stamp exists, the proportion of newspapers to the popula tion is twenty or thirty to one more than in this country; and in the Norman Islands in this Channel, where they have no stamp, it is fifteen to one. We should have papers in something of that proportion. I think that it would tend to diminish the expense of advertisements, and therefore greatly increase the revenue derived from thence. Nobody will grudge the 1s. 6d. expense to Government.

The most important part of the testimony of his Lordship is yet to come. His opinions of the demoralizing effects of an untaxed political press is diametrically opposed to that of those papers who enjoy any share of the monopoly given by time and capital. He was asked:

Your Lordship has had some experience of the state of mind of the labouring classes of the people of England. Supposing good matter, wholesome matter, put before the people, and at the same price, and no lower and no higher than bad matter, (blasphemy, obscenity, and so forth,) does your Lordship's knowledge of the education and state of mind of the people enable you to say which they would prefer? I have not a doubt about it. It is in vain to say that some persons would prefer obscene matter, and some ribaldry, and some blasphemy; but it would be an insignificant portion of the whole country. The bulk, who are innocently and morally disposed, are more or less respectable, and would be ashamed to bring this trash to their cottages, where their wives and children are; nay, I believe that they would not desire to read it themselves. I have had much intercourse with the people of all ranks, from the lowest to the middle ranks; I never entertained the least fear of them, even when most excited; I never have known things in a state in which I had any fear of the people, either of their morals, or their loyalty, or their peaceable disposition, which is natural to Englishmen; and those only can be afraid of them who, unfortunately for both parties, are exceedingly ignorant of the people. Those who know them as well as I do, must know they are very much the reverse of an object of dread, or distrust, or suspicion; that they are, generally, morally and peaceably disposed, and I should say very much disposed to respect and submit to those above them. Even the Trades' Unions do not offer to my mind any material exception; for I believe they have in many cases had grievances to complain of, and that they have erred in not taking the right way to get redress, by trusting to selfish, dishonest leaders, and by being imperfectly informed upon their own interests. I state my opinion as the result of a large practical experience, having had an intimate knowledge of the people in every way; and the more I have known, the less apprehension I have had about them. I have therefore not a doubt in answering the question in the affirmative.

It is not once or twice, but very frequently, that we have pointed out to our readers, as a direct proof of the purer taste and higher tone of morality which exist among the people and middle orders than among the aristocracy, the different character of the newspapers they read and patronize. We are gratified to find that Lord Brougham takes the same illustration of

the state of moral feeling among the different classes of the community. The John Bull, the first and most flourishing of these publications, and the especial favourite of the higher orders, began about the time of the trial of Queen Caroline. Of these journals, Lord Brougham says:

I certainly do not read many such publications; for I read but one paper, and not that every day; but I have at times had occasion to see, chiefly professionally, publications of the grossest nature, regular stamped newspapers,

containing the grossest libels, and which appear to me to carry on a trade in personal slander, not unmixed with obscenity. There has sprung up a class of publications within the last fourteen years which I believe did not exist before; but in one particular they appear to have operated beneficially, for they seem to have formed a sort of drain for the other newspapers to carry off their worst trash; for I do not think so much slander is to be found in the daily papers of late years. Since those weekly papers have been carried on, the respectable papers have become ashamed of it, and have not dealt much in it.

It has been supposed by some persons that the lower classes are desirous of that sort of reading; has your Lordship found that writers of that kind address themselves to the lower classes exclusively ?—My experience is very little in those papers. As I am generally the object of pretty copious abuse in them, I do not feel bound to read them, and still less to pay for them. I do not go out of my way to avoid them, but I certainly do not go out of my way to read them. I have seen them occasionally; and my experience would lead me to say, not only that they are not adapted to the working classes, but that those classes have no taste at all for what they deal chiefly in. Every writer who publishes for the discontented part of the common people abuses the institutions of the country and all public men; but I do not think such writers abuse men's private character; they do not care to be personal, and to attack men's wives and daughters, and mothers and sisters; their readers, generally speaking, do not care for seeing private slander about individuals; that they do not trouble their heads about. On the contrary, 1 think that the appetite for such vile and often indecent trash belongs to the higher classes of the community, extending down to the middling classes. There are some people among the latter who like to read the gossiping stories put in the newspapers. They say, us see what Lady So-and-so is doing with Lord So-andso." Also men-milliners, ladies' maids, and upper servants are, I believe, great patrons of those sort of publications; and I have been told by many gentlemen and ladies that they have found them in their servants' halls and upper servants' rooms very much. But no doubt it is the drawing-room that furnishes the effective demand

"Let

for such writings; and the upper classes are very unjust in blaming the press and its licentiousness, as they are so prone to do on all occasions, seeing that they themselves afford the market for the worst sort of scurrility.

