University of Virginia Library

—‘The conquest of France!’ exclaimed Fox, in his address, ‘The conquest of France! O calumniated crusaders, how rational and moderate were your objects! O much-injured Louis XIV. upon what slight grounds have you been accused of restless and immoderate ambition! O tame and feeble Cervantes, with what a timid pencil and faint colours have you painted the portrait of a disordered imagination!’

The prophecy of Fox! O calumniated Joanna Southcote, how rational and moderate were your predictions! O much injured Napoleon Buonaparte, upon what slight grounds have you been accused of false and daring prognostication! O tame and feeble Machiavel, with what a timid pencil and faint colours have you painted the portrait of a perverted politician!

—His Lordship, it seems, is resolved on bringing forward his case every year. Does he then hope to convince the world of his innocence by adding to his notoriety? Weak men sometimes (Sir Fr*nc*s always) will believe even the most detected culprit innocent; but the fact is, my Lord, not one in ten thousand doubts the justice of your sentence. Pray, then, do not tease us about it. You have no chance, I tell you, till the old major gets us a reform; and he has found that a thirty years' business already.

—I suppose my friend alludes to that detestable conspiracy, which was organized, some time since, against the personal character of the Regent. It is now completely detected, and so are all those villains, who, under the specious name of advisers, were the prime movers of it. They know this well; they know too, that they must henceforth expect no favor; and hence their diatribes against royalty, hence their disgusting struggles between treason and cowardice, hence that melancholy spectacle, which, night, after night they still exhibit, of defiance in fetters and emaciated desperation.

—An elderly young gentleman of twenty years' practice in the ton. Since he will not reform our dress, I wish our patriots would do something for it. Considering we live at such epic times, our costume is sadly deficient in the picturesque. Future ages will read with astonishment, that the wisest schemes were planned, and the most gigantic feats executed, by people in smart coats with a dangling shred of skirt, bandages round their necks, and—I tremble to write the word—breeches! For goodness' sake, how is a poet, five centuries hence, to manage about the battle of Waterloo? Instead of hacked hauberks and habergeons, perforated mail, and arrows stuck in shields, he must sing of holes made in pantaloons, jackets shot away, and little buttons that stop a bullet. Or will antiquity itself, by association of ideas, give a venerable effect to the word knapsack, or add sublimity to the word canteen? In my opinion, epic poets are undone. It will be still worse with painters. Flaps and tags, buckles and pumps, may, hereafter, as obsolete terms, acquire some degree of dignity; but I fear, no sleight of pencil can ever make a cocked hat harmonize with horror. In poetry, we conceive a grand idea of Satan, when we read,

But reduce the image to canvas—paint horror fairly perched upon his crest, and the fact is, you must either make her so small as to look like any thing but horror, or so large as to dwindle the devil into a mere dwarf. In short, our present costume is a disgrace to heroism, and I am astonished the opposition do not take the matter up. They who made so grand a stand on military mustachios, tassels, and heavy helmets, might surely go one step farther, and rectify the errors of the civil wardrobe. In truth, it would set ministers at their wits' ends, were a motion made, some night or other, for leave to bring in a bill for the regulation of the dress of his Majesty's liege subjects, in a manner suitable to the dignity of the country, and to the high station which it holds amongst the other powers of Europe.

—I had intended a long note upon the female costume of the present day; but unfortunately, the little milliner who promised me her assistance has just eloped with a sentimental pugilist. I can, therefore, only venture to regret, that the face, which formerly used to crown the whole edifice, is now (between short petticoats and tall bonnets) stuck just in the centre of the dress, like a clock on a steeple; and that the waist is so plaited and puckered (I trust I speak technically,) that we can only point it out, as we might other culprits—to the best of our belief.

N.B. The pretty little Grecian bend forward of the spine (adopted, I presume, from the Venus) is quite classical and broken-backed.

— His Lordship, it is well known, was lately convicted of selling birch-brooms. It is not quite so well known, that the culprit walked three miles to make a pun (which indeed deserved the birch) upon his own conviction. His guilt being decided by a clause, he called it a sweeping clause! As I have inserted this Jeu d'esprit, I know his Lordship will forgive me all I may say of him afterwards.

—Hellfire Dick, a noted coachman of Oxford, and the most agreeable whip (as he himself undertakes to inform us), `that ever drove under the trees, or over the houses.”

