A letter to John Murray, esq. from Lord Nugent, touching an article in the last Quarterly review
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TOUCHING AN ARTICLE IN THE LAST QUARTERLY REVIEW, OX A BOOK CALLED “ SOME MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN, HIS PARTY, AND HIS TIMES.” # - LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET MDCCCXXXII. r 39 ^ i LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford -street. \ , ■ i 9 A LETTER &c. London , September 18, 1832. My dear Murray, I am much obliged to you for the copy you have sent me of the last Number of the Quarterly Review. I see it has at length honoured my book, intitled c Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party, and his Times,’ with sixty- two pages of vehement animadversion. I say ‘ at length,5 not less with refer¬ ence to the space to which the criticism extends, than to the time which the critick has taken to bring it to ripeness. Mr. Southey, in the title-page of some works, — not anonymous, — has announced them as the productions not only of a c Poet Laureate,’ but also of an ‘ Honorary Member of the Royal Spanish Academy,’ and of ‘ the Royal Spanish Academy of History,’ and of ‘ the Royal Institution of the Netherlands,’ and of ‘ the Cymmorodion,’ — (the what?) — and of ‘ the Massachussets Historical Society,5 of ‘ the American Antiquarian Society,5 of 6 the Royal Irish Aca¬ demy,’ and of ‘ the British Philological and Literary Society,’ &c. &c. Sec. ‘ It never rains but it pours ;’ nor can I but feel some alarm at having so many at once upon me. My book appeared in November last: the review, Med with uncommon wrath,’ in August. Nine months of tedious gestation ! I should be sorry to be guilty of any neglect of so remarkable a person’s criticisms, and I might, peradventure, be accused of it, were I to leave the country without attempting an observation or two in reply to a few, very few, of them. An eminent man of our day was once, as he came out of church, asked by the preacher his opinion touching the sermon — Not much could be said in its praise. ‘ At all events,5 said the preacher, endeavouring to sug¬ gest some topick of commendation which might be reflected back upon himself, ‘ At all events, it was not a long one.’ ‘No, it was not long,’ was the reply. ‘ Well,’ said the preacher, ‘ lam glad you thought it short, for I hate to be tedious.5 ‘ Oh l’ answered the hearer, ‘ but it was tedious.’ I cannot apply this observation to Mr. Southey ; — for he was long too. A 2 / 4 With Mr. Southey’s political lucubrations on these our times, or on those of Charles I., I have nothing to do ; nor with the parallel into which he has drawn them, and which, like all other parallels, has the property, though produced to an extreme length, of not approaching one jot nearer at the termination than at the outset. Mr. Southey, 1 find, in page 458, believes that there is some distinction between historical impartiality and historical justice ; so much so, that he gives license to depart from the one, but enjoins the observance of the other. Of this distinction I will say nothing, being, as I must confess, unable, probably from my owm incapacity, to comprehend it : I have always, in my sim¬ plicity, believed that history, like criticism, can be just only in the ratio of its impartiality. Nor w7ill I dispute wdth him touching his doctrine, — which, indeed, he veils in the modest obscurity of a learned language, — where, speaking of the manner in which he supposes Hampden to have obtained his first seat in Parliament for Grampound, he determines — (page 460) — that the ‘ sound of publick virtue and popular representation ’ are 1 vox et proeterea nihil.’ He may be right — I hope not, and I believe not. But there are a few points on which I would say a word. He complains that, when I ‘ noticed’ — (I don’t like that word, for it is not English, he probably meant ‘noted,’) — ‘ the wealth and im¬ portance of Grampound in former times/ I did not ‘ observe that popular representation had about as much to do with the return of Hampden for that place as of the other sitting Members for that borough at any subsequent time ;’ and that * the glory of the example is an argument for the utility of the system.’ Now certain it is that I did not make either of these observations ; and, indeed, for this reason, that I think both of them shallow and untrue. The wealth and importance of a place is generally ac¬ companied by a certain influence of publick opinion, which tends to check the principle of direct nomination ; and even if, as Mr. Southey assumes, the system of direct nomination did prevail at Grampound, it surely would be the reverse of truth to say that the glory of the example is any argument for the utility of the system. The glorious example of Marcus Aurelius was no argument for the utility of the system which afterwards conferred the empire of the world on the Augustuli, and destroyed Rome. Mr. Southey thinks it necessary — (in page 46 1) — to quarrel with the inference I have drawn from Hampden’s declining to seek a Peerage in the Presence Chamber of James I. But, in his attempt to avoid the solution which I have given, he falls into the very midst of it himself, and gives it as his own ; and for the same reason, because it is the only one which can be given — namely, that 1 he differed from his mother upon this point, and that seeing . \ in the House of Commons the proper scene for that course of publick exertion which he had resolved upon pursuing, he made no application for a peerage. Even a due sense of family pride might alone have withheld him, at a time when the rank itself was degraded by the facility with which it was bestowed, and by the motives for bestowing it.’ Exactly so. Mr. Southey, observing on the famous report of Sergeant Glan- ville’s Committee on the cases of the petitioning boroughs, thinks it 4 not necessary to inquire what description of persons was meant' by the word 4 populacy,’ in the old charters. And yet some great and wise men considered it a most important point to decide in establishing the right to vote. Glanville, Selden, and Coke, so considered it in their report, which was favourable to the extended right, and Brady afterwards so considered it, although deciding in favour of the select corporations. All these great authorities thought it very 4 necessary to inquire,’ Glanville’s Committee con¬ tended, and Brady admitted, that it w as very 4 necessary to inquire ’ into the meaning of that word. Mr. Southey thinks otherwise, and so dismisses it. Referring to the early animosities of Charles’s reign, which Mr. Southey says (p. 464) that I have 4 decided with great compla¬ cency began in the violence of the King, and not in the conduct of the first Parliament,’ he accuses me of having been 4 so remarkably careless’ in my references, that I cite the Sydney papers, ii. page 360 — 365, where nothing relative to the subject is to be found.’ Nowr, I may perhaps be careless in many things, but I have not been so in these references. 1 referred to those papers, as will be seen (Hampden, vol. i. p. 99, 100, 101) among other authorities, to show that the disgust of Parliament proceeded from sudden dissolutions, and from the raising of money by w ar¬ rants under the Privy Seal and other illegal modes. I am bound to go through the courteous form of believing that Mr. Southey had not looked at the Sydney papers when he hazarded this assertion. But, if he had not, I appeal to you, my dear Murray, though you do publish the Quarterly, why accuse me of being remarkably careless ? I have looked at the Sydney papers both before I quoted them and since. If Mr. Southey had, which, in courtesy, I repeat I am clear he did not, he would have seen, in vol. ii., p. 360 (I like to be particular), a letter from Sir John North to Robert Earl of Leicester, dated Wilton, Sept. 28, 1625, the following passage : — ‘ From hence your lordship can expect no certain news, we have so many and sudden changes. The terme is not spoken of, nor any Parliament, only privy seals are sending forth to supply the King s pressing occasions' Fie would also have seen (vide p. 363), in a letter from Edward Lord Conway to ditto, dated from the Court at Wilton, 29th September, ]625, the following passage : ‘ The leaving of the last Parliament soured all things' He would also have seen, in the same page, in a letter from Sir John North to ditto, dated October 17, 1625 : ‘ This town (Salisbury) lent 2000 1. on the entreatye and bonds of my Lord Thresorer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer , which example was followed by the townsmen of Southampton tor a loan of one thousand pounds. Southey (p. 465) calls power of commitment per ipsum regem the t unwise exercise of an undue, but hitherto undisputed power,' If he meant in this sentence a power till then undisputed, he would have probably said so. ‘ Hitherto undisputed’ means ‘ till now undisputed,’ which, by every one who knows even the elements of the English history or constitution, is known not to be the case. To Mr. Southey’s praises of Mr. D’ Israeli as an ‘ impartial’ historian, a ‘ benevolent’ historian, an historian who puts ‘ the most charitable construction’ upon the actions of all men, an ‘ accurate’ as well as ‘ a most agreeable and instructive one,’ I can have no objection. I have no fancy for going over again the reasons I have already expressed at length in my book for holding a contrary opinion. I am tired of that subject, and so, probably, by this time, is Mr. 1)’ Israeli. I will only observe that Mr. Southey has, in support of these laudatory propositions, given what a sailor would term ‘ a wide berth ’ to the whole of that passage, in which Mr. D’lsraeli doubts whether Pym was c too deeply calumniated ’ by the accu¬ sation of 1 having received a bribe from France,’ — a fact which I rebut on the authority which Mr. D’lsraeli misquotes, namely, Clarendon ; not to mention the doubt which may be entertained whether a man ought to be calumniated at all. Nor does he happen to instance the other in which that ‘ benevolent’ and i accurate’ historian accuses Hampden of having, on account of a base private pique against a high sheriff (with whom, it appears, he was on perfectly good terms), ‘ drawn his sword to shed the blood of half the nation.