lege and his reputation that they are not found together. You need not, however, be under any apprehension, that he does not stand well with our party: no lawyer ever stood higher than he does in the House of Commons, or more thoroughly possessed the confidence of his party.

What a curious scene was exhibited last week in this city; and what would John Wilkes or Cardinal de Retz have said, to such a false step as Burdett has made, in failing to appear in the procession prepared for him. He has acted in that a more temperate and peaceable part, than I had previously given him credit for; but it is manifest, that his conduct is inconsistent with itself, that all he had done before required him to go on, and that he had advanced too far in the popular race to turn back. His popularity is accordingly very much impaired. The agitators and desperate spirits have had it proved to them, that he is not a leader for them, and has not mettle enough; and the good-hearted mob have found, to their disappointment, that whether it be want of courage, or too good a taste, he will not always enter into all their noise. The more intelligent of his party must be satisfied, that he is deficient in resolution, and cannot always be depended on. His powers of doing mischief are diminished, therefore, if he ever had any mischievous designs, which I do not believe; and if the public were once satisfied that he is no longer popular with the multitude, and thereby formidable, I think he has qualities that would enable him, in his way, to do good occasionally, and to assist other public men in doing good in theirs. Vain he is, no doubt, and always acting upon the suggestions of others, and those often inferior to himself; but he has a prompt indignation against injustice and oppression, one of the best elements

of the passion for liberty; and by great and fortunate labour he has acquired a talent for speaking in public. I believe he loves his country and the ancient institutions. I think, too, he has considerable candour in judg ing of the talents as well as motives of other men; but there have been some symptoms of a very pitiful jealousy, towards those who have interfered with him in his own line of Westminster popularity. He has rendered himself a remarkable man, though I fear he is not likely to do any great or lasting service to the public: his late transactions have extended his popularity beyond the capital, to which it was confined before; but in the end they have lessened it in the capital.

I have been led, without thinking, to write a great deal more about these matters than I intended when I sat down they are more the notions which have presented themselves in writing than the result of much reflection, so I beg you will help me to make them more correct, if you think me wrong.

I am glad you saw so much of Mr. Wilson;* because you would then see, for yourself, that the high opinion I have of his sense is not exaggerated. He has one of the most clear-sighted intellects I ever knew, and certainly the most free and erect one; he has neither prejudice, nor error, nor levity. He always sees things in their just proportions; and he always arrives at the right conclusion by the shortest way. Since the illness last year, which induced him to give up his profession, and in a great measure detached him from the world, he has seemed to me a still more instructive and interesting person to converse with than he was before: he is a mere spectator, but with as active a spirit of curiosity and observation as if he expected to remain long among * Mr. George Wilson. See note, vol. i. p. 196.

us, though he is, in a manner, separated already from us and almost from life. He has reduced to practice the purest and most fearless philosophy, and reaps the best fruits of it in the most entire tranquillity of mind, and all the pleasures of benevolence and enlightened speculation.

Most sincerely yours,

FRA. HORNER.

LETTER CLVIII. TO FRANCIS JEFFREY, ESQ.

My dear Jeffrey,

Lincoln's Inn, 16th July, 1810.

I am just returned to town, after an absence of about ten days. The Bullion Report, I am rather surprised to find, is not yet delivered from the printers; I revised the proof sheets before I left town. I would rather do something for you myself, if you will let me know the utmost time you can allow me; rather, I mean, than trust that subject in the hands of any of your mercenary troops, one of whom was guilty of deplorable heresies in the account of a book by one Smith. I will do a short article for you this time, to do justice. to Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Mushet, who called the public attention to this very important subject at the end of last year.

Will you allow me once again to protest against your suffering so much party politics in the Edinburgh Review? You knew my sentiments on that point long ago; nor would I now obtrude them, if I had not been led to feel with increased weight the justness of all my former objections, by the manner in which the last number has been received. I am quite sure the character and efficient usefulness of the work is very considerably impaired; and it appears to me to be of great public im

portance, that that injury should be retrieved as speedily as possible. The power of the Review over the public mind, which was once so great, and is still very considerable, depended very much upon that general tone of politics, which, when it was the transcript of your sentiments, it almost uniformly preserved. But the turn it has taken of late, by descending to questions between ministry and opposition, and even to individual crimination, has lowered its name, and given a prejudice against all its opinions and reasonings, even upon other occasions. Some time before I left town, I heard a long conversation about the Review between Lord Holland, Tierney, and Allen, in which they all expressed the same opinion which I have now taken the liberty of representing to you; and I think you ought to give the more weight to a sentiment in which so many persons agreed, who would naturally feel very differently about the Review. You would hardly have expected that Tierney would refuse any party aid from the press; and, in truth, I believe his opinion upon the subject was taken up in this light, that a more powerful aid was given by the Edinburgh Review to the Whig party, composed as it is at present, and still more to the questions and principles to which that party is pledged, while the work preserved its independent judicial air of authority, than it can furnish by all its activity and skill as a partisan. I meant to have told you of this conversation before, which impressed me very strongly at the time, as conclusive evidence of the effect which the recent conduct of the Review had produced upon its own reputation. But I felt some reluctance in urging a topic which might be a disagreeable one to you, on account of the difficulty and delicacy you might

feel in acting upon my view of the matter, even if you agreed with me. Brougham has been too useful and powerful an ally, to make it easy for you to point out any change you might wish for; but when I recollect the many admirable articles he formerly gave you upon more general subjects, I own that I regret very much that he should misplace his compositions so much, as to print in the Review what he ought to speak in the House of Commons.

I wish very much that Brougham and I were upon such a footing that I could state these things to himself; but that has been long otherwise: a consideration which more than any other has made me backward in stating them to you. But I have been latterly so much urged by other persons to use my influence with you, that I have been induced to make that effort upon this occasion.

I must not conclude without thanking you very gratefully for the pleasure I received in reading your extracts from Crabbe's Borough; some of which, particularly the Convict's Dream, leave far behind all that any other living poet has written. Does not your critique, in some of its expressions and illustrations, break in a little upon the doctrines which you urged against Wordsworth? In the general principles, I am satisfied, you are consistent; and as far as I am capable of judging of such matters, I think you right; but a captious person might set you in some sentences against yourself. You must some day or other bring your thoughts on the philosophy of poetry and poetic expression into the form of a systematic essay; which I shall insist upon your polishing with much care. That, and a little treatise on the ethics of common life, and the ways and means of