"Yes, after their own fashion; but I intend they should be happy after mine, or I'll not leave a man among them alive." "Has the island been often visited by strangers?" "Oh, no; I am the only man in the world that ever set foot in it." "Is their language known to other nations ?" "Oh, no; I am the only man in the world that understands it." "Is their poetry recorded in any way?" "Oh, no; it is traditional. I am the only man in the world that ever put it into writing. Else where would be the curiosity, or the value of it?" "Is their ?""You are an inquisitive Devil; I desire you will ask no more questions, but go, at once, to the specimens. "Specimen the first: A Nursery Song." "Let me call your attention, Devil, to a fact as extraordinary, as, to the philosophic mind, it is pleasing: I allude to the similarity of the inspirations of a common and an all-embracing Nature to people the most remote from each other, and the most unlike in their habits and manners. You will, doubtless, be struck by the resemblance of this effusion to a song which has delighted the hours of our own childhood. But, read.— 66 'Jokey-pokey sat on a wall, Jokey-pokey had a great fall! All the Chief's camels, and all the Chief's men, Specimen the second: Address of a Jokey-pokey-land lover to his mistress. "Gooseberries are green-they are greener than the grass of the fields; Ebony is black-it is blacker than the cloud which is the chariot of the Chief of the storm; Ivory is white-it is whiter than the polished skull of the foe-man, which my forefathers bequeathed to me for a drinking-cup: But no two gooseberries in a bushel are green as are the eyes of my love; "Bravo, Devil! Well delivered! There is in those verses a nature, a pathos, a-to say nothing of this character-thorough nationality. I entertain a profound admiration of whatever is national." Including the national debt, Sir ?"—" No jesting, I beseech you. But read the next and with the savage energy the subject requires." "Specimen the third: A song of triumph. "The foe-man he is dead! We have thump'd him, Lick'd him, Kick'd him, Beat him! Let's chop off his head And eat him! How shall we cook him? Boil or roast him? Or stew him in cocoa-nut jam? To yonder pole; And eat the whole: If we can not He'll be nice to-morrow with salad of yam.”. "I am afraid these won't do, Sir; they are very fine as specimens of a literature which nobody knows anything about but yourself, but there has already been such a prodigious quantity, that-" "Then away with you; and tell the publishers I can give themNO ARTICLE THIS MONTH." P*. MONTHLY COMMENTARY. THE CORONATION ROBES.-It is time that charitable folks should endow a College for deposed Kings. Even now there are four of them thrown on the world. Charles, William, the Dey of Algiers, and, lastly, Pedro. Were the personages brought together, here would be a snug whist party, all of whom have had the bad luck of losing at crown points. The Brazilians seem to have made short work with Pedro. Among the articles of impeachment preferred against him is "the excessive luxury and immorality of the Court and Courtiers." The same number of "The Times" which contains this news, has the following article: "We have to notice the sale of his late Majesty's Coronation robes on Thursday. The account will painfully affect many. We hope this may be the last exhibition of the unfeeling extravagance of the reign of George IV. At the time when he went through the operose ceremony of sustaining the mass of finery, the hand of death was upon him; the seeds of a mortal disorder were inherent in his then tottering frame :Hæsit lateri lethalis arundo.' It is inconceivable for how little the things' sold. Mr. Philips, the auctioneer, should have clothed himself in them, and sold the whole in one lot. The celebrated costly Highland costume, which his Majesty wore at the breakfast of the Duke of Buccleugh, in 1822, was knocked down for 401. Was this the entertainment at which the late Sir William Curtis gave such offence to his Majesty, by contesting with him the prize of grace and beauty in a costume similar?" This is not very good wit or very good taste, but the reference to the late vain extravagancies of one monarch which passed unreproached, when luxury is instanced as a reason for expelling another from his empire, presents a striking contrast in dispensations. Were we to turn back to the period of the coronation, we should see lauded as magnificence all the circumstances of idle waste that are now turned to scorn. But the man is dead now— w-the power is gone that gave respect to the pageant, and therefore it is that the folly is derided which had its season of undisturbed, grave imposition. What would in 1822 have been prated of as the clothing of "the dignity of the Crown," is in 1831 scoffed at as the foolery of the Crown. The gauds seem neither to have had a price as finery, nor as articles of curiosity. The barn in which Maria Cordor was murdered sold for more money in tooth-picks than the Coronation robes of the finest gentleman of the age. A poor man's goods sold under a distraint for the King's taxes in the year of the coronation, could hardly have produced sums proportionably more below the prime cost. We shall really be disposed to think that people are acquiring a healthy taste, seeing that they neglect the Royal relics of a vicious luxury. ALARMING PROGRESS OF INTELLIGENCE.