upon this most eminent person, is, however, only one of the many rebukes wherewith the arrogant tone assumed, upon almost all occasions, by that journal, has been visited. The gentlemen who had the honour of establishing it fell, even in the first concoction of their plan, into many errors which have grievously impeded the contemporary influence of their work, and taken from it, we fear, almost every chance of receiving from future generations the respect to which the talents of its authors might have otherwise given it a claim. Of these errors, the first and greatest was the assumed principle of being always reviewers de haut en bas. A few clever and wellinformed young gentlemen might surely have set on foot a very excellent literary journal, without making it an axiom in their creed, that they themselves were, and should always continue to be, the very first geniuses and authors of their times. Upon what principle of sane judgment persons who had never produced any great and splendid work of any kind whatever, and who therefore could have no assurance of the measure of their own powers, should conceive themselves entitled to take it for granted that England and Europe had exerted themselves to the utmost in fashioning their spirits, and would thenceforth seek comparative repose in the shaping of spirits comparatively insignificant, we have no capacity to imagine. The blessed self-complacence of minds that could easily and undoubtingly embrace so comfortable a notion of their own importance, must, without all question, in the eyes of those who consider pleasure as the summum bonum of humanity, appear no despicable boon. But there are many sources of pleasure, whose efficacy may be acknowledged by those that do not envy their possessors. The straw crown of a bedlamite confers perhaps more intense delight upon its wearer, than the splendour of the "golden round" ever conveys to the mind of the true prince. The satisfaction with which a smart critic chuckles over the contemplation of his own importance, may in like manner be a far more unmixedly pleasurable feeling than the more lofty, and more serious, and more modest consciousness of a majestic poet. Disturbed with no solitary clouds of despondence, tormented by no longings, maddened by no dreams of higher greatness, the Aristaen soon reaches the ultimatum of his ambition, and sits down contented in the posses sion of the little, because he hopes not, perhaps imagines not, the possibility of the much.-The ape that clambers to the summit of the tree beneath which the lion reposes, and the dwarf who, "Perch'd on a pedestal, Overlooks a giant," derive a pride from their elevation, which is not attended by any feelings of proportionate reverence on the part of its beholders. The world may be deceived for a little space; but there is no chance of its recognising, with any permanent approbation, the airs of happy superiority assumed by our northern Zoili over the Wordsworths, the Southeys, and the Goethes, of their age. THIS is by far the best of all Orator Phillip's orations, and perhaps the chief cause of its excellence is, that the sole subject of it is himself. He keeps his eye steadily fixed on that great personage, and the language of selfadoration becomes sublime. He speaks as if he were looking all the while into a mirror,-each new gesticulation creates new energies,-his address to others thus assumes the impassioned character of a soliloquy,-and he is perhaps the only orator who ever wholly forgot that he had an audience. We wish to speak in the most flattering terms of Orator Phillips, but we are aware, that he is a gentleman gluttonous of praise, and of ostrich-like power of digestion. It is impossible to satisfy such an appetite. He must have heaped up measure, and running over, or he gets sulky, and will have none of it. He turned up his nose at the frugal and salubrious repast so promptly spread for him by the Edin Calumny Confuted.-Speech, delivered at the Dinner, given by a Select and Numerous Party of Friends, for the purpose of Refuting the Remarks of the Quarterly Review, on the Character and Conduct of an Eminent Barrister. Milliken, Dublin. 