language  such  as,  used  from  one  individual  to  another,  would 
compel  a  man  to  refuse  the  very  object  which  he  might  be  about,  even  unhe- 
sitatingly, to  concede.  We  will  not  say  any  thing  of  the  unworthiness  of 
that  system  of  equivocation  and  misrepresentation  which  has  brought  men 
at  last  in  this  country  to  distrust  every  assertion  coming  from  the  heads 
of  the  Irish  Catholic  church,  until  they  have  themselves  absolutely  com- 
pared and  examined  it.  We  will  not  make  any  comment  upon  the  decency 
of  raising  a  "  rent "  from  the  poor  peasantry  of  Ireland — that  peasantry  for 
whom  charity,  not  three  years  back,  was  begged  from  door  to  door  at  the 
hands  of  the  people  of  England — and  proposing  to  apply  a  portion  of  the 
money  so  collected  to  examining  the  titles  of  those  opponents  to  Catholic 
claims  who  may  choose  to  exert  even  their  common  law  and  common  reason 
right  to  eject  unprofitable  tenants  from  their  estates.  But  we  will  ask — Is  the 
policy  of  this  conduct — no  matter  what  its  morality — any  thing  less  than 
ruin  to  a  cause,  which  must  depend  for  its  success  upon  the  good-will  and 
conviction  of  the  Protestant  interest,  both  in  Ireland  and  in  England  ? 

Mr.  O'Connell  and  his  friends — we  are   afraid — have  talked  until,   at 
last,  they  really  believe  that  which  they  utter.     They  are  accustomed  to 
knock  down  all  opposition  with  big  words  and  thundering  sentences,  in 
their  Catholic  debates  and  tavern  speeches  ;  and  they  get  a  wild  fancy  that 
the  same  thing  can  be  done  in  the  business  of  life.  All  their  opponents  must 
be  fools  ! — perhaps  there  is  hardly  a  man  who  could  make  a  seven  hours' 
speech  (without  a  new  point  from  beginning  to  end  of  it)  among  them. 
As  fools  will  pretty  necessarily  be  cowards — an  odd  word  or  two  about 
"blood" — and  "  foreign  enemy" — and  "  nine  millions  in  arms" — may 
come  in  pretty  well,  as  the  utterer  fancies,  now  and  then,  by  way  of  sea- 
soning ;  as  a  "  damme"  in  a  coffee-house  quarrel  is  esteemed  to  empha- 
sise the  discourse.     And  then  the  House  of  Commons  receives   petitions 
for  Emancipation  very  attentively  and  civilly — as  it  does  all  petitions  on  any 
subject  which  are  worded  in  civil  language.    And  the  people  do  not  petition 
of  late  very  much  against  the  measure — because  they  feel  certain  that 
(under  its  present  management)  it  is  perfectly  impossible  it  should  be  car- 
ried.    And  then  we  start  in  our  debate — quite  secure  in  the  wisdom  of  a 
"  new  parliament " — making  such  an  outcry  about  our  triumph  before  it 
happens,  that  we  have  not  leisure  to  notice  any  little  quiet  remark  that  any 
body  makes  about  its  being  likely  not  to  happen  at  all.     We  get  a  speech 
of  six  columns  from  Sir  Francis  Burdett ;  another,  of  six  more,  from  Mr. 
Plunkett;  twice  as  much  again  from   Mr.  Brougham  and  Mr.  Canning; 
and  a  cut-up  of  all  the  review  and  magazine  politics  of  the  last  three 
months  (to  the  tune  of  about  sixty  columns)  from  the  minor  Catholic  sup- 
porters.    And  then  comes  a  speech  from  Mr.  Peel — very  plain,   and,   to 
our  view,  of  course,  very  clumsy  ;  and  a  speech  from  the  Master  of  the 
Rolls — altogether  a  sad  failure  ;  and  a    neat  little  episode   of  "  facts  " 
about  our  extreme  madness,  from  Mr.  George  Dawson ;  which — as  we 
cannot  very  well  answer  the  whole  of  it — it  is  better  to  clamour  at  than 
to  listen  to.     And  then  comes  the  DIVISION — at  the  beginning  of  which—- 
though not  a  word  worth  a  farthing  has  been  said  to  our  disparagement— 
we  don't  feel  quite  so  bold  as  we  thought  we  should  do.     And  then  comes 
the  majority  AGAINST  us :  which  does  not  even  give  us  the  privilege  of 
wasting  two  nights  more  in  talking  in  the  House  of  Lords.     And  then  we 
discover  that — "  there  must  be  a  rebellion !" — and  that  "we  will  petition  no 
more!'* — and  that,  in  fact,  we  have  been  floundering,  when  we  thought 
that  we  were  flying.     And  so,  away,  pell-mell,  again  to  Ireland,  to  rant, 


390  The  Catholic  Resolutions.  [  APRIL, 

and   rave,  and  vapour — and  prepare  matters  for  just   the  same  sort  of 
failure  next  year. 

.  Now  the  threat  of  "  rebellion  "  is  very  absurd.  The  great  mass  of  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland — the  peasantry — suffer  no  practical  inconvenience 
from  the  existing  disabilities.  And,  if  those  men  who  would  have  given 
up  even  the  political  rights  that  they  have — who  would  have  disfranchised 
the  forty  shilling  freeholders — can  rouse  those  freeholders  into  rebellion 
for  Catholic  Emancipation,  then  they  will  be  able  to  accomplish  the  same 
work  upon  any  future  pretext,  no  matter  how  frivolous ;  the  struggle  will 
have  to  arise :  and  we  may  as  well  meet  it  on  the  instant.  But,  if  it 
should  come  to  this,  the  fault  will  never  be  attributable  to  any  necessary 
unpopularity  of  the  Catholic  cause  in  England,  but  to  the  weakness  and 
apathy  of  those  fit  and  natural  representatives  of  the  Catholic  community 
in  Ireland,  who  shrink  back,  when  they  should  step  forward  and  take 
their  cause  out  of  the  hands  of  men,  who  are  carrying  it  with  long  and 
rapid  strides,  to  its  destruction.  Of  this  the  Irish  Catholic  proprietors  may 
rest  assured  : — while  the  Catholic  Association  remains  constituted  as  it  is, 
and  conducts  itself  as  it  has  done,  the  removal  of  their  disabilities  never 
will  take  place.  Whatever  may  be  the  intention  of  these  persons,  their 
conduct  has  done  more  mischief,  in  only  the  last  year,  to  the  Catholic 
interests,  than  three  years  of  temperance,  and  prudence,  and  sober  conduct 
will  fetch  up  again.  They  have  contrived — the  two  or  three  individuals 
who  are  heard  of  as  the  "  leaders  "  of  the  Catholic  Association — to 
associate  with  the  name  of  "  Catholicism "  almost  every  idea  that  is 
repugnant  to  the  minds  of  the  people  of  England.  Sedition — equivo- 
cation— bigotry — obstinacy — and  vain  boasting,  are  the  only  thoughts  that 
suggest  themselves  to  the  minds  of  (numerically)  three-fourths  of  the 
British  people,  when  the  claims  of  the  Catholics  are  named.  "•  Do  you 
refuse  us  what  we  ask  by  a  '  Resolution  '  one  night  ? — we'll  try  you  with 
a  '  Bill/  and  make  you  go  through  the  debate  again  on  the  next.  Do 
our  meetings  and  our  inflammatory  speeches  offend  you  ? — we'll  give  you 
ten  times  more  of  them — and  more  furious — than  ever.  We  sent  you  a 
thousand  petitions  ; — you  read  them,  and  decided  against  us  : — no  matter  ; 
in  six  months  more  we'll  send  you  two  thousand  ; — see  what  you  will  say 
to  them.  We  are  refused  by  the  House  of  Commons  : — we'll  try  if  we 
can't  annoy  the  king.  You  will  not  give  us  Emancipation? — well !  we 
shall  go  now  for  a  '  Repeal  of  the  Union.'  If  we  can  do  nothing  else,  we 
will  provoke  and  bait  you  :  and — beware  ! — for,  if  debate  does  not  answer 
us  at  last — '  action  ' — ;  legal,  constitutional  action  '—is  at  hand  !"  This 
is  Irish  Catholic  argument,  and  conciliation ! 

It  is  trash  for  the  Catholic  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  Ireland  to  say 
that  they  are  not  responsible  for  the  acts  or  the  conduct  of  the  Catholic 
Association.  They,  many  of  them,  support  that  Association  :  two- 
thirds  of  them  subscribe  to  its  funds :  not  one  comes  forward  to  reject 
and  renounce  the  inflammatory  matter  that  is  put  forth  from  it  on  their 
account  ;  and,  until  they  do  this — whatever  their  own  feelings  may  be — 
to  talk  of  their  not  being  responsible  will  be  treated  as  a  pretence. 

Catholic  Emancipation  is  a  measure  which  must  be  carried  sooner  or 
later :  but,  if  the  present  generation  of  Catholics  are  to  see  it  carried,  their 
proper  leaders  must  come  forward  firmly,  andtakethe  cause  out  of  those  hands 
to  which,  by  some  fatal  error  only,  it  could  ever  have  been  entrusted.  The 
majority  of*"  four  "  in  the  House  of  Commons — taken  as  a  fact  of  itself — 
would  not  be  a  circumstance  worth  naming :  but  it  is  a  going-back — a 


1827.]  The  Catholic  Resolutions.  391 

retrograding — a  loss  of  thirty -one  votes : — it  is  the  decision  of  a  fresh  parlia- 
ment, elected  under  the  influence  of  those  feelings  which  the  Catholic 
administration  of  Mr.  Shiel  and  Mr.  O'Conriell  had  excited  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  of  this  empire.  If  the  Catholic  gentlemen  of  Ireland  dare 
do  justice  to  themselves  and  to  their  country,  they  will  not  let  their  pas- 
sions betray  them  into  sanctioning  this  ruinous  conduct  any  longer.  The 
most  moderate  portion  of  talents,  united  with  sobriety,  patience,  and  inte- 
grity, would  be  sufficient  to  ensure  the  success  of  their  cause:  but  every 
moment  that  its  present  representatives  remain  entrusted  with  it,  places  that 
success  at  a  further  distance,  and  widens  that  breach  between  the  two  par- 
ties, which  wiser  or  more  sincere  politicians  will  have  to  fill  up.  The  course 
of  clamour,  dogged  pertinacity,  and  menace,  may  lead  to  insurrection ; 
but  England  never  will  change  her  opinions  to  get  rid  of  mere  importunity, 
or  be  so  mad  as  to  answer  an  appeal  to  her  fears  with  any  other  reply 
than — that  she  is  prepared.  It  is  not  by  employing  advocates,  at  whose 
very  names  persons  of  sober  meaning  turn  away  with  dislike ;  it  is  not 
by  relying  upon  what  may  have  been  dreamed  of  two  hundred  years — or 
twenty  years — ago— -the  hopes  held  out  at  the  Union,  on  the  true  reading 
of  the  treaty  of  Limerick ;  it  is  only  by  shewing  that  the  privileges 
which  they  demand  may  now  be  yielded  to  them  with  safety,  that  the 
Catholics  can  hope  to  do  any  practical  good  in  England ;  and,  unfor- 
tunately, almost  every  word  that  has  been  uttered  for  them  of  late  years 
goes  directly  to  the  contrary  of  such  a  proposition.  There  is  a  distinction 
—if  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  could  find  it — between  pertinacity  and  per- 
severance. With  men  of  only  common  character  and  conduct  for  its  lead- 
ers, their  cause  cannot  fail  of  eventual  success  ;  but — unless  the  thing  is 
done  by  force — after  the  measures  of  the  last  two  years — it  is  hopeless — it 
is  impossible,  that  that  success  can  be  immediate.  The  temperate  and 
influential  friends — whether  Protestant  or  Catholic — of  the  removal  of 
Catholic  restrictions  in  Ireland,  must  unite  themselves  into  a  body  for  pro- 
moting that  object — if  it  is  to  be  promoted — upon  different  principles  from 
those  on  which  it  has  been  advocated  of  late.  Their  aim  must  be  to  con- 
vince— not  merely  to  importune  or  to  threaten ;  to  shew  the  people  of 
England  the  inconveniences  which,  practically,  they  suffer  from  the  opera- 
tion of  the  existing  system — two-thirds  of  whom  scarcely  believe  that 
(except  for  the  purposes  of  an  occasional  oration)  they  labour  under  any 
grievances  at  all.  This  object  will  be  more  readily  obtained,  too — hard 
as  it  will  be  for  some  persons  to  believe  us — by  the  exhibition  of  facts  than 
by  the  utterance  of  harangues.  The  actual  evils  of  Ireland — and  not  the 
beauties  of  Burke — must  be  the  matter  for  demonstration.  The  species  of 
motion — guardedly  selected  as  to  subject,  and  well  followed  up — which 
Sir  John  Newport  has  once  or  twice  brought  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, upon  the  state  of  the  Church  property  and  church  "  rating  "  in 
Ireland — would  produce  ten  times  more  effect,  for  the  next  five  years, 
in  sapping  the  foundation  of  the  existing  system  in  that  country,  than  a 
dozen  debates  upon  Bills,  Resolutions,  or  what  not,  proceeding  directly 
for  that  object  which  the  people  of  England  are  as  yet  not  prepared  to 
grant — for  "  Catholic  Emancipation. " 


392    ]  [APRIL, 


SIMILITUDES. 

WHAT  can  Love  be  likened  to?-— 
To  the  glittering,  fleeting  dew  ; 
To  heaven's  bright,  but  fading  bow ; 
To  the  white,  but  melting  snow  ; 
To  fleeting  sounds,  and  viewless  air ; 
To  all  that's  sweet,  and  false,  and  fair. 

Whereto  can  we  liken  Hope? — 
To  the  arch  of  heaven's  wide  cope, 
Where  birds  sing  sweetly,  but  are  flying; 
Where  days  shine  brightly,  but  are  dying  ; 
So  near,  that  we  behold  it  ever ; 
So  far,  that  we  shall  reach  it  never. 

What  can  Beauty's  semblance  boast  ? — 
The  rose  resembles  her  the  most, 
For  that's  the  sweetest  among  flowers—- 
The brightest  gem  in  Flora's  bowers ; 
And  all  its  sweetness  soon  is  past, 
And  all  its  brightness  fades  at  last. 

And  what  are  Dreams,  that  light  night's  gloom  ? — 
Doves  that,  like  Noah's,  go  and  come, 
To  teach  the  soul  this  orb  of  clay 
Shall  not  its  prison  be  for  aye—- 
That Time's  dark  waves  shall  soon  subside, 
And  brighter  worlds  spread  far  and  wide. 

And  what's  like  Popular  Renown, 
When  the  destroyer  it  doth  crown  ?— 
The  honey  which  the  wild  bee's  power 
Wings  from  the  bosom  of  the  flower; 
The  harmless  drones  no  honey  bring — 
They  win  the  sweets  who  wear  the  sting. 

And  what  is  like  Ambition's  flight  > — 

The  eagle,  on  his  airy  height; 

On  whose  broad  wings  the  sunbeam  plays, 

Though  from  the  world  they  hide  his  rays, 

Drinking  the  dew  before  it  falls, 

For  which  the  parch'd  earth  vainly  calls. 

H.N. 


1827.]  [    393    ] 

SONGS   FllOM    THE    FRENCH. 

THE  French  wits  have  been  long  in  the  habit  of  meeting  in  pleasant 
clubs,  where  the  order  of  the  night,  as  at  most  clubs  all  over  the  world, 
is  eating,  drinking,  and  singing.  They  have,  however>  one  merit  which 
distinguishes  them  from  our  clubs  of  the  same  kind — which  is,  that  they 
frequently  publish  the  songs  which  they  contribute. 

The  most  famous  (we  believe — for,  on  such  important  points,  we  do  not 
wish  to  hazard  an  unqualified  assertion)  is  that  called  Les  Soupers  de 
Momus ;  but  the  Nouveau  Caveau,  and  the  Caveau  Moderne,  have  no 
small  share  of  reputation.  Bcranger — who  is,  beyond  all  contradiction, 
the  first  song-writer  of  France,  and,  in  his  own  style,  perhaps  of  Europe — 
belongs  to  the  Caveau  Moderne.  In  Galignani's  reading-room,  the  heads 
of  the  chief  members  of  these  three  clubs  are  exhibited  in  one  plate ;  and, 
whatever  may  be  the  wit  of  the  gentlemen,  it  will  readily  be  owned  that 
their  claims  for  beauty  are  not  conspicuous.  An  uglier  set  of  people  could 
scarcely  be  got  together  on  any  other  principle. 

The  French  have  always  had  a  great  facility  in  composing  songs 
on  all  occasions — many  of  which  we,  their  more  phlegmatic  neigh- 
bours, would  have  suffered  to  be  altogether  unsung.  Their  vaudevilles — 
we  mean  the  plays  under  that  title — afford  a  striking  proof  of  this.  Every 
scene  is  absolutely  crowded  with  songs — not  merely  for  the  sake  of  afford- 
ing the  singer,  as  with  us,  an  opportunity  of  displaying  his  musical 
powers — but  essentially  conducing  to  carry  on  the  piece ;  and  as  every 
French  player,  without  exception,  sings  quite  well  enough  for  the  pur- 
pose, the  etfect  is  very  curious  and  agreeable.  When  these  vaudevilles 
are  transferred  to  our  stage,  as  they  are  by  the  dozen,  it  is  found  impos- 
sible to  retain  the  songs — for  two  good  reasons  :  first,  that  the  gentlemen 
who  import  the  play  have  perhaps  not  the  power,  certainly  not  the 
inclination,  of  transferring  the  songs  :  and,  secondly,  because,  even  if  they 
were  introduced  into  English,  we  have  nobody  to  sing  them.  Our  singers, 
unluckily,  cannot  act,  and  our  actors  cannot  sing ;  and  the  consequence 
is,  that,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  the  song  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  piece,  but  is  inserted  to  show  off  the  singer,  who  in  general 
returns  the  compliment  by  destroying  the  part.  Many  a  farce  has  fallen 
dead  before  an  English  audience  on  this  account,  which,  in  its  original 
French  author,  was  piquant  and  delightful.  We  may  truly  say,  that 
"  they  order  these  things  better  in  France." 

But  this  is  wandering  away  from  our  more  immediate  purpose.  The 
Nouveau  Caveau  of  last  year,  being  the  eighth  of  its  existence,  is  lying 
before  us  ;  and  though  it  is  not  the  most  brilliant  specimen  of  the  song- 
writing  powers  of  the  Paris  clubs,  it  will  afford  our  readers  some  idea  of 
the  current  wit  in  that  line  in  the  French  metropolis.  It  contains  112 
songs,  contributed  by  sixty-three  gentlemen — about  fifty  of  whom  belong 
to  the  Nouveau  Caveau — the  others  being  volunteer  contributors  from  the 
other  clubs.  The  Nouveau  Caveau  is  quite  loyal  and  Bourbonist,  and  the 
effusions  on  political  subjects  are,  of  course,  in  that  vein.  We  are  sorry 
to  say,  that,  like  almost  all  songs  on  Jihat  side  of  the  question,  they  are 
very  dull,  and  form,  in  that  respect,  as  in  every  other,  a  lamentable  con- 
trast to  the  witty  Jacobin  or  Buonapartist  strains  of  Beranger:  ex.  gr. 

M.  M.  New  Series.-—  VOL.  III.  No.  16.  3  E 


391  Songs  from  the  French.  [APRIL, 

"  LES  ROIS  DE  FRANCE  AU  SACRE; 

ou, 
LES  PORTRAITS  DE  FAMILLE." 

It  seems  that  the  pictures  of  the  most  illustrious  kings  crowned  in 
Rheims  were  hung  up  in  the  banquetting-room,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
coronation  of  his  Majesty  Charles  X.  Among  them  were  Clovis.  Louis 
IX,  Philip  de  Valois,  Charles  V,  Charles  VII,  Louis  XII,  Francis  I. 
and  Louis  XIV.  On  this  hint  the  songster  speaks  . — 

Des  rois,  dont  son  auguste  enceinte 

Vit  beriir  le  sceptre  et  les  droits, 
J'ai  vu  Reims,  dans  la  fete  sainte 

Entourer  le  meilleur  des  rois. 
CHARLES,  autour  de  ton  image, 

Ainsi  ces  monarques  fameux 
Semblaient  unir  A  notre  hommage 

Celui  de  tes  nobles  a'ienx. 

And  so  on,  to  the  end.  Henri  Quatre,  who  is  uniformly  introduced  on  all 
such  occasions,  happened,  unluckily,  not  to  have  been  crowned  at  Rheims; 
but  the  poet  will  not  miss  him  for  that.  After  regretting  that  Henry's 
picture  could  not  appear  among  the  rest,  he  assures  him, — 

Par  une  heureuse  ressemblance 

Un  portrait  au  sien  supplera ; 
Henri  Quatre  de  ton  absence, 

CHARLES  Dix  nous  consoleia  I 

In  which  particular  Charles  X  resembles  Henry  IV,  it  would,  we  think, 
be  hard  to  discover;  but  a  court  poet  must  not  inquire  into  such  things  too 
curiously.  This  song  is  from  the  pen  of  a  Monsieur  Gurry — editor,  we 
believe,  of  the  Journal  de  Pan's — a  gentleman  whose  muse  is  ever  ready 
on  such  occasions.  Last  year  he  published  a  volume  of  poems,  in  which 
he  made  it  a  merit  that  he  had  sung  the  praises  of  the  reigning  dynasty 
since  1814 ;  on  which  an  opposition  wag  remarked,  that  there  was  a  mis- 
take of  print  in  the  date — as  every  body  knew  that  Monsieur  Ourry  had 
sung  the  praises  of  the  reigning  dynasty,  whatever  it  was,  since  J804. 
The  joke  happened  to  be  true;  but  many  others  in  France  are  in  the  same 
predicament. 

This  song  is  not  worth  translating  ;  and,  with  this  specimen,  we  pass 
by  all  the  politics  of  the  volume.  Some  of  the  drinking-songs,  in  which, 
a  la  Fmncaisey  love  is  almost  invariably  mingled,  are  clever.  The  follow- 
ing is  by  Beranger,  who  has,  besides,  contributed  another  : — 

I. 

Deux  saisons  reglent  toutes  choses, 

Pour  qui  sait  vivre  eri  s'amusant : 
Au  printemps  nous  devons  les  rose;;, 

A  I'aut6mne  un  jus  bienfaisant, 
Les  jours  croissent,  le  coeur  s'eveille ; 

On  fait  le  vin  quand  ils  sont  courts. 
Au  printemps,  adieu  la  bouteille  ! 

En  automne,  adieu  les  amours. 

It 

Mieux  il  vaudrait  unir  sans  doute 

Ces  deux  penchans  faits  pour  charmer; 

Mais  pour  ma  sanfe  je  redoute 
D.  tiop  bone  et  du  tn-p  aU'u-i. 


2 7 .]  Sougs  from  the  French.  395 

Or  la  sagesse  me  conseilie 

De  partager  ainsi  mes  jours: 
Au  pfintemps,  adieu  la  bouteille ! 

En  automne,  adieu  les  amours  ! 

III. 

Au  mois  du  Mai,  j'ai  vu  Rosette, 

Et  mon  coeur  a  subi  ses  lois. 
Que  de  caprices  la  coquette 

M'a  fait  essuyer  en  six  mois. 
Pour  lui  rendre  enfin  la  pareille, 

J'appelle  Octobre  a  mon  secours : 
Au  printerns,  adieu  la  bouteille! 

En  automne,  adieu  les  amours! 

IV. 

Je  prends,  quitte  et  rcprends  Adele, 

Sans  fa9ons  comme  sans  regrets. 
"  Au  revoir,"  un  jour  me  dit-elle : 

Elle  revient  long-temps  apr£s. 
J'^tais  a  chanter  sous  la  treille : 

Ah  !  dis-je,  1'annee  a  son  cours. 
Au  printemps,  adieu  la  bouteille ! 

En  automne,  adieu  les  amours ! 

V. 

Mais  il  est  une  enchanleresse 

Qui  change  a  son  gr£  mes  plaisirs. 
Du  vin  elle  excite  1'ivresse 

Et  maitrise  jusqu'aux  de'sirs. 
Pour  elle  ce  n'est  pas  merveille 

De  troubler  1'ordre  de  mes  jours, 
Au  printemps,  avec  le  bouteille! 

En  automne,  avec  les  amours ! 

Of  which  we  venture  the  following  attempt  at  translation  : — 

I. 

Two  seasons  only,  he  who  lives 

For  pleasure,  life's  true  purpose,  knows ; 
Spring,  that  the  rose's  perfume  gives ; 

And  autumn,  when  the  vintage  flows. 
Love  warms  us,  when  the  sun  rides  high — 

Wine  comes,  when  daylight  hours  are  few : 
In  spring,  I  bid  the  glass  good  bye ! 

In  autumn,  to  the  Loves  adieu ! 

II. 

Better  'twould  be,  I'm  well  aware, 

These  two  delicious  balms  to  join ; 
But  I  can't  boast  of  strength  to  bear 

Excess  at  once  in  love  and  wine. 
Led  then  by  wisdom's  dictates,  I 

At  different  times  each  joy  pursue : 
la  spring,  I  bid  the  glass  good  bye ! 

In  autumn,  to  the  Loves  adieu ! 

III. 
In  May,  fair  Rosa's  eyes  I  met, 

That  glance  her  power  suffice  to  seal; 
What  torments  did  the  gay  coquette 
Condemn  me  for  six  months  to  feel ! 
3  E  2 


396  Songs  from  the  French.  [APRIL, 

But  then  my  freedom's  hour  was  nigh — 

At  last  October  came  in  view : 
In  spring,  I  bid  the  glass  good  bye! 

In  autumn,  to  the  Loves  adieu  ! 

IV. 

I  meet  and  part  with  fair  Adele 

Without  apology  or  pain ; 
One  morn  she  cried,  "  An  hour's  farewell !" 

'Twas  months  ere  she  returned  again. 
Then  'neath  the  vine  I  chanced  to  lie, 

And  sung  "  the  season's  past  for  you  .*" 
In  spring,  I  bid  the  glass  good  bye ! 

In  autumn,  to  the  Loves  adieu  ! 

V. 

But  there  is  one  enchanting  lass, 

Who  changes  all  my  plans  at  will — 
Who  gives  new  impulse  to  the  glass — 

Who  all  the  year  delights  me  still. 
Fired  by  the  magic  of  her  eye, 

I  revel  every  season  through  ; 
And  never  bid  the  glass  good  bye — 

Nor  ever,  to  the  Loves  adieu ! 

Jokes  on  the  ladies  abound,  of  course.     We  subjoin  a  couple  : — 

I. 

Au  sortir  de  I'^glise, 

Je  vois  jeune  Blondin  ; 
Qui  d'un  air  de  franchise, 

Vient  serrer  ma  main. 
Cher  epoux,  dit  Amande, 

Avec  un  ris  malin, 
Je  vous  le  recommande, 
C'est  mon  petit  cousin. 

II. 

Six  mois  apres  la  noce, 

Pour  moi,  quel  heureux  jour ! 
Je  vois,  d'un  fruit  pre"coce, 

Cimenter  notre  amour. 
De  cet  enfant,  ma  belle, 

Qui  done  sera  parrain  ? 
JPai  tout  prevu,  dit-elle, 

C'est  mon  petit  cousin. 

III. 
Ce  parent-lA,  j'espere, 

Est  un  homme  tout  charmant : 
Vraiment,  tout  comme  un  p£re, 

II  che'rit  mon  enfant. 
De  me  faire  tapage, 

Si  ma  femme  est  en  train  j 
Qui  sait  calmer  Porage, 

C'est  mon  petit  cousin. 

IV. 

Ma  femme  m'est  fidele, 

J'en  ai  de  surs  garans  ; 
Car,  jamais,  aupres  d'elle, 

Je  ne  vois  de  galans, 


1827.]  Songs  from  the  French.  397 

Et  si  faut  que  je  sorte, 

Je  suis  bien  siir,  enfin, 
Qu'elle  n'ouvre  sa  porte 

Qu'a  son  petit  cousin. 

V. 

Voiis  que  je  vois  sourire 

De  tant  de  bon  foi, 
Vous  n'en  pourriez  pas  dire, 

Peut-e"tre,  autant  que  moi, 
Helas !  en  manage, 

Qui  peut  etre  certain 
De  n'avoir  en  partage 

Qu'un  seul  petit  cousin  ? 

I. 

On  the  day  of  my  wedding,  a  handsome  young  blade 
Caught  my  hand  between  his  with  a  press  most  sincere ; 

My  wife,  when  she  saw  him,  smiled  gaily,  and  said, 
"  I  must  introduce  him — My  cousin,  my  dear." 

II. 

In  six  months — for  so  soon  came  the  source  of  my  joy — 
A  dear  baby  was  born  our  blest  union  to  cheer  ; 

I  asked  my  sweet  wife,  "  Who's  to  stand  for  the  boy  ?" 

"  We've  arranged  it,"  says  she ;  "  'tis  my  cousin,  my  dear." 

III. 

He  fondles  the  child,  just  as  if  'twere  his  own  ; 

His  goodness  of  heart  from  this  kindness  is  clear ; 
And  when  my  wife's  brow  is  o'ercast  by  a  frown, 

Who  disperses  the  cloud  ?  why,  "  my  cousin,  my  dear  !'* 

IV. 

That  my  lady  is  chaste,  I've  no  reason  to  doubt — 

No  flirting  I  see,  no  gallant  ventures  near ; 
And  I  feel  very  certain,  that,  when  I  go  out, 

She  will  let  no  one  in,  but — "  my  cousin,  my  dear." 

V. 

You  smile,  I  perceive,  at  the  faith  I  display — 

But  some  smilers  have  less  cause  of  boasting,  I  fear : 

When  you  marry,  my  friends,  are  you  certain,  I  pray, 
That  you'll  have  in  your  house  but  one  "  cousin,  my  dear?" 

This  song  is  by  M.  Foucart.     The  following  is  by  M.  Flamand  * — 

I. 

Le  parque  vient,  dans  son  courroux, 
De  me  priver  de  mon  epoux ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  de'sole, 
S'il  fut  joueur  et  libertin, 
II  fit  du  moins  tre's-bonne  fin  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 

II. 

II  s'endettait,  et  chaque  jour 
Me  privait  d'argent  et  d'amour ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  de'sole. 
Malgre  son  infidelity 
J'ctais  tr^s-sage,  en  verite' ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 


31)8  Swigs  from  ike  French.  [APRIL, 

III. 

Je  crains,  dans  mon  affliction, 
De  tomber  en  consomplion  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  d<5sole. 
Cependant  mes  pleurs,  mes  regrets 
N'ont  pas  encor  fie'tri  mes  traits ; 

C'est  'ce  qui  me  console. 

IV. 

J'eprouve  le  plus  triste  sort ; 

Point  d'argent  dans  mon  coffre  fort; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  desole. 
Un  jeune  et  savant  me'decm 
Prend  interet  a  men  destin  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 

V. 

.  Cet  aimable  consolaleur 
Me  trouble  par  son  trop  d'ardeur; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  de'sole. 
11  pleure  avec  moi  mon  e'poux  ; 
11  est  decent,  honnete,  et  doux  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 

VI. 

J'accepte  par  ne'cessite' 
Ses  soins,  sa  ge'ne'rosite  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  desole. 
Mais  bien  qu'il  soit  trds-gene'reux, 
Ma  sagesse  contient  ses  feux  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 

VII. 

Je  vois  qu'il  est  brulant  d'amour, 
Qu'il  espere  un  tendre  retourj 

C'est  ce  qui  me  desole. 
Je  ne  me  livre  heureusement 
Qu'a  1'amitie  pour  le  moment ; 
C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 

VIII. 

Ses  discours  calment  ma  douleur, 
Et  touchent  mon  sensible  cceur  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  desole. 
Ah!  s'il  obtient  unjour  ma  main, 
Ce  sera  1'ordre  du  destin  ; 

C'est  ce  qui  me  console. 


I. 

The  wrathful  stroke  of  cruel  fate 
Deprives  me  of  my  loving  mate ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
Although  he  gamed,  and  raked  beside, 
Yet  very  piously  he  died ; 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

II. 

He  weiit  in  debt,  and  every  day 
Took  both  his  purse  and  love  away ; 


1 827.]  Songs  from  the  French.  399 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
But  though  he  broke  his  marriage  vows, 
/  was  a  true  and  faithful  spouse  j 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 


III. 

I  fear  that  my  afflicted  state 
Insures  consumption  as  my  fate  ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
But,  spite  of  tears,  I  cannot  trace 
As  yet.  a  wrinkle  in  my  face  ; 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

IV. 

A  sorry  lot  I  own  is  mine — 
My  purse  betrays  a  lack  of  coin  ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
But  my  physician,  young  and  wise, 
O'er  all  my  wants  keeps  watchful  eyrs ; 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

V. 

This  kind  consoler  often  shows 

A  warmth  which  troubles  my  repose ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
He  weeps  with  me  my  husband  dead — 
He's  gentle,  tender,  and  well-bred; 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

VI. 

Forced  by  necessity,  I  take 

The  generous  gifts  he  loves  to  make  ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
But  though  he's  liberal,  I  own, 
My  prudence  keeps  his  ardour  down  ; 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

VII. 

With  glowing  love  I  see  him  burn — 
I  see  he  hopes  a  soft  return  ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
But  then,  thank  Heaven  !  my  conduct  tells 
As  yet  of  friendship — nothing  else; 
"  That  gives  my  heart  relief. 

VIII. 

His  words  assuage  my  mournful  woes, 
And  tojach  my  widowed  heart  too  close  ; 

That  fills  my  soul  with  grief. 
Ah  !  if  the  ruling  fates  have  plann'd 
That  he  one  day  should  win  my  hand  '. — 

That  gives  my  heart  relief. 


.    [     400    ]  [APRIL, 

LETTER  UPON  AFFAIRS  IN  GENERAL,  FROM  A  GENTLEMAN  IN 
LONDON  TO  A  GENTLEMAN  IN  THE  COUNTRY. 

'<  There  was  a  maid  at  Islington,  as  I've  heard  many  tell, 

And  she  would  come  to  London  town  her  apples  and  pears  to  sell. 

Why  would  she  so  ? — Because  she  knew  it  was  the  best  market.  — Old  Song. 

*'  THERE'S  a  divinity,"  the  poet  says,  "  doth  hedge  a  King !" — the  same 
privilege,  or  pre-eminence,  beyond  ill  and  danger,  would  seem  to  attach  to 
a  Capital !  We  hear,  and  read,  on  every  side,  of  ruin  and  distress  in 
England — who  is  there  that — in  LONDON — can  detect  the  shadow  of  a 
symptom  of  it  ?  We  hear  of  distress,  and  of  poverty.  *'  Where,"  a 
foreigner  might  well  ask,  "  are  its  evidences  ?  Are  they  in  your  theatres, 
ten  or  twelve  in  number,  that  are  open,  and  crowded,  night  after  night, 
the  "  clowns"  of  which  ride  in  their  carnages,  while  the  singing  girls  buy 
huge  estates  ?  Are  they  in  your  new  palace  buildings,  and  in  your  new 
church  buildings  ;  in  your  new  streets,  new  squares,  new  parks,  and  ter- 
races ;  in  your  new  toys  and  exhibitions,  devising  every  day,  for  all  ranks 
to  spend  their  time  and  money  at  ?  If  we  are  undone,  we  are — like  the 
Copper-Captain  in  the  play — "  the  merriest  undone  people  in  Christen- 
dom." It  is  the  very  heart  of  the  "  season"  now  !  and  the  furnished 
lodgings,  at  six  guineas  a  week,  are  all  "  let,"  and  the  furnished  houses 
at  twenty  guineas ;  and  the  marchandes  des  modes  are  putting  on  their 
best  looks,  and  unpapering  their  best  frills  ;  and  the  lacqueys  nod  to  each 
other  as  they  whirl  behind  the  carriages  through  Bond-street,  and  want 
kicking  twice  a  day;  and  Mr.  Ebers  is  joyful;  and  the  hotel-keepers  are 
as  blithe  as  my  landlady  at  Falmouth  used  to  be  ten  years  ago — "  and 
would  be,"  she  said,  "  while  the  war  lasted,  and  the  wind  set  in  shore  ;" — 
and  all,  in  short,  is  joy,  and  ebulliency.  Distress  !  look  at  the  new  street 
which  joins  the  Regent's-park  to  St.  James's;  and  the  new  town,  which 
now  joins  the  Regent-street  to  Hampstead.  Does  this  look  much  like 
distress  ?  Look  at  the  shops — alas  ! — but  of  the  retail — the  mere  selling 
(not  producing)  dealers — in  drapery,  jewellery,  lutes,  pianofortes,  Leghorn 
hats,  satin  shoes,  Italian  paste,  Martinique  noyau — in  coats,  and  cloaks, 
and  silk,  and  velvet,  and  fruits,  and  ice,  and  lace,  and  feathers,  and 
flowers,  and  scents,  and  wigs,  and  pickles,  and  plate-glass,  and  furs,  and 
millinery  ! — these  shops  of  Cheapside,  Ludgate-hill,  and  Fleet-street,  in 
the  east;  of  Piccadilly,  Bond-street,  and  Regent-street  in  the  west;  of 
Oxford-street  in  the  north  ;  and  Covent-garden,  Charing-cross,  and  the 
Bazaars  in  the  centre — decorated  merely  to  open  for  trade  at  a  higher 
cost  than  would  formerly  have  been  held  a  decent  capital  to  begin  trade 
with — what  is  there  in  these  that  suggests  the  notion  of  distress  ?  We  have 
no  account  yet  of  those  hourly  multiplying  contributors  to  luxury  and 
delight,  whose  wares,  being  purchased  less  especially  than  the  fore-men- 
tioned upon  display ;  do  not  so  entirely  demand  to  be  exposed  for  sale 
within  walls  of  looking-glass — the  upholsterers,  coach-makers,  horse- 
jockeys,  and  wine-merchants — the  publishers,  whose  very  catalogues 
alone  (assembled)  might  form  a  library — the  painters,  whose  increasing 
works  cry.  out  every  day  for  new  show-rooms  and  institutions,  to  display 
them  in — the  dancing-masters,  driving  cabriolets,  and  keeping  footmen  in 
livery — the  music-masters,  taking  a  guinea  a  lesson  for  teaching  tlio 
piano — the  doctors,  and  still  more  the  branch  doctors,  the  i:  aurists,"  and 
"  oculists'" — and,  more  than  all,  the  prodigies  of  modern  success,  flu- 
"surgeon  dentists" — who  flourish  (to  the  superseding  of  vulgar  "  too!  Si- 


8    27.]  \LetteronAffairsingeneral.  401 

drawers)"  in  the  best  streets  and  squares  of  the  metropolis,  levying  in- 
comes of  five,  and  ten,  and  fifteen  thousand  pounds  a-year !  The  people 
who  support  these — as  a  people — would  scarcely  seem  to  know  much 
about  distress! 

Our  "  first  estate''' — the  persons  that  pay  Mile.  Brocard,  and 
have  built  the  club-houses — I  find  few  signs  of  poverty  among  them  ; 
our  second  class — the  stock-jobbers,  barristers,  arid  attorneys, — who  have 
taken  "  Brighton"  to  themselves  now  as  a  "  Fauxbourg" — making  over 
Kennington,  Claphara,  and  Hackney  to  the  vulgar — I  don't  find  one  of 
these  hut  must  have  some  ornamental  needlessness  about  his  arrangements 
which  his  forefathers  had  not  before  him.  And  for  the  lower  order 
still — the  shopmen,  clerks,  and  working  artisans — how  all  the  public- 
houses,  and  spirit-shops,  and  tea  and  coffee-houses,  that  one  runs  against 
at  every  step,  contrive  to  exist — who  it  is  that  fills  the  "  reading-rooms," 
and  the  "  wine-rooms,"  and  the  "  gymnastic  clubs,"  and  the  "  smoking 
clubs" — and  who  rides  in  all  the  hackney  gigs,  and  ie  cabriolets" — and 
who  drinks  up  all  the  gin  that  is  made,  and  all  the  ale,  and  all  the  "  Cape 
Madeira,"  at  fifteen  pence  a  bottle,  that  is  stuck  upon  placards  about  the 
streets — not  to  inquire  about  the  soda  water,  and  ginger  beer,  that  bubbles 
out  from  fountains  at  the  chemists'  shops,  and  at  the  oyster  shops,  or  the 
Champagne  sold  in  "  samples''  of  "  a  single  bottle,"  under  the  opera 
colonnade  by  Mr.  Charles  Wright — the  very  least  of  these  questions  seerns 
hopeless,  and  puts  even  one's  imagination  to  a  stand  still !  But,  now  for  one 
question  in  the  way  of  "  political  economy."  All  this  shew  of  prosperity 
is  found  in  London — where  the  wealthy  and  noble  of  Britain  are  resi- 
dents. If  these  were  to  become  "  absentees" — if  the  grass  were  to  grow 
upon  the  pavement  of  Pall  Mall,  and  the  owl  build  in  the  chimnies  and 
garrets  of  Portland-place — would  this  state  of  things  continue  ?  I  should 
like  to  have  Mr.  M'Culloch's  opinion  upon  this  point;  and,  if  he  should 
favour  the  affirmative,  I  have  a  scheme  for  making  all  the  universe  "  rich 
and  happy  to-morrow."  But  this  affair  shall  be  the  subject  of  a  future 
letter :  at  present,  I  must  give  tip  describing  the  state  of  appearances  in 
London,  to  talk  of  the  matters  which  are  actually  going  on  there. 

The  public  mind  has  been  brimful  of  politics  during  the  present  month. 
The  corn  question,  the  change  in  the  ministry,  our  relations  with  Portu- 
gal, and  the  catholic  emancipation,  all  were  to  be  talked  about.  The 
Master  of  the  Rolls  has  explained  part  of  his  bill  for  reforming  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Court  of  Chancery ;  but,  as  to  the  effect  of  that  measure, 
people  were  not  very  sanguine — and  the  event  has  borne  out  their  expec- 
tation :  they  felt  that  the  evils,  both  of  law  and  of  practice,  in  that  court, 
were  grown  up  into  too  strong  an  interest  to  be  likely  to  be  attacked  to 
any  material  purpose.  "  The  criminal  law  re-vision"  bill  has  been 
brought  in  too  ;  but  that  proceeding — though  a  great  and  valuable  work — 
was  not  likely  to  excite  any  very  peculiar  attention  ;  first,  because  there 
was  a  general  confidence  that  Mr.  Peel  would  perform  it  with  discretion 
and  ability  ;  and,  next,  because  the  affair  does  not  exactly  press — the  old 
machine  "  works  well"— as  it  is — or,  if  any  injury  is  done,  it  Falls  upon 
a  description  of  individuals  (the  rogues)  who  woufd  hardly  find  a  great 
many  supporters,  if  they  complained  of  it. 

Of  the  probable  materials  of  the  new  ministry,  or  of  the  extent  to 
which  any  change  will  take  place,  up  to  this  day  (the  28th  March)  I  be- 
lieve nothing  is  known  with  certainty.  All  kinds  of  men  are  named  as 

M.M.  New  Series.-— VOL.  III.  No.  Ifi.  3  F 


40*2  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [APRIL, 

ministers ;  and  almost  all  have  their  partisans — except  that,  I  believe, 
every  body  has  agreed  in  negativing  the  sufficiency  of  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington. I  think  there  is  a  certain  quantity  of  mistake  about  this.  The 
full  capacity  of  the  Duke  for  such  an  office  as  that  of  prime  minister  in 
this  country,  I  should  be  inclined  to  doubt ;  but  the  attempt  to  treat  him  as 
a  mere  soldier — a  man  merely  capable  of  directing  troops  in  the  field — must 
occur  either  from  ignorance  or  wilful  misrepresentation.  The  mere  mili- 
tary career  in  which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  has  been  engaged,  must  have 
given  him  considerable  knowledge  of  all  the  circumstances  connected  with 
the  foreign  policy  and  relations  of  this  country.  He  possesses  too — 
which  is  a  point  of  no  slight  moment — in  a  very  high  degree,  the  confi- 
dence and  esteem  of  almost  every  power  in  alliance  with  it.  But,  inde- 
pendently of  these  circumstances,  it  is  absurd  to  attempt  to  treat  as  a  mere 
director  of  sieges,  or  arrayer  of  orders  of  battle,  the  man  who  organized 
the  whole  defences,  and  disposed  of  the  whole  national  resources,  of  Por- 
tugal ;  and  afterwards  exercised  an  influence  scarcely  Jess  extensive,  (with 
the  most  admirable  success)  over  the  powers  of  Spain  ;  not  to  enter  into 
the  testimony  of  various  foreign  writers  as  to  affairs  and  negociations 
connected  with  his  Grace's  administration  during  his  command  of  the 
Army  of  Occupation  in  France,  which  shew  that  he  was  just  as  much  in 
the  habit  of  contemplating,  and  often  of  estimating,  accurately,  his  poli- 
tical as  his  military  position.  How  far — I  repeat — the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington might  be  qualified  to  share  the  direction  of  public  affairs  in  this 
country — or  even  what  pretensions  he  may  have  set  up  to  such  an  effect— 
I  do  not  propose  to  determine  :  but  he  could  never  have  performed  a 
great  variety  of  the  services  which  he  has  performed,  if  he  had  not 
possessed  some  of  the  qualities  belonging  to  a  statesman,  as  well  as  the 
mere  faculties  of  a  soldier. 

The  corn  proposition  has  been  brought  forward  by  ministers,  according 
to  promise  ;  and,  like  most  moderate  courses  of  policy,  has  satisfied  no- 
body. The  manufacturing  classes  say,  that  it  gives  them  no  relief,  which 
most  people  will  agree  is  perfectly  true ;  and  the  ultra-agriculturists  con- 
sider even  the  remotest  possibility  of  peril  to  their  interests  as  an  arrange- 
ment of  great  aggression.  The  best  circumstance  in  the  new  plan,  seems 
to  be,  that  it  prevents  any  likelihood  of  corn  ever  reaching  a  very  high 
price  in  this  country  :  it  scarcely  ever  can  get  above  sixty  shillings  a  quar- 
ter— hardly,  perhaps,  above  fifty-eight  shillings.  The  inconvenience  is, 
that  the  system  of  weekly  "  averages"  will  be  likely  to  lead  to  specula- 
tion and  jobbing  in  the  com  market : — this  is  the  objection  of  my  Lord 
Lauderdale,  in  his  speech  to  the  House  of  Lords  ;  but  his  Lordship  exag- 
gerates the  danger  too  much. 

The  proposition  of  the  noblo  lord — as  I  understand  it — runs  thus : — when 
the  average  price  of  wheat  in  this  country  is  sixty  shillings  a  quarter, 
foreign  wheat  (according  to  the  new  system)  comes  in  at  a  duty  of  twenty 
shillings ;  and  as  the  home  price  on  the  average  increases  one  shilling  a 
quarter,  the  duty  on  the  foreign  importation  diminishes  two  shillings  ;  so 
that  at  sixty-one  shillings  (home  average)  the  foreign  duty  is  eighteen 
shillings;  at  sixty-two  shillings, 'sixteen  shillings  ;  at  sixty-three  shillings, 
fourteen  shillings;  and  so  on  till  the  average  reaches  seventy  shillings, 
when  the  foreign  corn  comes  in  at  a  duty  of  one  shilling  a  quarter.  Then, 
his  Lordship's  fear  is- — Suppose  a  party  of  merchants  to  have  one  million 
quarters  of  foreign  corn  in  bond  at  the  end  of  the  week,  ending,  say,  on 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  403 

the  7th  of  July,  when  the  average  in  the  home  market  is  sixty  shillings 
a  quarter — these  persons  would  then  have  a  duty  of  twenty  shillings  a 
quarter  to  pay,  on  bringing  in  their  foreign  supply,  or  £1,000,000  on  the 
whole  venture.  But,  instead  of  paying  that  amount  of  duty,  if,  in  the 
course  of  the  next  week,  or  fortnight,  they  suddenly  make  purchases  to 
the  amount  of  £300,000  in  the  home  market,  it  will  be  easy  for  them,  (says 
Lord  Lauderdale)  by  this  sudden  speculation,  to  throw  the  average — say  of 
the  1 1th,  or  2 1  st  of  July,  up  to  seventy  shillings ;  by  which  means  they  then 
bring  their  whole  1 ,000,000  quarters  of  foreign  corn  into  the  market  at  one 
shilling  duty,  instead  of  twenty  shillings;  inundate  the  country  with 
foreign  wheat,  to  the  ruin  of  the  agriculturist;  and  clear  £950,000. 

Now,  I  perfectly  agree  with  Lord  Lauderdale,  that,  if  the  merchants 
of  the  country  could  do  this,  to-morrow,  they  would  do  it.  And  here  I 
don't  think  that  his  lordship  casts  any  aspersion  upon  any  particular  class 
of  men,  because  all  the  people  of  England,  of  late  years,  have  become 
"  merchants."  There  has  been  hardly  a  monopoly,  or  a  speculation,  in 
the  last  five  years,  by  which  money  could  hope  to  be  made,  in  which 
"  peers"  and  men  of  "  honour"  have  not  been  found  struggling  which 
should  take  "  usance"  foremost.  Colonel  Congreve,  who  invented  the 
bomb-shells,  was  pars  magnet! — the  great  gun — in  the  pawnbroking 
company ;  and  Mr.  W.  Wilberforce,  I  see — whose  father  once  redeemed 
all  Africa  from  slavery — according  to  a  police  paragraph  in  the  Times  of 
the  15th  instant — appears  to  have  turned  milkman!  But,  without  doubt- 
ing their  disposition  to  do  this,  or  any  other  piece  of  advantageous  mis- 
chief, I  do  not  believe  that  a  combination  of  merchants  could  perform  the 
transaction  which  Lord  Lauderdale  describes. 

In  the  first  place,  the  capital  required  for  such  a  project  could  hardly 
be  furnished  by  a  very  few  individuals.  Taking  the  one  million  quarters 
of  foreign  corn  to  be  bought  at  thirty  shillings  a  quarter,  the  whole  sum 
employed  in  that  purchase  would  be  £1,500,000.  In  the  next  place,  a 
certain  quantity  of  loss  must  be  at  once  incurred  upon  the  £300,000  laid 
out  in  British  corn,  purchased  to  raise  the  home  average  from  sixty  shillings 
to  seventy  shillings ;  the  corn  bought,  pending  the  course  of  such  a  rise, 
could  not  cost  less  than  five  shillings  a  quarter  more  than  the  natural  market 
price  ;  and  here,  therefore,  there  would  be  a  loss,  in  the  commencement, 
of  £25,000.  But  the  insurmountable  difficulties  have  yet  to  come.  It  is 
contrary  to  all  possibility,  that  one  hundred  thousand  quarters  of  corn,  pur- 
chased in  the  home  market — no  matter  with  what  celerity — (and  £300,000 
would  buy  no  more,  at  sixty  shillings,  than  one  hundred  thousand  quarters — 
subject  to  the  supposed  rise  of  prices  to  be  produced,  not  so  much) — it  is 
hardly  to  be  expected  that  five  times  that  quantity  of  purchase,  in  the 
common  order  of  events,  could  raise  the  price  in  the  home  market  in  any 
thing  like  the  extent  of  ten  shillings  a  quarter — from  sixty  shillings  to 
seventy  shillings  ! 

An  outlay  of  £300,000  would  have  scarcely  any  effect  upon  the  average  at 
all ;  and  even  if  it  might — this  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  difficult  point— his 
lordship  never  inquires  what  the  agriculturists  are  to  be  about  all  that  time  ? 
It  is  absurd  to  say  that  the  agriculturists  of  the  country  cannot  combine. 
They  combine  every  day — and  almost  without  knowing  it.  What  was  it 
that  raised  corn  in  our  home  market,  from  fifty-three  shillings  to  sixty 
shillings  a  quarter,  the  very  moment  that  the  new  propositions  came  out  ? 
There  was  no  change  in  the  seasons — no  demand  from  abroad — to  warrant 

3  F  2 


404  Letters  on  Affairs  in  general.  [APRIL, 

such  an  advance.  Why,  then,  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale's  speculation  could 
scarcely,  by  any  probability,  be  a  secret.  The  getting  of  a  million  quarters 
of  foreign  wheat  in  bond — the  outlay  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  money 
in  the  home  market — for,  to  talk  of  raising  the  average  by  a  purchase  to  the 
amount  of  £300,000,  I  repeat,  is  almost  ridiculous.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible for  all  this  work  to  be  done,  without  exciting  the  attention  of  the 
persons  interested  in  the  home  trade — and  the  very  moment  this  happened, 
a  reaction  would  take  place.  The  agriculturists — seeing  what  it  was  that 
was  occasioning  the  rise  in  price— instead  of  availing  themselves  of  it, 
would  immediately  oppose  it — with  the  fact  before  their  eyes,  that  they 
must  be  ruined  for  the  next  four  years,  if  once  they  let  the  home  average 
get  up  to  seventy  shillings  a  quarter.  The  throwing  two  millions  of  money 
into  the  market  (instead  of  £300,000)  would  hardly  insure  inducing  them  to 
raise  it  to  such  a  price.  The  great  probability  is,  that  any  project  like  this — 
pursued  with  what  cunning  or  means  it  might — would  only  end  in  saddling 
the  speculators  with  a  large  quantity  of  foreign  corn  in  bond,  for  which 
they  would  have  no  market;  and  with  a  good  deal  of  English  corn, 
bought  at  a  shilling  or  two  advance  upon  the  regular  market,  which  they 
would  have  to  re-sell  at  the  market  price.  And  even  if  they  succeeded — . 
how  would  it  be?  Only  by  purchasing,  through  thick  and  thin,  to  raise 
the  average  in  the  home  market.  Or,  in  other  words,  becoming  themselves 
holders,  to  a  very  large  amount,  of  British  corn,  purchased  at  advanced 
prices  ;  which  corn  they  would  have  in  their  turn  to  sell,  subject  to  the 
same  depreciation  to  which  their  foreign  importation  might  reduce  the 
British  agriculturists  in  general.  Either  my  Lord  Lauderdale's  agricultural 
prejudices,  I  think,  have  misled  him,  on  this  occasion;  or  his  sight  into 
matters  of  trade  and  economy  is  not  so  clear  and  cunning  as  it  used 
to  be. 

Upon  the  two  other  subjects  that  I  named  above,  a  very  few  words  will 
be  sufficient.  The  Catholic  Emancipation  question,  after  the  usual  quan- 
tity of  speaking,  was  negatived  by  a  majority  of  seventy-seven,  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  This  is  really  what  every  body  (except  the  catho- 
lics themselves)  expected ;  and  it  would  be  scarcely  less  than  miraculous, 
if  their  conduct  had  led  to  any  other  result.  Portugal  remains  just  in  the 
same  state  as  at  the  date  of  my  last  letter.  The  apostolic  party  has  no 
power — against  even  the  presence  of  England — to  pursue  the  rebellion; 
and  the  constitutional  government  has  as  little  power  (of  its  own  resources) 
to  repress  or  prevent  it.  In  the  mean  time,  the  country  is  getting  more 
and  more  overrun  with  the  bands  of  irregular  troops,  who  (in  the  absence 
of  a  struggle)  act  openly  as  marauders;  and  as  soon  as  the  British  troops 
are  re-embarked,  the  contest — if  it  deserves  to  be  called  a  contest — will 
begin  again. 

The  following  -paragraph  appears  amongst  the  deaths  in  the  Ttines 
newspaper,  of  the  llth  instant.  "  On  Thursday  last,  Mrs.  Harriet 
Harris,  of  Goulston  Square,  Whitechapel ;  who  was — as  her  physician 
once  emphatically  said — '  an  excellent  woman  !'  "  Now,  "  Good  name," 
lago  very  truly  observes,  "  in  man  or  woman,  is  the  immediate  jewel  of 
their  souls  ;"  and  it  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  persons,  both  for  them- 
selves and  their  friends,  should  be  anxious  to  preserve  as  much,  in  the  way 
of  testimony  to  it,  as  possible.  But  the  medical  attendant,  in  this  case, 
is  not  what  a  court  of  law  would  call  the  (t  best  evidence."  Mi's.  Harris's 
virtues  would  have  been  more  completely  set  up,  if  their  affirmation  had 
come — instead  of  the  "physician" — from  the  parson  of  the  parish. 


)827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general  405 

"  MISSING  !"- — No  one  can  fail  to  have  observed  with  what  alarming  fre- 
quency, of  late  years,  this  word  "  missing,"  printed  in  large  letters,  arrests 
people's  attention,  at  the  head  of  advertisements  in  the  Newspapers,  or  of 
handbills,  stuck  against  the  wall,  as  they  go  along  the  street.  And  followed 
sometimes  by  a  description  of — "a  young  lady/' — with  "light  blue  eyes," 
"flaxen  hair" — dressed  "in  a  straw  bonnet,  and  pea-green  shawl'' — 
seems  "about  sixteen  years  of  age/'  &c.  &c. — the  mystery  of  whose 
absence  we  may  imagine  sometimes  reasonably  well :  but  more  commonly 

by  a  notice — non  est  inventus — of  Mr.  J T ,  of  "  the  parish  of 

St.  Leonard's,  Shoreditch"- — measures  "  about  five-feet  two  inches  high" 
— "  pitted  with  the  small  pox,  and  stoops  rather  in  walking" — "  had  on, 
when  he  went  away'1 — "  a  brown  coat,  with  basket  buttons" — 4<  corduroy 
breeches  and  short  gaiters" — "a  black  kerseymere  waistcoat" — and  "*a 
silver  watch  in  his  pocket — maker's  name,  '  George  Standstill,  Birming- 
ham' " — a  sort  of  person  whom — peoplethat  are  lost  must  be  found  ? — and 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive  any  useful  purpose  he  could  be  detained  for ! 
It  is  a  curious  fact,  and  deserving  of  public  attention,  how  exceedingly 
these  "  missing"  notices  have  multiplied  within  the  last  ten  years.  And 
a  correspondent  of  mine,  who  commonly  has  good  reason  for  that  which 
he  asserts,  writes  me  that,  decidedly,  the  numerous  "sausage  mills"  about 
town  ought  to  be  subjected — in  the  same  way  with  the  slaughter-houses, 
and  dissecting-rooms — to  legal  inspection. 

A  PLEASANT  ECONOMY. — The  Times  newspaper,  which  I  take  of  a  morn- 
ing, and  which  is  crowded  always  with  advertisements,  gets  a  stock  on 
hand,  too  great  for  endurance,  every  now  and  then,  and  is  compelled  to 
effect  a  relief,  by  the  publication  of  what  is  called  a  "  Supplement." 
This  sort  of  proceeding,  of  course,  makes  a  ferocious  display  of  wealth, 
&c.,  but  is  attended  with  considerable  pecuniary  loss  ;  because  the  "  Sup- 
plement," which  is  given  with  the  original  sheet  of  the  paper,  costs  not 
only  the  price  of  another  sheet  (paper  and  printing),  but  has  the  second 
stamp  duties  attached  to  it.  The  Morning  Chronicle,  however,  the  other 
day,  being  sadly  anxious  to  make  the  same  display,  and  yet,  abominably 
.withheld  on  account  of  the  expense,  was  divided  (in  council),  between 
pride  and  a  sense  of  prudence,  for  near  three  hours  and  a  half.  Until,  at 
length,  the  proprietor  (it  is  said)  himself,  hit  upon  an  expedient  to  evade 
both  difficulties — which  was  literally  acted  upon — by  publishing  a  "  Sup- 
plement," and  charging  an  additional  seven-pence  for  it !  In  theory, 
certainly,  this  surpasses  any  thing  that  has  been  attempted.  - 1  have  not 
heard  how  it  answered  in  the  practice. 

It  is  the  very  devil's-own  luck,  for  friendship  or  enmity,  to  have  to  deal 
with  a  wit !  An  assassin  is  a  safer  post-chaise  companion,  by  half,  than 
such  a  fellow  ;  for,  no  matter  which  side  you  are  of,  if  a  good  thing  comes 
iii'to  the  rogue's  heal — slap !  the  next  time  you  come  across  him,  you  are 
sure  to  have  the  benefit  of  it.  Lord  Chief  Justice  Best,  of  the  Common 
Pleas,  is  one  of  those  people  that  a  man  is  never  quite  safe  with.  When- 
ever I  see  him  smile  upon  the  Bench,  and  his  eyes  begin  to  twinkle — (or 
bite  his  lip,  and  look  round  viciously  from  a  sudden  twitch  of  the  gout — 
it  is  no  matter  which) — I  always  know  that — "  there  is  a  man  gone  !" 
Mr.  Marriott,  the  barrister,  once,  in  cross-examining  a  witness,  on  a  trial  for 
an  assault,  put  a  question  rather  too  directly,  and  brought  out  the  very  fact 
that  ruined  his  cause,  and  that  the  opposite  counsel  had  been  trying  for 
half  an  hour  to  get  on  the  examination-in-chief,  but  could  not,  because  he 
could  not  put  a  sufficiently  leading  question.  The  same  thing  might  have 


406  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  £  APRIL, 

happened  to  the  best  man  in  England ;  but,  of  course,  it  created  a  great 
roar  in  the  court ;  and,  in  the  next  cause,  Mr.  Pollock,  who  was  opposed 
to  Mr.  Marriott,  happened  to  be  trying  very  hard  to  lead  his  witness  to 
some  point  that  was  important  to  him.  "  Never  mind,  Mr.  Pollock,"  said 
Mr.  Justice  B.  (who  was  then  in  the  King's  Bench) — "  if  you  don't  get 
it,  Mr.  Marriott  will." 

Mr.  Marriott,  who  is  a  known  good  lawyer,  as  well  as  a  good- 
natured  man,  could  afford  to  stand  such  a  hit  as  this;  but  the  same 
sort  of  shot  plays  the  deuce  with  a  man  who  happens  to  be  a  coxcomb. 
The  other  day,  in  one  of  the  towns  on  the  Oxford  circuit — I  think  it  was 
Gloucester — where  the  same  learned  Judge  was  sitting  for  the  assizes,  the 
new  "  camel-leopard,"  who  has  been  exciting  such  amazement  all  over 
France,  was  going  about  shewing,  in  a  huge  caravan,  for  some  days 
through  the  county.  On  the  second  day  of  the  assize,  the  Judges  commonly 
give  a  dinner  to  the  bar ;  and  that  at  Gloucester  happened  to  be  very 
fully  attended  ;  and  the  Chief  Justice,  having  had  less  gout  that  week  than 
usual,  was  in  high  spirits — a  good  deal  of  real  wit  flew  about,  and  various 
odd  topics  were  discussed.  Until,  at  length,  a  pause  occurring,  a  gentle- 
man "  in  the  last  row" — quite  convinced  that  a  tiger's  tail  must  be  the 
prettiest  thing  in  the  world  to  play  with — because  it  flourished  about  so 
invitingly — and  deluded,  in  the  rashness  of  a  third  round  of  champaign,  to 
his  ruin — mustered  courage  to  hazard  an  attempt  at  conversation  with 
the  Lord  Chief;  and,  by  way  of  a  familiar  degage  commencement,  in- 
quired— "  if  his  Lordship  had  seen  the  camel-leopard  that  was  going  about, 
yet  "f"  An  ominous  silence  of  three  or  four  seconds  followed  this  question  ; 
and  several  of  the  company  took  snuff,  as  not  knowing  very  well  how  to 
get  over  it.  But,  in  about  a  quarter  of  a  minute,  the  learned  personage 
addressed — who  happened  at  the  moment  of  the  demand  to  have  both  his 
hands  in  his  breeches  pockets — without  removing  them,  looked  out  the 
postulator,  as  it  were,  at  the  lower  end  of  the  table. — "What  is  that 
you  said,  Mr.  M.  ******?  .The  camel-leopard — what — the  show? — 
why,  no — upon  my  word  1  have  not.  In  fact  I  am  rather  afraid — as  we 
both  travel  with  trumpets — that  we  are  standing  upon  ceremony,  which 
should  make  the  first  visit.'1 

What  followed  (in  a  minor  key)  at  the  lower  end  of  the  table,  was 
not  much  worse,' — "I  say,  Tom!  he  had  us  there!"  whispered  the  anni- 
hilated man's  clerk,  to  the  factotum  of  the  next  juvenile  near  him,  as  they 
stood  behind  the  chairs  of  their  respective  principals.  "  I  don't  know  what 
he  meant,"  answered  the  party  addressed. — "  Why,  no  more  do  I,"  re- 
turned the  first  speaker — "  but  I'm  blowed  if  he  hasn't  pitched  it  into  us!" 

Lord  Wharncliffe  gave  an  explanation  of  his  proposed  bill,  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  on  Wednesday,  the  20th  of  February,  for  legalizing  the  sale  of  game, 
and  making  other  improvements  upon  the  existing  system  of  our  game  laws  ; 
and  the  debate  upon  the  measure  of  last  night  (the  19th  of  March)  seems 
to  afford  considerable  hope  of  its  success.  One  fact  seems  to  be  perfectly 
clear  :  we  may  not — and,  indeed,  shall  not,  as  the  Lord  Chancellor  ob- 
served— while  the  present  system  of  preserves  and  battues  (which  are  the 
disgrace  of  true  sporting)  continues — ever  get  rid  of  the  practice  of  poaching 
entirely;  but,  by  legalising  the  sale  of  game,  we,  at  least,  do  this — we  cease 
to  make  poaching,  and  unlawful  dealing,  the  only  means  by  which  the  de- 
mand for  game  in  the  country — can  be  supplied.  Men  who  are  disposed  to 
live  by  petty  theft,  or  contraband  trade,  rather  than  by  honest  labour,  will 


1827.]  Letter  on  A/airs  in  general.  407 

still  steal  game,  under  an  altered  arrangement,  as  they  would  go  on  to 
steal  any  other  kind  of  easily-come-at  property ;  but  when  we  feel  quite 
sure  as  to  every  other  species  of  depredation — nobody  makes  a  question 
about  it — that,  if  we  could  get  rid  of  the  receivers,  we  should  soon  get  rid 
of  the  thieves,  how  can  we  fail  to  see  that,  by  making  game  an  article  of 
regular  traffic  (instead  of  compelling  the  whole  of  it  to  be  furnished  by 
robbery),  we  should  get  rid — to  speak  upon  the  lowest  calculation — of  half 
the  poachers,  because  more  than  half  their  market  would  be  cut  up  ?  And, 
for  the  same  reason,  it  would  appear,  that  the  precaution  of  making 
"licenses"  necessary  to  deal  in  game  is  at  least,  in  the  first  instance, 
rather  a  flying  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  our  present  system,  than  (as 
some  persons  seem  to  believe)  abiding  in  a  measure  by  the  spirit  of  it. 
Because,  if  the  apprehension  be,  that  some  dealers  in  game — even  when 
the  trade  is  legalised — will  still  purchase  from  the  poachers — we  admit 
this — and  still  see  how  the  land-owner  is  benefited  by  the  alteration — 
under  the  present  law,  ALL  the  dealers  purchase  of  the  poachers.  Chang- 
ing from  our  present  ground,  all  that  the  raiser  of  game  gets  by  the  sale 
law — much  or  little — is  pure  gain;  because,  now,  he  gets  nothing:  and 
there  need  be  no  apprehension  that  such  an  arrangement  will  still  open  a 
market  to  the  poacher,  "  by  increasing  the  consumption  of  game  in  town ;" — 
the  supply  of  game,  now,  in  the  markets  of  London,  is  limited  only  to  the 
greatest  quantity  that,  at  the  price  which  it  costs,  can  be  consumed — every 
gentleman  cart,  without  going  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  his  own  house,  pur- 
chase any  quantity  that  he  has  occasion  for.  This  is  a  question  which  de- 
serves more  detailed  consideration  than  can  be  given  to  it  here  ;  but,  I  would 
just  say  one  word  more  : — I  hope  that  gentlemen  of  landed  property — 
(because  Lewis  XI.  of  France  certainly  did  hold  counsel  with  his  barber)— 
do  not  allow  their  minds  to  be  influenced  by  the  statements  of  their  bailiffs, 
or  game-keepers,  as  to  the  probable  effect  of  any  alteration  in  the  laws 
respecting  game  ?  Because  I  am  afraid  these  dignitaries  would  hardly 
be  able,  in  general,  to  give  an  unbiassed  opinion — one  of  the  first  effects 
likely  to  result  from  a  measure  legalizing  the  sale  of  game,  being,  that 
it  would,  annually,  change  the  direction  of  a  very  considerable  sum 
of  money,  from  their  own  pockets  into  those  of  their  masters.  No  doubt, 
there  will  always  be  a  certain  number  of  marauders  in  society,  who  will 
prefer  any  casual  and  irregular  mode  of  livelihood — finding  it  none  tho 
worse  for  being  seasoned  with  an  occasional  touch  of  romance  and  peril — 
to  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  honest  labour.  And  the  multiplying  of  pre- 
serves, into  which  such  a  man  may  walk — without  climbing  over  walls,  or 
even  breaking  through  fences — and  seize  the  property  of  a  person,  in  com- 
mon with  whom  he  can  have  no  feeling,  will  hold  out  such  temptation, 
that  these  persons  will  occasionally  wire  hares,  instead  of  breaking  into  hen- 
roosts. But  by  organizing  a  system,  which  shall  openly,  and  legally,  sup- 
ply the  public  market  with  game,  a  man  must  be  almost  insane  who  can 
have  a  doubt,  that  the  great  proportion  of  that  demand,  which  now  makes 
poaching  a  sure  and  profitable  regular  trade  to  a  labourer,  must  be  cut 
away  ?  And,  in  fact,  that  demand  would  expire,  as  nearly  as  possible 
altogether ;  because  the  land-owner — the  game  being  his  property — has  it, 
at  least,  at  as  cheap  a  rate,  originally,  as  the  man  even  who  steals  it  from 
him.  And,  looking  at  the  different  course  by  which  he  would  dispose  of 
it — selling  it  by  wholesale,  and  avoiding  all  the  ruinous  profits — of  higgler, 
carrier,  &c.  &c. — which  stand  between  the  fraudulent  obtainer,  and  the 


408  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general. 

town  consumer,  I  tliink  it  is  almost  certain — setting  aside  the  additional 
economy,  induced  by  his  having  safety  on  his  side  through  all  the  dealing 
— that  the  proprietor  of  game,  shooting  it  by  himself,  and  by  his  servants, 
on  his  own  manor,  would  be  able  to  undersell  the  poacher  who  robbed  him 
of  it,  in  open  market. 

CONNUBIAL  TREACHERY! — A  criminal  trial,  of  a  very  singular  descrip- 
tion, came  on  last  week,  in  the  High  Couit  of  Justiciary  of  Edinburgh.  An 
old  woman,  named  Marian  Brown,  was  indicted  for  compassing  and  con- 
triving thr»  death  of  her  husband,  Thomas  Graham,  by  hanging  him  up 
by  the  neck — with  intent  to  kill,  &c. — white  he  was  asleep.  It  appeared 
that  the  man,  being  half  intoxicated,  and  the  woman  herself,  probably, 
either  intoxicated  or  mad,  she  had  actually  twisted  a  rope  round  his  neck, 
as  he  sat  asleep  in  a  chair;  tied  him  to  a  beam ;  drawn  the  chair  from 
under  him  ;  and  gone  away,  leaving  him  suspended.  The  jury  found  the 

Soor  wretch  guilty;  but  recommended  her  to  mercy — probably  from  a 
oubt  as  to  her  sanity  :  she  was  seventy -two  years  of  age.  There  had 
been  no  recent  quarrel ;  but  the  husband  would  undoubtedly  have  died, 
but  for  the  accidental  coming  in  of  a  neighbour,  who  cut  him  down.  On 
being  brought  to  himself,  and  questioned,  he  complained  "  that  his  neck 
was  sore ;'"  but  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  accident  that  had  hap- 
pened to  him. 

BON-MOT  OF  THE  LATE  DB.  KITCQINER. — As  the  German  Count 
C*  *  *  *  *,  was  walking  down  St.  JamesVstreet  the  other  day,  in  a  pair  of 
remarkably  large  trowsers,  he  ran  against  the  Doctor,  who  was  just  going 
into  Brookes's. — "  Who  is  that  ?''  said  Dr.  K.  to  a  friend  whom  he  met  on 
the  steps. — "  I  forgot  his  name  ;  but  he's  a  foreign  officer — one  of  the 
marshals,"  said  the  other. — "  Marshal  Sacks  (Saxe),  \  should  think, 
then,"  was  the  Doctor's  reply. 

I  was  speaking  a  little  way  back,  upon  the  value  of  "  character.1'  No 
doubt  it  is  a  precious  jewel ;  but  I  think  our  nicety  (as  legislators)  about 
protecting  it  is  sometimes  carried  rather  too  far.  As,  for  instance,  in  a  late 
action  for  Libel,  tried  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  where  a  Jew  bailiff 
prosecuted  some  poor  rogue  whom  he  had  arrested,  or  endeavoured  to 
arrest ;  and  who  took  revenge  for  the  act,  or  attempt — for  I  forget  which 
it  was — by  writing  a  copy  of  verses  upon  him.  In  this  case,  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice  is  reported  to  have  told  the  jury,  that  "  they  ought  to  find 
a  verdict  for  the  plaintiff,"  (by  the  way,  they  found  for  the  defendant) 
'*  because  the  lampoon  was  calculated  to  injure*  and  to  bring  him  into 
ridicule."  Now,  really,  I  think — to  decide  that  every  act  shall  be  a 
crime,  which  tends  to  bring  a  person,  who  is  at  once  both  a  Jew  and  a 
bailiff,  into  ridicule,  is  a  little  severe.  The  same  failing,  or  weakness,  may 
be  fairly  imputed  to  one  man,  which  could  not  be  charged  without  malice 
of  another.  As,  for  example,  if  I  should  say  of  a  scavenger — "  that  he 
savoured  not  of  amber;" — of  a  stock-jobber — that  "  east  of  St.  Paul's 
church-yard,  I  never  believed  a  word  of  foreign  news  that  he  spoke;" — 
or,  of  an  attorney,  that  I  never  believed,  in  any  place  at  all,  a  word  of 
any  thing  that  he  spoke ; — none  of  these  declarations  (as  it  seems  to  me) 
could  fairly  be  construed  by  the  parties  concerned  into  an  affront.  The 
fault — or  the  misfortune — lies,  not  in  the  man,  but  in  his  calling.  I  recol- 
lect a  case  of  an  indictment  in  the  King's  Bench,  brought  to  abate  a 
nuisance.  The  complaint  was,  of  a  horrible  smell  that  the  defendant  pro- 
duced over  all  the  neighbourhood,  by  making  gas.  A  number  of  persons 


I827.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  yeneral.  40^ 

were  called  as  witnesses,  who  declared  that  they  lived  near  the  premises, 
and  never  found  any  unpleasant  smell  at  all.  This  flat  contradiction  at 
first  astonished  every  body  ;  but,  upon  inquiry,  it  turned  out  that  these 
witnesses  were  all  nightmen !  Now,  to  have  questioned  the  accuracy  of 
the  olfactory  nerves  of  these  people,  could  hardly  have  been  drawn  into 
a  sin  !  In  the  case  before  us,  there  is  the  double  offence,  by  the  party  who 
calls  himself  libelled — the  man  is  a  pagan,  and — not  content  witii  being  a 
pagan — a  lock-up  house-keeper  to  boot.  This  simony,  as  it  were,  in  sin — 
this  monopol  of  abominable  quality — is  material — because  I  heard  the 


says 

constable — "  why,  he's  a  Jew  ! " — "  Veil,"    returned  the  man  of  cast 
apparel — "  and  your  mash  tor's  own  friend — Baron  Rothschild,  vat  you 
bow  to  every  day — ishn't  he  a  Jew  ?" — "  Yes,"  replied  the  other — "  but 
he  doesn't  keep  an  old-clothes-shop." — The  Israelite  was  silenced.     So,  / 
think,  that  there  are  callings  in  life — I  alluded  in  one  of  my  late  letters 
to  the  cases  of  the  hangman  and  the  common  informer — in  which  the 
less  we  say  (unless  in  very  extreme  emergencies)  about  "  character,"  the 
better ;  and  the  doctrine  that  every  written  statement,  given  so  as  to  be  seen 
by  third  persons,  if  it  go  to  injure,  or  bring  a  particular  man  into  ridicule, 
shall  be  a  libel — this  doctrine,  joined  to  the  law,  that,  in  a  proceeding  by 
indictment  for  such  libel,  the  truth  of  the  statement  cannot  be  given  in 
justification — in  how  many  absurd  and  ridiculous  positions,  it  might  place 
us !    For  instance — looking  at  the  possible  case  of  a  man  like  the  present 
prosecutor — the  J  ew  bailiff.    Suppose  a  debtor,  confined  in  a  lock-up  house ; 
and  robbed,  as  persons  in  such  places  commonly  are;  only  to  copy  out  in 
chalk  upon  the  wall  of  his  room,  the  bill  of  charges  brought  him  from  day 
to  day  by  the  landlord.     There  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  this  would  be 
a  writing  calculated  to  do  more  than  ridicule — to  injure — the  bailiff: — that 
fact  would  give  it  the  quality  of  a  libel.     It  would  be  open  to  be  seen  by 
third  persons  ;  i.  e.  by  future  prisoners  shut  up  in  the  same  room : — this 
would  amount  to  "  publication,"  and  complete  the  offence !     It  might, 
perhaps,  be  attempted  to  be  argued,  for  a  defendant — that,  the  libel  being 
written  upon  the  interior  walls  of  the  plaintiffs  house,  the  keeper  suffered 
no  injury  ;  because,  though  it  would  be  read  by  future  prisoners,  yet  it 
could  only  be  seen  by  them,  after  they  were  already  in  his  power.     But, 
this  plea  would  not  do  ;  because  it  would  be  replied,  and  truly,  that  the 
bailiff  might  still  suffer  damage ;  inasmuch  as  that  prisoners  (seeing  this 
writing)  might  remove  themselves,  at  once,  to  the  prisons  of  the  King's 
Bench,  or  the  Fleet,  who  would  otherwise  have  remained  in  his  lock-up 
house.     And  the  serious  fact  is,  that  a  defendant,  indicted   under  these 
circumstances,  must,  as  the  law  stands,  be  convicted ;    for,   although  he 
should  have  the  very  bill,  in  the  plaintiff's  own  hand-writing,  from  which 
he  had  copied  the  libel,  in  his  pocket,  he  could  not — in  a  case  of  prosecu- 
tion— produce  it  in  his  defence.  Now  this  case,  extreme  as  it  appears,  is  not 
quite  hypothetical.     A  dispute,   pretty  nearly  similar,  did  arise ;  and  a 
proceeding  at  law  was  Contemplated — in  which  the  defendant  certainly 
would  have  been  worsted.     But  the  cause  never  came  to  issue ;  for  a  scul- 
lion wench  of  the  lock-up  house,  either  influenced  by  some  unusual  fit  of 
cleanliness,  or  bribed  by  the  defendant's  attorney,  walked  up  stairs  ona 
M.M.  New  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  16.  3  G 


Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [A?RiL. 

morning,  unperceived,  with  a  dishclout;  and,  just  as  the  pleadings,  I  bo- 
lieve,  were  settled,  wiped  away  the  cause  of  action. 

SYMPATHIES  OF  Sn KIT. — It  is  curious  to  observe  the  species  of  "  free- 
masonry"— the  intuitive  appreciation  and  understanding,  as  it  were,  of  each 
other — which  exists  among  persons  who  are  attached  to  the  same  amuse- 
ments, or  who  follow  the  same  professions.     Your  fox-hunter — your  fisher 
— your  smuggler — and  your  pick-pocket,  are  ail  "  hail  fellow,  well  met!" — 
when  they  encounter  a  brother  of  the  art ;  and  intimacies  are  formed,  like 
the  loves  and  friendships  in  German  plays,  with  a  celerity  quite  incom- 
prehensible to  the  uninitiated.     There  was  a  charge  at  the  police-office  at 
the  Mansion-house,  a  few  weeks  since,  against  a  young  lady  of  the  name 
of  "  Harwood  ;"  who,  finding  the  attentions  of  a  Mr.  Randall,  a  coal- 
merchant  in  Friday-street,  less  constant  than  she  had  encouraged  herself 
to   hope,  bought  a  pistol,  and  resolved  to  shoot  her  deserter.     Not  being 
much  used  to  field  sports — although  it  appears  that  she  practised  a  little 
previously,  in  a  wash-house — Miss  Harwood's  pistol  only  flashed  in  the 
pan,  when  she  fired  it  in  Friday-street,  and  her  person  was  taken  into  cus- 
tody.    Some  question  about  a  "  breach  of  promise  of  marriage"  arising, 
and  an  "  action," — Mr.  Randall,  I  believe,  eventually  agreed  to  forego 
prosecution,  and  give  a  sum  of  money  to   be  clear  of  the  affair.     But  a 
morning  paper,  describing  the  lady's  being  brought  up  from  prison  to  bo 
discharged,  &c.  under  this  arrangement,  sums  up  with  the  following  para- 
graph : — "  Miss  Harwood  seemed  in  high  spirits  ;  and,  it  is  said,  intends 
to  go  into  the  country  with  *  Miss  Stafford/  a  young  female  who  at- 
tempted a  few  nights   since  to  hang  herself  to  some  area  railings  in 
Bartletfs-buildings,   Holborn, — Miss  H.   being  much  pleased  with  her 
society."     "  Miss  Stafford,"  it  appears,  was  herself  then  liberated  (the  ac- 
quaintance between  the  parties  having  commenced  in  the  Poultry-Compter) 
upon  a  friend's  promising  to  be  security  to  the  magistrate,  that,  when  she 
hanged  herself  next,  it  should  not  be  in  the  city  ! 

Sir  Walter  Scott  has  acknowledged,  the  authorship  of  the  Waverley 
novels,  since  my  last,  which  is  made  a  clearing-up  of  great  importance, 
by  those  who  are  cunning  in  such  questions  of  identity.  1  confess  I  don't 
see  the  great  marvel ;  for  there  could  hardly  be  ten  sane  men  in  Eng- 
land who  had  any  doubt  about  the  fact.  If  any  body  else  had  acknow- 
ledged writing  the  books,  it  might  have  been  something. 

New  publications  have  not  been  striking  in  the  last  month.  Mr.  Col- 
burn  is,  as  usual,  the  greatest  artist  as  to  quantity ;  but  his  4*  Vivian 
Greys,"  and  "  Truckleborough  Halls,"  are  mere  hashes  of  the  gossip 
of  the  day,  and  are  hardly  remembered  from  season  to  season.  Mrs. 
Johnson's  Elizabeth  de  Bruce  will  outlive  twelve  generations  of  these  : 
I  like  that  novel  much ;  and  it  will  sell  better  five  years  hence  than  it 
does  now.  "  Marriage"  was  not  read  by  the  million  until  Sir  Walter 
Scott  noticed  it. 

*  Voila  de  vos  arrets, 

Messieurs  les  gens  de  gout, 
I/ouvrage  est  peu  de  chose, 

Et  le  nomfait  tout!" 

Lord  Byron's  voyage  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  to  carry  home  the  bodies 
of  the  late  king  and  queen  of  those  realms,  is  out.  It  is  a  dull  book  ;  feebly 
written ;  and  conveying  very  little  new  or  interesting  information ;  and  printed 
most  extra  extravagantly — it  has  a  margin  broad  enough  to  be  a  windingsheet. 


1827  3  Litter  on  Affairs  in  genual.  4 1 1 

The  people  of  the  islands  seem  to  have  been  highly  grateful  for  the  atten- 
tion shewn  to  their  late  sovereign  ;  and  perfectly  satisfied  as  to  the  manner 
of  his  death.  There  are  also  some  notices  of  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Star- 
buck,  the  master  of  the  ship  that  brought  Ihe  king  and  his  party  to 
England;  who  seems  to  have  been  a  very  incomprehensible  sort  of  per- 
sonage. 

The  late  high  winds  have  done  considerable  mischief  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  metropolis.  Chimney-pots  and  the  houses  they  belonged  to, 
in  several  cases,  dissolved  partnership  without  any  notice  in  the  Gazette; 
and  ladies,  by  a  process  far  more  summary  than  that  of  the  Ecclesiastical 
Court,  were  in  many  instances  divorced  from  their  cloaks,  and  gentlemen 
from  their  umbrellas.  Only  on  Thursday  night  last,  a  gentleman  walked 
into  the  watch-house  beyond  Waterloo-bridge,  and  said — "  Here  is  a  hat 
that  I  have  found  blowing  about  the  road."  And  as  he  was  turning  round 
to  go  out,  a  watchman  came  in,  saying — "  Here  is  a  gentleman  I  have 
found  blowing  about  the  road,  that  I  dare  say  it  belongs  to." 

I  am  c;lad  to  find,  by  the  proceedings  of  a  Common  Council,  held  on 
the  15th  instant,  that  Mr.  Alderman  Venables  has  given  notice  of  a  mo- 
tion, for  "  considering  the  state  of  the  nightly  watch  in  the  city."  This 
is  an  inquiry  which  has  very  long  been  wanted  ;  because,  if  we  are  to 
have  the  institution  of  a  "  street  police,"  it  is  lit  that  we  should  have  the 
advantage  of  its  operation,  in  one  part  of  the  town  as  well  as  in  another; 
and  it  so  happens  now,  that,  in  one  of  the  very  greatest  thoroughfares  in 
town — the  ward  of  Fleet-street — we  have  practically,  after  ten  o'clock  at 
night,  no  "  street  police"  at  all.  While  the  law  in  other  parts  of  the  town 
is  strictly  enforced,  which  obliges  publicans  to  shut  their  doors  at  eleven 
o'clock,  and  stop  their  trade,  almost  every  public-house  in  the  ward  of 
Fleet-street  is  allowed  to  be  turned  into  a  common  gin-shop ;  into  and  out 
of  which  all  kinds  of  disorderly  and  infamous  characters  are  passing  and 
re-passing,  until  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  will  hardly  be 
credited  by  persons  not  resident  on  the  spot,  that,  from  the  hour  when  the 
theatres  break  up  at  night  until  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Fleet- 
street  is  paraded  by  gangs  of  pick-pockets,  mixed  up  in  parties  with  the 
lowest  description  of  prostitutes,  to  such  a  degree  as,  before  twelve  o'clock, 
renders  it  wholly  impassable  to  decent  persons :  with  all  which  riot  and 
violation  of  law,  the  police  of  the  city  never  seems  at  all  to  interfere.  Now 
without  going  into  any  abstract  question  as  to  the  possibility,  or  policy,  of 
removing  particular  nuisances,  it  would  be  feasible,  I  think,  to  confine  them 
within  some  moderate  bounds ;  and  there  does  seem  to  be  no  very  good 
reason,  why  one  part  of  the  streets  of  London  should,  at  a  particular  time 
of  the  twenty-four  hours,  be  especially  delivered  over  to  the  sovereignty  of 
thieves  and  vagabonds,  any  more  than  another!  Why  it  should  be  impos- 
sible (particularly)  for  a  man  resident  in  Ludgate-hill,  or  in  Bridge-street, 
to  walk  from  Temple-bar  after  eleven  at  night  with  his  wife  or  daughter, 
without  subjecting  them  to  offences  too  gross  and  horrible  to  be  described  ? 
I  rather  hope  that  there  is  some  mistake  in  the  opinion,  that  this  disgrace- 
ful state  of  Fleet-street  ward,  has  been  suffered  to  continue  by  those  autho- 
rities who  should  have  put  it  down,  from  a  tenderness  (founded  upon  elec- 
tioneering views  or  expectations)  for  the  interests  of  the  several  publicans 
who  profit  by  it.  Independent  of  the  monstrous  corruption  and  injustice 
of  giving  any  particular  set  of  traders  an  exemption  from  restrictions  im- 
posed upon  others,  carrying  on  the  same  business,  it  is  too  much—exerting 

3  G  2 


412  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [_ APRIL, 

ourselves,  as  we  are  every  day,  to  put  down  the  suburb  fairs — prosecuting 
chandlers  and  butchers  for  selling  goods  on  the  sabbath,  &c.  &c. — to  tole- 
rate such  a  nuisance  of  immorality  and  disorder,  for  the  advantage  of  any 
men.  The  evil,  as  it  exists,  can  neither  be  doubted  nor  denied,  by  any 
man  who  will  walk  from  St.  Clement's  church  to  Fleet-market,  between 
half-past  eleven  at  night  and  two  in  the  morning.  It  proceeds  from  no 
causes  that  are  questionable,  or  difficult  to  be  got  rid  of;  and  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  city  will  owe  a  service  to  Mr.  Alderman  Venables,  if  he  suc- 
ceeds in  removing  it. 

REFORMS  IN  THE  COURT  OF  CHANCERY. — I  observed,  in  the  beginning  of 
my  letter,  that  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  had  brought  in  his  Bill,  for  reform- 
ing; the  practice  of  the  Courts  of  Chancery.  But  the  person  from  whom, 
I  think,  the  best  practical  hint  for  the  amendment  of  these  courts  has  pro- 
ceeded, is  the  Vice- Chancel  lor  himself.  On  the  27th  of  February,  in  the 
course  of  a  sharp  dispute,  upon  the  propriety  of  letting  cases  "  stand  over," 
whenever  it  did  not  suit  the  convenience  of  counsel  to  be  present  to  argue 
them — His  Honour  having,  very  properly,  expressed  his  determination  to 
strike  entirely  out  of  the  paper  all  such  causes  in  future — the  following 
dialogue  is  reported  (by  the  Globe)  to  have  taken  place  between  the  Judge 
and  Mr.  Sugden,  who  has  lately  been  made  a  King's  Counsel: — 

"  Mr.  Sugden  observed,  that,  if  his  Honour  was  determined  to  persevere 
in  this  new  rule,  it  would  be  better  that  he  should  have  a  bar  of  his  own, 
which  he  (Mr.  Sugden)  was  of  opinion,  however,  that  there  would  be  some 
difficulty  in  forming. 

"  His  Honour  (looking  over  the  numerous  assemblage  of  barristers  behind 
the  bar)  intimated  to  Mr.  Sugden  his  opinion,  that  there  would  be  no  dif- 
ficulty at  all  in  forming  a  bar  to  carry  on  the  business  of  this  Court." 

His  Honour,  here,  has  spoken  out  "  the  right."  A  great  part  of  the 
delay  and  mischief,  which  occur  in  the  Court  of  Chancery,  arises  from  the 
habit  of  crowding  a  few  particular  barristers  with  three  times  as  much  business 
as  they  can  attend  to;  while  younger  men — just  as  competent,  and  of  neces- 
sity far  more  able,  as  well  as  inclined  to  be  active — are  starving.  The 
result  is,  that,  while  a  man  is  capahle  of  exertion,  he  is  compelled  to  sit 
still  as  a  junior  counsel,  and  see  business  slovened  over,  or  neglected,  by 
other  people— merely  because  they  are  older  than  himself.  If  he  is  fortu- 
nate, in  time  he  changes  his  position  ;  and,  in  his  turn,  neglects,  or  slovens 
over  business,  while  younger  people  sit  still  and  look  at  him. 

The  theatres  have  not  done  much  lately  that  has  been  interesting.  An  alte- 
ration of  Shirley's  comedy  of  The  Gamesters  has  been  acted  at  Covent  Gar- 
den, but  without  much  success.  These  new  versions  of  old  plays — unless 
where  the  piece  happens  to  have  been  peculiarly  dramatic — ^seldom  do  good. 
Our  writers  of  Shirley's  day  depended  upon  other  matters  than  "  stage  effect''* 
for  the  success  of  their  dramas  ;  and  upon  points  of  strength,  three  times  in 
four,  which  we  are  not  now  permitted  to  resort  to.  The  picture — as  it 
was  painted — is  a  glorious  work,  though  objectionable ;  but,  when  we 
have  struck  out  half  the  incidents,  and  washed  off  two-thirds  of  the  colour- 
ing, the  impression,  upon  the  operator's  own  mind,  may  still  be  vivid  ;  but 
to  the  spectator  who  sees  it  for  the  first  time,  there  is  not  much  value  in 
what  remains.  In  Paris,  two  pieces  of  considerable  popularity  have  been 
brought  out  :  one,  from  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novel  of  Quentin  Durward, 
called  "  St.  Louis  at  Peyronne  ;"  and  the  other,  "  La  Chatte  Metamor- 
phose* en  Femme"  The  last  is  a  sort  of  fairy  tale,  in  which  Mile.  Jenny 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  413 

Vertpree  plays  the  part  of  the  femme-chatte  ;  and  electrifies  tho  Parisians 
almost  as  much  as  Mazurier  did  in  the  man-morikey. 

The  King,  it  appears,  has  loft  Brighton — and,  1  take  it,  for  ever.  No- 
thing but  his  Majesty's  ignorance  of  the  real  present  state  of  that  ultra 
resort  of  cockneyism  could  ever  have  induced  him,  six  weeks  since,  to  go 
there.  Brighton  has  got  up — under  the  patronage  of  "  fashion" — sufficiently 
now — independent  of  fashion — to  live.  The  convenient  distance  from 
town ;  the  excellence  of  the  roads ;  and  the  great  perfection  of  the  con- 
veyance organised  ;  must-— 'particularly  while  the  extent  and  population  of 
London  goes  on,  as  it  does,  increasing — insure  its  safety.  Great  numbers 
of  persons  in  business,  now  keep  houses  in  Brighton  all  the  year  round  ; 
and,  by  merely  rising  at  any  day  at  six  in  tho  morning,  are  in  town  time 
enough  to  transact  business  upon  'Change  at  twelve.  This  could  not  be 
managed,  if  the  distance  were  only  twelve  miles  farther,  or  the  coaches 
one  mile  in  the  hour  slower  ;  and  besides — the  great  work  is  done — the 
place  is  built,  and  frequented,  and  ready.  Still,  the  King,  I  suspect,  has 
seen  his  lost  of  it ;  and  how — with  such  a  residence  as  Windsor  at  his  dis- 
posal— he  could  be  expected  to  endure  a  sinoke  and  confinement,  equal  to 
that  of  Ilolborn,  or  Red  Lion  Square  ;  with  cake-house  company,  crowded, 
and  vulgar  affectation,  worse  than  that  of  the  Star  and  Garter  at  Richmond, 
or  Hampton  Court,  on  a  Sunday;  it  is  difficult  almost  to  imagine  !  For 
myself,  I  think  it,  incomparably,  the  most  detestable  sojourn  in  all 
England.  But  this  is  only  the  necessary  result  of  the  popularity  which  it 
has  enjoyed.  If  the  mountains  of  Wales  could  become  "  fashionable,"  in 
ten  years  they  would  be  just  as  filthy. 

A  new  Diorama,  said  to  be  of  extraordinary  merit,  is  exhibiting  now  in 
Paris.  The  subject  is  a  view  of  Edinburgh  ;  and  the  artist  has  chosen  the 
night  of  the  great  fire  (which  occurred  two  years  since)  for  the  moment  of 
his  design ;  exhibiting,  at  once,  a  bright  moonlight  sky,  with  the  red  glare 
of  two  hundred  burning  houses  flashing  against  it.  The  management  of 
these  very  difficult  mixed  lights  ;  with  the  breaking  out  of  the  flame  occa- 
sionally in  new  parts  of  the  picture,  and  the  rolling  of  the  thick  columns 
of  smoke,  mixed  with  sparkles  and  flakes  of  fire,  over  the  city,  are  said  to 
form  one  of  the  happiest  effects  that  have  yet  been  produced  in  this  very 
beautiful  style  of  exhibition. 

Speaking  of  "burning,"  I  notice  that  the  Protestant  students  of  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  have  burned  Mr.  Piunkett,  the  Irish  Attorney  General,  in 
effigy,  for  supporting  the  claims  of  the  Catholics.  Really  a  man  who  is 
compelled  to  live  in  Ireland  has  rather  a  difficult  game  to  play,  just  now  ! 
the  Catholics  would  have  burned  the  honourable  and  learued  gentleman 
— perhaps  not  in  effigy — if  he  had  voted  against  them. 

The  French  Globe,  of  the  1st  of  March,  gives  a  curious  account  of  an 
experiment  lately  made  upon  M.  Vallarice's  new  plan  for  air  carriage; — to 
exemplify  which,  I  believe  I  mentioned  two  or  three  months  ago,  Mr.  V. 
has  constructed  a  tunnel,  or  cylinder,  upon  a  small  scale  at  Brighton.  It 
appears  that  this  model — if  I  may  so  call  it — of  the  thing  to  be  done,  con- 
sists of  a  cylinder,  twenty-seven  feet  m  circumference,  and  two  hundred 
feet  long ;  from  one  end  to  tho  other  of  which,  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
Lord  Holland,  and  a  French  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Flahaut,  were 
carried,  by  the  operation  of  Mr.  Vallance's  principle,  upon  a  sort  of  car, 
with  wheels,  but  at  the  rate  only  of  six  miles  an  hour.  The  relator 
observes,  that  the  principle  was  far  from  having  fair  play  ;  inasmuch  as 


414  Letter  OH  Affairs  m  general.  [APRIL, 

that  the  cylinder  is  constructed  only  of  wood,  covered  with  canvass  (which 
would  be  more  pervious  to  the  outward  air  than  brick)  ;  and  that  the 
exhaustion  was  extremely  incomplete — the  barometer  boing  affected  only 
very  slightly.  But  this  result  is  precisely  that  which  one  would  look  for  : 
it  will  never  be  possible  to  accomplish  the  exhaustion  in  a  sufficient  degree ; 
but  SLT  miles  an  hour,  is  very  far  short,  indeed,  of  a  hundred.  One  part, 
however,  of  Mr.  Vallance's  scheme  is  rational  and  well  imagined.  He  pro- 
poses to  come  to  London,  and  make  an  experiment,  by  constructing  a 
cylinder  from  London  to  Blackwall,  with  a  view  to  carrying  the  heavy 
goods,  which  are  at  present  brought  in  waggons  from  the  East  and  West- 
India  Docks.  A  work  like  this  would  come,  in  the  way  of  expense, 
within  reasonable  compass  ;  and,  as  regards  the  carriage  of  goods,  the  plan 
would  seem  to  be  free  from  many  difficulties  which  would  attach  to  it  in 
the  carrying  of  human  beings.  The  transit,  too,  is  so  constant,  that,  if 
Mr.  Vallance's  plan  succeeded,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  his  getting 
immediate  remuneration. 

The  same  paper  contains  a  curious  illustration  of  the  uncertainty  of 
medical  knowledge,  in  a  paper  read,  or  sent,  by  Dr.  Magendie  to  the 
Academie  des  Sciences.  The  subject  is  the  exhibition  of  the  concentrated 
preparation  of  bark,  the  sulphate  of  quinine  ;  of  which  the  doses  given,  a 
little  while  back,  in  cases  of  ague  and  intermittent  fever,  were  twenty-four 
grains.  Dr.  Magendie  finds,  now,  that  exactly  the  same  effect  is  produced 
by  the  administering  of  two  grains.  This  is  odd  !  But — as  the  French 
say,  whenever  there  is  a  monstrous  discrepancy  between  their  statement 
and  yours — c"est  egal. 

There  is  no  science,  perhaps,  that  leads  its  votaries  into  so  many  jack- 
a-lantern  scrapes,  and  blunders,  as  "political  economy."  It  hardly  ever 
happens  that  two  men,  even  who  fancy  themselves  on  the  same  side,  discuss 
it,  without  presently  finding  that — by  a  discipline  as  happy  as  that  of  the 
allies  in  King  John — 

"  Fiom  north  to  south,'' 

like  Austria  and  France,  they 

"  Shoot  in  each  other's  mouth!" 

In  fact,  the  whole  system  of  letting  loose  these  '*  fixed  principles"  or 
abstract  free  action,  in  a  state  of  society,  in  which  all  original  principle,  of 
freedom  of  action,  has  long  been  sacrificed  and  abandoned,  in  favour  of 
vested  interests,  is  as  impracticable  as  it  would  he  to  talk  of  manoeuvring  a 
regiment  of  cavalry  upon  ground  intersected  at  every  ten  yards  by  walls 
and  ditches;  or  of  riding  a  steeple-chace,  in  the  month  of  August,  across 
the  counties  of  Buckingham  or  Bedford,  without  ruining  the  inhabitants, 
because  it  so  happens  that  \ve  could  perform  the  same  exploit  without 
mischief  on  Dartmoor.  Two  discussions  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  tho 
course  of  the  last  month — which  arose  within  four  days  of  each  other — 
involve  a  curious  example  of  tiie  danger  of  these  sweeping  maxims  ;  and  of 
the  tendency  which  a  principle  in  political  economy  has  — like  the  fabric 
they  call  a  "shot"  silk — to  change  its  appearance  entirely,  as  we  change 
the  position  in  which  we  happen  to  look  at  it.  Mr.  Secretary  Peel,  on  one 
evening,  in  a  conversation  with  the  honourable  member  for  Montrose,  upon 
the  propriety  of  receiving  certain  petitions  from  labouring  mechanics  who 
desired  to  have  a  tax  upon  machinery,  laid  down  a  principle — as  to  the 
force  of  which  no  economist  will  endure  even  to  hear  a  doubt — "that  the 


182T.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  41i> 

true  course  for  securing  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  every  country,  was  to 
give  all  possible  encouragement,  not  merely  to  the  invention  of  machinery, 
but  to  every  exertion — no  matter  in  what  shape — of  the  ingenuity  of  its 
inhabitants."      Now,  in  its  full  extent,  and  taken  practically,  I  doubt  the 
truth  of  this  principle  very  much.     I  think  if  a  man  could,  to  morrow,  by 
his  "  ingenuity,'*   discover  the  secret,   in   England,  of  making  gold,  we 
should  find  that  we  had  no  choice  left,  but— against  law,  and  humanity, 
and  political  economy — to  assassinate  him.     And,  to  apply  this  principle 
only  to   the  case  of  the  invention  of  machinery !     Suppose  that  I  could 
invent  to-morrow  such  engines   for  uso  in  the  cotton  trade,  the  woollen 
trade,  or  the  iron  trade,  as  should  effect  the  production  of  goods,  in  those 
trades,  with  half  the  quantity  of  human  labour  now  employed,  and,  at  a 
reduction,  as  to  price,  say  of  twenty  per  cent,  upon  their  present  cost — 
wiiat  other  operation  would  this  "  invention"   have  upon  the  wealth  and 
happiness   of  England,  than  to  add  four  millions  more  of  starving  paupers 
to  the  million,  or  million  and  a  half,  that  we  have  without  work,  or  much 
chance  of  work,  already  ?     It  will  hardly  do,  in  answer  to  this  certain  evil, 
to  tell  me  of  a  possible  good : — to  wit,  that  our  lower  cost  of  production, 
allowing  us  to  undersell  other  people,  will  give  us  the  custom  of  all  foreign 
nations ;  beause,  in  the  first  place — let  us  assume  this  to  happen  after  we  have 
already  the  custom  of  these  foreign  nations  ; — not  to  speak  of  our  free  prin- 
ciple, which  allows  the  exportation  of  these  very  same  machines  to  foreign 
nations,  in  order  that  they  may  be  enabled  to  produce  for  themselves.      But 
the  most  extraordinary  answer  to  this  proposition  is  given  by  a  Minister  in  per- 
son— it  appears  in  Mr.  Wilmot  Norton's  speech  upon  the  Emigration  ques- 
tion, delivered  only  a  night  or  two  before  or  after  this  declaration  by  Mr.  Peel. 
By  way  of  shewing — for  he  is  a  political  economist  too — the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  emigration,  to  relieve  the  distress  of  Ireland,  Mr.  Horton  refers  to  evi- 
dence shewing  the  state  of  that  country,  and  quotes  a  respectable  authority 
upon  the  state    of  labour  there,  substantially  to  the  following  effect. — 
*'  Low  as  the  rate  of  wages  given  to  labourers  is,  in  Ireland,  to  perform 
any  given  piece  of  work  there  cosis  at  least  as  much  as  it  would  in  Eng- 
land/*    And  the  cause  of  this  expense  is,   "  that  the  tools  and  machines 
with  which  men  work  in  that  country  are  so  unimproved  as,  compared  with 
ours  at  home,   that   it  takes  a  greater  quantity  of  time  and  labour,  to 
perform  the  same  amount  of  task.*'     Then,  what  says  Mr.  Horton,  infer- 
ring from  this  fact? — Not  that  the  exertion  of  improvement,  or  ingenuity, 
will  remedy  that  state  of  things,  and  give  Ireland  "  wealth  and  happi- 
ness ;"  but  that  improvement  will  have  the  very  contrary  effect.     He 
says — "  Here  is  a  state  of  things  in  which  emigration  alone  can  help  us; 
for,  to  make  the  least  improvement  in  the  rude  engines  and  machines  with 
which  the  people  of  Ireland  work,  would  only  be  to  add  to  the  misery  of 
the  country,  by  making  a  less  quantity  of  human  labour  requisite  in  it 
than  it  now  finds  room  for,  and  consequently  increasing  the  extent  of  its 
unemployed  and  starving  population."     Now  I  am  quite  convinced  that 
we  cannot,  by  any  legislative  enactment,  check  the  use  of  machinery  :  but 
it  is  impossible  for  me  to  believe,  looking  at  the  various  relations  of  civil- 
ized society — that  the  mass   of  people  in  any  country  are  always  neces- 
sarily benefited,  by  any  event  or  arrangement  which  makes  their  labour 
capable  of  being  dispensed  with. 


[     416     ] 


THE    ASSIGNATION 
A    BALLAD. 

WITH  hound  and  horn,  and  huntsman's  call, 

They  chase  the  fallow  deer ; — 
And  thou,  the  noblest  of  them  all, 

Why  dost  thou  loiter  here  ? 

Thou  canst  not  deem  within  her  bower 

Thine  own  true  love  to  see  : 
Dost  thou  not  know  at  matin  hour 

I  ne'er  can  come  to  thoe  ? 

My  sister's  voice  is  on  the  stair, 

All  in  her  maiden  glee ; 
My  mother's  flitting  every  where, 

And  calling  still  on  me. 

My  father's  by  the  southern  wall, 

Pruning  the  old  vine-tree  ; 
My  brother's  playing  in  the  hal!, — 

And  all  are  wanting  me. 

Then  off,  and  mount  thy  gallant  steed, 

To  hunt  the  fallow  deer ; 
Off,  off!  and  join  the  chase  with  speed, 

Nor  loiter  longer  here. 

At  eventide  my  mother  sits, 

Her  knitting  on  her  knee ; 
And  wakes  by  starts,  and  dreams  by  fits, — 

But  never  dreams  of  me. 

At  eventide  my  sister  fair 

Steals  to  the  great  oak  tree ; 
I  may  not  tell  who  meets  her  there,— 

But  nought  want  they  of  me. 

At  eventide  beside  the  bowl, 

With  some  old  comrade  free, 
My  father  many  a  song  doth  troll, — 

But  never  thinks  of  me. 

Off,  then,  with  hound  and  echoing  horn, 

To  chase  the  fallow  deer ! 
Nor  deem  again,  at  peep  of  morn, 

To  meet  thy  true  love  here ! 


1827.]  [     417     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN. 


Travels  in  Mesopotamia,  by  J.  S.  Buck- 
ingham ;  1827. — This  new  volume  is  de- 
cisive of  Mr.  Buckingham's  qualifications. 
His  pretensions  must,  in  this  case,  be  undi- 
vided. He  was  unaccompanied  by  any  Eu- 
ropean, and  therefore  can  have  plundered  no 
Europeanfellow-traveller'scolleetious;andof 
filching  any  oriental's,  he  will  not,  we  suppose, 
be  suspected.  Mr.  Buckingham  comes  before 
the  public  nownotonlyunimpeached  with  re- 
spect to  the  present  journey,  but  cleared  of 
all  former  suspicions,  by  the  open  or  implied 
confessions  of  his  calumniators.  He  has  suc- 
cessfully swept  away  all  unworthy  suspi- 
cions; and  we  venture  to  say,  the  volume 
before  us — affording  as  it  does  ample  proofs  of 
industry  and  research,  of  observance  abroad 
and  diligence  at  home,  of  sound  sense  and 
cultivated  intellect,  with  no  ordinary  powers 
of  description — will,  at  the  same  time,  be 
welcomed  with  all  the  confidence  for  which 
his  expurgation  has  paved  the  way. 

This  third  volume  describes  his  journey 
from  Aleppo  to  Bagdad,  by  the  way  of  Beer, 
Orffih  (the  ancient  Edessa,  and  traditionally 
the  still  more  ancient  Ur  of  the  Chaldees), 
Mardin,  and  Mousul — along  the  northern 
and  eastern  frontiers,  that  is,  of  Mesopo- 
tamia— understanding  by  Mesopotamia  the 
territories  lying  between  the  Euphrates  and 
the  Tigris.  This  is  not  the  customary  route 
of  the  caravans  to  Bagdad,  but — what  is 
better  for  the  curious,  for  those  who  like  to 
know  what  is  in  this  world  of  ours — it  is  one, 
which  conducts  the  traveller  through  all  the 
principal  assemblages  of  people  in  these  re- 
gions— crossing  also  plains  of  considerable 
extent,  occupied  by  tribes  of  Arabs  and  Tur- 
comans, friendly  or  hostile  to  each  other, 
some  more  stationary  than  others,  but  all  of 
a. roaming  description,  and  more  or  less  un- 
safe to  encounter ;  and  besides — what  is  even 
of  more  permanent  interest, — presenting  the 
vestiges  of  ruined  cities  and  empires — Ro- 
man, Grecian,  Assyrian,  upward  to  the  de- 
luge— scenes,  too,  that  have  seldom  been  vi- 
sited by  Europeans,  and  still  seldomer  de- 
scribed. 

These  are  not  regions  that  offer  attractions 
to  the  tourist.  A  man  must  have  some  strong 
compelling  motive  to  urge  him  over  arid 
plains  and  sun-burnt  wastes — utterly  desti- 
tute of  shade,  and  of  ten  even  of  water;  subject 
to  exactions  from  every  person  in  power, 
superior  or  subaltern,  and  to  plunderings  from 
the  flying  squadrons  of  lawless  hordes — ex- 
posed, moreover,  to  insult,  and  mockery,  and 
degradations  from  the  hard  ane  bigotled  re- 
ligionists, impatient  of  the  Christian  creed, 
and  intolerant  of  European  customs.  These 
are  hazards  which,  of  course,  the  dilettante 
traveller  will  not  incur.  The  missionary,  if  he 
visit  similar  scenes,  is  intent  upon  other  ob- 
jects; and  the  man  of  business  has  no  eyes 
for  one-half  of  the  objects,  that  we,  who  sit 
snugly  at  home,  and,  content  with  reading 

M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No- 16. 


about  dangers,  Instead  of  encountering  them, 
desire  to  know  something  about.  We  wish 
to  be  enabled  to  compare  the  state  of  things 
now,  with  the  state  of  things  formerly,  with 
the  state  we  read  they  were  in  two  or  three 
thousand  years  ago — to  correct  or  confirm 
our  old  conceptions — to  estimate  the  value 
of  the  advance,  or  the  causes  of  retrogression; 
— we  wish  to  be  furnished  with  facts,  not 
merely  relative  to  buildings  and  numbers,  but 
to  domestic  habits  and  public  institutions — to 
prevailing  opinions  and  modes  of  thinking— 
to  principles,  prejudices — whatever  will  put 
us  in  possession  of  the  actual  condition  of 
society.  These  are  the  things  that  present 
materials — the  best  materials — for  compre- 
hensive conceptions  of  human  nature — that 
enlarge  our  views  and  extend  our  grasp — and 
ultimately  bid  us  be  content  with  our  own 
lot,  or  teach  us  how  to  mend  it. 

In  furtherance  of  these  purposes,  Mr. 
Buckingham  has  done  every  thing,  that  the 
circumstances  of  his  journey,  and  his  short 
intercourse  of  three  months,  would  allow. 
He  has  the  traveller's  qualifications  in  abun- 
dant measure.  He  was  no  stranger  in  the 
east.  He  had  besides  collected  and  com- 
pared all  authentic  accounts  of  the  countries 
he  was  going  to  visit ;  and  was  thus  in  pos- 
session of  the  useful  from  the  days  and 
books  of  Xenophon,  Diodorus,  and  Strabo — • 
not  neglecting  the  careful  researches  of  D'An- 
ville,  and  Rennel,  and  Gibbon — nor  the  ac- 
counts of  travellers,  from  the  old  Spanish  Jew, 
who  traversed  the  country  in  the  twelfth 
century,  down  to  Niebuhr,  who  visited 
some  parts  of  it  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago — • 
the  last  of  any  eminence.  Yet  the  informa- 
tion thus  collectively  obtained  was,  he  found, 
scanty  and  imperfect,  leaving  ample  space 
for  new  observers.  Mr.  B.  also  had  supe- 
rior facilities  for  surveying  the  country.  For 
the  greater  part  of  the  journey,  he  travelled 
with  a  caravan  of  considerable  strength — of 
course  moving  slowly — under  the  protection 
of  its  chief,  a  wealthy  merchant,  returning 
from  Mecca — thus  covered  with  the  shield  of 
sanctity,  and  with  all  the  advantages  of  re- 
spect and  confidence  from  those  around  him,  as 
he  himself  says;  and  with  sufficient  leisure  and 
safety  to  enjoy,  unmolested,  opportunities  of 
recording  whatever  appeared  worthy  of  ob- 
servation, before  one  series  of  impressions 
was  obliterated  by  another  train  of  objects 
and  thoughts.  He  hud  besides  the  advantage 
of  speaking — Hot  the  language  of  the  coun- 
try, precisely — 'for  generally  he  found  the 
Turkish  more  in  use  than  the  Arabic — but  a 
language  generally  understood,  and  thus  of 
being  his  own  interpreter ;  and  what,  at 
least  in  his  case,  was  no  disadvantage — he 
had  no  European  friend,  companion,  servant, 
or  attendant  of  any  sort ;  but,  adopting  the 
dress,  manners,  and  language  of  the  country, 
the  whole  of  the  way,  was  screened  from 
suspicion,  for  the  most  part,  by  his  familiarity 
3  H 


418 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[APRIL, 


with  the  customs  of  the  people,  and  from 
insult  by  the  influence  of  his  protector. 

Among  the  more  remarkable  parts  of  the 
volume,  are  his  descriptions  of  ancient  cities, 
of  what  is  believed  to  be  Nineveh,  Nisibis, 
Arbela,  Ctesiphon,  Seleucia,  and  Babylon; 
and  of  these,  the  most  memorable  are  his  re- 
searches relative  to  Babylon.  Among  the 
existing  masses  of  masonry,  one  he  conceives 
to  be  a  relic  of  the  celebrated  wall,  which 
had  eluded  the  research  of  former  travellers. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  (bis  wall  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  deep  foss,  or  the  obliteration 
of  it  will  seem  perfectly  incredible  ;  the  ma- 
terials of  the  wall  filled  up  the  ditch,  and  all 
was  thus  left  comparatively  level.  A  pyra- 
midal mass  had  been  recognised  by  Mr. 
Rich,  the  resident  English  Consul  at  Bagdad, 
at  the  time  of  Mr.  B's  visit,  as  the  temple  of 
Belus.  Niebuhr  beheld  it  at  a  distance  only, 
and  took  it  for  a  watch-tower  ;  but  an  after- 
perusal  of  Herodotus  led  h  im  to  conjecture 
it  might  prove  to  be  the  ruins  of  the  temple 
of  Belus.  Mr.  Buckingham  examined  it 
with  great  attention,  and  left  it  with  an  im- 
pression corresponding  with  Niebuhr's  con- 
jecture, and  Mr.  Rich's  conviction.  It  is 
a  pile  of  two  hundred  feet  high,  on  a  basis 
of  about  one  hundred  yards  square,  and  on  the 
top  of  it  is  a  tower  of  fifty  feet  high — the  very 
dimensions  given  by  Herodotus,  and,  after 
him,  by  Strabo. 

To  trace  Mr.  Buckingham  particularly 
along  his  route  would  be  useless,  and  indeed, 
with  our  limits,  quite  impracticable.  An 
estimate  may  be  formed  of  his  power  of  ge- 
neral observation  by  an  extractor  two. 

With  the  people  of  the  east  (he  remarks),  reli 
gion  acts  as  a  detractive  cause,  and  hinders  the 
natural  progress  of  their  understanding,  by  cor- 
rupting it  with  errors  in  its  course.  In  boyhood, 
they  are  sensible,  acute,  and  rational.  In  manhood, 
they  are  weak,  credulous,  and  prone  to  error. 
They  see  nothing  in  any  books  they  read  to  induce 
them,  either  that  the  power  of  God  to  work  mi- 
racles, his  inclination  so  to  do,  or  the  necessity 
of  their  existence  to  convince  the  unbelieving, 
has  ceased  ;  so  that  they  continue  to  believe  in  the 
occurrence  of  events,  as  miraculous  as  those  with 
which  the  pages  of  the  books  used  by  them  in  the 
studies  of  their  infancy  abound.  The  Mahome 
dans,  equally  convinced,  with  their  Jewish  and 
Christian  neighbours  of  the  east  (for  nearly  all 
the  Asiatics  are  alike  immersed  in  superstition)  of 
the  immediate  superintendence  of  genii  and  guar- 
dian-spirits, as  well  as  the  influence  of  their  prophets 
in  heaven,  say— "  What!  if  angels  could  perform 
such  wonders  in  the  days  of  old,  can  they  not  now, 
in  a  similar  way,  protect  the  fish  of  the  Lake  of 
the  Patriarch  *  from  the  operation  of  fire,  and 
make  them  resist  every  process  that  may  be 
tried  upon  them,  to  convert  them  into  food?" 
In  Protestant  countries,  the  devout  are  content 
to  believe  in  the  miracles  of  the  past,  and  look 
on  the  age  of  working  them  as  having  closed 

*  Vhefryability  of  the  fish  of  this  lake— the 
Lake  of  Abraham,  atOrfah,— is  steadily  denied,  by 
high  and  low,  and  alleged  as  a  proof  of  the  care 
the  Patriarch  still  takes  of  his  native  city— Mr.  B. 
had  the  evening  before  partaken  of  some  stolen, 
in  company  with  some  Cliri?t:nns. 


with  the  closing  page  of  revelation.  Aa  to  the 
grounds  on  which  they  reject  a  belief  In  their  ex- 
istence since  that  period— whether  it  be  from  any 
failure  of  power,  or  want  of  inclination— (what 
occasion  for  levity  ?)— in  the  Deity,  or  from  the 
absence  of  a  necessity  for  their  occurrence  since 
the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  all  men 
are  not  agreed;— but  certain  it  is  that  modern 
education  teaches  Europeans  to  measure  the  events 
and  opinions  of  their  own  day,  by  a  very  different 
standard  from  that  used  in  judging  of  the  history 
of  earlier  times.  And  though,  on  events  of  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  antiquity,  the  indulgence  of  much 
freedom  in  inquiry  is  thought  to  be  dangerous,  yet 
on  the  affairs  of  our  own  times,  and  on  matters 
more  nearly  affecting  our  business  and  bosoms 
at  the  present  moment,  it  is  courted  and  encou- 
raged. It  is  thus  that,  with  us,  religion  does  not, 
as  in  the  east,  obstruct  the  progress  of  our  general 
knowledge.— P.  105. 

Speaking  of  Dervishes,  and  Fakirs,  and 
the  general  hangers-on  upon  caravans — 

The  number  of  these  men,  throughout  Turkey,  is 
more  considerable  than  any  one  could  venture  to  as- 
sert, without  being  thought  guilty  of  exaggeration. 
In  every  caravan,  they  form  almost  the  major  part, 
and  consist  of  men,  who,  under  pretence  of  either 
going  to,  or  returning  from  the  pilgrimage,  wander 
from  place  to  place,  and  live  entirely  on  the  libe- 
rality of  the  pious.  These  are  generally  strong 
and  healthy  individuals,  capable  of  earning  their 
living  by  labour,  were  they  acquainted  with  any 
branch  of  art  or  manufacture;  and  are  distinct 
from  the  halt,  the  lame,  and  the  blind,  who  are 
always  objects  of  charity.  The  foimer,  however, 
by  carrying  about  them  a  koran,  some  talismans, 
beads,  and  charms,  make  a  more  profitable  business 
of  it  than  those  who  have  nothing  to  recommend 
them  to  the  commiseration  of  their  fellow-crea- 
tures, but  their  real  sufferings,  and  absolute  inca- 
pacity of  remedying  them.  The  number  of  un- 
productive beings  thus  preying  upon  the  rest — 
who  are  are  themselves  but  barely  a  remove  be- 
yond them,  from  their  extreme  ignorauceof  the  im- 
proved methods  of  labour,  and  their  natural  aver- 
sion to  activity — occasions  a  great  mass  of  poverty, 
which  nothing  but  the  wealth  that  nature  has  be- 
stowed upon  their  climate  and  soil,  the  fruits  of 
which  may  be  said  to  grow  up  spontaneously  to 
their  hands,  could  at  all  support.  The  military 
and  the  officers  of  the  government,  with  a  few  of  the 
merchants,  more  active  than  the  rest,  who  extend 
their  speculations,  and  move  from  place  to  place, 
are  the  only  rich  people  in  the  country.  These, 
however,  invariably  support  a  vast  number  of  de- 
pendents, who  are  free  from  every  concern,  but 
that  of  eating,  drinking,  praying,  and  sleeping  ;  so 
that  if  the  higher  orders  of  society  know  nothing 
of  those  refined  pleasures  which  afford  so  much 
delight  to  our  circles,  the  lower  orders,  from  their 
temperate  habits,  their  familiarity  with  the  rich, 
and  their  freedom  from  the  common  cares  of  life, 
are  certainly  more  at  ease  than  our.«. — P.  115. 

Of  the  people  of  Mousul,  he  remarks : — 
I  thought  I  could  observe  a  cast  of  countenance  in 
them,  sufficiently  peculiar  to  mark  them  as  a  race 
nearly  allied  to,  and  long  settled  and  intermixed 
with  each  other.  The  shape  of  the  face  is  rounder 
than  that  of  either  Arabs  or  Turks,  and  the  hair  is 
universally  black,  and  the  eyes  small,  sharp,  and  pe- 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


419 


netrathig,  while  the  complexions  are  like  those  of 
the  south  of  Spain.— P.  291. 

Two  or  three  times  he  has  occasion  to 
speak  of  the  Yezeedis — wandering  tribes  of 
Arabs,  who  roam  over  the  plains  arid  moun- 
tains of  Sinjar — in  Mesopotamia — who  are 
said  to  worship  the  devil — at  least,  profess 
the  profoundest  respect  on  the  ground  of  his 
acknowledged  potency,  and  will  not  tolerate 
any  disrespectful  language  concerning  him; 
— but  we  have  not  space  to  quote. — P.  1 16, 
162,  <fec. 

Through  the  whole  volume,  in  short,  the 
reader  will  find — in  addition  to  the  details 
of  the  journey — much  to  arrest  his  attention, 
and  make  him  forget  the  bulk  of  the  volume, 

Voyage  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by 
Captain  the  Right  Honourable  Lord  Byron; 
1827. — Lord  Byron  is  not  the  author.  The 
purpose  for  which  that  nobleman's  name  is 
thus  paraded  in  the  title-page,  is  rather  un- 
worthy of  the  publisher.  The  narrative  of 
the  voyage  is  drawn  up  from  the  papers  of 
the  officers  and  others,  who  accompanied 
Lord  Byron  to  the  Sandwich  Isles.  The  editor 
is  understood  to  be  Mrs.  Maria  Graham — 
Mr.  Bloxham,  the  Chaplain  of  the  Blonde, 
being  prevented,  it  is  stated,  by  the  sudden- 
uess  of  his  departure  from  England,  to  fulfil 
his  duty  in  a  distant  colony,  from  arranging 
his  own  papers,  and  those  of  his  companions. 
What  might  be  be  about  during  the  long 
voyage  homeward?  Though  thus  compiled, 
and  no  doubt  carefully,  from  original  docu- 
ments, the  narrative  confessedly  loses  the 
benefit  which  the  local  knowledge  of  an  eye- 
witness could  have  given  it ;  and  indeed  it  ma- 
nifestly has  not  the  tone  of  one  who  has  seen, 
or  can  well  conceive  the  really  rude  state  of 
the  people. 

The  narrative  is  preceded  by  a  sketch  of 
the  history  of  the  islands,  from  their  discovery 
to  the  death  of  their  last  sovereign,  in  Lon- 
don, in  1824.  We  use  the  received  phraseo- 
logy; but  really  the  application  of  these 
terms  of  royalty  to  the  barbarian  chief  of  a 
barbarian  and  naked  peoble — and  a  people 
too  not  amounting,  probably,  altogether,  in 
the  whole  eleven  islands,  to  300,000,  is  per- 
fectly ridiculous  ;  and  England  is  perhaps  the 
only  country  in  the  world  where  it  could  be 
done  gravely. 

Of  the  origin  of  these  people,  nothingis  satis- 
factorily known  ;  and  no  means  of  discovery 
seem  to  existbut  in  the  traditions  and  songs  of 
the  islanders.  From  these,  should  the  people 
ever  be  able  to  give  intelligible  expression  to 
them,  something  may  yet  be  learnt.  Captain 
Cooke,  it  should  seem,  was  not  the  first  Eu- 
ropean who  had  appeared  among  them. 
They  hare  a  tradition — so  far  as  it  can  at 
present  be  gathered  from  them — that  a  persop, 
whom  they  call  a  priest,  came  and  settled 
among  them  with  his  gods,  and  whose  poste- 
rity still  remains ;  and  of  a  vessel,  wiih  white 
men  in  it,  with  whom  this  priest  was  able  to 
coBvorse.  Theperiodis  not  marked  with  much 
precision ;  but  it  is  said  to  have  been  during 


the  life  of  Kukanaron,  or  Kaboukapu,  or 
some  other  unutterable  name — the  sixth  chief 
previous  to  the  arrival  of  Captain  Cooke. 
About  the  year  1790,  Tamehameha,  a  chief 
of  one  of  the  smaller  islands,  rebelled  against 
his  superior  lord,  and  in  the  end  successfully 
established  an  undisputed  dominion  over  the 
whole  eleven  islands,  constituting  what  are 
now  marked  in  our  maps  as  the  Sandwich 
Isles.  He  advanced  the  career  of  civiliza- 
tion very  considerably,  and  at  his  death,  after 
a  reign  of  thirty  years,  had  actually  several 
small  vessels  trading  to  China  and  America. 
His  son,  Riho  Riho,  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
and  by  an  act  of  extraordinary  promptitude — 
or  fortitude,  at  least  equal  to  the  "Sum 
Cresar,"  secured  his  authority ;  but,  with  no 
more  islands  to  conquer,  and  being  eager  to 
emulate  his  father's  exertions  and  glories, 
he  resolved,  like  another  Peter,  to  visit  Eu- 
rope, and  study  the  sources  of  her  superio- 
rities, and  thus  qualify  himself  to  improve 
the  condition  of  his  people.  The  fair  editor 
gives  this  bold,  but  unlicked  barbarian,  full 
credit  for  the  most  philosophical  views — deli- 
berate and  definite  purposes.  She  endows 
him  with  all  the  elevated  qualities  of  a  patriot 
king,  is  jealous  of  all  imputations  on  his  vir- 
tues or  his  abilities,  and  talks  with  the  ut- 
most gravity  of  the  propriety  of  his  manners, 
and  the  dignity  of  his  demeanor,  through 
the  whole  of  his  residence  in  London,  whe- 
ther grinning1  at  the  lions  in  the  Tower,  or 
the  ladies  at  Mr.  Canning's — and  not  a  word 
of  his  Majesty,  and  her  Majesty,  my  L^rds 
the  Chancellor,  the  Treasurer,  the  Admiral 
and  the  rest  of  the  suite,  being  found  mounted, 
cross-legged,  on  the  chairs  at  the  Adelphi — 
decorously,  and  as  becometh  the  lords  of  the 
earth,  riding  a  cock-horse. 

The  voyage,  as  every  body  knows,  was 
undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  the 
bodies  of  the  King  and  Queen  home.  It 
was  signally  successful,  and  uneventful — the 
vessel  only  touching  at  Rio  Janeiro,  Valpa- 
raiso, Callao,  and  Gallipagos,  in  its  course. 
At  Oahu,  one  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and 
the  seat  of  the  government,  they  found  the 
regent  Karaimoku,  and  were  received  by  him 
with  due  honours.  The  royal  remains  were 
committed  to  the  earth  ;  the  younger  bro- 
ther— quite  a  boy — of  the  buried  sovereign, 
who,  on  the  report  of  His  Majesty's  death, 
had  been  named  King,  was  confirmed  in  his 
appointment,  in  a  full  assembly  of  the  chiefs, 
and  Karaimoku  continued  in  the  regency — 
Lord  Byron  attending  the  important  assem- 
bly, and  giving  his  sanction  to  the  whole  pro- 
ceedings. As  soon  as  these  matters  were 
satisfactorily  adjusted,  my  Lord  Byron  was 
asked  if  the  King  of  England — who  it  seems 
is  lord-paramount  of  the  islands — approved 
of  the  settling  of  the  American  mission  in 
the  islands  ?  To  which  question  it  was  dis- 
creetly replied,  that  so  long  as  the  mission 
did  not  interfere  with  political  or  commercial 
concerns,  but  confined  themselves  to  their 
sacred  duties,  the  King  of  England  could  have 
no  possible  objection.  The  chief  missionary 

3H2 


420 


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[APRIL, 


was  present,  and  openly  disclaimed  all  con- 
cern with  temporal  matters.  The  mission- 
aries, however,  were  manifestly  very  influen- 
tial persons — the  chief  of  them  was  acting 
plainly  as  secretary  to  the  regent. 

The  mission  has  now  been  established 
some  time,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  people 
have  already  professed,  or  will  soon  profess, 
the  Christian  religion.  Tamehameha  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  great  reformer  of  the 
islands.  To  check  the  power  of  the  priests, 
he  himself  assumed  the  office,  and  contem- 
plated the  adoption  of  Christianity,  but  died 
before  his  purpose  was  ripe.  One  of  the  first 
nets  of  his  successor,  was  to  renounce  ido- 
latry, and  the  idols  were  all  quickly  consigned 
to  the  flames  ;  Taboo  was  broken  up ;  and 
the  interdictions,  which  forbade  women  to  eat 
with  men,  removed.  The  women,  as  usual, 
were  most  forward  and  zealous  in  the  work 
of  conversion.  The  act  of  Kapiolani  is  of 
a  high  character,  and  worth  recording. 

Kapiolani,  a  female  chief,  of  the  highest  rank, 
had  recently  embraced  Christianity  ;  and,  desirous 
of  propagating  it,  and  of  undeceiving  the  natives 
as  to  their  false  gods,  she  resolved  to  climb  the 
mountain  (a  volcanic  mountain,  with  a  burning  cra- 
ter of  prodigious  extent)  descend  into  the  crater, 
and  by  thus  braving  the  volcanic  deities   in  their 
very  homes  (the  prevailing  belief  was,  that  the 
gods  of  the  islands  resided  in  these  fires)  convince 
the  inhabitants  of   the  islands  that  God  is  God 
alone,  and  that  the  false  subordinate  deities  ex- 
isted or.ly  in  the  fancies  of  their  weak  adorers. 
Th^s   determined,  and    accompanied   by    a  mis- 
sionary, she,  with  part  of  her  family  and  a  number 
of  followers,  ascended  Peli  (the  mountain)  ;  at  the 
edge  of  the  first  precipice  that  bounds  the  sunken 
plain,  many  of  her  followers  and  companions  lost 
courage,  and  turned  back ;  at  the  second,  the  rest 
earnestly  entreated  her  to  desist  trom  her  dan- 
derous  enterprise,  and  forbear  to  tempt  the  power- 
ful gods  of  the  fires.    But  she  proceeded,  and  on 
the  very  verge  of  the  crater,  caused  the  hut  we 
were  now  sheltered  in  to  be  constructed  for  her- 
self and  people.    Here  she  was  assailed  anew  by 
their  entreaties   to  return    home,    and  their  as- 
surance?, that  if   she  persisted  in  violating  the 
houses  of  the  goddess,  she  would  draw  down  on 
herself    and  those  with  her  certain  destruction  ! 
"  I  will  descend  into  the  crater/'  said  she,  "  and 
if  I  do  not  return  safe,  then  continue  to  worship 
Peli ;  but  if  I  come  back  unhurt,  you  must  learn  to 
adore   the  God  who  created  Peli.''    She  accord- 
ingly went  down  the  steep  and  difficult  side  of  the 
crater,    accompanied    by  a    missionary,   and  by 
some,  whom  love  or  duty  induced  to  follow  her. 
Arrived  at  the  bottom,  she  pushed  a  stick  into  the 
liquid  lava,  and  stirred  the  ashea  of  the  burning 
lake.    The  charm  of  superstition  was  at  that  mo- 
ment broken.    These,  who  had  expected  to  see  the 
goddess,  armed  with  flame  and  sulphureous  smoke, 
burst  forth  and  destroy  the  daring  heroine,  who 
thus  braved  her  in  her  very  sanctuary,  were  awe- 
struck when  they  saw  the  fire   remain  innocuous, 
and  the  flames  roll  harmless,  as  though  none  were 
present.    They  acknowledged  the  greatness  of  the 
God  of  Kapiolani ;  and  from  that  time  few  indeed 
have  been  the  offerings,  and  little  the  reverence, 
offered  to  the  fireb  of  Peli. 


Lilian,  the  wife  of  Boki,  both  of  whom 
were  in  England,  has  of  course  adopted  the 
profession  of  Christianity.  On  nearing  the 
islands,  the  Blonde  came  up  with  some  fish- 
ing vessels : — • 

Though  we  found  that,  in  her  youth,  Liliah  had 
been  accounted  one  of  the  best  swimmers  of  the 
island,  and  was  particularly  dexterous  in  launch- 
ing her  float -board  through  the  heaviest  surf,  yet 
now  her  sense  of  modesty,  awakened  by  her  resi- 
dence in  a  civilized  country,  induced  her  to  with- 
draw into  her  cabin  at  the  sight  of  her  almost 
naked  countrymen.  And  let  us  observe  (proceeds 
the  narrative  very  happily),  that  besides  what  may 
be  attributed  to  the  native  modesty  of  the  sex, 
which  no  sooner  perceives  decorum  than  it  adopts 
it,  the  gentle  and  docile  character  of  the  whole 
race  of  those  islanders  was  agreeably  displayed  by 
our  fellow-passengers.  In  dress,  occupations,  and 
amusements,  they  endeavoured  to  conform  to  our 
habits,  and  that  in  the  manner  of  a  rational  imita- 
tion, and  not  bearing  any  mark  of  savage  mimicry  ; 
unless  indeed  we  accuse  them,  in  the  case  of  Kua- 
na,  the  Treasurer,  who,  being  by  nature  some- 
what of  a  dandy,  had  acquired  a  habit  of  pulling 
up  the  corners  of  his  shirt-collar ;  so  that  his  coun- 
trymen, who  are  quick  observers,  and  make  great 
use  of  gesture  in  speaking,  soon  learned  to  desig- 
nate him  by  mimicking  that  action. 

Liliab,  the  lady  of  whom  we  were  speak- 
ing, endeavoured  immediately  to  introduce 
dress  among  her  female  friends;  and  at  first 
they  were  delighted  with  the  black  silk  robes 
she  brought  them ;  but  they  were  soon  found 
all  stripped,  and  at  ease  again.  She  her- 
self still  retained. her  dress;  her  feelings  of 
shame,  as  was  observed,  had  been  awakened 
by  her  long  residence  among  Europeans,  and 
were  not,  when  the  Blonde  left,  yet  lulled 
again.  The  young  King's  sister,  who  has, 
almost  from  her  birth,  been  attended  by  the 
missionaries,  refuses  to  appear,  but  in  full 
dress. 

Elements  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Hu- 
man Mind,  by  Dug  aid  Stewart.  Vol.  III.  ; 
1827. —  Of  Mr.  Stewart's  ponderous  quartos, 
it  never  was  an  easy  task  to  furnish  an  ab- 
stract— not  that  a  few  words  might  not  fully 
embrace  the  leading  purposes  of  any  of 
them,  and  even  the  pith  of  the  main  discus- 
sions— and  especially  may  this  be  said  of  the 
volume  before  us ;  but  many  of  even  our 
thrifty  pages  would  be  required  to  give  the 
reader  a  tolerable  conception  of  the  multi- 
tude of  topics  touched  upon,  referred,  de- 
ferred, resumed,  and  referred  again,  toge- 
ther with  quotations,  hints,  recollections, 
criticisms,  that  are  sprinkled  over  every  page, 
in  large  type  and  in  small,  and  in  smaller 
still— to  some  persons  perhaps  refreshing  the 
dryness,  and  fertilizing  the  barrenness  ;  but 
to  others,  ourselves  included,  incumbering 
the  ground,  and  retarding,  sometimes  fri- 
volously and  vexatiously,  our  arrival  at  the 
facts,  on  which  he  builds  his — not  always 
important — conclusions,  and  claims,  a  little 
too  dogmatically,  too  much  ep-cathcdrd, 
the  assent  of  disciples  rather  than  readers. 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


421 


We  have  considerable  respect  for  Mr. 
Stewart ;  but  really  his  demands,  when  he 
does  come  forth  with  a  quarto,  are  some- 
what too  exacting.  He  writes  a  great  deal 
too  much  like  a  gentleman  at  ease,  per- 
fectly disengaged,  and  expecting  his  readers  to 
•be  fully  as  much  at  leisure  as  himself.  His 
are  illustrated  works;  and,  as  it  is  with 
other  illustrated  works,  the  ornaments  are 
more  attractive  than  the  matter,  and  as  often 
usurp  or  distract  the  attention  as  they  inform 
or  direct  it.  It  is  agreeable  enough,  often 
very  agreeable,  in  an  idle  hour,  to  be  thus 
reminded  of  persons  and  opinions  long  gone 
by — of  opinions  too,  in  their  author's  own 
phraseology,  and  to  which,  otherwise,  in  this 
short  life  of  ours,  we  should  have  little 
chance  of  ever  voluntarily  recurring  again ; 
but  these  are  not  what  the  student  wants — 
the  maximum  of  knowledge — real,  substan- 
tial knowledge — in  the  minimum  of  space — 
he  himself  caring  little  from  what  quarter 
that  knowledge  comes;  while  Mr.  Stewart 
piques  himself  upon  scrupulously  observing 
the  principle  of  literary  justice,  and  would, 
if  he  could,  trace  and  record  the  most  obvious 
maxims,  significant  or  insignificant,  of 
science  or  morals,  to  the  far-off  originator. 

Mr.  Stewart's  object,  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  his  former  volumes  will  re- 
member— or,  if  they  have  forgotten,  they 
may  very  well  be  excused — was  a  review  of 
our  "  Intellectual  Powers,"  according  to  a 
separation  and  analysis  of  his  own.  This 
review  the  present  volume  completes — not 
that  he  is  confident  he  has  exhausted  them, 
and  indeed  on  the  principle  of  his  divisions, 
there  really  could  be  no  ground  for  such 
confidence, — that  principle  consistently  lead- 
ing interminably  to  scores  of  other  powers. 
Some  might  reasonably  doubt,  whether  there 
be  any  grounds  for  making  any  such  insu- 
lations as  he  has  made  ;  but  he  has  no  doubt 
at  all  upon  that  point,  and  assumes  the  foun- 
dation of  his  analysis  to  be  indisputable — in- 
controvertible. Taking  him  then  as  we  find 
him,  the  volume  before  us  closes  the  list  of 
powers  or  faculties  discussed  in  his  former 
volumes,  with  an  examination  of  what  he 
terms  auxiliary  faculties,  and  principles — • 
these  are  LANGUAGE  and  IMITATION.  This 
examination  exhausting  the  list  of  intellec- 
tual powers,  supreme  and  subordinate,  he 
proceeds  to  consider  some  varieties  of  intel- 
lectual character,  resulting  from  different 
combinations  of  these  same  faculties  before 
defined  ;  and  concludes  the  whole  mass  of  his 
subject  with  a  brief  comparison  between  the 
faculties  of  man,  and  those  of  animals.  At 
the  end  of  the  volume  follows  a  reprint  of 
all  the  information  he  had  before  published 
relative  to  Mitchell,  the  blind,  deaf,  and 
dumb  boy,  to  which  are  added  the  latest 
accounts  he  had  received  of  him. 

These  are  the  general  contents,  and  we 
can  only  glance  at  particulars.  The  faculty 
of  LANGUAGE  is  the  first  topic,  occupying — 
with  all  that  seemed  more  or  less  to  concern 
the  subject—  150  pages.  Language  is  either 


natural  or  artificial.  The  natural  consists 
of  expressions  of  countenance,  gestures  of 
body,  and  tones  of  voice.  The  interpretation 
of  this  language  has  been  commonly  attri- 
buted— particularly  by  Priestley,  and  men  of 
his  school — to  experience  solely.  Mr.  Stewart 
ascribes  it  mainly  to  an  instinctive  intelli- 
gence, and  he  is  neither  without  facts  nor  rea- 
sons tor  his  opinion.  The  establishment  of 
artificial  language  must  be  the  effect  of  con- 
vention ;  and  convention  implies  a  previous 
understanding,  and  whence  can  come  that 
understanding,  but  from  an  instinctive  per- 
ception of  natural  signs? — Then  follows  the 
origin  and  history  of  language — which 
amounts  to  nothing  more  than  a  few  re- 
marks, of  no  weight  or  even  propriety,  relative 
to  Adam  Smith's  and  Home  Tooke's  specula- 
tions— with  the  information,  that  Smith  has 
made  a  mistake  or  two,  and  that  Tooke  was 
a  better  grammarian  than  philosopher. 

Language,  considered  as  an  instrument  of 
thought,  comes  next ;  but  this  topic,  some- 
what strangely,  had  been  anticipated  by  Mr. 
Stewart,  and  he  now  therefore  only  refers  to 
several  passages  dispersed  over  his  former 
volumes,  hither  and  thither.  He  drops,  how- 
ever, upon  Michaelis's  Essay  on  the  In- 
fluence of  Opinion  on  Language,  and  of 
Language  on  Opinion.  The  illustrations  fur- 
nished by  Michaelis,  he  finds  are  confined  to 
the  abuse  of  words  in  the  science  of  botany, 
<fec.,  a  circumstance  which  Mr.  Stewart  is  at 
first  disposed  to  regret,  but  presently  consoles 
himself  with  the  recollection  that  the  effects 
on  discussions  upon  mental  phenomena  must 
be  analogous,  and  of  course  will  be  more  or 
less  observable  by  every  reader.  He  him- 
self, on  this  point,  also,  specifically,  in  other 
places,  has  scattered  divers  remarks  ;  and  he 
once  thought,  it  seems,  of  bringing  them  now 
all  together,  but  he  contents  himself,  and  we 
are  thankful,  with  one  long  self -quotation 
on  the  perils  of  metaphor. 

In  the  rear  of  these  chapters  follow  sundry 
miscellaneous  considerations — one  relative  to 
the  practicability  of  tracing  the  origin  and 
migration  of  nations  by  the  aid  of  etymo- 
logy. The  more  languages  are  understood, 
and  the  greater  the  number  too,  the  more 
resemblances  —  affinities  —  are  discovered, 
and  affinities  have  already  been  exhibited  to 
a  "  miraculous,  or  next  to  a  miraculous  ex- 
tent," by  Adelung  and  some  of  his  successors ; 
and  Mr.  Stewart  knows  not  what  may  be 
done  by-and-by,  by  following  up  the  grow- 
ing scent  from  nation  to  nation,  and  tribe  to 
tribe — coupling  this  profession  of  ignorance, 
in  his  way,  with  a  warning,  nevertheless, 
against  aiming  at  what  is  beyond  the  compre- 
hension of  our  limited  faculties.  But  how  are 
we  to  know  where  these  limits  are  till  we  try  ? 
Another  of  the  miscellaneous  discussions, 
relative  to  language,  concerns  the  original 
imposition  of  names  on  surrounding  objects. 
This,  it  has  been  supposed,  was  determined 
by  the  qualities  of  these  objects.  As  usual 
with  Mr.  Stewart,  this  opinion  seems  not  al- 
together unfounded,  but  still  little  progress 


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Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[APRIL, 


has  been  made  in  establishing  the  point ;  and 
lie  himself  has  nothing  whatever  to  add. 

The  whole  question  of  language  is  at  last 
brought  to  a  close  with  a  subject  not  at  all 
coming  within  the  legitimate  limits  of  Mr,  S.'s 
inquiries;  but  as  the  dissertation  was  written, 
as  it  must  be  somewhere  inserted,  and  as  no 
better  place  presented  itself,  why  should  it 
not  be  thrust  in  here? — That  subject  is  the 
Origin  of  Sanscrit.  The  discussion  is,  in 
our  opinion,  not  merely  irrelevant,  but  un- 
sound ;  it  is,  however,  evidently  a  favourite 
with  Mr.  S.,  and,  so  careful  and  circumspect 
as  he  usually  is,  he  is  entitled  to  some  indul- 
gence, if  he  chooses  for  once  to  "  break 
bounds."  But  we  must  have  a  word  or  two 
with  him  upon  it. 

The  Sanscrit  was  long  ago  said  to  be  very 
like  the  Greek.  This  was  first  started  by 
Halhed,  Jones,  and  Wilkins.  They  were  sur- 
prised at  some  resemblances.  The  Sanscrit 
has  a  middle  voice,  so  has  the  Greek.  It  has 
the  alpha  privativum,  so  has  the  Greek — 
aye,  and  great  numbers  of  words,  which, 
with  some  twisting,  are  very  like,  and  some 
few,  with  no  twisting  at  all,  are  quite  like  the 
Greek.  Then  again,  the  prosody — what  ? 
Why  Sir  William  Jones  said,  «  almost  (he 
did  qualify  here,  which  was  not  at  all  in  his 
way)  all  the  measures  of  the  Greeks  may 
be  found  in  it;  and  what  was  (he added),  re- 
markable, the  language  runs  very  naturally 
into  sapphics,  alcaics,  and  iambics."  Now 
those  who  know  any  thing  about  these  Greek 
measures,  well  know  that  even  Greek  does 
not  run  easily  into  them ;  Sir  W.Jones  himself 
well  knew — nobody  better — that  this  facility, 
attained  by  whom  it  will,  is  the  laborious  re- 
sult of  close  and  servile  imitation,  and  long  and 
harassingpractice.  And  who,  we  ask,  has  tried 
the  Sanscrit?  Not  Sir  W.  Jones  himself ; 
and  no  one  to  our  knowledge—  though  San- 
scrt  is  better  known  in  our  days  than  in  his — 
has  ever  been  adventurous  enough  to  make 
the  same  remark  since.  Mr.  Stewart,  how- 
ever, relies  still  more  on  the  extravagant 
statement  of  David  Brown,  Provost  of  Fort 
William, — to  hear  whose  account,  we  must 
suppose  the  two  languages  are  really  one — 
only  written  perhnps  in  a  different  character. 
But  taking  these  things  for  gospel  at  pre- 
sent, how  can  the  fact  be  explained  ?  Had 
they  a  common  origin — or  did  one  steal  from 
the  other — and  if  so,  which  was  the  thief? 
We  must  turn,  with  Mr.S.,  to  the  authority  of 
history.  Did  not  Alexander  invade  India? 
Did  not  his  successors  found  the  kingdom  of 
Bactria;  and  did  not  that  kingdom  last  for 
two  centuries?  and  must  not  the  intercourse 
of  that  handful  of  people,  hovering  on  the 
north-westcorner  of  India,  have  been  perpe- 
tual and  spreading  over  the  whole  continent 
of  India ; — and  of  course,  the  whole  continent 
of  India,  unable  to  retain  its  own  language,  be 
compelled  to  mould  their  own  by  that  of  the 
parvenus  in  the  north,  if  they  did  not  volun- 
tarily and  wholly  adopt  it  ?  Mr.  S.  does  not 
say  all  this.  No ;  he  says,  the  Sanscrit 
was  the  learned  language  of  the  country ; 


that  is,  it  was  only  the  language  of   the 
priests,  and  of  the  priests  only.    He  does  not 
pretend  the  language  was  ever  general,  or 
any  way  common  to  the  people  and  priests. 
Then  is  it  less  likely,  say  we,  to  be  borrowed 
of  the  Greeks. — There  were  priests  before 
Alexander.     Oh,  but  they  wanted  a  language 
to  talk  in  among  themselves,  unintelligible  to 
the  people.  Had  they  no  such  language,  then, 
before  ? — But  how  did  these  priests  set  about 
the  invention?     Why,  they  took  the  current 
language  of  the  country,  and  gave  it  the  in- 
flexions, both  of  verbs  and  nouns,  used  by  the 
Bactrian  Greeks ;  and  that  not  being  enough 
to  preclude  detection,  they  smuggled  in  lots 
of  Greek  words,  and  thus  effectually  baffled 
the  idiots  around  them.     Very  satisfactory ! 
But    what   prompted    them    to  invent  this 
precious  language  at  all  ?    The  opportunity 
of  a  foreign  language  in  the  neighbourhood, 
tobe  sure.  But,  in  sober  reason,  what,  we  may 
ask,  do  we  actually  know  of  the  Hindoos  and 
their  language,  or  that  of  their  priests,  at  the 
period  in  which  the  new  language  is  supposed 
to  have  originated  ? — or  how  know  we,  that 
it  never  was  any  thing  but  the  language  of 
the  priests,  or  how  know  we  when  it  began  ? 
The  whole  speculation,  in  a  word,  is  one  of 
the  most  cobweb  construction,  and  will  bear 
no  handling,  rough  or  smooth.     The  truth  is, 
the  more  Sanscrit  is  understood,  the  greater 
prove  to  be,  not  the  resemblances,  but  the 
discrepancies.      This  is  the   latest  opinion. 
But  then  what  account  will  you  give  of  the 
still  acknowledged  similitude  ?    Nay,  We  are 
not  bound  ourselves  to  account,  though  we 
feel    it  our  right  to  sift  the   accounts    of 
others. 

We  come  now  to  IMITATION,  of  which 
Mr.  S.  discourses  at  length,  and  as  usual,  at 
leisure :  first,  on  the  principle  or  law  itself ; 
then  on  our  propensity  to  imitation;  then  on 
our  power;  then  on  some  phenomena  resol- 
vable in  part  into  this  principle  ;  and  finally 
on  the  advantages  resulting  from  this  consti- 
tution of  our  nature.  Of  course,  he  does  not 
speak  of  imitation  in  the  popular  sense ;  but 
of  what  must  be  termed  instinctive — insen- 
sible imitation — the  principle  by  which  we 
make  in  childhood  our  first  acquisitions 
in  speech,  and  which,  in  every  period  of  life, 
exercises  a  strong  influence  over  our  accent, 
mode  of  pronunciation,  and  forms  of  expres- 
sion— and  if  so,  we  may  safely  venture  to 
add,  over  our  opinions.  The  effect  of  this 
spontaneous  principle  is  visible  in  all  our 
assimilations.  We  insensibly  reflect  the  sor- 
rows or  the  smiles  of  those  we  meet  with; 
we  gape,  when  others  gape;  and  even  if  in 
solitude  we  conceive  the  expressions  of  emo- 
tion, the  effect  of  the  conception  is  visible  in 
ourselves.  The  painter  cannot  transfer  the 
glowing  pictures  of  his  imagination  to  the 
canvass  without  exhibiting  in  his  own  features 
the  external  expression  of  them.  The  same 
is  eminently  remarkable  in  musicians.  We 
copy  too  the  voice,  tones,  accents,  &c.  of  our 
intimate  acquaintance;  and  from  the  effects 
of  this  principle  of  our  nature,  in  the  private, 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign, 


423 


the  public,  the  general  intercourse  of  so- 
ciety, come  peculiarities  in  families,  trades, 
professions,  and,  on  a  larger  scale,  in  tribes 
and  nations. 

The  propensity  has  been  often  remarked, 
but  the  power  by  which  the  imitation  is  ac- 
complished— Mr.  S.  claims  to  be  the  first 
philosopher,  whose  notice  it  has  attracted. 
What  is  this  power  then  ?  Instinctive.  But 
•what  say  we  of  the  mimic?  His  is  instinctive 
too.  What  does  he  do  ?  Are  his  efforts 
merely  tentative?  No,  says  Mr.  S. ;  gene- 
rally, he  succeeds  at  once ;  his  correctness  he 
ascertains,  not  by  a  mirror,  but  by  conscious- 
ness. Effort  may  contribute  to  perfection  ; 
but  an  approximation  at  least  is  generally 
prompt ;  and  approximation  in  this  matter 
is  as  remarkable  as  complete  assimilation. 
The  effect  is  often  instantaneous,  and  with 
scarcely  any  effort ;  the  mimic  knows  at 
once,  and  internally,  whether  he  succeeds  or 
not.  It  is  not  the  result  of  experience.  Here 
then  is  something  original — instinctive.  But 
this  is  not  a  whit  more  surprising  than  what 
we  experience  in  every  voluntary  motion. 
I  will  to  move  my  arm,  and  the  requisite 
machinery  is  instantly  arranged,  and  put 
into  motion,  for  the  purpose.  All  I  think  of 
is  a  particular  end.  The  means  by  which  it 
is  accomplished  are  neither  combined  by  my 
reason,  nor  are  they  subject  to  my  scrutiny. 
So  the  mimic,  adds  Mr.  S.,  when  he  attempts 
to  imitate  the  countenance  of  another,  con- 
ceives strongly  in  his  mind  the  portrait  he 
wishes  to  exhibit.  He  thinks  only  of  the 
end,  and  a  few  efforts  to  accomplish  it  con- 
duct him,  by  a  process  which  philosophy 
cannot  explain,  to  the  effect  which  he  aims  at. 

But  further;  this  power  of  imitation  is  in- 
timately connected  with  the  interpretation 
of  natural  signs.  Imitate  the  signs  of  rage, 
and  you  will  experience  more  or  less  of  the 
feeling.  Of  course  this  must  not  be  carried 
too  far.  Nobody,  it  seems,  must  suppose 
that  by  copying  the  looks  of  a  Bacon,  or  of 
a  Newton  (these  names  are  of  eternal  re- 
currence), a  mimic  would  feel  himself  in- 
spired with  any  portion  of  their  philosophical 
sagacity. 

Medical  men  refer  different  kinds  of  en- 
thusiasm, convulsions,  hysteric  disorders,  pa- 
nics to  this  principle  of  imitation ;  many  of 
which,  however,  are  correctly  assignable  to 
imagination,  and  must  not  be  confounded. 
Mesmerism,  probably,  and  the  effects  pro- 
duced by  Whitfield  and  Wesley.  This  con- 
stitution of  our  nature,  Mr.  S.,  on  due  consi- 
deration, ventures  to  conclude,  is  "subser- 
vient to  beneficent  and  important  purposes,'' 
— as  we  may  with  perfect  safety  predicate  of 
whatever  is  strictly  natural.  It  is,  he  con- 
ceives, of  the  highest  importance  in  the  edu- 
cation of  children.  Set  before  them  good 
models,  and  they  will  copy  them  more  or 
less,  as  they  will  bad  ones.  In  this  way  is 
best  caught  whatever  is  graceful  in  utterance 
or  gesture.  With  the  conviction  of  the  ex- 
tensive operation  of  this  principle,  who  can 


hesitate  upon  the  advantages  of  public  edu- 
cation ?  "  By  what  means,  but  by  the  so- 
ciety of  their  fellows,  is  it  possible  for  youth 
to  acquire  that  command  over  the  exteraal 
expressions  of  their  capricious  humours,  which 
is  to  furnish  them,  in  future  life,  with  one  of 
the  most  powerful  restraints  that  reason  can 
call  to  its  assistance  in  mastering  and  sub- 
duing the  passions." — The  use  of  ventri- 
loquism, Mr.  S.  inclines  to  refer  more  to 
imagination  than  to  imitation.  If  the  ven- 
triloquist imitate  the  signs  of  distance,  the 
imagination  may  be  made  to  supply  those  of 
direction.  "  Suppose  a  ventriloquist  to  per- 
sonate a  father,  in  the  attitude  of  listening 
from  a  window  to  the  voice  of  his  child,  who 
is  exposed  to  some  sudden  a»d  imminent 
danger  below.  It  is  ensy  to  conceive  him 
possessed  of  such  theatrical  skill,  as  will 
transport  in  imagination  the  audience  to  the 
spot  where  the  child  is  supposed  to  be  placed, 
and  so  rivet  their  attention  to  what  is  pass- 
ing there,  as  will  render  his  imitation  of  its 
feeble  and  distant  cries  a  much  more  im- 
posing illusion  than  it  would  otherwise  be." 
Suppose  again,  the  performer  to  carry  on  an 
imaginary  dialogue  up  a  chimney  with  a 
chimney-sweeper  in  danger  of  suffocation. 
A  very  imperfect  imitation,  aided  by  the  ex- 
cited imagination,  will  produce  an  effective 
scene. 

So  much  then  for  the  two  faculties  of  lan- 
guage and  imitation  reviewed  in  the  volume 
before  us.  These,  with  the  powers  considered 
in  the  former  volumes,  make  up  what  be 
termed  the  constituents  of  the  human  mind. 
These  constiiuents  exist,  in  different  indivi- 
duals, in  different  degrees  of  capacity,  or  in- 
tensity, and  of  course  produce  different  re- 
sults. Different  combinations  of  them  con- 
stitute the  varieties  of  intellectual  character. 
Mr.  S.  decides  not  on  the  question  of  original 
equality.  Were  these  faculties  originally 
the  same,  different  circumstances  must  spee- 
dily produce  different  results.  The  superior 
intensity  of  these  powers  severally  direct  some 
individuals  to  one  pursuit,  and  some  to 
another.  One  set  is  employed  by  the  meta- 
physician, another  by  the  mathematician, 
and  another  by  the  poet.  Mr.  S.  very  care- 
fully points  out  the  tendencies  of  exclusive 
occupations,  and  suggests  the  usual  barriers 
and  remedies,  as  every  body  does  and  has 
done,  we  were  going  to  say,  from  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world.  Eut  then,  with  respect 
to  the  sexes, — Plato  says,  there  is  no  natural 
difference  between  the  sexes,  but  in  point  of 
strength.  In  this  opinion,  says  Mr.  S.,  I  have 
no  doubt  Plato  is  right.  The  intellectual  and 
moral  differences  between  the  sexes  seem  to 
me  to  be  entirely  the  result  of  education  ; 
using  that  word,  in  its  most  extensive  sense, 
to  comprehend  not  merely  the  instruction 
reveived  from  teachers,  but  the  habits  of 
mind  imposed  by  situation,  or  by  the  phy- 
sical organization  of  the  animal  frame.  But 
physical  organization  is  a  very  wide  phrase, 
Mr.  S.,  and  the  cause  of  differences,  pro- 
bably, with  which  education,  in  any  intelli- 


424 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


£  APRIL, 


gible  or  admitted  sense  of  the  word,  can  have 
nothing  to  do. 

One  question  yet  remains — in  what  con- 
sists the  difference  between  man  and  ani- 
mals? Man  has  much  that  animals  have, 
and  animals  have  much  that  man  has.  The 
animal  again  has  something  which  man  has 
not,  and  man  a  good  deal  which  animals 
have  not.  This  is  about  all  that  is  said  by 
Mr.  S.  through  sixty  or  seventy  pages,  deter- 
mining scarcely  any  thing.  Animals  have  the 
use  of  reason  to  a  certain  extent,  but  then 
they  cannot  speak  ;  and  if  one  individual 
improve,  he  cannot  spread  or  communicate 
the  improvement,  &c. 

The  last  hundred  pages  are  filled  with  a 
disjointed  account  of  the  boy  Mitchell — now 
indeed  thirty  years  old — born  blind,  deaf,  and 
dumb.  This  case  has  occupied  much  of 
Mr.  S.'s  attention.  The  taste  and  smell  were 
the  only  channels  by  which  intelligence 
could  be  conveyed.  Many  of  the  common 
feelings  of  mankind  these  seemed  unable  to 
awaken,  or  but  feebly  to  exercise.  Mr.  S. 
had  been  desirous  of  applying  especial  pains 
for  his  education,  to  see  what  could  by  pos- 
sibility be  accomplished  in  his  defective 
slate  ;  but,  in  spite  of  all  efforts,  his  purpose 
has  been  defeated. 

We  have  already  greatly  exceeded  our  li- 
mits; but  we  cannot  refrain  from  directing 
the  reader's  attention  to  the  note  C,  relative 
to  the  late  Dr.  Brown,  Mr.  S.'s  successor  in 
the  moral  chair  at  Edinburgh.  It  exhibits 
no  pleasant  view  of  Mr.  S.'s  temper — but  that 
is  his  concern.  It  shews  too  plainly  he  can 
bear  uo  rival  near  the  throne ;  and  Dr. 
Brown  had  shaken  his  sovereignly :  though 
gone,  his  works  remain,  and  Mr.  S.  cannot 
forbear,  [n  his  opinion,  then,  Dr.  Brown 
was  an  admirably  clever,  ingenious,  ac- 
complished person,  but  no  metaphysician.  He 
bad  not  the  requisite  power  of  patient  think- 
ing ;  he  was  too  confident  in  Ins  own  judge- 
ments; if  he  did  not  see  difficulties,  he  did 
not  believe  they  existed  ;  he  did  not  know 
Low  to  stop  when  at  the  end  of  his  tether ; 
he  thought,  when  he  got  to  the  end  of  his 
own  sounding  line,  he  bad  reached  the  bottom 
of  the  ocean;  but  great  powers  will  not 
master  any  subject  without  great  thinking, 
&c.  &c.  Pro/i pudor  ! 

A  Vindication  of  Certain  Passages  in 
the  4th  and  5th  Volumes  of  the  History  of 
England,  by  Dr.  Lingard. — To  contribute 
what  we  can  to  the  publicity  of  Dr.  Lin- 
garcl's  defence  is,  in  our  opinion,  a  duty,  and 
one  which  we  trust  every  independent  re- 
view in  the  kingdom  will  promptly  perform. 
Dr.  Lingard  is  a  Catholic,  and  has  been  as- 
sailed on  all  sides — by  high  church  and  low 
church — by  such  as  were  resolved  to  find 
him  wrong.  The  Vindication  before  us  is 
a  temperate  and  careful  reply  to  his  three 
principal  opponents — the  Edinburgh)  Mr. 
Todd,  and  Mr.  Todd's  backer,  the  Quarterly. 
The  Edinburgh,  in  an  article  of  unusual 
length — after  flinging  out  the  most  con- 
temptuous phrases  upon  the  whole  perform- 


ance— fastens,  to  prove  the  worthlessness  of 
the  whole,  upon  Dr.  Lingard's  account  of  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  What,  does  Dr. 
Lingard  deny  the  reality  of  the  massacre? 
No ;  but  he  denies  it  to  have  been  the  result 
of  a  preconcerted  plot — he  represents  it  to 
have  arisen  from  the  sudden  impulse  of  "per- 
sonal fears.  Generally,  historians  speak  of 
the  plot  as  one  that  had  been  most  elabo- 
rately concerting  fora  couple  of  years  at  the 
very  least.  Dr.  Lingard  found  reason,  on 
referring  to  the  original  authorities,  and  on 
contemplaling  the  circumstances  of  the  mas- 
sacre, to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  the  usual  re- 
presentation ;  and  he  rests  his  doubts  of  this 
two-year-old  plot,  first  upon  the  want  of  con- 
temporary authority  ;  and  next,  upon  the 
probabilities  of  the  case— upon  admitted  cir- 
'cumstances,  which  militate  against  the  com- 
mon conclusion — the  King's  intimacy  with 
Coligni — the  attempt  on  the  life  of  Coligni 
two  days  before  the  massacre — and  the  King's 
visit  to  the  bed-side  of  the  wounded  Coligni. 
The  massacre  took  place,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  on  the  24th  August  (1572).  The 
object  was  of  course  the  destruction  of  the 
Huguenots,  of  whom  Coligni  was  the  acknow- 
ledged leader.  On  the  22d,  Coligni  was 
struck  by  an  assassin  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 
If  the  general  massacre  was  to  occur  in  two 
days,  or  at  all,  why  alarm  the  party  by  the 
murder  of  their  leader  ?  Was  it  not  the 
very  thing  to  put  them  on  their  guard  ?  But 
who  assassinates?  An  agent  of  Catherine's, 
the  King's  mother.  Why  ?  To  get  rid  of 
one,  whose  growing  influence  with  her  son 
she  was  jealous.  He  had  been  for  some  time 
notoriously  on  terms  of  great  intimacy  with 
the  King,  and  had  urged  him  to  shake  oil1  his 
mother's  yoke,  and  act  for  himself.  But  then, 
how  account  for  the  general  massacre,  the  very 
extent  of  which  implies  some  preparation? 
To  prevent  exposure.  On  the  23d,  the  morn- 
ing after  the  attempt  on  Coligni's  life,  the 
King  visited  him  at  his  bed-side — the  Qneen 
forced  herself  in  his  company ;  but  Coligni 
still  whispered  the  King,  and  warned  him  of 
his  mother.  Ou  the  morning  of  the  24th, 
witnesses  were  examined  before  the  privy- 
council.  The  assassin  had  escaped,  but  left 
behind  him  his  horse  and  weapon.  The  horse 
was  recognised,  and  the  weapon  proved  to 
belong  to  the  guards  of  the  Duke  of  Anjou, 
the  King's  brother;  the  Queen  and  her  son 
Anjou  were  suspected — evidence  thickened — • 
the  Huguenots  assembled,  and  two  of  them 
did  all  but  charge  the  Queen  to  her  face ; 
and  on  the  following  morning  the  leaders  of 
the  party  resolved  to  demand  justice  of  the 
King  in  a  body.  Exposure  seemed  inevi- 
table. No  time  was  to  be  lost.  The  Queen 
and  her  counsellors  determined  on  the  mas- 
sacre that  night,  the  24th.  They  persuaded 
Charles  that  his  life  was  in  danger  from  the 
treacheries  of  the  Huguenots ;  they  succeeded 
in  alarming  him — he  was  but  about  twenty — 
ol'an  impetuous  and  excitable  disposition  ;  and 
he  concurred.  The  massacres  that  followed  in 
other  towns  of  the  kingdom  were  the  result 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


425 


of  fanatic  fervour,  stimulated  by  what  was 
believed  to  be  the  warrant  of  the  court — 
such  were  the  combustible  feelings,  from 
previous  exasperation,  it  was  but  setting;  a 
match  to  the  mine ; — they  were  not  contem- 
poraneous with  that  of  Paris.  Proclama- 
tions were  forthwith  issued,  contradictory  as 
to  the  causes  of  the  massacre,  but  concurring 
in  commanding  the  authorities  to  arrest  the 
assassins.  The  very  want  of  simultaneous- 
ness  in  the  country  towns  is  conclusive  against 
the  general  and  preconcerted  plot. 

This  is  but  a  very  imperfect  view  of  the 
argument;  but,  in  our  judgment,  Dr.  Lin- 
gard  prostrates  the  reviewer,  and  makes  out 
his  case — or,  at  the  very  least,  he  shews  good 
grounds  for  questioning  the  usual  confident 
assertion  of  along  premeditated  plot — a  plot, 
which  to  believe,  we  must  first  believe  that 
very  considerable  numbers,  in  almost  every 
part  of  the  kingdom,  had  kept  the  dark  de- 
sign close  within  their  own  bosoms  for  two 
long-  years ;  that  the  Huguenots — who,  as  an 
oppressed  party,  may  be  presumed  to  have 
had  all  their  eyes  about  them — never  got  the 
least  glimpse  of  it ;  and  that  Coligni — a 
man  practised  in  business,  in  stratagems,  in 
dangers,  acquainted  with  the  world,  and 
knowing  his  enemies — was  the  dupe  of  a  wo- 
man he  had  reason  to  suspect,  and  of  a  head- 
long boy  of  twenty — plotting  against  him- 
self, though  labouring  to  promote  the  very 
object  of  that  boy's  ambition — independent 
controul. 

But  the  Doctor  now  turns  from  the  pros- 
trate reviewer  to  another  opponent — Mr. 
Todd,  who  seems  scandalized  at  the  treat- 
ment which  Crammer  has  received  at  the 
hands  of  this  Catholic  historian.  Now  the 
fact  is,  that  few  historical  characters  are  so 
assailable  as  Cranmer's;— his  hypocrisies 
and  retractions  are  so  well  ascertained, 
that  none  but  the  most  resolute  panegyrist 
would  ever  think  of  defending  them.  Cran- 
merhas  great  merits,  and  justly,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  friends  of  the  English  Church ;  but 
why  are  those  merits  to  blind  us  to  his  faults  ? 
Notoriously  he  temporized,  and  that  is  what 
Dr.  Lingard  charges  him  with  doing.  He 
took  the  oath  of  obedience  to  the  Pope,  and 
protested  in  private.  No,  says  Mr.  Todd,  he 
did  it  in  the  presence  of  many  witnesses. 
No  matter :  the  protest  was  not  made  to 
the  Pope,  nor  meant  to  be  made  known 
to  him,  and  therefore  the  act  was  eva- 
sive. Dr.  Lingard  also  charges  him  with 
playing  a  hypocritical  farce  in  the  sub- 
ject of  the  divorce.  Immediately  after 
his  appointment  to  the  archbishoprick,  he 
urged  the  King,  by  letter,  to  permit  him, 
for  the  exoneration  of  his  conscience,  and 
the  performance  of  his  duty  to  the  country, 
to  examine  and  determine  the  great  cause  of 
the  divorce — though  this  was  the  very  pur- 
pose for  which  he  had  been  appointed.  The 
King  of  course  granted  the  request.  But 
Mr.  Todd— not  questioning,  be  it  observed, 
the  authenticity  of  this  letter,  which  is  still 
extant — thinks  every  candid  reader  of  this 

MM.  New  Smcj.~VoL.III.No.16. 


letter  will  believe  the  assertion  of  one  of 
Cranmer's  biographers,  that  the  Archbishop 
was  shocked  at  his  request  being  granted. 
The  fact  is,  that  persons  of  particular  con- 
nections and  views  really  believe  it  neces- 
sary, for  the  safety  of  the  Protestant  Church, 
to  maintain  the  immaculateness  of  its  au- 
thors— uot  perceiving  that,  by  this  indul- 
gence of  their  zeal,  they  are  injuring  their 
own  credit,  and  deserting  their  duty  as 
the  moral  teachers  of  society.  Why  not  re- 
present facts  and  persons  as  they  really  are, 
and  trust  to  the  native  and  inseparable  force 
of  truth  to  work  its  own  blessed  effects? 

But  Mr.  Todd  found  a  faithful  backer  in 
the  Quarterly  ;  and  the  reviewer  himself — 
not  liking  to  play  nothing  but  second — turns 
his  o\vn  ru.vty  weapon— just  to  shew  his 
strength  and  sagacity — upon  Dr.  Lingard, 
and  hacks  with  might  and  main  at  the  histo- 
rian's account  of  Anne  Boleyn.  Dr.  Lin- 
gard, on  pretty  good  authority,  states  that 
Henry  had  intrigued  with  Mary  Boleyn,  and 
with  Anne  had  anticipated  his  conjugal  rights. 
The  facts  are  these — Henry  expels  his  own 
wife  ;  sends  for  Anne  from  her  father's,  gives 
,  her  apartments  contiguous  to  his  own,  insists 
on  his  courtiers  paying  her  the  respect  due  to 
the  Queen,  and  suffers  her  to  interfere  in 
matters  of  state,  and  share  the  distribution 
of  favours.  For  three  years  they  are  under 
the  same  roof,  and  always  together;  they  ent 
together,  ride  together,  hunt  together,  go  to- 
gether from  residence  to  residence  ;  nor  can 
the  King  go  even  to  Calais  without  her. 
Add  to  all  this,  Du  Bellay's  Letters,  which 
express  the  fact ;  and  Henry'sown,  which  as 
unequivocally  imply  it.  Then  look  to  Henry's 
temperament,  and  the  conclusion  is — ine- 
vitable. But  the  shock  to  the  purity  and 
piety  of  the  reviewer  throws  him  quite  into 
a  flutter,  and,  in  his  trepidation,  he  involves 
himself  in  the  most  ludicrous  contradictions. 

The  Doctor,  in  short,  in  each  case,  has 
fought  a  good  fight,  and  has  given  his  critics 
a  drubbing,  that  will  at  least  teach  them  to 
approach  him,  another  time,  with  more  re- 
spect. They,  however,  will  scarcely  appear 
again  in  the  field. 

[Weweremistaken.  Since  the  above  sketch 
of  the  controversy  was  written,  the  reviewer 
in  the  Edinburgh  has  re-appeared,  and  in 
propria  persona  too.  Well,  what  says  he 
now  ?  Essentially,  just  what  be  said  before. 
To  repeat  must  be  to  confute,  or  the  case 
stands  pretty  much  where  it  did.  The  pro- 
babilities seem  still  to  be  these — that  the 
Queen's  party  h<id  often,  perhaps  even  be- 
fore the  Bajonne  conferences,  contemplated 
the  practicability  of  exterminating  the  Hu- 
guenots; but  no  definite  scheme  had  ever 
been  planned,  much  less  decided  upon; — 
that  the  assassination  on  the  22d,  of  Coligni, 
is  in  itself,  almost  conclusively  a  proof  of 
the  non-existence  of  any  such  plan; — that 
the  purpose  to  be  answered  by  the  Admiral's 
destruction,  was  his  removal  from  the  coun- 
cils of  the  King,  arid  the  embarrassment  of 
the  Huguenots; — and  that  the  massacre  was 

31 


426 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[A  PHIL, 


finally,  aud  suddenly  determined  upon,  as 
the  sole  security  against  the  exasperation  of 
the  Huguenots  for  the  attack  upon  their 
chief.] 

We  have  since  seen  a  P.  S.  from  each  of 
the  combatants.  The  chief  point,  in  both, 
concerns  the  quotation  from  Tavanr.es.  Al- 
len has  now  given  the  whole  quotation,  and 
is,  beyond  all  farther  question,  right  in  that 
matter.  Still  the  general  result  is  very 
slightly,  or  rather  not  at  all  affected  by  it. 

Napoleon  in  the  Other  World  ;  a  Nar- 
rative written  by  Himse/f,  and  found  near 
his  Tomb  in  the  IslandofSt.  Helena;  1827. 
— Though  not  raised  to  the  highest  pinnacle 
of  felicity— though  not  classed  with  the 
benefactors  of  mankind,  yet  Napoleon  has 
the  good  fortune — good  fortune,  for  it  is 
not  for  a  moment  supposed  to  have  ever 
been  his  aim — to  obtain  a  very  respectable 
position  in  the  realms  of  bliss.  His  guardian- 
spirit  quickly  appears,  and  explains  to  him 
the  condition  of  his  being : — 

Supreme  justice  cannot  givethee  the  same  rank 
it  assigned  to  Socrates,  Titus,  Julian,  Marcus  Au- 
relius,  Newton,  Pope,  Washington,  Confucius, Ga- 
lileo, Fenelon,  and  other  great  philosophers ;  for 
thou  hast  never  felt  even  the  thought  of  imitating 
them ;  thou  hast  wished  to  follow  the  tracks  of 
Csesar,  of  Alexander, Charles  XII.,  and  other  am- 
bitious madmen ;  it  is  with  them  thou  shalt  be 
permitted  to  pass  the  boundless  period  of  eternity. 
Take  courage,  however;  with  this  exception,  thou 
shalt  enjoy  a  happy  existence  ;  the  only  punish- 
ment thou  shall  feel  will  be  the  endless  remorse  of 
having  had  it  in  thy  power  to  be  what  no  other 
ever  became— of  having  had  it  in  thy  power  to  re- 
generate aud  ennoble  mankind — while,  blinded  by 
a  contemptible  ambition,  thou  hast  more  than  ever 
thrown  it  back  into  ignorance  and  slavery. 

Napoleon  expresses  his  sorrow  and  re- 
pentance : — 

Napoleon  (replied  the  spirit),  the  Supreme 
hearkens  to  repentance  even  after  the  death  of  the 
sinner ;  he  calls  thee  not  to  account  for  the  blood 
thou  hast  caused  to  be  shed,  the  tears  and  misery 
of  the  peaceful  inhabitants  of  the  world,  who  have 
been  ruined  and  despoiled  by  the  ministers  of  thy 
caprices.  These  things  all  belong  to  the  decrees 
of  the  Eternal,  and  it  is  not  for  feeble  mortals  to 
investigate  them.  I  am  the  agent  of  his  will :  I  am 
ordered  to  conduct  thee  to  thy  new  abode ;  but 
that  thou  mayest  praise  for  ever  the  clemency  of 
the  Great  Being  in  thy  favour,  thou  must  first  of 
all  visit,  under  my  direction,  the  fields  of  the  re- 
probate. These  would  have  been  infallibly  thy 
portion,  if  thy  heart  had  not  been  often  accessible 
to  virtue, &c. 

In  these  regions  of  woe,  he  meets  and 
converses  with  the  distinguished  and  con- 
spicuous characters  of  all  ages — for  the 
greater  part  of  them  were  unhappily  there. 
The  air  was  filled  with  clouds  of  owls  of  all 
sorts  and  sizes,  crested  with  tiaras,  and 
mitres,  and  caps,  and  crowns.  One  of  them 
sweeping  close  by  him,  he  caught  it  in  his 
hand.  This  proved  to  be  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non.  At  the  same  instant,  the  Jesuit  Le 
Tellier  flew  round,  making  horrible  grimaces 
at  her;  and  then  suddenly  fell,  like  a  lump 


of  lead,  on  a-  pointed  rock,  and  was  dashed 
to  pieces.  "  This,"  said  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon,  "  will  be  my  fate  in  a  few  minutes." 
"  But  tell  me,"  says  Napoleon,  *'  the  cause 
of  these  transformations  and  penalties.'' — 

All  the  owls  (replies  Madame)  you  see,  have 
been  more  or  less  famous  on  the  earth,  by  means 
of  fraud  and  imposture.  You  will  find  amongst 
them  almost  half  of  the  popes.  There,  now,  is 
Pope  Paul  V;  the  other  is  Gregory  IX.  There  is 
Sixtus  IV. ;  and  that  is  a  late  pope,  called  Pius  VI. 
His  successor  ought  to  be  there,  from  what  I  have 
heard.  A  monk  of  the  propaganda,  who  has  lately 
arrived,  informs  us  that  the  present  Pope,  Leo  XII. 
surpasses  in  imposture  all  his  predecessors.  If 
that  be  the  case,  he  will  be  condemned  to  dash 
his  head  to  pieces  against  the  rocks,  thrice  every 
twenty-four  hours,  which  will  amount  to  a  thou- 
sand and  eighteen  times  a  year.  My  royal  husband 
is  also  here  ;  the  dragoonings  and  the  revocation 
of  the  edict  of  Nantes  have  obtained  him  this. 
That  long  and  thin  crowned  owl  is  the  Emperor 
Constantine.  All  the  kings  of  Piedmont  are  here, 
and  most  of  the  emperors  of  the  House  of  Austria, 
except  Joseph  II.,  and  Leopold,  who  were  enligh- 
tened and  liberal  monarchs.  That  other  pale  and 
thin  owl,  also  crowned,  is  Henry  II.,  King  of 
France.  The  one  that  follows  him,  with  a  cowl 
in  his  hand,  and  a  crown  in  his  claws,  is  Charles  V. 
The  others  are  James  II.  and  his  ancestor,  John 
Lackland.  The  ferocious  Louis  XI.  is  also  here; 
but  he  has  not  the  power  of  flying  ;  he  is  stupidly 
perched  in  the  hollow  of  a  rock,  where  he  is  be- 
sieged, every  twentj -four  hours,  by  venomous  ser- 
pents. His  fate  is  constantly  to  be  on  the  watch 
against  their  bites  ;  but  if  by  accident  he  opens 
his  mouth,  a  serpent  fixes  on  one  of  his  teeth  ;  and,  by 
repeated  shocks,  pulls  it  out  by  force,  after  making 
him  suffer  the  most  horrible  agony,*  &c.  &c. 

The  machinery  of  these  penal  worlds  is 
of  far  too  complicated  a  kind  for  us  to  at- 
tempt to  describe  it.  It  is  enough  to  say, 
generally,  the  punishments  are  made  to  cor- 
respond with  the  crimes  of  the  individuals. 
Our  Henry  VIII.,  with  some  other  monarchs, 
as  liberal  of  the  axe,  undergo  decapitation  once 
a  month  ;  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  three  times 
a  year,  for  her  murder  of  the  Queen  ofScots. 
In  the  course  of  this  agreeable  tour  with 
the  invisible  spirit,  Napoleon  is  joined,  first 
by  Cipriani,  whom  he  finds  high  in  office — 
president  of  a  circle — afterwards  by  Cardi- 
nal Maury,  who  procures,  in  the  course  of 
the  survey,  a  pardon — the  grounds  of  it  are 
not  very  obvious — and  gets  transferred  to  the 
worlds  of  happiness  ;^-and  finally  by  Louis 
XVIII.,  whose  condition  is  miserable  enough, 
but  who  is  not  left  without  hopes  of  ulti- 
mately bettering  it.  With  these  compa- 
nions— still  guided  by  the  guardian-spirit — • 
Napoleon  proceeds  through  all  the  complexi- 
ties of  the  place,  and  encounters  multitudes 
of  acquaintance— -all  the  more  remarkable 
personages  of  the  Revolution — with  whom  a 
good  deal  of  conversation  follows.  All  par- 
ties speak  the  undisguised  truth ;  and  of 
course,  ample  opportunities  are  thus  made 
of  shewing  them  up  in  the  light  most  fa- 

*  The  punishment  he  inflicted  on  the  young  Ar- 
magnacs. 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


1.827.] 

vourable  for  the  author's  purposes.  Gene- 
rally, it  may  be  truly  said,  the  contrivances 
are  clumsy,  the  dialogues  without  point, 
the  discussions  insignificant — conveying  the 
most  hacknied  notions  on  the  most  hackuied 
topics  of  the  times;  while  the  several  cha- 
racters are  treated  with  severity  or  lenity,  ac- 
cording as  they  are  admirers  of  Napoleon, 
or  partizuns  of  the  Bourbons  and  the  Jesuits. 
The  book  will  make  no  sensation  in  Eng- 
land, whatever  it  may  have  been  calculated 
to  do  in  France. 

Dame  Rebecca  Berry.  3vols.  12mo.  1827. 
— The  eventful  story  of  Dame  Rebecca  is  built 
upon  tradition.  The  child  of  very  humble 
parents,  in  very  early  infancy  she  is  with- 
drawn from  their  protection  by  a  sudden 
fancy,  which  their  landlord,  Sir  Ambrose 
Templeton,  takes  to  her.  He,  poor  man, 
has  been  shamefully  jilted ;  and,  in  conse- 
quence, forswears  all  future  communion  with 
the  wicked  sex,  devotes  himself  to  the  study 
of  astrology,  and  lives  the  life  almost  of  an 
anchorite.  After  the  child  had  been  with 
him  a  year  or  two,  and  had  completely  won 
his  fondest  affections,  he  unluckily  consults 
the  stars  as  to  her  destiny,  and  finds  it  indis- 
solubly  linked  with  his  own — he  is  to  marry 
her.  Shocked  at  the  prospect  of  a  mesalli- 
ance of  this  kind,  and  having  no  fear  of  God 
before  his  eyes — as  it  seems  an  astrologist, 
and,  of  course,  a  fatalist  cannot  have — he 
resolves,  in  the  very  teeth  of  science  and  his 
convictions  of  the  infallibility  of  the  stars, 
to  get  rid  of  her,  and  effectually  so,  by 
drowning  her  himself.  He  does  the  deed 
clumsily,  and  she  is  rescued  from  the  water 
by  a  fisherman,  who  kindly  takes  charge  of 
the  little  orphan.  When  about  the  age  of 
fourteen,  she  is  discovered  accidentally  by  Sir 
Ambrose  ;  his  alarms  revive  ;  he  again  gets 
possession  of  her,  and  devotes  her  to  destruc- 
tion ;  but  this  time  she  is  rescued— unknown 
to  Sir  Ambrose — by  his  brother.  This  brother, 
quite  an  old  gentleman,  takes  a  fancy  to  Re- 
becca, as  she  ripens  into  womanhood  ;  and 
is  actually  on  the  point  of  marrying'  her, 
when  Sir  Ambrose  appears.  He  had  heard  of 
his  brother's  intention  to  marry  some  young, 
unknown  protegee,  and  he  hastens  to  expos- 
tulate with  him.  To  his  horror  and  amaze- 
ment he  recognizes  Rebecca  again— now  full 
grown,  beautiful,  accomplished,  enchanting  ; 
her  charms  soon  to  strike  him  with  admira- 
tion— he  will  have  her  himself.  High  words 
ensue  between  the  brothers ;  neither  will 
give  way.  Sir  Ambrose  claims  her  by  the 
ring  she  wears,  which  bad  been  his,  and  which 
he  affirms  bears  a  charm  within  it.  At  this 
declaration,  he  tears  it  from  her,  and  throws 
it  through  the  window  into  the  Mersey — 
*'  If  ever  you  recover  it,  I  will  marry  you,  but 
never  till  then."  A  compromise  at  last  takes 
place ;  she  refuses  both  brother?,  and  removes 
to  some  friends  of  her  protector.  The  agita- 
tion of  the  scene,  throws  the  old  man  into  a 
fever  ;  he  dies,  and  leaves  Rebecca  £10,000, 
and  an  estate  at  Strutford-le-Bow. 

To  escape   from  Sir  Ambrose's    renewed 


427 


importunities,  she  withdraws  privately  to 
some  fdends  of  the  family  she  is  with,  at 
Bristol,  where  she  forms  an  attachment  for 
Sir  John  Berry,  whom  she  marries.  He, 
within  a  few  short  months,  is  killed  in  battle, 
and  leaves  her  a  splendid  estate  in  Leices- 
tershire. Not  long  after  her  husband's  death, 
she,  quite  unexpectedly,  encounters  Sir  Am- 
brose again,  at  a  dinner.  No  explanations, 
or  recognitions  take  place  ;  but  at  table,  Sir 
Ambrose  assists  Rebecca  to  some  fish — a 
whole  one — there  was  but  one,  by  the  way — 
which,  on  the  cutting  up,  presents  to  her 
view,  and  his  view,  to  the  equal  amazement 
of  both,  the  very  ring  she  had  thrown  into 
the  Mersey  !  He  claims  her  promise,  and  she 
is  true  to  her  word. 

Sir  Ambrose  now  returns  to  the  world,  and 
brings  up  his  wife  to  town.  There  she  is 
introduced  at  once  into  the  brilliant  and  li- 
centious circles  of  the  court — that  of  the 
profligate  Charles.  Here  we  are  introduced 
to  Buckingham  and  Rochester,  and  have 
long  and  particular  details  of  Rochester's 
pranks,  during  the  king's  displeasure  against 
him,  for  some  months,  when  he  played  the 
conjuror  in  the  city,  and  astonished  and 
alarmed  the  ladies  of  the  court,  by  his  super- 
human acquaintance  with  all  their  peccadil- 
loes. Dame  Rebecca  is  immediately  and 
universally  an  object  of  admiration,  and 
Buckingham  is  planning  to  entrap  her  sim- 
plicity. Rochester  and  he  contrive  to  per- 
plex and  plague  Sir  Ambrose,  who  quickly 
gets  alarmed,  and  soon  leaves  the  country. 
In  crossing  to  the  continent,  he  is  wrecked 
and  dies.  The  lady,  a  second  time  a  widow, 
still  young  and  beautiful — more  fascinating 
than  ever  from  the  recent  polish  of  higher 
society — the  possessor  of  three  magnificent 
properties,  returns  to  England,  and  in  due 
time,  and  on  mature  consideration,  marries 
again ;  and  lives  virtuously  and  happily- 
honoured,  respected,  and  beloved — till  the 
year  1694, and  lies  buried  in  Stratford  church; 
where  may  still  be  seen  a  tablet,  with  the 
fish  and  ring  below  the  inscription. 

The  tale  is  rather  unequally  executed. 
The  London  scenes  are,  however  described 
with  considerable  animation  and  felicity.  It 
betrays  a  want  of  familiarity  with  the  times, 
and  mistakes  here  and  there  occur— some 
pretty  broad  ones.  The  writer  will  improve 
historically— that  requiring  only  a  little 
labour.  The  story  will  not  class  with  Walter 
Scott's  and  Horace  Smith's,  but  there  are 
respectable  positions  below  them,  which  it 
will  be  no  contemptible  distinction  to  occupy. 
We  predict  better  things  from  another  effort. 

Almack's,  a  Novel.  3  vols.  12mo.  182T. 
— The  great  impelling  principle  of  human 
nature — whether  we  look  at  society  in  the 
lump,  or  in  portions,  or  in  detail,  is  to  make 
the  most  of  advantages  within  its  grasp.  If 
a  nation  have  power,  it  uses  that  power ;  if 
an  individual  have  authority,  he  does  the 
same  ;  wealth  must  command  ;  beauty  will 
not  throw  away  its  charm,  and  accomplish- 
ments know  their  own  value.  Be  these  ad- 

3  I  I 


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[APRIL, 


vantages  what  they  may — birth,  or  station,  or 
money,  or  talents,  or  acquirements — if  they 
can  be  made  available  for  the  augmentation 
of  power,  they  will  be  employed  in  augment- 
ing that  power,  and  they  are  fairly  so  em- 
ployed. So  long  as  a  prejudice  exists  in 
favour  of  birth,  those  who  possess  the  supe- 
riority will  be  desirous  of  retaining,  or  rather 
of  extending,  the  privileges,  which  such  pre- 
judice creates.  If  that,  or  any  other  quality, 
be  one  which  few  only  can  possess,  the  dis- 
tinction is  the  more  valuable  ;  and  if  it  be 
one  quite  unattainable  by  art  or  industry, 
such  as  the  accident  of  birth,  or  some  of  the 
exclusive  graces  of  exclusive  society,  it  is  of 
higher  value  still,  and  makes  the  proud  pos- 
sessor more  resolute  in  repelling  encroach- 
ments. All  attempts  to  place  advantages  of 
a  different,  but  more  common,  and  of  an  ac- 
quirable  character,  on  a  level  with  them,  is 
naturally  opposed.  Thus  birth  and  connec- 
tion, which  cannot  be  purchased,  will,  of 
course,  in  self-defence,  resist  the  contact  and 
invasion  of  mere  wealth,  which  may  be  won 
by  any  body.  The  set,  who  figure  at  Al- 
mack's  consist,  or  wish  to  consist,  of  persons 
of  a  certain  degree  of  eclat — if  not  peremp- 
torily of  the  higher  families,  yet  certainly  of 
those  who  have  the  superiorities  resulting 
from  intercourse  with  the  higher  society, 
and  unattainable  in  any  other  quarter, — of 
those,  who  have  made  the  best  use  of  the 
best  opportunities,  which  such  intercourse 
presents,  — of  those,  who  are  conspicuous  for 
grace,  or  beauty,  or  accomplishments,  or  cul- 
tivated and  exhibitable  talents.  The  first 
principle — the  binding  quality  of  the  institu- 
tion— is  to  keep  out  vulgar  competitors,  and 
repress  the  presumption  of  such  as  are  not 
content  to  rest  in  proprid  pclfe. 

The  novel  before  us,  which  has  already 
reached  a  third  edition,  has  made  a  consider- 
able sensation,  as  the  phrase  i.«,  by  laying 
open  to  the  public  gaze,  the  mysteries  of  this 
institution,  and  exhibiting  the  principles  on 
which  its  exclusive  dominion  is  wielded. 
After  all,  little,  indeed,  was  there  to  tell. 
We  have  had  "  fashionable  novels"  before — 
many  of  them,  no  doubt,  written  by  such  as 
had  only  had  occasional  glimpses  of  what 
was  passing  behind  the  scenes,  but  some, 
nevertheless,  of  acknowledged  fidelity — read, 
relished,  and  approved  by  the  parties  they 
profess  to  describe,  and  therefore  such  as 
may  be  safely  regarded  as  faithful  exhibitors  of 
scenes-  -not  accessible,  nor  at  all  approach- 
able, by  numbers  ;  and  for  that  reason,  the 
object  to  many  of  intense  curiosity.  This 
story  of  Almack's  is  pretty  manifestly  the 
production  of  one  who  mingles  with  those  he 
or  she  pout-trays.  If  not,  the  matter  is  lien 
imagine,  and  that  is,  the  next  best  thing  to  re- 
ality. There  is  an  ease  and  quietness  about 
the  thing,  generally  felt  to  be  the  effect  and 
characteristic  of  familiarity.  The  whole  tone 
of  it  is  natural — no  exclamations,  or  wonder- 
ments—no reprobatings,  or  palliatings ;  but 
every  thing  seems  to  proceed  from  a  state  of 
feeling,  quite  unperturbed, — not  spurning  the 


opinions  of  others,  or  affecting  carelessness 
about  them, — but  uot  thinking  about  them: 
all  such  considerations  being  unawakened, 
from  the  party  mixing  with  equals,  and  those 
of  the  highest  class. 

The  scene  is  laid  first  in  the  country.  The 
neighbourhood  consists  of  a  few  families  of 
rank,  and  some  of  respectability — all  visit- 
ing— with  one  family  of  low  origin  and  vul- 
gar conceptions,  but  of  prodigious  wealth  ; 
whose  great  aim  and  ambition,  at  least  that 
of  the  queen  of  the  family,  is  to  compete 
with  the  grandest.  All  parties  look  forward 
to  the  season  in  town  ;  and  Lady  Birming- 
ham's point  is  admission  at  Almack's.  She 
sets  skilfully  and  resolutely  to  work  ;  she 
throws  out  her  nets  on  all  sides ;  spreads  her 
cards  profusely,  though  not  at  random  ;  gives 
the  most  splendid  and  princely  parties — and 
splendid  parties  are  irresistible  things,  even 
to  those  who  seem  almost  to  live  in  them  ; 
and  finally,  in  spite  of  all  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  exclusionists,  she  triumphantly 
carries  her  point.  The  tale  is  of  slender 
construction  ;  nor  is  there  any  one  scene  of 
very  remarkable  felicity.  The  scene  at 
the  Abbey  is  the  most  so.  The  greater 
part  consists  of  dialogue — and  dialogue  not 
distinguishable  for  point  or  vivacity.  The 
book,  however,  is  very  far,  indeed,  from 
being  unreadable.  The  writer  possesses  no 
little  tact  and  ability,  with  a  power  of  obser- 
vation, and  of  communicating  too,  of  no 
common  occurrence. 

A  Table  of  Logarithms  from  I  to  108,000, 
by  Charles  Babbage,  Esq.  fyc.  fyc.  8>-c. — 
There  is  something  very  ridiculous  in  finding 
that  the  French,  who,  of  all  the  nations  of 
the  globe,  are  the  fondest  of  submitting  every 
question  to  analytical  investigation,  and  of 
pushing  their  calculations  to  a  length  unwar- 
ranted by  the  observations  on  which  they  rest, 
never  yet  published  any  mathematical  work  in 
which  the  slightest  dependancecould  be  placed 
on  the  formula.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case 
of  Lagrange's  Me'canique  Analitique,  a  whole 
series  of  terms  disappear,  the  printer's  devil, 
we  suppose,  having  lost  the  copy.  Then  there 
is  Legendre,  demonstrating  a  proposition,  by 
affirming  as  true  the  identical  fact  which  he 
intends  to  prove.  This  is  sheer  negligence. 
Then  again,  from  the  appearance  of  the 
calculation  in  De  Lambre's  Astronomy,  we 
have  often  been  led  to  suppose  that  the  dif- 
ferent sheets  of  the  manuscript  had  got  mixed 
together  in  the  hands  of  the  printer,  who  was 
unable  to  rectify  the  confusion  he  had  made. 
We  need  not  extend  the  list.  The  same 
want  of  care  is  manifest  in  their  tables  as 
in  their  formulae ;  and  whoever  has  had  oc- 
casion to  employ  the  former,  well  knows 
the  extreme  caution  with  which  alone  they 
can  be  used.  To  the  proverbial  inaccuracy 
of  the  French  tables,  there  is,  however,  a 
single  exception  in  Callet's  stereotyped  lo- 
garithms, which,  by  gradual  corrections  dur- 
ing more  than  thirty  years,  have  attained 
comparative  perfection.  We  have  never- 
theless remarked  that  the  edition  of  one 


1827.] 


'ytic  and  Foreign. 


429 


year  for  example,  sometimes  contained  the 
errors  which  had  been  pointed  out  in  the 
preceding  one.  Still,  there  was  nothing 
in  the  rest  of  Europe  to  compare  with 
them  when  the  author  of  the  work  before 
us  undertook  to  supply  the  deficiency.  Of 
his  competency  to  the  task  there  cannot  be 
two  opinions ;  and  of  the  singular  fidelity  with 
which  it  has  been  discharged,  the  work  it- 
self is  an  irrefragable  proof.  To  make  the 
numbers  true  to  the  last  figure,  recourse  has 
frequently  been  had  to  original  calculations ; 
while  general  accuracy  has  been  insured  by 
independent  comparisons  with  the  best  collec- 
tions of  logarithms  extant.  The  work  is 
printed  on  yellow  paper,  as  being  more  grate- 
ful to  the  eye  than  white  ;  but  we  have  not 
space  to  detail  the  various  arrangements  by 
which  the  ingenious  editor  has  facilitated  the 
use  of  his  work,  and  endeavoured  to  diminish 
at  once  the  labour  of  the  computer,  and  the 
sources  of  error  to  which  be  may  be  exposed ; 
however,  we  state  with  pleasure  that  we  never 
have  seen  a  work  so  well  adapted  to  the  end 
for  which  it  was  designed. 

The  French  Cook,  by  Louis  Bust  ache 
Ude,  lute  Steward  to  H.ll.H.  the  Duke  of 
York.  The  Eighth  Edition :  with  tivo 

hundred  Receipts.  London,  1827  : The 

Italian  Confectioner ;  or  Complete  Economy 
of  Desserts:  containing  the  Elements  of  the 
Art,  according  to  the  most  Modern  and 
Approved  Practice,  by  G.  A.  Jarrin,  Con- 
fectioner, 1827. — The  French  Cook!— the 
Italian  Confectioner! — one's  mouth  waters 
at  the  auspicious  sounds!  If  there  be  in 
the  world  a  talent  truly  national,  it  is  that 
of  the  French  for  cookery.  If  one  art  be, 
more  than  another,  naturalized  to  the  south 
of  the  Alps,  it  is  not  painting,  not  music,  not 
sculpture — b ut  confectionery !  Sooth  to  speak, 
it  has  survived  the  decay  of  these  its  precur- 
sors, and,  instead  of  retrograding  with  them, 
may  now  be  considered  as  having  reached 
its  Augustan  Age,  in  these  our  days. 

We  were  very  learned,  a  month  or  two 
ago,  in  a  "  Dissertation  on  Dinners  ;';  but 
our's  was  merely  the  general  prattle  of  the 
amateur  scholar,  which  ''  pales  its  ineffectual 
fire"  before  the  Porsonic  condition  of  Ude. 
This  finished  artist — for  such  in  his  art  he  is 
— has  just  put  forth  the  Eighth  Edition  of  his 
work  !  This  is  even  more  astonishing  than 
the  enormous  sale  of  the  books  of  Mrs.  Run- 
dell  and  Dr.  Kitchiner.  (Alas,  poor  Yorick !) 
These  were  adapted  to  the  meanest  capa- 
cities, and  to  moderate  kitchens — whereas, 
M.  Ude  comes  upon  us,  gorgeous  in  all  the 
magnificence  of  patrician  and  royal  house- 
holds, and  laying  bare  before  us  mysteries 
very  little  short  of  those  of  alchemy.  We 
must  say,  however,  that  he  unfolds  them 
with  the  lucidness  of  a  real  professor.  When 
once  he  does  admit  the  general  gaze  into  the 
secrets  of  his  laboratory,  his  learning  is 
equally  displayed  by  clear  and  brief  expla- 
nation, as  it  is  by  the  value  and  rarity  of  the 
thing  explained. 


