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THE LION'S HEAD.

Valiant as a lion, and wondrous affable.

-SHAKSPEARE.

WE purpose to give, in our ensuing Numbers, a series of papers on the Pulpit Oratory of the present age, chiefly as exercised among Protestant Dissenters. We shall most carefully exclude from them all remarks tending to wound the feelings of individuals, and all impertinent criticism on the mere peculiarities of manner. With equal diligence we shall avoid the least indication of an exclusive spirit, or the expression of contempt for the opinions or the prejudices of any class of Christians. We shall treat Pulpit Oratory only as a high and noble art, and shall therefore make no individual the subject of disquisition whom we do not regard as possessing singular capabilities for its exercise.

Our Readers must be anxious to know what answer the Mohocks have made to the charges against them, pretty fully stated in our last Number. We have just received their publication for December, and candour compels us to give their reply a place in our pages. It is as follows:

"It is with sincere pain, that we find the writers in a paltry publication, which is hardly known beyond the limits of Cockaigne, are in the greatest consternation and alarm, lest we should fall upon them. We beg to assure them, that we have no such intention; and if they will only have the condescension to send us their names,-for, celebrated as they are among themselves, THEY ARE QUITE UNKNOWN HERE, we shall take care not to admit into our pages any thing that might lessen their insignificance."

And this is all they have to say? Yet "silent contempt " does not become those who have been so noisy in scandal. Contempt on compulsion too! Scorn in a cold sweat! Disdain running off!-But their answer, it must be confessed, is decisive;-it sets the matter at rest: it proves their guilt and their chastisement. There is no more to be said on the subject. We deduced their absolute and thorough baseness from facts, which were plainly stated, with names, dates, and circumstances. We charged them with malice, systematic falsehood, and sordid treachery: we impanelled our evidence, and submitted our proof. To all this the above is their answer! While hand-bills are placarding Edinburgh with their shame, and an action is brought against them by a Professor of the University for an offence originating in our exposure of their conduct,—their reply is, that we are unknown in their neighbourhood! Reader, such are the individuals we have had in hand: was it not necessary to lay on pretty hard? They are now down, and silent, like the patient man on his dunghill,—like him, amazed, confounded, and sore,-but not sustained in their affliction as he was. We have no wish, however, to pursue farther, in their humiliation, these late insolent laughter-raisers, who made a common joke of common honesty, and terrified people, far and near, by their barbarous defiance of decency and truth. We have laid that unquiet fiend of mischief: exorcized the spirit of blackguardism. Their Number just received would be unobjectionable, were it not dull. But allowances must be made for persons trying, for the first time in their lives, and in a fright too, to behave like gentlemen:-we are inclined to applaud even uncouth efforts at improvement. Not having been actuated by vindictive motives, we are now willing to put up the instrument of justice, and inflict no more stripes-that is to say, provided they keep to their

good behaviour. They must not continue to drag forth real names, without authority, and contrary to all honourable precedent:-should they persevere in this improper practice, let them look well to their own, and to those of others suspected of being in close connection with them. Irony may be permitted them,-but not forgeries and fabrications, intended to justify their own crimes, by sacrificing the interests and character of the guiltless. We give them notice, that this must not be done by them for the future, or else They may continue to be hypocritical and venal in religion and politics; but they must not be slanderous in their attacks on persons who are honest in both, or else They may be satirical on public pretensions, (including our own, if they please,) but they must not assassinate private character, or else - nor must they traduce, by unmeaning epithets, talents which they cannot equal,—or else Nor are they at liberty to cry Cockney, for the future, but on the principles laid down by us in an article, written expressly for their benefit (vide page 69 of our present Number). We now, then, take, we hope, a final leave of the Mohocks, having read them a lesson which, we trust, they will remember, and be the better for. It will be their own fault if we take them up again severely,-for we really feel very well disposed to leave the question on its present footing. If they are satisfied, so are we. Indeed it would be but prudent in their friends,—some of whom might themselves chance to get hurt, were the fray to recommence,-to persevere in the laudable advice which we know they have lately urged on the vanquished, to eat their leek in silence. It is not that we are invincible in power, but that the facts against them are of incontrovertible infamy.-And now we only ask, as a trifling trophy of so signal a victory, that our good friends of Edinburgh will not permit the term Mohock to sink into disuse: it has been well applied, and done some service-but let that pass: we ask no monument of brass or stone on Calton-hill,-we only ask that in the Canongate, and the Cowgate, and the Grass-market, as well as in those upstart streets of the New Town, with whose names we are not so familiar,-the children may be heard perpetuating a title, which we have revived, to quell a nuisance, quite as coarse and mischievous as that combination of blackguards, against whom it was at first used by our honoured predecessors in periodical literature.