—I wish these worthy fellows, who live upon their dickies, to know (what I dare say will astonish them), that there is much patriotism, as well as virtue, in their occupation. I verily believe we owed our quadrupedal superiority in Spain and France to that useful class of gentlemen, who cultivate a friendship with their horses; and no doubt, Christian humility could not be more pleasingly displayed than in their condescending to the connection. Indeed, horses, at all periods, have formed no inconsiderable link in the social chain. A whole property sometimes depends upon a single horse. A horse has his doctor—a far more scientific personage than the mere physician, because, as the patient in hoofs cannot conveniently turn pale or sport a pulse, the symptoms are more difficult of discovery. Caligula, we know, gave his horse an ivory manger. Heroes have their statues stuck upon horses. Achilles (like our own gentlemen) talked greatly to his horse; and it is an ascertained fact, that a lady often decides which man she will marry, merely by the number of his horses.

—‘Good old times,’ is an expression, I presume, as old as a century after the deluge. Men look back upon the past as upon a mountain, which appears the more blue and smooth, the more distant it becomes. But I have no hesitation to say, that this country now stands higher in point of morals and true piety than it ever stood before. This improvement arises, as I conceive, from our gradual progress in knowledge, from the corrective influence of a pure religion and a free constitution, from our political seclusion during a whole age, and from the tremendous spectacle of other nations; by whose crimes, as we did not participate in them, we must naturally have benefitted. A signal example of depravity makes a certain impression upon every spectator; and if it does not act as an encouragement, it must operate as a warning.

—The rebuilding of an arch (indeed, I believe, two arches) of London Bridge cost but twenty-nine pounds at a time when a M. S. Bible (for printing had not then been invented) amounted to much the same sum.

—If, as the cabal assert, the prince sacrifices public good to personal prodigality, it is astonishing that he should never have chosen for his ministers those men who formerly worked heaven and earth to procure him liberal supplies from parliament. What ingratitude!—As for royal expence, the Duke de Berri alone has a larger income than any four of our own princes; and the British throne and court cost less than those of the first-rate powers in Europe, and not more than several of the second-rate. Still, talk of expenditure to the cabal, and 'tis nothing but, the Prince, the Prince, the Prince. The Prince has misapplied the public money. What money? The Droits of Admiralty? No, but the salaries of ministers. He has given them to mere loyal men, instead of Jacobins. This is the true secret, why he who was once the darling of opposition, has now become its utter aversion. I remember reading of a Russian Princess who had a crucifix which she used to worship with kisses, genuflections, and lighted tapers, ‘provided always’ she was in a good humour. But if any thing cross occurred; if a rival eclipsed her, or an admirer grew cool, no lip-service or prostration then; out went the tapers in a pet, and the crucifix got well scolded.

—An ironical gentleman of the house, with, however, considerable dullness in the didactic. When he speaks, if our mouths are not distended horizontally in laughter, they are sure to assume the perpendicularity of a yawn. He was convicted of a libel.

—What quixotism possessed his Lordship, who, it seems, is a mighty good sort of young man, to go careering against a guardsman? I am told he copies Mr. Pitt's language. I wish he would imitate Mr. Pitt's dignity. That great statesman would not, I rather suspect, have gone careering.

—Master Peter. He talks now and then. They say too he reads a great deal. If so, nobody is the wiser.

—At least, some of our young ladies do not scruple to shew knees in French drawing-rooms. No doubt they will shortly let their own countrymen have a peep. It would be but friendly. In fact, we must bear patiently with such follies, till the travelling fit is over. Every one now returns from abroad, either Beparised or Bewaterlooed. I have seen a hulking fellow, hot from a fortnight's trip, sacre Dieu it, and grin it, and shrug it, with the most serious intentions of elegance. Others, again, stun you with no account whatever of La Belle Alliance; and I know one honest gentleman, who has brought home a real Waterloo thumb, nail and all, which he preserves in a bottle of gin, for the purpose of transmitting, to the most remote posterity, a relic of Sawney Mac Gregor from Inverness, or of Darby O'Rourke from Tipperary.

—It is well known, that divers gentlemen, stricken in years, paid the most delicate attentions to the Hottentot Venus. As for that idle story of the good Mr. B---, no one now believes a syllable of it. The facts of the interview were these. Mr. B--- having called on Venus, naturally began the conversation by remarking that it was a fine day. Venus agreed with him; and no sooner did she observe that the day before had also been fine, than he agreed with her. He then took the opportunity of hoping that the next day might be as fine; and she did not omit so favorable an occasion of likewise hoping that it might. In short, there was not a drop of rain difference in their opinions; and Mr. B--- concluded a conversation, replete with weather, by converting Venus to Christianity.

