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in the first place, no Catholic of common sense refuses to laugh at the priestly manœuvre, which is only believed in by people whose cast of intellect is the same as that of the votaries of Joanna Southcote-and the Orangeman miracle is nothing more or less than a bam devised by myself as a set-off against High and Low. I put it in the Evening Mail, to tickle the fancy of the Julythe-firsters, and if it was swallowed as a miracle by anybody with less brickdust in his head than this Persian Magus of yours, may I be hacked up into minced meat for a luncheon for Barry Cornwall. I am,

Southside, Tuesday.

DEAR TOM,

Yours ever,

MORGAN ODOHERTY.

LETTERS OF TIMOTHY TICKLER, ESQ. TO EMINENT LITERARY CHARACTERS,

DEAR NORTH,

No. X.

To Christopher North, Esq.

ON CAMPBELL, COBBETT, &c. &c. &c.

I AM exceedingly obliged by your attention in sending me so many new books to look at. At this time of the year, anything new is precious, and my only difficulty is, how I am to make any fitting return for the pleasure your kindness has afforded me. During the winter months I don't care if I never see a single Periodical but your own and the Quarterly, which I certainly can at no time do without-but now the case is altered, quoth Plowden. I come in quite fagged from the fields; for, like my worthy coeval the Chancellor,* I take my gun regularly as the clock strikes nine every morning, and seldom come home again until it is just time for dressing, On go the long white lamb's-wool stockings and the nankeen breechesthe buff waistcoat, and uniform coat of the Ambrosian-for even here I disdain to dine without sporting your claret-colour and the George Buchanan button. On go, I say, these elegant paraphernalia; and down goes the hotch-potch. The hotch-potch is

followed by a single bumper of that old sherry you remember admiring so much last time you did me the honour of passing a week here-but I shan't describe the dinner, though, as you once remarked, even if I were writing a Tragedy, I could scarcely avoid something of the sort. Suppose it finished-suppose my old man to have uncorked the long necker, and said, like our fat friend, "There !" "with an air!" The log is pokedyour parcel is produced-and I am happy for the evening.

Your last Number was a super-excellent one-by far the best you have had for some months. It must have cut out its rivals of " the first of the new moon" without difficulty—and yet, since I have seen them, my good fellow, I must say, they almost all of them contained some extremely good articles. The London was, I think, better, on the whole, than the New Monthly-although that last may well

be proud of Campbell's fine verses. "The last man"-by far the best specimen of his muse since the Farewell

"The Lord Chancellor possesses strength and activity equal to any man of his age. His Lordship is in his seventy-fourth year. During his residence at Encombe, his seat in Dorsetshire, his Lordship breakfasts regularly at eight, and goes shooting (as soon as the season commences) at nine-a sport to which his Lordship is much attached, and is allowed to be as good a shot as any nobleman or gentleman in the country. His Lordship walks over so much ground in the course of the day, that his gamekeeper is frequently knocked up."-Morning Paper.

to Kemble-but inferior certainly to that. Horace Smith is a very pleasant contributor to the New Monthly, and his brother James too, albeit a fat man, is a witty. They both shine in a certain light and airy, though far from unaffected or natural vein of song-writing. Campbell should get shot of Pygmalion. His Table-talk about "the old artists" is excessively worthy of him, and unworthy of Tom. What business has he to make Colbourn or Campbell, no matter which, pay him over again for whole pages clipped out of his own former publications? The whole of the account of the late Mr Cosway was printed by Hazlitt in the very same words, long ago-whether in a volume or a periodical, I cannot exactly charge my memory. And what business has a man like Campbell to allow paragraphs about Mrs Cosway, to appear in his bookeven if they had not appeared before? The whole affair is most grossly indelicate The feverish dread of personalities, which had hitherto graced, or disgraced, Tom's Magazine, has indeed deserted him this Number with a vengeance. His description of that charlatan Irving, is as bad as John Bull's; and then to see how Fuseli is shewn up! I detest these "flickering jests on personal defects." A friend of mine wrote me t'other day, that he had seen "Billy Hazlitt and Count Tims at Fonthill, busy writing puffs for Harry Phillips of Bond Street." I take it for granted the most asinine account of Winchester is another result of this not new excursus of the most noble "Victoire Vicomte de Soligny."

