1832.] 



Our Anniversary. 



693 



Thaddeus Melagounchz is a learned 

 Pole, who may with truth be said to 

 possess the Gift of Tonyues. He reads 

 in thirty languages, and speaks in twenty. 

 He knows Hebrew, at least as well as 

 Professor Hurwitz, and is as intimately 

 acquainted with the niceties of the 

 Sanscrit as Rammohun Roy himself. The 

 acquirement of language has always 

 been his ruling passion. He has re- 

 cently spent nine years among a certain 

 tribe in the most unexplored part of 

 India, and has made himself master of 

 their literature, for it seems that they 

 abound in works of poetry, &c Of these 

 he intends to publish a translation, 

 which, seeing that no European save 

 himself understands a word of the dia- 

 lect in which they are written, will be 

 attended with little difficulty. 



Algernon Sydney , the most beloved 

 of all our contributors. He has the 

 face of Adonis, with the muscularpower 

 of Hercules, and unites the sublimity of 

 Dante to the tenderness of Moore. His 

 life and conversation form one long 

 amatory poem. He has a friend in 

 every house, and a mistress in every 

 street. He has written more poetry than 

 would serve to make the funeral pile of 

 an Indian woman, and said more beau- 

 tiful things in one hour, than Coleridge 

 and Southey in a week. His conversa- 

 tion, therefore, like his friendship, is in- 

 valuable, and we shall think that day 

 the most mournful of our life in which 

 we are deprived of either. 



Ebenezer Muckleivrath is a perfect 

 contrast to Sydney. He was dismissed 

 from the Scottish church by a decision 

 of the General Con vocation, on account 

 of the heresy of his opinions. He main- 

 tains the coming of the Millennium, 

 and thinks that he shall then be rein- 

 stated in his former honours. But he is 

 very learned, and unaffectedly pious, 

 and in an article upon the Fathers, or in 

 the examination of church property and 

 interests, he is unrivalled. To a maga- 

 zine like ours, upon whose exertions 

 the happiness of 24,000,000 of human 

 creatures (being the entire population of 

 the United Kingdom) chiefly depends, 

 such a contributor is of great value. 



Oliphant Maxwell, like Captain Mar- 

 ryat's Pacha, is chiefly remarkable for 

 the number of his tales. Sometime ago 

 he entertained the idea of contracting 

 with Mr. Colbum to furnish all the 

 novels for the season, and we fully be- 



lieve the negociation would have been 

 satisfactorily concluded in favour of our 

 friend, if a petition, signed by the ma- 

 jority of the romance writers of the day, 

 had not induced him to alter his inten- 

 tion. Mr. Maxwell is far superior to 

 the ordinary novelists of the day. If 

 he could never have risen into the 

 grandeur and metaphysical beauty of 

 the " Disowned," he certainly could never 

 have sunk into the inanity of" Almacks.'' 

 As a magazine writer he is inimitable. 



Mordaunt Harrison, sumamed the 

 Woman Hater, is the able contributor of 

 our historical and antiquarian articles, 

 which Mr. Hallam pronounces almost 

 equal to his own. Mr. Harrison is a 

 fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 

 and recently presented a most valuable 

 present to that Institution, in the auto- 

 graph copy of Caesar's Commentaries, 

 accompanied with a dissertation, proving, 

 beyond a shadow of doubt, the genuine- 

 ness of the MS. We shall return to this 

 able scholar presently. 



Gerard Mortimer, the Pythagorean '. 

 We think it necessary to state that Mr. 

 Mortimer is not Dr. Macknish, or in 

 any way related to that gentleman. He 

 never studied drunkenness with sufficient 

 enthusiasm to enable him to publish an 

 anatomi/ of it. Mr. Gerard Mortimer 

 is, it may be confidently asserted, the 

 most extraordinary character in ex- 

 istence. He has been now upon the 

 earth, and taking an active share in its 

 turmoil and misery, more than tico 

 thousand four hundred years. He was 

 born at Athens in the same year as 

 Sophocles, and in his youth was parti- 

 cularly distinguished by the friendship 

 both of the author of the Odyssey, and 

 his graceful and seductive rival, Euri- 

 pides. He travelled with the latter 

 poet into Egypt, and has preserved some 

 very interesting memorials of the illus- 

 trious Plato, during his visit to that 

 country. Unlike the wandering Jew, 

 the Pythagorean's immense age has 

 been passed under all the variations of 

 nature, as well as of climate. For more 

 than two thousand years he has been 

 undergoing a continual succession of 

 changes ; at one time sitting with So- 

 crates and Plato at the representation 

 of the Orestes, and at another in the 

 situation of a slave assisting to carry the 

 baggage of the Persian army. II is 

 history is a perpetual antithesis ! 



He was by the side of Alexander the 



