deepen into a more earthly aspect. What a soft cloud of vernal odours is diffused around us! The birch, with its bright golden tassels, breathes to me of the mountains, in which I have seen it growing and hanging its weeping tresses over dells, in inexpressible grace. Those taccamahacs at the extremity of the garden send hither their aromatic spirit; and the fragrance of the sweetbriar diffuses itself around every other shrub and tree, as if, in the prodigal passion of Spring, it would give all that it has.

"It is May-Rain that has elicited all this sweetness; that has poured over us this breath of heaven; that has set free the imprisoned spirit of every tree, and shrub, and flower. Can you any longer wonder why I love to sit here? Do you not perceive that the air has just that delicate softness, that balmy temperature that fills you with a sensation of pure and perfect enjoyment, that makes it a joy to breathe it? Do you not hear how the blackbird, and the thrush, and the lark, from the trees about us, the copse below, in air above us, sing through the whole shower; ay, and if it lasted through the whole day they would still sing, and in notes accordant with the quiet gladness of the time. Yes! the songs of these three glorious English birds are never so tenderly sweet and eloquent as during the dropping of May-Rain. They sing then, not in those wild and rapturous strains that more fervid hours excite, nor in the hurried clamour which the vivacity of early summer morning produces, but in languid and flowing melody, which, if you lay with closed eyes, your imagination might soon persuade you came from the woods of some enchanted land.

"I love May-Rain. I love the season altogether, as a spirit-stirring, spirit-soothing, youth-restoring time; and I love it for one thing which many must have felt, but which I know not that any one has yet described,-the clear and awakened sense of the power which is at work in, and animates all things.

"We walk about in this wondrous world with an unreflecting familiarity. Its great phenomena revolve around us, pass before us, rise to our view, and depart from it; and we witness them with an apathy as wonderful as are those mighty changes themselves. But in Spring, when every

thing is bursting forth with life and beauty when the ground beneath our feet suddenly loses the black and naked bleakness of winter, and glows with grass and flowers of a thousand glorious shapes; when every tree and bush quickens into leaves and blossoms, and the voices of birds, that had forsaken us for a time, again sound in our ears,—a thousand wings are fluttering about us,- -a thousand insects come from their oblivious hiding-places, and flit once more amid sunshine and bloom, the dullest mind becomes struck with the immediate presence of the mighty Spirit that is working around him, and feels awetouched before that illimitable Power which thrills through ten thousand worlds, and throbs in the heart of all created things. We are apt to stop at the sight of a beautiful flower and exclaim, The finger of God shaped that very plant!'-and the Divinity becomes awfully near us in imagination, and almost palpable to our senses;-in this tree resides a portion of the energy that lifted the vastitude of creation; nay, as I have sate here, I have been led by the chain of association, commencing with such a feeling, to trace this wide and exhaustless spirit of nature, or, in other words, the spirit of God, pouring itself with a flood of sunshine upon the earth; stirring through all vegetable natures on the surface of the whole world; through its mighty forests— through its mountains and sublime wildernesses: filling with life and delight the various shapes of animal being; the winged creatures of the air— giving them eager propensities, eager pursuits; and working in little subterranean cells, in millions of minute existences, with active passions, marvellous instincts, and an ingenuity that casts into the shade the very productions of human science, in as much as its efforts are instinctive, and dependent neither on study nor experience.

"No! there is no season that, like Spring, startles us with a living sense of the stupendous power that surrounds, tha tlives in every thing, and bears us along the ocean of infinitude, so smoothly that we cease to think of the hand that leads us. In Spring it becomes suddenly visible to our eyes, and we trace it from object to object, till we are lost in our pursuit of it, amid the stars, and the invisible host of living spirits in the depths of eternity."

THIS, from an "honest" man, a peer, a lawgiver, a leader of the House of Commons, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Cabinet Minister, is about one of the sublimest expositions of legislative wisdom that the wit of man could propound. I cannot permit, says this frank, high-minded, and honourable noble, that a

vous, shall be suddenly torn from the statute book. With my characteristic candour I avow the law is abominable; but any present meddling with it would be fraught with danger. It is, I concur, a disgraceful piece of business, and the act ought to be universally resisted; but foul as the blot is, I cannot allow it to be so wiped away. No: whilst by a very little stretch of ingenuity, it can be so easily EVADED, let it remain; and as to people who have any difficulty in practising evasion, why let them come to me, and I, even I, will gratuitously help them to a device.