The London is, as I said, better. The Sea Roamer is very well in its way; the Essay on Walking Stewart by De Quincey still more to my taste

but what pleased me best of all, was to see De Q. writing himself "a late opium-eater." He ought to take to his pipe, as indeed I have often told

both him and Coleridge in the good old time. I was sorry to see my friend Lamb defending Sir Philip Sydney against Southampton Row; Lamb is a fine creature, but he should look to himself. By the way, Mullion says the Cockneys have lately been abusing you for your treatment of Lamb. Good Heavens! what does this fatuity mean? You never said one syllable against him since he was born; on the contrary, it was you, you only, who first rendered his existence known beyond the limits of Cockaigne. Your treatment of him, forsooth! If they had talked of the Edinburgh Review's treatment of him, there had been some meaning in it. Jeffrey quizzed his " John Woodville," and said it was the "washiest of all the washinesses of the Lake School." Jeffrey said Lamb was a mere bleater, and I know not how many contumelies besides. You, in your inimitable" Hour's Tete-a-tete,"shewed and proved "John Woodville" to be a noble, though an imperfect work of genius; and now mark the changes of the world: we have Jeffrey suffering Hazlitt to puff Elia-an excellent thing assuredly, but no more equal to the John Woodville, than that is equal to the "Tete-atete"-as something quite divinemerely because it appeared partly in a Magazine for which H. himself writes, and the mention of it gave the ex-dauber an opportunity of introducing some balaam about his own doxies-no, not his doxies, but his "paradoxes." Lamb, in fact, owes his respectable existence entirely to you-But whither am I wandering? The Edinburgh Review, as we all know, praises neither a Lamb nor a Hog, nor any other musical animal, until it has got an answer to the great question,

" CUJUм pecus?"

The Annals of Sporting turn out, as usual, an amusing Number. I am only sorry to see the amiable Editor left

Yes. We should like to see any poet produce many things equal to

"Fair as some classic dome,

Robust and richly graced,

Your Kemble's bosom was the home

Of Genius and of Taste

Taste, like the silent dial's power,

That, when supernal light is given,

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I have such a regard for my old friend Tom, that I have addressed a letter to

him on this subject, and I send you a copy of it.-T. T.

VOL. XIV.

2 R

to himself so far as to introduce songs now and then. His songs are really miserable-I am sure the best of them would have no chance to be heard to an end, even at the Castle-tavern, "amang the wee sma' hours ayont the twall." A man of so much gumption as this Editor, should know and feel where he is strong. Tip him a hint that you have given up leapingmatches since the RHEUMATIZ. Send him a copy of Hunt's Choice-By the way, you forgot, surely, when inditing your very tragical lecture on that product of Cockneydom, that Leigh Hunt, in one of his Literary Pocket Books, mentions fox-hunting among the "diversions for JUNE!!!" This is the chap that is now for "hunting the fox, but not much, lest he should fall!""Good, very good."

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So the Liberal, No. IV., is the Liberal, No. Last! No doubt your London correspondents will give you the lights and shadows of the transaction from which this great event proceeds. I foresaw from the beginning that the alliance could not hold long -and as for the Morning Chronicle's story about Lord Byron's having "used his coadjutors ILL," &c. &c. I believe in that as much as I always did in the liberality and decorum of Pirie's progeny. Lord Byron is well known to have his faults, but I never heard it hinted until now, that stinginess was among their number. No doubt, he was soon disgusted with such a pack-of course he was, and he sent them to the right-about when it so pleased him. Why not?

The fact is, that "the Liberal" did not sell at all-the Hunts went on always hoping that Lord B.'s name might get up again, and things mend-but it went down-down-down; and the moment the blow-up with him took place, they saw there was no hope. All is up now; all the fine dreams of floating are over. They are gone, clean gone; I could joke, but the situation of these fellows is really almost too sore to be a fit subject of jocular reflection. Their hum, to be sure, is awfully subdued. They remind me of a mutch

kin of wasps in a bottle, all sticking to each other-heads and tails-rumps glued with treacle and vinegar, wax and pus-helpless, hopeless, stingless, wingless, springless-utterly abandoned of air-choked and choking-mutually entangling and entangled-and mutually disgusting and disgusted— the last blistering ferment of incarnate filth working itself into one mass of oblivion in one bruised and battered sprawl of swipes and venom.

