as the greatest and most original poet of the present day ;-compared with whose lines Lord Byron's are but exaggerated common-place, and Walter Scott's old wives' fables.' In the character of Cobbett, a sketch, by the bye, which proves Mr. Hazlitt to be no ill portrait-painter where the subject suits him, he asserts, in confirmation of the taste and judgment of this profound and consistent critic, that in one sense Shakspeare was not a poet!' He does not favour us with any key to this enigma, and we are unable to solve it. In that On People with one Idea,' he quotes with approbation a saying of Tom Moore,' that some one puts his hand in his breeches pocket like a crocodile.' This (says Mr. Hazlitt) is hieroglyphical; but neither does he here condescend to expound the mysterious symbol, except by observing that Mr. Owen puts his foot in the question of social improvement, much in the same manner.' The tricks of the Indian jugglers strike the Essayist's imagination with a full conception of the unbounded powers of the human capacity; and, though he has elsewhere evinced a proud satisfaction at his own share of talent, he is here driven, from the contemplation of their genius, to admit his comparative worthlessness. This naturally leads him to reflections on those sublime arts, which are so successfully cultivated at Sadler's Wells; and he draws a grave parallel between the fame of Richer the rope-dancer, and that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Having already noticed the author's partiality to the graphic art, we are prepared for the decision which he offers. Upon the whole (he says,) I have more respect for Reynolds than I have for Richer; for, happen how it will, there have been more people in the world who could dance on a rope like the one, than who could paint like Sir Joshua. The latter was but a bungler in his profession to the other, it is true; but then he had a harder task-master to obey.' Dazzled by the glory which plays round the Indian and English professors who have acquired such astonishing command over the muscles of the human frame, he is blind to inferior merit, and becomes extremely fastidious in reviewing the display of human intellect. In the records of France he is only able to discover three great men, Molière, Rabelais, and Montaigne; but he cautiously qualifies the distinction conferred on the first of this triad, (who, let it be remembered, is the author of the Misanthrope and of Tartuffe,) as being but a great farce-writer.' In the Essay on Vulgarity and Affectation,' we are assured that Gentility is only a more select and artificial kind of vulgarity.' We must refer those, who feel any curiosity to see the full elucidation of this text, to the work itself, as in this case the author vouchsafes to assist the slow understanding of his readers by a prolix commenvol. xxvi. No. 51.-Q. R. tary. 14 tary. In the course of it we learn, that the Coronation, the cere⚫ mony which delights the greatest monarch, and the meanest of his subjects, this height of gentility, and consummation of external distinction and splendour,-is a vulgar ceremony.' Having been taught what is vulgar, we are further instructed what is not so; by which we may form a tolerable notion of the author's minor morals. Nothing (says he) is vulgar, that is natural, spontaneous, unavoidable. Grossness is not vulgarity; awkwardness is not vulgarity; but all these become vulgar when they are affected and shown off on the authority of others.' In pursuing this subject, our Slang-whanger deals his blows indiscriminately among all ranks of people, and thinks proper, in the bitterness of his gall, or for the more exquisite amusement of his admirers, thus to libel the whole British nation: If the lower ranks are actuated by envy and uncharitableness towards the upper, the latter have scarcely any feelings but of pride, contempt, and aversion, to the lower. If the poor would pull down the rich to get at their good things, the rich would tread down the poor as in a vinc-press, and squeeze the last shilling out of their pockets, and the last drop of blood out of their veins.' Now we confidently appeal to all who have taken a general view of the state of society in this great country, whether the truth be not the very reverse of this malevolent and incendiary statement? The rich in Great Britain have been ever found to have hearts and hands' open as day to melting charity;' and the lower orders, the continual objects of their bounty, have always, except when enlightened by the care of some active demagogue of the Hazlitt school, received their liberality, and their indefatigable efforts to ameliorate their condition, with a laudable degree of gratitude. But the most perfect sample, perhaps, of the great Slangwhanger's manner and mode of thinking will be found in the Essay on Paradox and Common-Place'; in which he severely condemns the tergiversation of some of his former associates in the great and laudable work of sapping and mining. Twice has the iron entered my soul. Twice have the dastard, vaunting, venal crew, gone over it; once as they went forth, conquering and to conquer, with reason by their side, glittering like a faulchion, trampling on prejudices, and marching fearlessly on in the work of regeneration; once again when they returned with retrograde steps, like Cacus's oxen, dragged backwards by the heels* to the den of legitimacy, rout on rout, confusion worse confounded, with places and pensions, and the Quarterly Review dangling from their pockets, * We have in another place intreated Mr. Hazlitt to stick to his pipe and pot, and leave Greek and Latin to us.' The oxen of Cacus were not dragged backward by the heels. and and shouting, "Deliverance for mankind," for "the worst-the second fall of man." Yet I have endured all this marching and countermarching of poets, philosophers, and politicians, over my head, as well as I could, like "the camomoil, that thrives the more 'tis trod upon." By Heavens! I think I'll endure it no longer.' The insane extravagance of this rhapsody almost disarms our anger. It is however remarkable, that in all the ravings of all the maniacs of this description,-from Ensor to Lady Morgan inclusive, the word legitimacy appears to be uttered with a scream of terror, as the war-whoop of the tribe. Yet what is its import? Lawfulness. Applied to kings, it designates those who are entitled to that dignity according to the laws wisely made to prevent usurpation, and the manifold evils of disputed succession. The heaviest discharge of Radical artillery, however, is