he ordered them to be whipped forthwith, from the door of Saint Stephen's Chapel to the statue at Charing Cross, and back again. How pleasing it would be to behold, for instance, the herringgutted frame of some west-country apostate, flagrant from the nine-tailed lash inflicted by the unsparing arm of a sixteen-stone drummer, originally educated in the West Indies as help to an overseer! With what an agreeable cadence the hollow howling of his sepulchral voice would fall upon the auricular drums of the amused assembly! How zummerzet, as Shakspere says, squeak rats beneath the cat "Like softest music to attending ears." It is charming to be reminded of beautiful passages of romantic poetry in the midst of the jangling politics of the Roundheads. Romeo and Juliet! Delicious tale of love! -But I digress; and must go back to recommend his Highness to recreate the the crowd periodically, by exposing the purged-outs in the pillory, specially revived for their use, in the presence of a goodhumoured congregation, too much pleased by the sight to indulge in any rancorous feelings, and therefore contenting themselves with pelting the culprits with nothing harder than congenial nastiness. It has ever been accounted good policy to supply the public with innocent recreations-to procure for them objects of laughter in all lawful ways-and therefore, I think, Woodfall is never sufficiently to be commended for having set the example of publishing the debates of the Houses of Parliament. Why do I think of these things? What brings these dark visions of the future before my mental optics? It must be the impress produced upon me by the grave of Sir Thomas Pride, for assuredly there is nothing in present circumstances to suggest such ideas. If I turn my eyes from the tomb of the stern expurgator to look on the state of affairs around, is not every thing calculated to inspire, not such ferocious fancies- such fierce phantasmata of the halter and the lash--but, on the contrary, thoughts soft as down, and odorous as balm? Look round, and all is happiness. In Spitalfields, the weaver, no longer tormented with the tedious and unmanly shuffling of his shuttle, roams in liberty through the streets, accompanied by his wife and children, who, disdaining to be indebted to the base mechan ical labours of the mason or the carpenter, prefer the gorgeous and star-spangled canopy of the glorious firmament itself, as curtain to their bed. In Barnsley and Manchester, in Congleton and Sheffield, a similar repose from toil prevails, and their gallant youth, despising their former servile avocations, are trainng themselves to the blood-stirring trade of arms, or take lessons in eloquence and politics from the honeyed lips of a Flanagan or a Peter Hoey. A spirit of jocularity has seized on the ribbonmen of Coventry, and they divert themselves with facetious processions of master-manufacturers mounted on donkeys, with their faces to the tail, and liberally supplying them with the produce of the soil, applied to their persons and countenances, if not with much delicacy, yet with hearty good-will and plentiful abundance. Elsewhere the same pleasantry of disposition leads them to make ribbons, not of their silk, but their masters, and to rip out the intestinal canals of obnoxious non-employers by the surgical instrumentality of a bill-hook. The ship-owners, disdaining to extort money from the merchant, carry freights for prices which will not pay the breakfasts of their sailors- the iron-master is so good as to work for the benefit of the public, at a loss of a pound a-ton—the woolstapler clothes as many of the people as still cling to the ancient prejudices of being clothed, at prices less than those which he promises to the farmer for his wool. The farmer himself, no more fatigued by following the profitless plough, sits at ease in a house unencumbered with furniture, and cheers himself, not with the stupifying extract of malt, but the pure and unadulterated fluid of the crystal spring —while in town, the merchant and trader are continually reminded of the propriety of dealing in ready-money transactions only, by the regular refusal of discount, and the unlimited protesting of their bills. True it is, that the customs and excise fall off-less moneys are paid in those obnoxious branches of revenue—but then, to compensate for that, the great domestic tax of the poor-laws is hourly increasing. Literature and morals are also on the rise. It is not only the illustrious order of the Gentlemen of the Press, a body of men unknown in the days of Alfred, and never employed, as Sharon Turner informs me, in reporting the useful debates of the Wittenagemot, who now con tribute to the newspapers-for never does a week elapse without some fifty or sixty tradesmen of London supplying one paragraph a-piece to a paper published on Tuesdays and Fridays, under the name of the London Gazette, the editor of which, Mr. Gregson, is paid the moderate sum of £2000 a-year for his industrious and original labours; and morality is so protected, that of our three great