system has been recently explained to our Ministry by writers on political economy; and it is necessary that we should understand it rightly, in order to guard against imitating it. How will it be practicable to adopt in England those effectual but slow remedies which would tend to restore small farms, at a time when the manufacturing classes, forming one-half the population, are perishing of hunger, and calling for measures which would bring starvation on the other half engaged in agriculture? I am not prepared to answer this. It appears to me that the Corn Laws must of necessity undergo great modifications; but I would recommend those who call for their complete abolition, to examine carefully the following questions :— 1. If free importation be allowed of corn raised by forced labour, and without any expense to the original owner, will it then be possible for the English farmer to keep a single acre in cultivation ? 2. If England should renounce the cultivation of corn, in consequence of importation being found more economical, to what extent would agricultural employment be diminished? What expense would be incurred by the manufacturing class in maintaining in workhouses the families of unemployed agricultural labourers? What would the manufacturers lose by the consumption of this class of labourers, who form nearly one-half of the population, being discontinued? What would the manufacturers also lose by being deprived of the consumption of the landlords, whose rentals would be reduced to nothing? 3. What will be the security of the country, if it depend for subsistence entirely upon foreigners, and in particular on such as may very readily become enemies; upon governments which are the most barbarous and despotic of Europe, and which would be the least of all deterred from injuring England by the consideration of any injury which might at the same time be done to their own subjects? What would become of the honour of England, if the Emperor of Russia had it in his power, by closing the ports of the Baltic, to starve her into any concession? These are difficulties which, combined with many others, present themselves for serious consideration, when a change of system is proposed, which would supersede agricultural labour in England. Besides, the same difficulties are destined to reappear, some ten or twenty years hence, when the rapid increase of sheep in Austral Asia shall introduce into the English ports wool at a price so low as to render the breeding of sheep as unprofitable in England as the cultivation of arable land. This, in fine, is the result of the universal competition for producing every thing as cheap as possible; the consequences of which ought to be looked forward to at the present moment, when the progress of ideas prompts us to regard the whole universe as only one great market. ROMAN GIRL'S SONG. Roma, Roma, Roma! ROME, Rome! thou art no more On thy Seven Hills of yore Thou hadst thy triumphs then Bow'd at thy feet. They that thy mantle wore, As gods were seen: Rome, Rome! thou art no more As thou hast been! Rome! thine imperial brow Never shall rise: What hast thou left thee now?— Veiling thy wastes afar With colour'd light. Thou hast the sunset's glow, Temple and tower: And all sweet sounds are thine, Lovely to hear; While Night, o'er tomb and shrine, Rests darkly clear. Many a solemn hymn, By starlight sung, Sweeps through the arches dim Thy wrecks among. Many a flute's low swell On thy soft air, Lingers and loves to dwell With Summer there. Thou hast the South's rich gift Of sudden song; A charmed fountain swift, Joyous and strong: Thou hast fair forms that move With queenly tread; Thou hast rich fanes above Thy mighty dead. Yet wears thy Tiber's shore A mournful mien: Rome, Rome! thou art no inore As thou hast been! F. H. A CABINET OF PORTRAITS.NO. 11. adde Vultum babitumque hominis, quem tu, vidisse beatus, Horat. Sat. ii. iv. 91-93. ERASMUS, who was no fool, wrote an encomium on folly; Heinsius, who had nothing asinine about him, wrote an eulogium on the ass; Sallengre, who was no drunkard, wrote a panegyric on drunkenness; and Lucian, who never had the gout, wrote a tragi-comedy in its honour. On the other hand, Synesius, who was bald, published an oration in praise of baldness; Pierius, who would as soon have applied a rasor to his throat as to his beard, favoured the world with a prolix essay in commendation of prolix beards; Defoe, who suffered the punishment of the pillory, and was therefore qualified to describe because he had felt it, composed a lengthy ode in commemoration of its glories; and a fiery spirit, whose name I cannot discover,* has chanted the merits of hell in phraseology so glowing, that he cannot be displeased if the prince of that region appoints him his poet-laureate, and rewards him with a comfortable post in his dominions for his pains. Justified by such grave and potent authorities, I might perhaps have placed, as a preface to the collection of awkward and ungainly personages whose portraits I am now going to submit to my reader, an essay on the advantages of deformity, and might have displayed my ingenuity in a recommendatory description of the various redundancies, deficiencies, and irregularities which are occasionally exhibited in the human carcase, had not the