So, most oppressed and stupid-minded Britons, here have ye been grumbling and sighing your souls away for years past, under the weight of fancied woes, praying and petitioning for relief like mad; and lo! the grand panacea for all your calamities lies in three words-EVADE THE LAW! Up and be shouting, nation! up and be shouting, then, for the imagined yoke is hurled to the winds! Talk no longer about taxes, and burdens, and grinding oppressions, of roguish representatives and political infamy, evade the laws and the end shall sanctify the means. Your fist, dear public,-joy and long life to ye!-have but the sagacity to evade the law-do it neatly -and you shall be countenanced, nay justified in the act. There's not a law ye like not, but may be broken! you cannot surely be so threetimes steeped in blockheadism as to suppose that the evasion is confined to this solitary provision in the stamp act; it extends to every law made, making, or to be made. You doubt! Give heed, then. Here is a law, which, as a law, is clearly as binding, obligatory, and imperative as any among the statutes, and which, whilst a law, commands, to the full, as strict an obedience, reverence, respect, and fulfilment as those even against murder, forgery, or very treason; yet have but the address to evade it, and it may be broken with impunity. On the solemn authority of a Minister of the Crown, it is proclaimed that by deceit, by fraud, by a common lie, a law may be legally evaded, without an iota of moral turpitude, a chance of penal infliction; and if one law so, of course and therefore, all others. Can the morning sun be clearer? ho! evade the law, then, dear and long-deceived public; laugh at the tax-gatherer, and be for ever free. On the word of a Cabinet Minister, and an especial honest" man, you have it. What would you more?

And ye, too, rogues and vagabonds, lift up your heads and list; laugh and be much glad; burn, maim, slay, steal, to your hearts' content, but evade the law, and ye shall not only escape the gallows, but your consciences, if ye have any, rascals! shall be held to be unsullied as the summer sky-or, if the simile be too poetic, pure as gin-tipple.

Lord Althorp, Lord Althorp! what words, O Lord! have those fibbing reporters been putting into your ministerial mouth?

"Pensions, and in some cases considerable pensions, had been allotted to persons of high rank, whose means were insufficient."-Sir Robert Peel.

wretchedness; but among CL

persons of rank,” so much is it venerated and respected, that a whole nation is called upon by its rulers to squeeze out the wholesome tear of charity. The sore must needs be soothed with golden unction, spread by a pitying people, and applied with "considerable" liberality. This is excellent teaching, and downright humanized divinity.

Poverty, among plebeian serfs, walks alone in its desolating path; but among persons of rank," it is of far more companionable habits. With them, poverty and pension are as twinsisters; and, hand in hand, they hold on the even tenor of their way. How goodly a thing then is nobility! A curse is by it converted into a blessing. By the sweat of a nation's brow shall it be sustained in honour; by the labour of the many, shall the titled few be kept clothed in luxury as with a garment. Struggling virtue, oppressed honesty, unrequited industry, what are they amongst an ignoble villanage! poverty be their portion, for that they are ignoble! But to rank-honour to rank, for rank's sake! Is not this indeed rank doctrine ?

"But, when the Honourable Baronet has a little more experience in his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will learn that, whatever it might be in arithmetic, two and two do not in those matters always make four."-Sir Robert Peel.

This is an extremely important and well-timed declaration from an ex-minister, in as much as it throws a little refracted light on the mysteries of budget making. It is a great thing to get at the principles of action adopted by a certain class of persons; for it enables others to draw fair inferences and sometimes tolerably correct conclusions. The people of this country have been for many years puzzled to comprehend a number of difficulties in the monetary matters of the nation, with which they have had so much to do in the disbursement department; but now they understand that the rules of ordinary arithmetic have nothing to do with the business, a good deal of the obscurity is removed. The right honourable ex-Secretary promulgated a piece of exceedingly valuable information; but he unluckily stopped short at the very point he should have passed. Had he mentioned what sum two and two did make in the arithmetic of office, he would have excited our liveliest gratitude. Are we to infer from the suppression that the product is definitely determined to be something certain, or that it depends on arbitrary construction? We should amazingly like to know. The application of this principle in ecclesiastical and eleemosynary affairs, as well as to the business of the exchequer, must have been attended by the happiest results to those recipiently interested.

Of a truth this is a most stringent text. Parliament must find itself nicely fixed in a cleft

stick. It has but two courses to pursue: one possible, the other impossible; which will it select? there is no escape from the dilemma. It has been a long while goaded to try its hand at possibilities, but without avail; and 'twere not a bit surprising, now that a choice is for the first time offered, if it attempt the impossible. Should such be its purpose, why, then, heaven help the poor Dissenters!

By the rood! there is nothing after all like Parliamentary logic.

"The noble Lord (John Russell) has, it is said, the intention of appointing a gentleman of the name of Gleig to the chaplaincy of Chelsea Hospital; and I am induced to refer to this on dit, in consequence of seeing that gentleman's name mentioned in a very disagreeable manner."-Col. Evans.