— Namely—Louis, Gustavus, and Napoleon.

—A Welsh sect, who piously leap about till they drop. He who can leap the longest is considered the best jumper; and therefore the most muscular men have the greatest chance of eternal beatitude. Their arguments in favour of jumping are, that David danced before the Ark, that the babe leaped in the womb of Elizabeth, and that the lame man leaped in praise of God.

—One of poor Joanna's followers was caught in the fact of bargaining for a Young Shiloh with a Wiltshire woman who had twins. Joanna's only real miracle was the conversion of certain illuminati to a belief in her mumming mystics. I wonder what those divine mantua-makers have done with the baby linen?

—The supras assert that God merely permitted Adam to transgress. The subs hold, that his fall was foredoomed from all eternity.

—A sect who take sly advantage of some scriptural phrase, to kiss when they meet. It naturally enough consists of old maids and young widows. The seceding antikissers were established by certain morose husbands and fathers.

—An American sect who sleep upon trunks of trees, and starve themselves to the bone. Our Lord Mayor is no Dunker. Th**rpe, who would be an Alder. man, is no Dunker. Alderman G---db---re is no Dunker.

—Another sect remarkable for agility. They pique themselves particularly upon spinning round for an hour or two; which, they say, shews the great power of God.

—There is a publication called the Methodists' Magazine, which, on the whole, is neither injurious nor uninstructive; but for a thing of its pretensions, singularly tinctured with the vanitas vanitatis. There, evangelical tradesmen insert their own memoirs, as avowed patterns of piety; and indeed, better creatures, they tell you, never breathed. Others again get their faces affixed to the work, though, I trust, not from vanity; for a set of uglier christians were never beheld. Besides, the language is often carnal and prophane to a degree. Why talk of wrestling with Our Saviour? Why call spiritual meetings, love feasts? The poor creatures mean well, but they disgust persons of plain piety. And yet this work is patronized, nay superintended, by men of education and talents.

—Gogoniant, in the Welsh, signifies glory. The Welsh preachers instruct their flocks to keep bellowing it till their lungs fail them.

—In the Methodists' Magazine, a self-biographer assures us that he prayed one night till his chamber became illuminated! There was one Quirinus Kuhlman, who used to imagine that a globe of divine light always surrounded his head. Accordingly, he wrote books upon eternal keys and padlocks, and was fried to death for his pains.

—I certainly respect that class of men who, without forsaking the regular church, exert themselves as individuals, to promote christian knowledge. So far from injuring the religion of the state, they serve it essentially, by animating the ardour of our divines. They rouse zeal without exciting rancour, and cause discussion without propagating fanaticism. I am, however, far from intending to cast any slur upon the clergy. They are the most respectable and learned body of men in the kingdom; and their writings have latterly thrown so important a light upon passing events, that even legislators might study them with advantage.

Indeed, I must say of the saints, (as they are called,) that they sometimes carry their enthusiasm and their strictness to excess. Thus, I cannot, for my life, see the mischief arising from theatres. If we are not to frequent places of instruction, because we may also encounter scenes of depravity, we cannot stir outside our doors. Vice may assail us even on our way to church. Thus too, in Cœlebs, young ladies (on the principle, I think, of preventing vain thoughts) are advised not to work dresses for themselves, but only for their friends. I would improve upon the hint. Instead of spots and festoons, they should work nothing except scriptural patterns. A border of deluge would run prettily enough round a miss's frock; and a set of scornful Josephs, embroidered on a lady's tucker, might often preserve it from molestation.

—Opposition have often told us that we live in a new æra. There is no doubt of the fact; for never was a country, till now, ruined by peace and plenty! After all, England must be a most extraordinary creature. War is to undo her, Peace is to undo her, Plenty is to undo her. Is to undo her? She is undone. Is undone? She has actually been undone then twenty years. These twenty years has she been as poor as a rat. And yet, under all this poverty, she has fought the whole world, beaten the whole world, and saved the whole world; and now here she stands, alive and well! Oh, but then, her national debt—think of that, Master Brook! 'Tis monstrous, I grant you; but if she had never incurred it, she had now been in her grave. Indeed, certain people are rather angry that she did not save both herself and the whole human race for nothing. ‘There goes the rascal who cut off my arm!’ said a fellow. ‘Your arm? how shocking! What on earth possessed him?’ ‘Why, to save my life.’ ‘Well then, he has saved it.’ ‘But dont you see he has cut off my arm?’ ‘Nay but—’ ‘What signify buts? He has cut off my arm—that is enough —he has cut off my arm!’