Hah! am I come to thee at last? Well, and, come to thee when I will, the sight of thy fist does me good! thou twenty times turn-coat-thou most wavering of weathercocks-thou boldest of bullies-thou rudest of ragamuffins-thou most downright of double-dealers thou hero of humbugthou prince of libellers, and King of Kensington-I love thee still-thou dear diabolical deceiver-I cling to thee still-thou art still COBBETT! Semper idem! ET Cobbett, ET Diabolus!

To speak rationally-I am one of the few, the very few people, who never put the least faith in Cobbett, and never ceased to be a reader of his writings. Of late he has been, comparatively speaking, a forgotten man, and it is not difficult to account for this. Having utterly ruined himself by his behaviour at the time when he left this country for America—he has in vain striven to recover himself ever since by a series of, I fear not to say, the most masterly exertions through which his great talents have at any period sustained him. He wrote a letter to Sir Francis Burdett, telling Sir F., to whom he owed a considerable sum of money, that he would not pay that money on setting off for America-not because he could not pay it, no-but because he could not pay it without some inconvenience to himself, and because, if I remember the thing correctly, he did not conceive himself obliged to pay ANY DEBT to a SUBJECT OF ENGLAND, in consequence of the way in which he had been treated by the ENGLISH GOVERN MENT. Sir Francis's answer did him great honour. It was just what a

We give these edifying letters from the Annual Register. They ought not to be forgotten-whatever else may be.

"TO SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, Bart.

"North Hampstead, Long Island, June 20, 1817. "Sir,-I inclose you the copy of a letter to Mr Tipper, which I beg you to have the goodness to read, and to consider the contents of it (as far as they relate to the liquidation of my debts generally) as addressed to yourself. In addition you will be pleased to understand, that, as to the debt due to you,

gentleman of his rank ought to have answered to such a person, in such a situation-nothing could be more cool than the scorn-more annihilating than

the effect. The Radical Baronet_extinguished for ever his Plebeian brother luminary-since that unfortunate day, William Cobbett has never held

no pains shall be spared by me to obtain the means of paying it as soon as possible; and I beg that you will furnish Mr White, my attorney, with your charge against me, including interest, that he may transmit it to me.

"I now transmit to Mr White, Wright's note of hand. It must be indorsed by you before I can proceed against Wright. This rascal always contended that he borrowed the money on his own account. Your word was quite sufficient to prove the contrary; and though no part of it was ever made use of for me, and though the arbitrator determined against my being at all responsible, I thought myself, and still think myself, bound to pay you, you putting me in a condition to recover the money from him, which you can at once do by indorsing the note of hand. I am well aware the grounds of complaint and reproach to which debtors always expose themselves, and I am not vain enough to expect to escape consequences to which all others are liable; but if I finally pay to the last farthing, those grounds will be all swept away; and as I am in no doubt of being able, in a short space of time, to pay every one fully, I anticipate with great satisfaction the day of my deliverance from this sort of thraldom.-I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, "WM. COBBETT.

"To MR TIPPER.

"North Hampstead, Long Island, Nov. 20. 1817. "Mr Dear Sir,-First let me acknowledge my deep sense of the kind manner in which you have uniformly spoken to Mrs Cobbett with regard to me; and then, without further waste of that time of which I have so little to spare, let me come to business, and let me lay down, before I proceed to our own particular affair, some principles which I hold to be just to my conduct towards my creditors in general.

"If there be any man who can pretend, for one moment, that mine is an ordinary case, and that, not having enough to pay everybody, I ought to be regarded as an insolvent debtor, in the usual acceptation of the words; and if he does this after being apprized that the whole force of an infamous tyranny was embodied into the shape of despotic ordinances, intended for the sole purpose of taking from me the real, and certain, and increasing means of paying off every debt and mortgage in two years;— if there be any man whose prosperity and whose means of profitably employing his own industry have remained wholly untouched and unaffected by these despotic and sudden acts of the Government, and who is yet so insensible to all feelings of humanity, as well as so willingly blind to every principle of either moral or political justice;-if there be any man who, wholly absorbed in his attachment to his own immediate interest, is ready to cast blame on a debtor, who has had his means of paying cut off by an operation as decisive as that of an earthquake, which should sink into eternal nothing his lands, his houses, and his goods;-if there be any man, who, if he had been a creditor of Job, would have insisted that that celebrated object of malignant devils' wrath, which had swept away his flocks, his herds, his sons, and his daughters, was an insolvent debtor and a bankrupt, and ought to have been considered as such, spoken of as such, and as such proceeded against; if there be any such man as this, to whom I owe anything, to such man I first say, that I despise him from the bottom of my soul; and then I say, that if he dare meet me before the world in open and written charge, I pledge myself to cover him with as much shame and infamy as that world can be brought to deign to bestow upon so contemptible a being. For such occasions as the one here supposed, if such occasion should ever occur, I reserve the arguments and conclusion which the subject would naturally suggest. To you, I trust, no such arguments are necessary, and therefore I will now proceed to state explicitly my inten tions with regard to what I shall endeavour to do in the way of paying off debts. I hold it to be perfectly just that I should never, in any way whatever, give up one single farthing of my future earnings to the payment of any debt in England.