-There was something very amusing in the great delight of the public at its escape from being gulled by Signor Paganini. It seemed as if good sense had never been exercised before, and the satisfaction of the town at bringing the artist to fair terms by resisting exorbitant exactions, was similar to that of a certain Duke when he made the remarkable discovery that by shutting his mouth he prevented rain from pattering into it. Paganini is not a lucky man, for he is the very first foreigner of reputation who ever failed of gulling the English, and we sincerely believe that the attempt was made without any consciousness on his part of its character. He doubtless thought that in doubling prices at our Opera, he was only doing the same thing as doubling prices at a continental Theatre. He knew not that our prices are always as double prices. His blunder is, however, not half so remarkable as the correct conduct of the public upon it. When, before, did John Bull hesitate at an exorbitant price for an entertainment? Such signs of sense as this and the bad sale of the late King's finery, are quite alarming. They would make us fear that the nation was becoming too brilliant to live long. It is like that unnatural intelligence in children of such sad presage to tender parents. It is as the portentous wit of a child of only ten years of age who looks twice at a wall before he runs his head against it, or by a wondrous precocity of wisdom turns his steps from a well. Here we are only in our 1832rd century-'twas but yesterday we painted blue-we are yet in our red jackets, and Paganini cannot impose upon us! A crotchet has failed to take with us! This is prodigious! portentous! A nation that won't give a guinea for fiddling, or twelve and sixpence for a departed king's" fine white kid trousers of ample dimensions and lined with white satin," must be near its end. We are too precocious to last. John Bull's wit is outgrowing his strength. The sword is too sharp for its scabbard. A sign of folly would be a comforting symptom. The Anti-Reformers are our only hope. They are right in denouncing wisdom as deadly poison. Our young people of 1831 are too sage for this world. They are angels by brevet. If Reform is carried, the world may inquire after Britain the next day and learn that it is dead. The prodigy of a people who know how to take care of themselves, is not for this earth. It is known to all parents that children die because they are too clever to live. We tremble to mark out the parallel. A physician was called in by an anxious father to consider the case of his child. "What is the matter with him?" asked the doctor." Oh, Sir," said the distressed parent," I have the cruellest fears about him-he is intelligent so far beyond his years-in short, he is too clever to be long for this world." The doctor endeavoured to tranquillize the afflicted gentleman, beseeching him to look forward to better things, and to place his hopes in Heaven and the customary course of education-finally he asked to see the boy. In came little master with a hat and feather on his head, looking plump, pert, and vital. By way of a beginning the doctor said→ "Who gave you that fine hat and feathers, my little man ?"-" My Godfathers and my Godmothers in my baptism," &c. was the apt reply. "He'll live," was the comforting comment of the physician.-"You need have no fears for him, he'll do, I'll warrant ye." Now this is the sign we want to see in the nation to correct our apprehensions founded on its unearthly progress in good sense. The Clergy is the only body in the kingdom that gives a comfortable catechismal answer. All other classes are making frightful advances in intelligence. They call it enlightenment— lightening before death; "As stars shooting down a dark sky Shine brightest when fading for ever." What a change! It was but yesterday that we rushed, and clustered, and climbed, and trod each other down to see men fly from steeples, or jump into quart bottles-that we quaked at the name of the Pope, sat up to listen to Cock-lane ghost, and believed there was something in the story of the Lord Littleton and the pigeon-then we were healthy and bid fair to live till doomsday should close our long chapter of errors. Then any one with an outlandish name and an impossible project could take us in. And now, oh portent, oh! presage of coming down-we neither buy a King's clothes for their weight in gold or silver, nor allow a Paganini to make ducks and drakes of our guineas. This comes of Reform. Dupery is dead-who will survive it? The salt of every sort of success is gone. What will become of the law, and what will become of physic, and what will become of the Church, and what will become of letters? if the people have the unearthly wit to see with their eyes, and judge with their understandings, so that no gullibility be in them! QUACKERY ILLUSTRATED.