602 



THE OPERATION OF MON LIES. 



The strong-holds of the aristocracy, we may rather say Toryism, are 

 the corporate bof'ies, which have been so fostered, and for such a 

 time, that an entire social system is paralyzed by them. It is this evil 

 that has rendered us so comparatively slow to improvement, and 

 which acts as a continual check to advancement ; when the advantage 

 of any great discovery becomes so apparent to the nation that preju- 

 dice is beaten dowry, th t instant it is seized upon by speculators, and 

 so formed into me ;opc ies, and fenced by acts of parliaments all in 

 unison with the ( vV 2at system of Toryism, that any further improve- 

 ment becomes a work of infinite difficulty, merely because of its in- 

 terference with the private interests of one or two of the corporate 

 body. This great system of monopoly has interwoven itself amongst 

 us to the prejudice of our arts, our science, our literature, and our com- 

 merce. It is but justice to say of our present ministry that, in accord- 

 ance with the spirit of the times, they have commenced the attack 

 upon this hydra, which will surely end in its destruction. It needs 

 but to be held up to the light, that its native deformity may become 

 apparent. 



There are some few points connected with the monopolies of litera- 

 ture and medicine, which the late disgraceful scenes of medical jobbing 

 lately brought before the public have given rise to, on which we have 

 a few words to say. 



To estimate fairly the merits of any system, it would be necessary to 

 consider the times, and the means by whom it may have been proposed. 

 If we find the growth of an enlightened age supported by the talents 

 and learning of its day, there is much in its favour ; on the contrary, 

 if it appear the produce of a barbarous era, fostered by ignorance, and 

 its natural deformities perverted by design, we cannot hesitate to con- 

 demn it as unfitted for the interests of society. Let us look back upon 

 corporate institutions : the ancients were unacquainted with them, 

 though some learned Thebans would have the world believe that they 

 existed with the Greeks and Romans, and allude to the union of the 

 Sabines with the Romans as a corporate body; but the union of two 

 savage tribes for mutual interest has but little in it analagous to cor- 

 porate institutions. Athens owed her literary reputation to her ex- 

 emption from them. As we descend from those bright days to the 

 darker ones of the middle ages, when feudal and ecclesiastical misrule 

 crushed in the bud the very germs of freedom, we find them peeping 

 from beneath the cowl of the crafty monk, and the public interest the 

 last feature in their organization. Kings patronizing universities for 

 the accidental circumstance of being born there j Elizabeth, for the 

 equivocal credit of proselyting youth at the shrine of protestant pre- 

 judice. The conduct of the univerity of Oxford to Erasmus, when he 

 came to unfold to them the stores of Grecian literature, affords an un- 

 answerable proof of the evils of such corporate bodies the arrogance 

 of pretenders, the insolence of mere book- worms ! Whatever we have 

 seen of prejudice, of bigotry, of ignorance, in the progress of the 

 world's knowledge, have we not ever witnessed it most rife in the 

 cloisters of our universities? When did Toryism ever make so strong 

 a stand as when begirt by a phalanx of our chartered monks ? 



There are in society, however, some good-natured simpletons o 



