OURSELVES, OUR CORRESPONDENTS, AND THE PUBLIC. They talk like a Justice of Peace, of a thousand matters.”—Old Play. SCENE THE EDITORS' ROOM. " A Co-editors. "Windham :" it shall appear very Editor +++ + per Nothing can be better. It is not one of those characters that petual anecdotes have worn threadbare. Have you seen his Diary in Amyot's possession?-a strange work. Editor **** Ay, so I hear: we are to have it one of these days, when the scandal it contains will not offend the living. But what is this letter? -A clergyman-humph! A very touching communication-offers us, Reminiscences of the Cambridge Union. Knew it in its zenith, when Rosser, Macaulay, Austin, Praed, were making Night eloquent. Have we not real politics enough now? The times are too stirring and actual for mimic fights. Ah! those were happy days "When thou and I, Dear Fred. Golightly, trod those boards of yore :" Pleasant enough is it to recall our public patriotism and our private squabbles-the intrigues against the President, and our noisy supper at O's when the debate was over. But tout finit dans l'éblouissement, as Montaigne says. What is the Union now-with the Bar to some of us, and the House of Commons to others? But let us hear from our Clergyman again-let him send us something in a higher vein, and we will accept it kindly, or reject it sorrowfully. It is a hard task, that of rejection. Till one's used to it. Editor tttt Editor* True! that custom is the universal blunter. How well I can sympathise with the young contributor: his maiden verse-so neatly copied the letter so timorously written, with a dash of hypocritical confidence in it too-the hope, the fear-the hasty walk down to the bookseller, to look at that dingy, dull-looking spot in the wrapper, where, in this magazine at least, our enterprising friends are so unceremoniously thrust;-a villainous, uncivil, hole-and-corner method of communication, that, please Minos and Rhadamanthus, we must amend one of these days. Then, the rapid glance-the quickened pulse-the pang of disappointment-the flush of mortified vanity--the sense of wrong, and the salutary indignation against that prejudiced ass, the Editor. Well, well! it's all very affecting. Here, now, is a young gentleman, not twenty, and whose assurance we have that "the enclosed pieces are original,—perhaps too original-and have never appeared before !" He adds-dangerous inquiry!" I should feel particularly obliged if you would mention in your answer, if you think I should persist in attempting to write poetry."-My dear young gentleman, your verses are by no means bad; nay, they show genius-but recollect, Mrs. Hemans's poetry scarcely covers the expenses of printing; Wordsworth's are not marketable, and Murray has in his hands a poem of Crabbe's that he cannot venture to publish. Who, then, can advise you to persist? No, Apollo himself had other professions besides that of the poet-he was a doctor and an orator as well-how else could he have kept so large an establishment? Nine Muses indeed! Imitate him, my dear G—; study physic, or be called to the Bar, and, now and then, you may afford to pay a visit to Helicon. This is sound advice "And may you better reck the rede Than ever did the adviser." Editor tttt What's this?"My Native Land, from the German." Editor *** "My Native Land, Good Night!" Editor++++ It is very pretty. But we are Germanized to death already." I have nine translations from Körner, four critical reviews on Goethe, fifteen metaphysical essays on Kant, and tales without number about Number Nip. Editor** *** Best thanks to them all. We have a gentleman at Highgate, who monopolizes the German department. Hey-day! soul of Hannah More, what is this?" The following stanzas were written on the seduction of a young woman."-Upon my word, Sir!-But stay"Not by the writer; of that crime he has not to accuse himself.”Then really, Mr. Fexjohvtu, so you sign yourself-you have cut yourself off from the sole excuse that you had for dabbling with such a subject. What the deuce, immortalize other men's errors on this head! Catterwawl for pusses in general! Go to! I tell you what, my dear, there is a pernicious love of false sentimentality lingering about this age, which we must cut up, root and branch: this young man, Mr. Fexjohvtu, has genius too-let him put it to its proper uses-make love for himself, and that honestly, and he'll write very different stuff from this "rollicking rhodomontade" about parched skins and maddening fiends. As for the young lady, versifying won't make her better. The more stanzas one writes in recommendation of penitence, the more provocatives we give to sin; like the Italian contemporaries of Cæsar Borgia, the poison is wrapped up in an elegy. Editor+++ t Here is a very different vein-" an Ercles' vein"-" They met in Heaven." A noble poem!-a noble poem!-it shall appear in our next number-we have something to say about the writer. Our criticisms in our present number embrace so much poetry, that we must reluctantly defer till then a contribution, such as no other poet now, "in this dim sphere which men call earth," could give usmeanwhile, let us open this packet from America; a communication we owe to our friend Willis Clarke, a brother editor, and a young poet of considerable merit.- Newspapers !-Ehem!-What! the House of Commons-the Reform Bill again!-Newton Barry-Irish YeomanryLord John Russell-Mr. Hunt-O'Connell-Wetherell!-why, half the papers in the New England are filled with our proceedings in the Old-this, too, in a country that we are told looks upon us with so much dislike--or, God wot!-disdain. Now, is it not impossible for a man with three grains of candour and one of common sense, to read these, his daily journals, and not see how fondly our good brother Jonathan interests himself in all that relates to us-our literatureour politics our police reports-(Sir Richard Birnie, God bless him as large as life, in New York!)—our great men-nay, our fine ladies and court beauties ?