— In the reign of Charles the Second, a pamphlet, called ‘Britannia Languens,’ was written, which proved, to a factious demonstration, that England could not possibly hold out ten years longer!

—After the peace of Amiens, his Lordship innocently sold off the contents of our naval arsenals; and to whom, think you? Why, to France! The consequence was, that when war broke out again, we found ourselves destitute of every material necessary for our navy.

—No man can pretend to foretell how long peace may continue; but this every man must know, that all those feelings and principles and objects which have agitated mankind during the last fifty years, still remain unsubdued. ‘Men gnaw their tongues for pain, and repent not of their deeds.’ There is but a murmuring calmness. A spark may yet light a flame which an ocean cannot extinguish, Meantime, our wisest method of averting the evil day, is by shewing ourselves prepared to receive it. The hand is upon the hilt throughout Europe. Those who hold only the shield, must fall by the sword.

—The great orator of the Irish bar. I have heard both him and Lord Er---ne often, and can affirm, that in sublime, pathetic, and effective eloquence, Curran is superior beyond all comparison.

—My friend places Moore before Scott and Lord Byron, just as one would prefer Anacreon to Statius or Apollonius Rhodius. Because, though amatory poetry is of a less exalted species than epic, one would rather excel in the minor department, than be secondary in the superior.

—I hesitate to praise a prime minister; but this I may say, without being convicted of eulogy, that his Lordship has acquired the full confidence of the nation at large. This, in fact, is every thing.

—I have heard people of the finest taste and feeling declare, that they would never go to see this lady perform again. In fact, they felt so much affected, that they dreaded to suffer another such night of tears. Her powers in the pathetic, are, indeed, wonderful.

I wish a national theatre, with opera hours and prices, were established at the west end of the town, and then, perhaps, our fashionables would condescend to patronize a place of rational amusement. At present, the opera, or rather the ballet, engrosses all their favor; for though they are content with seeing the singers, they must hear the dancers. The moment the ballet begins, an instantaneous silence reigns through the house. Not a billet-doux can drop from a dowager unheard; so great is the respect paid to the majesty of toes. Occasional whispers, however, are ventured now and then. Vestris, for instance, is observed to be in much limb, as he has spun round once and a segment more than usual. Then the eloquence of an attitude, or the pathos of a pas de seul, is superb; and certain old cognoscenti admire the keeping of the groups of flower girls. Some of them, indeed, are kept long enough, as one may see by their wrinkles, while the fatness of others shews plainly, that they are, at least, kept well.

—I hope Mr. Sc*tt, (of whose powers I have a high opinion) will not consider me an enemy for giving him good advice. But, really, authors, now-a-days, write by the pound or by the foot. Mr. Sc*tt, I think, has dropped a good many of his wis's, and weens, and by my fays; neither has he yet adopted the new fashion of sanctifying his words. Saith for said, spake for spoke, brake for broke, unto for to, doth for does, are the capriccios of the day. I likewise see just cause and impediment against such marriages as, war-storm, death-storm, battle-fire. The best authorities for which are, pot-hooks, kitchen-stuff, cabbage-garden.

—I differ from my friend decidedly. Lord B*r*n is a metaphysician, not a poet. Sc*tt is to him, what Thompson is to Young. The one excels in describing things, the other in delineating thoughts. If the one swims too much on the surface, the other is overloaded and sinks too deep. Of Sc*tt, we seldom read a line twice, (though we may a passage) because he wants force; or of B*r*n, because he wants poetry. By poetry, I mean that nameless charm of expression, which raises it above prose. Whenever his Lordship tries metaphor, he fails most miserably. Take for instance, this distich.

Really, this is the most extraordinary curse (and in more ways than one) that ever came from the pen of a poet. It is a curse, in short, which first turns into a ray, then sets off from a bosom, returns back, becomes a flower, and at last suffers a curious blight enough,—a reflected blight. Now a flower which reflects, can, I think, be no other than Venus's looking-glass.

—

After these unfounded personalities, his Lordship can expect no mercy from me. I, however, have less occasion than others to complain of his licentious satire. His ‘Sketch from Private Life’ draws a portrait so diabolical, that I defy it to find a prototype in nature; and if it be meant for any human being, I thank my God I have not a heart capable of suggesting such vengeance, far less of laying the demoniac anatomy bare to the public gaze.

—In Italy the nightly question is, ‘have you sprinkled the bed?’ In Cumana, the first question in the morning is, ‘have we a cool river to-day?’

—Spurzeim, the man of skulls, has accommodated the human race with thirty-three faculties. His theory would be quite established, if he could prove that he himself possesses half the number.

