VOL. XXXI.

As eminent clergyman of this city, who had been engaged to preach a charity-sermon for an institution established for the cure of diseases of the eye, called one day at the dispensary, where he was to receive some particular instructions. While he waited, a man entered, who was an object of relief; and the oculist, examining him, exhibited the most visible delight in his countenance, and exclaimed, "What a beautiful specimen? Did you ever see so perfect a cataract?" his sentiment as an amateur for a moment prevailing over his feeling of humanity for the poor patient, whom the disease had rendered stone-blind. Such, we confess, was somewhat our own feeling when we opened the book before us. A more incurable specimen of mental blindness we had never seen; and the author engaged our thoughts more as a psychological curiosity, than as a political or literary delinquent. In the case of the blind man, our impression is, that some relief was ultimately afforded by the eminent practitioner in whose hands he had placed himself. The poor sufferer was conscious of his want of vision; and, therefore, submitted to the necessary operation. But this writer has no consciousness of the darkness in which he is involved; and, even if he had, we do not pretend that by any operation which we could perform, the scales could be made to fall off, which at present obstruct his mental vision. That must be the work of an higher power, and we do not say that, in his own

good time, by that power it will not be accomplished. But, although we can do no good to himself by our critical strictures (and our readers will find that our intentions are most benevolent), some little good may be done to others by making him an example.

"Is this," our readers will ask, "the Dr. Madden who wrote The Lives of the United Irishmen,' a notice of which will be found in former numbers?" Ay, indeed, the very same. Not, by any means, the Mr. Madden whose pleasant "Revelations of Ireland' we reviewed in our last number. Well, then, may they express surprise and wonder. Time was, when it passed for an axiom, "when that the brain was out, the man would die." But it can be considered so no longer. To writers of a certain class, brain would seem to be an incumbrance, as it might operate against the lower propensities, to which they are determined to give a full sway. "Dat veniam corvis vexat censura columbis ;" and the criticism which might serve for the correction of more candid and enlightened minds, will only drive such as these into wilder errors, or confirm them in more melancholy delusions.

Our readers are already fully aware of our estimate of Dr. Madden's claims to distinction. He is a perverter of the uses of history. He fain would revive the crimes and the follies of a by-gone generation, in order that the evil that was in them might be carefully preserved, while the warnings they breathe to meditative wisdom

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should pass unheeded. Whatever the wretched and guilty actors in the sad tragedy of Ninety-eight could, in their calmer moments, have wished undone, he reproduces, for the edification of the present age-and burns with the hope, that the time is rapidly approaching, when the gibbet will no longer be the only promotion that awaits those lights of their age, and those liberators of their species, who would "bind their kings in chains, and their nobles with bonds of iron," whilst they cried "havoc," to the rage of an unbridled democracy, who would riot at will amid the ruins of constitutional order.

Such is the stuff of which his books are composed; and, in thus epitomizing their contents, we by no means deny that this wretched seditionmonger may not have had good intentions. He is, evidently, an enthusiast in his views; and no enthusiast ever yet was without a certain vein of honesty in his nature. But his understanding is so narrow, and his prejudices are so enormous-his political hatred is so fierce, and his judgment so shallow and undiscerning-his presumption so prodigiously overtops his capacity-and his efforts as an historian are so evidently over-mastered by his acrimony as a controversialist, and his headlong rashness as a partisan, that the worst of men, with the worst of intentions, could scarcely produce a more mischievous book than this manwho, we doubt not, is far from deserving such a character has deemed it a solemn duty to usher into the world.

Under this conviction, when "The Lives of the United Irishmen" made their appearance, we felt called upon to notice them with much severity. The publication was, we thought, an outrage upon good feeling, as well as good sense, which should not be suffered to go unpunished; and, accordingly, we were not sparing in the infliction of the chastisement which they so well deserved. But that no feeling of the partisan mingled with our resentment, and that we were wholly moved by the stolid audacity which would convert warnings against treason into incentives to crime, was, we think, abundantly manifested, when we had to speak individually of the sadly-deluded men, whose errors we compassionated, and whose virtues we acknowledged, while a stern justice compelled us to condemn their crimes.

