As

genous in the red-tape school. The press-the Conservative press, that is had great claims upon them. They were raised to power mainly by its efforts, acting upon public opinion. a general principle, the ministry ought to have been grateful to the press. In individual cases its claims were still stronger. But the press was hated by the head, and it was to be discouraged by the whole body of the administration. I could detail to you, Basil, some remarkable proofs of this, in the treatment which the poor old Courier received at their hands, in its last moments,the Courier, which was kept alive at great cost for their behoo, but cruelly abandoned, and all who belonged to it, as soon as ever they found themselves secure in their places. But I must refrain, lest I betray. Gentlemen there were, who, by long, able, and faithful services, and by many pecuniary sacrifices, had earned a title to grateful remembrance on the part of such an administration, whose claims were scouted, and whose pretensions were laughed at. Nay, to have been connected with the press seemed to disqualify rather than to recommend to the public service, in any capacity. Some three or four members of the cabinet were at one time most anxious to show their sense of the great obligation which the party in power owed to the pressobligations which they had reason to feel most deeply, but the premier's fiat had been issued, and after some slight resistance they yielded to the decree. One instance amongst several which came to my knowledge at the time, I will briefly relate. The friends of a gentleman who had by, his editorial labours done very great service to the party, were very anxious to obtain for him some public appointment. It was an extraordinary case; there were circumstances in it which, with most men, would have been irresistible. A memorial to the premier was signed in his behalf by about a score of very influential men-both peers and commoners-setting forth his high qualifications, as well from character as from ability, for official duty, which they vouched for from their own personal knowledge. A deputation of three of their body had an interview with the minister, to support and enforce the memorial. No stronger interest could well have been employed. But it was all of no avail; and if I am not much misinformed, the deputation, one and all, were impressed with the idea, that their failure was to be attributed to their friend's connection with the press. I know two exceptions to this rule, however; though they only prove it the more strongly. A consulship was given by the Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, to a gentleman of the press,'-certainly a able and excellent man in all respects,-but he was a Whig, and had laboured hard in his vocation to resist the accession of

a Conservative government. The other favoured individual

was a Conservative. He had been sent for to assist with

his pen in the return to parliament of a cabinet minister at the general election. He is a man of talent and integrity-the author of a volume of lyrics which will long be remembered. The Treasury marked its sense of his services, and his abilities, by giving him a situation in Somerset House of about £100 a year!

They manage these things better in France, Basil. Whilst here a connection with the press is treated rather as a stigma, there it is looked upon as a mark of distinction. It is the surest road, in fact, to public honours and emoluments, to fame and fortune. It is considered to furnish an irresistible claim even to the peerage. Several peers of France, as you are aware, have been selected from that class within the last two or three years; and they are always considered most eligible for official employment. In France, a connection with the press, too, is ever regarded as furnishing a passport to the best society. And surely there is wisdom in this, as well as gratitude. Surely it is politic and proper in all respects, that they who are to wield so powerful an engine, for good or evil, as the press, should be elevated, rather than depressed, in the social scale. Newspapers, it is said, are the best of all possible public instructors.' It may be So. At any rate they exert more influence over the public mind than all the other public instructors put together. They are the daily reading of the million. In the palace, as in the cottage, they are eagerly looked for, examined, and pondered over. They have attractions for every one, whatever may be his rank, his opinions, or his objects; for their intelligence is of universal interest, and their discussions embrace every question of public

concern.

Whate'er men say, or do, or think, or dream,
The motley paper seizes for its theme.'

Thousands and tens of thousands read nothing else. The ideas of the masses are formed, in a great measure, by the periodical press. It is from that source they derive their knowledge of mankind, their notions of public policy, their moral maxims, and often their religious views. I am far from rejoicing that it But the fact is only too indisputable.

is so.

How all important, then, it becomes that they who have such a tremendous power in their hands, should be placed in a social position the most advantageous to its wholesome exercise! You and I, Basil, know enough of them to be assured, that the conductors of the public press have the highest claims to such a position for their own sakes; but if even they had not-if their parts were only showy, and their merits merely meretricious, still, for the sake of the public, in its highest interests, it would

be wise and judicious to secure every social advantage for such a body of men-the leaders of public opinion, the guardians of public morals, and the arbiters of the public taste; as well as the keepers and directors of that which to us, as a nation of freemen, is 'like the air we breathe, if we have it not we die.' Let us adapt, then, Basil, a line of the poet, and exclaim to our countrymen, with heart and voice,

"Ye gen'rous Britons, venerate-the press !

MY FATHERLAND.

