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POLITICAL NARRATIVE.

pension of £8,000 annually to the Princess. The dowry and pension were calculated by Mr. Roebuck as an equivalent to a money payment of £216,000. He gave a preference to the vote of one distinct and finishing sum at once, but the Government preferred to have part by annuity and part by ready money. The vote is unanimous. The nation is pleased with the economical system of the Sovereign in personal affairs, and with the fact that this is the first grant required from Parliament on account of the Royal Family, now a numerous band.

Mr. Williams and Mr. Coningham each moved an amendment in reduction. Eight members went into the lobby with one, and thirteen with the other; both these gentlemen are financial reformers. Mr. Bowyer also intends to try to stop the annuity, should the Princess ever ascend to the throne of Prussia. The Queen's birthday, and the return of the "Isthmian games," as Lord Palmerston termed the Derby race, caused two days' vacation, and the Whitsuntide holidays will delay business until the 4th inst., so that little more will be done this session.

The Maynooth motion has been disposed of for the session, by a smart majority against any disturbance of the settlement made by the late Sir Robert Peel's Act. The new Roman Catholic college in Ireland appears to be a failure; and therefore Maynooth is considered more necessary by the friends of the young priesthood.

The Premier has undertaken the management of the bill for the emancipation of the Jews. It will pass the Commons by a large majority, but there is no security for its success in the Peers. The Jews are a peculiar people, who, while they hold their present faith have an allegiance, different from, although, perhaps, not opposed to, their allegiance to the British empire. They look for the independence of the Jewish nation in Syria, am are bound to use any influence, power, and wealth they may obtain to achieve that object. If they were successful, of course they could not return the compliment, by giving political power to Christians dwelling on their territory, because they would establish a theocracy. The question is not, therefore, purely one of religions freedom.

Although Mr. Locke King is to bring in his ten pound County Franchise Bill, yet it can only be useful for discussion; as no measure to change the suffrage can pass in the present year. The Premier has not announced the details of his next year's measure. He even says that the contents are to be considered during the recess, as if the innocent and unsophisticated persons who form the Cabinet had lived in Juan de Fernandez for the last quarter of a century, that is, since 1832, and had not been considering the sufferage question in every week of their lives for twenty years. Mr. Frederick Peel lost his seat for Bury during the general election; and has in consequence resigned his office as Under-Secretary for War, which will be taken by Sir John Ramsden, a

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wealthy and young member, to whom the greater part of the town of Huddersfield belongs. Robert Peel has also resigned his position as one of the Lords of the Admiralty-because, according to some parties, he expects a visit from the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia to this country and does not wish to meet him. That Grand Duke has encountered in France the cold shoulder of the Prince Napoleon, and here he would meet the displeasure of Sir Robert Peel; and the Knight of Tamworth may be right in his views.

Mr. Baring succeeds Sir Robert at the Admiralty, Mr. Henry A. Herbert has replaced Mr. Horsman, as Irish Secretary, and Mr. H. S. Keating, Q.C., has become Solicitor-General in the place of Mr. Stuart Wortley, whose health will not permit him to retain office. Two members have died since the opening of Parliament, both Conservatives-Mr. Davies, member for Carmarthen, and Mr. Hall, for Leeds.

The Peers have carried a Divorce Bill partly through the forms of the Upper House, to anticipate the common pressure at the close of the session. Some bill that would disentangle married women from disreputable husbands, in the management of their earnings and property, was very necessary to the existence of the former, and often of their children. The law, in this particular, stood a long way from either humanity or justice.

The Queen is expected to visit Berlin before the close of summer, to examine the palace in preparation for her daughter's household.

Upon the day when the new Parliament met the Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, and the last direct descendant of George III. died. Sixty years since, the Princess Mary was the most popular of the young ladies at the Court. She retained that position by her amiability of manner to the end; and, unlike the greater part of her family, died rich leaving no descendants. She lived for forty years unmarried, and a long period of her life, at its close, was passed in widowhood. She was buried in St. George's Chapel on Thursday.

