No. 1755.

THE EXAMINER.

THE POLITICAL EXAMINER.

I might give a short hint to an impartial writer, it would be to tell him his fate. If he resolves to venture upon the dangerous precipice of tell

ing unbiassed truth, let him proclaim war with mankind d la mode le pays de Pole-neither to give nor to take quarter. If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him with the iron hands of the law; if he tells their virtues, when they have any, then the mob attacks him with slander. But if he regards truth, let him expect martyrdom on both myself.-DE FOE.

sides, and then he may go on fearless: and this is the course I take

THE NEW PREMIER'S DEBUT.

If it had been the intention of Sir Robert Peel to insult the distresses of the country, he could not have slighted them in a more marked and offensive way than he contrived to do in his debut as Prime Minister on Thursday. He appeared to give importance to trifles, as if to show how much more trifling he thought the questions which so large a portion of the community deem of the vastest importance and vital concern. The whole was no bad copy of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning; and Sir Robert Peel's tune in the midst of the fire is to "put the kettle on."

the grass grows the steed starves, and while Sir] SIR JAMES GRAHAM'S SPEECH AT THE
Robert Peel is going to school, trade will be going
to ruin.

DORSET ELECTION. The two principal points of interest in Sir James Lest we should be charged with any misrepre- Graham's speech to the Dorset electors are his sentation of Sir Robert Peel's speech, we quote the present opinions of the Corn Laws and his colpassage upon which we have observed :leagues. His views as to both have notoriously "With respect to the financial condition of the country, undergone great change, for in 1825 he was the my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exche advocate of a fixed duty, and in 1835 he proquer, on the earliest day on which there can be a committee nounced the Ministry which he has now joined the of ways and means, will state to the house what is the extent of the deficiency to be provided for, the difference worst composed that could have been imagined, between the expenditure and the revenue of the present and unworthy of confidence. His present opinions year. I apprehend it will be found not to fall short of the on the first subject have their importance as an estimate given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is index of the intentions of the Government of which probable that a sum of 2,500,000l. will have to be provided he makes an apostate part; for there are two classes for the service of the current year. Into the details, into the particular causes of that deficiency, my right hon. friend of men in office-those who wear their own opiwill enter on the occasion I mention, namely, that of the nions, and those who, having abandoned their house resolving itself into a committee of ways and means. own opinions, wear the livery of their chief, and He will avail himself of that opportunity of stating what the latter are, of course, the exacter, inasmuch as are the measures which we propose for making temporary the more servile exponents. As on the turf it is provision to meet that deficiency. With respect to measures of a more permanent character, for the purpose of equalising thought safest to have to do with the blacklegs, so, the revenue and expenditure of the country, it is not my in in Governments, the views of the apostates may any measure for the consideration of the house. I have than those of men who have preserved with their tention during the present meeting of Parliament to submit be taken as surer indications of the ruling policy already expressed my opinion that it is absolutely necessary honesty a greater freedom of thought and action. to provide some effectual means for equalising the revenue and expenditure of the country. We shall avail ourselves Thus, then, spoke Sir J. Graham on the Corn Laws: The first subject, first in order and in con-of the earliest opportunity, after mature consideration of the "I conceive the true principle to be, that a protective sequence, on which Sir Robert Peel entered with circumstances of the country, of submitting to Parliament duty should be substituted for absolute prohibition; and I measures for the purpose of remedying the existing evil, think that, as a general rule, it should be the smallest due pomp, was the warming and ventilating of the Whether that can be best effected by diminishing the ex- amount which, on a careful revision, would be found to new Houses. This great topic occupied a full penditure of the country, or by increasing the revenue, or give native industry fair play in its competition with quarter of his speech. There is something charac-whether it must be done by a combination of these two foreign countries, the circumstances attending our relations teristic in the beginning-it said, Let us, first of means, viz., the reduction of the expenditure and the in- with those countries being duly considered. Now, I do not all, take care to keep ourselves warm.' It would crease of the revenue, I must postpone for future conside- pretend to say that parts of the present corn law are not ration. It is enough for me to state that it is impossible for open to improvement. I think, for instance, that the prebe well if the Committee for warming and venti-the country, consistently with the public wants, to proceed sent mode of taking the average is susceptible of beneficial lating the new Houses would undertake the fur-in the course which has been pursued of late years, namely, alteration. But then, I say, that a fixed duty is an impossither business of warming and ventilating the new incurring during time of peace considerable debt. But as bility. It is an impossibility if you wish to give protection Premier-warming his heart and ventilating his to the mode in which that great evil can be remedied, I to your own corn growers, and I must say, that Mr O'Conmust ask for that degree of confidence from the house which Dell dealt with this subject with his usual candour, when he policy. will enable her Majesty's government to give the subject | said, ‘Give us a fixed duty on my principle of instalments, To provide for expiring laws was the next pro- their most serious consideration. With respect to other we will take what we can get-give us an 8s. duty, and we posal of Sir Robert Peel-would that his care ex-measures of permanent operation and important character, shall get rid of it in six months.' (Laughter.) And I am tended to expiring commerce and expiring industry. I must make the same appeal to the confidence of the house, quite satisfied that a fixed duty on corn in this country Then came his estimate of the probable deficiency It is quite true that, for some days past, I and my colleagues cannot be sustained. A fixed duty must produce one of in the revenue, the measures for making temporary but I dare say the house will readily believe that the ar- If it exclude it when the price is high, where is that conhave been in possession of the government of the country; two effects-it must either exclude or admit foreign corn. provision for which Sir Robert left Mr Goulburn rangements which it has been my duty to make for the con- stant demand for corn from abroad on which the manufac to state the next night of a committee