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with which the Countess herself was noticed in his private correspondence. It is to be hoped that Lady Blessington's friend, Madame Guiccioli, will also favour the world with the stock of her recollections; and it will be hard if, among the multitude of friends and acquaintances who have stept forward to defame him, the public is not enabled to form as black an ideal of his Lordship's character as even himself, in the wildest chimeras of his love of mystification, was induced to shadow forth. It is not one of the least advantages possessed by Sir Walter over his gifted contemporary, that his life will be pourtrayed by the hand of affection, and his actions interpreted by a cultivated and honourable mind. Moore might have done as much for Lord Byron; but he was shackled in the attempt by restrictions such as no biographer

can overcome.

DRAMATIC POLITICS.-It seems that one night, early in the month of October, John Reeve, the idol of the Gods of the Adelphi, and one of the best comic actors on the boards, chose to vary the humours of an American election introduced into the piece founded on Washington Irving's tale of "Rip Van Winkle," by a speech from the hustings in the character of the popular candidate. "If you return me to Congress," quoth he, "I promise to vote for the reduction of rent and the abolition of TITHES!" This extemporaneous sally was received by the house with around of cheering of several minutes' duration; and the thing would have been speedily forgotten, but that, at the close of the scene, the manager, Mr. Yates, rushed breathless upon the stage with the following address :-" Ladies and Gentlemen! I beg to assure you that what has fallen from Mr. Reeve was by complete accident, and shall never be repeated." This very elegant apostrophe was received by the house with a dead silence. It is, however, but just to Mr. Yates to consider that his license was probably at stake.

MENAGERIES.-A daily journal has the following paragraph :-" The Prince Regent is gone Eastward to collect beasts for the Zoological Gardens."---The Prince Regent! "To what base uses may we come at last!" We remember another prince who was fond of collecting beasts, the late King of Wurtemberg, whose zoonomania all but caused a revolution in his half-starved kingdom. At best, menageries are cruel things; cruel, that they deprive the feri naturæ of their liberty, and still more cruel that they "take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." A much larger proportion of wholesome food is daily devoured by the animals in the Zoological Gardens of the Regent's Park, than by the paupers in Marylebone work house. A new Society, moreover, has been recently established in London for "Promoting Rational Humanity to Animals." Among the items to which the subscriptions are applied, is one for humane carts for conveying calves to market; and the chief abuses proposed for reformation lie in the knacker's yard!—All this is very well.-Let the humane subscribe as liberally as they please for the comfort of the calves about to supply them with fillets of veal, or the sheep they intend to eat in mutton chops; but the kingdom of Great Britain is not within fifty years of that degree of national prosperity which justifies the application of its impulses of humanity to the beasts that perish. We have starving men and women:-we have infant children who require humanity-carts to convey them to the loom and the factory; we have a knacker's yard of infirm and miserable paupers, where the aged poor are suffered to die by inches, as described in the Synopsis of the Society. Let Mr. Gompertz, who is an enlightened and humane man, reflect upon this, and not lavish all his good Samaritanism on the inferior animals of the creation.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.-It is asserted by those who resided at Rome during Sir Walter's visit to the Eternal City, that he was with difficulty persuaded to visit the monuments of its ancient glory. His mind was totally untouched by classical associations; and, perhaps, to this very peculiarity are we indebted for that freshness of perception, that vivid and glowing sunshine of the imagination, which was not distracted by the shadowy imagery of antiquity from the objects on which it was his pleasure it should fall. The days of chivalry were to him what the classic era was to the writers of the time of Anne; and Charlemagne was probably the Agamemnon, whose reign formed the primitive limitation of his inquiry and interest.