But,  though  this  is  probably  the  most 
scientific  cookery  book  extant,  yet  it  is  but 
an  improved  species  of  a  genius  already  nu- 
merous. Cookery  books — some  good,  some 
indifferent,  and  some  very  bad — we  have  had 
ever  since  the  days  of  Mrs.  Glasse,  and  pro- 
bably much  earlier.  But  a  separate  treatise, 
devoted  to  the  art  of  confectionery,  was  yet 
unknown  in  our  tongue.  It  was  a  want,  in- 
deed, of  which  the  extent  was  probably  never 
fully  known  till  it  was  supplied; — for  M. 
Jarrin's  book,  now  we  have  it,  we  should 
be  exceedingly  sorry  to  part  with.  It  will, 
we  are  very  sure,  not  only  furnish  many  a 
dainty  which  our  palates  would  otherwise 
have  never  known,  but  it  will  also  save  the 
unhappy  subject — whose  digestion  is  not 
of  the  strongest — from  many  a  heart-burn, 
caused  by  unfit  ingredients,  more  unfitly 
mingled  together.  In  the  single  article  of 
liqueurs,  M.  Jarrin  deserves  the  thanks  of 
all  lovers  of  good  living.  That  we  have  not 
been  guilty  of  mere  inflation  of  style  in  call- 
ing confectionery  an  art,  will  be  apparent 
from  the  following  passage,  which  shews  it 
indeed  io  be  rather  an  union  of  many  arts : — 

That  part  of  the  work  which  regards  the  DECO- 
RATION OF  THE  TABLE,  necessarily  treats  of 
the  articles  which  compose  the  various  ornaments 
used  for  this  purpose  ;  as  gum  paste,  and  the  most 
approved  mode  of  MODELLING  flowers,  animals, 
figures,  &c.  ;  of  co/oursiov  confectionery,  with  full 
instructions  how  to  prepare  them  ;  of  varnishing 
and  gilding ;  of  MOULDING,  with  directions  to 
enable  every  confectioner  to  make  his  own  moulds  ; 
of  works  in  pasteboard,  gold  and  silver  papers, 
borders,  &c.  &c. ;  and,  to  complete  the  whole,  and 
render  the  confectioner  independent  of  every  other 
artist,  the  manner  of  ENGRAVING  ON  STEEL,  and 
on  WOOD,  is  fully  explained. 

The  various  arts  of  drawing,  modelling,  en- 
graving, carving,  moulding,  and  many  other  pur- 
suits, usually  considered  foreign  to  the  practice  of 
the  confectioner,  have  been  closely  studied  by  the 
author  for  many  years ;  and  the  very  numerous 
processes  described  in  his  work  (many  of  which  he 
invented)  have  all  been  employed  by  him  with  the 
most  complete  success. 

This  is,  indeed,  assuming  high  ground — 
but  it  is  well  kept  throughout  the  volume — 
so  well,  indeed,  as  thoroughly  to  justify  its 
assumption.  We  are  sorry  that  we  cannot 
lay  a  specimen  before  our  readers  ;  but  it 
would  truly  be  judging  of  a  house  by  a  brick, 
to  form  an  opinion  of  a  work  embracing 
from  five  to  six  hundred  receipts,  by  the  ex- 
traction of  one  or  two  of  them. 

For  the  future,  these  works,  we  think, 
ought  always  to  go  together.  If  dinner  be, 
as  we  fully  admit,  the  most  important  busi- 
ness of  the  day,  the  couple  of  hours  after  it 
must  rank  as  its  most  important  pleasure. 
And  where  shall  we  find  such  able  guides  to 
each  as  Messrs.  Ude  and  Jarrin?  Truly, 
they  deserve  the  gratitude  of  all  who  in  any 
degree  eat  or  drink  (as  the  Baron  of  Brad- 
wardine  phrases  it)  "  quite  causu,  for  the 
oblectation  of  the  gullet.'1 


[     4.30     ] 


[APRIL, 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 


D  O  M  E  S  T  I  C. 
HOYAL    SOCIETY. 

We  are  happy  to  hear  an  opinion  is  very 
prevalent  that  the  Right  Honourable  Robert 
Peel  will  be  called  to  the  chair  of  this  So- 
ciety, which  we  shall  congratulate  on  the 
creditable  though  tardy  appointment  of  a 
liberal  and  enlightened  President.  At  the 
meeting,  on  January  25,  a  paper  by  Duvies 
Gilbert,  Esq.,  was  read  "  on  the  expediency 
of  assigning  specific  names  to  all  such  func- 
tions of  simple  elements  as  represent  defi- 
nite physical  proportions,  with  the  suggestion 
of  a  new  term  in  mechanics :  illustrated  by 
an  investigation  of  the  machine  moved  by 
recoil ;  and  also  by  some  observations  on 
the  steam  engine."  The  new  term  is  "  effi- 
ciency," which  it  is  proposed  to  substitute  for 
the  word  "  duty,"  employed  by  Mr.  Watt, 
which  word  "  duty''  is  to  be  retained  for  a 
similar  function  indicative  of  the  work  per- 
formed.— Feb.  1.  There  was  read  an  account, 
by  Dr.  Harwood,  of  a  new  genus  of  serpenti- 
form  sea  animals.  This  animal  was  taken  up 
at  sea,  in  latitude  62  N.,  longitude  51  west. 
From  its  continued  endeavours  apparently 
to  gorge  a  species  of  perch  of  greater  cir- 
cumference than  itself  it  was  in  a  very  ex- 
hausted state,  and  scarcely  made  any  efforts 
to  resist  its  capture.  It  is  about  four  feet 
six  inches  in  length,  is  very  slender,  and  the 
tail  has  a  filamentous  termination,  occupying 
about  two  inches  of  the  entire  length  of 
the  animal;  this  begins  at  the  termination 
of  the  dorsal  fin,  which,  like  all  the  other 
fins,  is  small.  The  colour  is  a  purplish 
black,  the  filamentous  portion  of  the  tail 
being  lighter  than  the  rest.  Dr.  Harwood 
assigns  to  it  the  generic  appellation  of 
Ophiognathus,  with  the  specific  name  of 
ampullaceus,  with  the  following  generic 
character :  corpus  nudum,  lubricum,  colu- 
briforme,  compressum,  sacco  amplo  abdo- 
minali. — On  the  8th  of  February,  a  paper 
was  read,  entitled  "  an  examination  into  the 
structure  of  the  cells  of  the  human  lungs, 
with  a  view  to  ascertain  the  office  they  per- 
form in  respiration,  by  Sir  E.  Home,  il- 
lustrated by  microscopical  observations,  by 
F.  Buer,  Esq." 

MEDICO    BOTANICAL     SOCIETY     OP    LONDON. 

The  anniversary  meeting  of  this  Society 
was  holden  on  Tuesday  the  16th  of  January, 
1827.  Sir  James  M'Grigor,  M.D.,  President, 
in  the  chair.  The  President  addressed  the 
Society  ut  considerable  length  ;  and  informed 
tbe  meeting  that  their  council  had  awarded, 
in  which  be  hjnl  no  doubt  they  would  con- 
cur, the  gold  medal  to  John  Frost,  Esq.,  F.S.A  ., 
F.L.S.,  for  his  valuable  communication  on  the 
Ipecacuanha ;  and  the  silver  medal  to  John 
Peter  Yozy,  Esq.,  for  his  paper  on  the  Meuy- 
anthes  tritblhita.  The  ballot  for  the  council 
and  officers  having  been  closed,  and  the  lists 
examined,  the  following  gentlemen  were  de- 


clared unanimously  elected: — President, Sir 
James  M'Grigor,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,K.C.T.S.;  Vice- 
Presidents,  Wm.  Thos.  Brande,  Esq.,  F.R.S., 
Prof.  Chem.  R.I.  ;  Sir  Astley  Cooper,  Bart., 
F.R.S.;  Sir  Alexander  Crichton,  M.D.,  F.R.S., 
F.L.S.;    Major-General  Sir   Benj.  D'Drban 
K.C.B.,  F.n.s.;    Edward  Thos.  Monro,  M.D. 
Treasurer,  Henry  Drummond,  Esq.,  F.S.A. 
Director,  John  Frost,  Esq.,   F.S.A.,   F.L.S. 
Auditor  of  Accompts,  Wm.  Newman,  Esq., 
Secretary,   Rd.  Morris,  Esq.,    F.L.S. ;   Hon. 
Libr.  Dr.  Monro ;  Prof,  of  Bot.,  John  Frost, 
Esq. ;  Prof,  of  Toxicology,  George  G.  Sig- 
mond,  M.D.,  F.L.S.;   Consent,  of  the  Coll., 
John  Peter  Yozy,   Esq.;  Council  with    the 
above,  Henry  Brandreth,  Esq.,  M.A.,  F.S.A., 
Peter  Cosgreave,  M.D.  ;    Thos.  Gibbs,   Esq., 
F.H.S.  ;    Thos.  Jones,  Esq. ;    Wm.  Yarrell, 
Esq.,  F.L.S. 

FOREIGN. 


INSTITUTE — ACADEMY    OF   SCIENCES. 

Paris. — Meeting  of  18th  December. — M. 
Aime  Lemoine  presented  a  copy  of  the  new 
edition  of  the  work  of  Galin,  inventor  of 
the  Meloplast,  requesting,  in  the  name  of 
the  editor,  that  it  might  be  referred  to  a 
commission,  for  which  M.  Prony  was  ap- 
pointed. Dr.  Deleau  forwarded  to  the  aca- 
demy a  work  of  his,  printed  in  1823,  being 
a  description  of  an  instrument  for  re-esta- 
blishing the  hearing  in  many  cases  of  deaf- 
ness. The  author  remarked  that  this  instru- 
ment is  the  same  tbat  was  presented  at  the 
last  meeting  by  M.  Segalas,  for  the  exami- 
nation of  the  bladder.  M.  M.  Audoin  and 
Milne  Edwards  delivered  for  the  archives 
the  physiological  part  of  their  work  on  the 
circulation  of  the  crustaceous  animals.  A 
memoir  was  sent  on  a  method  of  throwing 
the  light  upon  topographical  maps.  M.  Gef- 
froy  St.  Hilaire  read  a  note  on  the  identity 
of  two  nominal  species  of  ornithorynchus. 
M.  Majendie  was  elected  to  the  chair  of 
medicine,  vacant  by  the  death  of  M.  Laen- 
nec.  A  favourable  report  was  made  by 
M.  M.  Prony  and  Favier  on  M.  M.  Vernet 
and  Gauwin's  process  for  generating  steam. 
M.Gironde  Buzareingues  was  named  corres- 
pondent in  the  section  of  moral  economy. 
M.  Majendie  read  the  second  part  of  his  me- 
moir on  the  liquid  which  is  found  in  the 
skull  and  the  dorsal  spine  of  man  and  mam- 
miferous  animals:  he  also  shewed  an  ana- 
tomical preparation  in  wax,  by  M.  Dupout, 
and  which  perfectly  represents  the  objects 
to  which  his  researches  extended.  On  the 
26th,  M.  Le  Noir  presented  a  memoir  on  the 
levelling  circles  and  the  ruler  for  calculating, 
with  specimens  of  the  latter.  The  minister 
of  the  interior  forwarded  some  documents 
collected  by  the  prefect  of  the  Tarn,  on  an 
aerolith,  which  fell  in  that  department.  M. 
Bunten,  who  has  constructed  some  barome- 
ters of  a  new  form,  requested  the  academy 


1827.] 


Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies. 


431 


to  examine  them — referred  to  M.  M.  Gay 
Lussac  and  Arago.  M.  Cauchy  read  two 
mathematical  memoirs.  M.  Martins,  of  Mu- 
nich, \vas  elected  correspondent  of  botany. 
M.  M.  Thenard  and  Chevreul  made  a  favour- 
able report  on  two  memoirs  of  M.  M.  Bussey 
and  Lecanu,  on  the  distillation  of  fat  bodies 
and  chemical  experiments  on  the  oil  of  pal- 
ma-christi.  M.  Brougniart  read,  for  his  son, 
a  memoir  on  the  generation  and  develop- 
ment of  the  embryo  in  the  phanerogamous 
plauts.  M.  Seguin  read  a  note,  entitled 
"  Extract  of  a  Memoir  on  Steam  Naviga- 
tion.— January  3,  M.  Dulon  was  nominated 
vice-president  for  1827.  M.  Brougniart,  vice- 
president  the  preceding  year,  entered  into  his 
office  as  president  for  the  year  1827.  Dr. 
Heurteloup  wrote  to  the  academy  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Dr.  Segalas'  instrument,  for  examining 
the  human  bladder.  A  memoir  on  the  com- 
parison of  meteorological  instruments,  was 
delivered  by  M.  D'Hombre  Firmes.  M.  Gam- 
bard  wrote  from  Marseilles,  that  on  the  27th 
December,  he  had  observed  a  new  comet 
a  short  distance  from  ft  Herculis,  having 
16°  34'  R.  A.,  and  21°  27'  N.  D.  A  memoir 
was  read,  of  M.  le  Baron  Portal,  on  the  seat 
of  epilepsy,  which  he  places  in  the  brain. 
M.  Labillardiere  made  a  verbal  report  on  a 
general  flora  of  the  environs  of  Paris,  by  Dr. 
Chevallier.  An  analytical  memoir  of  M. 
Fouvier  was  read  ;  also  one  by  M.  G.  St.  Hi- 
laire,  on  a  glandular  process,  recently  disco- 
vered in  Germany,  in  the  Ornithorynchus, 
situated  on  the  flanks  of  the  abdominal 
region,  and  falsely  considered  as  a  mammary 


gland ;  on  this  subject  a  dispute  arose,  be- 
tween the  author  and  M.  De  Blainville,  Mr. 
Scoresby  was  elected  correspondent  in  the 
section  of  geography  and  navigation,  in  place 
of  the  late  M.Loevenhoern. — 8tb.  The  ap- 
proximate elements  of  the  last  comet  were 
delivered  from  M.  Gambard.  A  memoir  of 
M.  A.  de  St.  Hilaire,  was  read,  on  the  linear 
series  of  polypetalous  plants,  and  particu- 
larly those  belonging  to  the  Brazilian  flora. 
M.  Girard  commenced  a  memoir,  entitled, 
"  Researches  on  Highways,  Navigable  Ca- 
nals, and  particularly  on  Hail  ways."  M.Nicod 
read  a  memoir  on  the  polypi  of  the  urethra 
and  the  bladder. — 15.  M.Seralles  presented  a 
memoir  on  new  compounds  of  brome,  bydro- 
bromic  aether,  and  cyanure  of  brome.  M. 
Dutrochet,  a  correspondent,  informed  the 
academy  of  some  new  experiments  which  he 
had  instituted,  and  which  give  him  reason  to 
conclude,  that  the  effect  which  is  produced 
by  two  heterogeneous  liquids,  when  separated 
by  a  thin  partition  permeable  to  water  ;  is  a 
phenomenon  of  general  physics,  and  does  not 
belong  only,  as  he  had  at  first  thought,  to  a 
state  of  organization.  M.  G.  St.  Hilaire  read 
the  first  chapter  of  his  memoir  on  the  sexual 
organ  of  the  ornithorynchus.  M.  Dupont 
read  some  statistical  researches  on  the  com- 
parative instruction  and  morality  of  different 
departments  of  France.  M.  Cauchy  read 
some  observations  on  the  same  subject. 
M.  M.  Audoin  and  Milne  Edwards  read  the 
first  part  of  their  memoir,  entitled  "  Anato- 
mical and  Physiological  Researches  on  the 
Circulation  of  the  Crustaceae.'' 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC 

Remarkable  Effect  of  Refraction. — The 
most  singular  instance  of  refraction  upon  re- 
cord is  perhaps  one  that  has  recently  attract- 
ed much  attention  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Chislehurst.  During  part  of  January  and 
February,  and  as  late  as  the  14th  evening  of 
the  month  of  March,  the  planet  of  Jupiter — • 
being,  for  some  time  past,  in  a  region  of  the 
heavens  where  it  has  been  unaccompanied  by 
any  conspicuous  star — has  been  observed,  be- 
tween the  hours  of  eight  and  ten,  and  when 
at  an  elevation  of  from  eight  to  nearly  thirty 
degrees,  to  have  an  undulatory  or  vibratory 
motion ;  describing,  at  one  time,  an  arc  of 
from  about  one  to  four  degrees — appearing  to 
start  suddenly  from  its  place  towards  the  ho- 
rizon, in  a  direction,  sometimes  perpendicu- 
lar and  sometimes  oblique,  towards  the  right 
and  the  left,  and  then  to  return  as  suddenly. 
The  situations  from  which  this  phenomenon 
has  been  observed  are  nearly  contiguous  to 
each  other,  and  are  such  only  as  enabled  the 
planet  to  be  seen  when  immediately  rising 
above  a  wood  in  the  neighbourhood,  belong- 
ing to  the  manor  of  Scadbury,  the  property 
of  Lord  Sydney.  To  persons  unacquainted 
with  the  phenomena  of  nature,  this  account 
may  appear  paradoxical  or  incredible;  but 
the  evidence  on  which  it  rests  is  such,  that, 


AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 

if  it  be  rejected,  there  can  hereafter  be  no 
evidence  by  which  any  other  fact  can  be  es- 
tablished. The  concurrent,  but  independent 
testimony  of  respectable  individuals,  must 
surely  overbalance  any  preconceived  no- 
tions, which  can  be  founded  on  little  besides 
hypothesis  ;  and,  in  this  case,  numerous  in- 
dividuals— -some  of  the  highest  respectability, 
and  equally  intelligent — have  simultaneously 
remarked  the  motion  of  the  planet,  though, 
from  the  singularity  of  the  appearance,  dis- 
posed to  doubt  even  the  testimony  of  their 
senses.  We  have  not  room  to  enfer  more 
into  detail  regarding  the  particulars  of  the 
evidence  on  which  this  fact  is  established  ; 
but  an  account  of  it  will  be  given  to  an 
eminent  society ;  and,  should  it  not  have 
ceased  with  the  easterly  winds,  which  have 
lately  been  so  prevalent,  we  may  furnish,  in 
this  Journal,  some  further  notice  on  the  sub- 
ject. 

Scientific  Blunders, — The  Copley  medal, 
from  the  Royal  Society  of  London,  and  the 
Lalande  medal,  from  the  Paris  Institute,  have 
been  awarded  to  Captain  Sabine,  for  the 
patience  and  zeal  he  displayed  in  his  ex- 
perimental researches  upon  the  pendulum.  A 
short  time  since  it  was  discovered,  that  the 
value  of  each  division  of  the  level  of  the  re- 


432 


peating  circle,  made  for  the  occasion,  by  order 
of  the  Board  of  Longitude,  to  show  tbe  supe- 
riority of  very  small  iustrumeuts  of  that  kind, 
which  the  learned  Captain  Lad  estimated  at 
a  single  second,  amounted,  in  fact,  to  ten 
seconds;  so  that  all  the  results  depending 
upon  observations,  made  with  this  instrument, 
were  vitiated  throughout.  The  same  circle 
was  subsequently  employed  by  Lieutenant 
Foster,  in  the  northern  expedition.  We 
know  not  what  to  think  of  the  accuracy  of, 
or  the  dependence  to  be  placed  upon  gentle- 
men, who  can  employ  an  instrument  in  all 
parts  of  the  globe,  without  ascertaining  its 
corrections,  or  verifying  its  adjustment ;  but 
we  appreciate  the  discrimination,  as  highly 
as  we  estimate  the  judgment,  of  two  scien- 
tific bodies,  who  have  immortalized  a  series 
of  exemplary  blunders,  by  the  well- merited 
distinction  of  an  honorary  medal. 

Wonderful  Effect  of  Lightning. — The 
following  account  of  a  miraculous  effect  of 
lightning  is  contained  in  Professor  Silliman's 
valuable  journal : — On  the  evening  of  June 
3,  1826,  during  a  heavy  shower  of  rain,  a 
clap  of  thunder  burst,  with  a  tremendous  ex- 
plosion, over  a  house  in  Wethersfield,  Con- 
necticut. The  lightning  ran  down  the  chim- 
ney to  the  ceiling  of  the  front  room,  where  it 
came  through,  leaving  a  hole  nearly  an  inch 
in  diameter — tore  off  the  paper  and  plaster 
from  the  wall — descended  on  u  row  of  nails 
in  the  lathes  to  a  picture — melted  all  the 
gilding — burned  and  tore  one  side  of  the 
frame — and,  again  rending  its  way,  ran  upon 
the  nails  to  the  fire-place,  separated  the 
breastwork  from  the  chimney;  and  from 
thence  taking  a  horizontal  direction,  attracted 
by  an  umbrella  in  the  corner  of  the  cupboard, 
a  small  line  is  to  be  seen,  from  a  nail  to  a 
bolt,  in  an  opposite  closet.  From  the  um- 
brella it  went  off  at  an  angle,  and  came  out 
over  the  fire-place  in  a  lower  room,  in  nine 
holes,  the  largest  the  size  of  a  common  gim- 
blet,  scorching  and  slightly  tearing  the  paper. 
It  entered  at  the  corner  of  a  picture,  melted 
the  gilding,  blackened  the  frame,  and,  pass- 
ing off  at  another  corner,  separated  again 
into  several  lines,  intersecting  each  other, 
until  they  centred  in  a  nail  in  the  shelf :  it 
passed  down  the  back  of  the  moulding,  tore 
away  a  hard  cement  below,  threw  forward 
a  false  back  of  brick  and  iron,  split  the  floor 
on  each  side  of  the  hearth,  rent  off  splinters 
two  feet  in  length  from  the  undev-floor  in 
the  cellar,  and  went  east  and  west  through  a 
stone  wall  into  the  earth.  The  greatest  force 
was  exerted  'in  the  chamber-closet.  The 
point  of  the  umbrella  was  brass ;  and  just  be- 
neath the  wire  which  connects  the  whale- 
bone, it  was  burnt  off ;  and  tbe  silk,  the  stick, 
and  the  whalebone  were  nearly  consumed. 
Several  folds  in  some  woollen  carpets  were 
burnt,  leaving  not  a  vestige  for  a  yard  in  a 
place  ;  a  fur  muff,  a  cloth  coat,  and  some 
other  articles  were  also  much  injured  ;  a 
sleeve  and  part  of  the  waist  of  the  coat  were 
destroyed — while  the  cotton  lining,  to  which 
they  were  stitched,  \\as  left  whole,  and,  ex- 


Varieties.  [APRIL, 

cepting  n  small  piece,  was  not  even  tender 
from  scorching.  A  black  sulphureous  smoke 
arose  from  the  spot,  and  filled  the  house.  A 
lady  was  in  the  closet,  with  the  door  shut, 
and  but  a  foot  distant  from  the  course  of  the 
lightning.  The  sound  was  dreadful,  like  can- 
non, at  her  ears,  and  the  heat  inexpressibly 
great,  as  if  she  were  in  the  midst  of  flames. 
She  spoke  at  first  of  intense  light  ;  but  all 
consciousness  of  that  has  since  passed  from 
her  mind.  In  this  terrific  and  awful  situation, 
she  was  preserved  unhurt,  came  out  imme- 
diately, and  closed  the  door.  It  may  be 
remarked,  that  she  was  clothed  in  cotton, 
and  a  roll  of  carpetting  stood  between  her 
and  the  umbrella.  Five  boards  were  thrown 
down,  and  four  rooms  were  filled  with  the 
smell  of  sulphur  and  covered  with  soot.  The 
electrical  fluid  entered  four  closets  adjoining 
the  room  in  the  lower  story — ran  round  china 
cups,  plates,  &c. — raised  and  dissolved  the 
gilding,  or  converted  it  into  the  purple  oxide 
of  gold — and,  leaving  a  dark  bluish  path 
next  to  a  nail,  where  it  splintered  the  parti- 
tion, escaped  through  the  back  of  a  door  to 
a  hinge.  In  a  closet,  without  paint,  it  dis- 
coloured the  wood  three  inches  in  width, 
broke  lour  dishes,  and  drove  out  nine  nails, 
four  ofthem  from  a  hinge  ;  in  a  third,  it  left 
an  aperture,  as  large  as  a  bullet-hole,  in  the 
ceiling,  split  the  floor  three  feet,  and  tore  up 
four  inches,  about  an  inch  wide  ;  in  a  fourth, 
it  overturned,  tossed  out,  aud  broke  large 
vials  of  medicines,  pill-boxes,  wafer-boxer, 
&c.,  drove  four  nails  partly  out  of  the  hinges, 
and  rent  off  a  piece  of  the  casement.  On 
the  top  shelf  lay  several  iron  articles.  It 
pierced  the  ceiling  in  the  back  room,  came 
down  in  two  branches,  and  so  completely  dis- 
sipated four  cents,  weighing  about  165  grains, 
which  lay  upon  a  nail  in  the  moulding,  that, 
except  a  metallic  stain  on  the  lead  paint  of 
the  shelf,  not  a  trace  of  them  remained ; 
they  appeared  to  have  flashed  away  like  gun- 
powder. In  the  chamber,  eight  feet  from  the 
chimney,  it  came  out  over  the  corner  of  a 
looking-glass  in  three  places — the  largest 
like  a  gimblet-hole — split  the  back- board  of 
the  glass  into  three  parts,  melted  the  gilding, 
and  went  off  at  an  opposite  corner,  in  one 
large  place  and  nine  small  ones,  through  the 
wall  to  a  window  in  the  room  beneath — 
splintered  the  casement,  by  a  nail,  into  five 
or  six  small  pieces — and  killed  a  rose-bush, 
which  was  tied  to  a  nail  on  the  outside  of 
the  bouse.  Opposite,  and  fifteen  feet  from  the 
chimney,  hung  a  piece  of  embroidery ;  three 
small  holes  are  left  in  the  wall  over  one  cor- 
ner of  it ;  two-thirds  of  the  top  of  the  frame, 
which  is  of  mahogany,  is  split  up  to  a  cor- 
ner, where  it  appears  as  if  the  fluid  ran  down 
the  back  of  the  glass  to  a  basket  wrought 
with  gold  thread,  and,  blackening  it,  passed 
off  at  another  corner,  through  three  small 
places  in  the  wall,  and  came  out  in  five 
points,  like  nail-marks,  in  the  ceiling  over 
a  looking-glass  in  the  first  story,  ran  all  over 
the  'gilding,  and  went  off  through  the  wall 
by  the  nails  which  support  the  glass.  The 


1827.] 


Varieties. 


433 


paint  in  the  chamber  was  turned  of  a  very 
dark  colour,  with  a  metallic  cast;  the  paper 
was  red  and  blue;  the  red,  excepting  near 
the  floor,  has  entirely  disappeared.  There 
was  no  lightning-rod  on  the  house. — [Since 
writing  the  above,  the  chimney  has  been  ex- 
amined. A  hole,  an  inch  long,  is  found  in  the 
garret,  four  feet  from  the  ceiling  of  the 
chamber  where  it  came  through :  no  crack 
or  any  other  fracture  is  to  be  seen.  The 
rending  effects  of  the  lighting  were  not  more 
conspicuous  than  they  often  are  in  similar 
cases ;  but  the  delicate  selection  made  of  me- 
tallic articles,  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
affected,  and  the  minuteness  of  the  ramifica- 
tions of  the  fluid  through  the  apartments 
were  very  remarkable] . 

Scourges  of  Agriculture  in  the  Isle  of 
France. — It  is  well  known  that  all  the 
islands  in  which  the  sugar-cane  is  cultivated 
are  subject  to  the  most  destructive  visitation 
of  rats,  which  multiply  in  an  almost  incre- 
dible degree,  and  attain  the  most  extraordi- 
nary size  and  ferocity.  Besides  this  scourge, 
the  latest  accounts  from  the  Isle  of  France 
inform  us,  that  it  has  been  ravaged  by  grani- 
vorous  birds,  which,  at  the  time  of  harvest, 
entirely  stripped  the  fields  of  rice ;  and  to  such 
a  height  had  the  twocalamities increased,  that 
the  colonial  government  offered  a  reward  to 
those  who  would  assist  in  the  destruction  of 
these  two  species  of  animals.  In  execution 
of  this  measure,  eight  of  the  arrondissements 
of  the  island  transmitted  to  the  governor,  in 
a  single  month,  830,473  rats'  tails,  and 
930,549  heads  of  birds,  as  a  proof  of  the 
destruction  of  1,769,022  individuals  of  these 
two  destructive  races. 

Level  of  the  Ocean. — A  gradual  subsi- 
dence of  the  waters  of  the  Baltic  in  parti- 
cular, and  perhaps  of  the  ocean  generally,  has 
been  asserted  and  denied  by  many  very  emi- 
nent natural  philosophers.  That  an  eestuary 
formerly  extended  nearly  to  Canterbury  seems 
evident  upon  an  attentive  examination  of  that 
part  of  Kent;  and  tradition  and  historical  do- 
cumentary evidence  support  the  hypothesis. 
Very  many  other  places  might  likewise  be 
pointed  out,  as  situated  on  the  water's  edge, 
which  are  now  more  than  ten  miles  distant 
from  the  sea.  Mr.  Robberds,  who  has  re- 
cently published  some  Observations  on  the 
Eastern  Vallies  of  Norfolk,  has  now  been  led, 
both  from  physical  and  historical  proofs,  to 
conclude  that  all  the  eastern  vallies  of  Nor- 
folk were  formerly  branches  of  a  wide 
aestuary,  and  that  their  present  rivers  and 
lakes  are  the  remains  of  that  large  body  of 
water  by  which  their  surface  was  overspread 
even  in  times  comparatively  recent,  a  change 
resulting  from  a  depression  of  the  German 
Ocean  itself. 

Natural  History. — In  some  of  the  earlier 
numbers  of  this  journal  for  last  year,  we 
announced  the  discovery  of  some  new  species 
of  Batracian  animals.  A  new  species  of 
Siren  has  recently  been  discovered  in  Ame- 
rica, by  Captain  Le  Conte,  who  has  deno- 
minated it  "Siren  Intermedia."  In  its  colour, 
M.M.  New  Series.— Vol..  III.  No.  16. 


it  resembles  the  S.  Lacertina :  and  in  its  gills, 
S.  Striata. 

Rural  Ecortomy. —  An  eminent  foreign 
journal  has  stated  that  the  result  of  the  fol- 
lowing experiment  upon  feeding  cows  has 
been  entirely  successful,  and  that  animals 
fed  in  this  manner  have  yielded  the  same 
quantity  of  milk  in  winter  and  in  summer 
without  its  quality  being  deteriorated : — 
Take  a  bushel  of  raw  potatoes,  break  them, 
and  place  them  in  an  upright  barrel,  a  layer 
of  potatoes  alternating  with  a  layer  of  bran 
— a  small  quantity  of  yeast  being  introduced 
into  the  middle  of  the  mass; — allow  this  to 
ferment  during  eight  days,  and  before  the 
vinous  fermentation  has  ceased— but  when 
the  taste  thence  arising  has  pervaded  tha 
whole  mixture — let  it  be  given  to  the  cows, 
who  will  eat  it  with  avidity. 

Atmospheric  Phenomenon. — Mr.  Atwater, 
an  eminent  American  naturalist,  in  a  paper* 
relating  to  the  state  of  Ohio,  published  in 
Professor  Silliman's  Journal,  has  recorded  the 
following  atmospheric  phenomenon.  Before 
a  storm  here  (Ohio),  I  have  often  noticed  in 
an  evening  of  the  latter  part  of  autumn,  and 
sometimes  in  the  winter,  a  phenomenon  not 
recollected  by  me  to  have  been  seen  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Alleghanies :  some  one  spot 
or  spots  near  the  horizon,  in  a  cloudy  night, 
appeared  so  lighted  up,  that  the  common  peo- 
ple believed  there  was  some  great  fire  in  the 
direction  from  which  the  light  came.  I  have 
seen  at  once  two  or  three  of  these  luminous 
spots  not  far  from  each  other  ;  generally 
there  is  but  one ;  and  a  storm,  invariably 
proceeding  from  the  same  point  near  the 
horizon,  succeeds  in  a  few  hours. 

Disputed  Inventions. — We   really  think 
Professor  Leslie  one  of  the  most  unfortunate 
beings  in  existence.     For  some  time  after 
the  appearance  of  Dr.  Brewster's  Edinburgh 
Journal,  a  section  of  almost  every  number 
was  devoted   to    the   investigation    of   the 
learned  Professor's  claims  to  different  inven- 
tions, which  were  uniformly  adjudged  to  be 
untenable.     In  the  Annals  of  Philosophy  for 
April  1826,  an  account  was  given  of  an  in- 
strument for  ascertaining  the  specific  gravity 
of  powders,  recently  contrived  by  Mr.  Leslie. 
The    Annals    of    Philosophy   (incorporated 
with  the  Philosophical  Magazine)  for  March 
1827,  contains  an  extract  from  Ferussac's 
Bulletin  des  Sciences,  &c.,    in  which  it   is 
stated  that  this  streometer  was   invented, 
twenty-nine    years  ago,   by  a  French  en- 
gineer of  the  name   of   Say,  who   fell  in 
Egypt;    that  drawings  and  a  complete  de- 
scription of  it  are  contained  in  the  23d  vol. 
of  the  Annales  de  Chimie ;  and  that  it  has 
been  frequently  used,  and  still  exists  in  the 
Ecole  Polytechnique.     All  this  may  be  true, 
and  the  Professor  be  guiltless  of  piracy.    We 
do  not  believe  that  a  man  who  has  so  much 
of  which  to  be  justly  proud,   would   endea- 
vour to  defraud  another  of  his  right.    We 
do  not  think  that  any  man  possessing  com- 
mon sense,  could  have  acted  with  the  degree  r 
of  weakness  which  his    opponents  ascribe 
3  K 


434 


Varieties. 


[APRIL, 


to  Mr.  Leslie.  But  we  do  conceive,  that  the 
notoriety  to  the  rest  of  the  world  that  some 
of  the  discoveries  which  he  has  announced 
as  new  had  been  previously  known,  is  a 
proof  that  he  has  rediscovered  them  himself; 
and  if,  in  some  instances,  he  have  no  title  to 
the  claim  of  originality,  he  is  certainly  not  to 
be  branded  as  a  pirate.  We  appeal  to  the  ex- 
perience of  ever}"  individual  who  has  thought 
upon  subjects  connected  with  the  arts,  whe- 
ther or  not  innumerable  ideas  and  inven- 
tions have  not  occurred  to  his  mind,  which 
more  extensive  reading  or  more  accurate 
accounts  have  not  proved  to  have  been  long 
reduced  to  practice  by  others.  Thecase  of  the 
pemiulum  is  one  in  point,  and  we  could  cite 
many  similar  instances.  Intentional  pla- 
giarism deserves  no  pity ;  but  when  two  men 
make  the  same  discovery,  if  priority  of  inven- 
tion be  accorded  to  one,  surely  the  other 
is  exempt  from  reproach. 

Physical  Strength  of  Man. — The  result 
of  experiments  with  a  dynamometer,  insti- 
tuted by  Peron,  in  his  voyage  to  Australia, 
is  expressed  in  the  following  scale  : — Manual 
Strength.  —  Inhabitants  of  Van  Die-men's 
Land,  New  Holland,  Timor,  France,  Eng- 
land. The  ratio  between  the  first  and  last, 
being  5:7.  Strength  of  the  Loins.  —  The 


order  of  the  people  is  the  same,  but  the  ratio 
between  the  extremities  is  as  5  to  8. 

Superficial  Temperature  of  the  Ocean. — 
A  series  of  observations,  made  in  the  vicinity 
of  New  Holland,  has  led  to  the  same  con- 
clusions as  those  of  Marsigli,  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, viz.  At  the  surface,  in  the  morn- 
ing and  in  the  evening,  the  sea  and  the  air 
have  the  same  temperature.  The  sea  is 
colder  than  the  air  at  noon,  and  warmer  at 
midnight. 

J'ivnciousncss  of  Sharks. —  The  two  fol- 
lowing instances  of  tenacity  of  life  in  thn 
shark  are  recorded  by  the  French  traveller 
M.  L.  de  Frejcinet.  A  fish  of  this  species, 
about  ten  feet  long,  and  from  which  the  head 
and  entrails  had  been  removed,  was  left  upon 
the  deck  of  a  vessel,  apparently  dead.  In 
about  ten  minutes,  the  sailors  who  were  pre- 
paring to  wash  the  deck,  seized  the  fish  by 
the  tail,  to  drag  it  forward,  when  the  creature 
made  such  violent  efforts  as  almost  to  over- 
throw the  persons  around  it.  In  the  other 
instance,  the  animal  had  been  completely 
eviscerated  more  than  two  hours,  but  sprang 
lip  several  times  upon  the  deck,  when  a  sai- 
lor laid  hold  of  its  tail,  designing  to  cut  it 
off  with  a  knife.  A  hatchet  was  necessa- 
rily had  recourse  to  for  the  operation. 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS    IN    PREPARATION, 

Captain  Andrews,  who  went  out  as  a  Com- 
missioner from  the  Chilian  Peruvian  Mining 
Company,  to  engage  mines  in  South  Ame- 
rica, has  prepared  a  Narrative  of  his  Journey 
from  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  by  the  United  Pro- 
vinces, into  Upper  Peru  ;  thence  by  the  De- 
serts of  Coranja,  to  the  Pacific,  which  will 
shortly  appear. 

The  Historical  and  Biographical  Commen- 
taries, on  which  the  Author  of  the  Beauties, 
Harmonies,  and  Sublimities  of  Nature,  has 
been  so  many  years  engaged,  will  be  com- 
pleted (unless  other  engagements  imperiously 
interfere)  some  time  next  autumn.  They 
will  occupy  three  closely- printed  octavo  Vo- 
lumes. 

Mr.  Colnaghi  will  publish,  in  a  few  days, 
a  highly-finished  engraving,  by  Cochran, 
from  a  beautiful  portrait  by  Ross,  of  the 
Rt.  Hon.  Lady  Chetwynde;  being  the  28th 
of  a  series  of  portraits  of  the  Female  Nobi- 
lity. 

A  Print  of  Fishermen  on  the  Look-cut, 
from  a  picture  in  the  possession  of  the  Earl 
of  Liverpool,  painted  by  W.  Collins,  R.A. 
and  engraved  in  the  line  manner  by  Joseph 
Phelps,  will  be  published  in  the  spring. 

A  Treatise  on  the  Natural  History,  Phy- 
siology, and  Management  of  the  Honey 
Bee,  by  Dr.  Bevan,  will  be  published  this 
month. 

The  Author  of  "Head  Pieces  and  Tail 


Pieces,  a  series  of  Tales,  by  a  Travelling 
Artist,"  is  preparing  for  publication  a  moral 
tale,  in  one  volume,  to  be  entitled,  "  A  Peep 
at  the  World,  or  the  Rule  of  Life." 

Nearly  ready,  a  Historical,  Antiquarian, 
and  Picturesque  Account  of  Kirkstall  Abbey, 
illustrated  with  highly-finished  Engravings 
in  the  line  manner,  by  John  Cousen,  from 
drawings  by  Wm.  Mulready,  esq.  R.A.  and 
Chas.  Cope. 

A  new  work,  by  G.  Poulet  Scrope,  esq. 
F.R.  and  G.S.S.  on  the  Geology  of  Central 
France,  and  particularly  the  Volcanic  For- 
mations of  Auvergne,  the  Velay,  and  Viva- 
ray,  in  4to.  accompanied  by  an  Atlas,  con- 
taining numerous  coloured  plates,  and  two 
large  maps,  will  be  published  in  a  few  days. 

The  copiousGreek  Grammar  of  Dr.  Philip 
Buttman,  is  nearly  ready  for  publication  ; 
faithfully  translated  from  the  German  by  a 
distinguished  scholar. 

The  Rev.  John  BHrdsall  is  preparing  for 
publication,  an  edition  of  a  scarce  and  valu- 
able work,  entitled,  The  Sinner's  Tears,  iu 
Meditation  and  Prayer,  by  Thomas  Fetti- 
place. 

Theology ;  or,  an  Attempt  towards  a  Con- 
sistent View  of  the  Whole  Counsel  of  God  ; 
with  a  Preliminary  Essay  on  the  Practica- 
bility and  Importance  of  this  Attainment. 
By  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Hinton,  A.M.  oi  Reading. 

Mr.  John  Hawkesworth  is  preparing  a 
History  of  the  Merovingian  Dynasty  ;  being 
the  first  part  of  n  new  History  of  France. 


1827.] 


List  of  New  Works. 


435 


In  a  few  days  will  appear,  in  foolscap  8vo. 
Olgiati  Tragedia  di  Giovanni  Battista  Testa- 
di  Trino. 

Godfrey  Higgins,  esq.  Author  of  a  Treatise 
entitled  Hone  'Sabbalicae,  has  nearly  ready 
for  publication  a  work  called  the  Celtic 
Druids.  It  will  consist  of  one  volume,  4to. 
and  be  elucidated  by  upwards  of  fifty  highly- 
fiuished  Lithographic  Prints  of  the  mostcuri- 
ousDruidieal  Monuments  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

H.  T.  de  la  Beche.  esq.  has  in  the  press, 
a  Tabular  and  Proportional  View  of  ihe  Su- 
perior, Supermedial,  and  Medical  (Tertiary 
and  Secondary)  Rocks.  To  contain  a  list 
of  the  rocks  composing  each  formation  ;  a 
proportional  section  of  each  ',  its  general  cha- 
racters, organic  remains,  and  characteristic 
fossils — on  one  large  sheet. 

The  Chronicles  of  Wesleyan  Methodism 
nre  in  the  press;  exhibiting  an  Alphabetical 
Arrangement  of  all  the  Circuits  in  its  con- 
nexion, the  names  of  the  Preachers  who  have 
travelled  in -them,  and  the  yearly  order  of 
their  succession,  from  the  establishment  of 
Methodism  to  the  present  time:  accompanied 
by  interesting  plates  of  Autographs,  &c.,  and 
numerous  pleasing  memorials  connected  with 
the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Methodism.  By 
John  Stephens.  —  Also,  a  Comprehensive 
Statement  of  its  principal  Doctrines,  Laws, 
and  Regulations:  carefully  compiled,  ex- 
pressly for  this  work,  from  the  most  au- 
thentic sources,  by  Samuel  Warren,  LL.D. 

The  Life,  Voyages,  and  Adventures  of 
Naufragus ;  being  a  faithful  Narrative  of 
the  Author's  real  Life,  and  containing  a  se- 
ries of  remarkable  Adventures  of  no  ordinary 
kind,  in  one  vol.  &vo. 

Miss  Edgeworth  bas  in  the  press  a  Volume 
of  Dramatic  Tales  for  Children,  intended  as 
an  additional  volume  of  Parent's  Assistant. 

The  Book-Collector's  Manual ;  or,  a  Guide 
to  the  knowledge  of  upwards  of  20,000  rare, 
curious,  and  useful  Books  ;  either  printed  in, 
or  relating  to,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
from  the  earliest  period  to  the  present  time. 

Preparing  for  publication,  the  History  and 
Antiquities  of  the  Town  and  Honour  of 
"Woodstock ;  including  Biographical  Anec- 
dotes, &c.  By  J.  Graves,  esq. 

Sir  Hudson  Lowe,  it  is  stated,  has  sent  for 
publication  to  this  country,  a  Memoir  of  all 
the  Transactions  at  St.  Helena,  while  he  was 
Governor  of  that  Island,  and  the  Custodial-  of 
Buonaparte. 

The  Rev.  Greville  Ewing  has  completed 
a  new  edition  of  his  Scripture  Lexicon,  con- 
siderably enlarged,  and  adapted  to  the  gene- 
ral  reading  of  the  Greek  Classics. 

No.  II.  of  Robson*s  Picturesque  Views  of 
all  the  English  Cities  is  nearly  ready. 

The  first  number  of  a  work,  to  be  entitled 
The  Quarterly  Juvenile  Review;  or,  a  Pe- 
riodical Guide  for  Parents  and  Instructors  in 
their  selection  of  new  Books,  is  announced. 

Heraldic  Notices  of  Canterbury  Cathedral, 
with  Genealogical  and  Topographical  Notes, 
&c.  in  4to.  by  Thomas  Willement,  Author 
of  Regal  Heraldry,  is  nearly  ready. 


Nearly  ready,  Absurdities,  in  Prose  and 
Verse ;  with  Humorous  Designs. 

The  Castle  of  Villeroy  ;  or,  The  Bandit 
Chief.  By  Anne  of  Kent,  Authoress  of  The 
Rose  of  Clermont. 

In  the  press,  in  two  volumes,  8vo.  The 
Lives  of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester,  from  the 
first  Bishop,  down  to  the  present  Time.  By 
the  Rev.  Stephen  Hyde  Cassan,  A.M.  Author 
of  the  Lives  of  the  Bishops  of  Salisbury. 
The  work  will  contain  a  verbatim  Reprint 
of  an  exceedingly  scarce  volume,  known  as 
Sale's  History  of  Winchester,  though  chiefly 
written  by  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

Mr.  Gilchrist,  of  Newington  Green,  is  pre- 
paring for  the  press  a  work,  to  be  entitled, 
Unitarianism  Abandoned ;  or,  Reasons  as- 
signed for  ceasing  to  be  connected  viith  that 
Description  of  Religious  Professors  who  de- 
signate themselves  Unitarians. 

Mr.  Guteh,  of  Bristol,  has  in  the  press  a 
very  interesting  volume,  entitled,  Second 
Thoughts  on  the  Person  of  Christ ;  on  Hu- 
man Sin  ;  and  on  the  Atonement ;  containing 
Reasons  for  the  Author's  Secession  from  the 
Unitarian  Communion,  and  his  adherence 
to  that  of  the  Established  Church.  By 
Charles  Abraham  Elton,  esq. 


LIST    OF   NEW   WORKS. 
FINE  ARTS. 

A  Half-length  Portrait  of  George  Birkbeck, 
esq.  M.D.  President  of  the  London  Mechanics' 
Institution.  Engraved  by  Henry  Dawe,  from 
a  Painting  by  Samuel  Lane,  esq.  Price 
ll.ls.  Proofs  11.  11s.  6d. 

Storer's  Views  in  Edinburgh.  100  Plates. 
31.  2s.  6d,  boards.  Large  paper,  51.  5s. 

HavelPs  Coast  Scenery.  I8mo.  Half- 
bound.  Plain,  7s.  Coloured,  12s. 

Allen's  History  of  Lambeth.  4to.  31.  12s. 
8vo.  11.16s. 

London  and  its  Vicinity;  in  a  Series  of 
Plates.  Engraved  by  George  Cooke,  from 
original  Drawings.  No.  III.  Imperial  8vo. 
5s.  4to.  7s.  6d. 

EDUCATION,  &C. 

Ewing's  Greek  Grammar.     8vo.    7s.  b  Is.. 

Dr.  Priestley's  English  Grammar  Im- 
proved. 12 mo.  3s. 

Greek  Grammar  for  the  Use  of  Schools. 
Translated  from  the  German  of  V.  Christian 
Fred.  Rost.  8vo.  12s,  boards-. 

MEDICINE,    SURGERY,  etc. 

Thomas  on  the  Digestive  Organs.  Svo. 
8s.  boards. 

An  Introductory  Lecture  to  a  Course  of 
Surgery,  delivered  at  the  Richmond  School  of 
Medicine,  Dublin,  on  the  8th  January,  1827. 
By  R.  Carmichael,  Esq.  M.R.I.A.  Svo.  2s.6'd. 
sewed. 

Rydge's  Veterinary  Surgeon's  Vade  Me- 
cum.  Post  Svo.  10s.  6d.  boards. 

Allan's  System  of  Surgery.      Vol..  Ill; 
Part  II.     Svo.     I  Os.  6d.  boards. 
3  K   2 


436 


List  of  New  Works. 


[APRIL 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

A  Treatise  on  Calisthenic  Exercises,  ar- 
ranged for  the  Private  Tuition  of  Ladies.  By 
Signor  Varino.  8vo.  6s.  boards. 

Account  of  some  recent  Discoveries  in 
Hieroglyphical  Literature  and  Egyptian  An- 
tiquities. By  Thomas  Young,  M.D.  8vo. 
7s.  6d.  boards. 

The  Poetry  of  Milton's  Prose ;  selected 
from  bis  various  Writings,  with  Notes  and  an 
Introductory  Essay.  12mo.  5s.  6d.  boards. 

The  Cato  Major  of  Cicero,  with  a  double 
Translation,  for  the  Use  of  Students  on  the 
Hamiltonian  System.  8vo.  5s.  boards. 

Shephard  on  the  External  Universe.  12mo. 
8s.  boards. 

Logier's  System  of  Music.  Part  I.  4to. 
21.  2s. 

Coventry  on  the  Title  to  Land  through  the 
Enclosure  Acts.  8vo.  6s.  boards. 

Allbut's  Elements  of  Useful  Knowledge ; 
with  Engravings.  4s.  6d.  half-bound. 

Observations  on  the  Corn  Laws,  addressed 
to  W.  W.  Whitmore,  esq.  M.P.  in  conse- 
quence of  his  Letters  to  the  Electors  of 
Bridgenorth.  8vo.  2s.  sewed. 

Observations  on  the  State  of  the  Maritime 
Power  of  Great  Britain ;  with  an  Examina- 
tion of  the  Reciprocity  Laws.  By  William 
Williams  Mortimer.  8vo.  3s.  6d.  sewed. 

Secret  Occurrences  in  Albany.     8vo.    8s. 

National  Polity  and  Finance  ;  a  Plan  for 
Establishing  a  Sterling  Currency,  and  Re- 
lieving the  Burdens  of  the  People,  extracted 
from  the  Literary  Gazette,  by  the  Editor. 
8vo.  2s.  sewed. 

Parliamentary  Abstracts  for  1 826.  Royal 
8vo.  11.  10s.  boards. 

King's  Interest  Tables,  new  edition.  8vo. 
11.  Jls.  6d.  boards. 

Correspondence  between  Pope  Pius  VII. 
and  the  late  King  of  Naples  ;  together  with 
an  Appendix  of  Documents,  in  a  Letter  to  the 
Right  Hon.  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. 8vo. 

Shackelton's  Wool  Dealer's  Calculator. 
12mo.  7s.  boards. 

Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Lite- 
rature. Part  I.  of  the  first  volume.  4to. 
11.  lls.6d. 

Long's  Reflections  on  the  Laws  of  Eng- 
land. Svo.  7s.  6d.  boards. 

The  Memorial  of  the  Established  Church 
in  Ireland  to  the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
in  Great  Britain.  12mo.  4s.  boards. 

The  Gazette  Gazetted  ;  or,  The  Journal  of 
Belles  Lettres  made  Bankrupts  by  the  Laws 
of  sound  Criticism.  Price  2s. 

Hiorch's  Collection  of  Examples,  Formulae, 
and  Calculations  on  the  Literal  Calculus  and 
Algebra.  Translated  from  the  German,  by 
the  Rev.  J.  A.  Ross,  M.A.  Svo.  12s.  boards. 

The  Quarterly  Review.     No.  LXX.  6s. 

NOVELS,  TALES,   &C. 

Sir  Roland,  a  Romance  of  the  Twelfth 
Century.  By  Hal  Willis,  Author  of  Castle 
Raymond.  4  vols.  12mo.  11.  2s. 

Falkland,  a  Novel.  In  one  vol.  post  Svo, 
9s.  6d.  boards. 


De  Vere,  or  the  Man  of  Independence. 
By  the  Author  of  Tremaine.  4  vols.  post 
Svo.  21.  2s.  boards. 

Alphonso,  or  the  Beggar's  Boy.  A 
Comedy  in  Five  Acts.  Price  3s.  6d. 

Continuation  to  Vivian  Grey.  Vols.  3  to 
5,  post  Svo.  11.  Us.  6d. 

The  Youth  and  Manhood  of  Cyril  Thorn- 
ton. 3  vols.  post  Svo.  8s.  boards. 

POETRY. 

The  Poetical  Works  of  L.  E.  L.,  including 
the  Improvisatrice,  Troubadour,  Golden 
Violet,  and  Miscellaneous  Poems.  3  vols. 
foolscap  Svo.  11.  11s.  6d.  boards. 

The  New  Shepherd's  Calendar,  with  Vil- 
lage Stories  and  other  Poems.  By  John 
Clare  the  Northamptonshire  Peasant.  In 
foolscap  Svo. 

Wallenstein,  a  Dramatic  Poem,  from  the 
German  of  Schiller.  2  vols.  small  Svo.  14s.bds. 

Evenings  in  Greece  :  First  Evening.  The 
Poetry  by  Thomas  Moore,  esq.,  the  Music 
composed  and  selected  by  H.  R.  Bishop  and 
Mr.  Moore. 

One  Hundred  Fables  in  Verse.  By  va- 
rious Authors,  selected  and  revised  by  James 
Plumptre,  B.D.  12mo.  5s.  boards. 

The  Widow's  Tale,  and  other  Poems.  By 
Bernard  Barton.  12mo.  5s.  6d.  boards. 

Jubal,  a  Dramatic  Poem.  By  R.  M. 
Beverley,  esq.  8vo. 

RELIGION  AND    MORALS,  &C. 

Systematic  Morality,  or  a  Treatise  on  the 
Theory  and  Practice  of  Human  Duty  on  the 
Ground  of  Natural  Religion .  By  W.  Je vons, 
jun.  2  vols.  Svo.  21s.  boards. 

The  Spirit  and  Constitution  of  the  Church 
in  their  relations  to  the  general  Welfare  of 
the  State.  By  the  Rev.  Charles  Mackie, 
M.A.  Svo.  8s.  6d. boards. 

Sumner's  Sermons  on  the  Festivals.  Svo. 
10s.  6d.  boards. 

Sermons.  By  the  Rev.  Joshua  Gilpin. 
Svo.  9s.  boards. 

Sheerman's  Guide  to  an  Acquaintance 
with  God.  18mo.  2s.  6d. 

Death  on  the  Pale  Horse.  By  John 
Bruce.  12mo.  5s. 

Grinfield  on  Human  Redemption.  Svo. 
12s.  boards. 

Spalding  on  Feelings  in  Religion.  Svo. 
8s.  boards. 

The  Claims  of  the  Established  Church,  a 
Sermon.  By  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Cole,  A.M. 
Svo.  Is.  sewed. 

Howard's  Plain  and  Practical  Sermons. 
12mo.  5s.  boards. 

Sorrowing  not  without  Hope,  a  Sermon. 
By  Thomas  Raffles,  L.L.D.  Svo.  Is. sewed. 

An  Earnest  but  Temperate  Appeal  to  the 
Bishops  and  Clergy  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, in  Behalf  of  Apostolical  Christianity. 
Svo.  Is.  sewed. 

TRAVELS,   cfec. 

Proceedings  of  the  Expedition  to  explore 
the  Northern  Coasts  of  Africa  in  1821  and 
1822|;  comprehendinganAccount  of  theSyrtis 
and  Cyrenaics,  of  the  Ancient  Cities  compos- 


1827.] 


List  of  New  Works. 


437 


ing  the  Pentopolis,  and  other  various  existing 
Remains.  By  Capt.  F.  W.  Beechy,  R.N., 
and  H.  W.  Beechy,  esq.  In  one  vol.  4to. 

Webb's  Tour  on  the  Rhine,  in  Switzer- 
land, and  Italy,  in  1822  and  1823.  2  vols. 
8vo.  18s.  boards. 


Thomson's  Letters  from  South  America. 
12 mo.  5s.  boards. 

Personal  Narrative  of  Adventures  in  the 
Peninsula  during  the  War  in  1812  and  1813. 
By  an  Officer  late  in  the  Staff  Corps  Regi- 
ment of  Cavalry.  Post  8vo.  9s.  6d. 


PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL  AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 


List  of  Patents  lately  Granted. 

To  Joseph  Frederick  Ledam,  of  Birming- 
ham, for  an  improvement  for  purifying  coal 
gas  by  means  not  hitherto  used  for  that  pur- 
pose—Sealed 2d  March;  6  months. 

To  Nathan  Lucas,  and  Henry  Ewbank,  of 
Mincing-lane,  London,  for  an  improved  pro- 
cess to  be  used  in  the  dressing  of  paddy  or 
rough  rice — 10th  March  ;  2  months. 

To  Lemuel  Wellman  Wright,  of  Upper 
Kennington-lane,  Surrey,  engineer,  for  cer- 
tain improvements  in  the  combination  and 
arrangement  of  machinery  for  making  metal 
screws — 17th  March;  6  months. 

To  Benjamin  Rotch,  of  FurnivaPs  Icn,  esq., 
for  a  diagonal  press  for  transferring  perpen- 
dicular to  lateral  pressure — 22d  March  ; 
6  months. 

To  James  Stewart,  of  Store -street,  Bed- 
ford-square, Middlesex,  pianoforte-maker, 
for  certain  improvements  on  pianofortes,  and 
the  mode  of  stringing  the  same — 22d 
March  ;  6  months. 

To  James  Woodman,  of  Piccadilly,  per- 
fumer, for  improvements  on  shaving  and 
other  brushes,  which  improvements  are  also 
applicable  to  other  purposes — 22d  March  ; 
6  months. 

To  Jacob  Perkins,  of  Fleet-street,  for  cer- 
iain  improvements  in  the  construction  of 
steam-engines— 22d  March  ;  6  months. 


List  of  Patents,  which,  'having  been  granted 
in    April   1813,    expire    in   the  present 
month  of  April  1827. 
7.  John  Bennett,   Bristol,  for  his  metal 

dovetail  joint,  applicable  to  portable  and 


other  furniture,  and  any  framework  requir- 
ing strength  and  durability. 

—  James  Timmins,  Birmingham,  for  im- 
proved   hothouses    and    all    horticultural 
buildings  ;  also  pine-pits,  cucumber  lights, 
and  church  windows. 

13.  Robert  Lewis,    Birmingham,   for  a 
method  of  making  brass   chimney  •  pieces, 
plain  or  mounted,  fyc. 

• —  Charles  Plinth,  London,  for  an  im- 
proved machine,  called" Regency  Portable 
Fountain,''  for  soda  water,  cider,  perry, 
and  other  liquids. 

—  John  Rangeley,  Leeds,  for  a  method  of 
constructing  and  working  engines  for  lift- 
ing weights,   turning  machinery,   and  ca- 
pable of  being  applied  wherever  mechanical 
power  is  required. 

—  Bobert  Campion,  Whitby,  for  an  im- 
proved method  of  making  double  canvass 
and  sail-cloth  with  hemp  and  flax,  without 
starch. 

14.  Charles  Augustin  Busby,  London,   for 
improved  canal   locks,  by  which  the  water 
now  lost  will  be  saved. 

28.  Richard  and  Frederick  Coupland, 
Leeds,  for  the  manufacture  of  shaivls,  ker- 
seymeres, and  milled  cloths,  from  a  mix- 
ture of  animal  and  vegetable  wool,  prepared 
and  spun  into  yarn  without  oil. 

—  Joseph  Hamilton,  Dublin,  for  improve- 
ments in  machines  for  making  bricks,  tiles, 
and  earthenwares. 

—  Thomas  Mead,  Scot-street,  Yorkshire, 
for  his  Endless  Chain,  of  a  peculiar  con- 
struction. 

—  Samuel  Whitfiold,  Birmingham,  for  im- 
proved mountings  or  furniture,  for  culinary 
and  other  utensils. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 


GENERAL   CAULAINCOURT. 

Armand  Augustine  Louis  Caulincourt,  the 
descendant  of  an  ancient  family,  was  born 
in  Picardy,  in  the  year  1772.  Devoted  to 
the  profession  of  arms,  he  was,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  revolution,  an  officer  of 
cavalry.  He  did  not  emigrate,  but  served 
under  the  revolutionary  standard  ;  and,  after 
making  several  campaigns  as  a  colonel  of 
dragoons,  he  became  aid-de-camp  to  Buona- 
parte, when  first  consul.  Having  obtained 


the  confidence  of  his  aspiring  master,  he  was 
regarded  as  a  suitable  agent  for  the  arrest  of 
the  Due  d'Enghien  ;  an  honourable  mission, 
which  several  officers,  of  more  squeamish 
principles,  had  refused.  In  the  course  of  the 
same  year,  he  was  named  Grand  Ecuyer  of 
France,  made  general  of  division,  and  pre- 
sented with  the  grand  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour.  He  subsequently  received  various 
orders  of  knighthood  from  Bavaria,  Saxony,, 
Prussia,  Russia,  and  Austria.  At  the  time 
\rhen  Buonaparte  was  carrying  on  his  plans 


438 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons, 


[APRIL, 


against  Austria,  Caulaincourt  was  sent  as 
ambassador  to  St.  Petersburgh.  He  was  four 
years  ambassador  at  the  Russian  court,  where 
lie  received  from  the  Emperor  Alexander  the 
cross  of  the  order  of  St.  Ann  of  the  first 
class.  Regarded,  however,  with  dislike  by 
the  Russian  nobility,  he  was  subjected  to 
various  mortifications ;  and,  at  length,  under 
the  well  understood  pretext  of  ill  health,  he 
solicited  and  obtained  his  recall.  He  re- 
turned  to  France  in  1811.  In  Buonaparte's 
mad  and  infamous  expedition  against  Russia 
in  the  year  1812,  Caulaincourt  was  his  chosen 
aid-du-camp  and  companion;  and,  after  a 
narrow  escape  from  fire  and  sword,  and 
frost,  he  returned  with  his  crest-fallen  master 
in  a  sledge. 

After  the  desperate  battles  of  Lutzen  and 
Bautzen, in  1813,  Caulaincourt  was  appoint- 
ed to  negociate  with  the  Russian  and  Prussian 
plenipotentiaries.  The  armistice,  to  which 
he  was  a  party,  was  soon  broken ;  and  the 
defeat  of  Buonaparte,  at  Leipsic,  ensued. 
After  hostilities  had  been  removed  from 
Germany  to  France,  Caulaincourt,  who  had 
been  elevated  to  tbe  post  of  Minister  for  Fo- 
reign Affairs,  was  sent  to  negociate  with  the 
allies  at  Chatillon;  but,  on  some  temporary 
success,  achieved  by  Buonaparte,  he  was 
instructed  to  raise  his  claims.  The  conse- 
quence of  which  was,  that  tbe  allies  broke 
off  the  conferences,  and  marched  to  Paris. 

On  the  abdication  of  Buonaparte  at  Fon- 
tainbleau,  Caulaincourt,  then  Duke  of  Vi- 
cenza,  was  the  abdicator's  chief  negociator  ; 
and  he  signed  the  treaty  of  the  llth  of  April 
between  the  ex-ruler  and  the  allies. 

On  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  Cau- 
laincourt became  a  private  man;  and,  before 
a  month  was  at  an  end,  he  made  an  attempt 
to  justify  himself  respecting  the  arrest  of  the 
Duke  d'Enghien.  On  this  subject  he  pub- 
lished a  letter  from  the  Emperor  Alexander ; 
his  object  in  this  was  to  shew,  that  when  the 
arrest  took  place,  he  was  employed  at  Stras- 
burgh  on  other  business — that  General  Or- 
donner  was  the  officer  who  arrested  the 
prince — and  that  Orctonner  alone  was  em- 
ployed in  that  affair.  Soon  afterwards,  how- 
ever, a  pamphlet  appeared,  with  the  title — 
"  On  the  Assassination  of  Monseigneur  the 
Duke  d'Enghien,  and  of  the  Justification  of 
M.  de  Caulaincourt."  The  pamphlet  was 
anonymous  ;  but  it  was  forcibly  written  ; 
und,  by  references  to  diplomatic  document*, 
it  formed  a  decisive  refutation  of  Caulain- 
court's  assertions. 

Caulaincourt,  about  the  same  time,  mar- 
ried Madame  de  Cani.sy,  a  lady  who  had  been 
divorced  ;  and,  with  her  he  retired  into  the 
country  till  Buonaparte  returned  from  Elba. 
He  was  then  (March  21)  made  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs.  He  was  extremely  active 
in  his  endeavours  to  re-establish  the  Corsi- 
can  dynasty ;  and  he  was  incessant  in  his 
assurances  to  all  the  foreign  ministers — 
whose  missions  were,  in  fact,  at  an  end — 
that  Buonaparte  had  renounced  all  projects 
of  conquest,  and  that  his  only  desire  was 


peace.  He  addressed  circular  letters,  of  the 
same  tendency,  to  all  foreign  courts,  but 
equally  without  effect.  One  of  those  circu- 
lars came  afterwards,  with  a  letter  from 
Buonaparte,  to  his  present  Majesty,  who  was 
at  that  lime  Prince  Regent.  These  curious 
documents  were  both  laid  before  parliament. 
A  conciliating  and  even  humble  letter  was 
sent  by  Caulaincourt  to  the  Emperor  of  Aus- 
tria ;  but,  like  the  others,  it  received  no 
answer. 

On  the2d  of  June,Canlaincourt  was  nam;d 
by  Buonaparte,  as  a  Member  of  the  Chamber 
of  Peers.  On  the  17th,  he  announced  to 
that  body,  that  hostilities  were  on  the  point 
of  commencing.  He  was  again  employed 
as  one  of  the  commissioners  on  the  final 
deposition  of  his  master. 

When  Louis  XVIII.  was  reinstated,  Cau- 
laincourt quitted  France,  and,  for  some  time, 
resided  in  England.  He  at  length  returned 
to  his  native  country,  where  he  died  at  his 
hotel,  No.  57,  Kue  St.  Lazure,  on  the  20th 
of  February.  He  endured  a  long  illness  with 
great  fortitude.  His  funeral  took  place  on 
the  28th  of  February,  in  the  church  of  Our 
Lady  of  Loretto. 


WILLIAM    MITFORD,     ESQ. 

William  Mitford,  Esq  ,  whose  name  will 
descend  to  posterity,  as  that  of  the  historian 
of  Greece,  was  the  elder  brother  of  Lord 
Redesdale,  a  descendant  from  the  Mitfords, 
of  Mitford  Castle,  in  Northumberland ;  a 
very  ancient  family,  the  original  name  of 
which  was  Bertram.  He  was  the  son  of 
John  Mitford,  Esq.,  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  by  his 
wife,  Philadelphia,  daughter  of  Wm.  Revely, 
of  Newby,  in  the  county  of  York,  Esq.,  and 
first  cousin  of  Hua^h  Percy,  first  Duke  of 
Northumberland.  He  was  born  in  London, 
on  tbe  10th  of  February,  1744.  The  early 
part  of  his  education  was  received  at  Cheam 
School,  Surrey,  whence  he  was  sent  to 
Queen's  College,  Oxford.  There  he  made 
great  progress  in  his  studies,  and  became 
inspired  with  an  ardent  taste  for  ancient  lite- 
rature. 

On  leaving  college,  he  commenced  the 
study  of  the  law  ;  but  quitted  that  profession, 
on  obtaining  a  commission  in  the  South 
Hampshire  Militia,  in  which  regiment  he 
afterwards  was  Lieutenant-colonel.  His 
father  died  in  1761,  when  he  succeeded  to 
the  family  estate  in  Hampshire.  As  early 
as  the  year  1766,  he  married  Frances, 
daughter  of  James  Molloy,  Esq.,  of  Dublin, 
whose  wife,  Anne,  daughter  of  Henry  Rye, 
of  Furringdon,  in  the  County  of  Berks,  Esq., 
was  related  to  the  noble  family  of  Bathurst. 

About  the  year  1774,  Mr.  Mitford  pub- 
lished anonymously  an  octavo  volunae,  en- 
titled "An  Essay  on  the  Harmony  of  Lan- 
guage, intended  principally  to  illustrate  that 
of  the  English  Language."  A  second  edition 
of  the  work  appeared  in  1804. 

In  1778,  Mr.  Mitford  was  chosen  Verd urer 
of  the  New  Forest.  The  house  which  he  re- 
built there,  about  twenty  years  ago,  and 


J827J 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


439 


in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  reside  during 
part  of  the  year,  is  delightfully  situated,  in 
the  neighbourhood  of,  and  between  Lyming- 
ton  and  Southampton,  on  the  shore  of  the 
west  channel,  or  Solerit  Sea,  nearly  opposite 
Yarmouth,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  The  beau- 
ties of  the  place  have  been  illustrated  by  the 
pencil,  and  also  by  the  pen,  of  the  picturesque 
Gilpio. 

While  in  the  militia,  Mr.  Mitford  pub- 
lished a  "  Treatise  on  the  Military  Force, 
and  particularly  of  the  Militia  of  the  King- 
dom ;"  and,  in  1791,  while  the  public  mind 
was  agitated  with  a  grand  national  question, 
relative  to  the  means  of  supplying  the  country 
with  bread,  he  published  another  tract,  en- 
titled "  Considerations  on  the  Opinion  stated 
by  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  of  Corn,  in  a 
Representation  to  the  King  upon  the  Corn 
Laws,  that  Great  Britain  is  unable  to  pro- 
duce Corn  sufficient  for  its  own  Consump- 
tion," <fec.  It  was  Mr.  Mitford's  opinion, 
that  it  was  not  only  possible,  but  easy,  for  our 
Island  to  supply  a  sufficient  quantity  of 
wheat  for  the  use  of  its  inhabitants. 

It  was  in  the  year  1784  that  the  first 
volume  of  Mr.  Mitford's  "History  of  Greece," 
in  4to.  came  before  the  public.  The  favour- 
able manner  in  which  it  was  received  by  the 
ablest  and  soundest  critics,  encouraged  the 
author  to  proceed.  The  second  volume  was 
published  in  1790  ;  the  third  in  1797;  but  the 
work  was  not  completed  till  th*  year  1810. 
As  a  whole,  this  production  displays  great 
research,  and  is  executed  with  much  judg- 
ment. 

Mr.  Mitford  was  twice  elected  M.P.  for 
the  borough  of  Beeralston,  in  Devonshire ; 
thirdly,  for  New  Romney,  in  Kent.  He 
first  became  a  member  of  the  Legislature  in 
1796;  but  he  does  not  appear  to  have  spoken 
in  the  House  until  1798,  when  he  delivered 
his  opinion  on  a  proposition,  brought  forward 
by  Mr.  Secretary  Dundas,  afterwards  Lord 
Melville,  for  increasing  the  number  of  field- 
officers  in  the  militia,  <fec.  He  opposed  the 
measure  in  its  different  stages;  contending 
that  the  militia  should  be  governed  by  the 
militia  laws,  and  not  by  those  of  the  regular 
army ;  and  strongly  recommending  a  salutary 
jealousy,  relative  to  u  standing  army  in  this 
country.  On  a  subsequent  occasion  he  again 
advocated  the  cause  of  the  militia,  and  stre- 
nuously opposed  certain  innovations  which 
were  then  contemplated. 

By  his  lady,  Mr.  Mitford  had  a  family  of 
six  or  seven  ;  of  whom  his  third  son,  Henry, 
after  attaining  the  rank  of  a  captain  in  the 
Royal  Navy,  perished  in  the  service  of  his 
country.  Mr.  Mitford  died  in  the  month  of 
February. 

THE  BISHOP  OP  ROCHESTER. 
Dr.  Walker  King,  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
was  educated  at  Corpus  Christi  College,  Ox- 
ford, where  he  took  his  degree  of  A.  M.  in 
1766,  and  B.D.  and  D.D.  in  1788.  He  was 
several  years  preacher  to  the  Hon.  Society  of 
Gray's  Inn,  and  private  Secretary  to  the 


Duke  of  Portland,  through  whose  interest  he 
was,  in  the  year  1808,  promoted  to  the  See 
of  Rochester.  He  held,  also,  the  office  of 
provincial  chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, a  Canonry  of  Wells,  and  a  Prebend  of  • 
Peterborough. 

Dr.  King  was  the  only  surviving  executor 
of  Mr.  Burke.  It  was  always  understood, 
that  the  late  Dr.  French  Lawrence,  Burke's 
steady  friend,  and  coadjutor  in  drawing  up 
the  historical  part  of  Dodsley's  Annual  Regis- 
ter, was  to  publish  the  life  of  the  departed 
statesman.  At  Dr.  Lawrence's  death,  how- 
ever, his  task  not  having  been  accomplished, 
all  the  requisite  MSS.  and  documents  were 
consigned  to  Dr.  King.  That  prelate  edited 
the  latter  volumes  of  Mr,  Burke's  works; 
and  it  was  his  intention  to  close  his  editorial 
labour  by  a  life  of  their  author.  The  life, 
indeed,  has  been  repeatedly  announced  as 
nearly  ready  for  publication. 

The  only  works,  we  believe,  that  the 
Bishop  ever  published  of  his  own,  were  two 
sermons.  His  Grace  was  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries.  He  died  at  Wells, 
on  the  21st  of  February. 

WILLIAM    KITCHINER,   ESQ.   M.D. 

All  who  knew  Dr.  Kitchiner — the  whim- 
sical, the  eccentric,  the  kind-hearted  Dr. 
Kitchiner — will  join  with  us  in  the  exclama- 
tion— "  we  could  have  better  spared  a  better 
man!"  The  worthy  Dr.  had  three  grand 
hobbies  ;  respecting  either  or  each  of  which 
his  modes  of  management  and  riding  would 
afford  ample  materiel  for  a  highly  amusing 
volume.  Necessarily,  however,  oar  notice 
must  be  concise. 

William  Kitchiner  was  the  son  of 

Kitchiner,  Esq.,  an  eminent  coal-merchant, 
resident  in  the  Strand,  and  subsequently  one 
of  the  magistrates  for  the  County  of  Middle- 
sex. With  the  year  of  his  birth  we  are  un- 
acquainted. He  represented  himself  at  eight- 
and- forty;  but  we  have  seen  his  age  vari- 
ously stated  at  fifty-one  and  fifty-four ;  and, 
judging  from  appearances,  he  certainly  could 
not  have  been  far  from  his  grand  climacteric. 
He  was  educated  at  Eton.  His  father  had  a 
strong  penchant  for  music4,  a  similar  taste, 
if  not  inherited,  was  acquired,  at  a  very 
early  age,  b>  the  subject  of  this  sketch  ;  and, 
if  we  mistake  nol,  it  was  at  one  time  in 
contemplation  to  cultivate  his  scientific  talent, 
by  placing  him  under  one  of  the  leading  pro- 
fessors of  the  day.  From  choice,  or  acci- 
dental circumstance,  however,  he  adopted 
the  medical  profession.  He  took  his  degree 
of  M.D. ;  but  whether  he  ever  practised  as  a 
physician  we  know  not.  Fortunately  for 
him,  his  father  is  understood  to  have  left  him 
an  unencumbered  property,  to  the  amount  of 
sixty  or  seventy  thousand  pounds;  and,  as 
Dr.  Kitchiner's  establishment  and  habits  of 
life — living  in  a  comparatively  small  house, 
and  keeping  only  a  coachman,  footman,  and 
two  or  three  maid  servants — were  not  of  a 
nature  to  indicate  the  expenditure  of  his  full 
income;  and,  as  he  must  have  made  con- 


410 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons*          [APRIL, 


siderahle  sums  by  some  of  his  literary  under- 
takings— the  probability  is,  that  he  has  left 
a  larger  fortune  than  he  inherited.  Dr.  K. 
married  many  years  ago  ;  but  his  match 
was  an  unsuitable  one,  and  a  separation  soon 
ensued.  His  wife,  by  whom  he  had  no  family, 
is  still  living.  A  natural  son  of  the  Doctor's, 
who  has  been  educated  at  college,  and  is  now 
about  the  age  of  one-and-twenty,  will  come 
into  possession  of  the  bulk  of  his  property. 

Dr.  Kitchiner's  love  of  music  accompanied 
him  through  life  ;  and,  to  the  last,  he  played 
and  sang  with  considerable  taste  and  feel- 
ing. Though  always  an  epicure — fond  of 
experiments  in  cookery,  and  exceedingly  par- 
ticular in  the  choice  of  his  viands,  and  in 
their  mode  of  preparation  for  the  table — he 
was  regular,  and  even  abstemious  in  his 
general  habits.  There  were  times,  indeed, 
when,  according  to  his  own  statement,  his 
consumption  of  animal  food  was  extraor- 
dinary. The  craving  was  not  to  be  re- 
pressed, nor  easily  to  be  satisfied.  Lt  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  love  of  eating,  ab- 
stractedly considered,  but  was  the  result  of 
some  organic  and  incurable  disease.  Dr. 
Kitcbiner's  hours  of  rising — of  eating — of  re- 
tiring to  rest — were  all  regulated  by  sj  stem. 
He  was  accustomed  to  make  a  good  break- 
fast at  eight  or  nine.  His  lunches,  to  which 
only  the  favoured  few  had  the  privilege  of 
entree,  were  superb.  They  consisted  of 
potted  meats  of  various  kinds,  fried  fish, 
savoury  pat6s,  rich  liqueurs,  <fec.  <fec.,  in 
great  variety  and  abundance.  Whatever 
credit  these  piquant  and  luxurious  repasts 
might  reflect  upon  his  hospitality  aad  gastro- 
nomic taste,  we  confess  that,  in  our  estima- 
tion, they  said  little  for  his  medical  judgment, 
or  for  his  kindness  towards  the  digestive 
functions  of  his  friends.  His  dinners,  unless 
when  he  had  parties,  were  comparatively 
plain  and  simple  ;  served  in  an  orderly  man- 
ner— cooked  according  to  his  own  maxims — 
and  placed  upon  the  table,  invariably,  within 
five  minutes  of  the  time  announced.  His 
usual  hour  was  five.  His  supper  was  served 
at  half-past  nine  ;  and  at  eleven,  he  was 
accustomed  to  retire.  His  public  dinners,  as 
they  may  be  termed,  were  things  of  more 
pomp,  and  ceremony,  and  Etiquette.  They 
were  announced  by  notes  of  preparation, 
which  could  not  fail  of  exciting  the  liveliest 
sensations  in  the  epigastric  region  of  the 
highly  favoured  invitte*.  One  of  these  notes 
we  have  before  us ;  and,  though  it  may  have 
been  seen  by  some  of  our  readers,  it  is  a 
curiosity  in  itself,  and  is  well  entitled  to 
preservation : — 

«  Dear  Sir — The  honour  of  your  company 
is  requested,  to  dine  with  the  Committee  of 
Taste,  on  Wednesday  next,  the  JOth  instant. 

"  The  specimens  will  be  placed  upon  the 
table  fit  five  o'clock  precisely,  when  the 
business  of  the  day  will  immediately  com- 
merce.— i  have  the  honour  to  be,  your  most 
obedient  servant, 

W.  KITCHINER,  SECRETARY." 
August,  1625.— 43,  Barren-street, 
Fitzroy-syuarc. 


"  At  the  last  general  meeting,  it  was  una- 
nimously resolved,  that — 

"  1st.  '  An  invitation  to  ETA  BETA  PI, 
must  be  answered  in  writing,  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible after  it  is  received — within  twenty-four 
hours  at  latest,'  reckoning  from  that  on  which 
it  is  dated  ; — otherwise  the  secretary  will 
have  the  profound  regret  to  feel  that  the 
invitation  has  been  definitely  declined. 

"  2d.  '  The  Secretary  having  represented, 
that  the  perfection  of  several  of  the  prepara- 
tions is  so  exquisitely  evanescent,  that  the 
delay  of  one  minute  after  their  arrival  at  the 
meridian  of  concoction,  will  render  them  no 
longer  worthy  of  men  of  taste  ; 

"  Therefore,  to  ensure  the  punctual  at- 
tendance of  those  illustrious  gastrophilists, 
who  on  grand  occasions  are  invited  to  join 
this  high  tribunal  of  taste — for  their  own 
pleasure,  and  the  benefit  of  their  country — it 
is  irrevocably  resolved,  '  That  the  janitor  be 
ordered  not  to  admit  any  visitor,  of  whatever 
eminence  of  appetite,  after  the  hour  which 
the  secretary  shall  have  announced  that  the 
specimens  are  ready.' — By  order  of  the  Com- 
mittee, 

"  WILLIAM  KITCHINER,  Sec." 

Latterly,  Dr.  Kitchiner  was  in  the  habit 
of  having  a  small  and  select  party  to  dine 
with  him,  previously  to  his  Tuesday  evenings 
conversazione.  The  last  of  these  delightful 
meetings  was  on  the  20th  of  February.  The 
dinner  was,  as  usual,  announced  at  five 
minutes  after  five.  As  the  first  three  that 
had  been  invited  entered  his  drawing  room, 
he  received  them  seated  at  his  grand  piano- 
forte, and  struck  up  "  See  the  Conquering 
Hero  comes  !'*  accompanying  the  air,  by 
placing  his  feet  on  the  pedals,  with  a  peal 
on  the  kettle  drums  beneath  the  instru- 
ment. This,  to  be  sure,  was  droll ;  but,  at 
all  events,  it  was  harmless. 

For  the  regulation  of  the  Tuesday  even- 
ings' conversazione  alluded  to,  Dr.  K.  used 
to  fix  a  placard  over  his  chimney-piece,  in- 
scribed : — 

"  At  seven  come — 

At  eleven  go." 

It  is  said,  that  upon  one  of  these  occa- 
sions, the  facetious  George  Colman,  on  ob- 
serving this  admonition,  availed  himself  of 
an  opportunity  to  add  the  pronoun  IT,  making 
the  last  line  run — "  at  eleven  go  it !"  At 
these  little  social  meetings,  a  signal  for  sup- 
per was  invariably  given  at  half-past  nine. 
All  who  were  not  desirous  of  further  re- 
freshment would  then  retire  ;  and  those 
who  remained  descended  to  the  parlour  to 
partake  of  friendly  fare,  according  to  the 
season  of  the  year.  In  summer  a  cold 
joint,  a  lobster  salad,  and  some  little  en- 
tremets, usually  formed  the  repast ;  in  win- 
ter, some  nicely  cooked  little  hot  dishes 
were  spread  upon  the  board,  with  wines, 
liqueurs,  a  variety  of  excellent  ales,  <tc. 
As  these  parties  were  composed  of  the  lite- 
rati, and  of  professors  and  amateurs  of  all 
the  liberal  arts,  it  will  readily  be  imagined 
that  the  mind  as  well  as  the  body  was  abun- 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


441 


dantly  regaled — that  "  the  feast  of  reason 
and  the  flow  of  soul"  were  never  wanting. 
So  well  were  the  orderly  habits  of  the  Dr. 
understood,  that,  at  the  appointed  time,  some 
considerate  guest  would  observe  "  'tis  on  the 
strike  of  eleven.''  Hats  and  cloaks,  coats, 
and  umbrellas,  were  then  brought  in ;  the 
Dr.  attended  his  friends  to  the  street  door, 
looked  up  at  the  stars — if  there  were  any 
visible — grave  each  of  his  friends  a  cordial 
shake  of  the  hand,  wished  him  a  hearty  good 
night,  and  so  the  evening  was  closed. 

Dr.  Kitchiner  possessed  the  estimable  vir- 
tue of  never  speaking  ill  of  any  one  :  on  the 
contrary,  he  was  a  great  lover  of  concilia- 
tion, and  to  many  he  proved  a  valuable  ad- 
viser and  a  firm  friend.  In  manner,  he  was 
quiet  and  apparently  timid.  As  we  have 
said,  however,  he  had  three  grand  hobbies  : 
these  were  cookery,  music,  and  optics  ;  and, 
whenever  he  ventured  upon  either  of  them, 
he  was  full,  cheerful,  and  even  eloquent. 
His  books— of  which  he  wrote  many — were 
all  whimsical,  all  amusing,  and  all  abound- 
ing, amidst  their  eccentricity,  with  useful 
points  of  information.  His  Cook's  Oracle 
(of  which  a  ne\v  edition  was  completed  just 
before  his  death) — his  Practical  Observations 
on  Telescopes  and  on  Spectacles — his  Na- 
tional Songs — his  different  works  on  Music  — 
his  Housekeeper's  Economy — his  Pleasure  of 
making  a  Will,  <fcc.,  are  well  known  to  the 
public ;  and  the  last,  we  presume,  will 
speedily  be  increased  by  the  Traveller's 
Oracle,  and  the  Horse  and  Carriage  Keeper's 
Oracle  ;  both  of  which  were  nearly  ready 
for  publication  at  the  period  of  their  author's 
decease. 

This  inoffensive,  amiable,  and  ever  useful 
man,  dined  at  his  friend  Braham's,  on  Mon- 
day the  26th  of  February.  He  was  in  better 
spirits  than  usual ;  as,  lor  some  time  past, 
in  consequence  of  a  spasmodic  affection  and 
palpitation  of  the  heart,  he  had  been  occa- 
sionally observed  in  a  desponding  state.  He 
had  ordered  his  carriage  at  half-past  eight, 
but  he  remained  at  Mr.  Braham's  till  nearly 
eleven.  On  his  way  home,  he  was  seized 
by  one  of  those  violent  fits  of  palpitation 
which  he  had  of  late  frequently  experienced  ; 
and,  on  reaching  his  house  in  Warren  street, 
Fitzroy-square,  he  alighted,  ascended  the 
stairs  with  a  hurried  step,  and  threw  himself 
on  a  sofa.  It  would  be  as  painful  as  una- 
vailable to  dwell  upon  the  parting  scene. 
Every  assistance  was  immediately  afforded, 
but  without  effect,  and,  in  less  than  an  hour, 
he  expired,  apparently  without  conscious- 
ness, and  without  a  pang. 

Dr.  Kitchiner's  remains  were  interred  in 
the  family  vault  at  the  church  of  St. Clement 
Danes  in  the  Strand,  but,  from  some  want  of 
management,  the  funeral  was  neither  so 
respectably  nor  so  numerously  attended  as 
the  station  in  life  and  extensive  connexions 
of  the  deceased  required.  A  monument,  it 
is  understood,  will  be  erected  to  his  memory, 
in  the  new  church  of  St.  Pancras,  in  which 
parish  he  had  long  resided. 

M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.IlI.  No.  16. 


Dr.  Kitchiner  made  a  will  about  sixteen 
years  ago ;  and  we  have  been  informed  by  a 
gentleman  who  was  one  of  the  attesting  wit- 
nesses, that  the  instrument  was  as  remark- 
able for  its  eccentricity,  as  are  any  of  the 
published  productions  of  the  testator.  From 
some  family  differences,  as  we  have  heard, 
the  Dr.  had  been  lately  induced  to  make 
another  will,  with  a  very  different  disposal 
of  his  property.  It  had  been  intended  for 
signature  on  the  Wednesday  following  the 
Monday  that  he  died.  It  was  fortunate  for 
at  least  one  individual,  that  death  timed  his 
stroke  as  he  did. 


M.    PESTALOZZI. 

M.  Pestalozzi,  who  may  be  regarded  as 
a  benefactor  of  the  human  race,  was  born  at 
Zurich,  in  Switzerland,  in  the  year  1745. 
Though  of  patrician  birth,  he  devoted  him- 
self, at  an  early  period  of  life,  to  the  service 
of  the  humbler  classes.  He  saw  and  pitied 
their  ignorance,  and  resolved  to  meliorate 
their  situation.  He  produced  a  novel,  enti- 
tled "  Leinhard  and  Gertrude,"  the  object 
of  which  was  to  interest  the  feelings  of  the 
poor  by  a  picture  of  their  occupations,  neces- 
sities, and  desires  ;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
it  inculcated  a  love  of  virtue.  The  work 
became  popular  in  Germany  as  well  as  in 
Switzerland,  and  the  author  was  encouraged 
to  renew  his  exertions.  Between  the  years 
1781  and  1797,  he  published  his  Weekly 
Journal  for  Country  Folks,  Letters  on  the 
Education  of  the  Children  of  indigent  Pa- 
rents, Reflections  on  the  March  of  Nature  in 
the  Education  of  the  Human  Race,  <fcc. 

After  the  abolition  of  the  ancient  Swiss 
Government.*,  and  the  meeting  of  the  Hel- 
vetic Legislative  Council  at  Arau,  M.  Pesta- 
lozzi addressed  to  the  council  a  tract,  enti- 
tled, "Reflections  on  the  Wants  of  the 
Country,  and  principally  on  the  Education 
and  Relief  of  the  Poor."  Soon  afterwards, 
he  was  appointed  principal  editor  of  the  Hel- 
vetic Journal,  a  paper  devoted  to  the  moral 
and  religious  interests  of  the  people.  In 
1799,  he  was  nominated  director  of  an  or- 
phan institution,  which  the  government  had 
established  at  Stantz.  This  appointment  ena- 
bled him  to  reduce  some  of  his  theories  to 
practice ;  at  Stantz,  he  became  at  once  the 
teacher,  steward,  and  father  of  the  institu- 
tion ;  and  there  he  formed  the  plan  of  inter- 
rogative education,  which  has  since  been 
known  throughout  Europe  by  his  name. 
When  the  establishment  was  dissolved,  the 
government  assigned  him  a  mansion  atBurg- 
dorf,  that  he  might  be  enabled  to  carry  on 
his  system  with  boarders.  Afterwards  he  re- 
moved to  the  castle  of  Yverduu,  which  was 
presented  to  him  by  the  Canton  of  Vaud. 
There  he  continued  to  prosecute  his  honour- 
able labours ;  and,  subsequently  to  his  remo- 
val, he  published  many  works  on  the  im- 
portant subject  of  education.  Some  of  the 
latter  years  of  his  life  were  occupied  in  pre- 
paring his  numerous  publications  for  a  com- 
plete and  systematic  edition.  His  last  pro- 
3  L 


442 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[APRIL, 


duction  was  entitled  "  Advice  to  my  Con- 
temporaries." 

In  the  year  1803,  M  Pestalozzi  was  one 
of  the  deputation  which  Buonaparte  sum- 
moned from  (he  Swiss  Cantons  to  deliberate 
on  the  means  of  restoring  tranquillity  to 
Switzerland  ;  but  he  returned  home  before 
»uy  arrangement  could  be  effected.  This 
worthy  man  died  at  Brugg  on  the  J7th  of 
February,  after  a  few  days'  illness. 

M.  FELLENBERG. 

M.  Fellenberg,  the  friend  and  countryman 
of  Pestalozzi,  was  born  at  Bern,  in  the  year 
1771.  His  mother,  a  great  grand-daughter 
of  the  celebrated  Dutch  Admiral,  Van  Tromp, 
was  accustomed  to  repeat  to  him,  in  his  early 
youth,  this  excellent  advice : — "  The  great 
have  friends  in  abundance  ;  be  you,  my  son, 
the  friend  of  the  poor,  the  support  of  the  un- 
fortunate and  oppressed. "  The  early  part 
of  his  education  was  conducted  with  great 
care  at  home  ;  subsequently,  he  was  sent  to 
the  public  establishment  at  Colmar,  in  Al- 
sace, in  France  ;  but  his  ill  health  obliged 
him  to  return,  some  years  afterwards,  into 
Switzerland.  There  he  accustomed  himself 
to  live  upon  bread  and  water  ;  and,  in  all  re- 
spects, to  adhere  to  the  severest  regimen. 
In  his  travels  through  Switzerland,  France, 
and  Germany,  commenced  soon  after  his  re- 
turn, it  was  usual  for  him  to  stop  some  time 
in  the  villages,  assuming  the  appearance  of 
an  artizan,  or  of  a  labourer,  that  he  might 
with  more  facility  be  enabled  to  study  the 
characters  of  men,  and  the  nature  of  their 
wants.  Once  he  was  solicited  by  a  young 
woman,  to  undertake  the  religious  instruc- 
tion of  her  uncle,  who  was  deaf.  M.  Fellen- 
berg, by  means  of  gestures,  succeeded  in 
making  himself  understood  ;  but  his  zeal 
produced  no  other  effect  than  that  of  gaining 
his  pupil's  good-will,  although  he  actually 
resided  with  him  in  solitude  for  a  whole  year, 
near  the  lake  of  Zurich.  From  that  period, 
forming  an  intimacy  with  Pestalozzi,  he  de- 
voted his  time  and  attention  to  the  education 
of  youth.  Submitting  to  the  new  order  of 
things  in  Switzerland,  in  1798,  M.  Fellen- 
berg exerted  his  influence  amongst  the 
peasants  with  the  happiest  effect.  However, 
as  the  government  refused  to  perform  what 
he  had  promised  in  their  name,  he  withdrew 
his  interference  in  public  affairs. 

Of  an  exceedingly  speculative  turn,  M. 
Fellenberg  now  purchased  the  estate  of 
Hofwyl,  of  which  all  the  world  has  heard, 
two  leagues  northward  from  Berne ;  and 
there  he  formed,—; -first,  a  farm,  which  was 
intended  to  serve  as  a  model  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood, in  all  that  might  be  useful  in  agri- 
culture, cultivating  it  under  his  own  care, 
and  actually  increasing  its  customary  pro- 
duce five-fold; — secondly,  an  experimental 
farm,  for  the  instruction  of  pupils  who  re- 
sorted to  it  from  various  parts  of  Europe  ;— 
thirdly^  a  manufactory  of  agricultural  im- 
plements, farming  utensils,  &c.,  with  which 
was  connected  a  school  of  industry  for  the 


poor,  who  were  taught  the  business  of  the 
various  handicrafts ; — fourthly,  a  boarding- 
school  for  young  gentlemen; — and,  fifthly, 
an  institution  for  instruction  in  agriculture, 
theoretical  and  practical.  He  also  established 
a  school  for  the  instruction  of  teachers  be- 
longing to  the  surrounding  country  ;  but  that 
scheme  was,  after  some  years,  abandoned. 

Of  M.  Fellenberg's  establishment  at  Hof- 
wyl— the  entire  business  of  which  was  con- 
ducted by  the  founder,  and  thirteen  assistants 
— full  accounts  have  b?jen  published  in  the 
Eibliotheque  Britannique,  and  other  conti- 
nental works.  To  enable  him  to  examine 
every  part  of  the  institution,  and  to  observe 
what  was  going  forward,  in  even  the  re- 
motest corners,  M.  Fellenberg  constructed  a 
lofty  tower  in  the  centre,  from  which,  by 
means  of  a  glass,  and  a  speaking  trumpet, 
he  conducted  the  several  operations.  It  must 
be  admitted,  however,  that  the  establishment 
has  not  been  productive  of  all  the  advantage 
that  was  anticipated. 

Amongst  the  pupils  who  were  sent  to  study 
at  Hofwyl,  were  several  young  men  of  the 
first  rank  in  Germany.  The  late  Emperor 
Alexander  of  Russia  employed  a  confiden- 
tial person  to  examine,  and  report  on  the  in- 
stitution ;  and  his  Imperial  Majesty  was 
pleased  to  accompany  the  insignia  of  an 
order  of  knighthood  to  M.  Fellenberg,  with 
a  handsome  letter,  in  autograph.  M.  Fel- 
lenberg died  early  in  the  present  year  ;  hav- 
ing left  a  standing  committee  entrusted  with 
the  execution  of  his  testementary  regulations, 
with  regard  to  the  schools  for  the  poor. 

COUNT    GIRARDIN. 

Count  Stanislaus  Girardin,  who  died  early 
in  March,  was  the  son  of  the  Count  de  Girar- 
din, the  friend  and  protector  of  Rousseau, 
and  generally  considered  to  have  been  the 
original  of  that  author's  Emilius.  He  was 
born  in  the  year  1768  ;  and  his  education  was 
conducted  upon  the  principles  laid  down  by 
the  Genevese  philosopher.  Early  in  life  he 
entered  the  army.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly,  and  a  strenuous  sup- 
porter of  the  constitution  of  1 79 1 .  After  the 
deposition  of  Louis  XVI.,  he  took  no  part 
in  public  affairs  ;  yet,  during  the  tyranny  of 
Robespierre,  he  was  subjected  to  imprison- 
ment for  a  considerable  period.  After  Buona- 
parte had  been  raised  to  the  Consulship,  he 
became  a  member  of  the  Tribunate ;  in  which 
office  he  bad  violent  altercations  with  Ben- 
jamin Constant,  relative  to  the  project  for 
the  reduction  of  justices  of  the  peace  ;  and 
with  Carion  de  Nisa>,  who  made  an  attack 
upon  the  character  of  Rousseau.  At  the 
time  that  the  army,  raised  for  the  invasion  of 
England,  was  encamped  at  Boulogne,  Count 
Girardin  returned  to  his  original  profession, 
in  the  capacity  of  Captain  in  the  4th  regi- 
ment of  the  line.  He  served  in  Italy — ob- 
tained there  the  rank  of  Colonel — was  raised 
to  be  a  Brigadier-general  in  1808— -and  took 
a  part  in  the  first  Spanish  campaigns.  In 
1809,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Legis- 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


443 


lative  Body,  but  retired  from  that  Assembly 
in  1812,  and  was  appointed  Prefect  of  tbe 
Lower  Seine.  In  1814,  he  acted  viith  the 
Royalists,  in  opposition  to  Buonaparte  ;  and 
Louis  XVIII.  made  him  a  Knight  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Louis.  It  would  not  appear, 
however,  that,  as  a  public  character,  he  ever 
possessed  tbe  confidence  of  tbe  King.  When 
Buonaparte  returned  from  Elba,  Girardin 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  The  King:,  when  re-instated,  re- 
stored to  him  the  Prefectship  of  the  Lower 
Seine,  but  soou  afterwards  dismissed  him. 
In  1819,  be  was  again  employed  for  a  short 
time  in  the  Cote  d'Or,  and  again  dismissed. 
He  has  since  distinguished  himself  in  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  as  a  strenuous  sup- 
porter of  the  rights  of  the  people. 

THE  MARQUIS  DE  LA  PLACE. 
France  has  experienced  a  serious  loss  in 
the  death  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Place,  a  ma- 
thematician and  astronomer  of  the  first  rank. 
This  distinguished  ornament  of  science  was 
the  son  of  a  husbandman,  resident  at  Beau- 
mont-en Auge,  near  Pont  L'eveque.  He  was 
born  in  the  year  1749.  For  some  time  he 
taught  the  mathematics  at  the  school  in  his 
native  town ;  but  he  was  induced  to  regard 
Paris  as  the  only  proper  sphere  for  his  talents. 
There,  by  his  skill  in  analysis,  and  in  the 
higher  geometry,  he  soon  acquired  reputa- 
tion. At  the  expense,  and  under  the  imme- 
diate patronage  of  the  president,  De  Saron, 
he  published  his  first  work  :  this,  we  believe, 
was  his  Theory  of  the  Motion  and  Elliptical 
Figure  of  the  Planets.  M.  La  Place  was  the 
successor  of  Bezout,  as  examiner  of  the  Royal 
Corps  of  Artillery ;  and  he  became,  succes- 
sively, member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
of  the  National  Institute,  and  of  the  Board 
of  Longitude.  In  the  year  1796,  he  dedi- 
cated, to  the  counsel  of  five  hundred,  his 
work,  entitled  The  Exposition  of  the  System 
of  tbe  World.  In  the  same  year,  he  ap- 
peared before  the  bar 'of  that  Assembly,  at 
the  head  of  a  deputation,  to  present  the  an- 
nual report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  National 
Institute  ;  and,  in  an  appropriate  address, 
devoted  to  the  memory  of  men  of  talents  and 
learning,  he  paid  an  affecting  tribute  to  the 
worth  of  his  generous  benefactor,  De  Saron. 
Some  time  afterwards,  he  was,  under  the 
Consular  government,  appointed  Minister  of 
the  Interior ;  from  which  office  he  was,  in 
December,  1799,  transferred  to  the  Conser- 
vative Senate,  to  make  room  for  Lucien 
Buonaparte.  In  July,  1803,  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  Conservative  Senate  ;  and, 
in  September,  he  became  Chancellor  of  that 
body,  with  the  title  of  Grand  Cordon  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour.  In  September,  1805,  he 
made  a  report  to  the  Senate,  on  the  neces- 
sity of  resuming  the  Gregorian  calendar,  and 
discarding  that  of  the  revolution — a  piece  of 
mummery  which,  with  all  its  absurdities,  had 
been  stolen  from  the  Dutch  colonists,  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope.  M.  La  Place  was,  in 
181],  named  counsellor  to  the  Maternal 


society;  and,  in  1813,  Grand  Cordon  of  the 
Re-union.  In  April,  1814,  he  voted  for  a 
provisional  government,  and  the  dethrone- 
ment of  Buonaparte ;  services  for  which 
Louis  XVIII.  rewarded  him  with  the  dig- 
nity of  a  peer.  He  was  nominated  a  member 
of  tbe  French  Academy,  in  1816,  and  Presi- 
dent of  the  Commission  for  the  Re-organiza- 
tion of  the  Polytechnic  School. 

Besides  numerous  articles  in  the  collections 
of  the  National  Institute,  the  Academy  of 
Sciences,  and  the  Polytechnic  School,  the 
principal  works  of  La  Place  were  as  follow  : 
— Theory  of  the  Motion  and  Elliptical  Figure 
of  the  Planets,  1784 ;— Theory  of  the  Attrac- 
tions of  Spheroids,  and  the  Figure  of  the 
Planets,  1785 ;— Exposition  of  the  System  of 
the  World,  2  vols.  1796  ;— Treatise  on  Celes- 
tial Mechanism,  4  vols.  1799,  1803,  180<5  ; — 
Analytical  Theory  of  Probabilities,  1812; — 
Philosophical  Essay  on  Probabilities,  1814. 

The  Marquis  de  la  Place  was,  if  we  mis- 
take not,  the  first  who  analytically  proved 
the  existence  and  extent  of  the  lunar  atmos- 
phere, and  verified  its  secular  equation.  He 
also  determined  the  reciprocal  perturbations 
of  all  the  principal  planets;  and  he  for- 
warded, by  important  discoveries,  a  similar 
work  on  the  Satellites  of  Jupiter,  com- 
menced by  Lagrange,  and  completed  by 
Delambre. 

This  nobleman's  studies,  however,  were 
not  confined  to  the  mathematics,  geometry, 
and  astronomy  :  he  devoted  himself,  with 
considerable  ardour,  to  chemistry;  in  con- 
junction with  Lavoisier,  he  invented  the 
calorimiter;  and  he  repeated  the  experiments 
of  Monge  and  Cavendish,  on  the  decomposi- 
tion of  water. 

The  Marquis  died,  much  regretted,  on  the 
5th  of  March,  in  the  present  year. 

DR.    EVANS. 

The  Rev.  John  Evans,  LL.D.  was  born  at 
Usk,  in  Monmouthshire,  in  the  year  1767. 
He  was  educated  at  the  Dissenting  Academy, 
Bristol,  whence  he  removed,  in  1787,  to 
King's  College,  Aberdeen.  In  1791,  he 
settled  in  London ;  and  has  ever  since  offi- 
ciated, with  great  credit  to  himself,  and  satis- 
faction to  his  congregation,  at  the  Baptist 
Meeting-house  in  Worship  Street. 

Dr.  Evans  had  an  establishment  for  youth 
at  Islington ;  his  political  principles  were 
remarkable  for  soundness  and  loyalty;  he 
was  the  author  and  editor  of  numerous  re- 
ligious, moral,  and  literary  publications ; 
and,  without  the  remotest  pretension  to 
genius,  or  high  talent,  he  was  a  very  useful 
man  in  his  day. 

Dr.  Evans's  best  known  work  is  his  Brief 
Sketch  of  the  Denominations  into  which  the 
Christian  World  is  Divided ;  the  first  edition 
of  which  was  published  in  1793,  and  it  has 
since  gone  through  many  large  editions.  Its 
plan,  and  the  liberality  of  its  tone,  are  its 
chief  recommendations.  A  work  of  the  same 
nature,  but  infinitely  superior,  might,  and 
ought  to  be  produced. 

3L2 


444 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[APRIL, 


Amongst  Dr.  Evans's  other  productions,  are 
—  An  Address  to  Promote  a  Revival  among 
the  General  Baptists — Juvenile  Pieces,  de- 
signed for  Youth — a  Sermon  on  the  Deaths 
of  Drs.  Kippls,  Stewart,  and  Harris — An 
Apology  for  Human  Nature,  by  the  late 
Charles  Bulkeley— An  Attempt  to  Account 
for  the  Infidelity  of  Gibbon— Moral  Reflec- 
tions, suggested  by  a  View  of  London  from 
the  Monument — an  Epitome  of  Geography 
—The  Juvenile  Tourist  — Picture  of  Worthing 
— Tour  to  Brighton,  <fec.  Sermons,  <fec. — 
Dr.  Evans  was  also,  for  some  time,  the  editor 
of  a  periodical  work,  entitled  the  Monthly 
Visitor.— He  died  at  Islington  on  the  25th 
of  January. 

COUNT  LANJU1NAIS. 
M.  le  Comte  Lanjuinais  was  born  at 
Rennes,  in  1753.  He  became  an  Advocate 
acd  Professor  ol  Common  Law  in  the  Uni- 
versity there,  as  well  as  Counsellor  to  the 
States  of  Brittany,  which  were  elected  by 
the  three  orders  before  the  convocation  of  the 
States  General,  in  which  he  represented  his 
native  town.  The  revolution  had  begun  in 
that  province  previously  to  the  meeting  of 
the  States  General  at  Versailles.  Lanjuinais 
was  at  the  head  of  the  popular  party.  Un- 
like the  generality  of  the  revolutionists,  how- 
ever, he  Mas  a  man  of  piety,  sobriety  of 
manners,  and  of  the  utmost  probity  in  his 
general  conduct.  In  the  famous  Breton 
Committee  at  Versailles,  he  opposed  giving 
the  title  of  Prince  to  the  members  of  the 
Royal  Family  ;  and  he  objected  to  the  ex- 
ternal decorations  of  those  personages,  and 
wished  to  deprive  the  King  and  the  Dauphin 
of  the  Cordon  Bleu.  He  attacked  the  usur- 
pations of  the  See  of  Rome,  and  defended  the 
liberties  of  the  Galilean  Church.  Mirabeau's 
attempt  to  procure  admission  for  the  Minis- 
ters of  State  into  the  Representative  Assem- 
bly was  defeated  by  the  spirited  opposition  of 
Lanjuinais.  However,  after  the  insurrection 
in  the  Champ  de  Mars,  he  united  with  the 
constitutional  party,  and  endeavoured  to 
check  the  excesses  of  the  revolution.  In 
September,  1792,  he  was  elected  to  the  Na- 
tional Convention,  by  the  department  of  He 
and  Vila  inc.  There  he  was  assailed  by 
Marat,  who  reproached  him  for  wishing  to 
have  a  guard  collected  from  all  the  depart- 
ments for  the  security  of  the  Convention.  On 
the  5th  of  November,  he  united  with  Louvet 
in  his  accusations  against  Robespierre.  Dur- 
ing the  trial  of  Louis  XVI.  he  most  energe- 
tically opposed  the  unfair  and  illegal  mode  of 
proceeding  adopted  towards  the  fallen  mo- 
narch ;  and  he  voted  for  his  confinement  and 
banishment  after  a  peace,  without  recognizing 
the  right  to  try  or  to  judge  him.  On  the  8th 
of  February,  he  supported  the  decree  for 
bringing  to  justice  the  author  of  the  massa- 
cres of  September,  but  was  interrupted  by  the 
enraged  Mountaineers,  not  only  with  menaces 
but  with  poinards.  As  one  of  the  moderate, 
and,  therefore,  equivocal  party,  he  was  pro- 


scribed at  the  head  of  a  list  of  seventy-one 
deputies.  Having  been  ordered  under  arrest 
he  escaped,  and  lay  concealed  for  eighteen 
mouths  in  a  hay- loft  at  his  house  at  Rennes. 
Saved  by  the  vigilance  of  his  wife,  and  of  a 
female  domestic,  he  was  reinstated  in  the 
Convention  in  March  1795;  and  when  lhat 
body  was  renewed  by  the  election  of  the  two- 
thirds,  his  name  was 'put  up  by  73  Depart- 
ments, and  generally  at  the  head  of  the  list. 
As  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Ancients,  he 
endeavoured  to  steer  a  moderate  course,  and 
to  deviate  as  much  as  possible  from  the 
rigours  of  the  revolutionary  system. 

On  the  return  of  Buonaparte  from  Egypt, 
M.  Lanjnina's  was  nominated  to  the  Legis- 
lative Body;  and,  in  March  1800,  he  was 
removed  to  the  Conservative  Senate.  He 
opposed  Buonaparte's  nomination  to  the 
Consulate  for  life ;  and  he  is  said  to  have 
exclaimed  in  the  Senate  on  that  occasion, 
"  You  are  choosing  a  master  from  that 
island  whence  the  Romans  disdained  to  take 
their  slaves."  On  the  assumption  of  the 
title  of  Emperor  by  Buonaparte,  M.  Lanjui- 
nais was  silent ;  and  he  was  named,  at  that 
period,  Commandant  of  the  Legion  of  Ho- 
nour. In  April,  1814,  he  voted  for  a  Pro- 
visional Government,  and  the  dethronement 
of  Buonaparte  ;  and,  on  the  4th  of  June  fol- 
lowing, Louis  XVIII.  created  him  a  Peer 
of  France.  In  1815,  he  was  nominated  De- 
puty to  the  Chamber  of  Representatives  dur- 
ing Buonaparte's  renewed  sway,  and  was 
elected  President  of  that  body  by  a  large 
majority.  Louis  XVIII.  however  did  not 
resent  this  proceeding ;  and  Lanjuinais  re- 
tained his  place  in  the  Chamber  of  Peers. 
His  warm  and  independent  spirit  excited  the 
animosity  of  the  Ultra  Royalists;  and  on  his 
nomination  to  the  Presidentship  of  the  Elec- 
toral College  of  He  and  Vilaine,  he  was 
accused  of  republicanism,  and  172  electors 
petitioned  the  King  against  his  appointment. 
Making  due  allowance  for  the  extraordi- 
nary character  of  the  times,  M.  Lanjuinais 
carried  himself  through  the  revolution  as  a 
man  of  honour,  humanity,  and  spirit.  His 
scholastic  attainments,  which  were  consider- 
able, procured  him  admission  into  the  Na- 
tional Institute.  The  Royal  Ordonnance 
of  July,  1816,  placed  him  in  the  Academy  of 
Inscriptions.  Amongst  his  writings,  are  two 
elaborate  treatises,  one  on  Tithes,  the  other 
on  the  Constitution  of  France.  He  was  also 
the  author  of  various  eloquent  papers  on 
literary,  historical,  and  political  subjects  in  the 
Revue  Encyclopedique. 

For  some  time  previously  to  his  decease, 
which  occurred  on  the  20th  of  January  last, 
the  Count  Lanjuinais  enjoyed  the  otium  cum 
dignitate  in  a  splendid  mansion  near  Paris, 
in  the  bosom  of  an  interesting  family.  De- 
putations from  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  and 
the  Academy  of  Inscriptions,  attended  his 
funeral,  which  was  honoured  with  a  military 
cortege  of  about  200  horse,  and  followed  by 
a  vast  assemblage  of  the  populace.  Three 
discourses  were  delivered  at  the  grave. 


1827.]  [    445    ] 

MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT. 

IN  many  of  the  preceding  Reports  attempts  have  been  made  to  connect  the  occurrence 
of  diseases  in  the  human  body  with  certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  ;  and  it  is  but  rea- 
sonable to  presume,  that  when  any  particular  disorder  manifests  itself  very  abundantly,  it  has 
for  its  cause  some  agent,  not  less  extensively  diffused.  It  will  not,  however,  be  supposed, 
that,  while  supporting  this  doctrine,  the  Reporter  has  been  insensible  to  the  operation  of  a 
variety  of  other  causes  in  the  production  of  human  maladies.  He  would  enumerate,  amongst 
the  most  important  of  these,  our  food,  drink,  exercise,  and  clothing  ;  the  influence  of  time 
in  impairing  the  structure  of  our  frame,  which  is,  in  one  word,  age  ;  a  mind  overstretched, 
or  over-anxious ;  a  constitution  originally  feeble  and  delicate,  which  is,  translated  into 
pathological  language,  scrofula  ;  and,  lastly,  the  condition  of  the  soil  upon  which  we  tread. 
But,  besides  these  obvious  and  cognizable  causes  of  disease,  there  are  a  variety  of  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  functions  of  the  body,  which  the  physician  would  in  vain  attempt  to 
explain  on  these  or  any  other  of  the  more  acknowledged  principles  of  diseased  action.  There 
is,  indeed,  something  about  the  origin  of  disease  which  is  exceedingly  puzzling  ;  and  the 
Reporter  is  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  the  blame  isoften  laid,  both  by  the  world  generally, 
and  by  physicians  themselves,  to  causes  which  are,  in  truth,  perfectly  innocent  of  the 
imputed  mischief.  These  reflections  have  been  called  forth  by  the  circumstance  of  the  last 
month  having  been  remarkably  free  from  severe  atmospheric  and  epidemic  malady,  and  having 
exhibited,  in  the  Reporter's  practice,  a  rather  unusual  share  of  those  complaints  which, 
whether  justly  or  unjustly,  medical  men  are  in  the  habit  of  imputing  to  some  one  or  other 
of  the  causes  above  enumerated. 

The  reign  of  coughs  arid  colds  is  not,  indeed,  yet  at  an  end.  The  mild  and  soft  weather, 
however,  which  has  chiefly  prevailed  during  the  last  month,  has  greatly  broken  their  force  ; 
and,  though  late  in  shewing  themselves,  they  may  perhaps,  in  strictness,  be  all  laid  to  the 
charge  of  the  preceding  frost.  Several  cases  of  erysipelas  have  lately  occurred — a 
disease  which  has  given  occasion  to  much  controversy.  Many  of  the  disputed  doctrines  in 
our  science  have  descended  to  us  from  the  fathers  of  physic ;  but  the  discussions  concerning 
the  nature,  seat,  and  treatment  of  erysipelas  are  altogether  of  modern  origin,  and  have  evi- 
dently sprung  out  of  our  improved  notions  concerning  the  primary  structures  of  which  the 
human  body  is  composed.  It  is  certainly  a  curious  circumstance  that  the  same  disease  should 
at  one  time  occur  idiopathically,  and  exhibit  all  the  symptoms  of  a  genuine  exanthema  ; 
and,  at  another,  present  itself  under  the  form  of  a  common  inflammation — the  obvious  con- 
sequence of  some  external  injury.  Such  is  the  fact :  but  the  Reporter  cannot  agree  with  a 
late  writer  (Mr.  Arnott),  that  the  circumstance  is  sufficient  to  constitute  any  real  distinction 
between  the  two  affections.  A  remark  of  the  same  author  is  deserving  of  more  considera- 
tion ;  viz.  the  connexion  of  erysipelas  of  the  face  with  inflammation  of  the  fauces.  In  fact, 
he  believes  the  one  to  be  only  a  continuation  of  the  other.  The  observation  is  certainly  borne 
out  by  the  phoenomena  of  a  case  now  under  the  Reporter's  care.  This  case  is,  perhaps,  more 
curious  on  another  account,  as  illustrating  the  hereditary  tendency  to  erysipelas.  The  father 
had  the  disease  very  severely  six  years  ago  ;  the  daughter,  now  only  ten  years  of  age,  has 
it  in  a  degree  hardly  less  violent.  The  sort  of  dogged  determination  of  some  practitioners 
to  treat  all  cases  of  erysipelas  upon  the  same  plan — viz.  bark  and  tonics — would  have  caused 
great  astonishment  in  former  times  ;  nor  can  the  Reporter  consider  it  justified  by  any  prin- 
ciple in  pathology.  In  his  own  practice  he  finds  the  necessity  of  accommodating  the  plan 
of  treatment  to  the  character  of  the  accompanying  symptoms.  Clearing  the  bowels,  by  castor 
oil  and  rhubarb,  is  of  undisputed  value  ;  and,  when  a  check  has  once  been  given  to  the  spread 
of  heat  and  swelling,  the  decoction  of  bark  is  eminently  serviceable.  The  violence  of  con- 
stitutional excitement  (or,  in  the  less  pretending  language  of  the  old  school,  the  ebullition 
of  the  blood  and  humours)  is  seldom  so  high  as  to  call  for  the  evacuation  of  blood  :  but  the 
Reporter  would  no  more  fear  it  in  erysipelas  than  he  would  in  small-pox  or  measles.  Cool- 
ing spirituous  lotions  to  the  affected  part  are  infinitely  preferable  to  the  use  of  dry  pow- 
ders, so  much  in  vogue  in  Scotland,  but  which  increase  the  heat  of  the  surface  ;  and  thus 
aggravate  one  of  the  greatest  sources  of  uneasiness  to  the  unfortunate  sufferer. 

During  the  last  twelvemonth  it  has  fallen  to  the  Reporter's  lot  to  witness  a  variety  of 
cases  of  ulcerated  tongue.  The  ulcers  are  usually  situate  upon  the  tip  and  sides  of  the 
tongue :  they  are  seldom  deep,  and  the  inconvenience  they  occasion  is  scarcely  sufficient  to 
induce  the  patient  to  swallow  nauseous  medicine  ;  but  they  give  evidence  of  considerable 
constitutional  disturbance.  In  one  case  they  proved  very  obstinate,  but  ultimately  yielded 
during  the  cure  of  a  severe  fit  of  jaundice,  by  which  the  patient  was  attacked.  In  another 
case,  they  accompanied  a  generally  cachectic  state  of  body,  which  terminated  in  a  fatal  con- 
sumption. A  case  of  the  kind,  now  in  progress  of  cure,  has  been  much  benefitted  by  the 
Abernethian  system,  which,  as  we  need  hardly  tell  our  readers,  consists  in  the  exhibition  of 
blue-pill  at  night,  with  a  bitter  aperient,  carrying  with  it  some  carbonate  of  soda,  the  follow- 
ing morning. 

An  interesting  case  of  aneurism  of  the  aorta,  in  an  elderly  person — shewing  the  effects  of 
time  in  deranging  the  structure  of  the  body — has  terminated  during  the  last  month.  Exa- 
mination of  the  body  after  death  shewed  the  beautiful  provision  of  Nature  for  preventing  the 


446  Monthly  Medical  Report.  [APRIL, 

sudden  effusion  of  blood.  The  sac  of  the  aneurism  was  thick  nnd  strong;  and,  but  for 
pressure  on  the  windpipe,  the  patient  might  have  long  survived.  An  occasional  patient  of  the 
Reporter's  has  for  many  years  had  an  enormous  aneurismal  tumour  of  the  same  kind  ;  in 
spite  of  which  he  follows  his  employment  as  a  carpenter,  and  uses  the  hammer  freely  and 
without  fear. 

The  only  other  case  which  the  Reporter  will  now  mention  is  one  which  is  interesting,  as 
shewing  the  occasional  inefficiency  of  the  mo^  scientific  investigations  into  the  origin  of 
disease.  A  woman,  of  about  thirty-six  years  of  age,  had,  for  a  very  long  time,  complained 
of  weakness  and  indigestion.  She  had  consulted  many  doctors,  had  taken  mustard -seed, 
blue-pill,  and  almost  every  drug,  from  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  to  the  hyssop  that  groweth  on 
the  wall.  Inflammation  ol  the  bowels  at  length  carried  her  off;  and  it  was  discovered,  upon 
subsequent  examination,  that  the  cause  of  her  co/mplicated  sufferings  was  the  growth  of 
various  masses  of  hydatids  in  the  abdominal  cavity.  It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  note,  as  evi- 
dence of  the  instruction  to  be  derived  from  close  attention  to  the  feelings  of  the  patient,  that 
this  person  frequently  expressed  to  those  around  her,  her  belief  that  sbe  had  something  alive 
within  her. 

8,  Upper  John  Street,  Golden  Square,  GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 

March  22,  1827. 


MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

A  HENEWAL  of  the  frost  for  upwards  of  a  week,  and  variable  weather,  again  put  a  stop 
to  getting-in  the  spring  crops,  for  which  the  lands  universally  were  in  a  forward  state,  work- 
ing remarkably  well,  from  the  effects  of  a  dry  summer  and  a  sufficiency  of  frost,  though  late 
in  the  winter.  The  farmers,  in  course,  were  under  the  necessity  of  a  temporary  suspension 
of  the  field  culture,  and  of  a  return  to  their  usual  occupations,  in  such  case,  of  carting 
manure,  threshing,  or  any  object  of  immediate  interest  in  the  various  business  of  the  home- 
stall.  Notwithstanding  the  heavy  rains,  the  field  culture  has  since  recommenced  ;  and,  on 
the  best  soils,  sowing  the  spring  crops  is,  in  general,  in  a  considerable  state  of  forwardness, 
and  the  seed  well  got  in.  On  the  other  hand,  in  low-lands  subject  to  be  flooded,  and  in  those 
northern  districts  where  the  late  high  winds  and  snow-storms  have  proved  so  injurious,  field 
business  has  been  much  retarded,  and  its  conclusion  will  necessarily  be  somewhat  late.  The 
great  desideratum  at  present  is  a  good  cover  of  March  dust,  to  absorb  the  superfluous  mois- 
ture of  the  late  rains,  which,  however,  have  beenscarcely  even  yet  in  quantity  sufficient  to 
replenish  and  renew  the  springs  in  those  counties  where  they  were  completely  exhausted  by 
the  summer's  drought.  If  the  wheats  on  the  ground  have  really  received  any  damage  from 
the  severity  of  the  weather,  it  will  most  probably  be  experienced  in  Scotland,  and  in  the 
northernmost  and  most  exposed  parts  of  the  country.  Taking  the  crop  generally,  it  may  be 
pronounced  thus  far  safe  and  of  good  promise  ;  for,  standing  thick  upon  the  ground,  as  for  the 
most  part  it  did,  thinning  of  it,  in  a  slight  degree,  may  prove  rather  beneficial  than  otherwise. 
The  clovers  and  various  seed  crops  are  said  not  to  have  escaped  considerable  damage.  One 
very  unfortunate  effect  of  the  above  impediments  from  the  weather,  has  been  the  withholding 
employment  from  that  mass  of  wretched  and  starving  labourers,  which  has  long  burthened 
so  many  parts  of  the  country,  and  for  which  no  remedy  seems  even  in  prospect.  The  lambing 
of  the  Dorset  ewes,  the  most  forward  breed,  has,  on  the  whole,  been  successful,  notwith- 
standing the  difficulties  of  the  season  and  the  shortness  of  provision.  From  ihe  South-downs, 
likewise,  the  accounts  are  favourable — more  so,  indeed,  than  can  be  expected  from  less 
favoured  districts,  where  the  ewes  have  suffered  greatly  from  exposure  and  want  of  due 
nourishment,  and  where  yet  a  long  interval  of  want  and  almost  starvation  must  be  gone 
through.  Root  crops  have  been  long  since  exhausted,  where  most  wanted  ;  and  all-mighty 
custom  has  likewise,  too  long  since,  forbidden  the  storing  of  them,  as  a  winter  and  early 
spring  resource.  Hay  is  quoted  in  Derbyshire,  and  various  other  distant  counties,  at  from 
6/.  to  14/.  per  ton  ;  straw  as  high  as  6/.  65.,  and  to  be  obtained  with  difficulty  even  at  those 
unheard-of  prices.  The  almost  insuperable  difficulty  of  supporting  live  stock  must  natu- 
rally reduce  the  price  of  lean  stores :  yet  cattle,  in  good  condition,  and  particularly  good  milch 
cows,  maintain  a  considerable  price  :  but  sheep  and  lambs  are  not  equally  saleable.  Fat 
stock  is  every  where  in  request,  and  dear,  and  must  continue  so ;  bacon,  butter,  and  cheese 
advancing  in  price.  The  horse- market  much  the  same  as  it  has  been  throughout  the  winter; 
ordinary  horses  not  easily  saleable,  but  the  young  and  of  high  qualification  not  to  be 
obtained  but  at  a  high  price.  The  import  of  cart-horses  has  again  commenced  on  the  coasts 
of  Kent  and  Sussex ;  100  two  and  three  years'  olds  have  been  lately  landed.  The  wool  mar- 
ket remains  in  statu  quo,  and  must  so  remain,  until  manufactures  and  commerce  regain  the 
status  quo  ante,  or  that  flourishing  state  in  which  they  were  before  bedlamite  speculations 
brooded  and  hatched  the  late  crisis,  which  the  delinquent,  in  the  vain  hope  of  shielding  itself 
from  due  shame  and  reproach,  has  vainly  endeavoured  to  lay  at  the  door  of  currency,  the 
need  of  an  equitable  adjustment,  and  other  profundities !  The  seed  market,  in  advance  for 
every  article:  seed  oats,  peas,  and  beans  have  obtained  great  prices.  Government,  after  the 
most  painful  and  long-continued  efforts  to  come  at  a  right  understanding  of  the  great  question 


1827.]  Monthly  Agricultural  Report.  447 

at  issue,  and  the  apparently  real  intention  of  holding  the  balance  even  between  the  two 
great  interests,  has,  according  to  the  usual  course  of  human  affairs,  pleased  neither,  but  lei't 
the  majority  of  both  dissatisfied.  The  Corn  Bill,  however,  when  known,  was  supposed  so 
much  in  favour  of  the  landed  interest,  that  it  actually  put  speculation  on  the  alert,  and  occa- 
sioned an  immediate  rise  of  two  or  three  shillings  per  quarter  in  the  price  of  wheat.  Second 
thoughts  have  occasioned  a  relapse ;  and,  in  i'act,  all  speculation  on  the  subject,  for  the  pre- 
sent, must  be  a  mere  blank,  unless  it  be  probable  to  expect  that  the  continental  holders  of 
wheat  will  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  an  opportunity  of  which  they  have  been  so  long 
deprived — the  open  ports  of  this  country.  In  such  case,  they  may  possibly  overload  our 
market  in  the  first  instance,  which,  nevertheless,  under  their  present  extent  of  culture,  they 
cannot  do  permanently — at  least  for  many  years  to  come.  The  old  stocks  of  malt,  fortu- 
nately large,  are  moving  and  clearing-off  at  a  high  price.  Complaints  of  distress  and  appre- 
hension, general  among  the  tenantry:  yet  all  the  operations  of  husbandry  are  carrying  on 
with  considerable  effect,  and  no  discouraging  news  afloat  of  quitting  farms.  The  imperial 
measure  seems  to  have  been  better  relished  in  Scotland  than  in  the  south,  where,  after  all, 
the  objections  to  it  are  probably  not  grounded  in  a  thorough  consideration  of  the  nature  of 
the  case.  Spring  is  cheerfully  putting  on  one  of  its  finest  suits  of  green  in  our  capricious 
yet  fortunate  climate. 

Smithfield. — Beef,  4s.  to  5s.  4d. — Veal,  5s.  4d.  to  6s. — Mutton,  4s.  to  5s.  8d.— Lamb, 
6s. 9d.— Pork,  4s  4d.  to  6s.— Wilts  Bacon,  5s.  to  5s.  4d.— Irish, 4s.  to  4s.  8d.— Raw  fat,  at 
2s.  6d. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  44s.  to  68s. — Barley,  36s.  to  44's. — Oats,  24s.  to  42s. — 
Bread,  9£d.  the  41b.  loaf.— Hay,  80s.  to  130s.— Clover  ditto,  90s.  to  140s.— Straw,  32s. 
to  4-5s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  36s.— 40s. 
Middlesex,  March  22,  1827. 


MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

Cotton. — Prices  are  still  nominal,  and  in  little  demand.  Orleans,  6d.  to  7d. ;  Barba- 
does,  7d.  to  7|d. ;  Demerara,  8£d.  to  lOd. ;  Brazil,  7d.  to  lid.;  Sea  Island,  7d.  to  lOd. ; 
West-India,  fl£d.  to  lOd. 

Coffee — In  »o  demand  for  exportation,  and  dull  for  home  consumption.  A  few  purchases 
have  been  made  by  the  grocers  at  our  last  quotations. 

Sugar.—- The  market  continues  brisk,  and  good  bright  qualities  are  saleable  at  an  advance 
of  Is.  per  cwt.  Pieces,  50s.  to  66s.  per  cwt.,  as  in  quality. 

Rum — Continues  from  Is.  8d.  to  3s.  3d.  per  imperial  gallon,  as  in  strength  and  flavour. 
— Leward  Island  in  little  demand. 

Brandy  and  Hollands.— Brandy  keeps  up  its  price;  and  Hollands  in  little  demand,  and 
flat  in  the  market. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow — Continue  steady,  without  any  alteration. 


Course  of  Foreign  Exchange. — Amsterdam,  12.  7. — Rotterdam,  12.  7. — Antwerp, 
12.  8. — Hamburgh,  37.  6.— Altona,  37.  7.— Paris,  25.  85. — Bordeaux,  25.  85. — Berlin, 
1. — Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154^. —Petersburg,  8^ — Vienna,  10.21. — Trieste,  10.24. — 
Madrid,  34±.— Cadiz,  34f.— Bilboa,  33.— Barcelona,  33.— Seville,  33.— Gibraltar,  34.— 
Leghorn,  47£. — Genoa,  43f. — Venice,  46.— Naples,  38  }. — Palermo,  1H£. — Lisbon,  58f. 
Oporto,  4S|.— Buenos  Ayres,  43. — Dublin,  1£. — Cork,  l£. 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d.  — New  Doubloons,  ,£3  Os. — New 
Dollars,  4s.  9d.— Silver  in  bars,  standard  4s.  lid. 


Premiums  on  Shares  and  Canals,  and  Joint-Stock  Companies)  at  the  Office  of  WOLFE, 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley,  Cornhill. — Birmingham  CANAL,  268/.— Coventry.  1150/. — 
Ellesmere  and  Chester,  99/.  IQs. — GrandJunction,  290/. — Rennet  and  Avon,  25Z.  15*. — 
Leeds  and  Liverpool,  385Z.—  Oxford,  680?. — Regent's,  351.— Trent  and  Mersey,  1,850/. — 
Warwick  and  Birmingham,  268/.  —  London  DOCKS,  83/. —  West-India,  198/.  10*. — East 
London  WATER  WORKS,  120/. — Grand  Junction,  66/.  10*. — West  Middlesex,  67/. — 
— Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE. — 1  dis. — Globe,  144/. — Guardian,  18/.  15s. 
— Hope,  5/. — Imperial  Fire,  91/. — GAS-LIGHT,  Westminster  Chartered  Company,  56/.— 
City  Gas-Light  Company,  O/.— British,  13|  dis.-  Leeds,  195/. 


C    448    ] 


[APRIL, 


ALPHABETICAL  LIST   OK   BANKRUPTCIES,  announced  between    the  21st  of  February 
and  the  tint  of  March  1827  ;  extracted  from  the  London  Gazette. 

Bishop,  J.  Goswell-road,  grocer.  [Amery  and 
Coles,  Throgmorton-street 

Cross,  J.  Belle  Sauvage,  Lud gate-hill,  coach- 
master.  [Pooleand  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

Chappell,  W.  Strand,  pork-butcher.  [Tanner, 
Basinghall-street 

Cot«wortti,  T.  Wells-street,  Camherwcll,  builder. 
[Vallance,  Earl-street,  Blackfriars 

Curtis,  W.Dockhead,  linen-draper.  [Jones,  Size- 
lane 

Crane,  J.  Bristol,  grocer.  [Bourdillon  and  Co., 
Bread-street,  Cheapside;  Bovan  and  Co.,  Bristol 

Cope,  H.  Barnet,  tailor.  [Benstield,  Chatham- 
place 

Carr,  W.  H.  and  G.,  Over-Darwcn,  Lancashire, 
cotton-spinners.  [Milne  and  Parry,  Temple  ; 
Winstanley  and  Cotterell,  Preston 

Cooke,  W.  Rockfleld,  M onmouth,  mealman.  [Ro- 
binson, Walbrook  ;  Gough,  Hereford 

Davy,  W.  Norwich,  brassfounder.  [Parkinson  and 
Co.,  Norwich  ;  Brooksbank  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

Davies,  A.  Llanllvvenairn,  Montgomery,  flannel- 
manufacturer.  [Brandstrom,Newtown  ;  Spence, 
Tavistock-street 

Dawson,  E.  Jermyn-street,  victualler.  [Vandercom, 
Bush-lane,  Cannon-street 

Drummond,  J.  Brown's-lane,  Spitalfields,  distiller. 
[Brutton,  Broad-street 

Davall,  G.  Birmingham,  gun  barrel  rubber. 
[Holme  and  Co.,  New-inn;  Meredith,  Birming- 
ham 

Drake,  J.  Southgate,  victualler.  [Fitch,  Union- 
street,  Southwark 

Dimond,  A.  Alfred-mews,  Tottenham-court-road, 
wheelwright.  [Rhodes  and  Co., Chancery-lane 


BANKRUPTCIES  SUPERSEDED. 

BARKER,  D.  Bath,  draper 

Harris,  J.  Plymouth,  joiner 

Taylor,  G.  Meltham,  Yorkshire,   clothier 

Miles,  W.  Hereford,  mercer 

Musgravc,  J.  Bromley,  Yorkshire,  cloth  manufac- 
turer 

Bird,  W.  Cheltenham,  plasterer 

Wood,  B.  Pitchcombe  Mill,  Gloucestershire 

Nelson,  M.  Preston,  Lancashire,  innkeeper 

Haskins,  S.  Bristol,  grocer 

John  Longman  Shepheard  and  Henry  Fricker, 
Southampton,  linen-drapers 

Peter  Smith,  Liverpool,  hatter 

BANKRUPTCIES.     [This  Month  134.] 
Solicitors'  Names  are  in  Brackets. 

ATTFIELD,  J.  Richmond,  Surrey,  carpenter. 
[Sheffield,  and  Co.,  Great  Prescot-street,  Good- 
man's fields 

Abbot,  J.  Bristol,  saddler.  [Saunders,  Bristol ; 
Jones,  Crosby-square 

Avery,  S.  T.  Prospect-place,  Chelsea,  ironmonger. 
[Sergeant,  Southampton-buildings,  Chancery- 
lane 

Ashcroft,  H.  and  J.  Manchester,  slaters.  [Perkins 
and  Frampton,  Gray's-inn ;  Thomson,  Man- 
chester 

Burchell,  W.  Ensham,  Oxon,  ironmonger.  [Hel- 
der,  Clement's-inn 

Bennet,  W.  Kennington,  victualler.  [Wilks,  Fins- 
bury-place 

Broao*.  T.  Penzance,  linen-draper.  [Jones,  Size- 
lane 

Barnes,  J.  Ledbury,  Herefordshire,  innkeeper. 
[Elgie,  Poultry  ;  Elgie,  Ledbiny 

Barter,  J.  Manchester,  clogger.  [Hewitt,  Man- 
chester ;  Bun  and  Co.,  King-street,  Cheapside 

Barker,  E.  Drummond-  crescent,  Somers-town, 
soda-water  manufacturer.  [Ford,  Great  Queen- 
street,  Westminster 

Butler,  R.  Nottingham,  joiner.  [Knowles,  New- 
inn  ;  Hurst,  Nottingham 

Burditt,  J.  Gillifitts,  York,  fancy  cloth  manufac- 
turer. [Wiltshire  and  Fenton,Old  Broad-street ; 
Fenton,  Huddersfield 

Browne,  T.  S.  Wymondham,  Norfolk,  tanner. 
[Wiltshire  and  Fendon,  Old  Broad-street 

Blackburn,  C.  P.  Paradise-street,  Rotherhithe, 
carpenter.  [Pelham,  Fenchurch-street 

Blounley,P.  and  Co.  Heap,  Lancashire,  cotton- 
spinners.  [Applebyand  Co., Raymond-buildings, 
Gray's-inn  ;  Woodcock  and  Co.,  Bury 

Brabham,  W,  H.  and  Co.,  Manchester,  hatters. 
[Lever,  Gray's-inn. square  ;  Achus,  Manchester 

BarwSse,  H.  Great  Newport-street,  tailor.  [Jack- 
son, New-inn,  Strand 

Bloxam,  W.  Abingdon-street,  Westminster,  mer- 
chant [Stevens  and  Co.,  St.  Thomas  Apostle 

Badnall,  R.  jun.  and  Co.,  Leek,  Staffordshire,  silk 
manufacturers 

Breary,  G.  W.Manchester,  draper.  [Crowder  and 
Co.,Lothbury 

Bush,  W.  Brighthelmstone,  dealer.  [Grimaldi  and 
Co..  Copthall-court,  Throgmorton-street 

Beatson,  A.  Hudderstield,  shopkeeper.  [Walker, 
Lincoln's-inn  Fields  ;  Allison,  Huddersrield 

Beaumont,  W.  Steps  Mill,  Yorkshire,  fullintr,  mil- 
ler. [Battye  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Allison, 
Huddersfield 

Bragg,  N.Whitehaven, butcher.  [Chisholme,  Lin- 
coln's-inn Fields;  Fisher  and  Co.,  Cockermouth 

Booth,  B.  Runcorn,  Cheshire,  grocer.  [Barker, 
Gray's-inn-lane ;  Dodd, Warrington 

Barker,  J.  Bath, woollen-draper.  [Cary,  Bristol ; 
Poole  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-square 

Bellamy,  J.  B.  Shipston-upon-Stour,  Worcester- 
shire. PFindon  and  Co.,  Shipston-upon-Stour  ; 
Gore  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-lane 

Boorman,  R.  Broughton-Malherbe,  Kent,  grocer. 
[Clare  and  Dickenson,  Frederick's-place,  Old 
Jewry;  Southgate  and  Powell,  Lenham 


Dixon.W.Horncastle,  Lincolnshire,  maltster.  [Nor- 

r,  He 
castle 


ris,  John-street,  Bedford-row ;    Parker,  Horn- 


Day,  W.  Lime-street-passage,  Lime-street,  provi- 
sion-dealer. [Ewington,  Bond-court,  Walbrook 

Evvbank,  T.  H.  George  -  street,  Oxford-street^ 
brewer.  [Clarkson,  Essex-street,  Strand 

Evans,  W.  Rotherhithe,  ship  builder.  [Birkett  and 
Co.,  Cloak-lane 

Edmonson,  W.  Outhwaite,  Lancashire,  grocer. 
[Holme  and  Co.,  New-inn;  Pearson,  Kirby- 
Lonsdale 

Fleming,  J.  Pendleton..  Lancashire.. plumber.  [Ellis 
and  Co.,  Chancery -lane  ;  Foulkes  and  Co.,  Man- 
chester 

Fox,  T.  and  Co.  Vauxhall,  confectioners.  [Beverley, 
Temple;  Phillips, Ledbury 

Ffolds,  J.  Hertford,  dealer.  [Grover  and  Stuart, 
Bedford-row 

Fulham,  T.  Salisbury-court,  Fleet-street,  braid- 
manufactuier.  [Jones,  Crosby-square 

Franks,  A.  Manchester, innkeeper.  [Ellis  and  Co., 
Chancery-lane 

Garbett,  E.  W.  Lambeth,  zinc -manufacturer. 
[Leigh,  Charlotte-row,  Mansion-house 

Giblett,  R.  Frome  Selwood,  Somerset,  currier. 
[Hartley,  New  Bridge-street 

Gorle,  J.  Hales  Owen,  Salop,  victualler.  [Bigg, 
Southampton-buildings 

Goodrich,  R.  Cheltenham,  whitesmith.  [Dax  and 
Co.,  Gray's-inn  ;  Stone  and  Co.,  Tetbury 

Carman,  H.N.Tredegar-place,  Bow-road, surgeon. 
[Ashley and  Co.,  Tokenhouse-yard 

Gough,  J.  Nottingham, lace-manufacturer.  [Brews- 
ter,  Nottingham ;  Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford- 
row 

Hopkins,  E.  G.  Fenchurch-street,  indigo-broker. 
[Birkett  and  Co., Cloak-lane 

Henige,  W.  Brighton,  draper.  [Platts,  Jewin-cres- 
cent,  Jewin-street 

Hodson,  J.  Manchester,  merchant.  [Higson,  and 
Co.,  Manchester;  Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 

Harrison,  T.  Gilbert's  -  buildings,  Westminster- 
road,  boarding-house-keeper.  [Rippen,  Great 
Surrey-street,  Blackfriars-road 

Hart,  A.  Mount-row,  Lambeth-street,  jeweller. 
[Spyers,  Broad-strcet-buildinge 


1827.] 


Bankrupts. 


419 


Hall,  P.  Ashton,  Lancashire,  •hop-keeper.  [Mor- 
ris, Wigan  ;  Kills,  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 

Heyward,  J.  N.  Totness,  Devonshire,  grocer. 
[Blake,  Essex-street,  Strand  ;  Taunton,  Totness 

Hogle,  J.  and  Co.,  Bacuf,  Lancashire,  maltsters. 
[Addington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row;  Thor;ey, 
Manchester 

Hill,  S.  Kidderminster,  tailor.  [Coates,  Pump- 
court,  Temple  ;  Brinton,  Kidderminster 

Hudson,  J.  Hamsgate,  coach-master.  [Red away, 
Clcment's-inn,  btrand  ;  Wells,  Raunsgate 

Holland,  J.  Louth,  Lincolnshire,  miller.  [Laing, 
Holborn-court,  Gray's-inn  ;  Phillips,  Loutb. 

Hodgson,  W.  Pickering,  Yorkshire,  cornfaetor. 
[Hicks  and  Co.,  Gray's  inn-square  ;  Walker, 
Malton 

Harrison,  W.  and  Co.Chorley,  Lancashire,  cotton- 
spinners,  [tlurd  and  Co.,  Temple 

Hetl'er,  J.  Wickham  -  market,  Suffolk,  drover. 
[Bromleys,  Gray's-inn;  Wood  and  Son,  Wood- 
bridge 

Holker,  W.  Leeds,  innkeeper.  [Battye  and  Co., 
Chancery-lane  ;  Hargreaves,  Leeds 

Harris,  J.  Modbury,  Devonshire,  linen-draper. 
[Shaw,  Ely-place  ;  Terrell  and  Tucker,  Exeter 

Jordan,  W.  Leeds,  joiner.  [Smitbson  and  Co., 
New-inn  ;  Dunning,  Leeds 

Jacobs,  J.  Phoenix-street,  Crown  -  str  et,  Sobo, 
glass-manufacturer.  [Isaacs,  Bury-street,  St. 
Mary  Axe 

Knott,  J.  C.  Ash  ford,  Kent,  ironmonger.  [Street 
and  Co.,  Brabcnt-court,  Philpot-lane 

Lucas,  T.Brampton,  Derby, ironfounder.  [Vickery, 
New  Boswell-court ;  Gillct,  Chestei  field 

Lea,  C.  L.  Leeds,  stuff-manufacturer.  [Stocker 
and  Co.,  Boswell-court ;  Seott  and  Co.,  Leeds 

Lane,  T.  jun.  Upton-upon-Severn,  corn-dealer. 
[  Becke,  Devonshire  -  street,  Queen  -  square  ; 
France,  Worcester 

Lawton,  W.  Hey,  Cheshire,  woollen-manufacturer. 
[Wigleswortli  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn ;  Thompson 
and  Co.,  Halifax 

Levy,  L.  Sherborne  -  lane,  general  -  merchant. 
[Smyth,  Red  Lion-square 

Litchli.'ld,  T.  Elizabeth-terrace,  Islington -road, 
carpenter.  [Edwards,  Temple-chambers 

Loder,  A.  Bath,  music-selli'r.  [Turner,  Bath  ; 
Price,  New-square,  Lincoln's-inn 

Moody,  W.  A.  Aldersgate-street,  coach-master, 
f  Williams,  Barnard's-inn 

Monat,  M.  Weymouth  and  Melcombe-Regis,  Dor- 
set, victualler.  Bower,  Chancery-lane 

Macclean,  H.  Cambridge,  tea-dealer.  [Chester, 
Staple-inn 

Masters,  S.  B.Hastings,  cabinet-maker,  [Smith, 
Basinghall-street 

M'Kinnon,  T.  Hijrh-street,  Wapping,  oilman. 
[Thompson,  George-street,  Minories 

Nash,  T.  St.  Mary  Axe,  tea-dealer.  [Bathe,  Ame- 
rica-square 

Negus,  T.  A.  and  Co.,  Angel-court,  Throgmorton- 
street,  stock-brokers.  [Rankin  and  Co.]  Basing- 
hall-street 

Owen.C.  Whitley,  Shropshire,  spade-plater.  [Ola- 
ney  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-sqiiare 

Okey  J.  Granchester,  Cambridgeshire, sheep-sales- 
man. [Church,  Great  James-street,  Bedford- 
row  ;  Nash  and  Co.,  Royston,  Hertfordshire 

Ogier,  P.  and  Co.,  Bishopsgate  -  street,  Without, 
linen-drapers.  [Sole,  Aldermanbury 

Potter,  R.  East  Teunmouth,  Devonshire,  ship- 
builder. [Horc.Scrle-street,  Lincoln's-inn  Fields; 
Bartlett,  West  Teignmoutb,  Devonshire 

Pearson, Z.  Kingston-upnn-Hull, merchant.  [Shaw, 
Ely-plaoe,  Holborn  ;  Thorney,  Hull 

Pepper,  J.  Chipplng-BarneU,  Hertfordshire,  inn- 
keeper. [Addington  and  Co.,  Bedford-low 

Pattinson,  T.  and  Co.,  Leeds,  wine-merchants. 
Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 

Pearson,  J.  Walworth,  Surrey,  linen-draper. 
[Jones,  Size-lane 


Pollard,  J.  Burnley,  Lancashire,  mercer,  [Alcock 
and  Co.,  Burnley;  Beverley,  Temple 

Pope,  J.  Exeter,  saddler  and  harness-maker. 
[Pring,  Crcditon  ;  Walton  and  Co.,  Warnford- 
eomt,  Throgmorton-street 

Palmer,  G.  Cranborne-passage,  Leicester  square, 
victualler.  [Bean,  Friars-street,  Blackfriars- 
road 

Robertson, T,  Oxford,  money-scrivener.  [Looker 
Oxford 

Robinson,  T.  Brikby,  York,  woolstapler.  [Wil- 
son, Southampton-street,  Bloomshury ;  Coup- 
land  and  Co.,  Leeds 

Rees,  T.  Suoreditcb,  linen-draper.  [Green  and 
Ashurst,  Sarnbrook-court,  Basinghall-street- 

Stone,  J.  Watford,  Hertfordshire,  i-arpenttr.  [Ash- 
ley and  Co.,Tokenhouse-yard,  Lothbury 

Spiking,  A.  Totford,  Lincolnshire, grocer.  [Norris, 
John-street,  Bedford-row;  Parker,  Horncastle 

Smith.  H.  Mold,  Flintshire,  diaper.  [Ellis  and 
Co.,  Chancery-lane ;  Hadneld  and  Co.,  Man- 
chester 

Stroust,  G.  Gloucester,  coal-merchant.  [White, 
Lincoln's-inn  Fields  ;  Bonner,  Gloucester 

Snowball,  A.  Brook-street,  Ratcliffe.  [Williams, 
Copthall-court,  Throgmorton-street 

Smith,  C.  Minories,  grocer.  [  Vandercom  and  Co., 
Bush-lane,  Cannon-street 

Stanley,  T.  stock-port,  hat-manufacturer.  [Tyler» 
Temple 

Schortields,  J.  Sonthowram,  Yorkshire,  card- 
maker.  [Walker,  Lincoln's-inn  Fields 

Smith,  J.  Matlock,  nurseryman.  [Smithsou  and 
Co  ,  New-inn 

Sbepheard,  J.  L.  and  H.  Pricker,  Southampton, 
linen-drapers.  [Green  andCo.,  Sambrook-court, 
Basinghall-street 

Smith,  J.  Ncwcastle-under-Lyme,  Stafford,  grocer. 
[Barber,  Fetter-lane  ;  Fcnton,  Newcastle-under- 
Lyme 

Tipple,  C.  Mitcham,  surgeon.  [Walton  and  Co., 
Warnford-court,  Throgmorton-street 

Taylor,  G.  Thickhollms-in-Meltham,  Yorkshire, 
woollen  cloth-manufacturer.  [Jaques  and  Co., 
Coleman-street 

Thomson,  W.  Stockwell  Park,  Surrey,  and  Shad- 
well,  biscuit-baker.  [Ewington,  Bond-court, 
Cornhill 

Willis,  J.  B.  Swan-place,  Old  Kent-road,  corn- 
dealer.  [Davie,  Tbrogmorton-strcet 

Willmot,  T.  Manchester,  wine-merchant.  [Hind 
and  Co.,  King's  Bench-walk,  Temple  ;  Lawles, 
Manchester 

Watts,  W.  Olflbury-on-the-Hill,  Gloucestershire, 
saddler.  [Long  and  Co.  Gray's-inn  ;  Letall  and 
Co.,  Tetbury 

Walbancke,  G.  Red  Lion-street,  Clerkenwell,  gold- 
smith. [Thompson,  George-street,  Minories 

Wilkinson,  B.  Kirkheaton,  Yorkshire,  fancy-ma- 
nufacturer. [Evans  and  Co.,  Hatton-garden  ; 
Carr,  Gomersal 

Williams,  H.  Cirencester,. ironmonger.  [Slade  and 
Co.,  John-street,  Bedford-row 

Warren,  D.  Wellington,  money-scrivener.  [Nor- 
ton and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-square 

Webb,  T.  B.  Ledbury,  Herefordshire,  cider-mer- 
chant. [Arnold  and  Co.,  Birmingham  ;  Long, 
and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

Walker,  J.  Radstock,  Somerset, innkeeper.  [Berke- 
leys,  Lincolu's-inn 

Waller,  W.  and  G.  Lowe,  Sheffield,  carpet-manu- 
facturers.    [Preston,   Tokeuhouse-yard  ;   Brook- 
field,  Sheffield 

Watkins.S.  Portland -town,  Regent's  Park,  brick- 
maker.  [Carlow,  High-street,  Mary-le-bone 

Woodley,  F.  Andover,  victualler.  [Garrard,  Suf- 
folk-street ;  Coles  and  Earle,  Andover 

Watson,  C.  and  Anne,  Shrewsbury,  milliners. 
[Jones,  Furnival's-inn. 


M.M.  New  Series.-  VoL.III.  No.  16. 


3  M 


[    450    ] 


[APRIL, 


ECCLESIASTICAL  PREFERMENTS. 


The  Right  Rev.  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Chiehestcr. 
to  be  Clerk  of  the  Closet  to  the  King.— Rev.  Dr 
Kin?,  to  the  Archdeaconry  of  Rochester.— Rev. 
W.Wallinger.to  the  Vicarage  of  HellinRly,  Sus- 
sex.—Rev.  F.  Swanton,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Piddle- 
trentliyde, Dorset.— Rev. C.  Cremer.to  the  Rectory 
of  Ailmerton,  with  Ranton  rear  the  Sea  annexed  ; 
also  to  the  Rectory  of  Fclhrigg  with  Melton,  Nor- 
folk.—Rev.  C.R.  Ashfield,  to  the  Rectory  of  Blaken- 
Lam,  Suffolk.— Rev.  C.  Dodson,  to  the  augmented 
Curacy  of  Daresbury,  Chester. — Rev.  H.  Davvson, 
to  the  rectory  of  Hopton,  Suffolk. — Rev.  T.L.  Pain, 
to  the  Curacy  of  St.  Thomas,  Liverpool. — Rev. 
M.  Franklin,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Albrighton.  Shrop- 
shire.—Rev.  W.  Roberts,  to  the  Living  of  Clewer, 
Berks. — Rev.  S.  R«we,  to  the  perpetual  Curacy  of 
St.  Budeaux, Plymouth.— Rev.  W.  P.  Jones,  to  the 
Rectory  of  Eastbridge,  Kent. — Rev.  W.Scoresby, 
to  the  Chaplaincy  of  the  Mariner's  Church,  Liver- 
pool.— Rev.  J.  Blanchard.jun.,  to  the  Vicarage  of 
Lound,  York.— Rev.  8.T.  Hughes,  to  the  Preben- 
dal  Stall  of  Peterborough.— Rev.  J.  Halward,  to 


the  Vicarage  of  A?cington.  Suffolk,  with  the  Rec- 
tory of  Easthope,  Essrx.— Rev.  R.  Tvveddell,  to 
the  Vicarage  of  Liddington,  with  Caldecot,  Rut- 
land—Rev. J.  Griffith,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Ful- 
bourn  All  Saints,  Cambridge.— Rev.  Lord  F.  Beau- 
clerk, to  the  Vicarage  of  St.  Michael,  St,  Alban's.— 
Rev.  T.  Baker,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Bcxhill,with  the 
Rectory  of  Rodmill,  Sussex.— Rev.  C.  E.  Keene, 
collated  to  the  Prebend  of  Wivaliscombe  in  VJells 
Cathedral.  —  Rev.  J.  Clark,  to  the  Recto/  of 
Dallinghoc,  Suffolk.— Hon.  and  Rev.  Dr.  Welles- 
ley,  to  tlie  Living  of  Bishop  Wearmouth,  Durham. 
Rev.  W.  A.  lladow,  to  the  rectory  of  Haseley, 
Warwick.— Rev.  W.  Ainger,  to  the  Prebendary  of 
Chester.— Rev.  P.  Glubb,  to  the  Living  of  Clanna- 
borough,  Devon.— RPV.  M.  Elliot,  to  the  new  cha- 
pel of  St.  Mary'?,  Brighton.— Rev.  Dr.  Irwin,  to 
the  perpetual  Curacy  of  Chatham.— Rev.  J.  Ed- 
meads,  to  the  Rectory  of  St.  Mary,  Crickdale.— 
Rev.  J.  Harrison,  to  be  Chaplain  to  H.R.H.the 
Duke  of  Sussex. 


POLITICAL  APPOINTMENTS. 

The  King  has  appointed  the  Marquis  of  Hert-      Andre  Richert,  as  Consul  at  the  Cape  of  Good 

A\-  _     T* II, ,!,/•»      frt..  IJio    TYf  atocttr  thf»  TCincr    f\f   "PTIl*iQia.- 


ford  to  proceed  on  a  special  embassy  to  the  Em- 
peror of  all  the  Russias,  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
vesting his  Imperial  Majesty  with  the  insignia  of 
the  order  of  the  Garter. 

The  King  has  been  pleased  to  approve  of  Mr. 


Hope,  for  His  Majesty  the  King  of  Prussia. 

The  King  has  also  been  pleased  to  approve  of 
Mr.  John  Hullett,  as  Consul-General  in  Great  Bri- 
tain, for  the  United  Provinces  of  the  Rio  de  la 
Plata. 


INCIDENTS,  MARRIAGES,   AND   DEATHS,   IN  AND   NEAR  LONDON,  ETC. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

Feb.  22— Sessions  ended  at  the  Old  Bailey,  when 
25  prisoners  received  sentence  of  death,  and  7 
were  transported  for  life,  some  for  shorter  periods, 
and  others  imprisoned.  One  of  the  jurors  who 
expressed  incompetence  to  serve  at  this  session,  on 
account  of  the  penalty  of  capital  punishment,  has 
published  a  letter,  in  which  he  says  "  he  has  done 
no  more  than  a  public  moral  duty,  in  thus  calling 
the  attention  of  the  Legislature  to  the  melancholy 
subject,  and  the  minds  of  such  philanthropists  as 
the  ever  to  be  lamented  Sir  Samuel  Romily." 

—  Mr.  Peel  gave  notice  of  bis  intention  to  intro- 
duce four  bills  into  Parliament  to  amend  the  cri- 
minal laws. 

26.— A  public  meeting  was  held,  at  which  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  presided,  for  the  purpose  of 
taking  into  consideration  the  means  of  paying  a 
national  tribute  to  the  late  Duke  of  York.  Reso- 
lutions were  entered  into,  and  subscriptions  re- 
ceived on  the  spot  for  that  purpose. 

March  7.— Mr.  S.  Newman  having  publicly  chal- 
lenged any  individual  to  dispute  with  h'm  on  the 
legitimacy  of  the  Jewish  creed,  numerous  Jews  as- 
sembled in  Aldermanbuiy ;  and,  as  Mr.  Wolff  was 
proceeding  to  oppose  Mr.  Newman,  the  assembled 
Israelites  refused  to  hear  him,  and  separated. 

13. — The   Persian  Ambassador  and  his 'Lady 


visited  Windsor  Castle,  and  went  over  the  state 
apartments,  as  well  as  the  King's;  the  improve, 
ments  were  pointed  out  to  them,  both  interior  and 
exterior,  the  grandeur  and  magnificence  of  which 
were  much  admired  by  his  Excellency. 

14.— The  Recorder  made  a  report  to  the  King 
of  the  45  prisoners  under  sentence  of  death,  when 
His  Majesty  was  pleased  to  reprieve  40  of  them  ; 
five  being  ordered  for  execution  on  the  20th. 

15. — The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  com- 
municated to  the  trustees  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum, that  only  .£12,000  per  annum  can  in  future 
be  appropriated  to  the  new  buildings,  instead  of 
.£40,000,  the  sum  given  during  the  last  two  or 
three  years. 

19.— A  general  meeting  of  the  British  Catholics 
was  held  at  the  Crown  and  Anchor  Tavern,  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk  in  the  chair,  when  a  variety  of 
resolutions  were  unanimously  carried,  expressive 
of  their  sense  of  the  late  refusal  of  their  claims 
for  emancipation,  in  the  House  of  Commons.  These 
resolutions  forma  memorial  to  the  people  of  Eng- 
land, in  which  the  Catholics  complain  that  "they 
are  calumniated  as  a  race  whose  solemn  oaths  and 
declarations  ought  to  be  disregarded.'' 

20  — Four  unfortunate  individuals  only,  were  ex- 
ecuted at  the  Old  Bailey — one  having  been  re- 
prieved on  account  of  his  previous  good  character. 


1827.] 


Incidents,  Marriages,  fyc. 


451 


MARRIAGES. 

At  St.  Mary's,  Bryanstone-square,  W.  S.  Dug- 
dale,  esq.,  only  son  of  Dugdale  Stratford  Dugdale, 
esq.,  M.  P.  for  Warwickshire,  to  Harriet  Ella,  sis- 
ter to  Edward  Berkeley  Portman,  esq.,  M.  P.  for 
Dorsetshire. — At  St.  George's,  Hanover -square, 
the  Rev.  H.  Gunning,  second  son  ot  the  late  Sir 
G.  Gunning,  bart.,  of  Horton,  Northamptonshire, 
to  Mary  Catherine,  daughter  of  \V.  R.  Cartwright, 
esq.,  M.  P.  for  Northamptonshire.  —  At  Mary-le- 
bone  Church,  W.  W.  Yeates,  esq., deputy-assistant 
commissary-general  to  his  Majesty's  forces,  to 
Miss  Knight,  of  Upper  Harlcy-street.  —  R.  W. 
Croker.esq.,  of  Chatham,  to  Miss  C.  Devonshire,  of 
West  Mailing.— John  Hesketh,  eldest  son  of  T.  B. 
Lethbridge,  bart.,  M.P.,  of  Sandhill  Park,  So- 
merset, to  Julia,  daughter  of  H.  H.Hoare,  esq., 
of  Wavenden-house,  Bucks. 

DEATHS. 

At  his  house  in  Warren-street,  Dr.  Kitchiner.— 
Philip  Rundell,  esq.,  81,  of  the  firm  of  Rundell  and 
Bridge,  Ludgate-street.  — At  Paddington,  Eliza- 
beth, Countess  Ferrers. — At  Clandon  Park,Surrey, 
73,  Lord  Onslow. — In  Connaught-square,  Lieut.- 
Colonel  Radolilfe  ;  he  had  served  in  all  the  cam- 
paigns of  the  late  war,  beginning  with  the  Duke 
of  York's,  in  1/93,  and  ending  with  the  battle  of 
Waterloo.— Colonel  A.  Brown,  lient.-governor  of 
Charles  Fort,  Ireland.— In  Grosvenor-place,  74, 
John  Masters,  esq.,  of  Colwick  Hall,  Lincolnshire. 
—In  Bedford-square,  71,  Joseph  Ward,  esq.— At 
Richmond,  Lady  Dundas,  widow  of  the  late  Sir 
D.  Dundas,  bart. — At  his  sister's,  Lady  Sykes.  St. 
James's-place,  T.  W.  Tatton,  esq.,  of  Withenshead 
Hall,  Chester.— At  the  Portuguese  Ambassador's, 
South  Audley-street,  the  Marquis  d'Abrantes.— 


At  Kelsey  Park,  60,  John  Smith,  esq.,  paymaster 
of  the  navy. — In  Baker-street,  71,  Thomas  Dicka- 
son,  esq.,  of  Fulwell  Lodge,  Twickenham.  —  At 
Banstead,  Lieut.-General  Sir  E.  Howorth,  royal 
horse  artillery,  K.C.B.and  G.C.  B.— At  Wood- 
house  Grove,  at  the  Methodist  Seminary,  Mr.  S. 
Parker, 95  ;  more  than  70  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Methodist  Society,  and  travelled  in  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe. — At  Wandsworth,  80, 
G.  Harrison;  he  was  one  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
and  the  early  associate  of  Thomas  Clarkson,  in  the 
cause  of  the  slave  trade  abolition. — At  Hythe, 
Lieut.-General  W.  Johnson,  colonel  conunandaut 
of  royal  engineers. 

MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 
In  Jersey,  Rev.  C.  Smith,  prebendary  of  Howth, 
to  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  the  Archbishop  of  Dub- 
lin.— At  Milan,  E.  Morgan,  juu.,  esq.  of  Golden 
Grove,  Flint.,  to  Charlotte,  daughter  of  Gwyllim 
Lloyd  Wardle,  esq  ,  Haitsheath  Park,  Flint. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 
At    Rome,  R.    Cruttwell,  esq.,    eldest    son    of 

R.  Cruttwell,  esq  ,   of     Bath.  At  Madeira, 

the  Rev.  C.  M.  Deighton,  vicar  of  Long- 
hope,  Gloucester. — At  Charleston,  North  America, 
Miss  Anne  Borlebrog,  the  oldest  actress  that  ever 
appeared  on  any  stage  ;  she  made  her  debut  fifteen 
years  (say  the  American  papers)  before  Garrick, 
in  Queen  Catherine  (Henry  V11I);  she  continued 
to  represent  the  youngest  class  of  matrons  until 
she  was  78,  and  she  was  66  before  she  gave  up 
playing  the  misses  in  th'>ir  teens. — At  Brugg,  in 
Switzerland,  82, the  celebrated  teacher  Pestalozzi. 
— At  Rome,  Miss  de  Montmorency,  daughter  of 
Colonel  de  Montmorency,  royal  York  hussars. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES  j 

WITH    THE    MARRIAGES  AND    DEATHS. 


NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

A  general  meeting  of  the  subscribers  of  the  pro- 
jected rail-road  between  Newcastle  and  Carlisle 
was  recently  held,  at  the  Assembly  Rooms,  New- 
castle, when  a  splendid  plan  of  the  undertaking 
was  laid  on  the  table,  arid  various  resolutions  en- 
tered into  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  it  into  effect. 

At  the  Durham  assizes,  Mr.  Justice  Bailey  called 
the  attention  of  the  grand  jury  particularly  to  the 
calamities  that  had  lately  happened  in  the  mines." 
"  It  is,"  said  his  Lordship,  "the  bounden  duty  of 
the  owners  of  mines  to  take  every  possible 
care  to  prevent  their  recurrence.  If  the  want  of 
such  precaution  should  at  any  time  be  fixed  upon 
any  particular  individual,  he  will  be  liable  to  be 
prosecuted  for  Manslaughter."  Three  prisoners 
were  condemned  to  death  at  the  above  assizes. 

Died.}  At  Newcastle,  W  Laslie,  esq.  — At 
Eachwick  Hall,  75,  Mrs.  Spearman.  —  At  Lan- 
chester,  T.  Todd.esq.,  late  of  the  General  Post 
Office.— At  Middleton  in  Teesdale,  77,  the  Rev. 
Wm.  Mark,  perpetual  curate  of  Egglpston ;  and 
who  for  a  period  of  nearly  fifty  years  held  the 
curacy  of  Middleton,  which  he  resigned  in  1823. 
This  venerable  minister  of  the  Church  spent  his 
whole  professional  career  on  the  same  curacy, 
outliving  three  rectors  of  his  parish,  and  as  many 
bishops  of  the  diocese;  and  from  his  correspon- 


dence with  the  late  Right  Hon.  Spencer  Perceval, 
and  other  papers  which  he  has  left  behind  him, 
there  is  every  reason  to  bolicve  he  originated  the 
well-known  "  Curate's  Act,"  and  gave  that  much 
lamented  prime  minister  the  outline  of  that  popular 
measure. 

CUMBERLAND  AND  WESTMORELAND. 

The  Vice-Chancellor  has  given  an  important 
decision  in  the  case  of  the  parish  of  Lowther 
charity  school.  It  appeared,  that  a  former  Lord 
Lonsdale  had  granted  certain  lands  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  school, "  and  for  such  other  purposes  as 
my  executors  shall  think  most  conducive  to  the 
good  of  the  county  of  Westmoreland,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  parish  of  Lowther."  The  Vice-Chan- 
cellor ruled,  that  the  trust  lor  the  school  having 
failed,  the  Court  was  bound  to  make  such  a  dispo- 
sition of  the  property  as  would  best  fulfil  the 
testator's  purpose.  He  therefore  decreed,  that  "  the 
matter  be  referred  to  the  Master,  to  say  what  the 
property  thus  devised  consisted  of,  what  were  now 
the  rents  and  full  value  of  it,  and  in  whom  the 
legal  estate  was  now  vested  j  that  the  defendant 
be  ordered  to  account  for  the  rents  and  profits  of 
the  same,  from  a  period  of  six  years  preceding  the 
time  when  this  information  was  filed  ;  and  that  the 
Master  settle  some  scheme  for  some  charitable 
purposes  most  conducive  to  the  welfare  of  the 

3M2 


452 


Provincial  Occurrences  :  Yorkshire,  Stafford, 


[APRIL, 


weeding,  last  spring,  met  with  the  nest  and  took 
it,  "  not  knowing,"  as  she  positively  declares, 
"  what  sort  of  eggs  they  were."  After  a  month's 
detention,  the  unfortunate  girl  has  found  friends, 
and  has  been  liberated,  on  paying  12s.  costs,  for 
fees!  Well  may  our  legislators  be  convinced  of 
the  necessity  of  altering  the  criminal  and  game 
laws!!! 

At  Lincoln  assizes,  the  Postmaster  of  Grantham 
was  tried  for  overcharging  the  postage  of  letters, 
found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  transported  for 
seven  years. 

Lately,  as  the  excavators  were  employed  by  the 
river  Ancholme,  near  Brigg,  at  the  depth  of  ten 
feet  from  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  about  ;• 
foot  and  a  ha;f  lower  than  the  bed  of  the  river,  the 
skeleton  of  a  red  deer  was  found,  the  skull  and 
horns  of  which  are  in-  the  highest  state  of  preser- 
vation, and  measure  about  three  feet  in  length, 
and  nearly  the  same  in  width.  The  whole  is  of  a 
beautiful  black,  except  the  tips  of  the  horns, 
which  are  of  a  brownish  colour.  It  is  evident  from 
the  great  depth  at  which  this  ski-leton  was  found, 
that  it  must  have  been  imbedded  prior  to  the 
cutting  of  the  river,  no  doubt  many  hundreds  of 
years  ago.  It  was  purchased  for  Lord  Yarbo- 
rough. 

LEICESTER    AND    RUTLAND. 

At  the  asMzes  at  Rutland,  Mr.  Justice  Holroyd, 
in  his  charge  to  the  Grand  Jury,  congratulated 
them  on  there  being  so  small  a  calendar,  as  there 
was  only  one  prisoner  for  trial — a  case  of  house- 
breaking,  concerning  which,  as  there  were  no  cir- 
cumstances very  remarkable,  it  was  not  necessary 
to  detain  them. 

Died.]  At  Great  Glen,  G.  Bury,  esq.,  solicitor, 
of  Manchester,  and  secretary  to  the  Royal  Insti- 
tution. He  was  in  the  mail  on  his  way  to  Lon- 
don, and  when  the  coach  passed  Leicester  about 
two  miles,  the  hor-es  took  flight,  and  the  coach- 
man lost  all  control  over,  them,  when  at  length, 
the  coach  was  overturned,  and  Mr.  Bury  was  found 
in  the  agonies  of  death,  and  before  medical  assis- 
tance came  he  had  breathed  his  last. 

WARWICK. 

Died.]  At  Pyke  Hayes,  H.  W.  Legge,  esq.,  son 
e.f  the  Hon.  anil  Rev.  Ai  G.  Legge.— At  Pailton 
Hall,  71,  Mrs.  Grundy.  —At  Dunchureh,  Mary, 

property  co,,Sum,d  ,o  *.  va,ue  of  ^0,060, dl  of    ^J^  £  63ft*1  »«»«»— 
which  was  ensured.    It  is  suspected  that  this  was 
the  work  of  incendiaries. 

A  meeting  has  been  held  at  Manchester,  of  the 
operatives,  to  the  number  of  1 ,500,  to  consider  of 
the  propriety  of  petitioning  Parliament  against 
the  grant  of  .£9,000  to  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  in 
addition  to  his  present  income  ;  when,  after  a  de- 
bate, the  petition  to  both  houses  was  resolved  on, 
and  three  cheers  given  for  their  success. 

Died.]  At  Manchester,  74,  Mr.  J.  H.  Reichard  ; 
he  \vas  a  native  of  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  and 
during  forty-eight  years  a  resident  of  Manchester. 

NOTTINGHAM    AND    LINCOLN. 

The  commitment  to  Southwell  House  of  Correc- 
tion, for  three  months,  of  Mary  Marshall,  by  two 
of  the  county  magistrates,  for  taking  some  par- 
tridge eggs,  has  excited  considerable  attention  ; 
and  perhaps  a  more  glaring  instance  of  the 
odious  operation  of  the  Game  Laws  was  never  wit- 
nessed in  this  free  country.  The  victim  in  this 
case  was  a  girl  not  19  years  of  age,  the  daughter 


county,  and  that  he  tax  the  costs  ;  that  the  sum, 
when  so  taxed,  be  paid  by  the  defendant,  the  Earl 
of  Lonsdale;  that  further  directions  be  reserved 
till  the  Master  has  made  his  report."  It  was  ob- 
served, that  Lord  Lonsdale  had  sold  part  of  these 
estates  for  .£4,000, upon  which  his  Honour  said  that 
his  L'irdship  must  account  for  the  principal,  and 
also  tlie  interest  of  this  sum,  from  six  years  before 
the  commencement  of  this  information. 

YORKSHIRE  AND  CHESHIRE. 
•  A  society  for  the  encouragement  of  the  fine  arts 
lias  been  formed  at  Hull  ;  where,  at  a  public 
nitM'ting,  it  was  resolved  to  erect  a  suit  of  rooms, 
at  an  expense  of  .£10,000,  to  be  raised  in  shares  of 
.£25  each  ;  .£6,200  have  already  been  subscribed. 
There  is  to  be  an  annual  exhibition. 

Died,]  At  Thirsk,  83,  Mrs.  Anne  Ainsley  ;  and 
the  next  day,  81,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Ainsley,  two  mai- 
den si  ters,  who  always  lived  in  the  same  house, 
and  are  buried  in  the  same  grave. — At  Harden 
Grange,  82,  General  Twiss,  colonel  commandant  of 
the  royal  engineers. 

STAFFORD    AND    SALOP. 
Died.]    AtLichfield,  82,  Mrs.  Madan,  relict  of 
Spencer  Madan,  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 

LANCASHIRE. 

Trade  again  is  on  the  decline  at  Manchester,  in 
almost  every  branch ;  and,  to  every  appearance, 
without  any  prospect  of  revival.  The  markets  are 
exceedingly  dull,  and  money  very  scarce.  The 
working  people  begin  to  despair  of  obtaining  an 
advance  of  wages,  and  they  look  forward  with 
great  apprehension  to  the  time  when  the  spring 
demand  for  goods  shall  cease.  There  is  little 
hope  that  the  condition  of  the  calico-weavers  about 
Blackburn  will  improve.  They  are  fast  approach- 
Ing  to  the  state  of  the  Irish  ;  and  it  is  not  a  very 
unusual  thing  for  a  great  many  of  their,  to  gather 
together  at  night,  when  their  fifteen  hours'  labour 
is  over,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  animal  heat, 
when  they  are  closely  packed  in  one  room.  It  is 
very  common  for  two  or  three  families  to  club  to- 
gether, to  raise  the  means  of  procuring  one  fire, 
to  be  used  in  common  for  the  cooking  of  their 
cheerless  meals. 

The  new  power-loom  factory  of  Messrs.  Cock- 
shott,  at  Warrington,  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and 


NORTHAMPTON    AND    HUNTINGDON. 

A  committee  has  been  appointed  by  the  House  of 
Commons  to  inquire  into  the  payment  of  sums  of 
money  on  electioneering  purposes,  by  the  Corpora- 
tion of  Northampton,  at  the  last  election.  His 
Majesty's  Attorney-General  said,  "  if  the  Corpo- 
ration had  misapplied  its  funds  in  the  manner  al- 
leged, the  Court  of  Chancery  could  take  cogni- 
zance of  the  offence;"  to  which  Mr.  Spring  Rice 
rejoined,  "as  for  an  application  to  the  Chancery, 
did  any  man  now  living  expect  that  a  suit  of 
this  kind  would  be  brought  to  an  issue  during  his 
existence?" 

At  the  Northampton  Lent  assizes,  sentence  of 
death  was  recorded  against  7  prisoners,  transpor- 
tation against  5,  and  imprisonment,  11. 

WORCESTER    AND    HEREFORD. 

At  Worcester  assizes,  2  prisoners  were  con- 
demned to  death  ;  13  were  transported  ;  12  were 
sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  various  periods  ;  be-- 


of  a  labourer  at  Cotgrave,  who,  being  employed  in      sides  sentence  being  deferred  on  several  others. 


1827.]          Gloucester,  Oxford,  Bucks,  Bedford,  Herts, 


453 


Married.]  At  Broadway,  W.  N.  Clarke,  esq.. 
to  Catherine,  daughter  of  Lieut.-General  Moly- 
neux. 

Died]  At  Brom strove, 74, Mr.  Oliver  Williams. 
—At  Haglrv,  102,  tlie  widow  Potter.— At  Here- 
ford, 100,  Mrs.  Esther  Williams — At  Llan  'inabo, 
84,  the  Rov.J.Hoskins.— At  Led bury,  62,  Mrs. 
Beddoe. — Near  Worcester,  70,  H.  Savigny,  esq. 
— At  Shrawiey,  77,  J-  Squire,  esq. 

GLODCRSTKR    AND    MONMOCTH. 

A  tesselated  pavement  has  heen  recently  disco- 
vered in  an  arable  field,  at  Leigh,  near  the  turn- 
pike road  leading  from  Gloucester  to  Tewkesbury. 
It  is  about  2  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
60  feet  long,  and  8  feet  wide. 

On  the  night  of  the  19th  Feb.,  a  fire  broke  out 
in  the  upper  part  of  the  premises  on  St.  Augus- 
tine's Back,  near  the  Drawbridge,  Bristol,  the 
New  Exchange,  which  speedily  spread  itself  down- 
ward, destroying  the  whole  of  the  various  apart- 
ments and  shops  with  their  contents.  Among  the 
property  consumed  is  the  great  Orrery  made  by 
Mr.  Williams.  Owing  to  the  intense  coldness  of 
the  weather,  long  icicles  were  seen  hanging  the 
next  morning  over  the  still  burning  embers. 

Married.]  At  Charlton  Kings,  J.  S.  Graves, 
esq.,  to  Miss  M.  Molyneux. 

Died.]  At  Iberton,  103,  David  Plumb;  failing 
as  a  farmer,  he  had  been  the  last  40  years  a  shep- 
herd near  the  Malveru  Hills ;  two  years  ago  he 
walked  to  London  and  back  again.  His  brother 
died  at  Oddington  in  1318,  aged  105.— At  the  Fur- 
nace, near  Newent,  80,  Mr.  W  Deykes  ;  he  had 
been  agent  for  the  Foley  family  more  than  half  a 
century.— At  the  Box,  80,  Mr.  T.  Partridge. 

OXFORDSHIRE. 

Dr.  Buckland.the  reader  in  mineralogy  and  geo- 
logy, has  recently  received  a  letter  from  Rome,  an- 
nouncing that  the  writer,  Stephen  Jarret,  esq. 
gentleman  commoner  of  Magdalen  College,  has 
purchased  a  very  valuable  collection  of  marbles 
&c.  in  that  city,  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  them 
to  this  University.  This  collection  has  been  formed 
by  an  advocate  of  Rome — Signer  Corsi,  during  a 
residence  there  of  many  years,  and  consists  of  one 
thousand  polished  pieces,  all  exactly  of  the  same 
size,  of  every  variety  of  granite,  sienite,  porphyry, 
serpentine,  and  jasper  marble,  alabaster,  &c.  that 
is  known  to  exist.  The  size  of  each  piece,  being 
that  of  a  small  octavo  volume,  is  sufficient  to  shew 
the  effect  en  masse  of  each  substance  it  contains. 

A  meeting  was  held  at  the  Town  Hall,  Oxford, 
March  14,  for  the  formation  of  an  "  Auxiliary  So- 
ciety for  promoting  Christianity  among  the  Jews," 
the  High  Sheriff  of  the  county  in  the  chair,  when 
about  «£90  were  subscribed  for  that  purpose. 

A  most  extraordinary  circumstance  lately  oc- 
curred at  Bampton,  in  this  county,  for  the  truth  of 
which  we  have  the  authority  of  a  near  relative  of 
the  party,  who  resides  in  this  city.  The  wife  of 
William  Cooper,  of  the  above  village,  when  far  ad- 
vanced in  pregnancy,  paid  a  visit  to  some  rela- 
tives who  reside  near  Copenhagen  House,  in  Lon- 
don, who  in  their  garden  kept  a  live  tortoise.  Mrs. 
Cooper,  on  seeing  it,  was  much  terrified.  Some 
time  after  her  return,  and  about  five  weeks  since, 
she  was  delivered  of  a  female  child,  which  actually 
has  on  its  head  a  substance  exactly  resembling  a 
well-formed  tortoise,  the  shell  projecting  from  the 
head,  and  striped  like  the  real  one.  The  child  is 
still  alive  and  in  health,  and  the  tortoise  continues 
on  the  head.  The  bead  of  the  tortoise  has  the 


strongest  resemblance  to  that  of  the  real  animal ; 
and  it  actually  projects  from  the  end  of  the  shell, 
in  a  substance  about  the  size  of  the  top  of  a  per- 
son's finger. — Oxford  Herald. 

At  Oxford  assizes,  16  prisoners  were  condemned 
to  death,  4  transported,  and  9  imprisoned. 

Died.]  At  Charbury,  82,  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
C».bb ;  he  had  been  for  many  years  a  magistrate 
for  this  county. 

BUCKS    AND    BERKS. 

The  undermentioned  game  was  shot  by  a  party 
of  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  friends  of  his  Grace 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  on  part  of  the  noble 
Duke's  estates  in  Buckinghamshire,  from  Jan. 
15,  to  Feb.  1st  (inclusive).  The  Marquis  of  Chan- 
dos  and  Lord  Temple  were  the  principal  shots  on 
the  occasion.  John  Corden,  gamekeeper  :— 1,096 
pheasants,  722  hares,  10  partridges,  48  widgeons 
1,028  rabits — Total,  2,904  head.  A  moment's  re- 
flection upon  this  extraordinary  feat  will  at  once 
evince  the  necessity  of  altering  the  game  laws  ;  how 
many  poor  farmers  must  have  suffered  in  feeding 
such  a  quantity  of  animals',  for  the  sole  pleasure 
of  a  fortnight's  aristocratic  shooting  ! 

At  Reading  assizes,  sentence  of  death  was  re- 
corded against  18  prisoners;  3  were  transported, 
and  9  imprisoned  for  various  periods. 

Died.]  At  Aylesbury,  82,  the  Rev.  W.  Stockin?  ; 
he  was  lor  more  than  half  a  century  master  of  the 
Latin  School  there,  and  for  some  time  curate  of 
the  parish. 

BEDFORD. 

The  Rev.  Archdeacon  Bonner  has,  with  great 
good  taste,  placed  a  simple  monument  over  the 
Poet  Bloomfield's  grave,  in  Campion  church-yard, 
with  the  following  chaste  and  appropriate  in- 
scription : — 

Here  lie  the   Remains  of  Robert  Bloomfield  : 
•  he  was  born  at  Honnington,  in  Suffolk,  Decem- 
ber 3d,  1761,  and  died  at  Shefford,  Aug.  19,  1823. 
"  Let  his  wild  native  wood-notes  tell  the  rest." 

HERTS    AND    CAMBRIDGE. 
Died.]    At  St.  Alban's,  73,  the  Rev.  James  Car- 
penter Gape. 

NORFOLK    AND    SUFFOLK. 

It  has  been  resolved  to  establish  in  Norwich  an 
asylum  for  females,  who  having  deviated  from  the 
path  of  virtue,  may  be  desirous  of  being  restored 
to  their  station  in  society  ;  it  is  to  be  denominated 
"  The  Norfolk  and  Norwich  Magdalen,"  and  up- 
wards of  .£800  have  been  already  subscribed. 

The  subscriptions  for  the  widow  and  ten  chil- 
dren of  the  late  Rev.  W.Drew,  of  North  Runeton, 
have  closed;  and  the  sum  produced  by  the  ho- 
nourable exertions  of  individuals,  amounts  to 
.£3,434  15s.  6d. 

At  a  numerous  meeting  of  the  operative  manu- 
facturers of  Norwich,  March  12,  it  was  unani- 
mously resolved  to  petition  Parliament  for  an  act 
to  protect  the  price  of  labour. 

Married.]  Captain  Blois,  son  of  Sir  C.  Bart, 
of  Cockfield  Hall,  to  MissE.  K.  Barrett. 

Died.]  At  Bury,  81,  J.  Maulkln.esq.— At  Costes- 
sey,  at  Lord  Stafford's,  the  Rev.  L.  Strongitharm, 

Sastor  of  the  Roman  Catholic  chapel,  at  St.  John's, 
laddermarket.— At  Acle  House  of  Industry,  94, 
Sarah  Myhill ;  known  for  nearly  half  a  century  by 
the  appellation  of  "  Old  Kate."— At  Wymondliam, 
69,  T.  Troujrhton.esq.  —  At  Yarmouth,  101,  Mr. 
N.  Fenn.  —  Mrs.  E.  Eagleton,  midwife,  Norwich, 
who  in  12  years  practice  assisted  at  the  birth  of 
3,895  children!!! 


454 


Provincial  Occurrences  :  Hants,  Wills, 


[APRIL-, 


HANTS    AND    SUSSEX. 

A  portion  of  the  clilf  at  Hastings  has  fallen 
down  by  the  operation  of  the  frost. 

The  Diamond,  one  of  the  finest  frigates  in  his 
Majesty's  service,  was  lately  burnt  to  the  water's 
edge,  in  Portsmouth  harbour.  She  had  lately  re- 
turned from  South  America,  under  the  command  of 
Lord  Napier,  had  gone  through  a  thorough  repair, 
and  was  placed  in  ordinary,  fit  for  immediate  ser- 
vice. Fortunately,  no  lives  were  lost. 

Portsmouth,  filarch  3.— Considerable  curiosity 
having  been  exdited  by  an  account  of  the  landing 
at  this  port  of  the  skeleton  of  a"  real  mermaid," 
I  was  induced  to  examine  the  subject  in  question. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  bony  fabric  of  an 
animal  called  the  Dugong,  a  native  of  the  Indian 
seas,  and  regarded  by  many  of  the  natives  of  the 
different  islands  as  a  Royal  nsh ;  the  peculiar  form 
of  the  head,  more  especially  the  lower  jaw,  being 
at  once  a  characteristic  mark— and  also  the  form, 
situation,   and  number  of  the  teeth.    There  are 
many  other  peculiarities,  more  especially  the  mode 
by  which  the   ribs  are  articulated  to  the  breast 
bone,  and  the  form  of  the  breast  bone  itself,  which 
are  highly  interestingto  the  comparative  anatomist, 
and  which  serve  to  identify  the  animal.    The  place 
of  anterior  extremities  is  supplied  by  fins,  and  al- 
though, in  the  skeleton,  the  bones  are  found  com- 
plete, even  to  the  last  phalanges  of  the  fingers,  in 
the  recent   fish   the   organs  are  fleshy,  and  inca- 
pable, from  their  shape,  size,  or  form,  of  assisting 
the  animal   out  of  the  water.     It  feeds  on  sub- 
marine plants,  browsing  like  a  cow.    It  is  seldom 
caught  above  eiglit  feet  long,  though  it  is  said  to 
grow  to  a  very  large  size.    The  animal,  in  its  full 
growth,  is  furnished  with  two  short  tusks,  project- 
ing from  the  upper  jaw,  but  in  the  younger  ones 
these  defensive  weapons  are  wanting.    There  are 
several  specimens  of  this  animal  in   the  magnifi- 
cent collection  of  the  late  Sir  Stamford  Raffles. 
HENRY  SLIGHT,  Surgeon. 
Died.}    At  Exbury,  near  Southampton,  84,  W. 
Mittord,  esq.,  author  of"  The  History  of  Greece," 
and  brother  to  Lord  Redesdale.— At  Lyndhurst, 
68,  Harriet  Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Effingham. 

DORSET   AND  WILTS. 

At  Trowbridge,  3,000,  and  at  Melksbam,  2,000 
of  their  inhabitants  still  submit  to  the  disgraceful 
humility  of  receiving  parish  pay,  not  through  ina- 
bility to  work,  nor  a  principle  of  idleness,  but  to 
avoid  that  starvation  which  neither  merit,  strength, 
nor  honesty  can  avert.  But  although  those  who  are 
in  fortunate  circumstances  can  at  present  contri- 
bute to  relieve  such  want  and  misery,  can  any  one 
entertain  the  expectation  that  distress  will  not  ul- 
timately banish  the  comforts  from  their  firesides 
also? 

At  the  Lent  assizes  for  Wilts,  25  culprits  were 
recorded  for  death ;  5  were  transported,  and  18 
Imprisoned  for  various  periods.  A  young  gentle- 
man of  Wootten- Basset,  apparently  about  ten  years 
of  age,  was  placed  at  the  bar,  and  arraigned  for 
felony.  His  genteel  address  and  childhood  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  court.  On  examina- 
tion of  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution,  it  ap- 
peared that  he  had  taken  a  rabbit  from  his  master's 
(with  whom  he  went  to  school)  rabbit-house,  be- 
cause another  boy,  also  at  school,  liad  taken  from 
him  a  ball  of  string,  value  6d.,  and  had  killed  the 
rabbit  in  revenge.  When  charged  with  it  he  de- 
nied the  fact,  and  was  taken  before  the  magistrate, 


who  bound  him  over  to  the  assizes  for  felony.  The 
Judge  said,  "This  is  no  felony  ;  the  boy  ought 
"to  have  been  whipped  by  the  master,  hut  not 
"to  have  been  brought  here.  The  magistrate 
"  ought  not  to  have  bound  him  over.  Gentlemen 
"of  the  jury,  this  is  no  felony,  you  must  acquit 
"  him."  Upon  the  expenses  being  applied  for,  the 
Judge  said,  "No!  I  shall  not  allow  them  in  this 
"  case;—  a  mere  schoolboy  to  be  indicted  for  fe- 
"lony'Mt! 

Died.']     At  Sidmouth,   Lady  Maria   Caulfield, 
eldest  daughter  of  Earl  Charlemont. 

DEVON   AND   SOMERSET. 
We  are  sorry  to  hear,  from  Frome,  that  there 
are  upwards  of  400  houses  at  present  unoccupied 
in  that  town  ;    and  in  some  instances  the  amount 
poor-rates  almost   equal  that  of  the  rents. 


of  th 


. 

This  distress  is  generally  attributed  to  the  use  of 
machinery  ;  as  it  appears  there  is  now  as  much 
cloth  manufactured  as  at  any  former  period,  al- 
though there  is  scarcely  half  the  usual  number  of 
hands  in  full  employment  I  There  has  been  a  con- 
cert for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  there,  which  enabled 
its  meritorious  promoters  to  distribute  1,200  loaves 
amongst  their  distressed  neighbours. 

Pursuant  to  public  notice,  a  meeting  of  the  sub- 
scribers to  the  Glastonbury  Canal  has  lately  taken 
place,  at  the  Town  Hall;  when  the  Mayor,  having 
taken  the  chair,  informed  them  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  conflicting  opinions  and  interests 
having  been  at  length  reconciled,  they  should  now 
go  to  Parliament  for  their  bill  without  a  single 
opponent.  The  estimate  of  the  work  was  .£18,000, 
only  .£4,000  of  which  remained  to  be  subscribed.  It 
had  been  ascertained,  that  the  population  within 
10  miles  of  the  line  amounted  to  50,000,  and  it 
was  calculated  that  70,000  persons  would  be  bene- 
fitted  by  the  completion  of  this  canal. 

A  public  meeting,  convened  by  the  Mayor,  has 
been  held  at  Plymouth,  for  the  purpose  of  memo- 
rializing the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  against  the 
danger  of  working  the  quarries  at  Mount  Batten, 
when  the  following  facts  transpired  :  —  "That  since 
the  year  1812,  the  isthmus,  or  narrow  neck  of 
ground  which  joins  Mount  Batten  to  the  main 
land,  has  decreased  in  width,  by  the  washing  of  the 
sea,  in  some  places  35  feet,  at  other  places  28  feet, 
at  another  place  25,  and  at  the  least  20  feet. 
That  13,000  tons  had  been  washed  from  the  cliff 
on  the  S.W.  side,  and  2000  tons  from  the  N.E. 
during  the  above  period."  It  was  further  stated 
by  the  Mayor,  that  the  base  of  most  of  the  quar- 
ries now  at  work  was  level  with  the  s?a,  and  one 
of  them  was  worked  four  feet  under  the  level  of 
the  sea  at  high  water. 

His  Majesty's  commissioners  for  building  churches 
have  determined  on  erecting  a  chapel  of  ease  at 
Stonehouse  ;  it  is  to  contain  1,000  sittings  —  300 
to  be  free. 

Died.}  At  Wells,  Dr.  King,  Bishop  of  Roches- 
ter.—  At  Bath,  Admiral  Williams;  and,  79,  J.  N7or- 
man,  esq.  —  At  Prior  Park,  75,  J.  Thomas,  esq.  — 
At  Exeter,  83,  Admiral  Dilkes  ;  85,  Mrs.  Burrows, 
aunt  to  the  late  Lord  Gilford  ;  Lucy,  wife  to  the 
Hon.  II  .  B.  Arundell.  —  At  Great  Tbrrinjrton,  75, 
the  Rev.  J.  Palmer,  prebendary  of  Lincoln.  — 
At  Dennington,  100,  Mr.  R.Wheadon.  -  At 
Staplegrove,  C.  Law,  esq.,  formerly  of  the  firm 
of  "  Law  and  Whittaker,"  booksellers,  London. 
—At  Bath,  81,  Mrs.  Hunn,  mother  of  the  Right 
Hon.  G.  Canning.  —  94,  Mrs.  Charlotte  Holt, 
the  last  branch  of  Lord  Chief  Justice  Holt's  fa- 
mily.— Near  Bath,  Mrs.  H.  Maclaiue,  daughter  of 


J827.] 


Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 


455 


Dr.  Maclaino,  the  translator  of  Mosheim.— At  her 
seat,  near  Torpoint,  80,  Lady  Graves,  relict  ot  the 
late  Admiral  Lord  Graves. 

WALES. 

The  corporation  of  Carmarthen  has  voted  an 
exhibition  to  one  of  the  pupils  of  the  Free  Gram- 
mar School  in  that  town,  during  his  stay  at  St. 
David's  College,  and  has  complimented  the  Bishop 
of  St.  David's  with  the  nomination.  May  this 
liheral  example  be  followed  by  the  other  corpora- 
tions and  counties  of  the  patriotic  principality. 

The  opening  of  St.  David's  College  took  place 
on  St.  David's  Day:  but  in  consequence  of  the 
unavoidable  absence  of  the  Bishop,  it  was  not  ac- 
companied with  any  public  ceremony.  The  solem- 
nities are  therefore  to  take  place  in  the  course  of 
the  summer;  forty  students  sat  down  to  dinner  in 
the  College  hall,  after  having  beeen  examined  by 
the  Principal  and  Professor.  A  public  dinner  was 
also  given  at  the  Black  Lion,  upon  the  occasion, 
when,  after  the  usual  loyal  toasts,  the  pious  me- 
mory of  St.  David,  &c.,  the  healths  of  the  Prin- 
cipal, Vice- Principal,  and  Proressors  of  the  Col- 
lege,  were  given,  who  returned  thanks. 

At  the  celebration  of  St.  David's  Day  at  Bre- 
con, being  the  fourth  anniversary  of  the  Cymrei- 
gyddion,  the  Rev.  T.  Price  entertained  his  fellow- 
subjects  of  the  principality  with  the  gratifying  in- 
formation, that  two  or  three  years  ago  he  had  the 
honour  of  setting  on  foot  among  them  a  collec- 
tion, for  the  purpose  of  translating  the  Scrip- 
tures into  the  Armorican  language.  At  that 
time  there  were  many  who  doubted  the  prac- 
ticability of  the  object,  and  asked  where  a  trans- 
lator could  be  found,  &c.?  But  while  such  per- 
sons were  doubting  and  hesitating,  the  work  was 
commenced  and  actually  accomplished  ;  and  in  the 
course  of  the  last  month  the  translation  of  the 
New  Testament  was  concluded  in  the  language  of 
Armorica,  and  was  in  progress  through  the  press  ; 
and,  as  an  assurance  of  this  fact,  he  had  now  in 
his  possession  the  first  sheets  of  the  work,  which 
had  been  forwarded  to  him  for  the  purpose  of 
examining  the  translation,  and  he  was  then  oc- 
cupied in  collating  it  with  the  original  Greek. 

The  inhabitants  of  Carnarvon  are  obtaining  an 
act  for  improving  and  lighting  that  town,  an  i  for 
supplying  it  with  water. 

Died.'}  At  her  seat,  near  Conway,  Mrs.  F.  Mos- 
tyn,  sister  of  the  late  Sir  Roger  Mostyn,  M.P.  for 
Flint,  and  aunt  to  Lady  Ohampneys. — At  Kinner- 
ton  Lodge.  Flint,  Mrs. Richards,  sister  of  the  late 
Lord  Chief  Baron.— At  Swansea.  74,  J.  Hadwin, 
esq.  At  Monmouth,  84,  Mrs.  E.  Phillpotts. 

SCOTLAND. 

A  change  so  unexpected  has  occurred  in  the 
•weather,  that  in  a  measure  supersedes  every  other 
topic  here  (Edinburgh).  At  a  period  when  we  were 
looking  daily  for  the  genial  showers  of  spring, 
winter  has  returned  with  a  severity  unexampled 
since  the  memorable  storm  of  1823.  On  Friday 
last,  a  strong  piercing  gale  from  the  north,  bring- 
ing along  with  it  showers  of  sleet,  gave  pr  sage  of 
the  impending  change.  Early  on  Saturday,  snow 
hegan  to  fall,  at  first  in  minute  flakes,  but  gra- 
dually thickening  till  it  assumed  the  appearance  of 
what  our  farmers  call  "  a  feeding  storm."  The 
wind,  which  had  subsided  during  the  preceding 
night,  again  began  to  blow  from  the  north-east, 
and,  before  evening,  the  streets  were  so  choked 
with  snow,  as  to  be  almost  impassable.  Carriages 


of  almost  every  description  gave  over  plying — the 
few  hackney-coaches  seen  in  the  streets  required 
four  horses  to  draw  them,  and  no  bribe  was  suffi- 
cient to  tempt  the  owners  to  venture  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  town.  The  snow  continued  to  fall, 
without  intermission,  till  Sunday  noon,  when  the 
clouds  cleared  away.  At  this  period,  the  snow 
wreaths,  in  several  of  the  streets,  were  drifted 
nearly  as  high  as  the  balustrades  of  the  areas. 
The  churches  were  comparatively  deserted,  and 
few  people  were  visible  out  of  doors  throughtthe 
day;  indeed,  the  avalanches  momentarily  falling 
from  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  rendered  it  perilous 
to  venture  abroad.  To  increase  the  monotonous 
aspect  of  the  city,  all  the  public  clocks  had  stopped 
during  the  night,  the  sno  r  which  drifted  on  their 
dials  having  arrested  the  pointers. — Edinburgh 
Observer. 

The  storm  seems  to  have  extended  very  gene- 
rally over  Scotland,  but  its  severity  appears  to  have 
been  greatest  in  the  southern  lowland  districts. 
South  of  a  line  drawn  from  Alnwick  to  Gretna 
Green  there  seems  to  be  no  snow  worth  mention- 
ing ;  but  North  of  this  line  and  to  the  westward, 
as  far  as  the  shores  of  the  Irish  Channel,  the  quan- 
tity fallen  has  been  exceedingly  great.  Nothing 
like  it  has  occurred  in  Ayrshire  during  the  last 
thirty  years.  The  accounts  from  the  western  coast 
are  very  distressing,  and  we  fear  that  we  shall  hear 
of  much  loss  of  sheep  in  the  Highlands,  both  in  the 
north  nnd  in  the  south  of  Scotland.  On  the  Cowal 
coast,  we  hear  that  several  sheep  farmers  have 
met  with  severe  losses.  One  farmer  dug  out  150 
dead  sheep  in  one  place. 

At  the  first  annual  dinner  of  the  Edinburgh 
Theatrical  Fund,  recently  held,  Sir  Walter 
Scott  was  in  the  chair;  Lord  Meadowbank,  in 
proposing  the  health  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  made 
some  very  intelligible  allusions  to  him  as  the 
author  of  the  Waverley  Novels.  Sir  Walter, 
in  returning  thanks,  said  that  "the  merits  of 
these  works,  if  they  had  any,  and  their  faults, 
were  entirely  imputable  to  himself.  Except  quo- 
tations, there  was  not  a  single  word  that  was 
not  derived  from  himself,  or  suggested  in  the 
course  of  his  reading." 

IRELAND. 

Great  damage,  with  extensive  loss  of  life,  has 
been  sustained  during  the  late  gales  among  the 
shipping  along  the  eastern  coast  of  Ireland  :  ont 
of  ten  vessels  gone  down,  the  crews  of  three  only 
were  saved. 

As  a  spTimen  of  the  feeling  of  this  country 
with  regard  to  the  failure  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons of  the  motion  for  the  Emancipation  of  the 
Catholics,  we  annex  one  of  the  resolutions  entered 
into  with  enthusiasm  by  a  most  numerous,  influen- 
tial, and  powerful  meeting,  that  has  just  been  held 
in  the  county  of  Clare — "  Resolved,  that  we  owe 
to  ourselves,  our  country,  and  our  religion,  to  de- 
clare that,  unsubdued  by  disappointment,  and  un- 
checked by  unmerited  defeat,  we  will  persevere  in 
petitioning  the  Legislature,  until  we  obtain  com- 
plete, unconditional,  and  unqualified  emancipa- 
tion." It  was  likewise  resolved  to  petition  His 
Majesty,  prayinsr,  "  that  he  would  graciously  re- 
commend to  his  Parliament  to  grant  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland  their  just  and  inalienable  rights,  to  pre- 
vent the  probable  effects  of  civil  and  religious  dis- 
cord in  this  unhappy  country." 


[     456    ] 

DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 

From  the  28M  of  February  to  the  '25th  of  March  1827. 


1 

Bank 

Stock. 

3  Pr.  Ct. 

Red. 

*  Pr.  ft. 

Consols. 

SiPr.Ct. 

Consols. 

SiPr.Ct. 
Red. 

N4Pr.C. 
An  n  . 

Long 
Annuities. 

India 
Stock. 

India, 
Bonds. 

Exch. 
Bills. 

Consols, 
'or  Ace. 

26 
27 

23 

207$  208 
206 
Holiday 

84! 

82*    I 

«4  I 

90 

89i    * 

89*    I 

9/iJ 

19|  11-16 
19  9-16  11-16 

245| 
215 

5254p 
54p 

333->p 
33  36  p 

82J    83 

82.JJ 

Ma. 