of ways stitution of the government, and other arrangements con- turers build for an increased demand for their manufactures? and means; and this was followed by one short nected with it, have not placed me in a much better situation And if it fails to exclude when prices are high, then I say sentence having relation to the great object of to pronounce a positive opinion on measures of such im- that our agriculturist is deprived of protection at the time making the revenue, by permanent means, equal hear, and laughter.) I do assure the house that it is not we demand a fixed duty, what becomes of cheap bread? if mense and paramount importance, than I was before. (Hear, when it in most wanted. (Cheering.) If in time of scarcity to the expenditure, and declaring that it is the from any neglect of public duty that I do not give a more you do not, what becomes of the agriculturist? For he who intention of the new Government not to submit explicit declaration. I can assure the house that I forbear lays the axe to the root of protection-who by forced enactany measures for that purpose during this session. to do so not on account of the advanced period of the year, ments would decree that diminished produce should not be Not one word did Sir Robert Peel vouchsafe to not on account of the probably deficient attendance of mem- compensated by a high price, would depreciate native inutter as to the distresses of the country; but it is bers, not on account of the temptations of other avocations dustry, and prove fatal to the agricultural interest. In fact, to withdraw attention from Parliamentary duties for I am I cannot put the case more tersely or more truly than I did not improbable that such compassion for them as he of opinion that all such considerations ought to be sacri- on a former occasion when I said That a fixed duty in a may feel may have prompted his postponement of ficed to the principle of public duty (hear, hear), and ought time of scarcity would starve the artisan, and in time of his financial measures till next session, in the way not to interfere in the slightest degree with the considera- abundance would ruin the labourer and farmer.'" of a reprieve. The last Ministry's projects of tion of measures affecting the public interests;-the grounds financial improvement and commercial and indus-on which I forbear calling the attention of Parliament to trial relief went hand in hand; but Sir Robert Peel measures of that important character rest in the peculiar absolute prohibition, and that it should be the circumstances connected with the formation of the govern has doubtless his own reasons for not adverting to ment." the sufferings of the people when he touches on At the bottom of the last sentence there is a the subject of the revenue, which he has precluded sediment of truth. The grounds on which Sir himself from recruiting as the party he overthrew Robert Peel forbears to call the attention of the would have done, by lightening impolitic burdens, House to measures of the most important characand relieving the springs of industry. ter, doubtless do rest on the peculiar circumstances Whatever may be the expedients of Sir Robert connected with the formation of the Government valid against the sliding scale, where with the Peel, this much is certain, that the prayer of namely, the peculiar circumstances that the Duke the manufacturers, that Parliament should not of Buckingham, Sir Edward Knatchbull, Lord be prorogued till it should have considered the Ripon, and Sir James Graham form part of the causes of the existing sufferings of the people, is Government, and forbid any material change of answered and negatived. The manufacturer says the Corn Laws. These are the outward and WOULD DECREE THAT DIMINISHED PRODUCE SHOULD that commerce must live, but the new Premier visible signs of the Landlords' Government. It is NOT BE COMPENSATED BY A HIGH PRICE." This is does not see the necessity. What may become of notorious that Sir Robert Peel would have excluded obviously a position involving prohibition, and as the trade and industry of the nation in the critical several of them from his Administration, but the irreconcilable with the sliding scale as with a period between this time and the next session is a same power that had borne him up to his present fixed duty, for the sliding scale, as prices rise, matter of supreme indifference to Sir Robert Peel. position bore them up to his Cabinet, and made decrees that diminished produce shall not be comThe new Minister having turned out Lord Mel- them, in spite of his repugnance, his colleagues. pensated by a high price, and thus, in the view of bourne's Ministry on its fiscal and commercial At least as impossible it must be for him to over-Sir James Graham, depreciates native industry, policy, comes into power without a fiscal and com-rule or control the extreme opinions of these men, and proves fatal to the agricultural interest. mercial policy of his own. He pleads ignoramus; he as it was for him to shut them out from his coun- Sir James Graham's argument is for famine protests that all is blank in his mind as to what the cils. Hence, when Sir Robert Peel pleads that as prices rather than to admit of the foreign competrade and finances of the country may require for yet he knows not what to do, there must be one tition which would deprive diminished producs of their restoration. Knowing nothing about these thing which he must full well know-namely, what the compensating high price; or, to carry out his things now, what did he know of them when he de- he may not do. He may not falsify the Duke of argument to an extreme example, if, by any disfeated the former Government upon them? Why Buckingham's and Sir E. Knatchbull's reiterated pensation of Providence, the United Kingdom prodid he not then declare, that without possession, and pledges for the preservation of the Corn Laws. duced but one sack of corn, that sack should be long possession, of the Government, he could not He may, perhaps, be permitted to tamper with the sold for its weight in diamonds, in order that dimipretend to a knowledge of the measures suitable for sliding scale; but he may not in any material nished produce should have its compensating the public exigencies? Surely, if he is now not com- degree abate' its vices, sacred to the artocratic price. As for the starvation of the people, that is petent to form a plan, he was not four months ago interest. a consideration at which Sir James Graham does competent to give judgment against a plan founded not condescend to glance, his whole anxiety being on the official knowledge which he now pronounces This word, expressing the Bread-Government, from that agriculture should be paid, no matter that so indispensable. While the commerce of the agros. bread, should come into use. By the omission of thousands may perish the sacrifice to remuneratcountry cries aloud for succour, Sir Robert Peel only two letters the distinction between the aristocracy and ing prices, in other words, to the means of supthe artocracy is marked. The appropriate tool of the artocries to his majority of 80 to give him confidence, cracy, or Bread-Government, is the peel. It is ominous for porting high rents. while he is informing himself at the school in the Powers to get associated with bread, Louis XVI was Treasury; but, as the homely proverb says, while familiarly called the baker,

