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We were surprised to find, in a “Chronicle for St Bride's Parish," no notice taken of Mr Sheriff Parkins, or of the black man who sweeps the crossing at the corner of Bridge Street, Blackfriars. But, as an exposition of coun

ter wit, and high life in the Ward of Candlewick, there has been nothing so good that we know of since Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle."

PROFLIGACY OF THE LONDON PERIODICAL PRESS.
No. II.

As we had anticipated, our exposure of the infamous attack on Sir Walter Scott, made by one of the vermin in the London Magazine of February 1823, and the skulking cowardice of its suppression, has had its due effect. We quoted the suppressed passage, in which every word of insult that could occur to the brain of the wretched ca

lumniator who wrote it, was heaped together with a singular and rabid ferocity; and we added, that the “chatter of booksellers' shops" had attributed it to Mr Taylor of Fleet Street.

How has the charge been answered? Why, thus, in the last London Magazine

"In the charge," [of our Magazine," there are three distinct assertions. -They are three distinct falsehoods.

"1. That our publisher, Mr Taylor, wrote the review alluded to.—He did

not.

"2. That two or three hundred copies of that review were disposed of.THERE WERE NOT FIFTY."We give the important contradiction the full benefit of its original capitals.]

"3. That the passage complained of in that review was suppressed through terror.-IT WAS NOT. The passage was not a libel in law; nothing, therefore, could be feared from its publication."-[The typography is again from the original." The review in question was written by a celebrated critic-was received too late for examination-and was cleared of the passage objected to, as soon as possible, from a motive of good feeling towards the author of the novel."

And is this all?-All, gentle reader, with the exception of some silly vapouring about our slander, which we are dared to repeat to Mr Taylor's face. Poor man! He had better stick to his counter, and not expose his grey hairs, which should be a token of sense, and an object of respect, to the derision which must always attend such bravadoes from such quarters. We are glad, nevertheless, that he considers it slander to be suspected as the author of such vile venom as flows from the pen of the "celebrated critic," who, however, be it remarked, is in his pay.

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to be the author of Waverley? Nor does our mistake-if mistake it is-a circumstance we beg leave to doubtas to the number issued, in the slightest degree affect our reasoning. We take the number as it is given us. Fifty of the infamous things were disseminated. So let it stand.

Our third falsehood is our assertion that it was suppressed through terror; and we are told it was done through kind feeling. How pitiful must the poor creature have felt when writing that sentence!-That such as he should be actuated by kind feeling towards the reputed author of Peveril of the Peak, by a desire of patronizing him, as it were, is too good. It would be quite comic, were it not too contemptible in its spirit. But mark how this kind feeling is shewn. In page 207 of that very review, after a laboured and most stupid parallel between Sir Walter Scott and Mr William Cobbett, we come to this sentence.

"If it should be said that Mr Cobbett sometimes turns blackguard, it

cannot be affirmed that he is a catspaw, which is the DERNIER RESORT of humanity, into which SIR WALTER has retreated."

There is a touch of kind feeling for you! Are we to argue with such a vermin as this? Is there a blockhead in Fleet Street, including Lord Waithman, who could believe that any other motive than terror, could have operated to procure the suppression of the more lengthened, but not more lying and villainous tirade, which we dragged from its skulking corner into light? As for libel actions-Mr Tay

lor well knew that he was in no danger from these. His fear was of a very different action indeed, and it was not less operative, because it happened to be altogether groundless.

So much for the three assertions, which, and which only, Mr Taylor, or his scribe-we see we must be cautious in assigning the works of these eminent and conspicuous authors, these "celebrated critics," to the proper quarter, else we shall be told that we lie-could find in our article. Let us mend our statement by the contradiction

"In Mr Taylor's Fleet Street Miscellany, for February, 1803, a celebrated critic-name unknown, in Mr Taylor's wages, and so trusted by his employer, as to be allowed to send articles unseen by the editor, to the press, called one of the most honourable men in the world, and decidedly the first literary man in the country, in whatever point of view he can be regarded, intolerant, mercenary, mean, a professed toad-eater, a sturdy hack, a pitiful retailer, or suborner of infamous slanders, a literary Jack Ketch,-this direcily; and, by implication, a cold-blooded hypocrite, pander, and intriguer. Of which filth, about fifty copies were circulated, when the proprietor-not out of terrornot from dread of the universal contempt which would be in consequence showered upon him and his concern-but through kind feeling suppressed. Which kind feeling he further displayed, in suffering the aforesaid celebrated critic, of the unknown name, to style the same gentleman a cats-paw, and the dernier resort of humanity."