"When the society is too weak or unwilling to defend the property, whether mental or of a more ordinary and vulgar species, and where there is not the will or the power in the society to yield him protection, he becomes clearly absolved of all his engagements of every sort, to that society; because in every bargain of every kind it is understood that both the parties are to continue to enjoy the protection of the laws of property.

"But from the great desire which I have, not only to return to my native country, but also to prevent the infamous acts levelled against me from injuring those persons with whom I have pecuniary engagements, and some of whom have become my creditors from feelings of friendship and a desire to serve me, I eagerly waive all claim to this principle, and I shall neglect no means within my power to pay and satisfy every demand, as far as that can be done consistently with that duty which calls on me to take care that my family have the means of fairly exerting their industry, and of leading that sort of life to which they have a just claim.

"It is clear, however, that to do anything in the way of paying off, must be a work of some little time. I place great dependance on the produce of some literary labours of great and general utility: and it is of these that I am now about more particularly to speak, and to make you, sir, a distinct proposition.

First, I must beg you to read in a Register, which I now send home, a letter to a French scoun drel, whom the boroughmongers of England, by a robbery of us for the restoration of the Bourbons, have replaced in his title of Count.

"When you have read that letter, you will see a part of my designs, as to my present endeavours to pay my debts. The Maitre Anglois' has long been the sole work of this kind in vogue on the continent of Europe, in England, and in America. It was the only book of the sort admitted into the Prytanean Schools of Buonaparte, where it was adopted by a direct ordinance.

"You will see that it is sent from France to England, and in this country it is imported from France. Both editions (separate and coeval) are sold at New York, and in all the towns here. I have always been afraid to look into this book, from a consciousness of its imperfections, owing to the circumstance of haste under which it was originally written.

"You know as well as any man what the probable extent of sale and durable profit of the exclusive right to print such a book are. I am now engaged in making this book quite complete, under the title of The English Master, by William Cobbett, corrected, improved, and greatly enlarged, by the author himself. If you understand French enough to read it with a perfect understanding of its meaning, you will, if you read this book, easily see the causes of its great celebrity.

"Its clearness, its simplicity, its wonderful aptitude to its purposes, its engaging and convincing properties, make it so unlike all the offspring of pedantry, that it is no wonder that it should have made its way in general esteem. I will make the new edition supplant all the old ones immediately; and to you I propose to confide the care of securing the copyright both in England and France. work, and one of still more importance as a source of profit, is also now under hand, namely, The

A second

up his head as he had been used to do. He had undeceived every one that was capable of being undeceived at all-and it was high time he should quit England.

He quitted it. He remained for many months absent. He returned, and he has now for several years been a resident at Kensington. Both while in America and since his return, he

French Master; or a Grammar to teach French to English Persons, by William Cobbett.' You will easily see, that if I could, 22 years ago, actually write a book in the French language to French persons, how able I must be to write a book in the English language to teach French. Indeed, my knowledge of the whole matter is so complete, that the thing, complicated and abstract as it is in its nature, is as easy to me as it is for me to walk or sit. This work, I will pledge my existence, will sweep away very speedily all competitors. My children (some of them) are now learning French by the principles and rules which will constitute this book, and this gives me every opportunity of perceiving and removing all sorts of impediments and embarrassments.

"My son William wrote French at twelve years old better than nine-tenths of the Frenchmen that I have ever known, or at least that I have ever seen write; and both John and he speak now French as well as the greater part of Frenchmen.

"I shall publish both these works, and secure the copyright of them, in America, where there is a great sale for books of this description; but from the great intercourse now existing between England and France, the sale will be much more considerable in those countries.

