to walk to Stoke Newington, and at the back of Coach and Horses-lane you will see the newfledged freeholders all working like negroes to raise up a modern Utopia. If Mr. Cobden has not yet made his visit, the sooner he goes the better. There in a large pit about fifteen, and in some parts of the limit-line even twenty feet below their neighbours, he will see freeholders in posse and freeholders in esse caging themselves, as the bears are cooped up in the pits of the Zoological Gardens, only instead of a pole they may climb to their own roofs, from which they may see the sun. Clearly, they can have no very perfect drainage, but they will have a vote for representatives. As clearly they can have no efficient ventilation, but they will vent their political sentiments in their votes for representatives. Certainly, they will have ague and all sorts of fevers, but they will also have once in seven years, or may be oftener, the pleasurable excitement of the fever of politics. Is not this paying rather too dear for their whistle?

We happen to know that when this pit was bought a proprietor of the land to the south margin instructed Leifchild that he was ready to supply them with an embouchure, large enough to admit of free ventilation from the south-west, on equal terms, at a valuation; and the auctioneer announced the advantage from his rostrum. He even sent his solicitor to the law-agent of the society. Looking at the map, the man of law sagaciously remarked, "We found we could sell all our allotments at our own price, and we have sold We see the advantages of getting a large approach to the green; and at our next meeting we will tell the allottees, who may, perhaps, like to join for purchase." After investing each his small accumulation of hard earnings in the land, and with their hands in brick and mortar, it may easily be surmised what chance they have of securing the benefit which had been neglected by their patrons. God defend society from such patriots! We dare not trust ourselves to comment farther on such a system. We lack the smooth-tongued, silvery indifference of our new Secretary for Foreign Affairs. We cannot calmly contemplate our countrymen cut down in cold blood by the Austrian sabre abroad, nor our fellow-citizens at

All English gentlemen who have travelled much abroad will observe in. the defence of the Austrian, so delicately touched upon by Earl Granville, that the insult was a national one. "Monsieur Anglais irritated me by holding up his hands to box" is the hackneyed lie which is ordinarily used before the foreign magistrates. In the agony suffered by Mr. Maher, when recovered from his swoon, by the pain of his wound, he might look up to Heaven for mercy, but not to his country for avengement. All human passion is to be abandoned in our new system, and, we suppose, a clearing-house will be established on the principle of that at the Euston Terminus, where balances are to be dispassionately struck on a scale for international injuries, and checked off by the mileage of each territory. Item, a head-wound with a sabre. Item, a kick on the breech, &c. Vattel says something about national insults through the individual demanding national apology for wounded honour. Honour! what have the present Ministers to do with "honour?" They are consistent so far. Hear Vattel: "We ought not to say in general that we have received an injury from a nation, because we have received it from one of its members. But when by its spirit, its maxims and its manners it accustoms and authorises its citizens [an officer, for example, marching at the head of his

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home entrapped like wolves in a pit. To such a system of vote-creation we even prefer the peddling panacea of Lord John Russell. His career as a Minister reminds us of the anecdote of a Quaker who, having arrived nearly at the end of his weekly avocations, psalmed out with a nasal snuffle, "William! hast thou sanded the sugar?" "Yes, master." "Hast thou wet the tobacco ?" "Yes, master." "Hast thou mixed the chicory with the coffee?" Yes, master." "Hast thou seen to the scales ?" "Yes, master." "Verily, well; put out the gas, and now come into our inner tabernacle to family prayers." In a like correct and consistent tone of morality our versatile Minister may ask, Has that laudatory article on Lord Granville gone to the Times office? Yes, master! Did Mr. take care to tell the public that Chatham's old plan of consulting England's happiness at home, and securing it by an unforgiving frown if any dared to wrong her, must no longer be pursued by such men as Palmerston, but must be replaced by the modern soothingsystem? Yes, master! Has the Chancellor of the Exchequer taken care to suppress that unlucky squabble at the India House about their claim for 400,0007.? Yes, master! Have the Admiralty suppressed the communication from the coast relative to two boats, full of slaves, being sunk by the shots of the Wolverine, when, horrible to relate, not a soul escaped, but all were destroyed or drowned within sight of their own coast? Yes, master, we knew you wished that particularly. Has our Chancellor calculated the saving effected by Lord Seymour having turned an old woman out of the park, aided by the chief power of the Horse Guards, as a set-off against the item of 200,000l. for lighting and ventilating our immaculate House? Yes, master! Have the lords and gentlemen of the Treasury, Admiralty and other offices seen to their perquisites? In course, master! Very well; all is well. Now, summon our supporters, and I will deliver a beautiful lecture on Reform. We wish he had embodied in it the following extract from Charles James Fox. It is very edifying, and not without its application.

