led him to find, on a comparison of circumstances, that to the embittered and haughty spirit of Dr. Maskelyne, thus thwarted point blank in his special purposes, the origin and main support of these licentious demonstrations may be ascribed (in a Court where he sat as Judge in his own cause, and never had the delicacy to withdraw.) The challenge to produce his dicoveries by the Moon, might have shown him writhing on tenter-hooks; nathless he was determined not to succumb to the Mechanic, or WHOSOEVER WERE HIS ABETTORS, while he was backed by his Colleagues from Cam and Isis, for reasons equivalent to the esprit du corps, and seconded by Lord Sandwich, from motives that never transpired: and the Lunar party knowing that by the letter, though not in the spirit of the Commission of which they formed a part, and were then a majority, they were responsible to Parliament, but not to the crown, they mustered a front, in opposition to the King's sentiments, which, originating as it did, in private and personal animosity, would have exposed them to public scorn, had the particulars been known. When George 3rd condescended (and in him it was a condescension) to communicate with them, not indeed in the regal character, but as it were like a private gentleman, anxious for the improvement of navigation and scientific mechanics. As they could not affect an ignorance of by whom the junior Harrison was sent, unless they had more brass about them than Wood, the half-penny monger in the Drapier's Letters; it was wholly inconsistent with a monarchial Government, where the King is the fountain of honour, to dismiss his messenger (metaphorically speaking) with no better than a slap on the jaws. And most certainly, could Mr. Croker's favourite philosopher, in theory, have changed places with the greater philosopher, in practice, on receiving such a report, he would have blended his voice, not with the music—but the thunder ⚫ of the spheres.

No. 8.

A NOTE ON JUNIUS AND WOLCOT,

*

WHAT Would Junius, who, whatever might be his rank or destination, was one of the proudest of men, have said, on finding himself assimilating so closely with such refuse as he would have deemed Wolcot? Yet these people who disgraced more than they did honour to the species, were from the same stock: the same ill blood runs in their veins. Junius suffered a malevolent spirit to suppress all regard for truth in too numerous instances; and Wolcot, in the vulgar phrase, would have lied with the devil for a bean-stack, and won it. He wrote for a dinner, and made no secret of it, nor yet of his selfish and discreditable inducements "to cry havoc, and let slip his" doggerel—

Were I to write of common folks

No soul would buy my rhymes so queer and jokes;
Then what becomes of mutton, beef and pork?

How would my masticating muscles work?—

At Princes let but satire lift his gun,

The more the feathers fly, the more's the fun.

E'en the whole world, blockheads and men of letters,
Enjoy a cannonade upon their betters.

That blockheads enjoyed his fun, as he calls it, without the least regard to its veracity, we allow, though we were not prepared for such a thick-skulled compliment to his readers;

* Refers to page 77.

but he might safely have been desired to name any respectable man of letters that felt gratified by his fabrications.-Like Junius, he was reckless of whatever ill consequences might result from his writings, for he chaunts—

Panegyric moves with snail-like creep,

And defamation on the lightning's wings. That is, defamation was more profitable to the empty pockets of the one and the revenge of the other; and-we add, that no intelligent person can peruse the works of Wolcot in connexion, without soon observing that he had no standard for his opinions but the state of his funds. Hence he is by turns a royalist and a republican, having written with equal virulence on both sides of the question. If he writes con amore, it is on the side of anarchy; for the production in which he excelled himself, both in pathetic and satirical touches,* was addressed to certain journeymen Shoemakers, who, about forty years ago, combined against their masters to raise their wages; but with so little reason, that the Judge who tried the ringleaders said the profits must be exorbitant which would enable them to live six weeks in idleness. The drift of this poetical tirade, was to excite the lower class to pull down all above them: but the allusions in it manifest the grossest ignorance of the particulars connected with the marriage of Henry, Duke of Cumberland; whose brother, George 3rd, censured that step in the most unqualified terms; the Duchess however held her jointure by the same right as any other dowager in the kingdom; which this ignorant instructor (for he elsewhere says he will instruct * You must not heed your childrens hunger'd cry, Nor once over their little sorrows sigh,

In tears their blubber'd faces let them steep
And howl their griefs to sleep.