Sir James Grahain began with the proposition that a protective duty should be substituted for an sinallest consistent with fair play to native industry; but, having broached this doctrine, he forthwith treats it like all his former principles-that is to say, he abandons it, and pursues a train of argument leading directly to prohibition. All his reasoning against a fixed duty must be just as ascent of prices it lowers duties, for he holds that agriculture should not be deprived of the protection at the time when it is most wanted, and that "he lays the axe at the root of protection WHO

Sir James Graham's argument for prohibition is like the Frenchman's rule for carrying an umbrella

..

nished us.

several

persons.

anxious, on behalf of the parties whom he represented, to "Mr Part, the solicitor of the company, said he was state that the gatekeepers on the line had great difficulties in keeping the gates closed, as several persons, including gentlemen whose names appeared in the commission of the peace for the county, had threatened to pull them down, alleging that the company had no right to obstruct the turn

pike road.

Always carry an umbrella when it is fine, and view, and you must sit by the great man's side to "CROWNER'S QUEST" LAW. when it rains do as you like." According to Sir see his peculiar merits. This difference, however, James, when produce is diminished, and prices is to be noted between the Ministry which Sir Accustomed as we are to the wisdom of Coroners, consequently high, protection is most wanted, and James Graham refused to join in '35 and that which yet we confess that the egregious functionary who to reduce it is to deny the compensating price, to he joins in '41, that Sir Robert Peel's Ministry in presided at the inquest on the Rev. Robert Ivy, depreciate native industry, and to do fatal injury 35 was in a minority, and that in '41 it commands killed on the North Union Railroad, has astoto the agricultural interest. It inevitably follows, a large majority, and with them Sir James Graham. then, in the train of the Home Secretary's reasoning, The accident, fatal to the deceased, was caused Lastly, to make short of these disgusting pleas that the prohibition of importation is the only way for the most disgusting of apostacies, when Sir by the neglect of a gatekeeper, in not having of preventing these wrongs and mischiefs; and the Robert Peel applied for Sir James Graham's assist-closed the gates of a turnpike road crossing the sliding scale must be hardly less objectionable, in ance, although he (Sir James) felt that he could railway when a train was passing. The conseSir James's view, than the fixed duty. When, on render him but a trifling service, he would have quence was that a coach was upon the railroad, the other hand, prices happen to be low, either been ashamed of himself if he had refused to co- killed the Rev. Mr Ivy, and grievously maimed when a train came up and dashed it to pieces, importation must be unnecessary and uninvited, or operate in forming an Administration. Here Sir Sir James Graham would see the greatest impolicy James Graham is in a double error, first in having and injustice in allowing them to be made lower imagined the vain thing that he could render any by competition. According to his argument, service, however trifling, and next in supposing that according to the fair and inevitable deductions his refusal to co-operate in forming an Administrafrom his position, prohibition should be the rule tion would have been any unkindness to Sir Robert when prices are high and when prices are low, to Peel, or any loss to the character of his Ministry. secure compensating returns to the producers. Sir Robert Peel could have done without him, and Certain we are that Sir James Graham would not Sir Robert Peel's Administration would have had have broached such a doctrine, if any change for one blot the less if Sir James Graham had declined the better in the Corn Laws were contemplated by blemishing it with his apostacy. Had he favoured Evidence as to the primary cause of the accident Sir R. Peel's Government. Sir Robert Peel with a refusal, the high office which was immaterial to the inquiry in the judgment of the Sir James Graham talked of persons who would he now holds might have been filled by some Tory sapient Coroner! Had the gates been kept closed lay the axe to the root of protection, and by "forced true to his principles and his party, such as they when a train was coming up, as they ought to enactments" decree that diminished produce should are. In one view only has the junction of Sir James have been, according to the regulations of the not be compensated by high prices. We would Graham and Lord Stanley been useful to Sir Company, the accident could not have happened; heartily concur with him in deprecating any "forced Robert Peel, namely, as foils in apostacy, the Pre- but the Coroner would not listen to the statement enactments" meddling with prices, and the root to mier's complexion for consistency being much set of the causes which had deterred the gatekeeper which we would apply the axe is the root of "forced off by having the two darkly-spotted gentlemen from the proper discharge of his duty. In ordienactments" enhancing prices. The protection about one on each side. nary cases we should have attributed this suppreswhich Sir James Graham is so solicitous is brought The formation of the Government altogether has sion of the first causes of the mischief to the about by "forced enactment," decreeing that the a striking resemblance to that scene in Cinderella Coroner's anxiety to screen the gentlemen in the staff of life shall not be bought in the cheapest where the Fairy equips the forlorn damsel for the commission of the peace, who had threatened the market, and contriving that it shall be bought in ball. The pumpkin is obviously the Duke of Buck-outrage endangering the public safety of pulling the dearest, and forbidding the free exchange of ingham, the lizards Mr Goulburn and Lord Ripon, down the gates; but when we read this wonderful the fruits of industry for bread of foreign growth. and when it came to supplying the cattle to draw Coroner's charge to the Jury, we felt satisfied that, We pass now to the other topics of Sir James the carriage, the Premier, like the Fairy, beas people say of children, "he did not know better." Graham's speech, his reasons for abandoning his thought himself of the two great rats in the trap, He observed-former colleagues, and for joining the set of men which forthwith were changed into the wheelers of whom he had described only seven years ago as the coach. the worst composed Ministry imaginable.

since occurred to induce me to believe that I did not

I

"The Coroner said that evidence of that nature was im. material to the inquiry."

"It was much to be regretted that the gatekeeper had not seen the coach and engine advancing in time to close the gates, as it was admitted, even by his wife, that it was his duty to have put the gates to. The jury would, therefore, consider whether such a degree of blame was attached to them as to warrant the returning a verdict of manslaughter against him. It was not sufficient for them to say that it was a simple case of neglect, as gross ignorance must be proved before they would be justified in finding a verdict of manslaughter.'

"Gross ignorance" is here declared the essential of manslaughter! Why what, in the name of wonder, had " question, save, indeed, the " gross ignorance" to do with the gross ignorance" so fully proved on the part of the egregious person laying down the law?

of accidental death, and without a syllable of comThe jury, so instructed, returned a verdict simply ment on the neglect as to the closing of the gates, or the alleged conduct that had thwarted the gatekeeper's due performance of his duty.

