na, without any previous declaration of war, in hopesf getting possession of immense treasures; aud,though this enterprize bad not the success desired, it was justly. spoken of as an open infraction of the law of nations. While these things were passing abroad, two events at home were not less remarkable, first, the act of Charles in shutting up his Exchequer, by which a number of families were involved in ruin, and secondly, that abridgement of the liberty of conscience, by which a number of Ministers among the Non-Conformists were silenced,. and sent into exile. In the mean while, the Catholics were not less. favoured by the King and his Ministers than they had been be fore. By way of concluding this advice to His Majesty, the King of England, I might add that I could have instanced a muchgreater num⚫ ber of causes of discontent among the English; but I hope what I per have said will be found sufficient to convince every rational mind that it is not without reason that there has been a complaint in England of the measures taken since the accession of George the Ses cond to the throne. I innst hope that the King himself will be suaded that his Ministers both German and English have given him advice not the most couvenient to his interests; and that to remedy the evils, caused by these counsels to adopt a line of conduct essentially different will be necessary to His Majesty, by consulting his own good sense I am certain, will find that it was neither for his glory nor the tranquillity of his kingdom, that the administration of his Government should be en. trusted to one party of his Subjects, to the exclusion of another; and that Ministers in advising these and other measures which I have stranger? Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Give not thy strength unto wonien, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth Kings. It is not for Kings to drink wine, nor for Princes to drink strong drink, lest they forget the law."It Jaw." It is perfectly clear that the law of libel was not known at the Court of Solomon, or at least that they had not a Jeffries to expound it, or such uncourtly counsels could not have been current. The times Sir, are, as our celebrated Bard denominates them, “out of joint;" things, which at any other period would fail to attract notice or reproof, now appear portentous, and the opinion seems universal, that the impending moment is big with the crisis of our fate. We may bẹ rising to the acme of our greatness a or we may be sinking into the abyss of everlasting darkness. Whether "the signs of the times" portend one or the other, wild speculations and ominous doubts are afloat, and men look to the intelligence and the conduct of their superiors for a solution of them. All eyes turn in stinctively to the Palace. They see nought but mirth and revelry. They are disposed to hope the best; are willing to believe it is an earnest of peace, of plenty, and of happiness. Others inquire the cause, remember the words of So lomon, and they are lost in doubt, They see you not "rejoicing with the wife of your youth," but with strange women," and they turn away with apprehension. At one extremity of the kingdom, they see fathers of families dragged to execution by dozens, because, goaded by poverty, and urged by famine, they have transgressed the laws of property. At another, their jaundiced eye sees pought but the feasts of Heliogabalus, where pampered epicures are gorged with luxuries even to loathing;-where the prostitution of the marriage-bed is called a peccadillo; and where truth, the language of Gods and Angels, is proscribed, and consigned as a transgression to the solitude of a dungeon."Surely," they exclaim, there must be Something rotten in the state" of England, Apprehension (perhaps it may be rightly, but certainly fashionably stigmatized with the name of superstition) then calls on memory, and on science, for a parallel in the annals of the world., That book is habitually resorted to (by the vulgar at least, who have not yet abjured the sacred yolume in deference to the NEW Law so lately illuminated,) which more than any other commemorates the rise and fall of Empires, and the fate of Kings. There they read, that Nebuchadnezzar, while he was walking in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon," was suddenly deprived of his intellec tual faculties, and driven by the fiat of Heaven from the haunts of men. Here they read, that while the unhappy parent was thus de graded below the state of huniani ty, his son "Belshazzar made a great feast to a thousand of his Lords, and drank wine before the thousand, and when he had tasted the wine, he commanded the gold and the silver vessels to be 66 brought, that his Princes, (and his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. And his Lords, (and his wives, and bis concubines drank therein. And the Queen (the Expositors say it was the Queen