The National Register.
London, England, 1808-01-04 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

whom he has not, at one time, represented as the noblest, at
another, as the vilest of men. Mr. Pitt was, with him, at one
period, the wise, the great, the heaven-born minister ; hut now,
Mr. Pitt is in his evee, the most weak, worthless minister that
ever ruled a nation : the greatest curse that Britain ever saw ; a
Net retch, whose very ashes he thinks himself called upon to insult
and trample. !Nil. Fox was once branded as the most diaboli-
cal of incendiaries ; and Tin' Political Rc;i.xter• actually first at-
trneted notice by a whimsical attempt to prove, that this states-
man bad gone to l'aris to concert schemes vi ith Bonaparte
against his country : and now, Mr. Fox is venerated as the only
person, in either party, who had any share of wisdom or virtue.
It is but two years since the nation nas louldly warned
against Burdett, as a firebrand, who must be either extinguish-
ed, or set his country in flames : and now, this same fireband is
discovered to be a very pillar of light to direct our darkness,
the only man to whom W C must look for salvation. Commerce
was once idolized as " the life-blood of the nation;" and now,
The Political Register glories in assuming the motto of " Perish
" Commerce !"

Mr. Cobbett does not deny these inconsistencies, hut he assures
us, that nothing is more pardonable. Every man, he argues,
must grow wiser by experience; mid as soon as he has discover-
ed his errors, the best thing he can do, is, like him, to recant
them, and strenuously propagate his more enlightened opinions.
'Chic may be a decent apology for tl r. Cobbetes tergiversations,
but it is a poor amends to those whom he has successively mis-
led. Suppose the nation had all along listened to his opinions,
they would find themselves in a fine condition when his eyes be-
came opened. Ile was once a furious Anti-Jacobin, and thought
that the nation could only he saved from destruction, by weeding
out, by banishment, or the scaffold, all the accursed race of
Democrats. If his advice had been taken at that period, what
an aukward figure would the national councils make now that
he has discovered the Anti-Jacobin to have been a set of in-
funous scoundrels. and these same Democrats the only honest
men in the kingdom! Poor Horne Tooke, and Sir Francis Bur-
dett, would not at this day have had ears to hear the applause,
now showered upon them. At present, Mr. Cobbett assures us,
" that capital, credit, and commerce, tend to weaken rather
" than strengthen our country.; tend to produce her subjuga-
" tion, rather than to preserve her independence." (Vol. xii.
p. 839.) Suppose we should take all this for undoubted
truth, and manfully set about rooting out these fatal inmates,
till we should be as free from them as a bankrupt, who
had
,just paid sixpence in the pound ; would it not be un-
fortunate, if Mr. Cobbett should
.just then happrn to discover
that he had been in a very great error, that commerkv, credit,
and capital, had been the real sources of our national greatness,
and that we must now become slaves to Bonaparte, .s ithout
further murmur, since we had deprived ourselves of the only
means of resisting him ! In short, it appears front Mr. Cob-
betes own confessions, that however confidently he makes any
statement, and though he he ready to stake his body and soul
on its veracity, yet we must not, at our peril, believe one word of
it, till he has had at least five or six years to detect its errors.

If we may believe Mr. Cohbett, hi; political sagacity is very
amazing; for there is scarcely a political occurrence which he
does not assure us he distinctly foresaw—after it has taken
place. But when we look at his prophecies, before the event,
they are generally of a very different cast. We select the most
recent instance, his speculations about the emigration of the
Portuguese Government, a Measure dictated by so many imperi-
ous 4:irenkotatices, that it would have been most strange had it

JAN. 4.

not taken place. In hie Number of October 24, p. 632, he
ridicules " the Brazil lelventnre," as " so very romantic as
" to merit not a moment of serious attention." Your weeks af-
terwards, p. 801, he again pours contempt on the expatriation
project, assuring us, that " none but sheer fools ever gave cre-
" dit to it ; and that none but sheer knaves ever pretended to
" give credit to it." In his Number of December 26, the actual
accomplishment of this derided project, obliges him to confess
his surprise : hut he solaces his mortification, by asserting that
the Brazils are worse than " the very worst country in Europe,"
and abound in nothing hut " venemous reptiles !"

But neither ignorance or prejudice delude this singular writer
into such absurdities, or lead him so far beyond the bounds of
truth and honesty, as an insatiable vanity which seizes and de-
vours every thing that can be brought within its grasp. The
most harmless indications of this passion appear in the fulsome
complimentary letters with which the pages of his Register
arc continually loaden : for instance, a correspondent in the
Number for December 26, expresses his full conviction, " that
" unless the higher ranks follow Mr. Cobbett's advice, a few
" years only will he necessary to complete the destruction of
" our national prosperity." But a much snore glaring indi-
cation of this principle was exhibited in his late attack on
the Learned Languages. The frequent blunders into which he
had been led by his want of education, exceedingly mortified
his vanity, and incited him to the curious task of proving that
learning was a thing of no value under the sun. He began with
a furious onset on the Learned Languages ; and finding that his
arguments produced no impression, unless on such as were as
ignorant as himself, he now contents himself with expressing an
utter contempt of universities, professors, and whatever bears
the appearance of a regular education. " When I see L.L. D.
" in a title page," says he, " if I am not well acquainted with
" the name that precedes it, I instantly throw down the book, as..
the work of one who has obtained his certificate of learning
" from our well educated neighbours to the North, at the price
" of a second-hand wig."

But the most curious display of his vanity appears in those
charges which he brings against other writers as plagiarists from
his Register. As he is perpetually writing, he necessarily
throws out a number of random observations on a great variety
of political topics: and when any of these topics happen after-
wards to be treated of systematically by some other author, he
makes no scruple, from a few similar thoughts, to infer that the
work has been stoles from him. A curious example of this ha
lately occurred with regard to a pamphlet published by a Mr.
Spence, where, from the principles of the French Economists,
hich he adopts, the author endeavour; to prove the indepen-
dence of Britain on Commerce. This doctrine Mr. Cohbett zea-
lously espouses : and prudently forgetting that it was original] y
promulgated by the Economistv,and taking for granted that Mr.
Spence claims the merit of the discovery, he ransacks the page;
of his Register, and thence produces several paragraphs to
prove that he himself was the author of the doctrine, and that
Mr. Spence is a notorious plagiarist. For some time, Mr. Spence
beard in silence these singular exhibitions of vanit:-, amazed in
what they would end ; but he has, at length, published an
answer to the charges of plagiarism. Ile there shows Mr. Cob-
bett, that the very doctrines, now in question, were held by
Aristotle two thousand years ago, enlarged and fully explained
by the French Economists in the last century, and treated of by
many authors in our own country. tie shows, that his pamphlet
was in the printers hands before several of the alleged plagia-
rised passages had appeared ; and that, in particular, the ex •