merest accident discovered to me, that the task had been performed more than seventy years ago, and that an individual who was distinguished from his mother's womb by a short body, a bent back, and a prominent pair of shoulders, had atoned for his ill-made person by a very delightful essay in its praise. As Mr. Hay, in his "Essay on Deformity," has pointed out, with the skill of a master and the ingenuity of a lawyer, the advantages to which it leads, and the inconveniences from which it guards, its possessors, I shall not enter upon the field in which he has careered so successfully, but shall leave him to enjoy his peculiarities of person without envy, merely wishing that all who resemble him in figure may resemble him in temper, and may exhibit the same laudable fortitude as he did, in daring to be merry, even in the worst and most disagreeable of shapes. Lord Bacon has been particularly severe in divers passages in his works upon those unfortunate individuals whose souls have not been set in the most comely and beautiful frames. He contends, that there is a consent between the body and the mind; and that Nature, where she errs in the one, generally ventures in the other," ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero." He admits, however, that "whosoever hath any thing fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn:"-and therefore he says shortly afterwards, "It is not to be marvelled, if sometimes deformed men prove excellent characters." Now this doctrine, if it rest upon any principle at all, must rest upon the principle, that the carcase, which is the mere dress of the soul, is the best part of the man; and is about as absurd as the vulgar notion, that a well-made coat is the principal ingredient in the formation of a gentleman. The supporters of it ought to recollect, that the finest pearls are oftentimes inclosed in the most rugged shells, and that the best wines are generally extracted from the most unsavoury-looking grapes. It is a remark too, as old as the days of Ovid, that a vile cask frequently contains excellent liquor— "Vilis sæpe cadus nobile nectar habet,”— and it will be a remark, when the days of Ovid are ten times as remote as they are at present, that the fruits which are fairest to the eye are not always the * Laudes inferorum. Coloniæ Agripp. 1592. most exquisite and delicious to the taste. Information, and talent, and judgement, and virtue, have taken up their abodes as often in a deformed as in a comely fabric. Esop was crooked, and Epictetus was lame. Socrates was the very image of Silenus, excepting that he had weaker eyes and infirmer legs. Diogenes, though preferred by Lais to Aristippus, was a mere dog in countenance as well as in manners. Seneca, though the author of many wellpoised antitheses, and of many neatly turned sentences, was in person "lean and harsh and ugly to behold." Horace," says old Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, "was a little, blear-eyed, contemptible fellow;-and yet, who so sententious and wise?" Agesilaus, who had evidently formed in his mind that plan for the conquest of Asia which Alexander of Macedon afterwards executed, was of an exterior singularly unprepossessing. He was low of stature, and, like Tyrtæus, had one leg shorter than the other; and his toutensemble, according to one of his biographers, was so very despicable, that he never failed in raising contempt in those who were unacquainted with his moral and intellectual excellencies. Philopamen, whose comprehensive policy formed, animated, and sustained the Achæan league, and whose heroic struggles against the colossal power of Rome cast a ray of glory over the expiring independence of his country, bequeathed to posterity a bon-mot on his utter want of personal grace and comeliness. Having arrived without attendants at an inn, where he was unknown, but where his company was expected, he was desired by the hostess to help her slaves to draw water and make a fire against his own anticipated arrival. With a good nature which is not likely to find many imitators, he acceded to her request, and was found by his train busily employed in the performance of it. On being asked what he was doing, he replied, that he was paying the penalty of his ugliness; and thus rendered pointless all the sarcasms which malignity might otherwise have cast upon it. Narses, the general of Justinian, and Tamerlane, the conqueror of Bajazet, were both lame and ill-favoured; and yet their brave and heroical disposition-I use the words of Bacon-"thought to make their natural wants part of their honour, in that it should be said that an eunuch or a lame man did such great matters" as they had the good fortune to achieve. Duguesclin, one of the most gallant antagonists of our heroic Black Prince, was, according to all accounts that we hear of him, frightfully plain. He had a monstrous head, small ferret-like eyes, large shoulders, and a thick clumsy figure. "I am very ugly," said he one day to a friend; "I shall never be beloved by women, but I will be feared by the enemies of my king." Notwithstanding this avowed want on his part of personal accomplishments, one of the richest heiresses of France became enamoured of him: she saw his visage in his achievements, and, like the gentle Desdemona, "loved