against Ministers and the House of Commons, the least evil that would ensue, would be a system of agitation, producing a feverish irritation of the public mind, totally incompatible with the prosperity of the country. Should the agitation be continued for many months, commercial distress, general and severe, would be the certain consequence. Workmen, whom their masters had no longer capital to employ, would be discharged; and, rendered desperate by want, they would resort to outrage, no longer thinking of seeking redress of grievances by constitutional means. If the middle classes, instead of joining the lower at such a crisis, and heading a popular movement, should stand aloof in a state of uncertainty and trepidation, they would be regarded as enemies by the starving operatives, and lose all influence over them. We should have a renewal of the Swing fires; machine breaking; and perhaps, outrages upon even a larger scale than has been known to former times. The funds, and our whole extensive system of credit, might be in one instant blown into the air. We shall not pursue the fearful subject farther. Such a state of things, we rejoice to think, has very little chance of happening; for it could only result from the working classes being driven, by the pressure of absolute want, acting upon an intense feeling of oppression, to rise in a disorderly manner, and without the direction of those immediately above them, against that society which, by its foolish and wicked institutions, had mainly contributed to their misery; or from the middle classes deserting the lower, after co-operating with them for a certain time, instead of remaining united to them, giving the movement a good direction, and maintaining order. Neither such a separate rising, nor such a desertion, are likely to happen. We have much confidence in the working classes. Their conduct, throughout the Reform Struggle, was alike honourable to their good sense and good feeling towards those placed above them. But the possibility of such evils ought to be a subject of grave consideration to our rulers. The distressed state of the People is well known to them. Let them take care how they add the rage of disappointment, and the sting of insult, to sufferings which already have approached the utmost limit of human endurance. BRITANNIA COME OF AGE! Inscribed to the Awkward Squad of the Rejected, at the Election of the First Reformed Parliament. "No one can read Sir Robert Peel's Speech, without knowing that it expresses the feelings of a great party in this country, which ought to be represented in Parliament,” GLOBE NEWSPAPER, WHEN School-days were o'er, And Lord Borough no more Could keep me under lock and key, As they flock'd round to woo, That none of 'em would do for me-for me That none of 'em would do for me. The first of the breed Was a big-wig indeed Great bug-bear of Chan-ce-ry. I sent him with a bug, And a flea in his lug, Since he would never do for me-for me Since he would never do for me. Next came Weather-all, With his shirt and his smallClothes, an outrage on de-cen-cy; Him too I sent a scudding, For a crazy old jack-pudding, And one who'd never do for me-for me- Then young Master Praed, In some Tory blue boudoir, As he will never do for me for mehe will never do for me. No Right honourable joker, Mr John Wilson Croker! It pains me your forlorn plight to see. Ah now you'll never do for me-for me- Superb Sir Hal Hardinge! For your spurs and your K. C. B. You may take a quiet walk home With the Murray and the Malcolm Or old Nicholas may take all three-all threeOld Nicholas may take all three. Lord Henley to paint As a first-water saint, His once wine-co-bibbers agree: About Eden's lawless fruit So my Lord will never do for me-for me- Who'd waste thought or song S****o, S********s, or D'I****** ? Colonel Sibthorp, first of whips, To Jericho may drive for me-for me- Having now run my rigs On the Tories-the Whigs Themselves in the next squad may see, I shall jilt 'em in a jiffy If they blood-tinge the Liffy For then they'll never do for me-for me- TAIT'S COMMONPLACE-BOOK. INTERCEPTED LETTERS.-A more curious epistle than any which figures in Tommy Moore's Twopenny Post-bag, has lately embellished the columns of the Times. A letter purporting to be the production of the Rev. Jacob Brooke Mountain, son to the late Bishop of Quebec, and High Priest of the Lilliput of Toryism in the County of Herts. The Rev. gentleman who, for the last fifteen years, has been noted in the neighbourhood of Hemel Hempstead as man Friday to the Honourable Richard Ryder, and for affixing to his smallest note of invitation a seal bearing the device of "Church and State," illustrating a Bible and Crown, of the dimensions of those over Rivington's shop,-has indited to a brother Tory on the opposite side of the County, a very amusing sketch of the imbecility of his party, the amplitude of their pecuniary, and paucity of their intellectual resources. He boasts that his friend Ryder has given several dinners "to sooth the trades people;" and promises to go about collecting subscriptions to repay the expenses of Lord Grimston's return, so far as may be consistent with his own dignity. Some years ago, the Rev. Jacob Brooke Mountain used to hazard the dignity thus highly prized, by causing his duties as Vicar to be performed by deputy on the Sabbath day, in order that, in his capacity copartite of County Magistrate, he might be at liberty to head a crusade against the alehouses of Hemel Hempstead, which waged successful war against his eloquence. During the very time of divine service the future Prelate would steal out of church, and busy himself in collaring tipplers and vagrants, and consigning them to the parochial cage! His next labour of love in the cause of "Church and State," was by putting forth unreadable Jeremiads against Catholic Emancipation:—his last, is before us! Oh! fie, Jacob! "Call you this backing your friends ?" Rely on it there is no further chance of "your friend Ryder" being heard of, (like Patrick Heming in the ballad)— "on the MOUNTAIN, Gold and silver to be counting!" THE NEW ERA.