theatres, which Mr. Prynne (one of the members ejected by Colonel Pride) proved long ago to be vomitories of vice, where the women deserve to be eaten by dogsbecause, like Jezabel, they paint their faces-one is shut up, or dependent upon pauper subscriptions, and the other two are obliged to send, one to France, and the other to America,* for managers, no native being found sufficiently depraved to embark in such a business. It is needless to swell the catalogue of our joys. As Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph phrases it, Si Monumentum quæris-CIRCUMSPICE. Of the Administration under which this flood of happiness has flowed upon us, what can be said? Πως δ' αρ' σ' ύμνησω παντως ἐνυμνον ἐοντα; Is there a virtue under heaven with which it is not endowed? Purity of life, integrity of conduct, knowledge of equity, practice of piety, political consistency, cleanness of hand, singleness of purpose, dignity of personal fame, all these characterize those gifted individuals. How admirably each is qualified for his place! The Duke is first financier, on the strength of being a Field Marshal-the Chancellor of the Exchequer has studied for his office, by keeping up a correspondence with penniless Tipperary justices on the affairs of Eliogurty or Borris-o'-kane -the Chancellor is fitted for the woolsack by never having held an equity brief in his life-the Privy Seal is a Major-General, distinguished for having been second in a duel to a runaway Whig, who was at once Scotchman and attorney. Lord *Monsieur Laporte and Mr. Stephen Price.-M. The persons here referred to, members of the Wellington Cabinet, were "the Duke," Mr. Goulburn, ex-Secretary for Ireland, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Lyndhurst, who succeeded Eldon as Chancellor, and the Earl of Rosslyn, who had been second to James Stuart, in his duel with Sir Alexander Boswell.-M. Aberdeen's foreign politics were learnt in an illustrious assembly, where the History of Whittington and his Cat is discussed, and admirable dissertatations on old chamber-pots are poured into ears sesquipedal. Sir George Murray was taught the politics of our colonies in mess-rooms in Spain; and the destinies of India are aptly intrusted to Lord Ellenborough, because, like Samson, his glory lies in his locks. Of Mr. Peel what need I speak? Is not his praise to be gathered from the voice of Oxford and Sir Manasseh ?* And why need I open my lips about the rest, seeing that their excessive modesty has always been so great, that nothing is known of their merits or abilities, except the simple but convincing fact of their being ministers? God knows why! Happy people! favoured land! Farewell, then, Thomas Pride! Light be stones upon your bosom; and when the necessity arises for kicking out a parliament, may we have many a man ready to imitate your example! * In 1829, when the University of Oxford refused to re-elect Peel, for his concession of the Catholic Claims, he was returned for the pocket-borough of Westbury, the property of Sir Manasseh Lopez. — M. The Equality of the Sexes.* MY DEAREST Madam, ALLOW me to return my warmest acknowledgments of the honour done me by your admirable letter on the comparative merits of the two sexes. May I hope that our opinions and sentiments, differing in words, may be found, ultimately, to coincide in spirit? You know my devotion to that side of the question to which you belong, and which you adorn and dignify equally by the charms of your mind, and your person. You maintain that women are equal, in all things, to men, and that any apparent inferiority on their parts must be attributed wholly to the institutions of society. Even in bodily powers you are unwilling to acknowledge defeat; and certainly, my dearest madam, you have argued the topic with the most captivating, the most fascinating eloquence and ingenuity. You refer, in the first place, to the inferior animals, arguing, my dearest madam, by analogy. Look, you say-look at Newmarket-there you behold mares running neck and neck with horses, gaining king's plates, and cups, and stakes of all sorts against them in spite of their noses, and occasionally leaving them at the distance-post. You then bid me consider the canine species, and I will find the grey-hound, and pointer, and terrier, and bull-bitch, equal, if not superior to the dog, in sagacity, fleetness, fierceness, and ferocity. You then fly with me to the interior of Africa, and, showing me in one cave a lioness, and in another a tigress, with their respective kittens, you ask me if the ladies are not as formidable as the lords of the desert? Turn your gaze sunwards, you next exclaim, guided by that lofty yell, and you may discern the female eagle returning from distant isles to her eyrie on the inland cliff, with a lamb, or possible a child, in her talons. Could her mate do more? You then beautifully describe the Amazons-and will you still obstinately adhere, you ask me, to the unphilosophical belief in the physical inferiority * From Blackwood for August, 1826, as a "Letter to Mrs. M."-M. |