The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-09 00:00:00

THE BOOK OF THE BASTILES.

By G. B. IVythen Baxter, Author of " Humour and
Pathos," V.—Stephens, London.
This is a most wonderful production, and will
spread the fame of the author far and wide. It

extends to 609 pages in imperial octavo, is beautifully
bound, and contains no less than 2,870 extracts from
anti-bastile speeches, and newspaper articles ; thus,
taking into account letters and encomiums on the author,
adducing atleast 5,000 witnesses against the atrocious
government of the Somerst House Bashaws. The
work is embellished by a full-length portrait of Mr.
Baxter. The countenance evinces great intelligence,
and, at the same time that kind, merciful, and
generous disposition, which would lead any person of
common observation to say, on the first glance, this
is just the man to face the tyrants—" bonum verum
facile crederes, magnum libenter." He is, besides,
come of a good race, being, according to his own
account, a lineal descendant of the great Richard
Baxter, author of the " Saint's Rest," and other
valuable works, thus verifying the words of the
heathen poet—

" Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
Est in juvemis est in equis patrum
,
Virtus."
But we will leave the reader to judge for himself, by
giving a fe3v extracts. The lying Guardians of
Hereford had the impudence to advertise a table,
setting forth the great saving which has occurred
since the introduction of the new Poor-law in those
parts. Mark how they are put down, at once by
facts and figures 1. Received of Mr. Baxter, poor-
rates for the parish of St. Martin, in the city or
Hereford, made the 9th of May, 1833, 4s. Signed
Charles Lucy, ass.-overseer. 2. Parish of St. Mar-
tin, Hereford—Recd., the 29th of February,. 1841, of
Messrs. Baxters,_ 9s. 71d. Lemuel Llewellyn, collr."—
thus proving that the:poor-rates, in place of being
diminished, have been more than doubled by the new
law. No answer was given to this " matter-of-fact
statement, and the author, therefore, with becoming
indignation, castigates the parish functionaries in the
following sarcastic strain :—" It is needless to say the
challenge throWn down in this letter was not accept-
ed; it looked too much like work for the capacities of
the Hereford Guardians ( vel geese), and they, with
tears in their eyes and on their bende4 drumsticks,
piteously implored ' Hold, enough In a word, they
could no more look on it again ; they dared not, but,
with a snivel, confessed that their belly was full—they
had had their gruel. But what the Hereford Board
feared to do (i. e. to prove truth to be a lie), that the
Ledbury Board dared to undertake. Yes, the pauper
warriors of lewd, licentious, liberal Ledbury, stepped
into the rescue of their Malthusian brethi•en of the
city of the mile. Qn the 16th of March, 1841, the

Chairman of the Ledbury Board, a clerk of no im-
portance, having previously hail an
with the Assistant-Commissioner of the district, who,
under promise of marriage—no; but under promise of
sousing him up to his great red ears in the grease of a
fat living, had seduced and crammed him, was sud-
denly taken in labour of a praise-bare-bones poor-law
speech, and was delivered of the same (the aforesaid
Assistant-Commissioner acting as man-midwife), in
the presence of the assembled billy and bearded goats,
Guardians of the Ledbury Union. Brave Guardians
(vel geese) of Hereford, who have suffered many times
and oft from Baxter's lash, turn to him, the Chairman
of the Ledbury Board, who has thus so kindly kissed
your parts and made them well." With what delicacy
and tact he points out the very spot where his lash
had inflicted the red gushing wound ! The descrip •
tion altogether is powerful and graphic in the extreme,
and reminds us of Brougham in his best days, when
painting to his astonished hearers the sufferings of
naked black women under the whip of a merciless and
shameless negro-driver. The author, however, does
not confine himself to this style of writing. At times
he is tender and plaintive, embodies his thoughts and
fancies in the most rich and mellifluous language, and
surpasses even the silvery-toned Wilberforce, or the
voluptuous Jean Jacques Rousseau. What, for in-
stance, can exceed in these respects his description of
an author's dreams? " Oh, the day dreams of an
author ! and oh, the night dreams ! (Having painted
the day dreams, which are rather common-place, he
thus launches forth in strains which, though in prose,
possess all the highest attributes of poetry). " Such
his day dreams, often, often realised, and his night
ones—his, when he sleeps—his, for beautiful fair ones,
girls of heaven, houris and angels, yet passionate and
female still, with rounded, rosy limbs—the blissful
visions of his own lovely imagination, to bend o'er his
slumbers, and, in delicious abandonment, play with
and twine round their small taper fingers his long
flowing hair, and with their mouths, pouting with
vermillion bloom, kiss—" but we can go no further—
the picture is too powerful to behold ; the sweetest of
all Roman poets, Ovidius Naso, falls far short of
this even in the sweetest of all his elegies, that begin-
ning with
" /Estus erat, mediamque dies exegerat boram ;
Adposui medio membra levanda toro."