"The reign of Charles the Second forms one of the most singular as well as of the most important periods of history. It is the era of good laws and bad government. The abolition of the Court of Wards, the repeal of the writ De Heretico Comburendo, the Triennial Parliament Bill, the establishment of the right of the House of Commons in regard to impeachment, the expiration of the License Act, and, above all, the glorious statute of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a modern writer of great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection; but he owns,

soldiers] to maltreat foreigners, the nation in general is guilty of the crime. The glory of the nation is a real and substantial advantage, and she has a right to defend it, as well as her other advantages. He who attacks her glory does her an injury; and she has a right to exact of him reparation even by force of arms. They who in such matters deprecate pretensions, if not too lofty, and attribute them to a vain pride, only 'betray ignorance in despising one of the firmest supports of the greatness and safety of a state.'"

in a short note upon the passage alluded to, that the times immediately following were times of great practical oppression." What a field for meditation does this short observation from such a man furnish! What reflections does it not suggest to a thinking mind upon the inefficacy of human laws, and the imperfection of human constitutions!

"We are called from the contemplation of the progress of our constitution, and our attention is fixed with the most minute accuracy to a particular point, when it is said to have risen to its utmost perfection. Here we are, then, at the best moment of the best constitution that ever human wisdom framed. What follows? A time of oppression and misery, not arising from external or accidental causes, such as war, pestilence or famine, nor even from any such alteration of the laws as might be supposed to impair this boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and wicked administration, which all the so much-admired checks of the constitution were not able to prevent. How vain, then, how idle, how presumptuous is the opinion that laws can do everything! and how weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not men, are to be attended to!"

Again, there is another passage which might have been weighed with advantage, when he arrived at the flourish which called forth the cheers of his supporters: "Great instances of credulity and blindness are often liable to the suspicion of being pretended, for the purpose of justifying the continuing in situations of power and employment longer than strict honour would allow.""Life of James II.," Introductory Chapter, page 26.

And again, when he congratulated the House on the absence of all political excitement throughout the land, it would have been most edifying if he had subjoined, "It is well for the country that the people begin to meditate calmly; that they are tired of being dragged at the tails of the great parties of the State, who, between you and me, Mr. Speaker, have been handed down to posterity by an ex-censor of the London College of Physicians as having given, in their systematic arousal of the passions of the many to suit party purposes, a greater impulse to insanity, and a larger contribution to mad-houses, than can be traced to any other single cause." We trust we shall not again see flaming patriots taking the circuits of the country to inflame the people to bear them on their shoulders to office one year, and on the next the judges, under the special directions of the same patriots, going their circuits to try and hang the over-excited. If men cannot secure good government by calm deliberation with their fellowcitizens at home, where they can enjoy the feast of reason and the flow of soul, experience has shown they are not likely to get it by bawling and hur rahing at the hustings, or cracking their voices at the Juggernaut procession of a member's chairing. It is that sort of morbid excitement which has repeatedly deprived the masses of their reason,

and induced them to repose confidence in men who, from their boyhood, have been known to be bad; and thus they who, in their native towns, could not get trust for a dinner have become the political leaders of hundreds of thousands, to the utter perdition of not a few, and to the no small discomfort of all, not to mention the misguided who ended their lives by bread and water and cholera in the prisons of London, in 1849. Peace to their manes, poor fellows! "A plague on both their Houses!" or "Magis in exemplo!" might be appropriately sculptured on their tombs; and the Whigs ought to be compelled to provide for their widows and children, for having first set them a bad example.

We cannot do a better service to those who, like ourselves, are dissatisfied with the insincerity of our rulers, than to transcribe the opinion of Charles James Fox, which, if it had been read and considered by the Chartists or their leaders, would have saved both from much humiliation, and the latter from the greatest moral delinquency. Fox is speaking of the passive conduct of the oppressed nation of England in the early part of the reign of James II.:

"The prudential reasons against resistance at that time were exceedingly strong; and there is no point in human concerns wherein the dictates of virtue and worldly prudence are so identified as in this great question of resistance by force to established Government. Success, it has been invidiously remarked, constitutes, in most instances, the sole difference between the traitor and the deliverer of his country. A rational probability of success, it may be truly said, distinguishes the well-considered enterprise of the patriot from the rash schemes of the disturber of the public peace. To command success is not in the power of man; but to deserve success by choosing a proper time, as well as a proper object, by the prudence of his means no less than by the purity of his views, by a cause not only intrinsically just but likely to insure general support, is the indispensable duty of him who engages in an insurrection against an existing Government. We ought, says Ludlow, to be very careful and circumspect in this particular, and, at least, be assured of every probable ground to believe the power under which we engage to be sufficiently able to protect us in our undertaking; otherwise we must account ourselves not only guilty of our own blood, but also, in some measure, of the ruin and destruction of all those that we induce to engage with us, though the cause were never so just."-Fox's James II., p. 176.

