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obtained by naval services. As the names of Hawke, Duncan, Rodney, Hood, St. Vincent, Nelson, and many others, are

"Familiar in our mouths as household
words,"

a prejudice may exist against the Chart
which I am confident was never your
intention to create: I therefore take
the liberty of transmitting you what is,
I believe, a more correct summary of
its contents, and which, perhaps, you
will be good enough to insert in your
next Number.
THE AUTHOR.
The House of Lords is composed of the
following classes, viz.

......

Peers of the Blood Royal..
English lay Peers............
English Bishops

Scotch representative Peers.
Irish ditto.

Irish representative Bishops..

Making a total of..

Deduct Peers who are Minors

....

11.

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291

26

16

falsehood and calumny on which it was originally established, is, in every successive number, affording the most surprising examples of new modifications of these principles, and, by connecting them with matter of fact, forming moral combinations much more singular than any of those physical effects which either chymist or alchymist has yet been able to produce.

The first article respects the Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, by Archdeacon Coxe. We believe it is unnecessary to tell our readers that Coxe is considered among the standard writers of English literature, that is to say, his ponderous tomes stand immoveable on the shelves of the libraries of the opulent, for they relate to no sub28 ject in which the generality of the English world now takes the smallest interest. They are for the most part blocks of historical matter, upon which future genius, taste, and eloquence, may exercise their decorative faculties, No one ever thinks of calling in question any of this large author's statements; his integrity secures them from the suspicion of being garbled, and his total lack of fancy is an assurance that facts are liable to no change of form or colour in passing through the clear vacuum of his intellectual medium. As to what

371

20

Present efficient force of the House.... 351

Of the 332 lay Peers, 51 have become ennobled as courtiers; 13 as younger branches of nobility; 23 as statesmen; 13 by naval

services; 24 by military; 7 by diplomatic; 30 by legal; 32 by marriage; and 139 chiefly

on account of their wealth.

There are 54 bachelors, 41 widowers, and 237 married men: of the 278 married and widowers, 60 are without children; the remaining 218 have, among them, 1068.

The incomes of 14 of the Peers are supposed to exceed 50,0001. per annum; 13 are considered liberal patrons of the arts and sciences; and 54 can trace their ancestry to the conquest.

The most recent Peerage that of Lord Colchester, the late Speaker of the Commons, created in 1817; and the most ancient, that of the Marquess of Lansdowne, whose ancestors, the Barons of Kerry, were first ennobled in 1181.

The youngest Peer is the Earl of Lindsay, whose age is but 5 years; and the oldest the Marquess of Drogheda, who, on the 29th of this month, will be 90.

For the Monthly Magazine. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COTEMPORARY CRITICISM.-No. IX. Quarterly Review, No. 45. T is not true that there is nothing new under the sun, although the wisest man has said so, for here is a quarterly book that, with the most strict adherence to those principles of

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the Quarterly Review says on the subject of his present work, we need only remark, that the Duke of Marlborough having been a political apostate and a great courtier, is of course applauded as a most admirable man. That he was an able general, and an acute statesman, we freely acknowledge, history, indeed, obliges us; but that either a great general, or an acute statesman, if we may judge by the specimens afforded in our own time, are men of an admirable description, we most positively deny. The Duke of Marlborough was promoted through all the gradations of nobility to the dignity of an Earl, without having performed any meritorious public service. He played a traitor's part to the King to whom he owed these favours, and that, in our opinion, overbalances all the virtues which have ever been ascribed to him. His military talents it would be idle and factious to call in question: they were undoubtedly of the most splendid kind.

The second article relates to Van Diemen's Land; and the writer having had official access to those sources of information

information which belong to the public, but which seem to be only published for the pecuniary advantage of the parties concerned in the Quarterly Review, it contains some valuable introductory matter relative to that colony. It appears that

"Hobart Town, the capital, is extensive, and the streets, eleven in number, are laid out with regularity and good taste. It stands on the banks of a river, at the foot of a noble mountain four thousand feet high, and to which the monumental name of Wellington has been given. The houses are neatly constructed, white-washed, and glazed; and several good public buildings are either completed or in progress-a large church of brick and stone, a government-house, a county gaol, public offices, barracks, and an hospital.-A printing-press has been established, and a Gazette is published weekly. The island appears to be fertile and picturesque, and the climate salubrious and delightful. The wheat of Van Diemen's Land averages 60 lbs. the bushel, and the general produce of an acre at present is thirty bushels. All the grain and pulse of Europe flourish there, but the climate is scarcely warm enough for maize. That destructive insect, the weasel, will not live in Van Diemen's Land. Nearly all the fruits of Europe have been introduced with success. The grape, however, requires a warm aspect, and the orange and lemon will not ripen, except in very favourable situations.