1 

206  207^ 

— 

82i 

89*    S 

89J 

9/"i 

19I  £ 

— 

55p 

3536p 

81  £  82£ 

2 

— 

— 

&2i    $• 

89|  9u 

— 

97*    £ 

— 

• 

— 

35  .'i7p 

\*2,k     ^ 

3 
4 

_ 

~ 

81$  82 

z 

— 

19|  9-16 

243£  244 

5557p 

34  38  p 

81$  8^ 

5 

6 



— 

81J  82 
8l|  82^ 

— 

— 

|f 

~ 

~ 

52  54p 
55p 

32  36  p 
3435p 

81|  82* 

7 

— 

— 

824 

90 

_ 

— 

— 

55  ;:6p 

35  37  p 

^2i     & 

8 

— 

— 

8-ff    i 

90 

— 

9y    1              jj 



— 

66p 

3537p 

ti 

9 
10 
11 

= 

- 

*In 

= 

- 

81  f 

- 

- 

565/p 
57 

3537p 
34  36  p 

1 

J 

12 
13 
14 
15 

- 

- 

81|  82 

8lg    I 

814  82 

eij  i 

— 

— 

9f>|  97 
96|  99 
97}  9«g 

96«  97 

— 

— 

53  55p 
54  56  p 
54  55  p 
56p 

3436p 
34  36  p 
34  36p 
34  36  p 

sill* 

"I  • 

16 

— 

— 

81f  82 

__ 

_ 

96|  9/i 

_ 

_ 

5456p 

3436p 

814  82 

17 

18 

— 

- 

82^_i 

— 

— 

9/|  97jj 

— 

— 

55  56p 

34  35p 

82J    | 

19 

— 

— 

82J     f 

— 



9/1    ? 

— 



5556p 

3536p 

82|     \ 

20 

— 

— 

82$     v 

_ 

__ 

974  98 

__ 

__ 

__ 

3537p 

82j   83 

21 

— 

— 

82J    v 

— 

— 

97$  98 

— 

— 

— 

36  3/'p 

82}  83 

22 

— 

— 

82|     ^ 





97*  98 

— 

— 

57  58  p 

36  38p 

82}  83 

23 

— 

— 

824    ? 

__ 



97}  98 





57  58  p 

36  38  p 

82f     i 

24 
25 

— 

— 

83£     j 

- 

- 

97J  98 

- 

— 

58  59p 

39  40p 

82}    I 

E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  S,  Cornhill  and  Lombard  Street. 

MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  Feb.  20th  to  19th  March  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50.  High  Holborn. 


S" 

be 
d 

3 

Therm. 

Barometer. 

De  Luc's 
Hygro. 

Winds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

c 

o 

S 

f 

* 

X 

. 

9  A.  M. 

10  P.M. 

S3 

CH* 

9A.M. 

10  P.  M. 

9A  M. 

2P.M. 

10  P.M. 

£ 

'S 

tf 

s 

o> 

CS 

- 

i 

2 

0 

20 

28 

32 

32 

29    56 

2D    54 

82 

80 

ENE 

NE 

Fine 

Fair 

Clo.: 

21 

54 

38 

32 

29    53 

29    61 

89 

87 

NE 

ENE 

Clo. 

— 

Fair 

22 

35 

39 

25 

29    75 

29    87 

84 

78 

N 

NNW 

Fair 

— 

Clo. 

23 

32 

38 

29 

29    93 

29    89 

74 

72 

W 

SW 

— 

_ 

Foggy 

24 

& 

35 

40 

26 

29    84 

29    92 

75 

76 

NE 

ESE 

Foggy 

— 

25 

34 

40 

34 

30    04 

29    95 

79 

77 

SE 

SSE 

Fine 

.  

26 

38 

50 

47 

29     73 

29     65 

92 

85 

S  • 

WSW 

Rain 

Fair 

Clo. 

27 

50 

54 

36 

29     39 

29    57 

94 

92 

WSW 

W 

Cio. 

Rain 

— 

28 

37 

49 

49 

29    56 

29    31 

98 

98 

BSE 

sw 

Rain 

— 

Rain 

Mar. 

1 

50 

44 

44 

29    23 

29    34 

82 

97 

SW 

sw 

Clo. 

— 

— 

2 

16 

47 

48 

39 

29    17 

29     42 

97 

8/ 

ssw 

ssw 

Rain 

__ 

Fair 

3 

45 

48 

4'5 

29    35 

29     03 

90 

92 

sw 

ESE 

Clo. 

Clo. 

Clo. 

4 

o 

46 

49 

33 

23    71 

29     20 

92 

83 

ssw 

sw 

— 

— 

— 

5 

35 

45 

44 

29     21 

83 

92 

WSW 

sw 

Fair 

__ 

—  . 

6 

21 

49 

51 

39 

23    97 

28    98 

91 

81 

sw 

N  to  S 

Rain 

Rain 

Rain 

7 

40 

51 

43 

29    43 

24    94 

87 

95 

sw 

S 

Over?. 

Clo. 

— 

8 

46 

51 

43 

28    79 

29     10 

84 

78 

sw 

wxw 

— 

— 

— 

9 

37 

41 

32 

29    3.) 

29    35 

80 

83 

NW 

ENS 

Fair 

Fair 

Clo. 

10 

41 

45 

37 

29    6i 

29    69 

78 

78 

ESE 

SSE 

— 

— 

— 

50 

56 

47 

29    44 

29    40 

87 

95 

SW 

SW 

Clo. 

— 

— 

12 
13 

8 

0 

49 
50 

55 
56 

46 
44 

29    56 
29    74 

29    81 
29     62 

88 
83 

87 
95 

W 
NW 

sw 

WSW 

Fair 

Fine 
Fair 

Rain 

14 
15 

16 

48 
45 
40 

51 

48 
48 

43 
35 
43 

29    65 
29    50 
30    01 

2i)    84 
29    71 
29    76 

77 

87 
80 

82 
78 
92 

NW 
W 
W 

W 

WNW 

SW 

S.Rain 

Fair 

- 

Clo. 
Fine 
Rain 

47 

47 

34 

29    25 

29    65 

85 

83 

WNW 

WNW 

— 

— 

Fair 

18 

40 

44 

32 

29    92 

30    12 

75 

77 

NW 

NNE 

— 

— 

— 

19 

40 

45 

43 

30    23 

30     19 

77 

84 

W 

bw 

Clo. 

THE 

MONTHLY   MAGAZINE. 

Series. 


VOL.  III.]  MAY,  1827.  [No.  17. 


THE    WATER    COMPANIES  —  SUPPLY    FURNISHED    TO    THE 
METROPOLIS. 

"  Carry  his  water  to  the  wise  woman."— SHAKSPEARE. 

A  CONSIDERABLE  degree  of  uneasiness,  and  some  sensation  approaching 
even  to  alarm,  have  been  excited  in  London  during  the  last  six  weeks, 
owing  to  a  report  that  the  supply  of  water  furnished  to  the  inhabitants — 
at  least  in  one  district  of  town — the  quarter  supplied  by  the  "  Grand 
Junction  "  Company — was  of  an  offensive  and  unwholesome  character. 
A  pamphlet,  entitled  "  The  Dolphin," — which  accuses  the  Grand  Junc- 
tion Company  of  serving  their  customers  with  water  "  disgusting  to  the 
imagination,"  and  "  destructive  to  health/' — has  been  followed  by  a 
meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Westminster,  for  the  purpose  of  devising 
means  to  remedy  the  evil,  and  by  a  notice  from  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  that, 
immediately  after  the  recess,  he  should  bring  the  subject  before  Parlia- 
ment for  consideration.  As  the  complaint,  however,  of  the  persons  who 
are  taking  these  measures,  has  extended  itself,  beyond  the  single  case  of 
the  "  Grand  Junction  "  Company,  to  the  conduct  and  arrangements  of 
nearly,  if  not  absolutely,  all  the  water  companies  in  town ;  and  as  the 
cure  proposed  for  the  existing  evil,  real  or  supposed,  appears  to  be  the 
getting-up  of  a  "  New  Joint  Stock  Water  Company,"  with  a  capital, 
raised  in  shares,  of  some  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  pounds  ; — as  this 
proposal  is  one  which,  on  the  face  of  it,  may  well  excite  distrust,  a  short 
examination  of  the  real  extent  of  the  grievance  under  which  the  public 
labours,  and  of  the  degree  in  which  the  proposed  speculation  would  be 
likely  to  remove  it,  may  not  be  entirely  useless  to  our  readers. 

The  chief  questions  which  would  seem  to  suggest  themselves  upon  a 
review  of  the  late  proceedings  as  to  the  supply  of  water  in  the  metropolis, 
would  be  these : — Whether  the  supply  of  water  furnished  by  the  "  Grand 
Junction  "  Company  (peculiarly)  is,  or  is  not,  of  a  fit  and  wholesome 
quality  ? — whether  the  price  at  which  water  is  supplied  by  the  companies 
of  London  generally  be  moderate  and  reasonable  ? — whether  the  sharing 
out  of  the  town  among  themselves  in  districts,  by  the  water  companies, 

M.M.  New  ,Sm>.v—Voi.  Ttl.  No.  IT.  3  N 


458  The  Water  Companies:  [MAY, 

be  a  justifiable  arrangement,  or  a  "  monopoly,"  such  as  ought  to  be 
resisted  and  put  down  by  act  of  parliament  ? — whether  the  Thames  water, 
drawn  from  any  part  of  the  river  between  "the  Pool"  and  the  point  at 
which  the  tide  ends,  be  tit  for  the  purposes  of  human  consumption  ? — and 
whether  any  benefit  to  proprietors  or  shareholders,  or  any  valuable  result 
to  the  public,  may  be  expected  from  the  establishment  of  a  New  Water 
Company  in  London?  We  do  not  add  the  farther  question — whether 
the  Grand  Junction  Company,  or  any  other  company,  has  fulfilled  all  the 
"  professions  "  which  its  agents  may  have  put  forth  at  the  commencement 
of  its  career  ? — because,  in*  the  first  place,  we  find  that  there  are  no  means 
of  compelling  such  companies  to  carry  on  their  business  on  the  terms  on 
which  they  may  have  thought  fit  to  begin  it ;  in  the  next  place,  because 
we  rather  believe  that  they  must  shortly  become  extinct  if  they  were  com- 
pelled to  do  so ;  and,  moreover,  because  we  take  the  only  matter  prac- 
tically worth  considering — without  reference  to  the  proposals  of  past  new 
companies,  or  faith  in  the  professions  of  future  ones — to  be, — Is,  or  is  not, 
the  supply  of  water  which  the  metropolis  receives  from  the  several  com- 
panies, as  good  and  as  cheap  as  can  be  afforded  ? 

The  establishments,  then,  which  supply  London  and  Westminster  with 
water — speaking  here  of  the  whole  of  the  town  on  the  Middlesex  bank 
of  the  river — are  five  in  number  : — the  New  River  Company — the 
Chelsea — the  East  London — the  West  Middlesex — and  the  Grand  Junc- 
tion. 

The  New  River  Company,  which  was  brought  into  operation  about 
the  year  1015,  takes  the  chief  part  of  its  water  from  the  stream  sufficiently 
well  known  by  the  name  of  the  "  New  River  at  Islington," — but  has  an 
engine  also,  which  raises  water  out  of  the  Thames  at  Queenhithe,  for 
the  purpose  of  occasionally  adding  to  its  supply.  This  company,  in  Lon- 
don and  its  suburbs,  serves  nearly  sixty  thousand  houses. 

The  Chelsea  Company  is  the  second  in  point  of  antiquity,  having  been 
established  in  the  year  1723  ;  but  its  trade  is  not  now  very  large.  It  takes 
its  water  from  the  Thames,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  the  London  side 
of  Chelsea  Hospital,  and  supplies,  in  Chelsea  and  Westminster,  eight 
thousand  houses. 

The  East  London  Company,  which  was  formed  in  the  year  1807,  and 
began  to  act  in  1811,  takes  its  water  from  the  point  where  the  River  Lea 
runs  into  the  Thames  at  Limehouse,  and  supplies  about  thirty-two  thou- 
sand houses.  A  sharp  struggle  existed  for  some  time  between  this  com- 
pany and  the  New  River  establishment. 

The  West  Middlesex  establishment  was  formed  in  the  year  1810.  This 
company  takes  its  water  from  an  excellent  situation  in  the  Thames — as 
high  up  as  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  seat  at  Chiswick,  and  supplies  about 
eleven  thousand  houses. 

The  Grand  Junction  Company — against  whom  (nominally)  the  strength 
of  the  present  proceeding  has  been  levelled — and  whose  arrangements 
unquestionably,  (we  should  say)  require  alteration — takes  its  water  from 
the  foot  of  Chelsea  Hospital.  It  has  the  smallest'  district,  but  a  pro- 
fitable one,  owing  to  the  high  rate  of  the  streets  which  it  supplies  ;  and 
serves,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  seven  thousand  houses. 

The  companies  which  supply  the  town  on  the  Surry  side  of  the  river, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  we  do  not  at  present  take  into  consider- 
ation. 

Than,  to  come  at  once  to  the  affairs  an<!  conduct  of  the  Grand  Junction 


1827.]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  459 

Company,  we  shall  set  out  by  stating,  that  we  mean  to  pass  over,  very 
shortly,  all  the  affair  of  the  original  promises  and  "  Prospectusses"  of  that 
establishment.  These  documents,  as  quoted  in  the  "  Dolphin,"  and 
taken  in  connexion  with  all  that  followed,  no  doubt  are  laughable 
enough. 

One  of  the  advertisements — we  think  the  second  that  the  company 
issued  after  its  formation — runs  thus  : — 

«  GRAND  JUNCTION  WATER  WORKS. 

"  The  proprietors  have  proved  the  absolute  power  of  their  works,  the  excellencies 
of  their  water,  and  the  certain  success  of  their  plan. 

"  They  give  so  copious  and  regular  a  supply,  that  the  water  is  always  on.  This 
abundant  supply  is  constantly  fresh,  because  it  is  always  coming  in.  Their 
powers  raise  water  above  the  highest  house  in  London ;  and  this  economical 
arrangement  is  felt  in  laundries,  nurseries,  and  upper  stories,  for  which  high  service 
no  additional  charge  is  made. 

"  Ravages  of  fire  are  increased  by  delay  and  scanty  supply.  No  houses  watered 
by  this  Company  can  suffer  in  these  respects.  Their  water  is  never  off:  their 
pipes  are  always  full.  The  water,  being  perfectly  clear,  would  not,  in  case  of 
fire,  tarnish  the  furniture. 

"  The  main  supply  is  derived  from  the  rivers  Colne  and  Brent,  and  from  a  reser- 
voir of  nearly  a  hundred  acres,  fed  ly  the  streams  of  the  'oale  ofRuislip.  And 
water  will  be  furnished  gratis  for  watering  the  streets." 

This  is,  no  doubt,  sufficiently  ridiculous  (looking  to  the  result);  but  we  all 
know  what  the  promises  of  projectors  are  before  to-day.  While  the  new 
Grand  Junction  Company  wanted  to  get  away  the  Chelsea  and  New  River 
Companies'  customers  (as  the  "  Dolphin"  party  now  want  to  get  away  the 
Grand  Junction  Company's  customers),  we  dare  say  that  they  would  readily 
have  engaged  that  every  drop  of  the  water  that  they  poured  into  the  cis- 
terns of  London  should  be  rose-water, — or  holy- water.  Of  course,  as  soon 
as  the  end  was  attained,  a  considerable  change  of  policy  ensued.  The 
"  daily"  supply  of  water  was  changed  to  a  supply  twice  a  week;  the 
absence  of  "  lire  supply"  had  to  be  complained  of  rather  oftener  than 
before  ;  the  "  high  service"  was  charged  for  additionally,  and  at  a  smart 
rate  ;  the  water  to  water  the  streets  was  not  given  gratis^  but  charged 
for  at  a  penny  a  hogshead  ,  and,  instead  of  the  refreshing  "  streams  of 
the  Colne  and  the  Brent,  and  the  Vale  of  Ruislip,"  a  lucky  bargain  (which 
enabled  the  Grand  Junction  Company  to  pay  a  dividend  to  its  proprietors) 
brought  their  Dolphin  to  the  Thames,  in  a  very  unlucky  situation,  at  the 
foot  of  Chelsea  Hospital.  All  this,  however,  we  take  to  be  a  matter  very 
little  worth  considering  :  the  real  question  is — as  to  all  the  companies — 
not  what  their  promises  have  been,  but  whether  the  existing  state  of  their 
supply  is  one  with  which  the  public  ought  to  remain  satisfied ;  and,  as 
between  the  Grand  Junction  Company  and  a  great  portion  of  their  cus- 
tomers, we  are  bound  to  say — we  think  that  it  is  not. 

That  the  water  supplied  by  the  Grand  Junction  Company  to  its  cus- 
tomers is,  or  has  been,  very  often  found  to  be  in  an  objectionable  con- 
dition, stands,  we  apprehend,  beyond  a  doubt.  IVlr.  Wright,  the  author 
of  "  The  Dolphin"  (the  pamphlet),  gives  evidence  upon  this  point  which 
is  unanswerable.  A  specimen  of  the  Grand  Junction  water  sent  to 
Messrs.  Joyce,  the  operative  chemists  of  Compton-street,  for  analysis, 
was  declared,  by  those  gentlemen,  to  be  found  u  loaded  with  decomposed 
vegetable  matter,  in  such  quantity  as  to  be  unfit  for  use  without  tedious 
purification."  Samples  of  the  same  water,  carried  by  Mr.  Wright  for 
inspection  to  Mr.  Abernethey,  to  Dr.  Lambe,  to  Mr.  Thomas,  the  surgeon, 

3  N  2 


460  ,  The  Water  Companies :  [MAY, 

and  several  other  eminent,  scientific  persons,  were  stated  by  them  to  be 
in  a  state  "  deleterious  to  health,"  &c.  It  might  be  doubted,  perhaps, 
if  the  evidence  stopped  here,  whether,  in  the  specimens  thus  presented 
by  a  party  so  immediately  concerned,  the  Water  Company  had  quite  fair 
play :  but  the  letters  of  at  least  a  dozen  eminent  medical  men  are  pub- 
lished also,  bearing  testimony  to  their  own  personal  experience  and  know- 
ledge upon  the  point. 

Dr.  Hooper,  the  author  of  the  "  Medical  Dictionary,"  says — "  1  have 
.been  aware  of  the  very  impure  nature  of  the  water  supplied  by  the  Grand 
Junction  Company  ever  since  it  came  to  my  house.  At  one  time  it  was 
not  only  filthy  v&  appearance,  but  had  an  unwholesome  smell." 

Mr.  Brodie,  the  surgeon,  of  Saville-row,  says — "  The  water  which  you 
have  shewn  me  corresponds  in  appearance  with  that  which  is  supplied  to 
my  own  house,  and  is  manifestly  very  impure." 

Dr.  Paris,  the  writer  on  "  Diet,"  says — "  The  water  with  which  I  am 
supplied  is  extremely  impure  and  unwholesome." 

Mr.  Keate,  of  Albemarle-street,  speaks  from  his  own  experience,  and 
in  the  vein  even  of  "  King  Cambyses,"  upon  the  subject.  He  holds  all 
"  Thames  water"  unfit  for  domestic  purposes  until  it  has  undergone  a 
process  somewhat  analogous  to  fermentation." 

Sir  Henry  Halford,  Dr.  Hume,  Dr.  Turner,  Dr.  Mac  Michael,  and 
several  other  medical  men  describe  the  Grand  Junction  water,  "furnished 
to  their  own  houses,"  as  of  "  extremely  impure  and  offensive  quality." 
And  Dr.  James  Johnson  adds,  that  he  "  has  always  looked  upon  the  water 
used  in  London,"  and  "  taken  up  from  the  Thames  near  the  metropolis," 
as  "  disgusting  to  the  imagination  and  deleterious  to  health." 

It  will  be  supposed,  of  course,  that  the  opinions  of  the  "  seven  thou- 
sand" householders  whom  the  Grand  Junction  Company  supplies,  have 
not  been  generally  so  strong  as  those  of  the  parties  above  quoted :  if  they 
had  been,  no  doubt  the  nuisance  would  have  been  abated  long  ago.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  extremely  foul  supply  complained  of  has  been  only  occa- 
sional, and  then,  generally,  partial.  But,  independent  of  this  peremptory 
and  intolerable  nuisance,  the  ordinary  character  of  the  Grand  Junction 
water  is  by  no  means  so  good  as  it  should  be  ;  and  notwithstanding  the 
resoluteness  with  which  the  company  refuses  to  ascribe  this  fault  to  the 
position  of  its  Dolphin,  we  are  ourselves  perfectly  convinced  that  it  is  to 
that  circumstance  (probably  to  that  only)  that  it  is  owing.  In  fact,  the 
company  seems  to  us  to  have  acted  ill  in  resisting  this, impression  so  obsti- 
nately as  it  has  done.  If  the  foulness  of  the  water  which  it  supplies  be 
not  owing  to  the  position  of  its  Dolphin,  to  what  cause  is  it  owing  ? — the 
company,  in  its  "  letter,"  has  not  informed  us  of  that  fact.  If  the  com- 
pany's agents  understand  their  trade,  they  ought  to  be  aware  what  is  the 
cause  of  the  evil ;  and,  being  aware  of  that  cause,  it  was  their  duty  long 
since  to  have  removed  it. 

The  et  Dolphin"  is  the  name  given  by  the  water  companies  of  London 
to  a  small  wooden  erection — something  like  a  martello  tower — which  each 
company  places  in  the  river,  to  inclose  and  indicate  the  source  from  which, 
by  means  of  a  steam-engine  on  shore,  their  supply  of  water  is  obtained. 
Mr.  Wright,  in  his  pamphlet,  has  given  a  drawing  of  the  situation  of  the 
Dolphin  of  the  Grand  Junction  Company,  the  accuracy  of  which  has  been 
strongly  denied  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Coe,  the  company's  secretary :  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  however,  that — from  an  actual  inspection  of 
the  place — Mr.  Wright's  drawing  appears  to  us  to  be  a  perfectly  fair  one. 


J827.J  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  461 

The  steam-engine  homo,  &c.  of  the  company  stands  upon  the  banks  of 
the  river  Thames — next  door — if  we  may  be  allowed  to  use  a  vulgarism, 
which  perhaps  will  best  convey  the  idea  we  mean  to  express — to  Chelsea 
Hospital.  Between  the  grounds  belonging  to  the  engine-house  and  those 
of  the  hospital,  and  dividing  them  by  a  distance  of  about  twelve  feet,  runs 
the  '•"  great  Ranelagh  sewer ;"  and,  directly  abreast  of  this  sewer,  not 
thirty  yards  advanced  into  the  bed  of  the  river  from  the  mouth  of  it,  lies 
the  Dolphin  from  which  the  Grand  Junction  Company  takes  its  water. 

Mr.  Coe  says,  in  his  answer  to  "  The  Dolphin  "  pamphlet — "  1.  The 
frontispiece  of  the  pamphlet,  which  professes  to  give  a  view  of  the  Dolphin, 
whence  the  supply  of  the  Grand  Junction  Company  is  drawn,  gives  a  false 
(and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  not  a  wilfully  false)  impression  of  the  real  state 
of  the  case.  The  Dolphin  is  much  more  distant  from  the  sewer  than  the  plate 
represents ;  but — what  is  still  more  material  to  observe — it  is  completely . 
above,  so  as  to  make  it  utterly  impossible  that  one  drop  of  the  sewer  water 
can  reach  it :  during  the  ebb  and  during  the  flood,  the  issue  of  any  water 
from  the  sewer  is  completely  stopped. — 2.  The  delineation  of  the  minor 
common  sewers  in  the  same  plan  is  an  absolute  falsehood,  the  two  upper 
being  the  openings  by  which  the  Chelsea  Hospital  derives  its  supply  of 
water  from  the  Thames,  and  the  lower  only  a  temporary  opening,  whilst 
the  Ranelagh  sewer  is  repairing,  across  the  mouth  of  which  a  dam  has 
been  built,  so  that  not  one  drop  of  water  has  issued  from  it  since  last 
October." 

.  Now,  certainly,  we  think  that  Mr.  Coe  here  is  mistaken.  In  all  its 
material  bearings,  Mr.  Wright's  drawing  is  a  fair  one.  The  Grand  Junc- 
tion Dolphin — as  it  appeared  to  us  upon  actual  inspection — is  certainly  not 
"  above"  the  Ranelagh  sewer,  but  directly  abreast  of  it — so  directly,  that, 
supposing  that  sewer  to  be  full,  as  it  is  in  rainy  weather,  when  it  empties 
out  suddenly  the  impurities  which  have  long  been  accumulating,  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  doubt  that  its  whole  stream  of  filth  and  foulness  must 
run  directly  upon  the  company's  Dolphin,  and  be  taken  up  with  the  water 
which  may  be  pumping  in  from  it.  When  the  Ranelagh  sewer  is  full  and 
swollen  with  rain,  we  should  say  that,  even  with  the  river  also  full,  and 
the  tide  running  smartly,  the  rush  from  the  sewer  would  be  sufficient  to 
penetrate  the  stream  of  the  river,  and  to  reach  the  Dolphin.  But,  besides 
these  cases  of  mischief  from  occasional  floods,  upon  ordinary  occasions,  we 
think  that  there  would  be  two  periods  in  every  day,  when  the  water  taken 
up  would  also  be  impure.  While  the  tide  is  flowing  up,  the  flood-gates  of 
all  the  sewers  are  of  course  closed  ;  or,  if  they  were  open,  the  contents 
would  not  issue,  but  be  forced  backwards  with  the  entering  water.  And, 
while  the  tide  is  running  fast  down,  the  stream  that  issues  from  the  sewer 
—if  small — would  be  at  once  carried  away  along  the  shore  by  the  force  of 
Ihe  ebb,  without  getting  far  into  the  bed  of  the  river.  But,  at  the  time  of  low 
water,  and  for  a  while  previous  to  and  after  that  period — when  the  body  of 
water  in  the  river  is  small,  and  for  a  time  almost  stationary — then  the  stream 
pouring  out  from  the  sewer,  even  although  slight,  being  carried  neither 
upwards  nor  downwards  by  any  tide,  would  make  its  way  directly  into 
the  river,  and  towards  the  company's  Dolphin  ;  and  if  it  so  happened  that 
the  stream  from  the  sewer  was  copious  at  such  a  moment,  the  effect  would 
go  far  beyond  this,  and  almost  the  whole  quantity  of  water  taken  up  at  tho 
Dolphin  during  the  interval  described  would  be  pumped  from  its  contents. 

It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Coe  states,  that  at  the  present  moment  a  dam  is  built 
across  the  mouth  of  this  Ranelagh  sewer,  for  the  purpose  of  repair,  and  that 


462  The  Water  Companies :  [MAT, 

no  water  issues  from  it ;  but  we  are  bound  to  take  the  thing  as  it  has  been, 
and  will  be  again — not  as  it  happens  to  be  at  one  particular  moment.  And, 
besides,  by  a  peculiar  infelicitousness  in  the  arrangements  of  the  Grand 
Junction  Company,  their  Dolphin  gains  very  little  by  all  this  closing  of  the 
Ranelagh  sewer — it  stands  so  perfectly  in  a  nest  of  sinks  and  drainage. 
While  the  Ranelagh  sewer  is  shut,  an  opening  lower  down  the  river,  about 
twenty  yards,  pours  out  a  stream  which — having  got  into  the  bed  of  the 
river  at  low  water — floats,  with  the  rising  of  the  tide,  directly  up  to  the 
Dolphin  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand' — though  there  may  be  some  error  as  to 
the  two  '*  openings  under  Chelsea  Hospital,"  which  Mr.  Wright's  drawing 
describes  as  "  minor  common  sewers" — yet  there  is  another  sewer,  which 
Mr.  Wright  entirely  omits — the  sewer  which  runs  along  the  western  boun- 
dary of  the  hospital,  and  is  widened  at  the  mouth  so  as  to  admit,  we 
believe,  of  pushing  barges  up  to  deliver  coals,  &c.  at  the  door  of  the 
house,  ofthe  contents  of  which  sewer  the  Grand  Junction  Company  is 
not  accused  in  the  drawing  which  they  complain  of — but  which,  in  fact, 
must  go  on  pouring  its  stream  down  upon  its  Dolphin  (unless  we  are  much 
mistaken)  during  the  whole  time  ofthe  returning  tide. 

So,  again,  Mr.  Coe  says  in  his  letter — 

"  The  Dolphin  of  the  Chelsea  Water  Company  is  immediately  below, 
and  not  many  yards  distant  from,  that  ofthe  Grand  Junction  Company; 
and  if  the  supply  of  either  company  be  affected  by  the  Ranelagh  drainage 
(which  is,  in  i'act,  the  discharge  of  water  from  the  Serpentine  River  in  times 
of  flood),  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  decide  which  would  be  so  in  the  higher 
degree." 

This  inference  is  not  a  fair  one.  The  Dolphin  of  the  Chelsea  Company 
is  not  placed  at  "  not  many  yards"  from  the  Ranelagh  sewer,  but  at  a 
considerable  distance  from  it ;  we  should  say  at  a  distance  of  from  one  to 
two  bunded  yards.  And — that  which  is  of  far  more  importance — the  Dol- 
phin of  the  Chelsea  Company  is  pushed  out  considerably  farther  from 
shore  than  that  ofthe  Grand  Junction  Company — beyond  the  reach  of  the 
sewer  streams,  and  into  the  bed  of  the  river. 

Personally,  therefore,  we  have  not  a  doubt  that  these  circumstances  explain 
the  real  cause  of  the  occasional  impurity  ofthe  Grand  Junction  Company's 
supply.  The  foul  water  of  which  Mr.  Wright's  witnesses  complain  must  have 
been  that  which  was  taken  up  at  some  of  the  unfavourable  periods  which 
we  have  described,  and  sent  at  once — without  being  previously  deposited  in 
any  reservoir — into  the  cisterns  of  the  company's  customers;  and  we 
repeat  that,  it  was  acting  with  very  culpable  negligence  not  at  once — with- 
out a  moment's  delay — when  the  evil  was  perceived,  to  go  about  applying  a 
remedy.  We  believe  that  a  remedy  either  by  this  time  has  been,  or  very  shortly 
will  be,  applied.  We  understand  that  the  Grand  Junction  Company  has, 
at  a  great  expense,  been  preparing,  and  in  a  few  weeks  at  farthest  will  have 
completed,  an  extensive  reservoir  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  which  will 
enable  them  to  dispense  entirely  with  the  supply  from  their  Dolphin  at  any 
time  when  it  may  seem  convenient  to  do  so.  Into  this  great  reservoir  the 
water  of  the  Thames  is  to  be  admitted,  by  means  of  flood-gates,  when  the 
tide  is  up.  The  gates  being  closed  as  the  tide  falls,  a  body  of  water  will 
remain  :  from  which,  after  it  has  been  duly  allowed  to  filter  and  settle,  the 
town  will  be  supplied,  in  lieu  of  pumping — as  is  at  present  done — directly 
from  tho  bed  of  the  river.  But  while  justice  compels  us  to  give  credit  to 
the  company  for  this  intended  improvement,  still  nothing  can  be  more 
clear  than  that  the  completion  of  such  a  project  ought  not  to  have  been 


1827,]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  468 

waited  for.  The  Grand  Junction  Company  ought  not  to  have  gone  on, 
even  for  a  single  day — upon  any  pretence — in  supplying  the  public  with 
water  which  appeared  to  be  objectionable ;  and  we  think  there  can  be  no 
question  now,  that — even  when  all  is  completed — they  must  still  remove 
their  Dolphin  :  they  must  not  offend  public  feeling  by  keeping  up  even  the 
semblance  of  a  means  of  supply  which  it  is  known  may,  under  particular 
circumstances,  be  noisome.  The  ostensible  source  of  the  water  which  the 
people  of  London  are  to  drink,  and  a  focus  of  common  sewers — whether 
they  do  continue  to  communicate,  or  whether  they  do  not — must  not  con- 
tinue to  be  placed  together. 

But  although  we  agree,  therefore,  in  the  fitness  of  the  inquiry  which  has 
taken  place,  if  only  a  reasonable  suspicion  of  negligence  attached  to  the 
conduct  of  the  Grand  Junction  Company ;  and  though  it  well  becomes  the 
persons  who  have  suffered  from  that  negligence  to  take  very  sufficient  pre- 
cautions that  the  same  fault  shall  not  readily  offend  them  again  ;  still  the 
public  ought  not  to  allow  itself  to  be  led,  under  feelings  of  irritation,  either 
into  believing,  all  of  a  sudden,  in  five  hundred  extraordinary  evils,  none  of 
which  exist — or  into  subscribing  Five  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  a  work, 
which,  if  those  evils  did  exist,  would  be  perfectly  inadequate  to  remedy 
them.  The  moment  that  we  heard  that  the  people  of  London  and  West- 
minster were  being  poisoned  by  the  water  that  they  drank,  we  involuntarily 
exclaimed — "  Now,  Heaven  send  this  be  not  to  conclude  in  a  new  Joint 
Stock  Water  Company  1"  We  had  a  sort  of  instinct  that  the  people  could 
not  be  about  to  be  saved  from  being  poisoned  without  being  called  upon  to 
pay  for  it.  We  had  a  presentiment  of  some  approaching  touch  at  the  old 
"  sore  place  "  of  the  town — a  sort  of  trial  how  far  the  offending  spirit  of 
trying  to  cheat  their  neighbours,  and  eventually  being  cheated  themselves, 
still  lurked  in  men's  minds,  in  spite  of  whipping. 

No  task  on  earth  could  be  more  pleasant,  we  are  convinced,  to  a 
hundred  little  knots  of  gentlemen,  whom  we  could  name,  than  to  dispose 
of  £300,000  or  £400,000  of  other  people's  money— if  they  could  get 
such  an  amount  subscribed — no  matter  if  it  were  in  a  new  water-work — 
in  a  new  mine — or  in  a  new  theatre.  To  hold  the  patronage  of  distri- 
buting large  profits  to  themselves,  or  to  such  other  persons  as  they  might 
think  fit ; — to  give  jobs  to  engineers,  architects,  and  surveyors  ; — to  buy 
land,  and  iron,  and  wood,  and  labour,  and  stone,  and  bricks,  and  mortar; 
and  to  have  the  chance  of  a  little  dealing  in  "  shares  ;"  and  a  little  snack 
to  give  to  a  friend  in  the  way  of  law  expences  and  agency; — and  moreover, 
to  have  the  appointment  of  a  board  of  directors — probably  with  salaries! — 
and  of  a  "  secretary,"  certainly  with  a  good  round  salary — not  to  speak  of 
clerks  and  other  inferior  officers; — the  whole  thing  would  be  very  pleasant, 
— and  perhaps  very  profitable — for  the  persons  who  had  the  disposition  of 
the  means ;  but  it  is  not  quite  so  clear  to  us  what  would  be  the  condition 
of  the  other  persons  who  might  be  benoodled  into  furnishing  them. 

Upon  this  point,  however,  we  will  endeavour — arguing  from  the  past 
and  the  present  to  the  future — to  collect  some  little  information.  And 
first — as  to  the  gains  of  the  Water  Companies  already  in  existence.  The 
whole  amount  paid  for  the  supply  of  water  by  the  cities  of  London  and 
Westminster — taking  in  the  whole  of  the  town  and  suburbs  on  the  Mid- 
dlesex side  of  the  river — is  less  than  £200,000  a-year.  This  is  the 
whole  income  which  the  companies  have  to  pay  their  current  expendi- 
ture, as  well  as  to  supply  interest  upon  the  vast  capital  sunk  in  plant  and 
machinery  :  and  for  i\\\$,five  establishments  are  already  combating. 


464  The.  Water  Companies :  [MAY, 

Full  one-half  of  this  gross  amount  of  £200,000  is  iu  Ihc  possession  of 
the  New  River  Company:  a  company  which  stands  free  from  all  the 
objections  urged  by  "  The  Dolphin  "  against  its  rivals.  The  income  of 
the  New  River  Company,  obtained  from  the  supply  of  60,000  houses,  at 
an  average  rate  of  thirty  shillings  per  house,  would  be  £^0,009  a-year. 
The  four  remaining  companies  divide  about  i'90,000  a-year  more  among 
them,  but  in  unequal  proportions.  The  East  London  Company  supplies 
32,000  houses,  at  twenty-three  shillings  average  per  house:  in  round 
numbers  an  income  of  £36,000  a-year.  The  West  Middlesex  serves 
11,000  houses,  at  an  average  rate  of  about  fifty  shillings:  that  gives  an 
income  of  £27,000  a-year.  The  Chelsea  Company  has  about  8,000 
houses,  at  an  average,  say  of  forty-five  shillings — making  £20,000  a-year. 
And  the  Grand  Junction  7,000  houses,  at  an  average  of  sixty  shillings 
amounting  to  £21,000  a-year. 

Now  the  established  companies  will  hardly  build  churches  out  of  an 
fc income  like  this ; — but  especially  the  newer  establishments,  which,  taking  their 
water  from  the  Thames  by  steam,  are  exposed  to  a  heavy  expense,  which 
is  also  a  lasting  one,  by  the  consumption  of  their  engines  in  coal.  The 
average  expenses  of  the  West  Middlesex  Company  are  at  the  present 
time  £13,000  a-year:  of  which  3,000  is  expended  only  in  coals  for  the 
steam-engines  that  raise  the  water,  and  force  it  to  its  places  of  desti- 
nation. 

Therefore,  at  first  sight,  it  would  appear  that  there  is  no  vast  mine  of 
wealth  to  struggle  for ;  and  that  the  whole  income  would  not  maintain 
an  army — not  to  speak  of  what  may  be  done  with  the  profit.  But,  to  go 
beyond  conjecture,  it  is  perfectly  easy  for  us  to  shew — for  four  fifths  of 
the  information  is  in  print  and  published  already — what  the  actual  rate 
of  profit  is  which  has  been  made  by  all  the  water  companies — jointly  and 
severally — from  the  time  of  their  foundation. 

For  twenty  years  after  the  formation  of  the  New  River  Company,  no 
dividend  was  paid  to  the  proprietors  at  all.  This  company  now  (accord- 
ing to  the  statement  of  "  The  Dolphin  ")  pays  five  per  cent,  interest  upon 
the  value  of  its  property. 

In  the  case  of  the  Chelsea  Company,  it  was  thirty  years  before  any 
dividend  was  paid.  The  amount  now  paid  is  three  per  cent. 

The  East  London  Company's  affairs,  in  the  commencement,  were  con- 
ducted with  some  irregularity.  For  several  years,  however,  they  paid  no 
dividend :  for  several  more,  a  dividend  of  only  one  per  cent ;  they  now 
pay  about  four  and  a  half  per  cent. 

The  West  Middlesex  Company  was,  from  the  year  1807  to  1819— 
twelve  years — without  paying  any  dividend.  They  then  began  to  pay 
one  pound  fifteen  shillings  per  cent. ;  they  now  pay  two  pounds  fifteen 
shillings. 

The  Grand  Junction  Company,  which,  from  the  mode  in  which  it 
made  its  bargain  as  to  the  supply  of  water — (one  of  the  chief  sources,  it 
will  be  observed,  of  its  late,  or  present,  objectionable  condition) — and 
from  the  circumstance  of  its  getting  what  is  termed  a  "  good  district  "— - 
i.  e.  a  district  in  which  the  houses  are  chiefly  of  a  high  order — has  paid 
better  than  any  other. — This  company  was  established  in  1810,  and  in 
1819  began  to  pay  a  dividend  of  one  pound  seventeen  shillings  per  cent. 
They  are  now  paying  six  per  cent.  ;  but  are  making  great  improvements — 
and  must  make  more — the  effect  of  which  will  be  probably  to  lower  their 
dividend  pretty  considerably. 


J  827.]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  465 

Thus  it  appears,  we  think,  pretty  plainly,  that  the  whole  of  the  new 
race  of  water  companies,  so  far  from  being  in  the  condition  of  having  made 
large  gains,  have  not  paid  any  thing  like  a  competent  interest  upon  their 
capital. 

Then  with  respect  to  the  proposal  of  our  new  company,  to  do  a  great 
deal  more,  and  a  great  deal  better  than  any  other  speculators  have  done 
before  us — any  attempt  at  general  competition  for  the  supply  of  the  town 
on  the  part  of  a  new  water  company,  would  be  absurd  and  impossible. 
The  trade  is  already  carried  on  at  a  less  cost  than  it  could  be  if  such  general 
competition  existed.  The  several  companies,  taking  each  a  particular  dis- 
trict, are  enabled  to  supply  their  customers  at  much  less  original  expense 
than  they  could  do  if  those  customers  were  widely  scattered.  The  Chelsea 
Company,  taking  its  trade  entirely  at  the  west  end  of  the  town,  is  enabled 
to  serve  its  8,000  houses -at  an  incomparably  cheaper  rate,  than  if  one-half 
of  those  houses  lay  in  their  present  situation,  and  the  other '  half — where 
they  must  have  new  pipes  and  mains  laid  down  to  them — at  Bethnal 
Green  or  at  Mile  End.  This  proposition  we  take  to  be  so  clear,  that  we 
need  waste  no  time  in  enforcing  it. 

In  fact  that  state  of  things  which  the  persons  who  complain  of  the  con- 
ventions of  the  water  companies,  describe  as  "  competition," — but  which  in 
more  fairness  should  be  called  "  opposition," — is  one  which,  in  the  water 
trade,  we  apprehend  can  by  no  possibility  exist.  Nothing  can  be  more 
certain  than  that,  if  a  dozen  companies,  instead  of  five,  existed  in  London, 
there  would  still  be  so  far  a  want  of  what  is  described  as  "  competition," 
that  orders  might  be  offered  to  every  one  of  those  companies,  which  they 
would  be  compelled  to  refuse,  leaving  the  customer,  as  he  is  left  now,  to 
depend  upon  the  company  which  had  local  convenience  for  serving  him, 
or  to  shift  for  himself,  independent  of  any  general  supply  at  all.  That  the 
termination  of  the  contest  which  existed  ten  years  ago  between  the  West 
Middlesex  Company,  the  Grand  Junction  Company,  and  the  New 
River  Company,  may  have  disappointed  the  customers  that  profited  by  it, 
is  very  likely.  And  so,  if  any  two  or  three  persons  were  bespattering 
each  other  with  mud,  it  would  be  a  loss  of  amusement  to  the  populace 
that  looked  on  when  they  left  off.  But,  in  plain  reason,  the  only  real 
wonder  is — not  that  "  division"  eventually  took  place  of  "  competition," 
among  these  parties  ;  but  that  it  did  not  take  place  of  it  long  before.  The 
same  mistake  will  not  be  made  again.  Because  an  opposition  between 
two  water  companies  does  not  stand  upon  the  same  ground  with  an  oppo- 
sition of  steam  packets,  or  stage  coaches.  The  main  point  of  hope  on 
which  each  party  relies  in  these  last  cases,  is  the  retreat  of  the  other 
party  out  of  the  market; — a  course  which  in  the  first  case  is  barred.  The 
only  alternative,  in  a  struggle  between  two  water  companies,  is  compro- 
mise or  extermination.  The  coach  master,  growing  tired  of  a  contest, 
can  employ  his  coaches  and  horses  upon  another  road;  or  he  carries 
them  to  auction,  and  sells  them  to  some  one  else  for  their  value.  But, 
in  the  case  of  the  water  company,  their  whole  capital  is  vested  in  works, 
which — as  the  people  say  who  advertise  the  papers  lost  in  their  pocket- 
books — "  are  of  no  use  to  any  but  the  owner."  They  have  a  property  on 
hand,  which  may  be  used  to  some  slight  profit ;  but  which,  sold,  produces 
nothing.  They  are  not  dealers  in  an  article,  which  they  pay  for,  piece- 
meal, as  they  dispose  of  it,  and  which,  therefore,  they  will  cease  to  trade 
in  when  they  cease  to  make  a  profit  upon  it;  but' they  are  the  holders  of 
M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  17.  3  O 


406  The  Water  Companies:  [MAY, 

an  enormous  machinery,  which,  if  they  sold  it,  would  not  fetch  a  shilling 
in  the  pound  upon  its  value,  and  which,  therefore,  they  will  go  on  working, 
while  it  only  pays  the  oil  necessary  to  keep  it  in  motion,  rather  than 
sacrifice  it  altogether. 

When  we  talk  of  an  application  to  Parliament  for  a  new  company,  on 
the  ground  of  the  "  nefarious"  convention,  and  "  close  monopoly"  set 'up  by 
the  existing  ones — an  Act  for  a  new  company  might  no  doubt  he  obtained 
easily  enough — the  public  would  suffer  nothing  by  its  formation — but  it 
should  be  recollected,  that  the  whole  question  of  "  division  "  and  "  mo- 
nopoly "  has  been  considered  by  Parliament  already. 

And  it  is  singular  to  observe,  upon  reference,  how  entirely  the  decision 
of  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  affirms  the  cursory  view  that 
we  have  been  taking  of  the  subject.  The  report  of  the  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  upon  this  very  question — the  alleged  combination  of 
the  water  companies — in  1821,  says: — 

«'  The  principle  of  the  acts  under  which  these  companies  were  instituted,  was  to 
encourage  competition  ;  and  certainly  in  this,  as  in  other  cases,  it  is  only  from 
competition  or  the  expectation  of  competition  that  a  perfect  security  can  be  had 
for  good  supply;  but  your  committee  are  satisfied  iha.t,from  the  peculiar  nature  of 
these  undertakings,  the  principle  of  competition  requires  to  be  guarded  by  par- 
ticular checks  and  limits  in  its  application  to  them  ;  in  order  to  render  it  effec- 
tual, without  the  risk  of  destruction  to  the  competing  parties,  and  thereby,  ulti- 
mately, of  a  serious  injury  to  the  public. 

"  Competition,  in  ordinary  cases,  adjusts  the  supply  to  the  demand  through  the 
liberty  which  the  sellers  have  to  yo  out  of  the  market  as  well  as  to  come  into  it ; 
but  in  trades  carried  on  by  means  of  large  capitals,  vested  in  fixed  machinery,  and 
furnishing  a  commodity  of  no  value  but  for  consumption  on  the  spot,  the  sellers 
are  confined  to  the  market  by  the  nature  of  the  trade ;  and  if  the  new  comer  has 
to  seek  immediate  employment  for  large  works,  by  taking  custom  from  the  esta- 
blished dealer,  as  there  can  be  no  great  difference  in  the  quality  of  what  they  sell, 
they  must  vie  in  fewness  of  price,  and  will  probably  be  driven  to  underbid  each 
other  down  to  the  point  of  ruin,  because  it  is  better  to  take  any  thing  than  to 
take  nothing  for  that  which  cannot  be  carried  away  ;  and  this  must  go  on  until 
both  are  worn  out,  or  one  has  out-lasted  the  others,  and  succeeded  to  a  real  and 
effective  monopoly,  or  until,  by  some  arrangement  between  themselves,  they  can 
put  a  stop  to  their  mutual  destruction. 

"  These  consequences  appear  to  have  followed  from  the  late  protracted  compe- 
tition between  the  water  companies ;  it  was  carried  on,  during  several  years,  at  a 
very  ruinous  loss,  and  must,  in  all  probability,  have  led  to  the  extinction  of  all 
except  one  or  two  of  the  wealthiest — as  it  actually  did  to  that  of  the  smaller  com- 
panies—but  for  an  arrangement  which  took  place,  by  which  the  supply  of  the 
town  was  partitioned  between  them." 

The  fact  is,  that  the  cry  of  monopoly  is  pretty  absurd  ;  because  real 
"  monopoly"  there  can  be  none.  The  water  companies  have  no  compul- 
sory power  upon  the  inhabitants  of  London ;  it  is  open  to  any  individual  to 
decline  the  supply  furnished  by  them,  and  to  provide  for  himself,  as  may 
seem  fit  to  his  discretion.  But  the  principle  upon  which  the  present  arrange- 
ment among  the  companies  has  proceeded,  is  one  which  nothing  short  of 
bringing  the  government  into  the  market  as  a  competitor  can  ever  get  rid 
of.  The  character  of  the  trade  instinctively  leads  to  such  a  convention — 
it  is  to  the  interest  of  all  parties.  The  people  who  are  proposing  a  "  new 
company"  are  perfectly  well  aware  of  this.  They  know  that,  for  them  to 
compete  for  the  supply  of  town  is  impossible  ;  they  would  be  doing  their 
trade  at  a  cost  twenty  per  cent,  above  other  people.  All  that  they  could 
attempt  would  be  to  oppose  one  or  two  of  the  existing  companies,  whose 


J827.]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  467 

districts  lie  together  ;  and  all  they  have  a  chance  of  accomplishing,  is,  in  a 
certain  degree,  to  displace  the  Grand  Junction  Company — against  which 
some  displeasure  on  the  part  of  the  public,  at  the  present  moment,  very 
reasonably  exists.  But  this  course — beyond  answering  the  end  of  some 
half-dozen  agents,  directors,  and  attornies,  who  will  gain  ten  times  as  much 
by  conducting  the  speculation  as  they  lose  by  having  a  share  in  it — will 
have  no  other  result  than  that  of  wasting  the  property  of  a  great  number  of 
small  capitalists  who  are  to  be  drawn  into  supporting  it,  without  affording 
the  slightest  security  to  the  public  against  the  recurrence  of  the  evil  of 
which  they  really  have  to  complain. 

There  may  be — and  we  are  rather  afraid  there  is — in  despite  of  the 
exposures  which  have  taken  place  of  the  late  monstrous  frauds  and  bubbles 
connected  with  the  formation  of  joint  stock  companies — a  remnant  of  incli- 
nation in  the  public  mind  for  speculations  of  this  character ;  and.  there- 
fore— at  the  hazard  of  being  tedious — we  will  venture  to  go  a  little  further 
upon  this  question  of  the  formation  of  a  "  New  Joint  Stock  Water  Com- 
pany." 

All  that  any  new  establishment  can  possibly  expect  to  accomplish,  com- 
ing into  the  market  to  oppose  a  company  already  in  possession  of  a  district, 
wi[l  foe — standing  at  an  outlay  equal  to  that  of  the  company  attacked,-— 
which  shall  supply,  we  will  say,  ten  thousand  houses — to  obtain  the  supply 
of  halfi\\o.i  number  of  houses,  at  a  considerably  decreased  average  rent  or 
rate  of  payment.  The  West  Middlesex  Company,  for  instance — to  select 
an  establishment  against  which  there  is  no  accusation,  and  which  certainly 
supplies  excellent  water,  and  from  an  unobjectionable  source,  to  its  custom- 
ers— this  company  possesses — say — with  an  expenditure  of  £  1 3,000  per 
annum — an  income — arising  from  the  supply  of  eleven  thousand  houses,  at 
an  average  of  fifty  shillings  per  house — of  £27,000.  A  company  which 
started  to  oppose  the  West  Middlesex  Company  would  certainly — in  order 
to  get  away  half  its  customers — have  to  reduce  the  average  price  of  the 
supply  from  fifty  shillings  to  thirty-five  shillings.  It  is  probable  that  the 
reduction  would  go  a  great  deal  further :  but,  at  least,  it  would  go  so  far — 
which  would  bring  down  the  whole  income  arising  from  the  eleven  thou- 
sand houses,  from  £27,000  to  less  than  £20,000.  Taking  the  expenditure 
of  each  of  these  companies,  then,  still  to  be  £13,000  a  year — for  to  supply 
one  side  of  each  street  in  a  district,  or  half  the  houses  of  any  district,  would 
cost,  within  a  mere  trifle,  as  much  as  to  supply  the  whole — then  each 
company  would  receive  not  quite  £10,000  a  year  of  income.  And,  even 
supposing  that  we  have  put  this  calculation  unfavourably — a  fact  which 
we  entirely  deny — and  that  more  fortunate  circumstances  might  increase 
the  revenue  of  each  competing  company  to  £15,000  instead  of  £10,000 — 
although  we  see  no  source  which  could  possibly  lead  to  such  a  result ;  still 
the  trade  of  the  entire  district  of  eleven  thousand  houses  would  only  be 
done  at  double  the  first  cost  that  performed  it  originally  ;  and  neither  of 
the  two  companies,  after  defraying  its  annual  expenses,  would  have  five 
shillings  per  cent,  to  divide,  for  interest  on  capital,  among  its  proprietors. 

This  is  precisely  the  course  of  events  supposed  to  arise  out  of  an  over- 
extended competition,  by  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  1821.  The 
people  who  supplied  the  funds  for  a  new  company  would  lose  their  money. 
The  town  would  be  parcelled  out— unless  one  establishment  was  finally 
exterminated — into  st\r  districts,  instead  of  five.  And  the  little  "  com- 
mittee," who  superintended  the  expenditure  of  the  £300,000  capital, 

3  O  2 


468  The  Water  Companies :  [MAY, 

would,  according  to  the  etiquette  in  such  cases  made  and  provided,  have  to 
"  regret"  the  "  failure  of  the  speculation" — and  be  the  only  parties  per- 
fectly well  satisfied  with  the  result. 

The  limited  space  farther,  however,  that  we  can  afford  to  devote  to  this 
inquiry,  compels  us  to  return  to  that  which  is  really  the  most  important 
question  connected  with  it : — How  far  the  inhabitants  of  the  metropolis 
have  reason  to  be  contented  with  the  quality  of  the  supply  of  water  fur- 
nished to  them,  and  with  the  terms  upon  which  they  receive  it  ?  The  first 
section  of  this  question  applies  to  a  point  almost  of  vital  interest ;  and  as  to 
which  any  attempt  to  excite  the  apprehension  of  persons  groundlessly — or 
to  disguise  danger,  or  objection,  where  it  really  exists — becomes  equally 
reprehensible. 

A  part  of  the  object  of  the  "  New  Joint  Stock  Company  "  Association — 
and  a  very  material  point  it  would  be  if  they  could  accomplish  it — seems  to  be 
to  shew  that  the  supply  of  water  obtained  from  the  Thames — near  London — 
is — not  merely  as  regards  the  Grand  Junction  Company's  supply — but, 
altogether,  objectionable. 

Mr.  Keate,  the  surgeon,  as  we  have  shewn  some  pages  back,  is  quoted 
as  speaking  of  "  Thames  water  " — without  reference  to  the  condition  in 
which  it  is  supplied — as  "  unfit  for  domestic  purposes."  Mr.  K.  probably 
means  to  say,  "  for  human  consumption." 

Dr.  James  Johnson  says,  that  he  has  always  regarded  the  <4  Thames 
water,"  taken  up  "near  London,"  as  "  most  disgusting  to  the  imagina- 
tion, and  deleterious  to  health.'' 

And  a  Mr.  Mills,  who  stated  himself,  at  the  Westminster  meeting,  to  be 
an  engineer,  declared,  among  a  great  variety  of  new  and  startling  propo- 
sitions, that  the  Thames  water  could  never  be  fit  for  drinking  unless  it  was 
taken  up  "  above  Teddington  lock." 

Now,  with  great  respect  for  the  spirit  of  improvement  that  is  abroad,  and 
for  the  very  excellent  job  that  would  arise  out  of  bringing  500,000  hogs- 
heads of  water  daily  to  London,  from  "  above  Teddington  lock  " — par- 
ticularly as  a  second  job  would  very  quickly  follow  upon  this  arrangement : 
for  the  water  in  the  Thames,  "  above  the  Teddington  lock,"  is  apt  enough 
(without  this  enormous  draught)  in  summer  to  run  short,  already — we  are 
disposed  to  think  that,  as  we  have  got  on  so  long  with  the  Thames  water, 
so,  with  only  mending  the  old  system  of  supply  a  little,  instead  of  break- 
ing it  up  entirely,  we  may  get  on  a  little  longer. 

The  Thames  water,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  recollect,  as  it  is  supplied 
by  every  company  but  the  Grand  Junction  Company,  gives,  or  has  given, 
very  reasonable  satisfaction.  Against  the  East  London  Company,  the 
West  Middlesex  Company,  the  Chelsea  and  the  Surrey  Companies,  we 
have  heard  of  no  complaint  as  to  the  Thames  water ;  or,  if  it  has  been 
served  occasionally  in  a  turbid  state — as  it  must  be  in  wet  weather,  let  it 
be  supplied  from  what  source  it  will — there  is  nothing  here  which  the  adop- 
tion of  a  little  more  settling  and  filtering  precaution  on  the  part  of  the 
companies  may  not  entirely  get  rid  of.  The  question,  how  far  health  may 
be  affected  by  the  use  of  a  water  like  that  of  the  Thames,  into  which 
impurities  are  constantly  pouring:,  is  one  which  we  shall  not  pause  here  to 
discuss — because  we  think  the  fact  of  its  offensiveness,  if  materially  con- 
taminated by  these  impurities,  a  sufficient  circumstance  of  objection.  It 
must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  this  question  of  "  danger  to  health" 
is  at  all  an  admitted  one.  On  the  contrary,  we  believe  that  the  balance 


1 827.]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  469 

of  opinion — on  a  point  very  fiercely  contested — is  that  the  impurities  do  no 
mischief  to  health  at  all.  Dr.  Turner,  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Wright  ['«  Dol- 
phin," p.  79J,  in  answer  to  the  inquiry,  whether  the  inhabitants  of  West- 
minster are,  or  are  not,  poisoned  into  all  sorts  of  diseases  by  Thames  water, 
—states  very  candidly  his  opinion,  that — whether  the  impure  state  of  the 
water  furnished  by  the  Grand  Junction  Company  (the  Thames  water — 
this  is  when  most  objectionable)  has  had  any  influence  upon  the  inhabitants 
of  Westminster,  "is  a  question  that  would  admit  of  much  controversy."  And 
we  happen  ourselves  to  recollect  rather  a  curious  case  in  the  county  of 
Somerset,  where,  after  examining  all  the  medical  men  for  fifty  miles  round, 
a  special  jury  found  their  verdict,  upon  a  great  balance  of  evidence,  that 
water  loaded  in  an  excessive  degree  with  putrid  animal  matter  would  pro- 
duce no  ill  effect  if  taken  into  the  stomach.* 

Fact  however   is   better  than  argument ;  and  we  are  content  to  waive 
the  question  of  health,  and  admit  the  proof  of  "  offensiveness  "  to  be  evi 
dence  sufficient :  but  then  it  must  be  understood  that,  when  we  speak  of 
"  offensiveness,"  we  do  not  mean  to  speak  of  mere  '*  offence  to  the  imagi- 
nation/*    Of  that  sort  of  offence  which  merely  touches  the  imagination, 

*  The  case  was  rather  a  singular  one ;  and  it  is  not  the  least  curious  point  about  it,  that, 
although  the  verdict  proceeded  upon  a  principle  which  persons  in  general  would  hardly  be 
supposed  very  ready  to  admit,  it  never— if  we  recollect  right — came  before  the  superior 
courts  for  revision.  The  circumstances  were  these.  In  the  summer  of  the  year  1820,  or 
1821,  which  was  extremely  hot  and  dry,  great  numbers  of  horned  cattle  in  Somersetshire 
were  attacked  with  an  inflammatory  disease,  which  the  farriers  of  (he  place  did  not  under- 
staud,  but  which  carried  the  animals  off  very  rapidly,  and  was  believed  to  be  infectious. 
Among  other  persons  who  suffered  by  this  calamity,  the  defendant  in  the  action,  C.  D., — 
who  had  a  number  of  cows  feeding  in  a  pasture  on  the  banks  of  a  certain  stream,  on  the 
banks  of  which,  in  another  field,  some  short  distance  lower  down,  the  plaintiff,  A.  B.  had 
also  a  number  of  oxen  feeding — lost  a  cow  by  the  influenza.  By  the  usage  of  the  country 
—if  not,  we  believe,  by  some  statute  actually  in  existence — the  defendant  was  bound  to 
have  buried  his  dead  cow  ;  but  he  omitted  to  do  this,  and  caused  her,  instead,  to  be  thrown 
into  the  stream  which  bordered  his  land;  whereby,  the  water  being  low,  and  the  heat  ex- 
cessive, great  nuisance  was  produced  to  the  neighbourhood;  and,  at  the  end  of  eight  or 
nine  days,  the  annoyance  became  so  great,  that  it  could  not  be  borne,  and  the  carcass  of 
the  animal  was  obliged,  after  all,  to  be  taken  out  of  the  water  and  buried.  In  the  mean 
time,  however,  the  cattle  of  the  plaintiff,  which  were  compelled  to  drink  of  the  water  that 
ran  down  from  the  defendant's  land,  were  seized  with  the  same  complaint  as  that  of  which 
his  cow  had  died,  and  perished  in  great  numbers  ;  on  which  the  plaintiff,  conceiving  that 
they  were  infected,  or  poisoned,  by  the  water  which  the  defendant's  conduct  had  rendered 
unwholesome,  brought  his  action  of  damages  against  the  latter  for  their  value.  When  the 
case  came  on  to  be  tried  before  Mr.  Justice  Best  at  Taunton,  these  facts  were  stated  on  the 
part  of  the  plaintiff,  and  proved  by  unquestionable  evidence.  For  the  defendant,  however, 
a  whole  host  of  medical  men  were  called;  who  swore,  that— with  respect  to  the  charge  of 
"  infection" — the  plaintiff's  oxen  could  not  have  caught  the  infection,  of  which  the  defen- 
dant's cow  had  died,  by  drinking  the  water  in  question  ;  because  it  appeared,  that  the  ani- 
mal had  not  been  thrown  into  the  water  until  two  days  after  her  death  ;  and,  with  the  first 
symptoms  of  decomposition  about  any  animal  matter,  all  power  that  it  might  ever  have 
had  of  communicating  infection  ceased.  And  with  respect  to  the  charge  of  "  poisoning" 
—the  plaintiff's  cattle  could  not  have  been  poisoned  by  the  water  is  which  the  defendant's 
cow  lay  ;  for  the  drinking  of  water,  in  which  the  most  putrid  animal  substances  had  been 
mixed  up,  could  not  produce,  either  to  cattle  or  human  beings,  the  smallest  mischief.  In 
proof  of  which  last  doctrine,  we  recollect  one  of  the  witnesses  stated,  that  he  had  himself 
made  the  experiment  upon  his  own  person,  by  swallowing  a  considerable  quantity  of  water 
from  a  small  pool  in  which  he  happened  to  see  a  putrid  pig ; — a  piece  of  evidence,  which 
— judging  from  the  event — would  seem  to  have  made  a  considerable  impression  upon  the 
minds  of  the  judge  and  jury  ;  though,  at  the  time  when  it  was  delivered,  it  appeared  to  ope- 
rate principally  in  the  way  of  discomposure  to  their  stomachs. 

It  would  be  easy,  however,  to  cite  opinions,  of  the  highest  authority,  that  the  Thames 
water  is  not,  in  the  slightest  degree,  unfitted  for  consumption  by  the  impurities  which  are 
thrown  into  it. 


470  The  Water  Companies.  [MAY, 

we  are  afraid  it  would  be  difficult  entirely  to  get  rid  any  where.  Mere 
"  offence  to  the  imagination''  will  be  referable  to  the  different  delicacies, 
or  predilectipns,  of  parties.  No  doubt,  to  drink  the  water  of  a  river 
like  the  Thames,  into  which  the  sewers  of  a  city  empty  themselves,  is, 
abstractedly — if  we  choose  to  dwell  upon  it — "  offensive  to  the  imagina- 
tion." But  if  any  person  were  to  amuse  himself  by  counting  the  dead 
dogs — since,  in  answer  to  plain  charges,  we  must  speak  in  plain  terms — 
which  he  might  find  in  the  small  stream  of  the  New  River,  between  the 
Sluice  House  and  Sadler's  Wells,  or  to  look  at  the  crowds  of  individuals, 
of  every  rank  and  calling  in  life, — who  wash  their  persons  in  the  same 
narrow  stream  every  summer's  morning, — in  spite  of  the  great  exertion 
which  is  made  to  procure  all  possible  cleanliness,  by  the  New  River 
Company,  it  is  possible  that  such  an  individual  (for  a  few  moments  after 
the  survey)  might  hardly  be  satisfied  to  raise  a  glass  of  New  River 
water  to  his  lips  ?  And,  "  imagination  ''  apart,  the  truth,  we  believe,  is, 
that  the  story  of  the  "  offensiveness  "  of  the  Thames  water  has  nothing  at 
all  in  it.  The  impurities  which  proceed  from  the  drains,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Thames,  seldom  make  their  way  far  into  the  bed  of  the  river ; 
and  are  neutralised  as  far  as  they  do  so— by  the  enormous  body  of 
water  into  which  they  flow.  The  constant  inclination  of  all  the  drainage 
is  to  be  carried  at  once  down  by  the  tide — as  it  comes  forth — along  the 
margin  of  the  river ;  and  it  is  only  where  the  supply  is  taken  from  an 
improper  vicinage — as  has  been  the  case  with  the  Grand  Junction  Com- 
pany— from  some  spot  which  the  proximity  of  the  sewers  is  enabled  to 
operate  upon — that  any  real  inconvenience,  or  "  offensiveness,"  would 
arise.  We  repeat  that  we  do  not  speak  here  of  persons  who  choose  to 
indulge  their  u  imagination ;"  and  who  would  be  as  disinclined  to 
approve  of  the  water  of  Paris — carried  about  the  streets  for  sale,  in  wooden 
tubs,  by  dirty  fellows — as  they  are  to  drink  that  which  comes  clean  into 
their  cisterns,  only  because  they  know  that  it  is  taken  from  the  Thames. 
But — we  call  the  water  of  the  Thames  "filthy"  and  "poisonous!"  Are 
we  not  forgetting  that  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  town,  within  the 
bills  of  mortality,  has  never  been  supplied  with  any  water  but  that  of  the 
Thames  ?  .  Do  we  remember  that  a  vast  quantity  of  this  poisonous  water, 
from  time  immemorial,  until  within  the  last  three  years,  has  been  used 
to  be  thrown,  by  the  water  works  at  London  Bridge,  directly  into  the 
cisterns  of  the  people  of  London,  without  being  previously  deposited 
in  reservoirs,  or  subjected  to  any  course  of  purification  whatever?  And, 
moreover,  when  we  are  told  thus  suddenly,  that  the  Thames  water  is 
unfit  for  use — is  it  not  time  to  recollect,  that,  up  to  the  reign  of  James  I., 
the  whole  population  of  London  never  had  any  supply  of  water  but  this 
"  Thames  water,"  so  taken  up  at  London  Bridge,  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
city  ? 

For  the  present,  a  pressure  of  other  matter  compels  us  to  quit  this  subject  ; 
but  it  is  possible  that  we  may  return  to  it ;  because  we  rather  think,  that 
—upon  the  strength  of  an  evil  which  has  only  been  slightly  partial,  and 
could  only  be  temporary — we  see  a  desire  on  the  part  of  some  speculators 
to  get  up  a  profitable  job. 

The  story  of  the  "  monopoly"  we  take,  in  plain  terms,  to  be  pure  hum- 
bug. If  we  have  a  "  monopoly"  of  five  companies  now — when  a  riesv 
company  was  started,  we  should  only  have  a  "monopoly"  of  six. 

The  complaint  of  "  extravagant  charge" — as  against   the  companies 


1827.]  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis.  471 

in  general — is  even  more  entirely  unfounded.  The  rates  charged  are 
certainly  not  so  low  as  they  were  during  the  time  of  the  **  competition" 
— when  the  companies  were  eating  up  their  capitals  in  the  hope  to  destroy 
each  other ;  but  the  price,  fairly  taken,  at  which  the  inhabitants  of  Lon- 
don get  their  water  supplied,  is  low  to  a  degree  that  seems  astonishing. 

Jn  fact  a  single  glance  only  is  necessary,  at  any  of  the  remedies  proposed 
for  this  grievance  of  "  extravagance,"  to  set  the  question  of  "  cheapness/' 
as  to  the  supply,  entirely  at  rest.  The  last  Number  of  the  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Science  and  Art,  observing  upon  the  '«  filthy  state  of  the  water 
usually  supplied,  at  very  extravagant  rates,  by  the  water  companies," 
suggests  that,  in  "  many  cases,  it  answers  to  dig  a  well  for  the  exclusive 
supply  of  a  large  house  with  water  ;  and,  if  deep  enough,  the  water  will 
be  abundant,  soft,  and  pellucid."  The  only  drawback  upon  this  exquisite 
stratagem  is  observed  to  be  "  the  labour  of  forcing  the  water,  by  a  pump, 
to  the  top  of  the  house."  (There  would  be  some  labour  necessary,  we 
humbly  apprehend,  in  raising  it  to  the  surface  of  the  earth.)  "  This,  how- 
ever, is  very  easily  done  by  a  horse  engine  !!!  "  or  there  are  people  enough 
about  town  glad  to  undertake  it  at  a  shilling  a  day."  This  shilling  a  day 
—which  is  over  and  above  the  expense  of  sinking  a  well,  and  keeping 
machinery  in  order — being  the  resource  against  the  "  extravagant  charges" 
of  water  companies,  whose  charges  may  be  taken  to  average,  one  house 
with  another,  at  a  shilling  a  week  ;  and  who  deliver — this  is  about  the  rate 
of  the  West  Middlesex  and  East  London  Companies  — for  that  shilling  a 
week,  into  a  house  of  the  rent  of  £100  a  year,  every  week,  a  supply  of 
water,  exceeding  in  quantity  1,000  gallons.  This  scheme  we  are  afraid 
is  scarcely  as  feasible  as  Mr.  Mills's  offer  to  bring  the  Thames  water  from 
"  above  Teddington  lock ;"  but  would  not  a  far  simpler  than  either  be — 
that  every  individual  for  whose  "  personal  consumption"  the  Thames  water 
(supplied  from  a  proper  point)  did  not  appear  sufficiently  pure,  should 
provide  his  house  with  a  common  "  filtering  cistern,"  which  costs  thirty 
shillings,  and  puts  an  end  to  all  difficulty  ? 

The  fact  is,  that  a  great  deal  of  the  objection  alleged  against  the  exist- 
ing system  of  water  supply  in  London,  is  groundless ;  that  a  great  deal 
more  has  been  very  much  exaggerated ;  and  that,  for  any  little  which 
remains,  a  "  New  Company"  is  not  the  proper  cure.  If  competition  is  all 
that  is  wanted — that  may  be  had,  we  venture  to  affirm,  at  once.  If  the 
persons  supplied  by  the  Grand  Junction  Company  find  themselves 
aggrieved,  and  want  merely  the  assistance  of  another  establishment — they 
— or  any  reasonable  number,  say  one-third  of  them — have  only  to  guaran- 
tee their  custom  to  the  Chelsea  Company,  or  the  West  Middlesex  Com- 
pany, for  five  years ;  and  either  of  those  establishments,  we  venture  to 
prophesy,  will  break  the  "  Holy  Alliance,"  and  "  lay  down  pipes" 
immediately. 

If  any  remedy  beyond  this  is  necessary,  it  must  be  found — not  in  the  esta- 
blishment of  more  companies,  but  in  the  entrusting  a  power  of  control  to  the 
legislature.  Without  any  affront  to  the  proposers  of  the  new  "  Real  Joint 
Stock  Company,"  which  is  to  be  "  actuated  by  no  other  motive  than  an 
earnest  desire  to  contribute  to  the  health  and  comfort  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,"  we  must  be  excused  if  we  decline  believing  that  a  new  company 
will  exhibit  more  virtue  than  those  which  are  already  existing.  The  supply 
of  an  article  so  vitally  important  as  WATER  to  the  metropolis,  would  justify 
the  assumption  of  a  power  of  surveillance  by  the  government ;  and  if  any 


472  The  Water  Companies.  [MAY, 

public  proceeding  be  requisite,  this  is  the  only  one  which  could  produce  any 
beneficial  result.  At  the  same  time,  we  are  not  at  all  convinced  that  such  a 
course  is  necessary.  The  best  measure  for  any  parish  which  found  itself  ill- 
supplied  by  one  company,  would  be  to  offer  its  custom,  secured  for  a  stated 
period,  to  another :  there  is  very  little  danger — in  despite,  of  the  proverbial 
inviolability  of  treaties — that  such  a  temptation  would  be  resisted.  For 
the  formation  of  a  "new  company,"  the  public  can  suffer  no  injury  from 
its  establishment;  but  we  would  recommend  those  persons  who  are  to  supply 
the  money  for  such  a  purpose  to  consider  well  before  they  undertake  it. 


THE  OLD  WARRIOR'S  GRAVE.* 

THOU  didst  fall  in  the  field  with  thy  silver  hair, 

And  a  banner  in  thy  hand ; 
Thou  wert  laid  to  rest  from  thy  battles  there, 

By  a  proudly  mournful  band. 

In  the  camp,  on  the  steed,  to  the  bugle's  blast, 

Thy  long  bright  years  had  sped  ; 
And  a  warrior's  bier  was  thine  at  last, 

When  the  snows  had  crown'd  thy  head. 

Many  had  fallen  by  thy  side,  old  chief! 

Brothers  and  friends,  perchance; 
But  thou  wert  yet  as  the  fadeless  leaf, 

And  light  was  in  thy  glance. 

The  soldier's  heart  at  thy  step  leaped  high, 

And  thy  voice  the  war-horse  knew ; 
And  the  first  to  arm  when  the  foe  was  nigh 

Wert  thou,  the  bold  and  true ! 

Now  mayest  thou  slumber — thy  work  is  done— 

Thou  of  the  well-worn  sword ! 
From  the  stormy  fight  in  thy  fame  thou'rt  gone, 

But  not  to  the  festal  board. 

The  corn-sheaves  whisper  thy  grave  around, 

Where  fiery  blood  hath  flowed ; — 
Oh  !  lover  of  battle  and  trumpet-sound ! 

Thou  hast  won  thee  a  still  abode ! 

A  quiet  home  from  the  sunbeams  glare, 

And  the  wind  that  wandereth  free — 
Thou  that  didst  fall  with  thy  silvery  hair, 

For  this  men  toil  like  thee !  F.  H. 

*  I  came  upon  the  tomb  of  Marshal  Schwerin — a  plain,  quiet  cenotaph,  erected  in  the 
middle  of  a  wide  corn-field,  on  the  very  spot  where  he  closed  a  long,  faithful,  and  glorious 
career  in  arms.  He  fell  here  at  eighty  years  of  age,  at  the  head  of  his  own  regiment,  the 
standard  of  it  waving  in  his  hand.  His  seat  was  in  the  leathern  saddle — his  foot  in  the  iron 
stirrup — his  fingers  reined  the  young  war-horse  to  the  last. — Notes  and  Reflections  dur- 
ing a  Ramble  in  Germany. 


1827.]  [    473    ] 

THE  FOUR  NATIONS: 

No.  II. 
*'  Quatuor  homines — quatuor  charts. :) 

All  lead,  I  grant,  is  still  in  essence  lead, 
However  it  be  moulded  ;  but  the  mould 
Determines  both  the  comeliness  and  value  : 
As,  what  cast  one  way  is  a  nameless  vessel. 
Moulded  another,  might  be  Hercules. 
E'en  so  with  men  :  the  peasant  or  the  savage, 
By  different  training,  doubtless  might  have  been 
A  man  o'  the  woods,  or  wise  philosopher. 
The  worth,  in  all  that  nature  lends,  consists 
Not  so  much  in  the  substance  as  the  use. 

GODOLPHIN. 

HAVING,  in  a  former  paper,  delineated  a  few  of  the  more  striking  and 
simple  features  in  the  character  of  each  of  the  Four  Nations  composing  the 
British  public,  as  that  character  is  found — not  in  individual  instances — in 
the  very  noblest  or  the  very  meanest — but  on  the  average,  and  in  the  gross  ; 
or,  having,  as  some  will  perhaps  rather  be  inclined  to  think,  made  a  slight, 
but  by  no  means  a  wanton  incision  through  the  epidermis — it  may  be,  for 
the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  national  malady, — it  now  remains  to  con- 
sider the  more  important,  because  the  more  practical  and  manageable, 
question  of  what  influence  the  circumstances  of  each  nation  may  have  had, 
and  may  still  have,  in  giving  to  the  features  of  its  character  those  pecu- 
liarities which  have  been  described.  This  is  a  subject  of  great  extent  arid 
difficulty,  as  well  as  importance ;  and  it  is  one,  in  the  consideration  of 
which  no  man  perhaps  can  escape  the  bias  and  prejudice  which  his  own 
peculiar  circumstances  have  stamped  upon  himself;  and,  therefore,  though 
it  demands  to  be  treated  with  boldness  and  decision,  it  ought  not  to  be 
done  with  dogmatism,  or  received  with  offence — inasmuch  as  the  perform- 
ance of  it  is  labour,  and  the  object  cure. 

In  order  that  I  may  be  the  more  perspicuous — if,  indeed,  perspicuity  can 
be  predicated  of  such  an  inquiry — I  shall  arrange  my  few  remarks,  and 
deductions  from  those  remarks,  under  the  several  heads  of — Geographical 
Situat ion —  Original  Race — Education — Employment — Soc ial  Hab its — • 
Political  Condition — Intellectual  State — and  Prcvailings  Opinion.  Even 
this  enumeration  does  not  comprehend  the  whole,  and  there  are  several 
parts  of  it  which  can  hardly  be  separated  from  others ;  but  still  there  is  no 
possibility  of  understanding  the  mechanism  of  the  living  body,  whether 
physical  or  politic,  without  an  ideal  dissection,  inasmuch  as  the  common 
analogy  of  anatomy  will  not  apply;  for,  though  an  examination  of  the 
parts  of  a  human  body  which  is  deprived  of  life  makes  us  acquainted  with 
the  functions  of  those  in  which  life  still  exists,  the  dissection  of  a  dead 
community  throws  not  much  light  upon  the  nature  of  a  living  one,  and 
none  at  all  upon  that  which  is  the  object  of  this  inquiry — the  peculiarities 
which  belong  to  it,  and  to  it  only. 

GEOGRAPHICAL  SITUATION. — There  can  be  no  question  that  much  of 
the  external  appearance,  and  more  of  the  modes  of  feeling  and  thinking, 
depend  upon  the  nature  of  the  earth  upon  which  man  is  placed,  and  the 
atmosphere  which  he  breathes.  For  in  those  central  regions  of  the  world, 
where  the  bud,  the  blossom,  and  the  fruit  are  together  and  constantly  upon 
the  tree — where  there  is  but  little  change  of  temperature — where  oven 
slight  clothing  is  a  burden — where  the  shelter  of  massy  walls  is  not  required, 

M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.III.  No.  17..  ,'$  P 


474  The  Four  Nations.  [MAY, 

and  where  the  native,  panting  and  throbbing  in  fervent  heat,  is  contented 
with  a  subsistence  small  in  quantity  and  simple  in  kind — there  is  nothing 
to  call  out  those  inventive  powers  of  which  necessity  is  truly  the  mother, 
and  there  is  every  thing  to  relax  and  enfeeble  the  powers  of  the  body.  In 
the  other  extreme  of  temperature — "  the  thrilling  regions  of  the  thick- 
ribbed  ice" — those  inhospitable  climes  where,  in  the  language  of  Milton, 
the  air 

"  Burns  frore,  and  cold  performs  the  effect  of  fire  " — 

the  dreary  wastes  of  Spitzbergen ;  those  more  dreary  still,  where  Captain 
Parry  went  to  seek  knowledge,  and  found  misery ;  and  those,  rendered 
perchance  still  more  unfavourable  by  the  eternal  blasts  of  the  Australian 
air,  and  the  ceaseless  weltering  of  the  southern  wave — are  all  fatal  to  the 
development  of  even  the  lower  powers  of  the  mind ;  and  they  who  have  the 
misfortune  to  dwell  there  seem  doomed  to  external  woe  and  internal  weak- 
ness, without  remedy  and  without  hope.  Nor  are  the  extremes  of  heat 
and  cold  the  only  geographical  circumstances  which  affect  the  character ; 
for  the  man  who  is  doomed  to  respire  for  life  the  miasmata  of  a  fen,  or  an 
atmosphere  surcharged  with  excessive  humidity,  if  he  shall  escape  a  phy- 
sical consumption,  is  sure  to  be  visited  by  a  consumption  of  all  the  more 
delicate  feelings  and  more  exquisite  fancies  of  mind  ;  while  he  who  treads  the 
mountain's  peak,  looks  out  during  the  day  upon  the  unclouded  majesty  of 
the  sun,  and  during  the  night  upon  the  sparkling  glories  of  the  starry  host, 
and  who  breathes  an  air  which  is  kindred  to  that  of  those  heavens  which 
are  so  displayed  to  his  contemplation,  however  his  frame  may  be  shrunken 
by  the  nipping  of  winter,  has  his  nerves  strung  to  an  excess  of  vigour,  and 
his  mind  attuned  to  the  warmest  feelings  and  the  most  glowing  percep- 
tions. 

Nor  is  the  influence  confined  to  temperature  and  humidity ;  for  the 
comparative  fertility  of  the  earth  appears  to  have  no  small  effect  upon  the 
character  of  its  inhabitants.  Of  the  table  which  nature  sets  out  for  man, 
as  well  as  of  that  which  he  sets  out  for  himself,  it  may  with  truth  be  said 
that— 

"  dainty  bits 
Make  rich  the  ribs,  but  bankerout  quite  the  wits." 

So  even-handed,  indeed,  is  that  justice  which  nature  awards,  that  they  who 
enjoy  the  fat  places  of  the  earth  are  doomed  intellectually  to  partake  a 
little  of  their  obesity ;  while  they  who  are  placed  upon  the  bleak  ridge 
never  fail  to  be  rewarded  with  a  portion  of  its  firmness  and  elevation.  Nor 
is  it  difficult  to  find  out  the  means  by  which  this  equalization  is  brought 
about :  the  chemical  changes  which  take  place  in  the  upper  stratum  of  the 
earth  must  continually  evolve  matters  that  alter  the  atmospheric  air  ;  and 
it  is  well  known  that  the  gases  which  are  given  out  by  animal  and  vege- 
table substances,  while  undergoing  the  putrid  fermentation,  all  have  a  per- 
nicious effect  upon  the  health  when  in  largo  quantities,  and  upon  the  feel- 
ings and  faculties,  even  though  the  quantities  are  very  small.  Now,  in  a 
country  which  is  very  fertile,  and  at  the  same  time  very  fiat,  the  putrefac- 
tive process,  and  consequently  its  pernicious  effects,  will  be  at  maximum  ; 
white,  among  the  hard  and  perennial  plants  and  naked  rocks  of  a  moun- 
tainous country,  where  the  water  no  sooner  falls  on  the  surface  than  it 
floods  away  to  the  river  or  the  lake,  the  air  must  be  free  from  the  whole 
or  the  greater  part  of  this  contamination.  Even  the  habits  of  the  people  in 
a  fertile  country  must  dispose  them  less  to  activity  and  thought  than  those 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations.  475 

of  a  country  where  they  are  not  only  put,  as  it  were,  "  more  upon  their 
shifts,"  but  where  the  gratification  of  the  animal  appetites  bears  a  much 
smaller  proportion  to  the  means  by  which  it  is  obtained.  He  who  obtains 
his  turtle  and  his  champagne  without  an  effort,  and  almost  without  a 
wish,  may  have  more  gilding  and  glitter  than  he  who  toils  the  livelong  day 
for  his  crust  of  black  bread  ;  but,  if  we  came  to  "  set"  them,  we  should 
find  that  the  latter  were  of  choicer  temper,  and  could  receive  a  keener 
edge. 

It  may  with  truth  be  said,  that  as  property  accumulates,  the  value  of 
man  declines  ;  and  in  proof  of  this,  I  might  appeal  to  the  laws  of  England, 
which  are  supposed  to  be  the  result  of  the  most  polished  civilization  and 
the  most  consummate  wisdom  ;  and  yet  which,  after  all,  decree  a  heavier 
punishment  to  the  stealing  forty  shillings'  value  out  of  a  dwelling-house, 
than  they  do  to  the  depriving  of  a  man  of  life,  if  that  be  perpetrated  in  a 
momentary  fit  of  anger,  and  without  premeditated  malice  or  design. 

The  localities  of  the  Four  Nations  do  not  possess  any  remarkable,  or,  at 
least,  any  extreme  variation  in  natural  temperature,  humidity,  or  fertility; 
but  still  they  are  different  naturally,  and  the  natural  difference  has  been 
augmented  by  artificial  means.  In  point  of  atmosphere,  Ireland  is  per- 
haps the  most  humid, — because,  as  an  Irishman  would  say,  "  the  fogs  of 
the  Atlantic  are  perpetually  weeping  over  its  woes ;"  but,  along  with  this, 
the  annual  temperature  of  Ireland  is,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  mild  and 
uniform.  In  favoured  spots,  Ireland  is  probably  the  most  fertile  by  nature  ; 
but,  in  consequence  of  the  neglect  of  cultivation,  immense  tracks  of  that 
country  have  been  converted  into  bog,  and  thus  have  injured  both  the  fertility 
of  the  soil  and  the  salubrity  of  the  climate.  England,  from  the  comparative 
absence  of  mountains  and  lakes,  is  the  most  uniform,  and  it  is,  upon  the 
whole,  the  best  or  at  least  the  most  generally  cultivated  ;  but  the  eastern 
parts  of  England  are,  in  many  situations,  injured  by  the  miasmata  of  the 
fens,  and,  for  certain  portions  of  the  year,  chilled  by  the  bleak  winds  and 
inhospitable  fogs  which  are  wafted  from  the  cold  and  moist  regions  of  the 
north-east.  Wales  escapes  from  these,  and,  where  it  is  susceptible  of 
cultivation,  it  is  much  better  cultivated  than  Ireland  ;  but  a  large  portion 
of  Wales  is  mountainous ;  and  though  the  air  upon  these  mountains  be  soft 
and  transparent,  it  is  at  the  same  time  humid  from  the  vicinity  of  tho 
Atlantic.  Scotland,  by  nature  the  most  bleak  and  inhospitable  of  the 
four,  is  exposed  to  a  certain  portion  of  fog  on  the  eastern  shores ;  but  as 
that  fog  is  wafted  across  a  much  greater  extent  of  sea,  and  as  the  north- 
oast  winds  come  not  over  land  so  humid  as  those  which  visit  England,  the 
fog  does  not  appear  so  much  to  influence  the  feelings  and  the  character  of 
the  people.  But  still  it  is  found,  that,  in  those  portions  of  Scotland  which 
lie  on  the  eastern  shore,  and  are  flat  and  fertile,  there  is  the  same  increase 
of  size,  relaxation  of  muscle,  and  obtuseness  of  intellect  which  are  found  in 
the  flat  eastern  counties  of  England;  while,  in  the  very  extreme  wilder- 
ness of  that  country,  there  is  an  excess  of  severity  which  is  equally  per- 
nicious to  the  better  powers.  These  observations  are  not  sufficient  for  the 
formation  of  any  thing  like  a  theory ;  but  they  lead  us  to  this  one  conclu- 
sion : — that  the  best  geographical  position  for  the  favourable  development 
of  mind  is,  like  that  of  the  best  civil  position  for  the  same  purpose,  the  one 
which  is  neither  too  high  nor  too  low — which  is  neither  parched  by  cold 
and  drought,  nor  soaked  by  heat  and  humidity.  Even  although  the  theory 
here  were  perfect,  it  would  not  make  a  great  deal  for  the  general  question, 
inasmuch  as,  though  there  be  greater  similarity  in  the  inhabitants  of  these 

3  P  2 


476  The  Four  Nations.  [MAY, 

parts  of  the  Four  Countries  which  resemble  each  other,  yet  enough  of 
difference  remains  to  shew  that  geographical  position  is  not  the  only,  nor 
indeed  the  principal  cause. 

ORIGINAL  RACE. — Though  I  am  not  much  of  a  convert  to  those  doc- 
trines of  phrenology  which  make  the  human  cranium  a  "  house  with 
many  mansions,"  and  rate  the  importance  in  which  each  faculty  and  pro- 
pensity is  held — as  men  are  sometimes  rated  in  the  world — by  the  size  of  its 
dwelling ;  yet  I  am  very  ready  to  admit— and  admit  it  not  as  a  mere 
assertion,  but  as  the  result  of  very  careful  and  very  long-continued  observa- 
tion— that  the  general  form  of  the  head  is  a  very  certain  indication  of  the 
general  ability  and  disposition  of  the  possessor.  When  the  head  is  very 
broad,  more  especially  toward  the  fore  part,  it  may  always  be  taken  as  an 
indication  of  steadiness  and  perseverance  in  labour ;  when  the  head  is  nar- 
row in  front,  but  greatly  elongated,  so  as  to  have  the  form  of  an  ellipse  of 
considerable  eccentricity,  there  is  always  greater  rapidity  and  versatility  of 
powers  than  in  the  former  case — but  there  is  not  the  same  steadiness  and 
perseverance;  and  when  the  head  is  small  in  both  its  measurements,  and 
especially  when  a  horizontal  section  at  the  union  of  the  eye-brows  appears 
to  leave  the  greater  part  of  the  cranial  cavity  below,  there  is  great  irasci- 
bility, without  either  rapidity  of  perception  or  perseverance.  In  all  the 
three  formations  there  are  these  radical  distinctions ;  and  the  capacity  of 
each  increases  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  elevation  above  the  eye- 
brows. 

Now  the  Saxon  tribes — which  form  the  basis  of  the  population  in  at 
least  the  eastern  and  middle  parts  of  England,  and  in  some  parts  of  the 
lowlands  of  Scotland,  and  which  are  also  partially  intermingled  with  the 
population  of  some  parts  of  Ireland — have  the  head  broad  and  full  at  the 
sides,  without  any  great  elongation.  Hence,  reasoning  upon  this  principle, 
we  should  expect  to  find  in  them  that  steady  pursuit  of  a  single  object — 
that  following  of  it  out  into  the  very  minutest  of  its  details — that  profound 
knowledge  of  its  principles,  and  that  dexterity  in  its  practical  management, 
which  are  found  to  be  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  English. 

The  Celtic  tribes,  which,  though  altered  by  a  different  admixture,  and 
modified  by  different  habits  in  each  country,  form  the  basis  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Ireland,  of  Wales,  and  of  the  northern  and  western  parts  of  Scot- 
land, have  their  foreheads  much  narrower  than  the  Saxon  tribes ;  and, 
when  pure,  the  Celtic  head  does  not  appear  to  be  much  elongated  back- 
wards, or  to  have,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  any  great  elevation.  Among 
such  a  people  it  would,  therefore,  be  vain  to  look  for  any  very  transcendant 
or  commanding  powers  either  of  investigation  or  of  action  :  and,  therefore, 
we  find  that  the  Celtic  tribes  have  ever  been  conquered  by  their — probably, 
in  many  instances — less  quick  but  more  solid  and  persevering  neighbours. 
From  the  remnant  of  them  that  skirts  the  western  verge  of  Europe,  and,  as 
travellers  say,  a  certain  portion  of  the  extreme  west  of  Africa,  and  from 
the  slight  traces  of  their  language  (or  at  least  of  language  in  many  respects 
analogous)  which  are  found  among  the  mixed  inhabitants  of  the  Caucasus, 
and  some  of  the  western  ridges  of  the  Himmalah,  it  is  no  very  violent 
hypothesis  to  suppose,  that,  in  the  course  of  ages,  they  have  flitted  before 
their  successive  conquerors,  at  least  from  the  confines  of  Asia.  That,  in 
the  British  islands,  they  are  the  subdued  part  of  the  population,  tbere  is 
abundant  evidence.  In  England  there  are  authenticated  records  of  their 
successive  subjugations,  from  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  present  day  ; 
while,  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland,  the  heads  of  the  clans — and,  in  Ire- 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations.  477 

land,  the  potty  kings,  who  were  heads  of  clans  under  a  different  name — 
are  almost  invariably  described  as  being  men  of  giant  bulk,  light  hair,  and 
ruddy  complexion ;  whereas  the  genuine  Celts  are  invariably  of  slender 
though  active  form,  and  dark  complexion — usually  with  thick  and  straight 
hair,  resembling  that  of  the  Hindoos. 

The  Scandinavian  tribes — those  hardy  pirates  and  warriors  who,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  middle  ages,  issued  from  the  north,  and  established  them- 
selves not  only  upon  the  coasts  of  the  British  islands  and  in  Normandy, 
but  who  colonized,  or  at  least  subjugated,  the  very  southern  extremity  of 
Italy — had  a  formation  of  head  different  both  from  the  Saxons  and  the 
Celts.  It  was  less  extended  in  breadth  than  the  Saxon,  though  broader 
than  the  Celtic  ;  and  it  was  more  elongated  and  of  greater  elevation  than 
either.  These  men,  accordingly,  were  not  so  cool-blooded  in  their 
cruelty  as  the  Saxons  in  the  savage  state,  or  so  laborious,  and  plodding, 
and  industrious  when  civilized  ;  neither  had  they  the  irritability  and  versa- 
tility of  purpose  of  the  Celts  ;  and  thus  they  were,  perhaps,  a  more  intel- 
lectual and  powerful  race,  and,  had  they  been  as  numerous  as  any  of  the 
others,  better  adapted  for  subjugating  the  world  than  any  sept  of  men  who 
ever  left  their  original  habitude  for  that  purpose.  Indeed,  from  antient 
accounts,  as  well  as  from  present  appearance,  in  so  far  as  the  antient  traces 
have  not  been  obliterated  by  intermarriages  and  crossings  with  different 
races,  the  chieftains  of  the  highlands,  and  the  petty  kings  of  Ireland,  toge- 
ther with  a  very  considerable  number  of  the  English  barons,  are  of  Norwe- 
gian, or,  as  it  is  styled  in  England,  of  Norman  origin. 

Before  Christianity  introduced  into  the  world  a  system  of  celestial  reli- 
gion— a  system  which  is  acquired,  and  not  invented — the  religions,  and 
more  especially  the  mythologies  of  the  different  races,  threw  more  light 
upon  their  general  abilities  and  character  than  perhaps  any  thing  else  ;  and 
those  who  choose  to  examine  and  compare  even  the  imperfect  remains 
w-hich  are  left  of  the  mythologies  of  the  Celts,  the  Saxons,  and  the 
Northmen,  will  find  in  them  a  pretty  strong  confirmation  of  the  view 
which  is  here  taken. 

If  the  authenticity  of  the  poems  of  Ossian  is  to  be  admitted  ;  and  it  is 
certain — for  I  have  myself  heard  them  repeated  by  persons  who  could  not 
possibly  have  had  them  translated  from  the  English — that,  however 
detached  and  however  different  from  those  published  by  Macpherson, 
there  have  been  shreds  of  tales  and  legends  somewhat  analogous  to  the 
poems,  handed  down  by  tradition  from  a  very  remote  period ; — if  the 
authenticity  of  these  poems — or  even  of  these  fragments — be  admitted,  it 
is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  there  is  not  in  them  any  allusion  to  a  deity, 
or  any  reference  to  beings  of  a  celestial  or  imaginary  nature,  other  than  the 
ghosts  of  departed  warriors,  which  seem  to  have  amused  themselves  with 
playing  at  hide-and-seek  among  the  clouds.  Indeed,  from  all  that  we  can 
glean  concerning  it,  the  religion  of  the  Celts  appears  to  have  been  a  grovel- 
ling superstition,  without  any  thing  fanciful  or  intellectual  in  its  character; 
and  though  the  wraiths  and  fetches,  of  which  tales  still  continue  to  be 
told,  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  be  indigenous — as  they  correspond,  in 
many  respects,  with  the  ghosts  of  the  Ossianic  fragments — yet  the  fairies, 
which,  until  the  "  march  of  intellect"  pressed  sore  upon  them,  were  very 
general  inhabitants  of  the  Celtic  districts,  appear  to  have  been  of  foreign, 
and  possibly  of  Arabic  origin.  How  folks  so  very  little  could  have  tra- 
velled so  far,  may  puzzle  many ;  but  those  who  perplex  themselves  with 
that  had  better  pause,  and  settle,  in  the  first  place,  why  the  Jews  and 


The  Four  Nations.  [MAY, 

gypsies  have  preserved  so  much  of  their  original  appearance,  and  so  many 
of  their  original  habits. 

According  to  all  accounts — that  is,  according  to  such  accounts  as  we 
have — the  mythology  of  the  Saxon  tribes  was  much  more  intellectual  than 
that  of  the  Celts  ;  but  still  it  was  metaphysical  and  complicated,  rather 
than  sublime  ;  and  it  partook  not  a  little  of  the  cold-blooded  cruelty  which 
was  characteristic  of  this  race  in  its  savage  state. 

The  religion  of  the  Northmen  was  abundantly  superstitious — but  it 
wanted  those  features  of  cruelty  which  marked  the  other  two ;  and  there 
was  a  magnificent  wildness — a  going-forth  and  extension — a  maddening, 
as  it  were,  of  creative  fancy  about  it — which  imparts  to  it  a  charm  even  in 
the  smallest  fragment.  Now,  as  the  Christianity  of  every  nation  in  the 
Christian  world  is  mixed  with  more  or  less  of  the  antecedent  superstition, 
and  more  especially  so  the  more  unmixed  that  the  people  are,  and  the  less 
that  they  are  learned,  there  cannot  be  a  question  that  in  Ireland,  in 
Wales,  and  in  the  interior  of  the  highlands  of  Scotland,  the  remains  of 
the  Celtic  religion,  whatever  that  religion  may  have  been,  still  goes  so  far 
toward  the  formation  of  at  least  the  vulgar  character.  It  is  equally  true 
that  in  those  islands,  and  upon  those  coasts  where  the  Northmen  formed 
settlements  and  made  landings,  their  mythology  must  still  go  toward  the 
formation  of  the  vulgar  character.  Now,  as  the  system  of  learning — or, 
perhaps,  I  should  rather  say,  the  substance  of  learning — is  every  where 
pretty  nearly  the  same,  so  far  as  it  goes,  the  national  character  can  neither 
be  judged  cf,  nor  investigated  from,  the  learned  of  either  nation ;  and  thus 
the  antient  religion,  as  being  an  invention  of  the  antient  race — and,  as 
such,  an  embodying  of  its  powers — may  have  more  influence  upon  tho 
existing  peculiarities  of  character  than  there  are  data  for  demonstrating. 
This,  however,  though  a  tempting,  is  both  a  wide  and  a  pathless  field — 
a  land  of  dreams,  in  which  fact  and  fancy  are  blended  beyond  the  power  of 
separation. 

Intermediate  between  the  Saxons  and  the  Celts  and  Northmen,  there 
is — more  especially  in  the  north  of  England,  and  in  the  south  and  middle 
parts  of  Scotland — say  from  the  North  Riding  of  Yorkshire  to  the  Gram- 
pian mountains — a  race  which  has  not  the  characteristics  of  any  of  the 
three ;  but  with  a  complexion  perhaps  a  little  different  from  what  one 
would  predicate  of  such  a  union,  might  be  considered  as  the  whole — or, 
more  especially,  the  Saxon  and  the  Norman,  blended  together.  This  race 
of  people  (which,  of  course,  from  the  changes  and  intermarriages  that 
have  taken  place,  more  especially  within  the  last  century,  cannot  now  be 
found  pure  in  any  one  locality)  have  a  greater  elongatio*n  and  altitude  of 
head,  as  well  as  a  greater  length  of  countenance,  than  any  of  the  others ; 
and,  without  the  irascibility  of  the  Celt,  the  stubbornness  of  the  Saxon, 
or  the  hardihood  of  the  Norman,  they  are  decidedly  more  intellectual 
than  any  of  these  races.  Where  they  are  found  in  the  greatest  perfection, 
the  country  is  neither  bleak  mountain  nor  fertile  plain — but  an  alternation 
of  hill  and  dale, — beautiful,  romantic,  and  comparatively  fertile.  This  is 
the  situation  to  which  the  histories,  or  rather  the  legends,  have  referred  the 
Picts,  in  whose  cause  there  has  been  so  much  good  ink  so  unprofitably 
shed.  But  whether  they  be  Picts,  or  a  more  recent  population  arising 
out  of  the  admixture  of  Celts  with  Saxon  or  Northmen,  it  is  unquestionably 
to  them  that  both  ends  of  the  island  owe  the  most  of  its  inventive  and 
intellectual  character. 

The  small  head  of  the  Celt  is  accompanied  by  a  sort  of  compression  or 


1827.]  The  Four  Nations.  479 

concentration  of  the  features.  The  eyes  are  nearer  to  each  other ;  the 
cheek-bones  more  angular  and  prominent ;  the  nose  is  shortened  and  often 
blunted  at  the  termination,  as  if  nature  bad  forgotten  to  finish  it ;  the  upper 
lip  is  very  frequently  disproportionate  in  its  length  to  the  rest  of  the  face 
— -just  as  in  the  Hindoo  and  the  Tartar ;  but,  instead  of  having  the  mouth 
dependent  in  the  middle — like  that  of  a  Jew,  with  three-fourths  of  the 
lips  pared  away — or  almost  like  the  bill  of  a  young  sparrow — the  Celtic 
mouth  is  straight,  and  rather  depressed  at  the  angles ;  while  the  chin  is 
diminutive,  and  the  whole  puckered  together,  as  if  it  had  undergone  some 
squeezing  process,  which,  at  the  same  time,  reduced  the  altitude  of  the 
forehead.  This  general  expression  of  countenance  takes  a  different  form  in 
Wales,  in  Ireland,  and  in  Scotland.  In  Wales  it  expresses  firmness — or, 
as  one  would  say,  obstinacy — accompanied  by  a  great  deal  of  vehemence; 
in  Ireland  the  irritability  seems  joined  to  recklessness;  while,  in  the  Scotch 
highlandcr,  with  equal  passion  and  pride,  there  is  rather  more  of  cunning. 
But  it  is  probable  that,  though  the  passion  and  the  pride — the  violent  and 
momentary  impulse  of  purpose,  as  it  were — be  primary  in  all  the  varieties 
of  the  Celt,  the  additional  quality  by  which  it  is  distinguished,  even  phy- 
siognomically  speaking,  in  each  of  the  three  localities,  is  produced  very 
little  by  geographical  situation,  and  chiefly  by  the  circumstances  hereafter 
to  be  noticed. 

EDUCATION. — Although  all  education,  in  so  far  as  it  is  intellectual, 
tends  to  subdue  the  passions — at  least  the  more  animal  ones — and  elevate 
the  general  character ;  and  although,  in  as  far  as  it  is  mechanical,  it  always 
tends  to  make  those  upon  whom  it  is  bestowed  more  efficient  members  of 
society ;  yet  education  must  take  a  certain  tinge  from  the  original  structure 
of  the  people  among  whom  it  obtains,  and  by  reflection  it  must  assist  in  so 
far  in  perpetuating  whatever  peculiarity  arises  from  that  structure. 

If  we  were  to  characterise  in  few  words  the  education  of  the  English- 
man, the  Scot,  and  the  Irishman,  we  would  say  that  the  Englishman's 
education  is  a  treatise  upon  a  single  subject,  well  understood,  clearly 
digested,  and  neatly  written  ;  that  the  education  of  the  Scot  is  a  sort  of 
encyclopaedia — not  always  very  tasteful,  and  seldom  very  profound,  but 
still  giving  a  general  view  of  the  great  outlines  of  every  thing;  and  that 
the  education  of  the  Irishman  is  a  kind  of  novel  or  romance — often  very 
striking,  but  not  just  exactly  applicable  to  any  one  specific  purpose.  The 
Englishman  is  educated  for  some  one  particular  object,  which  is  kept 
steadily  in  view  all  the  time ;  the  Scotsman  is  educated  also  for  an  object, 
• — namely,  rising  in  the  world  if  he  can  ;  but,  generally  speaking,  the 
particular  pursuit  that  he  is  to  follow,  as  his  ladder,  does  not  enter  into  the 
plan  of  his  education  ; — and  the  Irishman,  who  proverbially  considers 
advancement  more  as  a  matter  of  lottery  than  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
and  very  generally  calculates  upon  what  is  called  "  making  a  hit,"  is 
educated  for  no  specific  object. 

The  way  in  which  education  is  extended  over  these  three  divisions  of  the 
country  (and,  at  least  in  this  respect,  there  is  a  strong  resemblance  between 
England  and  Wales)  arises  partly  from  this  difference  of  purpose  ;  but,  more 
especially  in  Ireland,  it  is  strongly  modified  by  the  differences  of  religion. 
In  England  there  is  enjoyment  down  even  to  the  pauper,  who  claims  his 
birthright  in  the  workhouse;  and  therefore  an  Englishman,  generally 
speaking,  does  not  seek  for  preferment  in  the  world  out  of  the  vocation  of 
his  father ;  and,  consequently,  he  is  not  so  eager  after  education,  not  bear- 
ing upon  that  vocation,  as  the  man  who  is  ready  to  snatch  preferment, 


480  The  Four  Nations.  [MAY, 

come  from  what  point  of  the  horizon  it  may.  Hence  the  Scottish  system, 
of  education  is  not  only  more  general  in  its  subjects  than  the  English;  it 
is  also  more  general  in  its  application  ;  and,  equally  to  peasant  and  peer, 
it  is  in  so  far  a  general  or  intellectual  education,  without  any  reference  to 
its  immediate  application  to  the  business  of  life.  Of  late  years,  and  more 
especially  in  the  very  populous  and  manufacturing  districts,  which  are 
rapidly  assimilating  to  England,  this  difference  is  diminishing ;  and,  with 
far  more  practical  dexterity  in  writing  and  casting  accounts,  and  with  much 
more  knowledge  of  the  modern  languages,  the  education  of  the  middle  and 
lower  classes  in  Scotland  is  not  nearly  so  intellectual  now  as  it  was  forty 
or  fifty  years  ago.  Parochial  schools  existed  then,  as  they  do  now  ;  the 
teachers  in  them  were,  as  they  are  now,  generally  speaking,  men  far 
above  the  average  both  in  natural  talents  and  acquired  knowledge ;  but 
then  they  were  attended  by  youths  and  young  men — whereas  now  they 
are  chiefly  attended  by  children,  who  are  compelled,  by  the  great  number 
of  additional  wants  which  fashion  has  introduced,  and  the  greater  diffi- 
culty of  supplying  those  wants,  to  begin  labour  at  an  earlier  age  than  their 
fathers  left  school.  This  has  already  produced  a  very  great  change  in  the 
Scottish  character ;  and  the  change  which  it  has  produced  will,  in  all  pro- 
bability, continue  to  increase  until  a  uniformity  be  established  in  all  the 
rich  agricultural  and  manufacturing  districts  of  the  island.  For  it  is  per- 
fectly evident,  that  children  of  ten  or  eleven  years  old  (and  the  average  age 
at  the  parish  schools  is  now  much  under  that),  how  rapidly  soever  they 
may  commit  to  memory,  and  how  dexterously  soever  they  may  use 
their  fingers,  cannot  take  the  same  intellectual  grasp  of  a  subject,  and  so 
speculate  upon  its  connection  with  other  subjects,  as  lads  of  eighteen  or 
twenty. 

One  great  cause  which  made  the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  the  Scots 
a  much  more  intellectual  people  than  those  of  any  other  of  the  nations — at 
least  in  so  far  as  education  is  concerned  (and  beyond  that  there  is  no  phi- 
losophising)— is  the  peculiar  aspect  which  the  reformed  church  assumed 
in  Scotland.  The  livings  under  that  establishment  were  originally  exceed- 
ingly poor  ;  even  now  they  are  not  rich ;  and  there  is  no  performing  of  the 
labour,  which  is  very  considerable,  by  a  cheap  deputy.  After,  therefore, 
the  lords  of  the  covenant  had  slept  with  their  fathers,  and  the  fashion  and 
novelty  of  the  thing  had  gone  by,  there  was  not,  and  there  is  not  yet,  any 
thing  that  can  tempt  the  sons  of  the  higher  classes  of  the  Scots  to  enter 
the  church.  In  England  and  Wales  matters  are  very  different;  for,  though 
a  clergyman  may  begin  to  officiate  upon  a  curacy  worth  only  £40  or  £60 
a  year,  a  strong  gale  of  patronage  may  blow  him  up  to  half  as  many  thou- 
sands, enable  him  to  take  precedence  of  temporal  peers,  and  give  him  as 
much  patronage  and  influence  as  a  German  prince.  Thus  that  which  is 
preferment  and  honour  to  the  middle  and  lower  classes  in  Scotland,  is  pre- 
ferment and  honour  to  the  higher  classes  in  England  ;  and  while  the  Scot- 
tish peasant  sets  his  noblest  ambition  upon  the  hope  of  his  son's  filling  the 
pulpit  of  the  parish,  the  English  peer  is  equally  ambitious  that  the  younger 
son  shall  sit  in  canonicals  on  the  right  hand  of  majesty,  roll  in  the  sacer- 
dotal chariot,  and  be  even  spiritually  considered  a  great  man  according  to 
the  flesh.  The  door  of  church  preferment  is,  as  it  were,  open  to  the 
peasant  and  shut  to  the  peer  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Tweed,  and  shut  to 
the  peasant  and  open  to  the  peer  on  the  south  bank. 

In  Ireland — in  as  far  as  the  established  church,  and  the  people  profess- 
ing the  doctrines  of  that  church,  are  concerned — circumstances  are  the 


1827.]  The  Four  Natfuns.  481 

same  as  in  England.  Nay,  they  are  far  more  tempting  to  the  upper 
classes;  and,  therefore,  by  necessary  consequence,  far  more  completely 
monopolized  by  them.  Princely  as  is  the  possession  of  lawn  sleeves  in 
England,  it  is  nothing  at  all  compared  with  the  train  of  substantial  wealth 
and  political  influence  attendant  upon  an  Irish  mitre.  Comfortable,  too, 
as  is  an  English  rector,  and  snug  and  sleek  as  is  an  English  dean,  they 
are  nothing  compared  with  their  brethren  on  the  other  side  of  St.  George's 
Channel ;  because  there,  while  the  labourers  are  many  and  the  wages 
excellent,  the  vineyard  is  limited  indeed ;  and  even  now  the  ironical 
commencement  of  the  service  with  the  words  "  Dearly  beloved  Roger," 
would  apply  to  many  a  well-endowed  clergyman  of  the  establishment. 
The  Catholic  religion,  too,  while  it  renders  the  established  church  an 
object  much  more  desirable,  tends,  by  its  peculiarities,  still  further  to  nar- 
row the  wish  for  education.  Catholicism  always  has  been,  and  when  in 
vigour  always  necessarily  must  be,  inimical  to  freedom  of  thought ;  and 
this  without  any  question  about  its  purity  as  a  system  of  religious  faith ; 
because,  if  the  people  put  their  minds  under  servitude  to  any  man,  how- 
ever good  and  holy  he  may  be,  upon  a  subject  of  so  extensive  arid  over- 
whelming a  nature,  it  is  not  possible  that  they  can  have  free  or  ardent 
scope  upon  other  matters.  But,  by  prohibiting  the  reading  of  the  Bible 
— which,  independently  of  its  divine  origin,  is  really  the  most  delightful 
book  for  every-day  reading — and  by  commanding  an  election  among  other 
books,  the  holy  brotherhood  of  the  Catholic  religion  still  farther  narrow 
the  desire  of  education  to  their  humbler  disciples  ;  while  certain  bars  that 
lie  in  the  way  of  the  advancement  of  Catholics  to  the  very  highest  offices 
of  the  state,  must  throw  a  damp  upon  the  desire  of  education,  even  to  the 
very  top  of  the  Irish  community. 

The  literary  impulse  which  the  peculiarity  of  its  church  gives  to  Scot- 
land is  much  more  extensive,  and  much  more  valuable,  than  would  at  first 
be  imagined.  Even  discounting  the  loss  that  may  be  supposed  to  be  sus- 
tained by  the  scaring  away  of  the  higher  classes,  it  will  be  found,  upon 
examination,  that  it  brings  into  the  field  not  only  a  much  greater  proportion 
of  the  whole  people,  but  a  much  more  talented  proportion  than  is  called 
forth  by  the  limited  and  aristocratic  system  of  the  sister  kingdoms.  In  the 
upper  classes,  the  son  who  is  educated  for  a  parson  may,  by  possibility,  be 
the  one  who — if  the  expression  may  be  pardoned — is  fit  for  nothing  else  : 
at  all  events,  he  will  be  the  one  whom  they  cannot  better  provide  for ; — 
whereas  the  peasant  will  naturally  select  for  sending  to  college  that  branch 
of  his  family  which  possesses  the  greatest  aptitude  for  acquiring  knowledge. 
The  larger  proportion  of  the  people,  too,  from  which  the  candidates  are 
taken,  necessarily  makes  the  number  of  candidates  much  greater  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  livings.  In  England,  considering  the  classes  whence 
they  emanate,  no  man  thinks  of  bringing  up  his  son  for  the  church  unless 
he  has  some  prospect,  and  that  a  pretty  clear  one,  of  obtaining  a  living  for 
him.  Not  so  in  Scotland;  for,  if  the  candidate  should  not  got  a  living, 
there  is  another  office  in  every  parish  as  important,  scarcely  less  honourable, 
and  which,  though  it  rises  not  much  above  the  verge  of  poverty,  is  a 
respectable  enough  sort  of  starvation — that  is,  the  office  of  parochial  School- 
master. To  the  institution  of  these  parochial  schools — to  the  cheap  rate 
at  whidh  education  is  obtained  at  them — and  to  their,  generally  speak- 
ing, keeping  quacks  out  of  the  field,  and  rendering  unnecessary  those 
jobbing  establishments  styled  CHARITY-SCHOOLS  in  England — establish 
rnents  in  which  charity  really  covers  "  a  multitude  of  sins  " — the  supe- 

M.M.  N*w  Srrirs—VoL.  TIT.  No.  17.  3  Q 


482  The  Four-  Nations.  [MAY, 

riority  of  the  lower  and  middle  classes  of  the  Scots,  in  point  of  education, 
intellectual  powers,  and  capacity  for  rising  in  the  world,  is  mainly  to  be 
attributed  ;  and  as  long  as  the  contest  for  the  church  livings  shall  remain 
between  peasant  and  peasant,  and  as  long  as  the  preference  shall  be  given 
to  the  cringing  tutor  over  the  independent  student  and  manly  youth,  so  long 
will  Scotland  retain  a  means  of  education  more  general,  more  efficient, 
more  pure,  less  expensive,  and  less  liable  to  imposition  or  abuse,  than  can 
be  devised  in  a  country  where  the  church  holds  out  allurements  to  the 
aristocracy. 

In  these  observations  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  enter  into  any 
estimate  of  the  comparative  value  of  education  at  the  respective  colleges  in 
the  three  great  divisions  of  the  United  Kingdom  ;  neither  have  I  thought  it 
necessary  to  make  any  particular  allusion  to  the  principality  of  Wales — 
because  that  portion  of  the  island  does  not  differ  much  from  the  neighbour- 
ing parts  of  England  in  this  respect.  The  public  schools  and  colleges  of 
England  have  the  same  exclusive  and  aristocratic  character  which  belongs 
to  the  candidates  for  the  church.  Their  system,  followed  out  and  attended 
to,  produces  very  neat  and  very  elegant  scholarship ;  but  it  is  scholarship 
for  the  chosen  few,  and  not  for  the  people  generally ;  and  if  you  are  to 
have  a  young  man  completely  educated  there,  you  must  provide  both  pupil 
and  teacher.  All  this  demands  an  expense  in  the  first  instance,  and  an  object 
of  reward  in  the  ultimate  vista,  which  takes  it  out  of  the  national  cha- 
racter, and  confine  it  within  narrow  limits.  The  system  of  the  Scottish 
colleges  is  more  limited  as  to  knowledge  of  particular  subjects;  but  it  is 
more  rapid  in  the  acquisition,  more  stimulating  in  the  progress,  and — what 
is  of  infinitely  greater  importance  in  a  practical  point  of  view — it  is  far 
less  costly.  There  are  some  paltry  distinctions  between  those  who  pay 
single  and  those  who  pay  double  fees ;  but  the  price  of  this  honour  is  only 
a  few  pounds,  and  it  is  so  odious,  and  confined  to  so  limited  a  number,  that 
the  distinction,  and  any  preference  that  might  be  obtained  from  it,  are 
soon  lost.  From  the  temperate  habits  of  the  boys,  too,  and  the  inferior 
price  of  every  thing  connected  with  education,  a  young  man  may  attend  the 
general  classes  at  one  of  these  colleges,  including  fees  and  board,  for  a  sum 
not  exceeding  £'200  for  his  whole  education ;  and,  if  he  be  a  young  man 
of  ability,  he  may  contend  publicly  for  a  bursary,  which  may  produce  him 
more  than  a  third  of  this  sum ;  while,  by  teaching  during  the  vacation, 
and  by  being  tutor  to  a  richer  dunce  during  the  terms,  he  may  not  only 
make  up  the  whole  of  the  remainder,  but  absolutely  save  money  while  he 
is  acquiring  his  education.  As  to  the  making  of  a  bishop,  an  attorney- 
general,  a  judge,  or  a  prime  minister,  these  would  be  but  small  considera- 
tions ;  but,  in  a  national  point  of  view,  and  as  they  tend  to  form  and 
influence  the  character  of  the  people,  and  give  them  a  love  of  education  and 
a  turn  for  thinking,  they  are  very  great  indeed.  The  general  doctrine, 
that  the  highest  price  procures  the  best  commodity,  is  not  true  in  as  far 
as  education  is  concerned  ;  for  it  is  not  only  in  the  inverse  ratio  (taking  its 
general  utility)  of  the  price  that  is  paid  for  it — but  it  is  in  the  inverse  ratio 
of  what  is  done  by  the  tutor ;  and,  under  whatever  form  it  may  appear, 
the  water  of  knowledge  which  a  young  man  driuksat  the  fountain  for  him- 
self, is  far  more  invigorating  than  if  it  were  brought  for  him  in  an  earthern 
pitcher,  of  the  most  classic  mould,  and  the  most  ample  size. 

The  University  of  Dublin  combines  some  of  the  leading  advantages  of 
the  English  and  tho  .Scotch.  The  system  of  education,  and  more  esnecially 
the  scholarship  at  it,  is  more  profound  than  the  latter ;  and  it  is  much 


]  827.]  The  Four  Nations.  483 

cheaper  and  far  less  exclusive  than  the  former — so  that  it  is  open  to  a 
greater  number  of  the  people ;  and,  under  favourable  circumstances,  the 
middle  classes  are,  in  consequence,  certainly  better  educated,  as  to  general 
literature,  than  the  English.  But,  somehow  or  other,  there  is  a  want 
either  of  scientific  stamina  or  scientific  culture ;  because  one  very  often 
meets  with  an  eloquent  and  elegant  scholar  from  Trinity,  who  is  withal 
a  most  inconclusive  reasoner,  and  a  most  unskilful  metaphysician. 

The  colleges,  however,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  Scotland — and  to 
a  certain,  but  much  smaller  extent,  that  of  Dublin — have  not  much 
influence  upon  the  peculiar  character  of  the  people  ;  and,  in  so  far  as  edu- 
cation influences  that,  it  must  consequently  be  sought  in  the  schools.  Now, 
the  leading  distinctions  here  are,  that  English  education  is  always  profes- 
sional— has  some  track  marked  out  for  it,  from  which  it  is  neither  expected 
nor  wished  to  deviate;  and,  if  the  party  travels  into  general  literature,  it 
is  looked  upon  as  an  aberration,  hostile  to  the  main  chance  and  gist  of  the 
whole.  It  is  all  subservient  to  the  one  object  of  making  and  enjoying  a 
fortune;  and,  according  to  the  general  mercantile  principle  of  the  country, 
it  is  reckoned  worth  no  more  than  the  money-price  that  can  be  obtained 
for  it.  The  Scottish  education,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  professional ;  it 
is  general,  and  aims  at  the  cultivation  of  the  whole  powers — so  as  that  the 
possessor  may  be  able  to  trim  his  sails  to  the  gale  of  fortune,  however 
that  gale  may  set.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  the  Scotsman  that  inquisitive 
look  and  manner,  and  that  disposition  to  wrangle  and  debate  his  way  to  a 
subject,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  him,  and  so  disagreeable  to  those  who 
do  not  look  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left,  and  have  no  wish  to  speculate 
out  of  the  line  of  their  profession.  Upon  the  great  body  of  the  Irish,  the 
system  of  education  does  not  appear  to  have  much  influence  :  they  are  far 
more  erratic  than  the  English  ;  and  though  not  so  tedious  and  argumenta- 
tive as  the  Scots,  they  are  a  good  deal  more  confident  and  dogmatical.  In 
matters  of  learned  application,  the  Englishman  advances  by  precedent ; 
the  Scotsman  by  reasoning — not  unfrequently  by  sophistry  ;  and  the  Irish- 
man by  assumption  and  assertion. 

In  these  observations  I  have  not  been  able  to  exhaust  all  the  circum- 
stances enumerated ;  neither  have  I  followed  any  one  of  the  three  which  have 
been  stated  into  its  minute  details.  It  is  not,  therefore,  time  to  draw  any 
general  conclusions  :  but  what  has  been  said  will,  if  carefully  weighed,  at 
least  assist  those  who  may  wish  to  study  this  highly-interesting  subject; 
and  if  the  reader  will  have  the  goodness  to  bear  this  in  mind,  I  shall  feel 
pleasure  in  resuming  my  subject  in  another  paper ;  in  which  I  trust  I  shall 
be  able  to  bring  it  so  far  to  a  conclusion,  as  to  shew  how  the  characteristic 
differences  which  we  meet  with  in  persons  of  the  Four  Nations,  holding 
the  same  ranks  and  offices  in  society,  are  explainable  by  circumstances, 
over  which  they,  as  individuals,  can  have  no  control,  and  for  the  conse- 
quences of  which  they  are,  therefore,  as  individuals,  neither  to  be  praised 
nor  to  be  blamed.  X. 


[     484.    ]  [MAT, 

COUNTRY  11AMBLES  : 

No.  I. 

Wheat-hoeing. 

MAY  the  3d. — Cold  bright  weather.  All  within  doors,  sunny  and  chilly; 
all  without,  windy  and  dusty.  It  is  quite  tantalizing  to  see  that  brilliant 
sun  careering  through  so  beautiful  a  sky,  and  to  feel  little  more  warmth 
from  his  presence  than  one  does  from  that  of  his  fair  but  cold  sister,  the 
moon.  Even  the  sky,  beautiful  as  it  is,  has  the  look  of  that  one  some- 
times sees  in  a  very  bright  moonlight  night — deeply,  intensely  blue,  with 
white  fleecy  clouds  driven  vigorously  along  by  a  strong  breeze— now  veil- 
ing and  now  exposing  the  dazzling  luminary  around  whom  they  sail.  A 
beautiful  sky !  and,  in  spite  of  its  coldness,  a  beautiful  world  !  The  effect 
of  this  backward  spring  has  been  to  arrest  the  early  flowers,  to  which  heat 
is  the  great  enemy ;  whilst  the  leaves  and  the  later  flowers  have,  never- 
theless, ventured  to  peep  out  slowly  and  cautiously  in  sunny  places — 
exhibiting,  in  the  copses  and  hedge-rows,  a  pleasant  mixture  of  March 
and  May.  And  we,  poor  chilly  mortals,  must  follow,  as  nearly  as  we 
can,  the  wise  example  of  the  May-blossoms,  by  avoiding  bleak  paths  and 
open  commons,  and  creeping  up  the  sheltered  road  to  the  vicarage — the 
pleasant  sheltered  road,  where  the  western  sun  steals  in  between  two  rows 
of  bright  green  elms,  and  the  east  wind  is  fenced  off  by  the  range  of 
woody  hills  which  rise  abruptly  before  us,  forming  so  striking  a  boundary 
to  the  picture. 

How  pretty  this  lane  is,  with  its  tall  elms,  just  drest  in  their  young 
leaves,  bordering  the  sunny  path,  or  sweeping  in  a  semi-circle  behind  the 
clear  pools,  and  the  white  cottages  that  are  scattered  along  the  way.  You 
shall  seldom  see  a  cottage  hereabout  without  an  accompanying  pond,  all 
alive  with  geese  and  ducks,  at  the  end  of  the  little  garden.  Ah !  here  is 
Dame  Simmons  making  a  most  original  use  of  her  piece  of  water,  stand- 
ing on  the  bank  that  divides  it  from  her  garden,  and  most  ingeniously 
watering  her  onion-bed  with  a  new  mop — now  a  dip,  and  now  a  twist ! 
Really,  I  give  her  credit  for  the  invention.  It  is  as  good  an  imitation  of  a 
shower  as  one  should  wish  to  see  on  a  summer-day.  A  squirt  is  nothing 
to  it! 

And  here  is  another  break  to  the  tall  line  of  elms — the  gate  that  leads 
into  Farmer  Thorpe's  great  enclosures.  Eight,  ten,  fourteen  people  in 
this  large  Held,  wheat-hoeing.  The  couple  nearest  the  gate,  who  keep 
aloof  from  all  the  rest,  and  are  hoeing  this  furrow  so  completely  in  con- 
cert, step  by  step  and  stroke  for  stroke,  are  Jem  Tanner  and  Susan  Green. 
There  is  not  a  handsomer  pair  in  the  field  or  in  the  village.  Jem,  with  his 
bright  complexion,  his  curling  hair,  his  clear  blue  eye,  and  his  trim  figure 
—set  off  to  great  advantage  by  his  short  jacket  and  trowsers  and  new  straw 
hat;  Susan,  with  her  little  stuff  gown,  and  her  white  handkerchief  and 
apron — defining  so  exactly  her  light  and  flexible  shape — and  her  black  eyes 
flashing  from  under  a  deep  bonnet  lined  with  pink,  whose  reflection  gives 
to  her  bright  dark  countenance  and  dimpled  cheeks  a  glow  innocently 
artificial,  which  was  the  only  charm  that  they  wanted, 

Jem  and  Susan  are,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  handsomest  couple  in  the 
field,  and  I  am  much  mistaken  if  each  have  not  a  vivid  sense  of  the 
charms  of  the  other.  Their  mutual  admiration  was  clear  enough  in  their 
work  ;  but  it  speaks  still  more  plainly  in  their  idleness.  Not  a  stroke  have 
they  done  for  these  five  minutes ;  Jem,  propped  on  his  hoe,  and  leaning 


1827.]  WheaMweing.  485 

across  the  furrow,  whispering  soft  nonsense ;  Susan,  blushing  and  smiling 
— now  making  believe  to  turn  away — now  listening,  and  looking  up  with 
a  sweeter  smile  than  ever,  and  a  blush  that  makes  her  bonnet-lining  pale. 
Ah,  Susan !  Susan  !  Now  they  are  going  to  work  again  ; — no ! — after 
three  or  four  strokes,  the  hoes  have  somehow  become  entangled,  and,  with- 
out either  advancing  a  step  nearer  the  other,  they  are  playing  with  these 
rustic  implements  as  pretty  a  game  at  romps — shewing  off  as  nice  a  piece 
of  rural  flirtation — -as  ever  was  exhibited  since  wheat  was  hoed. 

Ah,  Susan  !  Susan  !  beware  of  Farmer  Thorpe  !  He'll  see,  at  a  glance, 
that  little  will  his  corn  profit  by  such  labours.  Beware,  too,  Jem  Tanner! 
—-for  Susan  is,  in  some  sort,  an  heiress  ;  being  the  real  niece  and  adopted 
daughter  of  our  little  lame  clerk,  who,  although  he  looks  such  a  tattered 
raggamuffin  that  the  very  grave-diggers  are  ashamed  of  him,  is  well  to  pass 
in  the  world — keeps  a  scrub  pony,— indeed  he  can  hardly  walk  up  the 
aisle — hath  a  share  in  the  County  fire-office — and  money  in  the  funds. 
Susan  will  be  an  heiress,  despite  *  the  tatterdemallion  costume  of  her 
honoured  uncle,  which  I  think  he  wears  out  of  coquetry,  that  the  remarks 
which  might  otherwise  fall  on  his  miserable  person — full  as  misshapen  as 
that  of  any  Hunch-back  recorded  in  the  Arabian  Tales — may  find  a  less 
offensive  vent  on  his  raiment.  Certain  such  a  figure  hath  seldom  been 
beheld  out  of  church  or  in.  Yet  will  Susan,  nevertheless,  be  a  fortune ; 
and,  therefore,  she  must  intermarry  with  another  fortune,  according  to  the 
rale  made  and  provided  in  such  cases  ;  and  the  little  clerk  hath  already 
looked  her  out  a  spouse,  about  his  own  standing — a  widower  in  the  next 
parish,  with  four  children  ,and  a  squint.  Poor  Jem  Tanner !  Nothing 
will  that  smart  person  or  that  pleasant  speech  avail  with  the  little  clerk ; 
— never  will  he  officiate  at  your  marriage  to  his  niece ; — "  amen  "  would 
"  stick  in  his  throat."  Poor  things  !  in  what  a  happy  oblivion  of  the  world 
and  its  cares,  Farmer  Thorpe  and  the  wheat-hoeing,  the  squinting  shop- 
keeper and  the  little  clerk,  are  they  laughing  and  talking  at  this  moment ! 
Poor  things  I  poor  things ! 

Well,  I  must  pursue  my  walk.  How  beautiful  a  mixture  of  flowers  and 
leaves  is  in  the  high  bank  under  this  north  hedge — quite  an  illustration  of 
the  blended  seasons  of  which  I  spoke.  An  old  irregular  hedge-row  is 
always  beautiful,  especially  in  the  spring  time,  when  the  grass,  and  mosses, 
and  flowering  weeds  mingle  best  with  the  bushes  and  creeping  plants  that 
overhang  them.  But  this  bank  is,  most  especially,  various  and  lovely. 
Shall  we  try  to  analyze  it  ?  First,  the  clinging  white-veined  ivy,  which 
crawls  up  the  slope  in  every  direction,  the  master-piece  of  that  rich  mosaic ; 
then  the  brown  leaves  and  the  lilac  blossoms  of  its  fragrant  namesake,  the 
ground-ivy,  which  grows  here  so  profusely ;  then  the  late-lingering  prim- 
rose ;  then  the  delicate  wood-sorrel ;  then  the  regular  pink  stars  of  the 
cranesbill,  with  its  beautiful  leaves ;  the  golden  oxslip  and  the  cowslip, 
"  cinque-spotted ;"  then  the  blue  pansy,  and  the  enamelled  wild  hyacinth ; 
then  the  bright  foliage  of  the  briar-rose,  which  comes  trailing  its  green 
wreaths  amongst  the  flowers ;  then  the  bramble  and  the  woodbine,  creep- 
ing round  the  foot  of  a  pollard  oak,  with  its  brown  folded  leaves ;  then  a 
verdant  mass — the  blackthorn,  with  its  lingering  blossoms — the  hawthorn, 
with  its  swelling  buds — the  bushy  maple — the  long  stems  of  the  hazel — 
and  between  them,  hanging  like  a  golden  plume  over  the  bank,  a  splendid 
tuft  of  the  blossomed  broom ;  tVien,  towering  high  above  all,  the  tall  and 
leafy  elms.  And  this  is  but  a  faint  picture  of  this  hedge,  on  the  meadowy 
side  of  which  sheep  are  bleating,  and  where,  every  here  and  there,  a  young 
lamb  is  thrusting  its  pretty  head  between  the  trees. 


Wheat-hoeing.  [MAY, 

Who  is  this  approaching  ?  Farmer  Thorpe  ?  Yes,  of  a  certainty,  it  is 
that  substantial  yeoman,  sallying  forth  from  his  substantial  farm-house, 
which  peeps  out  from  between  two  huge  walnut-trees  on  the  other  side  of 
the  road,  with  intent  to  survey  his  labourers  in  the  wheat-field.  Farmer 
Thorpe  is  a  stout,  square,  sturdy  personage  of  fifty,  or  thereabouts,  with  a 
hard  weather-beaten  countenance,  of  that  peculiar  vermilion,  all  over 
alike,  into  which  the  action  of  the  sun  and  wind  sometimes  tans  a  fair 
complexion  ;  sharp  shrewd  features,  and  a  keen  grey  eye.  He  looks  com- 
pletely like  a  man  who  will  neither  cheat  nor  be  cheated  :  and  such  is  his 
character — an  upright,  downright  English  yeoman — just  always,  and  kind 
in  a  rough  way — but  given  to  fits  of  anger,  and  filled  with  an  abhorrence 
of  pilfering,  and  idleness,  and  trickery  of  all  sorts,  that  makes  him  strict 
as  a  master,  and  somewhat  stern  at  workhouse  and  vestry.  I  doubt  if  he 
will  greatly  relish  the  mode  in  which  Jem  and  Susan  are  administering 
the  hoe  in  his  wheat-drills.  He  will  not  reach  the  gate  yet;  for  his  usual 
steady  active  pace  is  turned,  by  a  recent  accident,  into  an  unequal,  impa- 
tient halt — as  if  he  were  alike  angry  with  his  lameness  and  the  cause.  I 
must  speak  to  him  as  he  passes — not  merely  as  a  due  courtesy  to  a  good 
neighbour,  but  to  give  the  delinquents  iu  the  field  notice  to  resume  their 
hoeing ;  but  not  a  word  of  the  limp — that  is  a  sore  subject. 

"  A  fine  day,  Mr.  Thorpe !" 

"  We  want  rain,  ma'am  !" — 

And  on,  with  great  civility,  but  without  pausing  a  moment,  he  is  gone. 
He'll  certainly  catch  Susan  and  her  lover  philandering  over  his  wheat-fur- 
rows. Well,  that  may  take  its  chance ! — they  have  his  lameness  in  their 
favour — only  that  the  cause  of  that  lameness  has  made  the  worthy  farmer 
unusually  cross.  I  think  I  must  confide  tho  story  to  my  readers. 

Gipsies  and  beggars  do  not  in  general  much  inhabit  our  neighbourhood ; 
but,  about  half  a  mile  off,  there  is  a  den  so  convenient  for  strollers  and 
vagabonds,  that  it  sometimes  tempts  the  rogues  to  a  few  days'  sojourn.  It 
is,  in  truth,  nothing  more  than  a  deserted  brick-kiln,  by  the  side  of  a  lonely 
lane.  But  there  is  something  so  snug  and  comfortable  in  the  old  building 
(always  keeping  in  view  gipsy  notions  of  comfort);  the  blackened  walls  are 
so  backed  by  the  steep  hill  on  whose  side  they  are  built — so  fenced  from 
the  bleak  north-east,  and  letting  in  so  gaily  the  pleasant  western  sun  ;  and 
the  wide  rugged  impassable  lane  (used  only  as  a  road  to  the  kiln,  and 
with  that  abandoned)  is  at  once  so  solitary  and  deserted,  and  so  close  to 
the  inhabited  and  populous  world,  that  it  seems  made  for  a  tribe  whose 
prime  requisites  in  a  habitation  are  shelter,  privacy,  and  a  vicinity  to  farm- 
yards. 

Accordingly,  about  a  month  ago,  a  pretty  strong  encampment,  evidently 
gipsies,  took  up  their  abode  in  the  kiln.  The  party  consisted  of  two  or 
three  tall,  lean,  sinister-looking  men,  who  went  about  the  country  mending 
pots  and  kettles,  and  driving  a  small  trade  in  old  iron  ;  one  or  two  chil- 
dren, unnaturally  quiet,  the  spies  of  the  crew;  an  old  woman,  who  sold 
matches  and  told  fortunes ;  a  young  woman,  with  an  infant  strapped  to 
her  back,  who  begged;  several  hungry-looking  dogs,  and  three  ragged 
donkeys.  The  arrival  of  these  vagabonds  spread  a  general  consternation 
through  the  village.  Gamekeepers  arid  housewives  were  in  equal  dismay. 
Snares  were  found  in  the  preserves — poultry  vanished  from  the  farm-yards 
— a  lamb  was  lost  from  the  lea — and  a  damask  table-cloth,  belonging  to 
the  worshipful  the  Mayor  of  W ,  was  abstracted  from  the  drying- 
ground  of  Mrs.  Welles,  the  most  celebrated  laundress  in  these  parts,  to 
whom  it  had  been  sent  for  the  benefit  of  country  washing.  No  end  to  the 


1827.]  Wheat-hoeing.  487 

pilfering,  and  the  stories  of  pilfering!  The  inhabitants  of  the  kiln  wore 
not  only  thieves  in  themselves,  but  the  cause  of  thievery  in  others.  .  "  The 
gipsies !"  was  the  answer  general  to  every  inquiry  for  things  missing. 

Farmer  Thorpe — whose  dwelling,  with  its  variety  of  outbuildings — 
barns,  ricks,  and  stables — is  only  separated  by  a  meadow  and  a  small 
coppice  from  the  lane  that  leads  to  the  gipsy  retreat — was  particularly 
annoyed  by  this  visitation.  Two  couple  of  full-grown  ducks,  and  a  whole 
brood  of  early  chickens,  disappeared  in  one  night;  and  Mrs.  Thorpe  fret- 
ted over  the  loss,  and  the  farmer  was  indignant  at  the  villains.  He  set  traps, 
let  loose  mastiffs,  arid  put  in  action  all  the  resources  of  village  police — but 
in  vain.  Every  night  property  went ;  and  the  culprits,  however  strongly 
suspected,  still  continued  unamenable  to  the  law. 

At  last,  one  morning,  the  great  Chanticleer  of  the  farm-yard — a  cock  of 
a  million,  with  an  unrivalled  crow — a  matchless  strut,  and  plumage  all 
gold  and  green,  and  orange  and  purple — gorgeous  as  a  peacock,  and  tierce 
as  a  he-turkey — Chanticleer,  the  pride  and  glory  of  the  yard,  was  missing! 
and  Mrs.  Thorpe's  lamentations  and  her  husband's  anger  redoubled.  Vow- 
ing vengeance  against  the  gipsies,  he  went  to  the  door  to  survey  a  young 
blood  mare  of  his  own  breeding;  and  as  he  stood  at  the  gate — now 
bemoaning  Chanticleer — now  cursing  the  gipsies — now  admiring  the  bay 
filly — his  neighbour,  Dame  Simmons — the  identical  lady  of  the  mop,  who 
occasionally  chared  at  the  house — came  to  give  him  the  comfortable 
information  that  she  had  certainly  heard  Chanticleer — she  was  quite  ready 
to  swear  to  Chanticleer's  voice — crowing  in  the  brick-kiln.  No  time,  she 
added,  should  be  lost,  if  Farmer  Thorpe  wished  to  rescue  that  illustrious 
cock,  and  to  punish  the  culprits — since  the  gipsies,  when  she  passed  the 
place,  were  preparing  to  decamp. 

No  time  was  lost.  In  one  moment  Farmer  Thorpe  was  on  the  bay  filly's 
unsaddled  back,  with  the  halter  for  a  bridle;  and,  in  the  next,  they  were 
on  full  gallop  towards  the  kiln.  But,  alas!  alas  !  ".the  more  haste  the 
worse  speed,"  says  the  wisdom  of  nations.  Just  as  they  arrived  at  the 
spot  from  which  the  procession — gipsies,  dogs,  and  donkeys — and  Chanti- 
cleer in  a  sack,  shrieking  most  vigorously — were  proceeding  on  their  tra- 
vels, the  young  blood  mare — whether  startled  at  the  unusual  cortege,  or 
the  rough  ways,  or  the  hideous  noise  of  her  old  friend,  the  cock — suddenly 
reared  and  threw  her  master,  who  lay  in  all  the  agony  of  a  sprained 
ankle,  unable  to  rise  from  the  ground ;  whilst  the  whole  tribe,  with  poor 
Chanticleer  their  prisoner,  marched  triumphantly  past  him,  utterly  regard- 
less of  his  threats  and  imprecations.  In  this  plight  was  the  unlucky  farmer 
discovered,  about  half  an  hour  afterwards,  by  his  wife,  the  constable,  and 
a  party  of  his  own  labourers,  who  came  to  give  him  assistance  in  securing 
the  culprits ;  of  whom,  notwithstanding  an  instant  and  active  search  through 
the  neighbourhood,  nothing  has  yet  transpired.  We  shall  hardly  see  them 
again  in  these  parts,  and  have  almost  done  talking  of  them.  The  village 

is  returned  to  its  old  state  of  order  and  honesty  ;  the  Mayor  of  W has 

replaced  his  table-cloth,  and  Mrs.  Thorpe  her  cock  ;  and  the- poor  farmer's 
lame  ankle  is  all  that  remains  to  give  token  of  the  gipsies. 

Here  we  are  at  the  turning,  which,  edging  round  by  the  coppice, 
branches  off  to  their  some-time  den  :  the  other  bend  to  the  right  leads  up 
a  gentle  ascent  to  the  vicarage,  and  that  is  our  way.  How  fine  a  view  of 
the  little  parsonage  we  have  from  hence,  between  those  arching  elms, 
which  enclose  it  like  a  picture  in  a  frame !  and  how  pretty  a  picture  it 
forms,  with  its  three  pointed  roofs,  its  snug  porch,  and  its  casement  windows 
glittering  from  amid  the  china-roses  !  What  a  nest  of  peace  and  comfort,! 


488  Wheat./toemg.  [MAY, 

Farther  on,  almost  at  the  summit  of  the  hill,  stands  the  old  church  with  its 
massy  tower — a  row  of  superb  lime-trees  running  along  one  side  of  the 
church-yard,  and  a  cluster  of  dark  yews  shading  the  other.  Few  country 
churches  have  so  much  to  boast  in  architectural  beautv,  or  in  grandeur  of 
situation. 

We  lose  sight  of  it  as  we  mount  the  hill,  the  lane  narrowing  and  winding 
between  deep  banks,  surmounted  by  high  hedges,  excluding  all  prospects 
till  we  reach  the  front  of  the  vicarage,  and  catch  across  the  gate  of  the 
opposite  field  a  burst  of  country  the  most  extensive  and  the  most  beautiful 
— field  and  village,  mansion  and  cot,  town  and  river,  all  smiling  under  the 
sparkling  sun  of  May,  and  united  and  harmonized  by  the  profusion  of 
hedgerow  timber  in  its  freshest  verdure,  giving  a  rich  woodland  character 
to  the  scene,  till  it  is  terminated  in  the  distance  by  the  blue  Hue  of  the 
Hampshire  hills  almost  melting  into  the  horizon.  Such  is  the  view  from 
the  vicarage.  But  it  is  every  way  better  to  look  at  this  glorious  prospect 
from  within  the  house.  So  we  will  ring  at  the  door.  "  Not  at  home  ?'' 
I  am  very  sorry,  and  my  companion  is  very  glad. 

This  companion  of  mine,  the  only  person  in  the  parish  who  would  be 
glad  to  miss  seeing  the  ladies  of  the  vicarage,  is  a  magnificent  greyhound, 
whom  the  author  of  Waverley  has  saved  me  the  trouble  of  describing — 
inasmuch  as  Sir  Henry  Lee's  dog  Bevis  is  my  dog  Mossy  to  a  hair.  I  do 
think  that,  some  way  or  other,  Sir  Walter  must  have  seen  him.  Never 
was  such  a  likeness,  except  that  Mossy  is  all  over  slightly  brindled  ;  that 
is  to  say,  that  the  rich  brown  is  lightly  mingled  with  rich  black.  A  most 
superb  dog  is  my  moss-trooper,  and  a  most  amiable  but  sworn  foe  to  morn- 
ing visits  ;  for,  although  he  be  an  universal  favourite,  it  is  utterly  impossible 
to  think  of  taking  such  a  follower  into  a  drawing-room  :  Farmer  Thorpe 
might  as  well  introduce  his  pet,  the  bay  filly  ;  and  to  all  sorts  of  waiting, 
whether  in  hall,  or  court,  or  kitchen,  Mossy  has  the  most  decided  aversion. 
He  is  sure  to  bark  for  me  (and  I  could  swear  to  his  note  as  readily  as 
Dame  Simmons  to  poor  Chanticleer's)  before  I  have  been  seated  ten 
minutes  ;  and  the  bark  becomes  very  cross  and  impatient  indeed,  if  1  do 
not  come  to  him  in  five  minutes  more.  This  "  not  at  home,"  which  he 
understood  as  well  as  I  did,  has  enchanted  him.  He  has  nearly  knocked 
me  down  in  his  transports,  and  is  frolicking  and  gambolling  about  me  in 
inexpressible  ecstasy,  and  putting  shawl,  and  veil,  and  flounces  in 
grievous  peril. 

"  Be  quiet,  Mossy !  pray  be  quiet,  my  dear  Mossy !"  And  having  at 
last  succeeded  in  tranquillizing  my  affectionate,  but  obstreperous  com- 
panion, we  set  forth  homeward  in  great  good-humour. 

Down  the  hill,  and  round  the  corner,  and  past  Farmer  Thorpe's  house. 

"  One  glance  at  the  wheat-hoers,  Mossy,  and  then  we  will  go  home." 

Ah !  it  is  just  as  I  feared.  Jem  and  Susan  have  been  parted :  they  are 
now  at  opposite  sides  of  the  fields — he  looking  very  angry,  working  rapidly 
and  violently,  and  doing  more  harm  than  good — she  looking  tolerably 
sulky,  and  just  moving  her  hoe,  but  evidently  doing  nothing  at  all.  Farmer 
Thorpe,  on  his  part,  is  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  field,  observing,  but 
pretending  not  to  observe,  the  little  humours  of  the  separated  lovers.  There 
is  a  lurking  smile  about  the  corners  of  his  mouth  that  bespeaks  him  more 
amused  than  angry.  He  is  a  kind  person  after  all,  and  will  certainly 
make  no  mischief.  I  should  not  even  wonder  if  he  espoused  Jem  Tanner's 
cause ;  and,  for  certain,  if  any  one  can  prevail  on  the  little  clerk  to  give 
up  his  squinting  favourite  in  favour  of  true  love,  Farmer  Thorpe  is  the 
man.  M . 


1827.]  [489     ] 

T1IK   CATHOLIC    ASSOCIATION.* 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Monthly  Magazine. 

SIR  : — I  must  throw  myself  on  your  justice  and  compassion  ;  and  intreat 
of  you  a  few  pages  (and  a  very  few  only  I  ask),  in  the  ensuing  number  of 
your  Magazine,  for  the  present  communication,  rendered  necessary  by  the 
article  headed  "  Catholic  Resolutions,"  which  appeared  in  April.  That 
article,  though  written  by  a  friend  of  Emancipation,  is  calculated  to  preju- 
dice the  cause ;  and  its  appeaiance,  at  this  critical  moment,  will  do  much 
mischief,  unless  its  statements  and  reasonings  are  met  with  an  immediate 
reply.  Every  question,  it  is  said,  has  two  handles;  and  your  correspon- 
dent has,  unfortunately,  taken  hold  of  the  wrong  one.  There  is,  moreover, 
a  sufficiency  of  truth  and  common-sense  about  much  that  he  writes  to  ren- 
der its  misapplication  a  source  of  very  fatal  error  :  an  open  and  avowed 
enemy  could  not,  indeed,  be  more  injurious.  It  is  not  my  intention  to 
justify  all  the  overt-acts  of  the  Catholic  Association,  which  he  so  vehe- 
mently accuses.  That  body  has  done  many  things  disgracious  to  the 
English — many  injurious  to  their  own  cause — many  to  provoke  their  ene- 
mies— many  to  cool,  to  annoy,  and  to  impede  their  friends.  But  your 
correspondent  views  all  this  through  the  fog  of  a  London  atmosphere,  which 
aggravates  and  distorts ;  and  the  inferences  he  draws  are  neither  philoso- 
phical nor  candid.  Admitting  the  premises — admitting  that  there  is  much 
in  the  conduct  of  the  Association  to  blame,  as  unwise  and  factious — yet 
it  should  be  remembered  that  their  position  is  peculiar— their  duties,  embar- 
rassing; and  that,  when  all  allowances  are  made,  if  there  still  remains 
something  which  is  susceptible  of  no  apology,  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  error  is  the  natural  consequence  of  that  moral  degradation,  which  six 
centuries  of  misrule  are  calculated  to  impress  on  the  population.  If  the 
Catholics  are  turbulent,  the  circumstance,  so  far  from  affording  an  argument 
against  their  emancipation,  is  one  of  the  strongest  in  favour  of  their  liber- 
ties ;  and  if  there  are  individuals  in  England  fools  enough  to  fall  into  a 
passion,  and  to  refuse  justice,  because  the  victims  of  oppression  do  not 
writhe  gracefully  under  the  lash,  nor  sigh  harmoniously  under  the  harrow, 
the  fact  is  deeply  to  be  lamented.  It  tells  more  against  the  English  than 
against  the  Irish ;  and  it  is  surely  not  the  part  of  an  enlightened  politician, 
or  of  a  considerate  friend,  to  encourage  the  prejudice,  and  to  elaborate  the 
sophism,  to  the  widening  of  the  breach,  and  the  mutual  injury  of  both 
countries.  There  is  still  one  more  error  in  your  correspondent's  reasoning, 
which  lies  in  the  consequence  that  flows  by  implication  from  it — that,  had 
the  Catholics  acted  more  wisely,  their  enemies  would  have  been  less  trium- 
phant. 

Upon  the  score  of  violence,  the  people  of  Ireland  have  ever  been  most 
unfairly  dealt  with.  Whenever  they  have  been  tranquil,  and  have  quietly 
waited  the  growth  and  development  of  opinion  in  England  on  the  subject 
of  their  wrongs,  they  have  been  represented  as  insensible  to  injury  ;  and  an 

*  As  an  unequivocal  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  our  opinions  upon  the  subject  of  Catholic 
Emancipation,  we  insert  the  above  reply  to  an  article  in  our  last  number — contrary  to  the 
declared  rule  of  our  Magazine.  Our  reproof  in  that  paper  was  meant  to  apply — not  to  the 
conduct  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  as  a  people,  but  to  the  measures  which  a  few  indivi- 
duals who  call  themselves—  self-constituted  or  otherwise — their  "  leaders,5'  have  thought 
fit  to  pursue  on  their  behalf.  The  letter  of  our  present  correspondent  is  written  with  spirit 
and  ingenuity  ;  but  of  the  utter  fattructiveness  (to  all  Catholic  interests)  of  the  course 
which  we  have  reprobated,  it  is  still  impossible  for  us  to  entertain  a  doubt.— ED. 

M.\f.  Neto  Series  —VOL.  ITT.   No.  17.  3  R 


490  The  Catholic  Association.  [MAY, 

induction  has  been  drawn  against  disturbing  an  order  of  things,  which,  if 
theoretically  not  the  best  possible,  yet  practically  did  not  work  sufficiently 
ill  to  require  any  immediate  change.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  have 
been  goaded  into  turbulence  and  faction,  they  have  been  accused  of  rebel- 
lion, or  at  least  of  insolence  and  menace  ;  and  the  English — terribly 
afraid  of  being  afraid  * — have  immediately  cried  out,  "  We  will  not  be 
bullied,  and  we  will  not  legislate  so  long  as  any  one  can  throw  in  our 
teeth  that  we  are  acting  under  the  influence  of  fear."  By  the  help  of  these 
two  sophisms,  redress  it  is  evident  may  be  protracted  ad  grtccas  calendas. 
The  weak  and  the  injured  are  always  wrong ;  and  the  opponents  of  Eman- 
cipation, like  the  drum-major,  too  apt  to  d — n  the  wretch  they  lash, 
because,  "  strike  where  they  will,  there  is  no  pleasing  him."  No  one 
acquainted  with  the  progress  of  the  Catholic  Question  will  presume  to  deny 
that  history  is  altogether  against  the  argument  about  turbulence.  Whatever 
the  Catholics  have  hitherto  gained  has  not  been  obtained  either  from  the 
justice  or  the  generosity  of  England,  but  from  its  fears  ;t  and,  it  must  be 
allowed,  that  if  they  mean  to  work  out  their  own  emancipation,  it  will  not 
be  by  sitting  with  their  hands  before  them.  They  have,  therefore,  two 
almost  incompatible  ends  to  pursue.  While  they  are  bound  in  prudence  to 
conciliate  the  English,  and  to  persuade  them  to  grant  them  their  liberties, 
they  have  to  rouse  and  stimulate  their  own  countrymen  to  that  proud 
assertion  of  their  rights,  which  can  alone  render  them  respectable  in  the 
eyes  of  Europe,  and  convince  their  enemies  of  the  necessity  of  concession. 
The  formation  and  development  of  public  opinion,  I  need  not  say,  always 
rests  with  the  few.  Where  these  few  cannot,  or  will  not,  manifest  them- 
selves, nations  go  on  for  ages  suffering,  complaining,  but  making  no  ade- 
quate and  effective  exertions  for  redemption.  There  is  not  a  Catholic  in 
Ireland  who  does  not  feel  his  degradation,  and  resent  it.  Yet,  without  what 
is  called  agitation,  to  lash  opinion  to  its  sticking-place,  the  efforts  of  the 
country  for  redress  would  never  get  beyond  the  nightly  enterprises  of  Cap- 
tain Rock.  The  sort  of  addresses  and  measures  which  would  flatter  the 
vanity  of  John  Bull,  cajole  him  out  of  his  absurdities,  and  appease  his  irrita- 
bility, would  by  no  means  attain  the  necessary  end  of  awakening  the  Irish 
to  a  wholesome  and  constitutional  activity.  A  certain  degree  of  asperity  is 
necessary  in  the  leaders,  to  shew  the  people  that  the  Association  is  in 
earnest ;  while  a  certain  degree  of  impatience  is  justifiable  in  an  assembly, 
groaning  under  centuries  of  oppression.  The  English  would  be  most  weak, 
ungenerous,  and  unjust,  if  they  expected  a  cringing  servility — a  tranquil 
submission  to  a  system,  whose  avowed  object  is  not  the  good  government  of 
Ireland,  but  the  maintenance  of  institutions  there,  whose  sole  advantage  is 
the  imagined  security  of  Protestantism  in  England.  <{  Sic  vos  non  vobi's." 
The  injured  have  a  right  to  complain  loudly,  and  even  intemperately : 
nature  demands  it,  humanity  allows  it,  and  policy  requires  it.  Is  it,  there- 
fore, less  than  fair  to  impute  the  complaints  of  the  anti-Catholic  party  con- 
cerning Irish  intemperance  to  a  deliberate  intention  of  withholding  all 
relief  ?  Let  any  Englishman  make  the  case  his  own.  Let  him  suppose 
the  Irish  Catholics  imposing  their  religion  upon  England  ;  and  let  him  ask 
himself  whether  he  would  be  silent — whether  he  would  abstain  from  harsh 
language — nay,  even  from  blows — if  blows  were  likely  to  abate  the 

*  Rev.  Sydney  Smith. 

•f  Perhaps  it  would  scarcely  he  possible  for  the  most  determined  enemy  of  the  Catholics 
to  attribute  an  opinion  to  them  more  calculated  to  prejudice  their  cause  than  this. —  ED. 


1827.}  The  Catholic  Association.  491 

nuisance.     The  objection  is  captious  ;  it  is  unworthy ;  and,  for  the  most 
part,  I  believe  it  insincere. 

But  there  is  a  difference,  it  will  be  said,  between  firmness  and  violence. 
The  Irish  can  have  nothing  to  hope  from  rebellion ;  and  their  reference 
to  foreign  war,  it  may  be  asserted,  is  an  empty  insult.  Mr.  ShieFs  attack 
on  the  Duke  of  York,  and  divers  other  overt  acts  of  the  association,  it  may 
be  argued,  are  as  useless  as  they  are  impolitic  : — granted.  The  weak  are 
ever  violent ;  and  this  womanish  railing  and  wordy  vituperation,  is  no  more 
than  might  be  expected  from  the  helplessness  of  the  Catholic  position. 
England,  it  is  true,  has  always  been  bullied  into  concession ;  but  then  it 
has  been  a  foreign  enemy  that  has  frightened  them  into  their  acts  of  tardy 
and  parsimonious  justice.  The  Catholics  should,  perhaps,  know  this : 
they  should  know  that,  with  a  million  of  protestants  at  home,  with  the 
whole  population  of  the  north  longing  only  for  the  opportunity  to  be  at 
the  papists,  a  very  small  English  army  will  suffice  to  prevent  successful 
rebellion  in  Ireland.  Still,  the  mistake,  if  they  really  make  it,  of  sup- 
posing themselves  equal  to  a  fight  with  England,  is  not  an  unnatural,  no 
an  unpatriotic  one  ;  and,  at  least,  the  presumption  is  not  greater  than  that 
of  their  enemies,  who  think  a  rebellion  may  be  risked,  and  who  estimate 
the  loss  of  life  and  of  property,  of  liberty  and  of  happiness,  in  an  unsuccess- 
ful resistance  to  their  usurpations,  as  nothing,  when  compared  with  the 
maintenance  of  their  own  monopoly  of  all  the  power,  influence,  and 
wealth  of  the  country.  If  the  Catholics  are  violent  and  intemperate,  the 
orange-men  are  at  least  equally  so ;  and  the  former  have  never  carried  their 
factious  violence  into  the  jury-box:  their  magistrates  and  their  gentry 
have  not  resisted  and  insulted  the  government,  and  intercepted  justice; 
and  their  clergy  have  not  openly  preached  blood  and  provoked  to  insur- 
rection. Make  the  most,  however,  of  the  misdeeds  of  the  Association : 
Mr.  Shiel  wanted  taste,  when  he  abused  and  insulted  his  dying  enemy, 
and  the  Catholics  made  his  speech  their  own  by  their  approval : — what 
then  ?  That  the  Catholic  population  are  not  as  politically  educated  as  the 
people  of  London,  that  they  have  not  the  virtues  of  freemen,  the  moral 
tact  of  a  thriving  and  united  population,  is  the  reproach  of  England.  If 
the  people  of  Ireland  were,  indeed,  good  citizens,  then  would  there  be  no 
real  distinction  between  a  bad  and  a  good  government ;  causes  would  not 
produce  effects ;  and  the  constitution  of  Algiers  would  be  as  desirable  as 
that  of  America.  It  is  the  curse  of  our  proconsular  misrule  that  it  edu- 
cates slaves,  not  subjects :  that  it  deprives  the  citizen,  in  the  language  of 
Homer,  of  one-half  of  his  virtues,  and  renders  him  as  unprofitable  to  the 
state,  as  he  is  unhappy  in  himself.  Your  correspondent,  Mr.  Editor,  has 
taken  this  question  by  its  English  handle,  as  I  have  said  before ;  I  be- 
seech him,  in  all  kindness  and  sincerity,  to  grasp  it  by  its  Irish  one  ;  before 
he  censures,  with  such  unmeasured  asperity,  our  intemperance,  let  him  look 
at  the  dreadful  condition  of  the  entire  island, — not  only  political,  but  eco- 
nomical. Let  him  consider  that  the  labouring  population,  without  employ- 
ment, are  starving  in  the  midst  of  abundance ;  while  every  class  and  pre- 
dicament in  society,  from  the  Lord-lieutenant,  to  the  beggar  in  the  street, 
is  dislocated  and  strained.  Let  him  look  at  the  helotism  of  the  Catholic, 
the  insolence  of  the  orange-man :  let  him  weigh  the  cruel  insults  and 
mockery  of  the  invading  army  of  saints;  their  parliamentary  invectives; 
their  ferocious  and  often  false  accusations  against  the  dogmas  and  the 
morality  of  the  prevalent  religion  ;  their  intrigues  and  their  bribery  of  the 
lowest  of  the  starving  and  ignorant  population  ;  their  usurpation  of  educa- 

3  R  2 


492-  The  (Jatholic  Association."  [M.AV 

tion  as  an  instrument  of  proselytism  ;  their  forcing  of  libellous  tracts  on  the 
people ;  their  persecutions  of  recusant  tenantry,  and  refractory  cottiers ; 
and  their  aggravating  triumph  on  every  paltry  and  precarious  success  ;  and 
then  let  him,  if  he  can,  wonder  that  the  priests  are  exasperated  and  the 
people  furious.  I,  Mr.  Editor,  am  an  Englishman,  and  a  protestant ;  as 
partial  to  my  own  country,  and  as  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  popery,  as  man 
can  be ;  yet,  so  help  me  Heaven,  my  sole  astonishment  is  at  the  patience 
and  forbearance  of  the  Catholics  under  their  manifold  grievances,  and 
that  the  peace  of  the  country  is  preserved  amidst  such  a  complication  of 
miseries. 

In  much  that  your  correspondent  writes,  as  touching  the  imprudence  of 
certain  acts*of  the  association,  1  perfectly  agree;  but  as  touching  their 
impression  on  the  English  opponents  of  emancipation,  I  differ.  The  dia- 
tribe on  the  dying  duke,  unquestionably  did  great  mischief,  if  it  only 
afforded  a  plausible  handle  to  the  enemies  of  the  cause  ;  but  it  did  more  ; 
it  alarmed  the  timid,  and  it  gave  something  to  say  to  the  no-thinkers,  who 
oscillate  between  the  two  parties,  and  are  ever  disposed  to  side  with  that 
which  is  the  strongest.  The  Liberators  too  was  a  most  absurd  farce,  and 
cast  a  "  ridicule  ineffa$able"  upon  the  noble  and  dignified  efforts  of  the 
forty- shilling  freeholders  to  save  their  country :  an  effort  worthy  of  ancient 
Greece,  and  of  the  yeomanry  of  England  in  the  proudest  days  of  her 
Hampdens  and  her  Marvels.  The  alliance  with  Cobbett  was  founded  on 
an  utter  ignorance  of  the  estimation  and  influence  of  that  writer.  These 
were  great  political  mistakes,  attributable  to  individuals.  But  even  in 
judging  of  individuals,  we  should  not  forget  how  far  Ireland  is  out  of  the 
gang-way  of  Europe.  We  should  not  forget,  that  for  centuries,  education 
was  penal  there ;  and  that  Irishmen  cannot  be  expected  to  act  otherwise 
than  consonantly  with  such  circumstances.  The  Irish  are  all  national  ; 
national  in  their  prejudices,  in  their  feelings,  and  ideas  ;  and  consummately 
ignorant  of  that  political  instruction  which  the  protracted  struggle  of  the 
French  revolution  has  afforded  to  the  nations  of  the  Continent :  they 
know  nothing  of  how  people  feel  and  think  in  any  other  country  than 
their  own.  They  are  full  of  confidence  and  simplicity,  and  they  are  the 
dupes  of  their  own  first  impressions.  With  respect  to  O'Connel's  conduct 
in  the  matter  of  the  forty-shilling  freeholders,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  was 
he  to  foretell  the  sudden  revolution  which  afterwards  ensued,  and  restored 
the  Irish  serfs  to  a  momentary  independence  ?  After  all,  was  he  wrong  in 
his  first  ideas  ?  Will  that  independence  continue  ?  Will  the  peasants  not 
relapse  into  that  thraldom  which  rendered  their  franchise  as  burthensome 
to  themselves  as  it  was  mischievous  to  the  community  ? — "  reste  asavoir." 
For  my  own  part,  I  take  their  present  condition  to  be  merely  an  accident ; 
and  their  former  plight,  to  be  the  ordinary  and  natural  consequence  of 
their  position  in  society.  Universal  suffrage  alone  can  ensure  the  political 
independence  of  the  tenant ;  and  without  it,  it  matters  little  who  returns 
the  one  hundred  members  to  a  British  parliament.  With  respect  to  "  the 
rent"  and  its  application,  1  differ  from  your  correspondent,  both  in  facts  and 
in  inferences.  To  its  collection  there  is  but  one  objection, — that  it  is  effica- 
cious. That  its  collection  is  burthensome  must  be  admitted ;  but  it  is  scarcely 
more  so  than  your  penny  a  week  subscriptions  for  converting  Jews  and 
baptizing  Hindoos,  are  to  the  starving  population  of  England.  Then  the 
money  is  raised  for  the  people,  and  not  for  aliens  and  strangers.  As  to  its 
application,  it  has  been  hitherto  faithfully  employed  in  advancing  the 
cause,  and  in  obviating  the  tyranny  of  the  disappointed  and  exasperated 


182?.]  The  Catholic  Association.  41)3 

landlords.  The  proposition  of  prying  into  titles  was  mere  talk — an  empty 
menace,  never  intended  to  be  executed  :  and,  if  it  had  been,  what  cheaper 
or  more  effectual  stop  could  have  been  put  to  the  vindictive  poundings  of 
the  cattle,  and  persecuting  ejectments  of  the  rebellious  tenantry  ?  On 
this  point  of  rent,  however,  it  would  be  but  fair  in  the  English  to  leave  the 
people  of  Ireland  to  themselves.  They  best  understand  their  own  con- 
cerns, and  know  better  than  strangers  where  the  shoe  pinches,  and  what 
will  best  serve  their  own  occasions.  The  English  have  no  idea  of  the 
sort  of  persons  by  whom  the  Catholics  at  home  are  opposed,  nor  of  the 
sort  of  measures  which  are  calculated  to  hold  them  in  check.  The  Pro- 
testant morality  is  as  vitiated  as  the  Catholic,  by  the  demon  of  ascen- 
dancy ;  and  a  stranger  would  hardly  conceive  the  malignant  animal  that 
a  genuine  orange  saint  really  is.  These  are  domestic  points  in  which  a 
stranger  has  no  right  to  interfere.  Give  us  Emancipation,  and  we  will 
no  longer  offend  you  by  our  follies.  You  sow  thorns,  and  you  expect  to 
reap  figs  and  grapes; — unreasonable  presumption! 

Much  might  here  be  offered  in  extenuation  of  the  errors  of  the  Associa- 
tion, on  the  ground  of  its  necessary  constitution.  In  Ireland  there  is  no 
effective  middle  rank  of  society.  There  is  little  between  the  highest 
classes  of  proprietors,  chiefly  Protestant,  and  the  peasantry.  English  mis- 
rule has  made  Ireland  a  nation  of  absentee  proprietors,  and  beggarly  pro- 
letarians. Newspaper  editors,  attorneys,  here  and  there  a  small  country 
gentleman,  and  shopkeepers,  form,  of  necessity,  the  bulk  of  every  popular 
assembly.  These  men  may  be  inadequate  to  conduct  a  nation's  affairs ; 
but  they  are  all  we  have  !  As  for  the  few  men  of  education  and  fortune, 
in  the  ranks  of  Catholicity,  they  are  much  intimidated,  and  are  easy  and 
retired  in  their  habits.  If  the  Protestant  proprietors,  who  are  favourable 
to  Catholic  claims,  would  join  their  Catholic  fellow-citizens,  and  take  their 
place  in  the  popular  meetings  of  their  countrymen,  much  might  be  done : 
but,  all  things  considered,  this,  perhaps,  is  too  much  to  expect. 

Be  the  Association  what  it  may,  its  existence  is  an  uncontrollable  neces- 
sity, for  which  things,  and  not  men,  are  alone  answerable.  The  half-and- 
half  policy,  which  has  given  the  Catholics  much  power,  which  has  enabled 
them  to  acquire  wealth,  without  entirely  removing  either  insult  or  injury, 
has  inevitably  given  birth  to  public  assemblies  of  the  people.  This  even 
Mr.  Peel  allows,  in  acknowledging  that  he  has  advised  an  abstinence  from 
legal  measures  against  them.  The  Association  is  the  mere  creature  of 
circumstances,  and  with  circumstances  laws  cannot  contend.  As  well, 
therefore,  might  the  English  rail  against  the  sun  for  shining,  or  the  rain 
for  beating,  as  complain  of  this  inevitable  contingency. 

As  to  the  imputed  influence  of  the  acts  of  the  Association  on  the  opini- 
ons of  the  British  public,  I  believe  it  is  much  over-rated.  Hostility  to 
Catholic  Emancipation  is  almost  exclusively  confined  to  the  great  borough- 
oligarchy.  The  English  people  know  and  feel  that  their  enemies  and 
those  of  the  Catholics  are  the  same  ;  and  if  the  parliamentary  advocates 
of  the  question  are  fewer  than  heretofore,  it  is  because  corruption  has  been 
active  in  the  late  elections.  The  opponents  of  emancipation  are  also,  for 
the  most  part,  opponents  of  a  free  trade  in  corn  ;  and  it  is  in  their  latter 
capacity,  more  than  in  their  former,  that  they  have  been  nominated  by 
the  great  noble  and  landed  proprietors  of  boroughs,  to  seats  in  parliament. 
True  it  is,  that  the  Duke  of  York  being  dead,  and  Lord  Liverpool  hors 
de  combat*  the  Catholic  cause  continues  stationary.  But  the  Lonsdales, 
and  the  Rutlands,  and  tne  Eldons,  are  at  their  posts,*  and  England  and 
*  These  obstacles  now  exist  no  longer. 


492  T/te  Catholic  Association.  [MAY, 

Ireland  are  equally  far  from  their  redemption.  Place  Mr.  Canning  at  the 
head  of  a  strong  and  undivided  cabinet,  and  the  opponents  of  corn-bills 
and  of  emancipation  would  dwindle  into  insignificance.  No,  Mr.  Editor, 
the  people  of  England,  their  wants,  and  their  wishes,  are  wholly  out  of 
the  question ;  and  while  this  influence  "  behind  the  throne,  and  greater 
than  the  throne,"  prevails,  temper,  and  prudence,  and  moderation,  will  he 
as  nothing.  The  oligarchy  are  essentially  a  selfish  and  an  headstrong 
faction  ;  and  the  Catholics  are  not  so  very  wrong  in  imagining  they  can 
frighten  those  whom  they  cannot  convince  or  inspire  with  sentiments  of 
justice  and  humanity.  One  great  and  deplorable  error  they  have  com- 
mitted, is  confounding  this  faction  with  the  people  of  England,  and  visit- 
ing its  sias,  with  ill-advised  expressions  of  triumph  on  English  misfortune, 
which  in  fact  they  do  not  feel.  The  people  of  all  countries  are  united  in 
interest ;  and  the  instincts  of  the  Catholics  have  taught  them  this  truth, 
however  much  they  may  swagger  and  pretend  to  disown  it.  I  would, 
therefore,  willingly  prevail  with  your  correspondent,  who  is  a  powerful 
writer,  and  a  strong  thinker,  to  re-consider  the  question  ;  and  give  to  the 
people  of  this  uufortunatexand  ill-treated  country  the  full  benefit  of  his 
powerful  talents ;  by  admonishing  them  of  their  errors,  not  upbraiding 
them;  and  by  imputing  their  mistakes,  not  to  those  who  are  mere  effects, 
but  to  those  who  are  the  causes,  the  fountains,  and  the  springs,  of  all  that 
is  mischievous  and  absurd  in  Ireland.  Above  all  things,  I  wish  that  he 
would  visit  the  country,  for  he  will  there  see  so  much  to  grieve  the  heart, 
and  to  harrow  up  the  soul,  that  if  the  people  were  as  deep  in  sin  as  they 
are  in  misery,  he  would  be  unable  to  reproach,  arid  scarcely  find  courage 
even  to  reprove  them.  T. 

Dublin,  April  Wy 


STANZAS. 

I  WANDERED  by  her  side  in  life's  sweet  spring, 

When  all  the  world  seemed  beautiful  and  young — 
When  hope  was  truth,  and  she  a  peerless  thing, 

"Round  whom  my  heart's  best,  fondest  wishes  clung. 
Her  cheek  'was  fanned,  not  smitten,  by  Time's  wing ; 

Her  heart  Love  had  drawn  sweets  from,  but  ne'er  stung ; 
And,  as  in  youth's  and  beauty's  light  she  moved, 

All  blessed  her : — she  was  lovely  and  beloved ! 
I  stood  by  her  again,  when  her  cheek  bloomed 

BrightUer  than  aye,  but  wore  an  ominous  hue; 
And  her  eye's  light  was  dimmed  not,  but  assumed 

A  fiercer,  ghastlier,  butintenser  blue: 
And  her  wan  cheek  proclaimed  that  she  was  doomed, 

And  her  worn  frame  her  soul  seemed  bursting  through  ; 
And  friends  and  lovers  were  around  her  sighing-, 

And  life's  last  sands  were  ebbing : — she  was  dying  ! 

I  stood  by  her  once  more — and,  bending  down, 

Sealed  on  her  lips  a  pledge  which  they  returned  not  ; 
And  pressed  her  to  my  bosom — but  her  own 

With  life's  warm  fires,  to  mine  responsive,  burned  not ; 
And  clasped  her  hand — but,  as  in  days  bygone, 

Her  heart's  thoughts  from  its  eloquent  pulse  I  learned  not ; 
Light  from  her  eye,  hue  from  her  cheek  had  fled. 

And  her  warm  heart  was  frozen : — she  was  dead !  H,  N. 


1827.]  [     495     } 

THE  BORDERER'S  LEAP. 

EssELSTONE-Heath,  on  the  northern  side  of  the  borders,  is  the  entrance 
to  one  of  those  jumbles  of  rocks  and  mountains  which  seem  to  have  been 
destined  by  nature  for  the  haunt  of  such  wild  and  desperate  characters  as 
held  in  these  districts  their  reign  of  blood  and  terror,  before  the  union  of 
the  two  kingdoms,  and  for  some  time  after.  It  was  there  that  the  Raven 
of  Hornscliff,  as  he  was  called,  one  of  the  last  of  the  "  border  thieves," 
terminated  his  career  in  a  manner  well  worthy  of  his  life.  The  crime 
which  led  to  this  catastrophe,  although  not  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of 
the  period  of  which  we  write,  would  seem,  to  the  refinement  of  modern 
taste,  too  gross  for  historical  detail : — it  may  suffice,  therefore,  to  say,  that 
at  the  marriage  of  one  of  his  enemies,  which  was  celebrated  that  morning, 
the  Raven  made  his  appearance — a  guest  as  unlooked-for  as  unwelcome — 
with  a  numerous  train  of  followers,  massacred  a  great  part  of  the  company, 
violated  the  bride  before  the  bridegroom's  eyes,  and  set  fire  to  the  house. 
Unexpected  succours,  however,  arrived — although  not  before  the  work  of 
revenge  had  been  but  too  well  accomplished :  the  assailants  were  assailed 
in  their  turn,  when  least  prepared  for  defence — the  bridegroom  liberated, 
whom  they  had  intended  to  carry  off  as  a  prisoner — and  their  chief  obliged 
to  betake  himself  to  flight,  alone  and  unarmed. 

It  was  the  afternoon  when  the  outlaw  arrived  at  the  borders  of  the  heath? 
and  his  breath  came  freer  as  he  felt  the  cool  air  from  his  own  mountains, 
and  saw  the  declining  sun,  which  hung  over  the  cliffs  to  which  his  fugitive 
steps  were  directed,  pointing  as  it  were  to  the  place  of  their  mutual  repose. 
He  slackened  his  pace  for  an  instant,  to  look  around  on  the  well-known 
scene  ;  his  heart  dilated  with  a  kind  of  pride  as  he  felt  his  foot  once  more 
on  his  native  heath,  which  it  pressed  with  an  elasticity  hardly  diminished 
by  the  weight  of  fifty  years  ;  and  his  eyes  sparkled  with  a  fierce  joy  as  he 
saw  the  approaching  termination  of  his  flight.  But  he  was  alone  and 
unarmed — for  his  sword  had  been  broken  off  to  the  hilt;  a  host  of  enemies 
were  behind,  and  his  place  of  refuge  yet  distant.  He  looked  back  as  he 
gained  the  summit  of  an  eminence ;  and  although,  to  a  less  experienced 
traveller,  no  sound  would  have  been  heard  to  break  the  stillness  of  the 
hour,  and  no  living  form  appeared  to  give  animation  to  the  desolate  heath, 
save  that  of  the  wild  bird,  now  and  then  startled  by  his  sudden  step  from 
its  resting-place ;  yet,  when  he  had  bent  for  a  moment  his  keen  eyes  on 
the  distance,  and  then  turned  his  ear  in  the  same  direction,  as  if  to  catch 
some  note  of  confirmation,  the  outlaw  snuffed  up  the  wind  like  a  fox  pur- 
sued to  his  covert,  and,  bending  his  body  forward  to  the  mountains,  darted 
on  with  renewed  velocity.  He  did  not  rest  again  till  he  had  reached  the 
base  of  the  ridge  of  mountains  which  forms  the  termination  of  the  heath  ; 
but  his  exertions,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  journey,  although  not  less 
steady  than  before,  were  less  violent.  Perhaps  his  long  and  rapid  flight — 
or,  it  may  be,  the  pressure  of  approaching  age — had  contributed  to  stiffen 
his  wearied  limbs,  and  to  depress  his  stout  heart ;  or,  perhaps,  it  was  only 
some  consideration  of  policy  that  induced  him  to  reserve  his  strength  for 
the  greater  hazard  and  fatigue  of  ascending  the  rocks  :  but  so  it  was,  that, 
towards  the  conclusion  of  the  race,  although  the  foremost  of  his  enemies 
was  then  distinctly  in  sight,  the  pace  of  the  outlaw  became  gradually 
slower;  and  at  length  he  threw  himself  down  by  a  small  stream  of  water 
that  gushed  out  of  the  cliff,  and  turned  his  eyes  deliberately  upon  the 
heath.  As  his  pursuer  approached  nearer  and  nearer,  it  could  be  seen  that 


496  The  Borderer's  Leap. 

he  was  a  young  man,  of  a  strong,  athletic  make :  in  his  right  hand  was  a 
sword  covered  with  blood,  which  the  mid-day  sun  had  baked  into  a  brown 
crust  on  the  blade ;  and  in  his  left  he  held  a  costly  handkerchief,  such  as 
was  at  that  time  worn  on  holiday  occasions  by  females  of  wealth  or  rank. 
He  was  dressed  more  like  a  chambering  gallant  than  a  rough  warrior,  who 
seeks  the  brown  heath  with  the  naked  brand ;  but  the  disorder  of  his 
apparel,  which  was  torn  and  daubed  with  the  marks  of  mortal  strife — his 
long  hair,  hanging  in  clotted  heaps  on  his  half-naked  shoulders — and  his 
wild  and  ghastly  aspect,  where  fury,  horror,  and  despair  were  written  in 
mingled  characters— seemed  yet  fitter  for  the  lonely  heath  than  the  festive 
hall.  When  he  saw  his  enemy  fall  down  by  the  side  of  the  stream,  a  low 
but  deep  cry  broke  from  his  lips,  resembling  half  the  shout  of  the  tired 
forester,  when  the  stag  who  has  held  him  to  bay  sinks  powerless  at  his  feet, 
and  half  the  greedy  and  savage  howl  of  the*wolf-dog  over  the  quivering 
carcass  of  his  quarry.  The  Raven  of  Drumscliff  smiled  scornfully  as  the 
sound  broke  on  his  ear  through  the  distance ;  but  when  his  pursuer  came 
within  a  space  when  farther  delay  might  have  been  dangerous,  he  plunged 
his  head  into  the  cool  stream,  tore  open  his  dress,  and  splashed  the  invi- 
gorating element  over  his  bosom ;  then  springing  upon  his  feet,  threw  back 
his  hair  over  his  forehead,  shook  his  limbs,  and  returning  the  premature 
cry  of  triumph  by  a  shrill  yell  of  defiance,  began  to  ascend  the  sides  of  the 
mountain,  and  speedily  disappeared  among  the  rocks.  The  bridegroom, 
with  his  black  lips  and  burning  forehead,  rushed  past  the  stream  without 
wasting  even  a  look  on  its  reviving  waters.  Guided  either  by  a  previous 
knowledge  of  the  outlaw's  haunts,  or  by  an  instinct  similar  to  that  which 
leads  the  bloodhound  to  his  unseen  prey,  he  threaded  the  maze  of  rocks 
with  undeviating  accuracy ;  till  at  length  the  sound  of  his  enemy's  feet — 
the  crashing  of  the  branches  that  were  laid  hold  of  to  assist  his  ascent—- 
and, finally,  the  rushing  of  stones  and  fragments  of  earth,  dislodged  by  his 
feet,  down  the  steep  path,  convinced  him  that  he  gained  upon  the  object 
of  his  pursuit,  and  that  a  few  more  efforts  of  his  strong  and  youthful 
limbs  would  place  the  fell  destroyer  before  his  eyes.  In  the  meantime  the 
outlaw,  avoiding  the  steep  breast  of  the  mountain,  turned  short  into  a  rocky 
pass  which  cuts  through  the  ridge,  and  which,  although  dry  at  that  time, 
in  winter  forms  the  bed  of  a  torrent.  In  a  few  minutes  more,  he  found 
himself  within  sight  of  a  place  that,  on  former  occasions  of  as  great  need, 
had  stood  him  in  lieu  of  friends  and  fortress ;  and,  with  renewed  energy, 
he  rushed  down  the  steep  declivity,  which  forms  the  east  side  of  the 
mountain  he  had  ascended  by  the  west,  and  leads  direct  to  a  singularly 
situated  rock,  even  at  that  time  known  by  the  name  of  the  Raven's  Tower. 
On  this  side,  the  mountain  sweeps  down  for  more  than  half  way  in  a 
tolerably  smooth  declivity — but  then  stops  suddenly  short,  and  with  fright- 
ful abruptness  descends,  in  an  almost  perpendicular  manner,  for  the  remain- 
ing space  of  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet.  Its  rugged  and  projecting 
points  overhang  the  turbulent  river  below  in  a  manner  which  precludes  the 
possibility  of  a  man's  descending  alive  ;  and,  although  a  fordable  part  of 
the  stream  lies  immediately  under,  the  traveller  is  thus  obliged  to  make  a 
circuit  of  some  miles  before  reaching  it.  Tne  rock  we  have  mentioned, 
although  seeming  at  a  little  distance  to  form  a  part  of  the  steep— only  pro- 
jecting in  a  bolder  manner  than  the  rest,  and  surmounted  by  a  capitol 
resembling  slightly  the  battlements  of  a  fortress — yet,  on  nearer  approach, 
is  discovered  to  bo,  in  reality,  quite  distinct  and  separate  from  the  mass  of 
mountain.  It  raises  its  gigantic  form  from  the  bosom  of  the  dark  waters 
below  at  a  distance  of  a  good  many  feet  from  the  wain  land  ;  but,  in  the 


182  7.  ]  1  Me  Borderers  Leap.  4  9  «* 

corresponding  shape  of  its  landward  side,  and  the  strata  of  its  substance, 
a  geologist  might  inter  the  traces  of  a  more  intimate  connexion  subsisting  at 
some  remote  period,  and  look  upon  it  as  a  further  token  of  the  great  natu- 
ral convulsion  believed  to  have  once  visited  the  elements  of  our  globe — 

"  For  neither  rain,  nor  hail,  nor  thunder 

Could  wholly  do  away,  I  ween, 

The  marks  of  that  which  once  had  been." 

The  outlaw  whose  flight  we  are  relating  had  good  title  to  bestow  his  name 
on  the  Raven's  Tower;  for  he  alone,  even  of  all  the  desperate  adventurers 
who  infest  that  part  of  the  country,  had  strength    of  limb,  steadiness  of 
brain,  and  boldness  of  heart  to  leap  across  the  chasm  which  separates  it 
from  the  mountain.     This  feat  he  had  performed  on  several  occasions  of 
imminent  danger,  and  always  successfully ;  for,  when  once  he  had  gained 
the  rock,  a  natural  path  down  the  riverward  side — although  one  filled  with 
danger  even  to  him,  and  only  made  available  by  the  heath,  brushwood,  and 
projecting  stones,  which  afforded  points  of  precarious  support — led  the 
fearless  ruffian  in  safety  to  the  ford  below.     On  this  occasion,  however, 
there  was  more  danger  to  be  apprehended  in  the  leap  than  on  any  former 
one.     The  length   of  his  flight — which  had  lasted  from  the  forenoon  till 
the  shades  of  evening  were  beginning  to  fall — had  deprived  his  limbs  of 
their  wonted  strength  arid  elasticity  ;  and,  perhaps,  even  the  few  years  of 
toil,  intemperance,  and  crime  that  had  elapsed  since  his  last  visit  to  the 
tower,  had  cast  a  weight  upon  his   head,  to  which,  during  the  progressive 
infliction  of  the  burthen,  he  had  been  insensible.     It  maybe,  too,  that  the 
dreadful  deeds  of  the  morning,  so  different  in  their  character  from  the 
usual  feats  of  arms — which,  however  bloody  in  their  consequences,  appeared 
to  these  lawless  men   as  something  honourable  and  praiseworthy — may 
have  sate  with  more  than  common  weight  upon  his  mind.     But,  however 
this  may  be,  it  was  with  an  unsteady  step  he  approached  the  brink  of  the 
precipice;  and  when  a  wild  bird,  which  had  built' in  the  cliff,  scared  from 
her  nest  by  the  intrusion,  burst  away  with  a  sudden  scream,  the  bold  out- 
law started  and  grew  pale :  perhaps  it  was  the  cry  of  the  devoted  bride 
which  it  brought  to  his  haunted  recollection.     Controlling  his  feelings, 
however,  he  went  close  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  looked  down  for  a 
moment  into  the  abyss.  Objects  of  a  similar  nature,  occurring  in  the  scenery 
of  mountainous  countries,  do  not  usually  impress  the  traveller  with  ideas 
of  unmingled  terror  : — the  trees  bending  across  the  chasm,  and  concealing 
with  their  foliage  its  depth  and  danger — the  heath  and  brushwood  cling- 
ing to  the  sides,  like  natural   tapestry — and  the  projecting  points   of  the 
rocks,  raising  their  grey  heads   at  intervals  through  the  curtain,   give  a 
romantic  variety  to  the  picture,  and  gild  our  fear  with  admiration.     But 
these  points  of  pictorial  beauty  and  relief  were  here  wanting  :  the  naked 
sides  of  the  rock  were  only  variegated  by  the  colours  of  the  different  strata, 
and  by  its  own  sharp  and  bare  projections,  stretching  forth  from  either  side 
like  threatening  knives,  to  deter  or  to  mangle ;  while  the  river,  rushing 
through  the  comparatively  narrow  channel  below — although  its  voice  was 
scarcely  heard  through  the  distance — seemed  to  light  the  dismal  passage 
with  its  white  foam.     A  sound  of  hasty  footsteps  behind  did  not  permit  the 
outlaw  to  indulge  long  in  contemplation  of  this  object;  and,  suddenly 
mustering  up  his  resolution  as  well  as  he  might,  he  stepped  backwards  a 
few  paces,  rushed  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  took  the  terrible  leap.     He 
did  not,  as  heretofore,  clear  the  chasm  at  a  single  effort ;  for  it  was  his 
breast  that  first  met  the  rock— his  legs  and  the  greater  part  of  his  body 
hanging  over  into  the  abyss.     He  was  as  brave  a  man,  in  the  vulgar  accep- 
M.M.  New  Strfa—VoL.  III.  No.  17.  3  S 


4f)8  The  ttontrri'i-'x  Leap.  [MAY, 

tation  of  the  word,  as  ever  lace  J  a  foe ;  but,  at  this  moment,  the  cold 
drops  of  mortal  terror  burst  over  his  forehead  :  lie  dug  his  hands  into  the 
hard  and  scanty  earth  that  covered  the  surface  of  the  landing-place,  and 
clung  convulsively  with  his  feet  to  a  slight  projection  on  the  side,  that 
must  have  instantaneously  given  way  to  a  less  pressure  had  it  not  been  of 
the  hardest  granite.  It  seemed  for  some  time  as  if  further  effort  was  impos- 
sible— as  if  his  heart's  sole  aim  and  desire  was  to  remain  h'xed  forever  in 
this  frightful  position  ;  but,  as  he  found  his  strength  gradually  giving  way, 
his  hands  relaxing  in  their  grasp,  and  his  feet  slipping  from  their  hold — and 
the  conviction  broke  on  his  mind  that,  in  a  few  minutes  more,  he  must 
give  himself  up  to  a  death  the  imagination  shuddered  at — desperation  came 
to  the  aid  of  courage;  and,  staking  every  thing  on  the  event  of  a  single 
movement — which,  if  unsuccessful,  must  plunge  him  into  the  gulf — he 
caught  with  his  hands  still  closer  to  the  rock,  and  pressing  his  feet  with  all 
his  might  against  their  slender  hold,  succeeded,  by  a  violent  muscular 
effort,  in  heaving  himself  upon  the  cliff.  "  Eternal  curses  on  my  nerveless 
limbs!"  cried  the  bridegroom,  arriving  at  the  instant ;  "  the  Raven  has 
reached  his  tower — and  who  may  follow  him  ? — Turn  back,"  continued 
he,  raising  his  voice  into  a  furious  shout,  "  ravisher!  murderer!  monster! 
— all  things  bad  but  coward  ! — Turn  back!  and  I  swear  by  every  thing 
binding  on  man's  soul,  to  divide  in  twain  my  sword  with  thee;  and, 
although  thou  deservest  to  die  like  a  dog,  to  fight  a  fair  fight  with  theo  on 
this  hill  side,  without  friend  or  witness,  save  yonder  setting  sun,  and  Him 
who  made  it!"  But  the  Raven  was  deaf  even  to  so  courteous  an  offer  ;  h$ 
lay  on  his  back  upon  the  cliff,  apparently  without  sense  or  motion,  his  legs 
hanging  over  the  side — seeming,  like  the  poet's  personification  of  Danger, 
to  have  thrown  him 

"  on  the  ridgy  sfcsp 
Of  some  loose,  hanging  rock  to  sleep." 

'•'  Take  this,  then,  to  rouse  thee !"  said  the  bridegroom,  tearing  up,  by 
main  force,  a  fragment  of  the  rock,  and  hurling  it  across  the  chasm  :  it  fell 
with  a  heavy  sound  on  the  outlaw's  breast;  and  he  raised  himself  up,  like 
a  chained  mastiff,  at  the  pain  and  insult.  "  Who  art  thou  r"  he  cried, 
hardly  seeming  to  recollect  his  situation ;  "  what  dost  thou  seek  ?" — 
"What  do  I  seek? — O  God ! — Look  here!"  replied  the  bridegroom, 
stretching  his  arms  and  his  body  far  over  the  cliff  towrards  the  destroyer, 
while  his  voice  was  choked  with  the  opposite  and  yet  combining  emotions 
of  grief  and  rage. — "  What  do  I  seek?  See'st  thou  this  handkerchief? 
A  few  hours  ago  it  covered  the  fairest  and  the  chastest  bosom  in  broad 
Scotland  :  the  red  blots  of  murder,  and  the  wrinkles  of  ruffian  violence,  are 
on  it  now ;  and  the  covering  of  the  bosom  is  reproach,  and  foulness,  and 
dishonour! — What  do  I  seek  ?  1  seek,"  continued  he,  speaking  through 
his  clenched  teeth, — "  I  seek  to  fulfil  the  oath  I  made  to  heaven  and  to 
her — to  steep  this  handkerchief,  ravisher,  in  thy  heart's  blood!" — "  Tempt 
me  not!"  said  the  outlaw:  "hast  thou  not  tasted  enough  of  my  ven- 
geance already  ?  I  am  sleekened  on  thee.  Get  thee  gone — hut  cross  no 
more  the  path  of  one  who  has  neither  fear  nor  mercy."  The  avenger 
paused  for  an  instant,  and  then  paced  to  and  fro  by  the  edge  of  the  rock, 
with  the  resth-ss  and  impatient  step  of  a  beast  of  prey  along  the  bars  of 
his  cage ;  but  soon  his  brow  grew  blacker,  and  his  lips  met  with  a  firmer 
resolution,  '•  He  is  spent  with  fatigue,"-  he  sold  aloud,  although  com- 
muning only  with  himself;  "  he  is  wTeary  with  murder,  or  lie  would  by 
this  time  have  sought  the'  ford.  What  holds  me  from  leaping  into  his  den  ? 
I  am  younger  than  he;  my  limbs  are  more  supple  than  his.  What  care  I 


1827.]  The  Murderer's 'Leap.  490 

for  the  craven-lay  which  threatens  death  for  the  attempt? — my  vengeance 
shall  not  be  stayed  with  a  song.  It  shall  be  so  :  the  weight  of  despair  is 
surely  not  greater  than  the  weight  of  guilt."  And  so  saying,  he  stepped 
backward  to  the  proper  distance,  and  began  to  prepare  himself  for  the 
adventure.  This  he  did,  in  the  first  place/ by  striking  his  blade  into  the 
ground,  clasping  his  hands,  raising  up  his  face  towards  heaven,  and  repeat- 
ing a  short  prayer  for  success ;  but,  although  he  stood  thus  in  an  attitude 
of  Christian  devotion,  he  might  have  seemed  to  resemble  more  one  of  the 
ancient  Alani,  whose  only  object  of  worship,  as  Ammianus  Marcellinus 
informs  us.  was  a  naked  sword  stuck  in  the  earth.  He  then  drew  forth 
his  good  steel  again,  and,  planting  his  feet  firmly  in  their  proper  posture, 
was  about  to  spring  forward  to  the  perilous  undertaking.  The  outlaw,  who 
had  apparently  watched  his  movements,  and  even  heard  his  words,  raised 
himself  gradually  from  his  reclining  posture — first  on  his  knees,  and  then, 
as  his  enemy's  preparations  seemed  to  be  nearly  completed,  upon  his  feet. 
"  Stop !"  he  cried  ;  "  witness  that  I  have,  at  least,  not  sought  this.  The 
event  be  on  your  own  head  !  I  confess  that  I  am  worn  out — I  am  alone 
and  unarmed ;  but  the  visitor  w^ho  thrusts  himself  unbidden  on  me  here 
shall  never  live  to  tell  what  welcome  he  met  with  at  the  Raven's  Tower." 
The  reply  of  the  avenger  was  to  wave  the  bloody  handkerchief  in  the  air, 
which  he  then  placed  in  his  bosom ;  and,  clearing  the  intervening  space  at 
three  rapid  bounds,  he  darted  from  the  side  of  the  mountain.  The  des- 
peration that  had  prompted  him  to  the  adventure  lent  an  energy  to  his 
limbs  which  it  was  believed  only  one  man  of  that  day  possessed,  and  ho 
alighted  on  the  brink  of  the  rock ;  yet  so  barely  was  the  feat  performed, 
that,  had  he  not  seized  hold  of  the  outlaw's  arm,  who  struck  a  furious 
blow  at  him  as  he  touched  the  ground,  he  could  not  have  preserved  his 
footing  even  for  a  single  moment.  They  were  both  men  of  more  than 
ordinary  strength,  and  their  mutual  hate  was  of  more  than  ordinary  fierce- 
ness ;  and,  had  that  meeting  taken  place  upon  the  mountain's  side,  or  had 
the  assailant  even  gained  a  firm  footing  upon  the  rock,  it  is  more  than  pro- 
bable that  the  evening's  sun  would  have  gone  down  upon  the  struggle.  But 
here  was  no  contest  of  warriors  in  the  field — no  flashing  of  the  sword — no 
spilling  of  blood — no  cries  of  triumph  or  of  vengeance  !  On  the  one  part, 
it  was  an  instinctive,  silent  clinging  to  the  only  object  of  support  within 
reach — and,  on  the  other,  a  desperate  but  hopeless  resistance  against  a 
power  which  seemed,  with  supernatural  force,  to  be  gradually  dragging  him 
to  perdition.  They  stood  thus  for  some  moments  upon  the  smooth  and 
sloping  edge  of  the  precipice,  their  frames  convulsed  and  their  sinews 
cracking  with  the  intensity  of  the  struggle,  and  yet  their  motion  towards  the 
brink  scarcely  perceptible.  They  looked  into  each  other's  faces,  and  saw 
in  the  damp  and  ghastly  features  the  image  of  death.  "  1  warned  thee !" 
at  last  broke,  in  choked  accents,  from  the  white  lips  of  the  outlaw  as  their 
fate  became  certain,  and  a  glare  of  rage  and  terror  illumined  for  an  instant 
his  despair.  The  bridegroom  replied  by  bending  down  his  head,  with  a 
last  effort,  and  tearing  with  his  teeth  from  his  bosom  the  bloody  signal  of 
vengeance,  which  he  held  up  in  the  destroyer's  face.  The  next  moment  he 
fell  backward  into  the  abyss,  still  clinging  with  a  death-clasp  to  his 
enemy,  and  they  commenced  their  headlong  descent;  and  so  firmly  did  he 
retain  his  hold,  that,  although  the  projecting  points  of  the  rock  spattered 
their  brains  upon  the  wall,  and  mangled  their  bodies  out  of  the  form  of 
men,  yet  they  arrived,  still  hand  in  hand,  in  one  mass  of  blood  at  the 
bottom  of  the  cell — whence  the  pollution  of  human  guilt  and  misery  was 
instantaneously  swept  out  by  the  indignant  stream.  L.R. 


[    500    ]  [MAY, 


I'UULIC    CHARITIES.* 

The  general  fact  that  this  country  abounds  with  charitable  institutions, 
beyond  any  other  in  the  world,  in  proportion'  to  the  amount  of  its  popula- 
tion, is  notorious — is  matter  of  pride  and  exultation  to  Englishmen  ;  but 
the  fact  is  equally  true,  though  not  hitherto  equally  notorious,  that  never 
were  charitable  institutions  so  infamously  administered,  so  corrupted,  so 
wasted,  so  plundered,  so  turned  from  the  purposes  to  which  the  pious 
founders  originally  destined  them — to  so  pervading  an  extent  too — is  suffi- 
cient to  make  every  Englishman  hang  his  head  with  shame.  It  seems  to 
shew — would  we  could  hide  the  conviction  from  ourselves — that  the 
moment  you  invest  a  man  with  office,  or  entrust  him  with  authority,  virtue 
flies,  and  selfishness — of  the  coarsest  kind — seizes  the  abdicated  seat,  and 
sears  up  the  sense  of  honour. 

For  what  ultimate  purpose  did  the  benevolent  individuals,  from  whom 
they  all  orginate,  bequeath  their  property  in  the  support,  or  the  institution 
of  public  charities  ?  To  enrich  the  wealthy?  Surely  not,  but  rather  to 
relieve  the  burdens  of  the  miserable — to  feed,  clothe,  educate  the  poor. 
Well,  and  are  they  not  actually  so  applied  ?  No ;  the  great  mass  of  the 
property  is  in  reality  in  the  hands  of  the  aristocracy,  of  the  clergy,  and  of 
corporate  bodies  ;  much  of  it  is  consumed  in  political  intrigue  ;  much  of  it 
in  family  aggrandizement,  more  in  personal  emolument  and  indulgence, 
and  the  insignificant  remnant  doled  out  unwillingly  and  scantily  to  those 
injured  classes,  for  whoso  sole  advantage  assuredly  the  whole  was,  at  first, 
designed. 

But  all  this,  it  will  be  said,  has  very  much  the  air  of  a  random  assertion* 
Ten  years  ago  such  a  declaration  might  have  been  received  as  a  random 
assertion  ;  but  now  we  speak  on  authority  and  *  by  the  card.'  Thanks  to 
the  exertions  and  resolution  of  Mr.  Brougham,  light  has  been  thrown  into 
the  den  of  Cacus;  and  in  spite  of  all  let  and  hindrance,  the  time  is  not, 
we  trust,  far  remote  when  we  shall  he  allowed  to  penetrate  unimpeded 
into  all  its  complexities,  into  its  deepest,  darkest  recesses;  and  ferret  and 
rout  out  every  filthy  and  lurking  abuse.  Though  numerous  instances  of 
intolerable  abuse  are  already  actually  dragged  into  open  day,  almost,  or 
perhaps  quite  as  many  remain  screened  in  darkness.  To  Mr.  Brougham, 
however,  we  are  wholly  indebted  for  all  we  have  learnt,  and  to  him  is 
gratitude  justly  due  from  those  who  have  already  more  or  less  benefitted, 
by  the  fears  of  some,  and  the  prudence  of  others  ;  but  still  more  will  it  be 
done  from  a  distant,  and  not  very  distant  posterity;  for  sure  we  are, 
abuses  of  this  kind  require  only  to  be  generally  and  thoroughly  known  to 
force  on  reform,  first  or  last,  privately  or  publicly.  The  rich  and  powerful 
must  relax  their  hold  ;  and  corporations,  if  they  resist,  will  be  themselves, 
and  most  deservedly,  swept  away  with  the  corruptions  they  have  sanc- 
tioned by  sharing  the  plunder,  and  the  impediments,  by  which  they  have 
arrested  the  career  of  benevolence. 

Tn  1816  a  Committee,  called  the  Education  Committee,  was  appointed, 
to  inquire  into  the  provisions  for  the  education  of  the  poor  of  the  Metro- 
polis. This  committee  had  no  ulterior  views ;  but  the  course  of  their 
inquiries  elicited  such  an  extent  and  variety  of  abuse,  as  naturally  suggested 
an  extension  of  the  inquiry  over  the  whole  country.  In  1818  a  commis- 

•  An  account  of  Public  Charities,  digested  and  arranged  from  the  Reports  of  his  Majesty's 
Commissioners  oil  Charitable  Foundations  in  England  and  Wales,  with  Notes  and  Com- 
njents;  Siinpkin  and  Marshall. 


