Hulton of Hulton-Swing at College-New Musical Instrument- High Price of Beggars-The Barricade of Liberty-A truly Great Man. The true Guardian of the Laws-The Benefit of Clergy- THE New Year-and when, within our memory, did the year open B orders who have no leisure for weariness, and who, where their worldly betters relax into listless indifference, harden into despairing discontent. Sometimes we employ ourselves in looking at the numerous penny publications which (like the disorders said to belong to the poor, but ultimately extending to the great and wealthy of the land,) are found circulating only among those classes with whom the higher rarely come into contact, but which are gradually generating that atmosphere of disease which shall ultimately equally endanger all, whether the inmates of the palace or the hovel. We look into those publications with a painful and foreboding interest. Opinions are not only increasing in violence; but what is far worse, in fantastic speculation. One of these papers recommends an immediate " calling in," as it mildly terms it, "of all the property in the kingdom; and the utter renunciation of individual rights." Pushing the dreams of Owen into their farthest excess, this writer, who calls himself "a philosophical Radical," insists upon men being portioned off into colleges, living together, dining in common, and working each a quarter of an hour a day. "No difference of opinion," quoth our philosopher, " is in this beautiful state of existence to be permitted or even conceived." Lord Brougham and Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Place, are to lie down (serpentes avibus) in these charming abodes, systematized into equality and parallelogramed into concord. And be it known to the incredulous dwellers on the World's smooth surface, that Owen's opinions are gaining a daily ground among the operative classesopinions not dangerous in the mouth of that benevolent man, but far from safe when entrusted to the favour of more passionate and more hungry reasoners. We are not afraid, it is true, of these visions becoming so generally received as to create that violent and armed struggle which Mr. Wakefield predicates in his pamphlet between the Have-nots and the Haves. Still less do we entertain the preposterous notion of the Owenites joining the thieves in a tender invasion of the houses of our shoemakers and bakers. But this we do fear-this we do believe, that the habit of wild speculation, superadded to the habit of impassioned excitement, will produce among the operative classes an aversion to sober industry; an unsettled and vague dissatisfaction; an indifference to moderate benefits, and a grasping at shadowy experiments, which, if it may not destroy constitutional authority, will deeply injure the cause of constitutional freedom. We must put down this spirit of innovating theory. How? by breaking up the monopoly now granted to inflammatory bombast. The whole argument for the repeal of the Stamp Act lies in a nutshell. It is not only that the great legitimate periodicals of the day are so dear that they do not travel extensively among the poor, but in consequence of their sale being dependant on the better informed and the wealthier classes, it does not answer to their conductors to write in a style, and upon subjects immediately interesting and attractive to the poorer and the worse instructed. Now, in England, the poor will read-will be politicians-will speculate; we cannot prevent it: henceforth, this will be rendered, by free elections, more than ever the case. Well, since they cannot easily buy the legitimate journals, and since, when they do buy them, they find themselves not addressed in a very familiar, or a very appropriate manner, they are driven to buy the illegitimate journals, cheaper in price, and better adapted to their understandings. These cheap works are against the lawFew honest men will break even a bad law; it is, therefore, chiefly dishonest men who write these books, and knowing that ignorant minds love coarse seasoning, they neglect the reason and strike at once at the passion of their readers. Thus we throw the popular education into the hands of dishonest men, and while we lay an interdict on the antidote, we give a monopoly to the bane. Now let us tell our country readers, afraid of incendiarism and quaking at Captain Swing, an anecdote that occurred within our own knowledge. In one of the distressed and insurgent districts last year, there was a certain incorrigible hamlet of self-confessed machine-breakers and suspected rick-burners. In vain went the squire, în vain the parson, in vain the bailiff, (a popular fellow in his way too, with a bluff, pleasant manner,) among this formidable nest of rustic conspirators, explaining, denouncing, and imploring, talking one moment of increased wages, and the next of a month at the tread-mill. Our sturdy insurgents laughed at the teachers, who they fancied wanted to delude, and who they knew wanted to pacify, them. A month at the tread-mill was no hardship, and that they conceived the extent of the penance to which they were liable. Things grew worse;-barns were fired as well as stacks, and half a dozen soldiers were sent for in despair to try the last logic of the bayonet; when happily a stray number of the Spectator newspaper found its way down to the Parson's vicarage. In this paper was a short statement or address to the agricultural rioters, informing them of the nature of their crimes and the extent of their punishment; in a word, explaining what neither squire nor peasant knew before, that that pu nishment was not at the most a short exercise in the tread-millit was transportation-it was death. The