V.

O! had we but trusted the _rebels’_ professions, Met their cannon with smiles, and their pikes with concessions; Tho’ they still took an _ell_ when we gave them an _inch_, They would all have been _loyal_—like Ballynahinch.

VIRI ERUDITI,

Si vobis hocce poematium, de navali laude Britanniæ, paucis annis ante conscriptum, nuperrimè recensitum atque emendatum, forté arrideat, quærite in proximis vestris tabulis locum quendam secretum atque securum, ubi repositum suâ sorte perfruatur. Quod si in me hanc gratiam contuleritis, devinctus vobis ero et astrictus beneficio.

ETONENSIS.

DE NAVALI LAUDE BRITANNIÆ.

Successu si freta brevi, fatisque secundis, Europæ sub pace vetet requiescere gentes, Inque dies ruat ulteriús furialibus armis GALLIA, tota instans à sedibus eruere imis Fundamenta, quibus cultæ Commercia vitæ Firmant se subnixa;—tuisne, BRITANNIA, regnis Ecquid ab hoste times; dum te tua saxa tuentur, Dum pelagus te vorticibus spumantibus ambit?

Tu medio stabilita mari, atque ingentibus undis Cincta sedes; nec tu angusto, Vulcania tanquam Trinacris, interclusa sinu; nec faucibus arctis Septa freti brevis, impositisque coercita claustris. Liberiora Tibi spatia, et porrecta sine ullo Limite regna patent (quanto neque maxima quondam Carthago, aut Phœnissa Tyros, ditissima tellus Floruit imperio) confiniaque ultima mundi.

Ergone formidabis adhuc, ne se inferat olim, Et campis impuné tuis superingruat hostis? Usque adeone parúm est, quod laté litora cernas Præruptisturrita jugis, protentaque longo Circuitu, et tutos passim præbentia portus? Præsertim australes ad aquas, Damnoniaque arva, Aut ubi Vecta viret, secessusque insula fidos Efficit objectu laterum; saxosave Dubris Velivolum laté pelagus, camposque liquentes Aeria, adversasque aspectat desuper oras.

Nec levibus sanè auguriis, aut omine nullo Auguror hinc fore perpetuum per secula nomen: Dum nautis tam firma tuis, tam prodiga vitæ Pectora, inexpletâ succensa cupidine famæ, Nec turpi flectenda metu; dum maxima quercus, Majestate excelsa suâ, atque ingentibus umbris, Erigitur, vasto nodosa atque aspera trunco; Silvarum regina. Hæc formidabilis olim Noctem inter mediam nimborum, hyemesque sonantes, Ardua se attollit super æquora; quam neque fluctûs Spumosi attenuat furor, aut violentia venti Frangere, et in medio potis est disrumpere ponto.

Viribus his innixa, saloque accincta frementi, Tu media inter bella sedes; ignara malorum, Quæ tolerant obsessæ urbes, cúm jam hostica clausas Fulminat ad portas acies, vallataque circúm Castra locat, sævisque aditus circumsidet armis.

Talia sunt tibi perpetuæ fundamina famæ, Ante alias diis cara, BRITANNIA! Prælia cerno Inclyta, perpetuos testes quid maxima victrix, Quid possis preclara tuo, maris arbitra, ponto.

Hæc inter, sanctas æternâ laude calendas Servandas recolo, quibus illa, immane minata Gentibus excidium, totum grassata per orbem Ausaque jam imperiis intactum amplectier æquor, Illa odiis lymphata, et libertate recenti GALLIA, disjectam ferali funere classem Indoluit devicta, et non reparabile vulnus. Tempore quo instructas vidit longo ordine puppes Rostratâ certare acie, et concurrere ad arma, Ætheraque impulsu tremere, Uxantisque per undas Lugubre lumen agi, atque rubentem fulgere fumum.

Cerno triumphatas acies, quo tempore IBERÛM Disjectos fastus, lacerisque aplustria velis Horruit Oceanus:—quali formidine Gades Intremere, ut fractâ classem se mole moventem Hospitium petere, et portus videre relictos!

Quid referam, nobis quæ nuper adorea risit, Te rursús superante, die quo decolor ibat Sanguine BELGARUM Rhenus, fluctusque minores Volvebat, frustra indignans polluta cruore Ostia, et Angliaco tremefactas fulmine rupes.

Cerno pias ædes procúl, et regalia quondam Atria, cæruleis quæ preterlabitur undis Velivolus Thamesis; materno ubi denique nautas Excipis amplexu, virtus quoscumque virilis Per pelagi impulerit discrimina, quælibet ausos Pro Patriâ. Híc rude donantur, dulcique senescunt Hospitio emeriti, placidâque quiete potiti Vulnera præteritos jactant testantia casus.

Macte ideó decus Oceani! macte omne per ævum Victrix, æquoreo stabilita BRITANNIA regno! Litoribusque tuis ne propugnacula tantúm Præsidio fore, nec saxi munimina credas, Nec tantúm quæ mille acies in utrumque parantur, Aut patriam tutari, aut non superesse cadenti; Invictæ quantúm metuenda tonitrua CLASSIS, Angliacæ CLASSIS;—quæ majestate verendâ Ultrix, inconcussa, diú dominabitur orbi, Hostibus invidiosa tuis, et sæpe triumphis Nobilitata novis, pelagi Regina subacti.

[TRANSLATION OF THE PRECEDING POEM.[303]

By the late A. F. Westmacott, Esq.

MEN OF LEARNING,

If by chance the following little poem, on the naval glory of Britain, written a few years since, and very lately revised and corrected, please you, look in your nearest tablets for some private and secure place, where it may be placed to enjoy its good fortune. Should you confer on me this favour, I shall be bound to you by the obligation of your kindness.

ETONIAN.

ON THE NAVAL GLORY OF BRITAIN.

If buoy’d by short success and fav’ring chance, Wide Europe’s peace-destroyer, restless France, Each day still onward rush with fresh alarms, And threaten ruin with her furious arms; Ruin to all whereon is based the throne That life’s sweet charities have made their own; Fearest thou, Britain, for thy rock-girt realm, With seas that foam around and whirlpools to o’erwhelm?

Still in the midst of ocean firmly placed, Circled by mighty waves thy seat is based! Not by a strait enclosed, as that fair soil Where Fabled Vulcan plies his fiery toil; Within no narrow bay thy waters roll, No yawning gulf, no barrier rocks control. Wider thy space, thy realm no limit knows, Not Tyre so rich, not Tyrian Carthage rose. Wilt thou yet fear, lest here the haughty foe, Thy fields o’er-run, and still unpunished go! Is it then nought to view th’ extended strand O’er which stern crags like beetling turrets stand, And countless ports in safe embrace expand? Look to thy southern waves, to Devon’s fields, Or where green Vectis[304] trusty harbour yields, Spreading her friendly arms; or Dover’s height Looks on the sea with widespread canvas white, And, perched on high, the liquid plain surveys, And adverse cliffs that bound the wat’ry ways.

Not by vague augury, nor omen slight, I view thy name through endless ages bright; While thy firm crews still prodigal of life Insatiate burn for fame and dare the strife. No coward fear they know, while stands erect The mighty oak with boughs umbrageous decked; Majestic, high, with knotted trunk, the Queen Of woods! Hereafter, o’er the waters seen ’Mid the dim midnight of the sounding storm Aloft ’twill rear the terrors of its form; In vain the roaring surges round it break, In vain the winds their uncurbed vengeance wreak, Throned on such pow’rs, surrounded by the sea, The circling waves have scarce one fear for thee. Thou know’st not ills that towns besieged await, When hostile columns thunder at the gate; Pitch their dread camp with fatal ramparts round, And with fierce arms enclose the leaguered ground.

Such is to thee the base of lasting fame, To Heav’n Britannia still the dearest name! Gladly I view the glories of the fight, Perpetual witnesses of deathless might, To show, bright conqueress, nations yet to be, What dared, what did the mistress of the sea.

’Mid these the day with praise eternal blest Earns memory’s tribute most, when, direful pest, Denouncing ruin to the world, while she Dared grasp the sceptre of the unconquer’d sea, Wild with new license, mad with hatred’s heat France, grieved and humbled, viewed her ruined fleet! Saw how all hopes one fatal wound could mar When well-manned squadrons armed their prows for war! When the sky trembled, and o’er Ushant’s tide Red glared the smoke and sickly light supplied.

I see the conquered lines, what time proud Spain With tattered sailcloths thickly strewed the main; How Cadiz quailed when back the shattered fleet Sought, in the port it left, a safe retreat. Why should I tell what smile of Vict’ry beamed, When Rhine’s fair wave with Belgic slaughter gleamed; When humbled waters tow’rds the sea it sped, Mad that its mouths with native blood were red, While England’s thunders rolled above its rocky bed?

I see afar the domes that crown the tide, Where Thames uncounted sails in triumph glide: Here, the brave souls whom manly courage drove Through the deep’s perils in a holy love Of country, find in thy maternal breast Their toil rewarded and their daring blest! Dismissed at length from duty nobly done They wane in quiet ’neath the noontide sun, Recal the dangers of their byegone wars, And boast appealing to their manhood’s scars.

On in thy race of glory, conqueress, on! For every age thy sea-girt realm is won! Think not the fortress which thy shores uprear, Nor thy rock bulwarks shall inspire such fear, Nor the brave thousands who obey thy call, With thee to rise, or not survive thy fall, As the dread thunders of that untamed host: Thy fleet, Britannia, is thy proudest boast; Awful, majestic, firm; its flag unfurl’d Shall long wave lordly o’er the conquered world; Hateful to foes for triumphs yet to be, The rightful Sovereign of the subject sea.—ED.]

No. XXXVI.[305]

MONDAY, July 9, 1798.

_We shall miss thee; But yet thou shalt have freedom— —So! to the Elements Be free, and fare thou well._ —THE TEMPEST.

We have now completed our Engagement with the Public. The ANTI-JACOBIN has been conducted to the close of the Session in strict conformity with the Principles upon which it was first undertaken.

Its reception with the Public has been highly favourable:—it certainly has been out of proportion to any merit which has appeared in the execution of the Work. This is not said in the mere cant of Authorship. We are sensible that much of our success has been owing to the improved state of the Public mind;—an improvement existing from other causes, and to which, if We have in any degree contributed, it has in return operated to our advantage, by a reaction more than equal to any impression which our exertions could have produced. There is, however, one species of merit to which We lay claim without hesitation:—We mean that of the Spirit and Principles upon which We have acted. That Spirit, We trust We shall leave behind us. The SPELL of _Jacobin invulnerability_ is now broken.[306]

We know from better authority than that of CAMILLE JORDAN, that one of our Daily Papers was, _early_ in the French Revolution, purchased by France, and devoted to the dissemination of tenets, which, at the period to which We allude, seemed necessary to the success of the Ruling Party.

For some time matters went on swimmingly. The Editors of the favoured Prints divided their time and their attention between _London_ and _Paris_; and the superiority of the governing Party in France, over its Opponents, was as duly, and as strenuously maintained in the English Papers, as in the “_Journal du Père de Chène_,”[307] “_Journal par L’Ami du Peuple_,”[308] or any other Journal that issued from the Presses of the Jacobin Society.

As the principles of the Revolution, however, acquired consistency in France, the struggle between the Governing Party and its Opponents became an object of less moment, and the Jacobins had leisure, as they long had had inclination, to turn their views to this Country.

A State, enjoying under a Government which they had proscribed as utterly incapable of producing either, as much freedom and happiness as comport with the nature of Man, was too bitter a satire on the decision of these new SOLONS, to be regarded with patience; and the pens which had been so industriously employed in celebrating the plunderers and perturbators of France, were now engaged in the benevolent design of recommending their principles, and their plans of ameliorating the condition of the human race by Atheism and Plunder, to the serious notice of the People of _Great Britain_.

Affairs seemed rapidly hastening to a crisis: _France_ saw with delight the numbers seduced by the sophistry of her Writers, and by the alluring prospects of proscription and plunder; and her Agents, who snuffed the scent of blood like Vultures, already anticipated the Revolution which they now believed inevitable; when the Ministry, who had viewed the progress of the evil with an anxious but unterrified eye, roused themselves into unexampled energy, and called on the Nation to rally round the Constitution which they had received from their Forefathers.

The call was gloriously answered;—Thousands and tens of thousands sprung forth in its defence; and the barbarous hordes which so lately threatened its destruction, overawed by their numbers, shrunk from the contest without a struggle, and vanished from the field.

But the nature of a Jacobin is restless. His hatred of all subordination is unbounded, and his thirst of plunder and blood urgent and insatiable. In arms he found himself infinitely too weak to obtain his purpose; he must, therefore, have recourse again to artifice; and by fallacies and lies, endeavoured to subvert and betray the judgment of those he could not openly hope to subdue.

For this purpose, the Press was engaged, and almost monopolized in all its branches: Reviews, Registers, Monthly Magazines, and Morning and Evening Prints, sprung forth in abundance.

Of these last (the only Publications with which We have any immediate concern), it is not too much to say, that they have laboured in the cause of infamy, with a perseverance which no sense of shame could repress, and no dread of punishment overcome. The objects committed to their charge were multifarious. They were to revile all Religions, but

## particularly the Christian, whose DIVINE FOUNDER was to be blasphemously

compared to _Bacchus_, and represented as equally ideal, or, if real, more bestial and besotted! They were to magnify the power of _France_, on all occasions; to deny her murders; to palliate her robberies; to suppress all mention of her miseries, and to hold her forth to the unenlightened Englishman as the mirror of justice, and truth, and generosity, and meekness, and humanity, and moderation, and tender forbearance:—and, on the other hand, they were to depreciate the spirit, and the courage, and the resources of _England_: they were to impede, if possible, and if not, to ridicule and revile, every measure which the honour, the prosperity, or the safety of the Country might imperiously require; they were to represent the Government as insidiously aiming to enslave the Nation, by every attempt to maintain its Independence; and the majority of both Houses, the great body of Proprietors, as anxious to scatter and confound that wealth, which _their_ Patrons alone, the respectable sweepings of _Craven-House_, and the _Crown_ and _Anchor_ Tavern, were solicitous to augment and preserve.

These, our readers will allow, were no common objects, and if they have looked into the _Morning Chronicle_, _Morning Post_, and _Courier_ Journals to which our attention has been chiefly directed, they must have seen that their attainment was sought by no common means; by an _invariable_ course of Falsehood and Misrepresentation—such, at least, was our idea on the first perusal of these Papers, an idea which every succeeding one served to strengthen and confirm.

To detect and expose this Falsehood, and to correct this Misrepresentation, became at length an object of indispensable necessity: a variety of applications of the most malignant nature had obtained currency and credit, from the unblushing impudence with which they were first obtruded on the Public by the Agents of Sedition, and the apathy with which they were suffered to pass uncontradicted by those who despised them for their atrocity, or ridiculed them for their folly:—these were unfortunately operating on the less enlightened part of the Nation; and it was from a full conviction of the pernicious effects they were calculated to produce, that we finally determined to step forth (after patiently waiting to see whether the business would not be taken up by abler hands), and to oppose such antidotes to the evil, as a regard for truth, and a sincere love and veneration for the Constitution under which we have flourished for ages, could supply.

How we have succeeded must be left to the judgment of the Public. If we might venture, indeed, to conjecture from the support which we have experienced, the result would be flattering in an unusual degree. Three complete Editions of our Paper (a circumstance, we believe, as yet without a precedent) have been disposed of, and the demand for them still increases.

But the motives of Profit, as will readily, we believe, be granted to us, have little influence on our minds: we contemplate the extensive circulation of our Paper with pleasure, solely from the consideration of the VAST NUMBERS of our Countrymen whom we have fortified by our animadversions against the profligate attacks of the Agents of Sedition, whether furnished by the _Whig Club_, the _Corresponding Society_, or the _Directory of France_.

