that he finds in the Popedom; or, as the Mohammedan erects for himself, in his idea of the Prophet's mission. They would prevent us from struggling on to further improvement; and because we have set out upon the journey, would keep us tied to the first mile-stone. The world needs much more of reformation than it has as yet received, and will ever stand in want of reformers, while it contains a vestige of ignorance and sin. But the writer who denies the value of that great impulse; who says that we ought not to keep up the progress which it aided, but to go back to the point at which it found us; who maintains that mankind are in a less hopeful condition now, when thousands of eager and searching minds are feeling round them on every side, to seize the hem of the garment of Truth, than when no man was permitted to do any thing but kiss the robes of the priesthood; when the world is evidently wrestling with the throes of a mighty pregnancy ;-than when, in tumult and passion, it conceived, three centuries ago, the long-borne burthen of promise;-the man who, without being misled by sectarian prepossession and with an obvious party-purpose, can, at this day, profess this doctrine, is to be classed, not with the lovers of wisdom or with the reformers of their kind, but with the noisy hounds of faction. It is not in this way that the cause of Roman Catholic equalization ought to be conducted. It is not by turning back our eyes to the bigotries of the past that we are to learn charity for the future; it is not by imitating the barbarian tribes, which deified their ancestors, that we are to nourish into the image of God the generations of our descendants; it is not, in short, by vindicating the sectarianism of a sect, be it Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Hindoo, that we must teach ourselves universal toleration; but, by looking at all men, not as members of sects, but as partakers of a common humanity, whom it will be better for us, than even for them, to

bind to ourselves by the cords of love.

We have dwelt upon this matter the more especially, because it stands out from the other subjects of Mr. Cobbett's speculations, the occasion of a whole work-a separate and marvellous instance of the narrowness of his intellect, or of that from which almost all narrowness of intel lect proceeds, the viciousness of his feelings. On many other points he is equally wrong-headed. He laughs at the political economists, while it is obvious that when writers give you the whole process of their thoughts, you ought only either to show errors in the reasoning, or object to the premises. We should be inclined perhaps to quarrel with some of the primary assumptions of the economists; but these are allowed by Mr. Cobbett, and built upon by himself in many of his arguments; and he scarcely ever attempts to expose any sophism or mistake in the course of their deductions. We might mention, if we had space, a variety of other matters whereupon this author is no less in error. But, in fact, Mr. Cobbett has, at different times, bestowed such exceeding pains in the attempt to refute or contradict every thing he has ever maintained, that to bring his opinions into discussion here, would be merely to inspire the slaughtered monsters with a galvanic life, for the purpose of again meeting them in combat. Since the time when it was said by the patriarch of critics, "Oh! that mine enemy would write a book," we do not believe that any one ever has written a book containing so grotesque an array of inconsistencies as "The Political Register." To compare one of its earlier, with one of its later volumes, remembering that both are written by the same hand, reminds us of those fantastic dreams wherein we fight and conquer some vague shape, which anon starts up again and engages with a shadow that wears its own former likeness.

There is one great merit in M. Cobbett-and one only-which is

perhaps peculiar to him among the party-writers of the day. There is not a page of his that ever has come E. under our notice, wherein there does not breathe throughout, amid all his absurdities of violence and inconsistency, the strongest feeling for the welfare of the people. The feeling tis in nine cases in ten totally misdirected; but there it is, a living and vigorous sympathy with the interests and hopes of the mass of mankind. Many persons will be ready to maintain, because he has shown himself at various times as not very scrupulous for truth, that he has no real and sincere good quality whatsoever, and that he merely writes what is calculated to be popular. But we confess we are inclined to think, from the tone and spirit of his works, that he commonly persuades himself he believes what ho is saying, and feels deeply at the moment what he expresses strongly. It is obvious to us, that while he puts forth against his opponents the most unmeasured malignity, there is a true and hearty kindliness in all that he writes about, or to, the people. He seems to us to speak of the poorer classes, as if he still felt about him the atmosphere of the cottage,-not as if he were robed in ermine or lawn, or in the sable gown of a professor,-but in the smock-frock of the peasant. And it would be useful, therefore, to peers and bishops, parliamentary orators and university dogmatists, if they would now and then read the books they always rail at. They would find in them a portrait, thrilling with all the pulses of animation, of the thoughts and desires of a class, the largest and therefore the most important in society, among whom that which is universal and eternal in our nature displays itself under a totally different aspect from that which it wears among us. Mr. Cobbett's personal consciousness of all which is concealed from our eyes by grey jackets and clouted shoes, has kept alive his sympathy with the majority of mankind; and this is indeed

a merit, which can be attributed to but few political writers. And far more than this, it is a merit which belongs to but few, among all the persons that have raised themselves from the lowest condition of life into eminence. Take, for an instance, the late Mr. Gifford, and see with what persevering dislike he opposed the interests and hopes of the portion of society to which he himself origi nally belonged. He seems to have felt the necessity of vindicating his new position, by contempt for his former associates; to have proved the sincerity of his apostacy from plebeianism by tenfold hostility to all but the aristocracy; and to have made use of his elevation only to trample upon those with whom he was formerly on a level. Now we do not think that Mr. Cobbett has taken the right way to advance the well-being of the people; but we certainly do believe, and we think that but for prepossession every body would incline to think, from the character of his writings, that he does really and earnestly desire to promote the happiness of the labouring classes.