These indications look so like an intention of removing the newspaper tax, that we are induced to press the subject at this time, and shall return to it.

WE met, we parted when we met, how sweet My Susan looked! 'twas exquisite to trace The twinkling motion of her fairy feet,

The smile that gave new lustre to her face, When with her hand she pointed to a seat,

And then resumed the hemming of her lace; Calm, pale, and blushless as a form of plaster, Like some Industrious Nymph in alabaster,

She hemm'd, and so did I. But hems and ha's
Were hushed before the majesty that rested
On her high regal brow; and in the pause,
The heaving of her bosom seemed invested
With speech and language.-Every breath she draws,
Tells me, that if I am not quite detested,

I have the satisfaction, no less prized,

To be most undeniably despised,

But why should I despair? If maids should please
Ne'er to give love save where they gave esteem,
Earth would become like Heaven; and parsons' fees }]
For matrimony not be great, I deem;
Gretna might close its forge, and Malthus' ease

Be seldom broken by the phantom dream
Of women loaded with the "sin of sins,”*
Wedded, and sometimes giving birth to twins!
Wifeless and lone would Londonderry go,

With scarce a coal to keep his limbs from freezing— The Elephant, with curls of shining flow,

On no sweet Janet waste his powers of teasingNo Dukey all his pocket money owe

To a fat dame, who, in a way most pleasing, Has taught him to despise the mightiest Bums, A melon, worth at least a score of plumbs! Contempt must surely be a step, if not

To love, at least to marriage, which is better: So, if sweet Susan any wish has got

To treat me with her ridicule, why, let her; I care not so it be my blissful lot,

For a plain ring, to make her hand my debtor; And for security, I'll take that hand,

And thirty thousand pounds, and all her land!

And at that thought my tongue was loosed; my eyes And speech soon told my speeding with her father;

I told her I should shortly advertise

For some nice vacant burgh's seat; or rather,
As my ambition sought the highest prize,

With a few bribes and honied lies, should gather
The votes of men of the right way of thinking,
At fifteen pounds a head, and three weeks' drinking.

I thought at first of Warwick, and the civil,
Obliging Lord Lieutenant, who directed
The expenses, and who voted to the devil

As useless all the forms that erst protected
Elections; and who made the name of Greville
To stink in all men's nostrils who objected
To bribery, or who stupidly took dudgeon
At heads being broken by the fist and bludgeon.
But thanks to the first Lawyer in the land,
We yet are safe from wreck and revolution :
For we are sagely given to understand,

That it is not against the Constitution
For Lords to still retain the upper hand,

And bribe and bully; and that the Resolution
(Where is their Resolution ?) of the Commons,
Is but an idle tale of some old woman's.
And faith, I'm very much inclined to credit
This dictum of the Chancellor. Their versions
Of the same thing so vary; yet I dread it
As but a sample of his wild assertions:
But had the sage and steady Althorp said it,

Who speaks as did the ancient Medes and Persians,——
No change in that great statesman should I find,
At least till that great statesman-changed his mind.
No frippery wit is he; no paltry pecker

At vain conceits; not given to useless prattle ;He looms as stately as some huge Three-decker, With canvass back'd, and all prepared for battle :— In short, a wondrous Chancellor of the Exchequer, And also a prodigious judge of cattle. In beef and taxes soaring o'er them all, Darling alike of Smithfield and Whitehall, ' Query-Poverty?