Calculation was not originally our delight. Nor was it till after we saw the wonderful effects which it produced in the pages of the Jacobinical Arithmeticians that we were tempted to adopt it. Our first Essay, however, was crowned with the most complete success. In our Seventh Number, we gave (still following the laudable example of the Jacobins, who, when a Ship is to be fitted out, or a Regiment raised, for the purpose of defending our Country from an insolent and barbarous foe, nicely calculate how many idle mouths might be fed by the sums required)—We gave, we say, as accurate a statement as we could form, of the number of People that might be supplied with wholesome food for one day, by the SURCHARGE levied on the DUKE OF BEDFORD—a statement which, we are happy to add, placed the matter in so clear a light that we have since had no occasion to repeat it.

Our Readers will not _now_ be surprised if we again have recourse to _Calculation_ to prove the advantages which (we love to flatter ourselves) have been derived from our Paper. Our Sale (to say nothing of the new Editions which have been disposed of) has regularly amounted to _Two Thousand Five Hundred_ a week; on an average of several Papers, we find the Lies which have been detected to amount to _six_, and the Misrepresentations and Mistakes to _an equal number_. This furnishes a total of _twelve_, which, multiplied by _thirty-five_, the number of the last ANTI-JACOBIN, gives a total of _four hundred and twenty_.

If we now take the number of Subscribers (2500) and multiply them by seven, a number of which every one’s family may be reasonably supposed to consist, we shall have a product of 17,500; but as many of these have made a practice, which we highly approve, and cannot too earnestly recommend, of lending our Papers to their poorer Neighbours, We must make our addition to the sum which We evidently take too low at 32,500. We have thus an aggregate of 50,000 People, a most respectable minority of the Readers of the whole Kingdom, who have been put effectually on their guard, by our humble though earnest endeavours, against the artifices of the seditious, and the more open attacks of the profligate and abandoned Foes of their Constitution, their Country, and their God.

Further, if we multiply 50,000, the number of Readers, by 420, the exact number of Falsehoods detected—say 500—for We ought to take in bye-blows, and odd refutations in notes, &c.—the total of Twenty-five Millions will represent the aggregate of Falsehood which We have sent out of the World.

We have more than once repeated that we entered upon this part of our task, not from any vain hope of convincing the Writers themselves. We knew this to be impossible; the forehead of a _Jacobin_, like the shield of AJAX, is formed of seven bull-hides, and utterly incapable of any impression of shame or remorse—but we are convinced that we have rescued, as we stated above, Fifty Thousand persons from their machinations, and taught them not only a salutary distrust, but a contempt and disbelief, of every laboured article which appears in the Papers of this description.

Nor can We be accused of presumption in this declaration, when it is considered that the conviction on which We so confidently rely is not the effect of a _solitary_ impression on our Readers’ minds, but of one four hundred and twenty times repeated (this being the fair amount of the number of Lies, &c., We have detected)—an agglomeration of impulse which no prejudice could resist and no preconceived partialities weaken or remove.

Here then We rest. We trust We have “done the State some service”;—We have driven the Jacobins from many strongholds to which they most tenaciously held.[309] We have exposed their Principles, detected their Motives, weakened their Authority, and overthrown their Credit. We have shewn them in every instance, ignorant, and designing, and false, and wicked, and turbulent, and anarchical—various in their language, but united in their plans, and steadily pursuing through hatred and contempt, the destruction of their Country.

With this impression on the Minds of our Readers WE TAKE OUR LEAVE of them. Their welfare is in their own hands; if they suffer the Jacobins to regain any of the influence of which We have deprived them, they will compromise their own Safety; but WE shall be blameless—_Liberavimus animas nostras_.—WE HAVE DONE OUR DUTY.

POETRY.

_New Morality._

From mental mists to purge a nation’s eyes; To animate the weak, unite the wise; To trace the deep infection that pervades The crowded town, and taints the rural shades; To mark how wide extends the mighty waste O’er the fair realms of Science, Learning, Taste; To drive and scatter all the brood of lies, And chase the varying falsehood as it flies; The long arrears of ridicule to pay, To drag reluctant dulness back to day; 10 Much yet remains.—To you these themes belong, Ye favoured sons of virtue and of song!

Say, is the field too narrow? are the times Barren of folly, and devoid of crimes?

Yet, venial vices, in a milder age, Could rouse the warmth of POPE’S satiric rage: The doating miser, and the lavish heir, The follies and the foibles of the fair, Sir Job, Sir Balaam, and old Euclio’s thrift, And Sappho’s diamonds with her dirty shift, 20 Blunt, Charteris, Hopkins,—meaner subjects fired The keen-eyed Poet; while the Muse inspired Her ardent child—entwining, as he sate, His laurel’d chaplet with the thorns of hate.

But say,—indignant does the Muse retire, Her shrine deserted, and extinct its fire? No pious hand to feed the sacred flame, No raptured soul a poet’s charge to claim?

Bethink thee, GIFFORD; when some future age Shall trace the promise of thy playful page;— 30 “[310]The hand which brushed a swarm of fools away Should rouse to grasp a more reluctant prey!”— Think then, will pleaded indolence excuse The tame secession of thy languid Muse?

Ah! where is now that promise? why so long Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song? Oh! come, with taste and virtue at thy side, With ardent zeal inflamed, and patriot pride; With keen poetic glance direct the blow, And empty all thy quiver on the foe:— 40 No pause—no rest—till weltering on the ground The poisonous hydra lies, and pierced with many a wound.

Thou too!—the nameless Bard,[311]—whose honest zeal For law, for morals, for the public weal, Pours down impetuous on thy country’s foes The stream of verse, and many-languaged prose; Thou too! though oft thy ill-advised dislike The guiltless head with random censure strike,— Though quaint allusions, vague and undefined, Play faintly round the ear, but mock the mind;— 50 Through the mix’d mass yet truth and learning shine, And manly vigour stamps the nervous line; And patriot warmth the generous rage inspires, And wakes and points the desultory fires!

Yet more remain unknown:—for who can tell What bashful genius, in some rural cell, As year to year, and day succeeds to day, In joyless leisure wastes his life away? In him the flame of early fancy shone; His genuine worth his old companions own; 60 In childhood and in youth their chief confess’d, His master’s pride, his pattern to the rest. Now, far aloof retiring from the strife Of busy talents, and of active life, As from the loop-holes of retreat he views Our stage, verse, pamphlets, politics, and news, He loathes the world,—or, with reflections sad, Concludes it irrecoverably mad; Of taste, of learning, morals, all bereft, No hope, no prospect to redeem it left. 70

Awake! for shame! or e’er thy nobler sense Sink in th’ oblivious pool of indolence! Must wit be found alone on falsehood’s side, Unknown to truth, to virtue unallied? Arise! nor scorn thy country’s just alarms; Wield in her cause thy long-neglected arms: Of lofty satire pour th’ indignant strain, Leagued with her friends, and ardent to maintain ’Gainst Learning’s, Virtue’s, Truth’s, Religion’s foes, A kingdom’s safety, and the world’s repose. 80

If Vice appal thee,—if thou view with awe Insults that brave, and crimes that ’scape the law; Yet may the specious bastard brood, which claim A spurious homage under Virtue’s name, Sprung from that parent of ten thousand crimes, The _New Philosophy_ of modern times,— Yet, these may rouse thee!—With unsparing hand, Oh, lash the vile impostures from the land!

First, stern PHILANTHROPY:—not she, who dries The orphan’s tears, and wipes the widow’s eyes; 90 Not she, who sainted Charity her guide, Of British bounty pours the annual tide:— But _French_ PHILANTHROPY;—whose boundless mind Glows with the general love of all mankind;— PHILANTHROPY,—beneath whose baneful sway Each patriot passion sinks, and dies away.

Taught in her school to imbibe thy mawkish strain, CONDORCET, filtered through the dregs of PAINE, Each pert adept disowns a Briton’s part, And plucks the name of ENGLAND from his heart. 100

What! shall a name, a word, a sound, control Th’ aspiring thought, and cramp th’ expansive soul? Shall one half-peopled Island’s rocky round A love, that glows for all creation, bound? And social charities contract the plan Framed for thy freedom, UNIVERSAL MAN! No—through th’ extended globe his feelings run As broad and general as th’ unbounded sun! No narrow bigot _he_;—_his_ reason’d view Thy interests, _England_, ranks with thine, _Peru_! 110 _France_ at our doors, _he_ sees no danger nigh, But heaves for _Turkey’s_ woes th’ impartial sigh; A steady patriot of the world alone, The friend of every country—but his own.

Next comes a gentler Virtue.—Ah! beware Lest the harsh verse her shrinking softness scare. Visit her not too roughly;—the warm sigh Breathes on her lips;—the tear-drop gems her eye. Sweet SENSIBILITY, who dwells enshrined In the fine foldings of the feeling mind; 120 With delicate _Mimosa’s_ sense endued, Who shrinks instinctive from a hand too rude; Or, like the _Anagallis_, prescient flower, Shuts her soft petals at the approaching shower.

Sweet child of sickly FANCY!—her of yore From her loved _France_ ROUSSEAU to exile bore; And, while ’midst lakes and mountains wild he ran, Full of himself, and shunn’d the haunts of man, Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep To lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep; 130 Taught her to cherish still in either eye, Of tender tears a plentiful supply, And pour them in the brooks that babbled by; Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings strong, False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong; For the crush’d beetle, _first_,—the widow’d dove, And all the warbled sorrows of the grove; _Next_ for poor suff’ring _Guilt_; and _last_ of all, For parents, friends, a king and country’s fall.

Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief, 140 With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief, Droop in soft sorrow o’er a faded flower; O’er a dead Jack-Ass pour the pearly shower; But hear, unmoved, of _Loire’s_ ensanguined flood, Choked up with slain; of _Lyons_ drenched in blood; Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with shame, Foul crimes, but sicklied o’er with Freedom’s name; Altars and thrones subverted; social life Trampled to earth,—the husband from the wife, Parent from child, with ruthless fury torn,— 150 Of talents, honour, virtue, wit, forlorn, In friendless exile,—of the wise and good Staining the daily scaffold with their blood,— Of savage cruelties, that scare the mind, The rage of madness with hell’s lusts combined,— Of hearts torn reeking from the mangled breast,— They hear,—and hope that ALL IS FOR THE BEST.

Fond hope! but JUSTICE sanctifies the prayer— JUSTICE! here, Satire, strike! ’twere sin to spare! Not she in British Courts that takes her stand, 160 The dawdling balance dangling in her hand, Adjusting punishments to fraud and vice, With scrupulous quirks, and disquisition nice: But firm, erect, with keen reverted glance, Th’ avenging angel of regenerate _France_, Who visits ancient sins on modern times, And punishes the POPE for CÆSAR’S crimes.[312]

Such is the liberal JUSTICE which presides In these our days, and modern patriots guides;— JUSTICE, whose blood-stain’d book one sole decree, 170 One statute, fills—“the People shall be Free!” Free! By what means?—by folly, madness, guilt, By boundless rapines, blood in oceans spilt; By confiscation, in whose sweeping toils The poor man’s pittance with the rich man’s spoils, Mix’d in one common mass, are swept away, To glut the short-lived tyrant of the day;— By laws, religion, morals, all o’erthrown:— Rouse, then, ye sovereign people, claim your own: The license that enthrals, the truth that blinds, 180 The wealth that starves you, and the power that grinds! So JUSTICE bids.—’Twas her enlighten’d doom, Louis, thy holy head devoted to the tomb! ’Twas JUSTICE claim’d, in that accurséd hour, The fatal forfeit of too lenient power. Mourn for the Man we may;—but for the King,— Freedom, oh! Freedom’s such a charming thing!

“Much may be said on both sides.”—Hark! I hear A well-known voice that murmurs in my ear,— The voice of CANDOUR.—Hail! most solemn sage, 190 Thou drivelling virtue of this moral age, CANDOUR, which softens party’s headlong rage. CANDOUR,—which spares its foes;—nor e’er descends With bigot zeal to combat for its friends. CANDOUR,—which loves in see-saw strain to tell Of _acting foolishly_, but _meaning well_; Too nice to praise by wholesale, or to blame, Convinced that _all_ men’s _motives_ are the same; And finds, with keen discriminating sight, BLACK’S not _so_ black;—nor WHITE _so very_ white. 200

“FOX, to be sure, was vehement and wrong: But then, PITT’S words, you’ll own, were _rather_ strong. Both must be blamed, both pardon’d; ’twas just so With FOX and PITT full forty years ago! So WALPOLE, PULTENEY;—factions in all times Have had their follies, ministers their crimes.”

Give me th’ avow’d, th’ erect, the manly foe, Bold I can meet—perhaps may turn his blow; But of all plagues, good Heav’n, thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh! save me from the _Candid Friend_! 210

“BARRAS loves plunder, MERLIN takes a bribe,— What then!—shall CANDOUR these good men proscribe? No! ere we join the loud-accusing throng, Prove,—not the facts,—but, that _they thought them wrong_.

“Why hang O’QUIGLEY?—he, misguided man, In sober thought his country’s weal _might_ plan: And, while his deep-wrought Treason sapp’d the throne, _Might_ act from _taste in morals_, all his own.”

Peace to such Reasoners! let them have their way; Shut their dull eyes against the blaze of day; 220 PRIESTLEY’S a Saint, and STONE a Patriot still; And LA FAYETTE a Hero, if they will.

I love the bold uncompromising mind, Whose principles are fix’d, whose views defined; Who scouts and scorns, in canting CANDOUR’S spite, All _taste in morals_, innate sense of right, And Nature’s impulse, all uncheck’d by art, And feelings fine, that float about the heart: Content, for good men’s guidance, bad men’s awe, On moral truth to rest, and Gospel law. 230 Who owns, when Traitors feel th’ avenging rod, Just retribution, and the hand of GOD; Who hears the groans through _Olmütz_’ roofs that ring, Of him who mock’d, misled, betray’d his King— Hears unappall’d, though Faction’s zealots preach, Unmov’d, unsoften’d by FITZPATRICK’S Speech.[313]

That Speech on which the melting Commons hung, “While truths divine came mended from _his_ tongue”; How loving husband clings to duteous wife,— How pure Religion soothes the ills of life,— 240 How Popish ladies trust their pious fears And naughty actions in their chaplains’ ears.— Half novel and half sermon, on it flow’d; With pious zeal THE OPPOSITION glow’d; And as o’er each the soft infection crept, Sigh’d as he whin’d, and as he whimper’d, wept;— E’en CURWEN[314] dropt a sentimental tear, And stout ST. ANDREW yelp’d a softer “Hear!”

· · · · ·

Oh! nurse of crimes and fashions! which in vain Our colder servile spirits would attain, 250 How do we ape thee, _France!_ but, blundering still, Disgrace the pattern by our want of skill. The borrow’d step our awkward gait reveals: (As clumsy COURTENAY[315] mars the verse he steals.) How do we ape thee, _France!_—nor claim alone Thy arts, thy tastes, thy morals, for our own, 260 But to thy WORTHIES render homage due, Their[316] “hair-breadth scapes” with anxious interest view; Statesmen and Heroines whom this age adores, Though plainer times would call them Rogues and Whores. 260

See LOUVET, patriot, pamphleteer, and sage, Tempering with amorous fire his virtuous rage. Form’d for all tasks, his various talents see, The luscious Novel, the severe Decree. Then mark him welt’ring in his nasty sty, Bare his lewd transports to the public eye. Not _his_ the love in silent groves that strays, Quits the rude world, and shuns the vulgar gaze. In LODOISKA’S full possession blest, One craving void still aches within his breast; 270 Plunged in the filth and fondness of her arms, Not to himself alone he stints her charms; Clasp’d in each other’s foul embrace they lie, But know no joy, unless the World stands by. The fool of vanity, for her alone He lives, loves, writes, and dies but to be known.

