1824.) 
mad career with unbounded indul- 
gence; every means that can be de- 
vised are employed to curtail the few 
remaining enjoyments of the poor. 
An imaginary superiority in some of 
our theatrical performers, shall en- 
sure them public favour and princely 
-emolument; while others, equally de- 
serving in what may be thought an in- 
ferior accomplishment, shall be dis- 
untenanced, or even punished, for 
their efforts. About the same time 
that Madame Catalani was making her 
Birmingham engagement for (I know 
not what) perhaps 300/. to 600/. for 
her week’s performance, the London 
papers inform us that some of the 
rope-dancing or horsemanship per- 
formers at Stepney-fair were com- 
mitted to the labour of the tread-mill 
as vagrants and sturdy beggars! Can 
any abuse of justice or common-sense 
go beyond this? As if the gratification 
of the eye was not as intellectual as 
that of the ear,—or, as if the only mea- 
sure of enjoyment should consist in the 
price at which a bloated and unfeeling 
aristocracy should rate it. 
Several attempts were made about 
the same time, or previously, in the 
town and neighbourhood, to interest 
the inhabitants in behalf of ill-fated 
Spain; but they all proved abortive. 
‘It was admitted, that the almost una- 
nimous sympathy of Englishmen was 
on the constitutional side,—but all 
would not do, Fashion had not given 
her bewitching sanction to the mea- 
sure; and freedom was suffered to lan- 
guish and expire, while the hollow 
crocodile neutrality of our administra- 
tion had lulled the people into a state 
of perfect apathy or delusion. Never, 
in the history of the world, has a case 
more strikingly exemplified the accu- 
racy of the old adage,—'‘ He who is 
not for us is against us.” A provin- 
cial town, or neighbourhood, shall raise 
30,000/, in oue week for amusement, 
and the United Kingdom but 20,0002. 
for a cause in which the interest of 
the whole human race is involved, 
past the reach of the most penetrating 
conception. I repeat ‘for, amuse- 
ment,” for, if charity had been the 
motive, why not canvass the neigh- 
bourhood for donations; and, after 
raising the 5,806/. for the hospital, a 
handsome overplus might have becn 
applied for the encouragement of Spa- 
nish patriotism, and the neighbourhood 
would then have been exonerated from 
the merited reproach— ; 
Birmingham Musical Festival, 
15 
‘¢ And the devil was pleas’d, for his darling 
vice 
Is the pride that apes humility.” 
I have no wish to cramp the innocent 
or rational enjoyments of life. Good- 
ness knows what a load of. evils, 
chiefly of our own infliction, we have 
perpetually to contend with; but let us 
not reproach a bountiful Pruvidence 
with having fixed us in a ‘ howling 
wilderness,” when it depends so much 
upon ourselves to render it a “ bloom- 
ing paradise.” 
But I must ever contend, that the 
best gratifications of the heart are 
those which flow from the sources of 
sympathy and benevolence; and that, 
if public amusements, instead of being 
so shamefully monopolized as they now 
are by the opulent, were more gene- 
rally encouraged, and diffused through 
the various grades of society, we need 
not be brooding in discontent over the 
forms of our national government; 
but a source of. felicity would be ob- 
tained, of which we at present have no 
adequate conception. ‘ Let me write 
all the ballads, and I care not who 
makes the laws,” is an expression 
often quoted, though not sufficiently 
valued, and came from one who was 
well acquainted with human nature. 
The French, with ail their fooleriesand 
want of principle, have ‘preceded us in 
this grand and effective spring to pub- 
lic conduct and to public harmony. 
Their government, despotic and imbe- 
cile as it is, has still penetration 
enough to perceive, that public opinion 
is more easily. ensured by the appear- 
ance of kindness than by coercion. 
Theirreligious processions and payean- 
tries are enjoyed equally by all ranks ; 
and their national museums, galleries, 
gardens, &c. are open to the free ad- 
mission of every individual without 
distinction. What a contrast do we 
present, withall our boasted superiority, 
—and is it not high time the reproach 
was cancelled? 
As a suitable close to our week’s 
carnival, Mr. Sadler ascended with his 
balloon, in company with Mr. James 
Busby, a young and respectable trades- 
man of the town; and surely, in the 
judgment and feeling of philanthropy, 
the scene then exhibited infinitely 
surpassed all the bustle, ‘“‘the pomp 
and. circumstance,” of the preceding 
display. One hundred thousand hu- 
man beings, so placed by the charac- 
ter of the spot as that the greater part 
might be ineluded in one extensiv. 
gaze . 
