lives, and fought with all their nerves and sinews, have ever preserved towards each other, personally, a dignified and majestic forbearance,-have mutually attributed to each other honourable motives of action, and given a nobler character to their own cause, by the liberality of spirit manifested towards that of their opponents. That high-minded courtesy which all great men observe towards each other in life, is paid to them, when they die, by all who have hearts to feel the grandeur of the departed. Then, truly, do mere party feelings appear in their native abjectness. And him who could speak of a great dead statesman with bitterness and anger, we at once know to be a man of a perverted nature, and wholly incapable of understanding or feeling the strength, the beauty, or the glory, of any great

cause.

On fine and elevated intellects, therefore, party spirit can have no other effect than to stimulate and excite. The sacrifices are but few and unimportant which it calls upon them to make; it never troubles the pure well-head of their principles; it may occasionally ruffle the waters, but it never can change, from its natural channel, that stream of thought that obeys a nobler law, and flows on uninterruptedly to a magnificent destination.

But upon weak and ungenerous minds, the effect of party spirit is most fatal. Unable to grasp general principles, they are pleased to seize upon some petty prejudice within the reach of their paltry understandings; ignorant of the constitutions of empires, and of the mighty events that have swayed their destinies, they are at least knowing enough in the ephemeral arcana of political scandal; untouched by the spirit of ancient times, they feel not in what true grandeur of soul consists, yet, with blind presumption, decide dogmatically on the qualities of the great men of their own day; without impulse to propel, or star to guide, they move in the gales of other men's understanding, and by the light that shines not for them; in the midst of ignorance, weakness, darkness, error, and insolence, they pass their abject lives,-judging, deciding, condemning, eulogising, in words that, to the unsuspicious, would seem issuing from an oracle, such is

their pomp and stateliness; but which, to the wary and the wise, are mere puppet-sounds, unproductive and unprofitable, but reproduced everlastingly and the same, from the same worthless though unwearied machine. Of such persons every great city contains "numbers numberless." Do they not swarm in every coffee-house? do they not infest almost every private party of gentlemen? How often is the genial flow of urbane and humane conversation broken by the silly impertinence of some young Whig or some young Tory? The stripling to whom nature may have denied feeling, fancy, imagination, she may have cursed with a tenacious memory. He has studied politics,—he is a party man forsooth. He despises my Lord Castlereagh, and talks of the Irish Union, and the Irish Rebellion, and Martial Law, and Catholic Emancipation. Lying anecdotes take the place of true reasonings; the most outrageous absurdities are quoted and believed from newspaper authority; falsehoods that have been exposed to the light of day, and scattered to all the winds, are whispered as new and alarming secrets; the most powerful of his Majesty's ministers is perhaps levelled to the dust by some yearling barrister bristling in the new borne glories of a rustling gown and a stiff periwig; and what is the wit of the Right Honourable George Canning, to the sarcasm of a young gentleman who, for a whole winter-session, may have adorned the chair of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh?

It is not very easy to decide whether a young Whig, or a young Tory of this stamp, is the most abject animal. The latter is generally a dull, stupid, well-meaning man, who, being a plodder himself, is well satisfied to see every thing plodding around him; and he therefore starts at the sound of innovation, as he would at the sudden rumbling of a waggon behind him on the street. He chooses his steps through old lifeless opinions, as if he were afraid of dirtying his shoes. He carries an umbrella in dry wea ther, he takes shelter in some shed at the first drop of rain; and when other more spirited people are walking home through the shower, his face is seen at the window of a glasscoach, as if afraid of an universal deluge. At table he carves a fowl

with the same stately precision with which he divides an argument; and he swallows his mashed turnips with the same look of importance as if he were gulping a way or a mean from Mr Vansittart's budget.