Mother,) came into the banquet-house, and said,-"live for ever, let not thy thoughts trouble three, nor let thy countenance be changed.' Notwithstanding this wise counsel of the old Queen, however, (who by the bye would have been much better employed in solacing Nebuchadnezzar,) they read, that in the very midst of the banquet, a hand wrote upon the wall a sentence that both troubled his thoughts and changed his countenance," for it was the finger of God which wrete,– “God hath numbered thy Kingdom, and finished it." And the accomplishment of the judgement speedily followed its. promulgation. It may be wonderful, Sir, how from premises so dissimilar, superstition cau extract presages, and draw inferences impressed with any similarity; but such, if we may believe report, is the weakness of these portentous times. Happy at least must that annalist be, who, while he records. the general virtues that adorn your Court, can safely designate the par ticular differences which distin guish its manners from those of Babylon.-Their's were Bacchana lian orgies; Your's" the feasts of reason and the flow of soul." In Their's we find Queens and Princesses mixing in strange unnatural intimacy with wives and concu bines; your vestalia are not contaminated by the presence of either male or female, whose example may shock the eye of chastity, or whose conversation can wound the ear of delicacy. In your's, moreover, we recognize no meddling south sayer, no pretended DANIEL.We know, that had even some ényious demon scribbled uncouth riddles on your wall, the courtly keeper of your conscience would not, like Belshazzar,, have interrupted the festive entertainment by whining apprehension, or an ill-timed tear. No, no! he is made of sterling English stuff; he does not over-act his part by canting sensibility, or the mock solemnity of mis-placed reproof. But, above all, Sir, the difference most marked, most cherished, by those who see no similitude and admit no omen, is, that at Belshazzar's feast a WIFE presided:-not so at your's! With satisfaction we ac cept the failure in the parallel, and discharge from our apprehensions the supposed presage. But the duty of loyalty, not unmixed, perhaps, with the foible of curiosity, (for where shall we find virtue unalloyed!) inquires the occasion of the discrepancy; inquires wby you "rejoice not with the wife of thy youth; why her breasts satisfy you not at all times "Is her beauty fled hath disease preyed upon her, till she is no longer an, object of de-ire?-If it be so, she is an object for the exercise of manly feeling, of soothing compas sion. But view her, view the rose Tanguishing in the shade, and say if the "canker worm in the heart hath yet destroyed the fragrance of the blushing bud!"-Has the criminality of her conduct destroyed the chastity of her embrace?· No:-ENVY, HATREP, and MALICE, three demons doubly damned, have spit their venom in vain; in vain have called PERJURY to their aid, and failed in their attempt!-A Tribunal, illuminated by intellect, unbiassed by the finer feelings of charity, have given a decided, though a tardy, verdict of acquittal Is the fillet preparing for another sacrifice on the altar of Hymen? Forbid it all ye powers of Heaven and Earth! fordid it F! May the chastity of India's Governor, and the blushing modesty, the consistent virtue, of Stafford's quondam Representative, forbid it! We have had enough of " lusty love" upon the Throne, and the beauty of no second Anue Bulleyne would, in these times, consecrate the repú diation of another Catherine. Is there to be another accusation, and another trial?—Are deprivations to be multiplied, and the bonds of na tural affection to be dragged and twisted from their course, as to drive to desperation ?-Shall eveni more inquiry be solicited by the party grieved, as the least of evils with which to struggle?-And who shall be the Judges ?-Shall or thodox Sidmouth and the sapient Bathurst fill the seats of Grenville and of Spencer?-Shall metaphysical Eldon dive into the abyss of Erebus for that truth, which the quick perception of Erskine ravish ed from a ray of Heaven? Who shall supply the unbending rigour of Ellenborough ?-Surely net the silky urbanity of Justice Gibbs, or the unrivalled candour of Master Stephen. But, to be serious, Sir, in proportion to the solemnity of the subject, can your own benevoleuce, your manly feeling, nay, will ask you, can your gallantry hear such a suggestion, and endure it?-Can the Parliament and the People endure it?-No, no!Such suspicions must be the va pours of a sickly fancy, or the forebodings of some superstitious seer, Acquittal would add по confirmation; conviction would Hot gain credit, and would excite disgust. The Judges, too, would now be of your own appointing, It cannot be.