ogess core ARES FELIU SS 5°33 SSS gefoferelslegeitee SRR y fe he hog ee wo °F . J THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE, OR BRITISH REGISTER LITERATURE, SCIENCES, AND THE BELLES-LETTRES. Hew Services. JULY TO DECEMBER, 1826. figeisijs LONDON: PUBLISHED BY GEO. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA LANE. 1826. i a PaaS é ee & i ob 48 AAT ee Tk Pots ' a ’ Loe Sager ih y ' rk tae LSGGAE AAT TE acai gcc i; " , my LONDON: # opel PRINTED BY 3. 1. COX, GREAT QUEEN STREET. : shaoD 2 otaobsod ai msmoltsed & med po mottak fs if [ea ESE 1d SL PAL 2d es sites" ns cunceD od of HYD. BBG OBE WEE DSS BOL. oe vecgtecerteedbegeersosareenene tinogell Ist ; ees ‘eatnpaenstanns sen svediusealion > i ee poanneGupnekane->' 9 rote er “ ba Yt, staves eso. Dene w thr snnersce . 4 ee re re er Se ae pa : Te cee Ma DOB AE BRE REE MTS BOL aan | om ee 20S Sas etic BEE cinienae ore ee on at \ agp aks BG ee Pre tes ota ce Taber Semen: att ae 2al . : Tgtreee - ak a, = eee bheed tek “be eveehe Leia ueesds otonpe oes < aa SS INDEX TO VOL. IL. ORIGINAL PAPERS, &c. . *. Page Arrarrs in General, Letters on, from a Gentleman in London to a Gentle- man in the Country ....ccccccseses csccccccesesessees 65, 184, 292, 415, 525, 631 Agricultural Reports ....sercccccsrsssssssssessevsnecsere 106, 226, 338, 450, 563, 674 PeOted GDN, the sawas ess ofeooes) Lapoalhanniipial Bee EMIGRATION, REDOL$ prcesnerngss opiages (deshapnesexsnsrowen lve «.6ore sna Tads00be) «bose Education, General View of, in America ...,..cesccevecseseesssecessteusacsecsvaes 380 Hyes,.on the Proper Use of the, son ssaeasides saspvwesioeds dense hvediwcaide doe Laenigneoles Ecclesiastical Promotions .......sessseseeeeeeeseeeseeee 114, 233, 346, 460},570, 683 FastioNABiR Npvelsuuessopetssedse ase oeesesseusqeeee+opivais nde lovist cin tos epethsoobsa Familiarities, No. 1V.— Amora: csegseneanonnsanaansannnsenne di Cub siddde SbBegeLIOSHOOL Full-Lengths, No. I..The Greenwich Penioaes sebpete Seecarcneerabe ete ieonitl onde No. II. The Drill Sergeant srcssscesassneseeseezaccassnualcug A Leora Genera View of Education in vai dae sapesersepseere e+ peuab «dib acttch ee OZOURU Haroun, the Lonely Man of seis a Poriad TANS een vnevespersas octddieh-teheedt On ERS OCATIONS I :.covecnss cnnsocvecscevsrees sce tduneees sea grassaseseces«« 200010300. SARL EREMANGIN 1826. cascecsesscovnssarecesecssensasvqugeccbdos hase. sian@dea wines, ke. niShge KagpcHEn,.2 Mission to the) sas ctedierdeessttedcoscoedopaasmssarnarnasnnne ciidach Lule MONS King’s and Company’s Troops in India ...ss..secseesestestessesrsnedusrececstvessae’) 899 Dares, Dy He Ny oescceccecccnassscssosnensnecnsnnsnnsogpennse dep apbweniled addesis RUINS Letter IV. V. and VI. from the United States of North ma PAARL. * 1 pa bus ecceUh cee avian ae tiys eases Gilet clei ie 26; 145, 608 Lament on the Death of Carl Maria Von Weber ppaeabobseriectesessaupstcesvsdestaeene List of New and Expiring Patents ....s:..000+00++. 93, 215, 334, 448,559, 671 Life Insurance—The Duelling Clause .....ss0esecsecaccceseccacecccassecenesere ccdnes 588° London Incidents, Marriages and Deaths ...; 114, 233, 346, 460,570, 683 Last Book, the, with a Dissertation on Last Things i in! Generals). vis..s01..) 137 Moyruty Review of Literature, Domestic and Foreign, 76, 198, 311, 425, 573, 649 MANS EICARE sceivececoveveo cbs sovusrastadaceabo as vemrdds ove. «cansdadanivelis Ja. Jaeoneae Monthly Theatrical Review ..sss.ssssseseiseeerseesassess 87, 209, 324, 435, 546) 660 Medical Report wwssweeeevesvessasecsetscteecesssetscccees 101 224, 337, 448, 562, 673 Military Promotions vi..ecscssasssecoccccecccesccnceccee 108, 228, 342, 454, 566, 676 Meteorological Report ss.ss.ssscsssescsessesessessteans! 120, 2405. 352, 464, 576, 687 Moth, the, with the Golden Wings ..........s.sscssssssesssecssessressecsctvenstecse, 491 My Lodgings, a Sketch from Life Ssocre css cave sWetnecwausiodsccbues otldustdedbéeacans? 2 1G0 Man, the, and the Tiger, a Fable j.c..sseesecase FEE DCHONDEIASIS; }OM gs estes tac soesteesce Beeess vice casetcacoaiocecs Madrigal ace cee asescoesd esses 8sdtcebsecoscsccccnso pan sapasepsocseces oebebi uel bdnlestude ent IRS! Navication Laws Ce eve esa Eevee ce con wove peigiginanidcin de chub des tees octeet la athuedli, OLS Mew English Peerasesssseaasscccsses sisciestacccgccacseceesdinas. cssccceueessvoces 4 100° New Parliament CULETES ETT SepNiataw' ode douse oheouneven cstepseenecsctcseecstscecesiees seoves I New Music .....00c0000. noulvoamesivsctoususcesesbasencsCartetdvesecececscess GOMRICE Notes of a SY ae Stacie Been carcee et rene ane recent oh Radles < seaserean 266 Onicinat Letters from David Hume to Mr. MVAVENPONL.0~ coaptepvoadsetessssscueu, se ON INDEX peel Letters of William Hayley, with an Epitaph, and the Mole and the Pan, MARR aN Haseena FLEET OeNeinde cel déstdes sos ces vpcsoscosvensenkezadangapes Old Neighbours, No. IT. ot Quiet Genet eveseeve luce ccoese ae Provincrat Occurrences, Marriages, and Deaths, arranged in the Geogra- 0° phical Order. of the Counties ..............0.0.+.. 115, 235, 347, 461, 571, Philosophical, Chemical, and Scientific Miscellanies .........ssseseeee 73, 193, Punch and Judy, a Philosophical Poem yiissccicsclcsccccseseseccs ces scescesssees 2075 Proceedings. of. Learned Societies ..ssscesseeceseeeeess 55, 197, 331, 449, 555, Fefatoris,.an Epitaph wwvevssssarsssetisiscisceccsccessthecteocessecccsecescscescvesccccce Mibfiitical. Digest... ....cssesessssevesvvs tiles es “99, 215, 332, 443, 556, Political APPOIMtMENts..eceececseesessesesecse vee enzersenecerees 108, 228, 342, 454, PMiosanhy,. ,the,.Of. opens sscsasresnsbist ockesmocgesesbevscses vectabe seh avedsrosscoscceses WATLEd.LARIES «200 ovoarovsnsregtousnvainab bess vsevescsscccopeetevevessecses ves ces Biopress of Cant....,..ccssssseswssalsssctec ceo vce Ba ft guess: Sketches «cswsattubsnssatsteghesscstisecsscstesslsssseccecocesscc cee ccsccccceses Mien of, Prussia’s. Lopaby ib patie: is csc8etestesc22558sscecs soaccosedsceseccecsve nes Ric and Poor. s.cesersssweveeess SSeeneeen ee net eds nexgliwannaanas Rabelais, the Memoirs and Writings of. Reece ence te sete ann iunans canteen ag ces are Remarks onthe Climate of. Russia: sc.cccsccccsceeceeccccecsscccessssevceees RSIS eH NCEE Ler eU OAT. Tee eee ere sek cespecccnpss ssonsppnnasnpcones PINOy GCS KCACEAL,. ciccesssustacsbss2ss05465n22020ssesese ces epneneasasne Sonnet, .......0..00. Sele esensustsessztencnace ser aks sas ane pepess:tues chaps dansianbidnsscanaeindl Serenades, by. Nici. cite ycce csc ncnsescvcceanbscencccccscscessccceccce BIEVED AGES ncnvccwcowovesee sed scddeséddicsissécsdscoetenese bn seoeeeneeprawennees cents osusnn SADISH qGtetiOn sn. obs esssiee cenapeace eve cee cevceinssans scons sonsadens see Sketch from the Irish Bench—Lord Norbury ..,.,..scassccscenveecccecsscpersseeces DESH Olca, CUIDIMGr SINICNE Ur tllstass ccs ceeaccsshoussdecds cet ccpescusdervocssoces Suppression of Monasteries, on the, in England ...........eeccece eee Tue, Theatre, ‘its Literature and General Arrangement ............seseeeeeeeenere Thoughts on the Purification of Gibbon, Shakspeare, &c. and on the Im- S. OpHAvement of iGoaide: TWo-Ghoes: sss scssce5ssce5cckcccs32 cs con ceccvocascovacnass The Traveller at the Source of the Nile ..........ccccceeessseer esses PER 8 CUSTIEPS |. snanason acs ehessepheRAASSSBUSStecenes cos eccuconsasosccsscsascnesoavanpaps Vanieties, Scientific and Miscellaneous .............+. 94, 212, 328, 437, 552, Village Sketches, No. 1V.—A New Married Couple ...........scsseseccceenees eee Magee from the Departed. wivevesesasinte tvs teases suse secvecscccccesscesaerecensnpoocappon Works in the Press, and New Publications ......... 90, 217, 341, 432, 360, jE TRS, SEE SEs PEP REPRE EP pg tee So * a seeeeeenes Prem eeaseeeneee ee eeeres eee INDEX TO WORKS REVIEWED... > Page ADVENTURES of a French Sergeant - 203 Aventures du derniére Abencerage - 207 Aphorisms, Opinions, and Reflexions of Dr. Parr ES = . - 431 Autobiography - - - - 540 Bowdler’s Edition of Gibbon’s Roman Empire - - - - ails, Bug-Jargal, par |’ Auteur de Han d’Is- lande - - = & - 433 Captain Maitland’s Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte - - 82 Ceneybeare’s Illustration of Anglo- Saxon Poetry - = S41 Captain Head’s Rough Notes on the Pampas and the Andes - Captain Parry’s Journal of his Third Voyage of Discovery of a North- West Passage - - 425 De Foix, or Sketches and Manners of the Fourteenth Century - - 318 Four Years in France - - - 200 Forget-me-Not, and the Amulet - 545 Foscari, a Tragedy, by Miss Mitford - 657 Friendship’s Offering - - - 655 Gaston de Blondeville - - -8il German Stories—Selected by R. P. Gillies - - - - - 656 Is this Religion ? - - See Ges Letters from Cockney Lands - - 205 Letters on the Catholic Priesthood during the late Elections in Ireland 312 Literary Souvenir - - - - 654 Lives of Right Hon. F. North, Baron Guilford, &c. &e. - - - 314 Major Cartwright’s Life Ay Senay 1) - 544. i to enomg a ibnomate “Page. Maleolm’s, Sir John—History of Inuia 649 Missionary’s Memorial, by Bernard ~~ Barton « - - - - 84 Mémoires Autographes de M. le Prince de Mont Carey - ak - Memoirs and Recollections of Count Ségur yess as - = - 198 Miss Porter’s Tales round a Winter Hearth - - - - - 313 Mary Queen of Scots, her suffer- ings, &e. - - - - - 316 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lindley Murray —- - -, - 537 Notes of a Journey through France and Italy - - - ep fre Observations on the Transfusion of Blood - - - St eTOnggpY Our Village—Vol. II., by Mary Rus- _.,.- sell Mitford oy)” BR enn game Plain Advice to the Public to facili. @ tate the making of their own Wills 433 Paris’ Treatise on Digestion - - 659 Recollections of the Life of John O’ Keefe = = = = - 650 Remarks on the Characterand Writings of John Milton a - -312 Researches into Fossil Osteology - 322 Sheridaniana oe = Sh PS DOG Sir John Chiverton, a Romance - 321 Soane’s Specimens of German Ro- mance - - - - - 323 Solitary Hours - - - - 430 Sismondi’s History of the Crusades * against the Albigenses - - - 430 INDEX Page Specimens of Lyric Poetry - - 432 Sismondi’s Review of the Progress of Religious Opinions during the Nine- Page Thomson’s Etymons of English Words 317 Tale, in verse, illustrative of the seve- ral Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer 322 Bruce, John, Esq. 223 Carteret; Lord 219 Chichester, Earl of eee OO Cochrane; Hen. Ba- ara - 337 Calcutta, sishop of sega” Geb 2h nav aa miot to ee ss SSé = bog - - {Sé - -ofl ESE - Oeh agbsayriJd Heb agai brat yyolooi2O | @euri: Hutchinson, Hon. C. B. 445 Ingestrie, Lord 102 Jefferson, Thomas, Esq., American Ex- President 3 Lee, G. A., Esq. 444, snaMmon s , Michael Kelly 668 Montmorency La- val, Duke of 102 Mattocks, Mrs. 219 Macdowal, Briga- dier , 224. Mills, Charles, Esq. 557 teenth Century - - - - 538 The Story of Isabel 2 . - 427 Scott’s History of the Church of Truth, a Noyel - ~ 2 - 428 Christ = - - = - 542 The English in Italy 7 = - 429 The Boyne Water, a Tale, by the Twentieth Report of the African Insti- O’ Hara Family - Sa Sela FRRY tution - - wie apt =: AST The Plain Speaker, Opinions on Travels of Polycletes - - - Al - Books, Men, and Things - - 206-.Travers’ Inquiries into Constitutional The Poet’s Offering; an Appeal to Imitation = - - - - 665 the People of England in the Be- Whims and Oddities, in Prose and _ halfof the Distressed Manufacturers 312 Verse = - = - - 655 The Tor Hill ~ - - - | = 652 é = ix “- EMINENT AND REMARKABLE PERSONS, iia oe Whose Deaths are recorded in this Volume. Adams,John,Esq., Cloyne, Bishop of Macdonald, Sir Ar- Milner, Dr. 103 American Ex- 556 chibald 102 Piazzi, the Astro- President 334 Farquhar, Jobn, Maria Fedoroyna, nomer 558 Alexowna, Em- Esq. 222 the lady of Sir Raffles,Sir T.S. 220 ress of Russia Gifford, Lord 446 R. Ker Porter Symmons, Dr. 104 669 Strangford, Lady 219 Talma, the French Tragedian 666 Von Weber 100 Watts, Mrs. 222 Waterford, Marquis of 223 ko EE es ppt oe pce Meet aur oily ae a7 ely abet yet odd Wo aan" { [- oat » gei% af : toiag ha ra eee a K he Fs whi 3 me ULB Bs Mh ones aaa : le - are r : ad : Mind Mt if A e ee —. ‘ iy Mero uceh 5 oy ‘e pis Suki. 20) Hi ty Coat Des ey AE Re s \ Pa > ath = a) aegis : ih ane eat we “at ib}. bag ‘ot Tg Ao ie off ante ene CLS wot ieee < oe tree Treg tt a Te a4 P)}--- b cof tows ? £ RRO ea! - JARs as i arr PSs “eee sgh p ei ; which ee a aha! Aor i pt Syl : i mp ae ae eas eng cree iad, Aa “eit ROE FRE EK oR y sso eae dike RAYS DR COS” tapped so Qe om > UL Wet tE ~. (gilt wat yet ws bie be, Je et aofth yaa) Pty fest vay) r ai ao " iit ono a ct gitagiate.: hoff FY de F By? “ u Se ie Bt doeeido He OL: fk i wf bat! ey ts oii age: i eo Mt he ut d PAY tah Qos ai E da s ais a 5 Ot) es tai, aur PMACEL \ioet ts i AM 2 UO IOREA lk rt hifi At ECE Tab) osha ; , as ge rat a : Toate Pv ; ak yee Ai 4 i hy? f .% z ve 6) EES ih THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. New Series. Wor. 11] JULY, 1826. [No. NEW PARLIAMENT. _ OncE more a renewal, but—not a change. The new parliament will essentially be of the same character with its predecessor—not the representative of the Commons of England, but of the real and the would-be aristocracy of the country—a mere adjunct of the hereditary house—the accommodating instrument of the cabinet—the thirsty ex- pectant of favour or power, and consequent supporter of established abuses. The elections are in the same hands, and the interests of the reigning parties still the same. The evils under which the country groans are no evils to them; and they will not volunteer the knight- errantry of relieving the groundlings to place the burden on their own shoulders... There will not be a hundred new faces, and, with few ex- ceptions, they will be but the fillings-up of vacancies occasiohed by inevitable age, or overpowering indolence, or the conflicts of rival families—inheriting the same principles, prejudices, and purposes. Of what use, then, are these elections to the general interests of the com- munity? None whatever. Obviously they are a matter of complete insignificance, and their recurrence, as we see, is regarded by every intelligent man in the kingdom with perfect apathy. Away then with the unmeaning ceremony, and let the first act 0 the new parliament be to ‘vote itself perpetual. Deprived of the reality, why aceept the eipaings 4 But this is the language of despair, and we do not, after all, despair— tio, though we see one individual returning sixteen members, and ‘though we know that reform must at last come from parliament. itself. “Ttis the very extremity of the grievance that is our best sécurity for 2 ‘Speedy remedy. We have great reliance on the adage, “ when things dre at the worst, they will mend.” It is the reformer’s own season ; itis when evil is most desperate, when it comes most home to us, that the eat is most. open and the heart most susceptible of conviction. Make the exigency’ manifest, and relief is neat. The cause of reform is spreading with the steadiness of a law of nature ; it is every day winning fresh advocates, and must-finally work its own accomplishment. , But what measure so obvious as that of. introducing into Parliament: the avowed friends of reform ? and-what moment so saeesrncin: for €x- M.M. NewSeries—Vou. II. No.7. B 2 New Parliament. (Jory, hortations as now when elections are proceeding? We are suffering the fleeting and felicitous hours to escape—the elections are nearly over. Not so folly-struck are we as to suppose any exhortations of ours could influence present returns, or we would have taken good care to be beforehand with them. No, such-exhortations must be utterly useless, _ whilst almost every seat is shackled or fixed. We care not, for our own parts, if not another friend to the principle eyer steps within the walls of Parliament, convinced as we are, that eventually the overruling and commanding voice of the UNREPRESENTED will make converts of them all; and seeing, as we have often seen, how suddenly such assemblies can change their tone. We are for urging this paramount question ‘in season and out of season,’ but we discuss it at this particular period, because the subject is in some measure forced upon us by the scene before us, and because men’s minds are more indelibly impressible when facts are at the very moment corroborating our representations. Except the higher and wealthier classes of society, and you find the nation in a state of deep dissatisfaction. Why, what is the matter— what does it want? All the freedom compatible with social existence ; all the equality consistent with the unchangeable variety of circumstance ; all the rights, the exercise of which tends to produce the greatest sum of happiness. For these purposes. it is that society exists, and the government that does not secure these purposes, ceases to accomplish the very thing for which it is instituted, and must be corrected. But the glorious constitution of England does secure these noble objects. Idle. vapouring. _ Of what importance is the letter of the constitution, if the practice have nothing to do with it? Is it to be endured, that the constitution shall be built upon one principle, and the exercise of it proceed upon another? That the House of Commons be the repre- sentatives of the people—meaning by the people, we suppose, all but. the king and his peers—and freely chosen, is, we believe, one written article ef the constitution. But is that House the representative of the universal people, and is it thus freely chosen? We know it is not. Then is this boasted right, after all, no article of the English consti- tution; and of course, with such a deficiency, it does not fulfil the purpose for which alone a constitution, one at least suited to an enlight- ened and intelligent. people, is established. But still, it will be said, though our representatives have by degrees come indeed to be elected very unequally, yet no essential injustice is done—some of all classes and all professions are in the House, and every member is a repre- sentative of the nation, and not of any particular spot. Is it meant by this, then, that the House of Commons really represents the sentiments of the nation fairly? How know we this? One half of the nation has not even the legal right of suffrage ; how know we what are the senti- ments of that excluded half? Of those again, who have the legal qua- lification, not one half can freely exercise it; how then know we what are their views and wishes? Not one fourth—the particular fraction is not at all material—not one fourth of the people, then, elect those who take upon them to legislate for the whole nation, and still you pretend the sense of the whole nation is correctly conveyed, and their interests carefully protected. It is a random guess, an idle assumption, an im- pudent assertion-made by those who have power, to blind those who have none. F “ _ Where all haye a cominon interest, as every member ofa particular 1826. | New Parliament. 3 community must be allowed to have, and the numbers too great to assemble, representation is the natural dictate of common sense ; but equally is it the dictate of that same common sense, that every member have the right of naming representatives. With a population of eighteen millions, and six hundred representatives, one will represent thirty thousand. He may represent more or less—more in country districts than in towns; the particular ratio is a matter of indifference. Fix what ratio you please, there will be no keeping to it with any continued accuracy. If, by the process of gradual changes, one man comes to represent forty thousand, and another only twenty thousand, no great harm is done; but when one man represents but a dozen or two, or only himself, or his patron, and another a hundred thousand, the gross inequality is in itself an evil, and involves more evils than can readily be calculated. Still the old answer recurs, and really if it had any foundation in principle, we would treat it respectfully ; the member is a representative of the nation, and not simply of those who return him. ‘Then where is the responsibility? ‘To whom is he to account? The whole nation cannot take cognizance. Those only who actually elect have the power, and consequently the right of doing so; and when these electors become few—why, of course, they may be bought, or be silenced. Respon- sibility is thus atan end, and with it representation also. But every place of any considerable extent has local interests, which the repre- sentative must and does undertake to attend to—nay to attend to these it is that he is, in numerous instances, especially appointed ; and for neg- lecting which, he would deserve to be rejected on his return. But how, again, is he to judge of these local interests? By the sense of the majority—those whoractually send him to parliament. No such thing. The majority of those whom these local interests affect have had no voice whatever in electing him—then how is he to estimate these interests, or how can he tell when he is really protecting them? He is strictly _the representative of a privileged set of jobbers. In point of fact, the existing state of the representation is not a -system, but an accident—not the effect of any legal enactment, but the precarious result of by-gone circumstances. Originally the crown sum- moned delegates from what quarters it pleased—from places. that were - ‘supposed best capable of contributing. The office was burdensome and irksome, and delegates were obliged to be salaried. The privilege was never solicited—nay, it was frequently deprecated, because the parties were summoned only to grant subsidies. By degrees the Commons gained strength, and with it the right to advise; then representation became a matter of importance —then those who had been usually sum- moned to perform a duty, claimed a right to attend, to exercise a privilege. But, in a long course of years, these places underwent great changes: some increased and some diminished ; some spread into large commercial cities, and others dwindled into villages, the property of ingle individuals. Places, again, which had been before too insignifi- cant to be thought of, grew up into extensive manufacturing towns ; but as they, in their state of insignificance, had never been summoned by the crown, there was no pretence of custom for a claim of riczht—and thus were they left unrepresented. Those who were in possession of the right, now regarded as a privilege, resisted the pretensions of others ; the unrepresented had no means of enforcing their wishes, and no man cared for theirrights. | ae : B 2 4 New Parliament. EJuLy, Those who have had. power, have, of course, always exercised it. The Lords had it, and enforced it under John. In their charter, wrested from him, they talk of all, as entitled to certain rights—that of not being taxed without their own consent being one of them. But whom did they mean by all? Themselves. And again, when the Com- mons remonstrated in the reign of Charles—and again, the Lords and Commons, on the appointment of William, of whom were they think- ing, when they talked of equality of rights—of all? No, no. The language of universality has, however, always beguiled the credulous ; and it is only by the slow process of growing intelligence the discovery is made, that a legislative a// means only a part, and that exclusion from the elective franchise is, in fact, exclusion from all share in the go- vernment, and all possibility of protecting unrepresented interests. With the intelligence grows the power of the people, and now, at last, the times are fast approaching, when nothing short of equality of rights, strictly, literally, universally, will satisfy the demands of that intelligence. . This equality of rights consists mainly and pre-eminently in universal suffrage. All are members of the community ; all have interests; the little is as valuable to the poor, as the much to the rich. In innumerable instances, all are comprehended within the enactments of the laws, and therefore all have a right to assist in constructing those laws. We put this right, not upon the payment of taxes, direct or indirect, because taxation may and ought to be so reduced, and might be so levied, as altogether to exempt the labouring classes; but though a state of per- fect exemption from taxes be just and conceivable enough, exemption from the operation of the laws, in a multitude of cases, is not conceivable. No individual can completely escape; and every one desires at least their protection. Every man may be called upon to aid in the defence of his country, and therefore has a right to inquire into the necessity of that call. Every man may be tempted into some violation of the law, and therefore has an interest in establishing the equitability of that law. Every man is exposed to the chances of ruin and wretchedness—to a state of pauperism, and therefore is interested in securing a proyision for such exigencies. We refer to no ancient law or obsolete custom— what does the reason of the thing require? Equality, beyond all equivocation ; and therefore nothing short of universal suffrage will meet the demands of justice and common sense, will secure the possession of rights, and freedom from oppression—the object and purpose for which a people submit to social restrictions at all. With this claim of universal suffrage, annual parliaments are so associated, that, of course, we insist upon their indispensableness. Not at all, We see no necessity for such frequent changes. Cireum- stances are no doubt continually fluctuating ; but not so rapidly as to require annual revisions. The duration is a matter of convention— quite a subordinate consideration, and open to discussion. Parliaments of two or three years may be superior to annual ones, as we think they would be; and as they certainly would be to septennial ones, We care not about rights depending upon precedent or prescription—what is most conducive to the purposes for which parliament assemble, that is best. To insist upon annual parliaments, on the ground that our an- cestors once possessed them, is really nonsense. Whether they had them or not—what is it to us? The important question is, do we want 1826.] New Parliament. 5 them? If so, we claim them, not as the recovery of a privilege, but as a right, calculated for the general advantage of society, and the main- tenance of its security. Time and temper have been lost in these idle squabbles, and the cause encumbered and degraded by them, But this extension of the elective right will involve a prodigious change, and infringe upon long-enjoyed privileges. What then? Have you only to usurp, to establish a right? Because you have long held to your- selves what belonged equally to others, have you obtained a right to keep that hold? The government— is it not of the Gentile as well as of the Jew? Yes, of the Gentile also-—for rights as well as for duties. Surrender then promptly and cheerfully, and think yourselves fortunate you are not called upon to indemnify. But how many boroughs are there for which large sums have been given? Would you snatch from them what you have allowed to become property ? — Is it not a maxim of legal and moral equity, that if private rights be sacrificed to public good, indemnity should be made? - Would you, for instance, manumit the slave, and not compensate the owner? Certainly not; but to the case before us the maxim will not apply. The laws have sanctioned the rights of the slave-owner; but what law has sanctioned the possessions of the borough-owner? No law contemplates borough-property—no, not even common law, we believe. It is a non-entity in the courts, and could not specifically be sued. Away with the pretended right, then ; it has no legal sanction, and its monstrous iniquity forbids us to consider it as an equitable one. But corporations—what of them? They are established by law. Well, law may un-establish them. ‘The privileges of these corporations were never destined for private advantages, but for public good. Prove them destructive of that public good, and you produce reason enough for their abolition, No indemnity, again, can be called for here. Their privileges were made with one breath, and they may be annihilated with another. Be their usefulness what it might originally, what is the good of them now? To protect their own monopoly. No stranger can open a shop without their permission, and the payment of fees. What claim, in reason or common sense; have they to such privileges? What equivalent have they given, or could they give? Why should not every member of the community be permitted to go where he pleases—where he can best earn his liveli- hood? Why isa town, when invested with the right of sending repre- sentatives, to have that right intercepted, as in many cases it is, by a score or two of corporators ?—Oh, but how is the police of a town to be managed without a corporation? Nay, how is it actually managed in towns of equal or superior magnitude, without corporate rights? But then the property bequeathed to corporations, what is to become of that? That property has been assigned by the donors to specific pur- poses ; and to those specific purposes it may still be applied, without maintaining the usurping privileges of corporations. But we have really just now no further concern with corporations, than as they inter- fere with the rights of suffrage, which we insist must be universal, to satisfy the exigencies of social rights. The variety of qualification is thoroughly ridiculous. If I take a house in Westminster or Southwark, I have a vote, and sometimes the opportunity of employing it. If I reside at Bath, I have none, unless I can squeeze into the corperation—which, of course, is not what every one would like to do; if at Malmesbury, squeezing into the corporation 6 ‘ New Parliament. [ Jury, will not do, till seniority brings me up among the seven select; if at Canterbury, I must purchase of the corporation, and they may refuse’; if in Manchester, I can geta vote on no terms, for there are no repre- sentatives; and I lose my University right, if I do not continue my name on the boards, that is, continue to pay a refreshing fee of three or four pounds every year. If I have a freehold of forty shillings in any county—a copyhold of forty thousand pounds is useless—I havea vote for that county ; but I might as well be without it ; because, unless there are men to spend forty, fifty,—one hundred thousand pounds, there will be no choice, and where there is a choice, it lies between the sons or protéoés of overgrown peers. But if I am the lucky owner of Old Sarum, or Corfe- Castle, or any one of fifty other places, I can even seat any body I like, without further trouble ; or if I choose to make money of my privilege, I can put it into my attorney's hands, and sell it for five thousand pounds. How such discrepancies arise every body knows, but on what prin- ciple is the continuance of them so pertinaciously defended? “The terrors of innovation? no; we can innovate fast enough now-a-days, when the Government leads the way. It is simply, because those who have the power, choose to keep it. But that is just so much the more compelling reason for the excluded to club and exert their power, and force the privileged to surrender an equitable participation. But not only are one-half of the nation excluded from a single vote, but numbers have a plurality. This is as intolerable as the exclusion: it is an insulting mockery of those who have none. The same person may have votes by birth, residence, purchase, and corporate privilege ; and one hundred pounds a year will secure forty shilling freeholds in every county in England and Wales, while half a million in the funds or thou- sands in copy-hold, will not give one. If property is to qualify, multiply votes in proportion to property; but if property does not in numerous instances at all, why should it in any? Universal suffrage, and no ‘ qualification,’ is the only rational course. The petty plans of our whig reformers fill us with contempt. Let all who pay direct taxes, says Lord John Russel, the oracle of reform, have a vote. Now observe, only five or six millions out of fifty-seven are so raised—that is, one out of eleven. We do not say the number of suffrages would be reduced in the same proportion ; but we ques- tion whether this precious scheme would not disfranchise as many as it would enfranchise. Besides, why such distinction? The indirect is as much a tax asthe direct. Some men can make a distinction and forget to ascertain the difference. So much for the rights of electors. Let us turn for a moment to the elections. What scenes of riot and confusion ;—would you extend these horrors of turbulence into districts that are at present happily exempt from their periodical visitations? No. We say why congre- gate a mob at all? Why’ assemble freemen from -every side of the kingdom to the borough, and freeholders to the county-town ? Qualify every man in the district in which he resides, and let proper officers take their votes on the spot, parochially and simultaneously, after the manner in which the last population-act was carried into exe- cution. Why cast a needless expense upon the candidate, for carriage, for subsistence, and then talk about bribery?) The sums that are spent in direct bribery, except in close boroughs, where five, or twenty, or fifty guineas a head is the current price—or three, four, or five thou- sand to the patron—these sums so spent, we say, are insignificant com- 1826.] New Parliament. 7 pared with what is expended in carriages and tavern-entertainment. The whole of this prodigal expenditure, the whole of these dreaded and indeed disgusting tumults,"may be avoided ; the unpopular employ- ment of the military be spared; and the lives of the thoughtless * mul- titude’ saved. . But my Lord, the reformer, would check bribery. How? By extending the time of petitioning against an act of bribery from fourteen days—by the way, was any tiring ever so outrageously contemptuous as those fourteen days ?—to eighteen months. And why eighteen months ? Oh, the corrupt elector would never be influenced by so remote a chance of emolument. But he might; and therefore why not extend the pe- riod through the whole existence of the parliament? or rather, why these laws against bribery at all? If Lord John know any thing a of these matters, he should know that such laws will and must be evaded—things only get into more and more worthless hands, and the eunning of, the parties more sharpened. _ We have still a few words on candidates. The dearth of candidates has been unusually great. ‘ No Popery’ has yelled in vain. ‘If you do not listen to your clergy, you will have the Pope among you,’ was the appalling denunciation of a well-known minister on the Leicester hustings, and denounced we trust in vain. No new candidate, we believe, has found the cry to answer. What, on the other hand, will be the result of Catholic exertions in Ireland, we have yet to learn. Perhaps consi- derable. But as to a dearth of candidates, only extend the right of suffrage, and reduce the expense of elections, by collecting votes parochially, and you will have them in abundance. Throw open the gates to men of all classes, not of all ages—not to boys of 21, but men of 30, or we should rather say 40, as in France—and abolish ¢ qualifi- cations; but do not tempt them with freedom from arrest. Talents, knowledge, industry are the things that are wanted, not weight of purse. Why is any man to be excluded from the possibility of serving his country, on the widest stage of utility, because he has not £300 or £600 a year of /anded property ? Nay, the absurdity of the restriction is shown by the impunity with which it is occasionally neglected. Many conspicuous members are well known to have had no such legal ualification. Why, again, is another—able and well-educated—ex- cluded, because he is in orders ? Oh, but the clergy are better employed _ in professional duties. Very well, exclude those who are beneficially employed ; but why exclude all—those who have no cure, nor any chance of a cure: now, too, when streams of naval and military officers have flooded the church, and the numbers of the clergy exceed the benefices three or perhaps fourfold ? _ But we have not quite done with the composition of parliament : inter- nally it requires some little reformation. Exclude, first of all, all place- _ men, except the members of the cabinet, who should have seats ex-officio, ich will do away with the necessity of Treasury-boroughs. Resolutely disqualify every man whose name is to be found in the sinecure or pen- sion lists. Keep your committees to their duties by suffering none to vote who do not attend the sittings ; prevent solicitations upon private bills, and particularly subject these private bills to the scrutiny of a distinct and unconcernedcommittee. Assemble early in the day, though it may oc- easionally inconvenience the lawyers ; and do not by your preposterously & New Parliament. [Juny, late hours hazard the health, and perhaps altogether exclude the atten dance of some of your ablest members. e Of the Peers we say nothing. They have long been termed an hos- pital of incurables ; and every year or two brings a fresh accession of invalids. Strenuously as‘ they resist ‘ encroachments,’ no men better understand how to také a signal from the ministry. We only venture to suggest a resignation of the right of proxy, which surely is one of the grossest insults to common sense that ever was offered to an intelligent community. é This, then, is what the nation wants. This is the reform to which its efforts, open and covert, are tending to accomplish. This is what the common and cultivated sense of the country requires,—what the uni- versal interests of the community demand, from a constitution existing, if not instituted, for the very purpose of securing those interests. Well, this, it may be said, is perhaps sound and unexceptionable theory enough. Looking to the country as a community associating together for mutual advantage, such a scheme is congruous and con- sistent enough. But as things are now and have long been established, so extensive—not to say extravagant—a change, will occasion great and alarming derangements. An adjustment on these speculative prin- ciples must be attended with serious inconveniences, and therefore you must make out a strong, an imperative, an unanswerable case. Agreed ; and no difficulty have we. We appeal to the actual condition of the state. To say no more of the inequalities of representation, which we, however, deem a serious evil even independent of its direct conse- quences—Look at the state of our finances—a debt of eight hundred millions, an éstablishment of twenty, with a taxation of fifty-seven. Look at the unequal pressure of that taxation, thrown, not upon pro- perty, but upon consumption—sparing the. wealthy, and crushing the indigent. Look at the corn-laws favouring the landlord—at the pro- tecting-acts favouring the manufacturer—at the Bank, East-India, and other monopolies favouring the merchant, and all at the expense of ge- neral interests. Look at the condition of Ireland—poverty-struck by its blessed union with our generous selves—the few mercilessly tyran- nizing over the many—a handful of presuming bigots empowered to dragoon a nation for cherishing the best and dearest feelings of their souls. Look at the crown-lands, equal to the production of a million or a million and a half of revenue, returning not £10,000 perhaps—the advantage falling to the lot of favorites, and the loss made up at the expence of the community, Look at the general state of the laws— our criminal code, made for ene condition of society and administered to another; here unwisely severe, and there as unwisely indulgent; full of ‘obsolete but: unrepealed enactments, ever and anon started to life again by some ferreting lawyer, to the surprise of the judges and the perversion of justice ; insolvent laws confounding debt with crime, and ‘misfortune or imprudence with guilt; game-laws to protect the amuse- ments of one class to the temptation and destruction of another; and smuggling-acts to oblige the manufacturer and monopolist, under the ‘guisé of protecting the revenue :—our common-law untraceable or fluctuating, filling the purses of the profession, or by ‘its costly forms closing the doors upon justice herself; and our equity courts proverbially and exasperatingly ruinous. Look at our prisons—after all the painful a a i ll 1826.] New Parliament. 9 efforts of that indefatigable society instituted for their ‘improvement '— scenes of the most corrupting iniquity—mixing, for the most part, the young with the old, the novice with the veteran, the tried with the untried, the debtor with the criminal, and almost every imaginable incongruity, revolting to sound sense, sound wisdom, and sound morals. Can any man believe for a moment that these depravations would ever have grown up to their existing enormity with a free and a freely- chosen representation? Or, seeing what we have seen and still see, can any man indulge the hope, that, without the change we have been contemplating, the country will be rescued from its embarrassments and oppressions ?—This is our case. But, by thus depriving the Government of the power of commanding majorities in Parliament, the machinery of the state must stand still—no ministers can keep their places a month. Why not? hy should we suppose them obstinately and gratuitously bent on pursuing measures adverse to the common good? or a ‘free and freely chosen’ Parlia- ment as wilfully bent on opposing such measures? They have only to be more careful and considerate of what they introduce. Ifrepulsed, they need not resign; they need only revise. They will be less per- plexed; they will be less frequently over-ruled ; they will have fewer to ‘coax or conciliate. ‘We are seven,’ or, ‘I can bring sixteen,’ need no longer alarm them. They will be, in short, at liberty to consult solely the general interests of the nation, and scorn the control of both the land and the loom. Then might we hope to see if not a sudden reduction of the taxes, at Jeast a new arrangement of them. Why, with such a load of debt, what could even a free Parliament do? Put the saddle upon the right horse, to be sure. Are we thinking, then, of what has been termed ‘ equitable adjustment ?’ No truly; equitable adjustment could be nothing now but fraud. True it is, the Government borrowed in one state of cur- rency, and has to pay in another. But its creditors have changed— changed with its own concurrence, and are no longer traceable. The new creditors at least have given full consideration for their claim, and . are intitled to full re-payment. We have no desire to see the public creditor defrauded; but simply to change the pay-master—to make ‘those, in short, who hold the property, and were mainly concerned in incurring the debt, pay the debt ; and if, at last, when all safe and prac- ticable retrenchments are made, they indeed cannot pay, then must they ‘do as other bankrupt-debtors do, make the best composition with their creditors they can. it has been often said, this debt is, after all, nothing but a family con- cern. Ifmoney has been taken from one, it was given to another. The debt is merely nominal. The nation is indebted to itself It lends with ‘one hand, and pays with the other. The property still exists, and the ation is as solvent and rich as before. ‘Taking this representation as true, as in one useless respect it nearly is, is it any consolation to me, that another has got what I have lost and cannot-recover? — Is the con- dition of a hundred persons the same, because ten have now got possession - of what the hundred held before? The average is still the same, says the economist, who of course regards us as nothing but mere machines, or rather as numerical units. But what satisfaction, again we ask, is ‘this to the luckless wight, who falls below the average? The truth is, that the great mass of the people, having little, have lost that little, and M.M, New Series.