14 
But the most important part, after 
all, of this reviewing philosophy, must 
be sought, in the sentiments and prin- 
ciples periodically diffused through these 
popularly-accessible channels. Their 
puffs and partialities may give bread, for 
the day, to an unmeriting associate :— 
there is no great evil in that. Their 
malice and personalities may be laughed 
at and forgotten: this is but a scratch; 
and the scar, though irritating, is quickly 
healed. Their ill-natured hypercriticism, 
and unmerited censure, may retard 
awhile the reputation of a meritorious 
work: but posterity will redress the 
wrong.—We question much whether 
Milton would have got Jess than ten 
pounds for the copyright of his Paradise 
Lost, if there had been a host of re- 
viewers in those days, to cavil at and 
belabour him. But sentiments and 
principles are easily imbibed by those 
who are willing to pay five or six shil- 
lings a-quarter to a reviewer for think- 
ing for them; and, when imbibed, they 
are apt to remain,—to become a part, 
as it were, of the mind of the unscrupu- 
lous reader, and ‘influence his future 
conduct. 
As for political sentiment and princi- 
ple, the most conspicuous, of course, in 
the aspirations of the Quarterly Re- 
view, is the orthodox abhorrence of that 
most pernicious of all political hetero- 
doxies,—the notion that man has rights, 
and that it is his duty and his interest 
to understand them. This is a theme to 
which even the temptation of amusing 
extracts from books of voyages and tra- 
vels must give way. Thus, in a pre- 
tended review of Maria Graham’s Jour- 
nal of a Voyage to Brazil, and Dr. Joh. 
Bapt. Von Spix and Dr. C. F. Phil. Von 
Martius’s Travels in Brazil, one-half, at 
least, of the allotted space is given up 
(though even a lady is waiting at the door) 
to legitimate declamation against revolu- 
_ tions in favour of the representative sys- 
tem, and these horrible rights of man. 
In behalf of these denunciations, even 
the republican government and revolu- 
tion of North America is taken into 
transient favour. 
Brazil, and a beautifully-eloquent History 
of the Church, but a Life of the dissenting 
Wesley, also. We will not insinuate that 
Dr. S. might have written the articles him- 
self, in which these reiterated quotations 
and references appear; but, as in all proba- 
bility he may know who did, he can hardly 
be so wnamiable as not to take an early 
opportunity of tickling his brother-reviewer 
1n return. 
. Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XLI. 
[Feb. 1, 
“ The citizens of North America,” we are 
told, p. 3, “were not goaded by factious 
democrats,* to speculate in new schemes of 
governments or new projects of constitu- 
tions; nor were they urged to suspend or 
depose their leaders, to make way for the 
exercise of those imaginary rights which 
theorists have fancied to exist in a state of 
nature, to be only in abeyance in practical 
systems, and proper to be reclaimed at all 
times and at all hazards. The people de- 
manded, not the rights of man, of which 
they knew nothing ; but they claimed the 
rights of Englishmen, with whose practical 
benefits they and their ancestors had been 
long and familiarly acquainted.” 
** Only to see,’ as Touchstone says, 
“how a man may live and learn!” We 
thought, in our simple ignorance, that it 
was by these very republicans of North 
America, and their great apostle Tom 
Paine, that these horrible “ Rights of 
Man” were first put into our heads, 
But in Brazil, and the South American 
dependencies of legitimate “Old Spain,” 
we are told (p. 7), 
“The poor had the doctrine of equality 
preached to them; they could not distin- 
guish between equality of rights and equa- 
lity of possessions, and they naturally put 
in practice what they had been taught, in 
the only sense in which they could compre- 
hend it.” + 
Such is the Quarterly Reviewers’ re- 
presentation of the principles and prac- 
tice of those revolutions, which the 
government of this country has now 
declared its resolution to acknowledge 
and sanction, by amicable treaties and 
commercial alliance! But more, more ! 
—we have not yet had quarterly philo- 
sophy enough. Enough of it is how- 
ever to be had; and wherever we may 
look for it, it is there. It flits, hey 
presto! from the new world to the old, 
and from the old to the new again, 
without the aid of Fortunatus’s wishing 
cap; and in feature and in essence is 
everywhere the same. Constitutional 
Spain and its Cortes have their share of 
its visitations; and it stands, Colossus- 
like, anon, with one foot upon ase 
an 
* Thomas Paine, whose pen was next, 
perhaps, to the sword of Washington, and 
the statesman-like philosophy of Franklin, 
the great cause and engine of the revolution, 
and whose book, called ‘‘ Common Sense,”’ 
goaded and animated the, till then, divided 
population, to the unanimous sentiment 
and resolution of independence, is, accord- 
ingly, no longer a factious democrat !—he is 
whitewashed by the Quarterly Reviewers. 
+ In what instances? we would ask 