But coldly the fair Susan sat, and listened

To all I said, and only hemm'd the more.
But see! with sudden light her eyes have glistened,
As turns the handle of the parlour door.
Enrapt, the loveliest form that e'er was christen'd,
Stands, like Young Expectation, on the floor!
And in comes one; and with a spring she rushes
Into his open'd arms, and sobs and blushes.

A lovely group!—for he was bold and young,
Apollo in a suit of Ashton's clothes,-
And ever closelier to his arm she clung;

And quite amaz'd he looked, at all the "ohs"
And "abs" he heard. For, mark me, I had sprung

Into a corner chair, and kept quite close,

So yet he had not seen me,-and he ne'er
Lifted his eyes from off those features fair.

And scarce her words he heard; at least their meaning
Was hidden, and, at first, he only guessed
That she was sad and frightened; but soon gleaning
The sense of what she said, he fondly pressed

The form that on his bosom now was leaning,

And asked her, in a voice that thrill'd my breast, "A lover? vulgar, impudent, uncivil? Where is he?—I will kick him to the devil!"

Abashed, yet partly angry at his speech,

I rose, and slowly left my hiding-place; "Tis he! said Susan, with a sort of screech,

And fell, when loosen'd from his arm's embrace. O'er her, entranced he bent; and, could I reach

The true sublime of beauty, I should trace
That couple, with their looks their hearts declaring,
One pale in tears-the other flushed and swearing.
He bent and raised her at his lightest touch

Her life returned; she sank into her chair!
Like a roused wolf he turn'd to me; and such
A look I never met, as met me there.
Susan sigh'd," Henry, do not hurt him MUCH,
But only gently toss him o'er the stair."
"Hurt! toss !—d—n, sir! I'd have you know,
That I took lessons several years ago."

And here I squared my hands, and took my attitude,
As Peter Crawley taught me ; and I own

I was not very much impress'd with gratitude,
For Susan's kind advice, or for the tone;
As if it were the summit of beatitude,
Down a high stair-case to be gently thrown.
My science I recall'd, resolved to task it,
And give him Peter's dig in the bread-basket.

But with a bitter, cold, sardonic grin,

Young Henry thus address'd me,-"Little man,

I would not willingly incur the sin

Of squeezing you to death; the wiser plan Is, by the self-same door that let you in,

To toddle out as quickly as you can ;— But be assur'd if here again I catch you, No pow'r nor pity from my hands shall snatch you.' "Sir," I replied, "I'd have you understand,

I've Mr. Brown's permission to come here,
That he and I this very day have plann'd,

How to secure a seat this very year,——
And that he's sworn Miss Susan's lovely hand,
The prize of my distinction shall appear.
And of her beauteous self he makes me sure,
If I increase the debt and grind the poor,"

"Increase the debt, and grind the poor!" he said. "A very easy plan; then, I suppose,

You're a strong Whig ?"

"A Whig ?" I shook my head. "No; I detest them as the bitterest foes. No, sir; I am a Tory born and bred; Resolved no opportunity to lose

To give good pensions in all high-born cases;
And then create some hundred well-paid places."
Here Henry smiled. "If such your objects be,
Take my advice and quit the Tory crew.
If you'd increase our burdens, trust to me,

The Whigs will beat the Tories five to two;
And, as to making places, you shall see

More places made by them, with less to do,
Than e'er the Tories ventured. Fast and furious
They think "ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius."
And blocks we find indeed their staple ware,
And therefore fit for posts, as they believe.
Ere many years are past you'll see their share
Of place and pension, such as soon will leave
The Tories almost innocent. You'll swear

That if the Tory posts have made us grave,
Whig posts are heavier får and more prevailing,
While nothing's left the Radicals but railing.
All anger now had disappeared between us ;
We talked and frown'd not; but I scorned to stay;
So left the young Adonis with his Venus,

Resolved to act the Boar some other day,

And gore him till he died; but had you seen us
So mild at parting, you would hardly say
Such deadly notions lurked on either side,
And that his love was equall'd by my pride.