This is the bright side of his moral disposition. The one saving elegance of his tastes is a hearty relish and admiration of outward natural beauty. There are many portions of his voluminous works, in which we seem to see the tufted greenness and fresh sparkle of the country through a more lucid medium, than in any of the writings of our best novelists or travellers. This arises from the happy fact, that his way of looking at things external has never been systematized. He retains all the old glad vividness of his apprehensions, wherewith he used to look upon the fields and hedge-rows when he was a whistling plough-boy; and he puts the clouds, cows, and meadows into his pages, with the simple clearness of description that naturally results from this feeling. Men, who were more early instructed, see every thing in connection with wide

"The cowslip on the river's brim
A yellow cowslip is to him,
And it is nothing more.'

It is nothing more to him in the way that it is any thing more to us. It is to him a little flower, which recals no poetical descriptions, and does not suggest the images of the nymphs, or Pan, or even of elfin dancers. But it appears to him with all the firmness and liveliness of impression which it gave to his boyish senses, and so he offers it to us; and, in truth, he does his spiriting gently, But we are far off from the turbulent politician. We had wandered with him into the rich cornfield, surging and gleaming to the wind, and dappled with the shadows of the clouds, we were resting from the din of factions among the happy plenteous ness and varied forms of animal enjoyment which crowd the farm-yard, but the cork crows, and, like uneasy ghosts, we must away.

We believe we have treated Mr. Cobbett more lightly than he would have been handled by most men. But we do not think that his gross and manifold sins are such as seem likely to be particularly mischievous at present. When the people are better educated, they will be little at the mercy of the abusive violence and ludicrous inconsistencies of such writers; or rather if, as a nation, we had been better brought up,-if the Legislature and the Church Estab lishment had done their duty,-a person with Mr. Cobbett's abilities, and in his original position, would not have grown up what he is. Had he been taught the easy wisdom of love, instead of the bitter lessons of hatred and ambition, he might, he must, have been an instrument of the most extensive and permanent good. He would have brought us nearer to the poor and lowly; he would have domesticated truth and religion at the fire-side of the cottager; he would have bound us all more closely, in the embrace of com

ment.

As it is, he is merely a writer of extraordinary powers; a politician of vulgar and petty objects. There is a downright and direct simplicity in his sentences, and a copiousness of unelaborate illustration, which would render him the most perfect of writers for the people at large, if there were not in his opinions a confounding together of all systems which are not philosophical, and at the bottom of his mind an indiffer ence to truth, which have prevented him from ever doing a tithe of the good he might otherwise have ac complished. For what are his im provements in the the manufacture of bonnets, his delightful "Cottage Economy," and his singular and powerful volume of sermons, when weighed against all the misapplied influence and wasted talents, which he has been burying through life under heaps of scurrility and incon sistency? It is painful to think of all that such a man would have been induced to do under a better social system, and to compare it with the little he has effected towards regene rating a bad one. He will doubtless say of us, if he mentions our observations at all, that "another of the brethren of the broad-sheet, I suppose, some starving Scotch feelosofer, who has come to London to pick our pockets, and help to support the THING, has been writing a parcel of trash about me. A pitiful rascal, who probably never saw me in his life, unless I may have given him a penny for sweeping a crossing, and pushing his greasy hat under my nose, has pretended to give the world an account of my character. He ought to be much obliged to me for mentioning his beastly slanders, as the world would otherwise never have heard of them. As it is, be need not imagine that I shall attempt to answer him. Though, I suppose, indeed, the poor devil's only hope lay in his expectation that I never should hear of his dirty work. But my readers need not suspect that I

As here I stand and look on thee,

Before mine eyes doth pass-
(Clearing and quick'ning as I gaze)
An evening scene of other days,
As in a magic glass.

I see a small old-fashion'd room,
With pannell'd wainscot high-
Old portraits round in order set,
Carved heavy tables, chairs, buffet
Of dark mahogany.

Four china jars, on brackets high,

With grinning Monsters crown'd; And one, that like a Phonix' nest, Exhales all Araby the Blest, From yon old bookcase round.

And there a high-back'd, hard settee,
On six brown legs and paws.
Flow'r'd o'er with silk embroidery,
And there, all rich with filigree,-
Tall screens on gilded claws.

Down drops the damask curtain here
In many a lustrous fold;
The fire light flashing broad and high,
Floods its pale amber gorgeously
With waves of redder gold.

And lo! the flamy brightness wakes Those pictured shapes to life— My Lady's lip grows moist and warm, And dark Sir Edward's mailed form, Starts out for mortal strife

And living, breathing forms are round— Some, gently touch'd by Time, Staid Elders, clust'ring by the hearth, And one, the soul of youthful mirth Outlasting youthful prime

And there where she presides so well,
With fair dispensing hands-
Where tapers shine, and porcelain gleams,
And muffins smoke, and tea-urn steams,

The Pembroke Table stands

That heir-loom Tea-pot !-Graphic Muse!
Describe it if thou'rt able-
Methinks were such advances meet-
On those three, tiny, tortoise feet,
"T would toddle round the table,

And curtsey to the Coffee-pot, (Coquettishly demure,)

Tall, quaint compeer!-fit partner he To lead her out, so gracefully,

Le menuet de la cour!

Ah, precious Monsters! dear Antiques! More beautiful to me,

Than modern, fine, affected things,
With classic claws, and beaks, and wings,
("God save the mark !") can be—

How grateful tastes th' infused herb!
How pleasant its perfume!
Some sit and sip, with cup in hand---
One saunters round, when others stand
In knots about the room-

In cozy knots-there three and four-
And here, one, two, and three-
Here by my little dainty flower-
Oh fragrant thing! Oh pleasant hour!
Oh gentle company!