183 1 ."] Specimens of Cant. 1 ^ 



The whole was a brutum fulmen after all. As much a failure as the 

 "protocol of the five powers ;" Mr. Collins's, of Sadler's Wells, imita- 

 tion of Paganini; Lord Francis Gower's copy of Canning; Lord 

 Burcrhersh's Opera, or Lord Normanby's theatricals. Irving laughs at 

 thei? anathema, and Avell he may. It "prohibits him from preaching 

 in any church or chapel within the jurisdiction of the Assembly. in 

 other words, it prohibits a loud-voiced man, with a huge chapel m Lon- 

 don, a rich congregation in London, and a thousand a-year m London, 

 from <^oing back to live on barley-cakes and beer ; to walk the hill-side 

 for five miles in a storm through his ragged and growling flock ; to be 

 snubbed by the elders, and taken to task for every text by the old 

 women; to preach three sermons a-day, and perform the whole tor 

 three hundred a-year. Erso. They may prohibit till doomsoay ; and 

 the more they prohibit, the better for the whiskered heretic. Ihey but 

 sound the trumpet of fame to him ; they advertize him ; they propa- 

 gate his name ; they spice and cook his follies with the provocations ot 

 party spirit; they lift the blunderer into the martyr; beat the drum 

 for his recruits, and give him a commission in the local militia oi pious 

 innovators. The man of whiskers would ask nothing better, he could 

 imagine nothing half so good ; and if Irving, having succeeded m 

 bringing the breath of the Kirk Assembly to blow him out of their 

 juri^iction, knows how to use this singular act of luck, he is sure to 

 make his fortune. 



If our bile has ever been moved in our country walks, it is when we 

 have seen the inscriptions in the country churchyards. Before us has 

 been the luxuriance of the English landscape, the most perfectly beau- 

 tiful, the most touching to the heart, the softest to the eye, the most 

 tasteful, thought-creating, and spirit-solacing m the world. Above us 

 was spread a summer sky, in its diversity of cloud and colour, in its 

 various grandeur, and its rich repose, unequalled m any chmate from 

 the Equator to the Pole. Yet at our feet, in the spot, of all others, 

 fitted for the creation of feelings, solemn, deep, and sacred, stares upon 

 us some gross burlesque of feehng, common sense, and common English. 



Some — 



" The' here you been, 

 I'm no more seen." 



The sublime of some poetic cobler, who is suffered, by the negligent 

 clergyman, to desecrate the grave with his atrocious doggerel. Yet 

 fulsome flattery is worse to our ears and eyes than bad verse ; and what 

 are we to think of the taste, or the sincerity, that produced the foUowing 

 tribute to that very slippery personage, the late IMr. Huskisson. The 

 man's death was undoubtedly a frightful one, and the mode of it to be 

 greatly regretted, on the mere ground of its being undergone by a 

 human creature; but "full pride of talents"— " perfection of useful- 

 ness"— " illustrious statesman"— " most honoured representative, and 

 such things, are extravagances, which should not be suffered to find 

 their place in the funeral inscription of such a man. What ! old sly 

 Huskisson ! the hanger-on of every party which would employ him. 

 Is the history of his share in the free-trade system, or his last scene with 

 the Wellington cabinet forgotten ? Let truth be told ; and then let any 

 man. of common understanding ask, what grounds are there for national 



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