Sir James Graham could not refrain from an "My view on the subject of public men changing their assault upon his old friends. "When the Reform opinions is this: I hold any change of opinion and abandon-" Bill was introduced," he says, "the Conservative ment of party to be base, when it proceeds from interested" party was assured by those with whom that Bill motives. But under what circumstances did I leave the originated, that it was to be a final measure.' Government? It was at the time when I filled a high office in Lord Melbourne's Administration. I left that Govern- Now, if this was strictly true, what shall be said of ment after I had fruitlessly endeavoured to induce the Minis- this pink of consistent statesmen, who was then in try to resist the dangerous influence of Mr O'Connell in Lord Grey's Cabinet, and who authorised Lord J. Ireland. I left Lord Melbourne and the party with whom Russell, not then in the Cabinet, to introduce the had acted for so many years, because I saw Mr O'Connell Reform Bill, with a reservation of the question of exercising a most pernicious influence in Ireland, and I saw the Ballot, "a mode of election which," said the no disposition on the part of those in authority to put a stop to the evil. I left that Government when I saw that it was noble Lord," had much to recommend it." Further, its intention to sacrifice the interests of the Protestant na- Lord John Russell made an express declaration tional church-that church which I will resolutely defend, that the question of shortening the duration of and which, under the blessing of God, shall be maintained in Parliament was freely left open to any member to all its purity and integrity to the very last. So much for my introduce at "a future time." Thereby, unquesreason for having left Lord Melbourne's Government. Were Serjeant Talfourd here he might ask me why I refused to tionably, leaving the Cabinet, collectively and join Sir Robert Peel when he offered me office in 1835? At individually, free at least upon these two great that time I was a stranger to Sir Robert Peel; I had been questions, which Sir James Graham doubtless will politically opposed to him for a considerable length of time. The gentlemen in the commission of the peace, I had but recently left a party to which I had belonged for now consider, if proposed or carried, as "further who threatened to throw down the gates, must a number of years. If I had joined Sir R. Peel under these sacrifices to the democratic principle." circumstances, my conduct would have been liable to miscon- Again, Sir James Graham refers to the Ap- now be troubled with the uneasy reflection, that the struction. I have no reason to regret the course I then pur-propriation Clause, and its abandonment by the death of Mr Ivy and the terrible injuries of other sued. I exercised my judgment upon all the circumstances late Government, as "one of the causes which Persons are in part attributable to their misconduct, of the case, and refused office; and no circumstance has destroyed all public confidence in them." But though the law does not reach them. Had they, as they threatened, thrown down the gates, they then act for the public good. (Great cheering.) But cir- if that dereliction from principle was at once cumstances have altered since that time. I have for the a crime and a blunder, is Sir James Graham would have deserved to be hanged for the loss of life which, in all human probability, would have last seven years fought side by side with Sir R. Peel. I peculiarly fitted to rebuke the Whigs? He conbeen the consequence. have been engaged in a seven years' war in conjunction with sented to the 147th clause of the Irish Temporalihim. I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing his ties Bill, a Bill respecting some of the details of great political integrity - his public worth and honesty, which Lord Stanley tells us,* "O'Connell was in and many private virtues. (Great and long-continued cheering.) During my intercourse with Sir R. Peel I have full consultation with the Government;" and furbeen treated with a kindness and generosity which, were ther, a Bill which was denounced by Sir R. Inglis I ever to forget, I should be guilty of the basest ingratitude. as "a measure in violation of the Coronation (Great cheering.) When Sir R. Peel applied to me for Oath," and which Mr Goulburn said he "hoped no assistance, although I felt that I could render him but a trifling service, I should have been ashamed of myself if 1 Protestant Member would support!" Now the had refused to co-operate with him in the formation of his main provisions of the Bill passed, nevertheless, as Administration." a Cabinet measure, and all, except the 147th clause, Sir James Graham, by his own account, then the Appropriation Clause, which took from the turned Tory because he did not like Mr O'Connell's Church its property and applied it to secular purinfluence in Ireland. If this be the case, Mrposes, which, when contemptuously struck out in "A few days since I drove three ladies in a four-wheeled O'Connell has been the master of Sir James Gra- the Lords, Sir James Graham quietly surrendered, ham's conduct by the rule of contraries, to act ac- and kept his place. And this same statesman cording to which, as Bacon says, makes another's now makes it a prominent claim to the confidence folly the master of one's own wisdom. But the of the public, that he, forsooth, will never "sacrifice whimpered plea that Sir James Graham's apostacy has been the doing of O'Connell is too puerile. Next, as to what passed in 1835, Sir James says that if he had joined Sir Robert Peel's Ministry then, his conduct would have been liable to mis-" the very last!" Bah! construction; and was he holding aloof then only Then again, on the Corn Laws, even upon that for that reason, when he deliberately declared that subject Sir J. Graham could not touch but he must his ground for not joining it was his want of confi- misrepresent Lord Melbourne. Much as we have dence in it, and that it was, in his opinion, com- reason to rue Lord Melbourne's opinions upon the posed as ill as it was possible for a Government to Corn Laws, nevertheless Lord Melbourne never did be? Was what he then said false, and a falsity to say what Sir James Graham deliberately makes cover his selfish timid reason for hanging back, him say. Lord Melbourne never declared that it letting I dare not wait upon I would," or is what was "absolute madness" to make a proposition to he now states untrue? Both statements cannot be alter the Corn Laws. The noble Lord was speaktrue. Since '35 Sir James Graham says he has had ing of a free trade in corn and a free trade gene-sured the public that men of questionable conduct One of the Ministerial journals which lately asfrequent opportunities of witnessing Sir Robert rally. And evidently under the delusion, which Sir were to find no place in the existing Government, Peel's great political integrity, public worth, and James Graham is not, that by free trade was and that respectability was to be an essential quaso forth. Why had he not the same opportunities meant, as we stated in a former Number, a trade lification, has published a statement that the office when he sat on the other side of the House? but free of all duties, he used the expressions quoted in the Queen's Household of Master of the Buckdoubtless there is in the profile of Sir Robert Peel by the Member for Dorchester. some beauty which does not appear in the full face

"the interests of the Protestant National Church,
"-that Church which I will resolutely defend,
"and which, under the blessing of God, shall
"be maintained in all its purity and integrity to

Hansard, Vol. 18,

from any neglect of the gates of roads crossing
When we see what frightful accidents may result
railways, and that the persons who ought to be
ward in breaking the proper regulations, it cer
the most strict in requiring care are the most for-
tainly appears to us that these crossings ought not
to be allowed, and that the turnpike road should
be carried by bridge over the railroad.
A correspondent of the Times gives the follow-
ing account of his narrow escape from a fate similar
to that of Mr Ivy:-

chaise through Dulwich to Lewisham, and on arriving at the
I stopped to inquire of a man in the employ of the Croydon
Sydenham station, where the public road crosses the railway,
company whether I might safely pass over. He instantly
flung open the gate, and I passed over the railway. Be
hind my chaise was a donkey-cart with two women; and
scarcely had my horse reached the middle of the line before
safely, but in order to get the donkey-cart over five or six
we heard a train rapidly approaching. We passed over
men rushed on the line, and by main force pushed it across
and then closing the gates just saved themselves by a rapid
flight from being crushed. I immediately remonstrated with
the men, but they replied that they wished to oblige the
public,' and were quite ignorant of the times of the trains
passing by. This train, I should add, was a Brighton train,
not stopping at Sydenham, and passed at the rate of near
30 miles an hour. We were only saved by the skin of our
teeth. Ten seconds later and we should have been inevi
tably smashed to atoms!"

hounds was offered to the Marquis of Waterford, of riot and outrage celebrity, and refused. The offer

was, of course, made by the purist Sir Robert Peel, and, it was added, to the great delight of the Duke of Wellington, who professes so great an anxiety for all that concerns the respect of the Monarchy.

THE LAND TAX.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER.

Sir, The Land Tax is often insisted upon as a burden upon the landowners, entitling them to protection and to freedom from taxes levied on other members of the community, such as Probate and Legacy duty. Now an inquiry into the origin of this so called tax will show there is no reason for exemption on this ground. Land in England was formerly granted by the sovereign, and held upon the condition of rendering military services for the general defence; and at length such services, becoming inconvenient, were changed into a money payment, of which the present Land Tax is the only relic. So that instead of being a tax, this payment is in fact the nation's part of the soil, which part unfortunately, instead of increasing with the general prosperity, has remained stationary, the other interests in the land absorbing all the advantage (instead of a proportion only) of the improvement in value.