His widow’d mourner flies to poison’s aid, Eager to join her LOUVET’S parted shade In those bright realms where sainted lovers stray, But harsh emetics tear that hope away.[317] 280 Yet hapless LOUVET! where thy bones are laid, The easy nymphs shall consecrate the shade.[318] There in the laughing morn of genial spring, Unwedded pairs shall tender couplets sing; Eringoes o’er the hallow’d spot shall bloom, And flies of Spain buzz softly round the tomb.[319]

But hold, severer virtue claims the Muse— ROLAND the just, with ribands in his shoes—[320] And ROLAND’S spouse, who paints with chaste delight The doubtful conflict of her nuptial night;— 290 Her virgin charms what fierce attacks assail’d, And how the rigid Minister[321] prevail’d.

And ah! what verse can grace thy stately mien, Guide of the world, preferment’s golden queen, NECKAR’S fair daughter,—STAEL the Epicene! Bright o’er whose flaming cheek and pumple[322] nose The bloom of young desire unceasing glows! Fain would the Muse—but ah! she dares no more, A mournful voice from lone _Guyana’s_ shore,[323] Sad QUATREMER-the bold presumption checks, 300 Forbid to question thy ambiguous sex.

To thee, proud BARRAS bows;—thy charms control REWBELL’S brute rage, and MERLIN’S subtle soul; Rais’d by thy hands, and fashion’d to thy will, Thy power, thy guiding influence, governs still, Where at the blood-stain’d board expert he plies, The lame artificer of fraud and lies; He with the mitred head and cloven heel;— Doom’d the coarse edge of REWBELL’S jests to feel;[324] To stand the playful buffet, and to hear 310 The frequent ink-stand whizzing past his ear; While all the five Directors laugh to see “The limping priest so deft at his new ministry”.[325]

Last of th’ ANOINTED FIVE behold, and least, The Directorial LAMA, Sovereign Priest,— LEPAUX;—whom atheists worship;—at whose nod Bow their meek heads _the Men without a God_.[326]

Ere long, perhaps, to this astonish’d isle, Fresh from the shores of subjugated _Nile_, Shall BUONAPARTE’S victor fleet protect 320 The genuine Theo-Philanthropic sect,— The sect of MARAT, MIRABEAU, VOLTAIRE,— Led by their Pontiff, good LA RÉVEILLÈRE. Rejoiced our CLUBS shall greet him, and install The holy Hunchback in thy dome, _St. Paul_! While countless votaries, thronging in his train, Wave their red caps, and hymn this jocund strain:—

“_Couriers and Stars_, Sedition’s evening host, Thou _Morning Chronicle_ and _Morning Post_, Whether ye make the Rights of Man your theme, 330 Your country libel, and your God blaspheme, Or dirt on private worth and virtue throw, Still, blasphemous or blackguard, praise LEPAUX!

“And ye five other wandering bards, that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY, LLOYD, and LAMB & CO. Tune all your mystic harps to praise LEPAUX!

“PRIESTLEY and WAKEFIELD, humble, holy men, Give praises to his name with tongue and pen!

“THELWALL, and ye that lecture as ye go, 340 And for your pains get pelted, praise LEPAUX!

“Praise him each Jacobin, or Fool, or Knave, And your cropp’d heads in sign of worship wave!

“All creeping creatures, venomous and low, PAINE, WILLIAMS, GODWIN, HOLCROFT, praise LEPAUX!

“—— and —— with —— join’d,[327] And every other beast after his kind.

“And thou, _Leviathan_! on ocean’s brim Hugest of living things that sleep and swim; Thou, in whose nose, by BURKE’S gigantic hand 350 The hook was fixed to drag thee to the land, With ——, ——, and ——, in thy train, And —— wallowing in the yeasty main,—[328] Still as ye snort, and puff, and spout, and blow, In puffing, and in spouting, praise LEPAUX!”

· · · · ·

BRITAIN, beware; nor let th’ insidious foe, Of force despairing, aim a deadlier blow; Thy Peace, thy Strength, with devilish wiles assail, And when her Arms are vain, by Arts prevail. True, thou art rich, art powerful!—thro’ thine Isle 360 Industrious skill, contented labour, smile; Far Seas are studded with thy countless sails; What wind but wafts them, and what shore but hails! True, thou art brave!—o’er all the busy land In patriot ranks embattled myriads stand; Thy foes behold with impotent amaze And drop the lifted weapon as they gaze

But what avails to guard each outward part, If subtlest poison, circling at thy heart, Spite of thy courage, of thy pow’r, and wealth, 370 Mine the sound fabric of thy vital health?

So thine own Oak, by some fair streamlet’s side, Waves its broad arms, and spreads its leafy pride, Tow’rs from the earth, and rearing to the skies Its conscious strength, the tempest’s wrath defies. Its ample branches shield the fowls of air, To its cool shade the panting herds repair. The treacherous current works its noiseless way, The fibres loosen, and the roots decay; Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all 380 That shared its shelter, perish in its fall.

O thou! lamented SAGE! whose prescient scan Pierc’d through foul Anarchy’s gigantic plan, Prompt to incredulous hearers to disclose The guilt of _France_, and Europe’s world of woes;— Thou, on whose name each distant age shall gaze, The mighty sea-mark of these troubled days! O large of soul, of genius unconfin’d, Born to delight, instruct, and mend mankind! BURKE! in whose breast a Roman ardour glow’d; 390 Whose copious tongue with Grecian richness flow’d; Well hast thou found (if such thy country’s doom), A timely refuge in the sheltering tomb!

As, in far realms, where eastern kings are laid, In pomp of death, beneath the cypress shade, The perfum’d lamp with unextinguish’d light Flames through the vault, and cheers the gloom of night: So, mighty BURKE! in thy sepulchral urn, To Fancy’s view, the lamp of Truth shall burn. Thither late times shall turn their reverent eyes, 400 Led by thy light, and by thy wisdom wise.

There _are_, to whom (_their_ taste such pleasures cloy) No light thy wisdom yields, thy wit no joy. Peace to their heavy heads, and callous hearts, Peace—such as sloth, as ignorance imparts! Pleas’d may they live to plan their country’s good, And crop with calm content their flow’ry food!

What though thy venturous spirit loved to urge The labouring theme to Reason’s utmost verge, Kindling and mounting from th’ enraptur’d sight; 410 Still anxious wonder watch’d thy daring flight! While vulgar minds, with mean malignant stare, Gazed up, the triumph of thy fall to share! Poor triumph! price of that extorted praise, Which still to daring Genius Envy pays.

Oh! for thy playful smile, thy potent frown, To abash bold Vice, and laugh pert Folly down! So should the Muse, in Humour’s happiest vein, With verse that flowed in metaphoric strain, And apt allusions to the rural trade, 420 Tell of _what wood young_ JACOBINS _are made_; How the skill’d gardener grafts with nicest rule The _slip_ of coxcomb on the _stock_ of fool; Forth in bright blossom bursts the tender sprig, A thing to wonder at—[329] perhaps a _Whig_: Should tell, how wise each half-fledged pedant prates Of weightiest matters, grave distinctions states, That rules of policy, and public good, In Saxon times were rightly understood; That kings are proper, _may be_ useful things, 430 But then, some gentlemen object to kings; That in all times the minister’s to blame; That British liberty’s an empty name, Till each fair burgh, numerically free, Shall choose its members by _the Rule of Three_.

So should the Muse, with verse in thunder clothed, Proclaim the crimes by God and Nature loathed. Which—when fell poison revels in the veins— (That poison fell, which frantic _Gallia_ drains From the crude fruit of Freedom’s blasted tree) 440 Blot the fair records of Humanity.

To feebler nations let proud _France_ afford Her damning choice,—the chalice or the sword, To drink or die;—O fraud! O specious lie! Delusive choice! for _if_ they drink, they die.

The Sword we dread not:—of ourselves secure, Firm were our strength, our peace and freedom sure. Let all the world confederate all its powers, “Be they not backed by those that should be ours,” High on his rock shall BRITAIN’S GENIUS stand, 450 Scatter the crowded hosts, and vindicate the land.

Guard we but our own Hearts: with constant view To ancient morals, ancient manners true; True to the manlier virtues, such as nerv’d Our fathers’ breasts, and this proud Isle preserv’d For many a rugged age: and scorn the while Each philosophic atheist’s specious guile; The soft seductions, the refinements nice, Of gay Morality, and easy Vice; So shall we brave the storm; our ’stablish’d pow’r Thy refuge, EUROPE, in some happier hour. 461 But, FRENCH _in heart_, though Victory crown our brow, Low at our feet though prostrate Nations bow, Wealth gild our Cities, Commerce crowd our shore, LONDON MAY SHINE, but ENGLAND is NO MORE!

[Illustration: _The Republican Rattle-snake fascinating the Bedford Squirrel._ _The Rattle Snake is a Creature of the greatest subtilty; when it is desirous of preying upon any Animal which is in a situation above itself it fixes its Eye upon the unsuspecting object & by the noise of its Rattle fascinates & confounds the unfortunate Victim till losing all Sense & discernment, it falls a prey into the Mouth of the horrid Monster._ Pliny’s Nat. Histr. vol. 365—]

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

In the last Address which We shall have to make to the Public, We would willingly review the whole of what has been advanced by Us under the different Heads of our Paper, and leave behind us a Summary of our Opinions upon the state of each subject as We found it, and as We conceive it to stand at the moment when our labours are concluded.

Upon no point, if We are to speak our sincere opinion, is the task more easily to be executed, or in a less compass, than in what relates to Foreign Politics.

In other times, the relations of States to each other have been matter of great study, and difficulty; have been embarrassed with a diversity of views, and a complication of interests, which it might require much experience to calculate, and much political sagacity to reconcile.

At present, there is but one relation among all the States of Europe:—one, at least, there is so paramount, as to confound and swallow up all inferior considerations.

FRANCE IS BENT ON THE CONQUEST AND RUIN OF THEM ALL. To repel this Conquest, to ward off this ruin, various means are tried, according to the power or the prudence of the different Nations. War, Treaty, Supplication, Bribery, timid Neutrality, implicit Submission, and, finally, an Incorporation into the Map of the _Great Republic_, are all at this moment exemplified in the conduct of the Countries which surround us.

Our lot, a lot imposed upon us by necessity, but which if it were not so imposed upon us, whoever is not blind, judicially blind to the conduct of _France_ towards us, and every other Country, would claim by choice, is WAR.

The relation in which we may stand to the other States of Europe, or they to each other, is comparatively of little moment. They may reciprocate Missions, and propose Treaties,—the _Ligurian Republic_ may make Peace or War with the _Cisalpine_; the _Cisalpine_ with the _Roman_;—either of them with the KING of SARDINIA, with _Tuscany_, or with _Naples_; and the greater Powers may mediate, or embroil the quarrel, may offer their protection, and talk of their Dignity:—But the question does not lie there.—_France_ has the power and the will to controul, to oppress them altogether; to limit or extend their Boundaries, as she sees good; to approve or annul their Internal Regulations, as well as their stipulations with each other: And while she has that power, whether it be by strength in herself, or by the sufferance of others; whether she may choose to vex and harass them in mass, or detail; to keep peace between them, or to set them at variance; to work their revolutions by her own arms, or to delegate that sacred office to their neighbours; or, finally, to insist upon their performing it each for themselves;—the result to us is the same. The People of Europe are equally enslaved;—it matters not whether they are manacled separately, or bolted to the links of a long chain which connects and coerces them in a fellowship of misery.

_Mortalia corda Per gentes humilis stravit pavor._

To Us, the relation of these unhappy Powers, is either that of Friends forced into a Foreign Army to fight against us, or placed, hand-cuffed, on the Deck of a Line of Battle Ship to receive our fire—or it is that of a Captive languishing in a Dungeon against which We are making an attack, and who does not dare to acknowledge his Friend, till he can hail him as his Deliverer.

The Contest between _Great Britain_ and _France_, then, is not for the existence of the former only, but for the Freedom of the World. To look to partial Interests, to talk of partial Successes, as bearing upon the main object and general issue of the War, is to take a narrow and pitiful view of the most momentous and most tremendous subject that ever was brought under the consideration of mankind.

If _Great Britain_, insensible of what she owes to herself and to the World, flinches (for she _cannot fall_), in the Contest;—she throws away not herself alone, but the peace and happiness of Nations. If she maintain herself stoutly;—to speculate on the mode, the time, the means by which success adequate to the immensity of the object at stake is to be attained, were, indeed, presumptuous;—but We risk, without apprehension of being thought sanguine in our hopes and expectations, or of being contradicted by the event, the sentiment of the greatest Orator of ancient times—“It is not, it cannot be possible, that an Empire founded on injustice, on rapacity, on perfidy, on the contempt and disregard of everything sacred towards God, or among Men;—it is not possible that such an Empire should endure.”

[Illustration]

NOTES TO “NEW MORALITY”.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D. (page 278).

“I have read a communication from GEORGE III. to one of his ministers, on the subject of the riots in which PRIESTLEY’S house was burned. HIS MAJESTY says, in his short emphatic way, that the riots must be stopped _immediately_; that no man’s house must be left in peril; and then he orders the march of certain troops, &c., to restore peace; and concludes with saying that, as the mischief did occur, it was impossible not to be pleased at its having fallen on PRIESTLEY rather than another, that he might _feel_ the wickedness of the doctrines of democracy which he was propagating.”—_J. W. Croker_ (_MS._).—[ED.]

MADAME DE STAEL (page 282).

“MADAME DE STAEL was at Mickleham, in Surrey, in 1793, with Talleyrand, Narbonne, Jaucourt, Guibert (who proposed to her), and others. There was not a little scandal about her relations with Narbonne (see Fanny Burney’s Letters). Narbonne’s place was supplied by Benjamin Constant, who had a very great influence over her, as in return she had over him. At Coppet, she found consolation in a young officer of Swiss origin, named Rocca, twenty-three years her junior, whom she married privately in 1811. She had married Baron de Stael in 1786, and in 1797 they separated. He died in 1802; and she in 1817.”—_Life of Mad. de Stael, by A. Stevens_, 1880.

“On the 28th of January” (says Crabb Robinson in his _Diary_, 1804), “I first waited on MADAME DE STAEL. I was shown into her bedroom, for which, not knowing Parisian customs, I was unprepared. She was sitting, most decorously, in her bed, and writing. She had her night-cap on, and her face was not made up for the day. It was by no means a captivating spectacle, but I had a very cordial reception, and two bright black eyes smiled benignantly on me. After a warm expression of her pleasure at making my acquaintance, she dismissed me till three o’clock. On my return then I found a very different person——the accomplished Frenchwoman surrounded by admirers, some of whom were themselves distinguished. Among them was the aged WIELAND. There was on this, and, I believe, on almost every other, occasion, but one lady among the guests: in this instance FRAU VON KALB. MADAME DE STAEL did not affect to conceal her preference for the society of men to that of her own sex.”

