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by Mr Finden, a young and promising artist; and then, apropos of Mr Finden, an asterisk directs to a note, in which we are informed, that "his engravings of Captain Batty's Welch scenery are beautiful specimens of this branch of the art." How naturally a puff on Welch scenery comes in, in a disquisition on a journey to the Polar Sea! But the whole is explained when we learn that Batty, a very worthy fellow, is the reviewer's sonin-law, and that his book does not sell so well as it ought! There are tricks in a' trades, Mr North. To crown the whole, Murray is about bringing out another edition of Franklin, to be ornamented not by etchings -not by line-engravings-not by Mr Finden-but by those very greasy daubs of lithography" which are scorned by his reviewer, and used as a peg to hang a note-puffatory upon.

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Moore's (not Tom, but Abraham) Moore's Pindar is the subject of the next paper. As I have neither original nor translation by me here in this rustic sojourn, I cannot give an opinion on the merits of the critique. It appears too verbal, too fond of cavilling at words, and carping at trifles; but it is a most readable article. Moore had certainly (I judge by the specimens here given) a fine ear for versification,

and I have no doubt but that the book is an accession to our literature. What could have possessed the reviewer to conclude his review of the work of such a man by such a piece of classical cant as he does. There is no man more truly devoted to classical literature than I am-nobody more willing

to pay knee tribute to the glorious old writers of Greece-nobody more ready to defend against the mean and grovelling shopkeeping spirit of innovation the grand institutions for the education of the flower of England's youth-but as I hate cant in religion -cant in politics-cant in criticismcant in taste-so do I detest cant in these subjects too. Homer and Pindar, great and sublime as they are, do not of themselves "sooth, purify, or exalt" the human heart. The mightiest scholars-alas! for the obliquities

of our nature-have been stained and sullied by crimes the most atrocious, by sensualities the most grovelling. Why did the reviewer choose such a time for such an observation? Moore, whose book he was reviewing, was an accomplished scholar, a man "initiated early, and imbued deeply, in the manliness and taste of Grecian literature." Yet he was a whig, and an outcast; a man obliged to fly for having robbed his patron Earl Grosvenor to an immense amount-a mere model of peculation and ingratitude. No, sir, there is another book, which alone truly sooths, purifies, and exalts-a book that bids us "Fear God, and honour the King," but that, to Mr Moore's party, is a sealed volume. Without a knowledge of its contents, the most intimate acquaintance with the glory and grandeur of the all but divine poets of Greece, will avail nothing to the purification of soul.

The eighth article, on the Navigation Laws-I feel I am not equal to the subject. It will require a separate and well-thought-on paper, not such light sketches as I am here throwing off. I participate in the fears of the reviewer, that we are letting theory go too far. I tremble at meddling with the institutions of our ancestors, even though I have Mr Ricardo's assertion that he is a wiser man than any of them. Above all, I dread tampering with our right arm of strength, the navy. Woe

to us when we lose the watery wall! Under the old Navigation Laws were fostered Russels, and Boscawens, and Rodneys, and St Vincents, and Duncans, and the mighty glories of Nelson-I will not say that it was altogether in consequence of these lawsbut if it were, then those who have altered them have undertaken a fearful responsibility. But I own I am not competent to the consideration. I leave it to abler hands, contenting myself with expressing my humble, but earnest hopes, that the fine-drawn speculations of theorists, will not be allowed to trifle with what Sir Walter Scott emphatically and most truly calls, "the sheet anchor of the empire, the British Navy.”*

Persons who are taken to see the very ingenious lithographic department of the Admiralty, are generally required to write a few words to be thrown off, in order to exhibit the process. When Sir Walter visited it, he wrote the above. The stone is still carefully preserved.

.