parson was a clever and a shrewd man. He sent for some score copies of this paper, and instantly caused them to be circulated among the rioters. The effect was magical: the whole tone of that admirable paper is so liberal, that the most violent perceived they were addressed by a friend, and the law, in this number, was so clearly put forth, that the most sturdy were appalled by the statement. Within a week from that time if the peasants were not wholly reconciled to the farmers-the machines at least were again in work, and the business of lighting the swart face of Night was left once more to the stars and Diana. Here what soldiers could not have done, was effected by a newspaper. And here is a fact that says volumes for cheap periodicals. Had works of an equal honesty and intelligence been early sold for a penny apiece, throughout the villages of Kent and Sussex, we should not perhaps have been called upon to celebrate the solemn Holiday of the Christian world with executions of vengeance, and warrants of death; nor have crowded our gaols with men whom we first condemned to ignorance, and whom ignorance, and therefore ourselves, hurried blindfold into crime. This is the first day of a New Year—the high and august commencement of a new series of duties,-the onward step in the great march of human destinies which we have already taught to aim at brave hopes and exalted triumphs. On this day, therefore, as the first of all political objects, higher than any Parliamentary Reform, and without which Parliamentary Reform exposes us rather to the caprices of Passion than to the power of Opinion,-we insist earnestly, seriously, resolvedly upon the early necessity of removing all taxes that press upon knowledge, and of laying the ground-work of true national amendment in a national education. We call upon Lord Althorpe to redeem his old pledges on the stamp act ;—we invoke Lord Brougham to mature those great schemes, of which pamphlets on hydrostatics are a tantalizing forerunner-scarcely useful as a beginning-utterly abortive as an end. The schoolmaster is abroad, but at present we have seen more of his rod than his books. The New Year. And what-O Londonderry-O Wharncliffe-do you in this dark and boding epoch-this entrance into a new world of time-what do you meditate towards the re-establishment of your order in the popular esteem? In Spain there was once on a time a man called Perico de Ayala. "What," said a man to Perico de Ayala, "is that miraculous virtue attributed to the turquoise stone ?" -“Oh, it is a very wonderful stone," quoth Perico, " none more so! -its virtue is this: if you fall from a high tower, you will be dashed to pieces, but the turquoise on your little finger won't be broken in the least." My Lords, the consistency on which you would value yourselves is very like the turquoise--the consistency may be unbroken to the last, but it is scarcely worth while to try the experi ment on yourselves. For you, our Lords the Bishops-for you-at the high festival of the English Church, when man should put away from himself the haughty pomps of the world;-when the Christian ethics of peace to earth and good-will to men force themselves the most impressively on the human heart-for your ear is there at this sacred moment, no voice which preacheth "This system you uphold is a system that is built upon the fraud, and the perjury, and the immorality of your flock-will ye do evil that good may come ?" Is there no still small whisper at your hearts which says " Ye fear Reform may attack the pluralities of the Church; but does not Corruption attack its doctrines? Ye fear for your sectarian interests; but have ye no care for the cure of vices which press upon the universal interests of religion?" Most spiritual Lords, we have a tale for you too, as well as for your temporal brethren. The great Mahmoud, for whom the title of Sultan was first coined in the mint of Eastern adulation, is celebrated for his invasion of the Hindoos. He came to the Pagoda of Sumnat in the promontory of Guzzerat. In this Pagoda was an idol held in especial reverence. Mahmoud enters the sanctuary-he lifts his iron mace against the head of the idol— the Brahmins flock around-they weep-they implore—they threaten -it is even said that they attempted to bribe. Mahmoud is softened not he splits the idol in twain-a profusion of pearls and rubies tumble forth, and the devotion of the Brahmins is explained. There are those, my Lords, in other places than the Pagoda of Sumnat who rally round the shrine of Corruption, not for the holiness of the worship, but for the treasure within the Idol! We cannot quit this subject, however, without assuring our readers -and as yet our assurances have not failed, even when most of our brethren foreboded a contrary result-that we have every cause to be convinced that Ministers are resolved on carrying the Bill, the next time, through the Lords. There is not the most remote reason to doubt the steadiness of the King; and they who have gone through the toil and heat of the day without flinching, will not falter at the close. Let us only conceive the possibility of Ministers suffering the Bill again to be thrown out of the Lords; we tell them boldly that they would lose at once opinion in the country, and a majority in the Lower House. Character, power, esteem, "honour, faith, obedience, troops of friends,"-all depend on the resolution they evince in the Upper House. And if they would ensure their point, let them beWhile ware of that arch-devil that whispers conciliation to enemies. they are soothing one foe on the opposite benches, they are alienating, seriously alienating, twenty adherents. Meekness to assailants is a |