LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LTFE. 271 



Gillman's one of these days. Irving,* you may depend upon it, is a 

 pure humbug. He lias about three good attitudes, and the lower 

 notes of his voice are superb, with a fine manly tremulation that 

 sets women mad, as the roar of a noble bull does a field of kine ; 

 but beyond this he is nothing, really nothing. He has no sort of 

 real earnestness, feeble, pumped up, boisterous, overlaid stuff is his 



staple ; he is no more a Chalmers than f is a Jeffrey. I shall do 



an article that will finish him by and by. * * * Neither Maginn nor 

 any one else has spoken to me about the concerns and prospects of 

 our friend. My belief is, that he has come over by Croker's advice to 

 assist Theodore in Bull,\ and to do all sorts of by jobs. I also be- 

 lieve that Croker thinks he himself will have a place in the cabinet 

 in case of the Duke of York's beins King, and of course 31. looks 

 forward to being snugly set somewhere in that event. It is obvi- 

 ous that Hook, Maginn, and all this set hate Canning ; and indeed 

 a powerful party of high ton (Duke of York at head thereof) 

 is forming itself against his over-conciliation system. I am not 

 able to judge well, but I still believe that Canning is the man no 

 Tory Ministry can do without ; moreover, that the Marquis of 

 Hertford (the great man with Croker's party, and the destined 

 Premier of Frederick I.) has not a character to satisfy the country 

 gentlemen of England. I met Canning at dinner one day at Mr. 

 Charles Ellis's ; the Secretary asked very kindly after you, and 

 mentioned that ' he had had the pleasure of making acquaintance 

 with Mr. Blackwood, a very intelligent man indeed.' I am to dine 

 with him on Saturday, when I shall see more of him. He was ob- 

 viously in a state of exhausted spirits (and strength indeed) when 

 I met him. Rogers told me he knew that Jeffrey was mortally an- 

 noyed with Hazlitt's article on the periodicals being in the Edin- 

 burgh Review, and that it was put there by Thomas Thomson and 

 John A. Murray,§ who were co-editors, while ' the king of men' 



* Edward Irving, the celebrated preacher, was at this time sailing onwards on the full tide of 

 popularity. Mrs. Oliphant; in her recent biography, writes thus regarding his famous sermon 

 preached during this year to the London Missionary Society: "There can be little doubt that it 

 was foolishness to most of his hearers, and that after the fascination of his eloquence was over, 

 nine-tenths of them would recollect, with utter wonder, or even with possible contempt, that 

 wildest visionary cunception." 



t A weJJ-known Whig lawyer. 



% The John Bull newspaper, edited by Theodore Ilook. 



§ Afterwards Lord Murray. 



