feel quite qualmish), the Cosmorama, the Peristrephic Panorama, and the Apollonicon, and the Euphonon, and I know not what besides picture exhibitions without end. Pleasure, pleasure, is the only thing thought of now. Any thing to squander money away, and amusement. O these are sad times!

What a wonderful age is this for discoveries, we are told. How science flourishes! If you go on improving as you call it, I believe there'll soon be an end to Old England. I remember in my time a good old proverb, "time and tide wait for no man.” But now, faith, man won't wait for time or tide! one can't get a comfortable sail to Margate now; but you must go in the steam vessel, where you can't walk the deck for the horrid roaring under your feet, enough to frighten one out of one's seven senses; besides expecting every moment a sudden toss up into the air. Then there's another mighty improvement, gas,-and what's the consequence? Scarce a night passes, but there are half a dozen fires; hence follow bankruptcies, and forgeries, and appeals to "the charitable and humane." One can't even walk the streets in safety for this gas, for every now and then a shop-front is blown out, and not a little damage done, and not a few arms and legs broken. Then comes the great Mr. M'Adam, who has just discovered that the stones in our streets are too big, so they are to be hashed and minced; the consequence of which is, our streets will become so many sloughs, through which we may wade as well as we can; but worse than this, there will be no jolting for the carriages, so the great people will have less exercise than they used to have; consequently they must either die or consent to walk, and government will lose the tax, and then we shall have the odious income tax again. But the worst improvement of all is boreing. What with boreing under the Thames, and under houses and hills, and boreing for water, England will soon be like an old rotten cheese, and some night there'll be a sudden falling in, and there's an end to Old England. But perhaps, before that happens, we shall alt be murdered by the new improvements in medical science; the doctors are as mad as the rest. When I was a young man, if a person was ill, they were contented to give him pills and draughts. But what horrible inventions the present days have produced! One doctor invites people to be melted in a sudorific bath; another modestly tells us, that he can cure every disorder by means of gases, which the patient is to breathe-very pleasant truly. A third solicits people to place themselves under the direction of a galvanic battery, which can make dead men get up and dance a hornpipe. I suppose by and bye they'll discover that leaden pills, injected into the throat by means of a pistol, are wonderfully efficacious. If I feel unwell, I dread to call in a doctor, for fear he should recommend some of these terrible remedies." Misoneus concludes his lamentation by observing that it is time he went out of the world, for it is going mad as fast as it can. Q. Q. Q.

QUARRELS OF POETS*.

Poets have been called an irritable race, and there can be little doubt that they in some degree merit the appellation, Of this, D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors, the Dunciad, and the History of its Heroes, are a sufficient demonstration. It is, however, a gratifying consideration, and a glory to the age we live in, that most of our great living Poets, by their harmony of feeling, and liberality of praise, have in a great measure blunted the age of this sarcasm, and conduced to elevate the Poetical Character. Indeed of all our cotemporary Poets, (in my recollection) there are but three who have ventured to wave the brand of poetical warfare, and to cherish those hostile feelings, which so pecuHarly disgraced the literature of the last century. It is melancholy enough that this pugnacious Triad should be composed of three such Master Spirits as Byron, Wordsworth, and Southey. The former (through the mists of prejudice) could never discover any thing to admire in the Poetry of Wordsworth: of the longest of whose works-the "Excursion," he thus speaks in his Don Juan:

"A clumsy, frowsy Poem, called the Excursion,

Writ in a manner that is my aversion!"

And in his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," where in an agony of rage, jealousy, and disappointment," he runs amuck" at all his brethren; I cannot say without rhyme, but certainly without reason, he thus designates the author of the "Lyrical Ballads :"

"Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop,

The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse of all but childish prattle void,

Seems blessed harmony to Lambe and Lloyd!"

The noble Poet's virulence to Southey in the same work, is sufficiently disgusting to the reader, and degrading to himself: but is nothing when compared to the long note which forms a portion of the Appendix to the "Two Foscari." It must be confessed, however, that there is no courtesy or liberality lost between these Poetical Gladiators.Southey is but paid in his own coin; and Wordsworth, though perhaps the most moderate of the three in this instance (contenting himself with occasionally expressing his astonishment that the Noble Lord's works are read and endured, and gravely prophesying how speedily they will be forgotten), has not been backward on other occasions. In his egotistical letter to Mr. James Gray, of the High School of Edinburgh, he has shewn Jeffery that he has slang and scurrility at command.

