II. 66 torn," I am not in the "Fancy," and not born III. Why is it, Mr. Crayon, that you seem fib," So very fierce 'gainst Drury's little chief? Upon my life-I say it with some grief, That should have spar'd the "mote" upon his crown. I fear, my Geoffrey, that your gizzard burus With spite, nurs'd up against the buskin'd swain, PROPERTY OF SLAVES. WE had an old acquaintance oncepeace be to his ashes--who had a habit of cutting a disquisition short, when he thought too many words had been spent upon it, by crying, “ Facts, sir, give me facts; one fact is worth a bushel of arguments." And if the commodity so called for did not come at the call, he would say, let us change the subject, for nothing must come from nothing. Pray what do you think of the weather? Now we, in the same way, have a vast predilection for facts; and, in no case do we remember that the goodly rule of giving them on all occasions, has been so much neglected as during the whole progress of the West India controversy, and that through all its ramifications. Yet a plain man, in a question turning exclusively on matters of fact, might expect every now and then at least a sample of them. Reasonable, however, as the expectation would be, it is disappointed. We are treated in their stead with loud declamations on the abstract sin, shame, and wickedness of slavery ; with deductions, drawn a priori, on what the infamous conduct of slaveholders must be, without at all deigning to enquire what it is: and with demands for interference with property assumed to be necessary, without affording us the slightest proof as to the validity of the assumption. There is, we candidly admit, at once one reason why we should be reluctant to embark in this question; which is merely that it has been so often brought before the public, as to lose what must be the first look-out for a periodical—its piquancy; but that drawback being admitted, there is no other, whatever, to hinder us from giving our opinions. We Spare me, ye poets. In Cockaigne my rhyme is perfectly legitimate. +"Paris apple." Not King Charles' Paris, but Mount Idas' Paris. I pen this note for the benefit of my "back-slum companions." have cautiously abstained from mixing ourselves up with any of the political parties of the country, and, in all probability, shall so continue; but this is not a party question. The topics insisted upon by Whig and Tory have nothing in common with the management of the West Indies. Reform in Parliament will not be furthered or impeded by negro insurrection. Roman Catholic Emancipation, in its anticipated blessings or dangers, will find no parallel in the forced manumission of Jamaica peasantry. The holy alliance will be totally undisturbed or unsupported by the affluence or beggary of West India proprietors. A man, we think, may give his opinion on this point without ever having heard that such animals as Whig, Tory, or Radical existed. We must confess, that it is not unnatural to expect to meet this question considered in a variety of quarters. Let those who complain, for instance, that it fills the columns of the John Bull too much, recollect the unceasing exertions made by those who have, no matter how or why actuated, declared themselves the enemies of our colonists, to keep their view of the affair continually before the public eye. Let the immense and well-contrived machinery which they have at their command, be taken into accounts, and the fame, such as it is, which is sure to follow the activity of any of their agents. Will any person then feel any amazement that a reaction, resembling in some partial degree the action which called it forth, has taken place? It is in vain to tell us of the purity of the motives, the piety of the lives, the christianity of the doctrines of the prime movers in this anti-West-Indian campaign. The planters know, that if their designs be carried into execution, spoliation is the lot they must expect, preceded, in all probability, by an attempt, and no trifling attempt, at their extermination. Is it then wonderful, we repeat, that they too, in turn, should call the attention of the British public to their case as often as they possibly can? Nobody likes to be robbed and murdered, even though the thing be done in the manner of the beggarman of Gil Blas, in the name of God, or by persons of the most exemplary character, and the most amiable manners. We, however, do not now mean to enter into a consideration of the whole controversy. That would be too wide for our narrow limits, and, besides, we have already professed a disinclination to argue, and an intention to bring merely a few facts, from time to time, under notice, principally in answer to ill-founded assertion. What, in truth, put us upon writing this paper at all, was our chancing to look over that amazing and classical magazine, Knight's Quarterly, which we are sorry to see engaged in carrying on the cause of cant, in some small degree. The paper we allude to begins in the 85th page of the first volume, and stretches to the 94th. It bears the signature of T. M. the initials of Thomas Macauley, son of the celebrated Zachary, and we may perceive in it strong outbreakings of his paternal spirit. There are few cleverer young men in England than this gentleman. His classical articles, his spirited songs, his learned, brilliant, and deeplypondered papers on Italian literature, to omit others which are equally worthy of commendation, amply entitle him to this praise. Yet here, in this paper, he sinks into what John Bull, with such malicious alliteration, denominated him, a sucking saint." The old, odious twaddle of the Missionary meetings stares us in the face. The stock stories of Hodge and Huggins—absolutely the only cases cited-are still as steadfastly relied on, as if Mr. Hodge had not been punished for his enormities, such as they were; and as if a total upset had not been long since given to the thousand and one calumnies vented against Mr. Huggins. 