have published, that I wish it were possible for me to withdraw it, and write on some of the same subjects anew. No young poet can act more wisely than to burn, and burn again, instead of furiously hurrying his imperfect effusions into print. These ints, however, ought not to deter young men of genius from wooing the muse:' the periodicals of the Working-classes ought to abound with the purifying influences of true poetry. The other defect to which I allude, is one which real genius will speedily learn to remedy-since it needs only care: I mean the want of a knowledge of the mechanism of verse. Without a due observance of what are called 'feet' that is the accented syllables-in poetry, it really is not verse but common prose. The reading of authors who are the most perfect in their measures (such as Pope) cannot fail to give an attentive rhymer the proper knowledge of this necessary part of his business. Attention to the best models will also teach him how to avoid the hampering do' and ' did' (which are graces only in imitation of the antique and simple); and the ungraceful ending of a couplet with the infinitive verb, as 'fire-to inspire' sight-to delight'-' mine-to resign.' pursue 6 I fear grave readers will be weary with seeing these pages occupied with what they will, perhaps, deem very trifling observations; and shall therefore this theme no further, at present. A wish to be useful to many who have written me on these subjects, as well as love for the Muse herself, and a natural wish to see her becomingly wooed, while her lovers are being multiplied-must be my excuse for saying what I have said. Some thoughts in answer to enquirers after the best standard and school of Poetry, I defer till a future number. THOMAS COOPER. UNITY OF SENTIMENT IN AUTHORS. Ir is at times interesting to a man of literary taste to observe the identity of idea and often of expression which exists amongst authors of celebrity on any one subject. During a desultory course of reading I have noted the two following rather curious parallelisms: the first relates to female Beauty in grief, and the second to Love: BEAUTY IN GRIEF. No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath not seen it in distress.— Fielding (Tom Jones). And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.-Sir Walter Scott. LOVE. Love will not be constrained by mastery: For soon as maistery comes sweet love anon, Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.--Pope. FRANK GRANT. NOBLE REPLY.-John Locke, the philosopher, was persecuted by the court of Charles II., for opposition to popery and arbitrary power. When James II. offered him pardon, he replied, that "he had no occasion for a pardon, not having been guilty of any crime." NOTES, WHICH THEY WHO RUN MAY READ. CO-OPERATIVE TAILORS.-From 30 to 40 working tailors of Boston, America, started business on the 21st of September last, with a capital of 483 dollars. Every man has been paid his regular wages, and has already something ahead in the stock of the association, and good prospects for the future. They only owe 200 dollars: their treasurer has 100 dollars in hand; and their stock is now worth 1,500 dollars. Their business is increasing so rapidly that they will have to open a second store,' or shop for sale of goods, very soon. Why should not Englishmen -shoemakers, joiners, and cabinet-makers, builders, smiths, printers, &c., &c. learn to agree like brothers, join their intelligence, skill, and industry, use economy, and prosper in like manner? THE IRON TRADES.-Wm. Baragwanath, "in behalf of the Watford Branch of the Journeyman Steam Engine and Machine Makers' and Millwrights' Friendly Society," has just published an address-inviting the Iron Trades of the United Kingdom to form a Joint Stock Company of 25s. shares, to be paid by instalments of 6d. weekly, and purchase a Printing office, publish a weekly newspaper as the organ of the trade and advocate of the merits and claims of the company;-take a paper mill and make their own paper ;-establish mills and workshops of various kinds, producing articles for working-men's consumption ;-and build cottages for their own habitation. Such is the numerical power of this Aristocracy of Trades', that the writer affirms the proposed newspaper would pay its way, if only one in ten of the Iron Trade working-men would support it! If such be the fact, what could not this trade accomplish, if they would unite? Surely working-men have been long enough asleep and dead to their own interest! Instead of foolishly talking about 'Emigration,' they have the means to make themselves happy and prosperous in old England, if they will join their heads together, and throw their hearts, like men and brothers, into the effort! THE NATIONAL HARLEQUIN.