through those leathern fetters, and in the meantime, limps along in contented misery. "New clothes!" thinks he -"Good clothes! handsome clothes!" thinks Madam Buckwheat.-" Fine clothes! fashionable clothes!" think the Misses Buckwheat.-"Brave clothes! pretty clothes!" thinks the poor idiot, when Monday comes, and he is allow ed to resume his old scarlet tatters. All are puffed up with the self-same species of conceit, variously modified, and so are many greater, and many finer folks than they-ay, and many wiser ones too-many more talented. Witness Goldsmith, in his peach-blossom coat, and Johnson, (who ridiculed the poor poet's puerile vanity,) in his gala suit of fine brown broad-cloth. One spread his tail like a peacock, and strutted about to show off its gaudy colours; the other, arrayed like the bird of wisdom, in grave and sombre plumage, was equally proud of the dignity it conferred, and oraculously opined, that a gentleman was twice a gentleman in a full dress suit. Vanity! vanity! thou universal leaven! from what human heart art thou absolutely excluded?

Hark! the trampling of horses, and the sound of wheels. The Squire's carriage sweeps round the corner of the churchyard. He and his family arrive thus early, that the horses may be stabled in that long low shed, appropriated for the purpose, and the servants ready to enter the church at the same time with their master, and to partake with him of the benefit and comfort of the confession and absolution. Some people seem to consider those parts of the service as a mere prelude, a sort of overture as hacknied, and about as solemn, as that to Lodoiska; and if they reach their pews by the time they are half over, it is well. As for the servants; what can it signify to them? There alights another carriage load-and another

and another and the comers in a car,

and in two tax-carts, and on sundry steeds; and there the patrician party is congregating together round the great east door; and there stands the clerk, with hat in hand, peering down the vicarage-lane, under the penthouse of his other shading hand, for the first glimpse of the minister. Now! he descries the white face of the old roan mare. Another look, to be sure; it is indeed that sober-footed palfrey, bearing her reverend burthen; and then he turns hastily into the belfry; and immediately the cracked chimes subside into a few quick single strokes, announcing the near approach of the clergyman, and the speedy commencement of divine service. That fine ruddy lad, with the white smock-frock, has been immoveably posted at the churchyard wicket for the last half hour. His patience will accomplish its purpose; he is the first to start forward, (hat in hand, and smoothing down his glossy yellow hair,) to receive the bridle of the old man, which the vicar resigns into the hand of careful Will, with the usual charges, and a smile, and a few words of kind notice. The minister has passed into the vestry; the clerk has followed him; a few more strokes, and the bell ceases; a few more seconds, and the churchyard is left to its lonely silence, and to its quiet occupants; and the living are gathered together within those sacred walls, to hear the words of eternal life, on the surety whereof, the sleepers without (with whom they must one day lie down in the dust) have been committed te their narrow beds "in sure and certain hope."

But my discourse purported to be of Churchyards only; and I have rambled from the text. No matter; I am come (as we all must) to the churchyard at last, and my next Chapter shall be of " graves, and stones, and epitaphs."

C.

DEAR NORTH, Have you room for two or three pages upon the "Westminster Re. view?" You need not be afraid that by reviewing it you are advertising it, for it really is a book of pith, which must be read, as expressing the opinion of the most blood-thirsty and dangerous crew of political speculators in England. The Edinburgh is utterly dished by it. We gave it its knock-down blow,-this new-comer has given it the coup-de-grace.

Here, then, in its third number, we have the opinion of the Radicals as to the prosecutions of the Blasphemers, and, strange as it may sound, it thoroughly coincides with mine, pink of Toryism as I am. Our grounds of condemning these prosecutions are different, but the reviewer does condemn them, and so do I; he, because he thinks that these writers, if let loose, and safe from the vengeance of offend ed laws, would overthrow the religion which it is evident he hates; I, because I know that there is no need of putting down the wretches by any means but the pen. I am no more afraid of the Deists or Atheists than I was of the Whigs, at a time when there was some semblance of talent observable among them, for I felt confident that we could write them down, as we did, and now I have the same confidence that we could squabash the infidels by the same weapon. There is, I admit, some truth in what this hater of religion says in his article