This island is not, as has been supposed, the Botany Bay of Botany Bay; convicts are transported for further offences from Port Jackson to a settlement called Newcastle, on the coast of New South Wales, to the northward of Port Jackson; and it is intended to establish a new Botany Bay at the recently discovered port of Macquarie, on the eastern coast of New Holland.-Van Diemen's Land has a lieutenant-governor and judge-advocate of its own, commissioned by his Majesty; but it has not yet obtained the benefit of a separate criminal jurisdiction, so that prisoners for trial, prosecutors, and witnesses, are compelled to make the voyage to Port Jackson. The population, exclusive of the civil officers and military, is 3557 the land in cultivation 5,681 acres; horses, 264; horned cattle, 15,356; sheep, 127,883. The trade of the island is principally with India and the Isle of

souls;

France."

These particulars are interesting, and although given on no better authority than the Quarterly Review, they may be considered as authentic.

The third article is one of these special and peculiar papers for which the Quarterly Review is so notorious. It is one continued tirade against Count de Forbin, for his Travels in the Levant.

The Count is a Frenchman, and occasionally finds fault with the impertinence of English travellers: for these offences the Reviewer has no mercy upon him, and spares neither truth nor falsehood in the flagellation.

The fourth article respects divers publications concerning roads and highways. The Edinburgh Review, some time ago, gave us an article on the same subject: in the laudable spirit of rivalry, the Quarterly now endeavours to show how much more to the purpose it can hold forth on that beaten track.

The fifth article is on the popular topic of Parga.-Our readers will recollect that we insinuated that the Edinburgh Reviewers, on the same question, were probably indebted to a foreigner for the substance of their partial article. The Quarterly has availed itself of the hint, and has stated the fact much more broadly. The view and statement which the Quarterly has given of the Parga business, we are of opinion is by far the more correct of the two; and in saying thus much of any political topic from the hands of a Quarterly Reviewer, is more than, perhaps, might be expected from us: we will even add, that we are persuaded the whole sentimental story is one of the vilest pieces of trumpery that folly or faction ever got up in the House of Com

mons.

We have always done justice to the merits of the Quarterly Review in classical matters, that is, in those triflings of knowledge to which the particular epithet of learning is applied, and which are commonly the productions of individuals slenderly endowed with any practical faculty-fellows of colleges, and other varieties of the ecclesiastical number, the sixth article claims our genus. Accordingly, in the present approbation. It relates to the decline and corruptions of the Greek tongueapparently one of the most uninteresting topics of modern literature, but, as treated by Mr. Coray, highly curious and illustrative of history. Coray is himself a Greek, and early distinguished himself by his endeavours to revive the ancient spirit of his country-and does the Quarterly Reviewer know this?

The private life of Voltaire and Madam du Châtelet, is a rich subject for the abusive powers of Mr. Gifford, and it forms the seventh article. We were, however, surprised to find that the

worthy

worthy gentleman speaks of Voltaire as "a man of astonishing quickness, extent, and versatility of talents; he had a great deal of worldly sense and of literary acuteness; and he would sometimes be friendly and generous."Who could have expected that Mr. Gifford would have said any thing like this of Voltaire? Perhaps, however, the sense of conscious guilt, in having poured into the English language the contents of that cess-pool of Roman licentiousness-the satires of Juvenal, operated at the moment; and the contrite "nightman of literature," to use an expression of Mr. Gifford's, endeavoured to be civil to Madame de Grafigny. We were surprised at an instance of extreme ignorance in the Reviewer in speaking of the wealth of Voltaire. He does not appear to have known that Voltaire was a great stockjobber (to use a familiar term). chartered impudence" of Mr. Gifford, however, in presuming to write about things of which he knows so little is notorious.

"The

The eighth article respects a volume of pretty descriptive poems, by John Clare, a Northamptonshire peasant; and for once the disadvantages of education are treated with indulgence by the high-bred Mr. Gifford. We had supposed that the extraordinary academical pampering which his own genius received in his youth, had rendered him incapable of appreciating the merits of talent struggling with indigence. We had never presumed to think that he could have any sympathy for such a thing, but we have been mistaken.

Upon the subject of the ninth article we shall be brief. It concerns M. Roubichon's book, De l'Angleterre, and is written in some parts with spirit and candour, but we cannot enter into the justness of those feelings which ascribes to the Frenchman a greater share of nationality than the Englishman... Both have a little too much, and the rest of the world have had long good reason to entertain as little respect for the pride of the one as the vanity of the other. The Reviewer pronounces M. Roubichon's work "nonsense," and unworthy of being translated-why, then, did he think it worthy of being

reviewed?

