grant north, presented himself to the offended optics of the astonished domestic, who must have naturally taken him for an escape from the hulks. Even of the lower classes of London he knows nothing, except by his conjecture that they must resemble the people with whom he congregated in familiar friendship when at home. What his acquaintance with the theatres is, we have already discussed; but surely we thought he may know something of the newspapers.

Charitable was the thought, but erroneous. Even of them, though they are to him of such vital importance that he gives to them alone half the space of his whole budget of observations on the whole metropolis, he is profouudly ignorant. He really knows nothing of the actually governing powers of the newspapers. He is, we admit, profoundly acquainted with the prices expected by the reporters, and especially by the reporters of low degree, but here his information ends. He finds out, with respect to the Times, that Captain Stirling "does not go to the office;" that in the Examiner, Mr. Albany Fonblanque "does not go to the office;" that in the Morning Post, Mr. Mackworth Praed "does not go to the office;" that in the Morning Herald, Mr. Sydney Taylor "does not go to the office;" and so forth. He is "not prepared to state" fifty things about the most ordinary matters of routine in the newspaper press. He "understands" that Mr. Theodore Hook writes for John Bull, of the history of which he is wholly ignorant. He finds out that Dr. Maginn is one of the four regular editors of the Age. He assures us that Mr. Fonblanque writes for the Morning Chronicle. He knows that, when the Chronicle declared that the Standard was an obscure paper, which could not live, the Standard was in danger of being given up for want of advertisements. He believes that John Murray lost £15,000 by the Representative, which lived only half-a-year. He is sure that the Carlton Club, the wealth of which appears in his eyes unbounded, bought the Times for £100,000. He tells us that the Foreign Review was started by a son of Lord Gillies (who has no son), and by Mr. James Fraser, author of the Travels in Persia, confounding him with Mr. Wm. Fraser, no relative whatever. He is certain that Lockhart wrote an article upon Hogg's Memoir of Sir Walter Scott in our own Magazine, of which Lockhart knew

nothing till he saw it in print. He informs us that, after William Gifford ceased to be editor of the Quarterly, he was succeeded by Dr. Southey, who never edited the Review in his life, being quite ignorant, at the same time, of the fact, that the present Mr. Justice Coleridge was editor for some numbers. He repeats, with infinite credulity, the trash stories of Mr. O’D— and Dick Martin, and the noble Lord and the gigantic Irishman of John Bull, both being untrue. He calls Giffard, Gifford; Banks, Bankes; Quin, M'Quinn; Dios Santos, De Santez. In short, he bungles and blunders in every thing, great and small, even in the very trade to which he happens to be attached, in the character of flunkey.

These things are trifles, our readers will observe, and we agree with them. We think the whole book stuff of the most trifling kind; but, what shall we say of a literary man, or one who professes to be so, devoting a whole volume to the petty details of newspapers and magazines, utterly ignorant of what is going on in their internal management all the while, and never dropping a hint of the existence of any other species of literature in "The Great Metropolis ?"

We hand him over to the indignation of Mr. E. L. Bulwer.

EPAMINONDAS GRUBB, OR FENIMORE COOPER, versus THE MEMORY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.*

THIS is, of its kind, a remarkable article, and should not be suffered to drift away unobserved on that foul current of republican abuse and calumny to which it belongs. It is worth while to catch hold of the vile thing-pulling it forth with a pitchfork —and exposing the intricate texture of its black web-the materials being spite, envy, hatred of order, and of all deservedly exalted characters; hatred, too, of the best efforts of successful genius; and the whole production brought out for effect, under a pretended zeal for "principle."

