a laboris!"
Yes--who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament--the rasped
Balaamite of Congress--the spanked Cockney of an author--the jaundiced
Editor of some new no-go periodical--even these must cut the leaves of
each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find
their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his
basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic
composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd
at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a
season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression
of his een,"--but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the
Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it,
are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So
then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and
rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is
whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,--
"Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,
And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"
Ah! my dear Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent, Esquire,--I
know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for trade, and
'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a
shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and I
am sure it now suggests the rejoinder--that to rule the world is nothing,
so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask, do you go
for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than her Majesty?
I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the
thousands that profit by his labours in America--but if it can't be so,
let the glory suffice him, and let _Sic vos non vobis_ be his song of
patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the
Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or
collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats in
time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest greater
assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the
manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,--Mr.
Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and
_Sic vos non vobis_. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance
against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by
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