and his creditors have utterly ruined a man; when he is in gaol; and when all his property has been wasted; then, and not till then, the legislature tenders its relief. But the victim has been destroyed; and it might as well be at tempted to raise the dead to life, as to attempt, at that period, to render any service to an unfortunate debtor, or procure any restitution to his injured creditors. Yet our legislators wonder that the dividends on insolvent estates do not exceed a penny in the pound! And they cannot perceive that men do not go to gaol till they are without either property or friends! If it be not waste of words to argue with such logicians, I would tell them, that all good laws are liberal laws; and that all illiberal laws, are either defeated by the liberal feelings of society, or aggravate the mischiefs which they foolishly profess to cure. At the present time, the law alone is the radical cause of all the miseries of debtors, and of nearly all the losses of creditors. Place debtors on a liberal footing, and enable a man who finds his affairs going wrong, to meet his creditors with a prospect of relief, and with a probable chance of getting thro' his difficulties: and then (instead of putting off the evil day, and fighting with his creditors inch by inch till all his property is wasted, till he is in gaol, utterly ruined, and his prospects blasted,) he will, on suffering any heavy loss, or on meeting with any disappointment which diminishes his power of payment, convene his creditors, lay before them the state of his affairs, ask for time, give security, assign his effects in trust, or enter into some compromise, which may lead to the payment of his creditors either in full,or in considerable part; while, at the same time, he is thereby enabled to maintain his own respectability in society. On the other hand, let the law remain as it does, that is, let it be in the power of any two or three avaricious, or malicious, or indecisive creditors, to refuse, or hesitate to be a party to,any proposed arrangement which satisfies all the other creditors; and let it remain in the power of this minority, to insist on making their own terms (a concession which the other creditors cannot, and will not, grant); and then, no man will expose his distresses, anticipate a sentence of death on himself, or take misfortune by the forelock, but will defer the evil hour by every means in his power, and will seek to avert his pending ruin by ali those means which do but render it more certain, and at the same time involve in one common ruin many of his confiding creditors. The law may as insolently as foolishly propose relief when relief is useless ; that is, when the man is in gaol, and after he has been there a certain time; but it would be difficult, in the history of legislation, to produce an instance of more deliberate cruelty, absurdity, and folly. I propose, therefore, in the name of common sense, truth, and justice, that a law shall be passed in terms and effect like the following: "Whereas many statutes have been passed which have attempted to relieve insolvent debtors when in confinement, and it has been found by experieace that no debtor is confined till all, or the greater part of his property, has been wasted, so that in some thousand cases the creditors have not received one penny in the pound; it is hereby enacted, for the purpose of encouraging embarrassed,or insolvent per sons,to make known to their creditors while they have property left, that it shall be competent for threefifths in number in amount of the boná fide creditors, to agree to such terms, compromise or arrangement, as may be formally submitted to them, and as they shall consider it to be for the benefit of the debtor and creditors; and that the register of such agreement, signed by such creditors, and certified by an attorney-at-law, in the insolvent debtors' court at Westminster, shall be sufficient answer in law to all suits which have been or may be commenced against the debtor for any debts or liabilities incurred previous to such arrangement. It being provided in every such case, that a meeting shall be duly convened by an attorney-at-law, of every known creditor for above five pounds, and of every person to whom a note of hand or acceptance has been granted, by notices VOL. 6.] Rev. D. Blair on School Discipline. sent three days before such meeting to the usual place of address of the creditor; that at such meeting, a detailed statement of the debtor's liabilities and assets shall be submitted, and his proposition made; when another meeting shall be appointed within seven days, and the statement and proposition in the meantime shall be printed, or copied, and sent to every creditor, within three days of the proposed second meeting, when the statement and proposal shall