330 



The Philosophy of Cotemporary Criticism. 



[May I, 



are uufokled, must be wrong merely 

 because circumstances render them 

 impracticable. Nor, we believe, have 

 the sound and sane advocates for 

 the abolition of the system among our- 

 selves, ever maintained that Great Bri- 

 tain should entirely depart from it, 

 with respect to foreign nations : they 

 have only urged that the whole empire, 

 in concerns of trade, should be put 

 upon the same footing ; that monopo- 

 lies, except as the reward of personal 

 skill and ingenuity, should be abolish- 

 ed, and that no restriction should be 

 contiuued upon our own subjects, 

 which has the effect of throwing what 

 ought to be a natural branch of our 

 own trade, into the hands of auotlier 

 country. And if this is not com- 

 mon sense, we should be glad to know 

 what is, or how tliose very men whom 

 vvehave seen substitute paper for specie, 

 the old and universal medium of value, 

 €an affect to hesitatealiout the abolition 

 of well-known monopolies and restric- 

 tions upon the pretext of the dangers 

 of innovating too rashly on the esta- 

 blished order of commercial inter- 

 course. 



Of the second article, " Melmoth the 

 Wanderer,'' we shall say but little. 

 The work itself we think contemptible 

 and absurd ; after vainly attempting to 

 read it through, we threw it from us in 

 disgust, but not with stronger feelings 

 than we have endured in the painful 

 task of reading the article in question. 

 Mr. Maturin's book is less the sub- 

 ject of the criticism than himself. It 

 is this audacious personality that ren- 

 ders the Quarterly Review so often 

 only fit for the depraved appetites of 

 the sweltering maggots of corruption. 

 Mr. Maturin, it seems, confesses that 

 he is driven by the necessity of his cir- 

 cumstances to woi'k at that sort of 

 trumpery for which he is so well known. 

 And upon this the pure and immacu- 

 late reviewer assumes great moral in- 

 dignation, and exclaims, " Mr. Maturin 

 is well aware, it seems, that he appears 

 in an unseemly character, but pleads 

 his necessities. Like the other man 

 who sold poison, his po/erty, but not 

 his will, consents ; — but we apprehend 

 that this plea would be as invalid at 

 the Old Bailey, as it is disgraceful 

 every where to a man of liberal edu- 

 cation and honourable mind. If he 

 thought he was doing notliiug deroga- 

 tory, nothing wrong, we might pity 

 Mr. Maturin's weakness of understand- 

 ing ; but when he owns that he does 



wrong knowingly, but for hire, we add 

 to our contempt for his understanding, 

 scorn of his principles !" This is very 

 wicked ; it assumes that Mr. Maturin 

 is sensible of having written " NON- 

 SENSE," of his "want of veracity," 

 of his " IGNORANCE," of making his 

 characters speak " blasphemy and 

 BRUTALITY," and of writing " ob- 

 scenity — dark, cold-blooded pedantic 

 obscenity." These charges, to be sure, 

 are not very intelligibly made out — 

 but having stated them, the reviewer, 

 because Mr. Maturin speaks of his 

 productions as hasty and defective li- 

 terary works, falsely infers that he is 

 sensible of writing books of the delete- 

 rious kind implied in the accusations 

 which he has brought against Mel- 

 moth. This, we repeat, is very wick- 

 ed, and totally incapable of excuse or 

 extenuation. 



The third article is an agreeable ana- 

 lysis, if so it may be called, of " Mur- 

 ray's Historical Account of Discoveries 

 and Travels in Asia." The writer 

 treats the book with moderation and 

 respect, but the work itself belongs to 

 the humblest walk of literature, though 

 it also belongs to the most useful class 

 of books, We are sui-prised, however, 

 to find that it afforded so fcM' interest- 

 ing extracts ; the following, quoted by 

 the reviewer, is about the most so in 

 the article. " It seems certain," says 

 Mr. Murray, " from the language of 

 this writer (Carpini), that gunpowder 

 was used in the east of Asia, at a time 

 when it was unknown in Europe. In 

 the passage to which Carpini alludes, 

 the army of Prester John are said to 

 have had images of copper with fii-e in 

 them, which they placed on horseback, 

 while a man, with a pair of bellows, 

 got up behind. When the horses were 

 drawn up against the enemy, the men 

 behind, he says, " laide, I wot not 

 what, upon the fire within the images, 

 and blew strong with their bellowes, 

 wheieupon it came to pass, that the 

 men and the horses were burnt with 

 wild-fire, and the ayre was darkened 

 with smolie." 



With respect to Marco Polo, whose 

 representations of Eastern circum- 

 stances and customs, like those of 

 Abyssinian Bruce, were condemned and 

 ridiculed as fictions and extravagant 

 exaggerations, it would now seem that 

 he is, upon the whole, as mucii entitled 

 to credit as many travellers who have 

 seenless and written more. His account 

 of the famous old man of the mountains, 



the 



