21. (T.) Hearing the threats of invasion which have long been bawled out by the little bloated fiend on the other side of the channel, honoured with serious attention by men actually born and bred in England. There are not, indeed, above half a dozen of our countrymen of this white-livered description; but who can think, with common patience, even of that handful ?" " 6 In powerful contradiction, too, to the sense and truth of the following. "11. (S.) At the play-the sickening scraps of naval loyalty which are crammed down your throat faster than you can gulp them, in such after-pieces as are called England's Glory,'-The British Tars,' &c.-with the additional nausea of hearing them boisterously applauded." In the second edition, the author has informed us of a new calamity, which he entitles My own Groan. It contains his complaint of the work being attributed to other noblemen and gentlemen, whose initials only, and those perhaps fictitious, he publishes. We suppose, from this caution, that they are gentlemen who have never yet dared the public eye in a printed shape; but, since the world has attributed to them a work which has met so favourable a reception, we suppose they are held in estimation as some of the prime wits and “ merriest men" of the age. This favourable opinion thus expressed, should not be disregarded by them; they are called upon to enter boldly upon the fields of literature, and exhibit to the world proof of those talents for which it has thus universally given them credit. We now unwillingly leave this work; and, as a farewell to the author, we intreat him (without meaning to measure weapons with so formidable a rival) to cast an eye of compassion and sympathy upon a few REVIEWER'S GROANS.1 1. A complacent author's enquiries, whether his book is about to be reviewed, and what is the character to be given of it ;-said book having only been thought worthy to be dismissed with a general censure for stupidity, ignorance, and self-sufficiency. 2. A plaintive author's reproachful question how he ever injured you, so that you chose to be his executioner; and the candour with which he argues upon your opinion of his work; only denying that it wants genius, wit, or taste; while he ingenuously confesses there are some few grammatical inaccuracies and carelessnesses in the style. 3. Finding yourself seated at dinner next a gentleman whom you have before pilloried in a review of extreme severity; then being somewhat relieved by finding that you are unknown to him; till a blundering pretender to literature, on his other side, calls you by your name; and asks across him, Who is to be cut up in the next Number? 4. The harsh and opprobrious review done by your brethren upon a book that you have generously published anonymously; then, upon your owning it, in hopes of softening them, and perhaps procuring a revisal of the second edition of the review; their comments upon your unkindness and folly in not telling them before; and, above all, the subsequent grins and rejoiced faces of the whole literary world, to whom your friends immediately publish your avowal. 5. The copy just set up, and more wanted-the printer's imp, or the great Beelzebub himself in waiting, and grinding his fangs with impatience-the postman delivers a treble letter, which you eagerly open, expecting a communication from a first-rate correspondent, and which proves to contain a long expostulatory and indignant refutation of your last quarter's critique on an incensed author-postage unpaid. 6. The doleful alternative of perusing a huge quarto, at the risk of dislocating your jaws, in order to review it-or of reviewing the said quarto, without so perusing it, at the risk of making [Lord Jeffrey is inclined to think that he himself added some of these "Reviewer's Groans;" but his recollection is not precise.]. blunders, and furnishing pegs on which charges of misrepresentation will not fail to be suspended. To close this sad eventful history Long labour bestowed in endeavouring to extract subject for an article from a book too dull to be commended, and too accurate to be condemned, where ordinary subjects are treated in an ordinary style, and with ordinary ability; so that, at last, you relinquish the hope of drawing forth, from the mass of mediocrity, food either for reason or for ridicule, and shut the book, with the fruitless apostrophe, "Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse, ARTICLE V. CARR'S CALEDONIAN SKETCHES. [The first Number of the Quarterly Review, February, 1809, contained these remarks on a huge quarto, of 541 pages, entitled, "Caledonian Sketches, or a Tour through Scotland, in 1807. To which is prefixed an Explanatory Address to the Public upon a recent Trial. By Sir JOHN CARR. London, Matthews and Leigh, 1809."-The work entitled "My Pocket Book, or Hints for a Righte Merrie and Conceited Tour, to be called the Stranger in Ireland," in ridicule of Sir John Carr's quarto volume of that title, was written by Edward Dubois, Esq author of various translations, &c. The trial to which it gave rise occurred before the Court of King's Bench, on the 25th July, 1808. The Jury found for the defendants, Messrs Vernor and Hood. The other works of the Knight were, The Stranger in France, or a Tour from Devonshire to Paris. 4to. 1803. A Northern Summer, or Travels round the Baltic, through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, &c. 4to. 1805. A Tour through Holland. 4to. 1806; and Descriptive Travels in Spain and the Balearic Isles. 4to. 1811.] THE advice of the Giant Moulineau to a reciter, Je vous prie, Belier mon ami, commençez par le commencement, is too often neglected. We, how ever, admonished by a recent event, new in our high office, and anxious to discharge its duties with unexampled fidelity, actually read the explanatory address prefixed to this volume, before we proceeded on the Caledonian Sketches. It is, in sooth, a piece of very tragical mirth, in which we hardly knew whether to sympathize with the wounded feelings of a good-natured, well-meaning man, or to laugh at the ambiguous expressions in which he couches his sorrow and indignation upon a very foolish subject. The trial, in which Sir John Carr sued the editor of a satiric work, called My Pocket Book, for damages, as a libel on his literary fame, must be fresh in the memory of every reader. The Address displays great anxiety to ascertain the precise grounds upon which the action was commenced; but there is no little embarrassment and confusion in bottoming the case, as will appear from the opening of the subject. "Had this attack been announced as a travesty, the public would have regarded it as a burlesque, and I should have been as much disposed as any one to have smiled at what humour it might have possessed. Indeed I should have deemed it, in some measure, an honour; for, as the nature of travesty is laughable deformity, the original must at least possess some symmetry, before it could be twisted into deformity. Nay, I should have felt myself flattered to have been placed in the same line of attack in which many illustrious literary characters have been assailed, although immeasurably removed from them in literary reputation. I should also have reflected that the public would not be interested in the travesty of an unknown author. But many, who have never read the Tour in Ireland, have considered the quotations as authentic, and the comment as fair and candid. I am placed before a mirror that distorts, and the mirror is thought to represent me faithfully."—P. 4. |