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his Majesty's government, to reflect, that, whatever may be the consequences of the struggle in which we are embarked, we have not lost the confidence of the Spanish people; we know that every true Spanish heart beats high for this country; we know that, whatever may happen, they will not accuse us. Submission may be the lot which they are fated to endure in the end; but they do not impute to us the cause of their misfortunes. They are sensible, that neither the thirst after commerce, nor territory, nor security, is to be imputed to us in the assistance we have afforded to them on this most important occasion. Whatever may be the result, we have done our duty; we have not despaired; we have persevered, and we will do so to the last, while there is anything left to contend for with a prospect of success.”—Debate of April 21, 1809.

To this powerful and luminous speech-of which I have given but a fragment, but of which the whole deserves to be studied, and is not less an honour to its speaker, than an exposition of the policy of the war-no reply could be made; and Opposition, broken down at once by defeats in the legislature, and unpopularity with the nation, abandoned its resistance for a time. New casualties at length arrived to its succour, and it rose again, to impede the interests, and degrade the honour, of the empire.

Why do I insist upon the conduct of the Whigs in the peninsular war?

Because it was the very crisis of Europe; because it was more than a war -it was a conflict of the principles of freedom with tyranny-a great trial of the question of national independence against universal domination; because such was the palpable and intrinsic interest of the contest to Europe, to England, and to freedom, that those who could not honour the resistance of Spain, or see its vital connexion with the hope of nations, must be either fools or knaves.

But if our contempt for Whiggism could be deepened, what could throw it into more cureless ridicule than its present clamour for Spanish insurrection; a miserable, half-cast descendant of French Jacobinism-repelled by the people, revolting to national manners, uncalled-for by the necessities of the country, and, at the sight of punishment, flying in despair to the remotest corner of Spain? What can be more ridiculous than that charlatan Wilson, deported from village to village of Portugal, in the midst of popular disgust, and, like a beggar, lashed back to his parish? What more silly, than the attempt to bolster up the emaciated fraud of Whig boasting at home, by fetes and fooleries in taverns and theatres? The failure of the Spanish ball was ludicrously completethe influence of quadrilles and syllabubs, in sustaining a national war, has been found impotent-and the Whigs are without resource for revolutions to

come.

LETTERS OF TIMOTHY TICKLER, ESQ. TO EMINENT LITERARY CHARACTERS,

No. VII.

To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine.

DEAR NORTH, THANK you for the Quarterly. I have just glanced through it with rather a hasty eye, and send you, as you wish, my opinions concerning it. You rather astonish me when you tell me that people are amazed at some of my former remarks. You are asked, you say, what you mean by abusing the Quarterly every now and then, and every now and then puffing the Edinburgh. As to the latter, that is mere matter of taste. The Edinburgh is decidedly going down; it is hardly seen in decent company now-a-days, and I imagine it owes whatever circulation it retains, to the desire which all buy

ers of periodicals feel of continuing their sets. Therefore, if a good article, a rara avis, nay, a rarissima, appears in the Edinburgh, it is open to you to praise it, without any fear of hurting your own side of the question. You may say that Jeffrey's review of Simond, for example, was light, sketchy, and pleasant, trifling agreeably, and just fit for the calibre of the reviewer. You may allow that Sydney Smith can still trim off an article, which, if you be in a great hurry, you might admit into your Magazine. You may confess that Brougham is a good sort of scold, whose intemperance to his literary superiors amuses you, on the same principle that you are amu

sed by the slang of a blackguard going it against a gentleman. This, I repeat, does no harm. The qualities of these gentlemen are admitted by all parties; and the smartness of Jeffrey, the buffoonery of the parson, the Billingsgate of Brougham, serve to float the lumber of the stottery of Macculloch, and filth of Hazlitt. We now look on it as a sort of fangless viper, which we allow to crawl about, permitting ourselves to smile now and then, if any of its slimy contortions please the fancy of the moment, knowing that it can do no hurt. It is indeed quite helpless at present. Look at the articles in the last on Slates and Virginius, and other crockery-ware. Why, sir, the work which talks of such trash, except, by a sentence or so, to dispose of them for ever, is destroyed.

Therefore it is that you may praise a good article of the Edinburgh, as I said before. When it went forth triumphing and to triumph; when its slander and scurrility dealt death about it, it would have been treason to have pointed out anything good which it contained; it would have been a dereliction of duty not to have taken the monster by the horns, and shewn him forth in full brutality, proving that, strong as he was in vice, there were still giants in the land who could overmaster his evil power. But now, when he has neither hoof nor horn, but only a pair of great long ears to prick up in defiance, it is surely an act of Christian charity, which does not at all interfere with our allegiance to Toryism, to hold forth to admiration the good points of the creature. Puff accordingly, if it so pleases you, any good article which you may see immersed in the Serbonian bog of Constable's Review, without fear. The concern is about as low as their old ally Dicky Phillips's affair, which I am told is still published somewhere about Fleet-ditch.