be further considered; and, if accepted by a majority of those present, two trustees, if necessary, shall be chosen. and such other arrangements made, as to a majority shall seem meet, preparatory to the signatures, within ten days, of others constituting at least three-fifths of the whole in number and amount. Provided also, that for every fifty miles which a creditor resides from the residence of the debtor, an additional day's notice shall be given, and the assent of such creditors, by letter sent by post, shall be binding and sufficient; and that no commission of bankruptcy or judgment against the person or goods of the debtor or debtors shall be carried into effect. pending any first attempt to effect such arrangement or compromise, on the same being notified by the attorney. And, for the purpose of guarding against frauds and impositions it is further provided, that all persons who shall falsely represent themselves as bonáfide creditors, for the purpose of voting at any meeting, or signing any compromise or arrangemement, and who shall not appear to have had any probable ground for considering themselves as real creditors, he, she, or they, shall, on conviction, be transported for the term of fourteen years and any debtor proved to connive in such fraudulent attempt, shall be deprived of the benefit of this Act, and suffer seven years' transportation. 197 It is further enacted, that in cases in which three-fifths of the creditors do not assent to the propositions made to them by the debtor or his attorney, in manner aforesaid, the said debtor is subject to the laws against insolvent debtors and bankrupts, as they are at present in force. And, to guard against unnecessary expences and exactions attending the proposed arrangements, it is enacted, that no attorney, for calling and attending a meeting, or certifying the agreement, shall be entitled to more than five pounds on each; no accountant, for stating the accounts, to more than five pounds; nor any printer, to more than forty shillings, for printing the statement as aforesaid; and the putting of notices. duly addressed, in the two-penny or general post-offices, in the presence of one witness, shall be considered as evidence of the delivery of the nolices required by this Act." Such a law would place the industrious traders of Britain in a comparative heaven, compared with the condition in which they have been placed by the existing laws, under the snares, traps, and villanies, to which they have given rise. The private interests of debtors and creditors would thus be within their own keeping and controul, and a man, in going into trade, would not be placing himself on a magazine of gun-powder, which, by some unforeseen accident, against which no human foresight could guard, might, in an instant overwhelm and destroy him. Three-fifths of a body of boná-fide creditors, would not be likely to conspire with the debtor to defraud the other two-fifths; and, if they proved not to be boná-fide creditors, or were convicted of such conspiracy, their punishment would, and ought to be exemplary and terrible. A LIVERYMAN OF LONDON. CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS IN SCHOOLS. From the Monthly Magazine. MANY of your correspondents have practical effect; for the system continued rep obated the system of corporal punishments in schools, but with little necessary, till some efficacious plan could be contrived; and, like all other bad systems, it has been continued till a better should present itself, which promised results equally certain and determinate. No School-masters, even those of the great public schools, where they consider flogging as a healthful exercise, will continue to defend the system, if it can be shewn that they have it in their power to adopt another, which carries with it a prospect of success; but, in the absence of all substitutes, there has been no alternative but to continue the ⚫ whipping and caning systems, however repugnant to the feelings of masters and parents, and however ignominious to pupils, and ruinous of their pride and emulation. I POPE. This serves, then, to apprize your benevolent correspondents, and all who feel interested on the subject, that I have contrived a School-master's and also a Governess's REGISTER of the good and bad conduct of their pupils; which, it is agreed by all who have seen them, will, in every school where they are introduced, be the means of substituting high feelings of emulation, in place of the degrading terrors of the birch and the cane. As they are sold at a low price, and are therefore easy of access to all who are interested, I shall not fill your columns with further observations, which may wear the appearance of vanity, but submit the plan, with due deference, to public animadversion. July 5, 1819. D. BLAIR. THE