A LETTER TO THE 'KING.* WE hate politics, but in a work which essentially belongs to the court circle, it would be an odd kind of neglect to omit all notice of " A LETTER TO THE KING." The pamphlet which was last week published under this title, is the work of a sound tory of the moderate school; and though he designates himself the Silent Member, he seems determined to speak out. The object of this letter is to call the attention of his Majesty to the real nature of the struggle now making for reform, and the true character of the persons busily employed in exciting the public. It is not for us to say how far his Majesty is enlightened by the letter upon topics which have doubtless been well considered by him before those measures which THE SILENT MEMBER reprobates were taken. As, however, we must not shut our eyes to the work, we shall merely select a few passages which will show the spirit in which it is written. After describing some of the horrors of the Belgian and French revolutions, the writer asks, Do I borrow this picture of the gains of revolution from the pencil of some alarmist, or of some "pensioned aristocrat?" Is it the language of some bigoted slave of ancient institutions, or monarchical prejudices? No such thing. It is the calm, and I am sure unexaggerated, representation of an enthusiastic apostle of reform-of a furious inciter to constitution-making-of a prostrate worshipper of the vox populi-provided the cry be loud enough to reach the sanctuary of his self-interest, and inviting enough to convince him the people can pay better than their rulers. It is the statement of the Timest-your Majesty's loyal, your Majesty's unwearied, panegyrist; of that same Times which now offers up the incense of its adulation to the illustrious virtues of William IV. with a fervour surpassed only by the rancour with which it once flung base and revolting calumnies upon the character of the Duke of Clarence, at a period when defending an accused Queen bore a higher premium than asserting the cause of innocence and justice, of private morals, and of public decency. The same kind of allusions are made in respect to Lord Brougham and Sir T. Denman, allusions which we shall not further notice; the other passages mark the feeling of the author, who may be regarded as the most able and forcible writer in behalf of the tory interests. It is, we apprehend, not very likely that his premises will be all conceded; for "silent," though he be, he says, In 1789, Louis XVI. gave his consent to a measure which annihilated, at a single blow, and by a single vote, and after a single debate, tithes, manorial rights, game laws, and many other laws and customs, of which the people complained. Louis XVI. then became a patriot king; and he was idolized by his grateful subjects; and he was hailed as the saviour of his country: and he went, amid the adoring acclamations of the good Parisians, to celebrate Te Deum on the auspicious occasion; and every body said a revolution was prevented, by what they called a magnanimous yielding to the just demands of a loyal nation. What followed? The loyal nation soon discovered there were many other just demands to satisfy; and the ill-starred monarch discovered, too late, that what he had been taught to consider as a magnanimous exercise of regal prerogative, was only taking the first step in his descent from the throne to the scaffold. We regret that at a period of such extreme excitement, when even our readers must look anxiously at passing events, we cannot make longer extracts. There is an admirable passage which describes the reformers, or remonstrants, in the reign of Charles I., whose professions were precisely the same as those of the reformers of 1831. All they wanted was to uphold the dignity of the crown, and restore the confidence of the nation; and the gradations from these professions down to the martyrdom of the unhappy monarch are strikingly given. The writer infers, that when those who mean well have joined those whom we fear mean far differently, and obtained for them what they now demand, and what we are told they must have to satisfy them, they will have created a power stronger than they can * By "the Silent Member" of Blackwood's Magazine. Hatchard and Son. + See the first leader of the Vicar-of-Bray Journal for Tuesday, April 5. afterwards control, and he then observes, and with this passage we conclude our extracts, I may be told, perhaps, that the persons who were instrumental in bringing Charles I. to the block, and overturning the established church, were very different from those who are now seeking reform. Perhaps so; but I shall be in a better condition to acquiesce in this assertion, when I know WHAT PROPORTION SECTARISTS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS bear to the followers of the church of England, among the thousands who have signed petitions in favour of reform, and the tens of thousands who are represented as favourable to it. Would to God it were practicable to obtain this information. I could almost go so far as to say, I would become a reformer myself, if the result proved that DISSENTERS constituted only a large MINORITY. It would be vain to deny that the pamphlet contains some facts and inferences, which we think it will be difficult to parry, and a more bitter exposure of political inconsistency in a few of those, who, when the King had nothing to give, could find no language too gross to apply, and who now fawn and cringe with a meanness and servility perfectly alien to manliness and common decency, we have not often read. TALES OF TIECK.