My Fatherland!—that magic word hath power
To conjure up, before my willing sight,
The lone hill-side where northern tempests lower-
The blue Loch glimm'ring in uncertain light-
The Ptarmigan, upon the mountain's height,
Seeking for shelter 'mid the cold

grey stone,-
The Red-deer, wondering at the early night,

In the deep glen through which the wild winds moan,-
The while the shepherd o'er his manly brow

Draws closer down the bonnet; and his pace

Quickens, whenas he spies the ruddy low

That, gleaming from his Bothie, marks the place

Of those domestic charities, whose glow

No clime can proudlier boast, my Fatherland, than thou!

London, Festival of St. Andrew, 1846.

D.

THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE.-PART II.

[Continued from page 56.]

WERE a young man about to adventure himself into the turmoil and conflict of this present age, to desire, as a knight erraut of old, some device to engrave upon his heart and upon his shield, where should he find a nobler one than these very words, The love of the people?' Far nobler were it than any other, for nearer than any device of chivalry, it is linked to that which is higher than itself-which is above all-it is a motto which is the key to all true greatness of man in the brotherhood of society. Of such greatness, I mean, as that whereof the condition and the law are taught in the words of the Infallible Wisdom, Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister: and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.' No true greatness without service, no great and true service without love; though even where the love is wanting the saying will justify itself, and unloving greatness, perhaps unconsciously, must be purchased at the same price.

Without the love of the people, what means the love of a constitution of a nobility-of a king? They dwindle into very dwarfish proportions, and are at best the worship of a form, a class-preference, or a personal attachment. The citizen shines not overmuch in these.

But let none engrave such a device upon his shield till he has in truth written it upon his heart; a task, as I have elsewhere endeavoured to show in part, by no means so easy as may appear at first—a task not to be done offhand, or in a careless manner. Ουδεν τῶν μεγάλων ἀφνώς γίνεται.

This love is a thing of growth-growth like any other, to be now fostered and now checked, requiring careful and intelligent culture. The first germ of it may be strange enough in appearance, a seed seemingly giving no great promise-showing in the child a very different aspect from what it shall be in the man; just as many other points and traits of a character. I mention the child, because, though the remark may provoke a smile, the early taste of the child for what its polished nurse might call 'vulgar company' is perhaps the indication of something beneath the surface. The child is the interpreter of the people," says Michelet. What do I say? It is the people themselves, in their native truth, before they are deformed; the people, without vulgarity, rudeness, envy, inspiring neither distrust nor repug

*The People, p, 92.

nance.' A just observation, by the which also may be learned how and why the child is a link between the people and those above them, whether the child himself be of the one or of the other. Though, perhaps the more striking thing is to see the friendship that springs so naturally between them, and binds so firmly the child of the rich, while still a child, to the full-grown man of the people.

This is a thing forgotten after a time, it may be, by both; but this early friendship leaves a something behind in the heart, which in the case of the child bears fruit in its season. A sympathy, perhaps, which all unconsciously may give its tone to the mind as it is forming, colouring its views of history and of philosophy as they are gradually formed, moulding the future character of the man, and marking his future place in the state.

Sown in those wonderful hours of childhood, so heedless and yet so thoughtful, this seed, like any other, must die before it quickens. At school it will be forgotten; at college, perhaps, trampled upon, at least under the old system, where all that wears not the gown is fit only to receive an opprobrious nickname, and where an insult or a blow may be atoned for by tossing a coin to the sufferer. It will require something passionate to arouse the dormant feeling and to stir the heart. And for this reason, if for no other, that in most minds what we call the people' holds the rank of a thing rather than of a person; for 'the people' is of many, and when men are in the case, multitude seems to have a strange effect in deadening the feeling concerning them, as may be gathered from the unconcerned way in which we speak of many soldiers, as of so many bayonets,-of many working men as of so many hands;' tacitly confessing our inability to deal with their humanity when their number passes a certain cipher. It will require, then, some individual case to invest the people with personality, and then the passions waken, and swell up round about the heart like the rising of a flood-tide. Such moments are perhaps needful, but they are dangerous. In them is a man tried, and as we meditate redress,' a fiend may whisper 'revenge.' Unhappily, as England now is, there may be many such moments for him, who has set his heart eagerly and earnestly upon seeking to know the people,' and to learn the love of them. Watchfulness and self-control are needed in such a case it is the one great danger of an ardent and generous mind. And a grievous calamity it would be, to seek to become a lover of the people, and to become simply a democrat. But perhaps they are to be pitied, not execrated, who do so, until there be some great change among us, until we see no longer one horrible tragedy rise after the other amongst the poor and defenceless, to scare men's better reason with their ghastly and hideous forms. But this by the way.

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