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Then, as to finding fault with the Quarterly, it strikes me to be pure pertinence in any of the Quarterly people to endeavour to bind you up. The principles of that journal I admire, I love-I mean its political principles. But am I bound to acknowledge it paramount in literature ?— Not I! Have not I as good a right to give an opinion on a book, as such people as Millman or Whittaker? truth I have, and shall as liberally exercise my privilege of finding fault

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with them, as they do with other writers, if I think them wrong. The great ability of many, of most of its articles, I not only admit, but am proud of. Í think it does honour to our party to have such powerful writing engaged in its cause; but, at the same time, I cannot shut my eyes to its occasional puffery and humbug, by which it sometimes betrays that cause. I cannot see why the mere circumstance of its being printed by Mr Murray, should render it necessary that every one of Mr Murray's books, no matter how infamous or indecent, should be puffed off, directly or indirectly; and, above all, I cannot see why we are to hold our tongues, or wink at such conduct. Still farther, when I see a Review, professing to be the organ of Toryism, turning round on the Lord Chancellorwho, if we view him in all his bearings, honour, integrity, knowledge of law, impartiality, and talent, must be considered to be the greatest man who ever sat in Chancery, the very nucleus of our principles-abusing him and reviling the law of the land, because the judge and the law will not allow Mr Murray to make money by the sale of foul works-works altogether opposed to the political and religious views which the Review supports, I must speak out, if nobody else will, and protest that the Quarterly does not utter my sentiments, in this instance at least. To Murray's using the engine in his hands for puffing off the fair books which he publishes, I do not object. I think, indeed, that it is bad taste to do it so much as he does; but I do most strenuously object to the Quarterly's giving up, in any case, its party for the sake of its publisher.

Without further preface, then, I beg leave to remark, that there is too much France in this number. Of thirteen articles, six are on French works, which is more than needful in an English review, particularly as there have been so many books worth reviewing, published since the last appearance of the Quarterly. It strikes me that both Edinburgh and Quarterly pay too limited attention to our own literature; that they are anything but a fair picture of the actual state of the writing world among us. They are just a bundle of Essays on books apparently selected at random, or, at most, with a view to serve their booksellers. old Monthly Review is a much fairer record of our current literature in this

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respect; I read its critiques, stupid and prosing as they generally are, with an interest not at all derived from themselves; but from my certainty that they tell me how the intellect of England is at the present moment employed.*

But as my business in writing to you is not to discuss the beau ideal of a review, but to consider an individual Number of one actually existing, I shall begin with the beginning. The first article is Lacretelle's History of the Constitutional Assembly; a clever paper, in a proper spirit, by Mr Croker, I opine. It is, indeed, excellent throughout, and I quarrel only with its concluding paragraph. After pronouncing a just eulogium on Burke, he quotes a character of that great man from an old Number of the Edinburgh Review that long since had been consigned to the pastry-cook. Burke, teste Jeffrey, was a man of no judgment, no principles, no firmness, no honesty-he was no philosopher, no man of business, no orator! There is a critic six feet and a half high, for you! In the opinion of the great Jeffrey-the gentleman who actually can speak to their lordships in court, until he comes to a pain in his leg from standing, the only period of Jeffrey's harangues-Burke was no speaker. We have here nicely balanced orator Jeffrey versus noorator Burke, and the Irishman is found wanting. So saith the Prince of Critics and the King of Men, as Hazlitt, the gallant of Southamptonstreet, Holborn, styles his friend.Burke's shade may, however, derive some consolation from the fact, that the same great and ingenious person discovered also that Swift was no wit, Wordsworth no poet, Pindar unable to write Greek, Addison not worth reading, Socrates a scoundrel, Burns nothing but a blackguard. In a word, that they were not to be named in a day with Jeffrey the great, the advo cate who domineers in the Jury Court, and actually writes thirty pages full of words at a time for the Edinburgh Review. But, to be serious, why did C. quote such trash? Would he turn up the pages of the heroes of the Dunciad for a character of Pope? or if

he did casually come in contact with any such trumpery, would he have given himself the trouble of even expressing disgust? Of course, he would not he would merely laugh at the poor creature; and yet there never was such a fathomless distance between Dennis and Pope, as between Jeffrey and Burke.