CABINET. From the London Monthly Magazines. AM aware that some soft-headed persons, of little learning,and corrupt taste, affect to display superior judgment, by expressing their doubts as to the justice of Pope's claim to the title of Poet; but the question has been long since decided by Doctor Johnson's luminous essay on this subject, wherein it is maintained that Pope possessed more rare and great qualifications than belong to most of our esteemed Poets: from the decision of Johnson no succeeding critic of acknowledged taste has dared to dissent. If the title of Poet was to be confined to those exclusively who excel Pope, we should be forced to degrade many illustrious names of ancient and modern times. The world has not yet produced more than twelve poets of the highest order, amongst whom England glories in Milton and Shakspeare. Pope cannot be deemed worthy of a place even amongst those of the second order, where Dryden, Gray, and Byron stand "proudly eminent:" but assuredly he merits a high station amongst third-rate poets; and his works will be read with delight by persons of pure and cultivated taste, long after black oblivion shall have extinguished the fame of many extraordinary bards of the present day, who are now ranked amongst "the wonderful of the earth" by the stupid and silly admirers of their heterogeneous compositions. PAINTING, Sculpture, &c. Painting was at no contemptible height in South America when it was subdued by the Spaniards, since Montezuma shewed to Cortez a complete representation, in colours, of the first landing of those fatal visitors, of their arms, their horses, and of those fierce dogs, whose presence conveyed more terror to the Indians than even that of their masters. Simon Miemmi, who flourished at Sienna in the beginning of the fourteenth century, was the first painter who, by way of explanation, put scrolls into the mouths of his figures; a prac tice which became afterwards not uncommon.* A piece of his is now existing, wherein the devil, almost expiring from the severe pursuit of a saint, ex * It must not be omitted, that Boccacio imputes the rise of this ridiculous and tasteless fashion to the waggish advice given by Bufalmacco, a noted buffoon, to one Le Bruno, a simple brother of the profession, who asked his counsel how he should make tators." the expression of his figures understood by the spec VOL. 6.] Discovery of Painting in Oil Colours-Women. claims," Ohime! Non posso piu !"+ A portrait of the same infernal personage proved fatal to Spinello Aretino, an artist of Arezzo, in the same age. He had drawn the prince of the air under a form so exquisitely hideous, that he never could erase the idea from his mind. One night a dream represented to his frighted imagination that awful spirit, under the same horrid appearance, standing before him in a menacing attitude, and reproaching him for drawing so very homely a likeness. Spinello awoke in an agony of dread; he had barely senses left to tell the tale, before his reason gave way, and for the short time he survived, a fearful insanity never left him. Not much later lived Paulo Mazzochi, surnamed Uccello. Whatever his talents were as a painter, he was surely no accurate natural philosopher; for in a piece representing the four elements, wherein fishes marked the sea, moles the earth, and a salamander the fire, he wished to have pointed out the air by a cameleon; but not knowing how to draw that scarce animal, he contented himself, from a similitude of sounds, to introduce a camel, who, extending his long neck, snuffs up the breezes around him. 66 Qui ne seroit indigne," says a French critic," de voir (en Sannazar,) Junon, aux couches de la Vierge? Un evangeliste, (en Arioste,) s'interesser au destin de Roland? Et qui ne riroit de voir Vulcain presenter des armes à St. Louis, (en le Pere Le Moine,) pour le succes de Croisades ?”* Had M. Bardon, who wrote this stricture, attended to the works of old, nay modern painters, he might have found much greater absurdities than those which he complains of among poets. He might have found in one piece, Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin, employing his art, as a carpenter, in forming a Confessional. A late Neapolitan artist has represented the Holy Family, during their +"Oh! Oh! It is all over with me!" • "How ridiculous, to see Juno assisting at the nativity of our Lord, an evangelist anxious about Count Orlando, and Vulcan giving to St. Louis a suit of armour for his crusade !" 199 Egyptian migration, passing the Nile in a barge, as richly ornamented as that of Cleopatra. Lanfranc has thrown churchmen in their robes at the feet of our Saviour, when an infant; and Paul Veronese is said to have introduced several Benedictines among the guests at the feast of Cana.