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outrage on female delicacy by barbarous treatment-unmanly insult-indecent pryings-disgusting exposures -hired treachery-suborned falsehood! OUR language the tongue spoken by the KING." [The vermin meant all the insult, the venom, the spite for that name-but with characteristic cowardice, adds, in order to give it an air of technicality, "the Lords and Commons of OUR coun-' try," p. 108. What name does the writer of that sentence deserve? I believe it is on the tip of everybody's tongue, and I shall willingly leave my readers to give it utterance.

Why must these people be continu ally reminding us of the existence and history of the Queen? The time has gone by when this could do them any good, as an instrument to get into power-when she was the organ of insult to the King-whom, it is evident, the wretched creature who wrote this review detests-and when our feel ings could be annoyed by the necessity of exposing the frailties of a daughter of Brunswick, the sister of him who fell at Waterloo, the mother of the Princess Charlotte, the niece of the King-I beg pardon-the niece of GEORGE THE THIRD. I can't help calling him the King-I lived sixty years under his reign: I loved him living: I honour him dead.] There is now no difference of avowed opinion as to her guilt; there never was any difference of actual opinion. The Whigs took her up as they would take up the cause of the devil himself, if they thought it would serve their dirty ends. Everything was done by ministers which could be done, to avoid unpleasant and disgraceful results. A princely revenue was offered her, if she would stay abroad in scenes where her debaucheries could not corrupt English feeling. It was rejected. Ruffians-I shall mention no names, but ruffians they were-went over to her, to inform her of the then unhappy state of feeling in the London mob -a mob always profligate, as must be expected in so huge and motley a population. The duces multitudinis promised their assistance; the hack lawyers pledged their brazen visages and leathern lungs; she was herself reckless. The altar of Belial is admirably pitched by Milton, next that of Moloch homicide-Lust hard by Hate. She did not care if she plunged all England in blood, if she could injure or VOL. XIV.

insult her husband. With these feelings she came over. Were ministers to suffer such a woman, so stigmatized, so marked out as an object of disgrace by the voice of Europe, to be put at the head of our women, to form a dress circle, to give the pattern of morals? If they did, they were worthy of being turned out-turned out, do I say?-of being kicked out under a shower of spittle. There was not a Tory heart which did not bleed at the necessity of exposing her; but it was îndispensible. The villainous Whigs, who never spared calumny against man or woman, (see Peter Pindar, Tom Moore, the Edinburgh Review, Morning Chronicle, Old Bloody, &c. &c.) found it a fine blowing horn to sound the impropriety of assailing female reputation. In point of fact, they might have said the same, if they were retained on the side of Mrs Brownrigg, the apprenticide-a Whig, by the by

who was a murderer, though a lady. But that now, when all is over, she should be brought forward, is an uncalled-for piece of blackguardism. Who wrote this last page? There is Denman, who on that trial said in Greek, what, if he had said in English, he would have been kicked out of any company, different from that of a brothel-who, because the vulgar pictures of the Emperor Nero represent him as a parricide, an assassin, a tyrant, an incendiary, and a man stained with revolting and unnameable crime, compared, (in a speech, which the Lord Chancellor was to blame-the only thing I ever blamed in his conduct in my life-for listening to without sending the speaker to the Tower,) compared, I say, his King-King George the Fourth-to that prince,, and stigmatized him by his name. Is there any other man in the kingdom likely to commit this filthy tirade? I hope not. If I thought Denman could write three sentences, which would pass muster in the eyes of Lindley Murray, I should accuse him of this infamous page in the review. Drop me a note, to give your ideas on the subject.

The article on the Baron de Kolli poor work-As for the attacks on the Chancellor-why, they are merely pitiful. It is a wretched thing to see the Edinburgh Review reduced to copy the old, stale, filthy, and refuted lies of the Times or Chronicle. You have already considered, at full length, in

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your pages, the whole details of the charges adduced against this eminent lawyer, so that there is no need of my again slaying the slain. The Lord Chancellor himself fully refuted the slanders vented against him in the Lower House of Parliament, when the valorous Whig who brought them forward knew well his Lordship could not answer him. As for the arguments in this Review, they are mere twaddle -as for the facts, they are Whig facts. The only answer they deserve is already in print-a formula cut and dry -which the Review will remember.* I SAY, SIR, THAT THAT IS FALSE.