-Brougham attended a grand aristocratic meeting at Willis's Rooms, Hanover Square, last Thursday; and after floundering about in his speech for sometime-forgot the purpose of the meeting, which was to forward the great Industrial Exhibition of 1851-and began to sound his old cracked trumpet to the tune of "The Glorious Tenth of April'! Even the aristocrats were sick of the silly worn-out ditty, and hissed, and cried Question, question!' Great Harry was mortified; but he affected to cut it short' with a lordly grace, and said he must conclude, for his duties called him immediately to another place'-meaning the House of Lords! Yet he staid in the room till the end of the meeting, which was two hours after! O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen'! SENSIBLE PETITION.- "Some ignorant and infatuated persons in Cardington, Rushbury, and other parts, are signing a petition to the Almighty to chain the devil."-Eddowes' Shrewsbury Journal. ["Ignorant and infatuated"? Pooh, Mr. Eddowes! It is the most sensible petition ever got up among people who believe in a personal devil. But thenwho is to present it at Court? That is the rub!] PROPOSED DISCUSSION.-My last discourse at the Hall of Science, City Road, (the concluding one of the course on the Critical Exegesis of Gospel History') was attended by Mr. Scoble, the well-known and deservedly esteemed and respected Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society. Mr. S. rose, at the conclusion, and disputed some of my positions-especially that there were legends in the New Testament—and remarked that, if time allowed, he could disprove the said positions. I offered him the opportunity, and he agreed to accept it, and meet me for a public discussion; but requested that Ishould open it, with the maintenance of my own opinions. I have sent Mr. S. the following form of mutual challenge for his signature-having first signed it myself:-"Thomas Cooper undertakes to prove his assertion, that the New Testament contains legendary accounts of the great and good Jesus of Nazareth; and John Scoble undertakes to disprove the said assertion.' A committee composed of an equal number of friends of each disputant are to be appointed to make the necessary arrangements for the discussion; and I hope soon to have the pleasure of announcing the time and place of meeting-for it will be a pleasure to me to meet, for such a purpose, so worthy an antagonist as Mr. Scoble, whose championship of the oppressed Negro ought to endear him to every philanthropist. THOMAS COOPER. To Correspondents. On the first page in last number, readers will have found twowords which will have set them a-wondering, as to the writer's meaning. When the printer's proof-sheet was sent me to correct I found (a few lines from the bottom of the page) "fitting iron-shafts and never-tiring wheels against heart-strings and sinews."--and changed the word "fitting" to pitting-according to the writer's copy. In his haste, however, the printer fixed on the word "flitting" for correction, half-a-dozen lines higher up the page; and thus produced the strange union of words which now appears-" Chimeras pitting about the Utopian!!!" If this latter "pitting” be read fitting and "fitting (lower down) be read pitting, all will be right. I cannot express my mortification at the occurrence of these errors; but I hope I have now provided against their recurrence. "Publicola," W. F. T. Kew Green; J. C. W.-Their poetry is respectfully declined. "Bethnal Green Mutual Instruction Society;" Caius Gracchus; R. S. Archer; T. Taylor, Hackney Road. Their letters expressing approval of a Progress Union, are received, and valued, but publication does not seem necessary. G. WELST-His favour was received: obliged by his good wishes. I fear the person named will not stand fire. J. C. W., Leeds.-The 'Law of Primogeniture,' is that custom-for I do not know that there is any statute for it-whereby the eldest son succeeds to the father's title and real estate: that is, the estate in land, houses, &c. The Law of Entail' prevents the father from selling the estate without the consent of the next heir-as in the case of the Duke of Buckingham, lately who could not give his creditors their claim, until his heir, the Marquis of Chandos, consented that the family estate should be sold. These laws are oppressive, not only because they enable the nobility to get deeply into debt with comparative safety; but because they render it necessary that army, navy, church, places, &c., should be kept up that the younger sons of the landlords should be quartered upon them for a maintenance. 'Seventeen,' Gower-street.- Faggot votes are votes made by landlords, for carrying elections-by giving a pretended right of freehold to some of their tenants. These votes, in homely English, were characterised as being of no more value than a faggot—the name for a bundle of rotten sticks, in some parts of England. W. M., S. T., and other friends in Yorkshire and Lancashire, are respectfully informed that I cannot be out of London on any Sunday before next June. My Sunday engagements are fixed till the end of May, and are as follows: HALL OF SCIENCE, CITY ROAD. LITERARY INSTITUTION, JOHN STREET. MARCH 3. Real character of Moses, and the MARCH 10. Columbus, and the discovery of design of his institutions. America. 