For pride had ta'en the place of all the love
With which the peerless Susan once inspired me.
I hated her all other things above ;

And such prodigious ragé against her fired me,
That, had I had the power, my wrath to prove,
And how her horrid beauty pall'd and tired me,
I should have given her leave her love to wed,
And married-all her three per cents. instead.
But I determined in my spite to wear her

Next to my heart of hearts, and make her mine :
Well knew I, I should never find a fairer ;

And then to gall young Henry were divine; And if some hook-nosed Premier should declare her' A beauty, there's no saying what may shine, From such a favouring star as a fair wife, -Perhaps a pension, and a place for life. Fired with these hopes, I advertised that day In the pure columns of the Morning Post :"A gentleman who would not grudge to pay

A handsome sum, and makes True Blue his boast, Wishes a seat in Parliament. Outlay

Five thousand guineas at the very most; Noblemen and their agents write, post paid, To R. P. Q., 6, Opera Colonnade."

Next morning such a host of letters came;

With ducal coronets some, and some plain sealed ;

It seemed as if my patriotic flame

Had thaw'd the hearts which grandeur had congealed. Such friendly offers made me blush with shame,

Such high-flown compliments my bosom filled,

Till I was only sorry I could fall

On no good plan to sit and pay for all!

While ranging o'er their notes, and undecided
Which of the lot to choose, the door was thrown
Wide open, and a curious figure glided

Noiselessly to the table. In a tone
Whispering, and low, he kindly asked how I did,
And winked mysteriously; at first, I own,

I could not guess what business brought him there,
Or why he looked with such a "knowing" air.
"Servant," he said; "I saw the advertisement,

There's something very business like and sage in't;
My Lord has two or three boroughs, and has sent
Me here to settle matters as his agent.

One seat is empty now, and if you're bent

On getting quickly through the election pageant, He'll take your bill at sight; and you may speak Your maiden speech on Wednesday night, next week." "But must I not go down and tell the electors

My sentiments, and learn the drift of theirs ?" "Ha! ha! why, if a single voter hectora

Or troubles his poor head with such affairs
His sentiments, indeed! what fine directors

Such dogs would be! why, if a rascal dares
To vote save as the steward bids him do,
He'd better have some other house in view.
For, bag and baggage, neck and crop, he'd go

They're tenants all at will; so don't be frightened; You need not leave this room, for they are so

Wise in their generation and enlightened, That if your negro valet should bestow

The price, his countenance would soon be whitened; And our wise voters would take special care, At my Lord's wish, to think him very fair." So well he talked, and argued with such force, And free election he so well denuded Of all its gilding, I had no resource,

But instantly the bargain was concluded.

I paid the money down and walked the course,
And in three days with swelling bosom brooded
O'er my new honours, when, in high-flown phrasesy
The Post was loud in the new member's praises.
Oh, glorious days! and yet I must confess

I don't see such a difference in the present.
More people vote indeed; but are they less
O'er-aw'd, or is their state one whit more pleasant,
When a Whig landlord hints at a distress,

Than when a Tory landlord trod the peasant To dust, who dared be honest, and had pride And brains enough to vote on t'other side? Faith no. I think that schedules A and B,

And C, and D, and E, and all the rest of it, Were just as nice a plaything as you'll see,—

And folks just now begin to find the jest of it,—
A set of bowls all biassed to the tee,

So as the Whigs must always have the best of it,
A game to lords and gentlemen restricted,
From which the humbler WE are interdicted.
When will the bowling-green be free to all?

And the best players carry off the prize?
When will the fees on entrance to it fall,
And the thick hedge that veils it from our eyes
Be rooted out!

Wherefore at thy loud call,
Wherefore, oh, Wisdom, will not men be wiser
And give us of free grace what will be taken,
And try, if possible, to save their bacon¡!

"PERQUISITE," quoth the lexicon of the great lexicographer, “is a noun substantive, implying something above settled wages."

"Something above settled wages!" Oh most indefinite definition,-most inconclusive conclusion! "Something above!" What thing, thou knave,-speak out! Is this "something above," so utterly below notice, that thou hast not another part of speech to throw away in dis.. tinguishing its attributions? Must the hireling and the placeman content themselves with mere vague speculation, touching the limits of their rights of booty? "Something" too much of this!