COUNT D’ORSAY related of MADAME DE STAEL, whose character was discussed, that one day, being on a sofa with MADAME DE RÉCAMIER, one who placed himself between them exclaimed: “Me voilà entre la beauté et l’esprit!” She replied: “That is the first time I was ever complimented for beauty!” MADAME DE RÉCAMIER was thought the handsomest woman in Paris, but was by no means famed for _esprit_.—_Crabb Robinson’s Diary._

“MADAME DE STAEL was a perfect aristocrat, and her sympathies were wholly with the great and prosperous. She saw nothing in England but the luxury, stupidity, and pride of the Tory aristocracy, and the intelligence and magnificence of the Whig aristocracy. The latter talked about truth and liberty and herself, and she supposed it was all as it should be. As to the millions, the people, she never enquired into their situation. She had a horror of the _canaille_, but anything of _sangre azul_ had a charm for her. When she was dying she said; ‘Let me die in peace; let my last moments be undisturbed’. Yet she ordered the cards of every visitor to be brought to her. Among them was one from the DUC DE RICHELIEU. ‘What!’ exclaimed she, indignantly; ‘what! have you sent away the DUKE? Hurry. Fly after him. Bring him back. Tell him that though I die for all the world, I live for _him_.’”—_Bowring’s Autobr. Recollections_, pp. 375–6.

MADAME DE STAEL prepared her _bons-mots_ with elaborate care, some being borrowed.... She was ugly, and not of an intellectual ugliness. Her features were coarse, and the ordinary expression rather vulgar. She had an ugly mouth, and one or two irregularly prominent teeth, which perhaps gave her countenance an habitual gaiety. Her eye was full, dark, and expressive; and when she declaimed, which was almost whenever she spoke, she looked eloquent, and one forgot that she was plain. On the whole, she was singularly unfeminine; and if, in conversation, one forgot she was ugly, one forgot also that she was a woman.—_J. W. Croker’s Note-Books._—[ED.]

THE REV. GILBERT WAKEFIELD (page 284).

“It is well known that the French Revolution turned the brains of many of the noblest youths in England. Indeed when such men as COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, caught the infection, no wonder that those who partook of their sensibility, but had a very small portion of their intellect, were carried away. Many were ruined by the errors into which they were betrayed; many also lived to smile at the follies of their youth. ‘I am no more ashamed of having been a Republican,’ said SOUTHEY, ‘than I am of having been a child.’ The opinions held led to many political prosecutions, and I naturally had much sympathy with the sufferers. I find in my journal, Feb. 21, 1799 (says Crabb Robinson): ‘An interesting and memorable day. It was the day on which GILBERT WAKEFIELD was convicted of a seditious libel, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. This he suffered in Dorchester Gaol, which he left only to die. Originally of the Established Church, he became a Unitarian, and Professor at the Hackney College. By profession he was a scholar. His best known work was an edition of Lucretius. He had written against PORSON’S edition of the _Hecuba_ of Euripides.’ It is said that PORSON was at a dinner-party at which toasts were going round, and a name, accompanied by an appropriate sentence from Shakespeare, was required from each of the guests in succession. Before PORSON’S turn came, he had disappeared beneath the table, and was supposed to be insensible to what was going on. This, however, was not the case, for when a toast was required of him, he staggered up and gave: ‘Gilbert Wakefield—what’s _Hecuba_ to him, or he to _Hecuba_?’ WAKEFIELD was a political fanatic. He had the pale complexion and mild features of a Saint, was a most gentle creature in domestic life, and a very amiable man; but when he took part in any religious or political controversy, his pen was dipped in gall. The occasion of the imprisonment before alluded to was a letter in reply to WATSON, Bishop of Llandaff, who had written a pamphlet exhorting the people to loyalty. WAKEFIELD asserted that the poor, the labouring classes; could lose nothing by French conquest. Referring to the fable of the Ass and the Trumpeter, he said: ‘Will the enemy make me carry two panniers?’ and declared that, if the French came, they would find him at his post with the illustrious dead.”—[ED.]

JOHN THELWALL (page 284).

“COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY spoke of THELWALL, calling him merely ‘John’: SOUTHEY said: ‘He is a good-hearted man; besides we ought never to forget that he was once as near as possible being hanged, as there is some merit in _that_’.”—_Crabb Robinson’s Diary._—[ED.]

JEAN PAUL MARAT (page 284).

The following remarkable account of this scientific monster is given in an “Historical Account of the Warrington Academy, an institution in Lancashire,” published in the _Monthly Repository_, by the Rev. W. Turner, of Wakefield.

“After the departure of DR. REINHOLD FORSTER, various unsuccessful attempts were made to engage a foreigner in the capacity of teacher of the modern languages—a M. FANTIN LA TOUR, a M. LE MAITRE, _alias_ MARA, and a MR. LEWIS GUERY; but none of them continued for any length of time.... There is great reason to believe that LE MAITRE, _alias_ MARA, was the infamous MARAT.... It is known that he was in England about this time [1774], and published in London “A Philosophical Essay on the connection between the Body and the Soul of Man,” and, somewhere in the country, had a principal hand in printing, in quarto, a work of considerable ability, but of a seditious tendency, entitled—‘_The Chains of Slavery: a work wherein the clandestine and villainous Attempts of Princes to ruin Liberty are pointed out, and the dreadful Scenes of Despotism disclosed, etc.; London, sold by J. Almon.... T. Payne, and Richardson and Urquhart, 1774._’ MARA, as his name is spelt in the Minutes of the Academy, very soon left Warrington, whence he went to Oxford, robbed the Ashmolean Museum, escaped to Ireland, was apprehended in Dublin, tried and convicted in Oxford, under the name of LE MAITRE, and sentenced to the hulks at Woolwich. Here one of his old pupils at Warrington, a native of Bristol, saw him. He was afterwards a Bookseller in Bristol, and failed; was confined in the gaol of that city, but released by the Society there for the relief of prisoners confined for small sums. One of that society, who had previously relieved him in Bristol Gaol, afterwards saw him in the National Assembly in Paris in 1792.”

Grave doubts have, however, been thrown upon the accuracy of the above statement by HENRY A. BRIGHT, B.A., in a paper published in the _Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire_, 8vo, vol. xi., session 1858–9. Yet it was an establishment that might have attracted such a mind as Marat’s. “At WARRINGTON ACADEMY (says Mr. Bright), were collected some of the noblest _literati_ of their day. Here the free thought of the English Presbyterians first began to crystallize into the Unitarian theology which they have since maintained. Here, for a time, was the centre of the liberal politics and the literary taste of the entire county.... The Academy was founded in 1757, and was closed in 1786. It was visited by John Howard, W. Roscoe, T. Pennant, Currie, the biographer of Burns, &c. The first Tutors appointed were DR. JOHN TAYLOR of Norwich, Tutor in Divinity, MR. HOLT of Kirkdale, Tutor in Natural Philosophy, MR. DYER of London, Tutor in Languages and Polite Literature, whose duties, however, were taken by MR. (afterwards the REV. DR.) AIKIN, father of the celebrated Physician and Mrs. Barbauld. DR. PRIESTLEY succeeded DR. AIKIN.”

DR. PRIESTLEY, who is addressed by COLERIDGE as “Patriot, and Saint, and Sage,” was succeeded by JOHN REINHOLD FORSTER, a German Scholar and Naturalist, who accompanied Captain Cook in his second voyage, DR. ENFIELD, author of _The Speaker_, and the REV. GILBERT WAKEFIELD, were Tutors. Among the students were MR. SERJEANT HEYWOOD; ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, the Irish rebel; the REV. H. MALTHUS; LORD ENNISMORE; SIR JAMES CARNEGIE of Southesk; MR. HENRY BEAUFOY, etc., all strong Whigs. The name of neither MARA nor LE MAITRE appears on the Minutes of the Academy.

For the latest contribution to the history of MARAT’S sojourn in England we are indebted to the researches of MR. H. MORSE STEPHENS, of Balliol College, Oxford, who, in his elaborate and painstaking _History of the French Revolution_ (1886), which includes facts unknown to Carlyle and earlier historians, gives the following account of that “arch-destroyer”; but, as he calls him, “a much maligned individual”:—

“JEAN PAUL MARAT,” says he, “was born at Boudry, near Neufchatel, in Switzerland, on April 13, 1742. His father, who spelt his name ‘MARA,’ was a physician of some ability, and on being exiled from his native island of Sardinia for abandoning the Roman Catholic religion, had taken up his residence in Switzerland; and married a Swiss Protestant. JEAN PAUL was the eldest of three sons; his next brother settled down as a watchmaker at Geneva, and his youngest brother entered the service of the Empress Catherine, and distinguished himself in the Russian army under the title of the Chevalier de Boudry. JEAN PAUL was from his childhood of an intensely sensitive and excitable disposition, and also so quick at his books that he became a good classical scholar, and acquainted with most modern languages. As his chief taste, however, seemed to be for natural science, he was intended to follow his father’s profession, and was, at the age of eighteen, sent to study medicine at the University of Bordeaux. He there obtained a thorough knowledge of his profession, but devoted himself particularly to the sciences of optics and electricity. From Bordeaux he went to Paris, where he effected a remarkable cure of a disease of the eyes, which had been abandoned as hopeless both by physicians and quacks, by means of electricity. From Paris he went to Amsterdam, and, finally, to LONDON, where he set up in practice in _Church Street, Soho_, then one of the most fashionable districts in London. He must soon have formed a good practice, for he stopped in London, with occasional visits to Dublin and Edinburgh, for ten years, and only left it to take up an appointment at the French court. While in London he wrote his first book, and in 1772 and 1773, he published the first two volumes of a philosophical and physiological _Essay on Man_. The point he discussed was the old problem of the relation between body and mind, and he treated it in a very interesting manner from the physiological point of view. He held some extraordinary theory about the existence of some fluid in the veins which acted on the mind; which, however, does not impair the interest of his inquiries into the cause of dreams, or diminish the respect felt for his wide reading and extensive knowledge both of ancient and modern philosophical and medical authors. He shows a wide knowledge of Latin and Greek literature, and while writing in good English freely quotes French, German, Italian, and Spanish writers. In one part of his book he declared that it was ridiculous for any one to make psychical researches without having some knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and openly attacked HELVÉTIUS for despising scientific knowledge in his famous _De l’Esprit_. VOLTAIRE naturally took the side of HELVÉTIUS, and did the young author the honour of noticing, and very severely criticising, his book. MARAT himself translated it into French, and published it at Amsterdam in 1775. His next work was of a political character. He had got mixed up with some of the popular societies in England, which were striving to obtain a thorough reform of the representation of the people in the House of Commons, and, in 1774, published a work, which he entitled THE CHAINS OF SLAVERY. In this book, which is partly historical and partly political, he begs the electors to take more care in the choice of their representatives. It is written in a very declamatory style, and strikes the note of the responsibility of representatives to their constituents, which is the key-note of all his political ideas. The book is published in quarto, and is printed on fine paper, so that it can hardly have been meant to appeal to the populace, but it, nevertheless, procured him the honorary membership of the popular societies of _Newcastle_ and other great northern cities. Subsequently he again returned to his profession, and after publishing a medical tract in 1775, of which no copy is known to exist, he published _An Inquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a singular Disease of the Eyes_, in 1776. [See _Academy_ of September 23, 1882.] In this little pamphlet there is no violent language; it describes the disease and the cases he had cured in perfectly simple language, and shows, at least, that he was no mere quack, but a scientific physician. On June 30, 1775, he had, while on a visit to _Scotland_, received the honorary degree of M.D. from the _University of St. Andrews_ for his eminence as a doctor, and had probably received similar compliments from other Universities, because, on June 24, 1777, JEAN PAUL MARAT, ‘médecin de plusieurs facultés d’Angleterre,’ was appointed, for his good character and high reputation as a doctor, physician to the body-guard of the Comte d’Artois, with a salary of a thousand livres a year and allowances. To take up this court appointment he moved to Paris, and soon acquired a large practice there, and the name of ‘physician of the incurables,’ from the number of hopeless cases he was successful in treating. He also moved in the best society about the court, and won the affections of the _Marquise de l’Aubespine_ for saving her life. For some reason or other, most probably because he had obtained a competent fortune, and desired to satisfy his ambition, he resigned his court appointment in 1783, and devoted himself to science. He had long observed the phenomena of Heat, Light, and Electricity, and in the course of the next five years published the result of his experiments, and presented them to the _Academy of Sciences_. His hard work won him the friendship of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, but the violence with which he attacked his adversaries, and his audacity in doubting the conclusions of NEWTON, prevented him from obtaining a seat in the Academy of Sciences. When he recognised that this hostility to himself prevented due recognition of his work, he determined to win the approbation of the Academy by concealing his name; and his translation of the _Optics_ of NEWTON, which was covered by the name of _M. de Beauzée_, and published in 1788, was at once crowned by the very Academy which had rejected him.

“His political work during these years was confined to a treatise, in imitation of BECCARIA, on the subject of Punishments. The approach of the States-General, however, revived his political enthusiasm, and in the March of 1789, when he believed himself to be dying, he published his _Offrande à la Patrie_, which was followed in quick succession by a supplement and other pamphlets. Of these, distinctly the most able is the _Tableau des Vices de la Constitution Anglaise_, which he presented to the Assembly in September, 1789. In it he points out what he had learnt in the popular societies of England, that the English people was by no means so well governed as it was supposed to be; that the influence of the king and the ministry was overwhelming through the extent of patronage, and that the rich there bought seats in the House of Commons as they bought estates.

“MARAT then felt that he could not express himself frequently enough in pamphlets, and on September 12 appeared the first number of a journal written entirely by himself, called the JOURNAL DU PEUPLE, which title was changed to that of _Ami du Peuple_, or _The People’s Friend_, with the fourth number.

“To understand the man, it is necessary to get rid of preconceived ideas. Suspicious and irritable, excitable and sensitive to an extreme, he attacked everybody, and attacked them all with unaccustomed violence; but with all this, he was in private life a highly educated gentleman. The extent of his attainments appears from his numerous works, and it must be remembered that he could not for years have been a fashionable physician and held a court appointment without being perfectly polite and well-bred. His faults arose from his irritable and suspicious nature, and years of persecution made him half-insane towards the end of his life; but in September, 1789, he was in perfect possession of his senses, and the very popularity of his journal showed how congenial his gospel of suspicion was to the Parisians.”—[ED.]

JEAN PAUL MARAT’S SISTER.

The Right Hon. J. W. Croker, in a letter to John Winter Jones, dated 23rd October, 1854, says that COLIN, who had been Marat’s printer or publisher, “introduced him to Marat’s sister, who was as like her brother, he said—and as from all pictures and busts I readily believed—as ‘_deux gouttes d’eau_’. She was very small, very ugly, very sharp, and a great politician. Her ostensible livelihood was making watch-springs, but she told me she was pretty easy in her circumstances, and I either gathered from her, or saw cause to suspect, that she had some secret charitable help.”—[ED.]

LARÉVEILLÈRE-LEPAUX (page 283).

LARÉVEILLÈRE-LEPAUX left orders in his will that his _Memoirs_ were to be printed and published. His heirs were not proud of the part the DIRECTOR had played, so, after complying with the terms of his will and _printing_ the _Memoirs_, they _destroyed the whole issue at once_; and the only copy extant is the one which, in accordance with the law of France, was sent to the _Bibliothèque Nationale_ at Paris.

THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS.

These (_Gr._ “Lovers of Gods and Men”) were a sect of _Deists_ which appeared in France amid the confusion and disorder of the first Revolution. While the State was indifferent to all forms of Religion, and the Republican Directory was afraid of the Christianity which prevailed in the Church, a felt consciousness of the necessity of some religion led many to adopt a form of worship adapted to Natural Religion.

“This Sect” (says SOUTHEY, in the _Quarterly Review_, vol. xxviii.) “began with more circumstances in their favour than ever occurred to facilitate the establishment of a religion or of a sect. Many persons of considerable influence and reputation engaged in the project with zeal, and it was patronised by LA RÉVEILLÈRE LÊPAUX, one of the Directory.... His motives for putting himself at the head of the Theophilanthropists are said to have been twofold: if the scheme succeeded, he intended to become their High Priest; and he hated Christianity. Through his means the Theophilanthropists obtained a decree from the Government giving them a right of holding their meetings in the Churches, as national buildings, which were open to any religion, but belonged to none.