1817. burgh Reviewer, nay, threw it somewhat unceremoniously into the face of his entertainer. Can we, therefore, expect, that he will accept graciously from our humble hands, a treat, which he contumeliously spurned at, when held out by the honourable and learned member for Winchelsea? Yet, we are not without hopes, that he may be prevailed upon to accept our eulogies, who do not pretend to be orators ourselves, but mere critics of oratory in others. He despised, as it was natural for him to do, the envious calumnies of Brougham and of Jeffrey, those little and disappointed men, of whose eloquence, as Mr Phillips well observes, no one ever heard-low and petty-fogging practitioners, who look up with bitter hatred on the " Young Pride of Erin," from the hopeless abasement of their obscurity. What have such small folk to do with Councellor and Orator Phillips? The world, who heard of them for the first time, when they gave a public opinion of that illustrious young man, has long since forgotten them-while, on the contrary, Mr Phillips, who has taken the well-known instrument out of the hands of fame, and boldly flown with it at his mouth across the Irish channel, makes a very great noise in the world indeed! and successfully acts the part of his own Trumpeter. The Speech, from which we shall now give our readers a few extracts, was delivered under circumstances of peculiar solemnity. A dinner had been given to the Orator in a tavern in Dublin, by a hundred select friends, who were desirous of expressing their admiration of his talents and respect for his character, at the moderate expense of half-a-guinea a head, including a bottle of port-wine. On the cloth being withdrawn, the Orator rose, and entered into a vindication of himself against the aspersions of the Quarterly Review. The grandeur of the occasion-the magnitude of the cause the solemnity of the time-the magnificence of the place the nobility of the audience-the genius of the Örator-formed altogether such an assemblage of glory as has but rarely be fore been witnessed in this sublunary It is enough to say, that the Speech spoken during that high hour was worthy of Mr Phillips-of his audience and of the tavern in which they had previously dined. scene. The chairman had, it seems, read (immediately after the cheese) the article in the Quarterly Review, which gave occasion to the august meeting. It is impossible not to be struck with the consummate skill with which the Orator steals upon the sympathy of his auditors. How calm, yet how energetic, is his commencement. "Think for a moment on the article our chairman has just read, amid bursts of indignation which even his dignity could not control. I know not who this defamer isobscurity is his shield-oblivion is his safeguard: let him not flatter himself that he is the object of my wrath-let him not hope the honour of my revenge. I mean not to tinge the cloud that conceals him with the reflected brightness of my glory; the lightning, that would destroy, illuminates: never did the temple of Ephesus-in all the splendour of its primitive pride, in all the imposing grandeur of its architecture, in all the blessedness of its beauty-attract such animated attention, as when it shone-the star of earth-the torch of heaven-a blazing beacon-in ruin awful!-in destruction magnificent!-(Loud and repeated bursts of applause.)" Every thing is now swept away by the torrent. Hear how he revels and riots in his strength. "I like not that cold and cautious court of Criticism, where Spleen sits in judgment upon Splendour, where Prudence pleads against Passion, and the Orator is lost in the Rhetorician; I love not that barren and bounded circus, where the captious adversary entangles in his pitiful net the warrior, whose weapon he is too weak to wield; Oh, it disgusts the heart to see the sons of little men assume the proud port of the giant! Oh, it deadens the soul, to behold an object enthroned in ideal elevation, presenting us obscurity, for extent; for sublimity, darkness!-the waggon rumbling over a rugged and rutted road, might more successfully emulate the deafening peal of the thunderbolt-the meteor, whose birthplace is the swamp, whose home is the wilderness, might better vie in beauty and beatitude with the standing star, who rejoices for ever in the vaulted sky, and attunes in his rapid revolutions the song that first soothed the ear of infant Existence." Having thus exposed the ignorance of the Quarterly Reviewer, he next seizes on a still more vulnerable point -his Envy; and the picture he draws of that demon, deprives Spenser of all claim to the character of a poet. How feeble his allegory to the living reality of the demon of Orator Phillips. "But Envy-this whispering demonthis pale passion of the wan and wasted mind this sorceress, whose eye gazes with vain desire on the efforts of opposing genius 'till its beam deadens in the overpowering blaze, and its circle of vision becomes contracted and confined;-this self-elected rival, whose heart throbs with eager and idle emulation, till its aspirations assume a fretful fervour-a feverish rapidity ;-this black crucible-in which our vices and our virtues -our weaknesses and our worth-our rights and our reputation are amalgamated with all the dark and debasing ingredients, which the busy hand of Malice can collect, while, over the steaming and stupefying caldron, Hatred hovers with clouded brow, Ridicule sneers with writhing lip, and Scandal howls her hymn of idiot incantation. (Unprece dented applause for many minutes.)" But perhaps the finest, and certainly the most triumphant passage in this noble oration, is that where he destroys, by his eloquence, that "consistency" which he had formerly deserted in his conduct." "But let us not be deceived by Declamation, that fatal faculty, who flings over every object a prismatic profusion of delusive dyes; let us examine what are the merits of this boasted blessing? this courtly consistency?