CHAP. XXVII. RHYMES OF IDLENESS. "I HAVE great delight," said Egeria one evening as she was communing with the Bachelor on the literary accomplishments of several great, characters," in reading those little poetical sketches in which some of the most eminent statesmen have occasionally unbended. I do not speak of statesmen who had a decided bias for authorship, and who have published books, but of such as, in some few moments of gayety and enjoyment, have drawn their fingers playfully over the strings of the lyre, and brought forth tunes and melodies that make one regret they had not more cultivated the art. The great Earl of Chatham has, in two or three instances, imitated Horace with much taste and freedom; but I think the following little piece by Sir William Blackstone, the celebrated judge and expounder of the principles of English law, is not inferior to some of the happiest effusions of the regular-bred poets. It is not certainly of a very high order of poetry, but the verses are imbued with elegance, and the sentiments breathe the feelings of an amiable heart.” THE LAWYER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MUSE. "As by some tyrant's stern command, A wretch forsakes his native land, Till on some neighbouring mountain's brow "Companion of my tender age, And aged elms, with awful bend, Then all was joyous, all was young, And years unheeded roll❜d along. "But now the pleasing dream is o'er, These scenes must charm me now no more. Farewell, a long—a last adieu ! And midnight conflagrations glare; In frighted streets their orgies hold; Or where in silence all is drown'd, "Shakspeare, no more thy sylvan son, Nor all the art of Addison, Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease, Nor Milton's mighty self must please. Instead of these, a formal band With furs and coifs around me stand, And points with tottering hand the ways There, in a winding close retreat, Than lurk within the sordid tribe ; Observe how parts with parts unite "Then, welcome business-welcome strife, Thus to the grave in peace descend!" CHAP. XXVIII. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. "THE last thirty years of the reign of GEORGE THE THIRD will be remembered as one of the most remarkable epochs in the moral history of the world. Among other memorable things, it will hereafter be celebrated for the extraordinary elevation which the oratory both of the bar and the senate attained. It will require other events and circumstances equally stupendous with those of the past, to call forth again the energies of eloquence to the same degree of effect and splendour. But perhaps no single occurrence in all those mighty and manifold exertions is more interesting than the trial in the Court of King's Bench of Mr Peltier, for a libel on Buonaparte. It was considered as the first attempt of that magnificent adventurer to overthrow the liberty of the British press; and it was instituted at a time when many gathering and darkening circumstances indicated that a war was coming on in which the very existence of the British state would be put to the most imminent peril, by all the efforts that prodigious power and boundless profligacy could exert,-in every shape that force and fraud, either combined or separate, can employ. But although the speech of Sir James Mackintosh on that occasion is one of the most splendid compositions of the time, it has not obtained that durable popularity of which so noble an effort |