The ninth and tenth articles I have already noticed, and, for the present, I pass the eleventh, in order to consider it in connexion with the last. The twelfth is by Southey, an amusing and instructive account of the Theophilanthropists of France-indeed all the Doctor's histories of sects are amusing and instructive-which at last diverges easily enough into an ardent picture of the progress of infidelity among ourselves and concludes with an admirable precis of the proofs of the Christian religion. This is in truth an excellent paper, but I do not participate altogether in the views taken by Southey of the dangers to which religion is exposed. I never fear the contest of the good and the evil principle. Give us a fair stage, and no favour, and we shall still hold the mastery. Southey says, that more than eleven millions of newspapers are annually circulated among us, and at least two-thirds of the number aim at the destruction of sound principles. I doubt that it is fact. But, even admitting it, the glorious army of the gentlemen of the press does not strike me as a vastly formidable body by any means. All the educated classes of society merely despise them they know that with few, very, very few exceptions, they are a mean, illiterate, stupid gang of blockheads, who can just turn off articles, false in fact, lumpish in argument, vulgar in manner, and ungrammatical in style. Take them as a body, I assert that it would be impossible, on any principle of selection, to bring together so utterly contemptible a pack of hounds as the London" gentlemen of the press," from the editors who jabber broken English for their political readers, down to the footman who writes fashionable intelligence for the beau monde. The dissection, the utter dissection of a newspaper, would afford you a capital article, but it should be done by some one residing in London. Believe me, and Dr Southey, too, may believe me, that even the pot-house vulgarian is not much gulled by them. If infidelity prevails, and it does prevail nowhere but in London, we must seek other causes than the agency of the "gentlemen of the press." The hounds may yelp in to join the cry, to be sure, but their melody is of no great avail. WE -I mean the men who wield the pen at the opposite of the question-can put them down. I speak it without

fear of contradiction. Do not we all remember the time when the Whigs had everything their own way; when a man hardly dared avow himself a Tory, for fear of being pronounced an illiberal blockhead; when the Edinburgh Review was the acknowledged lord of literature and politics; when Tom Moore was the wit in verse, and Sydney Smith the wit in prose; when, in a word, all was their own? And how is it now? Why, Whig and jack-ass are convertible terms; it is a byword of reproach; they are our butts, our common-places of fun, our Listons, our Grimaldés. Blue and Yellow is waste paper-Tom Moore is obliged to submit his poetry to the care of a lawyer, before he dares print it—Sydney Smith is compelled to transport himself to Botany Bay, in quest of bad jokes-and, in short, they are laughed at by us, blackguarded by Cobbett and his crew, and pelted by the mob. They are now a nerveless, knotless, pluckless, powerless, as well as a Godless faction. We, North, we of this Magazine, began the good work; we seized their cannon, and turned it on themselves; our example was followed by others, and now they find they can only defend themselves from the whizzing shafts of our ridicule, by skulking under the protection of laws, which they had, during their own triumphant career, denounced as absurd and tyrannical.

So will it be with the anti-religionists. Southey attaches too much importance to their writings, being himself a litterateur. They, too, could be written down; and the heart of England, sound at the core, is against them. I have often been tempted to wish that the system of prosecution was dropped. I am aware that it is a very ticklish question; but, feeling confident as I do, that God will never give us up to be conquered by the devil, if we stand firm to one another, knowing the vast superiority of intellect on our side, remembering the triumphs of Christianity in every age, I should not fear the diffusion of thousands of copies of the works of Tom Paine and villains of his stamp, while we have hearts and heads to oppose them. I expect much from the system of education pursued towards the rising generation. I expect much from the increased energy and zeal of the clergy of the Church of England,

without which all prosecutions are unavailing. In Southey's own words, (I quote from memory ;)

"But if within her walls, indifference dwell, Woe to her then! She needs no outer wound."

If, however, in place of indifference, zeal should abound, I care not a farthing for the efforts of infidelity, and would, willingly vote that libel prosecutions be left to such friends of freedom, as Henry Grey Bennet, Denman, Brougham, the late Queen, Daniel O'Connell of Ireland, Lord Archy Shilling, Peter Finnerty, late of the pillory, and John Leslie. The worthy Laureate, by the way, falls into the old Lake trick twice in the course of this concern. He quotes his own Joan of Arc, (O ye Gods!) and he puffs Elia!-Eheu! Eheu!