-Oh! well may she vaunt her parentage! well may she be vain of her connexions: the daught of Obstinacythe sister and the spouse of Stubbornness unholy was the hour of their horrid and hateful nuptials! accursed were the rites of the eternal ceremony-when Bigotry held the torch, whose lustre was the light of Hell, over the altar blackened and blushing with blood; and accursed are the children of their incestuous commerce!-CONSISTENCY!!-how ignorant are these maniacs -they know not that motion is the purpose, and the principle, and the power of life -they know not that but for his motion the beds of Ocean would sink into a sad and silent and sullen stagnation-a desert of death -a pit of putrefaction!-walk abroad in the terrific time of tempest and tumult, and mark how the ministry and motion of the winged whirlwinds cleanses the vaulted amphitheatre of air! Look around on the objects of Nature-is not the cessation of motion the prelude of death? And shall Mind alone abandon the analogies of Nature? Shall Opinion alone remain chained, and unchangeable? Shall Age be imperiously governed by the principles, which Youth has impetuously adopted? the assertion is a solecism against society-a sin against the soul!" Having thus gotten the Quarterly Review fairly down below the table, the Counsellor thus tramples on his fallen foe. Never was shillelah brandished with more merciless vigour at Donnybrook fair. "But this Alaric-this Attila-this Atrides of atrocity, questions my acquaintance with the long labyrinths of law, with the VOL. IV. jargon of judgments, contradictory and conflicting-and why? Because I have not in the pride of pedantry poured forth cold cataracts of Norman-French, because I have not showered down on the heads of an unprepared jury heavy hailstorms of Sclavonian-Latin-because I have chosen rather a simple appeal addressed to the passions of men, than a detail dark and dull with complicated controversy-with concatenated confusion.I detest the veil of mysterious mummery, that would fling its folds over the porch of justice-I despise the legal learning, that, like the black sun of the Indian Mythology, wells forth rays of darkness-beams of obscurity.-My appeal is to a moral court of conscience-to the chartered chamber of intellect to the throne of justice in the heart of man.-[Applause.] It is the Bank of Ireland to a mealy potato-on the head of the orator. The fight is taken out of the man without a name and Mr Phillips thus throws a somerset over the ropes. "Need I now repeat what I have uttered in England and in Ireland-in London and in Liverpool-in Cork and in Kerry-REFORM!-radical, resistless REFORM!-In the new birth of your Parliament you will hail the regeneration of your Country !—I have said it often and often-again and again, but I was not attended to; I have said it in Prose-I was not attended to; I have said it in Verse-I was not attended to. There is a peculiar and appropriate dia lect-a language that is not Prose, that is not Verse, but which, while it possesses all the strength and sinew of Prose, charms with all the magic and melody of Verse, that combines the energy of Eloquence with the euphony of Song-in this dialect of Paradise I have said it, and-will after-ages believe the disgraceful narrative ?-I was not attended to!!-[A long pause of expressive silence.]" We are aware that the oracular wisdom of the following splendid passage must have the inevitable effect of throwing into the shade all the other contents of our invaluable Magazine. Well-let them go. A page of Phillips is worth the sacrifice. Seer! Hear the "It is not without reason that the Pro phet mourns over the dangerous gift by which he beholds, in gloomy anticipation, the shadow of coming evil; and he who is endowed with superior intellect has not less of France was crushed and crumbled beneath reason to regret when the imperial crown the might of banded barbarians-when the diadem of the deposed dynasty was dashed to dust-when the barbaric thrones of eastern tyranny trembled and tottered at the tread of England, there were those who said it was glory;-vain visions of ideal wealth floated before their eyes ;-dreams of universal do2 E. minion blest their repose. They listened not to the lessons of ages; they worshipped not at the altar of history; they heard not of that lever, whose pressure is the present, whose power is the past, whose fulcrum is the future; they thought not on the ruins of Rome; they looked not to the example of Athens; they thought not on that fallen nation, whose merchants were the princes of the earth. No! they were chaunting their idle pæans of praise; they were parading through the palaces of Paris, they were visiting the vallies of Waterloo! Basking in the delightful delusion, they were lulled into a dull and dreamy repose by the courtly lays of the laureat, or sublimated to a frantic enthusiasm by the inebriate inspiration of another prophet of the lakes, a very Montorio of madness, a lay preacher, one who dreams dreams, and sees visions, forsooth.