1827.]  Public   Chanties.  50) 

sion  of  fourteen  was  accordingly  named  ;  in  1819  their  number  was  aug- 
mented to  twenty,*  with  enlarged  powers;  and  in  1824  the  provisions  of 
the  previous  act  were  continued  for  four  years.  These  powers  extend  to 
the  right  of  inquiry  into  all  estates,  funds,  and  donations,  of  whatever  kind, 
left  for  charitable  uses,  to  the  summoning  of  all  concerned  in  the  manage- 
ment, and  the  enforcing  production  of  documents.  The  commissioners 
may  examine  on  oath,  and  are  themselves  sworn  to  execute  the  trust  com- 
mitted to  them  faithfully,  impartially,  and  truly.  But  there  are  exemp- 
tions, and  important  exemptions  too,  why  or  wherefore — for  what  honour- 
able purpose  we  mean — no  man  could  ever  understand.  Who  are  the 
parties  exempted  then  ?  The  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Camhridge;  the 
Colleges  of  Westminster,  Eton,  and  Winchester ;  the  schools  of  Harrow 
and  Rugby ;  and  the  Corporation  of  the  Trinity  House  ;  but,  besides,  all 
charities — a  pretty  considerable  number — having  special  visitors,  governors, 
or  officers,  appointed  by  the  founder ;  and  finally,  all  charities  for  the 
benefit  of  Jews  and  Quakers,  as  well  as  those  wholly  or  principally  sup- 
ported by  voluntary  subscription.  The  work  has  been  zealously  pursued, 
and  the  results  have  been  annually  printed ;  but,  though  disclosing  the 
most  important  information,  and  the  most  irrefragable  corruptions,  these 
reports  have  hitherto  not  been  taken  into  consideration  by  parliament;  and 
as  to  the  country  generally,  they  are  so  manv  sealed  volumes.  They  are 
printed  only  for  the  use  o'f  the  members — a  few  copies,  besides,  which  get 
into  circulation,  do  so  by  oblique  means;  but  were  they  published  for 
general  sale,  their  very  bulk  would  alone  preclude  any  considerable 
acquaintance  with  them. 

Deeply  impressed,  as  we  have  long  been,  with  a  sense  of  their  importance, 
we  were  on  the  point  of  analysing  their  contents,  when  we  heard  of  a  pub- 
lication, professing  to  give  the  substance  of  these  voluminous  reports  in  a 
condensed  form,  by  a  gentleman  already  advantageously  known  as  the 
Editor  of  the  Cabinet  Lawyer ;  but  even  this  publication — exceedingly 
well  got  Tip  as  we  find  it  to  be — will  not  supersede  our  purpose,  though  it 
will  abridge  our  labour.  An  established  periodical  is  a  capital  vehicle  for 
spreading  information  on  subjects  of  too  general  or  too  remote  an  interest 
to  be  immediately  and  personally  exciting.  It  lays  the  matter  before 
the  reader's  eyes  without  waiting  for  the  summons ;  by  the  same  act, 
it  excites  curiosity  and  at  once  gratifies  it.  WTe  propose,  then,  in 
laying  the  subject  of  public  charities  before  our  readers,  to  take  upon 
ourselves  the  same  office,  towards  the  abridged  reports  to  which  we  refer, 
which  the  author  of  them  has  performed  towards  the  original  ones 
— convinced,  that  while  we  gratify  our  readers,  and  serve  the  cause  we 
have  at  heart,  we  shall  only  be  fixing  an  attention,  that  will  still  more 
effectually  promote  the  circulation  of  his  book,  and  ensure  him  still  further 
the  reward  he  so  justly  deserves.  The  Editor  commences  his  reports  with 
the  London  Companies,  and  we  shall,  in  general,  follow  his  arrangement. 
These  companies  have  the  management  of  numerous  charities  all  over  the 
country ;  and  out  of  the  produce  of  these  charities,  we  shall  find,  spring 
the  sources  of  much  of  those  feastings,  for  which  the  city  is  so  nobly 
renowned.  Our  purpose,  more  specifically,  is  to  state  the  object  of  each 
charity — the  present  state  of  the  property,  and  its  actual  application. 

*  Of  these,  ten,  not  in  parliament,  receive  a  £1,000  a  year  each;  and  £8,000  is  annually 
allowed  for  secretaries,  messengers,  and  travelling  expences.  The  commissioners  are 
divided  into  board?,  we  believe  of  two  and  three  each — af  course  the  salaried  commis- 
sioners are  the  only  working  ones. 


502  Public   Charities.  [MAY, 

THE    MERCERS1    COMPANY. 

ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL, — This  school  was  founded  by  Dean  Colet,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI1L,  for  the  education  of  163  boys — 
*  desiring  nothynge  more  thanne  education,  and  bringing  uppe  children  in 
goode  manners  and  literature.'  The  apparently  whimsical  number  is  that 
of  the  fishes  taken  in  the  draught  after  our  Saviour's  resurrection.  The 
original  estates  granted  by  the  Dean,  together  with  some  additions  for 
exhibitions  at  Cambridge,  given  by  Viscount  Campden,  make  up  an  income 
for  the  school  of  5,252/.  7*.  7|,  which  income,  as  well  as  the  patronage, 
is  entirely  under  the  management  of  the  Mercers'  Company.  Now,  how 
have  they  discharged  this  splendid  trust  ?  We  shall  see.  In  1 804,  by 
the  accidental  finding  of  an  old  account-book,  followed  up  by  a  little  inves- 
tigation, the  company  were  discovered  to  be  in  debt  to  the  school  estate,  to 
no  less  an  amount  than  34.637/.  15s.  Od.  The  revenues  of  the  school  had 
actually  been  employed  by  the  worthy  company  in  speculations,  loans,  and 
annuities,  by  which  they  lost  immense  sums.  To  avert  the  scandal  of 
exposure  in  the  courts,  the  company  engaged  to  refund,  at  the  rate  of  1,000/. 
a  year;  and  16:000/.  have  actually  been  refunded,  and  the  remainder  will 
now,  probably,  be  restored  in  the  same  way.  Out  of  these  sums  thus 
restored — the  company  not  knowing,  it  should  seem,  what  better  to  do 
with  them — the  present  magnificent  buildings  have  been  lately  erected. 
The  whole  income  of  6,252/.  7*.  1\d.  is  now,  however,  reported  to  be 
spent  upon  the  school ;  but  how  spent?  Look  at  some  of  the  particulars 
of  expenditure  of  the  last  year  ; — 1,000£  an  annual  pension  to  the  late 
head-master;  181 /.  in  salaries  and  gratuities  to  the  officers  of  the  company; 
229/.  9-s.  Qcl.  on  the  apposition  dinner — a  dinner  given  on  the  annual  exa- 
mination, appointed  by  the  founder,  who  directed  a  'littell  dinner  not 
exceeding  the  pryce  of  fower  nobles  ;'  52/.  lOs.  to  the  examiners  at  the 
apposition  ;  129/.  19s.  8^7.  for  law  agency;  287/.  1 4s.  in  courts  and  com- 
mittees— as  douceurs  to  members  of  the  company  for  attendance,  otherwise, 
it  seems,  a  sufficient  attendance  could  not  be  secured ;  and  a  gold  medal 
of  20/.  to  the  surveyor-accountant ;  and  one  of  the  same  value  is  annually 
given  to  the  said  surveyor-accountant — a  member  of  the  company — when 
he  goes  out  of  office.  All  this,  however,  with  such  abundant  resources, 
may  be,  it  seems,  nothing  but  liberal.  But  who  has  the  benefit  of  this 
noble  foundation  ?  Of  what  description  of  children  does  the  school  con- 
sist ?  Chiefly,  says  Dr.  Sleath,  in  his  evidence,  belonging  to  the  clergy, 
the  professional  gentlemen,  arid  medical  men  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  to 
gentlemen  in  Doctors  Commons — to  persons,  that  is,  to  whom  the  gratui- 
tous* education  may  be  very  convenient,  but  surely  not  such  as  can  be  said 
to  want  it — surely  not  such  as  the  original  founder  contemplated,  particu- 
larly when  he  speaks  of  poor  scholars,  as  well  as  those,  who  were  to  have 
wax  tapers  at  the  cost  of  their  parents.  But  why,  with  such  ample  funds, 
now  by  publicity  secured,  and  the  company  not  likely  to  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  entrenching  upon  them  again — why  is  not  the  number  of  scholars 
augmented  ?  Nay,  the  founder  himself  limited  the  number.  So  he  did 
the  wages  of  the  head  master  to  a  mark  a  week,'  though  the  present  master 
has  613/.  a  year ;  and  where  did  he  direct  an  annual  medal  ?  and  where  the 


*  The  founder's  intention  was  gratuitous  education.  What  expenses  are  saddled  upon  the 
parents  \ve  know  not.  Something  no  doubt,  and  something  considerable  perhaps — bough 
the  lawyers  will  t:ii:e  care  of  themselves. 


1827.]  Public   Charities.  503 

guinea  fee  for  attendance  on  committees  ?  The  statutes,  in  short,  wherever 
any  particular  interest  is  in  view,  readily  give  way  ;  but  where  the  general 
interests  of  the  school,  and  the  general  views  of  the  founder  are  concerned, 
— the  promotion  of  education  obviously,  and  nothing  else — there  they  are 
as  unalterable  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians. 

WIIITTINGTON'S  ALMSHOUSE. — Considerable  property  was  left  by  Sir 
Richard  Whittington,  in  1521,  for  worksof  charity  ;  and  an  almshouse  for 
thirteen  poor  persons  was  erected  by  his  executors.  Additions  to  the 
endowment  were  made  by  Win.  Elkeyn  in  1597,  Edward  Barkley  in 
1601,  Samuel  Goldsmith  in  1 617,  and  several  others.  The  whole  is  under 
the  management  of  the  Mercers'  Company;  but,  unluckily,  the  Lord 
Mayor  is  named  special  visitor  ;  and  though  the  Lord  Mayor  appears  never 
to  have  exercised  his  privilege,  the  provision  precluded  the  commissioners 
from  all  inquiry.  The  company  are  thus  legally  screened,  and  all  malver- 
sations consecrated.  The  property  is  notoriously  greatly  beyond  the  paltry 
sums  dribbled  out  to  the  occupants  of  the  almshouse.  What  becomes  of 
the  surplus?  and  how  can  men,  pretending  to  character  and  respectability, 
appropriate  that,  of  which  they  know  themselves  to  be  but  trustees,  to 
purposes  which  the  donors  never  contemplated? 

DAUNTSEY  CHARITIES. — I.  Coals. — Alderman  Wm.  Dauntsey,  in  1542. 
left  200/.  to  be  lent  to  young  men  free  of  the  company,  50/.  each,  for 
seven  years,  on  the  condition  of  a  load  of  coals  being  given  to  the  poor  of 
certain  parishes  in  the  city.  No  member  of  the  company  requiring  these 
loans — by  the  way,  they  are  all  merchants  of  the  first  class,  bankers,  &c. 
— 537.  in  acquittance  are  now  paid  to  the  officers  of  those  parishes.  This, 
as  to  the  amount,  may  not  be  much  amiss. — 2.  School  and  almshouse  at 
Went  Lavington,  Wiltshire.  The  school  was  destined  for  the  children  of 
the  parish  generally,  and  the  almshouse  for  five  men  and  two  women. 
When  the  property,  consisting  of  houses  in  the  city,  came  into  the  hands  of 
the  company,  the  changes  upon  it  were  10£  for  the  schoolmaster,  and 
10*.  1  \d.  a  quarter  for  each  of  the  alms-people,  called  the  beadsmen  and 
women  of  West  Lavington — that  is,  about  25/. ;  and  the  rents  amounted  to 
411.  Additions  to  the  allowances  of  the  master  and  the  alms-folk  have 
been  made  from  time  to  time ;  the  actual  payments  now  made  to  them 
amount  to  2'21/. ;  and  the  average  expenses  for  rebuilding,  repairing,  &c. 
for  the  last  eighteen  years  have  been  90/. ;  but  the  rents  have  swollen  to 
1 ,060/.  What  becomes  of  this  700/.  or  800/.  ?  Is  it  distributed  in  acts 
of  charity,  or  discussed  in  feats  of  guttling  ?  Is  it  pocketed  by  the  com- 
pany for  the  good  of  their  families,  or  exchequered  for  some  future  scene 
of  jubilee  magnificence?  Why  is  not  a  school  established  to  take  in  the 
neighbouring  parishes  ?  arid  why  are  not  the  beads-people  more  liberally 
relieved,  and  their  members  increased  ?  The  intention  of  the  benevolent 
founder  is  manifest — to  educate  the  children  and  assist  the  poor  of  Wrest 
Lavington.  If  all  be,  indeed,  educated  and  relieved  that  want  educating 
and  relieving  there,  we  may  be  sure  there  are  others  in  the  neighbourhood 
who  are  not.  Let  the  company  promptly  come  forward,  and  act  with 
something  like  honour  and  humanity,  and  not  wait  for  the  forcing  of  the 
legislature,  to  their  own  eternal  disgrace. 

LADY  JOAN  BRADBURY'S  CHARITY. — The  company,  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.,  were  empowered  by  patent  to  receive  lands,  to  the  value  of 
20/.  a  year,  from  Dame  Joan  Bradbury ;  and,  in  pursuance  of  this  autho- 
rity, the  Bishop  of  Norwich  granted  them  twenty-nine  acres  in  Mary-le- 
bone,  and  120  in  St.  Giles's  and  St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields,  of  the  annual 


504  Public   Charities.  >  [MAV, 

value  of  IS/.  &>.  &/.,  in  part  of  the  said  201.  This  grant  was  to  be  applied 
to  the  maintenance  of  certain  SUPERSTITIOUS  uses  in  the  church  of  St. 
Stephen's,  Coleman-street — except  thirty  shillings,  to  be  distributed  in 
coals  among  the  poor  of  the  same  parish.  What  has  become  of  this  pro- 
perty ?  There  has  been  strange  management  on  the  part  of  this  Mer- 
cers' Company  in  ancient  days  ;  and  the  conduct  of  the  commissioners  with 
respect  to  this  property  is  perfectly  unaccountable.  The  application  of  the 
property,  after  the  discontinuance  of  these  superstitious  uses,  is  involved  in 
obscurity  ;  and  they  did  not,  they  say,  think  it  material  to  inquire  farther 
about  it.  Not  material  to  inquire  ?  On  what  principle  could  they  thus 
desert  their  sworn  duty  ?  Did  it  never  strike  them  that  the  good  lady, 
though  she  might  direct  her  donations  to  be  applied  to  superstitious  uses, 
yet  doubtless  meant  to  benefit  her  fellow-creatures — and,  no  doubt,  speci- 
fically, her  poorer  fellow-creatures?  But  the  property  itself — the  M9 
acres  in. the  heart  of  London,  covered  with  houses  every  foot  of  it — does 
the  company  hold  it  still  ?  No  ;  eight  acres  and  a  half  are  all  that  are 
left  of  it  in  their  hands — forming  the  north  side  of  Long  Acre  and  the 
adjoining  street.  But  the  produce  of  these  eight  acres  and  a  half,  in  such  a 
position,  must  be  of  some  significance.  What  becomes  of  it  ?  How  does 
the  company  apply  the  still  valuable  relic  of  this  once  magnificent  dorja- 
tion  ?  Have  they  found  any  analogous  use  for  it  ?  The  poor  lady's  wishes 
have  been  held  in  utter  scorn,  ,even  to  the  distribution  of  the  thirty  shillings 
in  coals.  They  are  paid,  not  in  coals,  but  in  the  shape  and  tale  of  thirty 
shillings  still,  into  the  general  poor-account,  of  St.  Stephen's,  Colemau- 
street. 

ROBERT  CHERTSEY'S  GIFT,  1555. — All  his  messuages,  tenements,  and 
houses  in  the  parish  of  St.  James's,  Garlick-hithe,  were  conveyed  to  the 
company  on  the  death  of  his  wife,  on  condition  that  seven-pence  a  week  be 
paid  to  each  of  three  poor  householders,  free  of  the  company,  for  ever ; 
and,  accordingly,  seven-pence  a  week  is  most  conscientiously  paid  to  three 
poor  widows  of  freemen  of  the  company.  This  property  must  be  of  con- 
siderable value;  but  the  commissioners  have  left  us  completely  in  the  dark 
about  it.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?  Were  they  wearied,  or  careless, 
or  disgusted  ?  Let  them  return  to  the  charge,  and  fearlessly  and  faithfully 
perform  the  duty  they  have  sworn  to  fulfil. 

LADY  GRESHAM'S  GIFT,  15(50. — Dame  Isabell,  widow  of  Sir  Richard 
Gresham,  left  to  the  Mercers'  Company,  in  trust,  certain  houses  in  the  city, 
charged  with  the  payment  of  9/.,  to  be  distributed  to  the  poor  of  certain 
parishes  annually  in  sums  of  eighteen-pence  each — or  in  coals,  one  sack  or 
more;  and  empowering  the  company  to  take  ten  shillings  to  compensate  its 
officers  for  their  trouble.  The  rental  of  the  estates  was  then  14/.  \s.  '3d.  ; 
but,  in  1819,  it  had  grown  to  902/.  What  do  the  company  do  with  it  ? 
Oil !  not  one  farthing  beyond  the  original  9/.  1 0*.  do  these  cautious  and  con- 
scientious trustees  venture  to  distribute,  though  the  intentions  of  the  donor 
so  stare  them  in  the  face,  that  they  must  studiously  turn  away  to  avoid  the 
petrifying  gaze.  This  is  one  of  the 'grossest  pieces  of  corruption  that  the 
corrupt  trusts  of  corrupted  England  can  shew. 

SIR  THOMAS  GRESHAM,  1575. — The  estates  left  by  this  magnificent 
merchant  now  produce  6,080/.  a  year,  which  sum,  it  appears,  is  divided 
equally  between  the  corporation  of  London  and  the  Mercers' Company. 
The  charges  upon  the  estate  are  50/.  for  each  of  seven  lecturers,  to  which 
another50/,was  added  in  lieu  of  residence,  when  the  government  purchased 
the  present  site  of  the  Excise,  where,  before;  the  lecturers  had,  each  of  them, 


1827.]  Public  Uun-ities.  505 

chambers  ;  wiiich  sums,  together,  amount  to  700/  ; — 531.  6*.  8d.  for  eight 
alms-people  of  St.  Peter-le-Poor ;  50/.  for  the  relief  of  poor  persons  in 
the  prisons  of  Newgate,  &c. ;  10/.  to  each  of  five  hospitals  ;  and  100/.  the 
company  is  empowered  to  spend  on  four  quarterly  dinners,  for  the  whole 
company,  in  their  hall.  The  annual  payments,  then,  out  of  the  estate  now 
are  773/.  \s.  from  the  city's  share,  and  340/.  out  of  that  of  the  Mercers. 
The  Mercers,  therefore,  still  pocket  2,700£  a  year.  How  many  dinners 
will  this  sum  aflford  Monsieur  Jarrin, — or,  still  better,  Mr.  Alderman 
Birch  ? 

But  these  lectures,  on  which  TOO/,  are  thus  expended — of  what  benefit 
are  they— -and  to  whom  ?  Do  these  lecturers  perform  any  duty  ?  Are 
lectures  actually  read  ?  Yes ;  the  gentleman  to  whom  we  are  so  much 
indebted  for  his  analysis  of  the  Commissioners'  Reports,  about  a  twelve- 
month ago — having  some  mistrust  upon  the  matter — resolved  to  ascertain 
whether  there  really  were  lecturers  or  lectures.  The  first  time  he  approached 
the  scene  indicated  by  public  advertisement,  all  was  still  as  death;  the 
second,  third,  fourth  visits,  and  many  more — no  signs  of  activity.  At  last, 
on  venturing  to  inquire  of  one  of  the  'Change-keepers,  he  was  told  nobody 
attended — but  sometimes  the  rooms  were  open,  and  a  lecture  read.  En- 
couraged by  this  glimpse  of  hope,  he  persevered,  and  eventually  had  the 
good  fortune  to  find  the  door  open,  and  some  one  at  the  door  evidently 
watching  for  the  arrival  of  auditors.  He  stept  in  ;  and  presently  arrived 
the  professor.  It  was  he  of  Geometry, — who  forthwith  commenced,  what 
appeared  to  be  a  discussion  on  the  properties  of  fire  ;  in  the  course  of  which 
the  audience,  consisting  of  six  persons,  were  informed,  that  fire  was  one 
of  the  four  elements,  out  of  which  all  things  were  made  or  begotten.  But 
all  such  evidence  is  superfluous :  every  body  actually  knows,  or  safely  con- 
cludes, the  office  is  become  a  sinecure.  Cannot  these  institutions,  however, 
be  made  available,  when  attempts  are  making  on  all  sides,  and  assistance 
wanted,  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  science  ?  If  but  one  of  the  company 
were  animated  with  the  spirit  that  is  stirring  the  world  around  them,  his 
fraternity  could  not,  for  very  shame,  refuse  to  enforce  on  the  lecturers  an 
effective  compliance  with  the  will  of  the  founder.  If  the  lectures  were  of 
any  value,  there  would  be  no  want  of  audience,  even  upon  'Change;  and 
if  money  be  wanted  for  modern  machinery,  or  the  more  liberal  remuneration 
of  able  lecturers,  the  company  have,  or  ought  to  have,  enough  and  to  spare. 

TRINITY  HOSPITAL,  GREENWICH. — Founded  by  Henry.  Earl  of  North- 
ampton, in  1615,  for  a  warden  and  twenty  poor  men,  nominable,  and  on 
good  grounds  removable,  by  the  Mercers'  Company ;  twelve  to  be  taken 
from  Greenwich,  and  eight  from  Shotesham  in  Norfolk,  where  the  earl  was 
born.  Lands  were  left  for  the  maintenance  ;  and  the  company  manage  the 
property,  and  regulate  the  allowance  to  the  alms- people ;  but  no  part  of  the 
income,  it  seems,  passes  through  their  hands.  We  do  not  understand  this. 
Twelve  of  the  company  are,  by  the  earl's  will,  visitors  of  the  hospital,  and, 
by  the  terms  of  their  authority,  the  commissioners  conceived  themselves 
to  be  precluded  from  all  inquiry;  and  abuse,  if  abuse  there  be — which  we 
suppose  there  must  be — is  thus  again  protected. 

SIR  THOMAS  BENNETT'S  CHARITY,  1616. — This  was  the  splendid 
bequest  of  the  rectory  and  vicarage  of  Kirton,  in  the  county  of  Lincoln, 
and  of  all  messuages,  lands,  and  tithes  thereto  belonging.  The  rent 
reserved  upon  a  lease  of  these  premises  for  forty-one  years,  dated  14th 
James  L,  was  150/. ;  of  which  sum  the  wardens  and  eighteen  of  the  Mer- 
cers' Company  were  appointed  trustees ;  and  the  uses  to  which  the  whole, 

M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  17.  3  T 


Put/it:   Clutniir*.  [MAY, 

witli  the  exception  of  nine  shillings,  was  to  bo  applied,  were  expressly 
stated.  Among  these  uses  are  20L  to  fifteen  of  the  most  poor  and  aged 
sort  of  men  and  women  of  the  borough  of  Wallingford ;  20/.  to  four  poor 
brethren  of  the  Mercers'  Company;  24 /.  for  redeeming  twelve  or  more 
poor  debtors  yearly  in  the  two  compters  and  Ludgate — that  is,  such  as 
were  redeemable  for  forty  shillings,  or  less;  14/.  for  clothing  poor  and 
naked  men,  women,  and  children,  wandering  in  the  streets  of  London,  and 
that  have  no  dwelling  ;  20/.  for  Christ's  Hospital ;  20/.  for  a  dinner  to  the 
warders,  assistants,  and  livery  of  the  company,  on  St.  Andrew's  Day,  &c. 
The  company  have  done  pretty  much  as  they  pleased  with  this  charity. 
The  annuity  of  20/.  to  Christ's  Hospital  they  have  redeemed.  The  present 
rental  of  the  estate  is  1,000/.  a  year:  the  charges  upon  it  amount  to  509/.; 
but  the  last  tenant,  on  condition  of  giving  up  the  lease,  had  an  annuity 
granted  of  400/c,  which,  of  course,  will  fall  in  by-and-bye ;  and  then  the 
charges  will  be  only  109/.  out  of  1,000/. 

But  we  wish  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  241.  for  redeeming 
debtors.  This  sum,  in  spite  of  the  vast  numbers  that  have  always  crowded 
our  gaols,  was,  it  seems,  unapplied  for,  and  was  consequently  invested  in 
the  public  funds;  and,  in  1818,  the  dividends  amounted  to  another  24/. 
In  1820,  there  was  actually  a  balance  of  149/.  11*.  1  \d.  in  hand.  Had 
the  company  no  bowels  ?  The  keeper  of  Whitecross-street  prison  no*\T, 
we  learn,  is  annually  informed  of  the  sum  in  hand,  with  liberty  to  apply 
for  the  whole  of  it,  if  he  find  proper  objects  ;  and  the  debts,  to  which  relief 
may  be  granted,  are  extended  to  4/.  or  51.  Why,  we  ask,  is  not  the  sum 
thus  disposable  trebled,  or  quadrupled,  or  rather  decupled  ?  The  London 
debtor  prisons  are  in  a  horrible  state.  The  1 4/.  assigned  to  the  destitute — 
to  save  themselves  trouble — the  company  paid  over,  without  the  addition  of 
a  farthing,  in  1820,  to  the  Mendicity  Society. 

BANCKS'S  CHARITY,  1619. — A  house  and  six  acres  of  land  in  Holloway, 
in  the  parish  of  Islington,  Middlesex  ;  the  whole  rent  of  which,  then 
amounting  to  ML  was  directed  to  be  applied  by  the  company  to  specific 
uses.  This  171.  they  still  distribute  scrupulously — but  what  becomes  of 
the  balance  ?  The  rent  is  now  84/.  Mr.  Bancks  also  left  200/.  to  be  lent 
to  two  young  men  of  the  company' — the  interest  to  be  added  to  the  rent  of 
the  Holloway  land.  For  this  the  company  have  not  accounted  to  the  com- 
missioners. 

MERCERS'  SCHOOL. — In  1542  Henry  VIII.,  by  patent,  granted  to 
the  Company  certain  premises  belonging  to  the  dissolved  hospital  of 
St.  Thomas  of  Aeon,  on  part  of  which  premises  the  present  hall,  chapel, 
&c.,  of  the  company,  stand,  in  consideration  of  969/.  17*.  6d.,  and 
also,  on  condition  of  keeping  a  free  grammar  school  for  twenty-five 
boys.  This  school  has  been  kept  up  nearly  in  the  manner  prescribed 
by  the  original  instrument.  To  the  Mercers',  also,  Thomas  Rich  be- 
queathed all  his  tenements  in  St.  Mary-axe,  on  condition  of  their  allow- 
ing two  exhibitions,  of  6L  each,  to  poor  scholars  taught  in  Mercers'  school 
and  sent  to  the  University  ;  which  property  now  produces  SO/,  a  year.  No 
exhibitions  were  claimed  till  1817.  The  money,  however,  had  been 
funded,  and  the  dividends  now  amount  to  90/.  Another  small  property 
wTas  left  by  the  same  Thomas  Rich,  directing  41.  for  special  uses,  and  a 
moiety  of  the  remainder  to  be  paid  to  the  school  master.  This  produces 
46/.  The  average  sum  spent  on  the  school  for  the  last  seven  years  is 
617l.-2s.  \d.  The  value  of  the  premises,  granted  by  the  crown,  either  at 
the  time  of  the  grant,  or  at  present,  we  haveno  means  of  judging,  nor, .  of 


1827.J  Public  Uiarities.  507 

course,  of  determining  the  degree  of  liberality  shewn  by  the  company  in 
this  case.  Ex  wio  diace  onmes.  The  master  has  250/.  and  a  house,  rent 
and  tax  free.  There  are  thirty-five  boys — ten  beyond  the  original  contract 
— who  are  instructed  in  Greek  and  Latin,  and,  since  1804,  they  have  been 
taught  writing  and  arithmetic,  by  a  master  appointed  by  the  company. 
Here  then  the  company  have  deviated  from  the  indenture  of  foundation — 
have  augmented  the  number,  and  extended  the  branches  of  education. 
Why  cannot  they  do  the  same  at  St.  Paul's,  where  they  have  more  space 
to  turn  in  ? 

FisHBOURNE1s  CHARITIES,  1 625. — This  munificent  citizen  left  to  the 
Mercers'  9,000/.,  to  be  applied  to  religious  and  charitable  purposes — 500/. 
for  a  weekly  sermon  in  their  own  chapel  from  Michaelmas  to  Lent;  2,800/. 
to  purchase  impropriate  livings  in  some  northern  county,  where  the  word  of 
God  was  most  needed;  1,000/.  to  be  lent  gratis,  on  security,  to  five  young 
men  free  of  the  company ;  1 ,000/.  to  purchase  land  of  the  clear  yearly 
value  of  50/.,  of  which  was  designed  for  a  lecture  in  the  church  of 
St.  Bartholomew — 201.  to  be  distributed  to  the  poor  of  the  same  parish, 
and  the  company  are  directed  to  take  care  that  this  do  not  abate  the  assess- 
ment of  the  wealthier  sort,  but  to  make  it  a  clear  increase,  and  yearly 
addition  of  relief  to  the  poor — and  the  remaining  51.  to  be  shared  between 
the  wardens  arid  clerk  of  the  company ;  4201.  to  be  laid  out  in  land,  and 
the  rent  expended  in  a  dinner  to  the  livery,  and  a  sermon  before  the  dinner; 
300/.  for  law  expenses  ;  J,000/.  (for  land)  to  be  distributed  in  clothes  to 
the  poor  of  the  company ;  and  lastly,  2,000/.  to  the  town  of  H  untingdon, 
to  be  applied  to  the  maintenance  of  a  grammar  school,  lecture,  and  alms- 
house.  With  the  sums  thus  directed  to  be  laid  out  in  land,  and  about 
15500/.  bequeathed  by  others  (that  is,  1,000/.  for  the  maintenance  of  poor 
scholars  at  Cambridge,  and  240/.  for  the  benefit  of  six  poor  persons  of 
Harrow,  and  six  of  Rocksey,  and  200/.  to  be  lent  out  at  interest  to  young 
men)  the  manor  of  Chalgrano,  and  other  property,  were  purchased,  now 
producing  a  clear  rent  of  TOO/.  A  surplus  of  J 1 1  /.  remains  with  the  com- 
pany, after  satisfying  the  purposes  of  the  several  benefactors.  With  the 
2,800/.  left  for  the  purchase  of  living^,  were  bought  the  tithes  of  some 
parishes  in  Northumberland,  for  the  support  of  a  lecture  at  Hexham,  and 
another  at  BerwTick-upon-Tweed ;  and  the  rectories  of  Canwick  and 
Repham,  in  Lincolnshire — now,  of  course,  in  the  gift  of  the  company. 
The  sums  for  gratuitous  loans  pass  to  the  company's  general  funds—the 
original  purpose  is  now  entirely  lost  sight  of,  and  no  analogous  or  chari- 
table purpose  can  be  substituted.  The  company  are  naturally  fearful  of 
profaning  the  pious  purposes  of  the  donor.  Better  do  nothing  than  do 
wrong. 

LADY  Mice's  ALMSHOUSES,  STEPNEY. — In  1676  this  lady  left  the 
company  1,000/.,  with  which  ten  alms-houses  were  to  be  built,  and  the 
remainder  to  be  laid  out  in  land,  and  the  rent  equally  distributed  among 
the  occupants.  This  sum,  however — we  learn  not  why — was  not  laid  out 
in  land  ;  but  invested  in  South-sea  annuities,  and  now  produces  144/.  ls.5d. 
Within  these  few  years  this  charity  has  had  an  accession — recovered  under 
singular  circumstances —  and  the  whole  income  now  amounts  to  210/.  2s.  2d. 
The  ten  widows  who  occupy  the  houses  have  had  30/.  each,  since  1805. 
There  must  be  some  mistake,  as  this  allowance  alone,  without  the  thirty 
guineas  given  to  an  apothecary,  &c.,  exceeds  the  income. 

RAND'S  CHARITY,  1706. — This  excellent  citizen  left  to  the  company 
the  moiety  of  three  houses  in  Tower-street,  for  the  discharge  of  poor 

3  T  2 


508  Public  Charities.  [MAY, 

debtors,  forty  shillings  each,  as  far  as  the  rents  would  go.  The  good  man 
desired  the  master,  or  wardens,  to  be  present  in  the  discharge,  and  pay  no 
prison  fees,  nor  chamber-rents ;  and  take  twenty  shillings  for  their  trouble. 
This  little  charity  has  been  shamefully  and  most  unfeelingly  mismanaged. 
The  income  now  amounts  to  101 /. — that  is,  7 1/,  from  the  rents,  and  30/. 
from  dividends  of  invested  balances,  and  these  balances  arising,  of  course, 
from  the  company  neglecting  their  trust.  From  1807  to  1810,  nothing 
whatever  was  paid;  and  from  J8J5  to  1819  only  4/. ;  aad  all  the  while 
tho  prisons  swarming  with  debtors.  If  the  company  be  too  idle,  or  too 
callous  to  attend  to  the  miseries  of  these  wretched  persons,  let  them  an- 
nually pay  over  this  101 /.  to  that  admirable  little  society,  instituted  for 
the  very  purpose  to  which  these  funds  are  destined — and  which  has,  in 
the  course  of  about  half  a  century,  redeemed  40,000  debtors.  When  the 
company  do  redeem  debtors,  neither  master  nor  warden  attend,  according 
to  the  desire  of  the  founder ;  but  each — which  surely  the  letter  of  instruction 
does  not  warrant,  takes  the  twenty  shillings — that  is  four  pounds  from  the 
charity. 

MORLEY'S  CHARITY. — A  house,  known  by  the  sign  of  the  Angel  and 
Crown,  near  Newbury,  in  Berkshire,  the  rent  of  which  was  to  be  dis- 
tributed among  four  poor  men  above  sixty  years,  to  be  chosen  by  the  com- 
pany, apparently  without  restriction.  The  rent  under  the  present  lease  40/. 
Two  of  the  persons  at  present  benefited  are  members  of  the  company. 

HORSHAM  FREK  SCHOOL,  1532.— Founded  by  Richard  Collier.,  for  the 
free  instruction  of  sixty  scholars  belonging  to  the  poor  of  the  parish.  A 
house  called  the  Key — -the  site  is  not  now  known — with  appurtenances  in 
Cheapside,  in  the  parish  of  St.  Pancras,  in  tho  ward  of  Cheap,  was  left  to 
the  company,  from  the  rent  of  which  they  are  to  pay  to  the  master  10/., 
and  to  the  usher  ten  marks, — take  one  pound  for  themselves,  and  the  rest 
is  to  go  towards  the  repair  of  the  high  roads  round  Horsham.  This 
property  became  confounded  with  other  estates  belonging  to  the  com- 
pany ;  but,  in  1596,  was  calculated  at  four-fifths  of  the  property  thus  com- 
mingled. That  property  now  produces  515/.,  and  will  give  412/.  for  the 
'  Key.'  The  salaries  of  the  master  and  usher  '  remain  unaltered ;'  but 
gratuities  are  added, — and,  of  course,  the  salaries  may  as  well  be  said 
at  once  plainly  to  be  augmented.  The  average  surplus  for  the  last  years 
has  been  51.  Does  this  51.  go  to  the  Horsham  highways  ? 

PETER  BLUNDELL'S  GIFT. — One  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  on  condition 
the  company,  with  part  of  the  sum,  purchase  lands,  and  pay  forty  shillings 
to  Bethlehem  Hospital.  With  this  sum,  and  a  legacy  of  200/.  by  the 
same  person,  they  bought  the  house  at  the  corner  of  St.  Swithin's  Alley, 
now  called  the  Turkey  Coffee-house  (or  John's  Coffee-house)  and  three 
shops  adjoining.  What  is  the  rent,  and  why  are  we  not  informed  of  its 
amount  ?  It  must,  in  such  a  position,  be  considerable  ;  but  the  company 
still  scrupulously  obey  to  the  letter  the  donor's  direction,  and  pay  just  forty 
shillings  to  the  hospital  ! 

So  much  for  the  landed  revenues  of  the  Mercers'  Company,  amounting 
to  14,58 1/,  per  annum,  exclusive  of  church  patronage; — but  the  real  pro- 
perty— known  and  unknown,  is  probably  nothing  short  of  20,000/. — the 
real  property  we  mean,  for  which  they  are  trustees  for  charitable  purposes. 
With  the  property,  which  is  strictly  their's  as  a  society,  we  have  nothing  to 
do: — for  instance,  the  Irish  estates,  which  they  hold  in  common  with  other 
companies,  though  we  do  not  exactly  know  on  what  conditions  the  grant 
of  those  estates  was  made.  But  the  landed  estates,  which  we  have  been 


1827.]  Public   Charities.  509 

reviewing,  are  very  far  from  constituting  all  their  trust-property.  Very 
considerable  sums  have  been  bequeathed  to  them — not  directed  to  be  in- 
vested in  land — and  from  the  nature  of  the  proposed  employment  of  them, 
incapable  of  being  so  invested.  Of  this  kind  are  gifts  of  money,  from 
thirty  or  forty  persons,  amounting  together  to  11,6J8/.,  destined,  the 
greater  part,  7,699/.  that  is,  to  be  lent  to  young  men,  sometimes  gratis, 
sometimes  conditioning  a  distribution  of  coals  among  the  poor,  generally 
in  interest,  and  the  interest  to  be  given  to  the  poor  of  certain  parishes  in 
the  city  ;  2,000/.  for  relieving  and  redeeming  debtors  ;  1,325/.  for  binding 
apprentices  ;  570/.  for  sermons,  and  the  remainder  to  the  company  itself 
for  donations  to  the  livery  generally,  or  in  the  payment  of  certain  sums 
to  the  poor.  Of  the  larger  sum,  not  a  farthing  is  lent  to  young  men  free 
of  the  company,  because,  truly,  the  company  have  no  members  who  re- 
quire such  loans ;  but  the  interest  that  would  result  from  such  loans  is 
carefully  assigned  to  the  purposes  directed  by  the  donors.  Our  readers 
will,  of  course,  now  conclude,  from  what  they  have  already  seen,  that  let 
the  money  be  employed  how  it  may,  or  produce  what  it  may — in  contempt 
of  all  advances  in  the  nominal  value  of  money,  no  advance  in  the  sums  dis- 
tributed is  ever  made.  If,  150,  or  200,  or  300  years  ago,  the  sum  allotted 
to  the  poor  was  five  pounds,  five  pounds  are  all  that  are  paid  still ; — the 
letter  of  the  injunction  is  fulfilled — they  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  spirit 
of  it.  Interpretation  is  always  hazardous. 

A  load  of  coals  is  sometimes  the  return  for  the  loan  of  50Z. ;  this  load, 
generally,  is  valued  at  five  and  twenty  shillings,  though  the  load  mani- 
festly meant — as  sometimes  it  is  even  specified — thirty  sacks  ;  and  five  and 
twenty  shillings  will  purchase  only  six.     Sometimes  there  are  evasions  of 
another  kind  : — for  instance,  Alderman -Walthall,  in  1608,  left  a  sum,  now 
by  accumulations  producing  36/.  a-year,  to  be  given  to  the  three  poorest 
scholars  of  Cambridge.     The  company  do  not  know  how  to  ascertain  the 
fact — the  ne  plus  ultra  of  poverty — a.nd  therefore  keep  the  money.    Again, 
Mr.  Martin,  in  1630,  we  believe,  left  to  the  company  200/.,  <  heartily 
praying  them  to  accept  of  the  same,  and  in  lieu  of  it,  pay  the  poor  of 
Yarcombe,  in  Devonshire,  ten  pounds  annually  for  ever ;'  but  the  good  and 
considerate  gentleman  afterwards  thought  the  company  might  possibly  lose 
by  the  donation,  and,  by  a  codicil,  added  250/.  more,  to  secure  them  effec- 
tually against  all  risk  of  damage.     What  do  the  company  do  ?     Oh,   of 
course,   only  pay  the  'ten  pounds — with  something  now  for  arrears,  for 
there  have  been  times  when  they  have  not  even  paid  the  ten  pounds.    Lady 
Hungerford,  in  1(571,  left  the  company  1000/.,  the  profit  of  which  was  to 
be  expended  in  binding  apprentices — preference  to  be  given  to  lads  out  of 
Wiltshire  and  Gloucestershire.     The  practice  has  been  to  bind  three  boys 
annually,   with  a  premium  of  10/. ;  but  Wiltshire  and  Gloucestershire,  it 
seems,  will  not,  or  does  not,  or  cannot  furnish  three  boys  annually ;  and 
so  balances  have  accumulated,  and  the  company  has  now  42/.  instead  of 
30/.,  and  are  ready  to  give  \\L  each — if  any  will  apply  out  of  Wiltshire 
and  Gloucestershire.     But  the  Viscountess  Campden's  legacy  beats  all. 
In  1642,  this  excellent  lady  Ieft3,100/.  to  purchase  impropriate  church 
livings  in  the  counties  of  York,  Durham,  Lincoln,   or  other  places  where 
such   purchases    could   be    made,    and    the  greatest  lack    of   preaching 
existed.     What  have  the  company  done  with  this  large  sum  ?     In  1652, 
thoy  founded  two  lectureships  at  Grantham  and  Wakefield,  at  151.  each  : 
but  in  1689,  the  chancery  directed  a  purchase  to  be  made  within  two 
years.     This  order  of  court  was  neglected  ;  and  1 15  years  afterwards,  in 


510  Public  Charities.  [MAY, 

J804,  a  committee  reported  that  no  steps  had  been  taken,  and  recom- 
mended instant  compliance,  and  further  to  add  the  savings  on  the  Grantham 
lecture — how  they  arose  is  quite  unintelligible — amounting  to  93 II.  5s. 
to  the  original  3,100/.  No. livings  are  yet  purchased, — and  we  hope  now, 
that  no  livings  will  be  purchased,  but  that  some  better  mode  of  disposing 
of  this  4,0001.  the  wisdom  of  parliament  will  quickly  discover. 
The  Haberdashers'  and  the  South wark  Charities,  next  month. 


KINDRED    HEARTS. 

OH  !  ask  not,  hope  thou  not  too  much 

Of  sympathy  below ; 
Few  are  the  hearts  whence  one  same  touch 

Bids  the  sweet  fountains  flow  ; 
Few — and  by  still  conflicting  powers 

Forbidden  here  to  meet — 
Such  ties  would  make  this  life  of  our's 

Too  fair  for  aught  so  fleet, 

It  may  be  that  thy  brother's  eye 

Sees  not  as  thine,  which  turns 
In  such  deep  reverence  to  the  sky, 

Where  the  rich  sunset  burns : 
It  may  be  that  the  breath  of  spring, 

Born  amidst  violets  lone, 
A  rapture  o'er  thy  soul  can  bring — 

A  dream,  to  his  unknown. 

The  tune  that  speaks  of  other  times — 

A  sorrowful  delight ! 
The  melody  of  distant  chimes, 

The  sound  of  waves  by  night; 
The  wind  that,  with  so  many  a  tone, 

Some  chord  within  can  thrill, — 
These  may  have  language  all  thine  own, 

To  him  a  mystery  still. 

Yet  scorn  thou  not  for  this,  the  true 

And  stedfast  love  of  years  ; 
The  kindly,  that  from  childhood  grew, 

The  faithful  to  thy  tears ! 
If  there  be  one  that  o'er  the  dead 

Hath  in  thy  grief  borne  part, 
And  watched  through  sickness  by  thy  bed, — 

Call  his  a  kindred  heart ! 

But  for  those  bonds  all  perfect  made, 

Wherein  bright  spirits  blend, 
Like  sister  flowers  of  one  sweet  shade, 

With  the  same  breeze  that  bend, 
For  that  full  bliss  of  thought  allied, 

Never  to  mortals  given, — 
Oh !  lay  thy  lovely  dreams  aside, 

Or  lift  them  unto  heaven.  F.  H. 


1*27.]  [     oil     ] 

LETTER  UPON  AFFAIRS  IN  GENERAL,  FROM  A  GENTLEMAN  IN 
THE  "  COUNTRY"  TO  A  GENTLEMAN  IN  "  LONDON," 

York,  18th  April,  J826. 

You  appear  to  me  a  strange  fellow,  in  asking  for  my  opinion  on  things 
in  general ;  and  a  still  stranger  in  fancying  that  those  opinions  will  be 
worthy  perusal.  What  can  a  hermit  like  myself,  buried  in  a  country  town, 
two  hundred  miles  from  London,  know  of  the  world  but  by  report  ? — and 
what  can  report  bring  to  my  knowledge  which  it  has  not  previously 
brought,  in  a  more  striking  shape,  to  your  own  ?  Here,  I  am  the  mere 
reader  of  events,  of  which  you  are  an  eye-witness — the  mere  digester  of 
opinions,  of  which  you  are,  perhaps,  the  original  propounder.  It  is  true, 
that  I  look  to  both  with  some  attention  ; — to  the  first,  in  the  hope  of  distil- 
ling from  them  agreeable  recollections  ;  and  to  the  latter,  in  the  hope  of 
dispelling  by  them  ill-omened  apprehensions.  But  then  I  neither  collect 
facts,  with  a  view  of  confirming  idle  theories — nor  register  opinions,  with 
a  view  of  forming  out  of  them  rude  and  undigested  metaphysics.  No ;  I 
seek  truth,  when  it  floats  upon  the  surface ;  and  leave  others  to  dive  for  it, 
when  it  sinks  into  depths  beyond  ordinary  comprehension.  You  will,  there- 
fore, see  that  my  lucubrations  are  those  of  a  lounger,  who  thinks  upon  all 
subjects,  and  meditates  upon  none ;  and  that,  if  they  have  any  value,  they 
.  derive  it  from  being  suggested  by  a  view  of  society  taken  in  a  different 
position  from  that  in  which  you  stand ;  and,  therefore,  embracing  certain 
features  of  it  which  may  not,  perhaps,  have  come  under  your  observation. 
But  why  should  I  go  on,  with  the  affected  modesty  of  an  Irish  orator,  to 
depreciate  the  labour  which  I  am  nevertheless  determined  to  undertake  ?— 
,why  weary  you  with  gossipping  about  my  own  inability,  when  you  want 
me  to  gossip  about  all  that  has  interested  the  town  and  the  country,  the 
palace  and  the  cottage,  for  the  busy  period  of  the  by -gone  months  ? 

The  changes  in  the  ministry  have  formed  for  some  weeks  past,  and  will 
probably  form  for  some  weeks  to  come,  the  principal  subject  of  public 
conversation.  Rumour  has  stuffed  my  ears  with  so  many  surmises  and 
conjectures  respecting  the  nature  of  those  changes,  and  the  probability  of 
their  duration,  that  I  hardly  know  which  I  ought  to  believe,  and  which  I 
ought  to  repudiate.  Only  two  points  seem  as  yet  definitively  settled;-— 
and  those  are,  that  Mr.  Canning  is  to  be  the  head  of  the  administration, 
and  that  the  administration  is  not  to  be  exclusively  in  favour  of  the  Ca- 
tholics. Now,  though  I  set  no  great  store  upon  Mr.  Canning's  political 
honesty,  in  consequence  of  his  having  alternately  flattered,  bullied,  and  de- 
rided, pretty  nearly  every  party  in  the  state  for  the  last  thirty  years,  still, 
as  his  interest  will  prevent  him  from  intriguing  against  his  own  adminis- 
tration, he  appears  to  me  a  fitter  person  to  be  entrusted  with  the  helm  of 
government  at  this  particular  crisis  than  any  other  public  man  we  possess  in 
our  present  dearth  of  commanding  talent  and  ability.  Mr.  Tierney  may, 
perhaps,  be  gifted  with  acuter  perception  ;  and  Mr.  Brougham,  with  more 
ready  and  argumentative  eloquence ;  but  they  are  both  vastly  inferior  to 
Mr.  Canning  in  their  experience  of  public  business,  and  in  their  acquaint- 
ance with  diplomatic  forms  and  trickeries.  I  do  not  however  see  the  ad- 
vantage of  getting  rid  of  the  underling  members  of  the  late  cabinet,  supposing 
that  the  new  cabinet  is  to  be  constituted,  like  its  predecessor,  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  division.  I  believe  that  Mr.  Canning  would  have  gladly  worked 
on  with  the  old  hacks  of  office,  if  they  would  have  consented  to  work  on 
with  him  as  subordinate  agents ;  but  their  pride  would  not  let  them  yield 


512  Letters  on  Affairs  iti  general.  [MAY, 

to  the  degradation  of  serving  under  a  man  without  ancestors,  and  they  are 
in  consequence  left  upon  the  strand  friendless  and  unpiticd,  whilst  he  is 
carried  with  a  flowing  tide  into  the  harbour  of  royal  and  popular  appro- 
bation. Still  he  is  surrounded  with  appalling  difficulties,  and,  for  my  own 
part,  I  cannot  conceive  how  he  will  be  able  to  form  an  effective  permanent 
administration  either  with  or  without  the  aid  of  whiggery.*  If  the  whigs 
join  him,  there  must  be,  as  in  the  case  of  Fox  arid  Lord  North,  such  a 
sacrifice  of  principle  on  one  side  or  the  other,  as  would  deprive  the  coalition 
ministry  of  all  public  confidence,  inasmuch  as  they  are  pledged  over  and 
over  again  to  support  many  of  the  measures,  which  he  is  quite  as  strongly 
pledged  to  oppose  and  counteract;  and  if  they  do  not  join  him,  his  adver- 
saries will,  I  am  afraid,  be  too  strong  for  him  to  resist ;  and  he  will  there- 
fore be  obliged,  either  to  try  the  chance  of  another  general  election,  or  to 
resign  into  their  hands  the  premiership,  which  he  has  so  unexpectedly 
wrested  from  their  clutch.  As  to  the  failure  of  an  administration  purely 
Catholic  at  this  moment,  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt,  except  in  Ire- 
land. The  last  division  on  the  Catholic  question  is  sufficient  to  convince 
any  man  of  cool  judgment  of  the  loss  which  the  cause  of  emancipation 
sustained  by  the  late  elections ;  and  T  am  sure  that  nothing  has  occurred 
since  they  were  holden  to  diminish,  though  many  circumstances  have 
occurred  to  aggravate  the  reluctance  which  the  people  of  England  feel  to 
grant  that  measure  of  expediency  and  justice. 

I  am  sorry  to  observe,  from  an  announcement  in  the  Chronicle,  that  the 
forthcoming  Number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  contains  an  article  on  the 
Catholic  Question,  in  which  the  writer  gravely  maintains,  "that  it  is  the 
bounden  duty  of  the  Irish  Catholics  to  bully  the  English  government  and 
people,  as  they  will  never  grant  Emancipation  unless  they  are  bullied  into 
it.  As  far  as  the  "sensitive"  people  of  Ireland  are  concerned,  this  is  a 
dangerous  doctrine  to  inculcate,  on  account  of  its  intimate  connection  with 
outrage  and  bloodshed,  with  insurrection  and  rebellion  ;  and,  as  far  as  the 
high-spirited  people  of  England  are  concerned,  it  is  an  erroneous  doctrine, 
contradicted  by  that  notorious  disregard  of  personal  consequences,  which 
induced  Voltaire  to  liken  them  to  their  own  mastiffs,  which  run  blindly  on 
lions,  and  get  their  heads  crushed  for  their  pains.  The  Catholics  of  Ireland 
may  depend  upon  it,  that  we  shall  never  yield  to  force  that  which  we 
refuse  to  solicitation  ;  and  that  their  prospect  of  success  is  removed  to  an 
infinite  distance,  if  they  seek  to  work  upon  our  fears,  instead  of  aiming  to 
convince  our  reason.  We  have  the  consciousness  of  feeling,  and  they  ought 
to  have  the  prudent  caution  of  recollecting,  that  in  the  last  great  struggle 
between  us  at  the  revolution,  we  reduced  them  to  a  slavery  so  abject,  as  to 
dishonour  the  conqueror  more  than  the  conquered,  though  they  had  been, 
for  some  time  previously,  in  almost  undisputed  possession  of  all  the  resour- 
ces of  Ireland,  and  were  supported  by  the  unbroken  power  of  Louis  the 
XlVth.,  and  we  were  contending  with  a  disappointed  faction,  arid  discon- 

*  Mr.  Tierney  declared,  on  the  6th  of  February,  1821,  amid  the  cheers  of  the  Whigs, 
in  tie  House  of  Commons,  that  there  were  THRKE  conditions,  without  which  he  would 
never  accept  of  office— the  first  was,  that  Catholic  Emancipation  should  be  granted  ;  the 
second,  that  the  six  acts — all  of  which  bave  now  expired,  except  that  which  punishes  with 
transportation  a  man  twice  convicted  of  libel — should  be  repealed ;  and  the  third,  that 
Parliamentary  Reform,  "which he  declared  to  be  the  object  nearest  to  his  hearf,"  should 
be  immediately  carried  into  execution.  Mr.  Canning  stands  pledged  to  oppose  Parlia- 
mentary Reform,  in  every  shape,  and  cannot  well  agree  to  the  repeal  of  the  Libel  Act, 
since,  by  the  manner  in  which  he  undertook  the  defence  of  it,  he  identified  himself  with  it 
at  the  time  of  its  proposal.  Mr.  Brougham's  ooinion  of  Mr.  Canning's  qualifications,  to 
uct  as  first  minister  of  this  country,  is  on  record,  ana  can  never  be 


1827.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general. 

tented  populace,  at  home,  and  were  labouring  under  all  the  other  disadvan- 
tages of  a  newly  settled  government.  Besides,  emancipation,  if  granted 
without  the  good  will  of  the  people  of  England,  would,  from  being  the 
triumph  of  one  party  over  another,  fail  to  be  a  valuable  acquisition  even  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Ireland  ;  and  how  the  good  will  of  the  people  of  England 
is  to  be  conciliated,  by  telling  them  that,  if  they  do  not  grant  emancipa- 
tion of  their  own  accord,  "  they  shall  see  their  sons  slaughtered  on  their 
thresholds,  and  hear  their  daughters  scream  for  assistance  on  the  graves  of 
their  sires,"  the  miserable  spouter,  who  employs  the  threat,  can  alone  explain 
to  them. 

The  Catholics,  of  late,  have  frequently  complained — and  not  without 
justice — of  the  vituperative  language,  in  which  their  opponents  spoak,  not 
only  of  their  tenets,  but  also  of  their  practices.  Hard  words  never  yet 
were  arguments — and  the  chance  is,  that  he  who  has  a  great  abundance  of 
the  first,  has  a  marvellous  lack  of  the  latter  article.  Let  it  not,  however, 
be  supposed,  that  the  hard  words  are  all  on  one  side  ; — for  instance,  read 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter,  which  the  Catholic  Bishop  Doyle  has 
addressed,  during  the  last  month,  to  the  Protestant  Archbishop  Magee,  and 
then  wonder,  if  you  can,  at  the  increasing  hostility  to  the  Catholics,  which 
is  fast  pervading  every  part  of  the  empire  : — "  It  may  be  safely  affirmed 
that  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  not  half  so  lost  to  the  feelings  of  nature  and 
decency,  as  Cranmer  and  Henry ;  or  that  the  cruel  assassins  of  St.  Bar- 
tholemi  were  not  more  wicked,  more  heartless,  more  cruel,  than  the  bloody 
satellites  of  Elizabeth  or  Cromwell,  in  England  or  Ireland — that  Mary 
was  incomparably  less  a  persecutor  than  her  sister  ;  that  the  proceed- 
ings of  Knox  and  the  covenanters  in  Scotland,  of  the  Parliament,  Pro- 
lector  and  Viceroys  in  this  country*  surpass  BEYOND  MEASURE  all  that  was 
ever  done,  not  by  Catholics,  but  by  Nero,  Tiberius,  Domitian,  throughout 
the  Roman  Empire,  or  by  Pharaoh  himself  in  Egypt.  No,  all  the  fends 
of  Milton,  if  let  loose  upon  the  earth,  could  not  exceed  in  cruelty,  im- 
piety, and  injustice,  the  persecutions  of  the  Irish  people  !  !  /"  What 
good,  in  the  name  of  heaven,  can  come  of  this  bloated  magnificence  of 
invective — this  pompous  exaggeration  of  alleged  injustice?  Is  it  not,  I 
would  ask,  "blowing  a  trumpet  and  proclaiming  a  fire-cross  to  an  here- 
ditary and  perpetual  civil  war  ?" 

If  I  turn  from  the  consideration  of  the  Catholic  Question  to  the  conside- 
ration of  other  measures,  recently  discussed  in  parliament,  I  must  say  that 
I  am  surprized  at  the  extraordinary  manner  in  which  the  real  business  of 
the  session  has  hitherto  been  neglected.  With  the  exception  of  the  Corn 
Bill,  which  it  has  sent,  amid  the  growlings  of  the  agricultural  and  manu- 
facturing interests,  to  be  exterminated  by  the  Lords,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons has  done  absolutely  nothing.  The  state  of  our  finances,  which 
appear  sufficiently  deplorable,  is  still  unexplained ;  the  causes  of  the  con- 
tinuation of  our  commercial  embarrassments,  which  have  now  exceeded  all 
former  limits,  are  still  unexplored  ;  the  complaints  of  our  colonists,  against 
their  governors,  especially  those  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  against 
Lord  C.  Somerset,  are  still  unexamined ;  and  what  is,  perhaps,  more 
material  than  all,  the  Court  of  Chancery,  a  nuisance  which  affects  the 
xvhole  population  of  the  empire,  rich  as  well  as  poor,  still  remains  unabated, 
and  flourishes  in  all  the  full  glories  of  mystification,  chicanery,  and  delay. 
Admirable  subjects  these  for  the  consideration  of  a  new  administration, 
and  a  new  parliament ;  but  far  above  the  comprehension  of  a  rustic  like 
myself,  wha  thanks  God  that  he  is  neither  a  politician,  nor  yet  a  political 

M.M,  Neui  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  17.  3  U 


514  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAY, 

economist.  The  Lords  have  been  as  busy  as  the  Commons  in  doing 
nothing ;  and,  save  on  one  or  two  occasions,  when  there  issued  from  their 
lips  indistinct  m titterings  of  opposition  to  all  changes  in  the  laws,  affecting 
Catholics  and  Corn,  have  preserved  a  most  decorous  and  edifying  silence. 
Indeed  their  very  existence  would  have  been  forgotten,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  portentous  consequences  which  resulted  from  the  loss  of  Mr.  Bell's 
seventeen  and  sixpenny  umbrella.  Talk  of  the  loss  of  Calais  to  Queen 
Mary  !  Why  it  was  nothing  to  the  loss  of  that  umbrella  to  Mrs.  Bell.  But 
though  Mary,  with  all  England  at  her  back,  sought  not  to  obtain  another 
Calais,  Mrs.  Bell,  with  no  other  resources  but  those  of  her  own  indomitable 
mind,  thought  it  "  foul  scorn"  not  to  seek  to  obtain  another  umbrella. 
She  raved  and  remonstrated,  but  not  in  vain.  She  compelled  her  husband  to 
summons  the  officer  of  the  House  of  Lords,  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  it, 
and  bated  not  one  jot  in  courage  when  the  said  officer,  with  black  rod  at 
his  heels,  came  with  a  more  peremptory  summons  for  her  husband  in 
return.  Well  was  it  for  their  Lordships  that  they  did  not  summon  this 
modern  Xantippe,  instead  of  her  husband,  to  their  bar — for,  if  they  had, 
their  characters  would  have  again  suffered  irreparable  injury  from  conflicting 
with  a  woman.  Privilege  of  petticoat  against  privilege  of  peerage!  Why, 
in  such  a  quarrel,  there  is  only  one  side  on  which  a  man  of  spirit  can  strike; 
and  their  Lordship's,  therefore,  judged  wisely  in  selecting  Mr.  instead  of 
Mrs.  Bell,  as  the  victim  of  their  displeasure.  He  has,  however,  gained  a 
loss  by  it,  which  he  cannot  value  too  highly.  He  has  received,  in  return 
for  the  reprimand  of  their  Lordships,  a  fame  which  will  last  as  long  as 
that  of  his  illustrious  name  sake,  Peter  ;  and  I  trust  that  the  great  Laker, 
who  has  already  given  one  Bell  to  immortality,  will  not  hesitate  to  perform 
the  same  kind  office  to  another.  Tf  the  rape  of  a  lock,  of  a  pulpit,  and  of 
a  bucket — things  mean  and  insignificant  in  themselves — were  deemed 
worthy  of  song  by  the  Popes.  Boileaus,  and  Tassonis,  of  former  genera- 
tions, surely  the  rape  of  an  umbrella,  which  roused  the  sleeping  peerage  of 
Britain  from  their  trance,  and  forced  them  to  recollect  their  violated  privi- 
leges, is  not  an  unfitting  subject  even  for  a  poet  of  these  Augustan  days,  to 
marry  to  the  beauty  of  high-sounding  verse.  Besides,  who  can  tell  what 
mighty  revolutions  may  yet  spring  from  this  petty  cause  ?  A  joke  of  Sir 
T.  Wyatt  caused  the  reformation,  and  a  song  of  Lord  Shaftesbury*  the 
revolution.  The  neighing  of  a  steed  raised  Darius  to  empire,  and  the  cack- 
ling of  a.  goose  rescued  Rome  from  ruin.  Who  then  can  swear  that 
Mr.  Bell's  umbrella  may  not  have  unseated  the  administration,  and  driven 
the  Chancellor  from  his  long  appropriation  of  the  woolsack  to  a  reluctant 
retreat,  into  the  macadamized  recesses  of  Piccadilly  and  Pimlico  ? 

The  House  of  Commons  has  also  found  occasion  to  stir  its  privileges. 
Mr.  Peel  made  some  remarks  on  a  Mr.  Jennings,  which  led  Mr.  Jennings 
to  forward  a  message  to  Mr.  Peel,  which  was  not  of  the  most  conciliatory 
description.  Mr.  Peel  preserved  a  dignified  silence ;  and  Mr.  Jennings 
feeling  himself  bound  to  answer  it,  sent  him  another  message  in  still  more 
furious  language.  Mr.  Peel  was,  nevertheless,  still  unmoved,  when 
Mr.  Jennings  being  ebullient  with  beer,  and  not  having  the  fear  of  the 
Serjeant-at-arms  before  his  eyes,  threatened  to  address  Mr.  Peel  no  longer 
by  the  post,  but,  in  person,  from  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Mr.  Peel,  who  has  been  pelted  roundly  enough,  in  his  time,  by  speeches, 
regularly  delivered  in  parliament,  determined  to  guard  himself  from  the  an- 
noyance of  speeches  irregularly  delivered  there.  Ho  complained  to  the  House 

*  Lillihiillcro. 


1827.]  Lettei  on  Affairs  in  general.  515 

— the  speaker's  warrant  issued  forth  with,  and  Mr.  Jennings,  being  previously 
gagged,  was  placed  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  and  desired  to  speak  for  him- 
self. I  wish  all  this  formality  had  not  been  observed.  It  would  have  been 
a  spirit-stirring  sight,  as  they  say  in  the  Catholic  Association,  to  have  wit- 
nessed the  dismay,  which  would  have  pervaded  the  House,  at  hearing  a 
speech  addressed  to  it  ex  improviso,  from  the  strangers'  gallery.  The 
speaker's  wig  would  have  started  in  fright  from  his  head,  and  have  sought 
refuge  near  the  bulky  pericranium  of  Mr.  Wynne.  Mr.  Wynne  would 
have  looked  around  him  for  a  precedent  to  direct  his  conduct,  and  finding 
none,  would  have  fainted  over  the  order  book.  Mr.  Brougham  would  have 
risen  to  peep  into  the  gallery,  and,  discovering  that  Mr.  Gourlay  was  not 
the  orator,  would  have  speedily  squatted  down  again  to  hide  the  compo- 
sure of  his  feelings.  Mr.  Hume  would  have  stopped  short  in  his  hundred 
and  sixty-seventh  speech  for  the  evening,  ,and  would  have  asked  Reading 
Monk  what  he  meant  by  barking,  more  rapidly  than  usual,  his  little  shrill, 
snappish  cry  of  *'  hear,  hear  5"  Calls  for  order  would  have  augmented  the 
disorder,  and  would  have  ultimately  terminated  in  an  explosion,  terrible  as 
that  which  recently  turned  back  the  tide  at  Liverpool,  shattered  the  Well 
Tower  at  Lancaster,  shook  Skiddaw  and  Saddleback  from  their  base,  and, 
as  an  ingenious  professor  of  the  art  of  sinking  adds  in  the  newspapers,  broke 
all  the  windows  at  Brougham  Hall !  Mr.  Jennings,  in  the  mean  time, 
would  have  darted  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  the  thunders  of  his  elo- 
quence, and  would  have  been  for  the  moment  the  admired  of  all  beholders. 
The  pens  of  the  reporters  would  have  started  from  their  inkstands  to  arrest, 
of  themselves,  the  passing  glories  of  the  scene  ;  and  the  newspapers  of  the 
next  day,  filled  with  the  fate,  the  folly,  and  the  flourishes  of  Mr.  Jennings, 
would  have  obtained  an  extent  of  sale,  which,  at  this  period  of  financial 
distress,  would  have  gladdened  the  hearts  of  the  commissioners  of  the 
revenue,  by  the  grateful  God-send  it  would  have  added  to  the  stamp 
duties. 

I  was  once  told  by  a  "  gentleman  of  the  press,"  that  an  exhibition  some- 
thing like  that,  which  I  have  ventured  to  describe,  did  actually  take  place 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Any  person,  who  is  at  all  conversant  with 
the  proceedings  of  that  body,  is  aware,  that  a  long  pause  sometimes 
occurs,  between  the  conclusion  of  private,  and  the  commencement  of  pub- 
lic, business.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  when  a  heavy  debate  was 
expected,  and  the  House  was  crowded,  and  a  dead  silence  prevailed,  and 
every  body  was  expecting  to  hear  the  name  of  "  Mr.  Pitt"  issue  from  the 
lips  of  the  Speaker,  a  shrill  voice  was  heard  from  the  back  rows  of  the 
gallery,  calling  on  Mr.  Speaker  for  a  song.  Excessive  was  the  consterna- 
tion and  laughter  of  the  House.  The  Speaker  called,  but  in  vain,  for 
order,- and  it  was  not  till  some  minutes  had  elapsed,  that  directions  could 
be  given  to  the  Serjeant-at-arms  to  take  the  offender  into  custody.  As 
the  serjcant  entered  the  gallery  to  hunt  him  out,  a  reporter  tapped  a  grave, 
demure,  quaker-like  stockbroker,  who  was  sitting  before  him,  on  the 
shoulder,  and  said  to  him,  half  whispering,  and  half  aloud, — •"  a  pretty 
scrape  you  are  in,  Sir — but  you  would  not  be  advised — and  you  must  now 
get  out  of  it  as  you  best  can."  The  Serjeant  drank  in  the  sounds  with 
greedy  ears — pounced  upon  the  unlucky  stockbroker,  thus  clearly  de- 
nounced to  him — and,  in  spite  of  his  affirmations  of  innocence,  dragged 
him,  mighty  loath,  to  the  bar.  The  Charles  Wynne  of  that  day  imme- 
diately began  to  put  the  inquisitorial  power  of  the  House  into  operation 
against  him  ;  but  a  few  questions  soon  convinced  him  that  the  party 

3  U  2 


516  ~  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAY, 

seized  was  "  more  sinned  against  than  sinning.''  The  House  saw  the 
folly  of  prosecuting  its  inquiries  further,  and  dismissed  the  frightened  stock- 
broker, with  a  sort  of. apology  for  the  needless  trouble  which  it  had  occa- 
sioned him.  With  wings  "  as  swift  as  meditation,  or  the  thoughts  of 
love,"  he  swept  back  to  the  gallery,  to  wreak  his  vengeance  on  the  wag- 
gish reporter,  who  had  pointed  him  out  to  the  executive  authorities  of  the 
House;  but  the  reporter,  knowing  the  better  part  of  valour  to.be  discre- 
tion, had  fled  amain,  and  had  left  his  colleagues  to  sooth  the  resentment  of 
the  exasperated  stranger.  Need  I  say  that  the  reporter  was  himself  the 
person  who  uttered  the  impertinent  cry,  and  that  he  craftily  imputed  it  to 
another,  in  order  to  ward  ofF  detection  from  himself.  The  trick  was 
"  pleasant,  but  wrong" — amusing  to  the  spectator,  but  no  joke  to  the  party 
upon  whom  it  was  played. 

As  I  am  upon  the  subject  of  Parliamentary  Privileges,  I  see  no  rea- 
son why  I  should  not  here  allude  to  a  curious  breach  of  them,  which  came 
out  during  the  investigation  of  the  East  Retford  Election  Committee,  and 
which  has  only  been  noticed  in  some  of  our  party  provincial  papers.  It 
appears,  that  in  order  to  examine  into  the  nature  of  the  expenses  incurred 
by  the  successful  candidates,  their  bankers  were  ordered  to  produce  their 
books,  when  the  first  item  entered  to  their  account  was  a  sum  of  1 .2001. 
from  Earl  Fitzwilliam,  to  be  applied  towards  forwarding  their  return. 
Now,  there  is  a  standing  order  of  the  House,  declaring  the  interference  of 
peers  in  elections  a  gross  breach  of  privilege.  By  what  process  of  logic, 
then,  is  it,  that,  after  all  the  outcry  against  the  corporations  of  Leicester 
and  Northampton,  this  liberal  grant  of  Earl  Fitzwilliam  is  not  considered 
an  interference  in  the  Election  at  Retford  ?  Is  it  that  the  meshes  of  pri- 
vilege are  strong  enough  to  hold  the  small,  but  too  weak  to  retain  the 
large  flies  which  are  encircled  in  them  ?  Or  is  it,  that  printers,  and  pub- 
lishers, and  umbrella-losers  are  to  be  punished,  because  they  have  no  friends, 
whilst  peers  are  to  pass  unscathed,  because  they  are  provided  with 
many  ? 

faciunt  hi  plura — sed  illos 

Defendit  numerus,junctceque  umbone  phalanges, 

De  nobis  post  hcec  tristis  sententia  fertur ; 

Dat  veniam  corvis,  vexat  censura  columbas. 

One  Yor-kshire  peer  reminds  me  of  another  ;  and  that  again  reminds  me 
that  I  have  to  thank  your  kindness  for  a  copy  of  Lord  Wharncliffe's  bill 
to  amend  the  Game  Laws,  which  is  at  this  moment  lying  on  my  table. 
From  the  tardy  progress  which  it  has  hitherto  made  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  from  the  momentous  interests  which  both  Houses  of  Parliament  will 
have  to  discuss  on  their  re-assembling,  I  think  it  most  probable  that  this 
bill  will  not  be  converted  into  a  law  during  the  present  session.  Neither 
do  I  think  it  of  much  consequence  that  it  should  ;  for,  so  far  from  its  being 
a  consolidation  of  the  present  Game  Laws,  as  I  was  induced,  by  a  pub- 
lished letter  of  Mr.  Peel,  to  suppose  that  it  would  be,  it  merely  increases 
their  number,  without  diminishing  their  intricacy  and  obscurity.  It  is 
true,  that  it  puts  an  end  to  the  absurd  anomalies  of  the  present  disquali- 
fying statutes,  and  gives  the  beneficial  owner  of  land  the  right  either  to 
take  the  game  upon  it  himself,  or  to  authorise  any  other  person  to  take  it 
for  him.  So  far  it  is  undoubtedly  an  improvement,  for  it  makes  game  the 
property  of  the  small  landholder  as  well  as  of  the  large,  and  gives  to  both  an 
equal  right  to  dispose  of  it  as  they  please.  How  the  former  restrictions  were 
justified  I  never  could  understand.  All  writers  upon  ethics  agree,  that  no* 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  517 

restriction  is  consistent  with  civil  liberty,  that  does  not  conduce  in  a  greater 
degree,  than  the  absence  of  it,  to  the  public  welfare.  Now,  why  a  man 
with  twenty  acres  is  to  be  restrained  from  killing  that  game  himself,  which 
no  other  man  can  legally  kill  without  his  permission,  is  not  quite  so  clear 
as  the  "  way  to  parish  church."  Does  his  killing  it  hurt,  or  his  being  pre- 
vented from  killing  it  benefit,  his  fellow  subjects  ?  If  he  neither  hurt  them 
in  the  first  case,  nor  benefit  them  in  the  latter,  the  restraint  laid  upon  his 
will  is  wanton  and  causeless  ;  and  every  such  restraint  is  declared  by 
Blackstone  a  degree  of  tyranny.  It  is  said,  however,  that  this  alteration 
of  the  law  is  a  boon  given  to  the  small  at  the  expense  of  the  large  proprie- 
tor, inasmuch  as  it  enables  him  to  seduce  to,  and  kill  in,  his  paltry  plot  of 
ground  the  game  bred  in  the  costly  plantation:-  of  his  opulent  neighbour. 
Lord  Suffield,  who  has  been  a  game-preserver  and  a  sportsman,  ever  since 
he  attained  the  age  of  manhood,  affirms,  upon  his  own  experience,  that  if 
game-keepers  know  and  perform  their  duties,  this  seduction  is  impossible, 
game  being  easily  retained  in  any  covert,  where  there  is  an  adequate 
supply  of  food  ;  but,  even  if  this  were  not  the  case,  why  is  not  the  small 
owner  to  be  permitted  to  go  to  the  expense — for  the  thing  cannot  be  done 
without  expense — of  attracting  to  his  portion  of  land  those  wild  animals 
which  feed  at  large  upon  the  bounties  of  nature,  and  are  no  man's  property,* 
till  they  are  taken  and  caught  ?  The  perdricide  squire  will  generally  pos- 
sess much  greater  means  of  attracting  game  than  his  less-landed  neighbour, 
and  if  he  does  not  employ  them  he  has  no  right  to  find  fault  with  any  land- 
holder in  his  vicinity,  be  he  great  or  small,  who  is  more  active  than  himself 
in  the  improvement  of  his  property.  The  great  difficulty,  however,  of  the 
Game  Laws  arises  in  the  consideration  of  the  question,  how  you  are  to 
punish  offences  against  them,  after  you  have  destroyed  qualifications,  and 
made  game  the  property  of  the  owner  of  the  soil.  You  cannot  at  present 
place  game  under  the  same  protection  as  poultry,  by  making  the  taking  of 
it  by  an  unauthorized  person  a  felony,  because  it  is  quite  clear,  that,  by  such 
an  enactment,  you  would  soon  convert  into  felons  one  half  of  the  existing 
generation  of  gentlemen  in  England.  How,  then,  are  you  to  deal  with 
trespassers,  supposing  that  you  convict  them  of  being  trespassers  in  search 
of  game?  The  remedy  by  action  is  expensive,  uncertain,  and  dilatory. 
"  Therefore  let  the  perdricide  justice  fine  the  trespasser,"  cries  Lord  Wharn- 
cliffe."  "  Aye,''  replies  Lord  Ellenborough,  "  fine  him  by  ail  means  for 
the  trespass,  and  commit  him  to  prison  for  ten  days  for  each  head  of  game 
that  shall  be  found  in  his  possession.''  Now,  though  I  cannot  substitute  a 
better,  I  like  not  either  of  these  proposals.  That  of  Lord  Ellenborough, 
which  would  introduce  one  desirable  novelty  into  the  Game  Laws,  by  in- 
flicting the  same  penalty  both  on  the  patrician  and  the  plebeian  violator  of 
them,  has  been  rejected,  as  it  deserved  to  be,  by  their  Lordships.  Lord 
Wharncliffe's  proposal  has  been  approved,  but  is,  nevertheless,  highly  ob- 
jectionable, in  my  mind,  because  it  gives  in  the  first  instance,  to  a  single 
justice,  who  in  all  probability  will  be  a  game  preserver,  and  subsequently, 
in  case  of  appeal  to  a  board  of  justices,  of  which  the  majority  is  certain  to 
consist  of  game  preservers*  the  right  to  fine,  and  consequently  to  imprison, 
their  countrymen  without  the  intervention  of  a  jury  ;  and  because,  after  all 

"  The  language  of  the  civil  law  is  very  clear  ou  this  point — "  Ferae  bestiae  et  volucres, 
et  pisces,  et  omnia  animalia,  quse  mari,  ccelo,  et  terra  nascuntur,  simul  atque  ab  alio 
capta  fuerint,  jure  gentium  statim  illias  esse  incipiunt.  Quod  enim  ante  nullius  est,  id 
naturali  rat ione  occupanti  conceditur,  nee  interest  fera  bestiaset  volucres  utrum  in  suo 
fuudo  quiscapiat  aut  alieno," — Justinian's  Institutes,  lib.  ii,  tit,  s.  12. 


51  ff  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAY, 

this  fining  and  imprisonment,  it  leaves,  by  a  subsequent  clause,  the  party, 
whose  ground  is  trespassed  on,  at  full  liberty  to  bring  an  action  against  the 
trespasser  for  the  same  offence — a  proceeding  which,  to  say  the  best  of  it, 
savours  not  a  little  of  vexation  and  oppression.  The  bill,  after  providing 
for  the  seizure  of  snares,  and  for  the  punishment  of  those  who  commit  the 
enormous  crime  of  destroying  the  eggs  of  game,  comes  to  the  real  point  at 
issue  between  the  public  and  the  landed  aristocracy.  It  enables  the  per- 
sons who  are  entitled  to  kill  game  to  sell  it  to  certain  persons,  who  are  li- 
censed to  deal  in  it,  and  releases  those  who  buy  it  from  such  licensed  dealers, 
from  the  penalties  to  which  they  are  now  liable.  On  the  propriety  of 
repealing  Mr.  Bankes's  foolish  and  inoperative  law  relative  to  the  sale  and 
purchase  of  game,  nobody  who  refers  to  the  evidence  taken  by  the  House 
of  Commons  a  few  years  ago,  or  to  the  informations  which  are  now  filing 
under  it  at  the  different  police  offices  in  the  metropolis  to  defeat  its  provi- 
sions, can  entertain  the  slightest  doubt.  Parliament  has,  within  a  short 
period,  created  800  millions  of  funded  property,  and  a  class  of  persons  de- 
riving a  revenue  therefrom  of  40  millions  a  year;  and  yet,  as  the  law 
now  stands,  members  of  that  class  cannot  have  in  their  possession, 
much  less  kill  or  eat,  any  '*  hare,  partridge,  pheasant,  black-game, 
grouse,  heath,  moor-game,  or  bustard."  Every  day's  experience  proves, 
that  they  are  in  the  constant  habit  not  only  of  violating  the  law  on  this 
subject  themselves,  but  also  of  encouraging  others  to  violate  it  for  the  sup- 
ply and  gratification  of  their  luxurious  palates.  Mr.  Bankes  justifies  the 
prohibition  of  selling  game  on  the  ground  that  it  is  "  a  restraint  imposed 
upon  the  opulent  in  consideration  of  the  necessities  and  frailties  of  the  poor." 
Now,  if  Mr.  -Bankes  means  thereby,  that  the  landholders  are  prevented 
from  selling  their  game,  in  order  that  the  poor  may  be  encouraged  to  steal 
it,  I  fully  agree  with  him  as  to  the  practical  operation  of  his  law  ;  but  if 
he  does  not  attach  that  meaning  to  his  words — and  I  am  sure  that  he  does 
not — I  have  some  difficulty  in  discovering  round  what  meaning  he  is  so  de- 
liberately blundering.  It  has  been  well  observed,  that  it  is  not  because  the 
poacher  kills  the  game  that  the  poulterer  buys  it,  but  that  it  is  because  the 
rich  and  opulent  will  have  it,  that  the  poulterer  buys,  and  the  poacher  kills 
it.  Why,  then,  do  you  not  alter  your  laws  to  meet  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  your  population  ?  Why  do  you  not  allow  those  who  rear  this 
species  of  delicacy  to  bring  it  openly  into  the  market,  for  the  consumption 
of  the  fundholder,  whom  you  do  not  wish  to  destroy,  instead  of  exposing 
them  to  nightly  conflicts  with  poachers,  whom  you  wish  to  exterminate, 
but  cannot,  because  they  are  hired  by  the  fundholder  to  procure  for  him,  by 
illegal  means,  that  which  he  cannot  procure,  however  willing,  by  legal 
means  ? 

It  is  said,  that  if  ever  the  sale  be  legalized,  "  partridges  and  pheasants 
will  be  no  longer  reserved  to  indulge  the  appetite  of  the  head  of  a 
corporation,  but  will  grace  the  dinner-table  not  only  of  the  alderman,  but  of 
every  man  who  has  a  table  and  a  dinner."  Now,  omitting  for  the  present 
all  comment  upon  the  scornful  love  of  power  and  privilege,  which  is  mani- 
fested in  this  sentence,  I  will  venture  to  remind  Mr.  Bankes.  who  uses  it,  and 
those  who  adopt  it  from  him,  that  the  consummation,  which  he  seems  to  dread 
almost  as  much  as  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  the  granting  of  Catholic 
Emancipation,  or  the  upsetting  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  has  already  arrived, 
without  the  sale  of  game  being  legalized.  There  is  not  a  tradesman  in  this 
town,  nay  more,  there  is  not  a  tradesman  in  London,  populous  and  exten- 
sive as  it  is.  who  does  not  make  a  point  of  putting  game  on  his  table,  when- 


1 82?.]  Letter  on  Affafrs  in  genera/.  5 1 9 

ever  he  assembles  his  friends  about  him.  And  what  is  the  consequence  of 
such  an  abundant  supply  being  brought  into  the  illegal  game  market  ?  A 
palpable  diminution  in  the  quantity  of  game  ?  By  no  means.  Even  Mr. 
Bankes  himself  admits  that  there  has  been  a  prodigious  increase  of  it 
throughout  the  kingdom  during  the  last  twenty  years,  and  attributes  that 
increase  to  a  very  singular  cause,  of  which  he  almost  seems  to  regret  the  ter- 
mination— namely,  to  the  power*  which  the  magistrate  had  during  the 
war  of  sending  a  convicted  poacher  on  board  a  ship.  Such  being  the 
case,  I  will  now  proceed;  without  entering  further  into  the  impolicy  of  con- 
fining the  trade  in  game  to  the  dishonest  dealer,  to  examine  the  conditions 
under  which  Lord  Wharncliffe  proposes  to  authorise  a  partial  opening  of  it 
to  the  community.  The  majority  of  justices  assembled  at  a  special  ses- 
sions in  the  month  of  July  are  to  be  authorized  to  grant  licenses  to  any 
housekeeper  whom  they  may  approve,  and  who  may  be  able  to  obtain  two 
sureties  to  enter  into  recognizances  for  his  good  behaviour.  The  selling 
game  to,  or  buying  game  from,  any  other  but  a  licensed  person,  is  to  be 
made  an  offence  punishable  with  a  heavy  penalty.  Every  person  who  re- 
ceives such  license  is  to  deliver,  with  every  parcel  of  game  which  he  sells, 
a  ticket,  containing  his  own  name  and  place  of  abode,  the  name  and  place 
of  abode  of  the  party  from  whom  he  bought  it,  and  to  whom  he  sells  it, 
together  with  the  date  of  such  sale  and  such  delivery  ;  and  individuals  buy- 
ing or  selling  game  without  such  ticket  affixed  to  it,  are  to  be  liable  to  a 
penalty  for  every  parcel  of  game  so  bought  and  so  delivered.  Now,  my 
first  objection  to  this  system  is  the  increased  influence  which  it  throws  into 
the  hands  of  the  local  magistracy,  who,  as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  are 
not  very  unlikely  to  abuse  it :  and  my  next  is,  the  monopoly  which  it  gives 
to  a  favoured  few.  and  the  invidious  exclusion  to  which  it  consigns  everv 
body  else  who  wishes  to  deal  in  the  game  trade.  A  monopoly  so  guarded  by- 
penalty,  is  inconsistent  with  the  leading  principle  of  the  bill  that  game  is 
property — for  that  can  hardly  be  called  property  which  you  cannot  dispose 
of,  either  when  you  please,  as  you  please,  or  to  whom  you  please.  It 
tends  also  to  make  the  licensed  dealers  in  game  the  arbiters  of  its  price; 
and,  as  they  are  to  be  selected  by  the  justices,  who  would  soon  become 
game-sellers,  would  enable  them  to  enhance  the  price  of  the  article  as  they 
thought  proper.  An  assize  of  game  would  be,  therefore,  fixed  at  every  July 
sessions  as  regularly  as  an  assize  of  bread  was  fixed  in  former  times,  and  any- 
dealer  who  refused  to  sell  according  to  the  terms  then  agreed  upon,  would 
run  the  risk  of  having  his  license  stopped  at  his  next  application  for  it. 
Besides,  the  power  given  to  the  magistrate  to  compel  any  purchaser  as  well 
as  any  seller  of  game  to  produce  his  tickets  and  vouchers  at  any  subse- 
quent distance  of  time,  in  order  to  show  how  he  became  the  possessor  of 
game,  is  a  power  of  the  most  inquisitorial  description,  and  militates  against 
one  of  the  oldest  principles  of  our  law,  that  no  man  shall  be  called  upon 
to  criminate  himself.  For  my  own  part,  I  see  no  reason  why  any  license 
should  be  required  at  all.  The  dealers  in  game,  if  the  sale  were  legalized, 
would  not,  as  now,  conceal  from  the  public  that  they  were  so  ;  and  those 
who  got  their  game  dishonestly  would  be  no  more  supported  in  their  traffic 
by  their  customers  than  the  dealer  in  poultry,  who  derived  his  stock  from 
the  pillage  of  the  hen-roost  and  the  robbery  of  the  farm-yard.  Moreover, 
poaching  would  become  more  difficult  from  the  number  of  small  proprie- 

*  Vide  "  Re-cousiclyr.itions  on  certain  proposed  alterations  in  the  Game  Laws,'*  by 
G.Bunkes,  Esq.  p.  33-34. 


520  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAY, 

tors,  who  would  have  an  interest  in  preventing  it ;  and  though  it  would  not 
be  extinguished  immediately,  would  receive  such  a  wound,  from  the  want 
of  encouragement  which  would  follow  the  legalization  of  the  sale,  as  would 
render  it  infinitely  less  lucrative,  and  therefore  infinitely  less  tempting  to 
the  misguided  peasantry,  who  now  engage  in  it.  I  say  nothing  of  the  moral 
feeling,  which  would  be  generated  against  it,  for  1  dislike  canting  about 
that  of  which  we  know  nothing  till  we  see  its  fruits. 

I  have  now  gone  as  briefly  as  I  could,  through  the  leading  enactments 
of  this  bill ;  and  you  will  see,  that,  though  I  approve  of  the  principle  on 
which  it  proceeds,  I  disapprove  of  most  of  its  details.  It  is  to  be  accom- 
panied by  another  bill,  without  which  it  would  be  utterly  unavailing  as  a 
remedial  measure,  repealing  the  57th  Geo.  III.  ch.  90. — an  act,  which 
has  filled  the  land  with  more  bloodshed,  and  its  prisons  with  more  felons 
and  murderers,  than  any  other  single  act  in  the  whole  range  of  the  Sta- 
tute Book.  As  the  manner  in  which  that  bill  was  smuggled  through  par- 
liament, very  clearly  elucidates  the  spirit,  in  which  country  gentlemen 
legislate  on  partridges  and  peasants,  you  will  perhaps  not  consider  it  a 
waste  of  time  to  listen  to  a  short  history  of  it.  In  the  session  of  J817, 
Mr.  G.  Banks  sneaked  a  bill  into  the  House  of  Commons,  extending  the 
time  of  night  to  two  hours  beyond  its  natural  duration  at  any  period  of  the 
year,  and  authorizing  magistrates  at  Quarter  Sessions  to  convict,  by  a 
summary  process,  persons  found  by  night  in  enclosed  places  with  guns  or 
other  implements  with  intent  to  kill  game,  and  to  subject  them  at  the 
discretion  of  the  said  magistrates,  to  transportation  for  seven  years,  or  to 
any  minor  punishment.  This  bill- — which  for  severity  has  no  parallel, 
except  it  be  the  act  of  Elizabeth,  which  doomed  to  the  gallows  such  sol- 
diers and  sailors  as  were  found  bogging  in  the  streets  without  a  pass  from 
their  officers — was  introduced,  like  ;t.*  j  rouecessor,  as  an  amendment  on  the 
vagrant  act,  and  had  passed  as  such,  without  remark,  through  all  its  stages, 
to  the  third  reading,  before  Sir  S.  Romilly  discovered  it  to  be  an  impudent 
attempt  to  aggravate  the  existing  penalties  of  the  Game  Laws.  That 
great  man  immediately  opposed  it  with  the  united  powers  of  argument  and 
eloquence,  but  was  not  able  to  wrest  from  the  country  gentlemen  any 
tiling  more  than  this  alteration  in  it, — namely,  that  the  conviction  should 
not  be  by  summary  process  before  the  magistrates,  but  by  a  trial  by  jury, 
either  at  the  Assizes  or  the  Sessions.  Since  the  passing  of  that  law,  a  war 
of  posts  has  been  maintained  in  every  plantation ;  and  the  situation  of 
gamekeeper  and  lord  of  the  manor  has  become  a  situation  of  danger,  without 
being  converted  into  a  situation  of  honour.  Nor  is  it  at  all  wonderful, 
that  such  should  have  been  its  results.  The  man,  who  would  surrender 
quietly,  if  a  few  months  imprisonment  was  all  he  had  to  suffer,  is  driven 
to  attempt  a  desperate  resistance,  when  he  recollects,  that  his  capture  may 
lead  to  a  long  banishment  in  a  distant  country  from  all  his  friends  and 
family  connections.  The  severity  of  the  law  has  also  destroyed  its  effi- 
cacy. Notwithstanding  all  Mr.  Bankes's  twaddling  about  (*)  "a poacher 
being  a  thief  according  to  the  law  of  nature,"  jurors  are  accustomed  to 
take  the  same  view  of  poaching  that  the  law  does,  and  to  consider  it  as  a 
trespass,  not  as  a  theft.  It  appears  inconsistent  with  their  feelings  of 
justice,  that  so  heavy  a  punishment  should  fall  upon  so  insignificant  a 
crime  ; — and  the  consequence  is,  that,  until  the  last  Assizes  at  Warwick, 
they  always  refused  to  convict  upon  this  statute,  from  a  fear  of  the  conse- 

*  Vide  the  "  Re-considerations.* 


1  <S27J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  521 

qnences  attendant  on  their  verdict.  And  what  I  would  ask  has  been  th* 
result  of  that  particular  conviction  ?  An  open  contrast  between  tha 
punishment  awarded  to  manslaughter  and  to  partridges! aughter,  and  a 
public  declaration,  that,  if  aggravated  manslaughter  is  to  be  punished  only 
by  a  year's  imprisonment,  and  partridgeslaughter,  which  is  the  rich  man's 
sport,  but  the  poor  raan*s  erime,  by  seven  years  transportation,  the  law  of 
England  must  consider  the  partridge  as  the  being  with  a  reasoning  and 
immortal  soul,  and  the  peasant  as  the  unthinking  and  irresponsible  bird. 
To  remedy  the  mischief  arising  from  such  a  notion,  Lord  Wharncliffe  pro- 
poses to  repeal  the  whole  of  the  act  of  the  57th  of  the  late  King,  and  to 
enact  instead  of  it,  that  a  poacher,  upon  conviction  before  a  magistrate, 
shall  be  sentenced  for  his  first  offence  to  hard  labour  for  three  months,  for 
his  second  offence  to  hard  labour  for  six  months,  and  for  his  third  offence 
shall  be  liable  to  transportation.  Now,  though  I  shall  rejoice  in  seeing 
Mr.  Bankes's  brutal  act  repealed,  I  must  here  again  complain  of  Lord 
Wharncliffe's  propensity  to  throw  great  and  extensive  power  into  the 
hands  of  an  unpaid  and  irresponsible  magistracy.  In  neither  of  his  Game 
Bills  has  he  allowed  the  conviction  of  a  single  offence  to  take  place 
before  a  jury ;  and  surely,  when  no  less  than  1 ,300  persons  are  incarce- 
rated annually  in  England  for  breaches  of  these  laws,  it  is  too  much  to  say 
that  the  magistracy,  and  the  magistracy  alone,  shall  sit  in  judgment  upon 
them.  Besides  the  punishment  for  the  third  offence  is  too  severe,  and  will 
tend  to  foster  a  spirit  of  hostility  against  the  new  system,  which  is  one  of 
the  most  lamentable  consequences  of  the  old  system,  of  Game  Laws. 
Surely  we  have  had  gamekeepers  enough  shot  by  poachers,  and  poachers 
by  gamekeepers,  to  warn  us  against  inflicting  a  disproportionate  punish- 
ment on  an  offence,  which  cannot  be  committed,  except  the  culprit  has 
arms  in  his  possession,  nor  proved  against  him,  except  he  is  captured 
fiagrante  delicto. 

One  word  more  upon  this  subject,  and  I  have  done.  Though  Lord 
Wharncliffe's  bills  are  not  calculated  to  create  such  a  code  of  Game  Laws, 
as  I  could  wish  to  see  adopted  permanently  in  this  country,  they  are  still 
an  improvement,  as  far  as  they  extend,  on  the  present  system.  He  may, 
and  most  probably  will,  be  defeated  for  the  present  session  in  his  endeavours 
to  stop  by  their  means  the  demoralization,  which  the  practice  of  poaching 
is  now  spreading  through  the  rural  population  of  England  ;  but  he  is  not 
therefore  to  despond.  The  voice,  and,  what  is  better,  the  sense  of  the 
country  is  with  him  as  to  the  principle,  whatever  it  may  be  as  to  the 
details,  of  his  bill ;  and,  though  a  few  booby  lords  and  ignorant  squires 
may  still  protest  with  Sir  John  Shelley,  that  "the  Game  Laws  ought  not  to 
be  touched,  because  the  country  has  arisen  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  glory 
under  them,"  many  years  will  not  elapse,  before  their  impolicy,  inconsis- 
tency, and  inutility  will  be  admitted  even  by  their  present  advocates. 
When  that  time  arrives,  he  will  be  considered  as  a  great  public  benefactor 
who  shall  reduce  them  into  one  consistent  whole,  and  shall  purge  them 
from  those  anomalies  and  imperfections,  which  are  depriving  the  bold  and 
virtuous  cottagers  of  England  of  that  self-respect,  which  is  the  best  gua- 
rantee for  integrity  of  conduct,  and  are  degrading  them  from  their  former 
high  moral  standard  to  a  level  with  the  reckless  and  sanguinary  peasantry 
of  Ireland. 

By  the  bye,  I  hate  the  present  Game  Laws  so  inordinately,  that  1  will 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  poachers  a  means  of  bringing  the  squire-archy  a 

M.M.  New  Series.—  VOL,  III.  No.  17.  ~3  X 


522  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  £MAY, 

little  to  reason.  That  part  of  the  statute  of  2  Jas.  I.  cap.  27,  is  still  unre- 
pealed,  which  inflicts  a  penalty  of  20  shillings  for  every  pheasant  and 
partridge,  which  is  killed  ivith  a  gun  by  any  person  whatever,  no  matter 
whether  he  be  qualified  or  not.  "  Gentlemen,"  says  Lord  Suffield  in  his 
admirable  pamphlet  on  the  Game  Laws,  "  who  are  in  the  habit  of  bagging 
upwards  of  100  head  of  game  to  their  single  gun  in  each  day's  battue, 
if  sued  under  this  statute  tor  the  penalties  attaching  to  their  offence,  will 
find  battuing  rather  costly  sport/'  Let  the  poachers  attend  to  this  hint, 
and  we  shall  have  even  the  lords  of  double  barrels  squeaking  for  a  reform 
in  the  law.  Lord  Wharncliffe's  bill,  strange  to  say,  leaves  this  statute, 
which  was  made  for  the  protection  of  hawking,  in  all  its  original  force 
and  efficacy. 

Along  with  the  two  bills  I  have  just  been  criticising,  a  third  bill  has  been 
travelling  through  parliament  to  declare  the  setting  of  spring-guns  unlawful. 
The  object  of  the  proposers  of  that  bill,  was  to  prevent  them  from  being  set 
in  any  place  whatever;  but  it  was  defeated  by  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne, 
who  carried  a  clause  in  the  Lords,  enabling  any  man,  who  thought  fit,  to 
set  them  in  his  house,  and  to  shoot  by  accident  any  of  his  family.  In  the 
debate  on  the  bill,  Lord  Suffield  made  an  appalling  disclosure  of  the  dread- 
ful devices  which  the  gentlemen  of  England  think  themselves  justified  in 
employing  for  the  protection  of  their  game.  If  we  are  to  believe  his  state- 
ment, plantations  are  often  converted  into  large  mines  for  the  destruction  of 
poachers.  Shells  are  attached  to  spring-guns,  which  explode  on  the  slightest 
change  in  the  situation  of  the  machinery  to  which  they  are  attached  ;  and 
wooden  pheasants,  filled  with  detonating  powder,  are  placed  in  trees,  which 
have  only  to  be  struck  by  a  shot  to  go  off,  like  a  Congreve  rocket.  These 
secret  engines  of  death  have,  strange  to  say,  met  with  defenders  among 
individuals,  who  pretend  to  liberality  of  feeling  and  kindness  of  disposition. 
It  is  argued,  that  if  they  hurt  one  man,  they  deter  another;  and  that  it  is 
better  humanity  (*)  to  kill  a  poacher  at  once,  than  to  send  him  to  a  gaol, 
where  he  is  certain  to  become  indifferent  to  guilt,  and  to  graduate  rapidly 
in  every  species  of  crime.  I  shall  not  waste  words  in  pointing  out  the 
absurdity  and  wickedness  of  this  argument,  which,  if  it  is  worth  any  thing, 
is  the  severest  censure  that  has  yet  been  pronounced  upon  the  impolicy 
of  the  Game  Laws.  The  mischief  is,  that  this  rural  artillery  cannot 
discriminate  between  the  innocent  and  the  guilty,  and  that  it  will 
shoot  a  squire  with  as  little  remorse  as  a  labourer  or  a  poacher. 
Besides,  if  it  even  could  discriminate,  a  poacher  is  not  such  an  outcast 
from  society,  as  to  be  shot  without  either  judge  or  jury  ;  —  "  inter 
pontem  et  fontem,  he  may  yet,"  as  Lord  Coke  says,  "  find  mercy." 
I  know,  that  the  setting  of  these  machines  is  defended  by  the  setting  of 
spikes  and  tenter-hooks  on  walls  to  prevent  trespasses  upon  gardens ;  but 
I  doubt  the  legality  of  the  latter  practice,  and  am  sure  that  there  is  a  wide 
difference,  not  only  in  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  inflicted  by  them,  but  also 
in  the  notice  of  the  danger  which  is  given  to  the  eye,  and  in  the  criminal 
intention  of  the  party  trespassing.  My  own  opinion  is,  that  there  is  in  the 
setting  of  spring-guns  such  a  formed  design  of  doing  mischief  to  some  party, 
as  constitutes  that  degree  of  legal  malice  which  makes  murder  of  a  killing 
by  them  ;  and  had  I  time,  I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to  run  over  the 
cases  in  Hawkins,  and  the  other  writers  on  the  pleas  of  the  crown,  which 

*  Vide  "Observations  on  Lord  SuffiehPs  pamphlet  on  the  Game  Laws,  by  a  Country 
Gentleman."  London.  Chappie.  182.-5. 


1827.J  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  523 

bear  out  my  view  of  this  subject.  According  to  the  preamble  of  this  very 
bill  doubts  have  arisen  upon  the  point,  and  it  is  therefore  extraordinary  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  body  of  the  bill  to  put  those  doubts  to  rest.  It  is, 
indeed,  declared  a  misdemeanor  to  set  spring-guns;  but  not  a  word  is  said 
as  to  whether  the  person  setting  them  is  to  be  considered  guilty  of  murder 
or  manslaughter,  in  case  death  should  be  occasioned  by  their  going  off. 
The  bill,  which  passed  the  Commons  in  1825,  declared  such  person  to  be 
guilty  of  manslaughter,  and  gave  to  the  trespasser,  who  was  only  wounded 
by  them,  treble  damages  ajid  costs  in  the  action  which  it  entitled  him  to 
bring  against  the  person  who  set  them.  I  like  that  bill  better  than  the 
present ;  but  I  suspect  this  milder  measure  was  introduced  in  its  stead,  in 
order  to  conciliate  the  opposition  which  was  then  got  up  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  it  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  one  or  two  of  his  military  cro- 
nies, who  being  rendered  callous  by  long  practice  to  the  shooting  of  men 
by  wholesale,  could  not  be  expected  to  see  any  harm  in  shooting  them 
by  retail. 

From  the  Game  Laws,  I  come  by  no  unnatural  transition  to  a  paragraph, 
which  I  saw  in  The  Morning  Herald  of  the  other  day,  stating  that  the 
parishioners  of  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  had  been  treated  with  an 
*'  impressive  and  eloquent"  sermon  against  gaming  by  their  worthy  vicar, 
the  Dean  of  Chester.  Now,  to  my  mind,  a  work  of  greater  supererogation 
could  not  have  been  attempted :  first,  because  the  gamblers,  for  whose 
benefit  it  was  intended,  are  not  in  general  church-goers;  and  next,  because 
they  would  be  impenetrable  to  argument  even  if  they  were.  Of  all  the 
propensities  which  commence  by  making  dupes,  and  end  by  making  knaves 
of  those  who  are  their  victims,  none  is  so  perfectly  reason-proof  as  that 
which  derives  its  origin  from  the  excitements  of  the  gaming  table,  and  the 
visionary  who  seeks  to  cure  the  toothache  by  philosophical  dissertations, 
which  4<  make  a  pish  at  pain  and  sufferance,"  is  not  likely  to  have  more 
success  than  he  who  seeks  to  cure  the  gamester  by  discourses,  "writ  in  the 
style  of  gods,"  upon  the  danger  and  immorality  of  his  practices.  By  the 
stage,  the  pulpit,  the  bar  and  the  senate,  efforts  have  been  made,  in  all 
ages,  languages,  and  countries,  to  repress,  if  not  to  extinguish,  the  spirit  of 
gaming,  and  the  experience  of  successive  generations  is  pregnant  with  proof, 
that  under  every  different  combination  of  climate,  circumstance  and  cha- 
racter, those  efforts  have  all  been  equally  vain  and  ineffectual.  If  then 
we  cannot  put  a  stop  to  the  practices  of  the  gamester,  it  is  worth  while  to 
consider  whether  we  cannot  render  them  less  noxious  to  himself  and  the 
community,  by  placing  them  under  the  correction  and  control  of  some  re- 
sponsible public  authority.  I  expect  you  will  raise  an  immense  outcry 
against  me,  when  I  declare  to  you  that  my  honest  opinion  is,  that  the 
system  of  prohibition,  which  we  pursue  in  England  with  regard  to  gaming 
houses,  is  infinitely  more  prejudicial  to  public  and  private  prosperity  than 
that  of  licensing,  which  is  pursued  in  most,  for  I  do  not  say  all,  of  the  con- 
tinental states.  In  England,  every  gaming  house  is  by  law  tabooed  or 
prohibited  ground;  and  the  keeper  and  frequenter  are  both  liable  to  the 
infliction  of  severe  and  even  infamous  punishment.  The  consequence  is, 
that  a  degree  of  mystery  attaches  to  them,  which  renders  them  highly 
attractive  to  the  young  and  inexperienced.  Yon  must  be  introduced  by  a 
friend;  you  must  be  entrusted  with  a  pass  word  ;  you  must  be  sworn  as 
it  were  to  secrecy  and  silence.  What  passes  over  the  table  at  night,  you 
must  not  divulge  to  the  uninitiated  in  the  morning;  and  hence  you  are 
often  deep  in  the  gulph  of  ruin  before  you  can  bo  cautioned  that  you  are 

<)      /\      £ 


524  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAT, 

even  standing  upon  its  brink.     The  very  danger  of  exposure,  which  you  as 
;i    frequenter   run  in  common    with  the    master  of  the  gaming  house,  is 
craftily  turned  by  him  into  an  excuse  for  securing  to  himself  advantages 
over  you  in  the  game,  which  are  permitted  in  no  other  country  but  our  own ; 
und  if  he  should  happen  to  take  further  advantages  than  those  which  custom 
warrants,  a  circumstance  by  no  means  improbable,   you  have  no  remedy, 
except  the  useless  one  of  breaking  his  bones,  to  which  you  can  resort  with- 
out injury  to  your  character  as  a  gentleman.     Besides,  the  law,  though 
severe,  is  so  irregularly  enforced  in  England,  that  almost  in  every  instance 
in  which  it  is  enforced,  it  appears  unjust  and  partial    in   its  operation. 
Hence,  in  various  parts  of  the  countiy,  gaming  houses,  in  which  every 
species  of  abuse  is  permitted,  are  kept  open,  not  only  with  the  connivance, 
but  almost  under  the  avowed  patronage  of  the  local  magistracy.     I  am 
uot  speaking  here  at  random.     In  this   very  town,  from  which   I  now 
\vrit*>,  a  printed  note  of  invitation  was  put  into  my  hands  about  three  years 
ago,  at  the  August  races,  by  a  minion  "of  the  police,  stating  that  a  Mr. 
Cauty,  for  I  see  no  reason  why  I    should  mince  the  fellow's  name,  had 
opened  a  house  in  Blake-street  for  the  race  week,  at  which  he  should  be 
happy  to  see  such  of  his  friends — I  disclaim  being  of  the  number — as  were 
inclined  to  amuse  themselves  in  the  evening  either  at  hazard  or  at  rouge  et 
iwir.     At  the  time  1  received  this  invitation,  I  was  in  the  York  Tavern, 
conversing  with  a  magistrate  of  the  county,  who  had  been  that  very  day, 
I  believe,   attending  a  preparatory  reform  meeting  at  the  Whig  Hotel  of 
this  ancient  city.     I  put  the  note  into  his  hand  with  a  significant  hint,  that 
i  thought  he  had  better  commence  his  projects  of  reform   at  home.     His 
reply  was  immediate.     "  You  are  mistaken  ;  this  is  no  concern  of  mine  ; 
I  cannot  either  mar  or  mend  it;  for  the  offender  dwells   not  within  my 
jurisdiction.1'     A  somewhat  similar  occurrence  happened,  as  I  am  told,  a 
few  years  ago  at  Brighton ;  but   there  the  magistrate,  who  received  the 
card  of  invitation  from  a  police  officer  who  knew  him  not,  had  jurisdiction, 
and  immediately  exercised  it  in  suppressing  the  house.     But  did  he  effect 
any  good  by  that  suppression  ?     None  whatever.    The  place  was  changed, 
but  the  practice,  with  the  single  exception  of  its  being  more  secret,  re- 
mained unaltered.     And  here  I  may  remark,  that  just  in  proportion  to  the 
privacy,  with  which  gaming  is  carried  on,  is  there  scope  given  for  trickery 
and  imposition.     Hence  I  prefer  much  those   public  safaris  dejeu,  into 
which  any  well  dressed  person  may  walk,  whether  he  plays  or  not,  and  in 
which  a  man  cannot  become  a  professed  gambler,  without  the  fact  being 
rendered  notorious  to  his  relations  and  friends,   and   what  is  often  much 
more  material,  to  his  creditors  and  tradesmen,  whom  his  practices  are  cer- 
tain  to  injure  in  the  long  run.     Besides,    the  perpetual  superintendence, 
which  the  police  exercises  over  those  places,  drives  in  a  great  measure  from 
them  those  common  cheats  and  robbers,  who  swarm  in  our  private  gaming 
houses,  and  checks,  if  it  does  not  entirely  prevent,  that  deliberate  system 
of  intoxication   and  pillage,  which  forms  so  prominent  a  feature  in  the 
tactics  of  our  modern  sharpers.     Add  to  this,  the  very  fear  of  being  dis- 
covered in  such  a  scene  of  contamination  by  a  party,  who  could  stand  aloof 
from  it,  without  exciting  suspicion  or  remark,  would,  in  a  thinking  coun- 
try like  our  own,  deter  numbers  from  mixing  in  it.     At  present   no  man 
detects  another  in  a  gaming  house  without  being  himself  a  fellow  sinner, 
and  I  believe  I  may  also  add  a  fellow  sufferer ;  and  thus  a  sense  of  common 
interest  compels  each  to  shield  the  other  from  the  disgrace  and  the  penal- 
tics  attendant  upon  detection.     Under  the  system  which  I  recommend,  the 


1827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  525 

case  would  be  different;  and  though  you  might  he  free  from  the  Lash  of  the 
Jaw,  as  in  point  of  fact  you  are  at  present,  you  would  be  rendered  much 
more  amenable  to  that  of  public  opinion. 

It  is  argued,  however,  that  this  system  would  facilitate  the  means  of 
play,  and  would,  therefore,  materially  increase  the  practise  of  it  among 
us.  Now  I  deny  the  correctness  of  the  premises,  on  which  this  argument 
is  founded,  and  therefore  quarrel  with  the  deduction,  which  is  derived  from 
it.  I  think,  that  the  higher  classes  of  society  could  not,  under  any  miti- 
gation of  the  existing  law, — which,  to  its  disgrace  and  condemnation,  be  it 
spoken,  is  never  enforced  against  them — have  greater  facilities  for  gaming 
than  they  have  at  present,  collectively  in  their  clubs,  and  privately  in  their 
mansions ;  and  that  the  lower  classes  of  society  have,  at  their  fairs,  their 
horse-races,  their  cock-fights,  their  bull-baits,  their  badger-hunts,  their  box- 
ing-matches, their  skittle-grounds,  and  their  tippling-houses,  the  most 
abundant  opportunities  to  indulge,  though  on  a  less  expensive  scale,  in  the 
same  dangerous,  but  exciting  diversions  with  their  superiors.  A  question 
may,  perhaps,  arise  on  this  point  with  regard  to  the  middling  classes,  if, 
indeed,  any  diversity  of  rank  be  recognized  at  the  gaming-table.  Now, 
though  1  am  of  opinion  that  no  man,  who  belongs  to  this  grade  of  society, 
can  have  much  difficulty  in  obtaining  admission  to  any  "  hell"  in  this 
country,  if  he  seriously  wishes  for  it,  I  will  still  admit,  that  even  that  little 
portion  of  difficulty  would  be  obviated  by  the  change  which  I  have  ven- 
tured to  recommend  in  our  law  :  but  then  it  ought  to  be  recollected,  that 
the  members  of  this  class  are  the  very  individuals  who  would  be  most 
affected  both  in  mind  and  fortune,  and  respectability,  by  the  publicity, 
which,  as  J  have  before  said,  would  be  attendant  on  the  alleged  increase 
of  facility ; — and  it  is  my  opinion,  that  "  the  sway  of  motion,"  which 
they  might  derive  from  the  latter,  would  be  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  repulsive  force  which  would  be  generated  by  the  former.  Be 
these  speculations,  however,  as  they  may,  I  will  not  pursue  them  further 
at  present.  I  have  noted  them  down  as  they  arose  in  my  own  mind,  not 
from  any  hope  of  seeing  them  converted  into  reality,  but  from  a  downright 
detestation  of  the  disgusting  cant,  which  I  hear  daily  about  the  mischief 
arising  from  the  toleration  of  these  moral  lazar  houses.  1  am  convinced 
that  much  greater  mischief  arises  from  the  total  prohibition  of  them  ;  and 
though  I  admit,  that,  if  it  were  practicable  to  put  them  down  entirely,  you 
would  be  bound  in  conscience  to  do  so  :  still,  if  such  a  result  cannot  be 
realized,  I  must  contend  that  it  is  better  to  place  them  under  correctional 
superintendence,  in  order  that  the  evil,  which  you  cannot  eradicate,  may 
be  restrained  and  limited  in  its  destructive  ravages. 

T  see  by  the  remainder  of  the  paragraph,  which  I  quoted  from  the 
Morning  Herald,  that  the  Reverend  Doctor  made  "  an  allusion  that  could 
not  be  misunderstood,  to  the  abominable  Pandaemonium,  now  erecting  in 
St.  James' s-street."  Leaving  you  to  inquire  whether  this  strange  peri- 
phrasis, to  avoid  mentioning  to  "  ears  polite"  the  Hell  which  Crockford 
is  constructing,  be  the  invention  of  the  sermon  or  the  paragraph  writer,  I 
proceed  to  notice  an  intimation  contained  in  all  the  papers,  that  an  indict- 
ment has  been  found  against  him  for  winning  £900  odd  of  a  Mr.  Dick. 
Tt  would  be  hard  work  for  you  or  me  to  be  badgered  at  once  by  the  ana- 
themas of  the  church  and  the  informations  of  the  law  :  but  Crockford, 
fortunately  for  himself,  is  proof  against  both,  and  cares  little  about  either. 
He  knows  that  the  first  are  at  present  idle  words,  and  trusts  that  the  latter 
will  become  so,  from  the  reluctance  of  Diek's  witnesses  to.  appear  .on  hi* 


526  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  [MAY 

behalf  at  any  public  trial.  He  has  escaped  repeatedly  from  the  fangs  of 
justice  by  means  of  that  reluctance  ;  and  he  lives  in  hopes  of  so  escaping 
from  them  again.  Can  there  be  a  stronger  reason  for  altering  the  law, 
than  this  proof  of  its  inefficiency  to  answer  the  ends  for  which  it  is 
enacted  ? 

There  have  been  many  odd  edicts  made  to  suppress  gaming  ;  but  there 
is  one  recorded  in  Benedictus  Abbas  so  extremely  curious,  that  I  cannot 
refrain  from  inserting  it  here.  It  was  issued  in  the  year  1190  to  the  army 
of  Crusaders,  commanded  by  Richard  of  England,  and  Philip  of  France, 
and  prohibited  every  person  in  it  from  playing  at  any  sort  of  game  for 
money,  except  knights  and  clergymen  !  The  edict  allowed  these  latter 
gentry  to  lose  twenty  shillings  each  day,  but  visited  them  with  a  forfeiture 
of  100  shillings,  to  the  archbishop  of  the  army,  in  case  they  ventured  to 
lose  more.  The  two  kings  were  permitted  to  play  for  what  sums  they 
pleased ;  but  their  attendants  were  limited,  like  the  knights  and  clergymen, 
to  a  loss  of  twrenty  shillings.  Their  fate  was,  however,  a  little  harder, 
when  they  transgressed  the  law ;  for  they  were  to  be  whipped,  naked, 
through  the  army  for  three  days.  What  admirable  work  would  the  re- 
enactment  of  this  law  carve  out  for  the  ruling  pillars  of  the  church,  and 
the  final  dispensers  of  the  law  ! — Hangmen  and  archbishops  would  have  full 
employment ;  and  as  one  would  take  care  of  the  bodies,  and  the  other  of 
the  souls  and  purses  of  all  offenders,  it  is  possible  that  they  might  conjointly 
work  out  that  reformation,  which  has  hitherto  been  found  impracticable 
by  all  who  have  attempted  it. 

I  am  sorry  to  learn  that  the  people  in  Westminster  have  been  so  long 
poisoned  with  execrable  water  without  knowing  why,  and  glad  to  find 
that  a  Caliban  has  risen  up  in  the  shape  of  Mr.  Wright,  to  shew  them 

"  all  the  qualities  o'  the  isle, 

Its  fresh  springs,  brine-pits,  waters  sweet  and  troubled  ;" 

but  is  this  Mr.  Wright  the  disinterested  person  he  wishes  to  be  considered  ? 
or  is  he  pursuing  his  usual  system  of  puffery,  and  only  decrying  Westmin- 
ster water  to  get  off  super-excellent  Westminster  wine  ?  If  he  is,  I  shall 
not  complain — for  "  the  jest  is  laughable,"  to  those  who  are  not  com- 
pelled to  gulp  down  either. 

"  The  earth  hath  bubbles,  as  the  water  has, 

And  these  are  of  them — whither  are  they  vanished  ?  ' 

Taking  this  opinion  of  Ban  quo  for  my  motto,  I  proceed  to  notice  the  report, 
which  the  committee  appointed  to  examine  into  the  Arigna  Mining  Com- 
pany has  presented  to  the  House,  containing  a  savage  flagellation  for  Sir 
W.  Congreve,  but  a  gentler  chastisement  for  Mr.  Brogden.  "  The  Times" 
says,  that  the  evidence  warrants  still  more  cutting  language  than  the  report 
uses ;  and  rumour  adds,  that  Alderman  Waithman  intends,  after  the  holi- 
days, to  move  for  the  expulsion  of  both  members,  and  for  the  prosecution 
of  the  original  concoctors  of  this  bubble  by  the  Attorney-General.  Mr. 
Wilks,  on  a  recent  occasion,  said,  that  Sir  W.  Congreve  and  Mr.  Brogden 
both  stood  honourably  acquitted  on  the  face  of  that  report ; — and  nobody 
was  surprized,  considering  the  charges,  which  are  pending  against  Mr. 
Wilks.  that  he  should  say  so. — 

Qtlis  cce'um  terris  non  mf scent  f  et  mare  coelo, 
Si  fur  displiceat  Perrf,  homicidn  Miloni  ? 

I  must  admit  that  the  member  for  Sudbury  defended  himself  inge- 
niously, but  yet  desperately,  against  the  slashing  attack  which  Waithman 


]  827.]  Letter  on  Affairs  in  general.  527 

made  upon  him.  He  finessed  a  little  more  than  the  occasion  required,  but 
still  shewed  great  tact  in  the  manner  in  which  he  hoisted  a  friendly  signal 
to  every  senatorial  sinner  in  shares.  No  doubt,  they  will  rally  round  him, 
and  fight  to  the  last  in  defence  of  the  property  which  they  have  wrested 
from  the  public.  Will  their  defence,  which  rests  upon  the  forms  and  tech- 
nicalities of  the  House,  be  allowed  to  succeed  ?  It  ought  not,  but  I  am 
afraid  it  will. 

The  "  assize  intelligence''  has  not  been  of  an  interesting  description. 
Justice  Park  has  found  out,  that  Monmouthshire  is  the  most  ignorant,  and 
Somersetshire  the  most  wicked,  county  in  England,  thereby  affording  a 
geographical  proof,  that  there  is  no  great  distance  between  ignorance  and 
crime.  Justice  Bayley  has  proclaimed  to  gamekeepers,  that  they  will  be 
hanged,  in  future,  if  they  murder  poachers,  which  will,  in  all  probability, 
prevent  poachers  from  being  hanged  for  murdering  gamekeepers.  At  Aber- 
gavenny,  some  rustics,  who  were  no  conjurers,  maltreated  an  old  woman 
who  was  no  witch,  and  are  now  spell-bound  for  it  in  any  thing  but  an 
enchanted  castle.  You  may  laugh  in  London  at  the  superstition  which 
led  these  Welsh  clod-hoppers"  to  commit  the  offence  of  which  they  were  con- 
victed, and  may  flatter  yourself,  that  it  is  only  to  be  found  in  mountainous 
and  isolated  districts.  But  the  fact  is  not  so.  There  is  scarcely  a  village 
in  these  northern  counties,  in  which  the  labouring  peasantry  are  not 
imbued  with  a  most  ludicrous  dread  of  witches  and  witchcraft.  Even 
some  of  the  middling  classes  are  not  exempt  from  it.  I  know  a  respectable 
and  opulent  farmer,  who,  though  in  other  respects  no  fool,  feasted  the 
"  wise  man  of  Stokesley"  most  sumptuously  for  three  weeks,  and  paid  him 
£40.,  in  hard  cash,  besides,  for  freeing  his  cattle  from  the  spells  which  he 
fancied  that  an  old  crorie  of  his  village  had  cast  upon  them. 

In  the  Vice  Chancellor's  court,  a  curious  discussion  took  place  the  other 
day,  between  the  King's  Counsel  and  Mr.  Montagu,  in  which  the  silk 
gowns  had  all  the  hard  words  on  their  side,  and  Mr.  Montagu  all  the  right 
on  his,  Mr.  Montagu  attributes  much  of  the  delay  in  the  Court  of  Chan- 
cery to  the  manner  in  which  the  King's  Counsel  neglect  their  work,  after 
receiving  the  hire  for  performing  it ;  and  has  given  notice  that  he  will  not 
undertake  the  responsibility  of  a  leading  counsel,  in  any  case  in  which  he 
only  acts  the  part,  and  receives  the  fees,  of  a  junior.  Now,  if  Mr.  Mon- 
tagu has  given  proper  public  notice  of  that  intention,  nobody  can  blame 
him  for  adhering  to  it,  especially  if  he  returns  his  fees  to  his  client,  as  he 
did  the  other  day,  when  Mr.  Heald,  who  was  his  senior,  absented  him- 
self from  the  court,  and  left  him,  without  notice,  to  manage  the  cause  as 
he  could.  The  senior  counsel,  however,  consider  this  conduct,  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Montagu,  as  an  act  of  lese  majeste  against  them  and  their 
dignity,  and  express  the  bitterest  scorn  for  this  attempt  to  confine  their 
engagements  within  the.scope  and  ability  of  their  performance.  Mr.  Sugden 
and  Mr.  Heald,  notwithstanding  all  their  fine  palaver  about  "more  ease, 
and  less  fees,"  fumed  so  violently  against  Mr.  Montagu,  on  this  score,  the 
other  day  in  open  court,  that  the  Vice  Chancellor  felt  it  his  duty  to  inter- 
fere, arid  tell  them  that  he  was  convinced  that  Mr.  Montagu  acted  from 
the  purest  motives,  in  the  resolution  to  which  he  had  come.  It  would  be 
a  great  benefit  to  the  suitors  of  the  court,  if  the  other  junior  counsel  would 
act  in  the  same  prompt  and  decisive  mariner ;  but  it  is  idle  to  expect  such 
determination  from  them,  until  they  have  shook  off  that  subserviency  to 
their  seniors,  which  renders  them  blind  even  to  their  own  immediate 
interests. 


528  Letter  an  Affairs  in  genera!.  [MAY, 

"I  could  have  bettor  spared  a  bettor  man,"  from  parliament,  than  Dick 
Martin,  who,  I  understand,  is  turned  out  of  the  representation  of  Conne- 
mara.  "  I  shall  have  a  heavy  miss  of  him,"  when  I  wish  to  be  light-hearted 
over  a  long  debate.  It  is  said  that  he  has  gone  to  France  to  avoid  un- 
pleasant reminiscences  in  England.  I  trust,  for  the  old  man's  sake,  that 
it  is  not  so — but  if  it  be,  I  think  ho  would  have  avoided  them  more  cer- 
tainly by  going  with  Captain  Parry,  on  his  present  voyage,  to  Spitzbergen, 
Acceptances  may  be  wafted  in  quest  of  him  to  the  Seine,  or  to  the  Indus, 
but  not  to  the  Pole.  Indeed,  who  would  follow  a  debt  through  regions  of 
"  thick-ribbed  ice,"  where  he  might  chance  to  take  off  his  toes  with  his 
stockings  in  an  evening,  or  blow  off  his  nose  into  the  fire  in  a  morning  ? 
Such  a  calamity  might  happen  near  the  North  Pole,  since  Knivett  tells  us, 
that  it  did  happen  to  himself  and  some  of  his  friends,  when  they  sailed  with 
Sir  T.  Cavendish  in  quest  of  the  South  Pole. 

You  must  have  heard  of  an  ancient  periodical,  entitled  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  though  I  do  not  suppose  that  you,  a  man  of  the  town,  have 
ever  seen  it.  It  is  one  of  the  reliques  of  a  former  age,  for  which  we.  of 
the  country,  entertain  an  indefinite  sort  of  respect,  arising  out  of  our  par- 
tiality for  "  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors."  I  know  not  what  induced  me. 
to  look  into  the  number  for  the  present  month ;  but,  as  I  am  a  great  natu- 
ralist, I  think  it  must  have  been  my  good  destiny,  which  would  not  per- 
mit me  to  be  ignorant  of  a  singular  phenomenon,  which  has  recently  been 
witnessed  in  the  Indian  seas.  A  young  midshipman,  in  writing  to  his 
worthy  grandfather,  Sylvanus  Urban,  on  the  Burmese  War,  informs  him 
that  the  captain  of  his  ship — whom  I  take  to  be  an  Irishman,  from  his 
ingenious  mode  of  doing  business— -forwarded  his  despatches  to  the 
government  "  by  his  Majesty's  ship,  Champion,  then  lying  before  Ran- 
goon, where  she  has  been  ever  since,  and  is  noiv,  with  her  people,  half 
eaten  by  the  mosquitoes.''  I  had  heard  much  of  the  rapacity  of  the 
mosquitoes,  before  I  saw  this  anecdote  in  illustration  of  it ;  but  I  had  no 
idea  of  their  tooth  being  so  dreadfully  keen  and  destructive.  I  knew  that 
the  "  Dragon  of  Wantley"  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  a  parson  for  his 
lunch,  and  a  church  and  congregation  for  his  dinner  on  a  Sunday ;  nor 
was  I  surprized  at  the  circumstance,  because  I  had  been  informed  that  he 
was  a  "monster,  which,  like  his  great  progenitor,  "  lay  floating  many  a 
rood,"  and  therefore  conjectured  that  he  must  have  an  appetite  com- 
mensurate with  his  size — but,  that  a  mosquito,  which  in  magnitude  ex- 
ceeds not  a  common  gnat,  should  have  swallowed  up  half  a  ship's  crew, 
together  with  half  the  hull,  masts,  sails,  cordage,  and  guns,  is  a  miracle, 
which  I  could  never  have  credited,  had  it  not  come  to  us  from  such  grave 
and  respectable  authority.  For  the  sake  of  science,  as  well  as  of  huma- 
nity, I  am  glad  that  one  half  of  the  ship  and  crew  has  escaped  from  the 
dreadful  catastrophe,  which  has  overtaken  the  other.  The  commander  of 
the  Champion,  if  he  has  not  been  literally  "  sawed  into  quantities,"  and 
"  hurt  beyond  the  reach  of  surgery,"  by  these  bloodsuckers  of  the  east, 
must  lay  before  the  Admiralty  an  account  of  the  direful  disaster,  which 
his  Majesty's  late  good  ship  has  unfortunately  experienced  ;  and  I  am  cer- 
tain, that  neither  the  secretary,  nor  his  sub,  when  they  have  once  pro- 
cured it,  will  allow  "  sleep  to  hang  upon  their  lids,"  till  they  have  pre- 
pared the  particulars  of  it  for  publication,  in  the  forthcoming  Number  of 
the  Quarterly  Review,  N.  S. 


1827.]  [     529     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN. 


Elements  of  Physics,  or  Natural  Philoso- 
phy, General  and  Medical,  explained  inde- 
pendently of  Technical  Mathematics,  by  N. 
Arnott,'M.D.;  1827. — This  volume  keeps 
very  faithfully  the  word  of  promise,  and  we 
are  delighted  to  be  able  to  give  it  our  sincere 
and  unqualified  approbation.  Itis  welladapted 
to  spread  the  general  truths  of  science  beyond 
Ihe  very  narrow  boundaries  within  which 
they  now  circulate ;  and  this  can  only  be  ac- 
complished by  simplifying  and  reducing  them 
to  the  language  and  comprehension  of  com- 
mon life,  by  stripping  them  of  technicalities, 
and  of  the  forms  of  calculation— the  very 
sight  of  rows  of  figures  being  as  appalling  to 
the  ordinary  reader,  on  subjects  of  science,  as 
on  those  of  finance.  The  society  recently 
instituted  for  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  is 
at  this  moment  actively  pursuing  the  same 
object — a  little  too  elaborately — too  much 
secundum  artem — we  fear.  Let  them  take 
a  leaf  out  of  Dr.  Arnott's  book. 

The  author  throws  a  rapid  and  compre- 
hen-ive  glance  over  the  realms  and  regions 
of  knowledge,  and  proposes  a  very  intelli- 
gible and  satisfactory  division  of  the  whole 
wito  physics,  chemistry,  life,  and  mind,  with 
the  subsidiary  or  supplementary  science  of 
quantity.  Then  taking  the  first  division, 
and  separating  the  subjects  of  physics  into 
the  ponderable  and  the  imponderable,  he  dis- 
cusses, at  length,  and  with  a  particularity 
sufficiently  minute  for  all  the  purposes  of 
general  information,  the  PONDERABLE  ones 
—distributing  them  under  the  heads  of  soma- 
tology  and  dynamics,  explaining  under  these 
awful  teims — we  wish  they  could  be  got  rid 
of  altogether— the  constitution  of  masses, 
and  the  motions  going  on  among  them  ; 
mechanics,  the  peculiarities  of  state  and  mo- 
tion among  solid  bodies;  hydrodynamics, 
the  peculiarities  of  state  and  mo! ion  among 
fluid  bodies — specifically,  hydrostatics,  water 
at  rest;  pneumatics,  air  phenomena;  hy- 
draulics, water  in  motion  ;  acoustics,  phe- 
nomena of  sound  and  bearing — which  mat- 
ters together  constitute  the  very  full  contents 
of  the  present  volume.  The  IMPONDERABLE 
substances  are  destined  to  fill  a  second  vo- 
lume, consisting  of  caloric,  or  heat ;  optics, 
or  light;  electricity;  magnetism — followed 
by  a  survey  of  the  phenomena  of  the  hea- 
vens, or  astronomy.  Under  each  of  these 
heads  are  ranged  the  illustrations  afforded  by 
animal  economy,  under  the  terms  of  animal 
and  medical  physics — subjects  not  usually  so 
classed,  but  susceptible  of  being  so  classed 
with  the  strictest  propriety — and  constituting 
here  indeed  some  of  the  most  valuable,  in- 
structive, and,  we  may  say,  entertaining  parts 
of  the  volume. 

For  us  to  attempt  any  minute  analysis  of 
these  multifarious  subjects  would  be  useless, 
un-.l  with  our  narrow  limits  quite  impracti- 
cable. It  is  sufficient  for  us,  and  all  that  we 
can  usefully  do,  to  give  our  readers  some 

M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  17. 


indications  of  the  contents,  assuring  them, 
as  we  justly  may,  that  the  work,  important 
as  is  the  object,  and  one  of  considerable 
pretension  too  on  the  part  of  the  author, 
fully  realizes  the  expectations  it  holds  out. 
It  is  a  clear  and  vigorous  exhibition  of  the 
general  principles  of  science,  in  form  and 
language  accessible  to  the  common  appre- 
hension. The  illustrations  are  peculiarly 
distinct  and  appropriate,  and,  what  in  mat- 
ters of  this  kind  is  most  welcome,  full  and 
familiar.  We  are  sure  that  the  book  does 
all  (hat  a  book  can  do  on  these  matters- 
experimental  lectures  and  demonstrations  are 
indispensable — no  discussions,  however  ac- 
curate, no  language,  however  obvious,  will 
supply  the  absence  of  them.  With  great 
candour  and  truth,  the  author  expresses  the 
same  conviction, adding: — 

No  man  has  ever  been  remarkable  for  his  know- 
ledge of  physics,  chemistry,  or  physiology,  who 
has  not  had  practical  familiarity  with  the  objects. 
With  reference  to  this  familiarity,  persons,  who 
take  a  philanthropic  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  must  observe  with  much  pleasure  the  now 
daily  increasing  facilities  of  acquiring  useful  know- 
ledge, afforded  by  the  scientific  institutions  that 
are  formed  and  forming  through  this  kingdom,  and 
indeed  through  most  civilized  nations. 

We  should  like  to  give  our  readers  a  spe- 
cimen of  the  writer's  tone  of  illustration,  but 
scarcely  know  where  to  choose.  The  ani- 
mal physics  will  perhaps  be  most  interesting, 
and  we  take  the  HEEL: — 

The  heel,  by  projecting  so  far  backwards,  is  a 
long  lever  for  the  strong  muscles  which  form  the 
calf  of  the  leg,  and  terminate  in  the  tendo  achillis, 
to  act  by.  These  murcles,  by  drawing  at  the  heel, 
lift  the  body,  in  standing  on  the  toes,  in  walking, 
in  dancing,  &c.  In  the  negro  foot  the  heel  is  EO 
long  as  to  be  ugly  in  European  estimation ;  and 
its  great  length  rendering  the  effort  of  smaller 
muscles  sufficient  for  the  various  purposes ;  the 
calf  of  the  leg  in  the  negro  is  smaller  in  proportion 
than  in  other  races  of  men.  In  a  graceful  human 
step,  the  heel  is  always  raised  before  the  foot  is 
lifted  from  the  ground,  as  if  the  foot  were  part  of 
a  wheel  rolling  forward  ;  and  the  weight  of  the 
body  rests  for  the  time  on  the  fore  part  of  the  foot 
and  toes.  The  muscles  forming  the  calf  of  the 
leg  lift  the  heel,  as  just  described,  by  drawing  at 
the  tendo  achillis,  and  produce  a  bending  of  the 
foot  in  a  corresponding  degree.  But  where  strong 
wooden  shoes  are  used,  or  any  shoe  so  stiff  that 
it  will  not  yield  and  allow  this  bending  of  the  foot, 
the  heel  in  walking  is  not  raised  at  all  until  the 
whole  foot  rises  with  it,  so  that  the  muscles  of  the 
calf  are  scarcely  used,  and  in  consequence  soon 
dwindle  in  size,  and  almost  disappear.  Many  of 
the  English  farm-servants  wear  heavy  stiff  shoes, 
and  in  London  it  surprises  one  to  see  the  drivers 
of  country  waggons,  with  fine  robust  persons  in 
the  upper  part,  but  with  legs  which  are  fleshless 
spindles,  producing  a  gait,  most  awkward  and  un- 
manly. One  regrets,  that,  for  the  sake  of  a 
trifling  saving,  fair  nature  should  be  thus  de- 
3  Y 


530 


Month/.)/  Review  of  Literature, 


[MAY, 


formed.  The  wives  and  sisters  of  these  men,  and 
their  brothers,  who  are  otherwise  employed,  arc 
not  thus  mis-shapen.  An  example  of  an  opposite 
kind  is  seen  in  Paris,  where,  as  there  are  no  side 
pavements  in  the  streets,  and  the  ladies  conse- 
quently walk  almost  constantly  on  tip-toe,  the 
great  action  of  the  muscles  of  the  ealf  has  given  a 
conformation  of  the  leg  and  foot,  to  match  which 
the  Parisian  belles  proudly  challenge  all  the  world. 
They  are  not  aware,  probably,  that  it  is  a  defect 
in  their  city  to  which  the  peculiarity  of  their  form 
is  in  part  owing. 

DC  J'ere,  by  the  Author  of  Tremainc. 
4  vols.  I2mo.;1827 — An  attempt  is  mani- 
festly making;  to  puff  this  very  superior  moral 
performance  into  a  sort  of  political  portrai- 
ture, for  which  the  venerable  and  very  ac- 
complished writer  surely  never  destined  it, 
calculated  as  such  an  attempt  is  to  ruin  its 
present  utility  and  permanent  reputation. 
Ambition  is  the  stuff  of  the  book;  and  he 
illustrates  and  exemplifies  the  bastard  and 
legitimate  species  of  it,  by  exhibiting — how 
could  he  do  otherwise  ? — the  characters  and 
careers  of  the  leaders  of  political  parties — 
some  prompted  by  selfish  profligacy,  and 
others  aspiring  to  the  purest  and  most  ele- 
vated patriotism.  Premiers,  and  secretaries, 
and  chancellors  cannot  of  course  bespoken  of, 
even  as  imaginary  .shadows,  without  recalling 
realities  ;  and  accordingly  the  reader,  in  the 
tale  before  us,  insensibly,  and,  if  the  fact  be 
previously  asserted,  perhaps  resolutely  takes 
them  for  portraits;  and  portraits,  in  some  of 
the  features,  they  undoubtedly  are.  The  fea- 
tures of  ministers,  from  Bolingbroke  to  Pitt, 
are  traceable  distinctly  enough  ;  but  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous,  Mr.  Wentworth,  the 
patriot  minister,  the  daily  prints  and  some 
of  the  literary  journals,  most  absurdly  and 
stupidly  will  have  to  be  Mr.  Canning.  Mr. 
Canning,  indeed  just  now,  is  the  hero  of  the 
liberal  prints,  and  an  act  of  oblivion  seems 
by  consent  to  have  been  past  on  all  his  long 
and  habitual  support  of  the  worst' corruptions 
of  a  corrupt  system,  controlled  by  a  pre- 
dominating oligarchy,  the  weight  of  whose 
iron  hand  he  is  himself  now  feeling,  and 
•which,  should  he  even  shake  it  off  for  the 
present,  will  eventually  crush  him.  Heaven 
forbid,  that  we  should  refuse  to  Mr.  Can- 
ning all  title  to  patriotism — but  he  must  be 
judged  by  Lis  acts.  This  Mr.  Wentwoith  of 
the  novel,  is  pourtrayed  as  a  man  resolved 
upon  introducing  a  new  and  more  liberal 
system  of  government — upon  setting  his  face 
steadily  against  official  or  family  intrigues — 
upon  administering  a  government  of  '•'  mea- 
sures, not  men" — that  is,  of  shaping  public 
measures  for  the  benefit  of  the  community 
at  large,  great  and  small,  and  not  of  one  of 
its  orders,  <fec.  Now,  really  to  think  of  Mr. 
Canning  in  this  light  is  quite  ridiculous. 
What,  in  the  existing  system  of  representa- 
tion, can  a  government  be  but  one  of  poli- 
tical intrigue — one  of  exchange — of  buying 
and  selling ;  and  who  has  ever  from  first  to 
List  been  half  so  resolute,  and  so  turbulent 
«nd  insolent  an  opponent  of  reform  as  Mr. 


Canning  ?  He  has  gloried  in  this  opponency ; 
and  no  man  can  rationally  expect  a  change 
in  this  respect;  ;md  if  not  in  this  respect, 
none  in  the  general  system  of  administration 
— none  essentially  and  efficiently — and  for 
any  tiling  else  we  care  not  a  straw. 

We  do  not  however  for  a  moment  believe 
that  the  writer  had  individuals,  known  and 
tried,  specifically  and  wholly  in  view;  if  be 
had,  and  Mr.  Wentworth  be  the  foreign 
secretary,  then  he  must  either  have  the  eyes 
of  a  lynx,  or  be  as  blind  as  a  bat.  But  he 
is  no  blind  man  ;  and  we  therefore  the  more 
wonder — and  must  wonder — at  the  uncon- 
cerned, unhesitating  tone  in  which  he  speaks 
of  borough  influence,  as  if  it  never  entered 
his  thoughts  as  a  matter  deserving  of  cen- 
sure ;  and  nothing,  we  conceive,  but  the  long 
and  hardening  possession  of  office  could  have 
brought,  a  man  of  his  high  moral  purity  of 
principle — which  strikes  us  at  every  turn,  and 
is  every  where  else  consistently,  beautifully, 
and  feelingly  enforced — not  only  not  to  re- 
probate, but  by  implication  to  approve  of  the 
corrupting  effects  of  it.  But  to  the  novel : — 

De  Vere  is  the  descendant  of  the  noble 
family  of  that  name,  the  younger  son  of  a 
general  officer  of  very  small  property,  and 
left  by  the  death  of  his  father  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  an  elder  brother.  This  elder 
brother  studiously  neglects  him  ;  and  in  his 
boyhood  he  finds  himself  the  sole  occupant 
of  the  ancient  tumbling-down  mansion,  with 
no  other  attendance  than  the  old  servant 
who  has  the  care  of  the  house  and  grounds. 
He  is  thus  suffered  to  run  wild  and  unlicked 
— remote  from  all  acquaintance  with  the 
elegancies  of  life,  and  possessing  scarcely 
its  ordinary  comforts ;  his  education  is  ut- 
terly unattended  to ;  his  manners  roughen  ; 
and  he  is  in  manifest  danger  of  sinking  fast 
into  the  coarsest  habits,  and  of  never  reco- 
vering the  position  in  society  to  which  his 
birth  entitles  him,  and  which  his  natural 
abilities,  could  they  be  cultivated,  seem 
destined  to  adorn.  In  spite  of  the  brother's 
cruel  and  insidious  neglect — in  spite  of  all 
resolves  to  depress  him  below  his  caste,  the 
noble  disposition  and  lurking  talents  of  the 
lad,  interest  one  of  his  father's  friends — one 
of  his  guardians — with  nothing  but-thep^r- 
son  to  guard — and  after  the  failure  of  many 
attempts,  at  last  an  old  retired  and  eccentric 
Oxonian  is  persuaded  to  tnke  charge  of  him  ; 
and,  under  his  instruction,  he  picks  up,  if  not 
polished  manners,  at  least  some  useful  clas- 
sical knowledge. 

As  his  mind  opens,  and  his  moral  qualities 
develope,  firmness  and  resolution  appear  to 
be  the  chief  characteristics  of  his  nature.  He 
was  now  sixteen,  and  had  not  seen  his  mo- 
ther from  infancy — the  elder  brother's  policy 
— the  principles,  or  at  least  the  purpose,  of 
which  are  not  very  satisfactorily  defined — 
had  interrupted  all  intercourse  between  the 
mother  and  the  son.  This  separation,  and  the 
general  oppression  he  labours  under,  kindle 
his  indignation,  and  prompt  him  to  expostu- 
late roundly.  He  will  see  her,  and  he  does 


1827.] 


see  her;  and  they  behold  each  other  with 
sentiments  of  mutual  tenderness,  and  a  warm 
admiration,  that  after  intercourse  never  cool- 
ed again. 

Luckily  for  De  Vere,  about  this  time  his 
elder  brother  dies;  and  though  the  property 
to  which  he  succeeds  is  small,  his  guardians 
now  bestir  themselves  to  shape  his  future 
destiny.  One  of  them  is  an  ecclesiastic  of 

eminence — the  late  Dean  of Christ 

Church,  we  may  here  say  at  once — for 
Cyril  Jackson  doubtless  was  in  the  writer's 
mind.  This  is  one  of  the  most  finished  por- 
traits in  the  book.  The  dean  is  represented 
as  a  man  of  influence  among  the  greatest — 
of  learning,  talent,  polish,  and  moral  supe- 
riority. On  the  dean's  advice  he  goes  to 
Oxford;  and  under  the  superintendanee  of 
this  respected  and  respectable  advistr,  he 
successfully  pursues  his  studies ;  and  under 
the  noble  lessons  of  his  noble  mother,  he 
matures  in  every  excellent  propensity,  and 
every  high  and  firm  resolve. 

Now  he  first  meets  with  his  cousin,  Lady 
Constance  Mowbray — an  heiress  of  immense 
expectations,  with  all  the  fascinations  of 
beauty,  dignity,  sense,  and  worth,  to  unite 
in  laying  spell-bound  for  ever  bis  first  feel- 
ings of  love.  The  lady's  father,  Lord  Mow- 
bray — a  brother  of  De  Vere's  mother — is  in 
office,  devoted  to  place  and  politics — a  man 
of  very  inferior  abilities,  and  of  no  very  lofty 
^sense  of  integrity,  where  any  obstacle,  which 
could  be  removed  by  a  little  management, 
stood  in  the  way  of  his  ambitious  views. 

With  the  Ihtle  property  to  which  De 
Vere  succeeded  on  his  brother's  death,  was 
the  command  of  one  of  the  seats  of  the 
neighbouring  borough ;  and  to  this  command 
he  owes  the  notice  Lord  Mowbray  takes  of 
him — particularly  his  invitation,  and  a  long 
visit  of  months  to  Castle  Mowbrny.  De 
Vere,  however,  full  of  swelling  notions  of 
the  qualifications  of  a  statesman,  declines  for 
a  time  taking  himself  the  seat,  and  proposes 
to  travel  and  see  the  world  under  different 
aspects,  the  better  to  qualify  himself  for  his 
legislative  duties.  Just  at  this  time  Lord 
Mowbray 's  private  secretary,  who  held  De 
Vere's  seat,  dies,  and  though  De  Vere  de- 
clines, somebody  who  can  be  relied  upon 
must  occupy  it.  He  recommends  to  his  uncle 
a  humble  friend  of  the  name  of  Clayton — a 
college  acquaintance — a  tuft-hunter — already 
known  to  Lord  Mowbray  through  his  intro- 
duction, and  acceptable  to  him,  to  fill  up 
both  vacancies.  This  youth  proves  a  scoun- 
drel, and  is  the  very  representative  of  rasca- 
lity in  the  lower  ranks  of  office.  By  a  long 
course  of  assiduous  attentions  he  had  con- 
trived to  conciliate  De  Vere's  esteem;  and 
gradually  now,  through  him,  be  does  the 
same  with  his  uncle ;  and  finally,  through 
that  uncle'«  cupidity  for  power  and  influence, 
aided  by  De  Vere's  refusal  to  become  a  tool 
in  the  hands  of  his  unworthy  relative,  brings 
about  an  alienation  between  the  parties. 
Craftily,  he  ruins  De  Vere's  interest  in  the 
borough,  which  he  secures  for  Lord  Mow- 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


531 


bray — with  something  very  like  connivance 
on  the  superior's  part — and  looks  forward  to 
keeping  the  seat  comfortably  and  securely, 
not  on  the  precarious  tenure  of  De  Vere's 
absence,  or  of  De  Vere's  approbation,  but  as 
the  fee  and  reward  of  his  agency  in  the 
dirtiest  work,  and  the  most  degrading  poli- 
tical traffic,  for  Lord  Mowbray. 

Lord  Mow  bray's  daughter  is  an  observant 
spectator  of  a  great  deal  of  these  combined 
machinations  of  her  father  and  his  creature 
against  her  high-souled  cousin  ;  but  no  sooner 
is  her  knowledge  of  this  combined  proceed- 
ing suspected,  than  every  motive  available 
with  Ji  delicate  and  high-minded  and  de- 
voted daughter,  is  put  in  requisition  by  her 
artful  father,  to  lull,  and  subdue,  and  shame 
her  from  interference.  The  borough  is  thus 
lost  to  De  Vere ;  and  very  soon  afterwards, 
to  the  extreme  relief  of  Lord  Mow  bray's 
conscience,  he  fills  up  the  measure  of  his 
own  offences  against  his  uncle's  party,  by 
manifesting  a  pretty  decided  attachment  to  a 
certain  ex-minister. 

All  hopes  of  succeeding  in  the  career  of 
politics  were  thus  at  an  end  ;  but  he  had  en- 
joyed rich  opportunities  of  proving,  in  many 
successive  trials,  and  by  the  rejection  of 
many  offers  of  brilliant  slavery,  that  he  loved 
his  independence  better  than  riches  coupled 
with  discredit.  He  now  buried  his  attach- 
ment to  his  cousin  in  the  depths  of  his  heart; 
and  sick  of  the  profligacy  of  politicians,  and 
embittered  by  the  ingratitude  of  the  reptile 
he  had  raised  from  the  dung-hill,  he  resolves 
to  go  abroad.  He  and  the  ex-minister, 
Wentworth— himself  disgusted  and  defeated 
— the  patriot,  the  scholar,  the  orator,  the  gen- 
tleman, the  friend — a  combinntion  of  all 
that  is  lofty,  brilliant,  fascinating,  and  at- 
taching—  start  together  for  the  continent,  to 
travel  down  their  common  disgust,  and  mora- 
lize among  the  sunny  vines  of  the  south  ;  and 
we  accompany  them  through  a  most  delight- 
ful tour. 

But  ambition  had  gotten  one  of  them  at 
least  securely  within  the  influence  of  its  vor- 
tex, though  as  far  removed  from  its  centre  as 
the  Pyrenees ;  and,  from  different  motives, 
both  sigh  for  London  again,  and  its  spirit- 
stirring  interests.  On  their  return,  the  poli- 
tical world  is  in  a  state  of  distraction — every 
individual  on  the  rack — the  minister  just 
ready  to  let  go  bis  feeble  hold — chiefs  con- 
flicting— and  subordinates  watching  and  sus- 
pended. Lord  Mowbray  is  supplanted,  and 
driven  to  the  country,  and  dies  miserably  of 
baffled  hopes — not  however  before  imploring 
and  importuning  his  daughter,  as  the  sole 
meaas  of  saving  his  life,  to  marry  a  profli- 
gate kinsman,  Lord  Cleveland,  the  very 
man  who  had  turned  hirn  out,  and  who  was 
read}'  to  condition — for  that  reward — to  ue- 
gociate  his  return  to  power. 

Constance,  and  her  struggles,  through 
these  importunities,  are  beautifully  painted  ; 
and  indeed  throughout  the  novel,  from  her 
first  introduction  to  London,  where,  for  poli- 
tical purposes,  she  is  made  the  centre  of  at- 
8  Y  2 


532 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MAT, 


traction  and  influence,  down  to  the  time 
when  she  watches  by  the  bedside  of  her 
luckless  parent,  we  cannot  recollect,  in  novel 
or  poem,  a  picture  more  simple,  sensitive, 
energetic,  delicate,  and  commanding  than 
the  author's  heroine.  Lord  Mowbray  dies, 
mid  she  succeeds  to  all  his  large  possessions. 
But  soon  Lord  Cleveland,  who  had  in  vain 
attempted  to  traffic  for  her  hanrf,  gets  pos- 
session of  a  deed,  by  which  it  appears  that 
the  ancestor,  through  whom  one-half  of  her 
estates  are  derived,  never  intended  them  for 
a  female,  but  that  they  should  go  to  the 
Clevelands,  of  whom  this  lord  was  the  re- 
presentative. The  cause  comes  to  trial, 
when  tt  appears  to  the  judge  that  all  tlte  par- 
ties are  not  in  court,  and  tbat  the  collateral 
heirs  of  Lord  Mowbray  must  appear.  De 
Vere  and  his  mother  persist  in  refusing  the 
summons,  till  the  matter  becomes  evident, 
that  at  all  events  Constance's  right  cannot 
be  maintained,  and  that  the  question  con- 
cerns the  male  heir  only.  Then  at  last  he 
consents;  and  the  estates  are  finally  ad- 
judged, not  to  Lord  Cleveland,  but  to  himself. 
The  manner  in  which  De  Vere  and  his 
mother  are  enabled,  by  the  greatness  and  in- 
tegrity of  their  souls,  to  keep  well  with  Con- 
stance, and  she  with  them,  through  this  deli- 
cate business  of  the  trial ;  and  the  last  ex- 
planation between  De  Vere  and  Constance, 
in  which  he  pours  into  her  ears  his  long-pent 
tale  of  passion,  are  far  above  our  praise ; 
and  we  will  not  mar  either  of  them  by  at- 
tempting the  detail,  or  the  eulogium  they 
deserve. 

The  story  however  cannot  be  said  to  be 
vigorously  developed — its  chief  interest  lying 
among  thefluctuations,s(ratagems,  and  anxie- 
ties of  public  life;  but  political  profligacy  is 
shewn  up  in  a  true  and  strong  light ;  and  every 
kind  and  shade  of  it  meets  with  a  reproba- 
tion, in  which  our  judgment  entirely  ac- 
quiesces. It  wants  the  vivid  colouring  that 
lives  in  the  Scotch  novels ;  the  figures  do  not 
breathe  before  our  eyes,  and  speak  to  our 
ears;  the  machinery  does  not  stand  out  in 
that  bold  relief,  which  there  so  occupies  and 
engrosses  every  sense  of  the  reader ;  but  our 
sentiments  and  our  understandings  are  kept 
in  constant  activity ;  and  moral  truth  is 
elicited  with  strength  and  simplicity,  and  a 
heart-stirring  solemnity.  The  writer  must 
take  rank  with  the  proudest. 

The  Life  of  Grotim,  fyc.,  by  Charles 
Butler,  Esq.,  of  Lincoln' s-Inn .;  1826.— 
Mr.  Charles  Butler  makes  a  miserable  book. 
He  is  an  indefatigable  man  in  his  way,  and 
the  older  he  grows  the  more  active  he  be- 
comes ;  always  busy,  and,  in  his  own  con- 
ception, always  useful  ;  not  illiberal,  nor 
unenlightened — though  surely  not  of  a  liberal 
or  enlightened  party — but  top-full  of  conceit, 
and  terribly  disposed  to  be  garrulous.  The 
history  of  Grotius  and  his  times  is  a  good 
specimen  of  Mr.  Butler's  manner  and  his 
powers,  and  a  strange  higgledy-piggledy 
mess  he  has  made  of  it.  First,  we  have  a 


little  account  of  the  Netherlands  generally  ; 
then  a  fragment  of  Grotius's  story,  with  a 
scrap  of  the  Arminian  one,  and  something 
like  a  discourse  on  free-will ;  then  follows 
a  page  or  two  relative  to  Grotius's  profes- 
sional, and  another  of  his  literary  labours, 
with  a  mite  or  two  of  criticism,  begged  or 
borrowed,  relevant  or  irrelevant ;  then  we 
are  told  of  Grotius's  journey  to  England, 
but  nothing  about  the  object  of  it ;  then  wo 
hear  of  his  arrest  and  imprisonment,  with 
scarcely  any  intimation  of  the  real  causes 
which  led  to  that  decisive  event  of  his  life  ; 
next  comes  the  story  of  his  eleven  years'  exile 
at  Paris,  where  he  leaves  us  in  almost  total 
ignorance  of  his  occupations  during  that 
most  important  period  of  his  matured  age 
and  abilities  ;  and,  finally,  we  are  told  of  his 
emph^ment  by  the  court  of  Sweden,  acd 
embassy  to  that  of  France,  in  the  days  of 
of  Richelieu  and  Marzarin,  with  the  barren 
intelligence  tbat  he  executed  the  purposes  of 
his  mission  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  em- 
ployers, and  the  credit  of  himself.  And  as  to 
the  Civil,  Political,  and  Literary  History  of 
the  Netherlands,  of  which  he  professes  in  the 
title  page  to  give  "  brief  minutes;"  ^he  few 
remarks  relative  to  the  two  first  points  are 
so  disjointed  as  scarcely  to  hang  together ; 
and  of  the  latter  there  is  absolutely  nothing. 
A  history  of  Dutch  literature,  he  tells  us, 
somewhere  or  other,  is  very  much  wanted  : 
which  no  doubt  is  true  enough ;  but  Mr.^ 
B.  himself  contributes  positively  nothing, 
"pour  servir''  to  the  supply  of  this  impor- 
tant want. 

Grotius  was  a  very  remarkable  man  in  his 
day — remarkable  as  a    scholar,   a  moralist, 
and  a  statesman, —  a  man  of  some  indepen- 
dence of  character  and  elevation  of  sentiment 
—of  prompt  and  practicable  talents — of  great 
acquirements,   and  read}7  application  of  his 
acquirements;  a  man  who  suffered  for  the 
maintenance  of  principles  which  he  believed 
essential  to  the  welfare  of  the  country,  and 
certainly  of  principles  which  every  friend  of 
freedom  will  approve,  though  he  must  feel 
they  fall  short  of  what  modern  discussions 
shew  to  be  requisite  for  the  secure  enjoy- 
ment of  it.     He  was  born  at  Delft  in  the 
year  1582.     His  lamily  were  of  high  respec- 
tability :  his  father  a  scholar,  and  a  lawyer 
of  some  eminence.     Very  early  be  felt  a 
passion  for  literature,  and  before  completing 
his  fifteenth  year,  an   edition  of  Minutius 
Capella  was  published  in  his  name,  with  the 
usual  display  of  annotating  lore  and  labour, 
in  the  style  of  an  old  and  experienced  critic. 
What  assistance  he  had  of  course  we  know 
not.     For  wonders  of  this  kind  we  are  apt 
to  be  a  little  incredulous;  but  still  the  fact 
must  be  allowed  of  extraordinary  precocity, 
a  precocity  which  did  not,  as  it  usually  does, 
shame  the  results  of  his  maturer  years.     At 
seventeen  he  was  admitted  to  the  bur,  and 
undoubtedly  the  same  year  pleaded  his  first 
cause.     At  six  and  twenty  he  was  made  at- 
torney-general of  Holland  and  Zealand  ;  and 
in  his  thirty-first  pensionary  of  Holland,  a 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreigi 


533. 


distinction  which  gave  him,  cx-officio,  a  seat 
in  the  states  of  Holland,  and  eventually  in- 
troduced him  to  the  states-general.  This 
same  year,  1613,  he  was  despatched  to  Eng- 
land, to  settle  some  disputes  which  had  arisen 
with  the  English  Government  relative  to  the 
fisheries.  He  had,  four  or  five  years  before, 
published  his  first  work — his  first  of  any  im- 
portance, and  beyond  the  reach  of  suspicion, 
we  mean  -under  the  title  of  Mare  Liberum, 
asserting  the  liberty  of  the  seas,  which  pro- 
babty  led  to  his  being  sent  to  England  on 
this  occasion.  The  subject  of  his  book  in- 
volved the  principles  on  which  the  fishing 
disputes  were  to  be  diecussed.  Not  that  Gro- 
tius  wrote  his  book  with  reference  to  the 
fisheries.  The  Mare  Liberum  was  written 
in  opposition  to  the  claims  of  the  Portuguese 
to  the  exclusive  dominion  of  the  Indian 
seas.  Those  claims  the  Portuguese  carried 
to  the  extravagant  length  of  proscribing  the 
Dutch  from  all  access  to  their  settlements 
and  factories  in  Java,  Ceylon,  and  the  Mo- 
luccas. Mr.  Butler  states  the  object  of  it, 
as  intended  to  confute  the  claims  of  the 
English  to  the  exclusive  navigation  of 
the  British  seas,  which  only  shows  that 
he  has  not  read  the  book  of  which  he 
thus  undertakes  to  speak.  The  mission  to 
England,  and  Selden's  Mare  Clausum,  are 
coupled  with  Grotius's  Mare  Liberum  ;  and 
the  inference  the  reader  is  to  draw  is  that  all 
tliese  matters  occur  together,  when  the  truth 
is,  Grotius  had  not  the  British  in  view  at  all, 
or  at  least  no  words  of  his  imply  it.  It  was 
occasioned  by  the  work  of  a  Spaniard,  of  the 
name  of  Velasque/.,  and  was  published  in 
1608.  It  was  not  till  1613  that  Grotius  wns 
sent  to  England  ;  and  not  till  1635  that  Sel- 
den,  prompted  by  some  fresh  disputes  be- 
tween England  and  Holland,  wrote  his  Mare 
Clausum,  which  was  not  an  answer  to  Gro- 
tius, though  it  discussed  the  same  subject, 
and  vindicated  the  opposite  doctrine.  Sel- 
den  barely  notices  Velasquez  and  Grotius. 

On  his  return  from  England,  his  reputa- 
tation  grew  rapidly,  and  he  became  every  day 
more  and  more  conspicuous;  his  activity, 
intelligence,  and  promptitude  were  observed, 
and  estimated;  and  he  served  the  patriot 
party,  which  he  joined,  and  almost  headed, 
zealously,  vigorously,  but  unhappily  without 
success.  We  have  no  space. to  pursue  his 
career  to  the  crisis  of  his  fate.  It  will  be 
recollected,  that  alter  the  revolt  of  his  country 
from  Spain,  the  provinces  were  split  into 
parties — the  partizans  of  the  Orange  family, 
and  the  friends  of  republican  principles. 
During  the  whole  of  Grotius's  political  life, 
Maurice  headed  the  aristocratic  party,  and 
was  evidently  aiming  at  sovereign  power; 
while  Barneveldt  was  the  acknowledged  leader 
of  the  democratic.  But  temporal  politics 
were  exasperated  by  religious  disputes.  The 
Calvinists  and  Arminians  were  in  open  and 
hostile  opposi'ion.  The  aristocrats  favoured 
the  Calvinists;  the  democrats  the  Arminians. 
Frequent  attempts  at  conciliation  were  made 
by  the  Arminian  party,  but  all  in  vain.  At 


length,  in  1688,  a  synod  was  assembled  at 
Dort  of  the  Calvinistic  ministers,  aided  by 
assessors  from  England,  Switzerland,  &c., 
for  the  settled,  though  not  avowed,  purpose 
of  suppressing  the  Arminian  ministers.  Be- 
fore and  during  the  sitting,  the  Arminians 
bestirred  themselves ;  the  towns  in  which 
the  party  predominated  raised  troops  ibr  their 
defence,  and  Barneveldt,  who  was  the  grand 
pensionary  of  the  states  general,  sanctioned 
the  raising  of  these  troops,  particularly  in 
Holland.  This  precipitate  measure  gave  the 
orange  party  a  handle,  and  they  made  an 
effective  use  of  the  advantage.  They  were 
equally  active;  they  prevailed ;  and  Barne- 
veldt, Grotius,  and  Hoogerbetz  were  arrested. 
In  the  meanwhile  the  synod  assembled  ;  the 
Arminian  ministers  were  banished  ;  and  the 
triumphant  party  succeeded  without  farther 
opposition  in  bringing  Barneveldt  to  the 
block,  and  throwing  Grotius  and  Hoogerbetz 
into  prison.  In  prison  he  remained  for 
nearly  two  years — the  whole  time  devoted 
to  study — chiefly  to  the  elucidation  of  the 
scriptures;  and  was  at  last  rescued  by  the 
zealous  affection  of  his  wife — escaping, 
through  her  contrivance,  in  a  box,  supposed 
to  be  filled  with  books,  while  she  occupied 
his  cell.  After  his  escape  he  went,  on  the 
recommendation  of  the  French  ambassador, 
to  Paris,  where  he  was  well  received  by 
every  body,  and  had  a  small  pension  allotted 
him  by  the  king.  Unhappily  this  pension 
was  ill  paid,  and  he  was  frequently  reduced 
to  considerable  distress,  trusting  mainly  to 
the  precarious  supplies  of  his  friends  in  Hol- 
land. Here  he  continued  eleven  years  ;  and 
during  this  period  published  some  of  his  most 
esteemed  works.  His  Apology,  embracing 
a  vindication  of  his  party,  an  edition  of  Sto- 
laeus,  and  his  bo::k  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis,  a 
work  which,  though  now  little  read — it  is 
of  an  antediluvian  cast — was,  on  its  appear- 
ance, and  long  after,  in  high  repute. 

At  the  end  of  these  eleven  years  of  exile 
he  ventured  to  return  to  his  country;  but 
was  quickly  compelled  to  leave  it  again; 
his  enemies  had  not  forgotten  him,  and  he 
was  formally  banished.  From  thence  he 
settled  at  Hamburgh,  where  he  resided  about 
three  years,  when  Oxenstiern,  the  chancellor 
of  Sweden,  and  regent  during  the  minority 
of  the  young  queen  Christina,  took  him 
under  his  protection,  and  despatched  him  as 
ambassador  to  the  court  of  Paris.  In  this 
honourable  employment  he  continued  for 
ten  years,  till  conceiving  some  disgust  at 
the  conduct  of  his  court,  he  solicited  his  recal. 
On  his  arrival  at  Sweden  he  was  treated  with 
marked  distinction  by  the  queen,  and  pro- 
mised a  provision  ;  but  finding  himself  by 
degrees  neglected,  and  disappointed  in  his 
hopes,  with  a  heart  ill  at  ease,  he  left  the 
country,  and  was  wrecked  on  the  coast  of 
Pomerania.  He  escaped  with  his  life,  but 
was  immediately  taken  ill,  and  died  in  a  few 
day?;  nor  does  it  appear  in  what  corner  of 
the  world  he  hoped  to  find  a  refuge. 

As   a  scholar,  he  was  most  extensively 


534 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature. 


[MAY, 


known  to  the  literati  of  his  times,  and  in 
correspondence  with  many  of  them.  There 
is  a  folio  volume  of  letters,  many  of  them  of 
great  interest,  particularly  an  almost  un- 
broken series  to  his  father  and  brother  for 
the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life,  in  which  he 
details  his  literary  engagements,  the  current 
public  events,  and  domestic  circumstances, 
in  a  clear  but  very  cursory  manner—  always 
grave,  sometimes  heavy.  Almost  all  his 
writings  are  in  Latin,  of  which  he  had  great 
command.  The  best  specimens,  beyond  all 
question,  are  his  letters.  The  annals  and 
history  of  his  country  are  in  a  very  inferior 
style  of  composition.  He  was  a  poet  too; 
but  a  cold  correctness  is  the  highest  praise 
his  Latin  versification  is  entitled  to  ;  and  Mr. 
Bowring,  almost  the  only  man  in  England 
who  knows  any  thing  of  Dutch  poets,  speaks 
of  his  vernacular  poetry  as  scarcely  worthy 
of  his  splendid  reputation.  His  Evidences  of 
the  Christian  Religion  were  originally  writ- 
ten in  Dutch  verse. 

Sketches  in  Ireland  ;  Description  of  In- 
teresting and  hitherto  unnoticed  Districts 
in  the  North  and  Sonth ;  1827.— These 
sketches,  though  plainly  the  production  of  a 
harum-scarum  sort  of  brain,  struck  with  the 
coup-de-soleil  of  fanaticism,  and  a  passion 
for  preaching  and  converting,  shew  so  much 
good  feeling,  and  so  much  correct  conception 
of  the  state  of  Irish  society,  as  in  our  minds 
to  redeem  the  puppyism  so  conspicuous  in 
his  manner,  and  make  us  even  bear  with  the 
details  of  the  fairy  and  fancy  legends  he  so 
sedulously  gathers  up,  in  rivalry  of  Crofton 
Croker,  and  with  respect  to  which  his  own 
credulity  is  infinitely  less  excusable  than 
that  which  he  gratuitously  imputes  to  the 
Catholics,  and  labours  to  expose.  Does  he 
for  a  moment  believe  that  these  marvellous 
stories  are  gravely  and  distinctly  credited  by 
one  in  a  thousand  of  the  acute,  though  illi- 
terate, race  of  Ireland  ?  The  Irish  belief  on 
these  matters  we  take  to  be  about  as  ex- 
tensive as  that  of  the  people  of  our  own 
country  in  witchcraft,  or  in  the  demoniac  ori- 
gin of  wonders  so  commonly,  all  over  Eng- 
land, named  from  the  devil,  and  once,  se- 
riously perhaps,  ascribed  to  his  agency. 

There  is  one  source  of  blunders  relative 
to  the  uneducated  Irish  which  has  not  been 
sufficiently  attended  to,  and  that  is  their  ig- 
norance of  our  language,  and  our  ignorance 
of  theirs.  This  is  particularly  applicable  to 
the  remoter  districts  visited  by  the  author. 
He  himself  will  furnish  an  apt  illustration 
of  our  meaning,  though  on  him  the  lesson 
seems  to  have  been  lost.  He  is  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Bantry  Bay  : — 

A  shower  of  rain  drove  us  to  seek  shelter  in  the 
hut  of  the  man  who  looks  after  the  pheasants 
(Lord  Bantry's).  He  was  alone  ;  and  with  all  the 
civility  that  never  deserts  an  Irishman,  he  wel- 
comed us  in  God's  name,  and  produced  stools, 
which  he  took  cave  to  wipe  with  his  great  coat 
before  he  pormitted  us  to  sit  on  them.  On  in- 
fjuiring  from  him  why  he  was  alone,  and  where 


were  his  family,  he  said  they  were  all  gone  to 
watch  mass  (it  was  the  Saturday  before  Easter- 
day).  "  And  what  is  the  watch-mass  ?''  He  could 
not  tell,  "And  what  day  was  yesterday?"  He 
could  not  tell.  "  And  what  day  will  to-morrow 
be?"  He  could  not  tell.  "  What!  cannot  you  tell 
me  why  yesterday  has  been  called  Good  Friday, 
and  to-morrow  Easter  Sunday?"  "No."  Turn- 
ing1 to  my  companion,  1  was  moved  to  observe, 
with  great  emphasis,  how  deplorable  it  was  to  see 
men,  otherwise  so  intelligent,  so  awfully  igno- 
rant concerning  matters  connected  with  religion. 
"  Not  so  fastwith  your  judgment,  my  good  Sir," 
said  my  friend;  "what  if  you  prove  very  much 
mistaken  in  this  instance  concerning  the  know- 
ledge of  this  man  ;  recollect  you  are  now  speaking 
to  him  in  a  foreign  tongue.  Come,  now,  t  under- 
stand enough  of  Irish  to  try  his  mind  in  his  native 
dialect."  Accordingly  he  did  so  ;  and  it  was  quite 
surprising  to  see  how  the  man,  as  soon  as  the  Irish 
was  spoken,  brightened  up  in  countenance  ;  and 
I  could  perceive  from  the  smile  that  played  on  the 
face  of  my  friend,  how  he  rejoiced  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  prognostic ;  and  he  began  to  translate 
for  me  as  follows.  I  asked  him  what  was  Good 
Friday?  "  It  was  on  that  day  that  the  Lord  of 
Mercy  gave  his  life  for  sinners  ;  a  hundred  thou- 
sand blessings  to  him  for  that."  "  What  is  Watch 
Saturday?"  "  It  was  the  day  when  watch  was 
kept  over  the  holy  tomb  that  held  the  incorrup- 
tible body  of  my  sweet  Saviour."  Thus  the  man 
gave,  in  Irish,  clear  and  feeling  answers  to  ques- 
tions, concerning  which,  when  addressed  in  Eng- 
lish, he  appeared  quite  ignorant ;  and  yet  of  corn.- 
mon  English  words  and  phrases  he  had  the  use  ; 
but  like  most  of  his  countrymen  in  the  south,  his 
mind  was  groping  in  foreign  parts  when  convers- 
ing in  English,  and  he  only  seemed  to  think  in 
Irish  ;  the  one  was  the  language  of  his  commerce, 
the  other  of  his  heart. 

The  leading  purpose  of  the  book,  however, 
is  to  give  some  account  of  districts  little 
known  to  the  tourist,  and  of  course  to  the 
mere  reader.  These  are  the  coast  of  Done- 
gal, and  the  south-western  points  of  the 
county  of  Cork  :  and  certainly  there  appears 
to  be  some  remarkable  spots.  He  ascends 
Lough  Salt— this  is  a  mountain,  not  a  lake — 
that  commands  a  long  line  of  the  Donegal 
coast.  After  describing  with  some  anima- 
tion the  different  points  that  came  within  the 
purview  of  the  hill : — 

Northward  of  Don  Castle,  says  he,  lay  the  sands 
of  Rosapenna,  a  scene  that  almost  realized  in 
Ireland  the  sandy  desert  of  Arabia  ;  a  line  of 
coast  and  country  extending  from  the  sea,  deep 
into  the  land,  until  it  almost  meets  the  mountain 
on  which  we  stood,  and  exhibiting  one  wide  waste 
of  red  sand  ;  for  miles  not  a  blade  of  grass,  not  a 
particle  of  verdure  ;  hills  and  dales  and  undu- 
lating swells,  smooth,  solitary,  desolate,  reflecting 
the  sun  from  their  polished  surface,  of  one  uniform 
and  flesh-like  hue.  Fifty  years  ago  this  line  of 
coast  was  as  highly  improved  in  its  way,  as  Ards, 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bay,  now  is — it  was  the 
much-ornamented  demesne,  and  continued  the  com- 
fortable mansion  of  Lord  IJoync — an  old  fashioned 
manorial  house  and  gardens,  planted  and  laid  out, 
in  the  taste  of  that  time,  with  avenues,  terraces, 
hedges,  and  statues,  surrounded  with  walled  parks, 


182?.] 


Domestic  and  Fc 


535 


and  altogether  the  first  residence  of  a  nobleman — 
the  country  around,  a  green  sheep  walk  ; — now  not 
a  vestige  of  all  this  is  to  be  seen  ;  one  common 
waste  of  sand,  one  undistinguished  ruin  cover  all. 
Where  is  the  house  ?  under  the  sand — where  the 
trees,  the  walks,  the  terraces,  the  preen  parks  and 
sheep  walks?  all  under  the  sand.  Lately,  the  top 
of  the  house  was  visible,  and  the  country  people 
used  to  descend  by  the  roof  into  some  of  the  apart- 
ments that  were  not  filled  up  ;  but  now  nothing  is 
to  be  seen.  The  spirit  of  the  Western  Ocean  has 
risen  in  his  wrath,  and  realised  here  the  descrip- 
tion Bruce  gives  of  the  moving  pillars  of  sand  in 
the  deserts  of  Sennaar,  &c. 

Not  far  from  this  spot  is  a  very  singular 
natural  phenomenon,  which  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood has  the  name  of  McSwine's 
Gun: — 

It  is  caused  by  a  horizontal  cavern  running  for 
many  yards  under  the  cliff,  from  whence  a  per- 
pendicular shaft  rises  to  the  surface.  This  parti- 
cular point  lies  open  to  the  north-west,  and  when 
the  tempest  sets  in  from  that  quarter,  the  storm 
forces  the  sea  with  tremendous  power  into  the 
cavern,  and  whenever  the  gale  is  most  frightful, 
and  an  immense  surge  beats  in,  up  flies  the  water 
through  the  perpendicular  shaft,  like  the  Gieser 
spring  in  Iceland,  some  hundreds  of  feet  high,  ac- 
companied with  a  report  louder  than  any  piece  of 
artillery,  and  the  shot  of  McSwine's  Gun  is  assert- 
ed to  have  been  heard  in  the  city  of  Berry  (thirty 
miles). 

'While  in  the  county  of  Donegal  he  visits 
what  is  still  called  Patrick's  Purgatory,  in 
one  of  the  islets  of  Lough  Derg.  This  seems 
to  have  heen  of  old  a  place  of  some  cele- 
brity, where  an  exhibition  of  the  penalties  of 
purgatory  were  got  up  in  high  theatric  style, 
pretty  much  on  what  has  been  supposed  to 
be  the  plan  of  the  old  Eleusinian,  or  Samo- 
thracian  mysteries.  It  is  still  the  object  of 
pilgrimage,  and  the  scene  of  severe  mortifi- 
cation. It  was  not  what  is  called  "  station" 
time,  when  the  author  visiled  it ;  but  a  friend 
of  his,  who  timed  his  visit  better,  gives  the 
following  account  of  it: — 

The  island  is  about  half  a  mile  from  the  shore  ; 
on  approaching  it  we  found  all  the  people  walking 
round  one  of  the  buildings  in  the  direction  of  the 
sun.  There  are  two  chapels:  one  for  confession, 
and  another  for  general  worship.  In  the  former 
no  strangers  are  admitted  ;  but  on  entering  the 
latter  by  one  of  the  galleries,  a  mighty  multitude 
of  the  most  apparently  devout  worshippers  I  ever 
beheld,  presented  themselves.  All  were  kneeling 
except  the  choir,  and  every  one  busy  for  himself, 
without  the  smallest  interruption  from  his  neigh- 
bour. The  only  instruments  they  used  were  their 
beads,  crucifix,  and  manual.  Their  food  is  a 
small  quantity  of  bread,  which  they  bring  into 
the  island  with  them,  and  water,  which,  by  the 
priest's  blessing,  is  supposed  to  be  made  equally 
nutritive  as  wine.  They  take  this  only  once  a  day, 
except  when  in  the  prison,  where  they  remain 
twenty-four  hours.  During  this  period  they  are 
prohibited  from  tasting  food  of  any  kind.  Twenty- 
four  priests  are  the  regular  number  for  officiating 
in  this  place,  each  one  hour.  The  prison  is  a 
dungeon,  into  which  the  light  of  day  is  not  al- 


lowed to  enter.  A  man  with  a  switch  is  kept  in 
regular  exercise  here,  to  keep  the  pilgrims  in  a 
wakeful  state.  Slei-p  is  very  dangerous,  for  a 
single  nod  may  lose  the  soul  for  ever,  without  the 
interference  of  all  the  fathers  and  saints  of  the 
calendar,  and  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 

The  property  of  the  place,  it  seems,  is  with 
a  Colonel  L.,  a  relation  of  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, who  leases  the  ferry  to  the  island 
at  £280  a  year;  and  to  make  up  that  sum, 
and  obtain  a  suitable  profit  for  themselves, 
the  ferrymen  charge  each  pilgrim  fivepence. 
Therefore,  supposing  the  contractors  to  make 
cent,  percent,  by  the  contract,  which  it  may 
be  supposed  they  do,  the  number  of  pilgrims 
will  amount  to  13,000.  Each  pilgrim,  too, 
it  appears  pays  from  Is.  8d.  to  2s.  (jd.  to  the 
priests,  which  will  swell  the  income  of  the 
priests,  or  whoever  pockets  the  fees,  to 
£J,<500  a  year. 

In  the  county  of  Cork  the  writer  came  to 
a  river,  which  divides  tfee  estates  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Lansdowne  and  Trinity  College,  Dub- 
lin. The  difference  between  the  two  estates 
appeared  very  striking: — 

"  Arc  you  a  tenant  of  Lord  Lansdowne's,"  ad- 
dressing a  man  whom  he  met  on  the  road.  "  Ah, 
no,  Sir,  and  more  is  my  loss  !  No,  Sir,  if  it  were 
my  luck  to  be  under  the  great  Marquis,  I  would 
not  be  the  poor  naked  sinking  crathur  that  I  am  ; 
his  lordship  allows  his  tenants  to  live  and  thrive  ; 
he  permits  no  middle  men  to  set  and  re-set  over 
and  over  again  his  estate  ;  he  allows  no  Jack  of  a 
squireen  to  be  riding  in  top-boots  over  the  country, 
drinking  and  carousing  on  the  profits  of  the 
ground,  while  the  poor  racked  tenant  is  forced, 
with  all  his  labour,  often  to  go  barefooted,  and 
often  to  live  and  work  on  a  meal  of  dry  potatoes. 
No,  Sir,  look  across  the  river  there,  look  yonder 
at  that  snuo:  farmer's  house  ;  there  the  man's  fore- 
fathers lived,  and  there  he  himself,  and  his  seed 
after,  will  live,  and  do  well,  paying  a  moderate 
rent,  and  there's  no  fear  at  all  of  their  being  dis- 
turbed." '•'  Well,  but  my  friend,  on  your  side  of 
the  river,  is  it  not  the  same?  To  be  sure,  I  see 
not  so  much  comfort ;  I  see  many,  very  many 
poor  cabins."  "  Oh,  Sir,  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise? There  are  twenty  landlords  between  the 
college  and  the  man  who  tills  the  ground  ;  the 
land  is  let,  re-let,  and  sub-let ;  it  is  halved  and 
quartered,  divided  and  sub-divided,  until  the  whole 
place  will  become  a  place  of  poverty  and  potatoe 
gardens.  I  have  four  acres  of  land  ;  how  can  I  live 
and  rear  my  children,  and  pay  thirty  shillings  an 
acre  off  that?  and  I  am  subject  to  have  my  pig,  or 
the  bed  from  under  me,  canted  by  one,  two,  three, 
four — och,  I  do  not  know  how  many  landlords,  &c. 
Och,  then  it's  I  that  wishes  that  the  great  college 
that  does  be  making  men  so  lamed  and  wise, 
would  send  down  some  of  these  lamed  people 
here,  just  to  be  after  making  their  own  poor  te- 
nants a  little  happier  and  a  little  asier." 

Yes ;  and  if  the  college  will  not,  the  legis- 
lature should  force  them,  and  force  them  in 
time,  or — by  and  by  it  will  be — "  needs  must 
when  the  devil  drives." 

Croc kf or d  House,  a  Rhapsody  ;  1827. — 
For  "  country  cousins"  the  name  of  Crock- 


536 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MAY, 


ford  may  require  explanation.  Briefly  then, 
— as  we  gather  from  the  poem — we  ourselves 
cannot  be  supposed  to  know  any  tiling  ol  the 
matter — a  Mr.  Crockford  has  long  been 
proprietor  of  a  fashionable  gaming-house, 
lirst  in  Bolton-row,  and  next  in  St.  J.imes's- 
street.  After  the  removal  of  his  establish- 
ment to  St.  James's,  the  flourishing  state  of 
the  concern  prompted  him  to  enlarge  its 
dimensions  by  adding  to  it  an  adjoining  tene- 
ment; and  finally  determining  that  the  con- 
junction of  even  these  two  houses  would  give 
but  very  insufficient  accommodation  lor  his 
numerous  and  splendid  visitors,  he  resolved 
upon  the  bold  measure  of  purchasing  Ihe 
next  two  houses,  of  levelling  all  four  to  the 
ground,  and  of  building  up  in  their  stead  one 
new  and  magnificent  edifice,  such  as  might 
fulfil  his  own  beau-ideal  of  a  gaming-house, 
fit  for  the  noble  and  gentle  of  the  land.  This 
palace,  now  in  such  rapid  progress  towards 
completion,  has  arisen  from  its  foundations 
with  a  celerity  so  unfrequent  among  builders 
of  flesh  and  blood,  that  strange  stories  ap- 
pear to  have  got  abroad,  shaped  and  de- 
rived, we  suppose,  from  the  proprietor's 
vocation.  Hear  the  tale  : 

But  while,  mushroom-like,  it  grows 

Folks  get  frightened,  and  suppose 

That,  for  ends  so  full  of  evil, 

Crockford's  dealing  with  the  devil ; 

And,  from  greediness  of  pelf, 

To  that  fiend  has  sold  himself, 

Who  will,  at  no  distant  day, 

Claim,  and  carry  him  away! 
They  down-face  you,  that  his  master 

Scarcely  for  himself  built  faster, 

When  he  of  metallic  bcum 

Fashioned  Pandemonium, 

Than  his  slave,  they  can't  tell  how, 

Build?,  as  if  by  magic,  now  ; 

So  that  any  one  may  spy 

Satan's  finger  in  the  pie. 
Thus,  they  add,  as  if  they'd  seen  'em 

Sign  the  deed,  it  runs  between  'em  ; 

That  of  masonry  or  brick-work 

(Being  anxious  to  make  quick  work) 

Crockford  covenants  to  lay 

Certain  cubits  every  day  j 

Stipulating  so,  they  guess, 

Just  to  save  appearances, 

While  the  devil,  maturely  weighing 

What  the  house  is  meant  for — playing, 

And  that  then  and  there,  the  guests 

Must  perform  his  high  behests, 

And  promote  his  interests, 

Duly  promises  to  lay 

(Reckoning  on  the  aforesaid  play) 

Every  night  in  order  due 

For  each  Crockford-cubit,  two. 

Both  performing  thus  in  turn 

To  complete  the  whole  concern, 

As  agreed,  if  not  so  soon 

As  the  end  of  May,  in  June. 

The  writer's  resources  of  phraseology, 
rhyme,  and  illustration  are  very  extensive — 
he  is  no  stranger,  by  the  way,  to  the  public 
— his  Letters  to  Julia  are  well  and  accept- 
ably known— and  these  most  felicitous  re- 


sources for  effect,  are  combined  with  a  libe- 
rality of  sentiment,  and  at  tbe  same  time  a 
serious  and  lofty  tone  of  moral  reprobation, 
lightly  and  delicately  conveyed,  that  claim 
and  receive  our  unfeigned  respect.  His 
irony,  so  far  as  it  is  directed  against  the 
daemon  of  gaming  generally,  must  fall  soft 
enough  upon  the  multitude  of  its  worship- 
pers, while,  upon  the  high-priest — the  insti- 
tutor  of  fresh  facilities — the  contriver  of 
new  blandishments — the  man  who  thus  osten- 
tatiously spreads  before  the  public  gaze  both 
the  gains  derived  from  pandering  to  this  pas- 
sion, and  the  seductions  by  which  he  lures 
his  victims,  and  accomplishes  his  winning 
purposes — it  may  perhaps  descend  somewhat 
uncomfortably  and  mal-apropos.  As  to  this 
point,  however,  our  calculation  will  pro- 
bably be  baffled,  for,  considering  tbe  strange 
perversions  which  vice,  and  this  passion  of 
gaming  especially,  confessedly  effects  in  the 
breasts  of  its  votaries,  we  must  not  venture 
with  any  confidence  to  conclude,  that  the 
circumstance  of  public  notice  being  thus  for- 
cibly drawn  to  this  seat  and  centre  of  pro- 
fligacy, by  the  proud  and  defying  aspect  it 
assumes,  may  not  augment  the  irresistibili- 
ties of  the  place,  instead  of  diminishing  them, 
among  that  wide  class  especially  who  sin  for 
notoriety's  sake  ;  and  thus  the  owner's  pur- 
pose be  doubly  answered. 

The  Zenana ;  or,  a  Nuwab's  Leisure 
Hours  ;  by  the  Author  of  Pandurang  Hari  ; 
or  Memoirs  of  a  Hindoo  ;  1827. — The  Dee- 
wan,  or  Prime  Minister,  of  the  Nuwab  of 
Surat,  is  disgraced  for  malversations  in  office, 
and  some  months  pass  away  before  he  can 
seize  upon  any  opportunity  for  recovering  his 
credit.  At  last  he  hears  of  the  arrival  of  an 
Arab  vessel,  with  a  slave  on  board  of  the 
most  ravishing  beauty,  and  by  her  means  he 
hOj  es  to  conciliate  his  offended  master.  By 
a  little  alacrity,  he  out-manoeuvres  the  cot- 
wal,  or  minister  of  police,  who  has  the  same 
object  in  view,  and  who  had  been  the  cause 
of  the  premier's  disgrace  ;  he  gets  possession 
of  the  lady — presents  her  to  the  \uwab,  and 
is  immediately  reinstated.  The  cotwal  is 
very  much  annoyed  by  this  defeat,  and 
watches,  like  a  cat,  for  his  revenge.  In  the 
meanwhile  the  lady  plays  the  capricious,  and, 
though  in  the  ardour  of  excitement  the  Nu- 
wab even  offers  marriage,  she  will  listen  to 
nothing  till  an  answer  is  obtained  to  some 
questions  she  proposes  to  put  to  the  astrolo- 
gers. The  only  astrologers  of  the  town  are 
an  old  Hindoo  of  somn  celebrity,  and  the 
court  astrologer,  a  Mahometan— a  mere 
pretender.  The  premier  and  the  cotwal  are 
commanded  to  assemble  the  astrologers,  and 
a  struggle  ensues — each  wishing  to  gain  the 
Nuwab's  favour  by  securing  a  favourable 
answer.  The  old  Hindoo  is  gained  over  by 
the  premier,  and  the  Mahometan  by  the  eot- 
wal.  Contradictory  answers  are  given  ;  and, 
as  the  lady's  real  object  was  delay,  she  avails 
herself  of  the  pretence,  and  puts  the  Nuwab 
oil' for  a  twelvemonth.  In  the  rage  of  dis- 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


537 


appointment  he  threatens  destruction  to  the 
astrologers ;  and  they,  to  save  themselves, 
agree    to    criminate    their   patrons.      The 
patrons,  however,   foreseeing    the  danger, 
compromise    their  quarrel,   and   prove  too 
much  lor  the  astrologers,  one  of  whom  gets 
a  hundred  stripes  on  the  soles  of  his  feet,  and 
dies  of Jiis  wounds,  and  the  other  has  the 
good  fortune  to  escape  with  impunity.     But 
all  this,  though  amusingly  told,  is  not  essen- 
tial to  the  machinery  of  the  tales.    The  lady 
perseveres  in  refusing  to  listen  to  the  Nu- 
wab's  proposals.    He  is  exceedingly  out  of 
temper,  and  plagues  the  minister  to  death, 
who  now  repents  of  ever  having  introduced 
this  whimsical  stranger  to  him.     Presently 
appears  in  the  scene  a  suspicious  Persian,  and 
circumstances  lead  the  minister  to  conclude 
he  is  some  way  or  other  connected  with  the 
lady — she  is  known  to  be  a .  Persian,  though 
nothing  more  is  known  of  her.     Forthwith 
he  resolves  to  see  this  Persian  privately,  in 
the  hope  of  discovering,  through  him,  some 
means  of  getting  rid  of  her.     With  difficulty 
he  finds  out  that  he  is  lodging  in  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town  with  the  old  Hindoo  astro- 
loger, and  in  the  evening  he  proceeds  in  the 
disguise  of  a  Persian  to  get  an  interview  with 
him.     Now,  it  so  happens,  that  this  same 
Persian  had  beaten  the  minister's  barber ; 
and  at  this  very  time  the  barber,  with  some 
of  his  friends,  had  assembled  for  the  purpose 
.  of  taking  revenge  upon  him.     The  party  see 
jhe  minister  advancing,  and  mistake  him  for 
the  Persian.    They  contrive  to  throw  a  fish- 
erman's net  over  him,  and  thus  whip  him  up 
to  the  bough  of  a  tree  ;  and  while  he  is  thus 
suspended,  they  set  to  and  give  his  posteriors 
a   hearty  scourging,  that  lays  him  up  for 
months.     A  scene  of  some  humour  follows, 
while  he  consults  the  surgeons,  and  attempts 
to  divert  the   Nuwab's  inquiries  about  his 
wounds.     In  (the  meanwhile  the  Persian  dis- 
appears ;  the  lady's  resolutions  are  still  inflexi- 
ble, and  the  Nuvyab  more  enamoured  than 
£ver.     The  year  is  nearly  concluding,  when 
the  lady  desires  to  visit  some  particular  gar- 
dens ;  but  stipulates  that  no  male  shall  be 
permitted  to  look  at  her  on  the  journey.   All 
.are  consequently  commanded  to  shut  them- 
selves up  in  their  houses ;  but  just  as  she 
reaches  the  gardens,  some  ten  or  a  dozen 
male  folks  rush  towards  her,  and  actually 
stare  her  in  the  face.    Into  a  furious  passion 
breaks  the  lady  on  her  return  to  the  palace. 
— What  is  the   matter?  asks   the  Nuwab. 
Enough  is  the  matter,  says  the  lady.     Your 
.orders  have  been  trampled  on ;    and  men 
have  gazed  on  me.     By  the  prophet,  I  would 
rather  wed  a  foot-soldier,  than  a  prince  with- 
out power.     My  answer  must  be  deferred 
another  year.     Now,  in  his  turn,  bursts  the 
Nuwab  into  a  still  greater  fury,  and  bellow- 
.ing  like  a  bull,  he  closes  the  gates  of  the 
town,  orders  the  names  of  every  man  to  be 
taken  down,  and  promises  to  hang  all  that 
are  absent  as  soon  as  they  are  caught.  About 
a  hundred  are  seized,  and  ordered  for  instant 
execution.     The  lady,  a  little  mollified  by 
M.M.  New  Series.— Vol..  III.  No.  17. 


these  effects  of  her  vagaries,  proposes  that, 
instead  of  hanging  these  hundred  wretches, 
the  heads  of  each  profession,  and  principal 
trade,  should  be  compelled  to  relate  some 
entertaining  tale,  and  that,  if  one  must  die, 
the  relator  of  the  worst  tale  should  suffer. 
The  Nuwab  consents ;  the  parties  are  assem- 
bled, and  eight  or  ten  tales  are  told — filling 
up  the  greater  part  of  the  volumes.  The 
series  is  interrupted  by  the  approach  of  a 
grand  festival.  During  the  festivities  ap- 
pears again  the  Persian.  The  Nuwab 
orders  him  to  be  seized,  but  he  escapes. 
A  few  days  after,  a  noble  Persian  demands 
an  audience.  He  proves  to  be  the  very  man. 
He  delivers  a  firman  from  Nadir  Shah,  for 
the  Nuwab  to  deliver  up  the  lady.  Great 
perplexity  follows  ;  but  eventually  all  is 
cleared  up.  The  lady,  a  Persian  princess, 
had  two  cousins  ;  to  the  younger  of  whom 
she  was  betrothed  ;  the  elder  was  his  bro- 
ther's rival.  Maddened  by  jealousy,  he  had 
the  lady  privately  carried  away,  and  his 
brother  murdered.  The  Arab  captain,  who 
carried  away  the  lady,  deceived  his  employer, 
and  sold  her  at  Surat.  The  mysterious  Per- 
sian proves  to  be  the  murderer  himself;  he 
had  discovered  the  lady's  residence  with  the 
Nuwab,  and  procured  the  Emperor's  firman 
to  have  her  delivered  up  to  him.  Fortu- 
nately the  Nuwab  discovers  that  the  Persian 
was  the  murderer  of  his  brother,  sends  him  in 
chains  to  the  Emperor,  and  excuses  the  ap- 
parent disregard  of  the  firman.  The  lady's 
sorrow,  for  the  death  of  her  lover,  by  degrees 
wears  away,  and,  at  last,  she  consents  to 
Wess  the  Nawab. 

The  tales  themselves— to  speak  of  them 
collectively — we  have  no  space  to  speak  of 
them  separately — are  of  a  lively,eventful  cha- 
racter ;  exceedingly  well  told  ;  and — what  is 
the  writer's  main  purpose — well  calculated  to 
convey  a  good  deal  of  information,  in  a  very 
agrer'ble  way,  of  the  manners  and  habits  of 
the  people  of  Hindostau. 

If  the  writer's  statement  is  to  be  taken 
seriously,  the  tales  are  entirely  of  native 
manufacture.  He  speaks  of  himself,  as 
having  been  formerly  appointed  to  an  out- 
station,  far  removed  from  the  Presidency, 
and  where  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
Persian  and  Hindostan  languages  was  indis- 
pensable. To  further  the  attainment  of  this 
knowledge,  and  to  blend  amusement  with 
instruction,  he  invited  the  natives  of  his 
establishment,  to  relate  to  him  entertaining 
tales.  These  his  moonshee  wrote  down  on 
the  spot,  and  then,  himself,  with  the  moon- 
shee's  assistance,  translated  them.  At  first, 
great  reluctance  was  shewn ;  but  money 
soon  brought  story-tellers  in  abundance. 
From  these  tales,  thus  collected  in  great 
numbers,  the  author  professes  to  have  select- 
ed the  contents  of  these  volumes — rejecting 
such  as  regarded  birds  and  beasts,  giants  and 
magicians,  extremely  childish  or  absurd, — 
and  such  again  as  were  full  of  tricks,  and 
treacheries,  and  intrigues — immoral  and  in- 
delicate— neither  instructive  nor  amusing. 
3  Z 


538 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MAY, 


Of  course,  the  skeleton — the  mere  incidents 
— of  the  tale  is  all  that  can  be  regarded  as 
genuine ;  the  taste  and  propriety  with 
which  they  are  worked  up  cau  be  nothing 
but  European. 

The  Apocalypse  of  St.  John  ;  or,  Pro- 
phecy of  the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Fall  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  ;  the  Inquisition  ;  the 
Revolution  of  France  ;  the  Universal  War  ; 
and  the  Final  Triumph  of  Christianity : 
being  a  new  Interpretation.  By  the  Rev. 
George  Croly,  A.M.  1 827. — Another  inter- 
pretation of  these  long  neglected,  and  now 
almost  abandoned  mysteries,  was  an  event, 
perhaps,  little  to  be  looked  for;  after  so 
many  superior  persons  of  ability  and  research 
had  laboured,  if  not  vainly,  at  least  very 
unsatisfactorily.  The  ill  success  of  his  distin- 
guished predecessors  did  not  dishearten  Mr. 
Croly — a  ray  of  light  had  flashed  upon  him, 
which  did  not  and  could  not  illumine  them. 
His  interpretation  rests  upon  the  events  of 
the  last  forty  years — which  accounts  at  once 
for  the  failure  of  the  old  interpreters,  and 
exonerates  himself  from  the  charge  of  pre- 
sumption. Whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
result  of  his  labours,  we  are  decided  enough 
as  to  the  ability,  and  energy,  and  confidence 
with  which  he  has  executed  his  task. 

On  a  casual  reading  of  the  Apocalypse, 
some  years  ago,  he  was  struck,  he  tells  us, 
with  what  appeared  to  him,  the  manifest  refe- 
rence of  the  eleventh  chapter — that  of  the 
TWO  WITNESSES — to  one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary— or,  more  correctly,  to  that  unique 
event  of  our  own  times — the  abjuration  of 
religion  by  a  government  arid  people.  But 
a  circumstance,  not  less  striking  to  him,  was 
the  declaration  that  this  event  marked  the 
conclusion  of  an  era,  in  which  the  whole 
chronology  of  the  Apocalypse  rests — the 
well-known  1260  years.  These  two  wit- 
nesses (xi.  i.)  are  said  to  prophecy  in  sack- 
cloth 1260  days,»  and  at  the  end  of  these 
days,  the  beast, — who  oppressed  the  saints 
forty-two  months  (1260  days)  ascends  from 
the  bottomless  pit,  and  makes  war  upon 
them,  and  kills  them.  Their  dead  bodies  lie 
three  days  and  a-fialf,  and  then  the  spirit 
re-enters,  and  they  stand  upon  their  feet 
again.  Now  these  two  witnesses  are  the, 
scriptures — and  their  prophecyiug  in  sack- 
cloth, indicates  ihe  triumph  of  the  beast — 
the  papacy  ;  and  the  death  of  these  wit- 
nesses is  the  abjuration  of  them — an  abju- 
ration which  took  place  in  France  in  Novem- 
ber 1793,  by  a  public  act  of  the  government 
and  people,  and  continued  till  June  1797 — 

THREE    YEARS    AND    A-HALF.       At    the   end 

of  this  period,  the  scriptures  were  re-adopt- 
ed, and  public  worship  revived.  But  wh<it 
period  of  the  papacy  do  these  1260  days  in- 
dicate ?  Deduct  1260  days  from  1793,  and 
you  have  the  year  533, — the  very  year  when, 
it  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  the  papal  power 
was  firmly  established,  In  that  year  it  was, 

In   matters  of  prophecy,   the  day  obviously 
cnts  tLe  year. 


that  the  Emperor,  Justinian,  first  allowed 
the  supremacy  of  the  see  of  Rome,  over  that 
of  Constantinople,  and  not  before.— There 
is  another  number,  666,  equally  memorable 
and  with  respect  to  which,  Mr.  Croly  will  be 
thought,  perhaps,  equally  felicitous.  The 
thirteenth  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse  de- 
scribes the  beast  that  rose  with  seven  heads 
and  ten  horns,  and  on  his  heads  ten  crowns, 
and  the  name  blasphemy.  This  is  the  pa- 
pacy. But  in  the  same  vision,  the  Apostle 
beholds  another  beast  coming  up  out  of  the 
earth,  which  had  horns  like  a  lamb,  and 
spake  as  a  dragon.  This  had  a  number — 
668 ;  and  the  fancy  of  interpreters  has 
pretty  generally  led  them  to  suppose  this 
number  involved  the  name  of  the  particular 
individual  or  party  represented  by  the  beast. 
Mr.  Croly,  very  naturally  at  least,  takes  it  to 
be,  as  it  stands,  a  date  ;  and  a  666  added  to 
5^3,  make  1199,  the  very  year  in  which  was 
instituted  the  INQUISITION."  This  lamb-like 
and  dragon-tongued  beast,  therefore,  is  the 
Inquisition,  and  very  happily  is  it  character- 
ised— that  is,  by  contraries  ;  and  the  remain- 
ing part  of  the  description,  at  least,  tallies 
well  with  the  qualities  of  that  infernal  court. 
These  coincidences  led  to  a  farther  research. 
The  seals,  the  trumpets,  and  the  vials,  are  all 
carefully  and  solicitously  examined — with 
singular  dexterity,  and,  it  may  be,  appalling 
success.  These  prove  to  be,  in  many  re- 
spects, parallelisms.  The  seals  are — 1.  The 
establishment  of  Christianity  ;  2.  The  fall 
of  the  Western  Empire  ;  3.  Popery ;  4. 
French  Revelution  ;  5.  An  Interval ;  6.  Uni- 
versal War  ;  and  7.  Triumph  of  the  Church ; 
The  trumpets  and  vials  commence  later,  and 
are  almost  wholly  parallel;  1.  The  Papal 
and  French  Wars  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  the  plague  of  the  same  century  ;  2.  De- 
struction of  the  Spanish  Armada  ;  3.  The 
War  of  the  Cevennes ;  4.  The  Wars  of  Louis 
XIV. ;  5.  The  French  Revolution,  and  seizure 
of  Rome  ;  6.  The  overthrow  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  and  7.  The  Universal  War. — More 
particularly,  the  fifth  trumpet  announces  the 
revolution,  and  the  ninth  chapter  is  a  history 
of  its  changes  and  states  to  the  expulsion  of 
Napoleon.  Two  states  are  described  as  be- 
ing of  EQUAL  DURATION,  which  prove  to 
be  the  Republic  and  the  Empire,  each  eleven 
years;  the  Republic  commencing  in  1793, 
and  the  Empire  in  1804,  and  terminating  in 
1815.  By  the  slight  addition  of  a  single 
letter,  the  Apollyon  of  the  Apocalypse  will 
give  the  pronunciation  of  the  most  remarka- 
ble name  of  the  revolution — Napoleon. 
(145.) 

