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FRASERIAN PAPERS 



OF THE LATE 



WILLIAM MAGINN, LL. D. 



ANNOTATED, WITH 



A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, 



By R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, D.C.L. 

EDITOR OF "NOCTES AMBBOSIANJS/' — '^SHEIL'S SKETCHES OF THE IBI8H 
3AR" — " LADY MOBOAN'S HISTOBICAL BOMAKCES/' ETC 




•, » 



REDFIELD 

34BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK 

1857 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, 

B¥ J. a REDFIELD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern 

District of New York. 



SAVAGK ft MOCRKA, STEKEOTTPKKS, 
13 Cbaroben Street, N. Y. 



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TO 



EDWARD KENEALY, Esq., 

BARBISTER-AT-LAW, GRAY'S INN, LONDON. 



My Dear Sir: — 

* 

To 70U, whose companionship was the solace of his closing 
years ; whose tenderness smoothed his pillow in the last sad hours 
of fleeting life ; whose friendship finally devoted itself to record 
his career as a man of letters, this collection of the Miscellaneous 
Writings of the late Dr. Maginn owes much more than can be 
silently passed over. Without your kind assistance, I should have 
been unable, in several instances, to affiliate many of the articles, 
so pertinaciously did our brilliant countr3mian maintain the anony- 
mous, and so Protean were his changes of style and subject Nor 
could I have written the Life of Dr. Maginn, which occupies a 
large space in this -volume, without considerable indebtedness to 
the satisfactory biography contributed by you, in 1844, to the 
Dublin University Magazine, 

In acknowledgment, then, of personal favors to myself, and 
also on account of the zealous regard you have so steadily and 
warmly manifested, in private and public, for the genius and the 
reputation of William Maginn, I take leave to dedicate these 
volumes of his Writings to you. 



VI DEDICATION. 

While thus thanking you for much information respecting Dr. 
Maginn, conveyed not only in the Magazine, but in your private 
communications, let me avail myself of this opportunity of expres- 
sing my gratitude to others. 

Place aux Dames ! I regret that two townswomen of the Doc- 
tor's (one of whom knew him from his college-days, the other 
having remembered him ever since her own childhood), while 
they gave me many interesting personal details, shrink from the 
publicity of seeing their names in print. 

I have to proffer my thanks to them, and would also express my 
gratitude, for information respecting Dr. Maginn and his writings, 
to my friend Richard Martin, of the Middle Temple, London ; to 
my brother, J. Campbell Mackenzie, of Gdlignan€s Messenger^ 
Paris ; and also to Mr. Henry Plunkett, and Mr. Robert Walter 
Jones (Professor of music), both now of New York city. I might 
extend the list — and must not omit Mr. Evert A. Duyckinck, for 
the use of books from his own fine collection ; and Mr. John 
McMullen, of the New York Society Library, whose courtesy has 
often enabled me to refer, while editing these volumes, to the 
noble BXtstj of books of which he is the intelligent commissary. 

The greater part of my leisure, during the last two years, has 
been devoted to the editing of the series, of which the present is 
the fifth and concluding volume. The success which its predeces- 
sors have met with assures me that, in this vast nation of readers, 
writers, and thinkers, such a man as William Maginn is fully 
appreciated in his works. 

Ever yours faithfully, 

R. Shelton Mackenzie. 
Nbw Yobk, March 2, 1857. 



CONTENTS. 



Memoir of William Maginn, ll. d paob ix— cx 

Election of Editor for Eraser's Magazikb 1 

The Sheridan Eamilt 91 

Herrick Latinized 106 

Horace in other Shapes 107 

Specimens of a Latin Translation of " The Bbooar's Opera" 110 

Maginn on Macaulat 112 

Philosophy of Laughter 121 

The Politics of 1831 123 

\v The Lay of the Dismal Cramp 128 

The Death of Napoleon 129 

Poetical Plagiaries — Thomas Moore 130 

Barnet Moore ; a Vision of Covent Garden and St. Giles's . 161 

Miss Pipson 175 

Sir Walter Scott . 176 

The Spermaceti Candle 184 

Song of the Shirtless 189 

Nonsense Verses 192 

Lament upon Apslet House 193 

Paraphrase of Anacreon's Thirtt-third Odb 195 

Irish Genius 197 \x 

O'Dohertt's Confession 202 

Willis's Pencillings 204 



# 






• •• 



Vni - CONTENTS. 

Akotheb Caw from the Rookwood 219 

Sabbath Jots ^ *• . , , 226 

The Statesman 2$! 

Chabacter of Hamlet 236 

Agnewidos 269 

Mb. Gbant's Gbeat Metbopolis 275 

Epaminondas Gbubb, ob Fenimobe Coopeb, versus the Mbmobt 

OF Sib Walteb Scott 294 

Did Hannibal know the use of GunpowdebI 307 

Mb. Gbantley Bebkeley and his Novel 329 

Maoinn's Letteb on the Bebkeley and Fbaseb Affaib . . 342 



* 

V. 



MEMOIR 

OP 

WILLIAM MAGINN, LL. D. 

BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE. 



It was my original intention to preface this conclusion of the late 
Dr. Maginn's*MisceUanies, with the biographical notice which I wrote 
for, and prefixed to, the fifth volume of the Noctes Ambrosianje — 
that remarkable and brilliant series of papers which, for many years, 
helped to make Blackwood^ s Magazine the leading periodical of 
Britain. It has been suggested, however, by those to whose opinion I 
have pleasure in submitting, that the additional materials which have 
accumulated in my hands since that sketch was written, are of suffi- 
cient interest and importance to justify the presentation of a more ex- 
tended Memoir, in which I can not only make use of the labors of pre<- 
vious writers, but avail myself of information recently supplied to my- 
self by several of Dr. Maginn's oldest and most familiar friends. 

The groundwork of every Memoir of Dr. Maginn must necessarily 
be, up to the present time, that highly-interesting notice, accompanying 
his portrait in the Dublin University Magazine^ for January, 1844* 
The author was Edmund Kenealy, now a barrister in London, a native 
of Cork, like Maginn himself — like him, too, a scholar and a poet — 
whose friendship cheered the close of his chequered life, whose huma- 
nity smoothed the pillow of the dying man of genius -»• whose conside- 
rate afiection honored his memory in death as it had soothed his suffer- 
ings in the sorrow and sickness of closing life. That biography, 
evidently written with intimate knowledge of the departed, and abound- 
ing in facts gathered from his own lips, is equally creditable to the 
heart and head of its gifted writer. This is the place, p^liaps, where 
I have to acknowledge additional information, respecting Maginn and 
his writings, voluntarily supplied to me by Mr. Kenealy, and to ex- 



X HEMOIB OF WILLIAM MA6INN. 

press my regret that the duty of making this collection of the Miscel- 
lanies was not executed by that eminently well-qualified gentleman — 
the demands of his profession drew too largely upon his time to permit 
his performing it, even if it were advisable to reproduce in England 
articles many of which are so personally or politically severe and sar- 
castic upon living men. He wrote, when supplying me with a list of 
the magazine articles actually avowed by Maginn, to say : ** You have 
a glorious opportunity to edit a rare work, where you have no fear of 
lihel laws before your eyes. Maginn's best things can never be repub- 
lished here, until all his victims have passed from the scene/' 

Another biography of Dr. Maginn appeared in the Irish Quarterly 
RevieWt for September, 1852, written with great kindliness of feeling, 
considerable fulness of detail, admirable candor, and large personal 
knowledge, friendship, and appreciation. It was anticipated that Pro- 
fessor Wilson would have delighted to pay a final tribute to his old 
friend and coUaborateur in Blackicood ; indeed it was reported that he 
was engaged in such a memorial of friendly regard — however, the 
hope was not realized, and Christopher North permitted Sir Morgan 
O'Doherty to go to his long home, without any regretful mention, in a 
periodical which owed so much to the fecundity of his early manhood, 
the efiervescence of his wit, the geniality of his humor, and the profun- 
dity of his learning. 

The life of Dr. Maginn, though not marked by remarkable circum- 
stances, cannot be considered as uneventful. It is doubtful whether, 
marked by Thought rather than Action as his course was, he had not 
lived as much, in that short period, as many occupying a prominent 
position in public, have done in twice the space of time. One of his 
biographers observes : **It has been said that the lives of literary men 
in England are, in general, devoid of incidents either interesting or ex- 
citing, and yet, in all the long catalogue of human joys and sorrows, of 
combats against the world, and of triumphs over difficulties almost in- 
surmountable, of instances where the indomitable will has raised its 
possessor to the enjoyment of every object sotight, and to the full frui- 
tion of every hope long cherished, where can such glorious examples 
be found as in the pages of literary biography ? It is true that many 
a noble intellect has been shattered in the pursuit of literary fame ; it 
is true that ghastly forms of martyred genius flit across the scene, and 
that, from the lowest depths of the deep hearts of Poets, the cry of 
gnawing hunger, and the wail of helpless, hopeless sorrow arises, with 
gm anguish more frightful than that of Philoctetes, more awful than 
that of Lear. Truly, literature has had its martyrs." After referring 
to the misery of Nash, Churchyard, and Stowe — to the sad fate of 



MEMOIB OF WILUAM MAOINN. JU 

Ciiatterton ^ to the charities of Goldsmith, amid his own need — to the 
humanity of Johnson, proved in his deepest poverty^ to the reckless 
career of Byron — the lettered musings of Wordsworth ^the work and 
toil of Southey— he adds, ** read the noble life of Scott, that record of 
genins, of manhood, and of goodness, and learn the interest that marks 
every day in the life of a literary man. It is not by reason alone of its 
fascinating details, that literary biography should be prized and es- 
timated. The author, more than any other man, rises by his own 
merits or sinks through his own faults. Even in the days when the lot 
of the man of genius was, but too often — 

" ' Toil, envy, want, the Patron, and the jail,' 

the want and the jail were frequently attributable to his own miscon- 
duct ; but, in this our age, when from literature have sprung the glo- 
ries of the Church, the Bench, the Senate, and the Bar, genius need no 
longer dress in rags, or live in poverty — its Patron is the Public^ 
and for him who is entering on the journey of life, the best guide will 
be the biography of some literary man of the time. He will there dis- 
cover how, by honorable conduct, and by persevering application, all 
the honors of the kingdom can be obtained — and how, on the other 
hand, the brightest gifts of genius are useless, if desecrated by idleness, 
or by misapplication.'* 

With equal truth and force, does the writer add (particularly refer- 
ring to Dr. Maginn) : »» In all the sad instances of misapplied genius 
amongst the literary men of the nineteenth century, the subject of this 
memoir is the most glaring and the most pitiable. * When the funeral 
pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu 
of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages 
should comment upon their ashes.* So writes Sir Thomas Brown, and 
as we look back through the life of William Maginn, we wish that he 
had borne in mind this quaint thought of the old moralist, and had felt 
with him, that we must all * make provision for our names,* because, 
* to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in du- 
ration.* Had Maginn thought thus he would have saved himself many 
a heart-sickening pang, many a weary hour of depression, and of peni- 
tence for days cast away, in which he had been prodigal of that which 
would have been to him wealth, honor, fame — his glowing, brilliant, 
glorious genius. True it is, that in the life of William Maginn, there 
was no disgrace : the Cork schoolmaster was of that class in which 
Johnson places Milton, men whom no employment can dishonor, no 
occupation degrade. But in the morning of life the gay thoughtless- 
ness of his heart bore him, smiling, through many a day of sorrow, and 



^ MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

gay and thoughtless he contmixed to the end of his too brief existence. 
* Never making provision for his name,* he is now one of those mind- 
wrecks who have drifted from ' this bank and shoal of time/ into the 
wide, dark ocean of the world's forgetfolness — his brilliant life-labors 
uncollected, and bot in part known, scattered through the pages of 
periodical publications, whilst his grave is neglected, unmarked, and 
nameless."* 

. It is not as a mere literary performance, executed with the hope 
of afibrding information or entertainment, for a short time, that I 
now record ** the short and simple annals** of William Mag^n's life. 
There is as deep a moral in it as can be found in many a serious- 
thoughted homily, and my labor will not have been executed in vain, if 
it show to living aspirants for literary distinction that Genius itself is 
little worth, in that exciting struggle, unless it be accompanied and 
supported by solidity of character and discretion of conduct. Of Dr. 
Maginn it may be said, as of too many others, that he had 

** Talents, like water in the desert wasted, 

because he did not resolutely resist the temptations to self-indulgence 
which Society, ever eager for companionship with the gifted and the 
distinguished, threw in his path. In his case they led to broken for- 
tunes, ruined health, and an early grave. The touching lesson which 
his life and death can teach will not be wholly thrown away, I hope, 
because it has so weak an exponent as myself. 

With these remarks, perhaps not wholly uncalled for, I proceed to 
my task. 

William Magijin, born at Cork, on November 11, 1794, was the 
eldest son of an eminent classical scholar, who for many years kept an 
academy in Marlborough street in that city. This school was held in 
high estimation and liberally patronized by the leading families of the 
county and its capital. The elder Maginn having noticed that his son, 
at a very early age, exhibited unusual abilities, learning everything as 
if by intuition, cultivated theoi so carefully and successfully that, be- 
fore he had completed his tenth year, William Maginn was sufficiently 
advanced to enter Trinity College, Dublin. The entrance examination 
there is nearly as difficult, after four years' study, as that on which 
students obtain their degrees at the Scotch and many other universi- 
ties. Maginn-s answering was so good, on this examination, that (the 
rank being invariably given according to merit) he was *• placed** among 

♦ Irish Quarterli/ Beview, vol. ii. pp. 593-597. Article — Dr. Maginn. 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM MAGINN. ZUl 

the first ten, out of more than a hundred competitors, two thirds of 
whom were double his own age. 

The distinction which he thus obtained, at the commencement of his 
university career, he preserved to its close. He passed through all his 
classes with credit, obtained several prizes, and appeared to learn every 
thing without an effort. He was the reputed author of a poem, enti- 
tled ** MnoeLS Eunuchus," which caused no little excitement, by the 
eccentricity of its fancy, and the boldness of its thoughts. General 
opinion marked him out, thus early, as a person likely to distinguish 
himself in after-life. He graduated before he was fourteen. No one 
(since the brilliant career of Cardinal Wolsey, at Oxford) better merited 
the appellation of "The Boy-Bachelor." His college tutor, Dr. 
Kyle, then a fellow and afterward Provost of the University,* was 
much attached to him, considering him the head of his class, and re- 
peatedly declared in after years, that Maginn, while in his teens, had 
more literary and general knowledge than most men of mature age 
whom he had ever met. He survived his eminent pupil several 
years. 

The erudite and eccentric DrC Barrett (subsequently amberalized by 
O'Doherty in Blackwood* s Magazine]) was Professor of Hebrew, 
on Erasmus Smith's foundation, in Trinity College, at the time of 
Maginn's matriculation there. The lad entered, as has already been 
related, with great distinction, and his extremely juvenile appearance 
excited surprise and interest. He wore a short jacket, with large linen 
collar and frill turned over, and a small leather cap. He was only ten 
years old, and even more childlike in appearance than years. The day 
after his entrance, as he was crossing the College-yard, in a student's gown 
which had received several tucks to reduce it to a wearable length, he 
met Dr. Barrett, who, supposing that somebody had thus dressed up 
a schoolboy in order to raise a laugh, angrily accosted him, in his usual 
and peculiar mode of interrogation, with ** D'ye see me now 1% Who 

* In 1830, on the death of Dr. St. Lawrence, Dr. Samuel Kyle was made 
Bishop of Cork and Ross, at the head of which See he remained until his 
death in 1848. It was his friendship which provided Maginn's two brothers, 
John and Charles, with church-preferment. 

t See the "Luctus on the Death of Sir Daniel Donnelly" (Odoherty Pa- 
^8y vol. ii. p. 69) for a Hebrew Dirge on the Bruiser, by Barrett, and (the 
same vol. pp. 327-342) for " Letters from the Dead to the Livmg," for Bar- 
rettiana and Cattiana. 

X Barrett so invariably commenced with this question, that, when examin- 
ing for a Fellowship, where no language but Latin is used, he classically trans* 
lated his pet phrase into " Videsneme nunc V* 



Ziy BIEMOIB OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

are you, little boy, and where are you going in that gown ?" Yotmg 

Maginn, not knowing who addressed him, and somewhat elevated 
by his yesterday's success, confidently answered, ** Maginn, of Cork ; 
I got tenth place at entrance, yesterday ; 1 am going now to find Dr. 
Barrett, that I may get the Hebrew premium." Barrett, then re- 
membering that he had heard the lad spoken of at the Fellows* table, 
the evening before, kindly patted him on the head, and responded, 
<* D*ye see me now ; I am Dr. Barrett, and if I had to look for you, 
'twould be long ere I could find you, you are so small. Come along, 
and let me hear whether you know the Hebrew alphabet." Maginn 
could translate, as well as read Hebrew, to Barrett-s surprise and satis- 
faction, and was actually awarded the premium. When the anecdote 
was mentioned, in his presence, years subsequently, Maginn disclaimed 
any particular merit on that occasion, remarking that Hebrew was very 
little read in ** Old Trinity" at that time, its acquisition being optional 
even with advanced divinity students, and that, after all, there was 
small merit in his being acquainted with a language much older, and 
much easier, as it had fewer words, than Greek. It was under Dri 
Barrett's private instructions that, in his third collegiate year, Maginn 
learned Sanscrit and Syriac. 

Having taken his degree of Bachelor of Arts, Maginn returned to 
Cork, where he became classical teacher in his father's school. He 
continued in this capacity for several years, during which he applied 
himself, to the completion of his own education, not limiting his read- 
ing to the classics and the Continental living languages, but plunging 
deeply into English literature, ancient as well as modem. Few men 
had read so much as Maginn, up to his thirtieth year (when he went 
to reside in London), and fewer still had such a memory, with a 
sort of intuitive method of instantaneously bringing its hoarded treasures 
into use exactly when they were required. His mind became satu- 
rated, as it were, with knowledge the most varied and extensive. He 
could speak and write German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, 
and modern Greek, with as much ease as if each had been his mother- 
tongue, before he had reached the age of twenty-five, and he subse- 
quently mastered Swedish, Russian, and the Basque dialect, besides 
having some acquaintance with the Turkish and Magyar tongues. 
From childhood he was familiar with the Celtic — delighting to malsg 
philological comparisons between the native Irish, the high-sounding 
Gaelic, and the many-consonanted Welsh. In more mature life, one of 
his amusements was to compose ^t^a^i-Irish songs and narrative poems, 
and gravely pass them off, on some of his enthusiastic countrymen, as 
originald, which he had collected from the chanted recitations of old 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM BCAGINN. XT 

crones in country districts. As might be expected, any pilgrims who 
essayed to retrace his steps and emulate his labors, seldom found the 
exact locality which he described, and never happed upon the aged 
ballad-reciters. 

It was during his tutorship in his father's school, that Maginn 
first acquired a taste for and close familiarity with standard English 
literature. He had the advantage of using -the Cork Library, which 
contained a large and well-chosen collection of books. It is not too 
much to say, that scarcely a volume, among the thousands on the 
shelves around him there, but had been looked into by him, at least. 
Thus, he made acquaintance with all sorts of subjects — and what he 
once read, however slightly, appeared to rest on his mind, until the 
very moment for availably reproducing it, years afterward. It may 
be recorded, for the satisfaction of the readers (and writers) of prose 
fiction, that Maginn, like O'Connell, was a determined novel-reader. 

The elder Maginn was a teacher of the old school, as regards the 
care used in grounding his pupils well in grammar, and resembled (and 
anticipated) the late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, in caring rather to develop 
the intellect than to limit it to the performance of settled and routine 
tasks. The famous Dr. Busby, of birching memory, who certainly 
did not "spare the rod'* during the fifty-five years of his supremacy in 
Westminster School, used to say that he threw his learning among his 
pupils, and they scrambled for it. Neither Roger Aschara, nor John 
Milton, nor Samuel Johnson — an illustrious trinity of schoolmasters! 
— acted thus. They worked laboriously with every boy, endeavoring 
to make scholars of them, whether Nature had also done her part, for 
that purpose, or not. Mr. Maginn, who had spent a life- time in teach- 
ing, knew that it was well to allow the young mind to follow its own 
bent, very often. If he found a pupil taking kindly to mathematics, 
for example, and not inclined to pay attention to Horace or Homer, he 
would permit him to follow his bias — because the acquisition of one 
description of knowledge prepared and even led the mind to under- 
stand and master another. His own son (the Doctor) was an exception. 
If ever a schoolboy was literally crammed with learning, it was Wil- 
liam Maginn, who was a fortunate exception to the general rule that 
precocities rarely fulfil, in manhood, the promise of their youth. 

Cork was the assize-town of the largest county in Ireland, and the 
Munster bar included some of the best lawyers and most gifted orators 
of the country — Barry Yelverton, Thomas Goold, and John Philpot 
Curran, were among them — during the greater part of Mr. Maginn's 
professional residence. It was his frequent practice, during the assizes, 
to send his first or advanced class into one of the Courts, with instruc- 



XVI MEMOIR OP WILUAM MAGINN. 

tions to present him, next day, with a report of some trial of interest. 
Each pupil was to draw up this report without assistance, and the pre- 
mium was given not to that which (as Mr. Maginn would say) had 
** crawled like a snail" over the facts, but to that which had generalized 
them, giving breadth to the narrative, and condensing the legal points 
presented during the judicial inquiry. Sometimes, on the other hand, 
he would prefer a report, as minute as if it had been intended for news- 
paper publication. The aim constantly was to make the pupils think 
— to induce them to exercise the faculty of reasoning, of generalization, 
of memory. It was a novel plan, but its success showed it to be as 
practical as it was new. 

The elder Maginn died in 1813 — it was believed, of a broken heart. 
At that time, an eminent sugar-baker, and great local politician, was a 
leading member of the Corporation of Cork, aiid a man of double-refined 
Respectability, inasmuch as he not only ♦* kept a gig*' but was able to 
afford a carriage and pair. One evening, as this magnate was riding in his 
aristocratic vehicle, driven by a gigantic Jehu of most imposing ap- 
pearance, Mr. Maginn happened to be walking across the street, *and 
seeing the aldermanic chariot dashing forward at headlong speed, felt 
no inclination to abandon his superior right, as a pedestrian, to the use 
of the highway.* He held up his cane, as a caution for the coachman 
to draw in his cattle — an intimation which was not obeyed, so that old 
Maginn narrowly escaped being run over and knocked down. Had the 
matter ended here, all would have been well. But the coachman, sud- 
denly pulling up his team, jumped off the box, wrested the cane from 
the hands of the astonished schoolmaster, violently beat him with it 
about the head and breast, and did not desist until the object of his 
brutality lay on the ground, senseless. This feat accomplished, the 
coachman resumed the reins, and drove away. Mr. Maginn indicted the 
man for the assault, and summoned, to corroborate his own statement, 
the only other person who had witnessed the occurrence — namely, 
the alderman. That person, however, gave such a color to the facts, in 
order to save his offending servant, that the jury gave a verdict of 
♦• Not Guilty." Considering this as throwing a public discredit upon 

* The rights of pedestrians, it should be known, are distinctly recognized 
and protected, not only by the law, but by more than one judicial decision. 
If a pedestrian be walking across the street, at a regular crossing, when a 
vehicle of any sort, drawn by one or more horses, be coming along, it is the 
legal duty of the driver to diminish his speed, so as to allow safe transit 
across the road, for the foot-passenger. This is founded on the rational 
principle that a man is more worthy than a brute, and should have precedence 
and regard accordingly. 



MEMOIB OF WILUAM MAGINN. XVU 

his own veracity, Mr. Maginn's sensitive nature was so deeply 
wonndcd, that he never quitted hi^ house after that, until somn weeks 
after, when he was removed to his last earthly resting-place. The 
personal injuries he sustained were so grievous, thtit it is^robable they, 
even more than chagrin, caused this tragic dinouemenL Assuredly, 
as the law was administered in Ireland at that period, when packing 
juries was the rule, and justice the exception (in all cases where a civic 
dignitary was involved), Mr. Maginn was ill-advised when he sought 
legal redress against the servant of an alderman. As was said, in lan- 
guage more homely than polished, it was like bringing a suit against 
the black gentleman and holding the court in a certain hot place, whose 
name is not mentioned »* to ears polite." 

William Maginn was only twenty years old at his father's death. 
Upon him, as head of a large family, a great responsibility was then 
thrown. He met it manfully, cheerfully adopting and earnestly act- 
ing upon the ad vice of his friends that he should continue the school. 
So general was the public estimation of his ability that, in his hands, 
the school maintained the high reputation which it had obtained from 
his father's scholarship and tact. He continued at the head of this 
seminary for ten years, when he retired, to push his fortune as a man 
of letters in London, and was succeeded by his brother John, who re- 
tained the sceptre — i. e., the ferule — until, having entered the Church, 
he obtained such preferment from Bishop Kyle as enabled him to dis- 
pense with the emoluments school-teaching brought in. 

One of Maginn's biographers* says, »' We have often felt consider- 
able surprise at the fact, that Maginn conld ever suppose himself, in 
any degree, meant by nature for an instructor. We have, in our time, 
known many men of genius, and we believe most firmly, that with the 
exception of the lamented Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, not one was cal- 
culated to become a teacher. But Maginn, the rollicking, laughing, 
wit-squandering, was the most preposterously unsuited of all. Events, 
however, soon proved that by following up the careful plans of his 
father, he could subsist comfortably upon the receipts of his school. 
He had kept his name upon the College books, and thinking that the 
grave prefix. Doctor, might add something to his reputation, he, in the 
year 1816, when only twenty-three years old, took the degree of 
LL. D. The Doctor was not at any loss for pupils, his school was 
well and fully attended, and certainly it was owing to great merit, rather 
than to the possession of any of Jihose qualities which are usually sup- 
posed to be the distinguishing attributes of a schoolmaster. Solemn 

* Irish Quarterly Review, vol. ii. pp. 597-'8. 



XViii MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

and steady he never could become, and although one of the best Eng- 
lish parodists with his pen, he was a very bad mimic in his conduct. 
The idea of assuming a virtue, or any thing else, which he had not, 
never entered his mind. He was one of those men who, if the fate of 
worlds depended on it, could not play the hypocrite for five minutes. 
He was not formed by nature to be a pedagogue, and his display of 
learning never needed that excuse of Sir Walter Scott for the vain old 
teacher, * the man is mortal, and has been a schoolmaster.' He was 
more like Fuller's model, who does not * scorn to touch the school but 
by the proxie of an usher — out of his school, he is no whit pedantical, 
in carriage or discourse.' " 

It is proper to state that, taking his degree of Doctor of Laws before 
he had entered his twenty-fourth year, Maginn was the very youngest 
person who had ever received it from the University of Dublin. In 
point of fact, hov/ever, he might have taken it a year earlier, according 
to his college standing, which dated from the time he graduated as 
Bachelor of Arts. 

Against the assumption that, as a wit-squanderer. Dr. Maginn was 
unsuited for the responsible profession of teaching, unfortunately rests 
the fact that — although not equal to his father, who was the very 
Prince of Pedagogues — he advanced his pupils so well, and grounded 
them so thoroughly that their parents had every reason for being 
satisfied with their progress. One of his pupils, now in New York, 
who had the advantage of instruction from Mr. Maginn as well as 
from the Doctor, informs me that the pupils obtained a greater 
amount of general knowledge from the latter. He appeared to care 
little whether they mastered any particular branch of learning, at 
a stated time, provided they could show that they had mastered some 
other. He did not carry out this, of cdurse, to an extreme point, but a 
lad who displayed general intelligence — who showed that he learned, 
not parrot-roted, but with thorough understanding of the subject — was 
invariably a favorite with Maginn. At that time, as now, pupils who 
were reading Greek and Latin frequently availed themselves of trans- 
lations (commonly called cogs^ in the Irish schools), to save them- 
selves the trouble of word-hunting through lexicon and diction- 
aries.* Maginn, who had probably had recourse to the same assistance 
in his youth, had no mercy on the pupil who clumsily ** conveyed" 

* Some of my readers may have heard 'of Professor Anthon's remark wlien 
one of his classes had evidently trusted toBohn's translations more than their 
own industry : " I wish," said ho, " there was more muscle and less Bohn in 
jour translations to-day." 



MEMOIR OP WILUAM MAGINN. xix 

what was then called a construing from any of these translations. His 
memory was so good that, if the exact words of any of these aids was 
given, he would immediately name the author, page and line, whence 
it had been taken, and laugh at the conveyancer for being so weak 
as to think of deceiving him. 

Another especial point in Maginn*s mode of training young people 
must not be passed over. He inculcated, by all means in his power, 
the necessity of upholding the dignity of Truth. Other offences might 
be excused or forgiven — against any violation of the truth he was 
stern and implacable. If any charge were brought against a pupil, and 
by him denied, •* upon his word of honor," the accusation was disposed 
of by that denial : wo to the lad, however, if it afterward appeared that 
the denial was untrue. The result was, a high tone of honorable and 
manly feeling pervaded the whole body of his pupils. Among them- 
selves, even, one of the heaviest ofiences was a violation of the truth 
— it was one of the rarest also. 

While Maginn resided in Cork, it obtained the name of '* The Athens 
of Ireland," and was highly distinguished for the energy and success 
with which its sons applied themselves to the cultivation of literature. 
Among the most eminent Irishmen of the present day, at least one half 
belong to the city or county of Cork. An eminently social man, Ma- 
ginn soon became ** the life, grace, and ornament of society," in his 
native city. A number of young men who used frequently to meet at 
the Cork Library, attracted by mutual literary tastes, speedily recog- 
nised him as one of their leaders, and placed themselves very much 
under his guidance. All of them were members of the Cork Philo- 
sophical and Literary Society, one feature of which was its branching 
off* into a weekly debating club, during a. particular season of the year. 
Maginn did not appear among the speakers — from an impediment in 
his utterance, very slight in ordinary conversation, but sometimes appa- 
rent under the excitement of society or wine. Occasionally, he would 
join in the debate, earnestly and eloquently, confident in his own know- 
ledge of the subject, and in the certainty of addressing a most friendly 
audience. He had a proper Irish detestation and contempt for set 
sfl^eches and prepared orations, thinking ready ^ better than carefully 
cut-and'dry eloquence. But, though he made few oratorical displays, 
he assisted those who did, and I have heard of more than one instance 
where he has assisted the weak side of an argument, by rapidly 
pencilling down, for the use of a speaker who was replying on the 
general question, a variety of quotations and illustrations from various 
writers, known and unknown, which certainly settled the disputed 
points, but ^ having been ingeniously improvised on the moment by 



m 

I 



XX MEMOm OF WILUAM MA6INN. 

the ready-witted Doctor — might be looked for in vain in any edition 
of the authors from whom they professed to be taken. 

Mr. Kenealy says, ** Of this club Maginn soon became a member, 
and soon distinguished himself above all others for the depth and uni- 
versality of his reading. To one of his satirical turn, the opportunity 
for exercising his wit, which the foibles of the various members pre- 
sented to him, was too tempting to be overlooked — and accordingly 
we find him at this early period, levelling his shafts at such of his asso- 
ciates as were the most prominent in absurdity, priggishness, or pre- 
tension — and flinging about him epigrams and jests, as wildly and libe- 
rally on the small people of the beautiful city,* as in after years on the 
Chancellors and Ministers of the British empire. But none of these 
trifles will bear transcription. They are as ephemeral as the boobies 
who provoked them.'* 

The vehicle by which these squibs, satires, and facetiae, were given 
to the public, was a remarkably small ** folio of four pages," edited hy 
a clever minniken named John Boyle, and published semi-occasionally. 
The subscription was a guinea a year (which was understood to exempt 
the subscriber from any very severe mention), and no number could be 
purchased separately — so secret was its issue, from fear of the libel- 
laws. The publication occurred at the good pleasure of Mr. Boyle, 
whenever he had as much racy material as sufficed to fill four pages of 
letter-paper. It rarely appeared even as often as once a fortnight, but 
supplied town's talk for a week, when it was afloat. Neither Maginn 
nor any other contributor received the slightest remuneration. The 
profit, which may have been a clear four hundred pounds a year, was 
wholly and solely absorbed by Mr. Boyle, who bore the brunt of what- 
ever his friencjs wrote. It was difficult to fix any legal responsibility 
upon him, however, because he eschewed such a notoriety as a regular 
publication-office (the paper being dropped, early in the morning, at 
people's hall-doors and down their areas), and Boyle never descended 
to the mercantile vulgarity of paying the usual newspaper-stamp 
duties to the public exchequer. Now and then, he was ** dropped 
upon" by some &ngry pater-familias or irritated dandy, but being almost 
a dwarf in size, Boyle passed through life with few personal attacks,' a 
sort of "chartered libertine" of the press. Maginn and his friends 
wrote, not so much for him as for themselves — wanting a medium oi 

** In a comic Irish ballad is the lino — 

" " In the beautiful city called Cork," 

and, in consequence, every Munsterman always speaks of Cork as "the 
beantifnl city" 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGINN. XXI 

communication with the public. The Freeholder^ which was liberal 
in its political tone, found its occupation gone about the time that Wel- 
lington and Peel granted Catholic Emancipation. By virtue of the 
wit effervesced in its pages, Boyle got the credit of being a satirist of 
the first water. He was not the last editor w^ has got credit and 
made money on the strength of what his helps have done. 

Chief, for many years, among the wits and satirists of The Freeholder 
was Dr. Maginn. It was not in his nature to spare the quip and the 
jest, the epigram and the satire, upon his townsmen*s vulnerable 
points. In his youth, he as freely and fearlessly hit at them, right and 
left, as, in riper years, at statesmen, publicists, and authors. Through- 
out his life he never could understand how, when the arrow had bit the 
mark, it was possible for it to rankle in th« wound. That, after the 
writer had forgotten the squib, the victim whom it had ridiculed could 
feel annoyed, was wholly out of his calculation — almost beyond his 
comprehension. Never was satirist less influenced by ill-nature. There 
was no motive of malice in his wittiest sarcasms. The subject tempted 
him — he dashed off the impromptu — laughed at it, as others did — 
dismissed it from his mind — and saw no reason why he should not be 
as friendly as before with those whom he had made ridiculous. 

That Dr. Maginn, with occasional leisure, his head filled with learn- 
ing and miscellaneous knowledge, and teeming with wit and frolic, 
should take to more serious authorship than what suited Mr. Boyle's 
Freeholder^ need not be wondered at. He commenced writing for 
London and Edinburgh publishers in the year 1819, at the age of 
twenty-five. Two years before, William Jerdan had commenced the 
Literary Gazette, in London, and William Blackwood had established 
Maga in Edinburgh. To both, fresh and brilliant talent was of great 
importance, and they found it, most abundantly, in the volunteer con- 
tributions of Dr. Maginn, who, for a long time, maintained, with curi- 
ous pertinacity, a strict incognito with both. 

Mr. Jerdan says, that Maginn commenced his literary career, out of 
Ireland, in the Literary Gazette. " A little before the date of his com- 
municating with Blackwood, he first tried his anonymous experiment 
on me, and under the name of Crossman, No. 8 Marlborough street, 
Cork, surprised and delighted me more than I can express. I can well 
remember with what pleasure I was wont to receive his large folio 
sheet, covered closely all over with manuscript, and supplying me with 
rich and sparkling matter, to adorn and enliven, at least two or three 
numbers of the * Miscellaneous Sheet.' There was always a perfect 
ahower of varieties ; poetry, feeling, or burlesque ; classic paraphrases, 
anecdotes, illustrations of famous ancient authors (displaying a vast 



Xxii MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

acquaintance with, and fine appreciation of them), and, in short, Mr. . 
Grossman's proper hand on the address of a letter, and the post-mark 
* Cork,* were about the most welcome sight that could meet my editO' 
rial eye, and relieve my editorial anxieties. In publishing, he adopted 
all kinds of signatures, and never could be traced by them ; and till he 
chose to throw off the veil of mystery, and treat you confidentially, it 
was as impossible to know * where to have him,' as it was to have Mrs. 
Quickly ! In later days he was often funning — I can find no other 
word to express it— in Blackioood and the Gazette at the same time, 
and getting up such strange equivoques as were no less puzzling than 
amusing. He was the master of Punch, pulled the strings as he listed, 
and made the puppets dance, squeak, and fight, for the sheer entertain- 
ment of the gaping crowd.'.* 

At that time, and for many years after, the Literary Gazette was a 
sort of »* institution** in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land. It was generally impartial, and always very early, in its notices 
of new works, giving copious and well-selected quotations from them. 
It touched on art, science, music, and the drama with a fostering and 
graceful hand. It was essentially a literary net^j^-paper, giving full 
and authentic information on books and book-makers. In its pages 
many writers who have since won a world-wide reputation first ap- 
peared in print. Mr. Jerdan, the editor, without being in any manner 
a remarkable man, had good taste and good nature — two most excel- 
lent things ia a literary journal. He had tact, also, with considerable 
industry, and went a great deal into London society. He was pre- 
cisely the person to conduct such a journal. Writing execrable poetry 
himself — his facetiae was at once labored and dull — he yet knew 
what good poetry was, and so encouraged the writers of it that the Ga- 
zette^ for years, was a nest of singing-birds. At the time (1819) when 
Maginn commenced writing for it, the Literary Gazette was the only^ 
weekly journal exclusively devoted ta belles-lettres, and, conducted as 
it was with judgment and fairness, obtained extended circulation and 
considerable influence. In Ireland, more particularly, it supplied a 
great want, and was no where more esteemed than in Cork. Its great 
merit was that it kept its readers well acquainted with what was done, 
doing, and intended in the literary world. I may mention, in proof of 
Mr. Jerdan*s taste and tact, that he commenced the republication of 
** The Sketch-Book, by Geoffrey Crayon," as soon as a copy reached 
London from New York. After about a third of the book had been 
reproduced, the further conveyance of it was courteously stopped, at 
Washington Irving*s request. 

After he had contributed to the Gazette for some time positively de-. 



BIEMOIB OF WILUAM MAGINN. XXIU 

dining to communicate his real name, and even affecting anger at an 
editorial hint that ** P. P. Grossman" was only a nomme de plume. 
Dr. Maginn learned at last that Mr. Jerdan had been made acquainted 
(by Mr.Tatam, a Cork gentleman) with the secret of his real personality. 
He then wrote, ** As he has told you who I am, I suppose he has 
also informed you of the nature of my avocations, in which case you 
will not, I think, feel much astonished at the irregular and interrupted 
nature of my correspondence with you. In fact, I am so completely 
occupied that I have scarcely time to do any thing beside my business. 
I shall, however, send you a trifle occasionally. I affected the mys- 
terious, as you call it, on no other account but that I felt that what I 
sent was so very trivial, I was unwilling to put a grave-looking signa- 
ture to my communication. As, however, you have dealt so very 
frankly with me, and as you desire it, I shall conclude, by assuring 
you, in my real name, that I am. Dear Sir, your humble, servant, 
William Maginn." 

In the Literary Gazette, to which he continued an occasional con- 
tributor to the last year of his life, one of Maginn's hardest hits was a 
notice of some amusing blunders in Debrett's Peerage, a work of con- 
siderable pretension. Here is a specimen :— 

"Vol. n.p. 989. We are informed that Thomas, 27th baron Howth, 
married in 1750, Isabella, the Earl of Kingston's sister, who died in 1794 ; 
and that his second son, Thomas, was bom in 1795. This is, I think, an im- 
portant fact in midwifery. But let that pass. This son Thomas is at pre- 
sent Bishop of Cork and Ross ; and if the above date of his birth be correct, 
he must have made good use of his time. A Bishop and doctor of divinity 
long before twenty, he may almost rival the most striking examples of pre- 
cocity or nepotism ; but when we find (p. 990) that he has eight children, one 
married in 1805, consequently when her father was only ten years of age, 
and another (a clergyman too) in 1816, in his father's twenty-first year, we 
must confess that miracles have not yet ceased. Again wc are told (p. 990), 
that Lord Howth's eldest daughter, Isabella, was married in 1773 to Lord 
Sidney, who died in 1744 without issue, which last circumstance I do not 
much wonder at, as he did not think proper to marry until twenty-nine years 
after his death. Her mother, I confess, as we have seen already, had a son 
a year after her decease : this, however,, being I imagine a rare case, ought 
not to be drawn into a precedent. But this family seems to have a fancy for 
marriage after death, as we find (p. 990) the next daughter, Elizabeth, mar- 
ried in 1806, to Sir P. A. Irving, although the same grave authority informs 
us she died in 1799. This is a very authentic history; and I can assure 
your readers it would not be hard to find other tales as astonishing. 

"Let us turn to Lord Clarina. There we learn (p. 1267) that Nathaniel 
William, the 2d Lord, was bom in 1796, married Penelope, daughter of M. 



MESMS or WHXIAX XAfiODI. 



B. Westraop, Esq^ bad m 
CSarim^ in. ITSt?, beanies 
1910^ a^td of ctmrse ibarfiecK i 
old sttrrof cbeapcam cxjiaipforft 
«s dkas Fendope, Raronftflf ClifTiw, 
tradkt; faier ladrslup » still is tbe 
kajnor, and good looks^ pvv 
more Hkelr to bii &ir iar it." 



fl 



£ed ■ 1S15l T&k 



m 
and beats the 
he tkiaksfitto mfixm 
I mm. iapp J to cod- 
vorid, and if heahii, good 
I loB^ fifey Iknow nobody 



t» 



tt 



This nadce (signed -'> P. P. P.'*) drew into die fidd aoocber writer 
(J. M.) who painted oxit seTenI pttlpttble enon of fi^t and date, in the 
portiao of Debrett appropriated to the SeoCtiah Peaa|!e. Both notices 
brought Mr. Debrett forward, to Trndicate hk book. He was moch in 
the sitnatioo of the coonsel whose brief was simptj marked *■*• We have 
nothing to say in defence, but please abuse the pLaintiflTs attorney, 
The careless, blundering, and ridicaloits mistakes of his ** Peerage 
were as undeniable as indefensible, so» alter ccofessing that his own 
efforts were only *' an approach to accnracy,** and firetfoDy remarkyig 
that whoever detected the errors mi^ht easihr have rectified them with 
his pen, assumed that his two assailants were one person, very guilty 
of scandalous meanness in charging the Peerage-compiler with scan- 
dalous negligence. Maginn replied, giving a dozen more *' specnmens 
of his [Debrett's] correctness, effected in less than half an hour.*' 
Here are a couple of them : — 



"P. 73. George Paulett, of Amport, twelfth Marquis of Winchester, 
married, in 1812, Martha Ingoldsbv, who died in 1796. In spite of this droll 
taste of marrying a woman sixteen years after her death, he had three chil- 
dren ; and it is not the least wonderfhl circumstance, that he himself died in 
1800, twelve years before his marriage. I have a dim recollection of reading 
in Mr. Lewis's Tales of Wonder, an account of a ghost-wedding : but I did 
not know till now that he had such authentic Warrant for tha circumstance. 
I must further remark, that it is rather scandalous in Mr. Debrett to assert 
that the noble lady of Sir Joseph Yorite was married twenty-seven years be- 
fore her mother was united in the holy bonds of matrimony to her father ; 
and that the late Marchioness of Winchester had a grandchild before she had 
a husband. I omit mentioning that he makes her son to be married a vear 
after his mother. This is almost scarukdum magnatum. 

" P. 231 . Here is more scandal. Bennet, third Earl of Harborough, mar- 
ried, according to this authentic register, in 1748, having had children by his 
lady in 1739, 1741, 1743, and 1744. What follows is almost as bad. This 
Earl had a daughter Frances, married to Colonel Morgan in 1776, six yeiirs 
after her father's death, which occurred in 1770; and yet we are told he left 
no surviving issue. What is the meaning of this ? Docs Mr. Debrett mean 



MEMOm OP WILUAM MAGINN. XXV 

to insinaate that Lady Frances, thoagh the Earl's daughter, was not bis 
child 1" 

In the Literary Gazette^ too, Maginn began to exercise that great 
mastery of classic lore which he afterward exhibited so remarkably and 
fully in Blackwood and Fraser. One of his earliest Gazette articles 
-was, ** Th6 Second Epode of Horace done in a New Style," by which, 
he said, the powers of the translator and the original could be both 
fairly represented in one book.*. This, which is not so smooth as most 
of his subseque^it performances in a similar style (his ** Free and Easy 
Translations of Horace," for example*) is yet too good to be left out 
of this collection.! 

The following, under the signature C. O. C[rossman]., was a very 
early contribution to the Literary Gazette. It is in rather a classico- 
sentimental vein, which Maginn did not usually affect :— 

"TO HELEN R. 

" Within tne shade of yonder grove, 

Fair Helen reared her woodbine bower. 
And fondly hoped un scared by Love 

Would flit away each tranquil hour ; 
Her moments flew unchased by care, 

And calm she dwelt in peace and pleasure. 
While still that Love could not stray there. 

Was Helen's bosom's cherished treasure. 

" One day the god, within the wood, . 

Had roved, with Nature's sweets enchanted. 
To where fair Helen's bower stood, 

By fancy sketched, and beauty planted. 
He gazed entranced, as light the latch 

He slily raised to beg admission. 
Waited her dark blue glance to catch. 

Then lowly profiered his petition. 



(( 



*A feeble boy, alas ! am I, 

No parents' tender care is mine, 
I 've missed the wood-path here hard by, 

I 've lost my home, and strayed to thine ; 
I 'm weary, too, think on my lot. 

Without thine aid, alas ! I '11 perish ; 
Then, oh ! receive me in thy cot. 

And a forlorn poor baby cherish.' 



* Odoherty Papers, vol. ii. p. 182. 
t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 301 . 



XXVi MEMOIR OP WILUAM MAGINN. 



« 



She heard his prayer, she wept, she smiled, 

Then kindly bade the boy good morrow ; 
And, oh ! the urchin soon beguiled 

The heart that strove to soothe his sorrow. 
While, simple maid ! too late she found. 

Go where she may, there Love would wander ; 
And not a spot, though fairy ground. 

Could keep her soul and his asunder." 

To prevent the confusion of again referring to the Literary GazeiUt 
in that part of the narrative relating to Maginn^s residence in London, 
I may as well, a little before date, quote one of his letters to Mr. Jor- 
dan. It has no date, but would appear to have been written not later 
than 1825. He writes : 

" I have a request to make, which I confess at once is hardly a fair one, 
but throw myself on your good nature. Hood, in the Literary Gazette^ is 
poaching sadly on a preserve of mine. I take it for granted it is he who 
wrote the very clever verses on Carving. Now it so happens that I wrote for 
the N[ew\ Times, more than two years ago, some hundred and fifty lines on 
the same subject, and if you will take the trouble of looking over the file 
(which is to be sure a most unreasonable request) you will find that Hood 
has, unconsciously, I suppose, gone very close to what I have written. And 
what consequence, you will say, is this ? Not much ; but that, at Murray's 
request, I have just finished the poem. I have run it to twelve* hundred 
lin^s, and he wishes to publish it as a * nice little book.' Having in me not 
the slightest literary ambition, I do not care if all the critics in England say 
that this poem of mine is abominable, or pronounce me a base follower of 
Hood, but I do care about the coin of the realm, and if Hood goes on, it may 
be some £50 or more out of my pocket. I scarcely know him ; but as all 
clever fellows ought to be good fellows, I hope you will prevail on him to turn 
his pen to some other subject for three' weeks. After that time he may go on,. 
and I am perfectly content to play second fiddle. I feel I am depriving your 
Gazette of a great attraction, but I have honestly told you the i-eason. I 
consider myself some dozen columns of squib- work in your debt if you accede 
to my request." 

The lines here attributed to Hood were not written by that great 
humorist. Maginn*8 poem never saw the light. 

During Maginn's residence in Cork, and after Jerden was in the se- 
cret of his real name, he wrote, *♦ If it be not intruding on you too much 
I should request you to write me word ^here I could find any Swedish 
books, or where I could get any information respecting the literature 
of Sweden." Wherever he may have obtained the books he wanted, 
it is well known that Maginn subsequently acquired a thorough know- 
ledge of the Swedish language, and I heard it stated, k Cork, when 



MEMOIR OP WILUAM MAGINN. XXYll 

I was a lad — when the marvel of such a rapid acquisition would more 
especially strike me — that he had obtained this knowledge in a few 
weeks. 

Undoubtedly, it was in Blackwood^s Magazine that Maginn boldly 
and successfully struck into the field of literature. Every thing prior 
to his becoming a contributor to that periodical, may be considered as 
preliminary flourishes of th'e swordsman ere he puts forth his strength 
and skill with the Damascas falchion, which is to carve his way to re- 
nown and honors. 

Forty years ago, when William Maginn was a schoolmaster in Cork, 
it was almost as a matter of course that, being a Protestant, his politi- 
cal opinions would be those of the Tory party. That is, they were 
extremely anti-Catholic. At that time, what was called Protestant 
Ascendency was — from a Tory point of view — the great thing to be 
preserved. The Roman Catholics had been put down, in the closing 
years of the seventeenth century, by the Prince of Orange, who ob- 
tained regal power — as William the Third, on the deposition of his 
father-in-law, James the Second. From that time until the year 1829, 
when, as an alternative preferable to Civil War, Wellington and Peel 
reluctantly conceded what is called Catholic Emancipation, one party 
in Ireland, forming the numerical minority of the population, sturdily 
and successfully contended for two things — to secure power, place, 
and patronage for themselves, and to prevent their neighbors and 
countrymen, the proscribed Catholics, from all that might be considered 
even an approximation to a share of those personal and political advan- 
tages and rights. When Maginn was commencing his career, such a 
being as a truly liberal Protestant was rare in Ireland. His native 
city more especially might be said, as regarded the claims of the Catho- 
lics, to have carried into practice the principle expressed in Words- 
worth's lines — 

" The good old rule 

Sufficeth them, the simple plan 
That they should take who have the power. 
And they should keep who can." 

The Catholics were down, crushed by penal laws as bad and harsh 
as Intolerance ever stretched its ingenuity to frame, and the Protestant 
party in Ireland succeeded in keeping them in bondage for one hundred 
and thirty years. Maginn was a Protestant and a Tory from child- 
hood. His religion and politics came to him as naturally as his accent. 
He grew up in and with them. There seldom was a more consistent 
politician. He was a Church-and-State Tory from his youth to his 



XXVIU MEMOIB OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

closing hour, and never was any thing less. If it be wondered at that 
a man with such a grasp of mind as he possessed should have been one 
of the most intolerant of human beings, the mystery cannot be cleared 
"up. No man enjoyed the society of Catholics so much — no man was 
more steady all his#life, in enforcing bis convictions (in newspapers, 
magazines, and reviews) that they were unworthy of being trusted with 
— I will not say political power, but even with political freedom. All 
that can be said is that these extreme opinions, the fashion of his time 
and sect, were early infused into his mind, from the earliest period 
when he learned the meaning of words — that they *' grew with his 
growth and strengthened with his strength" — and that he held on to 
them, through evil report and good report, to his dying day. 

Such being Maginn's principles and prejudices, it was only natural 
that such a publication ad Blackwood^s Magazine, which was ultra- 
Tory to the backbone, should have found favor in his eyes. The first 
number appeared in April, 1817, as a rival to the old Scots* Magazine^ 
issued by Constable, a Whig publisher, to whose supremacy, Black- 
wood, all Tory as be was, was not inclined to submit. Very soon, 
Wilson, Hogg, Lockhart, Sym ("Timothy Tickler" of the Noctes 
Ambrosian^), Hamilton, and other Tories in the flush of youth and 
genius, changed Blackwood into a political organ of immense influence, 
making it, at the same time, decidedly the most striking, original, and 
brilliant periodical of its class ever issued. Politics and literature were 
curiously and inextricably mingled in this Magazine, with a strong 
seasoning of personalities — witty, satirical, impudent, and fearless. In 
a short time Blackwood was considered a formidable rival, if not an an- 
tidote, to the Whiggism of the Edinburgh Review, at that time a ruling 
and dreaded Power in politics and literature. Such a work as Mag a 
(as the wits of Blackwood called it), was exceedingly to Maginn's 
mind. Its politics were the same as his own, and the learning, wit, 
universality, and dashing fearlessness of its principal writers was not 
greater than his own. That he should aspire to literary association 
vnth such minds followed his admiration of them. 

Dr. Moir, the voluminous (rather than luminous) verse-maker in 
ordinary to Blackwood for nearly five-and-thirty years, who was well 
acquainted with the private history of Maoa, writes that ** Dr. Ma- 
ginn commenced his correspondence with Mr. Blackwood, in Novem- 
ber, 1819, and his first contributions to the Magazine — his very 
extraordinary translation into Latin of the ballad of Chevy Chase — 
appeared in the number for that month. It was sent with a fictitious 
signature, as were also his other contributions, to the sixth volume of 
that work.** This is a mistake : Mrs. McWhirter's song, on the Powl- 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. Zxix 

doodles of Barran {vide ** Christopher in the Tent"*), was certainly 
Maginn's. It is Irish all over, and has the Doctor's mark upon it. 

The translatien of the first part of Chevy Chase into the universal 
language of Europe, Latin, was sent anon3rmously to Blackwood, and 
the writer, who simply signed •* O. P.," boasted, and not without cause, 
that he had *' retained the measure and structure of the verse most 
religiously.'* It opens thus : — 

1. 1. 

Thb Percy out of Northumberland, Fbrsaus ex Northumbria, 
And a vow to God made he, Voyebat, Diis iratis, 

That he would hunt in the mountains Venare inter dies tres 
Of Cheviot within days three, In montibus Cheviatis, 

In the manger of doughty Douglas, Contemtis forti Dougloso 
And all that with him be. Et omnibus cognatis. 

The concluding portion did not appear until June, 1820, In it, the 
quaint stanza, on Withringion's gallantry is rendered in this manner : 

30. 30. 

For Withrington my heart is wo. Pro Withringtono doleo 

That e'er he slain should be * Quem fatum triste stravit ; 

For when his legs were hewn in two. Nam binis fVactis cruribus 

He knelt, and fought upon his knee. In genibns pugnavit. 

In a note appended to the Rrst fitle of Chevy Chase was a statement 
that the writer had also translated the poem into Greek, of which the 
first verse was given as a specimen : — 

Tlepaalos U ^opdifi0ptas 

Ev;^«ro rots dsoTatf 
0/7p^y h Tptcriv fijAipaif 

Ev ovpeat ^c0iaToiatf 

Si5v iraaiv irapotat. 

The translator added, ** I was thinking of translating old Chevy into 
Hebrew — for I am a Masorite ; but as Professor Leslie has declared 
Hebrew to be a » rude and poor dialect,' in his book on Arithmetic, I 
was afraid to come under the censure of that learned gentlemaa. To 
be sure, he does not know (as I can prove from his rvritings), even the 
alphabet of the language he abuses, bait still I am afraid he would 
freeze me if I had any thing to do with it." 

At this time, Professor John Leslie had just succeeded Playfair in 

* Noctes AmbrosianaeJ vol. i. p. 98. 



XXX MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

the Chair of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.; he 
had been elected to the Chair of Mathematics in 1805, and met with 
great opposition from the strict Presbyterian clergy, on the ground of 
his supposed scepticism^ He was a very strong Whig partisan, also, 
and a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, From these causes, and 
probably others more personal, Blackwood strongly opposed Leslie, 
and the challenge, as to his scholarship, thrown down by Maginn, in- 
duced Mr. Blackwood to write to his new and unknown contributor, 
begging that he would prove Leslie's ignorance, as to Hebrew. A 
letter, headed ** Leslie v. Hebrew," accordingly, appeared in Black- 
wood for February, 1820, in which the accusation was fully proved. 
This was followed, in November, by another letter signed O. P. (which 
Blackioood changed into ** Olinthus Petre, D. D., of Trinity College, 
Dublin") which repeated the charge that Leslie ** did not know even 
a letter of the tongue he had the impudence to pretend to criticise," 
ridiculed his pretensions to be considered a great mathematician, alluded 
-to Brewster* s Journal having accused him of " conveying" his doctrines 
and discoveries respecting Heat from the Philosophical Transactions, 
and glanced at his presumed disbelief of the Scriptures and Revelation. 
All this, boldly written, and fearlessly published, in a manner com- 
pelled Professor Leslie to vindicate his character in a court of law. He 
commenced a libel-suit against Blackwood, and obtained — a farthing 
damages ! 

In the interval, Maginn continued to contribute extensively to the 
Magaziiiie. The quantity, variety, spirit, and value of his articles 
made him an excellent assistant. His private letters to Mr. Blackwood 
were signed '* R. T. S.," but, being urgently solicited, he relaxed, so 
far as to subscribe himself Ralph Tuckett Scott. He had never al- 
luded to remuneration. Blackwood, who was very liberal, entreated 
him, if he would not accept 'money, to receive such books as he might 
require to complete his library. When, as he thought, he had at last 
got his contributor's name, he sent a cheque for a large amount, pay- 
able to Ralph Tuckett Scott, or order, and Maginn (who still main- 
tained his incognito) wrote him an amusing letter, detailing the diffi- 
culties which he encountered in getting cash for a cheque drawn in 
favor of and endorsed by an imaginary person. 

From the appearance of the Latin version of Chevy Chase, scarcely 
a number of Blackwood appeared without one or more articles by Ma- 
ginn. He soon assumed the sobriquet of Morgan Odoherty — a sketch 
of whose (pretended) life had been commenced in 1818. 

That pseudo'hiogr&phy naturally has a place in the present coUec- 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. XXXI 

tion.* A portion of it certainly was not written by Maginn, though he 
as certain!}' wrote the concluiling chapters, and, from that rime, figured 
largely in Blackwood, under the sobriquet of Morgan Odohkrty. It 
was the late Major Hamilton, author of the clever novel called ** Cyril 
Thornton," and, subsequently, of ** Men and Manners in America,'* 
who commenced the Memoirs of Odoherty. He had seen some mili- 
tary service in Ireland ; he had also been in the United States during 
the last war ; and hence was able to introduce the redoubted *' Ensign 
and Adjutant Odoherty," as a native of the Green Isle, and a visitor 
in America. He spoke of Odoherty as dead, whereupon the Ensign 
wrote an indignant letter asserting that he was yet in the land of the 
living.| 

Dr. Moir erroneously attributes many Blackwood articles to Maginn. 
For example, "Daniel O'Rourke, by Fogarty O'Fogarty" — a poem, 
in the Don Juan metre, extending to six cantos, written by William 
Gosnell, son of an apothecary in Cork. The prose introductions to 
each canto, full of hits at local circumstances and persons in Cork, were 
all by Maginn, but not a line of the poetry. The Latin poem, ** Ad- 
ventus in Hiberniam Regis vera atque perfector Historia" (a humorous 
account of the visit of George IV. to Ireland, translated by Maginn into 
English verset), was written by Jeremiah Daniel Murphy, of Cork, 
who died in January, 1824, at the age of eighteen, and was only fifteen 
at the time of composition. '* The Rising of the North" (a ballad much 
in the manner of Chevy Chase), which appeared in English and Latin, 
in Blackwood, for August, 1822, and has been attributed to Maginn, 
was also written by Murphy, who was nearly as remarkable as his 
friend, having large attainments in science, and " speaking or writing 
the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Irish 
languages, with fluency and precision." An amusing poem called 
•* The Third Part of CKristabel," purporting to conclude Coleridge's 
beautiful fragment, has generally been attributed to Maginn (even by 
his biographer in the Irish Quarterly), but was written by Moir. 

One of Maginn*s pupils (Mr. Richard Martin, barrister-at-law, 
now of London), who was his pupil when ** the Doctor" was most 
constantly contributing to Blackwood, has informed me that many 
of the articles were written in the school-room during school-hours. 
Maginn, when writing rhymed Latin poetry (no easy performance) 
was at a loss for a word, now and then, and would call out ** a rhyme 
for luctus" (for example), 'when one of the pupils would respond ** fruc- 

* Odoherty Papers, vol. i. p. 1-91. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 91-105. 

J Ibid. vol. i. p. 164. 






/ 



XXXii MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

tus,'-' and Maginn, simply saying, " Bene !" would proceed with his 
composition. 

There is a very amusing and eccentric series of papers, called 
" Boxiana, or Sketches of Pugilists," which ran through several vol- 
umes oi 'Blackwood (Vols. V. to XII.), the authorship of which has 
sometimes been attributed to Maginn — more particularly as two or 
three of them, at least, were published under the.Odoherty signature, 
and referred to pugilism and pugilists in Ireland. The Sketch of Pro- 
fessor Wilson (by Maclise), which appeared in Frasefs Magazine for 
April, 1831, is accompanied by a semi-hiographical, one-page notice, 
hy Maginn, in which he speaks as '* Boxiana" being Wilson's. Else- 
where, in later volumes of Fraser, they are attributed to Maginn 
himself. Uncertain as to the authorship, I have not included them in 
this collection. 

Maginn's tendency to personal satire was encouraged, rather than 
restrained, by BlacTiwood, the publisher, who chuckled over the popu- 
larity which, by such means, the Magazine was winning. Blackwood's 
letters are filled with praises of Maginn's fearless wit. For the first 
twelve months, Maginn's articles were sent without any agreement, or 
expectation, as to payment. It was with difficulty that he allowed 
the veil to be lifted from his incognito, and, even then, he mystified the 
matter so much that Blackwood, after all, did not know his contributor's 
real name and occupation until some time later. 

In May, 1820, when vacation was so near that he could leave the 
management of the school to his brother, who now was his assistant. 
Dr. Maginn visited Edinburgh. Mr. Blackwood, writing to Delta, 
said, ** I have living with me just now, my celebrated Cork correspon- 
dent, who pummelled Pro&ssor Leslie in such a grand style. He has 
come over quite on purpose to see me, and, till he introduced himself 
to me on Monday, I did not know his name, or any thing of him, ex- 
cept by his letters under an assumed signature, like yourself." 

His introduction to Blackwood was original and amusing. The Irish 
Quarterly tells the story thus : "In the month of May, 1820, The 
Doctor first introduced himself to Blackwood, and as in fancy we recall 
the pleasant nights passed away for ever, Maginn is once again before 
us ; we see the bright twinkling eye, and the smiling lip, the half gray 
half white hair; and the rich rolling voice, with its gay Cork twang, 
is calling up laughter from the hearts of all who sit around The Doc- 
tor, as he tells of his first meeting with the publisher, thus : * I had 
never let Blackwood have any name, but he wrote to me requesting I 'd 
send him my address, that he might pay me, by a cheeky for the pa- 
pers I had sent him. Well, 1 had always signed the note sent with 



. MEMOm OF WILUAM MA6INK. XXXUl 

the papers, R. T. S., so I enclosed him the address as Ralph Tuckett 
ScoH, Cork, and he sent me the check payable to that person. I had 
some fan with him about it, but at last I thought I*d run over and 
see him, and off I set for Edinburgh. I called to the shop in Prince's 
street, and just as I was going in I recollected that poor Dowden and 
Jennings, and one or two more, in whose names I had written squibs 
for the Magazine, were after writing very wicked notes, to Blackwood, 
demanding the author's address — sol had a clear stage for some sport. 
I asked if Mr. Blackwood could be seen, and was introduced to l^s pri- 
vate office. I made a rather formal bow, and giving him a touch of 
the Cork brogue, I said, * Ye'r Misther Blackwood I presume, sir.' 

* Yes, sir,' was the answer, * at your service.' * Be gor, sir,' said I, 

* if you were only at my service a week ago, you 'd have saved me a 
journey, but, be my conscience, as I 'm here, I 'm very glad entirely 
that you are at my service at last.' * Pray, sir, may I ask,' he said, 

* what can I do to oblige you, or how have I displeased you ? Our es- 
tablishment is very punctual in replying to all letters.' * See, sir, lis- 
ten to me now,' I said, * there 's some rascal in 'Cork — you know Cork, 
don't you ? Well, there 's some blackguard there after making use of 
my name, in your old thrump of a Magazine, and I must know who he 
is.' * Oh ! sir,' said Blackwood, * I deny your right to ask any such 
questions, and those requests cannot be granted without delay, and 
consideration.' * Consideration, indeed,' I cried, * are n't you after wri- 
ten to one Scott there ?' * I really cannot answer you, sir*' » Maybe 
it 's going to deny what you wrote you are, maybe you '11 deny this, and 
this, and this,' said I, throwing a bundle of his letters on the table before 
him. * Maybe you '11 say they 're not to the man that writes for you, 
and maybe you '11 say that I 'm not the man himself.' Thus Black- 
wood and his contributor became acquainted, and the publisher was de- 
lighted with his wild Irish assistant. Maginn spent a few pleasant 
weeks in Edinburgh, and became acquainted with Wilson, Lockhart, 
Hamilton, and the other men of note who then formed the glories of 
Blackwood's brilliant staff." 

Maginn was Blackwood's guest during this visit to Edinburgh, and 
returned to Cork in July (1820), leaving a most favorable impression 
on the minds of all who met him, and arranging to contribute to the 
Magazine, every month, at the highest rate paid to any other writer. 

Maginn, on his return to Cork, wrote more than ever in the Maga- 
zine. Under the signature of Morgan Odoherty, many of his produc- 
tions were identified by the public, but at least one half of what he con- 
tributed was wholly anonymous. Mr. Kenealy says, **In all these 
contributions there was a profusion of wit and learning which flashed 

C 



XXXIV MEMOIB OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

on the public with a splendor to which they were unused. Scarcely 
one appeared in which there was not something libellous ; but the^ting 
was so beautifully applied, and so mitigated by the surrounding fun, 
that it was difficult seriously to quarrel with the author; and Mr. 
Blackwood seemed to take as strong a delight in publishing the sarcasms 
as Maginn in writing them." Several subjects were suggested by 
Blackwood himself, who constantly expressed his gratitude to Maginn, 
and put it into a tangible form, by very liberal payments. The two 
volumes of this collection, containing the " Odohertt Papers,** will 
show how abundantly, as well as how ably, Maginn supplied the Mag- 
azine with a great variety of all sorts of articles, and it must be remem- 
bered that I have only made a selection. The interest of many of 
Maginn's contributions were too temporary and personal to allow my 
re-printing them. I have only taken such as would best bear trans- 
planting. 

In 1823, submitting to the ordinary fate of mortals, Dr. Maginn en- 
tered the estate of matrimony. As it has been reported that he made 
what is called **a low match," and that his wife was every way far 
beneath him, I think it due to both to deny the imputation. A Cork 
lady (whose name I do not consider myself at liberty to mention here), 
has very kindly and fully given me information respecting Dr. Maginn, 
which I have freely and relyingly used in this Memoir — for all her 
brothers were Maginn's pupils ; he was most intimate at her father's 
house ; she afterward maintained friendly relations with him in Lon- 
don, and her son-in-law was the medical gentleman who kindly at- 
tended him in his last illness, and saw him buried at Walton-on-Thames. 
This lady writes : ** Mr. Kenealy was right in the year that the Doc- 
tor married [1823], over thirty years ago. I do not know the exact 
date in that year, although I recollect that Dr. Maginn spent the even- 
ing before at my father's at a ball. Mrs. Maginn*s family were there 
also, but the lady herself was not. She was the daughter of the Rev. 
Mr. Bullen, Rector of Kanturk, and was related to the most respect- 
able families among the gentry of the South of Ireland. The Doctor 
was so fond of my son John, that, though he never liked teaching (he 
had so much of it in his youth), he instructed him in Greek and Hebrew, 
even when most occupied with his own literary labors. He used to come 
to our house every week with Mrs. Maginn and the children. He was 
greatly maligned by his pretended friends, and no one could possibly 
sit an evening in his company without getting some information on 
every subject introduced. He had an unfailing memory, and a fund 
of wit and humor. Many a story which I have heard him tell, I have 
known to be claimed afterward by others, to whom he had related 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MA6INN. XXXV 

them, and passed off as their own. Dr. Maginn was a most affectionate 
father, fondly attached to his wife, and sincere and firm in his friend- 
ship. Unfortunately, he was too popular. There was a constant 
competition for the society and companionship of a man so gifted, 
brilliant, and amusing. But he enjoyed home, and there I have passed 
many happy evenings with him and Mrs. Maginn. They had three 
children — one boy' and two girls. The lad got a commission from Sir 
Robert Peel. The eldest girl died of consumption, after her father's 
deoease. She was well educated and clever, and indeed wrote a book, 
which was published. I believe that Mrs. Maginn and her surviving 
daughter reside at Queen's-town [Cove] near Cork." 

In a preceding page I have stated that the elder Maginn had little 
faith, as a schoolmaster, in subjecting young people to the forcing pro- 
cess. In the case of his own son, however, his practice greatly dif- 
fered from his principle. For a lad of ten years to enter the Univer- 
sity, with marked success and credit, was a wonder at the time. That 
such precocity should have turned out so brilliantly as it did, may be 
considered yet more extraordinary. The elder Maginn commenced to 
cram his son with learning, almost from the time he could speak plain 
— straining the lad's nervous system, a& his feeble frame in later years 
showed, at a sacrifice of his physique. My amiable correspondent 
communicates an anecdote, which she had from his father, to show that 
the Doctor, even as a child, was out of the ordinary class. She says : 
" When he was about four years old, he got the poem of * Edwin and 
Emma' to get by heart. Having read it, he returned it to his father, 
and said, ' Here are the lines — 

' In Edwin's gentle heart, a war 
Of different passions strove/ 

* I want to know how there could be a gentle heart, if there was a war 
of passions in it ?* " 

Immediately after his marriage. Dr. Maginn determined to give up 
his school, and make literature his profession. His Blackwood arti- 
cles, the authorship of which was now well known, had won him con- 
siderable reputation, and he was received in London, in 1824, as a well- 
known writer, of great wit, readiness, learning, and Toryism. Theo- 
dore Hook invited him to conduct a Wednesday's newspaper, which 
the proprietors of the John Bull intended to raise on the ruins of half- 
a-dozen nearly defunct journals. Mr. Barham says that, ** Partly to 
assist the old, but principally to superintend the new speculation, to 
which Hook also was to be a large contributor, Maginn was summoned 
from Cork, and engaged at a moderate salary. Twenty pounds a 



XXXVi MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

rnontb we believe to have been the sum. His talents were, doubtless, 
of a high order, and his scholarship and education infinitely superior 
to those of his friend Hook, for such he soon became, but unfortunately 
he possessed the same excitable erratic temperament only exaggerated, 
Hibemizpd to a degree, that rendered it somewhat unsafeto rely upon 
him in a matter demanding the prudence and pu^ictuality to be ob- 
served in the conduct of a weekly paper. So far as John Bull was 
concerned, the idea of retaining his services was speedily abandoned. 
Its ally started fairly enough, but the circulation it obtained was not 
commensurate with the projector's expectations ; and Hook, who had 
not the patience to play an uphill game, soon threw it up in disgust ; 
it lingered on for some months under the direction of the Doctor, and 
was finally abandoned at a heavy loss." 

He was employed, also, on the London Literary Journal (a weak 
apd short-lived rival to the Literary Gazette)^ and wrote several arti- 
cles in the Quarterly Review, Indeed, so high did he stand, at this 
time, that when it was determined, on what was called ** the destruc- 
tion" of Lord Byron's autobiographic manuscripts, that. Moore should 
not write the Life of the noble Childe, it was Maginn that Murray se- 
lected for that purpose. Mr. Kenealy, the friend and biographer of 
Maginn, says, ** Nothing can more clearly show the high opinion of 
those best qualified to judge of his abilities, than this fact. A young 
man, from an Irish provincial town, who had never written a book, and 
whose name was little known, intrusted with the biography of the 
greatest of England's poets, by one of the shrewdest booksellers that 
ever lived, is a spectacle not often seen, and Maginn used to speak of 
it with no little satisfaction. The papers and letters of his Lordship 
were accordingly placed in the Doctor's hands, and remained in his 
possession for some time, but no steps were taken in the biography, 
and it was finally intrusted to Mr. Moore." Highly as I estimate the 
ability of Dr. Maginn, I think that he was not so well qualified for the 
biography as Moore, whose personal knowledge of Byron was so long 
and lasting. It is surprising that Murray, astute as he was, should 
have ever seriously thought of employing Maginn on the Byron papers. 

It may be proper here to state that, when Dr. Maginn quitted Cork, 
he resigned the school to his brother John, who continued to conduct 
it for some years. The Rev. John Maginn was much more solid and 
steady than his more gifted brother, and well maintained the hereditary 
high character of the school. Dr. Maginn had three sisters — respec- 
tively named Margaret, Mary, and Anne, I believe — and, in the house 
in Marlborough street, next to that in which male pupils had been in- 
iStrncted for many years, there was kept up, for a long time, a very su- 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. XXXVil 

perior boarding and day-school, known as **The Misses Maginn's 
Establishment for Young Ladies.*' The two seminaries were among 
the very best in Cork, within my own knowledge and memory. As 
has already been mentioned, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kyle, Provost of 
Trinity College, Dublin, was appointed Bishop of Cork and Ross, in 
1830, in succession to Dr. St. Lawrence. Proud of Dr. Maginn, as 
his most distinguished pupil, and attached to John Maginn (to whom 
he had also been college tutor), he took the earliest opportunity in his 
power of giving a suitable (i. e. a sufficient) clerical appointment to the 
latter. In 1835, on the death of Bishop Brinkley, the diocese of 
Cloyne was annexed to, or absorbed in, that of Cork and Ross, and the 
patronage of Bishop Kyle greatly extended thereby. On a vacancy, 
he appointed the Rev. John Maginn to the lucrative rectory of Castle- 
town-Roche (midway between Mallow and Fermoy), and the Marl- 
borough-street school was thereupon discontinued. Charles A. Maginn, 
the youngest of the family (I have heard that he was bom fourteen 
years after his youngest sister), also entered the Church, and became 
his brother's curate. The Rev. John Maginn having died of apo- 
plexy, the parishioners of Castletown-Roche memorialized Bishop 
Kyle, strongly urging him to bestow the vacant rectory on Charles 
Maginn, whose ministration had at once benefited and gratified them. 
At the same time. Dr. Maginn wrote to the Bishop, urging his brother's 
claims, as strongly as he could. The case, I am told, was one of deli- 
cacy and difficulty — for Dr. Kyle was one of the Bishops who had the 
strongest dislike to any such ** pressure from without' ' as might be sus- 
pected to exist in any parishioners presuming or pretending to nomi- 
nate their own ** spiritual pastor and master." Persons in office, lay 
or clerical, almost universally object to being told, as it were, whom 
they should appoint. Friendship, however, carried the day. The 
Bishop's reply to the memorialists was that he had invariably declined 
acceding to requests such as they had made — believing that he, rather 
than the supplicants, was best qualified to decide on the fitness of a 
clergyman for promotion — but that, from the high character he bore, 
the zealous manner in which the late incumbent had performed his du- 
tieS) and the great scholarship, worthily employed (the Bishop greatly 
admired the Doctor's High-Tory journalism), he had ** pleasure in 
appointing the Rev. Charles A. Maginn, A. M., to the Rectory and 
Vicarage of Castletown-Roche, in the diocese of Cloyne." Mr. Maginn 
yet continues in this incumbency [i. e. in 1857], and is married to Miss 
Power, of the County of Waterford. One of his sisters is dead : the 
two survivors reside with him. He continues as popular, as useful, 
and as much beloved — not only by his own Protestant parishioners, 



xxxvm MEMom of william maginn. 

bat by his Catholic neighbors also — as he was in the distant and hum- 
ble days of his active service as curate. 

The failure of ShackelPs newspaper, to edit which Maginn had ex- 
pressly been brought over from Cork to London, was a temporary dif- 
ficulty. But Dr. Maginn was then in the fullness of his reputation, as 
one of the leading wits of Blackicood — for which he continued to 
write a great deal during the first four years of his metropolitan resi- 
dence. Among other magnates of ** the Row" (though his locality was 
in Albemarle street), John Murray, the publisher, more particularly 
formed a high estimate of M aginn's abilities and aptitude. Very high, 
indeed, nlust his opinion have been when it made him solicitous to em- 
ploy Maginn, as the biographer of Lord Byron. 

Had he executed this task, the result would have been very differ- 
ent from Moore's Apolo|ty for the Life of Byron. I doubt whether Ma- 
ginn had ever read the Autobiography bestowed by Byron on Moore ; 
sold by Moore to Murray ; copied, in extenso, by at least five persons, 
Ladies Burghersh and Blessington includedf out of the dozen to whom 
it had been confided for perusal ; but he had heard the most piquant 
passages in it freely repeated and commented on, at Murray's table, 
and knew, almost as if he had read every page of it, what was the 
character of its revelations. Maginn himself said, ** It contained 
scarcely any thing more than what we already know. The whole 
object seemed to be to puff' himself and run down every body else." 

In the NocTES Ambrosianje, ^o. XV.,* where Maginn, as Morgan 
Odoherty, spoke somewhat dramatically, he boasted that he had read 
Byron's autobiography himself twice over — that it had been copied for 
the private reading of a great Lady in Florencef — and that Galignani 
had bought the MS., with the intention of immediately publishing it 
in Paris. He then adds ** One volume of his Memoirs, in short, con- 
sists of a Dictionary of all his friends and acquaintances, alphabetically 
arranged, with proper definitions of their characters — criticisms on 
their works (when they had any) — and generally a few specimens of 
their correspondence. To me this seemed, on the whole, the most 
amusing of the three." 

This Dictionary was not among the manuscripts burnt by Moore at 
the instance of Lord Byron's executors. One of the persons who read 
it informed me that it was written on long foolscap, covered with stiff 
whited-brown or cartridge-paper, bound together or stitched with nar- 
row pink ribbon. The ** specimens of the correspondence" spoken of 

• 

* Noctes AmbrosiansB, vol. i. pp. 436-446. 

f JjsAy Burghersh, whose husband was then British ambassador there. 



MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. XXXix 



« 



by Odoheity, were letters from the most distinguished men nnd women 
of the day, wafered in upon one page, with Byron's written comments 
on the page following, and sometimes on many more pages. This Dic- 
tionary, the balkiest of the three manuscript volumes presented by 
Byron to Moore (at Venice, in the autumn of 1819) extended, I have 
reason to believe, to nearly two hundred and fifty written pages. 

Maginn (still as Odoherty) went on to say •» his memoirs and letters 
are the only things of his that I have ever seen, that gave me, in the 
least degree, the notion of a fine creature, enjoying the full and unre- 
strained swing of his faculties. Hang it, if you had ever seen that at- 
tack of his on Blackwood* — or. better still, that attack of his on Jef- 
frey, for puffing Johnny Keats — or, best of all, perhaps, that letter on 
Hobhouse — or that glorious, now I think of it, inimitable letter to 
Tom Moore, giving an account of the blow-up \vith Murray about the 
Don Juan concern — oh, dear, if you had seen these, you would never 
have thought of mentioning any rhymed thing of Byron's ; no, not even' 
his Epigrams on Sam Rogers, which are worth five dozen Parasinas 
and Prisoners of Chillon.*' 

Indeed, Maginn's rather heterodox opinion was, that Byron's poetry 
had little originality and no spontaneity, that his prose works would 
** decidedly fling his verse into total oblivion," and that *' when he 
wrote verses he was always translating — that is to say, beastifying — 
the prose that already existed in his pericranium." 

Considering that a biographer, to do his work well, must have some 
sympathy with and admiration for his subject, Byron had a lucky es- 
cape from Maginn, who (says Mr. Kenealy, on the Doctor's own au- 
thority), ** recommended Murray to publish Byron's letters entire with 
libels, sneers, satires, sarcasms, epigrams, confessions, and intrigues, 
unmutilated and unasterisked, and merely prefix to the work such in- 
formation as was absolutely indispensable. Had this been done, the 
world would now be in the possession of the most extraordinary compi- 
lation that ever appeared ; but Murray got frightened — his great 
friends came about him, and advised, and wept, and entreated, and 
implored ; and the task of drawing up the * Memoirs,' taken from Ma- 
ginn, was consigned to one who, having been a Whig all his life, knew 

* Byron's Letter to the Editor of Bl(xchwood*s Magazine on its critique of 
" Don Juan." It is now to be found in his collected writings. It is worth 
notice that, in December, 1819, Byron wrote to Murray, mentioning that he 
had presented Moore with his Memoir written up to 1816, adding, "You 
may read it, and yd!l may let Wilson read it, if he likes — not for his puUic 
opinion, but his private ; for I like the man, and care very little for his 
magazine." 



Xl MEMOIR OF WILUAM MA6INN. 

best wBat would please his employers, and expunged all those parts in 
which they were mercilessly shown up. In a moral point of view, 
perhaps, we have no reason to regret our loss.** 

Very soon after Maginn's arrival in England, he had the opportunity, 
and kindly used it, of assisting another child of genius, an Irishman 
also. Gerald Griffin, novelist and poet, reached London in the autumn 
of 1823 — in the hope, cherished by so many young men of twenty, 
of making himself eminent by literature. Sensitive as his temperament 
was, he had a hard time of it for some years, and the late rewards of 
fame and remuneration ill repaid him, at last, for all that he sufiered in 
the pursuit. His greatest triumph, and his latest, did not come until the 
mind that conceived and the hand that wrote were still and cold in 
death. To achieve fame as a dramatist was the dream of his youth 
and the aim of his manhood — but the success of his posthumous tra- 
gedy of ** Gisippus** (the greater part of which was written ere yet he 
had completed his twentieth year), only flung the garland on his tomb. 
The tardy tribute of the world's applause, in the case of Griffin, re- 
minds one of the diadem which Pedro of Castile placed on the brow of 
Inez de Castro, in death. 

In the Life of Gerald Griffin, by his brother — as touching and truth- 
ful a memoir as was ever composed — one letter mentions a visit from 
John Banim, the novelist, ** to tell me that Dr. Maginn, who is the 
principal writer in Blackwood ^ had very kindly offered, without any 
personal knowledge of me to introduce me, to the Editor of the Literary 
Gazette^ his intimate friend.** The result was, that Griffin saw Jerdan 
of the Literary Gazette (the only London journal of the sort which 
regularly paid its way, at that time), ** and got an engagement from 
him to furnish sketches, etc., at a very liberal remuneration — a guinea 
a page.** At this time, Dr. Maginn had no personal knowledge of 
Gerald Griffin. He only knew, from others, that he had the ability 
and desire, to write for the press, and that, after a year's hard struggle 
in London, he greatly needed such employment. 

In a letter from Gerald Griffin to his brother, dated November, 1824, 
he says : — 

" Jerdan was talking of Maginn, who writes a good deal for Blackwood, 
and spoke in high terms of his talents : nevertheless, though he is his fViend 
he confessed he did not think him a very considerate critic, and thought there 
was something unfeeling in his persecution of Barry Cornwall. You may 
have seen these letters to Bryan Procter in Blackwood's Magazine.* "Rbttj 

: 9 . . 

* There was a cutting review, by Maginn, of Barry ComwaU's " Flood of 
Thessaly," in Blackwood, for May, 1823, but the article probably alluded to 



MEMOIB OF WILLUK MAGINN. xli 

Cornwall is, he says, one of the mildest, modostest yoang fellows, ho ever 
knew,* and does any thing but assume. Maginn, however, imagines that those 
he attacks think as little of the affair as himself, which is by no means the 
case. The other day he attacked Campbell's Ritter Bannt most happily, 
and at the same time cuttingly, and afterward wanted Jerdan to get up a 
dinner and bring Campbell and him together. Jerdan begged leave to de- 
cline. He is a singular-looking being, Dr. Maginn, a young man about 
twenty-six years of age,t with gray hair, and one of the most talented eyes, 
when he lets it speak out, I ever beheld. Banim, who is Ms bosom crony, 
says, he considers him the most extraordinary roan he ever knew. He at- 
tacked Banim, too, before they were acquainted, but that 's all forgot long 
since. . Hazlitt praised Banim in the London Magazine, and of course ren- 
dered it imperative on Blackwood to abuse him." 

The advent of Mr. Lockhart to London, in 1825, as Editor of the 
Quarterly Review^ would probably have strengthened Maginn's relations 
with Murray the publisher. During Maginn*8 flying visit to Edinburgh, 
five years before, he had repeatedly been in company with Sir Walter 
Scott — I have heard an amusing account of the impression made on 
the Ariosto of the North, by the wild wit, reckless fun, varied learn- 
ing, and child-like simplicity of the rattling Irishman — and .had been 
brought so frequently into social communication with Lockhart, that 
in London, he met that cold-mannered, but warm-hearted, individual, 
as an old friend. There was only two years difference in their re- 
spective ages, and nothing could have been less similar than their tem- 
peraments. But they had worked together, for a long time, on Black- 
wood's Magazine^ and identity of political opinion was another link of 
personal connexion. They remained warm friends to the last, and it 
was Lockhart's good fortune, more than once, in the later and darker 
years of his less provident friend*s career, to afford him substantial aid, 
in cases of emergency. Lockhart invariably expressed his admiration 
of the wonderful versatility and quickness of his friend, and Maginn 
considered that Lockhart, however ably he edited the OmTteHy, would 
liave been better employed in original composition — that, as Goldsmith 
said of Burke, he 

" To party gave up what was meant for mankind." 

here was one of " Letters of Mr. Mullion to the Leading Poets of the Age" 
(in the number for September, 1824), addressed to Mr. Procter, bitterly cut- 
ting up a review in the Edinburgh BevieWf thought to be written by Procter, 
bat really by ELazlitt, on Shelley and his poetry. 

* At the time this was written, Procter was about 26. 

t For this critique, which appeared in Blackwood, for April, 1824, refer to 
the Odoherty Papers, voL ii. pp. 210-218. 

X Maginn was then thirty years old. 



Xlii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

There are, proverbially two (out of three) modes in England by 
which a man may calculate on losing money, with great publicity and 
certainty. These are, to start a daily newspaper, and to become mana- 
ger of a great theatre. In evil hour, John Murray — fancying that the 
existing London journals did not render adequate justice to his numer- 
ous publications, and disposed, also, to obtain for himself such personal 
consideration and political influence as Mr. Walter possessed, through 
his Times* proprietorship — determined to tempt fortune by establish- 
ing a daily morning journal in London. Under the newspaper-stamp 
duties, which lay like an incubus on the heart of the Press in England 
until 1855, every such attempt, within the memory of man, had 
failed. New Times ^ Morning Journal^ Oonstitutionali and Daily 
- News, are the most ambitious efforts of this description— the last- 
named, though it keeps its head above water, cost over d6200,000 be- 
tween January, 1846, when it first appeared, and July, 1855, when the 
newspaper-stamp was abolished. 

Mr. Murray gave the name of The Representative to his daily news- 
paper. It was exquisitely printed, on the finest paper, and published 
— not in so vulgar a place as the Strand or Fleet street, whence most 
of the London journals are issued, just as the New York newspaper 
offices congregate in and about Nassau street, but — at a highly 
aristocratical office, in the West End, exactly two miles out of the way. 
There were all sorts of reports as to the manner in which the paper was 
got up : rumors of the editorial rooms being richly upholstered ** regard- 
less of expense ;" of matudinal hock-and-soda-water being extensively 
laid on for the refreshment and revivification of the exquisites who wrote 
for it ; of the ample supplies of crow-quill pens and gilt-edged and hot- 
pressed paper provided for their use ; of the peremptory rule that no 
editorial or *» fashionable" article should be written, unless the author 
were habited in evening costume ; of delightful lunches, provided from 
Mivart'a, Long's, or Farrance*s, for the bodily mid-day sustentation of 
the editorial corps ; of the admirable full-dress dinners, at which the 
affairs of the nation were deliberately talked of (over wine and wal- 
nuts) previous to their discussion in the newspaper itself ; of a hundred 
other follies, indicative of the inexperience and unfitness of all concerned 
in the new journal. The great Republic of the Press ridiculed, as well 
it might, the exclusiveness with which Mr. Murray sought to obtain 
Imperial rule by his coup d'etat. Before even it appeared, The Re- 
presentative was familiarly and contemptuously spoken of as •* Mur- 
ray's Rip" 

Among the leading contributors, of whom there was a little army, 
were some of the principal writers in the Quarterly Review. It has 



MEMOIR OP WILUAM, MAGINN. xliii 

been understood that, from the first, Mr. Lockhart was adverse to the 
speculation. The editor-in-chief, instead of being a man of experience, 
tact, and standing, was Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, who, at that time, had 
not completed his twenty-first year ! This young gentleman, gifted 
son of a very erudite and veteran author, had merely written— no< 
published — his first work, " Vivian Grey," but was smart in conversa- 
tion, imposing in manner, ambitioas in character, and utterly inexpe- 
rienced in newspaper business. He has since worthily achieved a 
great reputation — as author, orator, politician, and statesman — but it 
must be confessed that, among the whole literary corps of London, Mr. 
Murray could scarcely have picked out any person so imperfectly qual- 
ified, at that time (more than thirty years ago) to act as conductor of 
a morning journal of pretension. 

On the earnest recommendation of Lockhart (and it was almost his 
only interference, independent of his unsuccessful remonstrance against 
the speculation itself) Dr. Maginn was commissioned, on a liberal 
salary, and with a certain engagement for twelve months, as Paris Cor- 
respondent for The Representative, He went to Paris, accompanied 
by his sister Margaret, I understand, and continued there until the early 
part of 1827. His correspondence with The Representative was lively 
and racy — full of observation on French society and manners — and, 
above all, constant and earnest in setting forth that, unless Charles the 
Tenth, then in the third year of his reign, would change the absolute 
character of his government, materially and speedily, the probability 
was that he would one day find himself on the other side of the French 
frontiers, a fugitive and an exile. Dr. Maginn, who spoke French like 
a native, was in the habit of freely conversing with ** all sorts and 
conditions " of persons in Paris, and returned to England, with an im- 
pression, derived from these general conversations, that the Due d'Or- 
leans was intriguing, for the crown, against his cousin, the reigning 
monarch. This augury was accomplished, by the Revolution of July, 
1830. 

As might have been expected. The Representative did not flourish. 
There was such pervading inexperience throughout, that, from the first, 
it had little chance of success. Disraeli's forced and fervid style 
was repulsive to the deliberative English. The Quarterly reviewers, 
on the other hand, turned out the heaviest of ** leaders." Murray 
himself threw into it piquant extracts from Lord Byron's journals 
(afterward incorporated in the biography, by Moore), but even these, 
called *» The Byron Papers," did not draw. So, after a vexations ex- 
periment, kept up for some weeks in a ** hoping against hope" manner, 



Zliv ME&IOIB OF WILLUM HAGINN. 

The Representative^ went to the wal], it was stated, at a total loss, to 
Mr. Murray, of upward of c£40,000. 

Dr. Maginn, who remained in Paris, from a strong partiality for the 
place, and also in order to consult that fine collection, the Biblioth^ne 
Royale, for information on Hebrew history and tradition, corresponded 
with another London journal, after the demise of The Representative, 
and also employed himself on the composition of two works of fiction— 
only one of whvch is known to exist, and of which I shall presently 
give an account. 

'rtie late Dr. Moir (the ♦* Delta" of Blackwood) wrote to Mr. Kenealy, 
that he was particularly struck with a composition oi Dr. Maginn*8, 
never published, and written in Paris. The manuscript was sent to 
Mr. Blackwood toward the end of 1827, and by him was placed in 
Moir's hands. Mr. Blackwood wrote, ** I believe that I mentioned to 
you that I had got some chapters of a very qneer work by Dr. Maginn. 
He is such a singular person that I do n*t know if he will ever finish it ; 
and perhaps I may have to return the manuscript one of these days. 
I should therefore be sorry you did not read it, and I send you the 
whole I have got, with his contents of the intended chapters. How do 
you think they would do for Maoa, should he not finish the book, and 
' be willing to let them appear in it ?** 

Maginn reclaimed the manuscript after it had been some time in 
Moir*8 hands, and by him mislaid. He pressed repeatedly for its re- 
turn, and it was happily recovered and returned to him. Dr. Moir 
says, ** I have a distinct recollection of setting down the production as 
a very extraordinary one — full of power, originality, and interest. 
The scene was laid in Paris, and some of the scenes were very striking, 
more especially one, where an only and spoiled son, having dissipated 
his substance in all kinds of riotous living, and descended to all the 
meanness of vice, has not yet the moral courage to reveal his lost con- 
dition to his doting parents, who resided in one of the provinces, and 
who believed him to be an industrious and ardent student ; and at 
length throws himself into the Seine, his body being afterward claimed 
by them at the Morgue." 

This novel of. " Life in Paris'*— seemingly in anticipation of the 
vein which Feval, Sue, and others have since so deeply worked — is 
probably lost. 

Toward the close of 1827 (Maginn having permanently returned to 
London),, published anonymously a romance called *» Whitehall ; or 
the Days of George IV." Mr. Jerdan speaks of this as " a singular 
example of wild genius," and Mr. Kenealy characterizes it as ** one of 
tHe most wild and extraordinary productions of the day ; overflowing 



MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. xlv 

with madcap wit and quaint learning, and containing sketches of all 
the leading characters of the time, from George IV.* down to Jack 
Ketch the hangman. To the last-named office, by an inimitable stroke 
of humor, he appoints Mr. Tiemey,t who, having come up to town 
with an earnest desire to be made Prime-Minister, and having vainly 
solicited that or some other place, finally, in despair, accepts the office 
of executioner, and performs the last ceremonies of the law on Mr. 
Huskis8on,t who, he tells us, * amid the acclamations of surrounding 
thousands, died easily and instantaneously.* '* 

Having revived my acquaintance with ** Whitehall," by a careful 
re-perusal, I have formed the opinion that it was written —> not as a 
novel, romance, or extravaganza, but — as a parody on the weak and 
numerous imitations of Sir Walter Scott's historical novels. The writers 
of these, regardless ^ all consistency of time, place, and persons, had 
fallen upon many of the eminent persons whose actions have made 
History, and subjected them to all sorts of changes and modifications 
in the Procustean attempt to accommodate them within the narrow 
limits of the weak fictions ^nth which the novel-producing press of 
that period was teeming. Viewed in this light, ** Whitehall*' has 
some liveliness and cleverness. Its absurdity is amusing, and its cari- 
cature of living persons was scarcely more outrageous than the writers 
of historical romances were in the habit of subjecting their heroes to. 
As ^^ Whitehall** is not included in this collection, it may not be amiss 
to describe it, with a few extracts — as specimen bricks. 

The Preface, indeed, gives the key to the whole composition. It 
briefly says : " This singular work was printed in Teyoninhakawara- 
nenopolis, capital of the great empire of Yankedoodoolia, in the year 
2227, exactly four hundred years from the present date. The name of 
the author I do not know. How it came into my hands, it were use- 
less to divulge ; but I think it will be found to give as graphic and cor- 
rect a picture of the aflfairs of the present day, as the general current 
of our London historical novels give of the events of four hundred years 
ago, when they treat of them. I have nothing further to add, except 
that I have taken all proper care to puflT the book, and hope it will bo 
successful. — The Editor.** 

The story treats of the loves and fortune, adventures and misadven- 
tures of a certain John Jeremy Smithers (mulatto in race, West Indian 

* Who is not once introduced ! 

t George Tiemcy (6. 1756, d. 1830) a leader of the Whig party ; always a 
patriot, sometimes a placeman. 
t Colonial Secretary in 1827: 



xlvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

by birth), and a fair English damsel named Lucy Hawkins. Smithers, 
accompanied by his nigger (Caesar) arrives in London, on the first of 
April, 1827, and proceeds, the next day, to visit Zebediah Macfarlane 
[Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian], but is apprehended as he 
passes the Admiralty, on suspicion of being an emissary to advance the 
cause of disaffection and revolt in the British West India islands. 
Here he meets the Lord High Admiral (Lord Melville), and the Ad- 
miralty Secretary (John Wilson Croker), who are thus described : — 

" The President, as has already beeft hinted, appeared in the noble garb 
of his clan at the upper end of the table ; a gorgeous canopy of silk tartan, 
with thistle plumes waved over his chair of state, and an enormous two- 
handed claymore half-drawn out of its crimson satin scabbard lay immediately 
before him, and close to the mace and fasces which formed, more strictly 
speaking, the proper ensigns of his authority. Aptk a little way, at a sepa- 
rate table of smaller dimensions, sat the Secretary of state for the naval de- 
partment, in a richly furred gown of black velvet, and gold chain of SS. He 
wore that singularly shaped mitre of yellow corduroy decorated with bells, 
which was the strange emblem of his office, while a bunch of shamrocks at 
the button-hole of his inner vest, and the pale-blue cordon of St. Patrick, an- 
nounced, before he spoke a single word, that a native of " Green Erin" could 
still occupy this important office. After he spoke his country needed no other 
announcement." 

After a brief examination, Smithers and Caesar are committed to the 
Tower, and have an interview with the Duke of Wellington, Consta- 
ble and Keeper of that fortress-prison. He is sketched with a very 
free pencil : — 

"A troop of dismounted dragoons were practising the exercise of the 
broad-sword beneath the inspection of a square-built, bandy-legged officer, 
whose very slovenly dress presented a strange and remarkable contrast to the 
stem precision of his air and demeanor. There was a patch, neither short 
nor narrow, on the left knee of his gray pantaloons ; his boots had ob- 
viously been foxed ; and a very shabby surtout or cassock of blue cloth ex- 
hibited no epaulettes whatever to denote the regimental rank of the wearer. 
A button having given way, the back flap of an unembroidered cocked hat or 
chapeau-hras dangled loose upon the collar, and the folds of a huge neckcloth, 
which had once probably been white, appeared arranged in a manner that 
would have caused the bosom of a Niehol to thrill with indignation. But the 
compact and rigid massiveness of the countenance — the bronzed cheeks, 
aquiline nose, and eyes of more than aquiline brilliancy — the picturesque 
simplicity of the short curling hair and whiskers, both of which were as white 
as wool — and the extraordinary quickness with which, while the left hand 
rested on the pummel of a beltlcss sabre, the right played a basket-handled 



MEHOm OF WnjJAM MAGINN. xlvii 

ratan about the knuckles, elbows, and shins of the more awkward soldiery 
— these were circomstances which could not but arrest the close obsenratioii 
of so shrewd a spectator as Smithers." 

A subsequent scene, where ♦* the Duke" acts much as Scott repre- 
sents Cronawell before the portrait of King Charles, runs \hu8 : — 

" The oJBScer in the plain blue surtont, however, appeared to have totally 
forgotten the circumstances of the case. In fact, it seemed as if he had not 
the slightest suspicion that Smithers was in the room. 

** He ate some fragments of the bread and cheese before him, crunched an 
onion or two, and finally lifting the porter pot in his left hand, took a long, 
deep, and earnest draught of its contents. Keplacing the lightened pewter 
on the board, he then retreated some yards, gazing all the while with a most 
melancholy fixity of eye, on a small statue, fabricated by an Italian artist, 
which our hero had not^itherto observed, but which in point of fact, stood 
conspicuous enough upon a high and projecting mantel-piece within a few 
feet of the table. It was upon this tiny piece of sculpture that the officer con- 
tinned for some moments to rivet his resplendent eyes, until, whether from 
physical straining or internal emotion, tears slow and solemn burst from them 
over his manly cheeks. 

" The blood rushed into the noble countenance of Smithers, as the thought 
flashed upon his mind that he had unconsciously been betrayed into the posi- 
tion of a spy. But it was too late ; to reti^at was impossible, to remain was 
only torture. 

" * Ha !* cried the unknown, dashing the brine from his cheeks with a 
large and bony hand, which seemed to have grown hard and dark amidst the 
earthquake breath of an hundred battle-fields, 'Ha! is it come to this-s-to 
thi» — to this ? Aye, so it is ; even so ! hum ! ha !* 

" After a pause, he thus continued : ' Thou dwarfish mimicry of manhood, 
by what accursed charm hast thou left the board of thy peripatetic artist to 
thus unman me ? Nay, keep not thy arms folded in that calm contempt upon 
thy plaster bosom ! Openly and boldly did I spur my good horse against 
thee, but I thought at least that duty blew the trumpet which impelled me to 
that fatal charge ; but never, O never, did I bare the secret knife, never did 
I brandish the jailer's key — frown not, thou pallid shade, confound me not 
with a Lowe V 

" In saying so, the officer laid his right hand upon his heart, and cried 
aloud, 'Heaven hears me, Napoleon, Heaven attests my tale. I fought 
against thee, because I believed thee the eternal enemy of freedom and of 
man. If I was wrong. Heaven will even forgive the error, nor should the 
manes of a hero dwell upon it in inexpiable wrath. 

" ' I am innocent, Napoleon, I am innocent ; let these tears be my wit- 
nesses ;* and the stem soldier lifted up his voice and wept. 

" He was still lost in this trance of agony, when a young and lovely female 
tript lightly into the room, and gliding between Smithers and the Duke, 
without perceiving the presence of the former, laid her hand gently on the 



Xlviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

shoalder of the latter, and whispered softly but quite audibly, ' Fie, fie, my 
Lord : your Grace forgets yourself. Are these paroxysms 101)6 of eternal 
recurrence V 

" He turned half round, and wiping his rod eyelids with the edge of his 
scarf, and finishing the contents of the pot in an agonizing gulp, said, with a 
faint attempt at a smile, ' Forgive me this once, my darling, I had sad dreams 
yesternight. But 'tis all over now — yes, yes, Harriette, I am myself again 
— quite myself. Leave me, leave me, sweet maid; I will attend thee on the 
instant in thy bower." 

Smithers escapes from his cell, by aid of the celebrated Harriette 
Wilson, and an attack upon the fortress by the mob is set on foot. One 
of the leaders — the late Samuel Rogers, the poet — is introduced as 
Sam Hodges : — 

"This singular and eccentric man was never sien by strangers but with 
astonishment. Nature, which made him by profession a punster, beamed to 
have intended his very person for a sort of joke. He was about four feet 
high, and his head was at least a quarter of that size. It hung heavily to 
one side, and his countenance, of an unearthly paleness, drooped like an 
over-grown turnip hanging upon a pole. BUs under-jaw projected consider- 
ably, and gave him the appearance of a perpetual grin. His lack-lustre eye 
shot its leaden beams from under shaggy eyebrows, and his locks, untamed 
by brush or comb, hung in grisly knots over his wrinkled brow. Lord 
Byron, with that disregard for decorum of language, which so conspicuously 
marked the conversations of that celebrated poet, used, rather blasphe- 
mously, to call him a caricature of a crucifixion. Strange being! Yet, 
under that odd and repulsive appearance, he possessed wit unbounded, jocu- 
laritj unceasing, deliberate courage, magnanimous philanthropy. Sage in 
council, jocose at table, valiant in action, luxurious in ease, he was the idol 
of London. Wherever he went, joy brightened every countenance, and the 
very phrase, * it is a saying of Sam's,' became proverbial to express the high- 
est degree of wit. In this particular, indeed he was unequalled : none in 
fact approached him, except the illustrious Hallam, who we are informed 
by some of the principal critical works of the age, wrote a jocular treatise 
on the middle ages, which has not come down to posterity, but which in his 
own generation appears to have excited an universal laugh whenever it was 
mentioned." 

Lucy Hawkins has run mad — after the approved fashion of Ophelia 
— on the apprehension of her lover, but is united to him, in the fullness 
of time. Meantime, he has created a sensation by appearing, unex- 
pectedly, at a ball in Apsley House — located at that time, we are told, 
in the eastern part of the Tower. Caesar, assisted by a Meg Merrilies 
sort of old crone, escapes through the main sewer, taking with him from 
the Armory of the Tower, the sword of John de Courcy, the spear of 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGINN. xlix 

Charles Brandon, and the armor of John of Gaunt, all of which are 
adapted to the person and use of Lucy Hawkins, who sets forth, thus 
armed, to head the expedition for the rescue of Smithers, relying on a 
prophetic rhyme — 

" When a black man is in a tower white, 
By a virgin, wielding the sword of a knight, 
His enemies will be pat to flight, 
And Valor will link with Beauty bright." 

Accompanied by Sam Hodges, Prince Esterhazy, and Lord Cochrane, 
and assisted by all the discontented in London — Irish, Jewish, Refu- 
gees, Americans, Germans, and Cockneys — the fair Amazon assaults 
the Towe^^which is bravely defended by the Duke. Here there oc- 
curs a good parody on Coleridge's manner and style of talking : — 

" She was right in all she said. 

" The Jews, while the other armies were engaged, had been actively em- 
ploying their jemmies in picking the lock of a low sally-port, and after some 
time, had succeeded. They emerged, jemmy in hand, shouting as we have 
already observed, and as Harriette remarked, their ancient war-cry of ' Clo, 
clo.' The part where they entered was slightly guarded, and they drove iu 
the picquets before them. A parting shot, however, from a catapult, hastily 
erected by Mr. Galloway, who had just deserted from the Greeks, hit Cole- 
ridge in the •forehead, and in a few moments he breathed his last. He died 
as he had lived. 

*' ' We are told,' slowly snuffled he, ' that the swan floating upon the beau- 
tiful bosom of the river Cayster, emits its musical note once only, and that 
once, when seized upon by the icy and inevitable hand of death. It is a 
magnificent and sublime fiction, if it be a fiction, which I doubt ; for the mar- 
vellous of nature hath always appeared to me much more probable than what 
the prosaic men of an unpoetic age have looked upon to be the common and 
every-day workings of human life — as if they, prosaic as they are, and re- 
garding things merely as they are in detail, without referring to the original 
impulses, the holy radiances, the metaphysical naturalities, from which all 
things flow, could tell whether any thing in detail, even that which they saw 
before them existing, existed or not ; much less were the every-day workings 
of that incomprehensible thing, called life or not — I say, waving further dis- 
cussion on this parenthetical point, I mean parenthetical in form, though 
thematic in substance, and taking it for granted, protesting for ever, nev- 
ertheless, against the assumption, that it is merely a fiction — it is one of 
those sublime and magnificent fictions, which in their essence truth, are by 
their adornment exalted into something not greater than truth ; for truth is 
greatest; but into something which, by the strangeness of the garb, i. e. the 
imaginative clothings iu which it is conveyed, is calculated to take a firmer 
hold upon the mind, than if that which it meant — supposing it a mere alle- 

D 



1 MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

gorical fiction, an interpretation against which I have already protested — had 
been conveyed in its abstract form, viz., that pure souls, typified by white 
swans, never utter such words of hope and glory, typified by song, as at the 
moment of death. Therefore, as I shall explain hereafter — but, for God's 
sake, a glass of brandy and water — therefore, when we consider the ramifi- 
cations of idea, that idiosyn ' 

'* He died : Gillman, of Highgate, sorrowed at his death : and the grief de- 
scended the hill as far as the Castle, the hotel of the ingenious Carter, as thoa 
enterest the slope of Kentish Town." 

Lucy and her lover escape through the Thames Tunnel, safely 
reaching the Surrey side. The Meg Merrilies old woman is discovered 
to be the grandmother of Smithers, and then happily dies. A prince 
of the blood-royal presides at the nuptials. Here folloMH the main 
denouement — a hyperbole of incident certainly as novel as ingenious : — 

*' The bliss of our lovers may be more easily conceived than described, and 
we shall not therefore undertake the task. They prepared to follow the 
Bishop, when the attention of all was turned away from every thing else, by 
a cry of unparalleled agony, which seemed to issue from the bottom of the 
river. So dire a cry never burst upon human ear. Every eye looked toward 
the stream, and there a scene of wonder was^before them. It seemed as if a 
convulsion had taken place, for its bosom was heaving and swelling with un- 
wonted thiioes. On the topmost eddy whirled, round and round, a cock-boat, 
containing two persons, who labored might and main to escape from the in- 
furiated waters. In a moment all was smooth again, but the boat was gone. 
A hundred yachts were immediately launched, to endeavor to save the devo- 
ted passengers, when it suddenly submerged from the waters, and made to- 
ward the shore where the Ducal party was standing. As it neared the land, 
the cockswain was discovered to be Lord Groderich, and his companion the 
Duke of Wellington. Caesar and his master intuitively hid themselves be- 
hind a tree. *Aye' — said Lord Goderich, on landing — *Aye, choke the 
scoundrels, they are done, I fancy. Pretty considerably water-logged, the 
ruffians. Devil sweep 'em." 

" 'Amen I' responded the Dnke; "but I am wet through and through. 
Whom have we here ? Ah 1 Gloucester, my boy, give us the fist.' 

" His Royal Highness, who had not heard, except vaguely, from Smithers, 
any thing of the attack, naturally inquired of the Duke an account of the 
strange sight he had seen, and his Grace detailed to him what he knew. We 
take up the story where we left it. 

" When, by the manoeuvring of the Duke, the whole of the attacking army 
was hemmed up in the defile between the two ramparts, and had no way of 
escape — victory was now hopeless — but> laterally, to the right, to their 
great astonishment and joy, the gate which kept them in on that quarter was 
opened ; it was a part of the Duke's stratagem. The devoted host rushed 
blindly through this pass, this whole Ducal army urging them in the rear. 



MEMOm OF WIUJAM MAGINN. ll 

through a winding defile, where manj a life was lost in their hasty retreat. 
This passage led to the Tunnel, and into that deadly hollow the fugitives fled 
pell-mell. The Duke was prepared for this, and while Smithers was in con- 
versation with his Royal Highness, Brunei and Beamish, with five hundred 
masons, had passed over, and in a few minutes built up an impenetrable wall 
at the further end. The silver gates were closed at the near end ; and, by 
cutting off the pipes that conveyed the gaseous naphtha, the wretched inva- 
ders were in total darkness. The Tunnel was hermetically sealed, and escape 
was impossible. 

" Many perished by the hands of their friends — others were trod to death ; 
but the remainder was not destined long to continue alive. 

" 'Five hundred pounds,' said the Duke, 'to any man, who will go in a 
boat and pull out the central plug of the Tunnel, and let in the water on these 
villains.' 

** No one answered, for it was evident that the man who attempted it would 
do so at the hazard of his life. After a pause, the Duke said, ' he would go 
for one, but who will steer V 

" ' I,' said Lord Groderich, 'I. I do not think I was bom to be drowned.' 

" ' Valiant man,* said the Duke, and embraced him in front of the army. A 
life-boat was instantly launched. Lord Groderich took the helm, and the 
Duke, pulling a pair of sculls, came to the spot where the existence of the 
plug was indicated by a buoy, surmounted by a flag. Why conceal the fact 1 
Lron as were the nerves of the Lord High Constable, he hesitated for a mo- 
ment ; but at last, saying something about Curtius, he seized the ring of the 
plug, and, exerting all his strength, tore up the key-stone of the arch. A 
mighty gush of waters followed — a cry of agony and despair rung from the 
wretched inmates of the Tunnel, and affrighted the very birds. In a minute 
the Tunnel was full, and, in another minute, Jew, German, and American, had 
ceased to exist. In a century afterward, their bones were gathered into a 
catacomb, with an inscription in heroic verse, from the classical pen of Pro- 
fessor Millman : — 

" Reader, you here behold the bones, 
Of people gone to Davy Jones. 
'Neath father Thames's whelming tide, ^ 
Poor rogues ! like puppies blind, they died. 
Out of the bore by Brunei dug, 
Duke Wellington he pulled the plug. 
And drowned the tottle of them snug," 

Smithers' father had perished, it seemed, through the misconduct of 
a high official. He sought justice from the law : — 

"And the Colonial Secretary was destined to die for the atrocious deed. 
Here, however, occurred a difficulty. What Colonial Secretary was to die 1 
the man in office at the time the murder was committed, or the present fimo- 
tionary ? And there was a vast contention among the lawyers thereupon. 
At last Lord Lyndhurst pronounced judgment. 



t< 



lii MEMOIH OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

" ' It is plain/* said that great lawyer, ' it must be the present Secretarj. 
A man taking a house, of which the taxes have not been paid^ is bound to paj 
up the arrears of his predecessor. An heir to an estate must answer the liens 
laid upon it by the former owner. If a person strike a man in the King's 
presence and evade for ten years, his hand is cut off at the end of the period, 
though it be altered in bone, muscle and sinew. So, if A. B. commit a mur- 
der, and escape for five-and-twenty years, he is hanged, though (see case of 
Sir John Cutler, in Term. Rep. Mart. Scrib.) he is a changed man in body, 
and perhaps in mind. But the principle is laid down distinctly by Lord Coke, 
in his Institutes, with the peculiar elegance of the Latin style of that great 
man. " Qui capitj" says his Lordship, **qui capit advarUagioe, sumit guoque 
disadvantagios':" that is, he who touches the cash on quarter-day, must sub- 
mit to be badgered occasionally. The judgment of the Court is, that Lord 
Bathurst be dismissed from the bar, and that Mr. Huskisson be hanged. Fiat 
instanter. Look to him, jailor. Hoc pro toarranto. Hanged by the neck.' 

** Huskisson was taken away in an agony of terror. He offered to do any- 
thing, to peach, to turn informer — but this procured him nothing but an 
order from Lord Goderich to have him gagged. The anticolonial party, how- 
ever, were too strong not to make a struggle. When they found it impossible 
to save their friend, they said it was only fair that they too should have a tIc- 
tim. Conciliation being the order of the day, it was resolved, 6n the usual 
piinciple of ttie then government, that neither party should have a triumph, 
and after some deliberation it was determined, that when Mr. Huskisson was 
hanged, C»sar should suffer also — for the sake of uniformity. To this ar^ 
rangement, Csesar made many objectrons, but his master convinced him of 
the absurdity of his scruples, and he submitted." 

The execution, which is described fully, closes the story, of which 
the extracts here given are average specimens. For my own part, I 
consider it rather one of the curiosities of literature than a favorable, or 
indeed a fair sample of Dr. Maginn's ability. As the volume is so re- 
markably rare as to be very seldom met, even in England, I have 
quoted more in extenso than I should otherwise have done. , 

That Dr. Maginn was the veritable Ensign and Adjutant Morgan 
O^Doherty of Blackwood* s Magazine was generally known among the 
reading public. Known to publishers and newspaper-proprietors was 
the fact also, so that Maginn had as much to do as he desired. The 
fun and frolic of the erudite and facetious Standard-Bearer had become 
concentrated by this time, as far as the distinct individuality of 
0*Doherty was concerned, in the splendid series of imaginary dialogues, 
at once wise and witty, which, under the name of Noctes Ambro- 
8IAN2B, graced the pages of Blackioood^s Magazine^ from March, 1822, 
to February, 1835. 

John Abernethy, the surgeon, was wont to economize time and trou* 
b]e by referring bis patients to such and such pages of his Book. I may 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGIKN. Hi 

be pardoned, I trust, if — at a very long-removed distance— I refer to 
my own edition of the Noctes, for a particular account* of the origin 
and history of that celebrated series. Herey it is only necessary to 
glance at itt in connexion with Maginn's share in the authorship. 

In Blackwood^ for August and Septenober, 1819, api)eared a very 
extended article,f entitled ^* Christopher in the Tent,'* principally 
written by Wilson and Lockhart. A variety of real and inaaginary 
characters were introduced, as interlocutors, including Christopher 
North, Morgan O'Doherty, the Ettrick Shepherd, Dr. Morris (Lock- 
hart's, now deplume as author of "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk"), 
Timothy Tickler, Buller of Brazenose, Seward of Christchurch, Kem- 
perferhansen (R. P. GKllies), and others — all of whom were subse- 
quently introduced at the Round-Table in The Noctes. I believe that 
the late Major Hamilton (** Cyril Thornton") wrote up the character- 
istic sayings and doings of O'Doherty, for *♦ The Tent," but that the 
Chant — ** The Powldoodies of Burran" — was written by Maginn 
himself.t In subsequent numbers of Blackwood^ the far-famed gather- 
ing in '* The Tent" was often referred to, but no attempt- to follow it 
up w^as made until nearly three years after. Maginn is entitled to the 
credit of having commenced, if he did not actually originate, Ths 
NocTES Ambrosiamjb proper. 

In the summer of 1821, as has already been stated, Dr. Maginn visit- 
ed Edinburgh, where he became intimately acquainted, not only with Mr. 
Blackwood (whose guest he was) but also with Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, 
Gillies, Hamilton, and other principal writers in the Magazine. With 
them, as a matter of course, he had many a merry afternoon and jovial 
evening, at their obscure, but since world-renowned hostelrie in Gabriel's 
Road,§ kept by Mr. Ambrose. Some months later, he paid a flying 
visit to London. On his return to Cork he composed the first Number 
of The NocTES, which was published in Maoa, for March, 1822, and 
combines his Edinburgh and London impressions. 

In an account of a breakfast with Professor Wilson (somewhat graphi- 
cally written by Mr. N. P. Willis), the veritable " Christopher North" is 
made to say that the first Number of the Noctes Arabrosianae was written 

* Noctes AmbrosiansB, vol. i. pp. xi.-xv. ; Vol. ii. pp. xxi. and the Notes 
passim. 

t Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. i. pp. 1-128. 

X Ibid. vol. i. pp. 98-100; Odolierty Papers, vol. i. pp. 84-89. 

§ This street, or lane, which derived its name from a murder committed 
there by a tutor named Gabriel, is situated in the vicinity of West Reirister 
street, at the back of the east end of Prince's street, and close to the HegisJ- 
ter Office, Edinburgh. 



liv MEMOm OP WILLIAM JUAGINN. 

' by Lockhart, the day after the literary fraternity had supped at Am- 
brose's.* On referring to No. I. of The Noctes, it will be found wholly 
unlike Lockhart's style ; indeed too Maginnishly individualized for him 
to have written it. A dialogue between Christopher North and Morgan 
O'Doherty, it is redolent of the Irishism of the latter character, who, 
by the, way, is made (^more Hibernico) to monopolize most of the talk 
to himself. It contains the well-Hnown poetical version, known to have 
been written by Maginn, of the celebrated letter from Lord Byron to 
John Murray, respecting the threat to indict the latter for the publica- 
tion of **Cain, A Mystery" — ^it spoke of Barry Cornwall's poetry pre- 
cisely, almost totidem verbis, as Maginn wrote of it before and after that 
date — and, above all, it introduced the words and music of that tho- 
roughly Irish song, undeniably Maginn*s, " There was a Lady lived at 
Leith."f On internal evidence, alone, a jury of critics would decide 
against Lockhart's having written the opening number of The Noctes. 
Without saying that Professor Wilson wished to mislead, or Mr. 
Willis to mis-report, perhaps the former, remembering what a large 
share Lockhart had in ** Christopher in the Tent," may have had that 
in his mind, and his guest might have mistaken his reference, thinking it 
alluded to »* The Noctes." Neither the Professor nor the Penciller 
is liable, on this view, to the charge of misrepresentation. 

Odoherty did not appear in the second ** Noctes." He figures, how- 
ever, in the third — talking, singing, and quaffing. No. IV. of ** The 
Noctes," the scene of which is in Pisa, with Lord Byron and Odoherty 
as the only speakers, was wholly written by Maginn, and, in its dash, 
spirit, and naturalness (if I may coin a word), is one of the very best 
of the whole series. It contains several capital chansons, including 
Maginn's Latin version of Bishop Still's fine old chant, ** Back and 
Sides go Bare ;"t the stanzas in praise of Inishowen ;§ and the capital 
parody on Byron's ** There 's not a Joy the World can give like that 
it takes away."|| The running commentary, in ballad verses (called 
** Metricum Symposium Ambrosianum," and accidentally omitted from 

* " We were there one night very late, and had all been remarkably gay and 
agreeable. ' What a pity/ said Lockhart, * that some shorthand-writer had 
not been there to take down the good things that have been said at this sup- 
per.' The next day he produced a paper called * Noctes Ambrosiaasdf* and 
that was the first. I continued them." — (Wilson loquitur). — Willis's Fa- 
mous Pea-sons and Places ^ p. 40. - 

t Noctes Ambrosianoe, vol. i. p. 15S ; Odoherty Papers, vol. i. p. 183. 

X Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. i. p. 208; Odoherty Papers, vol. ii. p. 32. 

§ Noctes AmbrosianflB, vol. i. p. 208 ; Odoherty Papers, vol. i. p. 242. 

II Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. i. p. 21G ; Odoherty Papers, voL i. p. 243. 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM MA6INN. Iv 

No. III. of '* The Noctes")» was Maginn's also.* Indeed, his fine Ita- 
lian hand is perceptible through the first years of the Series, even when 
not speaking as Odoherty. He appears, however, in proprid per' 
sond^ in every one of the first eighteen *' Noctes" (except the third 
and twelfth) — from March, 1822, to January, 1825. 

These eighteen numbers are omitted by Professor Ferrier (Wilson's 
son-in-law) in his edition of " The Noctes'- — on the exclusive princi- 
ple of giving only what Wilson had written »* alone and single-handed.** 
Kor is this all. He says ** The original series, as it stands, in Black- 
wood'' s Magazine^ consisted of seventy-one numbers ; but by this pro- 
cess of retrenchment thirty of these numbers have been excluded from 
the list, thus leaving forty-one numbers to be republished as the authen- 
tic composition of Professor Wilson.'* This omission of Odoherty's 
fun and learning, to say nothing of Lockhart^s keen satire, reminds ono 
of the country manager's announcement of ** Hamlet," with ** the part 
of Hamlet omitted by particular desire." 

The last appearance of Odoherty, in Blackwood^ at " The Noctes,** 
was in No. XLV. for July, 1829. Maginn's last contribution to the 
series was ** Roger Goodfellow," a translation of Beranger's ** Roger 
Bontemps,**f which appeared in No. LX. of '* The Noctes,** for Feb- 
ruary, 1832. In addition to his poetical contributions thereto, already 
mentioned, may be named the Rabelain song on Drink ;t the lively 
song " Cork is an Aiden for you love, and me ;'*§ the bitter paraphrase 
(made applicable to Peel*s change of policy on the Catholic Question 
in 1829) on Beranger*s ** Monsieur Judas ;"|| the flash Song, ** As from 
Ken to Ken I was going,** from Vidocq*s Memoirs. H This last 
showed a remarkable acqi\aintance with, and command over, the slang 
used by criminals not only in London but in Paris also. Dr. Maginn 
certainly could not have written it before his residence in France. He 
always considered this Slang Song as one of his greatest feats. It 
certainly was superior to the flash lyrics (clever though they were) 
which he afterward allowed to be published by, and accredited to, Mr. 
Ainsworth. in the Newgate romances of that author. 

No study, however serious and deep, of the Slang Vocabularies of 
Captain Grose (the ** fat friend" of the last century immortalized by 

* Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. i p. 218-225. 

t Noctes AmbrosiansB, vol. v. p. 26 ; Odoherty Papers, vol. ii. p. 30. This 
was in Mr. Blackwood's hands long before it was printed. 

X Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. ii. p. 112 ; Odoherty Papers, vol. 1. p. 361. 
§ Noctes Arabrosianfle, vol. iii. p. 53 ; Odoherty Papers, vol.i. p. 305. 
ii Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. iii. p. 339 ; Odoherty Papers, vol. ii. p. 28. 
TT Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. iii. p. 342 ; Odoherty Papers, >ol. ii. p. 36. 



Ivi MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAOINN. 

Burns), and the redoubtable and more recent Jon Bee could have given 
Maginn, or any other literary man, dach an intimate acquaintance with 
thieves* patter as he had acquired by trusting himself into the haunts of. 
"pickers-up of unconsidered trifles" — places where the police them- 
selves hesitated to venture, even when armed with the full authority 
of the law. It is worthy of notice, however, and I state it on the au- 
thority of one of the most active and celebrated thief-takers in London, 
that criminals, charged with oflences less than murder, generally sub- 
mit to arrest, with a sort of dogged resolution — as if they felt that it 
was their doom, and that their time was up. The mere words ** You 
are wanted** seem to subdue all but the very worst criminals, and hands 
are then quietly submitted to the handcufls, with scarcely a shadow of 
resistance, the companions of the persons thus apprehended, looking on 
at the arrest without attempting any resistance. One policeman will 
thus be allowed to pick out find carry off his man out of a company of 
a hundred. When opposition is made, it is almost invariably by mur- 
derers who know that the finish of their captivity must be the Scaf- 
fold. In Paris, even more than in London, the words **In the name 
of the Law" have a strongly subduing power. 