CROSBY HALL.-It is curious enough that, while the nation, or its representatives are always prompt in resisting proposals for a benevolence towards erecting a royal residence for the sovereigns that be, they are no less ready with their purses to

prevent any relic of royal antiquity from falling into decay. A year or two ago, an old barn, forming part of King John's Palace at Eltham, (concerning which, so long as it was permitted to stand, few people expressed or exhibited the least curiosity,) was sentenced to demolition. Upon this arose an outcry from the antiquaries. Destroy a monument of seven hundred years' duration! Monstrous! A subscription was instantly set on foot; and Wyatt employed to repair the royal barn. In the same taste, the dilettanti of London have recently come forward in defence of Crosby Hall, once the residence of Crookback Richard, and now a packer's warehouse. It seems that the palaces of kings, like the shell of the nautilus, do not become objects of interest in the eyes of the multitude, till they afford shelter to some new inhabitant. Perhaps even the old Dutch guard house at St. James's (a flagrant disgrace to the taste of the first capital in Europe) will, at some future epoch, find favour in the sight of His Majesty's subjects, and be saved from conversion into useful warehouses by a voluntary subscription.

FREQUENTERS OF COURTS NO COURTIERS.-The witty old Countess of Aldborough, having applied to Lord Lyndhurst, as a friend, for legal advice, was somewhat ungraciously repulsed. "Ah!" said Lady A., "I see how it is; I have applied to the wrong court. It is plain your lordship has nothing to do with CIVIL LAW."

INFANT LABOUR.-A certain eccentric Tory member, who, till he obtained a seat in the present Parliament, had never made his appearance in society, dined last year, in company with Sadler, and several other political personages, at the mansion of Sir Robert Peel. After dinner, as the gentlemen were drinking coffee in the fine picture gallery of the ex-minister, a conversation took place between Sadler and Sir Robert on the subject of the Bill for the Regulation of Infant Labour. Mr. -, who was standing near, occasionally joining in the discussion, while he contemplated Lawrence's exquisite picture of the infant daughter of his host, (considering, perhaps, that the baronet was lukewarm towards the interests of the manufacturing classes,) suddenly slapped him on the back, and exclaimed, while he pointed to the portrait of little Miss Peel, "Ah! Sir Robert! that little darling might have been slaving in the factory you know; 'twas a narrow escape." The amazement of his disconcerted auditors may be easily conjectured.

LINE OF SUCCESSION.-It was observed by a noble earl, an eminent upholder of the Tory interest in one of the northern counties of England, that whenever he came out of his gateway, he was greeted by the earnest salutation of a withered crone, who had taken her station on the steps" Long life to your lordship!-May your lordship live for ever." Astonished to find that, month after month, his gratuities produced no change in the wording of her apostrophe, Lord L. one day accosted her— "My good woman, you appear very earnest for the continuance of my days: have you any particular interest in my preservation ?"-" To be sure I have," cried the old woman: "I recollect your uncle Sir James, when he owned the estate and ruled over us; and a bitterer enemy to the poor never broke bread. Then came your father, who was a still blacker curse to us; and every body said we could never be worse off. When you came to the estate, my lord, we found out our mistake; and what may come after you is a dreadful thing to think of!-Long life to your lordship!—May your lordship live for ever!"

WHIG UNDERLINGS.-Under the old system the effective force of jobbers on the establishment of this country increased to a prodigious amount. It was utterly impossible to give employment to the whole of them. Idlers belonging to this class were to be met in every corner, lounging about like "unattached officers," or the ancient Edinburgh functionary, "Wha wants me ?" Even in the worst of days some of these superfluous rascals, just for the sake of keeping their hands in, joined the liberal party. The number of them who have taken service under it, since the accession of Earl Grey to office, is prodigious! and if honest people be not on their guard they will soon succeed in making the Whigs as bad as the Tories. Their caterwauling is heard in every corner. Do the electors of any burgh dare to be dissatisfied with the candidate palmed upon them by Ministers? Does an independent candidate come forward at their call? He is instantly bespattered with abuse. In compliance with the urgent and reiterated request of a large body of the Bath electors, Mr. Hume recommended Mr. Roebuck to their notice; they being distrustful of recent and dubious convert to liberal principles, notwithstanding he was delivered to them, free of expense, under a Treasury frank. The Times began to growl

