1823.] 
poet; and we need scarcely make a 
superfluous apology for this paucity of 
extracts from a production which no 
person of poetical feeling will neglect 
to peruse. That these cantos will be 
assailed by the canting tribe with as 
much virulence as those which pre- 
ceded them, no doubt can be enter- 
faincd; for nothing can be more 
obnoxious to a certain class, than the 
fact of one of the highest rank in the 
aristocracy of the country espousing 
the doctrines of liberalism, and advo- 
cating the cause of the oppressed 
many against the oppressing few. The 
attacks on Lord Byron’s personal 
character will also, most probably, be 
renewed with increased vigour; but 
unfortunately, besides tke recollection 
that his lordship’s private faults were 
never adverted to till his political 
opinions became offensive, we cannot 
but remark that indulgence in such 
ca es varies strangely among some 
very pious and respectable persons, 
who have occasionally been found 
among the warm partizans of men 
more than suspected of ill-treatment of 
their wives, and other similar pecca- 
dilloes. The manner_in which the 
Ithuriel touch of the“noble author’s 
satire lays bare the visage that hypo- 
erisy had so gracefully covered, must 
incur the high displeasure of the many 
who haye experienced the benefit of 
adopting that convenient mask; and 
his fearless exposure of “ wickedness 
in high places,” though the highest 
authority may be pleaded, not only in 
defence, but in approbation, of such 
exposure, cannot but be decidedly ob- 
jectionable in the eyes of the “ friends 
of social order,” and the members of 
that excellent Society, which, by the 
eantious restriction of all its efforts 
for “the Suppression of Vice” to the 
poorer classes, evidently aims at se- 
curing a monopoly of that enviable 
commodity to the rich, But there is 
a consolation in knowing, that these 
pseudo-religionists are daily decreasing 
in number, and that their impotent 
assaults upon the illustricus writer in 
question will not have the effect of 
sinking him in public estimation either 
a8 a poet oF a man, 
—ao-— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
WAS reading the other day Dod- 
sley’s interesting description of 
the Leasowes, the seat of the late 
amiable poet Sheastoue ; and having 
The Leasowes ?— Reminiscences of St. Clement Danes. 
115 
made enqniry in what state it now re- 
mains, without receiving any satis- 
factory information, 1 hope some one 
of your numerous correspondents will 
do me the favour of giving some 
account of it, through the medium of 
your publication: in so doing, a grati- 
fication will be afforded, not to me 
only, but to all admirers of that poet. 
T. R. 
ae 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N_ your Magazine published on the 
Ist of May, you have given, in 
addition to the many views of other 
buildings which occasion reminis- 
cences. of departed genius that have 
appeared, sketches of the Receiving- 
houses of the “Spectator” and ‘‘ Tat- 
ler:” the latter of these, then the 
Trumpet tavern, but now the Duke-of- 
York alehouse, being situated very 
near my own residence, and in the 
parish in which I reside and was born 
(St. Clement Danes), led me to think 
of the wonderful change made in the 
lapse of a century, or thereabouts, in 
any given neighbourhood. 
St. Clement Danes is now a respec- 
table, and even important, parish of 
Westminster ; but, as regards the pre- 
sent race of inhabitants, they are, as 
far as rank, and perhaps property, is 
concerned, certainly inferior to their 
predecessors ; for even the Act of 
Parliament for paving, lighting, &c. of 
the parish, provides, by one of ils 
clauses, that no person shall “be a 
trustee under it who is not a resident 
householder, and who “shall also be, 
in his own right or in the right of his 
wife, in the actual possession or re- 
ccipt of rents and profits of lands, 
tenements, or hereditaments, either 
freehold or copyhold, of the clear 
yearly value of three hundred pounds, 
or possessed of a personal estate to,the 
amount or value of. ten thousand 
pounds; or shall be hetr-apparent to a 
peer”? This Act was passed in the 
twenty-third year of the reign of 
George the Third; and the two first 
trustees mentioned in it are ‘the 
Right Henourable Charles Howard, 
commonly called Earl of Surrey; the 
Right Honourable Thomas Pelham 
Clinton, commonly called Earl of 
Lincoln,” followed by thirteen esquires. 
Where are we to look now, in St. 
Clement Danes, for ‘‘the heir-appa- 
rent to a peer?” Those days are de- 
parted, and the immense spread of 
London 