We  cannot,  of  course,  give  the  author's 
arguments  their  full  force — we  cau  only  out- 
line them  ;  the  reader,  who  has  any  curi- 
osity about  the  matter,  must  refer  to  the 
book  itself:  we  can  assure  him  he  will  be 
gratified  by  contemplating  the  ability  and 
earnestness  of  the  writer ;  and  the  air  of 
probability  he  has  thrown  over  the  whole 
interpretation  will  add  to  his  surprise,  if  it 
do  not  compel  his  assent. 


J827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


539 


Servian  Popular  Poetry,  ly  John  Bow- 
ring ;  1827. — This  poetry  of  the  people  of 
Servia,  traditional  for  many  centuries,  has 
only  been  embodied  in  print  within  a  few 
years.  The  Quarterly  Review  gave  some 
account  of  them  recently,  with  a  few  tran- 
slations, evidently  heightened  by  a  little  of 
the  translator's  ornaments.  Mr.  Bowring's 
versions  are  of  a  simpler  kind,  and,  in  the 
same  proportion,  of  a  more  valuable  cha- 
racter. If  we  have  them  at  all,  let  us  have 
them  as  they  really  are.  They  will  scarcely 
be  welcomed  as  additions  to  the  stock  of 
enchanting  or  soul-stirring  poetry — they  are 
calculated  neither  to  strike  very  forcibly  by 
novelty,  nor  delight  by  taste,  nor  gratify  by 
cultivation ;  but  they  are  of  infinite  value, 
as  giving  us  another  glance  of  the  operation 
of  natural  sentiments  in  remoter  times  and 
uncouth  manners. 

Mr.  Bowring's  indefatigable  exertions  on 
this  and  other  occasions,  in  the  same  line, 
have  fully  established  the  truth — one  of  some 
interest,  and  of  no  mean  importance,  in  a 
moral  and  literary  view — that  poetry  mounts 
up  to  perfection,  not  by  the  slow  and  gra- 
dual steps,  which  mark  the  sister  arts  ;  but 
that  from  the  earliest  songs  of  every  country 
may  be  gathered  morceaux,  quite  capable  of 
charming  those  who  breathe  in  the  most 
cultivated  ages. 

Sentiment  requires  no  technical  education 
to  foster  it ;  and  the  rudest  modes  of  life  call 
it  up  in  every  man's  bosom,  as  far  as  nature 
has  accorded  the  original  capacity.  Certain 
positions,  whether  relative  to  ourselves  and 
others,  or  to  outward  events,  are  subjects  of 
deep  interest  to  us,  be  we  actors,  or  specta- 
tors only.  These  positions — or  rather  the 
interest  they  excite — are  rooted  in  nature ; 
and  it  is  past  the  skill  of  man  to  augment  or 
vary  them.  These  positions  then,  these  mo- 
ral attitudes  of  men,  form  the  poet's  stock ; 
and  his  materials,  in  many  respects,  were  as 
ample  in  the  beginning  of  the  world  as  they 
are  now.  The  machinery  of  poetry,  indeed 
— the  times,  and  occasions,  and  the  circum- 
stances that  shall  produce  or  accompany 
them,  must  vary  with  the  variations  of  cus- 
toms and  conventions,  and  advance  perhaps 
with  the  advance  of  cultivation,  but  will 
not  differ  in  the  degree,  in  which  other  arts  do 
at  different  times ;  and  for  this  reason,  because 
poetry  will  only  please  by  selecting  —  the 
simplest  aspects  of  things — and  because  it 
must  hover  perpetually  about  those  emotions 
which  have  most  hold  of  the  human  heart. 
The  poet  is  chained  down  strictly  to  nature 
in  his  pursuit  of  situations,  that  shall  enable 
him  to  sound  his  loftiest  strains ;  and,  con- 
sequently, each  succeeding  bard  finds  more 
difficulty  than  his  predecessor  did,  and  him- 
self bequeaths  still  greater  difficulty — nar- 
rower resources — to  his  successor. 

The  effects,  however,  of  the  instrument, 
which  the  poet  uses — -language—  must  not 
be  disregarded.  Language  improves  in  ca- 
pacity by  the  progress  of  refinement;  words 
multiply  ;  aud  the  invisible  and  intangible 


soul  of  man,  and  the  changing  shades  of 
emotions  come  thus  by  degrees  to  be  more 
nicely  discriminated.  The  modern  poet,  too, 
enjoys  the  advantage  of  studying  those  who 
have  gone  before  him  ;  he  has  also  the  rules 
of  composition  ready  to  his  hands — the  fruits 
of  pains-taking  observation — not  that  we  are 
inclined  to  attach  much  importance  to  the 
efficacy  of  rules.  The  eternal  principle?, 
upon  which  all  rules  are  founded,  ought  to 
be  the  discovery  of  genius  for  itself — not  of 
an  arbitrary  law  to  be  obeyed. 

Such  being  our  notions,  we  are  not  sur- 
prised at  the  deep  pathos  occasionally  eli- 
cited in  these  productions  of  unlettered 
ages  I—- 
How so  much,  says  Mr.  Bowring,  of  beautiful 
anonymous  poetry  should  have  been  created  in  so 
perfect  a  form,  is  a  subject  well  worthy  of  inquiry. 
Among  a  people,  who  look  to  music  and  song  as  a 
source  of  enjoyment,  the  habit  of  improvisation 
grows  up  imperceptibly,  and  engages  all  the  fer- 
tilities of  imagination  in  its  exercise.  The  thought 
which  first  finds  vent  in  a  poetical  form,  if  worth 
preservation,  is  polished  and  perfected  as  it  passes 
from  lip  to  lip,  till  it  receives  the  stamp  of  popular 
approval,  and  becomes  as  it  were  a  national  pos- 
session. There  is  no  text-book,  no  authentic  re- 
cord, to  which  it  can  be  referred,  whose  authority 
should  interfere  with  its  improvement.  The  poetry 
of  a  people  is  its  common  inheritance,  which  one 
generation  transfers,  sanctioned  and  amended,  to 
another.  Political  adversity,  too,  strengthens  the 
attachment  of  a  nation  to  the  records  of  its  an. 
cient  prosperous  days.  The  harps  may  be  hung 
on  the  willows  for  a  while,  during  the  storm  and 
the  struggle,  but  when  the  tumult  is  over,  they 
will  be  strung  again  to  repeat  the  old  songs,  and 
recall  the  time  gone  by. 

If  this  be  indeed  the  process  of  traditionary 
poetry,  it  ought  to  be  invaluable.  The  gem 
of  thought,  mixed  up  necessarily  in  its  first 
production  with  human  alloy,  is  yet  seen  and 
known  to  be  a  gem ;  and  however  deeply 
imbedded  in  grossness,  its  radiations  blaze 
through  ;  and  its  purification,  too  difficult 
for  one,  the  many  instinctively  accomplish. 

We  must  give  the  reader  a  little  speci- 
men ;  and  we  will  quote  the  Quarterly's 
translation  of  it  also,  by  which  the  merits  of 
Mr.  Bowring's  version  may  be  distinctly 
shewn,  and  the  reader  see  at  a  glance  that 
he  may  be  more  safely  trusted. 

AJKUNA'S   MARRIAGE. 

Shefwas  lovely — nothing  e'er  was  lovelier  ; 
She  was  tall  and  slender  as  the  pine-tree  ; 
White  her  cheeks,  but  tinged  with  rosy  blushes, 
As  if  morning's  beam,  had  shone  upon  them, 
Till  that  beam  had  reached  its  high  meridian  ; 
Jind  her  eyes,  they  were  two  precious  jewels  ; 
And  her  eye-brows,  leeches  from  the  ocean  ; 
And  her  eye-lids,  they  were  wings  of  swallows  ; 
Silken  tufts  the  maiden's  flaxen  ringlets  ; 
And  her  sweet  mouth  was  a  sugar  casket ; 
And  her  teeth  were  pearls  arrayed  in  order ; 
White  her  bosom,  like  two  snowy  dovelets  ; 
And  her  voice  was  like  the  dovelet's  cooing  ; 
And  her  smiles  were  like  the  glowing  sunshine,  &e. 
3  Z    2 


£40 


Monthly  Review  oj  Literature, 


QUARTERLY'S  TRANSLATION. 

Stately  was  she,  as  the  mountain  pine-tree  ; 
White  and  rosy-colour  intermingled 
Were  her  cheeks,  as  she  had  kissed  the  dawning  ; 
Dark  and  flashing,  like  two  noble  jewels, 
Were  her  eyes,  and  over  them  were  eye-brows, 
Thin  and  black,  like  leeches  from  the  fountain; 
Dark  the  lashes  too  ;  although  the  ringlets 
Hung  above  in  clusters  rich  and  golden. 
Softer  were  her  eyelids  than  the  pinions 
Of  the  swallow,  on  the  breeze  reposing; 
Sweeter  were  the  maiden's  lips  than  honey ; 
White  her  teeth,  as  pearls  in  ocean  ripened; 
White  her  breasts,  two  little  panting  wild  doves  ; 
Soft  her  speaking,  as  the  wild  dove's  murmur ; 
Bright  her  smiling,  as  the  burst  of  sunshine,  &c. 

The  words  in  italics  of  the  Quarterly's 
translation  are  not,  says  Mr.  Bowring,  to  be 
found  in  the  original — which,  we  think, 
though  we  know  nothing  ourselves  of  the 
original,  can  scarcely  be  doubted — no  body 
indeed  will  doubt  about  it. 

The  Cabinet  Lawyer,  or  a  Popular  Di- 
gest of  the  Laws  of  England;  1827. — This 
is  a  very  useful  publication ;  and  a  second 
edition,  in  so  very  short  a  space,  shews  the 
public  have  found  it  out.  The  truth  is,  no^ 
thing  in  this  department  was  more  wanted. 
The  only  book  pretending  to  a  popular  view 
of  the  subject  is  Blackstone's ;  and  the  nu- 
merous changes  that  have  been  brought 
about  within  the  last  fifty  years  have  ren- 
dered it  almost  useless,  and  in  many  in- 
stances worse— misleading ;  and  then  the 
way  in  which  his  defects  are  supplied,  by 
the  notes  of  successive  editors,  is  any  thing 
but  satisfactory.  It  is  indeed  exceedingly 
tiresome  to  be  reading  a  long-winded  state- 
ment, and  when  you  have  struggled  to  the 
end  of  it,  to  be  told  in  a  note — which  re- 
quires  a  microscope  to  get  at — that  tout 
cela  est  change.  The  publication  before 
us,  therefore,  is  extremely  welcome — and 
welcome  not  only  from  supplying  the  defi- 
ciencies of  others,  but  from  its  own  excel- 
lencies. It  is  a  vigorous  and  unineumbered 
statement  of  the  subject — a  competent  di- 
gest, compressed  to  a  tangible  size,  without 
confusion  or  obscurity.  *  Every  man  should 
know  as  much  of  law  as  may  enable  him  to 
keep  himself  out  of  it;'  and  here  he  may  get 
it,  and  get  it,  agreeably.  There  is  no  non- 
sdnse  in  the  book — none  of  the  idle  reasons 
for  things,  of  which  Blackstoue  is  full.  For 
surely,  with  many  excellencies,  he  was  much 
of  an  old  woman  ;  and  almost  incapable-^- 
from  whatever  cause— of  distinguishing  be- 
tween what  was,  and  what  ought  to  be. 

The  work  is  advantageously  divided  into 
six  parts,  embracing^  successively  the  Con- 
stitution ;  tha  administration  of  justice  ;  per- 
sons and  classes;  property  and  its  incidents  ; 
civil  injuries ;  and  crimes  and  misdemeanors 
•—with  a  very  useful  appendix,  under  the 
title  of  a  dictionary  of  law  terms,  acts  of 
parliament,  and  judicial  matters,  which  could 
not,  says  the  author,  be  properly  incorpo- 
rated into  the  body  of  the  work,  yet  neces- 


sary to  comprise  an  entire  digest  of  the 
laws  of  England.  In  this  department,  too, 
is  condensed  a  great  variety  of  recent  sta- 
tutes, a  knowledge  of  which  is  more  or  less 
essential  to  every  person,  especially  the  acts 
relative  to  the  post-office,  assessed  taxes, 
turnpikes,  stamps,  excise,  navigation  and 
commerce,  marriages,  bread,  and  other  sub- 
jects, correct  information  on  which  can  hardly 
be  any  where  procured  in  a  collective  form, 
and  never  without  considerable  care  and  in- 
convenience. The  second  edition  has  con- 
siderable improvements. 

Falkland ;  1827.— We  take  up  the  pen  to 
speak  of  Falkland  with  that  deep  interest  in 
the  future  literary  destiny  of  its  author, 
which  youthful  genius  naturally  awakens  in 
our  minds.  Would  that  the  subject  were 
other  thun  it  is ;  and  that  the  writer,  with 
his  high  gifts,  had  not  been  tempted  by  en- 
thusiasm, and  the  consciousness  of  power, 
into  an  elaborate  delineation  of  the  workings 
of  unholy  passion,  through  all  its  descending 
gradations,  from  the  excitement,  which  lifts 
the  mind  transiently  above  the  common 
crowd,  only  to  plunge  its  infatuated  victim 
irrecoverably  below  it.  He  takes  his  motto 
from  La  Nouvelle  Eloise;  and  he  tells  the 
tale  of  the  seduction  of  a  married  woman's 
affections,  and  the  final  triumph  over  her 
virtue,  we  will  not  say  in  imitation  exactly 
of  the  man  whom  he  has  evidently  taken  as 
his  tutor,  but  in  the  self-same  spirit  which 
stirred  that  mighty  master's  bosom.  The 
book  is  of  less  dimensions  than  Rousseau's, 
and  unquestionably  inferior  in  execution; 
but  what  it  lacks,  it  lacks  in  detail,  in  the 
skill  to  be  derived  only  from  years  and  prac- 
tice, rather  than  the  more  essential  and  un- 
acquirable  talents,  or  a  thorough  good-will 
for  accomplishing  a  work  equally  mischie- 
vous with  that  of  his  great  prototype. 

It  is  to  be  lamented,  and  not  lightly,  but 
deeply  lamented — we  say  not  this  as  words  of 
course— 3hat  with  abilities  such  as  are  here 
indicated,  the  author  should  not  pursue  the 
suffrages  of  the  wise  and  good,  instead  of  a 
species  of  bastard  fame,  to  which  age,  and 
maturity,  and  virtue  can  never  give  their 
approbation.  Let  him  be  sure,  that  con- 
tempt for  the  opinions  of  the  better  part  of 
his  fellows— pretty  distinctly  announced  in 
his  preface — will  only  precipitate  him  into 
imprudencies,  that  will,  first  or  last,  work 
him  nothing  but  bitterness. 

Practical  Hints  on  Light  and  Shade  in 
Painting,  illustrated  by  Examples  from 
the  Italian,  Flemish,  and  Dutch  Schools, 
by  John  Burnet.  4to. — This  is  an  excellent 
text-book  both  for  the  professor  of  the  art 
of  painting,  and  for  those  who  make  a  know- 
ledge of  its  principles  part  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation ;  indeed,  we  have  never  met  with  any 
thing  that  can  be  compared  with  it  for  the 
mass  of  information  it  contains  on  the  sub- 
ject it  pretends  to  elucidate.  The  "  Hints'' 
are  clear,  concise,  and  nervous ;  and  the 
illustrations  are  chosen  with  the  greatest 


1827.] 


Bdmestic  and  Foreign. 


541 


good  taste,  and  engf  aved  in  the  most  spirited 
and  beautiful  manner. 

Drawing  is,  of  course,  the  painter's  abe- 
cedario ;  having  acquired  that,  his  studies 
may  be  divided  into  three  parts — compo- 
sition, light  and  shade,  and  colour — wanting 
any  one  of  these,  he  will  never  excel,  but 
being  master  of  them,  he  must  be  respec- 
table. We  remember  to  have  seen  Mr. Bur- 
net's  '  Hints'  on  composition,  which  pre- 
ceded the  work  before  us ;  he  has  now  but 
to  give  us  an  equally  useful  compendium  on 
colour,  which,  by  the  way,  is  already  an- 
nounced, and  a  work  will  be  in  the  hands  of 
the  public,  capable  of  forming  a  correct 
taste,  and  teaching  judicious  discrimination. 

Of  the  present  work,  we  cannot  convey  a 
better  idea  than  the  following  extract  from 
the  preface  will  give, — it  is  a  pleasing  speci- 
men of  the  author's  manner,  and,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  will  bear  us  out  in  the  character  we 
gave  of  it  in  the  first  paragraph  :— 

I  have  endeavoured  to  trace  the  effects,  as  much 
as  possible,  to  their  first  causes,  operatinginvarious 
ways  on  the  minds  of  the  different  artists  who  have 
adopted  them.  Whether  they  were  guided  by  rules, 
or  imitative  instinct,  we  cannot  now  determine ; 
nor  is  it  my  wish  to  inculcate  any  doctrine  when 
the  student  has  a  better  mode  of  his  own  to  serve 
as  a  guide.  Let  him,  however,  always  bear  in 
mind,  that  in  painting,  as  in  other  things,  to  uee 
the  words  of  Dr.  Johnson, — "  The  accidental  com- 
positions of  heterogeneous  modes  are  dissolved  by 
the  chance  which  combined  them  ;  but  the  uniform 
simplicity  of  primitive  qualities  neither  admits  in- 
crease, nor  suffers  decay." 

Picturesque  Views  of  the  English  Cities  ; 
from  Drawings,  lv  G.  F.  Robson.  Edited 
by  J.  Britton.— To  Mr.  Britton  the  public 
are  already  indebted  for  his  numerous  series 
of  beautiful  engravings  of  our  different  ca- 
thedrals and  abbeys — however,  he  now  pro- 
duces another  work,  which  is  to  consist  of 
four  parts— two  are  already  published  :  the 
first  contains  views  of  York,  Litchfield,  Wor- 
cester, Norwich,  Rochester,  Canterbury, 
Chichester,  Bristol ;  and  the  second,  which 
has  just  appeared,  views  of  Winchester, 
Hereford,  Salisbury,  Chester,  Carlisle,  Wells, 
and  Lincoln — and  a  different  view  of  Nor- 
wich :  they  are  all  beautifully  executed,  and 
reflect  great  credit  on  all  parties  concerned. 
The  value  of  these  would  have  been  mate- 
rially enhanced  if  accompanied  by  a  letter- 
press description,  which,  we  perceive,  the 
editor  promises  to  give  separately,  when  the 
engravings  are  completed ;  he  is  compelled, 
he  says,  to  this  arrangement,  to  avoid  the 
operation  of  a  most  absurd  and  oppressive 
act  of  parliament,  which  forces  the  pub- 
lishers of  all  works,  in  which  letter-press 
is  used,  to  give  eleven  copies  to  as  many 
wealthy  institutions ;  all  of  which,  being 
amply  endowed  with  the  necessary  funds, 
ought  to  foster  and  encourage  rather  than 
tax  and  depress  literature  in  all  its  branches. 
None  know  the  inconvenient  effect  of  this 
shameful  tax  better  than  Mr.  Britton  :  no 


individual  having  smarted   more  under  ife 
application. 

A  Discourse  of  the  Objects,  Advantages* 
and  Pleasures  of  Science;  1827. — A  so- 
ciety, consisting  of  persons  well  known  in 
the  literary,  political,  and  scientific  world — 
of  men  distinguished  alike  for  public  spirit 
and  tried  ability — have  undertaken  the  super- 
intendence of  a  series  of  treatises  on  every 
subject  that  can  be  brought  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  useful  knowledge,  under  the  title 
of  a  LIBRARY  of  useful  knowledge.  The 
very  purpose  of  the  publication  of  them,  is 
to  circulate  the  ready  means  of  gaining  in- 
formation among  the  more  uneducated  classes 
of  society  ;  plainness  and  cheapness  there- 
fore are  indispensable  qualities,  and  effectual 
measures  have  been  adopted  to  secure  bot&. 
The  series  will  commence  with  subjects 
of  science.  The  discourse  before  us  is  the 
preliminary  treatise,  professing  to  exhibit 
the  objects,  advantages,  and  pleasures  of 
science  ;  and  well  does  the  execution  cor- 
respond with  its  profession.  It  is  the  pro- 
duction of  an  indefatigable  member  of  the 
society — Mr.  Brougham — and  presents,  at 
once,  a  proof  of  his  persevering  zeal  for  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  another  speci- 
men of  his  powerful  ability  to  assist  in  the 
actual  communication  of  it.  It  is,  in  our 
opinion,  the  very  best  and  most  distinct — the 
most  connected  and  complete  view  of  the 
matter— numerous  as  similar  views  have 
been — we  have  ever  read. 

Take  a  sample  of  the  familiar  and  happy 
style  of  the  introduction.  There  is  some- 
thing positively  agreeable,  says  he,  in  gain- 
ing knowledge  for  its  own  sake: — 

When  you  see  any  thing  for  the  first  time,  you 
at  once  derive  some  gratification  from  the  sight 
being  new  ;  your  attention  is  awakened,  and  you 
desire  to  know  more  about  it.  If  it  is  a  piece  of 
workmanship,  as  an  instrument,  a  machine  of  any 
kind,  you  wish  to  know  how  it  is  made,  how  it 
works,  and  what  use  it  is  of.  If  it  is  an  animal, 
you  desire  to  know  where  it  comes  from,  how  it 
lives,  what  are  its  dispositions,  and,  generally,  its 
nature  and  habits.  This  desire  is  felt,  too, without 
at  all  considering  that  the  machine  or  the  animal 
may  ever  be  of  the  least  use  to  yourself  practically  ; 
for,  in  all  probability,  you  may  never  see  them 
again.  But  you  feel  a  curiosity  to  learn  all  about 
them,  because  they  are  new  and  unknown  to  you. 
You  accordingly  make  inquiries  ;  you  feel  a  gra- 
tification in  getting  answers  to  your  questions— 
that  is,  in  receiving  information,  and  in  knowing 
more — in  being  better  informed  than  you  were 
before.  If  you  ever  happen  again  to  see  the  same 
instrument  or  animal,  you  find  it  agreeable  to 
recollect  having  seen  it  before,  and  to  think  that 
you  know  something  about  it.  If  you  see  another 
instrument,  or  animal,  in  some  respects  like,  but 
differing  in  other  particulars,  you  find  it  pleasing 
to  compare  them  together,  and  to  note  in  what 
they  agree,  and  in  what  they  differ.  Now,  all  this 
kind  of  gratification  is  of  a  pure  and  disinterested 
nature,  and  has  no  reference  to  any  of  the  common 
purposes  of  life  ;  yet  it  is  a  pleasure — an  enjoy- 
ment. You  are  nothing  the  richer  for  it;  you 


542 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[MAY, 


do  not  gratify  your  palate,  or  any  other  bodily 
appetite ;  and  yet  it  is  BO  pleasing  that  you  would 
give  something  out  of  your  pocket  to  obtain  it,  and 
would  forego  sonic  bodily  enjoyment  for  its  sake. 
The  pleasure  derived  from  science  is  exactly  of 
the  like  nature,  or  rather,  it  is  the  very  same. 
For  what  has  just  been  referred  to  is  in  fact 
science,  which  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense 
means  knowledge,  and  in  its  ordinary  sense  means 
knowledge  reduced  to  a  system — that  is,  ar- 
ranged in  a  regular  order,  so  as  to  be  conveniently 
taught,  easily  remembered,  and  readily  applied. 

Personal  Narrative,  or  Adventures  in 
the  Peninsula  during  the  f Far  in  1812-13. 
By  an  Officer,  late  in  the  Staff-corps  Regi- 
ment of  Cavalry  ;  1827. — Though  but  a 
barren  volume,  not  however  a  dull  one,  we 
are  not  unwilling  to  accept  it  with  thankful- 
ness.  Accounts  of  other  countries  are  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  stay  at  home ;  we 
are  of  the  stay-at-home  class,  and  do  not 
care  how  many  books  of  this  kind  we  have, 
provided  they  come  authenticated.  It  is  only 
variety  of  descriptions — it  is  only  the  survey 
of  many  eyes,  that  will  supply  in  any  thing 
like  a  satisfactory  manner,  to  the  domestic 
reader,  the  use  of  his  own.  No  one  per- 
son will  see  precisely  with  the  eyes  of  ano- 
ther. One  man,  too,  loves  what  another 
scorns ;  one  gazes  where  another  only  glances ; 
one  has  no  eyes  at  all  for  many  things  we 
require,  and  another  has  prejudices  which 
blind  him  to  more ;  one  lacks  opportunities, 
or  tact,  or  capacity,  which  the  superior  faci- 
lities or  superior  talents  of  another  may  sup- 
ply. It  is  easy  to  discern  the  bias  of  a  wri- 
ter, but  not  so  easy  to  measure  the  allowance 
which  we  feel  must  in  some  degree  be  made 
for  his  representations ;  but  when  we  have  the 
representations  of  scores  of  travellers,  we 
can  not  only  discern  the  individual  bias,  but 
we  have  the  means  of  estimating  its  depre- 
ciating effect';  by  comparing  statements,  and 
balancing  prepossessions,  we  arrive  at  last  at 
a  pretty  safe  result.  Therefore,  we  welcome 
these  and  similar  publications,  though  they 
swell  to  dozens. 

The  writer  before  us  was  in  the  commis- 
sariat department,  and  was  of  course  driven 
frequently  from  the  scene  of  action  ;  and  in 
fact  seems  to  have  traversed  the  north  and 
centre  of  Portugal  in  all  directions ;  but  of 
Spain  he  saw  no  more  than  the  frontiers, 
and  the  line  of  march  of  the  army  to  the 
Pyrenees.  He  was  very  young,  just  escaped 
from  school  indeed;  and  the  letters  profess 
to  have  been  written  on  the  spot.  He  is  a 
little  too  full  of  his  school-books,  and  parades 
his  Greek  and  Latin,  and  even  Hebrew,  to  say 
nothing  of  divers  other  languages:  but  if  the 
letters  indeed  appear  as  they  were  written, 
they  are  no  contemptible  specimen  of  early 
and  cultivated  ability.  The  sentiments  he 
expresses  relative  to  the  Portuguese  and  Spa- 
niards, and  to  conspicuous  individuals,  must 
of  course  be  received  as  rather  picked  up 
from  others  than  gathered  from  observation. 
We  were  struck  with  the  contrast  between 
his  representations  of  the  Portuguese,  and 


what  appears  to  be  the  existing  state  of 
things.  Then  we  were  welcomed  and  re- 
spected ;  now  we  are  looked  cool  upon,  and 
all  but  insulted.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  come 
and  rescue  a  nation  from  oppressors,  and 
quite  another  to  put  ourselves  in  so  equivocal 
a  position,  that  we  must  either  be  regarded 
as  the  friends  of. one  half  the  nation  against 
the  other,  or  as  usurpers,  who  seize  the  coun- 
try, and  resolve  to  keep  it  as  long  as  a  rival 
power  keeps  similar  possession  of  a  neigh- 
bouring country. 

Stories  of  Chivalry  and  Romance  ;  1 827. — 
This  little  volume  contains  six  tales,  all  of 
them  belonging,  as  the  title  expresses,  to 
the  chivalric  order  and  period.  What  shall 
we  say  of  them  ?  They  have  no  distinctive 
character  ;  but  the  insatiable  devourer  of  fic- 
tion may  very  well  occupy  an  hour  or  two 
with  them. 

A  writer  of  tales  lies  under  great  disad- 
vantages, it  must  be  allowed,  compared  with 
the  novel  writer,  though  we  are  perhaps  apt 
to  consider  the  construction  of  a  tale  an  un- 
dertaking of  inferior  pretension.  A  tale  is 
usually  so  brief,  that  a  glance  suffices  for 
deciding  on  the  proportion  or  disproportion 
of  its  parts — the  order  of  its  arrangement — 
the  bearings  of  its  subsidiary  portions  on  the 
main  story — and,  lastly — the  most  important 
of  all  considerations  belonging  to  it — whe- 
ther the  main  incident  upon  which  the  whole 
interest  hinges,  has  been  used  for  the  same 
purpose  a  thousand  times  or  not.  If  it  have 
been  so  employed  time  out  of  mind,  then  the 
extremely  narrow  limits  of  a  tale  bars  the 
possibility  of  any  compensating  for  the  ab- 
sense  of  novelty. 

The  plot  of  a  novel  may,  to  be  sure,  be  worn 
to  the  bone ;  but  then  a  novel  may  have  subor- 
dinate plots — episodes, dialogues,  discussions, 
descriptions,  and  every  conceivable  variety 
of  subject,  and  to  an  extent  almost  unlimited. 
The  bookbinder  too,  and  the  printer,  conspire 
to  distract  our  mental  conp-d'oeil  of  the  pro- 
duction, by  dividing  it  into  volumes  \  and 
though  the  main  outline  and  features  of  the 
story  may  be  the  thousandth  repetition  of 
what  we  have  seen  before,  yet  the  fillings- 
up  and  shadings-in  of  the  intermediate  parts 
may  entirely  confound  our  memories  as  to 
the  actual  prototype.  In  short,  a  novel  af- 
fords so  much  larger  a  scope  for  a  writer's 
powers,  that  if  he  be  capable  of  excelling  in 
anyway,  he  may  find  or  make  an  opportu- 
nity of  bringing  these  powers  conspicuously 
and  effectively  forward.  As  many  times  as 
he  offends  by  faults,  he  may  compensate  by 
beauties  ;  and,  at  the  worst,  may  leave  the 
final  balance  of  good  and  bad,  in  the  reader's 
mind,  confounded  and  undecided. 

Thinking  as  we  do  of  the  difficulties 
of  the  tale  writer,  it  seems  a  matter  to 
be  regretted  that  any  body  should  volun- 
tarily impose  upon  himself  additional  fet- 
ters by  writing  with  reference  to  a  state 
of  society  so  peculiar,  and  so  strictly  and 
necessarily  limiting  the  sources  of  inven- 


182?.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


543 


tion.  It  occasions  the  same  wonder  in  our 
minds,  that  we  should  leei  with  respect  to 
persons  preferring  the  phraseology  of  Cicero 
and  Virgil  for  the  embodying  of  their 
thoughts,  to  the  free  arid  boundless  forms  of 
expression  which  their  mother-tongue  would 
a  fiord  them. 

The  Road  Guid?,  No.  I.,  London  to  Bir- 
mingham.— This  is  a  very  useful  and  con- 
venient publication.  The  distances  between 


each  stage  are  carefully  set  down,  and  a  de- 
scription of  every  place  on  the  road  worthy 
the  least  notice,  is  pleasantly  detailed. 
The  whole  is  contained  in  a  size  well  adapt- 
ed to  the  pocket.  Indeed,  when  a  traveller 
leaves  London  for  a  particular  place,  he 
needs  only  the  direction  to  that  place,  and 
not  a  huge  volume  containing  all  the  cross 
roads  in  the  country.  No.  II.  is  to  continue 
the  route  from  Birmingham  to  Holyhead. 


THEATRES. 


EASTER  customarily  brings  with  it  a  round 
'of  spectacle  at  the  principal  theatres.  The 
English  are,  after  all,  a  pantomime-loving 
people  ;  and,  though  Christmas  monopolizes 
harlequin,  yet  Easter  lays  claim  to  something 
as  like  harlequinade  as  is  contrivable  by  the 
Parleys  of  this  present  world. 

"  Peter  Wilkins,"  an  imitation  of  Gulli- 
ver, and  perhaps  among  the  most  amusing 
of  the  imitations  of  Swift's  immortal  bur- 
lesque, is  the  ground-work  of  the  Covent- 
garden  spectacle.  Peter  is  wrecked  on  a 
desert  island,  where  he  renders  a  .service  to  a 
female  inhabitant  of  the  moon,  by  whom  he 
is  introduced  to  all  the  novelties  of  this 
hitherto  forbidden  sphere,  notwithstanding 
the  rising  propensities  of  Mr.  Green.  The 
idea  is  wrought  up  by  Mr.  Farley  into  a 
series  of  adventures,  the  mirth  of  which  may 
probably  alone  for  their  perfectly  terrestrial 
calibre.  The  proverbial  skill  of  Covent-Gar- 
den  in  machinery  is  exhibited  to  great  ad- 
vantage. The  audience  are  kept  in  constant 
anxiety  by  the  soaring  ambition  of  the  per- 
formers, particularly  of  that  very  pretty  little 
pantomimiste  Miss  Scott,  who  has  established 
a  high  reputation  in  birds  of  paradise,  flying 
sorceresses,  angels,  and  other  wonders  on  the 
wing,  and  whose  delicate  bones,  we  sin- 
cerely hope,  will  not  be  broken  in  the  course 
of  her  professional  elevations.  A  great  deal 
of  showy  scenery  fills  up  the  intervals  left 
in  the  mind  of  the  audience  by  the  acting  and 
dialogue ;  and,  with  the  help  of  Messrs.  Grieve 
and  Saul,  who  are  the  true  performers  on 
the  occasion,  the  audience  listen  to  Keely 
and  Power  with  perfect  patience.  Both 
these  actors  are  clever  and  popular;  but  as  it 
is  the  business  of  an  actor  to  say  only  what 
has  been  set  down  for  him,  and  as  neither  of 
them  is  emulous  of  the  honour  of  authorship, 
we  must  allow  ourselves  to  say  that  they 
both  talk  a  vast  deal  of  nonsense  in  the 
course  of  the  drame  of  "  Peter  Wilkins." 

Charles  Kemble,  after  his  pilgrimage  to 
the  waters,  has  returned  to  the  favouritism 
which  his  fine  stage  qualities  always  deserve 
and  obtain.  Miss  Foote,  to  whom  popularity- 
adheres  with  a  desperate  fidelity,  and  whom, 
in  our  natural  deference  for  the  sex,  we  be- 
lieve to  have  been  lt  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning,"  is  playing  to  full  houses  dur- 
ing a  brief  engagement,  and  the  theatre 
is  enjoying  the  reflux  of  that  golden  tide, 


which,  we  are  always  inclined  to  think,  ac- 
tivity and  good  sense  in  managers  would 
render  perpetual.  B«t  a  serious  loss  seems 
about  to  be  experienced  in  Jones,  the  most 
animated,  intelligent,  and  effective  actor  of 
the  lighter  comedy  that  the  stage  has  seen 
since  Lewis.  Whether  he  joins  the  Drury 
Lane  company,  from  which  overtures  have, 
it  is  said,  been  made  to  him,  we  cannot  as- 
certain. But  to  have  lost  such  an  actor  is 
among  the  worst  omens  of  a  theatre. 

Drury  Lane  exhibits  at  least  activity.  A 
succession  of  performances,  if  not  quite  ori- 
ginal, yet  not  much  remembered,  have  sig- 
nalized the  manager's  diligence.  The  pre- 
sent spectacle  is  "  Gil  Bias,"  which,  however 
antiquated,  and  in  fact  attempted  to  be 
brought  forward,  perhaps,  as  often  as  any 
other  subject  on  the  stage,  is  yet  either  so 
little  known,  or  so  well  adapted  to  the  popu- 
lar tastes?  (so  far  as  the  subject  goes),  that 
it  at  this  moment  makes  a  popular  spectacle. 
Gil  Bias  is  played  by  Miss  Kelly,  to  whom, 
by  an  especial  right,  belong  all  exhibitions 
of  archness,  subtlety,  and  female  pantaloons. 
She  has  talent  and  well  turned  ancles,  and 
thus  she  follows  the  direction  of  nature. 
Some  pretty  scenery,  though  not  so  effective 
as  the  general  displays  of  *this  theatre,  con- 
summates the  charm,  and  Gil  Bias  is  more 
lucky  than  his  original.  Laporte  appears 
from  time  to  time  in  little  farces,  translated 
from  the  French.  He  is  an  ingenious  actor, 
but  too  grotesque  for  the  English  stage  ;  his 
pronunciation  is  a  still  more  formidable  draw- 
back. At  his  time  of  life  the  difficulty  of  a 
new  language  is  insurmountable  :  and  how- 
ever we  may  admire  the  boldness  of  the 
effort,  it  is  impossible  to  congratulate  him 
upon  its  success. 

Mathews,  always  ingenious,  and  labour- 
ing with  extraordinary  diligence  for  novelty, 
is  proceeding  in  his  entertainment  at  the 
Lyceum.  It  consists  of  the  "  Home  Circuit," 
a  series  of  scenes  and  characters  familiar  to 
Londoners.  Epping  Hunt  scene  contains 
some  very  pleasant  songs  and  recitations,  and 
is  on  the  whole  deserving  of  the  habitual  po- 
pularity of  that  very  dextrous  and  attractive 
performer. 

Yates,  at  the  Adelphi,  carries  on  a  similar 
exhibition,  consisting  of  the  anecdotes  of  his 
early  theatrical  career ;  some  of  those  ex- 
cellent imitations  of  the  style  and  dialogue  of 


544 


Theatres. 


[MAY, 


the  principal  actors,  for  which  he  is  remark- 
able ;  and  a  "  Monopolylogue,''  in  which  he 
very  ably  plays  a  succession  of  parts.  The 
whole  is  dextrously  conceived  and  per- 
formed. 

The  King's  Theatre  has  hitherto  had  one 
of  its  best  seasons.  Siguora  Toso,  a  fine 
stage  figure,  with  a  powerful  voice,  which 
the  practice  of  a  few  years  must  bring  out 
with  great  effect  and  beauty,  has  given  new 
life  to  the  performances.  Galli,  the  first 
basso  cantante  of  Italy,  has  appeared,  and 
sustained  his  high  reputation.  He  is  a  power- 
ful  and  scientific  singer.  Caradori  has  re- 
turned to  the  performance  of  those  characters 
for- which  she  is  best  fitted.  Tenderness,  in- 
nocence, and  modesty  seem  to  adopt  her  as 
their  natural  representative  on  the  stage ;  but 
she  must  leave  the  storms  and  struggles  of 
the  higher  passions  to  others.  When  she  in- 
sists on  flourishing  in  the  prima  donna  ener- 
gies, she  mistakes  her  talent  and  the  public 
interest. 

The  Haymarket  Theatre  is  already  mak- 
ing preparations ;  and  a  complaint  has  gone 
through  the  newspapers  against  the  cruelty 


of  shutting  up  the  theatre  for  eight  mouths 
in  the  year.  There  seems  something  arbi- 
trary enough  in  this  at  first  sight,  and  we  are 
satisfied  that  the  whole  system  relative  to  the 
ministerial  government  of  the  drama  might 
be  very  advantageously  reformed.  Why  the 
appointment  of  a  licenser  should  exist — this 
odious  remnant  of  the  most  odious  law  of  the 
njost  odious  of  all  codes — is  incomprehensible 
except  on  the  ground  of  patronage.  Why 
the  authorship  of  the  stage  should  be  exposed 
to  universal  plunder,  in  the  midst  of  a  time 
when  the  law  of  copyrights  is  growing  more 
accurate,  more  solid,  arid  more  practically 
guarded  every  day,  is  a  question  which  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  answer.  Something 
should  undoubtedly  be  done  to  secure  the 
stage  author's  right  to  his  play,  and  .his.  family 
their  inheritance  in  the  labours  of  hjs  pen. 
Until  this  is  done,  by  some  legislator,  with 
sense  enough  to  see  his  way,  and  with  zeal 
enough  to  defy  the  trouble  of  the  effort,  the 
authorship  of  the  stage — elegant,  vivid,  de- 
lightful as  its  nature  is — must  feel  itself  but  an 
exotic  in  the  winter- world  of  England. 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 


DOMESTIC. 

ASTRONOMICAL    SOCIETY    OF    LONDON. 

March  9. — At  this  meeting  there  was  read, 
a  *'  Notice  respecting  some  errors  common 
to  many  tables  of  Logarithms,"  by  Charles 
Babbage,  Esq.,  Foreign  Secretary  of  this  So- 
ciety, of  which  we  have  already  given  an 
account.— There  were  next  read  two  letters 
from  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  to  F.  Baily,  Esq., 
dated  St.  Croix,  20th  of  March  and  30th  of 
November  1826.  The  first  of  these  trans- 
mits  an  account  of  observations  of  the  meri- 
dian transit  of  the  moon's  enlightened  limb, 
and  some  stars  preceding  and  following  her, 
made  at  St.  Croix,  lat.  1  TO  44'  32"  north,  as- 
sumed long.  64°  45'  west,  between  Septem- 
ber 22,  1825,  and  March  15,  1826.  These 
were  sent  to  Mr.  Schumacher  at  the  same 
time,  and  have  been  published  in  No.  104  of 
his  Astron.  Nachrichten. 

Mr.  Lang  describes  the  climate  of  St. 
Croix  as  peculiarly  favourable  to  astronomi- 
cal observations,  and  speaks  of  the  steadiness 
of  the  terrestrial  refraction  there.  The  ter- 
restrial refraction  scarcely  ever  varies  per- 
ceptibly from  the  one-sixteenth  part  of  the 
intercepted  arc. 

In  Mr.  Lang's  second  communication,  he 
presents  a  further  account  of  the  meridian 
transits  of  the  moon's  enlightened  limb,  and 
of  moon- culminating  stars,  observed  between 
March  30,  and  November  21,  1826.  He  also 
gives  a  summary  of  his  observations  of  oc- 
cultations  of  ^\  and  /txi,  Sagittarii  by  the 
moon,  on  the  9th  of  September ;  and  of  4- 
Virginia,  on  the  28th  of  October. 

Next,  there  was  read  a  paper,  "  On  a  new 


application  of  the  method  of  determining 
the  time  by  observations  of  two  stars  when 
in  the  same  vertical,  to  the  case  of  Polaris 
when  so  situated  with  respect  to  any  other 
circurnpolar  star  in  the  course  of  its  diurnal 
revolution  below  the  pole.  By  Dr.  T.  L. 
Tiarks.  The  author  first  describes  the  pecu- 
liarities and  advantages  of  this  method,  and 
then  presents  the  investigation  of  the  for- 
mula; of  computation.  If  I  denote  the  co- 
latitude  of  the  place  of  observation,  d  the 
polar  distance  of  the  pole-star,  D  that  of  the 
other  star,  a  their  difference  of  right  ascen- 
sions, and  t  the  time  elapsed  from  the  upper 
passage  of  the  pole-star  to  the  moment  of  its 
being  on  the  same  vertical  with  the  other  ; 
then  the  result  of  the  investigation  gives 

>in  a, 

tan  I 

The,  values  of  y  arid  0  being  determined  by 
the  following  equations  ;  viz. 

(II)          =       sin  (D  —  d") 
sin  d  sin  D  cos  4* 


(III).,  tan  4,: 


(IV)..  sin  f 


sin(D  —  d) 


sin  a, 
tan  'd 


The  author  occupies  a  portion  of  his  paper 
in  tracing  the  limits  of  error,  and  in  point- 
ing out  in  what  cases  the  method  is  not 
strictly  true. 

Lastly :  There  was  read  a  letter  from  M. 
Gambart  to  the  President,  dated  Marseilles, 
30th  of  December  1826.  After  adverting  to 
what  may  be  supposed  his  temerity  in  anti- 


1827.] 


Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies. 


545 


cipating  the  transit  of  the  comet  seen  in     Chemical  Composition  of  two  liquids  lately 
Bootes  over  the  sun's  disc,  on  the   18th  of    proposed  as  powerful  disinfectants,  and  on 

<•     .»  . .  /»    j  i  i! •  1_     ^«      .^.-.f  i*i,l    «k*ttM%«l 


November,  he  presents  the  elements  of  the 
parabolic  orbit  of  another  comet,  which  are 

as  below  :  viz. 

From  Midnight. 
Passage  of  the  perihelion  1827.  34d-9S9M.T. 

Perihelion  distance 0-455 

Longitude  of  perihelion 34°   0'  50" 

Longitude  of  the  node . .    191   44  33 

Inclination ?2     4  15 

Motion  retrograde.  , 

ZOOLOGICAL    SOCIKTY. 

The  Vfednesday  meetings  of  this  Society, 
during  the  last  month,  ha\e  been  numerovtsly 
attended,  and  the  lectures  at  three  o'clock 
have  excited  much  interest.  At  three  of  these 
meetings,  the  secretary  delivered  discourses  on 
the  affinities  that  connect  the  different  groups 
of  ornithology,  illustrating  the  subject  by 
specimens  of  the  most  attracting  groups  in 
the  society's  collection.  Several  ladies  of  dis- 
tinguished rank  were  present  at  these  exhi- 
bitions. A  lecture  has  also  been  given  by 
Mr.  Brookes,  the  celebrated  anatomist,  on 
the  comparative  anatomy  of  the  ostrich. 
A  fine  opportunity  was  afforded  for  illus- 
trating this  subject  by  a  donation  from  his 
Majesty  of  a  female  ostrich  which,  lately 
died  in  the  menagerie  at  Windsor.  Prepara- 
tions were  made  of  the  more  interesting  parts 
of  this  bird,  which,  with  specimens  of  the 
different  parts  of  structure  of  the  emeu, 
cassowary,  rhea,  &c.  selected  from  Mr. 
Brookes's  museum,  served  to  illustrate  this 
very  erudite  and  scientific  lecture.  A  nume- 
rous audience  of  the  principal  men  of  science 
in  London,  was  collected  on  this  occasion. 

ROYAL   SOCIETY. 

Feb.  15.— Sir  R.  H.  Vyvyan,  Bart.,  M.P., 
and  Cjesar  Moreau,  Esq.,  were  admitted  Fel- 
lows of  the  Society,  and  the  following  papers 
were  read  : — An  Astronomical  Paper,  by  C. 
Kumker,  Esq. ;  Remarks  on  a  correction  of 
the  solar  tables  required  by  Mr.  South's  Ob- 
servations, by  G.  B.  Airey,  Esq.,  F.R.S. — The 
reading  was  begun  of  a  paper  on  the  mutual 
attractions  of  the  particles  of  magnetic  bodies, 
by  S.  H.  Christie,  Esq.,  F.  R.S.— Feb.  22. 
G.  W.  Taylor,  Esq.,  M.P.,  was  admitted  a 
Fellow  of  the  Society,  and  the  reading  of 
Mr.  Christie's  paper  concluded. — A  notice 
was  read,  entitled  Correction  of  an  Error 
in  a  paper  published  in  the  Philosophical 
Transactions,  entitled  "  On  the  parallax  of 
the  fixed  Stars,"  by  I.  F.  W.  Herschell,  Esq., 
Secretary  R.S.  ;  and  a  paper  on  attractions 
apparently  magnetic,  exhibited  during  che- 
mical combinations,  byW.  L.  Kenwood,  Esq., 
communicated  by  D.  Gilbert,  Esq.,  V.P.R.S. — 
Mar.  1.  Dr.  J.C.  Prichard  was  admitted  a 
Fellow  of  the  Society  ;  and  a  paper  was  read 
on  the  structure  and  use  of  the  submaxillary 
odoriferous  gland  of  the  Crocodile,  by  Thomas 
Bell,  Esq.,  F.L.S.,  communicated  by  Sir.  E. 
Home,  Bart.,  V.P.R.S.— The  reading  was 
commenced  of  a  paper,  entitled,  "  Note  on  the 

M.M.  New  Sme5.-VoL.III.  No. IT. 


the  action  of  those  liquids  on  putrid  animal 
matter,"  by  A.  B.  Granville,  M  D.,  F.R.S., 
—Mar.  8.  M.  M.  Morichini,  Ehrman,  and  Am- 
pere, were  elected  Foreign  Members  of  the 
Society.— A  letter  was  read  from  M.  Rum- 
ker,  announcing  his  discovery  of  a  Comet 
in  the  southern  hemisphere,  in  September  last, 
at  Paramatta. — The  reading  of  Dr.  Gran- 
ville's  paper  was  concluded. — A  paper  was 
also  read,  entitled  "  On  the  permeability  of 
transparent  screens  of  extreme  tenuity  by 
radiant  heat,3'  by  W.Ritchie;  communi- 
cated by  Mr.  Herschell. — March  1<5.  Captain 
G.  Everest,  conductor  of  the  trigonometrical 
survey  of  India,  was  admitted  Fellow  of  the 
Society  ;  and  M.  M.  Struve,  Stromayer, 
Plana,  and  Soemering,  were  elected  Foreign 
Members.— A  paper  was  read,  entitled  "  Cor- 
rection of  an  Error  in  the  reduction  of  the 
observations  for  atmospherical  refraction  at 
Point  Bowen,  by  Lieut.  Forster,  R.N.,  F.R.S.  ; 
the  reading  was  also  commenced  of  a  Paper 
on  Experiments  for  determining  the  mean 
density  of  the  Earth,  made  with  two  invari- 
able pendulums,  at  the  mine  of  Dolcoath,  in 
Cornwall,  by  Mr.  Whewell,  F.R.S.,  and  G.  B. 
Airey,  F.R.S. — Mar.  22,  The  reading  of  the 
above  paper  was  concluded,  and  an  Appendix 
to  it,  by  Professor  Airey,  was  read. 

FOREIGN. 


INSTITUTE ACADEMY    OF   SCIENCES. 

Paris,  January  22,  and  February  17. — 
The  president  stated,  that  after  a  due  exami- 
nation of  the  subject,  nothing  prevented  the 
memoirs  u  on  the  physiology  of  vegeta- 
bles" from  appearing  among  those  which 
are  written  for  the  prize  for  "  experimental 
physiology,''  founded  by  M.  Montyon.— M. 
Arago  communicated  a  letter  from  M.  Bous- 
singault,  addressed  to  M.  Humboldt,  and 
dated  from  Bogota,  in  which  he  describes  the 
earthquake  experienced  there  on  June  17, 
1826.  M.  M.  Silvestre  and  Rose  made  a 
favourable  report  on  two  memoirs  of  M 
Saintomens,  concerning  the  improvement  of 
the  uncultivated  parts  of  the  Landes. — A 
favourable  report  was  likewise  made  by 
M.  Dulong  and  Gay  Lussac,  on  a  memoir  of 
M.  Dumas,  on  various  points  of  the  atomic 
theory — which  paper,  as  well  as  another  by 
Dr.  V.  Portal,  on  "  human  aneucephalous 
monsters, "  was  ordered  to  be  inserted  among 
the  communications  of  learned  strangers. 
The  same  honour  was  likewise  adjudged  to 
the  observations  of  M.  Lescelles  on  some 
compounds  of  brome  which  he  had  obtained. 
—February  19.  A  letter  of  M.  Le  Roy  of 
of  Etiolles,  was  read,  relative  to  new  instru- 
ments for  measuring  the  stones  in  the  blad- 
der.—:Some  observations  and  calculations 
regarding  the  comet  in  Bootes,  was  com- 
municated by  M  Vabe  and  Gambart.-  -M. 
Cauchy  presented  a  memoir  on  the  shock  of 
elastic  bodies. —  A  favourable  but  verbal  re- 
4  A 


546 


Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies. 


[MAY, 


port  was  made  by  M.  Blainville,  on  Dr.  Char- 
\  et's  work  "  oa  the  comparative  action  of 
opium,  and  its  constituent  principles  on  the 
animal  economy." — A  very  complimentary 
report  was  delivered  by  M.  M.  Thenard  and 
Chevreul,  on  a  memoir  of  M.  M.  Colin  and 
Robiquet,  entitled  "  new  researches  on  the 
colouring  matter  of  madder/'  which  was  or- 
dered to  be  inserted  in  the  collection  of 
learned  foreigners. — 26.  M.  Delessert  made 
some  communications  relative  to  M  Val- 
lance's  (an  English  engineer)  plan  of  travel- 
ling by  means  of  an  exhausted  cylinder. — 
M.  Arago  mentioned  having  heard  from  Cap- 
tain  Sabine,  that  Captain  Franklin  had  crossed 
the  whole  of  North  America,  and  arrived  in 
Behring's  Straits. — M.  Naviere  presented  a 
work  on  the  movement  of  an  elastic  fluid 
rushing  from  a  reservoir  or  gasometer. — 
March  9.  The  meeting  was  adjourned,  in 
consequence  of  the  death  of  M.  La  Place. — 
12.  M.  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire  stated,  that  M. 
Tournier  Pareay  was  about  to  send  from  Hayti 
to  the  academy,  a  work  on  the  yellow  fever, 
which  he  had  been  observing  for  four  years, 
and  did  not  consider  to  be  at  all  contagious. 


— M.  Cauchy  read  a  memoir  on  the  tension 
or  pression  in  elastic  bodies,  and  another  on 
the  shock  of  elastic  bodies. — 19.  M.  M.  La- 
treille  and  Dumeril  made  a  favourable  report 
on  the  memoir  of  M.  Vellot,  concerning  the 
Cecidomyes,  the  Gruus  Tipula  of  Linnaeus. 
M.  M.  Cuvier  and  Dumeril  made  a  report 
on  the  memoir  of  M.  M.  Audouin  and  Milne 
Edwards,  which  was  ordered  to  be  inserted 
in  the  collection  of  learned  strangers. — • 
M.  Biot  read  a  memoir  on  the  measure  of 
the  azimuths  in  geodetical  operations,  and  in 
particular  on  the  amplitude  of  the  chain  of 
triangles  which  extend  from  Bourdeaux  to 
Fuimes  in  Isiria. — M.  Cuvier  read  a  memoir 
on  a  genus  of  fish  called  pogonias. — M.  G. 
St.  Hilaire  communicated  on  this  subject 
some  observations  which  he  had  made  on 
certain  silecies  of  the  Nile,  which  produce  in 
water  a  sound,  which  is  very  audible  to  a 
by-stander,  and  which  they  appear  to  make 
by  means  of  their  fins.  -A  verbal  report  was 
made  by  M.  Girard  on  M.  Lamblardie's  work, 
entitled  "  observations  on  the  projected  tolls 
upon  the  Seine." 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC  AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 


Scientific  Consistency. — We  noticed  in  our 
last  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  certain  atoms 
of  gold  which  had  found  their  way  from  the 
Royal  Society  of  England  and  the  Institute 
of  France,  to  the  hand  of  Captain  Sabine ; 
without  alluding  to  the  private  motives  (and 
we  shall  be  understood  by  those  whom  it 
concerns)  which  may  have  influenced  these 
two  learned  bodies,  in  thus  crowning  with 
laurels  this  gentleman's  work  on  the  pendu- 
lum ;  we  shall  offer  a  few  observations  on 
the  work  itself.  On  its  first  appearance, 
we  ventured  to  hint,  that  the  harmony  per- 
vading it,  so  far  from  proving  accuracy  of 
observation,  merely  shewed  the  skill  with 
which  the  results  had  been  adjusted,  or  the 
judgment  displayed  in  selecting  the  observa- 
tions :  now  we  appeal  to  scientific  men,  if 
results  differing  in  general  but  the  fraction  of 
a  second,  are  likely  to  be  obtained  from  ob- 
servations made  upon  certain  stars,  whose 
position  has  been  accurately  determined  by 
numerous  observations,  continued  through  a 
series  of  years,  and  from  others  whose  places 
are  known  only  from  La  Caille,  or  if  noticed 
by  Rumker,  have  not  been  attended  to  by 
him  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to  admit 
of  their  right  ascension  and  declination  being 
calculated  with  precision.  Captain  Sabine 
refers  in  particular,  as  a  proof  of  the  accu- 
racy of  his  instrument,  to  the  uniformity  of 
the  result  obtained  at  Maranham  ;  the  mean 
latitude  of  which,  is  stated  by  him,  at 
2o  31'  42-4",  when  it  ought  to  have  been 
given  at  2°  31'  23'S";  and  the  difference  of 
the  least  and  greatest  observations,  instead 
of  being  two  seconds  and  a-half,  is  greater 
than  twenty  seconds  ;  in  fact  this  difference, 


instead  of  being  constant,  is  variable :  for 
example — the  discrepancy  between  his  state- 
ments and  the  truth,  on  his  own  showing, 
amounts  in  six  instances  to  43.3"— 42.1" — 
44.6'/— 1.2"— 1.3"— 2.«5"— &c.  Again,  the 
latitude  of  Drontbeim  is  wrong,  1 3."5,  but  it 
is  needless  to  select  from  what  is  only  a  mass 
of  error;  however,  as  the  time  at  various 
places,  New  York  and  Maranham,  for  exam- 
ple, was  determined  by  observations  made 
with  the  same  unlucky  repeating  circle,  the 
account  of  the  rate  of  the  chronometers,  and 
in  fact,  every  computation  into  which  the 
time  entered  as  an  element,  cannot  be  de- 
pended upon;  still,  did  the  results  published 
by  Captain  Sabine  admit  of  correction,  all 
confidence  in  himself  and  his  proceedings  is 
utterly  destroyed,  when  we  find  the  multipli- 
cation of  errors  of  which  no  well  made  in- 
strument is  susceptible,  and  when  we  see  this 
member  of  a  "  scientific  family"  so  negli- 
gent in  performing  a  task  which  he  had  un- 
dertaken, as  never  to  have  verified  the  in- 
strument he  employed.  To  Lieutenant  Fors- 
ter  we  do  not  allude ;  he  has  made  the  amende 
honorable,  throwing  himself  on  the  mercy 
of  the  public,  and  citing  Captain  Sabine 
as  the  authority  for  his  mistake.  There 
is  another  oversight  of  Capt.  Sabine,  w;hich 
is  likely  to  be  attended  with  more  serious 
consequences.  When  performing  his  expe- 
riments in  America,  he  communicated  to 
the  Scientific  Institutions  of  that  country 
the  length  of  the  English  yard,  at  that  time 
a  particular  desideratum,  as  the  subject  of 
regulating  their  weights  and  measures  was 
occupying  their  attention.  On  his  return  to 
this  country  it  was  discovered,  that  an  error 


I827.J  Varieties. 

existed  in  the  length  he  had  assigned  to  it ; 
so  far,  however,  from  apprizing  them  of  his 
unintentional  mistake,  the  circumstance  was 
kept  a  profound  secret,  and  we  now  learn 
from  a  paper,  inserted  in  the  last  number  of 
the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Science,  that  ever 
since  Capt.  Sahine's  visit  to  America,  the 
philosophers  of  that  country,  relying  upon 
his  statement,  have  been  occupied  in  ad- 
justing their  measures  by  his  incorrect  stand- 
ard :  when  we  assert,  which  we  do  fearlessly, 
that  he  has  known  for  a  year  and  a  halt' that 
the  measure  which  he  gave  was  incorrect, 
and  that  he  has  failed  to  communicate  the 
fact,  the  circumstance  needs  no  comment. 
From  this  recipiendary  of  the  Copley  medal, 
let  us  now  turn  to  the  royal  medals.  A  year 
or  two  since,  his  Majesty  graciously  be- 
stowed upon  the  Royal  Society  two  annual 
gold  medals,  of  the  value  of  fifty  guineas 
each,  to  be  awarded  as  honorary  premiums, 
under  the  direction  of  the  "  President  and 
Council  of  the  Royal  Society,  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  shall,  by  the  excitement  of  competi- 
tion among  men  of  science,  seem  best  cal- 
culated to  promote  the  object  for  which  the 
Royal  Society  was  instituted"  (extract  from 
Mr.  Peel's  letter) ;  desiring,  at  the  same  time, 
to  be  informed  of  the  conditions  upon  which 
the  Society  intended  to  award  them.  The 
resolution  adopted  on  the  occasion,  by  the 
council,  communicated  to,  and  approved 
of  by,  his  Majesty,  was,  that  they  should  be 
given  for  the  most  useful  "  discoveries,  or 
series  of  investigations,  completed  and  made" 
known  to  the  Royal  Society,  in  the  year 
preceding  the  day  of  their  award."  In  con- 
travention of  this,  their  own  resolution,  the 
council  adjudged  the  royal  medals  for  1826 
to  Mr.  Dalton,  for  his  chemical  theory  of  de- 
finite proportions,  published  nearly  twenty 
years  ago  ;  and  to  Mr,  Ivory,  for  his  mathe- 
matical papers,  inserted  in  the  philosophical 
transactions  some  three  or  four  years  since. 

We  have  not  as  yet  heard  that  Mr.  Peel 
has  signified  his  Majesty's  approbation  of 
these  incongruous  resolutions,  the  glaring  in- 
consistency of  which  has,  it  is  reported,  led 
to  some  warm  discussions  in  the  society  ;  but 
we  hope  that  its  pecuniary  affairs  are  admi- 
nistered with  more  integrity  than  those  upon 
which  its  scientific  character  depend,  and 
we  recommend  to  all  our  readers  a  perusal 
of  Dr.  Brewster's  remarks,  contained  in  the 
last  number  of  his  Journal,  on  the  signal  im- 
propriety of  plundering  the  present  genera- 
tion of  their  honours,  to  bestow  them  on  the 
race  that  is  past. 

Hybernation  of  the  Black  Ant. — On  the 
18th  January,  a  large  elm  tree,  to  all  appear- 
ance sound,  was  cut  down,  on  the  estate  of 
Mr.  Baden  Powell,  of  Lackington  Green, 
near  Tunbridge  Wells.  On  examining  the 
lower  part  of  the  trunk,  close  to  the  root,  a 
large  excavation  was  discovered,  rendering 
the  base  of  the  tree  quite  hollow;  this  cavity 
was  filled  with  a  large  nest,  somewhat  re- 
sembling a  wasp's  nest,  but  of  looser  mate- 
rials, being  composed  of  cells,  or  separate 


547 


excavations,  the  sides  of  which  were  tough 
and  pliable,  and  of  a  brownish  colour,  smell- 
ing strongly  of  the  sap  of  the  tree,  and  filled 
with  innumerable  large  black  ants,  and 
their  eggs  quite  alive,  that  is,  not  torpid.  The 
tree  had  evidently  been  excavated  by  them, 
and  would,  in  all  probability,  have  ere  long 
failed  in  its  accustomed  foliage,  the  cavity 
being  very  large  ;  it  appeared,  indeed,  to 
have  measured  above  a  loot  in  height,  and 
the  same  in  diameter,  tapering  towards  the 
upper  part.  I  am  not  aware  that  the  nidus 
of  this  species  of  ant  has  ever  been  described, 
and,  should  any  of  your  correspondents  wish 
it,  Phave  not  any  doubt  but  a  drawing  might 
be  obtained,  as  the  nest  is  preserved. — 
T.  Forster,  Phil.  Mag. 

Steam  Boilers. — In  the  Philosophical  Ma- 
gazine for  February,  there  is  a  very  valuable 
communication  from  Mr.  J.  Taylor,  who  is 
led  to  inquire,  with  much  modest  caution, 
whether  or  not  the  bursting  of  steam-boilers 
may  not  be  occasioned  by  a  vacuum,  form- 
ed in  the  furnace,  by  the  formation  and  ex- 
plosion of  gas,  leaving  the  boiler  to  support, 
suddenly,  the  increased  expansive  force  of  the 
steam.  Mr.  Perkins,  in  a  very  able  paper, 
inserted  in  Newton's  Journal  of  the  Arts,  for 
April,  has  advanced  a  different  theory,  of 
which  the  following  is  an  abstract.  Steam, 
he  says,  is  often  so  generated  as  to  indicate 
very  high  degrees  of  temperature  without  a 
corresponding  increase  of  power,  so  as  evi- 
dently to  prove  that  temperature  alone  can- 
not be  relied  on  as  a  measure  of  the  elastic 
power  of  steam.  Having  ascertained  this 
curious  fact,  he  imagined,  that  if  heated 
water  were  suddenly  injected  into  the  super- 
heated steam,  the  effect  would  instantly  bo 
the  formation  of  highly  elastic  steam,  the 
strength  of  which  would  depend  upon  the 
temperature  and  quantity  of  the  supercharged 
steam,  and  of  the  water  injected.  This  theory 
was  verified  by  experiment,  and  it  soon  oc- 
curred to  him  that  to  this  might  be  traced 
the  cause  of  the  tremendous  explosions  that 
suddenly  take  place  in  low  as  well  as  high 
pressure  boilers.  There  are  many  instances 
where,  immediately  before  one  of  these  ter- 
rific explosions  had  taken  place,  the  engines 
laboured,  shewing  evidently  a  decrease  of 
power  in  the  engine.  To  illustrate  the  theory 
of  sudden  explosions,  let  us  suppose  the  feed- 
pipe, or  pump,  to  be  choked  ;  in  this  case  the 
water  would  soon  sink  below  some  parts  of  the 
boiler,  which  should  be  constantly  covered  by 
it,  thus  causing  them  to  become  heated  to  a 
much  higher  temperature  than  the  water: 
the  steam  being  now  in  contact  with  the 
heated  metal,  readily  takes  up  the  heat,  and 
becomes  supercharged  with  it ;  since  caloric 
will  not  descend  in  water,  it  cannot  be  taken 
up  by  the  water  which  is  below  it.  The 
steam  thus  supercharged  will  heat  the  upper 
surface  of  the  boiler,  in  some  cases  red  hot, 
and  will  ignite  coals  or  any  other  combus- 
tible matter  which  may  be  in  contact  with 
it.  If  the  water,  which  is  kept  below  the 
supercharged  steam  by  the  pressure  of  it, 

4  A  2 


J48 


Varieties* 


[MAY 


*hould  by  any  circumstance  be  made  to  take 
up  the  excess  of  caloric  in  the  steam,  as  well 
as  that  from  the  upper  part  of  the  boiler, 
which  has  become  heated  above  the  tempe- 
rature of  the  water,  in  consequence  of  the 
water  having  been  allowed  to  get  too  low, 
it  will  instantly  become  highly  elastic  steam, 
and  an  explosion  cannot  be  prevented  by  any 
safety  valve  hitherto  used. 

Iron  Bridge  at  Paris. — From  the  inade- 
quate, perhaps  we  should  say  unscientific, 
manner  in  which  the  ends  of  the  chain  bridge 
at  Paris,  were  fastened,  that  structure  has 
entirely  given  way;  but  as  the  scaffolding 
on  which  the  road-way  had  been  formed, 
was  standing  a  little  below  it,  and  imme- 
diately relieved  the  chains  of  a  great  portion 
of  their  load,  little  damage  was  done  to  any 
part  of  the  materials. 

Entomology. — In  Dr.  Brewster's  Journal, 
for  April,  there  is  noticed  a  new  species  of 
Oscillatoria,  O.  rubescens,  which,  though  it 
has  been  long  known  to  the  inhabitants  of 
part  of  Switzerland,  has  only  recently  been 
observed  by  the  learned,  and  is  described  by 
Professor  Decandolle,  of  Geneva.  It  is  annu- 
ally observed  from  about  November  to  May, 
in  the  lake  of  Morat,  which  is  covered  in 
several  places  with  a  remarkably  red  sub- 
stance. During  the  first  hours  of  the  day 
nothing  particular  is  observed  in  the  lake, 
but  soon  after  there  are  seen  long  red  lines, 
very  regular  and  parallel  along  the  margin 
of  the  lake,  and  at  some  distance  from  its 
banks.  During  the  day  this  mass  exhales  a 
putrid  smell ;  and  during  the  night  the  whole 
disappears  to  return  again  the  next  day. 
When  the  lake,  too,  is  agitated  by  high 
winds,  the  phenomenon  disappears,  and  pre- 
sents itself  again  when  a  calm  returns.  Upon 
submitting  some  of  this  substance  to  an  at- 
tentive examination,  it  was  found,  as  above 
described,  to  be  a  new  species  of  Oscillatoria. 

Natural  History. — In  the  third  part  of  the 
Philosophical  Transactions  for  1 826,Mr  .Osier 
has  inserted  a  -paper,  on  the  burrowing  and 
boring  of  marine  animals,  in  which  this 
learned  naturalist  states,  that  he  conceives 
the  pholades  and  teredines  perforate  their 
habitations  by  mechanical  action  alone  ;  but 
the  lithophagi,  which  would  have  the  great- 
est mechanical  resistance  to  overcome,  ap- 
pearing to  be  destitute  even  of  the  smallest 
mechanical  force,  he  has  come  to  the  opinion 
that  they  must  form  their  burrows  in  the 
rocks,  which  they  inhabit,  by  means  of  some 
sol  vent  secreted  by  the  animal. 

Earthquakes. — At  St.  Jago  de  Cuba,  the 
most  tremendoHs  earthquake  which  has  been 
experienced  for  fifty  years,  took  place  on  the 
18th  of  September,  between  three  and  four, 
A.M.,  and  destroyed  nearly  one  half  of  the 
town.  It  was  felt  at  Kingston,  Jamaica,  the 
same  day  and  hour.  An  earthquake  was 
also  felt  and  heard  in  the  island  of  Arran,  in 
Scotlaad,  on  the  20lh  of  November,  1826. 

Length  of  the  Ancient  Stadium. — A  very 
accurate  map  of  Turkey  in  Europe  and  of 
Greece,  drawn  up  by  M.  Lepie,  from  mate- 


rials collected  by  Count  Guilleminot,  the 
French  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  and 
Baron  Tremelin  has  completely  resolved  the 
problem  of  the  length  of  the  ancient  stadia, 
and  has  demonstrated  that  they  were,  accord- 
ing to  the  opinion  adopted  by  M.  Gosselin, 
and  rejected  by  D'Anville,  700  to  a  degree. 
Strabo,  for  example,  reckons  it  200  sttidia 
from  Corinth  to  Argos,  and  Pausanius, 
660  from  Sparta  to  Olympia.  These  are  the 
exact  distances  found  on  the  new  map  on 
stadia  of  700  to  a  degree ;  which  proves  at 
once  the  accuracy  of  the  ancient  geographers, 
and  that  of  the  modern  map. 

Marking  Ink.—  Moisten  the  linen  to  be 
marked  with  one  ounce  and  a-half  of  pre- 
pared soda,  and  the  same  quantity  of  gum 
arabic  dissolved  in  four  ounces  of  water ; 
and  when  dry,  write  the  characters  with  fifty 
grains  of  lunar  caustic,  one  dram  of  gum 
arabic,  and  fifty  grains  of  lamp  black  dis- 
solved in  half  an  ounce  of  water.  The  above 
composition  will  resist  every  effort  to  re- 
move it. 

Ganganellfs  Correspondence.— -A  singu- 
lar work  has  just  made  its  appearance  in 
France :  it  is  the  correspondence,  which  has 
been  only  recently  found,  between  two  per- 
sons, each  of  whom  obtained  a  great,  but 
very  different  celebrity.  The  facts  are  these: 
In  1720,  in  a  seminary  at  Rimini,  there  were 
two  children  who  contracted  for  each  other  a 
very  strong  friendship  ;  one  was  the  son  of 
a  labourer  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Santo 
Angelo-in-Vado  ;  the  other  was  the  only  son 
of  an  officer  of  fortune  in  the  service  of  the 
King  of  Sardinia.  These  two  engaged,  that 
whatever  might  be  their  lot  in  the  world,  they 
would  never  allow  more  than  two  years  to 
pass  without  writing  to  or  seeing  each  other  : 
this  promise  was  religiously  observed.  One 
of  the  children,  Laurent  Gang-anelli,  became 
professor  of  philosophy  at  Orsaro,  entered 
into  the  order  of  St.  Francis,  held  some  high 
situation  under  the  inquisition,  was  then  made 
cardinal,  and  lastly  pope,  under  the  title  of 
Clement  XIV.  The  other  child,  Carlo Barti- 
nazzi,  went  into  France  after  his  father's 
death,  and  better  known  under  the  name  of 
Carlin,  became  one  of  the  best  harlequins  of 
the  Italian  comedy.  These  are  the  two  per- 
sons whose  correspondence  is  now  published. 
It  may  be  added,  that  it  was  this  very  Clement 
XIV,  predecessor  of  Pius  VI,  who  in  1773, 
and  at  the  request  of  all  the  European 
princes  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  pronounced 
the  abolition  of  the  Society  of  Jesuits,  which 
the  present  Royal  Family  of  France  are  la- 
bouring so  hard  to  re-establish. 

Improved  Chronometers. — In  the  public 
exhibition  of  the  objects  of  national  industry, 
which  has  just  closed  at  Neuchatel,  a  chro- 
nometer was  produced,  the  work  of  M.  Hou- 
riet,  of  Lorbe,  in  which  steel  was  employed 
only  for  the  main  spring  and  for  the  axes 
of  the  movers ;  all  the  other  parts  were  of 
brass,  alloyed  gold,  j>old  of  eighteen  carats, 
and  of  platinum,  and  amounted  in  number 
to  sixty-two :  all  the  pivots  turn  on  jewels. 


1827.] 


Varieties. 


549 


and  the  movements  of  the  free  escapement 
are  performed  by  means  of  palettes  of  pre- 
cious stones.  Some  artists  having  observed 
to  M.  Houriet  that  the  escapement  and  the 
spiral  spring  not  being  of  steel,  the  incon- 
venience of  a  less  degree  of  elasticity  would 
be  the  result ;  numerous  and  successful  expe- 
riments supplied  a  decisive  answer  to  the 
objection  ;  and  it  appears  evident  that  gold, 
when  hardened,  is  more  elastic  than  hardened 
steel  when  untempered.  During  six  days, 
this  machine  was  exposed  to  an  artificial 
magnet,  of  the  strength  of  from  twenty-five 
to  thirty  pounds,  without  its  performance  be- 
ing in  the  least  deranged.  This  new  method 
of  constructing  chronometers,  may  be  of  the 
highest  importance  to  those  intrepid  navi- 
gators who  may  explore  the  northern  regions, 
in  which  the  magnetic  influence  frequently 
produces  a  very  sensible  effect  upon  the 
chronometers  constructed  in  the  usual  way. 

Antient  Manufactory  of  Arms.  —The  fol- 
lowing very  interesting  account  is  extracted 
from  one  of  the  best  foreign  journals,  the 
Revue  Encyclopedique.  The  CountD'Abzac, 
a  magistrate  in  the  canton  of  Tervasson 
(Dordogne),  has  discovered  by  the  side  of  the 
new  road  from  Lyons  to  Bourdeaux,  between 
Ternasson  and  Arrac,  opposite  the  village  of 
Boissier,  the  remains  of  one  of  the  ar- 
mouries, if  such  they  may  be  called,  where 
the  ancients  constructed  their  arms  and  in- 
struments of  flint.  M,  Jouannet,  of  Bour- 
deaux, who  has  so  ably  illustrated  this  branch 
of  industry  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Peri- 
gord,  had  already  discovered  in  the  Sacladais 
two  of  their  ancient  work-shops;  and  this 
last,  like  the  two  others,  is  characterized  by 
a  great  quantity  of  fragments  of  flint,  by  a 
multitude  of  roughly-hewn  darts,  by  the 
neighbourhood  of  a  natural  grotto,  which 
probably  served  as  a  retreat  for  the  work- 
men, and  above,  by  a  considerable  heap  of 
bones  of  domestic  animals,  which  still  retain 
the  marks  of  the  fire  that  had  charred  them. 
It  may  be  remarked,  that  silex  is  not  found 
nearer  to  Boissier  than  two  leagues,  and 
that  it  was  necessary  to  hew  many  roughly 


before  they  could  obtain  perfect  arms  or 
utensils,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  numbers 
which  are  imperfect  nnd  have  been  left. — 
But  whence  the  heap  of  bones  ?  This  is  a 
question  which,  in  all  probability,  will  never 
be  resolved. 

Compression  of  Water. — The  following 
are  the  results  obtained  by  Mr.  Parkins,  from 
experiments  on  the  progressive  compression 
of  water,  with  high  degrees  of  force,  arid 
communicated  to  the  Royal  Society.  The 
column  of  water  is  190  inches  in  height,  and 
the  pressure  of  one  atmosphere  is,  of  course, 
estimated  at  fourteen  pounds. 
Atmospheres.  Compression  in  Inches. 

10 0  189 

20 0-372 

30 0-543 

40 0-691 

50 0-812 

60o 0-956 

TO 1-056 

80 1-087 

90 1-288 

100 1-422 

150 1-914 

200 2-440 

300 3'339 

400 4-193 

500 5-987 

600 5-907 

700 6-715 

800 7-402 

900 8-243 

1000 9-002 

2000 15-833 

We  may  add,  that  the  cause  of  the  colour 
of  the  Red  Sea,  which  has  given  rise  to  va- 
rious conjectures,  has  been  decided  by  the 
Prussian  travellers,  M.  M.  Hemprich  and  Eh- 
renburg  ;  the  account  of  whose  researches  in 
Egypt,  Syria,  and  Arabia,  will  speedily  ap- 
pear. M.  E.  remarked  the  first,  that  the 
colour  above  alluded  to,  arose  from  a  species 
of  oscillatoria,  small  vegetables,  or  animal- 
culte  connected  both  with  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdom. 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS    IN   PREPARATION, 

Capt.  Andrews'  Journal  of  his  Travels 
from  Buenos  Ayres  through  the  United 
Provinces  to  Coquimbo  is  expected  to  con- 
tain much  new  and  interesting  information. 
Also  his  explanation  of  his  proceedings  in 
behalf  of  the  Chilian  and  Peruvian  Mining 
Company,  which  he  promises  in  an  appen- 
dix, is  much  looked  for  by  those  lately  con- 
cerned in  the  South  American  Mining  specu- 
lations. 

Mr.  Horace  Smith  lias  a  new  novel  in  the 
press,  to  be  entitled  "  Reuben  Apsley."  The 
scene  is  laid  in  England  during^the  short 
reign  of  James  the  2nd,  some  of  tnV 


remarkable  events  of  which  are,  we  under- 
stand, embodied  in  the  story  ;  such,  for 
example,  as  the  disastrous  rebellion  of  the 
Duke  of  Monmoutb,  the  sanguinary  Western 
assizes  under  Judge  Jeffreys,  and  the  tri- 
umphant landing  of  the  Prince  of  Orange. 
The  most  prominent  of  the  historical  cha- 
racters is  Judge  Jeffreys. 

The  Second  Part  of  Mr.  Crofton  Croker's 
Fairy  Legends  will  certainly  appear  next 
June. 

We  learn  that  a  more  extensive  work  on 
a  similar  subject,  entitled  the  Fairy  Mytho- 
logy, may  be  expected  early  next  season. 

jfhe  Book  Collector's  Manual,  or  a  Guide 
""to  the  Knowledge  of  upwards  of  20,000  rare, 


550 


List  of  New  Works. 


[MAY, 


curious,  ond  useful  Books,  printed  in  or  re- 
lating to  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

The  Third  Series  of  Highways  and  By- 
ways is  now  on  the  eve  of  publication. 

A  new  edition  of  the  Pioneers,  by  the 
author  of  the  Prairie-,  Spy,  Pilot,  &c.,  is  just 
ready. 

The  Rev.  Thos.  Belsham  is  preparing  for 
the  press  a  second  volume  of  his  Doctrinal 
and  Practical  Discourses. 

A  Novel,  entitled  the  Guards,  will  soon 
appear. 

Miss  Edgeworth  has  in  the  press  a  second 
volume  of  Dramatic  Tales  for  Children,  in- 
tended as  an  additional  volume  of  the  Parent's 
Assistant. 

M.  Mai  will  shortly  publish  at  Rome  some 
hitherto  inedited  fragments  of  the  Greek 
Historians,  Polybius,  Diodorus  Siculus,  Dio- 
nysius  Halicarnassus,  Dion  Cassus,  Eunas- 
sius,  and  others.  In  one  vol. ,410.  with  a 
Latin  translation  by  the  Editor,  and  some 
Notes. 

The  Youth  and  Manhood  of  Cyril  Thorn- 
ton. 

Mr.  Godfrey  Biggins,  author  of  a  Treatise 
entitled  Hora?  Sabbaticse,  has  nearly  ready  a 
work  (in  4(o.  with  lithographic  prints)  re- 
specting the  Celtic  Druids. 

The  Subaltern's  Log  Book  during  two 
voyages  to  India,  and  Eighteen  Years'  Ob- 
servation on  Land  and  Water. 

Mr.  Dewhurst  is  preparing  a  system  of 
Osteology,  illustrated  with  engravings  in 
lithography  of  the  Bones  of  the  size  of  Na- 
ture," from  drawings  taken  from  the  recent 
Skeleton. 

General  Foy's  M.S.  History  of  the  War  in 
the  Peninsula,  preceded  by  a  Political  and 
Military  View  of  Europe  from  1789  to  1814, 
is  about  to  be  printed  in  four  volumes. 

Mr.  Clark  is  preparing  for  publication  a 
series  of  instructions  in  Landscape  Painting 
in  Water  Colours,  illustrated  by  Fifty-five 
Views  from  Nature,  descriptive  objects,  &c. 
mounted  separately,  in  imitation  of  draw- 
ings. 

The  Rev.  J.  Ross  is  preparing  a  Transla- 
tion from  the  German  of  Hirch's  Geometry, 
uniform  with  his  translation  of  Hirch's 
Algebra. 

Mr.  T.  F.  Hunt,  author  of  Half-a-dozen 
Hints  on  Architecture,  has  nearly  ready  De- 
signs for  Parsonage  Houses,  Alms'  Houses, 
&c. 

A  Life  of  Morris  Birkbeck,  written  by  his 
Daughter,  is  nearly  ready. 

A  Translation  is  preparing  of  a  Reply  by 
the  Bishop  of  Strasbourg!!  (late  Bishop  of 
Aire)  to  Faber's  Difficulties  of  Romanism, 
which  work  was  directed  against  a  former 
production  of  the  Bishop  of  Strasbourgh,  en- 
titled Discussion  Amicale.  Also,  The  Discus- 
sioa  Amicale,  in  2  vols.,  translated  by  the 
Rev.  W.  Richmond. 

Chemical  Manipulation,  containing  In- 
structions to  Students  in  Chemistry  relative 
to  the  methods  of  performing  experiments, 
either  of  demonstration  or  research,  with  ac- 
curacy and  success,  by  M.  Fnrday,  F.R.S. 


The  Aylmers,  a  Novel.    Nearly  ready. 

An  Account  of  the  Deaths  of  Men  who 
have  been  eminent  for  their  attainments  in 
Theology,  Philosophy,  and  General  Litera. 
ture.  By  the  Rev.  Henry  Clissold,  M.A. 

The  Reigning  Vice,  a  Satirical  Essay. 

Mr.  William  J.  Thorns  announces  a  series 
of  Reprints,  accompanied  by  Illustrative  and 
Bibliographical  Notices,  of  the  more  curious 
old  Prose  Romances.  The  Work  will  ap- 
pear in  Monthly  Parts,  and  the  first,  eontain- 
the  prose  "Life  of  Roberte  the  Deuyll," 
from  the  edition  by  Wynkyn  deWorde,  in  the 
Garrick  collection,  will  be  ready  on  the  1st 
of  May. 

A  complete  Edition  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's 
Poems,  including  "  The  Excursions,"  are 
nearly  ready, 

The  Honourable  Frederick  De  Roos,  R.N. 
is  preparing  for  publication  a  Personal  Nar- 
rative of  his  Travels  in  the  United  States, 
with  some  important  Remarks  on  the  State 
of  the  American  Maritime  resources. 

On  the  1st  of  June,  1827,  will  be  pub- 
lished Part  I.  a  Natural  History  of  the  Bible  ; 
or,  a  descriptive  Account  of  the  Zoology, 
Botany,  and  Mineralogy  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures :  compiled  from  the  most  authentic 
sources,  British  and  Foreign,  and  adapted  to 
the  use  of  English  readers.  Illustrated  with 
numerous  engravings.  By  William  Car- 
penter. 

In  the  Press.  The  Desolation  of  Eyam  ; 
the  Emigrant,  and  other  Poems.  By  Wil- 
liam and  Mary  Howitt,  Authors  of  the  Forest 
Minstrel,  and  other  Poems. 

Mr.  Peter  Nicholson,  Author  of  The  Car- 
penter's New  Guide,  and  other  Architectural 
Works,  has  in  the  press  a  new  Treatise,  en- 
titled The  School  of  Architecture  and  En- 
gineering, the  first  number  of  which  will  be 
ready  for  publication  early  in  May. 

The  Principles  and  Practice  of  Botany, 
an  elementary  work.  By  Thomas  Castle,  is 
in  preparation. 

Some  Account  of  the  Science  of  Botany, 
being  the  Substance  of  an  Introductory  Lec- 
ture, delivered  in  the  Theatre  of  the  Royal 
Institution  of  Great  Britain.  By  John  Frost, 
F.A.S.  and  L.S.  of  Emmanual  College, 
Cambridge,  and  dedicated  by  permission  to 
the  King. 

The  Rev.  J.  East,  A.M.  announces  The 
Sea-Side :  a  series  of  Short  Essays  and 
Poems,  suggested  by  a  temporary  residence 
at  a  Watering  Place. 

A  Translation  of  some  of  the  most  popular 
Fairy  Tales  Irom  the  German  is  in  the  press. 
They  will  be  illustrated  by  Cruikshank. 

The  Theological  Encyclopedia,embracing 
every  topic  connected  with  Biblical  Criticism 
and  Theology,  is  in  preparation. 

Original  Correspondence  between  <he 
Tiight  Hon.  Edmund  Burke  and  French 
Lawrence,  Esq.  L.L.D.  is  announced,  in  one 
volume  8vo. 

Nicholas  Harris  Nicolas,  Esq.  F.S.A.has 
ready  for  publication  a  History  of  the  Battle 
of  Agincourt,  together  with  a  copy  of  the  Roli 
returned  into  the  Exchequer  in  Nov.  1410, 


List  of  New  Works. 


1827.1 


by  command  of  Henry  the  Fifth,  of  the  names 
of  the  Nobility,  Knights,  Esquires,  and 
others,  who  were  present  on  that  occasion. 

A  Concise  History  of  the  Transmission  of 
Ancient  Books  (o  Modern  Times;  or  m»  Ac-  - 
count  of  the  Means  by  which  the  Genuineness 
mid  Authenticity  of  Historical  Works  especi- 
ally, and  Ancient  Literature  in  general,  are 
ascertained.  By  Isaac  Taylor,  jun.  Author 
of  Elements  of  Thought,  <kc.  1  vol.  8vo. 

Preparing  for  the  press  in  2  vols.  12mo. 
Memoirs,  including  Correspondence  and  other 
Remains  of  Mr.  John  Urquhart,  late  of  the 
University  of  St.  Andrews.  By  William 
Orme. 

Dr.  Gordon  Smith's  Work  on  Poisons, 
which  has  been  greatly  delayed  by  ill  health 
on  the  part  of  the  Author,  will  shortly  be 
ready  for  publication. 

Early  in  May  will  appear,  London  in  the 
Olden  Time.  A  Second  Series.  Compris- 
ing Tales  illustrative  of  the  Manners, 
Habits,  and  Superstitions  of  its  Inhabitants 
from  the  thirteenth  to  the  sixteenth  century. 
1  vol.  crown  8vo. 

Pathological  and  Practical  Observations 
on  Spinal  Complaints,  illustrated  with  cases 
and  engravings.  Also  an  Inquiry  into  the 
Origin  and  Cure  of  Distorted  Limbs,  By 
Edward  Harrison,  M.D.  F.R.A.S.Ed.  for- 
merly President  of  the  Royal  Medical  and 
Physical  Societies  of  Edinburgh,  <fec.,  is  in 
the  press. 

A  fashionable  jeu  d'esprit  is  announced  by 
Mr.  Ainsworth,  under  the  piquant  title  of  May 
Fair.  It  is  dedicated  to  the  Coterie  at  Hoi- 
land  House. 

An  Appeal  to  Reason;  or,  Christianity 
and  Deism  Contrasted.  Dedicated  to  the 
Members  of  the  Christian  Evidence  Society, 
by  the  Rev.  Samuel  Walter  Burgess,  D.D. 

Mr.  Sweet  has  nearly  ready  for  publica- 
tion, in  monthly  numbers,  with  coloured 
plates,  The  Florists'  Guide  and  Cultivators, 
Directory,  or  an  exhibition,  with  the  best 
method  of  cultivation  of  Tulips,  Hyacinths, 
Carnations,  Pinks,  Ranunculuses,  Roses,  Au- 
riculas, &c.  &c. 

Major  Frederick  Johnston  is  preparing  for 
publication  a  Translation  from  the  German 
of  Count  Von  Bismark's  celebrated  Lectures 
on  the  Tactics  of  Cavalry,  to  be  dedicated  by- 
permission  to  Gen.  Sir  Hussey  Vivian,  Co- 
lonel of  the  12th  Lancers. 

The  Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  the 
late  Admiral  Lord  Collingwood.  By  G. 
Newnham  Collingwood,  Esq.  are  in  a  state 
of  forwardness  for  publication. 


651 


LIST    OF  NEW   WORKS. 
HISTORY,  BIOGRAPHY,  &C. 

History  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  William  Pitt, 
Earl  of  Chatham,  containing  his  Speeches 
in  Parliament,  a  Portion  of  his  Correspond- 
ence when  Secretary  of  State,  upon  French, 
Spanish,  and  American  Affairs,  with  an  ac- 
count of  the  principal  events  and  persons 
connected  with  his  Life,  Sentiments,  and 


Admiinstrations.  By  the  Rev.  Francis  Thac- 
keray, A.M.  2  vols.  4to.  with  Portraits. 
Price  31.  3s.  boards. 

The  Even*ful  Life  of  n  Soldier,  dur- 
ing the  late  War  in  Portugal,  Spain,  and 

France.  By  a  Sergeant  of  the  — 

Regiment  of  Infantry.  I2mo.  7s. 

Scenes  and  Sketches  of  a  Soldier's  Life 
in  Ireland.  By  the  Author  of  an  Eventful 
Life.  12mo.  5s, 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Mr.  Robert 
Spence,  late  Bookseller,  of  York.  By 
Richard  Burdekin.  In  12mo.  Price  3s. 

The  Life,  Diary,  and  Correspondence  of 
Sir  William  Dougdale,  Knt.  Some  time 
Garter  principal  King  of  Arms.  By  Wm, 
Harper,  esq.  In  Royal  4to.  21.  2s.  boards. 

Personal  Narrative  of  Adventures  in  the 
Peninsula,  during  the  War  in  1812,  1813. 
By  an  Officer.  Post  8vo.  9s.  6d.  boards. 

The  History  of  Rome ;  now  first  Trans- 
lated from  the  German  of  G.  B.  Nieblihr. 
By  F.  A.  Walter,  esq.  F.R.S.L.  With  Maps. 
In  2  vols.  8vo.  11.4s. 

MEDICINE,    SURGRRY,  tfec. 

A  Grammatical  Introduction  to  the  Lon- 
don Pharmacopoeia.  By  S.  F.  Leach.  18mo. 
5s.  boards. 

Fame's  Apology  for  British  Anatomy. 
Imperial  4to.  with  Plates.  9s.  coloured. 
14s.  pewed. 

Majon's  Laws  of  Physiology.  Translated 
by  G.  II.  Skene.  8vo.  8s.  boards. 

Mayo's  Engravings  of  the  Brain  and  Spi- 
nal Chord.  Foiio.  21.  2s.  boards. 

Robertson's  Conversations  on  Anatomy. 
12mo.  6s.  boards. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

The  Military  Sketch  Book.  2  vols.  Post 
8vo.  11.  Is.  boards. 

Boileau's  Art  of  Working  on  Pasteboard. 
)8mo.  5s.  boards. 

Lee's  Hebrew  Grammar.  Svo.  16s.  boards. 

Scrope's  Geology  of  Central  France.  4to. 
with  Atlas.  31.  3s.  boards. 

Lynn's  Horary  Tables  for  Finding  the 
Time  by  Inspection.  4to.  21.  2s.  boards. 

An  Attempt  to  Elucidate  the  Grammati- 
cal Construction  of  the  English  Language. 
12mo.  4s.  boards. 

Hume's  Philosophical  Works ;  now  first 
collected  ;  beautifully  printed  in  four  large 
volumes.  Svo.  with  Portrait  and  View  of 
his  Monument.  21.  8s. 

Prize  Essay  on  the  State  of  Society  and 
Knowledge  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  ; 
particularly  in  tbe  Northern  Counties,  at  the 
period  of  the  Rebellion  in  1745,  and  of  their 
progress  up  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Northern  Institution  for  the  Promotion  of 
Science  and  Literature,  in  1825.  By  John 
Anderson,  Secretary  to  the  Society  of  Scot- 
tish Antiquaries.  8vo.  7s. 

Elements  of  Chemical  Science.  By  Ed- 
ward Turner,  M.D.,  F.R.S.E.  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  College  of  Physicians,  and  Lec- 
turer on  Chemistry,  Edinburgh.  In  one  large 
volume  8vo.  with  Engravings.  16s. 


552 


List  of  New  Works. 


[MAY, 


Nicholson's  Carpenter  and  Joiner's  Com- 
panion and  Complete  System  of  Lines. 
130  Engravings.  1  vol.  8vo.  11.  3s. 

Morell's  Elements  of  the  History  of  Phi- 
losophy and  Science,  from  the  earliest  Au- 
thentic Records  to  the  commencement  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century.  1  vol.  8vo.  Price  12s. 

Allbut's  Elements  of  Useful  Knowledge 
in  Geography,  Botany,  Astronomy,  <fec. 
With  8  Engravings.  12mo.  4s.  6d. 

Some  Observations  on  the  Medicinal  and 
Dietetic  Properties  of  Green  Tea.  By  W. 
Newnham,  esq.  Author  of  "  An  Essay  on 
Inversio  Uteri,  etc."  Is.  6d.  boards. 

Illustrations  of  the  Geology  of  Sussex, 
containing  a  general  View  of  the  Geological 
Relations  of  the  south-eastern  part  of  Eng- 
land, with  Figures  and  Descriptions  of  Fos- 
sils of  Tilgate  Forrest.  By  Gideon  Mantele, 
F.R.S.  <fec.  1  vol.  Royal  4to.  with  21 
Plates.  21.  15s.  boards. 

A  Selection  from  the  Papers  of  Addison, 
in  the  Spectator  and  Guardian  j  for  the  use 
of  young  persons.  By  the  Rev.  E.  Bereus, 
M.A.  12mo.  4s.  6d. 

A  Biographical  Work,  entitled  "  The 
Modern  Jesuits."  Translated  from  the  French 
of  L'Abbe  Martial  Marcet  de  La  Roche  Ar- 
nauld.  By  Emile  Lepage,  Professor  of  the 
French  Language,  Fulham. 

Clarke's  Geographical  Dictionary.  2  vols. 
4to. 

A  History  of  Inventions  and  Discoveries, 
alpabetically  arranged.  By  F.  Selton  White, 
esq.,  F.A.S.  8vo.  14s. 

Richard  Baynes's  Catalogue  of  Books  in 
all  departments  ol  Literature. 

Darley's  Popular  Algebra.  12mo.  4s.  6d. 
boards. 

Col.  Trench  on  the  Thames  Quay  and 
othar  Improvements,  with  Plates.  4to.  21. 
12s.  6d.  boards.  Royal  4to.  41.  4s. 

Bevan  on  the  Honey  Bee.  12mo.  9s. 
boards. 

Prior's  Practical  Elocution.  12mo.  «5s. 
6d.  boards. 

Dibdin's  Introduction  to  the  Classics.  4th 
edition.  2  vols.  8vo.  21.  2s.  boards.  Large 
paper  61.  6s. 

Flagellum  Parliamentarian!.  12mo.  4s. 
boards. 

Eland's  Principles  of  Agriculture.  I2mo. 
4s.  6d.  boards. 

Babbage's  Tables  of  Logarithms.  Royal 
8vo.  1 2s.  boards.  Lines  and  Tangents  to 
ditto.  Royal  8vo.  12s.  boards. 

Broader's  System  of  Artificial  Memory, 
with  plates.  12s.  Plain  14s.  Coloured 
8vo.  boards. 

Howard's  Outline  Plates  to  Shakspeare. 
No.  1.  containing  20  plates.  4to.  12s. 
sewed.  On  India  paper  11.  Is. 

Arnott's  Elements  of  Physics.  8vo.  11. 
Is.  boards. 

Scientific  Aphorisims ;  being  the  Outline 
of  an  Attempt  to  establish  fixed  Principles  of 
Science.  By  Robert  Blair,  M.D.  Professor 
of  Astronomy,  Edinburgh.  8vo.  15s.  boards. 

An  Essay  on  Naval  Tactics,  Systematical 


aad  Historical,  with  upwards  of  50  Expla- 
natory Plates.  By  John  Clark,  esq.  Third 
edition,  with  Notes  by  Lord  Rodney.  8vo. 
11.  5s.  boards. 

Picard's  Choix  des  Comedies  en  Prose, 
with  Notes,  cfec.  By  Deward.  12mo.  4s. 
6d.  boards. 

Essays  on  the  Perception  of  an  External 
Universe,  and  other  Subjects  connected  with 
the  Doctrine  of  Causation.  By  Lady  Mary 
Shepherd.  12mo.  8s.  boards. 

Instructions  for  Collecting,  Rearing  and 
Preserving  British  Insects ;  also,  for  Col- 
lecting and  Preserving  British  Crustacea  and 
Shells.  By  Abel  Ingpeii.  12mo.  8s.  6d. 
boards. 

The  Cambridge  University  Calendar  for 
1827.  Price  5s.  6d. 

An  Essay  on  the  Limits  of  Human 
Knowledge.  By  W.  H.  Bathurst,  M.A. 
Price  Is.  6d. 

A  Treatise  on  English  Versification.  By 
the  Rev.  Wm.  Crowe.  Small  8vo. 

Simson's  Anatomy  for  the  Use  of  Artists. 

2  vols.  4to.,  with  31  Plates.    21.  10s.    On 
India  paper  31. 

An  Address  to  the  Ladies  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  on  the  Claims  of  the  Roman  Ca- 
tholics, occasioned  by  the  Death  of  the 
Duke  of  York.  Price  3s.  By  a  Lady. 

Verbal  Analysis  of  L'  Histoire  de  In  Con- 
juration contre  Venise.  12mo.  Os.  boards. 

NOVELS,   TALES,    &C. 

English  Fashionables  Abroad.  3  vols. 
post  8vo.  11.  11s.  6d.  boards. 

Sketches  in  Ireland,  Descriptive  of  In- 
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The  Gondola,  a  Series  of  Tales  related  at 
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Petoletti,  a  Poetical  Tale  of  Passion.  By 
H.  Bailey.  I  vol.  foolscap,  8vo.  5s.  boards. 

Castle  of  Villeroy.     12mo.     8s.  boards. 

The  Village  Pastor.  2  vols.  18mo. 
3s.  6d.  half-bound. 

Historettes,  or  Tales  of  Continental  Life. 

3  vols.  post  8vo.     11.  11s.  6d.  boards. 
American  Sketches.    12mo.    10s.  boards. 
Richmond   on   Scenes   in   the  Life  of  a 

Bow  Street  Officer.  3  vols.  post  8vo,  11 
8s.  6d.  boards. 

Two  Hundred  and  Nine  Days.  2  vols. 
crown  8vo.  18s.  boards. 

POETRY. 

The  Shepherd's  Calendar  and  other  Poems. 
By  John  Clare.  12mo.  6s.  boards. 

Ancient  Scottish  Ballads.  8vo.  7s.  6d. 
boards. 

Orlando  Furioso.  Translated  by  C.  John- 
son. Vol.  1 .  post  8vo.  9s.  boards. 

Quin'sCityof  Refuge,  a  Poem.  12mo. 
4s.  boards. 

The  Course  of  Time,  a  Poem  in  Ten 


1827.] 


List  of 


Works. 


553 


Books.  By  Robert  Pollock,  A.M.  2  vols. 
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Servian  Popular  Poetry.  Translated  by 
John  Bo  wring,  esq.  Foolscap  8vo.  8s. 
boards. 

The  Marriage  of  Pelens  and  Thetis,  a 
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by  the  Rev.  Francis  Ottey,  A.M.  8vo. 
2s.  6d.  sewed. 

Jubal,  a  Dramatic  Poem.  By  R.  M. 
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Moods  and  Tenses,  by  one  of  Us.  Post 
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RELIGION  AND    MORALS,  &C. 

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A  Vindication  of  the  Sentiments  contained 
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Systematic  Morality,  or  a  Treatise  on  the 
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Rainback's  Meditations.  By  Benson. 
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PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL  AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 


New  Patents  sealed,  1827. 

To  Aristides  Franklin  Mornay,  of  Putney- 
heath,  Surrey,  Esq.,  for  certain  improve- 
ments in  preparing  for  smelting,  and  in 
smelting  ores  and  other  substances,  con- 
taining certain  metals,  or  in  extracting  such 
metals  from  such  ores  and  substances—- 
Sealed 27th  March  ;  6  months. 

To  Matthew  Bush,  of  Da  ImonachPrintfield, 
North  Britain,  calico  printer,  for  certain  im- 
provements in  machinery  or  apparatus  for 
printing  calico  and  other  fabrics — 27th  Mar. ; 
6  months. 

To  Bennett  Woodcroft,  of  Manchester, 
manufacturer,  for  certain  processes  ami  ap- 

M.M,  Nttc  Seriet.— VOL.  III.  No.  17. 


paratus  for  printing  and  preparing  for  manu- 
facture, yarns  of  linen,  cotton,  silk,  woollen, 
or  any  other  fibrous  materials — 31st  March  ; 
6  months. 

To  Henry  Astney  Stothart,  of  Bath,  foun- 
der, for  certain  improvements  on,  or  addi- 
tions to  ploughs — 4th  April ;  6*  months. 

To  John  Paterson  Reid,  merchant  and  ma- 
nufacturer, in  Glasgow,  for  an  improvement 
or  improvements  on  power  looms,  forweav- 
.  ing  cloth  of  various  kinds — 4th  April  ;  6 
months. 

To  Joseph  Tilt,  of  Prospect- place,  South- 
wark,  merchant,  for  certain  improvements  in 
the  boilers  used  for  makino-  salt,  commonly 

4B 


354 


List  of  Patents. 


[MAY, 


called  salt-pans,  and  in  the  mode  of  apply- 
ing heat  to  brine-~4th  April  ;  6  months. 

To  Edward  Cowper,  of  Clapham-road, 
gent.,  for  certain  improvements  in  printing 
music — 5th  April ;  6  months. 

To  James  Sliudi  Broadwood,  of  Great 
Pulteney-strcet,  Middlesex,  piano-  forte  ma- 
ker, for  certain  improvements  in  the  grand 
P'.ano- forte—  9ih  April  j  G  months. 

List  of  Patents,  which,  hitting  been  granted 
in  May  1813,  expire  in  the  present 
month  of  May  1827. 

I.  Samuel  Evan?,  of  Brynrywen,    Den- 
bigh, for  improvements  in  the  working  of, 
or  giving  motion  to  mill-it  or k  and  machi- 
nery, for  raising  water  from  mines  and 
other  purposes* 

5.  Thomas  Walker,  Norwich,  for  improve- 
ments in  the  construction  of  a  horizontal 
windmill,  that  m'ay  be  applied  to  all  sorts 
of  machinery  to  be  worked  by  wind. 

—  Charles  Broderip,  London,  for  improve- 
ment  in    vessels  to   be   used  for   heating 
fluids  and  other  substances. 

—  William  Reid,  Aberdeen,  for  his  ma- 
chine for  calculating  all  problems  in  every 
science  depending  on  angles. 

8.  Thomas  Daking,  Barking,  Essex,  for 
his  method  of  heating  liquids  for  the  ma- 
nufacture of  leather  and  other  manufac- 
tures. 

—  Jacob  Esat,  London,  for  his  improve- 
ment in  the  construction  of  a  pedal  harp. 

II.  John  Fisher,  Mill  End,  Bucks,    and 


LaytonCooke,  of  London,  for  their  improved 
gaiters,  and  modes  of  fastening  the  same. 

15.  William  Bullock,  London,  and  James 
Boaz,  of  Glasgow,  for  contrivances  to 
prevent  doors  and  window -shutters  being 
broken  open,  or  forced  in. 

20.  Edward  Cooper,  Newington,  for  im- 
provements on  the  machines  for  cutting 
the  edges  of  p  aper  and  books. 

22.  William  Brunton,Butteslpy  iron-works, 
Derby,  ior  his  construction  and  erection  of 
engines,  and  other  mechanical  operations. 

—  Thomas  Willcox,  Bristol,  tor  his  ma- 
chine called  '<  a  smoke  reverberator,"  for 
preventing  and  airing  smoky  chimnies. 

—  John  Thackery,  London,  for  a  method 
of  enclosing   a   seat  in  a  portable   stool, 
which  seat  may  be  applied  to  other  useful 
purposes, 

—  William  Gruteins,  Birmingham,  for  his 
improved  method  of  manufacturing  socket 
castors  for  furniture  and  other  things. 

25.  William  Stocker,  Martock,  Somerset, 
for  an  improved  stop-cock,  made  of  metat 
and  ujood. 

31.  John  Mander,  Aaron  Manby,  and  Jo- 
seph Vernon,  Wolverhampton,  for  making 
the  scoria  or  keg  from  iron  works  into  such 
forms  that  they  may  be  used  for  bricks  or 
tiles. 

—  James  Oliphant,  London,   for  an  im- 
proved method  of  making  military  caps. 

—  Thoma*  Grant,  Biddeford,  Devon,  for 
certain  ingredients  which  diminish  the  cow.- 
sumption  of  oil  in  making  paint . 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 


THE   MARQUESS   OF   CHOLMONDELEY. 

•  George  James   Cholmondeley,    Marquess 
nnd  Earl  of  Cholmondeley,   Earl  of  Rock- 
savage,  Viscount  Malpas,   Baron  Cholmon- 
deley,  of    Namptwich,    in    the    county    of 
Chester,  Baron  Newburgb,  in  the  county  of 
Anglesey,  Viscount  Cholmondeley,  of  Kells, 
Baron  Newburgh,  of  the  county  of  Wexlord, 
in  the  Peerage  of  Ireland,  and  a  baronet, 
•was  born  on  the  30th  of  April,  1749.     He 
succeeded   his    grandfather,    third    Earl    of 
Cholmondeley,  on  the   10th  of  June,  1770. 
He    married    on   the   25th  of  April,  1791, 
Georgiana  Charlotte  Bertie,  second  daughter 
of  Peregrine,  third  Duke  of  Ancaster,  (joint 
hereditary  great  Chamberlain  of   England, 
with   her    sister    Priscilla,    Baroness    Wil- 
loughby  de  Eresby.)     By  that  lady  he  had 
issue,  George  James  Horatio,  his  successor ; 
a  daughter,  Charlotte,  who  married  Colonel 
Hugh  Seymour,  M.P.  (second  son  of  the  late 
Lord  Hugh  Seymour,)    who  died  in  1821, 
and  another  son,  William  Henry. 

The  Marquess  of  Cholmondeley  was  one 
of  the  oldest  families  of  the  county  of  Ches- 
ter.* He  possessed  also  the  best  estate  in 

*  The  two  great  Cheshire  families  of  Kgerton  and 
f'holmondeley,  are  both  dp=ccnded  from  the  same 


that  county ;  and  his  fortune  was  some  years 
ago  increased  by  his  succeeding  to  the  estate 
of  Houghton,  in  Norfolk,  by  the  death  of 
Horatio,  Earl  of  Orford. 

Lord  Cbolmondeley  long  served  in  the 
ranks  of  opposition;  but,  when  our  present 
Sovereign  assumed  the  Regency,  he  at- 
tached himself  to  him,  and  was  made  Lord 
Steward  of  the  Household.  On  the  22d  of 
November,  1815,  he  was  created  Marquess 
of  Cholmondeley  and  Earl  of  Rocksavage. 
His  Lordship  was  Judge  of  the  Mar>halsea 
nnd  Palace  Courts,  and  Chamberlain  of  Ches- 
ter. 

His  Lordship's  death  was  quite  sudden. 
On  the  night  of  Monday,  April  the  9th,  ho 
retired  to  rest,  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  usual 
health,  at  12  o'clock.  About  an  hour  after- 
wards he  was  taken  very  ill ;  Sir  Henry 
Halford  was  immediately  summoned  ;  but, 
notwithstanding  the  most  prompt  attention, 

common  ancestor,  William  le  Bellward,  who  was 
Baron  of  Malpas,  in  that  county,  under  the  Nor- 
man Karls  Palatine.  David  de  Malpas,  the  eMest 
son  of  William  Jo  Hellward,  was  ancestor  of  the 
Etrertons:  and  Robert,  the  second  son,  having,  by 
gift  of  his  father,  the  Lordship  of  Cholmonde- 
ley, -settled  there,  and  assumed  the  local  name, 
which  has  been  continued  in  his  descendant*. 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


555 


the  noble  Marquess  expired  at  9  o'clock  on 
the  following  morning. 

His  Lordship,  by  whose  death  a  blue  rib- 
band \vus  vacated,  is  succeeded  in  his  title 
and  estates  by  his  eldest  son.  This  noble- 
man was  born  on  the  17th  of  January, 
1792.  He  married,  in  1812,  Caroline,  se- 
cond daughter  of  Lieutenant  General  Collin 
Campbell,  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Gibral- 
tar; but  by  her  Ladyship,  who  died  in  18 1 5, 
he  had  no  issue.  His  Lordship  was  called  up 
to  the  House  of  Peers  on  the  27th  of  De- 
cember, 1821,  and  placed  in  his  father's 
"  Barony  of  New  burgh. 

CHARLES    DIGNUM. 

This  once  popular  singer  is  said  to  have 
been  born  at  Rotherhithe.  Subsequently,  his 
father  was  a  respectable,  but  not  affluent 
master  tailor,  in  Wild-street,  Lincoln's-inn 
Fields  ;  and  to  the  tailoring  business  young 
Dignum  was  at  first  devoted,  and,  we  are 
told,  became  an  early  proficient  in  the  art. 
His  parents  being  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
church,  he  sang  in  the  choir  when  a  boy,  at 
the  Sardinian  ambassador's  chapel.  At  that 
time,  his  voice  was  admired  by  the  frequenters 
of  the  chapel  for  its  melody  and  power;  so 
much  so,  that  Mr.  Samuel  Webb,  a  man 
of  fortune, extremely  well  known  in  the  mu- 
1  sical  world,  remarked  his  talents,  and  gave 

•  him  instruction.   The  youth, however, though 
he  had  n  soul  above  a  button,  entertained 
no  idea  of  adopting  music  as  a  profession  ;  he 

•  wished  rather  to  dedicate  himself  to  the  ser- 
'  vice  of  religion,  and  importuned  his  father  to 

send  him  to  the  college  at  Douay,  to  com- 
plete his  education,  and  fit  him  for  taking 
holy  orders.  This  plan  was  relinquished,  in 
consequence,  we  believe,  of  the  pecuniary 
"embarrassments  of  his  father;  and  Charles 
Dignum  was  placed  on  trial  under  the  care  of 
a  carver  and  gilder,  named  Egglesoe,  who 
was  at  the  head  of  that  branch  in  the  great 
establishments  of  Messrs.  Seddon,  in  Alders- 
gate-street.  He  remained  nine  months  in 
this  situation,  and  was  on  the  point  of  being 
regularly  articled,  when  a  quarrel  between 
his  father  and  Egglesoe  dissolved  the  con- 
nexion. Chance  now  operated  in  his  favour : 
whilst  doubting  what  occupation  he  should 
follow,  he  was  introduced  to  the  celebrated 
Mr.  Linley,  who  perceived  his  talents,  and 
gave  him  flattering  hopes  of  becoming  an 
acquisition  to  the  stage.  Dignum,  in  con- 
sequence, articled  himself  to  Linley  for 
seven  years;  and,  it  is  said,  that  during  his 
musical  probation,  he  was  often  obliged  to 
take  a  lesson  as  a  breakfast,  and  to  sing  a 
song  instead  of  eating  a  dinner.  However, 
at  a  subsequent  period  of  his  lii'e,  he  would, 
to  compensate  for  his  early  losses  in  the  way 
of  eating,  take  a  mutton  chop  in  the  forenoon 
at  one  house,  a  bason  of  soup  at  a  second, 
and  a  beef-steak  at  a  third.  When  wanted 
at  rehearsal,  he  was  sure  to  be  found  in  some 
chop-house,  near  Covent- garden,  reasoning 
with  the  cook-maid,  or  contemplating  the  • 
beauties  of  the  larder.  Corpulence  was  the 


consequence  of  this  indulgence.  But,  we  are 
anticipating. 

Linley  bestowed  the  most  indefatigable 
attentions  on  his  pupil,  and  would  not  permit 
him  to  sing  in  public  till  his  judgment  was 
sufficiently  matured.  It  was  in  the  year 
1764,  that  Charles  Dignum  made  his  debut 
in  the  character  of  Young  Meadows,  in  the 
comic  opera  of  Love  in  a  Village.  His 
figure  was  rather  unfavourable  for  the  part, 
but  his  voice  was  so  clear  and  full-toned, 
and  his  manner  of  singing  so  judicious,  that 
he  was  received  with  great  applause.  Upon 
this  occasion,  however,  the  desire  of  Sir 
William  Meadows  that  his  son  should  go  and 
plant  cabbages  and  cucumbers,  was  regarded 
as  a  palpable  hit  against  the  singer's  early 
occupation,  and  produced  an  effect  upon  the 
audience  more  risible  than  had  ever  been 
contemplated  by  the  author.  Altogether,  his 
success  was  such  as  to  give  the  opera  a  run 
of  several  nights. 

Dignum  next  appeared  in  Cymon,  and 
again  experienced  the  most  flattering  appro- 
bation. On  the  removal  of  the  elder  Bannis- 
ter to  the  Royalty  Theatre,  he  succeeded  to 
a  caste  of  parts  more  suited  to  his  person 
and  his  voice,  which  was  a  fine  tenor. 
Amongst  other  characters,  those  of  Haw- 
thorn and  Giles  particularly  suited  him  :  in- 
deed he  was  thought  superior  in  them  to 
any  actor  that  had  appeared  since  the  days 
of  Beard,  their  original  representative. 

Dignum  was  decidedly  a  bad  actor,  or 
rather  no  actor  at  all ;  yet,  from  his  vocal 
powers  he,  for  many  years,  held  a  respectable 
situation  at  the  theatre.  At  Vauxhall,  at 
concerts,  and  at  public  dinners,  he  was  also 
exeedingiy  popular.  Of  his  intellectual  supe- 
riority, brilliant  wit,  and  splendid  conversa- 
tional talent,  many  highly  amusing  anec- 
dotes might  be  gleaned.  Amongst  others, 
it  has  been  mentioned,  that,  when  he  found 
his  body  growing  very  bulky,  he  observed  to 
some  of  his  professional  brethren,  that  it  was 
troublesome  to  be  always  placing  his  ri^ht 
hand  upon  his  heart,  and  wished  to  know, 
whether,  if  his  heart  wese  occasionally  em- 
ployed in  a  similar  service,  it  would  not  do 
as  well  ! 

Dignum,  amidst  all  his  ludicrous  eccen- 
tricities, was  an  amiable,  good-natured,  jolly 
fellow.  He  married,  many  years  a^o,  Miss 
Rennet,  the  daughter  of  an  attorney,  with 
whom  he  received  a  considerable  accession 
of  fortune.  After  her  death,  so  greatly  did 
her  loss  prey  upon  his  rnind,  he  was  for  some 
time  in  a  state  of  mental  derangement. 
Another  of  his  family  distresses  proved,  for  a 
time,  very  severe.  A  married  daughter  of 
his — we  cannot  recollect  the  lady's  name — 
who  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Islington, 
had  her  infant  son  carried  off  in  an  extraor- 
dinary manner,  by  a  Mr.  Rennet,  a  relation, 
by  her  mother's  side.  The  child  was  ulti- 
mately recovered ;  and  Rennet  was  appre- 
hended, tried,  convicted,  and  transported  for 
the  offence. 

Dignum  had  long  retired  from  the  stage, 

2  B  2 


556 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


[MAY, 


in  easy  circumstances.  He  was  the  com- 
poser of  several  pleasing  ballads;  and  he 
published,  by  subscription,  a  collection  of 
popular  vocal  music.  He  died  at  his  resi- 
dence in  Gloucester-street,  on  the  29th  of 
March,  at  the  age  of  sixty-two.  The  imme- 
diate cause  of  his  death  was  an  inflammation 
of  the  lungs,  produced  by  severe  cold. 

EARL  OF  SHREWSBURY. 
Charles  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  in 
England,  Earl  of  Wexford  and  Waterford,  iu 
Ireland,  F.S.A.,  <fcc.,  was  born  on  the  8th 
of  March  1753.  He  succeeded  his  uncle, 
George,  the  fifteenth  earl,  on  the  27th  July 
1787  ;  and  he  married,  on  the  12th  of  Sep- 
tember 1792,  Elizabeth,  eldest  daughter  of 
James  Hoey,  Esq.,  of  Dublin.  He  met  with 
the  lady  at  Bourdeaux,  whither  she  had  gone 
to  take  the  veil. 

His  Lordship  was  educated  at  Christ  Church 
College  ;  he  was  the  premier  earl  of  the 
English  peerage  ;  but  being  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic, he  could  not  act  in  public  life.  Until  the 
accession  to  the  title  of  the  present  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  he  was  for  many  years  considered  as 
at  the  head  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land. His  Lordship  always  conducted  him- 
self with  great  moderation. 

The  Earl  of  Shreswsbury,  who  traced  an 
uninterrupted  male  descent  from  the  time  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  with  whom  his  an- 
cestor, Richard  Talbot,  came  into  England, 
died,  after  a  long  illness,  on  the  6th  of  April ; 
and,  leaving  no  issue,  he  is  succeeded  iu  his 
title  and  estates,  by  his  nephew  John,  the 
present  earl.  His  lordship  died  possessed  of 
nearly  half  a  million  of  money,  independent 
of  landed  and  other  property.  He  bequeathed 
all  his  estates,  plate,  furniture,  &c.  to  his 
successor,  who  is  also  residuary  legatee  to 
upwards  of  £400,000.  The  legacies  a  mount 
to  about  £30,000  ;  the  annuities  to  £5,400 
per  annum ;  and  the  charitable  bequests  to 
£3,000.  The  funeral  obsequies  of  his  lord- 
ship were  celebrated  on  the  18th  of  April, 
in  the  chapel  of  the  Bavarian  ambassador, 
in  Warwick-street,  in  a  style  of  extraordi- 
nary pomp  and  splendour.  The  body  was 
removed  thence  lor  interment  to  the  family 
vault. 

BEETHOVEN. 

The  musical  world  has  sustained  a  heavy, 
perhaps  an  irreparable  loss  by  the  death  of 
Von  Beethoven,  the  celebrated  German  com- 
poser. Luderig  Von  Beethoven,  was  born 
at  Baun.  in  the  year  1770  ;  his  father  being, 
at  that  time,  the  tenor  singer  in  the  chapel 
of  the  Elector.  His  earliest  instructions  in 
music,  were  received  from  Neefe,  the  court 
organist ;  and  so  rapid  was  bis  progress  that, 
at  the  early  age  of  eleven,  he  was  able  to 
play  the  far  famed  preludes  and  fugues  of 
the  great  Sebastian  Bach.  He  was  early  in- 
structed in  composition  ;  as,  at  the  same  age, 
we  find  published  at  Manheim  and  Speyer, 
under  his  name,  variations  to  a  march, 
sonatas,  and  songs,  all  for  the  piano- forte. 
The  Elector  of  Cologne,  attracted  by  his 
youthful  genius,  became  liis  patron  ;  and,  in 
1 792,  he  sent  him  to  Viennn,  as  court  orga- 


nist, under  the  celebrated  J.  Haydn.  Two 
years  afterwards,  Haydn,  on  leaving  Vienna 
for  London,  placed  young  Beethoven  under 
the  care  of  Albretchtsberger,  one  of  the 
most  learned  of  modern  conira-puntists.  At 
this  period,  however,  Beethoven  was  more 
distinguished  for  his  performance  thnn  for  his 
composition  :  the  critics  of  the  Allgemeine 
Musikalishe  Zeitung  of  Leipsic,  the  first  mu- 
sical Review  in  Europe,  while  they  were 
loud  in  their  praises  of  him  as  a  player,  were 
proportionately  severe  in  their  remarks  on 
his  attempts  at  composition,  not  allowing  to 
him  even  the  merit  of  framing  variations. 
With  some  deficiency  in  precision,  and  dis- 
tinctness of  touch,  his  execution  was  singu- 
larly spirited  and  brilliant;  and,  in  an  ex- 
temporaneous performance,  and  in  the  art  of 
instantaneously  varying  any  given  theme,  he 
was  second  only  to  Mozart. 

In  the  year  1801,  the  death  of  the  Elector, 
and  the  precarious  situation  of  the  court  of 
Cologne,  during  the  war,  induced  Beethoven 
to  make  choice  of  Vienna  as  his  future  and 
permanent  residence.   Original  and  indepen- 
dent in  his  modes  of  thinking,  as  well  as  in  the 
style  of  his  musical  composition,  Beethoven's 
manners  appear  to  have  been  rather  repulsive 
than  conciliating :  his  friends  were  few,  and 
he  was  in  open  enmity  with  many.     The 
court  taste  at  Vienna  ran  in  favour  of  Italian 
music.  Salieri,  the  Italian,  was,  at  this  time, 
in  possession  of  all  the  honours  and  all  the 
emoluments  of  principal  Maestro  di  Capella 
to  their  Imperial  Majesties  ;  and  Beethoven, 
without  patronage  or  support,  was  left  en- 
tirely to  his  own  resources.     Under  circum- 
.  stances  thus  unfavourable,  he  was  induced, 
in  1809,  to  accept  an   offer  from  the  new 
Westphalian  court  of  Jerome  Buonaparte,  of 
the  situation  of  Maestro  di  Capella  ;  fortu- 
nately, however,  for  the  honour  of  Vienna 
and  of  Austria,  the  Archduke  Rodolpb,  and 
the  princes  Lobkowitz  and  Kiusky,  induced 
him  to  rescind  his  determination.      In  the 
handsomest  and  most  delicate  manner  those 
princes   had  an    instrument  drawn   up,   by 
which  they  settled  upon  Beethoven  an  an- 
nuity of  4,000  florins,  with  no  other  condi- 
tion, than  that  so  long  as  he  should  enjoy  it 
he  mu4  reside  at  Vienna,  or  in  some  other 
part  of  the  Austrian  dominions,  not  being 
allowed  to  visit  foreign  countries,  unless  by 
the  express  consent  of  his  patrons.    With  such 
an  income,  equal  to  nearly  £400  a  year,  we 
are  at  a  loss  to  know  how  it  was  that  the 
latter  period  of  Beethoven's  life  was  passed 
in  penury,  and,  as  it  is  said,  almost  in  a  state 
of  destitution.     Beethoven  could   not  have 
forfeited  his  annuity  ;  for,  although  he  had 
always  a  great  wish  to  see  foreign  countries, 
particularly  England,   he  never  even  made 
application  for  leave  of  absence ;  yet,  oo  the 
sixth  of  March  last,  we  find  him  thus  ear- 
nestly addressing  a  professional  friend  of  his 
in  this  country. 

"  Dear  Sir, — I  do  not  doubt  but  that  you 
have  already  received,  through  Mr,  Moscheies, 
rny  letter  of  the  22d  of  February.  Having, 
however,  by  chance,  found  your  address 
amongst  my  paper*,  1  do  not  delay  writing:  to 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


557 


you,  once  more,  most  pressingly,  to  urge 
your  kind  attention  to  my  unhappy  situation. 
Alas!  up  to  the  present  day,  I  see  no  hopes 
of  a  termination  to  my  dreadful  malady  ;  on 
the  contrary,  my  sufferings,  and  with  them 
my  cares,  increase.  On  the  27th  of  Febru- 
ary I  was  operated  upon  (tapped)  for  the 
fourth  time  ;  and  perhxps  the  fates  will  that 
I  may  expect  to  undergo  this  operation  a 
fifth  lime,  or  even  oftener.  If  this  continues, 
my  illne.es  will  then  last  half  the  summer—- 
and in  that  case  what  is  to  become  of  me  ? 
Upon  what  am  I  to  live  until  I  regain  my 
lest  strength,  so  as  to  enable  me  to  earn  my 
subsistence  with  my  pen  ?  But  I  will  not 
weary  you  with  new  complaints,  but  merely 
refer  to  my  letter  of  the  22d  of  February, 
and  entreat  you  to  exert  all  your  influence 
to  persuade  the  Philharmonic  Society  to  carry 
promptly  into  effect  their  former  resolution 
relative  to  the  academy,  for  my  advantage. 
My  strength  does  not  permit  me  to  say 
more  ;  and  I  am  so  fully  convinced  of  your 
friendly  sentiments  towards  me  that  I  need 
not  fear  being  misunderstood.  Accept  the 
assurance  of  the  highest  respect  with  which, 
anxiously  looking  forward  to  your  early  re- 
ply, I  always  am,  dear  Sir,  your's  devo- 
tedly." 

Beethoven  had  received  a  regular  classical 
education;  Homer  and  Plutarch  were  his 
great  favourites  amongst  the  ancients  ;  and 
of  the  native  poets  Schiller  and  Goethe  (who 
was  his  personal  friend,)  he  preferred  to  all 
others.  For  a  considerable  time  he  also 


studied  more  abstruse  subjects,  such  as 
Kant's  Philosophy,  (fee. 

We  have  seen  a  li.st  of  no  fewer  than  120 
of  Beethoven's  performances,  the  greater  part 
of  which  are  allowed  to  be  productions  of  the 
highest  order.  In  the  loftier  strains  of  com- 
position he  was  almost  without  a  rival.  His 
overture  to  the  "  Men  of  Rome  and  Lens," 
and  his  piano- forte  concerto  in  C  minor,  6  p. 
37,  would  alone  be  sufficient  to  immortalise 
him.  In  many  of  his  orchestral  symphonies, 
overtures,  quartettes  for  the  violin,  concertos, 
trios,  and  sonatas  for  the  piano-forte,  he 
may  be  ranked  with  Haydn  and  Mozart. 
Of  Handel  and  Mozart  Beethoven  was  a 
worshipping  admirer.  Of  Handel  he  was 
once  heard  to  exclaim,  "  I  would  uncover  my 
head  and  kneel  down  on  his  tomb!"  To 
the  works  of  modern  composers  he  seems  to 
have  paid  but  little  attention  ;  when  asked 
about  "  Der  Freischiitz,"  his  answer  was 
"  I  believe  one  Weber  has  written  it.'*  Of 
his  own  productions  he  thought  his  second 
mass  was  the  best. 

For  many  years  Beethoven  laboured  under 
the  affliction  of  severe  deafness ;  latterly  he 
had  a  confirmed  dropsy,  which  terminated  in 
his  death  on  the  31st of  March. 

In  their  neglect  of  living  genius  the  feelings 
of  the  Germans  appear  to  assimilate  too 
closely  with  those  of  their  brethren  the  Eng- 
lish ;  for,  although  Beethoven  was  allowed 
to  languish  and  expire  in  poverty,  his  remains 
were  honoured  with  a  splendid  and  ostenta- 
tious funeral. 


MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT. 

Soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  present  year,  it  was  remarked  that  cases  of  ague 
were  more  abundant  than  usual.  During  the  last  month  this  disease  has  become  so 
decidedly  prevalent  in  London  and  its  vicinity  as  to  merit  particular  notice.  In  the  days 
of  Sydenham — that  is,  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago — ague  was  one  of  the  most 
common  complaints  in  the  metropolis.  Cromwell  died  of  it;  and  a  physician  of  the  name 
of  Tabor,  devoted  himself,  almost  exclusively,  to  its  treatment.  Since  that  period,  ague 
has  gradually  diminished  in  frequency,  and  the  happy  change  is  doubtless  to  be  attributed 
to  the  incessant  attention  which  is  paid  to  the  sewers  and  uuder-drainage  of  the  town. 
Every  now  and  then,  however,  ague  re-appears  in  London,  as  was  strikingly  manifested 
during  the  years  1781  to  1785.  A  peculiar  temperament  of  the  atmosphere  (the  nature  of 
which,  from  its  extreme  subtlety,  escapes  detection)  is  the  probable  cause  of  this  pheno- 
menon. We  may  suppose  it  to  operate,  either  by  promoting  the  development  of  febrific 
miasm?,  or  by  facilitating  their  diffusion  through  the  air,  or  by  predisposing  the  human 
system  to  imbibe  them.  Whichever  of  these  opinions  may  be  adopted,  the  fact  is  unde- 
niable, that  particular  states  of  the  atmospheredo  concur  with  emanations  from  the  earth, 
in  the  production  of  intermittent  fevers. 

During  the  present  season,  the  central  parts  of  the  metropolis  have  not  altogether 
escaped ;  but  the  disease  has  chiefly  manifested  itself  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  as  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames,  and  in  some  of  the  villages  in  Kent.  Th«  reporter  has  seen  some 
cases  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Regent's  Park.  In  its  character  and  symptoms, 
the  ague  of  the  present  season  has  been  decidedly  inflammatory,  as  all  vernal  fevers  may 
naturally  be  expected  to  prove.  It  has  yielded  to  the  bark  with  sufficient  readiness,  but 
in  almost  all  cases,  the  reporter  has  found  it  necessary  to  premise  two  or  three  active 
doses  of  aperient  medicine,  especially  calomel  and  jalap.  In  one  instance  he  drew  blood 
from  the  arm,  during  the  hot  stage,  with  great  and  well-marked  benefit.  Hepatic 
derangements  have  frequently  been  noticed,  in  conjunction  with  the  ague,  and  invariably 
with  the  effect  of  interrupting  the  usual  course  of  the  disease,  and  of  protracting  its  cure. 
The  reporter  has  not  neglected  this  opportunity  of  determining,  as  far  as  his  limited  expe- 
rience would  allow,  the  efficacy  of  the  new  preparation  of  bark,  the  sulphate  of  quinine, 
in  aguish  complaints.  That  it  is  a  neat  arid  elegant  medicine  must  be  at  once  admitted, 
and  in  mild  cases  it  may  be  administered  with  sufficient  confidence ;  but  the  reporter  is 
strongly  disposed  to  question  its  power  of  resisting  the  regular  inroads  of  a  fully  formed 


558  Monthly  Medical  Report.  [MAV, 

fever.  Of  the  necessity  of  scrupulous  attention  to  the  purity  of  bark,  when  it  is  to  be 
employed  as  a  febrifuge,  all  practitioners  are  agreed.  Now,  there  is  this  great  disadvantage 
in  the  administration  of  the  sulphate  of  quinine,  that  you  are  ignorant  of  the  qualify  of  the 
bark  from  which  the  preparation  has  been  extracted.  In  all  Revere  cases,  therefore,  where 
it  is  an  object  of  importance  to  put  a  speedy  check  to  the  accession  of  fever,  the  powder 
of  bark  should  be  preferred ;  aud  that  which  is  now  sold  at  Apothecaries'  Hall  is  of  a  most 
admirable  quality. 

Bronchial  affections  have  almost  entirely  disappeared  ;  and,  in  their  stead,  we  have,  as  the 
prevalent  diseases  of  the  season,  affections  of  the  head  and  of  the  stomach.  With  the 
warm  weather  which  suddenly  set  in  early  in  April,  might  be  noticed  a  strong  determi- 
nation of  blood  to  the  head.  An  unusual  number  of  apoplectic  and  paralytic  cases  have 
accurred  in  the  reporter's  practice.  The  dependance  of  these  complaints  upon  a  heated 
state  of  the  atmosphere  was  not  unknown  to  the  ancients.  They  attributed  the  fact  to  the 
increased  volume  of  the  mass  of  blood,  and  gave  to  this  pathological  doctrine  the  name  of 
plethora  ad  spat  mm.  But,  besides  the  instances  of  head  affection  which  have  been  clearly 
traceable  to  fulness  of  blood,  very  many  have  occurred,  where  headache  and  triddiness  have 
been  the  predominant  sj'mptoms,  without  any  proof  of  increased  action  of  blood-vessels. 
The  reporter  is  well  satisfied  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  these  cases  have  had  their  origin 
in  derangements  of  the  biliary  system.  The  first  effect  of  the  warm  %veather  was  to  increase 
and  vitiate  the  flow  of  bile,  which  was  almost  instantly  succeeded  by  languor,  lassitude, 
total  loss  of  appetite,  headache,  and  giddiness,  so  urgent  as  to  absorb  all  the  anxieties  of 
the  patient,  sleepiness,  and,  in  most  case?,  a  confined  state  of  the  body.  The  pain  of  the 
head  was  generally  of  the  diffused  kind.  The  pulse  was  seldom  affected  in  any  marked 
degree,  nor  did  the  tongue  indicate  much  consstitutional  disturbance.  Four  or  five  days 
usually  sufficed  to  restore  the  patient  to  the  enjoyments  of  health  and  activity. 

The  treatment  which  proved  so  uniformly  successful  consisted  in  the  administration  of  an 
emetic,  followed  by  two  or  three  doses  of  rhubarb  and  calomel.  The  giddiness  was  con- 
stantly relieved  when  the  emetic  succeeded  in  dislodging  an  acid  secretion  from  the 
stomach.  In  some  cases,  the  repetition  of  an  emetic  was  found  necessary.  Where  list- 
lessness  and  general  weakness  were  the  urgent  symptoms,  and  where  the  head  participated 
but  in  a  minor  degree,  the  mercurial  purgative  proved  eminently  successful.  In  some  in- 
stances, diarrhoea  prevailed,  evidently  owing  to  (he  descent  of  acid  matters  formed  in  the 
stomach.  The  operation  of  an  emetic  gave  an  immediate  check  to  this  symptom,  and  a 
few  doses  of  chalk  mixture  completed  the  cure.  In  an  opposite  state  of  the  bowels,  the 
sulphate  of  magnesia,  in  small  doses,  was  the  appropriate  remedy.  It  will  generally  be 
remarked,  that  in  the  spring  months,  saline  aperients  are  particularly  serviceable.  During 
the  cold  season  of  the  year,  they  often  occasion  considerable  uneasiness,  with  frequent 
tormina  and  teuesmus. 

Small-pox  is  again  beeome  very  prevalent  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  town.  Hooping- 
cough  is  also  abundant.  Upon  the  whole,  the  last  monlh  mav  be  characterized  as  one  in 
which  sickness  has  prevailed  extensively,  but  not  of  an  aggravated  kind. 

8,  Upper  John  Street,  Golden  Square,  GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 

April  1$,  1827. 

MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

Otm  reports  from  every  part  of  the  island,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  state  of  the  lands,  their 
culture,  the  lenten-seed  season,  the  crops  on  the  ground,  the  fall  of  lambs,  and  the  con- 
dition of  the  live  stock  generally,  are  most  satisfactory,  warranting  the  most  sanguine 
expectations  of  ample  produce  of  every  kind.  This,  in  course,  will  be  understood  cvm 
grano  salis,  with  allowance  for  the  wretched  state  in  which  the  cattle  and  sheep  were,  in 
many  or  most  parts,  from  defect  of  winter  provision;  through  which  danger  however  they 
have  passed,  with  infinitely  less  suffering  and  misfortune  than  was  indeed  rationally  pre- 
dicted. Such  a  fortunate  escape  may  really  be  placed  to  the  account  of  national  pros- 
perity. The  season  has  produced  a  lull  average  of  lambs,  but  it  could  not  be  expected 
that  the  ewes  should  milk  so  abundantly  us  in  seasons  of  plentiful  keep.  The  Lent  corn 
and  pulse  have  been  got  into  the  ground  in  the  best  style,  the  land  working  well  in  general, 
in  consequence  of  the  pulverization  caused  by  the  frost,  and  the  subsequent  rains,  which,  fre- 
quent and  heavy,  however,  were  not  too  much  so  to  saturate  the  thirsty  earth.  Occasional 
impediments  to  tillage,  nevertheless,  were  experienced  from  the  frequent  rains;  casualties, 
always  to  be  expected  more  or  less.  The  crops  indeed  wea'r  a  variety  of  aspects,  but  the 
general  view  is  luxuriant  and  prosperous.  Some  of  the  early  sown  beans  were  killed  by  the 
frost,  and  have  b^en  ploughed  up,  and  the  land  re-planted  with  peas.  The  latter  sown 
pulse  have  planted  well,  and  appear  flourishing.  The  early  and  forward  barley  and  oats, 
on  good  lands  especially,  are  strong  and  luxuriant,  and  those  crops  never  wore  a  finer  ap- 
pearance at  this  season.  The  young  clovers  and  other  grasses,  with  winter  tares,  which 
some  time  since  appeared  thin  and  weak,  begin  to  spread  ami  improve ;  and  but  for  the 
chilling  easterly  winds,  would  have  been  much  forwarder.  The  present  cannot  be  called  a 
forward  spring.  The  wheats  thus  far  are  universally  a  promising  crop,  for,  from  the  for- 
tunate circumstance  of  the  sub-soil  being  dry  and  wholesome,  the  roots  received  no  damage 
during  the  severity  of  the  fro.st,  the  foliage  only  being  affected.  The  very  early  sown 


1 827.]  Monthly  Agricultural  Report.  -559 

wheats  on  good  lands  exhibit  such  a  prospect  as  is  to  be  seen  in  the  best  seasons  only ;  and 
those  sown  in  January  have  succeeded ;  the  late  autumnal  sowing  has  proved  the  least 
fortunate.  The  rains  have  brought  the  grass  forward  at  a  sudden  and  great  raie,  and  our 
staple  .article  of  growth  in  this  country  never  cheared  the  sight  with  a  more  bright  and 
beautiful  verdure,  or  exhibited  a  fairer  prospect  of  a  thick  bottom  and  heavy  crop.  In  the  . 
sheep  and  cattle  districts  this  crop  has  been  and  must  be  anticipated.  During  the  pinch  of 
the  season,  sheep  and  even  cattle  were,  from  necessity,  turned  upon  the  bare  pastures;  and 
from  the  same  cause,  the  first  crop  must  likewise  be  speedily  anticipated,  and  grazed  down. 
In  the  poor-land  districts,  the  farmers'  teams  are  said  to  have  been  weak,  from  the  scarcity 
and  clearness  of  provender.  In  those  particularly,  the  barn-yards  do  not  make  much  shew 
of  sacks.  Small  portions  of  turnips  remained  in  the  ground  late,  but  of  little  worth  in 
quality.  Hay  and  straw,  however  deemed  short  in  quantity,  have  been  throughout  the 
season  obtainable  for  money,  and  transmitted  in  all  directions,  on  the  cheapest  terms  of  car- 
riage, by  the  canals,  shewing  the  immense  national  importance  of  that  system.  Fat  stock 
of  all  kinds  is  in  request,  at  advanced  and  advancing  prices,  and  lean  stores  must  advance 
likewise  as  the  grass  grows;  indeed  stores  must  be  expected  to  hold  a  considerable  price 
from  the  number,  in  any  tolerable  state  of  flesh,  which  were  slaughtered  during  the  ex- 
treme pressure  for  keep.  Speculation,  on  the  first  intelligence  of  the  particular  provisions 
ol  the  new  corn  bill  (which  beyond  a  doubt  will  pass)  raised  the  price  of  wheat  a  few 
shillings  per  quarter;  but  it  has  been  since  descending  to  its  former  level ;  and  how  it  is 
likely  to  prove  by  and  by,  defies  and  puts  all  speculation  at  fault.  In  the  north,  the  distress 
of  the  season  has  been  encountered  with  a  success  that  could  scarcely  have  been  expected. 
Their  straw  has  been  strictly  meted  out  to  their  cattle,  by  weight,  with  a  true  Scotch  eco- 
nomy. Their  agriculture  proceeds,  pari  passu,  much  on  a  level,  and  their  prospects,  with 
ours  in  the  south.  Wages  in  the  northernmost  parts  seven  to  ten  shillings  per  week,  equal  at 
least  to  thirteen  shillings  in  the  south.  The  great  shew  of  fruit-blossom  must  inevitably 
receive  some  deterioration  from  the  continuance  of  the  sharp  easterly  winds,  perhaps  some- 
what more  favourable  from  inclining  to  the  south  side  of  the  east :  but  the  wind  seems 
varying  northward  with  an  extreme  chilling  and  blighting  haziness.  Business  at  present  in 
hand,  preparation  of  the  land  for  potatoe  planting  and  sowing  turnips.  The  farmers  of  the 
United  States  have  commenced  the  hop  culture,  it  is  said,  extensively. 

From  the  general  tenor  of  our  correspondence,  the  country  seems  heartily  weary  of  those 
long-winded  discussions  into  which  it  has  been  so  earnestly  and  perseveringly  urged,  and  at 
present  quite  inclined  to  sit  down  quietly  and  wait  the  event.  In  all  probability,  the  agi- 
tators of  this  subject  have  incurred  the  usuul  error  of  complainants,  by  giving  our  agricul- 
tural distress  too  high  a  colouring,  a  tone  ever  suspected,  and  sure  to  render  a  cause,  in 
itself  unpopular,  infinitely  still  more  so.  The  picture  so  blazoned,  does  not  well  accord 
with  the  general  active  and  good  management  of  agriculture  in  Britain,  or  with  the  phrase, 
whichhas  sometimes  escaped  from  the  same  quarter,  "  why  cannot  our  meddling  government 
'let  well  alone?'"  We  confess  purselves  astonished  also  at,  in  our  opinion,  the  strange 
misapprehensions  of  certain  of  our  correspondents,  who  tell  us  that,  not  only  the  farmers, 
but  the  labourers,  and  persons  of  all  descriptions  in  trade,  are  on  the  brink  of  ruin  from  a 
reduction  of  the  currency,  and  that  from  such  reduction,  they  are  unable  to  pay  their  taxes. 
Now  this  appears  to  us  one  of  the  most  causeless  of  causes;  since  the  reprobated  diminution 
of  currency  has  neither  diminished  their  stock  of  corn  and  cattle,  nor  prevented  their  sale  at 
a  market,  indeed  at  a  good  price,  nor  the  receipt  of  their  money  as(usual.  Taxes  indeed  may 
be,  and  are,  far  too  heavy.  The  want  of  demand  for  wool  is  laid  on  the  overburthened 
branch  of  the  free-trade  system  ;  but  how  much  of  it  is  justly  attributable  to  avaricious,  over- 
acted, and  self-destructive  speculation,  which  is  ever  prompted  and  nourished  by  too  exten- 
sive a  paper-currency  ?  How  can  a  demand  arise  for  either  wool  or  woollen  goods,  until  that 
immense  stock  be  worn  off,  with  which  our  steam-engine  creators  of  that  which  used  to  be 
manufacture,  piling  mountain  upon  mountain,  have  overwhelmed  the  world'?  A  farming 
correspondent,  of  the  class  of  talents,  and  the  writer  of  various  able  essays  in  the  country 
papers,  complains  to  us,  that  the  monstrous  abortion  of  addled  brains  (of  \vhose  we  are  yet 
uninformed)  known  by  the  name  of  "equitable  adjustment,"  is  so  generally  foisted  into 
petitions  lor  reform  ;  most  certainty  well  calculated  to  throw  a  ridicule  over,  and  excite  a 
degree  of  suspicion  and  disgust  against  the  most  reasonable  and  patriotic  petitions.  The 
late  change  in  the  Ministry,  from  the  accounts  which  have  come  to  our  hands,  appears  to  be 
generally  popular  in  the  country.  The  spring  intermittent,  caused  by  easterly  winds,  and  a 
yarinble  temperature,  formerly  distinguished  by  the  very  apt  arid  expressive  term  influenza, 
has  afflicted  individuals  in  most  parts  of  the  country. 

Smithjicld.—Eeef,  4s.  to  5s.  6d.— -Mutton,  4s.  Sd.  to  6s.  2d.— Veal,  5s.  4d.  to  6s.  2d. 
—Pork,  4s.  4d.  to  6s.  2d.— Lamb,  6s.  4d.  to  7s.  4d. — Raw  fat,  at  2s.  6d. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  44s.  to  68s. — Barley,  36s.  to  46s. — Oats,  24s.  to  42s.— 
Bread,  9£d,  the  4lb.  loaf.— -Hay,  84s.  to  128s.— Clover  ditto,  90s.  to  135s.— Straw,  40s. 
to  48s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  31s.  3d. — 39*.  per  chaldron. 
Middlesex,  April  W,  1*27. 


[    500    ]  [MAY, 

MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

Cotton. — The  market  at  Manchester  and  here  continues  very  dull ;  the  same  at  Liverpool 
for  weeks  past ;  and  public  sales  are  partly  discontinued. —  Orleans,  6d.  to  7d. ;  Sea  Island, 
7d.  to  10d.;  Brazil,  7d.  to  lid.;  Demerara,  9d.  to  9£d. ;  Barbadoes,  7d.  to  7$d.  per  Ib. 

Coffee — Continues  in  demand  for  home  consumption,  and  but  few  orders  for  exportation 
at  limited  prices,  which  cannot  be  executed  on  the  conditions. 

Sugar. — The  market  continues  brisk  for  town  trade — 52s.  to  66s.  per  cwt.  Ordinary 
Dry,  42s.  to  50s.  ;  Better,  5 Is.  to  54s.  per  cwt. 

Rum,  Brandy,  and  Hollands.—  Old  Rum  scarce  and  in  some  demand;  Brandies  held 
up  on  speculation  ;  arid  Hollands  in  no  demand,  at  reduced  prices,  with  a  large  quantity 
remaining  on  hand  in  Hie  London  Docks. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow. — The  two  former  articles  remaining  steady ;  and  as  the  spring 
advances,  the  latter  is  in  less  demand,  and  prices  are  declining. 

Course  of  Foreign  Exchange. — Amsterdam,  12.  7. — Rotterdam,  12.  7. — Antwerp 
12.  6. — Hamburgh,  37,  6.—  Altona,  37.  6.— Paris,  25.  85. — Bordeaux,  25.  85. — Berlin, 
7.— Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154|.  —Petersburg,  8^ — Vienna,  10.  21.— Trieste,  10.24.— 
Madrid,  34f.— Cadiz,  34^. — Bilboa,  34^.— Barcelona,  34*.— Seville,  33. — Gibraltar,  33. — 
Leghorn,  47£. — Genoa,  48|. — Venice,  46. — Naples,  38|. — Palermo,  1H£. — Lisbon,  48f. 
Oporto,  48^.— Rio  Janeiro,  48.— Bahia,  48. — Buenos  Ayres,  43. — Dublin,  1$. — Cork,  lj 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d. — New  Doubloons,  £3,  Os.— New 
Dollars,  4s.  9d. — Silver  in  bars,  standard  4s.  lid. 


Premiums  on  Shares  and  Canals,  and  Joint-Stock  Companies,  at  the  Office  of  WOLFE, 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley,  Cornhill.— Birmingham  CANAL,  270/.— Coventry.  1150/. — 
Ellesmere  and  Chester,  100J.  —  Grand  Junction,  300/. —  Kennet  and  Avon,  26/.— 
Leeds  and  Liverpool,  3S7/.  10*.— Oxford,  680/. — Regent's,  35/.— Trent  and  Mersey,  1,8501. 
— Warwick  and  Birmingham,  268/. — London  DOCKS,  831.  10*. — West-India,  199/.— East 
London  WATER  WORKS,  122/. — Grand  Junction,  661. — West  Middlesex,  65/.  10*. — 
—Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE.—!  dig.—  Globe,  151Z. — Guardian,  18/.  15s. 
—Hope,  5/.— Imperial  Fire,  921.— GAS-LIOHT,  Westminsler  Chartered  Company,  561. 
City  Gas-Light  Company,  01. — British,  16  dis.— Leeds,  195/. 


ALPHABETICAL   LIST   OF  BANKRUPTCIES,  announced  between    the  2lst  of  February 
and  the  21st  of  March  1827  ;  extracted  from  the  London  Gazette. 

T»AMK'TiTTDTriTB'<s  siiPTTP cjiiTiFn  [Sladc  and   Jones,  John-street,   Bedford-row; 

BANKRUPTCIES  SUPERSEDED.  bldham,  King's-lynn 

Davies,  Ann.Pennygloddfa,  Montgomeryshire, flan-  B^;nv>   E.Screth port,    Lancashire,   innkeeper, 

nel  manufacturer  ,,  [Chester, ,  Staple-inn  ;  Hodgson,  Liverpool 

Dewnirst,  B.  East   Retford,  Nottingham,    book-  Co"on'    w-v. L'nthwaite,    York,    cloth-merchant. 

gel]er  [Battye,  Fisher,  and  Sudlow,  Chancery-lane 

Greenfield,  E.  Cuckfield,  Sussex,  tanner  Churchill,     S.    Deddington,     Oxford,     scrivener. 

Hawkins,     J.     Middlesex-street,      Somers-town,  [White,  Lincoln's-inn 

builder  Curwan,    J.  Liverpool,   merchant.    [Taylor  and 

Co.,  Temple  ;  Lace  and  Co.  Liverpool 

BANKRUPTCIES.     [This  Month  106.]  Carter,  C.  Uxbridge,  linen-draper.    [Jones,  Size- 
lane 

Solicitors'  JVame3  are  in  Brackets.  CQQ^  g>  Sa]fordj  Lancashire,  timber-merchant. 

Anderson,  R.  Manchester,  woollen-draper.    [Ellis  [Milne  and  Parry,  Temple  ;   Readhead,  Man- 

and  Co.,  Chancery-lane  Chester 

Bennett,  J.  Warwick-square,  bookseller.   [Wright,  Clemesha,    S.Liverpool,   tailor.    [Norris,  John- 

Bucklersbury  street,  Bedford-row  :  Toulmin,  Liverpool 
Butterrield,    R.     Scriven-with-Tentergate,   York-  Crossley,  T.  Elland,  York,  dyer.     [Walker,  Lin- 
shire,  flax-dresser,    [Strangeways  and  Co.,  Ber-  coln's-inn-lields;  Scatcherd,  Halifax. 

nard's-inn;  Gill,  Knaresborough  Chainberlaync,  W.  Leamington,  Warwick,  victual- 

Bartlett,  Christopher,  Plymouth,  Devonshire,  ship-  ler.      [Platt,    New   Boswell-court;    Patterson, 

owner.    [Gilbaid,  Devonport;  Sole,  Alderman-  Leamington-priors 

bury  Castell,  J.  Blatkman-ptrcet.Xewinpton,  victualler. 

Bur.h,  J.  Pembridge,  Herefordshire,  glazier.    [Col-  [Benton,  Union-street,  Southwai  k 

lins,  Leominster;  Smith, Basinghall-stieet  Cbailes,    B.   Liverpool,  ship-chandler.    [Chester, 

Bedwin,     Kintr's-head     Tavern,    Newgate-street,  Staple-inn ;  Ripley,  Liverpool 

victualler.    [Crosse,  Surry-stieet,  Strand  Dobson,  T.  High-holborn,  tailor.     [Freeman  and 

Broomhead,  A.   Manchester,    corn-broker.    [Ad-  Co.,  Coleman-street 

lington  and    Co.,  Bedford-row  ;  Claye  and   Co.,  Doren,  R.  Frith-street,  tailor.    [Saunders  and  Co., 

Manchester  Charlotte-street,  Fitzroy-square 

Bate?,  J.   i«outh    Crossland,   Yorkshire,  clothier.  Denbigh,  C.  Skipton,  York,  ironmonger.     [Bever- 

[Stephenson  and  Co.,  near  Huddersneld  ;  Battye  ley,  temple;  Alcock,  Skipton 

and  CoMChancery-la^ne  Draper,   A.  Gloucester,  plumber.     [Watson  and 

Bowen,   T.   Swansea,    builder.    [Jone*,   Crosby*  Broughton,  Falcon-square;  Gardner,  Gloucester 

square;  Davies,  Swansea  Evans,   D.   Swansea,    draper.    [Pearson,  Pump- 

Burch,   J.     Downham -market,   Norfolk,  grocer.  court,  Temple 


182?.] 


Bankrupts. 


.561 


Eylaml,    L.  H.'Walsall,  woollen-draper.     [Tur- 
ner, Bloomsbury-square  ;  Hedlev,  waliall 
Elliot,  J.  Hayes,  maltstt'r.  [Poole  and  Co.,  Gray's- 
inn  ;  Riches  and  Co.,  Uxbridge 
Eilis,     G.     Clifton,     Yorkshire,    wine-merchant. 
Brook,   and    Co.,   York;    Bell    and  Co.,    Bow 
Church-yard 

Elliston,  W.  G.  and  Henry  T.  Elliston,  Leaming- 
ton, booksellers.     [Hopkinson,  lied  Lion-square 
Fortune,  T.  Heighington,  Durham,  cattle-jobber. 

[Stocker  and  Dawson,  New  Bosvvell-court 
Gardner,  S.  Wellington-road,  Mary-le-bone,  plas- 
terer.   [Pittman,  Paddington-green 
Gates,    P.   Stanground,   Huntingdonshire,  tanner. 

[  H  ardvvick,  Lawrence-lane,,  Cheapside 
Gasley,  G.  A.  St.  Newport-street,  Long-acre,  up- 
holsterer.   [Walls,  Hart-street,  Bloomsbury. 
Gibbs,    T.    West-square,    Lambeth,    ship-owner. 

[Browne,  Fenchurch-street 

Holroyde,  A.  Triangle,  Sowerby,  York,  innkeeper. 
[Walker,  Lincolu's-inn-lields ;  Alexanders,  Ha- 
lifax 

Hughes,  J.  J.  Birmingham,  victualler.  [Norton 
and  Chaplin,  Gray's-inn ;  Hawkins,  Birming- 
ham 

Hodgson,    D.   Harrington.    Cumberland,    grocer. 
[Falcon,  Temple;    Hodgson  and    Son,    White- 
haven 
Hutchinson,  W.  Foot's-cray,    Kent,   shopkeeper. 

Whiting,  London  Bridge-foot 
Hawke,  W.  Spilsby,  Lincolnshire,  currier.    [Wal- 
ker and  Co.  Spilsby;  Ellis   and  Co.,  Chancery- 
lane 
Hodgson,  W.  Birmingham,  merchant.    [Fnett  and 

Co. ,  Birmingham  ;  Tooke  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 
Hurcombe,  C.  J.  St.  Paul's  Church-yard,  oilman. 

[Richardson,  Ironmonger-lane 
Hatton,  H.  Liverpool,  gunsmith.    [Taylor,   Cle- 

ment's-'mn  ;  Whitehead,  Liverpool 
Homer,  J.  Myrtle-street,    Hoxton,   shawl-dealer. 
[Hutchinson,  Crown-court,  Threadneedle-street 
Ireland,   W.    Doncaster,    horse-dealer.    [Farden, 

New-inn 

Johnson,   T.   Birmingham,   linen-draper.    [Hem- 
ming  and  Baxter,  "Gray's-inn;  Birds,  Birming- 
ham 
Jones,    J.  Blackrod,  Lancashire,    cotton-spinner. 

[Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 
Johnson,  W.  North  ShieHls,  common-brewer.  [Ro- 
binson and  Burrows,  Austin-friars 
James,   J.    Merthyr-tidvil,    Glamorganshire,   car- 
penter.     [Holme   and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Williams 
and  Co.,  Cardiff 
Jackson,  J.  Poultry,  glass-cutter.    [Hewitt,   To- 

kenhouse-yanl 
Jones,  J.  Barmouth,  Merionethshire,  ship-builder. 

[Chester,  Staple-inn  ;  Williams,  Liverpool 
Kendall,   T.    A.    Paternoster-row,    silk-manufac- 
turer.   [James,  Bitcklersbury 
Knott,  P.  West-hampLett,  Sussex,  miller.    [Wrix- 

on,  Jewry-street 
Love,    R.    H.    High-street,    St.    Giles's,  painter. 

[Weymouth,  Chancery-lane. 

Lundie,  J.  S.  Copthorne,  Sussex,  builder.  [Ste- 
phens and  Co  ,  Little  St.  Thomas  Apostle,  Queen- 
street 

Lnpton,   C.  St.  James's-place,   Clerkenwell, jew- 
eller.    [Spyer,  Broad-street-buildings. 
Moor,   J.  A.  Kirkby-Stephen,  Westmoreland,  inn- 
keeper.    [Nicol,  Queen-street,  Cheapsfde 
Malam,  W.  and  J.  Lincoln,  bone-cutters.    [Mark- 

inson  and  Sanders, Temple  ;  Foden,  Leeds 
Meredith,  W.  Bristol,  baker.    [Ford,  Great  Queen- 
street,    Lincolu's-inn-tields;    Fraukum,    Abing- 
don 
Morin,  J.  Carzield,  Dumfries,  merchant.    [Clen- 

nell,  Staple-inn  ;  Saul,  Carlisle 
Morley,  W.  Manchester,  commission-agent.   [Hurd 

and  Co.,  Temple;  Lawler,  Manchester 
Mitchell,   J.   Liverpool,  woollen-draper.    [Black- 
stock  and  Bunce,    Temple ;    Robinson,    Liver- 
pool 
Neely,  W.  Sherborne  lane,  printer.    [Ashley  and 

Co.,  Tokenhouse-yard. 
Pilbeam,T.  Ardingley,  Sussex, blacksmith.  [Squire, 

Thavies-inn 

Prudence,  J.  A.  Miles's-!ane,  Cannon-street,  whole- 
sale grorcr.  [Wilde  and  Co.,  College-hill 

M.M.  New  Sews.— VOL.  Til.  No.  17. 


Price,  J.  Wedneabury,  innkeeper.  [ Fan-is,  Sur- 
rey-street. Strand  ;  Benson,  Birmingham 

Partridge,  H.  Birmingham,  dealer.  [Clarke  and 
Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Tyndall  and  Co.,  Binning- 

Partridge,   J.   and   G.    T.   Hancock,    Kingswood, 
Wilts,  clothiers.   [Vizard  and  iilower,  Lincoln's- 
inn-fields  ;  W.  and  J.  Harris,  Bristol 
Price,  R.  Berricw,  Montgomeryshire,  lime-burner. 

[Hervey  and  Co.,  Liucoln's-inn-nelds 
Pitt,  H.  Liverpool, grocer.     [Ellis  and  Co.,  Chan- 
cery-lane ;  Parry,  Liverpool 
Robertson,  A.  Whitehorse-terrace,  Stepney,  raker. 

Willey  and  Morris,  Wellclose-square 
Richards,   R.    Gellygroes,    Monmouth,     grocer. 
[Gregory,    Clement's- inn;     Perkyns,    Merthyr- 
tidvill 
Roach,  J.  Bristol,  woollen-draper.     [Clarke  and 

Co,,  Chancery-lane  ;  Smiths,  Bristol 
Richardson,  F.  Ormskirk,  tailor.    [Holme  and  Co., 

New-inn  ;  Sharpless,  Ormskirk 
Randell,  S.  llminster,  Somerset,  victualler.    [Kins 

and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

Robinson,  T.  Liverpool, blacksmith.    [Ridley,  Li- 
verpool ;  Chester,  Staple-inn 
Rich,  H.Whittle,  Spitaltields  market,  potatoe-sales- 

man.     [Weymouth,  Chancery-lane 
Ratcliff,   T.   Ramsgate,   builder.      [Taylor,    Cle- 
ment's inn 

Row,  W.  senior,  St.  Peter's,  Northumberland, 
merchant.  [Brown,  Fenchurch-street;  Bain- 
bridge  and  Tappenden,  and  Can-  and  Jobling, 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

Rawling,  B. junior, Leeds, woollen-draper.  [Smith- 
son  and  Co.,  New-inn  ;  Dunning,  Leeds. 
Senter,  J.  Bristol,    innkeeper.      [Drake  and  Mi- 
chael, Red-linn-sqnare 
Suffolk,  T.  Cheadle,  Staiford,  innkeeper.    [Chester, 

Staple-inn 

Spencer,  S.  Leeds,  dyer.    [Milne  and  Parry,  Tem- 
ple ;  Walker,  Leeds 
Swift,    T.   Fencl.urch-street,    hosier,     [Hamilton 

and  Co.,  Berwick-street,  Soho. 
Seagcr,  J.  Motint-.-treet,  Lambeth,  brush-maker. 

[Ivimey,  Harper-street,  Red-lion-stjuare 
Shelmerdine,  N.  and  J.   Lawton,  Heyrod,  Lanca- 
shire,    woolien-manufacturers.      [Wiglesworth 
and   Ridsdale,  Gray's-inn ;  Thompson  and  Co., 
Halifax 
Silvester,  T.  Whittington,  Worcester,  horse-dealer. 

[Cardale  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn 

Stabb,  T.  Torquay,  Devon,  wine-merchant.  [Evans 
and  Shearman,  Hatton -garden  ;  Haberneld, 
Bristol 

Tht-rley,  W.  and  R.  Skeltor,    Salford,    joiner--. 
[Adlington  and    Co.,   Bedford-row;    Claye   and 
Thompson,  Manchester 
Taylor,E.Bond's-mill,  Gloucester,  clothier.  [Thoru- 

bury,  Chancery-lane 

Taylor,  T.  Lad  worth,  Derbyshire,  victualler. 
[Tyler,  Pump-court,  Temple ;  Harrop,  Stock- 
port 

Tunstall,  G.  Worcester,  hop-merchant.    [Harvey 
and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn-tields  ;  Bodenham,    Fur- 
nival's-inn  ;  Woodward,  Pershore. 
Thompson,      R.     Winchester,     earthemvareman. 
[Bumbridge  and   Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Winter, 
Winchester 
Tilby,   W.  King's-placo,  Blackman-street,  South- 

wark,  mill-wright.    [Teague,  Cannon-street 
Tjigvvell,    J  .Gloucester-street,    St.    John-street- 
road,  victualler.      [Van  Sandan  and   Tindale, 
Dowgate-hiil 

Terrill.W.  Cambourn,  Cornwall,  tinman.  [Brook- 
ing and  Co.,  Lombard-street;  Elwoithy,  Devou- 
port 

Taylor,  J.  Greave-in-Netherthong,  Yorkshire, 
clothier.  [Stephenson  and  Co.,  near  Hudders- 
ricld  ;  Batty  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 
Taylor,  S.  Milnthnrpe-landside,  Westmoreland, 
innkeeper.  [Addison,  Gray's-iun  ;  Wilson,  Ken- 
dall 

Tickner,   W.  Tenterden,  Kent,   maltster.    [High- 
moor,  Walbrook  ;  Munn,  Tenterden 
Tinling,  H.  Salford,  joiner.    [Hurd  and  Johnson, 

Temple;  Booth,  Manchester 
Williams,    T.    Cheltenham,    auctioneer.      [Kinp, 
JRerjeantVinn, 

4  C 


562 


Batt&rupts. 


[MAY, 


Whale.  W.  Witham,  Essex,  victualler,  [llrooks- 
bank  ami  Farn,  <u  ay's-hm  ;  Pattison,  Withain 

Weatberhead,  A.  Coventry-street,  Haymarket, 
tea-dealer.  [Collingwood,  St.  Saviour's  Church- 
yard, Southwark. 

Waters,  W.  Dowgate-hill,  dealer  in  porter  and 
ales.  [Evitt  and  Co.,  Haydon-square 


Woodward,  H.  Sheffield,    plumber.     [Davke   ami 

Michael,  Red  lion-sijuare  ;  Burbcary,  Sheffield 
Watson,  W.  Lower  Shuckburgti,  Warwick,  whai 

lin^i".'.  [Walker,  Lincoln's-hm;  Wright,  South  - 

am 
Williamson,  T.  Holderness,  York,  brewet.  [Shaw, 

Ely-place  ;  Richardson,  Hull 


ECCLESIASTICAL  PREFERMENTS. 


Rev.  W.  F.  Hook,  to  be  Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to 
the  King.— Rev.  G.  Buxton,  to  the  Living  of 
Bradborne,  Derbyshire.— Rev.  J.  Griffith,  to  the 
Vicarage  of  Fulbourn  All  Saints,  Cambridge.— 
Rev.  J.  Wood,  to  the  Church  of  Newton-upon- 
Ayr.— Rev.  D.  Aitken,  to  the  Parish  of  Minto.— 
Rev.  H.  Law,  collated  Chancellor  of  Bath  and 
Wells. — Rev.  C.  E.  Band,  to  the  perpetual  Cure 
of  Shaldon,  and  to  the  Rectory  of  Combrawleigh, 
Devon.— Rev.  W.  Lloyd,  to  the  Rectory  of  Lilling- 
stone  Lovell,  Oxon.— Rev.  H.  J.  Ridley,  to  the 
Rectory  of  Kirkby  Underdale,  York.— Rev.  W.  B. 
Winning,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Keyshore,  Bedford. 
—Rev.  C.  Hall,  to  the  Rectory  of  Routh,  York.— 
Rev.M.  Keating,  to  the  Rectory  of  Ventry,  Kerry. 
—Rev.  T.Westropp,  junior,  to  the  Vicarage  of 
Bruree,  Limerick.— Rev.  W.  Adanson,  to  the  Liv- 
ing of  Kilkishem,  Clare.— Rev.  G.  W.  Jordan,  to 
the  Rectory  of  Waterstock,  Oxon. — Rev.  T.  Sur- 
ridge,  to  be  Chaplain  to  H.M.S.  Ocean.— Rev.  P. 
v<3aumerez,  to  the  Living  of  Great  Easton,  Essex. 
—Rev.  T.  Shephard,  to  the  Rectory  of  Crux- 


easton,  Hants. —Rev.  Dr.  Watson,  to  the  Evening 
Lectureship,  of  St.  Mary  and  St.  Mildred,  Poultry. 
—Rev.  T.  Stacey,  to  the  Living  of  Gellygare,  Gla- 
morgan.—Rev.  T.  Barton,  to  the  perpetual  Cu- 
racy of  Kingstone,  Notts.— Rev.  T.  Bradburne,to 
the  Rectory  of  Toft,  with  the  Vicarage  of  Calde- 
cote,  Cambridge.— Rev.  W.  H.  Roberts,  to  the 
Rectory  of  Clewer,  Berks.— Rev.  W.  Bull,  to  the 
perpetual  Curacy  of  Sowerby,  York. — Rev.  A. 
Bayley,  to  the  Rectory  of  Edgecott,  Northampton, 
— Rev.  G.  Montague,  to  the  Rectory  of  South 
Pickenham,  Norfolk.— Rev.  R.  Lowther,  to  the 
Parish  Church  of  Muker,  York. — Rev.  C.John- 
stone,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Felis  Kirk,  York.— Rev. 
C.  Musgrave,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Halifax,  York. — 
Rev.  E.  R.  Beuyon,  to  the  Living  of  Downham, 
Essex. -Rev.  G.  F.  Tavel,  to  the  Rectory  of  Great 
Fakenham,  Suffolk.— Rev.  W.  Mayd,  to  the  Rec- 
tory of  Wethersfield,  Suffolk.— Rev.  J.  Allgood, 
to  the  Living  of  Felton,  Northumberland. — Rev. 
P.  Bartlara,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Holne,  Devon. 


POLITICAL  APPOINTMENTS. 


The  King  has  been  pleased  to  approve  of  Mr. 
George  Benkhausen,  as  Consul-General  in  Lon- 
don for  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  all  the 
Russias. 

The  King  has  appointed  His  Royal  Highness 
William  Henry  Duke  of  Clarence,  Admiral  of  His 


Majesty's  Fleet,  to  be  High  Admiral  of  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

The  King  has  appointed  the  Right  Hon.  Sir 
John  Singleton  Copley,  Knight,  Baron  Lyndbnrst, 
of  Lyndhurst,  in  the  county  of  Southampton. 


INCIDENTS,  MARRIAGES,   AND   DEATHS,   IN  AND   NEAR  LONDON,  ETC. 
CHRONOLOGY. 

March  20.— An  Order  in  Council  published,  that 
no  training  or  exercising  of  the  militia  do  take 
place  in  the  present  year. 


published,  by  which  it  appears  that  there  is  a  de- 
crease of  .£469,548. 

9.  The  sessions  ended  at  the  Old  Bailey,  when 
28  prisoners  were  recorded  for  death,  77  were  or- 


— A  general  meeting  of  British  Catholics,  held     dered  for  transportation,  and  63  to  various  terms 
at  the   Crown  and  Anchor  Tavern,  the  Duke  of     of  imprisonment;  39  were  discharged  by  procla- 


Norfolk  in  the  chair  ;  when  a  series  of  resolutions 
were  passed,  embodying  a  declaration  that  they 
would  still  persevere  in  their  exertions  to  obtain  a 
participation  in  the  blessings  of  the  English  con- 
stitution. 

21.—  The  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  inspected  the 
Hecla,  Captain  Parry,  previous  to  her  departure 
for  the  expedition  to  the  North  Pole. 

23.—  A  half  yearly  meeting  of  the  Bank  Proprie- 


mation, no  bills  being  found  against  them. 

—  A  numerous  and  highly  respectable  meeting 
of  noblemen  and  gentlemen  was  held  at  Willis's 
Rooms,  to  take  into  consideration  the  means  of 
procuring  a  wholesome  supply  of  water  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  western  portion  of  the  metropolis, 
when  it  was  unanimously  resolved  to  petition  Par- 
liament upon  the  subject. 

12.  —  Mr.  Canning  having  accepted  the  office  of 


tors  was  held,   at  which  a  dividend  of  four  per     Chief  Commissioner  of  His  Majesty's  Treasury,  a 


cent,  was  declared  ;  and  the  state  of  their  cir- 
culating notes,  amounting  to  twenty-one  mil- 
lions. 

30.  An  Order  in  Council  published,  in  regard  to 
prize-money  arising  from  the  capture  of  slave 
•hips,  which  adjudges  that  such  proceeds  shall  be 
divided  in  the  manner  directed  by  the  order  in 
council  of  June  1824. 

Aprils.  —  The  quarterly  statement  of  the  revcr«uc 


new  writ  was  issued  in  the  House  of  Commons  for 
the  borough  of  Newport. 

—  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  the  Earl  of  Eldon, 
Mr.  Peel,  the  Earl  of    Westmoreland,  Earl  Ba- 
thurst,  Lord  Melville,  and'Lord  Bexley,  gave  in 
their  resignations,  and  retired  from  the  adminis- 
tration of  government. 

—  A  meeting  of  the    inhabitants  of    Mary-la- 
bo-inc  \vas  held  at  the  Grosvenor  Tavern,  when  it 


1827.]  Incidents, 

was  resolved  to  vesist  the  payment  of  the  Easter 
Offerings  demanded  by  their  incumbent,  and  to 
petition  Parliament  to  exempt  them  from  that  an- 

'jcyance.         '.:*"; 

^    MARRIAGES. 

By  special  licence,  at  Lady  de  Clifford's,  South 
Audley-street,  Edward  Eustace  Hill,  esq.,  to  Lady 
Georgiana  Keppel*  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Albe- 
marle,— At  the  Chapel  Royal,  St.  James's,  Sir 
W.  S.  Wiseman,  bart.,  to  Eliza,  eldest  daughter  of 
the  late  Rev.  G.  Davies. 


563 


DEATHS. 

In  the  Westminster-road,  97,  W.  Manners,  esq., 
fifth  son  of  the  late  Lord  W.  Manners,  of  Gran- 
tham,  Lincolnshire.— 84,  Mr.  T.  Milton,  the  cele- 
brated engraver.  His  grandfatlier  was  brother  to 
the  immortal  John  Milton.— In  Portland-place,  94, 
Mrs.  Charlotte  Holt,  the  last  branch  of  the  family 
of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  Holt.— In  Gloucester- 
street,  62,  Mr.  Charles  Dignum,  formerly  of  Drury 
Lane  Theatre.— The  Hon.  George  Villiers,  brother 
to  the  Earl  of  Clarendon.— At  Eufield,  79,  Sir 
Nathaniel  Dance,  lent.  He  was  formerly  a  com- 
mander in  the  Hon.  East-India  Company's  Ser- 
vice. The  brilliant  achievement  with  which  he 
closed  a  hard  service  of  45  years,  is  in  the  memory 
of  many  living.  On  the  15th  Feb.  1804,  a  French 
fleet,  under  Admiral  Linois,  fell  in  with  the  home- 
ward-bound East-India  fleet  under  Commodore 
Dance,  which  they  had  been  despatched  for  the 
express  purpose  of  intercepting.  The  French  Ad- 
miral was  beaten  off  and  chased  for  several 
hours,  and  a  property  of  the  value  of  upwards  of 
.£11,000,000  sterling  brought  safely  to  England— 
In  Mansfield-street,  Lady  Susan  H.  Beresfovd, 
daughter  of  the  Marchioness  of  Waterford.— Em- 
ma, youngest  daughter  of  Lady  Bridget  Bouverie. 
—At  Chelsea,  72,  Lady  Blake,  mother,  and  also 
at  the  same  place,  Lady  Blake,  the  wife  of  Sir 


Francis  Blake,  bart.,  and  M.P.—At  WoolwKh,  8?, 
Colonel  R.  Douglas,  commandant  of  the  artillery. 
— In  Chapel-street,  Groavenor-square,  78,  the  Hon. 
Mary  Byron,  relict  of  the  late  Hon.  and  Rev.  R. 
Byron— In  Pietadilly,  78,  the  Marquis  of  Chol- 
mondeley.— In  Park-lane,  Lady  Hyacintha  Vane, 
daughter  to  the  Marquis  of  Londonderry. — In 
Stanhope-street,  77,  Right  Hon.  Charles  Talbot, 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury.— At  the  house  of  T.  Wil- 
liamson, esq.,  Chalton-street,  Somer's-town,  81, 
Mrs.  Sarah  Baning.-ln  Waterloo-place,  Pall- 
mall,  79,  Esther,  relict  of  the  late  John  Binns, 
e^q.,  banker,  of  Leeds,  in  the  county  of  York. 

MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 

At  Malta,  Lieut.  G.  St.  Vincent  Whitmore,  to 
Miss  T.  M.  Stoddart,  eldest  daughter  of  Sir  John 
Stoddart,  Judge  of  the  Vice  Admiralty  Court, 
Malta. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 

At  Paris,  Maria  Duchess  de  Croiz,  eldest  daugh- 
ter of  the  Hon.  General  Dillon ;  also  Lord  Castle 
Coote,  whose  estate  devolves  to  Eyre  Coote  esq. 
but  whose  title  is  extinct.— At  Paris,81,Duke  de  la 
Rochefoucault,  the  great  patron  of  vaccination  in 
France.— At  Vienna,  Beethoven,  the  celebrated 
composer.— At  Jersey,  94,  C.  W.  le  Geyt,  esq. ;  he 
was  an  officer  in  the  25th  foot  at  the  battle  of  Min- 
den.— At  Nantes,  Euphrosine.the  lady  of  Stapylton 
Stapylton,  esq.,  of  Myton-hall, Yorkshire In  Por- 
tugal, Ensign  Massey,  of  the  4th  regiment ;  in  at- 
tempting to  ride  through  a  pool  of  water  to  join 
some  brother  officers,  he  sank  in  a  quicksand,  and 
instantly  disappeared.— At  Jamaica,  the  Hon.  Sa- 
muel Vaughan,  Assistant  Judge  of  the  Cornwall 
Assize  Court,  and  one  of  the  Representatives  fn 
the  House  of  Assembly ;  he  had  resided  38  years 
in  the  island.— At  Paris,  Mr.  J.  Douglass,  civil 
ngineer.  He  had  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon,  who  had  awarded  him  the 
gold  medal  of  merit. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES; 


WITH    THE    MARRIAGES   AND    DEATHS. 
NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

A    beautiful   figure  of  our  Saviour,  in  stained 


Married.]    At   Monkwearmouth,    Wm.  Hazle- 
wood,  M.D.,  to  Miss  Guodchild. 

Died.']    Near   Gateshead,    Mrs.   Turnbull— At 

glass,  was  placed,  on  the  12th  of  April,  in  the  Wynyard,  Wm.  Hawks,  esq— At  North  Shields 
.*  ....  „_.  __.:„.!„...  «r  ^~  -U.....I.  ^  Mrs  Bird— At  South  Shields,  91,  Mrs.  A.  Rob- 
son. — At  Clifford's  Fort,  97,  Mr.  John  Sipple,  35 
years  master-gunner  of  Tynemouth  Castle  and 
Clifford's  Fort.  He  had  nearly  completed  72  years 
in  the  service,  having  entered  the  Royal  Artillery 
as  a  rnatross  on  the  1st  of  May  1/55.  He  had 
seen  much  service  on  the  coast  of  France,  the 
West  Indies,  Germany,  and  America  ;  in  the  at- 
tack and  defeat  of  the  American  flotilla  on  Lake 
Champlain  in  1776,  he  commanded  a  gun-boat ; 
and  was  with  General  Burgoyne  in  1777  when  his 
army  surrendered  to  the  Americans.— At  Halt- 
whistle,  80,  J.  Dawson,  egq. 


centre  of  the  east  window  of  the  church  of 
St,  Nicholas,  Newcastle.  It  is  painted  by  Mr. 
John  Gibson,  and  as  a  piece  of  art  will  bear 
comparison  with  any  figure  we  have  seen. 

A  variety  of  objects  of  natural  history  have 
lately  been  presented  to  the  Museum  of  the  Lite- 
rary and  Philosophical  Society  of  Newcastle ; 
amongst  them  is.  the  Blue-throated  Warbler 
(motacilla  succica  of  Linnaeus)  shot  on  the 
Newcastle  Town  Moor,  last  May,  by  Mr.  Em- 
bleton,  and  presented  by  Mr.  Hill.  This  bird 
is  said  to  be  common  in  the  north  of  Eu- 
rope, but  has  been  hitherto  entirely  unknown  as 
British. 

One  hundred  of  our  seamen  lately  sailed  from 
Shields  to  London  in  quest  of  employment,  and 
were  all  instantly  engaged  ;  others,  in  conse- 
quence, are  taking  their  leave  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. 


CUMBERLAND  AND  WESTMORELAND. 

At  the  Westmoreland  Assizes  there  was  not  a 
single  prisoner  for  trial. 

An  explosion  at  the  William  Pitt  coal-mine, 
Whitehaven,  lately  took  place,  by  which  several 
persons  were  burnt ;  and  an  accident  also  hap- 
pened at  the  Croft  Pitt,  by  which  the  roof  fell  in 
and  destroyed  four  unfortunate  men. 

4C  2 


5(54  Provincial  Occurrences : 

A  considerable  number  of  operatives  have  set 
out  to  ebmark  for  America  by  the  spring  vessels. 

Died.']  At  Warwick,  92,  Mrs.  M.  Scott— At 
Nirkoswald,  the  Rev.  J.  Fisher,  50  years  vicar  of 
that  parish.— At  Ricliardby,  W.  R.  Graham,  esq. 
—At  Thursby,  76,  Dr.  R!  Jackson,  inspector  of 
military  hospitals,  and  chief  of  the  medical  de- 
partment of  the  army  in  the  West  Indies. 

YORKSHIRE   AND    CHESHIRE. 

Trade  has  not  improved  as  was  expected,  and 
there  are  500  looms  now  wanting  employ  in  Hou- 
ley,  near  Hnddersfield. 

At  the  assizes  for  the  County  and  City  of  York* 
sentence  of  death  was  recorded  against  seventy- 
six  prisoners!!!  four  were  transported,  and  six 
were  imprisoned.  There  were  154  prisoners  in 
the  jails. 

In  the  vinery  at  the  botanic  garden,  erected  last 
spring,  belonging  to  Mr.  Bonn,  upon  a  new,  light, 
and  economical  plan,  a  vine  of  the  genuine  Tokay 
was  planted  on  the  10th  of  April  last,  without 
either  ball  or  earth  attached  to  its  roots,  and  it 
has  now  produced  the  prodigious  number  of  200 
bunches  of  grapes,  above  130  of  which  at  present 
remain  on  the  tree. 

Two  Joint  Stock  Banking  Companies  have  been 
established  in  this  county;  one  at  Hudderstield, 
the  other  at  Bradford, 

As  some  persons  were  digging  for  clay  to  make 
bricks,  about  500  yards  east-north-east  of  Conis- 
brough  Castle,  they  found,  at  five  feet  from  the 
surface,  a  sort  of  vault,  in  which  had  been  depo- 
sited the  remains  of  a  human  being.  It  must 
have  been  many  centuries  in  the  earth,  from  the 
decayed  state  of  the  bones :  and  was  most  pro  • 
lably  of  the  Saxon  line,  as  the  body  was  inclosed 
in  rough  unhewn  stone,  after  their  manner  of  in- 
terring. The  cavity  or  vault  was  about  seven  feet, 
in  length,  three  in  breadth,  and  two  in  depth 
completely  inclosed  above,  beneath,  and  on  tht 
sides,  with  rough  stones  ;  unfortunately,  the  un- 
thinking workmen  have  destroyed  every  vestige  of 
the  place. 

The  Hull  and  East  Riding  Institute  for  the  pro- 
motion of  the  fine  arts,  have  determined  to  open 
their  exhibition  of  pictures,  drawings,  sculpture, 
&c.,  on  the  third  Monday  in  July  ;  to  close  the  third 
Monday  in  October.  The  Northern  Society  do  not 
propose  to  have  an  exhibition  at  Leeds  this 
year. 

A  general  meeting  of  the  silk-weavers  of  Mac- 
clesfield  was  held  at  the  Market  Hall  of  that  town, 
by  permission  of  the  mayor,  for  the  purpose  of 
petitioning  the  Legislature  for  an  enactment 
for  the  better  regulating  of  prices  paid  for 
labour.  It  was  numerously  attended,  and  con- 
ducted with  decorum  ;  several  resolutions  were  en- 
tered into,  with  the  petition,  and  carried  nem  con. 
The  second  resolution  was — "That  this  meeting 
considers,  from  the  protection  granted  to  the  landed 
proprietors,  that  a  corresponding  protection  for  the 
labouring  classes  of  society  would  be  equally  just 
in  principle,  and  easily  put  in  practice,  as  their 
labour  is  to  them  equally  the  same  as  the  noble- 
man's estate  is  to  him  ;  the  refusal  of  which  will 
tend  to  create  dissatisfaction  in  the  minds  of  the 
labourers  and  artisans,  apprehensions  in  all  other 
classes  of  society,  and  render  the  peace  of  the 
country  dependant  on  military  coercion." 

Married.]  At  Sculcoatex,  the  Rev.  Charles 
Dodgson,  to  Miss  Saturdge. — At  Brotherton, 


,  Cheshire,  $c.  [MAY, 

T.  P.  Zeale,  esq.,  to  Miss  Joherwood.— At  Leeds, 
J.  P.  Clapham,  csq.,  to  Miss  Ann  Olapham. 

Died.]  At  Addle  Croft,  105,  J.Whitehead.  He 
enjoyed,  during  the  whole  of  his  life,  a  singularly 
good  state  of  health,  unaided  by  medical  science  ; 
the  only  doctor's  bill  he  ever  had  amounting  but 
to  fpurpence.  His  food  was  plain  and  simple,  con- 
sisting principally  of  dishes  made  of  oatmeal.  He 
never  drank  tea,  and  never  was  intoxicated.  He 
retained  his  faculties  to  the  last,  and  his  sight  was 
so  perfect  that  he  had  never  occasion  for  spec- 
tacles.—At  York,  79,  Rev.  W.  Donnison,  vicar  of 
Felis  Kirk.— At  Bawtry,  G.  Hill,  and  J.  Kaye, 
esqvs. — At  Greenhead,  near  Huddersfield,  Ann 
Elizabeth,  daughter  to  B.  H.Allen,  esq.— At  Be- 
vei'ley,  the  widow  of  Thomas  Grunston,  esq. — At 
Bricllington,  Miss  Hebbthwayte. 

STAFFORD    AND    SALOP. 

The  assizes  at  Shrewsbury  were  protracted  be- 
yond all  former  precedent ;  20  prisoners  had  judg- 
ment of  death  recorded  against  them,  13  transport- 
ed, and  22  imprisoned.  At  Stafford  assizes,  16  pri- 
soners received  sentence  of  death. 

Died.'}    At  Ellesmere,  84,  F.  Lee,  esq. 

LANCASHIRE. 

The  Emigration  Committee  have  made  a  report 
on  a  special  case  which  had  been  presented  to  it, 
viz.  the  condition  of  the  hand-loom  weavers,  for 
whom  it  has  been  suggested  that  some  relief  might 
be  afforded  by  emigration.  The  Manufacturers' 
Relief  Committee  have  signified  their  readiness  to 
contribute  .£25,000  out  of  the  funds  raised  by  the 
King's  letter  ;  and  the  Emigration  Committee  re- 
commend a  grant  of  .£50,000.  By  this  sum  of 
.£75,000  it  is  calculated  that  1,200  families  may  be 
removed  to  Nova  Scotia, 

The  ship  Commerce  Trader,  having  200  barrels 
of  gunpowder  on  board,  was  recently  discovered 
on  fire  off  Peel  Castle,  on  the  Lancashire  coast. 
The  crew  immediately  abandoned  her  ;  and,  in  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes  after,  she  blew  up  with  such  a 
tremendous  explosion,  that,  for  100  miles  along  the 
coast,  it  was  supposed  an  earthquake  had  hap- 
pened, and  considerable  damage  was  done  to  the 
windows,  &c.  in  many  places.  Such  was  the  ter- 
ror at  Lancaster,  40  miles  distant,  that  many  of 
the  inhabitants  ran  to  the  open  plains  near  the 
town  ;  the  windows  flew  out,  and  the  doors  crashed 
with  amazing  velocity.  The  shock  was  felt  at 
Carlisle. 

Married.']  At  Manchester,  T.  C.  B.  Cave,  esq., 
third  son  of  Sir  W.  C.  B.Cave,  bart.,  to  Miss  Ann 
Walker. 

DERBYSHIRE. 

A  public  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Derby 
convened  by  the  mayor,  has  been  held  at  the  Guild- 
hall, for  the  purpose  of  petitioning  Parliament  to 
adopt  such  measures  as  may  suppress  the  horrid 
practice  of  widows  immolating  themselves  on  the 
funeral  piles  of  their  husbands  in  British  India  ; 
and  resolutions  to  that  effect  were  unanimously 
agreed  on. 

Six  prisoners  were  recorded  for  death,  and  six 
transported,  besides  several  for  imprisonment,  at 
the  Lent  assizes. 

The  accounts  up  to  March  28,  1827,  of  the  Derby 
Savings'  Bank,  amounted  to  .£99,452.  lls.O^d. 

Died.]  Near  Ashbourn,  81,  Mr.  W.  Taylor.— 
At  Bradley,  80,  Mrs.  Hartshorn  —At  Findern,  83, 
Mr.  Ashmole.— At  East  Moulsey  Park,  61,  the 
Dowager  Lady  Crowe,  relict  of  the  late  Sir  H.  H. 
Crcwe,  bait.,  of  Calke  Abbey.— At  Hardstuff,  f»5, 
Mr.  Shooter. — At  Breaston,  85,  J.  Snow,  esq. — At 


1827.] 


Nottingham,  Leicester,  Rutland, 


565 


Hai-lhvroiigh,  68,  the  Rev.  P.  A.  Reaston  ;  he  had 
been  rector  of  that  parish  34  years. 

NOTTINGHAM. 

The  first  stone  of  a  new  Catholic  chapel  was  laid 
at  Nottingham,  April  3,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Wilson, 
the  priest,  who  delivered  a  short  address  on  the 
occasion,  inculcating  peace,  charity,  and  brotherly 
love.  The  stone  bore  the  inscription,  "  Ad  Ma- 
jor em  Dei  Gloriam,  A.D.  1827.  The  building  is 
to  be  of  the  Grecian  order. 

The  foundation  of  the  new  gaol  was  also  laid  the 
same  day. 

LEICESTER    AND    RUTLAND. 

At  the  assizes  at  Leicester,  a  greater  number  of 
prisoners  were  tried  than  has  been  known  for 
many  years  ;  fifteen  were  condemned  to  death,  but 
three  only  were  left  for  execution;  one  of  them« 
W.  Brown,  for  a  murder  committed  two  years  ago 
nt  Asfordby.  Great  praise  is  due  to  the  magis- 
trates for  their  perseverance  in  bringing  this  of- 
fender to  justice,  after  the  long  period  of  commit- 
tal of  such  an  atrocious  assassination. 

The  frame-work  knitters  have  forwarded  a  me- 
morial to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
praying  for  relief  from  their  present  dreadful  dis- 
tress ;  they  say,  "that  their  wages  are  lower  now 
than  they  were  in  1819  (then  seven  shillings  per 
week),  and  that  sixteen  hours  a-day  many  are  com- 
pelled to  labour,  with  only  a  morsel  of  bread  to 
support  them  through  the  day  ;  and  that,  compared 
with  their  present  situation,  transportation  would 
be  a  paradise  to  them!!!"  The  answer  of  the 
Board  says.  "  their  lordships  regret  very  much 
that  it  is  not  in  their  power  to  point  out  a  re- 
medy ! !" 

WARWICK  AND  NORTHAMPTON. 
Thirty-one  prisoners  were  recorded  for  death  at 
the  assizes  held  at  Warwick,  22  were  transported, 
and  49  imprisoned  for  various  period^.  One  cul- 
prit was  sentenced  to  seven  years'  transportation 
for  being  armed  for  the  destruction  of  game  ; 
whilst  another  was  ordered  one  year's  imprison- 
ment, and  fined  a  shilling,  for  the  manslaughter  of 
his  son!!! 

A  petition  from  the  mechanics  of  Birmingham, 
deputed  by  all  the  different  trades  of  that  town  for 
the  purpose,  has  been  recently  and  unanimously 
voted  to  the  House  of  Commons,  in  which  they 
feelingly  describe  their  melancholy  situation,  which 
deprives  their  skill  and  industry  of  its  due  reward, 
and  degrades  them  to  the  misery  of  parochial  re- 
lief. In  praying  for  redress,  they  notice  the  sys- 
tem of  emigration,  which  they  consider  as  "  de- 
structive of  the  moral  attachment  of  the  people  to 
their  native  land  ;  nor  can  they  comprehend  by 
what  train  of  reasoning  the  productive  classes, 
who  create  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  kingdom, 
are  stigmatized  as  being  a  burden  to  it." 

The  iron  trade  partakes  in  more  than  a  common 
degree  the  general  gloom  and  depression  which 
pervade  most  branches  of  business  at  the  present 
moment.  The  demand  in  Birmingham  and  neigh- 
bourhood has  suffered  a  very  sensible  decline  since 
Christmas,  instead  of  experiencing  an  increase, 
which  is  the  natural  change. 

It   appears  by  the  statement  published  of   the 

Northampton    Savings'    Bank,   that    the   sum    of 

.£273,501.  3s.  l|-d.  has  been  received  from  its  first 

establishment  up  to  April  4, 1827. 

A  case  has  been  recently  decided  by  appeal  in 


the  House  of.Lorda,  in  which  a  clergyman,  having 
been  presented  to  the  living  of  Kettering,  in 
Northamptonshire,  by  Lord  Sondes,  on  condition 
of  his  resigning  it  to  a  son  of  his  lordship  when 
ready  for  it,  or  paying  .£10,000,  this  bond  was  set 
aside  as  simoniacal  b>  the  existing  law.  The 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  immediately  brought  in 
a  bill,  containing  such  restrictions  as  would  pro- 
tect bonds  of  this  nature  heretofore  made,  and 
exempt  the  parties  from  the  penalties  incurred, 
under  an  erroneous  impression  of  the  law  on  the 
subject.  A  patron  is  liable  to  a  penalty  of  double 
the  value  of  the  living,  and  the  forfeiture  of  the 
patronage  for  that  time  ;  and  the  incumbent  is 
liable  to  double  the  value  of  the  living,  and  to  be 
disqualified  from  holding  it. 

Married.']  AtAlvcstone,  J.  Fullarton,  junior, 
esq.,  to  Louisa,  fourth  daughter  to  Sir  Gray  Skip- 
whh,  bart. 

Died.']  At  Peterborough,  84,  John  Benson,  esq. 
one  of  the  principal  committee  clerks  to  the  House 
of  Commons. 

WORCESTER    AND    HEREFORD. 

At  Worcester  assizes,  24  prisoners  were  recorded 
for  death,  29  transported,  and  20  imprisoned. 
There  were  96  prisoners  in  the  whole;  23  who 
could  read  and  write,  27  that  could  read  only,  and 
4(5  that  could  neither  read  nor  write  ! 

Although  the  glove  trade  at  Worcester  has 
lately  improved,  yet  it  is  but  too  true  that  the  ad- 
mission of  French  gloves  has  diminished  the  for- 
mer demands  for  British  gloves. 

Sentence  of  death  was  recorded  at  Hereford 
assizes  against  14  prisoners,  8  were  transported, 
and  18  imprisoned.  .£300  was  awarded,  by  a  spe- 
cial jury  at  this  assize,  to  a  gentleman,  as  compen- 
sation for  an  injury  sustained  by  being  overturned 
in  the  Bristol  and  Milford  mail-coach. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  friends  and  supporters  of 
the  union  of  the  "  Three  Choirs,"  lately  holden  at 
the  Deanery  at  Worcester,  it  was  resolved,  that  in 
order  to  give  due  effect  to  the  gracious  inten- 
tions of  His  Majesty,  who  has  become  patron 
of  the  institution,  arrangements  upon  a  more  ge- 
neral and  enlarged  scale  be  in  future  adopted. 
The  list  of  president,  vice-president,  and  stewards* 
already  contains  all  that  are  distinguished  by  rank 
and  property  in  the  three  counties. 

GLOUCESTER    AND    MONMOUTH. 

At  the  Clifton  and  Bristol  Bazaar,  recently  pro- 
jected by  some  benevolent  ladies  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, in  aid  ol  the  funds  for  the  distressed  imuiu- 
facturers  in  the  north,  as  much  as  .£9(50  were 
received. — The  produce  of  a  ball  at  the  Clifton 
Rooms,  also,  for  the  distressed  inhabitants  at  Pill, 
amounted  to  near  .£100. 

At  Monmouth  assizes,  a  respectable  farmer,  a 
constable,  and  two  servants,  were  convicted  of 
having  cruelly  maltreated  Mary  Nicholas,  aged 
90,  on  the  supposition  of  her  being  a  WITCH,  whose 
unholy  arts  had  proved  destructive  to  the  cattle  in 
her  neighbourhood.  The  brutes  concerned  in  this 
proceeding  tore  her  garments  down  to  her  waist — 
wounded  her  flesh  with  a  thorny  stick,  tore  her 
hair  from  her  head  to  see  if  it  would  burn,  and 
compelled  her  to  kneel  down  by  a  colt,  which  she 
was  required  "  to  bless ! !"  The  sentence  was  six 
months'  imprisonment  for  the  farmer,  and  three 
months'  for  the  others.  Sentence  of  death  w  as 
recorded  at  the  same  assizes  against  8  prisoners, 


566 


Provincial  Occurrences:   Oxford)  Bedford, 


transportation  against  one,  and  17  were  imprisoned 
for  various  periods. 

At  Gloucester  assizes,  the  learned  judge,  in  ad- 
dressing the  grand  jury,  said — "  I  must  attest  the 
melancholy  truth,  that  in  every  county  through 
which  we  have  passed,  we  have  unquestionably 
found  that  crime  is  more  prevalent,  and  the  gaols 
more  crammed  than  ever  they  were  known  to  be 
at  former  periods."  38  were  recorded  for  death, 
27  transported,  and  67  imprisoned  for  various 
periods. 

Died.]  At  Gloucester,  85,  Rev.  Martin  Barry; 
— S4,Mrs.Drayton;  SO,  Mr.  W.  Butt. 

OXFORDSHIRE. 

The  amount  received  up  to  Nov.  20,  1826,  of 
the  Banbtiry  Savings'  Bank,  appears  to  have  been 
.£'52,391.  10s.  6d.,  as  verified  at  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  trustees  at  the  Town-hall. 

Died.]  At  Oxford,  Mrs.  Rigaund,  wife  to  the 
liadcliffe  Observer  and  professor  of  astronomy. 

BEDFORD. 

At  Bedford  assizes,  11  prisoners  were  condemned 
to  death,  3  transported,  and  11  imprisoned  for  va- 
rious periods. 

NORFOLK   AND   SUFFOLK. 

In  consequence  of  the  number  of  prisoners  in 
custody  for  poaching,  at  Norwich,  it  was  thought 
indispensable  to  convey  them  to  Thetford  in  three 
detachments,  under  a  military  escort,  a  rescue  upon 
the  road  being  apprehended. 

At  the  Bury  assizes,  sentence  of  death  was  re- 
corded against  nine  prisoners,  two  of  whom  were 
g-ypwei. 

A  project  is  on  foot  to  establish  regular  steam- 
packets  between  Lynn,  Hull,  and  Gainsborough. 

Married,]  At  Wixoe,  Rev.  W.  Mayd,  to  Miss 
E.  M.  Jardiue.— At  Great  Yarmouth,  W.  Browne, 
esq.,  to  Miss  M.  Starling. 

Died.]  At  Ayleham,  93,  Mrs.  A,  Fish.— At 
Peasenhall,  102,  Ann  H award,  learing  5  children, 
21  grand-children,  50  great-grand,  and  19  great- 
great  grand-children.— At  Wicklevvood,  100,  Mrs. 
Mar>  Spraggs.— At  Bungay,  M.Kerrison,esq. 

HANTS. 

Died.]  At  Adbury-house,  90,  Dr.  W.  Fellowes ; 
he  was  formerly  the  confidential  physician  of  his 
present  Majesty  when  at  Bath. 

DORSET   AND    WILTS. 

On  the  north-eastern  coast  of  Weymouth  Bay, 
at  Osmington,  opposite  the  Island  of  Portland 
rises  a  chalky  cliff,  considerably  higher  than  the 
rest  of  the  coast,  called  the  White  Nore.  On  Fri- 
day, March  16,  a  flame  was  observed  playing  on 
the  surface  of  the  cliff,  on  a  particular  spot' 
which  has  now  assumed  the  character  of  a  sub- 
terraneous fire  burning  continuously,  and  may  be 
seen  from  the  Esplanade  at  Weymouth  by  night. 
The  chasms  from  which  the  fire  issues  cover  a 
space  of  earth  20  feet  sqsare.  Upon  looking  into 
the  cracks  in  the  earth,  the  fire  appears  as  clear 
as  that  of  a  furnace.  The  atmosphere  around  is 
sultry,  and  a  steam  arises  from  a  larger  portion  of 
the  surface  of  the  cliff.  The  coast  in  this  neigh- 
bourhood produces  a  slaty  coal,  of  a  very  sulphu- 
rous nature,  and  which  exhales  a  gas  so  offensive 
that  none  but  those  who  are  driven  by  poverty  to 
burn  it  can  endure  the  odour. 

At  the  Dorset  assizes,  2  prisoners  were  recorded 
for  death,  and  25  were  sentenced  to  imprisonment 
ier  various  periods- 


DEVON   AND   SOMERSET.          ^ 

At  the  assizes  held  at  Exeter,  15  prisoners  re- 
ceived sentence  of  death,  8  were  transported,  and 
33  were  ordered  to  imprisonment  for  various  pe- 
riods. The  judge  complained  of  the  local  juris- 
dictions of  the  county  at  these  assizes,  and  threat- 
ened to  impose  a  fine  upon  the  chief  magistrate  of 
Exeter,  if  the  precincts  of  the  court  iff  which  he 
was  sitting  were  not  kept  free  from  the  disturbance 
of  noisy  children ! 

A  measure  of  great  importance  to  the  town  of 
Newton,  and  to  property  of  every  description  near 
it,  has  been  determined  on,  viz.  the  cutting  a  canal 
into  the  centre  of  the  place,  the  work  of  a  few 
months,  from  which  shipment  may  be  made  at  once 
to  London,  &c.  It  is  contemplated  to  connect  an 
iron  rail-road,  running  it  towards  Ashhurton,  and 
branching  it  off  to  Sigford,  which  is  a  short  dis- 
tance from  the  Dannemore  iron-mine,  recently  dis- 
covered near  High  Tor. 

