This passage will probably surprise many of our readers, who must have discovered our author to be, as every good and wise man must be, firmly attached to the present system. It was natural for Dante to send his enemies to hell; but it seems strange that our poet should place the writings of his own friends and fellow-labourers in a water-closet. It has indeed been hinted to us, that it might arise from envy, to find some of them better rewarded for their exertions in the cause, than himself. But though great minds have sometimes been subject to this passion, we cannot suppose it to have influenced the author of the ROLLIAD in the present instance. For in that case we doubt not he would have shown more tenderness to his fellow-sufferer, the unfortunate Mr. NORTHCOTE, who, after sacrificing his time, degrading his profession, and hazarding his ears twice or thrice every week, for these two or three years past, has at length confessed his patriotism weary of employing his talents for the good of his country, without receiving the reward of his labours. To confess the truth, we ourselves think the apparent singularity of the poet's conduct on this occasion, may be readily ascribed to that independence of superior genius, which we noticed in our last number. We there remarked, with what becoming freedom he spoke to the Minister himself; and in the passage now before us, we may find traces of the same spirit, in the allusions to the coal-tax, gauze-tax, and ribbon-tax, as well as the unexampled alterations and corrections of the celebrated India-bill. Why then should it appear extraordinary, that he should take the same liberty with two or three brother-authors, which he had before taken with their master; and without scruple intimate, what he and every one else must think of their productions, notwithstanding he may possess all possible charity for the good intention of their endeavours?
We cannot dismiss these criticisms, without observing on the concluding lines; how happily our author, here again, as before, by the mention of Shiptonia, contrives to recal our attention to the personages more immediately before us, MERLIN and DUKE ROLLO!
We come now to the _Sanctum Sanctorum_, the Holy of Holies, where the glory of political integrity shines visibly, since the shrine has been purified from Lord J. CAVENDISH, Mr. FOLJAMBE, Sir C. BUNBURY, Mr. COKE, Mr. BAKER, Major HARTLEY, and the rest of its pollutions. To drop our metaphor, after making a minute survey of the Lobby, peeping into the Eating-room, and inspecting the Water-closets, we are at length admitted into the House itself. The transition here is peculiarly grand and solemn. MERLIN, having corrected himself for wasting so much time on insignificant objects,