so on, making his life and action a sum total of mischievous contradiction, where malice is the predominant feature. They are few indeed of his readers, who coincide with him at all points, and such as do, are men possessing the same moral and political defects with himself. He is most useful in his presentation of political statistics, as a politician; and certainly useful in his agricultural and horticultural spirit. If he be original or inventive in any case, it is in the latter, as a farmer and gardener, and the reforming political world will not miss him, if, in future, he appear in no other character than as an author on husbandry. He certainly is not first as a politician, and never will lead where changes are really being produced.

So great was the impression made by Mr. Shiel on the company, that, the dessert coming in after his speech, they were really indisposed to hear any other person. Such, at least, was the spirit of the neighbourhood in which I sat. Mr. Alexander Dawson, the member for Louth, was toasted, and stood before the company twenty minutes, talking to them, while they were intent on their dessert and recollections of Shiel. No disapprobation was offered to Mr. Dawson, who is in every sense respectable; but he was really neglected on the score of attention. A Mr. Williams rose, and nobody cared for him; and when Mr. Hunt rose, he was really received as an intruder, and, but for the begging of the chairman, would not have been listened to. The sentiment of the company within my hearing was, we have heard Mr. Shiel, that is the purpose of our meeting; it is a pity that an indifferent speaker should rise after him; we want nothing more now than a song from Broadhurst. I, who really attended, for the purpose of trying the no-creed temper of the company, and of showing the fallacy, in answer to Mr. Hunt, of the advocacy of a radical reform of the parliament, and nothing but the parliament, took the hint, which the disposition of the company offered, and prudently kept my seat. I had also some prudential fears of marring the unanimity of the company, on the subject for which they had met; for I really sympathised with Mr. Shiel, for the rude, inhospitable, and even blackguard treatment, that he had received from Cobbett and others, on his visit to this country. For aught I know, we might not have a political sentiment in unison, but I have generosity enough not to insult a stranger, nor to throw impediments in his way of carrying on what appears to him a great and useful public object. The opposition of the press and pretended reformers to him, while in this country, must have arisen from malice or mischief, and has been such as with which no honourable man would have been associated. There is a letter in the Morning Herald of Thursday, signed Alpha, which is disgracefully false in its imputations, and even Mr. Hunt's letter in the same paper, though it corrects some insinuations of Mr. Cobbett's, does not state the whole truth, as to

the character and formation of the meeting. It is ridiculous, to talk of making up a full company for a secret purpose, or to serve the landlord, when the tickets bore a premium several hours before the dinner was on the table. With all their bluster about being the leaders of the Radical Reformers of England, and champions of radical reform of parliament, Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Hunt, would scarcely muster a company of a hundred to dine with them on a twenty shilling ticket. Their popularity was at a great height in 1819; but it was ill founded and never, respectable, and, from that time, has been gradually decaying. I entirely agree with those who say, and I have heard many say it, that Monday's political dinner was the most importantly useful, of all that have passed in the metropolis.

As an observer, on Wednesday evening, I attended a sort of club dinner, at a public house in Smithfield, which was made up of some of the thirty and forty year old parliamentary reformers, who have been consistent in doing their little political nothings. It was the annual celebration of the acquittal of Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall, on the charge of High Treason, in the year 1794. Thomas Hardy, an excellent old Christian, was present, The same may be said for Benjamin Flower. The spirit of the meeting. or club rather, was avowedly that of the London Corresponding Society, and what the secret or open purpose of that society was, other than to lead on to an imitation of the French Revolution, I could never discover. However, here, parliamentary reform, and nothing but parliamentary reform, was the furthest point of reform avowed. The name of Thomas Paine, which, in this club, has formerly been introduced separately, was, last night, mixed up with the founders of the American Republic and toasted in. conjunction with the English Monarchy, and some compliments from old Mr. Benjamin Flower on the constitution of King, Lords and Commons, and even thus, it was rather the toast of formality than of sentiment. Mr. Paine would have sickened at such a compliment. I sickened over the prospective incorrigibility of these hacknied parliamentary reformers, these mere talkers about liberty, and left them first and finally, to pursue a better course alone and separated from all who talk about parliamentary reform, and nothing but parliamentary reform, the contemptible constitution-politicians.

One might as well talk about advocating a radical reform in the revolutions of the planets, as to talk about a radical reform of the House of Commons, without other and previous considerations, without stating the means that are to accomplish the end. This is the point to which I would draw Mr. Hunt's attention, who makes so mischievous a clamour about his radical reform. My present opinion is, that the best way to proceed in the cause of right radical reform, is not to say one word about the thing by name, not to say a word about parliamentary reform or radical

