“_New Morality_ is commonly regarded as the master-piece of _The Anti-Jacobin_; and, with the exception of a few lines, the whole of it is by CANNING. It appeared in the last number, and he is said to have concentrated all his energies for a parting blow. The reader who comes fresh from DRYDEN or POPE, or even CHURCHILL, will be disappointed on finding far less variety of images, sparkling antithesis, or condensed brilliancy of expression. The author exhibits abundant humour and eloquence, but comparatively little wit; _i.e._, if there be any truth in SYDNEY SMITH’S doctrine ‘that the feeling of wit is occasioned by those relations of ideas which excite surprise, and surprise _alone_’. We are commonly prepared for what is coming, and our admiration is excited rather by the justness of the observations, the elevation of the thoughts, and the vigour of the style, than by a startling succession of flashes of fancy. If, as we believe, the same might be said of JUVENAL, and the best of his English imitators, JOHNSON, we leave ample scope for praise; and _New Morality_ contains passages which have been preserved to our time and bid fair to reach posterity. How often are the lines on _Candour_ quoted in entire ignorance or forgetfulness of their author.... “The drama of _The Rovers_, or _Double Arrangement_, was written to ridicule the German Drama, then hardly known in this country, except through the medium of bad translations of some of the least meritorious of SCHILLER’S, GOETHE’S, and KOTZEBUE’S productions. The parody is now principally remembered by Rogero’s song, of which, Mr. Edmonds states, the first five stanzas were by CANNING. “Having been accidentally seen, previously to its publication, by PITT, he was so amused with it that he took a pen and composed the last stanza on the spot....” “CANNING’S reputed share in _The Rovers_ excited the unreasoning indignation, and provoked the exaggerated censure, of a man who has obtained a world-wide reputation by his historical researches, most especially by his skill in separating the true from the fabulous, and in filling up chasms in national annals by a process near akin to that by which CUVIER inferred the entire form and structure of an extinct species from a bone. The following passage is taken from NIEBUHR’S _History of the Period of the Revolution_ (published from his Lectures, in two volumes, in 1845):—