prosperous town of Leeds, one of not the least prosperous in mere worldly affairs, he has for many years been admired by all his townsmen, by men of all parties, as by far the richest in mental endowments;-while honour bright, integrity without a flaw, morals unstained, and manners the most delightful, to say nothing of those accomplishments which throw a charm over all the intercourse of domestic and social life, all meeting together in his character, have given to it a dignity which his genius-great and original as it is-of itself could never have bestowed. That such a man should be a "manufacturer of speeches" no more surprises us than that he should be a "manufacturer of linens." Mr Sadler is an ENGLISH MAN. But now to business. CHAPTER II. THE Reviewer starts boldly, and with an air of conscious superiority over Mr Sadler, which, in the long run, becomes, as we shall see by and by, almost too ludicrous to look upon in a person whose endowments are so poor. "We did not expect," says he, a good book from Mr Sadler; and it is well that we did not; for he has given us a very bad one. The matter of the Treatise is extraordinary, the manner more extraordinary still. His arrangement is confused, his repetitions endless, his style every thing which it ought not to be. Instead of saying what he has to say with the perspicuity, the precision, and the simplicity, in which consists the eloquence proper to scientific writing, he indulges without measure in vague, bombastic declamation! made up of those fine things which boys of fifteen admire, and which every body who is not destined to be a boy all his life weeds rigorously out of his compositions after fiveand-twenty. That portion of his two thick volumes which is not made up of statistical tables, consists principally of ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors, and similes, all the worst of their respective kinds. His thoughts are dressed up in this shabby finery with so much profusion and so little discrimination, that they remind us of a company of wretched strolling players who had huddled on suits of ragged and faded tinsel, taken from a common wardrobe, and fitting neither their persons nor parts, and who then exhibit themselves to the laughing and pitying spectators in a state of strutting, ranting, painted, gilded beggary." Why did the Reviewer not expect a good book from Mr Sadler? Was it because Mr Sadler had made a dis tinguished figure in Parliament, and delivered a first speech there which in the opinion of Plunkett entitled him to be called a debater of the highest order? Was it because Mr Sadler had published a book on Ireland, its Evils, and their Remedies, which Mr Spring Rice, a person not ignorant surely of the state of his native country, though an opponent of Mr Sadler in most great questions of domestic policy, pronounced full of wisdom, and of itself sufficient to entitle its author to the name of a public benefactor? No doubt it was. Pray did the Reviewer ever speak in Parliament? And if he did, was his eloquence of that commanding character "Whereof all Europe rings from side to side ?" What book, good, bad, or indifferent, has he written? A few articles in Reviews-containing no " statistical tables"-we answer for it—but “ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors, and similes," sufficient to smother the somnolent. The "matter of the Treatise is extraordinary," but does the Reviewer understand it? We pledge ourselves to shew, that at this moment he is as ignorant of "the contents," as an unbegotten child. We fear, from what we have heard, that he is himself on the wrong side of five-and-twenty, by a good many years-and yet "destined to be a boy all his life;" for what have his best compositions been, but a tawdry. bedizenment of flower, froth, fume, foam, flash, flutter, and feather of speech-a strange specimen, certainly, of the "perspicuity, the precision, and the simplicity, in which consists the eloquence proper to scientific writing." As to his simile of the strolling players, which he manifestly sports as something of his own, quite new and original, it is not so old, perhaps, as the days of Thespis, but it may be traced through a long line of owners, as ambitious as himself of novel illustration, till lost in remote antiquity. His own beggary-we shall shew-is not exactly of the kind he describes Mr Sadler's to be. Strutting and ranting" it is-but neither "painted nor gilded," for the poor wit-it would seem-belongs himself to a set of strollers, who could not, on the present occasion, afford to go to the expense of a roll of gold leaf, or a pot of colour. down by Mr Malthus. He has not, and, accordingly, the Reviewer does enter on that theme, and, in a style worthy of one "destined to be a boy all his days," he asks Mr Sadler, how he accounts for mad-dogs, for malaria, and for headaches?