—I take some merit to myself for having made this a Cabalistical term, and fixed it on these folks in perpetuity. But really 'tis quite delightful to hear them still talking of their talents, and of the confidence which the country feels in their powers of legislation. Why a whole generation—the third part of the people— have grown up under the present government. They know nothing about opposition as a ministry; save and except one disastrous trial of a year, a month and a day: Nine years, however, have since elapsed, without the least danger of another trial, even for an hour, a minute and a second.

—No man can now deny that it was the Spanish war which saved Europe. And here I must say a few words about the Spanish patriots. If ever we were justified in interfering between a government and its subjects, we should act as mediators for these unfortunate men. We fought conjointly with them, when their avowed object was constitutional, as well as national liberty. That liberty they have not obtained, but are exiled. Can we not possibly influence Ferdinand in the adoption of such a system as might unite both parties? This I know, that to preserve Spain from a civil war is our interest; and that the patriots, if not conciliated, may shake the Spanish throne to its foundation. At all events, as a mere matter of feeling, we should undertake the cause of our old companions in arms.

— Common sense, self-love, and even chance, all conspire to make a minister act for the public good. As often, therefore, as he does right, a systematical opposition must do wrong. Now in all human calculation, a minister, so actuated, must do right three times for once that he does wrong; and consequently, a systematical opposition must do wrong three times for once that it does right.

— ‘Now we shall ride rough-shod through Carlton house!’ was the immortal vociferation after Percival had fallen. But, it seems, asses have ears as well as hoofs. I could never learn, to a certainty, which of the two noble lords stood listening at the keyhole, while the other was closetted with the king. I only know, that the odium lies

—Mr. Pitt said of Sh*r---n, that ‘he drew on his memory for wit, and on his imagination for argument.’ However, I wish this interesting old stager back again with all my heart. His facetious philippics would, at least, answer as a relief to the supernatural anger and ferocious admonitions of the rest.

—I believe this calculation is rather under than over, at least for the last year. But let us trace the statement farther. Six thousands pounds per hour is a hundred pounds per minute, and about a guinea and a half per second. What a freezing piece of arithmetic for B*rd*tt to frighten a mob with! I wonder too, Sir J---n N*wp---t never brought in a bill for the reduction of two pounds per minute in the war expenditure; or the Marquis of L---d---ne, a budget of ways and means to meet the exigencies of the ensuing 31,556,940 seconds. It would be so new and pretty!

—How this patriotic person has fallen! Alas, for those proud days, when he was the idol of dirty South-wark, and when its merchants christened their children after him, in adoration. Soon came the time, however, when its butchers called their dogs by his name, in contempt. Even the house, with all his pasquinading algebra, now look upon him merely as a gay debater. He makes no impression, because they do not consider him in earnest. And yet he is a trifler from sheer desperation. Were the man easier in his mind, I am convinced he would improve.

—I verily believe, if his party could come into power, they would make him Chancellor of the Exchequer to-morrow! And yet, it is certain, he disappointed his friends sadly when they were in power before. But what can they do? They have not a financial man amongst them.

—Government had disappointed his Lordship, so he wrote a pamphlet to prove that grass would grow in the streets of London. But he knows himself that not even brooms thrive there. A barber too had disappointed him; so he wrote a poem predicting cropped heads and unpowdered hair. This prophecy was awfully fulfilled. His Lordship, therefore, has much more to boast as a fop than as a politician. It was on the strength of his pamphlet, I presume, that he too visited the First Consul. His reception was curious. He made his bow. Napoleon asked him if he spoke French; and then, turning round, took snuff. His Lordship, I suppose, took umbrage.

—During the Spanish war, his Lordship used to talk about the expediency of a nucleus in the heart of Spain. Many respectable men suspected that he meant a concentration of our forces there. However, all agreed that he meant something or other.

—Why may not a judge pun, as well as a bishop? The following is an extract from a sermon in the reign of James the First.

‘Here have I undertaken one who hath overtaken many. A Machiavellian, or rather a matchless villain. One that professeth himself to be a friend, when he is, indeed, a fiend.’