17. Real character of Mahommed, and 24. the design of Mohammedanism. Cortez, and the Conquest of Lectures, in London, for the ensuing Week SUNDAY, March 3, at 7, Hall of Science, (near Finsbury Square, City Road). See above. At 7, Literary Institution, John Street, Fitzroy Square. "On Government, and how to create a good one."-Robert Owen. MONDAY, March 4, at half-past 8, Mechanics' Institute, Gould Square, Crutched Friars."Moral Philosophy."-Dr. Cantor. At a quarter to 9, Finsbury Hall, 66, Bunhill Row. "Competition and Combination,"-Dr. Webb. At half-past 8, Pentonville. Athenæum, 17, Chapel Street, "Life Assurance."-Ambrose Hurst. At a quarter past 8, Literary Institution, Carlisle Street, Edgeware Road. "Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer."-P. W. Perfitt. At half-past 8, Finsbury Mechanics' Institute, Bell WEDNESDAY, March 6, at 8, Hackney Literary and Scientific Institution. Quarterly Public Meeting of the Elocution Class. THINKINGS, FROM RALPH WALDO EMERSON. CONSISTENCY.-A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers, and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do; else, if you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon. balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood. Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY.-Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul-drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and in me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, "I am divine -through me, God acts; through me. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think." But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the understanding. The understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, "This was Jehovah come down out of heaven-I will kill you, if you say he was a man.” The idioms of his language, and the figures of his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles but on his tropes. Christianity became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He spoke of miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines, as the man is diviner. But the very word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression, it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain. GOD AND SPIRIT. Of that ineffable essence which we call spirit, he that thinks most will say least. We can foresee God in the coarse and, as it were, distant phenomena of matter; but when we try to define and describe himself, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless as fools and savages. That essence refuses to be recorded in propositions; but when man has worshipped him intellectually, the noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is the great organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to it. Take TRUTH.-God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. which you please-you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates ever. He in whom the love of repose predominates, will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets,-most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates, will keep himself aloof from all moorings and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognise all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung. the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of his being. He submits to NATURE'S MORAL TEACHINGS. The moral influence of Nature upon every individual is that amount of which it illustrates to him. Who can estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? how much tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds for evermore drive the flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain? how much industry, and providence, and affection, we have caught from the pantomime of brutes? What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of Health! A NIGHT THOUGHT. The night-wind rageth-the rain flood rattleth, And swift through the air are the lightnings hurled. Not the strife abroad-not a sad thought breaketh Gaunt misery blackeneth her sunken eyes- Till man has created man's own new-birth. And the banner of War is for ever upfurled. A LAY OF LOVE. HEAVEN hath its crown of stars, the Earth The grand old woods have music, Green leaves, and silver showers; The birds have homes where honeyed blooms High-yearning hearts their rainbow dreams;- There's suffering for the toiling poor On Misery's bosom nurst; Rich robes for ragged souls; and crowns For branded-brows, Cain-cursed! But cherubim with clasping wings, And, happiest of God's happy things, We walk not with the jewelled great, We revel not in corn and wine, Yet have we from above Manna divine! Then we'll not pine: Do we not live and love? I know, dear heart, that in our lot I see thee-Ararat of my life!- GERALD MASSET. FRANK GRANT. |