dence of familiar intercourse, entrusted him with various particulars of his life, and with many of his opinions on men and books. All this social fireside talk Drummond privately set down in writing, and afterwards published in his notorious Conversation. Now, considering that parts

of this communication consisted of Jonson's free strictures upon his brother poets and contemporaries, and that the whole was given to the world without explanation or softening of any sort; and that it was, in fact, set down from Drummond's memory (in which case, all the censure would naturally be divested of the ordinary qualifying phrases which probably accompanied it), we think that the publication was as complete a piece of treachery as can be found in the history of literary men. Drummond of Hawthornden has written poems of much merit; but we trust that, whoever may read them hereafter, will never forget that he was a traitor to his friend and guest, and that he has discredited the name of poet, and tarnished the hospitality of his hospitable country."

"All this fireside talk, Drummond privately set down in writing, and afterwards published in his notorious Conversation." Why, he could not well have set it down publicly; so there was no offence in the mere privacy, had there been none in the thing itself. Neither do we see the enormous wickedness of "setting it down from memory"-for how else can you set down any thing you hear? Barry Cornwall, it appears, "sets down" much of what he reads, from imagination. He does not even know the title of the unlucky leaves which probably he never perused. However, considering this, and that, and t'other thing, Barry comes to the conclusion, that "the publication was as complete a piece of treachery as can be found in the history of literary men." And how is the sinner to be punished? Whoever may read his verses, must keep in his mind one predominant feeling of reprobation and scorn of the unhallowed traitor. This it is more especially the bounden duty of all Scotsmen to do, as the Poet of Hawthornden has "tarnished the hospitality of their hospitable country." What! Is there to be no forgiveness? Scotland is not only a hospitable, but she is a Christian country; and must she never forget the offence of a favourite son?

What would Barry Cornwall think of us were we to call on Christendom

never to forget that he is an ignorant calumniator of the distinguished dead? He too has written poems of much merit”—though his genius is not for a moment to be compared with that of Drummond of Hawthornden-a memorable name in our poetical literature. He too is a worthy private character-so was Drummond. "His memory," says Sir Walter Scott, "has been uniformly handed down to us as that of an amiable and retired scholar, loved by his friends, and respected by the literary men of his time." Why seek, then, to affix an indelible stain on a name of which his country has reason to be proud? And why, in particular, all this boiling indignation in the breast of Barry Cornwall? Gifford was a bitter creature; and then he was entitled to resent any injustice done to Jonson, for he was likewise a good creature, had studied Ben, knew and loved him well, and was his triumphant champion against a host of calumniators whom he slew and trod into the mire. Conceiving Drummond, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, to have been the most culpable of them all, he waxed so exceeding wroth, that, with red eyes, he saw in him an absolute fiend. In short, he fell into monomania. You had only to utter the word" Drummond," in order to see him "into such vagaries fall as he would dance." But the gentle Barry! Why should he be transformed into such a virago?" What is Hawthornden to him, or he to Hawthornden ?" At this moment he knows little-and seems to care less about Ben Jonson, -and it is laughable, and something more, to see him sporting the indignant, to hear his yelp after the growl of Gifford to behold the lap-dog affecting the lion.

By the bye with what indignation and horror must not the high-souled Barry Cornwall gaze at the vignette which insults the shade of Ben Jonson, on the very title page of this edition of his works! Mr Moxon having "hired a poetaster" to traduce Drummond, and to excommunicate the gentle bard for ever from the sympathies of his kind, at the same time engages a painter and an engraver to exhibit, to the eyes of all posterity, the abode of this traitor to friendship and violator of all the most sacred observances of domestic life!

There

Stands Hawthornden- engraved by Finden from Harding-that the "tribe of Ben" may feast their eyes on a sight of the place where their father was decoyed, cozened, and betrayed. It is but a sorry affair—without either beauty or grandeur. But, in nature, the place is fair, and seems a fit habitation for gentle spirits delighting in peace.

