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day's transactions, comparing them with the rumours and the threats that preceded them, will dispute that such might have been the result of that very day's meeting, if that meeting, so very legally assembled, had not, by the happy decision of the magistrates, been so very illegally dispersed?

It is, therefore, not in consonance, but in contradiction to the spirit of the law, that such meetings have been holden. The law prescribes a corporate character. The callers of these meetings have always studiously avoided it. No summons of freeholders-none of freemen-none of the inhabitants of particular places or parishes-no acknowledgment of local or political classification. Just so at the beginning of the French revolution: the first work of the Reformers was to loosen every established political relation, every legal holding of man to man, to destroy every corporation, to dissolve every subsisting class of society, and to reduce the nation into individuals, in order, afterwards, to congregate them into mobs.

Let no person, therefore, run away with the notion, that these things were done without design. To bring together the inhabitants of a particular division, or men sharing a common franchise, is to bring together an assembly, of which the component parts act with some respect and awe of each other ancient habits, which the Reformers would call prejudices, preconceived attachments, which they would call corruption, that mutual respect which makes the eye of a neighbour a security for each man's good conduct, but which the Reformers would stigmatize as a confederacy among the few for dominion over their fellows all these things make men difficult to be moved on the sudden to any extravagant and violent enterprize. But bring together a multitude of individuals having no permanent relation to each other, no common tie, but what arises from their concurrence as members of that meeting-a tie dissolved as soon as the meeting is at an end;-in such an aggregation of individuals there is no such mutual respect, no such check upon the proceedings of each man from the awe of his neighbour's disapprobation; and if ever a multitudinous assembly can be wrought up to purposes of mischief, it will be an assembly so composed.

How monstrous is it to confound such meetings with the genuine and

recognized modes of collecting the sense of the English people! Was it by meetings such as these that the revolution was brought about, the great event to which our antagonists are so fond of referring? Was it by a meeting in St George's-fields? in Spafields? in Smith-field? Was it by untold multitudes collected in a village in the north? No; it was by meeting of corporations in their corporate capacity-by the assembly of recognised bodies of the State-by the interchange of opinions among portions of the community known to each other, and capable of estimating each others views and characters. Do we want a more striking mode of remedying grievances than this? Do we require a more animating example? And did it remain for the Reformers of the present day to strike out the course by which alone Great Britain could make and keep herself free?

Gentlemen, all power is, or ought to be, accompanied by responsibility. Tyranny is irresponsible power. This definition is equally true, whether the power be lodged in one or many; whether in a despot, exempted by the form of government from the control of law; or in a mob, whose numbers put them beyond the reach of law. Idle, therefore, and absurd, to talk of freedom where a mob domineers! Idle, therefore, and absurd, to talk of liberty, when you hold your property, perhaps your life, not indeed at the nod of a despot, but at the will of an inflamed, an infuriated populace! If, therefore, during the reign of terror at Manchester or at Spafields, there were persons in this country who had a right to complain of tyranny, it was they who loved the Constitution, who loved the Monarchy, but who dared not utter their opinions or their wishes until their houses were barricadoed, and their children sent to a place of safety. That was tyranny! and, so far as the mobs were under the control of a leader, that was despotism. And it was against that tyranny, that despotism, that Parliament at length raised its arm.

All power, I say, is vicious, that is not accompanied by proportionate responsibility. Personal responsibility prevents the abuse of individual power; responsibility of character is the security against the abuse of collective power, when exercised by bodies of men whose existence is permanent

complished more, and his name would have gone to posterity without abate ment or drawback.

Of the beauties of Italian scenery, as well as those of Italian art, Mr Chantrey made many drawings-they are executed with great skill and facility. Those from the martyrdom of St Stephen are eminently beautiful; the originals are diminutive and little known, but are inspired with much of the serene and divine repose of Raphael.*

We close with reluctance this nasty and imperfect account of our illus trious countryman and his produc tions. We have omitted to notice some of the peculiar excellencies of his style, and to mention many of his works of numbers and of importance enough to form a fair reputation of themselves. We have confined ourselves to those with which we are most conversant. In the conception and in the finish of his works, the artist is extremely fastidious, and meditates with a care, and works with a dili gence, of which there are too few examples. He is an early mover, and may be found labouring in summertime, before sunrise, on some favourite work, nor has he forgot his early and intense application; with a candle in the front of his hat, and a chisel in his hand, we have seen him at midnight, and far in the morning, employed in finishing some of his principal works.†

