voring to undermine public morals or lower public taste, by selecting low subjects or treating them in a low manner. It does not appear to us to be the prevailing character of his books to make heroes of criminals; nor should we think the worse of them on that account, if it were. Most assuredly "it is (as he says) the treatment that ennobles, not the subject. Grant that the characters are what convention calls low-in birth, station, instruction; born in a cellar, dying on the gibbet, they are not one jot, for these reasons, made necessarily low to art. Art can, with Fielding, weave an epic from adventures with gamekeepers and barbers. Art can, with Goethe, convert into poetry the most lofty, the homely image of the girl condemned for infanticide; and confine the vast war between spirits and men to the floor of her felon cell."

In short, we give in our almost unqualified adhesion to most of the general principles laid down by him: but this does not deprive us of the right to question their application in each individual case. A man born in a cellar and dying on a gibbet, is not necessarily made low to art: but neither is a man necessarily made high to art by being hanged. To say he is, would be to adopt to its full extent the doctrine of Lelia, in George Sands' novel of that name, when she silences her young admirer, who is at a loss to discover what she can see to admire in Trenmor, by saying, " Ecoutez, jeune homme, il a subi cinq ans de travaux forcés." A man of education, who has undergone such an ordeal, undoubtedly presents a tempting subject for the imagination of a woman like Lelia, or for a popular dramatist of the Porte Ste Martin school; but, to give legitimate art a fair chance with a real criminal, the story, we think, must be obscurely knownthere must be distance as to time or space, or the veil of foreign manners, or a misty vagueness of some sort thrown over it. If Black George had been actually tried for poaching on Squire Western's preserves just before the appearance of Tom Jones-or Margaret for child-murder just before the appearance of Faust, they would have been materially damaged, if not rendered absolutely useless, for the purposes of art; and we much doubt whether Fielding and Goethe would have meddled with them.

writer of fiction, is virtually to deprive him of the use of all crimes punished by modern law, and enacted in the modern day; as if there were no warning to be drawn from men that are not ennobled by ermine and purple; as if there were no terror in the condemned cell, no tragedy at the foot of the gallows."

Here, again, the accomplished writer does not distinguish with his usual acuteness. The doctrine for which we contend deprives the writer of fiction of the use, not, by any means, of all crimes, but only of all criminals, punished by modern law, &c. The four pleas of the crown are at his disposal; the whole Newgate Calendar is open to him; but we object to the actual Weare in his gig, or the actual Tawell in his straight-cut coat; and it is no use telling us that poetic as well as strict matter-of-fact justice has been done to them; for it is not so much the moral tendency as the artistical fitness of such subjects, that we differ about. "The past cannot monopolize the sorrows and crimes of ages. While we live, we ourselves become a past." But we must wait till we have actually become a past. We do not even say that such works may not be highly satisfactory to posterity, but only that some law of association, which it is impossible to reason down, prevents them from being satisfactory to us.

"Folly and error," continues Sir Edward, "vice punished by ridicule, constitute the main materials of the comic writer, whether he employ them in a drama or a novel. Must we not grant to the writer who seeks for the elements of tragedy that exist in his own time, the equal license to seek for the materials to which tragedy must apply?" The answer is, that tragedy and comedy stand on a totally different footing. According to the old proverb, familiarity breeds contempt: but it does not prevent laughter; and associations which do not impair comic effects, may utterly destroy tragedy for the time. Any one conversant with the history of the stage, could relate instance after instance in which an accidental circumstance of the ludicrous character has decided the fate of an entire representation; as when Quin, seated in the pit and speaking loud enough for every one to hear, compared Garrick in Othello to the black boy bringing Sir Edward Lytton says, "All crimes now, in the tea-things in Hogarth's Marriage-à-laif detected, must obtain the notoriety of Mode; or when, in John Philip Kemble's the Old Bailey, or reap their desert in New-day, the ghost in Hamlet, by some unlucky gate; and to contend that Newgate and the jerk of the machinery, was suddenly flung Old Pailey unfit them for the uses of the upon the stage, in helmet, cuirass-kersey

mere breeches and dirty cotton stockings! For ourselves, we own we could never quite get over Werther's top-boots, or Charlotte's cutting bread and butter for the children; and we do not know a single instance of a modern domestic tragedy, in which the lowering effect of familiarity has been kept down, except by an accumulation of appalling details, decidedly inimical to that mood of mind which it is the peculiar province of high art to inspire and sustain. La Dame de Saint Tropez, a drama founded on the Laffarge case, was as successful as such a drama well can be; but is there one critic of taste throughout these realms, who would wish for a repetition of the experiment ?

