the missionary with his ready haran- found by plunging Into the deep and gue on the duty of insurrection. It eternal fountains of thought, opened is altogether unimportant to him of to us by the gifted minds of old, the what nature the grievance may be; his very capability of adding to our menquestion is, can it be embittered into tal opulence, is equivalent to a divine bloodshed ? If the manufacturer com- command for the labour of knowledge. plain, the harangue reviles the mono- But it is perfectly obvious, that much poly of the agriculturist ; if the farm- evil may be gathered in the same harer feel, in his turn, the common suf- vest with the good. The character of fering of the time, the harangue la- the productions now compiled and vishes insult upon the manufacturer, cheapened, for the perversion of the who refuses to submit to the war multitude, with an industry of misprices of the farmer. In all cases, the chief, inexplicable on any surmise short object is attained so far, as discontent of a sworn conspiracy against the Conis introduced into the circulation. The stitution, must, on this point, silence breaking of looms, and the burning of all scepticism. There are, at this mocorn-stacks, are the prognosis of the ment, a hundred shops open in Londisorder, which is gradually to ripen don for the sale of publications, offeninto noonday musterings, war under sive to every well-ordered mind. the contending standards of the rabble Carlisle has three in the full sale of and the constitution, and the final dis- tracts, which no man could read withmemberment of the rights, habits, and out disgust or pollution. His profits property of the nation. The law has in his first mari were estimated two successively grasped the chief of those thousand pounds 2-yar,-a strong incendiaries. But the breed is proli- temptation, undoubtedly, for a misfic. The soil of England has been creant, who, from actual pauperism, found a fit receptacle for cherishing thus emerged into profit and publicity. and invigorating the seminal mischiefs, The attractive title over this shop was, that at another time would have in- “ The Deist and the Republican,” glitstantly withered away. An extrava- tering in colossal characters for the gant and fierce popularity follows the admiration of the magistrates. When steps of every assailant of the old ho- this alluring title had lost its freshnourable observances and loyal virtues ness, it was reinforced by a new deof the British mind, and individuals claration,-" This is the mart for Sebranded with every species of personal dition and Blasphemy.” It is palpable, contempt, open defrauders, bankrupts that this species of trade has no conin principle as much as in possession nexion with the general right of free -miscreants, with whom no man discussion; that avowed sedition exwould trust a shilling-nay, shifters to cludes itself from all claim to shelter every side of the worthless and miry under the privileges of an intellectual politics of vulgar party–no sooner people, and that avowed blasphemy enter into a determined compact with equally rejects the vulgar pretext of revolt and atheism, than they stand inquiry into religious truth. Insult is forth purified, the elected champions not argument; a determination to deof a sullen and furious faction ; in jail, grade and overthrow, is the direct opaddressed, visited, and sustained in posite of free discussion; and when luxury by open subscriptions, and out Hone, and Carlisle, and the whole tribe of jail, received with processions, fetes, of presumptuous and audacious rufand all the other specious and insolent fianism which has followed them from mummeries of rabble malignity, in beggary to guilty profit, and, finally, sight of its triumph.

from the counter to the jail, talked of Literature, the mightiestof all agents, their right to question Government and whose powers, like those of some and Religion, they but used the tongue of the great influences of nature, we of an impudent and shallow hypocrisy. are at length only beginning to apply The board over Carlisle's mart is an to the uses of society, has been deeply answer clear and complete to all preoccupied in this perversion. We are tence of honest research. But the naadvocates for the fullest cultivation of ture and combination of the articles of the human understanding. The in- trade, in the infamous receptacles stinctive craving for knowledge, the which the success of this miserable creahigh and consoling pleasures of books, ture has multiplied, is a proof not less the vigour and tension of mind to be decisive of their systematic purpose of corrupting the public mind. The fol- accomplished authority, to be absurd; lowing list was published in one of and the work is temptingly offered in Cobbeti's Registers for October, 1821. its original vileness, by fragments The vehicle was well chosen, and that which place it within the reach of the hoary patriot was doubtless perfectly lowest order. In conjunction with this aware of the list which he thus sent impurity, is “ The Peterloo Massacre,” forth in company with his exhorta, and “ The People's Proclumation,” letions, to defecate Parliament, and bring vel to all possessors of one penny; and back the Church to the simplicity of the implements of mischief are comprimitive times.

pleted by a sixpenny apology for Athe“List of Books published for the sup

ism ; Mirabaud reduced to threepenny port of the wife and infunt children parts, &c.

