One reason more his lordship adds, and we shall quote it in his own words, because we think it must carry conviction with it to every unprejudiced mind

"It is well known that previous to my arrival in Turkey I had projected the formation of those collections of the precious remains of ancient art, which for so many years have been the object of my anxiety and exertion. What then could be so desirable to me as any publication by a person so eminently qualified as Mr. J. Tweddell, on subjects so nearly connected with the objects of my endeavours, and so likely to interest the public in their success? While, therefore, not one rational motive can be even conjectured in explanation of the conduct imputed to me, every motive existed which could possibly impel me to preserve to the world the fruits of Mr. Tweddell's learning, taste, and industry."

Against such declarations, and such arguments, we can find nothing to oppose; and considering that if Mr. Tweddell's statement be true, Lord Elgin has added the sin of deliberate falsehood to that of dishonesty-we must be put in possession of the most unexceptionable evidence before we can believe such a thing possible. But here we can find only the weakest and worst sort of evidence, and therefore are bound to declare the noble lord's innocence, which we do under a conviction. that his being now unable to give a better account of the mode in which the effects in question were sent from Turkey, may fairly be attributed (as he himself attributes it) to his official occupation at a critical period of the war, to his mortifying detention in France, to the length of time which has intervened, and to the death of many of the persons concerned in the transactions referred to.

This is the conclusion of the matter; and it is one which truth warrants, and justice requires.

That the Earl of Elgin did not take possession of Mr. Tweddell's collection any way improperly; but openly, officially, and necessarily, and with a view to their better preservation and surer conveyance to England.

That a storm at sea; the folly of Logotheti in sending a man from Athens, in charge of the collection, with Mr. Tweddell's keys in his pocket; and the negligence or indifference of Mr. Spencer Smythe, arising from dissatisfaction at seeing himself superseded in his principal public functions; were the causes of the material injury sustained by the collection.

That Lord Elgin neither permitted nor knew of any traveller about to visit Mount Athos, having taken the use of any part of Mr. Tweddell's Journals, which, however, such traveller might have obtained in various other ways-even (and nothing is so likely) from the hands of John Tweddell himself."

That Lord Elgin did all that it became him to do in order to cause the whole property to be sent to England, no one having had a right to exact or to expect from his excellency the discharge of the duties of a common commercial clerk, or of a custom-house officer.

That the Rev. Mr. Tweddell, who has evidently been prejudiced against Lord Elgin by Professor Carlyle, is far from being entitled to exemption from the imputation of disingenuous conduct towards his lordship. He appears to have made no frank private application to him, as a gentleman should have done: he has misquoted his words, and misinterpreted the obvious meaning of his communications; and he has refused either to return certain explanatory letters, or to grant copies of them. His attorney, actuated no doubt by pure love of the arts, (the term is very general) often pressed him to bring the business fairly before a court of law, for which Lord Elgin would have thanked him. But he persisted in saying no, let us try indirect means—the things will all be found.

A man of Lord Elgin's acuteness could not be so absurd as to suppose it possible to appropriate Mr. Tweddell's Remains, even to the limited purpose of pleasing the eye and the fancy of a few of his own friends, without the circumstance one day becoming notorious. And every body knows that the hidden treasure the celata virtus of a virtuoso, is no better than lumber locked up in a garret.

Had we not been told in the letter before us, that the noble Earl has long considered himself in possession of an acknowledgment from Mr. R. Tweddell of the receipt of the interesting effects, and that he has never either seen or heard of that gentleman's book, we should have insisted, that no pressure of public business no species of confinement could be a sufficient excuse for his not having made a thousand inquiries about the remains; and caused all around him to search every portfolio, trunk, and packing case in his castle for a collection singularly curious if not very valuable”—to which, while on his mission, he saw so much of the attention of the ingenious and learned drawn, and which, to the praise of his taste, he viewed not without delight.

Nothing can excuse Lord Elgin's bookseller and his friends, in not announcing to him that Mr. Tweddell had written a volume about him. And just as little can be said for Mr. Nisbit and Mr. Carlyle, in forbearing to inform his lordship on his return from detention in France, that he was in possession of the portfolio, containing the drawings of costumes.

Nothing can surpass the merit of that benevolence which has prompted the Edinburgh Reviewers to cause to be brought to light the drawings of the costumes, so many years sooner than accident would, in all probability, have produced them. And we rejoice exceedingly, that our brethren are sometimes willing to be the instruments of much good to others, at the expense of so much trouble to themselves.

This awkward business may now reasonably be considered as having been brought to a period. Of the perishable remains of the enthusiastic John Tweddell, it would appear that his brother is in possession of all that have escaped the devouring elements the sea, perhaps, through some barbarian act, the fire-with the exception, however, of the gold watch, in recovering which some of the Edinburgh advocates seem to wish for a brief. But they had better; not-nothing being clearer than that Mr. Tweddell's friend,, Papa Simeon, actually did steal the watch. Mr. Tweddell should contrive to send over a police officer from Bow Street, it being pretty plain that neither the police nor the policy of the Sultan will endure the circulation of the Edinburgh Review in the dominions of his Sublime Highness.