66 These are the arguments, now for the facts. Let us, as Southey says, in his letter about Lord Byron," blow off the froth." According to Mr. Thomas Macauley, the slave in the West Indies must labour without remuneration-he can acquire no property of any description-he can be sold at the pleasure of his owner-be cannot appeal to any court of law-and he works under the lash, "driven forward like a horse," all of which are recapitulated, with much indignant energy and spiteful eloquence, in the 86th page of Knight's first volume. THEY ARE ALL UNTRUE. We shall not, for the present, meddle with the three last grievances-but we can lay our bands immediately on a document which will speak for itself, in answer to Mr. Macauley's two first on the list, viz. that a slave must work without remuneration-and that he cannot acquire property of any description. Thatthey do acquire property in Kingston, and the other great, or comparatively "In the above statement, I have not estimated the disposable portion of esculents and fruits, and cotton raised by slaves, they cultivate, on their own account, about 1675 acres of land, which is estimated to yield annually £3 10s. sterling, per acre, in total £5862 10s. The number of slaves, who cultivate ground for their own benefit, being 2933, and each negro is averaged to cultivate 2 rood 11 perches, which is estimated to yield annually £1 19s. 10d. they possess stock to the value of £9125, which are estimated to yield annually £1369, or to each for their labour, arising from stock and crop, £2 9s. 2d. annually on their own account. The "After supporting themselves, the surplus they dispose of at market, which amounts to a very considerable sum. industrious all possess, in cash, considerable sums. I am fully satisfied that they are in possession of capital, arising from sale of stock and crop, to fully the amount of £5000 sterling. "It would be very desireable to have similar returns from the other colonies." Here is a small group, the visible property of the slaves, who, according to Mr. Thomas Macauley, can acquire no property, and receive no remuneration for their services, amounts, at an undervaluation, to 15,000l. It is probably 4968 0 £15,032 0 Will worth double the sum. We understand that Mr. Zachary Macauley is connected with the East Indies; will he take the trouble of computing the property of the same number of Hindoo free-labourers, working not under the lash, receiving remuneration for their toils, and permitted to acquire property? Or, without doubling the Cape of Good Hope, will Mr. Thomas Macaulay favour us, in the next Quarterly Magazine, with the average property of the equivalent class in England, the peasantry which peoples our workhouses? any of his Irish friends give him data to construct a paper on the visible property of the free-labourers of Munster; free, we say, beyond all doubt, being not only secure from the overseers' lash, but actually freeholders to a man, raw materials for making members of parliament, constituent parts of the British constitution? To what an expanse would the astonished optics of Pat open, if it could be proved to him that a whole province of his tribe was worth half what is here set down as the property of the oppressed slaves of the Virgin Islands, who can hold no property according to Mr. Thomas Macauley. LEAVES FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE CONSTANTINE THIS young gentleman, whose untimely fate has been the cause of such poignant sorrow to his friends and númerous circle of acquaintance, who looked forward to the time when he should shine forth in all the splendour of matured genius, was a native of the emerald isle. He was born at Ballynoggin, in the county of Galway, on the 7th Jan. 1803. His parents were of high descent, tracing their pedigree even from royalty itself, but, for the last few centuries, they had been left nothing but their blood and men's opinions, "To shew that they were gentlemen." In fact, they had, for many generations, rented a small farm of about thirty acres, and between that and a still-pot, the art of using which to the best advantage was hereditary in the family, they managed to make out a tolerable sort of subsistence. Constantine was the eldest of five children; and, as the heir and representative of the family, it was determined to bring him up to one of the learned professions. He received the rudiments of an excellent education in a celebrated hedge-academy, of which an ecclesiastic, of the name of father Heffernan, was at that time rector. He was afterwards put under the charge of master Timothy Delany, who kept a seminary in a barn, some five miles distant. When his education was completed, he was sent to London to his maternal uncle, Mr. Felix O'Whooloughan, who was an eminent schoolmaster and attorney, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury-square. While in London, he got acquainted with some great literary characters, who wrote descriptive essays upon fires and lego-medical reports of coroners' inquests, for the public press. He even was occasionally employed in that way himself, but that style he found beneath his dignity, and of late years he wrote chiefly in Taylor and Hessey's magazine, and was a valuable contributor of the great apostle of the fancy, Mr. Pierce Egan. His character was mild, calm, philosophic, and contemplative. His genius was great, but not under control: his aspirations were grand, and all his plans were on the most extended scale; for, as Barry Cornwall says of his friend Shelley, in the Edinburgh Review, hẹ was a great hand at grasping after impossibilities. The specimen which is at present submitted to the public, seems to have been part of a chapter of a stupendous work, on which, as Mr. Southey on his history, he was to rest his future fame. It was a historical account of the taverns and pot-houses of the metropolis; but, alas! he never lived to finish this his opus magnum. From the sketchy way in which the following are written, it would appear that these were only notes, and not digested into any form capable of meeting the public eye.. "Fleet-street, as far as regards taverns, is most certainly classic ground-every turn we take some object presents itself, which forces on our memory the second Augustine age of English literature. Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and though last, not least, their Biographer and cronie, Bozzy, are brought before us in all the vigour and life of reality. The Mitre, where he often dined, and where Hogarth met his party to HB II (eta, beta, pie.) The Cheshire cheese, where the board at which he often presided is still shown, hollowed by the action of his elbows (at least so says old Harry, a venerable waiter in a brown wig). The Cock, where he spent his evenings, and Bolt-court where he lived. Byron las said, that the air of the forum breathes Cicero; surely we may say, that the air of Fleet-street breathes the great lexographer. But to business. The Mitre, as its name imports, is a good, honest, jolly, tory, high-church tavern, gives excellent steaks, chops, joints, and port, and takes in a copy of Blackwood's Magazine, which being afterwards bound in parts of two numbers each, remains on a shelf patent to the lieges. When the templars led the taste and fashion of the town, this coffeehouse of the templars was the fashionable coffee-house; but, since fashion, like freedom, has migrated "farther west," it has become no more the resort of dandies; but it still retains all that is valuable, good cheer and merry fellows; it's a cheap house, and that's an object, to me at least. The Cheshire Cheese, Old Wine Court. -It is universally acknowledged that men, and bodies of men, whose whole faculties have been unremittingly turned to one object, during the whole of their lives, acquire uncommon powers of performing that object well. Hence the unerring aim of the American woodman, the steady foot and eye of the Chamois hunter of the Alps, and the precision with which the South American nooses the furious buffalo. The same principle is exemplified in this house during nearly a century; beef-steaks and mutton-chops have been the staple culinary manufacture of this tavern, and of these subjects (as Hazlitt has said of the Stot in political economy) the cheshire is king. This is also a cheap house; a man escapes after a chop, cheese, a sallad, a pint of porter, a dram, and a glass of punch, for about three shillings of the lawful money of the realm. The Cock, near Temple-bar. Rabbits (Welch) poached eggs, and bottled stout, are the glory of this house. This gives the true feeling of the tavern; which has without variation, or shadow of change, for centuries beheld the nightly revels of all manner of men, from the royster of Queen Bess's days, the beaw and mohawk of the days of Queen Anne, to the exquisite or dandy ruffian of the present day. Every thing bespeaks it-the long narrow passage leading to it, the massive chimney-pieces of the sixteenth century, surmounted by carved wainscot. Chimnies made in a barbarous age, long ere Count Rumford was dreamt of, and when people could conceive no possible mode of making a house comfortably warm, than by putting enough of coals ou the fire. In summer these chimnics are shut up, but in winter they blaze like a burning fiery furnace, and answer the double purpose of heating the room, and preparing the caseous delicacies for which the house is celebrated. This house possesses at present, and long may it continue to possess them, two excellent things, a handsome bar-maid,* who whisks about with an air half-modest half-coquette, with a smart but blushing answer for every one who addresses her, and the largest tumblers to be found in any house but one, in this division of the metropolis. The Cock takes in no newspaper, it having been founded before the first newspaper was published in England, that is, before the days of Queen Elizabeth. "The Rainbow spans with bright arch the opposite side of the way from the Cock, and is a feather plucked from its tail, by the ex-head-waiter of that establishment, supported too by a strong dissenting party of its customers. Like its parent, it deals in Welch rabbits and poached eggs, to the amount of 200 per night; and it also takes no newspaper, wisely considering that a tavern was intended to feed the body and not the mind. Like it, it possesses the bottled stout, big tumblers, pretty bar-maid, (though not so pretty to my taste) and is, in fact, the Cock modernized." JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. "In those days seven women shall lay hold on one man, saying, we will eat our own bread, and, wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach." 'THOUGH, since the death of Brothers and Joanna Southcote, and the dotage of the guide-spinning Dr. Slop, of MayFair, who not only made oath, and said, that Joanna was to give birth to Shiloh, but prepared the forceps and the greenbag, had subscribed sevenpence-halfpenny towards the purchase of the sacred cradle and a dozen of napkins for the incomprehensible progeny, there has been rather a dearth of prophecy; yet the loss has been more than made up by an unprecedented quantity of fulfilment. That learned convert from the catholic faith, who left the service of 'The Times' newspaper in scorn, because they had the assurance to quarrel with him for denouncing the bad acting of a Thespian who was not upon the boards at all, and who has since " gone to and fro the earth," seeking what he might put to rights, has been fortunate enough to find out the whole interpretation of the Apocalyps. He maintains, that the great theatre of the events therein displayed, is nothing more than England; that the great city, "the mother of all abominations,” (he is not a native) is London; that the seven vials-he says, the true reading is viols'-are the instruments of seven fiddlers, who once threatened to kick him out of the pit at Drury-lane, because his hissing drowned that of the serpent; that he meets * Tempora mutantur. |