Among the incidents of the time, the conduct of the directors of the Bank of England-who flashed their refusal to lend more money on Government securities to private holders, in the face of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the day when he intimated his intention of renewing the committee on the charter-may be mentioned as a coincidence. The Chancellor was, however, probably in the conspiracy. The Bank directors discovered, what everybody else had known for many weeks, that speculators borrowed from them on the security of Consols in order to send out gold. When the reasons for this resolution became generally known, Consols, at first depressed, rose in price.

On the 5th ultimo, the Manchester exhi bition of fine arts was opened in a princely building, erected to receive the artistical treasures in painting and sculpture, lent from the galleries

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of nearly all the noble families in the land, to gratify and instruct the Manchester people and their visitors. The circumstance is another illustration of progress in good will and kindness between the different classes of society.

The United States Government are not formally to help Britain and France in opening China; but if any advantages can be taken out of the oyster they are willing to share them. This has been the policy of the States since they had an existence-always personal and selfish-unless indeed generosity can be done at the lowest figure.

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The American merchants resident in China do not, however, assent to the views of the Government, and, accordingly have applied to their Commodore to protect the traffic between Macao and Hongkong. This gentleman replied that his force was insufficient, and besides that there could be no danger, since Great Britain held possession of one end of the passage and Portugal the other, and at the same time that this course would not endanger their neutrality. Thereupon, the dignity of the merchants was wounded, they were aware of any international law and treaties which place these thirty miles of water under the British or Portuguese Governments. They further complained that their Government had for years neg. lected their representations, and that, though their commerce is extensive, Americans have been almost invariably indebted to the forces of Great Britain for protection of themselves and their property, and that it was to them was chiefly to be attributed the suppression of piracy on the coast.

The Commo

dore and merchants refer the whole matter to Washington.

The British Government have rejected the modifications in the treaty with the United States concerning Central America, so that the relations of the two countries upon that subject now revert to those established by the Bulwer-Clayton treaty, and are therefore unintelligible.

The invasion of Nicaragua by General Walker and the filibusterers, or idle people of the States, having failed, the United States Government have fastened a quarrel on New Grenada; regarding the Panama railway, of which they want to take charge, with the ulterior design probably of appropriating the narrow neck of land that divides the Atlantic from the Pacific.

The Peruvian rupublic having got into its usual state of civil war, one of the parties thought the seizure of the British mail steamer, with certain arms and other valuables on board, a prudent measure. The consequence has been that their little fleet has been taken charge of by the British Admiral on the coast, without, however, we believe, any loss of life.

The capture of Mohammerah by General Outram is expected to be the last collision of the Persian war, unless, indeed, the Shah of Persia should refuse to ratify the treaty of peace-according to the advice tendered, it is said, by the Russian resident at Teheran; and by this date the ratification should have been received, but it has not yet returned.

LITERARY REGISTER.

The Last Judgment.

This poem is the anonymous publication of a daring author, who plunges into the future as Milton and many followers go backwards to the past. The mere idea of making the last judgment the subject of a poem* in twelve books, and embracing the scenery, the sentences, and the reasons for the sentences, on all mankind and demonkind, implies a bold and strong imagination. Our material for estimating the nature of the judgment to come is simple. It is not, however, smaller than that on which Milton built his "Paradise Lost." The beginning and the end concern us all so very much, in one sense, and so very slightly in another, that little has been authoritatively written concerning them. Many persons hold that the judgment day will be one day on which sentence will be declared. All persons believe that the trial proceeds now. The evidence has not to be adduced, the barristers have not to be heard, the jury have not to try, for that has all been completed. The * London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman. 1 vol., p. 334.

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poet, however, takes another course-supposes an extreme length of time occupied in a trial, which is not only past, but the sentence partly executed. He describes minute witness-bearing on the part of angels, which is fanciful. He infers that every fact in the history of all mankind, will be passed in review before them-and this may be done without the mechanism of a police court.

The work is elaborately finished, and indicates, in many passages, great reasoning and also strong imaginative powers. "The Night Before the Judgment" is a startling picture of one eve to come. It is absolutely consistent with the Scripture statement on the subject. Men shall be eating and drinking. As it was in Noah's days, even so will it be then. As with the flood, so with the fire. Men will be equally careless, and many equally unprepared. The fact would prevent all the foolish fears prevalent in some lands, among some classes of our own, respecting a Judgment Eve, to be foretold months before, and preceded by approaching comets, and other signs. The picture of the poet is nearer to the life.

