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ing all the feelings of natives, is as unreasonable as the tyrant who punished their fathers for not making bricks without straw.

and then abuses them for not entertain- | ask for leave to exercise power over a community of which they are only hall members, a community the constitution of which is essentially dark-haired, let us answer them in the words of our wise ancestors, Nolumus leges Anglia mutari."

The doctrine of predesti

nation, in the opinion of many people, tends to make those who hold it utterly immoral. And certainly it would seem that a man who believes his eternal

Rulers must not be suffered thus to absolve themselves of their solemn responsibility. It does not lie in their But, it is said, the Scriptures declare mouths to say that a sect is not patri- that the Jews are to be restored to their otic. It is their business to make it own country; and the whole nation patriotic. History and reason clearly looks forward to that restoration. They indicate the means. The English Jews are, therefore, not so deeply interested are, as far as we can see, precisely what as others in the prosperity of England. our government has made them. They It is not their home, but merely the are precisely what any sect, what any place of their sojourn, the house of class of men, treated as they have been their bondage. This argument, which treated, would have been. If all the first appeared in the Times newspaper, red-haired people in Europe had, and which has attracted a degree of during centuries, been outraged and attention proportioned not so much to oppressed, banished from this place, its own intrinsic force as to the general imprisoned in that, deprived of their talent with which that journal is conmoney, deprived of their teeth, con- ducted, belongs to a class of sophisms victed of the most improbable crimes by which the most hateful persecutions on the feeblest evidence, dragged at may easily be justified. To charge horses' tails, hanged, tortured, burned men with practical consequences which alive, if, when manners became milder, they themselves deny is disingenuous they had still been subject to debasing in controversy; it is atrocious in gorestrictions and exposed to vulgar in-vernment. sults, locked up in particular streets in some countries, pelted and ducked by the rabble in others, excluded every where from magistracies and honours, what would be the patriotism of gentle-destiny to be already irrevocably fixed men with red hair? And if, under is likely to indulge his passions without such circumstances, a proposition were restraint and to neglect his religious made for admitting red-haired men to duties. If he is an heir of wrath, his office, how striking a speech might an exertions must be unavailing. If he is eloquent admirer of our old institutions preordained to life, they must be superdeliver against so revolutionary a mea-fluous. But would it be wise to punish sure! "These men," he might say, every man who holds the higher doc"scarcely consider themselves as Eng-trines of Calvinism, as if he had actulishmen. They think a red-haired ally committed all those crimes which Frenchman or a red-haired German we know some Antinomians to have more closely connected with them than a man with brown hair born in their own parish. If a foreign sovereign patronises red hair, they love him better than their own native king. They are not Englishmen: they cannot be Englishmen nature has forbidden it: experience proves it to be impossible. Right to political power they have none; for no man has a right to political power. Let them enjoy personal security; let their property be under the protection of the law. But if they

committed? Assuredly not. The fact notoriously is that there are many Calvinists as moral in their conduct as any Arminian, and many Arminians as loose as any Calvinist.

It is altogether impossible to reason from the opinions which a man professes to his feelings and his actions ; and in fact no person is ever such a fool as to reason thus, except when he wants a pretext for persecuting his neighbours. A Christian is commanded, under the strongest sanctions,

