disrepute, infamy, and loss of character, to be seen passing within the threshold. Subject the establishments to the regular superintendence of the police; and then, if any unlicensed gaming-houses are discovered, visit their owners and frequenters with the utmost severity of the law. We believe, that some plan might be devised, by which the cause of virtue and good order would be promoted, and at the same time a considerable sum added to the revenue of the country.

Many conscientious men, however, have honest prejudices, or it may be, well-grounded scruples, on this subject, which perhaps deserve and demand respect. They will say, gaming is injurious to society, and baneful to the general happiness; it is therefore an offence against the ordinances of God, and the laws of nature. The government, then, which licenses gaming-houses, licenses a moral crime. But to license a moral crime is what no human government can by any possibility have the right or authority to do.

These remarks, although we think them capable of refutation, present an argument of some force. But you, Sir, cannot use it. For we here proceed to the other topic of this letter; and shall now consider the pains and penalties which are imposed upon gaming, in conjunction with the encouragement which is afforded to the Lottery. We shall content ourselves with pursuing our single line of reasoning; and leave all the other objections which may be urged against the institution of lotteries to those members of parliament, who have deserved well of their country by bringing the question so often before the legislature, and who are determined to persevere, until the practice shall be abolished by the votes of the majority.

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Consider, Sir, for a moment, in what a dilemma you are involved, into what a maze of contradictions and inconsistencies you must be plunged. Your tongue is tied; you cannot advance one argument which will not be turned against yourself. If you say, "The Government must not encourage gaming, and endanger the morality of the country by any project of increasing its revenue,” it will

be immediately retorted,-Look to the Lottery, of which the only possible defence is, that it brings two or three hundred thousand pounds yearly into the exchequer. If you affirm, the Government has no wish to chastise with an oppressive rigour the misguided men, who rush to their own ruin in the gaming-house-it would rather prevent them from going by a wholesome and paternal strictnessits terrors and its vengeance are directed against the proprietors of the house, against the miscreants who inflame the love of play for their own pecuniary gain, who take a wretched advantage of the thoughtlessness, the credulity, or the cupidity of mankind-when you affirm all this, the same answer is ready-Look to the lottery. You do the very thing, which you condemn and punish; you excite the spirit of gaming for a paltry sum of money; you take advantage of the thoughtlessness, the credulity, and the cupidity of the people. When you exclaim against the perpetrator of such offences, it may be said to you, as Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man." You con

nive at the sale of tickets, when the chances are, and must be, against the deluded speculator; when the stakes are not equal; when the prospect of obtaining a prize cannot upon any principle of calculation be equivalent to the risk of loss which is incurred.

At least, Sir, be consistent. Do one thing or the other. If you think only of the revenue, license gaming-houses: get as much money as you can; make it rather more worth your while to encourage gambling, if indeed the practice of licensing be such encouragement. Instead of two or three hundred thousand pounds you may obtain two or three millions. If you think only of morality, abolish the Lottery. By patronising it, you, as it were, not only license the gaming-house, but are proprietor of the table; you not only countenance the game, but keep the bank. By wavering between two systems, and halting between two opinions, you manage to combine the disadvantages of both. Your excite and keep alive the spirit of gaming, without assisting the exchequer to the extent which would be practicable and easy; you enact severe laws, and put them into arbitrary execution, without protecting the

interests of virtue, or promoting good order and good habits in the community.

These reflections, Sir, may deserve your serious consideration. To punish Gambling and encourage Lotteries is the grossest contradiction and absurdity. The lottery is neither more nor less than a species of gambling under the authority of the Government. We may have afforded some loose hints, which may be improved into a plan, which will at any rate have an appearance of compactness and consistency. There is a radical and palpable error in the present system, when considered for a moment in all its parts. How it can have prevailed so long is to us an inexplicable mystery. It must be repugnant, we should think, to your notions of political expediency as an experienced statesman; it must be irreconcilable, we are convinced, with your feelings and principles as a pious Christian, and a man of exemplary character.

THE COUNCIL OF TEN.

MATTERS OF TASTE AND TASTE OF THE AGE.