—Vot. II. No. 7. e 10 ~ New Parliament. (Jury, those who had much, or equivalent opportunities of making much, have got it. The property of the country—to sink exceptions and particu- Jars - may be nearly the same; but the few have drawn together what the many had before. The rich few, however, and the poor many, are all taxed alike ; and here is the oppression. Those who have the pro- perty should pay the demand upon the property. - We have not said the country is unable to pay the debt—we must remember that many of the creditors are justly the debtors too—but we say, that those are now compelled to pay who are not able, and are not equitably called upon to pay. What, then, is our remedy? Not so much, at first, a reduction, as a change in the subject and matter of taxation. Repeal your indirect taxes—the excise, the customs, the stamps. Levy an equivalent on the real property of the country, and thus remove the burden from the shoulders of the sinking people—the labouring classes of the country. They are the great sufferers—not the only sufferers, but they are the most to be commiserated, because they have brought none of the suffering upon themselves, and are in no con- dition to help themselves. Others are suffering enough, no doubt ; but ‘much of their suffering is of their own seeking—the consequences of their own extravagance ; they have been wanton spendthrifts, have been liv- ing on credit, and foolishly aping their betters, and must be left to themselves. The poor, however, must be forthwith relieved; and the burden be cast upon the rich, in proportion to their property, and on a scale augmenting with the amount of that property—from ten to thirty or forty per cent. on property from £300 to £300,000. The effect will give immediate relief, by a declension in the price of provision and cloth- ing, far beyond the nominal amount of the taxes repealed. For never was a grosser blunder committed by any legislature upon earth, than this system of indirect taxation— this levying of contributions upon articles of daily necessity. Where was the heart of the man who could cooly calculate the produce of a tax upon leather and salt, upon candles and soap, upon malt and tea, hats and cottons—upon the neces- saries of life—upon articles, the consumption of which must every where ‘be pretty much the same, both by small and great? Where, too, were the eyes of the man, who could not see that one tax would thus be raised for the treasury and another for the seller? The expense of a tax of ten per cent. upon consumable articles is notoriously twenty, and sometimes thirty to the consumer. What intolerable improvidence—to say the least—is this! No more should be raised than comes to the Trea- sury, and how is that to be avoided, otherwise than by inflicting nothing but direct taxation upon real property ? But then, it will be said, this will be very hard upon the possessors of this property. The greater part of them have difficulty enough to struggle with their own family expenditure. Then they must retrench, or bestir themselves to make the Government retrench; and when the state establishment is reduced from twenty to ten millions—if necessity still presses heavily upon them, they must, as we said, compound with their creditors ; and they will find the aid of a free Parliament the surest means of effecting it. With a free and freely-chosen Parliament, too, Ireland might be saved ; because ministers would feel themselves at liberty quickly to content the Catholics, and make Ireland one with herself, and one with England. The time will come, and come rapidly, when she must be emancipated, or she will rebel.‘ Let her rebel, so that the Church be EES 1826.] New Parliament. 1} safe,’ is a tone for English Bishops to assume, not for us. Prevention is better than cure. We are for conciliating the sister nation, not for estranging—for uniting, not for fighting. But if the Catholics be eman- cipated, their next step—notwithstanding all disclaimers —will be to in- sist upon the transference of church-property. Aye, there’s the rub. But you have that property in your own hands, and can dispose of it for your own adyantage, and not theirs. How—take it from the Protestant establishment ? Yes ; what need of a Protestant establishment, without a Protestant church? Ireland is essentially and politically Catholic ; and Catholic let her continue, if she will ; but you need not surrender the tithes. Provide for her clergy, as well as for the Protestant-few, liberally ; but apply the rest for the service of your own crippled and sinking state. With a free and freely-chosen Parliament, also, might every other grievance under which the country labours, be speedily removed, be- cause particular interests would no longer prevail over general ones. We have an absolute confidence in the upright sense and resolute justice of our unbiassed and unbought countrymen. Then might we hope to get an unfettered and thorough revision of the laws—see something like con- sistency and efficiency, and applicability in penalties, celerity and equality in the administration, and speed and certainty in the execution. Then, too, might we at last discover what 7s the common-law—no longer be compelled to trust to the wavering, feeble, or overburdened memories of successive judges; and in reality, as well as in phrases, separate the legislative from the judicial function. Then at last might we see the uncleanly cobwebs and incumbrances of obsolete forms swept away, and justice conducted in a direct and business-like manner, freed from costly expenses—suited to the actual demands of the times, and intelligible and satifactory to all who are concerned. Then might the labyrinths of our Courts of Equity be —no. Then, too, would the Poor-Laws be no longer suffered to be perverted into an instrument of oppression, instead of kind- ness and sympathy. Then should we see landlords, and manufacturers, and merchants left to make their own bargains, and the consumer buy at the best market. Then, to crown all, should we see the energies of a free people, uncramped, burst into full life and vigour—the high-born poor looking to their own exertions, instead of hanging on the public urse ; and the low-born poor, we trust, living on the fruits of their labour, and substituting beef and beer for potatoes and water. THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, ‘In sunset’s light, o’er Afric thrown, A wanderer proudly stood Beside the well-spring, deep and lone, Of Egypt’s awful flood ; The cradle of that mighty birth, So long a hidden thing to earth He heard its life’s first murmuring sound, A low mysterious tone ; A music sought, but never found, By kings and warriors gone ;, He listened—and his heart beat high— That was the song of victory ! € 2 12 The Traveller at the Source of the. Nile. (Jury, The rapture of a conqueror’s mood Rush’d burning through his frame,— : The depths of that grecn solitude . Its torrents could not tame; Though stillness lav, with eve’s last smile— Round those far fountains of the Nile. Night came with stars :—across his soul 4 There swept a sudden change, E’en at the pilgrim’s glorious goal A shadow dark and strange Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall O’er triumph’s hour—and is this all 2* No more than this !—what seem’d it now First by that spring to stand ? A thousand streams of lovelier flow Bathed his own mountain land ! Whence far o’er waste and ocean track, Their wild sweet voices called him back. They called him back to many a glade, His childhood’s haunt of play, Where brightly through the beechen shade Their waters glanced away ; They called him, with their sounding waves, Back to his fathers’ hills and graves. But darkly mingling with the thought Of eaeh familiar scene, Rose up a fearful vision, fraught With all that lay between ; The Arab’s lance, the desert’s gloom; The whirling sands, the red simoom ! Where was the glow of power and pride ? The spirit born to roam ? His altered heart within him died With yearnings for his home! All vainly struggling to repress That gush of painful tenderness. He wept—the stars of Afric’s heaven Behold his bursting tears, F’en on that spot where fate had given The meed of toiling years ! —Oh, happiness! how far we flee Thine own sweet paths in search of thee! F. H. * A remarkable description of feelings thus fluctuating from triumph to despon- dency, is given in Bruce’s Abyssinian Travels. The buoyant exultation of his spirits on asriving at the source of the Nile, was almost immediately succeeded by a gloom, which he thus pourtrays: “I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy.” ) 1826. ] fs J A MISSION TO THE KITCHEN. Que je pulsse toujours aprés avoir diné, Bénir le cuisinier que le ciel m’a donné. La Gastronomie. AnImAts have been observed to submit themselves to the dominion of man, and to yield to domestication, witha facility commensurate to the subjection in which their will is held by their appetite. From this fact, it has justly been inferred by naturalists that the stomach of man also is the peculiar organ of his civilization, and the great bond of union which holds the species enslaved in the chains of social order. In confirmation of this verity, a thousand circumstances must start upon the imagination of the reader.. Stubborn and rebellious characters have ever been remarkable for their indifference to the pleasures of the table; _and from Esau’s mess of pottage, to Andrew Marvel’s cold shoulder of mutton, the whole experience of mankind shews an intimate connexion between spare diet and insubordination—between sensuality and submis- sion. ‘Let me have men about me,” says Cesar, “who are fat—yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look—he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.” The intimate alliance, on the other hand, of “ sound learning and religious education,” with abundance of good beef and honest port wine, is.a truth known “ lippis et tonsoribus,” to blear-eyed gips and college barbers ; and the man must be blind indeed to the play of cause and effect, who does not see the origin of the Oxonian tenden- cy to passive obedience and divine right in the gaudy days of compota- tions of that learned university. In France, this truth is not only under- stood but felt—the Ministry openly acts upon the appetites of the cdté gauche. Mayence hams and Strasbourg patties succeed, where threats _and incarceration effect nothing ; a dindon aux truffes will work a revolu- tion in opinions invincible to arguments ; and “ quels diners, quels diners les ministres m’ont donnés” is the common refrein of ultras, doctrinaires, and of every other class or party in the country, except half a dozen anti- _quated precisionists, yclept messteurs les libéraux enragés. In the history of our own country, we find that kings and custards went out of fashion and came in again together; that a national mortification of the flesh was a general preliminary to heresy and rebellion ; that episcopacy fell with a neglect of “ creature comforts ;” and that even to the present day it is a just reproach to the British population, that they are at once the most difficult subjects to govern and the most addicted to bad cookery, among the nations of Europe. A learned and pious divine has drawn down much ill-will upon his head, by asserting that the people of Ireland may be over-educated—an obloquy which he would have escaped had he been aware of the true state of the case. If the Irish are rebellious, it is not so much because they are over-taught (beaucoup s'en faut), as because they. are under-fed—not so much through the prevalence of ‘hedge-schools, as through the absence of cook-shops ; and even though ‘it should so turn out that the Right Reverend gentleman is correct in his opinion, that education is “ malum in se,” and a provocative to ante- ascendancy practices, yet he should have known that, like the foul breath of his Sir Roger de Coverley’s barber, the evil may effectually be “‘ mollified by a breakfast.” ‘‘ When the belly’s full,” says Sancho, «“ the bones will be resting ;” and, on the other hand, flatulencies in the hypo- chondria will unsettle les tétes les mieux timbrées. If, therefore, Captain Rock’s men really turn out o’nights to do their exercises rather than their exercise—to handle pens and not pikes—to seize books, and not fire- 14 Mission to the Kitchen. [Juvy, arms (and a pightly rising is upon record, whose object really was the abduction of a school-master)—yet would the four provinces remain secure from rebellion, provided the peasantry sat down every day to a good round-of-beef and a pot of “ London particular.” “ Sa Majesté de la France est dans la cuisine,” said a profound statesman; and when Henri Quatre wished all his subjects their Sunday poulet au pot, the wish had clearly a reference to the difficulties he had encountered in governing men, more addicted to texts than to stew-pans, more given to controversy than to conviviality, and more disposed to pike a seceder and burn a heretic, than to piquer a capon or roast a duck. It is a fact but little known, that the first professed cooks in modern Europe were members of the church ; hence, however, arose the proverbial phrase of “ Latin de la cuisine,” to express what in England is called dog Latin. For the worthy “ Fréres”” who professed the gastronomic art in those days, so wholly gave themselves up to the study of its mysteries, that they were often less proficients ‘in their humanities than their learned brethren above stairs, who knew of no other proof of the pudding but the eating. When it is considered that “God,” as every body must have heard, “sends meat while the Devil sends cooks” (and malice infernal could go no further), the source of this connexion between good eating and good principles, well digested meats and well digested opinions, becomes at once manifest to the plainest understanding ; nor can we longer be surprised that the use of ill concocted viands should raise as many commotions in the state as in the bowels, and should tend equally to the production of heart-burnings in the body natural and the body politic. Influenced by these considerations, and with a laudable view to coun- teract the suspicious progress of Lancasterian schools, mechanics’ insti- tutions, and such like provocatives to sedition and insubordination, certain individuals, friends of establishment and enemies to innovation, have formed themselves into an association for the promotion of orthodox and loyal cookery ; for the due education of a convenient number of able- bodied young men in the best foreign and domestic schools of good eating, and for sending them forth as missionaries through the “ benight- ed provinces” of the land; to disseminate sounder and more salutary notions on culinary matters, than those which unfortunately are too prevalent, more especially in the manufacturing districts of this country. As soon as a competent quantity of well-ascertained axioms shall have been obtained, through the labours and researches of these seminarists, it is further proposed to arrange them, according to the newest processes of codification, into a well digested system of legitimate gastronomy : and at the same time to mince and hash them up in the form of cheap tracts, suited to the meanest intellects, of a size to be bound up with “ Sinful Sally” and « New Milk for Babes,” and to be dropped at the doors of the peasantry in the insurgent districts of Ireland, or to be distributed gratuitously among the distressed weavers and the operatives most suspected of a tendency to combination. It is, moreover, in con templation to have floating kitchens established on the Thames, and at the several outposts, to supersede Dibdin’s sea-songs, which, by long keeping, have lost their efficacy, and to correct the crudities of the officers, who cannot longer digest the favouritism and parliamentary influence which, as they fancy, regulate the distribution of promotions. When these great and paramount objects shall have been ebtained, and 1826. } Mission to the Kitchen. 15 the main system have been brought into a well-trained activity, attention will be turned to the running of culinary stage-coaches and steam- vessels, to be conducted by gastronomic coachmen and captains, for the further dissemination of the true faith in eating, and for the security of tender consciences, that are apt to be hurt by too close a contact with such eyvil-disposed persons as will eat any thing, and convert the tender mercies of Providence into curses, by their indifference to the spoiling of a good dinner. Light artillery waggons will likewise be prepared, to be laden with charges of portable soups and scientific fish- sauces, to be kept constantly in readiness at the principal military dépéts, and thence to be marched, at a moment’s notice, to any point of the kingdom in which discontent may manifest itself; and the newly invent- ed stomach-pump will be applied to the double purpose cf emptying the stomachs of his Majesty’s lieges of inflammatory matter, and of forcibly injecting into the alimentary canal of the disloyal such bland and di- gestible materials as will correct their humours and purify the blood. Thus it is humbly presumed that an abundant supply of turtle soup, prepared under the loyal direction of Sir Wm. C—t—s, or by the cor- recting hand of Alderman B—ch, will render the population indifferent to the evils of dear bread; and that a general distribution of constitu- tional plumb-cake will prevent the necessity of a recurrence to the doubtful measure of releasing the bonded corn. Measures of this national importance cannot, however, be lightly under- taken, and in starting such important schemes, it is absolutely necessary that some pledges should be given to the public for the loyalty and good faith of those who may assume the direction. To satisfy all anxiety on this point, and to prevent cavillings as to any secret intentions of pro- moting sectarian doctrines in cooxery, analogous to those theological errors to be dreaded from the new London University, or respecting the smuggling in of Popery in a water zouchy or an oyster soup, it is proposed that in all corporate jurisdictions, nothing shall be done with- out the inspection and concurrence of the civic authorities; and that in small towns the parochial clergy, more especially if in the commission of the peace, shall have a veto in the proceedings; while in the metropolis a permanent board, acting under the sanction of Parliament, and con- sisting of dignitaries of the established church, the heads of collegiate houses, the twelve judges, his Majesty’s serjeant cook and the “artiste” of the United Service Club, shall sit as a“ juré dégustateur” upon every distinct dish that shall be offered to public approbation. At the same time it shall be further provided, that the Lord High Chancellor for the time being, relieved from the pressure of Equity cases by the new bill for reforming his court, shall have the sole responsibility of collating to vacant kitchens, and of granting injunctions against dishes subversive of the public morals, provided always, that he comes to a decision in time to prevent the spoiling of the dinner. Subservient to the same end, it is hoped that the worthy member for Galway will turn his legislative sagacity to putting a stop to the growing inhumanities of the old school cooks, by making the opening of live oysters a capital felony, (though, indeed, if forcibly entering a dwelling-house by night, and with an intent to steal, constitute burglary, it may be doubted whether this be not already the law of the land). He will also be requested to look into the barbarous inflictions upon animals, heretofore too common, under the de- nomination of over-roastings and under-boilings, and more especially to ~ 16 Mission to the Kitchen. (Jury, that villanows mixture of all incongruities, an English hash. To give due efficacy to these new laws, informers shall be hired after the most approved method of the vice-suppressing societies, to peep into sauce- pans, to watch that the “pot aw few” does not boil in the time of divine service, to the disturbance of the sabbath, and the destruction of all good “ potages,” and to denounce all inflammatory ragotts and frican- deaux, which, being French, are necessarily atheistical. The evils which society daily suffers from the want of such an institu- tion are dreadful to reflect upon! Why is it that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” but because the subject has been left to the wanderings of his own taste, and that no establishment, no national system of education, have been formed for the promotion of uniformity in eating. In religious matters, a difference of opinion may be conci- liated with the due discharge of social duties—but a disagreement in eating is fatal to domestic repose; seeing that the same dish cannot at once be cooked in two different ways. Husband and wife may part at the church-door, to follow each their own fancy in faith; but the same leg of mutton, whether roasted, boiled, or macerated “ a sept heures,” can please only one sect of eaters at a time. ‘To preserve peace in families, therefore, an established kitchen is more necessary than an established church. Neither let it be thought that this intolerance in eating would at all intrench upon the religious liberties of the land; the “ credo in allesso ed in arrestito,” would not interfere with the right to believe in the advent of Johanna Southcote ; nor hinder the “ loyal people of this happy land” from maintaining the idolatry of the mass. Indeed, we are disposed to think that nothing would so effectually assist in keeping out the Pope and the Jesuits as proscribing red herrings in Lent, and seducing the Catholics from their double allegiance by German sausages and polonies. A ship load of missionary cooks would be infinitely more likely to convert the Brahmins from their superstitious reverence for a cow than a whole college of anabaptists; and one Parisian charcutier would have more weight with the synagogue, than the entire association for converting the Jews. These suggestions are thrown out for the benefit of the subscribing public, and for the loyal in general ; and now, that trading companies are ata discount, preselyting institutions on the old plan much overstocked, that foreign despots are tired of borrowing English money, and manu- facture cannot give employment to the floating capital of the country, it is not presuming very far to suppose that a sum may be raised fully adequate to the purpose in hand. It is only necessary to add that a meeting will be called, either at the London Tavern or the Vintner’s hall, before the return of the writs for the new Parliament, for carrying the proposed scheme into instant execution; where it is hoped that the leading members of the learned professions will favour the public with speeches, to be reported in the next number of the “ Almanac des Gour- mands,” and that the Ministry, “his Majesty’s Opposition,” the East- India and Bank directors, with all other partisans of “ every delicacy that the scason affords,” will attend and encourage this most important nationa! undertaking. i Fy 1826. } iy bea THE BOOK-TRADE. Tue storm which, in the course of the late winter, visited the com- mercial world generally, fell with particular severity upon the book-trade, Into the causes which produced this unenviable distinction it is our pur- pose now to inquire. If we succeed in tracing them correctly, it will be comparatively easy to suggest preventives against a recurrence of the evil. ‘Next to the bankers, the booksellers and other branches of the trade in books, suffered more, during the late difficulties, than any other de- scription of persons. For the peculiar distress of the bankers it is beside our purpose here to search for causes; but the difference between them and traders in commodities lies so much upon the surface as scarcely to need explanation. Booksellers, however, seem primarily to be in no way distinguished from the dealers in any other manufactured article—with reference to purposes of trade. What, then, gave them their late pain- ful pre-eminence in difficulty? Partly, we believe, this arose from speculations foreign to the business of bookseller and publisher, several of the chief houses which failed, or became embarrassed, having been involved in large speculations in hops, land, houses, &c. Partly, also, from the excess to which the system of credit had been carried among them ; and partly to the peculiar burthens which press upon them as a body. ‘To these last, indeed, the extravagant degree of credit may itself be referred. The public in general are, we believe, but little aware of the existence, certainly not of the extent, of the burthens to which we have alluded, They know, indeed, that books are dearer in this country than in any other; but they lay this to the greediness of the authors and booksellers, and overlook the causes which swell the selling price of books, from which neither author nor bookseller derive any profit whatever ; nay, for which, from peculiarities which we shall presently point out, the book- seller cannot to the full indemnify himself in the shape of increased price. This leads us immediately to our subject—the burthens on the book-trade. These, as it appears to us, arise from two distinct sources, and we shall consider each branch separately :— I. The burthens arising from duties. Il. The burthens arising from the provisions of the Copyright Act. I. Duties are levied by the Government on paper and on adyertise- ments. The duty on paper is not only heavy in amount, but, from the manner in which»it is Jevied, it presses with peculiar hardship upon the great wholesale houses, which are compelled to keep an immense stock on hand. This duty is paid before the paper leayes the mill where it is manufactured. On common printing paper it is 3d. per pound, or from 5s. 3d. to 5s. 6d. per ream. ‘This, as Mr. Rees (of the house of Long- man and Co.) calculates* is equal to from 20 to 25 per cent. ad valorem, Unlike imported goods, which may be left in bond till the time arrives when they may be converted into cash, this duty is levied probably a year or two before the commodity is issued to the consumer. The manufacturer pays the duty—the stationer buys the paper from him, paying, of course, an increase in proportion ; so again the bookseller ; * Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Copyright Acts—1818. M.M. New Series.—Vou. II. No,7. D 18 The Book-Trade. [Juxy, the paper is then printed and made into a book, when it is placed in the ublisher’s warehouse till the course of consumption calls itinto use. In the lighter literature of the day, which must necessarily be sold rapidly, if it is sold at all, this burthen is not severe, because the delay is not great. But in the great body of useful books—books of which the public scarcely hear, from their being seldom either advertised or reviewed—school-books, namely, of all kinds ; dictionaries; books of reference, &c. &c.—in these instances, and they exceed other publications as much in number as in importance, the duty on paper is a dead weight pressing upon the book- seller and his property, in a manner and to a degree which renders, we are persuaded, this one of the chief roots of the evils which have, of late, fallen upon the trade. ‘The great wholesale publishers have im- ynense numbers of this description lying in their warehouses. It is unavoidable that they should have them. On all this stock the duty has been already paid. ‘It is an outlay of so much capital, which, for the time, lies unproductive. And though for the direct outlay, the book- seller will of course take care to remunerate himself by the price of the book, if he can; yet for the delay, and the risk, we hold that he cannot do so thoroughly, inasmuch as the book would not bear a price sufficient to make up the whole difference between slow and quick return—which, as all mercantile men know, is one of the most important principles in commerce. Perhaps no business whatever requires so large a capital, in propor- tion to the returns, as that of a wholesale bookseller ; for, from the heavy charge of composition or setting up the types in printing, they are obliged to print at one time such an impression of a regular-selling book, as will take from four to five years im selling ; particularly books of education, dictionaries, &c. in which the type is small, or the print- ing close. The amount of goods insured from fire by one house in the trede, is not less than £300,000. ' This heavy stock, on which there is such vast outlay, was, we are con- vinced, the origin of that system of long-dated bills, which was ulti- mately carried to such an extravagant excess. And though, perhaps, the evils of this vicious system increased in a ratio more than the causes we have indicated rendered necessary, yet we think they are directly traceable_to those causes originally; for a system of bills of long date is surely the natural offspring of a system of great present outlay, _with distant return. The amount of the duty, and the circumstance of the duty being levied so much earlier than it could possibly be returned, in relation to the possible sale, caused the weight of ‘the outlay—and thence, as we take it, originated the long bills—the sudden check to which, from external causes, brought such accumulated ruin upon the trade. The duty upon advertisements is also very severe, as to amount, though the argument derived from the period of its being levied does not apply here. The amount, however, of this duty, is a most exorbitant tax upon literature, and one which, we really think, ought ‘to be diminished in a country which assumes to itself the distinetion of fostering the cultivation of letters. It is evident that publishers must advertise to a very great extent. It is the only means they have of making known the publication of works, and enters, ia a very large proportion, into the aggregate mass of their expenses, It is, manifestly, exceedingly difficult. to draw an average 1826. ] The Book-Trade. 19 on this subject; but Mr. Rees, in the very able evidence to which we have already alluded, states that he considers it to fluctuate from one- third to one-tenth of the whole expenses attending publication. He adds that their house paid for advertisements, in newspapers alone, in twelve months (1817-18) the sum of £4,638 7s. 8d., of which Mr. R. conceives that about £1,500, or rather less than one-third, went to Government !* These undeniable facts speak more strongly than any comments we could make. II. The provisions of the Copyright Act, especially that which relates to the furnishing eleven copies of every work published to certain public libraries, have excited so much comment and just complaint, that it would be superfluous to go into a general discussion of the question here. Indeed, we think that till the public librarics make out some case against the triumphant facts and arguments adduced before the Select Committee of 1818, it is merely fighting a battle already won to bring forward additional reasoning upon the subject. It does, indeed, seem most preposterous that eleven public bodies, instituted professedly for the encouragement of learning, and amply, profusely, splendidly endowed for that purpose, should levy a tax upon the literature of the country, by being furnished gratis with a copy of every work which issues from the press. We say ‘ every work;’ for, with the exception of the University of Dublin, and of the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, which do not claim novels and music, every work printed is actually claim- ed !—which the provisions of the last Act render a necessary preliminary to delivery. Nay, every work is claimed at Stationers’ Hall, and ac- tually delivered there: if, therefore, the two libraries abovenamed make the exceptions, which it is stated they do, we should like to know what become of the copies delivered for them? Do they rot, as at Cam- bridge ? or are they sold at a debased price ? -and for whose benefit ? We shall not, however, discuss the merits of the general question; we shall only adduce a few instances of the ‘giant-like’ manner in which this ‘ giant-like’ power is exercised.+ The late Dr. Clarke (the traveller), one of the librarians of the public library at Cambridge, and one of the most strenuous advocates for the claims of the universities, says (in his evidence before the Select Com- _® Messrs. Whittaker, in the twelve-months 1824-25, paid for newspaper adver_ tisements £5,910. + Among a few of the facts given in evidence are the following :—Several booksel- lers stated that they had declined the publication of works of great expense and limited demand, in consequence of the delivery of the eleven copies—A History of the Coinage—and a work of Baron Humboldt’s on South American Plants—were in- ‘stanced among several others. The list of those which would not have been under- taken, had the law existed at the time of their projection, was extremely numerovs. The law-booksellers stated, that new editions of law-books, with notes and additions to fit them for the present state of the law, were avoided in consequence of their being subject to this claim. The prices of the eleven copies of the following works are as under ‘— i Mr. Haslewood’s Reprint of the Mirror of Magistrates ........ £138 12s. PIPUME De RAUCKATIA sorta cdiats sic ctle sas c'c’s chs « seman ae ee tewa cont ASG le Whittaker’s History of Leeds .......- wv sles ielaahe o'eha el wielaaleletaatee’ (LANG 14, Lodge’s Portraits of Illustrious Persons ..........e-se.s++22 650 0 Dugdale’s Monasticon and History of St. Paul’s,...........-.. 1008 0 . pyievent cs CIMGRICS «1... )A tN ieee eT ee oe cee es 1900 0 Here’s a pretty tax for the behoof of bodies endowed that they may buy such books - Surely this extortion is as flagrant as it is mean ! : : D2 20 The Book- Trade. [JoLy; mittee) “that the Cambridge library claims in the mass every book that is printed.” These, as they come, down, are first examined by the librarians, who cull only such works as, beyond all question, ought to be in the library. The Syndicat next inspect them, and select such others as they may wish to place upon their shelves. What does the reader think is done with the rest? Sent back, perhaps? Oh, no! Piled in boxes and baskets to rot! For they have just conscience enough left not to sell them, or give them away.—Can any thing be more paltry and pitiful than this? These leviathans swallow all the shoals of books which swarm from the press—the very minnows and tadpoles of literature, as well as the higher species. The good and the bad; the moral and the obscene ; the religious and the blasphemous ; all sorts of trash and trum- pery ; racing calenders ; boxing registers ; and Harriette Wilson’s Me- moirs—all, all are claimed in the name of these grave and reverend doctors, and are duly conned over and judged, bofore they are assigned to the shelf above, or the dust-hole beneath. The committee asked Dr. Clarke whether he thought it necessary to claim works the titles of which plainly shewed they were not suited for their collection, and instanced «“ The Laws of the noble Game of Cricket”? The librarian answered there was no judging from titles, and that they made it a general rule to claim every thing, and select what they liked afterwards. Like the dog in the manger, they not only gorge their own food, but retain that also which they cannot touch. ; Such facts as those which we have related could not fail to make a due impression on the Committee. They seemed to be of the same opinion with ourselves, that these drones should notbe fed, for nothing, with the honey made by the industry of others. Their Report concludes with the following resolutions :— } *‘ ResoLveD, I. That it is the opinion of this Committee, that it is desirable that so much of the Copyright Act as requires the gratuitous delivery of eleven copies should be repealed, except in so far as relates to the British Museum; and that it is desirable that a fixed allowance should be granted in lieu thereof, to such of the other libraries as ma be thought expedient. a “JJ. That it is the opinion of this Committee, that if it should not be thought expedient by the House to comply with the above recommenda- tion, it is desirable that the number of libraries entitled to claim such delivery should be restricted to the British Museum, and the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Dublin Universities. : «III. That it is the opinion of this Committee, that of all books of prints, wherein the letter-press shall not exceed a certain very small proportion to each plate, shall be exempted from delivery, except to the Museum, with an exception of all books of mathematics. = _ “IV. That it is the opinion of this Committee that all books in respect of which claim of copyright shall be expressly and effectually abandoned, be also exempted. ““V. That it is the opinion of this Committee that the obligation imposed on printers to retain one copy of each work printed by them shall cease, and the copy of the Museum be made evidence in lieu of it.” 4 ite Now, subscribing most heartily, as we do, to the first and fifth of thes resolutions, the adoption of which would nullify the rest, we cannot but as heartily regret that no bill passed Parliament, in conformity with their recommendations. We think it very adviseable that one library should 1826. ] The Book- Trade. 21 exist in which every book which is printed in this country should be preserved. There are many reasons which contribute to render one universal depét of this kind of great value to the cause of letters; and the adoption of the fifth resolution would conjoin with the advantages peculiar to such an establishment ; those objects of police which are now fulfilled by each printer being required to retain a copy of every work he prints, which forms the twelfth, which the public, in one shape or another, wrest, without payment, from the author and publisher of every book. As to the second branch of the first resolution, it is im- material to us whether the House of Commons chooses or not to add to the endowments of some of the public libraries—we care not whence come their funds—we argue only that they should buy such books as they wish for, and not seize them for nothing. hese resolutions, be it remembered, are not the production of an interested or ignorant body; they form the issue to which a Committee of the House of Commons, specially selected for the purpose, arrived, after the mature consideration of a most voluminous mass of evidence on both sides the question. That Parliament was shortly afterwards dissolved: and in the next, notwithstanding a petition from the book- sellers, no further steps seem to have been taken on the subject. A decision more explicit and complete could scarcely be made upon any question. But wniversities have representatives in Parliament, and book- sellers have not. Surely some of the distinguished persons connected with literature, who are in Parliament, might despise the call of their alma mater in an unjust claim, and plead the cause of that more general and generous mother, Learninc. The esprit du corps of an university ought to yield before the interests of the republic of letters at large. Every free citizen of that distinguished state should regard her claims upon him as the foremost and most binding of all. We have now set forth two great sources of the evils which ex- tensively afflict the book-trade. But, before we proceed to suggest re- medies for them respectively, we shall very briefly advert to some minor circumstances, existing within the trade itself, which tend to its general disadvantage. We allude to a most impudent and barefaced system of piracy which has recently been set on foot, and is now carried to an unparalleled and most injurious extent. There are a set of weekly periodical works, which profess (and they adhere to their profession most rigidly) to have no original matter of their own, but to cull their contents from all the best articles of the best periodicals of the day. At the sole expense of the principal and interest of the price of a pair of scissars, these most im- pertinent robbers appropriate first-rate articles, for which their proprie- tors have paid first-rate prices, and thus render their sheet a pasticcio of the compositions of the most eminent writers of the time, who contribute to the various reviews and magazines of various descriptions. We can- not conceive how this system of flagrant pillage has been allowed to go on so long, and we would most strenuously recommend Messrs. Longman, Murray, Colburn, Whittaker, Blackwood, &c. &c. to put a stop at once to the picking of their pockets by these knaves, by prosecuting for piracy number after number of their most nefarious and most impudent publi- cations. We can assure them the matter is not so much below their notice as they may think : for these fellows, getting for nothing that for which they have paid in proportion to its quality, stitch together a set of 22 The Book-Trade. (Jury, articles which ensures a sale of extraordinary extent. We hear that some of these thieves sell their thefts to the extent of upwards of 10,000 copies weekly. Another system of piracy, scarcely less inju- rious, and certainly as fraudulent, is the making large excerpts from books, and printing all the booty together in a separate volume. We have been surprised to see some works of this kind highly lauded,—as if a man deserved credit for the pillage of that which is good! But this is aminor matter altogether, and the remedy is plain and easy of access. We now proceed to suggest ameliorations to the other and greater evils which we have pointed out. We think, then, that the trade ought to unite in making early appli- cation to Parliament after its meeting, for a modification of the Copyright Act, and for a reduction of the duties on advertisements and on paper, together with a different mode of levying the latter. They have the whole recess before them, and we think their case such a strong one, their cause such a just one, that it needs, we are convinced, only to be duly brought forward to ensure its success. They have in their favour, on the first point, the Resolutions of the Committee which last considered the question, formed after the most thorough investigation and mature digestion of every part of the subject. The general sense of the com- munity is with them also—that sense of justice which, in all matters, must sway every disinterested mind. Nay, some persons whom we have spoken with on the subject, being but slenderly acquainted with the re- gulations of the trade individually, have expressed surprise, almost amounting to incredulity at what they have designated, as the robbery of the publisher and author under form of law. It is, indeed, most difficult to assign any principle of natural justice, from which so monstrous an exaction could have sprung. In the matter of the duties, the trade will have the advantage of dealing with a person of cultivation and polite acquirements, as well as of liberal principles of commercial policy. Mr. Robinson will view the ques- tion like a friend of letters and like a statesman, as well as like a mere financier. He must be aware that the high price of books in England is in great part owing to the imposts of which we complain. Copyright is to the full as highly paid in France as it is here, yet the cost ot books is one-half less. ‘The expense of paper and printing in France is about half what it is in this country; and the charge of advertising there is a mere trifle. The effect of this upon English books abroad is, in the first place, to check their circulation; and secondly, when their celebrity is such as to necessitate a foreign demand, to deprive the author of the reward of his merit, by causing a cheap reprint to be pro- duced on the spot. If the original books could be imported at a moderate price, this would not be, and the author would be benefited in propor- tion to the celebrity which his works conferred upon his country.* But to look at the question in a broader point of view. Is not the circulation of our language abroad a matter of the highest importance in a national sense, not merely as indulging national vanity, but of sterling advantage both in diplomacy and commerce? Has not France bene- fited incalculably by her language having become the general interna- * Since the above was written, we have chanced to see a prospectus for a reprint, in Paris, of Dr, Lingard’s History of England. The following passage so singularly coincides with what we have said on the subject, that we are tempted to transeribe it :— ‘© Whether it be the result of our new political institutions, or the effeet of our national taste having become less exclusive and less disdainful of foreign literature, 1826.] The, Book-Trade. 23 tional medium of communication thoughout Europe? And, now that so _strong a disposition has been shewn towards our literature abroad, 7s not now the time to endeavour to compete with her on this point of language, the only point of superiority she has over us? There is a vast field opened in the New World by the political events which have taken place there within the last few years. Men whose minds have received such an impulse’as those of the South Americans have, must seek literary food— they have none of their own, or next to none—they must turn either to us orto France. We have the advantages of a free press, and of a stronger disposition on their parts in our favour. But our books are atrociously dear, and they will not ruin themselves for the sake of English litera- ture and the English language. And is it of no importance that that language should become the foreign tongue most usually learned in those vast districts, of which we scarcely yet know the resources, or even the ex- tent?