This flagitiousness is new in Engof Mrs Davison, now under sentence of two years ' imprisonment by the land ; but it is not original

, it has had Vice Society :

a terrible exemplar. We will not now Mirabaud's System of Nature, £1,1s.

speak of the French Revolution, nor

summon from their bed of blood the boards.

sad and fearful recollections of a time A cheap edition in Numbers, 3d.

that looked less like the riot of human each. Volney's Ruins, with The Law of passions than the malignant and hor

rid revel and triumph of Dæmons. Nature, 3s. 6d. extra boards.

But it was by the same steps which The Medusa, containing Theological Discussions.

we now mark, that France went down The Trial of Thomas Davison, for

an almost returnless depth of misery

and crime. The descent was at first a Blasphemous Libel in the Deists' gradual. The same conjunction of inMagazine. Helvetius on the Mind, in Numbers, cism, laboured to shake the ancient

decency, insubordination, and sceptithree half-pence each.

column of the French throne, that An Apology for Atheism on Chris.

now allures the subjects of the British tian Principles. 6s. The Truth of the Bible and New that of man may disarm the danger ;

empire. A higher interposition than Testament fairly put to the test, by but man is in all countries the same. confronting the evidence of their own

And to facts. I vol. 8vo. 10s. 6d. To be sold atheistic populace in England, will

suppose that a libertine, and only in sealed wrappers, in order to de

not plunge into the same excesses with feat the inquisitorial system of the Vice

a libertine and atheistic populace in Society.

France, is to hope beyond hope-to The Commonwealth of Reason. ls.

trust in extravagant contingency-to The Peterlco Massacre.

be fooled with our eyes open-and, beThe People's Proclamation against ing fooled, to be undone. the Arts of designing Boroughmon

The fall of the French monarchy реппу. Boccacios ' Decameron, in twenty spiracy had lingered about its walls

was not the work of a day. The consimpenny Numbers. This work has been for fifty years, before it found an enmutilated in recent editions. The edi- trance. Then, the massacre was sudtor proposes to insert in the present den and merciless-the delay was edition those tales which have been atoned for by the vigour of the exeomitted in the former through fulse cution-the sack, the bloodshed, and and ridiculous notions of delicacy.”

the profanation, were the work of that Can any man of common sense read one black and midnight period, which this list, by no means the most volu- was best fitted for the work of the minous or most atrocious among the contending Vices. catalogues of the new enlighteners of But brief as it was, it was long the national mind, without allowing enough to break down the country at once that its purpose is to disrupt into the most abject degradation, to the whole frame of public decency, al- shew that gorgeous and harlot figure legiance, and religion? It has food at of Republicanism, with all her traponce for the blasphemer, the rebel, and pings of blasphemy and murder, sudlibertine. The judgment which has denly flung under the tread of a rehitherto excluded the grosser tales of morseless Tyranny; and, finally, to the Decameron, is pronounced by this shew France returning to the hope of

gers. One

a Constitution, only through the bite we can be at our ease as to its chance terness of national disgrace, and the of superseding the whole representamercy of enemies twice her conquerors. tive dignity of the Law and the Reli

Vur punishment may not come in gion of England. this form ; but unless all history be The French Revolution took fifty false, or Providence a dream, or Enge years for its accomplishment. Ours land secure by miracle from the course may be more speedy. The French of nature, she must feel the result of were inexperienced in rabble exhibicherishing corruption. The evil may tions; reared in the glow of a sickly not yet have reached the nobler parts, and overheating loyalty, they naturalbut her safety must lie in cutting off ly shrunk at rough blasts that are fathe seat of the disease. We protest miliar to our more northern blood. altogether against the feeble indolence While revolution lingered among the which would rely on the virtue of the levees and assemblies of the great, passive majority-against the dangere she assumed the garb and almost the ous security which would look to the refinement of nobility. It was not power of laws and institutions in them- till, wearied with their tardiness, she selves dependent for all effectual ac- Aung herself into the centre of the tion on the public sympathy; and rabble, that her work was begun. against the fantastic absurdity of sup- But with us all is really; there is posing that the same causes will not no tedious and untriell experiment to produce the

me effects in England, be performed before the grand proas in a country not twenty miles from jection. The press, the populace, her shore.