IN the First Number of our work we stated a conviction, which has long obtruded itself on our minds, that, in the present state of society amongst us, a "Tribunal of Taste" is a desideratum of no ordinary importance.

Though, in our character of Supreme Censors, the philosophy of social intercourse must form a predominating feature of our researches, still we shall bestow some share of attention upon the conveniences, embellishments, and, if we may be allowed the term, the harmonies of life, as well as upon its sterner business and more necessary duties; careless of all who, in the limited compass of their souls, may think it rather too much for the same Council to be not only the "arbiter morum," but the "arbiter elegantiarum," into the bargain. We shall do so, too, from the persuasion, that in a subordinate degree we shall be facilitating the performance of our more absorb

ing task; since we are assured, that the less the mind encounters what is revolting, is fretted with what must excite disgust, or is seduced into fooleries which must tend to relax its vigour and impair its tone, the more thoroughly will its capabilities of moral advancement be appreciated, and the more unobstructedly will they be improved.

As our plans are rather in progress than in maturity, we propose not to announce, in this article, the formation of the desired Tribunal, to define its province, and describe its powers-but to bring forward a few matter-of-fact reasons why its erection should be no longer postponed. The public, in the mean time, cannot quarrel with this acknowledged immaturity of our plans, when we declare, that we started as we did, in the hopes of "making completion perfect," by a discriminating attention to the suggestions of others.

While agitating the topic of Taste in Council, a few nights back, we were highly gratified at having brought under our notice, by one of our members, a series of papers on the Standard of Taste," which commenced in the second number of the Classical Journal. We might be almost said to recognise, in these papers, our own thoughts; and by their reasoning, our belief in the existence of an obvious and immutable standard of taste received ample corroboration.

We are of those who know, that, if they speak truth, they cannot be altogether original: we rejoice to find ourselves anticipated, we exult to behold others running in the same course with ourselves: we, of all men, are most loth to entertain accusations of plagiarism against any one; it is more consolatory to our feelings to attribute to the inspiration of instinctive truth those identities of thought that daily come under our critical observation, than to put them down to the account of piratical practices. These identities, when they are not copies one of another, (as, for our comfort, it can be often demonstrated they are not,) but copies of one great original, viz., Nature, -the more they are alike, the more irrefragably they bear witness of " the truth."

Matters of Taste are comprised, according to our notions,

under the four genera of the Fine Arts, with the addition of Music-Buildings-Equipages-and Dress.

Though the component parts of which Sculpture and Painting consist, are generally, in their originals, before our eyes-though the copy may mostly be compared with that which is copied-though, as arts of imitation, their standard is in part substantive and palpable-still, as to embodying the phantoms of imagination, as well as to some ingenuities of grouping and expression, their standard is in part of that kind which the instinctive perception of "the beautiful," of that which is in keeping with the harmony of nature, developes. This latter standard is that by which we must try the remaining objects of taste, if we except such portions of poetry as are made the vehicles of historic truths or real descriptions.

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It is true, that the ancients having carried the science of architecture to a sublime perfection, we in many instances take them as our instructors in building; but, inasmuch as architecture, of itself and originally, had no prototype in nature, it is not, per se," an imitative art, nor are we, as in the case of animated nature, precluded from adding to, diversifying, or amplifying its beauties. To represent a human being with twelve fingers or two heads, or a quadruped with five feet, would be to represent a monster, a lusus naturæ, a. something to be contemplated with almost alarmed disgust. But to invent a sixth order of architecture, only, we think, requires the genius to conceive, and the resolution to execute. With the Grecian of old we would exclaim,

Δεινὸν ἢ τὸ μηχανόεν

Τέχνας ὑπὲρ ἐλπίδ ̓ ἔχον.

The power of invention is indefinable, possessing resources beyond our most sanguine expectations. The standard of taste, then, as controlling the imitative arts of sculpture and painting, is, as we have already explained, in part substantive and available for the purposes of comparison; while the standard which is applicable to the last three genera of our classification, and the science of music, is positively and undividedly founded on an instinct that, till it be corrupted, which it may be by various means