The National Register. — London, England, 1809-08-20 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. ur tng, 604titution, anD No. 86. SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 1809. Sin, POLITICAL DISQUISITION. NV MR LH EIGHTY-FOUR. TO WILLIAM COBBETT. You have condescended to treat the public with the very dregs aad cads of your beastly imagination. If the prin ciples you desseminate were insufficient to point out the port:on of the people to whom your lucubrations are really addressed, the language you employ would effectually remove all doubt. For two or three :;aiarday's you were silent about Mr. WARDLE, uncertain what would be the conduct of the party with whom you. are connected, or whether such a degree of infamy. attached to him as would render it impossible to afford any assistance in recovcsing the fragments, the dlljeeta membra of his fallen character. Your Register of the 19th of. Aiirust tells the public it is the interest of every one to Mr. WNRDLE against the " vermin" who attack him, and• perhaps the English language does not furnish an instance in which the low dis gusting origin, the habits and education of a filthy writer are more appropriately delineated than in the , sentence which announces your iuieution of Impelling the. attacks which have been made upon the god cf your idolatry. As the circle of your Political Register is every da becoming more circumscribed, and as few readers of the Notional Register will probably have seen it, I Will transcribe it ver batim; and if, afier perusing it, there can be two opinions entertained of the miscreant who has insulted the public by such beastly nonsense, I shall be more surprised than am already at your having been so long tolerated. do not agree with my correspondent, that the coun try • vermin,' as he emphatically calls them, are beneath my notice; for though I a,;ree with him, that it is most pro bable, frum what we have recently seen, that they were • blown at me by their masters in town, as the beggars in • Ireland blow lice at those against whom they have a spite ;' ;till, to follow upon the comparison, he will agree, 1 sup pose, that it is necessary to squeeze the said lice, and not to . pretend that they are beneath your notice." You havre spent a great deal of - time in your last paper, in giving to the public, reasons why Mr. WARDLE ought not to be angry at . what is said about his conduct. You would not .certainly have thrown this advice away if it had been unnecessary, or if it had not been calculated to produce some etkct upon the only mind where such ad vice could produce it, viz. Mr. Waanne's. The conclusion is irresistible, and it is neither illogical or unfair to deduce that Mr. Waani.r: has been angry. Indeed we know- he has, and Sir RICHARD PHILLIPS too. But why not try the influence of the same reasoning upon yourself. What is good for the goose, they . say is good for the gan(fer, and the rune considerations, which ought to allay the feverish heat of Colonel WARDLE'S anger, should prevent you from cursing, swearing, damning, • and stumping. Yes, you Mr. CORBETT, for the writer of this knows that you dil all and 11.—So. LXXX PRICE 0(1. every of these things, most outrageously, at what was said of you. But there is this difference, Mister COBBETT, be tween you and the persons I haye alluded to. Sir 111CHAIRD is notoriously a very weak man, and strong impressions are but seldom made upon fools. Colonel WARDLIg is no fool, though a little roguish; and yet till his acquaintance with -the Reformers—till his initiation into a certain :shoot of Politics, he passed for a good sort of man, though not a very moral one. When he ascended the pedestal of poll.: tics, he bid farewell to the calm, retired. enjoyments of dome4tic life; and what has he acquired by the exchange? Elevated beyond his hopes, unsupported - by abilities, cha racter, or even a conscious rectitude of means, I:e finds himself unable to retain his situation, and has sunk even below the negative infirmity of his former situation. Can you wonder then, that he should feel angry ? Is it nothing to find himself exposed, derided, pointed at by the finer of scorn, and to fe..el himself under a necessity of associating with such characters, for instance, as yourself? The indul gence, even of anger upon such an occasion, leaves a fa vourable impression upon the mind, as it spews that he has not lost all sensibility -of character, in the same manner that the occasional blush of a prostitute discovers her not to be entirely without a sense of shame. But dismissing the Colonel and yourself for the present, I shall make thy. Letter the vehicle of some (observations upon the plant of Reform which have unfortunately been associated with such characters. The • slight acquaintance you have with history, and the particular avocat;sn which has employed / the greater part of your own tifLi has made you mast er of the secret, that the .people in- all ages have been, first the dupes, and not unfrequently the - vietimi of weak or - wicked men who have pretended to have their welfare at heart. The politician or the. philosopher in the retirement of his closet may form imaginary systems for the govern: meat of inaukind, which if reduced to practise would produce nothing but anarchy, confusion,-and bloodshed. _lt is scarcely possible to effect considerablelilteration in the constitution of any country, Where habit has canonized e ven defects, and almost sanctified abuses, andwhere thig second , nature has become (what it generally does) more powerfui than the first. It is almost impossible, I say,, to effect such a change without such consequences. If it be asserted on one hand that every government, however perfect, will necessarily require some alterations, if it be only from the corruption or the vissicitudes of human affairs, it . may be as fairly affirmed on the other, that mope ever was so bad, that in order to ame, d, it was ecessary first to subvert and destroy it. The skilful physician and the bold empi ' rical impostor act very differently. The former endeavours by cooling medicines to allay the inflammation which Ails tresses the patient, he endeavours by corroborauts to strengthen the Weaker parts, and by restoratives to give new vigour and efficiency to the vital principles, and to . heal the diseased members. He will not madly order the surgeon to amputate the ann for a whitloe on the finger. The empiric on the contrary, leaves nothing to the vis dicatrix ?laurel', but administers exasperatiug irritants, and