—The first act of the talented administration was to tell the country that its resources were drained almost dry. The next act was to double the Property Tax! Then came the Marquis with a magical budget of virtue to carry on the war for ever and ever, without any additional taxation. John Bull jumped with joy. Man-milliners and pig iron were happy. But, alas, it was soon recollected that M. Dumont (who afterwards assisted Mirabeau in dethroning Louis) had educated the Marquis; and it was suspected that he had also taught his pupil the financial system of his countryman Neckar. So as this system had already ruined France, plain men began to conjecture that it might like wise ruin England. To conjecture, I say, because nobody (no, not even the Marquis himself) could make head or tail of it. Some thought it was the sinking fund reversed; but all allowed that it resembled nothing so much as Darwin's scheme to replenish human arteries, by transfusing into them, with a syringe, the blood of a calf. His Lordship has never held up his head since.

—A most interesting and most unpremeditated scene was presented to the police, when they broke into Sir Fr*n**s's house, on the memorable occasion of his commitment. They found his dear little boy by his side, reading Magna Charta! O pencil of Wilkie! what inferior canvas was then detaining you?

—Editor of the Morning Chronicle. Sir Fr*n**s perpetually quotes this print in the House. He likewise picks up much of his information from a person, who eats his hebdomadal dinner with the whisperer of the man, who whispers to the whisperer of Fouche.

—Considering that Sir Fr*n**s talks so much about the purity of election, odd doings enough took place at Westminster, when he stood candidate. Mills were divided into shares, in order to qualify votes for him; and several wretches, who swore they had votes, were transported for perjury.

—The Duke of Portland was absolutely obliged, by a circular letter, to prohibit the admission of Sir Fr*nc*s into any jail whatever throughout the kingdom:—that is, as a visitor; for he afterwards received admission into the Tower as a culprit.

—Collot D'Herbois first became notorious by pleading the cause of deserters and renegadoes. I trust the parallel between the two men will never extend any farther.

—A man must, I confess, be kind and humane, who has useless old friends, useless old horses, and useless old cows; none of which animals he will either cast off, shoot, or sell. Nevertheless, several of Sir Fr*nc*s's friends were hanged in spite of him: others were sent to Botany Bay; two were tried for high treason; one got a thousand lashes, and another cut his throat.

It may not be generally known that the anagram of Sir Fr*nc*s B*rd*tt is Frantic Disturbers.

—About three years ago the people of Huddersfield seized this itinerant reformist as a suspicious character. What a pity one is not suffered to make a fuss in peace and quietness!

—The four orders of druids.

—His Lordship, like the Prince of Madagascar, in GLENARVON, loves a quiet life; though he may think it expedient to make a speech, or enter a protest now and then, by way of keeping up a good old family custom.

—A notorious pamphlet, called ‘Vindiciæ Gallicæ, or a Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers.’ This was to please Fox.

—In the hall of Lincoln's Inn. This was to please Pitt. He then accepted a place. This was to please himself.

—At times, indeed, Mr. P*ns**by gives the house a sudden gust that threatens its very hinges. Nobody can guess why. Some will have it, that he now wants to out-Br---m Br---m, as he once wanted to out-Whitbread Whitbread. Be this as it may, his manners are quite altered. Formerly he spoke much and mildly. Now he speaks little and petulantly. He should consult decorum. At all events, he should wear clean boots.

—Every one knows that Mr. Br---m is thrusting himself forward as the successor of Whitbread. One laughs to see the man struggling into conscquence, affecting a high tone, and tremendously protesting that he will probe some bagatelle or other to the inmost quick. No man of four thousand a-year, and Br---m's friend, can hope to remain in peaceable possession of his property, without Br---m's informing the house that he has a friend of four thousand a-year. No acquaintance of note in the house can hope to be called otherwise by him, than his honorable friend. His honorable friend, however, generally returns the compliment by calling him the learned gentleman. Lastly, no adjective, even of the most awful signification, can hope to pass his mouth, without being coupled with the word pretty. Things are pretty terrible, pretty odious, pretty disgusting, and pretty formidable—expressions, in my opinion, pretty ugly.

—

Par. Lost.

This may certainly be termed a blunder. Johnson has remarked others in Milton; such as, ‘What stood, recoiled.’ Yet Johnson himself is not without one. He gave this line to Goldsmith,

If the man could neither stand still, nor move forward, he must, I think, have spun round in one spot. Thus too, Gray says,

Surely what has not an end, cannot have a middle. Pope also says,

— Mr. Br---m, it is said, boasts that he has a voting party of ‘three silent tongues.’ I doubt whether he can command even one tongue. Certainly not his own.

—The whole annals of Parliament cannot furnish so shameful and indecent an attack upon royalty as this ultra-patriot lately made in the house. He had not even the fine ingenuous rashness of youth to plead. No; his was the cold, sallow, grinning premeditation of a Scotch hypercritic. His own party shrank from the tirade in horror; and about twenty of the more moderate amongst them went over, on that question, to the ministers. He recanted afterwards, I must confess; but the pitiful flourish came too late. It was the frightened snail defending itself with its froth, after it had sheathed its horns and shrunk into its shell.