* 1 must also observe that Mr. Southey, when he restates (p. 479) N 7 the old story ol Sir John Eliot’s having treacherously stabbed Mr. Moyle, and says that 4 the treachery is denied in another version of the same story produced by Lord Nugent ,’ neglects to state that that other and opposite version was the one given by Mr. Moyle’s own daughter. I will not pause upon pages 478 and 479 of the 4 Review,’ further than to elucidate Mr. Southey’s remarkable statement that ‘ James I. (like Charles and his grandson) never said a foolish thing.’ I would suggest a careful re-perusal of his sayings to and concerning 4 Stenny and Baby Charles,’ and a few of the cate¬ gories contained in his speeches on opening his Parliaments touching kings being 4 the lieutenants and vicegerents of God on earth, and so adorned and furnished with some sparkles of the divinity.’ A very foolish thing to say. But I come at once to the note at the foot of page 485-6, con¬ cerning Bishop Laud, the Star Chamber, and Prynne, Bast- wick, and Burton. In the commencement of it, Mr. Southey is lively at the expense of one of my sentences, in which I say that Laud 4 revived those bloody scenes of human agony and mutilation which were part of the ordinary punishment of the pillory.’ If they were ordinary , observes Mr. Southey, pleasantly, how could he be said 4 to have revived them?’ Under favour, I deny that 1 said that the mutilations, &c., had been or were ordinary. I said that Laud revived those mutilations, &c., which, (when so revived by Laud,) formed ‘ part of the ordinary punishment of the pillory’ — and I take leave to repeat both the phrase and the fact. Against the fact Mr. Southey cites Bishop Laud’s own History of his Troubles and Trials, (pp. 144-6,) in which he says, 4 In the giving of this sentence , I spake my conscience, and afterwards was commanded to print my speech, but I gave no vote, &c.’ Here again Mr. Southey is incorrect. Laud is speaking not of the mutilations but of the subsequent banishment. For the fact of his having been an active accessory in the cruel punishment of the branding, slitting the nose, cropping the ears, &c., I beg to cite his own signature attached to the warrant for the infliction of it on these very victims. I say nothing of his having taken oft his bonnet to give thanks to God who had put it into the hearts of the council to do this thing. Mr. Southey enters (p. 496) into an elaborate vindication of a former article in the Quarterly Review, in which, on no authority, it charged Hampden with having been a party to an attempted compromise in favour of Lord Straftord's life, and that, being dis¬ appointed in his expectations, he was 4 thereby determined on shedding blood.’ He would make good for the Quarterly its re¬ treat from this unsupported sally, by re-quoting Whitelocke, (who 8 by the way, says no such thing,) and then proceeds to veil over the exposed inaccuracy, by confounding it with the lesser charge brought by Whitelocke after the Restoration — that ‘ there was a proposal,’ (he does not say whose,) 1 to restore Strafford to his former favour and honour, if the king would prefer some of the grandees to offices at court.’ I must take the liberty of protesting against the Quarterly Review being allowed to escape thus. I did not deny that such a proposal was made. But I said that ‘ none of those persons who were named for office appear to have been privy to any compromise, except the Earl of Bedford.’ I showed that the Quarterly Review had no authority for accusing John Hampden of being any party to a compromise, nor to what it calls an ‘ extra legal murder ;’ I showed that he no where appears to have taken any part for the bill of pains and penalties ; and I showed, from Sir Ralph Verney’s notes made at the time, that on one occasion — the only one on which his name appears in these debates — he seems to have argued against it. We proceed to the popular disturbances in consequence of the attempt to impose upon Scotland the English Liturgy, to the two Scottish wars and treaties, and to the conduct of the country party in England towards their Scottish ‘ brethren.’ (p. 492.) Why did the Scots take arms, and keep them ? and why did the patriots of England abet the Scots in delaying the disembodying of that army, so long as the king’s army should remain in force upon the border ? This question might be answered peradventure in some such words as these, with which Mr. Southey is not alto¬ gether unacquainted — 4 We must remain embodied, else the king Will plunge again in royal luxury, And, when the storm of danger is past over, Forget his promises : Ay, like an aguish sinner, He’ll promise to repent, while the fit’s on him, When well recovered, laugh at his own terrors.’* But there are lengths to which neither the Scots nor the country party of England proceeded in their doctrines or reasonings ; as for example : ‘ Oh, I am grieved that we must gain so little ! Why are not all these empty ranks abolished? King, slave, and lord ennobled into man ? Are we not equal all ? Have you not told me Equality ’s the noblest right of Man, Inalienable, though by force withheld ? Even so. — But, Piers, my frail and feeble judgment  to decide if it be right Peaceably to return content with little, With this half restitution of our rights, Or boldly to proceed through blood and slaughter, Till we should all be equal and all happy — I chose the middle way — perhaps I erred !* ’ But I have done with this : this was no part of tlieir doctrine : if it had, Mr. Southey’s invective, against those whom he suspects to have been the abettors or apologists of such treason against monarchy and social order, might have awakened an answering sentiment in breasts even less conservative than his own. I now proceed to Hampden’s famous speech on the impeach¬ ment of himself and the four other members, a part of which, cis asserting the doctrine of jiassive obedience , Mr. Southey has been pleased to say, I have suppressed. To this I have one answer only to give, — I have not ! And this answer I give with at least as much civility as that with which the member of so many in¬ stitutions of polite literature has insinuated that I am ‘ prepared to account hypocrisy and falsehood among a patriot’s accomplish¬ ments.’ I have not garbled that speech, nor suppressed any part of the doctrines contained in it, but Mr. Southey has. ^And I refer to the published speech, London, 1642, easily to be ob¬ tained ; compare it with the version in my book, and then with that in Mr. Southey’s article in the Quarterly Review. I call you, my dear Murray, forth as a juryman, from that little back room of yours, where you are even now preparing to publish the forthcoming number of the ‘Quarterly,’ and I stake my character against Mr. Southey’s, since he has brought it to that pass, on the issue of the fact. John Hampden’s speech professes to define the difference between a good and bad subject, and divides it under these heads : — ‘ Re¬ ligion towards God, loyalty and due submission to the lawful com¬ mands of the sovereign, and good affection towards the safety and just rights of the people , according to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm: This, Mr. Southey, professing to give the whole speech , suppresses , and then accuses John Hampden of hypocritically supporting the doctrine of passive obedience ! John Hampden states as the duties oi a subject, 1st. Lawful subjection to a king in his own person, and the commands, &c., of the prince and his privy council. 2nd. Lawful obedience to the laws , statutes , and ordinances enacted by the King and the Lords, with the free consent of the great council of State assembled in Parliament. And this it pleases Mr. Southey to call the doctrine of passive obedience ! * Mr. Southey’s Wat Tyler. 10 John Hampden proceeds to say that ‘ to deny a willing and dutiful obedience to a lawful Sovereign and his privy council, or to deny to defend his royal 'person and kingdom , or his ancient privileges and prerogatives pertaining and belonging of right to his royal crown/ or ‘ to deny to defend and maintain true religion established in this land according to the truth of God , is a sign of a bad subject. Secondly, ‘ to yield obedience to the commands of a King if against the true religion and the ancient and fundamental laws of the land, is another sign of an ill subject .’ And this it pleases Mr. Southey to call the doctrine of passive obedience ! Thirdly. ‘ To resist the lawful power of the King, or raise in¬ surrection against him, admit him averse in his religion, to con¬ spire or rebel against his sacred person , though commanding things against our consciences in exercising religion, or against the rights and privileges of the subject, is an absolute sign of a disaffected and traitorous subject.’ And this doctrine is limited, observe, to obedience to the lawfid power of the King, and prohibiting vio¬ lence to his person , or rebellion though he exercise such power as the law may give him, even against religion, or right, or privileges. And Mr. Southey calls this the doctrine of passive obedience! Hampden proceeds with the inverse of the proposition, and de¬ scribes a ‘ loyal and good subject’ by the performance of the duties which he has before described the bad subject as neglecting or betraying. This is the passage which Mr. Southey accuses me of suppressing. It is the exact inverse of the case of the ‘ good subject,’ and the doctrine is, article for article, the same. And again I stake my character against Mr. Southey’s, since he has brought it* to that pass, that, throughout, there is not a duty en¬ joined in the second part that is not enjoined in the first, and in like manner qualified and guarded by the phrase ‘ lawful power.’ But now 1 come to Mr. Southey’s own suppressions ; and I must trouble you with the longest passage of Hampden’s speech. It is the summing up, valuable as such, and valuable as a frank ex¬ position of the doctrines on which hang the essential duties which the subject of a free monarchy, with a representative government, owes to the great council of the State : — ‘ I conceive if any particular member of a Parliament, although his judgment and vote be contrary, do not willingly submit to the rest, he is an ill subject to his King and country ; and, secondly, to resist the ordinance of the whole state of the kingdom , either by the stirring up a dislike in the hearts of his Majesty's subjects of the proceedings of the parliament, to endeavour, by levying arms, to compel the King and parliament to make such laws as seem best to them, to deny the power , authority , and privileges of parliament , to cast aspersions upon 1 1 the same and its proceedings, thereby inducing the King to think ill of the same, and to be incensed against the same, to procure the un¬ timely breaking up and dissolution of a Parliament , before all things be settled by the same , for the safety and tranquillity both of King and state , these are apparent signs of a treacherous and disloyal subject against his King and country. ‘ This is what I call very audacious in Mr. Southey, and not over honest.’ And I end as I began, — l stake my character against Mr. Southey’s, since he has brought it to that pass, on the issue of the fact. One* of us has, doubtless, been guilty of a fraud. Either I, for the purpose of unjustly procuring an acquittal for Hampden’s memory, or he, for that of procuring an unjust con¬ demnation of it. But, my dear Murray, Mr. Southey is very hard, in other re¬ spects, on the character of Hampden. Almost every sentence is an indictment, for that he did, with divers others, to wit, the Par¬ liaments of three kingdoms, at divers times, between the years 1625 and 1643, conspire with force and arms, &c. &c. &c. against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown, and dig¬ nity. That is the issue to be tried. The doctrine of resistance, (however wantonly dealt with in former times by some riotous spirits in this country during the excesses of the French Carmagnole Revolution, ) is, (as probably Mr. Southey will now agree with me,) neither convenient nor useful matter for abstract discussion. Nor would any wise or good man attempt to dogmatise on such extreme cases as those in which it can become a question either of natural right or moral duty. In reading or writing history each man must judge of the particular cases as they present themselves to the soberest consideration which he can apply to them. There are, however, passages in the lives of some publick men, which, on general grounds, cannot fail to draw down suspicion (sometimes indeed reprobation) on their memories. From these the memory of Hampden is free. Mr. Southey may think it just to impute craft and dissimulation to Hampden : he cannot accuse him of faithlessness or inconstancy. If, indeed, John Hampden had ever spoken to the people of England after this fashion — ‘ These are truths and mighty ones : Ye are all equal — Nature made you so — Equality is your birth-right. When I gaze On the proud palace, and behold one man In the blood -purpled robes of royalty, Feasting at ease, and lording over millions, Then turn me to the hut of poverty, And see the wretched labourer, worn with toil, Divide his scanty morsel with his infants, I sicken, and, indignant at the sight, Blush for the patience of humanity !* ’ Or thus, to his sovereign, — ‘ King of England, Petitioning for pity is most weak, The Sovereign people ought to demand justice !