Fearlessly trusting himself into the worst haunts of criminals, in 
Paris as well as in London, Dr. Maginn never once was subjected to 
insult. He made himself acquainted, very thoroughly, with what are 
called the back slums of the Quartier St. Denis, the Rue du Temple, 
and other haunts of each mauvais sujet of the Lusetian capital. 
Equally, even in Bermondsey and **The Mint" of Southwark (the 
worst localities in London), he was tolerated. In St. Giles's — he did 
not live to see ** The Rookery" swept awayj that Oxford street might 
be extended, in a straight line, to meet Holborn — he was '* at home," 
of course, among his countrymen, who, he contended, were rather 
poor than vicious, and greatly deficient in that ingenuity of crime 
which has given a bad eminence to the great offenders whose exploits 
fill the volumes of the NewgaU Calendar. In The Rookery, his 
knowledge of Irish made him free, as it were, of the Corporation 
therfe. Into such places he sometimes went, to study character and 
observe the deeper outlines of humanity, even as artists, from the time 
of Hogarth down to that of Cruikshank, had made like studies with 
their pencil. A public journalist, he thought, was bound to acquire an 
intimate knowledge of the lower grades of society, as well aa of the 
higher. No relish for what is called low company led him to such 
scenes, but a vivid curiosity to observe human nature in a variety of 
phases. His conclusion, from these studies and observations, was that 
— in all but the very worst cases — the law-breakers whom he met 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. Ivii 

(and who would not interfere with him, so long as he was inoffensive 
and civil to them), were as much sinned against as sinning. Society, 
he believed, threw the first stone — by neglecting not only the moral 
and educational training of these Pariahs, but by indifference, also, to 
their personal condition and comforts as members of the great family 
of Man. 

Early in 1827, the Earl of Liverpool, who had been Premier in 
England since the assassination of Mr. Spencer Percival (in 1812), had 
so severe a paralytic attack as to compel his retirement into private 
life. Mr. Canning, who had infused somewhat of a liberal spirit into 
the Liverpool Cabinet from his joining it, in 1822, as Foreign Secre- 
tary, was elevated, in April, 1827, to the vacant premiership. Like 
Mr. Disraeli, in our own time, Canning was not ** bom to a seat in 
Parliament," and, though brorher-in-law of the Duke of Portland, was 
looked down by his Tory colleagues, and more particularly by the 
Whig nobility, as a mere political adventurer and parvenu. Simulta- 
neously, and as if on a concerted plan (though they stoutly denied the 
imputation), the Duke of Wellington, Peel, Lord Chancellor Eldon, 
and three other ultra-Tory colleagues of Canning, sent in their resig- 
nation to the King. Without much difficulty. Canning supplied their 
places with more liberal politicians, placing Lord Lansdowne (a re- 
spectable man of mediocre ability) in the Home Office^ and making 
Sir John S. Copley Lord Chancellor, with a seat in the Upper House, 
as Baron Lyndhurst. The ex-Ministry, assisted by Earl Grey and 
more of their old Whig opponents, offered all resistance in their power 
to the measures of Mr. Canning, and, in Lord George Bentinck*8 
memorable and emphatic words, *^ Hounded him to death.*' In 
fact, he had scarcely five months* rule, his death taking place early 
in August. 

On commencing an organized opposition to Mr. Canning, as Pre- 
mier, the ultra-Tories naturally looked about to measure the strength 
of their external forces. The Timest the great organ of public opinion, 
had been on the liberal side, since what was called ** The Queen*8 
Trial," in 1820. The Morning Clironicle was decidedl>^Whig. The 
Morning Herald was ne'utral — if any thing. The Morning Advertiser ^ 
with a large publichouse circulation, never had pretensions to political 
character or influence. The majority of the Sunday papers, headed 
by the Observer and the Dis'patch (each of immense circulation), 
were strongly liberal. On the other hand, the Morning Post, though 
with a decided Tory leaning, was merely regarded as a chronicler of 
fashionable events ; the New 2\mes, which soon after merged into the 
Morning JoumaU was a strong partisan, as far as forcible writing went. 



Iviii MEMom op william maginn. 

but its circulation was limited. Of the evening papers, the Globe was 
Whig ; the Courier always suppo^|;ed the Ministry for the time being , 
and the Su7i was strongly and ably Canningite. The only Sunday 
papers worth mentioning, as Tory organs, were John Bull, and the 
notorious Age, respectively edited by Theodore Hook and C. M. 
Westmacott — but so unscrupulously, that the Anti-Canning party 
might deprecatingly have exclaimed 

" Non tali anxilio, nee defensoribus istis, 
Tempus eget." 

At that time, and for many years previous, a tri-weekly journal called 
the St. Jameses Chronicle, was published by Mr. Baldwin, of Bridge- 
street, Blackfriars. This paper, respectable in every way, both for 
the ability of its political articles and the gentlemanly tone which per- 
vaded them, had come under the editorship of Dr. Stanley Lees Gif- 
fard, an Irishman (son, indeed, of that John Gifiard, the common coun- 
cilman, who so vehemently opposed Grattan at the Dublin Election in 
1803), who had been called to the English bar. From 1819 to 1827, 
Dr. GifTard had conducted the St, James's Chronicle with marked 
ability and success. When the Courier — the most time-serving even- 
ing journal ever known in London — had left the Tory party without 
an efficient organ, by surrendering itself wholly to the support of the 
Canning Ministry, it struck Dr. Giflfard that there was a fair opportu- 
nity of changing the St. James's Chronicle into what, in common par- 
lance, was called *' a thick-and-thin" Tory evening paper. His own 
hereditary politics were strongly of the ** Protestant Ascendancy in 
Church and State" order. His learning was extensive, his talents 
great, his tact admirable, his temper gdod. His suggestion was adopted 
by Mr. Baldwin — with a difference ; namely, that the tri-weekly paper, 
which was too valuable to be discontinued, should be kept on, buty^^ 
principally or made up out of the daily evening journal. 

Giffard and Maginn, who had commenced their acquaintance at 
Trinity College, Dublin, were on intimate terms in London. Giffard 
had the advantage of four years in age, and of thirty in tact and pru- 
dence. He offered the assjstant-editorship of the new paper, with a 
liberal salary, to Maginn (who was then occupying his time by writing 
for Blackwood, and frittering away his talents in squibs for the John 
Bull), and, this offer accepted, the prospectus of The Standard 
newspaper was issued. It was brief, containing a well-written and de- 
cided avowal of Church and State principles, and fell, like a shell, upon 
the Canning party. 

Oddly enough, the Standard of England figured at the head of that 



MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. lix 

I 

prospectus, with the following motto from Livy : ** Signifier^pone sig- 
num: hie optu7ne manehimus." Tbe paper was advertised with this 
motto, to. the very day of its first appearance, when it was withdrawn, 
and never appeared under the heading of the Standard. The solution 
probably is, that the motto was originally taken from its reference to 
the name of the paper, but the public, accustomed to the constant 
reference, in the " Noctes," to Ensign Odoherty, as ** the Standard- 
bearer," having got the idea that Maginn was to be Editor-in-chief, 
whereas his position was subordinate, the classical reference was 
dropped, to prevent a continuance of the misapprehension. 

The Standard soon took a foremost rank, in character and circula- 
tion, among the London evening papers, which position it continues to 
occupy. No English journal has ever been so pertinaciously consis- 
tent. It has always opposed what it considers derelictions from strict 
Conservative principles. Started to support the ultra-Toryism of 
which Wellington and Peel were the mouthpieces, in 1827, it gravely 
condemned their permitting the abolition of the Test and Corporation 
Acts in 1828; their granting Catholic Emancipation in 1829; and 
every successive ** breach of the Constitution" up to the present hour. 
This editorial consistency has been principally caused by Dr. Gifiard^s 
having held the pen," as chief editor, for thirty years. During the nine 
years of Maginn's connexion with the Standard^ he vigorously asserted 
the principles of Toryism. In that journal, and elsewhere — in verse 
as well as in prose — he censured and ridiculed the politicians, what- 
ever the party to which they professed to belong, who said or did any 
thing tending -to weaken that ** Protestant Ascendancy" which he had 
been trained to consider as the safeguard of ** Church and State." In 
the newspaper, under the cool judgment of Dr. Giffard, he was not per- 
mitted to indulge in offensive personalities. Elsewhere, he was not so 
forbearing, and some of the bitterest attacks on the late Sir Robert 
Peel's ** apostasy" (as the ultras called it) on the Catholic Question, 
which appeared in Blackwood, were written by Maginn. Little did he 
anticipate that to the humane kindness of the man whom he thus ridi- 
culed and assailed, his own family, a few years later, were to be in- 
debted for the means of committing his dust to its last earthly resting- 
place. 

The engagement on the Standard^ occupying only a few hours every 
day, gave Dr. Maginn ample leisure to fulfil other literary engage- 
ments. Accordingly, up to the early part of 1830 (when a coolness 
arose between Mr. Blackwood and himself), he continued to write for 
the Magazine. He contributed to other periodicals, and to this period, 
belong two beautiful tales (which have been reprinted from the Lite- 



Ix MEtfOIB OP WIIXIAM BU6INN. 

• 

rary Souvenir^ and are well-knowii in America) called *' A Vision of 
Purgatory," and ** The City of the Demons." This last was generally 
considered to be a specimen of the *» Tales of the Talmud," repeatedly 
announced, in the Literary Gazette and other periodicals, as *^ nearly 
ready." 

The three years immediately succeeding the establishment of the 
Standard, in 1827, were undoubtedly the happiest and most respecta- 
ble portion of Dr. Maginn's London life. He was in easy circum- 
stances — his yearly income from the Standard being about 6&400, and 
his contributions to Blackwood, the John Bull, and other ** outside" 
publications realizing him a large addition to his regular newspaper 
salary. A literary man with a small family (Dr. Maginn had only three 
children) can live very comfortably on six or seven hundred pounds^ 
year in London. At this time, and for several years later, Dr. Maginn 
had not only a large circle of acquaintance but the ** troops of friends" 
by whom Macbeth so earnestly desired to be accompanied. He was 
in constant communication and social intimacy with the leading men of 
his own political party, and, indeed, many of the distinguished persons 
whose party principles he opposed were happy to receive him as their 
guest. His children were growing np around him, their mother was 
his most afiectionate companion and friend, and besides being received 
among the elite of intellectual society in London, he had the gratifica- 
tion of constantly meeting old friends from Ireland, with whom he de- 
lighted to renew recollections of his own ** beautiful city," and make 
the present happy by living over the Past, in their agreeable society. 
To him, almost as a matter of course, every Cork man of any intellec- 
tual standing or pretension went, on arriving in the Modem Babylon, 
and received right hospitable treatment. 

Dr. Maginn, during nearly twenty years of London life, preserved 
his Irish nationality undiminished. Not his, the miserable affectation, 
by which the empty-headed and the vain have sometimes attempted 
to ridicule their native land — themselves its very meanest productions 
— by engrafting the defects of Cockney mispronunciation upon their 
own natural accent, a brogue as thick as a November fog, and so pal- 
pable that it might almost be cut with a knife. Not his, the impudent 
pretence of affecting relationship with an honorable and patriotic Irish 
race, without a legitimate claim even to the very name of that noble 
sept. Not his, the meanness of trying to curry favor with the Eng- 
lish, by abusing Irish aspirations, Irish genius, and Irish patriotism, 
and boasting of his ** British proclivities," as if it mattered what such 
items of insignificance, floating amid the scum of society, really thought 
or said. No, far different from such puppyism was the manly candor 



MEMOIB OF WILUAM MAOINK. Izi 

of Maginn, who was proud of his native land, who threw lustre on 
it by the transparent honor of his daily life, as well as by the genius 
and the learning which, native to her soil, were so fully exhibited by 
himself. No mongrel Irishman was William Maginn, but proud of his 
country. To the humblest of his countrymen, who wanted aid in the 
vast wilderness of London, he was thoughtful, kind, and liberal — even 
beyond bis means. Not only his advice was freely at their service, 
but more substantial aid. Many and many a poor family has he res- 
cued from destitution, nor did his kindness alone consist in such gene- 
rosity as this ; he would go from one end of London to the other, at any 
season, to secure employment for his poor countrymen by his own per- 
sonal solicitation and recommendation. He freely gave not only hit 
charity — but his time, his sympathy, his influence. He had his re- 
ward, in thanks, no doubt — for ingratitude is no Irish vice. 

At the period which [ have named as perhaps the most prosperous 
and happy of Dr. Maginn's London life, the general impression of his 
geniality and genius was very strong. In a periodical of the time, he 
is thus sportively but appreciatively spoken of: — 

" In the history of wit and waggery there is one more writer who merits 
honorable mention. We are not sure, indeed, that any humorist has ap- 
peared in England since the days of Messrs. Shandy and Primrose, who can 
in all respects safely measure his wit with that of — Sir Morgan O'Do- 
HERTT ! This illustrious knight and adjutant (\vho has quitted ' the modem 
Athens' for 'the modem Babylon') is beyond doubt one of the most extraor- 
dinary men of the present age. He is as learned as a dictionary, as various 
as a book of receipts, as changeable as a kaleidoscope, as full of fun as tho 
first of April. Nothing comes amiss to him, comedy, criticism, farce, politics, 
poetry, punch, pugilism — from Longinus to Boxiana,* from tlio Zend to the 
Talmud. The Aulic Council, the British House of Commons, the French 
Chambers, the Divan of the Osmalee — all are one to him. 'All's fish that 
comes to his net.' He mingles and reconciles ,all things ; the strong, the 
acid, the sweet. Like a tumbler of whiskey toddy, he is, though miscellane- 
ous, always agreeable. Oratory alone he cannot manage. A trifiing hesita- 
tion in his speech, a slight nervousness of manner, and the most indomitable 
modesty (I) these are his impediments to this species of renown. Were his 
tongue once slit by a silver sixpence, he would be irresistible. As it is, he is 
compelled to be silent ; leaving to Demosthenes and Tally, to Chatham and 
Burke, and Lord Brougham and Yaux, their unmitigated fame. 

" It is a pity that the humors of this admirable and laughter-loving writer 
should not be collected and formed into ' a body of humors.' People would 
know him better, and like him quite as well, we think, in his corporate shape, 

* This allusion shows how general was the impression that Maginn had 
written the " Boxiaua" series in Blackwood, 



Ixii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MA6INN. 

as they do in his present scattered, shadowy, undefined condition. He has 
expended; and is still expending, great wealth of mind in enriching daily, 
weekly, monthly, and annual publications. Half of what he does will be 
overlaid by the surrounding trash, and forgotten. His learned allusions, his 
witty parodies, his rich, racy jests, his inimitable free flowing gayety will avail 
him little. His ' airy nothings* will be pressed down by the solid, stolid body 
of nonsense that is thrust into their company ; and he will live, fifty years 
hence, in the recollections of men, like single-speech Hamilton, or Anthony 
White ; like conversation Sharpe, or the great Sea Serpent ; of each of whom 
we have heard much in our youth, but v/ho, for want of some strong visible 
evidence of their merit, have passed away like the vapor of the morning. 
Nominis umbra — that will be all that our children will know of the famous 
adjutant (incomparably the greatest military author since the dajrs of Xeno- 
phon), unless, in the classical language of Higginbottom, he 'stirs his 
stumps,' and stands in all his united powers face to face with the public. If 
he will not do this — if he per^^ersely choose to exist in his phantom state 
(his strength, like Samson's, diffused over infinite space), why then, O, 
wioged fame ! O, fickle fortune ! 

* Ah ! receive them to join in your endless delight. 
The shade of Sir Morgan O'Doherty, knight;' 

and never let him be pushed aside or neglected in after time for smaller 
jesters or bold pretenders, nor for any proselyte or copyist, who shall attempt 
to imitate his inimitable style 1" 

It should be borne in mind that this sketch was written before Ma- 
ginn had produced the contents of the present volume (selections from 
his contributions to Fraser''s Magazine) or the Homeric Ballads and 
Shakespeare Papers. 

From the period of Magiiln's change of residence from Cork to Lon- 
don, the quantity of his contributions to Blackwood diminished, as 
much as their quality improved. It was after he quitted Cork that 
Maginn wrote some of the best of the O'Doherty Papers : such as the 
celebrated Maxims of P'Doherty ; " the cutting critiques on Irish and 
English Songs ; the Beranger translations and paraphrases ; the dissec- 
tion of Campbell's ** Ritter Bann ;" The Night- Walker (a narrative of 
a night's actual observation of London life, in all its phases) ; the Pa- 
negyric on Colonel Pride, the Republican ; and that powerful snatch 
of fiction, The Last Words of Charles Edwards.*' 

In 1829, however, Maginn's connexion with Blackood^s Magazine 
came to a temporary close. Some coolness with Mr. Blackwood 
widened into a disruption. Maginn considered himself somewhat ill- 

* These articjes will be found in the two volumes of the O'Doherty Papers 
which commence this Collection. 



BIEMOIB^OP WILLIAM MAGINN. Ixiu 



*.' 



treated by his old friend ; who, on his part, fancied that, from the part 
Maoa had in making Maginn's name known, and in fostering and ma- 
turing his talents as a writer, his magazine- articles should be pretty 
exclusively sent to Edinburgh. Such, I have heard, was the origin of 
the misunderstanding. Whatever the cause. Dr. Maginn was seriously 
oflended, and determined, at the earliest opportunity, to have a maga- 
zine under his own control— by which means be might be spared such 
annoyance and mortification as had been recently caused by Mr. Black- 
wood's frequent return of articles to him, on the assigned plea that they 
were ** extremely clever, but not exactly adapted to the Magazine." One 
thing is certain — Maginn freely acquitted Professor Wilson of having 
in any way influenced, by adverse opinions, Mr. Blackwood's rejection 
of any articles. Mr. Blackwood, though Wilson was his principal, 
ablest, and most productive contributor, retained the actual editorship 
of the Magazine in his own hands, from the very first. He was 
shrewd, sagacious, and energetic, and, though not himself a man of let- 
ters, had full ca])acity to appreciate and deal with authors. 

When the periodical now known as Eraser's Magazine was pro- 
jected, Blackwood alone had any reputation among the monthly peri- 
odicals devoted to general literature. The New Monthly Magazine, 
under the effete editorship of Thomas Campbell, the poet, barely kept 
its head above water. Campbell's name and occasional contributions alone 
invested it with some degree of interest. Mr. Sheil, whose celebrated 
Sketches of the Irish Bar had been prominent attractions from 1822 to 
1829, was precluded from continuing them by the exacting demands 
upon his time and mind by Parliamentary occupation. Lady Morgan, 
Thomas CoUcy Grattan, and others, who had conferred celebrity on 
the work, had dropped off. The old Monthly, founded by Sir Richard 
Phillips, the vegetarean publisher, had declined into irretrievable dull- 
ness, after a vain endeavor to infuse new vitality into it by Dr. Croly. 
The London Magazine, once so popular under the editorship of John 
Scott and Thomas Hood (with such assistants as Charles Lamb, Allan 
Cunningham, Hamilton Reynolds, ** Barry Cornwall," Hartley Cole- 
ridge, Talfourd, John Clare, John Poole, John Bowring, William Haz- 
litt, Bernard Barton, Horace Smith, and others), had sunk so low, that 
not even Charles Knight, the author- publisher, could succeed in resto- 
ring its good name. The Imperial Magazine, though its circulation 
was large, had a sectarian character, and devoted little space to 
literature. Last of all, and oldest, there was the Gentleman* s Magazine, 
devoted to antiquarian researches, great on obituary notices, but caring 
little for, and slightly regarded by, the mass of general readers. In 
fine, at the commencement of 1830, there was an opening in London 



IXIT MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MA6INN. 

for a new magazine^ and Dr. Maginn and others were able and anxious 
to supply the want. 

There was a briefless barrister in London, about this time, who 
floated, as it were, between literature and fashion — fluctuating, in his 
intellectual life, frona Grub street* to the Ring in Hyde Park. This 
gentleman, with more ambition than ability, more money than brains, 
was Mr. Hugh Fraser. He was on intimate terms with Dr. Maginn, 
who confided to him the desire he entertained for establishing a maga- 
zine in London, to be conducted in a fearless and spirited manner, as a 
counterpoise or rival to Blackwood. Like Maginn, he had a large 
circle of available literary acquaintance. Unlike him, he had money 
at his command. The result of their joint resolve was, to sound their 
friends, with a view to the ascertaining how many of them would be- 
come contributors, and to what extent. With some degree of fore- 
thought, they actually prepared as many articles as would fill an ordi- 
nary number of Blackwood, and, on the last day of 1829, sallied forth* 
arm-in-arm, in search of a publisher. 

In Paternoster Row, Ave-Maria Lane, Stationers'-Hall Court, Ivy 
Lane, and such familiar localities, wherein publishers most do congre- 
gate, they met with no encouragement. Dr. Maginn was well known, 
in ** the Row,*' by reputation, if not by person, but could not persuade 
any city bibliopole to take up his project. He and his friend, reluc- 
tantly abandoning their cherished idea, turned steps westward, deter- 
mined to console themselves for the disappointment by a good dinner 
at Verey's, in Regent street. Before they could reach that restaurantt 
the name of Fraser, over a bookseller's shop (215 Regent street) 
caught Maginn's eye. Exclaiming, ** Fraser! here's a namesake of 
yours — let us try him,'* the Doctof paused. They entered, and en- 
countered Mr. Fraser — at that time, about thirty years of age. On 
mentioning their project to him, it appeared that he had himself a de- 
sire to be publisher of such a periodical. A native of the north of 
Scotland, he had been educated, I have been told, for the Church, but, 
though he was a sound and rather serious Christian, he never com- 
pleted his clerical studies. He was well read in general literature, was 
a shrewd man of business, and, in politics, about as ultra a Tory at 
Maginn himself. The conversation casually commenced in Fraser't 
shop, in the afternoon, was continued in his back-parlor, after dinner, 
in the evening, and the result was that, just as the old year was at its 
last gasp, the trio drank, with full hopes aud brimming bumpers, 
*» Success to Fraser' 8 Magazine for Town and Country^* — for that 

* Grub street ceased to exist, by that name, some twenty years ago, and is 
now called Milton street. 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. IxV 

name their literary bantling there and then received. The public natu- 
rally believed that the Magazine was called after the publisher. On 
the contrary, it bore the name of Mr. Hugh Eraser, one of the 
projectors. In the publisher's books, during the eleven years he is- 
sued it, the account ran in the name of " The Town and Country"— 
and this, too, long after circumstances had induced, or rather compelled 
him, to become the proprietor, by subsequent purchase. 

With little preliminary announcement, the first number of Fraser's 
Magazine appeared in February, 1830. It excited no small sensation, 
its personal hits and dashing audacity out-Black wooding Blackwood, 
The prefatory article, ♦' Our Confession of Faith," by Maginn, was 
spirited and bold in the avowal and exposition of Tory principles. 
Maginn*s, also, was a slashing article on Mr. Robert Montgomery's 
j)oetry. His ** fine Italian hand" is perceptible in other articles. 
There, too, was a Spanish Ballad by Lockhart ; a translation from the 
German, by Heraud ; a dissertation on Mechanics' Institutes, by Cap- 
tain Basil Hall; a Canadian tale, by Gait; a Highland legend, by 
Picken, author of *' The Dominie's Legacy ;" a review, by Gleig, of 
Cyril Thornton's ** Annals of the Peninsullir Campaigns," and a long 
notice, rather respectably written, by Hugh Fraser, of Jean Paul 
Richter's review of Madame de Stael's " Allemagne." The first 
Number was a success. In the second (which opened with a paper, by 
Maginn, on Moore's Life of Byron), Crofton Croker and Haynes 
Bayly, appeared as avowed contributors. The third exhibited Robert 
Southey as having joined the new and vigorous Magazine. A 
poem, ** The Young Dragon," was his contribution. Barry Cornwall 
also appeared, modestly figuring under the initials ** J. B." — subse- 
quently extended to ♦* J. Bethel." There, also, figured The Ettrick 
Shepherd, from that time a constant contributor. Not to be too par- 
ticular in this recapitulation, let it suffice to state that, in addition to 
those already named, among the avowed writers in the first six num- 
bers of the first volume of Regina (as the Magazine was called), were 
Allan Cunningham, John Kenyon, L. E. L., ** The Harrovian," D. M. 
Moir (*• Delta" of Blackwood)^ William Jerdan, S. T. Coleridge, and 
Miss M. J. Jewsbury, besides many more who contributed anony- 
mously. 

Long before the completion of the first volume, Fraser*s Magazine 
was what may be called " a paying property." Maginn was himself 
the principal contributor — taking all subjects in turn, and equally at 
home in each. As much editing as the Magazine required was sup- 
plied by him, although every contributor may be said to have had 
pretty much his own way ; two things being as fixed and nnchange- 

E 



Izvi MEHOm OF WILLIAM MAGINK. 

able as the laws of the Medes and Persians — first, that the ultra-Tory 
politics of the work were to be consistently maintained by every one, 
and secondly, that the principal part of the ** slashing*' reviewing was 
to be executed by Maginn himself, whom long practice and a natural 
bent for satire had united to make a master in the art. I suspect that 
Peter Mac Grawler, of the Assineeum^ in Bulwer*s ** Paul Clifford,*' 
although avowedly a caricature of a well-known book-reviewer and 
censor-general in a literary weekly paper of the time, may also have 
been written with some idea of IVIaginn's ** slashing*' notices of lite- 
rary people and their productions. 

An attempt (also by Maginn) to rival the celebrated ** Noctes" of 
Blackwoody was the account of the " Election of Editor for Fraser^s 
Magazine^** with which my present volume opens (pp. 1-90). It was 
highly thought of, at the time, and Maginn made several subsequent 
attempts in the same vein (some of them very elaborate), but the 
"Noctes" are not to be equalled, and the efforts to eclipse them, how- 
ever good, did not succeed. Maginn's were more dramatic, in many 
instances, than Wilson's — iJ)ut they lacked the breadth which charac- 
terized the real ** Noctes." They were far too personal, also, and 
deficient in repose. The specimen I have given will enable the 
reader to form his own opinion as to their merit, actual as well as 
comparative. 

The great hit of Fraser, which continued attractive for several years, 
was the " Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters," commencing in 
Number V. (for June, 1830), with a full-length of Mr. Jerdan, editor 
of the Literary Gazette, and ending, some seven years after, with a 
sketch of the Rev. Sydney Smith, of " Peter Plymley" and Penn- 
sylvanian Bonds' renown. These portraits, in which there is very 
little caricature, were all drawn by Daniel Maclise, now R. A., and one 
of the first historical painters of England, but then, a recent importation 
from Cork to London, with the world all before him, and a hard 
battle, for food and fame, to fight against a brilliant array of the 
established and rising talent of the greatest city in Europe. In that 
life-struggle, Maclise found a warm ally, friend, and counsellor, in Ma- 
ginn, at whose solicitation the portrait-illustrations of Fraser were com- 
menced. It was long before Maclise was known to have executed 
them, and, even yet, they are sometimes attributed to another band. 
The sketches were inscribed with the fictitious name of '• Alfred Cro- 
quis," and Mr. Forester, of the London Stock Exchange, having since 
appeared, as author and artist, under the sobriquet of *» Alfred Crow- 
quill," has been confounded, naturally enough, with the artist of Fra- 
ser. Every one of these portraits was drawn by Maclise. An article. 



MEMOm OF WILUAM MA6INN« Izvii 

by Maginn, in January, 1840, called »* Preface to our Second Decade,'* 
alluded to what may be called this artistship ; humorously .maintaining 
that though **' the name of Alfred Croquis never appears in the cata- 
logues of the Exhibition, the name of a friend of his, or at least of one 
who ought* to be so, is to be found there pretty often ; and we believe 
that his pictures are not to be sneezed at, even by the most Gothic of 
barbarians. He is rising every year to higher honor and renown, and 
displaying fresh proofs of unwearied genius ; and though the pictures 
which he exhibits are of greater splendor, and loftier aspiration, yet, in 
their own way, we Inaintain that the sketches of Cioquis display as 
much talent as any production of the best R. A., or A. R. A., of the 
lot — ay, even if you named Maclise himself ^ In the enlarged edi- 
tion of *» The Men of the Time," it is distinctly stated that Maclise 
drew the sketches in question for Fraser^s Magazine, *» to which he 
was also a poetical contributor." 

The "Fraserian Gallery" consisted of eighty-one plates — seventy 
representing male, and eight female authors. Three plates represented 
groups of The Fraserians, The Antiquaries, and Reoina^s Maids of 
Honor. On the whole, the entire series, which cannot be collected 
now without destroying the first seventeen volumes of the Magazine, 
consisted of One Hundred and Two portraits of the principal male and 
female writers of the time. Washington Irving was the only Ameri- 
can among them. The Continental celebrities were Beranger, Count 
D'Orsay, Goethe, Talleyrand, Telesforo y Treuba, and M. Ude, the 
French cook. About one half of the persons, thus pictorialiy treated, 
may be reckoned as having contributed, at one time or another, to the 
Magazine. By far the greater number of the portraits were wholly out 
of the range of caricature, and may take rank as authentic and very 
characteristic likenesses. 

The letter-press which accompanied each plate was nearly all writ- 
ten by Maginn. Three exceptions we are certain of — the remarks on 
Maginn's portrait, written by Lockhart, those on the sketch of Goethe, 
by Carlyle, and James Hogg's account of Sir David Brewster. With 
two exceptions, also, the prose illustration of each single portrait was 
condensed into a single page. Mr. Kehealy says, ** As a whole, they 
are, we think, the most original and sparkling of the Doctor's produc- 
tions ; and when we remember that they were hit oflf at a moment's 
notice, we shall be easily able to fancy how meteoric wiH the intel- 
lect from which they emanated. Wit was their principal recommen- 
dation. * * * And we never read them, without involuntarily 
thinking we hear the Doctor speak, for they are perfect resemblances 
of what his conversation was." 



Ixyiii MEMOIR of william maoinn. 

These pen-and-ink sketches would fill a volume, if accompanied by 
such annotations, relative to the respective personality of each subject, 
as are necessary for the full understanding of what Maginn dashed off 
in a sportive or a satirical mood. As I do not include the series m the 
present collection «- for the point would be greatly sacrificed by the 
separation of the comments from the sketches, and there are many ob- 
stacles to the faithful reproduction of the latter— I shall make no 
apology for here presenting one of the Doctor's pages, as a sample. It 
is a sketch of one who lately departed — the Nestor of English authors. 
Satirical enough it is, in all conscience, and it was placed opposite a 
most death-in-life portrait — painfully resembling the cynical original. 



<f 



SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE ' PLEASURES OF MEMORT.' 

" De mortuis nil nisi bonum ! There is Sam Rogers, a mortal likeness — 
painted to the very death ! 

" We have often thought that a collection of the witticisms let off On the 
subject of Sam Rogers's death would go near equalling in bulk the past volume 
of jokes put into his mouth by a thousand industrious pun-manufacturers. 
There is Mackintosh's wonder, why, when at an election time he could not 
find an accommodation at any hotel in a country town, he did not try snug 
lying in the churchyard — the French valet's announcement pf him as M. le 
Mort, mistaking him for Tom Moore, and the consequent horror of the com- 
pany -^ Scott's recommendation that Sam should try his fate in medicine; 
where, if there was any truth in physiognomy, ho would be sure to shine, on 
the strength of his having perpetually a, fades Hippocratica — Hook's fiiendly 
caution, when he saw him at Lord Byron's funeral, to keep out of sight of 
the undertaker, lest he should claim him as one of his old customers — but 
why extend the roll, when there is not a variety of jest in which ' Groodman 
death, Groodman bones, thou atomy thou,' or any other of the complimentary 
phrases bandied about by Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, against their 
inveterate enemy the beadle, could be twisted, which has not been brought 
into action against Rogers ? He stands all this fire undisturbed, strenuously 
maintaining not only that ho is alive, but that his countenance is the very 
heau-idial of beauty. * That 's a very pretty girl,' said he, one night to New- 
ton the painter ; ' she has a tHe morie. 1 have a tMe mcrte — it is really one 
of the finest styles of the human countenance.' Whereupon Sam ' grinned 
horribly a ghastly smile,' just as he is doing in the opposite picture. 

'' Independently of the persecution Sam suffers from being dead, a griev- 
ance which he has in a great measure outlived, he is an ill-used gentleman, 
in being made punmaster-general to the United Kingdom. How this high 
distinction originally came to be his, we have no historical documents to 
prove. It is now settled. Joe Miller vails his bonnet to Sam Rogers. In 
all the newspapers, not only of the kingdom, but of its dependencies, Hin- 
dostan, Canada, the West Indies, the Capo, from the Tropics, nay, fipom the 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM MAGINK. Izix 

Antipodes io the Orkneys, Sam is godfather-general to all the bad jokes in 
existence. The Yankees have caught the fancy, and from New Orleans to 
New York it is the same — Rogers is synonymous with a pun. All British- 
bom or descended people — yea, the very Negro and the Hindoo — father 
their calembourgs on Rogers. Quashee or Ramee-Samee, who know nothing 
of Sir Isaac Newton, John Milton, or Fraser*8 Magazine, grin from ear to ear 
at the name of the illustrious banker, and with gratified voice exclaim, ' Him 
d — funny, dat Sam.* 

" By this fame, Sam must be known after he is allowed to be dead by the 
parish officers. For, after all, the literary glory of Sam will be one of the 
smallest. His verses are of the petty larceny school of poetry. When Words- 
worth read in Don Juan the commandment that 

* Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers,' 

he remarked very properly, that no theft would be more hazardous, because, 
not only Sam might reclaim the pilfered goods, but there would be no small 
danger of their being looked after by those from whom the said Sam had 
originally stolen them. 

He has a pretty house, with pretty gewgaws in it — he gives tolerable din- 
ners, and says very spiteful things — he is an ugly man, and his face is dead, 
and his jokes -flat. His poetry is poor, and his banking-house rich — his 
verses, which he purloined, will be forgotten — his jests (which others made 
for him) may be remembered. The Pleasures of Memory will go the way of 
all other pleasures, but it is not impossible that his name may, like Joe Mil- 
ler's, be perpetuated as the unwilling godfather of a book of conundrums. 
Sic transit gloria Sammil 

The manner of these sketches varied with their subject. Thus, 
writing of Mr. Disraeli, the commencement parodied *» The Won- 
drous Tale of Alroy," where the prose often runs into rhyme as well as 
measured rhythm. For example : — 

"BBNJAMIN ©'ISRAELI, BSQ. 

" O reader dear, do pray look here, and you will spy the curly hair, and 
forehead fair, and nose so high, and gleaming eye, of Benjamin D'Is-ra-e-li, 
the wondrous boy who wrote Alroy in rhyme and prose, only to show how 
long ago victorious Judah's lion-banner rose. In an earlier day he wrote 
Vivian Grey — a smart-enough story, we must say, until he took his hero 
abroad, and trundled him over the German road ; and taught him there not 
U) drink beer, and swallow schnaps, and pull madchen's caps, and smoke the 
cigar and the meersham true, in alehouse and lusthaus all Fatherland through, 
until all was blue, but talk secondhand that which, at the first, was never 
many degrees from the worst — namely, German cant and High-Dutch sen- 
timentality, maudlin metaphysics, and rubbishing reality. But those who 
would find how Vivian wined with the Marchioness of Puddledock, and other 
grandees of the kind, and how he talked esthetic, and waxed eloquent and 



IXX KEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

pathetic, and kissed his Italian puppies of the greyhound breed, they have 
only to read — if the work be still alive — Vivian Greiff in volames five." 

This may be the best place, perhaps, to give the Sketch of Maginn 
himself from Fraser's Magazine^, for January, 1831. It was written by 
Lockhart, and is a good imitation of the Doctor's own manner : — 

"the doctor. 

" SiSTE pedem, Signifer, hie optume manebimns '" be pleased to sit 
still, if you can (even on paper) bat for a moment, that the European public 
may familiarize itself with your outward mannikin. Tour name (" Dog on 
it," as the Bailie says), has long been familiar to us all ; but how few of the 
admirers of your genius have ever seen in the flesh Ensign and Adjutant Sir 
Morgan O'Doherty ? Profit by this opportunity, ladies and gentlemen ; this 
is the veritable Milesian, the undoubted heir and representative of the old 
Chiefs of the great Clan or Sept 0*Gin. 

" This extraordinary specimen of the real original Phenician (or Punic) 
breed is now, we are credibly informed, in the^ thirty-seventh year ofhis age ; 
but though Bums, BcUingham, and Byron, worked themselves out by that 
time of day, the Doctor is still considered in full possession of many of his 
faculties. His locks indeed are silvery, and till of late that circumstance told 
against him ; but in grief and vexation he shaved all off, at the period of ' the 
breaking in upon the Constitution ;' and having subsequently mounted an ele- 
gant nut-brown scratch (the masterpiece of old Morgan of St. James's street), 
he now wears on the whole a juvenile aspect rather than otherwise. Our artist 
has caught, with singular felicity, the easy, good-humored nonchalance of this 
learned and libellous countenance. High Church and State doctrines should 
be seriously adopted, and manfully maintained. Whigs, Papists, Radicals, 
whatever comes under the disgusting category of Liberalism, should be ex- 
posed, insulted, stabbed, crucified, impaled, drawn, and quartered — in Essay, 
Disquisition, Review, Romance, Ballad, Squib, Pasquinade, and Epigram — 
in Greek, in Hebrew, in Latin, in Irish, in Italian, in English and in Slang : 
but no interference with the calm pursuits of the scholar, or the . graceful 
amenities of the gentleman. Take things easy after seven o'clock ; from that 
hour until two in the morning be your own man ; from two to ten be your 
own wife's man ; from ten till seven again be the man of the public. Carpe 
diem. Leave no moment absolutely idle, aud suffer no sense, however just, 
of superiority, to influence your conduct and demeanor. Be a Bentley, if you 
can, but omit the brutality — rival Parr, eschewing all pomposity — ouUin- 
guist old Magliabecchi, and yet be a man of the world — emulate Swift m 
satire, but suffer not one squeeze of his sceva indignatio to eat your own heart. 
Be and do all this, and The Doctor will no longer be an unique. 

"Whether shining a precocious gem, in Trinity College, Dublin — or illu- 
minating the young ideas of the Corkers — or sustaining the power and glory 
of Blachvood— or now co-editing the grand, unrivalled, stauilch, sturdy, organ 
of orthodoxy, the Standard (we say nothing of a casual contribution to 



MEMOIR OF WnXJAM MAGINN. Ixxi 

Bboika), the redoubted ODohertt has always been, is, and erer will be, 
the joviid also, the simple-hearted, the careless, and the benignant. Flobeat 
Doctor ! Long may he continue at once the star of our erudition, our phi- 
losophy, and our dialectics, and, in his own immortal words — 

' A randy, bandy, brandy, no Dandy, 
Rollicking jig of an Irishman I' — 

Long may his mellow voice be heard in the land, now pouring out a rich 
flood of hexameters, <putvavTa nveroKriv, and now cheering the festive circle with 
the hearty, jolly, soul-stirring chant, which he indited in the days of his 
youth — 

' Drink to me only from a jug, and I will pledge in mine; 
So fill my glass with whiskey-punch, and I '11 not ask for wine V — 



We have always been of opinion, that had the Poet-Laureate and 'The 
Doctor* taken orders, they would have made two admirable Bishops.' 



tf 



Maginn certainly was in full fling during the first years of hid con- 
nexion with Eraser's Magazine, He seldom wrote a line for it until 
within a week or so of publication-day, when he would drop in at Fra- 
ser's, partake of what he used to call ** a one-joint dinner" with the 
bibliopole, discuss affairs in general— literary, political, personal, and 
social — over a few glasses of whiskey-punch, and then set to, " with a 
will*' as sailors say, to hard writing during the next five or six hoars. 
His facility was truly surprising, and appeared the same, no matter 
what subject he attacked. Page after page of ** copy" was rapidly 
flung off, with scarcely an erasure, the writer seldom liaving occasion 
to refer to any book to ascertain a date or a fact or to verify a quota- 
tion. His memory appeared at once exhaustless and cyclopaedic. In 
the course of one such sitting he would easily turn out a sheet (six- 
teen octavo pages) of original composition, which he would dispatch 
without going over it for correction, to the printing-ofBce, as it was 
written. Three or four such evenings as this would enable him to 
supply his full quota of contributions to the Magazine, besides going over, 
with Mr. Fraser (the publisher), the immense mass of articles which 
were sent in, from all qnarters, by volunteer as well as regular corre- 
spondents. Frequently, a third person would join the party, on these 
occasions. This was Mr. Churchill, "a fellow of infinite wit and 
humor ;" a good scholar (his translation of Schiller's " Wallenstein," in 
Fraser ^ was deservedly admired) ; and very quick at writing on almost 
any subject, and in any prescribed ^yle, provided that matter and man- 
ner were suggested to him — mapped out, as it were, for him to travel 
over. Maginn, by the way, had a habit, when hard pressed for 
* copy," of asking any one who happened to i)e with him at the time« 



Ixxii MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAQINN. 

to write in enph or such a manner upon such or sacli a topic. He 
would 'briefly indicate the particular views he wished to advocate or 
oppose, and, this hint given, would himself sit down and write on 
something else. When his friend had finished, he would carefully go 
over the manuscript, cutting out a bit here, inserting an argument, a 
fact, or a sarcasm there, and, having dressed up the article, dispatch it 
to the compositor in company with his own. Sometimes, it is true, 
seeing at a glance that the contribution would not pass muster, he would 
say nothing about it ; but, in numerous instances, the article he had 
improved would appear in Fraser, the writer having the additional 
gratification of receiving payment for what he had done. Dr. Maginn's 
editorial notions were very correct as regarded remuneration ; he con- 
tended that articles sent to a Magazine for nothing, were properly put 
at their full value by that estimation, for that if a paper were not 
worth paying for, it was not worth publishing. As long as this prin- 
ciple was carried out in Fraser'a Magazine^ the success of that peri- 
odical was considerable. 

Another reason why Fraser had great success, during Maginn^s 
more intimate connexion with it, was his own utter want of the low 
feeling of literary jealousy. Had his most bitter enemy sent in a first- 
rate article, adapted to the Magazine, its insertion would have been 
warmly urged by Maginn. Many men, in his place, would have been 
chary of introducing such a contributor as the author of ♦* The Prout 
Papers" (which are truly said to '* rival Maginn's in geniality, wit, 
curious learning, and metrical skill"), but the Doctor was the means 
of introducing him to the Magazine, where he made a great hit. So, 
too, with Mr. Thackeray, who is said to have been enrolled among 
.the contributors by the special recommendation and at the earnest re- 
quest of Maginn, who had been associated with him, I am informed, 
on some small periodical of brief existence and no fame. So, al^o, with 
Mr. Kenealy,* who succeeded Mahony on the Magazine, to which he 

* Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy, a native of Cork, bom in 1819, entered 
Trinity College, Dublin, while yet in his schoolboy's jacket and cap. He 
has a remarkable knowledge of languages, having translated a variety of 
songs and ballads from and into the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Portu- 
guese, Dutch, German, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Eomaic, Magyar, and 
Irish. In this respect he merits a place with Dr. Maginn and the authors of 
" The Prout Papers." When Francis Mahony ceased to write for Fraser, 
his place was taken by Kenealy. He has contributed to the leading periodi- 
cals of the day — including a curious "Polyglot Paper," in half-a-dozen' lan- 
guages, in the Dublin University Magazine. His last work is " Goetlie ; a new 
Pantomime" — a sort of Fanst-ish drama, in poetry, full of learning, strange 



BiEMOIB OF WILUAM MAQINN. Ixxiu 

contributed the lively **Brallaghan Correspondence," together with 
spirited translations from the Greek poets, and some scholarly papers 
on Rabelais and Shakespeare. Other instances might be named, bat 
it is not necessary to multiply proofs against a charge never preferred. 
Maginn, though he sometimes experienced ingratitude, was the least 
selfish of all literary men whom I ever knew — perhaps with the sole 
exception of Sir Walter Scott. 

Maginn*s contributions to Fraser^ collected, would make several vo- 
lumes. I have only selected such of the *' Fraserian Papers," as I con- 
ceived most likely to give an idea of the variety of subjects on which 
he wrote, and the peculiar characteristics of his style. Many of his 
most lively and witty articles would not telU out of the Magazine. Such 
is the fictitious report of the speeches and other proceedings at the 
public dinner given to the Ettrick Shepherd, in January, 1832 (on the 
occasion of his only visit to London), when, by some dreadful miscal- 
culation, one half the persons present actually got nothing but a saucer 
of jelly or a dry biscuit, as a repast for which every one had to pay 
twenty-five shillings sterling. Maginn, in this mock-report, amusingly 
travestied the actual speeches, but it would require crowds of foot- 
notes to explain the allusions. So, too, with the lengthy and humorous 
account of the dinner of ** The Fraserians," with Maginn himself in 
the chair, where no fictitious character was introduced, but speeches 
and songs, mostly written for (and in some few instance sanctioned by) 
the parties named as guests, were given with a very prodigality of fun 
and personality. So, also, with the " Report on Fraser's Magazine," 
described by Mr. Kenealy as a paper fall of talent and learning, but 
tiresome from its great length. So, also, with *• April Fools," where 
eighteen persons, coaxed into a correspondence by means of an adver- 
tisement that a rich East-Indian young lady wanted a husband, fell into 
a trap, and must have felt considerably taken aback when all the let- 
ters, to the number of one hundred, were published, with comments in 
Fraser, So, with the »• Miller Correspondence" — a curious hoax pro- 
fessing to give copies of letters written to a certain Rev. George Mil- 
ler (a lineal descendant of the great Joe Miller), in reply to inquiries 
by him as to the character of an imaginary servant who, he said, had 
referred to each person written to. It is not ascertainable now whether 
these letters really were written by the persons in question. Maginn, 

fancies, and severe, but not unmerited, reproof of Goethe's worldliness. Mr. 
Kenealy is a barrister, on the Oxford Circuit, in England, and in such good 
and increasing practice as to render it likely that he will not soon woo the 
Mase again. Of all Maginn's many friends, he alone tended him in his dying 
days, and recorded the incidents of his life in a manner honorable to both. 



ixxiv MEMOm OF WnjJAM MAQINN. 

who wrote the Miller inquiries, was capable of inventing the whole 
series of replies. The letters are characteristic enough to have been 
composed by the persons whose signatures they bear, and these are 
Miss Landon, Henry Hunt (the Radical blacking-maker), Thomas 
Haynes Bayly, Dr. Croly, Anna Maria Porter, Mary Russell Mitford, 
Harriet Martineau, Sir Martin Archer Shee, Allan Cunningham, Ed- 
ward Lytton Bulwer, Lady Charlotte Bury, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, 
Richard Carlile (the atheistical publisher), Bryan William Proctor, 
T. Crofton Croker, John Wilson Croker, Thomas Moore, J. G. Lock- 
hart, William Holmes, Samuel Rogers, Dr. Maginn (!), S. T. Coleridge, 
Henry HaUam, Professor Wilson, Maria Edgeworth, Washington Ir- 
ving, James Hogg, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Eldon, and Theodore Hook. 
The running comments on each letter and its writer we're in Maginn's 
liveliest manner, but the reprint of the whole (to the extent of thirty 
pages) was more than I dared risk. 

There were also ** The Fraserian Papers," long an attractive portion 
of the Magazine, hastily struck off in Fraser*s back parlor, by Maginn 
and Churchill — largely assisted, Mr. Kenealy intimates, by <* such 
supplies of liquid as woald totally incapacitate all other men from work, 
realizing too often in Regent street the picture which the classic poet 
of antiquity beheld on the rosy mornings of Ansonia :— 

' Sic noctem patera, sic dneam carmine donee 
Injiciat radios in mea vina dies.' "* 

There is force, as well as fun, in these Papers, which usually ap- 
peared in every numbec of the Magazine, during several volumes, but 
the subjects touched upon are of such merely temporary and personal 
interest that I have not included them, or any of them, in this selection 
which form the present volume of Maginn*s Miscellanies. 

In 1834, the coolness with Mr. Blackwood having ceased, Dr. Ma- 
ginn resumed his connexion with Maoa, and in the April and May num- 
bers appeared a couple of stories, f thoroughly Irish in manner, plot, and 
character, called ** A Story without a TaiP' and " Bob Burke*s Duel 
with Ensign Brady." They might be mistaken for chapters out of a 
book by ** Harry Lorrequer." 

Among the contributors to Blackwood's Magazine^ during and after 
Dr. Maginn*s intimate connexion with it, was Robert Macnish, a young 
Scottish physician, residing in Glasgow.^ His first article (published 
in 1826), was a story called *» The Metempsychosis," to which he af- 

* Propertius, iv. 6. 

t Odoherty Papers, vol. i. p. 321-360. 

X Bom in 1802 ; died in 1837. 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MA6INN. IxXV 

fixed the signature '* A Modern Pythagorean** — by which sobriqioet he 
was distinguished ever afterward. He wrote some poetry -» indiffer- 
ently ; a good deal of prose— -very well. He affected the humorons, 
bnt was rather heavy than gay. Two of his semi-professional books 
continue popular : <* The Anatomy of Drunkenness*' (a subject in which 
he was well •• posted up***) and •» The Philosophy of Sleep.*' In due 
course, he became a contributor to Fraser^ where, among other things 
of less note appeared a somewhat pretentious ** Book of Aphorisms," 
evidently suggested by, and not so well executed as, Maginn*8 own 
immortal ** Maxims of 0*Doherty."t To these Aphorisms, notes 
were appended, written by Maginn, which are better than the text they 
illustrate. 

Dr. Macnish visited London, in November, 1833, during Maginn's 
most flourishing relations with Fraser's Magazine, and two of his let- 
ters to Scotland, which have been preserved, thus convey his impres- 
sion of the Doctor. It should be premised that Macnish sported a 
theory (probably as a quiz upon Phrenology) that the capacity of a man's 
mind was to be estimated by the breadth of his chest ! 

" I dine to^ay at the Salopian with Dr. Maginn — he is a most remarkable 
fellow. His flow of ideas is incredibly quick, and his articulation so rapid, 
that it is difficult to follow him. He is altogether a person of vast acuteness, 
celeri^ of apprehension, and indefatigable activity, both of body and mind. 
He is about my own height ; bnt I could allow him an inch round the chest. 
His forehead is very finely developed — his organ of language and ideality 
large, and his reasoning faculties excellent. His hair is quite gray, although 
he does not look more than forty. I imagined he was much older looking, 
and that he wore a wig. While conversing, his eye is never a moment at 
rest ; in fact his whole body. is in motion, and he keeps scrawling grotesque 
figures upon the, paper before him, and rubbing them out again as fast as he 
draws them. *He and Giffard are, as you know, joint editors of the Standard,'' 

In a subsequent letter, where the Chestology theory is again glanced 
at, he says : — 

" I bad some queer chat with O'Doherty. I did not measure Maginn's 
chest, but I examined his head. He has a very fine development of the intel- 
lectual powers, especially ideality and wit, which are t>oth unusually lai^. 
His language is also large, and he has much firmness and dcstructiveness, 

* " Speaking of Macnish, the Modem Pythagorean, and the flattering man- 
ner in which he had spoken of the Doctor, he said, ' I was never in his com- 
pany but once, and then he got blind drunk.'" — Kehbalt's OonvenaHoM 
of Maginn, 

X Odoherty Papers, vol. i. pp. 106-1 7& 



Ixxvi MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

which latter aceoants for the satirical bent of his genius. That t)eantifiil tale, 
' The City of the Demons/ he informed me he wrote quite off-hand> He writes 
with vast rapidity, and can do so at any time. He speaks French, Italian, and 
Grerman, fluently ; these, together with a first-rate knowledge of Latin, Greek, 
and English, make him master of six languages — so that you can allow him 
one. He is altogether a very remarkable man. Indeed, I consider him quite 
equal to Swift, and had his genius, like Swift's, been concentrated in sepa- 
rate works, instead of being squandered with wasteful prodigality in news- 
papers, magazines, &c., I have no doubt it Vould have been considered 
equally original and wonderful. The letter press of the Gallery of Literary 
Portraits he hits off at a moment's notice, and in the course of a few minutes." 

« 

Allusion has been made here, more than once, to Dr. Maginn's 
habits. It cannot be concealed that, particularly in his closing years, 
the habit of drinking grew upon him. What is called ** sociality" was 
too much the custom of his country, when he was a ybung man, 
and, in his case, where geniality, wit, liveliness, and conversarional 
readiness, and extensive information, eminently qualified him for soci- 
ety, frequent occasions occurred, no doubt, when (to use the words 
Moore applied to Sheridan) he " passed the Rubicon of the cup." 
Habits of indulgence, thus commenced, were not to be easily laid aside 
when he fixed his abode in London — they were even fostered by the 
self-same cause which originally created them. He was what is called 
♦* excellent company," and, in London, as well as in Cork, Edinburgh, 
and Paris, his society was greatly desired. As his reputation grew, so 
increased the desire to see him. Many of the higher aristocracy wooed 
him into their brilliant society, and he was also a welcome guest among 
the political chieftains, whose principles he so firmly and powerfully 
vindicated, as well as in the literary circles of London. It was unfor- 
tunate too, in every way, that, though rarely suffering under actual ill 
health, his frame was weak and feeble. His mind, even from infancy, 
had been over-worked, and, in years of maturity, avenged itself upon 
the body. At the age of twenty-five. Dr. Maginn appeared as feeble 
as most men thirty years older. His hair was gray — ** but not with' 
years." While his mind was strong, his body was weak. The result 
was that — as with Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, and Edgar Poe 
— a compararively small quantity of liquor soon took effect upon him, 
and thus he often had the e.vil reputation of being a confirmed drunk- 
ard, when he had not taken a fifth of what those who thus dispara- 
gingly spoke of him had absorbed with impunity. It is far from my 
intention to defend Dr. Maginn — who was wise enough to have prac- 
tised abstinence — but it is proper to state the facts fairly. Once that 
^his species of enjoyment became familiar, he found it difficult to con- 



MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. IXXVU 

tend with it. He was masterccJ by it, and, no doubt, self-reproach often 
led him into a repetition of the excess, trt stifle thought. It is more 
easy to preach than to practise — easiest of all to condemn — 

"For Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame." 

There are a few lines in Byron's *• Monody on the Death of Sheri- 
dan," very applicable to Maginn : — 

*' Bat should there be to whom the fatal blight 
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, 
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone 
Jar in the music which was born their own. 
Still let them pause — ah ! little do they know 
That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe." 

How little his waking intellect was affected by this cause, may be 
judged from the fact that some of his very best productions — those in 
which he exhibited varied learning, acute criticism, great reasoning 
powers, strong memory, high imagination, and exquisite poetical feeling 
and skill, his Shakkspeark Papers, his proofs of the learning of 
Shakespeare, and his Homeric Ballads — were written in the closing 
years of his life. Indeed, the last of the Homeric Ballads, was actu- 
ally dictated on his death-bed. No man whose mind was constantly 
overthrown by drink could have done this, and other work, executed 
by Maginn, to his last hours. I dwell on this fact, to repeat that 
though a comparatively small quantity of liquor prostrated him, Dr, 
Maginn was not an habitual drunkard. 

Late in the autumn of 1836* was projected a new London Magazine, 
called Bentley^s Miscellany, Its editorship was confided to Charles 
Dickens, who soon gathered around him a noble army of contributors 
— including *» Father Prout," Lover, Ainsworth, Theodore Hook, 
Haynes Bayly, Peacock, Maxwell, Charles Oilier, James Morier, 
Hamilton Reynolds, Charles Whitehead, ** Thomas Ingoldsby," George 
Hogarth, Captain Med win, William Jerdan, F. W. Deacon, George 
Dance, Sheridan Knowles, '* Delta," Doctor Maginn, and others. The 
first number of Bentley opened with ** A Prologue,'* by Maginn, con- 
sisting of several pages of lively prose, with a poetical conclusion. The 
exposition of the Miscellany^ s purpose, with complimentary references 
to several periodicals — Blackwood, the New Monthly^ Fraser, and the 

Metropolitan — will bear extracting: — 

« 
" What we propose is simply this : We do not envy the fame or gloi^ of 
other monthly publications. Let them all have their room. We do not do- 
sire to jostle them in their course to fame or profit, even if it was in our power 



Ixxviii MEMOIR OP WILLIAM MAGINN. 

to do so. One may revel in the unmastered fan and the soal-tonching feeling 
of Wilson, the humor of Hamilton, the dry jocularity and the ornamented 
poetry of Moir, the pathos of Warren, the tender sentiment of Caroline Bowles, 
the eloquence of Croly, and the Tory brilliancy of half a hundred contributors 
zealous in the cause of Conserratism. Another may shake our sides with the 
drolleries of Gilbert Gumey and his fellows, poured forth from the inexhaust- 
ible reservoir of the wit of our contributor Theodore Hook — captivate or agi- 
tate us by the Hibernian Tales of Mrs. Hall — or rouse Uie gentlest emotions 
by the fascinating prose or delicious verse of our fairest of collaborateuses Miss 
Landon. ' In a third, we must admire the polyglot faceti» of our own Father 
Front, and the delicate appreciation of the classical and elegant which per-' 
vades the writings of the Greek-thoughted Chapman ; while its rough drol- 
lery, its bold bearing, its mirth, its learning, its courage, and its caricatures 
(when, confined to the harmless and the mirth-provoking, they abstain from 
invading the sanctuary of private life), are all deserving of the highest ap- 
plause, though we should be somewhat sorry to stand in the way of receiving 
the consequences which they occasionally entail. Elsewhere, what can bo 
better than Marryat, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, Midshipman Easy, or 
whatever other title pleases his ear ; a Smollett of the sea revived, equal to 
the Doctor in wit, and somewhat purged of his grossness. In short, to all 
our periodical contemporaries we wish every happiness and success ; and for 
those among their contributors whose writings tend to amuse or instruct— 
and many among them there are to whom such praise may be justly applied 
— we feel the highest honor and respect. We wish that we could catch them 
all, to illuminate our pages, without any desire whatever that their rays should 
be withdrawn from those in which they are at present shining." 

The song, entitled ** Our Opening Chaunt," consisted of ten stanzas, 
in which were rung the changes (of rhyme) upon the name of the pub- 
lisher. The first and last must serve here, for examples :— > 

" Come round and hear, my public dear. 
Come here, and judge it gently— 
The prose so terse, and flowing verse. 
Of us, the wits of Bentley. 



" Our hunt will be for grace and glee, 
Where thickest may the scent lie ; 
At slashing pace begins the chase -» 
Now for the burst of Bentley." 

To the second number, Dr. Maginn contributed the ** Song of the 
Month/' in which he celebrated Valentine's Day. With two excep- 
tions, these were Dr. Maginn's only poetical contributions to Bentley^M 



IIEMOIR OF WILUAM MAQINN. Ixxiz 

Miscellany. In October, 1840, appeared the fqllowing, written in 
graver mood than usual : — 

"THB M0CKIN08 OF THB 80LDIBB8. 
" FmOK ST. MATTHXW. 

" 'Plant a crown upon his head, 
Rojal robe around him spread ; 
See that his imperial hand 
Grasps, as fit, the sceptral wand : 
Then before him bending low. 
As becomes his subjects, bow ; 
Fenced within our armed ring, 
Hail him, hail him, as our King I' 

" Platted was of thorns the crown, 
Trooper's cloak was royal gown ; 
If his passive hand, indeed. 
Grasped a sceptre, 't was a reed ; 
He was bound to feel and hear 
Deeds of shame, and words of jeer ; 
For he whom king in jest they call 
Was a doomed captive scoffed by all. 

" But the brightest crown of gold. 
Or the robe of rarest fold. 
Or the sceptre which the mine 
Of Golconda makes to shine. 

Or the lowliest homage given • 

By all mankind under heaven, 
Were prized by him no more than scorn, 
Sceptre of reed, or crown of thorn. 

" Of the stars his crown is made. 
In the sun he is arrayed. 
He the lightning of the spheres 
As a flaming sceptre bears : 
Bend in rapture before him 
Kanks of glowing seraphim ; 
And we, who spurned him, trembling stay 
The judgment of his coming day." 

What follows is the last of Maginn's occasional poems, having ap- 
peared (in Bentley^s Miscellany for March, 1842), only a few months' 
before his death. The Irish Quarterly Review speaks of it as a strain 
'* deep, and pure, and holy, as Cver swelled from the glorious heart of 
Felicia Hemana." 



IXXX MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

"l OIYB MT SOLDIBB-BOT A BLADB. 

" I give my soldier-boy a blade. 

In fair Damascus fashioned well ; 
Who first the glittering falchion swayed. 

Who first beneath its fury fell, 
I know not, but I hope to know 

That for no mean or hireling trade. 
To guard no feeling base or low, 

I give my soldier-boy a blade. 

'* Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood 

In which its tempering work was done» 
As calm, as clear, as cool of mood, 

Be thou whene'er it sees the sun ; 
For country's claim, at honor's call. 

For outraged friend, insulted maid. 
At mercy's voice to bid it fall, 

I give my soldier-boy a blade. 



** The eye which marked its peerless edge. 

The hand that weighed its balanced poise. 
Anvil and pincers, forge, and wedge. 

Are gone with all their flame and noise— 
And still the gleaming sword remains ; 

So, when in dust I low am laid, 
Kemember by those heart-felt strains, ^ 

I gave my soldier-boy a blade." 

In Bendey*s Miscellany also appeared the celebrated Shakespeare 
Papers, justly considered among Dr. Maginn's ablest contribations to 
general literature. They consist of critical dissertations of the charac- 
ters of Falstaff, Jaques, Romeo, Bottom the Weaver, Timon of Athens, 
Polonius, lago. and Lady Macbeth. [His elaborate Essay on Ham- 
let, from Fraser, will be found in the present volume.] These criti- 
cisms were followed by several articles on Dr. Farmer's •• Essay on 
the Learning of Shakespeare,'* which appeared in Fraser^s Magazine^ 
in the second volume for 1839, and are generally understood to have 
established the fact that Shakespeare was well acquainted, not only 
with Greek and Latin, but also with Italian and French. There is no 
occasion here to repeat what I have already editorially written on these 
Shakespeare Papers, which form Volume III. of this collection. Dr. 
Maginn's own opinion of them may be learned from the fact that the 
Shakespeare Papers and the Homeric Ballads were his only writings 
inot published anonymously. 

It is necessary again to recur to Fraser's Magazine* In the Eightieth 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. Ixxxi 

namber (for August, 1836), appeared Maginn's memorable review of 
Grantley Berkeley's novel of •* Berkeley Castle." . Mr. Kenealy states 
that it was written in Eraser's back parlor, at the end of the month, 
when the whole party was heated with wine. It was scribbled off, with 
his usual rapidity, in about an hour, Maginn having never once taken 
his pen off the paper until he had concluded it ; and on its being handed 
by the publisher to Father Mahony, the latter said — "Jemmy, you 
had better take care what you do — this seems libellous." Fraser 
looked at some of the passages to which the priest objected, but merely 
said, ** Pooh ! we have printed worse ; we are at the end of the month, 
and it must go in." So, the article was published. 

In the present volume (p. 329), will be found the critique, with Dr. 
Maginn's subsequent statement. I have there entered fully into the 
circumstances connected with and rising out of the article in question. 
The consequences to Mr. Fraser were fatal. Grantley Berkeley, 
backed by his brother Craven and a hired prize-fighter, beat Fraser so 
brutally in his own shop, that he never had an hour's health afterward, 
and died, five years later, from the effects of his ruffianism. How he 
sued the Berkeley s for this assault — how he obtained only o£lOO 
damages — and how Dr. Maginn commented, in proprid persond^ on 
the whole affair, may be seen in the concluding pages of this volume. 

Instantly, on hearing of the assault on the publisher, Dr. Maginn 
wcote to Mr. Grantley Berkeley, avowing the authorship of the critique. 
The result was a hostile meeting in the vicinity of London. Maginn 
was accompanied by his old friend, Mr. Hugh Fraser. Three shots 
were exchanged, without effect. At the third fire, Berkeley's bullet 
struck the ground close to Maginn's boot, and Maginn's ball grazed the 
collar of his opponent's coat. The seconds who had interfered after 
the second shot, now declared that the duel must end, or they 
would quit the field. On this, the principals (who kept silent all 
through) left the ground, bowing to each other as they departed. Ma- 
ginn's coolness and courage were much praised. His own feeling was 
that it was to be made a family affair on the part of the Berkeleys, 
and that he ought not leave any room for cavil on their parts. Another 
duel, with Lord Euston (now Duke of Grafton), nearly arose out of 
the same critique, but his lordship's hostile demonstrations terminated 
on a frank and manly explanation from Dr. Maginn. The duel, how- 
ever, did not cause any cessation of Maginn's satire against Grantley 
Berkeley, for he subsequently reviewed, with unabated severity, a 
second novel, as well as a pamphlet, from that person's pen. 

About the period of the duel. Dr. Maginn's connexion with the 
Standard closed. He was dismissed, not, as has sometimes been a1« 

F 



IxXXii MEMOIB OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

leged, on accoant of irregularities or improprieties of conduct, but solely 
and wholly because it was impossible for him, at times, to give that 
constant attendance at the office which, as sub-editor of a daily paper, 
was naturally expected from him. Careless about money matters, as 
men of letters too frequently are, he had heedlessly incurred debts, and 
be was constantly beset by duns and besieged by sheriff's officers. 
Mr. Barham has related an anecdote of Maginn so characteristic that, 
even if its brevity did not recommend it, it should be inserted here. He 
says, **In wit he was scarcely inferior to Hook, whom, indeed, he 
resembled in the weak, as well as the strong points of his character. 
One anecdote, a mere straw in the wind, will suffice to show the man. 
A friend, at his table, was complimenting him on the fine flavor of his 
wine, and begged to be informed of the merchant's name. * Oh, I get 
it from a house close by, just as I happen to want it,' replied the host, 
* the London Tavern.' * Indeed !' said the other ; * a capital cellar, un- 
questionably ; but have you not to pay rather an extravagant price foi 
it ?' * I do n't know, I do n't know,' returned the Doctor ; * I believe 
they put down something in a book !' " 

This is exactly the key to most worldly embarrassments. *' / believe 
they put down something in a hook,^^ is all that the thoughtless think 
of debt — until they feel its crushing consequences. 

In 1836-7, therefore. Dr. Maginn was involved in debt; was de- 
prived of the best, because the most certain part, of his income ; was 
shy of public places, from dread of bailifis ; and, as may presently be 
seen, had causes, not alone pecuniary, for unhappy and miserable re- 
flection. On the other hand, he now wrote leading articles, with his 
Tisual facility and force, for the Age^ then having a large circulation, 
under the unscrupulous editorship of C. M. Westmacott — contributed 
also to the True Sun^ an evening paper of some pretension — occa- 
sionally wrote for the John Bull — was a leading author in Bentley's 
Miscellany — and continued his connexion with Fraser, 

Indeed, in 1837-8, almost the ablest paper Maginn ever wrote, ap- 
peared in Fraser, This was the elaborate article, stretching through 
three Numbers, upon ** The Doctor," and proving, chiefly by induc- 
tion, that Southey ftust have been the author. Learning, wit, and 
argument, are here combined. But as the article contains a great 
many quotations^- as Southey now stands confessedly in the position 
where Maginn would have placed him — and as it would occupy nearly 
a hundred pages, I have not reprinted it here. Besides, the authorship 
was proved against Southey (before Maginn ever discussed the ques- 
tion), in a lucid and comparatively brief review, in the Knickerbocker 
Magazine, written by the late Horace Binney Wallace, of Philadel- 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MA6INN. Izxxui 

pbia. The case was so strongly made out by Mr. Wallace, that, a 
pretty fall abstract of this argument, which I sent to Mr. Southey, 
elicited a volunteer denial by him of not only the authorship itself, but 
of any knowledge of the author ! 

When Maginn paid a flying visit to London, in 1821 (it is recorded 
that his letters were addressed under cover to Mr. Jerdan, of the Lite- 
rary Gazette^ who ** personally delivered them to him at the Angel 
Hotel, St. Clements, where he had been deposited by the Bath coach*'), 
he made a few literary acquaintances. Among these was Letitia Eli- 
zabeth Land on, at that time, and for several following years, Oie poetess 
of the Literary Gazette, She had published ** The Fate of Adelaide*' 
some eighteen months before — a poem full of genius and promise, al- 
though only the tentative flight of the bird ere it soar aloft into the blue 
ether which henceforth is to be musical with her sweet, sad song. 
Thought, feeling, and fancy were in this strain— judgment, practice, 
and maturity made their author, long ere she died, one of the best lyric 
poets of England. 

When Dr. Maginn first met L. E. L., at Mr. Jerdan's house, she 
had just entered into her twentieth year, and, without possessing 
beauty, was decidedly attractive, with her expressive and regular fea- 
tures, her petite figure, her graceful movements, her gentle voice, her 
lively wit, her occasional gleams of sentiment, and her fascinating man- 
ners. At that time. Dr. Maginn was only twenty-eight, with a high 
reputation, and manners quite as natural and nearly as pleasing as her 
own. To use a common, but expressive word, he was somewhat 
♦* smitten"— so much so, I have heard, that he actually proposed for 
the lady, whose friends thought it too early for her to wed, without 
higher worldly possessions and prospects than her suitor then had. He 
returned to Ireland, and absence must have changed his mind, for he 
married Miss Bullen within two years. 

On permanently taking up his residence in London, in 1824, he 
resumed his acquaintance with Miss Landon. Circumstances had 
changed their relative situation. Maginn's aflection sobered down into 
respectful regard and warm friendship, nor was there any body (next 
to Mr. Jerdan), on whose counsel and judgment she more thoroughly 
relied than on his. In public, as in private, he equally and invariably 
stood her friend. Every new work of hers received immediate and 
appreciative notices from his pen. On the appearance of her *» Im- 
provisatrice," he noticed it at some length, in Blackwood (August, 1824) 
in a review so full of personal allusions, that he not only mentioned 
the very house — 131 Sloane street, Brorapton — where she then re- 
sided, but even gave the route, from Hyde Park Comer, by which it ' 



IxXZir MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

could most readily be reached. In the *' Noctes," in the same Number, 
he again mentioned her as ** a perfect beanty,** adding ** She is one of 
the sweetest little girls in the world, and her book is one of the sweet- 
est little books in the world," concluding with *»I am no great believer 
in female genius ; but nevertheless, there is a certain feminine elegance 
about the voluptuousness of this book, which, to a certain extent, marks 
it with an individual character of its own.** Indeed he repeatedly 
praised her in the ** Noctes," interested Wilson so much in her favor 
that he, also, did the same, and even defended her in Maoa from a 
somewhat under-estimate of her genius which had appeared in the 
Westminster Review. In 1833, he introduced her into Fraser's "Gal- 
lery of niustriuus Characters.*' Defending her from the charge of 
putting too much love into her writings, he asked, ** Is she to write of 
politics, or political economy, or pugilism, or punch ?*' and he added, 
* She shows every now and then that she is possessed of information, 
feeling, and genius, to shine in other departments of poetry ; but she 
does right in thinking that Sappho knew what she was about when she 
chose the tender passion as a theme of love.** Alluding to the pose in 
M aclise's sketch of her, he pleasantly said, " She is a very nice, un- 
bluestockingish, well-dressed, and trim-looking young lady, fond of 
sitting pretty much as Croquis (who has hit her likeness admirably) 
has depicted her, in neat and carefully-arranged costume, at her table, 
chatting, in pleasant and cheering style, with all and sundry who ap- 
proach her.** In the prose-rhyming letter-press which accompanied 
Eraser's plate of ** Regina*s Maids of Honor," he thus pleasantly com- 
plimented her : ** And next, the mistress of the shell (not of lobster, but 
the lyre), see the lovely L. E. L., talks with tongue that will not tire. 
True, she turns away her face, out of pity to us men ; but the swan- 
like neck we trace, and the figure full of grace, and the mignon hand 
whose pen wrote the Golden Violet^ and the LiCrary Gazette^ and 
Francesca-s mournful story. (Isn't she painted con amore ?)" 

Mr. Kenealy declares that at least one fourth of those poems which 
combine to form *' The Drawing-Room Scrap-Book,'* while that An- 
nual was under the guidance of Miss Landon, was contributed by Dr. 
Maginn, and that '* he used to repeat those poems which he had given 
to the fair editress, laughing heartily all the time at the little hoax they 
were playing off* upon the public.'* Mr. Jerdan, on the other hand, 
affirms that ** L. E. L. had no assistance from any hand." Taking into 
consideration Dr. Maginn's tendency to literary jokes, there is a strong 
probability that he did assist his fair friend, in the taskwork of 
writing verses to the often-used illustrations which formed the attrac- 
tions of the picture-books in question. 



MEMOIB OF WILUAM MA6INN. IxXXY 

Miss Landon, albeit a pure-minded woman as ever breathed, had the 
misfortune of being grossly slandered almost from the very time when 
she became a popular writer. First, her name was grossly associated 
with that of Mr. Jerdan, a man full twenty years her senior, who had 
known her from childhood, and had grown-up and married daughters 
much older than herself. This calumny, with others equally baseless, 
caused her much unhappiness, and is said to have strongly militated 
against her being matrimonially settled in life. 

At last, in 1836, when she was thirty-four years old, a London 
newspaper editor, who has since greatly advanced in literary reputa- 
tion and has obtained a very lucrative and important public appoint- 
ment, paid his addresses to her, and was accepted — although she felt 
the disadvantage of being ten years older than her intended. Suddenly, 
the projected union was broken off) and the lady, like Lord UIlin*8 

daughter, »* was left lamenting." Mr. F had received several 

anonymous letters, to which he paid no attention, some of them re- 
peating the old slander respecting Mr. Jerdan, others dishonorably naming 

the lady in connexion with Dr. Maginn. Finally, it is said, Mr. F 

received, in a blank envelope, several letters wrjtten by L. E. L., ad- 
dressed to Dr. Maginn, familiarly commencing with the words, ** My 
dearest William," and written in a tone of affectionate friendship, which 
the quick jealousy of a lover interpreted as confirming the worst report 
which anonymous slander had breathed into his mind. The story goes 

on to say that, in a paroxysm of rage and suspicion, Mr. F enclosed 

the letters to L. E. L., with one line saying that they ** were parted for 
ever, and that the love-epistles which he sent back would explain why." 
It is added that Mrs. Maginn, who was fully aware of her husband's 
friendly regard for the brilliant poetess, and never had the slightest 
cause for thinking her husband unfaithful to her — indeed, he was a 
most affectionate husband and father — had met with the letters in Dr. 
Maginn's desk, where he had carelessly and unconcealingly placed 
them, and, misunderstanding their platonic character, in a moment of 

irritation had sent them to Mr. F . It is said that, when she 

learned what the consequences were, she went to Mr. F , candidly 

confessed an4 lamented what she had groundlessly done, and convinced 
him, even as in her cooler mood she was herself persuaded, that both 

of them had wronged the lady. Mr. F endeavored to renew his 

tender relations with L. E. L., but his distrust and suspicion had 
wounded her beyond forgiveness. It is said that she then made up 
her mind to accept the first matrimonial offer made to her— that, in 
this mood, she was wooed and won by the late Captain Maclean, who 
privately married her on June 7, 1838 (in the presence of her friend Sir 



IxxXViii MEMOIR OF WILUAM MA6INN. 

merly bad his office and stores in it. The hero of the story, who gives 
bis'name to the work, is represented as a serious, prosperous merchant, 
whose private and public character has been honorable and above sus- 
picion during full twenty years of commercial life in Liverpool. He 
is even a decidedly religious person, with puritanical strictness of morals 
and manners, and (being wealthy), much regarded, as a shining light, 
by the preachers and ruling elders of the sect to which he belongs. Sud- 
denly, dark suspicion falls upon him, and he is identified, notwithstand- 
ing his apparent sanctity, with a notorious pirate, named Dick Hoskins, 
who has long been the terror of the Atlantic. Dr. Maginn did little 
more than enter into this part of the story. He drew, in a very Ains- 
worthian manner, a number of characters in the middle and higher ranks 
of life, among whom he introduced Hugh Manesty, the nephew of the 
merchant. Some of these are graphic sketches, and two or three of the 
scenes are full of life, liveliness, and character. One scene, very vivid 
in its narration, may remind tbe reader, a little too much, perhaps, of 
the manner in which (in Bulwer*s brilliant fiction) Paul Clifibrd and 
his fellow knights of the road ease Lord Maalaverer of his cash and 
jewels. It relates, with some sprightlinesss, how Lord Randy, the 
spendthrift son of a stately peer named the Earl of Silvertop, sets on a 
party of his loose companions to commit a highway robbery on his 
wealthy sire, a decided disciple of Lord Chesterfield — how they ap- 
propriate a sum of two thousand guineas which the Earl had brought 
with him, in his carriage, from London to Lancashire — how that large 
amount of money had been intended for the purchase, by the father, of 
an interest in an estate which the profligate son had put into the mar- 
ket — how the Earl became aware of his son's complicity in the robbery 
— how, after that, he executed a deed, giving the son (Lord Randy* 
the aforesaid) formal and legal property in the money, should he ever 
recover it — how, in an interview with his son, he informs him that he 
had intended, on purchasing the estate, to make a present of it back 
to him the vendor — how, joining company with his **^aZ«," Lord 
Randy vainly endeavored to prevail on them to surrender the stolen 
money to himself, now the legal owner — how the aflair ended in a 
duel between his Lordship and Sir Theobald Chillingworth, one of the 
roysterers and plunderers, in which the rowdy baronet was run through 
the heart — and, finally, how Lord Randy sought safety in flight, 
without having secured even a single guinea of the money which he 
had so ingeniously, through unconsciously, set on his friends to steal 
from himself, as the event proved. 

Another scene, certainly Maginn's own composition, marked as it is 
with vigor and originality, is an account given of the death of the Earl 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. Ixxxix 

of Bardolph, maternal grandfather to Lord Randy ; an individual 
named ** Joe, the groom," telling the story. The Earl, it seems, was 
what is called a sporting character, and was addicted, all his life, to the 
polite and humane sport of cock-figbting. The noble Earl, in his last 
moments, had ** a table by his side, with a prayer-book, a posset-cup, 
the Racing Calendar, and a tankard of ale'' — though he could not drink 
it, no nor even lift it to his mouth. Having taken leave of his rela- 
tions, and even prohibited their coming near him any more, this ex- 
emplary nobleman employs Joe to smuggle a couple of game-cocks up 
into his bed-room — has them paraded and set on the floor — and 
having twenty-five guiueas under his pillow, intended for the doctor, 
bets on ** the ginger-pill" (a notable bird), his guinea against Joe's half- 
penny, and, in match after match, wins the whole of Joe*s capital; 
neither more nor less than fivepence-halfpenny. The last jnain foaght, 
the illustrious Earl cleared oflT the coppers, his winnings, into his bed 
from the table, shoving the green silk purse, with the guineas in it, 
over to his friend Joe, *' and then he cast his eye upon the cocks, and 
the bird he had last backed gave one great loud crow, and the old man's 
head sunk on the pillow, and he died." 

Extravagant — even improbable as this incident may appear, it hap- 
pens to be nothing more nor less than based upon fact. Dr. Maginn 
may have derived it from his recollection of a very similar circumstance 
related of the death of a well-known character in Dahallow(the sport- 
ing district, par excellence, of his own native county in Ireland), or may 
have sketched it from a much more recent, though not so well authen- 
ticated a tradition, which he might have heard, as a matter of course, in 
Liverpool. The late Earl of Derby (he who married the beautiful 
Miss Farren, the actress) ♦* shuffled off this mortal coil," at Knowsley 
Park, within a few miles of Liverpool, in 1834, at the advanced age 
of eighty-two, and I can say — for I resided at Liverpool, at the time 
— that it was reported and believed that his Lordship, who was one of 
the most noted cock- fighters in England, actually had a main (as it is 
called) between his favorife birds, in his bedroom, within a few hours 
of his death, pretty much as is related of *» the Earl of Bardolph," by 
Dr. Maginn. 

The conclusion of the romance of *' John Manesty" is much weaker 
than might have been expected from the practised pen of Mr. Oilier, 
whose *♦ Altham and his Wife," and the ghostly story of ♦* Inesilla," 
written in his youth, show him to have possessed the requisite skill to 
conduct a fictitious narrative, as well as power of description, romantic 
feeling, and even passionate expression and delineation. He certainly 
did not bring any of these into play in his hasty and indiflerent finish- 



XG macom of wiluam maginn. 

ing of " John Manesty" — and what he did may be briefly as well as 
justly characterized, in the words of Shakespeare, as a ** most lame 
and impotent conclusion/* 

Ecturning to London, in the summer of 1839, Dr. Maginn found, 
only too soon, that he was remembeied, only too well, by certain legal 
functionaries who, as officials under the sherifls of London and Middle- 
sex, were possessors of slips of parchment, technically called ** writs of 
ca. «a.,** under which, should they encounter him within the limits of 
either of those localities, they ^^ere empowered to convey him to a 
debtors* prison.* It was difficult to make a livelihood by his pen un- 
der the adverse circumstances by which he was now severely pressed. 
Personal communication with the newspaper-offices for which he con- 
tinued to write was almost out of the question, and, though he kept up 
full supplies of ♦* copy'* for Eraser's Magazine^ he rarely ventured near 
the publisher's. Under a humane law enacted during the reign, and it 
is said even on the suggestion, of William III., all debtors in great 
Britain and Ireland are free from arrest, during the twenty-four hours 
. which constitute the Sabbath-day. Very frequently, at this period, it 
was on that hallowed day alone that Dr. Maginn was able to see his 
family, to meet a friend for weeks together. One who knew him well 
says, ** he was in constant difficulties, beset by duns, was frequently 
arrested, and wrote in sponging-houses, and from his hiding-places, 
miserable garrets in obscure streets." Mr. Kenealy says, ♦* From this 
time until 1840, the condition of Maginn was one of wretchedness. 
.Goldsmith's life, even in his worst days of poverty, could not have 
been more deplorable. He was arrested and thrown into jail several 
times; yet in all his misfortunes he retained his serenity of mind." 

Pf obably about this period — if ever — occurred the incident related, 
some years ago, in a lively paper on Fraser^s Magazine, which ap- 
peared in the London literary journal, The Critic. The writer, who 
evidently had particular knowledge of many facts and persons con- 
nected with Fraser, thus tells the story: "Poor Maginn! People 
who knew him like to speak of him, and*to speak of him kindly, in 
spite of all his faults and foibles. Did the reader ever hear a story of 
hina. on the Thames, which, whether true in its details or not, marks 

♦ It maybe necessary to state that there are three sorts of ivrits in England, 
where imprisonment for debt continues. One, before judgment, is the capias 
ad respondendum ; the other two, of execution, are the Jieri facias (commonly 
called Siji,fa.) issued when the creditor has recovered judgment, on which 
the sheriff can levy the amount of debt and costs against the defendant's 
goods and chattels, and the ca. sa. {*' capias ad satisfaciendum") on which he 
may seize the person of the debtor. 



MEMOIB OF WILLIAM BIA6INN. zd 

die character be bad for genially inflaencing bis fellow-men ? From 
tbe first, Maginn had a trick of spending his money as fast as be got 
it ; but latterly be spent it much faster, and with the usual result. 
Often, tbe * human face divine,' as exhibited by tbe hurrying throngs 
of the Strand, it was forbidden him to behold ; often the busy bum of 
Fleet street, which Johnson loved so well, it was forbidden him to 
hear. Through * back slums' and tbe labyrinthine intricacies of the 
Temple be was condemned to slink (seeing a bailifi' in every shadow), 
toward Bridge street, Blackfriars, whither newspaper-business called 
him. Once, on such an occasion, tbe shadow proved a reality, and 
Maginn had to take to his heels, making for tbe water's edge. Arrived 
there, he found one solitary skiff, into which he darted, and loosening 
the rope that bound it to the shore, he struck Father Thames with 
sounding oars, and passed the mid-stream, beyond which tbe bailifi^ 
panting on tbe water's edge, even had he procured a boat, could 
not seize him, uncapturable within tbe water limits of Surrey. A 
huge barge (so runs the story), waiting for the tide, was moored just 
beyond the welcome limit, and into it Maginn, leaping, found a score 
of men, smoking pipes and quaffing liquor from pewter pots. Easily 
adjusting himself, the Doctor soon made friends with them, took bis 
pipe and drank from his pot, harangued them on our glorious constitu- 
tion in Church and State, and on tbe institutions of our forefathers, 
and gradually working them to a pitch of enthusiasm, declared that he 
was a martyr to tbe cause of loyalty, that because of it he had lost bis 
all, and that because of it, on yonder shore, a bailiflf waited to arrest 
him for a few paltry pounds. Tbe bargemen were taken captive by 
the eloquence of tbe Irishman, and actually (it is said) subscribed the 
money with which Maginn, rowing to shore, dismissed tbe bailiff and 
pursued bis devious way to the office." 

To this story may be applied tbe familiar Italian saying, ** Se noH 
e vero, ^ ben trovato," for it is good enough to be true, but I suspect 
that tbe actual hero of tbe adventure was not Dr. Maginn, but a 
townsman and quondam pupil of bis, at this moment one of tbe most 
brilliant writers on tbe London daily press. At least, he escaped from 
his legal pursuers, by taking to tbe water, as here described, though I 
never heard of bis having induced the bargemen, who took him. across 
to ** the Surrey side," to pay the amount of his debt.* 

* A law process issued in one city or county does not " run" in another. 
Therefore, Middlesex county or London city writs have no power in the 
county of Surrey, on " the other side" of the Thames, though Lambeth, 
Southwark, Camberwell, and other populous parts of what really form the 
metropolis of England, belong to Surrey. I have often seen fugitives, labor- 



XCii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

In 1840, Maginn commenced the publication, in weekly numbers, of 
•* Magazine Miscellanies, by Doctor Maginn." They were badly got 
np and brought out. In his palmy days, such a selection of his best 
articles would have sold extensively. Now, only a few numbers were 
issued, for the speculation proved a failure. The only complete copy 
(containing ten numbers, and extending to one hundred and sixty pages, 
small folio) is in the possession of Mr. Kenealy, who favored me with 
a list of its contents — without which, indeed, it would have been'im- 
possible to have ascertained, with any degree of accuracy, not only the 
articles which Dr. Maginn really had contributed to various periodi- 
cals, but those which were considered by himself to be worthy of re- 
publication. 

It was in 1840, also, that Mr. Kenealy, first made personal acquain- 
tance with the Doctor, his townsman. In a letter written at the time, 
he has described his first interview. When he called, the Doctor was 
not at home ; Mr. Kenealy waited for his return, and says : — 

" In a short time the Doctor bolted in. I stood up and bowed. He shook 
hands with me. Now^ for his description. He is about five feet nine inches 
in height, of a slender make ; his hair is very gray, and he has a gentle 
stoop. He is quite careless about his appearance — has a gay, good-humored 
look, and is as simple in his manners as a child. He behaved to me with the 
most perfect friendliness, just as if he and I were of the same age, and all our 
lives acquainted. He has a slight stutter, and is rather thick in his delivery. 
He is completely and perfectly an Irishman in every look, and word, and 
movement. Occasionally, in the middle of a conversation he breaks into a 
tune, or hums an air of some' sort. He is full of anecdote, and possesses none 
of that dictatorial style which prevails with so many learned men, and renders 
their conversation and company tiresome. 

" So much for description. Now for a sketch of what he said. After 
some ordinary talk, inquiries, &c., he asked me to -spend the evening with 
him to-morrow, apologizing at the same time for not asking me to dine, which 
he said he could not do, as his family are about to go to France, and the 
lodgings are inconvenient. I felt complimented, and said I should call at 
seven o'clock. After some further talk he retired to another room, and in 



ing under " suspicion of debt" (as the actuality is facetiously called) running, 
*at the lop of their speed, across the bridges which span the Thames, and sud- 
denly stopping, in fall career, when they had gone a few feet beyond the 
centre. Being then, constructively, out of Middlesex and in Surrey, none 
but a Surrey officer could make the dreaded caption, and the number of these 
functionaries, in that asylum, was comparatively few — besides, if their eyes 
were covered with a couple of gold coins, they had a knack of not seeing 
persons against whom they might have processes. 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. ZCIU 

abont ten minntes came back. I was examining some books on the table, 
when he said : ' Ah, I have no books oat at present ; all mine ail9 packed 
ap/ and at the same time directed my attention to a side bookcase, where I 
saw Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Shakespeare in nineteen volumes, lying 
Bide by side. He then told me that he was preparing critical editions of 
both." 

The two Corkinen issued forth, arm-in-arm, chatting as they went 
along, de omnibus rebus. They reached the classic region of St. Giles's, 
then the abode of the very lowest Irish in London, and, says Mr. 
Kenealy, the Doctor ** then turned round, and conducted me through 
every part of this celebrated locale, pointing out its filthiest purlieus, 
and underground cellars. * Look there,' said he, as he pointed out one 
of the latter, which was open. I looked in : there were heaps of po- 
tatoes and all sorts of filth lying about. * In that cellar, at least two 
hundred and fifty men, women, and children, sleep every night. The 
best way to give you an idea of what 8t. Giles's is, that in this little 
parish there is a double police force.' He added, * By next year we 
hope to get rid of it — it is a disgrace to London, and is exactly in the 
centre of it." 

Mr. Kenealy recollected and Jias reported a good deal of Maginn's^ 
table-talk, which was full of anecdote, somewhat resembling Sir Wal- 
ter Scott's, I think, inasmuch as it repeated good things said by others, 
rather than originated any wit of his own. Such was his anecdote of 
Mr. O'Connell, running thus : ** When he was placing his son Maurice 
with Dr. Sandes, his tutor, in Trinity College, Dublin, Sandes asked 
him what be intended to make of Maurice ? Dan replied : * Sir, I 
intend to make him a barrister ; it depends upon himself to be a 
lawyer.* " 

Like every other person who knew Dr. Maginn well, Mr. Kenealy 
speaks most warmly of his great good-nature, geniality, and freedom 
from all approach to pedantry. In a subsequent letter, also written at 
the time, he says : ** The more I see of him, the more I admire his 
talent. He is really a splendid fellow. He knows every thing. He 
will teach you as much in one hour as the best book will in ten. His 
conversation is the most extraordinary thing possible. He jumbles to- 
gether, fun, philosophy, and polemics ; and in these (so incongruous) 
he is pre-eminent. At first you would say that he spent all his life 
reading jest-books ; but then thore is such admirable philosophy and 
common-sense in his reflections, that you get rid of your first notion as 
quickly as possible. But just as you are on the point of averring that 
this man reads nothing but works of thought and reasoning, you are 
forced to gulp down the exclamation, for he jumps into theology, and 



xdr MEMom of william maginn. 

will argue on it like a bishop. Then you declare that he has studied 
nothing 'but polemics all his life. Such a man is Maginn. He is a 
ruin, but a glorious ruin, nevertheless. He takes no care of himself* 
Could he be induced to do so, he would be the first man of the day in 
literature, or any thing else. But he lives a rollicking life ; and will 
write you one of his ablest articles while standing in his shirt, or sip- 
ping brandy — so naturally do the best and wittiest thoughts flow from 
his pen. His reading is immense; his memory powerful, and his 
knowledge of the world is perhaps equal to that of any man that ever 
lived. In fact, I say he knows every thing, and so he does." 

Dr. Maginn*s principal dependence, from the time of his return from 
Liverpool, was Fraser's Magazine^ with weekly contributions, not 
very handsomely paid for, to one or two weekly papers. He returned 
to Blackwood^ also. In the Numbers for July and August, 1840, ap- 
peared ** The Tobias Correspondence*' which, Mr. Kenealy says, 
•* was written in a little garret* in Wych street in the Strand, where 
the Doctor was hiding from the bloodhounds of the law." This arti- 
cle, professing to consist of letters from Nestor Goosequil, Esq., a 
veteran editor, to Tobias Flimsey, Esq., on the general question of 
editing newspapers, is full of liveliness, satire, knowledge of the world, 
literary experience, and wit. It opens with humorous references to 
the personal aflairs of Mr. Tobias, and then proceeds, with great mi- 
nuteness and at considerable length, to give the writer's ideas of the 
manner in which a newspaper should be edited — naming varieties of 
leading political and public topics, and showing how they were to be 
written for or against as circumstances might require. All through this 
arricle runs an under-current of satire on the Whigs — a class of pub- 
licists whom Maginn greatly despised, from Lord John Russell down to 
•* Poodle Byng," thinking that their practice too much fell short of 
their promises. When Dr. Maginn was asked, by a friend, for some 
hints as to how he should write for the public journals, he answered, 
•* Read the Tobias Correspondence — there is the whole art and mys- 
tery of editing a newspaper.^' When the article was attacked by the 
London newspapers, he remarked, ** The reason is, every word is true, 
and my gentlemen of the press don't like thaty 

Dr. Maginn's acquaintance with Mr. Kenealy speedily ripened into 
warm regard and friendship, despite the great disparity of their years. 
With his usual kindness he introduced his gifted young friend into the 
Fraserian circle of writers. Over that body of contributors, however, 
a heavy gloom fell, in October, 1841, when, after prolonged sufferings, 
patiently borne, Mr. Eraser died — a victim to the brutality of the 
Berkeleys. He was buried at Bunhill Fields ; and, when the cere- 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. ZCV 

mony was over, Maginn desired the grave-digger to show him the 
tomb of John Bunyan. As they approached the place, Maginn, who 
appeared particularly thoaghtful, turned to the person who accompanied 
him (Mr. Kenealy, I believe, who relates the incident), and, tapping 
him on the shoulder, said quietly, ** Tread lightly." He bent over 
the grave for some time in melancholy mood, and seemed unconscious 
of any one's presence. The bright sunshine poured around him. No 
more illustrious visitor ever stood beside that solitary grave. At length, 
turning away, he exclaimed in deep and solemn tones, ** Sleep on, thou 
Prince of Dreamers." 

In the early part of 1842, Dr. Maginn was thrown into prison for the 
expenses incurred by the publication of the ten numbers of his ** Mis- 
cellanies." He was confined in the Fleet, a prison in the heart of 
London, which has since been pulled down. Here he continued to 
write for Fraser and the newspapers. He was liberated after a couple 
of months' duresse^ by the Insolvent Debtors' Court. 

Dr. Maginn's friends would gladly hope, were there any evidence 
or even reasonable presumption to the contrary, that a prisoner for 
debt in the Fleet* he was not the original of the caricature, inscribed 
** Captain Shandon," in the novel of ** Pendennis," written by Mr. 
Thackeray — who is stated to have owed his place among the con- 
tributors to Fraser^s Magazine to the Doctor's introduction.* 

Partly during his detention in prison, and partly after his release. 
Dr. Maginn contributed a few articles to *♦ Punch." In the second 
volume are " Conundrumatic Observations," p. 126 ; ** Verses by a 
Bard," p. 131 ; Lines ** To Miss Loo Conoway" (a paraphrase on the 
Eleventh Ode of the first bopk of Horace, ** Ad Leuconaen"), p. 142 ; 
** The Speech of the Session," p. 142 ; " The Twelfth Ode of the 
Third Book of Horace," a poetical translation, p. 143 ; Rhymed Re- 
view of Maxwell's »* Hector O'Halloran," p. 146 ; *» Another Com- 
mentator," p. 174 ; ** Medical Poetry," p. 193. In the first volume of 
♦* Punch," p. 273, is a column of rhymed translations, or rather para- 
phrases, from Anacreon and Petronius. . 

Maginn emerged from prison — a broken man. His spirit was bro- 
ken by the humiliation of obtaining his liberty through the intervention 
of the Insolvency Act. " I can never again raise my head in society," 
was his bitter thought and saying. His health, weakened by imprison- 
ment, rapidly declined. He was ordered to quit London, for change 

* It is said that Captain Shandon " would write on any side." None knew 
better than Mr. Thackeray himself, that Dr. Maginn, who was a political 
writer for nearly thirty years, never wrote on any but the Conservatiye side. 



ZCYl HEMOIB OF WILLIAM MA6INN. 



I 



of air, but his metropolitan adhesion was as great as ever Johnson^s had 
been. He lingered amid his old haunts — partly induced to remain by 
hopes which, at this crisis, were held out of diplomatic employment at 
Vienna. He had been the able and consistent champion of Toryism 
for a qaarterof a century, and had some reason to expect to be remem- 
bered and rewarded, when his party came into power. They obtained 
office in the autumn of 1841, and he was led to believe that his ser- 
vices would be remembered. He was forgotten. As Frederick of 
Prussia said of Voltaire, " The orange sucked, they threw the rind 
away." Perhaps, to do them justice, they may have heard such exag- 
gerated accounts of Dr. Maginn's habits, as made it a matter of pru- 
dence to avoid the risk of giving him an appointment. But there were 
many other ways, of aiding him. 

Broken in health and spirits, and warned that further residence in 
London might be fatal, Maginn removed to Walton-upon-Thames, one 
of the numerous villages in the metropolitan suburbs which retain their 
charming and healthy rurality, though Railwayism has brought them, 
as it were, within a comparatively short distance. Thither, toward 
the end of July, Mr. Kenealy, on whose friendly regard and scholarly 
society, the Doctor placed strong reliance, was summoned — just three 
.weeks before his death. He found him ill, with an old Greek Homer 
by his side on the bed. Emaciated and worn away, his hands wasted, 
his face pale, his hair disordered, his eyes larger and brighter than 
usual — yet still with the old genial manner, the wonted outpouring of 
the mind in conversation ; talking largely on divers subjects for two 
hours. At the end of that time, Mr. Kenealy left him for a time, 
to walk about Walton. On his retam, he found Maginn up and 
dressed for dinner. It was the last day he ever came down stairs or 
dressed. The next day Mr. Kenealy visited him again — and found him 
utterly penniless, anxious to move to Kensington, but unable to do so ; 
recommended to go to Cheltenham, where Dr. Ferguson assured him 
♦* he would get as well as ever in a few months,? but kept back from 
want of means ; confident that his ailments were curable ; with good 
spirits, telling stories as usual ; witty, and overflowing with fun. 

To his pecuniary necessity, Mr. Kenealy administered promptly, 
more than once — as far as his own means permitted. Nor did he rest 
here. On the 11th August, he wrote to Sir Robert Peel, then Prime 
Minister, a letter setting forth with pathetic earnestness, the leading 
circumstances of Maginn*s situation — stating that his physician had 
now declared that nothing but a sea-voyage could save his life ; that 
he was without means for such a journey ; that, even to support him- 
self at all, he was compelled (being too weak to hold a pen) to dictate 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. XCVU 

to his daughter articles for the magazines and newspapers; that he 
must perish, in his need, if relief were not speedily afibrded ; that he 
was himself una'ware of his danger, though his wife and family knew 
it ; and that, to say nothing of the aid his pen had afforded the cause 
of which Sir Robert had long been the leader and most eloquent ex- 
pounder, he surely merited consideration as an individual of exalted 
genius, the most universal scholar perhaps of the age, and as good, and 
kind, and gentle-hearted a being as ever breathed — one, too, who had 
never written a line which the most modest eye might not see, or the 
most fastidious lip repeat. 

Without mentioning what he had done, Mr. Kenealy continued to 
visit Dr. Maginn as frequently as he was able. On the 15th August, 
he found him with death pictured on his countenance, reduced to a 
skeleton, unable even to lift any thing to his mouth. He talked a 
great deal, partly concerning the great writers whoni he had intimately 
known — partly of books — partly of the numerous literary projects on 
which his mind was always running. He may have been conscious of 
his dangerous situation, but did not allude to it. His intellect was 
strong as ever — but his breathing so difficult that, at times, he could 
scarcely speak. In the evening, after he had a little rest, he asked Mr. 
Kenealy to write from his dictation, and took up Homer in his hand. 
After a brief interval of thought, he dictated the concluding part of the 
last of the Homeric Ballads* (** Nestor's First Essay in Arms'') — evi- 
dently, says his amanuensis, with no mental labor, but with an ease 
that could have resulted only from his intimacy with the Greek, and 
his extraordinary powder of versification. This was the last outpouring 
of his mind. 

Two days after this. Sir Robert Peers private secretary informed 
Mr. Kenealy that measures had been taken for the relief .of Dr. Ma- 
ginn. The next day, Mr. Kenealy went to Walton, to communicate 
the gratifying information. Maginn*s family had then received the 
munificent present of 66100 from the Premier — but had not apprized 
him of it, for he again alluded to his poverty, in conversation with Mr. 
Kenealy, and spoke of the ingratitude of his party. ♦* In fact,'* says 
Mr. Km ** he seemed to have no other trouble on his mind.'* He died, 
of consumption, on Saturday, August 20, 1842, in the forty-eighth year 
of his age, and, the same informant adds, »* I firmly believe died in ig- 
norance of the splendid gift of the Prime Minister of England— a gift 
that would have afforded him much consolation in his dying moments." 

Dr. Maginn, was attended, during his illness at Walton, by Mr. 

* Homeric Ballads, pp. 217-228. 
a 



• •• 



XCVm MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

Berrell, a medical gentleman from London, son-in-law of the lady to 
whose kind communications I am indebted for many particulars which 
I have introduced into this Memoir. Mr. Berrell, Mr. Kenealy, and 
Mr. Nickisson (who succeeded Fraser as proprietor of the Magazine), 
were present at Dr. Maginn's funeral, in the graveyard of Walton- 
upon-Thames. Mr. Kenealy has thus described the scene : — 

"A more sublime sight I never saw. The sky was all over radiant with 
sunlight, the day perfectly serene, every tree reposing in the warm summer 
air. The little churchyard of Walton presented a perfect image of rustic 
beauty. The coffin was laid in the aisle of the church ; when suddenly the 
whole heaven became one amphitheatre of thunder, the. old cloisters re-echoed 
with mighty peal on peal, while the sky remained still beautiful, brilliant, and 
cloudless as ever. As the coffin was removed, thunder again followed ; and 
as it was lowered into the vault, it was accompai^ed by blasts of thunder, 
accompanied with flashes of lightning that were absolutely appalling. I was 
never so awe-stricken in my life. Had the day been bad or stormy, I should 
not have minded it much; but thunder and lightning on such a day of 
beauty as that, I never saw." 

Elsewhere, he added, **When the coffin was lowered down, the 
thunder passed away, and left the sunshine on his grave undisturbed 
and radiant.*' 

As I have already mentioned, Dr. Maginn left a widow, a son, and 
two daughters, wholly unprovided for. Sir Robert Peel presented the 
son with a cadetship.in the East India Company's service. A public 
subscription was raised for Mrs. Maginn and her daughters— of whom 
only one now survives, and, I believe, resides with her mother, at the 
Cove of Cork. 

Numerous tributes to Dr. Maginn's personal worth and scholarly at- 
tainments were paid by the leading newspapers and magazines in Lon- 
don, on the announcement of his death. Blackwood'' s Magazine, to 
the early success of which he had so largely contributed, said nothing. 
Bentley*s Miscellany devoted some pages to an article on the departed 
man of genius. The Times^ always appreciative and generous, did not 
fail to express its regret at the loss periodical literature had sustained. 

The Morning Herald ceasing, for once, to be foggy and dull, in- 
serted an eloquent eulogiura — written by Mr. Kenealy, I suspect from 
the style* In the Standard, with which Maginn had been closely 
connected for nearly ten years, Dr. Giflfard wrote warmly and regret- 
fully of his friend and former colleague. Fraser*s Magazine, as might 
have been expected, was earnest, sorrowful, and regretful. It said, and 
with as much truth as force : — 

** As few men had a more extensive circle of acquaintance, and none pot- 



BIEMOm OF WILLIAM MAOINN. Xcix 

sessed a more kindly heart, so fyw, by their departure from the fretfal arena 
of life, have for a long time past left a void so difficult to fill up in the lite- 
rary world as the late Dr. Maginn. With the profound learning of a scholar, 
he combined the more brilliant attributes of a ready wit, playful or keen, as 
occasion called it into exercise. It is not too much to say, that no one of all 
his literary brethren possessed the same powers of conversation as Dr. Ma- 
ginn, eyen to within a day of his death ; indeed, those who met him for the 
first time generally supposed that whatever chanced then to be the topics of 
conversation must have formed the chief subjects of his usual studies, till a 
second, a third, and a fourth meeting convinced them of the extent of those 
varied resources which the Doctor possessed. We could lay our hand on 
many a goodly and popular volume, the most striking points and best pas- 
sages of which, have been gleaned from the private conversations and remarke 
of Dr. Maginn ; who resembled Swift not merely in his wit, but in the utter 
carelessness with which he regarded the fate of the productions of his genius. 
If they served tlie purpose of the moment, whether it were to make a minister 
tremble or a lady smile, * the Doctor' never troubled himself further about 
his thunder or his jest. They might be claimed by any passer-by, for no one 
ever contributed more to the fame of others or so completjjely disregarded his 
own. It is chiefly to this carelessness about all that more immediately 
affected him that we must ascribe the want of some one great work, whereby 
the Doctor might be now remembered. Though in a marked degree compe- 
tent to bestow such a gift on the literary world, the natural discursiveness of 
his disposition induced him rather to find a ready vent for the superabundance 
of his learning and wit in the pages of the leading periodicals." 

Alluding to the fact that his talents had been wasted in mere Maga- 
zine writing, it added : — 

"We prophesy that when these disjecta membra poetce shall have been 
brought together, they will make a more original, learned, and amusing series 
of essays and poems, than those of any other literary man of the present day. 
They will be found to contain much of singularly curious matter on all sub- 
jects — poetry, politics, classics, history, and antiquities,* which all in turn 
occupied the attention, and derived additional ornament and light from the 
genius of him who is, alas ! no more." 

No tribute to bis memory was worthier or better executed than that 
(oft-referred to in this Memoir) contributed to the Dublin University 
Magazine, eighteen months after the Doctor's death, by Mr. Kenealy 
. — at once a record of his life and an analysis of his character. After 
alluding to his Jiighly poetic feelings and powers — his almost unsur- 
passed merit as a conversationist — his great originality— his bright^ 
wit — his broad humor — his keen satire — his ripe erudition — his 
varied knowledge — his vast and available scholarship — and his won- 
derful memory, he said : — 



C KEMOm OF WILLIAM MAGINN. 

" His poetical compoeitions are of the sparkling order of Swift, and possess 
much of the sprightliness of Lafontaine, withoat any of the immodesty which 
taraishes it. No writing did he ever publish which might make a mother 
cmse his memory for the errors of her child, or husband attribute to him the 
destruction of a once virtuous wife. All his songs are modest and decorous, 
flashing with radiant fun, insphering, as it were, the very spirit of jest and 
humor; and though many are marked by that vein of exquisite libel in which 
the Dean of St. Patrick's so gloriously shone, we believe the very first to 
laugh at their prodigality of wit would be the persons who are themselves 
made the objects of his arrows. But he has occasionally written in a higher 
spirit, and for grander ends ; and several of his more serious lyrics are wor- 
thy of a Tyrtseus, or Bums, or Proctor, the greatest of all living song 
writers." 

Then follows a sketch of the man himself — a spirited and faithful 
sketch : — 

*' His manners, devoid of all affectation, simple and unstudied, were singu- 
larly engaging. No robe of reserve did he draw round him, like too many 
men of celebrity whose silence is perhaps the best safeguard of their fame. 
None of these absurd misanthropic monkey airs, which almost establish the 
reputation of Byron, and certainly veiled the poverty of his mind, did he ever 
display. He maintained a certain boyishness of heart and character to the 
Tery last, and though his knowledge of mankind was extensive and accurate, 
he could be as easily deceived, as if he were only a raw youth. There was a 
snowy candor in his manner, which lent a perfect charm to all he said and 
did, and the most unlettered person felt as much at ease in his company as 
the most learned. He was, indeed, as Burke said of Fox, ' a man made to 
be loved ;' and seldom has any one passed through such a life a!^ his, without 
leaving foes to his memory, and enemies to his fame. The real character 
of the man, so diffierent from the fanciful pictures drawn of him by those who 
had never seen him, often led people into amusing mistakes, at which Maginn 
himself was the first to laugh. Well does the writer of this notice recollect 
the feelings with which he first wended to the residence of his late friend. He 
was then but a mere boy, fresh from the university (thee, dear old Trinity 
College !), with scarcely any knowledge of the world, but with a plentiful 
store of notions about men and books, which were as inaccurate as those of 
George Primrose, when he set out on bis expedition after fame and wealth, 
and travelled to London in search of a patron. He had received, from a rela- 
tive of the Doctor, a note of introduction, which he sent with no unthrobbing 
heart to the celebrated man. In a day or two after, Maginn called at his 
chambers in the Temple, but the writer was, unluckily, absent on one of those 
boating excursions on the silver Thames, which he preferred, at that time, 
to all the enchantments of Coke and Blackstone. He, however, sent a brief 
note to the Doctor, stating that he would visit him on such a day. He went, 
and was shown up-stairs ; the Doctor was not at home, but was momentarily ex- 
pected. Many a dreadful piQture of the literary lion did he form. He imagined 



KBHOIR OF WILLIAM MAGINN. CI 

to liimself, a tall, reserved, pedantic-looking man, with the grimness of an Irish 
fire-eater about him, a cold and grave eje, a stoical demeanor, and an artifi- 
cial stiiliiess, Snch as we see in the pictures of those erudite critics, the Scali- 
gers, or Barthins, or Erasmns. He almost feared to remain, so apprehensive 
was he of the scathing glance with which he was persaaded Maginn wonld 
look throngh his very soul. He wondered what he should say, or how look, 
in the presence of the celebrated Sir Morgan O'Doherty, whose prowess was 
acknowledged, not only in the highest walks of literature, but also in the 
field of honor and of blood. Suddenly, when his heart almost sunk within 
liim, a light step was heard ascending the stairs — it could not be a man's 
foot — no, it was too delicate for that — it must, certainly, be the nursery- 
maid. The step was arrested at the door, a brief interval, and Maginn en- 
tered. The spell vanished like lightning, and the visitor took heart in a mo- 
ment. No formal-looking personage, in customary suit of solemn black, stood 
before him — but a slight, boyish, careless figure, with a blue eye, the mild- 
est ever seen — hair, not exactly white, but of a sunned snow color — aA 
easy, familiar smile — and a countenance, that you would be more inclined to 
laugh with, than feel terror from. He bounded across the room, with a most 
unscholar-like eagerness, and warmly welcomed the visitor, asking him a 
thousand questions, and putting him at ease with himself in a moment. 
Then, taking his arm, both sallied forth into the street, where, for a long 
time, the visitor was in doubt whether it was Maginn, to whom he was really 
talking, as familiarly as if he were his brother — or whether the whole was a 
dream. And such, indeed, was the impression generally made on the minds 
of all strangers — but, as in the present case, it was dispelled instantly the 
living original appeared. Then was to be seen the kindness and gentleneM 
of heart which tinged every word and gesture with sweetness ; the suavity 
and mildness, so strongly the reverse of what was to be expected from the 
most galling satirist of the day ; the openness of soul and countenance, that 
disarmed even the bitterest of his opponents ; the utter absence of any thing 
like prejudice or bigotry from him, the ablest and most devoted champion of 
the Church and State. No pedantry in his language — no stateliness of style 
— no forced metaphors — no inappropriate anecdote — no overweening con- 
fidence ,' all easy, simple, agreeable, and unzoned. Those who had the bene- 
fit of his society, know that the likeness here presented is faithful, and limned 
with truth ; but, to those who must take the true character of Maginn from 
others, and not from their own observation — his towering genius and genial 
heart — but who still admire him, even though the image be but faint — it 
must only be said, in the words of jEschines to the Rhodians, when they 
were enraptured by the mere perusal of one of the speeches of Demosthenes, 
' Quid 81 ipsum audiissetis f* 

'* His conversation was an outpouring of the gorgeous stores wherewith his 
mind was laden, and flowed on, like the storied Pactolus, all golden. 
Whether the subject was grave or gay, lively or severe — profound, or merely 
elegant — he infused into it such ambrosial ichor — he sprinkled it with such 
sun-bright wit, as if the Muse of Comedy stood invisibly by, and whispered 



Cii HEBfOIB OF WILLIAM HA6INN. 

into his ear — he illumined it with so many iris-like beams of learning, origi- 
nalitj, wisdom, and poetry, that to listen to him was like the case of one who 
is spell-bound by an enchanter. And yet, all was so artless, so simple, so 
unconcernedly delivered, that it evidently required no effort of mind to enable 
him thus to flash forth — but that which you beheld was the ordinary lustre- 
of his understanding. Many a happy hour has the writer of this sketch lis- 
tened to Maginn, as with head leaning back in a huge arm-chair, and eye 
lighted up beneath his eloquent forehead and white flowing hair, he spoke the 
words of brightness and wisdom — 

* Quidquid comfe loquens, et omnia dulcia dicens.* — Cic. ad Libqk. 

recapitulating the many anecdotes of Scott and Hogg, and Coleridge and 
Hook, with which his memory was thickly enamelled ; now beaming forth 
with some witty anecdote, anon with some noble and philosophic saying; 
and yet never for a moment exhibiting, either by manner, or look, or tone, 
the consciousness of superiority to other men, but listening with respectful at- 
tention to what even boys advanced ; the first to hail their remarks with 
greeting, when they glittered with either sense or humor ; most willing to 
suggest, but never presuming to criticise, or to correct. So that the writer 
xpay say of Maginn, as the truly divine Plato said of Socrateo : 'Ev k^oi av*n 

4 i);^&> rQp \6y(ov 8ofi0gT xai irouT /ij) Svvaffdai tu)v aXXtop dwoveiv^— ' The echo of 

his words still resounds like music in my ears, and renders me deaf to the 
melody of other men's conversation.' Far unlike the tedious lectures of 
Coleridge, or the self-sufficient dictations of Johnson, were the conversations 
of Maginn. Nothing did he ever say for efifect, but all for truth, or to give 
pleasure ; for to delight and to profit — delectare et prodesse appeared to be 
the leading motto of his mind, and he had so profound a contempt for any 
thing like display, that he shunned talk, when he perceived that it was started 
for the purpose of drawing forth the loveliness of his discourse. It was not 
to every one that he opened the portals of his mind ; not to mere chance visi- 
tors did he reveal his glories. But immediately he did begin, he proved to 
even the dullest, that no ordinary man was present ; he arrested profound at- 
tention by his gesture and his earnestness; he charmed every one by hit 
modesty and simplicity ; he burst forth, the planet of the assembly, and^ like 
the morning star of the poet, scattered light profusely around him :— 

' Qualis ubi oceani perfusus Lucifer und&, 
Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes, 
Extulit OS sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit.* — JEneid, viii. 589. 

When the elegant Aristophanes sought to express, by metaphor, the rapture 
with which he listened to one of the most eloquent speakers of old, he de- 
clared to him that he had spoken roses, (i>n6a fx' ciptKai. Perhaps ^his image 
was intended to apply to the ornament of his languai^e, and its outward blos- 
somings, rather than to the depth and real value, which, after all, is the truest 

* Crito in fine. 



• •• 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM MA6INN. ClU 

and best test of conversation. Bat the words of Maginn were of a higher 
mould, of a rich texture, of a greater worth ; for all he said was distinguished 
more for value than for tinsel, and he thought with Burke, that the real jewel 
of conversation is its tendency to the useful, and carelessness of the gaudy. 
'And we do not know any other famous conversationist, to whom the beautiful 
passage, in which Wilberforce alludes to Burke's discourse, applies with more 
perfect justness : * Like* the fated object of the fairy's favors, whenever he 
opened his mouth, pearls and diamonds dropped from him.' Alas, that we 
shall listen to him never, never again ! 

*' His habits of composition were such as only would suit a man of real mind, 
and that a granary of thought and learning. For he wrote with rapidity, 
never pausing over his paper for words or ideas — never resorting to those 
thought-provoking scratches of the head, in doing which Hogarth (the Field- 
ing of the pencil) has depicted his poor poet; seldom revising or altering 
what he had once penned, but finishing the subject in an off-hand way, and 
with a negligentia non ingrata* infinitely more pleasing than belongs to the 
most elaborate and polished style. Not of him, indeed, could be said, as it 
was by Pythias of Demosthenesf — cWvxvioiv S^eiv dvroU ra IvBvftnftaTa-^theX 
his discourses smelled of the lump. We doubt if he ever transcribed a paper, 
in his life, from the original rough "copy : and Gibbon could not have boasted 
with more truth, that to his printer were committed the first and only manu- 
script sheets of his history, than could Maginn, that he never copied the rude 
draughts of his works. Occasionally he would sit back in his chair, in the 
middle of a sentence, and tell a humorous story to whoever was near him (for 
he seldom wrote, except in company, and generally with all kinds of noises 
about him), or commence a criticism on whatever book lay within his reach, 
or discuss some topic of the day ; but his mind was evidently at work on the 
subject of his paper, and he would break off suddenly from his talk, resuming 
his pen, and writing away with the greatest haste. Nor was his mind ab- 
stracted with his subject while composing, for he would often hold a conver- 
sation with some of his friends, while in the bosom of his task, as fluently, as 
wittily, and connectedly, as if he were only scribbling, or mechanically twh*l- 
ing his pen up and down. Reference to books he never needed ; and when 
he required a quotation, prose or verse, he had it ready in his memory, with- 
out trouble or delay. But his writings, though struck off thus at a heat, lose 
little of beauty or nervousness thereby, but derive even a new charm from 
this characteristic — because they plainly appear to be the unstudied efforts 
of his genius ; and the merest reader will at once discover, that it is nature, 
not art, which speaks. Quintilian, when criticising the philosophic works of 
Brutus, thinks it a high paneg3rric to say, * Scias eum sentire qua didt* — and 
to speak as he felt was the practice of Maginn ; carried, perhaps, in some in- 
stances, to a fault. Yet, from his candor, much of his excellence was derived. 
The leaders which he wrote for the newspapers were usually finished in half 
an hour, or perhaps less ; but the masculine understanding that dictated them, 

* Cic. in Orat 77. t Lib. x. cap. 1. 



civ MEMOIR OP WILUAM MAGINN. 

the terseness and vehemence, darting, like sturdy oak trees, in every sen- 
tence, the sparks of wit, or the thrust of sarcasm — these give value to the 
article, and atone for its haste. The writings on which he appears to have 
bestowed most care, were the Homeric Ballads ; and for the last few years, he 
was seldom without a copy of the Iliad and Odyssey ^ in his room, or on his 
bed. For those translations, indeed, he felt almost an enthusiasm — and 
always referred to them with satisfaction. As we have mentioned Homer, it 
may be added that he was a constant student of the Bible, and would pore 
over its sublime pages for hours. He preferred the Old Testament to the New 
and was most partial to Isaiah, whom he called one of the grandest of poets." 

Mr. Oastler (distinguished, some years ago. for his endeavors to 
ameliorate the then miserable condition of the overworked and under- 
paid factory children of England) was in the Fleet prison during 
Maginn's latest detention there, and bears testimony to his partiality 
for the Bible. After mentioning how they used to converse on various 
topics, lie adds, ** But the most delightful times were, when he would 
say, * Where is your Bible ?' and then request me to read the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, or Romans ; he would paraphrase as I read, and ask 
my opinion with such humility as his great friendship for me could only 
account for." 

One thing is worth mentioning here, out of justice to Dr. Maginn's 
character. Perhaps no political writer of his time was more decidedly 
anti-Catholic, in politics. He resisted the Catholic claims, not upon 
religious but political grounds. With any man's mode of faith he 
never presumed to interfere. He justly considered that as a matter 
solely between each person and his Maker. He was educated in the 
belief that Catholicity — as an institution, not as a creed — ought 
not to be permitted civil rights equal to those permitted to Pro- 
testantism ; and he maintained that belief, and championed it with his 
pen, all through his life. His mind was too enlarged, too noble, to per- 
mit him to narrow his friendships within the contracted limits of coun- 
try or creed, and among those with whom he was most intimate were 
many Catholics — such as Mr. Sergeant Murphy, Mr. Kenealy, and the 
erudite author of »* The Reliques of Father Prout." It was not he, 
but Lord John Russell, a feeble statesman of particularly " liberal" 
professions, who publicly insulted seven millions of his fgllow-citizens 
by declaring that the ceremonies of their religion were ** the mummeries 
of superstition." Of all men of his time. Dr. Maginn was practically 
the least of a bigot. 

It would be easy to multiply tributes — of respect, admiration, 
and affection — to the scholarship of Dr. Maginn, and also to his pri- 
vate worth. Mr. Jerdan, his very oldest friend in London, has de- 



MEMOm OF WILLIAM MAGINN. Cf 

scribed him as *' the precocious, the prolific, the humorous, tne eccen- 
tric, the erratic, the versatile, the learned, the wonderfully-endowed," 
and adds, *' romancist, parodist, politician, satirist, linguist, poet, critic, 
scholar — pre-eminent in all, and in the last all but universal — the 
efflux of his genius was inexhaustible ; and were even the approach 
to a considerable collection of his productions accomplished, I am 
convinced that the world would be more than ever astonished by the 
originality, learning, fancy, wit, and beauty, with which he illuminated 
the widest circle of periodical literature.*' Last, but not least, this 
familiar friend of over twenty years' standing, says : ** In society or 
with friends he was the most simple and unaffected of men/' — John 
Wilson Croker, the satirical critic of the Qtiarterly Review, has declared 
** His conversation was very lively and original — a singular mixture 
of classical erudition and Irish fun. There was a good deal of wit, and 
still more of drollery, and certainly no deficiency of what is called con- 
viviality and animal spirits." — Maclise, the artist, declared that he 
found it difficult to satisfy himself on the choice of any expression suf- 
ficiently powerful to convey his idea of Dr. Maginn's great abilities 
as a writer and conversationist, and of his excellent nature as a man. 
*' Indeed," he adds, ** his various gifts and brilliant qualities were ever 
met with prompt.acknowledgment, and where wit and wits abounded, 
one always had the satisfaction of seeing him commanding attention." 
In his own family, he was as good-natured, social, witty, instructive, 
and entertaining, as in the most brilliant social circles where he was a 
welcome guest. In this respect, he much resembled Sir Walter Scott, 
with whom he was well acquainted, often meeting him at Lockhart's, 
on his visits to London, and even (I am informed, on what I consider 
reliable authority), having once gone to Abbotsford, with Mrs. Ma- 
ginn, on the pressing invitation of ** the Great Unknown." He was 
fond of children, and one of his old friends tells me, ** I have known 
him to amuse himself with his and' my children a whole evening, ask- 
ing them questions on history, grammar, and other subjects, and it would 
be hard to say who was best pleased, he or they." This lady adds, 
**I visited him in the Fleet Prison. Mrs. Maginn lived with him 
there, and I believe no woman could be more devoted than she was. 
My eldest son [the lad to whom he had taught Greek and Hebrew] 
used to write verses at his dictation, and could scarcely keep up with 
him, so rapidly did he compose. Sometimes, before the Doctor would 
rise in the morning, John would be at his bedside, pen in hand, to take 
down his * Song of the Month' for BenUey. He appeared naturally to 
attract young persons to him. The moment he appeared, with his win- 
ning smile and hearty manner, all would gather around him." 



OVi HEMOnt OF WILUAM MAGIKN. 

My brother, a ♦♦ Trinity-man," like Maginn, who at one tinae was 
in habits of constant intercourse with him, informs me that, in London, 
he used most frequently go to the house of Mrs. • • • — the lady who, 
now in America, has placed me under obligation by kindly comrauni- 
cating many recollections of her gifted friend and townsman. There, 
** he gave way, most unreservedly to his humor, and certainly was 
most amusing." This lady had known Maginn from childhood, and 
most, if not all of her brothers had been educated by his father or him- 
self. [She has informed me, by the way, that *he was originally in- 
tended for the Church, and that she has seen him, while sitting with the 
family at his father's, and occasionally joining in the conversation, 
rapidly dash off a sermon for a clergyman who distrusted his own 
ability !] Mrs. ***, my brother adds, ** was a magnificent singer, a 
high soprano, and the Doctor was never tired of hearing her sing ; par- 
ticularly the Scotch ballad ♦ Oh ! Nannie wilt thou gang with me.' " — 
I believe, however, that, as to music, he seems to have resembled the 
country Mayoress, mentioned by Byron, who exclaimed at a concert, 
**Itot your Italianos! For my part, I loves a simple ballat." In 
Painting and Sculpture he was an admirable critic, and was often 
applied to, by artists, to suggest subjects for pictures. 

•* I recollect," my brother says, *» that one evening after Maginn had 
related some anecdotes relating to Walter Scott, he said, ♦ Look, I will 
show you how Scott used to appear often, when deeply thinking;' 
then, bending his brows forward, giving his mouth a certain outward 
movement, and bringing his own gray hair down on the forehead, he 
really made a very close resemblance to some of the portraits of Scott." 