"In about two months, or less, I shall send to Mr White, to be delivered to you (if you will undertake the thing,) the matter for these two works. You can secure the copyrights in England, and also in France. It is impossible for me to say what will be their produce; and I know well that immediate produce is not to be expected; yet it would be irrational not to believe, that these works must in a short time begin to be a source of real and substantial profit, the proceeds of which I should devote to the liquidation of the debts due to you; and, if they exceeded that, to other purposes. In the meanwhile, there would be the foundation of profit, from the same source, laid in this country, from which, however, I should for some time not expect anything beyond what I should need here. I do not know that there would be any objection to the selling of this copyright in France; but I should not approve of this being done in England, because time may make them a source of great profit, and further, because I should not like for me or my sons to be precluded from future improvements of the works themselves. As to the particular application of the money that may arise from this fair and honourable source, after an equitable discharge of your demands on me; and as to the precise mode of proceeding in the business, these must be the subject of a letter to accompany the manuscripts, which you will understand are now in a state of great forwardness; so that, as time is valuable, I hope that you, who understand such matters so well, and who have so much activity and intelligence, will, upon the receipt of this letter, and upon the strength of what you will see addressed to the beggarly tool of a French blackguard rascally Noble jean-foutre, make some inquiry amongst the race who trade in the fruit of men's minds. You know them pretty well, and I have perfect reliance on your prudence, integrity, and industry.

"I am, you will perceive, getting ready a Grammar of the English Language. This, which is a work which I have always desired to perform, I have put into the shape of a series of letters, addressed to my beloved son James, as a mark of my approbation of his affectionate and dutiful conduct towards his mother during her absence from me.

"In this work, which I have all my life, since I was nineteen years old, had in my contemplation, I have assembled together the fruits of all my observations on the construction of the English language; and I have given them the form of a book, not merely with a view to profit, but with a view to fair fame, and with the still more agreeable view of instructing, in this foundation of all literary knowledge, the great body of my ill-treated, and unjustly-contemned countrymen.

"I believe it to be quite impossible that this work should not have a very extensive circulation in England and America, and that it should not be of many years' duration in point of profit. Whatever part of this profit can, without endangering the well-being of my beloved and exemplary, affectionate and virtuous family, be allotted to the discharge of my debts or encumbrances, shall, with scrupulous fidelity, be so allotted; but as to this particular object, and as to other sources of gain, I will first take care that the acts of tyrannical confiscation, which have been put in force against me, shall not deprive this family of the means, not only of comfortable existence, but that it shall not deprive this family of the means of seeking fair and honourable distinction in the world. It is impossible for me to say or to guess at what I may, with my constant bodily health, and with the aptitude and industry which are now become a part of me, be able to do in the way of literary works productive of gain; but I can with cer tainty declare, that, beyond the purposes of safety to my family, I will retain or expend nothing, until no man shall say of me that I owe him a farthing. With regard to any profits that may arise from the Register in England, I at present know scarcely anything; and I have not any time to digest any regular plan relative to that matter: I shall do this in the course of a short time.

"As I have fully apprized Mr White of the contents of this letter, I beg you to communicate with him on the subject, and to tell him very freely your opinion relative to the whole of its contents. I have, all circumstances considered, a very strong desire to retain my real property in that country, which I so ardently love, and to which I have preserved, through all circumstances, so invariable a fidelity; and though I would abandon that object rather than do any act of real injustice, I will never, while the present infamous abrogation of the laws of my forefathers exists, set my hand to any deed, or give, either expressly or tacitly, my sanction to so infamous a violation of my rights, as well as of the rights

of all.

"We shall hardly be able to get the manuscript off before the month of January next; but, in the meanwhile, I shall be glad to hear from you, and to receive from you any suggestions that you may think useful.

"I have the pleasure to tell you that we all enjoy excellent health; and I assure you, that it will give us all great pleasure to have the same sort of account from yourself, Mrs T., and family. "I am, my dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant, "WILLIAM COBBETT."

The reply of Sir Francis Burdett :

"TO MR WILLIAM COBBETT.

"St James's Place, Jan. 31, 1818. "SIR,-I have just received yours of the 20th November, and carefully, and according to your desire, perused the inclosed to Mr Tipper.

"It is not my intention to enter into any controversy respecting the honesty or dishonesty of paying or not paying debts according to the convenience of the party owing. It seems that, if it should ever suit your convenience, and take nothing from the comforts and enjoyments of yourself and family, such comforts and enjoyments, and means too of distinguishing themselves, as you think they are entitled

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