than we, would allow that, for the preservation of peace, for the furtherance of kindly feelings and good will in society, great courtesy and suavity are needed. Life, without the amenities of life, would be a wretched and barbarous sojourn: But this courtesy, and these amenities are for the most part, or ought to be, the sacrifice of present individual desires to the wishes and comforts of those around us. To sacrifice the general weal to private purposes, is to reverse, not to further the true amenities of life; to frustrate the very end for which they were introduced. Such has been the only result of the mock and bastard courtesy of our past Houses of Commons. Without adverting to the reason which established and defines true courtesy, the members of those immaculate assemblies took the rules of private life into public dealing; and, because, in his own house, and to satisfy any merely personal pleasure, a man would not thrust forward an unpleasant truth, it was believed that he ought to pursue the same course in public affairs. At least this is the only justification for the proceeding, which is hazarded, when by reason it is attempted to be justified. Nothing, however, can be more at war with common sense. It is the first great duty of a re. presentative of the people to be thoroughly outspoken-to shrink not from the exposition of any matter, however painful such exposition may be to the parties concerned, if the public interests require it. Such statements should at all times be made with a grave and courteous bearing: no flippancy, no intentional hostility or insult should attend them; but they should be complete, unsparing, and correct. In the past House instances were manifold wherein an offender has been charged with crimes of the blackest die, and at the same moment disclaimers of any intention to attack his character have been profusely volunteered. Such disclaimers militate against the truth of the statement. The right impression is not created-the history necessarily is not correctly conceived. This is merely an illustration of one species of the general mendacity of which we complain; and more cannot now be adduced, our limits precluding any particular exposure. It is to be hoped that such convenances (to use an apt French phrase) will not be introduced or continued in the reformed House. We sincerely pray, that the representatives of the people will deem it their duty, in all calmness of spirit, with all true and dignified courtesy, to utter every truth which they believe it fitting the people should hear; no matter how painful it may be to the guilty hearers thereof-no matter what may be the reluctance which they themselves may feel to be the instrument by which pain is created. This is one of the many painful and difficult obligations which their situation imposes upon them; one wihch, in its importance, can hardly be surpassed; and which properly to fulfil will require great courage, great judgment, and much good feeling. It is not unsparing, reckless insolence of demeanour that we are advocating, but a calm, unflinching, judicious utterance of necessary though painful truth. Let no one, therefore, mistake or misinterpret our suggestion.

The future, then, with all the difficulties which beset it, still holds out much for rational hope, dashed, indeed, by anxiety,-but not clouded by fear. The great spirit of human improvement is up and stirring, and we have no dread that its mighty mission will not be accomplished. But this mission entails much labour, and watchfulness, and patience, on all who attempt to participate in its accomplishment. The great cause must eventually triumph; but success may be retarded or hastened by the errors or the wisdom of those who lead the public mind. If by them 2 Y

NO. XI.-VOL. II.

the right ends be steadily kept in view; if the right means be carefully pursued, our success is not only certain but will be rapid. A few short years, and we shall see golden fruits rewarding all our labours; we shall see an intelligent and happy people governed by a wise and beneficent, because a thoroughly popular government. But there must be no pandering to public ignorance; no preaching up of wild and quack remedies for evils which the people in their individual capacity alone can cure. We must have no breach of public morality, no spunging out of our existing encumbrances. Like an honest man in difficulties, we must put down every superfluous expense; the most rigid frugality must be made to pervade every part of our establishments. Let education be spread among every class of the population; let the energies and talent of mankind be exclusively turned to the amelioration of our lot; and we shall have no more wars to sully the pages of our history; no more debts to bear down the spirits of our people; no squalid and dreadful poverty to be a curse and disgrace upon our nature. The soad to this glorious country is intricate and dangerous. Stout hearts, intelligent heads, and honest purposes, will, nevertheless, conduct the travellers through their long journey in safety.

J. A. R.

TAIT'S COMMONPLACE-BOOK.

SIR JOHN DALRYMPLE AND THE BALLOT.-The Hon. James Abercromby told us that if the ballot was shewn to be necessary to ensure the free exercise of the franchise, he should give it his support; he was understool to peril his case upon the late election proceedings. But Sir John Dalrymple is not so easily satisfied. At the Leith dinner, he is reported to have said:" He had a majority of the new constituency, and would have had a greater but for the undue influence that was used against him. He declared, that if such influence was continued he would be inclined to favour the vote by ballot." Sir John's cool picktooth indifference can only be equalled by Liston in Billy Lack-a-day. When every bell in the inn is jingling, and the guests screaming "waiter!" as if for a wager, "Do you intend to answer ?" asks his mistress. "Yes; if they perseweres!"

