402 Crotchet Castle. [[APRIL, 



sive theories than any other science with which modern literature is 

 afflicted ; though it is said by its amateurs to be simple in its nature, it 

 is more abstruse than the sDnigma of the Sphynx. The only man who 

 ever yet made any thing of political economy, or ever wrote two con- 

 secutive lines of grammar on the subject, was Adam Smith. Since his 

 time, the science has been completely at a stand-still. Fools have got 

 hold of it, and made it the peg whereon to hang a variety of asinine 

 speculations ; quacks have perpetrated volumes on the subject, and fan- 

 cied they were familiar with a Juno, when, in fact, they were merely 

 embracing a cloud ; and knaves have patronized it as an apology for 

 their otherwise indefensible rogueries. In nine cases out of ten we hold 

 a political economist to be a blockhead, and in the tenth, we feel con- 

 vinced that he is a knave. Fortunately, however, for the interests of 

 true philosophy the science is at its last gasp. It has been weighed in 

 the balance of common sense, and found wanting. Still Mr. Peacock's 

 sneer is serviceable, and even seasonable. It is the last weight, be it 

 only a straw, that breaks the camel's back. Equally admirable are our 

 author's sarcasms on the lucre-loving spirit of the age. We subjoin a 

 specimen. - It is a dialogue between a lover and his mistress : 



Lady Clarinda. I am glad to see you can make yourself so happy with 

 drawing old trees and mounds of grass. 



Captain Fitzchrome. Happy, Lady Clarinda ! oh, no ! How can I be happy 

 when I see the idol of my heart about to be sacrificed on the shrine of Mam- 

 mon ? 



Lady Clarinda. Do you know, though Mammon has a sort of ill name, I 

 really think he is a very popular character; there must be at the bottom 

 something- amiable about him. He is certainly one of those pleasant creatures 

 whom every body abuses, but without whom no evening party is endurable. 

 I dare say, love in a cottage is very pleasant ; but then it must positively be 

 a cottage ornee : but would not the same love be a greal deal safer in a castle, 

 even if Mammon furnished the fortification ? 



Captain Fitzchrome. Oh, Lady Clarinda, there is a heartlessness in that 

 language that chills me to the soul. 



Lady Clarinda. Heartlessness ! No : my heart is on my lips. I speak just 

 what I think. You used to like it, and say it was as delightful as it was 

 rare. 



Captain Fitzchrome. True, but you did not then talk as you do now of love 

 in a castle. 



Lady Clarinda. Well, but only consider : a dun is a horridly vulgar creature; 



it is a creature I cannot endure the thought of: and a cottage lets him in so 



easily. Now a castle keeps him at bay. You are a half-pay officer, and are 



1 at leisure to command the garrison : but where is the castle ? and who is to 



furnish the commissariat? 



Captain Fitzchrome. Is it come to this, that you make a jest of my poverty ? 

 Yet is my poverty only comparative. Many decent families are maintained on 

 smaller means. 



Lady Clarinda. Decent families : ay, decent is the distinction from respect- 

 able. Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I 

 heard my family called decent. And then your decent family always lives in 

 a snug little place : I hate a little place ; I like large rooms and large looking- 

 glasses, and large parties, and a fine large butler, with a tinge of smooth red 

 in his face an outward and visible sign that the family he serves is respect- 

 able if not noble, highly respectable. 



Mr. Peacock's dinner chit-chat is admirable and not over-done. It 

 has a flavour about it equal to that of a woodcock, the prince (in his 

 own illustrious line) of dainties.- 