to be just in all his dealings. Yet to opposed to their passions and interests, how many of the twenty-four millions may not loyalty, may not humanity, of professing Christians in these islands may not the love of easc, may not the would any man in his senses lend a fear of death, be sufficient to prevent thousand pounds without security? them from executing those wicked A man who should act, for one day, on orders which the Church of Rome has the supposition that all the people issued against the sovereign of Engabout him were influenced by the re- land? When we know that many of ligion which they professed, would these people do not care enough for find himself ruined before night; and their religion to go without beef on no man ever does act on that supposi-a Friday for it, why should we think tion in any of the ordinary concerns of that they will run the risk of being life, in borrowing, in lending, in buy- racked and hanged for it? ing, or in selling. But when any of People are now reasoning about the our fellow-creatures are to be op- Jews as our fathers reasoned about the pressed, the case is different. Then Papists. The law which is inscribed we represent those motives which we on the walls of the synagogues prohibits know to be so feeble for good as omni- covetousness. But if we were to say potent for evil. Then we lay to the that a Jew mortgagee would not forecharge of our victims all the viccs and close because God had commanded follies to which their doctrines, how-him not to covet his neighbour's house, ever remotely, seem to tend. We every body would think us out of our forget that the same weakness, the wits. Yet it passes for an argument same laxity, the same disposition to to say that a Jew will take no interest prefer the present to the future, which in the prosperity of the country in make men worse than a good religion, which he lives, that he will not care make them better than a bad one. how bad its laws and police may be, It was in this way that our ancestors how heavily it may be taxed, how reasoned, and that some people in often it may be conquered and given our time still reason, about the Ca- up to spoil, because God has promised tholics. A Papist believes himself that, by some unknown means, and at bound to obey the pope. The pope some undetermined time, perhaps ten has issued a bull deposing Queen thousand years hence, the Jews shall Elizabeth. Therefore every Papist migrate to Palestine. Is not this the will treat her grace as an usurper. most profound ignorance of human Therefore every Papist is. a traitor. nature? Do we not know that what Therefore every Papist ought to be is remote and indefinite affects men hanged, drawn, and quartered. To far less than what is near and certain ? this logic we owe some of the most The argument too applies to Christians hateful laws that ever disgraced our as strongly as to Jews. The Christian history. Surely the answer lies on believes as well as the Jew, that at the surface. The Church of Rome some future period the present order may have commanded these men to of things will come to an end. Nay, treat the queen as an usurper. But many Christians believe that the Messhe has commanded them to do many siah will shortly establish a kingdom other things which they have never on the earth, and reign visibly over all done. She enjoins her priests to ob- its inhabitants. Whether this doctrine serve strict purity. You are always be orthodox or not we shall not here taunting them with their licentiousness. inquire. The number of people who She commands all her followers to fast hold it is very much greater than the often, to be charitable to the poor, to number of Jews residing in England. take no interest for money, to fight no Many of those who hold it are disduels, to see no plays. Do they obey tinguished by rank, wealth, and ability. these injunctions? If it be the fact It is preached from pulpits, both of the that very few of them strictly observe Scottish and of the English church. her precepts, when her precepts are | Noblemen and members of Parliament

L

have written in defence of it. Now I In fact it is already clear that the

wherein does this doctrine differ, as far as its political tendency is concerned, from the doctrine of the Jews? If a Jew is unfit to legislate for us because he believes that he or his remote descendants will be removed to Palestine, can we safely open the House of Commons to a fifth-monarchy man, who expects that before this generation shall pass away, all the kingdoms of the earth will be swallowed up in one divine empire?

prophecies do not bear the meaning put upon them by the respectable persons whom we are now answering. In France and in the United States the Jews are already admitted to all the rights of citizens. A prophecy, therefore, which should mean that the Jews would never, during the course of their wanderings, be admitted to all the rights of citizens in the places of their sojourn, would be a false prophecy. This, therefore, is not the meaning of the prophecies of Scripture.

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Does a Jew engage less eagerly than a Christian in any competition But we protest altogether against which the law leaves open to him? the practice of confounding prophecy Is he less active and regular in his with precept, of setting up predictions business than his neighbours? Does which are often obscure against a mohe furnish his house meanly, because rality which is always clear. If actions he is a pilgrim and sojourner in the are to be considered as just and good land? Does the expectation of being merely because they have been prerestored to the country of his fathers dicted, what action was ever make him insensible to the fluctuations laudable than that crime which our of the stock-exchange? Does he, in bigots are now, at the end of eighteen arranging his private affairs, ever take centuries, urging us to avenge on the into the account the chance of his Jews, that crime which made the earth migrating to Palestine? If not, why shake and blotted out the sun from are we to suppose that feelings which heaven? The same reasoning which never influence his dealings as a mer- is now employed to vindicate the dischant, or his dispositions as a testator, abilities imposed on our Hebrew counwill acquire a boundless influence over trymen will equally vindicate the kiss him as soon as he becomes a magistrate of Judas and the judgment of Pilate. or a legislator ? There is another "The Son of man goeth, as it is written argument which we would not wil- of him; but woe to that man by whom lingly treat with levity, and which yet the Son of man is betrayed." And we scarcely know how to treat seriously. woe to those who, in any age or in Scripture, it is said, is full of terrible any country, disobey his benevolent denunciations against the Jews. It commands under pretence of accomis foretold that they are to be wan-plishing his predictions. If this arguderers. Is it then right to give them ment justifies the laws now existing a home? It is foretold that they are against the Jews, it justifies equally to be oppressed. Can we with pro- all the cruelties which have ever been priety suffer them to be rulers? To committed against them, the sweeping admit them to the rights of citizens is edicts of banishment and confiscation, manifestly to insult the Divine oracles. the dungeon, the rack, and the slow We allow that to falsify a prophecy fire. How can we excuse ourselves inspired by Divine Wisdom would be for leaving property to people who are a most atrocious crime. It is, there- to "serve their enemies in hunger, and fore, a happy circumstance for our in thirst, and in nakedness, and in frail species, that it is a crime which want of all things; for giving prono man can possibly commit. If we tection to the persons of those who are admit the Jews to seats in Parliament, to "fear day and night, and to have we shall, by so doing, prove that the none assurance of their life;" for not prophecies in question, whatever they seizing on the children of a race whose may mean, do not mean that the Jews" sons and daughters are to be given shall be excluded from Parliament. unto another people?"