But Barry must not be let off with this mild rebuke-for his offence has not yet been mentioned-and he must strip to receive the knout. His main accusation against Drummond is FALSE. This "Notorious Conversa tion"-(the "Heads" of it) was set down in the year 1619-and first given to the world in 1711, upwards of sixty years after Drummond had been laid in his grave!

the

Where can Barry Cornwall have been living, during the last twenty years, not to have heard a whisper of all the many discussions respecting Ben's visit to Hawthornden, that ever and anon kept rising and falling before eyes and ears of the literary public, since the appearance of Gifford's edition in 1816? In the Second Volume of Maga, the question was for a while set at rest; and Drummond's character released from the gravamen of the charge so incessantly insisted on by that truculent critic. Thomas Campbell, in an article in Brewster's Encyclopædia, showed its foolish injustice; Sir Walter Scott followed in the Border Antiquities, and his vindication is reprinted in the 7th volume of his Prose Works; David Laing, with his usual accuracy and acumen, set the affair over again in its true light, in a paper printed in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; and in almost every literary journal in Britain has it been stated that the Heads of a Conversation did not see the light till more than half a century after Drummond had been gathered to his fathers. "Where ha'e you been a' day, my boy Barry?"

But perhaps he was led wrong by Gifford. Not at all; he shut his eyes, and blindfold stumbled into the exploded blunder. Gifford knew that the Heads were first published in the folio of 1711; but such was his inveterate hatred, that he would not plainly say so, and at times he writes as if he desired to avert his eyes from the fact.

"Such," says he, "are the remarks of Jonson on his contemporariesset down in malice, abridged without judgment, and published without shame;" and Barry supposes that to mean," published without shame" by Drummond. Did this blindest of biographers never see these words of Gifford," At any rate, he seems to think that there is nothing unusual or improper in framing a libellous attack on the character and reputation of a friend, keeping it carefully in store for thirty years, and finally bequeathing it, fairly engrossed, to the caprice or cupidity of an executor." It never was fairly engrossed-nor bequeathed; nor was it published from cupiditythat is a childish charge; and now in the year 1838, "with visage all inflamed," steps forth, crow-quill in hand, Mr Forcible Feeble, and lets dribble from it snib, in wishy-washy, an anathema couched in the form of a sickly falsehood.

It used to be said, and believed, that Ben Jonson made a journey on foot to Scotland, solely to visit Drummond in his own house at Hawthornden. The notion is too absurd, and has long been discarded by the most credulous. There is no positive evidence of his having been at Hawthornden at all— though nobody doubts he was-and tradition has consecrated the scene"When Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade."

According to Gifford (and, of course, B. c.), Ben passed the chief part of April, 1619, at Hawthornden. Barry says, with infantile simplicity," he set out on foot, it seems, for that country, in the summer of 1618; passed some months with Mr Stuart and other friends in the north, and finally arrived at the house of Mr William Drummond, the poet of Hawthornden, in April, 1619.” "In the north" does not here mean the north of Scotland, but merely "that country;" for towards the end of September, Taylor the Water Poet, saw Jonson, who was then living, he says, with a Mr Stuart in Leith. So seven months afterwards "he finally arrived at Hawthornden," distant about two hours' smart walk from that ancient port!

Jonson left Leith on his return to London, on the 25th of January, 16 9 -as we are informed in a transcript, by Sir Robert Sibbald, of Drummond's own MS. notes of his conversations

with Ben, discovered by the indefatigable David Laing, and inserted by him (1831) in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The story of the Poet's three weeks' stay at Hawthornden in April falls to the ground. Gifford, so far as we can see, had no other reason for fixing on April, but this-Ben writes to Drummond from London on the 10th of May, 1619, mentioning his safe arrival, and his having had a gracious interview with the King-and Gifford, allowing him between a fortnight and three weeks for a walk of four hundred miles (not bad work for a man nearly fifty years of age, and twenty stone weight), confidently affirms that he passed the greater part of April at Hawthornden. But no where have we been able to find any ground for the mistaken assertion that he went there in the beginning, and left it towards the end of April. We have seen from Sibbald's Transcript, that he left Leith on the 25th of January-in the same shoes in which he had arrived there probably in September, 1618-that he had purchased the said shoes on his way down, at Darnton-which we believe is near Berwick-that they had excoriated his feet sadly-and that he purposed to drop them at Darnton on his way up-and provide himself there with a new pair. They had probably seen some service on his many tramps over Scotland. Loch Lomond, we know, he visited; and can there be any doubt that he walked into the heart of the Highlands? What a book his "Discoveries" would have been! That fatal fire

destroyed a glorious wreath about to be woven round the head of Scotland.