At  the  Somerset  assizes,  held  at  Taunton,  the 
calendar  contained  the  number  of  210  prisoners. 
Mr.  Justice  Park  noticed  the  increase  of  crime, 
particularly  at  Bath.  34  culprits  were  recorded 
for  death,  30  were  transported,  and  69  imprisoned 
for  various  periods.  In  addition  to  this  melan- 
choly list,  there  are  about  230  in  the  different 
gaols  of  the  county  on  orders,  a  great  number  of 
whom  are  very  young.  It  seems  to  be  the  general 
opinion  that  the  alarming  increase  of  criminals  in 
this  county,  as  compared  with  others,  is,  in  a  great 
measure,  owing  to  the  failure  of  trade,  and  the 
excessively  low  rate  of  the  wages  of  labourers  in 
agriculture. 

On  Easter  Monday,  the  Thorveston  Sick  Clubs 
dined  together  ;  the  members,  800  strong,  paraded 
the  streets  with  music  playing  and  banners  flying. 
l,3001bs.  of  prime  and  solid  meat  were  dressed  for 
them,  and  their  visitors  from  the  neighbouring 
villages. 

Married.]  At  Stonehouse,  R.  Bailey,  esq.,  to 
Miss  H.  Courtis.— At  Stuke,  H.  Tonkin,  eso  to 
Miss  C.  Wood. 

Died.]  At  Teignmouth,  108,  Mr.  R.  Cotton.— 
At  Plymouth,  74,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hawker,  50  of 
which  he  had  been  the  pastor  of  the  parish  of 
Charles,  and  author  of  many  popular  works  ;  he 
was  so  much  respected,  that  the  day  after  his 
death,  the  windows  of  most  of  the  shops  remained 
half  closed,  the  bells  of  the  several  churches  tolled 
at  intervals,  and  the  flags  of  the  merchant  ships  in 
the  harbour  were  hoisted  at  half-mast,  and  con- 
tinued so  until  his  burial. — At  Bath,  75,  Alderman 
Clarke. — At  Bristol,  Mr.  J.  Embden  ;  he  was  a 
most  successful  amateur  composer,  and  author  of 
many  elegant  ballads. 

CORNWALL. 

At  the  assizes  for  this  county,  held  at  Launces- 
ton,  a  variety  of  nisi prius  causes  were  adjudged  ; 
but  on  the  criminal  side  few  prisoners  were  found 
to  take  their  trials  ;  2  were  sentenced  to  death,  2 
transported,  and  a  few  imprisoned. 

At  Truro,  the  first  stone  was  lately  laid  for  a 
new  church,  designed  chiefly  for  the  poor  of  that 
place  and  its  immediate  vicinity. 

The  Blucher  smack,  belonging  to  Newlyn,  and 
manned  by  six  men  and  a  boy,  lately  left  Mount's 
Bay  for  Bristol,  with  about  9,000  mackarel  which 
they  had  taken,  with  intent  of  disposing  of  their 
fish.  When  off  Padstow  it  blew  very  hard,  and  the 
unfortunate  crew  thought  it  best  to  make  for  that 
harbour,  in  doing  which  she  ran  o»  the  Dunbar 


1827.] 


I17ales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 


567 


oia 


at  the  entrance,  and  in  a  short  time  the 
fcgcame  a  total  wreck,  and  all  on  board 
shed.    5  widows  and   18   children  are  left  to 
the   disastrous   event   that  has  deprived 
of  their  natural  protectors,  who  were  all 
n  of  excellent  character. 

A  public  meeting,  in  aid  of  the  Sunday  School 
Society  for  Ireland,  was  recently  held  at  Falmonth, 
when  the  secretary  for  England  attended,  and  gave 
information  respecting  the  operations  of  the  So- 
ciety, by  which  it  appears  that  1,900  schools,  con- 
taining 157,000  children  and  adults,  are  receiving 
education,  assisted  by  14,000  gratuitous  teachers, 

Died.]  At  Flushing,  71,  Mrs.  Kcmpthorne.— - 
At  Penzance,  68,  H.  Bouse,  esq.— At  Truro,  80, 
Mrs.  Snowden. — At  Constantine,  86,  Mrs.  Harris. 

WALES. 

The  Literary  Society  at  Buthin  have  presented 
Mr.  Parry  a  silver  medal,  for  an  original  air,  com- 
posed agreeably  to  the  modulations  of  the  ancient 
British  music  ;  and  the  Carmarthen  Cymrcigyd- 
dion  Society  have  advertised  premiums  for  the  best 
Welsh  poems,  on  the  "  Winter  Season,"  and  on 
"  Thunder;"  to  be  sent  to  the  society  before  the  1st 
of  December  next. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Milford  and 
Hakin,  it  was  unanimously  resolved  to  petition 
Parliament  against  the  contemplated  removal  of 
the  post-office  steam-packets  from  their  present 
station  off  Milford  to  Hobbs'  Point,  situated  five 
miles  higher  up  the  haven,  whereby  the  country 
would  be  put  to  an  enormous  expense  in  making 
roads  over  the  mountainous,  swampy,  and  almost 
uninhabited  parts  of  Carmarthen  and  Pembroke, 
for  an  experiment  which  must  eventually  fail. 

A  large  Devon  bull,  fed  and  bred  by  W.  R.  H. 
Powell,  esq,,  of  Maesgwynne,  Carmarthenshire, 
was  lately  slaughtered,  and  sold  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Llanboidy.  It  weighed  72  score  121b.; 
tallow  161b.,  hide  13lb.,  fat  on  the  ribs  three 
inches,  and  was  fed  with  nothing  but  hay  and 
Swedish  turnips  during  the  last  winter. 

At  the  Radnor  assizes,  Mr.  Justice  Nolan  con- 
gratulated the  grand  jury  on  the  progress  in  build- 
ing a  new  court  of  justice.  Seven  prisoners  only 
were  for  trial;  one  was  recorded  for  death,  one 
imprisoned,  two  acquitted,  and  against  the  three 
others  no  bills  were  found. — At  Denbigh  assizes^ 
one  prisoner  was  recorded  for  death,  two  were 
transported,  and  ten  imprisoned  ;  four  of  whom 
were  poachers. 

Died.]  At  Swansea,  79,  Captain  J.  Dalton.— 
At  Cwrneynn  (Carmarthen)  98.  J.  Thomas,  one  of 
the  Society  of  Friends.— At  Cardiff,  78,  Alderman 
Morgan. — At  Tenby,  Henrietta,  wife  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Strickland,  bavt.— At  Aberystvvith,  98,  Mr. 
J.  Evans. — At  Llanbadurn-i'awr,  Rev.  B.  Mor- 
gan, perpetual  curate  of  St.  Michael's,  Aberyst- 
with;  he  was  75,  and  had  performed  the  duties  of 
minister  at  that  place  upwards  of  40  years  ;  he  had 
likewise  been  a  vicar  of  Llanychairon,  Cardigan, 
for  many  years. 

SCOTLAND. 

Business  of  every  description  still  continues  in  a 
state  of  extraordinary  depression.  Several  of  the 
cotton  works,  it  is  feared,  will  be  reduced  to  half 
time,  unless  the  wages  paid  for  spinning  are  ma- 
terially lowered.  Stocks  are  rapidly  accumulating, 
and  there  is  no  prospect  of  an  early  market  or 
better  prices.  The  weavers  are  in  a  state  of 
dreadful  destitution.  They  are  eking  out  a  most 
wretched  existence  by  incessant  toil,  and  have  not 
now  a  single  ray  of  hope  that  their  condition  will 


soon  be  bettered.  The  state  of  the  industrious 
classes  is  well  calculated  to  excite  alarm.  The 
distress,  if  possible,  is  increased.  Men,  who  were 
long  out  of  work,  and  expected  to  be  employed  in 
spring,  cannot  get  a  situation  of  any  kind.  The 
distribution  of  provisions,  by  the  Relief  Commit- 
tee, having  almost  ceased,  has  thrown  the  depen- 
dants en  that  fund  into  the  general  mass  of  misery. 
It  is  allowed  on  all  hands  that  retail  business  has 
been  gradually  worse  since  the  beginning  of  the 
year,  and  may  be  said  to  have  reached  its  lowest 
ebb.  The  shop-keepers  and  spirit-dealers,  parti- 
cularly in  the  suburbs,  never  felt  such  times — 
many  of  them  are  ruined  by  the  poverty  of  their 
customers,  and  consequent  bad  debts.— 300  indi- 
viduals are  now  on  board  two  vessels  in  the  Clyde, 
waiting  for  a  fair  wind  to  sail  for  America. 

Married.]  At  Edinburgh,  Sir  Thomas  Wol- 
laston  White,  bart.,  to  Miss  M.  Ramsay. 

Died.]  At  Edinburgh,  whither  he  had  gone  from 
Durham  to  consult  physicians,  65,  the  Rev.  Dr.  C. 
H.  Hall,  Dean  of  Durham. 

IRELAND. 

The  Catholics  in  Ireland  are  signing  petitions  to 
convene  a  general  meeting  for  again  bringing  their 
claims  before  Parliament  during  the  present  ses- 
sion, soon  after  the  recess. 

The  calendar  of  .prisoners  for  trial  at  the  assizes 
for  the  county  of  Tipperary,  enumerates  not  less 
than  365  prisoners,  85  of  whom  are  for  murder  ; 
and  the  state  of  the  county  is  dreadful.  During  the 
assizes,  an  armed  party  of  ruffians  set  tire  to  the 
house  of  a  man  named  Tierney,  near  Cashel,  and( 
on  his  attempting  to  escape,  the  assassins  shot 
him  dead.  Another  party  set  fire  to  the  house  of 
John  Mannin,  near  Ballybough  (apparently  from 
motives  of  revenge),  when  his  wife  perished  in  the 
flames.  At  the  above  assizes  the  principal  in  the 
horrible  murder  of  the  Sheas  was  found  guilty,  and 
ordered  for  execution  ;  and  five  of  the  murderers 
of  Mr.  J.  Barry  were  sentenced  to  be  hanged  at 
the  place  where  they  committed  the  murder. 

Our  readers  will  recollect  that  the  burning  of  the 
Sheas  was  committed  on  the  19th  of  November 
1821,  at  Tubber  ;  and  that  for  a  length  of  time, 
such  was  the  enormity  of  the  crime,  such  the  se- 
crecy that  attended  and  followed  its  commission, 
that  a  general  belief  prevailed  that  the  deaths 
were  the  result  of  accident.  However,  all  doubt 
soon  ceased,  and  a  full  and  particular  account  was 
soon  made  public.  When  the  house  was  attacked 
by  an  armed  banditti,  there  were  27  inmates  ;  it 
was  set  fire  to,  and  every  human  being  in  it  perish- 
ed !  Escape  was  prevented,  and,  for  fear  the  fire 
should  not  do  its  duty,  a  constant  firing  of  shot 
was  kept  up,  and  several  bodies  appeared  to  have 
been  pierced  by  the  shots. 

The  Emigration  Committee,  in  their  recent  re- 
port, observe  that  no  advantage  can  be  expected 
"from  any  system  of  emigration  which  does  not 
primarily  apply  to  Ireland,  whose  population,  un- 
less some  outlet  be  opened  to  them,  must  shortly 
fill  up  every  vacuum  created  in  England  or  in 
Scotland,  and  reduce  the  labouring  classes  to  a 
uniform  state  of  degradation  and  misery! !" 

Married]  At  Dublin.  Sir  Robert  Gore  Booth, 
bart.,  to  the  Hon.  Caroline  King,  second  daugh- 
ter to  Viscount  Lorton. — At  Darralick,  near 
Enniskillen.  Mr.  J.  Campbell,  80,  to  Miss  M. 
Magnire,  18. 

Died]  At  Beechmount,  Tipperary,  S3,  John 
Godfrey,  deputy-lieutenant,  and  the  oldest  magis- 
trate in  the  county. 


DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 
From  thd  2J/A  of  March   to  the  -25th  of  April  1827. 


1 

Bank 
Stock. 

3  Pr.  Ct 

Red. 

3  Pr.  (  t. 

Consols. 

SJPr.Ct. 

Consols. 

3iPr.Ct. 
Red. 

N4Pr.C. 

Ann. 

Lontf 
Annuities. 

India 
Stock. 

India 
Bonds. 

Exch. 

.Bills. 

Consul^. 
for  Ace. 

26 
27 



— 

si  i 

— 

__ 

97 
97 

J 

—  ' 



59  60  p 
59  61p 

39  4()p 
40  42p 

82*    4 

28 

— 

—  - 

82|    f 

— 

— 

97 

U8i 

—  . 

— 

Gl  62p 

40  42p 

29 
30 

_ 

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81$    J 



_ 

97 
97* 

98 
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— 

62p 
61  62p 

40.42p    82}    | 
41  4:<p    824    1 

31 

— 

— 

82$ 

— 

— 

9'  Jf    i 

— 

— 

62p 

41  42p 

82$    1 

Apr. 

1 



___ 

__ 

_ 

_ 

___ 

2 

— 

— 

82^ 

— 

— 

97s 

98 



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63p 

41  44p 

82i     a 

3 
4 





82i    i 

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— 

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64  p 
6566p 

4345p 
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82.J?     i 

5 

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Sl^  82 

1 

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87*  88i 
87?  88 

97 

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19     1-16      £ 
19     1-16 



66  67  p 
67  68  p 
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45  47  p 
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9 

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99 

19     1-16  3-l.i 

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46  -17p 

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12 
13 

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88.|    | 

99 

19     1-16  3-16 

2461247 

68  70  p 

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14 
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821  5    z 

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21 
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4647p 
46  48  p 
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83      £ 

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2461J 

68  69p 

45  46  p 

**-. 

E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  2,  Cornhill  and  Lombard  Street. 


MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  March  Wth  to  19th  April  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50,  High  Holbein. 


i 

Tlierm. 

Barometer. 

De  Luc's 
Hygro. 

Winds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

a 

a 

s 

o 

as 

9  A.  M. 

10  P.M. 

a 

a 

9  A.  M. 

10  P.  M. 

9  A  M. 

2  P.  M. 

10  P.M. 

rt 

'3 

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s 

a 

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£ 

05 

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20 

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50 

54 

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30     1  1 

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96 

95 

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W 

Clo. 

Fair 

Clo. 

21 

I/ 

51 

54 

47 

29     95 

29     96 

97 

88 

W 

W 

— 

_ 

22 

57 

58 

46 

29     95 

29    97 

86 

87 

W 

W 

Fair 

Fine 

Fine 

23 

53 

58 

45 

2!)     97 

29    96 

84 

85 

WNW 

WNW 

— 

Clo. 

24 

56 

58 

4.1 

29     94 

29   yo 

78 

83 

W 

W 





Fine 

25 

51 

52 

35 

29    85 

30     03 

83 

75 

W 

WNW 

— 

— 

26 

40 

47 

37 

30     15 

30     04 

73 

74 

N 

SW 

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27 

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43 

51 

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29    85 

29     66 

81 

90 

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28 

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47 

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39 

1-9    55 

29     07 

89 

90 

w 

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_ 

— 

Rain 

29 

44 

50 

29     11 

29    24 

83 

81 

wsw 

SW 

Clo. 

__ 

Fine 

30 

42 

49 

39 

29    30 

29    61 

83 

92 

WNW 

NW 

Fair 

_ 

31 

45 

50 

41 

29    'JS 

3J    04 

78 

78 

N 

AW 

— 

— 

— 

April. 

44 

46 

15 

30    04 

30     01 

85 

97 

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SW 

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2 

48 

48 

48 

29    99 

29     99 

98 

89 

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wsw 

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3 

52 

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5 

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29    97 

29    92 

77 

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6 

63 

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29     92 

75 

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7 

53 

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78 

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11 

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13 

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14 

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3)     01 

72 

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N 

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15 

54 

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79 

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Rain 

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16 

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54 

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29     93 

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17 

47 

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29    «8 

86 

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THE 

MONTHLY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  III.]  JUNE,  1827.  [No.  18. 


THE    NEW    MINISTRY. 

"  When  I  said  I  would  die  a  bachelor,  I  did  never  think  I  should  live  until  I  were  married." 

SHAKSPKARE. 

ALL  questions  and  all  differences,  public  or  private,  during  the  last 
month,  have  been  merged  in  the  grand  political  question  —  Are  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  new  Government  has  been  formed  defensible,  and 
is  that  Government  likely  to  continue  ?  We  think  that  the  Government  is 
likely  to  continue  ;  and,  without  laying  claim  to  a  much  greater  share  of 
foresight  than  belongs  to  ordinary  people,  we  may  afford  to  say  that  the 
arrangements  which  have  lately  taken  place  have  done  any  thing  rather 
than  surprise  us.  The  "  impossibility  "  of  a  coalition  between  any  two 
political  parties  would  scarcely  ever  strike  us  as  a  very  decided  bar  to  their 
immediate  junction  and  alliance.  Indeed,  we  should  rather  be  inclined, 
generally,  as  soon  as  we  began  to  hear  that  such  a  connexion  was  "  unna- 
tural" and  "  unprecedented,"  to  conclude  that  it  was  known  to  be 
resolved  upon.  But,  besides  the  ready  and  ordinarily  available  manner  of 
effecting  political  alliances  —  the  sacrificing  "principle"  to  "place"  —  a 
means  of  reconciling  differences  perhaps  more  objectionable  as  unjus- 
tifiable in  the  parties  using  it,  than  as  likely  to  be  astonishing  to  thinking 
people  at  large  —  there  was  another  course  by  which  an  alliance  was  capa- 
ble of  being  agreed  upon  between  Mr.  Canning  and  the  Whig  members 
who  have  lately  gone  over  to  his  support,  which  was  no  way  degrading  to 
either  party  as  men  of  honour,  and  highly  creditable  to  both  as  practical 
politicians  and  men  of  business  ;  —  the  Whigs  might  agree  to  sacrifice  —  not 
"  principle  to  place,"  but  angry  recollections  and  party  feelings  to  "  prin- 
ciple ;"  and  this  is  the  course  which,  we  think  —  upon  cool  examination  —  it 
will  be  found  that  they  have  adopted.  . 

The  abandonment  of  a  "  declaration,"  however  —  even  although  it  be 
an  unwise  one  —  is  not  a  deed  which  can  be  performed  with  perfect  impu- 
nity ;  and,  indeed,  at  first  starting,  it  commonly  exposes  the  malefactor-  to 
almost  as  much  attack  and  ridicule  as  the  desertion  of  a  principle  could  GO. 

M.  M.  New  Series.—  VOL.  III.  No.  18.  4  D 


570  The  New  Ministry.  [JUNE, 


And,  unquestionably,  it  is  a  state  of  things  extremely  laughable,  and  a 
good  fair  illustration  of  the  true  value  of  political  and  party  tirade  and 
invective,  to  see  Mr.  Canning  now  supported,  and  lauded  to  the  skies,  by 
men  who,  for  years  past,  have  been  almost  nightly  engaged  in  personal 
hostility  with  himself,  and  constantly  inveterately  opposed  to  the  govern- 
ment with  which  he  was  identified.  It  is  not  only  a  fair  subject  for  joke, 
but  a  sound  lesson  of  the  very  cautious  reliance  which  ought  to  be  placed 
upon  the  declarations  of  men  who  speak  and  argue  for  a  particular  object, 
when  we  find  the  ministerial  benches  of  the  House  of  Commons  filled  as 
they  are  filled  at  present.  When  we  find  that  Mr.  Tierney,  who  swore 
that  he  "  never  would  take  office,  unless  subject  to  the  grant  of  Parlia- 
mentary Reform,"  joining  the  government  of  Mr.  Canning,  who  avows 
that,  as  long  as  he  lives,  that  measure  "  shall  have  his  opposition." 
When  Mr.  Brougham,  who  has  a  great  deal  more  to  answer  for  in  the 
way  of  "  pledge  "  even  than  Mr.  Tierney,  takes  his  seat  behind  that  right 
honourable  gentleman  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  whom,  as  Foreign 
Secretary,  he  accused  of  "  truckling  for  office,"  in  such  furious  and  unqua- 
lified terms,  as  induced  the  right  honourable  gentleman  to  retort,  in  other 
terms,  better  suited  perhaps  to  his  own  warm  and  rather  hasty  temper,  than 
to  the  gravity  and  decorum  of  the  place  in  which  he  sat.  And,  again, 
when  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  who  walked  out  of  the  House  of  Commons 
but  a  few  years  since,  when  the  question  of  "  Catholic  claims  "  came  on, 
because  the  "touching  that  question,"  unless  ministers  were  prepared  to 
"  make  a  cabinet  question  of  it,"  was  no  better  than  "  a  farce,"  now 
supports  an  administration  which  refuses  to  bring  on  the  Catholic  Question 
in  any  shape  at  present,  and  by  which  the  fact  that  it  is  not  meant  at  any 
time  to  be  brought  on,  as  a  "  cabinet  question,"  is  declared.  All  these 
retirements  from,  or  disrememb ranees  of,  political  "  declaration  "  and 
"  profession "  expose  those  concerned  in  them,  no  doubt,  to  a  certain 
quantity  of  obloquy  in  the  first  instance,  and  form  a  fair  subject  enough, 
under  any  circumstances,  for  quips  and  jests — except,  perhaps,  that  it  is 
not  a  very  new  one.  But  the  difference  between  the  abandonment  of 
"  words"  and  of  "  things"  is  one  which  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to 
lose  sight  of;  and  one,  indeed,  which  we  cannot  very  easily  lose  sight  of, 
because  it  is  quickly  indicated  in  the  result.  The  compromise  of  either, 
when  it  takes  place,  is  equally  sure  to  be  laughed  at ;  but  the  difference 
is  that,  where  the  waiver  applies  only  to  the  first,  with  the  momentary  ridi- 
cule, the  punishment  inflicted  ceases.  Every  man,  although  he  laughs  at  the 
Dilemma  of  the  party,  would  think  a  serious  accusation  founded  upon  it  a 
more  laughable  matter  still ;  and  is  perfectly  sensible  of  the  difference  that 
exists  between  the  abandonment  of  party  oaths  of  hatred  and  hostility, 
which  were  never  worth  intrinsically  twopence,  and  the  neglect  or  deser- 
tion of  those  practical  and  fundamental  principles  of  general  policy  which 
the  individual  concerned  had  professed,  and  which  it  would  be  impossible 
for  him,  without  degrading  his  personal  character,  and  forfeiting  the  con- 
fidence of  his  country,  to  depart  from. 
Because — 

"  Qui  n'aime  Cotin  n'estime  point  son  roi, 
Et  n'a,  selon  Cotin  ni  Dieu,  ni  roi,  ni  loi !" 

Who  is  there,  not  interested  in  the  misrepresentation  of  such  a  questi  on 
that  is  uot  aware  that  the  war  between  two  parties  in  the  House  of  Com- 


]827.]  The  New  Ministry.  671 

mons  is — not  a  war  "  for  love  or  money  " — but  for  both! — war  for  the  right 
— war  for  the  wrong— war  for  any  thing,  or  for  nothing — but  still  "  war 
to  the  knife!" — and  always — war! 

The  creed  of  the  member  out  of  office  lies  in  a  nut-shell :  "  So  long  as 
the  right  honourable  gentleman,  Mr.  A.,  and  his  friends,  shall  continue  to 
sit  on  the  Treasury-bench,  so  long  will  I,  who  sit  upon  the  opposite  one — - 
so  help  me  God,  and  the  B.  party — oppose  every  proposition  that  they 
bring  forward ! — unless  it  happens  to  be  one  so  absolutely  material  to  the 
safety  and  interests  of  the  country,  that  I  dare  not,  for  my  life  and  cha- 
racter, back  out  of  supporting  it." — "  I  have  two  causes — sound  and  excel- 
lent— of  Opposition :— I  love  my  country's  good  ;  and  I  want  to  displace 
the  right  honourable  gentleman  who  is  now  at  the  head  of  his  Majesty's 
government" — "  So  long  as  he  occupies  that  place,  and  enjoys  the  emolu- 
ments of  it,  I  hate  him— and  every  thing  about  him — from  the  buckle  of 
his  perriwig  down  to  his  shoe-tie  !" — "  Sitting  where  he  does/ on  the  rjght 
hand  of  the  Speaker,  what  can  he  be — I  ask  the  House — but  a  sycophant,  a 
despot,  a  satrap,  and  a  servile  ?" — "  I  see  assumption  and  ambition  even 
in  the  tone  in  which  he. blows  his  nose  !  He  looks  two  ways  at  once—- 
equivocation and  double  meaning — every  time  he  puts  on  his  spectacles  ! 
Let  the  House  ask  itself,  when  it  sees  him  dip  his  finger  and  thumb  into 
his  snuff-box,  how  much  oftener  his  whole  hand  is  dipped  into  the  public 
purse  ?  How  he  ever  pours  out  a  glass  of  claret  at  a  cabinet  dinner  amazes 
me,  without  seeing  the  spirit  of  *  wronged  and  bleeding  Ireland '  rising  to 
put  an  empty  whiskey-bottle  into  his  hand !  He  never  sucks  an  orange 
before  he  rises  to  make  a  *  statement/  but  I  think  how  his  '  minions  '  are. 
'  day  after  day/  squeezing  out  the  vitals,  and  property,  and  interests  of  the 
country  !  And  every  thump  that  he  strikes,  in  the  course  of  his  two  hours' 
no-meaning  speeches  upon  the  '  box '  of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  on 
the  table — is  a  new  blow  given  to  the  rights  and  to  the  '  constitutional 
liberties '  of  the  people  !" 

This  is  the  intent  and  spirit  of  two-thirds  of  that  which  is  spoken  in 
Parliamentary  warfare.  Violence,  exaggerated  profession,  and  ultra 
Utopian  doctrine  have  been,  since  political  memory,  the  admitted  rights 
and  properties  of  an  '*  Opposition."  Practical  men  receive  all  that  they 
say,  with  a  deduction  of  sixty  parts  in  the  hundred,  and  a  very  cautious 
examination  of  the  remainder.  Perhaps  an  Opposition  which  took,  upon 
the  average,  one  tithe  by  its  motions  of  that  which  it  went  for,  would  be 
successful  beyond  its  own  comprehension.  But  we  should  be  disposed  to 
go  farther  than  this.  The  scope  and  limitation  which  we  are  describing 
here,  we  think,  is  by  no  means  exclusively  assumed  by  the  parties  in 
Opposition.  The  declarations  which  are  now  quoted — as  so  many  pledges 
which  they  have  deserted,  and  which  they  were  bound  to  redeem — out  of 
the  mouths  of  the  Whig  party,  were  uttered  in  the  heat  of  controversy — in 
the  fury,  very  often,  of  personal  hostily  and  debate — in  long  and  laboured 
"  speeches,"  which  were  made  at  least  as  much  for  victory  over  the  oppo- 
nent, as  for  the  truth  and  fairness  of  the  question  ;  and — that  which  is  still 
more — made  by  men,  who  were  aiming  to  dazzle  as  much  as  to  convince ; 
who  were  contending  for  the  prize  of  wit — of  eloquence — of  intellectual 
superiority — far  more  than  for  the  particular  "  bill"  or  "  resolution"  before 
the  House — excited  and  urged  on  by  the  presence  and  plaudits  of  the  first 
assembly  in  Europe — perhaps  the  first  in  all  the  world !  And  we  believe 
we  might  lay  it  down  as  a  truth  not  to  be  controverted,  that  there  scarcely 

4  D  2 


572  The  New  Ministry.  [JUNE, 

ever  was  a  "  crack  "  oration — a  two  hours'  speed),  full  of  eloquence  and 
brilliancy — made  upon  any  side  of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  upon  any 
subject  not  purely  and  essentially,  and  in  detail,  one  of  commerce  and 
"  business  !" — from  the  passionate  and  unrebuked  appeals  to  the  House  of 
the  honourable  haronet,  the  member  for  Westminster — whose  addresses  of 
late  years  are  so  hasty  and  incoherent,  that  even  the  occasional  streams  of 
real  eloquence  and  beauty  which  burst  forth  in  them  would  scarcely  secure 
their  being  listened  to,  were  it  not  for  the  high  constitutional  English  spirit 
with  which  they  are  embued — and  that  the  argument,  rambling  and  dis- 
connected as  it  is,  has  always  the  charm  of  being  obviously  fresh  and  unpre- 
meditated ; — from  these  wild  and  rash,  but  never  rude  or  discourteous,  cavalry 
reconnaissances  of  the  member  for  Westminster, to  the  fierce,  storm-menacing, 
mischief-raising,  attacks  of  the  learned  member  for  Winchelsea ! — whose 
war-cry,  like  the  arms  of  the  single  soldier  who  captured  his  enemies  by  "  sur- 
rounding" them,  seems  to  threaten  his  antagonists  always  from  forty  points 
of  the  compass  at  once ! — whose  charge  comes  on  with  the  sweeping  rush  of 
a  cloud  of  light-armed  Arabs,  or  a  whole  nation  of  tomahawk-armed 
American  Indians — startling,  overwhelming,  irregular,  and  remorseless — 
careless  of  safety — incessantly  various  of  weapon  as  of  position — unsparing, 
unintermitting — from  the  morning,  when  the  sword  is  first  drawn,  to  the 
evening,  when  the  scabbard  is  looked  for  (which  was  thrown  away) — and 
always  in  attack  ! — whose  fire  seems  to  come  upon  the  House,  not  by 
broadsides  or  discharges  of  platoons — not  as  the  work  of  one  man's  will, 
or  the  dealing  of  one  man's  hand — but  as  the  irregular  exertion  and  inde- 
pendent imagination  of  twenty  men  at  once — -making  the  whole  area  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  as  it  were,  one  great  field  of  battle,  in  which  a 
two-edged  sword  is  whirling  round,  dealing  great  gashes  right  and  left — 
not  to  speak  of  a  left  hand  betimes  at  work  with  a  dagger,  or  throwing  up 
rockets,  shells,  grenades,  petards — no  matter  what — but  always  something 
of  danger ;  and  dealing  all  so  carelessly  or  desperately,  that  allies  had  need 
to  look  sharp  with  shield  and  helmet,  or  they  (as  well  as  enemies)  may 
chance  of  some  mischief  in  the  mellay ! — and,  again,  from  these  extraor- 
dinary, almost  semi-barbarous,  displays  of  strength  of  Mr.  Brougham — 
the  splendour  of  which,  combined  with  the  eccentricity,  renders  them 
perhaps  the  most  interesting  that  are  to  be  witnessed  in  the  House  of 
Commons — to  the  more  scholastic  and  courtly  exhibitions  of  civilized  gla- 
diatorship  of  Mr.  Canning ! — whose  style  and  temperament,  though  equally 
bold,  and  even  more  violent,  than  that  of  4iis  honourable  and  learned  late 
opponent  and  present  colleague,  has  less,  outwardly,  of  bitterness  and 
seeming  delight  in  misanthropic  irony  than  that  of  the  member  for  Win- 
chelsea in  it ! — and  who  sets  out  in  the  battle  always — not  like  a  partisan, 
or  a  Croat  or  Pandour  leader — but  as  a  British  general, — who  has  his  self- 
command  entire,  and  all  his  arrangements  made,  to  a  hair,  before  he 
enters  the  field ! — his  reserve  posted — his  power  duly  marshalled  and  dis- 
tributed— his  artillery  in  front,  to  meet  the  enemy's  charge — his  cavalry 
ready,  to  take  advantage  of  their  first  moment  of  disorder — and  then  sounds 
trumpet  to  "  advance!"  as  though  he  felt  the  eyes  of  Europe  were  upon 
him  ! — From  the  harangues  of  the  first  of  these  orators — who  never  thinks 
or  cares  what  it  is  he  says;  to  those  of  the  second — whom  opposition,  the 
mere  spirit  of  controversy  and  contradiction,  will  lead  to  say  almost  any 
thing ;  and,  again,  to  those  of  the  third,  who  is  betrayed  (where  he  does 
fail)  by  the  excitation  and  triumph  attendant  upon  success,  arid  whose 


- 1  S27.J  The  New  Ministry.  573 

imprudent  friends  may  always  do  him  more  mischief  by  their  cheers  and 
encouragement,  than  his  open  foes  will  by  the  hardest  and  heaviest  blows 
they  can  deal  against  him; — throughout  the  whole  career  of  these  three 
statesmen,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  we  should  doubt  if  ever  a  very  long 
and  very  striking  parliamentary  speech  had  been  delivered  by  either  which 
did  not  contain  many  statements  which  the  speaker  never  could  abide  by : 
-—many  things  which  he  would  be  very  glad  (the  moment  his  speech  was 
over)  to  retract — some  which  he  must  eventually — having  no  choice  at  all 
about  it — abandon;  and  not  unfrequently  some,  which,  having  uttered, 
he  cannot  retract,  but  which  remain  on  record,  to  do  mischief,  both  to  him- 
self  and  to  the  cause  which  he  has  supported. 

This  is  the  real  state  of  discussion  in  the  great  legislative  assembly  of 
Great  Britain.  But,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  mass  of  daily  menace  and 
profession,  which  means  almost  nothing,  and  which  flies  out,  partly  pro- 
voked by  party  spirit,  partly  by  personal  hostility  or  pique,  but  very  often  by 
the  mere  spirit  of  controversy,  subject  to  which  a  speaker  in  Parliament 
must  deliver  himself, — in  the  midst  of  all  this,  there  is  still  a  declared  and 
understood  disposition  always  and  opinion  about  every  leading  man  on  every 
side,  with  reference  to  practical  questions  and  general  principles  of  policy, 
from  which  no  set  of  men  can  swerve  without  the  loss  of  personal  credit  and 
political  reputation.  And  the  question  is — Have  those  leaders  or  members 
of  the  Whig  party,  who  have  lately  coalesced  with  Mr.  Canning's  adminis- 
tration, abandoned  or  swerved  from  any  such  general  principles  or  practical 
opinions  ?  We  think  that  they  have  not. 

The  only  point  to  which  the  country  will  look,  and  the  only  point  really 
worth  looking  to,  is  this — Does  that  junction  which  has  taken  place 
between  the  Whigs  and  Mr.  Canning  tend  to  advance  those  general  prin- 
ciples of  policy  which  the  Whigs  have  been  in  the  habit  of  advocating ;  or 
is  its  tendency  to  stifle  and  retard  them  ?  It  is  impossible  to  answer  this 
question,  except  by  saying  that  such  a  junction  does  tend  most  materially 
to  advance  those  principles — some  of  them,  at  least,  if  not  the  whole ;  and 
that  it  was  the  only  visible  arrangement  by  which  they  could  be  advanced, 
or  even  kept  from  retrograding.  Upon  the  face  of  the  affair,  indeed,  it  seems 
almost  absurd  to  suppose  any  doubt  can  exist  as  to  such  a  question.  Is  a 
government,  composed  of  Mr.  Canning,  Lord  Goderich,  Mr.  Huskisson,  and 
Lord  Plunkett — supported  by  Mr.  Brougham,  Mr.  Tierney,  and  Sir  Francis 
Burdett  (even  supposing  the  two  first  of  these  gentlemen  not  to  take  office) 
— sustained  and  accredited  by  Lord  Althorp,  Lord  Milton,  Lord  Nugent, 
Mr.  Hobhouse,  Sir  John  Newport,  and  Sir  James  Mackintosh — almost 
every  individual  of  influence  belonging  to  the  Whig  party  in  the  House  of 
Commons — not  to  speak  of  its  support  (which  is  pretty  nearly,  however, 
undoubted)  from  the  same  party  in  the  House  of  Lords  : — is  such  a  govern- 
ment more  likely  to  carry,  for  example,  the  question  of  u  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation," than  a  ministry  led  by  the  late  Lord  Chancellor,  Mr.  Peel,  Mr. 
Dawson,  and  Mr.  Goulburn — persons,  tooth  and  nail, — by  every  pledge  that 
words  or  acts  can  give — even  to  the  very  resignation  of  office  in  preference 
to  enduring  it — opposed  to  such  a  measure  ?  We  repeat,  that  it  seems 
almost  like  absurdity  to  put  such  a  question.  The  argument  of  Sir  Francis 
Burdett — of  Lord  Althorpe  (whose  short  speeches  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons contain  more  matter  than  many  long  ones)  ;  the  argument  of  Mr. 
Brougham — of  Lord  Nugent — in  fact,  of  the  Whigs  generally  —  is 
unanswerable.  "  If  there  was  any  doubt,  on  the  commencement  of  the  new 


574  The  New  Ministry.  [JUNE, 

arrangements,  as  to  which  side  the  Whigs  ought  to  take,  Mr.  Peel's  own 
speech,  on  the  first  night  when  the  House  assembled,  must  have  put  an 
end  to  it."  The  confidence  in  Mr.  Canning's  "  liberal"  intentions,  which 
compels  you — the  Tories — to  go  out,  must  make  it  our  duty — the  Whigs 
— to  come  in.  Why  have  you — Mr.  Peel  and  Lord  Eldon — according  to 
your  own  account,  resigned  ?  Why,  but  because  you  think  the  very  mea- 
sures certain  to  be  carried  under  the  new  government  upon  which  I — Sir 
Francis  Burdett — have  built  my  faith  ?  Why,  then,  what  contemptible 
•apologists  would  the  Whigs  be  for  legislators  !  what  claim  could  they  ever 
set  up  again  to  the  character  even  of  sane  and  reasonable  men,  far  less  of 
•statesmen  !  if,  for  the  sake  of  a  form,  a  manner,  a  ceremony,  a  degree — 
for  the  sake  of  the  words  in  which  they  have  urged  their  principles — they 
were  to  abandon  those  principles  themselves  ! 

To  rest  the  case  entirely  upon  this  last  point — which  is,  perhaps,  the 
real  one.  What  asses  must  men  be  to  say, — "  Because  we  cannot  get  twenty 
shillings  in  the  pound  for  the  debt  (as  we  consider  it)  due  to  the  country, 
therefore  we  will  give  up  our  claim  entirely." — "  We  cannot  get  the  whole 
amount  at  once ;  and  therefore  we  will  not  take  fifteen  shillings  in  cash — 
which  is  tendered  to  us — without  prejudice  to  our  recovery  (whenever  we 
can  get  them)  of  the  other  five."  No !  as  we  cannot  get  all,  we  will  have 
nothing.  As  we  cannot  get  "  Parliamentary  Reform,"  we  will  give  up 
"  Catholic  Emancipation."  We  will  suffer  the  administration  of  Mr.  Can- 
ning to  break  down,  because  he  does  not  agree  with  us  quite  in  every 
thing;  in  order  to  let  in  that  of  Lord  Eldon,  who  coincides  with  us  in 
nothing! 

This  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  the  Whig  members  who  have 
joined  government  were  placed  ;  and  upon  that  state  of  things  we  are  con- 
tent to  take  our  stand  for  their  entire  justification.  It  is  mere  nonsense  to 
talk  of  compelling  any  set  of  men,  by  a  reference  to  words — and  to  words, 
too,  taken  in  their  literal  signification  and  interpretation,  which  is  very 
often  the  most  unfair  mode  of  reading  them  that  can  be  adopted — to  do 
acts,  which  would  stamp  them  as  ideots,  or  compromise  their  trust  to  the 
community.  If  we  did  put  forth  an  exaggerated  or  impracticable  opinion 
yesterday — why,  let  it  be  our  offence  ;  we  will  not  act  upon  it  to-day. 
The  question  is — not  what  has  any  body  said — but  what  should  be  done 
now  for  the  general  advantage.  The  Whig  party,  not  being  able  to  get 
the  whole  of  their  measures  supported,  have  embraced  an  opportunity  which 
seems  to  promise  the  carrying  of  the  most  pressing  of  them ;  and  the 
new  government  refuses  to  deal  with  the  cause  which  it  particularly  desires 
to  promote  in  that  manner  which  would  be  quite  certain  to  ensure  its 
destruction; — this  is  the  whole  story  of  the  "  abandonment  of  pledge  and 
principle." 

The  new  administration  is  not,  it  is  said,  to  make  Catholic  Eman- 
cipation a  cabinet  question.  Why,  grant  the  fact :  —  the  other  par- 
ties (as  Lord  Althorpe  very  truly  observes)  did  make  it  a  cabinet  question 
— "  the  wrong  way."  The  new  ministers  are  not  disposed  to  bring  on  the 
Catholic  Question  immediately.  Surely  not;  they  must  be  mad  if  they 
were  :  for  they  know  that  the  policy  of  the  old  ministers,  aided  by  the  impa- 
tience and  absurdity  of  the  Catholics  themselves,  has  made  it  utterly  impos- 
•sible  that  the  question  should  be  carried  immediately.  There  exists  no 
•difference  between  the  opinions  which  Mr.  Canning  professed  as  to  the 
iit  mode  of  treating  the  Catholic  Question  three  years  ago  and  that  which  he 


1827.]  The  New  Ministry*  575 

gives  at  the  present  time.  To  Mr.  Brougham's  question  in  1825, — "  What 
had  a  minister  to  fear  [upon  the  Catholic  Question],  with  that  House,  those 
benches  [the  Opposition]  and  all  England  at  his  back  ?" — the  right  hon. 
gentleman  replied  by  another  question, — "  What  would  a  minister  do  with 
only  those  benches,*  and  no  England  at  his  back  ?"  Mr.  Canning  knew, 
or  believed,  in  1825,  that,  in  the  temper  of  the  country,  to  carry  the 
claims  of  the  Catholics  was  impracticable.  The  Catholic  cause  stands  far 
worse  (in  England)  now  than  it  did  in  1825.  In  that  year,  a  majority  of 
twenty-seven  carried  the  question  through  the  House  of  Commons  :  not  a 
month  since,  a  majority  of  four  in  the  House  of  Commons  voted  against  it. 
The  only  symptom  of  reasonableness  which  we  have  observed  for  years 
on  the  part  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland — and  it  is  a  symptom  frora^  which 
we  augur  very  favourably—is,' — that  they  have  not  run  away  with  the 
absurd  supposition  that  the  mere  giving  of  the  Treasury  votes  into  Mr. 
Canning's  disposition,  could  enable  him  suddenly  to  carry  the  question  of 
their  claims,  in  opposition— we  state  the  fact  without  hesitation — to  the 
feelings  of  the  country. 

Even  a  minister  must  work  by  "wit,"  and  not  by  "witchcraft." 
<(  Great  men  "  have  "  reaching  hands ;"  but  those  hands  cannot  be  all 
over  a  country  at  once,  and  at  work  on  five  hundred  different  parts  of  it 
at  the  same  moment.  The  new  government,  whatever  its  wishes  and  dis- 
positions may  be,  must  have  time  to  feel  its  way.  A  very  moderately  com- 
petent architect,  every  man  knows,  can  build  a  church  or  a  palace,  if  we 
give  him  time ;  but,  if  we  discharge  every  architect  who  declines  to  build 
our  church  between  sunrise  and  sunset,  we  run  the  hazard  never  to  get  it 
built  at  all.  There  must  be  time  for  the  progress  even  of  "  corruption." 
There  must  be  time  for  the  stream  of  patronage  (which  has  hitherto  run 
all  one  way)  to  change  its  course ;  and  for  bishoprics  and  silk  gowns  to 
float  down  rather  to  the  friends  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  than  to  the 
known  opponents  of  that  measure.  Still  more,  of  necessity,  there  must  be 
time  for  the  power  that  dispenses  these  favours  to  gain  consistency — an 
opinion  in  the  public  mind  of  its  duration  :  Wise  men  are  cautious  even  of 
the  patronage  of  a  power,  that  did  but  come  in  yesterday — and  may  go 
out  to-morrow.  Time  must  elapse  before  sincere  and  steady  opponents 
can  be  convinced,  or  neutralized,  or  removed.  Some  little  time  even  before 
opinions  which  have  been  adverse  can  decently  be  changed.  Perhaps  even 
a  whole  year  or  two,  before  every  tax-gatherer  and  petty  placeman  in  the 
country — rather  more  than  one  out  of  every  ten  persons — and  every  clerk 
in  office  (without  exception) — will  feel  himself  as  naturally  becoming  an 
advocate  of  Catholic  Emancipation, — and  with  just  as  much  understanding 
of  the  value  or  merits  of  the  question — as  he  is  now  opposed  to  it.  At  least, 
this  fact  is  most  transparent  and  certain — Any  impatience  evinced  on  the 
part  of  the  Catholic  body  now,  can  have  no  other  effect  than  that  of,  at 
least,  deferring  the  accomplishment  of  their  hopes  indefinitely — perhaps  of 
destroying  them  for  ever.  Because,  whatever  their  chance  of  success  may 
be — good  or  bad — under  the  present  ministers,  that  is  the  only  chance  they 
have.  If  the  existing  ministers  do  not  exert  themselves  strenuously  and 
zealously,  with  heart  and  voice,  to  carry  their  question,  then  they  will  be 
deeply  and  treacherously  wronged,  and  their  affected  advocates  will  be 
disgraced  ;  but  they  have  no  iota  of  ground — at  least  as  yet — for  suspecting 
the  intentions  of  the  existing  ministers ;  and  they  know  the  opinions  of 
their  opponents. 


670  The  New  Ministry.  [JUNF? 

Then,  apart  from  that  which  seemed,  a  fortnight  ago,  the  possible  folly 
of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland — who  might,  by  an  act  of  desperate  folly,  have 
been  led  to  draw  their  friends  along  with  them  into  the  pit,  instead  of  giving 
time  to  the  latter  to  draw  them  out  of  it — apart  from  this  peril  (which  has 
gone  by),  of  the  stability  of  the  New  Ministry  we  should  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  entertain  a  doubt. 

For,  unless  we  were  to  take  in  a  Whig  ministry  entirely,  —  which 
would  not  be  much  more  pleasing  to  the  parties  now  in  opposition  than 
the  existing  arrangement, — where,  if  we  dissolve  the  existing  Adminis- 
tration, is  the  country  to  look  for  another  ? 

It  can  scarcely  be  supposed  that  Lord  Eldon,  and  Mr.  Peel,  and 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  Lord  Westmoreland,  would  ever  consent 
to  hold  office  with  the  present  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  again.  Their 
going  out,  as  it  seems  to  us,  has  done  nothing  but  honour  to  their  public 
principle  and  their  private  firmness.  And  the  manner  of  it —for  as  to  the 
motive  there  can  be  no  question — no  doubt  they  would  have  sustained. 
their  policy,  and  remained  in  office,  if  they  could  have  done  so,  and  it 
would  be  very  new  to  impute  any  blame  to  them  for  such  a  desire — the 
manner  of  their  secession  has  been  most  unfairly  and  scandalously  mis- 
represented. As  regards  the  late  Lord  Chancellor  in  particular,  the  seces- 
sion of  that  noble  lord  has  served  to  shew,  that — however  desirous  he  may 
have  been  esteemed  to  hold  his  place — that  desire  did  not  weigh  with  him 
one  moment,  when  his  political  honour  and  consistency  seemed  to  demand 
that  he  should  resign  it.  But,  still,  for  the  high  Tory  party  to  come  back 
with  Mr.  Canning  is  hardly  possible,  and  would  be  hardly  creditable  ;  and 
of  the  high  Tory  party,  without  his  assistance,  it  would  scarcely  be  possible 
to  form  an  administration  which  should  satisfy  the  country.  Mr.  Canning 
is  the  best  minister  of  business  that  the  political  circles  of  the  day  can 
furnish.  We  do  justice  to  the  talents  of  Lord  Eldon,  but  he  is  a  disciple 
of  a  school  of  politics  that  has  gone  by ;  and — that  which  is  hardly  less  to 
the  purpose — his  lordship  could  hardly  remain  a  great  while  longer  avail- 
able for  public  duties.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  we  believe,  has  been 
most  unfairly  judged  of — we  are  sure  that  he  has  been  most  unfairly  spoken 
of — touching  both  his  personal  character  and  his  claims  upon  the  country. 
The  affected  depreciation  which  has  appeared  in  some  quarters  of  the  noble 
duke's  talents,  we  hold  to  be  absurd ;  the  obloquy  that  has  been  attempted 
to  be  cast  upon  his  feelings  and  motives  in  his  late  secession,  is  mean  and 
ungenerous.  We  think  that  he  has  a  title — if  ever  any  man  had,  or  could 
have  one — to  speak,  and  in  direct  terms,  of  the  services  that  he  has  rendered 
to  this  country ; — but  we  do  not  think  he  could  have  filled  the  place  of 
Lord  Liverpool.  In  fact,  the  duke  himself,  we  suspect,  if  we  had  the 
means  of  knowing  his  feelings,  will  be  pretty  nearly  of  this  opinion  ;  and 
we  rely  most  confidently  that  he  will  never  allow  his  opposition  to  go  one 
point  beyond  that  which  he  believes  to  be  for  the  public  advantage.  It 
has  been  asked,  by  those  who  are  hostile  to  the  new  administration, — • 
"  Could  Mr.  Canning,  if  a  war  should  arise,  after  what  has  happened, 
expect  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to  accept  employment  ?"  We  feel  certain, 
not  only  that  Mr.  Canning,  or  any  other  minister  for  the  time  being,  might 
expect  this — but  we  are  sure  that  he  would  not  be  disappointed.  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  will  not  fail  to  recollect,  that,  if  he  has  some  share  of 
political  and  personal  attack  to  complain  of,  yet  still,  in  the  main,  ample 
and  liberal  justice  has  been  done  him  by  the  country.  Honours,  and 
wealth,  and  offices  have  descended  upon  him,  not  in  greater  profusion  than 


1827.]  The  New  Miniatti/.  577 

his  services  merited,  but  still  in  very  large  and  copious  abundance.  He 
has  not,  certainly,  been  personally  popular  with  the  country ;  but  he  will 
remember  that  a  character  decidedly  military  is  never  well  calculated  to 
be  a  favourite  with  the  English  people.  They  are  better  prepared  always 
to  do  justice  to  its  claims  than  to  be  in  love  with  it.  But,  in  his  case,  that 
justice  lias  been  most  freely  accorded.  No  grants  or  remunerations,  whether 
in  the  way  of  pecuniary  reward  or  rank,  have  been  viewed  with  more 
pleasure,  or  with  a  readier  sense  of  their  fitness,  by  the  people  of  England, 
than  those  which,  from  time  to  time,  have  been  bestowed  upon  the  Duke 
of  Wellington. 

But — to  return  to  our  argument — passing  his  grace  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington and  the  late  Lord  Chancellor,  there  is  no  one  left  on  the  high  Tory 
side  to  do  any  thing  with  as  a  minister  but  Mr.  Peel ;  and  Mr.  Peel, 
although  he  is  a  valuable  man  in  the  House  of  Commons,  yet  still  he  is 
not — say  in  experience  alone — at  all  Mr.  Canning's  equal ;  and,  moreover, 
his  views  and  opinions  upon  some  subjects  have  a  touch  of  the  fault  belonging 
to  those  of  Lord  Eldon  :  they  are  of  a  school  of  policy  that  is  (in  our  opinion) 
upon  the  wane.  Lord  Liverpool,  the  late  Lord  Chancellor,  the  late  Marquis 
of  Londonderry,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  Lord  Sidmouth — these  were 
a  party  of  politicians  formed  to  make  a  ministry  of  themselves.  The 
Marquis  of  Londonderry's  trust  was  in  steel ;  in  every  emergency  he  was 
ready  always  to  advise  "  strong  measures  ;" — Lord  Liverpool  could  reason 
upon  them  plausibly  and  ingeniously; — the  Lord  Chancellor,  as  a  lawyer, 
would  justify  them  ;  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  at  the  head  of  the 
troops,  would  carry  them  into  execution ;  and  Lord  Sidraouth — could  write 
to  the  magistrates.  No  knot  of  men  could  have  been  better  fitted  than 
these,  to  uphold  (as  long  as  it  could  be  upheld)  a  system  of  policy  which 
the  growing  information  of  the  age  was  every  day  more  and  more  rapidly 
going  on  to  undermine.  But  their  scheme  went  to  pieces  as  soon  as  their 
union  was  broken.  The  first  blow  it  received  was  from  the  death  of  the 
Marquis  of  Londonderry :  there  was  no  man  of  equal  tact  and  similar  prin- 
ciple could  be  found  to  fill  up  his  place. 

In  fact,  the  very  circumstances  which,  in  our  view,  render  the  existing 
ministry  so  unquestionably  strong,  go  of  themselves  to  make  the  formation 
of  any  other  almost  impossible.  The  present  administration — between 
those  who  compose  it  and  those  who  act  with  it — embraces  almost  all  the 
leading  talent  of  the  country;  and,  under  such  circumstances,  it  becomes 
difficult  to  perceive  how  even  passion  and  disappointment  can  lead  any  set 
of  men  to  question  its  stability.  The  "  Opposition"  is  nothing;  and  hardly 
can  be  any  thing,  because  it  cannot  be  united.  The  parties  out  are  a  few 
very  stern  and  scrupulous  Whigs,  and  a  body  of  ultra- Tories — men  who 
may  not  be  able  to  coalesce  with  the  government,  but  who  can  still  less 
have  any  thought  to  agree  with  one  another.  Lord  Grey  says  distinctly, 
that  the  Whigs  cannot  oppose.  He  says,  "  I  am  not,  by  any  means,  at 
all  points  satisfied  with  the  ministry ;  but  that  I  should  act  with  the 
'  Opposition  '  "  (meaning  the  Tory  party)  "  is  impossible.  I  differ  upon 
some  questions,  and  on  some  very  important  ones,  of  policy,  from  Mr. 
Canning ;  but,  from  Lord  Eldon,  f  am,  on  every  point,  *  far  as  the  poles 
asunder  !'  "  In  fact,  the  mere  course  of  the'debates  in  the  House  since 
Parliament  has  assembled,  sufficiently  shews  what  must  be  the  event.  The 
strength  of  the  seceding  party  was  tried,  and  found  to  be  a  reed  in  the  begin- 
ning and  it  has  been  growing  weaker  and  weaker  every  day.  There  were 

M.M.  New  Scries.— VOL.  III.  No.  18.  4  E 


578  The  New  Ministry.  [JUNE, 

four  men  whose  voices  commanded  attention  in  the  House  of  Commons  the 
instant  that  they  rose — Mr.  Canning,  Mr.  Brougham,  Sir  Francis  Burdett, 
and  Mr.  Tierney.  All  these  men  are  now  upon  the  ministerial  benches  : 
five-sixths  of  the  second-rate  talent  of  the  House  support  them  ;  and  they 
are  opposed,  literally — the  debates  will  shew  it — by  Mr.  Dawson  and  Sir 
Thomas  Lethbridge  !  Mr.  Dawson  is  an  acute,  clever  man,  as  a  third-rate 
politician.  Sir  Thomas  Lethbridge  is  a  gentleman  in  his  appearance  and 
manners,  and  a  man  of  the  most  unquestioned  personal  firmness  and  honour. 
But  Mr.  Brougham  gets  up,  after  their  fiercest  efforts — makes  a  speech 
rather  for  his  amusement  than  troubling  himself  with  the  question — and 
laughs  the  whole  phalanx — such  "  Opposition"  leaders,  and  their  support- 
ers— out  of  the  field. 

This  is  the  position  of  the  high  Tory  party — which  is  not  only  a  suffi- 
ciently embarrassing  one,  but  one  which  is  by  no  means  likely  to  improve  ; 
because  they  are  not  merely  weak  in  talent,  and,  as  we  believe,  in  nume- 
rical strength ;  but  their  hands  are,  in  a  great  measure,  tied — and  they  will 
discover  this — by  their  recent  different  situations.  The  topic  of  "  past 
declarations"  will  be  found,  we  suspect,  to  form  a  far  more  serious  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  the  Opposition  than  it  can  be  made  (at  least  at  present)  in  the 
way  of  ministers.  The  Catholic  question,  which  they  would  give  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  to  bring  on,  they  cannot  bring  on — because  the  object 
of  their  touching  it  would  be  too  transparent.  They  would  give  their 
salvation  to  have  the  question  tried ;  but  they  cannot  bring  it  on  merely 
in  order  to  oppose  it.  So,  again,  the  new  ministry,  like  every  ministry 
that  ever  existed,  will  have  a  certain  number  of  jobs  and  shabby  trans- 
actions to  perform ;  but  these  otherwise  golden  occasions  will  do  very 
little  for  the  present  Opposition ;  for  all  the  first  jobs  to  be  done — the  cur- 
rent and  unfinished  ones — will  be  those  in  which  they  themselves,  not  six 
weeks  since,  were  personally  engaged.  And,  still  again,  upon  all  the  ordi- 
nary routine  points  that  form  the  hope  of  an  Opposition — the  money  ques- 
tions, retrenchment,  reduction  of  military  force,  colonies,  taxes,  embassies, 
pensions,  sinecure  places,  and  rewards — one  eternal  bar  presents  itself  to  the 
operations  of  the  ultra-Tories  ;  for,  how  can  they  open  their  mouths  upon 
such  subjects,  without  having  their  own  justification  of  the  very  acts  that 
they  are  impugning  quoted  against  them ;  and  thrust  down  their  throats, 
amid  the  laughter  of  the  very  Treasury  votes  that  formed  their  own  majo- 
rities ?  And  yet  these  are  the  people  that  are  proposing  to  found  them- 
selves upon  "  recorded  declarations!" 

For  these  reasons  it  is,  therefore — among  a  variety  of  others,  which  it 
would  detain  our  readers  too  long  in  this  place  to  describe — that  we  fully 
believe  that  the  Coalition  ministry  (with  all  its  sins  upon  its  head)  will 
stand  its  ground  ;  and  that  it  must  be  upon  the  future  conduct  of  the  parties 
who  compose  it,  and  not  upon  their  past  declarations,  that  the  Opposition 
must  find  cause  to  attack  it,  before  it  can  be  attacked  with  any  prospect 
of  success  or  of  advantage.  Our  own  opinion  is,  moreover,  that  the  public 
has  reason  to  be  well  pleased  in  supporting  this  state  of  things ;  because, 
while  we  give  full  credit  to  the  seceding  party  for  their  spirit  and  sincerity, 
we  do  believe  that  the  principles  professed  by  their  successors  are  more 
consonant  to  the  wishes  of  enlightened  people  in  this  country,  and  more 
decidedly  those  which  the  increased  information  of  the  country,  and  the 
altered  and  improving  state  of  Europe,  generally,  demand.  Unfortunately, 
to  any  departure  from  a  system  of  policy  which  was  highly  advantageous 


1827.]  The  New  Ministry.  579 

once,  but  which,  we  think,  has  now  ceased  to  be  so,  the  party  that  has 
gone  out  of  power  was  fixedly  and  determinately  opposed.  What  the 
new  Ministry  will  do  remains  to  be  proved ;  but  we  have  their  professions, 
at  least,  in  favour  of  the  course  which  we  think  beneficial ;  and  we  repeat, 
that  it  is  not  their  refusal  to  rush  prematurely  and  precipitately  into  that 
course,  which  shall  lead  us  hastily  to  question  their  sincerity.  The  ministry 
is  entitled  to  time ;  and  with  time,  we  trust,  it  will  be  disposed  to  realize 
its  pledges.  That  it  will  be  able  to  do  so,  we  hope  ;  because  one  of  those 
pledges — the  carrying  of  the  Catholic  Question — we  feel  to  be  of  the  most 
vital  importance  to  the  interests  and  safety  of  this  country.  That  the 
ministry  will  have  a  fair  trial  and  a  candid  one — looking  to  the  disposition 
which  has  been  evinced  by  the  independent  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons generally — we  do  not  doubt ;  and,  certainly,  if  an  administration, 
so  constituted  and  supported,  were  to  fall — (except  by  its  own  misconduct) 
— we  should  scarcely  know  what  government  could  ever  have  a  safe  reli- 
ance. And  that  the  **  Opposition  "  will  fall  to  nothing,  we  as  fully  be- 
lieve ;  because  an  Opposition  cannot  stand,  unless  supported  by  the  coun- 
try ;  and  it  is  upon  a  few  passing  prejudices  of  the  people  only — not  at  all 
rn  those  sound  principles  which  are  making  progress  among  them — that 
high  Tory  party  has  its  hold.  For  the  rest,  we  have  rather  to  regret 
that,  in  some  of  the  discussions  which  have  recently  taken  place  in  Par- 
liament upon  this  subject,  a  tone  of  more  hostility  has  been  occa- 
sionally adopted  than  either  the  state  of  affairs,  candidly  viewed,  de- 
manded, or  the  rules  of  civilized  or  courteous  warfare  should  permit. 
Sir  H.  Hardinge's  reference  to  the  old  quarrel  between  Mr.  Brougham  and 
Mr.  Canning,  was  not  worthy  of  that  officer's  general  frank  and  manly  cha- 
racter ;  nor  was  the  monosyllable  "  Yes,"  addressed  by  Mr.  Canning,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  Mr.  Dawson,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  such  an  answer  as 
a  man  of  Mr.  Canning's  mind,  and  sitting  in  his  place,  ought  to  have  given 
to  a  gentleman  who  asked  questions  on  the  part  of  the  Opposition.  There 
are  rules  of  forbearance  and  good  breeding  applicable  to  discussions,  whe- 
ther in  or  out  of  Parliament,  which  it  is  painful  to  see  men  of  intellect  and 
station  allowing  themselves  to  violate.* 

*  Since  these  sheets  were  at  press,  some  changes  have  taken  plaoe  in  the  arrangements 
of  the  administration  ;  hut  as  they  are  only  of  a  nature  which  affirms  the  opinion  which 
we  have  delivered,  we  feel  it  unnecessary,  at  greater  length,  to  advert  to  them. 


4  E  2 


[    580    ]  [JUNE, 


AD    SCULPTOREM    OELIAM    EXPRIMERE    CONANTEM. 

FORBEAR,  forbear!  'tis  idly  done; 

Why  task  in  vain  thy  baffled  art — 
Why  madly  dream  to  chiselled  stone 

The  charms  of  Celia  to  impart  ? 

Can  bright  expression's  kindling  strife — 
Sentient  of  love,  and  hope,  and  joy — 

Warm  the  damp  clay  with  trembling  life, 
Or  fill  the  marble's  rayless  eye  ? 

On  man  thy  art  be  freely  shewn  ; — 
Bid  his  stern  brow,  without  control, 

Reveal,  with  thought's  severer  frown, 
The  awful  secrets  of  his  soul. 

There  strive  to  print  the  lofty  look, 
The  freeborn  glance  of  eagle  pride  j 

The  deep  resolve  when  Brutus  strook, 
The  patriot  frown  when  Cato  died. 

Or  bid,  in  mute  and  fixed  distres?, 
The  princely  mourner  weep  for  aye  j 

Or,  stretched  in  infant  loveliness, 
The  storm-struck  lily  droop  and  die. 

But  let  soft  tints  each  grace  disclose, 
That  kindly  melts,  or  fondly  warms— 

When  bright  the  blushing  canvass  glows 
With  Woman's  ripe  and  perfect  charm?. 

O'er  bust,  or  block,  or  statued  stone, 
What  lover's  heart  e'er  fondly  burned  ? 

Clasped  the  cold  bosom  to  his  own, 
And  seemed  to  feel  its  throb  returned  ? 

But  mark  the  youth  with  gaze  intent, 
As  o'er  his  pictured  fair  he  bends, 

And  to  that  brow  so  sweetly  brent 
A  thousand  showering  kisses  lends  ! 


Go — view  the  quivering  listlessness, 

The  feebly-wandering,  heart-sick  eyes — 

The  fading  flush — which  all  express 
A  Dido's  parting  agonies  J 

Or  turn  to  Milan's  matchless  prize, 

Where  pity,  pride,  and  love  contend  ! 
Lo  !  where  the  wretched  Hagar  flies, 

Without  a  home — without  a  friend  ! 
In  silence  heard — the  wife's  command — 

Though  her  flushed  cheeks  the  taunt  confess — 
She  clasps  her  Ishmael's  gentle  hand, 

And  seeks  the  kinder  wilderness ! 
Betrayed,  heart-broken,  lost,  and  scorned, 

With  lowliest  mien  she  wends  her  way  ; 
Her  streaming  eyes  on  Abraham  turned, 

Yet  weep  their  fond  reproach  away. 

To  scenes  like  these,  thy  happiest  art, 

Unequal  found,  must  stoop  its  pride  f 
Struck  by  the  bold  attempt  we  start, 

But  gaze  unmoved,  and  turn  aside.  II. 


1827.]  [     581     ] 

THE    PRAISES    OF    TOBACCO. 

"  The  pipe  that  is  so  lily  white, 
In  which  so  many  take  delight, 
It  breaks  with  a  touch- 
Man's  life  is  but  such : 

Think  of  this  when  you  take  Tobacco. 

"  The  Indian  weed  doth  quickly  burn — 
So  doth  man's  strength  to  weakness  turn ; 
The  fire  of  youth  extinguished  quite, 
Comes  age,  like  embers  dry  and  white  : 

Think  of  this  when  you  take  Tobacco." 

Old  Song. 

"  LONG  life  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  though  he  be  dead ;  and  success  to 
King  James's  counterblast,  though  it  be  overblown"— says  some  wit,  who  I 
have  forgotten ;  and  had  the  royal  declaimer  known  what  fearful  odds  he 
had  to  encounter,  probably  he  would  not  have  ventured  on  an  attack  in 
which  he  was  sure  of  being  defeated.  The  unknown  author  of  the  two 
immortal  couplets  heading  this  article  has  done  more,  in  recommendation  of 
the  fragrant  Indian  herb,  than  the  regal  eloquence  and  learning  would  have 
effected  in  its  disparagement,  even  within  the  compass  of  a  folio  volume. 
The  poet,  whoever  he  be,  is  truly  poetical ;  he  is  also  a  moralist — a  true 
smoker — who  is  always  meditating  over  his  pipe :  indeed,  the  last  of  these 
stanzas  is  quoted  by  Sir  W.  Scott;  he  has  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  Justice 
Inglewood,  whose  character  it  very  well  suits.  I  think  a  pipe  may,  indeed, 
in  some  measure,  bean  interpreter  of  the  thoughts  which  are  passing  in  the 
mind  of  another.  For,  mark  the  smoker — how  deep  he  is  in  meditation  ! 
Notice  the  difference  in  the  puffs  he  continually  sends  forth !  Now  they 
issue  slowly  and  regularly,  indicating  that  some  laborious  train  of  thought 
is  going  on  !  And  mark  that  voluminous  puff! — he  has  settled  the  point  to 
his  fancy,  and  is  clearing  his  brains  for  an  attack  upon  another  section  of 
his  cogitations,  whatever  they  may  be.  Notice  those  irregular  puffs, 
accompanied  by  an  unsettled  expression  of  countenance ! — he  is  tossing  his 
ideas  backward  and  forward  on  the  seas  of  doubt.  But  see  that  somewhat 
impatient  puff! — he  has  discovered  a  fundamental  error  in  the  process  of 
his  reasoning,  and  has  dismissed  it  altogether.  But  enough  of  this  :  my 
pipe,  which  I  now  hold  in  my  mouth,  has  set  me  rhyming  against  my 
nature. 

TO   THE   LlLY    AND   MY   PlPE. 

I. 

Thou  regal  pride  of  Flora's  power, 
With  which  she  decks  the  July  bower, 
When  summer  suns  their  radiance  pour 

O'er  drooping  nature ! — 

II. 

I  love  thee ! — though  thou  canst  not  give 
The  joys  I  from  my  Pipe  receive ; 
Thou  canst  not,  if  thou  wouldst,  retrieve 

Thy  withering  beauties. 

III. 

When  rising  winds  and  drenching  rain 
Descend  upon  the  thirsty  plain, 
And  thy  bright  halls  of  silver  stain 

With  golden  pollen  ; — 


582  The  Praises  of  Tobacco.  [JUNE, 

IV. 

We  mourn  thy  death — we  mourn  thy  fall ! 
For  summer  flowers,  and  glories  all, 
Must  pass  away  at  winter's  call, 

Though  we  lament  them. 

V. 

But  not  so  thou,  my  fragrant  Pipe ! 
For  I  can  have  thee  in  my  gripe, 
When  fields  are  green  and  fruits  are  ripe—- 
Thou art  always  handy  ! 

VI. 

When  dreary  meads  are  wrapped  in  snows, 
Thou  warnVst  my  mouth,  and  cheer'st  my  nose ; 
A  lasting  sweet— a  winter  rose, 

I  deem  thee  truly! 

VII. 

Be  with  me  every  morn  and  night, 
My  constant  solace  and  delight ; 
And  with  thy  help  I  will  endite 

Thy  ceaseless  praises. 

I  do  not  know  when  I  enjoy  a  pipe  of  tobacco  most — whether  it  be  on 
a  winter's  evening,  by  a  blazing  fire,  surrounded  by  a  knot  of  friends, 
busily  engaged  in  discussing  literary  topics,  and  settling  amongst  ourselves 
the  merits  of  this  poet  or  that  writer.  I  think  we  should  not  make  a  bad 
company  for  starting  a  new  review.  Suppose  we  call  it  the  "  Celestial 
Review)" — for  all  its  dicta  would  be  issued  from  the  clouds.  With  what 
pleasure  have  I,  at  the  beginning  of  every  month,  received  the  new  number 
of  the  Monthly!  With  what  eagerness  do  I.  accompanied  by  my  pipe, 
peruse  alternately  your  "  Village  Sketches/'  and  the  epistles  of  your 
"  Gentleman  in  Town !"  I  think  I  must  be  the  "  Gentleman  in  the 
Country," — for  I  regularly  smoke  over  his  lucubrations,  and  live  in  the 
country.  How  should  I  like  to  seat  myself  in  the  chimney-corner  of 
Hester  Hewitt's  establishment,  and  discuss  a  jug  of  her  home-brewed  and 
a  pipe  I  I  have  sat  in  many  a  hostel  as  remote  and  rustic  as  her's,  and 
watched  the  departing  rays  of  the  setting  sun,  as  it  glanced  and  flickered 
through  the  thick  foliage  of  the  laburnums  and  lilacs  which  surrounded 
the  garden,  and  piercing  through  the  green  curtain  of  geraniums  and 
myrtles  which  tilled  the  window-seat,  and  half-darkened  the  casement, 
illuminated  the  polished  oak  tables  and  sanded  floor ;  whilst  the  glaring 
colours  of  the  pictures  stuck  against  the  wall — generally  descriptive  of  the 
Life  of  Joseph,  the  Prodigal  Son,  &c. — shone  with  redoubled  brightness. 
There  have  I  sat,  meditating  and  smoking,  until  the  last  rays  of  the  sun 
and  the  last  puff  of  my  pipe  were  expended  together  ;  and,  as  the  clouds 
of  evening  gathered  around  without,  and  the  noisy  martins,  under  the  eves 
of  the  thatched  roof,  are  going  to  sleep,  so  do  I,  in  the  clouds  of  my  own 
rising,  compose  myself  to  a  comfortable  nap,  and  dream  of  woods  and 
meadows,  streams  and  deep  lanes,  screened  from  the  heat  by  high  and 
overreaching  dog-roses  and  flowering  hawthorns — until  I  am  awakened  by 
the  entrance  of  my  landlady  to  inquire  "  what  the  gentleman  will  have  for 
supper  ?" 

Thus  have  I  spent  many  an  evening,  cribbed  from  a  life  devoted  to  the 
study  of  an  arduous  profession  j  and  thus  do  I  hope  to  spend  many  more. 


1827.]  The  Praises  of  Tobacco.  583 

Hayley  wrote  a  poem  on  the  triumphs  of  "  Temper  :"  the  triumphs  of 
"Tobacco"  would  be  a  much  better  subject.  1  wonder  no  poet  has 
attempted  it:  I  suppose  because  no  one  found  himself  equal  to  the  task. 
Phillips,  the  immortal  bard  of  the  "  Splendid  Shilling,"  seems  to  be  the 
only  poetical  eulogiser  of  the  Indian  herb,  of  which  he  was  a  devoted 
admirer. 

Suppose  I  sketch  an  outline  for  a  poem  on  this  sublime  subject,  leaving 
it  to  any  one  who  can  to  fill  it  up.  In  the  first  place,  let  us  begin  with  the 
"  celestial  machines,"  as  Pope  obligingly  calls  the  gods,  in  his  preface  to 
the  Iliad  (for  all  things  are  full  of  Jove).  Jupiter,  viewing  with  compas- 
sion the  miserable  state  of  the  lower  classes  all  over  the  world,  determines 
to  effect  something  for  their  alleviation.  Accordingly,  he  summons  his 
heavenly  conclave,  and  addresses  them  in  a  very  neat  and  appropriate 
speech,  commanding  their  assistance  in  the  very  important  matter  about  to 
be  debated,  and  requesting  every  deity  to  give  his  or  her  opinion  of  what 
means  will  most  effectually  promote  his  charitable  purpose.  Old  Plutus 
first  rises,  and  proposes  to  enrich  and  delight  the  commonalty  by  a  "  Guide 
to  Wealth,"  in  the  shape  of  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanack."  This  is  opposed 
by  Pallas,  who  observes  that  wealth  is  but  a  very  secondary  consideration  in 
regard  to  happiness,  and  that  wisdom  is  the  principal  thing.  She  accord- 
ingly submits,  that  the  poor  should  be  enlightened  and  rendered  happy 
by  means  of  mechanics'  institutions  and  societies  for  the  education  of  the 
poor. 

Let  Venus  ordain  Valentine's  Day  to  come  once  a  month.  Bacchus 
wishes  to  build  wine-vaults  and  erect  breweries  all  over  the  world,  and 
make  the  people  drunk  for  nothing.  Esculapius  proposes  to  augment  the 
sum  of  worldly  happiness,  by  teaching  the  poor  to  physic  themselves  ;  and, 
accordingly,  produces  "  Buchan's  Domestic  Medicine  "  from  under  his 
cloak,  of  which  he  says  a  very  large  edition  is  ready  for  the  press.  He 
also  takes  the  opportunity  to  observe,  that  he  has  expatiated  very  largely 
under  the  heads  <(  colic"  and  "  pain  in  the  bowels," — which  two  disorders 
he  expected  would  become  very  prevalent,  now  Bacchus's  sour  drink 
would  be  as  plentiful  as  dirty  water.  Apollo  wished  to  make  folks  merry 
by  music  and  dancing,  and  by  distributing  Pan's  pipes  and  tambourines 
into  all  countries.  Ceres  produces  plans  for  erecting  cottages  and  gardens, 
declaring  it  was  of  the  most  vital  importance,  in  regard  to  the  happiness  of 
mankind,  that  each  person  should  grow  his  own  cabbage,  potatoes,  and 
onions ;  whilst  Death's  gloomy  King  thinks  the  most  certain  way  of  ren- 
dering men  happy  would  be  by  destroying  them  altogether,  and  so  putting 
an  end  to  their  misery.  Let  the  subject  be  debated  pro  and  con,  until  the 
vaults  of  heaven  resound  to  the  voices  of  all  talkers  and  no  hearers.  Then 
let  Jupiter  close  the  discussion  by  throwing  down  his  sceptre^and  summing 
up  the  various  speeches  in  this  style.  He  observes,  if  he  assents  to  the 
proposal  of  Plutus,  the  people  would  become  too  rich  to  be  happy;  if  to 
that  of  Pallas,  too  wise;  if  to  that  of  Venus,  too  idle.  With  respect  to  the 
proposal  of  Bacchus,  it  did  not  claim  one  minute's  attention ;  and  by 
obliging  Esculapius,  he  should  ruin  all  the  doctors,  which  he  was  unwil- 
ling to  do.  If  Apollo's  scheme  prevailed,  all  the  birds  would  be  frightened 
away  ;  and  shoes,  which  were  high  enough  before,  become  extravagantly 
dear.  With  regard  to  the  plans  of  comely  Ceres,  they  would  make  a 
world  of  beggars.  [Here  the  king  of  gods  alludes  to  Ireland.]  He  also  as- 
sures him  of  the  winding-sheet,  that,  although  he  considered  his  as  much  the 


584  The  Praises  of  Tobacco.  [JUNE, 

most  reasonable  proposal,  he  did  not  wish  to  depopulate  the  world.  He 
had  a  scheme  of  his  own,  which  ho  had  no  doubt  they  would  assent  to:  if 
they  would  not,  he  would  compel  them.  [Here  let  it  thunder  in  the 
poem].  He  then  produces  a  tobacco-box  out  of  his  pocket,  and  calling  to 
Hebe,  desires  her  to  bring  pipes,  and,  lighting  one  himself,  fills  heaven's 
high  arch  with  its  fragrant  fumes.  He  then  sends  Mercury  to  distribute 
the  fragrant  plant  all  over  the  world.  And  let  the  poem  close  with  hymns 
of  thanksgiving  to  Jove,  from  all  the  inhabitants,  for  his  inestimable  gift. 

O. 


LOVE  S    FIRST    LESSON. 

[From  the  French.] 

COLIN,  though  scarcely  turned  fifteen, 

Has  fallen  in  love  with  Rose ; 
And  Rose,  though  younger  still,  has  been 

Robbed  of  her  heart's  repose : 
Two  such  young  lovers  ne'er  were  seen 

As  Colin  and  as  Rose. 

Strange  fires,  which  Colin  cannot  smother, 

Within  his  bosom  move  ; 
Rose  looks  on  Colin  as  a  brother, 

Or  something  far  above : 
Colin  and  Rose  love  one  another, 

But  dare  not  say  they  love. 

Unconsciously,  lone  still  retreats 

They  seek  at  evening's  close  ; 
And  Colin's  heart  within  him  beats, 

And  so  does  her's  in  Rose : 
He  hears  not  when  his  pet-lamb  bleats, 

Nor  she  her  own  dove  knows. 

With  timorous  step  he  ventures  nigh, 

And  then  sighs  tenderly  ; 
And,  listening  to  his  heart-drawn  sigh, 

More  deeply  still  sighs  she : 
"  What  ails  you,  Colin  ?"  is  her  cry  ; 

"  What  ails  you,  Rose  ?"  asks  he. 

'*  Rose,  my  poor  heart  of  feelings  new 

And  wond'rous  still  doth  drink ;" — 
"  And  in  mine,  Colin,  strange  thoughts,  too, 

Float  to  the  very  brink  :" — 
"  Colin,  I  think  that  I  love  you;" — 

"  Rose,  I  love  you,  I  think." 

Then  did  they  on  each  other  turn 

Eyes  beaming  like  a  star; 
And,  by  their  dewy  light,  discern 

Their  hearts'  long-hidden  scar : 
Of  all  the  lessons  Love  must  learn, 

The  first's  the  sweetest  far !  H.  N. 


1827.]  [     577     J 


T  E  ?,  R  A    1 X  <•'  O  Ci  X  IT  A' : 
No,  II. 

THE  Amazonian  island,  now  known  as  Australia  (Austral- Asia,  con- 
tracted and  cuphonated),  was  called  by  its  Dutch  discoverer  New  Hol- 
land. It  extends  from  the  eleventh  to  the  thirty-ninth  degree  of  south 
latitude,  and  from  the  1 13th  to  the  154th  degree  of  east  longitude  ;  but,  till 
about  twenty-eight  years  ago,  it  was  believed  to  extend  four  and  a  half 
degrees  further  south,  including  Van  Dieraen's  Land,  which,  by  the  dis- 
covery of  Bass's  Straits,  proved  to  be  distinct  from  the  greater  island,  or 
main  land. 

On  the  report  of  Captain  Cook  and  Sir  Joseph  Banks,  our  government 
determined  to  form  a  penal  settlement  on  the  east  coast  of  New  Holland  ; 
and,  taking  formal  possession  of  about  three-fifths  of  the  whole  island 
(including  Van  Diemen's  Land),  named  their  part  of  it  New  South  Wales ; 
and,  in  the  year  1787,  sent  thither  a  number  of  transports  with  convicts, 
under  the  command  of  Captain  Phillip,  who  accompanied  his  charge  in  the 
Sirius  sloop  of  war.  Botany  Bay,  which  is  in  latitude  thirty-three  and  a 
half  degrees,  had  been  explored,  and  so  named,  by  the  great  navigator,  and 
the  no  less  great  naturalist,  and  was  the  destined  haven  of  the  transport 
fleet.  Captain  Phillip,  however,  on  arriving  there,  was  not  satisfied  with 
the  site  proposed  ;  and,  proceeding  thence  to  explore  Broken  Bay,  he 
stopped  on  the  way  to  examine  an  inlet  about  half  way  between  the  two, 
that  Captain  Cook  had  noticed  and  named  Port  Jackson.  His  satisfaction 
equalled  his  surprise  on  discovering  it  to  be  the  magnificent  harbour  it  is; 
and,  in  the  exercise  of  sound  discretion,  he  chose  the  shores  of  Sydney 
Cove  (which  I  have  described  as  being  within  Port  Jackson,  and  about 
eight  miles  from  its  mouth)  to  be  the  site  of  his  capital,  instead  of  those  of 
Botany  Bay,  which  are  now  as  wild  and  almost  as  tenantless  as  they  were 
in  1788. 

Ten  or  twelve  miles  north  of  "  the  heads"  (of  Port  Jackson),  Broken  Bay 
receives  the  waters  of  the  Hawkesbury,  which  rising  about  forty  miles 
south  of  Sydney,  and  not  more  than  eight  or  ten  miles  from  the  sea,  at  first 
a  shallow  limpid  stream,  is  called  the  Cow-pasture  river.  Meandering  in  a 
north-west  direction,  till  it  is  between  thirty  and  forty  miles  from  the  coast, 
it  becomes  navigable  for  boats,  changes  the  name  Cow-pasture  for  Nepean, 
and  then,  pursuing  nearly  a  direct  north  course  till  it  reaches  Richmond, 
it  there  feels  the  tide,  and,  assuming  its  greatest  consequence,  flows  on,  with 
the  name  of  Hawkesbury,  through  the  most  fertile  land  in  the  colony  for 
about  twenty  miles,  north-easting  as  it  goes  ;  and  then  the  water  becoming 
salt,  the  banks  become  barren,  and  it  winds  along  almost  due  east,  till  it 
reaches  the  coast  in  Broken  Bay.  Several  tributary  streams  and  creeks 
join  the  Hawkesbury  in  its  semi-lunar  course. 

That  portion  of  the  country,  then,  which  is  so  nearly  insulated  by  the 
Hawkesbury  and  the  sea  is  the  county  of  Cumberland — south  of  it  is  that 
of  Camden — north  (of  Broken  Bay  and  the  river)  is  that  of  Northumber- 
land— and  on  the  west,  the  blue  mountains,  which  rise  out  of  the  Hawkes^ 
bury  and  Nepean,  border  the  county  of  Westmoreland. 

It  was  not  till  the  year  1804  that  Van  Diemen's  Land  was  colonized—- 
six years  after  the  fact  of  its  insularity  had  been  ascertained,,    Differing  in 
soil  and  climate,  and  consequently  in  productions  from  the  mother  colony 
•     M.M.  New  Series.— VoL.III.  No.  18.  4  F 


578  Terra  Incognita. 

in  New  South  Wales,  Tasmania*  has  improved  at  no  slower  rate ;  and,  as 
evidence  of  the  consequence  it  has  acquired,  may  be  stated  the  fact  of  its 
having  heen  lately  established  into  an  independent  government. 

The  grossest  ignorance  appears  to  have  prevailed,  and  indeed  to  prevail, 
in  this  country  of  the  merits  of  the  two  colonies,  and  even  of  their  separate 
existence.  Many,  otherwise  well-informed  people,  have  a  confused  notion 
of  a  place  to  which  convicts  are  sent;  and  to  it  they  apply  indiscrimi- 
nately the  names  Botany  Bay,  South  Wales,  and  Van  Diemen's  Land. 
If  you  speak  of  Sydney  in  New  South  Wales, — «  Ha!  that  is  in  Botany 
Bay,  is  it  not  ? — very  fine  climate  that  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  I  believe!" 
Men  who  would  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge  themselves  ignorant  of  rouge 
et  noir  or  ecarte,  unblushingly  talk  of  the  colonial  dependencies  of  their 
own  country  as  a  waiting-woman  might  of  the  Kamskatchan  terri- 
tories of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  or  an  Italian  police-clerk  of  the  cities  of 
England, f  I  have  actually  met  with  individuals  about  to  emigrate  to  one 
of  the  two  colonies,  who  had  clubbed  the  productions  of  both  for  the  one 
they  were  going  to — and  were  expecting  to  find  the  line  wools  and  rich  fruits 
of  New  South  Wales  in  the  colder  clime  of  Van  Diemen's  Land.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  very  long  since  the  London  newspapers  quoted  the  very  high  prices 
at  which  some  of  the  best  wool  from  the  former  colony  was  sold  inLondon, 
as  of  wool  from  Van  Diemen's  Land.  I  may  adduce  another  and  more 
recent  instance  of  the  mistakes  the  newspapers  fall  into  at  times  about  these 
colonies.  The  Sydney  papers  received  by  a  late  arrival  speak  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  getting  bills  on  England,  and  state  the  intention  of  some  merchants 
to  send,  as  a  remittance,  a  quantity  of  Mauritius  sugar  which  they  had  on 
hand — believing  that  they  should  lose  less  by  so  doing  than  by  giving  the 
high  premiums  demanded  for  bills,  even  when  they  were  to  be  had.  Now, 
for  some  time  past,  they  have  begun  to  cultivate  the  sugar-cane  a  few 
degrees  north  of  Sydney  ;  but,  as  yet,  if  with  success,  not  in  any  quantity. 
However,  although  the  fact  was  clearly  stated,  I  read  with  surprise  in  one 
of  the  first  Ix>ndon  newspapers,  that  such  was  the  extent  to  which  sugar 
was  cultivated  in  New  South  Wales,  that  two  ships  were  about  to  sail 
from  Sydney  for  England  laden  with  that,  article,  the  produce  of  the 
colony  !  1  quote  from  recollection — but  it  was  to  that  effect. 

One  of  Governor  Macquarrie's  greatest  faults  was  the  comparative  neglect 
with  which  he  treated  many  of  the  free  colonists,  and  those  who  were 
employed  under  government  before  his  arrival — doling  out  to  them  pitiful 
grants  of  land,  which  were,  at  the  time,  hardly  worth  the  fees  for  surveying, 
— whilst  to  have  been  transported  was  almost  a  passport  to  his  favour. 
Characterless  adventurers,  too,  were  sure  of  handsome  grants  cind  number- 
less indulgencies.  Many  masters  (captains!)  of  convict  and  other  ships 
have  had  one,  two,  or  three  thousand  acres  given  them ;  and  then,  not 

*  Jealous  of  the  fine  name  Australia,  the  Van  Diemen's-landers  bethought  them  that 
Tasman,  the  name  of  the  Dutch  navigator  who  first  surveyed  their  coasts,  might  be  manu- 
factured into  Tasmania;  and  now  they  have  "  the  Tasmaniai)"'  newspaper  published  in 
"  Tasmania,' '  to  rival  the  Sydney  Gazette,  which  professes  to  be  published  (not  like  its 
contemporary,  the  Atistralmn,  in  Sydney,  but)  in  Australia ! 

f  At  some  place  in  Italy,  I  forget  where  exactly,  on  crossing  a  frontier,  the  police- 
clerk  found  fault  that  in  my  passport  I  was  described  as  an  Englishman  only  ;  and  said, 
that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  know  the  city  or  town  I  belonged  to.  "  For  example," 
said  he,. "we  always  write  Bolognese,  Ferrarese,  Romano — as  the  case  may  be."  [ 
replied  that  we  were  not  distinguished  in  that  manner :  that  I  was  an  Englishman,  was 
enough.  No,  forsooth!  he  must  have  more  :  for,  said  he,  "  I  know  there  are  cities  in 
England -~p«r  escmpio — London,  Gibraltar,  and  Malta!"  Of  course,  I  could  not  but 
admit  such  .1  plain  f;ief,  and  desired  him  to  set  me  down  in  his  book  Gibi/farrese  ! 


1827. j  Terra  Incognita.  £79 

being  permitted  to  sell  outright,  have  made  leases  for  999  years,  pocketed 
whatever  they  could  get  for  their  farms  in  that  manner,  and  were  seen  no 
more  !  Individually,  I  do  not  know  whether  I  should  be  obliged  to  his 
Excellency  or  not ;  for,  if  he  had  made  my  father  such  a  grant  as  he  had 
a  right  to  expect,  or  had,  long  after,  given  me  what  any  young  man  simi- 
larly circumstanced,  but  then  arriving  from  England,  would  have  had,  it  is 
most  likely  that  I  should  have  been  "  sitting  under  my  own  vine,  and 
under  my  own  fig-tree,"  or  hunting  kangaroos,  at  the  antipodes,  instead 
of  bachelorizing  in  chambers,  and  hunting  fortune,  in  London. 

It  was  about  two  years  after  our  arrival  in  the  colony  that  my  father 
was  to  have  his  farm  measured.  In  the  vicinity  in  which  he  had  chosen 
it,  several  other  persons  had  taken  theirs,  and  among  them  our  friend  Mr, 

IJ of  Parramatta  ;  and  as  he  had  already  occupied  his — a  hut  being 

built,  and  stockyards  made — it  was  constituted  head-quarters.  I  proceeded 
in  advance  with  one  of  that  gentleman's  sons,  who  was  about  live  years 
older  than  me,  and  I  was  not  more  than  between  ten  and  eleven.  It  was 
my  first  bush-ranging  excursion,  and  I  enjoyed  it  highly.  Our  destination 
was  about  twenty-two  miles  from  Parramatta,  near  the  head  of  the  south 
creek,  which,  branching  off  from  the  Hawkesbury  near  Windsor,  stretches 
across  the  country  nearly  parallel  to  it,  and  is  lost  in  a  chain  of  ponds,  very 
near  the  Cow-pastures. 

Dense  forests  covered  the  ground  in  every  direction — hills  and  vallies 
were  alike  wooded.  What  the  pine-forests  of  Norway,  or  those  of  north 
America,  may  be,  I  know  not ;  but  of  this  I  am  confident — that  the  im- 
mense variety  and  magnificence  of  the  native  forests  of  New  South  Wales 
cannot  be  surpassed.  On  the  banks  of  rivers,  and  on  the  richest  soils,  gene- 
rally, the  graceful  and  luxuriant  cedar  preponderates  ;  about  the  creeks, 
and  in  the  best  of  what  is  termed  forest-land,  the  leafy  and  wide-spreading 
apple-tree  grows  in  the  greatest  profusion,  but  intermingled  with  clumps  of 
black  and  green  wattle,  which  exude  the  finest  medicinal  gums ;  on  arid, 
stony,  and  barren  soils  the  many-coated  tea-tree  shoots  abroad  its  grey  and 
wiry-leafed  branches.  These  characteristic  trees  are,  for  the  most  part, 
low  and  broad — like,  and  not  generally  larger  than,  the  English  oak  ;  but 
with  them,  and  among  them,  grow  the  majestic  iron  bark — hard  as  ebony, 
and  flexible  as  whalebone — tall  as  "  the  mast  of  some  great  ammiral  •'* 
the  stringy  bark  of  equal  size  and  of  greater  use,  affording  to  the  native  its 
fibrous  coat  for  his  rude  canoe,  and  ruder  hut — and,  to  the  civilized  artizan, 
its  solid  trunk,  which  he  may  work  to  any  purpose.  With  these,  again, 
are  the  blue  and  red  gums,  and  the  mahogany-tree,  of  no  less  magnitude, 
and  with  deciduous  bark  :  forest  and  swampy  oaks,  smaller  in  size,  but 
not  much  less  aspiring  than  their  bulkier  neighbours  : — all  these  are  long 
in  the  trunk,  running  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  feet  without  a  branch,  and 
then  throwing  out  leafy  masses,  which  almost  prevent  the  sun's  rays  from 
reaching  the  earth;  but  not  to  leave  a  meagre  mass  of  trunks,  like  Brob- 
dignagian  umbrella-sticks.  Smaller  and  more  ramified  trees — such  as  the 
apple-tree  that  I  spoke  of,  and  the  wild  cherry-tree,  and  others,  down  to 
the  smallest  shrubs — are  commingled;  and  the  ground  below  is  covered 
with  strong  grasses  or  with  ferns,  stunted  or  luxuriant,  according  to  the 
quality  of  the  soil :  I  have  met  with  them  so  high  that  a  man  could  hardly 
see  over  them  !  Of  course,  of  the  larger  species  of  timber,  in  every  place, 
some  one  predominates ;  some  like  better  the  top  of  a  hill,  some  its  sides, 
and  some  the  valley,  and  some  delight  in  the  level  plain. 

It  is  seldom  that  eight  or  ten  miles  can  be  travelled  without  meeting 

4  F  2 


o8)  Tefra  Incognita.  [JUNE, 

with  an  overgrown  mass  called  a  brush  :  sometimes  the  brushes  are  within 
two,  three,  or  four  miles  of  each  other.  Ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  square  miles 
(though  frequently  much  less  than  the  lowest),  will  be  completely  grown 
over  with  a  countless  multitude  of  iron  or  stringy  bark  saplings,  which  run 
up  to  an  immense  height,  but  never  grow  large  in  the  trunk.  Among  them 
stand  representations  of  almost  every  tree  the  forests  afford  :  the  shrub- 
bier sorts,  of  meagre  growth  ;  and  from  the  ground  springs  a  great  variety 
of  vines,  which  weave  the  trees  into  an  impenetrable  mass — impenetrable 
by  man  or  beast,  except  the  kangaroo,  which  in  the  brush  finds  safe  covert 
from  the  hunter:  the  small  brushes — which,  perhaps,  cover  only  a  small 
valley,  or  the  side  of  a  hill — are  distinguished  as  scrubs  :  in  them  the  large 
forest  kangaroo  makes  his  home — the  smaller  varieties  range  the  jungled 
brush. 

From  the  application  of  names  that  belong  to  trees  on  this  side  of  the 
world  to  those  of  New  South  Wales,  it  may  be  supposed  that  they  are  the 
same ;  but,  so  far  from  that  being  the  case,  I  believe  the  fact  to  be.  that  not 
a  tree  or  shrub  indigenous  to  Australia  is  to  be  found  in  the  northern 
hemisphere — embracing  part  of  the  theory  of  an  intelligent  friend  (E.  A. 
Kendall,  Esq.)  on  the  subject  more  generally,  inasmuch  as  it  corresponds 
with  the  result  of  ray  own  observations. 

The  cedar  of  New  South  Wales  is. so  called  because  its  wood  approxi- 
mates in  appearance  the  cedar  of  Europe  ;  the  apple-tree  bears  no  fruit, 
and  it  is  more  like  many  trees  than  that  whose  name  it  usurps,  though  its 
distant  resemblance  is  the  only  reason  for  calling  it  so,  yet  its  size — being 
certainly  not  less  than,  and  much  more  like  to — the  English  oak,  better 
would  have  warranted  the  application  of  that  name  to  it.  The  mahogany 
is  any  thing  but  mahogany,  and  the  oaks  are  any  thing  but  oak — suffice 
it  for  this  latter,  that  what  in  New  South  Wales  is  called  forest-oak,  is  in 
England  known  as  Botany  Bay  beef-wood  !  The  tea-tree  may  or  may  not 
be  like  the  tea-tree  of  China — but  I  know  very  well  that  its  leaves  are  not 
tea.  The  iron  and  stringy  barks,  and  blue  and  red  gums,  are  more  cor- 
rectly named,  and  involve  no  contradictions. 

The  cortex  of  the  iron  bark  is  of  a  very  dark  brown  colour,  in  uneven 
and  unequal  ridges  outside,  set  on  an  inner  coat,  which  is  closev  hard, 
and  short-grained,  and,  by  its  texture  altogether,  well  warrants  the  name 
it  bears  :  the  timber  is  fibrous  in  the  extreme,  and  almost  imperishable, 
and  will  prove  invaluable  for  naval  purposes,  as  a  ball  might  pass  through 
a  plank  of  it  without  throwing  a  splinter  ; — the  greatest  objection  to  it  is, 
perhaps,  its  great  specific  gravity  :  for  bends,  lower-masts,  and  the  most 
trusted  beams,  no  timber  can  surpass  it.  The  stringy  bark  is  a  mass  of 
fibres,  which  may  be  stripped  off  the  whole  length  of  the  trunk — a  looser 
coating  of  a  dark  bistre-colour  gives  it  a  rough  shaggy  appearance  on  the 
outside  :  the  timber  is  used  for  flooring  boards,  and  in  scantlings  generally ; 
but,  except  for  the  former  purpose,  it  yields  to  the  blue  gum,  which  affords 
the  finest  timber  in  the  colony,  and,  with  the  cedar,  which,  being  lighter  and 
softer,  may  be  used  for  finishings,  is  sufficient  of  itself  for  every  purpose  of 
architecture,  civil  and  military  :  it  may  be  cut  of  the  largest  size,  and  of  the 
greatest  lengths  that  can  possibly  be  required.  I  have  seen  the  uncoppered 
bottoms  of  vessels  that  had  been  built  of  it  as  sound.,  after  fifteen  years' 
wear,  as  if  they  had  not  been  built  more  than  six  months.  The  red  gum 
is  useless,  except  for  fuel — for  which  purpose  it  is  preferred  to  any  other 
timber  in  the  Australian  forests.  These  trees  are  so  called  from  the  gummy 
or  resinous  mass  that  forms  their  core,  and  is,  in  the  one  speciqs,  of  a  blue 


1827. 3  Terra  Incognita.  »  581 

or  rather  purple  tint — and,  in  the  other,  is  red  :  their  barks  are  very  simi- 
lar, and  not  unlike  that  of  the  ash  ;  but,  like  (I  think  I  may  say)  all  the 
indigenous  trees  of  New  South  Wales,  their  leaves  are  not  deciduous — 
but  every  autumn  the  gums  shed  a  cuticular  covering,  that  rattles  and 
crackles  in  falling,  and  covers  the  ground  like  the  leaves  in  a  European 
park  at  the  same  season  :  that  rind  possesses  the  tanning  principle  in  a 
considerable  degree. 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  It  was,  if  I  remember  rightly,  about  the 
vernal  equinox  when  I  went  first  to  Cabramalta  (the  head  of  the  creek)  ; 
and  it  was  there  I  first  slept  under  a  roof  of  stringy  bark,  and  on  a  bed- 
stead of  the  same  material.  The  rising  ground  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
creek,  for  about  a  furlong  square,  had  been  cleared  of  timber,  or  rather  the 
timber  had  been  felled,  and  was  partly  burnt  off.  Sheep  and  cattle-yards 
had  been  made  on  the  side  of  the  hill,  with  close  logs  for  the  former,  the 
better  to  guard  against  native  dogs — and  with  a  three-railed  fence  for  the 
latter;  and  just  above  was  a  hut,  with  matted  and  mud-plastered  sides, 
and  bark  roof,  comprising  two  rooms,  which  were  surrounded  with  births, 
like  the  cabin  of  a  ship,  made  by  driving  forked  stakes  into  the  earthen 
floor,  on  which  were  placed  bearers,  covered  with  sheets  of  stringy  bark, 
forming  a  strong,  sound,  and  wholesome  bedstead.  The  outer  room  had  a 
fire-place  with  a  chimney,  all  made  of  wood,  and  it  served  for  kitchen  and 
sleeping-room  for  the  shepherds,  &c. ;  and  the  inner  room,  generally  occu- 
pied by  the  overseer,  was  vacated  for  our  use  and  for  that  of  the  expected 
visitors.  Our  arrival  was  the  signal  for  the  death  of  a  lamb— a  quarter  of 
which,  with  fresh  earth-baked  cakes,  soon  smoked  on  the  board.  Then 
down  we  lay — two  boys,  whose  united  ages  did  not  make  twenty-seven — in 
the  midst  of  men  who  had  been  exiled  from  their  country  for  their  crimes, 
as  free  from  danger  as  from  fear,  and  slept  till  the  rising  sun  called  my 
companion  to  the  duties  his  father  had  marked  out  for  him — and  me  to  try 
my  maiden  prowess  against  parrots,  cockatoos,  or  any  other  birds  that  might 
happen  to  range  within  reach  of  my  murderous  aim — though  I  fancy  that 
J  returned  to  breakfast  that  day  guiltless  of  the  death  of  any.  Unfortunate 
at  fowling,  I  resigned  the  piece  to  my  friend,  and  tried  my  hand  at  fishing 
in  the  dark  waters  of  the  creek,  whence  I  hauled  a  bouncing  perch,  which, 
with  the  wild  ducks  my  companion  brought  home,  furnished  us  with  a 
sumptuous  feast  at  dinner. 

In  obedience  to  his  father's  instructions,  my  friend  arranged  to  start  on 
the  second  morning  after  our  arrival  at  Cabramatta,  to  explore  the  country 
on  the  banks  of  the  Cow-pasture  river,  where  they  were  to  have  a  grant  of 
land,  in  exchange  for  a  farm  they  had  in  another  part  of  the  country,  and 
which  the  government  required  for  its  own  purposes.  Accordingly,  we 
started — he  and  I — with  three  convict  servants,  and  a  horse  to  carry  pro- 
visions ;  and,  after  about  two  hours'  march,  we  reached  Narrang  Cobbedee 
— a  peninsular  nook,  containing  just  the  quantity  required,  and  of  which, 
indeed,  they  had  previous  information.  Winding  almost  round  it,  the 
river,  which  I  then  saw  for  the  first  time,  formed  a  natural  boundary,  and 
-insured,  by  its  vicinity  to  every  part,  the  good  quality  of  the  ground.  A 
gentle  acclivity  on  the  isthmus  offered  an  excellent  site  for  the  buildings 
and  farm  establishment,  commanding  a  view  of  the  whole  area,  and  being 
out  of  the  reach  of  floods. 

I  have  since  seen  that  hill  covered  with  flocks  and  herds,  and  the  valley 
before  it  yellow  with  ripened  corn — when  the  stately  gums  had  given  place 
to  green  maize,  and  the  wild  and  leafy  apple-tree  to  the  more  useful  peach, 


5S2  Terra  Incognita.  [Jo\E, 

when  a  commodious  farm-Louse  crowned  the  summit,  surrounded  with  all 
the  paraphernalia  of  a  prosperous  English  farm.  However,  then  we  had  to 
seek  further,  to  see  if  any  thing  still  more  eligible  might  offer  itself.  The 
land  beyond  the  river  was  reserved  on  account  of  the  wild  cattle,  which 
ranged  uncontrolled  over  thousands  of  acres  of  beautiful  country  ;  now  they 
are  all  destroyed,  and  the  land  has  been,  I  believe,  located  to  settlers. 

A  very  short  time  after  the  first  landing  at  Sydney  in  1788,  by  some 
accident,  two  bulls  and  four  cows  (all  the  horned  cattle  then  in  the  coun- 
try, except  one  cow)  were  lost,  and  it  was  thought  that  the  natives  had  driven 
them  off.  Whether  that  were  the  case  or  not,  was  never  determined ;  but, 
some  years  after,  it  was  found  that  they  had  penetrated  inland,  and,  cross- 
ing this  river,  settled  beyond  it,  and  had  increased  prodigiously.  Still  it  is 
a  moot-point,  whether  the  government  had  a  right  of  property  in  the  cattle 
thus  found;  none  could  prove  them  descended  from  those  which  had 
strayed ;  and  there  were  wiseacres  who  thought  that  it  had  as  much  right  to 
prohibit  the  hunting  of  kangaroos  as  of  the  wild  cattle  :  both  were  ferae 
natures. 

After  having  pursued  the  course  of  the  river  for  some  time,  we  crossed  it, 
and  struck  inland  to  see  if  we  could  find  a  forest  kangaroo  to  take  back  with 
us  the  next  day,  as  we  were  to  sleep  that  night  in  the  woods.  Between 
a  creek  and  a  scrub,  on  a  piece  of  beautiful  open  country,  we  descried  two 
fine  ones  grazing.  We  immediately  drew  towards  the  scrub  to  cut  off 
their  retreat,  and  then,  throwing  off,  they  took  the  direction  of  the  creek, 
and  two  of  the  dogs  (we  had  three  with  us)  followed  them  in  grand  style. 
At  the  moment  of  alarm,  however,  one  of  the  kangaroos  dropped  from  her 
false  belly,  or  pouch,  a  fine  young  one  that  was  just  of  age  to  wean.  The 
little  creature  sat  on  its  haunches,  looking  at  us  with  astonishment,  as  its 
parents  bounded  off :  one  of  the  men  made  a  spring  to  catch  it — but  the 
third  dog  was  before-hand  with  him,  and  had  it  by  the  neck  before  he 
could  reach  it.  We  rescued  the  little  animal,  and  were  glad  to  find  it 
unhurt.  Unfortunately,  as  none  of  us  were  mounted,  we  could  not  follow 
the  chase  ;  for  the  kangaroos  leaped  across  the  creek,  and  left  us  no  chance 
of  taking  either  of  them ; — so,  calling  off  the  dogs,  we  contented  ourselves 
with  the  one  taken  alive.  Such  is  the  readiness  with  which  these  animals 
are  tamed,  that,  on  our  return  to  Cabramatta,  and  on  the  second  or  third 
day  after  that  on  which  it  was  caught,  the  little  thing  ran  off  from  the 
house  whilst  all  hands  were  busy  at  breakfast — but  being  observed,  one  of 
the  men  was  sent  after  it;  and,  instead  of  making  its  escape  to  the  woods,  it 
no  sooner  saw  him  than  it  ran  towards  him,  and  allowed  itself  to  be  taken 
up  in  his  arms  without  any  effort :  it  fed  out  of  our  hands  like  a  lamb,  and 
grew  fast.  Ten  days  or  a  fortnight  afterwards,  it  was  taken  to  Parramatta, 
where  it  died  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  in  consequence  of  eating  some- 
thing that  disagreed  with  it. 

As  the  evening  was  fast  closing  in,  when  our  brief  chase  was  over,  we 
sought  a  convenient  place  to  pass  the  night  in,  and  fortunately  found,  in  a 
small  valley,  by  a  pond  of  water,  a  deserted  native  camp,  which  we  soon 
broke  up,  and  with  the  materials  formed  a  hut  large  enough  to  shelter  us 
from  the  dews  of  the  night.  The  huts  the  natives  make  when  overtaken 
by  wet  weather,  are  formed  of  a  single  piece  of  stringy  bark,  about  six 
feet  in  length,  and  perhaps  two  feet  wide.  This  is  bent  in  the  middle,  and 
the  two  -ends  being  brought  to  the  ground,  and  fastened  with  little  stakes, 
an  isosceles  triangle  is  made,  into  which  one  individual  coils  himself.  With 
six  or  eight  of  these  huts,  we  made  a  semi-circular  one,  open  in  front,  and 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  583 

there  made  a  good  fire  of  dry  limbs  of  trees,  which  we  had  not  to  seek 
far.  The  fire  wo  got  by  burning  priming  on  a  piece  of  wadding. 

I  was  too  much  of  a  boy  not  to  enjoy  all  this  highly  ;  but,  after  we  had 
taken  our  supper,  and  the  party  were  all  asleep  but  myself  and  one  of  the 
men,  who  had  the  first  watch,  and  sat  quietly  smoking  his  pipe  at  one  end 
of  the  fire,  I  could  hear  troops  of  native  dogs  (a-species  of  wolf)  howling 
dismally  as  they  prowled  the  neighbouring  scrub — and  the  wild  cattle  in 
the  distance,  not  lowing,  but  roaring  through  the  woods;  the  hooting  of  the 
owl,  and  the  twittering  ghost-like  shriek  of  the  opossum  ; — all  these  things, 
with  the  novelty  of  the  situation,  excited  me  to  such  a  degree  that  I  cried, 
and  heartily  wished  for  morning.  I  thought,  too,  of  our  poor  little  kan- 
garoo, so  rudely  weaned,  and  imprisoned  in  a  coarse  sack,  instead  of  being 
nestled  at  its  parent's  breast. 

As  I  remember  it  now,  our  group  made  a  fine  painter's  subject — a  rude 
hut,  in  the  midst  of  a  thick  forest,  open  in  front  to  a  fire,  made  of  the  limbs 
of  trees,  and  occupying  the  foreground,  behind  which,  in  the  centre  of  the 
hut,  was  my  companion,  a  handsome  sun-burnt  youth  of  sixteen,  wrapped 
in  a  boat-cloak,  reclining  on  his  arm,  bareheaded,  and  sleeping  soundly  ; 
close  to  him  I  lay  in  a  somewhat  similar  attitude,  but  wide  awake,  listen- 
ing anxiously  to  every  sound,  and  fancying  all  sorts  of  horrors,  as  I  looked 
on  the  black  masses  of  foliage  before  us,  on  the  edges  of  which,  a  red 
flickering  light  fell  from  our  fire ; — two  of  the  men  lay  in  one  end  of  the 
hut  with  their  feet  to  the  fire,  and  their  heads  elevated  by  a  log  of  wood 
which  served  them  for  a  bolster,  and  the  third,  as  I  have  said,  sat  on  the 
ground  smoking  his  pipe,  or  walked  backwards  and  forwards  before  the 
hut  ;  all  three  had  been  convicted  of  some  notorious  crimes,  and  probably 
they  had  all  been  under  sentence  of  death  ;  by  my  friend  lay  his  fowling- 
piece,  and  a  musket  stood  within  reach  of  the  man  who  kept  watch,,  and 
the  dogs  were  stretched  at  length  on  the  ground  before  the  fire,  or  sat 
couched  (as  greyhounds  do),  looking  at  the  fire,  and  pricking  up  their 
ears  at  the  rustling  of  the  trees,  or  the  leap  of  the  fish  in  the  neighbouring 
pond,  though  they  heeded  not  (after  the  first  half-hour)  the  howling  of 
their  canine  brotherhood,  nor  the  broken-winded  bellowings  of  a  con- 
quered bull,  a  beast  that  had  assaulted  us  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon, 
savage  from  recent  defeat,  and  only  went  oft*  on  receiving  a  charge  of 
slugs,  which  the  man  who  was  carrying  the  musket  fired  at  him  ;  the  next 
morning  we  saw  him  again,  but  another  twenty-four  hours  would  have 
made  him  food  for  the  dogs. 

The  native  dog  of  New  South  Wales  is,  I  believe,  indigenous ;  yet  its 
dissimilarity  to  any  other  animal  found  in  the  island  would  argue,  that  it 
must  have  been  left  there  by  some  of  the  early  navigators,  though  I  am 
not  aware  that  it  does,  or  does  not,  resemble  any  of  the  species  in  the 
northern  hemisphere,  whence,  in  that  case,  it  was  most  likely  taken. 
I  have  seen  them  as  large  as  a  good  mastiff — they  are  shaggy  haired,  and 
of  the  colour  of  a  wolf;  they  dp  not  bark,  but  their  nocturnal  bowlings 
are  dismal ;  and,  from  the  sound,  they  appear  to  be  gregarious  ;  but  I  never 
saw  more  than  one  at  a  time.  I  never  knew  an  instance  of  their  attacking 
a  man,  even  in  self-defence ;  but  in  a  sheep-fold  they  make  terrible  havoc  : 
I  have  known  fifty  or  sixty  sheep  to  be  killed  in  a  night  by  one  dog ;  and 
to  guard  against  them,  every  large  proprietor  has  his  flocks  folded  in  a 
cluster  at  night,  and  employs  a  man  to  keep  watch.  Young  calves  have 
been  killed,  arid  the  poultry  yard  robbed  by  the  same  thievish  vermin. 
The  natives,  though  fond  of  dos?s  boiri^  now  almost  always  accompanied 


534  Terra  Incognita.  [JUNE, 

by  a  troop  of  yelping  curs,  of  European  breed,  do  not  appear  to  havo  ever 
sought  the  companionship  of  the  wolfish  beasts  that  infest  their  forests ; 
and  attempts  that  have  been  made  at  taming,  by  rearing  them  from  pup- 
pies, have  only  proved,  that  they  want  all  the  noble  qualities  of  the  dog, 
and  possess  not  the  daring  prowess  of  the  wojf. 

Our  men  regularly  relieved  each  other  through  the  night  (than  which 
1  do  not  remember  a  longer),  and  if  I  happened  to  doze  from  excessive 
fatigue,  the  words  they  would  exchange,  whilst  rousing  each  other,  would 
startle  me  to  inquire  how  time  went.  At  length  the  morning  dawned,  and 
the  wild  beasts  (not  lions,  tigers,  and  the  like,  for  there  are  none;  arid 
birds  of  night  skulked  in  silence,  and  I  feel  asleep.  They  did  not  arouse 
me  till  the  camp  kettle  was  singing  to  breakfast,  and  a  more  beautiful 
morning  never  shone  from  the  heavens  than  that  on  which  I  awoke,  with 
air  as  pure  as  ever  man  breathed,  on  my  lungs,  to  see  the  sun  rising  from 
behind  a  long  range  of  hills  in  the  distance,  and  lighting  a  primeval  scene 
of  such  chaste  and  natural  beauty,  as  can  never  be  met  with  in  the  old 
world.  The  Alps  and  Appenines  I  have  traversed — have  seen  the  vine- 
clad  hills  of  France — the  chestnut  forests,  the  trelised  plains,  and  the  irised 
cascades  of  Italy — the  volcanic  majesty,  and  the  teeming  vallies  of  Sicily — 
and  the  park  scenes  of  my  beautiful  native  land ;  but  have  never  seen  any- 
thing that  supasses  in  beauty  the  scene  that  met  my  eyes,  when  I  awoke, 
in  a  glen  of  the  forest,  on  the  cow-pastures  of  New  South  Wales. 

According  to  custom,  in  such  cases,  our  horse  had  been  hobbled  and 
turned  loose  to  feed ;  he  had  not  wandered  so  far  during  the  night,  but 
that  one  of  the  men  found  and  brought  him  back  in  the  course  of  half-an- 
hour.  Our  baggage  was  soon  mounted,  and  we  started  to  complete  our 
survey  of  the  country  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  As  we  ascended  the 
hill  that  bounded  the  valley  in  which  we  had  slept,  we  saw  a  small  lot  of 
the  wild  cattle  coming  at  a  brisk  trot  along  its  summit,  to  descend,  by  the 
track  we  were  on,  to  the  pond  to  drink.  They  were  in  a  line,  and  ran  so 
blindly,  that  they  had  approached  to  within  a  few  yards  of  us  before  they 
saw  us — in  a  few  seconds  they  were  out  of  sight ! — the  second  in  the  file 
noticed  us  before  the  leader,  arid  pointed  his  attention  to  the  stranger 
group,  by  a  tremendous  butt  on  the  haunch — instantaneously  they  turned 
and  went  off  at  full  gallop,  in  the  same  order  in  which  they  had  advanced  ; 
— they  were  seven  fine  young  bulls. 

The  next  thing  that  attracted  our  attention  was  a  family  of  kangaroos, 
grazing  on  a  plain  before  us  ;  one  of  them  was  the  largest  animal  of  the 
kind  1  ever  saw.  Unfortunately  there  was  a  brush  close  behind  them, 
into  which  they  made  good  their  retreat,  before  the  dogs  could  come  up, 
and  they,  too,  lay  wide  when  we  discovered  them. 

The  kangaroo  dog  is  a  fine,  strong,  and  swift  animal — across,  I  should 
think,  between  the  stag-hound  and  greyhound.  It  is  not  so  large  as  the 
former,  nor  so  small  as  the  latter,  and  seems  to  partake  of  both,  in  shape 
and  qualities.  At  fair  running  it  is  too  fleet  for  the  game  to  give  much 
sport ;  but  in  a  country  so  much  wooded,  the  latter  has  too  many  chances 
of  finding  covert  for  a  slower  dog  to  be  preferred.  When  the  kangaroo  is 
bard  pressed,  it  will  take  to  the  water  if  a  pond  bo  in  its  course,  and  the 
dogs  never  dare  follow  without  a  fair  chance  of  being  drowned,  as  it  then 
stands  at  bay,  and  striking  up  with  its  hind  legs  at  the  throat  of  the  dog, 
hooks  the  sharp  and  strong  mioMle  toe  into  the  skin  on  the  chest,  and  rips 
it  off,  or  pulls  him  under  water.  If  overtaken  on  land,  the  kangaroo  will 
fight  desperately  in  the  same  way ;  indeed,  I  do  not  remember  ever  to 


: 


827.]  Terra  Incognita.  6D3 

lave  seen  a  dog  that  had  killed  a  kangaroo,  but  its  chest  was  seamed  all 
over;  the  wounds  are  generally  all  received  in  the  first  engagement,  for, 
after  a  dog  has  bought  his  experience  at  so  high  a  price  as  a  good  kan- 
garoo makes  him  pay,  he  will  fight  more  warily  ;  1  have  seen  a  young  dog- 
with  the  skin  of  his  chest  hanging  down  over  his  fore  legs  like  an  apron.  In 
the  early  times  of  the  settlement,  when  it  was  not  allowed  to  slaughter 
cattie  and  sheep,  the  kangaroo  was  killed  for  its  carcass,  and,  in  later 
times,  it  has  been  murdered  for  its  hide  by  men  who  made  a  trade  of  it ; 
that  is  done,  I  believe,  to  the  present  day  in  Van  Diemen's  Land,  but  in 
New  South  Wales  they  are  not  sufficiently  plentiful  to  make  it  answer,  so 
that,  perhaps,  the  greatest  number  killed  now  is  for  sport ;  many,  however, 
are  shot ;  yet  they  cannot  last  long  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  country  gets  a 
little  more  open,  it  will  be  necessary  to  introduce  deer  and  hares,  or  there 
will  be  no  game  at  all.  I  refer  more  particularly  to  the  county  of  Cum- 
•berland,  which  contains  the  real  population  of  the  colony.  There  are  a 
few  red  deer  now  in  the  country,  near  Sydney,  but  they  are  claimed  as 
private  property. 

Among  sportsmen,  the  fore-quarters  and  entrails  of  the  kangaroo  are 
the  perquisites  of  the  dogs  ;  the  loins,  haunches,  and  tail,  are  eaten  ;  as  the 
kangaroo  never  secretes  fat,  its  flesh  is  rather  too  lean  to  roast,  but  for  a 
pasty  it  is  excellent ;  the  tail  is  fully  equal  to  ox-tail  for  making  soup. 

While  I  am  on  the  subject,  I  may  add,  that,  besides  the  kangaroo,  there 
is  no  other  indigenous  animal  fit  for  hunting.  The  number  of  birds,  too, 
worth  shooting  is  very  small— the  emu  may  be  either  shot  or  coursed, 
but  it  is  seldom  found  east  of  the  blue  mountains  now; — wild  pigeons 
may  be  had  ;  they  are  very  fond  of  the  apple  tree,  and  may  be  more  fre- 
quently found  in  it  than  in  any  other ;  these,  with  teal,  and  wild  ducks, 
which  are  found  in  large  quantities  on  the  lagunes,  near  the  Hawkesbury, 
comprise  almost  all  the  edible  game  the  country  affords,  except  snipes, 
which  are  tolerably  plentiful.  Young  cockatoos  are  as  good  as  young 
rooks,  but  are  much  harder  to  get  at,  the  old  birds  build  so  confoundedly 
high.  The  bays  and  rivers,  connected  with  the  sea,  are  well  stocked  with 
a  great  variety  of  fish,  not  generally  known  here,  but  the  ponds  and  creeks, 
inland,  boast  of  hardly  anything  but  perch  (frequently,  however,  veiy  fine) 
and  eels. 

The  banks  of  the  Cowpasture  river  are  high,  and  very  steep  ;  in  some 
parts  the  whole  bed  is  occupied  by  water  to  the  depth  of  eight  or  ten  feet, 
and  there  the  current  is  slow ;  the  ponds  thus  formed  are  frequently 
clogged  up  with  branches  and  trunks  of  trees,  which  have  fallen  in  from 
time  to  time,  and  sometimes  one  will  be  of  sufficient  length  to  reach  from 
bank  to  bank,  and  form  a  perfect  bridge  ;  through  the  greatest  part,  how- 
ever, the  river  does  not  occupy .  more  than  one  half  the  width  between  the 
banks,  and  is  seldom  deeper  than  to  a  horse's  knees ;  the  same  obstruc- 
tions, of  course,  are  occasioned  by  the  falling  of  trees,  as  in  the  deeper 
parts.  The  banks  of  the  river  are  composed  of  light  rich  loam  and  sand, 
and  are  covered  with  a  sort  of  wild  fetch,  that  has  a  very  disagreeable 
smell,  but  of  which  horses  are  very  fond — brambles,  nettles,  vines,  and  a 
variety  of  underwood  are  interspersed,  and  form  an  almost  impenetrable 
thicket  for  some  distance  on  both  sides.  During  the  spring  and  autumnal 
rains,  the  river  in  that  part,  as  well  as  lower  down,  overflows  its  banks, 
and  tends  to  fructify  the  soil  within  its  reach ;  the  banks  themselves  are  so 
rich,  that  I  have  known  water-melon-seeds  to  be  merely  put  into  the 
ground  on  them,  with  the  finger,  without  any  previous  preparation,  and 

M.  M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No,  18.  4  G 


594  Terra  Incognita.  [JUNE, 

left  to  run  riot,  as  nature  might  direct,  and  in  the  proper  season  to  produce 
the  most  delicious  fruit.  The  water-melon  cannot  be  appreciated  in  this 
country ;  but  in  the  climates  that  produce  it  nothing  can  be  more  grateful ; 
I  have  eaten  water-melons  in  Italy  from  the  ice-tub,  but  not  with  the  same 
gusto  as  when  I  have  plucked  them  fresh  and  cool  from  the  vine,  in  the  In- 
dian corn  fields  in  New  South  Wales.  Just  as  I  now  walk  into  a  pastry- 
cook's, in  June  arid  July,  to  eat  ices,  I  there,  in  December  and  January, 
adjourned  to  the  garden,  or  to  a  field  of  Indian  corn,  (among  which  they 
are  frequently  planted)  when  it  waved  above  my  head  almost  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  sun's  rays,  and,  sitting  down  on  a  dry  stump,  discussed  a 
water-melon  larger  than  my  head.  Rock  and  musk  melons  also  grow  to 
perfection  there,  but  their  firm  pulp  is  not  so  grateful  to  the  parched 
palate,  as  the  crisp  and  melting  mass  of  the  water-melon,  that  flows 
down  the  throat  in  an  edible  stream. 

The  cant  among  people  here,  is  to  disparage  the  climate  of  this  coun- 
try, and  cry  up  that  of  France  and  Italy.  In  New  South  Wales,  where 
the  climate  parallels  the  finest  in  Europe,  the  poor  expatriated  souls  cry 
out  for  the  less  fervid  sun,  and  moister  atmosphere,  of  England  ;  love  of 
the  country  they  may  never  see  again,  and  filial  affection  for  their  father- 
land, effectually  stifle  all  attempts  at  comparison  in  that  or  anything  else, 
except  to  the  advantage  of  "  home." 

I  have  experienced  enough  of  almost  every  variety  of  climate,  to  know 
that  every  one  has  its  proportioned  advantages  and  disadvantages ;  and 
that  if  a  parallel  were  drawn,  an  unprejudiced  man  would  be  at  a  loss 
which  to  choose.  Having  mentioned  the  term  home,  as  used  in  an  em- 
phatic sense,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  say,  that  hardly  any  other  is  ever 
used  throughout  the  colony  for  England,  than  that; — such  an  one  has 
been  home,  or  is  going  home.  The  children  born  in  the  country  use  the 
same  term  ;  indeed  it  is  universal ;  and,  in  its  strongest  sense,  home  always 
means  England. 

On  our  return  to  Cabramatta,  we  found  that  the  gathering  had  taken 
place,  and  that  the  deputy  surveyor-general,  who  was  of  the  party,  had 
appointed  the  next  day  for  measuring.  As  the  distances  to  be  traversed 
were  not  great,  and  the  weather  was  very  fine,  I  was  thought  man  enough 
to  accompany  the  expedition ;  but  woeful  for  me  was  the  mistake  !  \ 
vowed  before  the  day  was  over,  that  I  would  not  follow  the  surveyor 
again,  for  the  largest  farm  the  governor  could  give.  A  dispute  arose  be- 
tween my  father  and  the  gentleman  whose  farm  was  to  come  next  to  his, 
about  a  hill,  which  should  have  it ;  by  running  the  chain  straight  from  the 
creek,  and  parallel  to  the  high  road  (or  what  was  intended  to  be  the  high 
road)  it  came  within  my  father's  boundary,  and  by  running  a  semi-cir- 
cumferential line,  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  his  neighbour.  The  case  was  too 
clear  to  remain  long  undecided ;  however,  the  delajfc  it  occasioned  was  a 
respite  for  me,  (we  had  already  measured  one  farm,  three  miles  off),  and 
as  they  debated  the  point,  I  lay  down  on  the  grass,  on  the  summit  of  the 
subject  of  dispute,  and  admired  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  about  me. 

It  was  a  noble  forest.  Almost  every  variety  of  the  finest  timber  the 
country  produces  stood  interspersed  ;  a  good  sprinkling  of  the  wild  apple- 
tree  marked  the  quality  of  the  ground,  and  the  shrubby  cherry-tree,  the 
fruit  of  which  grows  at  one  end  of,  instead  of  around,  the  stone,  added  to 
the  picturesque  effect.  The  level  ground-that  came  between  the  hill  and 
the  creek,  was  covered  with  the  verdant  oak,  which  grows  there  still, 
though  the  forest  above  has  fallen  under  the  blows  of  the  woodman's  axe, 


1827.]  Terra  Incognita.  595 

and  the  fire  has  consumed  it.  It  was  our  evening  amusement  afterwards, 
when  we  went  to  the  farm  at  holiday  time,  to  make  fires  at  the  roots  of 
the  stateliest  trees,  and  with  hatchets  to  wound  their  trunks,  that  our  auxi- 
liary might  the  better  worm  its  way ;  and  great  was  our  joy  when  a 
croaking  noise  gave  warning  that  our  exertions  were  about  to  be  rewarded, 
and  loud  were  our  huzzas  when  a  tree  fell,  which  it  would  with  a  thun- 
dering crash  that  might  be  heard  for  miles. 

There  is  an  art  in  felling  timber  when  the  intent  is  to  destroy  as  much 
as  possible — greater,  perhaps,  than  when  the  intention  is  to  throw  a  tree 
down  without  injuring  it  or  any  other.  A  skilful  feller  singles  out  the 
largest  and  heaviest  tree  to  assist  him  in  his  operations  ;  he  notices  the 
inclination  it  may  have  to  fall  one  way  rather  than  another,  but  if  it  be 
not  more  than  half  its  diameter  out  of  the  perpendicular,  he  can  make  it 
fall  which  way  he  pleases,  and  so  exactly,  that  he  will  take  a  number  of 
others  in  a  line  with  it,  and  cutting  them  half  through  on  the  side  from 
the  master  tree,  he  at  length  cuts  that  one  somewhat  more  than  half-way 
through  on  the  side  he  wishes  it  to  fall,  and  then  with  a  small  notch  on 
the  back  it  falls  headlong,  and  strikes  down  in  its  course  those  which 
have  been  prepared,  and  at  which  it  has  been  directed.  As  the  only 
object  is  to  get  the  trees  off  the  ground,  and  as  cutting  low  would  mate- 
rially add  to  the  labour  of  felling,  without  any  benefit  resulting,  they  are 
cut  at  about  four  feet  from  the  surface,  or  breast  high,  so  that  the  stumps 
remain  for  years  after  the  ground  has  been  converted  into  corn-fields,  gar- 
dens, and  orchards,  and  are  only  removed  in  the  event  of  the  proprietor 
becoming  rich  enough  (the  stumps  still  remain  on  my  father's  farms)  and 
particular  enough,  to  have  them  burnt  out.  When  the  trees  have  been 
felled,  they  are  cross-cut  into  convenient  lengths,  and  the  logs  are  rolled 
together  in  heaps  and  ignited.  Such  bonfires  never  were  made  at  the 
burning  of  heretics,  or  for  the  commemoration  of  a  victory,  as  I  have  seen 
in  the  wilds  of  Australia.  I  can  hardly  imagine  what  must  be  the  sensa- 
tions of  a  stranger,  travelling  there  for  the  first  time  by  night,  and  coming 
suddenly  upon  an  opening  of  two  or  three  hundred  acres,  in  the  forest  by 
which  his  road  has  been  flanked,  covered  with  hills  of  fire — not  flame  ;  for 
the  wood  being  green  does  not  blaze,  but  consumes  wiih  a  white  heat.  A 
lurid  glare  falls  on  'every  thing  around  him  ;  and  if  it  be  summer,  the  heat 
of  the  air  is  increased  almost  to  suffocation.  The  rustling  of  the  long 
grass  that  he  hears  is  not  occasioned  by  wind,  but  by  the  lizards  and 
guanas,  rushing  from  the  ruin  of  their  homes.  It  is  not  an  endless  black 
cord  drawn  across  the  path  that  he  sees,  but  deadly  serpents,  hurrying  from 
the  nests  that  are  made  too  hot  for  them.  The  fish  feel  the  heat  in  the 
neighbouring  creek — but  the  plashing  is  not  made  by  them ;  the  retreating 
shoals  of  reptiles  take  to  the  water,  and  go  hissing  through  it  like  so  many 
salamanders.  These  things  came  to  me  in  detail,  and  not  in  the  gross  :  I 
had  been  a  party  to  minor  exhibitions  of  the  kind,  before  I  had  occasion  to 
travel  much  by  night  in  the  new  parts  of  the  country. 

I  remember  an  industrious  fellow,  a  government  servant  to  Mr.  H— — , 
who  kept  three  or  four  different  operations  going  at  the  same  time.  His 
duty  was  to  break  up  with  the  hoe  a  certain  quantity  of  new  ground  every 
day  ;  but  he  contrived,  while  he  was  doing  that,  to  fell,  cut  up,  and  burn 
off  timber,  for  which  he  was  paid  by  the  acre  :  his  government  work  he 
could  do,  perhaps,  in  seven  or  eight  hours — but,  by  stopping  every  half 
hour,  and  tending  the  fires  he  had  at  work,  felling,  &c.,  in  twelve  hours  he 
could  do  his  exacted  task,  and  earn  the  wages  of  a  free  man  besides.  By 

4  G  2 


596  Terra  Incognita.  [JUNE, 

proper  management,  he  could  make  firo  eat  into  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  and 
throw  it  down  in  a  very  short  time.  When  down,  he  placed  dry  sticks  on 
fire,  in  notches  at  certain  distances,  and  so  i'airly  cut  the  trunk  into  lengths. 
After  his  day's  work  was  done,  just  for  amusement,  he  rolled  the  logs  into' 
heaps,  hy  the  help  of  handspikes,  and  putting  fire  to  them,  kept  it  alive 
night  and  day  till  they  were  all  consumed. 

There  is  a  great  variety  of  snakes  in  New  South  Wales  ;  the  largest  of 
which,  the  black  snake,  seldom  exceeds  nine  or  ten  feet  in  length,  and 
indeed  is  not  often  so  long  as  that.  All  are  deadly  poisonous  ;  but  it  is  not- 
often  that  accidents  occur  from  them — and  when  they  do,  it  is  generally  to 
the  poor  men  who  are  employed  at  felling  and  burning  off,  and  to  the 
carters  of  wood  into  the  towns  for  fuel.  Sometimes,  indeed,  a  snake  has 
quietly  emerged  from  a  log  of  wood  after  it  had  been  laid  on  a  kitchen 
lire;  and  they  have  been  found  comfortably  coiled  up  in  a  bed;  but  still 
accidents  from  them  are  infrequent. 

When  the  dispute  about  the  hill  was  decided,  off  went  the  surveyor  as 
fast  as  he  could  run  ;  and  off  we  all  went  after  him.  Strangely  it  puzzled 
me  to  know  how  it  was  that  a  little  fat  man  could  run  so  much  faster  than 
anybody  else.  Few  men  were  better  known  throughout  the  colony  than 

Jemmy  M ;  but  he  is  almost  forgotten  now; — for  the  generation  of 

those  who  had  their  farms  measured  by  him  is  passing  fast  away,  and  another 
has  already  sprung  up  of  those  who  know  not.Jemray.  The  places,  though 
they  change  as  fast  as  the  scenes  of  a  pantomime,  do  not  change  so  fast 
as  the  persons  who  occupy  them.  I  hardly  remember  one  of  any  stand- 
ing in  the  colony,  whose  head  is  not  among  the  clods  of  the  valley.  Old 
Macgregor,  the  sexton  at  Sydney,  whose  name  I  at  one  time  thought  syno- 
nimous  wTith  that  of  his  office,  is  fixed  at  last  where  I  have  so  often  seen  him. 
The  old  man  who  tolled  the  bell  on  the  green  before  the  church  at  Parra- 
matta,  has  been  indebted  to  another  for  sounding  his  knell :  from  the  grave- 
digger  to  the  governor,  all  are  changed.  My  earliest  friends  and  playfel- 
lows— where  are  they?  Some  are  already  patriarchs,  and  some  are  gone 
down  to  the  silent  tomb.  He  who  first  taught  me  the  sports  of  the  Austra- 
lian forest — with  whom  I  have  wandered  through  them  by  night  and  by 
day — who  was  to  me  as  an  elder  brother,  and  with  whom  I  took  sweet 
counsel — with  whom,  indeed.  I  made  the  bush-ranging  excursion  referred 
to  in  these  pages — a  blight  fell  on  his  youth  ;  and  he  is  now,  in  the  prime 
of  life,  with  a  broken  constitution  ; — he,  who  could  "  turn  and  wind  a 
fiery  Pegasus,"  is  now  too  weak  to  bestride  even  a  lady's  palfrey  ! 

I  have  never  attended  a  farm-measuring  since  :  that  day  so  completely 
tired  me,  that  I  afterwards  avoided  every  occasion  of  the  kind.  Even  the 
measuring  of  my  own  "  Sabine  farm  "  (though  very  many  years  after), 
was  not  a  sufficient  temptation  to  me  "  renovare  doloretn." 


w- 


1827.]  [    597     } 

A    LECTURE    ON    GIANTS. 

Monsieur  Louis. 

THERE  is  something  very  singular  in  gaping  at  a  man  of  extraordinary 
size  or  height — comparing  his  various  dimensions — and  treating  him,  in 
fact,  like  an  animal  whom  you  would  very  calmly  measure  from  "  the  tip 
of  the  snout  to  the  insertion  of  the  tail." 

This  thought  would  intrude  itself  when  we  went  to  see  that  most 
respectable  figure,  Monsieur  Louis,  seven  feet  and  a  half  in  height,  with 
stoutness  in  proportion — a  man,  beneath  whose  extended  arm  a  creature  of 
six  feet  might  walk  comfortably.  We  were,  in  the  emphatic  language  of 
Scripture,  as  "  grasshoppers  in  his  sight."  He  received  us  with  all  the 
affability  of  his  countrymen — being  a  native  of  happy  France,  where  all 
are  gay  and  debonair,  without  November's  dulnesses  and  most  inscrutable 
fogs.  "  There's  a  fist!"  said  the  great  and  noble  animal,  propelling  one 
which  might  have  done  justice  to  the  glove  of  Entellus,  and  exulting  in  the 
bodily  superiority  in  which  he  seemed  to  revel  with  fearful  confidence. 
But  as  remarkable  an  appearance  of  this  phenomenon  as  can  be  imagined, 
is  when  he  emerges  from  an  adjoining  room.  "  Monsieur  Louis  will  wait 
upon  you  directly,"  says  an  obliging  attendant ;  and  forthwith,  while  you 
are  fixing  in  your  mind  the  spot  on  the  door-post  which  his  head  may  pro- 
bably reach' — slow,  stately,  and  delving  low  beneath  the  lintel,  advances 
the  towering  head,  and  rears  itself,  one  would  almost  write,  jusquau 
del!  It  is  truly  a  chose  dvoir  et  d  vanter,  and,  if  properly  appreciated, 
will  lead  to  many  useful  considerations.  This  is  said  thus  meditatively, 
because  some  people  will  be  asking  odd  and  irrelevant  questions  of  these 
great  personages,  subject  to  a  risk  of  being  suddenly  ejected  from  the 
room — which  is  reported  to  have  happened  under  the  directions  of  poor  giant 
O'Bryan,  of  seven  or  eight  feet  memory.  How  a  surgeon  must  rejoice  in 
the  idea  of  cutting  up  a  vast  hill  of  flesh,  such  as  these  colossi  carry  about 
with  them !  But  we  are  straying  from  M.  Louis,  the  wonder  of  Lorraine. 
It  is  most  remarkable,  that  neither  of  his  parents  were  elevated  by  Nature 
above  the  ordinary  standard — his  father  being  somewhere  about  five  feet 
ten  inches — his  mother  only  five  feet.  Yet  this  son  of  their's  was  not  the 
only  giant  of  the  family  ;  for  the  eldest  brother,  who  died  in  the  great 
frost  at  Moscow,  measured  six  feet  ten  inches  ;  and  there  was  yet  another 
— a  giantess — who  rose  to  six  feet  two — a  very  sufficient  Brobdignag  lady, 
when  petticoats  are  considered !  The  curious  may  like  to  be  made 
acquainted  with  the  weight  of  the  magnificent  giant  above  mentioned,  and 
with  some  of  his  proportions.  The  former  came  to  twenty-one  stone  and 
seven  pounds  ;  from  the  ground  to  his  hip  were  four  feet  eight  inches  ;  from 
the  end  of  his  fore-finger  to  the  end  of  his  elbow  (taking  it,  according  to 
the  cubit  measure,  inwards),  two  feet  one  inch ;  the  length  of  his  foot 
was  fourteen  inches  ;  from  the  end  of  his  fore-finger  to  the  top  of  his  hand, 
ten  inches;  from  the  ground  to  his  knee,  two  feet  four  inches.  The  dis- 
tinguishing superiority  of  this  high  personage  is  most  visibly  observed  in  his 
symmetry ;  for,  respecting  men  of  common  stature,  it  is  a  just  remark, 
where  one  overtops  his  fellow  a  few  inches,  that  he  has  a  great  column  to 
support — Nature  having  exhausted  herself  in  the  creation  of  shanks,  con- 
formably with  her  favourite  principle  of  making  her  children  equal  in  the 
middle  of  their  bodies.  The  usually  fine  proportions,  however,  which 
strike  the  eye  on  beholding  M.  Louis,  together  with  a  certain  soldier-like 


598  A  Lecture  on  Giants.  [JUNE, 

carriage  which  he  possesses,  no  doubt  induced  a  very  considerable  Person- 
age to  pay  the  handsome  compliment,  that  "  he  was  the  tallest  and  finest 
man  he  had  ever  seen." 

But  now  that  the  writer  of  this  has  mounted  the  high  horse,  it  is  hardly 
fair  to  leave  the  subject  without  discoursing  of  other  giants  ;  for  there  have 
been  yet  bigger  men  very  many  centuries  ago.  And  so,  without  saying 
any  thing  of  the  Swiss  giantess — or  of  the  new  Lincolnshire  giant — or  of 
the  Swedish  prodigy,  who  figured  many  years  ago  near  the  Green  Man, 
at  Charing  Cross — or  of  the  Saxon,  his  contemporary — what  may  be  said 
of  those  bulky  individuals,  of  whom  the  Scripture  historian  has  spoken  ? 
— "  There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days  ;" — 

"  Giants  of  mighty  bone  and  bold  emprise ;" — 

of  those  sons  of  Anak,  whose  mien  was  so  commanding  as  to  create  the 
well-known  proverb — "  Tall  as  the  Anakims."  Our  nursery-tales,  many 
of  which  are  derived  from  the  purest  truth,  banter  us  not  when  they  speak 
of  the  giants.  There  was,  indeed,  once  a  land  and  valley  of  these  great 
people — not  to  mention  the  Patagonians  of  this  day. 

Ammon  and  Bashan  were  the  countries  where  the  biggest  seem  to  have 
dwelt ;  and  Og,  the  king  of  the  latter  place,  is  said  to  have  been  the  last. 
What  sort  of  a  man  he  was,  may  be  judged  by  his  occupying  a  bedstead  of 
iron,  fifteen  feet  long,  and  nearly  seven  broad  :  he  was  the  last  even  "  of 
the  remnant,"  and  was  probably  fifteen  or  sixteen  feet  high. 

Goliath  and  his  kindred,  whose  names  occur  next  in  history  as  monsters 
of  prodigious  size,  were  far  beneath  the  ancient  giants.  Goliath  measured 
about  eleven  feet,  and  had  a  coat  of  mail  which  weighed  upwards  of  one 
hundred  pounds — arid  a  spear,  the  head  of  which  exceeded  twenty. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  thought,  that  the  most  ancient  Rephaims,  or  peo- 
ple of  vast  height,  were  far  beyond  those  whom  Moses  remembered  in 
his  days — that  is,  during  his  life ;  and  Virgil — who,  in  common  with  other 
poets,  has  mixed  up  much  truth  with  richly-embellished  fictions — describes 
his  Cyclops  with  all  the  vividness  of  the  most  probable  traditions.  These 
were  brethren  of  the  lofty  Etna,  posting  their  high  heads  unto  the  heavens 
— like  the  towering  wood  of  Jove,  or  the  grove  of  Diana.  One  of  them, 
Polyphemus,  having  had  his  eye  put  out  with  a  large  spit  of  ^Eneas's  crew, 
stalked  after  their  boat,  with  most  unconscionable  strides,  into  the  middle 
of  the  sea,  which,  nevertheless,  did  not  even  touch  his  side.  Eye  he  never 
had  but  one  ;  and,  having  lost  that,  he  could  do  no  more  than  follow  the 
sound  of  the  oars.  Finding,  however,  that  the  bark  outsailed  him,  and 
that  he  would  be  utterly  unable  to  take  up  the  rogues'  vessel  who  had 
deprived  him  of  his  sight,  and  throw  them  against  the  shore,  he  set  up  a 
tremendous  roar — so  that  the  waves,  the  ocean,  and  the  earth  rung  with 
it,  and  the  great  mountain  itself  bellowed  again  with  the  noise.  This 
was  about  the  year  of  the  world  2284,  when  divers  huge  persons  are  said, 
on  all  hands,  to  have  been  in  existence. 

Now,  as  to  the  qualities  of  people  that  are  bigger  than  others,  are  they 
generally  good  or  evil  ?  The  author  of  an  old  book,  called  The  Giant- 
omachia,  who  denies  that  such  people  as  giants  ever  lived,  told  the 
world  when  he  wrote,  that  the  reason  of  the  term  "  giant  "  was,  because 
there  arose  great  oppressors  in  those  ages,  who  were,  therefore,  likened  to 
immense  monsters.  But  how  could  the  idea  of  a  monster  get  abroad, 
unless  somebody  had  seen  one  ?  And  Raleigh — poor  Sir  Walter — that 
sensible,  able,  learned,  unfortunate  man,  Raleigh — declares,  that  much 


1827.]  A  Lecture  on  Giants,  599 

more  likely  was  it  that  people  were  oppressors  because  they  were  giants, 
than  that  they  should  be  deemed  giants  because  they  were  cruel.  This, 
however,  is  saying  but  very  little  for  the  excellencies  of  character  attri- 
butable to  the  mighty ;  and  it  is  allowed,  in  fact,  that  the  old  ones  of  all 
were  very  bad  people.  But  come  we  to  more  modern  times,  and  vou  really 
shall  find  your  giant  a  remarkably  civil  man,  to  say  the  least — much  to  his 
credit,  too — especially  if  all  the  rude  boys  of  the  village  run  after  and 
hoot  at  him.  Now,  though  to  speak  of  the  living  is  riot  the  most  polished 
act  in  the  world,  pray  let  it  be  said,  that  M.  Louis  is  as  courteous, 
obliging,  and  well-behaved  a  man  as  any  little  English  grasshopper  would 
like  to  see.  Jt  is  really  quite  amusing  sometimes  to  observe  the  placability 
and  self-comfort  of  large  men.  On  a  stage-coach,  now,  this  may  be  seen. 
You  may  notice  a  little  dapper,  dwarfish  fellow  giving  himself  prodigious 
airs,  and  rustling  about  the  conveyance  in  a  hundred  ways;  and,  no 
doubt,  without  meaning  it,  he  will  touch,  as  roughly  as  his  capacity 
will  permit,  some  grave,  huge  barbarian  (not  in  an  obnoxious  sense)  on 
the  side  of  him.  The  man  of  might  will  sit  quiet  as  a  lamb — not  regard- 
ing in  the  slightest  an  action  which  might  do  great  credit  to  an  insect,  or 
some  small  animal.  Giant  O' Bryan  was  a  very  polite,  well-conducted 
giant,  as  far  as  one  can  learn  from  report ;  and,  upon  the  whole,  although 
seven  or  eight  feet  are  not  quite  so  much  as  fifteen  or  twenty,  there  is  a 
sufficient  difference  between  eight,  and  five  feet  two,  three,  or  four  inches, 
to  make  a  great  fellow  highly  pleased  with  himself — aye,  and  cruel,  too — 
but  that  he  has  the  good  sense  to  adopt  the  manners  and  customs  of  his 
more  enlightened  age. 

Perhaps  some  of  the  critics  in  giantships  may  not  be  particularly  pleased 
that  the  Patagonians  are  not  mentioned  ;  but  they  must  know  that,  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  not  respectful  to  speak  of  living  characters ;  and,  in  the 
next,  that  there  are  two  or  three  stories  abroad  already  about  these  same 
Patagonians. 

Most  likely  some  of  our  voyaging  authors  saw  persons  not  much  above 
six  feet,  when  they  expected  a  tribe  ccelo  capita  altaferentes  ;*  and  others 
— Byron,  for  instance — might  have  popped  upon  some  pleasant-looking 
party  of  seven  feet  at  a  time,  when  he  was  indulging  no  idea  of  man  beyond 
English  pygmies  ;  and  when,  moreover,  he  was  perhaps  shrunk  much  into 
himself  for  want  of  something  to  eat. 

But  you  will  s&y—desine  plum  precor — we  have  had  enough  of  giants  ; 
what  can  be  said  of  dwarfs  ? 

"  The  lesse  the  subject,  greater  is  the  wit, 
That  undertaking  for  to  treate  on  it, 
Makes  almost  nothing  something." 

Of  Nature's  "  rarest  gems  in  smallest  cabinets,"  this  paper  cannot  be 
allowed  to  speak — for  it  must  now  be  closed.  In  parting,  however,  let  us 
indulge  a  gentle  recollection  of  good  Will  Evans  and  poor  little  Jefferie 
Hudson :  the  first  was  King  Charles  the  First's  porter,  and  only  seven 
feet  and  a  half  high  ;  the  other  was  his  dwarf,  of  three  feet  nine  inches, 
and  owed  his  introduction  at  court  to  the  delicacies  of  a  cold  baked  pie,  in 
which  he  was  served  up.  This  compendious  little  Sir  had  many  squabbles 
with  Master  Will  Evans,  and  was  one  day  drawn  forth  out  of  the  said  big 
man's  pocket  at  a  masque— pourfaire  rire.  Yet,  goaded  and  pickled  by 

*  "  Bearing  their  high  heads  to  heaven." 


600  A  Lecture  on  Giants.  [JUNE, 

every  body  as  he  was,  he  had  a  spiteful  spirit  belonging  to  him,  which 
proved  fatal  to  a  certain  Mr.  Crofts.  This  young  spark,  who  might  have 
been  bred  up  in  the  racy  pleasures  of  impaling  spiders,  or  pinning  flies, 
perceiving  an  animal  just  fitted  for  his  sport,  fell  in  with  the  general  bait- 
ing which  poor  Jefferie  was  so  wont  to  suffer.  But  he  hunted  his  game 
too  hard ;  for,  Hudson  having  challenged  him,  he  came  to  the  field  with 
a  squirt;  and  that  exasperated  little  Ulysses  so  much,  that  'he  contrived 
to  be  hoisted  on  a  horse,  with  a  pistol,  and  his  adversary  having  done  the 
same,  the  aggressor  was  shot  dead  at  the  first  fire.  Little  Lord  Minimus 
was  in  the  habit  of  stalking  about,  in  rich  silks  and  satins,  with  two  tall 
men  to  wait  upon  him,  and  so  drew  upon  his  dwarfship  the  dangerous 
honour  of  being  celebrated  by  the  wits  of  the  day.  *'  The  Jeffreidos  ;  or, 
a  Battle  between  the  Corpusculum*  and  a  Turkey-Cock,"  was  sent  forth 
by  Sir  William  Davenant ;  and,  "  A  New  Year's  Gift,  presented  by 
Lady  Parvula  to  the  Lord  Minimus,  his  Majesty's  Servant/'  was  among 
the  incenses  which  were  offered  him.  This  last  is  dedicated  to  Evans,  and 
begins — 

"  Will,  be  not  angry;  this  snsall  booke  is  read 
In  praise  of  one  no  bigger  than  thy  head.1' 

The  address  is  entirely  in  praise  of  smallnesses  : — 

"  You  have  seene,  Sir,"  it  says,  "  the  commodity  of  little,  and  discommodity 
of  great  in  others ;  take  notice  of  them  in  yoursette  :  Had  you  beene  bigge  and 
great,  ten  to  one  you  had  never  proved  a  courtier ;  'twas  onely  your  littlenesse 
preferred  you." 

It  consoles  the  little  man  with  proverbs : — 

"  Too  much  of  one  thing  is  good  for  nothing." 
'*  A  little  of  every  thing  is  excellent  in  all  things.1' 
"  All  things  are  not  as  they  seeme." 

«*  Have  you  not  heard  of  men  that  stumble  at  strawes,  and  leap  over 
blockes." 

"  Amore  meum,  et  nihil  meumj'  &c. 

The  Lady  Parvula  closes  by  wishing  the  "  most  perfect  abridgment  of 
Nature  many  merry  new-yeares.'' — 

And  so  you,  whoever  may  please  to  read  this,  and  whenever — qito- 
cunque  et  quandocunque  (the  Latins  more  neatly  have  it) — I  wish  you 
a  merry  season. t 

•  Little  body. 

f  There  has  not  been  one-tenth  part  of  the  giants  mentioned  here,  which  people  of 
different  countries  and  times  have  written  about.  Goropius,  the  Dutch  physician,  who 
thought  that  Adam  talked  Flemish,  says  that  he  saw  a  girl  ten  feet  high  ;  and  when  bones 
have  been  found  in  fields,  there  have  not  been  wanting  virtuosi  whose  sedulous  measure- 
ments have  whipped  up  the  respective  heights  to  twenty,  twenty-five,  and  even  thirty 
feet.  Why  are  we  to  be  incredulous  about  our  own  magnificent  species,  when  the  world 
are  content  to  believe — and  very  properly,  no  doubt— the  grand  stories  of  the  Icthyosaurij 
Plesiosauri,  and  Megatheria  ? 


1827.]  [     601     ] 

THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    DRUNKENNESS.* 

"  There  are  more  killed  by  the  Vintners  than  arc  saved  by  the  Physicians  " 

Spanish  Proverb. 

NEXT  to  the  Phenomena  of  Insanity,  which,  if  there  were  not  a  sort  of 
instinctive  consciousness  in  men's  minds  that  their  examination  is  attended 
with  a  certain  degree  of  danger,  would  long  since  have  found  abundance 
of  commentators,  beyond  the  mere  medical  writers  who  have  considered 
them  professionally,  the  peculiarities  and  symptoms  attendant  upon  the 
minor  mental  malady  of  Drunkenness,  have  often  seemed  to  us  to  form  one 
of  the  most  interesting  subjects  of  study  with  which  a  speculative  mind 
could  occupy  itself.  Whether  we  look  to  the  causes  by  which  this  destruc- 
tive habit  is  brought  on  ;  to  the  extraordinary  circumstances  which  attend 
its  indulgence;  to  its  effect,  in  a  moral  or  physical  point  of  view,  upon  its 
victim  ;  or  to  the  manner  or  possibility  of  its  cure  ;  the  inquiry  is  still  one  of 
the  highest  curiosity ;  and  one  in  which,  unfortunately,  there  are  few  per- 
sons who  have  not,  directly  or  remotely,  a  strong  personal  interest.  Under 
such  circumstances,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  subject  should,  at  various 
times,  have  occupied  the  consideration  of  highly  eminent  men,  both  literary 
and  scientific ;  and  we  think  no  apology  necessary  for  bringing  before  our 
readers  a  very  short  pamphlet,  published  at  Glasgow,  which  has  come 
rather  accidentally  under  our  notice,  but  which  appears  to  us  to  form  the 
best  essay  upon  Drunkenness  which  has  been  produced  for  a  considerable 
number  of  years.  The  author  (Mr.  Macnish)  states,  in  a  very  brief  adver- 
tisement, that  his  pamphlet  was  written  as  an  inaugural  treatise,  to  be  pre- 
sented to  the  Members  of  the  Faculty  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  of  Glas- 
gow— candidates  for  admission  into  that  body  being  required  to  print  their 
observations,  on  some  subject  connected  with  medicine  or  surgery,  previous 
to  their  election.  Its  appearance  before  the  public  is  said  to  have  pro- 
ceeded "  upon  the  suggestion  of  the  publisher,"  who  conceived  that  it 
might  be  adapted  to  the  perusal  of  a  wider  circle  than  that  for  which  it  was 
originally  intended.  We  are,  upon  this  point,  of  the  publisher's  opinion, 
and  willingly  (although  Mr.  Macnish  is  entirely  unknown  to  us)  lend  our 
assistance  to  carry  his  suggestion  into  effect. 

The  author  sets  out  by  touching  generally  upon  the  "  causes  of  drunken- 
ness ;"  and  divides  drunkards,  in  the  first  place,  into  three  great  classes — 
those  who  are  constitutionally  such  from  choice  ;  those  who  become  so  from 
gradual  habit  or  example  ;  and  those  who  are  made  such  from  the  pressure 
of  misfortune,  or — as  Mr.  Macnish  entitles  them — the  "  drunkards  of 
necessity." 

The  first  class — the  drunkards  from  choice — are  the  sort  of  persons  who 
seem  to  have 

"  An  innate  and  constitutional  fondness  for  liquor,  and  drink  con  amore.  Such 
men  are  usually  of  a  sanguineous  temperament — of  coarse,  unintellectual  minds — 
and  of  low  and  animal  propensities.  They  have,  in  general,  a  certain  rigidity  of 
fibre,  and  a  flow  of  animal  spirits,  which  other  people  are  without.  They  delight  in 
the  roar  and  riot  of  drinking  clubs ;  and  with  them  all  the  miseries"  [and  probably 
the  greater  part  of  the  pleasures]  "  of  life  may  be  referred  to  the  bottle." 

In  an  ensuing  chapter  the  author  observes,  that  "  the  naval  service  fur- 
nishes a  great  many  instances  of  topers  of  this  description  ;"  and — without 
the  slightest  offence  to  the  navy — he  is  perfectly  in  the  right. 

*  The  Anatomy  of  Drunkenness  ;  by  Robert  Maciiish.    MTkun,  Glasgow. 
M.M.  New  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  IS.  4   II 


602  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [JUNE, 

The  fact  is,  that  the  drunkards  of  this  class — the  "  constitutional" — are 
not,  constitutionally,  drunkards  alone,  but  men  whose  general  round  of 
animal  propensities  have  either  been  left  unreforraed  by  education,  or  sub- 
mit to  its  restrictions  imperfectly  only,  and  with  difficulty.  In  most  farni  - 
lies,  above  a  certain  rank  in  life,  where  there  are  many  sons,  the  riotous 
one — long  before  he  has  began  to  think  of  "  drinking" — is  destined  for  the 
Navy.  Such  agents  are  capable  of  being  controlled,  and,  from  their  power- 
ful energy,  become  auxiliaries  of  the  highest  value  where  they  are  con- 
trolled ;  but  they  must  be  coerced  with  a  discipline  more  stern  and  inflexi- 
ble than  that  which  society  allows  to  be  employed  against  its  subjects  in 
general.  The  abundance  of  this  character,  it  is  among  our  British  soldiers 
and  sailors,  that — even  while,  perhaps,  it  renders  their  physical  available- 
ness  greater  than  that  of  any  other  fighting  force  in  Europe — makes  the 
means  of  enforcing  strict  and  peremptory  submission  to  command,  indispen- 
sable in  our  naval  and  military  services.  It  was  with  perfect  truth  observed, 
by  Sir  Hussey  Vivian,  in  a  late  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons,  upon  the 
abolition  of  corporal  punishment  in  the  army — that  the  soldier,  who  was 
the  first,  when  in  quarters,  to  get  drunk  and  break  over  the  barrack-wall, 
was  also  likely,  upon  an  assault,  to  be  first  in  the  trenches  of  the  enemy. 
Military  writers,  and  speakers  upon  military  discipline  or  operations, 
are  apt  enough  to  treat  the  soldier  as  a  machine ;  but  they  forget  to  con- 
sider the  rather  necessary  circumstance — that  he  should  be  a  fighting  one. 
Taking  men — as  we  take  them  for  soldiers — at  hazard — the  ferocious  and 
combative  spirit  of  the  bull-dog,  and  the  docility  of  the  spaniel,  are  not 
found  united  in  the  same  individual. 

The  second  class  of  drinkers  are  the  drunkards  from  misfortune  : — 

"The  drunkard  by  necessity  was  never  meant  by  nature  to  be  dissipated.  He 
is  perhaps  a  person  of  amiable  dispositions,  whom  misfortune  has  overtaken,  and 
who,  instead  of  bearing  up  manfully  against  it,  endeavours  to  drown  his  sorrows 
in  liquor.  It  is  an  excess  of  sensibility,  a  partial  mental  weakness,  an  absolute 
misery  of  the  heart,  which  drives  him  on.  Drunkenness,  with  him,  is  a  conse- 
quence of  misfortune ;  it  is  a  solitary  dissipation  preying  upon  him  in  silence. 
Such  a  man  frequently  dies  broken-hearted,  even  before  his  excesses  have  had  time 
to  destroy  him  by  their  own  unassisted  agency." 

The  third,  and  most  numerous  class,  are  the  drunkards  from  example  and 
habit  :— 

"  Some  become  drunkards  from  excess  of  indulgence  in  youth.  There  are 
parents  who  have  a  common  custom  of  treating  their  children  to  wine,  punch,  and 
other  intoxicating  liquors.  This,  in  reality,  is  regularly  bringing  them  up  in  an 
apprenticeship  to  drunkenness.  Others  are  taught  the  vice  by  frequenting  drinking 
clubs  and  masonic  lodges.  These  are  the  genuine  academies  of  tippling.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  drunkards  we  meet  with,  have  been  there  initiated  in  that  love  of 
intemperance  and  boisterous  irregularity  which  distinguish  their  future  lives.  Men 
who  are  good  singers  are  very  apt  to  become  drunkards,  and,  in  truth,  most  of 
them  are  so,  more  or  less,  especially  if  they  have  naturally  much  jovialty  or 
warmth  of  temperament.  A  fine  voice  to  such  men  is  a  fatal  accomplishment." 

The  lower  classes  are  said  to  be  peculiarly  addicted  to  liquor.  The  truth 
is  that  intoxication  is,  or  has  been,  the  cheapest  and  readiest  gratification, 
always  within  their  reach.  Until  within  these  few  years  there  was 
hardly  an  instance  in  which  a  Bolton  or  Macclesfield  weaver  could  read  ; 
and  many  thousands — the  number  is  fortunately  decreasing  every  day — 
are  in  that  situation  at  present.  Such  a  man  had  not,  like  the  artisan 
of  London,  half-a-dozen  different  cheap  spectacles,  or  theatres,  to  enter- 
tain himself  at,  after  his  work  was  over ;  and  the  public-house  was  his 


1 827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  603 

only  place  of  refuge.  The  mere  adoption  of  any  course  which  enables 
the  lower  orders  to  divert  themselves,  within  doors,  in  some  other  way 
than  by  drinking — the  enabling  them  to  read  (no  matter  to  what  purpose, 
or  on  what  subjects)  will  everyday  tend  more  and  more  to  wean  them  from 
the  habit  of  intoxication. 

«4  Ebriety  prevails  to  an  alarming  degree  among  the  lower  orders  of  society. 
It  exists  more  in  towns  than  in  the  country,  and  more  among  mechanics  than  hus- 
bandmen. Most  of  the  misery  to  be  observed  among  the  working  classes  springs 
from  this  source.  No  persons  are  more  addicted  to  the  habit,  and  all  its  attendant 
vices,  than  the  pampered  servants  of  the  great.  Innkeepers,  musicians,  actors,  and 
men  who  lead  a  rambling  and  eccentric  life,  are  exposed  to  a  similar  hazard.  Hus- 
bands sometimes  teach  their  wives  to  be  drunkards  by  indulging  them  in  toddy, 
and  such  fluids,  every  time  they  themselves  sit  down  to  their  libations," 

All  people  who  congregate  much,  and  who  travel  much,  are  drinkers. 
A  man  who  lives  at  houses  of  public  entertainment  must  call  for — and  pay 
for — liquor.  With  such,  its  consumption  can  hardly  be  esteemed  a  matter 
of  choice. 

"  Women  frequently  acquire  the  vice  by  drinking  porter  and  ale  while  nursing. 
These  stimulants  are  usually  recommended  to  them,  from  well  meant  but  mistaken 
motives,  by  their  female  attendants.  Many  fine  young  women  are  ruined  by  this 
detestable  practice.  Their  persons  become  gross,  their  milk  unhealthy,  and  a 
foundation  is  too  often  laid  for  future  indulgence  in  liquor. 

"  The  frequent  use  of  cordials,  such  as  noyau,  shrub,  kirsch-waser,  cura9oa,  and 
anisette,  sometimes  leads  to  the  practice.  The  active  principle  of  these  liqueurs 
is  neither  more  nor  less  than  ardent  spirits." 

This  observation,  though  unsavoury  in  its  character,  is  not  the  less  deserv- 
ing attention.  The  cases  to  which  it  applies  are  little  heard  of,  because 
there  is  an  interest,  where  they  occur,  in  their  concealment ;  but  they 
cannot  be  too  cautiously  guarded  against;  for  the  ruin  which  attends  them, 
where  they  do  arise,  is  overwhelming. 

Upon  the  question  that  "  men  of  genius  arc  often  unfortunately  addicted 
to  drunkenness,"  we  should  be  induced  rather  to  differ  from  our  author, 
and  to  substitute  the  charge  that  they  were  so.  The  men  whom  we  know 
as  men  of  high  talent  in  the  present  day  are  almost  invariably  sober  men. 
The  fact  is,  fashion  alone  has  an  immense  power  in  a  matter  of  this  kind. 
Thirty  years  ago,  a  man  could  hardly  go  much  into  what  is  called  "  good 
company,"  without  drinking  hard.  Ill  habits  were  acquired  in  early  life,  and 
especially  at  College,  from  the  same  cause.  While  such  men  as  Pitt,  Fox, 
Sheridan,  and  a  still  greater  personage — whom  it  would  be  irreverent 
now  to  remind  of  youthful  follies — were  understood  to  make  it  rather 
a  point  of  emulation  which  should  swallow  the  greatest  quantity  of 
liquor,  and  indulge  in  the  strongest  potations — to  be  a  fine  gentleman  was  to 
drink — a  slight  mis-statement  of  the  circumstances  made  lads  read — not  that 
"to  be  a  fine  gentleman  was  to  drink" — but  that  "to  drink  was  to  be  a  fine 
gentleman ;"  and  the  habit  of  drinking  became  one  which  everj  young 
man  of  rank,  at  his  setting  out  in  life,  felt  it  his  duty  to  acquire.  The  case 
is  otherwise  now. 

The  author,  however,  fairly  says,  in  concluding  this  part  of  his  sub- 
ject— 

"  We  need  not  endeavour  to  trace  farther  the  remote  causes  of  drunkenness.  A 
drunkard  is  rarely  able  to  recall  the  particular  circumstances  which  made  him  so. 
The  vice  creeps  upon  him  insensibly,  and  he  is  involved  in  its  fetters  before  he  is 
aware.  It  is  enough  that  we  know  the  proximate  cause,  and  also  the  certain  con- 

\  n  2 


604  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [JuxE, 

sequences.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  a  man  who  addicts  himself  to  intemperance 
can  never  be  said  to  be  sound  in  mind  or  body.  The  former  is  in  a  state  of  partial 
insanity,  while  the  effects  of  the  liquor  remain  ;  and  the  latter  is  always  more  or  less 
diseased  in  its  actions." 

The  following  description  of  the  process  of  getting  drunk  is  written  with 
great  truth  and  spirit  :  — 

*•  The  consequences  of  drunkenness  are  dreadful,  but  the  pleasures  of  getting 
drunk  are  certainly  ecstatic.  While  the  illusion  lasts,  happiness  is  complete  ;  care 
and  melancholy  are  thrown  to  the  wind,  and  Elysium,  with  all  its  glories,  descends 
upon  the  dazzled  imagination  of  the  drinker. 

"  What  are  the  sensations  of  incipient  drunkenness?  First,  an  unusual  serenity- 
prevails  over  the  mind,  and  the  soul  of  the  votary  is  filbd  with  a  placid  satisfaction. 
By  degrees  he  is  sensible  of  a  soft  and  not  unmusical  humming  in  his  ears,  at  every 
pause  of  the  conversation.  Ke  seems,  to  himself,  to  wear  his  head  lighter  than 
usual  upon  his  shoulders.  Then  a  species  of  obscurity,  thinner  than  the  finest  mist, 
passes  before  his  eyes,  and  makes  him  see  objects  rather  indistinctly.  The  lights 
begin  to  dance,  and  appear  double.  A  gaiety  and  warmth  are  felt  at  the  same 
time  about  the  heart.  The  imagination  is  expanded,  and  rilled  with  a  thousand 
delightful  images.  He  becomes  loquacious,  and  pours  forth,  in  enthusiastic  lan- 
guage, the  thoughts  which  are  born,  as  it  were,  within  him. 

"  Now  comes  a  spirit  of  universal  contentment  with  himself  and  all  the  world. 
He  thinks  no  more  of  misery  :  it  is  dissolved  in  the  bliss  of  the  moment.  This  is 
the  acme  of  the  fit  —  the  ecstacy  is  now  perfect.  As  yet  the  sensorium  is  in 
tolerable  order:  it  is  only  shaken,  but  the  capability  of  thinking  with  accuracy 
still  remains.  About  this  time,  the  drunkard  pours  out  all  the  secrets  of  his  soul. 
His  qualities,  good  or  bad,  come  forth  without  reserve  ;  and  now,  if  at  any  time, 
the  human  heart  may  be  seen  into.  In  a  short  period,  he  is  seized  with  a  most 
inordinate  propensity  to  talk  nonsense,  though  he  is  perfectly  conscious  of  doing 
so.  He  also  commits  many  foolish  things,  knowing  them  to  be  foolish.  The 
power  of  volition,  that  faculty  which  keeps  the  will  subordinate  to  the  judgment, 
seems  totally  weakened.  The  most  delightful  time  seems  to  be  that  immediately 
before  becoming  very  talkative.  When  this  takes  place,  a  man  turns  ridiculous, 
and  his  mirth,  though  more  boisterous,  is  not  so  exquisite.  At  first,  the  intoxi- 
cation partakes  of  sentiment,  but,  latterly,  it  becomes  merely  animal. 

"  After  this  the  scene  thickens.  The  drunkard's  imagination  gets  disordered 
with  the  most  grotesque  conceptions.  Instead  of  moderating  his  drink,  he  pours 
it  down  more  rapidly  than  ever:  glass  follows  glass  with  reckless  energy.  His 
head  becomes  perfectly  giddy.  The  candles  burn  blue,  or  green,  or  yellow;  and 
where  there  are  perhaps  only  three  on  the  table,  he  sees  a  dozen.  According  to 
his  temperament,  he  is  amorous,  or  musical,  or  quarrelsome.  Many  possess  a  most 
extraordinary  wit  ;  and  a  great  flow  of  spirits  is  a  general  attendant.  In  the  latter 
stages,  the  speech  is  thick,  and  the  use  of  the  tongue  in  a  great  measure  lost.  His 
mouth  is  half  open,  and  idiotic  in  the  expression  ;  while  his  eyes  are  glazed^  waver- 
ing, and  watery.  He  is  apt  to  fancy  that  he  has  often  offended  some  one  of  the  com- 
pany, and  is  ridiculously  profuse  with  his  apologies.  Frequently  he  mistakes  one 
person  for  another,  and  imagines  that  some  of  those  before  him  are  individuals  who 
are,  in  reality,  absent  or  even  dead.  The  muscular  powers  are,  all  along,  much 
affected  :  this,  indeed,  happens  before  any  great  change  takes  place  in  the  mind, 
and  goes  on  progressively  increasing.  He  can  no  longer  walk  with  steadiness,  but 
totters  frofli  side  to  side.  The  limbs  become  powerless,  and  inadequate  to  sustain 
his  weight.  He  is,  however,  not  always  sensible  of  any  deficiency  in  this  respect  : 
and,  whileexciting  mirth  by  his  eccentric  motions,  imagines  that  he  walks  with  the 
most  perfect  steadiness.  In  attempting  to  run,  he  conceives  that  he  passes  over 
the  ground  with  astonishing  rapidity.  The  last  stage  of  drunkenness  is  total 
insensibility.  The  man  tumbles  perhaps  beneath  the  table,  and  is  carried  away 
in  a  state  of  stupor  to  his  couch.  In  this  condition  he  is  said  to  be  dead 


The  above  is  the  entertainment;  —  now  comes  the  reckoning 


1827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  COS 

"  When  the  drunkard  is  put  to  bed,  let  us  suppose  that  his  faculties  are  not 
totally  absorbed  in  apoplectic  stupor;  let  us  suppose  that  he  still  possesses  con- 
sciousness and  feeling,  though  these  are  both  disordered ;  then  begins  "  the  tug 
of  war  ;"  then  comes  the  misery  which  is  doomed  to  succeed  his  previous  raptures. 
No  sooner  is  his  head  laid  upon  the  pillow  than  it  is  seized  with  the  strangest 
throbbing.  His  heart  beats  quick  and  hard  against  the  ribs.  A  noise  like  the 
distant  fall  of  a  cascade,  or  rushing  of  a  river,  is  heard  in  his  ears.  Sough — sough 
— sough,  goes  the  sound.  His  senses  now  become  more  drowned  and  stupified. 
A  dim  recollection  of  his  carousals,  like  a  shadowy  and  indistinct  dream,  passes 
before  the  mind.  He  still  hears,  as  in  echo,  the  cries  and  laughter  of  his  com- 
panions. Wild  fantastic  fancies  accumulate  thickly  around  the  brain.  His  giddi- 
ness is  greater  than  ever;  and  he  feels  as  if  in  a  ship  tossed  upon  a  heaving  sea. 
At  last  he  drops  insensibly  into  a  profound  slumber." 

Mr.  Macnish  notices  the  fact  that  the  giddiness  of  intoxication  is  always 
greater  in  darkness  than  in  the  light,  but  professes  himself  unable  to  declare 
.the  reason.  We  take  it  that,  in  general,  the  mind  is  less  steady  in  its  bear- 
ings, and  less  firm,  in  darkness  than  in  the  light. 

"  In  the  morning  he  awakes  in  a  high  fever.  The  whole  body  is  parched ;  the 
palms  of  the  hands,  in  particular,  are  like  leather.  His  head  is  often  violently 
painful.  He  feels  excessive  thirst ;  while  his  tongue  is  white,  dry,  and  stiff.  The 
whole  inside  of  the  mouth  is  likewise  hot  and  constricted,  and  the  throat  often  sore. 
Then  look  at  his  eyes — how  sickly,  dull,  and  languid.  The  fire,  which  first  lighted 
them  up  the  evening  before,  is  all  gone.  A  stupor,  like  that  of  the  last  stage  of 
drunkenness,  still  clings  about  them,  and  they  are  affected  by  the  light.  The  com- 
plexion sustains  as  great  a  change:  it  is  no  longer  flushed  with  gaiety  and  excita- 
tion, but  pale  and  wayworn,  indicating  a  profound  mental  and  bodily  exhaustion. 
There  is  probably  sickness,  and  the  appetite  is  totally  gone.  Even  yet  the  delirium 
of  intoxication  has  not  left  him,  for  his  head  still  rings,  his  heart  still  throbs  vio- 
lently; and  if  he  attempt  getting  up,  he  stumbles  with  giddiness.  The  mind  also 
is  sadly  depressed,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  previous  night  are  painfully  remem- 
bered. Ho  is  sorry  for  his  conduct,  promises  solemnly  never  again  so  to  commit 
himself,  and  calls  impatiently  for  something  to  quench  his  thirst.  Such  are  the 
usual  phenomena  of  a  fit  of  drunkenness." 

The  varieties  of  temper  and  conduct  of  drunkards  are  curiously  pointed 
out: — 

"  Some  drunkards  retain  their  senses  after  the  physical  powers  are  quite  exhausted. 
Others,  even  when  the  mind  is  wrought  to  a  pitch  leading  to  the  most  absurd 
actions,  preserve  a  degree  of  cunning  and  observation  which  enables  them  to 
elude  the  tricks  which  their  companions  are  preparing  to  play  upon  them.  In  such 
cases  they  display  great  address,  and  take  the  first  opportunity  cf  retaliating;  or, 
if  such  does  not  occur,  of  slipping  out  of  the  room  unobserved  and  getting  away. 
Some,  while  the  whole  mind  seems  locked  up  in  the  stupor  of  forgetfulness,  hear 
all  that  is  going  on.  No  one  should  ever  presume  on  the  intoxicated  state  of 
another  to  talk  of  him  detractingly  in  his  presence.  While  apparently  deprived 
of  all  sensation,  he  may  be  an  attentive  listener;  and  whatever  is  said,  though 
unheeded  at  the  moment,  is  not  forgotten  afterwards,  but  treasured  carefully  up  in 
the  memory.  Much  discord  and  ill-will  frequently  arise  from  such  imprudence. 

"  The  generality  of  people  are  apt  to  talk  of  their  private  affairs  when  intoxicated. 
They  then  reveal  the  most  deeply  hidden  secrets  to  their  companions.  Others 
have  their  minds  so  happily  constituted  that  nothing  escapes  them.  They  are,  even 
in  their  most  unguarded  moments,  secret  and  close  as  the  grave. 

'*  The  natural  disposition  may  be  better  discovered  in  drunkenness  than  at  any 
other  time.  In  modern  society,  life  is  all  a  disguise.  Every  man  walks  in  mas- 
querade, and  his  most  intimate  friend  very  often  does  not  know  his  real  character. 
Many  wear  smiles  constantly  upon  their  cheeks  whose  hearts  are  unprincipled 
and  treacherous.  Many  with  violent  tempers  have  all  the  external  calm  and  soft- 
ness of  charity  itself.  Some  speak  always  with  sympathy,  who,  at  soul,  are  full  of 
gall  and  bitterness.  Intoxication  tears  off  the  veil,  and  sets  each  in  its  true  light, 


606  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [JUNE, 

whatever  that  may  be.  The  combative  man  will  quarrel,  the  sensualist  will  love, 
the  detractor  will  abuse  his  neighbour.  I  have  known  exceptions,  but  they  are 
few  in  number.  At  one  time  they  seemed  more  numerous,  but  closer  observation 
convinced  me  that  most  of  those  whom  I  thought  drunkenness  had  libelled,  in- 
herited, at  bottom,  the  genuine  dispositions  which  it  brought  forth." 

We  do  not  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Macnish  upon  this  point.  His  principle 
that  "  in  wine  there  is  truth,"  has  age  to  entitle  it  to  respect ;  but  we  can- 
not admit  that  a  man's  *'  natural  disposition"  discovers  itself  in  drunken- 
ness ;  because,  modified  as  our  habits  are  in  civilized  society,  by  restraint 
and  education,  it  becomes  difficult  to  say  often  what  is  a  man's  natural,  or 
what  is  his  acquired,  disposition ;  and,  perhaps,  the  distinction  is  unim- 
portant. As  far  as  we  can  judge,  we  should  say,  that — naturally — there 
will  not  be  a  great  deal  of  variety  in  the  characters  of  men :  they  are 
savages,  and  have  all,  pretty  nearly  in  the  same  degree,  the  passions  and 
the  vices  of  savages.  "  Naturally,"  we  take  it.  man  seldom  sees  more  than, 
one  object  of  good — the  immediate  gratification  of  his  desire;  and  this 
object  circumstances  may  lead  two  different  men  to  pursue  in  different 
ways  ;  but,  still,  they  do  pursue  it. 

The  first  great  lesson  which  education  teaches  a  man — and  the  fact  of 
which  he  has  little  idea  in  his  natural  state — is,  that  his  present  desire  may 
be  foregone  for  his  future  advantage.  This  is  perhaps  the  grand  lesson  to 
which  all  civilization  tends,  and  the  inculcation  of  which  it  is  sufficiently 
difficult  to  accomplish.  Naturally,  we  apprehend  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  every  man  has  an  inclination  to  possess  himself  of  the  house,  the  wife, 
the  pocket-handkerchief  of  his  neighbour.  Small  children,  left  in  groupes 
together,  instinctively  take  the  sugar-plums,  toys,  &c.,  which  are  the  pro- 
perty of  each  other.  Man — naturally — is,  under  all  circumstances  (those 
occasional  exceptions  from  which  no  principle  is  free,  of  course,  admitted) 
tyrannous  and  cruel.  The  individual  who  finds  his  bodily  strength  supe- 
rior to  that  of  those  about  him  will  indulge  his  bad  passions  openly,  and 
by  quarrel  and  combat.  He  who  feels  that,  in  this  sort  of  contest,  he 
shall  be  worsted,  changes  his  mode  of  warfare,  and  will  have  recourse  to 
fraud.  But  each  still  pursues  the  same  object,  and  by  means  equally — in 
the  view  of  civilized  society — objectionable  or  unworthy. 

In  fact,  we  may  go  farther  than  this.  Man's  wants  apart,  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  there  is  about  him,  naturally,  an  appetite  for  cruelty  and 
insult.  An  infant  strikes  as  instinctively  as  it  swallows.  Observe  a  flock 
of  sheep,  driven  through  the  streets  of  town :  not  a  boy  approaches  but 
will  go  out  of  his  way  to  hunt  and  maltreat  them.  A  horse  fallen  and 
dying  ;  an  Italian  child  selling  images,  or  shewing  a  marmot ;  any  object 
which  may  be  attacked,  and  put  to  pain  with  impunity,  is  sure  to  be  seen 
surrounded  with  tormentors.  This  is  not  at  all  confined  to  the  merely 
vulgar  and  uneducated  :  all  lads  are  disposed  to  ferocity  ;  and  the  urchins 
of  Westminster  or  Eton  require  as  severe  a  control — or  perhaps  more  severe 
—than  the  boys  of  a  lower  degree,  to  restrain  their  temper;  because  they 
have  a  touch  of  the  pride  and  insolence  which  arises  out  of  the  observance 
paid  to  their  superior  rank,  without  as  yet  any  sense  of  that  deference 
to  public  opinion,  which  forms  some  restraint  upon  their  uncles  or 
fathers. 

Therefore,  although,  in  society,  "life,"  as  Mr.  Macnish  says,  may  be  "all 
a  disguise/'  yet,  the  disguise,  being  universal — and  worn  from  first  to  last — 
seems,  in  fact,  to  us  to  become  (as  far  as  we  have  practically  any  thing  to 
do  with  the  matter)  the  reality.  We  doubt  very  much  whether  it  be  a  fair 


1827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  007 

inference  to  believe  that  a  man,  who  is  quarrelsome  when  he  is  drunk,  is 
therefore  what  we  should  call  "  a  quarrelsome  man." 

In  another  place,  Mr.  Macnish  himself  observes,  that  intoxication  fre- 
quently produces  all  the  effects  of  "temporary  insanity ;"  and  to  this  opinion 
— i.  <?/that  it  rather  distorts  the  operations  of  the  mind,  than  merely  liberates 
them  from  the  check  of  policy  or  judgment — we  should  be  rather  disposed 
to  accede.  Many  men  are  always  very  religiously  disposed  when  they  are 
drunk  (and  at  that  time  only);  but  it  would  be  too  much  to  infer  that  these 
persons  had  "  naturally"  any  peculiar  disposition  to  piety.  For  the  com- 
fort of  those  who  may  lapse  into  misdeeds  when  they  are  intoxicated,  we 
repeat  our  opinion,  that,  supposing  them  then  to  exhibit  their  " natural"  dis- 
positions, we  take  natural  disposition  to  be  a  matter  of  but  little  consequence. 
If  a  man's  ordinary  life  be  unexceptionable — whether  that  advantage  arises 
from  his  restraining  his  temper,  or  otherwise,  matters  little.  The  fault 
that  he  commits,  is  not  (in  our  view)  the  having  bad  disposition?,  but  the 
exhibiting  them,  and  suffering  them  to  offend  his  fellows  :  the  fault  is  that 
he  is  drunk.  Ten  thousand  soldiers,  after  carrying  a  town  by  assault,  rob, 
burn,  and  massacre  without  mercy.  There  is  no  peculiarity  in  the  dispo- 
sitions ("naturally")  of  all  these  men;  but  the  restraints — legal  and 
moral — which  have  commonly  operated  upon  them,  for  the  time,  are  held 
to  be  removed.  Some  few  there  are  who  are  distinguished,  in  these  emer- 
gencies, by  humanity  and  forbearance :  these  are  those  probably  upon 
whom  religious  feeling  and  education  has  made  such  an  impression  as  to 
correct  savage  and  natural  propensity  more  fully  than  in  the  rest.  Some 
others,  on  the  other  hand,  inured  for  a  time  to  such  habits  of  licence,  cannot 
be  restrained  by  fear,  or  a  sense  of  fitness,  from  pursuing  them  where  they 
cease  to  be  permitted.  But  the  examples,  both  ways,  are  few  :  the  great 
mass  are  plunderers  and  man-killers  where  they  are  permitted  to  be  so,  and 
they  return  reasonably  well  to  their  ordinary  habits  and  civil  duties,  when 
that  permission  ceases. 

Experience,  too,  we  should  say,  constantly  shews  us  that  men — as  far 
as  their  natural  dispositions  can  possibly  bo  judged  of — are  thrown  out  of 
those  dispositions  when  they  are  in  a  state  of  ebriety.  Mr.  Macnish 
says — 

•*  There  are  persons  who  are  exceedingly  profuse,  and  fond  of  giving  away  their 
money,  watches,  rings,  &c.  to  the  company.  This  peculiarity  will  never,  I  believe, 
be  found  in  a  miser:  avarice  is  a  passion  strong  under  every  circumstance. 
Drinking  does  not  loosen  the  grasp  of  the  covetous  man,  or  open  his  heart.  He  is 
for  ever  the  same." 

We  disagree  with  Mr.  Macnish  as  to  this  fact.  Almost  every  man  will 
have  seen  instances  of  persons — the  most  niggardly  in  their  habits,  and  even 
sordidly  unjust  in  their  dealings — who  make  bargains  with  great  liberality, 
or  lend  their  money  freely  when  they  are  drunk.  Who  shall  determine 
what  is  the  "  natural11  disposition  of  a  man  like  this  ?  whether  his  sudden 
and  evanescent  generosity  be  a  temporary  madness,  or  his  avarice  a  passion 
acquired  ? 

And  again,  upon  the  "  natural  disposition  to  drink,1'  ascribed  by  Mr. 
Macnish  to  a  certain  class  of  persons  in  his  opening — and  repeated  in 
several  parts  of  his  book — as  in  the  case  of  the 

"  Sanguineous  Drunkard. — The  sanguine  temperament  seems  to  feel  most 
intensely  the  excitement  of  the  bottle.  Persons  of  this  stamp  have  usually  a  ruddy 
complexion,  thick  neck,  small  head,  and  strong  muscular  fibre.  Their  intellect  is 
in  general  mediocre,  for  great  bodily  strength  and  corresponding  mental  powers 


008  V  'he  Philosophy  of  Drunken  ness.  [J  iw  E . 

are  rarely  united  together.  In  such  people,  the  animal  propensities  prevail  over 
the  moral  and  intellectual  ones.  They  are  prone  to  comhativeness  and  sensuality ; 
are  either  very  good-natured  or  extremely  quarrelsome.  All  their  passions  are 
keen:  they  will  fight  for  their  friends,  or  with  them,  as  occasion  requires.  They 
are  talkative  from  the  beginning,  and,  during  confirmed  intoxication,  perfectly 
obstreperous.  It  is  men  of  this  class  who  are  the  heroes  of  all  drunken  companies, 
the  patrons  of  masonic  lodges,  the  presidents  and  getters-up  of  jovial  meetings. 
With  them,  eating  and  d/ inking  are  the  grand  ends  o(  human  life.  Look  at  their 
eye?,  how  they  sparkle  at  the  sight  of  wine,  and  how  their  lips  smack  and  their  teeth 
water  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  good  dinner  :  they  would  scent  out  a  banquet  in 
Siberia.  When  intoxicated,  their  passions  are  highly  excited:  the  energies  of  a 
hundred  minds  then  seem  concentrated  into  one  focus.  Their  mirth,  their  anger, 
their  love,  their  folly,  are  all  equally  intense  and  unquenchable.  Such  men  cannot 
conceal  their  feelings.  In  drunkenness,  the  veil  is  removed  from  them,  and  their 
characters  stand  revealed,  as  in  a  glass,  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder.  The  Roderic 
Random  of  Smollett  had  much  of  this  temperament,  blended,  however,  with  more 
intellect  than  usually  belongs  to  it.'' 

We  doubt  here  again  the  <*  natural"  disposition  to  drink — which,  we 
should  say — as  far  as  nature  went — men  in  the  same  societies,  and  in  the 
same  climates,  would  have,  pretty  nearly  all  in  the  same  degree — excepting 
those  few  who,  from  constitution,  had  their  stomachs  constantly  affected 
by  the  liquor.  Almost  all  savages  are  great  drunkards,  where  they  have 
the  means;  and  the  Turks,  who  arc  forbidden  to  use  wine,  have  found  out 
an  indemnity  in  tobacco  and  opium.  The  difference  between  those  per- 
sons who  drink  habitually,  and  those  who  do  not  drink,  in  a  civilized  com- 
munity, seems  to  us  to  depend  not  much  upon  any  constitutional  disposi- 
tion or  indisposition  for  liquor — but  rather  in  the  inducements  which  the 
party  in  question  may  have  to  indulge,  or  forbear  the  practice.  Thus, 
among  the  drunkards  of  habit,  great  numbers  of  persons  drink  inveterately ; 
because  a  habit  which,  originally,  did  not  prejudice  them — -take  the  case  of 
soldiers — has  grown  into  a  habit  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  But.  still,  drink- 
ing as  they  do,  to  their  own  ruin,  such  persons  will  be  found,  in  general, 
as  it  seems  to  us,  to  labour  rather  under  a  general  inability  to  govern  their 
natural  passions,  collectively,  than  under  any  peculiar  constitutional  love 
of  liquor.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  women  who  drink — to  which  the  author 
afterwards  alludes — the  women  who  here  abandon  themselves  to  a  cus- 
tom which  society  detests,' will,  in  general,  be  found  to  be  those  who  have 
held  the  sirict  rules  of  etiquette  and  decorum  something  at  nought.  A 
woman  whose  general  habits  have  been  those  of  reserve  and  guardedness, 
of  industry  and  cleanliness — and  such  generally  as  are  dictated  by  a  desire 
to  acquire  or  maintain  high  reputation  in  society — will  seldom  be  found 
lapsing  into  the  habit  of  drinking.  This  fault  is  seldom  the  first,  and  still 
less  frequently  comes  alone. 

The  sketches  of  the  melancholy,  phlegmatic,  and  nervous  drunkard  are 
all  good  ;  but  we  have  only  room  for  one  picture :  it  shall  be  that  of  the 

"  Surly  Drunkard.— Some  men  are  not  excited  to  mirth  by  intoxication.  On 
the  contrary,  it  renders  them  gloomy  and  discontented.  Even  those  who  in  the 
sober  state  are  sufficiently  gay,  become  occasionally  thus  altered.  A  great  pro- 
pensity to  take  offence  is  a  characteristic  among  persons  of  this  temperament.  They 
are  suspicious,  and  very  often  mischievous.  If  at  some  former  period  they  have 
had  a  difference  with  any  of  the  company,  they  are  sure  to  revive  it,  although,  pro- 
bably, it  has  been  long  ago  cemented  on  both  sides,  and  even  forgotten  by  the 
other  party.  People  of  this  "description  are  very  unpleasant  companions.  They 
are  in  general  so  foul-tongued,  quarrelsome,  and  indecent  in  conversation,  that 
established  clubs  of  drinkers  have  made  it  a  practice  to  exclude  them  from  their 
society." 


1827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  609 

The  modifications  of  intoxication,  with  reference  to  the  peculiar  liquor 
or  inebriating  agent,  are  next  considered  : — 

"  Intoxication  is  not  only  influenced  by  temperament,  but  by  the  nature  of  the 
agent  which  produces  it.  Thus,  ebriety  from  ardent  spirits  differs  in  some  particu- 
lars from  that  brought  on  by  opium  or  rnalt  liquors,  such  as  porter  and  ale. 

««  The  principal  varieties  of  spirits  are  rum,  brandy,  whisky,  and  gin.  It  is  need- 
less to  enter  into  any  detail  of  the  history  of  these  fluids.  Brandy  kills  soonest : 
it  takes  most  rapidly  to  the  head,  and  tinges  the  face  to  a  crimson  or  livid  hue. 
Rum  is  probably  the  next  in  point  of  fatality  j  and,  after  that,  gin  and  whisky. 
The  superior  diuretic  qualities  of  the  two  latter,  and  the  less  luscious  sources  from 
which  they  are  procured,  may  possibly  account  for  these  differences." 

The  fact  of  the  peculiar  unwholesomeness  of  brandy  is  one  which  has 
not  been  generally  known.  Gin,  however, — which  Mr.  Macnish  holds 
among  the  least  dangerous  agents, — is  esteemed,  by  some  medical  writers, 
to  be  highly  pernicious,  from  its  tendency  to  produce  dropsy. 

Drunkenness  from  wine  is  said  closely  to  resemble  that  from  ardent 
spirits : — 

"  It  is  equally  airy  and  volatile,  more  especially  if  the  light  wines,  such  as 
champaign,  claret,  chambertin,  or  volnay,  be  drunk.  On  the  former,  a  person 
may  get  tipsy  several  times  of  a  night.  The  fixed  air  evolved  from  it  produces  a 
feeling  analogous  to  ebriety,  independent  of  the  spirit  it  contains.  Port,  sherry, 
and  madeira  are  heavier  wines,  and  have  a  strongerj;endency  to  excite  head-ache 
and  fever." 

Malt  drinks,  however,  in  the  author's  opinion,  produce  that  species  of 
drunkenness  which  is  most  speedily  fatal : — 

"  Malt  liquors,  under  which  title  we  include  all  kinds  of  porter  and  ales,  produce 
the  worst  species  of  drunkenness ;  as,  in  addition  to  the  intoxicating  principle, 
some  noxious  ingredients  are  usually  added,  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  them  and 
giving  them  their  bitter.  The  hop  of  these  fluids  is  highly  narcotic,  and  brewers 
often  add  other  substances,  to  heighten  its  effect,  such  as  opium,  coculus  indicus, 
&c.  Malt  liquors,  therefore,  act  in  two  ways  upon  the  body,  partly  by  the  alcohol 
they  contain,  and  partly  by  the  narcotic  principle.  In  addition  to  this,  the  fer- 
mentation which  they  undergo  is  much  less  perfect  than  that  of  spirits  or  wine. 
After  being  swallowed,  this  process  is  carried  on  in  the  stomach,  by  which  fixed 
air  is  copiously  liberated,  and  the  digestion  of  delicate  stomachs  materially  impaired. 
Cider,  spruce,  ginger,  and  table  beers,  though  purposely  impregnated  with  this  air 
for  the  sake  of  briskness,  produce  the  same  bad  effect,  even  when  their  briskness 
has  vanished.  The  cause  of  all  this  is  the  want  of  due  fermentation. 

"  Persons  addicted  to  malt  liquors  increase  enormously  in  bulk.  They  become 
loaded  with  fat :  their  chin  gets  double  or  triple,  the  eye  prominent,  and  the  whole 
face  bloated  and  stupid.  Their  circulation  is  clogged,  while  the  pulse  feels  like  a 
cord,  and  is  full  and  labouring,  but  not  quick.  During  sleep  the  breathing  is  ster- 
terous.  Every  thing  indicates  an  excess  of  blood ;  and  when  a  pound  or  two  is 
taken  away,  immense  relief  is  obtained.  The  blood  in  such  cases  is  more  dark 
and  sizy  than  in  the  others.  In  seven  cases  out  of  ten,  malt  liquor  drunkards  die  of 
apoplexy  or  palsy.  If  they  escape  this  hazard,  swelled  liver  or  dropsy  carries  them 
off.  The  abdomen  seldom  loses  its  prominency,  but  the  lower  extremities  get 
ultimately  emaciated.  Profuse  bleedings  frequently  ensue  from  the  nose,  and  save 
life,  by  emptying  the  blood-vessels  of  the  brain. 

"  The  drunkenness  in  question  is  peculiarly  of  British  growth.  The  most  noted 
examples  of  it  are  to  be  found  in  innkeepers  and  their  wives,  recruiting  Serjeants, 
guards  of  stage-coaches,  &c. 

"  The  effects  of  malt  liquors  on  the  body,  if  not  so  immediately  rapid  as  those  of 
ardent  spirits,  are  more  stupifying,  more  lasting,  and  less  easily  removed.  The  last 
are  particularly  prone  to  produce  levity  and  mirth,  but  the  first  have  a  stunning 
influence  upon  the  brain,  and,  in  a  short  time,  render  dull  and  sluggish  the  gayest 

M.M.  New  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  18.  4  I 


610  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [JUNE, 

disposition.    They  also  produce  sickness  and  vomiting  more  readily  than  either 
spirits  or  wine." 

The  various  inebriating  agents  unconnected  with  alcohol  are  alluded  to, 
and  their  effects  described.  The  first  is  opium  : — 

"  Opium  acts  differently  on  different  constitutions.  While  it  disposes  some  to 
calm,  it  arouses  others  to  fury.  Whatever  passion  predominates  at  the  time,  it 
increases;  whether  it  be  love,  or  hatred,  or  revenge,  or  benevolence.  LordKames, 
in  his  Sketches  of  Man,  speaks  of  the  fanatical  Faquirs  who,  when  excited  by  this 
drug,  have  been  known,  with  poisoned  daggers,  to  assail  and  butcher  every  Euro- 
pean whom  they  could  overcome.  In  the  century  before  last,  one  of  this  nation 
attacked  a  body  of  Dutch  sailors,  and  murdered  seventeen  of  them  in  one  minute. 

"  Some  minds  are  rendered  melancholy  by  opium.  Its  usual  effect,  however,  is 
to  give  rise  to  lively  and  happy  sensations.  The  late  Duchess  of  Gordon  is  said  to 
have  used  it  freely,  previous  to  appearing  in  great  parties,  where  she  wished  to 
shine  by  the  gaiety  of  her  conversation  and  brilliancy  of  her  wit.  A  celebrated 
pleader  at  the  Scotch  bar  is  reported  to  do  the  same  thing,  and  always  with  a  happy 
effect. 

"  In  this  country  opium  is  much  used,  but  seldom  with  the  view  of  producing 
intoxication.  Some,  indeed,  deny  that  it  can  do  so,  strictly  speaking.  If  by  in- 
toxication is  meant  a  state  precisely  similar  to  that  from  over-indulgence  in  vinous 
or  spirituous  liquors,  they  are  undoubtedly  right ;  but  drunkenness  merits  a  wider 
latitude  of  signification.  The  ecstacies  of  opium  are  much  more  entrancing  than 
those  of  wine.  There  is  more  poetry  in  its  visions,  more  mental  aggrandisement, 
more  range  of  imagination.  Wine  invigorates  the  animal  powers  and  propensities 
chiefly,  but  opium  strengthens  those  peculiar  to  man,  and  gives  for  a  period, 
amounting  to  hours,  a  higher  tone  to  the  thinking  faculties.  Then  the  dreams  of 
the  opium-eater — they  are  the  creations  of  a  highly-excited  fancy,  rich  and  un- 
speakably delightful.  But  when  the  medicine  has  been  continued  too  long,  or 
operates  on  a  diseased  constitution,  these  feelings  wear  away.  The  sleep  is  no 
longer  cheered  with  its  former  visions  of  happiness.  Frightful  dreams  usurp  their 
place,  and  the  person  becomes  the  victim  of  an  almost  perpetual  misery." 

The  operation  of  tobacco  is  extremely  different : — 

"  Tobacco,  when  used  to  excess,  may  produce  a  species  of  intoxication.  It  does 
not  give  rise  to  pleasurable  ideas.  Its  effect  is  principally  upon  the  body,  and 
differs  widely  from  that  of  any  other  inebriating  agent.  Instead  of  quickening,  it 
lowers  the  pulse,  and  produces  a  general  langour  and  depression  of  the  whole  system. 
Persons  often  reel  and  become  giddy,  as  in  liquor,  from  smoking  and  chewing,  and 
even  from  snuffing  to  excess.  Excessive  sickness  and  vomiting  are  consequences  of 
an  over-indulgence  in  tobacco." 

The  oil  of  tobacco,  which  is  used  by  some  dentists  to  check  that  horrible 
pain,  the  tooth-ache,  produces  all  these  sensations  in  the  most  violent 
degree. 

The  gas  called  nitrous  oxide  is  also  mentioned  by  Mr.  Macnish,  but 
with  some  caution  as  to  the  «'  theatrical  attitudes,"  "  stampings  on  the 
ground,"  and  immoderate  laughter,  in  which  it  causes  those  who  inhale  it 
to  indulge.  Mr.  Macnish  seems  to  think  its  reported  effects,  "  in  many 
cases,  have  been  brought  about  by  the  influence  of  imagination."  We  go 
beyond  Mr.  Macnish  :  as  far  as  our  own  experience  has  extended,  we  take 
the  "possession"  to  be,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  pure  humbug.  In  the 
madness  of  the  loups-garoux — where  persons  imagined  themselves  to  be 
wolves,  and  were  violent  and  troublesome,  accordingly,  to  their  neighbours 
— we  recollect  an  old  French  author  records,  that,  after  every  other  course 
of  remedy  had  failed,  the  vigorous  application  of  a  broomstick  never  failed 
to  restore  the  afflicted  party  immediately.  We  say  nothing :  but—''  a 


1 827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  6 1 1 

word  to  the  wise !"  If  any  reader  of  our's  ever  should  be  any  where, 
where  a  gentleman  is  laughing  himself  to  death  from  nitrous  oxide,  he  may 
recollect  this  fact. 

The  modus  operandi  of  opium  upon  the  body  is  different  from  that  of 
alcohol.  The  first  acts  principally  by  absorption — the  latter,  principally 
upon  the  nerves :  — 

«•  Alcohol  taken  in  quantity  produces  instant  stupefaction.  It  is  no  sooner 
swallowed  than  the  person  drops  down  insensible.  Here  is  no  time  for  absorption ; 
the  whole  energies  of  the  spirit  are  exerted  against  the  nervous  system.  The  same 
rapid  privation  of  power  never  occurs  after  swallowing  opium.  There  is  always  an 
interval,  and  generally  one  of  some  extent,  between  the  swallowing  and  the  stupor 
which  succeeds.  Another  proof  that  opium  acts  in  this  manner  is  the  circumstance 
of  its  being  much  more  speedily  fatal  than  the  other,  when  injected  into  the  blood- 
vessels. Three  or  four  grains  in  solution,  forced  into  the  carotid  artery  of  a  dog, 
will  kill  him  in  a  few  minutes.  Alcohol,  used  in  the  same  manner,  would  not 
bring  on  death  for  several  hours. 

"  In  addition,  it  may  be  stated  that  a  species  of  drunkenness  is  produced  by  in- 
haling the  gas  of  intoxicating  liquors.  Those  employed  in  bottling  spirits  from 
the  cask,  feel  it  frequently  with  great  severity.  This  proves  that  there  is  a  close 
sympathy  between  the  nerves  of  the  nose  and  lungs,  and  those  of  the  stomach. 
From  all  these  circumstances  it  is  pretty  evident  that  intoxication  from  spirits  is 
produced  more  by  the  action  of  the  fluid  upon  the  nerves  of  the  latter  organ,  than 
by  absorption ;  an  additional  proof  of  which  is  afforded  in  the  fact,  that  vomiting 
does  not  cure  drunkenness,  even  when  had  recourse  to  at  an  early  neriod;  its  only 
effect  is  to  prevent  it  from  getting  worse." 