-From time immemorial, certain ages or epochs have been named after certain characteristic metals; as the "Age of Gold," the "Age of Iron ;" and we have ourselves been tempted to designate the reign of George IV. as the "Age of Or Moulu." But to the eye of the moralist, nothing is more amusing or instructive than the breaking up of one of these definite and characteristic stages of the world's existence. The decademe of the Age of Chivalry produced "Don Quixote," the decay of Monachism, "Pantagruel." Will no new Cervantes no new Rabelais, arise and celebrate the disuetude of dandyism-the fall of fashion? We have heard it asserted that "P. 99 was intended as a satire; but connecting the axioms of the work with the manners and habits of the author, we cannot imagine that he devotes himself to leading a life of irony, by way of extinguishing, by exaggeration, the fopperies of modern society. The satirist of the Age of Corruption is still to arise; or if already in incipient existence, we could heartily wish that he may have witnessed the anomalous exhibition in the House of Lords, on the opening of Parliament; where the tail of the old order of things connected itself with the head of the new, to form the symbol of eternal Time! We cannot imagine a more striking and instructive picture, than the aged King, bowed down by the weight of years, and of his diamond crown,—his velvet, ermine, and unicorn,-supported on one side by the impassive Chancellor, on the other by the courtly Premier, (the lion and the unicorn of the regal escutcheon,) and brought forward to confront, in all the feebleness of infirmity, the daring energies of the representatives of the mighty nation delegated to his guardianship! The very chamber itself exhibits the discrepancies of a great moral transition. Its obsolete proportions and venerable tapestry, assimilate ill with the gaudy modern throne and benches; and it might be held as an impersonation of the new times and the old, to turn from the regal dais, with its robes of state, its gold and silver sticks, the woolsack and its wigs, the aristocracy and its robing of scarlet, to the assemblage behind the bar-the "Commons' House," in their every-day attire, but with no every-day energy of mental vigour to distinguish them from the common herd, whether patrician or plebeian. Of such a meeting, Lear might indeed have said that "one of us is sophisticated;" and to have witnessed it, apprehended the full force of the contrast, and moralized upon the lesson and its results, is a considerable source of triumph to those whose hopes are centred in the regeneration of the human race. One article of the speech from the throne produced an unprecedented effect upon the house. On his Majesty's allusion to the views of Government on the subject of Church Reform, a sudden cloud was observed to arise at the upper end of the chamber, which, on inspection, proved to be the wig-powder, set in motion by the sudden vibration of the Right Reverend heads appertaining to the bench of Bishops. CITY OF THE DEAD.-A new cemetery of considerable extent, on the plan of the celebrated Cimetiere du Pere La Chaise, has just been consecrated in one of the most picturesque and secluded spots in the neighbourhood of London. It is surprising that an institution so intimately connected with the decencies and tendernesses of life, should have been so long neglected. The parochial burial grounds of the metropolis are of the most wretched and repellent description; and nothing has been more noticed by foreigners than the deficiency of a metropolitan cemetery to unite, in a common shrine, those great national names which pride or prejudice excludes from the immaculate precincts of St. Paul's or the Abbey. Sterne, for instance, lies unhonoured in the corner of an obscure burial ground in the Bayswater Road,-Mrs. Siddons in the cemetery of a Chapel of Ease at Paddington,-Hazlitt in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho. Henceforward, the mortal remains of the immortal will be so deposited, that future generations may gratify themselves by a pilgrimage to the spot; while the plantations and gardens that intersect this new City of the Dead, will tend to dispel all gloomy associations; and impart a mournful attraction to the catacombs, and family Mausolea now constructing at Kinsal Green. The cemetery of Pere la Chaise is supposed to be more visited by travellers than almost any public monument of the French metropolis. EXTRACT FROM THE MORNING POST OF 21st FEB. 1843.-Never, perhaps, at any time of our history, has court intrigue been so severe or so craftily conducted, as at the present epoch. The decision of the House of Commons upon the Bill sent thither by the Upper House, for legitimating the birth of the Fitzjordan family, is altogether incalculable; and so nearly balanced is the strength of the rival factions, that to this hour each trembles for the result. To the nation and to ourselves, however, the struggle is of little moment; for it is perfectly evident, whichever party succeeds, that the people will be the gainers. The present contest, in the estimation of every man whose eyes are not blinded by party infatuation, has materially accelerated the approach of that glorious day, the advent of which every well-wisher of his country unceasingly prays to behold; and we trust that before this day twelve-months, our columns, instead of being polluted by the details of dirty trickery and knavish rapacity, nublushingly avowed by a fast-fading Aristocracy, will