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in short, who is hurried along by the very worst species of intolerance, illiberality, and fanaticism. You may pretend, that as you live at a distance from England, you are callous to the reproaches of Englishmen: you may affect to laugh at the general opinion. But we know well, my Lord, that no man has ever yet despised it with impunity: and we see no reason, why your Lordship should be an exception to the rule. We know well, on the contrary, that such a man as your Lordship, ever aspiring at distinction, blinded by self-conceit, and tender beyond the usual tenderness in all points connected with your literary fame, cannot hear without acute and harrowing vexation the spreading murmurs of abhorrence and disgust, embittered as that vexation must be by the mental consciousness of the vast sacrifices which you have made for a celebrity, which, when attained, is worse than nothing.

For, on the other hand, my Lord, among whom will your name be famous? where are the friends, who are to recompense you for the loss of honest, hearty, enthusiastic approbation from the Tories and Whigs, and moderate constitutionalists of your country? Shall we look for them among the persons of your own rank? shall we look for them among the country-gentlemen of England? among the ornaments of the liberal professions? among the noble, the educated, and respectable of one sex, the chaste, and virtuous, and dignified, of the other? My Lord, we should look in vain. No: rather must we go to him, whom society has disowned-to the ignorant mechanic, to the shallow, hair-brained, short-sighted enthusiast, to the fraudulent bankrupt, to the desperate adventurer, to the misguided wretch who wants only courage to become a traitor. We must enter the prison, the pot-house, and the brothel, to find the supporters of Lord Byron. The admirers of little Waddington will be the admirers of Lord Byron. They who hate not Sheriff Parkins will love Lord Byron-that gentleman and your Lordship will be the Bavius and Mævius of revolutionary reform. Such as read "the Rambler's Magazine" will read "the Liberal ;" and Lord Byron will reckon among his partisans all the levellers in the kingdom without exception :—all the Honeites and Cobbettites to With their cause and their attempts, the cause and the attempts in which your Lordship is engaged, will be

a man.

identified and posterity, or rather one generation after the present will talk in the same breath of Mr. Hunt, monarch of Cockaigne, Mr. Hunt, Lord of the Manor of Glaston twelve hides, Mr. Carlisle, and Lord Byron. Surely, my Lord, this is to be something, which very nearly approaches "the climax of all scorn." You will be the idol of men, who are not only poor and destitute, but whose poverty and destitution are the consequence of folly or crime:—who, as to public affairs, have not the intellect to discern the beauty of that constitution, which they have the wish to destroy, and who in private matters seldom feel the necessity of paying a debt, or being grateful for an obligation :-who are liberal in abuse, liberal in invective upon those who are above them, or who differ from them but in all things where true liberality can be displayed, are the very personifications of illiberality, uncharitableness, and meanness.

But, my Lord, you will not retain the friendship even of the champions of radicalism. Between them and you there can be no real community of feeling; because there is no real community of interest. When you are excommunicated and outlawed from the respectable classes of society, and completely fraternized with your new associates; when they once have you in their power; when you have committed yourself irretrievably and hopelessly with their miserable faction; they too will desert, and revile, and execrate you. Then will you find the virus of their malice poured forth against yourself. My Lord, you are not their natural friend, their natural confederate. Between them and you there is an impassable gulph. In their hearts they must hate you. They will never forgive you for being a peer. Your aristocratic superiority is a crime for which not even jacobinism can atone: your rank is an offence, which not all the waters of blasphemy can wash away. Your coadjutors will be sure to treat you, as the lowest order, the very scum of revolutionists, has always treated such among the higher classes as have madly joined in their conspiracy against established institutions. Such men, my Lord, would make you first the instrument of their baseness, and lastly the victim of your own infatuation.

My Lord, we can conceive no adequate motive for your conduct. You are a proud man: you are a vain man; the

great key to your character is a monstrous and overweaning egotism. You must hate vulgarity: with all your powers of hatred you must hate cockneyism. Yet what a mass of foolish inconsistencies does your Lordship present! Lord Byron, the enthusiastic admirer, the devoted champion of Pope, unites in connection with Leigh Hunt: although he must be as well aware as most men in which of Pope's productions the bard and monarch of Cockaigne would have found a place. Lord Byron, the peer of the realm, who proclaims himself an aristocrat in feelings, as in birth, goes over to the reformers, who would fain level all the distinctions of social life; to whose imaginations the existence-nay the very name-of aristocracy must be gall and wormwood. It must be plain, therefore, even to the understanding of the most stupid disciple of the cockney school, that your Lordship is practically an apostate from your own literary faith, a traitor to your own feelings, your own inclinations, your own prejudices. And for what purpose? We confess, my Lord, that we are unable to divine. Yet we see enough to know that you are playing either a very foolish or a very mischievous game. You may, probably, be playing both. Yourself alone can unravel the whole mystery as yourself alone can have the clue to the secret workings of a "distempered and self-torturing soul."