"Let the abettors of these prosecutions look, for a moment, at the prima facie case which they are creating against Christianity. The history of all ages and nations shews, that man is a religious animal, and will generally have a religion of some sort or other; Christianity is allowed, even by its enemies, to be one of the best systems of religion, if not the most excellent; it descends to the present generation from their forefathers, and the rising generation is educated in its faith; it has been, and is, professed by the most excellent men, defended by the most learned, and recommended by the most eloquent; we have an established clergy of about 18,000 educated men, for its defence, and a dissenting ministry of about 8000 more, who

man's

have, thus far, a common cause; our public seminaries are universally Christian; independently of the conditions attached to filling public offices, the state of opinion is such as to render avowed, or even suspected unbelief, anything but favourable to a dical publications are sent forth in immense progress in society: religious perionumbers, the sale of the Evangelical and Methodist Magazines is upwards of twenty thousand each, monthly; and they can scarcely be more than a moiety of the whole and we have Bible, Tract, and Prayer-book Societies, whose annual distribution is, literally, reckoned by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions; it may be mentioned as a sample, that in the year of Carlile's trials, the Re

ligious Tract Society added a million and a half of tracts to its issue, which was four millions in the preceding year; the average revenue of this Society is about L.9000that of the Christian Knowledge Society, above L.50,000-and that of the Bible Society, about L.100,000. Now, if religion with all this extensive aid, all these immense advantages in addition to its proper evidence, cannot stand its ground without prosecutions for its support, we hesitate not to say, that it ought to fall. Were it the grossest imposture that ever existed, here is force enough to enable it to fight a long and hard battle with truth and common sense. If with these fearful odds, there be the slightest occasion for penalty. and imprisonment to secure its ascendancy, falsehood may be at once branded on its front. Those who contend for their inflic

tion are the real missionaries of Infidelity, and by far its most successful propagators."

I, of course, do not admit the validity of all the conclusions here adoptthe real feelings of their author, who, ed, and am not at all deceived as to it is evident from his very tone, be lieves that Christianity is at war with "truth and common sense," (meaning, possibly, Tom Paine's or Sir Richard Phillips's common sense, in which case I should agree with him,)

that "falsehood is branded on its front," and that it "ought to fall." But I think with him, that a religion, defended as it is by the most learned and most eloquent men, (he might have added, by the mightiest geniuses and the most profound thinkers that ever adorned the surface of the earth,) does not stand in any danger from the

efforts of the poor, malignant, and stupid creatures, who are now attacking it, and that it can support itself, ponderibus librata suis, without calling in the assistance of Newman, Knollys, or that eminent Christian Thomas Den

man.

I beg leave, however, to put in what the logicians of the schools would call a distinguo. When the Westminster reviewer takes up any other ground of objection to the prosecution of the infidels than those of their utter inefficacy against Christianity, and the immeasurably superior powers of their antagonists, he and I part company. I cannot follow him through his special pleading, as to the limits of free and fair discussion on theological points. He argues, that an unlimited range of language be allowed to those who address the Bench in defence of their blasphemies, and reasons, with what he no doubt deems irresistible conviction, against the absurdity of endeavouring to set bounds, either in speech or printing, to the decorousness or indecorousness of language. I shall answer him by an argument of his own. When he comes, in the course of his oration, to the case of Carlile, he laments the severity of the sentences against him. For the quantum of punishment inflicted on him, he says that Carlile might have revelled in crime; and the very first crimespecified by the reviewer is, in his own words, that " He (C.) might have debauched half the ladies' boarding-schools in London by the introduction of obscene pictures." Now, Mr Reviewer, on your own principles, may I ask you, where is the crime there? I shall follow your own argument to the letter. We all know that the topics which form the subject of the infamous things you mention, are all to be found treated of copiously and minutely, nay, even, to a great extent, engraved in books of medicine, surgery, physiology, pathology, &c. &c. We know, moreover, that the scenes they describe all exist in nature. Where, then, is the offence of transferring to copper or canvass that which is made matter of grave discussion by some of the most virtuous and

thoughtful men in the world? "If the proposition, that unchastity exists, may be legally conveyed to the mind, what can be more absurd than to say, that to express that proposition by certain undefined and undefinable selections of painted figures shall constitute a crime."*