-and twits him for possessing a piety which "would be proof against one rainy summer, but would be overcome by three or four in succession." All this is not only indecorous but irreverent; and is enough of itself "The spirit of the book is as bad to shew that the senseless scoffer and as its style," quoth Simon Sensitive; sneerer has not sense to understand and why? Because it applies strong how to approach so awful a subject. epithets to the theory and doctrine He concludes his wretched series of of Mr Malthus. These epithets, the witticisms on the origin of evil, thus: simpleton says, are applied to Mr Mr Sadler says, that it is not a Malthus himself personally: "Mr light or transient evil, but a great Malthus is attacked in language which and permanent evil. [The Reviewit would be scarcely decent to apply er is alluding to Mr Sadler's belief to Titus Oates." To this charge, Mr that the great and permanent evil Sadler says, "I reply in his own of the law of population, as laid language, it is utterly false.' I have down by Mr Malthus, is not one not once applied these terms per- of the laws of God.] What then? sonally to him, or to any other indi- The question of the origin of evil is vidual. How have I differed from a question of aye or no; not a quesMr Malthus himself when discussing tion of MORE or LESS." Such is his the same subject, or even when treat- Natural Theology. A few passages ing of others infinitely less exciting? back, he had spoken of Butler and For instance, will the Reviewer say Paley, and referred Mr Sadler to of Mr Malthus, that, when he speaks them, as to the masters of moral and of Plato's 'detestable' views, he calls religious wisdom, by which his own Plato detestable? That in ' execra- great mind had been enlightened. ting the supposed expedients of Mr Sadler then takes him at his the legislators and philosophers of word-and asks, "What says Paley? Greece, he describes those great men His express rule is this, that when as execrable? Or to come to our we cannot resolve all appearances own times, that, in asserting the end into benevolence of design, we make which Paley had in view, the en- the FEW give place to the MANY, the couragement of marriage, to be 'ab- LITTLE to the GREAT; that we take solutely criminal,' he stigmatized our judgment from a large and deci Paley as absolutely criminal ?"" ded preponderance?' Now, in weighPoo, poo, poo! The Reviewer begins ing these two authorities, directly at already, with all his airs, to look issue on this point, I think there will small; and he shall be made also to be little trouble in determining which sing small, before Mr Sadler lets him we should make to give place; or, out of his clutches. if we look to a large and decided preponderance' of either talent, learning, or benevolence, from whom we shall take our judgment.' The effrontery, or, to speak more charitably, the ignorance, of a reference to Paley on this subject, and in this instance, is really marvellous." Mr Sadler, in his Treatise, has expressed his belief that no law unnatural in itself, grossly partial in its operations, and tending to inflict moral guilt, or unnecessary suffering on the species, can be of divine original. Such is the nature, he thinks, of the alleged Law of Population laid The Reviewer is indeed a pitiable spectacle-now; and there let him stand in the stocks, like a Sabbathbreaker, while we quote a passage from Mr Sadler's reply to the culprit-as a specimen of that" portion of his two thick volumes-not made up of statistical tables-and consisting principally of ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors, and similes-all the worst of their respective kinds." We quote it as a specimen of "thoughts dressed up in shabby finery," and "reminding the Reviewer of a company of wretched strolling players" a many hundred times stolen and strayed simile, now found in possession of a person who, ostentatious as he is of its display, would be unable to explain how he honestly came by it-a person answering to the description in the Hue-andCry-of" shabby-genteel." "It has been the triumph of Moral Philosophy to exhibit Deity, even to the simplest apprehension, as dispensing the pleasures of existence among mankind, with a bountiful, indeed with an equal hand; and as also balancing even the sufferings of humanity, which it has, however, generally regarded as His kind and fatherly correctives, with a like impartiality. Such have been among the clearest, as well as the most cheering, doctrines of Natural Theology; such are the views which Butler took, and which Paley also has admirably illustrated. The latter writer, indeed, when balancing, as he often does, the respective happiness of the different ranks of life, seems constantly to give the preponderance to the labouring classes; but then, the whole of their simple enjoyments, as described by him, are compounded of the domestic charities. Bereave them of these, and Moral Philosophy is speechless. More cheerless beings in time of health, or more desolate in periods of suffering and affliction, imagination can hardly pourtray, than the labouring poor of either sex would generally be, were they to become the slaves of the 'preventive check. The cottages would then be emptied of all but wretchedness; and the void so created, filled with pollution and misery. The false and pernicious system of Political Economy latterly prevalent has indeed gone far already to destroy the comforts of those former abodes of content ment and happiness; when it shall have applied its last and great panacea to the poor, the preventive check,' it will then have filled up the measure of its iniquity, and