If the author will swear that he has not com-
mitted an act of plagiarism, or even give his simple
affirmation that he has not read the ode, or merely say
that he has not taken the idea of " rounded, rosy
limbs" and something else, from two other lines, he
ought to be ranked as the first of living poets. These
lines are—

" Quos humeros, quales vidi tetigique lacertos !
Quantum et quale bins ; quam juvenile femur."

_ .
But reader, mark how the language changes when
Mr. Baxter describes another bed-scene ; namely,
that in which a young thief of two-and-twenty sur-
prises Mr. Chadwick snoring in bed at one in the
morning, and the Poor-law Commissioners also, for we
are led to infer from the word " nightcaps" that
the worthy secretary is not alone. " N either should
I calculate," says the author, " knowing your peace-
able temperatures, would you sneeze at such circum-
stances as some young thief of two-and-twenty, or
thereabouts, waylaying, you at your front doors, or
Ivhen returning homewards, from your country walks,
laden with cowslips and long purples,' or as you
paced the gas-lighted streets of London, contem-
plating and smiling on the passing odalisques, with
their scarce petticoats ; or as you lay prone, (the
bell then beating one') playing pigs' overtures,
with variations, in your beds and blankets,
—for the self-same modest gentleman to stand over
your nightcaps, and with strange oaths' and sig-
nificant curses, flourishing right and left his damned
double-barrelled swords, and cut and thrust pistols,'
ease you of a greater quantity than would be con-
venient of your L.S.D. The initials are read back-
wards, according to the custom of the Jews, and
mean damned starvation ledgers.' " We suspect,
however, that our author has carried the joke a little
too far. Mr. Richard Martin made Blackwood, on
his " bended drumsticks," beg pardon for allowing
Christopher North to say, " why don't the Smithfield
drovers kill him ?" and here Mr. Baxter encourages
young blackguards of twenty-two, and thereabouts,
to commit burglaries in Somerset House,and perhaps
murder both the Poor-law Commissioners and their
poor Secretary, at one fell swoop. But we
must come to a close, and rest satisfied with

two more short extracts—the one in prose, and the
other in verse, describing in nervous and appropriate
language, the horrors which the Bishop of London,
the Somerset House despots, and the base Whigs,
have caused by the erection, not of one bastile, like
the King of France, but of hundreds throughout the
country. The first is from an Invocation, by the
author of " Humour and Pathos," " Don Juan,
Junior," &c. to the people of England, calling upon
them to come forward and raise subscriptions
for Mr. Oastler. " Yes, Richard Oastler, because
he dared be honest, dared be honourable, dared be
humane, dared be rcgious, dared shield you and
yours from the painless extinction' of Marcus,'
starvation, poisoned skillies, coarser food,' dungeons,
sabre-cuts, and hall-cartridges ; because dared—
when all hands were against you and all hearts—step
nobly forward, and with the eloquence of a god, de-
clare that your wives, sisters, and daughters, as vir-
tuous as they (the man-slayers and women-quellers
of the bastiles), yea, more so than many of the
satin-clad and diamond-gemmed wives, sisters, and
daughters—(vide the crim. con. trials)—of my
lords. and gentlemen,' should not be handed over
an unauthorised prey to lust and brutality—that your
children, your ' pretty ones,' should not be torn from
your bosoms, and by Societies, miscalled Friendly,'
transported thousands of miles across the deep waters
to distant colonies ; that your limbs should not be
tied up and manacled, if at any time, in the bastile
prisons, you happened to converse with your wretched
relatives and friends ; that the bodies of your mur •
dered dead should not, without the decent ceremonial
of book, -bell, and pall, be trundled into an un-
consecrated hole, like deceased dogs, cats, rats,
and stots." 'We can excuse this strong language,
if Mr. Baxter knows or believes that such things
are done in -his part of the country, but we
have always understood that those who died in'Work-
houses were buried according to the rites of the
Church. of England—that . the beautiful service for
the burial of the dead was duly performed, and never
heard that ropes or manacles were used to restrain the
inmates, liked esperate malefactors. If such deeds
are committed in any union, or if the chaplain is al-
lowed to neglect his duty, as here described, Mr.
Baxter would confer great benefit on the poor by lay-
ing the facts, properly authenticated, before Parliam-
ment. We warrant him the Hereford Guardians
would not be allowed to commit such acts of abomi-

nation with impunity. The last extract is in verse
(for Mr. Baxter is a poet also), taken from a work of
his, entitled " Don Juan, Junior," and here we
cannot help expressing our surprise that a descendant
of that pious man, Richard Baxter, should read such
books as Byron's " Don Juan," and Ovid's " Art of
of Love." We give the lines, however, without fur-
ther comment on that point, and merely call the at-
tention of the reader to the powerful effect of the
second and sixth. The second, in particular, exhi-
bits in perfection that wonderful quality which only
great poets possess—namely, the faculty of making
the sound an echo to the sense. No one can read it

without a gnashing of the teeth and an involuntary
shudder for the sufferings of those subjected to the
terrible engine. The author informs us that Mr.
Oastler took it as a ".top piece" for his Anti-New
Poor-law letters.