reform; but to work vigorously on the necessary means to the accomplishment. For instance, let us suppose an obstacle to this necessary reform, in the present state of the monarchy, or of the aristocracy, or of the church, then I would have an ardent assault made on each and every such obstacle, without any statement as to the ultimate purpose, or without that mere wordy and clap-trap clamour, that mere war-whoop of radical or parliamentary reform. A man, working to such an end as this, should know nothing of clubs or parties. Every obstacle is an evil. Every club or party is in such a cause, an obstacle. Let us assail the obstacles in every way, and we shall soon approach the ultimate. Against a club or party, a club or party on the other side is raised, and thus the struggle becomes a matter of personal contention, and the working upon principle is lost sight of. We all agree that our present laws are not the best that can be made, and that our pre-. sent legislature is not the best that can be formed. Then what we want is a new legislature, or a legislature of another form or formation. All men who call themselves reformers are agreed in this point. But to say this, and to do nothing toward it, which is the sum total of Mr. Henry Hunt's advocacy of radical reform, is to trifle with or not to understand a very important consideration. The means to the accomplishment are what we have not only to find out, but to work at. Mr. Hunt said on Monday that it was his opinion that Catholic Emancipa-. tion could not precede radical reform. He gave us no reason for this. But my opinion is the reverse of this, and I think that Catholic Emancipation, as the least of all the points in the desired reformation, will be the first and easiest obtained, and that Mr. Hunt's parliamentary or radical reform will be the last obtained, as the most abstruse and most difficult point to be accomplished. In short, it requires no political wisdom or foresight to see, that Mr. Hunt's parliamentary or radical reform is not to be obtained but in a convulsive breaking up of the whole system of government. And as Mr. Hunt has been tried, and has shown us that he has no taste to be a leader in any thing of this kind, a leadership which requires the very height of moral as well as physical courage, valuing life as nought in the struggle, he had better cease to annoy us, and to interrupt more useful men in their real workings toward his parliamentary reform. He is in fact one of the obstacles to the accomplishment of his own radical reform; and such an obstacle, as I think a matter of some consequence to be speedily removed, or the sooner removed, the better we shall proceed. I am so deeply impressed with the importance of this view of the case, that, seeing a new excitement arising, and seeing Mr. Hunt again raising himself up with that excitement, I shall step forth and exhibit wherever I can conveniently meet him on the occasion, the utter futility of both his language and his action. I have no personal enmity

toward him; but I have for ten years past seen the defects of hisprinciples, and what he call his advocacy of radical reform; and I think I can add to my past utility by so exhibiting him.

R. CARLILE.

For "The Lion."

NEVER in my life have I experienced more real pleasure than the last No. of the Lion afforded me; over and over again have I read the portions supplied by Messrs. Carlile and Taylor, and the general impression left on my mind, is, that of unmingled satisfaction. The following passage in the "Quarterly Review Reviewed," is to me one of the most truly philosophical and amiably eloquent avowals that has ever flowed from Mr. Carlile's pen. "But for myself I can say, that I have weighed every proposition made by Paley, unshaken, and still allow the phenomena of animal and vegetable life to be to the human mind most wonderful! I can admire the phenomena, but I cannot settle their source so presumptuously as Paley has done." This is as it ought to be; to dwell with admiring wonder on the imposing spectacle of mighty and unfathomable power displayed in the universe, is the first and last step in all true philosophy. The most interesting object that the human eye can behold, the sublimest spectacle that the human mind can expatiate upon, is, a virtuous and gifted being profoundly contemplating the gigantic wonders of the heavens, or exploring the surrounding depths of those powers, whose traces are for ever courting his gaze, while their trackless principles for ever elude his eye.

Mr. Taylor's 38th Letter is really worthy of him;' I, advise all those who think that infidelity hardens the heart, to read that letter. In the first excitement caused by a most unjust imprisonment, the bitterest slanders, and vilifying accusations, he felt; but he felt rather "in sorrow than in anger." Query ?-What would have been the feelings (if he has any) of that baboon abortion of human nature, called Wright? And I may also ask, what are the feelings of that marked man? But I quit the spiritbestirred tidewaiter of the muddy liftings of his hubbub thoughts, for a nobler theme. Mr. Taylor regrets the loss of early friendships," memory still busy with the past, points to by-gone scenes of domestic endearment, or social enjoyment." He has lost the friendships that were dear to him, the cheering interchange of thought, the communion of (to him) departed excellence.These things has he lost, and these things cost a man a sigh in the losing. To divest oneself of au unnatural faith is one thing, but on that account to be divested of all which makes life worth the having, is indeed another. Christians are ever ready with their tales about persecuted believers, but who are the

persecutors now? I am happy to find that the manly and talented victim of christian cruelty is not to be subdued, that he possesses within himself a repository of exhaustless feeling wholly beyond its control, not to be stilled even by the only answer that christian infallibility has dared to make him-the grating of the key which locks him from the free earth. I. W. IMRAY.

Oldfield Road, Salford, Oct. 17th, 1828. SIR-I have just been looking over last week's Manchester Gazette newspaper, and I am highly pleased to find an article in it vindicating that much injured friend to mankind-Thomas Paine, touching upon his " Decline and Fall of the British System of Finance." Taking circumstances into consideration, I think it confers an honour upon the editor, inasmuch as it will serve to loosen in his readers any of that cruel and ill-founded antipathy which is known to exist in the minds of many at the very name of Paine.

The Manchester Gazette has been progressively (since the commencement of its new editorship) evincing a spirit that labours hard to be free, and I am in the hopes of seeing it ultimately taking the lead among our provincial papers. I have here copied the article above mentioned for your perusal, and with the thought that it may be entertaining to some of the readers of "The Lion."

Your's, with civic esteem, R. BLAIR.

An Article copied from the Manchester Gazette.

"A book has been recently published, under the title of 'A Call upon the People of Great Britain and Ireland for immediate attention to their Affairs,' which we find, and are glad to find, is received with considerable applause. We are glad to find it, because truth should be welcome, coming from whatever quarter and in whatever shape; and the truths which this contains are not merely speculative, but so nearly concern the