I shall not detain you long on the article on our friend Blackwood's Publications. It is a poor thin criticism, in Jeffrey's thinnest style, and, God knows, that is wretched enough. Had we seen it in the poorest literary periodical in the empire, it would not have amazed us. We should rather have reprehended Ebony for hiring so shabby a scribe, to puff his books. Scissars and paste work make up the principal matter of the Review, and the critical department is naught. What a wooden-headed critic must not he be, who, from the circumstance of their style, discovers that Adam Blair, and Lights and Shadows, were written by the same person! Their style! He might as well have said, that Cobbett's last Register was written by Jerry Bentham-that the Flood of Thessaly came from the pen of Lord Byron that Marmion was concocted by Crabbe -any piece of nonsense, in short. Adam Blair is a story of gloomy sorrow, arising from the indulgence of guilty passions; the other is filled with all the gentle impulses that spring from honourable loves or kindly feelings, and even its sorrow and sin are marked by a gentleness of conception, and language radically distinct from the tempestuous eloquence of Adam Blair. The one is black as midnight at Martinmas-the other glowing and balmy as a dewy morning when the sun in Taurus rides.-This one assertion would damn any critique.

I am interrupted. Treat this article as you please, for I can write no

more.

Friday, 7 o'clock, A. M.

It was Mullion who called on me yesterday, and hindered me from writing. The worthy physician kept me up all night, discussing various topics of conversation, and "horns of horn," as Glenfruin hath it. He got quite sewed up about one o'clock, and is still slumbering away in a sort of comatose sleep. I have been up this hour, sound as a roach. These young fellows from towns, after all, cannot keep it up like us seasoned vessels, invigorated by exposure to the air, from year's end to year's end. I shall occupy the couple of hours, which will certainly elapse before he rises, in doing articles for you; and first I shall tack a few lines to this letter.

The doctor tells me, that in Edinburgh this Review is very generally considered quite a genteel, candid, amiable, not-to-be-expected sort of thing on the part of Blue and Yellow. Mullion even dropped a hint, that some conciliatory matter or other should be tossed off in Blackwood in return. I am sorry to hear this nonsense. There is nothing genteel at all in the business. A dirty feeling-a Whig feeling-kept them from noticing these novels when a notice could be supposed to be of any use.

I say supposed to be, for of actual use to them a notice from the Edinburgh could not be then or now. At last, when they became part of the staple of our literature-second but to one-when everybody had read them, and everybody had praised them-a sense of shame, of the skulking sneakiness in hanging back, came over the minds of the conductors of the Edinburgh. They could not but be conscious that the true motives of their silence were appreciated, and were driven into this Review. It was too late in the day to abuse them, and praised they were accordingly in the fashion you see.

The opening of the article is a specimen of humbugging pure-I mean where Jeffrey tattles about the nationality of Scottish feeling, and takes merit to himself for abstaining from displaying this trait by panegyrizing the productions of Mr Blackwood's press.

Apropos, Lord B.'s very hard on a certain lawyer, in his 13th Canto of the Don.
There was Parolles too, the legal bully,

Who limits all his battles to the bar

And senate; when invited elsewhere, truly

He shews more appetite for words than war.-P. 48.

If his inmost heart could be seen, we should, I am pretty certain, discover that the honour these books have conferred on our Scottish literature is quite forgotten, in the fact of their being produced by men hostile to Scottish Whiggery; and that the most scabby Cockney libeller of Scottish character, provided he was Whig, would receive higher meed of applause for the dirtiest effusion of his dirty talents, from the Edinburgh Review, than the most honourable of the sons of Scotland, if holding by the cause of his country and his God, he was enrolled among the Tories. I have given the real reason of the Review, and I do not thank him for it, either on account of the authors of the novels, or of Blackwood. There is no use in holding farthing candles to the sun. Mr Jeffrey's praise or blame is matter of perfect indifference to men, his superiors in talent in every respect. Let his whigling admirers, or the pluckless shakers at his authority, say what they please,-he is but a shallow article-monger, who, by one quackery or other, has obtained the attention of the public, so far as to be called a smart clever man, and to be forgotten by the end of every quarter. In our literature, he has little place even now-when defunct, he will be remembered only by the poring and industrious John Nicholses, (honoured be the name,) of the next century. For such writers as those in hand, I anticipate a very different fate; nay, more, I think the very best things they have, as yet, written, far inferior to what they are capable of writing, and what they assuredly will write. Indeed, in point of fact, Blackwood has published no books at all equal to parts of his Magazine-that is the book of books. Pitch us, therefore, compli ments to Auld Clootie.