-

For our own parts, after a long acquaintance with some worthy representatives of both these classes, we prefer the stupid young Tory to the clever young Whig. He is occasionally contented to be silent. At the worst, he is inclined to be acquiescent. And though the church and state do not seem to require his immediate assistance to support them, yet, as his motives are good, with a smile of approbation we allow him to stand with his shoulder to the edifice, and to utter his benedictions. But Heaven forfend us from a clever young Whig! At an age wherein a grocer's apprentice would be supposed too raw in the properties of peppers and sugars to be allowed to set up for himself,wherein an understrapper of the Esculapian tribe would not be permitted to practice except on corpses,wherein a follower of the law would be compeiled to sit dumb at a consultation, and reserve all his genius for taking stenographic notes of the "dicta Ictorum peritissimorum et consultissimorum,"-it is by no means a rare thing to sit at table with one who, at this green and tender age, conceives himself quite entitled to dole out sententious wisdom concerning the affairs of the state; to quote acts of Parliament which he never saw except in a quotation; to rate the conduct of public men, in whose presence the innate consciousness of inanity would render him all one blank of confusion; men whose intentions, principles, and purposes, he no more understands than a fly does the laws of the steam-engine, against one of whose levers it is buzzing. To a Cynie of the genuine breed, -a Voltaire, a Labruyere, a Swift, an Echard, or an Aristophanes,-what pleasure would the contemplation of such precocious presumption afford. With what delight would one of them have watched the oracular frown of the empty forehead,-the philosophical screw of the round, fat features -whereby this infant reformer takes pains to testify that he is " no common observer of men and measures.' With what malicious delight would the witty devil of Le Sage have trac

ed the progress of his daily career,have seen him gathering the droppings of opinion from some real or fancied oracle of his party at one hour, and bringing them out again hardened and encrusted into folly by their residence within his brain at another. With what a grin of demoniacal satisfaction would he see him retailing these second-hand dogmas to some lower circle, and taking the airs of a high priest among those who had never been permitted to penetrate beyond the outer "court of the Gentiles!" The more dogmatical his assertions, the more indiscriminate his abuse, the more rancorous his frothy indignation, the more would the satirist or the demon be delighted with the spectacle. For us, we are too much lovers of our species, to enjoy the view of any of its degradations. With the contempt, which we cannot quell, there mingles at least an equal proportion of the milder element of pity. We cannot even consent to view the unhappy stripling as the victim entirely of his own follies; but reserve at least some portion of our blame for those men of superior minds, who have by flattery, or the love of patronage, been induced to countenance his empty airs, and foster the rank fungus of conceit in the bosom of this their otherwise unobserved and insignificant disciple.

A

Amidst all our contempt and all our pity, we must not, however, hesitate to say, that we really do believe these beardless chatterers are, in so far, acting prudently for themselves. Such absurdities have at least this merit, that they do draw upon their practitioners some little notice. party out of place has no rewards to distribute, except those which are of such a nature, that generosity, in respect to them, requires no great stretch of liberality. When people are contented with a few smiles and grins, it is scarcely worth while to keep them unsatisfied. So these striplings are caressed a little and flattered a little, and by this means they are raised, not merely in their own opinion, and that of others equally shallow as themselves,

but up to somewhat a higher rank in the crazy ladder of popular estimation than their small faculties and worthless attainments could, in almost any other way, have secured for them. Their place is, indeed, after all, not a very lofty one; but they

flatter themselves they may hereafter get up yet farther. They enjoy at least a blessed delusion, and fancy and believe themselves to be the embryos of very considerable men.

It is of course quite natural, that the tone in which these persons discourse of public men and public affairs, should savour of their paltry notions, their ignorant heads, cold hearts, and impotent judgments ;of their vulgar pursuits and habits; -of their base compliances and sneak ing submissions, and hypocritical vanities. This is quite unavoidable.They caricature the already overcharged sketches of their masters into absolute and meaningless monstrosity. They are the links between genuine party violence and the mere hubbub of the populace. In short, they do much dirty work in the dirtiest way possible. They are employed to say things which their superiors are not sorry to have said, although they have too much self-respect to be the trumpeters of them in propriis personis. They are the tag, rag, and bobtail, of the set. They are the awkward, shambling, dwarfish, crooked drummers and fifers of the procession. The true fighters hold them and their vocation in high contempt; but it is notwithstanding true, they make more noise than all the rest of the array.

