The National Register.
London, England, 1817-09-08 00:00:00

11111 NATIO!4AL REGISTER,

ROUND TABLE KNIGHTS.
(From the Qturctly Review—ilubli4cd yesterday.)

If any of our readers have been accustomed to set:
the " Examiner," Sunday Newspaper, they will re-
collect a series of essays which was published therein,
under the title of " The Round Table." Although
inculcating some of the weakest and wickedest prin-
ciples in religion, morality, and politics, they escaped
without much notice. As they appeared weekly, few
took the trouble to compare one paper with another,
and thus their absurd contradictions, their total want
of any fixed principles, were overlooked ; and but for
the vanity of their authors they would, ere this, have
beets forgotten. But unfort unat ely that high opin-
ion of Reif which ch:u•ucteriiea the Examiner School,
prompted them to make a beik. Here the case was at
once altered ; reader' could compare the essay of to
day with the cssa of that day twelve-month, and
discover that, flippant wit, and vulgar satire, were nut
the most powertid weapons with which to combat
pure religion and fearless loyalty. The Literau
Ga.:eite; highly to its honour, was the first to expose
the shallow fipix.ry of " The Knights of the Round
Table," and the Quarterly Review (that giant in litera-
ture) has not thought it beneath it to bestow that
castigation which such recreant knights deserve. From
the number published yesterday, we have extracted
the following passages, and recommend to cur readers
a perusal of the whole.

" Whatever may have been the preponderating feel-
ings with which we closed these volume:. we will not
refuse our acknowledgements to Mr. Hazlitt for a few
mirthful sensations which he has enabled us to mingle
with the rest, by the hint that his essays were meant
to be in the manner of the Spectator and Tinier.'
The passage in which this is conveyed happened to be
nearly the last to which we turned ; and we were at: ut
to rise from ' the Roan(' Table' heavily oppressed with
a recollection of vulgar descriptions, silly paradoxes, flat
truisms, misty sophistry, broken English, ill-humour
and rancorous abuse, when we were first informed of
the modest pretensions of our host: Onr thoughts then
reverted with an eager impulse to the urbanity of Ad-
dison, his unassuming tone, and clear simplicity; to the
ease and sofiness,cle his style, to the cheerful benevo-
lence of his heart. The playful gaiety too, and the
tender feelings of his coadjutor, poor Steele, came forci-
bly to our memory. The effect of the ludicrous con-
trast thus presented to us, it would be somewhat diffi-
cult to describe. We think that it was akin to what
we have felt from the admirable nonchalance with which
Liston, in the complex character of a weaver and an
• ass, seems to throw away all doubt of his being the
most accomplished lover in the universe, and receives,
as if they were merely his due, the caresses of the
fairy Queen.
"Few persons who have read the Spectator have ever
afterwards forgotten the delightful papers on the Pant-
disc Lost, or those on the Pleasures of the Imagination.
In this department, as in others, Mr. Hazlitt is not
willing to fall short of illustrious predecessor ;' and
accordingly we hear much of poetry, and of painting,
and of music, and of pato. Of' Hogarth, we are told
that he is too apt to perk morals and sentiments in
your face, and is over redundant in his combinations.'
Of Titian, that ' the limbs of his female figures have a
luxurious softness and delicacy which appears conscious
of the pleasure of the beholder.' Of Vandyke, that
the impression slides off front the eye, and does not,
like the tones of Titian's pencil, leave a sting behind it
in the mind of the spectator ;'—and finally, that the
arts of painting and poetry flow from the sacred shrine
of our own breasts, and arc kindled at the living lamp
at' Nature.' Addison and Steele never wrote any thing
so tine as this !
" Our readers arc, perhaps, by this time as much
acquainted with the style of this author as they have
any desire to be ; and their curiosity may have been a
little excited to know what the man is. It may be
told in two words :—he is a sour Jacobin ; a fact which
he is so good as to disclose in the following pathetic
lamentation over the failure of the French Revolu-
tion.
• The dawn of that day was overcast; that season of hope is
past; it is lied with the other dreams of our youth which we
cannot recal, hat has left behind it tracrs which are not to be
effaced by birth-day and thanksgiving fides, or the eh:muting
(4'l'e Dennis in all the churches of Christendom. To those
hopes eternal regrets are due; to those who maliciously and
oiifidly blasted them. in the fear that they miztit be ;teem-
Wished, we feel no less what we owe, hatred and scorn as
lasting I'
" As we might expect from this confession of feeling,
the waters of bitterness flow around this unhappy per-
son unceasingly. There is nothing in the World which
he seems to like, unless we except washerwomen ;*
fair
whom he does appear to have soma regard. He writes
an essay in eager vituperation of giasi nature and
good natured people ; he abuses all poets, with the sin-
gle exc.:ption of Milton ; he, indeed, was an honest
man ; he was Cromwell's secretary ;' he abuses all coun-
try people ; he abuses the English ; he abuses the Irish;
he the Scotch. Nor isit simply abuse, it is the
language of Billingsgate, except that it is infinitely
inure law:emus thaw any thing which, we are willing

