¥824.] Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XX XIX. 
tions, will perhaps be more decorously, 
hereafter, manifested: in the notice, we 
shall, from time to time, take of the re- 
spective publications, than by any formal 
declaration here. Having marked, how- 
ever, these general outlines of resem- 
blance and discrimination between the 
great Gog and Magog of the periodical 
press, the radical reviewer (according to 
whom, “‘ the grand question between the 
advocates of power on the one hand, 
and of the people on the other,’ is, 
whether there is any thing in our insti- 
tutions, and how much, which operates 
to the detriment of the people, and 
ought to be changed?’’) proceeds to 
arraign, with considerable ability, and 
cogent evidence of quotation, the scur- 
rilous, defamatory and incoherent man- 
ner in which the Quarterly Review 
maintains, or rather’ fulminates, the 
negative of this inquiry. 
. Having taken as a datum, that the 
logic power of abuse, which the cele- 
brated Le Clerc, in the treatise prefixed 
to his Opera Philosophica, supposes to 
be exclusively argumentum theologicum, 
is equally argumentum imperiosum, “ the 
argument of power, in whatever hands it 
be placed ;’’ he proceeds to analyse the 
suid philosopher’s sixteen different spe- 
cies of argumentum ab invidia ductum, 
or the dirt-flinging argument ; and to 
shew with what unsparing assumption, 
vehemence and effrontery, the Quarter- 
ly champion of all that is orderly, digni- 
fed and sacred in the organization of a 
refined and highly polished state of 
society, can use them all. 
, We are sorry that our limits do not 
enable us to amuse our readers with a 
collection of some of the beauties of this 
species of logic, collected from the Quar- 
terly pages; but, most assuredly, we 
should think, that unless the Westmin- 
ster Reviewer can be detected of gross 
and reiterated forgery, in the quotations 
he has inserted, the gentlemen of the 
uarterly will, at least, have the pru- 
lence to abstain, for the future, from 
such phrases, as “ vulgar and contempti- 
ble ferocity;”’ “bold bad man;” “ worth- 
less crew, who have sold themselves to 
work wickedness;” “ignorance and 
falsehood ;” “ amazing audacity ;” “ fla- 
gitious editor ;” “compounds of igno- 
rance, sophistry, and baseness,” &c. &c., 
lest the reader should be, irresistibly, 
compelled to imagine, that those gen- 
tlemen are thinking of themselves, 
But instead of requoting the detected 
misrepresentations and scurrilities of 
this (Quarterly embellisher of “the Co- 
rinthian capital of polished society!” 
419 
we will take our leave of him, for the 
present, by requoting, in his own words, 
his creed. 
“ All the reasoners, or rather no-reason- 
ers, in favour of parliamentary reform, pro- 
ceed upon the belief of Mr. Dunning’s and 
Mr. Burke’s famous motion, that the influ- 
ence of the crown has increased, is inerea- 
sing, and ought to be diminished.” But 
“the converse of that proposition is now 
distinctly to be maintained.”’ 
Now the converse of the proposition 
would be, that “the influence of the 
crown had diminished, was diminishing, 
and ought to be increased.” But it 
seems, that even the Quarterly sophist 
himself shrunk, in this instance, from 
the effrontery of his own proposition; 
and, to shew the sovereignty of his 
authority over even the technicalities of 
rhetoric, as over the dates and facts of 
chronology, for what he calls a converse 
he substitutes a parody. “ At present 
it is,’ says he, “the influence of the 
democracy that has increased, is in- 
creasing, and ought to be diminished.” 
And in what, according to his own 
account, does this increase of influence 
consist? Why, in the advantage “ ac- 
quired by the publication of the parlia- 
mentary debates.” And are we then, to 
be told that this is a privilege acquired 
since Burke and Dunning’s famous mo- 
tion? or that it has been given asa 
bonus, or compensation, for the restric- 
tions and privations imposed by the Pitt 
and Grenville acts, the Six Acts passed 
after the Manchester massacre, &c. &c. ? 
But enough of Quarterly logic. The 
ensuing controversial article in the 
Westminster Review, contains a tem- 
perate discussion of the principles 
advanced by the Edinburgh Review, in 
an article on the Disposition of Property 
by Will, in which the latter had advo- 
cated the expediency and desirableness 
of an extension of the monopolizing 
claims of primogeniture. The former 
maintains, on the contrary, through an 
elaborate argument of fifty pages, the 
directly opposite opinion, that “an ap- 
proximation to equality in the conditions 
of the children is much to be desired.” 
It will be obvious that almost every 
consideration of practical importance in 
the opposite theories of aristocratical 
anddemocratic politics may be involved 
in such a discussion. 
Besides this ample review of one of 
ifs contemporary reviewers, and ample 
controversy with another, the present 
number of the Westminster contains an 
article, of twenty-one pages, on Ji/l’s 
Elements of Political Economy—a sub- 
on 2 ject 