“Nearly twenty Churches in Paris were taken possession of; but by occupying so many, they injured themselves.... They took up too extended a position, and had neither numbers nor means answerable to the scale upon which they set out.... Their _Service_ began at noon, and lasted about an hour and a half. It was, they said, a worship for those who had no other, and a moral society for those who had. The _Ritual_ consisted of Prayers, Hymns original or selected from the best French Poets, readings from their Manual, and Discourses. The _Hymns_ were, in general, judicious, and set to good music, and the _Prayers_ well composed; but had their books been stript of all that they had borrowed from the Gospel, and from the works of Christian writers, they would have been meagre indeed. In one part of the Service there was a short pause, during which the congregation were expected to consider each in silence what his own conduct had been since the last of these meetings. A basket of fruit or flowers, according to the season, was placed upon the altar, as a mark of acknowledgment for the bounties of the Creator; and over the altar was the inscription, _Nous croyons à l’existence de Dieu, et à l’immortalité de l’âme_.... LA RÉVEILLÈRE, in a speech at the Institute, declaiming against Christianity, as being opposed to the liberty of mankind, expressed his wish that a form of religion were adopted, which should have only _a couple of articles_. He wished also for a religion without priests; and this, it was pleasantly observed, would be like a Directory without a Director.

“This was the _Creed of the Theophilanthropists_. And on each side of it, the following sentences were inscribed in their temples, to take place of the Decalogue:—

“‘Adore God, cherish your fellow-creatures; render yourselves useful to your country. Good is whatever tends to preserve man, or to perfectionate him. Evil is whatever tends to destroy him, or to deteriorate him. Children, honour your fathers and mothers; obey them with affection, solace their old age. Fathers and mothers, instruct your children. Wives, behold in your husbands the heads of your houses. Husbands, love your wives, and render yourselves mutually happy.’

“At _Marriage_ the bride and bridegroom were to be coupled with ribands, or garlands of flowers, the ends of which were to be held on each side by the elders of their respective families. The Bride received a ring from her husband, and a medal of union from the head of the family. There was a rite also for infants.... When a member _died_, the other members of the Society were invited to place a flower upon the urn, and pray the Creator to receive the deceased into his bosom. The Decades and National Holidays were observed by these Anti-Christians, and they had four Holidays of their own, for Socrates, St. Vincent de Paule, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Washington,—oddly assorted names! Two of them, however, stand well together in this kalendar, for the one, who was a Christian, established the Foundling Hospital at Paris; and the other, who was a sentimentalist, a philosopher, and a Theophilanthropist, sent his own children to it....

“LA RÉVEILLÈRE used to take praise to himself for having, in his Directorial character, humbled the Pope and the great Turk. The Anti-Christian language of the Directory, and its persecution of the Clergy, are imputed to him; so far his colleagues were willing to go with him; but his zeal for Deism they regarded as ridiculous.... In the way of pecuniary aid, he could obtain little:—_beaucoup d’argent_ was what the Directory were accustomed to demand, not to give....

“Their _Service_ at Paris was numerously attended while it was a new spectacle, and the subject of conversation; but more than two-thirds of the persons thus assembled were idlers. But this concourse soon abated; there was nothing attractive in the ceremonies, nothing to impose upon the imagination or the senses. A propagandist reported from Montreuil that the readings and orations had been heard by an audience _avide de morale_, but he had observed with pain that the _matériel_ of the worship was not what it should have been.... It was got up at Bourges in better style; the orator there officiated in a white sash ornamented with blue flowers, before an altar upon which an orange tree was placed: and at the _fête des époux_, the Theophilanthropists carried _two pigeons_ in procession, as an emblem of conjugal tenderness, and placed them upon the altar of the country!”

* * * * *

[The literary association of LAMB with COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY [says SIR T. N. TALFOURD, in his life of LAMB,] drew upon him the hostility of the young scorners of _The Anti-Jacobin_, who, luxuriating in boyish pride and aristocratic patronage, tossed the arrows of their wit against all charged with innovation, whether in politics or poetry, and cared little whom they wounded. No one could be more innocent than LAMB of political heresy; no one more strongly opposed to new theories in morality—which he always regarded with disgust. The very first number of _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_ [this was, however, a new work, by different hands, but imbued with the same spirit as _The Anti-Jacobin_] was adorned by a caricature of GILLRAY’S, in which COLERIDGE and SOUTHEY were introduced with asses’ heads, and LLOYD and LAMB as toad and frog. In the number of July, 1798 [of the original _Anti-Jacobin_] appeared the well-known poem of _New Morality_, in which all the prominent objects of the hatred of these champions of religion and order were introduced as offering homage to LEPAUX, a French charlatan,—of whose existence LAMB had never even heard. Not content with thus confounding persons of the most opposite opinions and the most various characters in one common libel, the party returned to the charge in their number for September [of _The Anti-Jacobin Review_], and denounced the young poets in a parody on the _Ode to the Passions_, under the title of _The Anarchists_. They are reprinted in the present volume.—ED.]

[The cause of Coleridge, Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb, being thus satirized as persons of the same politics, was the conjoint publication of their works. In the spring of 1796, COLERIDGE published vol. i. of his _Juvenile Poems_, including three Sonnets by LAMB; in May, 1797, there appeared a new edition, with many poems by LLOYD and LAMB. _The Fall of Robespierre_, an historic drama, was published Sept. 22, 1794: the first act written by COLERIDGE, the second and third by SOUTHEY. It is not difficult to understand why COLERIDGE was so severely attacked by the Government writers. In 1795, at the early age of 23, he delivered, at Bristol, some public lectures, reflecting in warm terms on the measures of PITT. Three of them were published at Bristol at the end of 1795—the first two together, with the title of _Conciones ad Populum_; the third as _The Plot Discovered_. The eloquent passage in conclusion of the first of these addresses was written by SOUTHEY. That he was considered by ministers a dangerous character is proved by his having been for some months watched by a Government spy while residing at Stowey, providing for his scanty maintenance by writing verses for _The Morning Post_. It was his fortune also to excite the ire of BUONAPARTE, by his anti-gallican writings in the same paper; and a benevolent intimation of his danger by Baron von Humboldt and Cardinal Fesch alone prevented his being arrested while in Italy. (See p. 284.)

SOUTHEY thus alludes to the attack upon him (by GILLRAY, in his famous caricature), in a letter addressed to C. W. W. WYNN, dated Hereford, August 15, 1798:—“I have seen myself _Bedfordized_, and it has been a subject of much amusement. HOLCROFT’S likeness is admirably preserved. I know not what poor LAMB has done to be croaking there. What I think the worst part of _The Anti-Jacobin_ abuse is the lumping together men of such opposite principles; this was stupid. We should have all been welcoming the _Director_, not the _Theophilanthrope_. The conductors of _The Anti-Jacobin_ will have much to answer for in thus inflaming the animosities of this country. They are labouring to produce the deadly hatred of Irish faction; perhaps to produce the same end. Such an address as you mention might probably be of great use; that I could assist you in it is less certain. I do not feel myself at all calculated for anything that requires methodical reasoning; and though you and I should agree in the main object of the pamphlet, our opinions are at root different. The old systems of government, I think, must fall; but in this country the immediate danger is on the other hand,—from an unconstitutional and unlimited power. BURLEIGH saw how a Parliament might be employed against the people, and MONTESQUIEU prophesied the fall of English liberty when the Legislature should become corrupt. You will not agree with me in thinking his prophecy fulfilled. Violent men there undoubtedly are among the democrats, as they are always called; but is there any one among them whom the ministerialists will allow to be moderate?” _The Anti-Jacobin_ certainly speaks the sentiments of Government.’—ED.]

* * * * *

WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, SOUTHEY (page 284).

[“The passionate verdicts given, both _pro_ and _con_, in reference to WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, and SOUTHEY, may now be looked back upon with some wonder, but all three had made themselves obnoxious to the charge of renegadism. WORDSWORTH had accepted the office of stamp-distributor from Lord Lonsdale; SOUTHEY, after attempting to suppress his demagogical drama of _Wat Tyler_, became a violent Tory, bringing a hot

## partisanship into the ranks to which he fled; and COLERIDGE, a

Tom-Paineite in politics and a preaching Unitarian, ended by adopting all the doctrines of orthodoxy.”—_Sir John Bowring._—ED.]

* * * * *

EDMUND BURKE (page 286).

“ADAIR told me a great many things about BURKE, and FOX, and FITZPATRICK, and all the eminent men of that time with whom he lived when he was young. He said ... that FITZPATRICK was the most agreeable of them all, but HARE the most brilliant. BURKE’S conversation was delightful, so luminous and instructive. He was very passionate; and ADAIR said that the first time he ever saw him he unluckily asked him some question about the wild parts of Ireland, when BURKE broke out: ‘You are a fool and a blockhead. There are no wild parts in Ireland.’ ... There was an attempt to bring about a reconciliation between him and FOX, and a meeting for that purpose took place of all the leading men, at Burlington House. BURKE was on the point of yielding when his son suddenly made his appearance unbidden, and, on being told what was going on, he said: ‘My father shall be no party to such a compromise,’ took BURKE aside, and persuaded him to reject the overtures. That son ADAIR described as the most disagreeable, violent, and wrong-headed of men, but the idol of his father, who used to say that he united all his own talents and acquirements with those of FOX and everybody else, &c.”—See _The Greville Memoirs_, i. 136–7.—[ED.]

[The following remarkable passage occurs in a pamphlet written by TOM PAINE, entitled: _Thomas Paine to the People of England, on the Invasion of England; Philadelphia, printed at the Temple of Reason Press, Arch Street, 1804_.

“The original plan, formed in the time of the Directory (but now much more extensive) was to build one thousand boats, each sixty feet long, sixteen feet broad, to draw about two feet water, to carry a twenty-four or thirty-six pounder in the head and a field-piece in the stern, to be run out as soon as they touched ground. Each boat was to carry a hundred men, making in the whole one hundred thousand, and to row with twenty or twenty-five oars on a side. Bonaparte was appointed to the command, and by an agreement between him and me, I was to accompany him, as the intention of the expedition was to give the people of England an opportunity of forming a government for themselves, and thereby bring about peace.”—ED.]

* * * * *

THE COURIER.

THE COURIER, in the time of the war, was the great paper; it obtained a large circulation, and consequently exercised considerable influence. It was started by JOHN PARRY in 1792, and he carried it on for some years with tolerable success, till he was ruined in 1799 by a government prosecution for a libel on the Emperor of Russia. It was bought by DANIEL STUART, who left _The Morning Post_ for _The Courier_ in 1803. During three years, says he, at the time of the overthrow of BUONAPARTE, _The Courier_, by the able management of PETER STREET, who was editor and half-proprietor, sold steadily upwards of 8000 per day; during one fortnight it sold upwards of 10,000 daily. At the end of 1809, S. T. COLERIDGE contributed to it some Essays on the Spaniards; and in 1811 he wrote for it on a salary. At this time the paper was much under ministerial direction. From about the year 1818 till 1829 _The Courier_ was conducted by W. MUDFORD, with whom WILLIAM STEWART was a proprietor. After 1819 D. STUART took no interest in it, and parted with his last share in it in 1822. After the year 1825, JAMES STUART, a Scotch gentleman of great talent and respectability—the same that unfortunately killed SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL in a duel, and was author of _Travels in the United States_—became editor. True to his principles, he gave in this capacity every support in his power to the Whig or Liberal party. He was appointed by LORD MELBOURNE to the situation of Factory Inspector, which he held till his death, at the age of 74, in 1849. When JAS. STUART obtained his factory appointment, SAM. LAMAN BLANCHARD became editor. The paper having become, like other evening papers, less profitable than of old, the proprietors sold it to the party they had so long opposed. It took Tory politics; LAMAN BLANCHARD, of course, resigned; and a few short years were sufficient to destroy a journal which had once been the most valuable newspaper property in England. Its last number appeared 6th July, 1842.

It is a curious, but not creditable, circumstance that _The Courier_ was in the habit of re-printing, from year to year, without acknowledgment, the able leading articles from _The Liverpool Courier_, written by the Rev. Richard Watson, secretary to the Wesleyan Missionary Society, by whom, in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Kaye, this newspaper was established upon loyal and constitutional principles.

“_The Courier_, in 1814, was supplied by R. Peel, Lord Palmerston, and J. W. Croker, with political squibs and lyrics, resembling in general features _The Anti-Jacobin_ and _The Rolliad_. The verses are chiefly parodies of Moore’s _Irish Melodies_, or of Byron’s songs, and are far above the ordinary level of such compositions.... The various pieces were collected and published in 1815, under the title of _The New Whig Guide_.”—_Croker Papers_, vol. i., p. 58.

This statement contains several inaccuracies. The pieces forming _The New Whig Guide_ were first collected and published in 1819, _and not in 1815_, for BYRON’S _Fare thee well_ was not written till April, 1816. The parody on it was entitled _The Leader’s Lament. By the Right Hon. George Ponsonby_. A. Hayward says in his review of _The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, in _The Edinburgh Review_, 1858—that “CANNING has been traditionally credited with the parody of Moore’s. _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms_, the gentleman addressed being a distinguished commoner afterwards ennobled (the first LORD METHUEN), who was far from meriting the character [of a foolish fop] thereby fastened on him”. The other parodies were by JOHN CALCRAFT, the Hon. W. H. LYTTELTON, DUDLEY NORTH, M.P., KIRKMAN FINLAY, M.P. for Glasgow, &c. MR. METHUEN, in return, wrote many clever squibs and parodies against the Tories, which were collected, under the title of _The New Tory Guide_, and reproduced, like its rivals in 1819. “Talking of _The Morning Chronicle_,” says T. MOORE (_Diary, 19th March, 1831_), “PAUL METHUEN told us he was the author of almost all those about _The Rat Club_; which are certainly some of the best.”

THE STAR.

THE STAR, the first London daily Evening Newspaper, was started in 1788 by PETER STUART, brother to DANIEL STUART, of _The Morning Post_. Its first editor was ANDREW MACDONALD, author of _Vimonda_, a tragedy, and other works: and after him another Scottish poet, John Mayne, author of _The Siller Gun_, was editor. ROBERT BURNS was offered an engagement to write poetry for it, at the rate of one guinea an article per week. The arrangement was not completed. It was to PETER STUART that BURNS addressed his “Poem, written to a gentleman who had sent him a Newspaper, and offered to continue it free of expense”. The facetious Bob Allen, of whom Charles Lamb has such pleasant reminiscences, was for many years a contributor to this paper. Subsequently, DR. A. TILLOCH, editor of _The Philosophical Magazine_, was for many years editor of _The Star_. After Oct. 15, 1831, _The Star_ became incorporated with _The Albion_ newspaper, under the title of _The Albion and Evening Star_.

_The Star_ was during many years the leading newspaper on the Whig side, CAMPBELL the poet being one of its writers after 1804, when he was engaged at a salary of four guineas a week. The clear profits of this paper in 1820 were said, on apparently good authority, to amount to £6000.

THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

THE MORNING CHRONICLE was, with one exception (_The Public Ledger_, which started in 1760), the oldest of the daily papers up to the period of its discontinuance March 19, 1862. The latest number in the British Museum is dated Dec. 31, 1861.

It was established on Whig principles, 28th June, 1769, by WILLIAM WOODFALL, who carried it on with great success till 1789.

