[38]. Mr. Canning, when on a tour to the Lakes, did Mr. Wordsworth the honour of paying him a visit. The favour was duly appreciated, but quite unexpected. Really, we do not know any one so little capable of appreciating the Lyrical Ballads.
[39]. We once heard it said, that ‘Mr. Canning had the most elegant mind since Virgil.’ But we could not assent to this remark, as we just then happened to think of Claude Lorraine.
[40]. We have said nothing here of the impiety of Mr. Canning’s parodies, though a great deal has been said of the impiety of Mr. Hone’s, which unfortunately happen to be on the other side of the question. It is true that one man may steal a horse sooner than another can look over a hedge. Mr. Hone is not a Cabinet Minister, and therefore is not allowed to take liberties with the Liturgy. It is to no purpose to urge that Mr. Hone is a very good-natured man, that he is mild and inoffensive in his manners, that he is utterly void of guile, with a great deal of sincere piety, and that his greatest vice is that he is fond of a joke, and given to black-letter reading. The answer is—‘But he has written parodies’—and it is to no purpose to reply—So has Mr. Canning! He is a Cabinet Minister, and therefore incapable of any thing vulgar or profane. One would think that the triumphant question put by Mr. Hone to his Jury, ‘Whether Mr. Jekyll’s Parody on Black-eyed Susan was meant to ridicule Sir William Curtis or the Ballad of Black-eyed Susan?’ would have put an end for ever to the cant on this subject, if reason could put an end to cant on any subject. The fate of different men is curious. Mr. Canning, who has all his life been defending the most odious and mischievous men and measures, passes, on that very account, for a most amiable character and an accomplished statesman. Mr. Hone, who defended himself against a charge of blasphemy for a parody on the Church Service of which Mr. Canning had furnished him with a precedent, rose from the attack by the force of good-nature, and by that noble spirit of freedom and honesty in which to be unjustly accused is to be superior to all fear, and to speak truth is to be eloquent—but that he did not suffer himself to be crushed to atoms, and made a willing sacrifice to the prejudice, talent, and authority arrayed against him, is a resistance to the opinions of the world and the insolence of power, that can never be overlooked or forgiven.
‘A wit’s a feather, and a chief’s a rod:
An honest man’s the noblest work of God!’
[41]. It is amusing to see an English woman in the streets of Paris looking like a dowdy, and scarcely able to put one foot before another for very awkwardness and shame, who but a week before she left home had perhaps trampled on a dress brought home to her, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, thrown a cap into the fire, and kicked her milliner down stairs for bringing her such unfashionable trumpery. One would scarcely believe that a mere change of place would make such an alteration in behaviour. When we see our country-women so unpleasantly situated, we are naturally both ashamed and sorry for them: but, as in this case, we pity many of them more than they deserve.
[42]. Lady Byron, when a girl, was so affected at seeing Mrs. Siddons as Isabella, in the Fatal Marriage, that she was carried out fainting into the lobbies, and kept sobbing and exclaiming involuntarily ‘Oh, Byron, Byron!’ Egad, she had enough of Byron afterwards. This good-natured remark is not ours. Whose, reader, do you suppose it is? We have heard the late Mr. Curran say, that when he was a young man studying the law at the Temple, his supreme delight was to see Mrs. Siddons in her great parts, and all he wanted was a couple of pails on each side of him to fill them with his tears! Such things have been.
[43]. ‘Lodging-houses for the Universe,’ and ‘Stage-coaches of the Universe.’
[44]. In this sort of representative Government the utility of the Press seems by no means superseded.
[45]. Papers on Codification. What an odd title. Mr. Bentham writes a style of his own, and in his titlepages he puts his best foot foremost.