One article remains, on a subject on which I could, and, perhaps, will, if vexed, write a volume-the cause of the West India Planters. But on that, you have had lately an admirable article, and I shall not intrude on your columns now. Suffice it to say, that it behoves Parliament and ministers to look, with a cautious eye, on the whole concern. Let us listen to no pseudo liberality—no mock philanthropy: let us regard it as it interests our brother subjects in the West Indies, their property, and their rights. We have suffered things to come to an alarming crisis, and must nerve ourselves for the result. I impute ill designs to no man, professing zeal in the cause of the slavetrade, except the Whigs, who avowedly have taken it up as a claptrap, without caring for anything but their own aspiration after power; but I hope this great question will be taken out of the hands of irresponsible bodies, guided by men who may be actuated by unworthy motives. If these men have done what they have done through a love of God and man, even though mischief may have resulted from their measures, yet shall their motives have praise at all times from me-but if instead of piety and philanthropy, views of filthy lucre be mixed up in the business-if traces of bales of cotton, barrels of gunpowder, pieces of romals, &c. &c. be found in the process-great indeed is their damnation. Before another year elapses, we shall hear more on the subject.

Mrs T. calls me to breakfast. All

well here. How is the hip? If poss. shall be with you on Tuesday. Give the enclosed to Professor Leslie. Yours eternally,

T. TICKLER.

I agree mainly with Tim. Even in the Review, they have let the cloven foot shew forth, as a practised eye will see. The indications are trifling, but indisputable. For instance, he begins his list with the Annals of the Parish, giving it, with Whig accuracy, a wrong date, in order to avoid putting the Ayrshire Legatees, which was the first, and is in reality the germ, of all that writer's best novels, at the head of the series, because it originated in this Magazine. Again, he condemns that pleasant little book, the Steam Boat, in a lumping censure-Why? because its stories were first published in the Magazine, in which he understands i. e. knows right well] it originally appeared. Moreover, it contains the very good story of Mrs Ogle of Balbogle, which is not a pleasant recollection for some folk. For the same reason, Lights and Shadows, although bepraised, are rather given the go-by; because two or three of the best of them first appeared in this work-while Margaret

Lyndsay, who has not the taint of Maga on her, absolutely draws floods of tears from the critics' eyes-Nothing can be more beautiful!-The very blazoning of Blackwood's name, so ostentatiously at the end of every book, is also a display of candour; he even puts it to Ringan) Gilhaize, which was not from the officina Ebonensis. After all, what can be more indicative of public opinion as to the fairness of the Edinburgh, than the fact, that a favourable critique of books published by Blackwood appearing in its pages, should have been considered quite an unlooked-for occurrence! We should consider it as a gross affront if it were imagined that our criticisms were on the bookseller, not on the book. If a jack-ass brayed forth from Ebony's counter, we should destroy him mercilessly-we have done so before]—if a man of talent published with Constable or anybody else, a full and unsparing tribute to that talent should be cheerfully paid, as it has always been. We were ashamed of ourselves if it were otherwise. It may be objected, that we seldom praise Whig works-true-for the party is so awfully stupid, that they seldom give us anything worth reading. But Byron, Moore, Shelly, Luttrell, profess Whiggery, or something as bad; and we request our readers to revert to our remarks on their works. As for bibliopolic influence base, a figo for it-the fig of Spain.-M. ODOHERTY.

THE DIARY OF JOSEPH BURRIDGE, ESQ. OF MILLFORD HALL, ESSEX,
EDITED BY LORD FLANDERS.

We are inclined to consider this interesting little book as the most important piece of biography which has appeared in our time. As the title implies, it consists of the diurnal observations of a private gentleman, of some style and figure in Essex-his name was never before heard of among authors; it is not in Sir Richard's Dictionary-and yet his works are in the hands of everybody, and constitute the brightest stars in the literary galaxy of the late reign. He was, without question, the greatest genius of the last century, but such was his invincible reluctance to be known as an author, that he rather chose to see the brows of others adorned by the wreaths he had himself won, than endure the maudlin compliments to which he observed all sorts of literary men subjected. Never was hoax so complete and perfect throughout-never was the gullability of the world so largely drawn upon, nor its credulity so thoroughly demonstrated. Who, before, questioned that Oliver Goldsmith was not the author of The Traveller, The Deserted Village, The Vicar of Wakefield? Who suspected that Dr Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides, was not the genuine work of the colossal Lexicographer? It is true, that doubts have before been surmised with respect to the authenticity of Sir Joshua

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Reynolds's Lectures; but that of Gray's Elegy was never questioned ; and a Mr Rogers has always been considered and esteemed as the author of the Pleasures of Memory. What shall now be thought, when we assure the public, that those justly celebrated works were all written by the late Joseph Burridge of Millford Hall, Essex'; that Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Rogers, are but two of the many names under which Mr Burridge published his elegant and beautiful productions; that Rasselas was also written by him, and that he paid ten guineas to Dr Johnson, to dispose of it to the booksellers as his own composition!

