THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES 



VOL. XVI.] DECEMBER, 1833. [No. 96. 



THE OPERATION OF MONOPOLIES. 



English Indifference Corporate Abuses the result of the Aristocracy 

 Strong-hold of Toryism Literary and Medical Corporations Literature 

 of the Ancients not upheld by Charter Charters granted in the barbarism 

 of the Middle Ages Result in the Conduct of the University of Oxford to 

 Erasmus Remarks on the Ancients Sparta Opinion of Adam Smith on 

 privileged Literary Bodies Medical Monopoly College of Physicians 

 Monstrous Privileges By-laws Fellowships and Licentiates Their 

 Qualifications Ad vantage'of the College to the Public Bigotry and Bar- 

 barism of Fellows Quotation from Orations of Dr. Pemberton, Dr. Powell, 

 and Dr. Latham Unjust Practices of the College Conclusion. 



IT is a peculiar feature in the English character to disregard the 

 operation of monoplies which do not glaringly affect their personal 

 liberties as freemen, or their commercial glory as a nation ; although, 

 if ever they took the pains to look into their workings, they would be 

 found inimical to the interests of the community in every particular. 

 Absorbed in the improvement of his own individual condition, the 

 Englishman overlooks the abuses of his own institutions, until that 

 which first commenced in fraud obtains the sanction of custom, and 

 is claimed as a right. 



The abuses in corporate bodies and monopolies, are the result of 

 the aristocratical tone of our government, which has been the curse 

 of our country for so many years. England has long been the genial 

 soil in which the aristocratical tree has taken such deep root, and 

 flourished so exceedingly, that its huge, rank branches have over- 

 topped and smothered every thing useful. The veriest despots of the 

 Continent, subjected as they have been to the occasional violent 

 ebullition of an abused people, have cast the glance of envy and 

 covetousness towards England, as the place wherein they could 

 exercise their accursed fancies, by means of her free institutions, with- 

 out control and without danger. England has long presented the 

 anomaly of a professedly free country bound by worse than feudal fet- 

 ters: and such has been the duration of her slavery, that her rulers 

 have been astonished when she ceased to hug her fetters. Like the 

 overburthened brute, she has now kicked off her panniers : it is yet 

 to be seen whether her new pack-saddle will sit easier. 



