432 
“ As, with the exception,” says the Re- 
viewer, ‘ofan annual payment of £600,000, 
for about sixteen millions owing to foreign- 
ers, the whole of the interest on it is paid 
by one portion to another portion of the 
same community: though some indivi- 
duals may be the poorer, an equal number 
will be the richer in consequence of such 
payments ; and therefore, whatever may 
be its effect in retarding the progress, 
it can be of no weight in shaking the evi-. 
dence of the actual and independent 
amount of the wealth of the nation.” 
The politic Reviewer wisely keeps out 
of view, that the greater portions of 
these dividends are received by an 
already opulent, or comparatively opu- 
lent few; but that the burthen of pay- 
ing them is thrown upon the whole po- 
pulation, and consequently increases the 
depression of the many to augment the 
opulence of a small number. Not, how- 
ever, that we would countenance the 
iniquitous projects of those landholders 
(for they alone would be benefited !) who 
would abrogate the National Debt, or 
reduce the interest—that is to say, 
would reduce the income of the mort- 
gagee for the benefit of the mortgager. 
Independently of the injustice of such a 
procedure, the following facts are suffi- 
cient to demonstrate its utter barbarity. 
“Tt appears, that out of 288,473 stock- 
holders, there are 277,594 of various in- 
comes below £400 per annum ; and only 
10,879 above that sum. We see with 
much pleasure nearly 140,000 persons with 
funded incomes under £20 per annum, and 
nearly 130,000 from £20 to £200.” 
Now of the 270,000 persons—of the first 
140,000 in particular—the receivers of 
less than one-half, it is true, of the 
gross amount of these dividends, but 
who constitute the bulk of the fair, un- 
gambling, unspeculating fund-holders— 
of the steady, unsuspicious, compara- 
tively, or absolutely poor, but yet most 
respectable body of the creditors of the 
state, who, upon the faith of the Land- 
holders’ Government, have placed their 
little all within the power of that 
government !—what, we say—what, in 
case of an arbitrary reduction of in- 
terest, is to become of them? Reduce 
the £200 a-year holder to £100—the 
£100 a-year creditor to £50—the £50 
to £25—the £20 to £10—the £10 to 
£5—the poor pittance of £5 to £2. 10s. 
a-year (and of the two latter descrip- 
tions, we have no less than 134,396*); 
* The computation of 140,000 below 
£20 a-year must, therefore, be very short 
of-the mark: for, if there be 134,396,. not 
‘National Debt.—Sacred Poetry. 
[ Dee. 1, 
and what must be their condition ?— 
Nay, make any reduction, be it a half, 
a third, a fourth, or even less—and what 
must be the misery entailed upon these 
270,000 individuals, or families?) It is 
true, the Reviewer is no partizan ‘of 
this plundering system of reduction— 
this violation of compact—this payment 
of a stipulated interest by a sponge; 
but there are other parts of his argu- 
ment relative, not only to this question . 
of funded property, but many other 
matters connected with our national 
wealth and prosperity, in which the 
classes to whom this 270,000 (tle 
235,000 who have only from £5 to 
£50 a-year, in particular,) belong, are 
not of sufficient consequence to have 
their cases or interests sufficiently con- 
sidered. 
Art. VIII. Fairy Legends and Tra- 
ditions of the South of Ireland, though 
amusing in its extravagance, we must’ 
for brevity’s sake pass over. It is with’ 
great reluctance that we do the same’ 
with the only remaining’ Disquisition 
(Art.IX.) on Sacred Poetry, of which the’ 
title-page of The Star-in the East ; with 
other Poems, by Jostan Conprr, Is 
taken as the text. On this subject, in 
the handling of which, we think, we 
trace the pen of our redoubted Lau- 
reate—the imaginary successor to the 
wreath of Spenser [by; whom such 
wreath was never. worn !]—we should 
have liked to mect the antagonist on _ 
open ground : for in it there is much 
- that we>cannot but regard as the cant 
of false religion, and very perverted 
taste. But our sentiments upon this 
have been manifested already in another 
head department. We satisfy our- 
selves therefore with the mere declara- 
tion, that we are not of that description 
of critics who can admit, that tameness, 
vapidness, or nonsense, may pass for 
poetry, if it does but affect to be devo- 
tional—or that religion, of all subjects 
in the world, is a fit theme for the dila- 
tion of poetic mediocrity. 
exceeding £10 a-year, and 101,274 (as ap- 
pears) between £10 and £50, it would be 
strange, if only 5,694 of these were claim- 
ants of between £10 and £20 a-year. 
Steen. “cee 
EPLGRAM. ; r 
Says consequential Ned, who felt unwell, «+ 
When ask’d the cause of his complaint to telly 
* J live too high.”’—And Ned: the: trusir), 
declares— PEs 
He has his lodging up five pair of’ stairs» + 
Enoet, 
ORIGINAL 