—who will say that itis not? And how can our language spread but by the circulation of our books ?—and how can our books circulate, when they are borne down by such taxes as those against which we are arguing ? It is true that there is a drawback of the duty on paper, on exported books—but that is quite insufficient to counterbalance the weight of the other burthens. The following is an example of the proportion which the public exactions bear to the cost and profits of a book. It is the actual statement of the expenses and proceeds of a successful work of 464 Pages 8vo., of which 750 copies were printed. Printing. . BCs ae eee aes ad uae £72 6 0 Paper. . mous Has vost! 69,120 Boarding gratuitous ‘copies, ‘and ‘advertising ii in 1ews- papers, magazines, and booksellers’ catalogues ...... 70 0 O Booksellers’ commission (on the copies sold) for pub- lishing, warehousing, and othertrouble andrisk .... 30 8 O £242 6 O Profit to author ........ oie Calad ais sp itnae ith Ld 39 Copies, including 11 to Stationers? “Hall, copies to author, —— and those sent to the reviews, magazines, &c. &c., 711, which the publisher sells wholesale, at 8s. 6d. per copy, } 302 3 0 nm tO: Cre Letail: dealer)... shee acin a a Sivele cf ee vlna sien erg 750 e Duty on Paper, and mill-board in 750 books ......,..-.. £18 12 0 Duty on advertisements «.-. +--+ -see rece seeeereeeees 20 0 0 6 6 Eleven copies to Stationers’-Hall.......+...+. apie coh el At £43 16 certain it is that the English language is every day more and more cultivated among us: but the more the study of that language is applied to by the different classes of society, the more we perceive how difficult must be the attainment of a general knowledge of the English writers, on account of the exorbitant price of books printed in England. “There can be, therefore, no book-selling speculation more advantageous, both to commercial interests and those of literature, than those re-impressions which tend to deliver us from that species of tax which is annually levied on us by the presses of London and Edinburgh. In this respect we may, without vanity, here take notice of that beautiful edition of Lord Byron’s complete Works, in 7 vols. in 8vo. as the most remarkable enterprize of the kind, since the English themselves extol it as a chef- @euvre of typography, and an extremely cheap edition. Till then, the romances which were the most in vogue, and a few elementary works, seemed alone to have obtained the privilege of being reprinted in France. The graver turn now given to modern studies ought to encourage, every day more and more, French editors to extend to more serious and useful studies, these (if I may be allowed, the expression) real conquests of our presses over those of Great Britain.” 24 The Book- Trade. [Jury, Thus, where the profit to the author is, in round numbers, sixty pounds, the duties levied by the state amount to forty-four. _ Is not this propor- tion monstrous ? It is not’at this moment, or in this place, that we can go into ‘the details of the proposed reductions—that would require a considerable further investigation, both as to minuteness and extent; but the principle is still the same, and we think it will bear being very extensively applied. At all events, one of the provisions of the proposed alterations of the law, should be the paying the duty on paper ata later period; say, at the en- tering of the book at Stationers’ Hall. Every book must be entered: the number of sheets would be apparent, and the number of copies might be ascertained by the affidavit of the printer. The duty on advertise- ments also should be materially lessened if not entirely repealed. But these, as all the other details, would need inquiry and digestion. Let the booksellers strenuously unite to carry these, or similar mea- sures into effect, and we cannot doubt of their success. It is a cause in which every literary man in the kingdom has a concern as well as them- selves—it is a cause in which national interest and national pride are in- volved—it is the cause of free trade against extortion, of justice against oppression—surely, surely then it needs only activity, unanimity, and resolution to carry it through. STANZAS. Away, away ! and bear thy breast To some more pleasant strand ! Why did it pitch its tent of rest Within a desart land ?— Though clouds may dim thy distant skies, And love look dark before thee, Yet colder hearts and falser eyes Have flung their shadows o’er thee ! It is, at least, a joy to know That thou hast felt the worst, And—if, for thee, no waters flow,— Thou never more shalt thirst ! Go forward, like a free-born child, Thy chains and weakness past, Thou hast thy manna, in the wild, Thy Pisgah, at the Jast ! And yet, those far and forfeit bowers, Will rise, in after years, The flowers—and one who nursed the flowers, With smiles, that turned to tears ; And I shall see her holy eye, In visions of the night, As her youthful form goes stealing by, The beautiful and bright ! But I must wake—to bear along its ao th A bruised and buried heart, wy gate And smile, amid the smiling throng, ¢ bak With whom I have no‘ part ; s-g.2-... Towatch for hopes that may not bud, Amid my spirit’s gloom, Till He, who waked the prophet’s rod, y Shall bid them burst to bloom! T. K.H. ie.” 4 she ll [ 2% J] LINES Written after visiting a Scene in Switzerland. On vexerce A voir comme & sentir, ou plutot une vue exquise n'est qu'un sentiment délicat et fin. Rovsswat. Thou glorious scene! my wond’ring eye Hath gazed on thee at last, And by the proud reality Found Fancy’s dreams surpass’d. ? Twas like the vision which of old To the saint seer was given, When the sky open’d, and behold ! A throne was set in heaven.* For there the everlasting Alps To the deep azure soar’d, And the sun on their snowy scalps A flood of glory pour’d. A present Deity, that sun Above them seem’d to blaze, Too strong and bright to gaze upon, Too glorious not to gaze. Below, the bright lake far and wide Spread like a crystal sea, Whose deep calm waters seem’d to glide, Eternity, to thee. Long, long, thou glorious scene, shalt thou Within my memory dwell, More vivid and heart-gladd’ning now Than when I mark’d thee well. More vivid and heart-gladd’ ning too, Than the wild dreams I nurs’d Of thee and thine, ere on my view, Thy world of wonders burst. For Fancy’s picture was a gleam, Weak, faint, and shadowy, And brief and passing as a dream The gaze I bent on thee. But now thou art a thing enshrin’d Within my inmost heart ; A part and portion of my mind, Which cannot thence depart. - Deep woes may whelm—long years may roll Their course o’er me in vain, But fix’d for ever in my soul Thy image shall remain. H. N. * After that I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven, and the first voiee which I heard was as it were a trumpet talking with me, whieh said: come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter—and immediately I was in the. spirit; and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper, and a sardine stone.—And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal.— Revelations, iv, 1. 3. 6. M.M. New Series —Vot. Il. No. 7.° E [. 26 J (Jury, LETVERS FROM THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, : : No. IV. Painters— Fainting. In my last, my dear P, I promised (threatened I should say, perhaps) to give you a short account, either of the writers, the painters, or the orators of America, I forget which. So—here goes for the great men of the brush, the writers being much too plentiful, and the orators not pleatiful enough just now, to suit my leisure, and the limits of your Monthly. Painters affect to be mighty careless of what an author may say about them or their art; and a few have had the modesty to ask, if it be not a great piece of presumption for anybody but a painter, to write a cri- ticism about painting; a great piece of presumption for a writer who never dirtied his fingers with a brush, nor ever made a mouth in his life, nor a face, in the way of trade, ever to say on paper what he thinks of people, who do nothing else but make mouths and faces, at so much a day. I might go further—for they go so far, some of these people with just wit enough to compose after the fashion of a bad poet or a poor apothecary (the effect is the same, though the painter may use a brush, the poet a pen, the apothecary a drug) they even go so far as to say, if they are not puffed by everybody, every day in the week, and all the year round, that criticism, take it altogether, does their particular art more harm than good. If so, the sooner the art is no more, and the sooner the professors of it are out of the way, the better. As if aman is not to know whether a rose be worth plucking, or a pair of breeches worth having, till he has gone through a course of botany, or undergone a regular apprenticeship to a tailor; as if it were not lawful for anybody to judge a work, which he himself is not able to produce. What folly! as if painting would ever be thought of, or -eared for—nay, as if painting or painters would ever have been heard of, but for the writers of their.age and of succeeding ages ; whatever such writers might happen to be, whether painters or not, judges or not, critics or not. Beseech you, gentlemen of the brush, what should we know of the painters who lived (so say the writers who flourished with them and after them), what should we know of the painters who lived, in the beautiful and superb maturity of Greece, ages and ages ago, four hundred years before the Christian era—what should we know of them or of their works, for their works are no more, but for the writers who lived with them; writers who have made the few fragments, which, but for the pen, would now be nameless and worthless, of more value than their weight in gold ? How should we know indeed that such people as we hear of now— Zeuxis, Parrhasius and Apelles, ever lived at all, but for the works, of other men; the literary men of that age, who probably (and it is to be hoped) never had a brush or a pallet in their hands? of men too—lI speak it with all care—of men, who, if Apelles and Zeuxis were a for- tieth part as vain or foolish as A. B. or C. D. of our day, would have been regarded as very presumptuous for speaking of them at all. Nay, what should we know, and what should we care about even the gods of the brush, who appeared after the revival of painting? of the Angelo, the Raphael, the Dominichino, the Carraci, &c. &c. men whose great works are yet alive where they can speak for themselves, but for the eT a 1826.) Letters from the United States of North America. 27 writers, and bad critics, and presumptuous authors, who have been making poetry about them for two hundred years ?— Not much, Iam afraid ; not more than we know of, not more than we care for the painters of Mexico and Peru now. A pretty story, indeed, for a painter of our day to talk about being above what an author may say, or beyond the reach of a quill; a pretty story, faith! when, if a great painter wishes to be remembered, what does he do? does he trust altogether to his work; or would he, if. his name had never appeared in print, and he knew that it never would— (just imagine the case), would he leave the picture to say for him what- ever he might have to say; or would he not throw himself into the next horse-pond? No, no: he appeals from the pencil to the pen; he knows that his immortality is not to be trusted to the brush, and he therefore gets a friend to secure him a niche for posterity, beyond the reach of accident, by scribbling a biography for him, or a critique. That's the way !—If not—if no friend appears—if there be no other mode, he goes to work himself, in search of perpetuity—How ? with the brush? No, indeed, no; but with the pen. Lord! Lord !—just imagine for a breath or two, my dear P., that all the writers of our age were to enter into a conspiracy not to speak of any poor devil of a painter, who may hereafter arise, or who may not have a name already; what on earth would become of painters, what of painting, do you suppose, before another generation had passed away ? For my own part—a page or two back if you please—for my own part, I say that, instead of being qualified, a man is disqualified for proper criticism on painting and painters, by being himself a painter. But why ? —Because, if he be not a good painter, who would care a fig for his opinion? It would not necessarily be better, and it might be, and pro- bably would be much worse, than the opinion of another wholly ignorant of the practical part of the trade, or profession; especially if that other should happen to be a connoisseur, as well as an amateur. The profane dauber would be sure to have prejudices, which the writer would not be likely to have; prejudices the more absurd and the more inveterate in proportion to his badness. But if the critic be a good painter? Why, so much the worse. He never will speak the truth in such a case; and if lie do, nobody will ever believe him. If he be a good painter, it can only be after years of labour and study, at the end of which time, he must be full of the esprit du corps (1 hate French, where it can be avoided) ; he has not the courage to own that his life was wasted, even though it should be so; nor would he be likely to know it, even if it were so; he is imbued with all the deeper though more refined prejudices of the art, like Reynolds, when he fought up the Roman school as he did, at the expense of the Venetian ; or when he advised the pupil to begin with shutting his eyes to defect, however obvious it might be to his view, in the eC of the old masters; or like a multitude more that I know of, who after an age of study, have studied themselves into a notion, that every thing, which other people who have not studied, have an aversion for, is all the better for it; and that all their own first impressions, while their taste was natural, and while whatever they saw, they saw with an eye of nature and a heart of truth, were unspeakably absurd. “ As if _that were a charm or a beauty, which it requires a great while to perceive ; “or that, which it requires a life to make one pleased with—a life passed ‘in severe study,: to say nothing of the prejudice that men feel for their craft, nor of the interest which they have in upholding the character. of E 2 28 Letters from the United States of North America, [Jury, that, whatever it may be, on which their only hope of distinction is founded, while it is moreover, the means by which they live—the foun- tain of their daily bread.* Men who have wasted their lives in the study of Greek—which they cannot shape into half as good English, as that in which they found it translated forty years before, will persuade you, that for getting through this world as you may desire, there is nothing like Greek. And why ?— To say any thing less, would be to say, first, that they had been wasting their lives, and secondly, that they were so many fools. Go further— look about you on every side. So is it with painters, and with lawyers, and authors, and with everybody else. They dare not own it, even to themselves, that they are a fortieth part so foolish as they appear, each to all the rest, for having so wasted their lives. Again—if the critic were ever so good a painter, and ever so free from prejudice, and ever so good a writer into the bargain (a good writer by-the-by he must be, or who would care for what he might say of the shop?) + he would be either unable or afraid to speak the plain truth of people in the same trade, if they were superior—if inferior—if equal. How could he? especially if they were about him, or at work within his reach; men that he would be sure to meet every week of his life, or even if they were alive at the same time, though afar off. He would be either jealous or envious, or afraid of being thought so; and whether jealous or not, envious or not, he would be thought so, whenever he spoke the truth, or said that which, if it were said by another, would pass for the truth. In every case, therefore, he would be disqualified for the duty of a critic, or the criticism which he gave would be of no value. He would be in fear, at every step—it could not be otherwise— the fault is. in the very nature of men, who, if they look for a motive at all, are quite sure to look for a bad one—afiaid, lest if he spoke against a brother of the brush, it should be attributed to jealousy or envy; and lest, if he spoke in his favour, it should be attributed either to partiality, or to intimacy, or to the you-scratch-me-and-I-tickle-you-understanding of the craft ;{ or—observe what I say now, it is the clencher of my whole theory—or to the fear of being charged with jealousy, or envy. There !— Authors, when they scribble about painting and painters, do not write for painters, but for the public—for that public to whom the painters look for their reward—for that public, who while they disregard what- ever a man may say of himself, or of the art by which he lives, are pretty sure to regard with a liberal eye whatever he may choose to say of another man, or another art; if he appears to have no share in the re- putation of that other man or other art. A motive will be sought for, a bad motive too, in every case where a man speaks well of another ; and I agree that if such motive be found, or any motive at all, worthy or unworthy, whatever he may have said will go for nothing. I agree moreover, that, in every case, whether it be found or not, everybody will suppose it, nevertheless, to exist; and I agree that every man who praises another will be thought to have a secret share in that other's re- * Worthy of Castlereagh’s—“ the fundamental feature upon which that question hinges.” —X. Y. Z. + But how is aman to be a good writer and a great painter too, when to be either would appear to require the practice of a life?—X. Y. Z. + By which it would appear that our friend over sea has a knack of Benthamizing.— Xx. Y. Z. 1826.] Painters— Painting. ; 29 putation. But, still—still—it is a great thing for the puffee, if the motive be deep enough to require a search; a very great thing, if it be not worn, as a body may say, on the very forehead of the puffer—as in the every-day practice of your admirable puffers—pufters, by the way, from whose puffing, God preserve me. People of the same trade you know do not often praise each other, and if they do, they are never thought to be sincere. How much better, where a third party is to be cheated, for the author to puff the painter, the painter the author. =~ Consider of this, my dear P. By what a popular writer may say of a. picture, though it be not very well said—nay, by what any writer may say, though he be no judge—the public are excited, put up to inquiry, and after a while, if not in the very same hour, truth and good taste are awake in his behalf. ‘So, a fig for the chattering of people, who are never satisfied by what we of the quill do for them; a fig for such as do not know when they are well off; and now for the painters of America, one after another, as their names occur to me. 1. Cortey, the father of your present solicitor-general or attorney- general (I forget which), was born, I believe, in Massachusetts, New England, where he left a few very good, firm, sober, substantial portraits. He was educated in your country, however, and made his capital pic- tures there. You have heard of Trumbull, the president of the New York Academy (see No. 4): he is a decided imitator of Copley; so much so that in his Battle of Lexington he has given the portraits of a mother and a boy, the originals whereof are in some picture of Copley’s, the name of which I forget now; it has been very well engraved, though, and published. So, too, in the Sortie of Gibraltar, in the Death of Montgomery, and in the Death of Warren, I could show you several passages taken out of Copley—two or three figures, (attitudes and all) and the peculiar show of caps, with hair flying fiercely in the smoke, are stolen by Mr. T. 2.. West (Sir Benjamin ?), late President of your Royal Academy, a Pennsylvanian by birth, and a quaker. He studied in Italy, whither _he was sent by a subscription at Philadelphia, or by the liberality of two or three friends, I do not know which, while he was yet a young artist. He has been called a great painter, not only in the United States of America, but in every part of Europe: nevertheless Mr. W. was not a great painter. As a draughtsman, however, he was great. His draw- ings were enough to immortalize any body: they were full of thought, and full of power, and full of truth; but his paintings were very bad— very, though he was patronized by your late king, and is puffed now by your President of the Royal Academy. He was learned, courageous, and original—original, though he would sometimes borrow ina large way, to be sure, as in the case where he took the head and character of the chief personage, in Dominichino’s St. Jerome, for the chief personage (among the afflicted) in his huge picture of Christ healing the Sick, a beautiful copy of which is here at Philadelphia; with parts in it, however, which you have not in your original. The old man who is carried up to the Sayiour, feet foremost, my dear P., is a positive copy of St. Jereme. So, too, the women with doves, in the same picture, by Mr. W.—they are stolen outright from Raphael, in one of the cartoons ; and I have met with somewhere, I believe, though I do not now recollect where, the original of his lunatic boy, in a picture of days that are gone by. Mr. W. 30 Letters from the United States of North America, [Jury, had magnificent ideas, but he never knew how to express them with colour ; prodigious conceptions, which he never could clothe, for his life ; so that whenever they appeared on canvas, they were little more than a crowd of gigantic skeletons, the mere outline of huge, fleshless gods and demigods—the shadows of poetry, for Mr. W. had much more poetry in him, I assure you, than he ever knew how to make use of. _ Ihave seen every good picture that Mr. W. ever painted, I dare say, and after all, I would rather have his drawing of Death on the Pale Horse, the drawing, not the painting, for I would not give the painting house- room, so meagre is it and so unworthy of the drawing ;—I would rather have the drawing of that, and of Moses smiting the Rock (never painted, 1 believe), than all his pictures together. 3. Stewart, G., historical and portrait painter, born in Rhode Island. He was with you a great while ago, and got a high character with you. He is now an old man: but, old as he is, take him altogether, he has no superior among the portrait painters of our age. Not long ago a capital artist, of whom a word or two by-and-by, informed me that some of Stewart’s late pictures were considered, by a knot of artists and other good judges who happened to assemble at his rooms one morning, to be the best of his works—*« every part and the whole together were well treated.” I give you the very words of my authority. You have heard of Allston (see No. 5); he made a figure with you some years ago, and is now either an academician or associate of your Royal Academy. He says (I give you his language too), that “ Stewart’s word in the art isa law, and from his decision there is no appeal ”—and so say all the good painters of America. N.B. Stewart is near the grave now, and if a painter cannot get the first rank for himself, he will be sure to give it in such a case to the oldest man alive, with any character in his art. R, Peale says the same—T. Sully, ditto—Jarvis, ditto, ditto. 4. TRuMBULL, (see No. 1.) A Connecticut man, I believe, president of the New York Academy, and author of two or three clever historical pictures after the manner of Copley. He was with you for a long while (studied with West), and I saw his original sketch of the Sortie of Gibraltar, in your Suffolk Street Academy last year (No. — in 1824), He is a—Stop—I have so much respect for this able and good man, who ig now working away with all the ardour of youth, like Mr. West, who died with his hand fixed in the position to which it was habituated by the use of the pencil,* that I dare not speak irreverently of his work. His portraits are good—very good, but rather old-fashioned, rather late in the day, not showy enough to please the shop-keeping spirit of our age, nor the milliners, who, to judge by what I see, must be the chief patrons of the art, with you. Of his large historical pictures, of them that cover the walls of the capital, at Washington—what shall I say ?—what ! — why ‘ what more can I say ? » 9. Atistox, W. (See No.3.) Born I hear, in South Carolina, edu- cated with you in part, and a part in Italy; a man of high and pure talent, with a show of more natural fire than he has, and a mixture of pure pedantry, which he has wit enough to conceal by hard work, in such a way that even the hard work is not visible to the eye of a — * T saw a fine cast of it in the shop of your Mr. Behnes, the sculptor; the very man, by-the-by, to make a statue of West; every way qualified he is for the duty; and the little-withered hand, so aliye with expression, would be a treasure. : 1826. ] Painters— Painting. 31 common observer. He is regarded with you, and, of course, here in America, as one of the best painters alive. You know what a noise they made with you, when his Jacob's Vision appeared; not a few of your chief men spoke as if a new era of the art was nigh. Still the noise that you made there was nothing to the noise that people made here about poor Jacob. I have seen the picture—I have studied it well—and I say that, instead of being what I have heard it called by a very clever man with you, one of the best, or the best picture of modern days—the very best, he said, I do believe—it is feeble and stiff, though very correct and beautiful. Jacob is nobody, in the fore-ground (which, by the way, zs capital); and the chief angel, with his wings outspread afar off, is, even what the steps are, a failure. But the two angels that keep together do seem to be very much after the quiet, graceful, secure manner of Raphael, and the light on the leg of one, isbeauty. Mr. A. is now employed on a large work, Belshazzar’s Feast, or the Hand- writing on the Wall, a picture for which he is to have ten or twelve thousand dollars, I hear. Stay—I will give you the opinion of a brother artist, a capital painter and a capital judge, whose letter is now before me. “ A gentleman of Boston (he says) told me yesterday that Allston’s long-expected picture would be before the public this summer, and that he (A.) contemplated a permanent residence at New Haven” (a village of Connecticut, where it goes for a city). ‘Allston is certainly a character, but he should be studied personally to do him justice ; his humanity must be a tax upon his happiness, and yet he has a multitude of little antipathies. I have heard Sully say (T. Sully, of whom you are to have a sketch before I get through) that Allston, who was looking at a fine picture with him one day, on seeing a spider, went away from the place, and would not suffer a friend to kill the spider—he chose rather to give way to it, although his antipathy would not allow him to abide where it was. I should remark here that Sully is one of his greatest admirers. Allston wants regularity and decision of character, a want which will destroy him. You are to know that Allston loves his country with enthusiasm, and that if a single effort were enough, he weuld immolate himself to benefit her. If he were in Europe his magnificent powers would make him the boast of America; but they require to be drawn out by opposi- tion, to be provoked and stimulated by rivalry and by encouragement. Here, though the love that he has for the art and for his country is very strong, they make but occasional appeals to his imagination ; whereas the love of quiet and solitude solicits him continually. The latter has already seduced him from an honourable rank in London, to remove to the tranquillity of Boston (or Cambridge, rather, which is near Boston), and is now about to bury him in the seclusion of a country village. I do most sincerely mourn over so great a loss; for, so far as my judgment is informed, I do consider Allston as one of the greatest living painters. I know of no other artist who combines so many great qualities. It is difficult to say where we should bestow the greatest praise after considering a picture of his—you are in doubt which is the most excellent, the drawing, the character, the effect, the tone, or the colour. “ There was a time when he betrayed some littleness in the manage- ment of his work—it was the remains of the bad manner acquired in ‘the modern Roman school; but that has now given place to a bold, de- cided handling. I say this without hesitation, though it may appear 32 Letters Srom the United States of North America. [Jury, odd enough to you, considering the time that he has been about his great work. The fact is, that he has covered up five times as much as “you see in that very picture. It has been as good as_finished)seyeral “ $¢imes, and several times he has painted out a large. part.of ity, as.I hap- pen to know, in spite of all that could be said or done by the. few, that were permitted to see it.”—So much for the opinion of a brother painter. “To say all ina word, I have seen but four pictures by Allston-—butthree, jndeed: the Dead Man restored to Life by the Bones of the,Prophet ; Diana, with a wood landscape; and Jacob's Vision—all, of which were good, but no one of the three was what I call a great picture;,and yet. ‘I do believe that Allston is a great painter, one of the greatest that, ever lived, and that his Hand-writing on the Wall is worthy, of any, age or ‘any man. But why do I believe this? partly because I see much. to prove it, and partly because I know the men well who say so :. they, are “judges ; and I believe them. vigay eal ok rakes’ § Sutiy, Thomas—born with you, of English parents, but came,over to this country while a boy. He is a very beautiful painter of women, a- scholar in the art, and may be regarded with propriety as the Sir Thomas Lawrence of America; not that he is the very best portrait painter of. America, for Stewart, and Peale, and Jarvis are equal to him, to say no more, and each after a way of his own; but he is much more like Sir T. L. than any other painter of America.. He studied with you for ‘about a year. By-the-by, as I cannot finish the list. now, without making a paper, which I have no disposition to make till I have more. time, I will give you a delicious anecdote of Sully, which I had from_his own mouth. A husband wishing to surprise a beloved wife on her birth- day, came to Sully and got him to paint his portrait “on the sly.” . It -was begun forthwith, and Sully was to have it carried home and. put up,, while the wife was out. But before it was half done, the wife een, a visit by stealth. ‘ Pray, Mr. Sully,” said she, ‘could you, not-con- trive, think you, to make a portrait of me by such a day (Sully stared), for ‘that ‘is my birth-day, and I should like of all things to surprise my husband.”—* Why—a—a,” said Sully, seeing that. she had no idea of the trick, “1 do believe that Icould; and if you will manage to.draw ‘your husband away the night before,. I will have the picture hung up for rou, and ll ready to receive you in the morning.’ —* Delightful!” said she! "Fo work he went therefore, and so closely was he run, that once or twice he had to let the husband out of one door on tip-toe, while the wife was creeping in at another on tip-toe. Well; the portraits were finished: they were very like. The night before the birth-day arrived, and Sully finding both parties away, each being decoyed away by the other, hung them up (the pictures, not, the parties), in their superb. frames, just where they required to be hung. ‘The rest of the story we may as well skip, for who shall describe the surprise of both, when the. wife got up early, and the husband got up early, both keeping their countenances to a miracle, and each feigned an excuse to lead the other into the room where the two portraits appeared side by side !—Farewell,. ny dear P.—the story is true, perfectly. true, and yet, who, would. dare ‘ : to-ilitroduce it into a play ora novel ? tt PEAR, TU oie eee ER ‘ ee oe} > #5it pode etter tate be dood of Sq er “New York, Jan. 12, 1826. re Pe Nets 2 AOD arth $92 018s Yavin. eDniveg Gnzewoid gum “sec a6 Enibeee BAY CY. erotei! & wosordod so esee! ubeowd suodsew: apliboom Silty Poet “etyelcoll sede) ve sede deed Genes Woe Bebasr %S) Oe THK 1826.} r 33) J THE CORN LAWS. He who discusses at Grillon’s, in company with a fine woman, an excellent dinner at two guineas a head, perceives, with reason, that every thing goes well. The wines of France and Italy load his table. The ice that cools them is brought to him from the shores of Norway. He inhales the perfumes which grow upon the western shore of the Mediterannean ; and listens to the song which is borne upon the east. Commerce is flourishing—and manufactures ;—knowledge and morality are making progress with us every day! We have given up the vice of « Lotteries,” for ever ; and there shall soon be no more human degrada- tion in the West Indies. Half a million of money was won and lost only at Epsom and Ascot races; and Signor Velluti, for five hundred ineas a week, will stay at the Opera a few nights longer! Then we have beat the Burmese ; and we shall get thirty thousand pounds more voted in the next year for the National Gallery. A bishopric is talked of to be got up for converting the Gypsies among us to Christianity ; and the new square, to be built on the site of Carlton House, will be the most splendid in the world! We are a great nation—a wonderful people— are we not, my love? He embraces his love ; dips his fingers into rose- water; doubts for a moment whether the Chasse Café is genuine ; but sinks upon the sofa, and composes himself to rest. But while this Sybarite dreams on—smiling at the fairy visions which his own fancy has created—far different are the sensations of the poor cotton spinner at Manchester; who, rising an hour and a half before people at “ Grillon’s” go to bed—not because he has any thing to do when e is up, but because a straw bed, when a man is hungry, offers little temptation for lying long in the morning—hurries out of doors to get away from a crying wife and the fretting of half a dozen half-starved children, and goes—with a bitter heart—to take a stroll about the town, until the hour for getting “‘ relief” at the workhouse has arrived. The streets are empty, except of wanderers like himself: and he passes (in the town) only empty manufactories; in which he once worked hard, and now ponders whether he shall ever be so happy as to work hard again ! or, if the “New improved patent Machine”—if that succeeds—will make up cottons and woollens without any handicraft labour whatever ! Passing to the suburbs, he walks by splendid mansions and gardens, which have been raised out of the profit of his labour; and sees the notice of “spring guns,” and “ prosecution for trespass,”—the only notice he ever receives from the proprietor—threatening him, from the top of a long pole, half a mile off; while the watch-dog bays furiously at the gate as-he approaches. Returning homeward, he reads, in a printed bill upon a barn end, the “unanimous resolution” of a great meeting of “agriculturists, and land-owners’—“‘that the country is ruined, if ever bread comes to be sold for less than nine-pence half-penny a loaf in it’; and, seeing his family stand waiting round the Poor-house door for the little oatmeal that is to feed them all day, he thinks that times must alter before they will ever be able to purchase much bread at that price. By this time, being in an excellent temper for any outrage that can be roposed to him, he joins a small party of rioters; and—if he is not shot first —helps to break as many power-looms as a rich manufacturer has paid five thousand pounds jor. After this, setting down in a corner moogily, without bread, beer, or tobaceo, he listens to the reading of some back number of “ Cobbett’s Register,” which at least so far speaka ' MLM. New Series,—Vor, If, No. 7. r 34 The Corn Laws. (Jury, truth—to his perceptions—that it admits that he is starving, and agrees that he ought not to be so. If there should be any leaf of the book ‘which exhorts him to use a little “prudence” and tells him that this is the only weapon which half his betters use with such fearful efficacy against bim ;—which warns him to work hard (and not drink hard) ‘when wages are high ;—to look upon parish charity as he would upon pestilence, and to wait till to-morrow for every thing which he cannot “pay for to day :—to stay with his family at home of an evening in his cottage, and not make the brewer's fortune, or the distiller’s, by deprav- ing himself at the ale-house ; and above all, though he gets but twelve shillings a week wages, never to spend one farthing in /wxuries, until he has laid by one shilling for the time when he may get no wages at all ;— if there be any page to this effect in the book, that is a page which he finds superfluous, or tedious; and accordingly, either pays no attention to it, or gets up and walks away. With all his faults, however—and your working mechanic, especially in large towns, is as idle as a duke, and as extravagant ;— indulging in ex- penses, which the man two steps above him in society shuns, and casting away safeties which the other is laborious to arrive at, and careful to maintain ;—with all these faults—the chief result of which is that the poor rogue remains fixed in his station of toil and poverty rather than aims to rise above it—with all his vices, the English mechanic must not ‘be starved ; nor will he be argued (when the time comes) into any prac- tical admission that he ought to be so. The late discussions upon the expediency and operation of the Corn Laws—with the power granted to ministers to dispense with those laws, in case they shall see cause for so doing—may be regarded as (practically) decisive upon the fate of a question, as to the eventual success of which, we confess, we think nothing short of blindness could ever have entertained any doubt.—The rights of individuals may be tampered with; the gains of particular branches of trade may be cramped or lessened by ill-judged legislation ; but no system, the effect of which is to throw large bodies of men out of employment—to make one part of our population lastingly dangerous as well as burthensome to the remainder—can ever continue to exist.. “ The question then becomes this—Does that system which gives the Jand-owner of England’a monopoly of the home Corn market,—and, con- sequently enables him pretty nearly to put his own price upon his produce—does it, or does it not, tend to crush the general industry of the country? And this is a question, which both speakers and writers on the two sides of the controversy, argue upon principles (assumed) almost ludicrously opposite :—Mr. M’Culloch, on the part of the econo- mists, in his “Irish Absenteeism,” treating the home trade of every country—infinite of which must arise out of the expenditure of t incomes of land-owners—as a matter of no importance ; and toasting entirely for popularity, to commercial relations with foreign states: and the High Tory agricultural writers in Blackwood, setting out directly upon the opposite conclusion ; and insisting that our home trade it is that maintains us, and that we depend upon our sales of manufactures to foreign countries only in the most contemptible degree. 