312 Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism, No. XXX. [May I, 



For the Monthly Magazine. 

 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTEM- 

 PORARY CRITICISM. 



NO. XXX. 



Tlie Edinburgh Review. No. 75. 



ing the great profit upon the ale (much 

 greater than any upon wine,) out of 

 the question, how did the account 

 stand? Why thus, or thereabouts : — 

 Eight persons for dinner at "^s. 6d. 



a-head £l 



Cost of dinner to the publican, 



leaving out of the account the 



fragments left :— 

 Leg of Mutton, 10 lbs. at s. d. 



i{(l. 3 9 



Pudding, not more than • • 9 



Bread, Vegetables, &c. 1 



5 6 



Profit to innkeeper-- •• 14 6 

 What profit upon wine or spirits can 

 be equal to this.' It is very true that 

 provisions are now dearer than at the 

 time 1 speak of; but still not at all 

 equal to the scandalous charges that 

 are made both at country inns, and at 

 our metropolitan taverns, where the 

 calculation for eating at a common 

 charity-anniversary dinner, with no- 

 thing out of tlie usual way, is about 

 7s. 6d. Where is the alderman who 

 could get it down ? 



Another, and almost a greater, evil 

 at inns, is the expected douceurs to the 

 waiters, the ostlers, tlie chambermaids, 

 the boots, the helpers without end. It 

 is quite a regular thing for tlie waiter 

 to get ten per cent, and from thought- 

 less people often twenty per cent, on 

 his master's bill: as for the chamber- 

 maid, she always gets fifty per cent. 

 and sometimes the Lord knows how 

 much more, upon the charges for beds. 

 It cannot therefore be a mailer of 

 wonder, that waiters, ostlers, and 

 chambermaids, siiould, instead of re- 

 ceiving wages at the great inns, pay 

 from twenty to fifty pcmnds a year for 

 their places : which is a well-known 

 fact. Some stop should be put to this ; 

 as was the case, many years ago, with 

 regard to vails given at the houses of 

 the great, where the servants made a 

 point of getting possession of every 

 possible article of your exterior dress ; 

 suclr as hat, great coat, rane, and 

 gloves; expecting, nay demanding, a 

 shilling for each : till it became rather 

 an expensive thing, to a man of mode- 

 rate income, to be invited out to din- 

 ner. It was, 1 think, the late Jonas 

 Hanway who told a nobleman, when 

 asked to dine with him, that he could 

 not afford it. This led to an explana- 

 tion, and to a considerable alteration 

 in the matter oi vails. 



J. M. Lacy. 



THE title of this northern periodi- 

 cal publication is a misnomer : it 

 is not a Review, but a collection of 

 "Essays on various subjects," to 

 which the names of different new 

 books are, often very inappropriately, 

 prefixed as mottoes. In numerous 

 instances, the work, thus chosen as a 

 text, is never once alluded to in the 

 discourse which follows ; but this dis- 

 course, proceeding from an associa- 

 tion of philosophers, infallible in wis- 

 dom, incapable of prejudice, andioai)- 

 cessible to the influence of parley or of 

 power, is put forth to the world as 

 containing all the information that can 

 bo acquired on the subject of which it 

 condescends to treat. Exceptions may 

 be produced to the description here 

 given ; but, we believe, few will deny 

 that this is the characteristical feature 

 of the work. 



The preceding observations have, 

 doubtless, long ago suggested thenj- 

 selvcs to many of the readers of the 

 Edinburgh Review ; but the manner 

 in which the first article of the Number 

 before us is introduced, most forcibly 

 recalled the idea to our memory. The 

 text-book is entitled. Reflections mi the 

 State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury, the progressive Causes which have 

 produced it, and the measures best calcu- 

 lated to remove some and mitigate others 

 of them. But the essay -writer, as if 

 there was no cause of grievance in 

 Ireland except tithes, and no country 

 in the world whose example should be 

 followed but his own, proceeds to give 

 us twenty-six prosing pages concern- 

 ing the " History and Setilcment of 

 Tithes in Scotland," and finishes with- 

 out saying a single word of the book, 

 for the review of which he is alone en- 

 titled to his liire. An account of the 

 final settlement of the tithes in Scot- 

 land, and the principle on which the 

 present clergy are paid, is by no 

 means uninteresting; and this might 

 have been dispatched in a single page: 

 but the history of the causes which 

 led to this settlement can be of no 

 value; because, it is to be hoped, they 

 furnish no example: for they arose 

 necessarily out of the disputes between 

 the crown and some powerful barons, 

 relative to (he spoliation of the church 

 revenues, 