Depend upon it, Mr Philosopher, you will not get out of that dilemma. Your defence of blasphemy cannot coexist with your objection to obscenity. I know that you can answer by saying, that these studies (medicine, &c.) do not corrupt, and that your sole objection arises from the filthy pictures (which, by the way, are sold by the same class of booksellers as the venders of blasphemous productions) being made use of for the purposes of corruption. Your answer shall not avail you a fig's end. Do you think that you or I could be corrupted by looking over all the productions of Julio Romano? Of course, not. But girls may be so corrupted, will be rejoined. And why? Because their want of knowledge, or the more inflammable nature of their passions, expose them to that danger from which we are free. If that be your answer, Mr Philosopher, and I protest I can see no other, your cause is given up. What you say of girls, I say of the mob. As medical disquisitions on any subject whatever could not, in any degree, corrupt the mind of a woman capable of studying and comprehending them, while foul appeals to the coarser elements of passion might produce that result in the minds of the inexperienced,-so say I, while discussions addressed to the upper orders, or the educated, on any point of theology, can have no bad effect, blasphemies and ribald affronts to sacred things and sacred names, would decidedly loosen the habitual reverence for such things in the minds of those who have neither the education nor the abilities for comprehending arguments of a higher mood. There is no use in saying anything more about it. Whatever defence can be set up for the vender or utterer of mere blasphemy, can be set up for the utterers of indecent pictures.

same.

I trust my antagonist is too much of a philosopher to shrink from his own premises. Besides, is there not something illiberal (is not that the word?) in objecting to obscenity.

As I said before, and I cannot repeat it too often, there is no argument against prosecuting blasphemers, but one, which I do not scout. That one, I own, is to me conclusive; they give an importance to creatures that other wise would be thoroughly despicable. Nothing can be more contemptible than the new brood of plebeian deists. Carlile and his crew are ignorant even of the strength of their own question. With them, Paine is looked on as the most eminent of the opposers of Chris tianity, when everybody else, everybody who has read his books, well knows that he was decidedly uninformed on almost every topic he handled. A more paltry work than the Age of Reason does not exist. Watson of Llandaff, Whig as he was, utterly put it down in all particulars, beyond the hope of reply. The Westminster reviewer remarks, (p. 11, prop. fin.) that the educated classes have totally withdrawn from the banners of Deism, giving, as usual with his party, a false reason for it-and none remains but the mere draff and filth of the smatterers. Carlile's own attempts at writing are helplessness itself. Our reviewer here notices as a bad effect of prosecutions, (p. 14,) that this poor dolt has been by them converted from Deism to Atheism; as if it were matter of the slightest moment, what were the opinions of a man who cannot write three sentences of plain English, or connect together two propositions of an argument.

As I have mentioned Carlile personally, I may as well notice a sentence of the review about him. "This man's moral character, be it remembered, is wholly unimpeached. A public scrutiny of it has been dared, and no doubt private ones have taken place." (p. 23.) O! Mr North, what think ye of that? Because nobody has thought it worth his while to expose Carlile's private history, or because, as you and I well know, any exposition of the private life of Whig people, in any of the phases of Whiggery, is open to be proceeded against by information, as in the case of the late Queen, where no justification is allowed you, we are to suppose the private charac

ter is unimpeachable! I must say, that the very way in which Carlile and his associates make their livelihood, affords a primâ facie case against their morality. We are told in this review, that their opposition to the Established Religion of the country, is similar to that exerted by the Apostles against Paganism-and the reformers against Popery. (p. 7.) Does the man who writes this believe what he says? If he does, he has a lamentable obliquity of intellect. When Saint Paul attacked the rubbish of Heathenismwhen Martin Luther denounced the corruptions of the Church of Rome→→ they had no design of making money by it. They did not calculate that the passions of those they addressed would afford them a revenue. They opened no shops in the Fleet Streets of their respective residences, where, by puff and placard, and advertisement, and by all the meritricious tricks of bookselling, (enumerated at p. 13 of the Review,) they could throw off thousands of volumes per annum. In short, there is no trace of filthy lucre about them; about Carlile and Benbow, (who has been just convicted of publishing an obscene libel,) there is the trace of nothing else and I wish for the discontinuance of the prosecutions, principally to put down this foul traffic, as I am sure it would do. In the present temper of the people, they would not otherwise be heard of.