4 Now all the difference between the agriculturists, and the manufac- turers, upon this question, seems to us—and we cannot give it a better title than it deserves—to be, most transparently, a question about gain. we 1826.] The Corn Laws. 35 That both classes have a common interest in the strength and prosperity of the country, there can be no doubt; but, to deny that each will be a gainer, by keeping the profits of the other, in their mutual dealings, as low as they can be kept, without doing him vital mischief, seems to us to be impossible. To say that the manufacturer can be a gainer, by that increase of the land-owner’s income, which he himself (in the shape of high prices) gives, “because that increase of the land-owner's income is again expended with him (the manufacturer)” seems to be nonsense : the butcher who pays to the tailor forty shillings for his coat instead of thirty, in order that the tailor may have forty shillings, instead of thirty, to lay out again in meat with him, is just ten shillings out of pocket by the change of his tailor’s price ; less by the profit, whatever that may be, which he makes upon the sale of ten shillings worth of meat. In all dealings between the land-owner and the manufacturer it will be recollected, the land-owner has this advantage—he deals in a commodity which is indispensable to his opponent; his opponent has only a com- modity to offer, which may be dispensed with by him. The holder of land—these are propositions which we must put shortly—takes his land by a title which we will not question; but he has no title to impose any law upon his fellow subjects, for the purpose of making the enjoyment of that land especially profitable to him. Land must, under existing circumstances—however it may have stood formerly—stand in England upon the same footing with every other description of property; and has no more claim than every other description of capital to be protected from fluctuation in value. Burke, who described the manufacturers (according to Black- wood) as people “contributing little or nothing, except in an infinitely circuitous manner, to their own maintenance”—as “ truly the fruges consumere nati ’’—Burke talked then as he would not talk, ic he were alive—and in his senses—at the present day. The “bold peasantry —a. country’s pride!” and so forth, was a pretty thought in poetry: —our excellent agriculturists, however, are doing their utmost, we should remember, to degrade, and depress their “ bold pea- santry,” and make them workhouse paupers, every man :—but poetry is apt to catch at facts rather than analyze principles: and that line was written when ploughmen, and not weavers, were the prevailing produce of the land. The manufacturer, as we submitted a little way back, has rather uphill work in this—and almost every other discussion. He dwells in a close and smoky atmosphere; often has a black face; is tolerably vicious, and particularly insolent ;—in short, he is not at all a picturesque, or a pleasing personage—but he is a very powerful one— and he is here. And let him have his due of justice as well as of mainte- nance ; the land-owner, twenty years since, looked at him with a more favourable eye than he does now. When the storm raged, and the ship laboured, we felt that our strength wasin the numbers of our crew ; now we are at anchor, and in safety, we must not fling those numbers overboard. Warwickshire and Lancashire was it—or Bedfordshire—and Herefordshire—that fought the battles of England—that conquered Bonaparte at Waterloo? Our cotton mills, and our steam engines, with the swarthy, and what was worse, pallid rogues that worked them; . these were the powers that, through a contest which devastated four-fifths of Europe, protected the estates of the noblemen and land-owners of Eng- land ; and did more (it should seem)—for they doubled the value of them. F 2 36 The Corn Laws. [Juvy, _ Phe manufacturer is here: we owe our wealth, our strength, our safety, in great part, ‘to his exertions. England was independent—vietorious— when she had no manufacturers. . Doubtless ; and so she was when she: had no gunpowder. Does any man think that she would remain sonow?) Such persons may also believe that her span of territory would be able almost to command the world ; without those swarms of noisy, pestilent knaves crammed together in her black and smoky towns, who can make’ money (if work be given to them) to-day; and be made soldiers of—if their. “services are wanted for such a purpose—to-morrow. { 935 ove Our claim here, let it be understood fully, is made for the right of the -working, the journeyman manufacturer. The master trader, ‘like every other capitalist, wants no assistance to take care of himself. >In fact we have no question that the machinery which the desire of thuse traders still to make money keeps bringing into action, may be carried too far, and is carried too far; and, when carried too far, goes to pro¢ duce great misery to the population of a country. The power of machi+ nery gives’ to the masters’ description of capital—money—too heavy ‘an advantage over the workman’s description of capital—labour. Men now draw carts upon the road, the work of beasts; while machines do the work of men in our manufactories ; this, obviously, is not as it should be. It does seem clear that these tremendous powers, held by the ma- nufacturing capitalists, tend to give their description of property an advantage over that cf the agriculturists; but yet it may be doubted how far any laws directed against machinery at home would do more than destroy our trade by giving foreigners the advantage of us; and in the mean time—no matter which property is uppermost—the labourer (who has no jot of interest in the question) must five. rg ‘Therefore, as we must assume that the agriculturists of England have no’ divine right” for the sale of their corn and cattle, but can onl keep the home market closed upon the plea that they will dy of those to whom they se//, it seems clear that, whether more men are ernployed, or more machines, the agriculturists can have no claim to sell food to any greater quantity of pone a aaah labour than that which their own wants, in necessaries and conveniencies, require. We use the word “require” here, in contradistinction from “ employ,” because labowr required and employment given are things, in their effect, very different. ‘“Woik wanted,” is carpenter's work from the carpenter, or weaver's from the weaver—work which the workman is regularly accustomed to, and ‘which will yield him and his family a competent livelihood. «Employment given” may be such work as the party employed’ is hardly treated in being put to; such as drawing water-carts, sweeping ‘streets, or breaking stones, for six-pence a-day upon the road. Then, whatever may be the wealth of the land-owners of a country, they can never want more than a given amount of labour (not agricultural )}—up'to ‘that point the corn-grower and the manufacturer are, practically, upon even terms. When we get beyond the question of reasonable need, and ‘eome to supply those who feed us with pure /uxuries, then the field for “eur manufactory is greatly widened, but the sale of our produce becomes Jess’ secure :—fancy will operate against us ; caprice, and the changeof\a “fashion, or the taste for a foreign article, will throw fifty or sixty: thou- sand men out of employ in an hour. But the thing:does not stop here. “Even luxury has its limits. “Let the increase of machinery or'ef popula- tion ‘Ina country once cause a systematic manufacture of ‘these articles 1826. } The Corn Laws. 37 of need or luxury exceeding the demand; and that instant the common effects of a surplus produce in the market, aggravated fearfully in this particular instance by the utter wselessness of the commodity ‘to the ossessors):begins lowering the price in the most frightful degree. Then endiele already produced may not fall instantly, because it may be’ held;:and so maintain its price; but the labour. which produces: it: is:a commodity which cannot be held, and the fall of that is instantaneous.' For the: measure of corn which used to purchase twelve hours’ labour; we are now offered fourteen. From fourteen offered in fifty places, we come .to sixteen, then to eighteen, twenty, or thirty; by-and-bye we will take/even this only upon some condition; and, at last, we can take no more upon any condition at all. Then we come to the leaving an im- mense mass of men idle; an immense other mass: starving upon three days’ work instead of six; and all who work in distress, from being mi- serably ill paid. From the immense quantity of labour to be obtained almost upon any terms, any man who has a small capital and a desperate eupidity, becomes enabled to speculate to almost any extent he pleases; the ruin which he brings upon himself may not be a matter of much consequence to any body; but the mass of goods which he throws upon the market, at a low price, increases the glut, and aggravates the suf- ferings of all. » This then, at least, may be the condition of a country which had nothing but its internal trade to depend upon. We take it to be ma great degree the state of England at present; but whether it be, or not so, is merely a question upon the fact ;—suppose such a case—sup- pose the manufacturing population of a country to be greater than the agriculturists can (with justice to that population) remunerate and em- ploy—is not the obvious remedy that very export trade, which the advo- : eates of corn restrictions are now affecting to treat so lightly? Suppose two millions, or one million, of the people of England, to be employed in manufactures for the export-trade, we take it to be clear that, upon these people, as far at least as the plea of reciprocal dealing goes, the Jand-owners can have no claim for the purchase of corn at all. As they sell nothing to the land, they cannot, on any principle of reciprocity, be ‘called upon to buy from it. If we were to shut them up within four walls ; confine them to their foreign trade alone, and separate their sales rom those of the rest of the community; let them pay (as they would do) a pretty swinging rent to the land-owners for the ground that they lived upon; be available as a corps de réserve to protect the estates. of those land-owners in case of war; and pay their share of the public -burthens (without any chance of getting part of that payment back again) ; _——then we hope that the most assuming agriculturist could not have any -elaim—for beef and mutton at his own prices—to a lease of their sto- -machs ? ni: © It will-be objected that such a division cannot be made as we describe. ‘We cannot ‘help that ; our population. must be employed and fed. We cannot, with corn at the price it. fetches in this country, compete (as emanufacturers) abroad, with people who buy their corn. fifty per cent scheaper.' Gur superior capital, our, superior, machinery, the ignorance _ __.9f-our competitors, will enable. us: teo-de-much, but not se much astt __‘hasidone heretofores and: not so: much,as-this. > 4.5%) 5s © bape Phe admission of a moderate quantity of corn from abroad, will lower the »price-which the Jand-owner-of England receives for the whole 7. It 38 The Corn Laws. (Jury, must do so; we seenoremedy. We make no attack upon the property of the land-owners; we admit their distinct right to all the corn in the country ; but we contend that people cannot go on being compelled, by law, to buy it from them. The land-owners are a little fast and loose too, in their opinions and pretensions. They are a caste of themselves, above trade, traders are, in fact, the fruges consumere nati? There was nota little, dirty, job- ing, fraudulent, scheme, among the joint-stock bubbles, for making a little money by trade ae otherwise), that we did not find some “ landed gentleman, ’—who rather thought he saw the “ fruges” the other way— at the head of, or connected with it. On the merits of “ Free-Trade,” as regarded the article of si/k, the views of the land-owners were parti- cularly luminous. We will not challenge them to “play out the play,” because it would be too hard. They never could sell their corn at so high a price to any people as to the manufacturers of England, and the major part of the commodities that they want in return, they never could buy from any people at so low a price. The threat of general free-trade may have some weight with the manufacturing capitalist ; but to the workman, it is as ridiculous as the other great menace of the agricultural party—to wit, that if the manufacturer will only give the agriculturist 50s. for the quarter of corn, instead of 70s., the agriculturist can only buy of him 50s. worth of cottons instead of 70s.—the fact being that the manufacturer has got the intermediate 20s. without giving any cottons for it, already in his possession. We do not desire to go the length of a total change, but we must have an alteration. If the country is not now in a state to bear a perfectly ‘Free-Trade in corn, it is entitled to a right of constant importation ; and at such a rate of duty as will enable the foreign grower, in average sea- sons, to send some first-rate wheat into our market. The agriculturist will sustain a diminution of his profits by that change ; but when he does so suffer, he has little title to complain. Look at the increase of the land-owner’s income, all through the late war, in England, while the land-owner of almost every other country in Europe was becoming literally a beggar. Look, not at any nominal amount of money paid, subject to taxation or reduction, look at the ex- penditure, the manner of life of these persons, and ask if they will be poorer than they were in 1790, if twenty per cent should be abated from their incomes? They talk of the taxation that crushes the agricultural interest—What class of that interest has it crushed? Has it crushed the land-owner, whose expenses are nearly double what they were prior to its increase? or the farmer, who during its pressure, took a bailiff to look after his business, and shot up into a gentleman? It is ridiculous enough to find the High Tory party now crying out about taxation! The land-owner is taxed, no doubt—and is not the labourer taxed at least equally? Is not his beer taxed, his tea, his brandy, his tobacco? are not these very people who talk of “ taxation,” themselves making him pay a tax, for their personal benefit, upon the very meat and bread that he eats? Of this taxation that is so oppressive to the land-owners, how happens it that so few land-owners vote in Parliament for the reduction ? How much of what they pay in taxes, do they rece’ve back again in the emoluments of places, pensions, offices, and commissions ? which stand at the cost of the nation at large, ahd are bestowed upon them, their relations, and dependents in particular ? 1826.] The Corn Laws. 39 The Corn Monopoly must come down; we shall have people starving if it does not; and that people will not starve, even the land-owners will have wit enough to know. For the war, the heavy taxation, that is so loudly complained of, let it be abated ; but every kind of capital seems to have thrived under it. The landed interest raised their rents and their style of living under it. The monied interest arose almost out of it. It seems, with all the abuse we hear of it, to have gone on blessing every interest—enriching every interest, but one,—the interest of the labouring classes—agricultural or manufacturing, through the country. ~ This is a branch of our subject to which, perhaps, we may return; at pre- sent, to touch upon it would carry us far beyond our limits. The whole question of the Corn Trade, indeed, has been argued so laboriously, that a few loose hints upon it are all that we can venture to throw out. We are not among those who would hold it of no importance that no more corn were ever grown in England, provided we could obtain it at a cheaper rate by purchasing it abroad. We do not forget what would be the dan- ger of placing the supply of so material a commodity at the discretion of powers, with whom accident, to-morrow, might embroil us. But, on the other hand, we can see no objection, beyond the personal interest of one class of persons, to such a restricted importation of foreign grain, as, maintaining the agriculture of this country still vigorous, would keep it in a state always capable of extension. One, moreover, of the greatest blessings, perhaps, that would be derived from the introduction ofa fixed duty upon the importation, will be the abatement of that mass of jobbing and fraud which has been carried on under the system of the averages. Without going quite back to the prejudices, or being entirely prepared to condemn them, which formerly existed against regrating and monopoly, where the supply of so vital an article to a country, as Food, is at stake, we think all details between the producer and the consumer should be simplified as far as possible. On the reported Death of a Friend whom I had celebrated in an Elegy, ; and afterwards met at a Party. Wuy, Richard, my boy, where the deuce have you been ? You know not the trouble you’ve given ; I was told you had suddenly left us in spleen, And, ’twas hoped, you had travelled to heaven: The news took me rather, I own, by surprise ; I pondered awhile what to do, Till, suddenly brushing the dew from my eyes, I thought I would write something new. I began on your virtues ("twas difficult work); 5} ” Eesaty Then your graces too cost me much trouble; Your wit and good-humour I could not well shirk, Though wit often proves but a bubble. Yes, all was in vain, though I worked night and day ! Poor poet ! what troubles await ye ! ¢ I found that my elegy many made gay, fa And the eye-lids of other folks weighty. Now the least you can do, my dear sensible fellow, BED ai Is to contradict all I have said ; ie” Aid To assure your kind friends when I wrote I was mellow, ie ‘a _Or not, perhaps, right in my head. Q. ee (Jury, ON HYPOCHONDRIASIS. _ Tuere are few individuals more deserving of pity than the hypochon- driac, and yet there is no complaint, except perhaps the tooth-ache, which excites less commiseration than hypochondriasis.. The..reason of this seems to be either that this malady is held to depend upon the individual being merely Jilious, as it is rather indefinitely called, or else © that it arises from a sickly imagination, and may be thrown off by an effort of the will. That a deranged condition of the digestive organs may produce lowness of spirits is too obvious to admit of denial, or to require any illustration. But this kind of mental depression bears a direct relation to the state of the stomach, and as this regains its tone, the mind recovers its hilarity. Such, however, is not the case in hypo- chondriasis, in which there is for the most part a conviction pressing on the mind of the patient, that he labours under some incurable disease— an impression which no vigour of his digestive system can remove, and which becomes the constant object of his solicitude—paralyses every mental exertion, and poisons every rational enjoyment. Neither does the idea that hypochondriasis depends upon the indulgence. of fancy or caprice appear better founded. A man is laughed at who com- plains of pain in the great toe of the leg which he left on the field of Waterloo some ten years ago ; yet, however ridiculous this may appear, it is literally true that he feels the pain there, because the nerve which went to the toe conveys to the brain precisely the same sensation it was wont to do before the limb was amputated. In such a case no reasoning can alter the nature of the impression, nor any argument blunt the acuteness of the suffering. So I imagine it is in hypochondri- asis ; we may know perhaps that the sensations do not—cannot corres- pond with the reality—in a word, that they are but sensations, yet we cannot, either in the one case or the other, shake off the inconvenience by exertion, or drive it off by ratiocination. Ibeg not to be misunder- stood—I do not mean to assert that any hypochondriac may not aggravate his complaints by intemperance in his diet, indulgence in his caprices, or indeed any irregularity in his mode of life; but Ido assert that his complaint sometimes comes on notwithstanding the most rigorous bodily temperance and mental. discipline; yet all the doctors lay the onus of this miserable complaint upon the stomach, and direct their remedies against its supposed delinquencies. I am myself, one of the ill-fated race of hypochondriacs, and therefore, speak from. personal knowledge. I consulted Mr. A: , and was beginning to describe my feelings to him, thinking, ‘good easy man,” that a knowledge of the symptoms was necessary to a discovery of the remedy—not at all. He cut me short with “ don’t tell me of feelings! you're hipped, Sir, that’s all; take a blue pill every night and read my book.” Not quite satisfied with this off-hand method of prescribing, which looked as if he had made up his mind before hand to give me the blue pill, whatever my complaints were, I resolved to consult Dr. P. ; he too ordered medicines for the stomach, but luckily, without enjoining the perusal of his book, which Lam told is more difficult of digestion than all the drugs at Apothecary’s Hall. The idea of reading medical books having been suggested by Mr. A. , I speedily collected all which seemed likely to throw, light upon my complaints, and it is from the result of this inquiry tha I have formed my opinion that hypochondriasis does not depend so much on the state of the. digestive system as upon the irritation of certain “ 1826.] On Hypochondriasis. 41 nerves (varying in different persons), by which false impressions are Shiitted’ tothe brain, inthe manner of the soldier above-iéntioned ‘who had lost his‘legs) ~~ ‘ Bs qari “8 Persons having’ their nervous system so constituted as tobe susceptible of Strong impressions from slight causes—having, in short, what is usually ‘ealled-a nervous temperament, have always been regarded as particulatly ‘4iable’ to this disease. Rousseau and Cowper may be taken as good ‘Hkiastrations—men who were unable by any degree of temperarice’ to’ “istarve themselves into tranquillity and cheerfulness. Indeed, it is eon- » sistent with general observation, that pursuits leading to the cultivation ~6f' the faney or indulgence of feeling are powerful auxiliaries in the “developement of morbid nervous irritability. Among the various ¢lasses “ofvartists, for example, musicians are perhaps the most subject to those wayward fancies which mark the hyphochondriac ; witness Viotti, Sacchini, Mozart, and others; while the effect of music upon minds ~ gifted with undue sensibility is strikingly illustrated by the melancholy “and passionate desire of revisiting their native country, produced on ‘Swiss soldiers on hearing the Ranz des Vaches. Yet I apprehend it would be very difficult to shew in what manner the stomach was affected ‘by their sounds. Shakspeare, who was a tolerably correct observer of nature, speaks of the “soul-inspiring drum,” the “ ear-piercing fifé,” ‘and even attributes certain nameless effects to the bag-pipe “ singing in the nose”—but so far as I know, mentions no music which held aty sympathy or communion with the stomach. ' ~The fact is, as it appears to me, that the stomach is of a very jealous disposition, and will not work unless attended to; take off the mind too frequently and too long, no matter in what way, and the dissention is proportionally affected; the individual becomes melancholy” oF ¢a- pricious, in vulgar language, hipped,—the indigestion being obviously the effect, not the cause of the mental affection; hence it is that men of studious habits generally become dyspeptic and not unfrequently hypo- chondriacal. It is very consolatory, however, for those who are thus affected, to be able to refer their bodily infirmities to their mental “superiority ; and as a quotation from any old author is always very ~useful in an argument, and of course one from a Latin or Greek writer ‘doubly so, I would remind them that Aristotle asks “cur homines qui -ingenio claruerunt et in studio philosophiz vel in republica admifiis- ‘tranda vel in carmine fingendo vel in artibus exercendis melancholicos “omnes fuisse videramus ?” — Women are said to be less liable to the disease than men, which niay be accounted for either by the fact of their prudently abstaining frém ‘the fatigue of very profound meditations; or, by supposing the same causes to produce a different train of phenomena, constituting hysterics, “a complaint, however, so analogous to the subject of this paper, that many have regarded them as the masculine and feminine of the sate “species. ‘Talking of the ladies, I may remark, that a French writer’ of “some celebrity (M. Falret), argues that the abdominal viscera eahnot be ~ the’seat‘of hypochondriasis, because the disease does not prevail among whis fair countrywomen, who, according to his insinuation, wear stays ‘so ut “underrating the sacrifices made“by ‘the French Jadies inthe ‘ ‘of fashion, ‘we may be allowed to question whether the sufferings of the male sex‘in this country have not for some years been quite-as M.M. New Serics.—Vo u. I. No. 7. G ; * . ot sae “as té produce: great compression “sur le’ bas ventre.” “Now, “weause 42 On Hypochondriasis. [Juiy, exquisite ; but, to whichsoever the merit may belong of wearing” the tightest stays, I must say, that I never met with any instance of hypo- chondriasis from this cause: in fact a certain degree of intellect seems necessary for its production. _ From this digression I return to the moral or intellectual causes which are very numerous. It is very uncommon to meet with any one who has been much given to study of any kind who has not experienced this affection to a greater or less extent—but at the same time, among the various kinds of reading, none are so apt to produce hypochondriasis among unprofessional persons, as the perusal of medical works ; so generally is this acknowledged, that M. Villernay has enumerated “lecture habituelle de Buchan*” among the exciting causes, Rousseau, too, not only admits this cause, but describes in forcible language the effect of such injudicious studies upon his singularly: con- stituted mind. He says, “ having read a little on physiology, I set about studying anatomy: and passing in review the numbers and varied) actions of the parts which composed my frame, I expected twenty times a day to feel them going wrong ; far from being astorfished to find myself dying, my astonishment was that I could live. I did not read the description of any disease which I did not imagine myself to be affected with; and I am sure that if I had not been ill I must have become so upon this fatal study. Finding in every complaint the symp- toms of my own, I believed I had got them all, and thereby added another much more intolerable—the phantasy of curing myself, a thing difficult to avoid when one reads medical books. By means of plodding, reflecting, and comparing, I came to the conclusion that the root of my complaint was a polypus of the heart.” The passions may be ranked next to mental exertion in the production of hypochondriasis, particularly fear ; after which may be placed chagrin and ennui. This last is very remarkable in men of business who abandon their affairs to seek for tranquillity and repose in retirement—those in’ short, who pass from a life of activity to one of idleness. Under these circumstances, the fancy first conjures up the evil, and then the mind dwells upon it with morbid pertinacity. ‘It would not appear that climate has much influence on hypochondri- asis, which, however, bears a distinct relation to the progress of civili- zation, becoming more frequent as it advances. It likewise occurs par- ticularly, in those countries which have been subjected to great political events, a circumstance which accounts for the number of hypochon- driacs observed by Zacchias, during the eventful reign of Louis XIV: the same effect is said to have been produced in Spain and Germany by the late invasions of the French. With regard to the symptoms of this disease, or the manner in which it developes itself, this varies in almost every different case; but the part most frequently fixed upon as the seat of some incurable malady, is the heart, especially ammong young medical hypochondriacs. I am told the late eminent professor of physic in Edinburgh, used to mention that he was every season consulted by a great number of young medical students on the state of their hearts—and it is asserted by the French» writers, that when Corvisart first drew the attention of the pupils at the Ecole de Medicine to the organic /usus of this organ, it brought oman epidemic of imaginary aneurisms, The sight, hearing, smell, and taste are*sometimes subject to painful or depraved affections, andat others‘are * Buchan’s Domestic Medicines. 1826.] On Hypochondriasts. 43 endowed, with a marked sensibility ; this is particularly the case with regard to touch, the slightest degree either of heat or cold, producing strong impressions—in some, the integuments become preternaturally tender,,,and) the patient even complains of exquisite pain in the hair. .. The; whims and phantasies of hypochondriacs are very numerous, and many of ‘them such, as to provoke a smile, even when we most pity the subjects of such strange delusions. Some describe the sensation of @ great explosion, as of a piece of fire-arms in the head, chest, or abdomen; while others imagine that they feel the movements of some livingeanimal within them. One lady thought her skin had become rough and scaly like that of a carp, an impression which she removed at will by calling to her assistance the sense of touch. Greding mentions the case of a medical man who was impressed with the belief that his stomach was filled with frogs, which had been spawning ever since he bathed when a boy in a pool where there were a few tadpoles. The life of this: unfortunate man was spent in travelling from place to place, to consult the most eminent physicians concerning this imaginary evil.— “He argued himself,” says M. Greding, “into a great passion in my pre- sence, and then asked me if I did not hear the frog-croak.” Marcellus Donatus mentions the case of a baker of France, who imagined himself agreat lump of butter, and durst not sit in the sun or near a fire for fear of being melted—rather an unhappy phantasy by-the-bye for a baker. Zimmerman met with an individual who fancied himself a barleycorn, and did not venture to go abroad lest he should be picked up and swallowed by the first sparrow that espied him. One of the most annoying and vexatious absurdities into which hypo- chondriacs are led, is the degree of vacillation in every purpose, and the deliberation which precedes the most unimportant actions; thus Dr. Reid mentions that he called one day upon a young friend who had in- quired his health by the sincerity of his application. It was afternoon, but he was still in bed, not having been able to decide whether he should wear his small-clothes or pantaloons ; having renewed his reason- ing upon this important matter, he at length determined in favour of the latter; but he had not been dressed many minutes before he changed his mind, and during the rest of the day wore breeches. From these and similar instances we acquire the fidelity of the picture of an hy- pochondriac, as given by Moliere in his “ Malade Imaginaire,” when he makes Argan say, “Monsieur Puyon, m’a dit de me promener le matin dans ma chamber douze allées et douze venues, mais j’ai oublié 4 lui demander si c’est en long ou en large.” No strength of mind or extent of cultivation seems capable of protecting us against these ludicrous imaginations. Even Pascal, remarkable as he was for the depth and:clearness, as well as piety of his mind, was yet unable to conquer the force of hallucination. He fancied himself always placed at the edge of an abyss, into which he was constantly afraid of falling, and it was only by pushing a chair over the supposed verge of the precipice and finding it did not fall that he was able to undeceive himself. This experiment he is said to have always had recourse to before he ventured to sit down when labouring under a fit of this disease. This brings to my mind the case of an individual who had an equal fear of sitting down, _ but for a very different cause: it has occurred to the writer to know of a gentleman who supposed his a3 nether bulk” to be made of glass, and - 2 44 On Hypochondriasis. [ Jury, awho, therefore, never sat down without extreme caution, lest he should break it all to pieces, ‘ ah Fi With regard to the treatment of this complaint, I am satisfied that medical men are wrong in endeavouring, as they generally do, toargue their patients into better health. This will not do; and I am satisfied, from my own experience, that till he has gained the confidence of his patients by listening to, appearing to believe, and prescribing gravely and formally for his most fanciful ailments, he has no chance of being of | any real service to him ; any expression which insinuates that the dream is imaginary at once destroys all confidence; whereas, an attentive examination of the symptoms, and fayourable anticipation of the: result, go far towards tranquillising the mind of the patient. In this way I have known the best effects from a course not of blue, but of dread pills, aided by exercise, amusement, and cheerful society. DITHYRAMBICS. (From the German) «« Nimmer das glaubt mir Nimmer erschienen Gdtter allein, &c.” Schiller’s Gedichte- The Gods descend from high, But not alone they leave their blissful seat ; Hand in hand they quit the sky, To join their votary’s still retreat ! When jovial Bacchus crowns the bowl, Then Love with laughing eyes invades my soul, And Pheebus makes the hallowed train complete. They come, they come—the heavenly band, In earthly bowers they take their stand, And bright with all their freshest rays op at Flash upon the poet’s gaze. The glorious guests—the heavenly choir, Say, how shall earth-born man receive ? Untempered in celestial fire, Their dazzling forms behold and live ? Fill me, ye Gods, and full, and high Your choicest draughts of immortality To powers like your’s what can a mortal give ? Fill with nectar, fill the cup, Pll snatch the pledge and drink it up; Then in the starry halls above For ever dwell—with bliss and Jove. “ Fill the cup, and fill it high ! “ And, Hebe, kiss the golden brim ? “ And let the poet taste of joy, “* And feel that Heaven was made for him. “ Bathe his eyes in holy dew, “ Lest Styx, detested power, should blast his view, “ And let the Godhead glow through every limb !” Hark! the sacred stream descends, a Around the mantling brim it bends: aaa T feel my sight grow clean from earthly shades, Lema While tranquil joy my thrilling breast pervades. 1826. ] L 45] THE, THEATRE—ITS LITERATURE, AND GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. Tue theatre, its management, and the contribution of material’for its support, did form a part of the literary business of the country. This was the ease, im some degree, even so lately as thirty years ago; but it is searcely so any longer. The aggregate quantity of theatrical entertainment exhibited in London has been doubled within the last twenty years. Several new theatres have been opened, and the cost of working all has greatly increased within that time, The new dramas produced have been (as regards number) three to one beyond what they were. The gains of public performers have risen to a height, perfectly unprecedented—and perhaps-rather absurd. The general trade, in fact, of stage exhibition, is carried on at an outlay fully double that which was allotted to it twenty years ago; and yet dramatic literature was never perhaps at so low an ebbas it is at present ;—the condition of the London stage (as regards its display of actors) has not been often so weak ; and “ theatrical pro- perty,”—that is to say, the business of upholding and carrying dramatic enter- tainments—scarcely ever so unproductive. As there can be no effect in these days, for which we cannot at once trace out a cause, five hundred speculators within the last five years have accounted for this state of things upon the stage; and all have accounted for it (with equal inge- nuity) in different ways. One set of gentlemen say that it is “ the late dinner hours,” which prevent people, in the upper ranks, from coming to the theatre so early as seven o’clock. Another set blame the increased pride of the higher classes, that—dinner or no dinner—will not let them come to aplace of public entertainment at all. The saints—and some who are not saints—wish to have the police of the lobbies improved—and truly that desire does not seem altogether unreasonable ; disappointed poets lay the whole blame at the door of “the Managers,” who will, contumaciously, ruin themselves by producing only the worst pieces—i. e. other pieces than those of the complainants. Many contend that it is a “ Genius” we wait for—some literary star who shall arise in the dramatic hemisphere, and, at one touch of his pen, make play- going again popular. And the people older than forty, who cannot see and hear quite so well as they did twenty years ago, say, that all writing, or acting, must be useless, with the present unreasonable dimension of our theatres. Now the “ Managers,” truth to say, have sharp work enough to carry of the war. They have to keep up the attraction of their theatres—which is a good deal; and to keep up their character—which is a good deal more. They must please the recherché people—if they can; or else, though these pay very little to the house, they raise a cry, which the fools fall into. And they must please the fools—who pay all—or else they shut up to a certainty. The low in condition, and the high; the ignorant, and the cultivated; the grave, and the ebullient ; the thick-sculled, and the witty; from among all these varieties of character, they have to derive their emolument—all are to be considered and satisfied; brought together, and without mutual offence, under one roof; prevailed upon to form part of the same company, and to be amused with the same entertainment. And if there were not a natural tendency in things to adapt themselves to circumstances, difficult as this task must be, it would hardly be so well accomplished as it is at present. The people in the boxes sit and tolerate stale jokes, because they are guessed to be not yet familiar in the gallery. The people in the galleries listen, without cracking nuts, to poetical soliloquies, and long scientific pieces of music, which they neither care for nor understand, out of deference to those in the boxes. And broad humour in comedy; real pathos, or passion, in tragedy; simple melody in opera; and scenery and neck-breaking in ballet or pantomime, are delights common to both parties. Our dramatie writing, however, as it exists at the present day—putting aside the question, what power there may or may not be for better—is of a very low order. With all the certain puff, and ready introduction to publicity, which _ writing for the stage affords, we have not one man among our systematic play-writers, who stands much higher than as an impounder of chance coffee- 46 The Theatre—Its Literature and General Arrangement. [JULY, house jokes, or a translator of French vaudevilles, and two-act ¢o medies* Colman, who“did possess strong faculty, can write no longer. He admits it ; and it would not be a jot the less apparent if he did not.. Kenney, whovhad a touch of something coming very near to genius once, is worn out: his Raising the Wind will be a lasting farce; and his comedy of The World had-soul in it ; but power has departed from him. Of the existents—regulars—Poole is perhaps the best ; there was a good approach to conception in his character of PaulPry —if he did not:steal it.. At all events, he is not quite so good as Sheridan, but he wrote a clever quiz rather about Leigh Hunt—there is hardly any body else’ whom one can think of without horror. rly Now this dearth of wit in our daily dramatic productions, may be looked at quite apart from the question of sufficient or insufficient existing talent: and, looked at as a fact by itself, there is nothing about it very surprising. The faculty of writing dramas—apart from any genius which may be concerned in ‘it —is an art—a “ mystery’”’—to be learned, ‘That it is an art—a trade of itself— is obvious; there are forms to be observed in it, without a knowledge of which, the strongest abilities would fail. .And, moreover, that it is a trade which may (or must) be acquired, is quite undeniable, because men constantly begin clumsily in it, and are found to improve: that is not the case with reference to works of the imagination in general; the earlier books of a novelist, or romance- writer, are commonly found to be his best. That this trade then—the construction of plays—is not very difficult, one would say on the one hand, judging from the miserable sort of people who contrive to execute it; and yet, that it is most. difficult, when a play is constructed, to guess whether it will or will not succeed, is perfectly certain; for we find every day, that actors, managers, dramatists themselyes,—all the people most experienced in such mat- ters, have very little judgment about it. Managers use the best discretion they have—this may be assumed; no man but a refused dramatist will doubt it. Mr. A.’s farce may bring good wine, or good words, but it can never stand against Mr. B.’s farce, which brings good money : both may come in—elect two members—but Mr. B. sits to a certainty. But yet, in spite of this entirely good intent, the conclusions of managers are constantly negatived by events—and seem as constantly, moreover, to have’ proceeded in direct opposition to the most ordinary perception and common- sense ;—they refuse plays, or produce them with ill-will and difficulty, which afterwards turn out to be highly successful, and even deserve to be so; and they act other pieces, bestowing large expense upon, and avowedly expecting highly from thera, which one would wonder how any people should fail to see must be damned past all redemption. Then, besides this uncertainty in the first stage—where the crowd is to decide eventually, there can never be much security for a correct conclusion. Our damnation by first night’s audience is pretty nearly got over now, by the help of packed houses and pertinacity ; and perhaps it is as well that it should be so, except in extreme cases, and there the power still applies; but undeserved success is as offensive a possible casualty to a man of talent in any pursuit as unmerited condemnation ; and plays—ten times more—a hundred times more than any other productions of literature—succeed constantly from accidents and causes, with which their dramatic merits have nothing at all to do. Personal or political allusion (or a belief of the existence of either of these intents); a fancied curious representa~ tion (curious only from the impudence of its imposture) of something which the audience never saw—the lucky air of a particular song; the painting of a particular scene; the dress, gesture, figure—nay, even the moral character of a particular performer; every one of these are circumstances which have made contemptible plays invaluable; to the necessary disgust and perplexity of that writer, who, if he did any, would be content to do no other than respectable ones. a, Ba The novel-writer can stand for himself. He acts alone, and can be tried by the work of his own hand for failure or success. But the dramatist is now, at, best, no more than the member of a partnership; consisting, besides 1826.] The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. 47 himself; of the musician, the machinist, the scene-painter, the tailor, and the actor. He is not “ poet,” but, as the bill of the Italian opera forcibly expresses it, poet to the theatre.” Pizarro, Tom and Jerry, and Giovanni in London, brought as much money perhaps as The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and John Bull:—this is bad example, and worse encouragement. ' Then if all this—as far as regards convenience, and reasonable guarantee of suecess—is not very inviting to the person who questions whether or not he shall commence dramatic author, that which has to follow, in the way of profit, willedo very little indeed to redeem it. As pasteboard plays are easily manufac- tured (and do not last very long) there are of course a vast number of them pro- duced. The effect of this is, that the people who do see a few plays still, have long since given up reading them; the copyright of a comedy, prospering on the third night, is scarcely worth, in the market, thirty pounds. Those who doubt this, let them not trust to any of the sales for “two hundred pounds,” and'so forth, made by authors who live up two pair of stairs, and so forth; but let them take a play, a farce, likely to do well, on the third night, to a (solvent) bookseller, and ask him what he will give for it. And it will not do to imagine that pecuniary advantage will be overlooked in the present day, even where more fame is to be gotten by forgetting it than writing for the theatre is likely to produce. It is unpleasant to be personal ; but where trash will do, there is no great satisfaction to decent persons in having to deal with the whims.and jealousies of overpaid actors and actresses; or honour in “succeeding” by the side of the authors of Harlequin Scavenger, and The Eel Basket Emptied. If there were no other channel open to publicity, men might wave the consideration of the money: but there are fifty paths open, in which the credit of success is greater than it can bein the theatre; the success itself more certain, the choice of means less limited, and the gain ten times superior ; and to these necessarily therefore, or some one or other of them, the great pre- ponderance of genius will resort. That the secret of our weakness in dramatic literature does lie mainly here— in the indifference of men of talent to the pursuit, rather than in their incapa- city—seems so clear, that to offer any argument upon it would be superfluous. Because it is a little too much to suppose that the very weakest of the literary people about town (and which is there, among the farce writers of the present day, who ever produced any thing besides his farces—or, at least, any thing that was readable?)—that these scissars and wafer people—for they are literally no more—should be the on/y capable dramatists in existence! When we talk of “incapacity” for dramatic writing in the present day, it should be recollected, that scarcely any man of reputation who has tried the stage has failed to succeed ; however, not contented with the extent, or results of his success, he may have abandoned it afterwards. Fazio produced considerable _ sums of money (to the theatres); but Milman did not write for the theatre again. Maturin’s Bertram, as an acting tragedy, was uncommonly successfull; but Maturin got more money by writing novels, than by writing plays. Coleridge’s tragedy, again, was fortunate; but Coleridge was not tempted to become a confirmed dramatic writer. And, for the gabble about Scott, and Byron, it is too felicitous! Byron never wrote a tragedy, the subject of which did not put it out of all question as to representation on the stage; and this, too, when: his “ Corsair” style—if he would have used it in romanee—would have beaten all the world. And Scott—sheets only cut out of his books, and stuck by brainless idiots upon prompters’ “ plots,’ make dramas which’ fill theatres for whole seasons together, and even continue to attract after their novelty is over; and yet the very paste-pot villains who perform this barba- rous work, will call themselves authors—talk of the possession of a “ particular faculty,” and tell you that “ Scott,” or “ Byron,” “ could not write a play!” The fact is, that novel writing, romances, memoirs, history, almost every _ description of literary labour is better paid, looking to the uncertainty which _ always amust.attend it, than writing for the theatre. And the first step towatds — _ giving:a’ chance of improvement to the state of dramatic composition must 48 The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. Jury, _ be to place it, in point of advantage, upon a level with ST amet _ of every other character. A play, to be popular, and of sterling value’ at* the same time, must be, in thé present day, a work of great labour amd considera- _ tion, The same quantity of exertion, appliéd in almost any ‘other’: pe, would produce, to appearance, three or four times the ‘Same “quattity' of result. The profit of such a play, to compete with’ the prices gained! in Other _branches of literary employinent, should be at least a ‘thousand, ‘or’ twelve hundred pounds: or at least there ‘should ‘be the chance, by considerable success, of obtaining such a sum. The profit, as the trade’ now stands} Wotild be perhaps some four or five hundred. wet oe ent Now, precisely how this larger amount of profit should be siveh, we dént stay to consider; but one move towards conveying it seems’ obvious! in “an imstant—there is no earthly reason why the writers who sell plays to 'the London theatres, should supply all England, Scotland, and Ireland,’ with ee matter, year after year, gratuitously. Bath, and Liverpool, and Dablin, and Edinburgh, and Manchester, and Glasgow, if they want new plays, should ‘have them as they have new actors—that is, they should pay for thé wWsé° of ~_ them, ; Fy ipsa The actor who acquires popularity, and can draw large audiétices, ‘gets hited “at fifty or a hundred gumeas a night, in all the theatres over the” United “Kingdom. Miss O’Neil received more money for acting fivé nights only*in Birmingham, than Maturin received for the whole produce of his Bert dan. ~ But the author !