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immediately; accusing, in no measured terms, Mr. Hume of seeking to divide the reform interest, in the face of a strong Tory force, for the purpose of getting a party in the House of Commons ready to support his "crotchets." mittee addressed a letter to the Briarean journal, stating the real facts of the case, Mr. Roebuck's comwhich was refused insertion, except as an advertisement. Mr. Hobhouse's friends, similar in every respect, except that of veracity, was ostenA communication from tatiously stuffed into a "leading article." The Times has since eaten in its praise of Mr. Hobhouse; but has left unrepented, at least unconfessed, its rude and vulgar attack upon Messrs. Hume and Roebuck. Again, two government protegés have started for Harwich, opposed by Mr. Herries. With one of the soi-disant liberal candidates, the inhabitants of that burgh were much and justly dissatisfied: and, at their request, Mr. Leader, son of the Irish patriot, offered his services. Times was instantly at its dirty work again, and broadly accused Mr. Leader of The having made a coalition with Mr. Herries. Upon a remonstrance being made, however, it softened down the charge to that of "a virtual coalition." Times; next comes The Globe, "to the self-same tune and words.” Thus far The disposed to express little in the way either of surprise or objection to a few indivi"While we are duals of ultra-radical pretensions being produced as candidates for some of the new manufacturing constituencies, it is with considerable regret that we ever witness that sort of intrusion into the struggle which tends so to vulgarize it, that any person, with a due share of self-respect, feels himself indisposed to the encounter. *

On the whole, so far as present indications exist, we apprehend that much fewer Radicals, of the class which may be regarded as entirely without the pale, will get into Parliament than people imagine. There may possibly be four or five Dromios of the Preston class instead of one or two, but that will be all; of the Hume school, possibly fifteen or twenty more; but our present conviction is, that the next Parliament will practically, and for the most part, assume the tone of liberal Whiggism, meaning thereby," &c. &c. &c. The which dismal ditty, when rightly interpreted, we take to be, among other things, an obscure and somewhat mystical prophecy of the ousting of Colonel Torrens from Bolton, by the exertions of Mr. Cobbett and his friends. Its main object is to follow up the personal onslaughts of The Times by a general charge; a plan of attack which does honour to the military talents of the editor of The Globe. To these "vituperative personalities" are added quant. suff. of laudatory personalities."+ These "most sweet voices," whether they be the "forward voice, to speak well of his friend," or the "backward voice, to utter foul speeches, and to detract," have but one aim; to establish the present Ministry upon the basis of a well-organized body of agents, who, diffused through the country, may, by their restless activity, give to the operations of a few the appearance of the will and deed of the many. They hope to flatter the people by the persuasion, that what is merely passing before its eyes is its achievement, until the present excitement has subsided, and all things are quietly left to their management. They hope and trust, that our new constitution will soon become like everything the world has yet witnessed a machine worked by the few, and mainly for the interest of the few. If there be wisdom among the electors they will laugh into nothingness these shallow pretences. They will choose a man of sense and principle, in preference to a brawling fool, of course, whatever be the professions of the latter: this point settled, they will choose even a party Whig in preference to a Tory; but a Liberal, free from all party connexions, in preference to either. In short, they will choose a man to represent themselves. A House of Commons thus elected will be a sufficient guard to Ministers against the machinations of an expiring faction, while by the check it lays on them by their knowledge of its character, it will form a guarantee for their honesty. Be it observed, that we attribute this plan, now concocting for our future subjugation, to the jobbers alone. Instinct has taught them, that success will place both governors and governed at their mercy. We have not the shadow of a ground for attributing to Lord Grey a knowledge of what is going forward. Indeed our fear is, that the people will not return a Parliament sufficiently decided to support the bolder and better spirits of the Ministry in that line of policy which is necessary for our national salvation. There is a noble generous spirit abroad, but a great want of precise and definite political knowledge.

The Times has been accused by The Examiner of denying all knowledge of Mr. Roebuck, while, at least, one person identified with that paper knew him well. The Times persists in its denial. This is one of the advantages of having three gentlemen in a firm, each of whom is entitled to use the pronoun "we," when, in reality, he only means " I."

+ Vide "The Book of Fallacies," p. 123 to p. 142, inclusive.

MONTHLY REGISTER.

