The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1822-02-02 00:00:00

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Ti Ailiatl4ol4la•-• 1111775 H PRES 4
will s'• ..,oeit Alir Mei .110 Tlrlt!,
I - • :Lowell.. •
=JR, JANUAItIf
poi %ASO% Hooded, not Demi
1: 'lll6l-4Ve lire here in an age of wonder, of civic and Wl-
tical excitement almost unexampled in the eveatio I history
of oar country; we breathe, in fact, an 'atmosphere so
highly charged with the elements of rivW discord, that the
phases which 'obscure and brighten our horizon at intervals
ni rapid succession, might be regarded as so mall "mounts
anticipations of future dimention, if we had not been Ise(
accustomed to witness the intolerance, and' to despise 1117
impotence, of a faction to whom these iembeatiuns are solely.
attributable—of a faction too, which, is their representative.
character, have been most signally.hommeed (though most
elnworthily rewarded) by Royal femme; yet now array them-
selves% open and insolent rebellion against the sill of their
Sovereign. This you will think strange, almost incredible,
cousiderimi the entire stale of our editions with your eons.
try, and after all the rude a which have been lately
made to reconcile the policy of a Governmeat now most
anxiously disposed to meliorate the condition done people—
to render us, In fine, prosperous and happy. But we strug-
gle with this Intolerant faction, of which the Corporation is
the foes% as with an hydra, and rhea we hope to have I
achieved a victory and crushed the mousier for ever, we Gaol
him revive again, assuming a thiourea% fantastic slid pro-
: scriptise shapes, each partakiug of some new attribute of
his original deformity.
During the King's visit all was joy and exultation, witani.
only tied concord; the great body of his subjects received
him with triumph awl seelani•tiarti—eau simultaneous burst II
of pure undisguisail loyalty spread from shore to shore—
the whole Gallo* appeared to rise en muse to welcome the
Royal Stranger to a laud which had never before felt tie
fuWsieps of owe of his rare in tinalioyed friendship. They
did not desire may pledge for the anticipated happineee they
hoped to enjoy form the visit—their loyalty was the Native
offspring, nut alone of principle, but of passion, glowing
Rom the purest source of national lioapitalily—it was not a
frigid token of allegiance to the first magistrate, bet the
powerful impulse of a former attachment to a favourite
Prince reanimated and revived, and by a happy coincidence
of circumstances, now Goodly consecrated on their restive
lend —" They gave, in the fulness of their joy, generous
credit for the future blessings of his reign, and paid in ad-
vance the dearest tribute of their effeetiusi."
But this great national jubilee has been celebrated, It
mesld sees, is vain; the faith whit+ was plighted epos the
altar of our country, our Sovereign himself assisting at the
ritual, in which was included au one of the least of its eon-
ditioes, an abstinence from all irritable excitement, lies been
grossly violated, not alone at the Bacchanalian orgies of the
Mansitro•bouse and at Morrison's, but in the midst of the
forum, in the face of open day. The wounds which siege.
recommit, Civil war, bigotry, and prejudice had Melded,
which time had eiratrised, and Royal beneficence had emirs-
. soured to lae.l, by his own gracious condescension, have
, been opened anew, and the demos of discord, loosened from
his chain., revels in malignant triumph at the misthiefs
which he hopes still to inflict upon the peace of our society,
and the interests of our unhappy country, as if our soul,
'already saturated with the blood of her children, and strewed
. with motmentents of our shame, of faction, and civil strife,
world seem to have imbibed so much of the poison, as to
have imparted even to the offspring of successive geomatioes
of the same caste, an instinctive •ntipaiby to the growth of
liberality, an heritable claim to the right of predominance,
asemsdaety. and exclusion.
lileetodhese proofs of a disposition to counteract teeny
eillhollet our Government to diffuse a spirit of euatiliatiow
t% our people been confined to the civic revels to which
alluded, although we might exclaim, " keine et,
yet we might still hope, in the charities of our us.
tf trite, that when the conflox of the passions produced by the
Influence of excess had subsided, and reason was again
allowed to resume her dominion, some maiefestatiems slf
contrition would have followed, and adopting fur use motes,
fnjerferum I-median est Wirier," the de unken exploit
would have passed away, and the eta% be at once washed
from am amaieeies. But the late triumph at the Etldbittasit
House, with the circumstances attending it—the yell of an-
civilised, intolerant seelansation, which was put forth on the
rejection •,f ten or twelve moat respectable Catholic mer-
' chants from a constituent body, composed of I,MIIO Pro..
