In concluding this article, we cannot but express our regret, that the life of Lord Chatham has never yet been written by any man qualified to do him justice. The author, of whose volumes we have been speaking, is anonymous; and though his work is creditable to the writer, with the limited means of information which he describes in his preface, it is altogether unworthy of the great subject of his biography. We do sincerely wish that some one who could appreciate Lord Chatham's virtues and talents, and who could, at the same time, dispel the clouds which rest upon the history of his earlier days, would undertake the task of representing this great man in his proper colours to posterity. It would be an honourable, and, we think, a patriotic undertaking. It would be discharging a debt that has been long due; while it held out a brilliant example to stimulate the honest independence and active patriotism of distant generations. Englishmen owe it to themselves and their children to cherish. the memory of such a statesman. It is matter of national importance that his fame should be preserved unsullied. Calumny, whether contemporary or posthumous, should be indignantly discountenanced. It is upon this principle, and because we desire that our readers should examine Lord Chatham's life for themselves, that we have made these few observations, and made them so perfectly general. We presume not to write the panegyric of such a man: it was never our intention to do so. We knew well enough, that that task had been executed already, in a manner so full as to leave nothing deficient,-so perfect as to outstrip all competition. But we did feel a wish to deposit our humble wreath upon this altar: and we beg that the ardour of our devotion may not be measured by the value of the offering. "Recorded honours (said Junius, long ago,) shall gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it." THE ROSES. Translated from the Dutch of Bilderdijk. I saw them once blowing Whilst morning was glowing, But now are their wither'd leaves strew'd o'er the ground, For tempests to play on, For cold worms to prey on, The shame of the garden that triumphs around. Their buds which then flourish'd, With dew-drops were nourish'd, Which turn'd into pearls as they fell from on high; Their fragrance all vanish'd, Ere evening a shadow has cast from the sky. I saw, too, whole races Of glories and graces VOL. III. No. 13.-Museum. D MORAL EFFECTS OF REVOLUTIONS. IN revolutionary times, as where a civil war prevails in a country, men are much worse, as moral beings, than in quiet and untroubled states of peace. So much is matter of history. The English under Charles II. after twenty years' agitation and civil tumults; the Romans after Sylla and Marius, and the still more bloody proscriptions of the triumvirates; the French, after the wars of the league and the storms of the revolution,-were much changed for the worse, and exhibited strange relaxations of the moral principle. But why? What is the philosophy of the case? Some will think it sufficiently explained by the necessity of witnessing so much bloodshed-the hearths and the very graves of their fathers polluted by the slaughter of their countrymen-the "acharnement" which characterizes civil contests (as always the quarrels of friends are the fiercest) and the license of wrong which is bred by war and the majesties of armies. Doubtless this is part of the explanation. But is this all? Mr. Coleridge has referred to this subject in "The Friend;" but, to the best of my remembrance, only noticing it as a fact. Fichte, the celebrated German philosopher, has given us his view of it ("Idea of War," p. 15.); and it is so ingenious, that it deserves mention: it is this: "Times of revolution force men's minds inwards: hence they are led amongst other things to meditate on morals with reference to their own conduct. to subtilize too much upon this subject must always be ruinous to morality, with all understandings that are not very powerful, i. e. with the majority, because it terminates naturally in a body of maxims, a specious and covert self-interest. Whereas, when men meditate less, they are apt to act more from natural feeling, in which the natural goodness of the heart often interferes to neutralize or even to overbalance its errors.' " But [Ibid. SONNET TO AN ENTHUSIAST. YOUNG ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, Thrice cursed of thy race, thou art ordain'd [Ibid. FROM THE LONDON MAGAZINE. POOR RELATIONS. a A POOR relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature,piece of impertinent correspondency,-an odious approximation,haunting conscience,-a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of your prosperity,-an unwelcome remembrancer,-a perpetually recurring mortification,-a drain on your purse,-a more intolerable dun upon your pride,—a drawback upon success, -a rebuke to your rising,—a stain in your blood,-a blot on your scutcheon,-a rent in your garment,—a death's head at your banquet,-Agathocles' pot,-a Mordecai in your gate,-a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path,-a frog in your chamber,-à fly in your ointment,-a mote in your eye,-a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends,-the one thing not needful,-the hail in harvest,-the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet,-the bore par excellence. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr.." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling, and-embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and-draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner time-when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company-but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visiter's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, "My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop in to-day." He remembereth birth-days-and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small-yet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. He sticketh by the portyet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, -if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be-a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent-yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that your other guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and-resents being left out. When the company break up, he profferetli to go for a coach-and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some mean, and quite unimportant anecdote of the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what he calleth-favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and insults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle-which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances. There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is—a female poor relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your indigent she relative is hopeless. "He is an old humorist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a character at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L-s; or what does she at their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes-aliquando sufflaminandus erat-but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped-after the gentlemen. Mr. requests the honour of taking wine with her; she hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former-because he does. She calls the servant Sir; and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord. Richard Amlet, Esq. in the play, is a notable instance of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of affinity constituting a claim to acquaintance may subject the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and a lady with a great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him "her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amlet in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor WPoor W was of my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not thrid the alleys and blind ways of the town with him, to elude notice, when we have been out together on a holiday in the streets of this sneering and prying metropolis. W went, sore with these notions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a scholar's life, meeting with the alloy of a humble introduction, wrought in him a passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion from the society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under which Latimer must have walked erect; and in which Hooker, in his young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student slunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, to soothe and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when the waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse malignity. The father of Whad hitherto exercised the humble profession of house painter at N~~~~, near Ox |