Mr. Moore's Verses on Mr. Hunt's work must not be omitted here. Next week will be published (as " Lives" are the rage) Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call " sad," of knowing how lions behave― among friends. How that animal eats, how he moves, how he drinks, And 'tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks Though he roar'd pretty well—this the puppy allows — To the loftiest war-note the lion could pour. 'Tis, indeed, as good fun as a Cynic could ask, Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case) However, the book's a good book, being rich in Examples and warnings to lions high-bred, How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen, Who'll feed on them living, and foul them when dead. — E.] APPENDIX. NOTE A. MR. WILLIAM SMITH'S SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 14. 1817. See antè p. 245. "The honourable member then adverted to that tergiversation of principle which the career of political individuals so often presented. He was far from supposing, that a man who set out in life with the profession of certain sentiments, was bound to conclude life with them. He thought there might be many occasions in which a change of opinion, when that change was unattended by any personal advantages, when it appeared entirely disinterested, might be the result of sincere conviction. But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust, was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado. He had read in a publication (The Quarterly Review), certainly entitled to much respect from its general literary excellences, though he differed from it in its principles, a passage alluding to the recent disturbances, which passage was as follows: "When the man of free opinions commences professor of moral and political philosophy for the benefit of the public- the fables of old credulity are then verified his very breath becomes venomous, and every page which he sends abroad carries with it poison to the unsuspicious reader. We have shown, on a former occasion, how men of this description are acting upon the public, and have explained in what manner a large part of the people have been prepared for the virus with which they inoculate them. The dangers arising from such a state of things are now fully apparent, and the designs of the incendiaries, which have for some years been proclaimed so plainly, that they ought, long ere this, to have been prevented, are now manifested by over tacts.' With the permission of the House, he would read an extract from a poem recently published, to which, he supposed, the above writer alluded (or at least to productions) of a similar kind), as constituting a part of the virus with which the public mind had been infected : 'My brethren, these are truths and weighty ones: And see the wretched labourer, worn with toil, I sicken, and, indignant at the sight, Blush for the patience of humanity.' "He could read many other passages from these works equally strong on both sides; but, if they were written by the same person, he should like to know from the honourable and learned gentleman opposite, why no proceedings had been instituted against the author. The poem 'Wat Tyler' appeared to him to be the most seditious book that was ever written; its author did not stop short of exhorting to general anarchy; he vilified kings, priests, and nobles, and was for universal suffrage, and perfect equality. The Spencean plan (1) could not be compared with it; that miserable and ridiculous performance did not attempt to employ any arguments; but the author of Wat Tyler constantly appealed to the passions, and in a style which the author, at that time, he supposed, conceived to be eloquence. Why, then, had not those who thought it necessary to suspend the Habeas Corpus act taken notice of this poem? Why had not they discovered the author of that seditious publication, and visited him with the penalties of the law? The work was not published secretly, it was not handed about in the darkness of night, but openly and publicly sold in the face of day. It was at this time to be purchased at almost every bookseller's shop in London; it was now exposed for sale in a bookseller's shop in Pall Mall, who styled himself bookseller to one or two of the royal family. He borrowed the copy, from which he had just read the extract, from an honourable friend of his, who bought it in the usual way; and, therefore, he supposed there could be no difficulty in finding out the party that wrote it. He had heard, that when a man of the name of Winterbottom was some years ago confined in Newgate, the manuscript had been sent to him, with liberty to print it for his own advantage, if he thought proper; but that man, it appeared, did not like to risk the publication; and, therefore, it was now first issued into the world. It must remain with the government, and their legal advisers, to take what steps they might deem most advisable to repress this seditious work, and punish its author. In bringing it under the notice of the House, he had merely spoken in defence of his constituents, who had been most grossly calumniated; and he thought that what he had said would go very far to exculpate them. But he wished to take this bull by the horns."- See HANSARD'S Parl. Debates, vol. xxxvii. p. 1088. NOTE B. A LETTER TO WILLIAM SMITH, ESQ. M. P. BY ROBERT SOUTHEY. SIR, You are represented in the newspapers as having entered, during an important discussion in Parliament, into a comparison between certain passages in the Quarterly Review, and the opinions which were held by the author of Wat Tyler, three-and-twenty years ago. It appears farther, according to the same authority, that the introduction of so strange a criticism, in so unfit a place, did not arise from the debate, but was a premeditated thing; that you had prepared yourself for it by stowing the Quarterly Review in one pocket, and Wat Tyler in the other; and that you deliberately stood up for the purpose of reviling an individual who was not present to vindicate himself, and in a place which afforded you protection. My name, indeed, was not mentioned; but that I was the person whom you intended, was notorious to all who heard you. For the impropriety of introducing such topics in such an assembly, it is farther stated, that you received a well merited rebuke from Mr. Wynn, who spoke on that occasion as much from his feelings towards one with whom he has lived in uninterrupted friendship for nearly thirty years, as from a sense of the respect which is due to parliament. It is, however, proper that I should speak explicitly for myself. This was not necessary in regard to Mr. Brougham,- -he only carried the quarrels as well as the practices of the Edinburgh Review into the House of Commons. But as calumny, Sir, has not been your vocation, it may be useful, even to yourself, if I comment upon your first attempt. First, as to the Quarterly Review. You can have no other authority for ascribing any particular paper in that journal to one person or to another, than common report; in following which you may happen to be as much mistaken as I was when, upon the same grounds, I supposed Mr. William Smith to be a man of candour, incapable of grossly and wantonly insulting an individual. The Quarterly Review stands upon its own merits. It is not answerable for any thing more than it contains. What I may have said, or thought, in any part of my life, no more concerns that journal than it does you, or the House of Commons: and I am as little answerable for the journal, as the journal for me. What I may have written in it is a question which you, Sir, have no right to ask, and which certainly I will not answer. little right have you to take that for granted which you cannot possibly As |