Like every person who knew Maginn well, ray brother thinks that, 
comparing and estimating all his faculties, his greatest, by far, was 
Memory. He says it ** was the most wonderful thing possible. I re- 
member being at his place, on a Sunday morning, toward the end of 
1839, with a number of other gentlemen, when some discussion arose 
about the customs and costume of the clergy of the Greek Church. 
Maginn, who was dressing in the inner room, but taking part in the 
conversation through the open door, hearing what was going on, came 
out in his shirt-sleeves, and going up to one of the bookcases (there 
were two in the room, one at each side of the fireplace), took down a 
volume, and before opening it, said, * It is, I suppose, nearly twenty 
years since I read this book, but I recollect, perfectly well, the part 
of the book in which Gibbon speaks of the very subject you are dis- 
cussing: it is about the middle of this volume, in the right-hand page, 
and near the top of the page/ He instantly found the passage he 
sought, and every thing was precisely as he had said." 



HEMOIB OF WILUAM MAGINN. CTU 

• •• 

From the same source, I add : " As to his manner of writing, it was 
astonishing, for facility. He would write, to all appearance, just as 
well whilst joining in the fun about him, as if he were alone in his 
room. Maginn and Rossini have always appeared to me to possess the 
same talent for putting on paper, with the speed of light, the ideas 
which were welling up within them, almost in spite of themselves. 
Maginn was a most affectionate father, and appeared, if any thing, to 
like the girls bettet than the boy. As to them, they were never hap- 
pier than when with him." 

The following careless lines, written in November, 1836, which I 
do not recollect to Jiave seen in print, will show how warmly Dr. Ma- 
ginn was attached to his daughters. The second stanza appears to be 
unfinished : — 

"to my daughtebs. 

** O my darling little daughters -^ 

O, my daughters loved so well — 
Who by Brighton's breezy waters 

For a time have gone to dwell. 
Here I come with spirit yearning 

With your sight my eyes to cheer. 
When this sunny day returning, 

Brings my forty-second year. 

" Knit to me in love and duty, 

Have you been, sweet pets of mine. 
Long in health, and joy, and beauty 

May it be your lot to shine : 
And at last, when Grod commanding, 

I shall leave you good and kind 

* * * * 

* m * * 

" May I leave my * Nan' and * Pigeon,'* 

Mild of faith, of purpose true — 
Full of faith and meek religion — 

With many joys and sorrows few. 
Now I part, with fond caressing. 

Part you now, my daughters dear — 
Take, then, take a father's blessing, 

In his forty-second year." 

Lockhart, the editor of the Quarterly Review^ wrote two rhymed 
epitaphs, on Theodore Hook and William Maginn — the first of whom 
had died in August, 1841, the other exactly a year later. Of these he 
thought so well that he had them privately printed for select distribu- 

* Pet-aames for bis daughters. 



CVIU HEMOm OF WILUAM MAGINN. 

tion. What he said of M aginn may properly be inserted here ; with 
^e remark that one part of the impatation in the penultimate line, is 
clearly erroneous— for, whatever the Doctor's errors, breach of thci 
marital vow was not among them : — 

" Waltoh-oh-Thamxs, Aug. 1842. 
" Here, eariy to bed, lies kind William Magihn, 
Who, with genius, wit, learning, Life's trophies to win. 
Had neither great Lord nor rich cit of his kin, 
Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin ; 
So, his portion soon spent (like the poor heir of Lynn), 
He turned author, ere yet there was beard on his chin — 
And, whoever was out, or whoever was in, 
For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin, 
Who received prose and rhyme with a promising grin— 
' Gro ahead, you queer fish, and more power to yoar fin !' 
But to save from starvation stirred never a pin. 
Light for long was his heart, though his breeches were thin, 
Else his acting, for certain, was equal to Quinn ; 
But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin 
(All the same to the Doctor, from claret to gin), 
Which led swiftly to jail, with consumption therein. 
It was much, when the bones rattled loose in the skin, 
He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din. 
Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard of a sin — 
Many worse, better few, than bright, broken Maginn." 

What the great moral error of this man's life was, is not concealed 
in this biography. Yet, I will not concede that others, who, with 
ruder health and thicker heads, can ♦* carry off," without an appearance 
of intoxication, a much larger quantity of wine or spirits than Maginn 
was able to bear, are therefore qualified to act as censors upon him, to 
darken his memory, to caricature him in satirical and cynical fiction, to 
affect sorrow over " the decay of his faculties." One man, says the 
proverb, may steal a horse with impunity, while another will be hanged 
for looking in at the stable-door. Thus, Maginn is delivered to 
posterity, as a loose character and a drunkard, while the hand which 
pens the libel may yet tremble from the effects of yesternight's ex- 
cesses. The cynic enjoys himself to the full, as a gourmand and a 
wine-bibber, and, because he is jovial in his selfishness, gets praised 
for his »* geniality" — while the other, because he is prostrated by slight 
indulgence, is to be paraded untruly and ungratefully — as an habitual 
and degraded drunkard ! How this can be done — how gifted persons 
(themselves not free from like errors) can with 

*' The shrug and sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools the bitter obloquy," 



MEMOIR OF WILUAM MAGINN. ciz 

is what, in the fitness of things, I do not ilnderstand. When, in addi- 
tion to this, it is asserted or insinuated that the brightness and power 
of Dr. Maginn's mind were dimmed or weakened by excess, a simple 
denial, based on fact, is sufficient. His really best things — the Shake- 
speare Papers, and Homeric Ballads — were the very latest of his pro- 
d actions. Even while I write these lines, I have been allowed to ex- 
amine the manuscript of, I believe, Maginn's very last prose article. It 
was written only a few weeks before his death, was presented to Mr. 
Henry Plunkett, for The Squib, one of the numerous short-lived rivals 
of Punch, and has never been printed. With that grave humor which 
is much akin to wit, it treats of the literature of the streets of Lon- 
don, tracing their nomenclature to a Greek origin — such, among nu- 
merous examples, as v Street, v Road, u Court, v Inn, and, that recep- 
tacle of criminals, p Gate. The old humor and the full scholarship per- 
vade this curious article. 

Dr. Maginn*8 great defect, as an author, was his want of concentra- 
tion. He threw a good deal of ability into periodical literature — and 
there he rested. For others, he would take infinite pains, little for 
.himself, and thus the best of the flash songs, and nearly the whole of 
Turpin's Ride to York, in Mr. Ainsworth's *♦ Rookwood," were actu- 
ally written by Maginn. He seemed to lack determination for devo- 
ting himself, during the requisite time, to some one work which *< the 
world would not willingly let die." He was always meditating on 
some magnum opus. At one time, it was a historical tragedy, to be 
called ** Queen Anne ;" at another, on the subject of •* Jason ;" he re- 
peatedly announced ** Tales of the Talmud ;" he advertised, in Mur- 
ray's list, ** Lives of the Mayors of Cork," a most amusing series of 
DfKx;k-biographies it would have been ; he seriously thought of editing 
Shakespeare, and of translating the whole of Homer — and, when Mr. 
Croker remonstrated on the manner in which he wasted his talents, he 
said that he contemplated some serious work, *' I think," says Mr. 
Croker, " on the Cheek Drama, but of this, I am not quite sure. It might 
have been the Cheek Orators, I had a high opinion of his power to 
illustrate either." 

Mr. Kenealy has mentioned a peculiarity connected with this constant 
thinking of executing some permanent work. He says, "Nothing was 
more eommon than for him to narrate to whoever was with him some 
romantic story, a ballad, which he had just composed — some scenes 
of a novel that he had hoped to finish — or some dissertation on Field- 
ing, Rabelais, or Lucian. He also practised the art of improvising, and 
succeeded in it. The ottava riina, or stanza of Pulci and Lord Byron 
[» Beppo' and » Don Juan'], was that to which he was most partial." 



ex MEMOm OF WILUAH MAGINN. 

One of Dr. Maginn^s characteristics, was bis utter fearlessness as a 
writer. This led him, at the commencement of his literary career, to 
the memorable onslaught upon the late Sir John Leslie, of Edinburgh, 
who, without even knowing a letter of the language, had heedlessly put 
upon record, in a book, that Hebrew was ** a rude and poor dialect ;** 
this prompted him- to the bitter personalities of some of his literary and 
political articles (such as the exposure of the plagiarisms of Moore and 
the ** apostacy" of Peel, on the Catholic question), and barbed the ar- 
row which he discharged at Grantley Berkeley, when that person, for- 
getful of the incidents which had given infamous notoriety even to his 
own mother, had the bad taste to write a novel upon his family his- 
tory. It was this, also, which made Maginn insert in Fraser^s Maga- 
zine, such explosives as Byron*s satire on Rogers, the poet, and Mr. 
Coleridge's almost diabolical epitaph (** The Two Round Spaces on 
the Tombstone") upon Sir James Mackintosh. He published them, 
because he considered it right that Byron^s insincerity should be folly 
exposed, and also that the opinion of such a man as Coleridge upon the 
political apostacy of Mackintosh — exalted among the Whigs as Sage 
and Seer — should be placed upon record. 

In person. Dr. Maginn was rather under the middle stature, slight in 
figure, active in motion, and very natural in manners. He was gray at 
the Bge of twenty-six, and, during his last ten years, was almost white 
— exhibiting the peculiarity of keen, bright blue eyes and youthful 
features, with the hoary locks of age. Of the two portraits which 
have been published — by Maclise, in Eraser, and by Skillin, in the 
Dublin University Magazine — I think the latter is the better likeness. 
It is a suitable illustration to the present Collection. 

In more ways than one, there is a great moral in Dr. Maginn*s life. 
Had his discretion been equal to his genius, his permanent place in 
literature would probably have been far higher than he has any 
chance of occupying. As it is, his reputation, as a man of letters, is 
more traditionary than actual. The very exuberance of genius, made 
him prodigal in its use, and, yielding too easily to the seductions of so- 
ciety, he literally wasted, on temporary enjoyments, the golden hoars 
which might and should have been employed on some work worthy 
of his learning and his reputation. 

R. Shelton Mackensib* 

New Tobk, March, 1857. 



FRASERIAN PAPERS. 



DR. MAGINN'S 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tRUt :ffvuHtxiun ^nptXH. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 

[The first number of Eraser's Magazine for Toivn and Country 
was published in February, 1830. The ability, personality, and au- 
dacity of the new periodical immediately gave it notoriety, and the 
publisher not only having had the good sense to advertise it extensively, 
but also to send a copy for review to every newspaper in the United 
Kingdom, it had the great advantage of receiving general notice from 
the Press. Its politics (ultra-tory) recommended it in some quarters, 
its literary tomahawking in others. At that time, the grosser person- 
alities which had attracted attention in the early volumes of Blackwood 
had been mitigated, and Mag a mainly f^lied, not without cause^ on 
its political papers, and the literary articles of Christopher North and 
the contributors whom he had gathered around him. The New 
Monthly Magazine, in London, had become weak and inefficient in 
the careless hands of Thomas Campbell. There was room, therefore, 
for a new and spirited rival, and, as the remuneration was liberal, a 
great deal of literary ability was attracted to the pages of Regina — as 
Fraser was called, in the hope of rivalling Maga [Blackwood], even 
in such a small matter as a sobriquet. From the very first, M aginn, 
Crofton Croker, L. E. L., Haynes Bayly, the Ettrick Shepherd, 
** Barry Cornwall" (under the alias of *»John Bethel"), Robert 
Southey, John Gibson Lockhart, -^ohn Gait, R. P. Gillies, and many 
more of established literary reputation, were known to be among 
Reoina*s contributors* 

1 



2 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

No. IIL» £r)r April, 1830, opened with an announcement on the back 
of it« ** Cftotents/* the conclusion of which shows the audacity of the 
writers— -the Rex in question being no less a personage than George 
IV., who, afflicted with a mortal disease, yielded "every thing for a 
quiet lif^," and permitted the Dux [Wellington] to exercise a power 
80 vast, that the *' Ego et Rex Meus*\of Wolsey appeared again to be 
realized. 

The announcement in question was as follows : — 

Slnb tl)e tDorIb at large. 

As the Proprietors of " Fraser*s Magazine" are resolved to have 
the Work conducted upon the most liberal and efficient principles, they 
have declined to listen to the various private Communications from the 
first literary men of the day , for appointment to the honorable situation 
of Editor, A work of such superior eminence, embracing all that is 
great and good, is entitled to be conducted by the very first genius, 
yihom this, or any other nation, can produce. The Proprietors, there* 
fore, have resolved to $oll tt^e Coutittj), aliens or denizens, rich or 
poor, young or old, people or peers, subject or prince, and select the 
individual who, from intrinsic worth and tnerit, has best claim to the 
important charge in question, 

djerefore Notice ia Ijerebs jtoeit, 

That all Applicants for the Situation of Editor to "Fraser's Maga- 
zine'* do attend at Freemasons^ Hall, at One o*Clock,on Wednesday 
the 14th day of Apiil, of this present year — bringing idth them their 
testimonials and documents on which they rest their pretensions — that 
then and tJiere the individual best qualified may be selected and ap' 
pointed as aforesaid. Parties who cannot personally be present, are 
requested to transmit their Name, Address, and Note of Qualifications, 
by letter, post-paid — addressed to Mr. Eraser, Bookseller and 
Publisher, 216 Regent street — before Twelve o' Clock of the day, 

Vtbat 33itr. 
Rex! Pishi-^ThaVs gone by — Cet us worship the new Dynasty — 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 8 

Public expectation was set on the qui vive by such an aihrtrtiaement 
as this. Nor was it disappointed. In the May and Jnna Nnmbers 
of Regina appeared, what purported to be, an account of the Election 
of £ditor. This was written by Dr. Maginn, whose personal acquaint- 
ance with most of the literati whom he introduced, enabled him to de- 
scribe them very accurately, and to hit-off, with considerable spirit and 
much truth, their peculiarities of manner and language. It is scarcely 
necessary to remind the reader, that Mr. Gurney, the short-hand writer, 
is identical with the Eidolon supposed to have stenographed the pro- 
ceedings of the NocTES Ahbrosianje of Blackwood. Mr. Alexander 
Fraser (no relation of the publisher), was a celebrated law-reporter, 
attached to the Northern Circuit for many years. His death occurred 
only recently, I believe. He was a Scotchman, and had been Lord 
Brougham's schoolfellow at Edinburgh. — M.] 



Sl)e dlttiion of dixtor fox SraBcr'B Maqa^inc. 



FVom Mr. Gumey^s short-hand notes, corrected by Mr. Alexander Fraser^ ^f 

Thavies Inn. 



The whole literary world was astonished at the liberality of 
our Proprietors when they beheld the advertisement in the last 
No., calling a general meeting for the election of an Editor. 
Nothing like it had ever been see^ or heard of before. On all 
similar occasions, the corrupt influence and undue partialities of 
the booksellers have been ever exercised. The late Mr. Consta- 
ble, to whom the literary character is more indebted for that sort 
of elevation which arises from remuneration than to all the trade 
besides, was not free from despotic inclinations. He appointed 
Mr. Jeffrey to the superintendence of the Edinburgh Review^ 
without consulting any of his contributors. Mr. Murray, to 
whom literature also acknowledges herself a debtor, was not 
more indulgent in the appointment of the late Mr. Gifford ; and 
his partiality for Scotchmen was certainly not free from blame, 
when he selected, in so clandestine a manner, Mr. Lockhart to 
succeed him. Mr. Colbum, in creating the sinecure of Editor- 



4 THE FRABEBUN PAPERS. 

in-chief for the Lord-rectifying Campbell, has deserved well of 
all authors.* It is an example every bookseller cannot too soon 
imitate. Indeed, we trust that the Duke of Wellington will, by 
law, since he is so cutting down the sinecures of the crown, oblige 
every publisher to institute a pensionary. There is no sound 
political reason why there should not be literary pensionaries, as 
well as civil and military, and decayed gentlewomen of damaged 
quality. Ebony's connexion with Christopher North is suspected 
of being something equivocal. In that instance the Editor, it is 
understood, lords it over the Publisher. However, not one of all 
the members of the Stationers' Company, either here or elsewhere, 
ever thought of trying the effect of universal suffrage in choosing 
an Editor ; but the result has been such — the reform has been so 
radical, that the happiest general effects cannot but result from it. 
The meeting was advertised to take place in the Freemasons' 
Tavern ;t but, at an early hour, it was seen how inadequate the 
great hall was to contain even a tithe of the candidates and the 
contributors; for, by some strange oversight, preparations had 
been neglected to be made for the reception of the ladies, the 
nu;nber of whom, with short petticoats and blue stockings, who 
assembled at an early hour in front of the tavern, is incredible. 
Lady Morgan lost a spangled shoe in the crowd, the Princess 
Olivia of Cumberland^ had her pockets picked, and Lady Holland 
was obliged to be carried by Sir James and Sam|| into the Horse 

* Archibald Constable, the original publisher of the Edinburgh Beview, 
and of most of the Waverley Novels; Murray and Colbum, respectively 
publishers of the Quarterly Review and New Monthly Magazine, edited by 
William Gifford and Thomas Campbell. — M. 

t In Great Queen street, Holbom, London. The great room in which 
" the craft" perform their Masonic and festal rites, was much used, before 
the erection of Exeter Hall, in the Strand, for public meetings.— M. 

X "The Princess Olive" was a stout woman (married to Mr. Serres, a 
clever marine painter) who, on the death of George III., in 1820, claimed to 
be Princess of Cumberland, as legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick, 
Duke of Cumberland, by a sister of the Rev. Dr. Wilmot. She had some 
personal resemblance, in bulk, to the elderly females of the House of Guelph, 
and many persons believed her pretensions to bo well-founded. Neither the 
Royal family nor Parliament would admit them. She died, in poverty, in 
1834, aged sixty-two. — ^M. 

U Sir James Macintosbtnd Samuel Rogers, the poet<— M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 6 " 

md Groom gin-shop, 'where the accomplished "wit declared the 
seene was quite dram-atic. 

» The committee, viz., the regulating officers of the press-gatog 
fimn Waterloo Place, who had been appointed to manage the 
proceedings of the day, soon discovered the absurdity of attempt- 
ing to receive such a multitude into the Hall, unless they possessed 
the power of compressing their bodies into the size of their souls, 
as Milton did over the devils in PaiWfemonium; and, in conse-. 
quence, it was suggested, the day being sunny and calm, that they 
should adjourn to Lincoln's-inn Square, and that a deputation 
should be sent to Mr. Soane, the architect,* to beg the use of his 
incomparable balcony for the chairman of the meeting, and the 
other managers of the election. 

The answer of Mr. Soane accorded with his well-known attach- 
ment to artists, authors, and actors. He assured the deputation, 
that authors were dear to his heart, and that, in a figurative sense, 
his house, his fortune, his life — all, in short, every thing that was 
dear to him, and all that, was at their disposal. The committee, 
highly gratified by the report which the deputation made of Mr. 
Soane*s munificent alacrity, ordered notice to be given to the 
multitude that filled the street ; and, with white staves in their 
hands and paper cockades in their hats, preceded by a large body 
of the new police,t marched, two and two, to the house of Mr. . 
Soane. 

The merit of the new police on this occasion, under the direc- 
tion of Mr. Peel himself, was in the highest degree praiseworthy. 
The ladies were safely accommodated within the railing of the 
central enclosure, and a number of barrels were at first provided, 
to serve as tribunes for the orators, though the Egyptian column 
was finally chosen. As soon as the necessary orderly arrange- 
ments were made, Mr. Coleridge, the first genius of the age, 

* Lincoln's Inn Sqnare is of such extent that the larger Pyramid (that of 
Cheops), covering thirteen acres, would exactly fill its area. The house 
of Mr. (afterward Sir John) Soane, the architect, is on the north side of the 
Square, and, with its valuable contents, forming what ia now called " The 
Soane Museum," was bequeathed by him to the British nation, on his death 
in 1837.— M. 

t The organization of the new police of London, by the late Sir Robert 
Peel (as Home Secretary), had been completed in Jane, 1829. — HL 



6 THE FBASERIAN PAPBBS. 

presented himself at the centre arch of Mr. Soane's balcony. 
The moment that he did so, murmuring arose. It was supposed 
that he had already received his congee d^elire^ and was already 
the predetermined Editor. The outcry was chiefly among the 
artists who are authors, and they cry out, " No Wilkie* — liberty, 
and the Academy for ever !" Emboldened by these declarations, 
Mr. Cobbett, who, by ]di|png himself near one of the barrels, 
early demonstrated n]|^d|ileiition to harangue the crowd, broke 
out with : — * 

"Englishmen — This is the most abominable piece of humbug 
I ever witnessed. Do the sordid proprietors of Fraser's Maga- 
zine think to* impose upon the understanding of John Bull by a 
trick of this kind ? Do they imagine that we are such burrow- 
mongering slaves as to accept old Goody Coleridge ?" — 

Here the crowd pressing in on all sides, the barrel on which 
the great Ruta Bagi^ of Botleyf was elevated was crushed into 
staves, and the planter of turnips and the cultivator of sedition 
and locust was hurled amidst the staves to the ground. It hap- 
pened that the barrel was an old tar one, and that the great patriot 
of the two-penny trash,} when he found himself falling, laid hold, 
in his desperation, of several high-plumed bonnets, which he 
pulled from the heads of the blue-hosen wearers, by which, when 
he looked up, he was in his proper American livery, tarred and 
feathered, and was glad to make his escape from the derision of 
the crowd in his friend the Duke of WeUington's military cloak, 
which his Grace, who was present, gallanting Mrs. *********, 
charitably lent him for concealment. | 



* Aboat this time, the English artists, who, constituting the Boyal Acade- 
my, having taken umbrage at what seemed to be the King's desire to dictate 
to them that Wilkie, the painter, should succeed Sir Thomas Lawrence, as 
their President, showed their independence by electing the very inferior por- 
trait-limner, Martin Archer Shee. — M. 

t It was on his farm at Botley that William Cobbett cultivated the Bata 
Baga turnip, which he used to extol as the best in the world. — M. 

I Cobbett's " Two-penny Trash" was a cheap political publication which 
made great noise in 1830. — M. 

II The lady here indicated by asterisks was the lovely wife of the Duke's 
intimate friend, the Right Hon. Charles Arbuthnot. There was much scan, 
mag. at the time, concerning their intimacy, which was much augmented when, 
shortly after, it was ascertained that the Duke had quartered the lady on the 



THE ELECmON OP EDITOR. T 

Order being in some degree restored, Sir James Scarlett was 
elevated upon a cart — "the gods forfend the omen !" — and, in a 
speech full of Tory graces and Whig principles, proposed that his 
accomplished veteran friend Mr. Coleridge should be called to the 
chair ; and reminded the multitude, that, as the election was to be 
by ballot, there was no risk to the freedom of election by the 
appointment of any one whatever to piefiside^on the occasion, and 
that he knew no man so well qualified'iyig|MLintain order over such 
an assemblage as that great practictf character, that great man of 
business, that eminent person, who combined in himself all the 
arithmetical accuracy of Joseph Hume with the commercial acu- 
men of Sandy Baring * 

]VIr. Coleridge was, in consequence, elected by acclamation, and 
installed with three cheers, the ladies waving their white hand- 
kerchiefs. Silence being restored, the Chauinan then rose, and, 
in the following luminous speech, explained'^the object for which 
they were that day assembled ^*- 

"Ladies and Gentlemen — It was a strange 
Sensation that came o'er me, when at first, 
From the broad sunshine, I stepped in and saw 
The narrowing line of daylight that came mnning 
In after me shut by the 'door outside. 
All then around was dusky twilight dim^ 
Made out of shadows most fantastical, 
The unsubstantial progeny of light 
Shining on singularities of art. 
There stood around, all in a curc'lar row. 
Seven colossal statues — each a king 
Upon a rich Corinthian capital. 
Sceptres were in their hands, and on their heads 
Were golden crowns, in shape similar 
To that small bonnet which adorned of yore 

public, 82 recipient of a pension of eight hundred ponnds. She did not 
long survive to enjoy this large annual income, being ad earlf Tictim of the 
cholera in 1 83 1 . — M.T * « 

* Sir James being ^ Creole, his language, of cours^, is half-English, 
half-Scotch, with as much Irish as makes up the whole quantity. [Sir 
James Scarlett, Attorney-General under " the Duke ;" subsequently made 
Chief-Baron of the Exchequer, and raised to the peerage as Baron Abinger. 
The " Sandy Baring" here named was the late Lord Ashburton, envoy to 
the United States on the Oregon question in 1842. — ^M.] 



8 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

My dexter temple, when, the live-long day, 

I delved the classics in that hlue-coat school. 

Fast hy famed Newgate's jail ; and one there was 

As Nestor, or as Priam king of Troy, \ 

Venerable — a marble brought from Athens, 

Which, though oblivion hung upon his nose. 

Wore the grave aspect of antiquity. 

' These,' said our host, the modest Mister Soane, 

' Are planets-, and IbfBj rule the fates of men/ 

' Are they not rattier,' was my fond reply. 

Thrilling with wonderment ineffable, 

' The seven sciences — stupendous spirits, 

That mock the pride of man, and people space 

With life and mystical predominance V 

And, full of that sublime conception, out 

I throbbing came upon this window-sill. 

Where I beheld you multitudinous, 

A Lake of .i&ijsiognomies, whose waves 

Were huvHaipes — and whose murmurings — 

DiscordalHfifof discontented, tongues, 

Shattered^e crystal calmntiAs of the air. — 

But I had then the sense of sweetest influences, [Toths Ladtet. 

The intelligible forms of ancient poets. 

The fair humanities of old religion. 

The power, the beauty, and the. majesty, 

That have their haunts in dale^fr piny mountain. 

Or forest by low stream or pebbly spring. 

Or such green bogs as Irishmen afar. 

In Australasia or Cabotia lone. 

Dream are in Erin's isle. Then I bethought 

Wherefore this wise and beauteous multitude 

Were here assembled, from all quarters come. 

Like the rich argosies and merchantmen 

That swing at anchor in the pool or stream 

Below famed London bridge — and thence inspired, 

I call upon you to give suffrage. Now, 

Who shall be Editor, and, like the stars 

Immortal burning in their glorious spheres, 

MaJiP jofL all stars, dispensing destiny ? 

Far ffeh ahall be the issues of this day, j.* 

If yoilt*^ your intelligence serene. 

Make $. seraphic choice." 

Mr. Coleridge sat down amidst the unanimous and enthusiastic 
applauses and encores ; but he declined repeating his most poetical 
address. Silence having been with difficulty obtained, though not 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 9 

. vaSa/t the Lord Maydr, supported by Sir Henry Hardinge and 
Mr. Horace Twiss,* had commenced the proclamation of martial 
mw, the Rev. George Croly was seen to ascend the temporary 
steps constructed against the Egyptian pillar, so ornamental to 
Mr. Soane*s fore-court, and which was, for the nonce, made the 
rostrum for the various orators of the day. The gentleman, how- 
ever, could with difficulty gain the summit, owing to the monkey 
tricks of Mr. Henry Baylis, who clung to the tail of his coat, 
endeavoring to prevent him from measuring the altitude of, the 
column. Mr. Baylis, it appears, is the proprietor of the Monmly 
Magazine (and is the individual who, with his printers and 
printing devils, presented a petition to the House of Commons, 
praying that the Roman Catholic Relief Bill might not be passed : 
Lord TuUamore was the green youth who presented such petition), 
and Mr. Croly is the editor of that same ptiiodical. It could be 
easily perceived what the object of Mr. BoJppHiras in thus clinging 
to Mr. Crdl/s garment : to pipftyent him fittft Showing his face to 
the electors, imagining, as he well might, tliat that gentleman's 
transcendent abilities would win for him tb^e return as Editor of 
Eraser's, the emoluments from which being of so large and en- 
ticing an amount (not that Mr. Croly cares in the least for money), 
his right-hand man would' be fain to desert the yellow-covered 
bilious-looking Monthly. But this is our own surmise, for the 
only words which Mr. Baylis could say were, " For Grod's sake, 
Croly !" and these he repeated in a hurried manner for at least 
live times, when, gasping for breath and ready to choke, he added, 
" If you leave the Mon-on-thly, what will Be-en-en-tly say, for 
then we sha-a-ant pu-uif more of his bo-o-o-o-o-oks — as the 
Mo-onthly will be di-i-ish'd ?" What he might have continued to 
say, was inaudible ; for " Shame — shame ! down with him ! throw 
him over !" was vociferated on all sides. Mr. Baylis, however, 
had, it seems, determined, like Cato, that he was only worthy to 
fall by his o|yi|/«et, and so he accordingly d}4{ ^^ the tail of 
Mr. Croly *s oMt'^^^ve way, and down came 4k8 printer a tre* 

* Sir Henry (afterward Viscount) Hardinge, was a cabinet minister at this 
time. Horace Twiss, nephew to Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble, vrill be 
remembered as the biographer of Lord Eldon, rather than a« a legisbitor and 
lawyer.— M. 



10 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

mendous wallop on his back, amidst the laughter and derision; of. 
the assembled multitude. 

" Ipse gravis gravitcrqae ad terram pondere yasto 
Concidit." 

Mr. Croly then stood,* a "cherub tall," on the top of Mr. 
Soane's Egyptian capital ; and they who are conversant with the 
physiognomy of the gentleman will alone be able to conceive what 
benignant suavity struggled through every pore of his face, and 
fell, like beams of holiest light, upon the upturned countenances 
of that populace which was then and there assembled to exercise 
the boasted privilege of Englishmen — gained by our forefathers 
by the edge of the sword, and which we, their great-great-great- 
great-grandchildren, will manfully maintain, until death do us part 
from all things sublunary, "Jpolitical, and damnable — Freedom 
OF Election. By this we enjoy every thing good, great, and 
glorious : a king steaffiist in integrity, and in exceeding love and 
anxiety, a very father to his subjects — an aristocracy innocent as 
lambs, and immaculate as sucking doves or pie-pigeons — a repre- 
sentative chamber, the members of which have separated them- 
selves from worldly pursuits and worldly vanities — devout, self- 
denying, and as so many ascetic saints in the wilderness — wasters 
of the midnight oil for the good of their fellow-men, and victims 
to sad disease, induced by a misplaced over-eagerness in the blest 
cause of British patriotism — which is the reason why, in the 
United Kingdom, this Epitaph (aJas ! that good and virtuous men 
possess not the rejuvenescent faculty of Tithonus, that they might 
live for ever, to advocate the sacred cause which they, even from 

* The Rev. Geo. Croly (Irish by birth, edacation, and ability), now Hector 
of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, a London parish. In the words of one of his 
biographers, " he has written poetry, serious and comic, tragedies and come- 
dies, satire and panegyric, sermons and songs, novels and newspapers, and 
all of them well." He is an eloquent preacher and OHitor; was an early 
contributor to Blfl/^wood's Magazine, in which afterward appeared his his- 
torical novel " Marston," and brilliant lives of Burke and Pitt. In politics 
he has taken a decided part — always on the conservative side. In 1830-1, 
he was editor of the Monthly Magazine, after that periodical had passed from 
the hands of its founder, Sir Richard Phillips, into those of Mr. Henry 
Baylis, a printer. — M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. H 

their youth's first budding, have severally and collectively 
poused !) is so frequent : — 

HE DIED IN THE CAUSE OF HIS COUNTRY.* 



* £c TO KaXbii BimaKitv dpcrrii fiepos tart fieytarov, 
fljxiv Ik iruvruv tovt* direvetfte Tv^i^, 
'EAXa^i yap (nrevSovTCi ^XcvBepeiav nepidetvat 

Keifted* dyripavTi^ jf^pta^tvoi evXoyii?. SimonideS, 

Some fatare eloquent bardist, hot as a farnace with the glow of patriotic 
enthusiasm, may thus rhapsodise the hondk lying under this freestone slib, 
the sinewy flesh of which has long since served as a delectable repast to the 
red-snouted, blind slow-worm : — "He was the Leonidas of the days which 
were honored with his thrice-glorious existence — for be, too, stood Arm la 
the van of liberty, and fought with all the earnestness and invincibility of 
Hellenic Worthiness. The Catholic Emancipation Bill was his illustriom 
Thermopylae — his rank of intrepid warriors called the 'the Rats' was hit 
consecrated band — and the illiberal, black-hearted, knavish, abominable, 
filthy, horrible, insufferable, ineffable Ultra Tories were the tiara-capped, 
discomfited infidels, with whom 

'Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, 
From Susa, his Memnonian palace high. 
Came to the sea — 
And scourged with many a stroke the Indignant waves.' 

*' And Robert Peel was the run-away Spartan, who died shortly after fW>m 
shame and vexation. He cut his wesand with a blunt razor, by way of pro* 
longing his own punishment.'' And the eloquent writer may perhaps con* 
elude with the following free translation from Tullius Gcminus : — 

EiS QeixnTTOKXea. 
AvTi ra<j>ov \iToTo 6ei 'EXXa^a, Oet 6* iiri ravra 
SovparUf &C. 

" 3iQere glrtt)ut lies, a tousti oln ®oclt— as steel botf) btabe anti stem— 

Wb name is t)lest b^ all V)t Hats ann eber^ Hxisf) Bern. 

0s ^nbla tione^ to f)fs trf enUs— 'gainst foes |)e*li stoear anH foam—* 

iSMtit stanct) aUs of iFatl^ec Ocelli antr T^arlotrie of iS^ome, 

WiV) all bile Bltta STotj) blades t)e HiH a biar mafntafn, 

BnU ott iDouln ikt'clt t|)eir hxtttu — altfjoujif) tfjei) fticfteti f)ts breeit aflafn I 

3Sut set bibereber banket scotoleb \^t neber feateb to (ace it, 

^nb t)ete Sb^ 3Snit9^abe raiseb for fjfm This National Hio Jacbt." 

[This diatribe was written, no doubt, under the contihied influence of 
Maginn's tory wrath at Catholic Emancipation haying been granted, by "the 
Duke" and Peel, early in 1829, after their previous strenuous opposition to 
such a concession. Peel died, in July, 1850, from the effects of an accident, 
and Wellington in September, 1852. Both never were more popular than at 
the period of their decease. — ^M.J 



12 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

But we are wandering from our immediate subject : — the oration 
which Mr. Croly enounced, with good action and delivery, whilst 
perched on the top of the pillar in the fore-court of Mr. Soane's 
mansion. The very contemplation of that gentleman forces away 
some thousand leagues all recollection of epitaphs, tomb-stones, 
and death's heads, and makes our bosom glow with risilient 
humors approaching to vinous hilarity. 

Those who are acquainted with Mr. Croly's person n^ed not be 
told of the eloquent cast of Ms face and the marked vpfitteter of 
hiB features, now dealing destruction like a cloud of feiuM omen 
— now, by the amenity of their smile and their dallying jocundity, 
irradiating and vernaHzing whatever that smile and jocundity 
consecrate by tipping and touching — producing, in short, a miracu- 
lous illumination. His commanding stature was saluted with a 
imiyersal shout of approbation :* 

"Like Maia's son he stood, 
And shook his plumes : that heavenly fragrance filled 
The circuit wide ;" 

and thus began : — 

**&>, Ladies, and Gentlemen: — I present myself to your 
notice on this memorable occasion, having, from the first, resolved 
to become one of the proud combatants in a struggle which I 
hesitate not to affirm will, in after times, have many an eagle- 
flighted Pindar for its historian. For what, in comparison to this, 
were the so- vaunted games held on the banks of the Alpheus ? — 
a river the name of which you who are ignorant know nothing, 
but which we transcendental Grecians describe as ' serpentizing in 
most beautiful meanders' through the sacred territory of Elis. 
(^Immense applause.) The advertisement by IVIr. Fraser was very 
puerile in phraseology. Advertisements are most difficult things 
to manipulate — should, in fact, never be intrusted to breathing 
mortal save to him who by national assent is considered a genius 
of the first order. In application to genius, what the poet of 
Venusia has said of money will stand good : 

* Croly's presence was very commanding, and his stature taller than that 
of ordinary '* sons of men." The speech which follows is a good imitation 
of his declamatory style. — ^M. 



I 

THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 18 

' £t genus et virtiis, nisi com re, yilior alg& est' 

If, however, an application had been made to me (not that I 
arrogate to myself those indescribable attributes which genius can 
bestow, although my labors do stand recorded in no unworthy 
characters amidst the too many soiled pages of our native litera- 
ture — (Jiear, hear, and cheers) — I would, in such case, without 
hesitation, have, currente calamo, given a few hasty lines, which, 
in the aJbalice of every thing else, might have answered the pur- 
pose of <9dl^regating this superlative meeting. ( Cheers,) Gentle- 
men, I will not speak of my own pretensions {cheers) ; my opinion 
on that head shall lie donnant in my own bosom {cheers) — ciUci 
mente repSsium — ensconced in the cavities and lengthy depths of 
my own stomach. {Hear,) Gentlemen, I am well to do in the 
world; my fame is blazoned amongst all the town booksellers, 
and I can get the indicting of as many books as I choose to put 
finger and thumb to. The case, therefore, of 

' Blind Thamyris and blind Mseonides' 

is not mine. Long did I contemplate transmigrating, with my 
household chattels and my Lares, to those Rhenane banks which 
Byron — the rhyming driveller and no poet, the fiend of the true 
Satanic school, the disgrace to his kind, the incarnation of infamy 
— which Byron — the moral Polyphemus — has, by some odd 
trick of fancy, so beautifully described. You may remember 

' The castled crag of Drachenfels/ &c. 

But if you elect me to the exalted station of Editor of this Maga- 
zine, I will settle amongst you, and be for ever your instructor and 
friend; or, as the woful Andromache says of her Trojan lord, 
you shall find 

* A father, friend, and brother all in me !' — {Cheers,) 

Not that I would exactly do all the laborious portion of the work 
— that is not the occupation of a scholar, who should be left in 
listless quietude, that fancy might roam unshackled from * heaven 
to earth, from earth to lowest hell!' — but, if the salary were 
noble — which such a noble magazine as Fraser's could well afford 
— if I had two understrappers in the shape of — to use an Amen- 



I 

14 THE FBARKMAll PAPEBS 

canism — helps, I would take npcMi myself to give advice when- 
ever it might be required, to write an occasional paper — for which 
I must, however, be paid ; in &ct, to be what Jef&ej was latterlj 
to the Edifiburgh Bevie^c — nominal editor of the work, but rega- 
lar pocketer of the salary. (Bravo, IravOy on all hands ; immense 
applattse, canidst which ''Croly for everP is heard ^as thick €U 
cttUumnal leaves in Valomhrosa') 

^ Grentlemen, the style of composition for a magazine is of so 
peculiar, exclusive, and delicate a nature, that it is neoessary I 
should say two words on the matter — they shall be eirea nrepoevTay* 
but very difierent from those of that ruffian Home Tooke. Each 
sentence should come forth as round as a turnip, and as hard as a 
cannon-ball ; and should, moreover, follow each other with such 
n^idity, that the clatter of a troop of heavy dragoons crossing the 
broad expanse of the ice-ribbed Zuyder-Zee, should be but as the 
weak whistle of a child to the instantaneous fire of three com- 
panies of sharpshooters. Tour single hit is nothing. What a 
paltry animal is your backwoodsman, although he may be an 
incomparable marksman, merely because he gives an occasional 
solitary fire! — but how great is the glory of a corps of British 
infantry, who can give nineteen rounds of popping in seventy- 
three seconds and three quarters ! ( Cheers, loud and long.) 

" Gentlemen, here is an instance of fitting composition for a 
magazine. A magazine editor must be of all trades — he must 
treat of waJ and divinity, navy and army, church and state, 
worsted stockings and Wormwood Scrubs, Wellington and his fell 
assailant, middys of the fieet and dandies of St. James's street — 
hells, horse-races, and Hyde Park — knavery, foolery, and hum- 
bug. Such are among the omniana that a magazine editor should 
shower down with unmitigated ferocity on an attentive world. To 
* watch for the wind that blows,* says an older orator than myself, 
and to be ready for every wind, that is the thing which gives * the 
sailor fair weather wherever he goes.' The spirit of a weather- 
cock should be the actuating principle of an editor. He should 

* This philological work, commonjy known as " The Diversions of Pur- 
ley" (from the place where it was written), is the most important and success- 
ful literary production of John Home Tooke, immortalized in, and sometimet 
charged wiUi being the writer of, the celebrated letters of *' Junins/'^-M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 16; 

be a politician, royalist, republican, or reviewer. No man alive 
ought to know the turns of the wind half so sensitively! If 
Nelson dies — two smart articles for the little midshipmen ! the 
quartos are anticipated. If Portugal be at odds with Brazil — a 
fire and fury article for Miguel or Pedro," it matters little. If 
Wellington be in Spain — a Subaltern's correspondence. The 
great Captain is reposing upon his laurels — Sketches of the 
Peninsular War I K the Editor, like old North, should wish to 
have a slap at every thing and every one, a something like the 
Noctes Ambrosianae. Write for the West Indians — write for 
the East Indians — write up Protestanism — write down Jerry 
Bentham.* The Methodists are an ungleaned field — a slap-dash 
attack on the sinners. Some old women have thought that the 
kibe of the Church has been trodden on — a philippic for the 
honor of the Church, by way of embrocation ! Thus all times 
and tastes are provided for with a commercial keenness equally 
dexterous, practised, and profitable. This can only be done by 
those who have lived long in town ; for thereby comes the prac- 
tical knowledge. This it is that makes the fortune of the trader 
on the Guinea shore: cast gunpowder for the slave-merchant, 
Birmingham silver for King Joe, glass jewellery for the ladies of 
the harem, and Moses's gross of green spectacles for the general 
population. (^Tremendous applause — Mr. Soane^s house nods as* 
sent to the popular voice.) Thus it is, to take a nearer and more 
domestic emblem, that the Jew boy stocks himself with oranges 
for the winter theatres ; valentines for February ; sixpenny knives 
for the tender season, when young gentlemen carve young ladies* 
names on trees and summer-houses ; and fire-works for the fifth 
of November ! {Applause repeated,) 

" Gentlemen, I will not much longer occupy your too valuable 

♦ Jeremy Bentham, the constant batt of Blackwood and Fraser, was as much 
distinguished for his oddity of manners and eccentricity of style, as for his 
great ability and nndeniable good sense as a law-reformer. He was founder 
of the Westminster Review , in which, with Bowring and others, he endeavored 
to advance his leading principle of " the greatest happiness of the greatest 
number." He reached the great age of eighty-four, and, determined to be 
useful even after death, bequeathed his body for public dissection by Dr. 
Southwood Smith, at whose house, in London, it may be seen to this day, 
rescued from decay by a species of embalmment. — M* 



16 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

time. (€h on, Croly for ever! &c. &c. &c.) Grentlemeii, one 
main consideration for my thus offering myself for the editorship 
of Fraser's, was the difficulty you must of necessity encounter in 
a prudential selection. Lockhart would not do for your editor, 
because he is simple enough to fancy the Quarterly is more influ- 
ential, because thicker and older, than the Magazine of Regent 
street, or RE GIN A, as I will call it. {The Egyptian column is, 
from its * muckle glee^ ready to cut a somerset from its fair foun* 
dcUion, being nearly annihilated by the applausive concussion 
issuing from the brazen, though sweet, throats of the multitude : 
Lord Nugent, Tom Gent,* and Tates^s elephant, are placed 
against it for props : much confusion : Mr. Croly shews fear at 
his exaltation, hut, the Oolumnus JEgyptiacus being brought to its 
senses, the speech is continued.) I have named Mr. Lockhart, 
and given a future appellation of endearment for the Magazine, 
and let me continue. Macvey Napier will not do for the editor- 
ship. {Macvey Napier faints from vexation,) Macvey's nose is 
too long. Bowring will not do : he is a Benthamite, and, there- 
fore, a materialist. (^Bowring is seen sneaking off,) Pierce Gillies 
of the Foreign Quarterly will not do : he smokes, and smoking is 
not the thing. ( Gillies takes his meerschaum from his mouth, and 
squalls out with open jaw ; 

Am Hhein ! am Khein 1 

Da Wachsen unsre Reben, &c. &c. 

but a missile brick-bat aimed at the cavity occasioned by the labial 
retraction, it goes plump down the thorax, and spoils his singing,) 
Fraser — no relation of the publisher, but he of the Foreign 
JReview — will never do, because he curls his hair, keeps a cab., 
and is a dandy of the first magnitude. (Fraser looks beautifully 
irate, his gills taking the delicate hue of the rose, and appearing, 
as to his whole person, very like a frog in a convulsion,) Buck- 
ingham (a general hiss), he, I say, will never do, for he is a 

* Lord Nugent, brother of the first Dake of Buckingham and Chandos, 
was for many years a Parliamentary politician of the Whig school, and held 
the office, for three years, of Lord-High-Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. 
He was author of ** Memorials of Hampden and his Times," and died in 
1850. Thomas Gent was a verse-writer, who had been a printer, and con- 
tributed, at the time of this *' election," to several Annuals. — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 17 

qnack of supremest order. (Applause,) Old Kit North will nol 
do, for he is not sedate enough, and is too gouty ; besides, the old 
fellow is getting into his dotage. Tom CampbeU will never do, 
for he is both Cockney and old woman, hreviter — Old Cockney 
Queen. He of the United Service Journal will not do, for he 
knows nothing of the principles of grammatical construction. 
Jerdan it would be a pity to take away from the Literary Gazette^ 
for he does his work in so peculiarly superior a manner, that his 
rival or successor could not easily be found.* There remains but 
one magazine unmentioned — the Monthly; on that head I shall 
be silent — -I stand before you. (^Uproarious cheers.) 

^^ Sir, Ladies, and Gentlemen: — The editor of a magazine 
should be a divine, a Grecian, a Latinist, a dramatist, an historian, 
a poet, a novelist, a politician, an orator, an honest, honorable, 
independent man, a thorough-going ultra-Tory. Under this con- 
viction I have presented myself to your notice, and entreat your 
support." ( Cheers for forty-Jlve minuies,) 

As Mr. Croly descended from the rostrum, he kicked down 
Mr. Henry Baylis, who, at the outset, had fainted away against 
the column, and had continued there in a trance. When the 
reverend gentleman had taken his seat by the side of the vener- 
able chairman, Mr. Richard Bentley having sidled up to him, and, 
having plucked him by the ear, whispered, " Mr. Croly, Mr. Croly, 
don't join Fraser's, well make it better worth your while ; better 
write for the first publishers in London, No. 8, New Burlington 
street,t than for any one second;" at which Mr. Croly, in 

* To understand the personal allusions in this paragraph, it must be 
remembered that, in 1830, Professor Macvey Napier was editor of the Edin- 
burgh Review (in succession to Francis Jeffrey) — Lockhart, of the Quarterly 
— Dr. (now Sir John) Bowring, of the Westminster — Hobert Pierce Gillies, 
of the Foreign Quarterly — Fraser (not the publisher) of the Foreign Review — 
James Silk Buckingham, of the Oriental jHem/rf— Wilson, of Blackwood -^ 
Thomas Campbell, of the New Monthly Magazine — Sir John Phillipart, of 
the United Service Journal ; and William Jerdan, of the Literary Gazette. — M. 

t For some time Richard Bentley and Henry Colbum were partners (in 
New Burlington street, London ), as publishers. The former founded Bentley*s, 
first announced as The Wits* Miscellany, and, on mentioning to Greorge 
Cruikshank that, as the original title might lead the public to expect more 
wit than its contributors could always supply, recdved the uncomplimentary 
xeply, " So, you will call it ' Bentley's Miscellany I' I saw, from the first, 

2 



18 . THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBB. 

i 

indignant fury, gave him a kick, which, raising Colbum's part- 
ner from the ground, sent him with a flying curvet right over the 
immediate heads of the multitude into the great square, where, 
falling in the midst of a set of mischievous boys, they seized hold 
of him, and tossed him well in a blanket, and then pumped upon 
him, 

" And filled his paunch with water like a bag 
Of goat-skin — so the fellow could not wag; 
Had he but b^en a duck, the lymph profuse 
Had harmed him never — Oh most simple Goose !" 

Matters were thus situated, when the distant squeaking of a 
sonorous penny trumpet came reverberating against the pillars 
tall and stately porticoes of Mr. Soane*s mansion. The sound 
proceeded from exactly the opposite side of the Square, where, 
our readers may remember, is an immense and massive building 
called the Surgeons' Hall, or the Hall of Surgeons, having a 
magnificent portico in front, surmounted by the rueful escutcheon 
of that slaughtering profession, and accompanied by an inscription 
in Boman capitals as full of fear as Dante's writing on his hell- 
gate, i. e. 

COLLEGIUM BEGALE CHIRURGORUM. 

On the top of the escutcheon Mr. Thomas Moore had perched 
his figure, in order that he might the better see the company ; 
but at that altitude his naturally small person was so diminished, 
that it was indeed, as Milton says, *^ in size the smallest dwarf." 
The trumpet was blown by his own " sweet lips," and attached to 
his own sweet person by a sweet-scented, broad, brinded, bran-new 
green riband, the ends being clasped together like a true-love 
knot; while a harp of barbarous and outlandish construction, 
otherwise Irish, was attached with a gold horse-girth to his back. 
He preluded on the squeaking penny instrument of melodious 
sound, and was about to commence an oration to the throng, when 
Mr. Coleridge arose, in a fit of wonderful enthusiasm, with his 
eyes in a fierce frenzy rolling, and these were the words he spake : 

" Oh heavenly influence of seraphic music !" 

that it would never do to call it * The Wits* Magazine' — but toAy run into 
the opposite extreme, and give it your own name V — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 19 

^' In the ancient m3rtholog7, it was told that Orpheus, the son 
of Calliope, having, by the sting of a serpent, inflicted upon his 
wife Eurydice, as she fled through flowery meads, to avoid the 
urgent overtures of Aristeus' suit to her, the beautiful and beloved, 
determined, by strange rites and uncouth incantations, to open the 
way, as Milton has it, ' Smooth, easy, inoflTensive, down to hell.' 
Having there arrived, by means, the consideration of which I- for 
the present pretermit, he, by the harmonious melody of his instru- 
mental performance, aided by the melodious harmony of his vocal 
execution, drew, as Mr. Alexander Pope says, ' iron tears down 
Pluto's cheek.' This very phrase being a proof that the said 
Mr. Pope was no poet — a man not possessed of the vision and 
the faculty divine — who never could have written the Emhlem$ of 
Quarles, or the other great poems in which the soul of poetry lies 
entranced — how could ever such a person as Mr. Pope, whom I 
have proved to be no poet, say that tears ran down Pluto's cheek t 
Did the God of Hell, therefore, weep only from one eye, which 
rained the siderous torrent of woe — the iron sleet of teary shower 
— while the other was dry and juiceless as an essay of my friend 
William Hazlitt.* 

" But to depart from the mean consideration of persons who 
could not write poetry, to go back to the topic from which first I 
started, namely, the power of the Orphic music, so let me remark 
is every music. The wonder-working notes of the Orphean lyre 
drew after them beasts, and brutes, and savages, and trees, and 
stocks, and stones, dancing like Abyssinian maids, singing of 
Mount Abora ;t and by this is prefigured, that the soul of man, 
raised by high and holy emotions — I wish I had a glass of brandy 

* One of these Essays was an eulogistic account, entitled " My First 
Acquaintance with Poets," of the commencement of Hazlitt's personal 
knowledge of Coleridge. Hazlitt died in 1830, leaving behind him the repu- 
tation of having been the best dramatic critic of his time. — ^M. 

t Coleridge's poetical fragment, called ** Kubla Khan ; or a "Vision in a 
Dream" — composed (he averred) in sleep — has the following lines :— 

" A damsel with a dulcimer 
In a vision once I saw : 
It was an Abyssinian maid, 
And on a dulcimer she played, 
Singing of Mount Abora." — ^M. 



SM ^ THE FBABEBIAN PAPERS. 

and water— (tV appears in the hand of a plebeian — hody un- 
known — Mr. Coleridge drinks) — ^ thank you, sir — high and holy 
emotions, to a participation with higher powers aboye, at last, 
rising by prescribed degrees, as in the notes of the gamut, ascends 
from harmony to harmony, until the transcendental philosophy of 
the ages of thought, soaring through the misty cloud of time, 
should envelope it by the music of nature, that 

* Divinest potency 
Whichj from the earth upsoaring to the heavens. 
Fills the whole concave ; and the angel cloads, 
Dimming the north horizon to the sonth, 
Spread radiance.' 

So that — I wish I had something to drink — (the hand presents 
a glass of hrandg and water — hand vanishes — so does brandy 
and water ^ — So that — when I was editor of the Morning Post, 
and the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte said that he declared war 
solely on my account,* and I, like the illustrious John Dennis, 
was the sole excepted person from a party, of which the charac- 
ters were — (another glass of brandy and water) — but I desist — 
for when, as Plato says, fact is reason, reason is not fact I am 
dumb now — silent — because I know of old that my brains have 
been sucked for articles. I mention nobody but Pygmalion 
Hazlitt.t However, when the sun arises to-morrow, and with its 
beam gladdens town and tree, and field and hill, and when the 
little birds, opening their cheerful bills, cry — (another glass of 
brandy and water — supplied as before) — open their cheerful bills, 
and cry forth their cheerful sounds indicative of spring, then do 
we think of music — the heavenly maid that was young when 
Collins, a very middling poet, because his books sold, wrote about 
her." 

* One of Colerid^'s delnsions, begotten of self-conceit and opiam, was 
that Napoleon's antipathy to England sprung from his indignation at sandry 
anti-Jacobin leading articles which be (Coleridge) had contributed to a Lon- 
don newspaper called the Morning Post. — ^I. 

t One of Hazlitt's later works, apparently written under some strong men- 
tal excitement and delusion, was a sort of autobiography, entitled " Liber 
Amoris ; or the New Pygmalion." It was coarsely noticed, with considera- 
ble piquancy and virulence, in Blacktvood's Maqazine, and other Tork 
periodicals. — ^M. 



TliE^ELECTlOM OF EDITOR. 2H 

A vast clamor. of Moore's countrymen, of the injured and 
abused, but most bard-working and bard-drinking, seven, or ten, or 
fifteen, or any otber number of millions tbey please to call tbem« 
selves, immediately arose. *^ Ay," said a gentleman of tbe press» 
redolent of gin and Galway, ^^ thare's the rale janius I Thare you 
are Tom, my ould poet, small as you look, that's worth a carload 
of them other feelaghs.* Ar'n't you the youth that writ of the 
glories of Brian the Brave, ere her toothless sons betrayed her, 
when Malachi stole a bushel of gold, that he sould to a Dublin 
glazier.f Open your potatoe-trap, Tom, my ould wizzened John 
Apple, with the red strake and the deep wrinkle." 

" Why, then," observed another operative from the sister coun- 
try, "if you want the gentleman to spake, you might as well 
hould your tongue. Ar'n't you come here for to ripport ?" 

This observation of the hod-carrier, for such he wasjphis name 
is Larry Sweeny), silenced the man of the quill, and Mr. Moore 
was allowed to commence : — 

" Ladies and Gentlemen — The honor to which I aspire would 
make even, the dumb eloquent, as the sea-shell, mute and tuneless 
upon the shore, when brought close to the ear of beauty or of wit, 
breathes forth the murmurs of exquisite music Between us and 
the booksellers there should be an intimate union of that sort as 
there is between the elk, whom I have mentioned in one of my 
poems, and the insect which fattens upon his brains.^ Not that 
death always ensues from the connexion, for often has the graceful 
fable of antiquity been verified in my own instance; the gold 
showered by them into my lap has produced that which could arm 

* Inquire of Dr. Dinnish Lardner. 

t Moore's coantryman did not exactly quote Moore's words. He probably 
alluded to the Irish melody commencing 

" Let Erin remember the days of old, 
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her ; 
When Malachi wore the collar of gold, 
Which he won from her proud invader."— M. 

X In the " Lines on the Death of Sheridan" : — ex : gr, 

'* In the woods of the North there are insects that prey 
On the brains of the elk till his very last sigh : — 
Oh, Genius ! thy patrons, more cruel than they, 
First feed on thy brains, and then leave thee to die."— M. 



2S THE RUBEBIAN PAPERS. 

itself with the hissing malignity of the serpent, and endeavor at 
least, by the borrowed qualities of its stony glance, to strike into 
dumbness and inaction the princes at whose table its owner had 
enjoyed the eleemosynary banquet You know, ladies and gentle- 
men, I allude to the fable of Danag and her son Perseus." 

A murmur arose among the Hibernians. "• As for Danahy,** 
said the gentleman of the press, already eloquent, '* I knew the 
Widow Danahy well. She was a very dacent, drunken sort of 
woman, who kep' the sign of the Cock and Breeches, in Tralee ; 
and kep' it well too ; but the devil a shower of goold I ivir hard 
of her getting, barrin' the tenpennies, when they'd come thick 
and threefould upon her, in 'lection time, or the like. Faith, I 
see, Tom's romancing upon us. But he s pokes fine — them's purty 
sintinces, only they've no maning, which is the beauty of alL" 

Tom, filS^'eoiirse, did not from his airy elevation — (his high 
eUft^ as Mr. Bogers called it out of compliment to the curator,* 
who, as indeed is his son also, is a very good little fellow ; truth 
extorts this panegyric) and continued : — ^ If I be perched aloft, 
so is a weathercock, ' turning as the turning wind, with shifting 
most sincere.' Where can you find any body, who, like me, has 
snng praises and poured forth slanders with equal impartiality on 
every party ? Who has kept secrets and betrayed secrets with 
the same facility and for the same reason? Who has written 
prose and stolen poetry all for the one motive ? Who has pub- 
lished the life of a friend to his disgrace, and who has suppressed 
the life of a friend to his disgrace,! stimulated by the same 
desire? In a word, I am what I said Sheridan's mind was, 
a peacock's tail, green from the original color of my politics, but 
most decidedly colored by gold in every particular feather." (Loud 
applause.) 

The Gentleman of the Press. — "Well, if that arVt as good a 
fiintince as I ever hard" — 

Another Gentleman of the Press, — "At the Ould Bailey." 

First Gtntleman. — *• Hould in your wit, my polished-off shaver. 
If it a'n t as good a sintince as I ever hard at the Historical 

♦ Of the Maseam in the Royal College of Surgeons. — ^M. 
t " Taking the Life" of Sheridan (as George lY. said), and buniog tiiB 
antobiogTaphy of Byron. — ^M. 



THB ELECTION OF EDITOB. 2S 

Society,* I'm continted to be called a sofl-horned bull, which is, 
by interpretation, a jackass." 

Third Gentleman. — "Tm feared as how he prigged that ere 
out of his Life of Sheridan." 

First Gentleman. — " Which was as thieving a life as ever was 
writ ; and there's Charley Sheridan, the rispictible individle that 
he is, that has never laid so much as the thong of a horsewhip 
over Tom's shoulders ; which, considering all things, shews him 
to be a Christian youth, and one who does not wear black, or blue* 
or green, or yellow, or red feathers in his cap." 

A tumult here arose. 

Mr. Moore having lost his balance, fell smack on the ground, 
and fractured his skull ; happily for his friends and the public at 
large, without loss of brains ; so that his Life of B^nqpa may be 
completed.f Here Mr. Jerdan gracefully offered to nJwa letter 
which the publisher of the Magazine had placed in his lands for 
that purpose, apologising, with low bow, for his imperfect pronun* 
ciation of the Scotch. 

Mount Benger,X first of April, 1830. 
" Mr. J. Fraser, 

"Dear Sir — I sit down to endite an answer-to your 

very civil notification addressed in general to all the literawtee 

and men of genios ; which is to inform you, first and foremost, 

that I am at present in good health, thank God for it, hoping 

these few lines will find you in the same. 

" Before I proceed to the pith of my particular biziness, I must 

tell you, Mr. Fraser, that really ye have putten out a most extra- 

ordinar clever Magazine. How in the worl hae ye managed to- 

get up a cookery of such clever writting, when it's weel known 

that there is no soul out of the Modem Awthens can make the 

least scart wi' a pen ? Ye maun hae got clever fallows either in 

or frae Embro' to write every word o't, that's what every body 

here says, for naething can be done, as all mankind admit, but 

* The Historical Society of Dublin, long the cradle of Irish eloqaence.— M. 

t In May,' 1830, where the above was written, only the first volume of 
Moore's Life of Byron had been published. — M. 

X The Ettrick Shepherd went to reside on the form of Mount Benger, soon 
after his marriage (in 1820), where he continued several yean. — ^M. 



24 THE FBilSERIAN PAPEBS. 

what we do ourselyes just here, or rather there, as I am now at 
the Mount, in that wonderfu' place o' lair an' smeddum, the great 
Awthens: and so, Mr. Fraser, in spite o' mj besetting failing, 
that lamentable back-standing, back-o'-the door mim modesty of 
mine, that has sae lang keeped me hinging wi' mj hinder-end to 
tiie wa', I am determined to come forward with the lave, and not 
only to write for your new Magazine, but I am sure ye'll be most 
delighted to get me for your Yeditor. As for my qualifications, 
Mr. Fraser, and my tawlents, and my jenios, in every particular 
o' the literary line, frae the simple penning o' a bawbee ballad to 
the drawing up of an able article on Houghmagandy, it's per- 
fectly oonneecessary for me to say one single word. Ye hae na 
Uyed to this time o' day, Mr. Fraser, without some knowledge of 
what Pm gnde for. 

^ But there's a word or twa that I hae to say to you, Mr. 
Fraser, but it must be entirely ankther noo (that's gude French) 
— for it is specially aboot my ain af&irs, and which, as ye ar o' 
the Fraser's clan, an' can, of course, keep a secret, yell be sure 
not to allow to spunk out on ony consideration. Ye see the plain 
fack is, Mr. Fraser, that I am very badly situated about Embro', 
for there are a wheen wild fallows that cohabit thegether, round 
aboot a certain Magazine, that hae really been using me very ill 
of late. A leetle freedom I like myself, but when thae blackguards 
can get a catch of me, an' get me hawl'd into Awmrose's public- 
hoose, they set upon me with such tricks, and talk to me such 
misbecoming language, an' make such a perfect deevil o' me, that 
neither man nor mortal can stand it any longer.* Resides that, 
they are apt to get so beastly drunk, and ofiten gavaul about the 
room in such an unseemly manner, that I am perfectly black 
ashamed to be in their company ; and, in short, I perceive my 
character to be going fast, as any one may see with half an ee, 
if I don't speedily get out from amongst them. So, Mr. Fraser, 
if ye can encourage me to go up to Lunon, by making me the 
Shepherd o' thae literary sheep that have already begun to bleat 
so bravely about your Magazine, Til do my best to lay histily 

* Hogg occasionally complained of the liberties taken with his name, as 
well as the words put into his mouth, but was rather proud than otherwise 
of the prominence g^Yen to him in the Nootbs Ambrosiak jb.-»M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 26 

aboat me on its behalf, and to kick and cuff away all the small 
fry of literaiy dogs and puppy curs that yelp and bark about a 
decent Yeditor, to the annoyance and bamboozlement of the regu- 
lar sheep. 

" As for what we ca' the terms o' the bargain, an' the emolu- 
ments, an' so forth, I think, Mr. Fraser yell find me not ill to deal 
with. My way is, that if ye gie me plenty o' praise, I'm n6 to 
say extraordinar greedy o* siller. An' then yc see, as to my 
keeping, I'm not at all nice about my meat, if I only get plenty 
o't. But I maun aye hae a drap o' gude Scotch whisky in the 
greybeard in the coraer : however, I'm a sober man, an' if the 
aqua be strong, I can do with a single anker in the week for my 
ain drinking ; but company days an' wat nights will require, as ye 
know, an extra steeping. For the matter o* my on-putting, ye 
see, Mr. Fraser, I maun aye hae twa pair o' tap boots at a time, 
the taen to relieve the tither, an' a rough Dandie Dinmont 
coat, in good repair, for the slabbery weather. But as for the 
indispensables, I can assure you that one pair o* leather breeks 
will last me an enormous time, although they be apt to get gleeted 
at the knees — unless, indeed, such a mishanter should happen 
them as fell upon my last pair, the like of which I hope never to 
encounter again. The fack was, it was on one night that I was 
going home from Awmrose's (it's no for me, Mr. Fraser, to be 
very particular about the condition that that villanous squad had 
put me into), but, in wandering hameward, where would ye think 
I should happen to fall, in crossing a waste-looking place, but 
plump to the neck into a tan-hole ! — and by the time I had got 
scrambled out frae 'mang the hides, and the stuff began to dry on 
me, the tan and the leather had such a mutual effect, that, in order 
to relieve my unfortunate hurdles, I was obliged to uncase my- 
self with a pen-knife, and that was the end of my gude leather 
breeches. 

" But to bring to a close this longish letter, which I have used 
the freedom, Mr. Fraser, to write out to you so fully, I would 
really wuss ye could make me your Yeditor, an' get me out o' that 
vije Embro'; for, to tell you the plain truth, Mr. Ebony himsel is 
a shabby percudioughty body, an' I dinna like him, an' him and me 
are aye casting in an' casting out, an' flyting an' glunshing at ane 



26 ' THE PBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

anitlier ; an' though that self-conceited, auld, doited body, Maister 
North, whyles gets us brought together ower the bottle, an* to 
make a fine fracaw an' kiss an' embrace ane anither when we're 
fou, yet ye ken, Mr. Fraser, that's no exactly like a cordial recon- 
cilement. Bnt when I come to Lunon I'll tell you a' about it ; an' 

eo I remain your's, " James Hogg." 

• 

Mr. Allan Cunningham,* on behalf of the publisher, now arose, 
and begged to read the following conmiunication : 

"to^the proprietor op fraser's magazine. 

" Sir — Having seen an advertisement in this month's Number 
of your Magazine, for a competent person to fill the office of its 
Editor, and that the election will depend upon the qualifications 
of the candidates, I presume very boldly to put myself forward, 
and do assert, without fear of contradiction, that my abilities and 
qualities fully justify me in saying, that I am the fittest person of 
any who may now, or ever shall offer themselves ; and if you 
miss this opportunity of filling the office, you will ever rue it. I 
don't know who may come forward, and I don't care, for I am 
your man ; for, take notice, I am a great liar, a barefaced black- 
guard, and am superlatively versed in the low-Hfed slang of John 
JBidl^ and Blackwood — I have the impudence of the devil, and, 
as you may suppose, will lie through thick and thin ; in fact, I am 
the counterpart of old Christy North ; need I say any more ? 
As to terms, we shan't quarrel about them. A line left at your 
publisher's will be suffipient. You will, doubtless, close with me 
quickly, in order to have my aid for the June Number, or else, I 
doubt, you will find a greater falling off than erst — ^Yours, 
lovingly, " Mephistophiles." 

( Tremendous hissing, Mephistophiles was discovered skulking in 
the outskirts of the crowds when some Billingsgate jishwomea 

* Allan Cunningham, who was poet, novelist, art-critic, and biographer, 
was a Scotchman, scarcely less remarkable, as a self-taught literary man, 
than IIo2j<?. He died in 1842.— M. 

t The John DuU, a London weekly newspaper started in 1820, to attack 
Queen Caroline (then under trial for adultery, at the instance of George IV., 
her husband), was most scurrilous, on personal character and party politics, 
under the editorship of Theodore Hook, the celebrated wit and noYtelist. M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 27 

caught hold of himy and used htm so roughly that his tail was 
jinaRy rooted out of his fundjament. On this the furious, though 
impotent devil, roared like a mad town hull, and took to his heels 
in a westerly direction, followed, however, by the shouting killings' 
gate fishwives, who pelted him all the way with mud, until he 
dived down the area steps of the publishers in New Burlington 
street, and hid himself in the coal cellar. Presently the little 
owner of the house made his appearance, and assured the fishwives^ 
with much stammering and stuttering, that the gentleman whom 
tliey sought was, on his honor, not in his house, J^ appeared that 
the hunted devil and this gentleman were friends. After much 
delay, the mob dispersed.) 

"Mr. Chairman," said a gentleman in a blue military coat, 
deeply frogged, and an incomparable specimen of the art of that 
great artist Burghart, of Clifford street. " Mr. Chairman," said 
he : he was a tall, thin gentleman, with a broad face, and most 
luxuriant curls, the former the gift of nature, the latter of art.* 
" Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, anS 
awe-struck as I feel by the galaxy of genius which I see con- 
glomerated around, it is not wonderful that the national diffidence 
of my country should co-operate with the natural diffidence of 
myself in rendering me nervous and confused. It is one of my 
maxims — my name, Mr. Chairman, is O'Doherty — my Christian 
appellation, Morgan — my style that of baronet — in plain English, 
or Irish, for I shall not stick at trifles, I am Sir Morgan O'Doherty. 
(Tremendous cheers from all sides,) Sir Morgan O'Doherty, 
whose name is super cethera notus, known beyond the Isle of Sky. 
You want an Editor, you tell us, sir ; as my friend Byron used to 
say, *an uncommon want,' when every rascally magazine and 
review can furnish one cut and dry, salted and packed, wholesale, 
retail, and for exportation. For my own part, I have written for 
all sorts, kinds, manners, and persuasions of periodicals, and I 
find them all pretty much the same — very considerable damned 
deal of humbug in the internal regulation of their affairs. Mxperto 

* This description of Sir Morgan O'Doherty (the peruque excepted) was 
that of a person exactly the reverse of Maginn, " the original Jacobs" of that 
Eidolon, The speech is also as much out of Maginn's manner as it is in that 
of the standard-bearer — of the Magazine. — ^M. 



28 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

erede* Aye, by the God of War ! exptrtissitna* If I wished to 
swear, which I do not, I'd take an affidavit before, Bimie, a very 
decent sort of man, and a particular friend of mine — I remember 
him a joume3rman sadler, when I was in the 88th ; mfti 1 pa- 
tronized him for a bridle, for which he has several times asked me 
to pay him, and always, in the most gentlemanlike maqper, teken 
my bill, and renewed it I say I'd take my davtf (Hiltenicd — I 
talk St Giles's) that the management of these concerns is what, 
in the classical language of the Holy Land,* would be called «ix 
of the one, and half a dozen of the other. There's North, a 
drunken old dog, coming rather toward his last legs : he has seen 
a damned deal of life though, talks big and blusters ; but, what's 
the real matter in hand amongst gentlemen contributors ? Listen, 
open and erect your ears, prick them up skyward, and, by Jove, 
if you are the fellows who write magazines regularly, you have 
them of sufficient extent — long measure, as they say in the 
Psalms. (^Disapprobation,) Wait, you plebeians ! I say what is 
the main question? How does he pay? {^Thunders of applaiueJ) 
Ay, ay. {Hear, hear! from Ainsworthy Austen j AKss Bowles^ 
Crofiy Oroker^ Oroly, Crowe^ Dunlop, Doubiedayy Galty JRev, T. 
HugheSy Mrs* Hemans, Captain Hamiliofiy Lord Lowther's John-- 
Sony Lockharty James AfacqueeUy Doctor Maginny Delia Moir, 

David Rohinsony JSei\ Mr. ,t Alaric WattSy Charles MoL- 

loy Westmacotty and others.) How does he pay, my cocks, my 
castors, my covies, my quill-driving ladies and gentlemen ? Shall 
I answer in a word, or rather in two words ? {Age, aye.) Why, 
then, hear the answer, he pays devilish badly — it wiQ out. 

(Loud shouts from the indignant contributors — a d shame.) 

Then there's my friend Colbum, a nice little fellow, who mba his 
hands and talks half-sentences, a worthy little man, whom I re- 
member meeting in Hampstead with as neat a piece of goods, on 
the sly, as a man could wish to see of a summer's day, or a 

* That part of London, now known as New Oxford street (an extensxm 
of De QaiQcy's " stonj-hearted"' into Holbom, by a straight line), was cut 
throt^rh that part of St. Giles's called " The Rookerv," alku " The HoIt 
Land"" — because it was a rast den of rice, like linens a mom /amidb^-kKig 
and densely colonized bj the lower class of Irish. — M. 

t The Kev. G. K. GIex$:, whose first work ('' The Sabaltm"), ww pab- 
fished, as a serial, in fZotahnwdL — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 29 

irinter's night. And Bentley, a stout, square, double-rigged 
Cockney, talking . Fleet street against the world — a respectable 
man, for whom I haTC a great esteem. What do they pay? 
{Heour, Hkar/ frdm Ayrton, Banim^ Miss Browne, Bulwer, Lady 
(jharlotte ^ry, Tom Campbell, Dixon, Forbes ( William ilenry 
ffa^, BiSy Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon^ 
Morgan' Igf e Knight, Mother Morgan, Oliver, Patmore, Paul Pry 
Puddle, Cy. Redding, Penenden Sheil, James Smith, Horace 
Smith, Count Tims, and the remainder,) Again, I reply, shy 
and shabby. {Adhesion from the left centre,) Once more, finally, 
and to conclude. There's Baylis, put him to the test. (Hear from 
Ambrose, Apicius Amot, Geoff ery Burge, Croly, Deacon, Harriet^ 
Hook, Leeds, Mac Entaggert, Markland, Sir Richard Philips^ 
Ikey Solomons, Ex-Sheriff Whittaker, Whitehead, and so on,) 
Ay ! bray away ! louder, again ! go it my British calves, as my 
friend Colonel Conyers called the Essexians. He pays ill, de- 
cidedly ill ; and is as bad as Blackwood in taking gratis articles. 
{Murmurs of shame, shame, from the extreme right,) When I 
was a youth I read in books of rhetoric that a pause in a speech 
is conducive to grace. So it is. I agree with Aristotle. Here, 
boy {addressing Jesse), you are young, and have written a pretty 
book, half of it, I am told, polished up by my friend Wilson 
Croker : it is a good book, full of neat verses, without sense or 
reason, but in real rhyme, which gingles and rattles like a bunch 
of keys — you'll improve in time, Jesse, my father of David. 
Here, I say, Mary of Scots, go across to my friend Thomas 
Wood's late Macknevin's, round the corner, chuck between Clare 
Market and Clement Danes Gravery,* and bring me a pot of 

porter, mild, and not brewed by a Whig — d the Whigs. As 

for the coppers, Jesse, fork them forth yourself, my jolly poet — I 
carry no brass, except where it is ornamental as well as useful. 
{Jesse, in great confusion, fumbles in his pockets, hut without 
success,) Ay, I see what Shakespeare remarks is true, 



" You may call coppers out of Jesse's pocket, 
But they won't come.' 



ft 



* This public-house, in one of the worst parts of London (but with the 
advantage of contiguity to the theatres and the principal newspaper oflSces 
in the Strand), really was one of Maginn's own favorite haunt^. — "Mi, 



80 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

w 

(Laud laughter.) Well, Whittaker, Teacher, and Amot,* you 
must stand Sam. (IIi7it taken, and Jesse being furnished with 
the pence produces the quaff, which is forthvdth devoured by the 
JSnsign, who resumes,) There is a pause, a pause rhetorical — 

' Now, with transition sweet/ 

as the late Mr. Milton, of Jewin street, observes, I fenew my 
speech. No tropes and figures — no balderdash of blameyfied 
botheration ; but plain matter-of-fact and reason. Here's what I 
say. What is principle ? ask Goulbum. What is consistency ? 
ask Peel. What is honesty? asked Dawson.f What is the 

government of England ? ask , but I refrain. What is it 

I am talking about ? I forget. Why should not I forget this my 
one speech, as well as our ministers forget all theirs ? (No 
razon in life, my trump, from Mr, J, W. Croher,) Here, then, 
make me Editor, hand over the halfpence, post the browns ; and if 
I do not make you an Editor fit for the prince of periodicals, you 
may call me Velluti, or Lord Ellenborought — a nobleman who is 
a particular friend of mine, for whom I have an especial respect, 
derived from a long and intimate acquaintance with his numerous 
virtues, public and private. Have I said enough ? I hope so ; 
for, by the God of War, Pll say no more. Here, little Planche, 
bring me another pot. {Planche runs off like a hunted devil — 
applause from all sides, in the midst of which the voices of the 
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Bishops Bloomfield, Bur^ 
gess, Goplestone, Van Mildert, S^c, Campbell, Croly, Lord Eldon, 
jRev, G, S. Faber, Lockhart, Tom Moore, Sir Walter Scott, jRev, 
G, Townsend, Br, Wordsworth, Sir Charles WethereU, and many 
other distinguished characters, are predominant,) 

After an hour's uproarious applause. Professor Wilson and 
Henry Colburn rose at the same moment. 

* London publishers. — M. 

t Henry Goulbum was Chancellor of the Exchequer in May, 1830; Peel 
waa Home Secretary ; his brother-in-law, George Robert Dawson, was Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. The trio had ratted on the Catholic question in 
1829.— M. 

X Lord EUenborough, afterwards Viceroy of Inglia, held office, at this time, 
under " The Duke," as a Cabinet Minister. There was malice, as well as 
mendacity, in associating his name with that of Velluti, ex-vocalist of the 
Sistine chapel at Home. — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOB. 81 

"We were mistaken in saying that Mr. Professor Wilson arose 
with Mr. Colbum. The gentleman who made the simultaneous 
movement with the New Burlington publisher, was Mr. Christo- 
pher North, who mounted the column with the assistance of his 
crutch, and then commenced. 

^^ Mr. Chairman^ Ladies^ and Gentlemen: — I rise to address 
you under feelings which are almost too overpowering for utterance. 
My name is Mr. Christopher North — that is, I am called Mister 
by those who are not within the circle of familiarity — Christopher 
by those who are but a few paces advanced before the line of 
demarcation that separates familiarity from distance ; and Kit by 
those who sit hob and nob with me at Ambrose's, and get royally 
drunk in the blue parlor of that house of entertainment. Sir, 
you cannot be surprised to see me here — my duty to myself and 
to the ancient Ebony* calls me to this spot, and I am at my post 
to defend the character of both the one and the other. 

" The fame of this meeting first drew me unto this southern 
district ; and, without a sigh, I reHnquished the delights of Am- 
brose, and the fascinations of Ebony ; the bland conversation of 
the Tickler, the tudesque fumigations of the philosophy of the 
devourer of opium, and the rhapsodising extravagance of the 
Shepherd of the Mount of Benger. {Disapprobation from Fraser 
the Publisher, Fraser, his namesake, Picken, Gait, Molloy West" 
macott, Lord F. L, Grower, Mrs. Norton, L. E, L,, Dr. Maginn^ 
Barry Cornwall, Lord GlengaU, William Jerdan, Mastigopheros 
Holmes, Parson Edwards, and other contributors.) 

♦ The idea of fixing the sobriqttet of Ebony on the publisher of " Black- 
wood's Magazine" (who lived at 17 Prince's street, Edinburgh), originated 
with the Ettrick Shepherd, one of whose verses, in the opening chapter of 
The Chaldee Manuscript, ended thus, ** And I saw his name, and the 
number of his name; and his name was as if it had been the color of 
ebony, and his number was the number of a maiden, when the days of the 
years of her virginity have expired." Blackwood died in 1834. Professor 
Wilson ("Christopher North") so long the main support of the Magazine, 
survived him nearly twenty years. " The Tickler," mentioned in North's 
speech, was Mr. Robert Syme, his maternal uncle, who contributed to Maga 
under the signature of " Timothy Tickler," and died in 1844, at the ripe 
age of ninety-four. — ^M. 



82 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

**I beg pardon; — I find I have offended where I should, after 
thjB manner of Ebony's Magazine, have endeavored to please and 
to tickle the humor of the fastidious. I shall, therefore, speak in 
more seemly terms of the excellent Shepherd, and treat him 
always hereafter with more respect at our Ambrosian Debauches. 
{Br(ivo, bravo /) Ladies and Gentlemen, give me your patient 
hearing for the exposition of my grievances. 

"I have received hard usage of this Eraser's Magazine. I 
have been betrayed and insulted. Old dotard has been the name 
bestowed upon Christopher Norths of the Ambrosian Triumphs.* 
Old dotard! and — O ye Grods and Goddesses! O Nelson's pillar 
and Arthur's Seat !t O Ebony's holy countenance and munificent 
han^ ! and O Buchanan's wiseacre and wooden head and shoul- 
ders,t aflSxed to Maga's dowdy cover! — the sky fell not on the 
head of the miscreant who applied to me that word of abuse and 
infamy! A\Tiy, Sir, not to trace up Maga's brilliancies to too 
distant a source — what number of any magazine, past, present, 
and to come, could, has, shall, might, would, should, can or may 
rival with even tlie last fasciculus of that excellent, superlative, 
incomparable, incomprehensible journal. (A sudden, general, and 
overwhelming guffaw, and Ha, ha, ha ! Ho, ho, he ! Ho, hu J 
He, he! — hurst forth from the whole company, followed hy a 
sisserari and cries of " Hear the old laker, hy goles /" " No blar- 
ney /" ^'No hoaxing /" ^^Do;wn with the old prig /" " Toss over 
the old literary coxcomb P^ ''Douse his glims T ''Have at his 
bread-basket /" "Knock out his grinders /" " Uncork his claret 
bottle P* These vociferations were accompanied by a volley of 
missiles, which broke every windoio of Mr, Soa?ie*s stately mansion, 
and did considerable damage to Christopher's nasal promontory. 
The old fogey is dislodged from his elevation. Every indication 
of a popular tumult. The Duke of Wellington, who was seated 
at one of the windows, enjoying the motley scene, rose up imme- 
diately, and, first leaping on the back, crawled to the shoulders of 

* The "NocTES Ambrosian.e." — M. 

t A public monamcnt in, and a somewhat lofty hill close to, the city of 
Edinbargh. — M. 

X Every reader of Blacl'ivood will remember the effigies of old George 
Bachanan on the olive-tinted cover. — M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 83 

Sir George Murray,* in order to gain as commanding a height at 
possible ; whence, grinning in hitter malice, like a baboon from 
the hack of a mountebank^ s bear, he waved his hand to his under^ 
strapper, the Baronet in attendance on the other side of the Square. 
The Baronet instantly charged on the bellowing mob with a set of 
the new police. After a furious battle, silence was once more 
obtained; when the Great Captain of the age exclaimed, ^^ Mount 
again, North P* and behold North mounted again^ spite of his 
gouty leg, and as nimble as a cockchafer,) 

" Sir and Gentlemen — I really know not why the mention of 
Maga should have occasioned such a loud and universal laugh. 
Is not Maga's fame as wide as 

' The vast Pacific to th' Atlantic joined 1—* 

Is not its fame comparable to the celebrity of that Trojan of many 
woes, whose name was, as Maro informs us, * super sethera notusP 
(A ^^Jla, Ha, Ha/" commenced by the crowd — the great Com^ 
mander held up his little finger, and the laugh was stifled into a 
subdued titter,) Aye, I say it again, * super aethem notus ;* and 
I may well say so, and proudly, for I — I am the man who have 
achieved, for Maga, all her most memorable victories. * Adsum 
qui feci.' {Hear — hear — hear!) I assert, in the words of the 
mighty Roman, set forth in the Eton Latin Grammar — *Me^ 
unius opera rempublicam esse salvam/ I have put annually into 
Ebony's pocket the sum of seven thousand pounds sterling. 

"It is well known that the dispersion of his Magazine is 
Ebony's grand and only care ; and it is also well known that that 
dispersion is calculated at fifteen thousand copies. {Hear, hear! — 
Bravo! what a clencher ! — fudge! — hear, Sfc) I say again— 
coolly — deliberately — conscientiously: — and if Ebony were here 
{Ebony slily slips away from the foot of the column), he would, 
no doubt, take his affidavit (as Old Bailey witnesses do when they 
mistake their thumb-nail for the book.) — {Aside,) Hem — 

* Sir George Murray, one of the Peninsular commanders under " The 
Duke," and Colonial Secretary in his government in 1828-*30. He died 
in 1846. "The Baronet" so contemptuously mentioned here as "m attend- 
ance on the other side of the Square," was Sir Bobert Peel, who had suo^ 
ceeded to the title of Baronet early in May, laso.-^M. 

8 



84 THE FBA8EBIAM PAPEBS. 



im. Where is Ebony, to take his 'davit? — ah! he 18 
DoC here — he is 'non est inventus/ as the sheriff's officers have it 
However I am the maximus Pelides, the Avrjp AvSpcjVj as saith 
the blind Mseonian — of Maga the great, the illustrious, the mag- 
nificent, the jovial, the witty, the poetical, the best of periodicals : 
of Maga, which to give you entertainment, hath ranged over 
ereiy land, from the Alleghany altitudes and the Andean steeps, 
to the Himalaya mountains and the Siberian wilds, and, leaping 
over the narrow channel of the Baltic, hath embraced, in its criti- 
cal ken, the whole distance from the ice-ribbed shores of Spits- 
bergen, to the laughing loveliness of the Mediterranean waters. 
{Cheers.) It has been every where, and dared every obstacle 
and hardship. 

' Quidlibet audendi semper fuit magna potestas* 

** It has been the champion of the liberties of Englishmen ; it 
has thwarted and exposed the measures of political oppression ; 
it has been the never-wearying, ever-earnest antagonist of infidel- 
ity and atheism; it has been the comer-stone of our church 
establishment ; it has denounced the subverters of the rights of 
Englishmen, the prostitutors of honor, the base, knavish, lying 
sycophants of power, the shameless tricksters, the ignominious 
trimmers, the vile shufflers, the rogues, the scamps, the idiots, the 
bullies, the insensate politicians, and the hoary-headed, venerable, 
and would-be-reverend bench of traitors to God and to man, who 
have, severally and collectively, been the sorry theme for the 
boastful trumpet of fame during the last year of our political 
existence. {^'Hear, hear ! — Go it, North ! — Twist away, my fine 
fellow! — No blarney I — Question, question" ^c. S^c. from all 
sides.) 

" Question, question, do you say ? I am coming to tlie question, 
but it must be in my own manner ; I must do it by expatiating 
largely and twaddling, as is Maga's custom, not of an afternoon, 
but morning, noon, and night. Speak as you will, vociferate as 
you may, but Maga's unprecedented sale of eighteen thousand, 
(hear, hear!) proves it to be of the right stuff; and not such 
wishy-washy, low, contemptible, dirty, filtliy, abusive trash as you 
may see in every page of every number of Eraser's JMagazine, 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. S5 

which the writers have been pleased to name Regina — by the 
flowing beard of Edrehi the Jew, whom I see cheek by jowl there, 
with Robert Grant,* the friend of Jews — Regina, did I say, or 
rather, do they say ? Pish ! a crowing cock on its own fine dung- 
hill, rather ; or as much Regina as the Duchess of St. Alban's is 
Queen of the territory of Almack's.f (Ilisstng, disapprobation^ 
and uproar.) You may hiss and bray, but I care not, I am bold 
in my integrity — my innocence — my strength. Have I not been 
abused ? has not the term dotard been flung in my face ? and by 
whom? Ah! "that was the unkindest blow of all." By the 
SigniferlJ — Aye, by all our past potations of glowing and heart- 
expanding toddy, by all our past hours of innocent tricks and 
gambols, of innocuous exhilaration and exceeding mirth — I have 
been abused by him whom I honored for his capacious maw and 
expansive gullet — by him whose power of consuming the sub- 
stantial dainties of the table — roast beef and boiled beef, tripes, 
collops, and "broiled kidnies, goose and green gosling, fowls roast 
and boiled, and capons of larger and smaller degree, with those 
other winged and volant creatures, with plumage glancing with 
emerald sheen when kissed by the slanting rays of the sun, 
whether orient or at its zenith, or ere it plunges its sweating 
limbs into the refrigerating and refreshing bath of the occidental 
wave — that is to say, ducks, whether tame, or wild, or full grown, 
or in the tender state of duckHngship ; and partridge, snipe, phea- 
sant, grouse, ptarmigan, black cock, and cock of the wood, and 
cassiowary: — whose power of annihilating these substantial dain- 
ties (though I have said nothing about fish, pastry, or kickshaws), 
as well as of also consuming liquids of all kinds and characters, 
from humble port to imperial tokay — from London porter to the 

* Robert Grant (brother of the present Lord Glenelg, Colonial Secretary 
under the Whigs), had made a vain effort, in the House of Commons, to 
obtain the removal of the civil disabilities to which the Jews are subjected in 
England. — M. 

t The Duchess of St. Albans (formerly Mrs. Coutts, and an ex-actress) 
possessed the wealth of princes, but found herself scarcely tolerated by the 
haute noblesse among whom her marriage with a pennyless Duke had placed 
her. — ^M. 

X O'Doherty— the standard-bearer. At this time Maginn was on the edi- 
torial staflF of the Standard, a leading Tory newspaper in London. — M. 



86 THB FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

piinch of Glasgow, the queen of dties — not only excited my 
esteem, but my veneration ; not only riveted my heart to him in 
the closest links of good fellowship and brotherhood, but com- 
pelled me to look upon him as the glorious pattern for my career 
of life, and the illustrious example in all matters of coenic revelry 
and tipsified jollification. Yes, I say it with sorrow, I have been 
abused, insulted, betrayed, called ugly, scandalous names by the 
great Dohertiades. Heu pietas, heu prisca fides, and let me add, 
invictaque dextra raisendo ad throatum pocula ! The truth of 
the standard-bearer is departed for ever, and, in the emphatic 
words of one who knew human nature wofully Jand well — I mean 
the great Bombastes Furioso — let me add — 

* Man's boasted constancy is all my eye !' ( Cheers.) 

" Even if I had not been joined formerly in friendship to the 
man whom I have named, I could not have expected this treat- 
ment at his foul-tongued mouth. To be called a dotard! — I, 
Christopher North, who have written up Ebony's Maga to a cir- 
culation of twenty thousand copies. {Hear, hear ! and loud laugh- 
ter. Duke gives a look, and laughter instantly subdued.) 

" Infirmity of limb does not argue infirmity of mind ; even the 
podagra and chiragra, however severe, have not incapacitated the 
intellect or shorn the beams of my ambrosian genius. If so, the 
pleasant Tickler, and the Eater of Opium, and the Shepherd of 
Ettrick, would never have allowed me to continue chairman 
during our maenadic jollifications in the blue chamber of our 
coenic displays : — if so, Edina would not still take pride in being 
the birthplace of Maga, and Maga*s praises would not be shouted 
from pole to pole and around the wide girdle of the earth ; nor 
would anxious and expectant nations devour five and twenty 
thousand copies of each one of her matchless numbers ! {HeaVy 
hear ! and cheers, mixed with titters and stifi^d laughter.) 

" And* now, having, according to my usual custom, said one 
word in praise of Ebony, and twenty in praise of myself; having, 
by this very address vindicated my intellect from the charge of 
dotage ; I shall descend from this column with that secret satis- 
faction which is the best reward for the honest discharge of duty. 
Had J lefl the accusation uncontroverted, it had been a libel on 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 87 

Ebony, whose intelligence is wonderful, for a bookseller ; whose 
munificence hath passed into a proverb. * He hath a tear for pity, 
and a hand open as day for melting charity.' So that men men- 
tion his name with reverence: indeed they shall speak in the 
same breath, of Alfred the Just, and Howard the Philanthropist, 
and Edina*s Ebony the Munificent! The unrefuted accusation 
had also been a libel on yourselves, whose great intelligence has 
unholden Maga in so unprecedented a degree, and who monthly 
devour the astonishing number of six and thirty thousand of her 
copies. {Hear,) 

" As for the Standard-bearer, he was my friend, but I tear his 
image from my heart, and cast it from me. And yet the recol- 
lection of our boon-companionship was sweet to dwell on. It has 
been with me as with the immortal poet of our own land. 

' Still o'er the scene my memory wakes. 
And fondly broods with miser care ! 
Time bat th' impression deeper makes. 
As streams their channels deeper wear/ 

" But our friendship is in the predicament of the city of Troy — 
*Troja fuit!* — I bury the name of Dohertiades in oblivion — I 
trample our former intimacy to the dust. I will not honor him 
with my scorn — but will extend to him the boon of my contempt. 
{Hear^ hear ! Cheers, S^c.) 

" It is in vain for the miscreants of Eraser's Magazine to aim 
their bravo-blows at the glorious Maga of Ebony the Munificent, 
whose genius, gifled with superhuman energies, expands its 
resplendent wings, and, shaking ofi^ the dust and dross of frail 
and impotent humanity, rises alofl from the Finite to the Infinite, 
and loves to wander amongst the extatic meads of imparadised 
and immortal asphodel of a purer and blissful region ; and then, 
afler a short sojourn in that glorious clime, descends again (in 
charity) to the earth, to distribute its collected treasures of poetry 
and wisdom throughout the closely printed pages of Ebony's 
publication. (Imrriense cheers.) The bravos of Eraser's Magazine 
are powerless, as they are mischievous. The men are weak-^ 
the malice of their pen is defeated in its lack of gall and bitter- 
ness. They are like the hero of Dryden — • 



88 THE FRAfiESlAN PAPEB3. 

' Who WM too warm on pickin^^ work to dwell. 
And fa^xottcd his notions u ther fell ; 
And if thej rhymed and rattled, all was veil : 
Hpit«fnl he wa« not, though he wrote a satire, 
For still there goes $ome thinking to ill nature !' 

'^ Tliey may rail, and blunter, and abuse, and vilify, and bespat- 
ter with dirt, whicli would be thought of too befouling a quolitj 
for even the not ov(;r-delicate fingers of a Billingsgate fishwife. 
{A hugn dab of mud douses the sparkle of Christopher's left eye, 
and firnrh/ vpsets him from his eminence. Two or three BiUings^ 
gaiprst rrturned from the pursuit of MephistophileSy manifeti, an 
inclination to show ftght^ but are prevented by the Zhiifs police. 
Ebony having got a mop, cleanses the adhesive impurities from 
Christophers sinister ogle^ exclaiming several times during the 
Oprration^ ^^Ma gudrness^ Kit, wha could hae opined ye wad hae 
been sae treated in the service of ma Maggazine, whiUc is sae con- 
siderable a pnblir blessing,**) 

*'Thnnk yi\ Kl)ony, thin is according to your usual kindness. 
I ffhnll Hny no mnrt' iibout Fraser^s Magazine or Billingsgate fish- 
wivon, but cH)nchido with ppeed. Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen, 
then? 8tands Kbony, tiie modem philanthropist, the most munificent 
of nuHu tho public l>oncfactor of £ngland, with its sorroimding 
isteijt — its c^)1onios — its oriental possessions and their dependancies. 
Ought not tho jrn^atOv^t of honors to be reserved for him who has 
50 nobly ix>m|)ortod himself for the public benefit ? For myself 
I say nothing. Liko lk\con, I leave my reward to posterity; for 
(I l>eg to say that I s^H^ak with all difiidence and reasoiu and not 
to insult tho pnv^ont company)* I am in the situation of those 
mighty intoUo<i>ts genorated once in a century, but who anticipate 
the ag^ in which thoy arc l^onu and« diercfore, are ill nndezstood 
by that a^ro^ \>n aooi>imt of its generU ignorance. This is, per- 
)m|v^. (ho ^Ysa>««M\ >K hy ^ ma3\y K>f the Ambn>sian pages appear ^o 
xt^v^'^nv aivi ^)i^^n)l1 \>f /\M\^^rvhous»l13u I aw^uu in all res^^aa- 
t^>n. mv iN-^m^ii^orai^iW tM^ l^^^vr iVnw\ |\><ioriiy. I hope £K»t, 
h^M iv| m<"^n» XKiil iisv« ^^>v Jh> >^-^'ii >v W;,ir, The irmuiest of dt- 
1'i^"iY»M>n '.^i^w),^ AX< Ai< ^^■»'Av x«^>h\ 1\\ ^,is TAsio A»d tt}«Dt kas nis«i 
iW x-i^siiUinNrt Al' Mi^Jf* ^H "fiiX^ <h.Ni5>;AiV4 A-^jiie?;. (iSwBr« itfar J 4*^ 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 89 

this most liberal of all the nations of the earth. Could I, weak 
man, dispense his destiny, I would, according to the txajnples 
recorded in the beautiftll mythology of the Greeks, translate him, 
with a bound volume of his Magazine, in one hand, and in the 
other, the big punch-bowl froni Ambrose's blue parlor (whilst his 
breeches pockets hung on either side puffed out with such gold 
guineas as he has often distributed amongst his contrUrators) to . 
the most distinguished part of the heavens, because that situation 
is the best adapted for one of so many virtues, that all men may 
in their upward gaze admire his happy destiny and emulate his 
example. I would place him. Sir, close under the tail of Ursa 
Major. ( Cheers.) Ursa, no doubt, would fret and be stung with 
a growing jealousy at the surpassing brilliancy of the new con- 
stellation, 

* But Ursa Major may both sweat and labor, 
T' eclipse the glories of his next-door neighbor,' 

to no avail. Those glories would remain undiminished for the 
wonder of ages yet in the womb of time." (Much cheering. 
Christopher hobbles down carefully and slowly^ leaning on his 
crutch, and finally takes hi\ seat on the left hand of the chair. 
At this crisis some confusion arose in the crowd, when some one^ 
near the railway, was heard to say, once or twice.) — 

" Gentlemen, I conceive" — ( Cries of, ^^who is this conceivingV*) 

"Gentlemen, I conceive" — ("il/r. Campbell! Mr. Campbell P^ 

shouted several. " He is aiming at conception, but his conceiving 

time is over — or if any thing is brought forth, it must be such a 

conception as his Letter to Tom Moore'* Hisses and noise.) 

" Gentlemen, I hope!" said Mr. Campbell, in a loud voice — 
{which was followed by cries of ^^ Bravo! — Bravo, Campbell! 
He is the Bard of Hope after all! Hear him! Hear him!** — 
^^Hop to the top of the column, Mr. Campbell,** cried a voice, " we 
cannot see you.** A posse of the members of the Literary Union* 

* In 1829, Thomas Campbell, the poet, established " The Literary Union," 
the object of which was to bring the literary men of London into habits of 
more social and friendly intercourse than had been accomplished by other 
clubs. It did not succeed— chiefly through ineflicient management under a 
spirit of cliqueism. — ^M. 



40 THE niASESlAN PAPERS. 

having elevated Mr, Campbell to the column-head, he addressed the 
meeting m$ JbUaws :) — 

"Mr. Chairman! — Grentlemen! — I li^pe you will hear me 
qnietly, and behave yourselves as you ought when I address you. 
I need not remind you of the claims I have upon your respect, 
which are such as I may, without vanity, say, ought, at least, to 
insure me a favorable hearing ; if not, that bMmbs in the appli* 
cation I am about to make, for which my lDa% tervices to the 
public may entitle me to hope. ( Cries of '^Hop down again ! — No 
twaddles /" and other exclamations of impatience. After a litOe^ 
he went on.) I trust, Grentlemen, you will permit me to statQ my 
pretensions to the Editorship of this new periodical, at least, with- 
out interruption. I am not accustomed to be interrupted in my 
speeches — at the Literary Union I am listened to with attention. 
You will consider the feelings of one whose taste has been refined 
by such studies as I have given myself to — of one, the texture 
of whose mind is somewhat too delicate — too sensitive — (Damn 
this ricketty column! Confound you!) — {in an under "tone to 
those just beneath him) — (you'll certainly have me toss'd over 
the rails into Mr. Soane's arena.) — {Then aloud) — Aye, as I said, 
of too delicate a nature for the circoittfitances in which I stand. — 
(Keep the column steady, Tom Great and Lord Nugent. If you 
want assistance, send for Yates's elephant.*) — Excuse me. Gen- 
tlemen, I am not accustomed to address crowds. To^be sure, 
when I had the honor of being chosen Lord Rector of the Col- 
lege of my native town, a thanksgiving speech to my constituents 
was perfectly indispensable — though I confess I did not much 
like the looks of the rabble of boys, who, on that celebrated 
occasion grinned upwards in my face, and I was really almost 
stifled with the smell of oaten-meal porridge, but sweet breath 
ought not at all times to be expected by a public man ; and you 
know that, for twenty years, I — {loud cries of "Down, downT) 
— Gentlemen — {he went on after some confusion) — in one word, 
my pretensions are known to you all — {laughter, and cries ofy 

♦ rrederick Yates, then manager of the Adelphi Theatre, in London, had 
introduced an elephant, called "Mademoiselle Djeck," to do "the heavy 
business" in certain quadrupedal melodramas. The "half-reasoning ele- 
phant" exhibited wonderful docility, and drew great houses. — M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 41 

"iSb they are/") Have I not formed the taste by which that 
gallant work, the New Monthly, has even been distingaished ? 
JHave I not founded an^University i^^ this Metropolis ?♦ Have I 
not patronized novel-writing ladies, whenever I delighted in 
them? Have I not written and given my opinion of a noble 
lady whom I need not name, defending her with all my might, 
although the ill-naiured worid has given me no thanka.fi>i' ^^ 
same ? Yet, do I not know that all mankind were waitbg until 
I" should say something of the affair? — (hisses and cries of 
^hahr) — do not hiss me, my good friends ; you hurt my feelings. 
I may have spoken a little out of joint in that letter, but to con- 
fess Uie truth, I wrote it when I was drunk.t — ( Ories of, ^^Bravo, 
Campbell/") Gentlemen, you are all considerate persons, and 
know that a man will get drunk sometimes, and then he naturally 
thinks of the ladies. But to return to the main point, I need not 
say who is the fittest person in England for the honor of this con- 
tested Editorship, modesty forbids it. As for Editorship of a 
genteel periodical, my notion of it is this — never let any thing . 
go in to your Magazine that has the least chance of being dis- 
pleasing to any one whatever — (a voice from the crowd, '^Then 
it will he sure not to he worth a doit f*) — nor should it excite any 
thinking, for that is troublesome. Above all, beware how you 
give the least umbrage to any person of fine taste, and upon this 
point my maxim is that of the Scotch Schoolmaster : whatever 
may be prevented from going in, you can never be wrong in blot^ 
ting out. Always take care that your contributors write prettily, 
and mind their syllables and stops. I wrote my Theodoric on 
Whatman's finest double pressed, and with a silver pen. Some 
verses in that popular poem cost me three weeks labor before I 
had decided upon the claims of each individual word. My life of 
Sir Thomas, which I am now writing,! I do in kid-gloves, and 

* Campbell was thrice elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University — pro- 
posed and had a large share in founding London University — and was editor 
of the New Monthly Magazine for ten years, 1821-'31. — M. 

t On the publication of Moore's Life of Byron, Campbell volunteered to 
be the defender of Lady B., published a letter from her relative to her quar- 
rel with her husband, and hurled a very abusive missive of his own, on the 
same subject, at the head of his quondam friend Shomas Moore. — M. 

I Campbell, who was advertised as the author of an " in the press" Life of 



42 THE RASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

with red ink (blade is filthy and vulgar) ; and mj paper I have 
glazed to mj own order. That is the way to write well ! Some- 
times I get through three pages in as many days, when I am not 
interrupted ; but you know how much a poet and a public char- 
acter, as I am, u liable to interruption, by Literary Unions and 
other great affairs of the nations. {Tumult and expressions 
cf inqtaiience among the crowd.) Gentlemen, will you not even 
hear me? I am known to you all! — I am known to all the 
world ! I hope you will not use me as the Grower Street Univer- 
sity-men have done.* Gentlemen, I am an ill-used man ! I am 
beginning to be a rejected poet At the University they won't 
hear me speak, and hardly will let me have a seat to sit upon. 
My Theodoric was damned, after all my pains-f The New 
Monthly is, I am sorry to say, sick, and in a delicate state. I 
shall never sur>-ive it, and that will be seen. {Here the poor gen- 
tleman teas overcome by his feelings, and began to rummage for 
his hcuidkerchief ; but his pocket having been picked before he 
mounted the barrel, he seemed sadly at a loss ; upon tpi h' db mn ill- 
colored clout, bedaubed with snuff, was handed up to tbik 2y 07ie 
of the members of the Literary Union, with which, htwmg cleared 
his eyes, and, descending from the bad eminence on the column, 
mounted a barrel-head, he thus went on :) — I hope, Mr. Chairman 
— (cries of ** spoken ^ spoken — do^cn from the barrel-head, S^c^ 
and a voice having vociferated, " Let the Scotchman speak,** Mr, 
Campbell went on :) — Gentlemen, I beg you will not call me a 
Scotchman. You hurt my feelings. I tinist I may get credit for 
a little civilization after having been thirty years in London. 
Barbarism eitlier in language or manners, is not at all suited to 
my taste. With all respect for tliat hungry country in the north, 
which all Scotchmen leave as soon as possible, believe me, gentle- 
men, it never could have produced such a work as the New 

Sir Thomas Lawrence, shrunk from the labor, and handed his materials to 
Mr. Williams (known as writer of the democratic letters sipied "Publicola," 
in the Weeklxf DUpatck), by whom the work was executed, in rather a clumsy 
manner. — ^M. 
* The London University is located in Upper Gowcr street, St. Fancras. 

London. — ^M. 
t It was Campbell's weakest poem. — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 48 

Monthly. ( Cries of " trae^ truer) But I have done. I need say 
no more. I confidently await your suffrages." 

At this crisis a great bustle was observed in the outskirts of the 
crowd near Holbom Bars, abd in due time an enormous red- 
haired figure was seen struggling and elbowing himself forward 
to the focus of the assemblage. He was dressed in a large loose 
surtout, or rather great-coat, for it was of a mongrel fashion 
between the two — the color was, ci-devant^ bottle-green, deficient 
in the nap, and in the left skirt, which had been torn off in the 
struggle. A considerable ventilator was open under each arm. 
His waistcoat was of dingy black velvet with yellow buttons, 
several of which had departed, but his linen was bright and clean, 
of a gentlemanly quality ; the open bosom shewed, however, a 
flannel waistcoat, which, if there be heat in hair, might have been 
dispensed with, considering the shaggy natural mat of rusty wire 
beneath. His head was thatched with a huge racoon cap, and his 
throat was bare, though his collar was tied with a remnant of an 
old black Ajjjkiuuidkerchief. 

As he came wriggling onward, if such a word may be applied 
to the activity of such creatures as this personage, or whales, or 
elephants, he all the while was cramming his nostrils with snuff 
by handfuls from his waistcoat ptfcket. 

' When he had reached the comer of the railing in front of Mr. 
Soane*s house, he roared aloud with a voice like a chain-cable 
running through the hawse-hole of a first-rate man-of-war, coming 
to anchor : 

"Hollo, I say, lower yourself from that altitude, and make 
room for your betters." All around the rostrum capital were 
astonished at the sound — some fled, others stood aghast, and the 
Duke of Wellington, who was standing near, looked around to 
see what masked battery of twelve forty-two pounders had opened 
behind him. It was manifest by the coolness with which his 
Grace heard the first of the explosion, that he considered the 
affair as some incident of the ordnance, but wh|^ he beheld the 
red and fiery roaring volcano, he betrayed visible trepidation. 

"I say you aloft there, come down," subjoined the rubicund 
phenomenon, without taking, the slighteef^fnotice of any one 
around ; " Come down, Tom Tit, I want to speechify a bit." Mr. 



44 THE FEIASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

Campbell on the pedestal not obejing with jsufficient alacrity, he 
raised his arm, which, in power and magnitude, might be com- 
pared to the beam of a hundred and fifty horse power engine, and 
with his finger and thumb took hold of the little man like an in- 
sect, and dropped him behind him with a benediction. ^ Off with 
you, ye rapscallion !" 

The Red man then ascended the rostrum, and at his appearance 
aloft great joy was expressed by some of Blackwood's gang: 
Profbssor Wilson, Tom Moore, Sam Rogers, Lockhart, Zachary 
Macauley, Gait, Dr. Maginn, Lord Francis Levison Grower,* Mr. 
Owen of Lanark ; all pressing towards him, while Sir Morgan 
O'Doherty shouted, " The Tiger, the Tiger !"t 

" What do you say ?" exclaimed Lady Morgan in alarm, and 
turning pale. 

"The Tiger — the Tiger!" was the responding shout. 

" A tiger !" screamed her ladyship, gathering up her petticoats, 
and preparing to fly. 

"Where — where?" was the general cry of the ^powd, p^- 
taking of her terror; and all were on the point of scattering 
themselves, when, with another tremendous roar, like a powder 
magazine blowing up, the rosy Lord of Sagur arrested their flight 
by calling, " Order !" 

After a short pause, and again taking a vehement inhalation of 
snufl^, he looked around over the multitude, and seeing amidst the 
crowd several of his acquaintances, called to them by name, and 
spoke to them familiarly. The multitude, not relishing such in- 
stances of partial distinction, began to cry out, " Speak up, speak 
up!" which recalled him to the recollection of his duty; and, 
taking off his cap, his exordium was to the following effect : 

" When I was an editor in Calcutta, for I do not come here a 
Johnny raw, such as your bog-trotting reporters, and the other 

♦ The present Earl of Ellesmere, who visited the United States in 
1853.— M. 

t " T!io Tiger" was a nom-de-circonstancc bestowed by BlctckwoocTs Maffa^ 
zine on one of its contributors, Dr. William Dunlop, who had been to India, 
and used to give narratives more marvellous than credible, of his tiger- 
hunting feats there. Ho finally emigrated to Canada, of which province he 
published a clever volumo of " Sketches by a Backwoodsman," became a 
member of the local legislature, and died only a few years ago. — 'hi." 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 45 

pewter lifters belonging to the Daily, I knew how to serve up 
the curry." 

" No cookery !" exclaimed Mr. Cosmo Orme, from the Row.* 
"An Editor — it is an Editor we have come to choose." 

The look with which the speaker scorched him into a cinder is 
indescribable — it was not contemptuous, nor indignant, nor angry, 
nor any modification which ire can assume ; it must have been 
seen to be appreciated; but, like all manifestations of intense 
energy, it was of brief duration. t 

" Quench that spark !" was the vocal accompaniment to the 
withering scowl, and, in the same moment, the orator vigorously 
blew a handful of Lundyfoot mixed with cayenne over the intru- 
der, which invested his own head like that of cloud-compelling 
Jove in a thunder-storm. When the dust which rose from it had 
passed away, he looked out like the morning sun from the mist, 
and Mr. Orme was seen no more. 

The orator resumed, "My grandfather was the biggest man 
you ever saw. I am passable myself in that way, but he was 
enormous ; compared with him I am as a pint pot beside a gallon 
stoup, or a half-pint at the foot of a magnum. By-the-by, this is 
dry work, cah*t you, Billy Maginn, tip us a horn, and, as I have 
got a touch of hydrophobia, no water, but some concentrated fluid, 
of which a drop is as good as a gallon. I say, you. Professor 
Brande, what have you been about that you do not make brandy 
concrete, that we may carry drams in our pockets like pectoral 
lozenges. Make the invention, and PU patronize you." 

" Veil to be sure, he's a rum *un'," exclaimed Mr. Morgan, the 
philanthropist, and aathor of the Reproof of Brutus f But the 
crowd now growing impatient, cries of "Begin — speak to the 
point !" were vociferated on all sides. 

" Hold your tongues, and be d d to you, I'm going to begin,** 

was the reply, " and I will speak to the point ; but to what point 
shall I speii ? Didn't I tell you that I was an Editor in Cal- 
cutta? And, talking of speaking to the point, by-the-by, puts me 

♦ Cosmo Orme was a member of the great London publishing house of 
Longman, Hurst, Bees, Orme, and Brown. — M. 

t A poem, republican and socialist, which the critics bad seycrely han- 
dled.— M. 



46 THB FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

in mind of a story of my friend Dan C^Brien there,- a devilish 
good fellow, and his clerk, Bailie LiddeL Dan's instructions to 
the Bailie were, that he was to do exactly, and without remark, 
whatever he ordered him to do, and in all things the Bailie was 
most particular. It so happened, however, that Dan had a dispute 
with the Alexanders, in which he, of course, thought them in the 
wrong ; and being of that opinion, when they made him a proposi- 
tion to settle the business, he desired the Bailie to y^rite them, 
that lie would be confounded before he accepted any such terms. 
The Bailie did as he was bidden, and wrote — ' Gentlemen, Mr. 
O'Brien desires me to say, in reply to yours, before he accepts 
your terms, he will be confounded. I am, gentlemen, &c. &c. ;' 
which I say was sharply to the point, and doing Spartan with a 
vengeance.'* 

The noble Premier was observed to smile at this, evidently 
pleased at such an example of discipline and an epistolary style, 
so much like his own Laconics. But, turning up the cool comer 
of his eye from under his smart, dapper, well-in-order, brief- 
brimmed game castor to the elevated Colossus, said — " Had you 
not better now proceed to business ?" 

The orator looked down and replied, with a Celtic — " Oomph I" 
muttering — ** Confound your impudence !" He then, raising his 
voice, addressed himself to the crowd. 

" My aunt Sally had a cat, which an old wife stole, that she 
might get a reward for finding it. As she expected, my aunt 
offered a shilling. Another crone, of parallel integrity, on hearing 
notification, knowing where the cat was occulted, went and restole 
it, carried it home, and received the reward, which caused the first 
thief to say that her — 'impudence was large.' Now I apj 
and looking down at the Duke significantly, and taking a 
of the Tiger mixture, with exaggerated indifference, he said — "I 
say that it may be said of every man who interrupts the intentions 
of another, that his ' impudence is large.' {''Bravo ! hear, hear I 
Thafs a brave tiger ! a docile tiger /") This plain dealing was 
manifestly to the heart's content of the Duke, who smiled and 
retreated — awed but not discomfited — a Torres Vedras retreat; 
and the orator prepared himself to resume ; but at that moment 
ho happened to forget the elevation on which he was standing, and 




THE ELECJTION OP EDITOR. 47 

making a false step, i^ to the ground. Being taken up senseless, 
he was carried into the house, where, after Mr. Coleridge and 
Mr. Campbell (generously forgetful of the indignity he had suf- 
fered) each with a glass of brandy-and-water, soon recovered him, 
but the shock he had received in the fall rendered him unable to 
return to the pedestal. 

(A shout now arose from another quarter among the crowd, ana 
the words ^^Mr, HazUtt! Mr, Haditt! the King of Cockaigne P* 
were plainly distinguishable through the noise. Immediately hit 
Majesty of Bow-hell dominion was seen scrambling up for distinction 
upon the hand-barrow of a pork-butcher, from Pudding-lane, who 
was, as it appeared, deeply interested in the literary contest of the 
day; and who, along with certain other gentlemen of the prO' 
visional government, who inhabit the mansions in Pye-comer and 
the Poultry, kindly assisted the King to his present elevation. 
When, therefore, the cockney potentate was fairly set upon his end 
on the barrow, he coughed three times in an audible voice, and thus 
began :) — 

" This Magazine is the property of a Scotchman ;* it can never 
thrive. The Scotchmen are narrow-minded and a prejudiced set ; 
because they exert their talents in this country to the exclusion 
and starvation of deserving men like myself. (Hear, hear!) 
Their country is too beggarly to afford them subsistence ; they, 
therefore, come here, like hungry vermin, to eat up the very fat 
of this land. (Hisses,) You may hiss, but I care not. The 
Scotchmen are no better than the scum of the earth; because 
they hold all the literary situations in London, to the exclusion of 
myself. (Disapprobation.) Disapprove as you will. I will finish 
;Ay say. A double curse upon Blackwood*s Magazine, because it 
' Srst brought the genius of Scotland into most prominent play. 
That genius received the cheers of society ; it should rather have 
been hooted into obscurity; for its perfection was low slang, 
demoniac abuse, imbecile wit, and frothy sentimentalism. Such 
is the perfection of Blackwood — such is the perfection of Fraser. 

" How a right-minded public can devour fifty thousand monthly 

♦ Hazlitt's antipathy to Scotchmen, which was great, was manifested in a 
bitter article against them which he contributed to the Pisan periodical The 
Liberal f edited by Lord Byron and Leigh Hant. — ^M. 



48 THE FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 

copies of the former, or allow the latter to exist a day longer, is 
to me a mystery most unfathomable." {Here the noise became 
ahnost insufferable, and Ebony having given Hazlitt a tremendous 
clout on the chops, and knocked him down with his mutton Jist^-^ 
ascended the barrow, and thus commenced.) 

" What is't ye say aboot ma Mawgazine ? Wha'll offer to play 
pieu at Maga in my hearing? Is it you, Willy Hawzlitt, that 
attempts to speak aboot ma Mawgazine ? You ! ye dirty, filthy, 
Bow-bell-bred body ! Ye puir trifflin creature ! Ye impertinent 
cockney, that dinna ken nae mair aboot gude writing than a cow 
kens aboot a bad shilling. Ye'll pretend to speak against ma 
Mawgazine ! an' Scotchmen too, forsooth. Ma faith ! Ill get a 
fallow or twa in the modem Awthens that'll roast you, an' toast 
you, an' baste you back an' sides, till ye'll was yoursel in ony 
change-hoose aboot the Lakes, twa hundre miles awa, or in ony 
Grub street garret writing anither liber awmoris concerning filthy 
sculduddery and houghmagundy, rather than coming here to speak 
against ma Mawgazine. But I've mair to say than that, if it was 
worth my while — gude faith ! {Shouts of ^^ Bravo, Bailie/*' mixed 
with cries of ^'Down with the Scotchman, and Ifazlitt for ever /*' 
during which the Scotch authors present began to gather into a 
knot, and then to get into close and angry confab. Beyond the 
knot, in which were most conspicuous Lockhart, Gfak, Jerdan^ 
WiUiam Eraser (who caUs, himself a Scotchman), Pierce Gillies, 
James Wilson, Allan Cunningham, John Black, taking notes for 
the Chronicle, a voice was heard crying out, several times, ^^Play 
up, ye deevil, for the honor o' the nation /" which proved to be 
that of Dominie* s Legacy Picken^ who, with a smirk on his 
countenance, was urging on an outlandish-looking wretch of j|| 
highland-piper to play up a pibroch for the encouragement and 
hear€ning of the Bailie. In another instant the pipei's cheeks 
were distended, his bags began to fill, anij, he had no sooner struck 
up on his screeching instrument the air of ^'Up and waur them 
a', WiUie,** than the Scotchmen set up a shout that rung through 
the whole Square — a dreadful row took place among the crowd, 

♦ Andrew Picken, author of a collection of stories entitled, " The Donfi- 
nie's Legacy," contributed largely to Fraser. He died in 1833. — ^M. , 



THE ELECTION OF SDITOB. 49 

during which the GhairmarCs voice was completely drowned* 
AUan Cunningham^ standing like Saul among the people, knocked 
doum Leigh Hunt merely with the wind of his Jist, which he 
flourished in triumph. Pierce Gillies lost a large silver ring^ 
which he had long worn on his little finger in the most gentlemanly 
manner — John Gfcdt lost the spectacles off his nose in the fray ; 
and Dominie Picken waved his hat so lustily that it flew out of 
his hand, and lighted almost on the opposite side of the square^ 
where it was observed to he instantly picked up by a person in 
shabby silk-stocking s, supposed to be one of the contributors to the 
New Monthly, who forthwith took it to the nearest pawnbroker's^ 
and there obtained a few shillings by the God'Send.) 

Order having been at length somewhat restored, Mr. Coleridge 
being by this time as hoarse as a crow, Bailie Blackwood was 
hoisted on to the barrel-head; and having made a bow to the 
people, in that elegant manner for which the Edioburgh magis* 
trates* have ever been distinguished, he threw off his travelling 
great coat, and, waving his lily hand, thus began : — 

" Mr, Chairman, I really did na think to hae come here, and 
to hae presented mysel before you, for the purpose d' making a 
pawrliamentary speech to this present company, being just, as ye 
see, come aff the tap o' the coach frae Embro' ; but hearing, on 
my way, that there was to be a rabbling meeting to be gathered 
here aboot this impudent new Magazine, that's setting up its 
crockets to the manifest injury o' me an* mine, I could na help 
just shpping in amang the crowd, an' when I heard the fallow 
begin to abuse ma Mawgazine, flesh an' blood could thole it no 
longer, an' so here I am on the barrel end, just to mak a wee bit 
pawrliament speech as I said, in defence o' country, an' king, an' 
church, an' state, an' ma Magazine, which, as ye maun be perfectly 
sensible, must a' stand or fa' thegither. What could possibly 
induce ony body in their right senses, to attempt to set up an- 
opposition to ma Mawgazine here in Lunon, is perfectly beyond 
miy comprehension ; for as for the puir drumorky watery, calf s- 
meat stuff o' the New Monthly, that never was oiiy real opposi- 
tion (o me. But for ony body to think to make a Mawgazine 

* At this time, Mr. William Blackwood was one of the Bailies, or city- 
magistrates of Edinborgh. — ^M. 

i 



50 THP «BAS£RIAN PAPEBS. 

worth speaking aboot after mine, I tell you, Mr. Colridge, on 
the deafest side o' your head, there whaur ye sit on a cauld stane 
in ane o' Johnny Soan's outside cuppboards, like an auld saunt in 
a nich, that sic a scheme will never succeed. Ma gracious ! its 
perefet trifflin. There canna be twa visual suns in the lift:, shining 
an* glowing wi' splendor at the same time ! Nae mair can there 
be a periodical out o' this conftised Bawbel, that'll ever come 
within ony reasonable comparison wi' ma Mawgazine. Has na a' 
the great events o' the last fifteen years been clearly traceable to 
the extraordinar cleverness o' ma Mawgazine. Did na the King 
himsel come down to Scotland for no other actual purpose but to 
get a smell o' the sweet scent o' the auld toon o' Embro,' an' to 
get a sight o' the place that put forth to the world such an oon- 
speakable periodical, such an important organ o' the national 
machinery, as ma Mawgazine. But I see the world's gaun clean 
gleid, an' I dinna ken what to mak o't. Church an' State, an' ma 
Mawgazine are in eminent danger. The march o' intellect has 
putten me into a perfect bamboozlement, for auld common sense 
has coupit her creels, an' the vera worl's turning tail up, like an' 
- o' Captain Parry's sea-dogs. My auld friends dinna seem to ken 
me,, while here I'm obliged to stand speechifying on a barrel-head, 
aboot my ain Mawgazine, to an unruly crowd, just such another 
as was at the hanging o' Lucky Mackinnon in the High street o' 
Embro.' Oh ! ye funny deevil, is that you ? ( Observing the face 
of Dr, Maginn in the crowd,) Ye musleert neer-do-weel crea- 
ture ! do ye really daur to girn up in my face, after deserting me 
among the rest. Dog on't ! How dare ye ? O, if I had a grip 
o' you, I would gar you gansh. Scotchmen indeed ! If it wema 
for Scotchmen what would become o' the peppery speerit o' 
Mawgazine writing in this mighty nation, as weel as the general 
concerns o' literawture in the whole ceeveleezed ierth, frae Johnny 
Groat's house to Japan. Hilloa ! keep aff the barrel ! {A great 
row^ with cries of ^^Down with the Scotch fiddle /" " God bless 
the Duke of Argyle /" " Wha wants me ?" S^c, during which the 
Bailie loses his hat, and makes the most violent gestures to obtain 
a Clearing in vain. At length we could hear him say, or rather 
gasp,) Will ye no hear me speak ? I appeal to the chair. Have 
ye no respect for a magistrate of Embro' ? How dare ye offer to 



THE ELECTION OF .jOUtTOB. 61 

fling dirt at the powers that be ? Is there no one here to read 
the riot act ? Stand out o' the way till I jump doon aflP the bar- 
rel. Oh !" — {Here a most astonishing thing happened — a large 
crow, carrying a billet of wood for the building of its nest, mis- 
taking the up-standing hair of the Bailie for one of the trees in 
Lincoln's Inn-fields (as is supposed), and his mouth, which now 
stood wide open, for a convenient place wherein to build, flew 
directly into the tempting aperture, fagot and cdl, to the great con- 
sternation of the spectators, leaving the billet in a perpendicular 
situation within Mr. Blackwood's mouth, by which he was com- 
pletely gagged. Every body must remember the feat of Baron 
Munchaicsen with the whale — This was of a similar description. 
Indeed it was considered a black business by all the wondering 
spectators, who affirmed that the rook had actually flown down the 
honest gentleman^ throat. We cannot positively vouch for the 
truth of the last-mentioned circumstance; but the gag having been 
taken out of the mouth of the Bodlie by some of the Scotchmen 
who now crowded round him, he was assisted to the Somerset 
Coffee-house, in the Strand, where a hearty bumper of raw aqua 
vitce having been administered as a general cure, the worthy magis- 
trate was restored to his usual dry equanimity,) 

{A loud bustling and splatter was heard from the south-eastern 
comer of the fields, towards the region where Horace Twiss used 
to poison various unhappy individuals once a quarter with sham- 
champagne and pestiferous port in his crib ; and, upon investi- 
gation, it was discovered that it came from Sir Charles WethereU^ 
the Ex-Attorney- General.* He had just emerged from his cham- 

* Sir Charles Wetherell, who was made Attorney-General when the Dako 
of Wellington became Premier, in 1828, entertained such high-tory views, 
in politics and religion, that he indignantly resigned office, early in 1829, 
when " The Dake" and Peel introduced the parliamentary measure which is 
called Catholic Emancipation. In 1831, as Recorder of Bristol, he narrowly 
escaped with his life, on endeavoring to holc( his court for the trial of pri- 
soners in that city, when the populace were infuriated on account of his 
*■ opposition to the Reform Bill, then before the legislature. Ho died in 1846. 
Sir Charles was most eccentric in his personal manners, dress, and conduct. 
His oratory is scarcely caricatured in the burlesque of his manner of speak- 
ing here introduced. As an equity lawyer, he was one of the ablest of his 
day, and accumulated a Tast fortune at the English bar.— M. 