Now, the word "something" translates itself, in the legal Norman jargon, into “quelque chose," which quelque chose" has degenerated, in the vulgar tongue, into "kickshaws!" Would Dr. Samuel Johnson, therefore, infer, that perquisites are kickshaws?-that the King's canopy, and the Queen's robings, on their coronation day, are kickshaws ?-that parcel-gilt goblets, and golden spurs,-nay, even the gorgeous throne of anointed Majesty, are kickshaws? By no means. There are perquisites official, and perquisites menial; and, if, indeed, some confusion have arisen in the appropriation of the butler's candle-ends, and the fruit of his lordly master's more lucrative peculation, the indistinctness of the rubric is to blame.

"When Knights of the Garter go astray, Their stars are more in fault than they !” Some great men invest their right of perquisites in royal venison, royal horse-flesh, royal boxes at public entertainments, royal hangings, (not by warrant of execution, but by order of upholstery)—some little ones, in cast-off suits and heeltaps of crusty port. The Bishop has his fines, the Judge his recoveries, the Physician his black crape, hat-bands, and mourning rings; the cook her kitchen stuff:-all perquisites, all “something above wages,”—although the wages may be high, and the fellows who receive them, low!-Why, even the King has his perquisites! The ruler of the people lays his sceptre upon every sturgeon caught in his river, Thames; besides waifs, and strays, and right of wreckage, beyond all measure of discretion, The Thames sturgeon, apparently, is "something above" the Civil List; just as the stitch-dropped stocking is something above the twenty pounds per annum of John, the footman! -Dr. Southey, the Laureat, has his butt of Malmsley; and the Doctor's protégé, the poetical butler, his bottlings-off of bees'-wings! The religious houses of unreformed Europe, were half maintained by perquisites; by the legalized extortion of a boll of flour from this unhappy wight, and a fatted calf from that; besides fowls and fish, and eggs and butter, for the holy omelet on fasting-days, with other "somethings" too numerous to mention. Not an abbey church

but claimed some benefaction above its "wages;" and some, forsooth, of a more than singular nature. The Val de Grace in Paris, had a prescriptive title to the hearts and bowels of decaying Bourbon princes; and lo! whenever a prince of the blood had a mind to bestow his intestinal hereditaments elsewhere, my Lord, the Abbot, raised an outcry for his "perquisites!" just as our own reverend Chapter of Westminster strenuously insists on retention of the twopences extorted from the inquisitive public of Great Britain for a sight of the modern reliques of the Abbey,-viz. Falstaff's ragged regiment, General Monk's old beaver, and the glass earrings of Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham!

Who has not been moved to wrath on being cited to contribute to the perquisites of the playhouse? The one shilling superadded to the covenanted seven, for the benefit of a saucy caitiff, in shorts and dirty cotton stockings, who, at his leisure, turns the door key of the box wherein you have retained your seat; and the one sixpence, for the benefit of a still saucier, who guards the great-coat you are not allowed space to retain? Who has not been moved to loathing by the cupidity of the Chapel-Royal people at St. James's, where an extra sixpence, completing the half-crown, is demanded of the unwary, who have chosen it as their place of wor. ship on those Sundays when their Majesties aré graciously pleased to say their prayers in public? Who-who has not been moved to horror by the tale of our War Office "perquisites," connected with the registry of soldier's deaths? when, as some ragged woman and her starving children apply to know the fate of the Sierra-Leonized John Thomson, whose martyrdom will bequeath another widow and more orphans to the mercy of Providence, she is answered by a dapper clerk, (sticking his pen behind his ear, while he turns over the pages of the life-ledger,)" Dead !-A shilling!"

In the name of all that is pitiable," above" whose " wages" are those worse than Iscariot pieces of silver? We know that

The common executioner, Whose sight the accustomed sight of death makes hard," has a perquisite in his ropes, and disposes thereof at a premium to amateurs; but what is the infamy of such filthy merchandise, compared with the traffic in human tears, the blood-stained twelvepence, wrung out of the widow's mite at Whitehall?

Next may be enumerated (to progress, by a natural transition, from death to the devil,) the miserable perquisites of the spunging-house!— the odd half-crowns" above wages" of the catchpole who ensnares you, the accomplice who turns against you the staple of durance, the proprie. tors of the rush-bottomed chair on which you fling yourself in all the heaviness of despair; and,