-Well no matter his fantastic feats of German jugglery are applauded !—I strove to break the slumber of death, but mine was the voice of one crying in the wilderness-Wo to those who bow down at the altars of National Insolvency their deity is a demon-their shrine is the table of the money-changer the incense of their adoration is wafted on the tainted sighs of an injured and insulted people; the bread of their impious communion is moistened with the sweat, and leavened with the blood of indigence :-the minister-but need I name the ministers of the accursed sacrifice! [Name! Name! no! no!] Oh! I loath the sickening scene of senatorial servility-of Plebeian prostration!-if we must have a Parliament, why are its numbers limited? Why is its sphere of action confined?-in this æra of universal genius, when mind at length asserts its inherent omnipotence over the essential grossness, and the accidental fluctuations of matter, why is not the intellectual strength of the kingdom represented ?—but mark, for a moment, the wretched policy of these borough-mongering sinecurists-they deify Wealth-they despise Wisdom-like the mechanic whose eyes turns hastily from the hill of Howth, from the harbour of Dunleary, and rests in delighted repose on the tin tube-the whirling wheels, and all the mean and miserable machinery of the steam-boat! "Better, far better were the slavery of the African, than the boasted birthright of the Briton-What though he toils beneath a torrid Sun-what though he shrinks under the scourge of the taskmaster, what though for ages he has vainly waited for the Avatar of that spirit, whose fiat shall burst the fetters of his political thraldom what though the chains of a tyrant gall his dusky arms, can the pangs of bodily torture rival in intensity the agonies of mind? Our slavery is the slavery of the soul! Our chains are the chains of the heart! Listen not to the schemes of these black and bloated Vampires, that rise from the vaults of Corruption and Rottenness, to feast upon the heart and the hopes, upon the blessings and the blood of their country!-years have glided by-generations have passed awayeven centuries-those vast segments of the circle of time, have waned and wasted-Literature hath advanced-Poetry hath extended her reign-Eloquence is the attribute of universal man-Science hath spread her conquests from the University to the Universe ;-with the presumption of Prometheus we have called down fire from heaven-with the wing of Daedalus we have traversed the ambient oceans of air-but is the happiness of social man extended? Have we improved in the art of Legislation ? Those questions you have heard admirably answered by my honourable Friend, to whose eloquent expositions you have listened with such deep delight [hear! hear!] let it be my task to point out less observable evils-look to the University of Ireland! She weeps for her children, and will not be comforted for they are not.-The voice of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY' is silentdust hath defiled the volumes that record the glorious and gigantic march of Genius the bookworm hath battened on the treasures of thought-the triumphs and the trophies of Literature-Solitude sits in the chambers, where Age gazed in mute admiration, while Youth hastened to decide— where Wisdom watched with wonder the wild and wanton wing of Eloquence, as it rose, in unimaginable flight, above the callous and calculating ken of minds, corrupted by the cold contagions of self-vaunting Pride,-clouded by coarse communion with self-sufficient prejudice. (Hear! hear!) Pass where the hurricane bath past!-visit the vale which the earthquake hath visited! where the bank bloomed with beauty, where the flower flourished, where the river rolled and reflected the lovely and luxuriant landscape, where the wild bird chaunted his carols of thoughtless praise-behold the rifted rock-rugged and ragged-black with lightning and barren of vegetation-behold the putrid and offensive spots, poisoned and polluted by pestilential pools, where the liquid loveliness, that now lingers in loathsome stagnation, once cheered and charmed the sense of musing meditation. Such is that theatre of thought!—such that circus of competition!