LITERARY REGISTER.

"Tis now the Judgment eve. With starting beams,
The sun serenely o'er the landscape beams,
Streaking the fleecy clouds with roseate light,
Gilding the mountain tops with radiance bright,
Glancing from wave to wave on ocean's foam,
Aud lighting up earth's vales-where, peaceful, roam
The lowing herds, and crop the dewy blade
From the green field; while, in the forest glade,
Fragrant with flowers and musical with song,
The feather'd choirs their vesper notes prolong.
The swain his plough forsakes, with carol gay,
And homeward o'er the lea pursues his way;
While, from the village rustic groups are seen
Their blithesome sports enjoying on the green.
In cool sequester'd shades, 'neath arching boughs,
Fond lovers meet, and breathe their mutual vows;
Elated with glad hope their plans arrange,
Nor dream of Judgment, nor of coming change.
In cities populous no sign appears,

To tell of wrath, or kindle human fears.
The ancient temples, venerable, grand,
And gorgeous palaces, in beauty stand.

The crowded streets display an eager train,
Intent on business, pleasure, power, or gain;

While in the marts where men were wont to meet,
Each other, as in days of old, they greet,
With salutation fraught with flattery's gloss,
And now converse of profit and of loss,
Of peace and war, of politics and trade,
Of victories won, of fortunes lost and made.
The Merchant at his desk, awaits the time,
In study deep, when from some distant clime,
His vessel shall return with prosperous freight,
Of untold wealth to swell his rich estate,
In cell retired, expecting long to hold
His treasured hoard, the Miser counts his gold.
The Lawyer, on this eve of time's last day,
Gravely prepares the covenants which convey
Possession evermore; long deeds design'd
To last for ages, the unborn to bind ;
And leases meant through centuries to run,
With wordy intricacy subtly spun.

The Student at his book still patient toils,
Drinks wisdom in, and gathers learning's spoils;
Indites the pleasing thought, the flowing rhyme,
Builds hopes of fame, and trusts to live through time;
Nor, though he loves the evening's gorgeous hues,
So loves them that they tempt him from the muse.
The Beauty to her toilet now departs,
Exhausts her skill, and uses all her arts
To deck each charm, improve or add a grace,
The form to flatter, or adorn the face;
Each robe selects, and labours to enhance
Her beauty for the gay exciting dance;
Thinks of admirers won, fresh conquests made,
Of lovers new, and rivals cast in shade;
Yet thinks not how to gain the Judge's love,
Or win the robes worn by the saints above.
A numerous throng, on worldly bliss intent,
Now haste the haunts of pleasure to frequent,
The theatre, the masquerade, the ball,
Or where the song, and mirth, and music call;
Where wine invites, the abodes of vice and sin,
Thousands, fearing no harm, rush wildly in.

The manner of the resurrection is taken from or corresponds with the ideas of the elder divines, and may be true; although the body is now more generally regarded as the seed out of which shall spring an incorruptible body, identified completely with the tabernacle wherein the spirit now exists, and yet different; as the stalk of wheat is identified with the seed sown, and yet in another sense different.

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While yet those trumpet-notes sound through the skies,
The slumbering dead on every side arise.

Barriers their egress interrupt in vain

Nor oak, nor lead, nor walls their course restrain.
The tombstones burst, the crumbling earth gives way,
And vaults funereal see the light of day.

The dead come forth, each from his narrow cell,
Though built around, secured and guarded well.
Though some proud monument the corse might crown
With large superfluous heap of stones pressed down.
The dust, the stones, the clay instinct with life,
Mysterious move in strange internal strife.
Fragments of bodies, scattered far and wide
Within the earth, or on the swelling tide;
Some by the winds in distant billows tossed,
Transformed, dissolved, absorb'd, transmuted, lost;
Preserved intact through each successive change,
And kept distinct 'midst transformations strange.-
Now all in haste to make the change complete,
Atoms their fellow atoms instant meet.
Straight through the darken'd air, a wondrous throng,
Bone to join bone now swiftly speeds along;
Pursuing through the atmosphere their flight,
Limbs long dissevered, hasten to unite;

Then, quick as thought, the long departed soul
Enters that shrine, which owns its strong control:
Re-animated moves, with power inspired,

With vigour young, with life immortal fired.