POLITICAL HISTORY.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE CHURCH IS IN DANGER. The dig nitaries of the overgrown establishment of England, like the boy who cried wolves, in the fable, have raised this clamour so often, that nobody will believe them, now that their words are sooth. We beg to add our unsuspected testimony to theirs. The Church is in danger;" and a brief recapitulation of the signs of the times will shew it. Imprimis, At the Hornby Reform Festival, celebrated on Tuesday, the 9th of October, the Hon. C. A. Pelham, M.P., thus expressed himself: "I have had the satisfaction of informing you, upon excellent authority, what are the measures which it is the intention of his Majesty's ministers to introduce in the next session of Parliament. The Bill for Reform of the Church, I know is already prepared. (Tremendous cheers.) It is, therefore, not for me, if I am again returned as your representative, to say, before I go into the House, whether I shall support that bill or not all that I can state at present, is, that I will give it my best attention; and I will anxiously and deliberately form my judgment upon it. (Loud cheers.) At the same time, I believe, -at least, I have great hopes,-I shall be able to support it; because I do not conceive that the same ministers who would give you so full, and efficient, and beneficial a measure of reform for the representation of the people, will so change their principles in so short a time, as to give you a mean and scanty measure of reform in the church. (Loud cheers.) I trust that this measure, like the one recently given, will be temperate and moderate, but amply efficient. (Continued cheering.") One great point, therefore, is established, that ministers have a plan of church reform in petto. The next point is, to inquire "for what extent of church reform is the country ripe?" In so far as Ireland is concerned, this question has already been pretty loudly and intelligibly answered. Let us next look to England. First in the field, as in duty bound, is the native county of Hampden. On Saturday, the 7th of October, a stirring appeal to the Dissenters appeared in the Bucks' Gazette, which has since run the circle of almost every newspaper in the kingdom. It throws down the gauntlet. "Let ⚫ us awake to a sense of that duty which devolves upon us as men and Christians. Let us wipe away that reproach which rests upon

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us in a compromising support of the established hierarchy. Let us vindicate the cause of true religion and justice, which are injured and violated by its existence. We believe the church establishment to be founded in error, to be unjustly supported, and inefficient for the great purpose for which it exists. Let us act as men labouring under such impressions. Let us conduct ourselves as the correctors of error, as the opposers of injustice, and the determined foes of every inefficient monopoly, whether temporal or spiritual. Our separation from the established church, is a standing memorial of our dissent, an ever-abiding witness of our oppression; but we neutralize our dissent by a quiet and compromising payment of all ecclesiastical demands. We cast an imputation upon our sincerity, by continuing to support that practically, which we are ever theoretitically condemning. We call upon you not to violate any law, not to embarrass the operations of our ministry, (our strength is in the prompt obeyance of the law,) but we do call upon you to obey it; in such a manner, as shall shew your sense of its injustice, and your determination to cast off its yoke, while, so long as it continues, you are willing to comply in one sense with its demand. The example of the Quakers is that which we call upon you to imitate. They have been for the last fifty years at least, bearing a silent, but increasing testimony to the injustice of the claims of the clergy. If the whole body of the Dissenters had imitated their example from the first, we do not hesitate to say, that long ere this, the question would have been settled for ever." We call the county of Bucks first in the field; because from it has proceeded the first proposal for a general strike on the part of the Dissenters. Isolated individuals and communities had already, before the appearance of the appeal from which we have quoted, begun to act upon the principle in different parts of England. In the spring of the present year, a gentleman in the north of England allowed his furniture to be distrained and sold by auction, for his tithes, and embraced the occasion of the sale, to address to a numerous assembly, an exposition of the principles upon which he acted, and his resolution to adhere to them. An adjourned meeting of rate payers, held at Birmingham, on Tuesday, the 2d of October, has flatly

refused to pay any rate.