Lest any Conservative should be so ignorant of the Constitution he boasts of, as to dispute the accuracy of this, I subjoin two extracts from the Commentaries of Sir

William Blackstone, whose authority will not be gainsaid by the admirers of our "glorious Constitution."

Yours,

THE PROTESTANTS OF FERMANAGH, The magistrates and gentry of Fermanagh have for warded to Sir Robert Peel a resolution adopted at a meeting convened by the Lieutenant of the county, entering a decided protest in condemnation of an offensive seal having been affixed to the return of the writ. Sir Robert Peel has returned the following answer :

I scribed them. They seem to have been merely a consequence of the hot weather and unrivalled moonlight. The workmen congregated on the quays, and some of the younger ones raised some shouts of " Down with Louis Philippe," and "Down with Guizot," now and then shouting forth the Marseillaise.

The riots at Macon were serious, but not political. "Sir, I hasten to acknowledge the letter which I have They arose out of what is a great nuisance in every town had the honour of receiving from you, and on the docu- of the south, viz., the impertinence of the porters, who ment which accompanies it, expressing, of behalf of the form a kind of corporation, charge enormous prices, and principal gentry of Fermanagh at present in the county, have recourse to violence either against the traveller or the their marked disapprobation of an act to which public atten- competitor who may resist them. In England, in Dover tion has been recently called, and which was calculated to for example, the same nuisance exists to a great degree. wound the feelings of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects. The Mayor of Macon sought to remedy this by increasing I assure you that this document was unnecessary with a the number of porters. The owners of these "vested view to remove from my mind an impression unfavourable rights" at first consented to waive them, but their dames to the body from which it proceeds. I could not entertain a doubt that the gentlemen of Fermanagh would deeply la- would not, and in consequence the men attacked the ment and entirely disapprove of the act in question. But soldiers, were fired at in return, and several lives though the document may be superfluous for the particular were lost. cordial satisfaction the communication which you have made purpose for which it was intended, I have received with

to me.

ill-will.

have broken out this summer, are those of Clermont in The most serious, however, of all the disorders which Auvergne. The mountain districts around are peopled "I rejoice that at a public meeting of the gentlemen of Fer by the most poor, frugal, and uneducated population. The managh, convened by yourself as lieutenant of the county, recensement, or new census, was represented to these both sentiments such as those of which you have been the organ by Communist and Carlist agents as the preliminary to should have been expressed, so calculated to discourage throughout Ireland provoking and irritating demonstrations increase taxation. This may be true enough; but these of party feeling and to remove the causes of dissension and agents added, that the weight of taxation would fall on the poor, that the humblest artizan would have to pay patentto give strength and confidence to the Government, which thread-bare wardrobe, and a chest of linen (their great "The proceeding which you have adopted is calculated tax, that so much should be paid for the luxury of a it has been my duty to form in obedience to the commands of and universal treasure) visited with an ad valorem levy. her Majesty. It assures me that the course which I have The Auvergnats accordingly determined to put down firmly resolved to pursue with respect to the administration the recensement. They marched into town, and tried to In vol. i, page 309, speaking of the revenue, Black-of Irish affairs will meet with the cordial support of those stop its proceeding. Some arrests were made of the most whose friendly co-operation is almost essential to its success. violent. The others sought to get their prisoners set at My firm persuasion also is, that it will be followed by liberty, and being refused, flung stones at the troops. consequences much more important than any that are con- These fired; several were killed; and though the crowd nected with mere party interests; that by setting the gene-dispersed for the time, they gathered next day, attacked rous example of forbearance, and by allaying angry feelings, it will go far to paralyse the agitation by which Ireland has the troops, which were few, beat them back, burnt the been distracted; and to enable the real friends of that town-house and all its papers, and, on the infantry showcountry (whatever be their religious distinctions) to lay the ing some reluctance to act, the artillery was made to fire foundations of internal peace and social improvement. and clear the streets, great numbers being killed. "I have, &c. "ROBERT PEEL.

London, 13th Sept., 1841.

stone says:

FAIRPLAY.

"The other ancient, levies were in the nature of a modern Land Tax, for we may trace up the original of that charge as high as to the introduction of our military tenures; when every tenant of a knight's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend the king in his army for forty days in every year. But this personal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the tenants found means of compounding for it, by first sending others in their stead, and, in process of time, by making a pecuniary satisfaction to the Crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessments at so much for every knight's fee, under the name of scutages."

And again, in vol. iv, page 423, in the account of the legal changes effected in the reign of Henry the Second, we find the following:

"To this time must also be referred the introduction of escuage, or pecuniary commutation for personal military service, which in process of time was the parent of the ancient subsidies granted to the Crown by Parliament, and the Land Tax of later times."

GROSS VIOLATION OF THE LAW.

A writer in the Morning Chronicle has published another extract from the Report of the Inspector of Prisons, which, with his comments, we subjoin: -The Inspector thus concisely relates the wrong. "A complaint was made to me by a criminal prisoner, of being illegally detained in custody; he stating that he had, in the first instance, been committed for trial at the sessions, and after a lapse of some days was called up by the keeper, and told that he had been summarily convicted and adjudged to twelve months' imprisonment. After due inquiry this case was referred to the Secretary of State, who directed his discharge." What this man's crime was does not appear; but it does appear too plainly that he was sentenced without trial, without the form or semblance of one; that he was not confronted with his accuser, was not defended by his counsel; his witnesses were not heard; that though in prison, he was never in court. Had he committed the most heinous offence; had he stolen a pyx from the altar; had he murdered, or fired, he was entitled to a judge, jury, witnesses, and counsel. But all these bulwarks are swept away by the keeper, forsooth-keeper is a prettier name than gaoler (nobody is a gaoler)-and this keeper, in all probability, yet reigns; for he is in this case sov reign at Chester. I think it must be allowed that this is a stretch of power hitherto unknown in Britain. This

66

"Lieut.-Col. John Crichton,
Crom-Castle, Belturbet."

CONTINENTAL POLITICS.

(From our own Correspondent.)

FRANCE.

