The Press. — London, England, 1853-10-08 00:00:00

OCTODtR 8, 1853. SKETCHES OF RADICALS 3. THE RADICAL PHILOSOPHER. Auntorott Hampden Blugg, anal Fitz Plebington. Ham others. are dis tinguished by those graces of mind anal person which make them at once the darlings of Wapping anti the heroes of Cow h ole . vet w h at would they be, I should like to know, bait for the Philosopher of the party? The Thinker tomes before the Doer ins Ferdinand° Nulailaus, the Mystic Radical. has it), and just its the New Academy inspired Cicero. or the study of Kant influenced Schiller; anal just as Burke found the whole Whig party in ideas the greater part tat' his life just so, I say. Blugg would be nobody without Mawker anal Dobbs ! These gentlemen, in fart, are the speculative men of the party. and do the abstract anal high-down business. Paws the reader re member the sensation proalueed by Dolabs's pamphlet, "The Right of the Aristoerats of England to the Land Considered," which was pro nouneed (by Dobbs anal his friends) to be the finest pamphlet since the days of Swift? 1 know, to be sure, that young Niplant, of the Inner Temple, suggested, at the l'onderers, when a large party of us went for at lark one evening, after a tireenwielt dinner. that the riyhl of Dobbs to his cordemoys was a cognate quest' which lie hoped to have discussed soon ; but it is not lay ribaldry of this sort that the ?mph. are to be put down. No, no! Have you not a not ion of Mawker and Dobbs from that pamphlet ? see Mawker kwhere, by-the-bye. I alone wish to see himi in my mind's eye. A hard, solid, acute, coarse face—with a large mouth and long upper lip—a firm pushing step, anal overhanging eyebrows. Everything about him betokens the sturdy material speculator, who at nine years of age " moved" in the nursery for a return of the HlM her of wooden horses anal humming-tops supplied to the youth of I;reat Britain from 1K1.2 to Is:1:i ! Ile never sailed even in those early days a toy boat on the Serpentine without asking old Nlawker (an early friend of Thelwall's) some question aviropos o f it a bout th e Navigation Laws. The Wher hailed the promise of the young Utilitarian with joy ; and tears flowed down those venerable cheeks when the youngster asked, with sous' scorn, what was the Ntie of at butterfly? Thu Radical Philosopher of this staple, o rdinary s ort i s nit inter esting and curious fellow. Ile applies to soeiety precisely the test which lie applies to his boots. and is prepared to explain every pheno menon of history as he would explain the vonstruction 311111 10111110 SC tal the boots—good solid specimens of leather, and in which you stump along sound anal dry. In society he saps all :aggregation Of animals liar die purposes of rontl'ort, anal that only; anal philosophy exists with him to regulate the feeding of the anilaals. Political philosophy is the Schnee of restntining, every animal to his own dish, and all goes well if the dish be tolembly full. Ile is not given over-much to wonder of any kind f for ilon't the very MlA's go by machinery, like our mill at Sentteltent. anal wasn't the Cock-lane ghost. explased ?). but he sometimes rondesciands taa express it degree of surprise at the institutions of Lungs Kings, chinches, it ligioats pictures, traditions, cc 11 . 1114 011 it's Kllll3llll 111111 31t1110. 31 l'itst - crileit'S, are strange things to account for. The very bill of biding far the Australian vessel has "Goal send the good ship safe to her port." —surely a lamentably unpractical sentence—upon its labl-fashitaned page. What is worst, dig where he will. the goon fillow finals some. thing of this unaccountable nature at its bottom. if he looks: into apprenticeship, he finals it bused upon religion ; he 44mile:seem's to glance into heraldry, he finals it the outgrowth of transcendani heroism : mat a penny-piece, with its royal head, 11110 its " Pfi ih'efija, “ Ila is syntliolic of both. Proverbs. rural spaarts, nursery rhymes, christmas trees. superstitions about salt spilling, figures on trade weights. and innumerable objects. ',-' 1 1 . 