even those accidental sufferings of the We have a just reliance on the time, which no wisdom of minister or strength of the Constitution. But we man can anticipate or provide for, are demand some calculation of the work- all ready. The magazine is charged, ings of that perpetual machinery of and it may be more the mercy of a conpopular evil, which we know to be la- trolling Providence than human forebouring at its foundations. When we sight or resolution, that will prevent see the grim and blackened crowd that our having the first intimation of the go down daily into the pit, and hear danger, in the shaking of the ground the restless wheel, and live in an under our feet, and the general crush atmosphere thickened and made un- and convulsion of all that was valuawholesome by the eternal vapour of ble and holy to us as subjects and the subterranean revolutionary fur- Christians. nace, we have a just right to be dubi- It is not our present purpose to detail ous of the solidity of our buttresses the parallel between the present repuband towers. Ten thousand copies of lican symptoms of England, and those Paine's Age of Reason are computed to which diseased the heart of France. have been sold within a short period; We leave it to our readers to remark we desire to know the effect of this the closeness with which disaffection enormous distribution of moral poison, in the one country has marshalled its before we can say that all is safe. writers and haranguers upon the moFrench poems and romances, of a de- del of the other. But there is one siscription which has hitherto not ven- milarity too remarkable to be lightly tured itself within the honester pre- dismissed. The author of the French cincts of the English tongue, have, Revolution was VOLTAIRE.

It was within the last year, been transfer- brought to its evil perfection by other red to the popular use, divided in- agencies; but the Mirabeaus, Dantons, to segments suitable to the purse of and Robespierres, were merely the disevery man. The electioneering of vice ciples of the great grimacier of Ferthus passes over no vote ; from so- ney. It was this powerful and implaliciting our nobles and gentry, it has cable spirit that first planted his unnow descended into the humblest easy step on the burning soil, afterdepths; its ambition addresses itself wards to be loaded with the pandeto our footmen and chambermaids; it monium of Revolution. Voltaire, exraises a bustings for mendicants; and cluded from his own country, took rein alleys and cellars, prepares the way fuge in a foreign state, and thenceforth to national mastery by a practical use poured libels into France, with a coof Universal Suffrage. We must see piousness encouraged by their profitand the muster of its constituents before impunity. The overthrow of government was his arowed object, and he pur- numbers beside Volney. Caln and Don sued it by the triple means of calumnies Juan, all unconscious of their merits, on Christianity, assaults on the admini« have been found worthy of the same stration, and poems of singular and elevation, and in threepenny numbers proverbial indecency. The same hand constitute the present intellectual dea that wrote the Pucelle wrote the ap- light of thievery, licentiousness, and palling blasphemy of the sentence sedition. We, of course, avoid all im& Ecrasez l'Infame,” and called up plication of the authors in this emthe plague that sat upon France for ployment of their performances. But five-and-twenty miserable years. the fact is before our eyes. They

Here we can unfortunately sustain the make the choice reading of the rabble, parallel in the most popular poet of our and those who have put the works inday, who seems resolved to act the part to their hands, have all the judgment of an English Voltaire, and heroically in evil that can be found in experience. be“ damned to everlasting fame." As The spirit of our dissolute and fachis popularity with the intelligent tious day is distinguished from that of and honourable diminishes, his recep- all our past tempters by the atrocity tion among the profligate and lawless of the press. Literary virulence has becomes more sincere, undisguised, had examples in all times of our moand triumphant. His name now figures narchy; but the characteristic of the among the foremost on the lists of the new school is its breadth and general venders of corruption. Lord Byron malignity of attack. Party will exaggeprobably disclaims this intention in rate, and personal irritation will insult, his poetry. But the men of the prison but the State is now the object. A and the pillory know better; force multitude of men, stimulated by the him out of the modesty of his aristo- ordinary motives to libel, have comcracy, and compel him to the glory of bined in the labour of defamation enlightning the rabble. Those men against all the noble principles, hereare wise in their generation, and dis- ditary institutions, and sacred laws, cern what will answer their pur- that make the monarchy and the pose, with a sagacity that must sur- church of the empire. In this despeprise lords and lecturers. Professor rate design they embark with a boldLawrence, wrapping himself up in the ness to which men can scarcely be stirstole of his philosophy, talks of his red by heroism and a just cause. Their work as merely a scientific discussion, transcendant hostility disdains to limit hateful to vulgar eyes. But the Radical itself to the petty war of partizanship; publishers were not to be hoodwinked they are the enemies of principles, and by the Doctor's robes, pronounced their triumph is to be celebrated only it to be an excellent thing for their over the ruins of all Government and objects, and placed it in threepenny all Religion.