It is curious enough to observe how the Satirist of the "English Bards" has since had occasion to rectify his judgment of their respective merits. Wordsworth and Southey are among the very few of whom his opinions have always been consistent. If the Noble Lord's Literary Creed is thus changeable, he has no right to taunt Southey with his political versatility. In their youths the one was a literary reformer, and the other a political reformer. They have both changed, and perhaps by a fair and honest conviction of the folly and untenability of their former opinions. There was a time when Lord Byron had but little to say in favor of Scott or Moore, and as for Coleridge and Bowles, they were every thing that was contemptible !---he has since learnt to speak with admiration of those fine Poets. He once paid a noble compliment to Cowper:

"What! must deserted Poësy still weep

Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?"

But in the flippant Letter, which owes its birth to the " Pope and Bowles Controversy,” he finds him to be "No Poet!!" Though on the same sheet with strange inconsistency he quotes some Lines of his Poem to Mary (written when he was very old and infirm), of which he enquires---" will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic?" I profess myself an enthusiastic admirer of his Lordship's poetical genius, but

* The two following articles are extracted from a friend's Scrap-book; they were written in India. Edit.

do not, nor cannot, like some of his bigoted votaries, consider every thing that comes from his pen to be excellent and sublime. His letter to Murray concerning Pope and his Editor, is, in my humble opinion, totally unworthy of him; and forms a most disadvan tageous contrast to the eloquent, argumentative, and temperate correspondence of Bowles. Of Mr. Bowles's private character he knows enough to be aware that it is most amiable and exemplary---but he says as little as may be on that subject, and insinuates that he may not be all that he appears. Lord Byron never judged from appearances, for he "once had his pockets picked by the civilest gentleman he ever met with; the mildest person he ever saw was Ali Pacha!" He also hints something about "a humorous and witty anecdote ;" whatever its other characteristics might be, which was a much better (id est---much worse) story than Cibber's about Pope's having been decoyed into a house of carnal recreation. But notwithstanding " a youthful frolic," he is "willing to believe" Mr. Bowles a good man---almost as good as Pope! wonderfully candid!

The Noble Poet must "have a word en passant to Mr. Campbell," the delightful Author of the "Pleasures of Hope," and quotes from Dyer's Grongar Hill the following lines:

"As yon summits, soft and fair,

Clad in colours of the air,

Which to those who journey near
Barren, brown, and rough appear,
Still we tread the same coarse way-
The present still a cloudy day.”

And then enquires---" Is not this the original of the far-famed "

""Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountain in its azure hue?"

I will answer, that it is very possibly a coincidence, quite as much so as his Lordship's expression of "Rome of the Ocean," applied to Venice, which expression is also used by Lady Morgan, in her "excellent and fearless Work."

Among the many "minor miseries of life," I know none more painful or more frequently experienced by intelligent Europeans in the East Indies, than the being condemned in every party and at every hour to listen to long disquisitions upon individuals with whom they have perhaps no connection or acquaintance, and the being utterly excluded from all rational or general conversation. From the conversation of the Ladies of British India, I am ashamed and sorry to confess, there is little prospect of gaining either pleasure or instruction; the whole of the day being spent in scandal, and nice dissertations upon the ranks of their respective Husbands, or the boldness and ill-breeding of some poor Subaltern's Wife, who allowed herself to be handed to table before the Captain's Lady. Such dreadful and unwarranted conduct, of course, excites just indignation; but I cannot help thinking that it is generally dwelt upon with more consideration than the insignificance of the objects of animadversion altogether merit, among people of more exalted rank and consequence.

It is equally astonishing how contracted is the conversation of a circle of old Indian

. officers, who meet together for no other earthly purpose than to oppress Nature with unrequired, and consequently unwholesome, food; or to talk of who has got or will get such and such an appointment; who has gone to the Presidency, and who has left it; who is near promotion, and who is gone home. In putting and hearing such queries and their replies, the time is too often spent, which should have been devoted to general and entertaining conversation, in which young and old, male and female, would be able to join. I would not have you conclude, that I am disapproving of professional knowledge: far from it. A soldier should make himself acquainted with every thing and every body, as far as such information is likely to prove of service to him in the discharge of his military duties. What I would enforce is, that there is no necessity for his confining his conversation or knowledge to those topics; for in my humble opinion no character is so disgusting and tedious in mixed society as that of a professional gentleman: I mean one who has no idea out of his profession, and is for ever thrusting his knowledge upon every company, at every season, and at every place, like the pedantic schoolmaster, who

case.

"Throughout his whole life pursued the same track,
And in company carried the School at his back.”