Woodfall, in addition to other talents requisite to the success of a newspaper, possessed two, which were of essential service to it, namely, his prodigious memory, which enabled him to report Parliamentary Debates without the aid of notes, and the excellence of his Theatrical Criticisms, which, as MR. FOX BOURNE, in his copious and valuable work on _English Newspapers_, 2 vols., 8vo., 1887—one to which the editor of the present publication has been under frequent obligations—says, “are a neglected mine of wealth for students of Theatrical History”.

On WOODFALL’S death, in 1803, it was sold to JAMES PERRY, who borrowed £500 from RANSOME & CO., the bankers, and some more from BELLAMY, the wine merchant—who was also caterer and doorkeeper to the House of Commons—and entered into partnership with a Charterhouse schoolmaster named GRAY, who had just received a legacy of £500. With that joint capital, the two bought _The Chronicle_, the DUKE OF NORFOLK making PERRY a present of a house in the Strand, which he converted into a new publishing office. A few other influential Whigs, also, contributed a further sum, which, as the late SIR ROBERT ADAIR, who is so often satirized in _The Anti-Jacobin_, and who was a subscriber to the fund, informed the editor of the present work, was £300.

PERRY was on good terms with his contributors, and made _The Morning Chronicle_ a more prosperous and influential journal than had ever before been known in England. GRAY provided the heavy articles, PERRY those of lighter sort; and after GRAY’S death, which happened when he had been part proprietor for only a few years, other writers were employed, among them JAS. MACKINTOSH and SHERIDAN, and in later times T. CAMPBELL and T. MOORE, who contributed verse, and JOHN CAMPBELL, then a young barrister, who was the Theatrical Critic, and was still so in 1810. T. CAMPBELL, on coming to London in 1802, was engaged as a political writer, but this not being his forte, he, with great judgment, confined himself to poetical pieces, among which were _Ye Mariners of England_, and _The Exile of Erin_. PERRY had another and equally famous contributor. In Sept., 1793, S. T. COLERIDGE, then aged nineteen, “sent a poem of a few lines to PERRY, soliciting a loan of a guinea for a distressed author,” which prayer was immediately granted. In 1796, he accepted an offer of Perry’s to write in it, but the arrangement was never carried out. In later years, COLERIDGE wrote some other poems for _The Morning Chronicle_, and his friend CHARLES LAMB was an occasional writer of prose for it.

PERRY continued as the general manager of the paper till his death on 6th Dec., 1821; but before this he had left much of the editing to others, his first assistant after GRAY’S death being ROBERT SPANKIE, ultimately attorney-general of Bengal. The next was JOHN BLACK, who had joined him in 1810; and upon him, when PERRY died, the entire management devolved.

After PERRY’S death the paper was purchased for £42,000, by WILLIAM CLEMENT, by whom it was held till 1834, when it was sold to SIR JOHN EASTHOPE for £16,500.

In 1843, JOHN BLACK was dismissed to make way for ANDREW DOYLE, who had been Foreign Editor, and had married Sir John’s daughter. Black died in 1855.

On 26th July, 1847, SIR JOHN EASTHOPE, who had been carrying on the paper at a loss for some time, sold it to the Duke of Newcastle, W. E. Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, and other influential Peelites. Its new Editor was JOHN DOUGLAS COOK, who had for some time been one of the reporters of _The Times_, and who gathered round him a brilliant staff of contributors, including George Sydney Smythe, afterwards Lord Strangford, Gilbert Venables, Abraham Hayward, William Vernon Harcourt, and Thackeray. Its business manager was WILLIAM DELANE, the father of the clever young editor of _The Times_, JOHN THADDEUS DELANE.

_The Chronicle_ lingered on as a would-be Peelite organ till the autumn of 1854, when by a curious arrangement, the paper, with all its plant, was sold to Serjeant GLOVER, for £7500, on the understanding that, if he continued to support in it the Peelite policy, he should have the money back with interest, being paid £3000 a year for three years. That contract soon fell through, as GLOVER preferred to draw a subsidy from LOUIS NAPOLEON, and to make other experiments. At the close of 1854, the circulation of _The Morning Chronicle_ averaged only about 2500, while that of _The Morning Post_ was about 3000, that of _The Morning Herald_ about 3500, that of _The Daily News_ about 5300, that of _The Morning Advertiser_ about 6600, and that of _The Times_ about 55,000.

The last number of _The Morning Chronicle_ appeared March 19, 1862, when what at one time had been the most influential journal in the country altogether ceased to exist.

Of this paper SHERIDAN speaks in _The Critic_, and to it BYRON addressed a _Familiar Epistle_. For its columns W. HAZLITT wrote some of the finest criticisms in our own or any other language. Some of the early _Sketches by Boz_ appeared in it, but they were really commenced in the old _Monthly Magazine_. DICKENS’S father was one of the staff. HAZLITT also contributed to it Parliamentary Reports, as at a later period did C. DICKENS.

Among other distinguished writers in _The Morning Chronicle_ were Lord Brougham, the Duke of Sussex, David Ricardo, Cyrus Redding, Albany Fonblanque, James and John Stuart Mill, John Payne Collier, Eyre Evans Crowe, Charles Buller, Lord Holland, Joseph Parkes, Michael Joseph Quin, George Hogarth, James Fraser, W. Hazlitt, secundus, Lord Melbourne, W. Johnson Fox, Henry Mayhew, Lord Palmerston, A. B. Reach, Alex. and Charles Mackay, Tom Taylor.

THE MORNING POST.

THE MORNING POST, the next _daily_ paper in order of date to _The Chronicle_, first appeared in 1772, and was probably projected by JOHN BELL. Three years subsequently the REV. HENRY BATE (who took in 1784 the name of Dudley, and was created a baronet in 1816) joined it, and was connected with it till the end of 1780, when he quarrelled with his colleagues, and set up _The Morning Herald_, the first number of which appeared on Nov. 1 in the same year. In June, 1781, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond. He was (says Horace Walpole, in his _Journal of the Reign of George III._), the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared, both on private persons as well as public. His life was dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be pensioned by the Court. He died in 1824.

After BATE, as editor, came the REV. W. JACKMAN (or JACKSON)—an equally discreditable clergyman,—and he was succeeded by JOHN TAYLOR (author of _Monsieur Tonson_), for whom PETER PINDAR (DR. JOHN WOLCOT) wrote whimsical verses.

In 1792, MR. TATTERSALL was the responsible proprietor, who, knowing more about horses and sport than about the elegancies of literature, DR. WOLCOT continued to be the chief writer; and who, besides his clever verses, gave much information upon affairs of the prize-ring and kindred amusements. In 1795, TATTERSALL sold the entire copyright, with house and printing materials, for £600. The circulation then was only 350 daily.

The purchaser was MR. DANIEL STUART; and MR. CHRISTIE, the auctioneer, was also a proprietor. Previous to this time, ROBERT BURNS was applied to, to supply poetry, but none was ever sent. DANIEL STUART was not twenty-nine when he bought _The Morning Post_; and JAMES (afterwards SIR JAS.) MACKINTOSH, who was his brother-in-law, and was a regular contributor, was his senior only by a year.

After 1790, the same ANDREW MACDONALD, who had been editor of _The Star_, furnished poems, as did WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, C. LLOYD, and other verse writers. At the commencement of 1798, S. T. COLERIDGE—then only twenty-five—was engaged to contribute poetry. The Odes, _Fire, Famine, and Slaughter_; _France_; _Dejection_; and that on _The Departing Year_; with twenty or thirty other pieces, since included in his Poetical Works, among which was _Love_—one of the most popular poems of this age—were first published in _The Morning Post_. To these must be added the first draught of _The Devil’s Thoughts_, a piece afterwards much altered. About 1800, the paper was supplied with some excellent pieces, in prose, including Fashionable Intelligence, short pungent articles, and jokes, by CHARLES LAMB.

In 1798 its sale was over 2000; and so well had DANIEL STUART managed his property—being exceedingly well served by his principal assistant, GEORGE LANE—that when he left _The Morning Post_ for _The Courier_, in 1803, the circulation amounted to 4,500. It, therefore, stood higher in point of sale than any other morning paper, the order in respect of numbers from high to low being this: _Morning Post_, _Morning Herald_, _Morning Advertiser_, _Times_. The amount received for it was about £25,000. According to JOHN TAYLOR, editor of _The Sun_, in his _Records of my Life_, _The Morning Post_ was afterwards purchased by Government to silence attacks on the PRINCE REGENT.

Much of the success of _The Morning Post_ was undoubtedly owing to the writings of COLERIDGE. He afterwards declared that he had wasted the prime and manhood of his intellect in writing for _The Morning Post_ and _Courier_. Among his contributions to the former (March 19, 1800) was his famous character of WILLIAM PITT. The last time he wrote in it was in August, 1802.

A very competent judge, THOMAS DE QUINCEY, thus alludes to COLERIDGE’S political writings:—“Worlds of fine thinking,” he says of the daily press, “lie buried in that vast abyss, never to be disentombed, or restored to human admiration. Like the sea, it has swallowed treasures without end, that no diving-bell will bring up again. But nowhere throughout its shoreless magazines of wealth does there lie such a bed of pearls, confounded with the rubbish and ‘_purgamenta_’ of ages, as in the political papers of COLERIDGE. No more appreciable monument could be raised to the memory of COLERIDGE, than a re-publication of his Essays in _The Morning Post_, but still more of those afterwards published in _The Courier_.” These have since been reprinted under the title of _Essays on his own Times_.

APPENDIX.

THE ANARCHISTS.—An Ode.

[A Parody on Collins’s Ode to the Passions.]

—Numero plures, virtute et honore minores, Indocti stolidique et depugnare parati.—_Hor._

When Anarchy, sworn foe to Kings, O’er Gallia wav’d her crimson wings, Ere yet she spoil’d with iron hand Fair Europe’s desolated land; Her offspring here, a spurious brood, In faction nurs’d, inur’d to blood, Elate with Hope, perplex’d with Fear, Would often raise the listening ear; And all their mother’s wonders tell, And throng around her secret cell, Ranting, bribing, whispering, trembling, Urging, boasting, and dissembling. By turns they felt the Gallic mind Enlarg’d, unprejudic’d, refin’d; Till once, by all the goddess fir’d, Beyond Discretion rapt, inspir’d; Seditious, false, and prone to ill, They eager snatch’d the grey-goose quill. And as they oft had heard apart The wonders of Sedition’s art, Each, for Madness rul’d the hour, Would prove his own subversive power.

First PAINE his _Rights of Man_ display’d, But could no more—for falsely cross’d Ev’n by the friends himself had made, Enraged he fled to Gallia’s coast. Next PRIESTLEY tried, to whom ’twas given Mankind’s free-agency to tell; Ordain’d to point the road to heaven, In pure free will he points—to hell! With meagre visage THELWALL came, In lectures told his sufferings sore; Till purple tyrants blush’d with shame And crowds the suffering saint adore. But thou, O GODWIN! meek and mild; Speak thy metaphysic page: Now it cheer’d a laggard age, And bade new scenes of joy at distance hail; When tyrant Kings shall be no more, When human wants and wars shall fail, And sleep and death shall quit the hallow’d shore. ’Twas thus he strove to sap the throne. With borrow’d arts and weapons not his own, While Gallia clapp’d her hands, and hail’d her favourite child.

And longer had he sung—but, strange to say, WAKEFIELD, the dragon-fly, rush’d on; Eager he sought the bold rebellious fray, And burst with anger and disdain The web of sophistry in twain Which GODWIN, patient sage! had spread To catch the fluttering insects of the land. Treason upreared her arm to strike, Rebellion grasped the murd’rous pike, And though, sometimes, each maddening pause between, Soft Discretion, joined with Fear, Whisper’d her councils in his ear, Still Anarchy upheld the busy scene, And raised her shield of brass to guard her vot’ry’s head.

Next HOLCROFT vowed in doleful tone No more to fire a thankless age, Oblivion marked his labours for her own, Neglected from the press and damn’d upon the stage. See! faithful to their mighty dam, COLERIDGE, SOUTHEY, LLOYD, and LAMB, In splay-foot madrigals of love. Soft moaning like the widowed dove, Pour side by side their sympathetic notes. Of equal rights and civic feasts And tyrant Kings and knavish Priests Swift through the land the tuneful mischief floats. And now to softer strains they struck the lyre, They sung the beetle, or the mole, The dying kid, or ass’s foal, By cruel man permitted to expire. But O, how altered was the sprightlier hour! When FOX, the Parthian hero, rose to view; He o’er the rest high-towering like a steeple Leagued with a “Corresponding” crew, Pledged in large floods of wine “their Majesties—the People”.

The royal tribe accept the proffered power. Kings from the forge, dictators from the plough, Peeping from forth their allies low, Before the fallen arch-seceder bow; LEPAUX bade Gallia hail his name, But old St. Stephen bowed his head for shame.

See NORFOLK last, with BEDFORD roll, He of Bacchus’ favours proud, The sovereign mob most eloquent addressed; But soon he spied the mirth-inspiring bowl, Whose ruby treasures charmed his soul the best; They would have thought who heard him speak, ’Twas Falstaff, with his minions at his back, High primed with valour, turbulence, and sack, Aping the monarch to a wondr’ing crowd. While BEDFORD proud his lesson to rehearse, With studious labours urged the bold reply: Shouts of applause ran rattling through the sky: And he, the hero of the day, Right glad their servile suffrage to repay, Shook golden bounty from his swelling purse.

O, England! heav’n-defended land! With power to “threaten and command,” Say, is thy former spirit broke, To crouch beneath a foreign yoke, And listen to the idiot strains Of slaves thy better sense disdains, As erst, in many an ardent hour, You awed an adverse haughty power. Thy lofty mind, to Freedom true, May well retain what then it knew. Where is thy former patriot soul, Above deceit, above controul? Arise! as in that happier time United, fearless, bold, sublime. ’Tis said, and I believe the tale, Thy efforts then could more avail, Could more true happiness dispense, With Order, Morals, virtue, Sense, Than all that fires with party rage This boastful philosophic age. Arise! with manly zeal advance, To curb the lawless power of France; O, bid her mad endeavours cease, And give the willing nations PEACE! —_Fabricius._

[Illustration]

THE PASSIONS.

_An Ode for Music._

WILLIAM COLLINS.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Throng’d around her magic cell, Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, Possess’d beyond the Muse’s painting; By turns they felt the glowing mind, Disturb’d, delighted, rais’d, refin’d, Till once, ’tis said, when all were fir’d, Fill’d with fury, rapt, inspir’d, From the supporting myrtles round They snatch’d her instruments of sound, And, as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each, for Madness ruled the hour, Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear, his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder’d laid, And back recoil’d, he knew not why, Even at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush’d his eyes on fire, In lightnings own’d his secret stings, In one rude clash he struck the lyre, And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair Low sullen sounds his grief beguil’d, A sullen, strange, and mingled air, ’Twas sad by fits, by starts ’twas wild.

But thou, O HOPE! with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whisper’d promis’d pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail! Still would her touch the strain prolong, And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She call’d on ECHO still through all the song; And where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And Hope enchanted smil’d, and wav’d her golden hair.