In whatever light, therefore, we view your present situation -a situation which must be equally uncomfortable and degrading the best advice, which we can offer, is that you should get rid, at once and for ever, of Mr. Hunt, Mrs. Hunt, and all the little Hunts, with whom you have now the misfortune to be connected. They may infect you, my Lord, with their manners, their opinions, their sweet amenities and prettinesses-they may at last turn you into nothing better than a cockney out of town. Already have they made you their private dupe, and the public laughing-stock. Can you possibly continue such a publication as "the Liberal,” when you reflect under what auspices, and with what associates, you are endeavouring to extinguish the hopes, and destroy the energies, of man-to darken and bewilder the human mind-to pollute and poison the springs of human happiness. My Lord, my Lord, recall, while it is time, the better feelings of other and brighter days. Apply to yourself the remark

which you cannot but remember : "The unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here mentioned, renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or at worst laughed at, and forgotten: perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension." If for you the pursuits of honourable ambition have no charm: if you can take no interest in the debates of that senate of which you are an hereditary member: in the concerns of that country of which you might be, and ought to be, an ornament; at least let not the fruits of your manhood utterly disgrace the promise of your youth. Let it be no longer said of you, that there is a greatness, both as a poet and a man, of which you have not even a conception. My Lord, we speak for your sake. You are now a loser in happiness as much as in reputation. You are running a headlong course, of which the end will be infamy. If you persevere in your present frenzy, it may be our consolation to know, that your influence, which is already waning, will be lost, and that your degradation, which is inevitable, will be a salutary warning to mankind.

We are, my Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient servants,

The Council of Ten.

POOR AUTHORS.

We have no room in our present number to give a particular notice to the favours of our Correspondents. It is sufficient to state, that to such communications, as require immediate regard, we either have sent, or shall send, an answer through the medium of our publisher.

There is, however, one letter, accompanied by two copies of verses, which seems to us to demand a more public attention. Yet our observations will be few, as the subject is painful. In the first place, we shall print both the epistle and one copy of the verses,-which we can assure our readers is the most favourable specimen of the two-without altering a word, a syllable, a letter, or a stop.

* Vide Preface to "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers."

GENTLEMEN,

TO THE COUNCIL OF TEN.

A number of verses have lately fallen into my hands, from which the enclosed are extracted, the production of a poor and uneducated man. With all their uncouthness and confusion, I think they discover some gleams of poetical talent which entitle them to the notice of your Council; and should you be induced by this specimen, to consider the collection worthy of attention, I shall be happy to place it in your hands.

I am, Gentlemen, Yours, &c.

J. M.

VERSES ON THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE RICHARD B. SHERIDAN.

He so well known did plead your country's cause

And as well sifted justice from disguise,

Wits, Critics, Poets ever made them pause

Did win their ears, and melt their eager eyes.
His facts when stated proves a statesman sound,
Your grievances he told with feeling woe,
From Earth to Heaven his sentences rebound,
With tribute due, they like a fountain flow.

In every character is found a flaw,

Blest Wisdom dictate (Conscience understood)

Much to the great disposer do we owe

How few his follies to his kingdoms good.

His language known so well refined
Proved no poet born could aid him

From Heaven he must have been consigned
Taught, informed by him that made him.

His Judgment ever known profound,
His dictates, moral, and divine
In British annals will be found,

Great Archimedes did outshine.

His Eloquence a Prince-like man had proved
From him might claim an unbounded right

But men without virtue are seldom moved

Like Stars they fall-or shine with borrowed light.
He like Achilles shone, the child of fame
Apollo's vocal powers did joy inspire
Minerva fluttered when she heard his name
The nine, when quoted, were all set on fire.
Sons of Genius! Wit, and Wisdom, prize
Pope, Newton, Addison did that proclaim
Each future Bard shall rend the lofty skies

With crowning Sheridans immortal namẹ,

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