XXVI. "But men of godlike form did aye proceed As with the ruddy juice he brims their cups of gold. XXVII. "Yet Tros, when up the whirlwind snatched his child, And wept till Jove, to pitying mood beguiled, A team o' the gods' high-stepping steeds-beside, Those words, and light-foot steeds had cured his broken heart. XXVIII. "Then, when Aurora, Queen of the Golden Rays, Thy kinsman Titan ravish'd, the heavenly sire She so besought to give him endless days, That Jove assenting, granted her desire; But, silly heart! she thought not to require The gift of youth, from age for ever free. Beloved of Dawn's bright daughter sojourn'd he With her at Earth's extreme, where Ocean's waters be. XXIX. "But when his brow and beard display'd their first Grey hairs, no more Aurora to her bed Invited him, but in her palace nursed And clothed him, and with cates ambrosial fed; And when before all-hateful age had fled The power to move his limbs, she thought it best In chamber lone to lay his drooping head; Incessant there he drivels, dispossest Of all the strength wherewith his lithe limbs once were blest. XXX. "Ne'er could I choose that, thus afflicted, thou Should'st bear the ban of immortality; But if in mien and stature, just as now, Thou mightst endure my tender spouse to be, Then would my soul indeed from care be free. Lay the sore curse of pitiless age on thee, With pain and wasting wo, which ev'n immortals hate. XXXI. "But sad disgrace among the pow'rs divine For sake of thee, henceforth must I endure ;— They dreaded once those wheedling schemes of mine, XXXII. "Yet him, when first he sees the light of day, All rich and blooming springs spontaneous out of earth. XXXIII. "Hallowed by men, as sacred groves they stand Sublime; no woodman dare his axe apply; But when the fate of death is near at hand, First fix'd in earth the noble trunk grows dry, Next shrinks the bark-the branches fall and die, And then some soul departs. These nymphs shall rear My child; and when his youthful bloom is high, Thou shalt behold him; and i' the fifth full year To give thee up thy son will I myself appear. XXXIV. "Thy heart, I ween, shall overflow with joy When thou shalt see his bloom, so rich and rare (For gods shall yield in beauty to thy boy), And thou thy charge incontinent shalt bear To lofty Troy-and mark! if any there Ask thee what mother bare yon pledge of love, As I command thee, thus shalt thou declare'Twas one of those fair nymphs that dwell above Upon this mountain's height, embowr'd in leafy grove. XXXV. "But if insensate boast of thine make known TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. FAIR wert thou when thy mother's eye And fondly looking tried to see Found in the mother's hope relief. Fair wert thou as a little child, And fair thy childhood ever grew, And fair is thy sweet opening youth, Still fairer, Princess wise and good, Fear not what evil men may do, Gloom enters e'en a royal bower, And Ease not often dwells with Power; The circle of the coronet; But Earth has joys, and Heaven has smiles For the sweet Lady of the Isles. Our England's second hope! our theme! Our pleasant thought! our rose of state, Our Charlotte, with a happier doom! Fair darling of the Nation! we With glowing hopes our bosoms burn, THE MINISTRY AND THE PEOPLE, THE WORKHOUSE SYSTEM, THE FACTORY SYSTEM, AND THE TEN HOURS' BILL. So far back as January, 1836, in an article on the Zoll Verein, or PrussoGermanic customs league,* we took occasion to call the serious attention of the Ministry, the legislature, and the country, to the commercial storm which, amidst the lurid glare of a deceitful sunshine, was darkly gathering on the horizon. On six several occasions, subsequently, our warnings were repeated, and the signs and tokens abroad pointed out. The secondsighted seer of the north stood alone in his denunciations of the wrath to come; the false prophets, daily, monthly, and quarterly, were paid and arrayed against him. Their salaams were still as ever to their patrons-oh! Whigs and Radicals Utilitarian live for ever; the sun of your glory is but in its earliest dawn-the land fructifies a hundredfold under its cheering beams the nations of the earth are bewildered with the effulgence of its splendour. In the Commons' House, and out of the Peers' House ministerial minstrels tuned their harps to the same grateful theme. Parker touched the chord of Whig-Radical prosperity in strains so glowing, from notes furnished by Treasury and Trade-board * The repositories, and withal so gratefully The iniquity of the principles, the malignity of purpose, and the falsehood of pretext on which this league was founded, had been ably exposed before, more especially by our respected contemporaries of the Foreign Quarterly and the Times; but the facts, figures, and comparisons were wanting by which the subject could be simplified and rendered intelligible; for the logic of words alone must ever be unsatisfactory when not illusive in the absence of practical data, where such are attainable and ought to be applied. We furnished those facts and figures, to this hour uncontradicted; translated as they have been in France and Germany, and largely circulated. The Prussian Government can deal with works astutely enough, and against them can be free of its arithmetic; it would have replied to our exposure of pretence and practice had the task been possible, but on reference to commercial authorities the undertaking was abandoned. It has lately attempted to do it by a side wind through Dr M'Culloch, whose utter ignorance and unfairness, not