This precious critique, as the author instructs us to believe, has been written from stern dictates of duty; and his conscience would not have allowed him to rest unless he had promulgated it to the world. "We think it time," says he, "that the voice of Truth should be heard in this matter; that these old and venerable principles, which have been transmitted to us from God himself, should be fearlessly applied!" For our own parts, though we understand well enough what the word principle means, when correctly interpreted, yet, at the outset, we are somewhat puzzled by these

* The malevolent and abusive article, on which we have here animadverted, appeared in "The Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine," for October, 1838. But, with laudable impartiality, the proprietors of that journal have, in their number for December last, published a "Reply to Cooper's Attack on Scott;" which, however, did not fall in our way, till after our own remarks had been for some time in type. As Mr. Cooper's countrymen and the editor of the "Knickerbocker" (who should know best) have fixed on that eminent romance-writer the paternity of the attack, we owe an apology to our old acquaintance, Epaminondas, for having so freely indicated our belief that he, more probabiy was its author. Palmam qui meruit ferat! —O. Y.

epithets," old and venerable." A venerable eternity would sound rather strange, but not more so in our estimation than an old and venerable principle. However, so much is quite clear; the plan of our transatlantic moralist is the "fearless application of principles," and the immediate object of his exertions, as will soon be apparent, is to show, that Sir Walter Scott had trampled on all principles, being most pertinaciously addicted to "fraud, falsehood, avarice, selfishness, treachery, low cunning, abject meanness," and other such propensities, which are to be discovered often enough in the world, but of which, according to our author, Sir Walter's character was pre-eminently, if not exclusively, made up!

Such is the plan, and such is the drift, of this exquisite American brochure. But notwithstanding the grave dignity of the introduction, there is not so much of novelty in the performances of a paltry insect trying his best (or worse) to undermine an oak-tree, as to have induced us to notice the article, had we not been confidently assured that it comes from the pen of Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper, author of the Last of the Mohicans, the Spy, and numberless other works, for whom (as well as for Sir E. L. Bulwer, and other indefatigables), we are bound to entertain all due respect. And if Mr. Cooper be in reality the writer of the critique before us, the sentiments of an individual so much distinguished, especially when he appeals to "old and venerable principles," are, questionless, entitled to consideration; at all events, should not be passed over in utter silence.

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But for our own part, we avow at the outset, that we have some reason to believe this paper is not the production of the great American novelist," but has emanated from the pen of Mr. Epaminondas Grubb of Massachusetts, a genius whom, by singular chance, we recollect to have seen in London several years ago, when it was still the practice of certain publishers to give large sums for the copyright of novels, even when execrably bad. He came into the market with a huge three-volume MS., of his own composition, for which he modestly demanded fifteen hundred pounds. And we can recollect that it was Grubb's decided opinion, even at that period, that Sir Walter Scott had been ridicu lously overrated. He thought, moreover, that the inhabitants of this country were poor, paltry, ignorant beings, compared with

those of Massachusetts; lastly, we are sure that Grubb did also talk about "old and venerable principles."

Yet, as already said, the production before us has been fathered, by the force of on dit, on Mr. Fenimore Cooper, and that he may have written it, is, we think, quite within the limits of possibility. There was an article not long ago in the Quarterly Review, where Lockhart happened to treat the "great American novelist" with considerably more of justice than ceremony; and, from the virulent animosity betrayed by the soi-disant "moralist" against the review and its editor, one can scarcely help surmising that some slight alloy of egotism must have blended with the zeal for "old and venerable principles," before he could write so bitterly.

Still we do incline to think that the author is not Cooper, but. our old acquaintance, Epaminondas Grubb, who, we believe, really and unaffectedly despised every mortal but himself. Be this as it may, Mr. Fenimore Cooper unquestionably does belong to a class of authors, all of whom (whether he forms an exception is another question) did most cordially hate Sir Walter when living, and who rejoice in having a fling at the lion when dead. There are divers novelists who, thanks to that sort of public taste which used to support the "Minerva Press," and the splendid industry exhibited by some of our west-end booksellers, not only have had their day," as regards pecuniary emolument, but continue to see their works paraded in public. Yet, notwithstanding these advantages, such authors being in a predicament much like that of builders who have run up houses that will hardly stand wind and weather even for one generation-these gentry, we say, have an awkward propensity, not only to get into a rage when their productions are scrutinized or begin to moulder away, but they entertain the most bitter vindictiveness against each contemporary (or even deceased) artist, who happens to have completed twenty or thirty edifices of unquestionable character, which have stood and are likely to stand firm, and to bring high prices in the market.

We have known numbers of aspirant and incipient authors, not having advanced so far as to get either praise or blame, who lisped in affected admiration of the "Last Minstrel" and the Waverley novels; but your middling writers-your creatures of