THE LITERARY PANORAMA, AND National Register : For APRIL, 1818. NATIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY NOTICES, (British and Foreign,) PROSPECTIVE and retROSPECTIVE. RELIEF OF MENDICANT SEAMEN. REPORT OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE for thE RE- IN THE CITY OF LONDON. places are more intimately affected; and the disposition by which they are met, together with the application of the means of meeting them, is well entitled to a distinction, and to a permanency of record, at once honourable to itself, and advantageous to posterity. The personal calamities of life call forth the sympathies of friends and neighbours; when calamities of a more distressing des BENEVOLENCE is the good-will that every man owes to his neighbour: Beneficence is the active power of good-cription befall a place, the country will called into exercise. Benevolence is the duty of all, and is within the ability of all; but, Beneficence demands the means, and the opportunity, for indulging those energies to which it is always willing, but not always competent, Those are highly favoured, who unite both the principle and the power; and if ever envy be tolerable, as a feeling, those are much to be envied, whose circumstances allow them to combine the Bestiment with the practice; "the outward and visible sign, with the inward and spiritual grace." around acknowledges a claim on its compassion; and if compensation cannot be made,-for that is often impossible,— yet alleviation is attempted; and, not seldom, is happily found effectual, though it must be, in its very nature, partial and incomplete. The Metropolis of a great kingdom is the centre to which all, who prefer claims on the bounty of the public, think it their interest to repair; and, were it possible to distinguish the validity of those claims, there are not many applicants which would have reason to We have lately had occasion to con- complain of the liberality of the metrosider, at some length, the proportion of polis of the British empire. But, so it the poor among us, as a nation; with the is, that the numbers of unworthy objects, effect of such numbers, acting as dead of impostors, and of those who rather weights, on the body politic. The pub- deserve castigation than charity, which hc, at large, was interested, and conti-infest the streets of London, are very nes to be interested, in that important subject; but, beside what concerns the public at large, other instances arise from time to time, by which particular VOL, VIII. No. 43. Lit. Pan. N.S. April 1. great; to extend bounty to these, is to pay for being imposed on; is to encourage and support the trade of mendicity; is to prolong a vice, that,-it is the na B |