-Mr. St. John Long, who was lately convicted of manslaughter, has brought an action against the author of a romance, purporting to be his history, and recovered damages (100/.) This verdict is, in our opinion, right enough. Whatever Mr. St. John Long's conduct may have been, it does not privilege a scribbler to make money by inventing stories of him to entrap vulgar credulity, and aggravate odium. It would be very unfortunate were the exposure of one quack to license the practices of another. The cormorants of calumny must learn that when a character is down, they are not free to make their filthy prey of it. Because Mr. St. John Long falls, a score of libellers are not to fatten on him. Disliking prosecutions for libel as we do, we are yet never sorry to see the invention of falsehood punished, no matter against what object it is directed; for, we may say, in proportion to the discredit of a character is the baseness of adding a lie to deepen its blackness. In such conduct there is together with the vice of mendacity and malignity a cowardice that is particularly hateful, for the supposed helplessness of the disgraced person encourages to the false attack upon him. With this view we think the verdict awarding damages to Mr. St. John Long right, but the law does not go upon the principle of refusing to make the misdeed of one man a justification for the misdeed of another. For instance, in cases of piracy of works offensive to the State, or we will admit to morals, the Court has refused protection to the owner of the copyright, and permitted one man to pilfer a profit out of the alleged immorality of another. This was the Eldon doctrine in the case of Dugdale, who invaded the copyright in Byron's works. Dugdale defended himself by saying that the writings he was making a profit by publishing, were so immoral and licentious, that the Court could not recognise in any one a property in them, and on the score of their infamy he insisted on his right to sell them. Lord Eldon declared that this was agreeable to law, and the poems which, from regard to public morality, he could not protect, obtained in the pirated form a thousand times the circulation they would have had if the copyright had been allowed, and amongst the classes of people most likely to be affected by any thing im moral in their tendency. Such is the policy of the law. It is illustrated by Æsop's fable of the youth who broke the glass because the reflection offended him, and then saw the same image multiplied a hundred-fold in the fragments. "The book is immoral," says the Chancellor, "any one is, therefore, free to publish cheap editions of it.” This is Equity: but when we pass into a Common Law Court we find that the character of a convicted person is not booty for the writers of romances. The illegal action here does not justify others in turning the defamation of the actor to profit. Mr. St. John Long's character-more fortunate than Byron's writings, given up to piracy-is within the protection of the law! The speech of Mr. Serjeant Wilde, the counsel for Mr. Long, is an amusing specimen of legal ingenuity. While people have all the circumstances fresh in their minds, it is pleasant to see how they can be presented so as to entirely lose their just impression. "Mr. Serjeant Wilde stated, that this was an action which the plaintiff had been compelled to bring, for a libel of the most scandalous nature, published concerning him by the defendant. The plaintiff was a gentleman of extensive medical practice, who had acquired a considerable reputation for medical skill among those who possessed the means of always commanding the best that the town could afford. These persons, who had every means of judging of the skill of the person they had employed, and who were not compelled to put themselves into the hands of quacks, had much patronized the plaintiff, from a sincere conviction of his skill; and he had had the good fortune to attend many of them with the most complete success. It happened, however, once, that a lady, who had been under his care for some time, died; but not, it should be observed, till after she had been taken from him, and put under the superintendence of another person. That opportunity, however, was seized upon by his enemies for the purpose of destroying him. A charge was brought forward against him, and he was indicted for having occasioned the death of this young lady. A great number of witnesses came forward to give testimony as to his skill, care, and humanity; but, notwithstanding all the evidence that was then adduced in his favour, the jury pronounced a verdict of Guilty of Manslaughter. The account of this trial was published in the newspapers, and a lady of the name of Lloyd, whose mind was not affected by the verdict which had been given, but who was much struck by the evidence offered in Mr. Long's favour, put herself under his care. Some time afterwards she died; but not until long after she had been taken from his care, and put under other hands. Mr. Long, was, however, again indicted on a similar charge