—a comedy equally successful with Phe Honéy-moon, would probably, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, draw, during the fitst year Of its “performance, £30,000 ;—this is taking the average & great deal too low, becatise it is understood that the Yom and Jerry piece, at thé Adelphi theatre, “in London alone drew more than £10,000: but take thé calculation at £30;000, because thirty is sufficient for the example ;—out of these £30,000, the author will have good luck if he secures £500! being about fourpéice ii the pound —and the odds are great if he receives so much—upon the gain of his own production ! WD eens Then this is not sufficient to induce people, who have much’ other prospect, to go to work for the drama. And, the man who produces a “book ‘has “his “right protected—no one may print or publish that book, printing being the form ~ inwhich his profit accrues, (and by which he might be robbed of it) except himvelf : the same protection ought clearly to be afforded, for a given time, to the “man who produces a dramatic entertainmetit—all representation of that enteftain- ‘ment (during a specified period) ought to be restrained, unless by license of himself, or of his assignee. It is not necéssary here to construct the law which should be passed for such a purpose; but it may be observed, that the French plan, of apportioning a certain per-centage out of all theatrical reeéipt for the benefit of the author, does not seem to be the best that might “be adopted. In some instances, it would become a temptation to fraud; and it would always produce such an exposure of the state of a “ manager’s” trade*as theatrical speculators are particularly jealous of. A far simpler arrangement would seem to be, that the author of a play should have the power (upon his own terms) of granting licenses for its performance; and, whether this “right remained in himself, or formed part of his bargain with the bookseller: or the -“aondon manager; would be of no consequence; where it had-a value, he would ‘have the means of deriving an advantage from it. No doubt, imtheirst » instance, squabbles would arise, and piracies and imitations would be attempted ; “ but all this would be dealt with, just as it is in literary property of every-other «description. The proprietor of the right would have his remedy. at: lawssand . ‘people would soon find that it was cheaper to pay him a reasonable pritesforit, “othan to-attempt imposition. After all, it would be the public whieh: would=pay » ‘the difference ; for theatrical managers, in tewn or country, already makevery « Jittleamoney 5» but, ‘in less than twelve months, the scheme:wouldoworkewell, — and ‘smoothly; ‘nor: would it be necessary, in England, to» guaranteethis privilege-as’ vo representation for more than three *years: - CT er 1826.] The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. 49 sive right during such a period as three years (without going to the extent of the French law) would increase the profit of a successful dramatic author very largely ; the poet would not then stand entirely below every other artist concerned in furnishing the material of theatrical entertainment ; and we might probably have some man of real talent, making the experiment, whether he could not write for the stage. ~ But still, with ali the humbug, the trade of the impresario is not a profitable cone. Take the amount of debt (unpaid) incurred by the several theatresin London within the last twenty years, and set it against the amount which we may sup- pose managers and proprietors (who don’t live extravagantly) to have spent; and the general trade will be found probably to have been carried on at a loss. From the rebuilding of Drury-lane Theatre, under Whitbread, to the beginning of Elliston’s lease, there was a loss ef between £80,000 and £90,000. Part of this debt has since been reduced by Elliston’s annual payments of rent; but Elliston now, in his turn, stops, in six years, for £30,000. In the mean time three-fourths of the minor theatres have been bankrupt sixteen times over ; each establishment—the whole assets of it—not paying a candle-snuffing in the pound. Covent-Garden, with fresh capital brought in, has managed to rub on-(while others were starving); so the Haymarket, and so the Lyceum (with the aid .of Mathews’s entertainments, which have brought large sums of money and cost almost nothing); but it has been only living—only a moderate return upon ca-~ spital—not making large profits, or retiring with great fortunes. Now, part of this failure of profit arises, no doubt, from the interference of new theatres; but a good slice of it (probably the greater part) seems to be owing to the arrangements of the patent managers themselves, whose conduct of their trade is certainly two centuries behind the spirit of the time, upon every principle of common reason or commercial policy. It is hardly worth while to say any thing about the dimension of the patent theatres, though they are too large. Large theatres assist several descriptions of entertainments, which are now popular, and to which, in combination with others, there is no objection; they keep the galleries at a good distance from the lower boxes, which is extremely convenient; and, though the fourth row in the pit is the best seat in the house, yet every body, if the house were smaller, could not get into it; and he who does get into it—unless the floor would open and take compassion, or a hand be stretched forth from the ceiling his relief—the Lord have mercy upon him when he wants to get out of it | But the policy, unfortunately, which led to this extension in the size of the theatres, originated in the same mistake which pervades all the rest of their arrangements—an anxiety to grasp at the gain of half-a-crown additional to-day, although we lose a guinea or even ten guineas in consequence of it to-morrow. And first, in order perhaps, that people who do come to the theatre may be known to come there purely for intellectual enjoyment, care is taken at Covent- Garden theatre (and at Drury-lane there is no company) that when they are there,-they shall suffer every possible bodily inconvenience. In the pit, of which the “ fourth row ” is the best place in the house—it is only within these five years, at either theatre, that there have been backs to the benches. Peo- ple sat like wretches impaled, suffering under one infliction, to listen to another. For the boxes (at Covent-Garden), by the arrangement of making them eight “or nine seats deep, and leaving no clear passage down the centre, those who sit there might as well sit in the gallery ; and he who would come into the front Tow, or quit it, after the curtain is up, must climb over eight benches, and crush twenty or thirty people—not to speak of those who resist, and whom he has to fight—in his progress. Then, after the “ half-price,” what with the getting an extra fifty shillings by cramming the upper gallery fuller than it will hold ; _»and the statutable nuisance which might be kept within more reasonable bounds (although it cannot be got rid of altogether), in the boxes; from nine o’clock to the end of the evening, the whole house is disturbed every instant with quarrels and clapping of doors; besides that two-thirds of its extent exhibits one con- tinued scene of every character of riot, intemperance, and indecency. H M.M. New Series —Vour. H. No.7. 50 The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. [JuLy, Now, the “ half-price” is defended on account of its custom ; and the sta- tutable nuisance on the ground that it is impossible to get rid of it; and the ~ inconvenience of the accommodation (wittily) on the ground that if people sat at their ease, they would go to sleep altogether ; which is a pleasant justification, but not quite a maintainable one, because persons at a theatre should be kept awake by amusement and not by the torture. But, every possible precaution having thus been taken, as regards the matter of comfort, to make the theatre a place to which persons would choose to go as seldom as possible, the coup de grace in the way of enticement is given by the price. At five shillings the boxes, three the pit, and two shillings and one the galleries, any London theatre, if it had filled fairly, would have paid its highest charge twice over. But as people, it was found, did not come fast enough when the prices of boxes and pit were five shillings and three shillings, the managers resolved to try whether they would come any faster when they had to pay seven shillings and three and six-pence. It was not that five shillings did not pay, but that people did not pay the five shillings. At five-shilling prices, either of the two great theatres would contain £500, they now hold something more than £700. Two hundred and fifty pounds a-night would be a fortune in either theatre; therefore, for all purposes of success, the advance of price was per- fectly unnecessary. But the curiosity is that the speculators put on thisincrease of price, to the inevitable diminution of the quantity of admission that they would sell; knowing all the while that that mere diminution of sale would ruin them, let their price be what it might; and that the appearance of a lessening trade within either of their houses, would speedily put an end to the trade of it altogether. For it is an understood fact among all theatrical undertakers—a very absurd one apparently as far as the public is concerned—that a theatre, in the hottest evening of summer, when two feet of clear space on either side of one is worth at leasta thousand pounds, cannot exist unless the population in it are packed together, closer than slaves in the “ middle passage,” on board a contraband Guineaman! Therefore when they raised their prices, managers knew that they could not Jive (at any price) with a diminution of their consumption, They could not, like the Dutch merchants when they held the spice trade, sell a fourth of their produce at an immense rate, and burn or drown the rest ; but would be compelled, in case the demand fell off, to give away their commodity in whole packages with one hand while they demanded the advanced and exor- itant price for it with the other. And thus, therefore, to fill those same boxes out of which the high price demanded already keeps most people, a course is adopted perfectly well calculated, as regards the patronage of respectability, to keep out all people; “orders,” and that kind of admission which is calied “free privilege,” are given away to such an extent—and to such persons—for they will be accepted by no other persons—that, taken with reference to rank and character, two-thirds of the company which sits nightly in the boxes of the theatre is very much below the level of that which would be found in the two-shilling gallery ! If we are to talk of “ selectness,” the state of the houses would be a sufficient answer ; but nothing can be more gross trash, while money alone will purchase admission, than to imagine that a few shillings more of price will ensure decorum of conduct in any place of entertainment, or a few shillings less stand in the sway of it, The masquerade at the Argyll rooms, at a guinea, is an offence pretty nearly against common police ; and nobody ever, perhaps, with prices only of one and two shillings, saw any rudeness or impropriety of conduct at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy or at the Panorama. Then, the prices demanded, in themselves, are too high to incline persons of even liberal income, to make the theatre habitually a part of their diversion. The price of one box admission is seven shillings, which, if a gentleman chooses a decent seat, is increased to eight shillings, and, if he has a great-coat to hang up, to nine—about the whole amount for a captain of infantry, of his day’s pay! If ladies go to the theatre, extensive as the building is, there is er 1826.) The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. 51 bat one tier of boxes into which they can be carried without offence: this is a place of full dress, and the expense of coaches, superadded to that .of the admission, makes the cost, where a man’s family amounts to four or five, not more perhaps, than half-a-guinea each ! This is not the way to make any trade thrive—to give away two-thirds of the commodity produced, in hopes of getting a needless: price for the remainder. And if the prices of Covent Garden Theatre were four shillings for the boxes to-morrow, half-a-crown for the pit, and eighteen-pence for the first gallery, more money would be received than is received under the present system, The nicest stickler for ‘‘ selectness,’”? need have no fear that this measure would bring the pit people into the boxes. If it did, the result would only be that these last would be about sixty times more respectably occupied tlian they are at present. But, in fact, if the boxes were four shillings to-morrow, and to bring them down as low only as five would be a very encouraging step towards paying to go into thém, it should be recollected that the terms of admission are now three shillings and six-pence—three and six-pence is the “ half-price” which lets aman into the bowes just as fully as thongh he paid his seven shillings in the beginning of the evening. It is mere impudence to talk of maintaining select- ness by charging seven shillings for the entrance to a particular place at seven o’clock at night, when at nine o’clock, upon the very people who have paid their seven shillings for this “ selectness,” you let in as mahy as you can find for half the money; not to speak of the filthy rabble—and all this rout bound especially to come at the seven shilling price too, before seven o’clock—which you pour in (to fill the house) for nothing. In fact, the real calculation upon which managers hug their system of high prices is not at all connected with any view as to “ selectness;” and it is more- over a mistaken one. The object of these prices and the gain which the up- holders expected to derive from them, is that they enable the theatres to realise very large sums in a short time, whenever by chance the tide of public taste or curiosity happens to set in their favour. But this is hardly a legitimate object in trading ; and it is one which would almost necessarily lead, as it has done, to an unprofitable result. The drama specifically ceased to be the business of the manager, and the profit of furnishing it to the public at a reasonable rate Was given up; and the theatre was converted into a mere show-room, to which people might run in crowds, every now and then, to stare and wonder at some strange object, nomatter of what character, But upon this system of accustoming the town to run in shoals to see monsters, and relinquishing all expectation of gain except from these occasional exhibitions, the dealers place themselves in this situation—that the monster they must have or they fail. A splendid theatre and a costly company becomes the mere table upon which—with Mr. Macready or the man-monkey—the game of the season is to be played. And then, the ** star ” whom they themselves have placarded into greatness, knowing that he must be had, or that there can be no profit, turns round upon them and demands such terms as, when they have him, leaves them without any profit at all. This was the old trick of killing the goose to get at the eggs; raising the price to destroy the demand, and it does not do. Four shillings the boxes, three the pit, and the galleries left as they are, are the highest prices, all fees cut off, which ought to be taken at the patent theatres. Four shillings, half-a-crown, and eighteen-pence—leaving the half-price nearly or altogether as it stands— would probably do better. The marshalment of company, too, in the houses, ought to be altered. The “first circle,’ as it is called, which is in reality the second, should be kept in the same order as regards the admission of respecta- ble persons only, with the “ dress ” tier below it. Why should not ladies be permitted, if they think fit to do so, to walk to theatres which are open from September to July, and yet be considered entitled to decent accommodations when they get there? What can the manager, whose business it is to sell his admissions, possibly gain by making it inconvenient to them to do so? The proprietors both of Covent Garden Theatre and of Drury Lane may rely upon it that their present high prices nig no party, unless it be the party of 52 The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. [Juty; ragdmufiias who are let in, nightoafter night, without paying them, :With’ their» tradetor-with their manner of conducting it, the public has no claim to interfere, The patent ” right, asitis called, is virtually pretty nearly revoked; atheatrey. without'any patent’privilege, patronized by the town against the patent theatres, would: rainthem ‘in a season; and, if the public felt itself ill-treated,: there dre: sucli theatres, standing ‘empty, which might be opened; and would be opened to-morrow., But, if the existing mode-of carrying on the trade be inconvenient » to ‘the publie, and unprofitable to those who are engaged in it, there isno reason: why it ‘should be ‘persevered in. Some: changes must take place, before, puttig aside’ any state in which they have been, our dramatic entertainments, | in’ England, will be placed upon a more popular footing than they are. Among thefirst of these:should be that change of law or regulation which would give!’ the dramatist a fair proportion, or, to speak more strictly, leave him the meaiis of obtaining a fair proportion, out of the product of his own labour—a right whicphe does not possess at present. This is the business. of the legislature; and> the: cause’ of taste‘and learning will be indebted to those who may be inélined to stir'in it. The second necessary change, and one at least as impor- tant/as‘the first,’ will be such a reduction in the prices:of our theatres, as willy efiable persons of respectability to frequent them systematically ; and supersedes the necessity—when a gentleman does:come into the boxes—of putting a chim~ ney sweeper by his side, that he may not appear to beleft quite alone, For the production of eminent actors in greater numbers, that is an object certainly which it would be difficult to point out any distinct means of compassing; the production, however, of better plays would have this advantage, that it would render their ministry less indispensable. And there would be one other: result; in which, if the public has some interest, the interest of the manager himself is deeper ten’ times over—that very comparative independence of: his actors would render them less impertinent, and more amenable to reason, when they did appear. Supposing, then, that an arrangement of this nature would do something towards mending that decline in the popularity of our metropolitan theatres whieh arises’ out of the offensiveness, or imbecility, of their new productions, sull' another question remains to be considered, and one, if not quite of equal importance, perhaps of greater perplexity ; the way in which we should proceed: to obtain a more copious supply of leading actors. The increased demand for’ talent (within these few years) of our provincial theatres; the demand from Aimeiica,—which is altogether new; and the additional number of theatres opened (or advanced in their pretensions) in London ; leave the patent theatres, as regards their array of performers, very bare of attraction, just now, indeed, “At Drury-lane, there has been no company at all. Mr. Wallack, an actor pro-, perly only of melo-drame, was the hero both in tragedy and comedy. And Mr.: Wallack, Mr: Dowton (who is not so good as he has been), and Mr. Harley— here is the whole effective strength of the house. : “At Covent Garden we were better; but still weak. Charles Kemble and Jones do well in genteel comedy, with Miss Chester, who is the best successor to Mrs. Davidson that has appeared. There is a Mr. Warde too, who will stand as.a Lon- don actor. Fawcett, occasionally very valuable; and Farren, now perhaps the stiOngest actor, in his walk, upon'the stage. But no low comedian of eminence at‘all; no leading actor in tragedy—for Charles Kemble, though always pleasing,’ does not reach the first rank; nor any /ady of eminence in tragedy, at either,, or Indeed at any, house. The fact is that, in some departments of acting, we: have an absence of considerable talent just now. We have scarcely a) high comedy lady; not a high tragedy one; not a Yorkshireman or an Irishman, no man like Johnson or Emery, upon the stage. And of the performers, that we have, here lies the novelty ! two-thirds of the leaders—Kean, Young, Macréady, Liston, Terry, Mathews, Wrench, Yates, and Miss Kelly—are, getting) their money, or the greater part of it, away from the patent theatres}; oh bux *Then if the supply of leading actors, as well as of powerful plays, in the: prévént day, isnot equal to the demand, this isa fact rather »puzzling to.deak eit bali 1826.] The T'heatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. 53 with! because, here, no want of pecuniary encouragement can be alleged; the gains of performers are enormous. A fresh actor of first rate success, or-actress, appearing to-morrow in tragedy or comedy, would realize probably £4,000-a+ year'for the: first five years, and secure £1,200 a year afterwards, as-long as health and power lasted. These are the people who keep “ private secretaries,”’ and travel in * carriages and four.”? A new actor, not of the very highest rank , such an actor as Covent Garden Jones—would command £1,000 a-year to- morrow; aman like Emery, or Irish Johnson, not Jess, A tors of a still in- ferior rank, but respectable, like Mr. Cooper, or Mr. Warde, who play at Covent Garden; these persons, who are never supposed, specifically, to attract . money, will obtain salaries of fifteen and sixteen pounds per week ; about twice the pay of a Lieut. Colonel in the army! And, even at this rate, they are difficult to be obtained. ‘This dearth of that which we demand as talent (and admit to be such) in*London, it becomes difficult to derive any means for supplying; unless it were possible to point out what the qualifications necessary to an actor’s success in London should be; or to form some idea, prior to actual experiment, what wouldbe any given individual’s chance for beingreceived. And thisis not only— as those persons declare who are most experienced—impossible; but the more we'examine people who have succeeded as actors, the more the apparent diffi- culty generally increases; for the means by which success has been obtained, upon close investigation—as far as we can trace them—seem, five times in six, so very greatly disproportioned to the end—! ‘The actor of that which we call “ low comedy”—that is, the imitator of grotesque habits, or the conceiver of extravagant humours—if we laugh, in spite of all criticism—this actor has succeeded ;—and it is pretty nearly impossible to say, of any audience in a theatre, or of any mixed assembly of men—at what they will, or will not laugh. We laugh at a crime upon the stage—at a folly— an infirmity—a successful falsehood—or a detection suffered—at an odd face— a religious enthusiasm—a dress and deportment miraculously true to custom and fashion—or the same ridiculously opposed to it. In France, and in England, they laugh at exhibitions which have very little in common; and each wonders, independent of ill-nature or affectation, what the devil his neighbour can find to» be amused with.—In Paris, where they vote an Englishman triste, M. Mazurier, the Polichinelle, passes for the most humorous person under the sun ; M. Mazurier came over to London ; and people were amazed to think that, in any part of the world, he could have been thought comical at all. It is probably impossible to decide, unless by the experiment, what effect any particular ex- hibition will produce upon an audience; or what powers—great, or littlek—any comic actor may exhibit when he comes upon the stage. Actors themselves know very little how their effect upon an audience is produced: as a proof of this, great numbers of them begin their career in characters entirely opposite to those in which they afterwards become eminent. And this is particularly the case with low comedians; who seem, time out of mind, always to have found out that they were comical dogs, entirely by accident. Among people of our own time in this situation, Mathews and Liston both began by acting tragedy ;—Liston no doubt is a tragedian, in the natural bent of his inclination—a hero in his soul. _Munden had no idea, probably, when. he played fops by choice, like Jemmy Jumps, that he could command the pocket-handkerchiefs of enormous crowds, in such parts as Old Rapid, or Captain Bertram. Bannister, when he aimed at Hamlet, did not know that his strength layin Scrub; and Irish Johnson sighed and sang as first tenor, in the character of Young Meadows, in the opera of Love in a Village, never dreaming of the glories that he should acquire as Dennis Bulgruddery, or Looney MeTwolter. The difficulty seems to be here, in a man’s judging how far he is, humorous or ridiculous—as we laugh (without knowing why) at a monkey,, and do not:daugh at-an elephant. For we have no ready case of an_actor’s. making his blunder the other way—fancying that he could play Moses in The School: for Scandal, and turning out to be great in Shylock or Othello... Dowton, tried this—the Shylock ; but it did not do. 54 The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. [JULY, - Powers frequently exist in actors, of which they are not at all aware. As often, they are limited in a manner for which it is impossible to account; or thwarted by faults, which never can be got rid of, and yet which seem the simplest in the world to overcome. At the Circus, when it was rented some years back, by Elliston, there was an actor of the name of Smith; called, from his singularly fortunate performance of Three Fingered Jack, Mr. Obi Smith. This gentleman, who is now a pantomime actor at Drury-lane theatre—and a very ingenious man—was eminent in assassins, sorcerers, the moss-trooping heroes of Sir Walter Scott’s poems, and other romantic characters in which a bold, and rather gigantic figure could be turned to good account. On one oc- easion, a person who played the leading part in a burlesque piece was taken ill ; and, for fault of any body else at hand, Mr. Obi Smith undertook the part ; and his performance was so extraordinary, that he became instantly, by acclama- tion, the burlesque actor of his theatre !—playing this character, which had before been turned to little account, forty or fifty nights successively. Smith has since played several comic characters, of a coarse description, with great success at Drury-lane; and might probably do more. His Captain Goff, in a play taken from The Pirate, was one of the finest pictures, perhaps, ever seen upon the stage. He fills up his time with studying costumes, and acting Don Juan demons—a cast of business in which he is unequalled; is a very grave man in his manners and demeanour; and has very little idea, probably, when he plays comic characters, why it is that the people laugh at him. Another actor, of the same theatre (Mr. T. P. Cooke), who has since become better known to the public than Mr. Smith, affords a very singular instance of talent for the stage where slight accident probably would have left it entirely undiscovered. And of talent, too, which, though very considerable and conver- tible, is still hampered with blemishes, seemingly slight, which yet prevent its ever reaching finish and excellence. Mr. Cooke was a dancer in the “ figure,” as it is called, at the Circus—that is, a person who fills up the ballet, and walks in processions ; and his first step towards greatness was in undertaking the part of Clown in a harlequin pantomime, in the absence of a Mr. Bradbury; to whom Cooke personally—excepting only the material circumstance of his not being a tumbler by profession—bore some trifling resemblance. The talent of this man for the stage is perfectly extraordinary ; and the probability is that, if he had enjoyed the advantages of early education, he would have been one of the best actors of the day. He is a very excellent actor—a very famous one indeed, of serious pantomine—though, in that department, not equal to Mr. Smith. He was a very considerable comie dancer, rider, and combatant, for a long time with one of the troops of Equestrians. He plays Frenchmen and Germans admirably ; sailors (forecastle men), better than any actor upon the ‘stage ; and even characters of the high drama, with so much ability, though he never can fully succeed in them—that they tried him once on Drury-lane stage, in the character of Glenalvon. This Mr. Cooke has been playing a part lately at Terry’s little theatre, in a piece taken from American Cooper’s novel, The Pilot, in a manner—it is the character of Long Tom, the boatswain—that could not have been equalled by any man upon the stage. He played another charac- ter, and of a far more refined description, in a little piece called The Miller’s Maid, taken from Bloomfield’s poem, at the Lyceum Theatre; and, acting by the side of Emery, and in a character in which the last amazingly distinguished himself—it was a performance very nearly, if not quite, equal to his Robert Tyke—it became difficult to decidé which performer shewed the more talent of the two. In characters of a loftier and more heroic stamp, in which this actor is often employed, he breaks down bya curious fatality. As long as he has to con- fine himself to even speaking, or to the expression of sentiments of gallantry or courtesy, he is pleasant, generally, and even ina degree graceful; though his intonation is of a vulgar quality, and his deportment can never be elegant or refined; but the very moment that he has to assume apparent “ desert,’ —to he- haughty, dignified, or even particularly impressive—he instantly, as if under the influence ofa spell, completely burlesques the whole feeling and situation ;— becomes perfectly ridiculous and intolerable, ina regular theatre; and not very 1826.) The Thealre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. 55 ~ agreeable even to the vulgar people (who know what vulgarity upon the stage is when they see it), in the galleries of a minor one. To define the qualifications which should go to constitute excellence in a serious actor, is hardly less perplexing than to declare what should ensure suc- cess in the performance of comedy. That it is not genius which makes a man a great actor, is obvious; if it were, Shakespeare must have been the greatest actor of his day. That the possession of extraordinary mental faculty is not necessary to excellence, is also pretty clear: because, since the time of Garrick, (at least) our most successful actors have been people whose intellectual qualities (out of their peculiar calling) have seemed to be rather limited. John Kemble’s published essays upon the characters of Richard and Macbeth have just the effect of shewing, past all question, that John Kemble had noé a poetical, or powerful, understanding of those characters. Mrs, Siddons, whose faculties upon the stage even exceeded those of her brother—all the written documents which have appeared from the pen of that lady, shew rather the reverse of striking intellect, or discriminative mind. Of our existing celebrated performers, Mr. Charles Kemble has brought out one or two plays, chiefly adaptations, or translations, but donein a cultivated and gentlemanly style. Of the rest, one is a coarse sensualist ; two others are men of respectable habits and capacity; but none are at all known to the public as persons remarkable, either by their works or con- versation. Then, as it is not mind which is absolutely necessary to qualify a serious actor for greatness, so it is not entirely (though these are often most essential points) the gifts of a fortunate person, or graceful deportment. For, in the first of these, Kean was strikingly deficient; and the deportment of Cooke (George Cooke); indeed his whole man, was coarse, and angular, and ungainly ; besides that neither a man’s carriage, in real life, nor his advantages of person, form any criterion by which to judge of what the samme may appear upon the stage ; and vice versa. Then, take the second-rate performers—with whom genius is out of the question —and you look at them in vain for any apparent qualities (off the stage) more striking than are to be found in half the bankers’ clerks in town; and yet a gentleman of polished address, sufficient figure, and undoubted capacity, as regards the real affairs of life, shall make such a failure by their sides, as would seem not merely ridiculous but disgraceful. The main reason perhaps—or at least one material one—why we have so few eminent actors in the higher and more heroic departments of the drama, is that this cast of performance does, almost necessarily, require some portion of gentlemanly habit and cultivation ; and that the prejudice which exists—and must exist—against the stage as a profession, leaves the great majority of our actors to be furnished out of the infericr ranks of the community. There is a certain quantity of ridicule—not to say absolutely of discredit—always attendant on a failure upon the stage, which very few persons who have much character to lose will choose to run the risk of. The first steps in the profession are always pain- ful—generally somewhat repulsive, and seemingly degrading to persons of res- pectable taste and habit. Success to a first-rate extent scarcely ever can be judged of; a secondary rank (contemplated in the outset), even although the emolument be respectable, few men with much prospect would care to accept ; and the great objection is, that—let him succeed or fail—the attempt, if it be known, sticks by the aspirant for life. Under such circumstances, the supply must be, and will be, chiefly from the inferior classes. Schools for acting would make abundance of bad actors, but very rarely a good one. The deficiency, as far as there exists any, must right itself; and the new system of general educa- tion will be very likely to do something—as much as can be done—to remove it. Two points, however, out of three make a winning game. The acting talent must be left to itself, but the means of at least attempting to improve the state of our dramatic writing are simple and obvious; and the general conduct, too, of theatrical diversions, as a trade, might undergo revision, with much advantage to the popularity of the drama. } All property vested in theatres, has paid very ill for some time. Actors drive coaches and four, and keep private secretaries ; but proprietors and managers 56 The Theatre—Its Literature, and General Arrangement. (JULY, are well known to find their finances in a different condition. Now the manager has, in good truth (as we have observed already), hardly fair play enough for the battle. The fight is too much on the poor fellow in the Lancashire taste; we knock him down with a sledge hammer first, and then kick him for falling. He suffers the loss of bad houses ;-and bears the blame of them. He is laughed at for paying this exhibitor too much, and cursed for offering the other too little. If he dismisses an old actor, he is an oppressor and a tyrant; if he refuses to hire anew one, he is a miser, and a poltroon, without spirit. The rejected author swears that he keeps his house wilfully empty, by playing only some particular gentleman’s pieces, out of partiality, and love, and affection. Go into the coulisse, and, from the first comedy-lady down to the call-boy, you will hear that no manager ever knew what “ love or affection” was at all. Thus, having the very population of Pandemonium to manage within doors—for, of all the people on earth, popular performers are the most untractable ! (and the women, how these are ever dealt with at all, especially those who, like Slippery Sam in the Beggar’s Opera, do not think one trade enough, seems little else than a miracle !) but, having thus Belzebub’s very crack regiment to manceuvre with within doors, and being assailed with squibs from all sides, and on all pretences, from without, the poor gentleman—independant of any little natural devotion to the deed—sees that fair play has no chance, and comes almost of necessity to try the force of alittle Humbug. That he should know what is good seems to tend to nothing, because he can only thrive by knowing what it is that the town will like. And, that he should know what the town will like, unless by accident, is perfectly impossible ; because that is more than, one night after another, the town can undertake to know itself. LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF CARL MARIA VON WEBER. Nothing has e’er been told, In accents musical and holy, To man’s mute ear or to the weary wind, Of madness or of melancholy— No story in the sophist’s page enroll’d, No subtle fancy twined With the lone musings of a mateless mind, Whose moral may unfold Horror and hope—sweet life and frozen death — Like that which trembles in the fiual breath Of one, whose life was as a spell Raised by some genii’s ever-tuneful shell. _ The Master of the wild and varied sound, From whose creative round Spirits of fear and phrenzy started up, Where like echoes they had ‘lain— Whether in a violet’s cup, Or in some pearly palace, which the main Had washed too far to find again ;— The Wizard of the heart and ear, Of Music and Imagination born, Hath, like a star that should have met the morn, And filled the haunts of heaven with social glee, Dropp’d from his high and charmed sphere Into the silent sea. Life’s chords are snapt by death; and the fine hand That filled a mute and marvelling land With hurried harmonies, and shadowy things, Whose fierce and melancholy wings Darken and delight the soul, With a strange but sweet control,— ; d 1826.1] Lament on the Death of Carl Maria Von Weber. _A key. to ever portal, .of the.mind, Spe “Is lifeless as. the lyre it swept ; We =f Ri eye th t sought the sun is blind— .__, That. saw the heart of Midnight cold and bare, 1 aides _Panting in itslonely lair, Peon __And ‘challenged Fear to lift a single hair. ie 4 ore Lian Alb things obeyed:his touch ; fury and love, ialupiste: q > maps reyelny, and terror, were his themes ; 4 oo) |) And melodies;:that haunt:the purple dreams sean {liv Which heaven’s bright fairies weave above, smvid « »¢° For poets’ hearts and maidens’ wandering eyes— adi tle 9 » Werevhis,-andtaught him their aerial’ ivaine. varie» 0%) -Then-came the huntsman-clouds} the breathless moon, dye e - Like-a white'stag, across. the skies haloes » Seemed coursed by stretching shadows—mid the cries » Of winds; and torrent tongues, and quaking seas, 598-19 Yet when the thin-and countless train 707 Of elf and fairy tripped again, & oso...» Each in its own dew-mirror gazing ‘un4 ©) > Andsthe-steeps were lightly relsing yfaohin: As impatient to be seen, oes woos o:Albtheir:plumes of gushing green,—' ; He could discourse in notes most sweet Faster than the fairies’-feet: " And every tone awoke in light— For-genius can out-star the night, But now the wizard horn That called all fearful forms fear blk and gions In sympathy or scora— ot Falling gently on the flowers, rat ; Like the noise of summer. showers— ; That echoed in the tangled paths ofmen, : Or above the festal board Dorks aftr V9 Gave the sound of wine out-pour’d,— |» pol Is as an empty scabbard, or ailamp kot Whose fiame hath felt the midnight damp ; And he that was the Huatsman- Lord, And led the Shapes and Voices far and fast, Transitory more than they, Hath amid his glory passed Like a still shade away ! ! Yet shall a deep and spvitepeaking t tone (Fit echo of his own !) Wander from heart to heart along; Where’er a heart-string canbe shook Bish sopg—. Where one unchilled emotion. tells. WT 5: - Of music and its soul-heard miracless 2! bos so 10 Curled in our-minds his full enchantment lies, 3 Mik ata As shells retain their ocean, symphonies: 9:1) js) = bo A And often, when, the voice of some bright) hada b s‘qqorl Faint with its unnumbered fears—'. . esa tngila ad}oial ¥ 94 ebyeRs + pape gifted hand,.thatkept .. . : ok le: Menaeed ‘by reeling rocks, and spires, and torn-up trees. © Or fiend-wind, spoaning i n the le year's eatin: 1é thick forest shal be heer wt ab , Men will pronounce hi8 na’ ie, The necro Le etch -oulaN ROR VAHL” Whilst his own music must reve ; His brief yet burning course, and Be’ we Of his high hope the fichest history. M.M. New Series —Vot. II. No.7. I Zen prune Dalit AT ay Ores Out 3{T ase 8 44 S.L.B. 57 Bie tt: J [Jucx, A CHAPTER ON BACHELORS, OR THE CONFESSIONS OF DRAKE emit t Z CTE ye SOMERSET, GENT. ' ** One day,” sald my father to my uncle Toby, ‘ I will indulge you with my tractate upon bachelors, J will explain to you their sufferings, point out to you, if I can, their advantages, and show you, by irtefragable proofs, that they are anomalies in nature.”— « Brother Walter,” eRe, my uncle, ** you forget that I am one myself.”— “ True, Toby,” quoth my father, and his eye glistened, ‘* but that is more your misfortnne than your crime.”"—TRISTRAM SHANDY.. 4 Or all sublunary conditions, that of a bachelor is assuredly the most forlorn. Other stations have their drawbacks, their disadvantages, their transcient teazing annoyances, but this is a settled thing, a permanent misery, resulting from a sense of solitude which, creeping year after ear, like a blight over the mind, deadens its active energies, and leaving it just sufficient sensibility to appreciate its misfortunes, denies it the more vigorous power of escaping them. Few men, whatever pride may induce them to say, are bachelors from choice ; the very idea militates against the primary principles of nature which endowed all—some cer- tainly more than others—with a quick relish for society, and a desire to paint before death a picture of themselves in their posterity. The very words used now and then by some commiserating fair one to a gentle- man in this disconsolate condition, ‘“‘ What a nice old bachelor !” proves the novelty of such good humour; as if an invalid, when speaking of a dull November morning placed between two dangerously damp ones, should say, from comparison, “ what a healthy day!” Healthy indeed, so is a black dose! ! If we reason from analogy, we shall find that the most solitary animals are invariably the most savage and unsocial. The pike—that aquatic bachelor—who swims alone, feeds alone, and even sleeps alone, is a stern misanthropist, a piscatory Diogenes, whom no civilities can bind, no friendship humanize. The hyzna, in like manner among beasts, is your only irreclaimable animal. All other savages(even Walworth ones!* ) have been civilized, but this vulgar good-for-nothing bachelor defies the gentlest courtesy. Of the lion, I say nothing, he is to all intents and pur- poses a married man, with, generally speaking, a strong relish for domes- tic society. But who, I ask, could ever yet tame the vulture, that “winged single gentleman,” who dwelleth apart from his kinsfolk and acquaintance, retreating to his unsocial lair if he hear but the faintest flutter of a friend’s wings? This last barbarian is more especially the representative of a bachelor; his shy odd seclusion, his nervous pecu- liarities, his dress, his pride, his gravity, and even his hypochondriasm, all point him out as the fittest animal emblem of single blessedness ; besides, he is asad ugly dog, and this completes the parallel. I speak from feeling, for alas! however reluctant the confession, I am a bache- lor myself. I am one of that unhappy class—a he-spinster—who go partners in situation with the pike, the hyzna, and the vulture. More- over, I have attained that age when a man’s mind being unalterably fixed, if he possess any oddities in dress, habit or disposition, they are sure to stick like burrs to him throughout life. It may—indeed it must —be this shy reserve of manner that has hitherto kept me a bachelor, for I have made no less than three separate offers to as many women, and been as often refused. My first (to enter without any further pre- . liminary on my confessions) was perpetrated at the exceedingly suscep- tible age of twenty-two, when, after dancing at a race-ball with a lady, Rol Re * See p. 474, vol. i. i 1826. ] A Chapter on Batchelors, &c. 59 whom I shall call Eliza, I became convinced that I was in love. This affliction grew daily, even hourly, more alarming; if I ever slept, it was to'dream of my Dulcinea; if I woke, it was with her name on my,lips ; ‘in fact, I was inoculated all over with sentiment. The reader will naturally conclude, that a youth of such impassioned temperament would, of course, be a favourite with the softer sex: I should think -o too ; in my case, however, the very reverse was the fact. Women indeed—and of late I have studied them attentively—are more taken wit the parade than the reality of feeling. Genuine sensibility is shy and silent: this will never do for a sex won solely by romance and appearance ; and hence it is, that callous men of the world, with just enough feeling to make them act their part well, are your only success- ful suitors.