reserved for the doctrine laid down by Mr. Canning in a passage of his celebrated speech to his constituents at Liverpool. My lot,' says Mr. Canning in the conclusion of his address, 'is cast under the British monarchy. Under that I have lived; under that I have seen my country flourish; under that I have seen it enjoy as great a share of prosperity, of happiness, of glory, as I believe any modification of human society to be capable of bestowing; and I am not prepared to sacrifice, or to hazard the fruit of centuries of experience, of centuries of struggles, and of more than one century of liberty, as perfect as ever blessed any country upon the earth, for visionary schemes of ideal perfectibility, for doubtful experiments even of possible improvement.' This paragraph, to which every sober-minded Englishman will subscribe, as the sound and wise resolve of genuine patriotism, is characterized by the Slang-whanger as common-place; and he supposes, that, in giving his refutation of it, he cannot be accused of falling into that extravagant and unmitigated strain of paradoxical reasoning, with which he has already found so much fault.". So, then he exclaims, here are centuries of experience, and centuries of struggles to arrive at one century of liberty! As though the having enjoyed the prize for the term stated, was all that had been obtained by those struggles. He seems not aware, or wilfully resolves not to see, that we are still in possession of the blessing so acquired. The people of England nevertheless see and feel it; and, in spite of this crazy gabble, will exert all their efforts to retain and transmit it to their posterity. The Essayist next charges Mr. Canning with inconsistency,because in the paragraph quoted, he throws down a bar to all change, to all innovation, to all improvement. He says, we are arrived at the end of our struggles; and yet he tells us in another part of his speech, that our struggles are not at an end, but that a crisis is at hand, hand, where every man must take his part, for or against the institutions of the British monarchy.' What is there inconsistent in the assertion, that our ancestors have, by their struggles, acquired a sufficient degree of rational liberty, and that the present race will as resolutely oppose all the attempts of a democratic faction, which, at the period of Mr. Canning's address, appeared to be hastening on the crisis to which he alluded? The good sense of the country, though it sometimes reposes, wants only such spirit stirring appeals to it, as those of Mr. Canning, to be raised into emotion: surrounded as it has been, during the last twelve months, with a more than usual store of inflammable matter, it has acted like the safety-lamp of Sir H. Davy; and, under Providence, prevented, and we trust will continue to prevent, a perilous explosion. Mr. Hazlitt concludes what he calls his 'simple and mitigated strain of paradox', by an exquisite illustration of the qualifications of the Right Honourable Member for Liverpool, 'in the course of which he informs us, that whilst he shows off his rhetorical paces by his ambling, and lisping, and nicknaming God's creatures, he would change liberty into slavery, and cause us to anchor, through time and eternity, in the harbour of passive obedience and non-resistance !' Our Slang-whanger exults exceedingly in the production of these choice flowers of eloquence. He claps his wings, and crows over his prostrate foes without stint, or mercy: nay, in the pride of recent victory, he seems persuaded* that nothing can withstand his potent perseverance ;-when, in an unlucky moment, an incidental glance at the transcendent talents of the Indian jugglers throws him once more into a fit of humility, and he sobs out the following confession of the true scope of his own abilities: 'What have I been doing all my life? Have I been idle, or have I nothing to show for all my labour and pains? Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them? I can write a book: so can many others who have not learned to spell. What abortions are these Essays! What errors, what ill-pieced transitions, what crooked reasons, what lame conclusions! How little is made out, and that little how ill! Yet they are the best I can do.'— Tandem Phoebus adest: morsusque inferre parantem * Essay on Thought and Action. ART. ART. VI.-Rob Roy, Tales of my Landlord, 2d Series, (Heart of Mid Lothian), Tales of my Landlord, 3d Series, (Bride of Lammermoor, Montrose), Ivanhoe, Monastery, Abbot, Kenilworth. THE HE reader may expect an apology for our having delayed noticing the works that compose the long list prefixed to this article. We are disposed to apologise for noticing them at all. And, certainly, most of the motives which direct us in the selection of writers to be reviewed, are in this case wanting. We cannot propose to draw the public attention to works, which are bought, and borrowed, and stolen, and begged for, a hundred times more than our dry and perishable pages. We have little expectation that the great author, who tosses his works to us with such careless profusion, will take the trouble of examining our strictures-and still less that he will be guided by them. Our praise or blame cannot well be heard among the voices of a whole nation. It is by these motives, or rather by this absence of motive, that our silence has been principally occasioned. But it cannot be persisted in. One of our duties is, to give a literary history of the times we live in-to tell those who follow us what were the subjects and the writers which chiefly engaged the attention of our contemporaries. And it would be a strange omission if we were to pass over the works, which, from their number, their merit, their originality, and their diffusion, have more influence than is exercised by any others within the whole scope of our literature. Our deliberation has been quickened by feeling that this really is no case for further delay. We have suffered three years to elapse since we reviewed the first series of the Tales of my Landlord -and in that interval a line of three-and-twenty new volumes has covered our table. A sight which, as we sit with it before us, might alarm even German diligence. It is in some measure a compensation, that we consequently address readers who are masters of their subject, and may engage in criticism without previous exposition. Our present situation has all the advantages over our ordinary one, which the comedian in Athenæus attributes to tragedy over his own art. drift For first, before your Prologue opes his mouth, "The |