The ninth and tenth articles, on Madam Campan's Marie Antoinette,—the Dutchess of Angouleme's Narrative of the Journey to Varennes,-her Private Memoirs of what passed in the Temple, -and Louis XVIII.'s Narrative of his Journey, are by the same accomplished hand, and in the same spirit, as the first article. I think C., however, rather hard on poor Louis, and that your own review was much fairer; but he does ample justice to the sublime, simple, and touching Memoirs of the Daughter of France. I defy any man of human feelings to read the 473d page of the Quarterly, the heart-rending page which gives an account of the sufferings of the poor child who had the misfortune to be Louis XVII. the poor, dear, innocent, unhappy, little creature, in his privations, his terrors, his neglect, his loneliness, and his almost sublime silence -without emotion. It proves how fact surpasses fiction. No writer would have dared to imagine such a character as the docile, courteous, obedient child, who never spoke again, after having been forced by monsters in human shape to sign a deposition against his mother. Well does the Quarterly remark, that even the Queen's own appeal to the maternal hearts of her hearers, was not so pathetic, so irresistible a touch as this.

The Reviewer remarks on these things, like a man whose heart is worthy of his genius. Why does Croker do nothing of his own? Surely, surely he might be the Swift of our time if he pleased.

The second article is on Burton's Rome, with sufficient learning and pleasantry to reward its perusal. The reviewer talks a little twaddle about church ceremonies, fretted vaults, stately

columns, &c. which so good a Presbyterian as I am cannot swallow, but certainly shall not fight about.

* Good Timothy, abuse whom you please, but the Monthly is a very good book-for, Istly, it contains first-rate articles every now and then; and, 2dly, it is less than any periodical, except mine, under base Bibliopolic influence.-C. N.

Article third is on Arago's Voyage Round the World, and a capital cutting up of an empty French coxcomb it is. We may expect, I suppose, a reclamation from Arago-at least I hope so. He is a most superlative jackass.

The fourth article, on the Poor Laws, is a very superficial and moderate affair; but is perhaps quite as well on that account; for there is not a human being who will now read a grave treatise on so unpromising a subject. The evil, as it prevails in England, is confessedly enormous; but the privilege of murmuring now alone remains, all classes appearing to abandon exertion as hopeless, under the weight of this irremediable calamity. The fundamental principle of the English Poor Laws, viz. that the Legislature can by its fiat create unlimited means of subsistence, and an unlimited demand for labour, is now universally disowned; but it is easier to disavow the principle, than to recal its practical effects; and the whole subsequent legislation of the sister kingdom, has been a wretched struggle in detail, to counteract the master-principle of misgovernment, which, in the first instance, struck down the moral feeling of independence. Some of the wisest and ablest of Englishmen have retired from this intractable subject in despair; but the Reviewer, who is neither very wise nor very able, manages it with a freedom and facility which are quite decisive of his incapacity. The drift of his argument—although there is much discreet reserve in the expression-is the absolute defence of the existing Poor Laws of England as to their principle, coupled with some hints neither very new nor important as to improvements in the mode of their execution. In a strain of reasoning at once original and profound, we are taught, that to assist the poor, " is not only a precept of the Christian religion, a maxim of moral virtue, but an instinctive feeling of human nature;” and this being the main argument for compulsory, instead of voluntary aid, we are led to infer, that, in the opinion of this judicious writer, the due enforcement of Chris

tian and moral maxims, is just the proper subject for acts of Parliament. When we add the precious discovery, that compulsory assessments will be rather more equal in their operation than voluntary contributions, the sum of this conclusive argument in behalf of the English Poor Laws is exhausted; and it is upon a foundation thus deep and solid, that this wiseacre of the Quarterly Review has placed the defence of a system, which the wisest men of England have long pronounced indefensible, and the nation at large has felt to be all but intolerable.-This weightier controversy is preceded by a brief skirmish with our countryman Dr Chalmers, who some years ago took up this business of the poor with characteristic enthusiasm which, it is a pity to observe, however, so prematurely evaporated-and although the Doctor's singular hurry and heedlessness appear to have given the Reviewer some petty advantages in the detail of the question, it is by no means so clear as he supposes, that the " answers to these (the Reviewer's) questions must overthrow Dr Chalmers's system." Mark the fairness of the weapons employed for this imaginary overthrow. Dr Chalmers alleges, as a proof of the defects of the existing system for relief of the poor in Glasgow, that, under it, the assessment was quadrupled from 1803 to 1818; and the Reviewer rebuts this objection of an assessment quadrupled during one period, by appealing to an increase of less than a third of the population during a different period. Again, the Doctor refers to the fact, that the voluntary contributions of his parishioners were found for three years more than adequate to the relief of all the new cases of pauperism that occurred, leaving, in fact, after such relief, a considerable surplus; and the Reviewer disputes the inference deducible from this fact, by stating, that during the same period the poor-rates were reduced even in England, and by hazarding the ridiculously ignorant assumption, that the parish of St John's, Glasgow, is, compared with other parishes of the city, remarkably free of pauperism.*