* The Old Man of the Mountain; The Love Charm; and Pietro of Abano. Taken from the German of Tieck. THE writings of Tieck, which enjoy a distinguished reputation in his own country, where many critics have placed him above Schiller and Goëthe, are comparatively unknown in England, through the medium of translation. The present volume, which professes only to be "taken" from the German, not translated, consists of the three tales above-mentioned. We are not informed by whom they have been so "taken;" but though we cannot bestow upon the anonymous "taker" the praise of having carefully performed his task, we are quite willing to allow he has transfused into his labours no small portion of that ardent feeling, rich fancy, and quaintness of thought, which belong to the original. Of the three tales, we like the first, "The Old Man of the Mountain," the least; it has less unity of design, and is altogether less intelligible, even as a narrative of mystic wonders, than the other two. Nevertheless, there is great power manifested in parts; a shrewd and biting tone of morose philosophy, and, what could hardly be expected from a mind of so caustic a quality, some delightful touches of simplicity in the delineation of the female character (Rose). The second tale, "The Love Charm," is founded upon one of those wild and sanguinary superstitions which were devoutly believed by our forefathers. The main incident is well described; but the characters of Emilius and Roderick are so admirably drawn, so vividly discriminated, and so justly sustained throughout, that it becomes a matter of painful regret to see so much fine thinking, and really profound knowledge of human nature, linked with a narrative more adapted to the nursery than the closet of the student. "Pietro of Abano," is the most elaborately conducted, and the most perfectly brought out, of the three, though a tale of pure magic and enchantment. Many portions of it reminded us of some of the more striking scenes in The Five Knights of St. Alban's. The character of the deformed dwarf, Beresguth, is almost Shakspearian, occasionally, and what higher praise can we bestow? The hag, too, who had stolen the twin sister of Crescentia, is nearly as much of a poetical creation, in her ideas, language, and feelings, as Caliban. There is great vigour in the conception, both of Beresguth and the beldame, and much originality in the sentiments given to them; sentiments just suitable to such beings, as we at once feel, after we have surrendered our judgment to the possibility of their being real existences. The incantations of the sorcerer Pietro, in evoking the spirit of Crescentia from the tomb, the VOL. I. * E. Moxon. 2 A appearance of Crescentia herself, the description of the charmed life she bears, ana the scene in the church where she returns to the state of death, are all powerfully executed. We need hardly add, after what we have said, that this is a highly interesting volume; but, before we conclude, we will advert to certain Ritsonian peculiarities of orthography, which we know not whether they are chargeable upon the writer or the printer. We allude to such fopperies as spelling masked, clasped, fixed, winked, laughed, &c. &c., maskt, claspt, fixt, winkt, luught, and so on; hight, for height; firy, for fiery; and compound words, such as party-walls, wonder-working, rose-leaf, &c., uniformly spelled partywalls, wonderworking, roseleaf, &c. If this be meant for improvement it is silly affectation. THE EDITOR'S ROOM. We have received a communication for the Royal Lady's Magazine, purporting to be from the pen of Mr. Galt; and we have done our best to ascertain whether the Mr. Galt who forwarded it, is Mr. John Galt, but without being able to satisfy ourselves upon the subject. In this dilemma, we will throw ourselves upon the judgment of our readers; not by publishing the tale of The Val Demonia, for that would impeach our own judgment, but by extracting from it a single paragraph (a perfect sample of the whole), and leave them to decide whether it could have been written by the author of the Ayrshire Legatees, the Annals of the Parish, Sir Andrew Wylie, &c. "Duke Cosmo had a beautiful sister, the pride of her family, and the admiration of