I consider the eleventh and thirteenth articles together, as being on something similar subjects, the former on Greece, the latter on Spain; but how dissimilar in style, argument, and common sense! The paper on Spanish affairs is by a sensible, well-informed, clear-headed, statesmanlike writer, who knows the interests of his country, and is not led away by the nonsensical claptraps that amuse fools. The other is a mere piece of schoolboy frothy declamation, such a thing as would be counted very clever in a boy at

Westminster; and had I heard it from such a youth, I should have been tempted to say, "That is really a fine promising lad-has read his authors with some taste-How old may he be? Seventeen ?-Ay, a fine lad indeed, fine honourable boyish notions, and no doubt, when he gets a few years over his head, and can see things, not through mere bookish media, he will be able to produce something worth reading, if he can acquire a less ambitious style, and lose the habit of quoting Greek-and that, of course, he will do." But I have far different feelings for the composition of a fullgrown man, who has felt the razor over his throat. The quarrel between the Turks and the Greeks is a quarrel between two hostile factions of people of the same country.

[We must beg Tickler's pardon for diminishing his excellent article, by omitting his strictures on the Greek affairs-because we have not room. They shall appear in our next. Tim wishes, he may alter, or add, or omit, ad libitum, in the meantime.]

If

The other affair of which you spoke shall be attended to. Mrs T. presents her compliments-the youngster, I am sorry to say, still continues weakly. I am, dear sir, yours ever,

TIMOTHY TICKLER. Southside, Saturday.

P.S.-Southey is still vivid in wrath against his Lordship of Byron, ex. gr. "Contagion was extended beyond the sphere of the court, by a race of poets→

"Whose loose lascivious lays perpetuated

Their own corruption. Soul-polluted slaves,
Who sate them down deliberately lewd
So to awake, and pamper lust in minds
Unborn."

Which sweet strain, we learn by a note, is in "Joan of Arc." As also that "These lines sufficiently shew, that their author held the same moral opinions at the age of nineteen, as when he branded the author of Don Juan"-a most important and highly-interesting fact. But I am no pretender to great powers of divination, when I say, that that note never would have appeared in the Quarterly, had not his Lordship quarrelled with Murray.

Again, "One Liberal, (we are thankful for the word-it is well that we should have one which will at once express whatever is detestable in principle, and flagitious in conduct.)" Prosecute Southey, John Hunt, prosecute him, man, without a moment's delay. Leigh the first, also, had better take advice on the following passage: "Some of the most depraved minds in the present generation, have manifested this tendency, proclaiming, at the same time, their hatred for Christianity, and their predilection for what they are pleased to call the religion of the loves and luxuries-that is, the religion of Jupiter, Mars, Bacchus, Venus, the Garden God," &c. &c. Apollo and Mercurius, and the rest, as Bryan O'Proctor has it. "Some of the most DEPRAVED minds!" Fie! Fie!

"Oh, Bryan William Proctor Cornwall Barry,

Open your sketchico-dramatic mouth,"

and fight in defence of the sky-gods. Again, "others of a higher class mingle, like Voltaire, filth with blasphemy, impiety with lewdness, and pursue their object with such devoted perseverance, as if the devil had chosen them for his apostles." A hit palpable against the Satanic school, a nickname which, however, will hardly last as long as our own Cockney or Leg-of-Mutton Schools of Poetry. T. T.

P.S.-I have a corner still left of this voluminous epistle-and I shall use it to enter an appeal in behalf of Jerry Bentham. Hang it, he is our preserve. He is lugged in in p. 502, text and note-in p. 551-and other places. This is poaching on you. Warn Murray's scribes off, and vindicate your right in cutting up that first-rate piece of game, him whom a friend of ours calls, in that droll song which he sung a fortnight ago for us, (and which you should print,)

"Sage Jeremy the bencher
'Of Lincoln's Inn-of Lincoln's Inn."

Good night-it is almost two o'clock.

[I write to-morrow.

T. T.

I was just going to seal up, when your new packet came to hand.Well, I have read the three new Can

tos.

ALAS! POOR BYRON!