With very different feelings, indeed, do we sometimes observe absurdities and extravagancies quite as vulgar and gross as these, exhibited in the virulence of the demon, PARTY SPIRIT, by men well fitted by nature and education to play a very different part on the public stage. That petulant and boyish abuse which is only despised from the lips of self-conceited striplings, becomes, in truth, a very different sort of affair when it finds its mouthpiece in a man of genius. When wit, poetry, elegance, and eloquence, are exerted for any purpose, however vile and unworthy, the material is sure to gain some little value and importance from the workmanship. Minds which resist without difficulty the low raving of daily and weekly newspapers, the froth of debating-clubs, and the dullness of pamphlets, are not secure when attacked by one who possesses the brilliant fancy and matchless ease that characterize all the exertions of the muse of Moore. The same engaging qualities which rendered his

early poems the most seductive instruments of debauchery, and which, therefore, did not save them from the dignified rebuke of a most powerful pen, are now, we fear, rendering his political jeux-d'esprit very dangerous weapons in the hands of a set of stupid demagogues, who, had Moore reserved himself for the proper subjects of poetry, would never have had the taste to discover any portion of his merits. We can excuse something to an Irishman, and much to a poet. When a head, exposed to two such inflammations, once begins to turn upon party feelings and party subjects, there is no saying how hot it may grow.

But Mr Moore should remember that he is not a mere Irishman, nor a mere poet. He should reflect that he is a Briton, and, above all, that he is, by manners and accomplishments, a gentleman. This word seems now, indeed, to have lost a great deal of its old meaning. It was the boast of the English civil wars, that both parties were headed by English gentlemen; and that the manly and delicate feelings, then inseparable from this high character, took away from a period of battles, and slaughters, and exiles, and revolutions, not a little of that ferocious and unrelenting hostility which the history of any other period of the world would have made us suppose to be the necessary accompaniment of all such times of tumult and convulsion. Surely the interests which were then at stake are sufficient to make the party men of the present day look with some little contempt on the insignificant subjects of their warfares. And yet in those days there was universally observed, by all the eminent men of either side, the most perfect politeness to their opponents. Above all, even in the moments of actual battle and siege, the unfortunate Charles was never mentioned by his insurgent subjects without expressions of deep respect for the personal character, and regret for what they conceived to be the destructive measures of their sovereign. Since that time the character of the king of Great Britain has undergone a very material alteration. The prince no longer lays claim to those high prerogatives, a superstitious love for which was the ruin of Charles. He is the first magistrate of a free state; it is declared by the law that he can "do no wrong ;" and

the inviolable dignity of his person and character is watched over by every good subject, because this is supposed to be inseparably connected with a due respect for that happy government, the most important of whose functions are intrusted to his hands, and of whose authority, as well as of the collective greatness of the nation, he is the acknowledged symbol and representative. Such feelings as these, we should think, cannot fail to find an easy reception in the breast of every one who has ever thought at all on the subject of governments and kings. The days are surely no more, in which good deluded men dreamed of republics and consuls, and flattered themselves that they might amend, by one bold blow, the institutions of our fathers. Mr Moore, at least, is surely not quite so wild an enthusiast as to wish for a revolution in Great Britain. If he cherishes no such wishes, however, (and we by no means say that he does so) he is, he may be assured, acting in a manner at once unworthy of his own reputation, and of the land in which he lives, when he consecrates his talents to reviling the personal habits-nay the very countenance and figure-of the prince to whose hands the high functions of sovereignty are committed. We think nothing can be more vile than to lampoon and caricature our superiors in a manner in which we durst not so use our equals. The Prince Regent, it is quite evident, can take no personal notice of the low scurrilities of one in the situation of Mr Moore. The only thing he can do, in respect to such a person committing such an outrage upon all the laws of politeness, is to have him tried at the Old Bailey. And we think we may easily take it upon us to tell Mr Moore, that if the monarch had on the present occasion been as fond of revenge as the subject has been fertile in offences, there is abundant matter contained in one little volume which he has just published, to have given him at least five or six years comfortable lodging in Newgate. It is true, that it would be quite below the dignity of the illustrious person injured to take such a method of revenging himself. Mr Moore knew this:-he was aware, probably, that he might so sin with impunity. But does he not perceive how little of manhood there is in thus abusing generosity? how pitiful a thing

it is to strike because we know disdain must prevent the stroke from being returned? We are happy in having the opportunity of expressing our sentiments on this subject, in regard to a man whose general character is so amiable, and genius so indisputable, as those of Thomas Moore. We are quite sure he will take no offence at what we have said. He is much too good and too great a man to be thrown away upon the outskirts of a party. He should think of Pitt, Fox, and SHERIDAN, and not seek to find either countenance or companionship among those small men whose revilings his muse has echoed into wit, without taking from them their original sin of meanness.