of their endurance. I hope, indeed, better things, and brighter days; but they will never arrive, if we continue to neglect our obvious duties, and lay the nuisances of society, which this wretched frenzy has itself chiefly occasioned, and which ought (and instantly) to be abated, upon the laws of nature and of God." There spoke the Christian philosopher. And here he speaks again. "I am not very willing to be betrayed into a theological dispute with an antagonist with whom, perhaps, on subjects such as this, I hold few things in common; but I may just remark, that, on the Christian hypothesis, (if it be not irreverent to call Christianity an hypothesis,) no doubt whatever exists as to the origin of evil; and I have yet to find among the fables, which some think of equal authority with divine revelation, a better solution of the mystery. Nay, even Natural Theology, by whomso ever expounded, teaches us to attribute unbounded benevolence to the Deity, and to recognise him as educing from those seeming evils which occasionally afflict mankind, the means by which he guards and perpetuates their general welfare; and above all, as manifesting, in the va rious dispensations of His providence, regarding every rank, the most visible and perfect impartiality. These, I think, are the views which all writers on Natural Theology have taken upon this subject; I am sure they are those of the great names to which he refers me-Butler and Paley." What think ye now of the critic, who has pronounced that "the spirit of Mr Sadler's Treatise is as bad as its style,"-" that its thoughts are dressed up in shabby finery,"-" that they remind him of a company of wretched strolling players, exhibiting themselves to the laughing or pitying spectators, in a state of strutting, ranting, painted, gilded beggary " Wordsworth has told us, "that he who feels contempt Even for the meanest thing, hath faculties Which he has never used" a noble sentiment-and as we mean to use all our faculties at present, that we may be able to exhibit in their true light those of Mr Sadler, even for this meanest thing we shall do all we can not to feel contempt -but 'tis impossible to prevent it -and therefore really Mr Wordsworth must pardon us, for despising" this rude indecent clown" from the very bottom of our souls as we feel you too, gentle reader, must do from the bottom of yours -though from a long perusal of Maga, you are a creature made up in equal proportions of intelligence and love. Having thus removed the rubbish which forms the porch of the Reviewer's article, let us demolish the barbarous edifice itself-raze it to the ground-and not leave one stone upon another. We shall do so sometimes by our own blows-but generally by Mr Sadler's. He is the Pounder. "The great discovery," says the Reviewer," by which Mr Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicated the ways of Providence, is announced with all the pomp of capital letters." It isand you are a child for saying so. But let us hear what you have got to say against the "great discovery" itself-supposing that it had been announced in Small Pica. "The Law of Population," says Mr Sadler, "may be thus briefly enunciated: THE PROLI FICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED, VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS." Hereupon the Reviewer waxeth witty and asserts that Mr Sadler " has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inverse variation. Had he understood the proposition which he has announced with so much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed upon his mind. Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements of America, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only a single couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population of London, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million and a half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr Sadler tells us, 2.35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements bear according to Mr Sadler's theory? The solution of the problem is easy. As the population on this tract in the back settlements to the population of London, so will be the number of children born from a marriage in London to the number of children born in marriage of this couple in the back settlements. That is to say 2: 1,500,000:: 2.35: 1.762,500. The lady will have 1.762,500 children: a large efflux of the fountain of life,' to borrow Mr Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the most philoprogenitive parent could possibly desire." Now, who is he that asserts that Mr Sadler is ignorant of mathematicseven of the simplest terms of the science? A person, we believe, who at Cambridge-where he made some figure as an English and Latin versifier-with difficulty and danger passed the Pons Asinorum, and in the Senate-house narrowly escaped the fate of Wooden Spoon. Utterly destitute now as then of all scientific acquirements, he sports Joshua King-nay, holds his head higher than Airey. Mr Sadler rebukes him for his impertinence, and tells him, with dignity, that he is in wilful error-for that the book he professes to review contains throughout proofs that its author is not unfamiliar with the mathematics, which were with him an