I have written so diffusely on the first article of the Westminster, that I must gallop over the rest currente calamo. The second article, on War Expenditure, is written in the jargon of the new political economy, which I therefore leave to the proper authorities; and the third, on Cowper's Correspondence, is a common-place concern, not worth talking about.

The next article, which is rather quaintly entitled the Use of the Dead to the Living, is, on the whole, a clever paper; shewing the danger and the absurdity of the prejudices against exhumating bodies for the purpose of dissection. It is well worth reading; but perhaps it would be better to let the subject sink sub silentio. You never will argue away the prejudices against the practice, and the best way is to permit it to be done by connivance. In the course of my life, I have observed frequent ebullitions of popular feeling against exhumation, and as

frequent lapses of forgetfulness, when it is not called forth by discussion against it, or for it. I do not think the remedy here proposed the best. I should recommend that the punishment against robbers of the dead should be considerably mitigated-Say commuted to an imprisonment of not more than two years, or less than one calendar month, and inflicted as rarely and as reluctantly as possible, always, of course, in the smallest quantity. The existence of a punishment against it would satisfy the mob, whom this reviewer does not hold in as high re verence as his brethren do, and its slightness and facility of evasion would ensure plenty of subjects. Let me extract one sentence from this paper, for I fear that there is some truth in

it.

"The Medical School of Edinburgh, in fact, is now subsisting entirely on its past reputation; in the course of a few years it will entirely be at an end, unless the system be changed.”

This should be looked to. Dublin is rising on us, a fact which should call forth, not our jealousy, but our emulation. I hope we shall be able to keep undimmed the ancient and well-won glories of the Northern Hive of M.D.'s.

We have next an Essay on Charitable Institutions, written in the peculiar vein of cold-blooded atrocity which characterizes this school of reasoners. It is laid down here flatly, that population is the evil of this country, and that" encouraging procreation," (the actual infamous words of the review er,) is the great crime of several almost godlike charities. Lying-in hospitals, are the object of his pecu liar wrath. I shall quote his words. "If there were no such receptacles, women would then be left to their own prudence, and might, perhaps, reflect upon the inconveniencies that necessarily attend a state of pregnancy, and guard against them beforehand." (P. 114.) So, to please a pup py theory, women are to be suffered to perish in the streets. He is graciously pleased to say something in behalf of hospitals for accidental wounds, because these evils cannot be foreseen. And does the unmanly wretch imagine that women get into the "inconveniencies that attend pregnancy," because they foresee that there is a lying-in hospital, in which they may be VOL. XVI.

attended to? I certainly shall not waste any time defending such institutions against this unnatural writer, but I shall use all my exertions to find out his name and his habits. When I do so, the public shall not be long without a commentary on both. He is, I warrant, of the same class as that tailorly creature, who sat down in cold blood to devise a method for procuring abortion, or something worse, which I dare not describe; and who declared publicly, that it would be a good deed to kill all the children born in the next twelvemonth-a project, the only objection to which was, the fear of a milk-fever among the wo men! There is no need, I should hope, of arguing against such beasts as these. Let them philosophize in their own dirty coteries. They cannot contami nate the public.

The Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans afford the materials for an article to abuse the ancient regime of France, of which the worst part, at the worst period, is here depicted in the most glowing colours. It is a kind of defence of the necessity of the Revolution. The whole argument is a mere sophism. These irregularities, for in very few cases did they amount to state crimes, were all capable of correction, and were corrected by that very king and queen whose heads were cut off. At all events, it does not fol low, that because the ladies of the Regent's court were strumpets, 16,171 people should be guillotined in a year in Paris for nothing. Murder, however, was committed, and that is all these reviewers require. It is, therefore, a glorious Revolution. Let me say, that bad as the French court was, there is no reason for believing it so bad as here depicted, for the Duchess was not very charitable in her commentaries, and evidently, in many instances, wrote through mere spite. The errors of the wretched translator picked up by Whittaker, are very fairly exposed in this review.

Greece, and its popular poetry, form the subject of the next article, and Lord Byron in Greece, the last. The former is no great affair. The lat ter is curious, on account of containing some particulars of his lordship's death, extracted from his correspon dence. He and the Greek cause obtain vast laudation. I hardly think so highly of either, but let it pass.

2 F