THE SPECTATOR'S COMPLAINT.
COMPLAINING is in vain, otherwise we would say that we are very ill-used people. Nobody will call us by our own name, or allow that we are what we are and profess to be. All the (news- paper) world seems bent upon seeing further into a millstone than its neighbours, and will have it that we are "no waiter but a Knight Templar." The Tories call us Whig-Radical or Ultra-Liberal; the "wise" Whigs, Tory-Radical ; the "confiding" Whigs, Tory by itself, Tory ; and now the official Globe will have it that we are "the organ of Chartism." It is needless for us to protest that we are in good truth neither more nor less than we give ourselves out for—a "Spectator," an unexcited looker-on, who likes -to get at the truth of things, and candidly expresses his real opinions. All these gentlemen know us better than we know ourselves : beneath our plausible exterior they detect our deep designs—deep indeed, for they are hidden even from our own knowledge. Sometimes we feel inclined to run a parallel between our fate in this respect and that of Jonathan Oldbuck suspected of dangerous de- signs alike by the loyalists and the " democraws" of Fairport. At other times, we see our trials typified in the story of the old man, son, and ass. When our temper has been more than usually tried, we compare ourselves to the adventurers in search of the golden- water, singing-tree, and talking-bird, with a thousand airy voices uttering impertinences for the purpose of making them turn round and desist from ascending the mountain at the top of which are the objects of their search. There is no use, however, in telling our would-be tormentors that we have taken a hint from the Arabian Nights and stuffed our ears with cotton—that we are deaf to their charges, insinuations, and nicknames. No doubt they address these things less to us than to the public : when the polite Post and the staid Standard call us Ultra-Liberal, it is not so much because they think the designation accurate, as with a view to add force to their argument—" see even an Ultra-Liberal say so and so" ; and when the Globe, insisting that what is in reality "a sketch from nature" ought to be called "confessions of a Chartist," instals us "the organ of Chartism," it is only by way of dressing us up as a buga- boo to frighten Sir ROBERT PEEL. The "Liberals of the shop," again, merely seek to seduce some of our customers. The trick might answer once or twice, but it has so often been played off that it is somewhat stale : besides, its effect is not lasting. But your political partisan is like a character in one of FOOTE'S farces : he tells with a bold face the story that suits his purpose for the moment, confident in his own genius, and certain that another fib will suggest itself to him as soon as it is wanted.
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