DR PHILLPOTTS AND MR JEFFREY. [By referring to Vol. VII., p. 168 of this Magazine (May 1820), our friends may refresh, and our enemies re-afflict, their memories, with the particulars of a former controversy between the Edinburgh Reviewers and a Clergyman of the Church of England, second to no member of that illustrious establishment in character ; and, as these Reviewers seem destined to be convinced doubledeep, second to very few people of any establishment, either in the inclination, or in the power, to repel aggression, and chastise insolence. In a word, from that controversy Brougham retreated like a cur with his tail between his legs, Jeffrey like a rat that has left his tail in a trap, and Lambton like a monkey that never had even a tail.

We are well aware that the liberal and generous praise we bestowed on some articles in the last Number of the Edinburgh Review astonished a very great number of our readers—that it delighted some of them, and displeased others --but that on the whole the feeling was astonishment. Why? If, simply, because it seemed very odd that the work should now deserve any body's praise, it is well ; if because it seemed at all odd that, deserving praise, it should receive it from us, very foolish and absurd was the head into which such an idea intruded itself. We can afford to be both just and generous,- and we have no desire to be otherwise, more especially in our conduct towards the Whigs. We

1

are not the drones of Toryism. We do not say that“ Heaven and Earth” is a bad thing, merely because it

' is printed in the ** Liberal.” We did not say that the “Essays on Character” were contemptible, although that book did happen to be written by the same young nobleman who has since been so “ left to himself” as to publish “ Don Carlos.” We take things as we find them, indifferent whether the enjoyment we receive is direct or indirect—the immediate effect of the author's genius, or its indirect effect in stimulating our own hand to the luxury of scourging. We therefore praised the last Number of that ancient periodical ; we felt a generous pleasure in doing so, just as we should do, were old Tom Oliver to appear some day on a decent pair of shanks, and once more throw up his hat in a glorious ring. But we remarked, in the midst

of all our laudation, that the article on the Durham case appeared to us to be a bad affair—that we were uninformed as to the facts, but that the spirit of the composition was unworthy of any journal of reputation.

We now are informed as to the facts ; and in addition to what we then so mildly expressed about the spirit of that article, the following exposure, for which the reading public has much reason to thank Dr Phillpotts, leaves us no difficulty in saying, that we consider its facts to have been as false as its spirit was loathsome. Brougham we incline to acquit. To be sure, the puffing note about his own“ terrible" eloquence, at first made us think the article was his : but we are now aware that Air Jeffrey was contented, on this occasion, to attack the Church of England with a meaner weapon.

This much is certain. Dr Phillpotts has stripped the Edinburgh Review as bare as the top of Arthur's Seat. He has exposed in the most masterly manner some of the most servile conduct we remember to have been made acquainted with. How such a sensitive Christian as Mr Jeffrey must feel under such an infliction, we should have been at no loss to imagine, even if we had not seen his face these twelvemonths. As it is, we can assure Dr Phillpotts that the face looks uncommonly long-eyes fierce-lip sulky-nostril sub-incandescent -occasional twitches a la Brougham. We are really sorry for our small friend, and wish it had been possible for Dr Phillpotts' ire to have worked like that subtle agent, so prettily alluded to in Tommy Moore's new poem

So lightnings melt

The BLADE within the unharmed SHEATHE.
But as it is, scabbard and all must put up with the singeing. We recommend
a good lather of the cold scraped potato to our Editorial sufferer. C. N.]
A LETTER TO FRANCIS JEFFREY, ESQ. THE REPUTED EDITOR OF THE EDIN-

BURGH REVIEW, ON AN ARTICLE ENTITLED
ABUSES.”—BY REV. H. PHILLPOTTS, D. D. RECTOR OF STANhope.

SIR-Although I had reason not to the strength of the serpent, can exvery highly to estimate the moral sen- hibit only the slime and the venom. sibility of the Editor of the Edinburgh Under this impression, it did not at Review, yet I was not prepared for first appear to me at all necessary to the extreme degradation to which that answer so very gross, but (as I thought) personage has been contented to sink.

so very feeble, an attack. In his last Number, he has inserted an It has, however, seemed to others, article, entitled “Durham Case-Cle- to whose judgment I defer, that the exrical Abuses," an article, I am well tensive circulation of the Review, and aware, not written by the Editor him- the inferences already drawn from the self, nor even by another contributor silence of the Clergy, under charges to his journal, on whose lucubrations most unceasingly brought against them, I once before had occasion to remark, demand that some notice be taken of -but evidently by some inferior hand, the present attack, and (as. I am the who, without the slightest pretension only individual attacked by name) de

DURHAM CASE-CLERICAL

Durham: Printed for George Andrews, John Hatchard and Son, London; and William Blackwood, Edinburgli. 1823. Vol. XIIL

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