—But to return to my confessions. I was frequently in the habit of meeting with Eliza in the course of our evening strolls; yet, strange to say, although I had such glorious opportunities, I could never summon courage to hint—except by acts— at my attachment. One evening, however (oh, fatal recollection !), I chanced to meet her as she was crossing a little meadow that skirted the road-side. She was alone; looked more beautiful than ever, and—but why halt in my confessions? I joined her, chatted with her about the twilight, the moon and stars (there was not one visible), the graces in nature, &c., and in fact was going on, I thought, most courageously, when, on accidentally casting my eyes towards her, I saw a smile, which I fancied of course a contemptuous one, lurking in the angles of her sweet pouting little mouth. This was enough: the barometer of m hopes sunk instantly below zero ; I grew nervous, fidgetty, wished myself _ any where but where I was; when, to complete my confusion, my hat fell off. I was now no longer master of myself; I rushed like lightning from the spot, Eliza’s involuntary laugh following me quickly ‘in the rear, and never once halted until safely housed in the deepest recesses of my father’s study. To men of a shy nervous disposition—for to few others will these confessions be intelligible—I need not say how long a prejudice, once taken up, will endure. For months subsequent to this adventure I had imbibed an opinion that a certain something, in nature or address, had disqualified me for female society. This idea gathered ‘strength with time, until at last I withdrew myself altogether from their company. Even to this moment I cannot look a woman in the face: I would sooner front a cannon. Nay, the very sight, but yesterday, of a ‘white frock hanging up on my garden lines to dry gave me a twinge which I have not yet recovered. I will pause an instant therefore, and take a glass of wine; another—so ; I can now proceed boldly with my confessions. aide ods ~ It came to pass, that about six years after this occurrence, when its impression was somewhat on the wane, I formed—for_I had it all’ to ‘myself—an attachment to a lively young girl at_ Walworth. For ‘some ‘weeks my acquaintance with her went on swimmingly enough, I could now and then almost look her in the face (by-the-bye with all my bash- fulness I found that she had fine eyes, those light pearly grey ones, ‘so indicative of passion and sensibility), and, in fact, contrived at times to talk sentimentally enough without stuttering; but mark the upshot! “1 ih, as one evening invited to drink tea with her grandmother, an old la ‘with whom she then resided, and as I was not altogether without hopes of having made an impression on her (not the grandmother, observe!), I 5 Be 60 | _ A Chapter on Bachelors, &c. [Juvy, determined to take this opportunity of declaring myself; so mustering all the courage I could lay hands on, I started off, highly excited, - towards their abode. Well, on reaching the house I found the old lady confined to her bed, and the daughter seated alone in the drawing-room. It was a warm pleasant summer-evening, just dusky enough to hide confusion, yet not sufficiently so to require candles. Nothing could be more propitious ; hid beneath the mask of twilight I chatted and sighed incessantly : hastening perpetually towards the object of my visit, yet strange to say, from some unaccountable nervousness, flying off when- ever it seemed to be understood. This continued upwards of an hour ; I had even begun to render myself somewhat intelligible, when, justas I was proceeding to pop the question, the door opened, and in came the infernal candles. “My face—for the life of me I cannot tell you why— was instantly as red as scarlet; had I even committed murder I could not have appeared more guilty, while my astonished companion (women in such cases have an almost miraculous instinct), after looking in my face for an instant, as much as to say, “at last I comprehend you,” turned off the conversation, and never again gave me an opportunity of renewing it. I saw her once or twice afterwards; but, she always looked at me, as I thought, with pity blended with contempt, so I gra- dually cut the connection, and returned once again to solitude. Mise- rable recollection! I must dispatch another bumper ! The reader will scarcely believe that, after these two failures, I should ever have had courage to try a third. It so happened, however, that like men grown desperate by gaming, the more the chances turned against me, the more I resolved to persevere. I was thirty when the last mishap took place ; I was now forty-three ; somewhat, but not much, the worse for wear; indeed, I take forty to be a very sensible age, quite young enough for love, and old enough for experience. At forty a man is in his prime, and though perhaps he may be going down hill, yet it is slowly, in a broad-wheeled waggon; whereas, at fifty, he gallops down the descent in a light post-coach, with time on the box, and decay on the guard-seat behind him. At forty, Casar was for the first time in love! Courage then, I exclaimed, the third throw is always a lucky one; and so indeed it proved—but I must not anticipate. Near the house where I vegetated, dwelt a certain pretty widow, who I thought had at times evinced a partiality for me. Assuredly an old bachelor is the vainest dog living! I had no more reason for fancying any such whim,. than I had for fancying myself an Adonis; yet it so happened, that somehow or other I became convinced of her attach- ment. Circumstances favoured the delusion; when we met I was received with a smile; when we parted, methought, with a sigh; so I resolved, come what might, to push matters to a crisis. With this view I began by beating about the bush, yet blushing as before, when under- stood; I talked of the pleasures of sentiment, of home, of domestic attachment, of infantine pledges, &c., to all of which she answered, “certainly, sir, you're quite right ;” and, in fact, am convinced that I should have made a conquest, only that the night before my intended declaration, she happened to run off with my footman, a fellow with about as much sentiment in his composition as a baked leg of mutton, This last misfortune put the closing seal to my exploits. I have ever since lived in complete seclusion, shuddering at the very sight of a woman, yet indulging, like Rousseau, in the wildest reveries concerning oe a . 1826; } Original Eeiters of Mr. Hume. 61 the sex. My confessions are, I conceive, peculiar, and now that I haye fairly rid my mind of them (as hypochondriacs love talking of their dis- orders), why, I feel a degree more composed. Unhappy wretch! with the strongest possible desire for matrimony I find myself notwithstanding a bachelor. I am personable enough, I take it—rather goodlooking than otherwise—with a sweet smile, resulting from an amiable disposi- tion, irradiating my fine open countenance. What confirms me in this opinion of my attractions is, that my housekeeper, an excellent-hearted creature in her way, is always telling me so, and she is allowed to be a judge. Hah! there she goes, pacing pensively along the garden. Well, it is certainly delightful for a bachelor like me—who, for twenty years, has been shivering on the Rubicon of matrimony, without once daring to plunge in—it is, I repeat, delightful to him to find that there is one fond soul who knows how to appreciate worth. To be sure, Deborah is thirty-six ; what of that? Virtue is not restricted to youth. Moreover, she is short and set with a squat face; ’importe, he must be anass who looks only to the countenance; I search deeper, I analyze the mind, and Deborah is there perfection.—But here she comes, so adieu! ORIGINAL LETTERS. Mr. Hume to Mr. Davenrort of Wootton, on the Subject of the Pension granted by His Majesty Grorce III. to Jean Jacques RovussEav. Dear Sir: London, 27th of April 1767. The affair of M. Rousseau’s pension is now finally concluded. I had to day a letter from M. Bradshaw of the treasury, informing me that the Duke of Grat- ton was instantly to order a hundred pounds a year to be paid, without de- ductions, to any person whom he should order to receive it. It is to commence from the first of this month, and will, I suppose, be paid quarterly. He has nothing to do but to write a common missive letter to any person, banker or other, empowering him to receive payment. as often as it becomes due. Have you seen a little book, published within these few days, being an ac- count of Rousseau’s writings and conduct? It is a high panegyric on him ; but without attempting to throw any blame upon me: on the contrary, it ownshe is in the wrong in his quarrel with me. It is said to be the work of Dr. Sterne; but it exceeds even the usual extravagance of that gentleman’s productions. Lord Holdernesse told me that he intended to send a person across the country in order to take a view of your plough and its operations; I doubt not but you will give him a gcod reception. _I am, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Davin Home. _ Dear Sir: London, 2d of May 1767. Since I wrote to you I hada visit from Mr. Bradshaw, first clerk of the trea- sury, who informed me of farther particulars concerning M. Rousseau’s pen~ sion; it commences from: the 5th of April last, and the first quarter of it will be paid, without deductions, on or about the 5th of July next. He'need only give an order to a banker, or any other person he pleases, to receive it; and this person must address himself to Mr. Lowndes, the secretary of the treasury, and show him M. Rousseau’s letter. This is all the formality requisite. I hope he will enjoy this mark of His Majesty’s bounty with tranquillity and peace of mind. Iam, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Davin Hume. Dear Sir: London, 9th of May 1767. ~ T cannot say that I am in the least surprised at the fact of which you give me information. Above two months ago I was told that your philosopher 62 ~ Original Letters of Mr. Hume. ier ULY, wanted to break loose from you, though I concealed the matter. from, you for fear of disgusting you against him. It seems he wrote to a gentleman in Lin- colnshire, whose name I have forgot, and offered to come and live ati his — an honour which the gentleman declined. His unhappy inquietude, of temper must always hinder him from-resting in any place where he is not molested. But I wonder where he will now find any body to take him up after your example and mine; I am even doubtful whether he is to accept of his pension. He must be arrived in London some days, yet General Conway has not heard of him, I fancy he dares not approach a house in which he expects to meet with me. So you are a traitor, too, it seems; pray, do you speak in your sleep? But you may cry as loud as you please, je tiens Jean Jaques, He has got out of your clutches, and is now in the wide world. For God’s sake let me have a copy of his letter; I suppose it is very elegant and very absurd like his to me. Whether do you think he has brought his memoirs to town in order to publish them? There will bea thousand lies in them, about which you need no more trouble yourself than I shall. . The Bishop of Cloyne was with me this morning, and told me that his curiosity led him to Neufchatel in order to visit your philosopher; and he returned to the same place, by accident, just after Rousseau had left it, There were a thousand stories, which our friend has frequently told me, and, indeed, has published to all the world, concerning his being stoned by the populace; and particularly that a great stone had been erected over the door, like a trap, in such a manner, that the moment he set his head out of the house it must haye fallen upon him, and have crushed him. All these stories, the Bishop. said, were absolutely false. The magistrates of the place examined into the matter : they found only one stone in the house, and one pane broke; but the matter had been so ill contrived by the master and maid, that the stone was too big for the hole in the pane, and could not have entered by it. Upon the whole, though a poor unhappy wretch like this is an object of pity, I think you haye got a very fair riddance: for I take it for granted he will never look near you more. I am, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Davip Hume. ° P.S. I shall be glad to hear of the alleviation of your gout, for we must not wish for an entire cure of this fit so soon. hig Dear Sir: London, 16th of May 1767. You are probably told by Mr. Fitzherbert that your wild philosopher, as you call him, has at last appeared at Spalding in Lincolnshire, whence he has wrote a most extravagant letter to the chancellor, demanding a messenger to conduct him safely to Dover, for which, he says, there is an absolute neces- sity ; and this act of hospitality he desires as the last from a country which he seems determined to abandon for ever. In short, he is plainly mad, after having been long maddish ; and your good offices, with those of Mr. Conway, not to mention mine, being joined to the total want of persecution in this country, have pushed him beyond all bounds of patience. I know what to advise you with regard to his baggage and his money; he will probably pass by London in his way to Dover, and you may give any of your friends here what orders you think proper on that head. I suppose he gives up his pension for ever. The Lord have mercy on him! as you say. I am, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant, _ Davin. Hume. 4 Dear Sir: London, 22d of May 1767.~ The very same day, and nearly about the same hour, that you told me you had received a letter from your philosopher, dated at Spalding in Lincolnshire, and ‘expressing his intentions of returning presently to Wootton, ‘did’ Gerierak Conway receive a letter from him, dated at Dover, and expressing his intentions of :passing presently over to France. I dread his being arrested theres and used very ill. He complains still of his misery; he is surely very unhappy, | 1826, }, Thoughts on the Purification of Gibbon, &c, 63 and a great object of compassion. He accepts, however, of his pension. He aight all the world in England are prejudiced against him; for which, how- ever, he knows no reason, except his behaviour to me, in which he confesses he might be to blame. I have wrote to some of my friends in France to pro- tect him, if possible. Iam, dear Sir, yours with great sincerity, Davin Home, Dear Sir: London, 28th of May 1767. ‘The letter of poor Rousseau to the general was so far obliging that it con- sidered him as only led astray by evil council: but it still supposed him to be engaged in the conspiracy against him ; and he even insinuates that Mr. Conway mi y be induced to cut his throat in private, which, he says, will not be a safe attempt, considering that he is unhappily but too well known, and enquiries will be made after him if he disappear. In short, he is plainly and thoroughly mad. I have used all my persuasion with Monsieur de Guerchy to represent him in that light to his court; I have wrote to several of my friends in Paris, and represented him as an object of compassion rather than of anger: yet am I afraid such is the rage of bigots, that he may be seized, and the law put in €xecution against him. I hope he may possibly pass disguised and concealed through France. But whither will he go? If to Geneva, as is probable, it will be worse for him; for both parties are there in a rage against him. It was unlucky he left Wootton, or did not return to it; for he ought really, for his good, to be, what he imagines himself, a captive; and he could not haye fallen into the hands of a person more prudent and humane than yourself, “As to his pension, it will undoubtedly be reserved to him; but we are at a loss to know to whom it can be paid, he never gave any directions about the matter, as you know, since he fled from Wootton before you could give him in- telligence of my last letter. But he will be heard of in some part of the world, and must at last fall under some guidance and direction, in which case, it is probable, his Majesty will continue his bounty to him, in order to be a relief to him in his present unhappy condition. He said to General Conway that he had wrote his memoirs, and had de- posited them in safe hands, who would deliver them up to the general in case he would grant him his liberty. It appears that the chief object of them is to give a relation of the treatment he met with in England; and they seem to be a satire on the ministers and people: neither of whom he can know any thing about. I suppose they will be published. _ IT cannot tell the date of his letter to the chancellor, but it came to hand on Friday the 15th: it had probably been wrote on the 13th. ~I wish you had an amanuensis, for I should be sorry to give you the trouble of copying his letters. I should send you a copy of his to the general, but it is very long; and, besides, Mr. Conway scruples to give a copy, till it be quite determined, as he says, whether he be quite mad or only whimsical. But the affair appears very clear to me, and, I suppose, to you also. * Thope your gout is now a good deal easier. Tam, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Davip Hume. _P.S. Mr. Fitzherbert had in his hands Rousseau’s letter to the chancellor, S8i THOUGHTS ON THE PURIFICATION OF GIBBON, SHAKSPEARE, &e. AND ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF GOODY TWO-SHOES. s No~—give me the carcase-butcher : who examines the dead animal with a butcher's eye, I allow; but if he finds the vital part sound, cares not for those trifling discolourments, which give a tinge here and there to the bright and healthy hue of the subject under his inspection.” ae Talk youof Reviewers, Master Launcelot?” Nor I, my friends ; it is against the non-reviewers that I am incensed, against those who have not a reviewer's coat on; against those who have not the entrée into the temples of literature, but, with brazen audacity, climb-over the walls, and disturb the dead in those sanctuaries where ED, : rioy be FASO 13 Prt te Oe! ered 64 Thoughts on the Purification of Gibbon, S:c. [ Jury, « they lay like authors. going to rest,” with their “well-known garments round them. You do, my worthy readers, by this time see daylight, and doubtless are aware that I allude to the profanations now just be- ginning amongst the favourites whom we have so long taken to our very hearts and bosoms. Yes, the accursed kettle is on—the enchanters are at work stirring up the furnace, and not only Shakspeare, Hume, and Gibbon, &c. &c. are to be melted down, and every warm word laded out and thrown into the mixen, but the demon has seized with his malignant wand—or hook rather—the friend and. moralist of our better days, and dragged. the kind, the dutiful, and charitable Goody Two-Shoes into the cauldron. I thought atleast this popular little volume would have been saved from mutilation and alteration, to go down to future ages in all its native glory. It is a library in itself—no churchwarden or overseer should be without it—so deeply is the image of the affecting heroine graven in our hearts, that even the casual mention of her name, will at times produce the most powerful emotions. We see her standing on the threshold of Far- mer Smith’s door, as it used to beso ably represented by Mr. Newbery’s wood-cuts—we hear the tender little Smiths accost her in. their broken tongue—we feel the cold nose of the interesting dog who was her com- panion in the pulpit at the never-to-be-forgotten funeral of Mr. Smith, Reader, I quote from memory—it might not be Mr. Smith, but that is of no moment—there was a funeral, and surely there cannot be a finer or more perfect painting, or any writing that has so magical an effect upon us as Goody Two Shoes. ¢ After contemplating this outrage, we do of course look upon the pro- jected refinement of Shakspeare—the dismemberment of Hume—the purification of Gibbon, with cooler and far different feelings. Yet, if I remember right, Shakspeare was certainly one of those beings who new- strung the fibres of the heart, and made us “ throw physic to the dogs;” —and how would his own mother ever recognize the English historian again, when he appeared in her paths with amputated limbs, and the viscera withdrawn from his body? | $50 Purify Gibbon, too, from his sensuality! If they could deliver us from his affectations by the same process—with all our souls. rin But it cannot be; both the one and the other are mingled up with his vitality, and lay in his bones and marrow. But I am growing warm, Mr, Editor: and well I may, for when once the reformer’s fingers have handled and separated the carcase, it changes colour—the decomposition is begun ; the salt, the sweet, the acid, the balsamic and peculiar flavour is gone, Yet, if there be “‘no law in Venice” to stay the carnage, why let us give up a part to preserve the rest. Take Gibbon, Hume, Shakspeare, Boyle—but leave us our own familiar friend “ Goody Two-Shoes”—leave her for the sake of future beadles and parish officers—for the sake of our children and children’s children—It is the jewel and the flower of the good fairy—Leave her in her village dress, and, “thou most particular creature,” leave her with her slipshod feet. ‘on I am, Sir, yours, &c., GH Xe on rea TRE 1826.) [ 6 ] LETTER ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL, FROM A GENTLEMAN IN LONDON TO A GENTLEMAN IN THE COUNTRY. ‘ ** Come like shadows, 86 depart.” Ir is a prodigious comfort to my spirit that general elections only take place once in seven years! ‘ Annual parliaments,” however, if they were introduced, must change the whole style and figure of the thing: it would be impossible, in the short space of twelve months, either to compose the quantity of bad wine, or collect the quantity of bad language, which the voters dyink, and the candidates utter, during ‘4 contest, as matters go at present. Bond-street, Brighton, and Boulogne,—all opposing interests in ge- neral,—are concurring to wish politics at the devil. The “ town ‘season’”’ has been entirely shortened. Few parties: few people. “ Bad go,” the dowagers say, all through the campaign. Daughters look down: market overstocked, and dull demand. Little done in settlements, unless where there happens to be “ borough interest.” Husbands as at last quotation.— Absolutely we must colonise. Oratory of the hustings, all over the country, duller than that of the pulpit. Nothing but a little Billingsgate from Hunt and Cobbett to make the contests at all tolerable. Cobbett is making a desperate battle— head, teeth, hoof, and horn—at Preston; but he has not a chance to come in. His money is gone ; and ~ “Targent, l’argent, sans lui [at an election] tout est stérile : » “Za vertu [even if the candidate had any] sans l’argent, est un meuble inutile.” Cobbett’s insolence of disposition, however, would always be sufficient alone to ruin him in any popular contest. He speaks il] always; though his speeches read well, from the excellent sense and knowledge which they contain. His abuse is too terrific even for a mob to listen to—from a candi- date for parliament, whom they are used to think should have the manners of a gentleman. And his jokes, when he attempts to be pleasant, are too coarse—too vindictive ; the best of them are difficult to laugh at: “ He has some humour, I think?” said a barrister to an old country gentleman, who was listening to Cobbett at Preston for the first time.— “Yes,” replied the last—« Phat = init is a vulgar man, by com- parison with Cobbett, in point of talent, and is “ flinging dirt,” as if for a wager, in Somersetshire; and yet his deportment is less repulsive than Cobbett’s on the hustings. “¢ Jokes for July,” warranted undrawn. Let us see what can be doné with them. « Ascot Heath ” was gloriously crowded at the races the other day ; and there was one of the runs the result of which could not be made out (as it often happens in a close race) at a distance. The crowd ee up, of course, to the winning-post to inquire.—* It was E/ Do- ado, was not it, won?” asked one man (meaning the horse).—« No, you fool! it was Jem Robinson,” replied another (giving the name of the rider). That’s a better blunder than Colman in The Heir at Law. And vouched for as true, too, which is always something. Pretty bad every thing just now in the Book way. “ Rejected Articles !” by the Smiths, I suppose? But the day of parody is gone by. It is one of the lowest efforts in the way of composition, and was monstrously overrated for a time. Still, what the Smiths do is above mere parody. Roscoe’s “ German Novels!” very dull indeed—almost as dull as the M.M. New Series.—Vot. Il. No. 7. K 66 Letter on Affairs in General. ‘[SuLy, Italian ones ; andsevery thing that was worth translating in the Italian Novelists had found its way into translation long before Mr. Roscoe took them in hand. There is a book, however, just published by Colburn,— «The Political Primer,’—that is entertaining and clever. I don’t like ‘cutting pieces out of other men’s books, or else I should like to have a “bit or two of it. ‘ “It is curious to observe, by the way, what a change has been silently taking place in the arrangements of our literary “ trade” within the last few years. The price of books has become so enormous, and the readers who cannot pay enormous prices so many, as to make the received chan- nel now of reading, the Circulating Library. The increased. business.of the circulating libraries, and the immense number of new books which they have to buy, has doubled, and in some cases trebled, the charges of such establishments. In the mean time, the business of “reviewing,” as far as applied merely to the giving anidea of new and valuable books; which was once of great value to the highest periodical publications, is completely cut up by the literary news-writers, who come out every Saturday, some of them almost with reprints of very popular and cele- brated works. I recollect, when the “ Tales of the Crusades” was blished, one of these papers advertised that it gave twenty-two columns of extract from the first tale! This was about as much as many people would want, and without having the book at all. Some of these people, when matter run short, “ continue” a work from week to week. Other speculators make up threepenny publications, openly, out of the maga- zines and higher periodicals: and there are rogues who absolutely reprint papers, verbatim et literatim, under fresh titles. And yet, with all, writers were never paid so highly as they are now.—See art. Book- Trade. ; Air-balloons have begun “ running for the summer.” I often hear people wonder how mere mountebanks,—stolid villains, without an atom of qualification of any order,—marry women with large fortunes, or otherwise fall into’ estates of five thousand pounds a year? I saw an air-balloon “bill” stuck up against a wall yesterday, about two “ladies” who were going on a visit to the clouds—a “ Mrs. Graham,” and a «“« Miss Stocks”—which illustrates the problem curiously. “ Miss Stocks,” who, a year ago, was maid-servant to a gingerbread-baker in the City Road, went with the usual rabblement to see an unfortunate man of the name of Harris go up ina “ balloon” from the tea-gardens of the Eagle Tavern; and, seeing a placard pasted up, that “ an oppor- tunity now offered for any lady or gentleman to ascend,” &c.; and taking it for granted that those who made balloons gave “ opportuni- ties to ascend” free of expense, she took a fancy that she should like to see the moon closer than she had done theretofore ;—and accord- ow, by a curious conspiracy, as it were, of ciréumstances, “it, happened, that the air-balloon ‘proprietor himself, who was pretty rear: e his first experiment alone, he actually closed with her al ne ees ee 1826.) Letter on Affairs in General. 67 oot'was literally “ up and mount!” The dog that squatted down to scratch his ear when the adventure began, had not got up again when it concluded! In five minutes after quitting the tea-gardens “ Miss Stocks” was in the milky way; and in five seconds after being in the milky way, she was in the tea-gardens—or some other gardens again Clap! clap! went the balloon as its sides collapsed. Down they came, faster than the Irishman in Crofton Croker’s legend; and without even meeting a black eagle to stop them. Poor Mr. Harris (this was no joke though!) was dead, and “ Miss Stocks” was speechless! By a strange fatality—neither party even dreaming of such a possible transaction— the same six minutes cost Mr. Harris his life, and made Miss Stocks a “Jady.”—Distinction, no matter how it comes, like money, is every thing. People would pay their money to see the young woman that fell all the way out of the clouds and never hurt herself. So “ Miss Stocks” defied the gingerbread, and took to “ air-ballooning,” not as an amusement, but a trade; had her name printed in large letters, and her story told in the papers, and has been out with the “ shew-people” regularly ever since. This is the way in which impenetrable people occasionally succeed—from the very sheer stupidity that prevents their seeing the odds that are against them. A man walks drunk—and is saved—by the edge of a precipice, which he could not have approached without giddiness, if he had been sober. * A fair paraphrase of Horace’s ode, “ Ne sit ancille” &c., in the “Sun” of last night, which has given up selling two hundred, and means tomake way. The old proprietor, John Taylor, has become an “oculist,” I hear. Very odd! Though a good deal of what he used, ” todo-always seemed to me to be “my eye! To a Gentleman who Married his Cook-maid, * Nesit ancillx, &c.”—Lib. ii. Ode 5. fis Oh ! let not your passion for Lucy the maid aril O’ershadow your cheek with a blush, When beauty ennobles, how speedily fade Birth, parentage, duster and brush. “4 How many like you have thus sighed for a prize, When they found a Cook’s figure bewitching, Or feeling the force of a Housekeeper’s eyes, gn Haye married the Queen of the Kitchen. Then let not your smiles from her presence recoil, e Bn: Her charms must anxiety soften, 3 Are KO. Vor who is so likely to make the pot boil palo! As she who has boil’d it so often ? ts sbic Her pedigree, too, may, for aught that you know, . $ : SESS Be worthy your tenderest love, Re Then raise her at once from the regions below, To shine in the regions above. ; i es “ ‘ e paper. has a supposed epitaph on “ Falstaff” (Elliston’s fall in am “Prince Hal.” pg cf ono on het o) o. Marky hark! ‘tis the death warrant’s toll, . reticle gtx “au sa __ Poor Falstaff is gone like a noddy ; tee leas sit he Bac Ket Satan fly off with his soul, aa ve clea) susie And T'llfeteh a cart for‘his body. ao ee This is a little too hard, however, upon Elliston; wha, though he “has not madea great many friends, or rather never kept a great many, hag K 2 STs Shr 68 Letter on Affairs in General. (Jury, been; nevertheless, a:golden actor; and I would regret, now his strength is gone, that he met with any mischance. Besides, whatever means he might have used in attempting to sustain himself, it was dlness that. really destroyed him in Falstaff: I saw him play the character on the first night when he attempted it: it was weak even to childishness ; and I felt certain that he never would get through it three times. Samuel Rogers, says the “ Sun,” must not be published of an evening any longer, because now its the Rising sun. That poet will be the death of me! It is a great misery to me, and I should think must be to tender- hearted people in general, to find that the ‘‘ Mendicity Society” is re- laxing in its labours. One’s feelings are now exposed to laceration, and one’s garments to pollution, turn which way one will. We suffer outwardly from having greasy hats thrust forty times in a day against our clothes; and inwardly, from a regret that there should be no place where persons who wear greasy hats can be at once taken care of. The emancipated “solicitors” have lost no time in districting the town ; and the favourite arrangement seems to be for two to take a street-— one on each side the way—so that no body can escape; and you gain nothing by crossing. In Dublin, they have a cart which goes about the city all day catching beggars; I wish the same plan were adopted here: for, in many cases, the poor creatures seem to be very tired, and I. dare say would be glad of any opportunity to ride home. Isee great exultation in some of the liberal prints, that the “ No Popery” cry, as it is called, has failed to produce the effects expected, here and there, at the elections.. I think there is a little mistake in all this. There is no horror of “ Popery,” nor anxiety about it, in the minds of the mass of the people of England. The English Catholics, if they stood alone, might get any thing they chose (as far as the peo- ple are concerned) to-morrow. But when briefless barristers, and reporters of newspapers (persons respectable enough in their proper situation) come here calling themselves delegates, and undertaking to “ answer for the peace or turbulence of Ireland,” and talking of force and danger to the people of Great Britain—honest John loves a joke, but he thinks all this rather too good a one. He does not mind much what else the Catholics might believe; but he is afraid they want a little more instruction, while they believe such persons fit to be their jeaders. I have no doubt that the Irish Catholics must have their claims (or at least three-fourths of their claims), though I think the management of their “ Association” has thrown the grant of those claims back ten or fifteen years ; but the real cry, as far as the people have any, is not “ No Popery””—it is “« No Paddy.” As for the return of candidates— “ L’argent, l’argent !”’ One way or the other, that does not prove much. The French newspaper, the toile, gives the following exquisite piece of intelligence :—« His Majesty (Charles X.) hunted yesterday at Fontainbleau. We are pleased to state that he was two hours,and:a half on horseback, and perspired less than usual!” | bie “ There’s a divinity doth hedge a king”? q Wwe that makes even his perspirings a matter of importance. Our own “court newsmen” are felicitous sometimes in expression too. One of 1826.) Letter on Affairs in General. 69 these, announcing an indisposition of the Princess Elizabeth, some years since, proclaimed, that— Her Royal Highness, the Princess, had had an attack of bile, which had compelled her for two days past to keep her Royal chamber ; but that the world would be gratified to know that she had gone out for an airing that morning in the Royal carriage, and had taken two cups of chocolate, which had remained upon her Royal stomach.” Our “ Morning Post” is far from unhappy in paragraphs of this character, though the style of its writers is occasionally am- biguous. It stated a few days since, as a matter of general congratu- lation, that the accouchement of the Duchess of some place was rapidly approaching ! Speaking ef « Court newsmen,” poor Von Weber has been buried at last—three weeks after his death. The impertinence of fidlers as a body, and still more the fulsomeness of the people who write puffs in the papers about them, throws an air of ridiculousness even over events which are the subjects of regret. ‘The moment poor Weber was dead, out came the manifestos for subscription! and about as much as five years of his reasonable income during his life, was to be “collected” for his funeral. One pleasant gentleman published a statement broadly hint- ing, that all the noblemen in the country meant to send their equipages, or something to that effect, to aid the procession! When the day came, there were three: all belonging to professional people. The “collection” for the Cenotaph goes on, I doubt, but slowly. But how afflicting would all this be to poor Weber if he could know it, who was a modest, ingenuous, unobtrusive man; and who would have sense enough, moreover, to perceive, that these trumpeters cared nothing about him, and were only making a sort of desperate effort to puff themselves. More “ Stocks.” Talking of «« Miss Stocks” above, puts me in mind. —All Oxford-street has been in an uproar for the last two days; and the Morning Herald newspaper has been imposed upon. A ticket linen- draper, it seems, of the name of “ Richardson,” keeps a shop some- where in the neighbourhood of the Pantheon, and writes up half-a-dozen names over his door—* James ’—* Mallcott,” I think, and two or three others—saccording to a custom among some of these traders—which have no connexion with his business. Well! on the 12th of June, or there- abouts, there appeared a long paragraph, headed “ Horrible Accident,” or “ Fatal Catastrophe,” or somethimg to that effect, in the Morning Herald ! which described “ Mr. Mallcott, of Oxford-street, linen-draper, and so forth ;” and « Mr. James, of Oxford-street, his partner, also linen- draper, and so forth,” going “ up the water,” on the preceding evening, to Vauxhall! with a party of ladies—two flutes and a hurdy-gurdy—and every other appliance to a regular “ gala.” If they had listened to the advice of Plato, who counsels people never to go any where by water when it is possible to go by land, and returned to town by the way of Lambeth and Kennington-lane, they might have gone safe all to just such another excursion, in just such another summer! But, as it was, rowing home- ward along the Surrey shore, between the Bishop’s palace and West- minster, one of the party suddenly cried out that “he saw a flounder,” and the rest naturally all jumped up to look. The boat was overset, and swamped! Mr. Mallcott, being a powerful man and a bold swimmer, Reppily succeeded in saving sixteen or seventeen of the ladies! But Mr. James—the half of a cold pigeon-pie! and the hurdy-gurdy—weni down to rise no more! Now all this lamentable detail, which was given at great length in the Herald, and copied into various other newspapers, of WO Letter.on Affairs in General. (Jun, course.produced a suitable sensation. Steady people declared, by land or water, against going to Vauxhall altogether. The shop in Oxford~» street was put into mourning for “ Mr. James,” and the “ Stock” an- nounced, in large black-edged bills, to be sold off three hundred per’ cent. under prime cost, for the “benefit of the widow.” In the mean time, boats went out in all directions, raking the bottom of the river,” and pulling up every thing Jut «Mr. James.” Every body they found: drowned, they carried up to the Pantheon to be “ owned ;” but still, every fresh person they brought, Mr. Mallcott said, «that was not the right.” When, lo! on the morning of the 17th inst., just as the sale, three hundred per cent. under cost price, for the benefit of Mrs. James,. was to have commenced, came the following terrific exposure in the Morning Herald newspaper ; and, what was worse, upon immense pla~ cards in the window of a rival hosier :-— : “ To the Editor of the Morning Herald. 5 aie “¢ SIR,—An account appeared in your paper last week, of an ACCIDENT haying happened to a party returning from Vauxhall by water, by which a Mr. JAMES, of Oxford-street, was unfortunately DROWNED. I think it right to inform you, and through you the Public, that the whole account is an INFAMOUS FABRICA-~ TION. _ Thereis NO such person as JAMES in the house—there was NO ACCIDENT— there is NO WIDOW to sell for /—I\ think it right, therefore, to guard the Public from such DISGUSTING IMPOSITIONS, that they may at least go to market with their eyes open.—A CONSTANT READER.—June 15.” .The propriety of people going, not only “to market,” but every’ where else, “ with their eyes open,” it was quite impossible to question ; and the public, enraged to find that no mischief had taken place, re- solved not to buy the calicoes and ginghams, although they were to be. given away for nothing. . What a strange variety of orders and interests we shall have jumbled* together in this new House of Commons! Here is Mr. Bish, who is the. manager of Drury-lane theatre, is a member of Parliament. And Mr. ye who keeps Vauxhall, isa member of Parliament. And Mr. D. W.. larvey, who is (or was) the proprietor of a Sunday newspaper—he is a member of Parliament. And Mr. Hunt, who makes blacking in St. George’s Fields—and Mr. Cobbett, whom men call “ Bone-grubber,” and “ rogue” and « rascal”—they are setting up to be members of Parliament! There is no objection to any of this; but it amounts to. the odd! I am glad that Mr. Butterworth is thrown out at Doyer, because he is a saint, and “serious.” I hate people that are “ serious.” « Never trust a tailor,” says the poet, “ who does not sing at his work ; his mind’s on nothing but filching!” And I am glad that Peter Moore’ has lost at Coventry, because he wore the vilest wig always, except one that belonged to the late Major Cartwright, that ever issued from the hands of a barber: a most wicked wig—an unnatural scratch ;_ all the world must recollect it : a most transparently and inexcusably-detestable. caxon'! Besides, all gentlemen above fifty look best in grey hairs, or powder. on “The changes of the times are giving rise to songs out of number, — which celebrate the old style, and lament innovation, or vice vers a heard part of one of these the other day, as I was passing throug _" ps ‘which wept for the decline in the true spirit of “ robbery, "—the'! change from force to artifice—which has been “brought about since’ he® ntidiidigPithe Yast ‘centary;! to acc! sat sd yao Sivow SI | ROSS Sor” rol 30:5 09% When'thieves had a bold [it went] as well a8 a sly way, ei) 29800. “And! went with pistols on:the highway,” &c. &e- ; vonom: te roliat 29a 1826.] Letter on Affairs in General. 71 _i/Fhere was another: ballad, too, but I can’t recollect the measure, that described the instability of Mr. Hunt, the Somersetshire candidate, in his pursuits. From beer to politics—from politics to blacking—and then from blacking to politics again. But the best that I have heard, was one that a Freneh gentleman sung extempore, in English, a few nights back, at a party where I was. I'll endeavour to give a notion of the manner of it ;— et AIR, RECITATIVE FROM “ The Battle of Hexham,” : “ Mopveration! Moprration !” “Oh! a4 present—now—it is de time of miracles, an de arts an sciences shall thrive, In de year, ce qu’on appelle, of our Lord, eighteen hundred an twenty-six—dat come _after de year of our Lord eighteen hundred an twenty-five ! Vén dey hang de poor gargon dat is singel, if more dan vonce he take it into his head to wive ; And you buy de iron coffin for -your friend yen he die, dat he shan’t be pull up by your friend dat stay alive! Alteracion, alteragion! Ah, We have every day some alteracion ! “ Dere’s de new almanach, dat shew you how de moon go on, since de German found out dat dere vas fortificacion in her ; An dere’s de New Magazin publish every month, to tell you what you ought to eat for _ oe» dinner! Dere’s de new lottery, where all de prize—is—blank, dat give misfortune to whoever wish to win her ; Andere’s de new science, dat, ven you pot your hand a top of a man’s head, you know ~_ if he’s a saint or a sinner! Bo) Speculacion, speculacgion! Ah, Par Dieu! this is une ¢trange speculacion ! “ Dere’s in France, at last, de Fossil skeleton—de very thing dat Morsieur Cuvier so very long have sought for ! Which prove dat man—he was make upon de face of de earth—much sooner dan -some folks thought for! En Amérique, they build von ship so grand! as if timber nothing could be bought . for; ; An in Holland, de Dutchmen they learn to dance—though they can’t conceive what _| they are taught for! Operacion, operacion! Dat ; Must be one extraordinairé operacion ! “¢ Oh, yes !