Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 007.djvu/203

 and the Quarterly Review: the changes of measures which ruined him were not wholly poetieal.

Upon the merits and demerits of "Patriot" it is useless to insist: from Russell to John Wilkes, was "a heavy declension." In fact, however, the thing itself is a bore: a patriot is an animal whose principles are as old-fashioned as his clothes; and like himself, they lose in consideration principally by being out of place. In the present state of society, a patriot must be half a note above concert pitch, and therefore, of necessity must spoil the harmony which prevails where interest and servility reduce all instruments to the same key. But what more particularly affects the fortunes of the word is, that persecution can make any thing a patriot. In this the attorney-general operates like the hangman:—

It is not then very surprising that this word should, like the chameleon, take its colour from surrounding objects; and change its signification with every fresh subject with which it comes in contact: it is thus that in Ireland, Patriot resolves itself into the syllabic elements of Pat-Riot.

"Courtier," and "Courtesan," though brother and sister, have met with very different fortunes in the world: for though the idea of prostitution has somehow or other mixed itself up with both, yet the lady's calling is much the most disreputable in public opinion.

Nothing can be clearer, and more intimately felt than the ideas of good and evil, yet "a good man," or rather a "good sort of a man," is a very doubtful character. His description is a mere bundle of negations: he is a minus quantity in morals, a substance without accidents. In general the appellation is applied to men of whom nothing else can be said. Sometimes it is used as an extenuating salvo for public delinquents, as when we are desired to hold a man excused, who has ruined his country, because he is "a good sort of man" in private life: as if it were necessary that a man should starve his children, and beat his wife, in order to be a bad minister.

The value of this word varies something with the latitude and longitude of the place where it is used. A good man in the city, may be a very bad man in all other regions; and many things which are good in law, are either wicked or absurd beyond the precincts of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn.

But of all the pests of society, keep me from a "good sort of woman." How she torments her servants! how she plagues her husband! how she interferes with her neighbours! and, worst of all, what a wet blanket she is in society! A good sort of woman has neither wit nor wisdom, charity, taste, nor good-nature. She is so candid, that she will excuse all faults in those who have the world's protection; and she is so pure and immaculate, that she can find nothing in favour of those whom the world pursues. A good sort of woman has seldom an opinion of her own, but she has a ready and an infallible instinct in selecting those she adopts from the safe side of the question. A good sort of woman, as she is generally placed above the wants of her species, so she is exempt from its sympathies; and if she rarely sinks into a crime, she never rises to a virtue.

But the most singular use of the word "good" is that which is