to that on which he had before been tried." Who does not know that there are no people so disposed to be the dupes of quackery as the higher classes, whose recourse to Mr. Long is so ingeniously made an argument for his extraordinary qualifications? The Aristocracy are severe enemies of novelties for the benefit of the people, but they are vastly taken with any sort of novelty for the benefit of themselves. From want of occupation, they are morbidly anxious about themselves when ailing; or what is, in effect, the same thing, when they suppose themselves to be ailing and if, having the command of the best medical advice, it fails to give them relief, they are always ready to try any experiment, and the bolder and the more unreasonable the promises of the quack, the greater is their disposition to confidence. With hypochondriacs, which many of these people are, the faith often makes them whole. Dr. Paris, in his admirable Life of Davy, gives us a pleasant example of the force of imagination, even to the triumph over real disease: "The following anecdote, which was lately communicated to me by Mr. Coleridge, will not only illustrate a trait of character, but furnish a salutary lesson to the credulous patron of empirics. As soon as the powers of nitrous oxide were discovered, Dr. Beddoes at once concluded that it must necessarily be a specific for paralysis. A patient was selected for the trial, and the management of it was entrusted to Davy. Previous to the administration of the gas, he inserted a small pocket thermometer under the tongue of the patient, as he was accustomed to do upon such occasions, to ascertain the degree of animal temperature, with a view to future comparison. The paralytic man, wholly ignorant of the nature of the process to which he was to submit, but deeply impressed, from the representations of Dr. Beddoes, with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt the thermometer between his teeth, than he concluded that the talisman was in full operation, and, in a burst of enthusiasm, declared that he already experienced the effects of its benign influence throughout his whole body. The opportunity was too good to be lost: Davy cast an intelligent glance at Mr. Coleridge, and desired the patient to renew his visit on the following day, when the same ceremony was again performed, and repeated every succeeding day for a fortnight, the patient gradually improving during that period, when he was dismissed as cured, no other application having been used than that of the thermometer. Dr. Beddoes, from whom the circumstances of the case had been intentionally concealed, saw, in the restoration of the patient, the confirmation of his opinion, and the fulfilment of his most ardent hope-nitrous oxide was a specific remedy for paralysis! It were criminal to retard the general promulgation of so important a discovery; it were cruel to delay the communication of the fact until the publication of another volume of his Contributions;' the periodical magazines were too slow in their rate of travelling-a flying pamphlet would be more expeditiousparagraphs in the newspapers-circulars to the hospitals:' such were the reflexions and plans which successively agitated the physician's mind, when his eyes were opened to the unwelcome truth, by Davy's confessing the delusion that had been practised." The evidence of Sir Francis Burdett on Mr. Long's first trial, showed that nothing more than bold promises and new treatment are necessary to the success of the medical pretender. The Baronet declared that he had no knowledge of medicine, and no means of judging of the rationality of Mr. Long's plan: but he tried it nevertheless, as much was promised by slight means, and tried it, not for himself, but for the information of a friend, not holding the old maxim, that experiments should be made upon subjects of no worth. As a principle, we should lay it down, that the plausibility of a quackery depends upon the width of the chasm between means and end, cause and effect. Where reason halts, faith would seem to begin. The thermometer in the mouth would have been a most lucrative treatment of paralysis, had not the uses of a thermometer been familiar to every one. Credulity appears always to be supplied according to the demand for it; and in this respect there is no difference between the great vulgar and the little vulgar. Some few years ago, people would throng together by tens of thousands to see men jump into quart bottles: had they promised to jump into gallons, no one's credulity would have been moved; but faith was quickened exactly in proportion as the thing exceeded possibility. Joanna Southcote had, and has followers, whose faith has kept pace with the absurdity of the imposture. The lower orders of people are, in respect of religion, what the higher are in respect of medicine; for the poor often think as anxiously of their souls as the rich do of their bodies, and are as apt to be caught by novelties and audacious pretensions. The man on the tub, who makes sore their hearts with the pictures of damnation, is to them what the man in Harley |