be occupied in discussing the qualifications of some individual who may be chosen to fill the Presidential chair of the BRITISH REPUBLIC! We invite the particular attention of our readers to the speech of Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Peers last night, wherein he demonstrates that the salvation of the country depends solely upon the immediate institution of a Republic; it is one of the most masterly efforts of oratory ever heard within the walls of Parliament, and was ably supported by the luminous observations of the Marquis of Londonderry. We cannot do better than exhort our easily excited countrymen of the north to be cautious and chary of those political charlatans who call themselves the true friends of the people. The inflammatory address of the poor infuriated creature Sadler to the Macclesfield mob, in which he urges them to the immediate use of arms as the best means of securing the great national blessing of a republic, must be as disgusting to all good and reflecting men, as it must necessarily tend to retard the measure. The opinions of such a man as Michael Sadler are not worth the breath which utters them, were it not for the known support which a certain noble' duke affords to this babbler. His Grace of Newcastle may be willing enough to figure away as CITIZEN CLINTON; but he may take our word for it, he will never reach the Presidential Seat! FROM THE STANDARD OF MARCH 1, 1843.-Nothing definitively has yet taken place relative to the appointment of a successor to the late Archbishop of Canterbury. The preferment, we know from official information, has been offered to more than one Reverend Gentleman of the Wesleyan church; but in each instance civilly declined, without naming any specific reason for the refusal. It must be quite clear, however, that the miserable pittance attached to the appointment is the great obstacle in finding a successor. From the pious habits and lowly living of Bishop PHILPOTTS, no individual could be better qualified to undertake the responsible offices of the PRIMATE, but this, unhappily, is impossible, by reason of the act passed some sessions ago, which interdicts translations. MONTHLY REGISTER. POLITICAL HISTORY. GREAT BRITAIN. THE first reformed Parliament met on Tuesday the 29th of January. The business in the House of Lords, in which the attendance of the Peers was small, was confined to reading the Commission for the opening of Parliament; the Lord Chancellor taking the opportunity to announce that his Majesty would, as soon as the Members of both Houses were sworn, declare in person the cause of his calling together the Parliament. In the House of Commons, between three and four hundred Members were present, an unusually large number at the opening of Parliament. The House immediately proceeded to the election of a Speaker. Mr Hume commenced the business of the day in a long and able speech, and moved that Mr Littleton, the Member for Staffordshire, a gentleman in every way well qualified for the office, be elected. The motion was seconded by Mr O'Connell, and supported by Mr Cobbett, in a powerful and effective speech; but being opposed by Ministers and the Tory party in the House, it was lost by two hundred and forty-one to thirty-one. Lord Morpeth proposed the re-election of Mr Manners Sutton, the former Speaker, although he had retired from the office at the close of the last Session of the former Parliament, on a pension of £4000, on the account of bad health. Lord Morpeth's motion was seconded by Sir Francis Burdett, and, after a debate which lasted upwards of three hours, it was carried without a division. The support given by Ministers to Mr Manners Sutton has had a great effect in creating a suspicion throughout the country, that they are anxious to coalesce with the Tories, in order to secure such a majority in Parliament as will enable them to resist the effectual reformation, now so loudly called for, of the numerous abuses No. XII. Vol. II. in Church and State, and those measures which the independent Members of the new Parliament, with the great majority of the people, consider indispensable, to perfect the working of the Reform Act. The re-election of Mr Manners Sutton was ostensibly supported by Ministers almost entirely on account of his great experience, and his eminent qualifications for the office; and if they spoke as they thought, they must consider it nearly impossible to have the office adequately filled by any other person. They must, therefore, pray that his health and life may be continued during all the period that they remain in office, at least; for they must suppose that his death or incapacity would place the House in the most deplorable predicament. It has been felt by the country as little short of an insult, that, in the first freely elected House of Commons, a person should be appointed to preside, who exerted all his influence to prevent the success of the Reform Bill, and who, as well as his family and connections, has long wallowed in wealth wrung by every species of device from an impove rished people. The best defence which the Ministerial organs of the press have been able to devise, is that, by appointing Mr Manners Sutton to the Speakership, they thereby rid themselves of the opposition of a Member who might otherwise have given them much trouble in a House led by so inefficient a debater as Lord Althorp. It will require, however, much exertion on the part of Ministers to recover the shock which their popularity has sustained, by their first step in the Reformed Parliament. The period between the 29th January and 5th February was spent in swearing in the Members of both Houses; the appointment of Speaker having been graciously approved of by his Majesty on the 31st January. On Tuesday the 5th February, Parliament 3 I |