How does it read so amended? Is the baseness, the falsehood, the cowardice, seen to greater or less advantage in our new picture? Let the unfortunate champion of Fleet Street make of it what he pleases. He has done Mr Taylor an eminent service. Until his defence appeared, we only suspected him of being a party in the calumny-we now, from his own admission, or that of his friend, know that he is accountable for the whole article as it stands at present. The fact, that he suppressed part, shews that he had the power of suppressing the whole; and of course he must stand up as the author of the remainder.

So much for the London Magazine. We must beg Sir Walter Scott's pardon most sincerely, for bringing his name in question, or for mentioning it in connexion with the creatures whom it is our business and our pastime to destroy; but we could not help it. We request our readers not to forget the

use we made of the whole business. We wanted to prove that in spite of this grand principle of Conciliation, of which we hear so much, the Whig writers let slip no opportunity of abusing, vilifying, insulting, and calumniating the great men of the Tory party, no matter how amiable may be the qualities of their hearts, or brilliant the power of their heads. We wished to shew that the whole set, clamorous as they are against personality, are, nevertheless, from their Magnates Moore and Byron, down to their Vermin, as the "celebrated critics" for Taylor and Co., venomously scurrilous in their language and rancorous in their feelings against the Tories. This we did, and we leave the impression we made to be weakened as much as it can be by the discovery that slander is not written but merely published by Mr Taylor; and that he sold of it not two hundred copies, but fifty.

THE MAGIC LAY

OF THE ONE-HORSE CHAY.

AIR-Eveleen's Bower.

I.

MR BUBB was a Whig orator, also a Soap Laborator,
For everything's new christen'd in the present day;
He was follow'd and adored, by the Common Council board,
And lived quite genteel with a one-horse chay.

II.

Mrs Bubb was gay and free, fair, fat, and forty-three,
And blooming as a peony in buxom May;

The toast she long had been of Farringdon-Within,
And fill'd the better-half of the one-horse chay.

III.

Mrs Bubb said to her Lord, "You can well, Bubb, afford,
Whate'er a Common Council man in prudence may;

We've no brats to plague our lives, and the soap concern it thrives,
So let's have a trip to Brighton in the one-horse chay.

IV.

"We'll view the pier and shipping, and enjoy many a dipping, And walk for a stomach in our best array;

I longs more nor I can utter, for shrimps and bread and butter, And an airing on the Steyne in the one-horse chay.

V.

"We've a right to spare for nought that for money can be bought, So to get matters ready, Bubb, do you trudge away;

To my dear Lord Mayor I'll walk, just to get a bit of talk,

And an imitation shawl for the one-horse chay."

VI.

Mr Bubb said to his wife, " Now I think upon't, my life,
'Tis three weeks at least to next boiling-day;
The dog-days are set in, and London's growing thin,
So I'll order out old Nobbs and the one-horse chay."

VII.

Now Nobbs, it must be told, was rather fat and old,

His colour it was white, and it had been grey;

He was round as a pot, and when soundly whipt would trot
Full five miles an hour in the one-horse chay.

VIII.

When at Brighton they were housed, and had stuft and caroused, O'er a bowl of rack punch, Mr Bubb did say,

"I've ascertain'd, my dear, the inode of dipping here From the ostler, who is cleaning up my one-horse chay.

IX.

"You're shut up in a box, ill convenient as the stocks,
And eighteen-pence a-time are obliged for to pay ;
Court corruption here, say I, makes everything so high,
And I wish I had come without one-horse chay."

my

X.

As I hope," says she," to thrive, 'tis flaying folks alive,
The King and them extortioners are leagued, I say;
'Tis encouraging of such for to go to pay so much,
So we'll set them at defiance with our one-horse chay.

XI.

"Old Nobbs, I am sartain, may be trusted gig or cart in,
He takes every matter in an easy way;

He'll stand like a post, while we dabble on the coast,
And return back to dress in our one-horse chay."

XII.

So out they drove, all drest so gaily in their best,
And finding, in their rambles, a snug little bay,

They uncased at their leisure, paddled out to take their pleasure,
And left everything behind in the one-horse chay.

XIII.