Does Dr. Madden, or any other incendiary, estimate more highly than we have, the genius and the virtues of Robert Emmet, who would have been the pride and the ornament of the country which gave him birth, if he had been trained in the school of loyalty, instead of having been fostered in the hot-bed of treason? Nor have we been wanting in liberal acknowledgments of the merits, such as they were, of other great state delinquents, whose actings were not of "malice prepense," and whose crimes were the consequences of errors but too natural to men of their sanguine temperament, and during a season of such great political excitement. And why do we not shew to Dr. Madden, and writers of his class, a similar forbearance? Because the times do not furnish, for their errors or misdoings, the same excuse; because they are obstinately blind in the midst of light, and would fain put out the sun of knowledge, that by the glare of their revolutionary flambeaux they may the more effectually lead men astray. Such is their perverted instinct, we do not say their deliberate purpose. And as, unfortunately, the classes are but too numerous upon whom the writings of such charlatans must produce a deteriorating effect, we felt called upon to use a more than ordinary measure of severity, in bearing our testimony against them.

The mouldering remains of the unhappy men, who paid for their treason the forfeit of their lives, we could regard with a pious horror, in which sorrow might easily predominate over resentment. But the insects who feed upon them, and rise from the putrifying exhalation, only to carry the infectious influence through the air, are not to be only regarded with the contempt which would naturally be suggested by their apparent insignificance. They may be the instruments of great evil, and contribute to the reproduction of the moral or political pestilences, to which so many in the bygone generation have fallen victims. It was to stay the ravages of such a plague of lice or locusts, we put forth our strength; and if such a public object were not present to our minds, Dr. Madden might have gone on, to the end of the chapter, playing his "fantastic tricks," without attracting our notice more than any other moun

tebank, who capers, or throws somersaults, for the public amusement. But we live in distempered times. There is an appetite for crudities and monstrosities in politics, which is one of the most unequivocal symptoms of a depraved passion for democratic change. And as the most contemptible writers may, unfortunately, be but too effectual, in the present state of things, by acting upon the diseased national susceptibilities, in producing or aggravating public evils, the vigilance of the literary police should be commensurate with the activity of literary delinquents; and the efforts of the conservators of social order should be regulated, not by their estimate of the utility of those with whom they may have to deal, but by their conviction of the calamities which a neglect of them may bring upon the country.

We were, we confess, influenced by another motive also. In '98 and 1803, the service of treason was a service of danger. The bold bad men who figured then as revolutionary bravos, were fellows of pluck and courage, and fearlessly staked their lives upon the issue of the enterprize, which was to bring them either death or glory. They were either enthusiasts, whose imaginations had been fascinated by visions of a golden age of liberty, in which the miseries arising from political causes should be heard of no more; or hardheaded republicans, whose hatred of monarchy would be gratified, at all events, and who were willing to take chance for the shape into which government should resolve itself, when flung into the revolutionary crucible, and subjected to the tentative experiments of political reformers. But there was no miserable self-seeking in their views. They did not masquerade in patriotism with any aim at personal objects. Vanity, and a love of popu larity, may, no doubt, be laid to their charge; as few public men, on any side, are without the desire of public distinction. But there was an uncalculating bravery, if not heroism, in the characters of the two Emmets, and Russel, and M.Nevin, and Wolfe Tone, which raised them far above the grovelling wretches who preach and practise sedition as a trade, and feel that not only safety, but wealth and emolument, may be found in the advocacy and dissemination of principles which would formerly have involved their professors in danger,

Such are the patriots, par excellence, of the present day. They may flourish, and win personal consideration for themselves, by the very arts which caused others to perish. Can any man doubt that the progress of democratic change has already anticipated the designs of many of the United Irishmen, and that there are few of them who would not be shocked at the manifest symptoms of social disorganization which are already bathing their country in blood? And these are they not clearly traceable to the open connivance, if not direct encouragement, by the government, of sentiments and opinions, views and projects, which, if not in direct accordance with those of the traitors of the by-gone generation, who suffered for them exile or death, only differ from the latter by the more sweeping changes which they involve, and the more plausible and confident effrontery with which they are given to the world.