Taylor, the Water Poet, left London, on his penniless pilgrimage, on the 14th July, 1618, and, it was said by some witty rogues, in imitation and ridicule of Ben Jonson, who, therefore, must have left London before that date

say about the end of June-and we find him again in London early in May of the following year. His excursion to and fro, and through Scotland, occupied about ten months; and as it appears he was three months on his journey from Leith to Londonprobably he was three months on his journey from London to Leith. In what town of any size in Britain would he, the most eminent man of genius of his age, not have been welcomed? In what house or hall would he not have been an honoured guest? In the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, we know from himself, as well as from the grateful Taylor, that he was in the midst of the best society; and many a jovial night must his presence have illumined in the city or suburban dwellings of our nobility and gentry, besides the "low-roofed house" of Hawthornden. No doubt he and Drummond met many a time and oft; for who more fit to converse with the illustrious English poet than his brother bard-a man who had seen something of the world too, an accomplished scholar, and a devoted loyalist? There is no reason for believing that Drummond's notes were all notes of conversations at Hawthornden.

SINCE the Manchester demonstration, it is apparent to every body that this great question is rapidly drawing to a crisis. In this most practical of countries, when any question is once transferred from the arena of books, pamphlets, controversy, in short, conducted by the press,-to the official arena of public institutions, "chambers of commerce," authentic committees of any denomination, sanctioned by the presence of great leading tradesmen, we all know that such a question must very soon agitate the great council of the nation; agitate the landed aristocracy; agitate the thinking classes universally; and (in a sense peculiar to this corn question) agitate that class to frenzy, amongst whom "Give us this day our daily bread" is the litany ascending for ever to heaven. Well it will be for us, and no thanks to some sections of the press, if this latter class do not pursue the discussion sword in hand. For they have been instructed, nay provoked to do so, in express words. And they are indirectly provoked to such a course by two separate artifices of journals far too discreet to commit themselves by any open exhortations to violence. But in what other result can popular fury find a natural out-break, when abused daily by the representation, that upon this question depends the comfort of their lives-that the Corn Laws are the gates which shut them out from plenty-and abused equally by the representations, that one large class of their superiors is naturally, by position, and by malignity of feeling, their deadly enemy? We, of this British land, are familiar with the violence of partisanship; we are familiar with its excesses; and it is one sign of the health and soundness belonging to those ancient institutions, which some are so bent upon overthrowing, that the public safety can bear such party violences without a tremor reaching its deep foundation. But there are limits to all things; or, if it were otherwise, and the vis vita were too profoundly lodged in our frame of polity to be affected by local storms and by transitory frenzies, even in that case it is shocking to witness a journal of ancient authority amongst ourselves

a journal to which, not Whigs only, but, from old remembrances of half a century, we Tories acknowledge a sentiment of brotherly kindness-the old familiar Morning Chronicle of London-no longer attacking things, and parties, and doctrines, but persons essential to the composition of our community: not persons only, but an entire order of persons: and this order not in the usual tone of party violence, which recognises a worth in the man while it assaults him in some public capacity; but flying at the throats, as it were, of the country gentlemen in a body, and solemnly assuring its readers, that one and all are so possessed by selfishness, and even by malignity to the lower classes, that they would rather witness the extinction of the British manufacturing superiority, or (if it must be) of the British manufactures, than abate any thing of their own pretensions. As a matter of common sense, putting candour out of the question, why should the landed aristocracy be more selfish than other orders? Or how is it possible that any one order in a state should essentially differ from the rest, among which they grow up, are educated, marry, and associate? Or, in mere consistency, what coherency is there between the assurances that our own landed interest will not suffer by the extinction of the Corn Laws, and these imputations of a merely selfish resistance to that extinction? This dilemma is obvious. Either the landlords see or they do not see the necessity of the changes which are demanded? If they do not, what becomes of their selfishness? Not being convinced of the benefits to result, they must be doing their bounden duty in resisting them. On the other hand, if they do -besides that in such a case they have credit granted to them for a clearsightedness which elsewhere their enemies are denying them-the conclusion must be, not that they are selfish, but insane. The prosperity of manufacturing industry is, upon any theory, the conditio sine quâ non of prosperity to the agricultural body. In the case, therefore, supposed, that the landlords are aware of a peremptory necessity in the manufacturing interest for a