Different as may be the circumstances and causes, it is nevertheless alarming to remark the frequency and simultaneousness of these instances of resistance on the part of the people to authority and to military force. Another bad symptom is, that the authorities have everywhere dispensed with the services of the National Guard; no doubt because the census, which is the immediate cause of these troubles, is more obnoxious to the citizen-class than to any other. Should such scenes as that of Clermont be repeated, they would unseat the ministry, not on account of any bad conduct, but owing to its continued misfortune in exciting troubles.

sive and universal influence of the sect of the Communists, The most remarkable symptom, however, is the exten from whose bosom every now and then rushes forth a fanatic, ready to sacrifice his life for the miserable satisfaction of slaying king or prince. We had great hopes that, since Dumas, this mania had died away, but the attempt of Pappart upon the fourth son of Louis Philippe, would extinguish the hope of seeing this madness overcome by shame, ill-success, and by its wearing itself out.

The report of the Duc de Bourdeaux's death by lock-jaw still continued to circulate. This, with the cessation of troubles on Thursday in the capital, caused a considerper cent. within a week. able rise in the funds, which amounted to upwards of one

A number of partial riots and of attacks on the military, crowned by a most infamous and unaccountable attempt on the life of a young Prince, have marked the last week in France. The Queen of the French has trusted one son after another to heir of the Conde property, went the hazards of a campaign. The Duc d'Aumale, his year to Algiers as Colonel of the 17th regiment. He was seized with the dysentery incidental to the climate, and was near falling a sacrifice to it. His return in health gave great joy to the Royal Family, and a Quiet was by no means restored in Paris on Wednesrequest of the little Duke to bring his regiment to day. The general expectation that there might be an Paris was granted. The 17th is a veteran regi- emcute went far to cause it; those anxious to perform in ment, which has been many years engaged with it, and those anxious to witness, forming crowds at the the Arabs in Africa. Still twenty other regiments fittest places. The police, on dispersing these crowds, did similar service, and the honours paid to the gave at once the semblance of an emeute, but no one 17th, because of its young Colonel, excited jealousy emcute being without a pretext. Some, indeed, cried seemed prepared for the extremity, the popular wish for an in the army, and was severely criticised by that down with Guizot, but few knew why, for a single warnumerous and popular class which scrutinize se-cry was not raised. Were the recensement to be carried on verely every act of a Royal Family. The papers in the capital, it would have afforded a pretext; but it has each morning were full of the Duc de Nemours' been silently and prudently carried on by merely questiontriumphal procession-the Court journals to vaunting the porters and proprietors of houses, and taking their it with absurd exaggeration, the opposition ones to words for the amount of rent. There being no fuel, thereridicule and decry it. Whether the assassin of the fore, it is to be hoped that the fire will go out. Duc d'Aumale was prompted by his reading or his own ideas, or whether he was the agent of some secret society, which seems little probable, Nicholas high officer calls up" (into his court), we must pre- the procession of the Duke and his regiment, and Pappart, a sawyer of not 30 years of age, awaited sume, an untried man, and without further ceremony informs him that he is condemned to twelve months of as it passed through the Faubourg St Antoine, hard labour and harder fare; and, perhaps, he hinted to fired a pistol at the Prince, who at the time had the him that if he was refractory at being dealt with-" reDukes of Orleans and Nemours one on either side fractory" is the phrase-some dozens of lashes would be of him. His aim was disturbed by the hand of a applied in the presence of the surgeon and others to his person near him, and the ball struck the horse of bare back; or if he declined that, he might take the alter- the Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, and killed native of three months' solitary (another prison phrase), it. The universal remark in the streets was, how and in a dungeon macerate and pine till his understand-miraculously the Royal Family escape from every ing, however good, was impaired, and himself qualitied attempt of the kind, as if all bore charmed lives, for the Hanwell Asylum. When I thus bring forward and the rumour of the Duc de Bourdeaux's death these oppressions, I am far from insensible to the benefits brought about by the late administration in the regulation came to increase the popular opinion of the great and venerated name" of the Lord Viscount Canof prisons; and much is due, more, perhaps, than is good fortune of the House of Orleans. In ancient terbury, and, in the opinion of the Editor, every acknowledged, to the appointment of the able and discreet times this unchecked career of good fortune would candid mind ought to admit, that we of the inspectors, who have been the instruments of great good, have been read as a verdict of heaven, and the present day "have now arrived to the very perand whose reports should be much more read by those in objects of it would have been respected in conse-fection of liberty, beyond which it were visionary authority than they have hitherto been; but I contend quence; but now the rage for equality is carried so to hope or expect its consummation." Well-posthat the eacroachments of magistrates and gaolers upon far that an exemption from misfortune is considered sibly that perfection of liberty which has no conthe right of imprisoned men require restraining; and, an unfair privilege, and people talk of the insolent summation, is no bad definition of the liberty we moreover, that great leniency is shown to those func-good luck of the House of Orleans. After the have arrived at. But we quote the remark, as we tionaries when detected in flagrant abuses-abuses which review of the regiment there was a dinner given in referred to the dedication, to show, that though are not to be tolerated, such as the treating in several pri- the park of Neuilly to 5,000 guests, being persons this book contains the memoirs of a member of sons the untried with the same severity as the convicted, who had been in Algiers, deputations from all the the English opposition in the reign of Charles the compelling them to absolute silence, to a spare diet (often insufficient for health), and to labour; and when these regiments, and the military notabilities. The First, there is nothing in it that can by possibility men complain, they are sentenced to three days' solitary Journal des Debats assures its readers that there were offend the most sensitive advocate of things as confinement, and to a lessening of their food, already too 3,000 bottles of champagne drunk, which is not marvel- they are. little. Debtors are also very closely looked after. Never-lous, considering that the bibbers had come from Algiers, theless, the amelioration is great, and is yearly greater; and that the thermometer in Paris was above 90. but justices and gaolers are but men, and made of the same erring materials as the criminal whom they sentence, and occasionally sentence with too much severity.'

THE LITERARY EXAMINER.

Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Knt. Con-
taining his Speeches and Poems. Edited by
James Alexander Manning, of the Inner Temple.
Boone.

