The Sun.
London, England, 1831-06-01 00:00:00

FI?ASER' S MAGAZINE.

A good number, grave and merry, light and
learned, egotistical and superlatively diffident.
" The Wandering Jew" is a metaphysical analy-
sis of the late Mr. Shelley's mind. On the
principle oinne ignotutn pro magnffico, we
conclude it is something surpassingly fine,
Would that we could be brought to comprehend
it ! " National Songs of Ireland," is an able
review of what the writer calls an indifferent book,
by Mr. Weekes the comedian. " Literary
Characters: Wordsworth ;" is an analysis, by a
man of good sense, but without an atom of fancy
or feeling, of one of the profoundest and most
imaginative poets modern times have seen. The
critic is of the Pope school, and would have been
more at home in pourtraying the good and bad
qualities of Hayley, Darwin, &c. than in at-
tempting to grapple with the intellect of a man
like Wordsworth. " Disagreeables," by Hogg,
is quaint ; and the notice of " Godwin's Thoughts
on Man," a first-rate piece of criticism, worthy
of the Edinburgh Review in its best days.
" Rumbling Murmurs of an Old Tory," is in
O'Doherty's best and most rabid manner. The
following is diverting in its way :

" There are twe sets or societies of mankind for which
I have either alatred or contempt, as they happen to be
powerful or the contrary ; and these are—the rabble great,
and the rabble small. The rabble small are designated by
the name of mob. The rabble great are collected in clubs.
By neither of these parties have I any desire to be go-
verned. The mob, in its usual and ordinary course, sel-
dom favours us with its appearance. Until the present
occasion his Majesty the People has not had a grand day
since the time of the Queen, and he generally chooses to
make himself especially absurd when he does turn out in
this fashion. Let me here digress for a moment, to dis-
join and segregate myself wholly, totally, and altogether
from those who abuse and despise the lowest order. I
say the lowest as contra•distingsished from the lower,
which is in general base i❑ all points. I am, and I care
not who knows it, intimately acquainted with ploughmen,
hedgers, and ditchers—waggoners, butchers, draymen,
smiths, miners—with that bulk of men who compose the
labouring classes of the country ; and, when they are fed
with bacon and beans, as they ought to he, they are a
most honourable, honest, truth-speaking, and hardfisted
generation. They are not educated, I believe; for in my
various conversations with them in placesof public resort_
such as fights, hangings, whippings, pilloryings, fairs
street-riots, elections, ducking-matches, or other tours
pieniPres at which they attend, I never bothered myself to
make the enquiry ; but if they are not, I am not quite so
certain that they have thereby lost all claim to common
sense. Let any man dine with a Bishop, say Philpotts,
for example—a great orator, Sheil, for example—a won-
derful novelist, Bulwer, for example—and then adjourn to
the Hack Diamond, by the yawning gulf which gapes at
the bottom of Durham-street, expanding its murky jaws
towards the Strand, and there, seated upon a bench, among
the congregation of coal-heavers, retired thither to enjoy
their °awn cues poteibus, let him compare the acumen,
the solid sense, the justice of observation, the exactness of
remark of the one company with the other, and the Black
Diamond will have it. As for honour, or honesty, con-
sistency of principle, freedom from rancour or ostentatious
display, or dull encounter of muddy wits, I shall not
affront the coal-heavers by instituting a parallel."