420 
write down what I feel—forced, { say, by an in- 
ward impulse. Itis awful tosee by what spirit 
some missionaries are animated, who have been 
sent out from Protestant socielies; there re- 
mains among them a spirit of jealousy—of an un- 
holy jealousy. - 
A Second Judgment of Babylon the 
Great. 2 vols. 12mo. ; 1829.—This is a 
second judgment of the Great Babel, Lon- 
don—the focus of all that is great and bad. 
We forbear the use of the common anti- 
thesis—more from the difficulty of defining 
good, or rather the impossibility of finding a 
scale which all can use with the same result, 
than from any doubt of the existence of 
what we might be disposed to term good. 
The author’s subject is Men and Things in 
the British Metropolis, and his point to 
shew up the perversions of English institu- 
tions, and the corruptions of town habits— 
exposing, in short, what must be allowed on 
all sides richly to deserve exposure. His 
general competence for the task, so far as 
this can be attainable by one person, a slight 
survey of the book—both this and the 
former—will satisfactorily prove; but the 
whole is manifestly beyond the grasp of any 
one-minded mortal. It is too much for 
one person to strip off disguises attending, 
for instance, the courts, common and equity 
—the hells—the theatres, and the Stock 
Exchange ; yet even these ramiferous topics 
are lost in the multifarious matters he at- 
tempts to clutch. He must trust to reports, 
and then it is hear-say evidence, and no 
longer admissible. 
The first judgment, which appeared but a 
few months ago, was limited to a survey of 
the two houses of Parliament, and their 
most conspicuous members, and to the state 
of the periodical press. Among the Par- 
liamentary characters, some of which were 
very elaborately and successfully drawn— 
evidently from the life—none struck us 
equally with that of Brougham—it was 
quoted in all the daily papers, and must 
have been noticed by most persons. Ina 
second edition, we observe, the author al- 
ludes to this character, as to a part of his 
book, with which, though others have ex- 
pressed some satisfaction, he could never 
Satisfy himself. Feeling, as we did, that 
the sketch was at once correct and forcible, 
and incomparably the best that ever was 
made on the subject, and the best morceau 
of the book, we give no credit to this dis- 
satisfaction, and fancy the remark was made 
merely as a stalking horse for the following 
anecdote. 
The author’s attention was drawn to 
Brougham, more than twenty years ago, by 
a sort of prophecy, delivered by one who, 
like Brougham, had no rival when alive, 
and to whom there is yet no appearance of a 
successor—John Playfair, of Edinburgh. 
At this period, Brougham had not began 
his public career; he was known to a few 
friends as a young man of very extraordinary 
and very versatile powers; but the world 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[ APRIL, 
had not heard much of him. The author 
called on Playfair one morning, and there 
lay upon the breakfast-table, the Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society, which the pro- 
fessor had been reading. Playfair, laying 
his hand upon the book, said, “there is an 
extraordinary paper here (as far as is re- 
membered, it was on porisms or on Joci), a 
paper that I did not expect. It is not like 
the writings of the present day at all. It 
puts one in mind of D’Alembert, or Euler, 
or aman of that calibre. It is by a callan 
of the name of Brougham—I remember 
him—he was very inquisitive—Edinburgh 
will not be big enough for holding him yet. 
He must go to London, and turn politician, 
there is no room for him in any thing else. 
Whoever lives to see it, that callan will 
make a figure in the world.” 
Some misapprehension or mis-statement 
there must be. The paper related, it seems, 
to an abstract snbject, and the professor is 
made to jump to—what conclusion ? That 
he must go to London and turn politician. 
The logic of this, and of course the sagacity, 
which is indeed the same thing, is quite un- 
intelligible. The conclusion does not at all 
bind up with the premises ; and the writer, 
who is a sharp fellow enough, would himself, 
in any other case, have detected the essen- 
tial absurdity of the tale. The venerable 
professor must have perpetrated a pun upon 
loci ; and Brougham is probably now within 
sight of a very good one. 
This second judgment is of the same style 
with the first, but employed generally on 
more important, at least more permanent 
subjects—more which come home to the 
experience and annoyance of more indi- 
viduals. The first volume is occupied with 
the Chancery Courts—the Common Courts 
—Banking—the Exchange—Hells—Thea- 
tres, on all the more obvious evils of which, 
and some will be thought apocryphal, he 
touches with a light but effective pencil. 
The absurd and the ludicrous is his chief 
aim, though the mockery is occasionally bit- 
ter. Accuracy, of course, must sometimes be 
sacrificed to effect. ~The second volume 
finds abundant materials in the observance 
of a London Sunday—charities—Jews—the 
buildings—streets—and lastly the legal ini- 
quities—the production, that is, of bad laws 
—hbad administration—and bad execution, 
in all which the author shews a learned 
spirit in the dealings of infamy—too minute 
almost to be honestly come by. Among the 
subjects most effectively exposed are Chan- 
cery suits, and special pleadings, but the 
first we have ourselyes often anatomised, 
and for the last, we have at present no 
space, or we should willingly extract. The 
hells and tke charities, are two capital 
chapters. 
Whatis Luxury 2—with a Monica 
of Etymological and other Nuge, by a 
Lay Observer ; 1829.—For those who can 
at all bear themselves from the tumult of a 