Of works now in progress we shall endeavour to give a brief notice. 1. A Monument in memory of David P. Watts, of Dovedale in Derbyshire; the subject is a father blessing his children This extensive work is partly model led, and promises to become one of the noblest productions of his mind-moral, pathetic, and exalted. 2. A Monument for Mr Wildman of Chilham castle is of the same character, though the subject is different. A mother reclines on her husband's tomb in settled and serene sorrow; her daughter kneels

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at her feet, and buries her face in anguish in her parent's robe. The matble is in a forward state. 3. A Statue of Francis Horner, M. P., for Westminster Abbey-a production of great dignity and tranquil power-is also in marble, and will be finished in the course of the Autumn. 4. A sleeping child, the daughter of Sir Thomas Acland, is a gentle and lovely creation, and equals or surpasses the beauty and repose of the famous Children now in Lichfield Cathedral. 5. Another reposing child, the daughter of Mr Boswell of Auchenleck, is a work of great merit. There is a softness and silent grace about all the artist's labours of this kind. 6. A Statue of General Washington, for America, not in a condition for criticism. Canova has finished a Statue of this eminent person for the same country. The unequalled talent of the English artist in expressing grave and vigorous character, will be doubtless put forth here. 7. A Statue of Chief Baron Robert Dundas, for Edinburgh ;-and many Busts of remarkable men, and Monuments of importance.

Of the poetic groupes and figures which he has been commissioned to execute, it may be imprudent to speak, and our information might be inaccurate. Something in the highest poetical walk of sculpture has been long expected from his hand; and whether he may choose to come before the world in the soft and gentle, or in the dignified and impressive, it is useless to conjecture. Before the world he will come, in a subject of his own choice and election, and that soon. He is now modelling the Bust of Walter Scott. From the gifted hand we require the inspired head, and can consent to take it from no other. This is a circumstance we have long desired. The " form and pressure" of the great poet will now remain on the earth; and the names of Walter Scott and Francis Chantrey will descend to posterity together.

Drawing seems a favourite pastime with this artist. The popular excursion of Mr Rhodes, in Derbyshire, is indebted to his pencil for its best illustrations-romantic scenes, and several ancient and beautiful Saxon crosses. These have been presented to the author by the artist, from the love he bears to his native country.

+ The writer of this brief notice once saw a sketch of great talent from the hand of the late Edward Bird, R. A., in which his friend, Mr Chantrey, is represented employed in this nocturnal labour. The light from below shot upwards on the front of the figure-the statue of Louisa Russel, and the head and busy hand of the sculptor, were in a manner half-seen half-hid. The painter said he made the sketch at midnight, in the study of his friend. He did not live to finish what he had so beautifully begun.

THE WARDER.

No VI.

A WORD FITLY SPOKEN IS LIKE APPLES OF GOLD IN PICTURES OF SILVER-PROVERBS XXV. 11.

[OUR readers, we are sure, will be grateful to us for pressing into our service an entire Speech delivered by Mr Canning, at the dinner given in celebration of his re-election as Member for Liverpool. We rejoice in having an opportunity of giving any additional circulation to a production which, whether we regard the matter or the manner of it, we cannot help regarding as the very masterpiece of its illustrious author's genius,-which seems to us to embody by far the most clear, distinct, and philosophical views that have yet been laid before any portion of the British public in regard to the present internal disturbance, and disturbers of our country ;-and which, under the blessing of Divine Providence, may, we would fondly hope, contribute signally and speedily to the re-establishment of sober reflection and mutual confidence among all orders of the people. The natural effects, indeed, even of the wisdom and the eloquence of the greatest and best of men are thwarted and weakened in these days, by the unrelenting persevering spleen with which all such men are persecuted by the base rabble, who have obtruded themselves, in the character of teachers and writers, on the too credulous ears of by far too great a part of our population: nor, among all the living statesmen of England, is there any one who has had to contend either with so continuous or so foul a stream of this abuse, as the Right Honourable George Canning. None, indeed, have the audacity to deny his talents -but Whig-radical, and Radical-whig, and every organ of vulgar slander, by whatever name it is known-all seem, with one unceasing pertinacious spitefulness, to be leagued together in one common conspiracy of perpetual detraction against his personal character as a politician. And yet, when one looks back to the history of this remarkable man's public life, not only does it defy the utmost zeal of all his enemies to find one instance from which any conclusion hostile to his character as a man of honour and principle can possibly be drawn ;-but we venture fearlessly to assert, that of all living English statesmen, of all parties, he is the one whose career exhibits the greatest and most memorable sacrifices of personal interest; and which, to men of his cast, is out of all comparison more difficult, of personal feeling and personal pride to the purity and firmness of principle. There needs no one to rise from the dead to inform us, that of all human objects a clever Tory is to a stupid Whig the most exalted and essential of abominations. But when one sees by how many Whigs, that nobody calls stupid, these absurd and wicked reproaches are for ever re-echoed and reiterated, one cannot help feeling some little emotion, not of contempt merely, but of astonishment. These men are not aware how miserably they are pulling down their own authority, by convincing the whole world that their minds are incapable of any sympathy in regard to any one matter, either of thought or of feeling, with one, whom every body that reads a page of any of his works, knows and feels irresistibly, to be among the most accomplished and powerful intellects of his age and country,-one, we devoutly believe, of the most upright and honourable men that ever devoted the energies of a great genius to the ill-rewarded toils of British Statesmanship.]