—I say this is de time of miracle, when de new vonders spring up in every “.., quarter. ; : One gentleman, he sold his wife in Smithfield, in England, and another gentleman _s-bought her! ’ In London now dey wash their shirt by steam, and never put him at all into de_ _ | water ; beige: And, a Paris, the ladies wear their petticoat so long, dat de next fashion must be—to cut it shorter ! Alteracion, alteragion! I Don’t care how soon dey make dat alteracion ! —e - _The Times of this morning contains an advertisement :—“ Wanted, a Personal Representative.” . Now, what sort of a thing is that? pS Harborough, I see, has been tried at the sessions, for calling “Yo, ho!” in some street, in the night stated in the indictment ; and afterwards (with assistance) slaying and beating several watchmen, 1, wonn tie tthe idea of a ‘perpetual lodgment of bail” at. all the. principal. po ice-offices,. has never occurred to those of our nobility who;, are in the habit.of being taken to the watch-house (during the ‘ season)» twice a-week? It would only be the loss of interest upon a small sum, of money; and all the fuss of “ finding sureties,” and ‘ sending for ene’s tailor” —(perhaps not much caring to send for him) —* locked up "2 Letter on Affairs in General. ae [ Jury, ; LADLMAQEOITN in default” till he comes, &c. &c., would be saved. Suppose, for instance, a man “enters” at Bow-street, or Marlborough-street, with his leg broken, core ba MaAcistrate.—* Well, my friend, what is the matter with your, ¢.. Man.—“ Please your Lordship, my leg is broke,” sugoletz) seed yr19v NewspapPer Reporter.“ Which of his legs*is broke?’ ogy bobres Macistrate.— Silence! Who broke ‘your ‘heady my “good sl low 2” $ : an nvr} i ‘ane fl Man.—* Please your Worship, it’s my leg. It was Lord Harborough, and three or four more amongst ‘em.” i aged oved “Macistrate.—* Lord Harborough !"—(Turns to Clerk)" « We» have his bail, have not we ?” bp game CLEerK.—<« Yes, Sir Richard, for five hundred... He is only bound, as. yet for two.” eunsgqE Recognizance is then filled up for two or three hundred’ more; a’ quire, signed in blank, being left lying at the office. No story—no’ publicity. Man dies before he has time to indict at the sessions, and, there is an end of the affair. ry aris I think, however, personally, that we might carry the thing: farther than this. And that a nobleman of fifty or sixty thousand pounds of” annual income, might manage so to connect himself with the Executive authorities, as to make any steps taken against him by the law or police. merely nominal—as they are against monied persons in Irelands In fact, to be carried as it were before himself, and be his own apprehender,: when he committed any offence. ‘For instance, what should prevent such” a noble individual, resident in town, and being himself a, magistrate . for Middlesex, from furnishing some of the chief executive duties..of,. olice in London out of his own immediate retinue and houseltold2-: hy should he not get his butler made high constable of Westminster?” His grooms, all members of some ‘ Association Corps of Cavalty ?*" His private secretary might be a practising barrister (that is, a barrister. , without practice) ; his steward an attorney ; all his footmen special.con-'; stables, and his porter beadle of the parish. I can’t imagine any thing® more convenient than, in driving one’s cabriolet along, first ‘to: kiéck. an apple-stall down, and then order one’s servant to. step. a apprehend the mistress of it, after she got up again? Jf a boy.; laughed at one’s shirt-collar, to have him. taken up: instantly asu@dis\ “orderly,” and, if he attempted to justify himself, committed asa rogue and a vagabond?” What an addition would the crown ‘and garter, ~ &c., the insignia of constabular dignity, be to the head of Bata cane behind one’s carriage! and though it may be objected,‘ servant so gifted would have the power to take up his master,” yetias” his own deposition would undoubtedly follow such an abuse of authority, it | is née which he would be very chary of committing.—In conclusion, lét. it be understood—of shoulder-knots—I will endeavour to organize some., plan, in detail, to the effect above. But, in the mean time, while-Hlun-> kies remain ungraced by office, I could wish those who employ then?-t6" Jook a little more strictly after their manners. Several friends of mine” about town, whose force lies in their hands and heads, rather. than.) in their pockets, have complained to me of the impertinence andm-, accommodating spirit of these fellows, who block up the: approach» to» public places: The true course, in any such case of trouble, 18 to thrashy the rascal who offerids you soundly on the spot ; and, next-day, Jnsist:, on his dismission from his service, or satisfaction from. his master-poo ro. Toul sfinmhk-— wh 1M i ei} cumstances, of eleven experiments are 28 and 36 feet. 1826.] yrs ; Yoo WSn PHILOSOPHICAL, CHEMICAL, AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES. doaeten; tet brit , Astronomy.— A discovery as unexpected as troublesome to all practical astronomers has recently been made, namely, that the very best catalogues of stars cannot be de- pended upon, in some instances, even to half a minute, for stars of a small magni- tude. This is supposed to have arisen from the use of two instruments in determining transits and altitudes, whereby faint stars have been frequently mistaken for each other, when their distance has been com- paratively inconsiderable. A re-examina- tion of the heavens must now take place, arid to obviate similar errors for the future, it appears that a transit telescope with a . deelination circle attached, is the only in- strument upon which reliance can be placed. Transparency of the Ocean.— During the French voyage of discovery performed by the Coquille, experiments were regularly made for the purpose of determining to what depth it is possible to see, where the bottom is of a decidedly white tint: it was in some degree\a measure of the transpa- rency of the water. The apparatus em- ployed was composed of a plank two feet in’ diameter, painted white, and having weights attached in such a manner, that in descending in the water it would remain horizontal. The results as might be expect- ed were very dissimilar. At Offale, in the isle of Waigiou, in calm and cloudy weather, on the 13th of September the disc appeared when it had sunk to 18 metres (59 feet). The next day, the 14th, the sky being clear, thesame disc was not lost sight of till at the depth of 23 metres (75.3 feet). At Port Jackson, the 12th and 13th of Febru- ary, the plank could never be seen at the pice ae more than 12 metres (38.3 feet) in dead calm. The mean at New Zealand in’ April was a metre less. At the isle of Ascension,in January, under favourable cir- e extreme Jimits in a series ~Humming Birds.—Humming birds have been described frequently by naturalists as of anextremely passionate and vicious dis- position, destroying the- most beautiful flowers. apparently without the slightest cause. A very enterprizing traveller, Mr. Waterton, has recently shown that the food ofthese minute birds consists of insects, and consequently what has hitherto been attri- buted to irritability, arises from the natural instinct of the bird in pursuit of sustenance. _Etymology.—The Chinese word pha, to fear or apprehend, is compounded of heart -and white. This shows aremarkable coin- cidence of thought between two distant people, the Chinese and Europeans, who seem to haye adopted the same vulgar error that a coward’s blood is white. See Shakes- pear and our old dramatic writers passim. —Astatic Journal. M.M. New Sertes.—Vot. II. No. 7. . — Botany.—It is remarkable that in an ex- tent of more than 4,000 leagues, in the whole intertropical zone, from the isle of France as far as Otaheite and much further, on the islands as well as on the continents, the vegetable kingdom presents a great number of identical species, while the islands of Saint Helena and Ascension, also situated under this zone in the Atlan- tic ocean, produce species which are pecu- liar to them, and which are not found either in Brazil or in Africa, in the same latitudes. This obseryation was made during the cir- cumnayigation of the globe by the French vessel Coquille. Row’s Coral Bank—A_ communication has been made to the Asiatic Journal stat- ing that a coral bank, not as yet dangerous for large ships, had been discovered by Cap- tain Row in the eastern part of the Bay of Bengal, in the direct route of ships which trade from Bengal to the Straits of Malacca, Singapore, and other eastern parts. Its latitude is 10° 2’ N. longitude 96° 40' E. or thereabout, and it bears west about 75 miles from the island of St. Andrew. Coffee. — The following statement on which we shall offer some observations in our next number, we submit at present to botanical physiologists. jasae Raw coffee berries were put into a sauce- pan of boiling water and then boiled for five or six minutes. No visible effect was pro- duced. In about an hour, some of them appeared to be germinating. The water they were in was then poured off and fresh boiling water put to them. Immediately, from almost the whole of them a smajl white shoot was seen protruding, which increased rapidly and visibly to the length of from 1-10th to 1-8th of an inch. In one or two instances, this little white shoot was thrown off entirely, and on examination it appeared that the part first protruded was the radical, and the other the cotelydons.. - Elluminating Apparatus.—F or the purpose of rendering distant stations discernible by night during the trigonometrical survey which is now in progress, Lieutenant Drum- mond has constructed an instrument in which a globule of quick lime is exposed to the flame of alcohol urged by oxygen gas in the focus of a parabolic reflector. The lime under this treatment, when the experiment is made in the most perfect manner, emits a light eighty-three times as intense as that given out by the brightest part of the flame of an Argand lamp; ang this concentrated and reflected by the mirror, has enabled the officers.employed in the survey to connect very distant stations in the night-time in the most satisfactory manner. Tea.—It appears from the official returns to the House of Commons, that the annual average consumption of tea for these last ten L 74 years, ending January 5, 1826, has amount- ed in Great Britain to 22,750,063 Ibs. Earthquake in Persia. — The following letter is extracted from the Madras Courier. Bushire, Nov. 10, 1825. I am sorry to inform you that a shock of an earthquake was felt at Shirauz, at the end of last month, almost equal to that of Jast year. A great number of buildings haye been thrown down, and much property destroyed ; I am, however, happy to say that few have lost their lives on this dreadful occasion. If you should ever revisit Shirauz, the changes that these dreadful visitations have made in it will fill you with grief and astonishment. The tombs of Hafiz and Saadi, the boast and glory of Shirauz, are now heaps of ruins, ~ Rectification of Spirits. —A French che- mist, of the name of Decharme, has dis- covered a method of rectification which ean be performed in the cold, and consequently without the aid of an alembic or of combusti- bles. Hitherto alcohol in liquors and spirits could not be rectified or raised from an inferior to a higher degree, and consequently be brought to a superior state of purity and strength, except by distillation, an operation which could only be effected by an alembic and some heat. The principle of M. Pajot Decharme’s progress is, the absorption of its aqueous particles by the exposure of the spirit to one of the most deliquescent salts, either muriate of lime or muriate of manga- nese; the first is preferable in point of eco- nomy, and the superiority of the second gives it a claim to be chosen, but it is less com- mon and not so easily obtained. Vegetable Life.— A yather uncommon instance of the tenacity of life in the vege- table kingdom, occurred some time since in the royal park of Bushey. Some small portion of it was broken up for the purpose of ornamental culture, when immediately several flowers sprang up of the kinds which are ordinarily cultivated in gardens ; this led to an investigation, and it was ascertained that this identical plot had been used as a garden not later than the time of Oliver Cromwell, more than 150 years before. Mosaic Gold.—The mystery of the Mo- ‘saic Gold is at length developed; and, after all that has been said regarding it, it is not a little amusing to find by the specification ‘of the patent that it is nothing more than fine brass, so that the qualities to which it lays claim seem extremely problematical. | The pateniees are aware that a variety of alloys of copper and zine have been made, and that they cannot maintain the exclusive ‘right of mixing alloys of those metals ab- stractedly ; but having, after great labour and observation, discovered the precise pro- . portions of the two metals, and the modes or treatment which will produce’ an alloy _ resembling fine gold, they claiman exclusive ~ Philosophical, Chemical, and Scientific Miscellanies. (J ULY; right of mixing an alloy of copper and zine consisting of from fifty-two to fifty-five parts zinc out of a hundred, and to prevent the zine flying off in vapour they, are melted at the lowest temperature at. which, copper will fuse, Hy tea eae Double Stars.—Professor Stune of Dor- fat, to whose hands Frauenhofer’s large re- fracting telescope has been entrusted, has determined on a review of all the double stars already obseryed, as well as on a mi- nute examination of. the heavens from the north pole to 15 degrees of south declina- tion, with respect to these objects. He has now accomplished one-third of. the labour, and has found 1,000 double stars of the first four classes ; among which 800 are new, and of these nearly 300 are of the first class. He extends the examination to all stars of the 8th and (8°9) magnitudes. Climate of India. — According to a regis- ter published in the Madras Gazette, the greatest height of the thermometer in August on the Neelgherry hills, 8000 feet above the level of the sea, was 63°, the least 54°, In September the greatest height was 62°, and the least 49°. The fall of rain in August having been 12°5 inches ; in Sep- tember 3°4. At Madras the greatest height of the thermometer in August was 95°, the least 80°; and fall of rain 7°7 inches, In September the greatest height was’ 94°8°, the least 81°; and fall of rain 3°5 inches. New Still.—Mr. Evans, whose method of dressing coffee we recently noticed, has constructed the model of a still upon a new principle, which if it answer ona Jarge scale wil] altogether supersede the old alem- bie. The theory of the machine ‘is such that it may without hesitation be pronoun- ced the most decided improvement hitherto effected; for, if we mistake not, the still at present in use remains in principle pre- cisely the same, through the operation of the excise laws, that it was‘a century ago. Whatever improvements have been at- tempted apply only to the rectification, while the first formation of the spirit is con- ducted in the same rude manner as in the infancy of science. We forbear entering into a more particular description until the design be carried into execution upon alarge seale. We should be extremely sorry by premature publicity to afford the continental distillers an opportunity of maintaining the superiority they have hitherto enjoyed, and we feel convinced that we shall now take the lead in this important branch of our productive industry. The new apparatus eminently combines economy in practice and simplicity in construction ; but'the most valable at- tainment is the production of pure untainted spirits, which may be drawn in one-opera- tion at any point of strengthi> { 09)! 1826.] [ wlteq ovit-y 9a) Insvord « ; ib “8 ROYAL SOCIETY. © “April 27.—A paper was read entitled, xperiments on the elasticity of ice; in a Jet er from Benjamin Benan, esq., to Tho- mas ‘Young, M.D. For. Sec. B.s. Beg was also read, on the application dating Collimator to the Dublin tele’ ‘by John Brinkley, p.v. For. ns. Al lrews, professor of astronomy, Dublin. “May 4.—A paper was read, on the “means of facilitating the observation of dis- t stations, in geodesical operations ; by “Lieut. T. Drummond, Roy. Eng. : com- mun icated by Lieut. - Col. T. Colby, F.R.s. ay 11.—A paper was read, on the pro- ~ duction and formation of pearls; by Sir E. Home, bart. v.P.R.s. : and the reading was _ commenced of a paper on the borrowing and _ boring marine animals ; ee Edward Osler, esq., communicated by L. W - Dillwyn, esq. FR-S, « The Society then adjourned to May 25. 4 meer LINNZZEAN SOCIETY. - May 2—Read a paper on the locusts sages 2 migratorius, Linn.) which devas- _ tated the Crmea and the southern pro- _ winces of Russia, in 1824, by J. Smirnoye, esq-»F.£.s. Secretary to the Russian em- haaey. Also a paper on Indian arronace, by, H. S. Colebrooke, esq., ¥.R- and L.s. oi 23.—This day, being the birthday ‘of Linneus, the anniversary was held as usual, Sir J. E, Smith, president, in the chair, .when. the following Fellows were chosen as officers and council for the en- suing year :— ii __ Rissident Sir James Edward Smith, ™.p. ice-presidents, Samuel, Lord Ne V.P.R.S.F-A.S.; A. oy pmbert, esq-, F.R.S. A-S. and H-s.; W. _ G, Maton, M.D. F,RS. and A.s.; and Ed- calmer, Lord Stanley, M.p. ¥,H-s.—Treasu- » rer, Edward Foster, esq., F-8.S. and HS. ant geSaenetary, James. E. Brehens, esq.— sistant-Secretary, Richard Taylor, F.s.a. ita _Asiat. S.—Also, to fill the vacancies nl ‘the council: Charles Bell, esq., F-R.S. _ Ed; John, Bostock, M.p. F.R.s.; Pres. Geol. Soc. ; Sir Stamford Raffles, F.R S. ; _ Joseph Sabine, esq-, M.A. F.B.S. 6 ee “tas oo... GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. ov to May 5.—The reading. of Dr. Begsby’s \ (paper on the geology of the Valley of St. Lawrence sas concluded. ‘© ol May 19.—A-:paper was read entitled ©o) motes on the geological, position. of some of -“othe-roeks of the satiacut of Ireland ; by Lieut. Portlock,, Roy. B Eng. F.G,s. ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. April l4.—At this meeting there was read, “‘ A comparison of observations made on double stars,’’ communicated in a letter 7 j PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. to J. F. W. Herschel, Esq., Foreign €e- cretary to this Society, by Professor Struve of Dorpat. — ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. April 28— A paper on the porphyry of Christiana was read by Mr. S. Solly, in the Lecture Room, and illustrated by a series of engravings and geological specimens from Prof. Esmark. Instruments, drawings, and diagrams were exhibited and explained in the Library by Mr. Japlin, in illustration of his septenary system of lines produced by double continuous motion. A series of types, stereotype plates, and impressions of type-musie printing, from the office of Mr. Clowes, were laid upon the table, May 5.—The relations of sulphuric acid to hydry carbon, as illustrated by the late researches into the nature of the sulphorinic and suJpho-napthalic acids were detailed by Mr. Faraday, in an experimental discourse from the Lecture-table, and. the striking points discovered by Mr. Hennel and him- self explained and enforced. Mr. Perkins’s specimens of patterns produced by eccentric lathe-turning, and also a pair of his steel plates and rollers for bank-note engraving, were laid on the library table. May 12.—Lieut. Drummond’s. beautiful and intense station-light for geodesical ope- rations, was exhibited in the Reading-room, its nature and arrangements, chemical and mechanical, having been previously ex- plained in the Leeture-room by Mr. Fava- day. For an account of this light, see illuminating apparatus, in our Philosophi- cal Miscellanies. May 19.—Mr. Turrell read the first part ofa practical essay upon steel engraving, illustrating, as he proceeded, by numerous specimens of steel, steel plates, tools, spe- cimens of art. Animpression from the fine mezzotinto on steel of Martin’s Belshaz- zar’s Feast was hung up in the room. . It is the largest specimen of steel engraving that has yet been executed. A new and very pretty photometer was ty in the Library by Mr. Ritchie, of Nain. | ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Donations were presented from Sir G. Staunton, thirty vols. of official reports on subjects connected with Asia. Capt. P. P. King, R.N., three models of cannons used by the natives of Australia. D. R. Lyall, medical evidence on the duration of human r Major E. Moor, six vols. of epee HE ro. N. Baxter, Esq., fifty-two Hindoo drawings. Dr. R. Tytler, four vols. of his own works. J.J. Ayton, Esq., his Nepalese grammar. H. Hobhouse, Esq. was elected a mem- ber of the Society. L2 # _A description of the ruins of Buddha aE Lh Achaea aOR 5 POM. oe et res) rE nied YAAK iy hess ree yaluable Persian MSS. were pre- aE Cank, J.-Grant Duff, and: the ysecond. set of» his. Mélanges Asiatiques, from M. J. Klaproth. eorsirL Wm. Betham, Kt. and Lieut.-Col. Martin White were eleeted members. ‘“£wo papers were read, viz. the first, an atithentic,account of two females whodes- so. Hire Monthly Review of Literature, troyed themselves on the funeral pile of the lated from the Persian by Mr. [Jury, Rajah of Tanjore, extract, of an official des- patch frum the British Resident,at Tanjore tothe Chief Secretary at Fort.St..George, dated 24th April, 1802. yr amialet feu The other paper _is an account of the;dif- ferent festivals observed by. the Mahome- tans in India, drawn up by a, Moonshee of the’ Circuit Court of Chittore, and trans- J. Stokes of Madras. oy I th MONTHLY REVIEW OF. LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. > +) Hoasiiic “ The, main object of the novel is to give _@ representation .of the state of Ireland » from, James’s abdication, as his expulsion _ig still curiously phrased, to the Treaty of ‘Limerick ; though the tale commences with chis,accession ;, Just to. give the author an Opportunity of exhibiting the feelings of ex- Beciay on, ‘which that eyent excited among all parties. ‘T'o the principal characters of Domestic and Foreign. 9 the tale, we are introduced, on their way from Belfast to Cushindoll, a village on the north-east coast. ‘The travellers consist of Evelyn and his sister, both very young, very handsome and very amiable, in the style of those, who are destined to figure in “ mo- dern story,” with their guardians and atten- dants, of whom, in our brief sketch; we shall have no occi:sion to speak. In cross- ing the hills, the topography of which is very elaborately described, extraordinary difficulties are encountered—roads were not Macadamized in those days—and to fill up the measure of their alarms and em- barrassments, a tremendous storm—a _tor- nado, such an one as is now never seen with- out the tropics, overtakes them. A sweep- ing dispersion ensues, one falls to the earth, another performs a series of somersets down the hills, and Miss Evelyn is luckily rescued from destruction—her frightened jennet backing to the very edge of a precipice—by the critical appearance and fearless energies of a young gentleman and lady. These young natives of the hills, a brother and sister, prove to be persons of most surpris- ing excellence, vigorous and resolute, as the mountaineers of romance are of course entitled to be. ‘To the house of their pa- rent, a ruined chieftain of the clan Me Don- nel, the young Evelyn and the party are finally carried for shelter. Intimacy soon grows up among the young people, and they are speedily betrothed to each other. Out of these sudden engagements spring the subsequent interests and perplexities of the tale—the McDonnels being Catho- lics, and the Evelyns Protestants. Evelyn just to give him time to reach his majority, is dispatched to the West-Indies for a cou- ple of years, and returns to Ireland to con- summate his marriage with Eva MecDonnel, at the period when every body was’in a state of excitement respecting the invasion of William. McDonnel meets his friend on landing at Carrickfergus, and in a few hours, each of them, unknown to the other, is enlisted on opposite sides. Evelyn is encountered by George Walker, the well known defender of Derry, and, by the ur- gency of that wily agitator, is engaged to take part in the approaching struggle, and at the same moment the Jesuit O’ Haggerty presents McDonnel with a commission of dragoons in the service of James. Walker labours hard to break off the match with the Catholic Eva, and at last exacts a pro- mise to be summoned to the nuptials. On the day of the double marriage, the cere- mony; delayed by the non-arrival of Walker, at length proceeds, and Eva and Eyelyn are coupled by the Catholic Priest ;.but * just as the second ceremony is commencing, strange noises are heard, and a furious gust of wind extinguishes most of the lights, and “in rushes Walker, declaring the marriage * iNegal, and announcing the landing in Eng- “Yand ef William’ the deliverer. Conftsion follows, the ceremony suspends ; Walker 80 ~ ealls upon Evelyn, and O’ Haggerty upon McDonnel to fulfil their respective engage- ments, and sacrifice their private wishes to public duties. Each is surprised by the discovery of the other’s engagement ; sus- picion springs up in the breast of each; their passions kindle; high words follow, and brides and bridegrooms separate. Impelled by Walker, Evelyn joins the Ulster Union and accepts a commission in William’s name; but before joining the troops, he conducts his distressed sister to her friends at Derry, and proceeds himself to look after his family estate on the Lough Neagh. On advancing up the avenue, he perceives unusual stirrings in the house, and while hastening forward to ascertain the cause, he strikes against the legs of his own servant dangling fromatree. Alarmed and retiring, his retreat is instantly cut off on all sides by armed men, who force him to go forward to the house, which he now dis- covers to be in the full possession of a party of Rapparees. He receives a very hearty welcome from them to his own home, and is hospitably entertained by them with a supper provided from his own stores, and by his own cook. The feast is suddenly interrupted by the intelligence of an enemy at hand. Up starts the party ; measures are instantly taken for defence, and the commander places a guard over Evelyn with orders to shoot him on the spot, should the invaders prevail. These inva- ders prove to be Evelyn’s friends headed by Walker. The Rapparees were defeated, and Evelyn was rescued from his fate, by the artifice of a young lass, who had taken a fancy to him, and threw some water on the lock of the Guard’s pistol, which was thus snapped at him in vain. Evelyn now joined the forces under Lord Mount Alexander, and was wounded in the first battle fought at Dromore on the retreat from Newry, and left bleeding on the field. On recovering his senses, he seizes a stray horse, and sets out for the north. Beyond Carrickfergus, the Redshanks, Lord Antrim’s dragoons, a troop of which McDonnel commanded, were scouring the country, and he quickly found himself pursued. His horse failing, he betook himself to his legs, and after flying across we know not how many hills and dales, and endeavouring to descend a steep declivity, he sunk at last exhausted in a hole of the rock, till his pursuers came up with him, at the first of whom he dis- charged a pistol. It was McDonnel him- self. No harm was done; they recognize each other, and a reconciliation follows. He refuses to take Evelyn prisoner, in spite of the sulky remonstrances of his men; but dismissing them to the next town, himself, to the neglect apparently of his military duties, engages to conduct his friend to a place of safety. This, however, is not so easily accomplished. Prodigious ‘difficulties are encountered, a most painful * Monthly Review of Literature, [Jury, and laborious succession of climbings and slippings and escapes. By the way, there is a vast deal too much of difficulties of this kind; the realities are intolerable enough, but the descriptions are still more so. By-and-bye, however, Eva meets them, and Evelynand his bride “explain.” All are now proceeding very harmoniously together, when suddenly a party of Ulster dragoons come upon them, and McDonnell is instantly taken prisoner, but placed under the charge of his friend. Eva now goes to her friends, and Evelyn, with McDonnel on parole, proceeds to Derry to visit his sis- ter, and McDonnel and Miss Evelyn also of course come again to a perfect under- standing. The memorable siege had already com- menced, and Evelyn takes an active part in the defence under Walker, whose cha- racter is here ably developed ; a singular union of energy, craft, and fanaticism. The whole progress of the siege, to the final relief by the arrival of Kirke, is faith- fully and vigorously detailed, and presents many a striking picture of the miseries sus- tained by that devoted city from the can- nonading without, and the famine within ; with the unresisting submission of the citi- zens and Walker and his few energetic apprentice-boys. In the course of the siege an attempt is again made to celebrate the marriage between McDonnel and Evelyn’s sister, which is again interrupted by the mysterious agency of a wild Irishwoman, possessed of something like the attributes of omniscience and ubiquity; and the poor girl at last dies from the combined effects of fright, famine and fever. On the raising of the siege, the MeDon- nels and Evelyn, being again all together, and passes and protections obtained, they proceed towards old McDomnel’s. But by this time, Schomberg had’ landed 20,000 men, and Kirke had set out to join him to- wards the south. Old McDonnel’s unluck- ily layin his way; and there was danger, lest he should be beforehand with them. They speeded, therefore, with all their aap, and in the deepest anxiety—all too late. Kirke and his troops had just quitted the smoking ruins, and the followers of the clan were hanging on the trees by dozens. The shrieks of poor Eva over the dead body of her father, bring Kirke and his fellows back again ; Evelyn | presents the protections for his companions in vain. * At the moment of imminent peril, a party of Rapparees come suddenly upon them; a skirmish ensues ; Evelyn i is cut down, and on waking to life again, finds his head resting on the lap of a young woman, whom he recognizes to be the same, who had before saved his life, and who now informs him that MeDonnel had perished, and Eva was carried off by Kirke. The recollection of Kirke’s well-known character threw him into a storm of hor- ror, and he makes desperate efforts to pur- suc him, in spite of his weakness and the <2 et a. 1826. } girl’ ’s efforts to detain him, They had not proceeded far, before they were challenged by the troops. of his:.own volunteer-corps ; from. the .commander. of. whom, Evelyn forthwith. solicits a horse and.attendants to enable. him. to overtake. Kirke; when to his confusion and despair, he learns. that Kirke -had Jeft orders to..put, him wnder arrest. , Resistance i is vain; but three or four days bring up the corps to Schomberg’s camp. . Schomberg, with Kirke by his side was reyiewing the troops; Evelyn adyances in front of the line, and in the presence of Schomberg, demands of Kirke the cause of his. arrest, who charges him with aiding and abetting rebels. He appeals to the old Duke, and exhibits his passes and protec- tions, and is immediately released. Then finding Schomberg disposed to befriend him, he demands of Kirke an account of Eya. Kirke haughtily refuses. Evelyn challenges, and Schomberg sanctions ihe challenge, and witnesses the conflict on the spot. By an accidental slip, Evelyn is finally worsted, and having put his cause upon his failing sword, is thus left without redress, _Eya appears lost to him for ever. Schomberg appoints him his aid-de-camp, retains him about him for the remainder of the « campaign, and at the end of it sends him with despatches to England. In Lon- don, or rather at Kensington, where Wil- liam resided, he is detained for the winter. e interior of the court is thrown open, and we have William and Maiy, and Ben- tinck,. and Burnett, very characteristically exhibited. Two or three times, in the gar- dens, he gets.a glimpse of a person ina male dress, whom he believes to be Eya, but in spite of his efforts, he is unable to oe with her. In the’spring he returns’ pipintere, and at Jast gets a short leave ence, to attend’ to his private affairs. ie tst step is to go ‘straight to Sarsficld’s an then at Dublin, Sarsfield had saved ie life of Evelyn and his’ friend, before ma , when’ they had’ indisereetly accom- d the depitat ion of the City to James’s ce ; and on this ground of acquaintance- , Evelyn ventures to introduce himself to that brave man to procure intelligence of eg He gets detained by the out-posts, and _meets again with the girl, who had twice ‘sayed his life, and also with the “figt re; ‘whom he had taken for Eva, but again is baffled m his attempts to speak her. Sarsfield receives him with kind- ness and testifies an interest in his distress; though Imowing nothing whatever of the fate of “McDonnel or Eva, he recollects there’ ‘is ‘a lady of the name at James’s court, and he engages to take him in the ning ‘to the Castle. There he is no- : ed, as a ‘stranger, by James, who enters Conversation with him, defending his ct; and vindicating his rights. But, is most interesting to Evelyn, he re- reonnel, ‘the Lady Lieutenant, his own M.M. New Series.—Vou. Il. No. 7. Domestic and Foreign. SL Eva; but again every attempt to address her is defeated. His interview with James is thus suddenly interrupted by the® unex= » » pected announcement of William's Janding; ? and having actually been six days inthe ~ country. ‘The party breaks up; *Sarsfield’ dismisses Evelyn with a pass, and ‘he* makes his speedy way to rejoin Sehom-~ yoo l berg. Now comes on William’s brief campaign, / and we fight the battle of the Boyne bravely Evelyn, who in the engage" ’ oyer again, ment had acted as Aid-de-camp to Wil- liam, is taken prisoner; and after James's desertion of his cause and country, accom-" panies Sarsfield to Limerick, where he has the luck again to undergo the harassings and miseries of a siege. Here too, he ac companies Sarsfield on the memorable ex- pedition, in which, with the aid of the Rap- parees, he succeeded in destroying Wil- jiam’s ammunition and baggage. The com- mander of these Rapparees turns out to be his long lost friend Me Domnel, whose kind- ness to him had brought suspicion upon him- self, and finally dismissal from the service. Resentment and despair drove him to head a band of these desperadoes... He meets with Evelyn, and» while® pouring’ curses upon him, and preparing to eut him down; a signal from his friends arrests: his: pur-« pele: Here too ‘again Evelym meets: with , the’ person whom he had’so often taken for. Eva, and discovers: him atelast sto bera » younger brother of hers. »Somie words.of» explanation ‘pass; "but Jhe»:i8' assviolent.; as his elder brother. «All aswmystery to; Evelyn: He ‘cannot guess :the of: the O’ Connors and O’Gormans. The winter theatres are presumed te have had but a disastrous season. The general depression of the times may have assisted this .result. Ill luck, which visits theatres as it does graver things, may have had its part; and mismanagement is. very equal to have completed this round of disas- ter. On the last point, a good deal has been said; and we are not authorized to contradict any thing that has been said of the obvious and natural unfitness of the individuals concerned. It has grown into a theatrical axiom, the wisdom of long ex» perience, that the manager of a theatre should be a man perfectly acquainted with theatrical matters; a diligent and deter- mined man in his calling; and, above all, not an actor, His being an actor:is con- sidered the most unanswerable ground of unfitness for a station, where he must-have to judge of the qualities of others without caprice, prejudice, or the remotest idea of personal competition. Ifa manager be an actor, the play which gives him a promi- nent part will probably be accepted in preference to the play in whieh he: cannot figure. If a comedian, he will be apt ta feel, involuntarily perhaps, that tragedy isa burthen to the world ; if a tragedian, co- medy must bow its head in silence, and wait for his death or remoyal. If-he-plays young characters, the dignity of age will find but sorry reception; if old, youth must linger-till the author has transferred his regards to graceful longevity. Inshort, the whole system of personal feelings and professional rivalries: may be presumed, in even the best ordered mind, to have some activity. . We: protest entirely against eny personal imputation on either Mr. Kemble or Mr. Elliston ; we believe them both to be generous and high-spirited men; as they certainly have the manners and _—_ DAILY PRICES OF STOCKS, From the 2\st of May to the 21st of June 1826. @ | Bank |3 Pr. Ct.|/3 Pr. Ct.13}Pr.Ct.|N4Pr.C. Long 3hPr.Ct.| India | India Ex. |Consols = | Stock.| Red. Consols.|Consols.|_ Ann. Annuities. 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Eyron, Stock Broker, 2, Cornhill, and Lombard Street. THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Pew Series. Wor. II.) f AUGUST, +1826. i (No. 8. DEBTORS. Destrors—why talk of debtors ? what new circumstances have arisen ‘to demand attention at this particular time? None in kind, and none need there be, but enough in degree—the old oppressions and their accumulating aggravations are quite sufficient, at any, period, to fix the thoughts of such as are not utterly indifferent to all that does not im- mediately touch themselves. But what more can be done than has been done? Have not debtors been separated from criminals, wherever the existing space admits of separation? Have not many of the prisons been enlarged, and are not the rest in a course of enlargement? Have not the insolvent acts been softened and softened till it is almost a farce to speak of their severity? And will not, at last, three months’ imprisonment absolutely free the insolvent from his creditors? No: debtors are not every where separated from felons; the prisons are not every where enlarged, nor likely to be—nay, many of the debtor-prisons are private property, and fairly out of the reach of public control; the insolvent laws have not lost their character of severity, nor is three -months’ imprisonment a farce—no, nor is it an acquittal of the debtor’s obligation. But what more can be done, unless you at once throw open the prison-doors, and leave the deluded creditor a helpless, unprotected ‘prey to the swindling sharks that throng the metropolis ?—Why,. that is -very much what we are going to propose; and as to the creditor, we are strongly inclined to believe that, left to himself, he would protect himself better than any law has ever done or can do. Imprisonment for debt, then, it is which we denounce. Imprisonment is in its nature a penalty—the severest that can be inflicted, short of capital punishment—and reservable, therefore, for crime alone. But, Say our opponents, who are always nice distinguishers, to confine for security is ene thing, and to imprison for punishment another. What idle distinction is this! It is still confinement—it is still imprisonment ; the fact is the same, be the object which it will; and imprisonment for debt is equally odious, oppressive, and inapplicable. Is debt a crime or is it not? Why, a fraudulent debt is surely a crime. We are not inquiring about fraud but about debt. Is every pier a crime? Why that cannot be precisely said; but still it is not M.M. New came Te Woe8s tear 122 Debtors. [ Ave. easy to discriminate. The proof is so often solely in the breast of the debtor; he alone can tell’ whether, when he incurs a debt, he knows he has forthcoming resources, or probable grounds for believing himself able to repay at a given time. It is only by inference—partly by guess and partly by evidence, that we are able to distinguish between debt and fraud. But does the /aw make any distinction? Does the law inquire first into the fact? No; it imprisons forthwith—without i inquiry either before or after—at the demand and will of the creditor—right or wrong; and here it is that we complain, and justly complain. If the debt be a fraud, prosecute and punish it as a fraud; if it be a debt, a debt in the common acceptance and common apprehension of mankind, treat it as a debt and only as a debt. Well, but it is treated as adebt. A debt, ifnot a crime, is at least an injury; and for that injury imprisonment is inflicted—it is the remedy the law gives—the means of enforcing satisfaction—no more ; as soon as that satisfaction is made, the imprisonment is at an end. Then, we say, the means are iniquitous—the remedy is imappro- priate, and the law should be changed. The imprisonment proceeds manifestly on the false supposition that debt must be a fraud, or, at least, that the debtor can pay and will not, and therefore must be com- pelled. But the truth is, nine times out of ten, the sole reason of non-payment is inability, not perverseness. Perverseness, indeed !—the thought is absurd. What mortal, with agrain of spirit, with a shade of right feeling, with any sense of independence, to say nothing of any sentiment of honour or justice, but shrinks from the insolent tone of a creditor? The man must be insane or an idiot who subjects himself to the impertinent, but just demand of a claim, which he has it in his power to prevent. No; the appropriate remedy is not imprisonment of the person, but seizure of his property: but if there be no property—what, would you imprison where there really is no property? Recollect, we suppose the absence of fraud. Of what use will the imprisonment be? Where there is nothing, nothing can be had. Oh, but imprisonment, though it will not bring payment, will have a tendency to deter others. Then you treat it as acrime; and our question is, how a debt ought to be treated? We say, the seizure of the debtor's property ‘is the appro- priate remedy—the sole remedy ; and where there is no property there can be no remedy—no reparation. The debtor is able to pay, or he is not. If he be able to pay, the natural, the appropriate remedy, as we have said, is to attach his property. Of what use is the person? None, you allow, but to enforce payment. But if he be so disposed as to preter arrest to payment, the probability must surely be, that he will prefer imprisonment to payment. Of what service then is the power of arrest? No, the right and unquestionable course is seizure of the goods ; and the activity and acuteness of the law should be directed to render property of every kind easily accessible and promptly available. If the debtor be unable, which we insist is the general fact, of what use again is the person? None—none whatever to the creditor; but too probable ruin to the debtor. It is a case; where the creditor must submit to the inconveniencies attending his own impru- dence. But the creditor may have no blame to charge himself with ; his simplicity has been imposed upon; the debtor has made false represen- tations. Very well, then it becomes a case of pe and let your laws be pointed to detect and punish that fraud. ed 1826.] Debtors. 