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THE CHURCHES of the UNITED KINGDOM.

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THE SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY. BY JOHN terly Review.

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taining, The Author's Daughter, by Mary Howitt; The Balsam-Seller of Thurotzer, by Mrs Gore; The GoldenETTERS OF JOHN HUSS, written during his Pot, from the German of Hoffmann, by the Author of "German Romance;" The Days of Old, a Story of English Sporting Life, by John Mills, Esq.; Country Town Life, by Miss Mitford; Marion Wilson, by Robert Nicoll; Violet Hamilton, or the Talented Family, by Mrs Johnstone; Christmas Amusements, by Miss Mitford.

Translated by CAMPBELL MACKENZIE, B. A. Trinity College, Dublin.

THE TORCH.

THIRTY YEARS AGO.

It is now midnight. Anxiously we have watched the hand, as it slowly but surely creeps along the dial plate, and now it has finished its long, weary, and ever-repeated rounds for the year, and points to twelve. The first peal has gone forth from St Giles's steeple, is re-echoed by the Tron, and the huzza of the multitude reaches even our solitary study. Another year begins, and the buzzing multitude proclaim its birth throughout the city. A thousand hearts beat eager with anticipations of the future, and many a hope and wish is breathed for a happy new year. But instead of attempting to dive into it, our thoughts are carried away into the past.

"With easy force are opened all the cells

Where mem'ry slept,

Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments we retrace

(As in a map the voyager his course,)

The windings of our way through many years."

Thirty years ago similar shouts issued in the year 1816, but how many hearts are cold that vibrated then! How many changes, wanderings, and eventful things have happened individually and collectively since that day!

Thirty years ago the nation had ceased from a long and bloody warfare-or rather from a series of wars, extending beyond the memory of even the oldest men of the day. The arch-disturber of the world, hurled from his greatness, was pent up in a rocky prison," placed far amid the melancholy main," an object of pity and compassion now, instead of fear and hatred as before. For the first time for many years, Britons found that they could look forth beyond the narrow limits of the island in safety. It is true, that at all times they fearlessly scoured the seas, but it was at the cannon's mouth and with the cutlass in hand, and if they penetrated into Europe at all, it could only be at the head of an army,-now the whole breadth of the Continent was opened up to their eager gaze, and so almost was the whole world. But peace did not bring the wished-for repose-the pugnacious spirit of ages was not to be thus suddenly lulled besides, the peace found us with empty pockets, with exhausted coffers, and with a trade now narrowed and restricted by the competition of other nations, which for years we had almost exclusively as our own. The people now began to count their losses, and satiated with glory, but also loaded with taxation, they turned round upon

NO. I.

their rulers, and began to ask for what they had huzzaed at elections, and fought and bled both from their veins and pockets. Long accumulated grievances, both real and imaginary, were raked up, and hence began a war of opinion and words, which was carried on as zealously and nearly as long and hotly as the war of swords had formerly been, till it ended at last in the supremacy of public opinion.

Thirty years ago, the isolated Britons, long secluded within their own little world, had learned to look upon all the rest of the globe as little better than barbarians. They hated the Frenchdespised the Germans-looked with disgust on the oil-sipping Russians, and ridiculed their own offspring, the Americans, with an unsparing irony. Out of Britain there existed neither science, art, taste, or even common sense, in the self-sufficiency of John Bull. Thousands of Cockneys, and rich blustering squires, swarmed to the Continent to laugh at and traduce every thing they saw, heard, or tasted, and then they came home and tacitly adopted and imitated what abroad they despised.

Thirty years ago, however eminent a few artists were, there was no general taste in Britain for any one department of the fine arts,-architecture, painting, music, whatever progress they had made in previous centuries, were then at the lowest ebb. The poor Italian boys with their stucco images breathing of classic taste, had great difficulty in banishing our gaudy painted parrots, or hideous royal and warrior heads, which then deluged the country; while the first popular notions of harmony in music were obtained from the handorgans of the same ingenious wanderers. But in place of these amusements horse-racing, boxing, and cock-fighting were universally substituted.

Thirty years ago, though crimes of a deep dye and an outrageous character were perhaps more common than at present, yet the sanguinary and relentless nature of criminal law made capital punishments, even for minor offences, to be of almost daily occurrence. There were few weeks at certain seasons of the year, that half a dozen of human beings were not executed at the Old Bailey, cut off from this life, and from all hope of earthly reformation.

Thirty years ago the population of Great Bri

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