Vomiting,  however,  under  all  circumstances,  is  esteemed  beneficial  after 
a  violent  debauch  :— * 

"  Generally  speaking,  there  is  no  remedy  for  drunkenness  equal  to  vomiting. 
The  sooner  the  stomach  is  emptied  of  its  contents  the  better,  and  this  may,  in 
most  cases,  be  accomplished  by  drinking  freely  of  tepid  water,  and  tickling  the 
fauces.  After  this  is  done,  the  person  should,  if  his  stomach  will  bear  it,  swallow 
some  aperient,  then  go  to  bed  and  sleep  off  his  intoxication.  Cold  applications  to 
the  head  are  likewise  useful.  In  all  cases,  the  head  ought  to  be  well  elevated,  and 
the  neckcloth  removed,  that  there  may  be  no  impediment  to  the  circulation.  Where 
there  is  a  total  insensibility,  where  the  pulse  is  slow  and  full,  the  pupils  dilated,  the 
face  flushed,  and  the  breathing  sterterous,  it  becomes  a  question  whether  blooding 
might  be  useful.  Darwin  and  Trotter  speak  discouragingly  of  the  practice.  As  a 
general  rule  I  think  it  is  bad :  many  persons  who  would  have  recovered,  if  left  to 
themselves,  have  lost  their  lives  by  being  prematurely  bled.  In  all  cases  it  should 
be  done  cautiously,  and  not  for  a  considerable  time.  Vomiting  and  other  means 
should  invariably  be  first  had  recourse  to,  and  if  they  fail,  and  nature  is  unable  of 
her  own  power  to  overcome  the  stupor,  venesection  may  be  tried.  In  this  respect, 
liquors  differ  from  opium,  the  insensibility  from  which  is  benefited  by  blooding. 

"  There  is  one  variety  of  drunkenness  in  which  both  blooding  and  cold  are  in- 
admissible. This  is  when  a  person  is  struck  down,  as  it  were,  by  drinking  sud- 
denly a  great  quantity  of  ardent  spirits.  Here  he  is  overcome  by  an  instantaneous 
stupor.  His  countenance  is  ghastly  and  pale,  his  pulse  feeble,  and  his  body  cold. 
While  these  symptoms  continue  there  is  no  remedy  but  vomiting.  When,  how- 
ever, they  wear  off,  and  are  succeeded,  as  they  usually  are,  by  flushing,  heat,  and 
general  excitement,  the  case  is  changed,  and  must  be  treated  as  any  other  where 
such  symptoms  exist. 

"  There  is  nothing  which  has  so  strong  a  tendency  to  dispel  the  effects  of  a 
debauch  as  hard  exercise,  especially  if  the  air  be  cold.  Aperients  and  diaphoretics 
are  also  extremely  useful  for  the  same  purpose." 

Where  too  large  a  quantity  of  opium  has  been  swallowed,  the  course 
recommended  is  vomiting,  bleeding,  and  the  arousing  the  party,  by  every 
possible  means,  from  sinking  into  stupor ;  with — after  the  opium  is  dis- 

4   I  2 


612 


The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [JUNE, 


charged  from  the  stomach — the  free  use  of  vegetable  acids;  sfctefa as  lemon, 
tartaric  acid,  or  common  vinegar. 

The  extent  of  the  extracts  which  we  have  already  given  compels  us  to  pass 
over  the  "  consequences  of  drunkenness  ;"  which  are  described,  however, 
very  forcibly  by  Mr.  Macnish,  in  a  distinct  chapter — the  fifth,  we  believe 
— of  the  pamphlet. 

The  liver,  the  stomach,  the  eyes,  the  general  health  of  the  system,  and, 
almost  as  commonly,  the  brain,  become  affected  by  this  horrible  practice. 

Liquors  (says  the  writer)  have,  from  the  earliest  ages,  been  known  to 
affect  the  liver : — 

"  Man  is  not  the  only  animal  so  affected.  Swine  which  are  fed  on  the  refuse  of 
breweries,  have  their  livers  enlarged  in  the  same  manner.  Their  other  viscera  be- 
come also  indurated,  and  their  flesh  so  tough,  that,  unless  killed  early,  they  are 
unfit  to  be  eaten.  Some  fowl  dealers  in  London  are  said  to  mix  gin  with  the  food 
of  the  birds,  by  which  means  they  are  fattened  and  their  liver  swelled  to  a  great 
size.  The  French  manage  to  enlarge  this  organ  in  geese,  by  piercing  it  shortly 
after  the  creatures  are  fledged. 

**  Like  the  liver,  the  stomach  is  more  subject  to  chronic  than  acute  inflammation. 
It  is  evident  that  here  the  indurated  state  of  thisviscus  can  only  proceed  from  a  long 
continued  slow  action  going  on  within  its  substance.  The  disease  is  extremely 
insidious,  frequently  proceeding  great  lengthy  before  it  is  discovered.  The  organ  is 
often  thickened  to  half  an  inch,  or  even  an  inch  ;  and  its  different  tunics  so  matted 
together  that  they  cannot  be  separated.  The  pyloric  orifice  becomes,  in  many 
cases,  contracted.  The  cardiac  may  suffer  the  same  disorganization,  and  so  may 
the  oesophagus  ;  but  these  are  less  common,  and,  it  must  be  admitted,  more  rapidly 
fatal.  When  the  stomach  is  much  thickened,  it  may  sometimes  be  felt  like  a  hard 
ball  below  the  left  ribs.  At  this  point  there  is  also  a  dull  uneasy  pain,  which  is 
augmented  upon  pressure." 

The  affection  of  the  eyes  may  be  either  acute  or  chronic : — 

"  Almost  all  drunkards  have  the  latter  more  or  less.  Their  eyes  are  red  and 
watery,  and  the  expression  of  these  organs  is  so  peculiar,  that  the  cause  can  never 
be  mistaken.  The  eye,  and  a  certain  want  of  firmness  about  the  lips,  which  are 
loose,  gross,  and  sensual,  betray  at  once  the  toper.  Drunkenness  impairs  vision. 
The  delicacy  of  the  retina  is  probably  affected ;  and  it  is  evident  that,  from  a  long 
continued  inflammation,  the  tunica  adnata,  which  covers  the  cornea,  must  loose 
its  original  clearness  and  transparency. 

"  Most  drunkards  have  a  constant  tenderness  and  redness  of  the  nostrils.  This, 
I  conceive,  arises  from  the  state  of  the  stomach  and  resophagus.  The  same  mem- 
brane which  lines  them  is  prolonged  upwards  to  the  nose  and  mouth,  and  carries 
thus  far  its  irritability." 

Again  : 

"  Emaciation  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  the  spirit-drinker.  He  wears  away, 
before  his  time,  into  the  "lean  and  slippered  pantaloon"  spoken  of  by  Shakspeare 
in  his  "  Stages  of  Human  Life."  All  drunkards,  however,  if  they  live  long  enough, 
become  emaciated.  The  eyes  get  hollow,  the  cheeks  fall  in,  and  wrinkles  soon 
furrow  the  countenance  with  the  marks  of  age.  The  fat  is  absorbed  from  every 
part,  and  the  rounded  plumpness  which  formerly  characterized  the  body,  soon 
wears  away.  The  whole  frame  gets  lank  and  debilitated.  There  is  a  want  of  due 
warmth,  and  the  hand  is  usually  covered  with  a  chill  clammy  perspiration. 

"  Malt  liquor  and  wine  drinkers  are,  for  the  most  part,  corpulent,  a  circumstance 
which  rarely  attends  the  spirit-drinker,  unless  he  be  at  the  same  time  a  Ion  vivant. 
In  drunkards,  the  first  parts  which  become  emaciated  are  the  lower  extremities : 
they  fall  away  even  when  the  rest  of  the  body  is  full.  This  is  a  bad  sign,  and  a 
sure  proof  that  the  stamina  of  the  constitution  are  gone." 

Women  who  drink  are  constantly  subject  to  hysteric  affections  : — 


1 827.]  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  613 

"  Female  drunkards  are  very  subject  to  hysterical  affections-  There  is  a  deli- 
cacy of  fibre  in  women,  and  a  susceptibility  of  mind,  which  make  them  feel  more 
acutely  than  the  other  sex  all  external  influences.  Hence  their  whole  system  is 
often  violently  affected  with  hysterics  and  other  varieties  of  nervous  weakness. 
ThesV  affections  are  not  always  traced  to  their  true  cause,  which  is  often  neither 
more  nor  less  than  dram-drinking.  When  a  woman's  nose  becomes  crimsoned  at 
the  point,  her  eyes  somewhat  red,  and  more  watery  than  before,  and  her  lips  fuller, 
and  less  firm  and  intellectual  in  their  expression,  we  may  suspect  that  something 
wrong  is  going  on. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  characteristic  of  a  tippler  than  an  indifference  to  tea, 
and  beverages  of  a  like  nature.  When  a  woman  exhibits  this  quality,  we  may 
reasonably  suspect  her  of  indulging  in  liquor.  If  drunkards  partake  of  tea,  they 
usually  saturate  it  largely  with  ardent  spirits.  The  unadulterated  fluid  is  too  weak 
a  stimulus  for  their  unnatural  appetites." 

Moreover-— 

"  Drunkenness,  according  to  the  reports  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  and  other  similar 
institutions  for  the  insane,  is  one  of  the  most  common  causes  of  lunacy ;  and  there 
are  few  but  must  have  witnessed  the  wreck  of  the  most  powerful  minds  by  this 
destructive  habit." 

The  methods  of  curing  the  habit  of  drunkenness,  which  occupy  the  last 
chapter  in  the  author's  book,  and  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  his  sub- 
ject, we  seriously  recommend  to  perusal ;  but  our  limits  (which  we  have 
already  strained  to  the  utmost)  compel  us  to  pass  them  over  very  briefly. 
The  great  question  in  the  writer's  mind  appears  to  be — should  the  habit  be 
dropped  by  degrees,  or  at  once  ?  On  this  point,  Dr.  Trotter,  in  his  excel- 
lent Essay  on  Drunkenness,  is  a  favourer  of  the  latter  course  :  he  thinks 
that  the  habit  is  a  bad  one,  and  the  sooner  and  more  completely  we  get  rid 
of  it,  the  better ; — liquors  should  be  given  up  instanter.  Mr.  Macnish, 
with  much  apparent  reason,  inclines  rather  to  a  contrary  opinion ;  and 
thinks,  with  Darwin  and  Spurzheim,  that  even  an  unwholesome  habit 
cannot  be  hastily  abandoned,  after  it  has  once  been  confirmed,  without 
danger.  Much,  as  to  this  point,  however,  Mr.  Macnish  would  admit,  must 
depend  upon  circumstances;  such  as  the  age  and  constitution  of  the  patient. 
Where  absolute  disease  acquired  has  to  be  considered,  there  some  slow 
process,  we  shall  agree,  may  be  necessary ;  but  where  there  exists  the 
mere  habit  of  excessive  drinking  to  combat — that  is  to  say,  where  no 
inconvenience  beyond  the  absence  of  an  accustomed  stimulus  has  to  be 
cured — in  all  such  cases,  we  should  decidedly  say,  with  Dr.  Trotter — the 
thing  must  be  done  at  once,  or  not  at  all. 

The  mere  habit  of  drinking — where  the  party,  in  his  sober  moments, 
can  see  its  utter  ruinousness — amounts  to  a  species  of  insanity.  It  is  the 
strength  of  the  will — not  in  any  moment  of  passion,  but  constantly  and 
habitually  upon  a  given  subject — defying  the  power  of  the  understanding. 
The  habit  of  falsehood,  which  some  individuals  are  known  to  have,  to  a 
degree  of  folly  and  miscalculation  ; — another  morbid  disposition — the  appe- 
tite for  theft  where  there  exist  none  of  the  ordinary  provocatives  to  such 
crime ; — -both  these  are  conditions  of  the  mental  system  bordering  upon 
insanity.  It  must  be  one  effort  that  cures  them  for  ever ;  they  cannot  bo 
left  off,  or  abstained  from,  by  degrees.  We  agree  that  "  the  sudden  depri- 
vation of  the  accustomed 'stimulus,"  where  the  habit  of  intoxication  has 
been  inveterate,  "  may  produce  dangerous  exhaustion."  But  we  doubt 
the  propriety  of  giving  liquor  again  "  in  moderate  quantities  ;"  we  should 
say,  give  some  other  stimulus.  Give  air,  exercise,  amusement,  change  of 
scene,  where  these  can  be  procured.  Where  they  cannot,  give  opium — 


614  The  Philosophy  of  Drunkenness.  [J  UN E, 

hemlock — what  drug  you  will;  but  bar  your  patient  from  the  flavour  of 
liquor.  Let  him  have  no  hopes — no  cravings — for  the  arrival  of  the  hour 
at  which  the  "  remedy"  is  to  be  administered. 

The  final  point  treated  in  Mr.  Macnish's  book  displays  his  desire — and, 
in  a  medical  man,  it  is  a  fair  and  a  wise  one — to  provide  for  all  emergencies. 
He  gives  the  following  directions  to  those  who  will  not  be  cured  of  drunk- 
enness, how  they  may  indulge  their  propensity  with  the  least  mischief  to 
themselves : — 

"  If  a  man  is  resolved  to  continue  a  drunkard,  it  may  here  be  proper,  though 
somewhat  out  of  place,  to  mention  in  what  manner  he  can  do  so  with  least  risk  to 
himself.  One  of  the  principal  rules  to  be  observed,  not  only  by  him,  but  by 
habitually  sober  people,  is  never  to  take  any  inebriating  liquid,  especially  spirits, 
upon  an  empty  stomach.  There  is  no  habit  more  common  or  more  destructive 
than  this:  it  not  only  intoxicates  readier  than  when  food  has  been  previously 
taken,  but  it  has  a  much  greater  tendency  to  impair  the  functions  of  the  digestive 
organs.  In  addition,  drunkards  should  shun  raw  spirits,  which  more  rapidly  bring 
on  disease  of  the  stomach,  than  the  same  quantity  used  in  a  diluted  state.  The 
best  form  in  which  these  fluids  can  be  employed  is,  I  believe,  cold  punch.  This, 
when  well  made,  is  always  weak ;  and  the  acid  with  which  it  is  impregnated,  has 
not  only  a  bracing  effect  upon  the  stomach,  but  operates  as  a  diuretic — thereby 
counteracting  in  a  considerable  degree  the  activity  of  the  spirit  itself.  The  next 
best  form  is  that  of  grog  j  and  warm  toddy  the  third.  The  last,  to  be  good,  must 
be  stronger  than  the  two  others  j  and  the  hot  water  with  which  it  is  made,  increases 
the  naturally  stimulating  qualities  of  the  active  ingredient. 

"  The  malt  liquor  drunkard,  unless  his  taste  be  irrevocably  fixed  to  the  contrary, 
should,  as  a  general  rule,  prefer  porter  to  ale— at  least  to  that  variety  denominated 
strong  ale.  Herb  ale  and  purl  are  pernicious ;  but  the  lighter  varieties,  such  as 
table-beer  and  home-brewed,  when  used  in  moderation,  are  not  only  harmless,  but 
occasionally  even  useful. 

"  As  to  the  wine-bibber,  no  directions  can  be  given.  The  varieties  of  wine  are 
so  numerous,  that  any  correct  estimate  of  their  respective  powers  is  impossible ; 
nor,  though  it  were  practicable,  would  it  be  proper  within  our  narrow  limits.  It 
may,  however,  be  laid  down  as  a  maxim,  that  the  wines  which  are  most  diuretic, 
and  excite  least  head-ache  and  fever,  are  the  safest  for  the  constitution. 

"  Warm  and  cold  bathing  will  occasionally  be  useful,  according  to  circum- 
stances. Bitters  are  not  to  be  recommended,  especially  if  employed  under  the 
medium  of  spirits.  Where  there  is  much  debility,  chalybeates  will  prove  ser- 
viceable, A  visit  to  places  where  there  are  mineral  springs  is  of  use,  not  only 
from  the  waters,  but  from  the  agreeable  society  to  be  met  with  at  such  quarters. 
The  great  art  in  breaking  the  habit  consists  in  managing  the  drunkard  with  kind- 
ness and  address.  This  management  must  of  course  be  modified  by  the  events 
which  present  themselves,  and  which  will  vary  in  different  cases." 

— With  which  last  extract  we  must  take  our  leave  of  the  author ;  assuring 
him,  that  we  have  been  much  pleased  and  interested  with  his  pamphlet ; — 
and  our  readers,  that  they  will  derive  from  its  perusal  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  amusement,  as  well  as  of  instruction. 


1827.]  [     615     ] 

ON  THE  PERSONNEL,  MATERIEL,  AND  SCIENCE  OF  THE  BRITISH  NAVY. 

AT  this  moment  of  the  extraordinary  depression  of  our  country,  we 
apprehend  there  are  few  subjects  of  greater  moment  than  the  condition 
of  the  navy  of  the  state.  On  it  our  security  depends  ;  and,  however  our 
interests  may  fluctuate,  it  behoves  us  at  all  times  to  regard  our  floating 
batteries.  We  conceive,  now  that  the  command  of  it  devolves  on  a 
Prince  of  the  illustrious  House  of  Brunswick,  a  fresh  impulse  may  be 
given  to  the  consideration  of  its  affairs — which,  indeed,  we  are  disposed 
to  think  it  requires.  In  our  examination  of  this  subject,  we  shall  con- 
sider the  number  and  character  of  our  seamen — the  number  and  qualities 
of  our  ships — the  scientific  information  diffused  among  its  members — and 
the  economy  with  which  it  is  conducted. 

1.  The  personnel  of  our  navy,  from  the  native  valour  of  Englishmen, 
is  far  superior  to  all  others ;  and  it  is  only  by  gross  mismanagement  that 
our  fleets  can  fail  of  success  in  the  day  of  trial.  The  stamina  of  English- 
men, at  present,  is  good  ;  and,  without  inquiring  from  what  it  proceeds, 
we  think  we  may  safely  assert,  that  there  is  no  nation  of  men  so  capable 
of  defending  themselves  as  the  inhabitants  of  our  isles  :  whether  as  soldiers 
or  sailors,  they  possess  those  qualities  of  presence  of  mind  and  courage,  in 
the  day  of  battle,  that  render  them,  when  properly  conducted,  equal  to 
any  men  and  almost  any  achievement. 

The  number  of  seamen  allotted  by  parliament  to  the  navy  at  present  is 
21,000,  and  the  number  of  marine-soldiers  9,000 — thus  making  a  total  of 
30,000  men.  The  greatest  uumber  employed  in  the  last  naval  wars  was 
145,000.  Thus  we  perceive  that,  should  a  war  suddenly  burst  upon  us, 
as  the  American  war  of  1776  did,  we  should  require  above  100,000  men, 
in  addition  to  what  we  have,  to  man  the  navy.  About  50,000  of  these 
ought  to  be  good  sailors :  the  others  may  be  supplied  by  soldiers  and 
landsmen,  if  they  be  headed  by  good  officers.  Now  the  question  is—- 
how are  these  men  to  be  obtained  ?  The  number  required  is  sufficient 
to  equip  7.575  merchant  ships  on  an  average  ;  for  we  find  that  the  mean 
number  of  merchant  ships  since  the  peace,  by  the  parliamentary  papers, 
is  25,000  with  165,000  men.  Thus,  if  they  are  to  be  taken  from  the 
merchant  marine,  one-third  nearly  of  its  fleet  must  be  left  without  sea- 
men. While  speaking  of  the  extent  of  our  mercantile  navy,  we  do  not 
mean  to  affirm  that  the  ships  in  the  estimate  are  all  sea-going  vessels,  and 
the  men  mariners;  because  we  know  that  its  calculations  have  been  pro- 
perly objected  to,  as  including  river  vessels,  lighters,  and  barges,  that  do 
not  contain  seamen  :*  but  we  are  willing  to  take  the  utmost  limit. 

Our  next  consideration  is,  how  are  50,000  seamen,  in  case  of  a  naval 
war,  to  be  obtained  ?  N  ot  by  impressment,  we  hope.  Arbitrary  abduc- 
tion of  men,  whether  among  the  blacks  or  whites — call  it  slavery  or 
impressment — is  a  disgrace  to  human  nature.  O,  England  !  how  long 
shall  this  law  stain  thy  name  ?  The  conscription  of  Napoleon,  though  a 
tyrannical  measure,  was  not  equal  to  our  British  impressment.  But  it  is 
not  less  cruel  and  barbarous  than  it  is  impolitic  and  unsafe.  When  wo 

*  From  the  parliamentary  paper,  each  ship  has  6^  men  on  an  average.  Now,  as  the 
East-Indiamen  and  other  ships  contain  from  forty  to  one  hundred  men  each,  there  must 
necessarily  be  included  in  the  estimate  many  small  ships,  barges,  or  boats,  having  only 
two,  three,  or  four  men  in  them. 


616  On  the  Personnel,  Mat&riel,  and  [JUNE, 

examine  into  the  causes  of  the  mutiny  in  1797,  which  had  so  nearly 
ended  in  the  loss  of  one  of  the  finest  manned  fleets  the  world  ever  saw 
by  its  throwing  itself  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  we  perceive  a  striking 
proof  of  bad  effect  of  the  ill-treatment  of  brave  and  high-spirited  men. 
Happily,  the  government  saw  the  justice  of  their  demands,  and  ceded  to 
them.  The  very  commencement  of  the  career  of  a  British  sailor,  under 
the  law  of  impressment,  is  quite  sufficient  to  destroy  all  patriotism;  and 
then,  in  the  numerous  cases  in  which  force  cannot  control,  what  is  to  be 
expected  ?  Numerous  have  been  the  philanthropists,  in  high  station,  who 
have  advocated  the  cause  of  our  ill-treated  mariners  ;  and,  in  our  opinion, 
the  success  of  their  cause  would  be  as  desirable  in  a  political  as  in 
a  moral  point  of  view.  When  we  beheld  British  seamen  fighting  in 
the  American  frigates  (and  most  of  their  best  sailors  were  British),  we 
beheld  one  of  the  lamentable  effects  of  impressment  and  bad  usage. 

A  question,  then,  arises — If  the  navy  be  not  tilled  up  by  impressment, 
how  are  the  men  to  be  obtained?  We  answer,  by  enlistment,  with 
sufficient  inducement  and  privileges  to  recompence  them  for  it,  in  a  man- 
ner similar  to  the  army.  When  recruits  voluntarily  enter  the  military 
service,  they  do  not  consider  themselves  enslaved;  nor  would  sailors  object 
to  the  royal  navy,  if  much  of  its  disgusting  treatment  were  abolished. 

While  speaking  of  the  treatment  of  the  sailors,  we  are  happy  to  say 
that  considerable  ameliorations  have  taken  place  in  it  since  the  mutiny. 
Undoubtedly  many  things  remain  to  be  remedied ;  but,  speaking  in  con- 
trast with  former  periods,  the  progress  of  the  times  has  had  its  effect  on 
the  navy.  The  mitigation  of  its  severe  and  useless  discipline  is  a  pleasing 
subject  of  reflection.  It  ought  always  to  be  remembered,  that  discipline 
is  made  for  the  good  of  the  service,  and  not  the  service  for  the  haughty 
domineering  of  officers — the  contrary  idea  to  which,  many  superiors 
appear  to  have  strangely  imbibed.  The  suaviter  in  modo,  with  tbefortMer 
in  re,  is  a  good  maxim  on  this  subject,  in  opposition  to  a  capricious  and 
arbitrary  tyranny.  Flagrant  cowardice  must,  for  the  sake  of  example,  be 
punished  with  death ;  but  the  whole  existence  of  a  man  should  not  be 
made  miserable  because  foolish  men  mistake  the  subject.  Nelson  and 
Collingwood  were  not  advocates  for  unnecessary  torture ;  nor  are  men, 
brave  in  action,  generally  capable  of  cruelty. 

Of  experienced  officers  in  the  royal  navy,  it  must  be  admitted  there 
is  no  scarcity.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  war  in  1814  and  J815,  this  was 
properly  regarded,  by  extensive  promotions  of  the  midshipmen  and  lieu- 
tenants :  the  promotions  of  the  former  amounted  to  about  2,000.  The 
list  of  the  navy  enrols  the  names  of  about  200  admirals,  700  captains, 
900  commanders,  and  3,900  lieutenants.  A  great  number  of  rated  mid- 
shipmen are  also  on  the  lists  of  the  Admiralty.  Warrant  officers,  who  are 
the  sergeants  and  corporals  of  the  navy,  have  also  been  retained  and  pro- 
vided for  liberally. 

We  may  safely  say  that  the  staff  of  the  navy  is  excellent,  and  that,  in 
the  event  of  another  war,  they  will  present  a  most  formidable  phalanx  of 
feeders.  Foreign  authors  object  to  the  great  number  of  officers  that  have 
been  promoted  in  our -navy,  -as  being  profusively  expensive  ;  but  we  think 
that  their  exertions,  during  the  last  war,  merited-  great  reward;  and  the 
pay  of  naval  officers,  who  are  promoted  for  their  services,  is  not  dispro- 
portionate. In  the  cases  in  which  they  obtain  rank,  solely  from  favour 
and  not  from  their  services,  unquestionably  such  promotions  are  injurious 


1827.]  Science  of  I  he  liritixh  Navy.  (517 

to  the  service.    Many  of  these  evils  have  taken  place ;  but  we  now  expect 
happy  alterations  in  this  respect. 

The  sudden  discharge  of  the  seamen  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  and 
then  forcibly  seizing  them  again  at  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  with 
the  most  brutal  violation  of  justice  in  both  cases,  are  the  prominent  evils 
that  require  to  be  remedied  ;  and  we  are  glad  to  hear  that  arrangements 
are  spoken  of  for  that  purpose. 

Commissions  in  the  navy,  unlike  those  in  the  army,  are  not  to  be  pur- 
chased ;  nor  are  advancements  in  rank  conferred  in  the  navy  otherwise 
than  by  seniority,  after  the  post  of  captain.  If  a  man  attain  to  the  rank 
of  captain,  if  he  live  long  enough  he  must  be  an  admiral.  Now  all  this 
we  believe  is  good  to  a  certain  degree;  but,  perhaps,  it  may  want  some 
alteration.  It  is  very  different  in  foreign  nations  ;  but  we  think  our  own 
plan  better  than  theirs,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  deviated  from  without  the 
strictest  scrutiny  and  the  best  information.  Lord  Howe's  omission  of 
promoting  captains  to  the  rank  of  admiral  in  their  turn,  produced  much 
dissatisfaction ;  and  it  is  very  questionable  whether  it  can  be  done  with 
propriety. 

2.  The  materiel  of  our  navy  next  comes  under  our  notice  : — of  which 
we  shall  first  consider  the  number  and  size  of  the  ships.  By  the  last  par- 
liamentary papers,  the  navy  consists  of  113  ships  of  the  line  ;  2.12  frigates, 
including  the  sixth-rates;  and  134  gun-brigs,  cutters,  dock-yard  craft, 
transports,  &c. ;  making  a  total  of  502.  The  abstract  of  the  royal  navy 
in  1805,  in  Derrick's  Memoirs  of  it,  p.  223,  shews  that  it  then  consisted 
of  175  ships  of  the  line;  246  frigates,  including  sixth-rates ;  528  gun- 
brigs,  cutters,  &c. ;  thus  making  a  total  of  949  vessels.  We,  therefore, 
perceive  that  there  are  at  present  sixty-two  ships  of  the  line  fewer  than  in 
J  805,  an  increase  in  the  frigates  of  six,  and  a  diminution  in  the  gun-brigs, 
&c.  of  394  :  thus  making  a  total  decrease  of  440  ships.  We  are  aware 
that  the  size  of  ships  has  increased  since  1805;  but,  at  all  events,  the 
difference  of  sixty-two  ships  of  the  line  is  a  serious  one. 

This  decrease  of  the  navy  is  the  more  to  be  regarded,  on  account  of  the 
augmentation  of  the  French  and  American  navies.  Xhe  last  budget  of 
the  French  minister  presents  a  sum  of  about  eight  millions  sterling,  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  royal  navy,  for  the  present  year,  which  is  equivalent 
iij  its  eflfeets  to  twelve  millions  in  this  country  :  our  own  navy  has,  not 
above  one-third  of  this  amount  dedicated  to  its  support,  if  we  omit  the 
disproportionate  appropriations  to  the  half-pay  and  pension  list.  The 
United  States  have  also  a  navy  of  rapid  growth  :  their  force  cannot  be 
estimated  at  less  than  thirty  ships  of  the  line,  of  the  ordinary  force — as 
their  frigates  are  of  equal  force  to  small  line-of-battle  ships :  their  two- 
deckers  carry  a  hundred  guns  of  the  largest  calibre,  and  exceed  our  largest 
ships  in  dimensions. 

If  the  reader  should  wish  a  more  particular  account  of  our  navy,  we 
must  refer  him  to  foreign  authors  ;  for,  unaccountably  as  it  may  appear, 
so  little  are  the  nautical  sciences  cultivated  in  this  country,  that  we  have 
scarcely  a  respectable  work  on  the  British  navy.  Dupin's  "  Force  Navale 
de  la  Grande  Bretagne  "  details  all  the  particulars  of  our  navy ;  but  of 
this  we  shall  speak  more  at  large  in  our  third  hea4- 

In  1780  the  French  nation  had  125  sail  of  the  line,  of  which  Charnock 
gives  the  names  of  105  that  were  known  to  be  at  sea,  or  otherwise 
employed  in  the  war.  The  Spaniards  had,  at  the  same  time,  seventy-five 

M.M.  New  Scries.— VOL.  III.  No.  18.          4  K 


618  On  the  Personnel,  Materiel,  ami  [JUNE, 

sail  of  the  line.  We,  therefore,  think  that  our  own  navy,  at  the  present 
time,  is  too  small  to  secure  with  permanency  our  immense  colonies,  and 
to  continue  the  chain  of  communication  with  our  numerous  and  distant 
posts :  this  remark  applies  with  double  force  when  we  look  at  tho 
resources  of  America.  The  incompetent  fleet  of  Lord  Sandwich,  who 
succeeded  Lord  Hawke  as  premier  of  the  Admiralty  in  1770,  was  the 
cause  of  the  loss  of  most  of  our  West-India  islands,  together  with  the 
southern  states  of  North  America,  in  J779.  At  that  time  (August  1779) 
the  French  and  Spaniards  rode  triumphant  in  the  Channel,  and  passed 
Plymouth,  although  we  had  1 35  ships  of  the  line.*  At  present,  accord- 
ing to  the  Admiralty  accounts,  we  have  only  J13  ships  of  the  lino, 
although  we  have  double  the  extent  of  colonies  to  protect. 

Ships  are  not  to  be  built  in  a  short  time  :  the  timber  must  be  procured 
from  abroad, — for  our  own  forests  are  exhausted ;  shipwrights  are  not 
always  to  be  procured ;  and  naval  stores,  in  general,  especially  hemp,  can 
only  be  had,  in  great  quantities,  from  the  powers  in  the  Baltic,  which  have 
often  been,  and  may  again  be  inimical  to  us. 

We  now  proceed  to  speak  of  the  sailing  qualities  of  our  ships  of  war, 
which  are  of  the  most  shameful  description.  We  quote,  as  proof  of  this, 
if  proof  be  needed  of  what  every  body  knows,  a  paragraph  from  Mr. 
Knowles's  work  "  On  the  Dry  Rot,"  Preface,  p.  4 :  "  Until  recently" 
(alluding  to  the  establishment  of  the  School  of  Naval  Architecture  in 
Portsmouth  Dock-yard)  "  the  theoretic  construction  of  ships  has  not  been 
cultivated,  or  considered  in  this  country  a  matter  of  sufficient  importance  ; 
and  to  this  may  be  attributed  the  practice  of  copying  or  imitating  the 
lines  of  those  constructed  by  foreign  nations."  We  have  no  good  ships  of 
our  own  construction,  except  in  the  cases  in  which  we  have  copied  foreign 
vessels ;  and,  as  we  have  not  copied  any  of  a  late  date  of  construction,  we 
are  still  half  a  century  behind  the  rest  of  the  maritime  world.  Indeed,  our 
fears  are  so  great  with  regard  to  the  sailing  qualities  of  our  ships, 
that  if  a  grand  conflagration  of  them  all  were  to  take  place,  we  should 
hasten  to  enjoy  the  spectacle,  and  rejoice  to  see  our  antiquated  models 
replaced. 

As  this  subject  is  of  more  importance  than  is  generally  conceived,  we 
shall  enlarge  on  it.  As  proof  of  tho  excellence  of  foreign  ships,  \ve  need 
only  advert  to  the  fact,  that  all  our  frigates  are  copied  from  foreign  models 
— thirty-five  being  taken  from  the  Hebe,  a  French  frigate ;  and  twenty- 
three  from  the  Piedmontaise,  or  French  President.  If  we  only  refer  to  the 
following  French  and  Spanish  ships,  which  were  the  fastest  sailers  and 
best  sea-boats  in  the  navy,  the  most  sceptical  and  prejudiced  reader  will 
te  convinced  that  something  must  be  done  in  this  department  of  naval 
science  : — San  Josef,  of  1 10  guns  ;  Gibraltar,  of  84  guns  ;  Canopus,  of  84 
guns,  from  which  we  are  building  eight  ships ;  Donegal,  80  ;  Pompee, 
80;  Genoa,  74;  Rivoli,  74;  Impetueux,  74;  Spartiate,  74;  Implacable, 
now  Duguay  Trouin,  74.  In  the  same  manner,  numerous  other  ships 
might  be  cited  to  shew  the  excellence  of  foreign  vessels.  In  no  one 
ipstancehave  the  French  copied  from  an  English  model.  Whenever  they 
have  captured  any  of  our  ships,  they  have  generally  broken  them  up,  as 
their  bad  sailing,  when  attached  to  their  own  ships,  has  placed. the 
whole  in  danger,  by  the  delay  which  they  have  caused — which,  indeed, 

*  Vide  "Derrick's  Memoirs  of  the  B.riteh  Navy,"  p.  161. 


1827.]  Science  of  the  British  Navy.  6 1 9 

has  not .  unfreqtiently  led  to  tho  capture  of  the  whole  of  their  rear 
division. 

So  superior  arc  foreign  ships  to  our  own,  that  our  captains  in  the  navy 
universally  covet  them.  Thus  we  find  the  gallant  admiral,  now  at  the 
head  of  the  Navy  Board,  as  comptroller,  Sir  Byam  Martin,  pursuing  his 
active  course  principally  in  the  Fisgard,  which  was  the  French  frigate  La 
Resistance ;  and  in  the  Implacable,  74,  mentioned  previously.  The 
former  was  captured  in  the  river  Fisgard,  in  Ireland;  and  the  latter  by 
Sir  Richard  Strachan,  in  1805,  forming  one  of  Dumanoir's  squadron, 
which  had  escaped  from  the  battle  of  Trafalgar.  In  these  ships  Sir  Byam 
Martin  exhibited  a  fine  specimen  of  what  may  be  done  by  valiant  seamen 
in  fast-sailing  ships.  In  the  latter,  particularly,  the  Implacable,  by  the 
velocity  of  his  ship,  when  fighting  in  aid  of  the  Swedes,  in  the  Baltic,  in 
1819,  against  the  Russians,  he  was  enabled  to  overtake  the  opposing  squa- 
dron, intercept  and  capture  two  of  them,  \vhile  the  remainder  of  the 
Anglo-Swedish  fleet  were  far  behind.  A  natural  inference  from  tho  occur- 
rences of  this  encounter  is,  if  the  whole  Anglo-Swedish  fleet  had  been 
fast  sailers,  the  Russian  fleet  must  have  been  annihilated.  It  would  be 
a  pleasing  task  here  to  dwell  on  the  feats  of  war  performed  by  Sir  John 
Borlase  Warren,  in  La  Pomone  frigate,  captured  at  the  commencement  of 
the  revolutionary  war.  But  this  we  must  pass  over;  as  we  must  also  of 
L'Egyptienne,  a  large  French  frigate,  similar  to  those  of  America,  carrying 
thirty  24-pounders  on  the  main-deck,  which  was  taken  in  1802;  of  the 
Bonne  Citoyenne,  &c.  &c.  In  fact,  every  victory  which  reflects  honour 
on  our  sailors,  conveys  a  stigma  on  our  ship-builders.  It  was  not  till  tho 
French  had  pointed  out  to  us  the  advantage  of  increasing  the  dimensions 
of  ships,  that  our  Caledonia,  of  120  guns,  was  built,  and  the  sister  class  of 
ships.  The  French  ordinance,  of  J  786,  determined  on  208  feet  of  length 
for  their  first  rates  ;  while  our's  were  only  192  feet  long. 

The  Danish  ship  Christian  the  Seventh,  when  commanded  by  Sir  Joseph 
Yorke,  had  the  first  character  in  our  navy  as  a  man  of  war  ;  and  the  Dane- 
mark  and  Norge,  ships  of  war — and  Venus,  Danish  frigate — alike  shew  that 
every  small  maritime  power  excelled  us  in  ship-building.  Our  surprise  is 
more  excited  at  Denmark  excelling  us  in  ship-building  than  at  the  French 
nation,  \vho  have  often  had  a  fleet  as  extensive  as  our  own,  and  have 
always  aspired  to  dispute  the  domination  of  the  seas  with  us;  whereas  the 
naval  energies  of  Denmark  have  been  circumscribed  by  various  circum- 
stances, and  by  its  peculiar  geographical  situation. 

But  if  our  astonishment  has  been  excited  by  an  almost  dormant  mari- 
time power,  though  of  ancient  date,  like  Denmark,  excelling  us  in  her 
ships,  what  shall  we  say  at  finding  the  infant  maritime  nation  of  the 
United  States  surpassing  us  by  infinite  degrees  !  If  we  refer  to  the  last 
naval  war  of  this  country  with  the  United  States,  we  shall  perceive  that 
the  superior  character  of  only  one  class  of  vessels  is  sufficient  to  perform 
prodigies.  From  the  surpassing  celerity  and  windward  qualities  of  their 
sixty  gun  frigates,  our  immense  navy  was  not  only  eluded,  but  its  very 
character,  in  a  measure,  compromised.  In  vain  did  we  send  out  ships  of 
the  line  to  combat  with  them  :  there  was  not  an  instance  of  our  being  able 
to  overtake  them.  In  vain  did  we  send  out  small  squadrons  of  light  ships 
to  subdue  them :  they  failed  from  the  same  causes.  Blockading  was  at 
last  resorted  to,  as  the  partial  preventive  to  their  extensive  depredations  on 
our  commerce ;  but,  on  account  of  the  vast  range  of  coast  and  numerous 

4  K  2 


620  On  the  Personnel,  Materiel,  and  [JUNE, 

harbours,  little  was  effected  by  it.  Whenever  the  Americans  were  so 
unmindful  of  the  advantages  which  they  had  in  the  sailing  of  their  ships — 
tvhich  always  enabled  them  to  choose,  as  an  antagonist,  a  vessel  of  infe- 
rior force — as  voluntarily  to  join  encounter  with  a  ship  of  equal  force, 
the  issue  was  of  a  different  nature  ;  as  may  be  seen  by  the  Chesapeake 
accepting  the  challenge  of  the  Shannon,  and  by  the  surprise  of  the  Essex  in 
a  bay  of  South  America.  The  capture  of  the  President  frigate  by  block- 
ade, in  which  case  ships  were  directed  against  her  on  all  points,  cannot  be 
adduced  as  proof  of  the  inferiority  of  her  sailing  qualities.  But  even  in 
that  case  we  are  indebted  to  the  French  for  the  model  of  the  Endymion — 
the  Pomone,  which  was  the  chasing  ship,  and  under  whose  fire  she  prin- 
cipally suffered  ;  though,  subsequently,  the  Majestic,  a  seventy-four  gun 
ship,  cut  down  expressly  for  the  occasion,  and  the  rest  of  the  squadron, 
took  part  in  the  capture.  Chiefly  owing  to  the  qualities  of  their  vessels, 
did  seven  or  eight  American  frigates  wage  war  successfully  with  the  British 
navy,  and  capture  the  Guerriere  fifty-gun  frigate ;  Java  and  Macedonia 
frigates  ;  and  the  smaller  sloops  of  war,  Avon,  Peacock,  and  Frolic ;  with 
about  twelve  hundred  larger  and  smaller  ships  of  the  merchants.  With  great 
justice  do  the  people  of  the  United  States  attribute  their  success  in  part  to 
their  ship-builders;  while,  on  the  same  score,  we  deplore  the  deficiency  of 
ours. 

We  know  that  it  is  the  opinion  of  many  inconsiderate  persons  that  the 
qualities  of  ships  cannot  influence  the  result  of  a  naval  war;  but  we  can 
acquaint  them  that  the  most  cursory  perusal  of  naval  history  will  convince 
them  of  their  error.  In  how  many  actions,  under  Hughes,  Rodney,  Byng, 
and  Barrington,  have  our  gallant  sailors  missed  gaining  the  victory  solely 
by  the  miserable  qualities  of  their  vessels?  the  sailing  of  which  ships  may 
properly  be  compared  to  the  floating  of  a  haystack  before  the  wind.  Our 
best  naval  politicians  affirm,  that  the  adoption  of  coppered  bottoms  by  the 
French,  previous  to  its  introduction  into  our  navy  (which,  by  keeping  the 
bottom  clean,  improves  the  sailing),  was  a  principal  cause  of  their  success 
under  Suffrein  in  the  East-Indies.  Our  wars  with  Hyder  Ally,  at  that 
time,  rendered  the  co-operation  by  sea  doubly  necessary. 

3.  On  the  science  with  which  the  navy  is  conducted  must  depend  its 
efficiency  in  a  great  degree.  There  is  a  very  foolish  idea  on  this  subject 
generally  adopted — that  practice  is  every  thing,  and  that  the  study  of  the 
subject  may,  therefore,  be  neglected.  Now,  few  assertions  can  be  more 
childish  than  this  ;  because  every  act  ought  to  be  examined  before  it  is 
.performed.  Inferences  must  be  drawn  from  former  experience:  these 
inferences  must  be  compared  ;  and  the  more  account  we  take  of  our  pro- 
ceedings, the  more  correct  will  be  our  results.  To  blunder  on  without 
thought,  is  the  worst  of  all  modes.  It  is  true  that  the  greatest  fool  will 
learn  something  in  time ;  hut,  if  he  had  had  his  senses,  he  might  have 
learnt  a  better  mode  of  proceeding.  We  have  before  seen  that  our  great 
practice  in  ship-building,  during  our  long  wars,  taught  our  master  ship- 
wrights little,  because  they  were  unable,  for  want  of  education,  to  calcu- 
late arid  bring  their  experience  to  account :  they  were  "  obliged  to  copy 
foreign  models,  from  riot  cultivating  the  subject,"  as  Mr.  Knowles  says. 
The  experience  of  an  educated  man  in  the  art  is  not  less  than  another's ; 
but  he  brings  his  experience  to  better  account.  We  must  refer  here  to  an 
article  on  "  Naval  Architecture  and  Nautical  Economy,"  in  the  last. 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Institution:  it  is  a  review  of  a  periodical  work, 


1827.]  Science  of  the  British  Navy.  62 1 

entitled  "  Essays  and  Gleanings  on  Naval  Architecture, "* — to  which  wo 
refer  our  readers  with  great  pleasure ;  and  we  congratulate  the  country  at 
large  that  this  important  subject  is  now  coming  under  discussion  ;  for,  until 
the  last  year,  the  art  of  printing  can  scarcely  he  said  to  have  been  applied, 
in  this  country,  for  the  improvement  of  ship-building.  It  is  true  that  it  has 
been  attempted  in  a  few  instances  ;  but,  for  want  of  patronage,  the  authors 
were  soon  hushed  down  by  the  clamours  of  envy  and  ignorance.  An 
affecting  instance  of  this  is  given  by  Mr.  Knowles,  in  the  preface  to  his 
work  on  the  "  Preservation  of  the  Navy :" — "  While  the  Dutch  possessed 
and  encouraged  Witsen ;  the  French,  Bouguer,  Du  Hamel,  Clairbois, 
Borda,  and  Romme;  the  Spaniards,  Juan;  the  Germans,  Euler;  and  the 
Swedes,  the  celebrated  Chapman, — the  English  neglected  the  only  work 
which  they  possess  on  this  subject  that  can  lay  any  claim  to  science,"^  and 
suffered  its  author,  whom  tradition  represents  to  have  been  a  man  of  the 
most  amiable  manners  and  correct  conduct,  to  live  and  die  a  working  ship- 
wright in  Deptford  Yard !"  The  consequence  of  the  treatment  of  this  poor 
man  was,  that  the  subject  became  entirely  neglected  as  to  its  scientific  cul- 
tivation :  his  fate  was  a  beacon  to  warn  others  from  the  unfortunate  pursuit ! 
Hence,  thousands  and  millions  of  money  have  been  thrown  away  in  bad 
ships — lives  have  been  lost — and  we  have  been  depending  on  foreigners  for 
models ! ! !  All  the  sympathies  of  our  nature  call  upon  us  to  aid  the 
improvement  of  this  important  art:  the  safe  navigation  of  the  seas — the 
protection  of  our  lives  and  families  from  the  foe — and  the  diminution  of 
our  national  burdens,  by  a  wise  economy  in  the  expenses  of  the  dock-yards, 
alike  urge  on  us  its  cultivation. 

An  important  subject  next  claims  our  consideration  :  what  national  insti- 
tutions have  we  for  this  important  art  ?  And  here  it  must,  lamentably,  be 
said,  that  a  glaring  deficiency  exists.  We  have  not  even  a  naval  library. 
Foreign  nations  have  long,  as  just  cited,  by  the  wise  encouragement  of 
talent,  produced  men  learned  in  the  art.  These  philosophers,  by  ample 
rewards  and  inducements,  have  been  devoted  to  the  study  of  this  important 
art ;  and  other  countries,  and  our  own  in  particular,  have  reaped  the  bene- 
fit of  it. 

His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Clarence  has  been  pre-eminent  in 
patronizing  the  study  of  naval  architecture.  As  President  of  the  "Society 
for  the  Improvement  of  Naval  Architecture,"  in  J79K  his  Royal  Highness 
evinced  great  solicitude  for  its  advancement.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
society  failed  in  its  object,  by  devoting  its  energies  and  funds  to  investigating 
the  laws  of  the  resistance  of  water. 

Another  more  feasible  plan  has  been  suggested  by  Mr.  Major,  and 
approved  by  the  Navy  Board :  it  has  received  the  sanction  of  many  of  our 
first  scientific  men,  and  it  appears  to  be  founded  on  a  true  philosophical 
basis.  For  further  particulars  of  this  plan,  we  refer  our  readers  to  the 
"  Annals  of  Philosophy,"  for  November  1825 — Mr.  Harvey's  remarks  in 
the  same  work  for  January — and,  for  further  particulars  on  this  interesring 
subject,  to  the  number  of  that  periodical  work  for  last  June.  Mr.  Major's 
views  of  naval  architecture  are  also  spoken  of  in  high  terms  in  last  "  Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Science."  From  the  peculiar  calculations  of  the  plan,  it 


»  Published  by  Sherwood,  Gilbert,  and  Piper* 

t  A  Treatise  ou  Ship-building  aud  Navigation,  by  Mungo  Murray,  1754, 


622         On  the  Personnel,  Materiel,  fyc.  of  the  British  Navy.      [JUNE, 

must  produce  the  most  valuable  data;  and,  as  our  navy  costs  twenty  mil- 
lions sterling,  we  think  no  pains  ought  to  be  spared  for  its  scientific  forma- 
tion. 

We  have  before  said,  that,  for  a  good  account  of  our  navy,  we  must  refer 
the  reader  to  Uupin's  work,  Moreau's,  &c.  &c.  Though  a  Frenchman, 
Dupin  shews  himself  intimately  acquainted  with  every  particular  in  (he 
constitution  of  our  navy,  its  construction,  and  resources.  From  being 
admitted,  with  an  unsuspicious  liberality,  into  all  our  grand  public,  and  even 
into  many  of  our  private  establishments,  he  has  described  every  thing 
minutely.  We  have  been  told  by  a  cotemporary  journal,  that  such  display 
to  foreigners  is  politic,  because  it  must  inspire  them  with  awe  at  our  power. 
It  is  possible,  however,  that  they  may  have  feared  us  as  much  before  our 
resources  were  explored,  as  after  making  those  particular  developments 
that  enable  them  to  imitate  them.  Quite  an  opposite  policy  exists  in 
France;  its  naval  arsenals  are  hermetically  sealed  against  foreigners — more 
especially  Englishmen.  Dupin  never  details  any  thing  in  his  works 
respecting  his  own  country  that  may  enlighten  us  ;  and,  though  he  knows 
very  well  we  are  half  a  century  behind  the  French  in  ship-building,  he, 
with  much  policy,  praises  our  hedge-carpenters'  ships,  without  getting  his 
country  to  adopt  the  models  of  them.  We  cannot  help  smiling  that  Dupiti 
should  affect  to  complain,  in  his  "  Force  Navale  de  la  Grande  Brctagne," 
at  a  little  brusquerie  he  experienced  from  the  under-wardens  of  Ports- 
mouth Dock  Yard.  It  is  not  meant  by  this  remark  to  hold  up  rudeness 
to  foreigners  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  think  it  highly  reprehensible  :  but  we 
conceive  that  M.  Dupin  must  have  been  too  much  pleased  and  well  occu- 
pied in  beholding  all  that  he  did,  to  have  really  taken  it  so  much  to  heart 
as  he  would  make  us  believe.  We  think,  in  the  face  of  such  assiduous 
research  on  the  part  of  the  French  naval  engineers,  of  which  Dupin  is  one, 
we  ought  to  promote  the  like  exertions  among  our  English  naval  engineers 
— those  of  the  School  of  Naval  Architecture — and  not  repress  their  endea- 
vours by  every  species  of  indignity  and  bad  treatment.  We  understand 
they  are  only  put  over  the  house  carpenters,  caulkers,  and  blacksmiths ;  and 
that  their  first  scholars  are  gone  to  America,  where  they  are  handsomely 
treated  for  their  painful  studies  and  valuable  acquisitions,  instead  of  being 
looked  upon,  as  they  are  here  (as  noticed  by  DupinJ,  in  the  quality  of 
working  bipeds.  Dupin  has  been  made  Baron  of  France,  although  of  the 
class  of  mechanics :  but  when  shall  we  be  emancipated  from  gothic  pre- 
judices ?  The  arts  which  contribute  so  much  to  the  conveniences  of  life 
were  honourable  in  ancient  Greece  :  they  deified  Dsedalus,  the  inventor  of 
the  saw.  But  so  much  has  brnte  force  and  haughty  prejudices  usurped 
the  empire  of  the  mind,  that  now,  when  a  nation  has  been  supported  through 
the  most  arduous  struggle  ever  known  by  her  arts  and  manufactures,  the 
labourer  is  hardly  thought  worthy  of  his  hire — totally  putting  out  of  the 
question  gratitude  and  respect.  We  hope  these  things  will  be  changed  by 
our  new  governors. 


1827.]  [     623    ] 

AGRIPPA    AND    HIS    DOG. 

THERE  are  many  men  of  the  present  day,  who  write  as  well,  and  as 
much,  as  Cornelius  Agrippa  did  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  who  manage 
their  affairs  as  badly,  and  plunge  into  as  many  scrapes  and  perplexities; 
who  many  three  times,  and  get  disgusted  with  matrimony  at  the  third 
trial ;  and,  finally,  who  keep  a  dog — nay,  even  a  black  dog — and  yet  are 
thought — no  conjurors.  But  it  was  the  fate  of  Agrippa,  notwithstanding 
the  almost  daily  indications  he  gave  of  a  want  of  even  common,  not  to  talk 
of  supernatural,  foresight — and  the  continual  failure  of  his  plans,  and  dis- 
appointment of  his  wishes — to  be  pursued  and  hooted  at,  both  by  the  clergy 
and  laity,  the  learned  as  well  as  the  ignorant,  as  a  magician  of  the  most 
dangerous  character.  The  hatred  of  the  monks  was  first  manifested  after 
his  lectures  at  Dole,  in  1509,  the  subject  of  which  was  Reichli  De  Verbo 
Mirifico.  After  this,  in  place  of  endeavouring  to  allay  the  tempest  that 
was  raised  against  him,  he  had  the  imprudence  to  meddle  with  the  matri- 
monial affairs  of  St.  Anne,  and  to  prove  that,  in  place  of  three  husbands 
and  three  children: — the  quantum  of  connubial  comforts  generally  allowed 
her — that  exemplary  female  had  had  but  one  husband  and  one  child.  He 
then,  doubtless  from  a  fellow-feeling,  took  up  the  cause  of  a  woman 
accused  of  witchcraft,  whose  principles  the  Dominicans  (who  were  at  that 
time  the  principal  directors  of  the  Inquisition)  were  desirous  of  putting  to 
the  test  of  fire  in  an  auto-da-fe  ;  and  concluded  the  chapter  of  his  clerical 
offences  by  disappointing  the  holy  fathers  in  that  pious  and  most  Christian 
intention.  His  political  crimes  were  not  of  a  much  lighter  dye ;  and,  in 
particular,  his  refusal  to  inform  the  Emperor  Constantine's  mother  what 
turn  affairs  would  take,  by  means  of  his  astrological  science,  had  well  nigh 
ruined  him  in  toto.  His  knowledge  of  alchymy,  too,  which  one  might 
suppose  would  have  been  a  fortune  to  any  man,  only  served  to  endanger 
his  liberty  ;  for  the  princes  of  that  period  would  have  thought  it  neither  sin 
nor  shame  to  lay  hold  of  a  transmuter  of  metals,  if  they  could,  and  force 
him  to  spend  his  life  in  making  gold  for  their  own  behoof.  His  principal 
literary  accusers  are  Paul  Jovius,  Thevet,  and  Martin  Del  Rio  ;  but  many 
other  authors  even  go  out  of  their  way  to  have  a  fling  at  him.  "  He  dark- 
ened Burgundy."  says  Thevet,  "  in  such  a  manner,  with  the  smoke  and 
mist  of  his  black  art,  that  if  he  had  not  fled  for  it,  it  is  to  be  feared  they 
would  have  enlightened  him  with  fire  nearer  than  he  desired."  And  Del 
Rio  tells  us  plainly,  that  when  he  travelled,  although  the  money  he  paid 
to  his  hosts  appeared  like  good  and  lawful  coin,  yet,  in  a  few  days  after  his 
departure,  it  became  pieces  of  horn,  shells,  and  other  worthless  substances. 
These,  however,  it  will  be  observed  by  the  judicious  reader,  are  mere  assertions 
—they  may  be  true,  or  they  may  not ;  but  the  strongest  cause  of  suspicion 
—the  most  material  witness  against  Agrippa,  and  whose  testimony  it  will 
be  the  object  of  this  essay  to  narrate — was  a  black  dog.  This  black  dog,  it 
was  affirmed,  was  a  familiar  spirit,  incarnated,  by  his  magical  power,  in 
the  canine  form,  and  compelled  to  follow  and  assist  him  in  all  his  opera- 
tions. It  is  needless  to  dilate  on  the  important  parts  performed  by  dogs — 
and,  more  especially,  black  dogs — in  supernatural  history ;  to  repeat,  for 
instance,  the  well  known  fact,  that  De  Melac,  lieutenant-general  of  the 
French  armies,  was  constantly  victorious  when  his  dog  was  with  him,  and 
as  constantly  beaten  when  he  had  left  him  behind  ;  or  the  thousand  other 
stories  to  the  same  effect.  It  will  be  more  to  the  purpose,  if  I  point  out 
here  a  very  remarkable  coincidence,  which  I  have  discovered  between  the 


624  Agrippa  and  his  Dog. 

external  character  and  form  of  the  individual  of  the  species  possessed  by 
Agrippa,  and  those  of  the  spirits  which  are  compelled  to  appear,  according 
to  the  best  writers  on  magic,  when  summoned  under  the  sign  Mercury — 
the  planet,  as  I  am  led  to  think,  which  governed  the  destinies  of  the  very 
mercurial  genius  of  whom  I  am  discoursing ;  and,  to  shew  that  I  have  no 
inclination  to  twist  matters  to  my  own  purpose,  I  will  consent  to  receive 
the  description  of  the  dog  from  the  pen  of  John  Wierus,  Agrippa' s  own 
servant,  who  did  every  thing  in  his  power  to  prove  that*he  was  simply  a 
dog,  and  nothing  more.  But  let  me,  in  the  first  place,  caution  the  reader 
who  has  not  entered  deeply  into  these  controversies,  not  to  be  too  hasty  in 
pinning  his  opinion  to  the  sleeve  of  John  Wierus.  That  John  enjoyed  a 
better  opportunity  than  most  people  of  ascertaining  the  truth  of  the  matter, 
I  readily  allow;  but  he  had  also  a  more  cogent  reason  for  disguising  it.  He 
was  not  merely  the  domestic  of  Agrippa,  but  also  his  scholar,  and  studied 
frequently  at  the  same  table  with  him  ;  and,  setting  feelings  of  affection 
and  gratitude  aside,  had  his  master  been  burnt  for  a  wizard,  is  it  not  some- 
thing more  than  probable  that  John  would  have  been  at  least  scorched  by 
the  fagot?  "I  was  intimately  acquainted,"  says  he,  "with  this  black 
dog,  who  was  of  a  middle  size,  and  called  by  the  French  name  of  Mon- 
sieur. He  was  a  real  dog;  and  his  master  gave  him  for  a  companion,  in 
my  presence,  a  bitch  of  the  same  colour,  size,  and  kind,  called  Made- 
moiselle." Now  let  us  compare  this  with  the  description  in  the  fourth 
book  of  the  "  Occult  Philosophy,"  supposed  by  some,  and  denied  by 
others,  to  have  been  written  by  Agrippa  himself — but,  at  any  rate,  the 
work,  undoubtedly,  of  a  master-hand — under  the  head, 

"  Familiar  Forms  for  a  Spirit  of  Mercury. 

"  They  appear  in  a  body  of  middle  stature — cold,  liquid,  and  moist  ; 
their  motion,  silver-coloured  clouds  ;  for  their  sign  they  bring  fear  and 
horror  to  him  that  calls  them ;"  and  among  the  forms  enumerated—"  a 
dog." 

Here  we  find  it  agreed,  that  the  form  of  Agrippa's  companion  and  that 
of  a  spirit  of  Mercury,  the  star  of  his  nativity,  was  a  dog—and  a  mifcJ  !e- 
sized  dog — and  a  water-dog  (for  this  Ls  proved,  on  the  part  of  Monsieur, 
by  the  manner  of  his  death,  as  I  shall  afterwards  shew)  ;  while,  by  the 
words  "  cold,  liquid,  and  moist,"  as  applied  to  a  dog  in  the  Occult  Phi- 
losophy, we  can  understand  nothing  else.  As  for  the  motion,  or  mode  of 
appearance,  when  called  by  magical  incantations,  and  the  fear  and  horror 
they  bring  for  a  sign  to  him  that  calls  them,  we  shall  come  to  these  anon. 
The  colour  of  the  canine  apparition  not  being  mentioned,  signifies  nothing ; 
for  those  who  are  in  the  least  acquainted  with  the  art,  are  aware  that  a 
dog-devil  must  be  black.  A  white  dog  is  quite  another  thing,  as  St.  Ber- 
nard's mother  knew,  to  her  great  happiness,  when  she  dreamt,  imme- 
diately before  his  birth,  that  she  was  delivered  of  one.  But,  while  thus 
giving  the  reader  to  understand  my  private  opinion  on  the  controversy, — 
viz.  that  Agrippa  was  in  reality  a  magician,  and  had,  by  arts  unknown  to 
common  men,  overstepped  the  usual  bounds  of  human  knowledge  and 
dominion,  as  they  existed  in  that  age, — it  is  necessary  to  enter  into  some 
explanation  of  the  words  I  use. 

Bodin  defines  a  sorcerer,  "  Sorcier  est  celui  qui  par  may  ens  diaboliques 
sciemment  s'efforce  de  parvenir  a  quelque  chose  ;" — while  Plato  tells  us 
that  "  the  art  of  magic  is  the  art  of  worshipping  God."  Magic  and  sor- 
cery are  thus  very  different  things ;  almost  as  different  as  the  treatises  on 


1827.]  Agrippa,  and  His  Dog.  625 

the  former  science  which  I  have  read — those  strange  commixtures  of  sacred 
and  human  learning — and  the  villainous  speculations  of  the  stupid  and 
savage  Bodin.  Had  Pliny  been  acquainted  with  this  fact,  the  thirtieth 
book  of  his  "  Natural  History  "  would  never  have  been  allowed  to  come 
down  to  us  in  its  present  state.  The  Persians  called  their  god  May£V. 
But  the  plain  matter-of-fact  is,  that  a  magician,  according  to  all  intelligent 
men,  is  simply  one  who  has  already  attained,  or  who  is  searching  for,  a 
higher  degree  of  knowledge  than  is  possessed  by  the  great  majority  of  man- 
kind. A  magician  is  "  dimnorum  cultor  et  interpret  ;"  and  his  search 
is  after  what  he  terms,  in  his  own  mystical  language,  "  virtutes  in  centra 
centri  latentes."  Their  names,  throughout  the  ancient  world,  varied 
according  to  the  language  and  the  genius  of  the  different  nations  who 
bestowed  them.  Thus,  with  the  Latins,  they  were  sapientes,  or  wise 
men  ;  with  the  Greeks,  philosophers ;  with  the  Egyptians,  priests ;  with 
the  Hebrews,  cabalists;  with  the  Babylonians,  Chaldeans;  and  with  the 
Persians,  magicians.  Whether  Agrippa  had  really  attained  to  any  remark- 
able degree  the  object  of  his  search,  or  was  as  yet  only  a  wayfarer  in  the 
journey,  it  is  not  my  province  to  inquire  ;  but,  if  I  may  believe  even  the 
authors  who  looked  upon  his  art  as  unlawful  and  damnable,  and  whose 
neighbourhood  to  the  age  in  which  he  flourished  gave  them  every  opportu- 
nity for  investigation,  he  certainly  must  have  been  no  novice  in  the  occult 
science.  In  human  learning,  he  knew  eight  languages,  as  he  himself 
informs  us  ;  he  studied  the  art  of  war  seven  years  in  the  Emperor  Maxi- 
milian's Italian  army ;  he  was  a  doctor  of  law,  and  a  doctor  of  physic  ; 
and  either  was,  or  ought  to  have  been,  a  doctor  of  divinity.  He  was, 
besides,  complete  master  of  the  Mirror  of  Pythagoras  ;  and  knew  the  entire 
secret  of  extracting  the  spirit  gold  from  its  body,  in  order  to  convert  the 
baser  metals  ;  he  was  able,  as  we  are  informed  by  the  most  credible  testi- 
mony, to  remain  alone  for  weeks  in  his  study,  and  yet  know  all  the  while 
of  every  transaction  of  importance  going  on,  at  home  or  abroad ;  and  he 
entertained  a  black  dog,  called  by  the  French  name  of  Monsieur,  who 
was  believed,  by  the  best-informed  people,  to  be  a  familiar  spirit.  It  is  in 
<n,  however,  to  look  to  himself  as  a  witness  either  pro  or  con.  Taken 
as  literary  productions,  his  works  are  only  so-so,  and  his  style  is  some- 
what loose  and  washy;  but  then  he  says  expressly  that  these  mystical 
things  must  not  be  written  with  a  pen,  nor  committed  to  the  fidelity  of 
paper,  "  Sed  spiritu  spiritui  paucis  sacrisque  verbis  infunduntur."  It  is 
difficult,  indeed,  to  understand  how  the  secret  could  be  communicated  by 
words  at  all ;  for  the  operator  in  his  work,  he  informs  us,  is  neither  matter, 
nor  does  it  come  from  heaven  nor  from  hell :  "  In  nobis,  inquam,  est  ille 
mirandorum  operator — nos  habitat,  non  tartara,  sed  nee  sidera  caeli. 
Spiritus  in  nobis  qui  mget,  ilia  facet." 

These  questions,  however,  were  very  little  agitated  among  the  good 
people  of  Louvain,  where  Agrippa  had  his  abode  at  the  time  the  black  dog 
took  up  his  testimony.  That  Agrippa  was  a  magician,  and  the  dog  his 
familiar  spirit,  was  a  thing  settled  and  set  by  ;  and  where  there  is  no  dif- 
ference of  opinion,  there  can  be  no  argument :  and  yet,  probably  owing 
either  to  the  cowardice  or  supineness  of  the  clergy,  neither  the  man  nor 
the  dog  were  any  more  molested  than  if  the  devil  had  been  out  of  the 
bargain  altogether.  The  people  of  Metz  had  taken  a  very  different  part 
some  time  before — the  unhappy  philosopher  being  actually  hunted,  like  a 
beast  of  prey,  out  of  that  city,  which,  in  consequence,  stands  stigmatized 

MM.  New  Series— Vou  III.  No.  IS.  4  L 


626"  Agrippa  and  his  Dog.  JUNE, 

to  all  posterity  in  his  writings,  as  "omniumbonarum  liter  arum  virtutumque 
novercal  His  family  at  Louvain  consisted  of  his  wife,  Paulina;  Louvet, 
a  student  of  divinity,  who  boarded  with  him  ;  John  Wierus,  his  domestic ; 
an  old  woman,  whose  name  has  not  come  down  to  us ;  Monsieur,  the 
black  dog ;  and  Mademoiselle,  the  black  bitch.  Paulina  was  his  second 
wife,  whom  he  had  newly  married :  she  was  young  and  beautiful,  and 
enceinte  for  the  first  time — a  state  which  it  appears  she  relished  so  much, 
that  she  brought  the  philosopher  four  children  in  the  first  three  years  after 
their  marriage,  one  at  a  birth.  It  is  surprising,  by  the  way,  that  the  demon- 
hunters  should  not  have  suspected  something  amiss  here ;  although  it  is 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  Agrippa  himself  might  have  been  more  inclined 
to  think  his  third  wife  (whom  he  divorced)  a  devil.  As  for  John  Wierus, 
he  is  ready  known  to  the  learned  ;  the  old  woman  is  not  worth  talking  of; 
Mademoiselle  was  simply  a  female  dog,  although  Moreri  affirms  that  she 
was  a  demon  as  well  as  the  male  ;  but  as  for  Louvet,  the  boarder,  and 
Monsieur  the  black  dog,  we  must  not  dismiss  them  so  easily.  Louvet,  a 
young  and  lively  Frenchman,  had  come  from  some  country  village,  where 
his  education  had  been  hitherto  conducted,  to  attend  the  lectures  of  the 
celebrated  Cornelius  Agrippa ;  and  had,  soon  after,  the  good  fortune  to 
obtain  entrance  into  the  philosopher's  house  as  a  boarder.  I  do  not  know 
whether  his  attention  had  been  previously  directed  to  the  fashionable  studies 
of  the  period — alchymy  and  magic  ;  or  whether  the  very  atmosphere  of  the 
house,  where  so  potent  a  master  of  these  arts  resided,  had  been  able  of  itself 
to  produce  a  thirst  in  his  naturally  ardent  mind  alter  mysterious  and  for- 
bidden knowledge ;  but  so  it  was,  that  he  had  not  been  long  domiciled 
at  Louvain,  when  his  buoyancy  of  spirits  entirely  forsook  him  :  he  avoided 
the  society  of  the  other  students,  and  relinquished  the  pleasures  and  exer- 
cises peculiar  to  his  age ;  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  little  closet  for  whole 
days  together,  poring  over  the  ponderous  tomes  of  the  mystics,  and  losing 
himself  in  their  daring  and  romantic  speculations.  Like  St.  Augustine,  in 
his  search  after  knowledge  of  another  kind,  "  he  went  out  of  himself  to 
seek  it  in  all  things."  Agrippa,  in  the  mean  time,  was  too  deeply  involved 
in  the  intrigues  and  speculations  that  occupied  so  great  a  portion  of  his 
eventful  life,  to  pay  much  attention  to  his  pupils.  At  this  period,  especially, 
he  seemed  to  be  more  than  usually  busy,  and  spent  a  greater  part  of  his 
time  in  his  inner  study,  his  sanctum  sanctorum, — which  no  other — not 
even  John  Wierus — was  allowed  to  enter.  His  manner  was  filled  with 
gloom  and  reserve — not  the  studied  reserve  which  implies  suspicion  of  others, 
and  caution  against  one's-self — but  rather  a  total  forgetfulness  of  the  things 
and  persons  that  surround  the  soul  with  their  palpable  realities,  and  chain 
it  to  the  world  ;  he  walked  through  the  houso  and  through  the  streets  like 
a  person  in  a  dream,  and  mingled  with  his  family — and,  though  seldom, 
with  society — like  one  with  them,  but  not  of  them.  Louvet  gazed  on  his 
master  with  a  veneration  and  curiosity  almost  boundless.  To  hear  his 
voice — to  be  addressed  by  him  even  with  a  common-place  inquiry  or  com- 
mand— made  the  blood  rush  tumultuously  to  his  heart ;  to  touch  his  clothes 
as  he  passed,  or  his  finger  when  handing  him  a  book,  sent  a  sudden  thrill 
through  his  frame,  which  it  was  impossible  to  refer  either  to  pleasure  or 
pain.  Even  Paulina,  in  consequence  of  her  connexion  with  this  extra- 
ordinary man,  attracted  a  portion  of  his  interest,  which  her  youth  and 
beauty  Vould  have  failed  to  inspire.  She  was  taller  than  the  generality  of 
women,  and  of  a  grave  and  lofty  demeanour;  pride  sat  enthroned  on  her 


1827.]  Agrippa  and  Aw  Dog.  627 

high  forehead ;  but  it  was  chastened  by  a  shade  of  melancholy,  almost 
deep  enough  to  be  termed  gloom — indicative,  perhaps,  as  the  physiogno- 
mists of  a  later  period  would  have  said,  of 

"  the  doom 
Heaven  gives  its  favourites — early  death." 

He  had  now  been  some  time  in  the  house,  and  had  heard  many  stories 
from  the  students  respecting  the  canine  familiar  whose  earthly  name  was 
Monsieur,  but  as  yet  had  never  so  much  as  seen  the  mysterious  animal. 
At  -length  an  opportunity  of  gratifying  his  curiosity  on  this  point  was 
afforded  him.  One  day,  when  passing  through  the  hall,  he  observed  the 
door  of  his  master's  study  ajar,  contrary  to  the  usual  custom ;  and,  over- 
coming his  timidity  by  a  sudden  and  violent  effort,  stole  quickly  to  the 
spot,  and  looked  in.  Agrippa  was  reclining  on  a  couch,  engaged  in  read- 
ing, and,  as  Louvet  thought,  alone;  but  presently  the  trembling  scholar 
observed  a  black  paw  stretched  upwards  to  the  book — and,  afterwards,  a 
black  snout.  Agrippa  took  no  notice  of  the  interruption ;  and  the  next 
moment  a  dog,  black  all  over  from  head  to  foot,  with  a  bushy  tail  and  fierce 
sparkling  eyes,  jumped  upon  his  knees.  The  philosopher  now  laid  down 
his  book,  tiiough  apparently  not  too  well  pleased  at  the  invasion  ;  and, 
taking  the  intruder  in  his  arms,  began  to  fondle  and  caress  him,  as  one  does 
an  infant.  He  even  kissed  the  dog's  lips,  drawing  his  paws  round  his 
neck,  and  suffered  him  to  mumble  his  ears,  laughing  ail  the  while  like  a 
tickled  child,  and  replying  to  the  inarticulate  sounds  of  the  animal  by  imi- 
tative cries.  At  this  frigbtful  scene,  the  student  could  not  help  allowing 
an  ejaculation  of  dismay  to  escape  him  ;  and  Agrippa,  on  the  instant,  start- 
ing up,  cried  to  the  dog,  "  Get  thee  gone,  Sir!" — and  walked  hastily  to 
the  door.  Louvet  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  invent  some  excuse  for  his 
interruption ;  and  his  master,  as  if  on  purpose  to  shew  him  that  he  had 
nothing  to  conceal,  invited  him  into  the  room,  and  began  to  ask  him  some 
questions  relative  to  his  studies.  The  perplexed  scholar,  however,  made  no 
great  figure  during  this  examination;  his  mind  was  even  more  occupied 
with  the  dog  than  with  his  master,  and  his  eyes  sought  every  comer  of  the 
chamber  for  the  place  of  his  retreat.  But  the  dog — if  it  be  lawful  to  call 
him  a  dog — had  vanished.  There  was  no  place  of  concealment  that  he 
could  discover :  the  table,  the  sofa,  and  a  couple  of  chairs  comprised  the 
whole  of  the  furniture  ;  and  these  were  the  only  things  in  the  apartment 
that  had  more  than  two  legs.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  describe  the  state 
of  mind  in  which  Louvet  left  his  master's  presence ;  but,  when  the  storm  of 
agitated  and  complicated  feelings,  which  seemed  almost  ready  to  overwhelm 
the  very  faculty  of  thinking,  had  subsided,  hope  and  joy  remained  upper- 
most. One  step  had  been  gained  :  he  had  witnessed  the  private  moments 
of  Agrippa  in  the  solitude  of  his  study;  he  had  received  evidence  of  the 
most  indubitable  nature  of  his  power  over  the  spirits  of  darkness,  and  his 
curiosity  had  escaped  without  punishment.  But  where  was  the  benefit, 
if  he  were  to  stop  here  ?  He  had  already  devoured  every  volume  in  the 
occult  science  which  his  means  permitted  him  to  procure ;  he  had  con* 
structed  innumerable  diagrams  of  the  stars ;  lie  had  made  himself  master 
of  the  most  approved  pentacles  (or  signs  and  characters  used  in  magic)  ; 
he  had  exhausted  his  slender  funds  in  the  purchase  of  virgin  paper  for  his 
Secret  Book,  of  the  identical  sort  which  Robert  Turner,  Phil.  Med.,  tho 
translator  of  the  fourth  book  of  the  Ocult  Science,  informs  us  in  the  mar- 
gin is  to  be  had  at  Mr.  Rook's  shop,  the  Holy  Lamb,  at  the  east  end  of 

4  L  2 


62S  Agrippa  and  kt's  Dog. 

St.  Paul's — and  oil  in  vain.  There  was  something  still  wanting  ;  he  had 
all  the  materiel  of  the  art — but  the  morale  was  absent ;  he  had  constructed, 
as  it  were,  the  outward  form  of  a  human  body— but  knew  not  where  to 
find  the  soul.  His  resolution,  however,  was  now  taken.  All  things  are 
lawful  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  :  to  steal  wisdom  is  no  crime.  Not 
even  the  punishment  of  our  first  parents  had  power  to  scare  him  from  his 
purpose  ;  for,  like  a  true  disciple  of  his  master,  he  denied  that  their  curio- 
sity, in  itself  so  laudable,  could  have  been  the  object  of  Almighty  pro- 
scription and  vengeance — holding  that  their  unchaste  love  was  the  only 
crime  for  which  they  suffered.  He  had  observed,  when  in  the  study,  a 
small  panel-door,  which  doubtless  led  into  the  inner  chamber  where  the 
magic  book  was  kept ;  and  he  determined,  during  oi.e  of  the  long  absences 
of  Agrippa,  to  obtain  entrance  either  by  fraud  or  violence,  and  to  possess 
himself  at  once  of  that  secret  which  so  many  sages  had  sought  in  vain.  An 
opportunity  was  not  long  wanting  of  executing  his  project;  for  Agrigpa,  the 
very  next  day,  announced  publicly  his  intention  of  going  into  the  country 
for  some  time.  Louvet  saw  him  deliver,  according  to  his  custom  on  such 
occasions,  a  bunch  of  keys  to  Paulina,  and  overheard  him  caution  her  in 
a  low  voice  to  admit  no  one  into  his  study.  He  had  scarcely  turned  his 
back  when  the  impatient  student  went  into  the  room  where  the  lady  was 
sitting  at  work  ;  and,  after  a  good  deal  of  hesitation,  besought  her  to  lend 
him  the  keys  for  an  instant,  that  he  might  go  to  seek  a  book  which  his 
master  had  ordered  him  to  read,  but  had  forgotten  to  leave  out. '  Paulina 
refused,  at  first  coldly,  and  then  with  anger ;  but  seeing  the  student  per- 
severe, she  laid  down  her  work,  and  looking  at  him  with  a  mournful  smile, 
"  Go,  then,"  said  she,  "  thou  foolish  boy ! — seek  what  thou  shaltnot  find ; 
search  after  the  light,  and  obtain  blindness ;  sow  in  wisdom,  and  reap 
folly.  Do  what  thou  wilt,  or  what  thou  must — but  do  it  quickly  ;  and, 
having  reached  the  wall,  beyond  which  there  is  no  passage,  turn  back 
speedily — neither  in  shame  nor  yet  in  scoffing — but  with  meekness  and 
moderation  of  spirit ;  and  so  thy  young  life  shall  not  run  away  in  a  dream." 
Louvet,  uttering  a  thousand  promises  and  thanks,  without  having  heard  a 
syllable  she  said,  seized  the  keys,  and  in  a  moment  found  himself  in  Agrip- 
pa's  study.  He  tried  one  of  the  keys  to  the  lock  of  the  panel-door ;  and, 
as  if  by  instinct,  stumbled  at  the  first  on  the  right  one.  He  then  entered 
the  secret  chamber  of  the  magician,  and,  as  is  meet  in  such  places,  shut 
the  door  after  him.  It  was  a  good-sized  room,  being  nearly  five  yards 
square.  There  were  two  windows  in  the  end  opposite  to  where  he  had 
entered,  and  two  at  each  of  the  sides  ;  but  these  having  been  built  or 
boarded  up  very  nearly  to  the  top — and,  besides,  having  a  curtain  hanging 
down  from  the  roof  to  the  floor,  afforded  but  little  light.  The  floor  and 
the  panels  along  the  walls,  by  dint  of  frequent  and  laborious  cleaning,  had 
received  a  polish  which  made  it  seem  as  if  they  had  been  formed  of  some 
rich  and  curious  wood;  and,  indeed,  every  thing  in  the  apartment  bore 
token  of  the  utmost  nicety  of  attention,  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor,  to 
cleanliness  and  neatness.  On  the  floor  were  three  circles,  drawn  at  regular 
distances,  one  within  the  other,  the  outermost  about  nine  fieet  in  diameter, 
and  the  whole  inscribed  with  names  and  words  of  potency.  At  the  upper 
end  of  the  room  there  was  a  table  raised  like  an  altar,  and  set  towards  the 
east,  covered  with  white  cloth  of  fine  linen.  On  one  corner  of  it  there 
hung  a  robe,  also  of  white  linen,  and  in  fashion  like  a  priest's  garment, 
close  both  before  and  behind,  with  a  veil  of  the  same  colour  and  substance, 
— and  a  girdle  of  black  leather,  having  a  plate  of  gold  set  in  the  middle.; 


] 827. j  Agrippa  and  /m  Dog.  629 

inscribed  with  the  omnipotent  name  "  Tetragrammaton."  There  were, 
besides,  various  little  earthen  dishes,  containing  perfumes  and  other  sub- 
stances— as  red  sanders,  aloes,  pepper,  mastic,  saffron,  peppermint,  and 
sulphur;  also  pieces  of  wax  and  metals,  blood,  bones,  milk,  and  honey  :  a 
two-edged  sword,  with  a  sharp  point,  lay  at  one  of  the  sides ;  a  censer 
for  burning  the  perfumes,  and  a  flask  of  oil.  The  only  other  objects  which 
caught  the  attention  of  the  novice  were  two  wax  lights,  set  at  each  end  of 
the  table,  ready  for  use,  and  something  in  the  middle,  wrapped  in  a  clean 
white  towel,  which  he  knew  to  be  the  treasure  he  sought — the  magic 
book — for  one  peep  into  which  he  had  thus  dared  the  wrath  of  Agrippa, 
and  the  malice  of  all  the  fiends  of  hell.  When  he  would  have  stretched 
forth  his  hand,  however,  to  seize  it,  a  sudden  faintness  came  over  his  spirit, 
and  he  was  constrained  for  some  moments  to  lean  against  the  altar.  Per- 
haps the  closeness  of  the  room,  from  which  every  breath  of  the  outer  air 
seemed  to  have  been  sedulously  excluded,  together  with  the  smell  of  the 
different  perfumes,  had  sickened  him  ;  or,  it  may  be,  the  errand  on  which 
he  had  come,  rendered  more  awful  by  the  profound  silence  which  reigned 
in  this  chamber  of  mystery,  and  the  doubtful  twilight  in  which  every 
thing  was  enveloped,  had  unnerved  him  at  the  moment  when  courage  was 
most  wanting.  Summoning  all  his  energies,  howrever,  to  his  assistance, 
and  fortifying  his  resolution  by  several  hearty  ejaculations  from  the  most 
pithy  texts  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  he  suddenly  started  up  from  his  reclining 
posture,  seized  on  the  mystical  treasure,  and,  undoing  the  towel,  placed  the 
book  before  him.  At  the  side  at  which  it  should  be  opened  there  hung 
various  pieces  of  parchment,  impressed  with  seals,  and  inscribed  with  mys- 
tical characters,  which  formed  a  sort  of  index  of  reference  to  its  contents, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  served  to  guard  the  reader  against  the  clanger  of 
opening  it  in  a  wrong  or  unexpected  place.  Louvet  paused  in  perplexity ; 
for  he  knew  enough  of  magic  to  be  aware  of  the  danger  of  calling  up  "in 
ignorance  a  spirit  whose  services  he  had  not  science  sufficient  to  make  use 
of;  and  whose  absence,  when  once  called  up,  he  had  not  power  enough 
to  command.  But  the  time  was  flying ;  and  making  his  election,  at  a 
venture,  at  the  sign  of  the  planet  Mercury,  he  opened  the  book.  At  this 
moment  a  sudden  knocking  at  the  wall  broke  the  dead  silence  of  the  apart- 
ment ;  but  Louvet  read  the  first  line  without  turning  his  head :  at  the 
second,  the  knocking  was  repeated  louder  than  before,  and  attended  by  a 
noise  of  growling  a»d  gnawing :  at  the  third,  a  heavy  panel  fell  from  the 
wall  with  a  tremendous  crash,  and  the  novice  turned  round  in  fear  and 
horror.  At  first  he  could  see  nothing  but  a  mass  of  dust  and  mortar,  which 
surrounded  the  opening,  and,  brightened  by  the  beams  of  the  sun  behind, 
assumed  the  appearance  of  silver-coloured  clouds :  but  the  next  moment 
the  black  dog  darted  through  the  wall,  and,  with  a  furious  howl,  sprung 
upon  the  student.  "  In  nomine  Patris .'"  cried  Louvet — "  O  God,  1  shall 
be  strangled ! — Filii — holy  Jesus !  what  will  become  of  me  ? — et  Spiritu 
Sancti — I  am  lost !"  continued  he,  intermixing  the  dead  and  the  living 
languages,  and  struggling  as  lustily  with  the  arm  of  the  flesh  as  with  that 
of  the  spirit.  The  only  reply  of  the  fiend,  however,  was  a  growl  and  a 
gnaw,  to  each  word  of  his  victim  ;  and  the  scholar  had  recourse  to  other 
conjurations. 

"  By  the  might  of  the  name  Adonai,"  said  he,  "  exorciso  te  !" — "  Bow, 
wow,  wow!"  answered  the  fiend,  tearing  down  his  mantle  to  the  skirts. 

"  By  El,— and  Elhoe,— and  Elohim "— «  Ugh,  agh,  ogh  !"  said 

the  fiend,  worrying  on  the  scholar's  arm. 


630  Agrippa  and  his  Dog.  [j  UNE, 

«  Zebaoth,— Escherchie,—Jah,— Sadai,— Tetragramraaton !"  groaned 
Louvet,  waxing  faint  with  the  unequal  strife  ;  but  the  incarnate  spirit  of 
darkness  was  unmoved. 

"  By  the  name  Schemes  Amathia,  which  Joshua  called  on,  and  the  sun 
stood  still!"  Even  this  would  not  do. 

"  By  the  name  Primeamadon,  which  Moses  named,  and  the  earth 
swallowed  up  Corah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram !"  But  the  fiend  snapped  at 
his  throat. 

"  In  the  name  of  thy  master,  then,  take  this!"  cried  Louvet,  hurling, 
with  a  last  effort,  the  fatal  book  at  the  head  of  his  adversary.  The  beast 
received  the  gift  with  an  unearthly  yell,  which  resounded  through  the 
chamber,  and  the  tyro  of  philosophy  sunk  fainting  under  his  jaws  upon 
the  floor. 

Martin  Del  Rio,  in  relating  this  story  in  bis  Disquisitions,  says  that 
the  fiend  actually  strangled  the  scholar;  and  that  Agrippa,  coming  in 
soon  after,  being  in  fear  of  the  impression  which  such  an  accident,  happen- 
ing under  his  roof,  might  make  on  the  public  mind,  caused  the  destroyer 
to  enter  into  the  body  of  his  victim,  and  walk  out  into  the  court  before  the 
scholars  ;  where,  as  the  evil  spirit  left  him  at  the  word  of  command,  the 
lifeless  body  of  Louvet  fell  down,  to  all  human  appearance  the  victim  of 
apoplexy.  Martin  Del  Rio  is  mistaken.  The  conjurations  of  the  novice, 
although  not  potent  enough  to  reduce  the  fiend  to  obedience,  were  yet 
sufficiently  so  to  preserve  his  own  life.  When  he  recovered  from  his 
swoon,  he  made  what  haste  he  could  out  of  the  house,  and  through  the 
court;  but,  in  passing  along,  he  met  the  black  dog,  who,  at  the  sight  of 
his  enemy,  took  to  flight  and  hunted  across  the  area;  while  Louvet  him- 
self, no  less  dismayed,  sunk  into  a  second  fit  before  the  scholars.  When 
he  recovered  from  this  also,  he  did  not  stay  to  contradict  the  report  of  his 
death  which  had  already  gone  abroad,  but  hied  him  home  to  his  village 
as  fast  as  he  could,  renouncing  for  ever  his  search  after  the  philosopher's 
stone,  and  relinquishing  all  claim  to  dominion  over  the  powers  of  the  air. 

The  reader  may  here  ask  what  authority  I  have  for  this  version  of  the 
story ;  but  I  inquire,  in  turn,  what  evidence  does  Martin  Del  Rio  produce 
for  his  ?  However  the  facts  may  be,  the  affair  made  so  much  noise  in 
Lou  vain,  that  Agrippa  was  fain  to  leave  it  in  a  few  days  after,  followed, 
as  usual,  by  the  black  dog.  It  appears,  however,  according  to  Paul  Jovius 
(see  Elog.  c.  91),  that  the  persecution  he  sustained  by  all  Europe  on  this 
subject  made  him  resolve  at  length  to  get  rid  of  his  companion  ;  for,  one 
day,  walking  on  the  banks  of  the  Saone,  he  took  off  trie  dog's  collar, 
which  was  inscribed  with  mystical  characters,  and,  throwing  it  into  the  river, 
said  to  him,  "  Go,  unhappy  beast,  who  art  the  cause  of  my  eternal  rain  !" 
— when  the  obedient  Monsieur  immediately  leaped  in  after  it,  and  was 
swept  away  by  the  torrent.  It  is  needless  to  add,  that  the  word  eternal 
is  an  interpolation  of  the  accusers  of  Agrippa — persons  who  had  not  sense 
enough  to  distinguish  the  difference  between  a  magician  and  a  sorcerer. 


[     631     ] 

'     NOTES    FOE    THE   MONTH. 

The  leading  feature  of  the  last  month,  and  in  the  higher  circles  almost 
the  exclusive  one,  has  been  party  politics.  The  spectacle  of  Peter  Wil~ 
kins  has  brought  some  full  boxes  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre  ;  but  the 
people  at  Astley's  complain  terribly,  "  that  the  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons  don't  come  over  now  to  see  M.  Ducrow  ride  and  wait  for  the 
"  Division,"  this  present  session,  as  they  used  to  do.  All  bye  questions, 
too,  are  giving  way — or  have  given  way,  almost  without  exception — to 
the  main  one — Who  or  what  party  shall  govern  the  country  ?  The  Duko 
of  Clarence — who  three  months  ago  could  not  get  a  vote  of  addition  to 
his  income  as  heir  presumptive,  without  difficulty,  has  got  the  place  of 
High  Admiral  (over  and  above  the  "  grant"),  with  a  thumping  salary  at 
the  back  of  it,  without  any  difficulty  at  all.  Mr.  Brougham  rather  de- 
precated Mr.  Alderman  Waithman's  motion,  the  other  night*  as  to  the 
affairs  of  the  "  Devon  and  Cornwall  Mining  Company ;"  and,  from  what 
transpired  on  that  occasion,  we  rather  suspect  there  will  be  no  proceeding 
founded,  in  the  previous  case,  upon  the  report  of  the  "  Arigna"  Com- 
mittee. Lord  Charles  Somerset's  Cape  of  Good  Hope  Inquiry,  too,  is 
not  very  likely  to  be  closely  pressed,  since  the  parties  who  urged  it  most 
strenuously,  have  got  "  a  place  at  court."  And  even  Sir  Francis  Burdett's 
motion  about  the  water  companies — and  Mr.  Wright's  account  of  the 
Grand  Junction  Dolphin —  is  heard  no  more  of,  and  the  people  of  West- 
minster must  go  on  "  even  to  be  poisoned  !" — for  the  honourable  baronet 
who  represents  (and  was  to  have  redressed)  them,  has  now  higher  matters 
to  attend  to.  In  the  interim,  there  will  be  amusement  for  some  time,  in 
seeing  how  cleverly  the  new  allies  of  government  will  back  out  of  all  the 
minor  questions  that  they  were  used  to  be  riotous  upon.  And  how  the  old 
ministry — which  will  be  out  of  its  senses  to  see  them  so  escape — will  not 
be  able  to  say  a  word  to  cut  off  the  retreat.  For  the  measures  which  the 
Whigs  now  will  only  refrain  from  attacking,  are  exactly  those  which 
the  ministers  themselves  were  the  advocates  of,  and  the  most  fiercely 
defended. 

Lord  Wharncliffe's  bill  for  the  amendment  of  the  Game  Laws,  has  been 
lost  in  the  Upper  House  by  a  majority  of  one.  A  defeat  like  this,  to  the 
particular  measure,  is  victory  to  the  principle.  Colonel  Wood's  bill,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  to  legalize  the  sale  of  game  "  for  a  period  only  of 
two  years,"  will  probably  be  assented  to  ;  and  in  that  case,  the  main  ques- 
tion may  be  considered  as  disposed  of.  In  fact,  the  making  it  a  question 
at  all,  whether  the  whole  demand  for  an  article  of  constant  and  general 
consumption,  should  be -supplied  exclusively  by  robbery  !  does  seem  a  pro- 
ceeding almost  too  absurd  to  be  believed,  against  any  sane  and  sober  (far 
less  against  any  legislative)  assembly ! 

A  Sunday  paper  states,  that  the  number  of  individuals  who  have  con- 
formed to  the  Established  Church  since  the  converting  system  has  been 
operating  in  Ireland,  amounts  to  more  than  three  thousand.  This  is  a 
fortunate  hearing,  if  another  fact  stated  by  the  Westmeaih  Journal  is 
equally  true  ; — that,  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  prisoners  for  trial  for 
that  county,  at  the  last  assizes,  one  hundred  and  ninety-three  were  Catho- 
lics;— and  the  charge  against  the  two  others  was  "  a  conspiracy" 

Mr.  Cobbett  and  Mr.  Hunt — t(  coalition"  being  the  order  of  the  day — 
formed  an  alliance  on  the  1 6th  of  May.  and  attempted  to  call  a  meeting 
in  Westminster  to  abuse  the  new  ministry.  The  proceedings  were  opened 
by  that  unctuous  patriot,  Mr.  Pitt,  of  the  Adelphi ;  who  "  lost  his  watch. 


632  Notes  for  the  Month.  [JUNE, 

chain,  and  seals,"  &c.  on  the  occasion — N.B.  There  was  no  "sub- 
scription" to  "  indemnify."  Patriotism  is  not  so  ready  in  the  pecuniary 
way  as  it  used  to  be.  Mr.  Pitt  was  carried  to  How-street,  as  a  rioter  ; 
but  nothing  else  of  interest  occurred  :  the  meeting  was  altogether  a  failure. 
Cobbett,  in  fact,  has  been  very  weak  indeed  upon  the  whole  business  of 
the  change  of  ministers ;  worse,  almost,  than  ever  we  recollect  him.* 

Mr.  Wilmot  Horton  moved  for  papers  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
Friday  night  the  18th  of  May,  preparatory  to  the  discussion  of  Sir 
Rufane  Donkin's  charges  against  Lord  Charles  Somerset,  for  misconduct 
in  the  government  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  The  value  of  Sir  R.  D.'s 
accusations  will  not  be  determined  by  any  reference  to  the  spirit  in  which 
they  are  brought  forward  ;  but  that  circumstance  cannot  be  altogether  dis- 
missed from  notice  in  their  examination  ;  and  it  seems  quite  clear  that,  on 
the  part  of  Sir  Rufane  Donkin  towards  Lord  Charles  Somerset,  there  does 
exist  very  decided  personal  pique.  The  explanation  of  Sir  R.  Donkin 
(given  in  the  "  postscript"  to  his  pamphlet)  is  not  discreetly  written,  as  it 
touches  this  matter. 

According  to  Sir  Rufane  Donkin's  statement,  when  Lord  Charles  Somerset 
returned  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  after  an  absence  of  two  years,  during 
which  Sir  R.  Donkin  had  officiated  as  acting-governor,  Lord  Charles 
treated  him  (Sir  R.  Donkin)  with  a  coldness  bordering  upon,  if  not 
amounting  to,  disrespect;  and  of  this  conduct  Sir  R.  Donkin  (in  his  post- 
script to  a  late  edition  of  his  pamphlet)  complains  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"  During  two  whole  years  I  had  been  heaping  on  Lord  Charles  Somerset's  two 
sons,  and  on  alt  the  friends  he  had  recommended  to  me,  every  kindness  in  my 
power.  When  the  frigate  entered  Table  Bay,  I  felt  quite  sure  that  Lord  Charles 
Somerset's  first  words  to  me  would  be  the  words  of  thankfulness  and  regard  for  all 
I  had  done  for  him.  I  expected  a  warm  and  cordial  embrace — but,  instead  of 
this,  the  staff  officer,  whom  I  had  sent  on  board  to  say  that  my  carriages  were 
•waiting  Lord  Charles  Somerset's  orders  on  the  beach,  and  that  dinner  would  be 
ready  as  soon  as  he  and  his  family  landed,  was  sent  back  to  me  without  one  word 
of  answer  !— no  message ! — no  communication  to  me  at  all ! — but  simply  an  an- 
nouncement that  Lord  Charles  Somerset  would  land  early  next  morning.  He  did 
so  land — and  entering  the  Government  House,  while  I  was  just  going  out  to  receive 
him,  he  sent  me  the  note  which  is  printed  at  page  97." 

Now.  assuming  that  no  cause  (here  unexplained)  operated  to  influence 
Lord  Charles  Somerset's  conduct,  this  was  a  mode  of  treatment  certainly 
something  cavalier.  And  if  Sir  R.  Donkin's  patronage  had  been  so  freely 
dispensed  as  he  describes,  it  would  seen!  almost  to  have  been  something 
ungrateful.  But  the  circumstance  which  immediately  occurs  to  the  reader 
is  this — Sir  Rufane  Donkin  appears  to  be  acquainted  with  all  the  facts 
which,  he  says,  in  a  letter  afterwards,  would  "  astonish  and  shock"  Lord 
Bathurst,  and  "  plunge  Lord  Charles  into  utter  ruin,"  prior  to  the  time 
when  he  "  heaps  upon  Lord  Charles's  sons,"  and  "  all  the  friends  he  recom- 
mended" to  him,  every  kindness  in  his  power — and  "  provided  dinner" — 
and  expected  a  "  warm  and  cordial  embrace," — and  "  sent  his  carnages, 
&c.  to  the  beach:" — His  charges  are  not  brought  forward  until  after  the 
"  dinner  and  the  carriages"  oxe  declined,  the  "  embrace"  not  proffered,  and 
no  acknowledgment  made  of  the  "  heaps  of  favours,"  by  the  governor 
returning  to  the  exercise  of  his  authority !  This  fact  does  not  alter  the  value 
of  Sir  R.  Donkin's  charges,  whatever  they  may  be  ;  but  it  will  induce  peo- 
ple to  accept  no  point  of  them  without  distinct  and  unquestionable  proof. 

*  Tbe  exhibition  which  took  place,  at  the  Crown  and  Auclior  dinner,  was  a  more  signal 
failure  still. 


. J  .VwMv  fnr  lli?  Month.  633 

The  Courts  of  Law  'have  afforded  nothing  very  interesting,  except  the 
trial  for  "  conspiracy"  in  Mr.  Auldjo's  affair  (the  gambling  case) ;  in  which 
a  verdict  was  given  for  the  defendants,  without  any  evidence  or  indeed 
explanation,  on  their  parts,  being  gone  into.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  verdict  was  strictly  correct.  There  was  no  approach  to  any  evidence 
to  found  a  verdict  of  "  conspiracy"  upon.  But  the  following  facts  were 
in  evidence — for  the  benefit  of  the  parties — prosecutor  and  defendants—- 
generally. It  appeared  that  Mr.  Auidjo  had  the  honour  of  being  admitted 
into  the  Marquis  of  Clanricarde's  carriage  (the  first  time  that  he  ever  set 
eyes  upon  his  lordship  in  all  his  life) ;  that  he  went  down  with  his  lord- 
ship, and  some  other  persons  of  "  fashion,"  to  dine  at  an  inn  at  Rich" 
mond  !  and  that,  after  dinner,  he  sat  down,  at  this  public  inn,  to  cards, 
where  he  paid  for  the  honour  of  his  new  connections  and  introduction,  by 
losing  Six  Thousand  Pounds*  A  Mr.  Boland,  who  had  originally  made 
Mr.  Auldjo's  acquaintance,  and  introduced  him  to  the  "  fashionable  world," 
did  not  win  a  single  sixpence  of  these  six  thousand  pounds,  for,  rather 
than  run  the  chance  of  doing  so,  he  left  the  party,  after  going  to  Rich- 
mond— and  took  a  walk  !  And  Mr.  Auidjo,  in  conclusion,  thinking  that  it 
was  not  sufficient  for  a  man  to  lose  his  money  on  such  an  occasion,  boun- 
teously made  the  world  a  present  of  another  commodity  into  the  bargain ! 
for — he  did  not  question  the  fairness  of  the  transaction  ;  but — with 
£40,000  in  his  possession,  entreated  the  winners  to  use  some  considera- 
tion, and  accept  Two  thousand  pounds  instead  of  Six  /  We  hope  that 
all  the  parties  to  this  "  fashionable"  affair  feel  quite  comfortable  :  that 
they  have  every  reason  to  do  so — upon  the  state  of  facts — there  cannot 
be  a  doubt. 

"  Equal  Rights" — The  Examiner  of  last  week  contains  the  following 
paragraph : — 

"  If  any  one  should  think  it  impossible  that  forty  thousand  persons,  of  forty  dif- 
ferent modes  of  faith — Jews,  Christians,  Mahomedans,  and  Pagans,  could  be  found 
living  together  under  the  same  government,  and  in  the  same  town,  each  worship, 
ping  the  Deity  after  his  own  manner,  all  tolerated — nay,  protected,  by  one  presiding 
nation,  and  all  tolerating  each  other,  without  hatred,  malice,  or  uncharitableness  on 
the  score  of  their  religious  opinions,  let  the  sceptic  go  to  Astrachan — there  he  will 
find  Russians,  Greeks,  Armenians,  Persians,  Hindoos,  Calmucks,  Cossacks,  Mon- 
gols, Chinese,  Buchanans,  Turcomans,  Poles,  Germans,  Italians, — in  short,  repre- 
sentatives of  every  country  upon  earth,  living  in  religious  harmony  and  good  fel- 
lowship," 

If  this  lesson  be  meant  for  a  hit  at  the  "  No  Popery"  people,  it  fails  alto- 
gether of  its  mark.  For  these  Jews,  Christians,  Calmucks,  and  so  forth, 
live  in  the  same  town  ;  but  there  is  no  mixture  of  parties  in  the  govern- 
ment that  they  live  under :  not  to  advert  to  the  fact,  that  that  government 
is  of  a  character  to  put  an  end  to  any  little  dissensions,  with  (no  matter 
from  what  cause  they  may  arise)  surprising  facility.  The  Highland  Cap* 
tain,  in  the  last  volume  of  "  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian,"  who  proposes 
toconvince  a  "  sincere  dissenter"  by  towing  him  for  a  mile  or  two  at  the 
stern  of  his  sailing  barge,  affords  an  example  for  curing  "  doubts''  of  all 
kinds,  which  could  hardly  be  surpassed,  perhaps,  by  the  Astrachan  govern- 
ment; but  it  is  not  every  country  in  which  circumstances  admit  of 
its;  being  put  into  execution.  Nobody  doubts,  (that  ever  we  heard  of) 
that  people  of  various  nations,  and  callings,  and  religious  persuasions,  can 
live  together  in  the  same  town  ;  though  if  any  person  had  such  a  doubt, 
we  are  not  entirely  certain  that  it  would  be  worth  while  to  take  the 

M.M.  New  Series— VOL.  III.  No.  18.  4  M 


634  Notes  for  the  Month.        *  [JUNE, 

Examiner's   prescription   and  travel  as  far  as  "  Astrachan,"  to  have  it 
removed. 

The  English  Newspapers  of  February  last  contained  a  short  notice  of 
an  unfortunate  exhibitor  of  wild  animals,  of  the  name  of  Drake,  who  was 
killed  at  Rouen,  by  the  bite  of  a  rattlesnake.  The  particulars  of  the 
affair  have  since  been  duly  "  reported,"  and  discussed,  in  the  AcacUmie 
des  Sciences  at  Paris  ;  and  the  French  Globe  gives  the  following  not  unin- 
teresting account  of  the  proceeding : — 

"  Bite  of  the  Rattlesnake:  the  late  Occident  at  Pouen.—M.  Dumeril  makes 
his  report  upon  the  papers  relative  to  the  death  of  the  Sieur  Drake,  forwarded  to 
the  Academy  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 

"  Several  newspapers  have  already  published  this  deplorable  event,  which  took 
place  at  a  public-house  at  Rouen,  on  the  8th  of  February  last.  An  Englishman 
of  the  name  of  Drake,  about  fifty  years  of  age,  residing  in  the  "  Galerie  de  Bois 
du  Palais  Royal"  at  Paris,  was  bringing  from  London  three  rattle-snakes,  and 
several  young  crocodiles.  In  spite  of  all  the  precautions  which  were  taken  to  keep 
them  from  cold  on  the  road,  he  perceived,  with  regret,  on  arriving  at  Rouen,  that 
the  finest  of  the  snakes  was  dead,  and  accordingly  took  it  out  of  the  cage  with  a 
pair  of  pincers.  The  other  two,  which  looked  weak  and  languishing,  were  carried 
in  the  cage  into  the  dining-room,  and  placed  close  to  a  fire.  While  they  were  in 
this  place,  the  Sieur  Drake,  in  touching  (hem  with  a  twig  to  try  if  they  were  reco- 
vering, fancied  that  a  second  of  the  three  was  dead.  Upon  this,  he  had  the  impru- 
dence to  open  the  cage,  and,  taking  the  snake  by  the  head  and  tail,  carried  it  to 
the  window  to  make  sure  whether  or  not  it  was  still  alive;  while  he  was  examining 
it  with  this  object,  the  reptile  suddenly  twirled  itself  round,  and  fixed  one  of  its 
fangs  in  the  flesh  of  the  outside  of  his  left  hand.  The  wounded  man  gave  a  cry, 
and  wishing?  to  prevent  any  further  mischief,  did  not  Itt  go  the  snake,  but  re- 
turned it  to  its  cage;  but  in  doing  this  he  wast again  bitten  in  the  palm  of  the 
same  (the  left)  hand.  M.  Drake  instantly  ran  out  into  the  yard  of  the  inn  calling 
for  a  physician,  and  for  water;  and  not  finding  the  latter  readily,  he  rubbed  his 
bitten  hand  with  the  ice  (it  was  freezing  hard)  which  lay  here  and  there  about  him. 
About  two  minutes  afterwards,  he  laid  hold  of  a  cord,  and  tied  his  arm  tightly 
with  it,  as  with  a  ligature,  just  above  the  wrist.  While  he  was  yet  in  great  alarm 
and  uneasiness,  Doctor  Pihonel,  who  had  been  sent  for,  arrived  :  Drake's  courage 
then  returned ;  and  a  chafing-dish  and  irons  being  procured  with  all  celerity,  the 
actual  cautery  was  applied  to  the  wounds.  After  this,  the  patient  swallowed  half 
a  glass  of  olive  oil,  and  for  a  short  time  appeared  tranquil ;  but  at  the  end  of  only 
a  few  minutes,  the  most  fatal  symptoms  began  to  appear,  and  destroyed  all 
hopes  of  saving  his  life.  He  died  exactly  eight  hours  and  three  quarters  after  the 
accident.  • 

"  The  papers  presented,  consisted — 1st,  of  the  foregoing  memorandum  of  the 
manner  of  the  accident,  and  the  nature  of  the  medical  assistance  given. — 2d,  of  an 
account  of  the  opening  of  the  body  after  death. — 3d,  of  the  suggestions  of  medical 
men  at  Rou^en  for  preventing  similar  accidents  in  future. 

"  The  opening  of  the  body  presented  very  little  that  was  worthy  of  notice.  All 
the  interior  organs  appeared  sound  and  healthy ;  and  the  operators  noticed  with 
astonishment,  that  neither  the  brain  nor  the  spinal  marrow  was  in  any  degree 
altered  ;  the  membrane  that  covers  them  merely  was  slightly  reddened.  The 
veins  exhibited  no  trace  of  inflammation ;  and  the  only  morbid  appearance  was, 
that  a  considerable  quantity  of  blood  was  collected  in  clots  in  the  veins  on  the  side 
on  which  the  bite  was  received. 

"  To  avoid  similar  accidents,  the  physicians  of  Rouen  advise — that  those  who 
carry  about  rattle-snakes  for  shew,  should  be  compelled  to  take  out  their  fangs 
(which  are  the  poisonous  teeth  in  biting),  and  that  they  should  constantly  be  pro- 
vided with  instruments  proper  for  cauterization,  in  case  of  exigency. 

"  The  commission  (of  the  Academy)  is  of  opinion,  that  these  measures  might 
properly  be  adopted ;  but  observe?,  that  the  eradication  of  the  fangs  should  be 
repeated  every  two  or  three  months,  as  the  lapse  of  that  period  is  sufficient  to 
re-produce  them.  It  desires  also  that  the  immediate  sucking  of  the  wound,  in 
case  of  accidents,  should  be  recollected  among  the  remedies— the  suction  of  a 


i  827.]  Notes  for  the  Month.  635 

wound  made  by  the  bite  of  a  rattlesnake,  being  not  dangerous,  provided  that  the 
mouth  and  throat  and  the  commencement  of  the  alimentary  canal  present  no 
scratch  or  ulceration. 

"  M.  Magendie  is  of  opinion,  that  the  above  list  of  precautions  is  not  complete. 
The  ligature,  properly  applied,  he  takes  to  be  of  the  highest  importance  in  pre- 
venting the  absorption  of  the  poison.  He  thinks  that  the  ligature  made  by  Mr, 
Drake,  must  have  been,  from  his  alarm  and  agitation,  incomplete 

'*  Several  members  suggested  whether  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  prohibit  the 
exposure  of  poisonous  animals  altogether,  in  the  way  of  public  exhibition. 

"  M.  Geoffrey  states,  that  the  rattlesnake  which  bit  the  Sieur  Drake  having  died, 
and  be'en  sent  to  the  Museum  for  dissection,  one  of  the  preparers  happened  to 
scratch  himself  eight  days  after  with  the  scalpel  which  he  had  used  in  the  opera- 
tion:  this  slight  wound  was  followed  by  painful  consequences — a  swelling  of  the 
hand,  and  a  painful  enlargement  of  the  glands  of  the  arm-pit. 

"  M.  Coquebert  Montbret  states  a  new  reason  for  absolutely  prohibiting  the  exhi- 
bition of  rattlesnakes.  These  animals  can  live  and  breed  in  our  climate.  It  may 
fairly  be  dreaded  then,  that  if  any  should  escape,  by  accident,  they  might  propa- 
gate their  species. 

"  M.  Dumeril  remarks,  that  the  consequences  which  followed  the  bite  of  this  snake 
at  Rouen,  do  not  at  all  resemble  the  effects  of  such  accidents  in  America:  there 
the  results  are  far  less  rapid  and  Jess  terrible. 

"  M.  Bosc  confirms  that  opinion.  He  is  most  surprised  at  the  accident  of  Mr. 
Drake,  and  at  its  consequences.  He  has  seen  more  than  thirty  persons  bitten  by 
rattlesnakes,  not  one  of  whom  died.  He  recollects  a  case,  however,  in  which  a 
horse  died  from  being  bitten  in  the  tongue. 

'*  On  the  motion  of  M.  Magendie,  a  note  was  read  from  M.  Delille,  "  corres- 
ponding member  of  the  society,"  upon  the  treatment  of  the  bites  of  venomous 
animals.  The  author  particularly  relies  from  his  experience  (with  M.  Magendie) 
upon  the  efficacy  of  the  ligature." 

It  is  a  curious  example  of  the  indifference  which  men  acquire  to  those 
dangers  that  belong  regularly  to  their  trade — the  fact  that  poor  Drake — 
after  he  is  bitten  by  the  rattlesnake — "  to  prevent  any  further  mischief" 
— that  i?,  the  destroying  of  a  valuable  piece  of  property  (the  snake) — does 
not  throw  the  animal — as  Achilles  himself  would  have  done — upon  the 
ground,  but  is  bitten  a  second,  time  in  attempting  to  put  it  into  its  cage 
again.  But  the  apprehen'sion  of  M.  Coquebert  Montbret,  lest  France 
should  become  overrun  with  rattlesnakes,  by  the  escape  of  those  which 
are  carried  about  for  shew,  is  admirable  !  What  would  the  learned  gentle- 
man say  to  the  situation  of  London,  in  case  a  fire  were  to  happen  at 
Exeter  Change. 

Mr.  Martin,  the  highly  ingenious  and  well-known  illustrator  of  Milton, 
has  published  an  engraving  on  steel,  from  his  famous  picture  of — u  Joshua 
"  commanding  the  sun  to  stand  still."  The  original  painting  will  be  in 
the  recollection  of  every  body,  as  one  of  the  most  fortunate  which  Mr.  Mar- 
tin's bold  and  peculiar  pencil  has  produced.  The  success  of  the  plate, 
which  is  a  most  spirited  as  well  as  elaborate  performance,  has  been  even 
greater  than  that  which  attended  the  production  of  "  Belshazzar's  feast/* 
No  admirer  of  Martin's  style  and  genius  ought  to  omit  seeing  it. 

Speaking  of  dramatic  affairs,  the  John  BulJ,  of  last  Sunday,  notices, 
that  a  "  Mr.  Charletan"  or  "  Charlatan,''  who  prints  a  French  news- 
paper somewhere  near  Cranbourne-alley,  has  abused,  in  very  gross  terms, 
a  French  actress  of  the  name  of  St.  Leon,  who  is  now  playing  in  the  little 
theatre  by  Tottenham-court-road.  This  individual,  whose  name  is  Cha- 
telain,  (not  "  Charlatan")  had  his  bones  broken  a  short  time  since  at  the 
Opera-house,  for  some  very  foul  abuse  of  Madame  Caradori:  and,  al- 
though we  in  general  disapprove  of  the  baculwie  style  of  abating  criti- 
cism, we  are  forced  to  confess  that  the  impudence  with  which  some  of 


636  Notes  for  ike  Month. 

the  minor  French  writers  treat  the  unlucky  "  acting7'  people  that  they 
review,  is  perfectly  ridiculous.  The  abuse  of  Mdle.  St.  Leon  is  very  vulgar 
and  impudent;  and  she  is,  in  truth,  rather. a  pretty  girl,  and  a  clever  ac- 
tress ;  but  a  stout  chambermaid,  with  a  mop  and  pail — or  other  such 
domestic  weapon  as  the  habits  and  tastes  of  such  an  operator  might  sug- 
gest— would  be  the  more  proper  "  physical  means'7  to  employ — if  casti- 
gation  be  absolutely  necessary.  Corking-pins,  and  not  cudgels — the  bod- 
kin— we  should  say — should  be  looked  to  rather  than  the  bastinado  ! 
The  culprit  might  be  tossed  in  a  flannel  petticoat;  or  stoned  to  death  by 
barbers,  with  empty  rouge  or  pomatum- pots;  but  certainly  not  beaten 
witb  any  weapon  heavier  than  a  slipper.  It  is  not  the  least  ridiculous 
part  of  the  affair,  however,  that  any  people  should  be  found  to  buy  the 
wretched  trash  that  these  Anglo-French  newspaper-mongers  publish,  at 
the  very  impudent  price  demanded  for  it.  The  whole  of  the  paper  in 
question — the  Mercure  does  not  contain  one-half  the  quantity  of  matter- 
such  as  it  is— -that  would  go  into  one  of  our  two-penny  publications; 
such  as  "  The  Mirror" — "  The  Hive'' — and  others;  and  the  publishing 
price  of  the  rag,  if  our  memory  does  not  fail  us,  is  a  shilling  I 

The  French  periodicals  of  the  last  month  contain  some  curious  extracts 
from  the  "  History  of  the  Peninsular  War,"  by  the  late  French  Generai 
Foy  ;  a  work  of  considerable  magnitude,  which  is  in  the  course  of  publi- 
cation. The  specimens  given  shew  undoubted  talent  in  the  author;  and 
the  comparison  drawn  between  the  regime  and  discipline  of  the  English 
armies  and  those  of  France,  exhibits  a  spirited,  if  not  at  all  points  a  just, 
delineation,  of  the  peculiarities  of  our  national  character. 

"  The  world  sees  no  troops  better  disciplined  than  those  of  Great  Britain  j  and 
yet  one  of  the  first  causes  of  that  excellence  of  discipline  is  a  system  and  state  of 
things  which,  applied  to  the  armies  of  France,  would  lead  to  results  of  a  nature 
diametrically  opposite.  So  true  it  is,  that,  according  to  the  character  or  condition 
of  the  material  on  which  we  operate,  we  must  employ  different  raeans  to  attain 
precisely  the  same  end.  w 

"  The  soldiers  and  officers  of  the  English  army  form  two  classes,  which  are 
separated  from  each  other  by  a  barrier  almost  impassable.  This  is  the  effect  of  the 
common  institutions  of  the  country.  An  army  raised  by  conscription,  chuses  its 
officers  from  its  own  ranks,  because  in  those  ranks  it  finds  the  best  citizens  of  the 
country,  and  because  the  country  owes  to  its  children  a  fair  and  open  career  for 
their  fortunes,  in  whatever  situation  it  has  found  it  necessary  to  place  them.  An 
army  recruited  by  bounties  of  money,  has  a  right  only  to  the  performance  of  the 
engagement  which  is  made  with  it  j  and  the  halbert  of  the  serjeant  is  understood 
to  be  the  nil  ultra  of  the  English  soldier's  ambition  when  he  enlists.  In  such  an 
army,  the  soldiers  are  passive  instruments  ;  wheels  merely,  which  it  is  necessary  to 
clean  up  and  and  grease  abundantly,  in  order  that  the  machine  may  always  be 
ready  for  action." 

The  general  omits  to  remember  here,  that  the  species  of  military  force 
which  he  last  describes,  is  the  only  standing  army  that  can  ever  be  main- 
tained without  danger  to  the  liberties  of  a  country.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
soldiers  of  an  English  army,  would  always  be  pleased — five-sixths  of 
them  charmed — with  the  prospect  of  being  disbanded.  This  force  is  a 
defence,  therefore,  which  serves  our  purpose  perfectly,  while  its  aid  is 
required  ;  and  which  we  can  get  rid  of  without  difficulty,  when  we  want 
it  no  longer.  But  the  moment  you  get  a  large  army  together,  in  which 
the  private  soldiers  have  an  interest,  and  a  "  career"  to  look  forward  to, 
in  their  profession,  you  have  a  force  embodied  which  may  be  disposed  to 
continue  itself;  and  which — like  the  spirit  raised  by  the  magician's 
scholar' — having  raised  it,  the  means  are  not  quite  certain  how  you  are  to 
put  it  down  again. — But  we  continue. 


1827.]  Notes  fur  the  Month.  637 

"  This  distinction  of  classes  established  in  both,  produces  some  resemblance 
between  the  English  army,  and  the  armies  of  Russia  ;  for  the  principal  strength 
of  the  last  lies  in  the  fact,  that  great  masses  of  ignorant  men  suffer  themselves 
blindly  to  be  led  forward  by  people  more  enlightened  than  themselves. 

"  The  British  soldier  is  stupid  and  intemperate.  A  discipline  of  iron  crushes 
some  of  his  natural  faults,  and  makes  others  available.  His  body  is  robust,  from 
the  strong  exercises  to  which  he  is  accustomed  from  his  youth  :  his  spirit  is  vigo- 
rous, because,  his  father  has  always  told  him — and  his  leaders  repeat  to  him  inces- 
santly—that "  the  men  of  Old  England — fed  upon  roast  beef  and  porter — are  able 
to  beat  three  to  one  of  the  pigmy  races  that  vegetate  on  the  continent  of  Europe." 
Though  of  a  sanguine  disposition,  his  vivacity  in  the  charge  is  not  extraordinary; 
but  he  stands  fast ;  and,  properly  put  on,  he  goes  forward.  In  the  action,  he  looks 
very  little  to  the  right  or  left :  the  example  of  his  comrades  does  not  much  increase 
his  courage;  their  fall  may  damp,  but  it  never  extinguishes  his  determination. 
When  men  like  these  fall  back,  it  is  by  dint  of  sheer  hard  blows,  and  it  is  not  a 
lucky  word  that  rallies,  or  recals  them  to  the  charge.  To  the  French,  it  is  always 
necessary  to  talk  :  to  the  English,  never.  The  last  form  no  plan  of  the  campaign  ; 
they  combine  nothing  ;  and  still  less  suggest  any  thing.  Their  passions  are  only 
lively  within  a  narrow  circle.  They  have  but  one  manner  of  expressing  the  senti- 
ment— whatever  it  is— that  they  feel ;  and  the  "  Hurra !"  with  which  they  receive 
a  favourite  general  in  the  camp,  or  on  the  field  of  battle,  is  just  the  same  cry  of 
brutal  encouragement  that  the  populace  of  London  shouts  to  the  boxers  who  divert 
them  on  feasts  and  holidays. 

One  lion,  the  fable  says,  is  worth  three  foxes.  And  notwithstanding  the 
strictures  of  General  Foy  upon  our  single  "  hurra  !'' — we  rather  suspect — 
though  this  may  account,  perhaps,  for  the  dislike  expressed — that  it  was 
always  to  French  troops  the  most  unwelcome  sound  in  an  action  that  ever 
greeted  them.  And,  for  our  want  of  vivacity,  it  should  be  recollected,  that 
there  are  conventional  circumstances  and  feelings  which  make  men  less 
oriental  in  their  declarations  in  one  country  than  they  are  in  another.  An 
Englishman  always  feels  it  necessary  to  have  some  intention  of  exe- 
cuting that  which  he  promises  or  threatens. 

"  It  is  not  characterizing  tfre  English  properly  to  say,  that  they  are  brave  at  such 
or  such  an  enterprise.  They  are  always  brave  when  they  have  slept,  drank,  and 
eaten.  Their  courage,  which  is  physical  rather  than  moral,  requires  to  be  main- 
tained by  a  substantial  treatment.  Glory  would  never  make  them  forget  that  they 
were  hungry,  or  that  their  shoes  were  worn  out.  Every  soldier  receives  new  cloth- 
ing every  year.  The  lowest  pay  in  the  army  is  a  shilling  a  day"  [there  is  no  pay 
so  low] ;  "  and,  after  all  deductions  for  rations,  clothes,  and  appointments,  there 
remains  twopence-halfpenny  a  day  at  the  disposal  of  the  individual.  This  pay, 
which  is  but  moderate  in  England,  on  account  of  the  high  price  of  commodities, 
becomes,  on  the  Continent,  equal  to  more  than  double  that  of  the  Germans  or 
French.  In  England  there  is  no  such  thing  known  as  stoppage  of  pay,  or  illegal 
detention  of  arrears.  The  English  soldier  eats  a  great  deal — especially  of  meat. 
He  drinks  still  more  than  he  eats.  At  home,  Us  drink  is  beer  :  abroad,  they  give 
him  wine,  when  the  country  supplies  it.  In  camp,  he  cannot  dispense  with  spi- 
rituous liquors  ;  and  the  rum  comes  apropos  to  rally  his  spirits  in  the  moment  of 
danger." 

This  last  line  is  a  little  libellous  of  the  late  general,  and  not  quite  true. 
The  English  seldom,  if  ever,  have  been  known — we  believe  there  is  no 
instance  on  record — to  make  an  attack  in  a  state  of  intoxication.  The 
French  have  done  so  constantly.  We  say  nothing  about  the  fitness  of  the 
practice;  but  let  the  use  of  it  stand  in  its  right  place. 

The  author  then  observes  upon  the  contrast  which  the  two  nations  dis- 
play in  their  personal  economy,  and  habits  of  domestic  military  life  : — 

**  Observe  the  French  troops  arrive  at  their  place  of  bivouac,  after  a  long  and 
harassing  inarch.  The  moment  the  drums  have  ceased  to  beat,  the  knapsacks, 
ranged  in  rows  behind  the  piled  arms,  mark  out  the  ground  on  which  each  party 


638  Notes  for  the  Month .  [ j  u x E, 

is  to  pass  the  night.  The  clothes  are  thrown  off;  and,  covered  only  with  their 
long  cloaks,  the  soldiers  run  in  search  of  provisions,  wood,  water,  straw— what- 
ever is  wanting.  Fires  are  lighted;  the  pot  is  soon  on,  and  boils ;  trees  brought 
in  from  the  forest  are  rudely  fashioned  into  huts ,  and  the  air  rings  with  the  fall  of 
the  hatchet  and  the  cry  of  the  labourers.  While  the  meat  is  dressing,  the  men, 
impatient  of  inactivity,  repair  their  clothes  and  shoes,  and  clean  their  arms  and 
accoutrements.  The  soup  is  presently  ready,  and  it  is  eaten.  If  there  is  no  wine, 
the  conversation  is  calm,  without  being  sad  ;  and  an  early  retirement  to  sleep  ensures 
the  recovery  of  strength  against  next  day.  If,  on  the  contrary,  liquor  is  to  be 
obtained,  the  evening  is  prolonged.  The  veterans  relate  to  the  recruits,  drawn 
round  their  watch-fires,  where — here  or  there — the  regiment  of  each  has  acquired 
its  glory.  They  start  up  with  joy  even  at  the  recollection  of— how  the  Emperor, 
at  such  or  such  a  place,  when  he  was  supposed  to  be  far  off,  suddenly  appeared  in 
front  of  the  grenadiers,  mounted  upon  his  white  horse,  and  followed  by  his  Mame- 
luke. "  Oh !  how  we  should  have  cut  up  the  Russians  and  Prussians,  if  the  regi- 
ment on  our  right  had  fought  that  day  as  we  did! — if  the  cavalry  had  been  ready 
at  the  moment  when  they  began  to  give  way  ! — if  the  reserve  had  behaved  as  the 
vanguard  did — not  one  of  the  ragged  rascals — not  one  of  them  would  have 
escaped!"  "•* 

The  above  is  the  French  side  of  the  field.  We  now  come  to  the 
British  :— 

"  Now  turn  your  eyes  upon  the  opposite  camp.  See  the  English,  fatigued,  ill- 
tempered,  and  almost  immoveable.  They  seem  to  wait,  like  the  spectres  of  tha 
Turkish  armies,  till  slaves  set  up  their  tents  and  prepare  their  dinners.  And  yet  they 
have  only  made  a  short  march  ;  and  it  is  but  two  hours  after  noon  when  they  reach 
the  ground  upon  which  they  are  to  pass  the  night.  Bread  and  wine  is  served  out 
to  them.  The  sergeant  distributes  the  work  and  the  various  duties.  He  shews 
where  the  water  is  and  the  wood,  points  out  which  trees  are  to  be  cut  down,  and 
even  the  place  where  every  stick  is  to  be  used.  Notwithstanding  all  which,  the 
work  goes  on  slowly,  clumsily,  and  is  very  incomplete  when  it  is  done.  What 
has  become,  then,  of  the  industrious,  enterprising  spirit  of  this  nation,  which  sur- 
passes all  others  in  the  mechanic  arts  ?  It  is  that  the  soldiers  are  used  to  do  nothing 
but  ihat  which  they  are  commanded.  Once  put  out  of  their  routine,  all  is  embarrass- 
ment to  them  and  disappointment.  Once  liberated  from  the  control  of  discipline,  they 
abandon  themselves  to  excesses  which  would  disgust  even  Cossacks:  they  get  drunk 
with  all  possible  expedition ;  and  their  intoxication  is  cold,  apathetic,  and  stupify- 
ing.  Subordination  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  the  existence  of  an  English  army.  It 
is  composed  of  men  who  are  incapable  of  moderation  in  abundance,  and  it  would 
disband  in  a  time  of  scarcity." 

The  excellent  general  has  a  partisan's  and  a  patriot's  title  to  speak 
favourably  of  his  own  countrymen  and  fellow-soldiers;  and  he  has  not  let 
this  privilege  lie  idle.  Nothing  can  be  more  true  than  the  superior  address 
of  the  French  soldier  in  hutting  himself  and  foraging.  Some  considera- 
tion, however,  should  be  made  as  to  the  last  point,  from  the  circumstance 
that  he  is  accustomed  to  supply  (in  the  campaign)  all  his  daily  wants  by 
plunder — a  habit  which,  in  the  British  army,  is  not  permitted.  But,  with 
the  admission  of  his  superior  dexterity  in  these  operations,  and  of  his  supe- 
rior gaiety  arid  good  manners,  our  agreement  with  the  general  ceases.  The 
"  amiable  simplicity  "  in  the  French  soldier,  which  he  so  strongly  con- 
trasts with  the  indolent  sluggishness  and  ready  love  of  intoxication  peculiar 
to  our  jolter-beaded  English,  will  be  a  little  too  much  for  the  patience  of 
those  of  our  military  readers  who  have  lived  among  the  French,  either  as 
allies  or  prisoners;  or  who  have  even  merely  known  their  habits  by  pass- 
ing over  a  country  which  they  have  possessed  and  abandoned.  The  Eng- 
lish soldier  is  like  a  bear — heavy  enough  in  appearance,  and  dangerous 
when  baited  ;  but  the  Frenchman  is  like  a  monkey,  who,  with  a  consti- 
tutional, amusing  sort  of  mischievous  grimace,  has  even  more  of  ferocity 
than  his  growling  opponent,  and  fifty  times  more  of  dirt,  and  obscenity, 


1  ^27,]  Notet  /or  the  Month.  639 

and  malice.  There  is  a  decency  about  the  feelings  of  the  English  soldier 
— peasant  as  he  is — which  the  Frenchman  never  approaches.  The  first 
has  the  manners  and  tastes  of  a  ploughman,  or  a  journeyman  carpenter ; 
the  last,  the  vices  (with  the  address)  of  a  marker  at  a  billiard-table,  an 
inferior  actor,  or  broken-down  Bond-street  swindler.  A  French  army  is 
full  as  terrible  to  its  allies  in  the  city,  as  to  its  enemy  in  the  field.  The 
order  and  discipline  of  an  English  force  is  as  perfect  in  one  position  as  the 
other.  But  this  is  taking  the  question  up  upon  trifles ;  because  the  supe- 
riority (moral)  of  the  English  lower  classes  over  the  French,  in  all  matters 
of  real  importance,  is  no  less  decided  than  the  advantage  of  the  latter  over 
the  first  in  all  minor  circumstances  of  demeanour  and  of  good  manners. 
The  English  boor  is  coarse ;  but  there  are  duties  which  habit  or  teaching 
has  taught  him  to  respect.  The  Frenchman  is  as  cavalierly  free  from 
"  the  prejudice  of  education,"  as  he  generally  is  from  religious  feeling. 
But,  for  an  illustration  of  the  decencies,  and  taste,  and  feeling  displayed  by 
the  French  troops — at  least  as  they  were  at  the  period  during  which 
General  Foy  speaks  of  them — we  will  refer  our  readers  to  the  new  novel 
called  Cyril  Thornton — and  especially  to  that  part  of  it  which  treats  of 
the  advance  of  the  British  troops,  after  the  retreat  of  the  French  out  of 
Portugal,  preparatory  to  the  close  of  the  Peninsular  war. 

A  singular  turn  of  address  was  performed  at  Bath  -the  other  day  by  a 
chevalier  of  industry,  who  found  himself,  on  the  sudden,  in  want  of 
a  pair  of  boots,  and  also  in  want  of  money  to  purchase  them.  Having 
some  doubts  probably,  although  he  was  living  at  an  inn  of  respectability,  as 
to  the  faith  of  the  tradesmen  of  Bath,  after  the  rude  shocks  which  it  is  so 
constantly  receiving  from  parties  who  make  it,  during  "  the  season,"  their 
place  of  abode,  he  called  upon  two  shoemakers  in  opposite  quarters  of  the 
city,  and  desired  to  have  some  boots  sent  to  the  White  Lion  for  his  inspec- 
tion. The  first  dealer,  who  was  a  resident  in  Milsom-street,  came  accord- 
ing to  order,  and  found  his  customer  at  breakfast ;  and,  after  some  trouble, 
fitted  him  with  a  neat  pair  of  "  Wellingtons  ;"  which  the  party  fitted  was 
just  taking  out  his  purse  to  pay  for,  when — walking  two  or  three  times 
up  and  down  the  room  to  try  the  "  effect"  of  them — he  found  that  "  the 
left  boot  was  tighter  rather  than  he  liked  it."  The  right  "  fitted  perfectly 
well;"  but  "the  left  wanted  stretching  across  the  instep."  Accordingly, 
the  offending  equipment  was  drawn  off,  and  the  maker  desired  "  to  take 
it  back,  and  put  it  upon  the  tree  for  a  couple  of  hours,"  at  the  end  of 
which  time  it  would  fit  completely.  The  Milsom-street  boot-maker  went 
away,  leaving  his  customer  with  one  boot  on  and  one  slipper ;  and  of 
course,  leaving  the  affair  of  "payment"  until  he  returned  with  the  fellow- 
boot  f<  at  two  o'clock  ;"  arid  he  was  scarcely  out  of  sight,  when  the  artist 
from  v  Crescent-street"  arrived,  and  found  Captain  C still  at  break- 
fast, in  his  slippers.  The  last  dealer — unconscious  of  the  ceremony  which 
had  taken  place  prior  to  his  appearance,  tried  on  all  the  boots  that  he  had 
brought ;  but  not  a  pair  would  fit,  except  one  pair  of  "  Wellingtons ;"  and 
these  had  the  fault,  that  "  the  right  boot  pinched  a  little  across  the  toe," 
and  required  "  putting  upon  the  tree  for  an  hour  or  two.''  The  second 
maker  departed  as  the  first  had  done,  and  was  gratified  with  an  order  to 
"  bring  up  an  assortment  of  morocco  slippers  with  him  at  the  .same  time 
when  he  brought  the  "  right  boot,"  as  Captain  C had  been  recom- 
mended to  him,  and  was  determined  to  give  him  '•"  an  order"  worth  hav- 
ing. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  the  right  and  left  boots  which 
had  visited  the  "  trees,"  were  brought  home  regularly  at  two  o'clock  ;  but 
their  fellows  had  disappeared  some  hours  before,  in  company  with  the 


(MO  AWr.v  fui-  the  Month.  [J 

excellent  "  captain."  Dinner  was  ordered  at  "  eight ;"  and  the  ceremony 
of  laying  the  cloth  instructed  the  waiters  that  two  table  spoons  were  miss- 
ing ;  but  the  "  captain"  did  not  return. 

Two  Ways  of  looking  at  a  Question. — When  thanks  were  voted  a  few 
nights  since  to  the  British  troops  in  India  for  their  services  in  the  late  war, 
Mr.  C.  Wynne  took  occasion,  in  eulogizing  the  services  of  Sir  Archibald 
Campbell,  particularly,  to  speak  of  the  "  generosity"  of  that  officer,  who, 
being  within  two  days  march  of  the  capital  city  of  the  Burmese,  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  war,  had  consented  to  stop  the  progress  of  his  arms  ;  and 
foregoing  all  the  immense  plunder  which  he  would  have  derived  from  the 
sack  of  Ava,  had  made  a  treaty  precisely  on  the  same  moderate  terms  as  . 
had  been  offered  at  the  commencement  of  the  contest.  Mr.  Hume,  in 
reply,  bore  full  testimony  to  the  services  of  General  Campbell ;  but  sug- 
gested, that  the  praise  bestowed  by  Mr.  Wynne,  should  have  been  given 
to  the  gallant  general's  "  discretion,"  rather  than  to  his  "  generosity.'' 
For,  being,  at  the  time  specified,  left,  with  only  two  thousand  troops,  arid 
no  chance  of  a  reinforcement,  opposed  to  fifty  thousand  inhabitants, 
whom  he  would  have  found  in  Ava,  exclusive  of  the  large  Burmese  mili- 
tary force,  it  was  more  than  possible,  that — had  tlie  general  advanced — 
instead  of  having  to  enrich  himself  with  the  plunder  of  the  capital  city 
in  question — not  a  single  man  of  all  his  host  would  ever  have  escaped 
alive,  even  from  the  fury  of  the  washerwomen  of  it. 

This  Burmese  reminiscence  reminds  us  of  an  anecdote  in  Major  Snod- 
grass's  book  on  the  conduct  of  that  war,  which  is  strongly  characteristic 
of  the  fact,  how  little  the  quality  we  call  "  wit/'  is  the  result  of  acquire- 
ment or  education.  When  the  British  army  was  pushing  on  with  great 
spirit  towards  the  capital  of  Ava,  and  beating  the  Burmese  forces  at  a 
majority  of  ten  or  a  dozen  to  one,  the  two  chiefs  in  command — we  forget 
their  names — "  The  Lion  Eater" — and  "  The  Invulnerable1' — or  some 
persons  of  that  portentous  sort  of  denomination — demanded  an  armistice. 
This  request  was  acceded  to  by  General  Campbell ;  and  terms  of  treaty 
were  drawn  up,  which  were  to  be  forwarded  by  the  Burmese  to  the 
Court  of  Ava  for  execution  ;  but  two  or  three  days  elapsed,  during  which 
no  answer  arrived  from  Ava  ;  and  the  English  commander  got  an  incon- 
venient suspicion  that  he  was  being  trifled  with.  Application  being  made 
for  dispatch,  the  Indian  chiefs  invented  a  variety  of  excuses ;  protesting, 
in  the  most  solemn  terms,  by  every  tie  of  honour  and  religion,  that  the 
messengers  had  been  dispatched  to  their  court,  and  from  hour  to  hour, 
could  not  fail  to  arrive  ;  but,  in  the  end,  Sir  A.  Campbell,  convinced  that 
the  Court  of  Ava  at  least  was  negociating  only  to  gain  time,  charged  the 
Burmese  so  furiously,  that  the  "  lion  eater"  in  person  scarcely  escaped ; 
his  tent,  with  a  large  booty  in  specie  and  jewels,  was  captured;  and  in  it 
was  found — the  identical  treaty  drawn  between  his  greatness  and  Sir  A. 
Campbell,  five  or  six  days  before — which  had  never  been  sent  to  Ava — or 
dreamt  of  being  sent  there — at  all.  On  the  day  after  this  assault,  the 
two  armies  being,  the  one  in  retreat,  the  other  in  pursuit,  Sir  A.  Campbell 
sent  a  flag  to  the  *'  lion  eater"  with  "  his  compliments,"  and  the  treaty 
"  which  had  been  sent"  to  Ava,  that  the  Indian  might  be  aware  that  Bis 
treachery  was  understood.  The  latter  received  the  message  with  the 
most  perfect  coolness,  and  returned  for  answer — "  his  compliments  to  Sir 
A.  Campbell,  for  the  paper  (the  treaty),  and  he  had  also,  in  the  hurry  of 
his  departure,  left  in  his  chest — with  it — a  bag,  containing  rather  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money — which  he  doubted  not  the  British  general  would 
a/so  take  an  early  opportunity  of  returning." 


1327.]  [    641     ] 

MONTHLY  REVIEW  OF  LITERATURE,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN, 


The  History  of  the  Reformation  of  the 
Church  of  England,  by  Henry  Sonnies, 
M.A.,  Hector  of  Shelley,  in  Essex.  Vol.  3. 
Reign  of  Edward  VI;  1827. — The  re- 
ception Mr.  Soames's  former  volumes  met 
with,  has,  it  seems — as  was  indeed  to  be 
expected— induced  him  to  pursue  the  story 
of  the  English  Reformation  to  its  comple- 
tion, in  the  commencement  of  Elizabeth's 
reign.  The  bulky  volume  before  us  con- 
tains the  church  history  of  Edward's 
reign  ;  and  in  another  volume — two  at 
the  least-- his  design,  he  says,  may  be 
accomplished.  Very  slight  encourage- 
ment generally  proves  to  be  stimulus 
enough  for  prosecuting  to  conclusion  a 
career,  the  chief  difficulties  of  which  at- 
tend the  commencement,  and  which  diffi- 
culties have  been  surmounted  with  tole- 
rable, though  not  very  flattering  credit. 
No  man  likes  to  lose  his  labour  ;  but  that 
he  is  sure  to  do,  if  he  abandon  an  unfinish- 
ed performance —  such  performance,  un- 
less it  have  strong  redeeming  qualities,  is 
sure  to  be  thrown  aside — whereas,  by  per- 
severing, he  may  mend  in  skill  and  effi- 
ciency, and  make  his  last  exertions  con- 
tribute to  float  the  first  and  sinking  ones 
again — he  may  convert  defeat  into  tri- 
umph. 

Of  any  remarkable  encouragement  the 
publication  before  us  had  received  — 
though  on  the  whole  not  ill  executed — we 
should  little  expect  to  hear.  It  might  have 
been  thought  a  superfluous  undertaking-. 
Burnett's  has  not  yet  lost  all  its  credit ; 
it  is  still  in  every  body's  hands,  nor 
likely  very  soon  to  become  obsolete;  and 
the  additions,  or  the  corrections,  which 
Mr.  Soames's  researches  furnish,  were 
scarcely  sufficient  to  demand  a  new  his- 
tory. Burnett's  chief  fault  is  prosiness  ; 
and  though  prosiness  be  not  so  much  the 
characteristic  of  Mr.  Soames's  work,  yet 
he  is  occasionally  far  too  circumstantial, 
while  the  general  tone  of  sentiment  is 
feeble,  and  the  mass  of  his  Work,  before 
he  has  done  with  it,  will  at  least  equal  that 
of  his  predecessor. 

The  Reformation,  on  Henry's  death,  was 
greatly  in  arrear  of  the  advances  made 
in  other  Protestant  countries.  His  own 
mind  had  all  along  wavered,  and  he  seem- 
ed disposed  by  his  will  to  keep  the  minds 
of  his  subjects  in  the  same  indecisive 
state.  The  sixteen  guardians,  whom  he 
left  for  his  infant  son,  were  divided  in 
their  theological  views  ;  nor  was  it  at  all 
apparent,  at  first,  which  party  would  pre- 
dominate. The  chances  seemed  rather  to 
favour  the  Catholics.  Wriothesley,  the 
chancellor,  and  Tunstall,  bishop  of  Dur- 
ham, were  avowedly  and  actively  the  sup- 
porters of  Catholic  principles.  Wriothes- 

M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  18. 


ley's  ambition,  however,  overleaped  itself, 
and  his  very  first  measures  ruined  his 
authority  for  ever.  The  Earl  of  Hertford, 
the  king's  maternal  uncle,  was  named 
protector,  and  Cranmer's  influence  in 
ecclesiastical  matters,  seconded  as  they 
zealously  were  by  the  protector's  autho- 
rity, carried  all  before  him.  The  young- 
king  was  educated  by  Protestants,  and 
his  mind  thoroughly  imbued  with  a  de- 
testation of  popery,  and  reverence  for  the 
reformers.  The  child's  real  influence  was 
of  course  nothing  ;  but  his  name  was  used 
on  all  occasions,  and  was,  as  usual,  a 
tower  of  strength.  The  grave  face  with 
which  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  is 
ascribed  to  this  child's  zeal  and  intelli- 
gence, byProtestant  writers,  from  his  own 
days  even  to  ours,  and  by  the  writer  be- 
fore us,  is  all  but  ridiculous.  Cranmer  is 
the  man  to  whom  the  whole  is  to  be  attri- 
buted. Ridley  and  Hooper,  with  the 
foreigners,  Martyn  and  Bucer,  were  all 
manifestly  working  in  subservience.  They 
might  suggest,  advise,  adopt,  but  he  was 
the  effective  performer.  His  is  the  visible 
hand  in  the  political  institution  of  the  Pro- 
testant Church. 

We  have  said,  English  reformers,  on 
Henry's  death,  were  greatly  in  arrear. 
This  is  evident  from  many  circumstances, 
but  especially  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
not  till  this  year  (1547)  that  Cranmer  and 
Ridley's  own  sentiments  were  at  all  shaken 
on  the  question  of  transubstantiation;  and 
throughout  Edward's  reign,  transubstan- 
tiatioii  was  the  grand  topic  of  discussion 
— the  fortress  which  the  reformers  at- 
tacked, and  the  Catholics  defended.  On 
this  point  itwas  that  Gardiner,  and  Bonner, 
and  Tunstall  were  deprived,  and  for  which 
heretics  were  harassed  by  interrogatories, 
or  burnt  at  the  stake.  So  much  did 
Mr.  Soames  feel  this  to  be  the  leading  fea- 
ture of  the  polemics  of  this  reign,  that  he 
has  thought  it  indispensible  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  question  from  its  earliest 
sources;  and  the  extent  to  which  this 
tracing  has  carried  him,  he  alleges  as  the 
chief  cause  of  the  extreme  bulkiness  of 
his  volume.  His  view  of  this  subject  is, 
if  not  one  of  the  best  parts  of  his  book, 
at  least  the  one  about  which  he  has  taken 
most  pains  ;  and  he  has  actually  brought 
together  materials  that  were  not  before 
assembled. 

Very  early,  even  in  the  second  century, 
extraordinary  respect  was  paid  to  the 
consecrated  elements.  It  quickly  became 
the  practice  to  carry  them  to  the  sick, 
and  this  soon  came  to  be  done  with  aug- 
menting tokens  of  reverence,  and  some- 
thing of  parade.  By  and  by,  the  elements 
could  be  consecrated  only  in  churches, 

4  N 


6V2 


Monthly  Review  of  Literatur 


JUNE, 


and  the  ceremonial  became  more  and  more 
complicated,  and  an  air  of  deeper  mystery 
was  thrown  over  the  rite.  Imperceptibly 
the  sign  and  the  signification  were  con- 
founded.  Some  such  confounding  is  ob- 
servable in  the  fifth  century,  in  the  sen- 
timents ofEntyches;  but  it  was  not  till 
the  year  787  that  the  second  Council  of 
Nice  gave  its  sanction,  as  essentially  it 
did,  to  this  novel  doctrine.  It  was  not 
yet  called  transubstantiation.  The  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople,  as  a  reason  for  re- 
nouncing the  use  of  images,  had  alleged, 
that  Christ  left  no  image  of  himself,  ex- 
cept the  sacramental  elements,  which  re- 
present his  bodyand  blood.  This  decla- 
ration of  the  divines  of  Constantinople, 
the  Council  of  Nice  decided  to  be  wrong — 
the  consecrated  bread  and  wine  not  being, 
they  said,  types,  but  truly  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ.  This  decision,  however, 
failed  of  producing  any  general  acqui- 
escence in  Western  Europe.  Charle- 
magne— or  some  one  rather  in  his  name 
— in  an  epistle  to  Alcuin,  expressed  his 
belief  that  the  sacred  elements  are  figures 
of  Christ's  body  and  blood;  and,  for  any 
thing  that  appears,  in  this  belief  he  con- 
tinued, whatever  might  be  that  of  the 
Church  of  Rome. 

Early  in  the  ninth  century,  the  atten- 
tion of  the  learned  at  least  was  drawn 
particularly  to  the  subject  by  the  circu- 
lation of  a  work  by  Paschavius  Radbert, 
abbot  of  Corbey  in  Picardy,  in  which  he 
maintained  a  doctrine,  corresponding  pret- 
ty closely  with  what  was  afterwards  de- 
fended by  Luther,  that  is,  consubstantia- 
tion  rather  than  transubstantiation.  This 
however  met  with  little  favour  in  France ; 
and  Charles  the  Bald  employed  a  monk 
and  priest,  of  the  name  of  Ratram,  or 
Bertramus,  of  the  same  abbey,  to  reply  to 
Radbert.  This  work  is  still  extant,  and 
there  is  an  English  translation  of  it.  It  is 
a  document  of  considerable  importance, 
as  shewing  incontrovertibly,  that  in  the 
ninth  century  a  distinguished  member  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  uncensured,  incul- 
cated opinions,  utterly  irreconcilable 
with  the  doctrines  of  modern  popery  ;  and 
that  so  far  were  his  sentiments  from  giv- 
ing offence,  they  were  expressly  ap- 
proved of  by  almost  every  cotemporary 
name  of  any  theological  celebrity,  as  Ra- 
banus  Maurus,  the  archbishop  of  Mentz; 
A  gobard,  archbishop  of  Lyons;  Claudius, 
bishop  of  Turin,  John  Scot  (Erigena),  and 
Druthmar.  In  our  own  country,  too,  El- 
fric,  the  grammarian,  who  was  abbot  of 
Cerne,  in  Dorsetshire,  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, and  probably  afterwards  archbishop 
of  York,  in  a  sermon  of  his,  written  in 
Saxon,  affords  incontestible  proofs  that 
transubstantiation  was  not  the  doctrine  of 
the  English  Church. 

The  following  age  produced  a  powerful 


patron  of  the  new  doctrine  in  Lanfranc, 
afterwards  abbot  of  Caen  ;  and  among  the 
lower  classes  of  life,  it  had  by  that  time 
spread  far  and  wide;  but  among  the 
learned  there  were  still  opponents,  among 
whom  the  most  distinguished  was  Beren- 
ger, archdeacon  of  Angers.  A  letter  of 
his  addressed  to  Lanfranc  on  the  subject 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Pope,  Leo  IX., 
who  forthwith  excommunicated  the  au- 
thor. A  synod  was  held  atVercelli,  and 
Berenger's  opinions  were  peremptorily 
condemned.  The  consequence  was  a  vio- 
lent ferment  in  France.  Another  synod 
was  held  at  Tours ;  but  the  partizans  of 
the  court  of  Rome  prevailed  ;  Berenger 
appeared  and  submitted.  Of  this  submis- 
sion, however,  he  quickly  repented,  and 
republished  his  sentiments.  But  resolute 
as  he  appeared  to  be  on  paper— not  being 
born  with  the  spirit  of  a  martyr — he  again 
submitted ;  and  again  repented ;  and  a 
third  time  proclaimed  the  same  opinions. 
Of  so  little  influence,  however,  were  these 
efforts  of  his — exerted  with  so  little  firm- 
ness— that  he  was  at,  last  left  in  peace,, 
apparently  in  contempt.  Even  in  the 
twelfth  century  there  were  Catholic  wri- 
ters expressing  the  same  sentiments 

Peter  Lombard  for  instance.  As  an  ar- 
ticle of  faith,  indeed,  transubstantiation 
seems  not  to  have  been  enforced  till  1215, 
by  Innocent  III.  Cardinal  Langton,  a 
favourite  of  Innocent's,  when  he  became 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was  the  first 
who  took  any  official  measures  towards 
the  establishment  of  this  doctrine  in  Eng- 
land ;  Peckham,  archbishop  of  the  same 
see,  about  half  a  century  afterwards,  fol- 
lowed them  up  vigorously,  and  with  con- 
siderable effect.  Yet  even  to  the  close  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  it  was  found  ne- 
cessary to  press  upon  the  English  clergy 
the  necessity  of  assiduously  teaching  this 
doctrine.  For  a  time,  and  among  a  few  in 
the  following  century,  Wickliffe  preached 
up  the  old  belief;  and  then,  for  nearly  two 
centuries,  no  more  was  heard  of  it  in  Eng- 
land. In  1524  Zuingle  discussed  the 
question,  and  revived  the  doctrines  of 
Berenger  and  Wickliffe.  Luther  halted 
midway  between  the  two  opinions  ;  and  it 
was  not,  as  we  have  said,  till  1547,  that 
Cranmer  and  Ridley  shook  off  their  pre- 
judices. 

Throughout  Edward's  reign  Cranmer 
was  indefatigable  in  prosecuting  the  pro- 
gress of  reform.  Generally  his  measures 
were  conspicuously  judicious — precipita- 
ting nothing— taking  one  thing  at  a  time. 
He  had  much  to  do.  He  began  with  for. 
bidding  certain  ceremonies — perhaps  the 
most  hazardous  step  he  ever  took — such 
as  carrying  candles  in  procession  on  Can- 
dlemas-day, ashes  on  Ash  Wednesday, 
palms  on  Palm  Sunday ;  creeping  to  the 
cross,  taking  holy  water,  &c.  Then  fol- 


182?.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


643 


lowed  ai»  order  of  council  to  remove 
images  from  the  churches — the  publica- 
tion of  a  common  prayc-r  in  the  English 
language  —  homilies  —  articles  —  canons. 
But  amidst  all  the-e  advances  appeared  a 
proclamation  for  the  rigid  observance  of 
Lent — the  main  motives  for  which  appear 
to  have  been,  not  of  a  spiritual,  but  a  po- 
litical nature — Craomer,  \ve  may  suppose, 
must  have  been  overruled— an  apprehen- 
sion of  diminishing  the  stock  of  cattle, 
and  of  ruining  the  fisheries.  Meat  was 
strictly  forbidden  the  profane  multitude — 
it  was  not  then  so  superfluous  as  such  a 
prohibition  would  be  now  ;  little  difficulty 
was  however  made  in  granting  licences, 
to  be  paid  for  of  course,  by  which  indi- 
viduals might  choose  their  own  diet  at  all 
seasons  ;  and  in  some  cases,  says  Mr. 
Soames,  these  grantees  were  even  allowed 
to  entertain  guests  in  their  own  way  on 
days  when  their  less  favoured  neighbours 
were  interdicted  from  dealings  with  the 
butchers.  Among  the  applicants  was 
Roger  Ascham — whose  letter  on  the  occa- 
sion is  given  in  the  text,  but  for  which, 
though  curious  and  characteristic,  we  have 
no  space.  In  the  following  year  these  in- 
junctions were  enforced  by  an  Act  of  Par- 
liament, in  the  preamble  of  which  it  is 
alleged,  that  divers  of  the  king's  subjects 
have  abused  their  improvement  in  know- 
ledge, turned  epicures  under  better  in- 
struction, and  broken  the  fasting  days  of 
the  church.  The  penalties  were,  for  the 
first  offence,  a  fine  of  ten  shillings,  and 
an  imprisonment  of  ten  days,  without  a 
mouthful  of  butcher's  meat :  for  the  second 
offence,  the  penalties  were  to  be  doubled, 
and  so  on  in  geometrical  progression,  we 
believe. 

In  all  that  was  really  good,  in  all  that 
forwarded  the  reformation,  Cranincr  was 
the  great  agent;  and  in  all  that  was  bad 
he  either  took  an  active  part,  or  must  be 
allowed  to  have  yielded  with  a  cowardly 
and  compromising  spirit.  Seymour's 
death,  and  Jane  Boacher's  and  Van  Parr's 
burnings  can  never  be  forgotten.  Mr. 
Soames  has  an  excuse  for  every  thing, 
while  professing  not  to  excuse. 

Wallenstein,  a  Dramatic  Poem,  from 
the  German  of  Schiller.  2  toJ.v.  j  1827. — 
This  splendid  tragedy  of  Schiller's  is  not 
new  to  the  English  reader.  Coleridge, 
some  years  ago,  published  a  translation  of 
it,  and  one  of  so  much  general  excellence 
— so  vivid  in  the  version,  and  free  and 
English  in  the  language,  that  any  second 
attempt  seemed  perfectly  superfluous.  The 
author  of  the  translation  before  us  never, 
it  seems,  saw  Mr.  Coleridge's  version,  but 
adventurously  undertook  a  task  of  surely 
no  common  difficulty — without  troubling 
himself — not  unwisely  perhaps — to  ascer- 
tain how  far  there  was  any  real  occasion 
for  the  wdprtakjreg  itsejf — spring  he  wa*, 


for  some  reason  or  other,  thus  blindly  re- 
solved to  execute  it — contenting  himself 
with  the  report  that  Coleridge's  transla- 
tion was  made  from  a  manuscript  copy,  in 
which  S-hiller  was  known  or  believed  to 
have  made  material  alterations.  And  al- 
terations it  appears  the  author  really  did 
make;  but  the  account  itself  of  the  tran- 
slator is. — not  worth  calling  suspicious  per- 
haps, but  surely  childish :  if  the  story  be  in- 
deed true,  it  would  have  been  quite  as  dis- 
creet to  say  nothing  about  the  matter.  We 
prefer  the  reason  that  will  satisfy  erery 
body — the  translator's  belief  he  could  do 
better. 

In  some  respects  the  translator  has  done 
better.  His  work  is  more  equable,  nearer 
to  the  sense,  though  farther  from  the  spi- 
rit; he  has  spent  the  same  degree  of  care 
upon  the  whole,  the  good  arid  the  bad ; 
while  Mr.  Coleridge  only  worked  up  the 
passages  that  found  an  echo  in  his  own 
sou  1— care  less  often  whether  he  was  ex- 
pressing Schiller's  or  his  own  sensations, 
and  leaving,  apparently,  the  connecting 
parts — the  mere  prose — to  take  its  own 
chance,  and  stand  in  a  naked  rendering. 

Schiller's  object  was  it  seems  to  drama- 
tize some  grand  national  event.  That  of 
the  thirty  years  war — the  decisive  strug- 
gle between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant 
powers  of  Europe — naturally  presented 
itself.  He  had  already  surveyed  its  his 
tory,  with  the  elegance  of  a  poet,  and  the 
research,  and  perhaps  the  philosophy,  of 
an  historian.  The  character  of  Wallen- 
stein— the  leader  of  the  imperial  forces — 
had  enough  in  it  of  the  heroic  and  com- 
manding— there  was  besides  something  of 
mystery  about  him — a  general  unacquaiut- 
ance  with  the  details  of  his  character — to 
be  readily  fitted  to  his  purpose.  The  cen- 
tral point,  as  Wallenstein  was,  around 
which  the  whole  events  of  that  memorable 
war  seemed  to  revolve — it  presented  the 
author  with  abundant  opportunities  for 
exhibiting  the  effects  upon  society  of  war, 
religious  controversy,  and  ambition.  The 
subject  however  proved  too  mighty  for 
the  grasp  of  one  drama.  Three  were  de- 
manded to  give  full  expansion  to  his  swell- 
ing conceptions — and  these  he  entitled  the 
Camp  of  Wallenstein,  the  Piccolomini,  and 
the  Death  of  Wallenstein. 

The  CAMP,  neither  Mr.  Coleridge  nor 
his  rival  has  ventured  to  translate.  It  is 
merely  introductory — written  iu  a  coarse 
kind  of  provincial  dialect,  with  fantastic 
rhymes  and  double  endings,  and  exhibits 
a  picture,  says  the  new  translator  of  Wal- 
lenstein, of  the  military  life  of  that  dis- 
cordant horde,  which,  after  fifteen  years 
of  warfare,  had  sat  down  like  locusts  upon 
the  plains  of  Pilsen  ;  men  of  all  religions, 
or  of  none  :  wanderers  on  the  earth,  with 
wo  home  but  the  garrison  and  the  camp- 
no  relationship  but  the  brotherhood  of 

4  N  2 


641 


Monthly  Review  of  Literatuit, 


arms— no  property  but  the  universal  sun. 
The  Uhlan,  the  Croat,  the  Walloon,  the 
Spaniard,  and  the  Italian,  are  seen  ming- 
ling among  each  other,  drinking,  laughing, 
cooking1,  singing,  or  gaining;  here  a  pea- 
sant and  his  son  arranging  their  schemes 
of  roguery  against  the  new  comers  from 
the  Saal  and  the  Maine — or  a  sharpshooter 
cheating  a  Croat  of  his  plunder ;  there  a 
quarrel  about  a  market-girl,  or  a  young 
recruit  strutting  in  his  military  garb,  and 
already,  in  anticipation,  a  colonel  of  cui- 
rassiers— while  the  whole  is  crowned  by 
the  sermon  of  a  capuchin,  delivered  in 
the  midst  of  the  riotous  assembly,  stuffed 
with  puns  and  perverted  texts,  and  sea- 
soned with  severe  reflections  on  the  au- 
dience and  their  officers,  &c. 

Tne  PICCOLOMINI,  and  the  DEATH  OF 
WALLENfeTEiN,  can  be  regarded  only  as 
one  drama,  divided  into  ten  acts  instead 
of  five  j  neither  is  at  all  complete  without 
the  other,  and  therefore  it  is  quite  absurd 
to  speak  of  them  as  two.  The  first  part, 
however,  traces  the  progress  of  those  in- 
trigue?, by  which  Wallenstein,  long  wa- 
vering between  loyalty  and  ambition,  is  at 
last  impelled  to  revolt  and  ruin — deve- 
loping very  ably  the  characters  of  his  prin- 
cipal officers — his  friends,  instruments, 
and  rivals.  The  incidents  of  the  piece 
are  still  of  a  cold  and  prosaic  character, 
consisting  chiefly  of  the  schemes  of  Oc- 
tavio  Piccolomini,  Wallenstein's  pretended 
friend,  to  undermine  his  influence,  and 
betray  his  rash  confidence  to  the  emperor  j 
the  counsels,  banquets,  and  intrigues  of 
these  chiefs;  the  mission  of  Questeuberg, 
empowered  to  deprive  Wallenstein  of  the 
command,  and  invest  Piccolomini  with  it ; 
and  the  defence  of  Wallenstein's  mea- 
sures ;  but  the  dryness  is  relieved  by  the 
animation  spread  over  the  youthful  elo- 
quence of  Piccolomini's  son,  and  the  love- 
liness and  artlessness  of  Theckla,  Wallen- 
stein's  daughter.  The  younger  Piccolo- 
mini  is  Wallenstein's  bosom  friend,  and 
knows  neither  of  Wallenstein's  aspirings, 
nor  of  his  father's  treacheries.  He  is  of  a 
noble  and  elevated  character,  and  the  dis- 
covery rends  his  soul  with  anguish.  He 
is  enamoured  of  Wallenstein's  daughter — 
that  daughter  whom  the  father  destines  for 
a  diadem.  The  contentions  of  duty,  and 
friendship,  and  affection,  when  he  does 
learn  all,  give  occasion  to  the  best  scenes 
of  the  drama. 

It  is  in  the  last  piece  that  the  character 
of  Wallenstein  breaks  upon  us  in  all  its 
vigour.  In  the  "  Piccolomini"  he  is 
nothing  but  the  wily  politician,  calculat- 
ing every  chance,  and  providing  against 
every  emergency — irresolute  and  close — 
rather  indeed  revelling  in  the  thoughts  of 
greatness,  than  resolving  on  the  attempt. 
He  is  at  last  pushed  into  action  by  the 
arts  of  Piccolomini  and  other  officers.  The 


energy  of  his  character  is  all  along — too 
much  perhaps — impressed  upon  us,  indi- 
rectly, by  the  influence  he  is  represented 
to  possess  over  high  and  low  —  by  the 
awe  and  veneration  with  which  he  strikes 
the  stormy  spirits  around  him.  The  sol- 
diers see,  not  the  irresolute  politician,  but 
the  conqueror  of  Mansfeld,  and  the  rival 
of  Gustavus.  The  interior  view,  to  which 
we  are  admitted,  of  his  plans  and  pur- 
poses, fail  of  commanding  present  respect  j 
but  the  latent  energies  of  his  mind,  we 
know,  are  great,  and  we  expect  with  con- 
fidence their  full  development.  Nor  are 
these  expectations  disappointed.  It  is, 
says  the  translator,  when  all  his  friends 
begin  to  despair — when  the  blow,  which 
would  have  paralised  less  vigorous  minds, 
has  fallen — that  Wallenstein  becomes  him- 
self again.  Betrayed  by  his  friend — de- 
serted by  the  army — proscribed,  and  al- 
most forsaken— he  retires  to  Egra,  still 
confident  in  himself  and  in  his  fortune. 
Omens  and  dreams  unite  to  shake  his 
mind ;  and  the  remembrance  of  the  younger 
Piccolomini,  the  friend  whom  he  has  lost 
for  ever — in  whose  youthful  enthusiasm 
he  had  delighted  to  retrace  and  revive  his 
own — presses  on  his  heart  with  an  omi- 
nous despondency.  But  he  summons  his 
energies  to  his  aid  ;  he  despises  the  prog- 
nostics of  his  attendants-,  and  retires  l» 
that  rest  from  which  he  is  destined  never 
to  awake,  in  confident  anticipation  of  the 
speedy  rising  of  the  higher  flood  which 
is  to  follow  on  this  ebbing  of  his  for- 
tunes. 

It  requires  ample  quotations  to  give 
any  fair  conception  of  Schiller's  powers  ; 
and  that  luckily  is  not  our  present  busi- 
ness. The  translations  are  more  easily 
dealt  with — a  specimen  or  two  will  suf- 
fice. 

Compare  the  following — the  one  exhi- 
biting the  cold  correctness  of  study — a 
translation  j  the  other  reflecting  the  glow- 
ing energies  of  poetry— a  transfusion. 

Wallenstein's  sister  is  expostulating 
with  him: — 

Trust?  Inclination?  they  had  need  of  thee. 

The  importunate  counsellor,  necessity, 

That  laughs  at  empty  names  and  dazzling  ont- 

sides, 

That  calls  for  actions — not  the  show  of  action  ; 
That  ever  seeks  the  best  and  greatest  out, 
To  place  him  at  the  helm  ;  although  she  seek  him 
Among  the  lowest ; — she  it  was  restored  thee 
To  thy  fit  place,  and  wrote  thy  proud  commission 
For  ever,  while  they  may,  this  selfish  race 
Works  by  the  aid  of  patient  slavish  drudges ; 
But  when  extremity  draws  near  at  last, 
And  hollow  arts  avail  no  more,  they  fall 
Into  the  stronger  hands  of  Nature's  nobles,— 
The  giant  spirits,  who  obey  no  master  ; 
Acknowledge  no  allegiance,  and  subdue 
All  laws  and  all  condition*  to  their  own. 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


645 


Now  look  at  Coleridge's  : — 
Affection!  confidence!  they  needed  thee. 
Necessity,  impetuous  remonstrant! 
Who  not  with  empty  names,  or  shows  of  proxy, 
Is    served;   who'll   have  the  thing,  and  not  the 

symbol, 

Ever  seeks  out  the  greatest  and  the  best, 
And  at  the  rudder  places  him,  e'n  though 
She  had  been  forced  to  take  him  from  the  rabble- 
She,  this  Necessity,  it  was  that  placed  thee 
In  this  high  office ;  it  was  she  that  gave  thee 
Thy  letters-patent  of  inauguration. 
For,  to  the  uttermost  moment  that  they  can, 
This  race  still  help  themselves  at.  cheapest  rate 
With    slavish   souls,    with  puppets!     At  the  ap- 
proach 

Of  extreme  peril,  when  a  hollow  image 
Is  found  a  hollow  image,  and  no  more, 
Then  falls  the  power  into  the  mighty  hands 
Of  Nature — of  the  spirit  giant-born, 
Who  listens  only  to  himself,  knows  nothing 
Of  stipulations,  duties,  reverences, 
And,  like  the  emancipated  force  of  fire, 
Unmastered,  scorches,  ere  it  reaches  them  ; 
Their  fine-spun  webs . 

The  same  differance  of  spirit  is  observ- 
able in  the  rendering  of  these  beautiful 
conceptions  : — 
6,  never  will  I  smile  at  his  belief 
In  starry  influence  and  ghostly  might. 
'Tis  not  alone  man's  pride  that  peoples  space 
With  visionary  forms  and  mystic  powers  ; 
But  for  the  loving  heart,  this  common  nature 
Is  all  too  narrow,  and  a  deeper  meaning 
Lies  in  the  fables  of  our  childish  years, 
Than  in  the  truer  lore  of  after  life. 
The  lovely  world  of  wonder  'tis,  alone, 
That  echpes  back  the  heart's  ecstatic  feeling, 
That  spreads  for  men  its  everlasting  room, 
And  with  the  waving  of  its  thousand  branches 
Rocks  the  enchanted  spirit  to  repose. 
The  world  of  fable  is  love's  home  ;  he  dwells 
Gladly  with  fays  and  talismans,  and  gladly 
Believes  in  gods,  for  he  himself  is  godlike. 
The  fairy  shapes  of  fables  are  no  more ; 
The  deities  of  old  have  wandered  out ; 
But  still  the  heart  must  have  a  language,  still 
The  early  names  come  back  with  early  feelings  ; 
And  in  the  starry  heavens  we  seek  those  forms, 
That  friendly  once  in  life  have  walked  beside  us. 
Still  from  yon  sky  they  smile  on  lovers  down, 
And  all  that's  great  on  earth  even  now  is  sent  us 
From  Jupiter,  from  Venus  all  that's/azr. 

Now  Coleridge : — 
Oh  never  rudely  will  I  blame  his  faith 
In  the  might  of  stars  and  angels  !    'Tis  not  merely 
The  human  being's  PRIDK  that  peoples  space 
With  life  and  mystical  predominance  ; 
Since  likewise  for  the  stricken  heart  of  LOVE 
This  visible  nature,  and  this  common  world, 
Is  all  too  narrow  :  yea,  a  deeper  import 
Lurks  in  the  legend  told  my  infant  years 
Than  lies  upon  that  truth  we  live  to  learn. 
For  Fable  is  Love's  world,  his  house,  his  birth- 
place ; 

Delightedly  dwells  he  'mong  fays  and  talismans, 
And  spirits ;  and  delightedly  believes 
Divinities,  being  himself  divine. 
The  intelligible  forms  of  ancient  poets, 


The  fair  humanities  of  old  religion, 

The  power,  the  beauty,  and  the  majesty, 

That  had  their  haunts  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain, 

Or  forest,  by  slow  stream,  or  pebbly  spring ; 

Or    chasms,  and  watery   depths ;    all  these  have 

vanished — 

They  live  no  longer  in  the  faith  of  reason ! 
But  still  the  heart  doth  need  a  language  ;  still 
Doth  the  old  instinct  bring  back  the  old  names. 
And  to  yon  starry  world  they  now  are  gone, 
Spirits  or  gods,  that  used  to  share  this  earth 
With  man  as  with  their  friend  ;  and  to  the  lover 
Yonder  they  move,  from  yonder  visible  sky 
Shoot  influence  down ;  and  even  at  this  day 
'Tis  Jupiter  who  brings  whate'er  is  great, 
And  Venus  who  brings  every  thing  that's  fair. 

The  Gold-headed  Cane  ;  1827.— The 
widow  of  Dr.  Baillie  presented  to  the  Col- 
lege of  Physicians  a  gold-headed  cane, 
which  had  been  successively  in  the  pos- 
session of  Radcliffe,  Mead,  Askew,  Wit- 
cairn,  and  Baillie,  whose  several  armorial 
bearings  are  engraved  on  the  head  of  it. 
This  circumstance  suggested  the  little 
publication  before  us,  which  is  simply  a 
sketch  of  the  lives  of  these  eminent  men, 
interspersed  with  notices  of  other  physi- 
cians, from  Linacre  downwards. 

XfU!7o>tf«vo;  ipse  loquitur.  Of  RadclifFe 
the  most  remarkable  circumstance  related 
is  the  very  large  professional  income  he 
made.  He  had  not  been  in  practice  a 
twelvemonth  before  he  got  twenty  guineas 
a  day.  He  was  physician  to  William, 
Mary,  and  Anne.  William  paid  him 
splendidly;  besides  allowing  him  £200  a 
year  beyond  his  other  physicians,  he  gave 
him  500  guineas  for  curing  Bentinck  and 
Zulestein  j  and  once,  when  Radcliffe  went 
to  the  camp  before  Namur  to  attend  on 
Albemarle — remaining  one  week — Wil- 
liam gave  him  an  order  on  the  treasury 
for  £1,200,  and  Albemarle  himself  added 
400  guineas.  Daudridge,  the  apothe- 
cary, patronised  by  Radcliffe,  died  worth 
£50,000.  Allowing  for  difference  of  no- 
minal and  real  value  of  money,  who  makes 
any  thing  like  this  sum  now  ?  But  talk- 
ing of  fees,  Mead  relates  one  received 
by  Hamey,  a  great  benefactor  of  the  Col- 
lege : — 

It  was  in  the  times  of  the  civil  wars  when  it 
pleased  God  to  visit  him  with  a  severe  fit  of  sick- 
ness,orperipneumonia,  which  confined  him  a  great 
while  to  his  chamber,  and  to  the  more  than  ordi- 
nary care  of  his  tender  spouse.  During  this  afflic- 
tion he  was  disabled  from  practice  ;  but  the  very 
first  time  he  dined  in  his  parlour  afterwards,  a 
certain  great  man  in  high  station  came  to  consult 
him  on  an  indisposition— ratione  vagi  sui  amoris — 
and  he  was  one  of  the  godly  ones  too  of  those 
times.  After  the  doctor  received  him  in  his  study, 
and  modestly  attended  to  his  long  religious  pre- 
face, with  which  he  introduced  his  ignominious 
circumstances,  and  Dr.  Hamey  had  assured  him  of 
his  fidelity,  and  gave  him  hopes  of  success  in  his 
affair,  the  generous  soldier  (for  such  he  was)  drew 
out  of  his  pocket  a  bag  of  gold,  and  offered  it  all 
at  a  lump  to  his  physician.  Dr.  Hamey,  surprised 


646 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature^ 


[  J  U  N  E, 


at  so  extraordinary  a  fee,  modestly  declined  the 
acceptance  of  it ;  upon  which  the  great  man,  dip- 
ping his  hand  into  the  bag  himself,  grasped  up  as 
much  of  the  coin  as  his  fist  could  hold,  and  gene- 
rously put  it  into  the  doctor's  coat  pocket,  and  so 
took  his  leave.— It  may  be  said,  continued  Mead, 
that  this  was  an  extraordinary  case,  and  the  fee  a 
most  extraordinary  one,  which  the  patient  paid  as 
the  price  of  secrecy  ;  but  the  precaution  was  un- 
necessary (as  it  ought  always  to  be  in  a  profession 
whose  very  essence  is  honour  and  confidence),  for — 
(a  curious  for,  by  the  way)  the  name  of  the  gene- 
rous soldier  is  never  once  mentioned  in  the  life  of 
Hamey  (written  by  himself),  though  I  have  good 
reason  to  believe  he  was  no  other  than  Ireton,  the 
son-in-law  of  Cromwell. 

Radcliffe  left  £40,000  to  found  a  library 
at  Oxford,  and  £5,000  to  enlarge  or  re- 
pair University  College.  He  was  not  dis- 
tinguished for  professional  learning,  or 
any  other  learning,  but  was  a  man  of 
sound  judgment,  accompanied  with  good 
tact,  and  blunt  manners.  His  great  im- 
provement in  practice,  and  on  which  he 
piqued  himself,  was  the  cooling  treatment 
of  small-pox — a  treatment  which  he  en- 
joined upon  Mead,  and  ultimately  adopted 
by  him. 

The  Gold-headed  Cane  comes  next  into 
Mead's  hands.  Radcliffe  had  once  said, 
"  When  1  am  dead,  Mead,  you  will  occupy 
the  throne  of  physic  in  this  town."  "  No, 
Sir,"  says  Mead,  "when  you  are  gone,  your 
empire,  like  Alexander's,  will  be  divided 
among  many  successors."  This  was  very 
happily  said,  but  the  fact  accorded  with 
Radcliffe's  prediction.  Mead  was  a  man  of 
far  higher  attainments.  He  was  the  framer 
of  the  present  quarantine  laws,  which 
some  adventurous  persons  of  our  days  are 
eager  to  repeal — the  introducer  of  inocu- 
lation, not  meaning  to  depreciate  Lady 
Mary  Wortley's  merits — and  the  inventor 
of  bandaging  patients  after  tapping — many 
it  seems  had  died  for  want  of  this  obvious 
precaution.  Garth,  Frend,  Arbuthnot,  are 
introduced  as  Mead's  cotemporaries  and 
acquaintance.  Frend  was  in  parliament 
— a  tory — implicated  in  Atterbury's  plot 
— and  during  a  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  was  sent  to  the  tower,  and  con- 
fined for  some  months.  Mead  exerted  all 
bis  influence  to  procure  his  release,  in 
vain.  At  last,  Walpole,  being  unwell, 
sent  for  Mead.  Mead  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  plead  for  Frend,  urged  with 
great  warmth  his  general  excellencies,  his 
real  loyalty,  his  services  as  an  army  phy- 
sician, his  excellent  qualities,  his  learn- 
ing, his  skill,  &c.,  and  finally  declined 
prescribing  for  the  minister  unless  Frend 
was  set  at  liberty.  Walpole — it  was  in 
one  of  "his  happier  hours"  we  suppose — 
yielded  to  Mead's  importunities,  got  his 
prescription,  and  we  hope  a  speedy  cure. 

A  lively  sketch  of  Linacre  follows,  the 
founder  of  the  college.  He  visited  Flo- 
rence, and  was  distinguished  for  his 


Greek ;  read  lectures  in  that  language ; 
and  was  physician  and  tutor  tp  Prince 
Arthur, and  successively  physician  to  Hen- 
ry Vll.,  VIII.,  Edward,  aud  Mary.  He 
was  marked  for  his  prognosis  in  the  case 
of  Lily,  the  grammarian,  as  well  as  for  the 
method  by  which  he  relieved  Erasmus  in 
a  painful  fit  of  the  gravel.  A  few  years 
before  his  death  he  took  orders.  It  was 
said  of  him,  that  upon  some  occasion 
reading  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  he 
threw  the  book  away,  and  swore  that  it 
was  either  not  the  gospel,  of  we  were  not 
Christians. 

Of  Harvey,  it  is  said,  that  after  the  pub- 
lication of  his  discovery  of  the  circulation, 
such  was  the  general  prejudice  against 
him  as  an  innovator,  his  practice  as  a  phy- 
sician considerably  declined.  To  be  sure, 
says  the  Gold-headed  Cane,  he  might  look 
upon  himself  as  recompensed  for  the  in- 
gratitude of  the  public  by  the  regard  of 
his  royal  master.  This  is  loyalty  with  a 
witness— worthy  of  our  own  best  tory 
days.  It  is  said  of  Mead,  "  That,  of  all 
physicians  who  had  ever  flourished,  he 
gained  the  most,  spent  the  most,  and  en- 
joyed the  highest  fame  during  his  life, 
not  only  in  his  own  but  in  foreign  coun- 
tries." 

We  have  no  more  space — but  the  ac- 
counts of  Askew,  Pitcairne,  and  Baillie, 
are  very  scanty.  Physicians  began  to 
leave  their  gold-headed  canes  at  home. 
We  find  Baillie's  reply  to  his  fantastic 
and  importunate  patient — "  Pray,  Doctor, 
ifiay  I  eat  a  few  oysters?"  "Yes,  Ma- 
dam, shells  and  all,  if  you  please." 

English  Fashionables  Abroad.  3  vols. 
12mo.;  1827.  —  This  is  not  an  ill-writ- 
ten book,  but  it  will  be  no  hit,  it  will 
win  no  popularity.  It  does  not  tell  spe- 
cifically enough  of  the  class  the  title  an- 
nounces ;  fashionable  or  unfashionable, 
the  accounts  would  be  much  the  same  ; 
and,  what  is  worse  for  the  object  the  wri- 
ter has  in  view,  the  characters  will  not  be 
recognized,  either  as  portraits  or  carica- 
tures. It  is  simply  a  tour,  under  the 
mask  of  a  tale.  Every  thing  now-a-days 
seems  accomplishable  by  talcs — sermons 
and  polemics — morals  and  politics — and 
now  we  have  a  tour.  This  will  not  last, 
or  at  least  another  course  must  be  taken. 
We  cannot  serve  two  masters.  If  a  writer 
deal  with  a  story,  that  story  must  engage 
his  main  attention.  To  make  it  the  ve- 
hicle of  another  purpose,  defeats  that  pur- 
pose, and  with  it  breaks  down  the  con- 
veyance. If  the  writer  must  have  another 
object  than  what  the  interest  of  his  inci- 
dents involves,  he  should  sedulously  keep 
it  in  the  back  ground.  It  must  work  indi- 
rect ly,  and  take  its  chance  of  indirect  effect. 

As  a  tour,  the  "  English  Fashionables 
Abroad"  is  miserably  incomplete — as  de- 
scriptive of  the  state  of  certain  societies 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


647 


at  Rome  and  Naples,  sometimes  very  good ; 
but  as  a  novel  again  it  fails,  and  of  neces- 


hide  and  seek.    Miss  Sternheim  colours 
scarlet ;  she  takes  the  letter,  puts  it  in  her 


sity  fails.  It  moves  at  too  slow  apace.  The     bosom,   and  implores  Myrvin  to  conceal 


breaks  are  frequent  and  provoking.    The 
interest,  were  it  of  a  much  keener  kind, 


the  circumstance  from  her  aunt.    This  is 
death  to  his  hopes,  and  dispersion  to  the 


with  such  interruptions,  must  flag.    The     high   conceptions  he  had   formed  of  her 


novel  reader  will  pursue  the  thread  of  the 
story,  and  cut  the  rest  as  all  de  trop  —  that 
is,  he  will  read  about  a  third  of  the  vo- 
lumes ;  and  the  reader,  who  wishes  for 


character  and  integrity — she  had,  on  dis- 
missing Vanderville,  expressly  said,  her 
affections  were  free.  The  intercourse 
is,  however,  kept  up  ;  and  the  charms  of 


the  description  he  is  taught  to  expect,  does     the  lady  overpower  the  lover's  suspicions. 


not  want  to    be  encumbered    with    new 
acquaintance. 

As  to  the  story,  we  have  an  aunt,  a 


She  conquers  and  triumphs  in  spite  of 
the  dark  appearances,  and  exults  in  that 
triumph.  He  makes  a  tender  of  his  af- 


peeress  of  the  realm,  touring  in  quest  of  factions— and  she,  without  rejecting  re- 
antiquarian  lore,  an  ignorant  pretender,  minds  him  of  Sir  Willoughby-tells  him 
nothing  but  a  stiff,  stupid,  prejudired,  Sir  Willoughby  is  the  arbiter  of  her  fate, 
foolish  old  woman— with  a  niece,  entirely  hut  promises  to  explain  all  the  next  day. 
dependent  upon  her  and  her  humours,  That  night,  however,  Myrvin  learns  more 


young,  lively,  accomplished.  These  are 
first  met  with  at  an  inn  on  the  Appenines 
At  the  same  place  arrive  two  young  men 
of  high  family,  and  one  of  them  of  higher 


of  Sir  Willoughby — enough  to  convince 
him  of  Emily's  duplicity.  He  renounces 
all  further  connection  with  her  ;  flies  from 
Naples  in  agony,  and  leaves  the  poor 


expectations,   who  happens  to  know  the     lady  in   despair.     All,  however,    as   the 

,  _  j in    «Mj.i—  £H«4A       «t~*«M**MAll«     >T.I^.^I»L- 

aunt  very  well,  and  something  of  the  niece, 
though  nothing  of  their  relationship.  The 
parties  travel  on  to  Rome  together.  One 


reader  will  anticipate,  eventually  clears 
up.  Willoughby  is  her  own  brother.  He 
had  offended  the  aunt,  and  had  been  pro- 


of the  young  men,  Lord  Vanderville,  makes     hibited  all  intercourse    with  his    sister. 


violent  love   to   the  niece,  Emily  Stern- 
heim; the  other,  Mr.  Myrvin,  something 


Myrvin  is  satisfied  ;  the  parties  are  hap- 
py; he  in  due  time  succeeds  to  a  duke- 


very  like  love,  but  soberly,  respectfully,     dom,  and  she  becomes  a  duchess 


remotely.  The  young  lady,  who  is  of  a 
gay  and  frank  spirit,  is  pleased  with  the 
open  attentions  of  the  one,  and  struck 
with  the  implied  admiration  of  the  other. 
The  young  men  had  been  going  forthwith 
to  Naples  ;  Mr.  Myrvin  to  join  his  cousin, 
a  young  lady  of  brilliant  endowments, 
for  whom  he  is  supposed  to  have  a  pen- 
chant de  cceur  ;  and  Lord  Vanderville  ac- 
companies, for  want  of  something  better 
to  do.  Miss  Sternheim  proves  to  be  metal 
more  attractive.  Lord  Vanderville  suffers 
his  friend  to  proceed  by  himself,  and  re- 
mains behind  to  press  his  suit  upon  Emily. 
He  soon  comes  to  terms  with  the  wealthy 
aunt,  and  the  young  lady  herself  has  no 
very  decided  dislikes — she  only  begs  time 
for  better  acquaintance.  By  and  by  the 
parlies  all  go  on  to  Naples.  Here  the 
young  lord  meets  with  his  friends,  feels 
at  ease  with  regard  to  Emily,  and  grows 
careless.  She  takes  fire,  and  perempto- 
rily dismisses  my  lord. 

Now  come  Mr.  Myrvin  and  his  fair 
cousin — the  cousin,  to  whom  he  was  sup- 
posed  to  be  engaged — on  the  scene.  By  de- 
grees it  appears  no  such  engagement  exists. 
Mr.  Myrvin's  admiration  for  Miss  Stern- 
heim becomes  now  more  conspicuous  ;  and 
he  is  almost  on  the  point  of  declaration, 
when,  unluckily,  a  veturino  delivers  to  her 
a  letter  in  Myrvin's  presence  from  one 
Sir  Willoughby  Martin.  This  Sir  Wil- 
loughby is  known  to  Myrvin;  he  is  just 
now  under  a  cloud  ;  has  been  extravagant, 
fa  deeply  in  debt,  and  obliged  to  play  at 


The  writer  has  power  enough  to  set  a 
tale  on  its  own  legs.  He  may  take  our 
experience ;  no  body  will  read  his  topo- 
graphies or  his  antiquities. 

Reminiscences  of  Thomas  Dibdin.  2 
vols.  8t-o. ;  1827. — Once  more — and  pro- 
bably, not  positively,  for  the  last  time — 
have  we  the  story  of  the  stage  and  its 
votaries  for  the  last  thirty  years,  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  Kelly's,  O'Keefe's, 
and  Reynolds's,  but  a  mixture  of  them  all, 
eternally  and  intolerably  the  same.  The 
same  names  are  perpetually  recurring,  the 
same  circumstances,  the  same  subjects,  * 
all  but  the  same  events — the  whole  po- 
pulation of  the  scenes,  from  stars  and 
sweepers  to  scribblers  and  proprietors, 
with  their  pitiful  quarrels  and  jealousies, 
their  successes  and  failures,  enlivened  by 
nothingof  any  universal  int  erest — the  stage 
has  long  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of  general 
regard  —  and  presenting  nothing  about 
which  any  soul  breathing  beyond  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  green-room  cares  a  straw. 
The  style  and  cast  of  the  sentiments  are 
still  of  the  same  fatiguing  description — 
the  same  inflictings  of  quotation,  the  same 
torturings  of  jokes,  and  scrapings  of  Latin, 
the  same  laborious  pursuit  of  a  pun — the 
same  tuft-hunting  propensities,  with  the 
semblances  of  lofty  pretensions, — exhibit- 
ing altogether  a  taste  and  spirit,  neither 
intelligible  nor  congenial  to  any  but  a 
brother  of  the  sock. 

And  yet,  though  all  we  have  said  be 
true  to  the  letter,  we  may  be  too  severe— 


648 


Monthly  Review  of  Literature, 


[JUNE, 


the  tone  may  be  somewhat  too  harsh.  In 
the  case  of  the  writer  before  us  there  are 
redeeming  virtues.  The  manifest  kindli- 
ness of  his  nature,  the  elasticity  of  his 
spirit,  the  resolution  with  which  he  en- 
counters difficulties,  and  the  readiness 
he  shows,  when  defeated,  to  return  to  the 
charge,  the  perseverance,  and  ardour,  and 
tact  he  displays — worthless  as  are  many 
of  the  objects  on  which  these  qualities  are 
exerted — command  something1  like  respect, 
and,  in  spite  of  our  sterner  judgments,  we 
cannot  but  regret  the  want  of  success 
•with  which  so  much  energy  has  been 
attended. 

As  an  actor,  Mr.  Dibdin  has  been  little 
distinguished.  It  is  as  a  scribbler  he  has 
won  his  notoriety ;  and  indeed  for  thirty 
years  he  has  worked,  and  still  works,  one 
of  the  most  prolific  pens  the  age — abound- 
ing in  such  materials — can  produce.  He 
is  the  author  of  nearly  two  hundred  dra- 
matic pieces,  of  one,  two,  three,  and  five 
acts — not  one  of  four ;  of  nearly  two 
thousand  songs ;  of  countless  epilogues 
and  prologues,  of  essays,  tales,  leading 
articles  for  magazines,  papers,  &c.,  to  an 
amount  of  which  himself  has  long  lost 
count — the  whole  of  which  were  written 
on  the  spur  of  pressing  occasions,  and  for 
temporary  purposes,  and  which,  with  the 
exception  of  a  farce  or  two  still  keeping 
the  stage,  have,  as  he  would  himself 
phrase  it,  "  left  not  a  rack  behind."  Of 
such  a  man's  evanescent  career,  why 
should  the  forgotten  particulars  be  re- 
traced? To  gratify  the  taste  of  the  day 
for  notoriety.  Tom  Dibdin  has  known 
and  been  known  to  numbers;  he  must 
have  something  to  tell,  and  all  must  be 
sure  that  what  he  knows  he  will  tell. 
The  two  bulky  volumes  will  be  glanced 
at  by  those  who  expect  to  find  themselves 
or  their  acquaintance  figuring  for  good  or 
for  ill — the  ridiculous  will  of  course  be 
most  sought  for — no  matter  whether  the 
object  of  ridicule  be  myself  or  my  friend 
— no  matter,  we  are  talked  of.  Mr.  Dib- 
din had  two  volumes  of  given  dimensions, 
by  contract  with  his  publisher  and  tempter, 
to  fill;  and  how  was  he  to  fill  them,  but  by 
gossipping  of  those  who  moved  in  the  sole 
circle  of  the  green-room  ? — and  nine  times 
out  often  such  gossipping  was  little  likely 
to  be  creditable  to  either  party.  Still 
there  is  no  want  of  blarney. 

Mr.  Dibdin  —  for  we  must  give  our 
readers  a  glance  of  his  career — was  the 
son  of  Charles  Dibdin — the  Orpheus  or 
Tyrta3us  of  the  navy ;  his  mother,  and 
grandmother,  and  all  his  line  to  the  flood, 
perhaps,  were  theatrical ;  and  he  himself, 
at  four  years  of  age,  appeared  as  Cupid 
to  Mrs.  Siddons's  Venus,  in  the  Shakspeare 
Jubilee,  1775.  At  eight  he  was  placed 
in  the  choir  of  St.  Paul's,  and  seemed  in- 
evitably destined  for  a  singer.  By  some 


singular  interference  with  this  destiny,  he 
was  apprenticed  to  an  upholsterer  in  the 
city — the  well-known  Sir  William  Raw- 
lins — by  whom  he  thought  himself  treated 
with  severity,  and  who,  seeing  his  ap- 
prentice's stage  predilections,  which  were 
quite  irrepressible,  was  perpetually  pre- 
dicting he  icould  do  no  good.  In  the 
course  of  his  Reminiscences,  Dibdin  re- 
curs many  times  to  Sir  William,  evidently 
to  prove  how  much  the  knight  was  mis- 
taken. Sir  William  however  was  a  shrewd 
fellow,  and  his  predictions  seem  not  to 
have  been  very  wide  of  the  mark.  At  ths 
end  of  three  or  four  years — unable  any 
longer  to  resist  his  histrionic  longings,  he 
took  French  leave  of  Sir  William,  and  on 
board  a  Margate  'hoy'  made  his  debut 
in  a  popular  song  of  his  father's,  to  the 
assembled  crew,  who  rewarded  his  efforts 
with  such  shouts  of  applause,  as  confirmed 
him  in  his  purpose,  and  opened  visions  of 
future  celebrity.  An  opportunity  quickly 
presented  itself;  and  on  the  coast  he  en- 
listed in  a  small  joint-stock  concern.  His 
powers  were  at  once  acknowledged,  and 
their  extraordinary  versatility  added  some- 
thing- to  the  miserable  fractions  of  his 
share  of  the  profits.  He  sung,  and  played, 
and  painted,  and  fiddled,  and  scribbled 
himself  to  such  a  degree  of  reputation, 
that  in  a  few  months  he  was  actually  en- 
rolled a  member  of  one  of  the  regular 
Kent  companies.  Here  he  laboured  in 
all  the  varieties  of  his  vocation  for  some 
^ears,  till  at  last  came  the  supreme  felicity 
of  treading  the  London  boards.  In  London, 
however,  he  soon  gave  up  acting — find- 
ing scribbling  and  stage-management  the 
more  profitable  employments.  Then,  still 
soaring,  he  became  successively  prompter, 
half-manager,  and  sometimes  whole  ma- 
nager of  the  royal  theatres,  and  finally 
lessee  and  proprietor  of  minor  theatres, 
sometimes  of  Sadler's  Wells,  and  then  of 
the  Surrey — all  the  while  scribbling  in- 
defatigably,  seizing  upon  all  public  occa- 
sions, and  bringing  out  piece  after  piece, 
at  the  rate  of  half  a  dozen  or  even  a  dozen 
in  the  season. 

"  A  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss,"  and 
this  seems  to  have  been  poor  Dibdin 's 
fate.  His  friends  never  found  him  long  in 
the  same  position.  With  reason,  or  with- 
out, he  was  for  ever  changing.  Though 
neither  extravagant  nor  profligate— in  the 
common  acceptation  of  these  terms,  he 
was,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  im- 
provident— living  from  hand  to  mouth — 
spending  freely,  what  sometimes  came 
flowingly— reserving  nothing  for  a  rainy 
day — neither  dreading,  nor  calculating 
on  resources;  but  fagging  on,  and  con- 
fiding in  good  luck  and  ultimate  success. 
At  the  end  of  thirty  years,  he  finds  himself 
driven  to  the  insolvent  courts.  Not  to 
feel  for  a  man  so  labouring,  and  so  failing, 


1 82 7 . J  Domest iv  and 

is  impossibJe.  The  very  precarlousness 
of  his  employment — and  his  was  eminently 
so — is  but  too  apt  to  betray  into  careless. 
ness;  and  a  temperament  that  tempts  a 
man  to  trust  to  his  good  fortune,  is  not 
likely  much  to  mend  the  matter.  On  his 
own  shewing-,  he  is  a  domestic  man,  and 
attached  to  his  family ;  and  has  aided  his 
father  and  mother  in  their  declining-  days 
— let  him  learn  prudence,  and  he  will  not 
yet  be  forsaken.  The  present  publication 
will  do  him  but  temporary  good — he  has 
given  his  pen  too  much  liberty. 

As  we  turned  over  the  leaves  we  marked 
a  few  passages.    They   may  amuse  our 
readers  as 'they  did  ourselves.     The  first 
concerns  a  ftte  given  by  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  on  the  recovery  of  her  sister 
Amelia  from  a  dangerous,  illness,  afford- 
ing1 a  memorable  instance  of  the  estimate 
of  literary  labours  formed  among-  the  great 
only  a  few  years  ago.     The  story  is  much 
too  long-  to  quote;  we  must  be  content 
with  the  pith  of  it,  though  after  all  the 
thing  will  hardly  bear  stripping  of  circum- 
stances.— While  on  a  visit  at  a  friend's 
house  in  the   country,  Dibdiu  received  a 
letter  from  Mrs.  Mattocks,  earnestly  beg- 
ging him  to  come  forthwith  to  town,  and 
call  on  her  in  Soho  Square.     No  time  was 
lost  in  posting  to  town,  and  great  was 
Dibdin's  delight  on  being  informed  that 
he  had  been  selected  by  the  Princess  to 
write  a    sort  of  vaudeville  farce,  to  be 
performed  at  a  fete  projected  by  her  royal 
highness.   Only  three  principal  parts  were 
required,  to  be  acted  by  Mrs.  Mattocks, 
Quick,  and  Elliston  ;   Mrs.  M.  entreated 
him  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the  part 
assigned  to  her,  as  she  had  need  enough, 
God  knew,  of  every  assistance  a  writer 
could  afford,  while  Quick,  she  said,  was 
such  a  favourite  of  his  majesty,  he  would 
be  able  to  make   any  thing  tell.    <f  And 
Mr.     Elliston,     Madam,"     inquired     the 
anxious  Dibdin  ;  "  he  is  a  gentleman  I 
know   little  of;  in  what    does  his  forte 
consist  ?"      "  O,    my   dear  Sir,"   replied 
Mrs.  M.,  "  the  king  has  seen  him  some- 
where at  Weymouth  or  Cheltenham,  and 
rather  likes  him— so  he  he  will  do  well 
enough  as  — -  a  —  sort  of  a  — -  the  gentle- 
man of  the  piece."    During  the  conference 
came  in  Quick,  who,  upon  Dibdin's  taking 
leave,  insisted  on  seeing  him  down  stairs, 
and  with  the  street  door  in  hi»  hand,  and 
the  richest  comic  expression  in  his  eyes, 
whispered — (f  take  care  of  me,  and  don't 
let  that  woman  have  all  the  cream."    To 
work  goes  Dibdin,  and  in  a  day  or  two 
communicates  the  details  of  what  he  pro- 
posed to  do,    which  received  the  royal 
approbation.     He  was  urged  to  proceed 
with  all  diligence,  and,  to  save  time,  was 
to  get  somebody  to  copy  the  parts.    All 
was  done  according  to  order;  when,  to  his 
utter  confusion,  he  was  told  the  remune- 
M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No,  18. 


ration  was  to  be — throa  guineas.  Two 
had  been  spent  upon  transcription,  The 
disappointed  author  begged  now '  to  de- 
cline all  remuneration,  but  the  pleasure  of 
contributing  to  the  amusement  of  the  au- 
gust party.  This  proposal,  however,  it 
seemed,  could  not  be  accepted;  and  Mrs. 
Mattocks  undertook  to  get  the  matter 
settled  to  his  satisfaction,  and  screen  him 
from  all  offence.  In  a  few  days  came  FIFE 
guineas,  which  his  friends  advised  him  to 
pocket,  and  say  no  more  about  the  matter 
— recommending,  another  time,  a  previous 
stipulation.  The  advice  was  good.  About 
a  twelvemonth  afterwards,  Mrs.  Mattocks 
met  him  in  the  green-room — "  I've  got 
you  another  job."  Not  so  eager  now  as 
before,  Dibdin  begged  a  few  days  con- 
sideration, and  then  stated,  that  as  a  one- 
act  farce  at  Covent  Garden  would  produce 
fifty  pounds,  he  hoped  he  was  not  pre- 
suming in  naming-  thirty  pounds  as  the 
price.  No  answer  was  received  : — 

The  reader  will  observe,  says  Dibdin^-[to  re- 
move offensive  impressions  we  suppose] — I  have  not 
complained  of  the  price  (horribly  vulgar  word) 
given  me ;  but  that  I  was  refused,  by  certain 
agents,  the  alternative  of  presenting  my  work  gra- 
tuitously, and  compelled  to  accept  what  I  did.  I 
have  no  doubt  but  that  a  certain  sum  was  liberally 
assigned  by  her  royal  highness,  in  certain  quar- 
ters, to  certain  conductors  of  the  fete  on  their  own 
scale,  and  that  the  less  they  expended,  the  more 
remained  for  themselves. 

All  fudge — besides,  the  "no  answer" set- 
tles the  fact. 

Not  long  before  this  curious  affair;  a 
very  popular  song  of  Dibdin's,  called  the 
"  Snug  little  Island,"  was  sold  by  "him  to 
Longmans,  Cheapside,  for  fifteen  guineas, 
by  which  song  the  said  Longmans  actu- 
ally cleared  £900.  What  was  Dibdin  the 
better  for  this?  The  publisher  begged 
him  to  consider  as  his  own  a  piano-forte 
he  had  on  hire  ;  which  was,  however,  sub- 
sequently returned — as  the  gift  could  not 
be  sanctioned  by  the  assignees.  So  much 
for  the  liberality  of  the  trade. 

We  have  heard  a  good  deal  of  Cum- 
berland's jealousies.  Here  is  another  spe- 
cimen. While  at  Tunbridge,  Dibdin,  at 
Dowton's  request,  wrote  a  farce  called  the 
Jew  and  the  Doctor.  Cumberland  hear- 
ing of  this  performance  wished  to  read  it, 
to  see,  as  he  said,  in  what  manner  Dibdin 
had  trod  in  his  mow.  W7hen  Dibdin  called 
for  his  MS.  a  few  days  afterwards,  Cum- 
berland returned  it,  regretting  he  had  not 
had  time  to  read  it.  The  Duke  of  Leeds 
also  requested  to  see  the  MS.,  and  pub- 
lished aloud  his  high  opinion  of  It.  On 
hearing  of  this,  Cumberland — now  more 
at  leisure — begged  a  second  loan  of  the 
piece,  and  quickly  returned  it  with  his 
perfect  approbation— only  requesting  Dib- 
din to  alter  the  sum  fixed  for  the  marriage 
portion  of  the  heroine,  which  happened 
4  O 


Monthly  Re  dew  of  Literature, 


[JUNE, 


to  be  the  exact  amount  of  the  fortune  Mr. 
C.  had  given  the  lady  of  his  comedy  of  the 
Jew. 

Something  more  of  Cumberland : — 

Cumberland  invited  me,  says  Dibdin,  to  his 
lodgings,  to  bear  him  read  Joanna  of  Montfaucon 
before  it  went  to  rehearsal,  and  asked  me  to  play 
in  it.  The  reason  -why  he  wished  me  to  appear, 
arose  from  his  having  put  into  the  mouth  of  an 
opposite  character,  addressing  himself  to  me, — "  O 
you  have  no  genius,  not  you!"  which,  said  Mr. 
Cumberland,  "  being  taken  by  the  audience  in  the 
contrary  sense,  will  not  fail  to  occasion  three 
rounds  of  applause."  With  all  deference  to  the 
venerable  bard's  opinion,  I  could  not  exactly  co- 
incide with  it  in  this  instance,  and  respectfully 
declined  the  experiment. 

Mr.  Dibdin  gives  a  specimen  or  two  of 
the  licencer's  execution  of  his  office — 
though  not  equally  impertinent.  While 
at  Covent  Garden,  says  Dibdin,  I  wrote, 
in  a  season  of  monopoly,  and  much  arti- 
ficial scarcity,  a  farce,  which  I  named  the 
Two  Farmers,  and  which  Mr.  Harris  highly 
approved  and  accepted.  Poor  John  Moor- 
head  composed  the  music,  and  the  piece 
was  put  into  rehearsal.  Munden  and 
Emery  were  the  two  farmers;  one  a  nar- 
row, and  the  other  a  liberal  minded  fel- 
low ;  the  former  was  named  Mr.  Lo- 
cust : — . 