Mr. T. will therefore, as becomes a reverend divine, "Learn to be content with such things as he hath." Lord Elgin too will, we should think, try to content himself with the recollection of having had sufficient opportunities of examining and judging of the remains: and neither will seek to institute proceedings that can be productive of little else than expense, and injurious suspicions. Mr. Tweddell has written and published a libel in quarto; yet it is probable that a jury, could any twelve men possibly fast till it were read, would not, on hearing the whole case, assess very heavy damages.

ART. X.-1. Speech of Mr. PHILLIPS, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, in the case of Guthrie versus Sterne. With a short preface. 4th Edition. 8vo. pp. 30. Lond. 1816. Andrews.

2. Speech of JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, Esq. in defence of the

A speech in defence of the Plaintiff in an action is not at all consistent with that legal accuracy, which we might expect from the editor of a collection of speeches delivered by an advocate at the bar. It ought to hape been in tituled Speech of John Philpot Curran, Esq. in reply to

Rev. Charles Massy, against the Marquis of Headfort, for Criminal Conversation with the Plaintiff's wife at Ennis Assizes, Co. Clare, on the 27th of July, 1804.

3. Speeches of the Right Hon. JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, 4th Edition. Lond. 1815. Longman. p. 385. 410.

4. Speech for the Rev. George Markham against John Fawcett, Esq. for criminal conversation with the Plaintiff's Wife, before the Deputy Sheriff of Middlesex, and a special jury, upon an Inquisition of Damages.

5. Speeches of Lord Erskine when at the Bar, on Miscellaneous Subjects. Lond. 1812. Ridgway, p. 169, 193.

In the literary as in the natural world, our attention is sometimes diverted from objects combining utility with beauty, to such as partake merely of the latter quality. From contemplating the mild, steady lustre of the permanent heavenly bodies, we are called away to gaze on the dazzling, momentary coruscations of a meteor, sudden in its appearance, and erratic in its course, but which, after all, instead of a comet, is found to be only a falling star. This metaphor has been suggested by a perusal of the Speech, which stands at the head of this article. Whilst in Ireland, it was delivered by the junior counsel in the cause, an order of proceeding never permitted at the English bar; in England, it was first ushered into public notice through the medium of a magazine, a channel to which we should not have looked for such an introduction. Thus, in both cases, its appearance was extraordinary; and through this very circumstance, the notice which it has attracted may have been increased. It has since been published in the more attractive form of a pamphlet, and we consider the profusion of exaggerated praise with which the Editor has prefaced this extraordinary specimen of forensic eloquence, as another cause of its extensive circulation. In this preface our admiration is gratuitously challenged, and we are called upon for our vote of applause, in a tone of turgid vehemence, too curious to be altogether withheld from our readers:

"If Eloquence can only delight, and soften, and adorn life," making the hard way sweet and delectable;" it claims encouragement; but when its enthusiast-heart fearlessly espouses the cause of Virtue, the voice of a free Public cannot be too loud in the award of its just applause: and grateful admiration feels not that as a debt, which in the discharge repays itself with pleasure."

the speech of the counsel for the Defendant, in an action brought by the Rev. Charles Massy, &c.

NO. X.

Aug. Rev.

VOL. II.

"The following brilliant Speech," we are informed in a subsequent page of this preface, "ought, for the sake of our sinking virtue, to have a wide circulation. Mr. Phillips has done a public good. Vengeance, in the shape of universal detestation, must fall in curses on the wretch, whom he hath thus manfully exposed. And such, let Vice reflect, will ever be the fate of the Adulterer, when his heart is pierced, even to the blackness of its core, by the withering glance of indignant Genius. Such is surely the just punishment of him, who dares to brave the commands of Heaven, and to violate the decencies of earth."

This pamphlet has been so extensively circulated, that one can hardly go into a company in which the lighter literature of the day affords a topic for conversation, where a confession that he had not read Mr. Phil ips's speech, would not be construed into an ignorance of what was going on around him; whilst with many of the individuals who compose those circles, to have read, and not to have admired it would afford as conclusive a proof of a want of taste. To some notice of this publication we should therefore have been impelled by the current of this sort of popular applause, which has set so strongly in its favor. But our estimation neither of its merits, nor of its importance, would have allowed us to comment upon it at the length we are about to do, had it not furnished us with an opportunity of comparing it with two speeches, delivered upon similar occasions, by two celebrated advocates, who within these few years have been withdrawn, the one from the English, and the other from the Irish bar. We have been induced to do this from a wish to render the present article at once more entertaining, and more useful, than a mere review of an ephemeral production could be, by embodying with that review, a few general observations on the Eloquence of the Bar, as far at least as it has been displayed on occasions like the present.

Whilst the pulpit opens to the sacred orator a field for the exertion of his talents, boundless as the powers of eloquence require'; while the Senate presents to the deliberation of its members topics similar to those which once gave energy to the thunder of Demosthenes; the bar (retaining scarce a trace of what it was when the criminal whom Justice arraigned owed his escape to the silver tongue of a Cicero,) rarely affords an opportunity for the display of any other kind of eloquence, than that which consists in a perspicuous statement of dry, intricate, and often uninteresting facts; or in that nice distinction between things, in which a less acute understanding can discern no difference.'

But however deeply those members of the profession, who have entered it less from a desire to obtain riches, than to ac