This book is dedicated to "the distinguished

Truth to say, this good Sir Benjamin Rudyerd was a very amiable and a very harmless gentleThe semblance of disorders which took place in Paris man, who could speak extremely well and could act on each night of this week would be scarcely worth men. not at all. Shakspeare has a class of persons who tioning if the French Ministerial journals had not de-are incapable of their own distress, and Sir Benja

1

min Rudyerd was incapable of his own eloquence. 1 up with it to the Lords. I am afraid this bill will prove but
It threw him into a position for which the irreso-brutum fulmen-a lost blow. For I believe (and I am bound
lute timidity of his nature unsuited him. It was notes they have taken already, and then the Earl of Straf
to speak what I think) the Lords will not pass it upon the
an easy thing to get up in the House of Commons ford is acquitted of all. We may please ourselves, that we
and say that he should be "very glad to see that may demand further judgment, which will breed a contesta-
good old decrepit law Magna Charta, which hath tion, which will make a division, which will bring a confu-
been kept so long bed-rid as it were, walk abroad sion; and this by Parliament.
again with new vigour and lustre;" but nobody,
not Charles himself, was so much alarmed as Sir
Benjamin, when that good old law did in reality
get upon its legs again. Yet there was nothing
worse than fear in this. Sir Benjamin was no
traitor; no renegade. Nor has one circumstance
in connexion with his fears, been sufficiently dwelt
upon. The blows of old age fall suddenly upon
those who have led an active life. A man of busy
habits shall be young at sixty, and very old at
seventy: and when Charles raised the standard of
civil war at Nottingham, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd
had counted his seventy-second year.
found himself in all probability sinking bedwards,
at the very time when the gigantic statute before
named was first rising out of its long sleep. Where-
fore, as perhaps it became old age, when sensible
of the grave's approach, he cried out incessantly

and, therefore, ought to give a fair satisfaction to the world. And
"Justice must be done justly; it is an outward public act,
But, principally, it is an inward private conclusion of the
conscience to every man that hath a hand in it. A sentence
of death rightly given is justice; if otherwise, it is murder,
pented, is no less than damnation; for blood is a crying sin.
and to a doubting conscience it is the same, which unre
"I do believe that the Earl of Strafford is as wicked, a
flagitious, facinorous malefactor as was ever brought before
a Parliament: but we find withal that he is ingenississimi
nequam, et malo publico facundus-full of artificial delu-
wiping off his deceitful paintings, that he may appear to the
sions. Therefore, it behoves us to be the more exact in
world in his own fouiness beyond all contradiction, which we
cannot so well do unless we return to the way we were in,
Thus he notwithstanding the great disadvantages of time and money.
"Wherefore, Mr Speaker, my humble motion is, 'That
we may desire a present conference with the Lords for an
us in the best way, for this kingdom had never more need of
agreement and settlement in that course.' I pray God direct
his help than at this instant."

during the progress of the war, for peace, for peace: and even went so far as to entitle himself to the equivocal praise recorded on the title-page of these Memoirs, of having "nobly defended the Bishops." And yet, we cannot too often repeat, though Sir Benjamin Rudyerd thus became a convert to compromise in age, he did not desert, nor malign, the men with whom he had acted in riper years. The good old knight, to say nothing of his honesty, was too much of a gentleman for that. There is a foolish story in all the histories, greedily repeated of course by the Southeys and D'Israelis, about Sir Benjamin having died of grief as soon as the first blood of the war was drawn, complaining upon his death-bed that " Mr Pym and Mr Hampden always told him that they thought the King so ill-beloved by his subjects, that he would never be able to raise an army to oppose them." It is a fic. tion of the lying Chronicles of Heath. The old man was not killed by the civil war. He continued in his place in the House of Commons as long as he could; still acting with Pym and the rest (as for example in his speech against the Court of Wards as late as '45), though feebly; still incessantly desiring a compromise; and, though he never regained any eminence in public affairs, he did not die till he was eighty-seven.

But, besides the speeches, the editor has very

And

That ever vain Credulity did foster:

A mountebank, extolling trifles small;
A juggler, playing loose (not fast) with all;
An alchymist, whose promises are gold,
Payment but dross, and hope at highest sold ;-
This, this is Love, and worse than I can say.
Where he a master is, and bears the sway,
He guides like Phaeton, burns and destroys,
this, from the same poem:
Parches, and stifles what else would be joys."

whosoever loves, he down doth bring From that he was, into some meaner thing; Shews him ridiculous to standers-by,

And quite bereaves him of perceiving why.
Now, why should Love a footboy's place despise,
When higher than the earth he doth not rise?
And I have often seen his greatness trudge
In little errands, like a worthless drudge:

I will send him at any time a mile,

To fetch me thence the meaning of a smile."
this-how firm and compact the verses are!
"Not like a sceptic equally distract,

Nor like a sophister of sleights compact,
Nor to vie wit (a vanity of youth),
Nor for the love of victory, but truth,
The lists again I enter, bold assur'd,
Within my cause's right strongly immur'd."
Some of his ballad verses are even more exqui

two stanzas:

"As for descent and birth in her,
You see before you seek,
The house of York and Lancaster
United in her cheek.

discreetly given us the poems of Sir Benjamin. He site. Sir John Suckling might have written these
did not need to have apologised for doing so they
are by no means the least valuable portion of the
book. Nor was it at all necessary to apologise for
the poems themselves: they are a great deal better
than the Editor has the least notion of. He has,
indeed, nothing but apology for the whole poetry
of that age. He is altogether too charitable. He
flings his critical crusts into a horn of plenty.

Hear him, for example, extenuating Sir Benja-
min's quaintness on the score that everybody was
quaint, and that folks knew so little about poetry!
After mentioning that there was Shakspeare, and
Ben Jonson, the latter very "cramped and quaint,"
he proceeds:

I have a bracelet of her hair;
I have a riband too:

The Fleece and Garter never were
Such orders as these two."

And would an Editor of Sir John Suckling be justi-
fied in suppressing such verses of the Ballad on a
Wedding as happened to be not quite in accord-
ance with the taste of the present time? Because
this is what the Editor of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd

has done.

"AN OPPORTUNITY NEGLECTED. Yet was her beauty as the blushing rose,†

"If we except these two great men, whom Nature had Let us close with an amusing specimen of the sent to teach the young idea, poetry may be said to have over-squeamishness of an Editor. We quote an been in its infancy. Poetry, indeed, at the period in ques- entire poem, as given in this volume: tion, was almost mechanical, and consisted in preserving a sonantes terminations. An easy flowing verse, an euphoniconsistent metre in imitation of Latin verse, with idem ous line, is rarely to be met with in the poems of that age, if we except Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Spenser, and a few others, in whose works they are occasionally discovered; though very shortly afterwards they burst forth in all the splendour of native genius."

6

The language of this poem is not suited to the taste of this age.-ED.

Lost and Won: a Play, in Five Acts. By Henry
Spicer, Esq. Fraser.