It might perhaps be observed with POPE, that
"The proper study of mankind is man ;"

and that such frequent dissertations on individuals would infallibly lead to the minute investigation, and accurate knowledge, of mankind at large. But this is by no means the All judgment must be the result of comparison and reflection; and when the intellect is thus confined and contracted in its general powers, and unblest with the light of general knowledge, how can it be expected to acquire just notions on the varied and mysterious compounds of good and evil which form the characters of 'men? Such knowledge cannot possibly be acquired, nor is it even aimed at, by those who listen to the humdrum details of old Qui-Hr's. With them a man is either dogmatically pronounced a Great Fool, a Good Fellow, or a Brute. These, in their minds, are the three grand and distinct classifications of the human character.

With regard to the latter, as it requires but little penetration to discover (for a man must be a palpable Brute indeed who is so designated in India), they are I think generally correct. But let us consider the common definition of a Good Fellow. "Do you know Jack T-?" "No!"---" I am sorry for that; you must make his acquaintance, he is an excellent good fellow! I must confess that he is not ever punctual in the payment of his debts, draws rather a long bow, drives a close bargain, and has no mercy on a griff. But his house is the very temple of Hospitality; he gives good dinners, and is generous in the extreme; in a word, I am convinced no one has a better or warmer heart than Jack T." While, in the first place, we are informed that this Good Fellow has neither honor nor honesty; in the second place, he gives dinners which are not paid for thirdly, his generosity is with other people's money; and, lastly, his good-heartedness is a quality which allows him to feed his own pride and ostentation at the expense of a poor suffering Tradesman. Verily this is a Good Fellow! There is no character which is oftener drawn, and yet we see with what discrimination. Now the Great Fool is a character quite opposite to the Good Fellow; inasmuch as he is silly and mean enough to live within his income, and pay his debts :--he is perhaps silent in company, and easily taken in; one whose true generosity of heart has prevented his conceiving or suspecting the duplicity and faslehood of mankind, and is therefore too apt to imagine that those who talk a great deal about honor, really possess it; and to crown all, he is even simple enough in purchasing a horse, hungalow, or any other necessary from a brother officer, to trust implicitly to his word of honor. And yet am I obliged to confess that I not only know such a man, but most cordially esteem and respect him.

A LETTER FROM THE LAKES.

To the Editor of The Inspector.

ASIATICUS.

SIR,-It was on the evening of a fine summer's day, an evening precisely suited to contemplation, that I arrived, after a long and tedious journey, at a village situated in Westmoreland, in an almost

* A young inexperienced Cadet.

earthly Paradise-there being on one side rocks and hills, which seemed as if they would hover to the skies; and on another, in the distance was beheld a lake, whose placid and silvery waters were wandering away in a distance which appeared endless. To gaze on such scenery unmoved, was an absolute impossibility: I felt its magic steal with rapidity to my heart, and began to ask myself for what purpose. I visited the spot, or why, knowing that earth held many such treasures within my reach, I did not visit them oftener? I recalled to mind the wide difference there was between the crowded scenes of festivity which I had just left, and the sweet tranquillity of the present moment, and found by experience the unsatisfying nature of "Pleasure," as it is called by the votaries of this world's pomps-the worshippers of this world's fading sanities. I felt as if a new life were opened before me, and as if a fresh path to happiness, of which I had never dreamt, had that instant disclosed itself, and I resolved to avail myself of the bounties thus lavishly displayed. I will (thought I) abjure the world, and all its captivating vice and splendid and intoxicating follies, and cultivate as long as I may be able the calm which now rises within my bosom.

My resolution being thus taken, I proceeded to put it in execution; for being blessed with a fair proportion of decision of character, I did not hesitate to do what I considered, on mature deliberation, to be right.

I accordingly took a small residence in the delightful residence I have been describing; and having laid out a small garden, combining the useful with the pleasing, I stored the rooms with such furniture and books as I deemed of importance to my scheme; thus hoping for pleasures hitherto unknown to me, and counting on transports I had often heard of, but never felt. Thus did I commence the experimental search after happiness, which I had modulated.

My life, I candidly confess, was somewhat monotonous; but then there was a degree of placidity and self-satisfaction about it, that gratified uncommonly-although, in reality, I did nothing, I could not willingly believe my time altogether mis-spent. The reason of this feeling was, because I seemed so much the gainer in point of mental happiness by contrasting my situation, thus lonely as I was, with what I had been; and might have become, had I pursued the giddy course, in which every one of my companions thought I was too much in love with, and fascinated by, ever to separate or break away from.

At length having brought, as it were, every thought and feeling into perfect subjection to my understanding and reasoning faculties, I made the discovery which hundreds, nay, thousands, had made (similarly and unsimilarly situated) before me, namely, that employment of both mind and body is essential to the well-being of humanity of every "clime, complexion, and degree." I consequently did resolve, that no moment should pass unoccupied-but how? Should you, Mr. Editor, or your readers, wish to be informed- it must be learnt in the next communication from FLAVIUS.