* St John's parish being in fact inhabited, with few exceptions, by people of the very lowest rank, and the natural proportion of paupers there about 5 to 1 to the most of the other parishes of that town.

VOL. XIV.

L

And it is thus that this heavy champion of English pauperism demolishes the hardy presbyterian declaimer.— The Doctor is perhaps not just the man whom, except for practical purposesfor fervid zeal and assiduous ministration in the hovels of poverty and vice -we should select as the champion of a great reform in the management of the poor; and the more is the pity that his singular retreat from the world should limit for the future his contributions to this good cause to the periodical accumulation of lumbering pamphlets, of which we have already had more than enough; but he is not just a person, after all, to be "overthrown" by any ordinary contributor to the Quarterly Review, nor can what he has done be so easily obliterated as seems to be imagined by an obsolete apologist of the English poor-laws.

Article fifth. Theodore Ducas-a common-place review of a commonplace book.

The sixth article is such as the Quarterly only can furnish. It is a review of Captain Franklin's stupendous journey. Mr Barrow brings every qualification desirable for the consideration of such a work: profound geographical knowledge, clear and accurate views of all the subjects connected with voyages of discovery, and a lucid style and arrangement. Compare his articles with the drossy, mock-scientific, dogmatic, and impertinent mumpings of the Blue and Yellow on the same subject, full of ignorance, self-conceit, self-puffery, and insolent abuse of other people. Compare, in particular, their article on the North-West Passage with this masterly one.

Had I not the fear of the criticism of the Jury-Court before my eyes-that awful band of reviewers, whose fiat decides all literary questions, Hebrew, Samaritan, Chaldee and Masoretic, Thermometrical and Frigorific, I should say, that a more stupid and presumptuous collection of betises was never thrown together by the merest smatterer in literature. Read, for instance, Barrow's and Parry's Remarks (p. 406-408) on the Navigation of the Arctie Seas, and then turn to read, if you can, the Blue and Yellow's pyet (mind I do not say parrot, but) pyet attempt at waggery, their nauseating stuff about the Polar basin, Don Quixote and Mambrino's helmet.

In nothing, indeed, as in such articles, is the vast superiority of the Quarterly over the Edinburgh so clearly discernible.

As many idle conjectures concerning the fate of Captain Parry are afloat, and many tormenting speculations vented on the tardiness of his return, too much publicity cannot be given to the fact, that Parry himself calculated upon three summers, and only wished, that, if not heard of in the beginning of 1824, a vessel with provisions might be sent into Behring's Straits in the autumn of that year.' P. 409. Mr Barrow concludes by remarking

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"With regard to risk, we apprehend none beyond that to which all navigation in the icy seas is liable, and which the longfrequented whale-fishery, conducted in vessels not half so strong, nor half so well manned, has proved to be little more than common sea risk. Indeed, with ships as strong as wood and iron can make them; stored with provisions and fuel for nearly four years; with a commander excelled by none in the various duties of his profession; endued with intellectual faculties of the highest order, and full of zeal and energy tempered with due prudence and discretion; with experienced officers, and crews of picked seamen ;-we cannot persuade ourselves that any reasonable ground of alarm for their safety need be entertained."

I hope, and trust not.

In Mr B.'s remarks on the ornaments of this book of travels, he pays them a well-deserved compliment, but goes sadly out of his way to abuse what he calls "the greasy daubs of lithography." Now, this is unjust to a most useful art, which they are daily bringing to more and more perfection. If Mr Barrow would just cast his eyes over Francis Nicholson's plates, he would, I think, be inclined to retract his censure. Be the defects of lithography what they may, it at all events gives you the picture from the very hand of the painter; and I trust the unworthy jealousy among line engravers, which has already turned it three times out of the country, will not again prevail to banish it from us a fourth time. To Mr Finden's merits I readily subscribe; indeed, I should be blind if I did not ; but a more complete apropos des bottes never occurred than in the way Barrow here brings him forward. He mentions that the etchings are finished in line-engraving

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