14th, That the managers shall be freed from responsibility when the money of depositors is lodged in the bank prescribed by the rules of the society. On perusing this abstract, the reader will observe, that there is nothing compulsory in any of the clauses; it being proposed, as Mr Douglas states in his speech, "that the bill shall merely extend to such institutions as are desirous to avail themselves of its benefits," and that even these should be left to their own discretion with regard to internal regulations. This, we should think, must remove every objection to the measure in the minds of the most scrupulous. In England there was a necessity for compulsory enactments, owing to the precarious state of many of the country banks; but in Scotland we fortunately stand in a much more favourable situation. The credit of our public banks in this division of the island is so undoubted, and the advantages and facilities they afford are so considerable, as to give peculiar encouragement to our banks for savings; and where the proper mode of investing the funds of these institutions is so obvious and accessible, any parliamentary interference to restrict or regulate such investment, would seem, in every point of view, to be highly impolitic. Accordingly, so far from proposing to imitate the English act in this respect, it is not even intended to give to our Scottish banks for savings the option of placing their deposits in the fund provided for those of the sister kingdom. The bill, indeed, avoids altogether any allusion to the mode of securing the money deposited in these institutions, thus leaving them to avail themselves of such means as circumstances may render most advisable. One great object of it is to give a power to the managers to sue and be sued, that they may thus be brought more directly under the protection of the law, and that the legal disadvantages which attach to the pecuniary transactions of self-constituted bodies may be removed. We do not know that any material inconvenience has yet been felt from the want of the proposed act; but it seems desirable to guard, as far as possible, against future contingencies; because any loss or heavy expense arising from this cause, might be detrimental to the progress of a system which promises to be productive of such valuable benefits to the industrious classes of the community. The other provisions contemplated by the bill are of too obvious utility to require any comment; but particular importance we think should be attached to those clauses by which it is proposed to exempt the transactions of the institutions from stamp duties,-to render legal the discharge granted by a depositor during his minority, &c.-to enable the managers to pay to the lawful heirs, without the expence of confirmation, the money belonging to deceased depositors, and to bring more within the reach of the industrious classes the power of bequeathing their small savings. Mr Douglas mentions some objections that have been stated against the measure by the managers of the savings bank of Edinburgh, and as the opinion of persons of such high respectability, whose zeal for the welfare of these institutions is so well known, must be of great weight, their objections require to be examined with much attention. The principal reason which the gentlemen belonging to the Edinburgh institution urge for their opposition to the bill, is, that it is not called for by existing circumstances; no clamant inconvenience from want of legislative interference having yet occurred. In answer to this, it might be sufficient to shew, that such cases may possibly occur, because, in every point of view, it is better to prevent an evil than to cure it; but those who are at all acquainted with the detail of the business of banks for savings, as transacted in country parishes, cannot fail to be struck with the existence of something more than a possible defect in the common law, as applicable to such institutions. Should any of our parish banks fall into fraudulent hands, the danger arising from their present unprotected situation would be far from imaginary;-and a single instance of embarrassment arising from this cause, might be productive of a serious obstacle to the future success of the system. But it must further be observed, that inconveniences of immense magnitude not only may, but must take place in the future operations of these banks, unless protection be immediately procured for them. In case of the death of an intestate depositor, difficulties will certainly occur, with regard to succession, which the managers of savings banks are at present totally unable to solve, and which cannot fail to be productive of much embarrassment and expense to the parties. A simple, and, in our opinion, an effectual remedy is contemplated for this evil. It is proposed, that the managers shall be constituted the sole judges of the evidence of propinquity, having it in their power to apply to the sheriff for advice; and in order to put them in a situation of judging, with regard to the legal right of heirs, with which they may be presumed to be unacquainted, it is intended that a schedule shall be drawn up, exhibiting the law by which the descent of personal property is regulated. This is a provision of such manifest advantage, that were no other object to be attained by an act of Parliament, it would in our mind be sufficient to justify legislative interference. It would be easy to enlarge on this subject, but prudential considerations induce us to forbear. The only other objection which appears to be brought forward by the gentlemen connected with the Edinburgh savings bank is, that the introduction of the bill into Parliament would excite, in the minds of the poorer classes, a groundless jealousy and alarm. We have reason to believe that this fear is totally unfounded. From what we have been able to learn, after the most diligent inquiry, we are convinced that the bill, so far from being an object of jealousy and alarm, is anxiously wished for by the industrious classes, and will be received as a most desirable boon. We have seen letters on the subject from all parts of Scotland, and they uniformly speak the same language. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? The bill does not originate with government but with the people themselves. It admits of no undue interference with their private rights, but simply removes some legal embarrassments, and extends to them a degree of protection and encouragement, which could not otherwise be obtained; and indeed there can be no doubt that, independent entirely of the intrinsic advantages of the measure, the very act of legislative interference would attract more general attention to the subject, and give it an importance in the eyes of many which it does not at present possess. There is something in the impress of national sanction which has a powerful and salutary influence on any plan of public utility. The rich will be stimulated to more vigorous exertions in the cause of humanity, and the poor will feel more confidence in their schemes of economy, when they know that what was at first only the suggestion of private benevolence has, after undergoing the ordeal of public investigation, acquired the support of the wisest and highest in the nation, and been enrolled among the laws of the land. This is strongly illustrated in the case of friendly societies. It is well known that Mr Rose's act in favour of these excellent institutions, so far from exciting jealousy and alarm, was hailed in this country as a most valuable measure, and has tended, in an extraordinary degree, to advance the popularity and success of the scheme. In reference to the objections above stated, great stress has been laid on the maxim, that all unnecessary legislative interference is in itself an evil. As a general political aphorism, we are inclined to give this observation much weight; and certainly we should be among the last to sanction any wanton infringement on the law of the land. But even if it were true, as it certainly is not, that legislative interference is in the present instance unnecessary, of all supposcable cases we conceive there is scarcely one to which that principle would not more forcibly apply than to the case now before us. Let us remember for whose benefit it is intended to legislate. It is for the benefit of the poor, of those classes which form so large and so important a part of the community, but which have so seldom had occasion to witness the paternal care of Parliament in legislating for their exclusive advantage. It is alleged, that they are apt to be alarmed for the interference of the legislature. If this be true with regard to the ordinary measures of government, of which they are the object, such alarm is not without apparent reason; for what are these measures in their more obvious aspect and tendency? They are such as, whilst they are doubtless necessary for the well-being of society, must appear to the poor and illiterate, who are not capable of taking very enlarged political views, vexatious, oppressive, and grinding. The parliamentary acts whose operation reaches the poor, generally relate to the extension of taxes, or to the rendering more strict and obligatory the laws relative to game, or to the militia. These may all be highly salutary in themselves, but in the eyes of the poor they are directly the reverse. Now it does strike us very forcibly as an object of good policy, to take every favourable opportunity of counteracting this unfavourable impression, by legislative enactments of an opposite tendency. There have hitherto, unhappily, been very few such enactments. Except the poor laws, and more recently the friendly society act, we are not at present aware of any parliamentary boon to the lower orders which can be ranked under the paternal character we contend for. We all know with what gratitude the latter of these acts has been received, and there is every reason to believe, that the bill in question, which is entirely of a similar nature, will not be regarded with greater indifference. In fact, a measure of the same kind has been already accepted in the two sister kingdoms with the most unequivocal proofs of approbation and joy. Assuredly, therefore, that man would display any thing but political wisdom who should oppose to these advantages a maxim which, however important it may be as a general principle, does not apply to the present question. Why deny to Scotland a gift which has been so liberally bestowed on other parts of the empire? NOTICE OF MR HAZLITT'S LECTURES ON ENGLISH POETRY, NOW IN THE No III. Lecture Seventh.