1822.) 
whom the naval achicvements of his 
father shed some lustre. Lady Hawke 
was the aunt of Mr. Turner; and, 
through this family connexion, it was 
expected by the latter gentleman that 
considerable interest would be derived 
to the Argus from the growing weight 
ef the Neutral Squad. The French 
revolution, however, was advancing 
with hasty strides, and its impetus 
threw down all trifling considerations 
of party ; and, as the Argus decidedly 
adopted the principles of the revolu- 
tion, the alarmed proprietors sold their 
shares, which were bought in by Capt. 
P. till -he at length became sole 
owner. 
. The Argus was perhaps the boldest 
in its opposition of any publication in 
any age. Prosecution did not abate 
the devotion of its editor; but rather 
increased his zeal in the cause of de- 
mocracy and reform. Its opposition 
to government was manifested in every 
way,—by argument and by ridicule, 
in prose andinverse. It was assisted 
by the pungent reasonings of Thomas 
Paine, and by the satirical epigrams 
of Robert Merry: in short, it was the 
rendezvous of all the partizans and 
literary guerillas then in alliance 
against that system of government 
which has continued its ascendancy 
so far beyond the period assigned to 
it by Paine, Tooke, &c. 
As specimens of the manner in 
which the lighter arms of the Argus 
were employed by the author of “the 
Rights of Man,” he wrote the follow- 
ing epigrams on the heir to the Onslow 
estates, who then signalised himself as 
a four-in-hand, by driving a team of 
little cropped horses, compared to 
tom-tits or tit-mice, and which begat 
him the nick-name of “ Tommy .Tit- 
mouse.” 
Pray what can Tommy Titmouse do? 
Why drive a phaeton and two. 
Can Tommy ‘Tit do nothing more? 
Yes,—drive a phaeton and four! 
On another occasion appeared the 
following by Merry :— 
The peers and bishops all complain, 
They cannot bear so great a Paine. 
At the time the King was ill of that 
afllicting disorder which, with some 
remissions or lucid intervals, accom- 
panied him to his grave, the doctors, 
not knowing what to report, changed 
their order of monotonous bulletins 
by the transposition only of a mono- 
syllable or two, and rang these changes 
1 
Stephensiana, No. XIV. 
427 
for weeks, when the Argus antici- 
pated them as follows :— 
He wakes and he sleeps, and he sleeps and 
he wakes; i 
But no more shall we say, for fear of 
mistakes. 
When George Rose was tacked to his 
friend 'Thomas Steele, as joint pay- 
masters, the Argus treated it thus :— 
God bless Tom Steele and Rose, 
They hate Reforms—as foes. 
God bless George Rose and Steele, _ 
They love the common-weal. eY 
At length the ministry resolved to 
abate this nuisance in some way or 
other; and prosecutions by the Attor- 
ney-General were instituted, and other 
devices practised, against its propric- 
tor. It continued to exist till Decem- 
ber 1792; and, upon its suppression, a 
sarcastic account was published in 
the Morning Herald in the following 
words :—‘‘ Our neighbour the Argus 
has of late dealt in so much inflamma- 
ble matter, that our able tactician, the 
Attorney-General, has contrived means 
(such, perhaps, as Marshal Saxe and 
the Duke of Marlborough sometimes 
used,) to get a slow but sure match 
introduced into its arsenal, and has 
thereby blown up the whole printing- 
office, even to the very devil.” r 
ORIGIN OF DESPOTISM IN FRANCE. 
When the English, in a former age, 
successfully invading France, had ad- 
vanced as far as Orleans, and Charles 
VII. had retired to Bourges, the 
Assembly of the Three Estates, in the 
pangs of despair, empowered the king 
to levy taxes during the war ; and the 
power, thus acquired, was retained, 
more or less, until the revolution in 
1789. In the case of those senators, 
delay would not have been a waste of 
time, as the fortune of war soon after 
turned, by the strange occurrence of 
one grand incident,—the romantic ap- 
pearance of Joan D’Are. 
MILTON. 
There is a simplicity in the style 
and manner of Milton’s prose, that, 
combined with the strong feelings of a 
liberal mind, render it very interesting. 
Whether some of his notions had or 
had not led him astray, it is evident 
that his heart was innocent, and un- 
der the direction of religion. A know- 
ledge of human nature appears in the 
following passage, while it forcibly 
impresses a lesson not more political 
than moral :-—“ For this is not the li- 
berty which we can hope for, that no 
grievance 