52 THBt FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

herSy and was attired in an ink-spotted and weather-beaten night-' 
gown. In his haste to address the audience, he had forgotten to 
array his nether person with thai inexpressible hut very necessary 
integument specially provided for that region, and cts he gesticu- 
lated in the course of his oration, the effect that his sudden reelings 
and curvettings sometimes produced, were more diverting to behold 
than decorous to relate,) 

" My Lud ! — Mr. Speaker ! — Poh ! — Mr. Chairman ! — I 
mean to rise to urge my claims in this heterogeneous and multi- 
farious rabblement — vulgi stante corona — to the eminent and 
inappreciable dignity of the Editorial Cathedra of your facile 
princeps of magazines. I really do not know what to call it — 
but when I look upon the miscellaneous farrago of entertaining 
matter, the satura lanx of all things delectable that it affords in its 
monthly appearances — in short, to speak plain English, its omnir 
genous and oUapodridical character — I may call it the Omnibus 
Magazine! — and the name is particularly applicable when we 
reflect that it carries every body with it. {Laughter.) Sir, my 
zeal for the liberty of the press may give me a claim for the 
honor, as also may the internecine and flagrant debellation which 
I have had with that monstrum horrendum ingens cui lumen 
ademptum — I mean Sir James Scarlett. {Loud applause:) I 
have grappled with that Briareus of the King's Bench — ex-officio 
Jemmy,* as he is called, and if he thinks he has had the best of 
it, why, I can only say, good luck to him ! If, like the parson 
in Joseph Andrews, I should ask him even the plain question, 
PoUaki toi, what's your name ? he would stand dumb — mtUus in 
curia — not a word in his jaw. I need not recommend, in his 
case, the peiiie forte et dure, however, because he is pressed to 
death as it is. (Laughter,) Hie jacet Jacobus, is his epitaph — 
here lies Jem Scarlett My literary qualifications I need not 
dilate upon — the helluosity of my reading, and omnivorous vora- 
city with which I digest and deglutinate all manner of languages 
into one harmonious pasticcio, which forms a tongue that may be 

* During the administration of the Duke of Wellington, Sir James Scar- 
lett, who succeeded Sir C. Wetherell as Attoraey-Greneral, filed more «r- 
officio informations, on the part of the Crown, against the London newspapers, 
than had been issued since the Anti-Jacobin times of Pitt. — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 58 

called ^ tertium quid. You smoke Vhat I mean. (Laughter.) 
Fear not, Mr, Chairman, if you put the Editorial onus upon my 
shoulders, that humeri ferre recusent. No, I shall do my duty in 
person, proprid persona, not like folks who shall be nameless — 
tace is the Latin for a candle — there shall be no Jack Rugbys in 
my case. The New Monthly may be 

Diversum confusa genus Colbumo camelo. 

The genius of Colbum is then bothered and confused by the 
diverse plagiarism, or the indolent and hallucinatory oisivity of 
Campbell. I shall indulge in none of these heteroclite and deroga- 
tory proceedings. No one shall have it in his power to say that 
I wrote one article to-day, and another, on an opposite tack, to- 
morrow. ( Cheers,) That, for ten pounds a sheet, I defied, "and 
for ten pounds ten deified, the Pope — that I held one doctrine in 
Brevier, and asserted another in Bourgeois — or that I denounced 
in Italics, what I hailed in Roman. ( Cheers.) I leave these tricks 
to the Nestors of the Magazines — they may fit the Pylian school 
of politics, but not me. Sugden may be a Whig — his father was 
more, for he was a wig-maker* — he was to his son what Warwick 
was to the kings of his day — but I have no capillary attraction. 
{Laughter.) There shall be no circumbendibus of oscillatory 
gyration in me. Let those gallopade it that will — they may twist 
a Mazourka if they choose — or if they please to call their mazy 
dance a Lyndhurst,t that is to say, a constant shuffle, this foot this 

* Edward Burtcnshaw Sugden, raised to the ofl&ce of Lord-High-Chan- 
cellor of England, by the Derby administration of 1852 (when he was created 
Baron St. Leonards), is the son of a hair-dresser, in Bond street, London. 
His Treatise " On Powers," published a year after he was called to the bar, 
immediately established his character as a good lawyer, and his progress was 
rapid, successful, and profitable. Neither in nor out of Parliament has ho 
ever been any thing but a Tory. In 183.5, and again in 1841 -'46, he was 
Lord-Chancellor of Ireland. Lord St. Leonards is one of the most learned 
and profound of modem British lawyers. — M. 

t Lord Lyndhurst, Irish by extraction and American by birth (son of 
Copley, the painter), certainly did make "a constant shuffle" in his political 
opinions. He commenced life as a strong Liberal, became a convert to 
Toryism on entering Parliament, strongly opposed Catholic Emancipation 
for many years, as strongly supported it, when Wellington and Peel de- 
termined to grant it, and has subsequently been the bitter opponent of 



54 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

way, t'other foot t'other way — see-saw and coupee — dos-a-dosing 
on old principles, and cutting capers ad arbitrtum, Duce magistro 
— let them do so. My motto will be Qualis ah incepto — that is 
to say': To Old Nick with the rats ! Or, as Virgil hath it, m 
ratibus ignes — put the rats in the fire. As for literature, it shall 
be my effort to keep the well of English undefiled — not polluted 
by xenological verbiage, or the ragamuffin intromission of batho- 
tical slang ; and having thus made you a brief but lucid exposition 
of what I desiderate and why I think myself fitted and adept 
thereto, I conclude with a valedictory peroration. kVcdete et 
plaudite. CalUopius recensui" 

{Sir Charles WethereU had scarcely concluded^ when a thin 
infirm-looking gentleman^ with rather a reddish hue of face, and 
an Antique suit of garments, oddly fashioned and oddly put on, 
ascended briskly up the ladder. He had not, however, attained 
many rounds toward the summit of the Egyptian column, when a 
Police CkmstaUe, letter D., No, 769, of the 68^A Squadron of the 
Western Division, stopped him, and requested to know what he 
.was carrying in his hind coat-pockets, as they were bulging out in 
a most extravagant manner. The gentleman replied in a shrill 
and croaking voice,) " Oh, nothing, Mr. Constable, nothing what- 
ever." — ^^ But I must examine you," said the man, " for I never 
in my life saw a more suspicious looking fellow ; you hold down 
your sheep's face as though you were ashamed to look up at an 
honest man; added to which, you stick your fore and middle 
finger diagonally across your mouth, and there they remain as 
though they were absolutely stuck to your upper lip by glue or 
pitch." ■" That's because I had a bad cold, and my lip is swollen, 
and I stick my fingers before my mouth for two reasons : first and 
foremost, to prevent the cold going down my throat ; and, secondly, 
that the animals called flies, may not pop into my mouth and 

Ireland and her prevailing faith. He has been Master of the Rolls, Chief 
Baron of the Exchequer, and has held the office of Lord-Chancellor five 
times, viz. : under the Canning, Goderich, Wellington, and (two) Peel 
administrations. Able as a lawyer, he is still more gifted as a politician. 
He has not his superior, as an orator, in the House of Lords, and some of 
the best speeches made in that assembly, in 1855 and 1856, were delivered by 
him, long after he had become an octogenarian. — ^M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 66 

tickle the epiglottis, which is bad, you know, Mr. Q)nstable, for a 
cold. For you know — " (Here, the Constable, seeing that his 
man had set in for a long-winded speech, cut him short hy^ 
" Ck)me, come, my fine fellow, none of your palaver, the Field- 
Marshal Minister is looking on, and I must fulfil my duty. You 
have decidedly a sheep's face, to say nothing about your head. 
So let's examine your suspicious looking person." " In the right 
hand coat-pocket," squeaked out the individual, "you will find 
cigaros, fresh from Hamburgh, sent me over by my friend Von 
Schleiermacher, the archivarius." "And in the left ?" cried the 
stern and immitigable police functionary. "Meerschaums and 
pipes of various kinds, which I brought from Frankfort am Mean. 
You see, Mr. Constable — ^" " No, twaddle," said the Constable^ 
" turn out your breeches pockets." ( The^ pockets were turned outj 
and found to contain a steel for lighting pipes, a large silken 
purse, empty, and a hag of tobacco, on one side; and^ on th$ 
other, a small circular and dumpy piece of silver, whith a hob 
near the edge, through which was run a broad piece of silk, gr&um 
greasy by use,) — " Who the deuce are you ?" quoth the Policeman* 
" I am a gentleman," was the answer, " and my name is Kobeii 
Pierce Gillies, Esq."* "You have been clipping and defacing 
a crown piece," said the Policeman, " and are guilty of an heinous 
offence ;" and he seized hold of the round piece of silver which 
we have described. " Indeed, sir, I can assure you," answered Mr. 
Gillies, "you have misconceived its nature. I have from my 
earliest infancy been pursued by misfortunes, and this little piece 
of silver has uniformly been the talisman which has preserved me 
safe as you see me. It was blessed by Father Ambrosius, a 
Capuchin, with whom I became acquainted at Frankfort; and 
whenever I am in trouble, I take it in my hand thus, as you per- 
ceive, placing it flat in the palm, and tickling the surface during 
the period of suffering and mental anxiety, and ineffable is the 

* Mr. Gillies, whose ** Horae Germanicae" in Blackwood's Magazinet were 
among the earliest and most succcssfal attempts to introduce German litera- 
ture into England, was distinguished for the intensity of his devotion to tho 
** Nicotean weed," against which the pedant-king, James I., fulminated his 
litcrarv " Counter-blast." At the time when he was introduced as a candi- 
date for the Frascrian Editorship, he had just lost that of tho Foreign Quat'^ 
terly Review. — ^M. 



56 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

relief I acquire from it. You ^ee this large silver ring on the 
marriage finger of mj left hand. I wear it for the same purpose.'' 
•« You may go," quoth the Policeman, and Mr. Gillies went up 
the steps of the ladder, and looked like a sweet cherub just 
liberated from the lurid atmosphere of "H Purgatorio." (Ap^ 
plause, on his appearance , from three or four individuals^ who 
said that he had given them a devilish good dinner the day before^ 
Mr. Gillies at length opened his mouth, and spake as follows : — 

" Mr. Coleridge, I am glad to see you, and hope you are welL 
I have got a cold myself, and my lips are swollen, but you are 
looking superbly. How are jMr. and Mrs. Gilman ?* I shall be 
happy to see you at dinner to-morrow, and shall be happy to give 
you a taste of some Asmanshauser that I have just received 
direct friom my friend Bucher, at Frankfort (^Speak up — Ques- 
tion — Question.) Question? — bless me, bless me, I had for- 
gotten. Ho, ha, he, hi — ^i — ^i — ^i. (His laugh was like the pro- 
longed yell of a dog in affliction,) 

"This Magazine of Eraser's will never do — never — no, never. 
The writing is bad — yes, decidedly bad ; slovenly — crude — in- 
digested ; slovenly ! yes, slovenly. It will never do ; but I think 
I said that before. Yes, I did — did — did — before — before. 
It's not of the quality of the writing that I am now speaking, but 
of the thought — the conception — yes, conception. A piece of 
writing should be like a painting ; yes, yes, it should. First, one 
part of it should be touched up — (by-the-by, the general outline 
and distribution of the action should be first made — made — ) and 
then another part of the painting should be touched; yes — hem 
— hey — touched — yes — hem — yes, touched. At length, the 
conception could be wrought into one grand — undivided — well- 
blended whole. If the articles in Fraser's Magazine had been 
placed in my hands, I think — I am certain indeed of it — I could 
have wonderfully improved them; for Mr. Coleridge, you per- 
ceive, if I have any talent, and indeed it is nothing to boast of, I 

* During the last eighteen years of his life, Coleridge was the guest of 
Mr. and Mrs. James Gillman, at Highgate, one of the beantiful suburbs of 
London. By them he was treated as a brother, and Mr. Gillman,''8ome time 
after the poet's death (which took place in July, 1834), published a volume 
of recollection, entitled " Memorials of Coleridge." — M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOB. 67 

can improve whatever piece of writing has ever been composed 
by mortal man. It was I who gave Sir Walter his first idea of 
Ivanhoe. I had collected the German novels (of which, Mr. 
Coleridge, I have a considerable and valuable collection, which 
after much misery and anxiety of mind I have at length eifectu- 
ally secured from the harpy fangs of my friends in Scotland, and 
any or all of them are at your service), from which my friend 
copied the incidents. Sir Walter wrote his novel, however, in 
too great a hurry. So did Wilson hisTjights and Shadows, and 
Gait his Sir Andrew Wylie, and Lockhart his Adam Blair and 
Matthew Wald, and Hope his Anastasius. If they had severally 
advised with me on their labors, I should have counselled them, 
and said — yes — said — hem — hey — Yes, counselled — counselled 
— ^'Take time* — and if they could not have taken time, then I 
would have rewritten his novel, for any one of these my friends ; 
— Friends — yes — ay — yes — friends. The oiily man in Eng- 
land that ever yet wrote consistently — has been Dr. Lingard.** 
( General and loud laughter, ''Bravo, bravo, GiUies ! Cro it, my 
cove /") 

"Thank ye. Gentlemen, for these marks of approbation. I 
thought I was right in saying — yes — hem, he — yes, in saying 
that Dr. Lingard is the greatest writer in ancient or in modem 
times* — that every fact in his admirable volumes has been duly 
weighed (laughter), and fairly — honestly — eloquently narrated. 
{Laughter.) He belongs to the true Catholic Church, of which I 
am a follower. By-the-by — yes, hem — by-the-by — I am ready 
to prove that the Jesuits have been the greatest men in the world 
— the truest friends that the human race have ever yet possessed." 
{Bravo ! and general laughter,) 

Some one hollowed out from the crowd — "And what were the 
Jansenists ?" — " I don't know," was Mr. Gillies's reply. {ShotUs 
of laughter,) 

" Gentlemen, I propose myself for the Editorship of Eraser's 
Magazine, because I know it is in want of an Editor, and I am 
in want of a situation. (Bravo I) I will do as much as I can ; I 
cannot promise to do more. I am the most hard-working man 

* The Rev. Dr. John Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian of England, 
who thrice refused a Cardinal's hat, died in 1851, aged 80. — ^M. 



68 THB FBABKBIAN PAFEB8. 



erer liTed, and the most praiseworthy man that ever took 
hard work in hand. I had heard that Fraser, the Foreigner, was 
the Editor. I beg your pardon, Mr. William Fraser ; do not look 
80 scowlingl J upon me — hem — he — ha — hey — no offence — no, 
BO offence ; but you know I am not so gay as you are, Your 
gaiety ought to incapacitate you for writing for the Magazine, aod 
I can supply your place — yes, yes, supply your place. I do not 
think any one will say that I am either gay or a dandy — nO),.iio» 
neither gay nor a dandy.* ( This the gentleman said several ttme$f 
whilst he turned himself slowly round to show all his quarters and 
paints to the multitude. Greneral laughter.) Do not, gentlemen, 
X b^, laugh at me, for that will make me laugh, and this is a 
serious matter. Ha — ha — he — ho — he — ho — ha — hi — hi,P* 
Mr. Gillies sat down in the midst of shouts and laughter. Mr. 
Lytton Bulwer now rose with general and enthusiastic acdami^ 
tions. On beholding the graceful gentleman we could not help 
exclaiming, with Hamlet (the quotation is new, and therefore we 
give it) : — 

" See what a grace i8-8eated on this brow : 
Hyperion's cnrls ; the front of Jove himself; 
An eye like Mars, to threaten and conunand ; 
A station like the herald Mercury, 
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ; 
A combination and a form indeed. 
Where every God did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man 
Fit to be called the modem Novelist 1" 

(The gentleman mounted the ladder with a half-pay military air^ 
nodded with an air of nonchalance to two or three weU-riggsd 
dandies near the Columnus ^gyptiacus — waved, with a solemn 
and imperious air, a branch of Cyprus, in imitation of the orators 
of old, while a man, who was well known as a street-minstrely took 
his station at the foot of the column, and blew on a Pandean 
pipe, hg way of pitching the proper note, at the close of every one 
of Mr. Bulwer's perio^.) 

* William Fraser, editor of the Foreign Review, as Gillies had been of its 
rival the Foreign Quarterly, was as certfJnly "gay and a dandy" as the other 
was not. — M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 69 

^Mt, Coleridge, — Ladies and Genthmen^^ thus spake the Jai- 
thor of Pelham and Paul Clifford, " it is well known to you all 
that I have been shamefully abused in this Magazine of Fraser.* 
Yet, as money is the true elixir vitae of the present time, I have 
determined to offer myself for the editorship, that I might get a 
handsome addition to my income. Chrononhotonthologus, the 
philosopher of the Stoa, has left a remarkable saying on record : 
"Send," says he, "all anger to the devil;" and Carl Jacob 
Schwaeghauserius, the Syndic of Gotha, has a grand comment on 
that remarkable maxim of philanthropy, inculcated by those 
golden words of Flaccus: ^^Compesce mentem — Ira furor brevis 
estJ* I have been angry with the writers in Eraser's Magazine-—^ 
the paroxysm is past — I have Christian forbearance within me, 
and I extend it to those poor, miserable, half-starved, asinine 
M*Grawlers, who, for paltry lucre, will sell their own fathers to 
infamy, and have souls spotted with all the disgusting leprosy of 
rascality. (Bravo and cheers,) 

" There has been a general cry against me for portraying my- 
self in my novel of Pelham. Pelham,* the dandy, is brave, 
learned, warm-hearted; a man set against the ebon locks and 
pale-faced sentimentalism of modem fashionables ; a man whose 
bosom rings with the harmonies of eternal poetry ; who is fraught 
with super-exquisite feeling ; who, under the guise of foppishness, 

* From the commencement of Frdser's Magcudntt in 1830, until a com- 
paratively late period, Bulwer constantly was attacked, satirized, libelled, and 
ridiculed. Maginn had taken a prejudice against him, and was unsparing in 
his sneers and condemnation. Mr. Thackeray, not only in Fraser but in 
Punchy descended to personal sneers against the author of " Pelham," resort- 
ing even to such a miserable substitute for wit, as speaking of him as Bulitng 
instead of Bulwer ! Many years after this contemptible personality, when 
Mr. Thackeray collected his Magazine-papers, he announced that, when he had 
sneered at Bulwer he did not know him — as if a man may attack another . 
because he had not been introduced to him ! It is strange tiiat if (as would 
appeflr by this apology), Mr. Thackeray was ashamed of what he had writ- 
ten, he did not avoid perpetuating it by reprinting it in his collected works. 
Bulwer's expectation of entering Parliament wa%lBalized in 1831, when he 
obtained a seat, as member for the borough of St Ives, by purchase from its 
"patron," Mr. William-Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, now Earl of Morning, 
ton. He also represented Lincoln from 1832 to 1841, and has been one of 
the members for his native county (Herts), since 1852. — ^M. 



60 THE FRA6EBIAN PAPERS. 

conceals the true spirit of a philosopher. I am proud of having 
drawn such a picture of myself; and as I am not abashed at all 
the laughing of knaves and idiots, especially as I can always get 
from Messrs. Colbum and Bentley whatever price I please for 
my novels — ^hy let the knaves and idiots laugh, as Rutilius the 
poet says, and Albeficonderidos the Sage has recorded : '^ those who 
win have the best right to cachinnate and be joyous." ( Cheers.) 

" Grentlemen — I shall make as much money as I can previously 
to my entering the House of Ck)mmons, in which I mean to be 
the Pelham in dress ; the Canning in eloquence ; the Burke in 
assailing oratory ; the Pitt in reply ; the Brougham in sarcastic 
buflfoonery; the Demosthenes in the use of words forcible aa 
stones from a Balearic sling. I gave myself two years in the 
country for the investigation of philosophy, and the thorough 
cultivation of the mind. Those years of probation have passed — 
I await the next general election, when I shall get into the House 
— and then, as Bobadildo the Centurion says, and then — and 
then ! — But first I would be editor of Eraser's Magazine, and I 
claim your suffrage." (Descends gracefully amidst enihusiasHe 
cheers.) 

"Sir," said a small gentleman of the name of Colbum — (the 
moment he opened his lips there was an immense shout, a tremen^ 
douspuff, ^'Hear Mr. Colbum, Mister Colbum, Mister Colbum P* 
exclaimed four thousand voices at once. "-4 real gentleman P^ 
said Lord Normanby — ditto Bulwer — ditto Lister — ditto Lady 
Charlotte Bury — ditto all and sundry the sham-dandies of the 
various tribes. "Hear Mister Colbum /" shouted forth a miscella- 
neous tribe, in nankeens of several colors — a fragrant amalgama* 
tion of gentlemen 

Unshaven, unshorn. 

With their pen and inkhom — 

the unwashed fraternity of onioniised ragamuffins who manage the 
puff department. ^^Hear Mister Colbum /" shouted those men of 
the plume — ''Hear HIM! Hear the man wot pays! Hear 
Mister Cohrun /" cried Sheil, Mother Morgan, M. of N. M. (a 
ruffian), O'Hara, Gregoribus, the Parson of Sligo, Banim, Fuft- 
dipichorum, the Wandering Jew, the Angel of the World, Shaugh- 



THE ELECTION OF EDFTOB. 61 

nessy the Great, Rue ChaurUerine, and all the Irish. " Ifear 
Mtsthur Colbum I * Tib there you are, you purty little man, with 
your unzzened face, rubbing your fists together I If we dooen't 
stick to ye'tiswe's the bastes — brute bastes, and worse than the 
heretics, whom God of his grate mircy (here they crossed them- 
selves), may be plased to sind to HeU for evermore, Tha£s the 
laste that could be done with the villains-^ the Pope-denying 
thieves / 0, Misthur Colbum / who the divil would print and 
publish, and, best of all, pay for what we write, except yourself 
If you were dead, you duck of a man, which we hope you never 
will be until your life is over,^ (hear! hear!) ^^ there would be 
an ind of the Irish janius in this country^ and we*d be left to 
waste ourselves on the Morning Ridgisthur or any other of them 
prents thafs all for pathriotism and nothing for pay, ^ ) 

** Pay!^* said Ogreman Mabon,* " why don't you spake jintill, as 
I do, and say the word like the English, which is pee T* 

" I wish the crew of you would hold your tongues," quoth 
Doctor Maginn, " and listen to Colbum. He is the kind of fellow 
worth hearing, and you are keeping him from speaking, with your 
balderdash. Gro on, Coby I" {Encouraged by this serene patronage 
the bibliopole commenced anew,) 

" Sirt — The occasion — indeed — upon my word — you under- 
stand — that is to say — because — if — you know — it is not that 
— but — I wish to be understood — the thing is — I am of the 
opinion, that — the same -^ no matter — if the thing — (Hear^ 
hear ! Loud approbation). There is no necessity. I shall be 
more expli — because — the fact is — you understand — Mr. Camp- 
bell — a clever man — if — I don't say — that is — to be sure — he 

* At the Clare Election, in 1828, when O'Connell was returned to Parlia- 
ment, one of his most staunch supporters was a young gentleman of fine 
presence and undoubted ability, called James Patrick O'Gorman Mahon, 
who, as claiming to be head of one of the septs of Clare, generally received 
the distinguishing title of "The O'Gorman Mahon." Honorable mention 
of his zeal, ability, and boldness, is made, by Shell, in his ** Sketches of the 
Irish Bar." He subsequently was elected to a seat in Parliament. — M. 

1 The late Mr. Henry Colbum, one of the shrewdest and roost enterprising 
(if not adventurous), publishers of his time, was a timid, shrinking, small- 
sized man, who invariably spoke in a hesitating manner, and seemed as if a 
loud word would affright him, or a strong puff of wind blow him away. — ^M. 



62 IBB ntASERIAX PAPERS. 

did write the Exfle </ Erin, not Nugent Bernoldsy* C^ Randks^ 
mykayro^ Ktidtke CfHarafoumily — "^ thatt the wagabones nanUj 
a kfwMv^d, thietring^ /SD a^t, siaming scoundrel he was, more betoken 
— kml no mathur, for the remainder is personal — Her^s your 
kdlkj Cobmnj mg buck! long maggou triumph in agefj and if 
— another periodic — that is — whv — the norels, wrnks — you 
understand — hum ! — thej are — (Loud {tppkmse from the Irish 
upon the left. ^ Go on^ masthur — go on, gour worship ! Siiek to 
that — Bg aB thafs bad, we are gours. Lnpartialitg fi>r ivir — so 
we stick to the maxim — Her^s the hand that helps us to the 
potatoes; thafs the thing to stick to! Proceed Cobum, mg old 
poet — go on, beautg of Burlington Street — Sissirara wcu a fool 

* Thu allades to a claim (first made io 1830), of the aothorship of " The 
Exile of Erin/' a ItHc published in die Poetical Works of Thomas Camp- 
bell, and expressly declared to hare been written bj him, at Hamboigfa, 
in ISOO, baring been soggested br meetii^ Anthony MacCann, one of 
the Irish political refogees of '98, walking on the banks of the Elbe, 
" lonelj and pensive at the thooghts of his situation." It was alleged that 
George Kogent Reynolds, who certainly wrote a song called " Grreen were 
the Fields/* had composed " The Exile of Erin" as its second part ; that he 
had shown h to, and sang it for, several parties (still living in 1830), long 
before his death, and prior to Campbell's publication of it ; that, at Easter, 
1799, one of these parties read it in Reynolds's handwriting, and committed 
it to memory ; that, later in the same year, Reynolds's sister made a copy of 
it, from his dictation, being then told by him that he had written it in the 
Antamn of 1798, in order to be sent to John Cormick, an expatriated Irish 
rebel ; that, after Reynolds's sister took the song down from his dictation, she 
gave away over one hundred copies of it, by his permission ; and that, in the 
winter of 1799, this song, known to have been written by Reynolds, was 
taken as a subject of instruction at the Belfast School of Music Against 
these charges the following statements have been made in reply : that Camp* 
bell, indisputably a man of genius, and a productive one at the time, had no 
occasion to risk his reputation by stealing from another person; and that 
Kugent, though he lived in England fifteen months after Campbell published 
the song, and mast have seen it or heard of it, never claimed it. In a private 
letter, dated December, 1800, addressed to an intimate friend, Campbell says, 
** The Exile of Erin" pleases Tony MacCann and his brethren," thus fixing 
the date of its composition. In autobiographical notes, written in J 837, 
Campbell very earnestly denies Nugcnt's claim to the authorship. It is 
fair to add that, " The Exile of Erin" is a far better poem, in all respects 
— sentiment, expression, and melody — than Nugent's "Green were the 
Fields/'— M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 68 

to y^r) for — then — there — though — »- not — I hope — if — ^I am — 
you see — therefore — hum ! — so — 

. {At this period of the debate^ a gentleman, whose name is vari- 
ously reported as Napier Macvey^ or Macvey Napier, arose. His 
intrusion was generaVy voted highly impertinent. All the noveU 
ists were indignant. " Is it ?" said Bulwer, " because the slave is 
manager of a paltry periodical culled after a town in an unknown 
country ; or, if I must confess the disagreeable fact that I do know 
somewhat about the fellow^ s trade and admit that I have cognizance 
of his being what they call Editor of a work in a distant village 
named Edinburgh — Is it, therefore, that he dares to interrupt the 
publisher. In the King's Bench, an institution which must he 
familiar to most of my literary auditors ") 

The publisher, however, blandly remarked that if Mr. M. N. or 
N. M. had any thing to say, he would hear it. Any thing said the 
great man — any thing but publish what he writes. If — <A«n— 
that — there — no — no — hum. 

The Bacon-fly* opened his mouth and uttered one of those 
sounds which pass for speech in the North ; hut before they had 
reached the circumfused multitude, an harmonious voice (it was 
Mr. Coleridge's) was heard from below. 

" Of Cape Taenarus, in Laconia, we have in all times heard 
memorials, and of the properties of the Peak of Teneriffe, accounts 
are extant which describe its enormity. But, Sir, your nasal pro- 
boscis so far exceeds what we read of these celebrated excrescen- 
ces, that I feel I here suffer. winter under its shadow, while the 
rest" of the world are in summer. O destroyer of the fame of 
Bacon ! O thou whose length of nose is in inverse ratio to thy 
depth of understanding, lift thy elephantine proboscis, and let thy 
ratiocination be the admiration of the company." 

" No, Mr. Coleridge," said the long-nosed and long-eared re- 
viewer ; " no, I must speak myself, because " 

" Give me leave, however, first, for a moment," cried a burly, 
lusty, jolly bespectacled gentleman from the north. " Give me 

* Macvey Napier had published, in the Transacitions of the Royal Society 
of Scotland, a heavy " £s8ay on the Scope and Tendency of the Philosophi- 
cal Writings of Loi-d Bacon," which the wits of Blackwood, in their earlier 
volumes, lost no opportunity of ridiculing. — ^M. 



64 THE FBABEBIAN PAPERS. 

leaTe," qnoth Mark Macrabin, the Cameronian.* But whj 
should we not call him by his own true appellation — why suppress 
the clarum et venerabile notnen of Patrick Robertsok ? Most 
magnificent of orators, and most jocular of men, far be from us 
the guilt of hiding thy candle under a bushel ! " Give me leave," 
said he — "the dey of Algiers is eclipsing — the Porte has come 
down to negus — the Emperor of China drinks brandy, and the 
Hong-merchants are insolvent. Why do you speak to me of the 
Copemican system, or adduce, with a show of gravity, the exam- 
ple of Simon Stylites ? Is not Don Miguel going to marry his 
niece, while the people of Huddersfield have but twopence half- 
penny a day, and Edwin Atherston has published the Fall of 
Nineveh ?t The comet that scorches the air adust is coming 
from the Cape of Good Hope, and Mr. Dawson assures us, in the 
House of Conunons, that mutton is no more than five-pence a 
pound. Strange infatuation I as if we did not recollect that the 
Hugh L3mdsey arrived at Suez in less than thirty-three days 
from Bombay, although she stopped twelve days on her passage 
to take in coals, an inconvenience that a little previous arrange- 
ment might have remedied, and will, to a dead certainty, be 
satisfactorily accounted for, when it is brought before Parlia- 
ment 

"Sir — closely connected with this subject is the general state 
of literature. I shall not diverge or digress into extraneous 
matter, nor take up your time with long disquisitions on the 

• 

♦ A continuous story of lowlier Scottish life, bearing the name of "Mark 
Macrabin, the Cameronian," and published in the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
volumes of Blachvood, was originally affiliated on Allan Cunningham 
(though possessing little of the poetical feeling of his prose fictions), but was 
finally declared to have been written by "Peter" (actually Patrick) Robert- 
son, who was made a Scotch judge, and died recently. " Peter" Robertson 
was a sound lawyer, an eloquent advocate, a staunch Tory, a lively hamorist, 
and the personal friend and companion of Scott, Lockhart, Hogg, Syme, 
and the conservative literati of Edinburgh. — M. 

t Edwin Atherstone wrote a novel, called " The Sea-Kings of England,'* 
an article on Sir Thomas Lawrence and Martin in the Edinburgh Review, and 
two blank verse poems, entitled, " The Last Days of Herculaneum" and 
" The Fall of Nineveh." The latter was severely reviewed by Wilson iu 
Blachoood*8 Magazine. — M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 66 

cosmogony or the creation of the world. I leave that to Ephraim 
Jenkinson and the other geologists of his school. But, is the 
country ruined or not ? Are we destroyed and annihilated from 
the face of the earth ? Is there such an island as Great Britain ? 
I talk not of Ireland, since the passing of the Roman Catholic 
Bill. All these questions require answers, which, however, it is 
possible they may not receive. In order to discuss them temper- 
ately we must come to the inquiry with a quiet mind, not discom- 
posed by faction, nor clouded with the crapulons fumes of super- 
abundant fluid. Let me remark that Mr. Goulbum's tax upon 
whiskey will be signally defeated. Scotland has risen in arms — 
the universal spirit of Caledonia is aroused — a cry has gone forth 
from the waters of Tweed to the Grampians, frOm the Grampians 
to Cape Wrath, which is as irresistible as that cape itself. Me- 
thinks I see Wallace again in armor, as depicted by Miss Porter 
in her celebrated historical work. The Bruce floats before my 
eyes in the shape of Braham, singing " Scot's wha hae wi* Wal- 
lace bled" — Galgacus rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm 
— Locheil comes forth in unbreeched glory, and shakes his kilt in 
all the majesty of war. In vain are the machinations of the 
Chancellor,* to no effect the resolutions of cabinets and decrees 
of councils. Scodand insists that every man shall do his duty, 
and, to use the words of the beautiful song, I have quoted, " we 
shall drink or die." — (Tremendous cheering.) 

** Sir, it is in vain to deny it, that poetry is a drug. Who are 
in that line at present? None of them, I jenture to say, as 
eminent in mixing his verses as Mr. Davis of Philpot-lane (to 
whom the Quarterly Review gave" the classical title of Molly 
Coddle) was in mixing Bohea and Souchong, Pekoe and Hyson. 
Speaking of this reminds me of the odious monopoly of the East 
India Company, of which I am a zealous partisan. Why should 
they have vessels of 1,200 tons burthen trading to Canton, while 
nobody reads the pamphlets of Rickards or Crawford, and nobody 
will put money into the purse of Buckingham, who holds forth his 
eleemosynary paw. This must be inquired into. What is Robert 
Montgomery? — An ass. What is Edwin Atherston? — An ass. 

* Lord-Chancellor Lyndhnrst. — ^M 

5 



66 THE FBASEBIAN PAFEBS. 

What is Creation Ball ? — An ass. What is Traveller Maude ?— 
An ass.* So on of the rest. I could s]>eak upon this subject for 
a day, and yet not add a word to what I have said, nor give a 
more complete, just, and accurate description of the^ gentlemea 
than I have done in this our pretty and poetical word. 

'^ Sir, there is not a man in the House of Commons worth 
listening to, except Brougham, and Huskisson, and Sadler. 
Mackintosh is a bore, so is Lushington, so is Lord John Russell, 
60 is Althorp. Tom Macauley is a failure, and so is Dan. O'Con- 
nelL Peel is done — Goulburn is a donkey.f The march of 
mind is in progress, but, as it would appear, out of the country. 
The appointment of Peyronnet, in France, will not conciliate the 
liberals, and Dopo Nigoro holds the field in Java. Where shall 
we end ? Is beer still to be five pence a pot ? Beer, do I say ? 
alas! the day of beer is past — it has gone to its bier, and we 
drink a mixture of capsicum and devil's dung, quassia, and gentian 
stewed together in the water of the Dolphin saturated with the 
bodies of interesting young women drowned from love, or able- 

* Edward Ball, author of " Creation/* now a forgotten poem, and Thomas 
Maude, who wrote some " dead-and-gone" Continental Travels. — M. 

t This slashing criticism on the British Parliamentary speakers of 1830 
mast be taken cum grano. No doubt Brougham was thon the best — perhaps 
tlie only orator in the Commons. His force carried every thin^ before it — 
like a freshet. Huskisson was a heavy speaker, wIkjsc airay of the statistics 
of commerce gave him weight. Sadler hud made one or two (closet-prepared 
and memory-committed) anti-Catholic orations in 1829. Sir James Mackin- 
tosh was simply a wearisome reciter of what would have made passable 
articles in a Review. Dr. Lushington oucjht never to have spoken, save 
in his proper place, a court of law, where he might bo dull. Lord John 
Russell hesitated in deliverv, and had then a double allowance of the usual 
English haw-haw parliamentary affectations manner. Lord Althorpe cofrtd 
rarely express himself intelligibly. Macaulay had just commenced hie 
career and won great and merited praise by two or three striking speeches. 
O'Conncll, from the first, commanded attention, no less by force of language 
than of position, literally being "meml)er for all L-eland." Peel, so far 
from being "done," never broke into any tiling like eloquence until 1831, 
when he astonished even his admirers, by rising with the national [and 
party] importance of the occasion. Goulburn, it must be conceded, was 
" a donkey" — his oratory reminded one of the flat and far-extending plains 
of fenny Cambridgeshirc, the University located amid which he so long repre- 
sented inParliament. — M. 



THE ELECTION- OP EDrTOR. 6T 

bodied gentlemen reduced to despair. And yet when I look to 
Ireland, do not I there see the finest peasantry under the sun, the 
most verdant soil, the most graceful mountains, the most moving 
bogs, the most clear-shown harbors, the most noble rivers, the 
most delightful orators, the most excellent olla-podrida of tropes 
and figures ever served up to an oppressed, a bewildered, an un- 
fortunate, an enslaved, and a hard-drinking nation. 

Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not 

Who woul Ae free themselves must strike the blow ^" 






(^Loud applause.) 

" Sir, Eraser's Magazine is the best Magazine ever published — 
I should rather indeed say the best work that ever irradiated the 
globe. In wit facetious — in learning profound — in argument 
conclusive — in pootry pathetic — in comedy diverting — in tragedy 
rending the soul. I hate exaggeration, nor do I quote poetry. 
Yet the strains of my favorite poet, the simple Wordsworth, sup- 
ply me with a simile. Fraser's Magazine is 

' Like to the swan whose majesty prevails 
O'er breezeless watei*s on Locarno's lake, 
Bears him on, while proudly sailing ; 
He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake. 
Behold !' 

" But what are we to say of the movements in the Court of 
Session? Is not the sacred number of Fifteen* invaded? — Can 
these things be ? — I do not pretend to answer, much less do I 
pretend to say that the river Aspropotamos is the fitting boundary 
for the Greeks ;t for the inhabitants of the country to which we 
ow# the wonders of the glorious strains of Homer — where 
Themistocles counselled, and Pausanias fought — where Pindar 
was born, and where Byron died — ('-^ hear ^ hear T from Tom 
Moore) — where the Acroceraunian promontory shoots proudly 
into the air with the peaks of Pindus and the Parnassus of the 

* Some time after this, the Lords of Session [judges of the Scottish 
Supremo Courtst were reduced from fifteen to twelve, their present nnm- 
ber. — M. 

t The settlement of Greece into~ a kingdom was then under discussion. — ^M« 



68 THE FRASISilAN PAPEB3. 

bards — for a country where Leonidas defied at Thermopylae the 
gorgeous millions of the Persian king, and whose inhabitants have 
given their name to a numerous and honorable trihA that saunter 
in the mazes of the Stock Exchange, and bask in*thie bowers of 
Crockford. Shall I say further, is Aspropotamos a suitable boun- 
dary for that land, the chief town of which has bequeathed its 
appropriate name to the modem Athens. — (Loud cheers from aU 
the Auld Reehies — " Verra judeecious that observe o' Petet^s-^ 
he^s a bra* haund at a crack that bodie Robbyfpn — ye^U mind the 
Ihindoiinel case, qfid a* his daffin aboot the cocks and hens — it 
was gay funny yonr) 

"Sir, THE GENERAL QUESTION — (loud applause ) hut I con- 
clude ; thanking you for the attention with which you have heard 
me, and shall now retire, to let you reflect upon what I have said, 
while I refresh my wearied person with a no thinly cut slice from 
the sitting part of the ruminating ox, garnished by the pungent 
vegetable of Spain, flanked by the favorite food of Ireland, and 
moistened by alternate draughts from the vats of Meux, and from 
the casks of Antigua, mingled Avith the waters of Thames, and 
sweetened by the produce of the toil of the unfortunate negro, 
who, exclaiming that he is a man and a Christian, is still held in 
cruel bondage, and smitten by the unsparing cartwhip !" (Hear ! 
from Zachary Macaulay.)* 

{Mr, Robertson here pulled up his breeches, erected his specta- 
cles over his brow, twitched his wig into its proper position, and 
departed. After tvhich, however, deep silence immediately pre- 
vailed. Even the ladies held their tongues ; such was the strange 
and mysterious effect of the heart-searching eloquence of the last 
speaker. No person could now doubt upon whom the choice would 
fall ; and already the name of Peter the Great was on the lips of 
the impatient spectators, burning to unbosom themselves, and hy 
heaven-rending exclainations to promidgate the honor due to the 
bold aspirant. At some distance, however, a faint and tremulous 
voice teas heard. For a moment it lasted, then died away like the 

* Zachary Macaulay (father of the historian, orator, and poet), actively 
co-operated with "VVilbcrforce against the slave trade, but was accused, by 
several Tory writers, of having previously made a considerable fortune by it. 
He died in 1830.— M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 69 

breathings of a summer air ; once more a sound like the distant 
flowing of a brattling stream^ fell on the ear ; and the crowds turn- 
ing an anxious gaze toward the spot from whence the noise pro- 
ceeded, saw Jhe door of Greenes Hotel* suddenly yawn, and a 
gentleman, with graceful step, availing himself of the avenue Hie 
people opened, advanced close to the railing ; then springing on 
the slight and uncertain support, with one hand holding the lamp- 
post, and with the other tossing aside a cigar, which feU like a 
shot-star, among the entranced group, whose anxious countenances 
betrayed the intense interest the stranger*s appearance had excited,) 
— " Up I go, as Ranger says," observed the ^Mr candidate for the 
offered honors. " And why not ? Who are tnere here that in the 
pride of their hearts dare compete with Noll Yorke? Aye, I say 
it ; I Oliver Yorke, once of Shoreham, and Moreham, and Bore- 
ham, and half the other Hams in the fair county of Kent ; but 
we'll let that pass, as the lands have. So here I am honest Noll 
Yorke, with as many acres as surtouts, when I first saw the world 
some seven and twenty years ago."t 

" What a sweet purty young gentleman," observed an orange- 
woman, with four blue eyes; two by nature, and two by art. 
" He is so clane and dacent." 

(The fair Fruiter ess was correct in. her sentiments; Oliver 
Torke was altogether of a different make, calibre, and all thai is 
embraced by the phrase, " outward manj^ from any of his com- 
petitors* His black hair fell, partially over his pale forehead, and 
curled and fretted on the collar of an Indian dressing-gowuj 
which, in the excitation of the moment, when first the idea of con- 
tending for the prize had entered his mind, he had hastily thrown 
on; a black silk neckerchief clung, by the aid of a large gold ring, 
to a neck that vied with the contour of Apollo^s. He drew on a 
lemon-colored glove, and, turning fiia bright and enquiring eyes to 
a bouquet of lovely women, who had gathered on the adjacent bal- 
cony) — Here first, he said, let me pay my adoration. K Caesar 

* Green's Hotel, at the comer of Linco&s Inn Sqaare, was a great resort 
of country lawyers and litigious squires. — ^M. 

t Oliver North, of Fraser'Sf was as real a personage [and no more], as 
Sylvanus Urban of the Gentleman'Sf Christopher North of Blachoood*8, or 
Anthony Poplar of the Dublin University Magazine^ — ^M. 



TO THE FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 

demaads tribute, what is not due to the conquerer of monarcbs ? 
Give me, ye blessed spirits of this sublunary earth, but one en- 
couraging smile — let me hear, or fancy I hear, but one soothing 
sigh, and who shall be the rash caitiff that shall disttitb or impede 
me in my career ? Shall it be Bony Cobbett, or Potatoe Doher- 
ty, or Trumpet Moore ? — (Then the crowd raised their voices and 
answered, ''No}*) Shall it be St; Bernard Qroij'i*— (There 
was a momenCs hesitaiion,) Look at twc, ye syrens, whose lips 
shame the coral and the young rose. Think of him and me — 
can you hesitate? — (And the beauteous daughters of Eve loudly 
shouted, " Noll Torkthf" Then, as if afraid of the dulcet tones 
of their own voices, and alarmed at their own boldness, rushed 
in breathless tumult into the house,) — Shall it be Naso Napier? 
— (Here a negative alarum peal was raised that might have been 
heard at the Antipodes, The cry, like the roar of mang waters^ 
floated into Holbom and the Strand — rung along the street — 
deafened King Charles — turned sharply down Whitehall Place, 
and died away, ia faint echoes, in both houses of Parliament,) 

(Oliver stood more erect — his face flushed — he raised his 
arm,) — "I would," he continued, "rather live on the vapor of a 
dungeon than be the vain herald of my own good qualities — the 
wretched boaster of virtues and acquirements. Truly, of the first 
I have none — nay, Naso finish your damnable grimaces, and 
listen. I have none but those worthy of a gentleman. I don't 
cog and lie to steal away a lovely woman's heart, and then cast 
her like a loathsome weed away. I rifle not of happiness a fond 
parent's heart, (I except gouty contumacious uncles,) because the 
sole solace of his age is also to be the heiress of his fortunes. I 
do not breakfast on gunpowder and lunch on bayonets, to astonish 
witlings and Desdemonise old dowagers. I creep not into the 
confidence of the unsuspecting husband, and root up domestic 
felicity, to win the idle title of a man of fashion. I dip not my 
pen in gall to bring chilling disappointment and hopelessness to 
the timid claimant to sciendiM honors. I ci-ush not the youthfiil 
poet. I rob not of sleep the fair authoress who has poured forth 
her lays redolent of love, and confided to unperishing fame the 

* " Tales of the Great St. Bernard," by Dr. Croly, attracted nearly as 
much attention on their appearance as his Hebrew romance " Salathiel." ^M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. Tl 

first stragglings of the overflowing heart. I wallow not in the 
produce of the racy butt, and high-scented flagon — except on oc- 
casions. I pink no friend, and return no scowling look because 
poverty and oppression have reached those who had been, in 
better days, my companions and my* best comrades. But still I 
am not cold as the icicle in Dian's temple, my eye never rests on 
one of heaven's fair creation, but my breast throbs as if the last 
breath of life were struggling to escape. I am beauty's slave — 
I avow it. The small hand, the tiny foot, hold me in fetters ; the 
smooth round arm, is cordage which enthralls my very soul ; the 
taper form, the heaving bosom, the gorgeous neck, the dimpled 
chin, the rosy lips, the eye of fire, and brow of snow, bring to me 
a death which never dies — an extermination which knows no 
end. (Here twelve old. maids, who were sojourning at Green*Sy 
and were straining their long, cranish and shrivelled necks from 
the four garret windows, fainted, and sunk down in a paroxysm 
of delight at the devotion thus paid to the sex, of which they com-' 
posed a dozen,) " Oh, Tommy Moore ! Tommy Moore !" said the 
youngest, before she dropped, like an aged lark into a furze-bush, 
turning the only eye that would look in that direction, " hide your 
diminished head, your light is quenched, your small lamp extin- 
guished. You, who were once the Triton among the minnows, 
are now but the minnow among the Tritons ; Oh, little Tommy 
Moore." (Here the sweet and amiable creature, blooming like the 
yellow asphodel, borrowed the waiter's handkerchief, and, removing 
her wig and flannel skull-cap, wiped the large streamlets of 
powdery perspiration which meandered down her head, and hopped 
like a trickling rivulet on the ground. They were like the tears of 
Niobe, with a little more color.) " I, speak not," continued Oliver, 
"from the excitement of a glowing fancy. It is my memory 
which supplies the picture. She once lived — and, I once loved. 
She was a daughter of my own county — an orphan. I wooed 
her — she consented. Her churlish uncle, from base mercenary 
motives, refused. He tried to for<|pL her into the arms of another. 
She agreed to fly with me — we were in France. Her kinsman 
had power — I was charged with espionage — was seized — pin- 
ioned — driven to the coast — embarked in a vessel, and told that 
I was then at liberty, and that the white cliffs of Old England 



72 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

were my destination. The flapping sails were hoisted — the 
cordage whistled — the streamer flew in the wind. The hoarse 
pilot gave the word. The knot by which we dung to the s^ore 
was slipped, and as the rolling wave eddied and swelled at our 
stem, she — yes, she rushed furiously along the pier. Her cheeks 
were tinged with the leaden hue oi death — her eyes cast the 
flickering light that speaks the unseated and shivered heart — the 
hope that has waned into desperation — the night which has no 
morning. Tossmg aside the ruffians who dared with unhallowed 
hands to oppose her flight, she shouted to me for help, and with 
outstretched arms bounding into the waves, struggled to reach the 
flying bark. — ^Mj Jessy floats upon the watery plain.' 

We must do Naso Napier the juBtice to say, that he here 
sneezed repeatedly, and drew a long flat hand across his eyes. 
He had no handkerchief. 

" What then/' continued the animated speaker, " was the world 
to me? I ever eschewed a base death by my own hand — the 
low and rascally cowardice of sinking even under the worst of all 
the world's worst ills. Give halters and pistols to the dogs — Pll 
none of them ! I sought refuge in the most boisterous tumults of 
over-excited life — I drained the overflowing cup, and I clung to 
the rattling dice and devil-procreated cards. I gloried in the 
^ maddening hallooing of the field. I mixed with the most ruffian- 
ly of the creation. I courted all dangers. I thought that it 
would be heaven if I were but so insulted that I might die with 
my hands red with the proofs of gratified revenge. My temples 
burned — my blood shot throbbing through my veins — I cursed 
existence, and at length I awoke from a dream of years, beggared 
in fortune, shattered in constitution. All but the powers of mind 
impaired, and alas ! one faculty increased with maddening force 
— my memory. So here you have me — my best and worst I 
want employment for my thoughts, to bring deep sleep to my 
recollections. I fear not competition. Is there one of the miser- 
able pretenders before me who dare to raise their feeble voices 
and say they hope to live till a second sun arises, in possession of 
the world's fair opinion, if they enter into the lists with Noll 
Yorke ? I once more appeal to that fair jury (the angds had re- 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 73 

appeared ;) I abide by their decision. They are the queens of 
our creation. I — you — all — are bound to obey their decree." 

But suddenly darkness came over the land, and Oliver disap- 
peared. In vain the lovely arbiters of his fate strained their 
swan-like necks to discover what awful visitation of nature had 
caused this portentous calamity. Their quick eyes could perceive 
no trace of the interesting stranger. He seemed as if swallowed 
by the earth. Suddenly, however, he re-emerged, and was re- 
stored to the weeping eyes of the heart-stirring mourners. The 
truth is, that Naso Napier, stung with the contemptuous manner 
in which Oliver had spoken of the pretensions of the various 
learned and erudite competitors for the great prize at stake, had 
in the utter desperation of his feelings, and forgetful altogether 
of the melancholy exhibition he was about to make, leaped up on 
the railing. The immediate consequence of this change of local- 
ity, was the interposition of Naso's nose between the fair judges 
and Noll ; — thus creating a total eclipse ; of which all astronomers 
had, until this moment, been utterly ignorant. How long this 
obscuration might have lasted Heaven only can judge, as Naso 
had begun by observing, that he meant to repose his claim for the 
public's approbation on the article he intended to write for 
Blackwood, consisting of seventy-two heads curiously divided and 
subdivided into fractional parts, to suit each day of the year. 
Luckily, however, for Fraser's Magazine and the world, the four- 
eyed fruiteress, enraged at her " swate boy" being after this un- 
seemly and invidious fashion obscured by Naso's gristly trunk, 
seized him by the pocketty termination of a pair of Monmoutli 
trowsers,* dimly and dingily seen through the separation of liis 
swallow-tailed coat, which hung in that ignominious direction ; and 
thus plucking him down, restored light, happiness, and consolation. 
The last intelligence we were able to obtain of Naso, was, that 
Plimpton, the celebrated optician of Lincoln's Inn, had him con- 
veyed to Tom Wood's coffee-house, and after binding him (that is 
Naso) down with the necessary quantity of good brandy punch 
(flavored with marmalade, it is truly excellent), proceeded by 

* Monmouth street, in London, long the aboSe of Jewish dealers in second- 
hand wearing apparel. — ^M. 



74 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

quadrant to measure the altitude and extent of the offending 
member. It was found to be equal to a surface (we can't say 
plane surface, because there arose on the proboscis sundry protu- 
berances of no inconsiderable compass) of three acres, and a trifle 
of surplus, which scarcely deserves computation. The height 
was, about the " bittock," generally attached to a Scotch mile. 
Mr. Plimpton has given to the scientific world a very curious 
problem on the subject ; — " If Naso Napier's nose be erected, 
with the elevation of 45-, and stands looking N. N. W., what is 
the color of Madame Vestris's garters ?" We have not yet heard 
the solution. 

But we forgot ourselves, in our love of mensuration. Only a 
few minutes elapsed after light was restored, before the bevy of 
beauty, which had adorned the balcony, descended, as with one 
accord ; and while the most lovely of the group led the way, the 
rest, with gentle violence, pushed Oliver Yorke forward; the 
crowd, with cheers, opening to let this comet of light pass. 

" We beseech," said the lovely supplicant, " the honor for Noll 
— who is worthy of the garland of merit but Yorke?" {Here 
the faint tones of a little trumpet were heard, like unto the youth' 
Jul waiUngs of a Lilliputian kitten, in a chimney-sweep* s hat, tteo 
leagues off,) 

" It's Tommy," said the Fruiteress. " Goodness take the cratur 
into his own keeping !" 

" Tommy the Moor, this is no day of all jeers for you, you 
varment." 

" Abominable," observed Rogers. 

" We implore for Noll — our Noll !" again entreated the lovely 
arbiters of our fates. 

" Then," said Coleridge to the bystanders, " speak ; that which 
ye say I shall pronounce for doom." 

Instantly all the people with one voice, shouted — 

•' IXoii gorke ani ttegina for (£tn V 

And again all London echoed with — 

"NOLL YORKE AND REGINA!" 
"NOLL YORKE AND THE QUEEN OF MAGAZINES!" 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR, 76 

"Now," said Coleridge, " since fate has thus fulfilled her des- 
tined circle, and that the head of the victorious candidate is to be 
bound with laurel, with bay, with oak, or with parsley, as in the 
games of Greece, I think the festival should commence. I move 
then that we all retire to the Freemasons' Tavern." 

" I second the motion," said Jerdan, " it is the first sensible word 
I have heard spoken to-day." [ The company adjourned to the 
Freemasons' Tavern^ and we left them eating,^ * 

THE DINNER. 

So many false statements respecting our famous dinner at the 
Freemasons* Tavern have got afloat, and the report which ap- 
peared in The Times, though sufficiently ample (extending to 
seventeen columns) being so tinctured with party bias, in some 
instances of a malevolent kind, it is, we think, incumbent upon us 
to devote some pages to giving a true and circumstantial account \ 
of all that happened. It is a duty to the public in these times, 
when the Funds all over Europe are so easily affected by great 
events, that those events should be delivered minutely, and with a 
scrupulous regard to truth, from the highest authority. We shall 
never forgive ourselves if Metalliques sunk to 98 J, in consequence 
of our suffering to remain uncontradicted the stock-jobbing rumors 
consequent upon our dinner. 

Friday, then, the 1830, was the day fixed upon for 

the election dinner of ourselves. We had been appointed, by 
unanimous acclaim. Editor of Regina, in Lincoln's-Inh Fields, to 
the overthrow of many of the most potent competitors. In our 
case there had been no bribery and corruption — we were guiltless 
of the sin of invading the wine-vaults of London, and letting 
loose a flood of pestiferous port upon unsuspecting and thirsty 
congregations of free-born Englishmen. Not a riband of ours, 

" White, black, or grey, in all their trampery," 

had dangled from a bosom, or waved in a bonnet. We had not 
conferred the pleasure of an eleemosynary postchaying upon a 
single individual: and if Sir Robert Wilson deserved (as we. 
confess he did) to be crowned, as he was, with a numskull name- 
sake of the editor of the Literary Gazette,* as an appropriate 

* Jerdau. — ^M. 



76 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

emblem of his purity and sterling value, we assuredly may claim 
the merit of bedecking our brows with an ornament of foolscap. 
Enough, however, of this. We were elected, and are Editor. 

There were many reasons why we chose the Freemasons' 
Tavern as the place of our dinner. Every one is or ought to be 
acquainted with the style and the excellent fare with which our 
friend Cuff contrives to please the eye and tickle the palates of 
his. patrons the public. The situation of the house, moreover, 
was convenient in the extreme, from its contiguity to the scene of 
action in Lincoln*s-Inn Fields. Independently of the distance, 
the other great houses in the metropolis would have little suited 
our purpose. The Albion is the resort of those low bipeds ,who 
are called booksellers, with whom we have nothing in conoanon, 
and for whom we have an ineffabl^contempt These fellows, we 
understand, congregate together at what are called "publishers' 
clubs," and " trade sales," and there they stuff their deep sinks of 
paunches, and circulate nonsense by the sale of novels, and spread 
abroad idiotic ravings and treason by the circulation of political 
pamphlets. Long's would scarcely have suited our purpose, 
because of the dandies and mustachioed jackanapes who throng 
the door and the passages, and prevent the ingress, egress, and 
regress of all respectable and decently-clothed and conducted 
individuals like ourselves. Tom Woods', in the comer of Clare 
Market, was little adapted for the occasion, for he had not a room 
large enough for our festivities, though the porter there is of the 
most fragrant and exquisite taste, and the viands such as would 
have made old Apicius, or Tom Gent himself, smack his lips 
with stomachic delight, Stevens's, notwithstanding all Theodore 
Hook's puffing, was not likely to give us pleasure on so momentous 
an occasion ; for Stevens's day of ton is almost passed by, and we, 
Oliver Yorke, are rather particular in our place of dining. The 
Clarendon was under repair; the London too snobbish; the 
Salopian wanting in sufficient accommodation; the Saracen's 
Head enough to turn our stomachs sour with his ugly phiz; 
Grillon's too crowded for our convenience. Cuff's, then, was the 
fittest place for the occasion, and to it we repaired in all merri- 
ment 

Aware of the likely termination of our election meeting (and this 



THE ELECnON OP EDITOR. 77 

was not difficult, for the sons of England have but one way of ter- 
minating all matters of joy or of sorrow, and that is by a good and 
sufficient dinner), his most gracious Majesty — on whom may bles- 
sings multiply, full and heavy as the dews of Hermon ! — sent us 
two of his fattest and most seemly bucks from his park of Bushy. 
My Lord Folkstone, though he be the sourest of Radicals — and 
we are incapable of being bribed — transmitted for our mastication 
some of the finest turbots that epicurean eyes could have set their 
desires on. Our friends from the West Indian Club House 
despatched half-a-dozen turtles for our soup ; and in the train of 
these came groaning some score of porters, carrying lemons and 
sugar for punch, and pine-apple and ginger preserves for dessert, 
while the Horticultural Society forwarded for our use apricots, 
plums, peaches, and other juicy fruits in abundance. 

The chair was filled by the redoubted though stem form of 
Oliver Yorke. O'Doherty was the Croupier,* and the tables 
were crowded to excess by a most goodly company. Shortly 
after the cloth was removed, the Chairman arose and spoke as 
follows : 

" Gentlemen ! — A huge bumper. You anticipate that I am 
about to give the health of our gracious Sovereign. It may not 
be known that h§ and I were, for many years, midshipmen to- 
gether, and both admirable adepts in splicing the mainbrace. We 
were together in the action against Langara, where his Majesty 
so especially distinguished himself; and, by an odd coincidence, 
it happens that a pair of old brother messmates find themselves 
in the one year advanced to such high stations as he and I. Gk)d 
bless his Majesty ! I am not inclined to be sentimental, but I 
have drunk his health in grog many a day, and have come, at last, 
to drinking it in claret. 

"Gentlemen — The language of adulation shall never pass my 
lips. The rascally rabble of radicals, Burdett and the rest, talk 
about their devotion to the King — and palaver about his being a 
heaven-born prince, and all that. Don't you think, gentlemen, 
that the King despises that lingo from the bottom of his breeches ? 
It is all very well to stuff a complimentary address from the 

* It may be necessary to say that Croupier is a Scottish term for vice-presi- 
dent. — ^M. 



T8 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

House of Commons, or any other spouting dub, with soil non- 
senses of the kind. When we have whipt-cream served up, we 
must have froth too. But among men, among Englishmen, among 
brother sailors, ought it to be the order of the day ? No. The 
Duke of Clarence — I beg a thousand pardons* — his Majesty is 
a man above such stuff. He knows that all true Tory-men stick 
to the King out of principle — and he knows how to make them 
stick to the man, too, out of affection. {Loud cheers,) I do not 
say a word against George the Fourth. I fought for him — I 
spoke for him — I wrote for him. I never let any body abuse 
him in my presence, without knocking him down, or trying to do 
so, because I was always in favor of free discussion, (ffearl 
Hear /) But then, somehow or another, my heart never warmed 
to him. They told me he was a gentleman, and I always main- 
tained it, without knowing whether he was or not; for that I 
considered the duty of a good subject. But then I could not help 
thinking that a gentleman was not the sort of a king for this 
country. (Cheers,) Do not mistake — I mean a gentleman of the 
tailor's making ; for a gentleman of God*s making is a different 
matter, and one of them we have upon the throne at present. 
George IV. was said to be good at a bow — I had rather it were 
a shake of the hand. However, of that no more. 

" There is a custom of toasting the Queen apart from the King, 
which I think is bad taste. I am sure Queen Adelaide — many a 
pleasant day I passed in Saxe Meiningen, her native ground, 
with Tieck, a jolly dog, Jacob Morgenstem, the old Dorpat pro- 
fessor, and his pretty wife, and Spieker, the sham-Englishman of 
Berlin, with other night-rangers — I say, I am sure the Queen 
has no fancy for being so parted. Let us, therefore, drink them 
together, and flinging, like a union, in one cup, the rest of the 
Royal Family. Drink, with all the honors, 

" The King, the Queen, and the other Princes and Princesses of the Koval 
Family." ( Uproarious cheering.) 

"In drinking such a toast," said Sam {Rogers), "we ought not 

* The Duke of Clarence, eldest surviving brother of George IV., had 
succeeded to the throne, as William IV., in June 1830. His wife was a 
strong Tory, while his own politics were then of the liberal school. — ^AC 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 79 

to Stand upon ceremony ; I move, therefore, that we stand upon 
the table." 

As the lightning darts from one end of the heavens to the other 
— as thought speeds from pole to pole — as (many similes here 
•omitted) — «o did the company bound electrically upon the festive 
board, and with glasses previously drained with peculiar care, 
brandished high in air, did they utter the toast that rendered 
homage to their monarch and his family. 

Mr. Braham, who had received a special retainer of three 
shillings and sixpence for this evening, sung the following song to 
his own popular and vulgar air, ** The King, God bless him !" 
The words being written in plain English, puzzled the vocalist a 
little ai first, but he got on tolerably welL 

Song. 

Fill up your bumpei-s, lads, brimmers all round ! 

This world's a queer world, you may think ; 
And, faith, so it is, as we've most of us found. 

And that's why I wish you to diink. 
DVe wait for a toast ? — then I'll give you " the King !*' * 

And, while we've such cause to caress him, 
With hearts just as full as our goblets, we'll sing, 

Here's '* William the Fourth, God bless him !" 

God bless liim ! 

Here's " William the Fourth, God bless him 1" 

Again, my lads, fill to the health of a king. 

Who roughed it right bravely when young ; 
And, when but small profit her service could bring. 

To the pure cause of Liberty clung ! 
'Tis the king, who's now called by his nation — but hold!— 

I see by your eyes that you guess him — 
Then drink to a name with the proudest enrolled — 

Here's "Philip of France, God bless him!" 

God bless him I 

Here's " Philip of France, God bless him !" 

Oh, proud was the day, when the spirit of France 

In the might of its energy rose ; 
And, teaching a new sort of national dance. 

Astonished old tymnny's toes ! 
And such be the lesson by nations'still taught. 

When Despots shall dare to oppress 'em. 



80 THE FIUSERIAN PAPERS. 

Then fill up onco more, lads, and drink as ye onght, 
"The People of France, God bless 'em!" 

God bless 'em ! 
*' The People of France, God bless 'em I" 

**Come, Mr. Robert Pierce Gillies," quoth the Chairman, "don't 
be sitting there, mute as a fish — do something to pay for your 
drink, my good fellow. If nothing else — give us a song.** Mr. 
Gillies cleared his throat, and brought out the following German 
elFosion. 

Sonj by Mr. Hobert Pibbob Gillibs. 

Nieder trinkt die Politik 

Und die Zeitnngsleser 
Lieblichcr tont die Musik * 

Angestoosner Gloscr 
Von der Tafelrunde sey 
Weggebannt die Plauderey ! 

CTior, 

Von der Tafolrunde sey 
Weggebannt die Plauderey ! 

Weggebannt gelehrter Streit 

Werden wir drum besser 1 
Lasst Geshicht' und Biicher heut, 

Und studiert die Fasser. 
Freunde stimmt in Sprichwort ein : 
Wahrheit, Wahrheit liegt im Woin I 

Chor. 

Freunde stimmt in Sprichwort ein ; 
Wahrheit, Wahrheit liegt im Wein ! 

(Thunderous applause, and tahle-thumping unutterable. When 
something like lassitude had succeeded the excitement produced hy 
the song, Lord Francis Leveson Grower rose, and, with much 
gravity and earnestness of manner, made the following ridiculous 
proposal) — "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — Nothing, I assure 
you, could afford me more deep delight than the way in which 
you have expressed your admiration of the song just sung — and, 
feeling that such admiration must be materially increased by your 
comprehending the words of the said song, I propose to translate" 
— {Here his Lordship^ voice was drowned in a combination of 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOB. 81 

indescribable sounds, such as we verily believe were never heard, save 
on this great occasion. The hooting, the howling, the hissing, the 
groaning, the moaning, tJie roaring and, high above aU, the hud, 
loud peals of laughter, may, as the Morning Papers beautifully ex^ 
press it, be much more easily conceived than described. His Lord-- 
ship, like a man coming suddenly to himself, sat down, looking insvf' 
ferahle things — and up popped ODoherty — the actual Standard- 
bearer in person ; and instantly you might have heard a toper^s swcd' 
low.) " Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," said the veteran, " Lord 
Gower can't translate the song, and he knows it. I can, and I will." 
(^Hear! hear! Bravo, Brevity! translate that, or what you will! 
you're the boy ! no Lords for us ! teach him a bit of German, my 
cock of wax, Sfc, S^c) 

O'DoHEBTT sings his translation. 

Drink and droMm your politics ! 

Curso the trash of Colbum ! 
D n " New Monthly's" greasy wicks, 

Dimly as the whole bum ! 
Banished from our jovial board 
Be the lack-a-daisy horde ! 

Banished be the leaden lore, 

Worse than edgeless razor ! 
Heavy fools ! who fain would soar, 

Go and study Fraser ! 
Still Regina*8 rule be mine — 
Wit and Wisdom's fount is wine I 

• 

{Magnificent applause; tahle-thumping — glasses jumping — as 
before,) Lord Gower again placed himself on his pins, and said : 
— "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — Since you did not receive 
my proposal for translation as I could have wished, perhaps you 
will have the kindness (here the speaker was much moved) to 
listen to a song by me in the German language. It has a capital 
chorus." {Loud cheers — then mute attention,) 

Song by Lord F. L. Gowbk. 

Vom hohem Gottersitz ward uns die Freude 

Ward uns die Jugendzeit gewahrt ; 
Drum, tranto Bruder ! trotzt dem hleichen Neide 

Der nnsre Jugendfrenden stdhrt, 

6 



82 THE FRAS^AN PAPERS. 

Feierlich schalle der Jubelgesang* 
FrcoUcher Frcande beim Gloserklang ! {bis.) 

(At the chorus his Lordship vxioed his glass 
with a Bacchanalian air, which equally 
surprised and delighted us,) 

So lang es Gott gefallt, ihr lichen Briider, 

Woirn wir uns dieses Lebens freun ; 
Und endlich wenn der Vorbang fallt uns wiedor 

Gresellig za den Engeln reihn. 
Feierlich schalle der Jubelgesang 

Schwarmender Freunde beim Gloserklang. (bis.) 

Tumultuous approbation followed this song. Whereafter hk 
Lordship was again on his legs, and, a hearing obtained, spoke as 
follows: — "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — The song you have 
just applauded so strongly, and I may say so deservedly, I will, 
with your permission, now translate." Here — but we scorn to 
attempt any thing above our powers. As soon might his Lordship 
entertain a hope of truly translating from the Grerman, as we of 
truly describing the yells and noises which answered his egregious 
proposal. ' 

The call for Mr. Jesse's song now became very loud and gen- 
eral, and in obedience thereto he struck up the following :* 

Mr. Jesse's Song. 

From that pure aathor, Nature, came 

One article without a heading ; 
You stare — but I'll just prove that same — 
She manufactured Cyras Bedding ! 
Witless Cyrus, 
Bom to tire us, 
Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus Bedding ! 

And, knowing what he'd have to do. 

She gave his roof an inside leading ; 
And said — ** Wit's shaft shall ne 'er pierce through 

The thick lined top of Cyrus Bedding. 

* Fraser's Magazine having attacked the Literary Union (the club founded 
by Thomas Campbell), of which Cyrus Bedding was Secretary — he was 
also sub-editor of the New Monthly — he would not allow the offending peri- 
odical into the reading-room, for which Fraser repeatedly attacked him.— M. 



THE ELECTION OF EDITOR. 88 

Silly Cyrus, 
Bom to tire vls, 
Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus Bedding !" 

• 

Then Cyrus grew a lanky lad. 
Few notions in his brains imbedding ; 
"Much thinking," thought he, "drives men mad/' 
Well, there you're safe, sweet Cyrus Redding. 
Lanky Cyrus, 
Born to tire us, 
Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus Bedding I 



it 



But though not bom, it seems, to think, 

My stomach can 't want meat and breading; 
Nor must my throttle thirst for drink — 
I'll be a scribe," said Cyras Bedding. 
Scribbling Cyrus, 
Born to tire us, 
Cyras, Cyras, Cyras Bedding ! 

So he began to scribble trash. 

Nor gods, nor men, nor columns dreading; 
Till something whispered — " Cut and slash. 
And fawn and slaver, Cyras Bedding." 
Slav'ring Cyrus, 
Bom to tire us, 
Cyras, Cyras, Cyras Bedding I 

He heard the voice and joined Beviewers, 
Their tea-cup twaddle widely spreading. 
With minds as bright as Barclay's brewers* 
And hearts like that of Cyras Bedding. 
Twaddling Cyras, 
Bom to tire us, 
Cyras, Cyrus, Cyras Bedding! 

Until he gained King Campbell's grace 

We scorn to track his tortuous threading— 
Judge they who *ve looked upon his face, 
'Twixt Jerry Sneak and Cyras Bedding. 
Sneaking Cyrus, 
Bora to tire us, 
Cyras, Cyras, Cyrus Bedding I 

And now he reigns, the L. U.'s Sec., 
The bottle's blood profusely shedding. 



84 THE FRAREBTAN PAPEBS. 

Oh, that a rope bat held the neck 
And we the heels of Cyrus Bedding ! 
TTuU thought — Cyrus, 
Shall inspire us ! 
Cyrus, Cyrus, Cyrus Bedding ! 

And be d d to him ! 

(^Multifarious applause — and shortly after a 
most outrageous roar of laughter.) 

When silence was obtained, the Chairman arose and said — 
"Gentlemen, in convivial meetings like the present, we have 
deemed it fit not to be so nice in our politics as to exclude gentle- 
men who are not exactly of our way of thinking in every respect. 
It is unnecessary for me to say that I am anti-ministerial ; but this 
room,, nevertheless, contains some of the most infiuential members 
of the ministry, attracted hither merely by a desire of paying 
homage to our literary talents. In a word, the three principal 
literary supporters of the present administration have done us the 
honor to dine with us to-day. I need not eay that I mean Lord 
F. L. Gower, Mr. William Holmes, member of parliament for 
Queenborough and Haslemere, and the Right Honorable John 
Wilson Croker.* The talents of these truly great men are too well 
known to the company to render it necessary that I should occupy 
your time by a detail of their eminent virtues, or their distinguished 
modesty — a qualification which, indeed, they have imported from 
their native or adopted country. {Hear, hear !) Without wishing 
to make any invidious preference, I must give the greater and 
more influential gentleman first. Mr. Croker, in the grand figura- 
tive language of the late Mr. Canning, may wield the thunderbolt 
of the British navy ; but Mr. Holmes wields the thong-whip of 
the House of Commons. {Loud cheers!) I therefore give you 
Mr. Holmes, and the rest of his Majesty's Ministers, and may the 
nation do ample justice to their merits ere long !" ( Cheers.) 

Air— The Fcyrty Thieves. 

When the noise had subsided, the great Flagellifer arose. He 
was dressed in the costume of his profession ; a jacket dose to his 

* William Holmes was the Tory "Whipper-in" in 1830, John Wilson 
C.oker was Secretary of the Admiralty, and Lord F. L. Gower Secretary at 
War.— M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. 86 

shape, a pair of leather breeches, and top-boots, and a long lash- 
whip in his right hand. What the color of his jacket was we 
could not accurately distinguish, it having been worn in so many 
weathers as to give it a sort of chameleon hue. He looked hale 
and hearty, and well able to attend many a stiff brush for many a 
day to come. Clearing his throat with a long-view, holloa, he thus 
addressed the company : — 

"Mr. Speaker — Mr. Cheerman, I mane — I return my hearty 
thanks for the civ'lity wherewith ye have spoken of me. True it 
is that none of the Ministers has more to do with managing state 
affairs than I have — for what is the maning of state affairs but 
raising money ? and how do ye raise the money but by manes of 
the House of Commons ? and how do you keep Hhe House of 
Commons but by me ? Here is the instrument that governs the 
country. (^Cracks his official whip.) It is I that keep them 
together, and up to their work. To do them jeistice, for, God 
bless the dumb craturs! I'd scorn to wrong them, I have as 
purty a pack as ever snuffed up the scent of any thing worth 
running after. Then they come in, the dear bastes, with their 
noses down so close together that a handkerchief would cover 'em. 
It is a pleasure — a rale pleasure, to see 'em in full cry — a body 
can't help loving 'em as if they were a body's own child. It can't 
be doubted that they'U sometimes run wide ; but that's when they 
haven't confidence in the gentlemen that hunts 'em. If the poor 
brutes a'n't fed riglar, too, who can think they've always the 
gperrit to run ? 

" As for me, genteels, (here the whipper-in scratched his head,) 
1 an't trated well this last season. I had my own pack asy 
enough in hand, but there was the Whig beagles put upon me, 
that Duncannon had the handling of,* and the devil would not 
sometimes guide 'em. It was not smooth at all times, even as it 
•was, for there was a cross-breed before that, who did <iot come 
convanient, when we run down by East Retford. So I went to 
the huntsman. * Duke,' says I, ^ how 's to be ? here we have Old 
Husky, one of the laders of the pack, running right, and Ratty 
Bob, the other lader, running left ; and the scent laying beautiful 

* Lord Duncannon, afterward Earl of Bessborough, was the " Whipper-in" 
of the Whig party. — M. 



86 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

— one dog or the other's to go.' * Hang Hnsk/ said Duke, for 
he's always kind, and as good a master, marcifiil to his baste. 
So we hung him up to dry, and there he is the blessed day.* 
But the present time is still harder upon us poor Ministers — of 
which no more at present. As for politics, sure the likes of me 
knows nothing about them. Hoicks — hoicks — ya hip — ya hip 
— hilloo — in — in — tally-ho — tally-ho ! A' n't hunting hunting ? 
And who cares who hunts the country, so the game's run down? 
Mr. Spaker, and the rest of the gentlemen, your most amazing 
good health. Suppose I sing you a song." 

A unanimous acclaim, signifying the extreme delight the com- 
pany would feel on hearing any of the musical experiments of a 
gentleman whose oratory had already so delighted them, burst 
from all around : " Mr. Holmes and song !" " The whipper-in'g 
song ! « Song, song !" " Mr. Holmes's good health and song !** 
So on the call rung through the company. Mr. Holmes waited 
merely until he had mixed and swallowed a glass of 

Whisky mixed up with water, 

Quenching his thirst, 

With three parts of the first, 
Moistened off with a part of the latter : 

—an operation which occupied a minute and a half; when he 
burst forth with a sonorous and far-sounding voice, much resem- 
bling that of Lablache, in the following — 

You all. knew Bill Sligo, the Whipper-in, well — 
'Mong a thousand his crack you'd be certain to tell ; 
On the night of division his voice would be hard, 
From the North to the South of yon Old Palace Yard. 
" Hark — hark ! — in and in — hither come to the vote !" 
And so old Bill Sligo kept straining his throat. 

When the moment appeared that the game was at bay. 
And the thing should be settled at once, " aye or nay," 



* This was published in September, 1 830. A few weeks after, Mr. Hoskisson 
(who had been turned out of tlig Wellington Cabinet for insubordination, in 
1828) was killed at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Rail- 
road. — ^M. 



^ THE ELECTIOli OP EDITOR. 8T 

Old Bill shewed his face, dashed the thong all around -^ 

From each lurking spot he sure brought up his liound. 

" Yoicks, Bathuist — Dundas, halloo! — Squcakum, hoi Wynn — 

Hark to Old Billy Sligo, who's whipping you in. 

Ho ! whelps out of Ireland — Ho, hounds North of Tweed! 

High, close to the cover — or else no more feed. 

Hollo, Croker — Ho! Murr — Mangy Georgebob, Twiss, haw! 

Bloody Jem, Scruffy Franky, whelp Tommy Macaw ; 

Keep up, keep ye up, steady there, Sturdy Bourne 1" 

So ngs Old Bill Sligo to each in his turn. 

When at last shall ill luck put him out of his saUf 

0, think of him, lads, on the night of Debate ; 

Think how well he his whip, my dear bastes, had applied, 

How so long he had kept you from running all wide ; 

And his place in the writ as the Speaker shall fill. 

Give three hearty view hollows for poor Sligo Bill. 

" I say dittho, dittho, to Mistha Awms/' said the Right Honor- 
able John Wilson Croker; "tha pwensapul of gawvawmunt ap« 
paws to me to consist sawly in raising the wind faw peepl in 
paublic aufises. The young youths in Thwinity, Twinity I mane, 
meen, waw gouig to thaws me in a blanket^ which show'd their 
bad teest." 

"Why, then," here interrupted Mr. Holmes, "can't you say 
taysth, as I do ; but your clipping the King's English will be the 
death of you." 

Here the musicians in the gallery struck up, and the remainder 
of the oration was lost 

The Chairman then arose and said: " Gentlenaen — charge 
your glasses. Although we are honored by the presence of his 
Majesty's Ministers, let us not forgot that we have amongst us a 
dignitary of the Church of England, who has shifted and veered 
about, in a manner unprecedented in her annals ; but who, in all 
his choppings, changings, turnings, and shufflings, has only had in 
view the furtherance and prosperity of our Protestant faith. I 
give you the health of Dr. Philpotts ! ( Cheers.) Every man has 
a right of shewing his integrity and his worth in his own peculiar 
way. The way assumed by the Dean of Chester, was novel, but 
it was his own ; and may the credit which he has thereby ac- 
quired never be forgotten by every true-hearted Protestant! 



88 THE FBASE9IAN PAPEBS. 

Dr. Philpotts, gentlemen, and may his naini^ be handed down to 
posterity* — as it deserves!" {The toa$t tocu received vnth loud 
acclamations^ and some laughter.) 

Song. 

Oh ! 'tis sweet to think that ratting will thriye. 
And that we may leave old friends in the larch ; 

That the Doke to his brother-apostates will give 
High station and rank in our Protestant chorch I 

Dean Philpotts, perchance, had been always a dean, 
Had he stuck by his High Church and old Tory pab ; 

So a traitor he turned, and a rat he has been. 
In the hope of obtaining the pontificals. 

Then, ho to apostates ! — 'tis pleasant to think 

That your only wise men are apostates and knaves ; 

Though their names in posterity's nostrils should stink, 
Will a trifle like this disturb them in their graves ? 

The Song upon so prolific a subject as the Dean was not suffi- 
cient, wherefore Mr. Theodore Hook requested permission to 
favor the company with one of his extemporaneous effiisions. 
The Chair having consented, Mr. Hook broke out into the follow- 
ing rhapsody : — 

Tune — The Vicar of Bray. 

In Liverpoors good easy times. 

When church and king no harm meant, 
I stuck to old Shute Barrington,t 

And so I got preferment. 
By Scarlett's help, the radicals 

O' the Durham press I stampt on. 
And on the hustings, day-by-day, 

I bearded yellow Lambton.J 

And this is law I shall maintain. 
And sure it is no vain hope, ^ 



* Dr. Philpotts, raised soon after this to the Bishopric of Exeter, had long^ 
pamphleteered against Catholic Emancipation, but suspiciously changed his 
views when Wellington and Peel determined to carry that question. — ^M. 

t Shute Barrington, for many years Bishop of Durham. — M. 

$ J. G. Lambton, (son-in-law of Earl Grey,) afterward Earl of Durham 
and Viceroy of Canada. His complexion was of the color of the moBtard 
for which his name*coanty is fkmous. — M. 



THE ELECTION OP EDITOR. ~ 89 

That if I stick Ijy powers that be, 
I'll be the vicar o' Stanhope. 

I wrote a letter very fine, 

Frank Jeffrey all defying ; 
I knew the fellow would not fight, 

And so I called him lying. 
I published, too, a book so smart. 

That all the Papists floated ; 
Which sweet Jack Copley got by heart. 

And in the Commons spouted.* 
And, &c. 

But under good Duke Wellington 

The times are altered fairly ; 
His Grace has eaten all his words — 

Belied himself most rarely. 
And so Old Nick take Barrington, 

To whom I owed my station ; 
Ascendancy the de'il may sweep 

Huzza for 'mancipation I 
And, &c. 

O'Connell is a pretty youth — 

Jack Doyle a lively scholar — 
Old Eldon's creed, since lost his place, 

I prize not half a dollar. 
Gulph down — gulph down, old thoughts, old oaths. 

Curse on each ancient bias ; 
And if 'twould get a bishoprick, 

God save our Lord Pope Pius ! 
And^&c. 

]VIr. William Ainsworth here volunteered the following, accom- 
panying himself on the hurdy-gurdy : — 

The Wind and the Wave, 

We go wherever the wind and the wave 

May chance in their pleasure to bear us ; 
They may waft us to home, they may find us a grave— 

From all that we loved they may tear us : 

* The year before Catholic Emancipation was granted. Sir John Copley 
(now Lord Lyndhurst) had made a speech against it, the main arguments 
of which were taken, in a wholesale manner, from one of Dr. Philpotts* 
pamphlets. — ^M. 



90 



THE FRASEBIAN PAFEBB. 



Bat where'er the winds blow, and where'er the 
We cheerilj, merrilr, sing as we go. 

The wind and the ware for erer! 



wmTesfloiTy 



Alike we 're ready to frolic or fight. 

For pleasure no bors are more ready — 
And we oat with oar gans if the foe come in sight. 

Then *' fire away. Lads, and stand steady !" 
And spite of the namber and force of the foe. 
We ponr in oar shot, and we sing as we go, 

The wave of Old Enghmd for erer ! 

When back retamed we are safe on the shore. 

Then smack go the lips of the lasses ; 
And the namb<^r of blessings this earth has in store 

We coant by tlie namber of glasses — 
Then sail oif again, and where'er the winds blow. 
We cheerily, merrily, sing as we go. 

The wind and the wave for erer ! 

The last song had a prodigious somniferous effect upon the 
auditory: whereupon Mr. Samuel Rogers, feeling an internal 
movement of merriment, volunteered to sing the following delight- 
ful Latin ditty : — 

Song by S. R0GER8, Esq, 

Rapit nos atrociter. 



Gacdeamcs igitar, 

Juvenes dura samus ! 
Post jucundam juvcntutem. 
Post molcstara senectutem, 
Nos habcbit hamus ! 

Ubi sunt qui ante nos 

In mundo fuere ? 
Transeas ad superos, 
liedcas ad inferos, 

Hos si vis videre. 

Vita nostra brcvis est, 

Brevi finietur; 
Venit mors vclociter. 

Here a tremendous crash — 



Nemini parcetar ! 

Vivant omnes virgines 

Faciles, formosae ! 
Vivant et mulieres, 
Vivant et mulierea, 
Bonse, laborioste I 

Pereat tristitia ! 

Pereant osores ! 
Pereat diabolas ! 
Quivis antifrasems I 

Atque irrisoi^s I 



THE SHEBIDAN FAMILY. 91 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILY. 

The transmission of talent from generation to generation in 
the Sheridan family is really wonderful.* There was the Doctor, 
the friend, of Swift, a joking,t smoking, drinking, jolly peda- 
gogue, a Jacobite who lost his living for a jest ; a maker of those 
whimsical verses and crotchets in which schoolmasters, and es- 
pecially schoolmaster parsons, rejoice. It would require an essay 
of far more elaborate research, and more ample dimensions than 
we can at present afford, to discuss the causes of the universal 
bibacity of the tribe of pedagogues, (we never knew one who was 
not addicted to what Charles Lamb, in a rhyme, more riche than 
strffisante, calls 

" Firkibg 
The jolly ale firkin,") 

— and another essay, more learned, but less laborious, would be 
requisite to explain why the grinders of gerunds, the sweaters of 
supines, the long and short men ex officio, the discussors of aoHsts 
and paulo-post-futurums, of dialects, and dochmaics, should, as it 
were of necessity, when they write (which of course is but sel- 
dom), fall toward quibbles and clenches, macaronic verses, whim- 
sical parodies, odd rhymes, mock poetry of all kinds ; and that 

* This article, professed to be a review of " The Undying One," one of 
the Hon. Mrs. Norton's earliest poems, published in the autumn of 1830. — M. 

t See, among a thousand similar iestimoma, that of Mary the cookmaW. 
" Saunders the man says you are always jesting and mocking ; 
Mary, said he (one day as I was mending my mastei-'s stocking,) 
My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school — 
I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool," &c. 



92 THE FRASESIAS PAFCBS. 

poetrr. too, anch as it L? onitbrmlj leaning toward personal satire. 
We pafts bj, therefore, such speculations, in order to give oar ad- 
hesion to Lonl Cork's character of the Dean's friend. He was a 
pleasant, good-humored, gross, funnj droll, stimulated by Swift 
into literature : he played hi* part as commanded, and buffooned 
it up to the bent of the wavward and misanthropical mind that 
callefl him into the arena of sqoibbing. 

ThLs connexion wldi Swift seems to have given the literaiy 
bias to the famllv-. A hundred jears ago, the commentatorial 
spirit was very Hie. and it was considered almost as good a thing 
to be acquainted with a great author, as to be one in propria per- 
tona. It is rather amusing to see how carefbllj gathered are all 
Swi&'s fugitive pieces for instance, and with what a display of 
zeal the Orrerj's and others of "that class and order of argn- 
mentators," have written notes in usum Delphini, upon the casual 
pieces of ribaldry that fell from his hand. As Sheridan's name 
was connected with these poems of the dean, and as Swifl had 
written an immensity of nonsense about him, the doctor became 
at once as one of the classics. Had he existed now, he must 
have been content with the fame arising from a once-a-year arti- 
cle (and that a queer one) in some odd magazine — sui:h, for 
instance, as Fra<er's. 

His son was a player, lecturer, spouter, &c When people 
thought the affairs of the drama worth thinking about, Thomas 
Sheridan's merits were matter of as deep discussion, and as profit- 
able as Sir Robert PeeFs honesty, or Sir Robert Wilson's indfv 
pendence, are made now-a-days. We do not take as much interest 
in plays as our grandfathers, and occupy ourselves with a different 
class of mountebanks, whose personation of the parts they play is 
far clumsier than that of the heroes of the sock and buskin. 
Many a pleasant volume have we read — all 'histories of players 
by the way are pleasant — of the various " wars and battlings" of 
this Sheridan at Smock Alley and elsewhere — and many a stupid 
critique as to the comparative merits of his Hamlet, or something 
else, with those of other performers. Pleasant are the memoirs, 
and stupid the critiques, on one and the same principle, which is 
that the actual truth to life makes their memoirs pleasanf, and its 
absence renders all criticism on acting stupid. Just think, for a 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILY. 98 

moment, of, any body you please to mention — Kean — Young — 
Liston — Harley — O. Smith — Mathews — Grimaldi — Ducrow — 
Charles Kemble — Macready — Keely — Power — all clever peo- 
ple — think of any of them, we say, endeavoring to embody 
Hamlet the Dane. The idea, on reflection, must be given up as 
absurd, and the criticism thereupon consequent, ridiculous. The 
best and fairest character of Sheridan is Churchill's, in the I^os- 
ciad, and we copy it, because Churchill covM write verse, and, 
therefore, what he says is worth reading. Yet it is hardly remem- 
bered at present : such is the fate of temporary poetry. " He 
flashed," as Lord Byron says, " the idol of a moment." 

" Next follows Sheridan — a doubtful name. 
As yet unsettled in the ranks of fame. 
This, fondly lavish in his praises grown. 
Gives him all merit — this allows liim none. 
Between them both, we'll steer the middle course. 
Nor, loving praise, rob judgment of her force. 

Just his conceptions, natural and great : 
His feelings strong, his words enforced with weight, 
Was sheep-faced Quin himself to hear him speak, 
Envy would drive the color from his cheek : 
But step-dame Nature, niggard of her grace, 
Denied the social powers of voice and face ; 
Fixed in one frame of features, glare of eye. 
Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie : 
In vain the wonders of his skill are tried 
To form destruction Nature hath denied. 
His voice no touch of harmony admits. 
Irregularly deep and shrill by fits : 
The two extremes appear like man and wife. 
Coupled together for the sake of strife. 

His actions always strong, but sometimes such 
That candor must declare he acts too much. 
Why must impatience fall three paces back 1 
Why paces three return to the attack ? 
Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, 
Unless in motion semicircular ? 
Why must the hero with the nailer vie. 
And hurl the close clenched fist on nose or eye 1 
in royal John with Philip angry grown, 
I thought he would have knocked poor Davies down. 
Inhuman tyrant ! was it not a shame 
To fight a king so hannless and so tame ? 



94 THE FBASEBIAN PAFEBS. 

Bnt, spito of all defects, his fi:1orie8 rise ; 

And art, bv judgment formed, with nature vies. 

Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's suul, 

Whilst in his own contending passions roll. 

View the whole scene — with critic judgment scan, 

And then deny his merit if you can. 

Whore ho falls short, *t is Nature's fault alone ; 

When he succeeds the merit *s all his own." 

Poor Sheridan was a bankrupt in every thing. His theatre 
failed — his elocution lectures did not succeed — he begged 
assiduously, but not with any great happiness of mendicancy. 
And yet his industry deserved a better fate. It is easy to find 
fault with his pronouncing dictionary — to laugh at such directions 
as order you to pronounce " bayonet," " bagnet," or " merchant," 
" marchant," or '' suicide," " shooiside," or " pronunciation," " pro- 
nunshashun," or "tutelage," " tschootilidzh," &c. &c. ; but still, 
making every allowance and deduction, he may claim the fair 
merit of having laid the foundation of such a work for the Eng- 
lish language, in which his followers. Walker and others, who, 
with the usual gratitude of pilferers, revile those whom they rob, 
have done little more than make some mechanical improvements, 
or petty alterations in compliance with the fluctuations, of fashion- 
able speech. Tliese fluctuations, never very important, have been 
rendered of still less moment, by the fixity given by such a publi- 
cation as Sheridan's dictionary. 

His wife wrote various pamphlets in defence of her husband in 
his thousand and one squabbles — for he was always an ill-used 
gentleman ; and committed, we believe, some pieces for the stage. 
She certainly wrote Sydney Blddulph and Nourjahad. The for- 
mer of these novels, if we ever have read it, (a point that is du- 
bious,) we altogether forget. The latter is a pleasant trifle enough, 
pilfered, we apprehend, from the French. The spes gregis of this 
couple — Hail! Richard Brixsley Sheridan! His history 
is suHicientty before the world, but a life of him is still to be 
written. As for Moore's work, to use the pun of old George 
IV., he basely attempted the life of his friend. What the 
spiteful little poet designed in that book, was to depreciate and 
insult the memory of Sheridan. In the elaborate and tawdry 
style in which he writes, he hints away every merit poor old 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILT. 96 

Sheny could claim. His wit is declared to be that of a common- 
place book — his political integrity! (alas, the day !) painted as 
being no better than it ought to be — his private character is 
treated with the utmost indignity — all the blots upon his good 
name, and they were as numerous as the pimples painted by 
Gildray upon his nose, put in their highest relief — all his good 
qualities, the veins of nature running through his character, faint- 
ly depicted, or absolutely sneered down. The spite of an inferior 
punster, a second-rate diner-out, a fifth-rate political buffo, against 
a j)erson who had borne the highest rank in these respective ca- 
pacities, is visible in every page. The author of M, P., or the 
Blue Stocking, can not forgive the author of the Duenna; the 
tolerated witling of the Whig circle has no bowels of compassion 
for him who had reached to the veiy penetralia of that party, and 
become one of the circle itself. Then Moore had to consult the 
various antipathies of surviving Whigs, at whose tables he is 
summoned to feed — to visit with due vengeance the memory of 
one who had betrayed them in the tenderest point, their juggle for 
getting hold of place and pay in 1813, when honest Sheridan and 
honest George Tiemey were intrusted by their equally honest 
friend, the honest Prince Regent, with the task of making mis* 
takes ; and to cover him with deserved insult for daring to have 
borrowed, or tried to borrow, money from the tenacious purses of 
his political associates. This task Moore has duly, as far as in 
him lay, accomplished, with curious propriety selecting, as the 
vehicle of affront and calumny against the author of the School 
for Scandal, a style of writing which has no parallel in human 
composition since the days of Lilly the Euphuist. How Sherry, 
if he could have revived, would have laughed on finding his mind 
compared to a peacock's tail! and chuckled over tropes and 
metaphors as incongruously introduced, and as mercilessly man- 
gled, as the fine words he has put into the mouth of his own Mrs. 
Malaprop ! A character sentence-making a la Moore, would be 
in fact a capital butt for a comedy, and in the acting of Liston, 
would bring down pit, boxes, and gallery, in one inextinguishable 
roar of laughter. 

If we were to write a life of Sherry, we should keep our eyes 
firmly fixed upou him in the one light — that of a bufibon, a sort 



96 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

of upper order of the Tom DMJrfej school ; and with this due to 
his character we should find no difficulty in depicting him hanno- 
niously from beginning to end. His struggles, like tJiose of 
Lazarillo de Tonnes, were always directed to the one main point, 
of obtaining victuals and drink, and, like that eminent hero, he iiever 
was scrupulous in the way of coming at his object. The end 
sanctified the means. Starting in life without a farthing, we find 
tliat, without any exertion of the slightest consequence, he lived 
at the rate of five or six thousand a year for some forty years ; 
that he obtained the command of a great establishment ; that ^e 
got into Parliament, and kept himself there for many years ; that 
he moved among some of the best, or rather the highest, company 
of England, and that, at his death, he left his family in such a po- 
sition as to enable them to make connexions with the oldest fami^ 
lies of the country. What was the secret of this ? As Scott 
says somewhere, /' my hai-p alone" suffices to raise its master to 
eminence, so Sheridan could say, " my buffoonery alone" was the 
talisman he found effectual. He joked, and drank, and sang, and 
wrote songs for the coterie of the Prince ; he rolled and tumbled 
in many a tipsy period for the Whigs ; he covered, with the shield 
of his jocular drolleries, the dull cause of his party, and he was 
caressed, puffed, despised, and starved accordingly. The end of 
his life makes us think of farmer Flamborough's character of 
Ephraim Jenkinson, in the Vicar of Wakefield — if he had 
exerted half as much ingenuity in any honest line as he had in 
scheming and shifting trickery, he might have passed through the 
world honestly and died a rich man ; but then he would have lost 
the pleasures and the profits of roguery and buffoonery in the in- 
termediate period. 

How he got the money to purchase Drury Lane, is a question 
into which we do not wish to enter, although his friend Moore 
gives us hints that are iiot to be misunderstood as to one source 
of Sheridan's revenue in those days. We pause only to remark 
here on the truly christian spirit displayed by that eminent poet, 
Mr. Charles Sheridan,* toward the biographer. There are some 

* Charles Sheridan was the only child bom to the great orator, dramatist, 
and wit, by his second marriage. He published a volume of translations 
(bom songs in the modem Greek. — ^M. 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILT. 97 

persons among us who might have been so misguided on reading 
such anecdotes as those of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Mrs. 
Sheridan, told in the piquant style of the author of Little's Poems, 
in reference to one's own father, as to have suffered the corruption 
of our nature so far to have got the better of us, as to have made 
Moore taste the full benefit of a thong-whip, or experience the 
advantage of discriminating most feelingly the nature of lloby's 
manufacture, as applied by us to his seat of honor, up and down 
St James's Street. Some, we say, might have so misbehaved ; 
but Charles Sheridan prudently, and as became a young gentle- 
man of staid habits and orthodox piety, refrained from proceedings 
BO outrageous and against the laws. Waving, then, all further 
discussion on the manner how ; — after Sherry had got possession 
of Drury Lane, what a glorious picture of shift-making, of 
scheming, of swindling, of Jeremy Diddling, of joking and hum- 
bugging, to avoid payment or raise money — what an encyclopae- 
dia of hand-to-mouth financing, in all its branches, opens immedi- 
ately before us ! The very jests that this one branch of Sheridan's 
life gave rise to, would make a volume equal to the best edition 
of Joe Miller ever scraped together. The book giving a history 
of his management, would be admirable as a manual for gentle- 
men living upon the cross — it would be a perfect epic, consistent 
in its beginning, middle, and end, ever keeping in view the one 
main action, and the same great hero. A friend of ours used to 
sport the theory, maintaining it with a great show of probability^ 
and supporting it by a long induction of particulars, that it was 
Sherry himself who set fire to Drury Lane. We shall not at 
present go over the proofs which our friend was in the habit of 
adducing, but he always considered it to be a touch worthy of 
Sheridan. 

In the biography that we are now shadowing forth, wie should 
say but little of his parliamentary exertions. Li spite of what 
we hear to the contrary. Sherry never made any great figure in 
parliament. Nobody could believe him in earnest. It was im- 
possible not to think of Gilra/s caricatures ; and you would as 
soon have paid serious attention to Joe Grimaldi, or Charles 
Mathews, if, sitting for the borough of Cock-his-mouth [a pun of 
Mathews's own, be it remarked], he spouted every now and then 

7 



98 THE FRASERIAN PAPESRS. 

a fine oration, written by Sheil, or Tom Moore himself, or any 
other of the persons of Historical Society eloquence. The cele- 
brated oration in the case of "Warren Hastings was no more than 
a flood of flummery. Could he — he, Sheridan, for we must 
never forget the man, have been sincere in his indignation against 
any illicit means of raising the wind, except, indeed, so far as his 
not having any share in the plunder might have roused his 
jealousy ; or who imagines that he, or any body else, cared a far- 
thing about the Begums, whose case afforded him an opportunity 
of making certain conundrums that pass for figures of speech? 
Who dreams that he ever asked whether the persecutions raised 
against Hastings were just or unjust, or that he gave himself the 
slightest trouble of investigating the truth of the facts he dressed 
up, as Moore would say, in all the colors of the peacock's tail? 
The stories we have of his humbugging the House of Lords, the 
various " witty passages" in his conduct as a manager of the im- 
peachment, would do honor to Tom Browne, or any of the drolls 
of the day of Charles — they are sufficient to show that Sheridan 
looked upon the matter as a thing of party, and to be treated with 
the usual buffoonery in which it was his role to meet such mattera. 
True, Burke uttered a most magnificent sentence in panegyric 
of this speech ; but it is equally true, that Burke was one of the 
most double-minded of mankind. He well knew what true oratory 
was, and we may see, even from the terms of the panegyric, that 
he was sneering at his friend's rhapsodies, while he was, to vulgar 
eyes, appearing to extol them ; or perhaps he might have consid- 
ered them good enough for the place in which they were uttered, 
and thinking with due scorn of the auditory which turned coldly 
away from his own speeches, tliat are now considered models of 
political eloquence, and left him empty benches, while 

" He went on refining, 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining," 

might have taken that method of conveying to them his feeling, 
that they were best addressed in a style which bears as much re- 
semblance to real eloquence as Britannia ware does to silver. 
As we pass, we may remark that parliament had, about tlie date 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILY. 90 

I 

of Warren Hastings' trial, reached the zenith of its spou ting-club 
celebrity : had not Woodfall slipped in and introduced reporting, it 
is probable, that by this time it would have been a debating soci- 
ety of as much fame, wisdom, and political honesty, as the Union 
at the Freemasons' Tavern, or the defunct Robin Hood. 

Now and then Sheridan's dramatic connection obliged him to 
follow the clap-trap of the day ; his speech on the mutiny of the 
Nore is a case in point. All that Whiggery could do could not 
repress the buoyant exultation of the country over our naval 
triumphs. The navy was then, and may it ever be so ! the favo- 
rite of the nation. We were beating every flag of every country 
off the face of the waters ; and Dibdin, honored be his name ! 
was the true Laureate of England. The theatre, of course, caught 
the infection, and sea-pieces, sea-songs, sea-allusions, sea-charac- 
ters, were the order of the night. The manager of our greatest 
theatre could not avoid inhaling the maritime spirit, and Drury 
Lane prevailed over Brookes's. The speech on the Mutiny* was 
pretty much the same, in tone and manner, like that which he 
afterward put into the mouth of RoUa, and just as dramatic and 
calculated for the effect of the moment. We saw Pizarro not 
long ago, and heard, with cold ears and languid attention, that 
address to the Peruvians, which we remember in former days, ere 

" Time had thinned our flowing hair, 
And bent us with his iron hand," 

huzzaing and encoring in all the fervor of our Anti-Gallicanism, 
when thundered forth ore rotundo by John Kemble, on whose like 
we never shall look again. We fear that the speech in Sheridan's 
othet" theatre would have sounded equally stale and unprofitable ; 
it was, however, well timed, and it drew a house. 

Nor shc^uld we dwell much upon his literature ; and least of all 
should we search with pimping eye into his papers, thence to 
draw forth the prima stamina of his thoughts, and to exhibit the 
inside of his mental workshop. There is, however, one very curi- 
ous thing connected with Sheridan's literary career. He absolute- 
ly wrote nothing whatever for the last fifteen or sixteen years of 
his life ; for the last thirty the compositions he produced, Pizarro^ 

* At the Nore. — M. 



100 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEB8. 

the Forty Tlneves^ &c. were mere compilations, and yet they ap- 
pear to have cost him no small labor, and are in the worst taste. 
As Wilson Croker says, in his Familiar JEpisiles, it would seem 
as if in his latter days he was determined to produce plays ex- 
actly on the models which in his youth he had ridiculed in the 
Critic* His Rivals, his School for Scandal, his Duenna, were 
the compositions of his boyhood ; his maturer and declining years 
did not bring forth even a squib worth recollecting. How is this ? 
God forgive us ! But the thought has often flashed across our 
mind, that Sheridan's early pieces were not aU his own. We 
have so high an opinion of his integrity, that it would not be in 
the slightest degree impaired if we found our suspicions correct ; 
and it would give us rather a more favorable impression of his 
ingenuity. Let us, however, conclude our brief discussion upon 
old Oftener-if-need-be, by saying, that if we were comparatively 
silent upon the figure he cut in parliament and the world of let- 
ters, we should be most eloquent and minute upon his convivial 
life, and with graphic pen describe some of those noctes ccenceque 
Deum at Mother Butler's, (the Finish of days gone by,) where 
we chased away in his company the waning hours of morning 
over copious libations of brandy and water, and heard from the 
lips of him, whom the jealousy of Moore depicts as a conmion- 
placer of his jests, more flashes of extemporary wit, more bursts 
of irresistible humor elicited by the moment, than would suffice to 
set up a score of such laborious pasquinaders as Tom Brown the 
younger. 

My son Tom comes next. We do not remember that Tom 
wrote any thing,* but he was a pleasant fellow. The old man's 
speech in Covent Garden, when standing for Westminster, still 
rings in our ears — his declaration that he would rather be remem- 
bered as the father of Tom Sheridan than as the author of the 
School for Scandal. This was only a clap-trap, as usual, and old 

♦ We may be mistaken in- this. Since the above was written, we have 
seen in Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury's "Journal of the Heart," a poem 
by Tom Sheridan, on the loss of the Saldanha. Of this composition we can 
not approve : it is no great matter in itself; and it imitates Tom Campbell's 
*• Battle of the Baltic," in manner and rhythm, as basely as Tom Campbell's 
said Battle imitates the Danish song " King Christian : of which hereafter. 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILY. 101 

Sheny was maudlin moreover ; but there was something affecting 
in its way, in the allusion to Momi, the father of Gaul. It was 
pleasantly versified by somebody whose name we forget ; nor can 
we, for the lives of us, recollect the lines sufficiently to venture to 
reprint them. We have a vague reminiscence that the concluding 
verse was something as if the poet had said : 

" When you see me, quite done, laid all under the table, 
No longer commanding the glad ha ! ha I ha ! 
May some kind one exclaim, when no more I am able, 
* There lies a good fellow — Tom Sherry's papal' " 

Some of the ladies of the family were literary — a Mrs. Lefanu, 
related, we forget in what degree, writes novels, which we have 
heard are as good as those generally given to the world by A. K. 
Newman ; and Tom's widow has lately published a novel, named 
" Carwell, a tale of crime and sorrow." This book we have not 
read ; but we understand it contains much matter about the inside 
of prisons, and displays some intimacy with the science of bill- 
drawing. The Literary Gazette reviewed it favorably ; we own, 
however, we were struck with the naivete of the critic's wonder, 
how the fair author should have picked up her knowledge of such 
matters. Why, Jerdan, man, the lady was Dick Sheridan's 
daughter-in-law, and Tom Sheridan's wife. 

All this time we have been most ungraciously suffering Mrs. 
Norton and her pretty poem, the " Undying One," to wait, as it 
were, in the ante-chamber ; but she will forgive us when she finds 
that we have been occupied in paying our respects to her ances- 
tors, in our usual ceremonious fashion. Mrs. Norton's muse is of 
a much graver kind than any which dictated their works. The 
grand-daughter of old Sherry scarcely writes any thing but the 
deepest pathetic. She has here chosen no less a person than the 
Wandering Jew as her hero ; and as in Mr. Croly's Salathiel he 
is all eloquence and sublimity, so here, in the hands of Mrs. Nor- 
ton, he is all for love. In Mrs. Norton's hands indeed, it would be 
strange if any body could be otherwise. 

In the original story of the Wandering Jew, he is only a cob- 
bler ; but those who invented the tale lived before the time when 
Childe Haroldy and the rest of that brotherhood, had framed the 



102 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

ideal of heroes. He is no cobbler here, bat a BTTonian of the 
purest pattern. 

" He stands before her now ; and'^ho is he 
Into whose outspread arms confidingly 
She flings her fairy self? Unlike the forms 
That woo and win a woman's love — the storms 
Of deep contending passions are not seen 
Darkening the features where they once have been. 
Nor the bright workings of a generous soul, 
Of feelings half concealed, explain the whole. 
But there is something words can not express — 
A gloomy, deep, and quiet fixedness ; 
A recklessness of all the blows of fate — 
A brow untouched by love, undimmed by hate — 
As if, in all its stores of crime and care, 
Earth held no suffering now for him to bear. 
Yes ; all is passionless : the hollow cheek 

Those pale thin lips shall never wreathe with smiles ; 
E'en now, 'mid joy, unmoved and sad they speak 

In spite of all his Linda's winning wiles. 
Yet can we read, what all the rest denies. 

That he hath feelings of a mortal birth. 
In the wild sorrow of those dark bright eyes, 

Bent on that form — his one dear link to earth. 
He loves, and he is loved ! then what avail 
The scornful words which seek to brand with shame V* 

He wanders over the world, as Mrs. Norton makes him say, in 
ceaseless grief; but as Mrs. Norton makes him do, a very Don 
Juan among the girls. He falls in love with one who was 

" A light and lovely thing. 
Fair as the opening flower of early spring. 
The deep rose crimsoned in her laughing cheek, 
And her eyes seemed without the tongue to speak ; 
Those dark-blue glorious orbs ! — oh ! summer skies 
Were nothing to the heaven of her eyes. 
And then she had a witching art 
To wile all sadness from the heart ; 
"Wild as the half-tamed gazelle. 
She bounded over hill and dell, 
Breaking on you when alone 
"With her sweet and silvery tone, 
Dancing to her gentle lute 
With her light and fairy foot ; 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILT. 108 

Or to our lone meeting-place 
Stealing slow witli gentle pace, 
To hide among the feathery fern ; 
And while waiting her return, 
I wandered up and down for hours — 
She started from amid the flowers. 
Wild, and fi*esh, and bright as they. 
To wing again her sportive way." 

Edith dies of grief on finding that she has married the Wan- 
dering Jew — and he goes fighting in the cause of liberty — and 
on the field of battle meets a widow of the name of Xarifa, sing- 
ing sadly over her slain husband : 

** My early and my only love, why silent dost thou lie. 
When heavy grief is in my heart, and tear-drops in mine eye ; 
I call thee, but thou answerest not, all lonely though I be : 
Wilt^hou not burst the bonds of sleep, and rise to comfort mel 
Oh ! wake thee — wake thee from thy rest upon the tented field : 
This faithful breast shall be at once thy pillow and thy shield; ^ 
If thou hast doubted of its truth and constancg before, 
Oh ! wake thee now, and it will strive to love thee even more," &c. &c. 

A short courtship suffices, of course, to win over a lady who 
sings so much of her only love, and her undying constancy. Mrs. 
Norton puts into more flowing verse the old song of 

" Would you court a fair widow of forty years," &c. 

as follows : 

" And so it was — oar tearful hearts did cling 
And twine together even in sorrowing ; 
And we became as one — her orphan boy 

Lisped the word * Father,' as his dark eyes gazed. 
With their expressive glance of timid joy, 

Into my face, half pleased and half amazed. 
And we did dwell together, calmly fond 
WiUi our own love, and not a tvish beyond" 

This lady dies of a broken heart, because her husband is in 
" ceaseless woe," leaving him, however, a son, who, in due time, 
gets married. 

He sets out travelling again, and sees many scenes of life, some 

of which are beautifully depicted, and at last he comes to Ireland, 

where 

" In the autumn time, 

By the broad Shannon's banks of beauty roaming," 



104 THE FBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

he finds an Irish woman drowning her female in&nt to save it from 
dying, on which he rescues the child, and adopts it. The conse- 
quence may be guessed. 

** That little outcast grew a fairy girl, 

A beautiful, a most beloved one. 
There was a charm in every separate carl 

Whose rings of jet hung glistening in the sun. 
Which warmed her marble brow. There was a graco 

Peculiar to herself, e'en from the first : 
Shadows and thoughtfulness you seemed to trace 

Upon that brow, and then a sadden burst 
Of sunniness and laughter sparkled out. 
And spread their rays of joyfulness about," &c. &c. 

This, it appears, happened in the first year of legal memory — 

** When the sacred remnant of my wretched race 
Gave England's Richard gifts to let them be 
All unmolested in their misery." 

As she grows up, he recommends her a husband : 

" Answering, there came 

A deep, low tremulous sound, which thrilled my frame. 
A moment, that young form shrunk back abashed 
At its own feelings ; and all vainly dashed 
The tear aside, which speedily returned 
To quench the cheek where fleeting blushes burned. 
A moment, while I sought her fears to stay. 
The timid girl in silence shrank away — 
A moment, from my grasp her hand withdrew — 
A moment, hid her features from my view — 
Then rising, sank with tears upon my breast. 
Her struggles and her love at once confessed." 

They live together very happily ; but it would seem as if the 
Irishwoman's fancy had infected him ; for when he reflects that 
Miriam (an odd Irish name) must die a natural death, it grieves 
him so much that he murders her. He is tried — sentenced to be 
broken on the wheel — escapes by favor of a thunder-storm — is 
taken again — voted non compos, and clapped in a madhouse, 
where he is kept for a century. 

" Days, months, and years, rolled on, and I had been 
A prisoner a century ; had seen 
Change after change among my keepers ; heard 
The shrieks of new-made captives," &c. 



THE SHERIDAN FAMILT. 105 

How he escapes is not mentioned, and at the beginning of the 
book we find him in love with Linda. Her he carries off in the 
manner of young " Lochinvar, who came out of the west" from 
an expecting bridegroom. He gets her on board in Spain, we be- 
lieve and 

''Gracefal as earth's most gentle daughters, 

That good ship sails through the gleaming spraj-^ 
Like a beautiful dream on the darkened waters, 
Till she anchors in Killala bay." 

After the anchorage sad things occur. Isbal (the Wandering 
Jew) runs down the vessel containing Linda's brother and be- 
trothed — his own vessel catches fire — he rescues the lady with 
difficulty ; but she dies immediately after, 

" And the Undying One is left alone." 

The verses, as the specimens we have quoted will show, are 
very graceful and pretty, and the poem i^ full of fine passages. 
We must not blame a lady, and so handsome a lady too, for 
making her Wandering Jew a lover. If he be exhibited in a 
higher flight of poetry, he must take another shape. How could 
an undying person continue to love a series of perishable beings 
with an affection that draws with it intense suffering for their re- 
moval ? He must soon have become perfectly indifferent to the 
transitory creatures about him. The common picture which rep- 
resents the Jew as being deeply religious, and abstracted from the 
ordinary cares and avocations of mankind, and moaning continu- 
ally for the extended duration of his life, because of the continual 
temptations to sin, which abiding in the body necessarily exposes 
him to, is, after all, far more poetical, and. capable of being deco- 
rated with the sterner graces of song, thafi thft fine melodious rose- 
bud sorrowings of Mrs. Norton. 

The occasional verses at the end of the Undying One are in 
general charming. We can not say that we like Mrs. Norton's 
fun. Though she is of Msh breed, her song beginning " WiraS' 
thru then my beautiful jewel," is not ihh potato. 

Farewell, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton I and we hope soon 
to see you again. 



,-- 5 



106 



THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 



HERRICK LATINIZED. 



SONG. 



Bt Hbrrick. 



Gather ye rose-bads while ye may, 

Old Time is still a-flying ; 
And this same flower that smiles to-day, 

To morrow may be dying. 

The glorious lamp of Heaven, the San, 
. The higher he's a-getting, 
The sooner will his race be run, 
And nearer he's to setting. 

That age is best which is the first. 
When youth and blood are warmer ; 

But being spent, the worse and worst 
Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time. 
And while ye may, go marry ; 

For having lost but once yqtr prime. 
You may for ever tarry. 



IDEM LATINB REDDirUM. 

IITTBSPRBTE GULIEUCO M., 
JURIS UTRIUSQUE DOCTORS. 

BosAS, dam possis, coUige, 
Nam cito tempus fagit ; 

Florem, qui ridet hodie, 
Crastina dies laget. 

Quo altius coeli lampas, Sol* 
Per sBther nitens pergit, 

Ed citius properat, edepol. 
Ad mare, ubi mergit. 

Peroptima juventas, dam 
In venis sanguis tepet ; 

Succedit hora pejor, cum 
SenectsQ pes obrepit. 

Nunc tibi est setatis flos. 
Nunc nube sine morS ; 

Sectaberis fort^ pueros 
Frustri, si transit hora. 



HORACE m OTHER SHAPES. 107 



HORACE IN OTHER SHAPES- 

3iS0 barious ^E^anHs. 
"To what base uses we return, Horatio!" 

Lib. I. Carmen VII. 

Laudabunt alii claram Bhodonj aut MityUne, ^c' 

SoMB say that the air is much finer in Paris, 

Or puff Naples in strains all as soft as its soap ; 
Others laud in their journal the City Eternal, 

The Piazza di Spagna, the Corso, the Pope :— 
Some more waste their pennies in tumbledown Venice 

Or beggarly Florence, where Burgherst* is queen ; 
And we've heard some dull villain bepraising of Milan. 

Some, like mulligatawny, are stuck in Turin ; — 
It me very much puzzles to find what 's»in Brussels ;— 

As for Spa or Liege, why that 's only a bam. 
Their taste is not much, sir, who, lauding the Dutch, sir. 

Speak well of that big-breechesed town, Amsterdam. 

I 'd as soon read Tom Roscoe, as sojourn in Moscow, 

Or in Petersburgh, frosty-faced hoive of the Czar ; 
And asYor your Hamburghers, and all other d buighen, 

God keep us from such cursed cattle afar. 
Let them prate of the Prater, while others so great are 

On Berlin, where Blucher I knew in old times ; 
But I vow unto you, Nick, that sooner than Munich 

I 'd dwell in, I 'd listen to Ludwig's 0!fn rhymes. 

In jack -boots or pattens, away off to Athens, 

Philhells and bluestockings, dear women I repair ; 
While the Turcophiles ramble to Mahomet's Stambol, 

But, by Allah ! — dear fellow : — you'll ne'er catch me there. 
As for Stockholm, in Sweden, (which Rudbeck thought Eden,) 

I 'd as lief go to .Boulogne or Botany Bay : — 
He must be a Pagan, who thinks Copenhagen 

A spot where a Christian could venture to stay. 

* Lord Bai;gherst, then English Ambassador.— M. 



108 THE FBARffBTAN PAFEB8. 

My head I 'm not troabling about dirtj Dublin, 

Or Edinburgh city, small place in the north ; 
The first in the Liflfey I 'd pitch in a jiffy, 

T 'other village might fill some thin creek of the Forth. 
To conclude — To Madrid, sir, farewell do I bid, sir. 

And garlicky Lisbon, strong town of Miguel ; — 
So, on casting the tour up of all parts of Europe, 

I conclude for the sweet shady side of Pall MalL* 

♦ This light paraphrase, signed " Samuel Kogers," but by no means in the 
style of " the bard, the beau, the banker" of Byron's satirical squib, was one 
of Maginn's earliest contributions to Fmser. — The last words ("The sweet 
shady side of Pall Mall"), have been often quoted, but so generally with 
little knowledge of their paternity, that it may scarcely be impertinent here 
to say that they occur in a poem written by the late Captain Charles Morris, 
one of the liveliest and best convivial Tory Writers of the last century 
Like Dr. Johnson, he greatly preferred London to the country, and, in a 
poem called The Contest, defended that predilection, by comparing city 
amusements with mere country existence, and summing up, 

" In town let me live then, in town let me die ; 
For in truth I can *t relish the country, not L 
If one must have a villa in summer to dwell. 
Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall !" 

Morris, who died in 1832, at the advanced age of ninety-three, served in the 
British army in America, previous to the War of Independence. The acci- 
dent of William Pitt having been fired at by a turnpike keeper at Wimble- 
don, for riding through the gate without paying, {after dinner,) in company 
with Lord Chancellor Thurlow and Henry Dundas, another Cabinet Minister, 
supplied Morris with subject for an amusing ballad which he called an 
"American Song" — perhaps on account of the local application of the mor- 
al in the last stanza : 

" Solid men of Boston, banish strong potations ; 
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations ; 
Solid men of Boston, go to bed at sundown : 
And never lose your way, like the loggerhead of London." 

The excellent advice in the second line has certainly not been taken by the 
*' Solid men of Boston." — M. 



HOBACB IN OTHEB SHAI^BS. lt)9 

Lib. m. Carmen XIX. 

Quantum distet ab Inacho, ffc. 

Do n't bother me with your old tales of Plantagenet, 

Your stories of Bichard, or Harry, or Ned, 
Greater nonsense than such, why, I can not imagine it — 

We have heard long ago what of them can be said. 
Come, tell me the place where I '11 get the best bottle. 

The strongest of tumblers, the mildest segars. 
Or where I 'd most chances of wetting my throttle 

By the fire of a friend, when the coppers are scarce. 

I call for a bumper — here, waiter, clean glasses ! — 

Here 's the moon, or the stars, or whatever yon please ; — 
Your health. Jack Mulrooney ; so, off with " the lasses" 

Why, thirty jugs more we 'd demolish with ease. 
Let the poet, Grod help him ! — I see he 's half muzzy— 

Take no more than nine tumblers, that's one less than ten ; 
And those who 've a fancy to shy getting boozy, 

Should not venture much further than twice that again. 

So ho ! What 's the matter ? Let 's kick up a riot. 

Here, piper ! you ruffian, come blow us a jig ; — 
Do you think, for a moment, I mean to be quiet ? 

If I do, may old Scratch run away with my wig ! 
Make a row ! push the bottle ! whoop, shout, boys, and caper. 

Why the deuce should I not raise a tumult and roar ? 
The neighbors, you say, will look sulky and vapor, 

And so will the pretty young doxy next door ;— 
What ? old fellow's friend f Pish I Tom, here is the lady, 

Black-haired and black-eyed, you 've been courting so long. 
As for me — fill the glass for the dear Widow Brady 

Whose three hundred a year wakes your Munsterman's song.* 

* This lyrical translation was affiliated on, or rather signed by, the re- 
doubtable " Morgan O'Doherty."— M. 



110 THE FRARERTAN PAPERS. 



SPECIMENS OF A TRANSLATION INTO 
LATIN OF "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA." 

' [Some years ago it was proposed, at a very pleasant party near the banks 
of the Thames — it is not necessary to say who composed it, bat those who 
can decipher what is meant by the initials T. E. H., J. S., J. W. C, will 
allow that it comprised some of the most witty and agreeable people in Lon- 
don.* — to write a variorum commentary, in the manner of Malone's 
" Shakespeare," on the " Beggar's Opera." One critic was to perform the 
part of Warborton, another of Johnson, a third of Farmer, and so on. 
Part of the jest was to consist in proving that Guy imitated the ancient clas- 
sics very palpably; — something of the kind is often done by the Shakespear- 
ian commentators, (see note on " the sea of troubles,*' in Hamlet, and a 
thousand other places ;) and as it would be rather difficult to find Augustan 
authorities for the songs of the " Beggar's Opera," I was engaged to make 
them. The four following scraps of doggrel Latin were part of these origi' 
nods. Nothing further was done toward completing the commentary. — ^W. M.] 

I. L 

PEACnUM. PBACHUMIUS. 

Through all the employments of life Vitjb: cuncta negotia per. 

Each neighbor abuses his brother ; Homo hominem semper infamat, 

"Whore and rogue they call husband Fur et scortum sunt uxor et vir, 

and wife ; [other. Ars artem lacessere amat. 

All professions be-rogue one an- Flamen hostis causidici fit. 

The priest calls the lawyer a cheat, Causidicus flaminem Isedit, 

The lawyer be-knaves the divine, Et senator, excelsus quod sit. 

And the statesman because he's so Frobum sequd ac me sese credit. 
great, [mine. 

Thinks his trade is as honest as 

* Theodore Edward Hook, James Smith (of " Rejected Addresses" fame), 
and John Wilson Croker, are the persons initialed here. It is probable that 
this trifle suggested to Father Mahony the idea, afterward elaborated in the 
" Reliques of Father Prout," of assuming that the most popular modem po- 
etry was only imitated, translated, or paraphrased, from the ancient classics. 
I would draw attention to the closeness of Maginn's Latin versions of Her- 
rick and of Gay. He generally gives the exact rhythm of the verses.— M. 



SPECIMENS OP A TRANSLATION, ETC. 



Ill 



n. 

FILCH. 

'Tis woman that seduces all mankind ; 

By her we first were taught the 

wheedling arts ; 

Her very eyes can cheat : when most 

she is kind, [hearts. 

She tricks us of our money, with our 

For her, like wolves by night, we roam 

for prey, [her charms ; 

And practise every fraud to bribe 

For suits of love, like law, are won 

^y P^y» [arms. 

And beauty must be fee'd into our 

III. 

MRS. PEACHUM. 

O Polly, you might have toyed and 

kissed : [on. 

By keeping men off, you keep them 

POLLY. 

But he so teazed me. 
And he so pleased me, 
What I did you must have done. 

IV. 

CAPTAIN HACHEATH. 

Pretty Polly, say, 
When I was away. 
Did your fancy never stray 
To some newer lover 1 

POLLY. 

Without disguise, 
Heaving sighs, 
Doating eyes. 
My constant heart discover. 
Fondly let me loll 1 

CAPTAIN MACHEATH. 

O pretty, pretty Poll I 



II. 

FILCHIUS. 

Corrumpii; viros foemina illos, hos — 

Artes fallendi mulier prima docet ; 
£n! oculi fraudant! blandula cum 
nos, 

Aspicit, cordi et crumensB nocet. 
Hanc propter noctu rapimus lupi ceu, 

Hanc propter omnis fraus et scelns 
fit; 
Venus ut Themis est venalis, hen 1 

Nunquam ni empta intra brachia it. 



ni. 