-On Burns and the Old Ballads. MR HAZLITT commenced this lecture by entering into some explanations respecting the opinion he had given of Chatterton in the last lecture; 2nd, after referring at some length to the controversy that had taken place concerning the supposed antiquity of the poems, proceeded to the more immediate subject of the present lecture -Burns. He described the genius of Burns as connected with his body as well as his mind. He had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom-you might almost hear it throb. Burns did not tinkle syren sounds in your ear, or pile up centos of poetic diction; instead of the artificial flowers of poetry, he plucked the mountaindaisy under his feet; and a fieldmouse, hurrying from its ruined dwelling, could inspire him with the sentiments of terror or pity. He held the plough and the pen with the same manly grasp: he did not cut out poetry as we cut out watch-papers,with finical dexterity, nor from the same materials. However unlike Burns may be to Shakspeare in the range of his genius, there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character, in him. He had little of Shakspeare's imagination or inventive power; but within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. Burns had an eye to see, and a heart to feel;-no more. His pictures of good fellowship, of social glee, of quaint humour, come up to nature; they cannot go beyond it. The sly jest collected in his laughing eye at the sight of the grotesque and ludicrous in manners: the large tear rolled down his manly check at the sight of another's distress. Here Mr Hazlitt, after alluding to the moral character of Burns, and observing that his virtues belonged to his genius, but his vices to his situation, which did not correspond with his genius,—took occasion to speak, at considerable length, of Mr Wordsworth's Letter to Mr Gray. On account of the nature and spirit of these remarks, it does not suit either our purpose or our inclination to repeat them: we pass on to those which followed, on the different characteristics of the poetry of Burns and Wordsworth. Mr H. said, there was no one link of sympathy between them. Wordsworth's is the poetry of mere sentiment and pensive contemplation : /' that of Burns is a highly sublimated essence of animal existence. With Burns, " self-love and social are the same." Wordsworth is himself alone, -a recluse philosopher, or a reluctant spectator of the scenes of many-coloured life, moralizing on them, not describing or entering into them. Burns has exerted all the vigour of his mind-all the general spirit of his nature, in exalting the pleasures of wine, love, and good fellowship. But in Wordsworth there is a total disunion of the faculties of the mind from those of the body. From the Lyrical Ballads it does not appear that men eat or drink, marry, or are given in marriage. If we lived by every sentiment that proceeds out of our mouths, and not by bread alone, or if the species were continued like trees, Wordsworth's poetry would be just as good as ever. Mr Hazlitt now proceeded to remark on some of Burn's poems. He pointed out the "Twa Dogs" as a very spirited piece of description, and as giving a very vivid idea of the manners both of high and low life. He described the Brigs of Ayr, the Address to a Haggis, Scotch Drink, and many others, as being full of the best kind of characteristic and comic painting; but Tam o' Shanter as the master-piece in this way. In Tam o' Shanter, and in the Cottar's Saturday Night, Burns has given the two extremes of licentious eccentricity and convivial indulgence, and of patriarchal simplicity and gravity. The latter of these poems is a noble and pathetic picture of human manners, mingled with a fine religious awe: it comes over the mind like a slow and solemn strain of music. But of all Burns's productions, Mr Hazlitt described his pathetic and serious love-songs as leaving the deepest and most lasting impression on the memory. He instanced, in particular, the lines entitled Jessie, and those to Mary Morrison; and concluded the lecture by a few remarks on the old Scottish and English ballads, which he described as possessing a still more original cast of thought, and more romantic imagery -a closer intimacy with nature-a firmer reliance on that as the only stock of wealth to which the mind has to resort-a more infantine simplicity of manners-a greater strength of affection hopes longer cherished, and longer deferred-sighs that the heart dare not leave and "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Lecture Eighth.—On the Living Poets. MR HAZLITT commenced this lecture with some remarks on the nature of true fame, which he described as not popularity-the shout of the multitude-the idle buzz of fashion-the flattery of favour or of friendship,but the spirit of a man surviving himself in the minds and thoughts of other men. Fame is not the recompence of the living, but of the dead. The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of those to whom the incense is offered. He who has ears truly touched to the music of fame, is in a manner deaf to the voice of popularity.