Mr Burridge insinuates that other members of "The Club," (query, Literary Club ?) were in the practice of hiring needy and obscure scholars to father their books; but he observes, that "this is not always safe; when it happens that the work does not take, the wretches are sure to blab, and when it does, they run away with the praise. It is truly lamentable to observe the inward tortures which the poor Duke suffers, as often as Sheridan is spoken of as the author of the School for Scandal.”

The Duke here alluded to, we believe, was his late Grace of Devonshire, whose brilliant wit still is re

London, Merry, 1823. 4to. pp. 267, (Portrait.)

membered with such delight in the fashionable circles. The noble editor ought to have subjoined a few notes to those passages where individuals are thus spoken of without being named; we hope some such key will yet be supplied. In the meantime, it is pleasing to see the modesty of sequestered genius at last rewarded with the fame which it ought always to have enjoyed. We never could before understand how a low-born fellow like Sheridan should have acquired such a familiar footing with the aristocratic Whigs, but Mr Burridge explains it by the simple circumstance of Sheridan, "when a young man about the play-houses, having fathered the School for Scandal for the Duke of Devonshire."

There are some things in which we think Mr Burridge, with all his opportunities, must be mistaken; and he evidently has committed a gross anachronism in stating that Home's tragedy of Douglas was a juvenile work of the Right Honourable N. Van sittart, the late worthy Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has confounded two things-" The Wealth of Nations," commonly ascribed to Dr Adam Smith, and not the tragedy of Douglas, was the production of the Right Honourable Gentleman's early promise and youthful pen. That Lord Lauderdale may have had something to do with Henry Brougham's unknown work on Colonial Policy, we believe few are so sceptical as to doubt; but, when we are called to credit that Sir William Curtis, merely because, as it would seem, he happens to be a biscuit-baker and banker, as well as baronet, wrote those articles in the Edinburgh Review, on the Corn Laws and the Bullion question, which have been always ascribed to Frank Horner, we may be allowed to doubt.-In the first place, from the well-known political sentiments of the loyal alderman, we think the thing prima facie improbable-he would never have become a contributor to the Edinburgh Review; nor do we think, had he been so inconsistent as to have been willing, that Mr Jeffrey would have permitted any article from his pen to be inserted. When Mr Burridge speaks of the wits with whom he associated, when he tells us of what passed at "The Club," and when he alludes to the different negotiations with the booksellers for the sale of his own works, it is impossible not to feel and acknowledge,

that all he states is perfectly true; but in those things which took place after he had retired into the country, on succeeding to his maternal grandfather's estate, by the death of his cousin Sir Pard Petersham-there is not the same force of minute circumstance, and his information is manifestly, in many instances, incorrect. Such, for instance, as saying that Mr Towal Buxton, a hale and vigorous brewer, "is a poet of the most refined sensibilities, and is indeed, in piety and adventure, the very Thalaba of his own poem, which, for three hogsheads of entire, he persuaded Mr Southey to adopt."-We sincerely sympathize in the great alarm and anxiety with which Mr Buxton naturally looks forward to some resolution of the House of Commons, whereby Government is to be requested to use its utmost endeavours to oblige all brewers of ale and porter to divide their profits with their workmen ; but to consider him as the wild and wonderful Thalaba—we honestly confess our inability-Besides, the very idea of a brewer, with a great foaming tankard of heavy wet in his hand, going forth to drown sorcerers, is too ridiculous-No, Mr Burridge, we cannot swallow that; but if Jeremy Bentham really wrote the Life of Lopez de Vega, which Lord Holland has been so good-natured as to father, we shall stretch a point; at the same time we are disposed to allow, that the poetical translations may have been from his pen. The whole of that work, however, has so much of the elegance and erudition peculiar to Mr Jerdan of the Literary Gazette, that we are much inclined to ascribe it entirely to him. Indeed, as we have already remarked, Mr Burridge, in those notes which relate to the history of literature subsequent to his departure from London, is not to be trusted-but still his information is occasionally curious-and we admit, that some of the anecdotes relative to the management of our owir Magazine, are not without foundation. It may be that some allowance should be made for his great age; time may have impaired his memory and obscured his judgment. By a note of the 10th of September, 1822, it would appear, he had on that day attained his ninety-first year. His noble biographer informs us, that he died suddenly of apoplexy, on the 7th of October following, and that the late Principal Taylor of Glasgow, together

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