66

The little book, which has been the means of betraying us into all these observations, is, we think, inferior, in every point of view, to the Twopenny Post-Bag. The vein of wit was then new; and although it is by no means exhausted, the ore does not now seem to us to have quite so much splendour about it as heretofore. "The Fudge Family in Paris" is, in outline and apparent purpose, and, generally speaking, in its measure, an imitation of the famous "New Bath Guide." It professes to consist of a bundle of letters written by the different members of an Irish family during a short stay in the French metropolis. The head of the family is an old gentleman, a sort of spy of Lord Castlereagh, legitimate stickler." His son, Bob Fudge, is a young dandy, who revels in the delights of Beauvilliers' and Hardy's cookery, but as to political affairs is "not so particular." daughter, Biddy, is a sentimental miss, whose love of mustachiod officers supplies the place of the methodistical propensities of her prototype (the admirer of the holy Aaron) in the Bath Guide. These personages all write in the regular namby-pamby measure used by Anstey and his imitators. But their lucubrations are intermingled with some most fiery and absurd heroics,-the work of the tutor of the family,-a poor cousin of the Fudges, a Catholic and a Reformer,-one whose head has apparently been turned by the perusal of "The Milesian Chiefs" and the "Irish Melodies." This Mr O'Con nor, for that is his name, is, by the female side, descended from

"The ragged royal line of Tara,"

The

And whimpers about the oppressions of "The Green Isle," as if he almost wished back again the old days

"When Malachi wore the collar of gold," and Erin, like the Ithaca of Homer, could maintain an independent monarch upon every farm-steading. So much for the interlocutors. We shall now proceed to give our readers a short specimen of each, and, in doing this, we shall endeavour to select the passages which are most honourable to Mr Moore, abstaining, as far as is possible, from inserting any of the pitiful or atrocious virulencies, of which, we are persuaded, now that the book is fairly out of his hands, he is himself very heartily ashamed. Politeness induces us to make our first selection from the lady. Biddy's letters are of course addressed to some boarding school intimate in the Land of Bogs.

"Our party consists, in a neat Calais job, Of Papa and myself, Mr Connor and Bob. You remember how sheepish Bob look'd at Kilrandy,

But, Lord! he's quite alter'd-they've made him a Dandy;

A thing, you know, whisker'd, great-coated, and lac'd,

Like an hour-glass, exceedingly small in the waist:

Quite a new sort of creatures, unknown yet to scholars,

With heads, so immoveably stuck in shirtcollars,

That seats like our music-stools soon must

The next is a part of Bob's journal,

"Dick, Dick, what a place is this Paris !— but stay

As my raptures may bore you, I'll just sketch a day,

As we pass it, myself and some comrades I've got,

All thorough-bred Gnostics, who know what is what.

After dreaming some hours of the land of Cocaigne,"

That Elysium of all that is friand and nice,

Where for hail they have bon-bons, and claret for rain,

And the skaiters in winter show off on

cream-ice;

Where so ready all nature its cookery yields, Macaroni au parmesan grows in the fields; Little birds fly about with the true pheasant taint,

And the geese are all born with a liver complaint !+ I rise put on neck-cloth-stiff, tight, as can be

For a lad who goes into the world, Dick, like me,

Should have his neck tied up, you knowthere's no doubt of it

Almost as tight as some lads who go out of it. With whiskers well oil'd, and with boots that "hold up

The mirror to nature"-so bright you could

sup

Off the leather like china; with coat, too, that draws

On the tailor, who suffers, a martyr's applause!

With head bridled up, like a four-in-hand leader,

And stays-devil's in them-too tight for a

feeder,