What has been Doctor Madden's reward? We had done our best to render his martyrology of treason innocuous in Ireland. He tells us that his bookseller informed him, our notices of his volumes damaged their sale. But what of that? Has he himself been a sufferer by them? No such thing. They have recommended him to the special patronage of our Whig government; and he now rejoices in the station and the emoluments of Chief Secretary to the colony of New South Wales. After this, let any one doubt, if he can, the justice, the liberality, the wisdom, and the discrimi nation of Earl Grey!

Doctor Madden does not disguise his principles. They are transparent, under the flimsy covering which he attempts to cast over them, and identical with those of the heroes and the mar tyrs whom it is the object of his volumes to panegyrize. In Ireland, literary justice was done upon him; and it is certain that he could now do very little harm. But there is a portion of the British empire into which the transplantation of such a man, with such opinions, might be attended with very disastrous effects. The late penal colony, in all probability, still contains some of the actors in the late rebellion, and, doubtless, a numerous progeny of the descendants of those whose lives had been compromised by their principles, and who were permitted to adopt the mild alternative of leaving

their country "for their country's good." And with what delight must they acclaim the advent of a man in the station of chief secretary, whose services have been a justification of the practices of their fathers, and an inculpation of the tyrannical government by whom they were so cruelly driven from their native land!

Yes; we deliberately pronounce this one of the most monstrous abuses of patronage ever perpetrated. We wish Doctor Madden no ill; severely as we reprehend his opinions, it would be a positive pain to us to do him any personal harm, But of that he need entertain little fear; our censure is his recommendation to office. His views and his principles meet the approbation of the cabinet of Lord John Russell; and he has been sent where they may find a congenial soil, and where the dragon's-teeth may produce the armed men, who will, sooner or later, cast off the yoke of colonial servitude, and vindicate for their coun try, in the far east, a national independence.

Before we come to the volume be

fore us, there is one point touching which we wish to make the amende honourable to Dr. Madden, for what we now believe to have been an erroneous impression under which we laboured, when animadverting upon his life of General Corbet. He has pub. lished, in a separate volume, the life of Robert Emmet, in a preface to which he takes us to task for representing the aforesaid general as one who received money from the government for important disclosures. We were, undoubtedly, under the impression that the "William Corbet" whose name appears in the list of the persons who received money for secret services, at or about the time of his capture and escape, was the veritable individual who figures as a patriot in Dr. Madden's pages. But he has now completely satisfied us that such was not the case-the Corbet alluded to being a literary gentleman, well known, and highly esteemed in this city, and whose services to government, although secret, were of an honourable character, and not such as compromised, by any act of treachery, any of "the friends of the union."

But do we abandon our belief that Corbet was a paid agent, and that to the discoveries which he made, he was indebted for his life? By no

means. We cannot go over in our minds all the circumstances of his capture, his captivity, and his escape, without feeling a moral conviction that the conclusion at which we arrived was the true one. Why was he not shot, when taken with arms in his hands, while aiding and abetting the French in a hostile invasion? Why was he not at once brought to trial? Why was the period of his captivity so prolonged? Why was his freedom of action so little interfered with, and his safe custody so loosely cared for? We can imagine but one answer to these questions-because his life was found more useful than would have been his death.

It was publicly declared in the House of Lords, that Napper Tandy, who was taken with him, made very important disclosures, which—and not any truckling to the boastful threats of Bonaparte constituted the ground upon which the government consented to his enlargement. It is our belief that Corbet, who was embarked in the same boat, acted with similar prudence, and purchased impunity from a merciful government, who were much less bent upon punishing the past than preventing the future.

We know, also, that government had its agents in the very heart of Paris, and thus became cognizant of the most secret movements of those who were plotting mischief against the state. And, nothing would have conduced more to the success of this system of espionage, than that these agents should be ostensibly officers in the French service.