We must support too her fine gold-lac'd crew,
Behind her gilt coach, dancingt jolly fellows,
With canes and ruffles goodly to the view,

And (suiting their complexions) pink umbrellas.

+ The footmen standing on a large leather cushion, stuffed with elastic materials, suggested the epithet.

us in the knowledge we want) does not appear to have known;* nor yet that the disproportionate union with the widow of Colonel Luttrel, which was incompatible with obvious reasons of state, gave occasion for that Act of Parliament by which, in future, all marriages of the Royal Family, without the consent of the King in council, were declared null and void.

The misrepresentations of this fellow, brought to mind the exaggerated charges of Junius against the Duke of Grafton; not as regards the rangership of Whittlebury forest (for those have been fully exposed) but the virulence indulged against the private character of that Nobleman, who had a commixture of virtues and failings common among men of all ranks. The Author happened luckily to be acquainted with a person who, after having been many years in the service of his Grace, retired with a decent competence to his native village (Hatfield, in Yorkshire.) When questioned on the subject of the Duke's domestic conduct, it was evident it had been such as conciliated the regard of his dependants. And when this was observed in one who had had those ample opportunities which Junius had not, of observing his presumed enemy at home, under his every day garb, usages and description, it is as conclusive against the fabrications of the mortified politician as the case of John Harrison is against those of Peter Pindar.Another piece by whom, is enough to make the blood curdle

:

*It may be doing a service to the young men who admire this man's works, to show them the ignorance of their professed instructor, who points out to their admiration “our Edwards and our Henries,” intending thereby to degrade their modern successors; but without explaining that nothing could be more futile than the purpose in which those heroes were engaged for Edward III. who took the lead in these "deeds of arms," supposing his construction of the salique law to have been correct, was not the rightful heir to the crown of France by his own rule. If he had succeeded in his enterprise, the certain result would have been that England would have become a province of France.-Voltaire has the credit of illustrating this consequence, by showing that the Tartars who invaded China, and subverted the reigning dynasty, afterwards submitted with sword in hand to the Chinese emperors of their own race.

at the brutality of the Jacobin who could deliberately produce a ditty, which it may be thought, all hell alone could have responded. It originated in a report which crossed the channel, that the regicides had placed the miserable Prince, Lewis XVII. with a shoemaker: which one unworthy Englishman, either for lucre, or from a besotted depravity, thus commented on.

See stool-propp'd Majesty the leather spread,
Behold its pretty fingers wax the thread,

And now the leather on the lapstone; hole,

Now puts his Majesty the bristle in,

Now wide he throws his arms, with milk-white skin,
And now he spits, and hammers on the sole.

Such was, in effect, the prime supporter of the haughty unknown, who wreaks his vengeance on George 3rd, in the spirit of a New Zealand savage, for injuries which must remain for ever undefined, and had they been contemporaries, he would in equity have been entitled to the distinguished consideration, and to a cover at the table of the malevolent spirit, his half brother: where they might have debated the point like two Chieftains from Pandemonium,

"To find no end, all in infernal mazes lost.”One of the most prominent assertions they are both conspicuous for, is that George 3rd was insatiably fond of flattery; and if it be allowed to furnish a criterion for our confidence in their veracity, is it not below contempt? We need not repeat that the case of John Harrison affords as decisive a contradiction to this calumny, as De Foe or Richardson could have invented —it would have been blazoned eftsoons in every corner of the palace, and echoed in the adjoining precincts, had this Prince been disposed to snuff such incense; and had he not, on the contrary "shut his ears to the voice of the charmer, charmed he never so wisely."

We are not sure we are correct in giving this low-lived fellow, as Junius would have called his kinsman, the credit of making a defamatory stride beyond his principal, in perse