Every body, who has noticed the hairdressers' shops in London, must have admired the beauty of the dolls in the windows-how gay, how graceful, and

well-dressed they are, and yet withal how very unlike any thing in nature; such, we think, are the pretty personages that figure in Mr. Milman's poetry, of which The Fall of Jerusalem" is considered the finest specimen; and of which the tenth article in the present number is sufficiently laudatory; no doubt, because Mr. Murray, the publisher, is the proprietor thereof. Mr. Milman is about the best academical literatus of the present day in the versemaking line; and if words were sentiment, and verse poetry, he would rank very high. But where there is a prodigious lack of common sense, absurdity cannot be far off. Mr. Milman, for example, has heard, perhaps read, of the bright visions of hope, and the reverend gentleman falls into the woeful mistake of supposing that hope is a substantial and palpable brightness. “I have told thee," says he, speaking in the character of a crazy woman, nightly do the visitations break on my gifted sight," (the young woman had got, we presume, the gift of a pair of green spectacles)—" more golden bright than the rich morn on Carmel." "Of their shape, sister, I know not," meaning the visitations, not the green spectacles; mark that. But whoever heard of the shape of visitations. Taylors and mantua-makers do make visits; but every body knows they are the least agreeable of all their shapings at the West end of the town. But, says Mr. Milman, "this I only know, they pour o'er me like the restless waters of some pure cataract ;" meaning, we presume, that for visitations we should read visitors, and that they were great and incessant talkers,-cascades of words. "There is a mingling of all glorious forms

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Of Angels riding upon cloudy thrones." This is information: for we knew that thrones were horses before; perhaps, however, the reverend poet alludes to the lions on the throne of King Solomon, and poetically supposes that the cherubim made hobby-horses of them. In a word, "The Fall of Jerusalem" is a congregation of sanctimonious sentimental trash; and yet the Quarterly Review, because its publisher has purchased the copy-right, speaks of it as something not unworthy of

Milton.

Were any discreet, well-informed member of parliament to get up in his place, and propose and carry a resolution of the House to the effect that all statistical

statistical and geographical communications made to Government should be made public annually, he would confer a lasting obligation, not only on his country, but even on the world; but he would destroy the main merit of the Quarterly Review; for instead of the garbled account of Mr. Ritchie, introduced in an episodiacal form in the eleventh article, we should have had the full circumstantial official annunciation which constitutes the merits of that paper. The fact is, that the sole value of the Quarterly Review is derived from a sort of literary peculation of public documents.

But it is time that we should "make an end," and therefore we shall say but little of the twelfth and last article. It is evidently from the same pen to whom we were indebted for an excellent account of the Greek philosophy. It is entitled, the Manners of the Athenians, and displays reading and taste. But there has been too much of the Greeks, ancient and modern, of late; and having advised the Edinburgh Review to be more economical of its political economy, we take a similar liberty with the Quarterly, and entreat that it would adopt a more frugal system in its displays of classical erudition.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

SINCE

INCE my first letter to you on the subject of the pernicious effects resulting to the poor from pawnbroking, I have read with considerable astonishment some of the papers of your correspondents on the subject. It is curious to observe how far any system, however bad, may be capable of defence, when the motives which actuate its defenders are self-interest. I have already given credit to the honesty and uprightness of many of those who are engaged in the business of pawnbroking; although such men's honesty may be said to be only "bare weight," and to be a kind of uprightness created by act of parliament. But let us look calmly and dispassionately at the general tendency of this system, and we shall find that the poor pay twenty per cent. per annum, or one-fifth part of the sum borrowed of pawnbrokers, in a common way; and if the pledge be redeemed and re-pawned from time to time, which is the usual practice amongst the poor, the interest is much increased.

Surely no disinterested person will argue that a great door of temptation to the indulgence of extravagant propensities is not opened to the poor by the pawnbroker's shop; and although in some instances it may be that the necessitous find a ready relief in distress by a temporary deprivation of some article of useless luxury, yet in almost every instance I am confident it will be found, that the frequenters of these receptacles are the idle, the debauched, and the dishonest, rather than the comparatively affluent, the honest, and the virtuous, as one of your correspondents have stated.

The nobleman about to attend the gaming-table or the race-course the merchant making a speculation in trade which is to hasten his tottering downfal towards insolvency—the tradesman who has obtained goods upon credit which he was aware at the time he obtained them he could not pay for, may be enabled to go on in the path leading to ruin a little longer, and to bring on the ruin of others by patching up a sinking credit with the assistance of the pawnbroker; but no one can with truth say, the pawnbrokers' shops are not generally supported by the very lowest classes of the poor and vicious. We scarcely see an account of a theft discovered, but we learn that a quantity of pawnbroker's duplicates for stolen goods are found in the possession of the thief, and there can be no doubt but such places of security as pawnbrokers' shops for property improperly obtained, form a very considerable temptation to thieves. I maintain, therefore, that the system of pawnbroking is a ruinous one, tending to make the poor still poorer, to encourage vice and depravity, and to increase the burthen of the poor's rates.