deliberate we hope, we shall perhaps have occasion to expose. It may be well to notice, that the Right Hon. Mr Herries, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, was, it is reported, so impressed with the force of the practical evidence adduced, that he intended to have moved for a Committee of Enquiry on the subject, but on announcing his views with the courtesy usual in other times to Mr P. Thompson, that gentleman, we have heard, begged his forbearance, on the ground that negotiations were then on foot with the Cabinet of Berlin, the successful issue of which might by such a motion be prejudiced. With a patriotic statesman such an appeal was of course irresistible-the motion was not made. Eighteen months have since elapsed, but of the negotiations, if any there really were, which may be doubted, not one word has transpired or one effect been visible. As a man of business statesman, there is not a more able and far-seeing man than Mr Herries, and it may be hoped that he will not lose sight of the subject during the present Session. ing forth every vigorous energy of the mind in the career of power and substantial greatness.-(Immense cheering of his auditors). This cannot be denied But is it true that human agency has had no part in these transactions and in these blessings, and which, eminent as they are, we no doubt must ascribe to that great Providence which dictates the fate of nations? But then we know that there are secondary agents, and instruments to carry into effect those designs, and to these is to be ascribed the existing state of things." This was the language of that saintly and softly reposing personage, upon which in our February number the challenge so openly given was fairly accepted. Our words were, "the secondary agents then have inflated the great balloon of national prosperity-be it so. The second ary agents who boast of national pro sperity as their exclusive creation -false and hollow as that prosperity appears are bound, now and hereafter, to accept all the responsibility of national reverses and national degradation." To the same purport, but in commonplace not worth the repetition, were previous preachings of Lord John Russell at Stroud and Bristol; of that same Lord John who, in the very last month of May, when questioned about the disastrous aspect of public prosperity, pertly rejoined, that "the Government had nothing to do with it"-or words to that effect, for we quote from memory, as the precise sayings or doings of such a person are scarcely worth the trouble of more special reference. The Whigs and Radicals Utilitarian are fixed therefore out of their own mouths with the balance of the prosperity and adversity accounts, whatever that may be, which we shall perhaps have occasion to advert to. In Maga of April we opened to their astonished eyes, for the first time, for the only time the revolting truth has been exhibited, the full measure of their unpopularity then, and since on the increase to almost universal execration. The triumphant re-election of Sir Francis Burdett since and so lately by the most popularly constituted electoral body of the empire is even but a faint glossary of the text-is but a shadowy illustration of more signal disgraces to come. We warned them that the next great meeting of 100,000 men would not be the gathering of a political union in Warwickshire, but a more northern and fearful muster to anathemize the horrors of the antiPoor Law bill. Twice 100,000 have already on Harthead Moor verified our prediction. We opened to their gaze the abyss threatening to engulf them from the abuses of the factory system, the exterminatory operations of the workhouse system, and from the ballot proposed, by which the people were to be cheated of the only privi lege left them by the Reform bill. To judge of the consternation of their patrons by the outcries and recriminations of the Ministerial press, of the Morning Chronicle, more especially, their leading champion, the discovery must have been equally surprising, although not quite so grateful as that of terra firma to the rebellious crew of Columbus. Conservative testimonies in behalf of the workhouse system were ostentatiously invoked; the authority of the great Duke, and the more guarded acquiescence of Sir Robert Peel, were triumphantly appealed to against us, though on all other subjects vociferously repudiated by the same appellants. We knew it all, and with the reverence due to such names we had duly weighed all in the balance and found it wanting. The Lords and the Commons were led by their natu ral leaders, and to them surrendered their judgment. But we were without the pale of that influence; of the people ourselves, we judged for the people, as we have ever done, with inde. pendence, perfect, unshackled, and disinterested. However our affections may incline, no man who has read us aright can accuse us of fawning with our ready homage upon the Conservative body in the legislature; few will deny how little tender we have been of the errors or wanderings of those to whom with fidelity unshaken we have adhered in times of evil and illmerited report, and around whom we have rallied and concentrated the elements of public opinion, which had been led astray and chained to the car of mercenary ministers and unscrupulous factions. But we have and can have no community of feeling with the " red herring" philosophy of the workhouse system. Sir Robert, whose assent to the new Poor Law bill was in the first instance qualified, has already seen cause to think that it has |