--A brighter prospect opens. That paltry jealousy of influence, which, under the sanetimoneous disguise of personal at f tachment, has hitherto adumbrated connubial confidence, will ere long be far away; when I will not doubt but the woman who is entitled to share your Throne will be proclaimed the sharer of your counsels and your heart. When the offspring of the "Wife in whom thy youth might have rejoiced," whose "breasts might have satis fied thee at all times," will be suffered to irradiate by her presence that world she is no less formed to adorn than destined to govern; you will, then, Sir, look with contempt on those who would control the great, impressions of mature by the narrow policy of Courts; with disgust on those who The foregoing for its point and ingenuity possesses so great a degree of merit, that we conceive ourselves justified in giving it a place in our Review. With the exception of some few repetitions and allusions, not altogether of the most refined species, we pronounce it to be a fair satire upon certain characters, to whom the intelligent Reader will not fail to make the necessary application; and, though we may despair of its having the desired effect, we cannot but commend the effort, and with that impression we admit it among our selection. THE DIALOGUE OF NATIONS. PRELIMINARY. If it be a true principle, that to simplify is to instruct,—that to give facility to the understanding is to divest it of the impediments and intricacies, which design or folly may contribute to throw in the way, and place existing circumstances, their causes and effects, in their true light, and if such be a general principle, applicable as well to systems as to syllogisms, to politics as to problems, then will the present de sign receive its merited attention. In the present distracted condition of the World, or of that portion of it at least which has so long claimed, and still would be held to deserve, the proud preference of Civilization, it were greatly to be wished that something of the nature of the present undertaking could be substituted for those intricate and jealous systems of policy, which are found to actuate the views and dispositions of modern potentates, or their political advisers, to the continual enthralment of themselves and the distress and ruin of their Fellow-Creatures. It is true, the adage runs, that the hearts of Kings are in the rule and government of Heaven: but the application is erroneous to infer that all their measures are divine; the meaning being no other than that, however ; great their power, or absolute their command, they are still accountable to a law supreme, and that the evils which they do or sanction must be, accounted for like those of other men.-Next to the visitations of divine wrath, the scourge of man is the peril of the sword; and even the dreadful havoc of the pestilence may be often traced to the unburied heaps on the field of slaughter. It may be also said, that War is principally the gift of Kings; and the lives and happiness of millions are thus submitted to the caprice or misconception of themselves or their Counsellors: it is time, therefore, that the Nations should speak for themselves, that is, the People; without regard to that specious po licy, which, while it accommodates itself to the views and interests of certain individuals, pays little attention to the welfare and comfort of mankind. The world was ordained as a medium of good to all; it is man only who prevents and vitiates the blessing; the bounties of the earth are infinite, it is man principally who destroys them; man, or his ruler. The false pride and ambition of Kings, with all their fancied claims to dominion and power, are but as so many deadly mis chiefs which involve the existence of countless myriads, and destroy the end and design of the great work of creation,It is, therefore, intended in the present case to confine the arguarent to the actual inte rests of mankind rather than to the views of ill-judging Princes or ambi tious Statesmen; and to speak the language of common-sense, the best guide for the general welfare. THE DIALOGUE OF NATIONS shall embrace the real interests of so◄ ciety, the only true object of all policy, without respect to any contrary principle; so that all who read may acknowledge that the end and pur◄ pose of God's creatures were to assist and never to destroy each other. The Debate is opened by America, who, having been driven, by the injustice of her neighbours, into a state of hostility, enters upon an ar◄ gumentive inquiry into the probable issue of the contest, and deducing her own exaltation from the folly of her enemies. She is replied to by England, who accuses France as the instigator of the quarrel; which calls forth a justification from the latter, on the basis of retaliation.→ The argument then branches out into an exposition of the Continental System, which gives occasion for the Powers of Europe to join the con❤ ference. Such is the outline of the Plan, the First Part of which will appear in our next, |