On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
seeks . Though , perhaps , not immediately perceived by him , the object of his seeking them is such . The petition will be as * sounding brass , or a tinkling cymbal' as long as authority , force , or craft withhold them from him : and the author of the work
under notice exhibits any thing but an inclination to let the man of * low station' know that he has rights , or feel his ability to demand and employ them . But the mechanic is , even now , so far acquainted with those rights , that fifty Rev . Charles B . Taylers and country parsons of the Church of England will find it somewhat difficult to reason him out of them . And there are
many mechanics quite as capable of putting the deranged clock in order , as nine-tenths of the bunglers who , by privilege , are suffered to faddle with the works , and call themselves hereditary movers and makers of the machinery , superintendents of all clock-wheels and dial-fingers , by divine authority . The Rev . Mr . Tayler thinks he has been writing down to the level of the understandings of his readers . He and many of his
superiors would find it difficult to write up to the intelligence of the great body of the mechanics ; this error in estimating the capabilities of the ' lower order , ' he has exhibited most conspicuously , but the ' gentry' will pronounce this little work to be c very wise and very proper for the poor to read . ' It is better fitted to their own mental calibre , nevertheless . It is owing to
these blind calculations of theirs , that the ' respectable' find them-(selves so frequently knocked into the mire , when they get into collision with the unwashed . ' That Mr . Tayler would assist in throwing the artisans of the country back to the ignorance from which they have emerged , and far outstripped their ' betters , ' is neither a false nor a forced , or tortuous inference : no , nor is it an
irreligious or an unchristian one ; and that he would keep them back , when so thrown , it is not uncharitable to conclude : giving to the mechanic a sense of his political injuries and means of redress , sharpening his perceptions for the detection of political and priestly chicane , is , according to this writer , subversive of religion . If religion can be subverted by such a process , I pray devoutly it may be subverted . ' O ' God's name let it go . * The
purported wish of this book is , that the mechanic may again raise the shout of 4 Church and King ** as lustily and as stupidly as ever ; though I really believe , ( since reading his * Montague , or , Is this religion ? ' ) I should wrong him if I said he wished to raise the cry to the old deeds of ruffianism , but the ruffianism would certainly grow out of it , to give the otherwise insipid cry a pungency in the mouth . This little book is a sort of feeler , perhaps , an
in-* He only dreads the scrutiny of the parish beadles , whose balance is false , whose weights are clipped . The housemonger who knows the foundations of hi » tenements are rickety , and their timbers rotten , votes the inspecting surveyor to bo * a horrid bore i '
Untitled Article
Social Evils and their Remedy . 741
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 741, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/9/
-