"Ah! Dr. Johnson," exclaimed a Scotchman, "what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman?" "Why, Sir," replied Johnson, "I should not have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I will now say of him as a Scotchman, that he was the only man of genius his country ever produced."

REVENGE.—A momentary triumph, of which the satisfaction dies at once, and is succeeded by remorse; whereas forgiveness, which is the noblest of all revenges, entails a perpetual pleasure. It was well said by a Roman Emperor, that he wished to put an end to all his enemies, by converting them into friends.

REVIEW.-A work that overlooks the productions it professes to look over, and judges of books by their authors, not of authors by their books.

REVIEW-retrospective.

When we cast a Parthian glance backwards, and embrace in one far darting retrospect our whole existence, divided as it has been into infancy, boyhood, manhood, and old age, each a sort of separate life, from the variety of thoughts, feelings, and events that it comprises, what a long, long course of time seems to be condensed into the mental operation of a single moment. The period from our own birth to the present hour, appears more extensive and eventful than all that has preceded it, even from the birth of the world; so different is the impression made by time experienced, and time imagined. In the former case, the view is broken by a succession of land-marks, each throwing back the distance, and giving to the whole the semblance of covering a much larger space than it really occupies. In the latter, we are gazing over an objectless sea, where the horizon is brought nearer to us for want of any standard by which to measure its remoteness. History is the shadow of

time; life its substance, and they bear the same relation to one another, that the dim twilight does to the up-risen and visible sun. It is in vain to talk to men of throwing their minds into the past, or into the future, you may as well bid them leap out of themselves, or beyond their shadow. The present is all in all to us. As to the past ages, and those which are to come, "De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio."

REVIEWER.-With certain honourable exceptions, a reviewer is one who, either having written nothing himself, or having failed in his own literary attempts, kindly undertakes to decide upon the writing of others. "Let those teach others, who themselves excel," was the maxim of former times, but in the march of no-intellect, we have reversed all this: the dunce wields the magisterial rod, the ass sits in the professor's chair, and both are severe, because they have found it much more easy and pleasant not to like, than to do the like. Hi præ cæteris alios liberiùs carpere solent, qui nil proprium ediderunt:-those men are most disposed to depreciate others, who have done nothing themselves. Such a critic contemplates a book, as a carpenter views a tree, not to weigh the time and contrivance that have been required for its production, not to admire its just proportions, or the beauty of its leaves, not to consider what pleasure or advantage it may bestow upon others, if left to flourish and expand, but merely to calculate how he himself may best turn it to account, by undermining, overthrowing, and cutting it up. As to the poor author, he is merely used as a stalking-horse, behind which the critic levels at the surrounding game, giving his steed a lash or two as he ends his diversion.

Messieurs the Reviewers! you are like Othello, not for your black looks, nor because of your smothering the innocent in their own sheets, but because, "your occupation's gone." Having found out the motives both of puffers and abusers, the

public are no more to be deterred from purchasing a clever book by the latter, than cajoled into buying a stupid one by the former. Parodying the words of a well known epigram, we may therefore exclaim:

Peace, idiots,-peace! and both have done,—

Each kiss his empty brother,

For Genius scorns a foe like one,

And dreads a friend like t'other.

Should any of the fraternity, nevertheless, feel disposed to notice this little work, they will please to consider themselves among the honourable exceptions alluded to in the commencement of this article. We scorn to truckle to any man for the poor honours of" full blown Bufo," but candour, is candour!

RHETORIC.-Appealing to the passions instead of the reason of your auditors, and claiming that value for the workmanship, which ought to be measured by the ore alone. An orator is one who can stamp such a value upon counterfeit coin as shall make it pass for genuine. Pitt was a rhetorician, or rather declaimer, of this sort, and unfortunately, we are now paying in sterling coin for his Birmingham flash money.

RICHES-are seldom really despised, though they may be vilipended upon the principle of the fox, who imputed sourness to the unattainable grapes. We cannot well attach too much value to a competency, or too little to a superfluity, but we may and do err in generally defining the former as a little more than we already possess. Riches provide an antidote to their bane, for though they encourage idleness, they will purchase occupation, by change of scene, variety of company, pastimes of all sorts, and by that noblest employment of any, the exercise of beneficence. Robinson Crusoe might despise riches-so may a savage; but no sane and civilised man will hold them in contempt.

"If you live," says Seneca, "according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of the world, you will never be rich."

RIGHTS and constitutional improvements are generally the results of a struggle, for no wrong makes a voluntary surrender; it must be met, fought, and conquered. Liberty has seldom been brought into the world without a convulsion. Treason and rebellion are terrible afflictions, but they gave us Magna Charta in one age, and in another the Constitution of 1688. Tyranny and abuse never imitate the well-bred dog, who walks quietly down stairs, just as he sees preparations are making for kicking him down. They wait for the application of the foot, and are kicked twice as far as was first intended. Had the boroughmongers conceded representation to three or four of the large towns, they would not have been all consigned to schedule A, and smothered in their own rottenness.

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION.-Horace Walpole in his Letters mentions a sceptical bon-vivant, who, upon being urged to turn Roman Catholic, objected that it was a religion enjoining so many fasts, and requiring such implicit faith :— "You give us," he observed, "too little to eat, and too much to swallow."

SABBATH-observance of. The Americans are before us in sound opinions on this subject. In the report of the House of Representatives upon petitions for the prohibition of the conveyance of the mail on the Sabbath, the proposition is broadly laid down, that questions of religious obligation lay out of the province of legislation. It says, "The principles of our government do not recognise in the majority any authority over the minority, except in matters which regard the conduct of man to his fellow-men." And it defines the duty of the representative "to guard the rights of man-not to

restrict the rights of conscience."

passage.

We here quote the

"Religious zeal enlists the strongest prejudices of the human mind, and, when misdirected, excites the worst passions of our nature under the delusive pretext of doing God service. Nothing so infuriates the heart to deeds of rapine and blood. Nothing is so incessant in its toils, so persevering in its determinations, so appalling in its course, or so dangerous in its consequences. The equality of rights secured by the constitution may bid defiance to mere political tyrants, but the robe of sanctity too often glitters to deceive. The constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual than that of a whole community. That representative who would violate this principle, would lose his delegated character, and forfeit the confidence of his constituents. If Congress shall declare the first day of the week holy, it will not convince the Jew nor the Sabbatarian. It will dissatisfy both, and, consequently, convert neither. Human power may extort vain sacrifices, but Deity alone can command the affections of the heart. If Congress shall, by the authority of the law, sanction the measure recommended, it would constitute a legislative decision of a religious controversy, on which even Christians themselves are at issue. However suited such a decision may be to an ecclesiastical council, it is incompatible with a republican legislature, which is purely for political, and not religious purposes."

Josephus records, that when God was determined to punish his chosen people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who, while they were breaking all his other laws, were scrupulous observers of that one which required them to keep holy the Sabbath-day, he suffered this hypocritical fastidiousness to become their ruin; for Pompey, knowing that they obstinately refused even to defend themselves on that day, selected it for a general 10

VOL. II.