who, even in the least hyena-like of their moods, can touch nothing that mankind would wish to respect without polluting it.

We are of opinion that we shall present our readers with the best possible review of Mr. Leigh Hunt's Reminiscences of Lord Byron, by transcribing a few stanzas which appeared in the Times newspaper immediately on the publication of this quarto, and which have been universally attributed to one of the very few persons introduced in Mr. Hunt's book, whom it is possible to hear mentioned among Lord Byron's contemporaries' without laughing :Next week will be published (as " Lives" are the rage) The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange, Of a small puppy-dog, that lived once in the cage Of the late noble lion at Exeter 'Change.

6

66

'Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call " sad,"
'Tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends ;
And few dogs have such opportunities had

Of knowing how lions behave-among friends.
'How that animal eats, how he moves, how he drinks,
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small;

And 'tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks
That the lion was no such great things after all.
Though he roared pretty well-this the puppy allows-
It was all, he says, borrowed-all second-hand roar;
And he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows

To the loftiest war-note the lion could pour.
"Tis, indeed, as good fun as a Cynic could ask,
To see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits
Takes gravely the lord of the forest to task,

And judges of lions by puppy-dog habits.
'Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case)
With sops every day from the lion's own pan,
He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass,
And-does all a dog, so diminutive, can.

'However, the book's a good book, being rich in
Examples and warnings to lions high-bred,

How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen, Who'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead. "Exeter 'Change. T. PIDCOCK.' So much for Mr. Leigh Hunt versus Lord Byron: the other contemporaries that figure in this volume are, with two or three exceptions, persons whose insignificance equals that of the author himself; and as they have had no hand, that we know of, in this absurd exposure of themselves, we should be sorry either to waste our time or to wound their feelings by any remarks on Mr. Hunt's delineations of them. Mr. Shelley's portrait appears to be the

most

most elaborate of these minor efforts of Mr. Hunt's pencil. Why does Mr. Hunt conceal (if he be aware of the fact) that this unfortunate man of genius was bitterly sensible ere he died of the madness and profligacy of the early career which drew upon his head so much indignation, reproach, and contumely-that he confessed with tears that he well knew he had been all in the wrong'? And, by the way, why did Mr. Hunt inflict on Mr. Horatio Smith so great an injury as to say, after describing his acts of generous friendship to the unfortunate Mr. Shelley, that he (Mr. Smith) differed with Mr. Shelley on some points,' without stating distinctly what those points were-namely, every point, whether of religious belief or of moral opinion, on which Mr. Shelley differed, at the time of his acquaintance with Mr. Smith, from all the respectable part of the English community? We are happy to have this opportunity of doing justice, on competent authority, to a person whom, judging merely from the gentlemanlike and moral tone of all his writings, we certainly should never have expected to meet with in the sort of company with which this, no doubt, unwelcome eulogist has thought fit to associate his name.

Mr. Hunt received from the hand of nature talents which, if properly cultivated and employed, might have raised him to distinction; and, we really believe, feelings calculated to procure him a kind reception from the world. His vanity, a vanity to which it is needless to look for any parallel even among the vain race of rhymers, has destroyed all. Under the influence of that diseasefor it deserves no other name-he has set himself up as the standard in every thing. While yet a stripling, most imperfectly educated, and lamentably ignorant of men as they are, and have been, he dared to set his own crude fancies in direct opposition to all that is received among sane men, either as to the moral government of the world, or the political government of this nation, or the purposes and conduct of literary enterprise. This was 'the Moloch of absurdity' of which Lord Byron has spoken so justly. The consequences-we believe we may safely say the last consequences of all this rash and wicked nonsense are now before The last wriggle of expiring imbecility appears in these days to be a volume of personal Reminiscences; and we have now heard the feeble death-rattle of the once loud-tongued as well as brazen-faced Examiner.

us.

We hope and trust the public reception of this filthy gossip will be such as to discourage any more of these base assaults upon Lord Byron's memory. Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara-(said he, in one of those many letters which breathed an ominous presentiment of early death)-some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased

me

426

Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries.

me more than the splendid monuments of Bologna; for instance, Martini Lerigi implora pace; Lucrezia Picini implora eterna quiete. Can any thing be more full of pathos? These few words say all that can be said or sought. The dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore. Here is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and death-like prayer that can arise from the grave. IMPLORA PACE! I hope whoever may survive me will see these two words, and no more, put over me.'-It is possible that Mr. Leigh Hunt will read these words without a blush; but to what other ear will the IMPLORA PACE of Lord Byron be addressed in vain ?

ART. V.-1. Corn Trade, Wages, and Rent. By Edward Cayley, Esq. London. 1826.