Palermo. None could behold her without love, nor hear her fate without sorrow. Young, gay, and blooming, it was natural that her brother should anticipate some high addition to the princely connexions of his house; but, before she had attained her sixteenth year, an event occurred which convinced him that his hopes were in peril," and so on to the end. Any decently intelligent girl or boy of ten years old would write in this way. Mr. John Galt could not if he would. Why, then, has it been attempted to palm such rubbish upon us under his name? If Shakspeare were living, and if Shakspeare could write thus, the pages of the Royal Lady's Magazine would be closed even to the author of Hamlet. That there is either fraud or impertinence in the business, we are convinced; and we have met it accordingly. 1.-Epitome of English Standard English Authors. M. A. Philosophical Series. Literature; or, a Concentration of the Matter of 2.-The Siege of Missolonghi, and other Poems. By a Young Gentleman, fourteen years of age.* 3.-The Deliverance of Switzerland. By H. C. Deakin, Esq. Smith, Elder, and Co. 4.-The Dramatic Annual. By F. Reynolds. 5.-The Albanians, a Dramatic Sketch, and Miscellaneous Poems. By G. I. Bennett, of Covent Garden Theatre. W. Kidd. 6.-Landon's Poems. E. Moxon. 7.-Edinburgh Cabinet Library. Vol. III. Egypt. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. Simpkin and Co. London. 8.-The Sailor's Bride. Charles Tilt. 1.-This is the first volume of a new undertaking, whose object, like that of the various" Libraries," is, to place knowledge within the reach of the many at a moderate charge. So far, it is entitled to approbation; but the principle upon which * Brussels and London. it proceeds must inevitably exclude it from that large class of readers to whom the Classical Library, the Divines of the Church of England, and other similar works, are an undoubted acquisition. Epitomes, essences, abstracts, and such like skeletons of standard works, can never satisfy a genuine reader; can never answer the wants of a real student, or lover of literature. The great objection to them is this, that we set out by surrendering our own taste, judgment, and sagacity, to those of the individual from whose hands we receive these essences. The very things he omits, or condenses, may be precisely what would please and interest us the most; and a recurrence to the complete works of our author, thus concentrated, becomes indispensable. For ourselves, if we could not get at the whole author, we would rather have his Beauties than his epitome; because, as far as they went, we should know we were reading the author himself, and not his meaning, conveyed to us in the language of another. In fact, we can never feel sure that we are actually reading Paley, Johnson, Gibbon, Locke, or Bacon; and this uncertainty is alone sufficient to destroy the whole value of such books, except to persons who are content to read any thing, without troubling themselves about the writers. We will select, from the volume now before us, two or three examples of what we mean. At p. 99, we meet with the following note: "The above seems to be Paley's meaning; his words are," &c. &c. What are we to infer from this? That the text is not Paley's; and that it is only when Mr. Valpy is in doubt whether he has expressed his meaning correctly in a condensed form, that he places what Paley does say in his own language, in a note. Again, at p. 127, is this note: "In combating this objection, as Paley's language and logic are equally obscure and unsatisfactory, his meaning could only be guessed at in his words;"--and then come the words; so that the text is of course Mr. Valpy's! At p. 260, we find this note: "As the arguments by which Paley proves this assertion are, if intelligible, unsatisfactory, they scarcely admit of condensation, and are, therefore, given entire below!" And it is proposed, we see, to publish what will be called the works of Bernet, Clarendon, Hume, Bacon, Locke, Addison, Goldsmith, Swift, Milton, Johnson, &c. &c., after this fashion. It is in no unfriendly spirit that we make these remarks; but it is impossible we can bestow upon a publication, chargeable with such signal defects, the same meed of applause that we have given to others of Mr. Valpy. To literary persons, this projected "epitome" must be utterly useless; if for no other, at least for the one sufficient reason, that they could neither refer to, nor quote from it, with confidence. -Undismayed by our flagellating propensities, where bad, middling, and nopoetry, are concerned, the writer of this little volume has had the hardihood to come into our presence; willing, we suppose, rather to be flayed alive, like poor Mr. Montgomery, than go without our notice. Well, well, young gentleman," stand forward, then, and receive your sentence. In the first place, we order you to inform your father and mother, brothers and