Mr Churchwarden Salt moved, that a rate of threepence be granted for the present year. seconded by Mr Bourne, moved, as an Mr Allan, amendment," That, under all the circumstances of the case, the churchwardens having at present funds in hand, the vestry will not at present grant any rate; but that, if requested, a subscription be entered into, for the purpose of defraying all legal and proper expenses connected with the church." Joseph Parkes proposed another amendment, Mr "That the rate be postponed; and that the churchwardens of the parish of Birmingham be requested to raise a public subscription, to defray their current expenses; and in the meantime, the rate payers be recommended to petition the legislature in the first reformed Parliament, for a repeal of the laws which tax Dissenters for the maintenance of the established church." The rector, who was in the chair, refused to put this second amendment, and any more of the first than went simply to negative the original motion. The first amendment, thus curtailed, was put and carried: a rate is, therefore, ultimately refused. On Saturday, the 6th of October, the Bow Street magistrates, on the application of the officers of St Martins-in-the-Fields, decided, That the 10th of Geo. III. declaring that all rates must be made by churchwardens, overseers, vestrymen, con"the stables, and other ancient inhabitants of the parish," did not mean that every inhabitant of the parish should have a vote; that the power of making rates was confined to those persons only who were the ancient inhabiiants of the parish; that the term "ancient,' meant those persons who had either served some of the parochial offices named in the statute, or had suffered fine for not having so served. The parishioners have, in consequence of this decision, declared their resolution not to pay the rate. In a manly address, presented to Earl Grey by the Northern Political Union, this striking passage occurs:-"In this country, (which, availing itself of the great privilege of Protestantism, is proud of the right of private judgment, and regrets the dogmas of creeds and churches, and is crowded with Dissenters and Catholics,) the whole body of the people are doomed to the support of a church, whose adherents, compared with the whole mass of the population, are but few in number, if we count as adherents those only who believe in its doctrine, and approve of its discipline. No tax can be more monstrous, more unjust, more impolitic, than that which obliges any portion of the people to support in splendour and luxury the priests of a religion which they conscientiously reject. The whole country expects from the wisdom of a reformed Parliament the utter abolition of the tithe tax, which is not only a tax upon agricultural improvement, but an infringe ment of liberty of conscience." from the advice of the Bucks' Gazette, the Turning example of Northumberland, Birmingham, St Martins-in-the-Fields, and the representation for Newcastle, we find declarations in

favour of church reform exacted from the candidates through the whole of England. Equally pregnant is the fact, that all the proadvocate this cause. Even the cautious Scotsvincial newspapers, with a very few exceptions, man, and the Times,which was never yet known had not previously ascertained to be popular to support any person or principle which it with an immense majority of the nation, are clamorous in the cause of church reform. strength of popular feeling on this subject, But more important, as an index of the than all besides, is the bustle and stirring among the clergy to spruce up their nests against the day of examination. The call for church reform has been raised within the annoyance of the Bishop of Durham, some of walls of the church itself. Sorely to the his clergy have been addressing him upon this topic.

amend clerical abuses confined to England. Nor is this determination to Even in Scotland, where church oppression is much less heavy, the same spirit is beginning inhabitants of Edinburgh been striving to to awake. For upwards of a year have the reduce the established clergy to the incomes of their churches. lectures, no passage was more rapturously At Mr Cobbett's late applauded, than his sortie against the church of England. In Glasgow, a including almost all the talent and respectaChurch Association" has just been formed, "Voluntary bility of the Dissenting interest in the West. A paper devoted to the church asserts, that in Scotland there are 350 petitions against be showered upon the reformed Parliament, a church establishment prepared, and ready to Dissenters of Great Britain do not strike in as soon as it meets. The truth is, that if the at this crisis, they deserve to be trampled the three great classes of Independents, Bapupon for ever. The nucleus of their body,tists, and Congregationalists, have long been accustomed to act together. Let the Quakers, the Dissenting Methodists, the various Scottish Secession churches, and all the others, rally around them. Let them demand their rights as men and as Christians, to be put in every respect on a footing of equality with the members of the Churches of England and Scotland. Let them make a stand for Christian liberty. The spirit of Hampden, Vane, and Milton, is again abroad in the land. The consummation which they yearned after, is now attainable. THE CHURCH IS IN DANGER.

Not that spiritual church," the salt of the earth," without which it had lost its savour, that mystic union of all true believers, which is founded on a rock," and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," but that flimsy structure of man's device, which those who shew their disbelief in the divine origin of Christianity, in their attempts to prop it up by human inventions, seek to substitute in its place. Up, men, brethren! for our cause is inscribed,is holy. Up! follow the banner on which Judah hath overcome. "The lion of the tribe of bility that the elections to the new ParliaTHE ELECTIONS.-There is every proba

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