-that focus of fancy, to which all the rays of genius converged, in which all the gleams of poetry and all the glow of oratory, the impassioned emphasis the articulate alliteration--were collected and concentred. Oh I could dwell on the radiant retrospect for a measureless eternity! I could console myself for the contemptuous contumely of the critic, by reverting to those days of rapture, which dullness could not depress!of reputation, which awoke the envy of no enemy! These, my friends, are the rich recollections, that shed a long line of lustre on the lawn of life-these are the charming associations, that cherished in childhood, mingle with the memory of man -that make the heart a habitation of delightful images a spirit that raises the soul above the clouds and cares of sublunary scenery, a pillar of glory, whose pedestal is earth, whose pinnacle is eternity.-[Bursts of unsophisticated admiration." We earnestly entreat Mr Phillips to come to Edinburgh, and dine here as he has dined at Liverpool and in Dublin. The inhabitants of this town can have no peace till they give him a dinner-and a dinner he must have, that is certain. We are requested by Mr Young, the celebrated traiteur of the Dilettanti Society, to join his entreaties to ours, that Mr Phillips will accept of a public dinner in Free-Mason's Hall (bottoms limited to 100), and we understand that nothing but an amiable modesty prevents the manciple of Mr Scott's new academical and legal institution, from joining his name to our petition. If Mr Phillips would allow the dinner to be eat on his birthday, the inhabitants of Edinburgh would consider the honour still higher -and if that gentleman would think it a farther inducement to attend, the strictest care shall be taken that nobody is allowed to make speeches after dinner but himself. "Come then-ethereal mildness, come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veiled in a shower Of shadowing roses on our plains descend." The Printer's Devil has just hinted to us, that this is not a Speech of Mr Phillips' at all-and that we have been imposed upon. If so, we beg Mr Phillips' pardon for our stupidity, and return thanks to the author of the Speech, whoever he is, for the amusement he has afforded us. PROSPECTUS OF A NEW ACADEMICAL INSTITUTION AT EDINBURGH. SOME years ago, a sharp dispute arose between the wise men of the north and the wise men of the south, on the respective merits of their Universities. A good deal of nonsense was uttered by both parties, though not more than is usual on occasions when people will talk of what they do not understand. A Scotch Professor is proud of many things, and of none more than his ignorance of the English system of education. An English Professor is also proud of many things; and if ignorance be bliss, he must be happy No whenever he thinks of Scotland. permanent interest could be felt in such blundering debates; and the impression generally made by them on the minds of the impartial was, that however excellent might be the systems prevalent in the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, the great men in both were exceedingly apt to expose themselves, and, in the midst of extreme liberality and love of truth, to exhibit much woful ignorance and many deplorable prejudices. The good people of Scotland are as much in the dark about the English Universities, as if they were establishments in Siberia; and the knowledge which Englishmen have of ours amounts to no more than this, that the Professors are all Presbyterians, and that the students are sad graceless dogs, who do nothing but devour the fatal pages of David Hume and Adam Smith. A man has at last arisen to combine the advantages of the two systems; and the name of WILLIAM SCOTT will be inscribed in letters of gold among those of the benefactors of his species. The University of Edinburgh is to be allowed to stand where it now stands; the Professors to lecture where they now lecture. But an English University is to rise up under its shadow, and fresh Professors are at night to succeed those worn out by day; so that the sluices of knowledge are to be opened by sunrise, and shut long after sunset. Such a system of irrigation cannot fail to cover the whole intellectual land with one flush of verdure. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT has discovered this great truth, which lies at the bottom of his system, that the students at the University of Edinburgh forget in the evening every thing they hear in the morning; and to remove this evil, which obviously stands in the way of the progress of all national improvement, he proposes to found his Academical Institution. The original mind of WILLIAM SCOTT had discovered, that when young men go to an University, they know not what to study, but are like so many puppies in a pantry, at a loss on which dish to begin. It is a chief object, therefore, of the Academical Institution, to "advise them as to the lectures of the University." Thus says this truly great discoverer: "Students in law will be advised to pass five years in this or some other University (this |