—The kings of Monomotapa.

—This gentleman, on the whole, is one of the most respectable aspirants to the honor of teasing ministers. But he has no talents for a real thorough-going downright demagogue. Besides, plaintive indignation, laborious eloquence, looks of gloom and tones of peevishness, will never recommend his learning. A skull would make rather a forbidding flower-pot. The Speculative Club, too, has spoiled Mr. H*rn*r, even though Dugald Stewart educated him.

—I am informed that the Editor of the Edinburgh Review is really rather a rational man in politics, but that the writers whom he employs sometimes turn out, like other journeymen, and refuse to work any longer, unless he will insert their jacobinical effusions without remorse. One can almost forgive Englishmen who write like Scotch Reviewers, but there is no pardon for Scotch Reviewers who write like Frenchmen.

As to the mere language of the work, it is no more English than the sentiments. Whoever wishes to read sentences with eight or nine contiguous ‘fors, withs, and tos,’—three or four enfeebling ‘would have beens,’ and ‘might have beens,’ —nominative cases made ablatives absolute,—‘him being’ instead of ‘his being,’—‘thereafter,’ ‘eminentest,’ ‘mighty little,’ and ‘standing up for a thing,’—may find all these blossoms of speech, (as I have just now found them) in a ten minutes' survey of the Edinburgh Review.

Whoever desires to see opposite opinions upon politics and poetry, supported in the same work, may consult the Edinburgh Review.

Whoever has a fancy for Teutonic, unvowelled, unpronounceable names, will find plenty of Trojanisches Kreig, Chrimhildren Rache, Kijrie, Stumpfe-Reime, Klingende-Schal-Reime, Strong Bopp and Martin Gumpel, pedantically at his service in the Edinburgh Review.

Whoever hopes to have Louis Capet nick-named (as the Sans Culottes nick-named his brother) Louy Cappy, may hereafter, perhaps, see his wishes realized in the Edinburgh Review.

—People laugh at this man of precedents for aspiring to be speaker; but I think without good ground; for the speaker (by the figure lucus a non lucendo) speaks less than any member in the house.

—The piping sharpness of Mr. W**nn's voice is so oddly contrasted with the guttural rumbling of his brother's, that both gentlemen are called by the members, ‘bubble and squeak.’ Fatal nick-name!—bubble and squeak. By Castor and Pollux, 'tis too bad. What would ancestor Kadrod say to this? What would the great Madox ap Gruffyd Maclor say to this? How the shade of Caractacus would shudder on the Welsh hills, if,

—If this accidental—accidental patriot would speak with—with a little less hesi—hesitation, he might become a patriot of much mischievous—much mischievous garrulity. But the devil—devil of it, is, that the good of his country always sticks—sticks—sticks in his—his throat —always sticks in his throat!

—Poor Billy C*bb*t! his Register has just arrived at a state of stagnation. Let the puddle grow putrid in peace. I shall not disturb its odours.

—Whenever a patriot cannot get on in Pall-Mall, he is sure to get on at St. Stephens's. I think I hear this careering gentleman, as he wheels round his horses from the fray, cry out with an assuring slap on the knee, ‘My Lord, if we don't make a good thing of this, I'll be shot!’ Yet he did not make quite so good a thing of the sinecure question. There he went inhumanly careering against his own family.

—Sir Samuel's family were originally Genevese. Neckar was a Genevese. Rousseau was a Genevese. Dumont, Lord L---nd---ne's tutor, was a Genevese. Voltaire lived at Geneva. Gibbon lived at Geneva. What the plague have mankind done to Geneva, that she should use them so?

—Mr. M*th*n apostasized so abruptly, that he fears to be temperate lest it should be doubted that he is sincere. The old Talents are happy to lay hold of him. Indeed, they pick up with avidity any man who has not yet lost his good name. They keep Messrs. H*rn*r, B*nn*t, W*nn, and M*th*n, as a sort of reserved corps, yet unfleshed in degradation, and ready to march forward on the last emergency of character.

—The bust of Buonaparte—shall I spare him? In good sooth I will. The poorman knew no more about the bust, than Mr. H*bh**se knows about the original. That is a nice young gentleman. Upon my word, his letters from France do him infinite honor. His beginning to cry because Napoleon read a petition, was in the first style of sensibility; and when Napoleon ran away, nothing could cxceed the sweet waspishness of his infantine upbraidings. Dids 'em vex my child? Dids 'em take its nown nown Nemperor away from it? Hushaden, hushaden!