| ’ Or thus, again, to the people, — ‘ The service of the State demands more money ! Just Heaven ! of what service is the State ’ If, I repeat, John Hampden had ever said this, or anything like this, and then, pleading his youth as the excuse of his forepast ex¬ cess, had been seen at hve-and-forty, on the pension list, and in a place at court, beginning to denounce as rebels the founders and champions of England’s grave and manly freedom, I say, the truth of history might have recorded that John Hampden, at the former period, went far beyond the doctrines of those whom at the latter he could not view even with charity or toleration ; and that, at the latter period, he went far beyond the doctrines of those whom at the former he had thought not deserving to hold station, and scarcely to hold life, in a free commonwealth. Mr. Southey has questioned the conclusion to which I come respecting the nature of the wound of which John Hampden died, tie asks why I reject a gossiping story of Horace Walpole’s of his having come to his death by a pistol bursting in his hand. Why, simply because it is a mere gossiping story disposed of very tho¬ roughly, as it appears to me, on an authority which I have given in a note which it did not suit Mr. Southey’s convenience to see. It is on the testimony of the grandson of the very person whom Horace Walpole quotes for his story, and who had lived with him for many years, — himself too a person for whose office, if not for his name, Mr. Southey should have borne some respect ; for he too w as a poet-laureate — Mr. Pve. I took the narrative which I give * Mr. Southey’s ‘ Wat Tyler.’ f Id. ^ + Id. from the concurrent testimony of Clarendon, Sir Philip Warwick, and all the other contemporary historians, and all the dinr- nals and tracts of the time, which agree that John Hampden received a wound in his shoulder from a shot, of which he lan¬ guished and died. But nothing will serve Mr. Southey but he must quote me against myself, and say that I have made personal observation of the state of John Hampden’s wrist, and saw that it was shattered. Not I, indeed. Mr. Southey quotes a very silly, distasteful narrative of a supposed very ghastly transaction, which he says he derives from the pages of the ‘ Gentleman’s Magazine,’ which silly, distasteful narrative, he says, was supposed to have been written by myself, or under my authority. Not it, indeed. If I, who have, to my shame, misspent much time in the course of my life, had written a story for the ‘ Gentleman’s Maga¬ zine,’ it should not have been a filthy story against myself. Mr. Sylvanus Urban is a very good man in his way; but, like many other very good men, very accessible to that very unfair guerilla mode of attack popularly called hoax, or humbug. — And I say this from experience. I remember that, many years ago, when I was at college, I and others had contracted a habit of wasting much valu¬ able time, which ought to have been better employed, in putting that excellent person’s gullibility to the proof. Any dose in the shape of a little twaddling bit of intelligence from a correspond¬ ent, ‘ which Sylvan loves,’ Sylvan ever swallowed with ‘ innocent delight,’ and ‘made the treacherous gift immortal as himself.’ I state this to the credit of his unsuspicious nature. I certainly did see, in 1828, while the pavement of the chancel of Hampden church was undergoing repair, a skeleton, which I have many reasons for believing was not John Hampden’s, but that of some gentle¬ man, or lady, who probably died a quiet death in bed, certainly with no wound in the wrist. I have now gone through the principal points of Mr. Southey’s attack. He accuses me, in general terms, of speaking of the parliamentary party of those times in a tone of exaggerated eulogy, and very disparagingly of the royalists. This is a question of opinion and of taste, which I will not dispute with him. I cer¬ tainly thought very much the contrary, and think so still ; and I would cite the characters which I endeavour to draw of St. John, Pym, the Earls of Northumberland, Salisbury, and Holland, and Lord Stamford, of whom I am much mistaken if I speak with anything like unqualified praise. I would cite, also, the willing testimony of admiration I bear to the greatness of Lord Strafford, and to the virtues of Lord Lindsey, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Falkland, my own brave ancestor Sir Bevill Grenvil, and to many 14 of the high qualities of Charles himself. In this 1 leave myself to publick trial ; but i challenge the Laureate as a juror. What remains of Mr. Southey’s article is mere abuse, — terms partakings of that figure of speech called balderdash, such as ‘ macradicalized whig,’ ‘ lamentably bewhigged,’ 4 party pleader,’ and the like. Now, my dear Murray, nicknames are full as bad evidence of good reasoning as of good manners. And, as for mere thundering invective, that is a weapon which every man may find ready to his hand for the mere pains of stooping for it. For in¬ stance. It would be easy for me to say this. — There are imputa¬ tions more injurious and more lasting than that of radicalism or whiggery. Mr. Southey may, if it please him, think me a radi¬ cal ; — at all events he will not accuse me of being a renegado. He may accuse me of having been lamentably misled into whig gism : he will not accuse me of having been shamefully pensioned into toryism. He may accuse me of being the c bigoted wor¬ shipper of John Hampden he will not accuse me of being the apostate apologist of Wat Tyler — ‘ Nay, an’ he mouth it, I can rant as well as he.’ And who is Mr. Southey ? and what right has he to lecture me thus? ‘ It may assist Lord Nugent,’ says he, ‘ to call to mind the observation of Han ton, — the Ajax of the French Re¬ volution, as he was called by his admirers, — for he, too, had his admirers !’ Oh, yes, that bloody monster had his admirers ! I do not charge Mr. Southey with having been among them, though he would insinuate that I am the admirer of one whom he thinks it fit to represent as his parallel. But this I do know ; that the youth¬ ful Mr. Southey was among the self-recorded admirers of that revolutionary system in which Danton and Robespierre were lead¬ ing lights, while the scaffolds of Paris were yet streaming with carnage, and that it was not till the perpetrators of it had been for many years in their graves that the matured Mr. Southey grasped his anti-revolutionary pen and contemporaneous pension. Do I venture to rebuke Mr. Southey for having ceased to be the encomiast of a system which led to such execrable wuckedness ? Do I rebuke him for having rushed into the opposite extreme, — for having quitted, not WTong for right, but one wrong for its op- site w'rong, — and for being consistent in this at least, the having been in both extremes equally the antagonist of the principles of good government and of the English constitution? — Not I. But I adopt Mr. Southey’s own words. ‘ He who fraternizes with them for any half-way purpose of his own, knowing at what they aim, which he cannot choose but know because it is loudly and insolently proclaimed by them, will, one day, (whatever may have 15 been his own intentions,) have cause, like Danton, in bitterness of soul, to ask forgiveness of God and man.7 And if I now saw Mr. Southey in penitential sadness and shame asking forgiveness of God and man for the rank errors of his youth, 1 might applaud the effort at humble atonement. But when I see him assuming the posture and tone of a political censor, impeaching the honesty and reviling the conduct of those who never adopted in their poli¬ ticks a course which, in their minds, required to be changed or repented, I would venture to suggest that to abstain from judging, to the end that he might not be judged of men, would be, in it¬ self, commendable, and an advantageous compromise for Mr. Southey. There is an old adage concerning the throwing of stones by one whose windows are made of a frail material. — Win¬ dows of glass ? Why, Mr. Southey’s whole house is made of nothing else ! But, my dear Murray, Mr. Southey entertains 1 a strong and abiding hope,’ which he congratulates himself ‘ rests not on hu¬ man wisdom and he feels that he 1 cannot conclude his paper more appropriately 7 than with a very sorry sonnet on the General Fast. I will spare him the republication of a sonnet composed of sad lines like these — ‘ The people pray’d As with one voice ; their flinty hearts grew soft With penitential sorrow, and aloft Their spirit * mounted, crying, “ God, us aid.” ’ ‘ God help us,’ indeed ! Mr. Southey says, the verses ( affiliate themselves, and would give additional proof, if necessary, that the highest intellect of the country is on the same side with that piety and that feeling.7 By which I understand him to mean, that the verses were written by himself.- — Happy it is that they have this faculty of self-affiliation ; for what a devil of a muse she would be who could swear such a sonnet to the Laureate ! But now Mr. Southey may peradventure say that I have no right to assume him to be the writer of the article at all. Oh, yes, but 1 have ! I beg thus publickly to acquit you, my dear Murray, of having told tales out of the school of the Quarterly ; but, answer me, — could ever any man, even much less shrewd of judgement than yourself, and much less acquainted with the affiliated productions of Mr. Southey, be mistaken in this ? Mr. Southey ends with a bad sonnet — I will end with an indif¬ ferent good story. I have heard of a German baron, who was once known at Bath by a lame and withered hand. He received his w'ound thus. — He was once gambling with an Irish gentleman, * False quantity. 6 who thought the cards were not played fair, and felt very sure it was the baron at his tricks. The Irish gentleman took a decisive course; he seized a fork, and, sticking it through the baron’s hand, pinned it to the table, exclaiming, ‘ If Pam be not under that gentleman’s hand, I’ll beg his pardon.’ But the knave was there. Ever, dear Murray, Your’s, very truly, Nugent. S P ~ 9 * 8 6. London : W. 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