MR. PEASE. The election of a gentleman named Pease (a Quaker) to serve in the reform Parliament has elicited much forensic lore, touching the knotty points of oaths and affirmations. It seems quite clear, according to the lawyers, that it will be difficult to contort or pervert, with any effect, the divers proscriptive follies (called acts) of former Parliaments, so as to secure to this spirit-moved member a peaseabte possession of the seat to which a friendly constituency has elected him. Much learned rubbish will be shot on the occasion, no doubt; but it is to be hoped that the event will have the effect of once, and for all, agitating and settling "affirmatively" the question, whether a fit and honest man, whatever be the tenets of his faith, be qualified to act as a citizen in all the relations of social life. Exclusion on the ground of religious opinions from the rights of citizenship might have been all vastly fine during the halcyon days of priestism; but that craft, as a craft, is luckily, (for "nothing happens without the permission of Heaven,") at shocking discount nowadays. Our "friend" is, we verily believe, a staunch Reformer; and Ministers, no question, are too wary to forget their Pease and Qs. They will do well to amend or rescind all such stupid prohibitory laws as now disgrace the Statute Book, in more particulars than one.

DYING LIKE A BRITON.-"I know that I have done the deed," exclaimed a ruthless ruffian, the other day, who had slain his wife, and I am satisfied to die for it like a Briton!" The almost daily occurrence of some foul murder is a fearful and disgracing blot, indeed, upon the national morals; and it is not improbable that the frequency of its commission may have removed from the minds of the peo

ple much of its atrocity. We are all familiar with the story of the negro slaves, who ludicrously, and in the wretchedness of their ignorance, hanged themselves as the only effectual method of escaping back to their lost homes. It would almost seem that many among the lower orders of the English, much in the same spirit, imagine that they have only to perpetrate some appalling murder to achieve salvation and eternal happiness hereafter. We seriously put the question, Whether the scenic effect of judicial condemnations, and the bastard humanity ostentatiously displayed in the records penned by some silly self-conceited reporters," have not contributed much to remove the indignation and horror with which the people should be educated to view such a detestable crime-a crime above all "The unhappy prisoner" is soothers damnable by the laws of God and man? lemnly exhorted, after sentence is pronounced, to return to his cell, and "make his peace with Heaven, through the mediation of Christ ;" and the judge often pathetically weeps as he dooms the culprit to deserved death. The "misguided man” leaves the dock in dogged sullenness, and his impenitence is only gradually removed through the importunate and benevolent admonitions of "the worthy and reverend ordinary, who is unremitting in his holy exertions to administer the usual consolations of religion." The murderer being thus first moved, all of a sudden starts into a true Christian, sobs in all the repentance of faith, utters pious ejaculations, acknowledges the justice of his sentence, asserts his perfect reconciliation with an ofAn "affecting and heart. fended God, and prepares " to die in peace with all men." rending interview" takes place between himself and the wife and children, whom he has brutally maltreated every day for months or years before: they "kiss and make it up;" he shakes hands with the governor and the sheriffs, to whom he expresses all sorts of gratitude for past attentions; they blow their noses distressedly at "his untimely end;" he "ascends the scaffold with a firm step," and after the fraction of a prayer breathed by the 'kerchief-dropping clergyman, in which "the unfortunate man," in holy fervour, takes part, he is duly "launched into eternity," and the "sad ceremony" is completed! And this solemn melo-drama is represented to be played on almost every occasion of legally consigning to death those monsters who, by the enormity of their wickedness, have forfeited all claim to life.

Far, very far, are we from ridiculing the feelings of any officers under the painful excitement which their duties too often cause, or from treating with ribaldry any proper ceremony or external solemnity attendant upon so awful a scene,-where man, by the imposition of a violent death, resigns as it were, into the very hands of the Almighty, a fellow, clothed in his sinfulness, for the infliction of that punishment which we are taught to believe awaits those who are too evil to live here on this earth. But we cannot restrain our disgust at the unseemly exhibition of a morbid sympathy thus paradingly acknowledged, and the attempt to create pity for the perpetrator of deeds which ought rather to excite feelings of virtuous abhorrence; nor can we disguise our belief, that this truckling to the depraved appetite of the public, by furnishing up a sorrowful statement wantonly interlarded with commiserating expletives, (supplied at a price,) acts as a positive premium to the ignorant or the criminally disposed for the commission of the deadliest sins, as the readiest way of gratifying their worst passions in this world, and of securing unqualified pardon and everlasting happiness in another.