SPEECH OF The right hoN. GEORGE CANNING,

At the Liverpool Dinner, given in Celebration of his Re-election. GENTLEMEN Short as the interval is since I last met you in this place on a similar occasion, the events which have filled up that interval have not been unimportant. The great moral disease which we then talked of as gaining ground on the community, has, since that period, arrived at its most extravagant height; and, since that period also, remedies have been

applied to it, if not of permanent cure, at least of temporary mitigation.

VOL. VII.

Gentlemen, with respect to those remedies, I mean with respect to the transactions of the last short session of Parliament, previous to the dissolution, I feel that it is my duty, as your representative, to render to you some account of the part which I took in that assembly to which you sent me ;

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I feel it my duty also, as a member of the Government by which those measures were advised. Upon occasions of such trying exigency as those which we have lately experienced, I hold it to be of the very essence of our free and popular Constitution, that an unreserved interchange of sentiment should take place between the representative and his constituents: and if it accidentally happen, that he who addresses you as your representative, stands also in the situation of a responsible adviser of the crown, I recognise in that more rare occurrence, a not less striking or less valuable peculiarity of that reviled Constitution under which we have the happiness to live; by which a minister of the crown is brought into contact with the great body of the community; and the service of the king is shown to be a part of the service of the people.

Gentlemen, it has been one advantage of the transactions of the last Session of Parliament, that while they were addressed to meet the evils which had grown out of charges heaped upon the House of Commons, they have also, in a great measure, falsified the charges themselves.

I would appeal to the recollection of every man who now hears me, of any the most careless estimator of public sentiment, or the most indifferent spectator of public events, whether any country, in any two epochs, however distant, of its history, ever presented such a contrast with itself as this country, in November, 1819, and this country in January 1820? What was the situation of the country in November, 1819?-Do I exaggerate when I say, that there was not a man of property who did not tremble for his possessions? that there was not a man of retired and peaceable habits who did not tremble for the tranquillity and security of his home? that there was not a man of orderly and religious principles who did not fear that those principles were about to be cut from under the feet of succeeding generations? Was there any man who did not apprehend the Crown to be in danger? Was there any man attached to the other branches of the Constitution, who did not contemplate, with anxiety and dismay, the rapid and, apparently, irresistible diffusion of doctrines hostile to the very existence of Parliament as at present constituted, and calculated to excite, not hatred and contempt merely, but open and

audacious force, especially against the House of Commons?-What is, in these respects, the situation of the country now? Is there a man of property who does not feel the tenure by which he holds his possessions to have been strengthened? Is there a man of peace who does not feel his domestic tranquillity to have been secured? Is there a man of moral and religious principles who does not look forward with better hope to see his children educated in those principles ? who does not hail with renewed confidence the revival and re-establishment of that moral and religious sense which had been attempted to be obliterated from the hearts of mankind?

Well, Gentlemen, and what has intervened between the two periods? A meeting of that degraded Parliament, a meeting of that scoffed at and derided House of Commons, a concurrence of those three branches of an imperfect constitution, not one of which, if we are to believe the Radical Reformers, lived in the hearts, or swayed the feelings, or commanded the respect of the nation; but which, despised as they were while in a state of separation and inaction, did, by a co-operation of four short weeks, restore order, confidence, a reverence for the laws, and a just sense of their own legitimate authority.