sisters, schoolfellows, friends and acquaintance, that you have our authority for considering yourself a better writer of rhymes than Mr. Robert Montgomery, author of "Satan," " Oxford," &c. &c., because, though a boy only, you have already learned to think; an act which the said Robert Montgomery has not yet been able to acquire. In the second place, you may declare upon our authority, that you write quite as well as the poets and poetesses of the Literary Gazette. In the third place, you may affirm in all companies, that if, ten years hence, it should turn out you write ten times better than you do now, you have our authority for maintaining, that in ten years more (always supposing your talents and age keep together, side by side), you will be entitled to rank among whatever poets it may then be our good fortune to possess. But, in the fourth and last case, if your mind remain at fourteen, while your body goes on to twenty, thirty, and forty,-or if your mind should only take a one-year stride, for every ten that your corporeal matter takes, then you have our positive com mands to leave off writing the moment this fact becomes apparent, and betake yourself to some more creditable, as well as more profitable calling. This is our judgment, from which you are to understand there lies no appeal to any other tribunal, because there exists no tribunal of higher or more competent jurisdiction in his majesty's dominions. 3.—Mr. Deakin is a genius: he has immortalized himself in the poetical department of La Belle Assemblée, and is regularly thanked in the notices to correspondents, for his valuable monthly favours. To be serious: from a writer who is content to be lauded and used by a work, certainly not intended for any woman who has mind enough to discriminate between sense and nonsense, the public will not expect much, and therefore will not be disappointed. The Deliverance of Switzerland is a feeble variety of the story of Tell, not without some perfectly original ideas, such as, Up, up, brother, up to the marble wilds of air '" &c. However, the poet very properly and elegantly says, in his preface, that "an author is more likely to be benefited by justice administered with kindness, than with those unfeeling licks with the rough side of the tongue, which are too often resorted to." Therefore, in kindness we will do justice to Mr. H. C. Deakin. The poem is fully as good as could be expected from a writer in La Belle Assemblée. The paper and printing are excellent. 4.-A very neatly got up volume, with all the attributes of an annual, excepting variety and moderately good writing. For, it consists of only one ill-told tale of a very silly young man, who pants to be an author; travels with a companion to improve himself, and collect incidents for a drama; returns and finds that he has been a long time deeply in love; writes his play, and gets married. There are many anecdotes not very new, dovetailed into the narrative in a manner not very old, but the whole thing is meagre and commonplace. We were thoroughly disappointed. 5.-Mr. Bennett is not so good a poet as he is an actor; but his book will nevertheless be read by many, and is better worth the reading than nine-tenths of the poems which teem from the press. His minor pieces are highly amusing, though not the most elegant that we have read. 6.--We only notice this volume briefly, by way of apology for delaying our review till next month. We had read the Gheber, and made up our mind that Landon was not so good a poet as a prose writer; but on turning carefully to the minor poems, which form the chief of the work, we saw enough to strongly recommend the book, and too much to do justice to this month. 7.-This volume, which contains nearly 500 pages, is exceedingly interesting, and presents under the the title of a "View of Ancient and Modern Egypt, with an Outline of its Natural History," a well condensed account of all that is known respecting a country from which, perhaps, all other nations derived their knowledge of literature and the arts. The wood-cuts are good for the purpose of illustration, but so-so as works of art. 8.—An affecting little tale which comes home to every bosom; no bad present for the younger branches. We are somewhat concerned that we have been unable to avail ourselves of numerous invitations to the various sights and exhibitions which are now open: a splendid Model of the City of London, with upwards of seventy-thousand houses; a singular Collection of Pictures formed by pieces of coloured cloth; a magnificent addition to Miss Linwood's needle-work gallery, which, by the way, has been visited by Her Most Gracious Majesty; the Water Colour Exhibition, and the National Repository, are objects which have excited general attention; and the Russian Horn Band, which has at length established daily concerts, is perhaps not less entitled to notice, as a singular and pleasing musical treat. |