to prop the throne by nicknames, and the altar by lies—­who being (by common consent) the finest, the most humane and accomplished writer of his age, associated himself with and encouraged the lowest panders of a venal press; deluging, nauseating the public mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang; shewing no remorse, no relenting or compassion towards the victims of this nefarious and organized system of party-proscription, carried on under the mask of literary criticism and fair discussion, insulting the misfortunes of some, and trampling on the early grave of others—­

  “Who would not grieve if such a man there be? 
  Who would not weep if Atticus were he?”

But we believe there is no other age or country of the world (but ours), in which such genius could have been so degraded!

[Footnote A:  No!  For we met with a young lady who kept a circulating library and a milliner’s-shop, in a watering-place in the country, who, when we inquired for the Scotch Novels, spoke indifferently about them, said they were “so dry she could hardly get through them,” and recommended us to read Agnes.  We never thought of it before; but we would venture to lay a wager that there are many other young ladies in the same situation, and who think “Old Mortality” “dry.”]

[Footnote B:  Just as Cobbett is a matter-of-fact reasoner.]

[Footnote C:  St. Ronan’s Well.]

[Footnote D:  Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels, is that where the Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her brother’s arrival.]

[Footnote E:  “And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader.  It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whose stand against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their existence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and capable of excesses, contrary not only to the laws of England, but to those of nature and humanity.  But alas! we have only to extract from the industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has collected from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.

“The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of the excesses of which they were capable when their passions were inflamed.  ’They grievously oppressed the poor people by building castles; and when they were built, they filled them with wicked men or rather devils, who seized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever endured.  They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them.  They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads.’  But it would be cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusing the remainder of the description.”—­Henry’s Hist. edit. 1805, vol. vii. p. 346.]