362

THE LION'S HEAD.

Valiant as a lion, and wondrous affable.

SHAKSPEARE.

A CORRESPONDENT writes us a letter (which we must decline inserting in its entire state) on some late foolishness of The Examiner, in regard to the Duke of Wellington. The subject, as it seems to us, is scarcely worth notice; yet, as it has been brought before us, we are tempted to condense the argument contained in this communication. The writer, we hope, will excuse the liberty we take with his language. His ideas we shall generally retain-softening the acrimony of their expression :-Who shall answer for it, he asks, that the hootings of Alderman Wood's mob will be considered, a hundred years hence, to have disgraced the Duke of Wellington? Is it not rather probable, that the words of the Queen's first advocate, bearing testimony to the genius and to the renown of this commander, may, before half that period is elapsed, be thought sufficient of themselves to outweigh the Alderman's mob, Cobbet's Register, Hone's wood-cuts, Waddington's wall-bills, and the Examiner's philosophy? The editor of this last-mentioned Journal is very confident that the Duke is down, never more to rise; and he calls on a literary friend of his to triumph over the fallen; but in his triumph to be compassionate! There is, however, reason to believe, that the gentleman referred to, is too shrewd a judge to exult on such grounds. He is likely to estimate both Wood and his mob for what they are worth. To tell him that his triumph is associated with the Alderman's, is to mock him; and to bid him be magnanimous in his joy, because they, who think the Queen the honour of England, consider Wellington its dishonour, is to treat him impertinently. It is only the editor of the Examiner, with his happy knack of imposing on himself, who can believe that the battle of Waterloo, and the campaigns of Spain, will appear smeared on the page of history by the mud scattered from the wheels of the Queen's carriage, and caught in the hands of the public, in night-caps and butcher's aprons, who crowded Parliamentstreet,

And gave the Beauty of the day a voice!*

England, in my humble opinion, has a greater interest in Wellington's fame, as a general, than in Mr. Hunt's, either as poet or editor; and therefore I am happy that the Duke has something, in the way of approbation and congratulation, to set-off against the Examiner's censure and pity. Mr. Brougham has celebrated him as the first captain of the age; and this he has done in the course of a series of eloquent exertions which must co-exist with the memory of the present age-as must Wellington's victories, terminating in the glittering pinnacle of England's military glory. It is not a volume of the Examiner, in boards, that will hide this splendid elevation from the eyes of posterity: nor, if testimony should hereafter be quoted from the present day, will Mr. Hunt's be thought worth opposing to that of the historian of the battle of Waterloo-the author of Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolks whose literary triumphs are the only events of the present time that will bear comparison with the military ones of Wellington. It is rather too

This, as applied in the original, is a very fine line: new and happy. He who wrote it is inexcuseable in writing what he often does.

much for patience, to find Mr. Hunt, in the teeth of all this, shouting victory and clapping his hands. "Rubbing the poor itch of his opinion, he makes himself a scab." Had such persons, amongst his contemporaries, as Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Brougham, treated the Duke's talents with disdain, one might have been led to tremble for his reputation with posterity-nor in that case, would the encomiums of the Examiner (were his Grace honoured with them) be thought of material import in telling the other way.

The power of many of the passages in the fragment Sabrina, we are eager to acknowledge; yet the complication of style, the indistinctness of idea, and violence of imagery, which characterize it, would, we are sure, ren der it both unpopular and unintelligible were we to publish the poem,

The wit of Nosereddin we do not deny, but cannot find out. Is it a riddle, or an allegory, or a parody, or a hoax, or real history? Does it relate to the Queen's case, or to the longitude? Is it political, or ethical, or nonsensical? Is it meant to make us laugh or cry? We put these ques tions in all humility, and real sincerity-after having twice carefully read. the paper in question from beginning to end.

We really like Maria's verses very much: though we are afraid she will not believe us when she finds they are not inserted in the Magazine. The fact is this, however: they are smart, fanciful, ingenious, and pleas ing but they are not correct. They are calculated to delight friends yet they might be sharply criticized by the public. We could tell her their faults but to write them we have no inclination. She is wrong about Mr. K.; and her error in regard to him is of more consequence than any that belongs to her poetry. All this is trying her fidelity very hard; but it is at the same time paying a compliment (a sincere one) to her good sense and good-nature.