But while, so snugly sure that all things were secure,
They flounced about like porpoises or whales at play,
Some young unlucky imps, who prowl'd about for shrimps,
Stole up to reconnoitre the one-horse chay.

XIV.

Old Nobbs, in quiet mood, was sleeping as he stood,
(He might possibly be dreaming of his corn or hay ;)
Not a foot did he wag, so they whipt out every rag,
And gutted the contents of the one-horse chay.

XV.

When our pair were soused enough, and returned in their buff,
Oh, there was the vengeance and old Nick to pay!

Madam shriek'd in consternation, Mr Bubb he swore D-mnation!
To find the empty state of the one-horse chay.

XVI.

"If I live," said she, "I swear, I'll consult my dear Lord Mayor, And a fine on this vagabond town he shall lay;

But the gallows thieves, so tricky, hasn't left me e'en a dicky,
And I shall catch my death in the one-horse chay."

XVII.

"Come, bundle in with me, we must squeeze for once," says he,
"And manage this here business the best we may ;
We've no other step to choose, nor a moment must we lose,
Or the tide will float us off in our one-horse chay."

XVIII.

So noses, sides, and knees, all together did they squeeze,

And, pack'd in little compass, they trotted it away,

As dismal as two dummies, head and hands stuck out like mummies, From beneath the little apron of the one-horse chay.

XIX.

The Steyne was in a throng, as they jogg'd it along,
Madam hadn't been so put to it for many a day;

Her pleasure it was damp'd, and her person somewhat cramp'd,

Doubled up beneath the apron of the one-horse chay.

VOL. XVII.

3 L

XX.

"Oh would that I were laid," Mr Bubb in sorrow said, "In a broad-wheel'd waggon, well cover'd with hay ! I'm sick of sporting smart, and would take a tilted cart In exchange for this bauble of a one-horse chay.

XXI.

"I'd give half my riches for my worst pair of breeches, Or the apron that I wore last boiling day;

They would wrap my arms and shoulders from these impudent beholders, And allow me to whip on in my one-horse chay."

XXII.

Mr Bubb ge-hupp'd in vain, and strove to jirk the rein,

Nobbs felt he had his option to work or play,

So he wouldn't mend his pace, though they'd fain have run a race,
To escape the merry gazers at the one-horse chay.

XXIII.

Now, good people, laugh your fill, and fancy if you will,
(For I'm fairly out of breath, and have said my say,)
The trouble and the rout, to wrap and get them out,
When they drove to their lodgings in their one-horse chay.

XXIV.

The day was swelt'ring warm, so they took no cold or harm,
And o'er a smoking lunch soon forgot their dismay;
But, fearing Brighton mobs, started off at night with Nobbs,
To a snugger watering-place, in the one-horse chay.

THE LIBERAL SYSTEM.

OUR readers are aware that we are not admirers of the fashionable doctrines of "Liberality”—that we think somewhat contemptuously of that which in certain quarters bears the beautiful name of the " Liberal System." These doctrines and the system which has grown out of them, are hugely cried up by all the weak and wicked heads in the nation, and we need nothing but this to convince us that they are neither wise nor innocent. A mass of other evidence, however, surrounds us to produce the conviction, and we feel ourselves called upon to detail it. If they were a mere matter of words of pure speculative opinion-we might be content to despise them in silence; but when they relate to things, when their tendency is to alter almost everything that now exists, and when nearly all the guides of public opinion are their trumpeters, our sense of duty tells us that we ought to shew them no mercy. We shall, however, deal much more in fact and argument, than in assertion and hard names; and there

fore we shall scarcely injure them, if we cannot prove that they ought to have enemies.

A set of people, whom, from the want of a better name, we shall call the Statesmen of Cockaigne, and who consist of the gentlemen of the press, the Greek, Spanish, and other committees, the loan-mongers and stockjobbers, &c. &c. have had the chief share in fabricating the "Liberal System," in reducing it to practice, in cramming it down the throats of the good-natured part of the community, in smuggling it into Parliament, and even in forcing it to a certain extent upon the government. A somewhat unsparing exposure of the conduct of these people, must necessarily occupy a

prominent place in our exposure of the operation and tendency of the "System of Liberality.”

Liberty is the great earthly object of worship, with nearly all our countrymen. We rejoice at this, but we should rejoice still more if their knowledge of what constitutes the source of liberty, were proportioned to their love of it.

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