And longer had she sung,—but, with a frown, REVENGE impatient rose, He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down, And, with a withering look, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne’er prophetic sounds so full of woe. And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected PITY at his side Her soul-subduing voice applied; Yet still he kept his wild unalter’d mien, While each strain’d ball of sight seem’d bursting from his head,

Thy numbers, JEALOUSY, to nought were fix’d, Sad proof of thy distressful state! Of differing themes the veering song was mix’d, And now it courted LOVE, now raving call’d on HATE. With eyes upraised, as one inspir’d, Pale MELANCHOLY sat retir’d, And from her wild sequester’d seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour’d through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels join’d the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o’er some haunted streams with fond delay, Round a holy calm diffusing, Love of peace and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But oh! how alter’d was its sprightlier tone! When CHEERFULNESS, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulders flung, Her buskins gemm’d with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung, The hunter’s call to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crown’d Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan boys were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown EXERCISE rejoic’d to hear, And SPORT leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came JOY’S ecstatic trial; He with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand address’d; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov’d the best. They would have thought who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe’s vale her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing: While, as his flying fingers kiss’d the strings, LOVE framed with MIRTH a gay fantastic round, Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound: And he, amidst his frolic play. As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

O MUSIC! sphere-descended maid, Friend of PLEASURE, WISDOM’S aid, Why, goddess, why to us denied, Lay’st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As in that lov’d Athenian bower, You learn’d an all-commanding power, Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear’d, Can well recall what then it heard. Where is thy native simple heart, Devote to virtue, fancy, art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that god-like age, Fill thy recording Sister’s page. ’Tis said, and I believe the tale, Thy humblest reed could more prevail, Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age, E’en all at once together found Cecilia’s mingled world of sound. O bid our vain endeavours cease, Revive the just designs of Greece; Return in all thy simple state! Confirm the tales her sons relate.

[Illustration]

THE ANTI-JACOBIN REVIEW AND MAGAZINE

FOR JULY, 1798.

MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PRÆVALEBIT.

_Art. 1. The Republican Judge, or the American Liberty of the Press, as exhibited, explained, and exposed, in the base and partial Prosecution of William Cobbett, for a pretended Libel against the King of Spain and his Embassador, before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. With an Address to the People of England._

_By Peter Porcupine. 8vo., pp. 96. Price 2s. Wright, London._

The past writings of Mr. William Cobbett, who has assumed the appellation of Peter Porcupine, are too well known in England to require any explanation from us, either of _their_ tendency, or of the author’s principles. Were any doubt entertained on the subject, nothing more would be requisite to dispel it than a mere reference to the comments of all the Jacobin Reviewers; who have, without exception, in defiance alike of decency and of truth, lavished on them the most indiscriminate censure and the most scurrilous abuse. Strange as it may appear, it is indisputably true that the individual exertions of Mr. Cobbett have more essentially contributed to give a proper tone to the public spirit in America than all the efforts of the well-disposed part of the native Americans: for a considerable length of time he combated alone a host of foes, “himself a host”; stemmed the impetuous tide of democracy; and checked the irruptions of French anarchy and atheism, which threatened to overwhelm the American States, and, with the ruins of their confliction, to crush everything for which the Americans, at the period of their revolution, professed to fight, and which they have ever since professed to cherish. The adoption of such a line of conduct was alone sufficient to draw down upon our author the vengeance of all whose treasonable designs his manly efforts were intended to defeat. Accordingly, nothing was spared by the infuriated advocates of anarchy to injure him in the public mind, and, by blasting his reputation, to deprive him of that credit which was indispensably necessary to secure the success of his works. No imputation however base, no lie however atrocious, none of those black and diabolical arts, in short, which, issuing from the bubbling cauldron of democracy, were so skilfully employed to blacken the first and fairest character in France, as a necessary prelude to the establishment of the _virtuous_ republic of the Great Nation, were neglected in the _glorious_ attempt to achieve the ruin of this worthy individual. When these were found to fail of producing the desired effect, recourse was had to personal threats—the coward’s weapon—with the hope of inducing him, by the means of intimidation, to quit a country in which his enemies endeavoured to convince him that his life was daily exposed to most imminent danger. But neither the dread of calumny, nor the fear of assassination, could lead the object of their persecution to forego his laudable design. He manfully persevered, and has at length, though not without infinite difficulty, succeeded in opening the eyes of the Americans to their own interest, and in the infamous machinations of France, and of American traitors in the pay of France—for England is not the ONLY country in which foreign gold is employed as a stimulus to domestic treason.[330] In the course of his exertions to produce this desirable end, honest Peter had occasion to comment on the pusillanimous conduct of the Spanish monarch, in bending the knee to, and forming an alliance with, the base plunderers and assassins of his family, and on the insidious and criminal efforts of the Spanish ambassador to strengthen the hands of the French faction in America. These comments, it seems, excited the indignation of Don Carlos Martinez de Trojo, who determined to bring the author to condign punishment; and it was the very unwarrantable conduct which the latter experienced on the occasion that gave rise to the publication before us.

PETER begins his tract by stating the dangers to which he knew himself exposed, on account of his political principles, when he established his residence in the state of Pennsylvania, “where the government, generally speaking, was in the hands of those who had (and sometimes with great indecency) manifested an uniform

## partiality for the sans-culotte French, and as uniform an opposition

to the ministers and measures of the federal government”. That men should ever be placed in situations of trust and importance, whose principles are avowedly adverse to the constitution whence they derive their subsistence, and which it is their bounden duty to protect, is a circumstance that would excite universal astonishment if it did not, unhappily, so often occur. Still the frequency of its occurrence does not alter its nature, nor should it be allowed to diminish that ample portion of censure which must ever attach to the authors of such appointments. It is such conduct as this that justifies one of the wisest observations that ever fell from the pen of Voltaire—“A GOVERNMENT CAN ONLY PERISH BY SUICIDE”—an observation confirmed by the fate of every country that has been recently reduced beneath the iron yoke of republican France.

Aware of his danger, our author thought the best means of averting it was, by seeking for some standard, as a safe rule for his conduct in respect to the liberty of this press. “The English press was said to be _enslaved_; but, when I came to consult the practice of this enslaved press, I found it still to be far too free for me to attempt to follow its example. Finally, it appeared to me to be the safest way, to form to myself some rule founded on the liberty exercised by the _American press_. I concluded that I might without danger go as great lengths in attacking the enemies of the country as others went in attacking its friends: that as much zeal might be shown in defending the general government and administration as in accusing and traducing them: and that as great warmth would be admissible in the cause of virtue, order, and religion, as had been tolerated in the wicked cause of villainy, insurrection, and blasphemy” (p. 21). Alas! Peter, at this time, knew but little of the “spirit and temper,” as MR. BARRISTER ERSKINE would express it, of democracy and Jacobinism. He knew not that the men who profess those principles are for the most part vindictive, malignant, oppressive, and intolerant; and that under the mask of liberty they exercise the most insupportable tyranny over their families and dependents, and that in their general conduct to their inferiors—unless when impelled by interest or urged by ambition, they irritate their passions with toasts and flattery, from a tavern-chair, or influence their minds by seditious discourses and treasonable insinuations, from a tribune or a scaffold—they are supercilious, arrogant, insolent, and overbearing. He knew not, it would seem, that those whose whole duty is to defend the laws often _sleep on their posts_, while their enemies are ever vigilant,

## active, and alert; that when the former are attacked, a tardiness of

zeal, amounting nearly to torpor, secures, with few exceptions, impunity to the assailant; whereas any exposure of the latter draws forth a malignity of revenge which is the certain fore-runner of persecution. Indeed, the inveteracy of the discontented, of that class which includes all those who aspire to the possession of place and power, and are little scrupulous about the means of attaining them; and all the determined revolutionists or subverters of established institutions, may be traced to a natural source. Unable to support by reason a cause which reason disavows, unable to strengthen by arguments positions which set all argument at defiance, it becomes their business to inflame by passion and to dazzle with sophistry. Hence arises an extreme facility of exposing their weakness and detecting their infamy, and not having the means of resisting such exposure, being wholly destitute of the sentiments which are necessary for a successful reply, they are reduced to the degrading alternative of abandoning the field to a triumphant adversary, or of seeking, by the adoption of violent measures, to punish the opponent whom they did not dare to encounter. This it is that renders revenge an active principle in _their_ minds.

The first step taken by the Spanish ambassador was an application to the federal government to prosecute our author “for certain matters published in his Gazette against himself and that poor, unfortunate, and humbled mortal, Charles IV., King of Spain”. The government consented, and Peter was accordingly bound over to appear in the federal district court before _Judge Peters_. Don Carlos, however, soon found that his prosecution would be more likely to succeed, if brought in a district where the defendant had more personal enemies, and where the people were more generally disposed to the adoption of revolutionary principles. A memorial was, accordingly, “delivered in to the federal government, requesting that the trial might come on before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, of which Court _McKean is Chief Justice_”. Of this _republican_ Judge our author gives such an account as must convey to English minds a strange idea of the administration of _republican_ Justice. It is to be found in P. 22—When Britons contemplate the character here delineated, and contrast it with the characters of their own Judges to which even the licentious tongue of faction has not dared to impute the smallest stain, their bosoms must glow with satisfaction of the most exalted kind; they must exult in the superior excellence of that form of government and of those laws which effectually secure them from the evils of a vicious, corrupt, or partial distribution of justice. After giving an historical detail of the proceedings against him, accompanied by copies of the warrant to apprehend him, the imputed libels, the bill of indictment, and the Judge’s charge, Peter exclaims—“This, when it comes to be served up in Britain, will be a dish for a king. The royalists will lick their lips, and the republicans will cry, God bless us! The emigrations _for liberty’s sake_ will cease, and we shall have nothing but the pure unadulterated dregs of Newgate and the Fleet, the candidates for Tyburn and Botany Bay—Blessed cargo! All _patriots_ to the backbone: true philanthropists and universal citizens: fit for any place but England in this world and heaven in the next!”

But, notwithstanding the Judge’s charge, the most partial and scandalous charge, we conceive, that ever was delivered _out of France_, the Grand Jury refused to find the bill, and the prosecution of course ceased. The Judge, not less disappointed than the prosecutor, on this occasion, took an early opportunity—to his infamy be it recorded!—of declaring from the Bench that the Grand Jury would not _do their duty_. What would the disaffected in this country say were any British Judge to use such language? The gross imputations cast upon the character of our author by this _impartial_ Judge, have extorted from Peter a tribute of justice to himself which the occasion most amply justifies. As the account here given perfectly accords with all the information we have received from persons of undoubted veracity who know him well, and as it fully corroborates the opinion we ourselves have formed of him, from an attentive perusal of his publications, we shall extract it for the satisfaction of our readers:—“It hardly ever becomes a man to say much of his private character or concerns; but on this occasion I trust I shall be indulged for a moment. I will say, and I will make that saying good, whosoever shall oppose it, that I never attacked any one, whose private character is not, in every light in which it can possibly be viewed as far beneath mine as infamy is beneath honour. Nay, I defy the city of Philadelphia, populous as it is, and respectable as are many of its inhabitants, to produce me a single man who is more sober, industrious, or honest; who is a kinder husband, a tenderer father, a better master, a fonder friend, or (though last not least) a more zealous and faithful subject.

“Most certainly it is unseemly in any one to say this much of himself unless compelled to it by some public outrage on his character; but when the accusation is made notorious so ought the defence; and I do again and again repeat, that I fear not a comparison between my character and that of any man in this city: no, not even with that of the very Judge, who held me as the worst of miscreants. His Honour is welcome, if he please, to carry this comparison into _all_ the actions of our lives, public and _domestic_, and to extend it beyond ourselves to _every branch of our families_.

“As to my writing, I never did slander any one, if the promulgation of useful truths be not slander. Innocence and virtue I have often endeavoured to defend, but I never defamed either. I have, indeed, stripped the close-drawn veil of hypocrisy; I have ridiculed the follies, and lashed the vices of thousands, and have done it sometimes perhaps with a rude and violent hand. But these are not the days for gentleness and mercy. Such as is the temper of the foe, such must be that of his opponent. Seeing myself published as a rogue, _and my wife a whore_; being persecuted with such infamous, such base and hellish calumny in the _philanthropic_ city of Philadelphia, merely for asserting _the truth_ respecting others, was not calculated, I assure you, to sweeten my temper, and turn my ink into honey-dew.

“My attachment to order and good government, nothing but the impudence of Jacobinism can deny. The object not only of my own publications, but also of all those which I have introduced or encouraged, from the first moment that I appeared on the public scene to the present day, has been to lend some aid in stemming the torrent of anarchy and confusion. To undeceive the misguided, by tearing the mask from the artful and ferocious villains who owing to the infatuation of the poor, and the supineness of the rich, have made such fearful progress in the destruction of all that is amiable and good and sacred among men. To the government of this country in

## particular it has been my constant study to yield all the support in

my power. When that government, or the worthy men who administer it have been traduced and vilified, I have stood forward in their defence, and that too, in times when its friends were some of them locked up in silence, and others giving way to the audacious violence of its foes. Not that I am so foolishly vain as to attribute to my illiterate voter a thousandth part of the merit my friends are inclined to allow it. As I wrote the other day to a gentleman who had paid me some compliments on this score, ‘I should never look on my family with a dry eye if I did not hope to outlive my works’. They are mere transitory beings to which the revolutionary storm has given life, and which with that storm will expire. But, what I contend for and what nobody can deny, I have done all that laid in my power, all that I was able by any means to accomplish in order to counteract the nefarious effects of the enemies of the American government and nation.

“With respect to religion, altho’ Mr. M’Kean was pleased to number it among the things that were in danger from the licentiousness of the press, and of course from poor _me_, I think it would puzzle the devil himself to produce from my writings, a single passage, which could, by all the powers of perversion be twisted into an attack upon it. But it would on the contrary be extremely easy to prove, that I have at all times, when an opportunity offered, repelled the attacks of its enemies, the abominable battalions of Deists and Atheists, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength. The bitterest drop in my pen has ever been bestowed upon them; because, of all the foes of the human race, I look upon them, after the devil, as being the greatest and most dreadful. Not a sacrilegious plunderer from Henry VIII. to Condorcet, and from Condorcet to the impious Sans-culottes of France, has escaped my censure. All those, who have attempted to degrade religion whether by open insults and cruelties to the clergy, by blasphemous publications or by the more dangerous poison of the malignant modern philosophy, I have ranked amongst the most infamous of mankind, and have treated them accordingly.”

In the concluding part of his tract the author clearly convicts the Judge of the most decided and most flagrant partiality. He quotes a number of infamous libels, on religious and political subjects, which had never roused the indignation, nor even excited the censure, of those whose duty it is to preserve the public peace and to enforce a due observance of the laws. If, indeed, we were to judge, from this specimen, of the mode of administring justice in America, in matters of libel, we should conclude, that every degree of licentiousness is allowed to those who seek to debauch the minds of the people, to seduce them from their allegiance, and to dissolve every tie which religion and morality have formed for the happiness of men in a social state, while the upright supporters of virtue, whose labours are directed to the prevention of anarchy and rebellion, by detecting the views and exposing the machinations of their abettors, are the sole objects not merely of _pro_secution but of _per_secution.

The abuse bestowed on the mild and beneficent sovereigns of these realms by the Democratic factions in the American Congress, is almost equal in severity to the censures lavished by some members of opposition during the _last_ parliament in the British Senate, on the Kings of Prussia and Hungary, _before_ those monarchs had become allies of _France_.

The following extracts will, at once, afford a criterion of the political principles of public men, in the State of Pennsylvania, and a curious specimen of republican _morality_.

“The _Governor_ (Mifflin) attended at a civic festival, when the following toasts were drunk, which were published in most of the newspapers.[331]

“‘Those _illustrious citizens_ sent to Botany Bay. May they be _speedily recalled_ by their country in _the day of her regeneration_.’

“‘May the spirit of parliamentary reform in Britain and Ireland _burst the bonds of corruption, and overwhelm the foes of liberty_.’

“‘The _sans-culottes_ of France. May the robes of _all_ the _Emperors_, _Kings_, _Princes_, and _Potentates_ [not excepting the _King of Spain_] now employed in suppressing the flame of liberty, be cut up to make breeches.’

“This is pretty ‘_decent_’ in a _Governor_; but without stopping to remark on the peculiar _decency_ of his toasting a gang of _convicts_, let us come to another instance of his conduct, full as ‘_decent_’ as this.