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We have not so learned the doctrines | evidently been written, not for the purpose of showing, what, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely required.

of Him who commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and who, when He was called upon to explain what He meant by a neighbour, selected as an example a heretic and an alien. Last year, we remember, it was represented by a pious writer in the John Bull newspaper, and by some other equally fervid Christians, as a monstrous indecency, that the measure for the relief of the Jews should be brought forward in Passion week. One of these humourists ironically recommended that it should be read a second time on Good Friday. We should have had no objection; nor do we believe that the day could be commemorated in a more worthy manner. We know of no day fitter for terminating long hostilities, and repairing cruel wrongs, than the day on which the religion of mercy was founded. We know of no day fitter for blotting out from the statutebook the last traces of intolerance than the day on which the spirit of intolerance produced the foulest of all judicial murders, the day on which the list of the victims of intolerance, that noble list wherein Socrates and More are enrolled, was glorified by a yet greater and holier name.

A great part, indeed the greater part, of these volumes, consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement. We will not say that we have not occasionally remarked in these two large quartos an anecdote which should have been omitted, a letter which should have been suppressed, a name which should have been concealed by asterisks, or asterisks which do not answer the purpose of concealing the name. But it is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much of the

MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. character and opinions of his friend,

(JUNE, 1831.)

Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; with
Notices of his Life. By THOMAS MOORE,
Esq. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1830.
WE have read this book with the great-
est pleasure. Considered merely as a
composition, it deserves to be classed
among the best specimens of English
prose which our age has produced. It
contains, indeed, no single passage
equal to two or three which we could
select from the Life of Sheridan. But,
as a whole, it is immeasurably superior
to that work. The style is agreeable,
clear, and manly, and when it rises
into eloquence, rises without effort or
ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior
to the manner. It would be difficult
to name a book which exhibits more
kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has

with so little pain to the feelings of the living.

The extracts from the journals and correspondence of Lord Byron are in the highest degree valuable, not merely on account of the information which they contain respecting the distinguished man by whom they were written, but on account also of their rare merit as compositions. The letters, at least those which were sent from Italy, are among the best in our language. They are less affected than those of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that many of them were not written merely for the person to whom they were directed, but were general epistles, meant to be read by a large circle, we expected to find them

Of the deep and painful interest which this book excites no abstract can give a just notion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be found in any work of fiction; and we are little disposed to envy the moralist who can read it without being softened.

clever and spirited, but deficient in | intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a ease. We looked with vigilance for poor lord, and a handsome cripple, he instances of stiffness in the language required, if ever man required, the and awkwardness in the transitions. firmest and the most judicious training. We have been agreeably disappointed; But, capriciously as nature had dealt and we must confess that, if the epis- with him, the parent to whom the office tolary style of Lord Byron was arti- of forming his character was intrusted ficial, it was a rare and admirable in- was more capricious still. She passed stance of that highest art which cannot from paroxysms of rage to paroxysms be distinguished from nature. of tenderness. At one time she stifled him with her caresses: at another time she insulted his deformity. He came into the world; and the world treated him as his mother had treated him, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with cruelty, never with justice. It indulged him without discrimination, and punished him without discrimination. He was truly a spoiled child, not merely the spoiled child of his parent, but the spoiled child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of socicty. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far above its merit. At twenty-four, he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence.

The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans illustrated the character of her son the Regent might, with little change, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every one of those eminent advantages which he possessed over others was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and feeling heart: but his temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Distinguished at once by the strength and by the weakness of his

Every thing that could stimulate, and every thing that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of lovely women, all this world and all the glory of it were at once offered to a youth to whom nature had given violent passions, and whom education had never taught to control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and his countrywomen would love him and admire him. They were resolved to see in his excesses only the flash and outbreak of that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He attacked religion; yet in religious circles his

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