When  the  farce  was  nearly  finished,  thelicencer 
shopped  its  further  progress,  and  at  the  desire  of 
Mr.  Harris,  I  waited  on  him,  to  inquire  what  were 
his  objections  to  it.  Mr.  Larpent  would  hardly 
deign  to  listen  to  a  word  I  had  to  say  ;  and  told 
me,  that  if  the  farce  were  to  be  acted,  no  respect- 
able farmer  would  be  able  to  pass  through  the 
streets,  lest  people  should  cry  out — "there  goes  an 
old  locust.'1  I  humbly  submitted  to  the  great  man, 
that  it  would  not  be  to  respectable  farmers  such 
an  epithet  could,  by  any  chance,  be  applied  ;  but 
he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  I  could  say ;  and  the 
.£100  I  had  agreed  for,  and  calculated  on  receiv- 
ing, for  successful  ridicule  of  monopoly,  were  lost 
by  the  sensitive  apprehensions  of  Mr,  Larpent. — 
On  another  occasion,  the  run  of  my  opera  of  II 
Bondocani  was  stopped  in  its  career  on  the  thirty- 
third  night,  because,  being  just  at  the  period  of 
Mr.  Pitt's  quitting  office,  there  happened  to  be  a 
line  in  a  song  sung  by  Fawcett,  which  said — 
"  When  fairly  kick'd  out,  I  but  call  it  resigning," 
which  said  line  had  been  written  five  years  before 
the  opera  was  acted.  The  Orange-boven  was  pro- 
hibited, because  two  or  three  songs  were  thought 
too  personal  against  Buonaparte. 

We  alluded  to  Mr.  Dibdin's  e.nbarrass- 
ments — he  has  himself  done  so — and  there- 
fore we  quote  the  following  statement  re- 
lative to  a  subscription  for  a  monument 
to  his  father's  memory  : — 

Through  the  kind  and  unremitting  zeal  of  that 
most  amiable  and  benevolent  friend,  the  late  Mr. 
John  Young  of  the  British  Institution,  a  large  sub- 
scription was  procured,  and  several  highly  re- 
spectable public  meetings  were  held  (Admiral  Sir 
.Joseph  Yorke  presided  at  the  last)  for  the  pur- 
pose Of  erecting  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  our 


national  lyrist— Dlbdin's  father  ;  but  what  arrange- 
ments have  been  made  since  Mr.  Young's  lamented 
death,  or  when  the  subscribers  are  to  be  informed 
of  the  destination  of  their  liberality,  or  to  whose 
care  the  funds  are  entrusted — my  brother  and  my- 
self, as  well  as  our  personal  friends,  remain  equally 
uninformed. 

The  persons  who  thus  contributed  are 
probably  many  of  them  the  very  persons 
who  have  been  most  amused  by  the  younger 
Dibdin's  thousands  of  efforts.  We  prefer 
the  benevolence  that  relieves  the  living, 
to  that  which  is  so  often  ready  to  honour 
the  dead ;  and  therefore  we  recommend 
these  sums  to  be  handed  over  to  the  auto- 
biographer. 

The  Prairie,  a  Talc,  by  the  Author 
of"1  The  Spy,  Pioneers,'"  $c.  ;  1827.— The 
scenes  of  these  vigorous  and  not  unin- 
teresting volumes  He  far  away  beyond  the 
limits  of  civilization,  to  the  west  of  the 
American  settlements,  beyond  even  the 
"  father  of  waters,"  amidst  the  wild  and 
howling  wastes,  the  world  of  /Eolus,  un- 
skreened  by  the  forests  and  mountains  of 
the  north,  succession  of  hill  and  vale  end- 
less and  countless,  like  the  heaving  waves 
of  ocean  on  the  first  subsidence  of  a  storm 
—the  hunting  grounds  of  hostile  tribes — 
countries  yet  undescribed — to  describe 
which  is  the  writer's  main  object,  and 
one  which  he  successfully  accomplishes. 
The  characters  of  the  drama  consist  of  a 
family  of  roaming  whites  retreating  be- 
fore the  advance  of  "  clearing"  and  settle- 
ment ; — a  solitary  old  man,  who,  though 
born  by  the  sea-side,  has  weathered  eighty 
winters  among  or  near  to  the  Indians,  and 
in  habits  and  sentiments  is  himself  an 
Indian,  except  that  he  has  a  dash  of  Chris- 
tianity in  him— the  Scout  of  the  "  Mohi- 
cans," and  Leather-stocking  of  the  "  Pio- 
neers," grown  with  his  age  more  empha- 
tical  in  manner,  and  garrulous  in  fact;  add 
to  these  the  red-skin  chiefs  of  the  Siouxes 
and  the  Pawnees,  and  you  have  all  the 
personages  worth  speaking  about.  Out 
of  these  raw  materials  to  make  a  narrative 
calculated,  if  not  very  deeply  to  fix  the 
reader's  sympathies,  yet  capable  of  carry- 
ing him  onwards  to  the  end,  implies  no 
ordinary  powers.  Mr.  Cooper  has  de- 
servedly won  the  title  of  American  no- 
velist. The  field  is  all  his  own  ;  no  Euro- 
pean at  least  will  contend  the  palm  with 
him. 

The  story,  if  story  it  can  be  called,  is 
of  very  loose  construction.  A  man  of  the 
name  of  Ishmael  Bush,  of  a  rough  and 
resolute  cast,  unaccustomed  and  unable  to 
bear  the  restraint  of  society,  quits  the 
borders  of  Kentucky,  as  the  clearings  ad- 
vance, to  penetrate  into  the  far  interior — 
accompanied  by  a  numerous  family  of  sons 
and  daughters,  and  a  young  woman,  called 
Ellen,  someway  connected,  who  has  seen 
something  of  civilized  life,  of  considerable 


1827.] 


Domestic  and  Foreign. 


65  i 


beauty,  activity,  and  resolution.  He 
has  with  him  ateo  .his  wife's  brother,  a 
kidnapper  by,  profession,  a  deep-dyed 
scoundrel ;  and  an  American  naturalist, 
whos;>  purpose  is  to  skim  the  cream  of 
the  virgin  territory — a  mere  caricature. 
Ishmael's  motives  for  advancing  some  hun- 
dreds of  miles  beyond  the  remotest  settle- 
ment are  but  obscurely  developed,  but  by 
degrees  we  learn  he  has  with  him  also  the 
daughter  of  a  wealthy  Spanish  settler  of 
Louisiana,  kidnapped  by  his  respectable 
•  brother-in-law. 

At  the  first  resting  for  the  night,  after 
our  introduction  to  the  party,  he  en- 
counters an  old  man,  a  trapper,  with  a  rifle 
and  his  dog.  From  him  some  information 
is  gathered  of  the  state  of  the  country, 
and  things  appear  to  be  not  in  the  se- 
curest state.  A  party  of  marauding 
Siouxes  are  near,  and  precautions  must 
be  taken  against  surprise.  This  old  man 
plays  a  very  conspicuous  part  through 
the  whole  piece.  He  knows  perfectly  the 
country,  the  inhabitants,  their  characters 
and  manners,  and  from  this  perfect  know- 
ledge he  is  enabled  at  all  times  to  draw 
the  truest  conclusions  from  the  doubt- 
fullesfsigns — almost  prophetically.  His 
aged  hound  is  scarcely  less  prescient. 

"By  degrees  assemble  'two  or  three 
others,  particularly  a  bee-hunter,  a  ran- 
dom reckless  fellow,  between  whom  and 
Ellen  exists  a  clandestine  attachment,  and 
for  her  sake  it  is  that  all  of  a  sudden  he 
appears  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ishmael's 
caravan.  Then  comes  a  young  American 
captain,  the  husband  of  the  kidnapped 
lady,  who  is  traversing  the  Prairie  in 
search  of  his  bride.  He  has  got  scent  of 
Ishmael,  and  he  and  his  men,  a  small  party 
of  dragoons,  are  chasing  in  all  directions. 
He  encounters  the  old  trapper,  the  bee- 
hunter,  and  the  naturalist  5  and  a  plan  is 
laid  to  surprise  Ishmael's  entrenchment 
in  his  absence.  They  succeed ;  discover 
the  bride,  snatch  her  from  thraldom, 
and  fly  with  her  to  some  place  of  conceal- 
ment— Ellen  also  accompanying  them. 
Scarcely  were  they  out  of  sight  when 
Ishmael  returns.  He  believes  himself  be- 
trayed by  the  old  trapper,  and  prepares 
for  vengeance — he  had  with  him  seven 
stout  sons — one  just  murdered,  as  he  be- 
lieves, by  this  same  old  trapper. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  fugitives,  seeking 
for  shelter,  are  surprised  first  by  one 
party  of  Indians,  and  then  another  j  and 
after  a  variety  of  marvellous  escapes, 
chiefly  through  the  trapper's  sagacity, 
particularly  from  a  circle  of  fire,  which 
the  Indians  had  kindled  around  them, 
they,  together  with  a  Pawnee  chief,  whom 
ihey  had  conciliated,  all  fall  into  the 


hands  of  the  ferocious  Siouxes.  Here  are 
^new  perils.  The  men— except  the  o!d 
trapper — are  all  bound  for  instant  torture 
and  death ;  and  the  ladies,  the  chief 
destines  for  his  brides.  The  Pawnee 
chief,  at  the  moment  when  death  seems 
inevitable,  hears  the  far-off  war-whoop 
of  his  tribe,  and  by  a  desperate  effort 
kills  his  tormentor,  breaks  through  all 
obstacles,  and  joins  his  friends.  A  fierce 
conflict  ensues  between  tiie  hostile  tribes. 
In  the  meanwhile  the  old  trapper  cuts  the 
bonds  of  the  captives,  but  before  they  are 
capable  of  using  their  benumbed  limbs,  up 
comes  Ishmael  and  his  party,  and  they  are 
bound  again. 

-  The  battle  over,  old  Ishmael  proceeds 
very  gravely  to  the  summary  trial  of  his 
prisoners.  The  captain  and  his  lady  are 
first  generously  dismissed,  and  a  safe  con- 
voy offered 5  but  the  captain  has  now  his 
own  men  at  hand  aud  declines  the  honour. 
More  difficulty  is  made  with  the  bee- 
hunter  and  Ellen— the  one  he  hates,  the 
other  he  loves ;  but  on  her  avowing  her 
attachment  for  the  bee-man,  he  dismisses 
them  both.  Then  follows  that  of  the  old 
trapper,  whom  he  believed  to  be  the  mur- 
derer of  his  son.  The  murderer,  however, 
proves  to  be  the  old  kidnapper — and  his 
execution  is  therefore  determined  upon. 
At  first  the  rifle  is  raised  for  the  purpose ; 
but  eventually  he  is  kindly  put  into  such 
a  position  on  the  top  of  a  rock,  with  the 
branches  of  a  lofty  tree  impending,  that 
he  can  conveniently  hang  himself — which 
the  desperateness  of  his  circumstances 
soon  compels  him  to  do. 

The  favourite  character  is  the  old  trap- 
per ;  he  is  one  of  nature's  master-pieces  ; 
untarnished  by  the  vices  of  society;  un- 
enlightened, or  rather  unobscured  by  the 
fancies  of  speculation  j  and  indebted  for 
his  wisdom  solely  to  his  sheer  experience, 
and  a  reasoning  brain.  He  is  at  times 
exceedingly  prosing— associating  so  long 
as  he  has  done  with  Indians,  he  might 
have  learnt  to  condense  his  thoughts  a 
little  closer.  Though  sententious  enough, 
he  is  very  far  from  laconic.  His  debates 
with  the  naturalist,  who  is  a  mere  philo- 
sopher on  system,  an  atheist,  and  gam- 
bler, though  meant  to  put  philosophy  to 
shame,  completely  fails,  and  solely  from 
his  making  the  representative  of  philo- 
sophy an  ass.  The  chiefs  of  the  two 
tribes  are  pieces  of  vigorous  painting — the 
lines  all  too  broadly  marked :  but  with  all 
the  writer's  efforts  to  exhibit,  en  beau, 
the  delights  of  freedom,  and  the  absence 
of  the  shackles  of  society,  the  only  effect 
is  to  make  us  bless  ourselves  in  our  own 
security. 
4O2 


[    652    ] 


[JUNE, 


PROCEEDINGS  OF  LEARNED  SOCIETIES. 


ASTRONOMICAL  SOCIETY   OF   LONDON. 

April  1 1 . — A  paper,  by  Colonel  Beaufoy, 
was  read,  containing  his  observations  of 
eclipses  of  Jupiter's  satellites,  from  2d  Ja- 
nuary to  15th  May  1826 ;  together  with  some 
observations  of  occultatious  of  stars  by  the 
moon. 

A  paper  was  also  read  "  On  the  Longitude 
of  Madras,  as  deduced  from  Observations  of 
Eclipses  of  the  first  and  second  Satellites  of 
Jupiter,  taken  between  the  years  1817  and 
1826.  By  John  Goldingham,  Esq.,  F.K.S.'' 

The  eclipses  stated  in  this  paper  are  ninety- 
six  in  number,  being  immersions  and  emer- 
sions of  the  first  and  second  satellites  only. 
Of  these,  eleven  are  directly  comparable  with 
those  of  Colonel  Beaufoy,  made  at  Bushy 
Heath,  viz.  eight  of  the  first,  and  three  of 
the  second  ;  and  their  mean  result,  which  of 
course  is  independent  of  the  errors  of  the  ta- 
bles, is  stated  by  Mr.  Goldingham  at  5*.  21'. 
9'3",  being  the  longitude  of  Madras,  east  of 
Greenwich.  The  remainder,  consisting  of 
thirty-four  emersions  and  thirty-five  immer- 
sions of  the  first  satellite,  and  twelve  emer- 
sions and  four  immersions  of  the  second,  are 
not  directly  comparable  with  Colonel  Beau- 
foy's.  Mr.  Goldingham  endeavours,  however, 
to  render  them  so,  or  at  least  to  eliminate 
the  errors  of  the  tables,  by  determining  the 
latter  from  Colonel  Beaufoy's  observations 
made  nearly  about  the  same  time,  and  then 
applying  it  to  the  results  of  a  comparison  of 
his  own  with  the  Nautical  Almanack  as  a 
correction ,  and,  in  this  way,  deduces  a  con- 
clusion agreeing  almost  exactly  with  the 
foregoing. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  any  dis- 
cussion on  the  legitimacy  of  the  process  pur- 
sued by  Mr.  Goldingham  for  this  purpose,  or 
of  its  general  applicability  in  the  present  state 
of  the  tables.  The  end  of  this  abstract  will 
be  better  answered  by  presenting  in  one  view 
the  results  of  these  several  classes  of  observa- 
tions as  obtained  separately,  by  direct  com- 
parison with  the  Nautical  Almanack,  uncor- 
rected  by  reference  to  Colonel  Beau  Toy's  or 
any  other  observations,  which  may  be  stated 
as  follows : 

Madras,  east  of  Greenwich. 
By  thirty-four  emersions  of  the 
first    satellite  observed   at 
Madras,  and  compared  with 
the  Nautical  Almanack  ...  5°  21'     6-5" 

By  thirty-five  immersions  of 
ditto,  similarly  observed  and 


compared 


5     21    12-4 


9-4 


By  twelve  emersions  of  the  se- 
cond satellite,  similarly  ob- 
served and  compared  .  .  <5°  21'  0-5* 

By  four  immersions  of  ditto   .5     21    33-1 


Mean  longitude ...  5 
Difference  of  immer- 
sions and  emersions 


21    16-8 


Mean  longitude  of  Madras  ,5     2.1 

Difference  of  immersions 

and  emersions   ...  6-9 


32-6 

The  latter  series  has,  however,  only  the 
weight  of  four  double  observations,  and  is 
therefore  DO  way  to  be  put  in  competition, 
with  the  former,  corroborated  as  it  is  to  mir, 
nute  precision  by  the  results  of  the  compara- 
tive observations ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  we 
may  take  5°.  21'.  9'35".  as  the  true  longi- 
tude of  the  Madras  observatory. 

Mr.  Goldingham  states  the  difference  tT 
longitudes  between  the  observatory  and  Fort 
St.  George  at  2'.  21".  (of  space),  the  latter 
being  to  the  east ;  so  that  the  longtitude  of 
Fort  St.  George,  Madras,  is  5*.  2 1'.  18-7". 

Immediately  after  the  conclusion  of  the  or- 
dinary meeting  of  the  society,  a  Special  Ge- 
neral Meeting  was  held,  pursuant  to  a  no- 
tice to  that  effect,  for  the  purpose  of  distri- 
buting the  honorary  medals  awarded  by  the 
Council  to  Mr.  Bailly,  Mr.  Stratford,  and 
Colonel  Beaufoy — a  ceremony  accompanied 
by  a  most  able  and  eloquent  speech  from  the 
president. 

ZOOLOGICAL  SOCIETY. 

The  Anniversary  Meetingof  this  Society  took 
place  on  Saturday  ;  the  Marquess  of  Lansdown^ 
President,  in  the  chair.  The  meeting  was 
very  numerously  attended.  Amongst  other 
distinguished  supporters  of  thisestablishment, 
we  noticed  Earls  Spencer,  Malmesbury,  and 
Carnarvon,  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
Marquess  Carmarthen,  Lord  Auckland,  Sir 
Everard  Home,  Sir  Robert  Heron,  M.P., 
Sir  T.  D.  Acland,  Bart.,  Sir  J.  de  Beauvoir, 
Mr.  Baring  Wall,M.P.,<fec.  &c.  &c.  The  pre- 
sident having  adverted  with  much  feeling  and 
effect  to  the  vacancy  occasioned  by  the  la* 
menteddeath  of  the  late  president,  and  his  own 
accession  to  that  office,  reported  to  the  meeting 
the  progress  of  the  society  during  thelast  year ; 
from  which  it  appeared  that  the  Museum 
had  been  enriched  by  numerous  and  valuable 
donations  ;  amongst  the  most  conspicuous 
of  these  was  particularized  a  female  ostrich 
from  his  Majesty.  The  magnificent  collec- 
tion of  the  late  Sir  Thomas  Stamford  Raffles, 
consisting  of  mamalia,  birds,  reptiles,  insects, 
zoophytes,  <fec.,  has  also  been  transferred  to 
the  society.  The  president  further  informed 
the  meeting,  that  the  works  in  the  Regent's 
Park  are  rapidly  advancing :  the  walks  have 
been  laid  out  and  partly  executed,  and  some 
pheasantries  and  aviaries,  with  sheds  and  en- 
closures for  some  of  the  rarer  animals  be- 
longing to-the  society,  are  in  active  progress. 
It  is  expected  that  the  gardens  wiil  possess 


1827.] 


Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies. 


653 


sufficient  interest  to  authorize  the  opening  of 
them  during  the  ensuing' autumn.  The  pre- 
sident then  announced  that  the  number  of 
subscribers  exceeds  500  ;  and  that  the  list  is 
daily  increasing ;  he  also  gave  a  highly  fa- 
vourable report  of  the  funds  of  the  society, 
which,  after  defraying  all  charges  attending 
upon  the  various  works  in  progress,  leave  a 
considerable  and  increasing  balance  in  the 
bankers'  hands. 

MEDICO    BOTANICAL    SOCIETY   OF    LONDON. 

9th  February,  1827. — The  chairman  an- 
nounced  that  H.  R.  H.  the  Duke  of  Clarence 
had  inserted  his  name  as  a  patron  in  the  sig- 
nature book,  and  that  H.  R.  H.  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge  had  also  honoured  the  society,  by 
allowing  his  name  to  be  added  to  the  list  of 
honorary  patrons.  Aucco  oil,  the  produce  of 
an  East-India  plant,  termed  "  Jaum,"  was 
presented  by  Henry  Thomas  Colebrooke, 
Esq.,  F.R.S.  Dr.  Sigmond,  professor  of 
Toxicology,  delivered  his  introductory  dis- 
course. 

The  society's  anniversary  dinner,  which 
had  been  postponed  from  the  16th  January, 
in  consequence  of  the  death  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  was  celebrated  on  Saturday,  February 
the  10th,  at  the  Thatched  House  Tavern,  Sir 
James  McGrigor,  K.  T.  s.  president,  in  the 
chair. 


Oth  March.— His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, having  signified  the  pleasure  he1 
would  feel  in  belonging  to  the  society,  was 
immediately  ballotted  for,  and  declared  una- 
nimously elecied  an  honorary  fellow.  Dr. 
Sigmond  delivered  his  second  lecture  on 
poisons. 

4t't  April. — The  chairman,  John  Frost, 
Esq.,  informed  the  meeting,  that  he  had  been 
honoured  with  an  audience  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  who  had  inserted  his  name  in 
the  signature  book.  A  letter  was  read  from 
the  Right  Hon.  Robert  Peel,  announcing 
His  Majesty's  gracious  acceptance  of  (ha 
society's  address  on  the  death  of  their  la- 
mented patron,  His  late  R.  H.  the  Duke  of 
York.  The  Dukes  of  Somerset,  and  St. 
Alban's,  Lords  Kenmure,  and  Nugent,  and 
the  Right  Hon.  Charles  W.  W.  Wynn,  were 
elected  into  the  society.  General  Neville, 
Sir  John  Scott  Lillie,  Benjamin  Hawes, 
Samuel  Reid,  William  Loddiges,  and  T.  B. 
Mackay,  Esqrs.,  with  several  others,  were 
proposed  as  members.  A  paper,  on  the  Ma- 
teria  Medica  of  the  Chinese,  by  John  Reeves, 
Esq.,  F.R.S.  of  Canton,  was  read,  and  some! 
interesting  remarks  on  the  materia  meclica  of 
Demerara,  communicated  verbally  by  M.  C. 
Frend,  Esq.,  F.  H.  s. — The  Meeting  adjourn- 
ed to  llth  May. 


VARIETIES,  SCIENTIFIC  AND  MISCELLANEOUS. 


Notice  regarding  an  Advertisement  of 
an  Assurance  Company,  inserted  in  the  last 
Number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review. — Ques- 
tions respecting  assurance  upon  life  are  of 
such  vital  importance  to  the  community — 
while,  at  the  same  time,  the  subject  is  of 
such  difficulty  for  the  generality  of  readers, 
and  so  imperfectly  understood,  that  the  gra- 
titude of  the  public  for  any  correct  and  judi- 
dicious  information  on  this  head  must  be  as 
unlimited  as  their  indignation  at  all  who  mis- 
lead them.  The  first  is  the  due  reward  of 
Mr.  Babbage's  labours.  The  writer  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  who  criticised  his  work 
is  unquestionably  entitled  to  the  second.  We 
do  not  say  that  the  latter  has  intentionally 
misled  the  public ;  but  as  it  is  occasionally 
supposed  that  the  contributions  of  a  mere 
sciolist  would  not  be  admitted  into  that  eru- 
dite miscellany,  the  world  must  either  im- 
peach the  knowledge  of  the  editor  and  author, 
or  suspect  their  integrity.  As  for  ourselves, 
we  do  nothing  but  rectify  error,  and  point 
out  misrepresentation :  of  motives,  we  pre- 
sume not  to  jud?;e.  If  we  offer  an  opinion; 
it  is  that  the  article  in  question  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  an  advertisement,  and,  remember- 
ing the  fate  of  Mr.  Sedgwick,  we  hope — that 
it  was  paid  for  accordingly.  Now,  before 
we  enter  more  fully  into  the  subject,  we  may 
quietly  hint  that  assertion  is  not  proof;  and 
that,  when  the  reviewer  asserts  that  "  tJie 
impression  made  upon  the  minds  of  ninety- 


nine  persons  out  of  a  hundred  will  probably 
be,  that  the  premiums  of  the  Alliance  and  Sun, 
at  every  period  of  life,  are  exorbitant,"  he 
had  not  read  the  book  he  was  presuming  to 
condemn,  or,  having  read,  did  not  understand 
it— a  table  at  the  end  thereof  [Table  T]  be- 
ing adapted  to  prevent  this  insinuation  ;  and 
when  the  reviewer  also  (page  484)  denies 
that  "the  experience  of  the  Equitable  is 
supported  by  the  experience  of  the  other 
offices,"  let  us  inquire  if  this  communication 
is  to  be  regarded  as  official.  If  so,  let  him 
state  to  what  office  he  belongs,  instead  of 
allowing  it  to  be  inferred  from  the  tenor  of 
bis  paper.  Let  him  avow  the  institution  into 
whose  arcana  he  has  been  permitted  to  pry  ; 
and  the  worl.!  will  thank  him  for  his  valuable 
communication.  As  it  is,  we  do  not  see  why 
his  unconfirmed,  anonymous  assertion  is  to  be 
received  in  opposition  to  what  really  are 
official  documents.  "  The  most  palpable 
error,  however,  contained  in  the  book,"  ob- 
serves the  reviewer,  "  is  perhaps  to  be  found 
in  the  following  extract : — (  If  two  companies 
both  offer  to  return  one-half  of  the  profits  to 
the  assured,  and  one  of  them  has  a  capital  of 
200,000/.,  although  their  profits  may  be  the 
same,  if  one  of  the  offices  deduct  out  of  them 
an  interest  for  the  shareholders  before  the 
division  is  made,  the  results  to  the  assurers 
will  be  very  different.  Let  the  divisionsof  both 
offices  be  made  seprenmaUy,  and  let  them 
each  amountin  the  gross  to  100,000/.,  <fec.  &c. 


G«)4 

In  one  case,  the  assurers  will  divide  among 
them  15,0007. ;  in  the  other,  they  will  share 
60,0007. ;  and  yet  the  proportion  allotted  to 
them  is  nominally  the  same.'  Here  one  office 
is  supposed  to  have  a  capital  of  200,000/., 
nnd  the  other  no  capital.  But  when  Mr. 
Babbage  comes  to  state  the  matter  in  his 
table,  he  drops  out  the  simple  quantity  of 
200,0007.  from  the  calculation,  as  of  no 
value,  and  charges  the  interest  for  the  pro- 
prietors entirely  on  the  profits.  But  what 
does  he  think  the  office  does  with  this  ca- 
pital? Does  he  think,  <fec.  &c.  Mr.  Eab- 
bage's  account,  accurately  stated,  would,  on 
this  supposition  (that  a  capital  of  200,0007. 
might  be  disposed  of  at  ten  per  cent,  annuity 
interest),  stand  as  follows : — Office  with  ca- 
pital—Profit of  seven  years,  100,000/. ;  in- 
terest on  capital,  at  ten  per  cent,  compound 
interest,  for  seven  years,  less  5  per  cent,  sim- 
ple interest  to  shareholders,  47,6357. 17s.  1  </." 
This  is  too  absurd  !  According  to  the  review- 
er's statement  of  Mr.  Babbage's  meaning, 
the  interest  on  a  capital  of  200,0007.  at  ten 
percent,  is  20,0007.;  the  interest,  at  five  per 
cent.,  to  be  deducted  for  shareholders,  is 
10,0007.,  leaving  10,0007.  to  accumulate 
annually,  at  compound  interest,  during  seven 
years,  which,  at  ten  per  cent.,  amounts  to 
94,8717.  14*.  2d.,  or  precisely  double  the  sum 
the  reviewer  allows.  So  that  reasonings, 
founded  on  a  gross  miscalculation,  and  adapt- 
ed to  mislead  the  public  on  a  topic  which 
comes  home  to  us  individually,  are  admitted 
into,  a  journal  professing  exclusively  to  en- 
lighten the  public  on  every  question  which 
concerns  them,  in  contradiction  to  the  legiti- 
mate demonstrations  of  a  highly-talented 
uninterested  individual,  endeavouring  tosup- 
ply  a  popular  view  of  so  important  a  subject. 
Is  this  negligence,  design,  or  incompetence  ? 
But  "  the  most  palpable  error"  is  not  of  the 
author,  but  the  reviewer :  the  former  sup- 
posing the  gross  sum  divided  by  each  office 
septennially  to  be  the  same ;  the  latter  going 
on  an  opposite  supposition.  If  it  be  asked, 
what  cceteris  paribus  can  occasion  so  great 
a  difference  in  the  profits,  we  will  answer  the 
question  by  supplying  at  least  one  item  in 
the  account.  The  Alliance  Company  give, 
for  example,  2007.  per  annum  a-piece  to 
twenty  directors,  and  3007.  per  annum  to 
four  vice-presidents;  another  institution  di- 
vides ten  guineas  among  all  the  directors  who 
attend  at  each  weekly  board  ;  thus  effecting 
a  saving,  in  the  cost  of  directors  alone,  of 
4,6807.  As  integrity  in  responsible  situations 
is  to  be  insured  only  by  high  salaries  (at 
least  there  is  an  axiom  to  that  effect),  we 
cannot  doubt  the  vaunted  honour  of  the  former 
of  these  establishments,  and  hope  they  find 
that  talent  and  ability  may  be  purchased  at 
the  same  rate.  There  is  one  more  topic  to 
which  we  wish  to  call  the  public  attention, 
and,  for  the  benefit  of  our  country  readers 
especially,  insert  the  following  extract  from 
Babbage  on  Life  Insurance,  page  136: — 
'*  A  clergyman,  in  order  to  provide  at  his 
death  for  a  numerous  family,  succeeded,  by 


[JUNE, 

great  economy,  in  saving  from  hia  income  suf- 
ficient to  assure  his  life  for  2,0007.  Being 
unacquainted  with  business,  he  unfortunately 
trusted  the  choice  of  the  office  at  which  he 
assured  to  the  attorney  whom  he  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  employing.  The  attorney  ef- 
fected the  policy  at  oneof  those  offices  which 
make  no  return  of  any  part  of  the  profits, 
and  which,  notwithstanding,  charge  (he  same 
prices  as  the  Equitable.  During  about  twenty 
years  he  received  a  commission  of  live  per 
cent,  from  the  office,  which  was  puid  out  of 
the  annual  sum  with  difficulty  spared  from 
the  scanty  income  of  his  employer;  and,  on 
the  death  of  the  clergyman,  his  seven  sur- 
viving orphans  received  from  the  office  the 
original  sum  assured,  2,0007.,  instead  of  about 
3,2007.,  which  they  might  have  received  from 
the  Equitable,  had  not  the  bribe  (a  little 
more  than  507.)  held  out  by  the  other  office 
been  too  great  for  the  integrity  of  their  fa- 
ther's solicitor.  In  contemplating  with  scorn 
the  mercenary  agent  who  betrayed,  for  so 
trifling  a  sum,  the  confidence  reposed  in  him 
by  his  client,  whose  distressed  family  were 
thus  deprived  of  1,200/.,  ought  not  some  por- 
tion of  our  indignation  to  be  reserved  for 
those  who  tempted  him  to  this  breach  of 
trust?"  &c.  &c. 

On  this  becoming  exposure  of  the  evils 
resulting  from  commission  allowed  to  so- 
licitors, the  reviewer  observes,  that  "  it 
is  a  little  out  of  place.  It  is  obviously 
one  of  those  absurd  results  of  competition 
which  must  manifest  itself  as  long  as  human 
nature  remains  what  it  is  ;  and  its  removal, 
though  devoutly  to  be  wished,  is  very  little  to 
be  expected. . .  .Where  it  is  openly  acknow- 
ledged and  publicly  advertised,  and  freely 
acted  upon  by  nearly  all  the  assurance  com- 
panies, there  seems  little  room  for  just  excep- 
tion. The  practice  being  universally  known, 
its  injurious  effects  are  greatly  mitigated... . 
But  an  attorney,  now-a-days,  has  very  little 
temptation  to  lead  his  client  astray  in  this 
direction,  as  there  are  companies,  we  believe, 
of  every  class,  which  give  the  same  commis- 
sion of  five  per  cent."— (Ed.  Rev.  xc.  p.  500, 
note}.  "  The  height  of  competition  has  in- 
duced some  offices  to  grant  to  solicitors  bring- 
ing business  to  their  agents,  a  handsome  ex- 
tra commission ;  so  that  a  great  part  of  their 
country  business  is  charged  with  a  still  fur- 
ther reduction  on  the  gross  premiums." — • 
(Ed.  Rev.  xc.  p.  501).  As  these  two  pas- 
sages contradict  each  other,  and  as  we  have 
already  shewn  the  incompetence  of  this 
writer,  to  his  reasonings  we  shall  pay  no 
farther  attention :  but  we  would  point  out 
the  loose  morality  of  the  above  note  to  gene- 
ral reprehension.  Life  assurance  is  a  subject 
which  has  been  most  studiously  mystified  by 
the  agents,  secretaries,  and  actuaries  of  the 
various  companies  engaged  in  it,  which,  in 
the  mean  while,  have  been  accumulating  and 
sharing  immense  profits  (the  triumphant  re- 
sult of  the  abuse  of  science  over  vulgar  cre- 
dulity), in  which  the  various  subscribers  to 
these  institutions  were  entitled  to  participate. 


1827.]  Varieties. 

A  person  whose  talents  and  attainments  en- 
abled him  to  raise  the  veil,  boldly  states  the 
claims  of  the  different  assurance  societies  to 
general  confidence,  and  exposes  the  numerous 
arithmetical  sophisms  by  which  they  have 
deluded  the  public,  and  have  been  hoping  to 
execute  future  depredations.  One  journal 
(the  Quarterly),  hitherto  supposed  to  be  ad- 
verse to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  among 
the  people,  confesses  the  obligation  they  are 
under  to  this  writer,  and  endeavours  to  for- 
ward his  views  of  enlightening  the  commu- 
nity by  a  still  more  popular  exposition  of  the 
subject.  Another  journal  (the  Edinburgh), 
hitherto  supposed  to  be  the  organ  of  truth, 
the  standard  of  accuracy,  and  the  inveterate 
foe  of  all  that  is  corrupt  and  mysterious, 
stands  forward  to  condemn  Mr.  Babbage  for 
presuming  to  assail  what  he  (Mr.  Babbage) 
proves  to  be  corrupt;  advocates  some  of  the 
worst  abuses  in  the  system  of  life  assurance, 
of  such  vital  importance  to  this  nation  at 
large  ;  and,  by  a  series  of  miscalculations 
and  unsupported  assert  ions,  endeavours  again 
to  mystify  the  public.  Why  should  the  advo- 
cate of  the  people's  rights  and  instruction 
now  labour  to  deceive  them  ?  We  hope  the 
answer  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  ill-gotten 
wealth  of  the  societies  whose  cause  he  advo- 
cates, and  in  the  frailty  of  human  nature. 

Improved  Hygrometer. — Until  Mr.  Da- 
niel's very  valuable  invention,  no  hygrometer 
existed  which  could  be  considered  in  any 
other  light  than  as  an  instrument  of  compa- 
rison, the  positive  value  of  the  zero  point 
being  undetermined.  By  a  very  simple  but 
ingenious  contrivance,  M.  Arago  has  so  far 
perfected  the  hair  hygrometer,  that,  by 
ascertaining  the  value  of  the  extreme  points, 
by  a  direct  comparison  with  Mr.  Daniel's  in- 
strument, the  intermediate  degrees  may  be 
known  with  great  accuracy.  The  principle 
of  his  machine  is  this:  the  wheel,  instead  of 
being  moved  by  the  expansion  and  contraction 
of  a  single  hair,  is  regulated  in  its  motion  by 
the  joint  effect  of  several  hairs,  connected 
together  by  small  slips  of  ebony,  resembling 
and  acting  as  splinter-bars  to  a  team  ;  and  a 
correct  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  nature  of 
the  instrument  by  describing  on  paper  the 
manner  in  which  horses  are  harnessed  to  the 
pole  of  a  carriage,  only  substituting  for  the 
pole  itself  the  silk  band  which  embraces  the 
periphery  of  the  wheel  of  the  hygrometer. 

Scientific  Trifles. — We  have  heard  of 
"  splitting  straws  j"  and,  in  fact,  there  is  a 
little  contrivance  for  the  purpose,  by  no 
means  a  diminutive  limb  of  the  law,  but  a 
small  cheap  machine,  for  enabling  our  work- 
men to  perfect  the  manufacture  of  straw  hats. 
A  very  ingenious  gentleman  has  recently  in- 
vented an  engine,  to  be  moved  by  steam  or  any 
other  adequate  power,  for  cutting,  splitting, 
and  binding  fire-wood  into  bundles.  This 
happy  illustration  of  the  old  adage  of  "break- 
ing a  gnat  upon  a  wheel  "  is,  we  learn  from 
Newton's  Journal,  the  subject  of  a  patent — 
a  useless  waste  of  mone,y,  the  cost  of  the 
machine  being  sufficient  to  supply  all  London 


655 


with  manual-cut,  split,  and  bound  fire-wood 
for  years,  if  not  for  ages.  This  last,  how- 
ever, is  far  surpassed  by  "  another  perpetual 
motion,  by  Sir  W.  Congreve,"  contrived,  no 
doubt,  for  the  benefit  of  the  numerous  mining 
companies  in  which  the  baronet  was  so  large 
a  proprietor  ;  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  sort  of 
water-wheel,  to  be  worked  by  the  force  of 
capillary  attraction,  accumulating  a  weight 
of  water  greater  on  one  side  than  on  the 
other,  and  that  sufficient,  he  believes,  not 
only  to  overcome  the  friction  of  the  wheel, 
but  to  afford  a  surplus  of  power  for  any  re- 
quired purpose.  Sir  W.  Congreve  may  be- 
lieve he  could  thus  neutralize  the  frictioa  of 
his  wheel  ;  others  know  that  he  could  not  : 
but  he  is  a  great  projector. 

Situation  of  Benares.—  The  exact  situa- 
tion of  Benares,  so  celebrated  in  the  history 
of  Hindu  astronomy,  and  containing  such 
stupendous  but  rude  instruments  of  observa- 
tion, has  been  recently  determined  by  Messrs. 
Cracroft  and  Prinsep  :  the  latitude  of  the  ob- 
servatory is  25°.  18'.  33".  N.  ;  the  longitude 
is  82°.  35'.  52-5".  E.  of  Greenwich. 

Barometrical  Measurements.  —  Although 
the  corrections  applied  to  formulae  in  physics 
are,  in  very  many  instances,  carried  much  too 
far  for  all  practical  purposes,  still,  where 
modern  discoveries  suggest  modifications 
which  are  likely  to  produce  any  sensible  ef- 
fect upon  the  result,  we  think  they  should 
receive  all  possible  publicity  ;  and,  therefore, 
present  the  following  formulae  for  deter- 
mining heights  by  the  barometer  —  the  result 
of  a  long  dissertation  of  Mr.  Anderson,  in- 
serted in  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical  Jour- 
nal :  — 


l  -f 


h  (the  height  in  fathoms)  =10000  J 

m^^m^ 


0.0og086 


t  and  t'  represent  the  temperatures  of  t he  air 
at  the  lower  and  higher  stations ;/  and/',  the 
elastic  forces  of  the  vapour  at  these  stations  j 
b  and  It'  the  heights  of  the  barometer,  the 
second  being  reduced  to  the  temperature  of 
the  instrument  at  the  lower  station.  The 
temperature  is  expressed  in  Fahrenheit's 
scale. 

A  Hint  to  Florists. — The  impetuous  ca- 
reer of  modern  research  has  led  to  the  neglect 
of  numerous  discoveries,  if  not  always  of  ge- 
neral utility,  at  least  frequently  pleasing  in 
their  application.  In  one  of  the  volumes  of 
the  Philadelphia  Transactions,  a  method  of 
preserving  or  of  recovering  flowers  when 
culled  for  ornament  is  recorded — for  the  in- 
sertion of  which  our  London  readers,  at  least, 
will  feel  indebted  to  us.  It  is  the  substitution 
of  camphorated  for  plain  water ;  and  if  this 
be  frequently  changed,  a  flower  must  be  very 
far  gone  if  it  do  not  return  to  its  original  vi- 
gour, although  it  may  require  a  longer  or  a 
shorter  time.  We  have  recently  seen  the  ex- 
periment tried  with  two  slips  of  lilac,  which 


f.56 

were  allowed  to  become  perfectly  flaccid: 
one  of  them  was  then  immersed  in  a  vessel  of 
plain  water,  the  other  in  one  of  camphorated 
water.  The  former  became  more  and  more 
languid,  and  soon  died  ;  while  the  latter,  after 
an  apparent  struggle  of  several  hours,  entirely 
recovered,  and,  in  a  day  or  two,  displayed 
two  additional  leaves. 

Perkins's  Steam- Engine. — The  following 
testimonial  regarding  the  merits  of  Mr.  Per- 
kins's steam-engine,  signed  by  several  re- 
spectable engineers,  has  been  published  by 
Mr.  Newton  ;  and  containing  as  it  does  the 
most  recent  information  respecting  this  admi- 
rable invention,  we  doubt  not  that  our  read- 
ers will  be  interested  in  its  perusal.  They 
state  tbat,having  made  themselves  practically 
acquainted  with  Perkins's  high  pressure  safety 
steam-engine,  they  do  not  hesitate  to  state, 
that  he  has  established  the  following  new  and 
important  facts  in  the  construction  of  his  en- 
gine:— 1.  Absolute  safety;  2.  Greater  eco- 
nomy in  fuel  than  in  any  other  engine 
hitherto  invented;  3.  The  removal  of  all  the 
reaction  of  the  steam  and  atmospheric  air 
on  the  eduction  side  of  the  piston,  without  the 
necessity  of  an  air-pump  ;  4.  A  new  and 
simple  flexible  metallic  piston,  requiring  no 
oil  nor  lubrication  whatever  ;  5.  A  reduction 
of  three- fourths  of  the  weight  and  bulk,  by 
very  much  simplifying  certain  complicated 
parts  of  steam-engines,  and  substituting  a 
very  simple  eduction-valve  for  the  one  com- 
monly used  both  for  eduction  and  induction ; 
— by  which  means  a  reduction  is  made  in  the 
size  of  the  engine,  a  saving  of  power  is  ef- 
fected and  a  diminution  of  friction,  less  wear 
and  tear  occur,  and  less  destrnctibility  of 
materials;  and,  lastly,  the  joints,  by  Mr.  Per- 
kins's peculiar  mode  of  connecting,  are  more 
easily  made  secure  and  tight,  even  with  the 
steam  at  a  pressure  of  one  thousand  pounds  to 
the  square  inch,  than  the  joints  of  the  low 
pressure  condensing  engines. 

Salt  Springs  at  Salinn. — The  follow  ing 
is  an  abstract  of  an  interesting  account  of  the 
salt  springs  at  Salina,  in  the  state  of  New 
York,  which  was  published  at  the  end  of  last 
year  in  America,  and  has  not,  we  believe, 
been  noticed  by  any  English  journalist.  The 
salt  springs  in  question  are  situated  near 
the  lake  Arondaga,  130  miles  to  the  west 
of  Albany :  the  lake  is  six  miles  in  length, 
and  one  broad,  and,  although  surrounded  on 
every  side  by  copious  salt  springs,  its  water  is 
not  in  the  least  affected  by  a  similar  taste,  at 
least  at  the  surface.  The  sides  of  the  lake  are 
marshy,  and  at  Saliua  the  marsh  is  of  a  con* 


Ju\B, 

siderable  extent.  The  salt  water  there  issues 
from  a  black  earth,  through  small  orifices, 
and  is  collected  into  reservoirs  for  evapora- 
tion. The  valley  of  Arondaga  is  many  feet 
below  the  level  of  the  adjacent  plains :  on 
the  surface  is  found  a  black  stratum  of  very 
muddy  earth,  from  three  to  four  feet  in  thick- 
ness ;  then  follows  a  bed  of  marie,  varying  in 
depth  from  three  to  twelve  feet,  and  contain- 
ing many  organic  remains.  According  to  the 
analysis  of  Mr.  Beck,  the  salt  water  consists 
of,  for  1,000  parts  of  water,  of  carbonic  acid, 
0-77;  sulphuric  acid,  2-46;  muriatic  acid, 
69-20;  lime,  4 -50;  magnesia,  1-12;  soda, 

Mineral  Waters  in  India.  —  Upon  an 
analysis  of  the  medicinal  waters  of  Bridhkal 
Kund,  the  same  as  those  of  Benares,  we  learn 
from  the  last  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Re- 
searches, Sir  James  Prinsep  found  that  1,000 
parts  of  the  water  contained,  of  carbonate  of 
lime,  1-33  ;  sulphate  of  soda,  0-75;  muriate 
of  magnesia,  0-94;  muriate  of  soda,  2-10; 
nitrates  of  potash  and  of  soda,  2'46  :  total, 
740. 

The  eleventh  anniversery  meeting  of  the 
governors  of  the  Royal  Dispensary  for  dis- 
eases of  the  ear,  was  lately  held,  when  it  ap- 
peared that,  since  the  establishment  of  the 
charity  in  1816,  upwards  of  6,540  patients 
have  been  received,  2,620  cured,  and  1,930 
relieved.  Out  of  this  number  200  persons, 
afflicted  with  nervous  deafnes?,  who  were  out 
of  employment,  have  been  cured  or  relieved, 
and  thereby  rendered  capable  of  following 
their  various  avocations. 

At  this  meeting,  Mr.  Curtis,  the  surgeon  of 
the  institution,  remarked,  how  little  atten- 
tion had  been  paid  to  this  important  organ, 
in  consequence  of  its  mechanism  being  so 
extremely  complicated,  and  little  known;  but 
observed,  that  it  was  only  by  a  knowledge  of 
its  anatomy,  joined  with  daily  experience  in 
practice,  that  its  physiology  and  diseases 
could  be  thoroughly  understood  ;  hence  these 
considerations  should  be  a  powerful  incentive 
to  its  study;  for,  had  medical  men  rested 
satisfied  with  what  was  formerly  known  of 
the  complex  mechanism  of  the  heart,  the 
great  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
would  never  have  taken  place,  for  it  is  only 
by  persevering  investigation  that  we  can  ar- 
live  at  our  object ;  and  he  assured  the  gover- 
nors, from  the  liberal  encouragement  that  he 
had  received,  nothing  should  be  wanting  on 
las  part  to  extend  the  knowledge  of  acoustic 
surgery. 


WORKS  IN  THE  PRESS,  AND  NEW  PUBLICATIONS. 

WORKS    IN   PREPARATION. 


Miss  Roberts >&  long-expected  work  is  on 
the  we  of  publication  j  it  is  entitled,  Me- 
moirs of  the  Rival  Houses  of  York  and  Lan- 
caster, Historical  and  Biographical ;  embrac- 
ing a  Period  of  English  History  from  the  Ac- 


cession of  Richard  II,  to  the  Death  of  Henry 
VII.  The  author  has  been  at  considerable 
research,  and  report  speaks  very  favourably 
of  the  performance. 

The  MS.  Herbal  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
is,  we  understand,  for  sale  in  London.  It 
consists  of  eight  volumes  in  4to.,  containing 


1827.] 


Lift  of  New  Works. 


6,57 


about  800  different  sorts  of  Plants,  in  a  high 
state  of  preservation,  with  their  various  de- 
scriptions, in  the  hand-writing  of  J.  J.  Rous- 
seau. It  is  extremely  curious. 

A  very  superior  edition,  in  6  vol.«.  4to.  (the 
price  not  to  exceed  6  guineas),  of  Matthew 
Henry's  Commentary  on  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  with  an  Introduction  by  the  Rev. 
E.  Bickersteth,  Assistant  Minister  of  Wheler 
Chapel,  author  of  Scripture  Help,  &c.,  is  in 
the  press,  and  will  be  speedily  published. 

Early  in  June  will  be  published,  Rambles 
in  Madeira  and  Portugal  in  the  early  part  of 
1826,  with  an  Appendix,  illustrative  of  the 
Climate,  Produce,  and  Civil  History  of  the 
Island,  in  post  8vo. 

Also,  Views  in  the  Madeiras,  executed  on 
stone,  by  West  a  11,  Nicholson,  Viileneuve, 
Harding,  Gauce,  <fcc. ;  from  drawings  taken 
on  the  spot,  illustrating  the  most  remark- 
able scenes  and  objects  in  the  islands. 

A  new  and  copious  General  Index  to  the 
edition  of  Calmet's  Dictionary  of  i he  Bible, 
in  6  vols.4to.,  edited  by  the  late  Mr.  C.Tay- 
lor, is  in  the  press. 

A  Vocabulary  to  the  CEdipus  Tyranuus  of 
Sophocles,  with  the  derivation  and  compo- 
sition of  the  Words,  with  References  and 
Explanations,  by  George  Hughes.  M.  A.,  is 
nearly  ready. 

Mr.  Butler,  of  Hackney,  has  in  the  press 
his  Questions  in  RToman  History. 

Messrs.  Christ  and  Co.  (late  of  Ft  ankfort- 
on-1he-Main,  and  now  of  London),  have  dis- 
covered a  meibod  of  enamelling  cards,  and 
printing  on  them  in  ink,  gold,  silver,  and 
other  metals.  These  enamelled  cards  for 
visiting,  invitation,  aad  other  purposes,  have 
an  extremely  elegant  appearance,  and  for 
painting  on  they  answer  all  the  purposes  of 
ivory.  A  card  lately  printed  printed  fur 
Messrs.  Treuttel  and  Wurtz,  in  gold,  is  very 
beautiful. 

Mr.  W.  B.  Coo ke  announces  Thirty  Views 
in  Rome,  drawn  and  engraved  by  M.  Pinelli, 
of  Rome,  and  printed  in  gold,  by  the  newly- 
discovered  process. 

A  History  of  the  Cities  of  London  and 
Westminster,  the  Borough  of  Southwark,  and 
Parts  adjacent,  is  in  course  of  publication,  in 
weekly  numbers.  By  Thomas  Allen,  author 
of  the  History  of  Lambeth,  <fec.  <fec.  Illus- 
trated by  numerous  engravings  of  Rare  Plans, 
Antiquities,  Views,  Public  Buildings,  cfee. 

Mr.  W.  I.  Thorns  announces,  in  continua- 
tion of  his  series  of  Early  Prose  Romances, 
which  he  is  publishing  in  a  very  agreeable 
form,  that  very  rare  and  curious  fiction, 
which  treats  of  the  "  Life  of  Virgilius  and  of 
his  Death,  and  of  the  many  Marvayles  that 
he  did  by  Whyche-crafte  and  Negromaucy, 
through  the  help  of  the  Devils  of  Hell.'' 

A  Solemn  Appeal  to  the  Common  Sense  of 
England,  against  the  Principles  of  the  Right 
Hon.  George  Canning,  and  his  Associates, 
by  an  English  Protestant,  is  on  the  eve  of 
publication. 

A  member  of  the  University  of  Cambridge 

M.M.  New  Scries.— Vol..  III.  No.  18. 


has  in  the  press,  The  Elements  of  Euclid, 
containing  the  first  six  and  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  books,  chiefly  from  the  text  of  Dr. 
Simson ;  adapted  to  elementary  instruction 
by  the  introduction  of  Symbols. 

Mr.  J.  P.  Neale  will,  in  the  course  of  the 
ensuing  autu.nn,  resume  the  publication  of 
his  work  of  Noblemen  and  Gentlemen's 
Seats,  which  has  been  suspended  for  a  few- 
months,  in  consequence  of  the  time  required 
to  collect  views  and  information  relative  to 
the  respective  mansions. 

Mr.  Elijah  Galloway  announces  a  History 
of  the  Steam-Engine,  from  its  earliest  inven- 
tion to  the  present  time  ;  illustrated  by  nu- 
merous Engravings  from  original  Drawings. 

Some  Account  of  Llangollen  and  its  Vici- 
nity, including  a  Circuit  of  about  Seven 
Miles,  is  in  the  press. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Russell  will  shortly  publish, 
in  2  vols.  8vo.,  the  Connexion  of  Sacred  and 
Profane  History,  from  the  Death  of  Joshua 
until  the  Decline  of  the  Kingdoms  of  Israel 
and  Judah ;  intended  to  complete  the  works 
of  Shuekford  and  Prideaux. 

Mr.  W.  Harvey  announces  an  Account  of 
Hayti,  from  the  Expulsion  of  the  French  to 
the  Death  of  Christophe. 

A  volume  of  Original  Prose  Fictions,  by 
various  authors,  entitled,  Tales  of  all  Na- 
tions, is  in  the  press. 

The  Poetical  Works  of  Collins,  with  ample 
Biographical  and  Critical  Notes,  by  the  Rev. 
Alexander  Dyce,  is  nearly  ready.  Also,  the 
Dramatic  Works  of  John  Webster ;  now  first 
collected,  with  Notes,  by  the  same  Gentle- 
man. 

The  Angelo  Anecdotes,  containing  Me- 
moirs of  the  celebrated  Fencing  Master,  An- 
gelo, from  the  middle  of  the  last  Century  to 
the  present  time,  with  a  muitiiude  of  Con- 
temporary Notices,  will  be  shortly  published. 

The  first  number  of  a  Series  of  Lithogra- 
phic Views  in  the  Brazils,  together  with 
Scenes  of  the  Manners,  Customs,  and  Cos- 
tume of  the  Inhabitants,  from  Drawings  by 
Maurice  Ruguedas,  a  German  artist,  is  on  the 
eve  of  publication.  It  will  be  accompanied 
by  letter-press  description,  under  the  super- 
intendence of  Baron  Humboldt. 

A  new  work  of  the  celebrated  Le  Brun,  on 
Comparative  Physiognomy,  is  about  to  be 
offered  to  the  public.  It  consists  of  thirty- 
seven  large  Designs  in  Lithography,  by  En- 
gelmann  and  Co.,  developing  the  Relation 
between  the  Human  Physiognomy  and  that 
of  the  Brute  Creation ;  with  a  Dissertation  on 
the  System. 

The  third  number  of  Views  in  Scotland, 
from  Drawings  by  F.  Nicholson,  Esq.,  will 
be  shortly  published. 


LIST    OF  NEW   WORKS. 

EDUCATION,   &C. 

The  Elements  of  Plane  Trigonometry,  da- 
signed  for  the  Use  of  Students  in  the  Uni- 
veisity.     By  John  Hind,  M.A.,  late  Fellow 
4  P 


658 


List  of  New  Works. 


ami  Tutor  of  Sidney  Sussex  College,  Cam- 
bridge. Price  10s.  6d. 

Conversations  on  Mythology.  12 mo.  5s. 
boards. 

Vlieland's  Complete  Course  of  the  French 
Language.  8vo.  16s.  6d.  hoards. 

A  Grammar  of  the  Hebrew  Language, 
with  Points ;  together  with  a  short  Sketch  of 
the  Chaldee  Grammar.  By  Selig  Newman, 
Professor  of  the  Hebrew  Language.  8vo. 
6s.  6d.  boards. 

FINE    ARTS. 

Practical  Hints  on  the  General  Manage- 
ment of  Colour,  in  a  Picture  ;  illustrated  by 
coloured  Specimens.  By  John  Burnet.  4to. 
11.  1  Is.  6d.  Royal  4to.  21.  5s. 

Designs  for  Parsonage-houses,  Alms- 
houses,  &c. ;  arranged  to  accord  with  Village 
Scenery.  By  T.  F.  Hunt,  author  of  Half  a 
Dozen  Hints  on  Picturesque  Domestic  Ar- 
chitecture." 4to. 

Select  Views  in  Greece.  Part  V  (II.  En- 
graved in  the  best  Line-Manner,  from  Draw- 
ings. By  H.  W.  Williams,  Esq.,  Edinburgh. 
In  imperial  8vo.  12s;  proofs  on  India  paper, 
royal  4to.  11.  Is. ;  a  few  impressions  taken 
off  on  India  paper,  before  the  descriptive 
writing,  11.  11s.  6d. 

Heraldic  Notices  of  Canterbury  Cathedral, 
with  Genealogical  and  Topographical  Notes. 
By  Thomas  Willement.  Post  4to.  25s.  bds. 
Royal  4to.  11.  1 8s. 

HISTORY,  BIOGRAPHY,  &C. 

Personal  Sketches  of  His  Own  Times. 
By  Sir  Jonah  Burrington,  Judge  of  the  High 
Court  of  Admiralty  in  Ireland.  2  vols.  8vo. 
28s.  bds. 

Memoir  of  the  Life  and  Character  of  Mr. 
Robert  Spence,  of  York.  12mo.  4s.  6d.  bds. 

Memoirs  acd  Correspondence  of  Mr.  John 
Urquhart,  with  a  portrait.  By  William  Orme. 
2  vols.  12mo.  Price  10s. 

Reminiscences  of  Thomas  Dibdin.  2  vols. 
8vo.  28s.  boards. 

The  Life  of  King  Arthur,  from  Ancient 
Historians  and  Authentic  Documents.  By 
Stephen  Ritson,  Esq. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

The  East- India  Register  and  Directory  for 
1827.  I  Os. 

History  of  the  Transmission  of  Ancient 
Books  to  Modern  Times.  By  Isaac  Taylor, 
jun.  1  vol.  8vo.  8s.  boards. 

Register  of  the  Arts  and  Sciences.  Vol. IV., 
with  200  Engravings. 

Substance  of  the  Speech  of  J.  Poynder, 
Esq.  at  the  Courts  of  Proprietors  of  East- 
India  Stock,  held  on  the  21st  and  28th  days 
of  March,  1827.  8vo.  6s.  boards. 

An  Essay  on  the  Utility  of  Collecting  the 
best  Works  of  the  Ancient  Engravers  of  the 
Italian  School;  with  a  Critical  Catalogue 
and  interesting  Anecdotes  of  the  Engravers. 
By  George  Cumberland.  4to.  21.  boards. 

Bibliotheca  Sussexiana  ;  a  descriptive  Cata- 
logue of  the  Library  of  H.R.H.  the  Duke  of 
Sussex ;  with  Historical  and  Biographical 
Notices.  By  T.  J.  Pettigrew,  F.R.S.  F.A.S. 


F.L.S.,  Doctor  of  Philosophy  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Gottingen,  Surgeon  and  Librarian  to 
H.R.H.  &c.  Illustrated  with  twenty  Plates, 
including  a  highly  finished  Portrait  of  H.R.H. 
the  Duke  of  Sussex.  Vol.  1.  in  two  Parts. 
Royal  8vo.  31. 13s.  6d.  boards. 

A  Treatise  on  English  Versification.  By 
the  Rev.  W.  Crew.  Small  8vo.  8s.  6d. 

A  Letter  to  the  Right.  Hon.  Robert  Peel, 
on  the  proposed  Changes  in  the  Laws  of  Real 
Property,  and  on  Modern  Conveyancing.  By 
J.  H  Christie,  Esq.,  Barrister  at  Law. 

The  Subordinate  Magistracy  and  Parish 
System  considered  in  their  Connexion  with 
the  Causes  and  Remedies  of  Modern  Pauper* 
ism.  By  the  Rev.  C.  D.  Bereton. 

London  in  the  Olden  Times.  Second  Se- 
ries. Crown  8vo.  10s.  6d.  boards. 

Remarks  on  the  preseat  State  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Question.  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

Scenes  of  Industry.  12mo.  5s.  Hd.  half- 
bound. 

Cura  Oxoniensis  ;  or,  Observations  on  the 
Statutes  which  relate  to  the  University  Court, 
on  the  Illegality  of  Searching  Houses,  on  the 
Procuratorial  Office,  and  on  the  University 
Police  Act.  2s.  6d. 

The  Trial  of  Edward  Gibbon  Wakefield. 
Taken  in  Short-hand  by  Mr.  A.  Frankland, 
Assistant  to  Mr.  Gurney.  Post  8vo.  6s.  6d. 
boards. 

Beldam  on  the  Law  of  Dissenters.  12mo. 
7s.  boards. 

Catholicism  in  Austria  ;  or,  an  Epitome 
of  the  Austrian  Ecclesiastical  Law  ;  with  a 
Dissertation  on  the  Rights  and  Duties  of  the 
English  Government,  with  respect  to  the 
Irish  Catholics.  By  Count  Ferdinand  Da] 
Pozzo.  8vo.  9s.  6d.  boards. 

Ram  on  the  Law  of  Wills.  8vo.  10s.  6d, 
boards. 

Price's  Exchequer  Practice.  Part.  I, 
Royal  8vo.  18s.  sewed. 

Scott's  Worthies ;  new  edition ;  by  M. 
Gavin.  8vo.  J2s.  boards. 

NOVELS,  TALES,  &C. 

The  Prairie  ;  a  Tale.  By  the  Author  oi 
the  Spy,  the  Pioneers,  &c.  3  vols.  12 mo, 
24s. 

The  Pioneers;  a  Tale.  Second  edition 
3  vols.  ISfmo.  18s. 

The  Guards;  a  Novel.  3  vols.  post  8vo 
28s.  6d.  boards. 

German  Fairy  Tales,  illustrated  by  Cruik- 
shank.  I2mo.  4s.  boards. 

High  Life ;  a  Novel.  3  vols.  post  8vo. 

The  Adventures  of  Nafragus.  8vo.  8s, 
boards. 

Dissipation;  a  Novel.  4  vols.  12mo, 
24s.  boards. 

The  Pine-Tree  Dell,  a  German  Legend 
and  other  Tales.  2  vols.  postSvo.  18s. 

Karnath,  an  Arabian  Tale.  12mo.  8s 
boards. 

RELIGION,    MORALS,   &C. 

Selections  from  the  Works  of  the  Rev 
John  Howe.  By  the  Right  Rev.  Djr,  Wuson 
With  Life  and  Portrait.  2  vols.  1  8mb.  6s. 


1827,] 


List  of  New  Works. 


659 


Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Revelation. 
8vo.  10s.  6d.  boards. 

Directions  for  the  Study  of  Theology,  in 
a  Series  of  Letters  from  a  Bishop  to  his  Son, 
on  the  Admission  into  Holy  Orders.  8vo. 
10s.  6d.  boards. 

Sermons  on  the  Ten  Commandments, 
12mo.  4s.  6d.  boards. 

Adaptations  of  Scripture  to  Family  Devo- 
tion. Royal  J8mo.  3s.  cloth. 

Morning  Thoughts,  in  Prose  and  Verse, 
on  Portions  of  the  Successive  Chapters  in  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Mark.  By  the  Rev.  J.  W. 
Cunningham, Vicar  of  Harrow.  12mo.  2s.  6d. 
boards. 

Sermons  preached  in  the  Parish  Church  of 
Richmond,  Surry.  By  the  Hon.  and  Rev. 
G.T.  Noel.  8vo.  I0s.6d.  boards. 

A  Popular  Commentary  on  the  Bible,  in  a 
Series  of  Sermons,  following  in  the  Old 
Testament  the  Course  of  the  First  Lessons  at 
Morning  and  Evening  Service.  By  the  Rev. 
J.  Piumptre,  B.D.  2  vols.  8vo.  26s. 

A  Review  and  Analysis  of  Bishop  Bull's 
Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of  Justification. 
By  Robert  Nelson  Esq.  J2mo.   10s. 
POETRY. 

The  Shipwreck  ;  a  Tale  of  Arabia,  and 
other  Poems.  By  A.  E.  P.  12mo.  7s.  boards. 

Tales  of  the  Harem.  By  Mrs.  Pickersgill. 
12mo.  6s.  6d.  boards. 

The  Reign  ing  Vice.  12mo.  6s.  6d.  boards. 

SURGERY,  MEDICINE,  &C. 

Observations  on  the  Causes  and  Early 
Symptoms  of  Defects  in  the  Form  of  the 
Spine,  Chest,  and  Shoulders,  and  on  the 
Means  of  correcting  them.  By  J.  Shaw, 
Surgeon  of  the  Middlesex  Hospital.  8vo. 
6s.  boards. 


Macculloch  on  Malaria.  8vo.  18s.  boards. 

Dr.  Marshall  Hall  on  some  Diseases  of 
Females,  8vo.  18s.  boards. 

Observations  on  the  Necessity  of  establish- 
ing  a  different  System  of  affording  Medical 
Relief  to  the  Sick  Poor,  than  by  the  Practice 
of  contracting  with  Medical  Men,  or  the 
Farming  of  Parishes.  By  J.F.  Hulbert,  Mem- 
ber of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  &c. 
Is.  6J. 

VOYAGES,    TRAVELS,    &C. 

Travels  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  Finland 
Russia,  and  Turkey  ;  also,  on  the  Coasts  of 
the  Sea  of  Azof  and  of  the  Black  Sea.  By 
George  Matthew  Jones,  Captain  R.N.  2  vols. 
8vo.  30s.  boards. 

Sketches  of  Hayti,  from  the  Expulsion  of 
the  French  to  the  Death  of  Christophe. 
8vo.  10s.  boards. 

A  Tour  in  France,  Savoy,  Northern  Italy, 
Switzerland,  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands, 
in  the  Summer  of  1825 ;  including  some  Ob- 
servations on  the  Scenery  of  Neckar,  and  the 
Rhine.  By  Seth  William  Stevenson.  2  vols. 
Demy  8 vo.  21  s.  boards. 

Buckingham's  Travels  in  Mesopotamia. 
Second  edition.  2  vols.  8vo.  11.  11s.  6d. 
boards. 

Narrative  of  an  Excursion  to  the  Moun- 
tains of  Piedmont,  and  Researches  among  the 
Vaudois  or  Waldenses.  Fourth  edition.  Em- 
bellished with  Ten  Views  of  Scenery,  drawn 
on  Stone,  by  Nicholson.  8vo.  18s. 

Original  Letters  Illustrative  of  English 
History  ;  including  numerous  Royal  Letters 
from  Autographs  in  the  British  Museum, 
with  Notes.  By  Henry  Ellis,  F.R.S.  Second 
Series.  4  vols.  Post  8vo,  21.  8s.  boards. 


, 


PATENTS  FOR  MECHANICAL  AND  CHEMICAL  INVENTIONS. 


New  Patents  sealed,  1827. 

To  James  Whitaker,  of  Wardle,  near 
Rochdale,  for  certain  improvements  in  ma- 
chines or  machinery,  for  preparing  and  card- 
ing engines,  and  for  drawing,  stubbing,  and 
spinning  wool  and  cotton-  Sealed  24th  April; 
2  months. 

To  Carlo  Ghigo,  of  Fenchurch-street, 
loom- manufacturer,  for  improvements  in 
weaving  machinery — 24th  April ;  6  months. 

To  Morton  William  Lawrence,  61  Leman- 
street,  Goodman's  Fields,  for  an  improve- 
ment in  the  process  of  refining  sugar— 28th 
April  ;  6  months. 

To  Joseph  Anthony  Berollas,  of  Great 
Waterloo  Street,  in  the  parish  of  Lambeth, 
for  his  invention  of  a  detached  alarum  watch 
;  fm!j^r28th  April ;  2  months. 

To  Robert  Daws,  of  Margaret  Street,  Ca- 
vendish Square,  for  certain  improvements  on 
chairs  or  machines,  calculated  to  increase 
ease  and  comfort— 28th  April ;  6  months. 

To  Thomas  Breidenback,  of  Birmingham, 
for  improvements  in  certain  parts  of  bed- 
steads—28th  April ;  6  months. 


To  Benjamin  Somers,  of  Langford,  in  the 
parish  of  Bennington,  Somerset,  M.D.,  for 
certain  improvements  on  furnaces,  for  smelt- 
ing different  kinds  of  metals,  ores,  and  slaggs 
— 28th  April  ;  6  months. 

To  William  Lockyer,  of  Bath,  brush  maker, 
for  an  improvement  in  the  manufacture  of 
brushes  of  certain  descriptions,  and  in  the 
manufacture  of  a  material  or  materials,  and 
the  application  thereof  to  the  manufacture 
of  brushes  and  other  purposes — 28th  April ; 
6  months. 

To  Henry  Knight,  of  Birmingham,  clock- 
maker,  for  his  invention  of  a  machine  appa- 
ratus, or  method  for  ascertaining  the  atten- 
dance to  duty  of  any  watchman,  workman, 
or  other  person,  which  machine  apparatus  or 
method  is  also  applicable  to  other  purposes 
— 28th  April;  6  months. 

To  John  M'Curdy,  of  Cecil-street,  Strand, 
Esq.  for  an  invention  of  certain  improve- 
ments in  the  process  of  reeducation  of  spirits 
~ 28th  April;  6  months. 

To  John  Browne,  and  William  Duderidge 
Champion,  of  Bridge  water,  for  a  certain  com- 
4  P  3 


660 


List  of  Patents. 


[JUNE, 


position  or  substance,  which  may  be  maau- 
lectured  or  moulded  either  into  bricks  or  into 
blocks  of  any  form  for  building,  and  also 
manufactured  and  moulded  to,  and  made  ap- 
plicable for,  all  internal  and  external  orna- 
mental architectural  purposes,  and  for  va- 
rious other  purposes— 5th  May ;  2  months. 

To  David  Bentley,  of  Eccles,  Lancaster, 
bleacher,  for  an  improved  carriage  wheel — 
8th  May;  6  months. 

To  Thomas  Patrick  Goggin,  of  Wadwortb, 
near  Doncaster,  fora  new  or  improved  ma- 
chine for  dibbling  grain  of  every  description 
—  19th  May;  2  months. 

List  of  Patents,  which)  having  been  granted 

in    June   1813,    expire  in   the   present 

month  of  June  1827. 

5.  Charles  Wyatt,  London,  for  his  method 
of  facing  brick  and  other  buildings  with 
stone. 

—  Richard   Witty,   Kingston-upon-Hull, 


for  additional  improvements  in  steam-en- 
gines, and  in  tools  for  making  them. 

1,5.  William  Cooke,  Greenwich,  for  im- 
provements in  the  art  of  making  and  work- 
ing ploughs. 

26.  Charles  Goodwin,  London,  for  an  im- 
praved  self-adjusting  socket  for  candlesticks, 
ivith  a  self -extinguisher. 

29.  Thomas  Todd,  Bristol,  for  his  im- 
proved machine  for  separating  corn,  grain, 
and  seeds  from  the  straws. 

—  John   Curr,  Sheffield,  York,   for  his 
method  of  applying  flat  ropes  to  perpendi- 
cular drun-shafts  of  steam-engines,  thereby 
preserving  them  from  injury. 

—  James  Penny,  of  Low  Nuttiwaite,  and 
Joseph    Kendall,   of  Cocker's-hall,  Lanca- 
shire, for  an  improved  method  of  making 
pill  and  other  small  boxes. 

—  Charles  Wilks,  Ballincolly,  Cork,  for 
improved  naves  of  wheels  for  carriages,  and 
centres  of  wheels  for  carriages,  and  ma- 
chinery. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIRS  OF  EMINENT  PERSONS. 


FREDERICK  AUGUSTUS  KING  OF  SAXONY. 

Frederick  Augustus,  King  of  Saxony,  el- 
dest son  of  Frederick  Christian,  Elector  of 
Saxony,  was  born  on  the  23d  of  December, 
1750.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  succeeded 
his  father,  as  elector  ;  the  administration 
being  intrusted,  during  his  minority,  to  his 
eldest  uncle,  Prince  Xavier.  In  1768,  when 
he  assumed  the  government,  Saxony  was 
still  suffering  from  the  consequences  of  the 
seven  years  war;  but,  under  the  rule  of  the 
young  prince,  directed  by  his  minister,  Gut- 
schmidt,  it  soon  attained  a  comparatively 
flourishing  state.  In  the  course  of  a  few 
days,  bank  paper,  which  had  been  greatly 
depreciated,  rose  above  its  nominal  value. 

In  1769,  Frederick  Augustus  married  Mary 
Amelia  Augusta,  sister  of  the  elector,  after- 
wards King  of  Bavaria.  The  only  offspring 
of  the  marriage  was  one  daughter,  Mary 
Augusta,  born  in  1782,  and  married  in  1819, 
to  Ferdinand  VII.  King  of  Spain. 

In  the  early  part  of  Frederick's  electoral 
reign  the  ancient  Saxon  code,  notorious  for 
its  severity  in  criminal  cases,  was  greatly  me- 
liorated, and  the  torture  was  abolished.  In 
1776,  a  plot  was  formed  against  the  elector's 
person ;  but,  through  the  information  of  the 
King  of  Prussia,  it  was  discovered  in  time  to 
prevent  mischief,  and  Colonel  Agnolo,  a 
Transalpine,  the  chief  conspirator,  was  ar- 
rested. The  electress  dowager,  dissatisfied 
with  her  political  nullity  in  the  state,  was 
supposed  to  be  implicated  in  this  affair.  The 
sincere  attachment  to  the  elector,  at  this 
period,  evinced  by  Marcolini,  an  Italian,  be- 
longing to  the  household,  subsequently  pro- 
cured for  him  the  rank  of  minister. 

Maximilian,  elector  of  Bavaria,  the  last 
male  branch  of  his  house,  died,  in  1777.  The 
nearest  heir  to  his  personal  property  was  the 
mother  of  the  elector  of  Saxony ;  and,  to  en- 


force his  claims,  as  her  representative,  that 
prince  allied  himself  with  Frederick  Il.-of 
Prussia,  in  opposition  to  Austria,  which,  after 
a  brief  contest,  withdrew  her  claim,and  Frede- 
rick of  Saxony  became  possessed  of  half  a 
million  sterling  of  the  personal  effects  of  the 
deceased  elector. 

By  locality  of  situation,  as  well  as  by  po- 
litical connexion,  the  elector  of  Saxony  was 
induced  to  join  with  Prussia  to  watch,  if  not 
to  overawe  Austria.  He  was  also  one  of  the 
first  to  accede  to  the  alliance  of  princes,  pro- 
jected by  the  king  of  Prussia,  ostensibly  to 
support  the  neutrality  of  the  secondary  states 
of  the  empire,  but  virtually  to  operate  against 
the  schemes  of  Austria. 

In  1791,  Frederick  of  Saxony  magnani- 
mously declined  the  offer  of  the  crown  of 
Poland,  proffered  to  him  in  the  name  of  the 
Polish  nation.  In  the  same  year,  the  memo- 
rable conferences,  between  the  emperor  Leo- 
pold and  the  king  of  Prussia,  were  held  at 
Pilnitz,  one  of  Frederick's  country  houses.The 
elector  of  Saxony  was  unable  to  avert  the  pro- 
jected war  against  France ;  but  he  entered  into 
the  coalition  against  that  power  with  great 
reluctance.  In  the  ensuing  year,  when  the 
French  troops  invaded  the  Netherlands,  and 
the  districts  on  the  Lower  Rhine,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  furnish,  for  his  own  protection,  as  a 
prince  of  the  empire,  his  contingent  of  troops 
to  the  general  army.  For  four  years  he  ad- 
hered to  the  allies  ;  but  when,  after  the  treaty 
of  Basil,  between  Prussia  and  France,  the 
French  General  Jourdan  in  1796,  penetrated 
fnto  Franconia,  he  proposed  an  armistice, 
and  acted  on  the  principle  of  neutrality. 
During  the  congress  of  Rastadt,  from  1797 
to  1799,  he  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to 
preserve  the  integrity  of  the  empire.  In  the 
contest  between  France  and  Austria,  in  1805, 
he  remained  neutral ;  but,  from  his  con- 


1827.] 


Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons. 


661 


nexion  with  Prussia,  he  was  under  the  neces- 
sity of  granting  to  the  troops  of  that  power  a 
passage  through  Saxony,  and  also  to  furnish, 
in  the  following  year  a  body  of  22,000  auxi- 
liaries. The  victories  of  Jena  and  Auerstadt 
laid  open  his  territories  to  the  French :  the 
respect  due  to  his  personal  character  proved 
serviceable  to  his  people  ;  but,  as  the  price  of 
the  elector's  neutrality,  Buonaparte  subjected 
Saxony  to  heavy  requisitions,  and  to  a  con- 
tribution in  money  of  1,000,000  sterling.  To 
relieve  his  subjects,  the  elector  made  great 
advances  to  France,  out  of  his  own  personal 
treasury,  and  from  his  own  personal  estates. 

In  consequence  of  the  treaty  signed  at 
Posen,  in  December  1806,  the  fortifications 
of  Dresden  were  levelled  with  the  ground. 
Saxony,  however,  was  constituted  a  king- 
dom ;  and,  as  a  king,  the  elector  acceded  to 
the  confederation  of  the  Rhine.  The  subse- 
quent treaty  of  Tilsit  conveyed  to  the  new 
king  certain  provinces  detached  from  Prus- 
sia in  various  quarters.  Frederick  was,  on 
the  other  hand,  bound  to  maintain  a  body  of 
20,000  men  to  be  at  the  command  of  Buona- 
parte for  the  defence  of  France.  Conse- 
quently in  1809,  he  was  compelled  to  march 
his  troops  against  Austria  ;  but  it  was  evident 
that  the  proclamations  which  he  issued  from 
Frankfort,  whither  he  retired  whilst  his  states 
were  occupied  by  the  Austrians,  were  dictated 
by  his  French  connexion. 

The  king  of  Saxony  was  obliged  to  quit 
Dresden  on  the  approach  of  the  Russians,  in 
the  beginning  of  1813  ;  but  he  was  restored 
to  France  after  the  battles  of  Lutzen  and 
Bautzen ;  and  afterwards,  his  country  be- 
came the  seat  of  war.  Numerous  were  the 
disasters  by  which  its  utter  ruin  was  threat- 
ened. Ultimately,  the  king  of  Saxony  was 
conducted  to  Berlin,  while  a  Russian  general 
commanded  in  Dresden.  In  October  1814, 
the  Russian  officer  delivered  up  his  charge  to 
the  Prussians,  a  transfer  supposed  to  have 
been  long  previously  arranged.  Against  this 
arrangement  Frederick  made  a  most  energe- 
tic protest,  positively  refusing  his  consent  or 
acceptance  of  any  indemnification  whatsoever. 
At  length,  in  February  1815,  the  Emperors 
of  Russia  and  Austria,  and  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia, determined  that  the  King  of  Saxony 
should  relinquish  to  Prussia  a  tract  of  valua- 
ble country,  containing  1 64,000  inhabitants 
— that  he  should  lose  his  share  of  Poland— 
that  he  should  cede  tracts  of  land  to  Saxe 
Weimar  and  to  Austria — and  that  his  remain- 
ing territory  should  be  reduced  to  an  extent 
of  country,  inhabited  by  only  1,128,000 
Soon  afterwards,  Frederick  Augustus  unked 
his  contingent  of  troops  to  the  allied  armies, 
and  they  formed  a  part  of  the  army  of  occu- 
pation on  the  frontier  of  France.  His  efforts 
were  henceforward  sedulously  employed  in 
healing  the  deep  and  dangerous  wounds  of 
bis  kingdom.  Through  the  influence  of  the 
King  of  Prussia,  he,  on  the  1st  of  May  1817, 
acceded  to  the  Holy  Alliance. 


His  Majesty,  the  King  of  Saxony,  expired 
at  Dresden,  on  the  5th  of  May,  after  an  ill- 
ness of  two  days.  His  successor,  the  present 
king,  is  his  cousin,  of  the  same  name,  the 
son  of  his  uncle,  Maximilian,  and  Caroline 
Mary  Theresa  of  Parma.  He  was  born  on 
the  18th  of  May,  1797.  He  accompanied 
the  Saxon  troops  to  France  in  1815,  and  he 
was  then  contracted  with  a  daughter  of  the 
Emperor  of  Austria. 


THE  DEAN  OF  DURHAM. 
The  Very  Rev.  Charles  Henry  Hall,  D.D. 
Dean  of  Durham,  was  the  son  of  the  late 
Dean  of  Bocking.  He  was  born  about  the 
year  1763;  the  early  part  of  his  education 
was  received  at  Westminster;  whence,  in 
1779,  he  was  elected  a  student  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford.  In  1781  he  gained  the 
Chancellor's  prize  for  Latin  Verse;  took  the 
degree  of  B.A.  May  9,  1783 ;  and,  in  the 
following  year,  he  obtained  the  prize  for  the 
English  essay  on  the  Use  of  Medals.  He 
became  M.A.January  26,  1786;  B.D.  June 
30,  1794;  and  in  1798  was  appointed  to 
preach  the  Bampton  Lectures.  He  took  the 
degree  of  D.D.  Oct  23,  1800  ;  and,  in  1807, 
on  the  resignation  of  Bishop  Randolph, 
he  was  appointed  Regius  Professor  of  Di- 
vinity. In  1809  he  succeeded  Dr.  Cyril 
Jackson,  as  Dean  of  Christ  Church;  and, 
in  1824,  he  was  appointed  to  the  Deanery  of 
Durham.  Having  proceeded  to  Edinburgh 
for  medical  advice,  he  died  at  an  hotel 
there,  from  a  violent  accession  of  fever,  on 
he  16th  of  March. 


LORD    CREMORNE. 

Richard  Thomas  Dawson,  Baron  Cre- 
morne,  of  Castle  Dawson,  in  the  county  of 
Monaghan,  was  a  descendant  fi'om  the  Daw- 
sons  of  Spaldington,  in  the  county  of  York, 
one  of  whom  married  into  the  family  of 
Henry  Usher,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  Pri- 
mate of  Ireland,  <fec.  and  thus  obtained  con- 
siderable property  in  the  counties  of  Armagh 
and  Tyrone.  Thomas  Dawson  was  created 
Baron  Darbrey  in  1770  ;  advanced  to  the  dig- 
nity of  Viscount  Cremorne  in  1785,  and  made 
Baron  Cremorne  in  1 797.  The  nobleman  whose 
decease  this  notice  records,  was  born  on  the 
31st  of  August,  1788.  He  succeeded  his 
granduncle,  Thomas,  Viscount  Cremorne,  in 
the  Barony,  on  the  1st  of  March,  1813,  when 
the  titles  of  Viscount  Cremorne  and  Baroa 
Dartrey  became  extinct.  His  Lordship 
married,  in  1815,  Anne,  third  daughter  of 
John  Whaley,  of  Whaley  Abbey,  in  the 
county  of  Wicklow,  Esq.  (by  Anne,  eldest 
daughter  of  John  Meade,  Earl  of  Clanwil- 
liam.)  He  had  a  son  born  in  December, 
1815,  v^ho  died  an  infant,  and  another  son, 
his  successor,  born  in  September,  1817.  His 
Lordship  died  on  the  21st  of  March,  at  Daw- 
son  Grove,  in  the  county  of  Monaghan. 


[       662      J  [JUNE, 

•TCiiflflf  If'CTo  arfJ  at  ylno  Wsi? 
MONTHLY  MEDICAL  REPORT.  ^  &  n7^J 

THOSB  derangements  of  the  biliary  system  which  were  described  in  the  last  commuirf- 
cation  have  continued  to  shew  themselves  during  the  month  now  elapsed,  and  in  most 
instances  they  have  been  accompanied  by  fever.  To  so  great  an  extent  indeed  have  com- 
plaints of  this  nature  prevailed,  that  the  reporter,  if  called  upon  to  name  the  most  generally 
diffused  disorder  of  this  period,  would  designate  it  by  the  title  of  gastric  fever.  This  term 
is  of  French  origin,  and  of  recent  introduction  into  medical  phraseology,  but  it  will  probably 
become  soon  naturalized  in  our  language,  from  its  being  so  admirably  fitted  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  essential  features  of  a  very  common  and  very  distressing  malady.  A  sense 
of  weight,  tightness,  uneasiness,  or  of  actual  pain  at  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  accompanied 
with  headache  and  giddiness,  and  the  usual  evidences  of  febrile  excitement,  viz.  languor, 
lassitude,  alternate  flushesand  chills,  and  weakness  of  the  back  and  limbs,  are  the  charac- 
teristic symptoms  of  the  disease.  With  these  are  generally  associated  an  uneasiness  in 
breathing,  commonly  described  under  the  name  of  a  catch  in  the  breath.  The  practitioner 
of  experience  will  readily  distinguish  this  from  the  painful  respiration  which  attends  inflam- 
mation of  the  serous  lining  of  the  ribs  and  lungs,  and  the  difficult  or  laborious  breathing 
which  results  from  the  deposition  of  extraneous  matter,  whether  solid  or  fluid,  within  the 
thoracic  cavity.  The  pathologist  will  at  once  refer  it  to  some  cause  extraneous  to  the 
chest;  and  he  will  easily  perceive  how  a  weakened,  and  consequently  a  distended 
stomach  opposes  the  free  and  naturally  insensible  descent  of  the  diaphragm,  and  occasion* 
the  act  of  breathing  to  be  attended  with  a  constant,  and  therefore  unpleasant,  consciousness^ 
To  these  pat  ho  gno  manic  characters  of  gastric  fever  various  others  are  superadded,  depend- 
ing principally  upon  the  constitutional  tendencies  of  the  individual  suffering  under  the 
attack.  Thus  in  young  women  they  will  be  found  associated  with  the  globus  hystericus, 
a  disposition  to  syncope,  and  a  weak  tremulous  pulse.  In  persons  more  advanced  in  life, 
who  take  their  daily  allowance  of  wine,  and  use  exercise  but  sparingly,  the  decided 
evidences  of  flow  of  blood  to  the  head  will  probably  manifest  themselves. 

This  may  serve  as  a  sketch  of  the  prevailing  malady  of  the  present  month.  No  particular 
difficulties  have  been  experienced  in  the  management  of  it.  Where  the  strength  of  the 
patient's  habit  was  such  as  to  admit  of  the  operation  of  active  remedies,  the  union  of 
calomel  and  antimony  has  proved  singularly .  serviceable.  The  heightening  of  the  effect  of 
particular  drugs  by  combination  is  a  principle  well  known  to  physicians,  arid  admirably 
exemplified  in  the  instances  of  Dover's  Powder,  and  Cathartic  Extract.  The  principle  is 
equally  well  illustrated  in  the  case  of  calomel  and  antimony.  This  union  of  two  powerful 
drugs  supplies  us  with  an  evacuant  remedy  of  very  extensive  operation,  influencing  indeed 
the  whole  series  of  the  natural  functions ;  and  it  will  be  found  highly  efficacious  in  all 
those  cases  of  fever  which  are  of  fortuitous  origin.  Within  four  or  five  hours  after  being 
received  into  the  circulation,  its  influence  will  become  apparent.  The  liver  is  perhaps  the 
first  to  feel  it,  and  the  biliary  ducts  are  emulged.  If  the  stomach  be  at  all  irritable, 
vomiting  now  takes  place.  In  a  short  time  afterwards  the  bowels  are  relieved.  A  second 
dose,  administered  the  following  day,  will  in  many  cases  complete  the  cure,  by  further 
relaxing  the  skin  and  the  kidneys.  By  assuming  this  as  the  basis  of  treatment  in  gastric 
fever,  it  is  not  meant  to  infer  that  other  remedies  will  not  afford  effectual  aid.  In  many 
cases  indeed  they  are  indispensable.  Leeches  to  the  pit  of  the  stomach  are  often  a  valuable 
preparative,  and  the  stimulus  of  aether  and  of  camphor  is  frequently  required  to  support  the 
system  under  the  exhausting  effects  of  so  powerful  a  medicine. 

Disorders  of  the  respiratory  organs  have  been  very  generally  met  with  during  the  pre* 
ceding  mouth,  but  not  more  perhaps  than  the  season  would  warrant  us  in  expecting.  An 
English  spring  is  proverbially  variable,  and  the  Meteorological  Register  for  the  last  month, 
so  faithfully  kept  by  Mr.  Harris,  will  satisfy  the  reader  that  hitherto  our  climate  has  no 
disposition  to  improve  in  this  respect.  Coughs,  and  asthmas,  and  spittings  of  blood  are 
abundant.  There  has  been  perhaps  less  of  the  acute  pleurisy  than  is  usual  at  this  season, 
and  the  lancet,  therefore,  has  been  less  in  requisition ;  but  to  compensate  this,  leeches  and 
cupping  glasses  have  been  largely  resorted  to,  and  the  benefits  which  they  confer  will  bear 
out  the  pathologist  in  all  his  speculations  concerning  local  congestion,  and  irregular  distri- 
butions of  blood.  Few  practitioners  perhaps  have  sufficiently  turned  their  attention  to 
that  curious  doctrine  in  physic,  the  limitation  of  diseased  action  in  internal  organs,  a 
doctrine  than  which  we  know  none  admitting  of  a  wider  or  more  practical  application. 

Among  contagious  and  epidemic  diseases,  hooping-cough  has  been  the  most  generally 
diffused.  The  reporter  has  himself  met  with  many  instances  of  it  in  children;  and  he  has 
heard  from  others  of  grown  up  persons  who  have  lately  passed  through  it  with  no  incon- 
siderable degree  of  severity.  One  of  those  cases,  which  fell  under  his  own  care;  was 
extremely  violent,  and  affords  a  fine  illustration  of  the  varied  dangers  to  which  the  little 
sufferer  in  this  disease  is  too  often  exposed.  Permanent  difficulty  of  breathing  was  the  first 
untoward  symptom,  and  the  engorgement  of  the  lungs  was  with  difficulty  restrained.  The 
brain  suffered  next,  and  an  attack  of  convulsions  was  sufficient  to  create  alarm.  This 
danger  was  scarcely  obviated,  when  hectic  fever  developed  itself,  under  the  daily  attacks  of 
which  the  child  is  now  suffering  and  wasting.  The  cough  still  continues,  and  will  probably 


1827.]  Monthly  Medical  Report.  663 

yield  only  to  the  genial  influence  of  time.  The  favourite  specific  of  (he  present  day  is  well 
known  to  be  a  combination  of  carbonate  of  soda  and  cochineal  powder.  Its  real  influence 
is  very  small,  and  probably  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  once  vaunted,  but  now  forgotten, 
jremedies  of  a  former  age,  tincture  of  castor  and  paregoric  elixir. 

GEORGE  GREGORY,  M.D. 
8,  Upper  John  Street,  Golden  Square,  May  24,  182T. 


MONTHLY  AGRICULTURAL  REPORT. 

THE  Lenten  seed  season  for  all  the  various  crops,  corn,  pulse,  and  seeds,  seems  to  have1 
generally  concluded  with  the  month  of  April ;  and  if  not  the  earliest  finish,  it  may  safely 
be  averred  that  the  spring  lauds  were  never  sowed  in  better  order,  or  under  happier  prospects 
for  a  crop.  The  early  sown  and  forward  crops,  which  received  a  check  from  the  prevailing 
easterly  winds,  accompanied  in  the  north  with  frost  and  snow,  have  recovered,  from  the 
succeeding  warmer  temperature  and  genial  rains,  and  have  now,  from  generally  concurring 
accounts,  a  most  luxuriant  and  promising  appearance.  The  wheats  on  all  good  lands,  or 
those  in  good  heart,  never  appeared  stouter  or  finer,  having  advanced  rapidly  within  the  last 
two  or  three  weeks ;  in  the  meantime,  those  on  poor  light  lands  have  a  very  inferior  aspect, 
and  some  have  failed;  no  uncommon  occurrence,  since  the  "golden  crop  "  is  ever  one  of 
considerable  risk  on  lands  naturally  poor  and  light,  or  any  lands  already  exhausted  by 
cropping.  In  Scotland,  the  wheat  crop  has  not  so  good  a  report  as  in  the  south.  All  the 
grasses,  natural  and  artificial,  lucerne,  rye,  winter  tares,  have  pushed  forward  during  the 
present  month  with  the  utmost  luxuriance,  and  the  expectation  of  a  good  crop  of  hay  is 
sanguine  throughout  the  country.  These  crops,  however  abundant  they  may  prove,  will 
assuredly  not  overtop  the  demand,  which  probably  has  never  been  more  urgent;  for  winter 
fodder,  indeed  provender  of  all  kinds,  were  so  completely  exhausted,  in  the  chief  cattle 
districts,  by  Lady-day,  that  the  stock,  from  necessity,  was  turned  out  to  pick  what  little 
they  oould  find  upon  the  then  bare  pastures.  This  anticipated  consumption  of  the  grass 
crop  must  necessarily  reduce  the  crop  of  hay,  indeed  affect  the  quantity  of  keep  throughout 
the  summer.  We  had  occasion  to  advert  in  a  late  report  to  the  improvident  risks  to  which 
stock-feeders  have  ever  been  prone  to  expose  themselves,  by  tbe  insufficient  culture  of  the 
well  known  cattle  crops  for  winter  and  early  spring  subsistence  ;  and  the  present  spring  has 
afforded  us  a  most  pregnant  and  practical  evidence  of  the  truth  of  our  allegations,  and  the 
soundness  of  the  advice,  which  we  have  obtruded  periodically  upon  those  so  materially 
interested,  through  a  long  course  of  years.  Let  that  stock-farmer  who,  with  his  herds  and 
his  flocks,  his  couples,  ewe  and  lamb,  was  at  last  Lady-day  without  sufficient  provender 
for  them,  and  reduced  to  all  kinds  of  shifts — sale,  putting  out  to  keep,  starvation  at  home, 
immense  immediate  loss,  with  no  hope  of  future  reimbursement — but  contrast  such  a 
ruinous  situation  with  the  cheering  and  fortunate  one  of  plenty,  and  tbe  thriving  and 
prosperous  condition  of  his  animals,  and  surely  he  will  not  again  feel  bold  or  presumptuous 
enough  to  encounter  the  risks  of  winter,  without  a  supply  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  his 
stock,  both  of  roots,  of  mangold  wurtzel  particularly,  so  greatly  productive,  and  of  green 
food — winter  tares,  rye,  lucerne,  where  the  land  may  be  adapted  to  it,  <fec.  Let  him  weigh 
seriously  the  probable  loss  which  may  result  from  having  too  great  a  growth  of  these 
articles  in  a  mild  winter,  against  that  of  his  having  too  little  in  a  severe  one.  Those  flock- 
masters,  who  at  this  time  have  sufficient  breadths  of  the  green  food  just  mentioned,  for  the 
support  of  their  couples,  are  indeed  fortunate,  their  ewes  being  enabled  to  milk  largely,  to 
the  forwarding  their  lambs,  and  the  natural  grasses  being  spared  for  an  abundant  hay  crop. 
The  old  practice,  formerly  called  "  sheeping  the  wheats,"  that  is,  grazing  them  down  with 
sheep,  has  in  course,  from  necessity,  been  much  resorted  to  during  the  present  spring.  It  is 
bad  and  slovenly  farming,  and  at  best  not  without  danger  to  wheat  crops  on  light  and  poor 
land.  A  great  part  of  the  land  laid  down  to  grass  last  year  failed  from  the  excessive 
drought,  the  severe  frost,  subsequently,  being  unfavourable  to  it.  Much  of  it  has  been 
ploughed  up  and  sown  with  spring-corn  crops  ;  that  which  has  been  risked,  appears  thin 
and  weak,  and  bare  in  patches,  and  seems  to  require  tbe  harrowing  in  of  fresh  seed ;  or 
oats  might  have  been  advantageously  dibbled  upon  such  lands  for  a  £reen  crop,  a  month 
since.  The  spring  tilths  were  forward  for  every  purpose,  and  potatoe  planting  commenced 
with  the  present  month.  The  use  of  potatoes  as  a  cattle  crop  has  increased  much  within 
these  few  years,  as  the  least  liable  to  risk.  Rutabaga  and  mangold  wurtzel  are  getting 
into  the  ground  with  much  expedition,  and  the  seed  is  in  request  and  dear.  With  respect 
to  the  latter,  its  great  produce,  and  its  success  on  lands  too  heavy  and  wet  for  turnips,  are 
its  chief  recommendation.  In  nutritive  power  it  is  far  inferior  to  the  carrot  and  Swedish 
turnip,  perhaps  even  to  the  best  white  turnip ;  and  has  had  dangerous  effects  on  cattle, 
being  given  to  them  in  the  autumn,  previously  to  its  having  gone  through  its  sweat  by 
keeping.  The  risk  is  great  to  leave  it  in  the  field,  since  a  single  night's  frost  may  corrupt 
and  render  it  quite  useless,  indeed  hurtful ;  and  in  storing  it  from  poachy  soils,  great  care 
is  required  to  lay  the  roots  by  as  clean  as  possible.  Every  cattle-feeder  should  store  »t 


664  Monthly  Agricultural  Report.  [  J  u N  E,- 

least  a  part  of  some  root  crop ;  and  upon  light  lands,  the  carrot,  that  most  profitable  of  all 
for  both  cattle  and  horses,  is  strangely  neglected.  Part  of  the  forwardest  pea  and  bean 
crops  have  been  hoed  a  second  time.  The  grub  and  wire-worm  have  been  particularly 
active  in  some  districts,  and  have  thinned  the  young  barley.  Oats  are  full  and  large,  and 
promise  a  crop.  Some  apprehend  that  early  frosts  are  productive  of  blight  and  smut  in 
wheat;  but  in  all  probability  such  effects  are  not  produced  until  later  in  the  season,  and 
a  more  advanced  state  in  the  plant.  Among  the  smaller  farmers,  the  horses  are  observed 
to  be  in  a  weak  state,  and  much  below  their  work,  from  being  kept  so  low  during  the 
winter  season ;  a  misfortune  still  more  extensive  in  Scotland,  where  great  numbers  of 
miserable  animals  have  perished  through  mere  want,  and  where  the  poor  starved  ewes  have 
deserted  their  offspring,  leaving  them  to  perish  upon  the  land,  for  want  of  milk  wherewith 
to  nourish  them!  Of  hops  little  can  yet  be  said  ;  the  bines  being  blighted  by  the  easterly 
winds,  the  blight  insect,  or  flea,  appeared  in  considerable  numbers,  and  little  amendment 
has  yet  succeeded.  The  farm-yards,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  the  largest  cultivators, 
are  said  to  be  nearly  cleared  of  wheat-ricks  ;  but  from  the  extent  of  the  two  last  crops, 
there  must  yet  be  a  considerable  stock  of  English  wheat  somewhere.  This  precious  article 
now  bears  a  good  price,  and  the  finest  samples  are  no  doubt  worth  72s.  in  Mark-lane ;  and 
but  for  the  expected  change  in  the  corn  laws,  and  the  release  of  the  bonded  foreign  wheat, 
the  price  might  have  been  at  this  moment  92s.  and  the  London  loaf  1  Id.  Thus  far  have 
our  free-trading:  politicians  advanced  on  the  road  to  a  supply  of  cheap  bread.  The  allowance 
of  per  centages  at  audits  is  become  somewhat  general.  The  motive  is  obvious,  and  equally 
deceptive.  Oak  timber  and  bark  are  in  request.  The  late  easterly  winds,  with  sudden 
atmospheric  changes,  could  not  fail  to  injure  tne  fruit  blossoms  in  some  degree  ;  an  occur- 
rence to  be  expected  in  most  seasons  in  our  fickle  climate ;  but  the  apple-trees  are  said  to 
have  escaped  with  little  damage,  and  to  appear  very  promising. 

According  to  some  of  our  letters,  the  wool- trade  is  even  worse,  and  a  full  two  years  clip 
remains  in  the  farmer's  hands.  Fat  cattle  and  sheep  are  everywhere  bought  up  eagerly 
at  from  7d.  to  0d.  per  pound  by  the  carcass.  As  we  have  often  observed,  meat  must  be  dear 
throughout  the  present  year.  In  some  of  the  grazing  counties,  store  beasts  are  scarce  and 
dearer,  in  others,  plentiful,  poor,  and  cheap.  Dairy  cows  near  calving,  and  good  barreners 
for  grazing,  sell  readily  at  considerable  prices;  pigs  also,  both  store  and  fat.  In  short,  all 
fat  thiags,  indeed  all  country  produce,  wool  excepted,  obtain  a  price  which  would  seem  to 
leave  a  very  considerable  proiit.  Further  importations  of  cart-horses  from  Flanders,  and 
of  coach-horses  from  Holstein,  which  are  selling  at  the  Horse  Bazaar.  All  horses  cheaper, 
even  those  of  the  highest  quality. 

Smithfield.—Beef,  4s.  4d.  to  5s.  6d.  and  upwards. — Mutton,  4s.  8d.  to  6s. — Veal,  5s.  to 
6s.— Lamb,  6s.  6d.  to  6s.  7£d. — Pork,  4s,  8d.  to  6s.  4d. — Raw  fat,  2s.  6d. 

Corn  Exchange. — Wheat,  50s.  to  72s. — Barley,  38s.  to  46s. — Oats,  24s.  to  42s. — 
Bread,  9£d.  the  4  Ib.  loaf.— Hay,  80s.  to  120s.— Clover  ditto,  90s.  to  140s.— Straw 
36s.  to  49s. 

Coals  in  the  Pool,  30s.  to  36s.  6d.  per  chaldron. 
Middlesex,  May  21,  1827. 


MONTHLY  COMMERCIAL  REPORT. 

Sugar. — Owing  to  the  prevalent  easterly  winds,  sugars  have  been  remarkably  scarce  in 
the  market,  particularly  the  stronger  sorts  for  refiners,  which  have  advanced  full  2s.  per 
cwt.,  and  fine  sorts  Is.  percwt.  The  stock  in  dock  is  upwards  of  9,000  hogsheads,  and  the 
demand  brisk. 

Cotton. — The  purchases  have  not  been   extensive,  but  the  price  of  cotton  is  firm,  from 
the  favourable  reports  of  the   manufacturing  districts ;  lately  at  public  sale,  Boweds  sold 
from  6|d.  to  8^d.  per  Ib. 

Coffee — The  coffee  market  is  very  dull — Domingo,  41s.  to  45s. — Jamaica,  41s.  to  48s. ; 
and  other  sorts  in  proportion. 

Rice. — Carolina  rice  is  held  firmly  at  38s.  per  cwt.;  Bengal  at  an  advance  of  Is.  to 
J  s.  6d.  per  cwt.  upoa  last  sale  price. 

Rum,  fyc. — Old  Jamaica  Rum,  32  to  33  per  cent. ;  over  proo£  4s.  per  imperial  gallon. — • 
Leeward  Island,  2s.  Id.  to  2s.  2d.  per  ditto.  In  Brandy  and  Hollands  little  has  been  done, 
and  i.<  without  variation. 

Indigo. — The  indigo  market  remains  firm,  but  few  sales;  6d.  per  pound  advance  is 
demanded  on  sale  price,  but  refused. 

Hemp,  Flax,  and  Tallow. — The  great  reduction  in  the  stock  of  tallow,  now  under  18,000 
casks,  arising  from  the  large  quantity  delivered  for  home  consumption,  has  had  a  con- 
siderable effect  both  on  the  prices  and  in  the  demand  for  tallow  ;  the  lowest  quotation  U 
37s.  to  38s.  percwt. 

Saltpetre. — At  public  sale,  saltpetre  sold  at  22s.  to  22s,  6d.  per  cwt. 


1827.]  Monthly  Commercial  Report.  665 

Tobacco. — The  sales  for  tobacco  Lave  partly  subsided,  and  there  have  been  none  worth 
reporting. 

Spices. — Are  dull  and  heavy,  and  in  no  demand  for  export  at  this  season  of  the  year. 

Course  of  Foreign  Exchange. — Amsterdam,  12.  7. — Rotterdam,  12.  7. — Antwerp, 
12.  6. — Hamburgh,  37.  6.— Altona,  37.  6.— .Paris,  25.  8,5. — Bordeaux,  25.  85. — Berlin, 

— Frankfort  on  the  Main,  154£.— Petersburg,  8^ — Vienna,  10.  21.— Trieste,  10.24.— 
Madrid,  34f— Cadiz,  34|.— Bilboa,  34^.— Barcelona,  34*.— Seville,  34|.— Gibraltar,  33.— 
Leghorn,  47|-.— Genoa,  48|.— Venice,  46.— Naples,  38$.— Palermo,  J  14£.— -Lisbon,  48f. 
Oporto,  48|.— Rio  Janeiro,  48.— Bahia,  48. — Buenos  Ay  res,  43. — Dublin,  1£. — Cork,  1£. 

Bullion  per  Oz. — Foreign  Gold  in  bars,  £3.  17s.  6d.~ New  Doubloons,  £3,  Os.— New 
Dollars,  4s.  fid.— Silver  in  bars,  standard  3s.  1  Id. 


Premiums  on  Shares  and  Canals,  and  Joint- Stock  Companies,  at  the  Office  of  WOLPB, 
BROTHERS,  23,  Change  Alley ,CornhilL— Birmingham  CANAL,  295/.— Coventry,  1200/. — 
Ellesmere  and  Chester,  100/.— Grand  Junction,  305^. — Kennet  and  Avon,  251.  10s.— Leeds 
and  Liverpool,  3S7Z.  10*.— Oxford,  680?.— Regent's,  351.  10s.— Trent  and  Mersey,  1,800J. 
—Warwick  and  Birmingham,  280/. — London  DOCKS,  831.  —  West-India,  199/. — East 
London  WATKR  WORKS,  123/. —  Grand  Junction,  62L— West  Middlesex,  64J.  Os.— 
Alliance  British  and  Foreign  INSURANCE.— 1  dis.— Globe,  151Z. — Guardian,  18 J.  10s. — 
Hope,  41.  18s.— Imperial  Fire,  92/.— GAS-LIOHT,  Westminster  Chartered  Company,  <57L 
—City  Gas-Light  Company,  O/.— British,  17£  dis.— Leeds,  1951. 


ALPHABETICAL  LIST   OF   BANKRUPTCIES,  announced  between    the  21st  of  April 
and  the  21st  of  May  1827  ;  extracted  from  the  London  Gazette. 


BANKRUPTCIES  SUPERSEDED. 

TJaum,  J.  Hackney-wick,  victualler 
•  Brearley,  R.  Oakenrod,  Lancashire,  flannel-manu- 
facturer 

Butler,  J.  R.  Bruton-strcet,  turner 
Cade,  T.  Slialfovd,  Surrey,  schoolmaster 
Kburne,  F.  Ryton-upon-Dunmore,  Warwick,  miller 
Ford,  R.  late  of  Sutton,  Surrey,  dealer 
Fussell,  J.  Stoke-lane,  Somersetshire,  paper-maker 
Hughes,  J.  J.  Birmingham,  victualler 
James,    R.    Conderton,    Worcestershire,    horse- 
dealer 

Kimber,  C,  Lambou  r      Bprks,brewer 
Ogier,  P.  and  J.  Phi  Hips,  Bis-Lopsgate-street  With- 
out, linen-drapers 
Proctor,  S.  Pudseybacklane,  Yorkshire,  clothier 

BANKRUPTCIES  .     [This  Month  145.] 

Solicitors'  JVames  are  in  Brackets. 
Anthony,  C.  and  J.  Devonport,  grocers.    [Sole, 
Aldermanbury  ,  Sole,  Devonport 

M.  Knaresborough,    Yorkshire,    flax, 


and  Baxter,  Gray's-inn-place ;  Bird,  Birming- 
ham 

Cooper,  W.  Weston-super-mare,  Somersetshire, 
grocer.  [Jones,  Crosby  -  square ;  Saunders, 
Bristol 

Capes,  G.  Epworth,  Lincolnshire,  money-scrivener. 
Oxley,  Rotherham  ;  Cartwright,  Bantry 

Cale,  M.,  late  of  Sackville-street,  Piccadilly,  tailor. 
Jackson,  New-inn 

Charlesworth.  T.  Clare-street,  Clare-market,  tea- 
dealer.  [Clark,  Newgate-street 

Cox,  J.  Leadenhall-street,  victualler.  [Hall,  Great 
James-street,  Bed  lord -row 

Cooke,E.  J.  Gloucester,  corn-dealer.  [King,  Ser- 
jeant's-inn,  Fleet-street ;  Abell  and  Co.,  Glou- 
cester 

Cooper,  R.  Ledbury,  Herefordshire,  innkeeper. 
[Higginp,  Ledbury ;  Clarke  and  Co.,  Chancery- 
lane 

Dyer,  R.  Exeter,  druggist.  [Turner,  Bedford- 
street,  Bedtord-row  ;  Turner,  Exeter 

Davis,  J.  Devonshire-street, Queen-square, surgeon . 
[Score,  Lincoln's-inn-fields 


M.   Ivnaresuorougn,     lorKsnire,    u«x,  L^m/. «,«.«*.««. -.«^ - 

fAlderson,   Chancery-lane;    Alderson      Dawes    H  Great -  Malvern ,  Worcestershire,  malt. 


and  Co.,  Hull 
Andrews,  W.   Louth,  Lincolnshire,  grocer.    [Ad- 


ster.    [Wall,  Worcester ;  Lowndes  and  Co.,  Red- 
lion-square 
Drew,  J.  Stourport,  Worcestershire,   carpenter. 


ss,  I.  Crosstown,  Cheshire,  victualler.    [Bo- 

ver   and   Co.,  Warrington ;  Adlington  and   Co., 

Bedford -row 
Barlow,  W.  Mattersley,  Nottinghamshire,  miller. 

[Allen    and  Co.,   Carlisle-street,   Soho ;    Brad- 

shaw,  Worksop,  Notts 
Bishop,    R.    T.    Birmingham,    woollen  -  draper. 

[Sharpe    and    Co.,    Bread-street,    Cheapside; 

Bray!  W.'  H!  a'Sghton!  draper.  [Osbaldeston  and 
Co.,  London-street.  Fenchurch-street 

Burton,  B.  Fanshaw,  Yorkshire,  cloth  manufac- 
turer. [Haxby  and  Co,  Wakeneld  ;  Taylor, 
Gray's-inn-square 

Bnrt  J.  Northover,  Somersetshire,  miller.  LMur- 
ley!  Crewkerne  ;  Holme  and  Co.,  New-inn 

Briggs,  I.  Barksland,  York,  dealer.  [Walker, 
Lincoln's-inn-nelds ;  Scatcherd,  Halifax 

Brown,  J.  W.  Cook's-row,  Pancras, picture-dealer. 
[Watson  and  Broughton,  Falcon-square 

Bull,  L.  Eastnor,  Hereford,  farming-bailiff.  [Be- 
veriey,  Temple  ;  Gregg,  Ledbury. 

Cotter*il,  J.  Birmingham,  brass-founder. 
M,M.  New  Stria—  VOL.III.  No.  18. 


Dfckins,  J.  and  J.  Warrick,  Plymouth,  earthen- 
ware-dealers. [Baron,  Plymouth  ;  Horton,  Fur- 
nival's-inn 

Dalton,  J.  H.,  Leicester,  apothecary.  [Fisher 
and  Norcutt,  Gray's-inn 

Elddi,  T.  Manchester,  straw-hat  manufacturer. 
[Ellis  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Hampson,  Mau- 
clj  ester 

Errington,  G.  Lower  Edmonton,  brick-maker. 
[Finch,  Coleman-street 

Eccles,  J.  Wednesbury.  Staffordshire,  victualler. 
[Smith,  Walsall ;  Wheeler  and  Co.,  John-street, 
Bedford -row 

Elmsley,  T.  Great  Horton,  York,  worsted-stuff- 
manufacturer.  [Singleton,  New-inn;  Barrett, 
Otley 

Frith,  J.  J.  Banner-square,  hardwareman.  [Pan- 
ton,  Bow-chnrch-yard,  Cheapside 

Fletcher,  J.  Manchester,  calico-printer.  [Back* 
Gray's-inn  ;  Lingard,  Heaton  Norrfe 

Oreatley,  E.  Myrtle-street,  Hoxton,  flour-fa«tor. 
[Hill.Gray's-iun 

4  Q 


666 


Bankrupts. 


[JUNE, 


Glassbrooke,  W.  Stourport,  Worceitershire,  corn- 
factor.  [Robeson,  Droitwicb ;  Fladgate  and 
Co.,  Esscx-streot,  Strand 

Carton.  J.  Castle  Donnington,  Leicestershire, 
builder.  [Snelson  and  Co.,  Austin  and  Co.,  Ray- 
mond-buildings, Gray's-inn 

Gibbons,  T.  Cheltenbam,  plumber.  [Poole  and 
Co.,  Gray's-inn-square  ;  Parker,  Bristol 

Giles,  J.  Vauxhall,  dealer.  [Vincent,  Clifford's- 
iun 

.tiregson,  E.  Habergambeaves,  Lancashire,  cotton- 
spinner.  [Hampson,  Manchester  ;  Ellis  and  Co., 
Chancery-lane 

ijreorge,  T.  "Newport,  Monmouthshire,  coal-mer- 
chant. [Platt,  Lincoln's-inn 

Green.  R.  Cambridge,  cabinet-maker.  [Tabram, 
Cambridge;  Nicholls,  Stamford-street,  Black- 
friar's-road 

Hedges,  T.  Birmingham,  grocer.  [Chester,  Staple- 
inn  ;  Hinde,  Liverpool 

Hawkins,  J.Middtesex-street,Somer's-town,builder. 
[Smith,  Easint'hall-street 

Warn,  J.  senior,  Skinner's-street,  Snow-hill,  watch- 
maker.  [Mayhew,  Chancei  y-lane 

"Hammond,  T.  Whiskin-street,  Rosamond-street, 
ClerkenweH, carpenter.  [Walker,  Lincoln's-inn- 
n'elds  ;  Shorne,  Yorkshire 

Handsford,  R.  Weymouth,  Dorsetshire,  grocer. 
[Mansfield,  Dorchester  ;  Rhodes  and  Co.,  Chan- 
cery-lane 

Hole,  W.  Edgeware-road,  wax-chandler.  [Smyth, 
Red-lion-square 

Hoskins,  Mary,  Falmouth,  dealer  in  earthenware. 
[Darke  and  Co.,  Red-lion-square  ;  Jones,  Swan- 
sea 

Harrison,   H.  Lower  Peover-cottage,  Knutsford, 
Cheshire,  merchant.      [Capes,    Holborn  -  court, 
Gray's-inn  ;  Smith,  Manchester 
"Hobson,  E.  Shoreditch,  and  of  Southampton,  linen- 
draper.    Hardwick,  Lawrence-lane,  Cheapside 

Heill,  G.  Compton-street,  ClerkenweH,  baker. 
[Hudson,  Winkworth-place,  City-road 

Howitt,  M.  High  Holborn,  ironmonger.  [Adling- 
ton  and  Co.,  Bedford-ro-v 

Harris,  T.  Neweut,  Gloucestershire,  innkeeper. 
[Smallridge,  Gloucester  ;"Watson  and  Co.,Falcon- 
?quare 

Hill,  B.  Streatham,  yeoman.  '  [Long,  Croydon  ; 
Chester,  Parsonage-row,  Newington 

Haynes,  J.  Gutter-lane,  baker.  [Stevens  and  Co., 
Little  St.  Thomas  Apostle 

'Hudson,  W.  Stamford,  Ironmonger.  [Jackson, 
Stamford;  Hadgate  and  Co.,  Essex-street 

Harris,  N.  Shaftesbury,  Dorset,  innkeeper.  [Gal- 
pine,  Blandiord ;  Walker,  Lincoln's-inn-fields 

Hardy,  T.  Cowley,  Middlesex,  builder.  [Watson 
and  Co.,  Falcon -square 

Jessurun,  E.  Falcon-square,  ostrich-feather  and 
flower-manufacturer.  [Elias,  Bury-street,  St. 
Mary-axe 

Jones,  W.  Tredegar  iron-works,  Monmouthshire, 
shopkeeper.  [Vizard  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn- 
fields  ;  Gregory,  Bristol 

Jellicorse,  J/Manchester,  warehouseman.  [Ellis 
and  Co.,  Chancery-lane;  Higson  and  Co.,  Man- 
chester 

Judge,  R.  W.  Temple  Tysoe, Warwickshire,  cattle- 
salesman.  [Loveday,  Warwick  ;  Wortham  and 
Co.,  Holbarn 

Jar/is,  T.  Sculcoates,  Yorkshire,  builder.    [Swan 

andCo.,Hull;  Butterfield,  Gray's-inn-square 
Jones, 'T.   Fetter-lane,  tavern-keeper.    [Williams 
and  Co.,Gray's-inn 

Jones,  R.  E.  Jones,  and  G.  Hulme,  Manchester, 
irftri-founders.  [Hurd  and  Johnson,  Temple; 
Kershaw,  Manchester 

Jones,  R.  Ledbury,  maltster.    [Beverley,  Temple  ; 

Gregg,  Ledbury 
King, "R.  Wargrave,  Berks,  stage-coach-master. 

[Rhodes  and  Co.,  Chancery-lane 
'  Kimber,  H.Worcester,  dealer.   '[Parker  and  Co., 
Worcester;   Cardale   and    Co.,    Holborn-court, 
*  Gray's-inn 

T.ilbington,  W.  H.  High-street*  Southwark,  hop- 
merchant.  [Piercy  and  Oakley,  Three-crown- 
. square,  Southwark 

'  Kirkland,  W.  Ripley,  Derby,  brewer.  [Hall  and 
.Brown,  New  Boswell-court ;  Gervas«,  Alfreton 


Lawton,  J.  Saddleworth,  York,  merchant.  [Milne 
and  Parry.Temple ;  Whitehead,Oldham 

Levitt,  Q.  Pinner's-hall,  Old  Broad-street,  mer- 
chant. [Thompson,  George-street,  Minories 

Leybnrn,  G.  Leadenhall-market,  provision-mer- 
chant. [Noy  and  Co.,  Great  Tower-street 

Leonnrd,  C.  Warren-mews,  Fitzioy-squaro, farrier. 
Hallett,  Northumberland-street,  Mary-le-bone 

Lavanchy.  F.  F.  and  J.  R.  Air-street,  Piccadilly, 
warehouseman.  [Freeman  and  Co.,  Colemaa- 
street 

Lomas,  J.  Hales  Owen,  Shropshire,  stationer. 
Hayes  and  Co.,  Hales  Owen  ;  Long  and  Co.', 
Gray's-inn 

Lowe,  J.  Basinghall-street,  jeweller.  [Mayhew, 
Chancery-lane 

Lambert,  T.  Chapelthorpe,  Yorkshire,  tanner. 
Cuttle,  Wakefield  ;  Wiglesworth  and  Co.,  Gray's 
inn 

Lawton,  J.  John's-mews,  Bedford-row,  iron-manu  - 
factnrer,  [Hume  and  Smith,  Great  James- 
street,  Bedford-row 

Macleod ,  T.  Chichester,  draper.  [Gates,  Lombard 
street 

Moore,  W.  South  Dawton,  Devon,  cattle-salesman. 
[Rhodes  and  Burch,  Chancery-lane;  Sanders, 
Exeter 

Moseley,  F.  Leeds,  innkeeper.  [Robmson,  Essex- 
street  ;  Ward,  Leeds 

Mitchell,  M.  G.  Quadrant,  Regent-street,  tavern- 
keeper.  [Robinson,  Walbrook 

Marsh,  A.  C.  Great  Scotland-yard,  navy-agent. 
Fynmore  and  Co.,  Craven-street,  Strand 

Millar,  J.late  of  Nuneaton,  Warwickshire,  ribbon- 
weaver  [Allen  and  Co.,  Carlisle-street,  Soho  ; 
Opan,  Kenilworth 

Myer,  H.Louth,  Lincolnshire,  cabinet-maker.  [Wil- 
lis and  Co.,  Tokenhouse  -  yard  ;  Woolley, 
Hull 

Mitchell,  J.  Lockwood,  Yorkshire,  clothin-.  [Fen- 
ton,  Huddersfield  ;  Wiltshire  and  Co.,  Old  Broad- 
street 

MacNeill,  W.  senior,  Charles-street,  Middlesex- 
hospital,  coach  and  harness-maker.  [Pinero, 
Charles-street.Middlesex-hospital 

Mincher,  E.  Birmingham,  patten  -  tye  -  maker. 
Parker  and  Co.  Birmingham ;  Holme  and  Co. 
New-inn 

Muh on,  J.  Nelson-square,  master-mariner.  [Pou- 
tifex,  St.  Andrew's-court,  Holborn 

Mill,  W.  Fore-street,  woollen-draper.  [Tanner, 
New  Basinghall-street 

Mousley,  T.  Hanley,  Stafford,  scrivener.  [Dove, 
Carey-street;  Smith,  Rugeley 

Nasli,  E.  Denham,  Buckinghamshire,  miller. 
'[Webb,  Dyer's-buildings,  Holborn;  Waliord 
Uxbridge 

Noakes,  J.  Ludlow,  miller.  [Hammond,  Furni- 
val's-inn  ;  Anderson  and  Downes,  Ludlow 

Ord,  J.  Old  Kent-road,  cheesemonger.  [Bousfield, 
Chatham-place,  Black-friars ;  Mould,  Great- 
Knight  Rider-street.  Doctor's-commons 

Obee,  T.  Weymouth-stieet,  Mary-le-bone,  car- 
penter. [Jones  and  Co.,  Great  Mary-le-bone* 
street 

Olvers,  W.  Broadway,  B-lackfriare,  victualler. 
[Ellison  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn 

Oldfield,  J.  and  V.  Edgeware-road,  coach-maker. 
[Crosse,  Surrey-street,  Strand 

Poolly,  T.  Norwich,  corn-merchant,  [Clarke  and 
Co.,  Chancery-lane  ;  Dye,  Norwich 

Page,  W.  Cheltenham,  glass-seller.  [Jenkins  and 
Abbott,  New-inn  ;  Grazebrook,  Stonrbndge 

Paterson,  J.  Butt's-buildings,  Camberwell,  dealer. 
[Sheriff,  Salisbury-street,  tf-trand 

Pullen,  T.  Great  Charb-street,  New  North-road, 
Hoxton,  carpenter.  [Ashley  and  Co.,  Token- 
house-yard 

Pennell,  G.  Fludyer-street,  Westminster,  picture- 
dealer.  [Darke,  Red-lion-square 

Parker/G.  and  H.  Paine,  Birmingham,  merchants. 
[Swaine  and  Co,  Old  Jewry;  Webb  and  Co. 
Birmingham 

Phillips,  W.  G.  Oxford-street,  linen-draper.  [Bell 
and  Co.,  Bow  Church-yard 

Preston,  J.  Bartou-upon-H umber,  Lincolnshire, 
brick-maker.  [Brown  and  Son,  Barton-upou. 
H  umber;  Hicks  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-square 


1827J 


Bankrupts. 


667 


Phipps,   W,  Shoreditcli,  straw-hat-manufactarer. 

[Adlingtonand  Co.,  Bedford-row 
Penyman,  F.  junior,  Berwick-street,  Soho,  carver 
and  gilder.    [Price,  Adam-street,  Adelphi 

Paul,  J.  Newport,  Isle  of  Wight,  miller.  [Hodgson 
and  Co.,  St.  Mildred's-com  t,  Poultry 

Perkins,  VV.  Charlotte-street,  Fitzroy-square, .  np- 
holsterer.  [Wright,  Bucklersbury 

Pollard,  W.  Manchester,  tailor.  [Milne  and  Par- 
ry, Temple  ;  Potter,  Manchester 

Roberts,  J.  Newport,  Shropshire,  liquor-merchant. 
[He wings  and  Co.,  Gray's-inn-place  ;  Stanley, 
Newport,  Shropshire 

Rewell,  W.  Monrnouth,  skinner.  [Jennings  and 
Co.,  Temple  ;  Powles  and  Co.,Monmouth 

Riveuall,  A.  Turnmill-street,  Clerkenwell,  victual- 
ler. [Price,  St.  John-square,  Clerkenwell 

Robinson,  J.  Ten-bury,  Worcestershire,  scrivener. 
[Lloyd,  Fumival's-inn  ;  Lloyd,  Ludlow 

Beddish,  T.  Stourport,  Cheshire,  corn-dealer. 
[Tyler,  Pump-court,  Temple ;  Harrop,  Stock- 
port 

Richardson,  T.  Sowerby,  Yorkshire,  moBey-scri- 

' ;  vener.  [Stocker  and  Co.,  New  Boswell-court, 
Lincoln's-inn  ;  Parnell  and  Co.,  Knaresborough 

Rumball,  S.  Upper  Park-place,  Dorset-square,  St. 
Mary-le-boiie,  coach-maker.  [Wilson  and  Co., 
Gray '3- inn-square 

Roberts,  J.  Minchin  Hampton,  Gloucestershire, 
surgeon.  [Coruthwaite,  Dean's-court,  Doctor's 
Commons 

Robinson,  J.  H.  Liverpool,  tailor.  [Rawson,  Pres- 
cot ;  Chester,  Staple-inn 

Roach,  M.  Hotwell-road,  near  Bristol,  victualler. 
[Cary  and  Co.,  Bristol  ;  King  and  Co.,  Gray's- 
inn-square 

Sherwin,  J.,  T.  Hordley,  and  J.  Sherwin,  Shelton, 
Staffordshire,  engravers.  [Avison,  Liverpool ; 
Adlington  and  Co.,  Bedford-row,  London 

Swan,  J.  Alssop's-buildings,  coal-merchant.  [Rice 
and  Co.  Great  Marlborough-street 

Slingsby,  J.  Manchester,  warehouseman.  [Ellis 
and  Co.,  Chancery-lane ;  Higson  and  Co.,  Man- 
chester 

Stubbs,  J.  Panton-street,  Leicester-square,  jewel- 
ler. [Noy  and  Co.,  Great  Tower-street 

Smith,  otherwise  Smyth,  G.  Henry-street,  Water- 
loo-road. [Plattj  Church -court,  Clement's- 
lane 


Stacey,  J.  Newcastle-street,  Strand,  tailor.  [Je« 
sop  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn-fields 

Stubington,  P.  T.  T.  Winchester,  builder.  [Lam- 
pard,  Winchester  ;  Bicknell  and  Co.,  Lincoln's^ 
inn 

Smith,  J.  Cheltenham,  timber-merchant.  [Pack- 
wood,  Cheltenham ;  King,  Hatton-gardeu 

Thorogood,  C.  New  Church-street,  Lisson-grove, 
Paddington,  builder.  [Vandercom  and  Co., 
Bush-lane,  Caunon-street 

Thompson,  R.  Nettlestead,  Kent,  cattle  and  sheep- 
salesman.  [Lane  and  Co.,  Lincoln's-inn-fields 

Taylor,  B.Almondbury,  Yorkshire,  clothier.  [Bat- 
tye  and  Co.,  Huddersfield ;  Jacques  and  Co., 
Coleman-street 

Vaux,  J.  High-street,  Islington,  baker.  [Head- 
land and  Co.,  King's-road,  Bedford-row 

Wrisrley,  R.  senior,  J.  Wrigley,  R.  Wrigley, junior, 
T;  Wrigley,  W.  Rockliff,and  S.  Wrigley,  Liver- 
pool, blacksmiths.  [Btackstockand  Bunee,  Lon- 
don ;  Ramsbottom  and  Roberts, Liverpool 

Wilkinson,  J.  Leeds,  scribbling-miHer.  [Strange* 
ways  and  Co.,  Barnard's-inn  ;  Scott  and  Co%, 
Leeds 

Wilson,  J.  Leeds,  Yorkshire,  confectioner.  [Ro- 
binson, Essex-street,  Strand  ;  Ward,  Leeds 

Weddell,  J.  Sutton,  Yorkshire,  paint-manufac- 
turer. [Frost,  Kingston-upon-Hull  j  Rosser  and 
Co.,  Gray's-inn-place,Holborn 

Woodward,  G.  Birmingham,  plumber.  [Arnold 
and  Co.,  Birmingham;  Long  and  Co.,  Gray's- 
inn 

Weffen,  W.  Gibson -street,  Waterloo-bridge-road, 
plumber.  [Holmer,  Bridge-street,  Southwark 

Wells,  C.  Bottisham,  Cambridgeshire,  surgeon. 
[Tabram,  Cambridge  ;  Nicholls, Stamford-street, 
iilackfriar's-road 

Whitneld,  W.  Bow-lane,  tavern  keeper.  [Hodgson 
and  Ogden,  St.  Mildred's-court,  Poultry 

Wardle,  J.  Carnaby-street,  carpenter.  [Goren  and 
Price,  Orchard-street 

Winscombe,  W.  Bristol,  builder.  [Pearson,  Tern  • 
pie  ;  Daniel,  Bristol 

Wheeler,  J.  Fleet-street,  tailor.  [Tanner,  New  . 
Basinghall-street 

Youell,  W.  Cranbrook,  Kent,  brewor.  [Dyne, 
Lincoln's-inn-nelds ;  Willis,  Cranbrook 

Young,  R.  Marshall-street,  Golden-square,  tailor, 
and  draper.  [Tanner,  New  Basinghall-street 


ECCLESIASTICAL  PREFERMENTS. 


Rev.T.  Kempthorne,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Wed- 
moie,  Somerset.— Rev.  J.  T.  James,  to  the  Bishop- 
rick  of  Calcutta.— -Rev.  C.  R.  Smith,  to  the  per- 
petual Curacy  of  Withiel-florey,  Somerset. — Rev. 
P.  Glubb,  to  the  Rectory  of  Clannaborough,  Devon. 
—Rev.  J.  T.  Becher,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Farns- 
field,  Notts.— Rev.  T.  Stacey,  to  the  Living  of 
Galligaer,  Glamorgan.— Rev.  A.  Bayley,  to  the 
Rectory  of  Edgcott,  Northampton.— Rev.  G.  F- 
Tavel,  to  the  Rectory  of  Great  Pakenbam,  Suf- 
folk.—Rev.  G.  Montagu,  to  the  Rectory  of  South 
Pickenham,  Norfolk.— Rev  W.  Mayd,  to  the  Rec- 
tory of  Wethersneld,  Suffolk.— Rev.  T.  Bradburne, 
to  the  Rectory  of  Toft,  with  the  Vicarage  of  Calde- 
cotte,  Cambridge.— Rev.  H.  A.  Beckwith,  to  the 
Vicarage  of  Collingham,  York.— Rev.  S.  Lane,  to 
the  Vicarage  of  Holme,  Devon.— Rev.  G.  Deane, 
to  the  Rectory  of  Bighton,  Hants.— Rev.  G.  D. 
St.  Quintin,  to  the  Rectory  of  Broughton,  with 
Chapel  of  Bossington  annexed,  Hants.— Rev.  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  to  the  Deanery  of  Durham.— Rev.  W. 
A.  Mupgrave,  to  the  Rectory  of  Emmington,  Ox- 
ford.—Rev.  J.  Allgood,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Felton, 
Northumberland.  -Rev.  J.  Dodsworth,  to  the  Cha- 
pelry  of  Roundhay,  Leeds. — Very  Rev.  Sub-dean 
Keene,  to  the  Prebend  of  Wiveliscombe,  Wells.— 
Rev.  J.  G.  Copleston,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Kinsey, 


Bucks.— Kev.  G.  S.  Weidemann,  to  the  perpetual 
Curacy  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Preston.— Right  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  Kaye,  installed  Bishop  of  Lincoln.— Rev. 
W.  N orris,  to  the  Rectory  of  Warblington,  Hants. 
—Rev.  G.  Hall,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Tenbury,  Wor- 
cester, and  to  the  Rectory  of  Roch ford,  Hereford. 
— Rev,  J.  C.  Jorvois,  to  be  Chaplain  to  the  Bath 
General  Hospital!— ReV.  R.  Holberton,  to  the 
Rectory  of  St.  Mary's,  Bridgetown,  Barbadoes.— 
Rev.  W.  F:  Spencer,  to  the  Rectory  of  Starston, 
Norfolk.— Rev.  T.  Mercer,  to  the  Rectory  of  Ar- 
thingworth,  Northampton.— Rev.  W.  Harrison,  to 
be  Minor  Canon  of  Chester  Cathedral.— Rev.  T. 
Baker,  to  be  Canon  Residentiary  of  Chichester  Ca- 
thedral.—Rev.  A.  A.  Colville,  to  the  Curacy  of 
Hampton,  Worcester. — Rev.  T.  Byrth,  to  the  per- 
petual Curacy  of  St.  James's,  Latchford,  Cheshire. 
—Rev.  W.  Hutchesson,  to  the  Rectory  of  Ubley.— 
Rev.  I.  Carne,  to  the  Vicarage  of  Charles,  Ply- 
mouth.—Rev.  G.  Wilkins,  to  the  Rectory  of  Wing, 
Rutland. — Rev.  G.  Swayne,  junior,  to  the  Vicar- 
age of  South  Bemfleet,  Essex.-fRev.  I.  Nance,  to 
the  Rectories  of  Hope  and  Old  Ropney,  Kent.— 
Rer.  I.  Griffith,  to  be  Chaplain  to  the  Lprd  Chan- 
cellor.—Rev.  J.  E.  F.ine,  to  the.  Vicarage  of  Tirley, 
Gloucester, 

4,  Q2 


[     668 


[J  u  NI; 


POLITICAL  APPOINTMENTS. 


The  King  has  appointed  the  Right  Hon.  G.  Can- 
ning to  the  offices  of  Chancellor  and  Under  Trea- 
surer of  His  Majesty's  Exchequer. 

The  King  has  also  appointed  the  Right  Hon. 
G.  Canning,  Earl  of  Mount  Charles,  Lord  Francis 
Leveson  Gower,  Lord  Eliot,  and  Edmund  Alex- 
ander Macnaghton,  Commissioners  for  executing 
the  offices  of  Treasurer  of  the  Exchequer  of  Great 
Britain  and  Lord  High  Treasurer  of  Ireland. 

The  King  has  granted  the  dignity  of  a  Viscount 
to  the  Right  Hon.  Frederick  John  Robinson,  by 
the  title  of  Viscount  Goderich,  of  Nocton,  in  the 
county  of  Lincoln  ;  likewise  the  dignity  of  Baron 
unto  James  Earl"  of  Fife,  by  the  title  of  Baron 
Fife,  of  the  county  of  Fife ;  also  to  the  Right 
Hon.  Sir  Charles  Abbot  the  dignity  of  Baron,  by 
the  title  of  Baron  Tenterden,  of  Hendon,  in  the 
county  of  Middlesex ;  and  to  the  Right  Hon.  W. 
C.  Plunkett  the  dignity  of  Baron,  by  the  tittle  of 
Baron  Plunkett,  of  Newtown,  in  the  county  of 
Cork. 

The  King  has  appointed  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
Forbes  High  Commissioner  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

The  King  has  appointed  the  Dukes  of  Devon- 
shire, Portland,  and  Leeds ;  the  Marquis  of  Angle- 
sey ;  Viscount  Dudley  and  Ward ;  Lord  Plunkett ; 
the  Right  Hons.  Sir  A.  Hart,  W.  Lamb,  Sir  S. 


Htilse,  and  Sir  G.  Cockburn,  to  be  Privy  Council- 
lors  ;  the  Lord  Lyndhurst,  to  be  Lord  High  Chan- 
cellor ;  and  the  Duke  of  Portland,  Keeper  of  the 
Privy  Seal.  His  Majesty  has  likewise  appointed 
Lord  Dudley  and  Ward,  Lord  Goderich,  and  W. 
Sturges  Bourne,  Esq.,  to  be  the  three  principal 
Secretaries  of  State ;  the  Marquis  of  Anglesey,  to 
be  Master  of  the  Ordnance  ;  and  Sir  John  Leech 
to  be  Master  of  the  Rolls. 

The  King  has  appointed  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire Lord  Chamberlain  of  His  Majesty's  House* 
hold,  and  Sir  S.  Hulse,  Vice-chamberlain  ;  the 
Earl  of  Stamford,  Chamberlain  of  the  County 
Palatine  of  Chester;  the  Hon.  J.  Abercromby, 
Advocate-general ;  Earl  of  Carlisle,  W.  D.  Adams, 
and  H.  Dawkins,  Esqrs.,  Commissioners  of  His 
Majesty's  Woods,  Forests,  and  Land  Revenues; 
Right  Hon.  G.  Tierney,  Master  and  Worker  of  the 
Mint ;  Right  Hon,  C.  W.  W.  Wynne,  Viscount 
Dudley  and  Ward,  Viscount  Goderich,  Right  Hon. 
W.  S.  Bourne,  Right  Hon.  G.  Canning,  Baron 
Teignmouth,  Right  Hon.  J.  Sullivan,  Sir  G.  War- 
render,  Dr.  Phillimore,  and  Sir  J.  Mac.donald, 
His  Majesty's  Commissioners  for  the  Affairs  of 
India.  Sir  James  Scarlet  is  appointed  Attorney- 
general,  and  Sir  Nicholas  Tindal,  Solicitor- 
general. 


INCIDENTS,  MARRIAGES,   AND   DEATHS,   IN  AND   NEAR  LONDON,  ETC. 


April  29. — His  Majesty  presented  Lord  Eldon 
with  a  magnificent  silver  cup  and  cover,  with  this 
inscription,—"  The  gift  of  His  Majesty  King  George 
the  Fourth  to  his  highly  valued  friend,  John  Earl 
of  Eldon,  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England,  upon 
his  retiring  from  his  official  duties,  in  the  year 
1827." 

30.— The  foundation  stone  of  the  London  Uni- 
versity was  laid  by  His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke 
of  Sussex,  attended  by  the  committee  and  stewards, 
who  afterwards  dined  together  with  the  patrons 
at  Freemasons'-tavern,  H.  R.  H.  in  the  chair,  sup- 
ported by  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Leinster, 
Lords  Lansdowne,  Auckland,  Carnarvon,  and  Nu- 
gent, Messrs.  Brougham,  Hume,  Hobhhouse,  &c. 
The  mallet  used  on  this  occasion  was  the  identical 
mallet  used  in  laying  the  foundation  »f  St.  Paul's, 
and  was  presented  by  Sir  C.  Wren  to  the  Masonic 
Lodge  of  Antiquity. 

May  1.— The  tirst  foundation  brick  for  St.  Ca- 
therine's Docks  was  laid. 

4.— His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Clarence 
held  his  first  levee  as  Lord  High  Admiral  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland. 

8. — Thanks  of  the  House  of  Commons  were 
voted  to  Lord  Combermere,  and  to  the  officers  and 
men  under  his  command,  for  their  services  and 
conduct  in  the  Burmese  war. 

9.— Letters  received  at  the  Admiralty  from  Cap- 
tain Beechey,  of  the  Blossom  frigate,  detailing  the 
particulars  of  the  voyage  of  that  ship  into  Bahring's 
Straits.  Officers  and  men  all  well ;  but  could  not 
obtain  any  intelligence  of  Captain  Franklin ;  ship 
suffered  some  damage  from  the  ice. 

10.— The  anniversary  festival  of  the  Sons  of  the 
Clergy  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  The  collections 


at  church,  and  at  the  dinner,  at  which  the  Lord 
Mayor  presided,  and  the  Duke  of  Sussex  attended, 
amounted  to  .£1,0/0. 

—His  Majesty  held  at  St.  James's  a  chapter 
of  the  Order  of  the  Garter,  when  the  Dukes  of 
Leeds  and  Devonshire,  and  the  Marquis  of  Exeter» 
were  invested  with  the  insignia  of  the  order,  in 
consequence  of  the  deaths  of  the  Earl  of  Win- 
chelsea,  and  the  Marquisses  of  Hastings  and  Cbol- 
mondeley.  Same  day  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and 
Lord  Aboyne  were  invested  members  of  the  Order 
of  the  Thistle. 

14. — The  House  of  Lords  passed  a  similar  vote 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  thanking  the  army  of 
India  relative  to  the  termination  of  the  Burmese 
war. 

—  A  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Westminster 
took  place,  when  an  address  was  voted  to  the 
King,  congratulating  His  Majesty  on  his  firmness 
in  choosing  his  prime  minister,  but  regretting  that 
His  Majesty's  choice  should  have  fallen  on  one 
who  has  already  declared  his  hostility  to  Parlia- 
mentary Reform.  The  address  to  be  delivered  to 
the  King  by  Messrs.  Hunt,  Cobbett,  Pitt,  and  Dr. 
Tucker. 

15.— A  general  meeting  of  the  operatives  of  the 
metropolis  was  held  at  the  Mechanics'  Institute, 
J.  Hume,  Esq.,  M.P.,  in  the  chair,  when  a  con- 
gratulatory address  was  voted  to  His  Majesty, 
for  calling  to  his  councils  such  persons  as  appeared 
best  qualified  to  advance  the  interest  of  the  nation. 
The  address  is  to  be  delivered  to  the  King  by  Mr. 
Hume. 

I/.— The  foundation  stone  of  a  new  school  and 
other  buildings,  for  the  use  of  the  Caledonian 
Asylum,  was  laid  by  H.  R.  H.  the  Duke  of  Sussex, 
attended  by  a  number  of  Scottish  gentlemen  clad 


1827.] 


Incidents,  Marriages,  <J*c. 


669 


in  the  national  -o§tumf .  The  company  afterwards 
dined  at  Freemasons'-tavern. 

18.— The  water  broke  into  the  Thames  Tunnel 
with  dreadful  violence  between  six  and  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  men  escaped  with 
difficulty,  but  not  one  is  missing,  and  it  appears 
the  injury  Is  not  irretrievable  ;  the  manager  of  the 
works  feeling  confident  (in  his  Report  to  the  Di- 
rector says),  from  the  means  he  has  adopted,  that 
the  work  will  in  a  short  time  be  resumed. 

23. — A  splendid  entertainment  was  given  at  the 
Goldsmith's-hall  to  His  Royal  Highness  the  Lord 
High  Admiral,  Duke  of  Clarence,  when  the  free- 
dom of  the  company  was  presented  to  the  Royal 
Duke  in  a  gold  snuff-box. 

The  Recorder  of  London  made  a  Report  to 
the  King  of  54  prisoners  lying  under  sentence  of 
death  in  Newgate  ;  when  4  were  ordered  for  exe- 
cution on  Tuesday  the  29th  instant*  and  the  other 
50  respited  during  His  Majesty's  pleasure. 

MARRIAGES. 

At  St.  George's,  Hanover-square,  W.  H.  Cooper 
esq.,  only  son  of  Sir  W.  Cooper,  bart.,  to  Miss 
Anne  Tynte ;  the  Marquis  de  Mervfe,  to  Selina, 
daughter  of  Lady  Morres  Gore. — At  Chelsea,  Rev. 
G.D.  St.  Quintin,  to  Georgiana  Henrietta  Louisa, 
daughter  of  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Dr.  G.  Wellesley. 
— At  Enfield,  James  Bacon,  esq.  to  Miss  Laura 
Frances  Cook. — At  St.  Mary-le-bone,  Rev.  H.  K. 
Bonney,  archdeacon  of  Bedford,  to  Miss  C.  Perry ; 
Major  A.  Dashwood,  to  Miss  Marian  Still;  C.  L. 
G.  Berkeley,  esq.,  to  Miss  A.  E,  Leigh,  of  Stone- 
leigh,  Warwick.— At  St.  James's,  W.  Carling,  esq., 
to  Miss  E.  Green.— At  Clapham,  W.  Kettlewell, 
esq.,  to  Miss  M.  Cattley.— At  St.  Stephen's,  Wai- 
brook,  E.  S.  Howell,  esq.,  to  Catherine  Emily, 
daughter  of  General  Sir  John  Murray,  bart. 

DEATHS. 

At  Totteridge-park,  85,  E.  Arrowsmith,  esq. — 
At  Much  Hadhain,  90,  the  Rev.  F  Stanley.— At 


Baniet,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Garrotf,  «on  of  Mr.  Baron 
Garrow.— In  the  Adelphi,  between  70  and  80,  Mr. 
Rowlandson,  one  of  the  most  eminent  artists  of 
his  day.-In  Edward-street,  Miss  A.  F.  Moore, 
daughter  of  Peter  Moore,  esq.,  M.P.  for  Coventry 
during  25  years. — In  the  Strand,  65,  E.  Antrobus, 
esq.— At  Balham-hill,  69,  E.  Moberley,  esq.,  of 
St.  Peter sburgh.— At  Lambeth,  Mrs.  Dyson.— In 
Bedford-square,  Miss  Bell.  — At  Albury-park, 
Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  Henry  and  Lady  Harriet 
Drummond.  At  Turrey,  the  Bev.  Leigh  Richmond, 
rector  of  that  place. — At  Bushey-heath,  63, Colonel 
Mark  Beaufoy,  F.R.S.-  At  Rickmansworth,  J. 
Magnay,  esq.,  fourth  son  of  the  late  Alderman 
Magnay.— At  Wormley-lodge,  Mrs.  Hare,  widow 
of  the  late  J.  Hare,  esq.,  M.P.,  and  sister  to  Sir 
A.Hume,  bart.— At  Hammersmith,  81,  W.  Keene, 
esq.— At  Chatham,  Major-general  D'Arcy,  of  the 
Royal  Engineers.— Late  of  Clapham,  90,  R.  Prior, 
esq. — In  Somerset-street,  84,  Mrs.  Stracey. — In 
Montague-square,  Anna,  daughter  of  Colonel  G. 
Harper. 

MARRIAGES  ABROAD. 
At  Paris,  at  the  English  Ambassador's  Chapel, 
T.  W.  P.  Molesworth,  esq.,  to  Miss  Anne  Fawcett. 
—At  Brussels,  at,  the  British  Ambassador's,  G. 
Wyndham,  esq.,  Dinton,  Wilts,  to  Miss  Margaret 
Jay,  of  Brussels.— At  Naples,  at  the  English 
Minister's  House,  the  Chevalier  de  Dupont,  to 
Miss  Douglas,  daughter  of  the  late  Sir  A.  S. 
Douglas. 

DEATHS  ABROAD. 

At  Como,  the  celebrated  natural  philosopher 
Volta.— At  Pera  (Constantinople),  W.  Mair,  esq.. 
of  Therapia. — At  Mere"  (Normandy),  F.  H.  Dicken- 
son,  esq. — At  Tours,  Miss  A.Lynn. — At  Quilon, 
the  lady  of  Lieut.-Col.Woodhouse.— 82,  The  Do  wa- 
ger Princess  of  Anhalt  Zerbot.— 77,  Frederick 
Augustus,  King  of  Saxony.— At  Montignan,  78, 
Larive,  the  celebrated  French  tragedian. 


MONTHLY  PROVINCIAL  OCCURRENCES; 

WITH    THE    MARRIAGES  AND    DEATHS. 


NORTHUMBERLAND    AND    DURHAM. 

A  considerable  improvement  has  recently  been 
made  on  the  Hexhara  road,  by  the  formation  of  a 
fine  level  line  of  turnpike  to  the  left  of  the  bridge 
at  Corbridge,  in  order  to  avoid  the  steep  hill  of  the 
old  road,  a  little  beyond  that  town  ;  the  distance  is 
much  shortened,  in  addition  to  the  relief  thus  af- 
forded to  the  horses. 

In  recently  carrying  into  effect  certain  alterations 
and  improvements  at  the  eastern  end  of  Durham 
Cathedral,  an  old  oaken  coffin  was  found,  containing 
the  remains  of  some  distinguished  personage — 
believed  to  be  no  other  than  the  patron  saint,  St. 
Cuthbert,  "  whose  restless  body  in  the  three  hun- 
dred and  ninth  yeare  after  his  first  buriall,  was 
with  all  funeral  pompe  enshrin'd'1  in  "  the  white 
church  "  at  Durham,  in  the  year  995,  or  832  years 
ago !  The  skeleton  was  found  to  be  remarkably 
perfect,  and  enclosed  in  the  remains  of  robes, 
richly  worked  with  gold,  a  large  and  bright 
gold  ring,  having  a  crucifix,  apparently  of  silver, 


appended,  was  found  lying  on  the  breast,  and  be- 
low it  the  remains  of  a  book. 

Married.'}  At  Stockton,  T.  H.  Faber,  esq.,  to 
Miss  Grey. — At  Bishopwearmoutb,  J.  T.  Wawn, 
esq.,  to  Miss  Emma  Horn.— At  Whitworth,  W. 
Harland,  esq,.,  to  Miss  Shaito. 

Died.]  At  Bishopwearmouth,  71,  Jane,  relict 
of  J.  Smithson,  esq.;  she  was  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  ancient  family  of  Bowes  of  Streatham-castle, 
Durham.- At  Gatcshead  Low  Fell,  90,  John  Gar- 
diner ;  he  was  one  of  the  early  members  of  Wes- 
ley's early  establishment,  his  methodist  chapel,  and' 
continued  an  ornament  to  the  society  for  nearly  70 
y<  ar«. — At  Newcastle,  78,  Ralph  Atkinson,  f»q.  ;. 
the  last  male  descendant  of  an  ancient  family  in 
Northumberland,  and  cousin  to  Lords  Eldon  and 
Stowell.— At  Bradley-hall,  Jane,  the  infant  daugh- 
ter of  E.  Beaumont,  esq. — At  Houghton-le-spring, 
the  Rev.  W.  Rawes,  late  head-master  of  Kepier. 
grammar-school. — At  Bishopwearmouth,  Jane,  re- 
lict of  J.  Smithson,  esq. — At  the  Red-barns,  near 
Newcastle,  T.  Shadforth,  esq.— At  Seaham,  the- 
Rev.  R.  Wallis.— At  Newcastle,  W.  Pinkerton,  esq. 

CUMBERLAND    AND    WESTMORELAND. 
Married.]    At  Ambleside,  G.  C.  Vernon,  «sq.» 
to  Miss  M.  A.  Carleton. 


670 


Provincial  Occurrences :  Yorkshire,  Stafford, 


[JUNE, 


Died.]  88,  Mrs.  Adamthwaite,  of  Ravenstons. 
dale. 

YORKSHIRE. 

On  the  13th,  some  boys  playing  in  Kirkstall- 
abbey,  discovered  a  stone  coffin  in  the  wall  of  the 
building,  about  six  feet  from  the  ground,  contain- 
ing the  skeleton  of  a  full-grown  man.  The  coffin 
was  so  accurately  fitted  into  the  wall  as  to  appear 
a  part  of  it ;  and  there  is  another  stone  of  pre- 
cisely the  same  shape  alongside  of  it,  which  is  pro- 
bably a  coffin.  From  the  place  and  manner  of 
their  burial,  these  remains  doubtless  are  those  of 
some  man  of  rank,  probably  one  of  the  Abbots  of 
Kirkstall ;  and  it  is  certain  that  they  have  been 
interred  some  centuries,  as  that  abbey  was  dis- 
solved, with  the  large  monasteries,  in  1540. 

April  19,  1826,  Mr.  Donn,  at  the  Botanic  Gar- 
den, Hull,  planted  a  vine  without  either  ball  or 
earth  attached  to  its  roots ;  and  it  has  now  pro- 
duced the  prodigious  number  of  200  bunches  of 
grapes,  above  130  of  which  remained  on  a  few 
days  back.  .  . 

A  silver  penny  of  Edward  I.  was  lately  found 
in  the  area  of  Baynard-castle,  Cottinghain,  where 
that  monarch  kept  his  court  in  1268  It  has  been 
deposited  in  the  museum-  of  the  Hull  Literary 
Society. 

A  gentleman  named  Janatt  is  about  to  build  a 
church  at  Doncaster  at  the  expense  of  .£10,000. 
The  corporation  have  voted  him  an  address  on 
the  occasion. 

Married.]  At  Whitley,  C.  H.  Wells,  esq.,  to 
Miss  Simpson.— At  Hull,  W.  Burton,  esq.,  to  Miss 
Walker.— At  York,  the  Rev.  C.  H.  Eyre,  to  Miss 
Foulis.— At  Sessey,  R.  Toes,  esq.,  to  Miss  Barker. 
—At  Cottingham,  J.  H.  Coulson,  esq.,  to  Miss 
Thornton.— At  Lockington,  G.  L.  Woolley,  esq., 
to  Miss  Taylor.— At  Knaresborough,  Mr.  B.  Caw, 
to  Miss  Shawe.— At  York,  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Brad- 
ney,  to  Miss  Preston. 

Died."]  At  Beverley,  J.  Lockwood,  esq.— At 
Knottingley,  Mrs.  Bedford.— At  Seaton-grange, 
Mrs.  Paull.— At  York,  the  Rev.  G.  Briggs.— At 
Rallborough,  the  Rev.  P.  A  Reaston. — At  Leeds, 
the  wife  of  J.  Murphy,  esq.— At  Swarland,  N. 
Sykes,  esq.— At  Beverley,  P.  Acklow,  esq.— At 
Howlen,  Valentine  Frederick,  youngest  son  of  R. 
Wirsop,  esq. — At  Scarborough,  T.  Parkin,  esq. — 
At  Stamtord-bridge,  Mrs.  Ridley. 

STAFFORD    AND    SALOP. 

The  magistrates  assembled  at  Stafford  sessions 
have  passed  an  unanimous  vote  of  thanks  to  the 
Right  Hon.  Robert  Peel,  for  his  distinguished  ser- 
vices in  improving  the  administration  of  criminal 
justice. 

At  Tixall,  the  coming  of  age  of  Sir  Clifford 
Constable  was  lately  celebrated  by  his  tenantry, 
whose  hilarity  was  rendered  doubly  effective  by 
the  announcement  that  at  the  next  audit  fifty  per 
cent,  would  be  deducted  from  their  rents. 

A  beautiful  and  magnificent  ox  is  now  feeding 
at  Eyton,  near  Wellington,  Salop.  His  weight 
last  year  was  28  cwt.,  nearly  one  ton  and  a  half. 
The  supposed  weight  by  judges  is  26  score  per 
quarter ;  the  fore  quarters  are  judged  to  weigh 
30  score  each.  His  height  is  6  feet  6  inches  ; 
length  from  nose  to  tail  1 1  feet  four  inches  ;  girth 
near  the  fore  legs  11  feet;  width  of  the  bosom  3 
feet  within  one  inch. 

Died.]  At  Shrewsbury,  J.  Mason,  esq. ;  he  had 
devoted  his  time  to  literature,  and  had  written 
several  works.  At  Oldington,  94,  a  man-servant 


to  Mr.  Worrall ;  he  had  been  servant  on  the  same 
farm  for  60  years !— At  Colebrookdale,  72,  Mrs. 
Luckcock ;  she  was  a  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends. 

LANCASHIRE. 

An  increased  demand  for  cotton  goods  has  been 
visible  for  several  weeks  past  at  Bolton.  A  fort- 
night since,  one  of  the  respectable  houses  advanced 
their  weavers  6d.  per  cut;  and  this  week  the  prin- 
cipal houses  in  the  fancy  trade  have  advanced  their 
wages  on  various  fabrics  from  8  to  15  per  cent. 
Employment  on  the  6-460  reed  cambric,  which  has 
been  worked  as  low  as  6s.  6d.  per  cut.  At  Chor- 
ley,  we  are  informed,  a  slight  improvement  in 
wages  has  taken  place.  At  Preston  business  is 
extremely  brisk,  and  an  advance  of  wages  is- 
shortly  expected.  At  Ashton-under-Line,  a  gene- 
ral advance  of  10  per  cent,  in  weavers'  wages  has 
taken  place,  and  in  some  particular  instances  as 
much  as  25  per  cent. 

We  are  gratified  to  find  that  the  accounts  from 
Manchester,  also  Liverpool,  Blackburn,  and  other 
great  manufacturing  towns,  fully  confirm  the  de- 
cided improvement  in  the  trade  of  the  country^. 
The  weavers  have  constant  employment  at  in- 
creased wages.  The  calico-printers  are  said  to 
have  their  hands  so  full  of  work  that  they  refuse 
to  take  further  orders.  Large  shipments  of  goods 
are  now  making  for  Hamburg  and  the  Baltic. 
The  stock  of  manufactured  goods  on  hand  is  con- 
siderably  reduced,  and  a  great  many  buyers  are 
in  the  market.  We  are  told  that  the  low  prices 
at  which  the  British  goods  have  been  sold,  beat 
down  and  nearly  destroyed  the  foreign  manufac- 
turers. From  an  increased  trade  we  shall.no 
doubt  derive  an  increasing  revenue. 

Died,]  In  Lancaster  castle,  80,  W.  Green;  h« 
had  been  confined  11  years  for  a  debt  of  .£1,000, 
and  is  said  to  have  died  worth  .£40,000. 

NOTTINGHAM    AND    LINCOLN. 

Some  weeks  since  a  tiger  escaped  from  the- 
menagerie  of  an  itinerant  showman,  and  was  at 
large  in  the  forest.  The  animal  has  been  de- 
stroyed, after  having  committed  ravages  amongst 
the  sheep-flocks  in  the  neighbourhood;  above  a 
hundred  have  been  preyed  upon  by  the  furious 
beast  since  he  made  his  escape  ;  and  the  farmers 
agreed  to  subscribe  a  sum  of  money,  to  be  paid 
to  any  person  who  should  destroy  it.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  seven  resolute  fellows  armed  them- 
selves with  guns,  and  went  in  pursuit  of  it.  He 
had  been  seen  in  the  vicinity  of  Farmesfteld,  and 
thither  the  tiger-hunters  repaired,  and  without 
any  danger  or  difficulty  succeeded  in  destroying 
him  by  fire-arms. 

Died.]  At  Staunton,  77,  Rev.  J.  Mounsey;  he 
had  been  curate  of  Staunton  and  of  Flamborough 
half  a  century. 

LEICESTER    AND    RUTLAND. 

A  meeting  of  the  working  classes  has  been  held 
at  Leicester,  for  the  purpose  of  voting  an  ad- 
dress to  His  Majesty  relative  to  the  late  change 
in  the  administration,  when  the  address  was  voted 
and  signed  by  the  chairman.  One  of  the  speakers 
said,  in  describing  the  situation  of  himself  and  his 
fellow  workmen  :  "  That  when  they  looked  around 
them  and  beheld  the  beauties  of  the  season— when 
they  saw  the  brute  creation  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  that  which  nature  had  so  amply  provided  for 


1827.]         Warwick,  Northampton,  Worcester,  Hereford,  $*c. 


671 


them — when  they  saw  the  feathered  tribe  hopping 
from  twig  to  twig,  and  heard  them  chaunting  forth 
their  melodious  notes,  as  if  in  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment for  the  benefits  they  received,  and  when 
they  contrasted  this  with  the  condition  of  the  la- 
bouring clases  ;  when  they  saw,  and  by  sad  expe- 
rience knew,  that  they  alone  of  all  the  creatures 
of  this  kingdom,  were  debarred  the  means  of  pro- 
curing that  support  for  themselves  and  children, 
which  a  beneficent  Creator  had  so  abundantly  pro- 
vided for  them,  could  they,  or  ought  they  tore- 
strain  themselves  from  inquiring  into  the  cause 
of  a  state  of  things  so  cruel  and  unnatural?  What 
then,  he  asked,  was  the  cause?  Why,  principally, 
the  defective  state  of  the  Representation  in  the 
Commons  House  of  Parliament." 

Married.]  At  Great  Glen,  T.  Bryan,  esq., 
high  sheriff  of  Rutland,  to  Miss  E.  Hames. 

:Died]  At  Wanlip-hall,  56,  Sir  C.T.  Palmer, 
bart.  — At  Ashby-de-la-Zouch,  84,  Mrs.  Blenk- 
harne. 

"WARWICK    AND    NORTHAMPTON. 

The  Rngby  School  Anniversary  took  place  in 
April,  and  about  400  persons  were  present  in  the 
school-room  ;  but  we  did  not  hear  that  the  poor 
aged  men  belonging  to  part  of  that  excellent  esta- 
blishment had  yet  received  the  additional  eighteen 
pence  per  week,  decreed  to  them  by  the  late 
Lord  Chancellor,  to  make  their  old  age  comfort- 
able!!! 

April  23.— At  Stratford-upon-Avon,  a  gala  fes- 
tival in  honour  of  the  natal  day  of  our  immortal 
poet,  Shakspeare,  commenced,  and  lasted  during 
the  two  following  days.  Tt  was  conducted  on  the 
plan  of  Garrick's  jubilee  in  1769,  and  the  town 
•was  extremely  full.  It  is  to  be  celebrated  every 
third  year  on  the  same  grand  scale ;  in  addition 
to  the  grand  pageantry,  there  were  public  break- 
fasts, dinners,  concerts,  masquerading,  &c. 

The  good  effects  of  occasional  recourse  to  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  and  corporation  law,  is 
manifested  in  the  reformed  conduct  of  the  corpo- 
rate body  of  the  borough  of  Warwick,  who,  since 
the  legal  proceedings  against  them,  and  notice  of 
other  motions  in  the  ensuing  term,  have  filled  up 
their  numbers,  and  revived  the  popular  part  of  the 
corporation,  which  had  been  extinct  for  nearly  a 
century  and  a  half;  we  mean  the  long-extinct 
body  of  the  assistant  burgesses.  The  publication 
of  the  charter,  and  revival  of  the  rights  of  the 
burgesses  in  the  election  of  mayor,  passing  of  ac- 
counts, &c.,  with  the  criminal  information,  have 
:convinced  the  managers  of  this  corporation  of  the 
expediency  of  respecting  the  provisions  of  the 
charter;  and  the  approach  of  Trinity  Term  has 
quickened  their  apprehension.  We  trust  the  gen- 
tlemen who  have  so  honourably  achieved  these 
reformations,  and  restored  the  rights  of  this  an- 
cient borough, -will  not  stop  here,  but  will  examine 
into  the  state  of  the  charities,  and  the  institutions 
for  the  education  of  the  rising  generation  of  the 
town.  Indeed  it  is  now  become  the  duty  of  the 
whole  country  to  inquire  into  their  own  particular 
local  establishments,  and  to  free  them  from  their 
present  disgraceful  dilapidations. 

At  a  numerous  meeting,  lately  held,  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Birmingham,  it  was  unanimously 
resolved,  that  in  consequence  of  the  great  depres- 
sion of  manufactures  and  commerce,  petitions  be 
presented  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  praying 
them  to  repeal  the  discriminating  duties  on  East- 


India  productions  ;  for  extending  the  private  trade 
to  India,  and  for  granting  to  British  subjects  the 
carrying  on  such  portions  of  the  trade  to  and  from 
China, which  is  now  exclusively  enjoyed  by  foreign 
nations,  particularly  by  the  Americans. 

Married.]  At  Newbold-on-Avon,  W.  W.  Hume, 
esq.,  son  of  A.  Hume,  esq..  of  Bilton-  grange,  to 
Lucy,  daughter  of  T.  Towers,  esq.,  of  Bilton. 

Died.]  At  Stratford-upon-Avon,  77,  .T.  Lord, 
esq. ;  he  had  been  thrice  mayor  of  that  town. — At 
Wicken.Emily  Elizabeth, daughter  of  Lord  Charles 
Fitzroy.— At  Baginton-hall,  Caroline,  the  wife 
of  the  Rev.  W.  D.  Uromley.— At  Northampton, 
73,  Mr.  Alderman  Osborn,  father  of  the  corpora- 
tion ;  74,  Rev.  J.  Horsey  ;  he  had  been  52  years 
pastor  of  the  congregation  at  Northampton,  whick 
was  formerly  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Doddridge. 

WORCESTER    AND    HEREFORD. 

We  have  much  pleasure  in  stating,  that  the 
glove  trade,  and  the  branches  connected  with  it, 
have  experienced  some  improvement. 

At  the  last  special  general  meeting  of  the  Go- 
vernors of  Worcester  Infirmary,  the  report  of  the 
committee  was  made,  and  resolutions  passed  for 
forming  a  new  wing  uniform  with  that  now  erect- 
ed, and  thereby  giving  an  additional  ward. 

GLOUCESTER    AND    MONMOUTH. 

The  new  road  from  Cheltenham  to  Cirencester 
has  been  recently  opened.  It  will  save  a  mile  and 
a  half  in  distance,  and  has  been  accomplished  at 
the  expense  of  .£16,000. 

April  19,  the  beautiful  stone  pier  at  Beachley 
Old  Passage  was  completed,  and  is  now  ready  for 
the  steam  packet.  The  pier  is  600  feet  long,  and 
30  wide  ;  and  we  cannot  but  congratulate  the 
public  on  the  superior  accommodation  they  will 
now  receive  in  crossing  the  Severn  at  the  Old 
Passage. 

April  27,  the  opening  of  the  Gloucester  and 
Berkeley  Canal  took  place,  when  a  vessel  of  300 
tons  burthen  made  her  grand  entrance  along  the 
canal  into  the  city  and  port  of  Gloucester,  amidst 
the  firing  of  cannon,  bands  of  music  playing,  and 
the  plaudits  of  an  immense  multitude  of  spectators, 
anxious  to  witness  one  of  the  most  important  and 
magnificent  achievements  of  human  art.  A  grand 
dinner  was  given  upon  the  occasion.  The  length 
of  the  canal  is  16£  miles,  the  width  from  /O  to  90 
feet,  depth  18  ;  there  are  15  swing  bridges  over  it, 
besides  those  of  the  locks  ;  and  it  has  cost  .£450,000. 
Six  Acts  of  Parliament  have  also  been  found 
necessary  for  completing  this  emporium  of  the 
West. 

The  produce  of  the  late  Stroud  Bazaar  for  the 
sale  of  ladies'  work,  amounted  to  full  .£160,  in  aid 
of  the  charity  schools. 

The  men  who  have  been  so  long  disputing  with 
their  masters,  in  the  Monmouthshire  collieries, 
have  again  resumed  their  work  at  the  masters' 
prices  ;  and  all  the  collieries  are  now  in  full  ac- 
tivity. 

Married.]  At  Dodington,  H.  Peyton,  esq.,  only 
son  of  Sir  H.Peyton,  bait.,  to  Georgiana  Eliza- 
beth, daughter  of  Sir  B.  Codrington,  bart. — At 
Gloucester,  H.  H.  Wilton,  esq..  to  Miss  H.  Jones. 

Died.]  At  Cheltenham,  69.  F.  T^viss,  esq.,  fa- 
ther to  F.  Twiss,  esq.,  M.P.,  Wootton  Basset,— At 
Clifton,  Mrs.  Adderley,  relict  of  the  late  C.  C. 
Adderley,  esq.,  Ham's-hall,  Warwick.— At  Stroui, 
82,  Mr.  J.  Hyde,  during  60  of  which. he  was  occu- 
pied in  the  instruction  of  youth. — At  Old 
t,  80;  Mr;  J. Griffiths.  '  ' 


672 


Provincial  Occurrences:   Oxfordshire,  Hants, 


OXFORDSHIRE. 

Died.]  At  Oxford,  88,  Mr.  T.  White ;  he  had 
been  bed-maker  to  All  Souls'  College  upwards  of 
75  years  !  He  was  known  to  the  public'by  the  name 
ol  Uncle  White. 

HANTS    AND    SUSSEX. 

The  Commissioners  at  Brighton  have  at  length 
given  notice  that  they  are  ready  to  receive  plans 
for  erecting  a  town-hall,  assembly-rooms,  and  a 
new  market. 

The  importation  of  cart  horses  has  again  com- 
menced in  Sussex  and  Kent,  and  100  two  and  three 
year  olds  have  been  lately  landed. 

Married.']  At  North  Stoneham,  Captain  St. 
*>ser,  to  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Sir  John  Dash- 
wood  King,  bart.,  M.P. 

Died.]  At  Southampton,  59,  the  Right  Hon. 
SUolto  Henry  M'Clelland,  Lord  Kircudbri«ht.— At 
Chichester,  98,  Mrs.  Lover.— At  Brighton,  the 
Right  Hon.  Lady  Calthorpe. — At  Hastings,  Robert 
Earl  Ferrers,  Viscount  Tamworth  ;  his  lordship 
was  thirteenth  in  lineal  descent  from  Prince 
Thomas  of  Woodstock,  youngest  son  of  Edward 
III.— 89,  Mrs.  Adams,  relict  of  H.  Adams,  esq.,  of 
Bucklershard. 

NORFOLK    AND    SUFFOLK. 

April  26.— The  Old  City  Charity,  the  National, 
and  Sunday  Schools  of  Norwich,  assembled  at  the 
cathedral  of  that  city,  to  the  number  of  2,000,  at- 
tended by  their  respective  teachers,  when  a  ser- 
mon was  preached  by  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Lord 
Bayning.  It  was  a  most  delightful  spectacle, 
rendered  more  gratifying  by  the  reflection  that 
the  number  had  been  nearly  doubled  since  last 
year.  After  the  service  they  returned  in  proces- 
sien  to  St.  Andrew's-hall :  and  as  they  lelt  it,  each 
boy  and  girl  received  a  large  plum-cake.  The 
friends  of  the  charities  dined  together,  when  the 
«ayor  presided. 

Married.]  The  Rev.  F.  Calvert,  rector  of 
Whatneld,  to  Miss  Sarah  Hicks,  of  Chattisham- 
•place.— At  Wortham,  J.  C.  Cobbold,  esq;,  to  Miss 
-JL.  Patteson. 

Died.]  At  Norwich,  82,  Mr.  D.  Clark ;  he  had 
ttoen  employed  in  the  commercial  establishment  of 
Messrs.  Ives  and  successors,  for  70  years! — At 
Harleston,66,  Mr.  R.  Paul,  late  of  Starston,  well 
known  to  agriculturists  for  several  ingenious  in- 
ventions, and  for  his  interesting  inquiries  into  the 
natural  historv  and  habitudes  of  the  turnip-fly 
and  the  wire-worm. — At  Clenchwarton,  83,  Sir 
.Charles  Brown  ;  he  was  of  high  literary  attain- 
ments, and  many  years  physician  to  the  king  of 
Prussia,  who  conferred  upon  him  the  order  of  the 
Red  Kaple.— T.  B.  Evans,  esq.,  deputy  lieutenant 
lor  Norfolk,  and  high  sheriff  in  1/91. 

DORSET   AND    WILTS. 

The  corner  stone  of  the  new  church  at  Fleet  has 
recently  been  laid  with  the  usual  ceremonies  on  such 
occasions;  and  with  the  pleasing  accompaniment 
of  regaling  not  only  the  workmen  with  a  dinner, 
.but  plentifully  supplying  all  tl.e  poor  of  Fleet  with 
beef,  bread,  and  beer.  The  late  old  church  was 
destroyed  by  the  dreadful  tempest  of  1824. 

Died.]  At  Poole,  102,  Elizabeth  Godwin  ;  she  re- 
tained her  facultie-  till  a  tew  da-  s  before  her  death, 
and  could  see  to  read  without  glasses  till  within  the 
last  two  years. — At  Heffletpn,  Dr.  Bain  ;  he  was 
for  inany  years  the  tried  friend  of  the  brilliant  but 
unhappy  Sheridan,  whose  last  hours  were  con- 
soled by  his  attentions. 

SOMERSET    AND    DEVON. 

la  the  summer  of  1828,  as  tome  workmen  wwre 


quarrying  stones  iu  Uphill-hill,  they  crossed  a, 
fissure  containing  a  quantity  of  bones.  In  the 
course  of  further  search  were  discovered  bones  of 
the  elephant,  rhinoceros,  ox,  horse,  bear,  hog, 
hyaena,  fox,  pole-cat,  water-rat,  mouse,  and  birds. 
Nearly  all  the  bones  of  the  larger  species  were  so 
gnawed  and  splintered,  and  evidently  of  such  an- 
.cient  fracture,  that  little  doubt  can  exist  that  it 
was  a  hyeena's  den,  siaiilar  to  Kirkdale  and  Kent's 
.Hole.  The  bones  and  teeth  of  the  extinct  species 
of  hyaena  were  very  abundant.  The  more  ancient 
bones  were  found  in  the  upper  region  of  the  fis- 
sure, firmly  imbedded;  further  down,  in  a  wet 
loam,  there  was  an  innumerable  quantity  of  birds' 
bones  only,  principally  of  the  gull  tribe.  These 
Professor  Buckland  supposes  to  have  been  intro- 
duced by  foxes.  The  cavern  extends  abdut  10  feet 
from  north  to  south,  varying  from  14  to  6  feet  east 
to  west.  At  its  entrance  the  tioor  was  found 
covered  with  sheep  bones,  and  on  digging  into  the 
mud  and  sand  of  which  it  consisted,  several  bones 
of  the  cuttle-fish  were  found,  and  the  pelvis  and  a 
few  bones  of  the  fox.  The  fissure  is  vertical, 
about  50  feet  deep  from  the  surface  to  the  mouth 
of  the  cave,  and  is  situated  at  the  western  extre- 
mity of  Mendip,  in  a  bold  mural  front  of  lime- 
stone strata.  The  greater  part  of  the  bones  have 
been  presented  to  the  Bristol  Institution  ;  Mr. 
Buckland  has  a  few  specimens,  and  the  Geologi- 
cal Society  of  London  a  few  more.  These  relics 
possess  a  high  degree  of  interest  to  the  geologist, 
and  they  are  indubitable  evidences  of  a  world  long 
since  past. 

A  meeting  has  been  held  at  Newto'n  Abbot  of 
the  subscribers  to  the  Newton  Canal,  and  a  com- 
mittee formed,  in  order  to  commence  operations 
as  soon  as  possible,  as  its  completion  will  prove 
highly  beneficial  to  the  .town  of  Newton  Abbott, 
Newton  Bushel,  Ashburton,  and  vicinity.  .£5,000 
are  the  estimated  expenses;  .£4,000  have  already 
been  subscribed. 

The  first  anniversary  has  lately  been  celebrated 
at  Bath,  of  that  munificent  establishment  for  gen- 
tlewomen in  reduced  circumstances,  Partis's  Col- 
lege. The  bishop  of  the  diocese,  with  the  trus- 
tees and  the  foundress,  attended  the  chapel,  with 
the  thirty  ladies  who  reside  in  the  college.  The 
trustees  afterwards  dined  together  at  a  splendid 
repast  provided  by  the  foundress,  who  has  sus- 
tained all  the  expenses  of  the  establishment  with- 
out touching  upon  the  ample  fund  designed  for 
the  purposes  of  this  princely  charity.  Thursday, 
in  Easter  week,  is  fixed  for  the  annual  commemo- 
ration for  ever. 

Married.]  At  Salcombe,  F.  B.  Beamish,  esq., 
to  Miss  Catherine  Savery  de  Lisle  de  Courcy. 

Died.]  At  Polden-hill,  100,  Joseph  Sully;  a 
fortnight  previous  to  his  death  he  walked  12  miles 
in  one  day.— At  Bath,  Rev.  H.  F.  Mills,  chancel- 
lor of  York  Cathedral.— At  Exeter,  the  Hon.  A. 
A.  Preston,  son  of  Lord  Gormanston. — At  Tor- 
quay, the  Hon.  A.  E.  Flower,  daughter  of  Viscount 
Ashiord.— At  Stoke,  85,  Mr.  C.  Foster. 

CORNWALL. 

The  improvement  of  the  great  road  from  Exeter 
to  Falmouth  is  at  length  bogun  ;  by  the  cutting  R 
new  line  on  the  moor  at  Temple,  and  the  removal 
of  some  houses  at  Bodmin,  the  dangerous  en- 
trance to  that  town  will  b«  widened  from  11  to  30 
feet. 


1827.] 


Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 


673 


The  number  of  blocks  of  tin  coined  at  Pen- 
zance  in  the  last  quarter  was  4,089;  and  the 
whole  number  in  Cornwall  during  that  period  was 
6,900. 

WALKS. 

The  Corporation  of  Pembroke  having  disposed 
of  their  right  to  the  toll  of  the  new  market  at 
Pembroke  Dock  to  government  for  .£3,000,  it  is 
expected  that  it  will  be  immediately  opened. 

A  respectable  meeting  has  been  held  in  the  me- 
'  tropolis,  composed  chiefly  of  gentlemen  resident 
in  London,  born  in  the  principality,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  taking  into  consideration  the  best  means 
ot  protecting  the  interests  of  the  Welsh  peasantry, 
who  have  been  permitted  to  erect  habitations  on, 
and  take  into  cultivation  parts  of,  the  common 
and  waste  lands  of  the  principality,  and  who  have 
been  or  might  be  ejected  under  the  authority  of 
bills  of  enclosure,  without  compensation  for  their 
tenements  or  their  labour.  The  proceedings  had 
reference  to  some  bills  of  enclosure,  by  the  opera- 
tion of  which  serious  disturbances  were  created 
amongst  the  Welsh  peasantry  a  short  time  ago, 
and  more  particularly  to  a  Bill  brought  into  Par- 
liament by  some  land  owners  in  Carnarvon- 
shire, for  the  enclosure  of  some  common  lands  in 
the  parishes  of  Llanwndda  and  Llandwrog.  A 
petition  to  Parliament  was  ordered  to  be  prepared, 
and  a  subscription  was  entered  into  for  defraying 
the  expeiiees.  Too  much  of  what  is  now  attempt- 
ing to  be  done  in  Wales  has  been  done  in  Eng- 
land. Our  Enclosure  Bills  have  converted  all  our 
hardy  and  industrious  cottagers,  with  their  one  or 
two  cows'each  on  the  commons,  into  squalidpaupers. 
The  landowners,  either  by  purchase  (for  the  poor 
are  improvident)  or  by  the  original  provisions  of 
the  Enclosure  Bills,  have  swallowed  up  all  the 
rights  of  their  poor  neighbours.  These  latter, 
once  the  pride  and  strength  of  England,  are  now 
come  upon  the  parish,  and  the  very  possessors  of 
their  property  complain  at  maintaining  the  late 
owners  out  of  the  rates.  The  land  formerly  main- 
tained the  little  occupants  of  the  cottages  which 
were  built  upon  it,  in  decency  and  comfort,  with- 
out  the  intervention  of  the  rates,  or  the  necessity 
of  applying  to  an  overseer.  We  understand  this 
attempt  to  injure  the  Welsh  peasantry  has  been 
finally  frustrated,  owing  to  the  firm  opposition  with 
which  it  has  been  assailed. 

The  expenditure  for  the  county  of  Glamorgan, 
from  Easter  1826  to  Easter  1827,  as  published 
by  Mr.  E.  P.  Richards,  treasurer,  amounts  to 
.£5,258.  lls.  lid.  One  of  the  items  is  for  building 
a  new  house  of  correction  at  Swansea,  £1,500. 

Progress  is  making  to  facilitate  the  communi- 
cation through  Herefordshire  and  the  neighbour- 
ing counties  in  Wales.  The  hills  which  separate 
Kington  from  Hay  having  been  long  complained 
of  by  travellers,  the  commissioners  have  resolved 
upon  making  a  new  road. 

The  friends  ot  Mr.  Davie.s,  of  Rhyscog,  Radnor, 
have  presented  him  with  a  most  elegant  silver  gilt 
vase,  value  100  guineas,  having  a  finely-modelled 
and  executed  ox  on  the  cover,  and  a  sheep  en- 
graved on  one  of  the  medallions  on  the  body,  with 
the  following  inscription  on  the  reverse  side: — 
"  To  Mr.  John  Davies,  of  Rhyscog,  for  his  unde- 
viating  and  honest  conduct  as  a  sheep  and  cattle- 
dealer  for  the  space  of  40  years,  this  t.ken  of  re- 
spect is  presented  by  the  gentlemen  and  yeomanry 
of  the  counties  of  Radnor  and  Brecon." 
M.M.  New  Series.— VOL.  III.  No.  18. 


Died.']  The  Rev.  Dr.  Crawford,  archdeacon  of 
Carmarthen.— 71 ,  Mr.  W.  Brown,  of  Bryncock, 
Montgomery.  -At  Holyhead,  100,  Mrs.  M.  Wil- 
liams, late  of  Tymawr-farm ;  she  retained  her 
faculties  till  the  last.— At  Aberdare,  78,  Rev.  T. 
Jones,  perpetual  curate  incumbent  for  40  years 
at  Aberdare  and  Lamvonns. — At  Penegoes,  Mont- 
gomery, Rev.  H.  Thomas;  he  had  been  chaplain 
on  board  the  fleet  at  Lord  Howe's  victory,  June 
1794.— At  Dolgelly,  75,  Mr.  D.  Richards,  generally 
known  among  the  bards  and  the  admirers  of  Welsh 
poetry  by  the  assumed  name  of  Dafydd  Jonnwr, 
and  author  of  Cywydd  y  Drindod,  and  other 
pieces. 

SCOTLAND. 

The  quantity  of  foreign  grain  which  is  daily 
pouring  into  the  port  of  Leith  is  very  great,  and 
has  not  been  equalled  for  these  16  years  past ;  the 
east  dock  is  quite  crowded  with  Prussian,  Swedish, 
and  other  foreign  vessels. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  freeholders,  &c.  of  the  county 
of  Fife,  it  was  unanimously  resolved  to  present  a 
petition  to  Parliament  in  favour  of  the  bill  to  in- 
crease the  breed  of  salmon,  and  for  regulating  the 
salmon  fisheries  throughout  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland. 

At  a  dinner  given  in  the  Assembly-rooms  at 
Glasgow,  upwards  of  200  gentlemen  sat  down  to 
testify  their  esteem  and  admiration  of  the  literary 
genius  of  the  Lord  Rector  (Mr.  Campbell).  After 
a  variety  of  toasts,  Professor  Sandford  proposed 
"  The  brightest  gem  in  England's  crown,  that 
would  diffuse  education  to  thousands  yet  unborn, 
The  London  University." — Mr.  Campbell  said, 
"  When  that  brilliant  gem  in  the  University, 
which  had  now  addressed  them,  was  appointed 
Professor  of  the  Greek  Class,  he  clapped  his  hands, 
and  said  it  was  all  over  with  Oxford  now.  He 
disregarded  all  the  detractions  of  malice;  but, 
beiore  the  company,  he  would  invoke  the  light- 
nings of  heaven  to  strike  him  dead,  if  the  first 
idea  of  the  London  University  did  not  proceed 
from  himself.  He,  however,  confessed  that  he 
could  not  have  proceeded  three  steps  without  the 
aid  of  great  and  powerful  friends ;  in  particular, 
of  his  great,  nay,  he  might  almost  call  him  his 
omnipotent  friend  Mr.  Brougham,  who  had  wielded 
the  proud  aristocracy  of  England  to  be  favourable 
to  the  design.  If  he  had. committed  an  error  in 
being  intoxicated  with  their  favour,  he  hoped  they 
would  at  least  acknowledge  his  claims  as  being 
the  founder  of  the  London  University." 

A  great  many  muslin  weavers  at  Glasgow  have 
begun  to  weave  silk,  which  is  now  a  thriving  trade 
there. 

•married."]  At  Edinburgh,  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
Erskine,  to  Miss  Philadelphia  Stuart  Menteath, 
eldest  daughter  of  C.  G.  S.  Menteath,  esq.,  of 
Close  burn -hall,  Dumfrieshire, — George  Dempster, 
esq.,  of  Skibo,  to  Joanna  Hamilton,  youngest 
daughter  of  the  late  Right  Hon.  R.  Dunda.s,  of  Ar- 
niston,  Lord  Chiet  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 

J)ied.~\  At  Grant's  Braes,  near  Haddington, 
6/,  Mr.  Gilbert  Burns,  brother  to  the  celebrated 

Bjet,  and  author  of  many  celebrated  works. — At 
undee,  104,  Janet  Findlay;   she   married  at  88 
a  youth  of  25,  and  the  last  12  years  she  was  sup- 
ported by  charity  ;  her  i'aculties  were    very  little 
impaired,  and  her  death  was  occasioned  by  a  fall. 

IRELAND. 

Emigration  to  America,  through  Waterford, 
continues  to  an  extent  quite  unprecedented.  The 
Bolivar,  of  Waterford,  of  38.1  tons  register,  burden 
about  800  tons,  lately  sailed  for  Halifax,  with 
about  35.0  passengers. 

4  R 


[     674 

DAILY  PRICES  OF  STOCKS, 
From  the  2Qth  of  April  to  the  2«5M  of  May  182T. 


4648p 
4748p 
4749p 
48  49p 
4749p 
46  48p 


47  48p 

48  50p 

49  50p 
4950p 
49  50p 
4950p 


767/p 
76  /7p 
76  77p 
76  77p 
77p 
767/p 


E.  EYTON,  Stock  Broker,  2,  Cornhill  and  Lombard  Street. 

MONTHLY  METEOROLOGICAL  REPORT, 

From  April  20th  to  19th  May  inclusive. 
By  WILLIAM  HARRIS  and  Co.,  50.  High  Holborn.1 


1 

Therm, 

Barometer. 

De  Luc's 
Hygro. 

LWinds. 

Atmospheric  Variations. 

_: 

c 

C 

S5 

9A.M. 

10P.M. 

5 

s. 

9A.M. 

10  P.M. 

9AM. 

2P.M. 

10  P.M. 

Pi 

•3 

ti 

I 

01 

1 

c 

§ 

OS 

O 

20 

44 

50 

44 

29    53 

29    47 

96 

90 

ENE 

E 

Clo. 

Clo. 

Clo. 

21 

45 

49 

41 

29    39 

29    49 

98 

98 

ENE 

ENE 

Rain 





22 

43 

45 

37 

29    56 

29    66 

88 

82 

NE 

NNE 

Clo. 





23 

42 

45 

36 

29    61 

29    53 

77 

81 

'  N 

g 





Fair^ 

24 

45 

47 

34 

29    40 

29    52 

87 

80 

SSW 

SW 

— 

Sleet 

25 

47 

50 

36 

29    63 

29    84 

74 

75 

sw 

SW 

Fair 

Fair 

— 

26 

Q 

44 

63 

38 

30    00 

30     15 

77 

70 

w 

ssw 

_ 



_ 

27 

53 

57 

42 

30     18 

30     10 

68 

80 

SSE 

E 

— 

Fine 

— 

28 

54 

64 

46 

29    98 

29    91 

85 

80 

E 

E 

_ 

— 

_ 

29 

58 

71 

52 

29    90 

29    93 

81 

76 

E 

E 

__ 

— 

— 

30 

61 

74 

57 

29    93 

29    91 

79 

72 

WSW 

W 

— 

— 

— 

May. 

63 

72 

50 

29    91 

29    91 

80 

87 

W 

g 

S.Rain 

2 

53 

63 

53 

29    90 

29    84 

95 

96 

ESE 

ESE 

cioi 



Clo. 

3 

60 

68 

53 

29    81 

29    88 

82 

76 

W 

vy 

Faii- 

_ 

Fair 

4 

iffc 

58 

66 

53 

29    86 

29    67 

81 

83 

WSW 

'  SW 

Clo. 

Clo. 

Clo. 

5 

65 

•<y 

Ml 

58 

52 

29    53 

29    37 

90 

95 

sw 

ssw 



Rain 

6 

55 

56 

44 

29    21 

29    34 

95 

92 

ssw 

NNW 

Rain 

Rain 

7 

49 

55 

37 

29    55 

29    57 

72 

80 

E 

ENE 

Clo. 

Clo. 

Fair 

8 

46 

50 

39 

29    72 

29    76 

78 

75 

NE 

E 



_ 

Clo. 

9 

45 

52 

42 

29    70 

29    67 

80 

80 

ENE 

ENE 

— 

— 

10 

53 

56 

43 

29    65 

29    64 

76 

78 

ENE 

ESE 

— 

— 

Fair 

11 

O 

52 

59 

42 

29    66 

29    83 

78 

81 

ENE 

E 

Fair 

Fair 

Clo. 

12 

50 

57 

40 

29    96 

29    97 

75 

81 

ENE 

ENE 







13 

50 

58 

45 

29    84 

29    75 

79 

77 

NE 

NNE 

_ 

__ 



14 

10 

54 

54 

46 

29     /O 

29    66 

82 

91 

NE 

NW 

— 

Clo. 

Rain 

15 

50 

57 

46 

29     64 

29    61 

88 

85 

WSW 

SE 

Clo. 

Fair 

Clo. 

16 

17 

60 

64 

48 

29    44 

29    31 

82 

92 

E 

SE 

Fair 

Clo. 

Rain 

17 

35 

c 

58 

66 

53 

29    45 

29    49 

78 

92 

SSE 



Rain 



18 

55 

66 

55 

29     62 

29    67 

87 

78 

SW 

W 



Fair 

Fair 

l^x- 

RMHM 

65 

67 

55 

29     80 

29    90 

75 

71 

NW 

W 



Fine 

L    1* 

^ 

*^ 

£9 

_ 

-v.:  -..'  Tx 

015H 

EX- 

INDEX 


VOL.  III. 


ORIGINAL    PAPERS,  &c. 


Page 

AFFAIRS  in  General,  Letters  on  63,  179,  291,401,  511,  631 

•Age,  the  Return  of  the  Golden 51 

Agricultural  Report 107,218,333,446,558,664 

America,  North  East  Boundary  of 142 

Astrologer's  Hymn,  the  290 

Appointments 338,450,552,668 

Assignation,  the  416 

Association,  the  Catholic  48! 

Agrippa  and  his  Dog >. 623 

Ad  Sculptorem  Celiam  exprimere  canantem 580 

Bankrupts Hi,  224,  335,448,560,  665 

Biographical  Memoirs  of  Eminent  Persons  100,  219,  326,  437,  554,  660 

Borderer's  Leap,  the 495 

British  Navy,  on  the  Personnel,  Materiel,  and  Science  of  the    615 

Catholics  of  Ireland,  the 5 

Catholic  Resolutions,  the  388 

Chapter  on  Dreams 275 

Commercial  Report 109,219,335,  445,560,  664 

Companies,  Water 457 

Charities,  Public '. 500 

Dogs,  on 173 

Domestic  Economy  and  Cookery  28 

Dissertation  upon  Dinners  136 

Dreams,  a  Chapter  on 275 

Dead  Watch,  the • 250 

Drunkenness,  the  Philosophy  of 601 

Etiquette 135 

Epitaph  on  Ryenvett,  an  unpopular  Judge  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 135 

Ecclesiastical  Preferments  115,  226,  338,  450,552,  667 

Full-Lengths 58,365 

Far-Home,  the 262 

Feelings  of  Immortality  in  Youth,  on  the 267 

Four  Nations,  the 282,473 

Flattery,  Ode  to  376 

French,  Songs  from  the 393 

Golden  Age,  the  Return  of  the 51 

Grave,  theOld  Warrior's  472 

Giants,  a  Lecture  on .,..  597 

Houri,  the   62 

Home,  Spells  oi , 141 

Jew  Slopseller,  the  , 365 

Kindred  Heart 510 

Luck  and  111  Luck 150 

Legend  of  St.  Valentine,  the 160 

London  Incidents,  Marriages,  Deaths,  &c 115,  22e,  339,  453,  552,  668 

Letter  on  Affairs  in  general,  from  a  Gentleman  in  London  to  a  Gentleman  in 
theCountry 63,179,291,401 


INDEX. 

Page 

Letter  from  a  Gentleman  in  the  Country  to  a  Gentleman  in  London,  on  Affairs 

in  general 511 

Lily  and  my  Pipe,  to  the 581 

Lord  Mayor's  Journey  to  Oxford,  the 377 

Love's  Firat  Lesson 584 

Love's  Last  Meeting  22 

Money,  on  the  Want  of 35 

Metropolitan  Improvements   121 

Morning  Salutation  between  Soul  and  Body 128 

Movements  in  Portugal  233 

Medical  Reports  120,  232,344,  456,568,  662 

Meteorological  Reports 120,  232,344,456,568,  674 

North-East  Boundary  of  America 142 

November  Walk    352 

Nations,  the  Four 282,  473 

Notes  forthe  Month 631 

New  Ministry,  the 569 

Palm-Tree,  the 26 

Parliament,  the  Re-assembling  of. 162 

Profession  and  Trade 345 

Pleasures  of  Body-Snatching 355 

Polemics,  Irish „ 241 

Portugal,  Movements  in 233 

Philosophy  of  Drunkenness,  the ; 601 

Proceedings  of  Learned  Societies , 98,  207,  317,  430,  544,  652 

Political  Digest 103,  212 

Provincial  Occurrences 116,227,339,  451,  553,  669 

Patents,  New  and  Expiring    104,211,331,437,553,659 

Personnel,  Materiel,  and  Science  of  the  British  Navy,  on  the 615 

Questions  answered  149 

Retrospect,  the 20 

Return  of  the  Golden  Age  51 

Resolutions,  the  Catholic  * 388 

Reports,  Agricultural , 307,218,333,  446,558,663 

Commercial 109,219,335,447,560,664 

Medical 106,216,332,445,557,  662 

Meteorological 120,232,344,456,568,674 

Review,  Theatrical 92,205,321,443,  543 

Songs,  a  Sea-Fairy  to  a  Land- Fairy 32,  176 

Songs  from  the  French 393 

Stanzas  57,494 

Salutation  between  Soul  and  Body 128 

Spells  of  Home 141 

Stocks,  Prices  of. 120,  232,  344,  456,568,  670 

Terra  Incognita 251,  585 

Trade  and  Profession 345 

Things  that  Change  „ 304 

Tax-gatherer,  the 58 

Taste t 25 

Tobacco,  the  Praises  of. 581 

Varieties,  Scientific  and  Miscellaneous 94,  208,  318,  431,  546,  653 

Village  Sketches,  No.  V.  A  Christmas  Party 46 

No.  VI.  The  Two  Valentines 363 

Village  Rambles,  No.  I.  Wheat-hoeing' 484 

War:  its  Uses 52,369 

Want  of  Money 35 

Water  Companies,  Supply  furnished  to  the  Metropolis  457 

Walk,  November ...... 387 

Wish,  the 387 

Works  in  the  Press 104,212,323,434,549,656 


INDEX  TO  WORKS  REVIEWED. 


Page 

Alia  Giornata,  or  To-Day 90 

Almack's,  a  Novel 427 

Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  or  Prophecy  of 
the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Fall  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  <fec.  &c.  (Croly^  . .  538 
Barbier  (le)  de  Paris  (Charles  P.  de  Cock)     82 

Bhurmese  War  (Snodgrass)  1 93 

Cabinet  Lawyer,  or  a  Popular  Digest  of 

the  Laws  of  England 540 

Confessions  of  an  Old  Bachelor  0 307 

Crockford  House,  a  Rhapsody 535 

Dame  Rebecca  Berry 427 

De  Vere,  by  the   Author  of  Tremaine 

(Ward) 530 

Divina  Commedia  di  Dante  Alighieri  . .  316 
Elements  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human 

Mind,  vol.  iii.  (Stewart) 420 

Elements  of  Physics,  or  Natural  Philoso- 
phy, General  and  Medical,  explained 
independently  of  Technical  Mathema- 
tics (Arnott)  529 

Euclid's  Elements  of  Geometry,  contain- 
ing the  whole  twelve  books ;  translated 
into  English  from  the  edition  of  Pey- 
nard.  To  which  are  added,  Algebraic 

Demonstrations,  &c,  (Phillips) 198 

English  Fashionables  Abroad    646 

Falkland 540 

Fluxional  Calculus ;  an  Elementary 
Treatise,  designed  for  the  Students  of 
the  Universities,  and  for  those  who  de- 
sire to  be  made  acquainted  with  the 

Principles  of  Analysis  (Jepbson)   198 

French  Cook  (Ude) ;  Italian  Confec- 
tioner (Jarrin)  429 

French  Genders,  taught  in  Six  Fables  ; 
being  a  Plain  and  Easy  Art  of  Me- 
mory, by  which  the  Genders  of  15,548 
French  Nouns  may  be  learned  in  a 
few  Hours 316 


Page 

General  View  of  the  present  System  of 
Public  Education  in  France,  in  the  dif- 
ferent Faculties,  Colleges,  and  infe- 
rior Schools,  which  now  compose  the 
Royal  University  of  that  Kingdom 

(Johnson)     309 

Golden  Violet,  by  L.E.L 312 

Greek  and  English  Lexicon  (Groves)  . .   199 

Gold-headed  Cane  (the) 645 

Head- pieces  and  Tail-pieces,  by  a  Tra- 
velling Artist  200 

History  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Eng- 
land, from  its  Commencement  to  the 
Revolution  of  Charles  II.  Vol.  ii. 

(Godwin) 81 

History  of  the  Reformation  of  the  Church 
of  England.  Vol.  iii. — Reign  of  Ed- 
ward VI.  (Soames) 641 

Historical  Defence  of  the  Waldenses,  or 
Vaudois,  Inhabitants  of  the  Valleys  of 
Piedmont,  by  J.  R.  Peyran,  with  In- 
troduction and  Appendixes  (Sims)....  200 
Holland-Tide,  or  Munster  Popular  Tales  314 
Introductory   Lecture    on    Human    and 
Comparative  Physiology  (Roget)    ...  315 

Life  of  Mrs.  Siddons  (Boaden) 194 

Life  of  Grotius  (Butler) 532 

Last  of  the  Lairds  ;  by  the  Author  of  the 

Provost,  <fec.  &c 85 

Mathematical  and  Astronomical  Tables, 
for  the  use  of  Students  of  Mathematics, 

(Galbreath) 313 

Napoleon  in  the  other  World  ;  a  Narra- 
tive written  by  himself,  and  found  near 

his  Tomb  at  St.  Helena 426 

Paul  Jones,  a  Romance  (A.Cunningham)    86 
Personal  Narrative,  or  Adventures  in  the 

Peninsula  during  the  War  in  1812-13  542 
Philosophical  Dictionary  (Voltaire's)  . .  31 1 
Prairie,  the 6,50 


INDEX. 


Page 

Picturesque  Views  of  the  English  Cities 
(Robson  and  Britton) 541 

Popular  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  (Carpenter) 30V 

Present  State  of  Columbia,  by  an  Officer 
late  in  the  Columbian  Service  .....  305 

Practical  Hints  on  Light  and  Shade  in 
Painting,  illustrated  by  Examples  from 
the  Italian,  Flemish,  and  Dutch 
Schools  (Buruet) 540 

Recollections  of  Egypt,  by  Baroness  Von 
Minutoli 203 

Revolt  of  the  Bees 197 

Road  Guide,  No.  1,  London  to  Birming- 
ham   543 

Roman  Tablets;  containing  Facts,  Anec- 
dotes, and  Observations  on  the  Man- 
ners, Customs,  Ceremonies,  and  Go- 
vernment of  Rome  (M.  de  Santo  Do- 
mingo)  * .._. 84 

Reminiscences  of  Thomas  Dibdin. .  < . .  3  547 

Secret  Correspondence  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon  with  the  Princess  des  Ur- 
sins 201 

Servian  Popular  Poetry  (Bowring)   ....  539 

Sketches  in  Ireland  ;  Description  of  in- 
teresting and  hitherto  unnoticed  Dis- 
tricts in  the  North  and  South  534 

Specimens  of  Sacred  and  Serious  Poetry, 
from  Chaucer  to  the  present  Day 
(Johnstone) 204 


Page 

Stories  of  Chivalry  and  Romance 542 

Table  of  Logarithms,  from  1  to  108,000 

(Babbage)  ... ,.,.., 428 

Tales  by  the  O'Hara   Family.     Second 

Series 88 

Time's  Telescope  for  1827 89 

Three  Months  in  Ireland,  by  an  English 

Protestant    31 1 

Transalpine  Memoirs,  or  Anecdotes  and 
Observations,  shewing  the  actual  State 
of  Italy  and  the  Italians  (An  English 

Catholic) '. . .   195 

Travels  in  Mesopotamia  (Buckingham)     417 

Truckleborough-Hall 314 

Two  Charges  delivered  to  the  Clergy  of 

the  Archdeaconry  of  Derby  (Butler)..     91 
Vindication  of  Certain  Passages  in  Dr. 
Lirigard's  History   of  England  (Lin- 

gard) 424 

Voyage  to   the   Sandwich    Islands,   by 

Capt.  Lord  Byron 419 

Wallenstein,  a  Dramatic  Poem 643 

Wolfe  of  Badenoch,  an  Historical  Ro- 
mance of  the  Fourteenth  Century. . . .  308 
Young  Rifleman's  Comrade;  a  Narra- 
tive of  his  Military  Adventures,  Cap- 
tivity, and  Shipwreck 84 

Zenana  (the);  or,  a  Nuwab's  Leisure 
Hours ;  by  the  Author  of  Pandurang- 
Hari,  or  Memoirs  of  a  Hindoo 53.6 


EMINENT  AND  REMARKABLE  PERSONS, 

Whose  Deaths  are  recorded  in  thin  Volume. 


Beethoven  556 

Benger,  Miss  320 

Brun,  Malte  327 

Bode,  Professor  222 

Caulmcourt,  Gen.  437 
Cholmondelt-y,  Marquis 

of  5,>i 

Collinson,  Dr.  3,'JO 

Cremorne,  Lord  6 

Cradock,  J.  Esq.  329 


'•• 


Dignum,  Charles    555 
Dormer,  Lord          221 
Durham,  Dean  of  6 
Evans,  Dr.  443 

Fellenberg,  M.  442 
Fl.ixman,  J.Esq.  2-23 
Frederick  Augustus, 

King  of  Saxony  6 
Giflbrd.Mr.  167 

Girardin,  Count      442 


Good,  Dr.  329 

Hastings,  Marq.  of  107 
Kitchiner,  Dr.  439 
Kinnaird,  Lord  222 
Laplace,  Marquis  de 
443 

Lanjuinais,  Count  444 
Lincoln,  Bishop  of  330 
J^itford,  W.  Esq.  438 
Nichols,  J.  Esq.  328 


Oxford,  Bishop  of  330 
Pestalozzi,  M.  441 
Ribblesdale,  Lord  222 
Rochester,  Bishop  of 

4:<9 

Robertson,  Dr.  A.  221 
Shrewsbury,  Eaul  of 

556 
York,  H.R.H.  Duke  of 

219