DOHINA PBACHUMIA. 

Nisi jocus dedisses et oscula nil — 
Pelle viros, et, PoUa, redibunt ad nos, 

POLLA PBACHUMIA. 

Sed sic soUicitavit, 
£t sic basiavit. 
Quod feci, matres ! fecissetis et yds. 

IV. 

MACHEATHIUS CENTURIO. 

Pulchra PoUa, die, 
Cum non essem hie, 
Aji mansisti sic 
Fidelis — an mut&stil 

POLLA PBACHUMIA. > 

Nil celem te, 
Acies hae 
Suspiriaque 
Respondeant quod rogisti. 
Amplectere mi sol. 

MACHEATHIUS CENTURIO. 

O pulchra, pulchra Poll I 



112 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 



MAGINN ON MACAULAY* 

Thomas Babixotox Macaulay is a barrister, a commission- 
er of bankrupts, and member of Parliament for Calne. He is 
the son of Zachary Macaulay, of Sierra Leone notoriety; and 
every act of Thomas's life proves him to be the hopeful and worthy 
heir to all the father's virtue^ He is the godson of Mr. Babing- 
ton, of the firm of Macaulay, Babington, and Co., the A&ican 
traders, and the protege of Henry Brougliam, Esq. — is a member 
of Boodle's — a spouter at the Freemasons' Tavern, and at the 
Anti-slavery meetings — and is, moreover, the identical yomig 
gentleman of whom Mr. William Wilberforce, in a fit of, no doubt, 
prophetic inspiration, said that, as it was well understood that, in 
the economy of Providence, mighty and fitting instruments were 
raised, in all times of emergency, for the accomplishments of 

♦ As a fair specimen of Maginn's " slashing" criticism, I give this paper 
— part of a personal attack, purporting to be a critical notice, of an article 
in No. 100 of the Edinburgh Review ^ upon Southey's "Progress and Pros- 
l)ects in Society," attributed to Mr. Macaulay. The paper by Maginn ap- 
peared in Fraser for June, 1830, immediately after Macaulay had made his 
earliest displays in Parliament, as member for Lord Lansdowne's pocket- 
borough of Calne. The able article on Milton, with which ho broke ground 
in the Edinhurtjh Review ^ appeared in 1826, when Macaulay was 26 years old. 
It is curious to see, a quarter of a century having elapsed between the first 
appearance of Maginn's abuse of Macaulay and its present republication, 
how completely wTong the writer was in almost every particular. Harsh 
criticism such as this, emanating from party prejudice, (for Maginn certainly 
had no personal feeling against Macaulay, ) was considered perfectly legiti- 
mate in England, during the great party struggle between the Whig and 
Tory factions. Nor have we improved in later times — as witness the abu- 
sive personalities in the Edinburgh Review and The 2\me8, so recently as 
1853, on Mr. Disraeli. — M. 



MAGIKN ON MACAULAT. 118 

God's purposes, so, in the talkatiye stripling before him he beheld 
the destined agent, under God's blessing, to inflict chastisement 
on the colonists and the pro-slavery incarnate demons. At an 
early age, Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay received the rudi- 
ments of polite education — at so early an age, indeed, that his 
infantine memory not having sufficient power for tenacity and re- 
tention, the politeness of the education has escaped — the essential 
spirit, as it were, has evaporated, ascended, and mixed itself with 
the element of air, leaving a thick sediment of slime behind, which 
has given birth to three insufferable reptiles, that lead a noisy life 
in Mr. Thomas Macaulay's voided receptacle of polite education, 
e, g, sophism, charlatanism, and impertinence. It appertains not 
to ]Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay to own to the truth of 

** Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 
Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros." 

If, instead of inffenuous, it were written ingenious sgcts, it would 
have been nearer the mark. However that may be — let us finish 
as much of the gentleman's biography as we intend to give. He 
was sent to Cambridge, made himself conspicuous for his classical 
attainments — spouted, ranted, and raved himself into a reputation 
for what, vulgo, is called the gift of the gab (exemplified in its 
true colors at the Leicester election, where he had not one word 
to say against the matter-of-fact and prosing Sergeant Goulboum) 
— became the hope of the Broughamites and Whigs, and, at the 
member for Winchelsea's recommendation, wrote sundry articles 
for the Edinburgh Review ; amongst which was one, in No. 91 of 
that journal, " On the present Administration."* For this pro- 
duction, had Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay been rightly served 
he would have been instantly kicked out of all respectable society 
(on account of the red-hot demoniacal spirit which it manifests) — 
but society was sluggish about its honor, and Mr. Thomas Babing- 

* This article, not included in Mocaulay's own collection of his Miscella^ 
neous Writings, appeared in the Edinburgh Review, for January, 1827, but 
(with a sequel on the Slate of Parties, nine months later) has been pre- 
served as an appropriate introduction, in the edition of Macanlaj's speeches, 
published by Mr. Bedfield, of New York.— M. 

8 



114 THE FRASERUN PAPERS. 

ton Macaulay is now the acctual member in St Stephen's for the 
immaculate and free- voting borough of Cahie. 

"When Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay commenced bis series 
of contributions to the Edinhurg Review , the " Sapphire and 
blue*' was fast drivelling into its dotage. Its ancient spirit had 
evaporated — its youthful wit, from over-indulgence and dissipa- 
tion, had fallen into a state of emasculation — its empire was totp 
tering, its circulation was fast drawing in its horns of extended 
glory. Sydney Smith had grown too fat, too rubicund, and too 
well satisfied with the good things of this world — more especially 
since he became a pluralist; — Sir James Mackintosh had used 
60 frequently his carefully-collected store of international law, 
philosophy of history, and metaphysical sweepings from the late 
Professor Stewart's library, that he could use them no longer 
without raising against his own sagacious person a universal 
horse-laugh ; — Mr. Heniy Brougham had become an empty law- 
yer and a talkative member of the House of Commons ; so that what^ 
ever he wrote for my *' Great- Grandmother* smacked of the 
emptiness of the one and the frothiness of the other, and there- 
fore was utterly unreadable, because it wanted consistency and 
novelty; — Francissimus Jeffrey himself candidly confessed that 
he was utterly drained of all his good things — had lost all his 
effervescence and wit — had become like that little plaything 
which pyromachinists sell to little children, called a Catherine's 
wheel, after it has frisked through its gyrations and spent its 
every spark of sputtering and sulphureous compound. In this 
state was the Edinburgh when Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay 
wrote his initiatory article for the journal ; immediately on the 
appearance of which, whigs, liberals and radicals, Cantabs and an- 
ti-colonists, saints, and the papers of all descriptions under the in- 
fluence of their respective parties, lauded the young gentleman to 
the seventh heavens as a " second Daniel come to judgment." 

But the AVhigs are wise in their generation. They assist one 
another, and boast of one another's achievements. Inconceivable 
is the cackle and row on the birth of a Whigling: — When he 
gives his first squeal, there is an expression of boisterous merri- 
ment — of robustious jollification : — When he first cocks his youth- 
ful eye with a knowing leer at any remarkable -object, there is a 



MAGINN ON BLiOAULAY. 115 

clapping of hands, and shouts of Maenadic glorification : — When 
he accents the first syllables of the vernacular, the amazed listen- 
ers exclaim, " Behold a wonder!" — When he goes to school, they 
promise their doating hearts that a Phoenix is in the act of gene- 
ration : — When he enters college, he is to turn out, even as it was 
assured unto the simple youth of Oviedo, the Eighth Wonder of 
the World : — When he is introduced into public life, he is to be- 
come as the Pillar of Fire amidst the surrounding darkness, to 
comfort the hearts and guide the errant footsteps of the benighted 
Israelitish multitude of Whigs and Liberals, and their open- 
mOuthed and hungry retinue of trimmers and shufflers. The con- 
sequence is, that whenever this iUuminato gentleman makes his 

appearance in public, he is hailed by his party with loud greet- 
ings of 

" Dii immortales, homini homo quid prsestat stulto intelligens 
Quid interest !" 

meaning thereby, that the wisdom of the whole world is as dust 
in the scale when poised against the wisdom of this fresh, full- 
fledged, self-important Whigling. 

Pushed early into public life, with the eyes of all his party — 
of his parents, and kinsmen, and friends, and patrons, and college 
and university, fixed upon him, and watchful of his every move- 
ment, the young Whig begins, after the fashion of a greea ban- 
tam-cock, to settle his feathers into neat order, to arch his neck, 
to erect his crest, to outspread his wings, to strengthen the wiry 
sinews of his bandy legs to their utmost power of tension, in 
order to attain the highest point of altitude, and gain an imposing 
attitude, ere he gives the shrill crowing cock-a-doodle-do note of de- 
fiance to all his feathered opponejits of the barn-yard. And, then, 
the phoenix- Whig commences butting against this man, tilting 
against the second man, boxing with the third man, bullying the 
fourth man, bragging over the fifth man, and vituperating and scoun- 
drelising the sixth man, merely to satisfy the spectators on his side ' 
that his courage has not subsided from its fullness of measure, that his 
heart is stout and unflinching, and that, like Diomed,he is ever ready 
and impetuous in action. Thus has Mr. Thomas Babington ]VIacau- 
lay acted ; but has he thereby extended the circle of his reputation in 



116 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

the world ? Alas ! for the futility of human expectations — he h 
never, save by the few who know him personally, even mentioned » 
by name ; and though he was cheered by his own set in the House 
of Commons on the night of his inauguratory speech ; still, who 
remembers that inauguratory speech,* or Mr. Thomas Babington 
Macaulay's exhibition on that, to him, so memorable an occasion? 
Who quotes (except always his own immediate set) his articles on 
the Utilitarian school in the Edinhirgh Review^ saving only to 
laugh at the sophisms and abortions of wit with which they over- 
flow ? Who talks of his concoctions on Dryden, Milton, or even 
MachiaveUi, the best of all his productions, though shining with 
foreign and borrowed light ? Tlie man of genius or talent, and 
the charlatan or man of mere pretension, proceed inversely as re- 
gards tlie relation of one with the other. The first, because his 
sense tells him not to attempt too much until the fullness of his 
destined strength is attained, commences his career of life and 
literature cautiously, and moderately, and modestly ; the conse- 
quence is, that each successive effort adds to his powers, and pro- 
gressively fortifies his efficiency, until in the end he bursts forth a 
luminaiy of unexceptionable brilliancy. The second, big with 
the idea of that self-importance which from his earliest years is 
dunned into his ear, is hot and eager to do something to place his 
name amongst the preeminent individuals of his age and country ; 
like the son of Peleus, he is for early fame, though an early grave 
should be his mortal consummation ; like that same Homeric hero 
he is 

" Impiger — iracundus — inexorabilis — acer," 

and he commences his feats with an improvident energy, and 
generally sinks exhausted before his more. prudential and temper- 
ate antagonist. A young man, though possessed of the most 

* This speech, advocating the removal of the civil disabilities under which, 
disgracefully for England, the Jews continue to suffer, was spoken in the 
House of Commons on April 5, 1830, and so far from being a failure or an 
" Exhibition," was well received, and honored with a special eulogy, by Sir 
Jnmes Mackintosh, on the same evening. It displayed common sense as 
well as brilliant rhetoric — a rare combination in "a maiden speech." But 
Macaulay, long before that, had been one of the crack speakers of the Union 
debating club in the UnivcrBity of Cambridge. — M. 



MAGINN ON MACAULAY. IIT 

robust constitution, can not plunge at once into the hottest dissipa- 
tion without falling an early martyr to his excesses. To speak 
only of his feats of drinking, without a word on other indulgences, 
he may, by reliance on his strength of stomach and soundness of 
lungs, begin by being a four-bottle man. Will he long continue 
so ? Should he be mad enough to hold on in his course of inebri- 
ety, ere the years of his spring of manhood have been numbered, ^ 
he will lose the physical energies of a man, waste away to a pal- 
lid, tottering anatomy, his mental vigor will be speedily exhausted, 
he will dwindle into a poor, crazy, chattering idiot, and sink with- 
out being perceived into the grave, but too long hankering after 
its emasculated and puny prey. In this argument the mind will 
afford a fitting parallel to the body ; and for this reason the very 
thought of an early reputation is to be eschewed. Of all this we, 
unfortunately, have too many instances on record ; and, notwith- 
standing our poHtical and other hostility to Mr. Thomas Babing- 
ton Macaulay, we shall sincerely regret if his name is to be added 
to the gloomy list of those who, although they in their first hours 
of existence shed around them an extraordinary brilliancy, yet 
very speedily — 

** Like the Lost Pleiad, sunk to rise no more." 

Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay has acted incautiously and 
without foresight ; yet two remarkable instances hung immediately 
before him, which he was constrained to see, and which might 
have served him for beacons whereby to guide his own course, had 
he not been actuated by that headstrong vanity and all-engrossing 
conceit which, alas ! have ever been the characteristics of his race. 
The first was in Mr. Henry Brougham, who, when he began his 
political life, dashed at every thing like an ill-trained whelp, and, 
at one time, by his all-meddling spirit, sunk so low in common es- 
timation, as absolutely to become a subject for laughter and jeers ; 
but who, when he had grown more wary, piloted his way with 
such regard for character, that he at length stood forth as the 
leader of his own party in St. Stephen's. The second was in Mr. 
Macaulay's patron. Lord Lansdowne, who, as Lord Henry Petty, 
promised to win golden opinions of all men during the whole 
course of his life ; but behold his reputation has fiown aloft, like 



118 THE FBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

Other similar trivial things of this world, to find a resting-place in 
that ^ limbo broad and large," of which such pleasant mention iff 
made in thh pages of the Paradise Lost Afler these warnings, 
the enacting a more considerate part was a matter of some mo- 
ment to ^£r. Thomas Babington Macaulaj: — but the ancient sin 
of his tribe was too strong for resistance. — He does not seem to 
be sensible that his ])owers have been diminishing in real value — 
and no friend or adviser has been near to give him assurance that, 
for originality, point, vigor, and promise, nothing has exceeded — 
nay, nothing has, within a hundred degrees, approximated to — 
what he wrote as a literary freshman for Knight* s Quarterly 
Magazine, 

"Would that this freshman had been well advised and persuaded 
of the fact, or that, by some memorable circumstance, he had been 
early taught to take heed of the silly adulations of his father's 
clerks and dependents, and of that blind partiality of friends 
which swills youthful vanity generally, and which swilled it most 
c;:regiously in the particular instance of Mr. Thomas Babington 
Macauhiy. He would then have cut a more respectable figure, 
because his aim would have been more moderate, his purposes 
less assuming, his inf(M*iority of strength, resulting from original 
mal-conformation of parts, less apparent. But, alas for him ! it 
has been otherwise. Pix)ud of the strength which he has been 
told he possesses, he has run a-tilt at every thing with wiiich he 
has ever met. If there is one object held in great regard — no 
matter by what sect or party — ag-ainst that most especially has he 
ben't his aim, to brinir it down from the '* high top-gallant of its 
pride." If there is one man more reverenced than another — it 
signifies little of what party, save his own — (for of the great man 
of his own party he has ever been the humble lackey and adept) 
— he has attacked him tooth and nail, in the hope of an easy vic- 
tor}'. Alack for the impulses of silly vanity ! he was miserably 
defeated by Mr. Mill in the " Greatest Happiness" controversy, 
though we do not know whether Mr. Southey will consider it 
worth his trouble to answer the gentleman's insolence : we rather 
think, however, that he will not : it were, if he did so, waste of 
time, which, we know, the Laureate values too highly to throw 
away on sucli unimportant trifles. The true knight would couch 



• 



MAGINN ON IfACAULAY, 119 

lance, or take buckler and shield, perchance, against the rampant 
lion ; but will, without movement, allow the puppy-dog to bark at 
his figure, or even defile his person with those tricks with which 
petulant puppy-dogs are wont to soil more majestic creatures than 
their puny selves. In his conduct, then, not only in matters which 
have excited his abusive faculties, but even where he has been 
induced to praise, the gentleman in question has become too great 
a nuisance to be endured : 

" Tristius baud illo raonstnim, nee ssBvior ulla 
Pestis, et ira Deum Stygiis sede extulit undis," &c. 

This being the c^se, it is time that the pernicious influence of the 
gentleman should be forced into abatement. 

The last display of the Can tab's prowess is in the 100th Num- 
ber of the " Sapphire and Blue" and in the second since the ac- 
cession to the Editorial Chair, of Macveius Napierius Naso. It 
purports to be a review of Mr. Southey's admirable volumes on 
The Progress and Prospects of JSociety* 

"We have filled up more pages than we intended with our obser- 
vations on the quackery of this precious Theban. It is in the na- 
ture of true Quackery to exhibit monstrous inconsistencies in con- 
duct. Thus has it happened to Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay. 
His father " consorts" with Mr. \Vm. Wilberforce, and is allowed 
at all hands (indeed the old gentleman boasts of it) to be a saint 
of the first magnitude. The son, too, would show himself, by his 
spoutings, and declamations, and political faith, to be his father's 
companion in the career of holiness. Now, surely, the first axiom 
of the sect of which both the 0I4 and the young man are mem- 
bers, ought to be, that without religion (let them qualify it as they 
may) social existence can not be carried onward. But the latitu- 
dinarian principles and opinions of the son, as expounded in the 
article on Mr. Southey's volumes, would go to prove that religion 
is not essential to social existence. Surely, if he would be thought 
sincere in the faith of the Saints, and, notwithstanding his own 
sceptical opinions, he ought to have written up, instead of attempt- 
ing to write down, the necessity of a state religion — since, and 
laying aside all crude theories, the efficacy of religion over society 
has been tried and proved, over and over again, ten thousand 



120 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

times, to be roost beneficial. But Mr. Thomas Balnngton Macau- 
lay is a quack and a pseudo-philosopher, and accordingly, no two 
of his opinions or actions will be found to tally or coincide. 

But why should he have singled out Mr. Southey for his fierce 
and foul vituperation ? No one can impugn the harmless tenure 
of Mr. Southey's life, or his retiring nature (particularly since he 
refused a seat in that very sapient assembly, of which Mr. Mar 
caulay is so bright and particular a star), or the sincerity of his 
faith, or his earnest wish to further improvement of his fellow- 
creatures, or the soundness of his scholarship. Now, for any, or 
all these reasons, however Mr. Macaulay may differ from the 
Laureate, surely the latter, if the Cantab be a sainL or even a 
Christian, deserves respectful consideration and faizifibige, to say 
nothing of love, charity, mercy, and forbearance — qualities which, 
by their beauty of conduct on all occasions, the saints have identi- 
fied with themselves. But his false reasonings and low abuse 
of the Laureate prove Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay to be no 
whit better than the general run of his sinful fellow-creatures. 
The Laureate has made for himself a fair reputation — the Cantab 
has made for himself no reputation at all for any thing fair or 
manly — the moral beggar, therefore, hates his richer neighbor, 
and that hatred is manifested in the exquisite piece of criticism, 
the beauties of which we have done all that in us lay t6 show 
forth to the admiration of an enraptured world. — ^Well hast thou 
spoken, O son of Laius ! — 

Q irXovre, Kat rvpavvi, koi tsj^vii rsj^tis 
virep(f>£pov<ra to) iroXv^iXcd j9(^ 
hvoi nap i^iv b f9ar^ ^vXaoatrai* 



PHILOSOPHT OF LAUGHTER. 121 



PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. 

If we may express our opinion, we think that the great use 
and object of laughing is that we may enjoy ourselves, and com- 
municate flljoyment to others. Laughter is a healthy exercise. 
It shakes the system, disperses the morbid humors, extinguishes 
envy, annihilates the spleen, puts the blue devils to flight, and 
spreads summer and sunshine, and cordiahty, wherever it appears. 
To " laugh and grow wise,'* to " laugh and grow /a<," are little 
more than synonymes. To all, therefore, who do not wish to re- 
main in ignorance — to all who do not wish they were "a little 
thinner," we recommend a loud, a hearty, a continuous roar. De- 
mocritus, the laughing philosopher (yeXaaivog), was one of the 
wisest of men. He lived laughing for a hundred years, and then 
died unlamenting. What misanthrope or Megrim of modem times 
can do as much ? Are all the grim affectations of Childe Harold 
worth an ounce of laughter ? Not a gi-ain ! They do good to no 
one. They are "entertainment" neither "for man nor beast.*' 
They make us lean, stupid, ungrateful. Shakespeare was the 
merriest of men ; and he wa|4be wisest. He laughed when he 
held the gallant's horses at flUer'jiBg^^house door, and saw them so 
"trimly dressed," and "perfutned like milliners." He laughed 
with Falstaff, (" old Jack Falstaff !") with Mercutio, with Biron, 
with Beatrice, with Rosalind, with Benedict. He laughed at 
Pistol's swaggering, at the red nose of Bardolph, at the gabble of 
Justice Shallow, at Slender, and Glendower, and Malvolio; at 
Froth, and Francis, and Bottom, and Wart, and Mouldy, and a 
hundred others. Nay, doubtless, he laughed also when he had 
finished Lear — (that mighty tragedy, to which alone there is no 
rival in letters,) and thought — and knew that he had achieved a 



■^ 



122 THE FRARRRTAN PAPEBS. i 

5 
thing, of which past ages could afford no parallel, and which futqre 

times must struggle in vain to excel. 

Great men and wise men have loved laughter. The vain, the 
ignorant, and the uncivilized alone have dreaded or despised it 
Let us imitate the wise where we may. Let our Christmas laugh 
echo till Valentine's day ; our laugh of St. Valentine till the first • 
of April ; our April humor till May day, and our May merriment 
till Midsummer. And so let us go on, from holiday to holiday, 
philosophers in laughter at least, till, at the expiration of our cen- 
tury, we die the death of old Democritus, cheerful, hopeful, and 
contented: surrounded by many a friend, but without an enemy; 
and remembered principally because we have never, either in life 
or death, given pain for a moment to any one that lived I 



THE POLITICS OF 1831. 128 



THE POLITICS OF 1831. 

BY W. HOLMES, ESQ. M. P. FOR HASLEMERE.* 

" And Holmes whose name shall live in epic song. 
While music numbers, or while f erse has feet." 

** Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight, 
Who first bewitched our eyes with guinea gold ; 
As once Old Cato, in the Roman's sight. 
The tempting fruit of Afric did unfold." 

Drtden, Annus Mirabilis. clxxij. cizxiij. 

At the Union the other night, Old CATof lamented as 
follows : — 

" As for this country, there is no use in saying anything more 
about it, because it is scudding to the infernal regions with a fair 
gale of wind to its tail. To men who know the world, nothing 
can be more preposterous than what I see going on all around me. 

" There was Lord Liverpool — no more sense than a turnip — 
God rest his soul ! as the Papists say. There was he, and he 
kept the country together. What I mean by the country are the 
people who are paid by the country, for as to the rest who cares a 
brass farthing about them ? I know / never did. There we 
were, snug and oily, all together, safe from the wind. Now and 
then old Burdett would get up a cross, to amuse the plebeians 
and secure him his election, and give us the opportunity of floor- 

* This apparently careless, rambling, whiskey-and-water paper contains «o 
correct a resume of British politics during the four years between Lord Liver- 
pool's ministry and the Whig rule of 1831 (the time of the Reform bill excitc- 
ipent) that I am tempted to include it in this collection. Though affiliated 
on Holmes, the Tory whipper-in, it smacks strongly of Maginn's own after- 
dinner talk. — M. 

t A name taken from the Annus Mirabilis. 



124 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

ing him as per previous agreement ; or Hume might fight about 
threepence halfpenny matters, in which, if he made a blunder the 
size of a half-farthing, we had our jokers ready to cut him up. 
Diauol ! how droll we used to be at reading all the funny things 
that were put into print against Joe I And there was old Tier- 
ney — honest old Tiemey! — a man who knew what was what. 
He opposed in a tender and nice manner, because being a sensible 
and well-trained old veteran as he was, he had always his eye 
cocked upon getting into place, and would have scorned to do the 
dirty thing of cutting down the emoluments. 

"To be sure, we had Brougham, every now and then — the 
Lord Brougham and Vaux, as they call the fellow now-a-days — 
as bitter as soot, and especially angry and cantankerous when he 
saw no chance of his getting a silk gown.^ Do him justice, he 
basted us now and then in a pretty way enough — but Lord help 
the man ! what was the consequence ? who cared a tenpenny about 
it? "We were sure of the King, George the Fourth — an honest, 
well-meaning, fat old gentleman as ever was. Lord Eldon had 
the Lords tight under his claw. In those days, the Bishops dared 
not budge, not they — the beautiful bench that they are — and we 
had Canning in the Commons, who kept Brougham at bay. So 
he might twist his nose into as many shapes as Matthews twists 
his mouth — and we did not mind. He made his speech — I 
whipped in the animals — and there was an end of the business. 
He was always dead beat. 

As for Lord Althorp, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
(and a neat hand he makes of it,) why in those times nobody ever 
heard of his name. Johnny Russell, the Paymaster of the For- 
ces, and the Grand Master of Reform — was no great shakes 
among us. Jemmy Graham, who made the seasonable explana- 
tion to O' Gorman Mahon, was a schoolboy — and Husky,! my old 
iriend, to do you justice, though an unfortunate accident took you 
off at the most particular of minutes, you settled the political 

* In tho English and Irish courts (but not in Scotland) the more eminent 
lawyers are made Queen's Counsel, the official badge of which dignity is a 
aUk goA^-n, all other barristers wearing stuff. — M. 

t William Iluskisson, killed at the opening of tho Liverpool and Manches- 
ter Kailr(.>ad, in the autumn of 1830. — M. 



THE POLITICS OP 1831. 125 

economists for the rest of us. Apropos of that — I remember 
one of the pack, I believe it was Ponlett Thompson, the ship- 
chandler,* asked me one night if I knew " what was Rent ?" " Not 
practically," said I, " do you ?" On which there was a laugh, and 
the Right Honorable Mi\ Hemp-and-Tallow was floored. 

"Well, Lord Liverpool dropped down in a fit — and what was 
to be done then ? The Duke shammed opposition — the old Chan- 
cellor did it in earnest — Peel sneaked after the Duke — old 
Bathurst and Melville thought they would have been turned out 
if they did not resign, and therefore made off as a well-bred dog 
does when he is going to be kicked down stairs. — My cousin 
Westmoreland, who was only forty years in the cabinet, flattered 
himself that he would be brought in again before three months 
were over — and Lord Harrowby levanted because he was tired 
of the concern, and could not get any more places for his people. 
Did /resign? No! — But the word brings salt tears into my 
eyes when I think of what has been my fate since. What is it 
now to me that I escaped in 1827, when the heavy lot fell upon 
me in 1830. 

" Canning came in. What happened in the ministry I now 
forget, except that he bullied George Dawson in famous good 
style, and made George hold his tonguA* I served him faithfully, 
because it was agreeable to my conscience, as he declared he was 
against Reform in Parliament, and tlie repeal of the Test and 
Corporation Acts, and vowed that he never would make Emanci- 
pation a Cabinet question. Therefore I drank the " glorious mem- 
ory" in peace, and thonged it for Canning, despising Dawson very 
much, and listening with great delight to John Croker's jokes 
against Peel, which said Peel used at that time to cut my respect- 
ed countryman, declaring him a man of great dishonor and mean 
duplicity ; two matters of which Sir Robert Peel ought to be a 
very accurate judge. 

" Canning died of the newspapers, or else eating too much with- 
out moistening it, and Frederick Robinson reigned in his stead. 
The King — I mean George IV. — gave him the title of Viscount 
Goderich by patent, and that of Goose Goody in private conver- 

* Poulett Thompson, afterward Governor-General of Canada (and Lord 
Sydenham), was originally a merchant in the Bussian trade. — M. 



126 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

sation. Lucky for me it was that no Parliament sat during 
Goosey's administration. There was a sham fight between Husky 
and Hemes which, by proper cultivation, was made into a good 
enough quarrel for blowing up poor Groosey's cabinet and the 
Duke — my gracious master — returned as Premier. 

" Well, said I, now all's right. Here are the Tories again ! I 
was not Sony when the Duke ordered Husky, and the Grants, 
and Palmerston, and the rest of that set, to the right-face. Faith, 
it was I settled it myself! — They had a bull bait on the business 
of East Retford ; about which nobody who had a pennyworth of 
brains in his head cared a Camac* But, up gets Husky, honest 
man ! and declares for one side, with a speech, he being Colonial 
Secretary — up gets Peel, honest man ! for another side, with an- 
other speech, he being Home Secretary. What was / to do ? I 
did Yiot care if Old Nick or Nic Vansittart had East Retford and 
all that dwell therein. But what was my line of action ? Just 
think of Secretary dividing against Secretary in a civilized ad- 
ministration. So I said to the Duke, ' Your Noble Highness,' 
said I, * permit me to remark that all this is mighty incorrect— 
which am I to believe in, Peel or Huskisson ?' So said he, in 
his own civil and quiet way, like a kind-hearted old gentleman as 
he is — says he, * Pitch Huskisson to the devil;' and of course I did. 

" Grod help me, I am getting old ; and the port rises in my head ! 

— its owing to the Duke's carrying the Pa , the Catholic Bill. 

I knew nothing of it until I found he was determined upon doing 
it. How could I then resist? — I did not vote for it — No! — •' 
What says the player in one of O'Keefe's tragedies to the ghost 
of Blanket? — *Thou canst not say I did it.' Strange as it may 
appear, I was shut out on the division. Accidents will happen. 

" However, the Duke was the Duke, and there was no use in 
disputing with him ; else he would have turned one off in a crack. 
Therefore, I stuck to him until he was obliged to trot. Oh, heavy 
hour! When I think of it — I trouble you to hand me over the 
brandy, that I may correct the cold in my stomach, occasioned by 
drinking too much port. 

* Half a century ago, the firm of Camac, Kyan, & Camac became lessees 
of some Irish co])per-mines, and issued pennies and half-pennies bearing their 
names. These coins were commonly called " Camacs." — ^M. 



THE POLTHCB OP 1831. 127 

" And I too resigned ! 
" " How have things gone on since ? One comfort we have, that 
old Graffer Grey is found out. By the god of war, that ancient 
character used to crow over tis as if he was something far above 
small beer. And now that he is there, as Minister, it is evident 
to the meanest capacity that he is not a pitch beyond Goderich. 
And Althorp does not flourish ; and as for the rest, they are old 
hands, tried and rejected, except Jemmy Graham, who, as I said 
before, is not so great a warrior asHector of Greece. But it was 
not of that I was thinking. I'll make, if you please, one small pint 
tumbler of whiskey and water, because the hfeart within me is weak. 

" What I was going to say, is this. Can the country go on — I 
leave it to a reasonable man — unless there is a real management 
of affairs? Cut down! Cut down! Cut down! that's the low 
cry of them who know nothing. * Don't pension my lady this, and 
Mrs. that, and Mother t'other* — or, ' Oh ! — there's a lot too much 
money given to privy counsellors and members of Parliament, and 
other deserving characters.' What mean talk, what low talk, what 
dirty talk, what a filthy, shabby, beastly, good-for-nothing, villain- 
ous, and truly base set of creatures they are who say that 

" No — attack the King — he is great and rich, and can beai* it ; 
attack the church, because the parsons have no votes in the 
House ; grind the poor clerks, because they are slaves that must 
work ; pinch, squeeze, and starve the plebeians, because it's their 
business to be poor ; but the placemen, the honest placemen, the 
honorable placemen, the true-hearted placemen — they who have 
been always at their posts, and ready at the worst of times to vote 
for the worst of parties — never think of touching them, 

" We are ruined. Peel has no place, Groulburn has no place, 
the Dundases have only two hundred places among them, / have 
no place, Mrs. Arbuthnot has only £938, 125., 6<f., per annum ; 
Croker has no place, Twiss has nothing, Maurice Fitzgerald not a 
cross; there's Duncannon — he will, I hope, be kicked out of 
Kilkenny by the grateful people, of Ireland, in whose language 
there is no word to express ingratitude ; and at all events, what 
are his qualifications as compared with mine — and he has a place ! 

" Is this a country, or is it not ? — I think not." 

\Grxef here choked his tongue — the salt tears flowed over his venerable yttce-^" 
and, uttering a groan, he ivas silent.] ***** 



128 THE FSAMIUN PAPERS. 



THE LAY OF THE DISMAL CRAMP* 



Thet made him a bed that was wretchedly damp, 

And had reason that same to me, 
For he awoke in the night with a thundering cramp, 
And he thumped and he swore, and he kicked out the lamp. 

With a plague of a hilloa-ba-loo ! 

" Now mj lamp is out — not an inch can I see ! 

And snoring the dolts I hear; 
But short and not sweet their snooze shall be. 
And I '11 lock up the maid, and toss in the key 

To a butt of then- table-beer !" 

Away, with his dismal cramp, he sped, 

Though walking you 'd think a bore ; 
And onward he went, with a hop and a tread, 
Till he stood at the side of the innkeeper's bed. 

And he bellowed a terrible roar. 

* 

And the landlady, starting, began to break 

Her sleep, as he bawled in her ear ; 
Till she cried to mine host — from her dream awake — 

Ah what is the row 1 —sure did n't you spake, 

Or is it the divil, my dear ?" 



it 



Said the stranger, " You vixen ! my bed was damp, 

I '11 be curst if I pay you a screw ! 
And I 'ye locked up your maid, and kicked out the lamp. 
And you 're in the dark, and I 'm losing my cramp. 

So I'm off with A hilloa-ba-loo !" 



* In a quizzical article upon Dr. Bowring's translations, specimens of 
*' The Poetry of the Sandwich Islands," were given, and Moore's " Lay of 
the Dismal Swamp," was noted as " a namby-pamby dilution of a thought 
suggested by the perusal of a Hawaiian poet," of whose lyric the aboye wr^ 
quoted as a translation. — M. 



THE DEATH OJ^ MAPOLEON. 129 



THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON. 

•T IS over ! — the spirit hath fled. 

That kept the wide worid in amaze ; 
Like a pine-tree all withered and dead ; 

Like a comet all shorn of its rays. 
Oh ! who could have omened of yore. 

When that comet blazed fierce thro' the sky, 
That its circuit so soon should be o'er, — 

That, 'mid shadow and shame, it should die ;— 
That the glory which blinded all eyes that it met, 
Li haze should decline, and in darkness should set 1 

Like an arrow that twangs from the bow, 
To ascend the blue depths of the sky, 
Passes over the cloud's snowy brow. 

And mocks the vain gaze of the eye, — 
Like the eagle that mightily soars 

On the far-bearing wings of the blast. 
Till earth and its vanishing shores 

Have receded, like things of the past, — * 
Wert thou, dread Napoleon, now lulled to thy rest, 
'Mid an isle of the main, with a stone on thy breast 

With thy thunders did tremble the world. 

And thrones at thy bidding did bow j 
And thy banner, wherever unfurled. 

Shone triumphantly still to o'erthrow ; 
Like a tree from the front of the steep. 

Looking down o'er the forests afar ; 
Like dark Teneriffe, shooting up from the deep. 

That kisses its feet with a jar ; 
So proud didst thou rise o'er the kingdoms of earth. 
While they crouched at thy feet, joining trembling with mirth. 



ISO THE FBAEISIAN PAPERS. 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES-* 

THOMAS MOOBE. 

No. L 

" Much thoa hast said, which I know when 
And where thou BtoFst from other men, 
(Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts 
Are all bnt plagiary shifts/') — ^Butubr's HtuKbras, 

We are told that Queen Elizabeth, incensed at Hayward's 
Life and Reign of Henry IV., asked Lord Bacon whether " there 
was any treason in it ?" He answered, " No, madam ; for treason, 
I cannot deliver my opinion that there is any ; but very much fel- 
ony !" Tbe Queen, apprehending such criminality, gladly asked, 
" How, and wherein ?" Bacon answered, " Because he hath sto- 
len many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus." 
So, were the voluminous productions of Thomas Moore, with his 
multifarious aliases, subjected to the severe ordeal of critical jus- 
tice, we apprehend the award would be pronounced somewhat in 
the spirit of Bacon's decision upon Hayward : " For poetry, we 
cannot deliver our opinion that there is any, but very much plagia- 
rism, because he hath stolen many of his sentences, and all his 
conceits out of preceding poets." To show the estimation in 

^ This first portion of an article which caused great sensation on its publi- 
cation, and was said to have so much irritated Tom Moore as to have induced 
him to consult his friends on the propriety of challenging Maginn (its known 
author) to the dudloy appeared in Fraser for August, 1831. The second part 
was not published until the foUowiug December. Some of the materials of 
these particular articles had been given to the world several years before, in 
the John Bull newspaper, where, however, they were so hidden in the mass of 
personally political attacks on the leading Whigs as to have then and there 
met with little notice. — ^M. 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 181 

which such petty larcenies were held in the olden time, it may be 
sufficient, in this place, to refer to Sir Philip Sidney, who, in his 
Astrophel and Stella^ thus denounces the certainty of their expo- 
sure : — 

" You that poor Petrarch's long deceased woes, 
With new-bom sighs and wit disguised sing, 
You take wrong wUys ; those far-fet helps being such, 
As do bewray a want of inward touch. 
And surCj at length, stolen goods do come to light." 

— And well deserving the attention of such poetical pilferers — 
the " family men," who migrate from Grub-street to the purlieus 
of Parnassus — was the advice of Martial, as we find it homelily 
translated in the preface to GartwrigMs Poems, where it is ex- 
hibited, just as a caution to marauders, like a notice displayed for 

the benefit of poachers and trespassers, that spring-guns are set in 
this plantation : — 

" He that repeats stolen verse, and for fame looks. 
Must purchase silence, too, as well as books." 

It is not our intention, at this moment, to enter into any discus-r 
sion of the principles with reference to which the question of pla- 
giarism should be considered, or upon which it should be decided. 
Bishop Kurd's admirable Discourse upon Poetical Imitation com- 
prises within itself the Statute Law of the Realm of Literature, 
with reference to this species of offence — to which custom seems 
to have given the property of nature in our days. In almost 
every pseudo-poet, we are reminded of that description of Autoly* 
con wit so happily exhibited in the Optic Glass of Humors ! 

** An Autolycon wit is in our threadbare humorous Cavalieroes, who, 
like chap-fallen hackneys, feed at others' rack and manger ; never 
once glutting their minds with the heavenly ambrosia of speculation ; 
— whose brains are the very brokers' shops of all ragged inventions, 
or rather be the block-houses of all cast and outcast pieces of poetry. 
These be your pick-hatch curtezan-wits, that merit, after their de- 
cease, to be carried in Charles-wain. They be termed, not laureate 
but poets loreat, that are worthy to be jerked with the lashes of the 
wittiest epigrammatists. These are they that, like to roving Dunkirks, 
or robbing pirates, sally up and down in the printer's ocean, wafted to 



lo2 THE FRASEBIAK PAPERS. 

and fro with the inconstant wind of an idle, light brain ; who (if aiy 
new work that is lately come out of press, as a bark under sail, fraught 
wi:h any rich merchandize, appear unto them,) do play upon it oft 
wi:h their silver pieces, board it incontinently, ransack it of every 
r:oh sentence, cull out all the witty speeches they can find, appropri- 
a:::;^ them to their own use : to whom, for their wit, we will give such 
an ap:*lau$e as once Homer did unto Autolycns, who praised him high- 
ly for cunning thiever\-, and for setting a jolly acute accent npoa 
a:i oa:h.'* 

Drydon, in his £ssa^ oh Dramatic Poesie, says of Ben Jensen, 
that •• he wa-* deeply oonversjint in the ancients, both Greek and 
Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them. There is scarce a 
(KX't or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom 
he h;\s not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has dene 
his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed 
bv anv law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what 
would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him.'* Now here 
we have the tnumph. the pure and unsullied triumph of genius, 
which does but assert its own prerogative in rendering the intelli- 
gence of past ages tributary to its success ; whilst it presents a 
brilliant contrast to the petty-larceny spirit of " Autolycon wit,** 
such as we are now about to trace through all its " winding bouts,** 
in the sing-song lucubrations of Tom Moore. 

What Dr. Johnson, in his lifie of Cowley, said of metaphysical 
poets, may, with equal truth and justice, be applied to that class 
of imaf/e-moiigers, of whom Mr. Moore must be pronounced the 
chief par excellence, *' No man could be bom a metaphysical 
poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer by descriptions copied 
from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by tra- 
ditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, 
and volubility of syllables." And yet, upon such grounds, and 
upon such grounds only, rest all Mr. Moore's pretensions to the 
notoriety he enjoys, and to the distinction which he would arro- 
gate by vii-tue of Lord Byron's ironical compliment of being 
*'the poet of all circles." — Take away from the Lansdowne 
Laureat the " readiness of rhyme," and " volubility of syllables,** 
and we defy him, even in a more elaborate review of his own 
vorks than ever he wrote and published in the Edinburgh^ to esr 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 138 

tablish his claim, through Epic, Ode, Epistle, Ballad, Madrigal, 
Canzonet, or Sonnet, to one thought purely and simply inspired 
by the genius of poetry — one description of natural scenery or 
natural objects copied from nature, and not from other descrip- 
tions — one imitation of things in " heaven above, or in the earth 
beneath, or in the waters under the earth," that he has not bor- 
rowed from other imitations — one image that is not traditional — 
one simile that is not hereditary. — To that simple test do we now 
propose to subject all that ever Mr. Moore has written ; and as 
the task necessarily imposes some diflSculty upon him, we will 
spare his blushes, and by the citation of many instances endeavor 
to prove (as Mr. Ellis has said of R. Barron) that " whatever is 
poetical in him appears to be pilfered from other writers." — As a 
prelude to our " labor of love," we select a little epigram, which 
though not writien upon him, yet, by a singular coincidence in 
the name, and in the felicity with which his peculiar characteris- 
tics are hit off — fits him as though the epigrammatists had taken 
the measure of his merits : — 

"Moore always smiles whenever he recites ; 
(He smiles, you think, approving what he writes,) 
And yet in this no vanity is shown, 
A modest man best likes what 's not his own." 

" The expression of two writers," observes Dr. Hurd, " may be 
similar, and sometimes even identical, and yet be original in both." 
This is no doubt true ; but not less true is the subsequent declara- 
tion of the same eminent authority, that " coincidences of a cer- 
tain kind, and in a certain degree, can not fail to convict a writer 
of imitation." It is not, therefore, upon any general phraseological 
resemblance that we mean to ground our present charges ; but 
upon coincidences of the " certain kind," and in the " certain de- 
gree," which can not fail to carry conviction with them. 

Mr. Moore, indeed may start up some ludicrous ideality — some 
home-bred Fadladeen — to evade these charges; or he may "beg 
the question," with an affected air of indignant surprise, at being 
thus arraigned of what Johnson calls " one of the most reproach- 
ful, though not, perhaps, the most atrocious of literary crimes." 
He may recapitulate what he has abeady said in defence of By- 



134 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

ron — of whom, a word or two anon — and he may tell na, that 
*^ to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of 
plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says in that 
most agreeable work, his Lives of the Novelists — ^ It is a &Tor- 
ite theme of laborious dulness to- trace such comddences, because 
they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual 
standard of humanity ; and, of course, to bring the author nearer 
to a level with his critics.' " In Mr. Moore's case we have no fear 
of outraging sensibility by " reducing genius of a higher order," 
— for we have yet to learn that the mere profession of a song- 
writer — which is all the fame to which Mr. Moore is justified in 
aspiring — has any thing to do with the higher elements of genius. 
But our proofs rest, as we persuade ourselves, upon incontrover- 
tible grounds; — upon the establishment not only of general 
points of resemblance, but upon the appropriation of thoughts, 
images, and words ; descending from the spoliation of mental at- 
tributes to the pilfering of the very verbiage in which these attri- 
butes were clothed. 

In order to ** begin with the beginning," we must open Litde's 
Poems with as tender and delicate a hand as may be. But there 
we have plagiarisms too palpable and abundant to be overlooked. 
At page 5, we have some lines, modestly addressed, as usual : — 



"TO MRS. 



" If joys from sleep I borrow, 

Sure thou 'It forgive me this ; 
For he who wakes to sorrow, 
At least may dream of bliss ! 
« « « « 

Wilt thou forgive my taking 

A kiss — or something more ? 
What thou deny'st me waking, 
I sure may slumber o'er." 



Now, what is this but an amplification of tlie following ? — 

" Since then I, waking, never may possess, 
Let me in sleep at least enjoy the bliss, 
And sure nice Virtue can 't forbid me this." — J. Oldham, 



POETICAL PLAGIABIES. 185 

The " sportive conceit of ' looking babies in the eyes^ was im- 
agined perhaps before, and certainly since Herrick wrote." So 
says the editor of Select Poems from the Hesperides; and, in 
proof thereof, he cites a passage from Drayton, and another fix)m 
Moore, under his earliest alias of Little. The origin of the sim- 
ple image, may be traced in our language to a much earlier peri- 
od than that in which Drayton wrote ; but the sensuality where- 
with Little, alias Moore, has invested an otherwise playful and 
naturaUy pure idea, is his own ; a^ we shall find, by tracking it 
down from the time of Henry VIII. to the " young Catullus of 
his day." 

" In each of her two crystal eyes 
Smileth a naked boy. — Anon. temp. Henry Vlll. 

" So when thou saw'st in nature's cabinet 
Stella, thou straight look'st babies in her eyes." 

Sir P. Sydney. Astrophd and Stella. 

" In her eye I find 

A wonder, or a wondrous miracle, 
The shadow of myself formed in her eye." 
^ Shakespeare. King John, 

" Eye to eye opposed 

Salutes each other with each other's form." 

Ibid. Troilus and Cressida. 

" Look in mine eyeballs where thy beauty lies." 

Ihid. Venus and Adonis. 

" Wish but for beauty, and within thine eyes 
Two naked Cupids amorously shall swim." 

Decker. Fortunatus, 

" My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, 
And two plain hearts do in the faces rest." 

Donne. The Goodmorrow. 

" And pictures in our eyes to get 
Was all our propagation." — The Ecstacy. 

" To look gay babies in your eyes, young Roland." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. The Tamer tamed. 



" They are not wise, 

liOok babies only in her eyes." 

T. Randolph. Pastoral Courtship, 



136 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

" So where little Capid lies. 
Looking babies in the eyes." — Dn^fttm. 

'* Be sure when jon come into company, that yon do not stand staring ths 
men in the face as if yon were making babies in' their eyes." 

Visions of Qaeoeio, 



« 



They coy, then kisse and coll, lye, and look babies in each other's eyes." 
BurtoH*$ Anatomy of Mdcmekoly, part 3, sec. 2, m. 5, f . 5. 

" Yon blame me too, because I can 't devise 
Some sport to please those babies in yonr eyes." 

Herrick, To his Mistress, 

" Or those babies in your eyes. 
In their crystal nonneries." — Ihid, To Virgins. 

'* It is an active flame that flies 
First to the babies in yonr eyes." — Ibid. I%e Kiss. 

" Be cnrions in pursuit of eyes 
To procreate new loves with them." — HabingUm. 

" She thinks that babes proceed from mingling eyes." 

Sir W. Davenant. GondSberU 

" Thus did she peep in mine 
Eyes' humor christaline, 
I in her eyes was seen." — J. Cleveland, Mark Anthony. 

" When I look babies in thine eyes, 
Here Venus — there Adonis lies." — Ibid. Hermaphrodite. 

" Of when I look I may descry 
A little face peep through that eye." — Carew. The Dart. 

" Look in my eyes, my blushing fair, 
Thou 'It see thyself reflected there j 
And as I gaze on thine, I see 
Two little miniatures of me. 
Thus in our looks some propagation lies. 
And we make babies in each other's eyes." — Little. Impromptu* 

" 'Tis not that cradled in thine eyes 
The baby Love for ever lies, 
In cradles bathed with dew.'' — Strangford*$ Camoens. 

" Soft o'er my brow, which kindled with their sighs. 
Awhile they played ; then gilding through my eyes. 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 187 

Where the bright babies for a moment hung 
Like those thy lip has kist ; thy lyre hath sang/* 

Mocre. Grecian Girl's Dream, 

" Those sunk eyes 

Where once, had he thus met her by suiprise, 
He would have seen himself, too happy boy ! 
Keflected in a thousand lights of joy." 

l^om^e. Lalla Bookh, Veiled Prophet, 

TEARS AND BLUSHES. 

" Spare thou thy tears, for I will weep for thee, — 
And keep thy countenance, for I will blush for thee." 

Heytoood. A Woman killed with Kindness, 

" Then, if thou blush, that blush be mine." — LittU, To Julia* 

THE METAMORPHOSE. 

" Lucretia. — Toto sis licet usque die. 
Thaida. — ^Nocte volo." 

. " There 's a passion, a pride. 
In our sex, she replied. 
And thus, I might gratify both, I would do ; 
Still an angel appear to each lover beside, 
But still be a woman to you." 

Pamdl. Ballad on Beauty, 



€t 



If you think by this coldness and scorning 

To appear more angelic and bright. 
Be an angel, my love, in the morning. 

But, oh, be a woman to-night." — Little. Song, 

LOTS LIKE THE SEA. 

" Drowned by love. 
That drew them forth with hopes as smooth as were 
Th' unfaithful waters he desired them prove." 

B, Jonson, Masque, 

** Love still has something of the sea. 

From whence his mother rose ; 
No time his slaves from doubt can free, 

Or give their hearts repose. 
They are becalmed in clearest days, 

And in rough weather tost ; 
They wither under cold delays, 

Or are in tempest lost." — Sir C, Sedley, 



188 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEaSS. 

" Like one who trasts to sammer skies. 

And puts his little baik to ses. 
Is he who, lured by smiling eyes, » 

Consigns his simple heart to thee. 
For fickle is the summer's wind, 

And sadly may the bark be tost. 
And thou art sure to change thy mind. 

And then the wretched heart is lost." — lAtth, To Rosa, 

Even in sporting with an absurd quibble of the schools, Mr. 
Moore seeks for a poetical precedent, and adheres to it au pied de 
la lettre : — 

" And hangs his soul upon as nice 
And subtle curiosities. 
As one of that vast multitude 
That on a needle's point have stood." — Butler. Satires. 

" The angels shall help me to wheedle, 
I *11 swear upon every one 
That e'er stood on the point of a needle." — LitUe, Song. 

For the conceit of one of the most popular of his early 
ballads — " Friend of my soul, the goblet sip," — he was indebted 
to Cowley: — 

" Here 's to thee, Dick, this whining love despise ; 
Pledge me, my friend, and drink till thou be'st wise, 

It sparkles brighter far than she : 
'Tis pure and right without deceit. 

And such no woman e'er will be : 
No, they are all sophisticate." — Cowley. 

" Friend of my soul ! the goblet sip, 
'Twill chase that pensive tear ; 
'Tis not as sweet ^ woman's lip. 
But oh, 'tis more sincere." — Litt/e. Anacreontic. 

Suckling and Sedley — congenial spirits ! were the models upon 
which he first attempted to form his style of amatory poetry ; but 
the pupil transcended the first of his masters in impurity, as much 
as he fell below the second in elegance and grace. — From both 
he concocted one epigram : 

" Then think I love more than I can express. 
And would love more, could I but love thee less." — Suckling, 



POETICAL PLA6IABIES. 189 

" An hundred thousand oaths your fears. 
Perhaps would not remove ; 
And if I gazed a thousand years, 
I could no deeper love."— /Sir C Sedley, 

" Si je n'avois quo dix-huit ans, 
Jo pouvois aimer plus long temps, 
Mais non pas aimer d'avantage." 

M. le Due de Nivemois, 

" Chloris, I sweiQ: by all I ever swore, 
That from this hour I can not love you more. 
* What love no more ? Oh, why this altered vow '* 
Because I can not love thee more — than now \" 

Little. The Surprise. 

The Garland, beginning " Thou hast sent me a flowery band," 
was evidently suggested by Ben Jonson's exquisite song, " I sent 
thee late a rosy wreath;" — and the Catalogue is but a maudlin 
antf vicious imitation of Cowley's poem of the Chroniclcy and 
Herrick's Loss of his Mistress, 

TEARS TRANSFORMED TO PEARLS. 

" Is any cozened of a tear, 
Which as a pearl disdain might wear ?" — J. Lylie. Song. 

** Then with a smile the healing balm bestows, 
And sheds a tear of pity o'er their woes. 
Which as it drops some soft-eyed angel bears. 
Transformed to pearls, and in his bosom wears." 

Sir W. Jones. Selitna. 

• 

" A warm tear gushed, the wintry air 
Congealed it as it flowed away ; 
All night it lay an ice-drop there. 
At mom it glittered in the ray. 

An angel wandering from her sphere. 

Who saw this bright, this frozen gem. 
To dew-eyed Pity gave the tear 

And hung it on her diadem." — Little. The Tear, 

The song we are now about to quote, may have been suggested 
by the closing line of Goldsmith's exquisite stanzas, " When love- 
ly woman stoops to folly :" but be that as it may, it j^mished 
Moore with materials for a ballad of whining sentimentality : — 



140 



** 5iBf tifeOL — since joa will boi bdietre. 
The staroB}^ tear, nor rinBg HKi^a 
Bus one {voof nan I liBTe to giv^ 

HowwclIIloTeTo«~'tistodiB.''— ;^jioii. Sotig. 1786. 



" If all TOOT fieader fiuth it o'er. 
If stai mT tnah Tou'd trr: 

« m m ' 

ALw» I know bat one proof nan — 
I II bless TOUT name, and die."— ZtJOfs. Stmg. 

J£ the atoms of nioralitj to be fixmd amid the gross Hoentioiisness 
of these poems, were *^ as two grams of wheat hid in two bnsheb 
of chaC** we maj form some nodoa of their originalUy from the 
Ibllowing specimen : — 

"■ Oa the Tist ocean of his wooden here. 
We momentarr babbles tide. 
Till crashed br the tempestaooB tide. 

Sank in the parent flood we disappear." — Fatom. Oefe. 

« 

'' AH forms diat perish, other forms sopplj, 
( Br tarns we catch te rital breadi, amd die,) 
Like bobbles on the sea of matter borne, 
Thej rise, ther break, and to that sea return." 

Pope. EMmjf im Mam, "p. III. 

"A smoke ! a flower! a shadow ! and a breadi ! 
Are real things ctHnpared with life and death ; 
Like babbles on the sea of life thej pass. 
Swell, burst, and mingle with the common mass." — S. Bofu. 

" And the babbles that float on the rirnlet of life, be lost in the golf of ete^ 
nitv." — Dr. Johnson. IdUr, Xo. 90. 

" See how beneath the moonbeam's smile. 

Ton little billow heares its breast. 
And foams and sparkles for awhile 

And mnrmoring then subsides to rest. 
Thus man, the sport of bliss and care, 

Bises on Time's eventful sea. 
And baring swelled a moment there, 

Thus melts into eternity." — LiaU. Reflection at Sea. 

Would we behold a pure image defaced and stained by the wan- 

-«wttH»8^ of the sensualist, whose thoughts are divided between the 

;%ij.4^K^ lulmunuion of some drunken demirip's withering charms, 

•rs-, . iM us(»irtug fumes of the "genial bowl," let us turn to the 



POETIGAL FLAGIABIEB* 141 

contrasted portraits of innocent love, anticipating the decay of 
youth and loveliness, and the intoxicated fervor of Little's lustful 
or^es : — 

" To me, fair friend, you never can be old, 
For as you were when first your eye I eyed. 
Such seems your beauty still." — Shakespeare. Sonnet civ. 

" So shall I court thy dearest truth, 

When beauty ceases to engage ; 
So thinking o'er thy charming youth, 

I '11 live it o'er again in age : 
So time itself our rapture shall improve, 
While still wo wake to joy, and live to love !"— Prtor. (Xfc. 

" The moments past, if thou art wise, retrieve. 
With present memory of the bliss they gave. 
The pleasant hours in present mirth employ. 
And bribe the future with the hopes of joy." — Ibid. 

*' Time, though he steals the roseate bloom of youth. 
Shall spare the charms of virtue and of truth ; 
And on thy mind new charms, new blooms, bestow." 

«/. Duncombe, The Feminead, 

" No age or wrinkles should incline him to change, i^r her soul would be 
always beautiful and always young — he should have an eternal idea in the 
mind of the charms she now bore ; and should look into her heart for that 
idea, when he could find it no longer in her face." 

Aphra Behn. Orcnooko to Imoinda, 

" Now, as with fairy-footed tread. 
Time ^als our years away. 
Thy mildly-beaming beauties spread. 

Soft influence o'er life's way; 
Insuring to our peaceful shed 
Love's bliss without decay !" 

Clifford. V. Notes on TixcdVe Poetry. 

*' When Time who steals our years away. 

Shall steal our pleasures too. 
The memory of the past will stay. 

And half our joys renew. 
Then talk no more of future gloom ; 

Our joys shall always last ; 
For Hope shall brighten joys to come. 

And Memory gild the past ! 



142 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

Come, Chloe ! fill the genial bowl, 

I drink to love and thee : 
Thou never canst decay in soul, 

Thou'lt still be young for me !" — Little. Sang. 

With one more instance, vfe close — and gladly — this first 
volume of Mr. Moore's luxuriant imaginings : — 

•* If any ask why roses please the sight? 

Because their leaves upon thy cheeks do blow. 
If anv ask whv lilies are so white ? 

Because their blossoms in thy hand do blow. 
Or why sw^t plants so gratefhl odors shower ? 
It is because thy breath so like they be. — 
Or why the orient sun so bright we see ? 
What reason can we give but fh)m thine eyes and thee V* 

Giles Fletcher. Christ's Victory. 

** Nor did I wonder at the lilies white 

Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose ; 
They were but sweet, sweet figures of delight, 
Drawn after thee, thou pattern of all those." 

Shakespeare. Sonnet. 

" Why does azure deck the sky ? 
*T is to be like thy looks of blue. 
Why is red tlio rose's dye ? 

Because it is thy blushes' hue. 
All that 's fair, by Love's decree, 
Has been made resembling thee." — Little. Song, 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES^ 143 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 

THOMAS MOOBE. 

No. n. 

" Eiron. Has not my friend approved himself a poet ? 

Alazon. The verses, sir, are excellent ; but your friend 
Approves himself a thief. 

Eiron. Why, good Alazon ! 

Alazon. A plagiary, I mean : the verses, sir, 

Are stolen " 

T. Bandolfh, The Muses* Loohtng- Glass. 

After an unavoidable adjournment of the cause from the Au- 
gust term, we now proceed to open the second count of the indict- 
ment for poetical piracy, which, as in duty bound, we have pre- 
ferred against Thomas Moore, in Banco Regin^ — the Queen's 
Oo2irt of wit and poesy. 

In thus putting " the poet of all circles " on the trial of his 
country, we were well aware of the difficulty with which we had 
to contend in finding in these degenerate days a jury of his peers 
— twelve bards worthy of deciding between the sovereign, Apollo, 
and "the panel" [to use the phrase of the Scotch court of session, 
which sounds so much more harmonious and humanized " to ears 
polite" than our brutal Old Bailey terms of " culprit," or " prisoner 
at the bar"], and yet divested of partiality or prejudice on a ques- 
tion in which all the predominant passions of the " genus irritahile 
vatum" are so " tremblingly alive all over," being, at this time of 
day, " past praying for." Had not the prudence of our ancient 
legislators wisely excluded females from the jwry-box, we never 
should have brought the cause into court ; for, though the delin- 
quent might be sure of a fair trial, we well know how slight our 
chance would be that the fair jurors should fair and " true ver- 



144 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

diet give.'* We accordiuglj put ourselves and the acciued on 
the countrv at Lir«re. 

We anuouslv refrain from pressing more hardlj upon Mr. 
Moore than the strict justice of the case requires ; and jet, evoi 
if we did seek to prejudice the tribunal against him, bj invectiYe, 
!:areasm. or irony, we know no little gentleman who could by any 
IH)ssibiIity have less cause of complaint, or still less claim to sym- 
pnttiy or coznmisemtion, than the inveterate humorist who maybe 
.<:rul lo have tickled poor Lord Thurlow's muse to death with the 
^:ooti-n:i:ureil niillery of his criticism in the Edinburgh Review, 

We have already sufficiently explained the principle which 
actuates and intluencos us in estimating the quality, the extent, 
and the puqwses of plagiarism ; and, as in the case of Ben Jonson, 
expressed our unequivocal admiration of those gifted spirits whose 
genius '* renders the iuteUigence of past ages tributary to its sno- 
cess." But we are disposed to go still farther, and to honor with 
n reverence little inferior to that which inspiration claims, the labor 
of the jHH't, who, having explored the mines of foreign intellectual 
ore.* devotes himself to the glorious task of enriching his coimtry's 
tn^asury of words and thoughts — her language — ^with tibe 
brightest and tho rarest gems, the diamonds which his own hands 
have raked from their native bed, and washed in the streams of 
llelictni.t lias Mr. Moore distinguished himself by any such ex- 
alted ambition ? Has he devoted his talents, his literary attain- 
ments, and ohissicil acquirements — of which he makes no ordinal}' 
parade — to so oxooUent, and, indeed, we may well say, to so pa- 
triotic a purpose? Lot his works answer the question. And if 
w«> tnn'o his perlbnnances, from the first page of Little*$ licen- 
tit>iisiiess dtnvn to the last line of his last new song, we shall find 
thMt his has been no generous effort to add to his country's stores 
of knowledgt\ science, thought, or fancy; or to improve the moral 

* It is n lalwr of lovo, and " it is worth the labor to know with whom sach 
preat wits used to converse, to point to the mines from which they dig th^ 
ore, nnd to the shadows where thev repose at noon."— Gilbert Watts, 
Introduction to littctm's AdiiJucemcnt and Pi ojiciencu of Learning. 

t " Imitations, when ival and confessed, may still have their merit; nay, 
I pnesumo to add. sometimes a greater merit than the very originals on which 
they are formed." — Hurd, Discourse on Poetical Imitation. 



POETICAL PLAGIABIES. 146 

and intellectual condition of his countrymen. We have shown of 
what material his first little lucubrations were composed ; and we 
defy the most conciliating critic — if "conciliation" must be the 
order of the day in criticism as well as politics — to designate, hia 
early lyrics otherwise than as fit offerings for lust to lay upon the 
shrine of vice. His Anacreon, which gave him an ephemeral 
classic celebrity, was but an adapted, or rather a remodelled, com- 
pilation fh)m all preceding translators, deriving the appearance of 
novelty, and whatever other merit it possessed, from the barefaced 
spoliator of his immediate predecessor in the task — George Ogle. 

We shall not now follow up an analytical view of his writings ; 
but content ourselves, for the present, with observing that, in all^ 
he has given us the images of our own poets at second hand ; the 
gems of classic price scattered through his pages, had before been 
rendered precious in our eyes by the pure, unsullied lustre in 
which the elder masters of the lyre gloried in displaying them, 
without any effort at appropriation. 

In Pope's correspondence with his friend William Walsh — 
himself a poet, shd the patron of poets — there is a very interest- 
ing passage on the subject of plagiarism, which we may as well 
transcribe for the edification of Mr. Moore, giving him the benefit 
of a note or two, by way of illustration, as we get on. 

"I would beg your opinion as to another point ; it is, how far 
the Hberty of borrowing may extend ? I have defended it some- 
times by saying, that it seems not so much the perfection of sense 
to say things that have never been said before, as to express those 
best that have been said oftenest" — [but even this " defence," as 
Pope calls it, so far from availing Moore anything, only plunges 
him deeper in the quagmire ; for he not only says nothing that had 
not been said before, but says nothing half so well as it had been 
said before, even by the le^t poetical of his predecessors ; he frit- 
ters away the original beauty of every image that he borrows, and 
leaves u^ nothing but a poor and paltry imitation] ; " and that 
writers," continues the bard of Twickenham, " in the case of bor- 
rowing from others, are like trees, which of themselves would pro- 
duce only one sort of fruit, but by being grafted upon others may 
yield variety." [Now, in this grafting affair, we suspect Mr. 
Moore comes worse off than in the image-stealing ; for when he 

10 



146 ' THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

does succeed in putting forth one *' flower of song," he remincb 
us of nothing in nature but a stunted crabtree on which roses 
had been grafted.] ^^ A mutual commerce," adds the advocate 
of the petty-larcenj gentlemen, ^' makes poetry flourish ; but then 
poets, like merchants, should repay with something of their own 
what they take from others ;* not like pirates, ms^e prize of all 
they meet" [And to which class does Moore belong? With 
what treasure of his own does he repay all that he so rapaciously 
snatches fh)m others ? Is he the merchant, or the pirate ? In a 
word, is he the man of genius, or the Autolycon wit ?] 

But we can afford the ^' poet of all circles" something ; and we 
are generous. In addition to Pope's exculpation, he shall have 
the benefit of Mr. Walsh's pleading, which, after all, was only a 
friendly encouragement to Pope, who deprecated his censure, and 
invited his sanction of the practice, by the ingenuousness with 
which he begged the question. " I desire you to tell me sincerely 
if / have not stretched this license too far in these pastorals ?* 
Now, what could the most surly cynic — the most inveterate critic 
reply to this, but as Walsh did, by good-naturedly saying, " The 
best of the modern poets in all languages are those that have the 
nearest copied the ancients. Indeed, in all the common subjects 
of poetry, the thoughts are so obvious (at least if they are natu- 
ral, that whoever writes last must write things like what have 
been said before." [But here we must observe, that, in the first 
place, Moore does not " copy the ancients ;" he does not drink 
from the fountain-head; but sips frqm the margin, after many 
hands have troubled the waters. And in the second, his " thoughts," 
even in " the common subjects of poetry," are rather quaint con- 
ceits, than " natural thoughts."] " 'Tis true, indeed," Mr. Walsh 

goes on — "when 

' Unu8 et alter assuitur pannus,' 

when there are one or two bright thoughts stolen, and all the rest 
is quite different from it, a poem makes a very foolish figure ; but 
when 'tis all melted down together, and the gold of the ancients so 

* How well and how truly was it observed of Bacon, that, " As for humane 
authors, he betters his borrowings from them ; teaching the allegations out 
of them a sense above the meaning of him that lent it him ; and which he 
repaies, too, with double interest for what he borrows." — Gilbxrt Watts. 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 147 

mixed with that of the modems that none can distinguish^ the one 
from the other, I can never find fault with it." [No, nor any- 
body else, where the gold really is. But such "ware" as Tom 
Moore pahns upon mankind as the sterling ore — oh, 'tis mon- 
strous ! We would as soon set brilliants in M*Phail's mosaic, or 
amethysts in plated pinchbeck, as look for the amalgamation of 
"the gold of the ancients" with the tinsel of Tom Moore.] 

Having thus "opened our case" we proceed to produce our 
documentary evidence ; beginning with the American Odes, 9to, 

The image of " the flying flsh," as applied to moral action, oc- 
curs in Swift's satire upon the Sauth Sea Project : 

" So fishes, rising from the malDy 

Can soar with moistened wings on high ; 
The moisture dried, they sink again, 
And dip their wings again to fij." 

Hear how Moore handles it : 



tt 



Ohf Virtue I when thy clime I seek. 

Lei not my spirifs flight be weak; 

Liet me not, like this feeble thing. 

With brine still dropping fiom its wing, 

Just sparkle in the solar glow. 

And plunge again to depths below.** — ^Moobb, Epistles, Odes, fre. 

LIPS LIKE CHERRIES. 

" So may the cherries red 
Of Mint's lip divide 
Their sugared selves to kiss thy happy head." 

Sir p. Sidney, Arcadia. 

" Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow." 

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night*s Dream. 

** So we grew together, like to a double cherry seeming parted." 

Id. Ibid, 



tt 



'Tis as like you as cherry is to cherry." — Id, Henry VIIL 

' I saw a cherry weep — and why ? 

Why wept it, but for shame 
Because my Julia's lip was by. 
And did out-red the same ?" 

Hbrriok, The Weeping Cherry. 



143 THE nUSEBlAN PAPBB8. 

Lik? ft rvia <iURT, cipe and Aw e U- "— C Lbftxxt, Sm^. 



** 3tr 'i9 — t/L .*!cu.'' mt mx /ilM-keartBd^ 
ySlm MCA 'S j^ 1/jmik ^ ^ Mf ■ ■ 
' TwBt Lam wnw nojcukf taury farted^ 

Juan :aix ju.'/. jmi wr »« notf.'^ — Mookb^ Tke BaeMamee 

lj^TT*i> lJLSC«rA«B MS THB XTB8. 

•^ Dotsz c^w HOC. Canum. read 
. Asocooi Tvlaaiei ia mr erea I 

IVca ai.v: tererr Bodoa plead 
Wsj;: I 'd 5iow. and TVt disguise 1 
SezLsi» ac? «a^*!t odier's pan, 
ET^Mv a$ :oc^es, reveal the heart." 

ELkBixGTOs, ArapkiU amd Gutam. 

" la BIT s£!nrk«, «* the lorer — 
Tttk love 15 br sHence knomi ; 
la QT eT» T^xi 11 best discoTer 
AIL Gh< power of jovr own." 

TrarndtOJumfrom. VoLTAlXB. 

*' Si^rbs wich 3a.*oMs their own soft passion tell, 
JL;^! <Tes shAlI aner what the lips conceaL" 

Qaxth, Epilogue to Colo, 

** } j« nwuf (f i.« my lingvid fjfes, 

Aihl t.VTY a^tfiu s.\:nt^d »<?or Kf reoJ ,• 

JLaJ thus a^cm sAottid loce he said." — Moobk, Ode to Nea, 

We have now before us an instance of how merely second-hand 
are Moore's most fantastical conceits; for after ransacking the 
fanciful ** Cardanus ** for a piece of exquisite fooling, we find him 
forestalled bj an obscure rhymer, in an almost forgotten Tolume. 



ti 



As when to make a pearl more pure. 



We give it to a dove, in whose womb pent 
Some time, we have it forth more orient." 

W. B., Elegy <m Sir T. (hmhury. 

" Just tu the beaks of playful doves 

Can give to pearls a smoother whiteness." 

MooKB, Dream ofAniiqtd^. 

Dr. Johnson sap, in the Rambler^ No. 143 — "No man can be 
fully coDTicted of imitation except there is a concurrenoe of more 



POETICAL PLAGIARIES. 148 

resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance ; 
as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series 
or necessary coherence, or where not only the thoughts but the 
words are copied." Now let us apply this standard to one page 
of Moore's ; taking it for granted, that in this sentence " the same 
ideas " do not mean merely a series of thoughts and images bor- 
rowed from any one individual writer, but ideas consecutively 
gathered from many. We do not suspect a writer of so much in- 
dustry and ingenuity as Thomas Moore — and one, moreover, so 
thoroughly versed in the art and mystery of book-making — of 
any thing half so silly as the expedient of extracting passages by 
wholesale, even from his most favorite and obscure repositories of 
thought and lore ; though we have fully established his indisputa- 
ble claim to all the honors of poetical piracy in little. In the se- 
lection we are now about to make from some verses, without a 
title, but addressed of course to his dingy Dulcinea, we have image 
upon image pressed into the service without any connexion what- 
ever, each borrowed from some distinct and separate source; 
stamped by the ** concurrence of more resemblance than can be 
imagined to have happened by mere chance," and in which " the 
same ideas are not conjoined by any natural series or necessary 
coherence," and " where not only the thoughts but the words are 
borrowed." Having shown those things, Moore must stand " fully 
convicted of imitation." 



tt 



Then like some wealthy island thou shalt ly, 

And like the sea about it, I ; 
Thou like fair Albion to the sailor's sight, 
Spreading her beauteous bosom all in white ; 

Like the kind ocean will I be. 
With loving arms for ever clasping thee." — Cowlbt, The Mistress, 



tt 



Ifl were yonder wave, my dear. 

And thou the isle it clasps around, 
I vxndd not let afoot come near 

My isle of bliss, my fairy ground.** — Moobb, Ode to Nea, 

" Not the Phoenix in his death, 

Nor those banks where violets grow. 
And Arabian winds still blow. 
Yield a perfume like thy l»«atii." — ^ETBBBiDaB. 



150 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

" Can any gnmms or spices stay 

Where thy breath sucked all sweets away? 
Since the admired phoenix nest 
Lyes all ingrossed in thy breast." 

TixALL FoETRT, To the Fair Indian, 

" Gums nor spice bring from the East^ 
For the phoenix in her breast 
Builds her funeral pile, and nest." — Cabbw. 

" But then thy breath! — Not all the fire. 
That lights the lone semenda^i* death, 
In eastern climes, eotdd e*er respire 
An odor like thy dulcet breath." — Moore, Ode to Nea. 

Our "young Catullus" was of course a privileged person 
amongst the black-browed and " black-eyed Katies of Hayti ;" but 
we should like to know in which of " the circles" he could presume 
to insinuate any such " odorous comparison " about the breath of 
lady fair, as we find him rubbishing up the flowers of Dryden's 
fancy to mask his own want of gallantry in doing. With " glori- 
ous John," the thought is exquisite ; in Moore's hands it becomes 
fade and — foul. 

" Madam, let me seal my love upon your mouth. Soft and sweet, by 
Heaven ! Sure you wear rose-leaves between your lips !" — Drtdbn, Secret 

Love, 

" I prithee on those lips of thine 

To wear this rosy leaf for me. 
And breathe of something not divine. 
Since nothing human breathes of thee I 

" All other charms of thine I meet 
In nature, but thy sigh alone ; 
Then take, oh I take, though not so sweet, 

The breath of roses for thine own." — MooRB, Ode to Nea, 

This is the very malaria of compliments. But, oh ! how im- 
measurably does the native gallantry of Herrick transcend Moore's 
most elaborate attempt to work up into his own jingle the pure 
thought he stole from the Hesperides ! 

** Some asked how pearls did grow, and where 1 
Then spoke I to my girl, 

* In a note on this verse, Moore says, " Caesar Scaliger seems to think the 
Bemenda bat another name for the phcenix." 



POEnOAL FLAQIABIBS. 161 

To part her lips, and show them there 
The quarrelets of pearl." 

Herrick, The Bock ofBubiea and the Quarry of Pearl, 

This is a picture from the life and to the life ; but mark how 
the Neamite distorts it bj conjuring up the aid of a " Snow-spirit** 
—to tell her 

" The down of his wing is as white as the pearl 
Thy lips for their cabinet stole" — Moors, J%e Snow Spirit. 

Moore can not even kiss ** sooty sweet lips" without consulting 

some ancient authority as to the most approved method of setting 

about it : 

" Fair Venus, with Adonis sitting hy her, 
Under a myrtle shade, hegan to woo him ; 
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her. 

And as he fell to her she fell unto him. 
' E'en thus,' quoth she, ' the amorous god embraced me !' 

And then she dipt Adonis in her arms : 
' E'en thus,' quoth she, * the god of war unlaced me ;' 

As if the boy should use like loving charms. 
' E'en thus,' quoth she, ' he seized on my lips ;' 
And with her lips on his did act the seizure." 

Shakespeare, Passionate PUgrim, IX, 



^ < 



tt 



Thou 6ee*st it is a simple youth 
By some enamoured nymph embraced; 

Looky Nea, love I and say, in sooth. 
Is not her hand most dearly placed f 

Upon his curled head behind 
It seems in careless play to lie 

Yet presses gently , half-inclined 
To bring his lip of nectar nigh. 

Imagine f love, that I am he. 

And just as warm as he is dulling; 
Imcu^ine, too, that thou art she. 

But quite as cold as she is willing. 

So may we try the graceful ivay 
In which their gentle arms are tunned, 

And thus, like her, my hand I lay 
Upon thy wreathed hair behind ; 

And thus I feel thee breathing sweet, 
As slow to mine thy head 1 move; 



152 THB FBASEBIAN PAFIB8. 

And thut our lips together meet, 
And — thus Ikus thee — ok, wjf Unoe!" 

MooBX, A Kiss d VAsdique, 

In a page or two farther on, we have him again borrowing from 

Dryden : 

" Oar life shall be bat one long naptial day. 
And like chafed odors melt in sweets away." 

Dbtdbk, Maiden QaeeiL 

** Andy like the bunU aroma, be 
Consumed in sweets auxty !" — MoOBS, Ode to Nea. 

In the '^ Grecian Girl's Bream" — a palpable plagiarism from 
Pope's " Sappho to Phaon" — we find a mere glance of the eye can 
not be described without precedent. 

** When angels talke, all their conceipts are brought 
From mind to mind, and they discourse by thought; 
A close idea moves, and silence flies 
To post the message, and dispatch replies." 

LiBWBLLiN, Satire on the King's Cabinet opened, 

" No aid of words unbodied thought requires. 
To waft a wish, or embassy desires ; 
But by a throb to spirts only given. 
By a mute impulse only felt in Heaven, 
Swifler than meteor-shajl through summer shies, 
From soul to soul tlie glanced idea flies" 

Moose, The Grecian Girrs Dream, 

Are his fair one's eyes to be likened to diamonds ? He has ex* 
ample for finding them in eastern rivers : 

" What need I Tyre for purple seek, 
When I may find it in a cheek ? 
Or seek the Eastern shore ? there lies 
• More precious diamonds in her eyes." 

J. Hall, Home JVavel, 

" If to fair India's coast I sail, 

Thine eyes are seen in diamonds bright." 

Gat, Black-Eyed Susan, 

" Those floating eyes that floating shine. 

Like diamonds in an eastern river," — Moobb, Anacreontic, 

Does he meet with some dowdy dowager, whom* it is politic to 
palaver? He rummages the Greek anthology [v. Brunch's Ana- 



POETICAL PLAGIARnSS. 168 

lecta, vol. iii. p. 73 ;] but, not trusting to his own translation, fol- 
lows his EngUsh guides, as usual : 

" No spring nor summer's beaaty hatii sach grace 
As I have seen in one autumnal face. 

# « * * 

Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from thence, 

He in a fever wishes pestilence ; 
Call not these wrinkles graves — if graves they were, 

They were Love's graves, or^lse he is no where. 

# # * * 

Here dwells he, though he sojourns everywhere. 

In progress, yet his standing house is here ; 
Here where still evening is, not noon, nor night. 

Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight. 

# * * * 

Since such Love's natural station is, may still 
My love descend, and journey down the hill ; 

Not panting after growing beauties, so 
I shall ebb on with them who homeward go." 

Donne, The Autumnal, 

" Of smoother cheeks the winning grace. 
As open forces I defy ; 
But in the wrinkles of her face, 
Cupids as in ambush lie." — Eabl of Bath. 



tt 



€t 



For me thy wrinkles have more charms, 

Dear Lydia ! than a smoother face ; 
I'd rather fold thee in my arms. 

Than younger, fairer nymphs embrace. 

To me thy autumn is more sweet, 

More precious than their vernal rose ; 
Their summer warms not with a heat 

So potent as thy wintry glows." 

Translation from Paul thb Silbntiabt. 

*' That wrinkUf when first 1 espied it. 
At once put an end to my pain. 
Till the cheek that uxis glowing beside it 
Disturbed my ideas again. 

" Thou art just in that twilight at present. 

When woman's declension begins; 

When fading from aU that is pleasant, 

She bids a good night to her sins. 



l»i 



nm boat iM dk mmm ^'mmaAa^.'—Moomm, To . 

Has srr idkle ^ect ooe ,pEced the bard, and then bantered him ? 
He oa zxoc abuse hfO- widbooc she aidof cneof our elder satirists : 






Or A dBGUF or m ipesr. 



He or ditf^ boT, prf, or naiher.* — J- Haix. 



« 



iSv K«c& afwioM, ifom teem to Mur, 

One £a0«s mot Kitre t^iaktytm; 
I pray fom^ if'tu mai tmjbr. 
Go euk ofmxtmre wrkiek jm are. 

Or wckat tie wktaM to make yea. 
Yetttay ♦ » » 

Pert as afemaUjfoelas weaU, 
As boy too fp^eiiy as yirl too staU, 

The thing *s iKtf irartA u^inrui^.''— MoOBS, To Mm — . 

Would he beg a kiss, and (^er to paj for it with a song ? He 
has Sidney bj heart, and paraphrases accordingly : 

Mj lips are sweet, inspired with Stella's kiss. 
* * * * 

Sweet smelling lip ! well mayest thoa swell with pride. 
Since best wits think it wit thee to admire ; 

4^ * * ■ * 

The new Pamassns, where the Moses bide, 
Sweetener of mnsic, wisdom's beantifier. 

* * ♦ # 

Thus much my heart compelled mj month to say. 

Bat now, spite of my heart, my mouth will stay. 

Loathing all lies, doubting this flattery is ; 
And no spur can his resty race renew. 

Without how far this praise is short in yon ; 

Sweet lip Y you teach my mouth with one sweet kiss." 

Sib p. SiDinETj Attrophd and StaUa. 



POETICAL PLAOIABIEB. 165 

That rosy mouth alone can bring 

What makes the bard divine : 
Ohf lady I how my lip tvould sing. 

If once U were pressed to thine I" — ^MooBB, To — — — .. 



When he finds his morality or his modesty endangered by the 
too fervent admiration of the fair, he flies to Musty old Grotius 
and Burton for protection : 

" Sic quo quis proprior Bum puellas est, 
Hoc stultos proprior suae ruinaB est." — Gbotius. 

" The nearer he unto his mistress is, 
The nearer he unto his ruin is." — Vide Bubton's Anat, Md. 

** Oh, thou art every instant dearer ; 

Every chance that brings me nigh thee. 
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer.*' — MooBB, To — — — , 

But it is not only in such amatory passages that he disports his 
gleanings. Even in the wilds and woods, he ^^ feeds upon the 
honey of other men's wit," and can not describe the most simple 
object in nature " out of book." 

" Through tops of the high trees she did descry 
A little smoke, whose vapor, thin and light, 
Beeking aloft uproUed to the sky ; 
Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight 
That in the same did wonne some living wight." — Spbnobb. 

" The plodding hind 
That homeward hies, kens not the cheering site 
Of his calm cabin, which, a moment past. 
Streamed from its roof an azure curl of smoke. 
Beneath the sheltering coppice, and gave sign 
Of warm domestic welcome fix>m his toil." — Mabots, Evening. 

" I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled 
Above the green elms that a cottage was near; 
And 1 said to myself, if there *s peace in this world, 
A heart that is humble might hope for it here." — Moobb, Song. 

At times, not content with the original theft, he reiterates the 
plagiarism: 

" Soft as the broken solar beam 
That trembles in the azure stream."-- Tasso, Armida. 



156 THE FRABEBIAN PAPEBS. 

** Through tnaruf a tyttem, when the ec d iUeted tij^ 
O/htarenly truth lay like a broken beam 
From the pure sun, which thou^ r^racted aU 
Into a thousand hues is sunshine itiU, 
And bright through every change." — ^MooRS, VUiom afPhUomapky, 

•* Yes, fir a spirit pure cu hers 
Is always pure, even wAcn t^ errs ; 
As sunshine, broken in the rill, 
Tl^ough turned astray, is sunshine still. — Id, Fire TFbnAtfpen. 

But the instance that follows presents a still more glaring ap- 
propriation. ]VIr. Moore, to be sure, with his usual tact, takes 
care to lure us from the true source, bj the affected candor of 
telling us, that — ^This fine Platonic image I have taken from a 
passage in Father Bouchet's Letter upon the Metemps7chosiB, in- 
serted in Picart's Cerem. Bel. tom. iv.^ The image comes to us 
second-hand, af\er all. 

** But if that pore desire, not blended with 
Fonl thooghts, that, like a river, keeps his coarse, 
Retaining still the clearness of the spring 
From whence it took beginning, maj be thought 
"VVortby acceptance ; then," &c. — Massinobr, Jlie Bondman. 

" Like streams, which in a long-continaed coarse 
Lose the first names of their original source ; 
Tct the same fountain doth these streams maintain. 
And they do the same waters still remain." — J. Bots. 

" Of the soul's untraceable descent 
' From that high fount of spirit, through the grades. 
Of intellectual being, till it mix 
With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark ; 
Nor even then, t/iough sunk in earthly dross, 
Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch 
Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still! 
As some bright river, which has rolled along 
Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold. 
When poured at length into the dusky deep. 
Disdains to mingle wiHi its briny taint. 
But keeps awhile the pure and golden tinge, 

27*6 balmy freshness of the fields it left.''—l/LooBE,VisionqfPkilo»ophy, 
The " mines of gold," and the " golden tinge," are bonowed 
fipom Dryden's Epistle to Lord Chancellor Hyde, 

** As streams tfaroagh mines bear tincture of their ore/' 



POETICAL PLAOIABIEB. 167 

In the simple ballad stanzas we never fail to be reminded of 
some bygone bard. Thus even his " Canadian Boat Song" was 
suggested by one of Andrew Marvell's songs. 

" Thus song they in the English boat 
A holj and a cheerful note ; 
And all the way, to guide their chime. 
With falling oars they kept the time." 

A. Mabvbll, The Emtgrant. 

** Faintly as toUa the evening chime, 

Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time** 

^ MooBB, Camidian Boat Song, 

Even in the eflfect of music, where he would have us believe he 
is in his own element, he is anticipated by old Allan Ramsay: — 

*' But when fair Christy this shall sing. 
In concert with the trembling string, 
Oh, then the poet 's often praised. 
For charms so sweet a voice hath raised." 

Allan Baksat, To Mrs, N- . 

" Then listening, lady, while thy lip hath sung 
My own unpolished lays, how proud l*ve hung 
On every meiUowed number ! Proud to feel 
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal, 
As o*er thy TiaUounng lip they sighed along. 
Such breath of passion, and such soul of song" 

MooBB, To Lady Charlotte R n. 

But now for the triumph of Whiggery. Hear it, Lord Lans- 
downe ; let the echo ring from Bowood to Berkeley Square. Hear 
how your laureate lauded George the Fourth, in his early day. 

** So, in calm evenings and unclouded skies, 
Not less resplendent in his fall than rise. 
The western sun into the main declines. 
Bright and more bright, and as he sets he shines.'' — S. Boris. 

** So the bright globe that rules the skies. 
Though he gild heaven with a glorious rise, 
Reserves his choicest beams to grace his set. 

And then he looks most great ; 
And then in greatest snlendor dies." 

J. Oldham, On C, MBmmL 



V 



158 THE FRASEBIAN PAF1S8. 

** Am when the glorioas magazine of li^t 
Approaches to his canopy of night, 
He with new splendor clothes his dying rays, 
And donble brightness to his beams conveys.'*— EL Phillips. 



n 



When THE BBIOHT FUTUKB STAB OV EnOULND'S THBOITX, 

With magic smile hath o*er the banquet ahoney 
Winning respect, nor claiming what he won ; 
But tempering greatness, like an evening gun. 
Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire. 
Glorious but mild — all sojlness, but all fire*** 

MooBB, Epistle to Lady C. JR- 

" The leut uxis thatfizrewell of daylight more precious. 
More golden and deep as *tis nearer its set" — Id. National Airs. 

** Like sunset gleams that linger kUe 
When all is darkening fast, 
Are hours like these we snatch from JaU, 
The brightest and the last" — Id, 

XBNTAL ASSOCIATIONS. 

" Snch is the secret union, when we feel 
A song, a flower, a name, at once restore 
Those long-connected scenes, where first they moved 
The attention ; backward through her mazy walks, 
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope. 
To temples, courts, or fields ; with all the band 
Of painted forms, of passions, and designs 
Attendant, whence, if pleasing in itself. 
The prospect from that sweet accession gains 
Redoubled influence o'er the listening mind.'' 

Akbnside, Pleasures of Imaginatitm. 

** I never fed a joy so pure and still, 
So heavenly calm, as when a stream, or hill, 
Or veteran oak — like those remembered well— 
Or breeze, or echo, or some wild flower's smeU, 
(For who can say what small and fairy ties 
The memory flings o*er pleasure as it flies f) 
Reminds my heart of many a sylvan dream 
I once indulged by Trent* s inspiring stream ; 
Of all my sunny moms and moonlight nights 
On Donnington's green lawns and breezy heights." 

MooBB, Epistle to Lady C. Rawdon, 



* So once sang the author of the Twopenny Post Bag, Tarn CriWs Mgmo^ 
rial, .and the Fudge Family, of George IV. 



POETICAL PLAaiABIES. 1G9 

" And looks I met, like those I loved be/ore ; 
And voices too, which as they trembled o^er 
The chord of memory ^ found full many a tone 
Of kindness there in concord unth their own" 

Id. Epistle to the Hon. R. W. Spencer, 

The finest image in Byron's Bards and Reviewers^ and the 
only figurative passage in Moore's Corruption may thus be 
traced: — 

" England, like Lncifui's eagle, with an arrow 
Of her own plumes, piercing her heart quite thorow." 

James Howell, Upon Master Fletcher's Dramatic Wcrka. 

How many darts made furrows in his side, 
When she, that out of his own side was made. 
Gave feather to their flight." 

Giles Fletchbb, Christ's Victory, 



tt 



Religion, which true policy befriends, 
Designed by God to serve man's noblest ends, 
Is by that old deceiver's subtle play 
Made the chief party in its own decay. 
And meets that eagle's destiny, whose breast 
Felt the same shaft which his own feathers drest." 

K. Phillips, On Controversies in Bdigum, 

" That eagle's fate and mine are one, 

Which, on the shaft that made him die. 
Espied a feather of his own, 
Wherewith he wont to soar so high." — Wallbb. 

" So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain. 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart I 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel : 
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest 
Drank the last liife-drop of his bleeding breast." 

Btbon, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,* 



* Kirke White also used this beautiful image before Byron and Moore had 
appropriated it. Moore's " Corruption" was written, however, in 1808, a 
year before Byron's celebrated satire was composed, so that the charge of 
plagiarism from the latter anquestionably does not stand.-^M. 



160 THE PRABRRTAN PAFBBS. 

" And the duped people hourly doomed to ptof 
The sums that bribe their libertiet away. 
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plwme 
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom; 
See their own feathers plucked, to wing the dart 
That rank corruption destines firr their heart." 

MooBB, Corruption, 

And now, having completed our analysis of Mr. Moore's two 
first works, it is time to ^ bide a wee." The proofe of plagiarism 
we have adduced — strong as we feel them to be— are far less 
glaring than those which we shall next give to the world. One 
slight fact we would recommend to Mr. Moore's consideratioDy 
when next he quotes Sir Walter Scott in defence of such a prac- 
tice ; and it is simplj this — so scrupulously did ^^the Ariosto of 
the North" eschew plagiarism in his poetical labors, that to guard 
himself even against suspicion in that respect, he appended to 
the notes attached to his Lady of the Lake the following formal 
manifesto : — 

^^ The author deems it necessary to apologize for the inadver- 
tent appropriation of a whole line from the tragedy oiJDougUu : 

** ' I hold the first who strikes, mj foe.' " 



BARNEY KOOHE. Iftl 



BARNEY MOORE;* 

A VISION OP COVENT GABDEN AND ST. OILES'S.t 

I This elaborate work reached us at too late a day in the month 
to enable us to do it the justice which the important nature of its 
contents, and the consummate skill and erudition with which it is 
composed, so amply deserve. Yet we are unwilling that the 
month should pass over without some notice,, however inadequate, 
of what must be considered the mctgnum opus of the year. As 
our Magazine, we are happy to say, is not a regular review, there 
is nothing to hinder us from recurring to the subject on a future 
occasion, and of entering more minutely into all the important 
questions here debated, and the new and strikingly original views 
which its learned author takes of the multifarious subjects on 
which he writes. 

* BlackiDood^s Magazine for Angost, 1831, opened with an original poem 
in blank ^erse, by Professor Wilson/ entitled, "Unimore, a Dream of the 
Highlands/' It was divided into ten Visions, contained oyer three thoosand 
lines, and occupied fifty-five pages of the Magazine. As the first poem of 
any length given to the world, by Wilson, since his " Evening in Fnmess 
Abbey," (also published in Blackwood,) "Unimore" was mu^h re^, and, 
although not popular as a whole — by reason of a certain mysticism, veiled 
in language which was at once too stately and too diffuse — many isolated 
passages were much admired and largely quoted in reviews and newspapers. 
The same stilted style of the composition presented irresistible attractions for 
a parodist such as Maginn, (he was on bad terms with BlachjQood at this 
time,) who was on the lookout for a subject, and desired no better fan than 
to present the dreaded Christopher North in a ludicrous light. The parody, 
which appeared in Frazer a month after the original had beeii published in 
Blackwood, is remarkable for the ludicrous fidelity with which it follows Wil- 
son's own words. — ^M. 

t Barney Moore, a Vision of Covent Garden and St. Giles's. By Bryan 
O'Toole, Esq., of Gray's Inn. In ten Visions. Visions I. and II. ; 4to. 
Backman, London. 

11 



JL62 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

" They sin," says the Laoreat — 

" They sin who tell us love can die ;" 
and 

We say the same of po-e-try. 

The poetic spirit may slumber for a while among us, giving no to- 
ken of its existence, except by an unmusical snoring every now 
and then, but it is sure to awake sooner or later, like a giant re- 
freshed ; or, if any of our readers want another simile, the stream 
of song may sink occasionally under ground, and conceal itself 
from mortal eye, but it is still, though unseen, a living current, 
ready to burst forth like the arrowy Rhone, in grandeur as mag- 
nificent as ever. Thus, though Byron is gone after his Don Juan 
— Scott and Southey out of tJje rhyme department — Wordsworth 
stamp-mastering — Coleridge's poetry in abeyance — Crabbe mute 
as a fish — Campbell and Wilson* merely magaaining — Moore 
hack- working — Rogers earthed — and so forth — all the old 
squad, in short, pretty well done up — yet have we not Siamese 
Bulwer, Butterfly Bayly, Satan Montgomery, Broadbrim Barton, 
and four hundred and fifly-eight others of great renown ? Are 
not the twenty monthly Magazines, and the dozen weekly papers, 
filled with the choicest contributions, the appearance of which in 

* Apropos of Wilson ! What could the Athenceum mean, by saying that 
Wilson's publication of his poem of Uninwre, in the last number of Black- 
wood's Magazinef was a proof that poetry was going back in the world ? We 
hold the more consolatory doctrine, that it proves that magazines are getting 
on in the world, in spite of the opinion of some boobies, who fancy that the 
jejune literary criticisms of certain Sunday papers are to supersede our 
monthly labors. By publishing his poem in the way he did, Wilson has ob- 
tained for it the attention of twenty times as many readers as any poem in 
the style of Unimore could have commanded, when quartos were the pre- 
scribed shape. — One other word as to " Unimore." A careful reader will per- 
ceive a strong similarity between that poem and the work we are criticising 
in the text. The scenery and manners are considerably different ; but the 
likeness cannot be mistaken. Has Wilson imitated O'Toole or O'Toole im- 
itated Wilson ? We do not venture to decide. But with that fairness which 
wc trust shall ever continue to distinguish us, we print the passages from 
Wilson's poem, whicli appear to correspond with O'Toole's, in notes immedi- 
ately undv our quotations. The judicious, therefore, are supplied with full 
materials to come to a decision as to which is the original and which the copy. 



BARNEY MOOBE. 168 

the days of Pope or Swift would have insured their authors such 
a place in the most popular poetry and criticism of the day, as 
would have rendered their names immortal ? 

The poem which we are about to introduce to our readers is, in 
our mind, a proof that the highest spirit of poetry not only still 
exists, but has its high priests ready to expound it in all the glory 
of brilliant song. It is entitled " Barney Moore ; or, a Vision of 
Covent Garden and Sl Gileses,'* The author, already favorably 
known by his youthful pieces, is Mr. O'Toole. The Tooles, as 
Miss Edgeworth observes in one of her romances, are a very 
ancient family in Ireland, and a most useful and influential tribe 
in all countries. He has engrafted a pathetic tale on the most 
superbly imaginative poetry we ever remember reading. His 
work is to extend to Ten Visions ; but as yet he has only favored 
the public with the two on which we are about to oflfer a hasty 
criticism. We shall commence with the commencement, in com- 
pliance with the sound advice tendered by the giant to the histori- 
ographical ram. It is a picture of Covent Garden on a rainy 
morning, as it flashes upon the soul of the poet, standing under 
the piazzas in all the bliss of solitude. Every person who has 
opened his eyes time enough to peep out upon the dawn in that 
celebrated spot, during a shower, must recognise equal truth and 
beauty in the opening picture, even though the quantity he has 
drunk may have interfered on that unwonted occasion to prevent 
his receiving the whole spirit of the Garden. How akin to the 
scene is the concluding allusion to our 3otany Bay mythology — 
chiming in with, and heightening the feeling of the hour !* 

Muggy, and moist, and slob/ and slippery ! 
It wants an hour of sunrise ; and the rain 
Bours down in torrents, and in splashing showers 
Fills every gutter, steaming with perfume. 
Rank and indelicate confoundedly. 
Shrouded in which, as in a frouzy night-cap, 

* " Morven, and Mom, and Spring, and Solitude ! 
As yet it is scarce sunrise, but the sun 
Sends dawn before him, while his dazzling disk 
Is soaring from the sea, a gentle light. 
Tender and delicate exceedingly, 
'Neath which, as if it were a glittering veil. 



164 THE FRASEBIAK PAPERS. 

Lies the new-woke and cabbage4aded garden. 
Conscious once more of market-hoar's iipproach. 
No object all around me is unsoaked — 
Carts, gardeners, ladies, turnip-tops, police, * 

Soused through and through, swear (such of them as can) 
In strong expression of the rapped-out oath. 
Alive is every potatory tap. 
Wine-vaults or cellar, with their pewter pots 
And ruin azure-hued ; while blandly smiles, 
Hearing the coppers on the counter roll. 
The trim-capped bar-maid ; and the coves, enwreathed 
With ladies of the night, brimful of gin, 
Stagger along in lushy state, and fill 
^ The air with odors, from the shortened pipe 
Puffed frequently ; and many a wandering bird, 
'Neath the piazzas whispers words of love 
To knight or squire, in blissful drunkenness. 
Who sees a double beauty in her eyes. 
There, beside one small round of deal-board, sit 
A crew of costermongers, happy all 
With their mundungus mild, and heavy-wet ; 
And here, safe stored beneath yon canvass awning. 



Lies the new-woke and undisturbed earth. 

Conscious once more of the sweet hour of Prime. 

No object in creation now looks dead. 

Stones, rocks, knolls, heather, broom, and furze, and fern. 

Have all a life-like semblance in the hush. 

So strong is the expression of their joy ; 

Alive appears each solitary tree. 

Half tree, half shrub, birch with its silver stem. 

And hazel azure-hued ; with feeling smiles. 

The feeling of its own fresh loveliness, 

That budding brake ; and these wild briers enwreathed 

With honeysuckles wild, brimful of life. 

Now trail along, and clamber up and fill 

The air with odors, by short-sleeping bee 

Already visited ; though not a bird 

Within the nested foliage more than stirs. 

Or twitters o'er the blissful wilderness. 

Life breathes intenser beauty o'er the flowers. 

There within one small round of greensward set 

Dew-diamonded daisies, happy all 

In their own sweetness and simplicity ; 

With lustre burnishing yon mossy nook 



BARNEY MOOBE. 166 

An inexhanstible hoard of cabbages, 
Heaped up against the dinner-hoar's demands- 
Doomed as companion to the beef, or boiled 
Or stewed, or cooked in manners manifold— 
Messes which tailors love to feed npon. 
And, lo ! yon watch-house, l3ring bj the church. 
Choke-full almost — jet all the while still filling 
With importations of disorderlies, 
Kicking up rows and shindies far and wide. 
And all descriptions of loose characters 
Cramming and crowding, till the lock-up room 
Sweats with the foes of order : like the land 
Where Newman KnoUjs sends his chosen flock ; 
And many a blowen of saloonic £ame. 
Sold to a Sydney settler, is beloved 
In patriarchal wise : spite of that lore. 
Oft is her seven years' sojourn dimmed with tears. 
Shed when she thinks on spots which, since the hoar 
The ruthless beaks took her to trap away. 
Have seen, unvisited by her, the lark, 
Morning and evening ; or upon her pals. 
Who oft, since she was lagged, have, side by side, 

An inexhaustible hoard of primroses. 
Heaped up by spring for the delight of mom. 
Miser at once and prodigal ; here steeped 
And striped, and starred in colors manifold. 
Mosses that 'twould be sin to tread upon ; 
And, lo ! the white mist lymg like a dream. 
Motionless almost, yet the while ascending 
With gradual revelation of the desert, 
Brighdy and balmily swimming far aod wide. 
And yet the spirit of its character 
Varying, not altering, as the circle spreads 
Serener and more spacious ; — like the land, 
Where old songs say the silent people dwell, 
And aye one creature, with a Christian name. 
Attends the fairy queen, by her beloved 
O'er all elves else, though spite of all that love. 
Oft is her seven years' sojourn dimmed with tean 
Shed for their sake who, since that fatal hour 
That saw their daughter spurited away. 
Have little done but wander xtp and down 
Wondering and weeping, or upon the braa 
Whence she evanished, with their &ces plunged 



166 THE FRA8EBTAN PAPERS. 

In many a boozing ken, drank, mom and night, 
Ajf all on to the moonlight starriness, 
^ Without once knowing that there was a sky. 

The mists disperse and the day grows brighter. The gradual , 
awakening of animated nature is finely portrayed.* 

Muggy, and moist, and slob, and slippery ! 
A multitudinous host of coffee-shops 1 
And lo ! the Finish opens to receive 
The remnants of the night. Black horsebeans now 
Are flowing, coflee-Iike, with plenteous grounds ; 
And there are goings-on of human life 
In Bow Street, Hart Street, James Street, White Hart Yard, 
Behind green window-blinds and yellow curtains. 
And from his beat the blue-coat Peeler sees 
And hears the stagger of Corinthian, 
Singing and shouting, as he scarcely seems 
To touch the ground with his unsteady foot, 
And at the last, laid level by a trip. 
Drops, in full dress, his person in the mud. 

There needs but one touch to bring the whole district before us, 
as if we hovered above it, borne up by the sounding wings of the 
genius of song ; and that is afforded after a profound remark on 
the power of gin, to confer vitality upon inanimate nature. The 

In both their hopeless hands, sit side by side. 
Far from all human ken, from mom till night, 
And all on through the moonlight starriness, 
Without once knowing there is a sky." 

* " Morven, and Monr, and Spring and Solitude ! 
A multitudinous sea of mountain-tops ; 
And, lo ! th' uneyeable sun flames up the heavens. 
Broad daylight now through all the winding glens 
Is flowing river-like, but with no sound ; 
And there are goings-on of human life 
In hut, and shieling, and in woodland -bower. 
On the green pastures and the yellow sands ; 
And from the high clift the deer-stalker sees 
And hears the coble of the fisherman, 
Glancing and clanking, as she scarcely seems 
To move o*er the still water sleepily, 
From her stem, almost level with the light, 
Letting her long net drop into the sea." 



BARNEY MOORE. 167 

Mr. Murphy on whom the fluid has so- poetical an influence is, we 
are requested to state, no relation of the Roman Catholic bishop 
of Cork * 

Murphy ! its magic lies upon thee now, 

The power of Daffy — she it is who bathes 

With ruin blue as is an angel's eye 

Whatever your rolling optics look upon ! 

By many an intermediate link of thought 

It joins that family of brick and stone. 

In strange relationship, till the curb-stone, 

Flanked by the puddle, the mud-girded pavement 

Where heroes, done by draughts of Deady, sleep. 

Is mingled with the chimney pinnacle 

From which yon speck — it is a sweep — sings out. 

Silent in nature is the unwakened street. 

For all its coves are snoring fast asleep : 

But in his daffy-stricken ear a sound 

Thunders as if a hundred wagons rolled. 

Where are his pot companions ? In dark traps 

Locked up, some look for Bow-Street in the mom. 

Of others the imprisoned form is seen 

By the gruff turnkey as he shoots the bolt 

Of Newgate, looking o'er Snow Hill below. 

* " Morven 1 this magic lies upon thee now. 
Imagination, she it is who bathes. 
With blue celestial as an angel's eyes. 
Thy cloud-sustaining depths, which she calls heaven 1 
By many an intermediate link of thought 
She joins that fix)wning family of rocks 
In strange relationship, till on the edge 
Of the ^at moor, that moss-enshrouded cairn, 
Where heroes that once fought with Fingal sleep, 
Is felt one with the skyey pinnacle 
Round which that speck — it is an eagle — soars. 
Silent in nature all thy waterfalls. 
For distance makes them dumb as wreaths of snow ; 
But in imagination's ear they sound 
Thund'rous for ever in the wilderness. < 
Where now are all thj, rivers ? In black woods, 
Night-hidden^ flow they through the blazing mom. 
Or their imprisoned foam is only seen 
By the fleet merlin, shrieking 'twixt the crags 
That topple o'er the turmoil far below. 



168 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

But he beholdetb, and he heareth all 

Theu" chanting and theur chaff — the flowing lush. 

Their pints of heavy — glorying in his soul 

On their sunshiny feats of crackmanship ; 

Or thinking gloomy of the scragging hoar. 

When Cotton's signal sends their swinging balk 

Dancing on nothing in a hempen cravat, 

That makes its wearer grin like Sainnel BogersL 

And then the spirit which bears us up moves onward, like some 

huge and stately cloud, with deep organ-voiced music, carrying us 

to gaze on the wild row, which dashes on among reeling and stag- 

geriijg Irishmen, opposed to one another, till it is beaten calm and 

glassy, to a fidr stand-still, even as human passion raves onward 

to the long calm of eternity.* 

An Irish row ! 
St. Giles's 1 where the Cork and Kerxy men 
Come down in lashings out of Lawrence Lane. 
Gossoonst from Iveragh, O'Connell's land. 
Or sweet St. Barry's steeple-crowned hill, 
Thundering to men of Connanght, or of Leinster, 
To take a leathering that will do them good. 
The challenged onward sweep, a hundred boys, 
Shillelab-fumished from the Hose and Crown,| 
Or Jem M'Govem'sJ crib in Buckridge Street : 

But she beholdeth and she heareth all 

The dazzling and the din/ the flowing peace, 

The leaping fury; hers the glory, when 

Sunshiny rivers set the straths on fire ; 

And hers the gloom, when, sullen as the grave. 

Their blackness bears upon its serpent bulk 

No image, but of the huge thunder-cloud, 

That makes the earth as grim as its own heaven." 

* "A Highland loch! 
Loch-Sunart ! who, when tides and tempests roar. 
Comes in among these mountains from the main, 
'Twixt wooded Ardnamurchan's rocky cape. 
And Ardmore's shingly beach of hissing spray; 
And while his thunders bid the sound of Moll 
Be dumb, sweeps onward past a hundred bayv. 
Hill-sheltered from the wrath that foams along 

t Anglic^ boyi : from the French gar^on. As long as a man can fight, in Ireland, he if 
called a boy. 
X Hotels in St. Giles's, the Grillons and Clarendona of the diftriot 



BARNEY MOORE. 169 

Met in mid way, up gets a qaiet-^ght, 
Each separate lad knocking his neighbor down ; 
Soon the storm-loving heroes spread the fray 
From Dyot Street to Broad Street, the career 
Marked out by broken heads. Down sink the polls 
Of Jerry Kearney, or Tim Gollogher, 
Smote by the tempest shower of ash plants dried, 
Or flying stones — once pavement of the street — 
Now flung in rocky war. The gathering fight 
, In the long battering 'twixt the Dublin coves 
And the big broguineers of Munster land. 
Through those Elysian groves, burst in each lane 
Into a hundred other smaller rows ; 
Till, lo ! subdued by saplings of the South, 
(Whence potent whiskey flows, though mild to taste) 
Down sink the men of Erin east and west. 
Insensibly knocked up by knocking down. 
And all along the ancient ground of fight 

The mad mid-channel — all as quiet they 

As little separate worlds of summer dreams — 

And by storm-loving birds attended up 

The mountain-hollow, white in their career 

As are the breaking billows, spurns the isles 

Of craggy Camich, and green Oronsay 

Drenched in that sea-bom shower o'er tree-tops driven, 

And ivyed stones of what was once a tower. 

Now hardly knowti from rocks — and g&thering might 

In the long reach between Dungallan caves 

And Point of Arderinis, ever fair. 

With her Elysian groves, hursts through that strait 

Into another ampler inland sea ; 

Till lo ! subdued by some sweet influence — 

And potent is she, though so meek the eve — 

Down sinketh, wearied, the old ocean. 

Insensibly into a solemn calm ; — 

And all along that ancient burial-ground, 

(Its kirk is gone,) that seemeth now to lend * 

Its own eternal quiet to the waves. 

Restless no more, into a perfect peace 

Lulling, and lulled at last, while drop the airs ^ 

Away as they were dead, the first-risen star 

Beholds that lovely Archipelago, 

All shadowed there as in a spiritual world, 

Where time's mutations shall come never more V* 



170 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

Oat come the night-capped women to the fraj, 

Squalling advice of quiet to the boys, 

Leathering or leathered, and remove their husbands 

In Irish fashion — killed. The first-risen Bat 

Beholds next mom his much-loved Holy Land 

All strewn with mud and blood, and sticks and stones. 

And wigs and bats, which hats can be no more. 

This is the work of true imagination. The row is conjured up 
to our view, not by means of drowsy description, but by bold 
knock-down touches. It is a picture, an idealised picture -r- in- 
stinct glowing with imagination, it is true, but, still a resenibling 
picture of St. Giles's ; and it is given by the bard, having seized 
all the characteristic features of his subject, and hoarded and 
turned them in his imagination, till he had knuckled them into 
form, and breathed into them the breath of a new life. There is 
a unity of thought pervades the whole ; the general impression is 
simple and majestic ; and yet, what innumerable beauties sparkle 
in every line ! — not strained conscious prettiness, but spontaneous 
glances of loveliness — sparkles on the crest of imagination's 
wave — wild flowers, which spring unlooked-for from the ground. 
In one poetic word it is the Potato ! % ^ 

The tale of which these localities are made tne scene accords 
well with those graceful features we have just been portraying. 
Barney Moore — we know not how nearly related to the transla- 
tor of Anacreon — was qriginally bred a smuggler in Clonakilty, 
under the careful education of a gentleman of the name of Gal- 
way. An accidental contact with the excise obtained for him the 
choice of assisting his Majesty in the preservation of the West 
Indian Islands, in the capacity of a private soldier in the 3d TV. I. 
regiment, then commanded by the late Lord Charles Somerset. 
No opportunity was here iafforded him of displaying his military 
ardor against the enemy ; and it is not to be wondered at that he 
solaced the inglorious tedium of such a leisure by that conviviality 
in which the recent productions of the island enabled him to in- 
dulge. Circumstances, on which it is unnecessary to dilate, at last 
effected his release from a service in which the warrior could ob- 
tain no honor; and his retirement from the army was mai'ked — 
strongly marked indeed — by a lecture, under the inspection of 



BARNEY MOOBE. 171 

the drum-major at the halberds, immediately followed by a pro- 
cession, led by himself, and accompanied by a full complement of 
drums and fifes, playing that celebrated tune, which entitles a sol- 
dier to resume his civil character.* His merits soon recommend- 
ed him as overseer's assistant at a plantation in Trinidad, belong- 
ing to a Mr.. Buxton, where his energy called forth the peculiar 
notice of Mr. David Power, formerly of the Morning ChronicUy 
now attorney-general to the niggers in that island. In the hands 
of Barney Moore the instrument of authority was not idle ; and 
slaves, who were so ignorant of their interests as to run away 
from the estate, were never found wanting in those characteristic 
marks that serve to describe the appearance of such persons in 
the West India Gazettes. 

Bred, however, on the margin of the Atlantic, he became tired, 
at last of his life, and therefore accepted with great pleasure the 
offer of a respectable Quaker house in Liverpool — Snuffle, Shuf- 
fle, Swindle, & Co., who held large slave estates in the island un- 
der the name of a Jew slopseller, a Mr. Moses Benzonah, to go 
as mate in a vessel of theirs, sailing beneath the flag of freedom 
and Colombia. The vessel had originally belonged to pirates, but 
the Quakers ha^pHirged off the base stain of piracy by obtaining 
the sanction of IBolivar, and while, with the usual benevolence of 
their sect they retained all the crew, they changed its title from 
the Black Jack to the Grood Intent The service Dn which they 
employed it — not, of course, in their own name, for their religious 
principles forbade them from engaging directly in war. but in that 
of a distinguished patriot of Bogota, Hoderigo Urebi — was to 
cripple the tyrannical government of Ferdinand, and so conduce 
to the cause of freedom all over the world, by cruising after the 
slave vessels belonging to Spain which trade on the gold and 
grain coast of Africa. They were very successful in this pursuit ; 

* Vulgarity has given this composition the title of the " Bogae's March.'* 
The original words are said to be : — 

" Once whipped, 
Twice stripped. 
And three times tied np to the halberd ; 
If ever I 'list for a soldier again, 

The d 1 shall be my sei^ant I" 

The ceremony to which this tone is performed is a very imposing one. 



172 THE FBAHKRTAN PAPERS. 

and while their sense of duty suggested to them the propriety of 
making the infamous Spaniards walk the plank, they secured the 
slaves for sale to the free, enlightened, and independent republi- 
cans of Greorgia and Carolina. 

"We have no space to follow Barney in all his adventures, which 
are most beautifully told in the poem. Suffice it to say, that at 
its commencement we find him keeping a public house in Eagle 
Court, White Hart Yard, and expecting through the interest of 
an early patron, the Knight of Kerry, to obtain an inspectorship 
in the new police. We regret to say that there is one stain upon 
his character. He has married both the daughters of the person 
from whom he had bought the goodwill and fixtures of his public- 
house : and when the ladies discover this lapse of morality, their 
anger knows no bounds. The bard, vrith the usual sense of poetic 
justice in such cases, expresses himself with indignation against 
the bigamistical propensities of his hero ; while he coolly passes 
over the other little adventures of his life with but slight reproach. 
Piracy and its concomitants are venal; marrying two women an 
atrocity never sufficiently to be reprobated; — and vrith the usual 
deep insight into human character which marks all the composi- 
tions of this school, the bosom of the gentleman, who had seen 
robbery, and murder, and outrage, under every form, without re- 
morse, is wning to despair by the reflection that he had offended 
against the laws of marriage. 

Barney is arrested on this charge, but luckily, he discovers that 
one of the ladies had two, and the other three husbands before. 
The tables are turned, and he has the satisfaction of transporting 
both his wives. Their appearance at Bow Street is charmingly 
written. Beautiful, exceedingly, is the first appearance of the 
orphans at the bar ; and only to be surpassed by what we still hold 
to be the most perfect in its beauty of all Frosty-faced Fogo's 
creations — the wail over Jack Scroggins. There is a wild 
witchery about it that goes with a thrill to the heart* 

* " Lo ! down the glen they come, the long blue glen, 
Far off enveloped in atrial haze, 
Almost a mist, smooth gliding without step ; 
So seems it, o'er the greensward, shadow-like, 
With light alternating, till hand in hand 



BARNET MOOBE. 178 

So to the bar they come — the close girt bar, 
Thither conducted by a brace of traps, 
And no mistake * * * * 
******* 

* * # and cheek by jowl, 
Placed on their perch, distinctly visible, 
The sisters stand awhile, then leaning over. 
Blow up the oflScers in words of slang 
Like fun ; and keep their game eyes steadily 
Fixed on Sir Kichard's mug. 

One phiz is pale 
In its own pockmarkcdness, but paler seems 
Beneath the border of her unwashed cap. 
So sooty-black, contrasting with the red. 
Deep-seated, of her well-carbuncled nose, 
Kept purple by her drams. The other foxy 
As ruddiest reynard, and bedaubed with rouge, 
In rivalry of all those uncombed locks. 
Like carrots glittering, o'er her breadth of face 
Afloat, and from her eyes, some twice a minute, 
Pushed back with greasy hand. But, oh ! those eyes 
Black all around, but as you closer gaze 
Yellower and yellower grows the spreading circle 
That girds around each twinkling orb, befringed 

Upon a knoll, distinctly visible. 
The sisters stand awhile, then lay them down. 
Among a weeping birch-tree's whisperings. 
Like fawns, and fix their mild eyes steadfastly 
Upon the clouded loch ! 

One face is pale 
In its own pensiveness, but paler seems 
Beneath the nunlike braidings of that hair. 
So softly black, accordant with the calm 
Divine that on her melancholy brow 
Keeps deepening with her dreams. The other bright. 
As if in ecstasies, and brighter glows 

In rivalry of all those sun-loved locks, ^ 

Like gold wire glittering, in the breath of joy 
Afloat, on her smooth forehead, momently 
Kindling with gladder smile-light. Those dark eyes. 
With depths profound, down which the more you gaze. 
Stiller and stiller seems the spiritual world 
That lies sphered in their wondrous orbs, beyond 
New thoughtful regions opening far beyond. 
And all imbued with the deep hush of heaven. 



» 



174 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 



With eyelids almost closed upon the eye, 
And reddened by the constant lash of Booth. 

'W'ith this divine passage we close. We wish that our readers 
should pause, while a burst of such celestial harmonj rings in 
their ears. 

We trust, now that Mr. O'Toole has found his harp, he will 
not be in a hurry to throw it away. Let him at all events^ not 
fail to give us the eight promised visions which remain, and we 
shall do them justice. We hail in him the reviver of our song, 
now for more than a dozen years dormant. In him we see the 
poet, the philosopher, the patriot His powers of fancy are 
equalled only by his accuracy of observation, and we fearlessly 
pronounce him as much at home on the heights of Pindus as in 
the cellars of St. Giles's, and as chosen a favorite of the nymphs 
of Helicon as of the maidens of Covent Garden. Vale ! 



MISS PIPSON. 175 



MISS PIPSON. 

The prettiest mouth that mto coald wish to lay his longing lips on 

Is that belonging; to the sweet and innocent Miss Pipson. 

O ! when she goes along the street, the wink she often tips one, 

Which makes me feel confounded qaeer — the canning wag Miss Pipson. 

And when the snow-white French kid glove her pretty hand she slips on. 

She seems the very queen of love — the beautiful Miss Pipson. 

She is the lawful daughter of her father's father's rib's son, 

And thus you have the pedigree of elegant Miss Pipson. 

She is so full behind, you 'd swear that she had got false hips on, 

And yet no bustle doth she wear — magnificent Miss Pipson. 

She sings and dances vastly well ; and when the floor she skips on. 

You see at once she doth excel — the nimble-limbed Miss Pipson. 

'T is dangerous to approach too near her fingers, for she grips one. 

And puts the soul in bodily fear — the cruel minx. Miss Pipson. 

But yet you can *t object, although in terror she so dips one ; 

You rather glory in each blow received from fair Miss Pipson. 

Pain from her hands no more is pain ; and even when she nips one. 

You can not, for your soul, complain — the cruel, sweet Miss Pipson. 

'Tis said she carries things so high, that sometimes e'en she whips one ; 

But that, I guess, is "all my eye," — adorable Miss Pipson. 

At all events, she tips, and grips, and dips, and nips, and trips one ; 

And therefore I 'U have nought to do with beautiful Miss Pipson I 



176 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT* 

We had completed our Magazine, when the melancholy news, 
so long expected, of the death of Sir Walter Scott, arrived, in 
town. We have no opportunity, at this late period of the mcmth, 
of doing any thing like justice to the memory of the great deceased, 
even had we the talent. 

Our contemporaries of the daily and weekly press are busily 
employed, and, we are happy to find, without an exception, honor- 
ably employed, in paying tributes to his memory. They have as 
yet, however, produced scarcely any thing that was not long be- 
fore — indeed, if could not well be expected that they should. 
We have no ambition to run a race with our less-encumbered 
friends ; and we hail with unaffected admiration the kindly spirit 
which has been universally displayed toward the illustrious de- 
ceased. The time has gone by, indeed, when any one would be 
heard who would venture to offer an insult to his memory ; and 
we shall not sully our pages by a reference to the existence of a 
virulent and contemptible knot, that at one period vented their 
petty spleen against the greatest man of our day. 

Criticism on his works is now superfluous: they have taken 
their enduring station in the literature of the world. If the ap- 
plause of foreign nations be equivalent, as it is said, to the voice 

* There is so much good feeling, as well as good sense in this tribate to 
the greatest author of modem times, that it can not be omitted in any collec- 
tion of Maginn's Miscellanies. It appeared in Fraser's Magazine^ for Octo- 
ber, 1832, and must have been written cun-ente calamo, as Scott's death, 
which took place at Abbotsford, on the afternoon of the 21st of September, 
was not kno\vn in London until the 23d. As an estimate, from a particular 
point of view, of Scott's personal, literary, and political character, this paper 
possesses interest as well as merit. — M. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 177 

of posterity, no author who ever wrote has obtained that honor in 
so large a measure. His novels, his poems, have been translated 
into every civilized language; his heroes and heroines have be- 
come household words all over the world. The painter, the 
sculptor, the engraver, the musician, have sought inspiration from 
his pages. The names of his works, or the personages introduced 
into them, are impressed on the man-of-war or the quadrille, the 
race-horse or the steamboat. The number of persons who have 
become famous by following, in their different Unes, the ideas of 
Sir Walter, is immense, and comprehends all classes of intellect or 
enterprise. The tribes of imitators, whether of his verse or prose, 
whom he has called into existence, are countless. Many of them 
are persons of great abilities and unquestioned genius. Which 
of them will be named in competition with the master ? Not one. 
He has recorded, in the beautiful sketch of autobiography which 
he has prefixed to the Waverley series, his fixed dislike to literary 
controversy. He might have added, if he pleased, that this dis- 
like proceeded at least as much from his natural kindness of dis- 
position, as from the desire of avoiding the literary annoyances, to 
which he refers it. Some body has said, that if the literary repub- 
lic were to elect a president, Sir Walter Scott would have been 
the man. As it wa5, his presidency was tacitly acquiesced in. A 
regular tribute was paid to him by the due presentation of every 
work that the author deemed worthy of his acceptance ; personal 
homage as regular was offered by every literary man who aspired 
to fame. Abbotsford was the metropolitan seat of European li- 
terature ; and a pilgrimage thither was indispensable. Never was 
sceptre more leniently wielded. Not only can no trace of ill na- 
ture be detected in any of Sir Wal|;er's literary judgn^ents, but, 
still further, he not only refrained from doing mischief, but he ex- 
erted himself to do service. Many are the stories which we could 
tell of kindness displayed, not merely by his purse, but his pen — 
a species of assistance which authors of any thing like his emi- 
nence are in general not very ready in contributing. A more 
generous, honorable, and upright man never existed ; and he has 
gone before a tribunal where all the glories of his authorship will 
be of small value as compared with the good actions he has per-r 
formed, and the pure motives which inspired them. 

12 



178 . THE PBASERIAN PAPERS. 