That Corbet could have had any participation in such practices, Dr. Madden indignantly scouts, because he was a man of such pure and unblemished honour ! Was he not a traitor to his lawful king? Was he not an invader of his native land? Would he not have consigned to French Jacobinical rule its whole population? Did he not renounce his allegiance to the mild constitutional monarchy under which he was born, and plight his political troth to a despot, who would have crushed liberty wherever his power extended? Did he not aid that despot in desolating the continent? Did he not accompany his legions in their unprincipled invasion of Spain? Was he not aiding and abetting in the merciless exactions, proscriptions, and massa

cres, by which the French armies endeavoured to tire out, or intimidate, or exterminate its brave and patriotic population? And is this the man, whose word of honour, forsooth, is so inviolable, that we must swallow, upon his ipse dixit alone, a tissue of the most monstrous absurdities, which, if alleged by the most unexceptionable witnesses, would require a weight of evidence fully equal to that which should prove a miracle, before it could be believed.

In the separate volume, containing the life of Robert Emmet, Dr. Madden gives some interesting additional particulars respecting Sarah Curran, and her gallant and devoted husband, Colonel Sturgeon. But, even here, his old propensity overmasters him, and he cannot avoid having a fling at the Duke of Wellington, by insinuating, according to information derived from a sagacious Cork correspondent, that Sturgeon was slighted by the Duke, and that it was a sense of unrequited services which impelled him to expose himself, in an affair of posts, at Vic de Bigorre, in France, where he lost his life. If this be true, it speaks but little either for the rectitude of his principles, or the soundness of his understanding. We need not say that we utterly disbelieve the tale. It has, however, served Dr. Madden's purpose, as a peg to hang a note upon, by which the character of the illustrious Duke, for justice, and for generosity, is still more grievously compromised. We give it at length, because we happen to possess the most authentic means of proving its envenomed falsehood. It is as follows:

"Poor Colonel Sturgeon was not the only meritorious officer whose claims on the Duke's justice appeared very clear to other military men, but very doubtful and deniable to the greatest captain of the age.' The holding back' of the services of distinguished, or deserving persons, in public dispatches, we find productive of the same calamitous results as unmerited reproof, slights that cannot be accounted for, nor formally complained of not privately, nor without premeditation, inflicted. Early in the peninsular war, one of the bravest officers in the British army, the colonel of the 4th Foot, The King's Own,' fell a victim to the latter species of punishment. The difficulty of building up a high military reputation, may account for the pain which is caused by the pulling down of

Such is Dr. Madden's version of a transaction, the true account of which could have been easily learned, had he suffered his prejudices to wait upon his honesty, and sought for correct information, by referring to the duke's dispatches, or consulting any distinguished officer of the British army, who had served, at that period, under that illustrious commander. Here, a most deserving officer is represented as being driven, by an act of cruelty and injustice, to the crime of suicide! If such be the fact, great is the merit of the man who unmasks the monster, be he whom he may, upon whom such an atrocity is justly chargeable. Towards the duke, we confess that we have always felt a sentiment of veneration and gratitude, not easily to be described. His exploits are identified with the brightest pages of England's military glory. And his personal character, in its simple dignity, in its self-renouncing abnegation of all the glare and the eclat of martial renown, has always appeared to us to throw immeasurably into the shade the brightest of Grecian and Roman heroes. To us it appears a very little thing, to call him the victor in an hundred fights. But, it is much to say, that he never sought a victory for fame-and that he never, when the exigencies of the service required it, declined a position of responsibility and danger. But, if Dr. Madden's accusation of him be just, away with his claims to historical consideration. The man who drives a brave and meritorious soldier to suicide, is no better than a murderer-and, no exploits can gild his crime-nor should any services which he may have performed shield him from general execration. In this, we are sure, we but give expression to the sentiment which the note we have extracted from Dr. Madden's volume is intended to convey. And now, reader, what is the plain and simple truth; and what