The National Register.
London, England, 1809-02-19 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

MISTRESS CLARKE.

IT is not very many years since every body talked of Mistress
Rudd. Within these few years every body was talking of Mis-
tress Phippoe. Every body is now talking of Mistress Clarke.
'Tis the nine-days' wonder ! Every body is therefore wondering
what will be the end of the wonder.

" Has she been promised a pension from Bonaparte ?"
whispered one of your significant politicians, shrugging his
shoulders; and lamenting how much her protracted examination
must interfere with the interests of the country, at this mo-
mentous crisis. The thought had never struck me till no w.—
'T was full of cogitation. " Why, let me see," said I, " there may
be something in that idea." Aye, they begin again to talk of
Jacobin Conspiracies ; and, who knows—who knows—who
knows (thought 1) what that child and Champion of Jacobin-
ism, as the late William Pitt called the present Emperor Na-
poleon, who knows (thought 1) what pranks this universal ili-
triguant may now be playing with us ?—lie knows the political,
as well as the physical, utility of the sex. Yes ; and he knows
that

" Since Adam, by his facil consort Eve,
" Lost Paradise"—

Bonaparte knows, I say, that woman is still the instrument of
wo—to—man! Think of Mrs Eve and Mrs. Potipher, and

Mrs. Jezebel, and Mrs. Dalila, " of old"; and, sequently, of
Mrs. Helen, and Mrs. Cleopatra, and Mrs. Herod, and
! I say nothing of later times.
Is not mischief the natural element of woman?—Like her
first seducer, she may indeed assume the appearance of an angel of
light, but 'tis to beguile more surely ! Men, however, still
call her an " adored angel," without remembering, as Mr. Gar-
row wisely observed, that she is also a `• fallen angel."

When Mr. Secretary Canning is ridiculing opinions because,
as the newspapers state him to have said, they were " nursed
in solitude," does he not recollect that the effusions of solitude
have produced the most astonishing revolutions in society ?
Has he forgotten the Prop;:ets of the Jewish Church and the
Monks of the Romisl; Church? Knows he nothing of an Alex-
ander, a Caesar, a Cato, a Brutus, a Demosthenes, a Cicero ?
Has he ohliteratedfrom his mind the History of Mahomet, the
Reformation of the Christian Religion, the Lncyclopedists of
.111oderns France, the writings of Burke, or Thomas Paine's
Rights of Alan? Lastly, indeed, is Secretary Canning still un-
acquainted w ith the formation of the character of that Napoleon
Bonaparte against whose progress the utmost efforts of his own
enius, and that of his country, are at this moment exerted?—
'" C'est orditiairement dans k calme de robscurile," says the au-
thor of Memorial de la Vie de Bonaparte,' commenting od
the temper of his hero, " guc se foment • les grandes oozes."
Laugh as we may at such solitary characters, we shall find,
perhaps too seriously, that, as Waller said of Oliver Cromwell,

The world from India to the frozen North,

is deeply .
Cotwern'd in what their solitude brings forth !

Himself poetically gifted, it cannot have escaped Mr. Can-
that Miltom,, delineating one of the *noblest beings with
which his muse was conversant, describes even the SON OF

•
GOD As saying •
When I was yet a child, no childish plhy
To me Waii ; all my mind was set

Serious to learn and know, and thence to do
What might he public good : myself I thought

Born to that end

127

Our Dashing Cyprians express the greatest astonishment, at
finding " extravagance" one of the charges preferred against
lifts. Clarke. It is perfectly understood, they say, that with
them " protection has its price ;" and that Cupid, in the mo-
dern sense, is synonymous with Gold! If, however, it should
be decided on the contrary, " relative situations," they declare,
would be no longer objects of their ambition.
If you design to regains a friend and conciliate an enemy, you
have only to reproach the first and insult the last ! Such at least,
appears, to be one of the discoveries in Modern Diplomacy.—
Neither Alexander or Napoleon, it should be remarked, can be
brought to comprehend this mystery.—" All's Well that Ends
Well." ►

If the House of Commons should determine to go to school
again, Mr. Fuller, it is said, is to be appointed the Doctor
Busby of our Senatorial Seminary ! Ile wishes to have all the
poor creatures" well " whipped ."
Although Sir Arthur Paget married Lady Borringdon al-
most the instant Lord Borringdon's Divorce Bill obtained the
Royal Assent, still, it is understood, he had looked before he
leaped !
Since the investigation of the state of the nation does not pre-
clude every possible attention to tl.e state (f the stomach, our
Political Parties have already commenced their " carnivorous"
operations ! Nothing can be settled without speeches, and eat-
ing is found to be highly conducive to speaking. Wonderful is
the connection between gluttony and oratory.
Mrs. Clarke has shewn the value she feels for royalty in hav-
ing sold, at the sale of her effects in Gloucester-Place, " a Mi-
niature of the Queen, set round with diamonds !! " So much for
that " relative situation," in which, as Pope bitterly describes
it, one has no alternative but to he either :
Po—'d by her love or libell'd by hei hate!
1809.

Mum.

Feb. 16

LENT ASSIZES.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT.

Mr. Justice Lawrence and Mr. Justice Le Blanc.
City of York—Saturday, March 11, at the Guildhall of the
said City.
Yorkshire—The same day, at the Castle of York.
Lancashire—Thursday, March 23, at the Castle of Lancaster.