And yet we do not think that the literary career which he ran, 
and the example he set, will stand him as nought before the final 
seat, where all are to be tried. Of him well may be it said, that 
he never wrote a line which dying he would wish to blot — never 
in all his multifarious writings inculcated a sentiment incompatible 
with religion and morality. Some authors of distinguished genius 
have so far misused the talent bestowed upon them, that the works 
which they Ivave left behind, while they delight the imagination or 
sharpen the intellect, tend directly or indirectly to the pollution 
of the mind and the jeopardy of the soul. Not only has this blot 
— this sin which makes a man a sinner in his grave — been avoided 
by Sir Walter Scott, but the whole stream and tendency of his 
works is to recommend, in the most heairt-moving or spirit-stirring 
forms, all that is calculated to exalt our species, all that can make 
us worthy or honorable denizens of this world, and elevate us to a 
fitness for that higher life which we may expect in the other. This 
is no light praise. Such an example has worked its good effects. 
It has been of infinitely more value than more direct exhortations 
to the practice of virtuous or religious actions. The professed di-. 
"vine or moralist passes unheeded by the light-minded, the gay, and 
the young. His books are not read, or, if read, the precepts which 
they teach, run the risk of being disregarded. But he whose 
works must be in every hand — who is acknowledged as the guide 
and the pattern of the intellectual taste of the whole nation — holds 
to the lips a honied chalice which may convey medicaments, that 
in their unadulterated state might be rejected as unpalatable. To 
the honor of Sir Walter Scott, and to what is far more than any 
consideration of worldly honor, the welfare of his own soul, he has 
written as if he had been 

" For ever in the great taskmaster's eye ;" 

and, awed or controlled by his example, the ribald or licentious 
writer checked his propensities, in deference to the spirit inspired 
into the public mind by Sir Walter, or hid his wares from sight, 
or offered them only in marts which were the haunts of the avow- 
edly shameless, the outcasts of society. The greater literature of 
our country has long felt the influence of Milton — literature of all 
classes has been purified by Scott. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 179 

We shall not, we hope, be accused of being actuated merely by 
party motives, when we extend the praise which we have bestowed 
on the morals to the politics inculcated by Sir Walter. All those 
who love their native land must be more or less Tory in soul. We 
mean that they must more or less love those institutions under 
which, if not by which, the country grew great and prosperous. 
Reverence for the high names of England, proud recollections of 
glorious actions done, of imminent perils bravely weathered, ho- 
norable feelings toward institutions certainly intended to exalt or 
civilize our coulitrymen, and which generally have worked their 
purpose — these should form part and parcel of us all. Far, far 
from the bosom of an English gentleman or English yeoman 
should be that rancorous feeling sometimes displayed, which 
prompts people to destroy what our ancestors established, purely 
for the sake of destruction. The Whigs may be more perspica- 
cious in detecting abuses than the Tories ; but, on account of those 
abuses, they ought not to look with distaste or disaffection on their 
native land. It may be right to keep a sharp eye on the defects 
>of our country, but it is not the mark of an expanded or a gene- 
rous vision to be able to see nothing else. Sir Walter's Toryism 
was not of the factious kind which thinks of nothing but party. It 
was of that patriotic, that truly patriotic nature, that wishes every 
thing in our country to be the best, and that desires England to 
stand first among nations, happy at home and honored abroad.* 

* Scott's Toryism might well be described by one of his national proverbs 
— "his bark was aye waur [worse] than his bite." He was eminently con- 
servative, had been educated in the hereditary politics of his race> owed his 
first position for life (the well-paid and almost sinecure sheriffdom of Selkirk- 
shire) to Tory patronage, and enjoyed the friendship of the leading Tory 
statesmen connected with Scotland, by lineage, property, and station. His 
native land had thriven under Tory rule, at a period when what were called 
" Jacobin principles " threatened to subvert the foundations of the Govern- 
ment, and he dreaded the experiment of change, whether as revolution or 
reform. In his youth, he opposed Catholic Emancipation. In his maturer 
years, and long before Tory statesmen entertained any idea of granting that 
tardy concession, he contended for it, on the double plea of justice and ne- 
cessity, and, when Wellington and Peel, early in 1829, announced their in- 
tention, Scott not only wrote several articles in its favor, in the Edinburgh 
Weekly Journal, but made a speech, on the side of liberality and tplerauce, 
at the principal Edinburgh meeting, and was one of the first — if not the very 



180 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

A nobler historian of civil wars never existed. Due jostioe is 
done to the cavalier and the Cameronian, to the partisan of the 
house of Hanover or the house of Stuart Their good qoalitiei 
are placed in the strongest light — defence or palliation is never 
wanting for their errors. Or if we consider Toryism as the 
cause of aristocracy, we there, too, find Sir Walter generous and 
just. The prince or noble is allowed the respect .and homage 
due to his place and lineage ; but where exists the writer who has 
so sublimely and so pathetically chronicled and hallowed the vir- 
tues of the humblest ? * 

EUs Toryism was without faction ; but faction assailed him in 
the end of his days. He was insulted by a debauched rabble in 
those very places which he had rendered immortal, because he 
refused to surrender his judgment on political matters to their$. 
We wish not to disparage any one, but still we must be permitted 
to think that a time may come when the name of Sir Walter Scott 
will command as much respect as that of Lord John RusseJL 
As to his adherence to Toryism, nothing could be more disinter- 
ested. He had received no favors — absolutely none — from the 
Tories. His place of Clerk of Session was conferred on him 
by Fox ; and we rather think that his politics on some occasions 
were made a plea by the tape-tjdng crew who had wriggled them- 
selves into office under our colors, for insult and impertinence, 
neglect or ingratitude. But he defended the constitution of his 
country ; and for that, in " Caledonia stern and wild," in his " own 
romantic town," in siglit of "fair Melrose," he was hooted and 
bawled down as one actuated by the meanest of natures, by people 
whose country he had made classical, and whose more tangible 
interests he had, beyond any other man in the world, most mate- 
rially served.* 

first — to sign the pro-CatKolic petition to Parliament. When that petition 
was read in the House of Commons, Scott's name was received with the un- 
usnal compliment of a general expression of applause, and Peel sabsequently 
wrote him a letter of thanks for taking part, on the great question, with the 
advocates of justice. — M. 

* In March, 1831, when the excitement in favor of the Reform Bill (just 
then introduced by Lord Grey's ministry) was very great, Scott attended a 
ctounty meeting, for Roxburghshire, at the town of Jedburgh, where he moved 
pne of the anti-Beform resolutions, and made a decided anti-Keform speech. 



SIB WALTER SCOTT. 181 

We believe that he felt this affront. It is now no matter. He 
lies in the land every corner of which his genius has lit up as with 
a torch, and his countrymen are pouring condolences over his 
tomb. They will Jbury him with sounding honors, and all the 
pomp of funeral ; and, that being done, his creditors will come to 
spoil his children of what he has left behind. Loud will be the 
lament of Scotland — equally loud the demand for his goods. The 
very bankers — the men whom he, by his admirable letters in 
1826, saved from the utter destitution, penury, and ruin impend- 
ing over them at the hands of Lord Groderich and the economists 
— will calculate to a farthing what may be their share of his chat- 
tels. Will Scotland do any thing to avert this disgrace, as dis- 
grace it will be ? And we, who know Scotland well, answer — 
No. 

After killing himself to pay off debts which, as the world knows, 

The popalace, naturally in favor of what promised to extend their own polit- 
ical privileges, heard him — first with respect, then with impatience, and 
lastly (when he angrily exclaimed '' I regard your gabble no more than the 
geese on the green")— with unequivocal anger. Shouts of ''Burke Sir 
Walter !" were raised, and then Scott, bowing to the people, took leave in the 
words of the doomed gladiator of antiquity, " Moriturus voa saluto." At the 
time, Scott's health was so bad that he ought not have been permitted to have 
attended, far less spoken at, a troublous political gathering. Ill health, which 
had already affected his mind, and disturbed as well as weakened his nervous 
system, made him take the gloomiest view of public affairs, as managed un- 
der Lords Grey, Brougham, Durham, and other leading liberals. Lockhart 
records that the scene at Jedburgh haunted Scott in his latest hours, for, only 
a few days before his death, " a few times also, I am sorry to say, we could 
perceive that his fancy was at Jedburgh, and Burke Sir Walter escaped him 
in a melancholy tone." Maginn is scarcely correct in saying that Scott's 
place of Clerk of Session (with £1,300 for life) was conferred on him by Fox. 
In 1805, soon after TTie Lay of the Last Minstrel was published, William Pitt, 
then Prime Minister of England, having read and admired it, told Dundas, 
Scott's early friend, that " it would give him pleasure to find some opportu- 
nity of advancing the fortunes of such a writer." Accordingly, Scott's own 
inclination made him desire the comparatively unlaborious, but profitable, 
office of a Principal Clerk of the Supreme Court at Edinburgh. The appoint- 
ment was* made, but the commission not signed, at Pitt's death, and the 
succeeding Ministry, of whom Fox was actual head, made no delay in com- 
pleting the necessary document — handsomely enough declaring that, as the 
matter had received the royal assent, they regarded only as a claim of jus- 
tice, what would willingly have been done as an act of favor. — ^M. 



182 THE FBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

were not of his contracting ; after making the most impanJleled 
exertions, not one of which he need have made ; after sacrificing 
property which he never need have created^ or, having created, 
need not have parted with — the author oiWcneerley dies so deeplj 
in debt, that the junior branches of his familj are left whoUj un- 
provided for bj him. Were there any honor in Scotland, the 
ravening cry of his creditors, who have already been paid fire 
times as much as they could have expected if their debtor had 
acted on the principles of trade which they recognise for their own 
guidance, would be stopped by a general subscription. The coun- 
try only owes it to him. Scotland should take upon itself the 
payment of the debts of Scott. Were they a million of money in 
amount, he has been of pecuniary value to his native land fiir 
greater than that sum. The quantity of capital which he has 
caused to be expended in the country — the sums drawn from the 
influx of strangers which he has n©w permanently brought to it — 
the honor and notice which he has acquired for aU its affairs, and 
the consequent advantage — would be valued at a low price if es- 
timated at many millions. We say nothing of the literary renown 
and the romantic celebrity he has cast over Scotland. But Scot- 
land owes him a great pecuniary debt — and Scotland will pay it 
by suffering Abbotsford to be stripped by the sheriff!* 

The nation — not the province, however, should do something. 
No one will deny that he is entitled to the barren honors of sepul- 
ture in Westminster Abbey. Grateful Scotland is too proud to 
part with his body : it would be considered an affront, to take 
away his bones, when dead, by that nation which would not give 

* By the failure, in 1825, of Constable & Ballantjne (his pabUsher and 
printer), as well, in a lesser degree, by his own anticipations, for the purchase 
of landed property, of his probable literary income. Sir Walter Scott became 
liable for about £150,000. Between 1825 and 1831, his own oyer-tasked 
brain and pen had reduced this by nearly one half. At his death, when life- 
insurances further reduced it, the balance still due on Scott's estate exceeded 
£30,000, besides two mortorajres for £15.000 on his estate of Abbotsford and 
his valuable library. By the judicious oxenion? of Mr. Cadell, the surviving 
and prudent partner of Constable, the sale of Scott's woiis, in various fonns» 
and at reduced prices whioh bam^ilit them within the purchase means of " the 
million," the whole of Scott*s debts were discharged before the year 1830. 
His grand-daughter, Mrs. Hope, is now the possessor of Abbotsford. — M. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 188 

a farthins: to administer to his comforts when llvinoj. As he must 
not, therefore, lie in the Abbey, are we too poor to testify our 
national respect by a grant? We put it to. Lord Althorp — we 
are sure the hint will be enough. Never was there grant which 
conferred more honor on a nation than this tribute of respect to 
the memory of Sir Walter Scott would confer on us.* 

We had no intention, when we began, of writing on pecuniary 
matters, but, as we have done so, we do not regret it. Useless, 
indeed, it is to compose empty eulogies on him who has filled the 
world with admiration, or to bestow the honors of puny criticism 
on works engraved on every heart. A great light has been ex- 
tinguished — a great glory lost to Israel. He has descended to 
that tomb which is the lot of all, and we " ne'er shall look upon 
his like again.** 

* When the clever and eccentric Earl of Dudley heard of Scott's misfor- 
tunes, he exclaimed, " Scott ruined ! the author of Waverley ruined ! Good 
God ! let every man, to whom he has given months of delight, give him a 
sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild." An 
anonymous admirer, whose name has never transpired, offered £30,000, as a 
gift, toward clearing off Scott's incumbrances. When Lockhart published 
the last volume of his Life of Scott [in 1839, if I remember rightly] a circum- 
stance transpired, unknown to Maginn when he wrote this article, which is too 
creditable to all parties to be omitted here : Scott returned from Italy in June, 
1832, and a newspaper paragraph stated that his travels had exhausted all 
his pecuniary resources. Lockhart says, " This paragraph came from a very 
ill-informed, but, I dare say, a well-meaning quarter. It caught the atten- 
tion of some members of the Goveniment, and, in consequence, I received a 
private communication to the effect that, if the case were as stated, Sir Wal- 
ter's family had only to say what sum would relieve him from embarassment, 
and it would be immediately advanced by the Treasury." The offer thus 
opportunely and liberally made, was gratefully declined by Lockhart on the 
par t of Sir Walter. — M. 



184 



THE FBASEBIAir PiPEBS. 



THE SPERMACETI CANDLE. 



** The soYcreignest thing on earth, 

Is 'parmacity ** 

Shakbsfbabb. 



Tb gods immortal ! in all time 

By heavenly zephjrrs fanned well, 
Inspire my bosom while I climb 
Th' Eolian moant, with steps sublime — 
The matchless subject of my rhyme 
A Spermaceti Candle. 

Dim was each light in days of old, 

'Mong Saxon, Goth, and Vandal, 
Compared with that which now is sold, 
(Better than tallow, dip, or mould), 
Whoso flame is brighter far than gold — 
A Spermaceti Candle. 

Place every kind of light in view. 
And when you 've quietly scanned all, 

I '11 bet a pipe of wine that you 

Will give the preference unto 
A Spermaceti Candle. 

If tallow, therefore, you eschew. 

And are averse to handle. 
The very best thing you can do 
Is in its place to substitu- 

Te a Spermaceti Candle. 

Its color is as pure* as snow. 

Or floors strewed with white sand all ; 
It burneth with a peerless glow — 
A proof that there is nought below 

like a Spermaceti Candle. 



The bard invoketh the aid 
of the immortal gods. 



Showeth the mieemble infi. 
riority of the anetenti in i» 

spect of lights. 



He betteth a pipe of wfaie in 
favor of the Spermaceti Can- 
dle. 



If you eschew tailow, and 
are averse to soiling your fin* 
gers, use epermaoetL 



Describeth, with mttch gna> 
to, the beauty of its complez* 
ion, and superiorly of ita 
light. 



THB BPBBMACSSai CAXOLK. 



185 



It needs no snuffing, for the wick. 

So beaatiful and grand all. 
Becomes not cabbaged, faint, or sick— 
With tallow lights a common trick — 
Bat never with that shining %tick, 

A Spermaceti Candle. 



Showetii how It nMd«tia not 
■nufflog, nor bacometh c»b* 
bttged. 



Tall Etna from his flaming peak. 
With fiery arches spanned all. 

Exhibits but a lustre weak. 

Compared with that bright steady streak, 

Which Cometh unobscured by reci, 
From a Spermaceti Candle. 



Preferreth iti light to that 
of Mount Etna ; nseth the Scot- 
tish reek, whieh ligalfieth 
■moke. 



Our old theatric records say. 

That Covent Garden band all 
Once on a time refused to play 
March, hornpipe, dirge, or roundelay. 
Save by the pure transparent ray 
(Allowed to each musician gay) 
Of a Spermaceti Candle. * 



Relateth an ancient legend 
concern^ tiie band of Gorent 
Garden Tfieatre. 



That Hanorerian genius rare, 

The organ-loving Handel, 
Could not a single stave prepare. 
Unless when on his easy-chair 
He sat, surrounded by the glare 
Of a Spermaceti Candle. 



Sboweth how Handel could 
not compoie his Oratorios 
tare by the light of sperma- 
ceti 



Great Hannibal, Hamilcar's lad. 

Who armies could command well, 
(Some say much better than his dad,) 
Once saved himself from rout most sad 
By means of cows and bullocks mad. 
Each monster's horns with flames yclad 
From a. Spermaceti Candle. 



How Hannibal. bamboosled 
Fabius, by means of Sperma- 
oeti candles tied to the horns 
of cows and bulls. 



' Some praise the sun, and some ithe moon. 

In eloquence quite grand all : 
A fig for both ! I '11 beat them soon— 
The last in May, the first in June— 
By that incomparable boon, 
A Spermaceti Candle. 



Showetii the foQy at those 
who praise the sun and moon. 



186 



THE PRARBBTAN PAPERS. 



I 've trayelled east, I *ve travelled west, 

I *ve been in Coromandel, 
And I can say, without a jest. 
That both in liall and peasant's nest, 
*T is of its race avowed the best — 

The Spermaceti Candle. 



fipemmeeti candles modi 
MOght after in CoromaBdeL 



In Abyssinia, where the heat 

Each native's phix hath tanned well, 
They deem their happiness complete 
If any friend whom they may meet 
Will have the goodness them to treat 
To a Spermaceti Candle. 



Eke in Abyssinia. 



There 's nothing in the world so bright, 

As you roust understand well ; 
Suppose you lose your way at night. 
What think you on with all your might t 
Why, to be sure, upon a light- 
Ed Spermaceti Candle. . 



Showeth tiiat the beltted 
traveller tbinketh with all hlf 
miglit on ipermaoeti. 



'T is strange that those who love to sing 

The deeds of Cribb and Randall — 
Those potent heroes of the ring — 
Should never yet have touched the string 
In praise of that most useful thing, 
A Spermaceti Candle. 



Exprraseth tarprise tbat 
Fro«ty-faced Fogo. and other 
laureates of the ring, shoald 
hare uesrlccted to aiog the 
praiaes thereoC 



A cock-boat by the lightning smit, 
A seventv-four that 's manned ill. 
Are bad enough, but not a whit, 
More to be pitied than the cit, 
Who has not in his house a bit 
Of Spermaceti Candle. 



The citizen who hath not a 
bit of said candle deserrc^ 
much pity. 



The Grecian maids, so fair and sweet, 

Wore on each leg a sandal ; 
But all their skill was incomplete 
To show at night their lovely feet 
Without that accessory neat, 
A Spermaceti Candle. 



Maketh a clas«ioal aIla»ion 
to tho mtidf of Greeee, and 
their well>tamed onderstand- 
ingi. 



THE SFBBIUCBn CAITDLE. 



187 



Live where he may, or far or near, 
He ought to be trepanned well. 
And made to suffer stripes severe, 
Imprisonment in cell most drear, 
Without tobacco, gin, or beer. 
Who has the heartlessness to sneer 
At a Spermaceti Candle. 



Direful pennlty which oaeht 
to be inflicted on those who 
•re so sinful as to sneer at a 
ipermaceti candle. 



May honest men, where'er they be. 

With indignation brand all 
Who sip theur toddy, or their tea, 
In wintery nights, by land or sea, 
Without the cheerful- lustre free 
Of a Spermaceti Candle. 



Advlseth all honest men to 
brand those who sip their tea 
or toddy without the light of 
fpermaoetL 



Behold yon taper, shining bright 
In lamp that is japanned well. 
Although it gives a pleasant light, 
'T would really seem as dark as night, 
If but contrasted with the might 
Of a Spermaceti Caudle. 



Showeth the Inferiority of « 
certain light in a japanned 
lamp to spermaceti. 



If you desire to be renowned 
At cards, and play your hand well, 
A clearer help can not be found, 
(Wliether the game be square or round,) 
Than a Spermaceti Candle. 



Showeth the eminent use of 
spermaceti in sundry games. 



If e'er by chance you sail upon 
The Straits of Babelmandel, 

Where gas-lights are but little known. 

You '11 ne'er be dull, nor feel alone. 

If you have for compan-i-6n 
A Spermaceti Candle. 



Showeth the Social effect! 
of a spermaceti in the Straits 
of Bal^lnoandel. 



To place beside it, oil or gas. 

Would be a kind of scandal. 
Which none would think of but an ass 
(Of whom there are a few, alas !) 
Who vainly hopes thus to surpass 
The Spermaceti candle. 



Showeth the absurdity of 
comparing oil or gas to the 
spermaceti candle. 



188 -THB ntASBBIAN PAnBS. 

In abort, tiiis luminary bright, Condn^iiflrgbam, in wUdi 

Like l»by you might dandle. i:^^]L'Sn::^ 

For dennlioess and giving light, wtl candle. 

And aspect of a snowy white. 
There 's nought — especially at night — 
Like a Spermaceti Candle. 

I may a§ well oonclade, for if Another eoneladon, by wif 

I wrote another handle, ""^ ®°^«^- 

I coold not add a single whiff 

Which woold go farther to uplif- 
T a Spermaceti Candle. 



BONG OF THE SHIBTLEBS. 189 



SONG OF THE SHIRTLESS FOR THE 
YEAR THIRTY-THREE 

BY SIR MORGAN O'DOHERTY, BART. 
DEDICATED TO ALL TBUB BBFOBMEBS.'I^ 

To the Tune of " Tolderol" 

I. 

Welcome, welcome, my gentle reader ! . 

Here we have come to thibtIt-thrbb — 
Year in which all sides agreed are 

Many a marvel we shall see. 
Chant we therefore an opening chorus, 

Swelling it loud with joy and glee : 
Here 's to the year that is now before us — 

It is the year for you and me. 

Tolderol, loUol, loUoI, lollol ; 
Tolderol, loUol, loUol lol. 

n. 

Up and be stirring, my sturdy neighbor — 

Up and be stirring — the time is come 
To shoulder musket and draw the sabre. 

To cheering sound of trump and drum. 
Soon shall we hear the firelock prattling— 

Soon shall the noisy cannon hum — 
Soon shall the shells in showers be rattling, 

Sputtered abroad by the jolly bomb. 

Tolderol, &c. 

m. 

What shall we fight for, what shall we fight for — 
What shall we fight for, gossip dear ? 

* The Tories, who considered the Keform Bill as a revolutionary measure, 
indulged in all sorts of gloomy prophesies, on its becoming the law of the 
land, in 1832. The country, however, continued to exist, much as before, 
despite ** the Bill" and the vaticinations.— M. 



190 THE FBARERTAN PAFBB8. 

That which we have so good a right for 
In this thorough reforming year : 

Hall and house, and park and palace. 
Wealth and plenishing, goods and gear, 

Star and jewel, and plate and chalice, 
Hose and doublet, feast and cheer. 

Toldeiol, &c. 

IV. 

Down with coronet, down with mitre, 

Down with altar, down with throne ; 
Easier shall we be and lighter 

When this mummery all is gone. 
King and bishop, and peer and parson, 

If unhanged, in jail may groan ; 
Long enough they carried their farce on— 

Now, my boys, the day 's our own ! 

Tolderol, &c 

V. 

Shout, my brother de^camtsoc/o — 

Shirtless brother, come shout with me ! 
Bich and noble will soon be made to 

Bend to fellows like us the knee. 
Weep and wail, ye men of riches — 

Wail, ye men of house and land ! 
Here come we who wear no breeches. 

Seeking our own with pike in hand. 

Tolderol, &c. 

VI. 

Off with Howard, and out with Percy— 

Down with Stafford and Devonshire ; 
For Duke John Bedford's lands no mercy — 

Pluck Lord Grosvenor's — worthy peer ! 
We shall soon, for good example. 

Give the axe its full career. 
And on the Bar ycleped of the Temple 

Noble heads we again shall rear. 

Tolderol, &c. 

vn. 

Tremble, ye sons of the circumcision— 
Rothschild's heart may throb with pain ; 



SONG OF Tfi& SHIRTLESS. 191 

Now is the time for a long division 

Of all the shents of your godless gain. 
Visitors worse than Nebuchadnezzar, 

When he spoiled your sacred fane, 
More to be feared than Titus Caesar, 

Shall invade Bartholomew Lane. 

Tolderol, &c. 

VIII. 

Away with schools, with hall, with college — 

Make them the nests of owl and toad ; 
We know more of useful knowledge 

Than e'er to Isis or Cam was owed. 
We teach the art of sack and pillage 

All by the rule of prime and load ; 
We shall show to town and village 

That the true teacher is abroad. 

Tolderol, &c. 

IX. 

Far and wide shall be cities flaming— 

Long and loud shall the bayonet ring ; 
Blood on wave and plains shall be streaming — 

Princes and peers shall on gibbets swing, 
^onor and justice, faith or pity, 

We to the idle winds will fling ; 
And is not this a charming ditty. 

Fit to be song before a king ? 

Tolderol, loUol, lollol, lollol ; 
Tolderol, loilol, lol. 



Toiver Bill, 
Ist of the 1st decode of the year I, 



M. 00). 



NONSENSE VERSES. 

liBT the spirit of mnrphies repine 

O'er the ocean's dread stoltified breast, 
And dolphins drink puncheons of wina 

To the mnmran of purified rest 
Let bacon and pancakes no more 

Lord Chancellors of Ireland be made. 
Lest the Island of Bathlin should snore. 

And bj cholera's pangs be betrayed. 

Ko longer let dull Althorp's chest 

Aspire to the dungeons below. 
Where reposing on beauty's sad breast, 

The mountains of Arsby glow. 
For the turmoil of courts and d kings 

Shall exalt to the skies' dark domain 
The essence of butterflies' wings, 

And mingle it there with the slain. 

Then mute may all sausages be : 
Biay the tincture d pestilence spread 

Its beautiful arms o'er Uie sea, 
And gladden the fishes with dread. 



LAMENT UPON APSLEY HOUSE. 198 



LAMENT UPON APSLEY HOUSE. 

What house is yonder, which I with wonder 

See smashed with plunder and paving-stones — * 
It^ shutters shattered, its windows battered, 

All tore and tattered, like Davy Jones ? 
O ! I see it clear O ! — it is the Hero 

Who beat old Boney so clear and clane ; 
The great old Fighter, and smart Delighter, 

Who with flying banners won the plain. 

There was Alexander the boald commander, 

And Mister Hannibal so fine : 
But if the Rat-catcher was their body-snatcher, 

By all that's good 'tis he would shine ! 
And Julius Csesar who, like Nebuchadnezzar, 

Was quite uncommon in his day. 
But I 'd lay you a wager that our old stager. 

The hook-nosed Duke would have his way. 

* On the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo — namely on June 18, 1831 
— the Duke of Wellington was mobbed, in the streets of London, the popu- 
lace being very Sngry with him for his opposition to the Reform Bill, intro- 
duced (and finally carried) by the Grey Cabinet. Some time after this, the 
windows of Apsley House — the Duke's town residence — were smashed by 
Uie mob, which caused his Grace to put up iron shutters, constructed, save 
the material, exactly like the wooden jalousies of Paris and New York. In 
Fraser for October, 1833, Maginn argued that ''the feeling of the Irish peas- 
antry is Tory — decidedly Tory," and adduced, in proof, a poem printed in 
Uie Irish characters, with a literal translation in English, which (he said) 
had been composed by a Kerryman who had come over to London ** in 
eearch of harvest work, and, almost ignorant of the Engb'sh language, had 
seated himself near St. George's Hospital," opposite Apsley House. Ma- 
ginn pretended to paraph^se the Irish poem, as above, to the tune of 
" The Groves of Blarney."— M. 

13 



194 THE FBASEBIAN PAFEBS. 

Great is mj sadness, and small my gladness. 

When I perccire his shatters shut — 
Smathcred and battered, besieged and tattered, 

By the blackguards who are now on Jut. 
And O, by Japers ! what sort of capers. 

You grenadiers, it was yours to show, 
When the riffle-raffle of the London city 
• Smashed all the panes of our old Beau ! 

Where were the Guards, sir, when the blackguards, sir. 

Smashed down the panes of the Dear Duke ? 
If GoU and Osgor were here to the fore, 

'T is they would never on such stuff look ; 
And there 's Bricn Boroo, in battle lading — 

'T is he 'd for aid in this here iight. 
And smash the villains, like damned civilians, 

Over and over, from left to right. 

Like hungry hawks on a March-day morning, 

A-slating small birds upon a hill, 
'T is they 're the covies who are adorning 

That most particular place they 're going to kill. 
There was great rejoicing, and loud-mouthed voicing. 

Bawling away about the peace ; 
And in the king's dominions it fled about with pinions, 

A most plasing remonstrance in the place. 

There was wondrous beaming and branch-lights flaming. 

Sweet music a-shameing bagpipe and flute ; 
The windows they were scented, the people were contented. 

Every thing was happy — both mankind and brute. 
The deafman and the cripple both together they did tipple. 

And Erin was rejoicing to the tune of her " go bray ;" 
And 't is I am hard in heart here, to think that you, Duke Arthur, 

Are a smash-windowed sort of character this blessed day. 



FROM ANACBEON. 186 



FROM ANACREON* 

When my weary, worn-out eyes 

Closed to seek a willing peace, 
And the moon, in midnight skies, 

Glittered like a shilling-piece — 
At my door there came a knock, 

O'er my brow a dizziness ; 
Through the pane I gave a look— 

" Holloa ! what *s your business ?" 

There I saw a little boy, 

Frosty-faced and shivering ; 
Forty arrows, like a toy, 

Bent his back a quiver in. 
" Let me in," he cried, " till day — 

Lost my road in jogging on ; 
I have got the means to pay. 

Put your board a noggin on. 

" Men by mercy show the god — 
• Don't be stupid, pondering ; 
If you send me on the road, 

I shall die in wandering." 
"Enter in," said I, " my lad ; 

Pale, your cheeks with soda vie ; 
Here 's a fire to make you glad, 

Here 's a glass of eau de vie" 

To the dying flame he drew. 
Wanted warmth remembering; 



* This is a paraphrase of Anacreon's thirty-third ode, 'M.ttroviKrion iro6' 
mii, Moore has given a translation of it which may be found in his Poems. 
•M. 



196 THE FBASKBTAN PAI^EBS. 

And his color backwmrd flew, 
As be paffed the ember in. 

Then be dried his moistened hair. 
Then be broached a keg or two, 

Then be hummed a merry air. 
Danced, and cnt a kg or two. 

Bat when he beheld his bow, 
* All his joints seemed sinnons ; 

•* Sore," he cried, " *t is spoilt bj snow,' 

And he twanged continuoos. 
" Lost ! oh, lost ! tinhappj I ! 

If 'tis hut, I die for it! 
Ton shall be the ballodi's ere. 

Never will jroa sigh for it." 

Ere again I coold exdaim. 

Fearing some ill In^ in it. 
At mr heart he took an aim. 

And his arrow stuck in it. 
" That's a hit^mj dart is trae; 

Now," said he, <* away ftr it 1" 
Throngh a window-pane he flew. 

And left poor I to pa j te it 



IRISH GENIUS. 197 



IRISH GENIUS.* 

I WOULD express my sincere regret that some of my military 
friends, accomplished gentlemen as they are, have not heretofore 
put forth, as they easily might have done by the devotion of not 
many hours of " laborious idleness," a couple of volumes upon 
Ireland as it is. No book is more wanted. Really, in England, 
less is known about Ireland than about any other country of the 
same importance in the world. There is a perfect confusion of 
ideas in England about the inhabitants of this portion of the Brit- 
ish empire. The feeling at the bottom of every body's heart is 
that the Irish are a nation of savages. Well might a man, in en- 
tering upon the history of any given year of the Irish people, use 
the words of the greatest Roman historian : " Opus aggredior 
plenum variis casihus — atrox praeliis, discors sediiionibus, ipsa 
ETiAM PACE s^vuM." The insane restlessness of the popula- 
tion — (for even when all may appear calm, there is no rest, in 
fact ; there is only what the poet fancifully styles " the peaceless 
rest" of the ocean floods ; let any sordid traitor be but pleased to 
play the ^olus, and in an instant all again is wild commotion) — 
those vilest assassinations, perpetrated with all the cunning, and 
more than the cruelty, of the American Indian — those astounding 
massacres continually brought before our eyes fail jiot to strike 
every English heart sick with horror. "We turn aside in the 
depth of disgust from a people who seem not to have the glimmer- 
ing of a notion of " fair play." In foreign parts, the practices 
wherein, as to men's quarrels generally, we so cordially despise, 

* From a review of Inglis's " Ireland in 1834 " (an amusing but very su- 
perficial and self-conceited work) I have taken this brief tribute to the as- 
cendancy and generality of Irish genius. — M. 



198 THE FRASEBUN PAPEB8. 

it is considered infamous to oppress a man by numbers. Ay, even 
the Italian goes forth alone to stab his enemy : he would disdain 
to share even the treachery of his vengeance with a multitude. 
Not so in Ireland ! There hundreds of stalwart villains will com- 
bine to assassinate, and, to use a French phrase which applies hap- 
pily here, "^ assist," at the assassination of a single man — of an old 
man — of a " minister of peace !" O'Connell, too, has of late yean 
exhibited much amongst us. What can we think of a people 
that, after a fashion so costly, worship such an idol ? Why, even 
Caliban would disdain him for a god. All these things do and 
should deeply prejudice and incense us against impracticable Ire- 
land ; and doubtless many an honest Englishman has in earnest 
responded to Sir Joseph Yorke's joking wish, that the island might 
be scuttled and stuck under water for some four-and-twenty 
hours.* 

Yet, strange to say, notwithstanding the apparent justice of this 
feeling, you look around you and you find that the first man in 
Europe, the Duke of Wellington, " the very topmost man of all 
the world,** is an Irishman. His brother, too, whom all acknow- 
ledge to have been our greatest governor of India, is an Irishman. 
Ix)rd Beresford, and a host of our most distinguished ofl&cers, are 
Irishmen. Hamilton, one of our greatest astronomers, is an Irish- 
man. The man who, with the single exception of Sir R. Peel, 
THE ORATOR AND STATESMAN of the Current generation, dis- 
played the greatest energy, learning, and power, in the anxious 
debates on the Rt^form-bill, John Wilson Croker, is an Irishman. 
Boyton and O'Sullivan, who, rif) later than the other day, charmed 
listening thousands of Englishmen by their impassioned eloquence, 
are Irishmen. 

Of your literary and scientific men, moreover, many of the most 
distinguished are Irish. Sir R. Steele, an Irishman, was the 
creator of your periodical literature ; and ever since some of the 
very best, the wittiest, and the most learned of the contributions 
to our Reviews and Magazines have been made by Irishmen. 

* By a curious coincidence, which many of the Irish thought retributive, 
Sir Joseph Yorke was himself drowned in the English Channel — thus per- 
sonally realizinfc tlio "scuttling" and being " stuck under water," to which 
h« had charitably condemned Ireland. — M. 



IRISH GENIUS. 199 

One of your most famous and most classical sculptors, John 
Carew, is an Irishman. Your painter that gives best promise 
of works which may raise the character of our national school, 
Maclise, is an Irishman, Stanfield, highly eminent in every or- 
dinary branch of the pictorial art to which he addresses his at- 
tention, and the creator of that branch which must prove the 
most useful, as tending to affect the senses and improve the 
taste of the multitude, and which, therefore, entitles him to rank 
amongst the benefactors of the country, is Irish. In a word, 
look to every avocation, from that of serving the king in the high- 
est offices of state, down to the humblest whereby bread may be 
honorably won, and you will find that of the most distinguished 
individuals a large proportion is Irish. Again, gaze around you 
in any fashionable drawing-room of the metropolis, and on inquiry 
you will discover that several of the most lovely and lady-like 
women, and of the finest and most accomplished gentleman, are 
Irish. 

This is strange. Let us philosophize. How comes it ? Is it 
the advent of a comet or the advance of the schoolmaster ? No ; 
you will find that at the gallant court of "the merry monarch " 
many of the choicest spirits were Irish. I appeal to Anthony 
Hamilton, himself an Irishman. "Were not the great Ormond, and 
Ossory, and Arran, Irish ? And thinking of them, the rival Anglo- 
Hibernian house — the name of, Geraldine suggests itself. Were 
not the Desmonds Irish? — they, the Guises of the English em- 
pire. You will find, moreover, that some of the noblest monu- 
ments in your literature, and of the brightest names in your his- 
tory, may be claimed for Ireland. The finest orations ever yet 
composed in any language, with the solitary exception of the ora- 
tions of Demosthenes, are the work of an Irishman. The noblest 
specimens of irreproachable reasoning, of multifarious knowledge, 
instinct with genius as its soul, now drawn upon the subject like 
rays concentrating to a focus, that subject to illuminate with a 
blaze of living light which makes its past, its present,, and its future 
alike manifest to the dullest or the most unwilling eye ; and, lastly, 
of that mighty eloquence which, 

" Like the oracular thunder, penetrating, shakes 
The listening soul in the suspended blood," 



200 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

were fumisbed forth by Barke. Qerein I make no ezcepdon of 
the Athenian's grand orations. The Irishman was right, Demos- 
thenes was wrong; Barke saved Great Britain, Demosthenes 
ruined Athens. Ay, Burke saved Great Britain ! It was an Irish- 
inan who first grappled with the revolutionary demon, who 
checked him in his fierce career, and sent him bowling from our 
chores — '^ alone he did it !" It was an Irishman (the mnch- 
injured Marquis of Londonderry) who continued on foreign lands 
the struggle which an Irishman had begun ; and it was an Irish- 
man who, on the plains of Waterloo, brought that struggle to a 
cousummatiou, giving glory unequalled to Great Britain that had 
fouglit the fight, and freedom to the world ! The voice of the last 
great orator that sounded in the Commons' House was an Irish- 
man's, George Canning's.* 

One of the very greatest and most vigorous prose writers in 
your own or any other tongue, Swifl, was an Irishman. The au- 
thor of the sweetest, the most heart-home story in the world. The 
Vicar of Wakefield^ was an Irishman. The pleasantest and wit- 
tiest and wisest of all light works, Memoires de Grammont, was 
written by an Irishman. The British Rabelais, and, moreover, 
the imaginer of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, was an Irishman. 
Sheridan, the author (I quote Byron) of "' the best comedy, the 
best opera, and the best farce," on the English stage — I speak not 
of his speeches, or his far more valuable wit — was an Irishman. 
The fact is, that all the English comedy worth reading, exceptiug 
only that of Shakespeare, was written by natives of Ireland. Need 
I name Steele, Farquhar, Congreve, Murphy, O'Keefe, Mrs. Cent- 
livre, in proof of this assertion ? I speak not of the Earl of Mor- 
nington, or of Barry the Painter, or of Sheridan's father, the com- 
piler of the dictionary — or of K. O'Hara, the author of Midas — 
or of Col. Jephson, or of Sheridan Knowles, the only man in 
Great Britain who has of late years written any thing wearing the 
semblance of an original play — or of the multitude of famous 
actors and actresses who have kindled the smiles and drawn down 
the tears of your audiences, from the days of Mossop, Barry, 
Sheridan, down to those of Miss O'Neill, the last, and I do believe 

* Canning's father -was an Irishman, and his family was Irish, but he him- 
self was bom in London. 



IBISH GENIUS. 201 

the greatest, actress that trod your boards — certainly the only 
lady in carriage, demeanor, appearance, expression, sensibility, who 
has appeared upon them in the memory of those belonging to the 
present generation. But I will observe that the celebrated meta- 
physician Berkeley, the learned Usher, the great chemist Boyle, 
the great theologian Magee, Tom Moore, a song-writer second 
only to Beranger, were all Irishmen. Curran, Grattan, Flood, 
Bushe, North, the men 

" Who held the bar and senate in their spell," 

were all, all Irishmen. Let me add, too, for those who set store 
by such matters, that the best English blood now flows in the 
veins of the Irish nobility — 

" Oh, day and night, but this is wondrous strfuage 1" 

Ay, sooth to say, here is a mystery /* 

* In a subsequent part of this article the " mystery " in .question was 
solved by the declaration that up to that time (February, 1835) Ireland had 
not yet been civilized 1 — M. 



20^ THE RA8ERIAN PAPERS. 



O'DOHERTY'S CONFESSION 

I OFTEN told joa how I loved her 

In manhood's early glow ; 
I never told you why I loved her — 

This yon now shall know ! 
'T is trae her stature, 8hi4)e, and face, 

Were, all three, queer — hut, zounds I 
The ** handsome feature" in her case 

Was " fifty thousand pounds !" 

She had an eye, whose lustre lonely 

Her furrowed phiz illumined ; 
That is, one side and one side only — 

The other cheek w«s doomed 
To darkness deep as death's drear valley ; 

And but for her bright nose 
No gleam had lent that cheek's blind alley. 

Such radiance in repose. 

Well, well, her father lost his money. 

And she began to look 
In my fond ey^ so strangely fanny — 

It would not suit my book. 
Could I take off this old man's daughter, 

His last remaining prop ? 
No, no ; I mixed some gin and water, 

And begged she 'd taste a drop. 

She did so ; and, as I 'm a sinner. 

She pulled so wondrous well, 
That ** oh !" thought I, " such rar» beginner 

Will doubtless soon excel !" 
And, turning to her joyless father, 

1 said, " Flare up, old chap ! 
1 wooed her once, but now I rather 

Think the thread must snap !" 



O'DOHEBTY'S COI^FESSION. 208 

The old man's look grew stem and sterner, 

The maiden seemed to swoon : 
" So ho !" thought I, "'tis time to spurn her — 

Does she think me such a spoon ? 
Good hye — good bye — both child and parent, 

Tour cash is gone ; and I 
To nothing being heir-apparent; 

Will wifeless live and die !" 



204 THE FRAaSRIAM PAPEB8. 



WILLIS'S PENCILLINGS.* 

This is really and truly, a goose of a book — or, if any body 
'wishes the idiom to be changed^ a book of a goose. There is not 
a single idea in it, from the first page to the last, beyond what 
might germinate in the brain of a washerwoman. Willis tells us 
that he was an attache to some American embassy ; and, for any 
thing we know to the contrary — being perfectly ignorant of what 
are the materials composing the lower, or, indeed, the higher or- 
ders of American diplomacy — he may in this instance have 
spoken the truth.f If it be the case, we are happy to find that 

* Pencilllngs by the Way. By N. P. WilUs, Esq., Author of " Melanie," 
the "SUngsby Papers," &c. 3 vols. London, 1835. Macrone. [This 
critique, too entirely in Maginn's most reckless and bitter vein to be omitted 
here, appeared in Frascr for February, 1836. In conjunction with Lockhart's 
scathing article in the Quarterly y it did serious injury to Mr. "Willis's very 
amusing book. It api)eai*s, on his own sliowing, that Mr. Willis visited only 
at Gore House and Gordon Castle (the respective residences of the demirep 
Countess of Blessington and that hearty old gentleman the Duke of Gordon). 
Had his acquaintance been with a score, instead of a brace of the British 
nobility, we probably should have had almost a library of lively chit-chat 
about them ! — M.] 

t The last number of the Metropolitan Magazine throws some light on the 
business. 

" Although we are well acquainted with the birth, parentage, and history 
of Mr. Willis, previous to his making his continental tour, we will pass them 
over in silence ; and we think that Mr. Willis will acknowledge that we are 
generous in so doing. Mr. Willis shall first make his appearance as an a/- 
tachk to the American Legation at Paris. And here we must tell our friends 
in America, that they must be more circumspect on this point. Letters of 
recommendation are certainly necessary to procure admission into the best 
English society; for there is one inconvenience attending a democratic form 
of government, which is, that where all assume equality, it is not easy to 



/ 
WILLIS'S PENCILUN6S. 205 

the lickspittle spirit of the red-tape school — the school of lickspit- 
tleism all over the world — breaks out so gloriously in his very 
first volume (p. 208), as to make him declare the man on whose 
patronage he depended for his position, General Jackson, to be 
superior to any monarch of Europe he (Willis) had ever seen. 
Such is the true tact of all attaches ; and it will be, of course, 
swallowed by that most open-throated of flummery gulpers, old 
Hickory. But if the " grey old chieftain," a« he is called in these 
foolish books, be deprived of his presidential chair, and of politi- 
cal influence in the States, at the next election, we are tolerably sure 
that the freespoken penciller will be prepared to denounce him ^ 
a mixture of the blusterer and the sneak, with as much readiness 

know who people are : but the American government have committed a very 
great error in allowing the travelling part of their community to hoist what in 
England would be considered as false colors. Wo presume that this mistake 
arises from their form of government, which very much affects opinions upon 
certain points. In England, being attached to an embassy implies that the 
parties so employed are of high connexion, or of acknowledged talent. The 
very circumstance, therefore, of presenting your card with attache engraved 
on it, is sufficient, in England, to serve as a passport to the highest circles. 
Now, with the Americans the case is very different; they have their real 
attaches^ who receive the salary and perform the duty, Washington Irving 
was one in this country ; and every one who was acquainted with him is 
ready to acknowledge that, in every point, no better selection could have 
been made. But the American government allows what may be termed 
spurious attachis ; that is the permission to their countrymen so to call them- 
selves, for the 'convenience of travelling.' This is the American phrase used ; 
and, to give the English reader some idea of the carelessness with which 
these passports to society have been granted, we are credibly informed that 
Mr. McLean, the former American ambassador at Paris, had granted not 
less than twenty-five to different persons. The French authorities took um- 
brage at this, and as all the attaches of every description were considered as 
dismissed when the ambassador was recalled, his successor, Mr. Livingston, 
has been much more particular. Mr. Willis, however, obtained a renewal of his, 
for the convenience of travel. But we again repeat, that this system is unfair. 
The old world is left to suppose that Mr. Willis, who presents his flourishing 
card, is a person selected by the American government for his abilities or 
consequence in their country, who is receiving their pay, and is intrusted 
with diplomatic secrets, when, in fact, he is only a traveller, paying his owu 
way by his Pencitlings on the Way in the New York Mirror." 

Mr. Willis has caught a Tartar in Marryat ; but we do not think the author 
«f Peter Simple and Jacolf Faithful should have troubled his head about such 
•mall deer. 



206 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

as is at present daily done by the liberal journals of the liberal 
Louis Philippe. 

Two and a lialf more useless volumes than the opening portions 
of Willis's work can not be conceived. The most commonplace 
road-book has told us every thing of the picture-galleries in Italy, 
the wonders of Pompeii, the glories of Naples, the splendors of 
Constantinople, the caft$ of the various towns of the Continent, 
the Simplon, the Domo D'Ossola, &c. &c. ; and all these hacked 
and hashed matters of all manner and kinds of tourists^ are here 
again narrated in a style as creeping as a guide-book, and, at the 
same time, as afiected as that of a namby-pamby writer in twad- 
dling albums, kept by the mustachoed and strong-smelling widows 
or bony matrons of Portland Place or Curry Row. Pleasant it 
is to know that Bonconvento is "the place where Henry VII. of 
Germany (not of England, be it observed) was poisoned by a 
monk, on his way to Rome'' (voL i. p. 47) — that the ancient 
Volscinium was the capital of the Volscians (p. 49) — that Monte^ 
fiascone contains the epitaph of E%t<, JEsty Est — that the tomb of 
Nero is one side of the road before crossing the Tiber — that 
Cicero arrested the Catilinarian conspirators on the Pons Emilias 
on their way to join Catiline — that Constantine saw his famous 

vision on the same spot — that And so forth, through page 

after page of wearisome drivelling — 

"Nota magis nulli domus." 

We have had all these things told us over and over again. We 
have had every picture described, every museum catalogued, every 
point of scenery sketched every spot where famous or remarkable 
deed was done depicted, long before Willis was born, in all the 
countries where his pedlar course was cast, by poets, by sages, by 
critics, by scholars — by men of genius, of taste, of learning, of re- 
search. His chambermaid gabble is tedious to the last degree. It 
has not even the piquancy of personal adventure to relieve it. He 
appears to have shown oflf as a ninny of the first magnitude through- 
out all his tour, and to have been treated -accordingly. We request 
any reader who has the patience — nay, we request Willis himself — 
to count up how often he has used the word* " noble" and " beauti- 
ful," as applied to what he has seen, and to wonder at his utter sum- 



WILLIS'S PENCILLINGS. 207 

phishness. There are two ways in which egregious folly may be ' 
displayed. One is, that of contemning what all the world admires, 
or passing over with lacklustre eye what rivets the glance of 
genius. The other, equally odious, is the affectation of being 
penetrated with admiration of what ar© long recognized as pro- 
ductions of art or nature worthy of worship; and worshiping 
them, accordingly, with an idolatry as stupid and unreasoning as 
that which old Polonius affects for the vagaries of Hamlet when 
depicting the appearances of the clouds. Look, for instance, in 
Willis's second volume (p. 12, &c.), at the critiques on the pictures 
of Guido, Giorgione, Correggio, &c., in the Leuchstenstein gallery. 
They are extolled in a trumpery swell of penny-trumpet elo- 
quence as the finest things in the world — but so extolled as to 
prove that the writer had never bestowed more than a cursory 
survey on the most brilliant among them. " Alike to him is time 
and tide** — there hangs a picture, said by the catalogue to be 
painted by Correggio, and it is noble, beautiful, and so forth. He 
would have said the same if it had been executed by West. He 
honestly confesses that he was heartily tired of looking over gal- 
leries of pictures -r- the foolish fellow never seems to have dreamt 
that time, study, knowledge, patience, are requisite for the due un- 
derstanding of any one of those famous pictures to which be 
shouts " Bravo !" with a bray as void of sense as the ejaculation 
of a jackass. The jackass, in fact, is the superior animal, because 
his bray is elicited in general by something that calls forth his ap- 
petites or instincts. Willis's bray is that of nothing better than 
mere affectation — a paltry parody on the musical intonation of 
the hero of Peter Bell, 
Enough of this : 

We leave all foreign lands alone, 
And turn our eyes upon our own. 

About two-thirds of the third volume relate to the doings and 
geeings of Willis in England. The Quarterly has already done 
justice to this part of the performance, and Willis is mortified at 
soul. Sir Fretful Plagiary was never more serene under in- 
fliction. 



208 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

" Those of my letters which date from England were written within three 
or four months of my first arriyal in this coantrj. Fortnnate in my introdno- 
tions, almost cmbamLssed with kindness, and, from adyantages of compari- 
son gamed by long travel, qualified to appreciate keenly the peculiar de%hts 
of English society, I was little disposed to find fault. Eyery thing pleased 
me. Tct in one instance — one single instance — I indulged myself in 
■trictnre upon individual character ; and I repeat it in this tcorh, sure that 
there will be but one person in the world of letters who will not read it with 
approbation — the editor of the Quarterly himself. It was expressed at the 
time with no personal feeling, for I had never seen the individaal concerned, 
and my name had probably never reached his ears. I but repeated what 
I had said a thousand times, and never without an indignant echo to its tmth 
— an opinion formed from the most dispassionate perusal of his writings— 
that the editor of that Review was the most unprincipled critic of the age. 
Aside from its flagrant literary injustice, we owe to the Quarterly, it is well 
known, every spark of ill feeling that has been kept aliye between England 
and America for the lost twenty years. The sneers, the opprobrious epithets 
of this bravo in literature, have been received in a country where the madn- 
nery of reviewing was not understood, as the yoice of the English people, 
and an animosity for which there was no other reason has been thus periodi- 
cally fed and exasperated. I conceive it to be my duty as a literary man— 
I know it is my duty as an American — to lose no opportunity of setting my 
heel on the head of this reptile of criticism. He has turned and stong me. 
Thank God, I have escaped the slime of his approbation. 

"N.P.Willis." 

"Was ever small-beer poured out with a more magnificent air 
of the effusion of champagne ! Heaven preserve us I here is 
Niagara in a Jordan ! 

We are sorry, however, to be a little more serious. "We do not 
wish to accuse so ridiculous a person as poor Willis of any design 
of committing blasphemy, but such people as he ought never to 
be so left to themselves as to be trusted with the use of metaphors. 
That Willis should literally set his foot on Lockhart's head, is what 
we think no one imagines the silly man to have meant. The 
probabilities are, that if the imposition of feet should take place 
between them, the toe of Lockhart would find itself in disgusting 
contact with a part of Willis which is considerably removed from 
his head, and deemed to be the quarter in which the honor of such 
persons is most peculiarly called into action. If we look at it, as 
we must, metaphorically, we are bound to trace the metaphor to 
its source, to examine what was its primary origin, its first desd- 



WILUS'S PENCILLINGS. 209 

nation ; and as Mr. Willis marks out Mr. Lockhart as the serpent 
whose head his heel has crushed, we are bound to ask who it is 
that Mr. Willis, following the original, wishes himself to be con- 
sidered? The crusher of the serpent's head is — Jesus Christ. 
Will Mr. Willis say, when in his effete and blind rage against 
Lockhart he represented his reviewer as the Scriptural reptile, 

that he intended that he should himself be looked upon as ? 

No, no — the man is an ass, to be sure, but he is not quite so great 
a beast as the natural deduction from this idiotic passage would 
lead us to deem him, if we did not make a charitable allowance 
for the foolish frenzy of a wretched authorling howling under 
the lash. 

The particular passage to which he refers in such triumphant 
anticipation of general sympathy, occurs in a dialogue which he 
says took place between him and Professor Wilson in Edinburgh. 
From our knowledge of the Professor, we are quite sure that this 
conversation is considerably misrepresented. It has not a single 
characteristic of the racy and enthusiastic eloquence with which that 
most eloquent of men graces every subject, great or small on 
which he touches ; and which even his charitable desire of talking 
down to the level of the Hterary haberdasher, who had intruded 
himself upon him for the honorable purpose of making an " arti- 
cle" out of him for the New York Mirror, could not repress. 

After telling us that Wilson had asked him to breakfast, that 
the breakfast was actually made, but that the Professor took no 
notice of the fact, greatly to the discomposure of Willis, who, 
mourning over the tea getting cold, paid little attention to the con- 
versation, we are informed that he " spoke of the Noctes"— 
which, every thing being considered, is an a^dmirable proof of the 
taste and delicacy of our author. On this Wilson 



(( 



Smiled, as you would suppose Christopher North would do, jnrith the 
twinkle proper of genuine hilarity in his eye and said, * Yes, they have been 
very popular. Many people in Scotland believe them to be transcripts of 
real scenes, and wonder how a professor of moral philosophy can descend to 

such carousings ; and poor H comes in for his share of abuse — for they 

never doubt he was there, and said everything that is put down for him.' 

" * How does the Shepherd take it V 

** * Very good-humorcdly, with the exception of one or two occasions, when 
Cockney scribblers have visited him in their tours, and tried to flatter him by 

U 



210 THB FRASEBIAK PAPEBS. 

conrincin^ him he mg treated disrespectfollY. Bat fire minates' conTeni^ 
tion and two words of banter restore his good hamor ; and he is convinoed, 
as he ouirht to be, that he owes half his reputation to the ' Noctes.' ' 

" * What do voa think of his ' Life' of Sir Walter, which Lockhart has so 
butchered in Fnuer f 

'* * Did Lockhart write that V 

'' *1 was assured so in London.' 

" ' It was a barbarous and unjustifiable attack ; and, oddly enough, I said 
so yesterday to Lockhart himself, who was here, and he differed from me 
entirely. Now you mention it, I think, from his manner he must have 
written it.' 

« * WiU H forgive him !' 

" * Never ! never ! I do not think he knows yet who has done it, but I 
hear that he is dreadfully exasperated. Lockhart is quite wrong. To attack 
an old man, with gray hairs, like the Shepherd, and accuse him so flatly and 
unnecessarily of lie upon lie — oh, it was not right !' 

*' * Do you think H misrepresented facts wilfully V 

" * No, oh no ! he is perfectly honest, no doubt, and quite revered Sir 
Walter. He has had an unlucky inaccuracy of mind, however ; and his own 
vanity, which is something quite ridiculous, has given a coloring to his con- 
versations with Scott, which put them in a very false light ; and Sir Walter, 
who Yi'as the best-natured of men, may have said the things ascribed to him 
in a variety of moods, such as no one can understand who does not know 

what a bore H< must sometimes have been at Abbotsford. Do you know 

Lockhart ?* 

" ' No, I do not. He is almost the only literary man in London I have not 
met ; and 1 must say, as the editor of the Quarterly ^ and the most unfair and 
unprincipled critic of the day, I have no wish to know him. I never heard 
hiiu well spoken of. I probably have met a hundred of his acquaintances, 
but I have not yet seen one who pretended to be his friend.' 

** * Yet there is a great deal of good in Lockhart. If he were sitting 
there, opposite to you, you would find him the mildest and most unpresuming 
of men, and so he appears in private life always.' 

*' ' Not always. A celebrated foreigner, who had been very intimate with 
him, called one morning to deprecate his severity upon Baron D'Haussez's 
lK>ok in a forthcotuing review. He did his errand in a friendly way, and, on 
taking his leave, Lockhart, with much ceremony, accompanied him do\^Ti to 
his carriage, * Pray, do n't give yourself the trouble to come down,' said the 
polite Frenchman. * I make a point of doing it, sir,' said Lockhart, with a 
very offensive manner, * for I understand from your friend's book that we are 
not considered a polite nation in France.' Nothing, certainly, could be more 
ill-bred and insulting.' 

" * Still it is not in his nature. I do believe that it is merely an unhappy 
talent he has for sarcasm, with which his heart has nothing to do. When he 
sits down to review a book, he never thinks of the author or his feelings. 
He cuts it up with pleasure, because he docs it with skill in the way of his 



WILUS'S PENCILLINGS. 211 

profession, as a surgeon dissects a dead body. He would be the first to show 
the man a real kindness if he stood before him. I have known Lockhart 
lonf]^. He was in Edinburgh a great while ; and when he was writing Vale- 
riuSf we were in the habit of walking out together every morning, and when 
we reached a quiet spot in the country, he read to me the chapters as he wrote 
them. He finished it in three iveeJcs. I heard it all thus by piecemeal as it 
west on, and had much difficulty in persuading him that it was worth publish- 
ing. He wrote it very rapidly, and thought nothing of it. We used to sup 
together with Blackwood, and that was the real origin of the 'Noctes.' ' 

" * At Ambrose's V 

" ' At Ambrose's.* 

" ' But is there such a tavern, really V 

" * Oh, certainly. Any body will show it to you. It is a small house; 
kept in an out-of-the-way comer of the town,* by Ambrose, who is an excel- 
lent fellow in his way, and has had a great influx of custom in consequence 
of his celebrity in the *Noctes.' We were there one night very late, and had 
all been remarkably gay and agreeable. 'What a pity,' said Lockhart, 
' that some short-hand writer had not been here to take down the good things 
that have been said at this supper !' The next day he produced a paper 
called 'Noctes Ambrosisin8&/ and that was the first.t I continued them 
afterward.' " 

We here must protest at once that we do not believe that this 
conversation has been in any part fairly reported. We are per- 
fectly ready to admit, that the hungry Yankee might have suf- 
fered the claims of his stomach on the tea-pot of the Professor so 
far to prevail as to forget, in the yearning after food physical, all 
recollection of the food intellectual flung before him by his enthu- 
siastic host. What was Wilson — energetic, glowing, vivid — 
what was he, with his earnest manner and his words of fire, com- 
pared, in the mind of Willis, to the undevoured breakfast ? This, 
said within his hollow self the ilnsatisfied haberdasher, may be all 

* This is a strange statement for Wilson to have made, inasmuch as Am- 
brose's is in the very centre of Edinburgh, back of the Register House, and 
within two minutes' walk of Princes street, the most celebrated and fashion- 
able thoroughfare of the New Town. — M. 

t That was not the first. The lively papers called " Christopher in the 
Tent," (which appeared in Blackwood for August and September, 1819,) 
actually was the commencement of " The Noctes," and was a sort of joint- 
stock contribution from Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, Maginn, Hamilton, and 
others. No. I. of " The Noctes" proper appeared in March, 1822, contained 
a colloquy between Christopher North and Morgan O'Doherty, and was 
actually written by Maginn. — ^M. 



212 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

very fine ; but the muffins are getting cold, the tea bitter, the 
toast is dry, the eggs harden, the mutton-chops chill — good God! 
when will the Professor have done? All this we doubt not; 
neither do we doubt that he has most accurately depicted the 
awkwardness of the Professor in pouring out the tea, dnd doing 
the honors of the breakfast table. "Wilson was not reared to be 
a lady or a lady's maid. Sorry should we be that any such im- 
putation was ever poured over his shoulders broad. But except 
in these minute facts, which, after all, affect not so much the Pro- 
fessor as his windy-gutted visitor, we take leave to say that we 
do not believe a single word of the Willisian report. We do not 
believe that Wilson would permit a fifty-fifth rate scribbler of 
grijM?- visited sonnets to abuse a man who was knit to his very soul 
— a man with whom he had weathered many a storm — with 
whom he had been •' fou' for nichts thegither" — and to whom he 
was in every way bound by the bonds of the strictest friendship. 
In the rejiort which we have quoted, we find that the Professor is 
made to stand up for his friend, and no doubt he would do so if 
any antagonist worthy of his steel had approached him ; but those 
who know him will not believe that he suffered himself to be 
bowled down in such a cause by such a beggarly skittler as Willis, 
as if he had been a penny ninepin at the tail of a three-halfpenny 
chanse-house. 

Lookhart, we rather imagine, knows how to take care of him- 
self, and we have already said enough about him ; but there is 
one act of justice due to him from us. It is here flatly said, that 
ho is the author of some strictures which appeared in this Maga- 
zine, on a little book written by James Hogg.* Of the character 
given to those strictures we say nothing. We felt at the time that 
Hogg had done what, to say the least of it, was an indiscreet 
thing, in publishing his anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott. A very 
dilTorent thing was looked for from the hand of the Shepherd, and 

* Fniser for Aupust, 1834, opened with a very severe critique, tliirty-two 
p;iCOs lonjr. of n Scottish rcpriut of *' The Domestic Manners and Private 
l.ito of Sir Walter Scott, by James IIo;?g," originally published in America. 
The reviewer, whoever he may have been, evidently had more extensive and 
familiar personal knowledge of Scott than, with all his opportunities, tho 
r.ttriok Shepherd appeared to possess. — ^M. 



WILLIS'S PENCILUNGS. 218 

we certainly did not mince the matter in giving our opinion on his 
work. Such, indeed, as Willis may perhaps have understood, is 
not our custom, either in afternoon 6r forenoon. But that there 
wa*^ any malice or ill nature towards the Shepherd, nobody better 
knew than Hogg himself. He was somewhat mortified at first, 
but not with our critique. He was annoyed at the publication in 
this country of what he intended merely for America, and also at 
its being discovered that in some points connected with the domes- 
tic history of Sir Walter Scott, with which he thought himself 
perfectly familiar, and on which he had made himself in his own 
circles a sort of oracle, he was wholly ignorant and mistaken. 
But he acknowledged the general justice of the remarks in the 
article ; and, after a little pouting, he wrote for Re gin A as before. 
We wish to offend Hogg ! Heaven help the blockhead who ima- 
gined it ! With such as he the soul of Wilson had no communion. 
Since Hogg's death.* it has not been our lot seriously to men- 
tion his name. We wish that chance or design had introduced it 
to us in a more suitable moment than when we are occupied in 
dissecting drivel. But such as *the opportunity is, we must not 
let it pass without saying, that abundant as our time has been in 
remarkable men, few, all things considered, have been more re- 
mjffkable than James Hogg. The cheap prodigy of unlettered 
youth, advancing by its own exertions to the feats of reading and 
writing, or to astonishing by rhyme-manufacturing powers the 
village circle in which it is pent, we pass by — not exactly with 
contempt, but certainly without admiration. We own, with Cob- 
bett, that we think, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a good 
ploughman, or a decent shoemaker, or a passable milkwoman, is 
spoiled to make a puling porer upon books, the true spirit of 
which, if it be indeed heaven-descended, they can never appreci- 
ate. We care little or nothing for poor Stephen Duck, or Robert 
Bloomfield, or Mary Yearsley, or so forth. It was wrong to take 
these people from their spade, or cutting-knife, or pail. But 
when, as in the case of Bums, a genius turns up ; or, as in the 
case of Hogg, one who, if not worthy of the first place in poetry, 
draws closely near it, then, indeed, we think the difficulties through 
which they have struggled justly form a portion of the panegyric 
* On the 21 St of November, 1835, in his sixty-fourth year.— M. 



214 THE FRASERIAN PAPEB8. 

to which they are entitled. The life of Hogg has been so often 
detailed, that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. It was one of 
the pardonable vanities of the Shepherd's character, that he was 
fond of writing about himself.* He felt what he had done, and 
its own great importance in that microcosm, which went by the 
title of James Hogg ; and no one was ever seriously angry at his 
giving his own sense of that importance ample vent. Equally 
needless would it be to point out to admiration what the Shepherd 
has written worthy of applause — to speak of the fairy graces and 
the splendid imaginings of his Queen's Wake — the true-hearted- 
ness of his ballads and songs, whether amatory, or national, or 
political — the soft and gentle tenderness of his occasional verses, 
such as the Dedication to Lady Anne Scott — the sometimes coarse, 
but always hearty, fun of his sketches of such characters as he 
had the opportunity of delineating from life. Of all these literary 
matters we could speak for ever, but is needless. We must speak, 
however, from long personal knowledge, of the kind-hearted nature 
of Hogg — of his blithe conviviality — his good-humored wit— 
his unceasing charity of soul — his honest, unpurchased, and, we 
are sorry to add, unrequited Toryism — his stubborn independence, 
and his unyielding honesty. Light lie the turf upon his bosom ! 
A longer and deeper panegyric should we pay to the memory of 
thee, James Hogg, but tliat a tribute to it has been paid by a hand 
with which not only we, but no man living, must compete. Who 
dare speak after Wordsworth ? 

** No more of old romantic sorrows, 

For slaughtered youth and love-lorn maid — 
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten, 
And Ettrick mourns with her their Shepherd dead !** 

After this it is a pitiable thing to go back to Willis — but our 
irksome task must be done. Here, then, we are called upon for a 
fact or two. Lockhart never wrote a single line of the article 
which is in this sham-conversation attributed to him so uncere- 
moniously, on the authority of Professor Wilson. The Professor 
we believe, Hogg we are certain knew, not only that Lockhart 
had nothing to do with the critique, but were perfectly well aware 

* See, for example, his memoir, prefixed to his Altrive Tales, 



WILLIS'S PENCILLINGS. 215 

who the writer was.* There never was any secret on the 
subject, except such as arose from its total insignificance to the 
public. 

The intrusion upon Wilson made him, perhaps, somewhat diplo- 
matic toward Willis ; and we think that, goose as the latter is, he 
might have understood the inteDigible hint, that conversation re- 
porters were b6res. On no other hypothesis can we explain the 
anger expressed against " attacking an old man with gray hairs, 
like the Shepherd," ^s if that had never been done elsewhere ; or 
the mystified account of the origin and history of the Nodes 
Ambrosiance, These arcana of Blackwood were not to be intrust- 
ed to the ear of a wandering note-taker ; but when Willis volun- 
teers the anecdote of the distinguished foreigner and Lockhart, as 
if from his own knowledge, he spoils a well-known story, the point 
of which lies exactly the opposite way. The distinguished foreign- 
er was no less a person than Baron Capelle, not one of the seven 
wise men of Greece, but one of the seven foolish ministers of 
Charles X., who can hardly speak three words of English, and 
who has not established a carriage in England. There was nothing 
ill-bred or insulting in what occurred during his visit ; the object 
of which we happen to know to have been, not to deprecate severe 
crittcism on the deplorable rubbish of his quondam colleague, 
D'Haussez, but to secure, if possible, a favorable notice of some- 
thing of his own — we forget what — which he was then on the 
eve of publishing. Capelle very willingly threw his brother-mi- 
nister overboard ; and the merit of the story, with which we shall 
not trouble our readers, consisted in his adroitly complimenting — 
or, at least, thinking he did so — the dreaded reviewer, by holding 
him up as a pattern of that politeness, the existence of which 
D'Haussez had denied in England, but which would, he was sure, 
be made manifest to all the world, by the friendly review in the 
Qtiarterly of the work which he, the aforesaid Baron Capelle, was 
launching. So far from being displeased with himself or his re- 
ception, the dncien minisire departed full of self-applause of his 
own cleverness, and lost no time in waddling off to spread the 

*R. P. Gillies, whose own Recollections of Scott appeared in Fraser 
(1835-*6), was generally believed to have written the severe critique on 
Hogg*8 attempt at biography. — M. 



216 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

tidings of his most gracious interview among all the coteries which 
he favors with his presence ; and in some of which, no doubt, WilUs 
picked it up, and, as usual, botched the storj. 

As to the Quarterly, in its present management, tending to keep 
alive the ill-feeling between England and America, that is simply 
untrue. In the management of Gifford, manj severe artides 
against America appeared in the Quarterly : some just, some un- 
just, some witty, some dulL When the part which the American 
government took against us in the great contest in which we were 
engaged against Napoleon — a part of which aU honorable Ameri- 
cans are now ashamed — this was not to be wondered at; but since 
the Review has passed into the hands that at present' conduct it, 
there has been no trace whatever of a hostile feeling toward 
.\merica: but, on the contrary', many opportunities have been 
taken of endeavoring to blot out a recollection of former asperi- 
ties. Mr. Lockhart has been scarcely ten years editor of the 
Quarteriy, and Willis, in accusing him of having for twenty years 
directed his rancor against the Americans, speaks in every point 
of view the thing that is not. Twenty years ago he had scarcely 
emerged from college, and for the last ten years he has been doing 
precisely the reverse of what is stated in the slimy preface of the 
haberdashering attache. 

Much of the offensive matter which appeared in these Pencil- 
lings, as originally published in the New York Mirror, is struck 
out in the London edition ; such as the sneers against Bulwer, 
Fonblanque, Marr}-at, &c. Bulwer was especiaUy insulted in the 
original. The passages relating to Lady Blessington are consider- 
ably soflened : it is quite plain that she was quizzing the unfortu- 
nate man from the beginning. Does Willis know the nickname 
her ladyship gave him ? lie tells us, that Count D'Orsay was 
much enraptured with the national air of " Yankee Doodle" — a 
very probable story. We do not wish exactly to relate her lady- 
ship's joke, but it has a marked reference to that illustrious com- 
position. His disgusting repetition of Moore's conversation about 
CyConnell has been already sufl&ciently noticed. Poor Moore 
was obliged to cry peccavi before the man whom he had, while 
relying on the sacredness of private conversation, described as a 
beggarman and coward. Mr. Willis ought to be cautious in de- 



WILLIS'S PENCILUNGS. 217 

nouncing people to a tyranny, of which the flag is a death's-head 
and cross-bones. 

But he is forgotten akeady ; and as he has done the good work 
of making people in decent society shy of admitting " talented" 
young Americans among them, at least for some time, he has con- 
ferred on us such a compliment that we can not part with him in 
anger. Thanks to him, we shall not be again speedily pestered 
with fresh PenciUings by the Way ! 

Since the above was written, we have seen a review of this 
twaddling book in the Edinhurgh, which agrees in most particulars 
with our own opinions. We have a remark, however, to make on 
its concluding passage ; 

** One of Mr. Wfllis's excuses for the appearance of these personalities on 
this side of the Atlantic is, that against his will they are dragged into notice 
bj insertion in the pages of an English review. It may also be pleaded in 
palliation of his fault, that, with the exception of his remarks upon Mr. 
Lockhart, with whom he is indignant for imputed injustice, he seems to have 
erred without malice, and to have had no deliberate intention of wounding 
the feelings of any individual. He has sinned most (but, we think, not ma- 
liciously) against Mr. Moore and Professor Wilson. It was wrong to publish, 
nnpermitted, the private table-talk of these gentlemen, however innocent 
might be the substance ; doubly wrong to publish, as coming from their lips, 
comments upon the conduct and^aracter of living persons — such as he 
ascribes to Mr. Moore upon Mr. 0*Connell, and to Professor Wilson upon 
Mr. Lockhart. ift'hese are violations of confidence which we can not depre- 
cate too strongly. We shall not make ourselves accessories to the offence 
by quoting any of these reported conversations. To * provoke the caper 
which we seem to chide,' is not consistent with our plain notions of literary 
honesty; and we should regard it as a mean and miserable affectation to 
condemn such reprehensible and mischievous passages, if we were, at the 
same time, aggravating the mischief, and pandering to the appetites of a 
scandal-loving public, by giving them a more extended circulation.'' 

It will not do to confound, as we find it done here, things so dif- 
ferent as the reports of the conversations of Professor Wilson and 
Mr. Moore. The worst things put into the Professor's mouth 
against his friend are accusations of writing what, to oblige his 
foolish guest, he pretended to consider a severe article against 
Hogg, and a tendency to sarcastic reviewing. These reproaches 
(if he uttered them, which we doubt)* he t^n^pers, by saying that 



218 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

the gentlemin in qoestioa was one of the mildest and most unpre- 
tending of men, and the most read j to do a real kindness, even 
to those who mi^ suffer finom his critical severitj. This is not 
much to complain o^ after aQ ; hut when Moore is made to saj, as 
we are confident he did, that the character of (yConneU was 
stained bj groTelling cowardice, ra£Ban bellying, and sordid beg- 
gary, Mr. Willis was doing, not Mr. O^Ccmnell, but Mr Moore, a 
severe injory. What was said among gentlemen, all friends 
of the poet, except the peneiUer himself^ at the table of a lady 
where he had been long a distinguished ornament, was uttered ia 
the full confidence that it was not to be carried to the cars of the 
demagogue of Derrynane. In the miserable position of the party 
to which Mr. Moore, most unhappily for himself, is linked, it is 
indispensably necessary that tbis man should be lauded and in- 
censed by all who have the vitality of the Whig gang at heart; 
and we are sure, that while Mr. Moore was speaking oontempto^ 
ously behind his back, he was adulating him to his face. He was 
exhibiting, in fact, in his individual person, the respectable con- 
duct which at this moment characterizes Brookes's, as a body. 
0*Connell will never heartily forgive Moore ; and, when, as will 
inevitably be the case, he lets loose the bloodhounds of Irish 
£u;tion against the bard, it will be Imt a poor excuse for Willis to 
say that he had no evil intention m repeating his conversations, 
being actuated by no other motives than those fif earning an 
additional dollar, and explaining to his tufl-hunting countrymen 
that he had dined with a Countess. The Edinburgh Reviewer 
well knows, that the harm which may result to Moore from being 
exposed to the rancor of the Tail and its wearer, is a far different 
thing from any injur}' that could possibly accrue from literary 
strictures, were they of tenfold the severity of those put into the 
mouth of Professor Wilson. We take leave to observe, that the 
closing sentence of the Review is sad twaddle. It is mere 
stuff to say that the Edinburgh Review, in its present somnolent 
state, can give " a more extended circulation," calculated to pro- 
duce the slightest effect on the public mind, to " reprehensible and 
mischievous passages," which have been printed in every news- 
paper of the empire. 



ANOTHER CAW FROM THE ROOKWOOD. 219 



ANOTHER CAW FROM THE ROOKWOOD *— 

TURPIN OUT AGAIN. 

OvK C5 KopuKas ttiro(pdepei fiov. — ^AbISTOPHANBS, Clouds, 789. 

Quadrapedante putrem sonitu quatit ungala campum." — ^neid. 

Few novels run to the third edition : that would seem to cpnsti- 
tute, in the race of such like publications, a sort of pons asinarum ; 
which, generally speaking, Bentley's stud of broken-winded don- 
keys passeth not. Puffing, they gasp out their last breath long 
ere they reach it ; but a steed of the true mettle (like our immor- 
tal highwayman's Black Bess) gets over the echoing arch in a 
rattling canter. When this point is gained, an author may laugh 
at critics and reviewers ; they may pursue him thus far, but no fur- 
ther; — non datur vMra. 

So striking a bibliographical truth need hardly be announced as a 
discovery of our own. There is a Scotch allegory by Robert 
Bums, in which the matter is delightfully adumbrated ; and to us, 
whose eye can quickly detect the recondite wisdom of what to the 
vulgar seemeth trivial and homely, the interpretation of his para- 
ble reveals itself at once. Arrayed on each side of the road to 
literary eminence, that truly wonderful poet mystagogically repre- 
sents the scribes of the periodical press : 

" Five tomahawks, wi* bluid red mated — 
Five scimitars, wi' murder crasted — 

* Rookwood, a Romance. By William Harrison Ainsworth. Third 
Edition, complete in one volume, with Illustrations by George Cruikshank 
and a Portrait of the Author, engraved from a painting, by Daniel Maclise, 
Esq., A. B. A. London, Macrone. 



220 THE FBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

A garter, which a babe had strangled— 
A knife, a father's throat had mangled, * 
Whom his ain son of life bereft, 
The gray hairs yet stack in the heft." 

But your real man of genius (whom Bums chooses to designate 
under the mystic name of Tam O'Shanter), undismayed by the 
ghastly spectres that beset his progress, runs the gauntlet unterri- 
fied, dashes on ^11 of confidence and usquebah (con spirito), 
until having cleared in gallant style the " keystane of the brig," 

" There at them He his tail may toss — 
A numing stream they dare no' cross," — ^K. r. >. 

We were among the first to predict the rapid and successful 
career of Mr. Ainsworth as a novelist ; when Tnrpin first did ride 
abroad, we were there to see, to admire, and to applaud : at this 
stage of his popularity, now that he has kicked up such a doud 
of Olympic dust, and gained such kv6o^ from all voices, our en- 
couraging cheer is drowned in the general shout of acclamation. 
Yet needs must we confess, that our Beoina takes still a quasi- 
material interest in this young author ; and we should probably 
dwell here oh the precise nature of her feelings, had not Homer 
done the very thing for us, in depicturing the heart of Andro- 
mache as swelling with joy at the anticipated triumphs of Asty- 
anax : with this difference, however, that, according to history, 
they were never realized — 

" Hers was a fiction, but this is reality." 

We recur therefore with manifest complacency, to our original 
opinions in this gentleman's favor. We knew well what we 
spoke of; and it has given us much more gratification than sur- 
prise thus to find the public ratifying our verdict and verifying 
our vaticination by demanding, in a voice of thunder, a third edi- 
tion of his romance. Perhaps we would be more correct in our 
phraseology by calling it a fourth, for it is right to acquaint our 
author's admirers in Great Britain, that in the United States he is 
a decided favorite — a stray copy of Roohwood lying, at this mo- 
ment, on our table, ex pralo Tankeyano, printed by Carey and 
Lee of Philadelphia. Some weak-minded creatures have ques- 
tioned the possibility of Turpin's grand equestrian achievement 



ANOTHER CAW FROM THE ROOKWOOD. 221 

at the conclusion of the story ; they have industriously computed 
the milliaria between the modem metropolis and the ancient 
Eboracum^ showing, in this case, by their low attempts at land- 
measurement, the truth of Burke's remark : " the age of chivalry 
is gone ; and that of calculators has succeeded !" What will 
such nincompoops say to an extension of his " Ride" to " New 
York," 

" Per siculas equitavit andas 1" — ^Lib. iv. od. 4. 

• 

It is by such facts that calumny is struck dumb. When Scipio 
Africanus was accused of a miscalculation in the public accounts, 
by some peddling Joe Hume of that remote day, how did he act ? 
Did he exhibit his balance-sheet ? SNot he ! He talked of the 
anniversary of some glorious triumph over the water, and by that 
gentlemanly and dignified reference he got rid of what Theodore 
Hook would call a troublesome complaint in the chest. 

For our part, we expect to hear of new editions in the eastern 
as weH as the western hemisphere : we anticipate Tartar transla- 
tions and Arab commentaries. We see no reason why this ro- 
mance should not be read as eagerly on the plains of Mesopotamia 
as on the banks of the Potomac. The Cossacks on the river Don 
have, no doubt, already sent their orders to No. 3 St. James's 
Square. Fortunate author ! 

'' Tu loetum eqnino sanguine Concanum 
Vises et pharetratos Gelonos 
Et Scythicum inyiolatus amnem I" — Lib. iii. od. 4. 

It was imperfectly said byj(leaden) penciller Willis, of Captain 
Marryat's nautical novels, that they could scarcely be entitled 
to rank as works of hterature, " being read chiefly about Wap- 
ping." We need not dwell on the recent results of that choice 
bit of criticism, the readers of the Times newspaper having been 
treated to a belligerent correspondence thereanent ; from which all 
rational folks have concluded, that, though the JSTew Yorkian had 
plenty of disposable lead in his pencil, paper pellets sufficed for 
his pistol. We are happy to record a better proof of the taste 
and judgnaent of the Americans (in their predilection for Rook^ 
wood) than is afforded by the melancholy specimen of an komme 



222 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

dt lettres whom they have sent us in Willis. Quinctilian has laid 
it down, as a sure indication of proficiency in mental cultivation, 
a rattling regard for Cicero : " lUe se profecisse sciat cut Oicero 
vcUde placebit" An unbounded admiration of the chronicles of 
Turpin, we tell brother Jonathan, ought to suffice in his case ; 
and our respect for his intellectual attainments will be inseparable 
from and commensurate with his due appreciation. of '^ Hookwood, 
a Romanced 

"We are fully prepared to hear ill-natured individuals volunteer- 
ing an explanation of this decided partiality shown to Mr. Ains- 
worth's narrative on the other side of the Atlantic, and attempting 
to account for its popularity among the original settlers. Any 
one initiated into the secrets of the book-trade must be aware, 
that copies of the Newgate Calendar are in constant and steady 
request throughout President Jackson's dominions ; most ftmilies 
being anxious to possess that work from motives connected with he- 
raldry and genealogical science. It is the same pardonable weak- 
ness that secures among us the sale of Mr. Burke's Peerage and 
Commoners, We all wish, naturally enough, to see the names of 
our relatives in print, and be acquainted with our remote kinsmen 
in the various ramifications of consanguinity. The connexions 
of Turpin may have been many ; his history would naturally be 
expected, by our transatlantic countrymen, to throw some light on 
the motives which led a number of his contemporaries to depart 
for the land of the bmve and the free.* Hence, the ill-natured 
persons of whom we speak have ascribed to similar causes the fu- 
rious demand for copies of Hookwood, in the back settlements, on 
the ridge of the Alleghanies, down the Missouri, up the O. I. 0., 
and on the banks of the I. O. U. ; a river which, if it be not in 
the map of the States, among the other Kaya peeOpa of Yankee- 
dom, is well known to be the real Pactolus of the colony. Their 
Lycurgus is one " Lynch." 

There were many brave fellows in Greece long before the birth 
of Agamemnon, but, owing to the art of writing not having been 
yet invented, they all died intestate, if not unsung. There were, 
doubtless, also, from time immemorial, many capital highwaymen 

* Constable's Miscellany was, for a time, in brisk request, firom a mistaken 
notion as to the nature of its contents. 



WILUS'S PENCILUNGS. 213 

we certainly did not mince the matter in giving our opinion on his 
work. Such, indeed, as Willis may perhaps have understood, is 
not our custom, either in afternoon 6r forenoon. But that there 
was any malice or ill nature towards the Shepherd, nobody better 
knew than Hogg himself. He was somewhat mortified at first, 
but not with our critique. He was annoyed at the publication in 
this country of what he intended merely for America, and also at 
its being discovered that in some points connected with the domes- 
tic history of Sir Walter Scott, with which he thought himself 
perfectly familiar, and on which he had made himself in his own 
circles a sort of oracle, he was wholly ignorant and mistaken. 
But he acknowledged the general justice of the remarks in the 
article ; and, after a little pouting, he wrote for Be gin a as before. 
We wish to offend Hogg ! Heaven help the blockhead who ima- 
gined it ! With such as he the soul of Wilson had no communion. 
Since Hogg's death.* it has not been our lot seriously to men- 
tion his name. We wish that chance or design had introduced it 
to us in a more suitable moment than when we are occupied in 
dissecting drivel. But such as *the opportunity is, we must not 
let it pass without saying, that abundant as our time has been in 
remarkable men, few, all things considered, have been more re- 
markable than James Hogg. The cheap prodigy of unlettered 
youth, advancing by its own exertions to the feats of reading and 
writing, or to astonishing by rhyme-manufacturing powers the 
village circle in which it is pent, we pass by — not exactly with 
contempt, but certainly without admiration. We own, with Cob- 
bett, that we think, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a good 
ploughman, or a decent shoemaker, or a passable milkwoman, is 
spoiled to make a puling porer upon books, the true spirit of 
which, if it be indeed heaven-descended, they can never appreci- 
ate. We care little or nothing for poor Stephen Duck, or Robert 
Bloomfield, or Mary Yearsley, or so forth. It was wrong to take 
these people from their spade, or cutting-knife, or pail. But 
when, as in the case of Bums, a genius tuiiis up ; or, as in the 
case of Hogg, one who, if not worthy of the first place in poetry, 
draws closely near it, then, indeed, we think the difficulties through 
which they have struggled justly form a portion of the panegyric 
* On the 2l8t of November, 1835, in his sixty-fourth year.— M. 



224 THE ISASEKIAN PAFBBS. 

phistiy coocennng the effects of the Beggw/'i Opera;* Scott's 
Sob Boy and Robin Hood are of evil example ; Moore's Captain 
Mock will, we fear, oatlast his History of Ireland; Paul Cliffm-d 
and Hugene Aram will be, unfortiuiatelj for the public morals, 
more durably popular than a hundred Last Days and Last Tri- 
bunes ; and it will greatlj surprise us if Mr. Ainsworth's forth- 
coming book, on the Admirable Crichton, shall cause the tale of 
Turpin to be forgotten. 

This republication of Roohwood comes reconmiended by the 
addition of many novel and interesting features, calculated to 
heighten and enhance its preyious attractions. Among them, we 
suppose it were needless to inyite attention to the features of the 
handsome author himself, delineated by the magic pencil of Maclise 
and engraved by the potent hwrin of Edwards. That face (with 
figure to correspond) sold &y% hundred extra copies of our Mag. 
two years ago. The illustrations by Greorge Cruikshank are 
worthy of his well-earned celebrity. Far be it from us to insti- 
tute an invidious comparison between him and our own Croquis ; 
the world is wide enough, and can accommodate Uncle Toby with- 
out any necessity for excluding the blue-bottle fly (vide Sterne, in 
loco). Greorge is in the full zenith of his ascendant star, while 
the fame of our Alfred is silently growing to certain maturity. 

Crescit occulto velut arbor 8Bvo 
Fama Maclisi — micat inter omnes 
Georgium Sidas. 

Were we not equally anxious to avoid the imputation of indulging 
in what is called the " puff collateral," we would advert to certain 
other illustrations and vignettes, with which the aforesaid Alfred 
has just now enriched a work in which we feel an imcommon in- 
terest ; but haply we have acquired a habit of self-restraint and 
self-denial, so we^ resist our inclination, and turn aside from the 
tempting topic. 

"Be those bright gems unseen, unknown — 
They must, or we shall rue it : 



* " Aye — but Macheath's example ? Psha I no more ! 
It formed no thieves — the thief was formed before." 

Byron, Hints from Horace, 



ANOTHER CAW FROM THE IIOOKWOOD. 225 

We have a Tolnme of our own — 

Ah ! why should we review it ? — 
l^hould life be dull, and spirits low, 

And dunces' books provoke us, 
Let earth have something yet to show — 

Pbout, with Vignettes hy Cboquis." 

When first the romance of Roohwood burst on an admiring 
world, and claimed for its author a place in the foremost rank of 
contemporary novel-writers, the lyrical poetry with which the 
work abounded challenged for him a name among the most dis- 
tinguished modem votaries of the muse. The songs formed a 
leading and substantive merit of the book, and were found to be 
80 suecessfiil, that Mr. Ainsworth, awaking one day, recognised in 
himself a poet. He has shown a due appreciation of the public's 
approval. More than a dozen additional ballads and odes adorn 
the pages of this new edition ; and we must say that they decided- 
ly are of the right sort, full of glowing enthusiasm, and redolent 
of inspiration. We know not whether he has yet determined 
what school of poetry he intends to jfatronize — whether the lake 
or leg of mutton school ; should he consult us, we think that he 
' has a decided vocation for the " sepulchral .•" his immortal ballad 
of " the Sexton," which still haunts our imagination, revealed in 
him the existence of a power akin to that of Ezekiel, and was 
in sooth, as glorious a vision of dry bones as we can recollect 
just now. Southey has chosen a domicile on the margin of his 
favorite lakes, to enact the genius loci ; it is not without reason 
that Ainsworth has latterly selected a rural residence close by the 
grand necropolis on the Harrow Road : if " the cemetery compa- 
ny's directors" have any brains, they will vote him 500/. a-year, 
and create him laureate of the grave-yard, with the grass of the 
enclosed grounds in fee-simple to his Pegasus for ever. 

'r 'r ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ 

And so we bid thee good night, Dick Turpin. Keep thy pow- 
der dry, my lad ; let all thy movements be regular ; but let not 
thy intellect get rusty by too much rustication. The world is 
impatiently awaiting thy next appearance in the character of " the 
Admirable Crichton." From what we know of thy handicraR; 
we anticipate a tale as skilfully put together and as well wound 
up " As die best time-piece made by Habribon.'* {Juan^ i. 17.) 

15 



226 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 



SABBATH JOY. 

HnitRAB ! hurrah ! the earth and sky 

Interchange their glances free, 
And every sweet face that passes by 

Looks bright with Liberty ! 
The generous front and elastic air 

Of hearty, hopeful man, 
Are glad as though life, neveic stirred with'care. 

To the eternal ocean ran. 

" This, this is th^day the Lord hath made, 

Be glad, and rejoice therein !" 
Let no care perplex, no doubt degrade. 

The soul now bright within ! 
What slave shall dare to cross the path 

Of our joyous or pensive way ? 
Let him dread the flash of a freeman's wrath. 

For this is the freeman's day I 

Look up lone mourner, thy youth hath fled. 

Thy vigorous manhood's gone — 
The hopes of thy life lie cold and dead. 

And thy heart is left alone ! 
Look up, one free-breathing day is thine. 

One snatched from the sorrowing seven ; 
Then open thy soul to the ray divine. 

For the light is a " light from heaven !" 

'T is a light to gladden both young and old 

Whose foot-way the hell-hounds track. 
With a thirst to be quenched by naught but gold. 

And a hate that will never slack. 
Blessed, oh, blest be the Sabbath mom. 

When the devils must hide their claws. 
When a respite is found by the heart forloni. 

And misery knows a pause. 



THE STATEBMAN. 227 



THE STATESMAN* 

This book is unquestionably the production of a very clever 
man. Its author is well acquainted with the ways of office. He 
is thoroughly conversant with the circumstances under which pub- 
lic business is carried on ; and he knows from experience what 
qualities are most essential to form an efficient public servant. 
But the work is altogether unworthy the author of Philip van 
Artevelde, It assumes, indeed, a high philosophic character, and 
pretends to open up a yet unbroken track of political science. It 
arrogates to itself the dignity of being a treatise, which might be 
dove-tailed with advantage, as a supplemental chapter, into all 
subsequent editions of the political speculations of Spinosa, or 
Bacon, or Machiavelli. " While," says Mr. Taylor, " the struc- 
ture of communities, and the nature of political powers and insti- 
tutions, have been extensively investigated, the art of exercising 
political functions, which might seem to be no unimportant point 
of political science, has occupied hardly any place in the specula- 
tions of its professors." To occupy this virgin ground, the poet 
has descended from the moral and intellectual eminence to which 
his dramatic work had raised him. We are sorry for it The 
task was quite unworthy Mr. Taylor and his reputation. He has 
denominated his book The Statesman; and writing, as he does, 
" from practical observation," we are willing to take for granted 
that the title is well applied. In our opinion the work, which 
consists of little more than an exposition of such low principles of 
cunning as are at present acted upon in the neighborhood of 
Downing Street, might have been better named. It should have 
been called " The Art of Official Humbug systematicdUy digested 
and familiarly eocplainedJ* 

♦ The Statesman. By the Author of " PhiUp van Arteyelde," 



228 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

Mr. Tajlor has, from his position in the Colonial Office, been 
much conversant with public men during these last few years of 
Whig ascendency ; and his views of statesmen, their objects, and 
their characters, have necessarily been formed from the examples 
before him. " A statesman," according to his estimation, appears 
to be an individual who is destitute of all principle, except the 
love of place and power ; for whom no talent is requisite, except 
that of obtaining and keeping a seat in the cabinet ; who, instead 
of private friends, has the skill to discover and connect himself 
with a set of suitable dependants and hangers-on, by whose means 
he may work out his inventions, and whom our author has desig- 
nated "his instruments;" and who never for a moment yields to 
any generous or kind emotion, but is constantly directed in his 
conduct, even toward those with whom he is on the most familiar 
terms, by a cold, pitiful system of calculation, of which the sole 
object is to keep and to command the services of his adherents.* 
To create such a thwart, disnatured mass of egotism, is, thank 
Gk)d and the spirit which he inspired into man, a task that cannot 
be achieved without difficulty, or in a single day. That work of 
demoraUzation — that gradual erasure of the divine image from 
the heart — that extirpation of every social affection — the culti- 
vation of that bloated, grasping, and unmixed selfishness, which 
are demanded, according to the author o^ Philip van Artevelde, for 
the construction of a perfect statesman — must be begun in the 
very earliest years of life, or there is no hope of their effectual 
accomplishment. The boy, as a boy, must be trained in the way 
he is to go. " At the age of sixteen, or thereabouts, the general 
education of the boy should be for the most part completed, and 
the specific should begin." Poor, devoted, little victim! At 
this early age he is to be cut off from all such books as might ex- 
alt th^ imagination, and refine the sentiments, and enlarge the 
capacities of the heart. Already he is to be disciplined to worldly 
views, and worldly thoughts, and worldly feelings. Every thing 
is to be presented to his mind in a matter-of-fact and business-like 
form. He is to read history ; but all such " summary histories " as 
deal only in the great events and noble actions of past ages — a 

* See chapter entitled, " On the Arts of Rising," pp. 93, 94, et seq. 



THE STATESMAN. 229 

dass of reading which is pregnant of infinite profit, for it engen- 
ders and sustains the spirit of patriotism, the love of honor, and the 
thirst of loftj enterprise; and leads us to cherish the memory of 
our ancestors with reverence, by persuading us that there were in- 
deed giants upon the earth in their days — all this delightful and 
invaluable description of books is to be excluded &om the library 
of the tyro statesman. History is for him to be stripped of fdl 
philosophy and Romance. She is not to present herself before 
him in the attractive form and with the flowing drapery of the 
Muse she is, but with the bowed back and snufiy habiliments of 
some withered conservator of the public records. From his ear- 
liest years he is to be chained to the most flat and blank realities ; 
and all his information respecting the glowing and animating 
transactions of past times, is to be received, dead and colorless, 
from the long, dull, and wearisome documents of the State Paper 
Office. These, however, are to form only his lighter studies. 
Law, political economy, and the *<more prominent defects of a 
constitution," of which, in better days, all Englishmen, of all grades 
and ages, used to delight in contemplating and admiring the beau- 
ties, are to be adopted as that '* wholesome exercise for the reason- 
ing Acuities" on which his graver moments are to be employed. 
As an amusement, the miserable little martyr is to be allowed to 
frequent debating societies ; but only those from which ^^ political 
topics are excluded." This is a prudential exception. The boy's 
soul is fattening for sale ; and that it may be given over, without 
let or hinderance, to the free and unrestricted use of the* party that 
can aflbrd to pay best for such a commodity, care must be taken to 
prevent its birth and natural proprietor from compromising him- 
self by any awkward intimation of his having a preference for one 
set of opinions rather than another, before the day of public bid- 
ding for his services in the political auction mart shall arrive. 
" If," says the cautious Mr. Taylor, " he were to take a part in 
political debates, he would be betrayed into a premature adoption 
and declaration of political sentiments ; than which nothing will 
be more ii\jurious to his character and fortunes in afler-life." All 
moral and religious principle would appear to be superfluous ' in 
a statesman ; and, consequently, our author's chapter " On the 
Education of Youth for a civil career" is closed without containing 



I 
230 THE FRARFWAN PAPERS. 

-the slightest notice on the snbjecL Indeed, as he has informed us 
in a subsequent chapter that a statesman may lie €ul Ubitum — 
that he lives under ^ a well understood absolution from speaking 
the truth" — that the " oxiscience of a statesman should be rather 
a Strang conscience than a tender conscience" — that ^ a statesman 
should have some hardihood, rather than a weak sensibility oi 
conscience" — and that " conscience, in most men, is no more than 
an anticipation of the opinions of others" — he perhaps oonoeiyes 
that the gentle sympathies of Christian charity, and the holy fear 
of deviating from the narrow path of Grod's commandments, would 
be worse than unnecessary — that they would be absolutely detri- 
mental to a minister. 

As it is supposed that, by the time he has reached his five-andr 
twentieth year, the course of moral hardening and intellectual per- 
version may be well nigh complete, Mr. Taylor reconunends that 
the student should at that age be appointed to some office. It 
seems that something of the nobleness of humah nature may still 
remain, restive and unsubdued, and liable to break forth at some 
inconvenient moment, if this conclusive process be omitted. ^ Let 
no man suppose," says our author, '^ that he can come to be an 
adept in statesmanship, without having been at some period of his 
life a thorough-going drudge" About the same time of life, it is 
also advisable that the youth should be introduced into parliament : 
for it was a remark of the late Mr. Wilberforce, that " men seldom 
succeed in the House of Commons, who had not entered it before 
thirty years of age." 

His seat being once obtained — having become, perhaps, mem- 
ber for Stroud — the statesman is now to begin looking about for 
" instruments" by whom he may, execute his purposes when jp/occ, 
that great object of his ambition, shall be won. Every man who 
contemplates a public career, must be careful never to make a 
companion of any one who may not prove of service to him. He 
must not indulge himself in any unprofitable connexions, or gra- 
tuitous attachments. He must not permit himself to have any in- 
timate, or acquaintance, but such as may either serve as a stepping- 
stone to office, or as an. useful instrument when office is obtained. 
" In order to realize his knowledge of instruments," we are told, 
" a statesman would do well to keep lists, inventories, or descrip- 



THE STATESMAN. 281 

tire catalogaes ; one of men ascertained to have certmn aptitudes 
for business, another of probable men." Mr. Taylor would recom- 
mend the statesman to choose honest men for his instruments, in 
preference to persons of loose principles. " It is less desirable," 
he says, " to be surrounded and served by men of shallow clever- 
ness and slight character, than by men of even less talent, who are 
of sound and stable character." And he has justly added, that 
" where there is a high order of virtue^ a certain portion of wisdom 
may be relied upon almost implicitly. For the correspondencies 
of wisdom and goodness are manifold : and that they will accom- 
pany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom 
makes them good, but also because their goodness makes tbem 
mseJ^ In this respect we agree with our author to the fullest ex- 
tent of his proposition. The best kind of wisdom is always found in 
connexion with the purest virtue. The fear of God is wisdom : 
and there is no question that a man can have to decide and act 
upon, to which some one of the laws of the decalogue will not ap- 
ply, and in which that law will not be found the safest guide for 
him to follow. Most confident also are we that every minister 
should appoint none but the wise and good to official situations, 
because they invariably make the most efficient public servants — 
because they alone can be depended upon as invariably loyal to 
their king, and inflexibly devoted to the welfare of their country. 
But are these the grounds of preference suggested by Mr. Taylor ? 
Quite the reverse. Such reasons are far too noble and disinte- 
rested to have an influence on the utter selfishness of the charac- 
ter of his " statesman ;" and the motives by which he would induce 
him to look for " men of sound and stable character," in making 
his appointments, are all drawn from the muddiest and most offen- 
sive shallows of egotistical calculation. Such a distribution of his 
patronage is not to be adopted because it is demanded by the claims 
of religion and patriotism — because it is the way in which his 
Grod and his king and his country can best be served — because 
thereby virtue may be exalted and vice abashed. No ! But 
why ? Because, first, " a statesman will be brought into fewer 
difficulties and dilemmas by men of sound and stable character" — 
because, secondly, " he will be more readily excused for befriend- 
ing them above their merits" — because, thirdly, "they will be 



232 THE PRASERIAN PAPERS. 

creditable to him in one way, if not in another" — and because, 
lastly, " their advancement, bringing less envy upon themselves, 
will reflect less odium upon their patron." It is painful to con- 
template the possibility of any portion of political power falling 
into the hands of a human being base and mean enough to be 
operated upon by motives so superlatively narrow and con- 
temptible. 

Mr. Taylor has given directions with regard to the best mode 
of retaining the adherents which a statesman may have made. It. 
appears that few promises ought to be made. A frank refusal 
may sometimes be hazarded. " Excess of profession evinces 
weakness, and therefore never conciliates political adhesion." A 
leader should appecu' to be " Willing to befriend an adherent, but 
prepai^d to do without him ; and this appearance," we are told, for 
reality is out of the question, " this appearance is best maintained 
by a light cordiality of demeanor towards him, and a more care- 
ful and effective attention to his interests than he has been led by 
that demeanor to anticipate." Light cordiality is an admirable 
expression. It exactly paints the manner which we have ob- 
served in all that numerous class of persons, whether swindlers, 
sharpers, blacklegs, or political adventurers, who speculate on 
turning the confidence they may be able to excite to profitable ac- 
count, and for which we never could find before a brief, terse, and 
graphic description. Like the numerous impostors whom he 
resembles in manner, the statesman only allows one of his adhe- 
rents occasionally to win, for the sake of assisting him in cajoling 
others ; for, says our author, if you " give one example of expec- 
tation exceeded, of performance outrunning profession, hope and 
confidence will live upon little for the future." We have no doubt 
but there exists a multitude of persons with whom all this artifice 
and trickery may succeed. Men, who are blinded by their own 
lust of advancement, may become the easy and willing dupes of 
the statesman's light cordiality ; but most assuredly the wise and 
good will never be among the number. Those, whom it is the 
object of all this humbug to attach, will never be taken in by it. 
To secure the wise and good as his adherents, the statesman must 
be himself possessed of wisdom and of goodness. The really vir- 
tuous are^he last persons on whom false appearances ever make 



THE STATESMAN. 283 

the desired impression. Whenever the manner or language of the 
individnal they have to do with is less true than their own, they 
feel an awkward embarrassment in his presence, and an unac- 
countable revulsion from his society, which convince them that 
they are not constituted to coalesce harmoniously, and that, if they 
would retain their feelings of charity towards him, they must have 
as little communication with him as possible. Mr. Taylor has, we 
are sure, reiad Coleridge a good deal, for he has borrowed from him 
very often ; and he may, perhaps, remember, 

" That to be innocent is nature's wisdom. 
The fledge-dove knows the prowlers of the air. 
Feared soon as seen, and flatters back to shelter; 
And the young steed recoils jipon his haunches. 
The neyer-jet-seen adder's hiss first heard. 
Oh, surer tiian suspicion's hundred ^jes 
Is that fine sense, which to the pure in heart. 
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness, 
Reveals the approach of evil."* 

In the chapter on " Manners," the author lays down the differ- 
ent methods of flattery and address by which different classes of 
men may be imposed upon, and which may be practised with best 
advantage by the statesman. But we cannot continue our con- 
templation of this disgusting subject. If the political world really 
affords instances of characters animated by such principles, and 
directed by such views, as those which Mr. Taylor has represented, 
the career of ambition must be far more demoralizing than we had 
hitherto even supposed it to be ; and if such execrable tricks and 
impositions are necessary to rise and thrive, then no man who has 
a regard for his reputation in this world, and his salvation in the 
next, should dare venture to engage in it. Thank Heaven, this 
class of political intriguers and charlatans, though they follow each 
other in constant succession, do not individually trouble the world 
for any great length of time. Like other venomous insects, they 
are short-lived. They buzz and sting while they live ; but they 
are ephemeral. " Few effective statesmen have lived their three- 
score years and ten." The death of which they seem to stand 
most in peril, is worthy the ignominious character of their lives : 

^ ZapcHya^ act iv. so. 1. 



234 THE FBAS£BIAN PAPERS. 

** they generally die of over-eating themselves." Such, according 
to Mr. Taylor's observation and experience, is the life and death 
of the statesman. It must not be forgotten, that his acquaintance 
with ministers and cabinets has been entirely confined to these lat- 
ter days of Whig ascendency. We most confidently believe that, 
in the old Tory times, all was not so thoroughly base, and hollow, 
and unprincipled, as these official personages appear to be with 
whom our author is now unhappily conversant ; and we may hope 
that the return of the Conservatives to power will bring back the 
old English virtues of truth, and honesty, and sincerity, and put 
to flight the smooth, glossy, fair-seeming, and fair-speaking vices, 
that have usurped their place in the cabinet and the public offices. 

IVIr. Taylor states expressly that what he writes is from ^^prac- 
tical observation;" and his excuse for writing the sort of book 
which has formed the subject of this article is, that, had he applied 
himself to any other kind of work, " he must necessarily have writ- 
ten more from speculative meditation, and less from knowledge." 
It has amused us a good deal, in the course of our perusal of his 
volume, to trace back his general theoretical observations on what 
the conduct of a statesman ought to be, to their source in those 
acts of particular members of the present cabinet which might 
have suggested them. Our author, for instance, must have had 
the union that subsists between Lord Melbourne and O'Connell 
in his eye when he wrote, " If it be indispensable to a statesman 
to accept services, which no very high-minded or creditable adhe- 
rent could render, still he should be careful not to admit to per- 
sonal intimacy those whom he thus employs." 

Again, in writing the following passage on the inexpediency of 
granting many interviews, he must have been thinking of the em- 
barrassment into which Mr. S. Rice had been betrayed by his in- 
cautious facility. 

" On such occasions," says Mr. Taylor, " statements are made 
which must unavoidably, though perhaps insensibly, produce im- 
pressions, and to which, nevertheless, the party making them is 
not deliberately and responsibly committed. Further, no states- 
man, be he as discreet as he may, will escape having ascribed to 
liim, as the result of interviews, promises and understandings 
which it was not his purpose to convey : and yet, in a short time, 



THE STATESMAN. 285 

he will be unable to recollect what was said with sufficient dis- 
tinctness to enable him to give a confident contradiction." 

Again, Mr. Taylor must have had his eye fixed on the trial of 
Norton v. Melbourne, when the lines below received their impress 
from his pen : 

" A statesman, while unmarried, will be liable, in whatever con- 
juncture of affairs or exigency of business, to some amorous sei- 
zure, some accident of misplaced or iU-timed love, hy which his 
mind will he taken away from his duties. Against these casualties, 
which may happen to a statesman howsoever devoted to political 
life, marriage will be the least imperfect protection ; for business 
does but lay waste the approaches to the heart, while marriage 
garrisons the fortress."* 

But we have given to this book as much spaee as it deserves, 
and must bring our observations to a close. For Mr. Taylor's 
reputation sake, we are heartily sorry that it has been published. 
The perusal of it can do no man any good ; and the protracted 
labor of composing it could not have been undergone without per- 
nicious influences to the moral sense of the author. Its style, 
though occasionally a little formal and antiquated, is for the 
most part admirable. For pages together, the language is so 
apt and transparent a vehicle of the workings of the author's 
mind, that we forget we are deriving the knowledge of them 
from a book : we seem to receive his thoughts by intuition, and 
lose all recollection of their being conveyed to us by any material 
method of communication. In this respect Mr. Taylor has really 
evinced himself the worthy disciple of his great and unrivalled 
master, Robert Southey. But here the resemblance stops. No 
trace, we regret to. say, of the friendship with which that great 
and good man honors him, is discernible in the principles and 
sentiments contained in his work. It is all of the world worldly, 
from beginning to end. There are, indeed, some very sage max- 
ims and shrewd remarks scattered over its pages ; but they are 
all so chilled by the icy atmosphere of the public office, that it 
makes one's teeth chatter to read them. 

* The title of the chapter in which this passage is found is thus quaintly 
worded : " Concerning the Age at which a Statesman should Many, and what 
manner of Woman he shovid take to Wife." 



286 THB FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 



CHARACTER OF HAMLET. 

" So Ecstacy, 
Fantastic Dotage, Madness, Frenzy, Kapture 
Of mere. Imagination, differ partly 
From Melancholy, which is briefly thus ; 
A mere commotion of the Mind — overchai^ged 
With Fear and Sorrow, first began i' th' brain. 
The seat of Reason ; and from thence deriyed 
As suddenly into the heart, the seat 
Of our affections." — Ford's Lovers, 

Shakespeare has written pliays, and these plays were acted ; 
and they succeeded ; and by their popularity the author achieved 
a competency, on which he was enabled to retire from the turmoils 
of a theatrical life to the enjoyment of a friendly society and his 
own thoughts. Yet am I well convinced, it is impossible that any 
one of Shakespeare's dramatic works — and especially of his tra- 
gedies, touching one of which I mean to speak — ever could be 
satisfactorily represented upon the stage. Laying aside all other 
reasons, it would be, in the first place, necessary to have a com- 
pany such as was never yet assembled and no money could at any 
time have procured — a company, namely, in which every actor 
should be a man of mind and feeling : for in these dramas every 
part is a character, fashioned by the touch of Genius ; and, there- 
fore, every part is important But of no play is this more strictly 
true than it is of that strange, and subtle, and weird work, Hamlet 

" The heartache, 
And the thousand natural ills the flesh is heir to ;" 

human infirmities, human afflictions, and supernatural agency, are 
so blended — questions and considerations of Melancholy, of Pa- 
thology, Metaphysics, and Demonology, are so intertangled — the 



CHABACTBB OF HAMLET. 237 

powers of man's Will, which are well nigh almighty, and the dic- 
tates of inexorable Fate, are brought into such an appalling yet 
dim collision, that to wring a meaning from a work else inscrutable 
requires the exercise of every faculty, and renders it necessary 
that not an incident should escape the observation, that not a 
word should be passed over, without being scanned curiously. 

Handet is, even more peculiarly than Lear, or Macbeth, or OtheU 
hy a play for the study. And not this alone ; for it is, in good 
sooth, a work for the high student, who, through the earnestness 
of his Love, the intensity of his Thought, the pervading purity 
of his Reason, and the sweep and grasp of his Imagination, is, the 
while he reads, always thrilled by kindred inspirations — sometimes 
visited by dreams, and not lefl unblessed by visions. To speak in 
other words, Hamlet is essentially a work for the student of Genius. 
And Genius, I consider with Coleridge, to be the action of Imagi- 
nation and Reason— the highest faculty of intellectual man, as 
contradistinguished from Understanding, that interprets for us 
the various phenomena of the world in which we live, giving 
to each its objectivity. But Coleridge does not go far enough in 
this his description of Genius. It is the action of Reason and 
Imagination, tempered, and regulated, and controlled, and affected 
by the Understanding : for the instinct of Reason is to contradict 

f 

the understanding, and to strip what we call substances, and our 
sensations with respect to them, of their fantasies ; and this action 
of Reason and Imagination obviously must become, with reference 
to the rest of mankind, madness — if it be not cognizant of con- 
ventional realisms — if it be not operated upon by worldly circum- 
stances, which exercise an attractive power to prevent it from 
wandering from the sphere in which we move, or are, haply, 
" crawling 'twixt earth and heaven." This, I fancy, wiU reconcile 
all the notions that have been wisely uttered with respect to Ge- 
nius — notions which are severally true — but none in themselves 
wholly true. Coleridge declares, " Genius must have Talent as its , 
complement and implement, just as in like manner Imagination 
must have Fancy. In short, the higher intellectual powers can 
act through a corresponding energy of the lower." 

Now Talent, he himself tells us, lies in the Understanding, and, 
therefore, may be inherited ; by which he must mean, an apt or- 



238 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

ganic oonformation, and a happj mental disposition to a particular 
talent — such as that for painting or singing, or plaj-acting, or any 
£EUitastic mechanical art — may be inherited ; of the which, the 
most extraordinary instances are recorded. But this is beside the 
subject. Ta proceed : if Talent, which lieth in the Understanding, 
be essential to Genius, it follows that Experience and Time, and 
the same use of the physical organs with respect to the external 
world, are necessary to Grenius ; and thus it is we can concur with 
Johnson in the opinion, not that Genius is '^ a knowledge of the 
use of instruments," but that this divine knowledge is one of its 
noblest attributes ; and we can assent to the proposition that, 
" Grenius is the philosophy of human life." So it is ; but it is 
much more also. The very first step of real philosophy is the 
passing from without mere self — the annihilation, so to speak, of 
the self-selfish. And thus can I, without going beyond the limits 
of my description, assent to these downright practical views of it ; 
and yet, at the. same time, agree with Coleridge, that, " all Grenius 
is metaphysical, because the ultimate end of Genius is ideal, how- 
ever it may be actualized by incidental and accidental circum- 
stances." 

After this explanation, I may go on to repeat that Hamlet is 
essentially a work for the student of Genius, who, as a necessary 
consequence of his diviner intellect, is devoted to those sad and 
solemn themes of Research and Labor that encumber and enwrap 
our mortal existence ; and whose mysteries (vain though it be !) 
he must, with a fond despair, to the last struggle to unveil. Such 
are the phenomena of our own being, our " fearful and wonder- 
ful" construction — Birth, Life, Death — the secrets of the Grave 
— the dread Hereafter, and the dreams that it may bring — the 
powers of our own Will — "are they not illimitable, and ought 
they not to be omnipotent ?" our own minds and faculties viewed, 
dissected, pored over pathologically, considered in every state, from 
health to disease in its more dire form, God, Destiny, Free-will, 
Duty — the obstinate questionings of the spirit, touched the realism 
and the phantasmal forms of things — and all such other matters 
of fearful and forlorn speculation ; and together with these, more- 
over, all arts and sciences that minister thereunto, that flatter us 
with the possibility of elevating ourselves above the conditions of 



^ CHARACTER OP HAMLET. 289 

our hnmanity, and achieving a satisfactory solution of the doubts 
that torture us, and that, by sublimating our thoughts, by spiritual- 
izing our minds, by accustoming them to wander firee from all cor- 
poreal considerations and volitions, by drawing us so constantly 
into a world of shadows, do actually make us skeptical of every 
thing in this world wherein we have our being. These are the 
studies that make bloodless the face, and plough the deep wrinkles 
into the brow of youth ; these are the studies that make sad the 
heart of man with the vanity of vast knowledge, with bootless as- 
pirations, with fond longings ; these are the studies 



" That cload the mind, that fire the brain/' 

that are withering to mortals — aiova ffporou. 

Now this leads me to observe, that the student of Genius finds 
in Hamlet the man a kindred spirit — in Hamlet the play, a sub- 
ject for study, analogous to those others whereof I have spoken, 
and with which he is familiar ; and when, with reverential Love, 
which is the first faculty of men and angels (for the seraphim, an- 
gels of Love, are declared to be the highest in the Celestial Hie- 
rarchy — and here on Earth, be it remembered, that for the Love 
which beat in Mary Magdalen's bosom all her sins were forgiven 
her by the Saviour), and with earnest knowledge, that student has 
studied that Hamlet, he will yet find himself at the end, as after 
those other labors, afflicted with the sickness of Desire, ungratified 
— with the hollo w-heartedness of Doubt — with the sensation of 
having been acted upon by an inscrutable power. 

Consider Hamlet in whatsoever light you will, it stands quite 
alone — most peculiarly apart, from every other play of Shake- 
speare's. A vast deal has been written upon the subject, and by a 
great number of commentators — by men born in different coun- 
tries — educated after different fashions — moving in different 
grades of society — bred to the pursuit of different professions, 
avocations, occupations, from necessity or choice — gifted with dif- 
ferent intellectual powers — possessing learning of different species, 
and in degrees — and, finally, born in different ages of the world; 
yet it requires no very earnest examination and reflection to 
satisfy one's mind that, up to the present moment, little indeed has 
been written to the purpose. At first, this seemed strange. Con- 



240 THE FRAflRRTAN PAHBBS. 

templating the labors of a miscellaneous moltitude, I was surprised 
that the several deficiencies of the one individual had not been suc- 
cessively supplied by the others — that each had not, after his 
lights and information, been enabled to furnish some valuable con- 
tribution to the general stock, which, by the agency of some plas- 
tic hand, might have ere now been moulded into a mass, well 
proportioned, clearly developed, available and satisfactory to th€ 
ordinary student : and for this last work the inspiration of Grenius 
would not have been required. But upon thinking more deeply, 
and in a wiser spirit, because with a more reverential consideration 
of the author, I became conscious that a true comment on Handet 
could no more be the product of labor by a number of minds, than 
coi|ld the astounding drama itself be bom as it is, a harmonious 
and complete creation, otherwise than by the throes of one all- 
sufficing Intelligence. As a single soul inspired the work, so 
should a single soul be breathed through the comment ; and it 
should be, moreover, of a kindred order. The partial labors of a 
number of commentators produce merely bundles of sentences — 
sand without lime — things incongruous and worthless, because 
they are interpenetrated by no binding and dominant spirit. 
When we perceive and acknowledge this, as we needs must, the 
marvel ceases : the failure of the multitude was inevitable. We 
might hope to see a second Shakespeare, if the world had ever 
produced a commentator worthy of Hamlet The qualities and 
faculties such a man should possess would be, indeed, '^ rare in 
their separate excellence, wonderful in their combination." Such 
a man as Shakespeare imagined in him to whom his hero be- 
queathed the task of 

'' Reporting him and his cause aright 
To the unsatisfied/' — 

such a man as Horatio, the profound scholar and the perfect gen- 
tleman, might have done it ; but where in the actual world, that 
holds nothing of unmixed purity, can be found a man possessing 
the heart so bold and gentle — the feelings so exquisitely refined 
•—the deep knowledge of man, and of all human learning — the 
proud exemption from the weaknesses and passions of frail mor- 
tals, that should qualify him for such a task ? Alas ! nowhere. 
But although we may not hope to see such a paragon upon earth 



CHARACTER OF HAMLET. 241 

jet is it a gracions and a pleasing labor to add to the heap of ma- 
terials already piled for his use ; and, therefore, even I, an humble 
worshipper of Shakespeare*s genius, now venture to put fortli 
some remarks upon this Hamlet, his most subtle and difficult 
work. They are feeble indications of ideas that have flashed 
across, or possessed my mind, the while I surrendered myself to 
the melancholy delight of poring over the play. All I can hope 
is, that peradventure they, in some sort, may possibly serve as 
hints of theories, capable of being wrought into things really and 
convincingly true and good, by men of learning and ability. 

And now, without further preface, I address myself to my task. 

I have said, that amongst Shakespeare's plays, Handet stands 
quite alone. True, there is a class to which it may be appropri- 
ately referred; but, even here, I conceive it essentially and eso- 
terically preserves its separateness : in other words, it is of the 
same order, but not of the same essence, with its fellows. These 
are, OtheUoy Romeo and Juliet, Cymheline, King Lear, Macbeth, 
Were I to venture upon designating them as a class, I would bor- 
row an epithet from Wordsworth, without applying it precisely in 
the same manner, and style them " Dramas of the Imagination." 

They are obviously distinct from all the other plays ; they are 
of a higher and subtler quality, a more sublime and universal 
character, than the classical or the historical plays (I, of course, 
make no reference to the comedies) ; they are dramas that relate 
to man, and not to men — to the Lord of the Creation, considered 
abstractedly from all accessories and circumstances which would 
individualize him quite, give him not alone a personal but a local 
idiosyncracy — and not to the demigod or demon of one particular 
age, or climate, or country, or caste of human beings. They are 
psychological dramas ; their theme is the Mind of Man, his Rea- 
son, Understanding, Will, Powers, Passions. The operation of 
certain circumstances of the external world upon these serve to 
actualize and display them, and so create the drama. To effect 
this metaphysical exhibition, the agency of some brief, dry, cold, 
and, in other hands, incapable story of human life, or fragment of 
a story — some 

" Tale of Love and Sorrow, 
Of faithful Love, enduring Truth," 

16 



242 THB FRASEBIAN PAPEBS* 

or the opposite or some quaint legend of supernatoral agency, or 
snatch of an old ballad on one driven distraught bj filial crueltj, 
is enough for Shakespeare. Little cares he for the intrinsic value 
or congruitj of the scanty materiab that he seizes : he has seen 
that they be sufficiently vague to leave him unembarrassed by de- 
tails of the earth earthy, and is sure to make them potent for the 
one great object be has in view, and to which every thing else is 
but subsidiary. The probability of the story is to him a matter of 
no consideration; nay, he seems rather to delight in choosing 
subjects on which the improbable march of the physical events 
shall contrast strangely with the now exquisite, now appalUng 
truth, of the mental developments. In other tragedies, in which 
he assumed the fetters of history, his fidelity to character and 
costume, in its wisest sense, of men who flourished, and the cir- 
cumstances in which they lived, and moved, and had their being, 
is right marvellous. But in these dramas of the Imagination, the 
Btories of the three — Hamlet^ Macbeth^ and Cymheline^ are impos- 
sible ; the stories of the remaining three improbable, to an extent, 
which renders them all but impossible. And yet, why attempt to 
draw distinctions amongst things wherein there can be, in truth, 
no difference ? — all are alike physically and morally impossible. 
This must be obvious to every body who may contemplate them, 
even invested as they are without all the witchery of divinest 
poesy, and rendered earnest, and awful, and soul-searching, by the 
interfusion of all of appropriate passion and power which the 
world we live in and the world of spirits could supply. It is 
rather difficult, then, to conceive that the fact escaped the obser- 
vation of the Magician who picked up the dry, bare materials, to 
work his spell withal, or that he selected them such as they visibly, 
essentially, and unalterably were, without some special object. 
Ay, certainly it is difficult : but commentators delight in difficul- 
ties ; and infinitely more, I do believe, in difficulties they create, 
than in those they overcome. The first flatter them with the show 
of originality ; the second could only confer on them the notoriety 
of singularity. They have, accordingly, exhausted a vast deal of 
research in accusing, and now convicting, and again acquitting 
Shakespeare, of misstating things which he, in sooth, invented — 
of failing to work out a moral which he never meant to draw, or. 



CHABACTfiB OF HAMLET. 248 

intimate an intention to convey — of committing (to borrow the 
language of the old sentence-juggler, Johnson) " faults too evident 
for detection and too gross for aggravation," when these faults lay 
inherent in the story, and were in no sort to be avoided — of being 
guilty of inaccuracies, anachronisms, and blunders, which could 
not be, since all such are relative ; and here they had nothing ac- 
curate, or fixed, or determined, to which they could refer. The 
very selection of the subject-matter of the Plots ought to have 
guarded the Poet against such criticisms : they are most disgust- 
ingly absurd — worse even than the comments on the Institutes^ 
which. Pantagruel characterized with a coarse but quaint "felicity, 
that Would make one stop the nostrils in deference to the learned 
giant's judgment could he do so the while he enjoyed a hearty 
laugh. In four of the tragedies, Shakespeare adopts antique and 
isolate fables, which bring him back to a period so remote that 
every thing is phantasmal — even time is a shadow. In another, 
he takes some snatches of a wild and barbaresque tale — that is 
Othello ; and in Romeo and Juliet, he founds his exquisite drama 
of Love and Fate upon the catastrophe of an old and fond tradi- 
tion. From the very circumstances, then, of his choice, I main- 
tain that he set himself free from all the ordinary observances with 
respect to climate, country, manners, costume, and so forth — he 
passed into the land of Dream, far beyond all standards for such 
matters — he dealt with the heart and brain of man, with "the 
seat of our reason and the seat of our affections." The only prac- 
tical commentators, then, upon these, the most august of hisi crea- 
tions, should be the Metaphysician and the Pathologist. 

Flinging aside for the present your carping critics, I would now 
proceed to call attention to consequences that must necessarily fol- 
low from the choice of the materials. First to the scholar's eye 
that penetr^s the outward show of things, and can conceive and 
comprehend the one idea, which forms the initiative of the method* 

* The word Method (fiiBoioi) being of Grecian origin, first formed and ap- 
plied by that acute, ingenious, and accurate people, to the purposes of Scien- 
tific arrangement, it is in the Greek language that we must seek for its 
primary and fundamental signification. Now, in Greek, it literally means 
a way or path of transit. Hence, the first idea of Method is a progressive tran- 
aition from one step, in any course, to another; and where the word Method 



244 tMe frasebian papers. 

pursued with respect to them, there must be a genial similarity 
between these plajs and the ancient Greek drama. In either case, 
the theme of the story is purely mythic — a homeless fable, or a 
legend haunting some spot like the spirit of its dream ; the subject 
of the poet is the soul and passions of man, stripped of the idio- 
syncracy they might derive from the peculiar conformation of the 
mass of clay which was their instrument or their victim. Being 
both creations psychological, they treat of the mind, healthy and 
diseased — of the passions, urgent for good or evil — of the will, 
weakly, or potent to a miracle amongst the children of earth — of 
faculties, perverted, or devoted to the noblest uses. The Good 
and Evil which concurrently exist in every thing, like the phis 
and minus in a quadratic radical, are as calmly and as irrefraga- 
bly displayed as they severally would be in an equation, after the 
manner in which you worked it Impulses and motives are ex- 
hibited, as acting upon the mind according to their proper powers ; 
and there, consequently, cannot be, in any case, what the com- 
mentators would regard as a moral. For, if we consider of it, how 
could there ? It would go to prove there was no mixed nature, 
no freedom of Will : some beings should be all perfect ; and Good 
in the world 

*' Should hold its icy current and compulsiye course, 
And keep due on." 

There would then, too, be no Fate, no Fortune : yet we ourselves 
sometimes make, sometimes mar both, as they do us. They are, 
in sooth, with us, and in us, and of us. Yet we fall by them ; not 
(to speak in the tone of forlorn merriment, which, peradventure, 
for the wise man best befits such subjects) by any suicidal opera- 
tion or spontaneous combustion, but by the conflict with others, in 
which the weaker spirit must always be quelled, or by the crash 

is applied with reference to many such transitions in continuity, it necessa- 
rily implies a Principle of Unity with Progression, But that which unites 
and makes many things one in the mind of man, must be an act of the mind 
itself — a manifestation of intellect, and not a spontaneous and uncertain 
production of circumstances. This act of the Mind, then — this leading 
thought — this "my note" of the harmony — this "subtile, cementing, sub- 
terraneous power (borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature of legislation), 
we may not inaptly caU the Initiative of all Method. 



