is unreasonable enough to talk of liking, as a necessary preliminary to such a union,) says, "What have you to do with your likings and your preferences, child? depend upon it, it is safest to begin with a little aversion. 1 am sure I hated your poor dear uncle like a blackamoor, before we were married; and yet you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him." Such is my learned friend's argument to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the house so glibly as he had expected, my honourable and learned friend presently changed his tack; and put forward a theory, which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth. "True philosophy," says my honourable friend, will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their conflicting vices. The virtues, where more than one exist, may live harmoniously together; but the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, and therefore furnish to the moral engineer the power by which he can make each keep the other under control." Admirable! but, upon this doctrine, the poor man who has but one single vice must be in a very bad way. No fulcrum, no moral power for effecting his cure. Whereas his more fortunate neighbour, who has two or more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of becoming a very virtuous member of society. I wonder how my learned friend would like to have this doctrine introduced into his domestic establishment. For instance, suppose that I discharge a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could not venture to recommend him to my honourable and learned friend. It might be the poor man's only fault, and therefore clearly incorrigible; but if I had the good fortune to find out that he was also addicted to stealing, might I not, with a safe conscience, send him to my learned friend with a strong recommendation, saying, I send you a man whom I know to be drunkard; but I am happy to assure you, he is also a thief; you cannot do better than employ him; you will make his drunkenness counteract his thievery, and no doubt you will bring him out of the conflict a very moral personage.

My honourable and learned friend, however, not content with laying down these new rules for reformation, thought it right to exemplify them in his own person, and, like Pope's Longinus, to be "himself the great sublime he drew." My learned friend tells us that Dr. Johnson was (what he, Dr. Johnson, called himself) a good hater: and

that among the qualities which he hated most were two which my honourable friend unites in his own person, that of Whig and that of Scotchman. "So that," says my honourable friend, "if Dr. Johnson were alive, and were to meet me at the club, of which he was a founder, and of which I am now an unworthy member, he would probably break up the meeting rather than sit it out in such society." No, sir, not so; my honourable and learned friend forgets his own theory. If he had been only a Whig, or only a Scotchman, Dr. Johnson might have treated him as he apprehends; but being both, the great moralist would have said to my honourable friend, "Sir, you are too much of a Whig to be a good Scotchman; and, sir, you are too much of a Scotchman to be a good Whig." It is, no doubt, from the collision of these two vices in my learned friend's person, that he has become what I, and all who have the happiness of meeting him at the club, find him-an entirely faultless character.

SECTION LXXX.

EXTRACT FROM CANNING'S SPEECH ON THE PORTUGUESE EXPEDITION.

SIR, I set out with saying that there were reasons which entirely satisfied my judgment that nothing short of a point of national faith, or national honour, would justify, at the present moment, any voluntary approximation to the possibility of war. Let me be understood, however, distinctly, as not meaning to say that I dread war in a good cause, (and in no other may it be the lot of this country ever to engage!) from a distrust of the strength of the country to commence it, or of her resources to maintain it. I dread it, indeed—but upon far other grounds; I dread it from an apprehension of the tremendous consequences which might arise from any hostilities in which we might now be engaged. Some years ago, in the discussion of the negotiation respecting the French war against Spain, I took the liberty of adverting to this topic. I then stated that the position of this country, in the present state of the world, was one of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but between conflicting principles; and that it was by a neutrality alone that we could maintain that balance, the preservation of which I believe to be essential to the wel

fare of mankind. I then said, that I feared the next war which should be kindled in Europe, would be a war, not so much of armies, as of opinions. Not four years have elapsed, and behold my apprehensions realized! It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that this war of opinion is at present confined but it is a war of opinion that Spain (whether as government or as nation,) is now waging against Portugal; it is a war which has commenced in hatred of the new institutions of Portugal. How long is it reasonable to expect that Portugal will abstain from retaliation? If into that war this country shall be compelled to enter, we shall enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate rather than exasperate-and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that this country, (however earnestly she might wish to avoid it,) could not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under her banners, all the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of this new power in any future war, which excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to have a giant's strength, but it would be another to use it like a giant. The consciousness of such strength is, undoubtedly, a source of confidence and security; but in the situation in which this country stands, our business is not to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to content ourselves with letting the professors of violent and exaggerated doctrines on both sides feel, that it is not their interest to convert an umpire into an adversary. The situation of England, amidst the struggle of political opinions which agitates, more or less sensibly, different countries of the world, may be compared to that of the ruler of the winds, as described by the poet :

"Celsâ sedet Æolus arce,

Sceptra tenens; mollitque animos et temperat iras;
Ni faciat, maria ac terras cœlumque profundum,
Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras."

The consequence of letting loose the passions, at present chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of desolation which no man can contemplate without horror; and I should not sleep easy on my couch, if I were conscious that I had contributed to precipitate it by a single moment. This, then, is the reason-a reason very different from fear -the reverse of consciousness of disability-why I dread the recurrence of hostilities in any part of Europe; why I

would bear much, and would forbear long; why I would, as I have said, put up with almost any thing that did not touch national faith and national honour; rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash of which we hold in our hands, not knowing whom they may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried. Such is the love of peace which the British government acknowledges; and such the necessity for peace which the circumstances of the world inculcate. I will push these topics no farther. I return, in conclusion, to the object of the address. Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked; because it is our duty to do so; and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal, not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions-but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not

come.

SECTION LXXXI.

THE MONKEY EMANCIPATOR.....Blackwood's Magazine.

'Tis strange what awkward figures and odd capers,
Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers;
But there are many shallow politicians

Who take their bias from bewilder'd journals,
Turn state-physicians,

And make themselves foolscaps of the diurnals.

One of this kind-not human, but a monkey,
Had read himself at last to this sour creed,
That he was nothing but oppression's flunkey,
And man a tyrant over all his breed.
His very dreams were full of martial beavers,
And drilling pugs, for liberty pugnacious,
To sever chains vexatious:

In fact, he thought that all his injured line
Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop 'em
Till they had cleared a road to freedom's shrine-
Until perchance the turnpike men should stop 'em.

Full of this rancour,

Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes,
It came into his brains

To give a look-in at the Crown and Anchor,
Where certain solemn sages of the nation
Were at that moment in deliberation

How to relieve the wide world of its chains,
Pluck despots down,

And thereby crown

Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation.
Pug heard their speeches with great approbation,
And gazed with pride upon the liberators;
To see mere coal-heavers

Such perfect Bolivars

Waiters of inns sublimed to innovators,
And slaters dignified as legislators-

Small publicans demanding (such their high sense
Of liberty) an universal license,—

And patten-makers easing freedom's clogs-
The whole thing seem'd

So fine, he deem'd

The smallest demagogues as great as gogs!

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle,
Walk'd out at last, and turn'd into the strand,
To the left hand,

Conning some portions of the previous twaddle,
And striding with a step that seem'd design'd
To represent the mighty march of mind.
No wonder, then, that he should quickly find
He stood in front of that intrusive pile,
Where Cross keeps many a kind,
Of bird confin'd,

And free-born animal in durance vile,-
A thought that stirr'd up all the monkey-bile!

The window stood ajar

It was not far,

Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb-
The hour was verging on the supper time,
And many a growl was sent through many a bar-
Meanwhile pug scrambled upward like a tar,
And soon crept in,
Unnoticed in the din