We should be glad to analyse a few other passages of this pamphlet, but our allotted space is exhausted; and we will only add now, that, in our opinion, Sir Edward Lytton has laid far too much stress on the illiberal attacks made upon him. Dr. Johnson was fond of saying that no author was ever written down except by himself; and authors, like Sir Edward Lytton, who are read and admired in every quarter of the globe, have surely nothing to fear from the misrepresentations of critics, and little cause to complain of the tardy justice of contemporaries. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

From Tait's Magazine.
ORTHOGRAPHIC MUTINEERS.*

BY THOMAS DE QUINCY.

[The reader will hardly suspect from the strange title of the following article, either its drift or its humor. It is in the happiest vein of the "Opium Eater," and hits off with biting

sarcasm, a prevailing fault.-ED.]

schoolmaster differed from him on the spelling of a word, the question between them should be settled by a stand-up fight. Both parties would have the victory at times: As we are all of us crazy when the wind sits and if, according to Pope's expression, in some particular quarter, let not Mr. (who is always a villain) would be floored in some particular quarter, let not Mr.justice rul'd the ball," the schoolmaster Landor be angry with me for suggesting three times out of four; no great matter that he is outrageously crazy upon the one whether solitary subject of spelling. It occurs to point of spelling discussed. It is in this wrong or not upon the immediate me, as a plausible solution of his fury upon way, viz. from the irregular adjudications this point, that perhaps in his earliest school-days, when it is understood that he upon litigated spelling, which must have was exceedingly pugnacious, he may have arisen under such a mode of investigating detested spelling, and (like Roberte the Landor's being sometimes in the right, but the matter, that we may account for Mr. Devillet) have found it more satisfactory too often (with regard to long words) egrefor all parties, that when the presumptuous giously in the wrong, As he grew stronger *With a special reference to the Works of Wal- and taller, he would be coming more and ter Savage Landor. more amongst polysyllables, and more and more would be getting the upper hand of the schoolmaster; so that at length he would have it all his own way; one round would decide the turn-up; and thenceforwards his spelling would become frightful. Now, I myself detested spelling as much as all people ought to do, except Continental And therewith tooke a rodde hym for to chaste." compositors, who have extra fees for docUpon which the meek Robin, without using any toring the lame spelling of ladies and bad language as the schoolmaster had done, simply took out a long dagger "hym for to chaste," which he gentlemen. But, unhappily, I had no did effectually. The schoolmaster gave no bad lan-power to thump the schoolmaster into a guage after that. M. conviction of his own absurdities; which,

+"Roberte the Deville :"-See the old metrical ro

mance of that name: it belongs to the fourteenth century, and was printed some thirty years ago, with wood engravings of the illuminations. Roberte, however, took the liberty of murdering his schoolmaster. But could he well do less? Being a reigning Duke's son, and after the rebellious schoolmas

ter had said

"L Syr, ye bee too bolde:

however, I greatly desired to do. Still, my usually he forgets his own reforms, and if nature, powerless at that time for any ac- he should not, everybody else does. Not tive recusancy, was strong for passive re- to travel back into the seventeenth century, sistance; and that is the hardest to con- and the noble army of shorthand writers quer. I took one lesson of this infernal who have all made war upon orthography, art, and then declined ever to take a for secret purposes of their own, even in second; and, in fact, I never did. Well I the last century, and in the present, what remember that unique morning's experience. a list of eminent rebels against the spellingIt was the first page of Entick's Dictionary book might be called up to answer for that I had to get by heart; a sweet senti- their wickedness at the bar of the Old mental task; and not, as may be fancied, Bailey, if anybody would be kind enough the spelling only, but the horrid attempts to make it a felony! Cowper, for instance, of this depraved Entick to explain the sup- too modest and too pensive to raise upon posed meaning of words that probably had any subject an open standard of rebellion, none; many of these, it is my belief, En- yet, in quiet Olney, made a small émeute as tick himself forged. Among the strange, to the word "Grecian." Everybody else grim-looking words, to whose acquaintance was content with one e;" but he, recolI was introduced on that unhappy morning, lecting the cornucopia of es, which Proviwere abalienate and ablaqueation-most dence had thought fit to empty upon the respectable words, I am fully persuaded, mother word Greece, deemed it shocking to but so exceedingly retired in their habits, disinherit the poor child of its hereditary that I never once had the honor of meeting wealth, and wrote it, therefore, Greecian either of them in any book, pamphlet, throughout his Homer. Such a modest rejournal, whether in prose or numerous form the sternest old Tory could not find in verse, though haunting such society myself his heart to denounce. But some contaall my life. I also formed the acquaint-gion must have collected about this word ance, at that time, of the word abacus, Greece; for the next man, who had much which, as a Latin word, I have often used, occasion to use it-viz. Mitford*—who but, as an English one, I really never had occasion to spell, until this very moment. Yet, after all, what harm comes of such obstinate recusancy against orthography? I was an occasional conformist;" I conformed for one morning, and never more. But, for all that, I can spell as well as my neighbors; and I can spell ablaqueation besides, which I suspect that some of them

can not.

My own spelling, therefore, went right, because I was left to nature, with strict neutrality on the part of the authorities. Mr. Landor's too often went wrong, because he was thrown into a perverse channel by his continued triumphs over the prostrate schoolmaster. To toss up, as it were, for the spelling of a word, by the best of nine rounds, inevitably left the impression that chance governed all; and this accounts for the extreme capriciousness of Landor.

It is a work for a separate dictionary in quarto to record all the proposed revolutions in spelling, through which our English blood, either at home or in America, has thrown off, at times, the surplus energy that consumed it. I conceive this to be a sort of cutaneous affection, like nettle-rash, or ring-worm, through which the patient gains relief for his own nervous distraction, whilst, in fact, he does no harm to anybody: for VOL. XI. No. II.

15

* Mitford, who was the brother of a man better known than himself to the public eye, viz. Lord Redesdale, may be considered a very unfortunate author. His work upon Greece, which Lord Byron celebrated for its "wrath and its partiality," really entirely partial, as nearly perfect in its injustice, as had those merits: choleric it was in excess, and as human infirmity would allow. Nothing is truly perfect in this shocking world; absolute injustice, alas! the perfection of wrong, must not be looked for until we reach some high Platonic form of polity. Then shall we revel and bask in a vertical sun of iniquity: Meantime, I will say that to satisfy all bilious and unreasonable men, a better historian of Greece, than Mitford, could not be fancied. And yet, at the very moment when he was stepping into his harvest of popularity, down comes one of those omnivorous Germans that, by reading everything, and a trifle besides, contrive to throw really learned men-and perhaps better thinkers than themselves into the shade. Ottfried Mueller, with other archæologists and travellers into Hellas, gave new aspects to the very purposes of Grecian history. Do you hear, reader? not new answers, but new questions. And Mitford, that was gradually displacing the unlearned Gillies, &c., was himself displaced by those who intrigued with Germany. His other work on " The Harmony of Language," though one of the many that attempted, and the few that accomplished, the distinction between accent and quantity, or learnedly appreciated the metrical science of Milton, was yet, in my hearing, pronounced utterly unintelligible by the best practical commentator on Milton, viz. the best reproducer of his exquisite effects in blank verse, than any generation since Milton has been able to show. Mr. Mitford was one of the many accomplished scholars that are ill-used. Had he possessed the splendid powers of the Landor,