“At the civic festival, held in this city in 1794, to celebrate the dethronement of ‘our great and good ally, Louis XVI.’ there were ‘assembled,’ according to the ‘_procès verbal_’ which was sent to the Paris convention, ‘the CHIEFS, _civil and military_’. This _procès verbal_ contains a letter to the convention, in which the following honourable mention is made of the governor. ‘The Governor of Pennsylvania, that _ardent friend of the French republic_, was present, and partook of _all our enthusiasm_ and _all our sentiments_.’[332]

“I believe they spoke truth; for the cannons of the State were fired, and military companies, with drums beating and colours flying, attended the execrable fête, one of the ceremonies of which was _burning the English flag_; and as to the sentiments contained in the _oaths_ and _speeches_ (for there were both) they abounded in insults towards almost all the princes of the earth, but

## particularly the King of Great Britain.

“A Judge of Pennsylvania, REDMAN, was, in November, 1795, caught thieving in the shop of MR. FOLWELL, the dry-goods merchant in Front Street. MR. FOLWELL detected him, took the money ($300) from him, and kicked him into the street. His _friends_, among the most intimate of whom was His Excellency the Governor, advised him to _retire_; and he is still living at his ease about 20 miles from the city. No justice was ever done to him; he was never censured, not even in the newspapers! Such is the cowardly, base, and worthless press of America. Such are _republican judges_, and such is republican morality! But this is not the worst. I know a Judge who _committed murder_! wilful murder, and that, too, previous to his appointment by this our republican Governor!

“I only give a sort of hint here. One day or other if it pleases God to spare my life, I will publish such a collection of facts as will shock the universe.

“A Pennsylvania _Judge’s wife_ had, a little while ago, a child, by a man who kept a livery stable. The _lady_ says, the stableman is the best of the two and so has married him, though _his Honour_ is still living. I need not name the parties, for though the cowardly newspapers have never noticed the affair it is notorious enough.

“There are more bastards born annually in the single state of Pennsylvania, than in all the British dominions: and as to cuckoldom, I will only say that every paper teems with _advertisements of wives eloped_ from the bed and board of their husbands. I do not hence insinuate that there are _no good people_ here. There are many. As many as in most countries; but then people will, and do allow, that the morals of the country are approaching fast to that state, which has never yet failed to prove the ruin of every thing held in esteem amongst men.”

In proving the falsehood of the assertion so frequently repeated, as well on this as on the other side of the Atlantic, that “in _America_ the press is _free_ and truth is _not_ a libel,” our author adverts to a letter of DR. PRIESTLEY’S on that subject which he promises hereafter to expose more fully (a promise which we trust he will not forget); and then introduces the following curious anecdote, which we extract for the benefit of the Doctor’s political friends and admirers in Europe. “But since the Doctor wrote that letter it seems experience has changed his opinion. He has suffered the just punishment of his malignancy against his country; he has been cheated, neglected, and scorned. He is now in an obscurity hardly penetrable; he is reduced to poverty and bursting with vexation” (may a restless spirit of innovation, springing from, and nourished by, a bigotted vanity and a turbulent pride ever experience a similar fate)! All this has had an effect; and I will state as a fact, which I call upon him to deny if he can, that he has lately declared “that _Republican governments are the most arbitrary in the world_”! This MACHIAVEL had said before, and this all unprejudiced men of reading and observation had long since admitted; but, we confess we little expected to hear DOCTOR PRIESTLEY subscribe to the creed of the one, or to the acknowledgments of the other. Adversity, however, is an able advocate in the cause of TRUTH.

The Address to the People of England, which is prefixed to the publication, is short, but pointed and expressive. It breathes the true spirit of a Briton. Of the literary merit of the work, after the ample analysis which we have given of its contents, and the extracts which we have made, little remains to be said. We agree with the publisher, who in the Advertisement says: “The author has been more anxious to strengthen his arguments than to polish his style, to convince the judgment than to flatter the taste,” but those critics must be more “_delicate_” or fastidious who can reject substantial advantages for fanciful defects. Though Peter aim not at embellishments, he possesses great strength and energy of language, and generally writes with more accuracy than most of the American authors, who, be it observed, have a phraseology peculiar to themselves. This tract contains much important information, and we strenuously recommend it to the serious perusal of our countrymen;

## particularly to such of them as are disposed to question the

superior advantages which they enjoy, over ALL republican states under our own well-poised and limited MONARCHY. The following admonitions with which the author concludes, will, we trust, have a due effect on the minds of those to whom they are addressed. “Such, _Britons_, is the fruit of republican government _here_; not among the apish and wolfish French, but among a people descended from the same ancestors as yourselves. When your monarchial government bears such fruits, let it, I say, be hewn down and cast into the fire; but till that disgraceful and dreadful day comes, watch over it with care and defend it to the last drop of your blood, preserve it as you would a golden casket, the apple of your eye, or the last dear gift of your dying parents. With this I conclude, praying the God of our fathers to lead you in the practice of all their virtues, to give wisdom to your minds and strength to your arms, to keep you firm and united, honest and generous, loyal, brave, and free; but above all, to preserve you from the desolating and degrading curse of revolutionary madness and modern _republicanism_.”

PETER PORCUPINE’S WILL.

[By WILLIAM COBBETT. Published in _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_; or Monthly Political and Literary Censor: from July to December, 1798. Vol. i., pp. 725–8.—ED.]

In the name of Fun, Amen. I PETER PORCUPINE, Pamphleteer and Newsmonger, being (as yet) sound both in body and in mind, do, this fifteenth day of _April_, in the Year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, make, declare, and publish, this my LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, in manner, form, and substance following; to wit:

IN PRIMIS,

I leave my body to Doctor Michael Lieb, a member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, to be by him dissected (if he knows how to do it) in presence of the Rump of the Democratic Society. In it they will find a heart that held them in abhorrence, that never palpitated at their threats, and that, to its last beat, bade them defiance. But my chief motive for making this bequest is, that my spirit may look down with contempt on their cannibal-like triumph over a breathless corpse.

_Item._ As I make no doubt that the above said Doctor Lieb (and some other Doctors that I could mention) would like very well to skin me, I request that they, or one of them may do it, and that the said Lieb’s father may tan my skin; after which I desire my Executors to have seven copies of my Works complete, bound in it, one copy to be presented to the Five Sultans of France, one to each of their Divans, one to the Governor of Pennsylvania, to Citizens Maddison, Giles, and Gallatin one each, and the remaining one to the Democratic Society of Philadelphia, to be carefully preserved among their archives.

_Item._ To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councils of the City of Philadelphia, I bequeath all the sturdy young hucksters, who infest the market, and who to maintain their bastards, tax the honest inhabitants many thousand pounds annually. I request them to take them into their worshipful keeping; to chasten their bodies for the good of their souls; and moreover to keep a sharp look-out after their gallants; and remind the latter of the old proverb: _Touch pot, touch penny_.

_Item._ To T—— J——son, Philosopher, I leave a curious Norway Spider, with a hundred legs and nine pair of eyes; likewise the first black cut-throat general he can catch hold of, to be flead alive, in order to determine with more certainty the real cause of the dark colour of his skin; and should the said T—— J——son survive Banneker the Almanack Maker; I request he will get the brains of said Philomath carefully dissected, to satisfy the world in what respects they differ from those of a white man.

_Item._ To the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, I will and bequeath a correct copy of Thornton’s plan for abolishing the use of the English language, and for introducing in its stead a republican one, the representative characters of which bear a strong resemblance to pot-hooks and hangers; and for the discovery of which plan, the said society did, in the year 1793, grant to the said language maker 500 dollars premium. It is my earnest desire, that the copy of this valuable performance, which I hereby present, may be shown to all the travelling literati, as a proof of the ingenuity of the author and of the wisdom of the society.

_Item._ To Doctor Benjamin Rush, I will and bequeath a copy of _The Censor_ for January, 1797; but, upon the express condition, that he does not in anywise or guise, either at the time of my death, or _Six months after_, pretend to speak, write, or publish an eulogium on me, my calling or character, either literary, military, civil, or political.

_Item._ To my dear fellow labourer Noah Webster, “gentleman-citizen,” Esq. and News-man, I will and bequeath a prognosticating barometer of curious construction and great utility, by which, at a single glance, the said Noah will be able to discern the exact state that the public mind will be in in the ensuing year, and will thereby be enabled to _trim by degrees_ and not expose himself to detection, as he now does by his sudden lee-shore tacks. I likewise bequeath to the said “gentleman-citizen,” six Spanish milled dollars, to be expended on a new plate of his portrait at the head of his spelling book, that which graces it at present being so ugly that it scares the children from their lessons; but this legacy is to be paid him only upon condition that he leave out the title of _’Squire_, at the bottom of said picture, which is extremely odious in an American school-book, and must inevitably tend to corrupt the political principles of the republican babies that behold it. And I do most earnestly desire, exhort and conjure the said ’Squire news-man, to change the title of his paper, _The Minerva_, for that of _The Political Centaur_.

_Item._ To F. A. Mughlenburg, Esq., Speaker of a late house of Representatives of the United States, I leave a most superbly finished statue of Janus.

_Item._ To Tom the Tinker, I leave a liberty-cap, a tricoloured cockade, a wheel-barrow full of oysters, and a hogshead of grog: I also leave him three blank checks on the bank of Pennsylvania, leaving to him the task of _filling them up_; requesting him, however, to be rather more merciful than he has shown himself heretofore.

_Item._ To the Governor of Pennsylvania, and to the late President and Cashier of the Bank of the said State, as to joint Legatees, I will and bequeath that good old proverb: _Honesty is the best policy_. And this legacy I have chosen for these worthy gentlemen, as the only thing about which I am sure they will never disagree.

_Item._ To T—— Coxe, of Philadelphia, citizen, I will and bequeath a crown of hemlock, as a recompense for his attempt to throw an odium on the administration of General Washington; and I most positively enjoin my Executors, to see that the said crown be shaped exactly like that which this spindle-shanked legatee wore before Gen. Howe, when he made his triumphal entry into Philadelphia.

_Item._ To Thomas Lord Bradford (otherwise called Goosy Tom), Bookseller, Printer, News-man, and member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, I will and bequeath a copy of the peerage of Great Britain, in order that the said Lord Thomas may the more exactly ascertain what probability there is of his succeeding to the seat, which his noble relation now fills in the House of Lords.

_Item._ To all and singular the authors in the United States, whether they write verse or prose, I will and bequeath a copy of my Life and Adventures; and I advise the said authors to study with particular care the 40th and 41st pages thereof; more especially and above all things, I exhort and conjure them never to _publish it together_, though the bookseller should be a saint.

_Item._ To Edmund Randolph, Esq., late Secretary of State, to Mr. J. A. Dallas, Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania, and to His Excellency, Thomas Miffin, Governor of the said unfortunate State, I will and bequeath, to each of them, a copy of the sixteenth paragraph of Fauchet’s _intercepted letter_.

_Item._ To Citizen John Swanwick, member of Congress, by the will and consent of the sovereign people, I leave bills of Exchange on London to an enormous amount; they are _all protested_, indeed, but if properly managed, may be turned to good account. I likewise bequeath to the said John a small treatise by an Italian author, wherein the secret of pleasing the ladies is developed, and reduced to a mere mechanical operation, without the least dependence on the precarious aid of the passions. Hoping that these instances of my liberality will produce, in the mind of the little legislature, effects quite different from those produced therein by the King of Great Britain’s pension to his parents.

_Item._ To the Editors of the _Boston Chronicle_, the _New York Argus_, and the _Philadelphia Merchants’ Advertiser_, I will and bequeath one ounce of modesty and love of truth, to be equally divided between them.

I should have been more liberal in this bequest, were I not well assured, that one ounce is more than they will ever make use of.

_Item._ To Franklin Bache, Editor of the _Aurora of Philadelphia_, I will and bequeath a small bundle of French assignats, which I brought with me from the country of equality. If these should be too light in value for his pressing exigencies, I desire my executors, or any one of them, to bestow on him a second part to what he has lately received in Southwark: and as a further proof of my good will and affection, I request him to accept of a gag and a brand new pair of fetters, which, if he should refuse, I will and bequeath him in lieu thereof—my malediction.

_Item._ To my beloved countrymen, the people of Old England, I will and bequeath a copy of Doctor Priestley’s _Charity Sermon for the benefit of poor Emigrants_; and to the said preaching philosopher himself, I bequeath a heart full of disappointment, grief, and despair.

_Item._ To the good people of France, who remain attached to their sovereign, particularly to those among whom I was hospitably received, I bequeath each a good strong dagger: hoping most sincerely that they may yet find courage enough to carry them to the hearts of their abominable tyrants.

_Item._ To Citizen M——oe, I will and bequeath my chamber looking-glass. It is a plain but exceeding true mirror; in it he will see the exact likeness of a traitor, who has bartered the honour and interest of his country to a perfidious and savage enemy.

_Item._ To the Republican Britons, who have fled from the hands of justice in their own country, and who are a scandal, a nuisance, and a disgrace to this, I bequeath hunger and nakedness, scorn and reproach; and I do hereby positively enjoin on my executors to contribute five hundred dollars towards the erection of gallowses and gibbets, for the accommodation of the said imported patriots, when the legislators of this unhappy state shall have the wisdom to countenance such useful establishments.

_Item._ My friend, J. T. Callender, the runaway from Scotland, is, of course, a partaker in the last mentioned legacy; but as a particular mark of my attention, I will and bequeath him twenty feet of pine plank, which I request my executors to see made into a pillory, to be kept for his particular use, till a gibbet can be prepared.

_Item._ To Tom Paine, the author of _Common Sense_, _Rights of Man_, _Age of Reason_, and a _Letter to General Washington_, I bequeath a strong hempen collar, as the only legacy I can think of that is worthy of him as well as best adapted to render his death in some measure as infamous as his life: and I do hereby direct and order my Executors to send it to him by the first safe conveyance with my compliments, and request that he would make use of it without delay, that the national razor may not be disgraced by the head of such a monster.

_Item._ To the gaunt outlandish orator, vulgarly called the Political Sinner, who in the just order of things follows next after the last mentioned legatee, I bequeath the honour of partaking in his catastrophe; that in their deaths, as well as in their lives, all the world may exclaim: “_See how rogues hang together_”.

_Item._ To all and singular the good people of these States, I leave peace, union, abundance, happiness, untarnished honour, and an unconquerable everlasting hatred to the French Revolutionists and their destructive abominable principles.

_Item._ To each of my Subscribers I leave a _quill_, hoping that in their hands it may become a sword against every thing that is hostile to the government and independence of their country.

_Lastly._ To my three brothers, Paul, Simon, and Dick, I leave my whole estate, as well real as personal (first paying the foregoing legacies) to be equally divided between them, share and share alike. And I do hereby make and constitute my said three brothers the Executors of this my LAST WILL; to see the same performed, according to its true intent and meaning, as far as in their power lies.

PETER PORCUPINE.

Witnesses present,

Philo Fun, } Jack Jockus. }

THE VISION OF LIBERTY.

_Written in the manner of Spenser._

[As the virulent style of political writing prevalent ninety years ago is now but little known, the present edition of _The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_ seemed a convenient medium for giving some specimens of it which appeared in _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_, a work conducted on the same principles, but by different writers, and with the cognizance of the government. Two of them were by W. COBBETT, who, had he been less arrogant and contentious, and more consistent, would have been, in the words of Lord Dalling, “a very great man in the world; as it was he made a great noise in it”. (See pp. 311–319.)

_The Vision of Liberty_ is by C. KIRKPATRICK SHARPE, an author and artist much esteemed by Scottish antiquarians, of which specimens only need be given. Of _The Anarchists_, the author is not known.]