2. Observations on the Corn Laws. Addressed to W. W. Whitmore, Esq., M.P. London. 1827.

WE beg our readers will not take alarm and imagine that we

are about to argue this eternal question as a mere dispute about profit, carried on between the agricultural and manufacturing classes. Admitting, for the sake of discussion, that certain classes in this country would derive profit from a free trade in corn; that a greater number of manufacturers would be employed, clothed, and fed, if the ports were open to the free admission of foreign grain, still we conceive that this advantage, whatever might be its amount, would be infinitely counterbalanced by the impolicy and danger of making this island the seat of numberless establishments, where foreigners may bring their surplus corn to be consumed in fabricating the manufactured articles which they require. Let us imagine that the opening of our ports to the foreign grower might end in bringing into this country a permanent annual supply of 10,000,000 of quarters of corn; this would ultimately bring about an increase of our manufacturing population to the amount, we will say, of 3,000,000 workmen, employed in fabricating commodities to be exported in exchange for this We should thus have, within the limits of this country, 3,000,000 manufacturers entirely dependent upon foreign countries for employment and subsistence. This necessary supply of foreign corn might be partially, or even totally, cut off by natural causes-by deficient crops or bad harvests-or by political estrangement and foreign caprice. That such interruption of the usual supply of corn would excite serious disturbances among the manufacturers thrown out of work, no one, who has attended to the domestic history of these realms for the last thirty years, can

corn.

doubt.

doubt, Such an event would inevitably compromise the tran¬ quillity of the country; nor do we conceive that any amount of profit would constitute an adequate compensation for the risk, to which such a state of things would expose the community.

But we must go deeper still, The increase of our manufacturing system has, unquestionably, effected already a considerable revolution in the morals and habits which had previously characterised the bulk of the inhabitants of this country; the confined and crowded state of manufactories has a decided tendency to shorten the average duration of human life, and to corrupt the feelings of the workmen employed in them. We, therefore, doubt whether any augmentation of profit to be expected from a great additional extension of our manufacturing system would, in the eye of an intelligent and humane legislator, compensate for the moral and social evils unavoidably connected with it.

Those who maintain the expediency of encouraging the importation of foreign corn on a great scale, would have us believe, that this supply could never be cut off, as it must always be the interest of other nations to furnish it. But without adverting to those directly hostile movements which interrupt the commercial relations subsisting between two nations, other circumstances, of a less violent character, may deprive us of this supply. A deficient crop, or a bad harvest, is a calamity against which no foresight can guard: this would cause prices to rise very rapidly on the continent, and the clamours of the common people would speedily compel the continental governments to prohibit the exportation of corn. France has already organized a system of laws prohibiting the exportation of corn, when the market price of wheat amounts to about 49s. per quarter. It is not to be expected that any government will permit corn to be exported, when the market price indicates that the produce of the year is barely sufficient to supply the wants of the native population.

Another cause of more extensive operation would gradually diminish, and in the end cut off entirely the supplies which, under a free trade in corn, would be sent to the English market. We will suppose that Prussia should send into this country corn sufficient to maintain 20,000 workmen employed in manufactures; and that the Prussian government should eventually succeed in establishing manufactories at home, wherein this corn would be consumed in fabricating the wrought commodities which the Prussian people now obtain from abroad. The 20,000 workmen employed here to supply the manufactured goods required by Prussia, would then be thrown out of work, and cast upon the community in a state of destitution. This is an interruption of the foreign supply of corn, which does not in the least depend

upon

upon contingencies arising from the caprice or ill-will of foreign governments: it is one which must inevitably spring from the gradual progress of society, and cannot be prevented by any foresight on our part: sooner or later, it must come. England cannot expect to continue, what for nearly a century she has been, a workshop, in which a great proportion of the surplus produce of the whole world has been converted into a manufactured state. As other nations which we have been hitherto accustomed to supply with manufactures advance in wealth and industry, they will unquestionably endeavour (as they ought to do) to fabricate at home the wrought commodities which they have been in the habit of exporting hence in exchange for the raw produce transmitted hither.

We may, in imagination, conceive this country to have become, under a system of free trade in corn, the general workshop of Europe-we may conceive our fields to be turned into manufactories and cabbage-gardens; growing no corn, but applied, from John o'Groat's to the Land's-end, to the production of beef, milk, and vegetables; the whole of our bread corn imported from foreign countries; and our population more than doubled; and while foreign nations should continue to take our manufactures in exchange for the corn sent hither, we may further conceive this country as enjoying a high state of prosperity. But this state of things could not endure-other nations would, sooner or later, turn manufacturers, and consume their corn at home; and the people in this country who depended upon this foreign trade, would, sooner or later, be thrown out of work, and reduced to a state of starvation. This is the species of retrogradation which proves most fatal to the happiness of communities. The distress thus occasioned is not confined to the particular class deprived primarily of employment; an excess of labour above the demand for it is thrown into the market at large, and the condition of the whole of the labouring classes is, in the issue, deteriorated.

This is the true reason of the declension of Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the Hanseatic Towns, in wealth and population. These were the workshops into which the surplus corn of Europe was poured to be consumed in manufactories. By degrees, the nations which sent their raw produce to these places, in exchange for wrought goods, began to manufacture for themselves; in other words, to consume at home the surplus produce which they had been accustomed to export. The wealth of these commercial communities not resting, to any large extent, upon independent resources found within their own territories, when their foreign supplies were cut off, their prosperity began to decay, and in the end entirely vanished. The history of

the