With regard to the invectives and coarse abuse of your correspondent pawnbrokers (for no other person will, I trust, attempt to vindicate such a system) I shall treat them with the contempt they merit.

As to the circumstance mentioned in my last letter of the pawned bank note, I reply, that the note was pawned, and redeemed, and pawned again for a long time, perhaps two years or more, until the interest amounted to the sum of two shillings and threepence, which I paid to the pawnbroker, and returned the poor man the change. J. W. January 1, 1820.

For

For the Monthly Magazine. Letter from HAREWOOD FARM, near EVANSVILLE, in INDIANA, NORTH AMERICA, Dec. 25, 1819.*

B

EING arrived in safety at this remote part of the vast continent of America, I am desirous of giving you what information I have been enabled to collect in the short space of a month, respecting this truly wonderful country. After crossing the Atlantic ocean, we traversed the hills of America for about 280 miles, and pursued our route down the Ohio river, for this settlement, near 800 more. In my journey, I was much struck by the indifference, or rather indolence, of the Americans, who appear not to concern themselves about any thing beyond the present moment; this I attribute to the ease with which they procure the necessaries of life, so few deductions being made from their industry, in the shape of taxes or other impositions, and the prices of the articles of subsistence being likewise very low. Bread 1d. to 14ď. a lb.; meat 2d. to 3d.; good cyder, 12s. a barrel, of 32 gallons; and whiskey, at 2s. 3d. a gallon, of English money. The price paid for every species of labour is high, and the profits on trade very great; it, therefore, does not require that unwearied attention to supply their wants as you experience in England. If a man in business does not make 20 per cent. of his capital, he does not consider himself paid. A common labourer receives 4s. 6d. a day, and when hands are scarce his meat also; a good smith or wheelwright earns from 4s. 6d. to 5s. a day. For a watch glass we pay 2s. 3d., and for cleaning a watch 4s. 6d., and other repairs in proportion; and even at this rate, it is not uncommon to send it 2 or 300 miles. A clever man of this profession might, I have no doubt, succeed to his most sanguine wishes, especially if he knew any thing of the tinning business. A good saddler would also do well here; also a shoe maker, and a rope and bag maker, as hemp and flax grow in this neighbourhood, and are sold cheap; in short, all manufactured articles fetch very high prices. I have no hesitation in asserting, that any person, of almost any employment, possessed of common industrious habits and prudence, will not fail, in a few years, of realizing sufficient property to make himself quite

From Cullum's Alfred, No. 261.
MONTHLY MAG. No. 341.

easy: and, if similar principles be instilled into his children, he need entertain but little anxiety as to their prógress in the world, which must be a considerable relief to the mind of a father of a large family, who with all his industry, care, and privations, yet finds himself in a worse condition at the end of each year than at the beginning, which I know to be the case with many in England.

You are already acquainted with the manner of purchasing lands of the government. The soil in this district is generally very rich, having several inches of vegetable mould on the surface, and underneath a rich yellow loam, with very few stones; nevertheless we have very considerable runs of lime stone and coals. I was fearful, on first examining these strata, that we should be obliged, after a day's rain, to stop our plough for a time; but I find we can work after 24 hours, with little or no inconvenience. I assure you, I saw with surprise, the quantity of work that had been done, where 13 months ago was no trace of the labour of man, in a circle of many miles extent. Our settlement already includes a surface of six square miles, peopled chiefly with English, to the number of near 200 persons, and daily increasing. We live in perfect harmony and friendly intercourse, consult together on the best modes of husbandry, and adopt the most approved, every one being desirous of communicating whatsoever he is acquainted with for the general good. In this flourishing little district, there are at this time 100 acres in wheat, upwards of 200 in Indian corn, and fair proportions of barley, oats, and rye. The land, as far as it has been tried, appears very favourable to turnips, and we expect that a very large quantity of seed will be sown. We shall have good crops of potatoes; also rice, which was last year found to answer exceedingly well. The tobacco plant has been cultivated with some success. respect to fruit, all that have been tried, have been found to excel both in flavour and size. Apples and peaches are most abundant; and at a distance of eighteen miles, are considerable vineyards, and where they make great quantities of wine for sale. Melons are also very plentiful here, and I am informed very delicious and grateful in the summer months. The land consists of woods, barrens, (that is, spots lightly wooded, but the soil as good 3 S

In

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