Another event, indeed, has intervened, in itself of a most painful nature, but powerful in aiding and confirming the impressions which the assembling and the proceedings of Parliament were calculated to produce. I mean the loss which the nation has sustained by the death of a Sovereign, with whose person all that is venerable in Monarchy has been identified in the eyes of successive generations of his subjects; a Sovereign, whose goodness, whose years, whose sorrows and sufferings, must have softened the hearts of the most ferocious enemies of kingly power;-whose active virtues, and the memory of whose virtues, when it pleased Divine Providence that they should be active no more, have been the guide and guardian of his people through many a weary and many a stormy pilgrimage;-scarce less a guide, and quite as much a guardian, in the cloud of his evening darkness as in the brightness of his meridian day.

That such a loss, and the recollections and reflections naturally arising from it, must have had a tendency to revive and refresh the attach

ment to Monarchy, and to root that attachment deeper in the hearts of the people, might easily be shown by reasoning; but a feeling truer than all reasoning anticipates the result, and renders the process of argument unnecessary. So far, therefore, has this great calamity brought with it its own compensation, and conspired to the restoration of peace throughout the country, with the measures adopted by Parliament.

And, Gentlemen, what was the character of those measures?—The best eulogy of them I take to be this: it may be said of them, as has been said of some of the most consummate productions of literary art, that though no man beforehand had exactly anticipated them, no man, when they were laid before him, did not feel that they were such as he would himself have suggested. So faithfully adapted to the case which they were framed to meet, so correctly adjusted to the degree and nature of the mischief which they were intended to control, that while we all feel that they have done their work, I think none will say there has been any thing in them of excess or supererogation.

We were loudly assured by the Reformers, that the test throughout the country by which those who were ambitious of seats in the new Parliament would be tried was to be-whether they had supported those measures. I have inquired, with as much diligence as was compatible with my duties here, after the proceedings of other elections; and I protest I know no place yet, besides the hustings of Westminster and Southwark, at which that menaced test has been put to any candidates. To me, indeed, it was not put as a test, but objected as a charge. You know how that charge was answered: and the result is to me a majority of 1300 out of 2000 voters upon the poll.

But, Gentlemen, though this question has not, as was threatened, been the watchword of popular elections, every other effort has, nevertheless, been industriously employed to persuade the country, that their liberties have been essentially abridged by the regulation of popular meetings. Against that one of the measures passed by Parliament it is that the attacks of the Radical Reformers have been particularly directed. Gentlemen, the first answer to this averment is, that the Act leaves untouched all the constitutional modes of assembly which have

been known to the nation since it became free. We are fond of dating our freedom from the Revolution. I should be glad to know in what period since the Revolution, (up to a very late period indeed, which I will specify,) in what period of those reigns growing out of the Revolution-I mean, of the first reigns of the House of Brunswick

did it enter into the head of man, that such meetings could be holden, or that the Legislature would tolerate the holding of such meetings, as disgraced the country for some months previous to the last session of Parliament? When, therefore, it is asserted that such meetings were never before suppressed, the simple answer is, they were never before systematically attempted to be holden.

I verily believe, the first meeting of the kind that was ever attempted and tolerated (I know of none anterior to it) was that called by Lord George Gordon, in St George's-fields, in the year 1780, which led to the demolition of chapels and dwelling-houses, the breaking of prisons, and the conflagration of London. Was England never free till 1780? Did British liberty spring to light from the ashes of the metropolis? What! was there no freedom in the reign of George the Second? None in that of George the First? None in the reign of Queen Ann or of King William ? Beyond the Revolution I will not go. But I have always heard, that British liberty was established long before the commencement of the late reign; nay, that in the late reign (according to popular politicians) it rather sunk and retrograded; and yet, never till that reign was such an abuse of popular meetings dreamt of, much less erected into a right, not to be questioned by Magistrates, and not to be controlled by Parliament.

Do I deny, then, the general right of the people to meet, to petition, or to deliberate upon their grievances? God forbid! But right is not a simple, abstract, positive, unqualified term. Rights are in the same individual to be compared with his duties; and rights in one person are to be balanced with the rights of others. But let us take the right to meet in its most extended construction. The persons who called the meeting at Manchester tell you, that they had a right to collect together countless multitudes to discuss the question of Parliamentary Reform; to collect them when they would, and where they would, without consent

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