Not ten times a-day, dear Christopher, but ten times a-page, as I wandered over the intense and incredible stupidities of this duodecimo, was the departed spirit of the genius of Childe Harold saluted with this exclamation. Alas! that one so gifted-one whose soul gave such appearance of being deeply imbued with the genuine spirit of poetry-one, to whom we all looked as an ornament of our literature, and who indeed has contributed in no small degree towards spreading a strain of higher mood over our poetry-should descend to the composition of heartless, heavy, dull, anti-British garbage, to be printed by the Cockneys, and puffed in the Examiner.Alas! alas! that he should stoop to the miserable degradation of being extolled by Hunt!-that he, who we hoped would be the Samson of our poetical day, should suffer himself to be so enervated by the unworthy Delilahs which have enslaved his imagination, as to be reduced to the foul office of displaying blind buffooneries before the Philistines of Cockaigne.

But so it is. Here we have three cantos of some hundred verses, from which it would be impossible to, ex

tract twenty, distinguished by any readable quality. Cant I never speak, and, with the blessing of God, never will speak-especially to you; and accordingly, though I was thoroughly disgusted with the scope and tendency of the former cantos of the Donthough there were passages in them which, in common with all other men of upright minds and true feelings, I looked on with indignation-yet Ï, for one, never permitted my moral or political antipathies so to master my critical judgment, as to make me whiningly decry the talent which they often wickedly, sometimes properly, exhibited. But here we are in a lower deep-we are wallowing in a sty of mere filth. Page after page presents us with a monotonous unmusical drawl, decrying chastity, sneering at matrimony, cursing wives, abusing monarchy, deprecating lawful government, lisping dull double-entendres, hymning Jacobinism, in a style and manner so little unrelieved by any indication of poetic power, that I feel a moral conviction that his lordship must have taken the Examiner, the Liberal, the Rimini, the Round Table, as his model, and endeavoured to write himself down to the level of the capacities and the swinish tastes of those with whom he has the misfortune, originally, I believe, from charitable motives, to associate. This is the most charitable hypothesis which I can frame. Indeed

there are some verses which have all the appearance of having been interpolated by the King of the Cockneys. At least I hope so-I hope that there is but one set capable of writing anything so leering and impotent, as the loinless drivelling (if I may venture a

translation of the strong expression of the Stoic satirist) which floats on the slaver of too many of these pages. I allude, for instance, to the attempt at wit, where the poet (the poet!) is facetious at the state of females during the sack of a town;* the greatest part

It is a pity to reprint such things, but a single specimen here may do good, by the disgust for the whole which it must create.

"In one thing ne'ertheless 'tis fit to praise
The Russian army upon this occasion,
A virtue much in fashion now-a-days,

And therefore worthy of commemoration:
The topic's tender, so shall be my phrase-
Perhaps the season's chill, and their lone station
In winter's depth, or want of rest and victual,
Had made them chaste ;-they ravish'd very little.

"Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less
Might here and there occur some violation
In the other line ;-but not to such excess

As when the French, that dissipated nation,
Take towns by storm; no causes can I guess,
Except cold weather and commiseration;
But all the ladies, save some twenty score,
Were almost as much virgins as before.

"Some odd mistakes, too, happen'd in the dark,
Which showed a want of lanterns, or of taste--
Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark
Their friends from foes,-besides such things from haste
Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark

Of light to save the venerably chaste;-
But six old damsels, each of seventy years,
Were all deflower'd by different grenadiers.

"But on the whole their continence was great;
So that some disappointment there ensued
To those who had felt the inconvenient state

Of single blessedness,' and thought it good
(Since it was not their fault, but only fate,

To bear these crosses) for each waning prude
To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding,
Without the expense and the suspense of bedding.

"Some voices of the buxom middle-aged

Were also heard to wonder in the din
(Widows of forty were these birds long caged)
'Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!'
But, while the thirst for gore and plunder raged,
There was small leisure for superfluous sin;
But whether they escaped or no, lies hid
In darkness-I can only hope they did.

"Suwarrow now was conqueror a match
For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.

While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch
Blazed, and the cannon's roar was scarce allay'd,
With bloody hands he wrote his first dispatch;
And here exactly follows what he said—
Glory to God and to the Empress !" (Powers
Eternal!! such names mingled!) Ismail's ours.'

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