-The love of fame differs from vanity in this, that the one is immediate and personal, the other ideal and abstracted. The lover of true fame does not delight in that gross homage which is paid to himself, but in that pure homage which is paid to the eternal forms of truth and beauty, as they are reflected in his mind. He waits patiently and calmly for the award of posterity, without endeavouring to forestall his immortality, or mortgage it for a newspaper puff. The love of fame should be, in reality, only another name for the love of excellence. Those who are the most entitled to fame, are always the most content to wait for it; for they know that, if they have descrved it, it will not be withheld from them. It is the award of successive generations that they value and desire; for the brightest living reputation cannot be equally imposing to the imagination with that which is covered and rendered venerable by the hoar of innumerable ages. After further remarks to this effect, and a few words on the female writers of the day, Mr Hazlitt proceeded to speak of the liv ing poets. He began with Mr Rogers, whom he described as a very lady-like poet-as an elegant but feeble writer, who wraps up obvious thoughts in a cover of fine words-who is full of enigmas with no meaning to them. His poetry is a more minute and inoffensive species of the Della Cruscan. There is nothing like truth of nature, or simplicity of expression. You cannot see the thought for the ambiguity of the expression-the figure for the finery-the picture for the varnish. As an example of this, Mr H. referred to the description of a friend's icehouse, in which Mr Rogers has carried the principle of elegant evasion and delicate insinuation of his meaning so far, that the Monthly Reviewers mistook his friend's ice-house for a dogkennel, and the monster which was emphatically said to be chained up in it for a large mastiff dog. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, the lecturer described as of the same class with the poetry of the foregoing author. There is a painful attention paid to the expression, in proportion as there is little to express, and the decomposition of prose is mistaken for the composition of poetry. The sense and keeping in the ideas is sacrificed to a jingle of words and an epigrammatic form of expression. The verses on the Battle of Hohenlinden, Mr H. described as possessing considerable spirit and animation; but he spoke of the Gertrude of Wyoming as exhibiting little power, or power suppressed by extreme fastidiousness. The author seems so afraid of doing wrong, that he does little or nothing. Lest he should wander from the right path, he stands still. He is like a man whose heart fails him just as he is going up in a balloon, and who breaks his neck by flinging himself out when it is too late. He mangles and maims his ideas before they are full-formed, in order to fit them to the Procrustes' bed of criticism; or strangles his intellectual offspring in the birth, lest they should come to an untimely end in the Edinburgh Review. No writer, said Mr Hazlitt, who thinks habitually of the critics, either to fear or contemn them, can ever write well. It is the business of Reviewers to watch poets, not poets to watch reviewers. Mr H. concluded his remarks on Campbell by censuring the plot of Gertrude of Wyoming, on account of the mechanical nature of its structure, and from the most striking incidents all occurring in the shape of antitheses. They happen just in the nick of time, but without any known cause, except the convenience of the author. MOORE was described as a poet of quite a different stamp,-as heedless, gay, and prodigal of his poetical wealth, as the other is careful, reserved, and parsimonious. Mr Moore's muse was compared to Ariel-as light, as tricksy, VOL. III. as indefatigable, and as humane a spirit. His fancy is ever on the wing; it flutters in the gale, glitters in the sun. Every thing lives, moves, and sparkles in his poetry; and over all love waves his purple wings. His thoughts are as many, as restless, and as bright, as the insects that people the sun's beam. The fault of Moore is an exuberance of involuntary power. His levity becomes oppressive. He exhausts attention by being inexhaustible. His va riety cloys; his rapidity dazzles and distracts the sight. The graceful ease with which he lends himself to all the different parts of his subject, prevents him from connecting them together as a whole. He wants intensity, strength, and grandeur. His mind does not brood over the great and permanent, but glances over the surfaces of things. His gay laughing style, which relates to the immediate pleasures of love and wine, is better than his sentimental and romantic view; for this pathos sometimes melts into a mawkish sensibility, or crystallizes into all the prettinesses of allegorical language, or hardness of external imagery. He has wit at will, and of the best quality. His satirical and burlesque poetry is his best. Mr Moore ought not to have written Lalla Rookh, even for three thousand guineas, said Mr Hazlitt. His fame was worth more than that. He should have minded the advice of Fadladeen. It is not, however, a failure, so much as an evasion of public opinion, and a consequent disappointment. If Moore seems to have been too happy, continued Mr Hazlitt, LORD BYRON, from the tone of his writings, seems to have been too unhappy to be a truly great poet. He shuts himself up too much in the impenetrable gloom of his own thoughts. The Giaour, the Corsair, Childe Harolde, &c. are all the same person, and they are appa rently all himself. This everlasting repetition of one subject, this accumulation of horror upon horror, steels the mind against the sense of pain as much as the unceasing sweetness and luxurious monotony of Moore's poetry makes it indifferent to pleasure. There is nothing less poetical than the unbending selfishness which the poetry of Lord Byron displays. There is no thing more repulsive than this ideal absorption of all the good and ill of life in the ruling passion and moody ab K |