From another book of the poem we quote a passage, which presupposes the conversion of the waters into fire, an unlikely occurrence in the first instance, as water is distinctly opposed to fire, but science indicates the possibility of the event, even from natural causes.

Rivers and streams all feel the fervid glow,
And now through fertile vales no longer flow;
No more diffuse abroad on every side

Beauty and verdure from their genial tide;
No longer dash around their glittering spray,
And, murmuring low, pursue their ceaseless way,
Or in deep foaming torrents, fierce and strong,
Fall in cascades, and madly rush along.
Sudden arrested in their onward course,
The waters yield to that resistless force.
With loud report their elements divide,
Ignite and blaze in fury far and wide,
Till in white smoke they disappear on high,
Their courses empty and their currents dry.
Now streams of lava and of molten glass,
Pour from the hills and through those channels pass,
Flaming amid the desolation flow,
Like Styx or Erebus in shades below;
Rolling in liquid fire, still on they bound,
Burning themselves, and burning all around.
Here Thames displays its burning lava-tide,
There Cam and Isis, hot and deadly, glide.
Severn and Mersey, Humber, Tweed, and Tyne,
Flow but distinguished by their fiery line;
While Derwent, Avon, Medway, Ouse, and Trent,
Sink in the general conflagration blent.
Here Danube spreads its tide of glowing foam,
There Tiber rolls on fire through ruined Rome.
No more a placid stream Meander shows,
No more o'er golden sands Pactolus flows.
All blazing Tigris and Euphrates roar,
While Jordan, sacred stream, is seen no more.
Niger grows bright, and Gambia's current glares;
Nilus a fiery flood o'er Egypt bears.
Broad Mississippi glows in mighty blaze,
Lit by Missouri's tributary rays;
Deep Orinoco and La Plata gleam,
And Amazon rolls on its burning stream;
While fierce Niagara's tide of fiery spray,
Falls headlong thundering down, and vanishes away.

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THIS volume comes to us without an address. The publisher's name has been erased, although it is difficult to see the reason. It consists of Latin, Greek, and English. The Latin and the Greek are meant to tell us what the historians and statesmen thought of us in ancient times. They had not the best of all characters to give our ancestors. The latter were not in reality respectable men, in a pecuniary sense. Sometimes these old geographers were not far wrong, or were not wrong in any particular. C. Julius Solinus is made to bear witness of us geographically, multis insulis nec ignobilibus circumdatur. Of these isles, he says, that Ireland is the larger; and of Ireland, Illic anguis nullus. Avis rara. Gens inhospita, et bellicosa. Now very unjust it was of Julius Solinus to put in inhospita; for bellicosa, we need not say a word. Cicero lets out one of the reasons for invading Britain. Cæsar dreamed that it was a California, but not an ounce of silver could be found in all the isle-no prey whatever-nisi er mancipiis.

On account of our ancestors' sufferings, this Author argues that we should be what we have not been-friendly to inferior races :—

Christianity has not yet done its destined work of destroying the spirit of conquest; and powerful nations, call. ing themselves Christian, still carry ruin where they might spread peace and improvement among the barbarians. This has been singularly shown in the history of the last thirty years, during which the civilised world, at peace at home, has witnessed in silence the sanguinary attacks made by its respective members, upon the rights and independence of their uncivilised neighbours beyond its frontiers. The

Russians in Circassia, France in northern Africa, the United States of North America in the Indian countries, and Great Britain in every quarter of the globe, have, during this period, exceeded the worst acts of the worst times, as it were, with a common consent to outrage the claims of humanity, and with the unjustifiable object of conquering in order to civilise.