CHABACTER OF HAMLET. 245 

of circumstances, which physical in their origin, and partly physi- 
cal in their quality, do yet act like a moral earthquake, laying all: 
things prone — the auspices and the intellect of an Alexander, and 
the congenital baseness of a Thersites. In every great character, 
in .every great event, there is a tinge of Fatalism ; and it is a 
dominant tinge, coloring all. • This is most especially to be ob- 
served in the stories of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon, the 
Earth's true demigods — in the men whom Nature, in the labor of 
centuries, produced with its dearest throes, and could not suffer to 
expire without a convulsion. And as in every great character 
and in every great event, so is there in every great work, a tinge 
of Fatalism. The plays of Shakespeare, whereof I speak, are the 
greatest works the world has yet known. 

"We know the misty sketches of dreams upon which the English- 
man has written : they might be, in the modern vulgar parlance, 
styled Gothic. The pirns whereon the Greeks wind their weird- 
story are classic, small in number, inflected after the fancy of 
the poet, but that only — the glorious imagination of Prometheus, 
the first champion and martyr of liberty — "the taje of Troy 
divine" — the fated House of the Labdacidae ; these are the themes 
of all the Greek Dramatists. I shall have little to do practically 
save with the first of them, in every sense — ^--Eschylus. 

"We have a complete trilogy from -^schylus. Now, it is a fancy 
of mine, that Shakespeare's psychological dramas and the ancient 
Greek dramas do alike severally resolve themselves into tableaux 
— (I regret being obliged to use the spurious word, but I fear 
there is none in our native English adequate to convey the same 
meaning.) This tableau^ whether partaking of the qualities of 
Painting or of severer Sculpture, is, to my mind, a sort of embo- 
diment of the moral resolution of the Drama : it is " the be-all and 
the end-all," up from which and down to which every thing can 
be traced. It is the result of the dominant human passion, or 
mental aberration, or supernatural agency, actualized by circum- 
stances. It is the expressed result in a particular case of the idea 
(using idea as the correlative of law, and, therefore, as a rule laid 
down) — of the idea upon which the drama was constructed, which 
creates its unity, and regulates its progression through the throng 
of circumstances up to its fulfilment. It is the practical subject- 



246 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

matter of the play, as it would meet the outward eye. There is 
the murder, or the sacrifice, with its character, actors, and victims 
displayed : that existed in the physical world — it is-a thing to be 
seen; the poet saw it with the visionary eye, the whilst, most 
probahly in childhood, he heard the mythic legend of the. primal 
gods, or of the doomed demigods of his race, or lay thrilled with 
a pleasurable awe as his nurse whispered him the witch-story of 
" Macbeth with the bloody hand ;" or he read of Lear or Othello 
at his mother's knee ; or, probably enough, a sculptured group 
may have furnished forth inmiediately the theme of an ^schylean 
Drama. The how, and why, and wherefore this so-depictured 
event came to pass, it is the province of the play to detail and 
explain. We have, as I observe, a complete trilogy from -^schy- 
lus ; and thence I take my illustration. The Dramas, in their 
order, are the Agamemnon, the Cho'ephorce, the Eumenides, The 
murder of the triumphant " King of Men" under his own roof-tree, 
the sacrifice of Clytenmestra, the purification of the Avenger from 
blood-guiltiness in its most appalling form, and the compact be- 
tween the venerable Goddesses and the .tutelar Divinities of 
Athens, are the themes of the trilogy ; and each of these is em- 
bodied in its own tableau. At the close of the first (v. 245), by 
means of the eccyclema — £|a3crrpa, or iKKVK\rina — the interior of the 
fatal bathing apartment was displayed ; and there lay Agamem- 
non a corpse, and over him stood Clytemnestra the Murderess, and 
her Paramour. In the Cho'ephorce, Orestes is seen, in like man- 
ner, standing over the corpses of his mother and ^gisthus (v. 946). 
These are subjects purely for sculptured groups ; as, indeed, were 
always the tableaux presented by means of the eccyclema : as, for 
example again, in the Antigone of Sophocles, wherein Creon ap- 
pears with dead Eurydice in his arms ; and the Ajax^ wherein the 
body of the distracted hero, surrounded by slaughtered sheep, was 
exhibited. There were never more than three or four figures. 
But in the Eumenides we have an exception ; there is a large 
group — too large for the eccyclema a hundred fold — and yet, 
properly, were it at all embodied by art, a sculptured group: 
Orestes, the blood-stamed suppliant — the Goddess of Wisdom 
presiding — the Eternal Furies — and "the Grod of Life, and Poesy, 
and Light," as advocate for the Avenger. Lito these tableaux 



CHABACTBR OF HA2ILET. 247 

fievefally the plays of the trilogy (and into the last the three plays 
— but that is beside my purpose) resolve themselves. The 
psychological dramas of Shakespeare invariably include, at the 
last, a tableau '^ terminating all ;" and to which, and from which, 
every thing can be traced. Fate, the Inexorable, has been satis- 
fied: the theorem has been worked out for good or evil. The 
taUeau is the expressed solution of the theorem, and the Drama is 
its proof. In Hamlet, "the quarry that cries on, havoc !"-^ in 
OtheUo, "the tragic loading of the bed" — in Romeo and Juliet, 
the bloody sepulchre gorged with the brave and beautiful, the 
young and lovely — in Cymbeline, the gentle reunion, after many 
and sore trials, of lovers and kinsfolk long parted — in Lear, the 
apparition of the father with his murdered darling — in Macbeth, 
the ghastly head, the grinning mockery of fiend-fostered Ambition 
— these, with their accessories, do severally form the tableaux; 
and they are to the Greek tableaux as pictures would be to sculp- 
tured groups : for there be not a few personages, all of which are 
essentially important to express the story of the event, but there 
be many, and of these the greater number are sketches. The 
Greek taMeavx have all the stem, cold realism, of chiselled mar- 
ble — the Shakespearean, much of the glow of painting, and 
something of the phantasmal character of its groups ; both, how- 
ever, we apprehend, must have been objects of great care and in- 
terest in the original representations. We know that this was the 
case on the Athenian stage ; I believe it must have been so upon 
the early English, when "Masques and Triumphs" were held in 
high repute by the wise and great, as we have abundant reason to 
know they were in " Eliza's golden reign." Shakespeare's plays, 
too, are replete with tableaux, which might be made highly effec- 
tive. Many of the very short dialogues, in scenes that shift pre- 
sently, were obviously introduced only to explain — to serve as 
posies to tableaux. The reader of Shakespeare will understand 
this, the mere play-goer can know nothing about it ; he rarely 
sees more than two thirds of the characters and of the scenes in a 
drama : in fact, he enjoys little more than the mouthing of certain 
extracts, selected by incompetent persons. 

It is by embodying and expressing tableaux such as these, or 
the incarnation of a Feeling, or a Passion, or a legendary Spirit, 



248 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

from iU attributes, that the arts of Scnlptore and Painting beocnne 
united with Poesj. Unless they can effect this, and be capable, 
afler the manner Dick Tinto wished — or, I should saj, imagined 
— his sketch to be, thej are nothing worth ; and those who made 
them, no better than fantastic stone-cutters, or painters and 
glaziers, misemplojing their craft in making idle daubings upon 
canvass. It b, of all affectation of useless knowledge, the most 
paltrj ; though, from its verj paltriness, it be little, if at all mis- 
chievous, to prate about difficulties overcome, of handicraft achieve- 
ments in these matters — '^ the delicate chiselling of the stone, the 
fine classic flow of the drapery, the exquisite coloring, the mas- 
terly handling, the grand drawing, the mighty genius displayed 
upon bits," together with the rest of the anthology of cant phrases 
in which your chimpanzee critic puffs out his article, with " an 
empty noddle and a brow severe." Pah ! " it smells in the nos- 
trils." Unless a picture or a piece of sculpture be capable and 
teU a story, and a heart-home story, it is but colored canvass or a 
chiselled stone. 

Next, I would draw attention to the fact, that in dramas like 
unto these of which I have spoken, that are founded upon a 
tableau, there is (I care not how wild may be the story) a realism, 
which the physical nature of the tableau, whether expressed, or 
capable of being imbodied by any man at the instant, might seem 
to land to them. Moreover, they are necessarily of a homogene- 
ous character, and, therefore, are calculated to convey to the 
mind the impression of a perfect work, and to leave it quite satis- 
fied with the conclusion, be it for the parties wherein the tale in 
its progress has interested you fortunate or miserable. 

The mind of him who composed the work, and of him who 
reads it, must be alike impressed with a sense of fatalism ; which, 
though it be awful, is yet wholesome and pleasurable to the Ima- 
gination. In illustration of these doctrines I have been propound- 
ing, permit me to refer to single examples, taken from the numer- 
ous works of writers who each enjoy a mighty reputation, not 
alone in their own countries, but throughout Europe — I mean. Sir 
Walter Scott and Victor Hugo. The examples I take are not 
dramas in form — they are not divided into acts and scenes — but 
they are, nevertheless, in the essence, di*amatic : they are what 



• CHABACTER OF HAMLET. • 249 

dramas might be, if addressed to the mind of a man struck blind. 
The physical show of the several characters is described ; the 
scenery is painted in "words that have hues" — words rich in the 
magic of associations and memories, instead of being shadowed 
forth by a cold art upon canvass ; actions and events, in like man- 
ner, ariB described with a poet's illimitable powers, and so conjured 
up before the visionary eye, instead of being represented on a 
narrow stage by poor creatures with painted faces and fantastic 
garments. And this is the difference : in one case, the drama is 
addressed to the mind and to the outward eye ; in the other, it is 
addressed to the mind alone. 

The romances I speak of are the Bride of Lammermoor and 
Notre Dame de Paris. The first is, in my judgment, pre-eminently 
the most Shakespearean of Sir W. Scott's works. I do not think 
I can give it higher or more appropriate praise. And this, it will 
be remembered, was constructed upon a tableau of four figures — 
a tableau that might have been represented by the eccyclema. 
There is the Master of Ravenswood, the brave, the true, the noble- 
hearted, who loves with aU the overweening, the desperate, world- 
defying fondness, of one who has chosen very waywardly, and 
taken for his mate a gentle creature merely, whom he may cherish, 
protect, and elevate — who loves with all the fers'or of the intellec- 
tual man, whose Will is indomitable, whose spirit never knew the 
chilling touch of Fear. There is Lucy, who has felt the glory of 
that purest and most ennobling love, and returns it with the in- 
tensest worship of the heart. You dote upon her as you read her 
Btory, even as the Master might ; for the whole business of her 
existence, apart from her persecutors, is grateful love ! There is 
the representation of cold, blind, inapplicable Duty, in the person 
of the Presbyterian Minister ;• and in the Mother there is an im- 
bodiment of that spirit of Evil so constantly to be encountered 
upon Earth, which cannot endure the pure unconventional happi- 
ness of others, and that is ever in its restless malignity, disposed 
to be miserable itself, that it may make others miserable. 

Now, mark the effect produced upon this particular work of 
Scott's, by the origin and mode of its construction. Is it not, as a 
whole, the most harmonious in its parts, the most complete in its 
structure, of any one of the novels ? It is a most deep tragedy. 



250 • THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS- 

You have, however, fix)m the first, been prepared for a catastrophe 
of. Death and Doom ; and you rise from its perusal with satisfac- 
tion, with a cahned mind, because you feel that the worst is over, 
that the Master and his spirit's mate " sleep well" — " nothing can 
touch them further ;** and you know that your soul has been chas- 
tened and purified by that heavenly sorrow in which there is no 
selfishness. Of all the other novels, I cannot remember one at 
the close of which you are under the influence of the same feelings. 
In many, abounding, too, with passages of the intensest interest — 
such as Old Mortality — ^you rise from the conclusion, which is 
slovenly, and abrupt, and unsatisfactory, like the breaking of a 
dream, with a sensation of unrest, if not of positive annoyance. 
Sir Walter Scott's mind was essentially illogical; he could not 
reason. His attempt to write Napoleon's history, and his miser- 
able book on Demonology and Witchcraft, make this but too evi- 
dent. He had a rich but discursive imagination. He saw every 
thing as he oftentimes might the beloved scenery of his native 
land, through a mist which at one time rendered the features indis- 
tinct, and at another lent them a fa^ry beauty. He was irregu- 
larly educated ; he had little classical knowledge, and less of clas- 
sic taste or feeling : indeed, he had little accurate knowledge upon 
any subject. He never read upon a system ; his studies were 
never made to converge or concentrate upon one great object He 
loved reading, not for the powers it confers upon man struggling 
to overtop the fellow-men of his generation in this world, but be- 
cause it enabled him to conjure up a world of his own : he was the 
minion of Romance, the ranger of the mountain and the heather ; 
and they had from his infancy for him the choicest impulses. He 
had a fine and happy sense of the beauties and the grandeur of 
external nature, a noble feeling of chivalry, and a power of pathos 
scarcely surpassed by that of Shakespeare or of Homer. But all 
this was in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ; and there never 
was any thing more since, in any one of his works, excepting only 
the BHde of Lammermoor, Scott had talent in the highest degree', 
but not much of absolute Genius ; whereof, as Coleridge observes, 
it is a good gauge, or criterion, to observe whether it progresses 
and evolves, or merely spins upon itself. 

The germ of every thing Scott has invented may be found in 



CHARACTER OP HAMLET. 251 

the Ballads. The sketches of all the characters he has created 
may be seen there ; and they are few : he proceeded in an inverted 
order firom that of Shakespeare. The writer of Othello and Ham' 
let went from causes to results : he took Passions, Faculties, and 
Feelings, and from these he made his man and fashioned his life ; 
he worked from the abstract, as the Creator of all might do ; he 
possessed the almighty intelligence, and a portion of this, as he 
listed, the inspired into the mass of clay he took, or declared in 
his imagination. Scott, on the other hand, worked from the 
concrete ; he went back from results to causes ; he availed 
himself of an impersonation made from an actual man and cir- 
cumstances of his life, with certain accessories furnished from 
the personalities, moral and physical, of other men and mark- 
worthy events of their story ; and thence he came to shadow 
forth original and dominant FassionS; Faculties, Feelings. It 
will be easily perceived, accordingly, why it was that Shake- 
speare excelled, even in reference to his own works, in the char- 
acters which he created purely ; and that Scott was most success- 
ful in the characters he described. Let me be understood to 
mean by the characters described, the characters he has taken from 
history, dressed out in their attributes and memories, and made 
movers in a scene ; or the characters he had himself received his 
instructions for (to borrow a lawyer's phrase), from personal obser- 
vation in the circle of his acquaintance and in humbler life. These 
the romancer might easily form to the purposes of his story. But 
Shakespeare drew his Othello and Hamlet from no living models 
from nor traditional sketch ; he wrought them fortl^ from his own 
brain. It may be observed, too, that Scott's works are severally 
in the nature of collections of importraitures of passages in the 
external world, and in human life ; they are not interpenetrated 
by one great principle which concentrates them upon an object, 
the which being once attained, the mind is satisfied with the whole. 
They are like an opera, in which there are many exquisite melo- 
dies and concerted pieces, but which has no pervading theme 
wherewith the senses and imagination should be always possessed, 
and on the successive development of which the interest should be 
continuously increasing (as in Fidelio), until it ends with com- 
municating that excitement which, for the moment, has raised 



252 THE FBASEEUAN PAPEBS. 

you above the ordinary conditions of humanity ; and on which; 
therefore, your memory loves to repose. Hence it is, I should 
presume, !hat all the attempts to dramatize Scott's novels have 
proved such lamentable failures. The only one which might 
have made a tragedy has, I believe, never been profaned by the 
scissors of the playwright. Yet I am not surprised at it : nobody 
but a man of high ability and delicate feeling could have done it ; 
and with equal facility, and more honor, might such a person write 
a tragedy, which should be acknowledged all his own. The Bride 
of Lammermoor is, I do say, a grand fusion of a Shakespearean 
Tragedy. The dread spirit of the tdbleau^on which it is founded 
is interfused throughout ; the Fatalism, the Supernatural Agency, 
the Mental Aberration, which necessarily occur in aU the psycho- 
logical works of Shakespeare, are in it — the lore of the heart as 
to mankind in all stations of life — the sense and relish of fun, 
which is electrically potent upon the reader — the wild admixture 
of humor and the most afl9icting tragedy, as at the grave of 
Ophelia, ai'e all there ! It is, if we will only consider it curiously, 
a marvellous work for Scott ; and mind, it is the only one made 
upon a tableau. 

The author of the second romance to which I would refer has, in 
a preface, well explained how and under what state of feeling and 
inspiration a drama, or romance, should be composed. The one 
which he so introduces has been put forth in the right spirit : 

" Un roman scion lui nait, d'une fagon en quelque sorte n6essaire, avec 
tons ses chapitre's ; un drarae nait avec toutes ses scenes. Ne croyez pas 
qu'il y ait rien d'arbitraire dans ie nombre de parties dont se compose ce tout, 
ce mystcrieux microcosme que vous appelez drame, ou roman. La greffeet 
la soudure prennent mal sur des ceuvres de cette nature, qui doivent jaillir 
d'un seul jet ct rester telles quelles. Une fois la cliose faite, ne vous ravisez 
pas, n'y retouchez plus. Une fois que le livre est publie — une fois que lo 
sexe de Toeuvre, virile ou non, a tete rcconnu ct proclamo — une fois que 
Tenfant a pouss6 son premier cri, il est n6, la voila, il est ainsi fait, pere ni 
mere n'y peuvent plus ricn, il appartient a Tair et au soleil laissez le vivre ou 
mourir comme il est. ^ Votre livre, est-il manqu6 '^ Tant pis. N'ajoutez pas 
de chapitres ^ un livro manque. II est incomplet. II fallait le completer en 
Tengrendant. Votre arbre est nou6 ? Vous ne le rcdresserez pas. Votro 
roman est phthisique, votre roman n'est pas viable 1 Vous le nui rendrez 
pas le souffle qui lui manque. Votre drame est n6 boiteux ? Croyez moi, 
fie lui mettez pas de jambes de bois.'' 



CHABACTEB OF HAMLET. 258 

These are 'Victor Hugo's opinions respecting the mode afler 
which a romance should be sent forth, and he certainly has acted 
upon his own fair ideal with respect to Notre Dame de Paris. 
And it is, in the essence, as complete a dramatic work as any 
wrought forth by a Greek Tragedian. lie says himself, he made 
it upon the word, 'ANArKH — Fate. Of course, every great work 
of Fictibn has been founded upon Fate : but he also made it upon 
another word, from whence it took its pecuHar form and color ; 
and that word, also inscribed upon the wall of the dark student's 
cell, is 'Ayayveta, whosc causality upon the lives and fortunes of all 
the leading characters is the minister of Fate. I say, leading 
characters, to distinguish them from characters which, in the Bride 
of Lammermoor and Notre Dame de Paris, are rather ancillary 
than belong to the dramatic working-out of the composition, and, 
in some sort, discharge the functions of the Chorus in a Greek 
Play. The leading characters are few, and upon all these the 
stem decrees of Fate are executed, through the agency and im- 
pulses of *Xvayvzia — of Uucleanness, Lust, or, let us mitigate the 
expression, animal Passion. The Homance, too, is formed upon 
a tableau ; and a most fearful one. The dark towers of the mys- 
tic cathedral frown upon the scene, which is inspired by its terri- 
ble spirit, inscrutable, but everywhere felt Its own familiars, too, 
the ^uniliars of that dread Gothic pile, are the prominent figures. 
It is prefigured and explained in the following passages. It is ful- 
filled at the last, when the poor little dancer of the Parvis is sus- 
pended from the gallows, with the executioner on her shoulders, 
and the devoted children of the cathedral — all three the victims 
of animal Passion — are contemplating the fearful group, "ctf 
groupe epouvantaUe de Vhomme et de lajeuneJiUe — de Varaignee 
et de la moiiche" 

" Dom Claude abime en lui-meme, ne I'^coutait plus. Charmolue, en 
Buivant la direction de son regard, vit qu'il s'etait fix6 machinalement 4 la 
grande toile d'araign^e qui tapissait la lucame. En ce moment une mouche, 
itourdie que cherdiait le soleil de Mars, vint se jeter 6 travers ce fllet et s'y 
englna. A I'ebranliement de sa toile, T^norme araign^e fit un monvement 
brusque hors de sa cellule centrale, puis d'un bond elle se precipita snr la 
mouche, qu'cUe plia en deu:^ avec ses antennes de devant, tandis que sa 
trompe hidouso lui fouiUait la the. Pauvre moucho I dit le procureur du 



254 THE FRARKRTAN PAPEBS. 

roi, en jcout d'^glise ; et il le^a U main poor U sanrer. L'aidudiacre^ 

com me r^rcille en sursaat lai, retint le bras arec nne Tiolence oonimlsiye. 
" 'Maitrc Jacques/ s'^Tiu-t-il, 'laissez faire la fatalit^.' 
" Le procareur se rctoama efTart ; il loi scmblait qa'one pince de fer Ini 
arait pri» le bras. L'ceil da pr^tre 4tait fix4, }ia<^ard, flambojant, et reatait 
attache au petit groiipe horrible de la monche et de Taraign^. 

" ' Oh ! oai/ contioua .la pr^tre, avec nne Toix qn'on eut dit renir de ses 
entrailles, ' voila un symbole de tont. EUe vole : elle est joyeose, eile vient 
de naitre, clle cherchc le printemps, le grand air, la liberte ; oh, oni ! mais 
qu'elle se hearto a la rosace fatalo, Taraign^ en sort, raraignte hideose. 
Pauvre danseasc! pauvre monche pr^estin^l Maitre Jacques, laissei 
faire ; c'cst la fatalite ! Helas ! Claude, tn es Taraign^ ! Ta es la monche 
auisi ! Tn volais ii la science, k la Inmi^re, an soleil, tn n'avais sonci que 
d'arrivcr au grand air, an grand jour de la verite etemello ; mais en te pre- 
cipitant vers la lucame ^blouissante, qui donne sur Tautre monde, sur le 
monde de la clartc, de Tintelligence, et de la science, monche avengle ! doc- 
tcur inscns^ ! tu n'avaw pas vu cette subtile toile d'araignee tendne par le 
destin entre la lumidre et toi I tu, t'y es jet4 4 corps perdu, miserable fon ! et 
maintonant tn le debats, la t^te bris^, et .les ailes arrach^, entre les an- 
tcnnes de fur de la fatalite ! Maitre Jacques, maitre Jacques, laissez £ure 
d'araign^e !' " 

Victor Hugo has written several dramas, and other novels, but 
nothing like J^otre Dame de Parts ; which is decidedly a noble 
and an august composition. A romance of the middle ages — it is 
in force, power, variety — gracefulness in the multifarious outline 
— grotesqueness occasionally wild yet harmonious — beauty, quaint 
and delicate beauty, in the details — and magnificence and massive- 
uess in the whole — like unto one of those grand cacthedrals in 
which these ages expressed their intellect, imbodied their genius. 
Formed upon the principle dvayKti^ the agent dvayvda, and the tableau 
into which they resolve themselves to conclude the tale, nothing 
can be more perfect, and, consequently, more simple, than the 
structure of the plot. Fancy and Imagination, and the powers of 
gorgeous illustrations, which in his other works run wild, are 
herein controlled to their appropriate purposes, and rendered most 
efficient. All his knowledge, all his personal experience, all his 
learning, have been heaped upon the tableau of this romance; 
and, strictly guided by the Principle and the Agent I have men- 
tioned, they have in no sort encumbered it. But it is the one and 
only work of the man's life : his whole soul is there. Were we 
to estimate his capabilities by the gauge of any other of his com- 



CHARACTER OP HAMLET. 255 

positions, we should say that for him, and for a man of his time of 
life moreover, the work was miraculous. He is yet young. In 
the filling up of Notre Dame de Paris the faults are glaring, the 
plagiaries innumerous, and annoying because useless, the author 
being always best when he depends upon himself; yet the unity 
of the design, and the circumstance of his quaint knowledge — 
architectural, and antiquarian, and historical — his magic powers 
of expression, and his powers of delineating, in the spirit of a meta- 
physician and pathologist, the workings of the inward Mind, as 
well as marshalling before the eye the features of external Nature, 
being all rendered ancillary to that design, even the characters he 
takes (which are in no sort original) compel you to forget every 
thing respecting the materials and the mere process of construc- 
tion, and to regard only the whole structure and its result, as you 
must do, with unmixed admiration. The simple earnestness of 
the Design, the soul of his tableau, reconciles to probability, under 
the aspect and by the medium through which you are compelled 
to view them, the traditional exaggeration of Romance — the ma- 
gician, the monster, and the angel in woman's flesh. There be, 
moreover, in the formation of Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, and La 
Esmeralda, recollections of Faust, Manfred, Lewis's monk, De 
Bois Guilbert ; of all the man-monsters of Hugo's own menagerie ; 
of La Preciosa, Rebecca, and a host of other lovely and most ex- 
quisite damsels of despised castes — Jews, gipsies, and the like — 
at whose birth, there was a social miracle — Art, and Circum- 
stance, and Education, having been dispensed with in the creation 
of a Charmer. All was left to Nature — 



And Nature said, now will I make 
A ladye of my own." 



But Notre Dame has made them, one and all her own. The 
archdeacon — the gentleman, the scholar, the noble specimen in 
every respect, mental and physical, of the " paragon of animals " 
— the beloved child, into whom the mystic soul of the dread 
edifice of gramarye has been inspired — and the brutal bell-ringer 
— the Foundling — the creature whose very humanity is doubtful 
from his savage appearance, and whose intellect is smothered 
from the lack of conduits, whose community is only with the rude 



256 THE I^SEBIAN PAPEBS. 

and grotesque materials of the structure, apart as thej (Claude 
and Quasimodo) would seem, are yet together as familiars of the 
cathedral They are like the plus and minus in a quadratic 
radical. The dvayxn of Notre Dame de Paris is over both, as it is 
over the poor little flutterer of the Parvis ; the instant Avayvtia is 
instilled into the soul and senses of the thtee, it impels them to 
their fate : they severally become each the other's destiny, and 
the dramatic Romance gushes forth to its fulfilment in the tableau^ 
over which Fate hovers satisfied. You feel that nothing touching 
the victims has been overstrained — that all has terminated as it 
necessarily should. 

I shall make no apology for instituting a comparison between 
the Greek dramatic works and things so different in outward form 
and show, because upon reflection it must be evident, that true 
likeness depends upon the intrinsic qualities, and not upon the ap- 
parent qualities, of such matters. I have not hesitated, then, to 
predicate, that there is an analogy between the two Romances and 
the Greek Drama, and an essential resemblance between the Greek 
Drama and the psychological plays of Shakespeare. The form of 
the structure was departed from, and, doubtless, with advantage, 
considering the different circumstances and climate under which 
the scenic representation was to take place. But, to speak figura- 
tively, the spirit of the old Greek drama, when its august fane was 
in all its exquisite and harmonized proportions laid prostrate, came 
to furnish forth the living soul of a Gothic temple, which, though 
irregular on occasions even to grotesqueness, is nevertheless grand 
and enduring — better suited to the climate in which it has been 
reared, and the genius of the people who are to be its worshippers. 
Here Shakespeare was the Hierophant, and in himself he united 
the several excellences of the ancient Masters — the lyric flow of 
Euripides, the wise tenderness of Sophocles, together with all the 
vigor of --Eschylus, and his power of dealing with the dim super- 
natural — of intimating it darkly, and yet weaving it as the fatal 
thread into the woof of his story. 

Now, if we were to inquire why it was, and how it was, that 
this intrinsic similarity was brought about, I think it would appear 
to have resulted from the circumstance of Madness and Superna- 
tural Agency — family legends and popular superstitions — toge- 



CHARACTER OF HAMLET. 257 

ther with Fatalism, of course, being the dominant intrinsic qualities, 
and being used as the most potent materials in the construction of 
the Shakespearean as well as the ancient Greek Dramas. 

It has been long since, and very frequently, observed, that 
Madness, especially inrthe milder and less declared forms (such as 
mania mitis monomania^ and every thing coming under the. head 
Melancholy), has been prevalent in England. Humorists have 
always abounded in every walk of society, even in the persons of 
those whose sanity was allowed. Pinel, the greatest writer upon 
Insanity of the present day, remarks the melancholy richness of 
the English tongue in epithets to describe and characterize every 
form and variety of Madness. And certainly we bear, with good 
humor, allusion to the prevalence of mental disorder amongst us. 
Nobody, however patriotic, is offended when the Grave-digger 
tells the Prince of Denmark that young Hamlet, being mad, was 
sent into England, or at the reasons he assigns for it. 

** Ham, Ay, marry, why was he sent into England ? 

\8t Clown. Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there ; 
or, if he do not, 't is no great matter there. 

Earn. Why? 

1st Ciovm, 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad 
as he." 

It has at all times, moreover, been the fashion to introduce mad 
people in our Dramas. It was done freely enough in the ancient 
drama, sometimes with great effect, by learned men ; and the prac- 
tice has been continued to the present time, though not with the 
same good results. It is a dangerous matter for mere play- 
wrights to handle : the only genuine mania you can perceive is in 
the overweening presumption of the writer ; there is none in his 
character. Yet, notwithstanding the many notable instances of 
absurd failure, and the pleasant objurgations of Sheridan's Puff, 
the heroine of our modem tragedies continues to go punctually 
mad in white muslin, and the hero to rant, and roar, and attitudi- 
nize, after a manner not very common amongst Bedlamites. 

The introduction, too, visibly as well as by dread intimation of 
supernatural agency, is common in our drama. The character of 
the people, so sombre and so superstitious as it really is, and as 
Mirabeau saw it was ; so intensely earnest, and, in the healthiest 

17 



258 THEJPTIASRRTAN PAPEBS. 

of such morbid activity — the character of the constitution — that 
free constitution, capable of elasticity, and controllable by resist- 
ance, without absolute and irreparable injury, have led in no small 
degree to this. Our stage, I do believe, has, like our country, 
enjoyed greater fi^edom than any other. . Certainly, even in the 
old monkish times at least, at high solemnities, great latitude was 
allowed ; and, since the Reformation, there has been no vexatious 
meddling with the Drama here upon religious grounds. Indeed, 
if there were, it would have been impossible that matters of ab- 
stract and occult Philosophy could have been so freely discussed, 
or the vagaries of the mind diseased so faithfully depicted. But 
in England there has well nigh, at all times, been the freedom to 
represent the madman from actual observation : and the existing 
superstitions of the country, and its story, which had a vague and 
dim but yet thrilling touch of reality about them for spectators of 
every class, were interwoven with the play. In other countries 
it was different — whilst retaining the form, they quite lost the 
spirit of the old Greek drama; which, be it remembered, was 
represented under free institutioDS (that is, free for citizens, I think 
not of slaves), and without a grinding censorship. In that old 
Greek Drama, " the noble mind overthrown" was, in tragedy, ex- 
hibited as a fitting subject for contemplation ; and the freaks and 
foibles of mania, in any mitigated form, as a proper theme for 
laughter in comedy. Personal peculiarities, moreover, were held 
up to ridicule ; and the characters, even when not portraits, were 
drawn from Nature. In Greece, too, great latitude was allowed 
upon the stage, with respect to the doctrines and dogmas of Reh- 
gion. The " happy gods, living listlessly at their ease" — fiaxapcf 
esoi peia (aioiTcs — wcrc treated with that indifference they were sup- 
posed to entertain. Prosecutions for blasphemy were always poli- 
tical, or deadly personal. But in countries wherein, contrariwise 
from its free condition in England, the drama was subjected to the 
screw of a censorship, religious and political, it took the classic 
shape, which, in my opinion, is fitting for no scenic representation 
except the lyric drama ; and I have some degree of belief, that the 
old Greek plays were performances in which music and spectacle 
bore a large part, were, in a word, what operas at the Academic 
Royale ought to be, at the best you could conceive them. The 



CHABACTER OP HAMLET. 259 

unities^ bo it observed, are embarrassiDg only when you come to 
give a drama as a recited poem, and as the French did in their 
tragedies, in one measure ; without the transition to the metre of 
the ode, without any relief from variety. None of the intrinsic 
qualities, however, of the ancient Drama remained ; and it is 
curious to relnember that disquisitions touching supernatural 
agency and the art magical held by mimic .characters on the Eng- 
lish stage, were actually, at the same time debated solenmly in the 
Sorbonne and the convents. Thus 'questions, which in the one 
kingdom were matters of perilous doubt to learned Doctors and 
Christian Prelates, were in the other, at the Poet's inspiration, 
bandied about upon a stage, from mouth to mouth, by excom- 
municated persons — the offscouring of society — with painted 
faces and an antic dress. Ay, and after Macbeth and Hamlet, 
with all their forlorn metaphysical reasoning and supernatural 
terrors, had long been exhibited to the gaping English million, 
the curate Grandier, under the courtly reign of Louis XIV., and 
intellectual rule of Cardinal Richelieu, by the immediate agency 
of Dignitaries Ecclesiastical and Legal, was condemned to death, 
and burnt at Loudon, for sorcery, upon the testimony of some 
lewd nuns and perjured friars. 

But in Shakespeare's time, peculiarly of all others in England, 
there was a vast deal of profound learning upon almost all sub- 
jects, and men of the mightiest intellect flourished. It was a great 
age. The English of that day possessed all the noble qualities of 
their Norman forefathers, the unconquerable warriors by sea and 
land — refined by courtesy and sublimed by learning — the same 
wild spirit of adventure — the same enterprise — the same endu- 
rance; and, with these, the greatest genius which has ever yet 
been displayed in any era of the world's story. The monuments 
of the fapaed Augustan age cannot, in truth, compete with those 
of the Elizabethan ; it can boast two minds tfiat, in Lord Byron's 
words, " might furnish forth the universe." Bacon might dispute 
the palm of Genius, and its particular imbodiment, Poesy, with 
Shakespeare himself; Bacon understood and exemplified Philo- 
sophy ; Shakespeare understood and illustrated it : Bacon, in his 
explanations, delighted us with the qualities and graces of Poesy ; 
Shakespeare, in his poetry, gives us the results and operations of 



260 THE FSASEBLUf PAPBBS. 

all philoGophT, As it bean upon hmnaii fife. Now, natarally 
enoo^ finom the deep and sterling learning which prevailed, the 
i^ was addicted greatlj to metaphysical disquisitions, and there- 
fore, to psychological inquiry, and to investigation and observaticm 
with respect to all mental derangement. Likewise, all -scholars 
were corioas touching Demonology and Witchcncft — themes of 
study always intensely interesting, but which James L, on his ac- 
cession, had, whilst Shakespeare was yet writing, rendered feshion- 
able. 

In Shakespeare's psychological works, we find the consecrated 
essence of all the learning of the time upon both these forlorn 
and fearful themes of study. 

With regard to Madness — as, indeed, with regard to all other 
subjects dilated on — Shakespeare appears not alone to have ex- 
hausted for his results (and they are invariably correct) all the 
learning of those who went before him, but to have anticipated 
all that has since been heaped together. All our subsequent dis- 
coveries and conclusions wrung from study and observation, up 
to this moment — even to the remarks which I am about to sug- 
gest, only tend to prove the perfect accuracy of Shakespeare's 
delineatioiis, and to establish the existence of that degree of know- 
ledge in him which would seem properly to be that of a creator. 
Sir Henry Halford, in an ingenious and highly interesting essay 
on the Homeric wounds, showed how strangely accurate the old 
Greek was in his description of injuries to the human frame, and 
the consequences that were the result, physiologically and anatomi- 
cally. The same might be proved of Shakespeare, in reference 
to the human body and its ills ; and we find the knowledge ex- 
tended also to the mind diseased. He produces a mad person 
before you, and without explaining why or wherefore, or reason- 
ing upon the course to be pursued, or making the slightest dis- 
cernible effort at effect, he just makes that madman say and do 
precisely what he ought to have said and done, laboring under a 
particular species of Insanity, acted upon by particular feelings 
and passions, and surrounded by particular circumstances. There 
is, meanwhile, an intuitive action of the Understanding, which tells 
you that the thing has been done, the individual man has been 
made, and Reason sees " that it is good." In this there is exhibit- 



GHABACTER OF HAMLFT. 261 

ed, at the same time, a consciousness of power and a conviction 
of success. At all times, too, we may remark in Shakespeare that 
abhorrence of exaggeration, with the view to produce effect, which 
is common to all gentlemanly natures. It has been styled, hap- 
pily enough, by painters, in reference to the figures of Velasquez 
and MuriUo, " quiet power." It is pre-eminent in Shakespeare ; 
and in no respect is it more wonderfully exhibited to the thought- 
ful eye, than in his delineation of madmen. The best institutions 
for the cure of madness, the best writers on the subject, the most 
successful practitioners in cases of insanity (such as Pinel and 
Esquirol), are now-a-days to be found in France ; knowledge has 
accumulated : the theme of mental derangement, connecting itself 
with so many diseases, has, of course, become common amongst 
French playwrights, who have set about dramatizing the Nosology ; 
and they have introduced mad people in abundance in their plays, 
" and yet never a good one," though they have striven hard for it. 
Shakespeare, on the contrary, has never once swerved in the ac- 
curacy of his delineations. He has, in his plays, introduced per- 
sons suffering under insanity in various forms, and so drawn the 
disease in various types. These, one and all, may, with a single 
exception, be referred forthwith to their proper head in the Noso- 
logy. 

In several of his plays, too, Shakespeare has introduced super- 
natural agency ; and a boding strain may be observed to pervade 
all his tragic works of the highest order. In these, the greatest 
monuments of human genius illustrative of the puzzle called 
human life, the indication of superhuman influence is always to 
the student solemnly awful, if not absolutely appalling. ^The ac- 
tual production of visitants from another world on the stage is 
made effective (I speak not of the closet, or the visionary eye). It 
is not in the power of mock realism — of the paltry show of actors 
and of a stage, to mar the power of the witches in Macbeth^ or the 
ghost of Hamlet's father. With the exception of Hamlet, all the 
plays of Shakespeare, whether supernatural agency or insanity 
enter into their composition and the current of events, are straight- 
forward plays. The heroes and heroines are men and women ; 
you may like them or dislike them ; and in doing either you have, 
according to your own lights, intelligible grounds whereon to pro- 



262 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

• 

ceed, because jou can understand them : jon can perceive and 
appreciate, to a sufficient extent, their motives, and so satisfy 
yourself as to the reasons and circumstances which conduced to 
the catastrophe of the play. A man, though scant well learned in 
the Nosology, can refer the insanity of each individual to its par- 
ticular head, and each and every of his actions and words to the 
peculiar form of malady. The object, too, of the demoniac influ- 
ence is apparent, and regularly worked out to its natural and ap- 
pointed conclusion ; so is the operation and resolution of the 
dominant passion — Love, Ambition, Jealousy — fully set forth, 
thoroughly explained. Take Othello, Lear, Macbeth. In the first, 
there is little more than an intimation of the oracles of Fate ; yet 
they are not, from the very commencement, in the least doubtiul. 
The " ill-starred wench " must have been miserable in her unnatu- 
ral match : the noble Moor appears before us a predestined sacri- 
fice. The conclusion quite satisfies you. There should not, and 
there could not, have been any other. " King Lear" you can per- 
fectly understand. It is a grand pathological study for the medi- 
cal reader, and would seem to have been, in some sort, a patholo- 
gical exercise for the poet ; for almost every incident of terror or 
pathos is made to bear directly upon some distinct point in the 
gradual and clearly-defined progress of the malady. In 3facbeth 
it is plain-sailing enough ; the demoniac agency only ministered to 
his cherished wishes. The end may be divined, the ccmclusion 
was inevitable. 

Incidentally, too, I may remark, that, in the comedies. Mania is 
always brought in judiciously and pleasantly from its mildest form, 
in the outrageous lying of the " starved Justice Shallow," to the 
gentle melancholy of Jacques, and the inordinate vanity of Mal- 
volio. 

But nothing of all this can be predicated of Hamlet ; and though, 
as I have already observed, standing in the same class with the 
psychological dramas, it is nevertheless apart from them one and 
alL Yet, peradventure, doth it more nearly in the spirit resem- 
ble a play of JEschylus than any of the others ; it might have 
been represented on an Athenian stage with as much facility as 
the JEumentdes, Like the Eumenides, moreover, it is a ghastly 
play ; and this without its solemn and religious conclusion, heart- 



CHARAOTEB OF HAMLET. 268 

• 
awing to the people of Theseus, as a memorj and an omen. Oh ! 

Hamlet is a ghastly play — cold as a philosophical experiment; 
cold, I should rather say, as a demonstration, the subject being 
the mind diseased. The Spirit of Love is most potent throughout 
all the other tragedies of the Passions and Imagination — Love, 
which springs in its purity from the Reason, and to which the 
Senses only minister — Love, which, as the highest faculty of 
Reason, distinguishes Man from Brute (for brutes have Under- 
standing as well as we, but they have not Reason, nor, therefore, 
have they Love) — Love, which, I repeat, distinguishes man from 
brute ; and Angels, as we are taught, in its degree from one an- 
other. 

It is " stronger than death *' in Juliet and her Romeo, in Desde- 
mona and the Moor, in the poor mad father, Lear. It sheds a 
melancholy glory upon the blood-polluted victims of -Ambition ; it 
assumes an incarnation of Divinity, in the true wife, in sweetest 
Lnogene. At the end of these tragedies, Love, bursting from the 
elements of destruction, hovers over all, invincible and triumphant ; 
and this is balm to the soul. It is better medicine than Hope, the 
false stimulant which remained to console Pandora : for what is 
Hope but anticipated Joy, the disturber of the Present, the plun- 
derer of the Future? This, on the contrary, makes sorrow 
heavenly for that gone by, and leaves no care for that which is to 
come. Hereby the great end of Tragedy has been fulfilled, which 
Aristotle, or some other ancient sage, did well declare to be 
KaBapoiq rdv vaQrfnarbiv — a purification of the passious. 

And tragedy has been described to be " an exhibition tending, 
by the operation of pity and fear, to purify these and similar pas- 
sions." This is not done by Hamlet ; and for this reason, also, 
Hamlet stands quite alone amongst Shakespeare's plays. The 
Spirit of Love is weakest in Hamlet^ and, therefore, it commands 
but little human sympathy. Ophelia does love, and she dies. 
There is a majesty in her gentleness, which you worship with a 
gush of feeling in her earlier scenes of the play ; the painful na- 
ture of her appearances, whilst mad, makes you feel that death is 
a release; and that release comes in an appropriate form — the 
gentle, uncomplaining, sorrow-stricken' lady, dies gently, and 
without a murmur of bitterness or reproach : 



264 THE FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 

• 
** Queen. Your sister's drowned, Laertes. 

Laer. Drowned ! Oh ! where ? 

Queen, There is a willow grows ascaant the brook. 
That shoi^s his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; 
There with fantastic garlands did she come, 
0£ crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples. 
That liberal shepherds give a g^rosser name, 
Bat our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them ; 
There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds 
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, 
When down her weedy trophies and herself 
Fell in the weeping brook : her clothes spread wide. 
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up ; 
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, 
As one incapable of her own distress, 
Or like a creature native and indued 
Unto that element : but long it could not be 
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink. 
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay 
To muddy death." 

The meek lady is no more, but the tragedy proceeds. As for 
all the other characters, they are of a very mixed nature indeed, 
with two exceptions. Of Hamlet, as a personage in the drama, I 
do not now speak (and character, which, in its proper sense, is 
a completely fashioned Will, he had none), and the exceptions I 
make are Fortinbras and Horatio ; of whom, the first is a mag- 
nificent sketch of a chivalrous prince — a youthful Alexander ; the 
second, the noblest gentleman ever drawn. As for the remaining 
characters, you cannot esteem any, you cannot respect some; 
some you must laugh at ; some you must despise ; and even Ho- 
ratio and Fortinbras have little sympathy from us, albeit they have 
the while entire admiration — they are so secure, so perfect in 
themselves, so elevated by the force of their own Will above the 
ordinary conditions of humanity. I may here, too, avail myself 
of the opportunity to observe, that, for a play so bloody for the 
English vulgar, and in itself so morally tragic for the scholar 
and the gentleman. Samlet is for both, in its performance on the 
stage, strangely beholden to spectacle, and to its comic scenes, or 
snatches of scenes : the visible show of the ghost — the processions 
— funeral — squabble at Ophelia's grave — fencing-match — and, 
at the last, the " quarry that cries, on, havoc 7* have much power 



GHABAOTER OF HAMLET. 266 

over the common spectator. I doubt if he could abide it without 
these, and without having Polonius buffooned for him, and, to no 
small extent, Hamlet himself; as he always was, whenever I saw 
the part played, and as the great critic^ Dr. Johnson, would seem 
to think he ought to be. For he says, " the pretended madness 
of Hamlet causes much mirth / / /" And this he follows up by 
adding, in grandiloquent maudlin, " the mournful distraction of 
Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage pro^ 
duces the effect intended; from the apparition that, in the first act, 
chiUs the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes 
affectation to just contempt." So that in defiance of poor Ophelia's 
eloquent lamentation over 

" Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state," 

we may, upon the authority of the doctoi:, conclude, that to^cause 
much mirth by pretended madness was an effect intended to be 
produced by the personage, Hamlet. But, throwing aside this 
grave folly, let me observe, that even the man who really can feel, 
if not quite understand the play, which Johnson did not understand 
and could not feel — the man who can perceive if he cannot quite 
comprehend its idea, must perceive how essential to the conduct 
of the plot, and the development of character, is the forlorn mer- 
riment which pervades the drama ; and how different this is from 
the comedy introduced in the other psychological dramas, which 
to some may seem impertinent and wearisome, and to none useful, 
save as a strong contrast, like a coarse dash of paint in a picture 
upon some one part, to bring out an effect elsewhere upon the 
canvass. But in Hamlet the intermixture is a very marvel of 
art. Jn that astounding scene at Ophelia's grave, the coarse 
"quips, and cranks, and gibes" of the grave-diggers, come in like 
discords in one of the most sublime and weird of Beethoven's 
compositions. 

The praise of variety has been challenged for Harrdet, and with 
great justice, both as respects the incidents, the characters, and 
the nature of the scenes. As a consequence of this, we find that 
all those matters, severally difficult of treatment in other plays — 
as insanity, supernatural agency, subtle passion — are introduced 
in a still more difficult form in HamleU The cause and descrip^ 



266 THE FRASERIAN PAPEBS. 

tion of Ophelia's madness are plain enoog^ But Hamlet's mad- 
ness, if he be mad, or his conduct, if not mad, as well as the ma- 
nagement of the ghost and his powers, have as yet been riddles ; 
and neither is tl^e progress of events dear, nor do they indicate 
the catastrophe to- which they lead — nor, being thereat arrived, 
are you content they should have done so under the circumstances 
— nor is the conclusion in any sort or sense whatsoever satisfactory, 
but dreadly the reverse. 

In a word, Handet, to my mind, is essentially a psychological 
exercise and study. The hero, from whose acts and feelings 
every thing in the drama takes its color and pursues its course, is 
doubtless insane, as I shall prove hereafter. But the species of 
intellectual disturbance, the peculiar form of mental malady, under 
which he suffers, is of the subtlest character. The hero of another 
of these dramas. King Lear, is also mad ; and his malady is traced 
from the outbreak, when it became visible to all, down to the 
agony of his death. But we were prepared for this malady — the 
predisposing causes existed always ; it only wanted circumstance 
to call it forth. Shakespeare divined and wrote upon the know- 
ledge of the fact, which has since been proclaimed formally by 
the physician, that it is with the mind as with the body : there 
can be no local affection without a constitutional disturbance 
— there can be no constitutional disturbance without a local 
affection. Thus, there can be no constitutional disturbance of 
the mind, without that which is analogous to a local affection of 
the body, namely, disease, or injury affecting the nervous sys- 
tem and the mental organs — some previous irregularity in their 
functions, or intellectual faculties, or in the operation of their affec- 
tions and passions; and, again, general intellectual disturbance 
will always be accompanied by some particular affection. But I 
am using well nigh the words of Esquirol. He says, " Presque 
tons," (and by this qualification he only intends to exclude those 
in whom he had not the means of ascertaining the fact) — 
"Presque tons les alienes confies a mes soins avoient offert quelques 
irregularites daiis leur fonctions, dans leur facultes, intellec- 
tuelles, dans leur affections, avant d'etre maladesj et souvent de la 
premiere enfance. Les uns avoient ete d'un orgueil excessif, les 
autres tres coleres; ceuxci souvent tristes, ceuxla d'une gaieto 



CHARACTER OP HAMLET. . 26T 

lidicole ; quelques-uns d'une instability d^solante pour leur instruc- 
tion, quelques autres d'une application opiniatre k ce qu'ils entre- 
prennoient, mais sans fixite ; plusieurs vetilleux minutieux, crain- 
tifs, timides, irresolus ; presque tous avoient eu une grande activite 
de facultes intellectuelles et morales qui avoient Redoubles d'energie 
quelque temps avant Faeces ; la plupart avoient eu des maux de^ 
nerfs ; les femmes avoient epreuves des convulsions ou de spasmes 
hysteriques; les hommes avoient ete sujets a des crampes, des 
palpitations, des paralysies. Avec ces dispositions primitives 
ou acquises, il ne manque plus qu'une affection morale pour 
determiner Fexplosion de la fureur ou Taccablement de la 
melancolie." 

Now, in all Shakespeare's insane characters, however slight may 
be the mental malady, with the exception only of Hamlet, we have 
accurately described to us the temperament on which madness is 
ingrafted. Thus of Malvolio, who, on his introduction to us, 
shows the intolerant vulgarity and impertinence of the upstart, 
combined with the wisdom of the menial — with cunning at least 
— and the chattering of proverbs, gravely on occasion, we hear 
from Maria : " The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing con- 
stantly, but a time-pleaser — an affectioned ass, that cons state 
without book, and utters it by great swarths : the best persuaded 
t)f himself — so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is 
his ground of faith that all that look on him love him : and on that 
vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work." And 
from this we can well see how little provocation it required to 
drive him beside himself^ and into that most contemptible aliena- 
tion of mind which springs from inordinate vanity and sordid 
selfishness. Of Jacques we learn that he had been a debauchee, 
"as sensual as the brutish sting itself." He fs satiated quite — is 
now naturally enough struck with a gentle melancholy — "with 
a most humorous sadness." Goneril, too, prepares us for Lear's 
madness : "The best and soundest of his time has been but rash ; 
then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imper- 
fections of long-ingraft«d condition, but therewithal the unruly 
waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them." 
But of Hamlet alone we have no account of any positive predis- 
posing cause to mania, or faulty temperament ; nor can we catch 



268 THE FRASKRTAN PAPERS. 

firom the lips of any third person any thing which might lead us 
to question his sanitj hefore the commencement of the play. All 
is to his praise. He is the esteemed of Fortinbras, the friend of 
Horatio, the beloved of Ophelia. .We are abruptly brought to 
contemplate the noble nature warped, the lofty mind o'erthrown, 
the gentleman ^ in his blown youth blasted with ecstacy." To 
comprehend and account for this, we must study the drama with 
the same pervading sweep of thought that we would passages in 
human life, occurring within our observation, firom which we 
wished to wring a meaning, and by which we hoped to solve a 
mystery. There is nothing beyond to look to. We must judge 
Hamlet by what he said and did : I open the volume in which 
this is recorded.* 

* Properly speaking, this character of Hamlet belongs to, and shoald have 
appeared in "The Shakespeare Papers." It was omitted, by inadTer- 
tence. — M. 



AGNEWIDOS. 260 



AGNEWIDOS. 

LiBEB L* 
ANAPA {loi tvvens, Movaa, noXvrpovov' K. r. X.t— HOXSB. 



** Castiliano volto : for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face." 

Shakespearb, Twelfth Night, Act I. sc. iii. 



" Auf das XJnrecht, da folgt das XJebel, 
Wie die Thran' auf den herben Zwiebel, 
Hinter dem U kommt gleich das Weh, 
Das ist die Ordnumg im A, B, C. 

Ubi erit victoriaB spes, 
Si oflfenditur Deus ? Wie soil man siegen, 
Wenn man die Predigt schwanzt und die Mefs, 
Nichts thut, als in den Weinhausem liegen?" 

SoHiLLBB, Camp of WaUenstein, sc. viii. 



(( 



Yersibus omari tragicis res comica non rult." — Hosaob. 



V V \ : w - I • 



J d^ia-bi-^i nsJa'^T bipa ^15*15 

• T -•I T'« ft r ** 

Babbi Htman.— td^ipittjnaas inx tt3innpi ^*in 



: \s 



* No more than this portion of an eccentric and amusing satire on Sir An- 
drew and the meeting in favor of his Sabbath-breaking bill was published. 
It appeared in Fraser for May, 1836. Sir Andrew was a fanatic Scotch Ba- 
ronet, of much zeal and largo income, who, in and out of Parliament, agita- 
ted fiercely for new and stringent laws to enforce the strictest observance of 
the Sabbath.-~M. 



270 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 



i€ 



Apre 1' aomo infelice allor che nasce 

In questa vita di miserie plena 

Prid ch'al sol, gli occhi al pianto ; e nato appena 
Va prigionier frd le tenace fesce." — Sonetto del Marini, 



" When people first their eyes unclose 

Upon this world of grief and twaddling, 
They are predoomed to various woes — 
Beginning in their swaddling clothes, 
And ending in a close of swaddling." 

Barry Cornwall. 



n 



H faut passer la manche 
Pour voir mes amis comme on garde un dimanche." — ^Dr. Bowrino. 



(( 



Churches and steeples ho 'd gobble up 

(He used to come of a Sunday) ; 
Whole congregations were to him 

But a dish of Salmagundi.'' — ^Perot's Bdiques. 



Sunday virumque cano, quo non atrocior unquam, 

Verily do thinko, terris apparuit humbug. 

Est infernal enim Scotchman, cordesque per omnes 

Vult strikare metum, rigido pius ore locutus. 

Quo minus on Sunday meat-pies hottosque voremus 

Puddings. Multum ille a young folks detested et old folks, 

Multa quoque et risu passus dum addresseret Housam, 

Inferretque simul Billam, sermone lugubri. 

Musa mihi causas memora, what members abetting, 
Quidvc volens animis Commons, tot pullere faces 
Insignem nihilo numskull, tot makere speeches' 
Twango infemali, quid tot propoundere billas, 
Permittat. Tantum superest parl'mentary leisure ? 

Estdomus Antiquo Yardo,* Westminster ad aulam 
Spectans, quam plures ipso coluisse feruntur 
Bellamy posthabito. Siquid contenditur, utrum 
Whig vel Tory majus valeat pecus, aidere viewas 
Quo melius possint domus hsBC Radloeia semper 
Accipit hospitio.t Hie meetings pro talibus objects 
Holdendi, hie proprium sanctum, hue concurritur always. 



* Palace Yard, in front of Westminster Hall.— M. 
t Radle/s Hotel, Bridge St., Blackfriars.— M. 



AONEWIDOS. 271 

Jamqae dies aderat. Yenientes andiqae circ6m 
Long-faced sleek homines vidit Radlceius hospcs. 
Undique venerunt — Agnewia turba — viamqae 
Totam complerunt loudoeis sighibns atqae 
Sobbibns. Hand aliter tauromm Althorpia soecla 
Belloware solent inter jncunda vireta, 
• Dozantemqae Tocant dominum, snbqne arbore somnos 

Bampunt ; tantns erat venientikm singular hubbub. 
Nunc simul atque fores Family panduntur Hotelli, 5* 

Intravere omnes members, sedesque tenebant, » * 

Fleetwoodque, et Plumptree, et vultu Stanley severe, 
Plagiary Baines,* sanctusque Trevor, sanctnsque Sir Oswald.f 
Quin subito extrema surgit de parte roomas 
Slight murmur, strepitus qui mox effertur ad outright. 
** En venit ille ! venit dominus sanctissimus Agnew, 
En venit ille, deus nobis qui hoec otia fecit !" 
Conclamant omnes, thumpuntque outrageously mensas. 
nie autem uptumans oculos, tacitusque per aulam 
Incedens Baronet, solium petit, agmine certo 

****** 

Mox cum consurgens animis virtute severe 

Tristes cuique viro comers demiserat oris 

Yerus amor patriae, junctis palmisque genisque, 

Clearat thoracem genitor ; — dein talia fatur. 

" O gentlemen!, rerumque hominumque magister 

Quum vocat, et dignum qui jam committee prasessem 

Me putat esse suae tanto renuare favori 

Haud possum ; nee cnim, quod dat Deus ipse, gravandum est 

Officrum ; tamcn in meliores displicet olim 

Non cccidisse manus. O sirs, me percutit horror 

Quo me cunque fero — furor, indignatio, amazement, 

Ut circumspicio et nostris de moribus aevi 

Considero. O gentlemenni, me percutit utmost 

Woe, gravis et concern, spectantem tempora nostra. 

Quis nescit pietatis enim, Lordisque diei, 

Contemptum penitus cultum ? Quis nescit ad ipsum 

Adproperare Devil as fast as possible all things ? 

, * Sic audit apud Cobbettum passim ; idem apud eundem the Great Liar of 
the North sajpe sonat. Extat Register defuncti senis posteritati perutile mon- 
umentum. [Edward Baines, then M. P. for Leeds, had incurred Cobbett's 
anger, as Editor of the Leeds Mercury. — ^M.] 

t Members of Parliament, who supported Sir A. Agnew's Sabbatharian 
movements. Sir Oswald Mosley was ground-landlord of a large portion of 
wha( was then the borough and is now the cotton-spinning city of Man- 
chester. — ^M. 



272 THE FBASKRTAN PAPERS. 

r 

Didte, mi friendes — inform us — anne ferendnm est 

Ut petat inferior people sibi certa parare 

Graadia, non aliter qn^im si felicior esset 

Grens tiominum, nostri et qusB conditione potita % 

Ut sibi desirant pleasures, lososqae, et amusements, 

Et recreare optent sicut recreamus et ipsi ? 

Natnri miseri, sic fient arte beati ? 

Most shocking mores ! O tempora tmly licentious ! 

O -gentlemenni, driyantum ut nuper in Hyde Park 

Me mens on Sunday rapido tulit agmine currus, 

Vidi mendicum — et fateor liver urere coepit 

Bilis, ut I perceived his wife and family with him ; 

Nam mendicus, I say, fuit hie mendicus, et on;mi 

Faupertate gravis, squalens, miserabilia, soger, 

Et tamen uxorem qui duxerat ! — Ilia lacertis 

Two tulit healthy babies, alii sunt quinque secuti. 

Quos procul aspiciens groanavi pectore ab imo, 

Pauperis illius referens scelcra omnia classis. 

Justa sed ah ! mentem quanto magis ira tenebat 

Cum steterint nearer, gestumque atque ora videbam ! 

Non vultu despair, gemitus nee voceTerebant, 

Ut decuit; verum (scelerati!) dulciasecum 

Verba loquebantur — referam vis omnia ? — ccelum, 

Et terram, viridemque herbam, ventosque salubres, 

Carpere non aliter visi quam si sibi cnncta 

Tum bona constiterint, nullisque doloribis acti ! 

Nay, sirs, ridebant — (quis credat^) sicut et ipsi 

Sub pedibus flores, ridebant pectora laeti ! 

O gentlemenni, non possum plura — tumesco, 

Horresco memorans, uror, vox faucibus — (hear, hear I) 

Quin hsec sufficiant. Nunc quando talia possit 

Impia mens hominum, cumque impia tanta libido 

Instat Vivendi, pariterque doloribus et pains 

Impius objection — nobis occurrere morbo 

Quo datur huic \4sum est nihil else superesse but one thing — 

Illud nempe meum — res vel notissima — Billum. 

Hoc vos ut rebus animisque et voce juvando. 

Omnibus anteferatis, ego Dominusque rogamus. 

O memores estote, precor — sit mente repostum, 

NUNQUAM PAUPERIBUS SOBTBM IGNOSCAMUR INIQUAM." 

Dixit, ct in mensam magno cum pondere pugnum 
Impegit ; tollunt illi ad sidera loud cheers, 
Fleetwoodque, et Plumptree, et vultu Stanley severo. 
Plagiary Baines, sanctusque Trevor, sanctusquo Sir Oswald. 
Tum contra tales referebat pectore voces 
Poulter. — "Nil eqnidem, ut nobis, chairmanne, videtur. 



AGNEWIDOS. 278 

Aptius esse potest, nil excellentins, isto 

Quod memoras Billo ; fuit omni parte probandam, 

Kil oritamm alias, nil ortum tale fatemnr. 

Attamen hoc yereor, licet omnibus anteferentes, 

Et rebus nostris animisque et Toce jnyemus, 

Per hookam aut crookam nos hoc proferre per Hoasam 

Nullo posse die. Quss contemplatus, amici, 

Ne totum frustretur opus, maneatque for ever 

Libertas populi nobis intacta Britanni — 

Fropositum framare novum non ipse timebam. 

Et nos vincemus. Fuerit then, at any rate unft 
Utile re tandem Billum, Lord's-dayque labores, 
O chairmanne, tui — modo quod discrimine nullo 
Nescio quse notion mantes jam possidet omnea, 
Kes quasi non dubitanda foret, sed certa futurum 
Per fati decreta, novis snb legibus ilia 
Subjicienda dies ut sit, populique proceedings, 
Serius aut citiiis. Tantum botheratio pollet 
Et sine fine die repetitum quicquid in omni est ! 
Nil opus est nos rem celare ; hie inter amicos 
Omnia fas fan. Rabblum latuisse videtur — 
Nosmet non latuit — quae tanti causa laboris ; 
Quippe metus, nostris ne constitnentibus ousti 
Perdamus places, cum toti — siquid agendum est — ■ 
Ex Methodistorum votis pendemus, et ultr^ 
Quod speremus adhuc, nisi detestation et hatred. 
Quo nos cunque Deum petimus, nil prorsus habemus. 
Certus I am, quite wellqne scio, quod smellere rattam 
Incipiunt most noses ; O then, mens publica nostros 
Ne prius observet, qndm libertate peremptst, 
Consilio parere meo, nee obesse monenti, 
Imploro hunc meeting atqne alto corde beseecho." 

Talibus orabat Poulter, cnnctique fremebant 
Assensn vario. Turn contrsL talia Sibthorpe. 
" Non ego quem nobis sermonem fecit, amici. 
Member honorandus, possum landare precisely. 
Ingenium laudo, placet ars — res displicet (hear, heart) 
Displicet & veteri quidquam ratione remissum, 
Displicet id populo, sir, succubuisse petonti. 
Namque, O gentlehomines, vos oro, dicite tandem, 
An decet, an licitum est, manibus quae tradita frsna 
Hasc laxare quidem, segues, virgamque timentes 
Electere divinam ? Foret indeed too bad, amici. 
Cum Deus ipse suis nobis dedit esse miiiistris, 
Atque vir ille (viro modo si contingere tanta 

18 



274 THE FRASEBIAN PAFEBS. 

Mortal! possit rirtiu) sanctissimiis Agnew 

Talis dux Dobis pnesit qualis datus olim 

Jad«is Moses — Domino nee carior illo — 

Esset, I saj, too bad, snb circmnstantibos istis, 

Nos hdCy g^ntlehomines, nostro pnebere minores 

Officio. Quid enim ? qoid n6stis dnldos illo, 

Qnidve majos pleasant ? En, rilis currit in omne 

Mobba nefas : majis in coaches ridare than ever 

None placet hacknaeis, cabbisqne, ferentibns et twelye 

Diris onmibiis ; Astlej's juvat ire theatmm; 

Non legisse padet libros, ma^i^insqae, nee ipsas 

Costantes anam most dang'roos penny gazettas. 

Qaid referam tap-rooms, et amantes pocola side-boaids, 

^ Nccnon piporum nabes atrosqae cigarros, 

Et beero benches obmersas, tipsjqae rowas 1 

Qaid referam whole pots of vile potabile qnidquam. 

Sit Menx, sit Whitbread, sen sit Truman, Hanbory, Baxt(m — * 

Pots, inqoam, on Sunday, vicing ssepe tabemft 

Jussos — mox certo repetundos online same pots; 

Nullo et depositas potboyi tempore curas ? 

Quid cook-shops, -rapic^ et volventem ad Tartara pie-cnut, 

Et gravy, rem Domino inyisam, brownosque potatoes, 

Atque omne hottorum studium fatale cibomm ? 

Gen tleho mines, etiam tea-gardens crowdere yidi 

Multos saepe viros, pueros, women, atque puellas ; 

Walkere pars, airlique frui, pars talkere secnm. 

Talia ciim prohibet, jubet et lex carpere contri 

All of an afternoon in backparloribus altos, 

Non divina quidem, sed certd Agnewia, somnos. 
******* 

Atque ibi ni fallor datur huge lot of kissing and drinking 

Res quae I think not correct — not I — by the curl of my whisker." 

Hoec ubi dicta dedit, cuncti simul ore fremebant, 
Fleetwoodque, et Plumptree, et vultu Stanley severo, 
Plagiary Baines, sanctusque Trevor, sanctusque Sir Oswald. 

Nescio qui nem. con. tum facti denique motions, 
Disccdit meeting. Ego te, mea Musa, petivi. 

'^ The reader will here recognise the names of eminent porter-brewers in 
London. — ^M. 



MB. GRANT'S "GREAT METROPOUS." 275 



> 

MR. GRANT'S "GREAT METROPOLIS."* 

Mr. Grant, the perpetrator of this book, is infinitely compli- 
mentary to us, and we are grateful accordingly. " Fraser's con- 
tributors," he says, " are numerous and talented. They are a. 
little literary republic of themselves. I am satisfied that there is 
no other periodical whose contributors are better acquainted with 
each other, or who are more united in principle and purpose. 
They are quite a harmonious body ; it would do Robert Owen's 
heart good to see them ; they all play into each other's hands, and 
all feel a per&onal interest in the fortunes of the Magazine. They 
are a happy brotherhood, living in a world of their own, and pity- 
ing, and despising, and abusing every one who lives ' in the world 
we call ours :" viz., the world which is beyond the confines of their 
snug little planet. I can have no personal inducement to speak 
favorably of the literary colony who love and worship * Regina,' 
and bask in the sunshine of her smiles. My last two works were 
somewhat roughly handled by * her majesty,' and, possibly, this one 
may fare still worse. There will be no harm though it should ; 
but — there is no use in denying it — Fraser's contributors are a 
set of choice spirits, learned, clever, and witty." 

What can we do in return for this extravagant eulogy, unless 
render back such compliment as is in our poor power to bestow ? 
Mr. Grant's book fare ill at our hands ! Impossible ! We intend 
to praise him in tfie highest degree, and in a style which the most 
fastidious follower of Mina, Zumalacarregui, Lord Palmerston, or 
Jack Scroggins, could not consider savage. As it is our custom, 
we draw it mild. 

* The Great Metropolis. By the author of " Random Recollections of the 
House of Lords and Commons. 2 yols., small 8vo. London, 1836. Saun- 
ders and Otley. — [I give this review as a specimen of Maginn's quiet way 
of " smashing " a very absurd book. — M.] 



276 THE FBA8ERIAN PAPERS. 

Why should we not? Mr. Grant has occasioned us an im- 
mensity of fun. His book is like Lady Blessington's, " a Book of 
Beauty." In every page there is that which serves to divert, to 
amuse, and to instruct. To divert, because there is something 
irresistibly laughable in the pretension to knowledge which does 
not exist ; to amuse, becaus^ there is much to please in the blun- 
dering assumption of an acquaintance with secrets at which the 
author could never even guess ; and to instruct, because the ex- 
hibition of human folly is a thing which must lead us to think upon 
the fallen situation of all human intellect, never rendered so preg- 
nant with moral as when the exhibitor revels in the dream-land 
of self-satisfaction. 

Ulysses, in the Odyssey, says — for Mr. Grant's sake we do not 
quote the Greek — ^ What first, what last, what middle, shall we 
relate T* and the same idea comes over our minds in reading The 
Great Metropolis, We for several years belonged to a club in 
Field Lane, Holbom, of which, what Horace would call the con- 
ditio vivendi, was, that each gentleman belonging to the club 
should, after paying the preliminary sum of twopence (" tappence" 
as Feargus O'Connor calls it), prod into the pot with a three- 
pronged harpoon for a chance of the contents. One evening we 
fished up a turkey, another time we speared the fragment of a 
haggis. A purloined partridge from the poultry shop opposite 
sometimes rested upon our prong ; at less fortunate moments our 
lot might be no more than a particle of purchased potato. In a 
similar manner now, we dip into the literary pot, and, behold, what 
i^ticks to our harpoon is a metropolitan goose! which goose we 
now proceed to place on our dissecting-table. 

]Mr. Grant's first volume contains seven chapters, headed seve- 
rally, 1. General Characteristics; 2. The Theatres; 3. The Clubs; 
4. The Gaming-Houses ; 5. Metropolitan Society — the Higher 
Classes ; 6. The Middle Classes ; 7. The Lower Classes. His 
second volume contains eight chapters on the following subjects : — 
1. The Newspaper Press — Morning Papers; 2. Evening Pa- 
pers ; 3. Weekly Papers ; 4. General Remarks ; 5. Parliament- 
ary Reporting; 6. Periodical Literature — The Quarterly Reviews ; 
7. The Monthlies ; 8. Weekly Journals. We will take these in 
order. 



MR. grant's "GREAT METROPOLIS." 277 

His first chapter is on the " Greneral Characteristics of the 
Great Metropolis." He gives us, in it, the information that it is 
of " amazing extent," and that the best way to go from Hyde Park 
Comer to Poplar is " through Oxford Street^ Holborn, Newgate 
Street, Comhill," &c., &;c. ! which, to those who consult our 
friend Eraser's admirable map of London, will appear somewhat 
astonishing. He then quotes the census of 1831, and tells us, that 
nearly two millions people live in houses " almost all of a dark 
brown color. The only exceptions are the churches, which are 
built of Portland and other stone." From this we learn, that all 
the houses^ excepting churches, have very dirty faces. We next 
learn, that Regent Street is covered with a " certain cement," and 
that "most of the public buildings are chiefly formed of granite" — 
the only "public buildings" in London " formed of granite" being 
Waterloo and the New London Bridges / He kindly throws out 
advice, and shows how we may escape a crack on the sconce for 
impertinence, by hinting, that we " have hardly ever to push any 
one aside" when walking the streets, which, he informs us, are 
" crowded with cabriolets, hackney coaches, &;c., &c." He calcu- 
lates that one hundred thousand persons per diem pass along 
Cheapside, whilst " one may, for example, enter Gower Street, and 
look nearly a mile before him without seeing above three or four 
individuals." Can this be the case, when we recollect that the 
illustrious university of Stinkomalee is at the end of it ! He has 
ascertained, by experiment doubtless, that " you may, if you please, 
walk on all-fours in the public streets, without any one staying to 
bestow a look upon you ;" and that there are no robberies or out- 
rages in London, which is (consequently, we suppose) " the health- 
iest metropolis in the world." He gives the fiat of his approval 
to all districts west of Leicester Square, being deemed '' fashion- 
able ;" meaning thereby, we presume, Oxenden Street, Coventry 
Court, and the rural retreats situated between Wardour Street and 
Eegent Street ! ^ He has, moreover, counted up his countrymen, 
and tells us that there are one hundred and thirty thousand Scotch- 
men in London — "Ma conscience !" as the Bailie said. We are 
informed, that cabs and cabmen become " dispirited from sheer 
exhaustion," and that you may bawl at the top of your lungs to a 
friend walking arm* in arm with you, without the slightest chance 



278 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

of being heard. Ailer this, Mr. Grant concludes his preliminary 
chapter with a bit of sentimentality. He stations himself on the 
top of St PauFs (" four hundred ajad eighty feet above the gene- 
ral level of the metropolis"), and becomes in idea one who, 

" A king, sat on the rocky brow 
That looks o*er sea-bom Salamis ;" — 

and Mr. Grant weeps with Xerxes ! 

Chapter II. is on '* the Theatres ;" which, he says, it would be 
" an unpardonable omission to pass over in silence /" accordingly, 
we have B,few words stretching over only eighty-four pages ! The 
first piece of information that meets us is, that there is " many a 
hungry belly and ragged' back among the host of the unwashed in 
the upper galleries of Drury Lane, Covent Garden, &;c, &;c." 
Not having had the same opportiAiities of ascertaining this fact, we 
cannot gainsay it, but it seems rather a Hbel upon '* the gods." 
After noticing Miss Helen Faucit, Miss F. Kemble, and Mr. 
Denvil, he introduces us to the King's Theatre. Here we find 
*" Lord John Kussell relieved from the toils of office, and disposed 
to enjoy the pleasures of the opera," wishing to go into the coun- 
try, and therefore making a bargain with Mr. Sams to take Jiis 
box off his hands, as he knows " too much the value of money to 
pay for what he cannot occupy !" We then " go in full dress" to 
the King's Theatre on a drawing-room day, which we find is "ab- 
solutely dazzling to behold." Next comes a little bit of puritanism 
directed against the ballet, and Grant Thorbum's opinion is 
- quoted, he being represented to have said, that, " sooner than con- 
sent to make such an exhibition of themselves, the American 
women would encounter death in any of its forms." We respect 
our friend Grant Thorbum, or " Lawrie Todd," too much to say 
any thing as to his qualifications for giving an opinion on such a 
subject; but we may remark, that Mile. Celeste has been in 
America some years, where she has cleared upward of fifty 
thousand dollars, and that the Yankees will not part with her.* 

After a description of the manner in which an adventurer can 
manoeuvre himself into the lesseeship of the Opera House, for 

* This was in December, 1836. Celeste immediately after uxw "parted 
with " by Uncle Sam. — M. 



MB. grant's "GREAT METROPOLIS." 279 

which, doubtless,' Messrs. Ebers, Laporte, and others, will feel 
very grateful, we have one of the most impudent caricatures of 
what happens in high life, that- was ever conceived hy vulgarity^ 
and penned hy ignorance. But, as we shall have to expose this 
"random reporter" in detail when we come to his description of 
what he is pleased to designate " the Higher Classes," we will let 
the thong rest awhile on this point — and, besides, we said we 
would draw it mild I Mr. Grant's " recollections" of the Theatres 
Royal Drury Lane and Covent Garden are indeed " random." It 
is clear that he has never been behind the scenes ; and the affecta- 
tion of knowledge of the entries in the treasurer's book will amuse 
our good friend, William Dunn, not a little, as well as the infor- 
mation that " the theatre could not he got let as it used to be !" 
But we meet with an opinion which proves that this writer is as 
good a recorder of fact as he is an expositor of human nature. 
" It is now beginning to be considered a species of vulgarity of 
which no lady or gentleman of refined taste should be guilty, to be 
present during the representation of any of Shakespeare's plays." 
It is clear that Mr. Grant, in wishing to avoid this " vulgarity," 
and to be considered, " a gentleman of refined taste," has never 
gone near either Drury Lane or Covent Garden this season, or 
he would know that Shakespeare — but how should he know 
any thing about Shakespeare ? Yet it is evident, that he thinks 
himself the wearer of the bard of Avon's mantle — nay, we would 
wager that Mr. Grant himself has perpetrated a play, for listen to 
his monody over his own fate : " And if there be a latent Shake- 
speare of the present day, one of surpassing dramatic genius, he is 
inevitably destined te remain concealed so long as the existing false 
dramatic taste prevails." Poor Mr. Grant ! But if we have any 
interest with Bunn — and we have a little — we will ask him to 
rummage the " condemned cell," as the cupboard in the manager's 
room is called, and draw forth thy hidden glory into light. 

We cannot trace this unfortunate writer through all his theatri- 
cal blunderings — his knowledge of the dressing-rooms oi prima 
donnas ; his experience of the fact that there is now a half-price 
at the Haymarket; his conviction that Arnold really did lose 
money at the Lyceum ; his King's Place reminiscences of the 
" excellent local situ&tibn" of Braham's theatre ; his praise of the 



280 THE FRARRRTAN PAFEBS. 

I 
fidr widow's ^fortunate choice of pieces '^ at the Olympic; his 

opinion that battles, &c., are as well done at Astley's, as in Hyde 
Park or at Waterloo; and his intiniate acquaintance with the 
neighborhood of the Victoria, the Surrey, and the PaviHon the- 
atres : nay, we must perforce pass by his episode relative to the 
** damning'* of The Fortune of War at Covent Garden theatre, of 
the effectors of which it is probable he can exdaim, ^pars magna 
fuiJ* It is all Y&ry immensely fine — our readers may take our 
word for this, for we have actually read through it But he has 
been guilty of one great omission. In his notice of the theatres 
of *ithe great metropolis," he has never mentioned the glory of 
^BartUmf/*' — Richardson's! [alas! that great manager* has 
yielded to his fate !] Perhaps he desires to forget the education- 
home of early years ; if so, he is very ungrateful, for it is no 
secret that Mr. Grant used to be a splendid tumbler, and perfectly 
unrivalled at grinning matches ; and in spite of the apparent in- 
gratitude of his book, it gives us pleasure to learn that he has 
mounted a crape for the memory of his defunct master. 

We now come to " the Clubs," where, it would seem, Mr. Grant 
has picked up a quantity of information from the waiters and 
porters, for it is very clear that he never got beyond the vestibule 
of any one of them. The value of this information is great ; for 
instance, he tells us that White's club is Whig ; and that " the grand 
qualification for the Carlton is," as this elegant writer expresses 
himself, " the having the entrance-money, £10 10s., in your pocket, 
a good coat on your back, and your being known to be a person 
who will go the whole hog in conversation." We regret to say, 
that in consequence of that unreasonable and aristocratic demand 
of a clean coat, Mr. Grant has no chance of ever being elected a 
member. 

We cannot sufficiently admire the industry with which this 
" random" writer has pried into the pecuniary affairs of the differ- 
ent clubs ; nor can we adequately extol his impudence in publish- 
ing them, unless we say that it and his ignorance are co-ordinately 
measureless. He asserts that the Carlton Club subscribed £20,000 
toward the last contest for Middlesex ; coupling with it the asser- 

* Who left a thousand pounds to Cartledge^ '' because he spoke bould,"'^ M. 



MB. OBAMT'S "GREAT BIETBOPOLIS." 281 

tion, that the members did this, but would not paj their poor 
tradesmen. 

" To give," says Mr. Grant, " £500 to serve a party purpose, 
while poor tradesmen, almost with tears in their eyes, appeal to 
them time after time, without effect, for the payment of a bill of a 
few pounds, is quite compatible with 'IV)ry notions of honesty : so 
it is, I regret to add, in too many instances with those of the 
Whigs." This is dealing with equal justice indeed 1 But what 
of the Badicals ? Why, Mr. Grant forgets his oum report of a 
case before the Kingsgate Street Court of Requests, where the 
following strong definition was given by a defendant of the three 
parties. "You see there's three ways of paying. There's your 
reg'lar Tory, he says at once, ^ I wont pay,' slap. Then there's 
your dirty, sneaking, snivelling Whig, he ^promises for to pay /' 
and then there's your hout and hout Radical, he says — ' Vy, I did 
pay. 

Proceeding, we have a long eulogy upon the " Reform Club," 
or " Hole in the Wall," which is evidently a pet of Mr. Grant's. 
He is " the fond ally" of the Dukes of Sussex, Grafton, Bedford, 
^cc, j&c, and " all the members of Lord Melbourne's administra- 
tion 1" We learn the very interesting fact, that, " occasionally 
are seen at dinner in it the Duke of Cleveland, the Earl of Essex, 
and other distinguished noblemen ;" and that " the Tail" get their 
food at about one shilling a head "during Ihe sitting of Par- 
liament." 

But, in the midst of this panegyric, comes the fatal case of Cor- 
nelius O'Brien, member for Clare. After having been tolerably 
robbed, this gentleman, who, for his sins, is destined to be one of 
" the Tail " thought it full time to become restive, and sundry 
jag-men, crockery-ware factors, tobacco-pipe makers, spittoon deal- 
ers, pewter-spoon moulders, porter-pot twisters, shag and pig's-tail 
duffers, gin-spinners, tripe-sellers, and others of the principal mer- 
chants who supplied the ordinary necessaries, and the prime luxu- 
ries of the club, have come down on the unfortunate Cornelius, as 
being one of the few solvent men of the concern. As he resists 
this with a spirit worthy of the mother oif the Gracchi, or the 
father of alchemy, the details are highly interesting, and we recom- 
mend them to the attention of Mr. Grant for the next edition of 



282 THE FRASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

his work, if, now that the age of miracles is generally considered 
to have passed, so marvellous an event happens to take place. 

The scene at the Literary Union, " which," Dr. Wade says, 
** was the richest * flare-up ' he ever witnessed," is described, with 
a minuteness that might have led us to suppose that Mr. Grant 
must have been a supernumerary flunkey on the occasion, if it 
was not false from flrst to last. ^^ The Oxford and Cambridge 
Club " gives him an opportunity of having a fling at the universi- 
ties, asserting, that '^ many persons go to them stirks, and come out 
asses." Nature, evidently, saved Mr. Grant the necessity of going 
to college. '^ The universities cannot put brains into the heads of 
the brainless, nor make scholars of those whom fate has made 
dunces." Again, we see the reason why he did not go there. 
With regard to " The Oriental Club," he eagerly remarks, that, 
^ as the cost of snuff averages so little, possibly most of the mem- 
bers are in the habit of carrying boxes of their own." Of " The 
Junior United Service Club," he remarks, that, " among the trus- 
tees there are no gentlemen of any great distinction /" and he 
then gives their names : viz., Admiral Sir J. P. Beresford, bart, 
Gen. Sir John Elley, Gen. Sir James Cockbum, Col. Sir Archi- 
bald Christie, Lieut.- Col. Nelthorpe (not * Althorpe,' as he calls 
him), and Lieut.-Col. Mills ! very undistinguished, truly ! 

Next arrives a page of impertinence against an individual member 
of this club, whom he designates as " the dog of war," for which the 
said " Dog" will, most probably, give him a specimen of his power 

of teeth. The " well-known colonel," the " Dr. ," and the 

" little lean gentleman," will also, doubtless, show their gratitude 
for the notice taken of them by this pot-companion of their own 
waiters. Mr. Grant says, that the conversation at this club is all 
professional, and that he "would not wish his greatest enemy,- 
provided he did not belong to either of the sermces, to sit and listen 
to it" If he " did not belong to either of the services," how could 
he belong to the club ? The birth abortive of the " Westminster" 
is soon recorded, and then we have Mr. Grant's general ideas, 
which are evolved in a wretched attempt at being funny. He 
defends clubs from the objections of the ladies, by saying, that they 
are such Xaniippes, that the men must run from them somewhere; 
u e. to these " benevolent asylums, without the unpopularity of the 



MB. GRANTS " GREAT METR0P0U8." 288 

name !" We hope he does not speak from home-experience of the 
matrimonial state; for, we fear, that he will have no such an 
asylum to flj to as those which he describes, after the information 
of his friends, the knights of the shoulder-knot. 

We do not mean to tomahawk Chapter IV. on the " Gaming- 
Houses,'* because it is evidently written with the praiseworthy 
and informer-like intention to expose their pernicious tendency. 
But even this chapter is full of errors and misrepresentations. He . 
describes Crockford's in a true George Robins style. " The bot- 
toms of the chairs are stuffed with down, and the carpenter-part 
of the work is of that unique description," which is indescribable. 
We learn that " Crockford's cook is the celebrated Mr. Otuie [who 
is he f Ude we know well, but the illustrious Mr. Grant confounds 
him with the king of Oude, whose regal title graces a piquant 
sauce], with a salary of a thousand guineas per annum, and with 
an assistant at Jive hundred/' but that he never " superintends the 
culinary process unless solicited" by the " Duke of Argyll or some 
other distinguished member," and then he condescends ! We are 
next informed, that " the Marquess of Hertford has, from first to 
last, in the course of his life, won upward of £1,500,000." To 
which piece of veracity is added the very gentlemanly remark — 
" how it has been spent is pretty generally known to the public. 
He now plays but seldom ; hardly ever, unless when a pigeon is 
to be plucked !" We leave this insinuation* just as we find it, 
merely remarking that a Whig noblemanf of high class is at 
present somewhat under a cloud as to the art of card-packing ; 
that a "rising statesman" is acquainted with the Alp-climbing 
name of Auldjo ;t that Lords Teynham and Audley, Lord Sefton, 
and Mr. Ruthven, are liberal Whigs ; adding to all, that every 
word of the above, relating to Lord Hertford, is untrue. The fol- 
lowing passage is recommended to the attention of Mr. T. Dun- 
combe and Count D'Orsay. " It did seem to be surprising that 
such persons as a well-known metropolitan M. P., and a .certain 
foreign Count, equally celebrated for the ^prodigiousness' of his 

* An unjast one — the Marquess had £60,b00 a year of his own, and cared 
not to win or lose, at play. — M. 
t Lord de Ros, afterward convicted of cheating. -*-M. 
I Tho Marquis of Clanrickarde, son-in-law of George Canning. — M. 



284 . THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

whiskers, and his gallantry toward a Countess of great personal 
attractions, and distinguished literary reputation, but without, pro- 
verbially without, a farthing in the world — it did, I say, seem 
surprising to me, how such persons could, night after night, be 
playing at Crockford's for thousands." As to Mr. Ddncombe, we 
are no admirers of his politics, and will nev^ cease to attack 
them \ but, in spite of our own personal quarrels with him,^we 
must not leave him to be insulted by such a grub as this ; and, as 
to Count D'Orsay, he is liked by every body who has the good 
fortune to know him. The allusion to the Countess — we know 
not why we should not write her distinguished name — the Coun- 
tess of Blessington — is an unnecessary piece of mean scandal, 
uncalled for, and unmanly, gathered from the merest cesspools of 
filth* With these exceptions, this chapter is likely to produce a 
good effect ; and, indeed, it is the only one in the two volumes 
that can induce us to take one todl off our literary cat, and with- 
hold a stripe or nine. 

We now arrive at those chapters in which Mr. Grrant attempts 
to describe the three classes of metropolitan society, and we feel 
bound to give him credit for a vast deal of ingenuity, and philo- 
sophical observation. Indeed, we are not aware that any writer 
on the statistics of morality — we coin a phrase, to show our admi- 
ration of our author — ever exhibited so much acumen, philanthropy, 
and practical discrimination — so much of what we may term mi- 
croscopical industry, rendered the more admirable by his prefatory 
declaration, that, " in his anxiety to procure correct information 
on the various subjects he has treated, the author has, in several 
instances, visited places, and mixed with classes of men before un- 
known to him." 

To make our readers fully aware of Mr. Grant's great merits, we 
will give a rapid analysis of his views of society, with one or two 
examples of his very apt and correct method of illustrating them. 

" No one," says our moralist, " has ever had an opportunity of 
studying human character, as exemplified in the conduct of the 
higher classes of this country, but must have been struck with their 
want of regard to the truth." Now Mr. Grant has had the ** op- 
portunity of studyipg" all this; he has "mixed with classes of 
men before unknown to him," and therefore has, by dint of a few 



BfB. GBAKT'S "GBEAT METROPOLIS." 285 

half-crowns judiciously administered to "my lady's" footman, or 
my "lord's" valet, been "struck" with divers practices of "the 
higher." Their " want of regard to the truth" he illustrates in a 
manner that proves that, at least, he has got as far as the porter's 
chair in the hall, for he mentions with honor the practice of in- 
structing the servtmt to say " not at home !" Three pages of vir- 
tuous sensibility are given upon this horrible system of lying ; and 
he quotes Dr. Johnson as saying thaft " a man who would tell a 
lie would pick a pocket," which is unfortunate, as Dr. Johnson 
never said any thing of the sort Next comes the charge that 
" the insincerity of the upper classes is one of the most prominent 
traits in their character ;" and to prove this we have a long string 
of vulgarisms imputed to the female members of the aristocracy, 
such as that Miss Harley calls Miss Jemingham " my dear," and 
gives her a " vigorous kiss ;" and when her back is turned, calls 
her " a horrid creature," " a detestable wretch," &;c., &c. Then we 
havQ.a Miss Grantley meeting a Miss Vernon " at the soiree at the 
Colosseum" (Braham must dismiss Mr. Grant from being a re- 
porter there any longer) most affectionately, and immediately after- 
ward saying, " the odious reptile ! she is always crossing my path. 
I would as soon encounter a tiger as meet her. I abhor the very 
thought of the vulgar wretch." (!) Then comes a sermon against 
the mothers who " are as guilty as their daughters ;" and next a 
most delicious illustration of his knowledge of the insincerity of 
the " male members of the aristocracy." But we must quote the 
passage: ^ 

" Lord Mandon puts a personal construction on some expression 
which has been made use of by the Marquess of Alvey. He ap- 
points a friend. The latter does the same. A hostile meeting 
takes place. But before they attempt to hurry each other into 
eternity f they shake hands. ( ! !) A person unacquainted with the 
ways of the aristocratic world would suppose [but Mr. Grant, 
being "acquainted," &c., &c., does not suppose it I], on seeing 
them embracing each other before firing with mortal intent, that 
they were two friends who were about to part for some time. They 
fire a first and a second time ; on both occasions they providen- 
tially miss : the seconds interfere, and determine that each of the 
parties has vindicated his honor. Of course, they then quit the 



286 THE FRA8KBTAN PAPERS. 

field. But do they do so in the way you would^ expect of per- 
sons who, but a moment before, had been deliberately, and in cold 
blood, meditating each other's murder ? No : instead of demean- 
ing themselves toward each other as deadly enemies, they shake 
hands [again ?] with the greatest apparent cordiality, and evince 
the wannest apparent interest in each other's welfare." (!) 

We have lately been rubbing up our JUtical knowledge under 
the able tutorship of Samuel Evans, alias ^^ Young Dutch Sam." 
We read the above passage to Sam, and asked him what he 
thought of it " Think," said Sam, " why, hah, hah, hah !" Sam 
could not speak for laughing. We are in the same condition ; we 
cannot write for the tremendous guffaws that burst from us. 
There ! the last explosion has broken a tumbler-glass. of whiskey- 
punch at our elbow, so we must perforce be steady. Grentlemen 
shake hands before blazing away at one another ? Do they ? It 
is new. 

Mr. Grant next asserts, that, ^' as respects the higher clggpes, 
their hourly conduct is but a living exemplification of the most 
profligate principles;" then, his moral thermometer getting up, 
that their '* criminality" does not stop at "seduction," which he 
had just said was " the onli/ business of their Uves," but " rises yet 
higher in the scale of social and moral enormity." Then comes 
an illustration : " A noble and learned lord, whose name meets 
one's eye in almost every newspaper, is said to have lately paid 
the immense sum of £10,000, to get the proceedings stayed which 
were conamenced against him for crim, con. with a lady* who 
used to figure prominently in all the movements of the fashionable 
world." We, do not affect to be ignorant as to who the "noble 
tmd learned lord " is whom this poor thing endeavors to damage by 
insinuation, wanting the courage to speak out, because we have 
become accustomed to the practices of the party to which the 
yelper belongs, viz., to run down their dreaded foe by the meanest 
whisperings, and the most false imputations. The noble and learned 
lord (noble by his own exertions, having received his patent as the 
reward of his learning) can well afford to pass by these carpings 
— the lion heeds not the asthmatic bark of mangy curs — but we 

«' Lord Lyndhurst and Lady Sykes were the parties alluded to. — M. 



MB. GRANT'S " GREAT METR0P0U8." 287 

will not allow the pack so much license as to keep silent when we 
see them emerging from their congenial dung-heap, to scatter their 
slimy poison through society. 

This Mr. Grant, for instance, has the audacity to pollute the 
public ear by publishing such infamous falsehoods as the follow- 
ing : " Virtue is laughed to scorn amongst the aristocracy." 
*' Would you be a favorite in the fashionable world — would you 
be a hero in the aristocratic circles — you must go through a pre- 
vious course of moral and social profligacy. The greater the 
number and enormity of the injuries you have inflicted on society, 
always provided you take care not to render yourself amenable to 
the criminal jurisprudence of your country, the more popular you 
are sure to be among the higher classes of London." But we can- 
not debase our ink by quoting more of such proofs of " the correct 
information" possessed by this wretched penny-a-liner as to the 
morality of a class of which he knows as little as the scavenger 
who^weeps their crossings. 

The pages devo'ted to the " social condition " of the higher classes 
are equally contemptible : those to their " notions of dignity " are 
meant to be vastly witty. Poor fellow ! Then comes this question : 
"Are there not numerous instances on record, in which dukes, 
earls, lords, arid others, have married actresses and other females 
whose virtue every one knew to have long previously taken to 
itself wings and fled away ?" 

Lameptable scribbler ! Does he mean to say this of the Coun- 
tess of Craven (Miss Brunton), of the Countess of Derby (Miss 
Farren), of Lady Becher (Miss O'Neill), of Lady Thurlow (Miss 
Bolton), of Mrs. Brad^aw (Miss M. Tree), and of many others 
whom we could name ? 

The remarks on the House of Lords we pass by altogether ; 
they are precisely such as we should expect from this writer, and 
we pray Heaven to avert from that illustrious body the heavy 
damnation of Mr. Grant's praises. But, reader, it is time you 
should have a laugh again. You shall have one. Here are pas- 
sages in which the habitual conversation of the " higher classes " 
is thus most correctly (for Mr. Grant " has mixed with classes be- 
fore unknown to him ") dramatized. " * What savage is that with 
a face like a hoiled lobster T inquired Lady Mortimer at Almacks !" 



288 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

^ ' My dear marchioness, who is that she-bear with blowsj h^ ^nd 
her fitce like pickled caihage f ^ Oh 1 I can't endnre the sight of 
that mountain of humanity, that heetUsqwuher, Lord Henry Man- 
ning.' ' Look at that laughing hgenoy that piece of ynlgaritjy IkGss 
Tompkins.' ' Did you ever see such a brute as that Lord Bran- 
don is P 'I could dig that horrid woman's eyes out.' ^ Who is 
that sow of a woman P " &;c, &c. 

We are informed that " Mr. Bulwer says, that three fourths of 
the estates of the aristocracy are mortgaged to Jews." We do not 
profess to know so much about the tribe of Israel as Mr. Bulwer, 
and, therefore, cannot contradict him ; it may be that that hon. 
gentleman has reasons for what he says — that his qucUiJlccaians 
for judging of such matters are equal to those which enable him 
(pro hoc vice) to sit for Lincoln. After this we meet with divers 
reflections upon matrimony, which would lead us to imagine that 
Mr. Grant is the h3rmeneal agent who so perseveringly advertises 
to " bring young people together ;" and then the question byj^wiy 
of winding up : "I have thus endeavored to portray aristocratic 
character. Behold the picture! Is it like? Those who have 
seen most of high life [how much has Mr. Grant seen?], and 
studied the upper classes of society most attentively, will, I doubt 
not, bear testimony to its fidelity." We know not which is the 
most admirable, the utter impudence of the interrogatory, or the 
hopeless self-sufficiency of the answer. We will, however, tell 
this person what we think of the aristocracy of this country. 

The aristocracy of England is a body of which England may be 
proud. It is adorned by the names of those who shed a lustre on 
by-gone ages, its glory is sustained by the accession to its ranks of 
those whose triumphs in the battle-field, in intellectual supremacy, 
or in successful exertion in aiding the prosperity of the empire, 
have achieved greatness. As a body, the aristocracy of England 
is high-minded without being haughty, and courteous without aping 
humility. There is not a charitable effort made but the aristocracy 
is always the first and readiest to answer the appeal — no danger 
can threaten the country but the aristocracy is ready to send forth 
its youth and its hopes to the contest. Its blood has been poured 
out like water in England's trial fields, and in peace it has fostered 
commereial enterprise, and, by employing, given life to the finer 



MB. grant's "GREAT MBTEOPOLIS." 289 

arts. Although peremptory in the line which marks its class, it 
offers no insurmountable barrier to, merit — a Brougham or a Cop- 
ley are the peers of a Howard or a Percy. We will not affect to 
say that we are so conversant with the domestic manners of the 
aristocracy as the author of The Great Metropolis desires to be 
considered ; but we are bold to assert, that a more recklessly un- 
true picture than his never was given of them. As far as our 
personal knowledge goes (and, without boasting, we may say we 
have some) <;ompared with the aristocracy of any other country, 
that of England is pre-eminently moral and virtuous. It is not be- 
cause some individuals are exceptions that a superficial scribbler, 
merely to make a book, should traduce the whole; partly to 
parade what he deems his own cleverness, and partly to indulge 
on that rabid political feeling which leads a man to envy and hate 
all above himself: we say, that these exceptions cannot deprive 
the aristocracy of England of the proud name of being the first 
body in the world. 

Of " the Middle Classes " Mr. Grant contrives to say a few 
words of praise — a few grains of^cotch barley in a bowl of sour 
soup 1 But the whole tenor of this chapter is similar to all the 
others ; the ignorance displayed being less pardonable, as, from his 
own description of himself, Mr. Grant belongs to this class, which, 
therefore, was not " before unknown to him." 

We said Mr. Grant had given a description of himself — he 
tells us, that " the greatest error committed by the middle classes 
is, that of aspiring at being received into the circles of the upper 
classes ;" 'and then proceeds to adduce an instance. - Ecce ! 

" I know an instance — and let it be observed I am only speak- 
ing the sober truth — of two gentlemen whose ambition to be con- 
sidered among the great, wofuUy contrasts with their pecuniary 
circumstances. They are now living, and have been for two years, 
in one furnished apartment on a second floor. There is no room 
for two beds in the apartment, and, consequently, one of them is 
obliged to sleep on the sofa. This they do alternately, or, if he 
who has the good fortune to possess the bed on a particular night, 
has occasion to rise earlier in the morning than his friend, the lat- 
ter considers the circumstance quite a vnndfaU, he leaps at once 
from the sofa and takes possession of the vacant bed. Q) But the 

19 



290 TES FRASEBIAH PAPERS. 

mo6t Indicroiis part of the business is, the way in which they 
manage their joint stock of linen. Every one has heard of Fal« 
staff's ragged regiment, who only had three shirts, and these all 
tattered and torn, among them [is this in Shakespeare ? look again, 
Mr. Grant], although one hundred and fifty in number. My two 
heroes were not quite so badlj: off, for they have four tolerably good 
shirts between them. By an arrangement which I cannot properly 
describe [<20cen/ man/], they always contrive to have one of the shirts 
ready for any emergency, and whichever of them happens to need it 
first is entitled to it. In the article of eating and drinking, when 
at their own expense, they are obliged to be remarkably moderate. 
They vegetate on next to nothing, and yet they are in the habit 
of dining out and mixing with persons moving, if not in strictly 
aristocratic society, in a sphere which approximates to it." In 
this case it is clear, that ^' the author has visited places, and mixed 
with classes of men before,*' now, and to continue, well known " to 
him!" 

Mr. Grant's acquaintances seem to be rather sorrily off; for he 
tells us he knows families who *^ rent houses at £120 per annum— 
respectable houses being as necessary in their case as apparel— 
where they will have nothing deserving the name of a dinner for 
eight or ten days consecutively ; (!) nothing, indeed, but a cup of 
coffee with a slice of bread in the morning, and a pint of beer*with 
a dry crust in the afternoon." This living, he informs us, does not 
suit " delicate young females," for whom he evinces much consider- 
ation ! After this he is facetious. We find him in " lodn:ino:3 in 
Bishopsgate Street," deluding himself into a belief that he was to 
breakfast *' at the west end of Oxford Street" with Mrs. Sale and 
Misses Pipkinses — we beg pardon — Warrenton, and a detail is 
given of his being " stupified " at finding " none of them out of bed" 
at nine in the morning. Mr. Grant was obliged to spend three- 
pence at a saloup and coffee-stall. 

The chapter on the lower classes is a tissue of vulgarity and 
slang, written in evident self-satisfaction and gusto. But even here 
his knowledge fails him. He quotes the lines of the poetical con- 
veyancer who fancied his neighbor's goods ; and he quotes them 
wrong. He gives them thus : " A Yorkshireman, who was com- 
mitted a few weeks since to one of our prisons for felony, made it 



MB. qbant's '< great metbopous." 291 

his first work, on being locked up, to write on the walls, in the best 
orthography he could command, the following couplet : 

" * He who prigs wot 's not his own, 
Is sure to coom to a prizzun.' " 

He moreover explains [how kind Q that the word " prigs " means 
'< steals," and the word "prizzun" means "prison.** But, as we 
before said, Mr. Grant has forgotten the story. "The poet was no 
Yorkshireman, but a " small boy,** of convenient pocket height ; 
and the lines he wrote were much superior to Mr. Grant's, viz. : 

" Him as prigs vot is n't his 'n, 
Ven he 's kotched must cum to pris'n." 

In conclusion, we are told that the lower classes call The Mom" 
ing Chronicle " the Chron.,** The Satirist " the Sat.,** and a cabri- 
olet " a cab.** Nay, further, that a waterman calls " Bo sa,** for 
"Boat, sir?*' and that butchers say, "Buy, buy?** — and so ends 
Hie first volume. 

As for Volume 11. we shall make but short work of it. The 
" great metropolis** in the eyes of Mr. Grant, consists of theatres, 
and newspapers, with slight episodes on all other matters. There 
are, perhaps, some things worthy of notice in London^ besides what 
is going on behind the scenes, or in that awful apartmient known 
by the name of editor*s room ; but we do not blame Mr. Grant for 
not dilating upon them. What can we talk of but of what we know ? 
Into the society of a lady or gentleman the poor fellow had no 
chance of intruding : of Lords or Commons he had but random 
recollections, and how random ! of what he saw in their Houses of 
Parliament, while "taking his turn** in the gallery: of the decent 
middle classes he is equally ignorant, as appears from the pathetic 
tale already alluded to of his wandering in a snowy morning from 
Bishopsgate Street to the Tyburn end of Oxford Road, prudently 
preferring a soaking to the skin to the dangerous experiment of 
calling a cab, in quest of a breakfast at nine o*clock, promised him 
by some young ladies the evening before ; and his indignant re- 
monstrances on being informed by the servant maid that they had 
not left their room, at that outrageous hour, when the drenched 
barbarian, still redolent, not of the sweet south, but of the unfra- 



292 iI;bb fbasebian papebs. 

grant north, presented himself .to the offended optics of the aston- 
ished domestic, who most have naturally taken him for an escape 
from the hulks. Even of the lower classes of London he knows 
nothing, except by his conjecture that they must resemble the 
people with whom he congregated in familiar friendship when at 
home. What his acquaintMce with the theatres is, we hare 
already discussed ; but surely we thought he may know something 
of the newspapers. 

Charitable was the thought, but erroneous. Even of them, 
though they are to him of such yital importance that he gives to 
them alone half the space of his whole budget of observations on 
the whole metropolis, he is profoundly ignorant. He really knows 
nothing of the actually governing powers of the newspapers. He 
is, we admit, profoundly acquainted with the prices expected by 
the reporters, and especially by the reporters of low degree, but 
here his information ends. ■ He finds out, with respect to the 
Times, that Captain Stirling '^ does not go to the office ;" that in 
the Examiner, Mr. Albany Fonblanque " does not go to the 
office ;" that in the Morning Post, Mr. Mackworth Praed " does 
not go to the office ;" that in the Morning Herald, Mr. Sydney Tay- 
lor " does not go to the office ;" and so forth. He is " not prepared 
to state" fifty things about the most ordinary matters of routine in 
the newspaper press. He " understands " that Mr. Theodore Hook 
writes for John Bull, of the history of which he is wholly ignorant. 
He finds out that Dr. Maginn is one of the four regular editors of 
the Age. He assures us that Mr. Fonblanque writes for the Morn- 
ing Chronicle. He knows that, when the Chronicle declared that 
the Standard was an obscure paper, which could not live, the 
Standard was in danger of being given up for want of advertise- 
ments. He believes that John Murray lost £15,000 by the 
Representative, which lived only half-a-year. He is sure that the 
Carlton Club, the wealth of which appears in his eyes unbounded, 
bought the Times for £100,000. He tells us that the Foreign Be- 
view was started by a son of Lord Gillies (who has no son), 
and by Mr. James Eraser, author of the Travels in Persia, con- 
founding him with Mr. Wm. Eraser, no relative whatever. He is 
certain that Lockhart wrote an article upon Hogg's Memoir of Sir 
Walter Scott in our own Magazine, of which Lockhart knew 



MB. GRANTfS "GREAT METBOTOLIS.'* 298 

nothing till he saw it in print. He informs us that, after William 
Gifford ceased to be editor of the Quarterly^ he was succeeded by 
Dr. Sou they, who never edited the Review in his life, being quite 
ignorant, at the same time, of the fact, that the present Mr. Justice 
Coleridge was editor for some numbers. He repeats, with infinite 

credulity, the trash stories of Mr. QfD and Dick Martin, and 

the noble Lord and the gigantic Irishman of John Bull, both being 
untrue. He calls Giffard, Gifford ; Banks, Bankcs ; Quin, 
M*Quinn ; Dios Santos, De Santez. In short, he bungles and 
blunders in every thing, great and small, even in the very trade 
to which he happens to be attached, in the character of flunkey. 

These things are trifles, our readers will observe, and we agree 
with them. We think the whole book stuff of the most trifling 
kind ; but, what shall we say of a literary man, or one who pro- 
fesses to be so, devoting a whole volume to the petty details of 
newspapers and magazines, utterly ignorant of what is going on in 
their internal management all the while, and never dropping a 
hint of the existence of any other species of literature in " The 
Great Metropolis ?" . 

We hand him over to the indignation of Mr. E. L. Bulwer. 



SM THE FBA8EBIAN PAFKBa. 



EPAMINONDAS GRUBB, or FENIMORE COOPEB, 
versus THE MEMORY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.* 

This is, of its kind, a remaricable article, and should not be suf- 
fered to drift away unobserved on that foul current of republican 
abuse and calumny to which it belongs. It is worth while to catch 
hold of the vile thing — pulling it forth with a pitchfork — and 
exposing the intricate texture of its black web — the materials 
being spite, envy, hatred of order, and of all deservedly exalted 
characters ; hatred, too, of the best efforts of successful genius ; 
and the whole production brought out for effect, under a pre- 
tended zeal for " principle." 

This precious critique, as the author instructs us to believe, has 
been written from stem dictates of duty ; and his conscience would 
not h$ive allowed him to rest unless he had promulgated it to the 
world. " We think it time," says he, " that the voice of Truth 
should be heard in this matter ; that these old and venerable prin- 
ciples, which have been transmitted to .us from God himself, should 
be fearlessly applied!" For our own parts, though we under- 
stand well enough what the word principle means, when correctly 
interpreted, yet, at the outset, we are somewhat puzzled by these 

* The malevolent and abusive article, on which we have here animadverted, 
appeared in " The Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Miagazine," for Octo- 
ber, 1838. But, with laudable impartiality, the proprietors of that journal 
have, in their number for December last, published a " Reply to Cooper's 
Attack on Scott;" which, however, did not fall in our way, till after our own 
remarks had been for some time in type. As Mr. Cooper's countrymen and 
the editor of the "Knickerbocker" (who should know best) have fixed on 
that eminent romance-writer the paternity of the attack, we owe an apology 
to our old acquaintance, Epaminondas, for having so freely indicated our be- 
lief that he, more probabiy was its author. Palmam qui meruit ferat ! — O. Y. 



EPAMINONDAS OBUBB. 296 

epithets, " old and venerable.** A venerable eternity would sound 
rather strange, but not more so in our estimation than an old and 
venerable principle. However, so much is quite clear ; the plan 
of our transatlantic moralist is the ^^ fearless application of princi- 
ples," send the immediate object of his exertions, as will soon be 
apparent, is to show, that Sir Walter Scott had trampled on aU 
principles, being most pertinaciouslj addicted to ^' fraud, falsehood, 
avarice, selfishness, treachery, low cunning, abject meanness,'* and 
other such propensities, which are to be discovered often enough 
in the world, but of which, according to our author. Sir Walter's ^ 
character was pre-eminently, if not exclusively, made up ! 

Such is the plan, and such is the drifl, of this exquisite American 
Irochure, But notwithstanding the grave dignity of the intro- 
duction, there is not so much of novelty in the performances of a 
paltry insect trying his best (or worse) to undermine an oak-tree, 
as to have induced us to notice the article, had we not been con- 
fidently assured that it comes from the pen of Mr. J. Fenimore 
Cooper, author of the LcLst of the Mohicans, the Spy, and number- 
less other works, for whom (as well as for Sir E. L. Bulwer, and 
other indefatigables), we are bound to entertain all due respect. 
And if Mr. Cooper be in reality the writer of the critique before 
us, the sentiments of an individual so much distinguished, espe- 
cially when he appeals to " old and venerable principles,** are, 
questionless, entitled to consideration ; at all events, should not be 
passed over in utter silence. 

But for our own part, we avow at the outset, that we have 
some reason to believe this paper is not the production of the 
" great American novelist,'* but has emanated from the pen of Mr. 
Epaminondas Gnibb of Massachusetts, a genius whom, by singu- 
lar chance, we recollect to have seen in London several years 
ago, when it was still the practice of certain publishers to give 
large sums for the copyright of novels, even when execrably bad. 
He came into the market with a huge three-volume MS., of his 
own composition, for which -he modestly demanded fifteen hundred 
pounds. And we can recollect that it was Grubb's decided 
opinion, even at that period, that Sir Walter Scott had been ridicu^* 
iously overrated. He thought, moreover, that the inhabitants of 
this country were poor, paltry, ignorant beings, compared with 



296 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

those of Massachusetts ; lastly, we are sure that Grubb did also 
talk about '^ old and venerable principles.*' 

Yet, as already said, the production before us has been fathered, 
by the force of on dit, on Mr. Fenimore Cooper, and that he may 
have written it, is, we think, quite within the limits of possibility. 
There was an article not long ago in the Quarterly Review^ 
where Lockhart happened to treat the ^' great Americim novelist" 
with considerably more of justice than ceremony ; and, from the 
virulent animosity betrayed by the soi-discmt "moralist** against 
the review and its editor, one can scarcely help surmising that 
some slight alloy of egotism must have blended with the zeal for 
" old and venerable principles,'* before he could write so bitterly. 

Still we do incline to think that the author is not Cooper, but 
our old acquaintance, Epaminondas Grubb, who, we believe, 
really and unaffectedly despised every mortal but himself. Be 
this as it may, Mr. Fenimore Cooper unquestionably does belong 
to a class of authors, all of whom (whether he forms an exception 
is another question) did most cordially hate Sir Walter when 
living, and who rejoice in having a fling at the lion when dead. 
There are divers novelists who, thanks to that sort of public taste 
which used to support the " Minerva Press,** and the splendid in- 
dustry exhibited by some of our west-end booksellers, not only 
have " had their day,*' as regards pecuniary emolument, but con- 
tinue to see their works paraded in public. Yet, notwithstanding 
these advantages, such authors being in a predicament much Hke 
that of builders who have run up houses that will hardly stand 
wind and weather even for one generation — these gentry, we say, 
have an awkward propensity, not only to get into a rage when 
their^ productions are scrutinized or begin to moulder away, but 
they entertain the most bitter vindictiveness against each contem- 
porary (or even deceased) artist, who happens to have completed 
twenty or thirty edifices of unquestionable character, which have 
stood and are likely to stand firm, and to bring high prices in the 
market. 

We have known numbers of aspirant and incipient authors, 
not having advanced so far as to get either praise or blame, who 
lisped in affected admiration of the " Last Minstrel ** and the 
Waverley novels ; but your middling writers — your creatures of 



EPAMINONDAS GRUBB. 297 

puff — your straw and patchwork gentry — (who, instead of being 
middling, wish to he esteemed first-rate) — this genus were, and 
are, all against him to a man, and ready to calumniate him in 
every possible way. And if they have not shown much fight, this 
was not from any want of envious rancor, but of opportunity and 
courage, and because it did not occur to them to begin, like Epami- 
nondas Grubb, " in King Cambyses' vein,^ with " old and venerable 
principles." Among the really enlightened members of society, 
those by principle, education, aims, and objects, fitted to become 
authors " for all time,*' it is almost superfluous to observe, that we 
never knew even one who did not rejoice in contributing just 
praise to the character, both public and private, of Sir Walter 
Scott. 

But it is full time that we should proceed to the article itself, 
which commences with declaiming that, in the author's opinion, the 
" very important task of writing the life of Sir W, S. being dele- 
gated to Mr. Lockhart, had fallen into the hands of a very im- 
proper person." The circumstance, it seems, of the near connex- 
ion existing betwixt the biographer and the deceased, is one 
reason for this impropriety ; but, above all, the decisive fact against 
Lockhart, as we shall see hereafter, is that of his being editor of 
the Quarterly, and also the writer of articles (generally the most 
trenchant) in the journal which he edits. This is the " damned 
spot" affixed to his character, which all the merits, literary and 
moral, of his Valerius, Reginald Dalton, Matthew Wald, Adam 
Blair, translations from the Spanish, and other works, cannot efface 
or compensate. 

The author goes on to his charges against Sir Walter ; but au 
commencement, very wisely recollects that perhaps some one may 
start the question, cui bonof — for which, however, he is quite 
prepared on " old and venerable principles ;" as, forsooth, he 
benevolently intends, " by proper exposure, to prevent the young 
and inexperienced from following in footsteps which have been 
made to appear hallowed." 

The first delinquency alleged against Scott, is, that he sanctioned 
the notion of his life being written, and his diary published, by 
Mr. Lockhart, and named him his literary executor. " The very 
fact of designating a biographer," says Grubb (for we can hardly 



298 THE FBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

suppose that Gx>per would write such arrant nonsense), ^ infers 
aon&ething like a fraud on the public, as it is usually placing one 
who should possess the impartiality of a judge in the position of 
an advocate, and leaves but faint hopes of a frank and fair exhi- 
bition of the truth.** Consequently, and in order to avoid the. 
commission of ^' something like a fraud," Sir Walter must either 
not have appointed any literary executor, or devolved that duty on 
an utter stranger ; unless, indeed, it had been his fortune to num- 
ber among his acquaintances an individual so thoroughly imbued 
with " old and venerable principles,*' and so perfectly free from 
any alloy of prejudice, envy, uncharitableness, or resentment, as 
Epaminondas Grubb or (shall we add ?) Fenimore Cooper. 

He tries back, of course, on the old tack, viz., his abhorrence 
of Lockhart. Not only, he tells us, is the appointment of a liter- 
ary executor in itself a fraudulent act, but " Mr. Lockhart was one 
of the last men that Sir Walter Scott should have selected for this 
office.'* So sound a logician as our ci-devant friend, Epaminondas, 
is, of course, always ready to support every dictum by premises, 
and here comes the reason : ^' Mr. Lockhart was disqualified for 
the task, because a man can no more maintain a connexion with a 
publication like the Quarterly Review^ which is notoriously devoted 
to profligate political partizanship, reckless alike of truth and 
decency, and hope to preserve the moral tone of his mind, than a 
woman can frequent the society of the licentious and hope to es- 
cape pollution." That Mr. Lockhart is the staunch adherent of 
a political party — that he has no great admiration of the condi- 
tion, social or political,* of the United States ; that he detests 
modem (so styled) Whigs, with their precious reformations, their 
economy, their foreign policy, their Irish tail, and their " tender 
mercies" of various kinds — all this is true enough ; but, as already 
said, we suspect that all this would not have been sufficient, and 
that there exists behind the curtain some other cause for the 
"moralist's" inmiitigable spite against the Quarterly and its 
conductor. 

As above, we have been favored with the first proof, according 
to " old and venerable principles," of Scott's propensity to " fraud." 
We proceed to number two, whereby he is arraigned of having 
sanctioned "deliberate falsehood" and "aggravated treachexy/' 



EPAMIKONDAS 6BUBB. 299 

the charge being founded on the following passage, which occurs 
in a letter from Sir W. S. to his brother, Mr. Thomas Scott : 
" Dear Tom — I observe what you say as to Mr. * * *, and as 
you may often be exposed to similar requests, which it would be 
difficult to parry, you can sign such letters of introduction as relate 
to persons you do not honor, short, T. Scott ; by which abridg- 
ment of the name I shall learn to limit my civilities." The re- 
marks of Epaminondas on this letter are as follows : % He who is 
not shocked at the fraud the instant he is told of it has reason to 
distrust himself, for he may rely on it he is wanting in the very 
elements of honesty. Reflection only makes the matter worse. If 
the marks do not contradict the words of the letter, they are 
clearly unnecessary ; if they do contradict the words of the letter, 
they become a deliberate falsehood, and a falsehood that is so 
much the worse, as it is connected with treachery cloaked in the 
garb of friendship," &c., &c 

Grubb, in every passage, wishes to blacken the memory of Sir 
Walter Scott ; but in every instance when truth (which he pro- 
fesses to revere) is mkde known, the blow recoils against his own 
purposes and on his own head. Here the truth happens to be, 
that Scott's hospitality and kindness to visitors were so profuse 
(comparatively with his means and fortune), that a friend and 
relation need to be very cautious whom he introduced. Moreover, 
the poet was ofiben admonished by those who had his welfare at 
heart, on this kind of improvidence, which infringed on his time, 
purse, and patience. He was himself not unconscious of the fault, 
and considered it a duty to aim at caution and discrimination. 
The simplest words of ordinary courtesy in a letter of introduction 
were enough to secure his invitation, not merely to dinner, but (if 
in the country) to stay all night (and possibly for days). His 
brother held an official situation, and had many acquaintances, to 
some of whom, doubtless, he made no scruple in flatly refusing an 
introduction ; among others who deserved at least politeness at his 
hands, it was necessary to indicate those on whose good conduct 
he could place reliance, and those of whom he could only say, " I 
did not like to refuse the man a mere letter of introduction, though, 
to tell the truth, I know very little about him." We say it was 
absolutely requisite, not merely upon "old and. venerable pri^oi^ 



800 THE FRA8ERIAN PAPERS. 

pfeSy" but on principles of right and wrong, which are neither old 
nor new, hut are univenal and etemaly that Sir Walter should be 
apprized bj his brother of this distinction ; and for the sake of his 
wife and family, if not for himself, that he should desire and re- 
quest to be thus apprized. 

' The next accusation is against the moral rectitude of Sir Walter, 
for a certain letter addressed to Gifford, when the Quarterly Re' 
view was organized. In this letter, Scott, in the plainest manner, 
states his opinion as follows : "' It would certainly not be advisable 
that the work should assume, especially at the outset, a professed 
political character. On the contrary, the articles on science, and 
of miscellaneous character, ought to be of such a quality as might 
fairly challenge competition with the best of our contemporaries. 
But, as the real reason of instituting the publication is the disgust- 
ing and deleterious doctrines with which the most popular of our 
journals disgraces its pages, it is essential to consider how the war- 
fare shall be managed." 

" This J* asseverates Mr. Grubb, was " most gross fraud" on the 
part of Sir Walter, and be '^ does confess his astonishment at the 
coolness of the impudence with which it is related by the editor 
of the Review itself.*' Further, he says that " by the disgusting 
and deleterious doctrines of the Edinburgh^ we are to understand 
only the slang of party, and not a high moral aim, as a brief con- 
sideration of the facts will show. The Quarterly^* he continues, 
"is Tory — the Edinburgh, Whig. The first" [query, former?] 
" party taught the doctrine of undue deference to rank ; of perpetu- 
ating the institutions (which was perpetuating an aristocratical 
polity) of obedience to the king, to cloak the power of the nobles ; 
of submission to the thousand abuses that belong to such a system." 

Then he goes on to state, that Sir Walter, being " servilely sub- 
missive to the great, in public, took his revenge by abusing them 
in private," and illustrates this latter position by two quotations 
from private letters, wherein Scott has alluded with bitterness to 
the depravity, egoism, and folly, too often imputable to the higher, 
even to the highest, ranks in this country. 

Here, again, when the truth is fairly stated, Grubb's intended 
blow against the memory of the dead recoils, to counteract his own 
amiable purposes. Scott avowedly wished for the establishment 



BPAMINONBAS GBUBB. 801 

of a qnarterl J journal which should oppose the political misrepre- 
sentations of the Edinburgh ; but on prudential grounds, as ex- 
plained, he wished not only that it should appear, from the com- 
mencement, as a literary journal (its precursor having done so), but 
that the ^ miscellaneous and scientific articles should," actually and 
trufyy " be of such quality as might challenge competition" with 
any and every periodical of the time. This is the whole truth, 
on which Grubb founds his impudent accusation of fraud ; and so 
far is the letter from containing aught that requires concealment, 
it might, without impropriety, have been published (as from an 
intending collaborator) along with the prospectus and first number 
of the new journal. 

But, as we have said, the American's blow recoils on himself; 
for, according to his assertions, Sir Walter had " no moral aim f* 
he was acting from mere self-interest, forsooth, and as the '* tool 
of a party." [This is the main point — for motives are of more 
importance than actions in the moral world.] Be assured, most 
valorous Epaminondas, that, notwithstanding all the faults and 
frailties incident to the social condition of this and other countries, 
it is quite possible to cherish the most fervent sincerity and entire 
personal disinterestedness, in all one's views and wishes, although 
connected with a party ; for on public questions no man can act 
alone. And that Sir "Walter Scott was sincere to his heart's 
core in his detestation of those impulses (most erroneously or men- 
daciously styled principles) which actuated the Whigs in Scotland, 
at the time when he co-operated with the Quarterly^ no impartial 
judge can for a moment doubt. As little doubt can there be that 
he aborred the vices, and despised or lamented the weaknesses, of 
divers existing members of the aristocracy in England, as a coun- 
try gentleman may conscientiously wish to support the church es- 
tablishment, although perhaps he feels himself bound to censure 
the conduct of his own parish rector, or of the nearest bishop. 
But, above all, we are reminded by Grubb's attack how true have 
proved the predictions of Scott, that under a Whig administra- 
tion almost every previously existing evil or danger has increased 
tenfold ; and that by the breaking up or shaking of old instititu- 
tions there has been introduced into the country a spirit of demora- 
lization, and an almost utter abandonment of principles, rightly so 



802 THE FRASEBUN PAPERS. 

termed, which, were it not for the growing strength, the intelligenoe 
and steadfiftstness, of the Conservative party, might render us en- 
tirely hopeless. 

The fourth and fiflh accusations (founded on letters to Thomas 
Scott and Mr. Ellis) are absolute shadows ; there is nothing to 
grapple with. As to the notion that Jefl&ey's flippant review of 
Marmion had been an inducement for setting up the Qtuxrterly, it 
is too rid^ulous for notice ; and Scott's allusion to that article is 
written evidently in a tone of the most good-humored badinage. 

The next imputation of '^ fraud and deception " hinges upon this 
that Scott, having written a very favorable review of Southey's 
Kehamoj remarks, about the same time, in a letter to Mr. Ellis, 
that had he been disposed to turn it into ridicule, the work afforded 
ample opportunities for so doing. Let his words be sifted and 
twisted in every possible way, they will amount to no more than 
this ; which, moreover, is exactly what every man of critical tact 
and common sense (placing Southey himself at the top of the list) 
would have thought and said of such a poem as Kehama, had ho 
been asked to review it. But there is afterward another charge 
represented as very serious, and connected with this poor matter 
of a reviewal, on which Sir Walter Scott probably never bestowed 
a second thought. A letter is printed in Lockhart's book, ad- 
dressed to Southey, wherein Sir Walter says, he " has not yet seen 
Kehama ;" and this Grubb resolutely insists was written after the 
above-mentioned letter to Ellis, of which Mr. Lockhart observes, 
that it is without date. We happen to have in our own possession 
several autograph letters from Scott, two of which having been 
sent by post, and en envelope, are without date — by no means an 
unusual occurrence in his despatches, though it is possible enough 
to guess at the date from the contents of the letter, or style of the 
handwriting. Grubb, however, stoutly maintains, that in this in- 
stance, above-mentioned, the date had been torn off, and " sup- 
pressed, pour cause,'' &c. But we are growing heartily tired of 
the reptile's rubbish, though not yet half through with his closely- 
printed pages. 