' testauts, has al once dissipated our hopes and confirmed our
lean, exposed the folly of tampering with the perjudiees of
jimorancie, suit demonstrated the danger of coullding power
he the fanatics of exclusion and bigotry.
I It is Notoriously uwiug to our political misfortnees that
/Is faction, iusienifieent sod contemptible in all the relations
• of comparative wealth, indepeollenee, and commercial re.
.epectubility, have been able to usurp the dominion of our
City, and to regulate its political concerns with so much of
the despotism of party spirit, 1111 to exclude every particle
of that constitutional liberty which we happily enjoy from
our own Government. Some feeble • Innis have been made
at different intervals to purge this body, or the Corporation,
ea it is usually termed, of the dross of which, with few ex-
ceptions, it has been generally composed ; to engraft open
it, and indeed to persuade the leadiug mud respectable
classes of the mercantile interests to assume their station%
' sod mole especially as to the Guild of Merchants, so %a-
ported in numerical strength and smarm; rousideration, to
maintain, by a eumpeteut delegation, the weight and
superiority to which they were entitled. But so many of the
former description had already obtained a sort of p ip.
live right of euecession ; so much uf petty caballing, party
spirit, and low intrigue, usually prevailed, that it became
not alone a formidable, but a diseesling task, to attempt
soy reformation; and thus the faction in power, at all times
eu euuspicaues fur intolerance, yet so destitute of any other
claim to distinction, have been enabled to remote is quiet
possession of the tyranny which they have raised.
Though little disposed to cavil with the policy of our
' present Government, and still less to arrest or control the
privilege of rewarding conspicuous merit, the strongest ex-
citement to emulative distisetion, yet whet. the wishes of
our Sovereign have been an directly violated, and his Govern-
ment %stilted (net' threateued), in the very mansion too,
minds he had himself consecrated to peace mid harmony,
we must be allowed to feel a certain degree of indignation
at the honours which have been lavished with so unspariug
a hand on certain individuals of this body. It is to he sure I
a deduction forced upon every man's reflection, that badges
of this kind, conferred without merit, can hardly be WWII
without contempt; and we also k mow that, with true exeeptionw,
they have been fortuitously cast is the wry of those why oh-
tattled them, and therefore gives' with (ithe impartiality, but
still without the slightest superiority of claim from indivi-
dual merit. We feel, dere lute, that a deep injury is in.
Aided upon the established order of civil society; it is to •
danger of being suddenly inverted by this extensive mid its.
discriminate distrihntion of hoover, conferring nut •leurr
personal, but hereditary rank. In teeth—
We have Noights, Baronets, and Peers,
Whose silly vanity excite our jeers;
But all must own, 'tis rare,
If mighty furtuues common its% can share !
Whatever part our new Lord Lieutenant may have felt
himself obliged to act spun the errimesenceoteat of his
dime% we have since then ample reason to conclude that
' his whole heart is devoted to the interests of his toiletry,
and that he adopts with sincerity, yet without forget-
ting the interests of the empire, the principle " Liberia,
of notate scauss." It cannot be concealed, however, that his
path will be strewed with %Mashie% and that among the
principal obstacles of his purpose will be found the deeply
rooted policy of his predecessors. A policy whirls has justly
acquired a suet of proverbial celebrity from the uniform
perfections of its character—a policy in winch civil liberty
has been always peering.% s. the non .1 mosey of moms.'
security and national mosperity, ma weiforualy sautioed to
the prejudices uf religious bigotry and imulerauce. A
combination of such evils must (as it has done) have arrested
ite
uhilpror
ctnee
ispratiifoeoine,iliapsi
atreini,,..e.heri th
and e ardour
is.xotfiaign:emlblt.
ede
that emulative spirit which gives activity to genius, enter-
prise to commerce, and by a system .of prose' Ipl lON Pleadtly
pursued, dealing • 101 l participation to those physical ad-
vaster. which Provides% had lavished upon our island, I