—I remark that people of much labelled linen and critical acumen, are apt to treat public men as they do grammar, by making the second person more worthy than the first.

This sentence being somewhat abstruse, I ought to have translated it into bad English, for the benefit of Mr. W**th**n. Whoever presided over the grammatical department of his pamphlet upon eating, left several little slips in the first six pages. I could never read farther.

—If I asked the worthy Alderman whether he would accede to this opinion, he might say, ‘Yes;’ but if I asked him, whether he would subscribe to it, he would shake his negativing head, and say, ‘Certainly not.’

—It is now the fashion to say, that Ireland is beggared, because she cannot pay the demands made upon her, and because her bankruptcies are so numerous. No supposition can be more false. Her trade (and therefore her capital) is increasing yearly. The value of her exports was,

• In 1809 ................ £ 5,739,843.
• In 1814 ................ 7,139,437.

The vast increase of her imports, both in raw materials for the industrious, and in articles of luxury for the opulent, also proves her increasing prosperity. Since the union, her imports of woollen and cotton cloths have doubled; of carpets, silks, glasses, &c., tripled. Her imports of wine have doubled; those of blankets have increased as ten to one; and likewise those of musical instruments and jewellery. Her present distresses, like England's, have arisen from an impeded circulation, in consequence of excessive, though inevitable loans; and no doubt the effect will cease with the cause.

Neither are we to calculate her deterioration by the number of her bankruptcies. In 1700, when the failures in England were but thirty-eight, the exports amounted but to £ 6,045,432. In 1793, when the bankruptcies were 1304, the exports amounted to £ 20,390,180. In that year of terror, the nation was informed, as usual, how nothing could save her, And yet in 1814 (twenty-three years after), her exports amounted to £ 56,591,514!

—Almost all the Catholic aristocracy have seceded from the turbulent part; who, though they call the loudest for emancipation, are, in reality, the least desirous of it: because they rose into notice on its shoulders, and must sink into insignificance at its termination. But Englishmen, in general, from their personal ignorance of the Sister Island, have an idea that all Catholics are hostile to the Constitution. I wish such men, instead of going over to Waterloo, and bringing back sanguinary keepsakes, would visit Ireland, and import a little knowledge of the Irish people. The fact is, whenever an Englishman does perform the exploit of a trip to the Emerald Isle, he finds himself treated with peculiar respect and hospitality. He begins to regret having insured his life, and he ventures to unload his pistols. If he does not eat more pudding, at least he laughs at more wit than he ever did before, and even learns to laugh in the right place. Nay, he undertakes to grow witty himself, and his efforts are treated with polite encouragement. In short, finding himself much courted and quite lively, the good gentleman begins to fancy the place a paradise; and at length, when his business is concluded (for all this time he never neglected his business), he returns reluctantly home to the bosom of his family, who stare in astonishment, not unmixed with terror, at the sprightliness of his deportment, and the unintelligibility of his puns.

I have given my book this title, because the persons whom it celebrates are really in a dreadful state of mind at present. After contending twenty years against ministers, who had, not alone them, but France to combat, just conceive what they must now feel at seeing France on a sudden overturned, and themselves left to carry on the war single-handed! How heart-rending! I protest I am not at all surprised at their derangement. Fortunately for Whitbread and Wyndham, they did not live to witness the discomfiture. Sh*r***n too—he seems out of the scrape, and remains, I am told, in the full possession of his faculties. But poor Gr*y is now beyond the power even of another war to tranquillize. As for T**rn*y, he both rages and jests in a way shocking to humanity. Desperation sits somewhat easier on Gr*nv*lle; and L*nsd**ne merely breaks out into a waltz. But there is a sweet melancholy about P*ns**by, which almost makes him interesting; and I know not what beautiful distraction it is which so happily harmonizes with the soft features of Br---m. These sufferers still frequent St. Stephens's, as usual; but their situation is respected. There they mechanically repeat their old predictions about our ruin; which, however, they now derive from a complete new set of causes. The principal of these are, a cottage, a life-guardsman, and a secretary. Indeed, they likewise shew remarkable madness in their anxiety to overrun the country with aliens, and to prevent British officers from dining together. But I will dwell no longer on their unhappy state. It is cruel to excite ridicule when the object deserves commiseration. Out of charity, therefore, I shall henceforth treat them as men, who merely do mischief with all their senses about them.