This being the very moment for furnishing the libraries of our younger friends, we cannot have a fitter opportunity of recalling the sweeping accusation against Messrs. HARRIS AND SON, as publishers of Children's Books, which found its way into a late article on the Literature of the Nursery. We there specified certain silly and gaudy compositions, which we thought, and think, very objectionable: but we ought not to have allowed these, which do not go beyond three or four in number, to outweigh in our estimation the great bulk of the works for juvenile readers, presented to them by Messrs. Harris and Son, which are of a nature not merely unobjectionable, but all that parental solicitude and affection could desire, to afford assistance in that most arduous and important task of founding deep in the good education of the child, the character of a good man or woman in future life.-Booksellers are obliged to be prepared to meet the demands of their customers: hence, it is not so much their own judgment, as the taste of the public, that must regulate their stock. But we must say that, judging by the books contained in the list of Messrs. Harris and Son, they have certainly evinced a most laudable desire to enlist talent in the useful labour of preparing mental food for the young, calculated to strengthen their moral constitution, at the same time that devices for pleasing their palates have not been neglected. We particularly recommend the works from the pen of Mrs. Hoffland, as calculated to excite, and accustom to practise, the tender feelings of the breast. Mrs. Blackford's Esk-dale Herd Boy is a very superior work, and we have read it ourselves with much interest. True Stories from modern and ancient history, deserve a

The Lion's Head.

good word too; as well as many more equally deserving, to all of which we observe the name of Messrs. Harris and Son as publishers.

We have great respect for the good-will of Medicus, and the general favourable opinion he expresses of our work: yet, with reference to the particular objection he makes, we cannot refrain from suggesting to him that he is by far too sensitive. His profession is too honourable and useful, to warrant these warm appeals of individuals against every joke that may be levelled against it. On the contrary, as there must be, and is, in the history and practice of all bodies and professions, much that can be taken advantage of by the satirist, they must even be content to submit to a little occasional caricature, or sober reprehension, as it may happen. No individual belonging to them consults his own dignity by pressing forward to protest against such allusions: they pass with the public for what they are worth-telling against what is objectionable, and passing harmlessly over what is meritorious. We have taken a vast deal of physic in our time; and we have latterly been occupied in administering some salutary pills to certain Edinburgh patients: we, therefore, consider ourselves as occupying a middle situation, favourable to impartiality, in regard to the medical profession. We have been active and passive-objects, and subjects-in medicine. The result is, that we profess, what we really entertain, much esteem for Doctors, and an earnest wish to be kept out of their hands. We have strong personal reasons for expressing admiration of the skill and liberality of members of the profession; and we are sure we shall not offend any who do it honour, by quoting, in good humour, part of the account lately given in the Daily Papers of some proceedings in the Court of Chancery relative to a disputed Doctor's bill:

Mr. Horne proceeded to read over the items

To 5,728 draughts, 168 mixtures, 119 bolusses, 68 lotions, 78 liniments, 258 boxes of pills, and other doses, to the amount of no less than 700.

The LORD CHANCELLOR-Pray, Mr. Horne, do stop, for I fear that without taking, the mere recital of so much physic will sicken me.

Mr. HORNE said he would only mention one other item, and that was as fol'lows: "To innoculating the testator seven times."

The LORD CHANCELLOR-Is there no allowance made for returned bottles and pill-boxes?

Mr. HORNE said there was not; but that might be accounted for, as probably he had swallowed them also.

We hope we shall not offend Medicus by this quotation: yet it is certainly severer than any thing we have said.

In our next Number we shall take notice of the dispute between Mr. Octavius Gilchrist of Stamford, and the Rev. Mr. Bowles,-in which the LONDON MAGAZINE has been implicated. It appears that Mr. Gilchrist did not write the Article in The Quarterly Review against which a pampl:let, "by one of the family of the Bowles's," was published. The style of that pamphlet certainly has not pleased the public: but we reserve opinion, till In the mean time, we we can express all we have to say on the matter. may state that we have read observations by Mr. Bowles in the Pamphleteer, which seem to us to bear more closely on the question than the first pamphlet, which called forth "Gilchrist's Answer to Bowles." This is now followed, we see, by "Gilchrist's Second Answer to Bowles," in which there is some interesting matter brought forward relative to Pope; and intimation is given that Mr. G. means to enter more largely on the vindication of that Poet's moral character, in a volume which may be soon expected.

Our numerous Correspondents must excuse us for another month.

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