him for the dangers he had past;" whilst he, as in duty bound, "loved her, that she did pity them." He signalized his wedding-day in a manner worthy of himself and of his bride;-for he was not only victorious in a tournament, which he had proclaimed in honour of it, but in a more serious engagement with an English detachment, which sought to surprise him in the midst of its festivities. Cromwell, who as a statesman and a warrior will bear comparison with the noblest names both in ancient and in modern story, is described by South, in one of his court sermons, as a bankrupt beggarly-looking fellow in a thread-bare cloak and a greasy hat; and his nose, which was There is a curious passage in the "Encomium on Baldness" by Synesius, from which it appears that Socrates was much pleased at the similarity said to exist between him and Silenus. P. 69, Edit. Basil. "Taur' ága кal Zwкgáтns Ó Σωφρονίσκου, μέτριος ἐς τἄλλα γενόμενος, καὶ παρ' ὁντινοῦν οἱκείων ἐπαίνων φεισάμενος, οὐκ ἐδύνατο μὴ φιλοτιμεῖσθαι τῇ πρὸς τὸν Σιληνὸν ὁμοιότητι· ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ ἅπαν ἐνῆν ὅσον ἐξόυλετο, νοῦ δοχεῖον αὐτῷ κατασκευάσασθαι τὴν κεφαλήν.” For a picturesque description of Oliver Cromwell's person, vide Sir P. Warwick's Memoirs of Charles the First, p. 247. It is strange what a difference a man's situation makes in his appearance to the world. When Oliver was simply remarkably red and shining, formed the subject of never-ending jokes to the "gentle dulness" of his cavalier contemporaries. Cleaveland, in his character of a London diurnal, said, "that Cromwell must be a bird of prey, from his bloody beak; his nose is able to try a young eagle whether it be lawfully begotten but all," added he, "is not gold that glitters." Turenne concealed a great and daring soul under a rude and vulgar and unpromising exterior, as did also his contemporary, the celebrated Marshal Luxembourg. Our great deliverer from civil tyranny and religious slavery, William the Third, called him on one occasion a crook-backed fellow. Luxembourg, when informed of this sarcasm, made a retort of singular severity. "How can the Prince of Orange know that I am so? I have often seen his back; but, thank God, he has never yet seen mine." But I am wandering out of the limits which I prescribed to myself, and, instead of confining my observations to those who have made themselves the contemporaries of distant ages by diffusing through the world the beneficent triumphs of knowledge and intellect, am digressing to those who have gained a wider, but not a more durable renown, by their gallant achievements in the deadly struggles of conflicting nations. I will return, however, to my original design, by calling my reader from the contemplation of those who have terminated by their swords the quarrels of empires, to the contemplation of those who have often excited by their pens the quarrels of individuals, and have inflicted with those petty but powerful instruments, wounds which have eat a venomed way into the hearts of their antagonists, and have produced "eternal ulcers on their memories." And, in performing this part of iny task, I cannot help suspecting that I shall involuntarily afford a striking proof of the truth of Lord Bacon's assertion, that deformed persons are generally ill-natured and envious; for it somehow or other happens, that in this class most of our critics and satirists are to be found. Zoilus, who is amongst the earliest critics on record, had a countenance as hideous as his mind is described to have been perverse. Montaigne may be right in saying that Nature did Socrates great wrong, when she gave him a deformed body unsuitable to the beauty of his mind; but, if we are to believe all that is related regarding Zoilus, she acted only justly by him, when she "informed his soul" in a body of peculiar ugliness. He had one leg shorter than the other, two eyes which glanced a thousand ways at once, a face which, like that of Medusa, petrified with horror all who looked upon it, a matted beard, which hung down in filthy wretchedness upon his breast, and a rough shock-head of red hair, which at one time he kept close shaved, under the idea that the hairs which grew on it were so many suckers to draw away nourishment from his chin, and were therefore irreconcileable with the existence of his beard, which he wished to extend to an extreme length as a mark of his wisdom. That the satiric poet Hipponax was a little, crooked, deformed fellow, is known by the fact of his having written a most caustic set of lambic trimeters to avenge himself on two sculptors, Anthermus and Bupalus, who had made a statue of him, and exposed it to the view, or rather to the derision, of the public. Aretin, who aimed his satire against every person whom he knew, and who only spared the Divinity, as the Italian epitaph on him observes,t because he knew him not, resem Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, the good knight saw nothing in him but a very mean and insignificant personage; but no sooner did he become Protector, than, Hey, presto! the mean and insignificant personage is changed into a "comely and majestic presence." *This story is Ælian's. The epitaph to which I allude is, I believe, by Paulus Jovius. "Qui giace l'Aretin, poeta Tosco, It has |