-why, here's a long paragraph about Lady Charlotte Bury, and the beauty of her sisters! Come, we must try and make this fraternal interest and affection mutual; not by long, dry political articles, and vehement declamations about equality and republics, which only shock our national preconceptions, but by amusing sketches of the manners, and customs, and scenery, and literature of our worthy brother. We must see to this forthwith. Talking of literature, it is too bad for a score of booby editors on this side the Atlantic telling us very gravely, that America has not a single poet. Let us make room for these pretty verses upon— "AUGUST. "BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. "The quiet August noon is come; In sunny June, when earth laughs out; From every moss-cup of the rock, Hushes the heavens, and wraps the ground- The only slave of toil and care; Away from desk and dust, away! Beneath the open sky abroad, Among the plants and breathing things, The gentle meaning of the heart, t 1 Come-and when 'mid the calm profound, As chiselled from the lifeless rock. Comes faintly like the breath of sleep. The good forsake the scenes of life,— Lingers the lovely landscape o'er, Welcomes them to a happier shore." The time is fast coming when America and France will be the two countries, above all others, whose friendship England must cultivate, and whose manners and institutions she must the most accurately know. We will try to familiarize her already with that knowledge.. Editor ttt t G― could give us some papers on Jonathan, at once racy and Ay, no man is better acquainted with what he writes about than G; a shrewd, a deep, a rare observer. So Boston has started the "New England Magazine." American criticism is very fast improving in its principles. The "Southern Review" puts forth an excellent review of Byron's "Manfred.” Editor tttt What think you of our own Quarterlies in their last appearancethe "Edinburgh" and the "Westminster ?" Editor ** The Westminster falls into one vital error. Somebody said, long ago, it was too dull; and it now seeks to obviate the fault by three reviews on three several novels. This is not of a piece with the rest of the work, nor at all calculated to lighten the Review. The fact is, that books of a class so numerous as novels, ought to be reviewed sparingly by a Quarterly Journal. A notice of a novel in the "Westminster Review" ought to direct to that novel the eyes of all its readers but to review novels by dozens, cheek by jowl, with the gravest of earthly matters, is like putting a collection of laws in the same case with a collection of butterflies, Dr. Bowring should consider this point. He has done wonders for the Review, and for his own broad and stern principles; but in criticism, as yet-genuine scientific criticism-the "Westminster Review" is palpably de ficient. The best critical article it ever put forth was by Peacock, the Author of "Crotchet Castle," upon Moore's "Epicurean," albeit the criticism was much too harsh and sweeping; but then how much of true wisdom and true learning it embodied! But in these days, this fine and sturdy publication is about something better even than literary criticism. Its unbending principles, its staunch adherence to primitive truths, are suited to this age and this crisis. Men, especially in the lower and the middle orders-men of the people, among whom the "Westminster Review" chiefly circulates, want to have one steady point on which to fix their desires, and one peaceable line of conduct chalked out, by which they may attain them. Here, on the one hand, they have the broad politics of the "Westminster Review;" there, on the other, the philosophy, at once resolute and bloodless. Well said Boullanger, "Ce sont les fanatiques, les prêtres, et les ignorans qui font les révolutions; les personnes éclairées, désintéressées et sensées sont toujours amies du repos." Good Heavens! to compare the difference in tone between the solemn warnings of the "Westminster Review," and the Claverhouse suggestions, flippant in murther, of" Blackwood's Magazine." Observe, for instance, this extract from the latter, noticed in the present number of the "Westminster Review !" It is worth quoting again for its cool ferocity:"By that time (the time when the Reform Bill is lost, and Peel makes up a cabinet,') the horrible stagnation in every branch of internal trade, for which the nation has to thank Lord Grey" (oh! indeed; there was no excitement about Reform, the father to the said stagnation, before Lord Grey came in! How chanced it, then, that the Duke of Wellington is not still Premier ?oh indeed, the delayed Reform, and therefore the continued stagnation of trade, is that owing to my Lord Grey, or to the gentlemen on the other side of the question, who procrastinate-defeat they cannot -the Reform?)" will have come to such a pass as to command attention on all quarters to something much more interesting, as well as important, than any Reform!!! By that time, there will be no Peers in France, &c., and there will be war by land and war by sea; and there will be a bit of a dust in Manchester, or elsewhere, and it will be laid in blood, and the new Parliament will be chosen in peace and jollity, &c." Gracious God! and it is in this strain that the organs of the Tories, the defenders of the Bishops, the soi-disant upholders of Church and State, can talk of a conflict between the military and their fellow-subjects! "A bit of a dust in Manchester, or elsewhere, laid in blood, and a new Parliament chosen in peace and jollity !” This is the way the Carbonari legislate! They "make a bit of a dust, laid with blood," at Terracina, or elsewhere, and share the popular plunder "in peace and jollity." And this stuff comes from men who cry out on the Reformers as the destroyers of peace and lovers of the sword! Will our humane and honest countrymen suffer this language?-will clergymen cherish a work that breathes such doctrines?-will men who love their neighbours and honour their God, tell us that these are the principles to propagate in a time awful and hazardous beyond precedent? One thing, however, this fire-and-sword indiscretion teaches us-the Tories know, the |