Seventhly — the insect tries to raise an immense pother, because 
in writing about Lord Melville and to the Duke of Buccleuch, Sir 
Walter Scott said of each of these friends, that he had been " the 



EPAHINONDAS GBUBB. 808 

architect of the Border MinstreFs little fortune." To those having 
any access to know the real characters of those noblemen, it will 
give little cause for wonder if the Minstrel spoke of them, at all 
times, in the warmest terms which confidence and friendship could 
dictate. And though, in strict reality, neither one nor other had 
been the architect of the poet's fortune, yet, as both had the sin- 
cerest heart to serve him, it was generous and graceful on his part 
to overrate whatever benefits were conferred, and acknowledge 
the " will for the deed." When both happened to dine together at 
his table, he might possibly have found an opportunity to say — 
" You have been the architects of my little fortune." But Grubb, 
the moralist, must needs express great wrath, because in writing 
to (or of) each of them separately, Sir Walter should not have 
taken care when he eulogizes one, to reckon up, at the same time, 
the benefits for which he conceived himself indebted to the other. 
Eighthly — the grub tries to be quite solemn upon the enormous 
fact — the indelible crime of Scott having reviewed the Tales of 
My Landlord, and therewith the Waverley Novels, for the Quar^ 
terly. The northern Minstrel, be it remembered, had been en- 
gaged and relied on as a writer for that review from its com- 
mencement, and as he was not addicted to the physical sciences, 
nor then lorote much on politics, belles lettres was his proper (if not 
only) department. He had determined not to admit his being the 
author of Waverley, or the " Landlord's Tales" (which last were 
then supposed by many to be the work of a third party) ; and to 
keep up this harmless delusion, also in fulfilment of his promises to 
Gifford at the outset, he agreed to review them,* stipulating, how- 
ever, that Mr. W. Erskine (Lord Kinnedder) should be jointly 
engaged with him in the critique, "that the laudatory parts of the 
review originated with Erskine, all who are acquainted with that 
gentleman's propensity, to express strongly and in detail, his criti- 
cal opinions of every new work, must be thoroughly convinced. 
(Indeed, without his encouragement, we doubt much whether Fo- 
verley itself would ever have been completed.) Grubb, of course, 
knows nothing about Lord Kinnedder's habits or style of writing ; 
however, he indicates his entire disbelief that his lordship had any 
thing to do with the article, and almost gives the lie direct to per- 
sons who were as widely distinguished from him in character as 



304 THB FRASEBIAK PAFEBS. 

mt antdope is from a muckworm. Bat although Gmbb knows 
Dodiin^ aboot Lord Eumedder s merits, he camiot deny his know- 
ledge (or access to know), that this lamented individaal died three 
years b^>re the disck>>ore of the authorship of the Wayerley 
Kovels.* Yet as a clencher. at the ck>se of this charge, he inso- 
lentlj demands why Mr. Erskme did not come forward to justify 
his friend ! The suppression of a fact, as Gmbb elsewhere informs 
us, is tantamoont to a direct lie« and in most instances this is cor- 
rect enough. Let him have the full benefit of his own ^ old and 
Tenerable principles." 

Next is paraded Ho^s notion, that Sir Walter had been the 
author of a review, in which he places himself at the head, and the 
Shepherd at the tail^ of English poetical literature ; a notion wrhich 
the latter found reason to abandon. But Gmbb, of course, insists 
oo the probability that Scott did write the article. 

Tenthly^ comes a monstrous long passage, attempting to prove 
that Sir Walter had reallv no " sentiments" in favor of " heredi- 
tary power," but that he always paid homage to those who hap- 
pened to possess it, no matter whence derived, and this merely for 
the sake of the worldly advantages which he might extract from 
them. The grand evidence which gives rise to this allegation is 
a note addressed to Sir William Elnighton (who was then in the 
confidence of George IV.), not asking directly or indirectly any 
favor, but announcing that his son (who had been already intro- 
duced to hfs Majesty) was about to marry a lady of fortune ; and 
with obvious exultation he adds, that though thus situated, the 
young officer had no thoughts of quitting the army, and that his 
bride would accompany him to the quarters of the loth Hussars, 
in Ireland. 

Of this note to Sir W. Knighton our amiable critic observes, 
that a " more whining and pitiful letter w^as never written ; it is 
almost abject," &;c. But, as usual, the intended mffianlike blow 
recoils on liis own head. Twist the letter in every possible way ; 
it contains no more nor less than we have stated above. And 
most true it is, that Sir Walter was fervently interested in his 

♦ Lord Kinnedder*s death took place in August, 1822; Scott's avowal of 
his sole authorship of the Waverley Novels was made on February 23, 
1827. — M. 



EPAMINONPAS OBUBB. 805 

son's welfare ; as, indeed, his affection for the members of his own 
family, and his indulgent regard for all those dependent on him^ 
were carried to a degree perhaps approaching to weakness : but, 
if so, it was the weakness of a generous and noble nature. He 
cared not how far friends and connexions-tried his temper and pa- 
tience. So long as there was plain dealing, with a frank and 
warm heart, honorable motives, and spirit to manifest them, a hun- 
dred disqualifications would be overlooked. His elder son had 
from boyhood deservedly engrossed a large share of his confidence 
and affection, and he would have gone great lengths to promote 
his welfare. But the servility and whining imputed to the let- 
ter exist only in the vile and morbid brain of Grubb; for no 
roundabout or servile methods were needed. Sir Walter had been 
on friendly and convivial terms with Sir William Knighton. In 
the joy of his heart, he mentions his son's marriage, and intention 
to continue in the army ; having good reason to believe that such 
information would be well received, both by the acquaintance to 
whom it is addressed, and by the sovereign to whom it would also 
be communicated. 

Hereafter follows a long passage, which, if it has any meaning 
at all seems to indicate that Sir Walter, expressing as he did, a 
respect for hereditary rights, ought to have voted George IV. out 
of his kingdom, and the Duke of Buccleuch out of his dukedom. 
This, we presume, may be passed without comment — as, indeed, 
might have been the whole paper ; though we still maintain that, 
in its way, it is a fine specimen — something like those articles in 
a naturalist's cabinet, to which he gives a place as being good of 
their kind, however worthless, unsightly, and offensive. 

But we might long ago have said, " Ex uno disce omnes /' and 
must now hasten to a close. The reptile afterward does all that 
is in a reptile's power to rake up the old accusation against Sir 
Walter, of having unjustly assigned over to his son the landed 
property of Abbotsford ; and as to the unparalleled exertions 
which the poet made betwixt 1826 and 1831, with broken health 
(and, we had almost added, with broken heart), the spiteful 
miscreant coldly and brutally observes, that considering such 
" great advantages" (that is to say, salaries, no matter how much 
ifespoken), ^* so far from its being extraordinary that he should at- 

20 



806 IHE FRAflKBTAN PAPEBS. 

tempt to pay his debts, it would have been extraordinarj had he 
not ftttempted it." 

The onlj other endeavors of this writer speciaUy to blacken the 
private and personal character of Scott, hinge on the stem and 
unforgiving conduct which he apparently evinced toward his 
brother Daniel, and on the circumstance of Lady Scott having 
expired at Abbotsford, whilst her husband was at EdinburgL 
From commenting on these passages we are withheld only by the 
feeling, that to draw the veil from the sanctuary of domestic life, 
or to write on subjects of a, solenm nature, would be extremely 
out of keeping with the tone and treatment which alone such a 
production as that now before us deserves at our hands. Those 
who knew aught of Sir Walter's domestic character, of the princi- 
ples which guided his conduct, or impulses which were paramount 
in his l^eart, will perfectly appreciate the motives which on this 
occasion induce us to be silent. 

The rest of the trash is made up by an affectedhf candid esti- 
mate of Scott's literary powers, of which, notwithstanding the 
vague mcanderings and ridiculous contradictions, the real drift is 
perfectly apparent, namely, to depreciate all the writings (but es- 
pecially the novels) of the distinguished individual, whose moral 
character he has before endeavored to traduce ; and to prove that 
these writings belong in reality to the middling class, whilst Feni- 
more Cooper and Epaminondas Gnibb (perhaps, also, other wor- 
thies) have been unjustly denied that palm of superiority to which 
their achievements entitled them. 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP GUNPOWDER, 80T 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP 

GUNPOWDER? 

I. THUB ROCK IN THE ALPS. 

As the march of Hannibal across the Alps is confessedly one 
of the most wonderful of militarj operations, we must not be as- 
tonished to find that it has been rendered still more wonderful by 
the addition of further marvels. Of these, the most famous is the 
blasting of the rock by fire and vinegar. 

It is now useless to look after the early authorities for the his- 
tory of Rome. We have only scanty and dubious fragments of 
Fabius Pictor, and the others; and Titus Livius must represent 
them all to us. From this, our main fountain of Roman history, 
we learn that Hannibal, after surmounting many difficulties during 
his Alpine march, came at last to a rock which defied all ordinary 
efforts. In this emergency (Liv. lib. xxi. 37) — 

" Inde ad rupem muniendam, per qaam unam via esse poterat, milites 
ducti quam csedendum esset saxum, arboribus circa immanibas dejectis de- 
tmmcatisque, struem ingentem lignorum faciunt ; eamque (quum et vis venti 
apta faciendo igni co-orta esset) succendunt, ardentiaque saxa infuso aceto 
pntrefaciunt. Ita torridam incendio rupem ferro pandunt, moliiantque an- 
fractibus modicis ettvos, at non jumenta solum, sed elephant! etiam, deduci 
possent." 

Which is thus translated by George Baker: — 

" The soldiers were then employed to make a way down the rock, through 
which alone it was possible to effect a passage ; and as it was necessary to 
break the rock, they felle'd and lopped a number of large trees which stood 
near, with which they raised a vast pile of timber upon it ; and as soon as a 
•mart wind arose, to forward the kindling of it, set it on fire, and then, when 



8iB THE FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 

the rocks were Tiolently heated, they opened a way through it with iron in- 
straments, and softened the descent by gentle windings, in such manner that 
not only the beasts of burden, but even the elephants could be brought 
down." 

Florus merely says, that " Punici belli vis et tempestas medias 
prefiregit Alpes ;" Eutropius, that " Alpes adhuc ek parte invias 
patefecit ;" Orosius, that " Invias rapes igni ferroque rescindit ;" 
and Cornelius Nepos, that " Alpicos conantes prohibere transitum 
concidit, loca patefecit.'^ Juvenal's ^'£t montem rumpit aceto" 
must be familiar to every reader. 

Silius Italicus introduces the incident of getting rid of the rock 
into his Punics, but without the aid of vinegar. He says : — 



(( 



Dum pandit seriam venturi Jupiter sevi, 

Ductor Agenoreus, tumulis delatus iniquis 

Lapsantem dabio derexa per invia nisn 

Firmabat gressum, atque humantia saxa premebat 

Non acies hostisve texet, sed prona minaci 

Prserupto turbant, et cautibus obvia rupes. 

Stant clausi ; mcerentque moras, et dura riarum. 

Nee refovere datnr torpentia membra quieta 

Noctem operi jiingunt, et robora ferre coactis 

Approperant humeris, ac raptas coilibus ornos. 

Jamque ubi nee darunt silva densissima montis 

Aggessere trabes ; rapidisque accensus in orbem 

Excoquitur flammis scopulus. Mox prorata ferro 

Dat gcmitum putris resoluto pondere moles, 

Atque aperit fessis antiqni regna Latini." — Punic, lib. iiL 630-'44. 

The author of the Panics has met with an English translator 
in the person of Thomas Ross and we shall adopt his version : — * 

* " The second Punick "War, between Hannibal and the Romans. The 
whole seventeen books Englished from the Latine of Silius Italicus. With 
A Continuation from the triumph of Scipio to the Death of Hannibal. By 
Tho. Ross, Esq., Keeper of his Majestie's Libraries, and Groom of his most 
Honorable Privy Chamber. Aut prodeste volunt, aut deiectare poetce. — Horat. 
liondon, printed by Tho. Roycroft, and are to be sold by Jo. Martin, Ja. 
Adestry, and Tho. Dicas, in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1661." It is a hand- 
some folio, dedicated to Charles II., whose portrait adorns the volume, which 
is besides abundant in plates. Charles is preferred to Hannibal and Scipio 
in prose and verse. It is only fair to the loyal translator to say, that the ori- 
ginal dedication is dated at Bruges, Nov. 18, 1657, when adulation to Charles 
might have been, at all events, disinterested. 



Dm HANNIBAL ENOW THE USE OF GUNPOWDEB ? 8i9 

" While Jove the series of Times to come 
Doth thus infold the Libyan captain from 
Th' unequal hills, through wails perplexed descends, 
And dubiously, on quarries moist extends 
To fix his sliding steps. No furious shocks 
Of foes deter him ; but the obvious rocks, 
Whose prone and threatening cliffs obstruct the way ; 
So as besieged they stand, and the delay 
And difficulties of their march lament ; 
Nor would the time allow them to foment 
With rest their frozen limbs. They spend the night 
In labor, and their shoulders all unite 
With speed the forests from the hills to bring. 
The highest mountains naked made, they fling 
The trees in heaps together, and surround 
With flame the rocks ; which, with a dreadful sound. 
Now yielding to their bars of iron, breaks, 
And to the weary troops a passage makes 
Lito Latinus' kingdom.'' — ^Boss's Translation, p 83. 

Of the Greeks, the most important testimony on every thing 
connected with the second Punic war, Polybius is silent, as to this 
demolition of the rock. So is Plutarch ; but that, indeed, is of 
small consequence. Appian, in his Wars of Hannibal, gives the 
following version of the circumstance : — 

Utovog re ttoAAtJ^* ovarjg koI Kpyovg, rrjv fiev vXrjv rejttvwv re, 
Kal KaraKaicov, ttjv 6e Te(f)pav ofievvvg vSan Kal d^ec, KaX r^v 
7re(t>av Ik rovde ifjatpapctv ycyvoiievrjv, atpvpacg aidripalg '&pavG)V 
Kal bdonoicjv. In the not over-accurate version of his only Eng- 
lish translator, J. D. : " And finding all the passages stopped with 
deep snow, and ice congealed together, thawing it by kindling 
mighty fires, and quenching the ashes with water and vinegar, and 
then breaking the scorched and cleaving rocks with iron hammers 
and wedges." 

Such is the principal weight of testimony upon this point. 
That a rock was burst by the process of first heating it by burn- 
ing wood, and then by the application of vinegar, has been 
always considered a somewhat strange operation. We must 
ask — 

1. Where did Hannibal get the vinegar? Looking for vinegar 
in our sense of the word— the fiuid called by the Latin3 acetumy 



81B THB FBASERIAK PAPERS. 

by the Quocks 5|o^ — on the top of the Alps, more than a couple 
of thousand years ago, must have been a hopeless quest ; and we 
can hardlj stretch our faith so far as to imagine that Hannibal 
carried with him from the Ebro the quantity of so perfectly need- 
less an article sufficient to stew down the Alps. Another solu- 
tion — not of the rock, but of the difficulty — has been attempted 
by some modem historians, and adopted, strange to say, by so 
sensible a man as Emesti, that the acetum was no more than the 
sour wine which the soldiers used as their common drink. 
^ Monet etiam Emesti acetum fuisse potum militarem, et hinc non 
mirum esse, tantam ejus copiam Fccnis suppetiisse," says Lemaire, 
in his note on this passage of Livius. Nan mirum, indeed! 
What quantity of this wine was sufficient to cover a rock capable 
of defying the progress of an army under the command of such a 
general as Hannibal ; or why he in his intensely rapid march, 
should have encumbered himself with any superfluous provision, 
solid or fluid, are questions which do not appear to have entered 
into the heads of these commentatorial quartermasters to inquire. 
Indeed, if they had taken the trouble of reading the books on 
which they were making notes, they would have found that, so 
far from there being any superfluity in the army of Hannibal, 
the Carthaginian troops were at times almost on the brink of 
starvation. 

2. If Hannibal, however, had as much vinegar as would have 
flooded the Alps, another question occurs : Where did he get the 
wood ? Livius boldly says, " Arboribus circa immanibus dejectis 
detruncatisque, struem ingentem lignorum faciunt." But here the 
ingenious historian draws, as usual, upon his own imagination. 
In the snowy districts of the Alps, there are no " immanes ar- 
bores," no materials for making the " ingentem struem." Polybi- 
us, who, not long after the time, had visited the country, informs 
us that Tc5v ya(^ "AXnecov ra fiEV dicpa, kol ra npbg rag vTrepPoX- 
ag dvfjKOVTa reXEoyg dSevdpa, koX xpikcL Trdvr* kart. " The heights 
of the Alps, and the approaches to the ascents, are altogether 
treeless and bare." Polybius, we think, says this, with an express 
reference to the stories from which Livius afterward concocted his 
history, intending it as an oblique contradiction of the tale, in 
which immense trees and vast piles of timber are introduced, as 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USB OP GUNPOWDER? 811 

auxiliary to' Hannibal in his task of rock-melting. '^Aere are 
no trees on that part of his line of march," says Polybius, quietly, 
but significantly, alluding to the story of those who had so liberal- 
ly supplied the invader with timber. Schweighoeuser very pro- 
perly remarks : " Quid quod, cap. 37, (Liv. lib. xxi.) in summis 
Alpium jugis, ubi ne virgulta quidem crescunt, et nil nisi nuda 
rupes est, nive plerumque, humo nusquam operta, immanes etiam 
arbores inducit, et lignorum ingentem struem ; nempe his opus 
erat et omandam fabulam, quam sicco pede pendens Polybius 
transit, de rape incendio torrefacta, et infuso aceto putrefacta." 

3. If there had been oceans of vinegar in the casks of Hanni- 
bal's baggage-wagons, and as much timber at hand as the Canadian 
forests supply, another and a very important question remains, and 
that is. Would all this timber heat, and all this vinegar dissolve, 
any rock towering some thousands of feet above the level of the 
sea ? As for the particular rocks in question, we need only refer 
to De Luc or Saussure ; and their works being read, ask any geo- 
logical or chemical calculator to express the strength of wood-fire 
or of vinegar, requisite to melt the Alpine primary or secondary 
formations. J. B. F. Descuret, who describes himself as " Liter- 
arum, et Medicinae, in Academia Parisiensi Doctor," in his edition 
of Cornelius Nepos, in the Bihliotheca Classica of N. P. Lemaire 
— (let us pause for a moment to say, that, take Lemaire's collec- 
tion as a whole, it is deserving of the highest praise for accuracy 
and learning, completeness and convenience) — will not listen to 
it " Hunc vero modum," that of bursting the mountain with 
vinegar, he says, in his note on the passage of Cornelius Nepos, 
which we have already cited, " veteres inter fabulas adnumerandas 
censeo. Quippe 1°. Vix totum universas Hispaniae acetum ad 
aliquot, calcaria quidem natura, saxa solvendum satis Hannibali 
fuisset. 2". Hie autem tantum pro calcaria terra stant immensi 
Sienitae, qui aceto acetoso, imo acto acerrimo solvi negant." 

Plinius (I{aL Hist xxiii. 27) indeed makes no scruple in assu- 
ring us that the power of vinegar is such that it " saxa rumpit 
infusum, quae non ruperit ignis antecadens ;" which may be true 
of soft calcareous formations ; though, perhaps, rumpit is not the 
exact word to express the action of vinegar, and it may a false 
lection for rodiL Galen (De. Fac. Simp. Med. i. 22), testifies to 



312 THE FEASEBIAN PAPERS. 

something of the same kind ; and Dio Casdius, lib. xzxvL informi 
us that vinegar was used at Eleuthera in Crete, which was taken 
bj Csecilius Metellus, a. u. c. 686, through the treason of some 
of the inhabitants : — 

HvfTfov yap rcva ol TrpodidSvreg etc re nkiv^v TTeiroirffievoVf 
Kot fieyiarov 6va\Juix(^TaT6v re dvra, 6^ei awexio^ vvKrhg die- 
Ppe^aVj ijare •dpavarhv yevec&od,. "The traitor^ oontinuallj 
wetted by night with vinegar a tower built of bricks, and of great 
size and most diificult to be taken, so as to make it fra^e ;" and 
Father Hardouin, in his note upon the passage of Plinius above 
quoted, states that the Duke of Guise used a similar stratagem in 
the course of the war, which he carried on in Naples, as the Duke 
himself testifies in his Commentaries. This we beg to refer to a 
note.* That the application of strong acids may corrode brick 

* The duke wished to surprise a particular post in Naples, the Douanne 
de THuile; and finding that the enemy had nobody in it, he devised the 
following invention assez extraordinaire. He opened an underground passage 
in an abandoned garden near the Convent of St. Sebastian ; and, lUfter ten 
days' work, he had finished a mine of more than 1500 paces, capable of pas- 
sing two men abreast ; which mine " venoit aboutir k la cisteme de Fhuile, 
de laquelle je fis trois ou quartre jours baigner les pierces de la muraille 
avec du vinaigre, et de Teau de vie, qui estoit dissoutes par ce moyen, en 
grattant tomboient, sans aucum bruit toutes par morceaux, et Ton pouvoi 
renverser sans faire d'effort." How this invention assez extraordinaire was 
certain of success — how the duke had made all proper arrangements for the 
destruction of the Spaniards — how the enemy could not by any possibility 
have expected it — how a young religieuse assez belle, wishing to betray his 
operations, mounted on the wall of the Convent of St. Sebastian to throw a 
letter to her brother, who was of the opposite party, informing him of what 
was going on, when she unfortunately received a mousquetadsj qui, Vayant 
tuee toute roide, left her lying there with the billet in her hand — how this dis- 
covery made the duke urge his project more eagerly for fear of detection — 
how he advanced with his men on a dark and stormy night — how, in short, 
every thing was conducted with the greatest sagacity and success — and how 
unluckily it failed after all, because the Spaniards were in the cistern waiting 
to meet him with great impatience; on which the duke most hastily de- 
camped, laying, of course, the blame of the failure of his enterprise upon 
the treachery of a captain ; — all this, and many more incidents, will be found 
in the very entertaining Memoires defeu Monsieur le Due de Guise (Paris. 1668. 
l*p. 639-42) : but it will be admitted that his extraordinary invention bears 
no more analogy to that of Hannibal, than the harebrained hero bears to 
Hannibal himself As Hardouin quotes him, it would seem as if he had 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP GUNPOWDER? 814 

and dissolve mortar is possible enough ; and that the Eleutheron 
betrayers might have used such solvents for the purpose of ren- 
dering some particular portion of a brick-and-mortar wall less ca- 
pable of resisting the blows of the battering-ram, which of course 
was directed to the spot agreed on beforehand between Metellus 
and his friends inside, is not impossible ; but what analogy has 
this with splitting an Alpine rock, of such a size as to impede the 
march of an army ? And yet these loose and random sayings of 
Pliny and Galen, some vague authority of ApoUodorus, the case 
of Eleuthera, which is not at all applicable, and the extraordinary 
invention of the Duke of Guise, are all that the utmost ingenuity 
and research of those who are willing to believe in the story of 
Livius are able to bring forward. Be it remarked, that no one 
offers to account for the enormous quantity of acetum produced 
on the instant by Hannibal, or for the store of trees of immense 
size cut down so as to make huge piles of wood sufficient to heat 
through a rock of Sienite formation, amid the bare and treeless 
summits of the Alps. 

On the whole, then, it is not wonderful that those who can not 
believe that Hannibal had either vinegar or vtn ordinaire in suffi- 
cient store to throw away upon any unexpected incident of a 
forced and famished march — who well know that the snow-clad 
Alpine rocks are not to be heated by any quantity of timber 
which they can supply, or could be brought to them from else- 
where — and who are thoroughly convinced that all the blazing 
wood and all the vinegar in the world could have no effect upon 
Alpine Sienite — should reject the story. The silfence, too, of 
Polybius is a fair ground of doubt ; but still it is difficult to cast 
aside altogether the testimony of Livius and Appian, backed as it 
is by the general belief of all antiquity. Polybius had surely 
heard of the story, but not knowing how to believe or account for 
any thing so incredible or inexplicable, passed it by in silence ; or 
as Schweighceuser says, " with a dry foot" 

actually broken down the wall ; the duke merfiy says that he would have 
done so : " Je voulus — aller et rompre la muraillo pour donner." Fate how- 
ever, determined to prevent him from making himself master of all the 
Spanish quarters ; which, he adds, with characteristic nonchalance — ** cstoit 
infallible et aise." The Spaniards, in all probability, knew what he was 
about all the time. 



814 THE FRARKBTAN PAPERS. 

The difficulty is resolved at once by supposing that Hannibal 
was acquainted with the use of gunpowder. An impassable rock 
opposes his path. He tries every means of avoiding it, or of 
marching round it but in vain. There it stands in his way. He 
then gathers wood, ignites it, adds to it something called by the 
Bomans, or their informants, acetum ; applies this in some manner 
to the rock ; in a short time the obstacle is gone, and he passes 
through, Livius says, that during the operation, ^' Vis venti apta 
fiudendo igni co-orta esset," which is something like blasting. 
Appian that it was effected — i^<j>vpaig OLdrjpcug -dpavoiv, kcUL 
bdoTToiGiv, which is something like boring. The word of Floras 
is perftregit — " Alpes ;" of Osorius, " invias Alpes, igni ferroque 
rescindit /* of Juvenal, " montem rumpit aceto ;" all tending to the 
same thing: the Alps were cut through by fire and iron — broken 
through — burst. It would not be difficult to procure from the 
wooded parts of the Alps, only a march or two in his rear, as much 
timber as would be amply sufficient to make charcoal ; and acetum 
is probably some oral corruption of a Phoenician, or other Orien- 
tal word, to signify nitre, or sulphur, or some fluid combination, 
which might serve the purpose of both. A mixture of nitre and 
carbon, even without sulphur, would produce powerful explosive 
effect. Gunpowder is made by pounding charcoal, nitre, and 
sulphur, and mixing them carefully in due proportions ; water is 
then added, until the whole mass is worked up into the form of a 
stiff but kneadable paste, when it is submitted to the operation of 
the grindstone. To this process, the receipt in Appian bears no 
small similarity. Hannibal cut down the wood, and burnt it, and 
then poured water and o^og on the TE(j)pa, i. e, mixed the nitre 
with the pounded charcoal by means of water, and, when duly 
manipulated, set fire to the exploding compound, and blew up the 
rock. 

In our scanty knowledge of the Phoenician tongue, it is impos- 
sible to say whether our conjecture that acetum was a corruption 
of any word in that language which signified sulphur or nitre is 
tenable or not. That the invaders were not easily understood by 
the native Italians is evident from the mistake of " Cassinum" 
for " Cassilinum." Acetum was probably a mispronunciation of 
the same kind. 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE, USE OP GUNPOWDER ? 815 

Li the language of Spain, a country long intimately connected 
with Carthage, and in which Hannibal had long resided, ozeyte 
signifies oil. We take the following from the dictionary of the 
Academy of Madrid : — 

" AxeUe, El liquor gmesso que se saca de las azeitunas, exprimiendolas 
en las molinas o prensas. Es voz Arabiga del nombre zett, cuja raiz es del 
Hebreo zaiit, que vale oliva. ******** 
Se llama tambien el xugo y liquor que se saca de otras cosas, y tiene seme- 
janza con el que dan las azeitunas : come son azeite de lentisco, de abcto, de 
linaza, de jazmines, de ballena, y assi de otras especes, de quienes toman la 
denominacion : y tambien la suclen tomar dol inventor del azeite ; como 
azeite de Aparicio, de Mathiolo/' &c. 

That is, Azeite is a thick liquor which is extracted from olives, by being 
expressed by mills, or presses ; it is an Arabic word zeit, the root of which is 
the Hebrew word zeiity which means olive. * * * It signifies, 
also, the juice and liquor which are drawn from other matters, and has a 
likeness to that which is produced by the olives ; as, for example, oil of Len- 
tisk, &c. ; or of the inventor of the oil, as the azeite of Aparicio, of Mathiolo, 
&c. ; or, as we say, Bowland's Macassar Oil. 

Oil, we see here, as in other languages, is not merely the ex- 
tract of olive, but any other liquid of oleaginous appearance; 
such as oil of vitriol, oil of almonds, oil of sulphur, among the 
rest ; and many other oils, now banished from the chemical vo- 
cabulary by Greek-sounding compounds. Perhaps the acetum 
of the terrified Romans is but a corruption of the ozeyte of 
Hannibal. 

II. THE ESCAPE FROM THE MOUNTAINS, 

By a mistake of his guide, Hannibal became entangled in the 
mountains, and Fabiug took care so to bar up every pass that he 
had neither an opportunity of escaping nor of fighting. In this 
dilemma he had recourse to a very singular stratagem. We sliall 
again transcribe the account of Livius : 

• 

" Ladibrium oculorum specie terribile, ad frastrandum hostem commentns, 
principio noctis fortim saccedere ad montes statuit. Fallacis consilii talis 
apparatus fait : fasces undique ex agris coUectsB, fascesque vigailhn, atque 
arida sarmenta, praeligantur comibas bourn, quos domitos indomitosqae 
multos inter cseteram agrestem prsedam agebat : ad duo millia ferme bourn 



816 THE FRASEEIAN PAPERS. 

effecta. Hasdmbalique negotium datum, at primis tenebris noctis armentam 
accensis cornibos ad montes ageret ; maxime, si posset, super saltus ab hoste 
insessos primis tenebris silentio motu castra ; boves aliquanto ante signa acti. 
Ubi ad radices montinm viasque angustas ventum est; signum extemplo 
datur, ut accensis comibus armenta in adversQs concitantur montes. £t 
motus ipse relucentns flammae ex capite calorque jam ad vivum ad imaqae 
romnnm adveniens, velnt stimulates furore agebat boves. Quo repente dis- 
cnrsu, baud secus quam silvis montibusque accensis, omnia circum virgulta 
ardere ; capitumque irrita quassatur excitans flammam hominnm passim dis- 
carrentum specicm prsebebant. Qui ad transitum saltus insedendum locati 
erant, ubi in summis montibus, ac super se esse rati, praesidio excessere, qua 
minime denssB micabant flammsB, velut tutissimum iter, petentes summa 
montium jtlga ; tamen in quosdam boves palatos a snis gregibus inciderunt 
Et primo, quum procul cemerent, veluti flammas spirantium miracula attoni- 
ti constiterunt ; deinde ut humana apparuit fraus ; tum vero insidias rati es^e, 
dum majore metu concitant se in fugam," &c. &c. 

We subjoin the translation of Baker : — 

" He devised a stratagem for baffling the enemy bj a deception calculated 
to inspire terror ; and resolved to set out secretly in the beginning of the 
night, and proceed toward the mountains. The means which he contrived 
for the execution of his plan of deception were these : Collecting combusti- 
ble matters from all the country round, he caused bundles of rods and dry 
twiggs to be tied fast on the horns of oxen, great numbers of wliich, trained 
and untrained, he drove along with him, among the other spoil taken in the 
country ; and he made up the number of almost two thousand. He then 
gave in charge to Hasdrubal, that, as soon as the darkness of the night came 
on, he should drive this numerous herd, after first setting lire to their horns, 
up the mountains, and particularly, if he found it practicable, over the pas- 
ses where the enemy kept guard. As soon as it grew dark, the army de- 
camped in silence, driving the oxen at some distance before the van. When 
they arrived at the foot of the mountains, and the narrow roads, the signal 
was instantly given that the fire should be set to the horns of the oxen, and 
that they should be driven violently up the mountains in front ; when their 
own fright, occasioned by the flames blazing on their heads, together with 
the heat, which soon penetrated to the quick, and to the roots of their horns, 
drove them on as if goaded by madness. By their spreading about in this 
manner, all the bushes were quickly in a blaze, just as if fire had been set to 
the woods and mountains ; and the fruitless tossing of their heads serving to 
increase the flames, they afforded an appearance as of men running up and 
down on every side. The troops stationed to guard the passage of the defiles, 
seeing several fires on the tops of the mountains over their heads, concluded 
that they ifere surrounded, an-d quitted their post, taking the way, as the 
safest course, toward the summits of the mountains, where they saw the few- 
est fii-es blazing. Here they fell in with several of the oxen, which had scat- 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP GUNPOWDER, 81t 

tered from the herds to which Ihey belonged. At first, when thpy saw them 
at a distance, imagining that they breathed out flames, they halted in utter 
astonishment at the miraculous appearance ; but afterwards, when they dis- 
covered that it was an imposition of human contrivance, being then con- 
vinced that they were ensnfti*ed by the enemy, they hastily, with redoubled 
terror, betook themselves to flight." 

In this case the Roman historian has the advantage of being 
corroborated by Polybius, and, of course, by all the Latin authori- 
ties. Silius Italicus commemorates the stratagem in the seventh 
book of his Funics, Afler describing Hannibal as hemmed in 
by rocks and marshes, and incapable of escaping, while his army 
is in danger of perishing by famine, Silius makes him rise 
by night, and communicate to his brother Mago his plan of 
frightening away the Roman guardians of the pass ; which is thus 
accomplished : — 

" Bapida jam subdita peste 
Virgulta atque altis surgnnt e comibus ignes. 
Hie vero ut, gliscente malo et quassantibus segra 
Armentia capita, adjutse pinguescere flammffi 
CcEpere, et vincens fumos erumpere vertex ; 
Per colles dumosque (lues agitatra), per altos 
Saxosi scopulos montes, lymphata feruntur 
Corpora anhela boum, atque, obsessis naribus igni 
LucCantur frustra rabidi mugire juvenci. 
Per juga, per valles, errat Vulcania pestis, 
Nusquam stante malo ; vicinaque litora fulgent : 
Quam raulta, affixus coelo, sub nocte serena, 
Fiuctibus e mediis sulcator navita ponti 
Astra videt ; quam multa videt, fervoribus atris 
Cum Calabros urunt ad pinguia pabula saltus 
Vertico Gargani residens incendia pastor. 
At facie subita volitantum montibus altis 
Flammarum, quis tunc cecidit custodia sorti 
Horrere, atque ipsos^ nullo spargente, vagari 
Credere, et indomitus pasci sub coUibus, ignos, 
Coelone exciderint, et magna fulmina dextra 
^ Toeserit Omnipotens, an csecis rupta cavemis 

Fuderit egestas accenso sulfure flammas 
Infelix tellus, media in formidine quserunt. 
Jamque abeunt : faucesque vi» citus occupat armis 
Pcenus, et in patulos exsultans emicat agros." 

Thus translated by Thos. Ross ; — 



818 THE VSLASEBIAS PAPERS. 

" Tben to the boughs the fire applied : 
From their larg*i horns the flames aspiring nee 
The mischief in an in>tant greater grows. 
And th' oxen sliakiug their tormented heads. 
Fan ont a Pyramis of Fire, that spreads 
Its basis laigelr, and o'er conrsed the smoke. 
The bea«ts, affrighted, throagfa the forests broke ; 
Then o'er the hills and rocky mountains fl j 
As they were mad ; and as their nostrils bj 
The flames besieged are, they labor oft 
In vain to bellow. While o'er cliffs aloft, 
Throngh valle^-s, Vnlcan wanders, and ne'er stands 
At all, but shining on the neighboring sands, 
As manifold appears, as when at sea, 
In a clear night, the mariners survey 
Innumerable stars. Or when upon 
Garganus' top, a shepherd sitting down. 
Beneath him sees Calabrian forests bum. 
Which husbandmen to fertile pastures turn. 
O'er all the hills the flames with such a face 
Appear to fly ; and they whose chance it was 
To be the guard, believed they wandering fled. 
None scattering them, and that they furious fed 
Within the hills. Some thought that Jove had thrown 
From his incensed hand his thunder down ; 
Others that kindled sulphur gave them birth. 
And from her secret caves th' unhappy earth. 
Condemned to greater ruins, throw the fire." 

The story is told by all the historians, in short, and it reflects 
px^at cn^dit on the sagacity of Fabius and the valor of his sol- 
diers. Folarti, who, to do him justice, scarcely conceals his con- 
tempt of the Cunctator — perhaps the most undeservedly lauded 
gi^ncral who had over the command of an army — says, very 
truly, that the honor of the exploit belongs altogether to the oxen. 
"Now, may we not save the renown of the steady legionaries, by 
8upposing them incapable of being frightened by a herd of cows, 
no matter how awfully garnished with firebrands? That they 
might have Ihhmi terrified at first is not improbable ; but it will 
not nniound to their credit if, as Livius relates it, they stood 
(cofifthfenint) while they thought the appearances preternatural, 
and ran off [H*ll-mell, in flight, the moment they discovered that 
it was nothing more than a mere human stratagem. Such regi- 



% 

DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OF GUNPOWDER? 819 

ments as these ought to have been decimated, as no doubt they 
would have been if this account of their conduct be true ; and 
yet we hear of no punishment inflicted ; on the contrary, we find 
those craven soldiers, a page or two further on, clamorous for war, 
and not showing anylnarks of shame for this panic abandonment 
of their post. 

We shall consult their fame better, if we again call in the aid 
of gunpowder. If these dreadful flames were rockets, there is no 
disgrace attached to the Romans. Even the French soldiers, 
trained as they were to the use of firearms, and long exposed to 
their action, quailed, at Waterloo, before the then newly-invented 
Congreve rockets. The bulls might have been beaten off*, but 
how oppose an enemy so strange, so wonderful, so terror-striking, 
and so irresistible, as these wandering and erratic projectiles? 
The volitantes flammce, the indomiti ignes, nullo spargente vagari" 
tes, the errans Vulcania pestis, compared to an outburst of flame 
from the earth accenso sulfure, of Silius, afford no bad picture of 
a discharge of rockets. If the assailants were merely oxen, would 
not that have been discovered in sufficient time to allow of a re- 
inforcement being despatched from headquarters to drive off such 
unworthy antagonists? Fabius, indeed, was applied to, but he 
declined sending any troops, alleging as an excuse, that he would 
not undertake operations by night ; and, accordingly, he never 
stirred, while Hannibal's whole army was marching through the 
defile — an evolution which, of course, must have taken a consider- 
able time. The fact seems to be, that the old man was as much 
frightened as his soldiers, and had no notion of opposing the 
strength of such dread and unexpected arms. That he conducted 
his campaign most miserably, in spite of the puffing eulogies of 
the Roman historians' and poets, and failed in the only object he 
undertook — the stopping the onward march of Hannibal — is 
plain enough ; but, in honor of the Fabian name, we should wish 
him to have been baffled by some more noble cause of fear than 
that supplied by a herd of cattle. The story of the bulls may 
possibly have been an afterthought. The soldiers did not know 
what to make of the matter, and the roaring sound suggested the 
idea of bellowing oxen ; and that once admitted, the addition of 
the firebrands came of course. Perhaps the Carthaginian general 



320 THE FBASERIAN PAPEBS. 

spread the story in order to keep away suspicion fix>m his real 
gecret. As to Fabius's punishing his men, which under other cir- 
cumstances he would assuredly have done, that we may suppose 
was out of the queritfon, if we take for granted that the general 
himself was as much frightened and puzzled as his men, and 
thought it the best policy to say nothing about it ; and to get back 
to Borne as fast as possible, without venturing to pursue the ene- 
my, under the old pretence of being called off to attend to reh- 
gious ceremonies. Si tins, who fights hard for the glory of 
Fabius, says — 

"Hue t:mhn usque vigil processerat arte regendi 
Dictator, Trcbiam et Tasci' post stagna profundi 
Esset et Hannibale Fabium Romanaqae tela 
Evasis se satis. Quin et vestigia palsi 
Et gressus premeret castris, nisi sacra vocavent 
Ad patrios veneranda debs." 

We may remark that this vigilant dictator had let his enemy 
after being trepanned by a mere accident, not produced by any 
foresight or tactics of Fabius, slip through his fingers, and march 
away unmolested under his very nose. Nor did Hannibal escape 
from Roman weapons, because he had defied Fabius in vain to 
fight ; he escaped from a blockade in which he had to contend 
with a less manageable enemy, namely, starvation. Fabius had, 
we rather think, some other reason for not pressing upon the 
pulsus Carthaginian besides that of venerating his father's gods. 
It was a task much too dangerous for his father's son, A few lines 
lower down, his parting words to Minucius are, that though 

" Plena tibi castra, atque intactus vulnere miles 
Creditur;" 

and though he talks of his own triumph in good set terms, there 
must be no fighting : — 

" Claude oro castra, et cunctus spes eripe pugnas 

Dictator cupere arma veto." 

But there is another point stiH to be settled. As before, we 
asked where did Hannibal get the vinegar, we now must ask. 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP GUNPOWDER? 821 

Where did he get the oxen ? In Livius, the number is set down at 
two thousand, and a smaller number could not have had any thing 
like the effects attributed to them. The priQi^pal reason for Hanni- 
bal's anxiety to get out of the defile was want bf provisions. He had 
nothing to fear from Fabius in the way of fighting ; he only dreaded 
being starved, of which he was in imminent and immediate danger. 
We may take Silius's account of his position : — 



ti 



Hinc LaestrygonisB saxoso monte premebant 
A tergo rupes, undosis squalida terns : 
Hinc Litema palus : nee ferri nee militis usum 
Poscebat regio. Septos sed fraude locorum 
Arcta fames y poenas miserse exactura Sagunti, 
Urgebat ; finisque aderat Carthaginis armis." 

" Here him behind 

The lofty Laestrygonian rocks confined : 
There with its moorish guard, Lintenum was. 
No use of soldiers, or of swords the place 
Affords ; but then severest famine all 
The plague that lost Saguntum did befall, 
Exacting, then oppressed, and Fate an end 
Seemed to the arms of Carthage to intend.' 



ff 



How does this starving state of the Carthaginian commissariat 
agree with the fact of Hannibars being in possession of two 
thousand head of cattle, to say nothing of his readiness to sacrifice 
them upon an experiment ? What number ef men he had then 
with him we can not say, but it is not likely that all his array, 
was with him in the Apennines, and in\t)lved in the one disaster. 
If he had thirty thousand, the number was very large. Now, 
even if there were no other provision than the two thousand oxen, 
it would be at the rate of two oxen for every fifteen men ; and 
we humbly submit that such can not be considered tor be a starva- 
tion allowance. So far as meat is concerned, here is ample provi- 
sion for a month ; it is more than the poor-law commissioners allow 
their clients in four ; and as we may suppose that Hannibal, who 
had so liberally supplied his army with beef would not have 
wholly neglected to look after provisions of other kinds, we really 
can not see that he had any reason to complain of arcta fames. 
The two stories are, in fact, incompatible. Hannibal could not 

21 



822 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

have been pressed bj famine, if he had the oxen ; and if he had 
not the oxen, he could not have executed the stratagem as descri- 
bed bj the Roman historians. It is in the highest degree unlikely, 
that in his rapid marches he should have encumbered himself with 
so great a supi^ly. He adopted the system of perquisitions, making 
the war feed itself as he went on. Three days* provision would be 
as much as he would take with him ; and for this, among a soldiery, 
so moderate in the use of animal food as the natives of Nortli 
Africa, Spain, or the South of France, one hundred oxen would 
much more than suffice. This supply he probably had consumed 
while in the mountains ; and the part of the story which repre- 
sents him as pressed by hunger is more credible than that which 
furnishes him with a stock of two thousand oxen remaining after 
tlie consumption of iiis mtu'ch, and his forced halt in the Apen- 
nuies, and of wbich he could venture to risk the loss in an experi- 
ment upon the nerves of the legionaries of Fabius. 

In tlie book of Judges, the night attack of Gideon upon the 
Midianites (Judges, vii.) was rendered successful by his use of 
trumpets, lamps, and pitchers. 

'' 16. And lie (Gideon) divided the three hundred men into three compa* 
nies, and he i)ut a trumpet m every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and 
lamps within the pitchers. 

" 17. And ho said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise, and, behold, 
when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be, that as I do so shall 
yo do. 

** 18. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow 
ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of 
the Lord, and of Gideon. 

'* 19. So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the 
outside of the camp, in the beginning of the middle watch ; and they had but 
newly set the watch : and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers 
that were in their hands. 

'' 20. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, 
and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands, 
to blow withal : and they cried, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon- 

"21. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp : and 
all the host ran, and cried, and fled. 

•'22. And three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man's 
sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host ; and the host fled to 
Bethshittah," &c. &c. 

Eoger Bacon supposes this to be a covert description of gunpow- 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OF GUNPOWDER? 828 

der ; that the crashing pitchers in the noise, and the flashing lamps 
the blaze, of some explosive mixture. Perhaps so ; but in Gideon's 
ease the att^k is committed to the hands of men, and not to the 
heads or taib of oxen ; and the army attacked is not the long-trained 
soldiery of Eome, but the usual rabble of an Oriental host. 

** 12. And the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the children of the 
East, lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for mnltitude ; and their camels 
were without namber, as the sand by the sea-side for multitude/' 

Such an army is always liable to panics, and even without the 
aid of gunpowder might be easily surprised at the sudden noises, 
and flames, trumpet-blowings, and shoutings. If, then, there be 
any one who agrees with Roger Bacon in his interpretation of the 
means by which Gideon scattered the Midianites, he must agree 
with our theory in the far stronger case of Hannibal's scaring the 
Eoman soldiers ; and, looking upon the story of the bulls with 
some incredulity, seek for another explanation of the origin of 
these vQlitantes JlammcB, which made the Roman soldiers run in 
desperate panic, and to all appearances infused no small share 
of terror into the breast of a Roman general. 

III. BATTLE OP LAKE THRASYMENE. 

As there are no discrepancies among the historians respecting 
this battle, we shall take the account given in the notes on Ghilde 
Harold. After describing the appearance of the surrounding 
country, the annotator* proceeds to say: — 

" There is a woody eminence branching down from the mountains into the 
upper end Qf the plain, nearer to the side of Passignano ; and on this stands 
a white village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this eminence as 
the one on which Hannibal encamped, and drew out his heavy-armed Afri- 
cans and Spaniards in a conspicuous position. From this spot he despatched 
his Balearic and light-armed troops round through the Gnalandra heights to 
the right, so as to arrive unseen and from an ambush amongst the broken ac- 
clivitcs which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the lefk flank 
and above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Flaminius 
came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset; and without sending any spies 
before him, miarchei through the pass the next morning before the day had 

* The writer of the Historical Notes to Childe Harold, canto iv., was By- 
ron's friend, John Cam Hobhouse, now Lord Broughton. — ^M. 



824 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

qnito broken, so that he perceived nothing of the horse and light troops 
above and aboat him, and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front 
on the hill of Torre. The consul began to draw out his army in the flat; 
and in the meantime the horse in ambush occupied the pass behind him at 
Boighetto. Thus the Romans were completely enclosed ; having the lake 
on the right, the main army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills 
filled with the light-armed on their left flank, and being prevented from rece- 
ding by the cavalry, who, the farther they advanced, stopped up all the outlets 
in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of 
the consul ; but the high lands were in the sunshine ; and all the different corps 
in ambush looked toward the hill of Torre for the order of attack. 

" Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. 
At the same moment all his troops, on the eminences behind and in the flank 
of Flaminius, rushed forward as it were with one accord into the plain. The 
Romans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts 
of the enemy amongst them, on every side ; and before diey could fall into 
their ranks. Or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at 
once that they were surrounded and lost. 

" There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. 
The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the 
plain ; and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, 
about a quaiter of a mile farther on, is called ' the bloody rivulet;' and the 
peasants point out an open spot to the left, between the ' Sanguinetto' and 
the hills, which they say was the principal scene ef slaughter. The other 
part of the plain is covered with thick-set olive-trees in com grounds, and is 
nowhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most 
probable that the battle was fought near this end of the valley ; for the six 
thousand Romans who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the 
enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence, which must have -been in this 
quarter otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain, and to 
pierce through the main army of Hannibal. 

" The Romans fought desperately for three hours ; but the death of Flami- 
nius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then 
burst in upon the fugitives ; and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but 
chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were 
strewed with dead. Near some old walls, on a bleak ridge to the left above 
the rivulet, many human bones have been repeatedly found ; and this has 
confirmed the pretensions and the name of the * stream of blood.' " 

One remarkable incident is here omitted — the celebrated earth- 
quake mentioned by Livius, by Plinius, by Cicero pro Ccelio, and 
several others, though not by Polybius. Lord Byron dedicates a 
verse to it in his Childe Harold (canto iv. st. 63), on which the 
above-quoted note is written : — ^ 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OF QUNPOWDEB? 825 

"I roam 
By Thrasymene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore. 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files. 
And torrents, swollen to rivers with their gore. 
Reek through the sultry plain with legions scattered o'er, 

Like to a forest felled by mountain winds ; 

And such the storm of battle on this day. 

And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 

To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray. 

An earthquake reeled unheededly away 1 

None felt 0tem Nature rocking at his feet, 
■ And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 

Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet : 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet 1" 

It is somewhat odd that of this earthquake, which overthrew so 
many cities, turned the course of rivers (such is the account in 
the Latin authorities), &c. &c., we have no detail whatever, ex- 
cept that it occurred while the battle of the Lake Thrasymene was 
going on, and that such was the fury of the combatants that they 
knew nothing about it. If so, it could hardly have occurred on 
the site of the battle, or any where near it ; for an earthquake that 
rocks down cities, and turns the course of rivers, would not allow 
itself to be passed unnoticed by such feeble bodies as those of 
men, no matter how undaunted might have been their spirit. 
Had the earthquake reached the battle, it would soon have put 
an end to it without human agency. Let us once more take the 
description of Silius Italicus, B. v. 611-31 : — 

** Cum subitis per saxa fragor, motique repente 
(Horrendum !) colles, et summa cacumina, totis 
Intremuere jugis ; instant in vertice silvie 
Pinifero, fractaeque ruunt super agmina rupes. 
Immugit fremitus convulsissima cavemis 
Dissiliens telius, nee parvos rumpit hiatus : 
Atque umbras late Stygias immensa vorago 
Faucibus ostendit patulis ; Manesque profundi 
Antiquum expavere diem, lacus ater, in altos 
Sublatns montes, et sede excnssns avita. 



826 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

Lavit Tyrrhenas ignota adspergine silvas. 

Jamqae eadem popalos^magnoramqae oppida regnm 

Tempestas et dira lues stravitqae, tulitque ; 

Ac, super hasc, reflni pugnarunt montibus amnes, 

Et retro fluctus torsit mare. Monte relicto 

ApenninlcolsB fngere ad litora Fauni 

Pugnabat taroen (hcu belli vecordia!) miles, 

Jactatus totisbante solo ; tremebnndaque tela, 

Subducta tellure ruens, torquebat in hostem ; 

Donee pulsa vagos cursus ad litora vertit. 

Mentis inops, stagnisque illita est Dannis pubcs." 

This is Ross's translation : — 

" Then straight through all the rocks a sudden crash 
Doth run : the mountains all with horror shake. 
Their tops do tremble, and the grove of pines 
That crowned them, from its pleasant height declines, 
And broken quarries on the armies fall. 
Groaning, as pulled from her foundations, all 
The Earth doth quake, and breaking strangely wide 
Through the vast gulf, where Stygian shades descryed, 
And feared the day again. The troubled lake 
Raised to the highest hillj forced to forsake 
Its ancient seat and channel, with a flood 
Before unknown no^ laves the Tyrrhan wood ; 
This storm the people, and the towns of kings. 
Like a dire plague, to sad destruction brings. 
Besides all this, the rivers backward run 
And fight with mountains, and the sea begun 
To change its tydcs, the Faunes now quit the hills 
Of Apennine, and fly to floods ; i/et still 
The soldier (Oh, the ra^e of ivar!) although 
The reeling earth doth toss him to and fro, 
Fights on ; and as he falls, deceived hy 
Th' unconstant ground, throws at his enemy 
His trembling darts ; till wandering here and there. 
The Daunian youth, distracted through their fear, 
Fly to the shore and leap into the stream.' 



)> 



Is not this the description of the springing of a mine ? adorned, 
no doubt, or at least furnished, with the grand circumstances at- 
tendant upon an earthquake, but still plainly a mine — the tearing 
up of the ground, the staggering of the soldiers, the precipitat(3 
flight even into the lake — the general consternatiotr, and the route 



DID HANNIBAL KNOW THE USE OP GUNPOWDER? 827 

immediately following, are all characteristics of an explosion. Is 
there not something suspicious in the sudden fog and darkness 
shrouding the Boman army immediately before the Carthaginian 
attack ? If an earthquake happened at any time nearly contem- 
poraneous with the battle, the terrified survivors would have con- 
founded it with what they really experienced ; and, in the process 
of a generation or two, the story which we now have would be 
sufficiently concocted, and those who in reality were the only 
persons who felt the motion of the earth, would have been de- 
scribed as the only men by whom some earthquake, confounded 
with the affair of Thrasymene, was not noticed. Hannibal had 
decoyed the rash Flaminius into the narrow pass, and having 
mined it, destroyed, by springing the mine, a part of the army, 
and threw the rest into such confusion as to render them an easy 
and sudden victory to his troops, rushing down from the hills into 
the valley. This at least explains the phenomenon of the earth- 
quake, which, as it is told at present, is utterly incredible. 

This paper has spun out longer than we intended, but we can 
not conclude without drawing the attention of our military readers 
to the battle of Cannae, and ask of them to explain the manoeuvre 
by which the Regions were drawn into the wedge or crescent of 
Hannibal, and there totally destroyed ; suffering such a clades as 
never has occurred before or since, almost without resistance, and 
in an incalculably short space of time. If they do so, they will 
have done what no commentator, scholar, or soldier, has yet ac- 
complished. We refer them to Folard, who was both, and beg 
them to say how came it that the disposition of Tereptius Varro 
fkn ill-used man in history), which Folard admits to be admirable, 
was destroyed with so much ease and completeness. We can not 
here enter upon the subject, which has been the cause of endless 
controversies, but the slightest examination of the battle will be 
sufficient to convince an intelligent reader that there is something 
connected with it that has not yet been explained. 

If Hannibal knew the use of gunpowder, it may fairly be asked, 
How was the knowledge lost ? We may answer, that this ques- 
tion applies to many other things beside gunpowder. The 
knowledge of the Egyptians has vanished, and yet there is every 
reason to believe that it was equal to what has resulted from the most 



838 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

• 

celebrated of discoveries and speculations of the modems in art 
and science. The Phoenicians, of whose blood was Hannibal, 
knew many a secret in chemistry, navigation, art, and manufactures, 
gom#'*of which were only recovered in later centuries ; some, 
perhaps, are still unknown. J£ our hypothesis be correct, the 
secret was confided to none* but the highest class of engineers, and 
with the fall of Carthage it perished. Hannibal might have been 
the only man who knew how to apply it successfully as an agent 
for the purposes of war, and the occasions on which he could have 
applied it were rare. It might also have been difficult in the 
manner of operation. 

Again, it may be asked. Why did he not use fire-arms, as he 
knew the use of explosive powder ? The answer is, that what 
appears to those who have been accustomed to the use of any 
physical agent, a matter that could not have been overlooked for 
a moment, is often the result of long-pondering or fortunate acci- 
dent All the world knew the nature of steam from the days 
that water was boiled. Centuries elapsed before it was applied to 
a steam-engine. In our own times, men, now alive, remember that 
the idea of a steamboat was looked upon as chimerical. If any 
one asserted, twenty years ago,* that a steamer would ever cross 
the Atlantic, he would have been voted mad. Less than a 
dozen years since, who would have thought that steam-carriages 
would be traversing England, sometimes at the rate of fifty or 
sixty miles an hour I In like manner Hannibal might have 
known, that a combination of charcoal with nitre and sulphur was 
explosive, and applied them to the purposes of blasting, mining, 
or rocket-making, without it ever having occurred to him that it 
might, by being confined in iron tubes, rammed down and let off^ 
convey those messengers of death which have so completely 
changed the face of warfare, and produced such important effects 
upon the course of civilization. 

* This was written in 1838.— M. 



MB. ORAirrLET BERKiXJBT AND HIS NOVEL. 829 



MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL.* 

There is a set of persons in London, who most particularly 
pique themselves on being men of elegance, wit, and refinement, 
and who are continually declaiming against people who are not 
gentlemen.f Their set, and their manners, and their ideas, are to 

* Berkeley Castle, a Historical Romance, by the Hon. Grantley F. Berke- 
ley, M. P. 3 vols. Bentley. London, 1836. 

t It may be as well to state, at the commencement, that this article — ex- 
tremely personal against the Hon. Grantlej Berkeley — had several serioas 
results. Mr. Berkeley, one of the legitimate brothers of the Earl of Berkeley 
(a clergyman, who has never claimed the title, nor ever taken his seat in the 
House of Lords) and of Earl Fitzhardinge — better known, first, as the noto- 
rious Colonel Berkeley, seducer of Maria Foote, the actress, now Dowager 
Countess of Harrington, and then as having been made Lord Segrave by the 
Grey Ministry — sat in the House of Commons for about twenty years, as 
Member for West Gloucestershire. He owed his seat to Lord Fitzhardinge, 
his brother, who possessed large estates in and was Lord Lieutenant of the 
county of Gloucester, and was accustomed to make his tenants vote, not as 
theif wished, but as he desired. At the general election of 1852, Mr. Berke- 
ley was defeated, after a severe contest. The first effect of this critique on 
the romance called ** Berkeley Castle," was to make Mr. Berkeley, the au- 
thor, greatly enraged. The second was to make him, a powerful and strong 
man, commit an assault on Mr. Eraser, the publisher, which caused his 
death, some time after. Thirdly, it led to a suit-at-law (Eraser v. Berkeley) 
for this assault, the verdict being £100 and costs against Berkeley. Fourthly, 
it led Dr. Maginn to avow the authorship of the article. Fifthly, it caused 
Berkeley to challenge Maginn, which, being accepted, the parties went out 
and exchanged three shots. Sixthly, it made Lord Euston (who succeeded to 
the Dukedom of Grafton, in 1842) demand "an explanation" from Mr. 
Maginn, in consequence of an allusion to Lady Euston. Lastly, the whole 
circumstances of the case, thus involved, were sufficiently important, on pub- 
lic grounds, to justify Maginn's writing that strong article^ to which he sub- 
scribed his name, with which the present volume concludes. — M. 



880 THE FBA8EBIAN PAPEBS. 

form all that is worthy of imitation in this world. They can talk 
— and some of them talk pretty well too — of horses, and car- 
riages, and operas, and parks, and the last parties, and so forth ; 
and their own sayings are recorded among themselves as miracles 
of talent and genius. Their boots and their hats, and all tailorly 
ingredients of appearance occurring in the intermediate space be- 
tween these zeniths and nadirs of attire, are irreproachable, or at 
least they deem them so; and their conversation is lauded by 
themselves as the summit of perfection. We think that these 
persons should be contented with such trophies, without wander- 
ing out of the dignified and high-minded sphere in which they are 
won. If they consulted their own interest, they would certainly 
take our advice. But fate is imperious ; and it often drives men 
to show the utter futility of their pretensions. We do not know 
one of these fellows who, when he comes forward from the circle 
in which he is a " gentlemanly man," does not prove himself to be 
a blockhead, and something worse. When he takes a pen in his 
hand, he not only displays a dire ignorance and stupidity, but, in 
nine cases out of- ten, an utter meanness of thought and manners, 
and a crawling vulgarity of soul. 

This may seem paradoxical. People may say, here is a man 
brilliant at a dinner-table — elegant at a soiree — dressed after by 
the men — run after by the women — and why should it be that 
he is a leper, wretched of heart and lowlied of thought. It is the 
fact, nevertheless ; and the paradox, after all, exists only in ap- 
pearance. These people know nothing beyond the conventional 
slang of society ; but as the society in which they move is of that 
rank which will always command the attention, and ought always 
to command the respect, of other classes, what they say and do is 
matter of wonder to the tuft-hunter, and, we admit, fairly a matter 
of curiosity to those who, like the ladies in the Vicar of Wakefield^ 
love to tell about dukes and lords, and knights of the garter. But 
slang is slang, no matter how disguised, or to what purposes used. 
The slang of the gilded cornices of St. James's is not in essence 
one whit more dignified than the slang spoken over the beer-washed 
tables of St. Giles's. He who is possessed of a perfect knowledge 
of the tone current in Buckeridge Street, would outshine the cle- 
verest master of the art who had not dwelt amid the select circle 



MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL. 881 

of that interesting locality. Ask this star of Hibernian emigra- 
tion to write, or to dictate (if he has not acquired the art of wri- 
ting), the results of his long experience in the style and manners 
of the region which he adorns, and you will find that he breaks 
down. The jest is lost unless he prints his face. Pierce Egan, 
or Jon Bee, or even Edward Bulwer* — but above all, Boz — 
Boz the magnificent (what a pity it is that he deludes himself into 
the absurd idea that he can be a Whig ! Mr. Pickwick was a 
Whig, and that was only right ; but Boz is just as much a Whig 
as he is a giraffe) — any of these authors — thou, too, among the 
rest, Vincent Dowling, whom we shall no longer call the venerable 
Vincent,t since if gave pain and sorrow to thy most pugilistic 
soul — would in half an hour extract all that the most celebrated 
hero of the Rookery had invented, thought, and devised, during 
the whole current of his life. 

So in the case of the other saint, the patron of Spain, St. James. 
The chatterers and praters there have nothing in them. We for- 
get what is the exact distich J of Pope, describing the conversation 

* Pierce Egan, the historian of the Prize Ring, who — from 1815 to 1830 
— was considered the best authority in England on sporting matters. His 
" Boxiana" is a scarce and standard work. Jon Bee was a contemporary 
" seeing-the-elephant" writer, of less weight, whose chief work was a Slang 
Dictionary. Bulwer was pressed in, to complete the trio, by virtue of his 
exhibition of slang in " Pelham," " Paul Clifford," and " Eugene Aram."— M. 

t Vincent Dowling, for over thirty years editor of " Bell's Life in London," 
the best sporting paper in London, died some three years ago, at an advanced 
age. He had previously been mentioned, in Fraser, as ** The Venerable Vin- 
cent," and, seriously offended at the imputation, gravely remonstrated against 
the applic-ation of the adjective to his proper person. — M. 

X Distich.] We greatly admire Mr. Grantley Berkeley's opinion of the 
meaning of this word. Of course, as he writes a historical romance in the 
manner of Sir Walter Scott, he must have legends, and prophesies, and mys- 
tic rhymes. How Sir Walter manages these matters it is now somewhitt 
useless to say — for we rather apprehend that our readers know as much 
about it as ourselves. How Mr. G. B. makes use of them will be seen from 
the following charming effusion : 

" * Lord Lisle and his party came hither to dine, 

But Berkeley hath chased them from venison and wine, 
And lest a live witness a lie should record. 
Here hangeth a dead one to stick by his word.' 
"After laughing heartily at the attempt, Sir Maurice added, *By my faith 



882 THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

of thB party at the Ec^e of the Loch ; but it is something hke 

this : — 

" la yarioas talk the instructive hoars they passed. 
Who gave the hall or had the party last." 

But we shall not go on attempting to quote from memory one of 
the nicest pieces of ornamented verse ever written, for, undoubt- 
edly, we shall spoil it if we make the attempt ; but we remember 
that the poet sums up his opinion of the style of such conversation 
by describitig it as " all that'* — which is, indeed, sufficiently ex- 
pressive of its merits. The men, or things, who shine in this sort 
of work, can do no more than the hodman jester of St. Giles's, to 
whom we have already alluded. If nature had ever bestowed 
upon them brains — a fact very much open to dispute — those 
brains are always wasted by the frivolities in which they constantly 
engage, and the silly talk which forms the staple of their existence. 
But we shall go further. There are gentlemen among them, no 
doubt ; but the trading practitioners of the p^fty are any thing but 
gentlemen. K we wished to speak harshly, we should say that 
they were in general the shabbiest of mankind, constantly occu- 
pied in mean arts of raising money, of defrauding creditors, of. 
keeping up appearances by the most griping and pinching penury 
and wretchedness where no appearance is to be made — bragging 
and boasting of conquests never made — hectoring and bullying 
when they think it safe so to do — tame and quiet enough where 
they think that sixpence is to be had, or a kicking to be antici- 
pated — swelling and turkey-cocklike as Pistol himself to inferiors 
— cool and impertinent to all who do not belong to their own 
coterie — and servile and booing to those from whom they may 
expect a place or a dinner — such are the characteristics of the 
club-haunting gang, and such do they display in full relief when- 
ever they are so far left to themselves as to write a book. 

Here is Berkeley Castle lying on the table before us. In the 
first place, what awfully bad taste it is in Mr. Grantley Berkeley 

I doubt much whether the party we have so lately discomfited will return to 
profit by thy distich.' " 

Mr. Grantley Berkeley is under what Peter Robinson would call a consid- 
erable offuscation of ideas as to the precise meaninj^ of Sianxos; and for 
"distich" we recommend him henceforward to read "fiddlestick." 



MR. ORANTLEY BEBEELET AND HIS NOYEL. 888 

to write a book with such a title. What would be thought of Lord 
Prudhoe,* if he were to sit down and give us a book upon Alnwick ? 
We should say it was very absurd indeed. And yet there is no 
blot on the scutcheon of the Percys, and their family played a 
most distinguished part in all the transactions of war and peace 
throughout England, " since Norman William came." We should 
think, nevertheless, that Lord Prudhoe might have left the narra- 
tive to somebody else. But, in the present case, how absolutely 
disgusting is the conduct of Mr. Grantley Berkeley. . He should 
have been among the last people in the world to call public atten- 
tion to the history of his house.f Why, may we ask him, is his 
eldest brother pitchforked into the House of Lords by the title of 
Lord Segrave ? Why does not he sit there as Earl of Berkeley ? 
We are far from being desirous to insult, as the paltry author of this 
bookrdoes, the character of woman ; but when matters are recorded 
in solenm judgments, there can be no indelicacy in stating that 
Mr. Grantley Berkeley's mother lived with Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley's father as his mistress, and that she had at least one child be- 
fore she could induce the old and very stupid lord to marry iter. 
All this is set down in the journals of the House of Lords.J Why, 
then, under such ch'cumstances, bore us with long panegyrics upon 
the purity, antiquity, and nobility of the Berkeley blood ? Why tor- 
ment us with a book vilely written, without any other end, object, 
or aim, but to prove that the Lord of Berkeley was a great man 
once upon a time ; and that if there was a Lord of Berkeley now 
who could prpve that he was legitimate, he would be a great man 
again. K the author were a man of the slightest spirit, of the 
smallest approach to the character of a true — mind, not of a club 
— gentleman, he would have absolutely shuddered at writing the 

* Lord Prudhoe was cousin to the late Duke of Northumberland (whose. 
Alnwick Castle has been immortalized by Halieck), and succeeded to thii^ 
dukedom and estates in 1847. Under the Derby-Disraeli Ministry, in 1852, 
he was First Lord of the Admiralty. — M. 

t What Maginn calls " a history of his house/' as far as the present mem- 
bers of the Berkeley family are concerned, will be found, in a note, at the 
close of this article. — M. 

} The whole case was developed, in evidence before the House of Lords, in 
1811, and ended in the decision that the six eldest sons of the late Earl of 
Berkeley, were not bom " in lawful wedlock." — M. 



384 THE FBASERIAN PAPERS. 

following sentence : " It was believed, (thougli lie never avowed 
it) that he had held a command in the regiment raised hy my 
grandfather in forty -five" ! 

By my grandfather ! Every body, we suppose, has two grand- 
fathers ; and we take for granted that this great lover, admirer, 
and adorer of women, would prefer his maternal to his paJtemd 
grandfather. By my grandfather / Truly, his maternal grand- 
father was a man of blood, who wielded steel and axe.* He was, 
in short, a butcher in the market of Gloucester, or some adjoining 
town, who sold mutton-chops, and other such conmiodities, to all 
that would buy, and had the honor of being parent in the second 
degree of the illustrious author of Berkeley Castle. By my grandr 
father ! What impudence ! 

Of the Berkeley family in general it may be said, that not one 
, of them was in the slightest degree distinguished. They cannot, 
indeed, date from the flood, and their most antique title is some- 
what blemished by the addition of " Fitz ;"t but their blood has 
crept through the channels mentioned by Pope as long as they are 
known. We shall not go farther than this very stupid book be- 
fore us. We shall not unravel the documents which its learned 
author says are preserved ^' apud Castro de Berkeley." [The 
Latin schoolmaster, at least, is not abroad.] We take the goods 
the donkey provides us. He fixes his tale in the days of the 
wars of the Roses ; and in that war, when all the honorable or the 
hot blood of England was up— when the flowers in the Temple 
gardens set every bosom that had courage or noble bearing within 
its keeping in a flame — in those days the Berkeleys were distin- 
guished only for caiTying on a lawsuit among themselves ; and 
skulking, like cowards, from the field, to appear as beggars before 
whatever faction ruled the Court. They were " beating smooth 
the pavements between Temple Bar and Westminster Hall" 
while York and Lancaster fought for the throne of England ; and 

* Grantley Berkeley was not one of the six sons, pronounced illegitimate 
by the House of Lords. He was bom afier his mother's marriage, and there- 
fore was entitled to the prefix of " The Honorable." His maternal grand- 
fatljer was a butcher. — M. 

t The prefix of the Norman " Fitz" to any surname (such as Fitz-Roy or 
Fitz-Clarence) indicates illegitimate birth, either remote or near. When it is 
placed before a Christian name, it hints at personal illegitimacy. — M. 



MB. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL. 335 

here we have a descendant of theirs writing a book about the days 
of those spirit-stirring and gallant wars, in which he describes the 
great men of his lineage lying quiet in their halls, locked up for 
fear of bailiffs — a dread which, we rather imagine, has extended 
to some of their posterity — and actually has the impudence to put 
into the mouth of such a skulking laggard as the last. Lord Berke- 
ley of his line, some impertinent observations upon the king-maker, 
which " renowned Warwick" would have most liberally recom- 
pensed hj a kick. In fact, we do not recollect any thing in our 
history about the Berkeleys, except that one of them was consi- 
dered the proper jailor for Edward IT. ; and that another, if Horace 
Walpole is to be credited, proposed to George I. to kidnap his 
son, when Prince of Wales. Of honorable actions, we do not at 
the present writing remember any thing. 

As for the book, it is trash. There is not the shadow of a story 
in it. We defy Grantley Berkeley himself to make out the skel- 
eton of the tale so as to occupy twenty of our lines. He has no 
knowledge, either literary or antiquarian. For example, he calls 
Drayton, twice, Michael Drayc?on (vol. i. pp. 30, 31) ; he makes 
a groom read our authorized translation of the Bible in 1468 (vol. 
ii. p. 172), before printing had reached England,* and when not 
one man in a hundred, out of the learned professions, could read 
at all, and when any Bible but the Vulgate (and that hard to be 
pronounced) was a sealed book ; he gives us a transcript of a ser- 
vant maid's letter, temp. Hen. VL, as thus : — 

" Other folks does not know it, but there is one there as knows the length 
of his foot, which he may be proud on, as good right he has to do. I wish 
to give him notice that the watches is to be doubled and set every night, as 
from marks about the wall they knows as some one must have gotten over. 
Should her as you knows on need assistance, there shall be a white flag show 
himself up at top of Nibley Knowl, when them as loves her may make in. So 
now no more from one — 



tt 



As is not so bad as they supposes." 



* The first printed book in the English language was Caxton's translation 
of a French work, which he entitled the " Recuyell of the History of Troye, 
by Raoul le Feure," printed by him, at Cologne, in 1471. Not until 1474, did 
he produce, from his press at Westminster Abbey, the " Game and Play of 
the Chesse," which was the first typographical work printed in England. — M. 



836 THE FBASEBIAK PAPEBS. 

He imagines that the Highlanders came to the southwest of 
England, as friendly guests, in the fifteenth century. He makes 
one of them talk in such language as this, long before even Gawain 
Douglas's time : — 

" Some days after this, Lord Berkeley, who set his face against all jokes, 
whether practic&l or not, desiring to make Sir Andrew acquainted with the 
fertility of his estates in comparison with those of the Highlands, took him to 
Slimbridge, and showed him also the rich meadows lying along the banks of 
the Severn ; concluding his illustration of their capability vdth the remark, 
that were he, a month later in the year, and over-night, to stick his riding- 
wand in the grass where he then stood, the growth of the herbage and luxu- 
riant vegetation was so great, that he would not be able to find it on the fol- 
lowing morning. 

" ' Conscience, my lord,' said Sir Andrew, as usual, who made it a rule 
never absolutely to contradict any thing, ' but there my puir Hieland estate 
wad match ye in ferteelity. By my saul, were ye to tether your beast' (point- 
ing to the great white war-horse which Lord Berkeley had been riding) 'on 
the hillside just afore sunset, and be ever sae preceese as to the exact spot, 
*t wad be a muckle chance if ever ye set ees on him again/ " 

Now, this patois is lowland Scotch, and very indifferently exe- 
c?Dted lowland Scotch, of the present century. To those who know 
any thing about it, the Highlander of the days of Henry the 
Sixth spoke Gaelic, and in the present day speaks nothing like 
the dialect here crammed into his mouth. He (Mr. G. B., we 
mean) takes it for granted that the kilt was the ordinary dress for 
Highlanders in those days, and actually sends a man so arrayed 
to fight against a man at arms ! He is so careful of the color of 
his conversation, as to make his characters at one time speak in 
this style : — 



« t 



' Dress !' quoth Watts with emphasis, setting down the iron bit about 
which he had been engaged, and looking full into Will's face — 'What has 
the like of she to do with flams and finery — she never looked so well as she 
used to do in her plain stuffs gown and a cowslip in her bosom. Now, for- 
sooth, naught but silk and satin please her; instead of, * Ingram, help me to 
this,' it *8, ' Mr. Watts, be good enough to wash your hands, and step this 
way.' You admire her dress, do you ! umph, ' the crow thinks his own bird 
the fairest' * 

" And again he set to work rubbing the rusty bit as if he had not an hour 
to live. 

•' *But,* rejoined Will, 'why, my friend, should she not set off her person 
tc the best advantage ? I have heard that some one's groom, not far hence. 



MB. GRANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL. 887 

nsed to admire her, and that she received from Wotton fair, the gayest gown 
the place could boast/ 

'' ' Thou hast heard — and what signifies it what such a hair-brained gowk 
as a forest-archer either hears or sees. I tell thee when folks — when girls — 
dress above their station in life, it is an outward mark of contempt for the 
males that should match them, and but as a sign held out over the door of an 
inn, or hostlery, that there is good entertainment for their betters. Why 
thou, in thy generation of wisdom, thinkest that thou art down upon me ; but, 
to speak in thine own terms of woodcraft, there 's a better buck than thou art 
at the head of the herd ; and the white doe minds thee no more than the flies 
that tease her ears.' " 

And again to introduce the same speakers, favoring us with such 
bits as this : — 

" * Bless ye, zir,' was his reply, * I could not plat like that. 'T was my 
young lady as did do 't, the evening afore her did go ; all the time speaking 
to, kissing, and patting the poor dumb animal — my heart — as if he had 
been a Christian soul.' 

" I left; the stall for a seat on the corn-bin, or I could not have gone on with 
my examination. 

" * And tell me, Watts, did Miss Isabel take her dog with her V 

" * I suppose, so, zir, as a an't left behind.' 

" 'Did Annette go with her 1* 

" * It's likely, zir, as she an't in the house.' 

** * How did they go — what was their conveyance, and when did they leave 
the place V 

" * They had horses, zir, and they left last night.* 

" * How many were there of the party V 

" * It were dark, zir, and I did not just zee.' " 

Language, similarly refined, is put into the mouth of the person 
to whom he applies, while he, in a dozen places, calls the soubri- 
quet (and we suppose the man pretends he can talk French, or 
knows something about it) of Blackhill — . But it is idle to break 
such a cockroach as this upon the wheel. In every thing the 
novel is stupid, ignorant, vulgar, and contemptible ; and will be 
forgotten, before our pages appear, by that fragment of the read- 
ing public by which it was ever known. 

One thing, however, we must make a few remarks upon. The 
pseudo-aristocratical impertinence which makes the author take it 
for granted that his hero should resign the pledged mistress of his 
soul, because his superior fell in love with her, we may pass by 
with nothing more than the contemptuous remark, that it must 

22 



338 THE FRASRRTAN PAPERS. 

lesd to the condasion, that the man who fonned such a concep- 
tion wouki be ready to do so himself, and to fetch and carry let- 
ters, frame associations, lie and pimp, under any circumstances, 
with as much alacrity as the cherished model of his brain — if one 
by whom he could make any thing — commanded it What Her- 
bert Reardon, described as being deeply in love with Isabel Mead, 
did in furthering, in the manner of Sir Pandarus of Troy, the 
passion of Sir Maurice for the aforesaid Isabel, we have no doubt 
that Mr. Grantley Berkeley knows, or supposes that he knows, a 
person who would do. All the women in this dull book are more 
or less tainted. It looks to be the production of a man who has 
never kept company, at least habitually, with ladies of soul. Take 
the following passage : — 

" Though by disposition easily accessible to the charms of beauty, and to 
a great degree imbued with a romantic nature, still I never sought her con- 
fidence purposely for a mere personal gratification, or to gain an ascendency 
over the mind, in order that I might then control and direct her actions. No, 
it was not this desire that instigated me ; but there was a something so re- 
fined in the female idea ; so vividly brilliant in the situations iii which man 
may be placed in the society of woman ; and so much delightful danger, if it 
may be thus called, in the mutual confidence of the young and ardent of oppo- 
site sexes, whose undisguised friendship ever trembles on the verge of love, 
which, after all, is but another name ; that, time sSter time, I have found my- 
self, and often almost involuntarily, attracted to explore the mind, and elicit 
the jewel from each fair casket which chance has thrown in my way. That 
I have been deceived in many instances, and that some few of my experi- 
ments have brought me into situations the taking advantage of which it was 
not in human nature to forego, matters not now." 

There are some dozen passages of the same kind, and all evident- 
ly pointing to Mr. Grantley Berkeley's personal experiences. Now, 
that he has the mind or the talent to " elicit the jewel," as he most 
stupidly phrases it, from the mind of any woman worth the affec- 
tion of a man of taste, honor, or intellect, this novel of Berkeley 
Castle is quite enough to prove. But that he may have sometimes 
ventured to ascend from the servant-maids, by whose conduct and 
feelings he estimates those of all the female race, and to offer his 
foul-smelling incense to women above that condition, is possible 
enough. We shall, however, venture to lay any odds, that when 
the lady, for whatever reason, wished to make no noise upon the 



HB. 6BANTLEY BERKELEY AND HIS NOVEL. 839 

subject, be was rung out, and when a gentleman was appealed to, 
be, the author of Berkeley Castle, was kicked out. It is quite 
time that these bestialities toward the ladies of England should be 
flung forth from our literature. 

What, after such a declaration, are we to think of the dedication. 
Here it is in all its length, breadth, and thickness : — 

"DEDICATION 

TO THB 

COUNTESS OF EUSTON. 

" In the dedication of these volumes, the Aathor has the deepest gratificar 
tion, not from any idea of their value, for of that he is diffident, but merely in 
the opportunity of proving his feelings for one whom he hath ever regarded 
with affection. 

" As they are the first from -his hand of this particular description which 
have sought the public praise, so has he naturally the greater anxiety for 
their success ; and though, at some future time, he may produce a book more 
worthy of acceptance, still, he never can one in the fate of which he will be 
80 thoroughly interested." 

The horridly vulgar and ungrammatical writing of this dedica- 
tion is of no consequence — it is just as good as the rest of the 
book. But does the man, in writing to the Countess of Euston, 
that she is one " whom he hath (hath !) ever regarded with affec- 
tion," mean to insinuate that he was ever placed in a position to be 
able to use, without the most absurd impertinence, the following quiy- 
miitions from his work : that his " undisguised friendship trembled on 
the verge of love," and that " taking advantage of certain situations 
is not in human nature to forego ?" It is a downright affront ! 
They call Lord Euston the thin piece of parliament — could he 
not borrow a horsewhip ? We assure him he might exercise it 
with perfect security. 

In the midst of all this looseness and dirt, we have great out- 
bursts of piety in a style of the most impassioned cast. Coupling 
this with the general tendency of the book, we are irresistibly re- 
minded of Foote's Mother Cole. Perhaps Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley derives his representation, as well as his birth, from another 
Mrs. Cole.* At all events, this book puts an end to his puppy ap- 

* Mary Cole was the maiden name of Mr. Grantley Berkeley's mother. — ^M. 



MO THE FBASEBIAN PAPERS. 

pearance any longer in literature, as the next dissolution will put 
an end to his nonsensical appearance in Parliament. Berkeley Cas- 
tle in conception is the most impertinent, as in execution it is 
about the stupidest it has ever been our misfortune to read. It is 
also quite decisive of the character of the author as a ^^ gentleman.'' 



As the Berkeley family-affairs are matter of notoriety — not less from the 
exposure before the House of Lords, than from the above article, and the 
events which it produced — it is fitting that some inkling of them be given heie. 

When the late Earl of Berkeley died in 1810, his eldest son, then sitting in 
the House of Commons, by the courtesy title of Viscount Dursley, sent in 
the usual petition to the Crown, to issue a writ of summons to him as Earl 
of Berkeley. Doubts arose- as to whether this petitioner (the present Earl 
Fitzhardinge) had been bom in wedlock, and his claim to a seat among the 
Peers was referred to the House of Lords, who investigated the matter, and 
decided that he had not made good his claim. On this, '' Viscount Durs- 
ley" sank down into plain Colonel Berkeley, and was known as such until 
the Whig ]^Iinistry ennobled him — calling him to the Upper House in Sep- 
tember, 1831, as Baron Scgrave, and making him Earl Fitzhardinge in 
August, 1841. The " Berkeley Peerage" case^ heard in 1811, excited great 
interest in the public mind, and here are its leading points : — 

One Mary Cole, the daughter of a butcher near Gloucester, came to Lon- 
don, in 1783, on her father's death, to live with her sister Susan, who soon 
obtained the '* proiei'iion" of several gentlemen of fortune. Soon after, Mary 
Cole went into service, at the yearly wages of £6, but speedily returned to 
lier siiiter. After a vear or two she returned to Gloucester, and there attracted 
attention by her dress, her good looks, and her manner of exhibiting them. 
She gained the admiration of several gallants, and, among othtrs, of Lord 
Berkeley, with whom she went to live, and by whom, in December, 1786, f^e 
had her first child, the present Earl Fitzhardinjije. She had five other chil- 
dren by Lord Berkeley, and the six were baptized and registered as " the 
illegitimate children of Augustus Frederick Berkeley, by Mary Cole." All 
this time, this fair frailty lived with him, bearing the name of Miss Tudor. 
She constantly solicited him to marry her, and in 1796, when her eldest son 
was in his tenth year, Mary Cole and the Earl of Berkeley were mamed at 
St. Marj'^s, Lambeth. But this did not satisfy her. There sprung up the 
desire to have her eldest illegitimate son an Earl, and to obtain the rank of 
Earl's sons and daughters for the rest of her pre-wedlock children. Her way 
to do this, was by legitimatizing these children, and the only way in which this 
could be effected was by getting up pretended and forged proofs of her having 
been married to Lord Berkeley in 1785, eleven years before the real marriage 
at Lambeth, and previous also, to the birth of her first child. She obtained 
possession of the registers of Berkeley Church, and introduced an entry of her 
marriage with Lord Berkeley, purporting to be dated in ^larch, 1785, to have 



MR. GRAOTLEY BERKELEY AND fflS NOVEL. 341 

been made by a deceased clergyman, and to be signed by her own brother 
(one Bill Cole, who signed " William Tudor," and was aged only 15), and 
signed also by a man ." who really never had existed." The brother swore that 
he had heard the banns published in the church (being the only one of a largo 
congregation who did so hear !), and that he had seen the marriage ceremony 
performed. Some others swore that they had even heard Lord Berkeley 
mention the marriage in 1785, a^a thing which there was no necessity for 
concealing, though the defence of its concealment was, that Lord Berkeley, 
because of the bad character of Mary Cole's sister, would not avow it. 

Against all this, was proof that, until after the marriage at Lambeth, he 
and Mary Cole lived together avowedly as " protector" and " mistress"-^ that 
she was never spoken of, but as Miss Tudor — that once, when a servant 
spoke of her as the " Countess" he was reproved by the Earl — and that, 
during the first eleven years of their connexion (in which time their six chil- 
dren were baptized and registered as '' illegitimate") she was excluded from 
all respectable female society. 

From his birth, in December, 1786, until the marriage, in May, 1796, Earl 
Fitzhardinge was invariably treated as an illegitimate child. His mother, 
when married, insisted on his assuming the courtesy-title of Viscount Durs- 
ley, which alone could be legally borne by Thomas Morton Fitzhardinge 
Berkeley, bom in October, 1796, after the marriage, and therefore the legal 
heir to his father's rank. This son, who survives, declines assuming the 
title of Earl of Berkeley, as that would irretrievably fix the character of his 
mother, who died in 1844. Besides, as the principal estates were bequeathed 
to Lord Fitzhardinge by his father, there would be an Earldom with little to 
support it. The evidence adduced in the Berkeley Peerage case, to make 
Lord Fitzhardinge an Earl, was described by a great law-officer of the Crown, 
as " a dreadful measure of perjury and guilt." It would not be difficult, were 
there any desire, to blacken the character of Lord Fitzhardinge, by referring to 
hu conduct as regards the fair sex ; but the names of Mrs. Bunn, Miss Foote, 
ittid Mrs. Barker, will be sufficiently suggestive. At his present advanced 
age (he was seventy in 1856) the " noble Earl" has not relinquished the 
'* gallantry" which once made him so notorious. 

Mr. Grantley Berkeley himself, despite his brutal treatment of Mr. Fraser, 
comes under the designation of " not a bad sort of fellow, after all." His 
public course has been consistent — fidelity to the liberal party being its cha- 
racteristic. In private life, he has respectably performed the duties of hus- 
band and father. At one time he afibrded cause for some pleasant satire in 
Punch, having propounded — as the best mode of putting down poaching — 
the propriety of summarily settling with the offender, when caught in the act, 
" by giving him a punch on the head." . He is next in succession, I believe, 
to tiie Earl of Berkeley (he who has not claimed the title) but is not likely 
to abstain from assuming it, as he is not on good terms with his imperious 
brother, Earl Fitzhardinge. — M.], 



842 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 



THE BERKELEY AND ERASER AFFAIR. 

• 

The preceding article (a review of " Berkeley Castle, a Historical Novel, 
by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley") appeared in Fraser's Magazine, for August, 
1 836. On the Sd of December, in the same year, in the Exchequer Court 
at Westminster, before Chief Baron Lord Abinger, and a special jury, came 
off a trial at common law. Eraser v. Berkeley and another. The declaration 
stated that "the defendants [Grantley Berkeley and his brother Craven 
Berkeley] assaulted the plaintiff, and bruised and wounded him with their 
fists, and afterwards with a whip." The defendants pleaded not guilty. The 
case excited considerable interest from the rank of the defendants, and also 
ih)m the high literary character and political influence of the periodical of 
which the plaintiff was publisher and proprietor. 

Both parties had engaged some of the ablest lawyers at the bar. Messrs. 
Erie, Kelly, and Talbot appeared for the plaintiff; Messrs. Thesiger and 
Crowder for the defendants. The facts of the case, as stated by Mr. Erie, 
and fully proved in evidence, were as follow : — 

Grantley and Craven Berkeley, both bom after the marriage of the late 
Earl of Berkeley to Mary Cole, his mistress, were members of Parliament 
for West Gloucester and Cheltenham, respectively; were officers in the army; 
were county magistrates, and were brothers of the Earl of Berkeley and of • 
the notorious Earl Fitzhardinge. 

On the 3d of August, 1 836, the two Berkeleys sallied forth, on a hostile ex- 
pedition against Mr. James Eraser, whose publishing office was at 215 Regent 
street, one of the most public, crowded, and fashionable thoroughfares of 
London. Grantley Berkeley was armed with a heavy horsewhip, the butt or 
handle of which was loaded with lead. Fully to understand the manliness 
of the following proceeding, it should be borne in mind (for it was repeatedly 
given in evidence on the trial) that Berkeley was a tall, powerful, active, 
heavily-built man, over six feet high, and a practised pugilistic amateur, 
while Eraser, below the middle stature, was slight in figure, greatly inferior 
in strength, and, in fact, in such delicate health, (as his appearance showed,) 
that the constant care of a medical man had long been indispensable. 

The Berkleleys entered Eraser's shop, at midday, the precise period when 
all his assistants and other persons he employed in his business, had gone to 
dinner. Eraser was alone, therefore. Craven Berkeley stationed himself at 



THE BERKELEY AND FRASER AFFAIR. 343 

the door, within the shop, so as to prevent their intended victim from escar 
ping, or any assistance or protection being supplied from the s^et. A third 
party, not identified, but of inferior rank to the Berkeleys, and generally be- 
lieved to have been a pugilist hired to assist them and watch until Eraser's 
people had gone out, stationed himself outside the shop, standing between 
the door-posts, with his face towards the street. Up to this time, Mr. Eraser 
was wholly unacquainted, even by sight, with either of the Berkeleys. 

Having thus placed an inner and outer guard upon and within the shop, 
so as to prevent interference from other parties, Grantley Berkeley advanced 
to Eraser, spoke to him, (to ascertain his identity,) and then, without notice, 
struck him a blow on the right temple, with his clinched fist — a blow so vio- 
lent that it felled him prostrate on the floor. When Eraser, nearly stunned 
by this fierce and unexpected attack, endeavored to rise, his assailant struck 
him down again, and then, when prostrate, laid hold of his collar with the 
left hand, while with the clinched fist of his light hand he continued to strike 
him about the head, face, and every part of his body which came within reach. 
Then, changing his weapon of torment, he seized the whip with which he 
had come armed — it was not an ordinary hunting-whip, but one of weight 
and substance, such as rough riders in the army use for the purpose of tam- 
ing unruly horses — and taking the small end of this whip in hfs hand, re- 
peatedly struck Eraser (who was still on the ground, senseless and stupified) 
with the butt end of it about the head, back, and shoulders. It was stated 
in evidence that this butt end was loaded with lead and bound round, on tiie 
outside, with iron wire. He continued to strike until Eraser's head was laid 
open in several places. Then while the victim — bleeding, unresisting, sense- 
less — was still lying at his feet, Berkeley took the whip by the handle and 
commenced striking him with the lash, the first blow fetching blood from the 
temple down to the chin. The marks of this particular cut, it was deposed, 
continued visible for more than a month. The blow caused such keen pain 
asjto restore Eraser to some degree of consciousness, and his first natural 
.impulse was to raise his hands to cover his eyes. It was fortunate that he 
had done so, for the next blow cut his right hand across the back, through 
to the bone. 

While this savage scene was being performed — and it was nigh to as a 
tragical a conclusion as ever was simulated on the boards of a theatre — per- 
sons passing by Eraser's shop, recognising the hired bully and ruffian at the 
door, became aware that something unusual was proceeding within. Era- 
ser's shrieks, on being restored to consciousness by the agony of keen pain, 
caught the attention of passers-by. A crowd collected in front of the shop, 
and a person named Samuel Braine, impelled by the impulse of humanity — 
having seen, through the window, that a man was lying on the ground, while 
another man was standing over him, violently striking him with a whip about 
the head and shoulders — rushed to the rescue. But a powerful ruffian stood 
outside the door, with his arms across to prevent any one from going in. 
The moment that Braine, calling out, " Gi-acious God ! he '11 kill the man ; 
let me go in, or the man will be killed," attempted to enter, the street-ruffian 



344 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

BtrvdL him on the collmr-booe and knocked him down. Picking himself up, 
Bnine rushed on, struck up the holly's extended arms, and got inside the 
shop. Immediately within it, close to the door, stood Craven Berkeley, who 
called out, " Give it him, Ghnantley ! Damn him, give it him well !" At 
this moment, Fraser had staggered np upon his legs, and Grantley Berkeley, 
who was behind him, had a hold of him by the hair of his head, lashing him 
all the time with the whip on the face. Fraser was so placed, that even if 
his strength were not thoroughly exhausted, he could offer no effectual resist- 
ance. He was bleeding from the temple to the chin. Braine indignantly ac- 
costed Berkeley with these words, " How dare yon use the man in that brutal, 
savage manner V* But the remonstrance was useless. Whereupon Braine 
seized Berkeley by the arm and around the neck, to draw him off, and a struggle 
ensued, in which both fell to the ground. Fraser, thus liberated for the mo- 
ment, flew to the door, to get into the street, but was struck back into the 
shop by Craven Berkeley. On this, Grantley Berkeley laid liold of him 
again, by the back of the neck, dragged him into the middle of the shop, there 
entwined his hand in his hair, and struck him again over the head and face 
with the horsewhip. Finally, Fraser succeeded in getting into the street, and 
as he was turning to enter the side door which led to his private residence, 
Grantley Berkeley again fell violently upon him with the butt-end of the 
whip, saying, *'Damn you. Til cut your blasted head off !" One of the 
crowd then laid hold of the whip, and, for the first time, the cause of this 
series of savage assaults was stated — Grantley Berkeley declaring to the 
crowd that '* Mr. Fraser had offended a lady, and that he was serving him 
out for it." What manner of " lady'* she was, has already been related. 

The two Beri^eleys were then walked off to the nearest police-oflfice, about 
a hundred yards distant, the accompanying police not venturing to lay hands 
on r«o such exalted gentlemen — ** Honorable*' by birth, as sons and broth- 
ers of Earls ; officers in the army ; magistrates, and law-makers, as members 
of Parliament. There the charge was heard against them, and they were 
held to bail. 

The hired bully whom they had planted in the street, as outer guard — 
who knocked down Braine, because he attempted to gain admission —r who 
endeavored to quiet the spectators by coolly telling them that Mr. Berkeley 
was only seeking redress for a "lady" who had been abused — who walked 
by Craven Berkeley's side, in close and confidential conversation with him, 
eii rt>M/« to the police-office — who remained in the office while the charge 
was being heard — wholly escaped. Braine, whom ho had knocked down 
without the shadow of provocation or justification, vainly endeavored to have 
him taken into custody for this assault. The police, seeing him the ally of 
the Berkelcys — magistrates, members of Parliament, peers' sons and brothers 
— declined doing so ! 

Poor Fraser, the victim of this conspiracy and assault, found his way into 
his private residence — wounded, bleeding, prostrated in mind and body. 
He was immediately seized with convulsion fits, which were thenceforward of 
frequent occurrence. It was a month before he was able to leave the house. 



THE BERKELEY AND ERASER AFFAIR. 845 

in order to go to France for the benefit of his shattered health, and even then 
(it was deposed) the marks on his face were all to be seen. The attack was 
fatal to him. The few remaining years of his life were years of 'pain, suffer- 
ing, and prostration. He was compelled to retire wholly from business, and 
especially from the conduct of the Magazine which still bears his name. Ho 
died, in October, 1841, and even The Times ^ careful as it* is in speaking ex- 
cept on sure grounds, announced that his protracted illness was believed to 
have been brought on by the attack of Mr. Grantley Berkeley. 

What occurred between the author of the critique on Mr. G. Berkeley's 
novel and Mr. Berkeley himself will be found (the proper place for such a 
record) in the Memoir of Dr. Maginn, which I have prefixed to this 
volume. 

Mr. Eraser's only resource against the Berkeleys, his brutal and cowardly 
assailants, was by bringing them before a court of law: — it is probable that 
" Honorable" as they were, they would have refused him " the satisfaction of 
a gentleman," had he demanded it, on the plea that he was "only a trades- 
man." There were two causes, however — and very strong ones — why he 
did not seek such a remedy as this. Mr. Fraser, a conscientious Christian, 
had religious objections to such a step,iand, even were he free to adopt it, his 
assailants had half-murdered him, so as to render it physically impossible for 
him U3 meet them in the field, as Dr. Maginn did. 

At law, two courses were open to Fraser: — either to indict Grantley 
Berkeley and his ruffian-brother in a criminal court — and it was regretted, 
when too late, that he had not done so, as conviction was inevitable and 
the punishment must have been severe — or to bring a civil action, in niai 
prius, for damages, the amount of which should be determined by»a jury. 
As already mentioned, the latter course was adopted. At the same time, to 
save appearances, Grantley Berkeley brought an action for libel against 
Eraser — having already nearly murdered him on account of such personal 
libel! 

No denial of the facts of this case could be made or was attempted by the 
counsel for the Berkeleys. The cross-examination of the plaintiff's witnesses 
was very slight — because nothing could weaken the plain and decisive evi- 
dence which they gave. Mr. Thesiger, who replied for the defendants, very 
ingeniously admitted that the assault had been committed — " but that they 
did it under a strong and over-ruling provocation, which in a considerable 
degree justified their conduct." In plainer words, that Fraser, as publisher 
of a magazine, in which had appeared an article very satirical upon, and very 
displeasing to, Mr. Grantley Berkeley, might have prevented the appearance 
of that article, and was answerable for all the consequences of not having 
done so. It was contended that Fraser's Magazine had exceeded fair criticism 
on the book called " Berkeley Castle," by following him into domestic life, 
and there reviling and calumniating him — that it was unfair to allude to the 
fact of the bad character of " thie mother of the Gracchi" [the Berkeley 
brothers] — that such allusion was probably intended to lead to an assault — 
and that a further justification was the critic's doubt whether, in and out of 



846 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

his book, Grantlej Berkeley was a pure-minded gentleman. — That a critic 
had a full right, when noticing a novel of much pretence (in which the anther 
proudly refers to his honorable and noble descent) to allude to notorious 
facts of the said author's own mother having notoriously violated feminine 
propriety, was contended, per contra, by Mr. Erie, for the plaintiff; also, 
that a novel, once published, is public property^ and liable to public com- 
ment ; that '' Berkeley Castle" deserved the sharp sentence critically passed 
upon it, particularly for the indelicacy of some of its opinions, expressions, 
and incidents ; that (as indeed happened) Grantley Berkeley could readily 
have obtained any required " satisfaction" from the author of the critique ; 
that the publisher of a work, which he most probably had not read in manu- 
script, was not to be held answerable for it in his body, almost in his life ,* 
and that the assault was unjustifiable, cowardly, brutal, and nearly murderous. 

After being charged by Lord Abinger (the judge) to the effect that if death 
had followed from this assault, the Berkeleys would undoubtedly have been 
held guilty of Murder, and that they had not the slightest justification for 
their brutality ; and that, having brought an action against Fraser for libel, 
Grantley Berkeley ought not also have taken the law into his own hands, 
(" taking his revenge both in person and purse") — the Jury returned a ver- 
dict for the Plaintiff — damages, One Hundred Founds. This amount was 
very much beneath what was expected. The cross-action for libel (Berkeley 
V. Fraser) eventually ended, without trial, in a verdict for plaintiff (with 
nominal damages), eadi party paying his own costs. 

On this trial, which was given at full length in the Number for January, 
1837, Dr. Maginn wrote the following " Defence of Fraser's Magazine in 
the Berkeley Affair," with which I conclude this volume. — ^M.] 



DEFENCE OF ERASER'S MAGAZINE IN THE BERKELEY 

AFFAIR. 

I AM told by those whose opinions I have every reason to 
respect, that it is incumbent upon me to offer some observations on 
the case of Messrs. Fraser and Berkeley, so far as I am therein 
concerned. I intrude myself with reluctance on the attention of 
my readers. For many years, in constant communication with 
the public, I have, to the utmost of my power, courted privacy, 
because I have ever felt that the less periodical writers are urged 
personally into notice, it is the better for their readers and them- 
selves. But I am now, as it were, forced to come forward, espe- 
- cially as I have been stigmatized as an anonymous slanderer. 

First, as to being anonymous : The custom of the country, and 



THE BERKELEY AND FBA6EB AFFAIR. 347 

a justly defensible custom, is, that writers in newspapers, maga- 
zines, reviews, &c., do not put their names to their articles. A 
custom justly defensible, because there is always an appearance, 
and often a reality, of presumption or impertinence in one man 
setting himself up in critical judgment on labors which have cost 
certain thought and time to another, or in offering an opinion upon 
matters of public importance, occupying the serious attention of 
persons holding high station, and possessed of knowledge derived 
from sources inaccessible to any ordinary author. The " we" of 
the political or literary writer is no more than the index of 
what he wishes to be considered as his view of the opinions of the 
party which he sometimes follows, but as oflen ultimately leads. 
Speaking practically, except in some personal trifles, exclusively 
of a jocular character, there is really no such thing as an anony- 
mous writer on any part of the press. Who cannot, at a moment's 
notice, find out the author of an article in the Edinburgh, or the 
Quarterly, or Mackwood, or Fraser, or the Times, or the Standard, 
or the John BuU, or the Examiner^ In truth, the prominent 
writers for newspapers or magazines, are exceedingly few in num- 
ber. I have been almost twenty years more or less connected 
with some of the most eminent, and in the course of my expe- 
rience do not think that I could enumerate fifly names. I am 
sure that at present it would be a matter of difficulty to me to 
mention twenty persons to whom I should willingly commit the 
management of any periodical work, daily, weekly, monthly, or 
quarterly, for which any one cared a thousand pounds. I speak 
merely as a matter of trade, and a matter of trade on which I feel 
myself, from practice and knowledge, qualified to speak. It is 
perfectly idle, therefore, to say that the couple of dozen among us 
who mainly interest ourselves in periodical literature are anony- 
mous. It, however, suits some, at the bottom of whose imperti- 
nence is cowardic^ or envy, or the more intelligible feeling of hun- 
ger, to pretend to consider us so. 

Having disposed of the charge of being an anonymous slanderer, 
I may now come to that of our being slanderers at all. Publicly 
known as we are, I deny the charge as being utterly absurd. I 
am about to speak of the case in which I am interested, declaring, 
beforehand, that in what I say I have not the slightest notion of 



848 THE FRARERTAN PAPERS. 

offering any offence to Mr. Grantley Beriiely, beyond what it may 
be impossible to avoid. I shall presently allude to the peculiar 
position in which we have lately stood toward each other ; bat I 
may unblamed be allowed to remark, that Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley's novel was not a good one — that the spirit which dictated the 
writing of a work about one's own ancestors, particularly ances- 
tors so long known, but so slightly distinguished, was not high- 
minded — that the conception of the hero of the novel was paltry 
— that the tendency, at least, of the scenes was licentious — that 
the dedication of a book of intrigues to a lady of unblemished 
reputation was a thing not to be commended — and that the image 
of the author was, as usual, to be suspected in the cherished crea- 
tion of his mind. The article which I wrote might have been 
compressed into the few lines above printed. If it be any satis- 
faction to Mr. Berkeley, I shall say, with perfect truth, that I wrote 
tlie article in a great hurry, and that business having next day 
taken me out of town, it was not in my power to revise or correct 
it after it was in type. If it had been otherwise, I admit that I 
should have altered some of the expressions most exposed to cavil. 
For example, I think, on a more serious perusal than under other 
circumstances I should have deigned to bestow upon Berkeley 
Castle^ that though I should have designated its hero, Herbert 
Reardon, as what he is exhibited in the novel, a liar and a pimp, 
I should not have laid myself open to the charge of Mr. Thesiger, 
that I thereby intended to have so designated Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley. Yet Lord Byron is in general supposed to shadow himself 
forth in Childe Harold, and Don Juan ; and it would naturally 
occur that the author put forth Herbert Reardon as his own proto- 
type. I repeat it, however, that if it had been in my power to 
have looked over the proofs, I should have changed some of the 
expivssions which most called forth the anger of the member for 
West Gloucestershire. 

I do not wish to press unfairly the charge of licentiousness on 
Berkeley Castle : tuid I add, that there are some parts of it pretty 
fairly written, pturticularly the commencement of the first volume. 
AVith deference to Mr. Fraser's^ truly able and eloquent advocate, 
Mr. Erie, the production is sct\rce worthy of the dissection which 
he gave it. But 1 adhere to my original proposition, that there 



THE BERKELEY AND FBASEB AFFAIR. 849 

was something so peculiarly provoking in the mere fact of any of 
the Berkeleys calling public attention to the history of their family, 
that no critic pretending to common spirit could pass it jby ; espe- 
cially after the conduct of Col. Berkeley, now crammed into the 
Peers as tord Segrave, toward a man of the name of Judge ;* and 
the declared determination of the family — Liberals as they are — 
to vindicate themselves from the printed expression of any thing 
displeasing to them by the infliction of the bludgeon. Sprung of 
a country where bullying is not looked upon as a thing of much 
moment, and of a caste which never hung back from the free ut- 
terance of free opinion, such threats could have no other effect 
upon me than to urge me to give my sentiments of disapproba- 
tion, if I felt any, with the less reluctance. 

But I was sincerely and deeply sorry that an act of personal 
violence fell upon a man who must permit me to call him my' 
friend — on Mr. James Fraser, a gentleman to whom I am under 
the ties of many obligations, and of the most sincere friendship. It 
would be absurd if, in the pages of his own Magazine, I further 
expatiated upon the feelings which actuated my heart and my mind 
when I saw him suffering from the effects of having been struck 
down by ruffian violence. I heard and I believe — nay, I know, 
for why am I here to resort to the professional technicalities of the 
law ? — that foul advantage had been taken of his defenceless situ- 
ation — that if he had been equal in strength to any of the professed 
pugilists whom the Berkeleys once were fond of patronizing (and 
one of whom, in the present instance it appears was present for the 
purpose of backing the assailant), he had, in consequence of the 
surprise and the brutality, small chance of success — -and that 
against a person of power and agility so much superior, and so 
much more cultivated, chance there was none— when I saw this, 
if I afterward did what I own is not on the strict principles of 
Christian rule to be defended, I hope that there will be found some 
palliation for my conduct. 

The question of duelling must, however, be postponed for a 

* Mr. Judge, as editor of a newspaper in Cheltenham, had offended Colo- . 
nel Berkeley, who assaulted him, in retarn, in a brutal manner, and was 
cast in heavy damages for the brutal and cowardly deed, at Gloucester 
Assizes. — M. 



^0 THE FBARKBTAN PAPEB8. 

period, until I go into the main ground of quarrel witli tlie article. 
As for the criticism, I have no notion of apologizing. I hold 
firmlj to the right which I or any other person, Whig, Tory, or 
Radical, possessed of the power of writing, may claim of express- 
ing their opinion on matters literary or politicaL What I said 
might be harsh ; but if a gentleman knows his business as a gen- 
tleman, he should know that words are to be settled by those who 
speak them, and by nobody ebe. 

Mr. Berkeley was not so ignorant as to believe that the article 
which offended him was written by Mr. Eraser. J£ he had any 
matter of complaint against the review of his book, he might have 
answered it in literature or in law ; or, if he preferred a coarse 
neither literary nor legal, he ought to have 'taken care that he 
made no mistake as to the person on whom his retaliation was to 
fall. A literary answer was, I suppose, nol to be thought upon 
without dismay ; and as he personally attacked another for what 
he coilld not have had the slightest difficulty in finding out 
was done by me, I must now confine myself to the legal com- 
plaints which he made of the injury he had sufiered. They are 
the following : 

1. That an attack was made upon his family in many ways, but in 
a manner most peculiarly insulting and injurious upon his mother. 

2. That he was held up, by implication, as being as mean in 
conduct and character as the reviewer maintained the hero of 
JBerkeley Castle to be. 

3. That it was insinuated, in a commentary on a passage of the 
book, that he was capable of such ungentlemanlike conduct to 
women, as to expose him to the most unpleasant consequences. 

4. That an uncalled-for allusion had been made to the Countess 
of Euston, who had therefore every right to be ofiended. 

5. That Lord Euston had been advised to use a horsewhip over 
IVIr. Berkeley's shoulders. 

6. That IVIr. Berkeley's character as a gentleman had been 
conclusively jeopardized by his work. 

I cannot find any other matter of much importance in the decla- 
ration, and the above were the points on which Mr. Thesiger 
dwelt. As the first requires an answer at some length, I shall taike 
^ the others before I proceed to discuss it. 



THE BEBEELET AND FBASEB AFFAIR. 851 

The second and third points, afler all, are but one in essence. 
Of Mr. Grantley Berkeley I scarcely knew any thing ; at this . 
moment I do not know him by sight, and should not be able to 
recognise him if accident were to throw us together. I had heard 
something of his appearance in Parliament; but his efforts at 
legislation are never. alluded to but as matters of jest. Those who 
take the trouble of reading the review of his novel will see that I, 
on general grounds, entertain an unfavorable opinion of the class 
of men to which he belongs. Some affairs, in which members of 
his house — I repeat it, that of himself I knew nothing — figured 
before the public, did not tend to impress me with the opinion that 
w:orks emanating from Berkeley Castle would be remarkable for 
rigidity of morals. With these feelings I read the work ; and 
finding its hero, not only abandoning, at the bidding of his supe- 
rior, the lady on whom he had fixed his affections, but actually 
making himself the go-between of their secret loves, the bearer of 
notes, the framer of assignations, and the ready messenger' to pro- 
cure stolen interviews — finding him professing the tenderest love 
for his wife (professing it not merely to herself, whom he wished 
to deceive, but to his readers, to whom, of course, he was pouring 
forth his secrets), while he was carrying on a heartless intiigue 
with a married woman, whose remorse drives her to death, her 
hver rejoicing in getting rid of the inconvenience of her devoted 
affection — finding that the novel was filled with low intrigues, and 
its tone throughout indicative of a degrading appreciation of the 
female character — it was not much to be wondered at if I con- 
ceived a disgust for such a personage, and a contempt for the wri- 
ter who made him his hero. I have already said, that if I had 
written less hastily, or had the opportunity of revising what I 
wrote, I should have used terms less liable to the angry comments 
of Mr. Berkeley's counsel. Their purport would, however, have 
been essentially the same. As for the comment upon the asser- 
tion that the writer had, through his devotion to female charms, 
been occasionally so led away by his feelings as to place himself 
in situations of an unpleasant kind, I do not retract a word of it. 
His meaning is plain ; and I hope I shall have the men and women 
of England in this case with me, that if any man attempts, as the 
passage clearly intimates, to take advantage of the unprotected . 



852 THE FRA8EBIAM PAPERS. 

condition of a lady, to offer her insult, he deserves to be rung out, 
or kicked out, according as to what she thinks the more judicious 
course for her to adopt Mr. Thesiger most justly described such 
a man as the meanest of all cowards. I never charged, nor do I 
now charge, Mr. Grantley Berkeley with having done any thing 
of the kind ; but, speaking hypothetically, I maintained that if he 
ever acted according to the practice described in his novel as 
being familiar to his hero, he amply deserved to be treated in the 
manner I suggested. 

As for offering insult to the Countess of Euston, I do not think 
that any one who reads the passage without prejudice, or a pre- 
determined desire to find fault, could discover any thing of the 
kind. I most solemnly declare the thought never crossed my 
mind. Every thing I have heard of Lady Euston — and since 
this affair I have heard much — is of the most pure and honorable 
character. I meant no more than what I said. I thought, after 
the very intelligible declaration that the writer was of so warm a 
disposition that he could not resist the influence of female charms 
when placed within their sphere, it was impertinent to allude to 
the happy hours he had passed in the company of the Ck)untess — 
and I think so still. I am misinformed if her ladyship did not feel 
the dedication as an intrusive affront. Whether she did or not, 
I assert that I had no notion of speaking of her in any other terms 
than those of respect. That I am not now saying this for the 
first time will be proved by the following correspondence. I 
should premise, that the assault was committed on Mr. Eraser, on 
Wednesday, August 3d, and that I met Mr. Grantley Berkeley on 
Friday, the 5th. 

LORD EUSTON AND MR. 6RANYILLB BERKELEY TO DR. MAOINN. 

" Travellers* Club, Pall Mall, August 7, 1836 
" Lord Euston and Mr. Granville Berkeley would be glad to know whether 
Dr. Maginn has any objection to state, in the most explicit manner possible, 
that it was not his intention to throw out the smallest insinuation against 
Lady Euston ^ when he coupled her name with the two quotations from Mr. 
Grantley Berkeley's novel of Berkeley Cattle" 

When this letter was delivered to me, I immediately wrote this 
reply : — 



THE BERKELEY AND FBASEB AFFAIR. 868 



DB. MAOINN TO THB BARL OF BUSTON. 



€€ 
it 



52 Beaumont Street^ Marylebanef Monday, August 8. 
Dr. Maginn presents his compliments to Lord Euston. He has learned 
that his lordship has thought he has reason to complain, on behalf of the 
Coantess of Euston, with respect to some observntions in a review of a novel 
called Berkeley Castle, which review was published in Fraser*s Magazine. It 
is now a matter of some notoriety that Dr. Maginn is the author of the arti- 
cle complained of ; and he hastens to assure Lord Euston, that he never for a 
moment intended to offer the slightest affront to the Countess of Euston ; 
and that if it is conceived he has done so, he begs to state, in any language 
that may be desired, his deep regret that he should be suspected of such a 
piece of uncalled-for and unjust impertinence. 

" Dr. Maginn would have addressed this note to Lady Euston, and in terms 
of stronger apology, but that he feared that her Ladyship might have looked 
upon it as an intrusion not warrantable ; he therefore takes the course of 
sending his letter to Lord Euston. 

"Lord Euston, ^c, ^c, ^cJ* 

This note was delivered to Mr. Granville Berkeley, on the con-? 
dition that it was to be considered as an apology to the Countess 
of Euston for an imaginary ofience, and that no public use was to 
be made of it. Mr. Granville Berkeley promised, on his own part 
and that of Lord Euston, that it should not go beyond the private 
circle of the family ; and these gentlemen have, as I knew they 
would, honorably kept their word. I hope there is no breach of 
etiquette in publishing their brief and Jmsiness-like note. I have 
done so to introduce mine, which will I trust show that an imper- 
tinent feeling toward the Countess of Euston never entered my 
imagination. With respect to the recommendation of the use of 
a horsewhip, on which so much stress was laid, it is scarcely wor- 
thy of a serious thought. If Lord Euston had felt the affront, as 
I imagine he might have felt it, he would have acted with great 
propriety in following my recommendation. I am quite sure, 
however, that he would not have been such a ruffian as to strike 
a man when* he was down. His lordship must forgive me for 
the silly joke applied to his personal appearance. It is no harm, 
after all, to be called a thin piece of Parliament. I should be ex- 
tremely sorry if the heir of the house of Grafton were to emulate 
the accomplishments cultivated by persons of brawnier frame. 

With respect to the sixth charge against me, that I had repre- 
sented Mr. Grantley Berkeley as undeserving of the character of 

23 



854 THE FRASEBIAN PAPERS. 

a gentleman, I leave it to those who have examined his conduct in 
this and other transactions, to say if I were right or wrong in my 
inference. It is a matter which much more nearly concerns the 
gentlemen of West Gloucestershire, if there happen to be any 
there, than it concerns nib. 

The first chaise against my article is the most material. It is 
set down as a great crime, that I dared to say that the- decision of 
the House of Lords was that Lord Segrave is illegitimate. Let 
the quarrel, then,* be with the House of Lords. I am amused by 
some dunderheaded scribblers, who find no fault with my having 
alluded to the illegitimacy of Lord Segrave, but complain that any 
notice should be taken of the peculiar liaison between his lordship's 
father and mother. The House of Lords has voted him to be a 
natural son — so be it ; but if you say that his mother was unmar- 
ried when he was bom, you are a slanderer ! 

To mbbish such as this I disdain to reply. I repeat what is 
said in the review — What brings the man so long known to us as 
Cokmel Beikeley into the House of Lords as Lord Segrave ? He 
once passed by the title of Lord Dursley, and for a while assumed 
tliat of Earl of Berkeley. Where are these titles now ? With 
infinite soom I look upon the pretext, that respect for the fame of 
the Countess of Berkeley prevents the assumption of the peerage 
nndoubtedly |>osses>ed by the family. Of the gentleman who is 
by law K^rl of Berkeley I have not the honor of knowing any 
thing, and his motives may be respectable ; but the fact that Lord 
Segrave siti^ in the Peers by any other title than that which would 
lva>-o of right belongetl to him if he liad been bom in wedlock, is 
i>f itj*elf a waiving of the claim. Nay, more — if Mr. Grantley 
Berkeley were to survive his immediately preceding brother, Mr. 
Moreton IWkclev, 03\n he sav that he himself would not assume the 
present ^«^<?-donnant honor : or, if he declined doing so, can he 
}M>omise the same forbearanee from his heir ? -IndeeS, his prefix- 
ing* bv |x^rmission, the addition of Hon. to his name, while his 
oldi>st brother remained \iitliout a title, is conclusive, so far as the 
delioaov of the case is concerned. 

I <x>nlo,ss, no matter to what degree of being unknown it may 
cojisign mo, that I iliought the Countess of Berkeley was dead.* 

♦ She died in 1 844. — M. 



THE BERKELEY AND PRASER AFFAIR. 365 

Many years had elapsed since I had heard any thing about her : 
the events which brought the lady's fame into question occurred 
more than half a century ago ; the investigation into the Berkeley 
peerage occurred in 1811, which is now distant from us by a 
quarter of a century. Is it not absurd to think that a reference, 
in half a dozen lines, to a matter judicially recorded, and annually 
noticed in every Peerage, could excite personal wrath in the bosom 
of a man who could not have been more than a dozen years old 
when the Lords were deciding that his mother was not married 
at the time indicated by what they voted to be a forged entry in a 
church book. I should as soon have thought of being called to 
account by the Duke of St. Albans for referring to the case of 
Nell Gwynn. If the members of the Berkeley family are desi- 
rous of finding a mark for their animosity, let me recommend them 
the Duke of Buckingham, who (he was then marquess) swore 
that their father committed forgery. They may believe me when 
I tell them that what is contained in public documents cannot be 
suppressed ; and that their endeavor to put down allusion to it, by 
resenting its publication on men of humble degree, while they cau- 
tiously abstain from taking notice of its solemn assertion by per- 
sonages of the highest rank, will be worse than useless. 

I had not for a long time looked over the Berkeley case ; and 
now that I have in some degree made myself master of its leading 
features, I say, unreservedly, that I think the Countess of Berke- 
ley to have been an ill-used and a betrayed woman. I think it 
impossible to have come to any other decision than that at which 
the Lords arrived ; but that she acted upon motives which, if they 
cannot be defended, may be excused, is plain from all parts of the 
evidence. The testimony of Mr. Chapeau is much more affecting 
than a wagon-load of such romances as Berkeley Castle, Lest it 
should be again imagined that I am writing with an intent to hurt 
the feelings of the Countess of Berkeley, I pass by all recapitula- 
tion of this unhappy case. But I pass them not until I say, that, 
though stem morality cannot defend lapses from virtue, yet hard 
must be the heart which cannot find in the story deep and tender 
palliatives ; *and immaculate, indeed, should be the hand that would 
stoop for the casting of the stone. The Countess of Berkeley will 
not care a farthing for my sentiments on such a subject ; but for 



356 THE FRASERIAN PAPERS. 

my own sake, I say, that if I had known the evidenoe in the 
Beikelej case six months ago as well as I know it now, no trace 
of reference to her history should have fallen from my pen. But 
her own son is in fault. Why drag before us the history of the 
Berkeleys, with a story so unfortunately prominent before our eyes? 
Why put people in mind of ^ my grandfather," when, in reality, 
of his paternal grandfather nothing whatever is known, while the 
history of his maternal grandfather is detailed with a searching 
minuteness in a goodly folio ? 

It would, perhaps, be only fair to say that Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley is not the first of his £Eunily who has appeared in print. My 
readers may be amused by a specimen of the correspondence of 
his aunt, which appears in the abovementioned folio, p. 168. She 
was a convenient lady, who lived in Charles Street, Berkeley 
Square ; and the letter is addressed to a Mrs. Foote, with whom 
the present Countess of Berkeley was at that time living as 
ladvVmaid. 

** Madam, — Actuated by the generosity of your carictor I take the Liberty 
of ScribcUng to you Begging if it will not be Too great a favour that my sis- 
ter may come to Town the week after Christmas as I am obliged to go in the 
Country the week following and sliod be happy to see her before I go I Beg 
Madam I may not make it Uill convenant to you or give you the smallest 
Truhlc would reather suifer any disopintment my selfe than be thought im- 
pirtinant or re^nlloss of your favour to my sister. She poor thing has long 
been in want of a friend and She tells me but for you Ejndness to her she 
would have been more unfortunate exkuse me Madam for saying Heaven 
will reward your generous condecention to My sister and Beleave me I am 
with rt-Al humility your humble Sir » ** S. TuRXOUB." 

Such literature ijs worthy of the authorship of Berkeley Castle. 
Mr. Grantley Rorkoloy's uncle, Mr. William Tudor (which was 
hi? namo by |>orjnry^.is worthy of being the hero of that romance. 
In fome ridioiilou? aniolos which I have seen, it has been objected 
to me that I oallM Mr. Grantley Berkeley's fether an old dotard. 
I did no such thing : but Mr. Grantley Berkeley's uncle (see p. 
444 of the E\'idence before the Lords) called him •^a Rogue of 
Quality." I leave it to the fools of qiiality to disentangle the 
difference. 

I have now. I think, answered all the objections to the review 
of Berkelcf/ Caftk, For that review Mr. Berkelev took what I 



THE BERKELEY AND FBASEB AFFAIR. 857 

shall ever consider to be a savage and cowardly revenge on Mr. 
Fraser ; and for half killmg his victim, a jury awarded a fine of 
£100 ! I have never heard but one opinion of that verdict. It 
appears to me to decide that a rich man may wreak his vengeance 
in any dastardly way he thinks fit, on any person who has offended 
him, at the expense of a mere trifle. Of the jury who gave the 
verdict I wish to be silent ; except to say, that it has afforded me 
a justification, to some extent, for having done what I cannot con- 
scientiously approve. The duel is a relic of barbarous ages, when 
it was deemed necessary, in consequence of the weakness of peace- 
ful law, to guard the feeble against the strong by provisions sub- 
jecting personal collisions of moment to certain rules. The un- 
protected were excused, and the strong were matched against the 
strong. Law at last obtained the mastery, and the duel was 
banished to the fantastic court of honor ; but there it lost not its 
original feature. No personal advantage ought to be allowed : the 
touch of a horsewhip, the flap of a glove, is a suJ9Scient demonstra- 
tion of hostile intentions. In England, or rather in London, it is 
supposed that persons occupied in shopkeeping avocations are not 
expected to give or to receive challenges. It is, therefore, an act 
of cowardice for a man calling himself a gentleman to assault a 
tradesman. A countryman of mine was in the habit of saying, 
that, for duelliug purposes, he considered every man a gentleman 
who wore a clean shirt once a week. Without going to that ex- 
treme, we may fairly say, that when we offer insult or violence to 
any man, we place that man on our level. Mr. Grantley Berke- 
ley, not differing, I admit, from the members of the society in 
which he moves, does not admit this proposition. It appears to 
him, and, I am sorry to say, to the jury, that he may exercise his 
personal strength in taking any truculent vengeance he chooses 
for a hundred pounds. Here, then, I think I was called for. I 
have admitted, repeatedly, that I do not defend the duel ; but if it 
is to be palliated at all, it must be in such cases as that in which I 
have been engaged. Dr. Johnson has said, that private war is to 
be defended on the same principle as public war. Some excep- 
tion may be taken to the analogy of our great moralist ; but in this 
case of mine, I came forward to protect from brute outrage a 
class of persons whom it pleases a puppy code to insult. I do not 



858 THE .PBASEBIAN PAPEBS. 

pretend to the family honors of the house of Berkeley ; but I am 
a man whom no one can msult without exposing himself to those 
consequences which are the last alternative of a gentleman, if I 
wish to insist upon it« I have no lady nearly connected to mo 
for whom I have either to blush or to bully : and no class of per- 
sons with whom I am connected shall, I hope, feel their interests 
compromised in my hands. Of the details of the duel between 
Mr. Grantley Berkeley and myself I shall say nothing, further 
than that I believe both seconds acted in such a manner as they 
thought most serviceable to their principals ; and of my second 
(Mr. Hugh Fraser), I cannot speak in any other terms than those 
of the highest approbation. I have heard it said that allowing 
three shots to be exchanged was ill-judged ; but he permitted it in 
order that the quarrel might be brought to an end at once. He 
felt, and after circumstances justified him in the feeling, that it was 
to be made a family affair upon the part of the Berkeleys ; and he 
decided that no room should be lef); for cavil upon their parts. 

I have now done with this dispute, I suppose, for ever ; but I 
must call attention to a part of the speech of Mr. Thesiger. He 
appealed, in mitigation of damages, to the fact that the gentleman 
insulted in the article was a justice of peace, an officer in the 
army, and a Member of Parliament. Tory as I am, and habitu- 
ally respecting rank and station, I do not imagine that birth, dig- 
nity, or office, command of themselves respect. The holder of 
these advantages should not abuse them to their dishonor. K 
ruffian and cowardly violence is a qualification for a magistrate, I 
recommend Lord John Russell by all means to retain Mr. Grantley 
Berkeley in the commission of the peace. If striking an unarmed 
man, with all advantage of strength and numbers, be fitting for an 
officer under his majesty's colors. Lord Fitzroy Somerset* ought 
to deem Mr. Grantley Berkeley an ornament to any mess-table to 
which he is attached ; and if exhibitions of stupidity and violence 
are qualifications for the reformed Parliament, I wish the intelli- 
gent and independent electors of West Gloucestershire joy of their 
representative. William Maginn. 

* The late Lord Raglan. — M. 

THE END. 



. .r*