F.'s hint about mathematical subjects will be recollected, if ever the opportunity of inserting respectable contributions of this nature should occur.

Sir Simon Humdrum was a good fellow; but we have some fears that he would not cut a very good figure in the London Magazine. He was, however, altogether a remarkable person-and some of his peculiarities, as stated by his biographer, seem to us so curious, that we are tempted to make free with them from the MS.

Though not born with teeth, he made excellent use of them when they came.

In process of time he succeeded to his father's estate.

Being rich and stout, he was looked at by the ladies.

His usual salutation to each of them was" How do you do, Ma'am?”

He thought religion a serious subject.

He once paid a visit to his Aunt in the country.

He was in the daily habit of eating, drinking, and sleeping, till he departed this life; and, after that event, he was never known, either to eat, or drink, or sleep.

Such are some of the more remarkable particulars of Sir Simon Humdrum's interesting existence-a detailed history of which has been sent us by a kind friend. The epitaph on his tombstone, we are informed by our correspondent, runs as follows:

When Sir Simon Humdrum died,

Sev'ral laughed, and sev'ral cried!

Yet none for him shew'd grief or scorn-
The same was done when he was born!

THE LONDONER (promised in our last) writes us word that he has taken a trip to Paris for a few weeks-and that he must be excused sending the Extracts till his return. He tells us that the French critics praised the Vampyre, as one of the finest productions of Lord Byron's pen; but that they think little of Don Juan, and wonder so much fuss should have been made in England, about the wickedness of so dull a work! The Parisians are terribly scandalized by the inquiry into the Queen's conduct; and observe that the business is altogether English-they having an idea that, in regard to conjugal disputes, we are in the habit of conducting ourselves in a way at once ridiculous, and disgusting. The Milords d'Angleterre, exclaim our neighbours, with astonishment-all in full assembly, occupied in questioning Mahomet as to his jigs, and Majocchi as to his peepings, and Mademoiselle Dumont as to her letters! And all this too for the benefit of public morals,-solely for the benefit of public morals, the King being a pattern of purity, and the Milords all immaculate! Our Parisian critics, we learn, treat this pretence as excessively hypocritical, and, more than any other feature of the case, odious. They ask if there is not a noble-hearted man in the British ministry, to look down, with the lightening eye of disdain, the servile schemes of his colleagues; and to speak out, as the representative of the old English character, at the council-board of the English sovereign? As foreigners, they take greater liberty of speech than we durst permit ourselves on this subject: they demand if George IV. has, from his youth downwards, shown that habitual regard to the correctness of manners, and that sincere persuasion of the value of good example in elevated station, that could alone cover the unseemliness of the present investigation, by throwing over it the semblance of conscientious motive? If, in this respect, his conduct and character present a marked contrast to his father's,—what (ask our neighbours) can be the result of the present dispute between him and his wife, but public disgust and disaffection? Every manly disposition becomes enlisted against the attempt to give licentiousness the advantages due to a solicitude for virtue; and to enable private wrongs to attain their consummation under the pretext of a public interest. The weaker and the outraged party becomes, properly, in such a case, the object of popular defence: and if impartiality be lost sight of, and violence be done to the nicety of decorum, and even to the delicacy of morals, in the popular enthusiasm thus excited, for such injury to the national respectability, and for such corruption of the national feeling, they are responsible, whose spite and whose servility have reduced the country to its present dilemma.-It must either permit its name to be employed in a cause which it nauseates, and suffer malice, licentiousness, and hypocrisy, to act under the mask of austere morality,- -or it must be contented to make slight of very distasteful circumstances, and treat with levity many very suspicious facts. This is a sad necessity; but it is one to which the nation has been reduced that is to say, in the opinion of bystanders-and we must confess we are very much of the same way of thinking. Whether the English manners and national character will ever recover from the shock they have now received, is doubtful; and the blow given to them may be a fatal one to the Monarchy.