+ Tintoret arms the Hebrews, while picking manna in the desert, with modern fire-arms; and to complete the climax, a painter has allowed the good thief a confessor with a crucifix in his hand! The discovery, which the world owes as is generally believed, to VanEyck, of painting with oil-colours, soon led to a most cruel murder. Dominico Beccafumi had been taught this great secret by Antonio of Messina, who had gained it, not very fairly, from VanEyck. Beccafumi imparted it to Andrea del Castano, who, eager to be the sole possessor of such a treasure, assassinated his friend and benefactor. The unsuspecting Beccafumi, wounded to death, was carried to his false comrade's apartments, and actually breathed his last in the arms of his murderer. drea, now fearless of a rival in his art, flourished without suspicion, and lived long, loaded with riches and honours. On his death-bed, however, the horrors of guilt overtook him, he made a public confession of his crimes, and died detested and execrated by his fellowcitizens. WOMEN. An Bonna, an Amazon of the fifteenth century, has less general renown than her shining qualities seem to have merited. Brunoro, a warrior of Parma, saw her in the lowest state of rusticity. Struck with an indescribable expression in her countenance, he attached her to himself, and took her every where with him, dressed in the habit of a man. She soon became an excellent politician, and gained such an ascendancy over the sagacious nobles of Venice, that they appointed her protector, Brunoro, General of their troops, with a large salary. Thinking herself bound to share with + C. Algarotti. After reading this elegant compliment paid by pagans and barbarians to the fair-sex, what shall we say to a Council of enlightened Prelates, held at Macon, in France, who had very hot disputes concerning the pretensions of women to be human creatures! Happily, for the honour of common sense, the claim of the ladies was allowed. From the creation to the present day, women have made men what they please. If however, any particular description of persons have been, more than others, their own, we must name soldiers, in cluding the heroes of ancient story, Sampson, David, and Solomon. Marc Anthony and Belisarius, with hundreds more, afford proof enough of this position. In later times, John Banier, one of the best generals Europe ever knew, and an eleve of the great Gustavus Adolphus, gained his glory by one woman, and lost it by another. While the wife whom he brought from Sweden lived, he was successful in every undertaking. She accompanied him every where, regulated all his enterprises, and pointed out the path to glory. She died, and his despair at first prompted him to follow her. At her funeral, however, the view of a lovely youngGerman Princess, checked his grief, and made him love again. Tho' late in life, he performed all those pranks which youth alone can render supportable. He ran extreme hazards to catch a glance of his mistress; he consumed whole nights in drinking bumpers to her health; and, when he obtained her band, he made such extravagantly noisy rejoicings, that all the country round thought a bloody contest was deciding in the field. This second race of love was, however, very short. He died in six weeks, having first egregiously tarnished his fame as a General, by a total neglect of his military duty. We excuse, in a late great writer, his narrow party spirit, his ungentlemanlike behaviour to those who sought his acquaintance, and his ingratitude to his hospitable entertainers in the North, in consideration of those early distresses which prevented his keeping that kind of company which might have softened But when we read the following delibhis rugged demeanor into politeness. erate abuse of the fair sex, and reflect, that, at the time the critic was penning this gross and untrue assertion, he was in the daily habit of receiving the most delicate and unremitted attentions from an accomplished woman, who was no otherwise attached to him, than by the ties of friendship, and by could restrain himself from a wish to pity for his sickly frame, who is it that toss the unmanly author in a blanket, al though Rasselas peeped out of one of his pockets, and the Rambler from an other? In comparing the Lutrin with the Rape of the Lock, he says, "the freaks, women, as they embroil families in disand humours, and spleen, and vanity of cord, and fill houses with disquiet; do more to obstruct the happiness of life in a year, than the ambition of the clergy in many centuries.” Johnson's Lives of Poets, Vol IV. p. 189. CHILD STEALING. May 28,1819, Charles Rennet was put to the bar, on the charge of stealing the child of Mr. Horsley, of Canonburylane, Islington. The indictment hav ing been read, the case, was opened, * Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, passsim. |