1832.] Aff airs in General. 349 



of eminent persons which it has brought in its train. At the head of the 

 list is the venerable poet CRABBE, almost the last link that connected us 

 with the Johnson days, and certainly the only living poet whose lines 

 had had the honour of being submitted to the judgment of the literary 

 giant. We believe Johnson spoke well of Crabbe's first effort ; but his 

 poetry has a vital principle in it that would have enabled it to survive 

 any knocking down which it might have received, even at the hands of 

 that Cribb of critics. He has left an unpublished poem in the hands of 

 Mr. Murray. It may have a chance of selling now. 



The next on the list is hardly less venerable, or less dear to us. Poor 

 Joseph Shepherd Munden, as the newspapers call thee now thou, who 

 wert never anything but plain, ungentlemanly Joe Munden, whilst 

 living ! Ah ! well-a-day Mundens and monarchs walk the same path; 

 but how many, or rather how many hundred, of the kingly class would 

 it take, to make up the amount of thy value to the world thou com- 

 pound of pleasantry and pathos, thou embodiment at once of Dozey and 

 Old Dornton ! 



The third is a benefactor of another class the munificent Dr. Bell, 

 whose splendid endowments and bequests will keep his name green as 

 long as a recollection of public virtue and charity shall survive. He 

 was interred in Westminster Abbey, with a less pompous shew of honour, 

 than those who have little more than a funeral procession to entitle them 

 to interment there. 



The fourth on the list is a person whom we cannot but regard as in- 

 teresting, from the circumstance of her being the object of Lord Byron's 

 boyish affection (the celebrated Miss Chaworth), and probably the first 

 grand source of all that flood of song the little spring of the great Nile 

 of poetry for which the world has such just reason to be grateful. 



The fifth instance is, for particular reasons, to us, more affecting than 

 all. We have seldom been more shocked than by the intelligence of the 

 death of poor James Fletcher, the author of the History of Poland. Upon 

 this subject we will not trust ourselves to linger a moment, further than 

 to say that he appeared to us, as far as our knowledge of him went, to 

 be a person of no less moral feeling than of amiable manners. He pos- 

 sessed an elegant and accomplished mind, and held out as high a literary 

 promise as any young writer of the day. His last sentences were written 

 in this publication, to the January and February numbers of which he 

 had been an extensive contributor. Let us close the painful subject with 

 a recollection of the beautiful apostrophe of Campbell to the remains of a 

 suicide : 



" They dread to meet thee, poor unfortunate, 



Whose crime it was on life's unfinished road, 



To feel the step-dame buffetings of fate, 



And render back thy being's heavy load : 



Yet once perhaps the social passions glowed 



In that devoted bosom ; and the hand 



That smote its kindred heart, might yet be prone 



To deeds of mercy. Who may understand 



Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown ? 



HE who thy being gave, shall judge of thee alone ! " :*sfl| dbo*>i 