MODEST ASSURANCE.-At a late meeting of the Town Council of Edinburgh, the Lord Provost stated, “that he believed they were all quite aware that a bill would be brought into Parliament in the ensuing session for effecting a reform of the Scotch burgh system. It was, therefore, of importance that they should turn their serious attention to the subject, and after making up their own minds as to the changes which should be introduced, take steps for communicating with the members for the city; who, he felt perfectly assured, were quite disposed to pay the utmost deference to the suggestions which might be made by the Town Council; the members of which, from their practical acquaintance with the subject, were so much more comWhat is the petent than most others to form a correct judgment on the matter." Town Council? Our Police has been confided to the management of others. The An independent Small Debt Court City Improvements have been confided to others. has been found necessary. In short, the only business now left to the Council is the contracting and the mis-management of the city debt. What "practical acquaintance with the subject" of local government have they? The same that felons have with the distribution of justice. We shall next hear of the tenants of Bridewell "

commu

* Have not certain functionaries within the walls of Newgate a hand in the concoction of these precious accounts ?

2Y 2

nicating with the Members for the City, who, they feel perfectly assured, are quite disposed to pay the utmost deference to their suggestions" respecting reform in our penal statutes.

THE SEMI-SCION OF ROYALTY AGAIN.-How felicitously all things seem to work for the cause of the people. The Aristocracy inveigh bitterly against the Minister for having forced a measure which especially tends to lower their blood-descended rights in general estimation, and to bring into contempt a race only not quite divine; yet are the members of that same sacred "order" ever doing some kind act to abet the people in breaking up the line of demarcation between the two castes. The papers of the day have been teeming with the domestic jars of certain illustrious personages; the jealousies and heart-burnings, and murmurings, and ambitions of certain other semi-illustrious personages and parties-now sulking, now demanding, now refusing, and now coquetting-in their struggles to secure the fattest plumb in -John Bull's pudding; with the patriotic view (there can be no other) of exhibiting, in its worst aspect, the inappeasable, insatiable, cravings of mercenary spirits, in order that the measure of John's disgust may be brimming quite.

Such exhibitions must be nuts for brother Jonathan.

GENERAL BANKRUPTCY OF LITERATURE.-It has long been rumoured that the Republic of Letters was encumbered with a little private national debt, in the shape of some hundreds of thousands of unsaleable books, that must ultimately lead to the gazette. The fatal moment is fully come!--A general frost has nipped the buds of promise; and nothing is heard on all sides but the cry of "Remember the poor frozen-out gardeners!" Deceived into the imaginary tenure of the cap of Fortunatus, by the temporary rise of the markets,-which (like the tulip-speculations of Holland) invested the productions of a popular writer with an ideal value, our writers of the day have ventured beyond their depth, and are now overwhelmed by the waters of strife. At a time when a sum of fifteen hundred guineas was given by the Lorenzo de Medicis of Burlington Street, for more than one novel of moderate merit, it is not surprising that writers so powerful as the author of "The O'Hara Tales" should have outreckoned their expected gains. And when we inform our readers, that in a state of declining health, Mr. Banim is now imprisoned for debt, in a foreign country, we have no fear that an appeal to the friends of literature, in his behalf, will be made in vain. From the booksellers, meanwhile, little encouragement is to be expected. Very few books of fiction, now published, yield the return of their expenses; and " Eugene Aram," the most favourite novel of last season, has not yet reached a second edition!" The Row" closes its purse-strings and its heart, against all but elementary or theological works;-Murray undertakes nothing beyond his re-prints;-and Bentley, although he puts forward a novel per week, is only making a paper tail to keep his kite afloat, of the reams of MS. bequeathed him by his predecessor. Of the new annuals attempted this season, not one, we understand, will be continued; and in consequence of the general failure of these meritorious volumes, the one announced from the pen of Mr. Bulwer is postponed till the spring, when it will appear as an illustrated work, of the fashion of Rogers's "Italy." The booksellers blindly attribute this general stagnation of their trade to the Fenny Magazines; which were, in fact, created by its influence; a number of "hands," (ay, and "fine Roman hands" too) being "thrown out of work,”— that could not dig, and to beg were ashamed. For the last two years the writers of Great Britain have been more numerous than its readers; and the quantity of japan ink consumed in the metropolis, has exceeded even its japan blacking! The scribblomania is now at an end. The fashionable novelist has written himself down, (an ass;) and the lachrymose sentimentalists, of the banner of red, lately, have returned to their original vocations, of "figuring prettily on catgut, and telling fortunes on the cards!" Things are consequently likely to come straight again:-but a writer such as Banim must not be the victim of the fluctuation of the balance. Let him only advertise a novel by subscription, and trust to the public for the result. The author of "The Nowlans" has sacred claims on the attention of the literary world.

MONTHLY REGISTER.

POLITICAL HISTORY.