We differ entirely from this statement. Great Britain for many years past has endeavoured to defend the rights of the coloured races and inferior tibes. Since 1815 we have made their cause our Own. Undoubtedly great evils have still been perpetrated, but we are the only European nation who can exhibit to history an empire saved. The writer has hope:

Happily the existence of good feelings, ever struggling în favour of the oppressed, can be traced back so far, that they may well be designated as part of our nature, and hence it is not visionary to expect their ultimate victory. If in Rome, 150 years Lefore our era, Terence could gain universal applause to his sublime sentiment in favour of the common fellowship of the human race, it is plain that the Christian's more complete doctrine of "peace upon earth, adopted; and it will work no reforms more wanted, than and good will towards men," may one day be universally

those which concern the treatment of the tribes differing from us materially in civilisation, and for the most part composed of coloured people.

The ground of our hope that such reforms will be carried out upon the widest scale, is, that the sense of justice and equality is sufficiently strong in the human heart, to constitute the basis of universal philanthropy.

Now we are not so very sure concerning Terence. it is the nihil humanum a me alienum puto that we refer to with a perfect consciousness of its common meaning; but Terence was sly, and like Mr. Mr. Mitchell, the great Irish agitator, now in the United States, he may have had no objection to a few slaves, or even to one of any nation, perhaps a Britain, for example-anything humanum. There is internal evidence in the following extract that the historian is a little out of date:

In the South Seas, full of our missionaries, of our fleets, and of our adventurers, one island is already afflicted by events which have disturbed the civilised world, and which can be traced directly, on the one hand, to the neglect of those international laws for the protection of barbarous people, which would shelter them in their difficult transition from the savage to the civilised state; and on the other, to the absence of any humane system of British colonisation.

In these respects, Tahiti is one of many islands likely to suffer much by our disregard of right principles; and the evils from French aggression are but a small portion of the mischiefs we are permitting in these regions.

In the populous islands of the Eastern Archipelago, vio lence unceasingly occurs, and European civilization makes slow progress, solely by the want of measures which the barbariaus are ever ready to respect, when power is com bined with justice and benevolence.

British India, with all its progress, still demands the system which Mr. Fox called for half a century since; and, in China, British honour has been rescued from imminent peril only by the devotedness of one enlightened Indian officer, Sir Henry Pottinger, who, from his own courage and integrity, supplied, in a most delicate conjuncture, that anthority for the discharge of public duty, which the supineness of the Government at home had failed to provide.

Sir Henry Pottinger and China are parts of an old story. We are now in the days of Sir John Bowring and Yeh; and yet, while the publisher's name is scored out of this title-page, 1857 appears thereupon in plain figures. Moreover, we have evidence within the boards that the volume has been got up since the month of March last. The book, however, can only be sent on account of the Author's great object which, he says, in one place, is to recommend a great union of all such nations as may find it convenient to go into busi ness with us, and come under the British flag, on fair principles. Beginning with our colonies, the scheme is so desirable that we would regret to lose an opportunity of recommending it to consi deration.

LITERARY REGISTER.

Plants of the Land and Water. By MARY and ELIZABETH KIRBY. London: Jarrard and Sons. 1 vol., p.p. 346.

THE ladies who have undertaken, in short aud entertaining chapters, to convey some idea of the vegetable world to their readers, have produced an amusing book, which the publishers have rendered attractive. The Authoresses have not repeated the common crime of botanists, in making up a dry and learned detail of names, and properties, and qualities, that half the world know nothing of, and don't want to know. They have stated clearly and plainly what young botanists need to be told, and in a very pleasant style, with beautiful verses, like bouquets, here and there; and illustrative stories told in the following way :

Dulse is a sea-weed, and is eaten as food by the lower classes of Scotch and Irish. It is said to be very beneficial to the health, and, when properly cooked, to taste like roasted oysters.