We doubt whether the fierce patriots of Eng land and Ireland, or the modern Whigs, could read this passage without a blush. Physical force is now out of the question; but the paragraph will supply an useful caution to voters when choosing the standard under which they will, at no distant period, have to exercise their franchise. They need not despond. To everything there is a season.

have not been extensive. We find frequently the recurrence of the same idea similarly expressed, the use of figures that sound somewhat too trite and familiar, and an occasional straining after effect in a manner too obviously laboured.

Mr. Lowell has, we understand, some reputation at home, though as an author he is scarcely known here. Nor is it surprising that such should be the case. For obvious reasons, great encouragement is given in America to all who give any evidence of literary ability; and as the standard of comparison is necessarily low, a reputation is speedily achieved. Here, however, taste is more elevated, and consequently more fastidious. To establish his right to the appellation of "poet," a man nowa-days must do more than knock off a volume of poems such as these of Mr. Lowell's. At the same time, we have no wish to speak disparagingly of them, coming from whom and whence they do. We recommend Mr. Lowell to study more, to avoid common-place expressions, and to

Reprendre cent fois le râbot et la lime.

If he thinks proper to attend to these friendly sug gestions, we shall see in a few years of what he is really capable. Meanwhile, that our readers may form for themselves some opinion of Mr. Lowell's ability, we select the following passage, not by any

means the worst in the little volume:

SHE CAME AND WENT.

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;
I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome's measureless content,
So my soul held that moment's heaven :
I only know she came and went.
As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps
The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps;

I only knew she came and went.
An angel stood and met my gaze,
Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays,

I only know she came and went. Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, And life's last oil is nearly spent, One gush of light these eyes will brim, Only to think she came and went.

The Poetical Works of Charles Wilton. London : Hester and Co., Farringdon Market.

UNEXPLAINED and unexplainable, indefinable to logic but palpable in fact, there exists in all true poetry a certain living presence, which proclaims its high descent and immortality to the most uncritical ears. That this principle, or "divine essence" as it has been called, is not at the disposal of every versifier, our library table could furnish melancholy proof; though, at the same time, verses

of elegant language and unexceptionable rhythm are not wanting. Indeed, it were well if the sad fact were more generally known, that it is possible to build a very palace of words, every syllable minutely polished and exquisitely dovetailed, but not therefore possible to decoy the Spirit of Poetry even to consecrate the threshold by her shadow; while in verse of rudest, homeliest construction, tempt of, all elaboration, there she often sits, and will sit eternally, infusing such life into every line that, even when limbed and quoted in morsels, the reader knows at once that it is poetry. Thus in every fragment of a broken vase all the beauty of original integrity may be seen; and thus our good friend, Buonarotti Broune, R.A., in an elaborate "fancy portrait" of many hours' labour, wherein every feature, though pink, is symmetrically faultless-nose, eyes, mouth, beautiful enough each in itself (taken by itself) to constitute the charms of a Madonna-yet falls-ye gods! how short, of the raggedest sketch that ever meandered from the pencil of the mighty omni-artist Michel.

The little volume under notice is a collection of unambitious poems, written by one whom the gods loved, if it be indeed true that "whom the gods love die young." But a better claim, perhaps, to the patronage of the Pantheon may be those the lengthiest, are decidedly imbued with found in the fact that of these poems several, and

that "divine essence

of which we speak above, and lead us to regret that a longer life did not Written, as we gather, between the ages of nineenable the author to develope it in greater labours. teen and twenty-one, in intervals of daily labour and in the leisure of sickness, there is naturally some little inequality in the various poems that compose the book; but it is a progressive and promising inequality, starting from no mediocre source; and some half-dozen are inadequately praised when we say that, forty years since, they would have placed the author far on the road to fame.

We must not omit to observe that most of these poems have already been published in several high-class periodicals; one, "A Vision in a Dream"-a really beautiful piece of versification, "all alive and trembling" with poetic vigour-in our own magazine. In conclusion, we must extract a few verses from "The Voice of Nature;" a poem which, whether for purity of rhythm or beauty of sentiment, might be quoted to the credit of any living English writer:

--

At morn, at noon, at sacred eve,
On land or on the sea,
The lightest sound thy step may leave
Shall breathe "Eternity."

The moonlit fields of waving corn

That ripening harvests fill

The bubbling springs where lakes are born, To man subservient still

All speak of His ur bounded love

Who caused those streams to flow, Who fed those fields from founts above And made the harvests grow.