change in the Corn Laws, it is not selfishness, it is not "malignity" (comprehensible or incomprehensible) in that class towards the lowest class which could stand between them and their own inalienable interest. So that upon either horn of the dilemma-seeing or not seeing the soundness of the revolution demanded-the landlords could find no principle of action, one way or other, in selfishness. Selfishness, in fact, could operate only upon the case of a divided interest: whereas all parties have sense enough to admit, that the interest of land and manufactures are bound up together. Or, if they were not, it would be the clear right of the landlords, and no selfishness at all, to prefer their own order. But the case is imaginary.

One other monstrous paralogism, let me notice, in this Manchester Chamber of Commerce, subsequent to the public meeting: they have hired a public room, and are making other arrangements for an exposure to the public eye of continental wares corresponding to our own staple manufactures, labelled with the prices here and on the Continent. Well, what is the inference which the spectator is to draw? This-that our empire, our supremacy as manufacturers is shaken. Be it so. I enter not upon the question of fact or of degree; let the point be conceded. What then? The main question, the total question, remains untouched. viz. Under the operation of what CAUSE has this change been accomplished? The Chamber will answer, That the cause lies in the different prices of bread ;-but that is the very question at issue. Did ever man hear of such a petitio principii? Wages are but one element of price-bread is but one element of wages.

On this subject I shall remark briefly, that it is not true, as the ordinary calculation runs, that one-half, or nearly one-half of the working-man's expenditure goes in bread; potatoes, more and more in each successive year, are usurping upon bread: as an average, one-fifth part would be nearer to the truth. Then, again, bread could not, on an average of years, be had 50 per cent cheaper, as is assumed; but 20 per cent, or 25 per cent at most, all expenses allowed for. Thirdly and finally, wages cannot be assumed as, on an average, making more than 1-4th of price. The result of which three

considerations is, that the difference on manufactured goods generally might, perhaps, at most turn out 1-5th of 1-5th of 1-4th on the present price; total about 1-100th part of the existing price: and this, observe, on the supposition, that the total difference went to the benefit of the consumer, and not, as in fact it would, to the benefit of profits. However, allow even his own extravagant calculations to the enemy. Then, because bread, according to him, will sink one-half, and because bread he affirms to be onehalf the outlay of the workman, and because wages constitute (suppose him to say) one-third of the price generally, this would amount to one-half of one-half of one-third, or-but remember, by a most extravagant assumption as the basis-to 1-12th discount upon the present prices.

Hence that is to say, by this last argument-it appears, that, conceding the very largest postulates, the enemy has made 1-12th-or a fraction more than 8 per cent is the total amount of difference which this enormous change in the policy of the country can effect in our manufactures.

Suppose, for example, upon 100 shillings, a sum of 33 goes on wages, 15 on profits, and 52 on raw material, (including the wear and tear of machinery). The loaf sinks from a shilling to sixpence (though the most impudent of the enemy hardly goes so far). The workman, he affirms, has hitherto spent 16s. 6d. on bread, he now spends 8s. 3d.; so far the 100 shillings sink to 91s. 9d. Upon this sum 15 per cent will amount to about eighteenpence less than before, that is, to 13s. 6d. Total discount upon 100 shillings, 9s. 9d.

Yet, again, consider that this presumes the total saving to be allowed to the purchaser. But, if that be so, how is the workman benefited? Or, if that be not so, and the total saving (which, for many reasons, is impossible) should go to the workman, then how is the manufacturer benefited?

In the first case, what motive has the working class-now under such excitement-to stir in the matter? In the second case, what motive has the Chamber of Commerce to stir? If the whole 9s. 9d. be given to the workman, how would the manufacturing interest be aided? The Continent cares nothing about the particular distribution