Spenser and a few others, make a rather formidable exception! Let us hope the Editor knew of The men who want any precedent for the deser- the identity of Sackville and Lord Buckhurst: and tion and abuse of a great party, or a great set of had not quite forgotten Surrey, and Wyatt, and The author of this play has already published principles, must not, then, go to the life of this Marlowe, and Chapman, and Middleton, and Dec-a tragic piece of very striking merit-the Lords very estimable Sir Benjamin Rudyerd. But they ker, and Tourneur, and Heywood, and Marston, of Ellingham-and is one of those "unacted" need not be at a loss. They have the life of Hyde and Ford, and Massinger, and Beaumont, and dramatists whose claim to a public hearing will to go to. He will show them, much better than Fletcher; all of whom had written and published not be thought at all the less decisive, because it any other man in history, how it is possible to act their best works when Sir Benjamin took up the has been urged with modesty. Mr Spicer seems in intimate union with the principles and policy pen! to think that he can afford to wait till others find of one particular party for the entire half of a life, He will have it that poetry was an infant in those to do. He does not begin by blustering about it Our Editor sticks to his point notwithstanding. out the value of what he has done, or may be able and employ the whole of the other half in steadily benighted days: and is not quite clear of Sir Ben- himself. He is satisfied that his play should blackening the characters and opinions of the men with whom one has so acted. He will exhibit, for jamin's dignity in betaking himself to the pursuit: even be thought bad or indifferent, if it serves, their consolation, the lucrative rewards that are would feel great astonishment were they to see advertised in "It cannot be denied that the people of this century with others of the same kind, "eventually to apt to wait for a time upon treachery of that kind: the Times newspaper, The Poems of the Lved High awaken the dormant energies of some in whom and if they should happen to push their inquiries Steward, answered by way of Repartee by the Vice Chan the consciousness of ability renders their mental somewhat too far, and find out that it is only for a cellor," or other great dignitary of the law; but it must be sloth the more inexcusable." time, for that treachery is never wholly trusted, borne in mind that poetry, in the sense in which we compre. But this play is not bad and not indifferent. It we will not be so uncharitable as to wish to deprive hend the term, was then in its infancy in this country, and is too rich in manly and pathetic writing to be them of the sole consolation of Hyde's despicable none but the learned could indulge in so sublime a science." either. The characters want novelty: there is exile-a good appetite. Let them cultivate a good Why every one of the state dignitaries of any an arch villain here, as in the Lords of Ellingappetite against change of fortune. worth that we can remember, must have written ham, whose villainy takes the conventional turn This book contains Rudyerd's speeches, and is and published verses at some time or other of their of the stage: also, now and then, important therefore worth a place in any one's library. They lives: from Lord Burleigh down to Lord Mont- actions hinge on motives somewhat gratuitous: are few, but extremely good. The Editor's chief eagle. Wyatt, Sackville, Raleigh, Essex, Falkland, but there is a spirit of earnestness at work; there merit is industry. His intention, and his modesty, Temple, Somers, Bolingbroke, Pulteney, Burke, is matter of interest going forward; the persons were wanted to balance some defects of style, as lumn with their names. We must be content to leave thing to do there; and the verse, by no min of Fox, Sheridan, Canning, we could fill the comove about the scene as if they had really somemay be observed in a few lines of his preface: Editor in which his modesty seems to have hit upon tragedy. With that knowledge of the stage which this part of the subject with that remark by the infrequently, realizes the full impassioned strain of the truth: "He has probably hazarded opinions ensures an artful construction of plot, Mr Spicer upon a subject of which his inexperience must would write an excellent acting drama. render him very incompetent to form a judgment, The book has added three short speeches to although he has twice presumptuously invaded the by Mr Spicer in such excellent company, that it One fault apparent in the present play is shared those of Rudyerd's previously known. One of territory of the Muses." them is on the second reading of the Strafford attainder, and it is so curious an illustration of some of verses, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd is a worthy addition. merely its thoughts, but the structure and style of To the list of Statesmen who have written special rebuke on that score. In casting, not would be scarcely fair to select Lost and Won for the remarks we have been making, that we shall It is curious that his style should be chiefly re- its language, in the mould of some three hundred quote it entire. It shows how heartily Sir Benja-markable for its freedom from that quaintness of years ago, Mr Spicer has only followed the exammin was with his party in their then greatest act which the Editor talks so much. He writes a hun-ple of some of the best existing writers for the of warfare, but it also shows, though he afterwards dred years in advance of the every-day manner stage. It is a great pity, nevertheless; and we voted for the attainder, how willingly he would of his time. In the happy turns of a neat and really cannot understand the principle on which it have been saved the necessity of voting for it: how close versification, the old knight anticipates Pope is persisted in: holding it but a natural inference he should have liked the matter settled in any himself. other way: how he had begun to think agreement,' and 'settlement,' and 'compromise," the best methods of proceeding: how, in short, he had become old, and wished to spare his age from all reproach of blood-shedding.

"He can only regret that, in this age of literature, whose the world of letters sigh for subjects, a theme so worthy the exercise of their experience should have been left to one so ignorant of the art of book-making."

votaries lay restless on their oars, and even monarchs in

"Mr Speaker, I was not in the House at the first reading of this bill, although I staid here till it was past six o'clock. There hath not been in all this Parliament any business that was little but we could swell it up till it became a great one before we left it. Let us take heed we do not make this which is the greatest a little one indeed.

"We have wrapt up the three quarters-head cause of the Earl of Strafford in a bill, and are now in preparation to go

Sic in orig

that men who can write so well in the language of How admirable is this: it is from a poem in de- Fletcher and Heywood, might possibly not find it

preciation of Love as compared with Reason:

"Base Love, the stain of Youth, the scorn of Age,
The folly of a man, a woman's rage,
Order's confounder, Secret's light discloser,
Disturber of all sorts, a king's disposer;
The canker of a froward wit thou art,
The business of an idle, empty heart;
The rack of jealousy and sad mistrust,
The smooth and justified excuse of lust;
The thief which wastes the taper of our life,
The quiet name of restless jars and strife;
The fly which doth corrupt and quite distaste
All happiness, if thou therein be cast;
The greatest and the most conceal'd impostor

very difficult to write passably in their own. The matter is not at all mended, when, as in the case of Mr Spicer's plays, the actual scene represented may happen to date its hundreds of years ago: for the great law of the drama in every age must be, that it shall go directly to the common heart and common understanding of its time. Shakspeare could have had no more idea of antiquarian correctness when he made King John speak the language of Elizabeth, than when he made Hector talk about Aristotle. But suppose he had written half his plays in Anglo-Norman, or had put into