wrote that "History of Greece" so eccen- | a key to the principles of these absurdities? tric, and so eccentrically praised by Lord In his very title pages, nay, in the most Byron, absolutely took to spelling like a obstinate of ancient technicalities, he showheathen, slashed right and left against de-ed his cloven foot to the astonished reader. cent old English words, until, in fact, the Some of his many works were printed in whole of Entick's Dictionary (ablaqueation Pall-Mall; now, as the world is pleased to and all) was ready to swear the peace pronounce that word Pel-Mel, thus and no against him. Mitford, in course of time, otherwise (said Ritson) it shall be spelled slept with his fathers; his grave, I trust, for ever. Whereas, on the contrary, some not haunted by the injured words whom he men would have said: The spelling is well had tomahawked; and, at this present mo- enough, it is the public pronunciation which ment, the Bishop of St. David's reigneth in is wrong. This ought to be Paul-Maul; his stead. His Lordship, bound over to or, perhaps-agreeably to the sound which episcopal decorum, has hitherto been spar- we give to the a in such words as what, ing in his assaults upon pure old English quantity, want-still better, and with more words: but one may trace the insurrection- gallantry, Poll-Moll. The word Mr., ary taint, passing down from Cowper through again, in Ritson's reformation, must have the word Grecian, in many of his Anglo- astonished the Post-office. He insisted that Hellenic forms. For instance, he insists this cabalistical-looking form, which might on our saying-not Heracleide and Pelo- as reasonably be translated into monster, pida, as we all used to do-but Heracleids was a direct fraud on the national language, and Pelopids. A list of my Lord's barbari- quite as bad as clipping the Queen's cointies, in many other cases, upon unprotected age. How, then, should it be written? words, poor shivering aliens that fall into Reader! reader! that you will ask such a his power, when thrown upon the coast of question! mister, of course; and mind that his diocese, I had-had, I say, for, alas! you put no capital m; unless, indeed, you fuit Ilium. are speaking of some great gun, some mister of misters, such as Mr. Pitt of old, or perhaps a reformer of spelling. The plural, again, of such words as romance, age, horse, he wrote romanceës, ageës, horsees; and upon the following equitable consideration; that, inasmuch as the e final in the singular is mute, that is, by a general vote of the

son.

Yet, really, one is ashamed to linger on cases so mild as those, coming, as one does, in the order of atrocity, to Elphinstone, to Noah Webster, a Yankee-which word means, not an American, but that separate order of Americans, growing in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, in fact, a New Englander-and to the rabid Rit-nation has been allowed to retire upon a Noah would naturally have reduced superannuation allowance, it is abominable to call it back upon active service-like the modern Chelsea pensioners-as must be done, if it is to bear the whole weight of a separate syllable like ces. Consequently, if the nation and Parliament mean to keep faith, they are bound to hire a stout young e to run in the traces with the old original e, taking the whole work off his aged shoulders. Volumes would not suffice to exhaust the madness of Ritson upon this subject. And there was this peculiarity in his madness, over and above its clamorous ferocity, that being no classical scholar (a meagre self-taught Latinist, and no Grecian at all) though profound as a black-letter scholar, he cared not one straw for ethnographic rewhich are the principles that generally lations of words, nor for unity of analogy, have governed reformers of spelling. He was an attorney, and moved constantly under the monomaniac idea that an action

us all to an antediluvian simplicity. Shem, Ham, and Japhet, probably separated in consequence of perverse varieties in spelling; so that orthographical unity might seem to him one condition for preventing national schisms. But as to the rabid Ritson, who can describe his vagaries? What great arithmetician can furnish an index to his absurdities, or what great decipherer furnish he would have raised a clatter on the armor of modern society, such as Samson threatened to the giant Harapha. For, in many respects, he resembled the Landor: he had much of his learning he had the same extensive access to books and influential circles in great cities-the same gloomy disdain of popular falsehoods or common-places-and the same disposition to run a muck against all nations, languages, and spelling-books.

In fact, a New Englander." This explana

tion, upon a matter familiar to the well-informed, it is proper to repeat occasionally, because we English exceedingly perplex and confound the Americans by calling, for instance, a Virginian or Kentuck by the name of Yankee, whilst that term was originally introduced as antithetic to these more southern lay on behalf of misused letters, mutes, States. liquids, vowels, and dipthongs, against