to believe, he can have learnt in that school of natural
civility. He seems to feel all the warmth of a private
quarrel against whole nations ; but against none so
strongly as his own. Of poor John Bull his mildest
expressions are that ' he is silent because he has nothing
to say, and looks stupid because he is so :' that if he
has a red face and round belly he thinks himself a great
man ; that he has always been a surly, obstinate,
meddlesome fellow :' that he is but a dolt—beats his
wife—quarrels with his neighbours—daunisji is servants,
and gets drunk to kill the time.' This rival of Peri-
cles, in further eulogy of his countrymen, proceeds to
state, that an Irishman who trusts to his principles,
and a Seotchman who trusts to his impulses, are equally
dangerous.' 01* the Irish he is moreover pleased to
discover that they are hypocrites in understanding—
that there is something crude and discordant in all they
do or say—that they arc a wild people—that they be-
tray principles, unite fierceness with levity, have an
undercurrent ofselfishness and cunning—and that their
blood, if not heated by passion, turns to poison.' All
this is venomous enough. No abuse, however, which
is directed against whole classes of men is of much im-
portance ; if undeserved it is utterly impotent and may
well be utterly despised; but we shall be excused if
stronger feelings have been roused by the foul and vul.
gar invective which is directed by such a thing as this
against individuals who now rest in their graves, but
who, in the bright career of their lives, were, perhaps,
the chief sources of the glory which has been shed over
our country in these latter times. Of Pitt it is said; -
that he possessed few talents, and fewer virtues; that
his reputation was owing to a negation (together with
the common virtues) of the common vices of human na-
ture, and by the complete negation of every other ta-
lent but an artful use of words and a certain dexterity
of logical arrangement ; that he had 'no strong feelings,
no distinct perceptions, no general principles, no co•n-
prehensivu views of things, no moral habits of thinking,
no system of action,- no plan, no insight into human no.
titre, no sympathy with the passions of men, or
honsion of their real designs,' &c.
" We learn from the Preface that a few of these es-
says were written by Mr. Hunt, the editor of the Ex-
aminer newspaper, We really have not time to ascii..
minate between the productions of the two gentlemen,
or to mete out to each his due portion of praise
we beg that they will take the trouble to divide it
themselves according to their respective claims. We
can only mention here that Mr. Hunt sustains the part
of the droll or merry fellow in the pertbrmance : it is
he who entertains us with the account of his getting the
night-mare by eating veal-pye, and who invents tut
that disorder the facetious name of Mnpvtglnau-auw-
auw•w : who takes the trouble to inform us that he dis-
likes cats ; to describe the skilful spat of the finger
nails which he gives his newspaper,' and the mode in
which he stirs his fire : it is he who devotes ten or
twelve pages to the desertation on' washerwomen,' and
who repeats, no doubt from faithful memory, the dia-
logues which pass between Betty and Molly, the paid-.
servants, when they are first called in the morning,
and describes, front actual observation, (or, it may be,
experience,) the conclusive digs in the side' with which
Molly is accustomed to dispel the lingering slumbers
of her bed-fellow.

Extract of a letter from the Agent to Lloyd's at Btu..
nos Ayres, dated June 17.—" The brig called the Go.
neral Artigas, is fitting out for a cruise : she will mount
to guns and have 80 men on board, and it is expected '
will carry a commission from Artigas against the, Por.
tuguese."
We are happy to find that the garrison and town of
Gibraltar remain perfectly healthy ; letters received
yesterday, are of the 14th ult. The communication
with Spain remained perfectly free. From the strict
quarantine enthrced, there was little fear entertained
of the fever being induced. from Algiers. No recent
accounts had been received of its progress there,
as all communication with the ports of Barbary wu
prohibited.
The causewaying of the streets with blocks of cast
iron, as has been lately begun in London, appears to
be in contemplation even at Edinburgh, the neigh our.
hood of wfiich used once to supply the streets of Lon..
dou with stone. Part of North College-street .
ready laid with iron blocks, by way of experiment.
EXPEDITION TO THE CONOO.—We are sorry to state the •
death of Captain Campbell, the able and zealous mull:under
of this mifortnnats, lint well meant rude:lo'ollr to explai e the
interior of :Africa. A letter from Sierra. Leone, or June so,
states, 'hat intelligence of the toss bail arrived at that place a
few days before, Captain Campbell was reported to have .
died a a broker heart, awl the expedition was expected to
retort,. The second naval officer in command, who had been
left at Sierra Leone, on account of ill-health, bat was reec.
verell, and on his way to join the expedition. roomed to
Sierra Leo.,e, on bearing of Captain Campbell... death, to
consult the Governor, upon the fplare conduct expe•
dition. A dispatch was iniiivsaiately sent bothICK Lord •
Bathurst.
We copy the above from the Courier of yesterelafT but we
apprehend Otero is a misconception in the watentent, as Cap-
tain Campbell did not belong to the Congo aavat expedition,
but to Ma military one arm to explore the course of .
Niger, to the command of whic2i, lit succeeded on the death
of bli;jor Puddie.

I ruuula.
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