A little boy was once brought up in a remote village on the coast of Scotland. His father was a fisherman, and the

family lived almost entirely upon dulse. The boy grew up, became a rich man, and went to live in London, where he had a grand house, and a large establishment of servants; but, though surrounded by every luxury, he always longed after his favourite dulse. At last, he sent to his native village, and requested to have some forwarded to him. This was accordingly done, and every day dulse was set upon his table, to the great horror of his friends, who wondered how any one could possibly relish a sea-weed. The Icelanders, too, would be sorry to be without dulse. They prepare it by washing it in spring water, and then exposing it to dry, when it becomes covered over with a fiue white powder. This powder is very good to eat, and they pack it up in casks to keep, as we do flour. It is eaten with fish and butter, or, according to the taste of the richer classes, boiled in milk, and mixed with a little flour of rye. Cattle are very fond of dulse, and seek for it with the greatest eagerness. Sometimes, at low water, an unfortunate sheep will go so far from home in search of it, and stay so long upon the shore as to be surrounded by the tide, and even to be washed away. On this account the plant has been called the sheep's dulse.

We can hardly tell as to the fisherman's rich son's practice in London; but here in Scotland nobody eats dulse as a meal, or as part of their food-unless such a thing has been done in extreme famine. Dulse are taken by all classes who like them, as cresses are used in London, and elsewhere.

Some very scientific persons have been at a loss to know the use of the ferns. The weavers of Yorkshire appear to know these things better than the learned:

it is necessary that the cloth should be entirely freed from grease, and to cleanse it soft soap is generally used. The brake fern is cheaper than soap, because it costs the weaver nothing, and he sends his wife and children to the fields and commons to collect it. He then throws it into the mill with his piece of cloth, and the alkali it contains has the same effect as soft soap.

Perhaps some chemist might act upon the hint, and ascertain how far ferns might operate as a substitute for tallow. There is much value in our weeds and wild flowers that art has never yet extracted. The engravings iu the volume appear to be executed faithfully and with taste.

Christianity and Infidelity. An Exposition of the Arguments on Both Sides. By S. S. HENNELL. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co. 1 Vol., Pp. 173.

Mr. George Baillie, of Glasgow, proposed a prize for the best comparison of the arguments for and against Christianity-to be printed on opposite pages, so that all readers might see both sides of the question. The enterprise was perilous and if it was to be done, it should have been committed not to the chances of a prize essay; but to a firstclass man-if any such man would have undertaken the work. It is easier to object than to reply, and more space therefore should be given to the one work than to the other. We take the first objection and reply :

The idea of Revelation necessarily pre-supposes a Deity, an intelligent Being, who has certain designs with regard to man. This Being also cannot be thought of separately from the Author of Nature. But all the operations of nature are more and more discovered to be in a regular series of sequences, which seem best described as fixed laws; whereas Revelation supposes an unexceptionable interference in human affairs on the part of God. And hence at the outset, springs an incongruity in the idea we can form of God, and his mode of working.

Answer. Our faculties are too limited to judge respecting the Divine Being. What seems inconsistency to our narrow comprehension, would doubtless resolve itself into perfect harmony, if we knew the whole-if we could see as God sees. What appear to us as fixed law and personal intervention of God, may in reality have no such distinction in their nature; since the seeming mechanical course of nature must yet be under the constant sway of His arbitrary will, and can be fixed only in so far as His pleasure remains fixed.

The answer to the objection should have been a denial of the assumed incongruity. It has no existence. Nothing is more natural and reason. able than that the Creator should communicate "His will to the creature."

We make another quotation-which consists of quotations taking the shape required in the plan of the essay.

The common brake is the most abundant of all our English ferns, and is found upon every moor and common throughout the kingdom. It varies in size according to the soil in which it grows; in moist shady woods it attains an enormous size, and is many feet high, but in dry sandy plain it becomes very diminutive, and is often not more than ten inches. It contains a great deal of alkaline juice, and the poor weavers of Yorkshire turn it to very good account. When they have finished weaving a piece of cloth, the next thing to be done is to take it to the mill, that it may If it is true that the sword of Mahommed was the influundergo the process of fulling. This process makes the ence which subjected Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Persia to cloth of a thicker and closer texture, for it is beaten a long the religion of Islam, it is no less true that the Roman time with wooden hammers, which causes the stuff to empire was first conquered to Christianity by the sword. shrink, and thus brings the threads nearer together. But Before Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of

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