early and a favourite pursuit. With the Rule of Three inverse, on which proportion his criticism turns, "there is not a boy of ten years old, in the little day-school of the village where I am writing these pages, who is not as particularly conversant as the Reviewer himself with that rule of proportion, regarding which he pronounces that I have not the faintest notion." Nothing, indeed, can be more ludicrous than the self-complacency and pride with which the Reviewer "solves his problem." He manifestly conceives that he has performed a most profound and operose achievement. All the "Cocker" burns in his eye, as he looks at the long array of figures his skill has conjured up-and the astonishing result-" all made out of the builder's brain-the Lady with 1.762,500 children." Wonderful calculating boy! Bidder and Colburn, hide your diminished heads! What it is to be at once an arithmetician and a wit! But Mr Sadler crowns our prodigy on the spot-ere he has ceased to wonder at the miracle he has wrought -with a paper fool's cap. He shews that he had himself disclaimed the use of the terms in their mathematical and consequently secondary sense, and of course adopted them in the literal and primary sense, as expounded by our best lexicographers, and used by our best writers. He expressed himself thus:-"THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS UNDER EQUAL CIRCUM STANCES, VARIES INVERSELY (inverselike; Horne Tooke!) (in an inverted order; Bailey!) (reversely; Encyclopædia Metropolitana) AS THEIR NUMBERS, (comparative multitude; Johnson,) OR, AS (at the same time as, Johnson) THEIR NUMBERS vary." He also limited and fixed the sense in which he used those terms thus: "the prolificness of a given number of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary in proportion to the condensation of the population; so that that prolificness shall be greatest, where the numbers on an equal space are the fewest, and on the contrary, the smallest, where those numbers are the largest." He has also "defined practically," throughout his work, the sense in which he used the word "inversely" as applied to the influence on population of prolificness, so that, according to the law of population which he has developed, "more" (population)" requires less" (prolificness), " or less" (population) " requires more" (prolificness): agreeably to the definition of the term in question given by Dr Hutton in his mathematical and philosophical dictionary. Pray, Master Reviewer, how do you feel now? We need not ask how you look. The fool's cap becomes you exceedingly and you are really a very pretty fellow. But a word or two more in your ear. You say that Mr Malthus knows well the meaning of the mathemati cal terms he uses-but that Mr Sadler has not the faintest notion of the meaning of those he "enounces." Now, Mr Malthus, in his book of Definitions, in which his avowed, and indeed his sole aim, is perspicuity and precision, speaks thus: "Prices and values vary as the demand directly and the supply inversely. When, therefore, the demand is given, prices and values vary inversely as the supply; when the supply is given, directly as the demand." Now, Master Reviewer, does Mr Malthus here intend what the words used in their mathematical sense imply? Don't be in a hurry-for then you would be in a flurry-and then you would smack of the Wooden Spoon. Does Mr Malthus mean to say, that the demand for wheat being given, and remaining the same both as to the numbers requiring it and the quantity required, that if the supply were to fail one half, the price would be merely doubled? Do you think, sir, that that is his meaning? Why, by your stupid stare, we begin to suspect you do-in which case, you must believe Mr Malthus to be as utterly ignorant of political economy as you are yourself; but if, in spite of your stupid stare, you are forced to confess that Mr Malthus is no such ignoramus, then please to play off a little of the same exquisite wit on the reverend gentleman, as you flashed into the eyes of the Honourable Member, for he too, in spite of his anti-population principles, and we must say, in violation of the conduct proper in a clergyman, has by the word inversely, let out the secret of his connexion with the "Lady with 1.762,500 children!" One other whisper in your ear. Mr Malthus, speaking of M. Muret's Theory, says, that it implies "that the fruitfulness of women should vary inversely as their health." Now, sir, do you think that Mr Malthus imputes to M. Muret this belief-that the women who survive to double the average age, shall be endowed with only just half the average fruitfulness? You cannot-you may depend upon it-be such an ass. Be assured you cannot-for the births and deaths in the places M. Muret refers to, are given by him in numbers-and the proportions these exhibit do not vary in the inverse ratio, M. Muret's term-or vary inversely-Mr Malthus's-in a mathematical sense-but they "vary inversely," according to the literal, primary, and common acceptation of the terms-as they have been explained by Horne Tooke, Bailey, Johnson, and Richardson-and used by M. Muret, Mr Malthus, and Mr Sadler. Gentle readers all-we request you to look at the Reviewer standing there crowned with his paper fool's cap |