312 
geantries occupy nearly the whole; no plot, 
no entanglement, no love. |The question, 
is) Sir Gaston de Blondeville guilty of the 
murder: or not?—it’s an) old. murder—is 
the sole point, to which all is made sub- 
servient ; and the reader’s sympathy, con- 
trary to that custom which carries our 
hopes and fears along with the persecuted 
individual, goes in the present case with 
the persecuting ghost all the way, from 
first to last, until he has fairly hunted down 
his game. 
A glimpse—a casual flash of her olden 
power of description, comes here and there 
across the heavy monotony; the different 
aspects of Warwick Castle, by the setting 
sun; by moonlight, breathe of Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe again. Yet, on the whole, we gaze 
with unfeigned sadness upon this monu- 
ment of mental decline. All her own pecu- 
liar ‘witchery is put to shame when the 
real sprite appeareth. 
The Poet’s Offering; an Appeal to the 
People of England in Behalf of the Distressed 
Manufacturers, 1826.—Well-meant as all 
this is, it is sad nonsense—not the poetry 
particularly, of which nothing needbe said, 
but the purpose. ‘The distress is of a kind 
not to be removed or relieved by the petty 
offerings of extorted or voluntary charity, 
not by the surplus of publication-profits 
(scarce things, by the way), or of subscrip- 
tion-balls, or the produce of under-sold 
silks, or the fruits of ladies’ work-bags, 
young or old, but by national contribution, 
if the local and legal funds fall short of the 
demand upon them. 
With all the grinding misery before us to 
touch the gentle and melt the obdurate,— 
with all the efforts that have been made, and 
the examples that have been set to stimulate, 
not more than £130,000 have been raised ; 
and that sum-has been applied, not to the 
relief of the poor, but of the payers of the 
poor-rates—we do not say by design exactly, 
butin effect, and that indisputably. The 
relief afforded to the miserable must have 
been furnished by the poor-rates, a provision 
made by the laws of the land for distress, 
without limit ; and if any place be really 
pressed beyond its bearing, the adjoining 
parishes are directed to be taken in to its aid, 
and to this taking-in we see and know no 
limit till we reach the shores of the island. 
The poor-rates cry aloud for some equa- 
lizing process. Under the existing system 
one place pays a shilling in the pound, 
another a sovereign. Itis a prize to live in 
one part of the country, and a penalty in 
another. The pressure of public burdens 
should be made to bear as equally as possi- 
ble; but this natural principle is perpetually 
lost sight of in the legislative measures of 
this land of equality. 
A Ketter to Henry Hallam, Esq., on the 
Conduct of the Catholic Priesthood dwring 
the late Elections in Ireland, by W.S. Rose, 
1826.—If it were not for the respectable 
names which glitter in the title-page of this 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
petit morceau, destined henceforth, we 
suppose, to figure in Mr. Murray’s list of 
publications ‘* on the Catholic Question,”’ 
it would scarcely be worthy, of the very 
slight notice we are going to give it. 
Mr. Rose, we presume, passes. for a 
friend of Catholic Emancipation ; but save 
us from our friends, say we. The sum ef 
his letter is this. ‘The Catholic priests have, 
it seems, been interfering in Irish  elec- 
tions, and urging their flocks to vote for 
emancipators—that is, against the interests 
and in the teeth of the commands of their 
Protestant landlords. Now this is an en- 
ormous eyil, says the alarmist, and one 
which emancipation will but augment. 
No, replies Mr. Rose, give complete eman- 
cipation — admit the Catholic into Par- 
liament, for this very reason, because the 
priest will no longer haye either the oeca- 
sion or the opportunity of exercising his 
destructive influence; his power will slip 
out of his hands into those of the Catholic 
gentry ; the Catholic poor will naturally 
and spontaneously vote for the Catholic 
gentleman ; and thus this influence, about 
which you are so much alarmed, will, of 
itself, go out like the snuff of a candle. 
You have given the Catholic the election 
franchise, adds Mr. R.: there you were 
wrong; but admit him into the Parliament, 
and you neutralize the pernicious effect of 
the first measure. 
Does it quite escape Mr. R., that the 
admission of Catholics into Parliament will 
not immediately withdraw. the Catholic 
tenant from the Protestant landlord,—that, 
of course, as much whipping-in as. ever 
will be required, and that the only effective 
whippers-in will still be the Catholic 
priests? Surely the Catholic priest. will 
bestir himself in a triple degree to. seduce 
the tenant’s allegiance from a Protestant 
landlord in favour of a Catholic candidate. 
Remarks on the Character and Writings 
of John Milton, by the Rev. Dr. Channing, 
of Boston, North America, 1826. — We 
point out this very able review of Milton’s 
writings and character to the notice of our 
readers, because we know the reprints 
of American publications have a very nar- 
row circulation in this country. They do 
not get well advertised, and whatever, in 
our times, is not welladvertised, has no 
chance of being extensively read. This is 
to be lamented. We shall be doing our 
readers good service by occasionally noticing 
American productions. They may. rely 
upon it the Americans, progressing rapidly 
as they do, are destined to infuse new and 
youthful blood into the effete or wasting 
energies Of English literature. There’ is 
among them a freedom of thought and an 
independence of manner to which we. are 
strangers—a disregard of ancient dogmas in 
the creeds of criticism, to the height of: 
which our flagging wings can no. longer 
mount. ‘They come fresh and full-born to. 
the review of English genius, and ane | 
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