3 1 t mid small. trstifY that etileula. titan anal prudential speculation are gat. and never have been, flue agencies which have prodneed the institutions at ' Din opt% The Philosopher is puzzle& llr sees that he eats becitte-e he is hungry, and dresses because he is void. anal he can't final that all OV Urn Ment anal manners are explicable from such simple instincts. Ile finals that his friend Boller, when l ie goes with hnlfat million into Yorkshire. can't for the lift' of him get at tithe of the respect from his gardener that is shown to poor Castilian of Castilian with his, encumbered estate. He learns that, a century ago, at young fellow without a thousand pennds in the world got it eountry to follow him because his name wits Charles Edward Stuart ; and that, in our own day. we have rinsed it 3'013311y. 103`31111W we 3143111, think it noatr that white men should make 'dark unit Wl3l - k. Witat is our Mewl to miske of a 'Mildred such 0W11301111'113% as these ? Ile falls bark upon Ow theory that Europe has been barbarous front the lieginning—that whatever has been, has been wrong—mid that culightonueut belong,' t o our own time. THE PRESS. 541 There was a time when this philosophy twhich is truly the philosophy of Radios/ism proper. which. 1 suppose. means reforming at the roots of things) Was more potent than it is now. About the Reform Bill days the Radical Philosopher was intolerable. Ile walked the world like the pedant in \Where. who asks his lady-love W route and see him dissect the body of a beautiful woman—disseeting. and to dissect. With a flourish of the s e n t re t, h e Was i nto every organ i se d body that history has gifted us with. and Was hod on sh o wing up Ha I tttt dint condition. ICr weer told that thoCrl't of the world was 11011111 i out : that nobody ever acted. since the world began. except for the purpose of making something for himself ; that all the rest was superstition, disease, sentimentalism, or ath-etation. According to these philosophers, our *nicest ors undertook the Crit sades in order to turn a penny in Palestine. Alfred. with his Missal, waso my at tit th'll'ltt sOll 111811111004 fanatic titan hither, w ith hi s Bibl e . St. Dominic an order as TOlaki WS St a rtti a firm : and the Benedictines never had any different motives f ro m th ose which Made Mugger sIIVCCSSiiII ill the sugar trade. A few quiet mot. here and them, who had refleeted on the eternal principles of ethics, hinted that all this, though odd, wit. 4 by no means new. So far from our never having truly recognisigl utility. and a sage selfishness. we had all hitherto been only too attached to both ; And it had been the constant complaint of our respectable (though despiactlf, friend the Clergyman, that such attachment was too strong for the infinite and supersensual necessities of o ur s piritual nature. But, hillo ! Nlawker and Dobbs have taken up their hats. and our Philosophers are gone. lam getting too bad. They are gone to pass the evening with the Radical historian, who is preparing " England from the Wat Tyler point of view ;" mut+ animated by the light con verse of the lhidiral jester, who has just written a brilliant little paper The Peenige, and its Deseent from Adam ;" Adam (however con• venient to our friend in this way) being genendly considered by thw party rather MI illliK/Sitioll :—but never mind that ! Mawker, however. is, in private life, a thoroughly respectable man. We must allow for the good he has done by urging the establishment of baths and washing-houses, and other schemes. all excellent, and tending to the material welfare of the people. And indeed, I must say, that in spite Of his admiration of the registration system 411 N relieving the public front the dontinati 111 l of the Clittreltl,—in spite of his frequent assertion that his boys should begin the world as philosophers, and he merely registered as fresh units in the human Itive,--thatt he yielded, I say, more grtwefttlly than I expected from Liar, to the determination of Mrs. Ntawker, that they should bo baptised like Christians, in the parish church. THE SPANISH TROMIA1)0111. Gaily Lord (',EtescshoN pall's! his cigar. Lightly pil.ll jaiiVhih g th►• st'm• ; Singing," As l'As.mt:amroN's • pupil ' I cis m •. Lor! in ►lil►lun uu •y stint lal home?" PAlmenwroN's eye on his " pupil" tt'a•; kept, Eyi. (if it weazel that sparingly hlept Singing, "1 k who most very SI PIM come into the 'Foreign tool out of the ' MUST HAVE BEEN SAID DEFOIIE. illy Caledonian Premier willed it. We've Sculch'd the Russian finlike, wit killed it. A CAIIINET•MAKEIN IDEA. I.ntit) Ant:ittlLEN's &Twit ion Of sui Ottoman is 4 we , 11.1. ittorrilltiotte. lit. snys it is a thing over which a pretty piece Of work wade, etnd then Ice can hit flown comfortably. THE FOUR 611 VAT POWERS The Hear growls, The Eagle soar- The Cock erowm, The Lion—onoreg! ..11