123 _ We have said, nine cases out of ten, the debtor is really unable to pay ; of this we feel sure from the nature of the thing, and something too from our own experience in the world; but we recollect a strong fact to the purpose. Within these three or four years, the debts of those who took the benefit of the insolvent act, in one year, amounted to more than a million, and the average dividend collected from the property was actually not quite one farthing in the pound. Debt must be regarded as a crime, or not as acrime. It is nota crime—it has not the characteristics of a crime. ‘There is no violence —no treachery. I cannot pay you now, but I shall be able by and bye: will you give me credit? ‘The creditor is a consenting party. The debt cannot be incurred without his consent. But the debtor, by risking the chances of his own solvency, exposes the creditor to the chances of loss, which he has no right to do; and this it is which entitles him to so sharp and authoritative a remedy. Then make it illegal to incur a debt at all, and moreover to give credit. Do not punish one, where both are to blame. For the fact is, the creditor knowingly hazards the risk. The very taking of credit proves to him his debtor's present insolvency. If the debtor ventures to incur the debt on the belief of his future com- petency, the creditor ventures to incur the risk of loss on the belief that the debtor will be able and willing to repay him; it is strictly his own concern—a voluntary act, and he should be made to abide by the consequences of his own actions. No, say you, he gives credit under the protection of the law of arrest, by which he knows he can enforce payment. Then, if there were no law of arrest, he would not consent to the creation of the debt. No. Why then need he so vehemently oppose the abrogation of the law? He may be a law unto himself; he has the matter in his own hands, and can effectually secure himself by refusing . to part with his preperty, except on prompt payment, or equivalent security. It is the shopkeeper, the dealer, the seller generally, who opposes ;—why should he do this, when we see that he has a complete and peremptory remedy in his power? Oh, says he, if we do not give credit our neighbours will, and we shall thus be thrown entirely out of business ; and that credit we cannot grant without the protection of the law of arrest. But if there be no law of arrest, your neighbours, who of course act on the same principle as yourself, will also refuse credit, and thus you will be again on equal terms, The truth is, these reasons are all empty pretences. Every dealer likes to give credit ; he makes his advantage of it; he lays an equivalent, and more than an equivalent, charge upon his wares; he binds his customer to him, and thus secures __ accontinuance of his custom. This is an advantage, he feels it to be so, and will by all means retain it; but the question is, is it one for which a nation is to legislate—is it one, in which the general interests of a people are concerned—is it one, for which an extraordinary power should be granted, destructive of the great charm of life, to be exer- cised at the will and caprice of the heedless, disappointed, or exasperated individual ? But not only is imprisonment oppressive and inapplicable, because debt is not a crime, the law which inflicts it is also defective in prin- ciple: it is partial in its application, and disproportionate in its effects. It is defective in principle, because the point at which it commences is perfectly arbitrary. It is not the nature of the offence, but the quan- By which determines—a quantity apaaennes by a nominal value, whose eee # 124 Debtors. [ Auc- real value is fluctuating with every change of the market. If it be just to imprison for twenty pounds, it is so for twenty pence. ‘To one man twenty pence is as important as twenty pounds to another—all is rela- tive. Yet, obvious as this is, ten pounds was—we know not how long— long enough to allow of great fluctuations in value—the minimum of arrest. That minimum was, some years ago, extended to fifteen pounds, ‘under the pretence of augmented nominal prices, when, for that very reason, at that very time, thirty, or even forty pounds would have been nearer the mark. What justice or equity is this that arrests one man for fifteen pounds, and protects another, because the amount of debt is less by a shilling or two, though the injury done by the protected case be probably the greater? What saving virtue is there in this redeem- ing shilling or two? Inequalities like these are mockeries. Adhere to the letter of the law, and the debtor who owes fifteen pounds has hard measure meted to him, when he sees another escape, who is less guilty by a shilling or two; and the creditor equally so—particularly the. creditor whose dealings are with small customers, who take care not to swell their debts to the prison-point, or whose petty circumstances. necessarily keep them below it. But of what use after all is this nominal limitation of which we are so apt to boast too—when the law allows of law-expenses going into the minimum—when it allows of law-expenses beginning at any point, so that a debt of any amount, however small, may, by process, be quickly brought up to the arrestable sum? Better far allow of arrest for the origmal debt, were it but a shilling, than studiously legislate to put money in the pockets of the lawyers, and make a bad case worse- What privilege and protection is this? Admit the principle of arrest, and imprison for debt without limitation, and let the law take its course forthwith ; then, if a man owerfive pounds, and be unable to pay, it is better surely for him to be arrested for that sum than be subjected to the glorious privilege of being harassed by successive and expensive pro- cesses, till the miserable five be tripled to fifteen, and then be impri- soned. It will not be disputed, we suppose, that five pounds are sooner paid than fifteen—fifteen did we say? the current of expense stops not there. He must pay for the final writ, four or five pounds more, out of which we know not how many persons must have a fingering ; he must satisfy the bailiff, whose conscience—such is his « dreadful trade’—is of course of a good stretching quality, and not only him, but his follower, who is no bashful imitator of his master; and not only these things, but he will have to pay, on his personal peril, fee upon fee on his entrance into prison—the gaoler and his deputies must live, and his fellow prisoners must regale to welcome his arrival, and all at his cost ;—and not only this again, but he will have to purchase the common necessaries of life at exorbitant prices—mixed up all the while with the miserable, the degraded, the depraved—thrown out of his usual career of gaining his livelihood, of acquiring the means which would best enable him to discharge the original claim,—growing worse and worse every day, not only by this deprivation, but by extraordinary expenditure,—demoralizing rapidly by his forced associa- tions with those, whom the tyranny of creditors is fitting fast for desperate wickedness ; and finally, in addition to these oppressions, when by some lucky or legal chance he re-enters the world, he finds himself shunned and suspected, his wife and children beggars or paupers, cut off from # 1826. ] Debtors. 125 his former resources and wonted connections, and unable—and too probably now, at last, no longer solicitous to recover his ground. , And here, by the way, can we fail to recollect that the session of 1825 closed, and suffered the law, which elevated the minimum of arrest to fifteen pounds, to expire? Yes, and the old law of ten pounds, which had not been repealed, only suspended—onl y lay dormant it seems, was started again into life and activity by the prying and prowling attornies ; and what was the effect? Ten thousand writs, it is said, were issued for sums between ten and fifteen pounds, to the surprise of the sufferers, and of course to their cost. But what matters it, it will be asked, if the ten pounds could quickly have been expanded to fifteen by legal expences? Oh yes, it does matter; because a debt often pounds could not be made fifteen without regular notice ; it must actually be brought up to fifteen before you can enforce ; but when it is actually fifteen, then you arrest without notice at all. Has the government ever dreamed of making compensation to those who suffered under this neglect of the law-officers of the crown? Had we been among the sufferers, we should have been strongly tempted to try an action of damages against the Attorney-General. When great num- bers of the clergy, some years ago, subjected themselves to certain penalties for non-residence, we remember, the government stept in to shield them from the consequences of their own imprudence. But see, what it is—in this land of equality—where the law is the same for the rich and the poor—to belong to an order of some influence, and to be one of a class so worthless as to be liable to arrest for ten pounds ! But while we talk of the humanity of our laws, and triumphantly instance this precious protection of arrest under fifteen pounds—which we see is all hollow and delusive; there actually exist, on every side of us, courts of conscience, as they are piously called, which are not empowered to take cognizance of any debt but what is below forty shillings, and yet have authority to imprison. A case is recorded by Neild, of a man who was imprisoned for months for a debt of four- pence, which had been enlarged to seven or eight shillings by fees of court. Nay, scores of cases are occurring every month, if not equally ridiculous—not to say so savagely barbarous,—yet for sums so utterly insignificant as unhappily to awaken the incredulity of the uninformed rather than to rouse their horror. But look to the damning and conclu- sive fact, that within fifty years, forty thousand persons have been discharged for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds by that admi- rable little industrious society instituted for the relief of small debts— that is, EIGHT HUNDRED DEBTORS HAVE BEEN RESCUED FROM PRISON ANNUALLY FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS; AT THE RATE OF THREE POUNDS A HEAD. _ Merciful heaven! is there a government upon earth, pretending to any intelligence, that can inflict such intolerable oppression—is there a people of any cultivation in any part of the globe, with power to speak its will by its representatives, that can calmly submit to such transcendant tyranny, that can dastardly sigh and suffer, and-not stir a finger to shake off this hateful and disgusting badge of barbarism? And is this country England? England—that bruits so riotously of its love of liberty, that exults in the superiority of its liberal institutions, that ‘boasts | of its charter and its constitution, and glories in its writ of shabeas,—when the astounding and galling truth is, that any miserable wretch who owes a few shillings, may, at the will and whim of his cre- 126 Debtors. [ Aue. ditor—not the decision of a court of justice—be deprived of that blessed right—the right to breathe the open air of heaven, at the very moment when his superiors—the wealth and rank of the country, are triumphing in the distinction that Englishmen are in the possession of more freedom and independence than is shared by any other people in the world? How long did we insult over the poor-spirited French for wearing wooden-shoes, and submitting to /ettres-de-cachet ; while, with us, every creditor has the power, when he will, to exercise the privilege of the old Bourbon government, and issue his own private Jlettre-de-cachet. Truly, we are a nation of boasters, if ever there was such a nation upon earth. The Athenians were fools to us. Thus far we have discussed the principle of the law of arrest: but not only is that principle defective ; the law itself is partial in its applica- tion. It does not embrace the whole community. Some are completely and by special exception exempt, and others are placed under a set of regulations totally at variance with it. The trader, at least certain classes of traders, are placed under laws of their own—for, to be sure, they must have had the making of them. If a man deal in certain articles, and can get into debt to a certain amount—to an amount six or seven times beyond the common arrestable sum, the law—what ? transports him? No. Imprisons him at least? No—protects him ; protects his person; takes from him his property indeed, and distributes some of it among his creditors, but actually reserves a certain propor- tion, and generously replaces it in the hands of the bankrupt ; and this not once, but twice or thrice, or as often as he finds dupes to trust, and himself unable to make good his engagements. Now what on earth is there to account for this distinction between the bankrupt and the common insolvent? Why is the one to be less rigidly dealt with than the other? But to complete the climax of absurdity—to exhibit the unsteady principle of the laws, or rather their utter want of principle and consistency, in the broadest manner, it is not a/ trading and trafficking that entitles you to this protection. No landlord, no farmer, no innkeeper, or schoolmaster, for sundry strange reasons, for which always ‘vide’ Blackstone, can by possibility share in the favour. And yet, with all this, there are people who resist every proposal for a revision of the laws, in the full conviction that they are all excellent, in- comparable, unimprovable. Thanks to our better stars, the Secretary for the Home Department has, by some unknown process, come to think them somewhat susceptible of amendment; and the old opponents, of course, to a certain extent, give way to the authority, if not the intelligence of office ; but their influence will still be strong enough to prevent any complete and enlightened reform. We shall have nothing but palliatives—nothing but half-and-half measures; no prin- ciple spreading through whole classes of offences, effective of real and rational equality—nothing that will decisively tend to simplify, fix and define,—to render justice steady—to reduce crime and the temptations to it—to check litigation, and cut down lawyers’ fees—nothing of this sort is to be expected on this side the institution of political reform. But not only does the law thus favour whole classes by placing them under peculiar protections; but there are others, not coming under these protections, who are expressly exempted from liability to arrest. No peer, no member of the House of Commons, no lawyer can be arrested. There is no imprisoning any of these persons for debt. In the name of common-sense and consistency, why? Oh the peer (Black- 1826. } Debtors. 127 stone again) is always counselling the crown; the member always levy- ing taxation; the lawyer is “ always in court, and before the eyes of the judges.” And why not the parson, who is, of course, always in the church, or the physician who is always with his patients, or the sempstress, who is always at her needle? Precious reasons for an age of common-sense! Reform—oh, reform it altogether. Let the law, for one, be the law for all. Well, then, we have seen the punishment of imprisonment. for debt, is inappropriate; defective in principle; unjust in operation ; partial, disproportionate, and we should add graduitous, if it were not indis- putable, that all oppressions which are the consequences of legal enact- ment, meant for the benefit of a whole community—and that is the only genuine object of a law—are gratuitous—uncalled-for, that is, by any general necessity; and, of course, ought to be removed by imme- diate repeal. , For the repeal, then, of the law of arrest, we call—absolutely. What without substituting any thing in its place? Not precisely so, since something, we suppose, must be conceded to existing prejudices: our remedy may be, where there is property, attachment of that property ; but where there is none, impunity. Impunity? Yes; but then, ob- serve, if there be no remedy, there is, what is better, a preventive, and that is the care and caution of the creditor. But is this a doctrine fit to be promulgated? What nation under the sun has ever lived without the penalty of slavery or of imprisonment for debt? None, that we know of; but that is of very small importance. We know all nations, ancient and modern, have exercised great cruelties against debtors, and done nothing to check the folly of creditors; and for that very reason we think a change desirable—at least worth trying. Seve- rity never yet prevented crime ; and severity in the form of imprison- ment has not prevented debt, and will not; but we feel confident that impunity will do so, for no man will trust who has no longer the means of enforcing. The true remedy then is—to throw the creditor com- pletely on his own resources. But for the repeal of the law of arrest—substituting as much or as little as you will—we are urgent, not only because the law is oppressive, but because it is unnecessary ; and for our own parts, if we consulted nothing but our own convictions, and could venture to judge of others by our own feelings, we would rest the grounds of repeal on the gra- tuitous mischief produced by the operation of this law—convinced as we are, that were the law of arrest completely withdrawn, even with nothing substituted in its stead, creditors could and would take care of themselves, particularly after such long and lengthened experience of the real inutility of the law—vastly more to their own interests, and if they could be supposed to think of others, to the interests of their cus- tomers too. But we know the prejudices, particularly of men of business, are a little inflexible ; still, though we think them, and many others beside them, inaccessible to reason and argument, inaccessible even to the appeal and force of facts, except by the slowest steps, we do not think them insensible to humanity—though we cannot readily get at their understandings, we can at their sympathies. The discussion of prin- ciples seems vague and shadowy, and what may be right or may be wrong, to those who are unaccustomed to weigh them; and make little 128 Debtors. ; [ Aue. or no impression, at least none that will furnish motive enough to stir an inch in working a change. But talk to them distinctly and forcibly of substantial, tangible, practical evils—evils that are revolting to natural humanity, that plunge men from respectability into miseries— visiting embarrassment and misfortune with penalties, disastrous expenses, and mental agonies,—that demoralize the victims and pauperize the families of the victims,—and you gain a listening ear, and perchance an active friend, who will shake off his lethargy, and aid you in removing them. If men would but take the pains to learn the real state of our pri- sons, if they would but themselves contemplate the actual condition of the prisoner, if they would but themselves visit those dens of infamy, the Fleet, the Bench, White-cross prison, or the Marshalsea, or any of the debtor-prisons in and about London, if they would but with their, own eyes look upon the misery within them, convinced we are that more reluctance would be felt in casting a debtor into them, and more alacrity would be shewn in removing the obstacles that stand in the way of closing them for ever. The broad fact stares us in the face, that the debtor-prisons are more miserable than our criminal-prisons. But why is this? Because, com- paratively, the wants of the criminal are provided for; some care is taken to employ him; some attempts are made to reform him; while the wants and wishes of the debtor, mental, moral and corporal, are left very much to chance. The debtors are less under the protection of the magistrate; they are left more to their own government, and that government, as may be supposed, is of the most despotic description. Miserable alike, nothing but tyranny and violence can extort fine and obedience from the miserable. The law oppresses them without, and their fellows within. The law and its administrators evidently always go on the cruel supposition, that the debtor is a wilful one, a sol- vent, a refractory one, and no shield is held over him. He can, if he will, and therefore he must be tortured till he consents to open his purse-strings, and satisfy all demands, lawful and /egal. If he will not pay a small sum, they will make him pay a larger. He shall not only acquit the debt, but shall pay the expense and trouble of enforcement. Every officer concerned shall be fed by him. If he will give trouble and cause expense, the rascal shall make satisfaction for it. The sheriff, the under-sheriff, the bailiff, his follower, the spunging-house, the gaoler, the turnkey, all shall conspire to plunder him. When he enters within the walls, he shall pay weekly for the space he stands or sleeps upon, and gain shall be wrung from him by the very bread he eats, though his wife and children stand round, suffering at the very moment from the extortion. The unhappy wretch is indeed the miserable object of extor- tion from beginning to end—we may say from the highest officer of the law to the very lowest. Why are lawyers so eager, in town and country, to get the appointment of under-sheriff? For the gain that is made by the office. Out of whose pockets? The debtors. Under-sheriffs of Middlesex, for instance, are said to have given £1,500 or £2,000 for the office. To whom? The sheriff, of course. And how do they in- demnify themselves ? Out of the pockets of the debtors. The office of secondary was, not many years ago, sold by public auction for £10,200. Then comes the sheriff’s officer, who, in like manner, pays for his office, and must be repaid out of the pockets of the debtor. So of the inferior “+ ~ Se aa 1826. ] Debtors. 129 officers—each one, in short, buys of his superior ; and the luckless, the oppressed, the afllicted debtor, must be pay-all of the whole devouring series. Turn we to the debtor-gaols—to the Fleet—to the King’s Bench: the emoluments, considerable as they are—in the Fleet, £3,000 or £4,000 a-year are plucked from them by fees, and as much, or more at the Bench—all are torn from the pockets of the exhausted debtor. The truth is, the public, generally, know little or nothing of the real condition’ of the debtor, and of the oppressions to which he is subject— he is out of sight; if they did, we have too high an opinion of the hu- manity, if not of the justice of our countrymen, to believe that such enormities could survive another session—even of an unreformed Parlia- ment. ‘That Parliament has had committees, time after time, sitting, and reports of all the London prisons have been made, over and over again ; all the iniquities, at least the principal, have been exhibited by willing and unwilling witnesses ; but what has been the result ? Nothing. The examinations are carefully recorded, regularly printed, duly pre- sented, and habitually shelved—that is all. The evil is beyond their management, because they have never attempted any thing but al- leviations and palliatives, partial remedies and petty reforms; they will not—they seem as if they dare not look to the principle, the origin, the object—dare not compare the result with the purpose—the end with the means; if they did, they would see that nothing short of a complete- extirpation of the system would be productive of any real benefit; and, common humanity once roused within them, and once in activity, would impel them, with indignation and disgust, to sweep the debtor-laws from the statute-books. _. Alarming as may seem to some this doctrine of ours, we have a firm conviction, that it would be productive of some of the happiest results that ever followed legislative measure, upon the domestic comforts of the nation. For what would follow this abolition of the law of arrest and imprisonment for debt? The stoppage of the credit system. And upon what source can you lay your finger and say, Here is a cause equally prolific of evil with this credit system? We defy the world to do it. How operates this precious sytem? Generally—we cannot now particularize—that people of all classes run into excesses—that money is spent before it is earned or received; that the income of next year is consumed this, instead of the income of last—that no reserves are thus made for contingencies, and when contingencies actually fall, they are without resources to meet them. Every class of life, from the capital to the base of society, injures and is injured; they prey and are preyed upon. They are driven to oblique courses, to shuffle, and contrive, and évade—to mortgage, to raise loans on disadvantageous and disgraceful pe a They are tempted by the facilities of credit, to purchase not vhat they can pay for, but what they can get credit for; not what they necessarily want, but what they ambitiously desire ; not what once suited their proper station, but what their immediate superiors must have. The son sports, the wife dresses, the table sparkles with the wines of the South, and groans with the luxuries of the East and the West ; servants swallow them up, and stewards lend what was once their own. Descend- mg to the lines below, the scene scarcely varies; the professional man, the trader, the agent, all avail themselves of the same facilities; < fly their kites,’ and live beyond their actual and solid means, till we reach M.M. New Series.—Vot. II. No. 8. s 130 My Lodgings: a Sketch from Life. [Auc; the labourer—the victim of all above him—who has neither money nor credit. We look upon the credit-system, in short, as the parent of more dis- order, disturbance, and crime, than all the other causes of irregularity in society put together; and for much of the enormous, and we may add, alarming extent, to which it has been carried of late years, we may thank our prodigal and paper government. The spendthrift borrowings, the tricks and treacheries of the stocks, the extollings of credit, the vaunted achieve- ments of financial dexterity, the wonders of sinking-funds, and miracles of compound interest—the advantages and glories of these things have been sung by the servile agents of power, and lauded in the tribunals of justice, till every man who confined himself to his real and substantial resources was brought to feel ashamed of his own contemptible timidity. Loans could be raised—loans, too, that were to liquidate themselves, and the expense come out of nobody’s pocket. If a government could do thus, why not individuals ? We shall find a time to trace this matter home; in the mean while—no arrest and no imprisonment for debt. Let creditors look to themselves, and not part with their goods without an equivalent. Then will they no longer need the stern protection of iron laws; then will vanish at once the anxieties of the creditor, and the © heart-aches of the debtor ; and lawyers and _ bailiffs, who, vampire-like, suck the life-blood of the miserable, go—ad malam rem. MY LODGINGS: A SKETCH FROM LIFE. I am, whether for my sins or no I cannot exactly say, a single gen- tleman. For years I have been habituated to a rambling life—an Arab existence, that knows not to-day where it will be to-morrow, but takes circumstances as it finds them, and is ready-for any part of the world in something less than ten minutes. For months past, however, this Be- douin disposition has evinced symptoms of what lawyers would call a settlement ; I have become stationary like St. Paul’s—fixed as Primrose- hill—a specimen of absolute immobility. Whether my reasons for such local adhesiveness are of native growth, or merely forced up, as it were, upon the hot-bed of eccentricity, the reader, when he has perused this_ veracious narrative, must himself judge. To begin with my lodgings: they are situated on the confines of civilization at Camberwell, and form the ground-floor of a house, exceedingly tall for its age, being only two years’ old; containing three stories and a decent-sized garden, skirted by.an unhappy-looking patch of mould, which a philanthropist might dignify as a meadow, but an agriculturist would baptize a nondescript. Beside this amphibious half-acre, aad just—at.the extremity of the garden, stands an enormity yclept a summer-house, in which, on Sun- days, my landlord and family regale themselves ; the one smoking the leaves to death with tobacco; the other, more romantic, admiring the beauties of their domain; on which may be seen, at times, a stray porker, a duck or two, a dog, a cat, or the fore-quarters of a donkey (a neighbour of mine), as he peeps wistfully through an adjoining hedge at the thistles which luxuriate in this, to him, forbidden paradise. Thus 1826.] My Lodgings: a Sketch from Life. 131 much for the scenery: the natives are equally characteristic. My land- lady is a person who, having once been on intimate acquaintance with two hundred pounds a-year !—since defunct—considers herself a privi- leged grumbler, and has accordingly taken out a patent in the high court of hypochondriasm, much to the discomfiture of her husband and her children’s respective physiognomies. Her tribulation, however, to do it justice, is of the genteelest cast; she speaks in a low mincing tone ; treads her kitchen in the very spirit of pathos ; and, save when in liquor (which the best of mortals must sometimes be), seldom or never swears. By swearing, I should say, that she rarely condemns her own or other people’s eyes, souls, or limbs—these orthodox English anathemas are reserved for great occasions; but with respect to the lighter style of execration, such as “ zounds !”—* jemini ”—“ jingo "—* odds-bobs "— “ good gracious ”—“ my stars ””—“ my eyes!” &c.; by which the utterer would be understood as compromizing the matter with his conscience all such verbal elegancies she luxuriates in to satiety. Her children, like herself, are peculiar ; reserved and ragged, with faces the very title- page of tribulation, and a genius for affliction that I never yet saw equalled. As for the husband, he is like all other husbands, remarkable for nothing but a brace of legs like compasses, and a black head of hair, bearing in character and colour no faint resemblance to a shoe-brush. The next in importance to this accomplished family—for, in lodgings (such are their lax opinions of religion), the nearer you approach to Heaven the.more you are despised—is, | am told, myself, of whom I shall say nothing further, than that I am the sole occupant of the ground-floor. The second story is tenanted by a half-pay officer, at that peculiarly unpleasant age when a man is justified in thinking himself elderly, yet not altogether without excuse if he ape the dandy, and strive to make and consider himself acceptable to women. ‘This gentle- man is a lieutenant, somewhat bilious, but interesting, with an amazingly- old face, young figure, and half-military half slovenly tout ensemble. He is much given to talking about India, backbiting England, and “ doing the amiable ””—on Sundays especially, when he sports a joint and the gentleman—towards the ladies of our establishment. Above him, in one of the attics, vegetates a poet, “fat and pursy,” but exceedingly good-natured. This genius, whose pastoral propensities are marvel- Jously quickened by the meadow and summer-house above-mentioned, is a sad annoyance to the Lieutenant; for, being immediately over head, » and addicted, moreover, to inspiration, he is always walking up and down the room ; so that the soldier (albeit in time of peace) yet knows no interval of repose. There is also another cause of dissention between them : the poet, like most of his craft, is sadly given to borrowing—not money, for no one in his senses would think of lending it him—but simply such household articles as boot-jacks, razors, brushes, &c., with now and then a shirt or two, or, it may be, even a pair of inexpressibles, Now I need not tell you that, to an officer on half-pay, the peremptory return of such loans is indispensable ; whereas on these points the minstrel is glaringly deficient, and kept a pair of the Lieutenant’s boot-hooks so long in his possession, that when ‘the man of war sent to have them returned, the borrower could no where find them; and he was in con- sequence compelled to put on his boots with two forks, the prongs of ‘which, directed to the ‘accident by his irritation, plunged full half an inch §.2 “ 132 My Lodgings: a Sketch from Life. [ Aue. deep in the calf of hisleft leg. With the exception of these trifles, the representatives of Mars and Apollo are both on good terms with each other; for the bard, being high in poetic favour with “La Belle Assemblée,” and sometimes even contributing to the “ Literary Gazette,” is looked on by the warrior as a Chatterton, and brought forward to corroborate his hypothesis, that genius is too often neglected. For my own part, I should think more highly of his genius were it less periodical in its display ; but, somehow or other, I am almost daily compelled to admire it, just ten minutes before dinner, when he “ drops in,” to use his own expression, merely to discuss a metaphysical point with me (in a coat out at the elbows) upon the merits of Donne, Cowley, and the poets of that school. This, you'll allow, is dreadful ! In the attic opposite the minstrel lives—I should say, lived—a most prepossessing Spanish lady, 4 widow, with her only daughter, Leonora— a pretty, simple little girl, aged sixteen, with tender pensive black eyes, shrouded by finely-pencilled dark lashes ; an exquisitely-formed mouth, sylph-like figure, and voice the “ most musical, most melancholy "ek ever yet heard. This last family came to us about four months since, just at the time when Cadiz surrendered to Prince Hilt. Their gentle- ness, their melancholy, their subdued unobtrusive bearing, and, above all, a certain innate sense of decorum that characterized every thing they did or said, endeared them to the whole house, and convinced all who saw them that they had once known better days. At first they lived on a small pittance, which my landlady (an admirable politician) discovered was paid them weekly; but about a month after their arrival even this ceased, and they were then compelled to earn a subsistence by needle- work. It was a pleasant thing, I remember, and one that I can never recal without a sigh, to see Leonora, with all the elastic cheerfulness of youth and innocence, trip up and down stairs in the morning to prepare her mother’s breakfast, and give me, as she passed my room-door towards the kitchen, the usual daily welcome. To all of us she had something pleasant to say (she could not, if she had. tried, look otherwise than good-natured); yet, notwithstanding the cheerfulness thus excited by her presence, an impression, I know not why it was, at times came over us that she was not long for earth. P To people in the same situation with myself, I need not say that in lodgings—when once you are fairly housed—there is a sort of free- masonry established: such as the interchange of various kind offices, the loan of divers little household necessaries, together with those expres- sive courtesies, which keep up, as it were, a perpetual good-humour among the lodgers. At the same time, the strictest regulations with respect to rank are practised and enforced by the landlady. The aristocracy, for instance, or patrician portion of the house, are those who live on the ground floor (the furniture and internal economy of which are of supe- rior character) ; the next in rank are the tenants of the first, then come those of the second story, and lastly, the natives of the attic, each of whom sports but one room, and is, consequently, in my landlady’s phrase, “no gentleman.” Leonora and her mother were both in this last pre- dicament. Not that it mattered much whether they were “ gentlemen” or no (indeed I am inclined to think they were not, from the circum- stance of their being of the wrong sex), but that they must, as a matter of course, suffer the neglect attached o those who, instead of dwelling 1826. ] My Lodgings: a Sketch from Life. 133 on earth, live a mile or two up-stairs among the clouds. To obviate this annoyance, I took every opportunity of speaking of them to my landlady as foreigners of the first water—* probably princesses in dis- guise, Mrs. C—,” quoth I, “and therefore it would be politic in you to treat them with the most scrupulous attention.” This appeal was suc- cessful; and as the rest of the establishment, looking up to me as its head, shaped its opinions by mine, the widow and her daughter were treated with all suitable respect. And God knows, poor things, they had need of it, for, about six weeks after their arrival, the spirits of our favourite _ Leonora began to flag, her countenance became pale, her eyes lustreless, her voice low and desponding. At first we considered that she was merely suffering under the effects of an uncongenial climate—but soon our fears increased, for no visible cause appeared to countenance any such sus- picions, so that it was only in the strange hopelessness of her look that we could guess at her probable malady. And that malady was love ! Love in its most changless form—Love in its severest despotism-~Love in that mad, overwhelming energy, which leaves its conquered victim no chance of repose but in the grave. The way we discovered our poor little girl’s complaint was as follows : I had invited her mother and herself, toge- ther with the Lieutenant, to drink tea with me one evening, when the « Sun” newspaper happening to lie on the table, the soldier took it up, and, with the usual military instinct, turned to the Saturday’s Gazette, where, among other army promotions, he read aloud the exchange of a certain Captain H—, of 2d Foot Guards, to a regiment which had just been ordered off for Ireland. This was enough for Leonora; she cast but one look—I shall never, never forget it ;—one brief look of the most in- tense withering agony at her mother, and then clasping her hands upon her bosom, fell motionless to earth. The next day the widow, with tears and sobs, came down to give me an explanation of this scene, and to request (as her only friend) my advice. It seems that about a month before, Leonora was one evening crossing the Bird-cage Walk towards Chelsea, when just beside the barracks, a heavy shower came on, and a young officer, who happened to be passing at the time, politely offered her his umbrella; which, with.all the unhesitating simplicity of her na- ture, she accepted. He, of course, walked beside her, and finding that she was a Spaniard, and having himself served in the Peninsular war, he addressed her unhesitatingly in her native tongue—in that language with which all her earliest and fondest recollections were associated. To shorten a somewhat trite story, he persuaded her to give him a second _ —third—fourth—and even a fifth meeting, until at’ last they were in the habit of seeing each other every evening ;—happy, the one in her affections, the other in his anticipated triumph. The fastidious reader will here perhaps cry out, “the girl deserved her fate’ —True, in a strict moral sense she did: but can no allowances be made for the unsuspecting: simplicity of a young foreigner—for one whose sole knowledge of English life was drawn from the free vivacity of her ewn Spain? Let others think what they please upon the subject—to her it matters not, for the: poor girl has been long since consigned to her last home, never more to- feel the agony of marked neglect, or that dujl slow withering of the heart, whose hopes die day by day, while its sensibility reniains un-- blunted to the last. May heaven be more merciful to her than man! 134 My Lodgings: a Sketch from Life. [ Aue. On hearing these distressing circumstances, which, under a promise of strictest secrecy, the mother had wrung from her almost senseless child, I instantly recommended an application to Captain H—. It was, how- ever, too late; he had set out a week before for Roscommon, so that all we could now do was to try and heal the stricken heart of his victim. Vain endeavour—she obstinately rejected consolation, and, with a sort of pettish tenacity, persisted in clinging to her grief as to the only friend she had left. Me she refused to see, for the recollection of her ex- posure had struck home to her heart, and she could never divest herself of a certain consciousness of disgrace attached to it. Sometimes I would knock gently at her room door, in the hopes of being perhaps ad- mitted ; but it was invariably opened by the mother, and a low faint voice, so faint that it scarcely even rose to a whisper, would at such times be heard, exclaiming, “ Pray, mother, do not let Mr. D— enter: do not, I intreat, I implore you, mother.” To such an appeal no answer could of course be made ; so the wayward girl was left to her own childish fancies; nor did I see her from that very,day until the me- morable moment of her death. And that moment was fast approaching. For some weeks she had appeared a little to recover, but a cold caught by exposure to the night air brought on all the old symptoms, and in a few days gathered her to the unfortunate of past ages. To this hour I cannot recal her image, as I saw her for the last time seated up- right in an old arm-chair, looking so pale, so melancholy, yet so beautiful and interesting, without a pang of acutest agony. I seem to feel that there is a gulph placed between me and the past, which memory per- petually, but in vain, is endeavouring to overleap. To return. The day before her death, our poor girl sent me down a note, written in pencil with her own hand, in which she thanked me for all past kindness, implored me to forgive her reserve, and entreated that, if I ever thought of her, it would be with tenderness. This note I still retain. It is blotted, particularly towards the end, with tears, as if the writer felt conscious that she was affixing to it a name which in a short time would be forgotten. After death I was permiited once, and but once, to see her. She'lay calm and happy, with her eyes and lips closed ; while a faint smile still lingered like a glow of sunset on her face, and proved that her dying moments had been cheered by some recollections which not even death itself could efface. As her mother was unable to defray even the most ordinary funeral ex- penses, the Lieutenant, the poet, and myself (together with our land- lady, who, to do her justice, behaved throughout with kindness), con- tributed our joint pittance, and bore poor Leonora to her long home, in Newington church-yard, where she now sleeps, about two yards off the main road—happy, if not in hope, at least in the absence of reflection. Thus, gentle reader, have I introduced you to the domestic politics of “ my lodgings.” The word “my,” by the way, is a misnomer—they are “mine” no longer, for I cannot support existence in a place from which, like the Jehabod of the Jews, the glory has for ever departed. Again, therefore, I set out a wanderer—happy, too happy, if I can meet with another Leonora; this, however, I cannot—dare not expect—it is enough to have met her once, and now that the reality is gone, to feed imagination on the remembrance. | 1826. ] [ .135 J THE MAN AND THE TIGER, — A Fable. ; ~~ Exigua res est ipsa justitia. Lat. Prov. Iw eastern climes, with prudent care, The hunter laid his cunning snare; For deep within a neighbouring wood Lurked the fell tigress with her brood. Caught in his toils, a common fate The monster and her young await ; One only whelp, whose brilliant hide With darker bars was richly dyed, ~ From death preserved, was nursed and tamed, And from its native rage reclaimed. Like to his kindred cat he’d pur, And smooth with pliant paw his fur ; Like her he’d stretch before the fire, And pounce on corks, with mimic ire ; And, innocent of blood, would play With child or hound the livelong day. Thus passed his early years, till age Confirmed his strength, matured his rage ; Then murd’rous fury filled his breast, And all the tiger stood confessed. Sudden he seizes on his prize, His master’s son a victim lies. The eager servants trembling fly, With many a blow and many a cry, And drive the felon from his prey, Roaring his discontent away. “ “« Ah, wretch !” the master loud exclaimed, ‘ “ By every kind caress untamed, Cursed be the hour in which I staid The hunter’s fell, uplifted blade. Was it for this I spared thy blood, Supplied thy youth with daily food ? But thou shalt die, though all too late, Ingratitude shall meet its fate. For though revenge should hold the knife, Justice demands thy forfeit life.”” “ Fool !”? quoth the tiger, “ not to know, By nature I was formed thy foe ; These fangs, these claws, by bounteous heay’n For bloody purposes were given : 3 ak though seduced by human art id a tame and gentle part, (Th canst Rs. alter nature’s will) I must remain a tiger still. Nay, look at homblilconsider man His habits and his passions scat Say, can divine or human law ° His fierce and restless bosom awe ? Religion, policy, are vain 136 The Man and the Tiger. ' [ Aue. wi The social compact to maint me For open war, and subtile aN ; Oppression, murder, theft, declare Pi (Howe’er by force or art depressed) * The lurking tiger in his breast. e i , Then hold your hand, and set me free, Respect humanity in me.” “ Yes,” cried the master, “I admit How much ’gainst heaven we commit ; But laws, thoudl broken, are still strong (Say what you will) to punish wrong ; \ And though the crime they can’t prevent, \ - Right is maintained by punishment.” “ Aye, there,” the tiger quick replies, “ Again revealed before my eyes, ie. The savage stands, as fierce and rude, Careless or ignorant of good, As he in far Columbia’s land sl * | With sealp and tomohawk in hand. . Justice and laws are but a name To veil in mystery your shame, | Not fiercer burns the thirst of blood, In my fell brothers of the wood, ; é Than when the frequent senate meet, { Of crimes and punishments to treat. : Pride, avarice, rage, and sordid fear | Upon your judgment seats appear ; ' And justice is compelled to own . What selfishness has done alone. . Pale commerce, trembling o’er its gains, Incessant calls for deadlier pains ;