If my Lord John Russell be pleased to adopt for his rule of action the Newcastlean theory of doing what he likes with his own, it is charitable to infer that (knowing nothing contrariwise) he was actuated by the goodliest conceivable motives. There is one thing, however, which he cannot do-smother public opinion.

Mr. Gleig may be a very proper man, eminently qualified, of unexceptionable morals, and well adapted, by his private worth, to the appointment in question; and as a talented literary character we have a natural leaning in his favour; but until Lord John, as a public man, and a member of the present Whig Cabinet, can prove that Mr. Gleig is the only man fitted to the performance of its duties, his motives of action, in the nomination of an individual so identified with a hostile political faction, will be generally canvassed, he may rest assured, and that pretty freely too. The circumstance may very safely be regarded as one of the flitting feathers which show from which point the wind blows.

The Radicals are daily gaining increase of moral as well as of numerical force; and it may not be long before the coalesced powers of Whig and Tory will be required to prevent its ascendency. The interchange of courtesies between political opponents is always a dangerous sign. The public has heard a good deal of late about pusillanimous Whig conciliation, and the public would be horribly surprised to discover, some fine morning, that conciliating weakness should turn out to be another name for deep-planned party coalition. Keep your eyes open, my public! you have no conception what a narrow-sight

ed creature you are.

"That measure embraced only one object. But I beg leave to say, that the public should not, therefore, infer, that the other subjects connected with this question, are not under the consideration of his Majesty's Government."-Earl Grey.

This meek bit of commonplace aptly illustrates the bold and vigorous system of Whig policy, and the ingenuous and truly English manner of propounding it. The most important characteristic of the proposed Bill for the relief of the Dissenters, (to which Bill it refers,) was the felicitous contrivance of pleasing no party

When first introduced, not a hint was breathed about any ulterior measures, though such a sop in the pan would have saved, at the moment, much exasperation. The pilot measure was launched to see in what direction the current of general opinion set; and when that appeared decided, we are treated with a little philosophising on the fallacy of erroneous construction : because a hungry man sees no visible sign of a dinner, he is not, therefore, to infer that a splendid repast for him is not under consideration by some charitable cook,-past question, not. The Whigs will take anything into consideration, nay, do anything, also-only they must be compelled.

"In the first place, Mr. Cohen was tried by a special jury; and private gentlemen are almost all necessarily anti-reformers." (A laugh.)—Mr. C. Buller.

This valuable truth, receiving double weight as proceeding from one of their own body, shows how little of community of interest "necessarily❞ exists between the people and the Squirocracy. Well might it be greeted with a chuckle by the superlatives! The unwilling spirit with which every measure of real reform is met on the part of "private gentlemen" is upon this axiom easily and at once accounted for; and the issue of general questions whilst it depends, as it now virtually does, on the " special jury" sitting in a certain house, will no doubt be pretty much upon a parity with the private one of Mr. Cohen ; but so long as property and purity of blood are represented, and not intellect, what have the people to expect?-Did the clouds ever rain fire? "The only plan to prevent bribery would be, to restrict the franchise to those who would be above the temptation of a bribe."-Mr. Forster.

The House did not appear to take this remark in the spirit in which it was intended to be conveyed, namely, as a piece of genuine waggery. The point of it was a good deal marred, we think, by the employment of the restrictive

66

only." Had the hon. member characterized it as "one" plan instead of the only plan, his auditors would have seen the humour of the obthe witticism would then have been so directly servation, and have been no doubt in convulsions, palpable; but they were either too dull or too by which "those who would be above the temptasleepy to infer the obvious meaning. The means

tion of a bribe were to be discovered, and the

exceedingly small number of persons forming this corps of incorruptibles, to whom the elective privilege would in that case be confined, were the two great self-evident absurdities which constituted the joke; and yet, for all its plainness, it fell still-born. Mr. Forster is a humorist manifestly, but the subject was too grave for drollery. In return for his facetiousness, we will soberly offer to his acceptance a plan which he may suggest, "in his place," for the suppression of the evil; and he and the House of Commons may take our word for it, if they like, (and if they do not, may leave it alone,) that were it adopted it would work very effectively. Let

very candidate who, by himself or his authorized agents, offers a bribe, be, upon proof, disqualified for life as a member of Parliament, we warrant that no cases of bribery will occur. A glittering guinea to a pennyless man, whose physical drudgery absorbs too much of his time to allow of

high moral cultivation, is a wanton temptation that ought not to be offered, and which no really conscientious or honourable person would consider himself guiltess in offering. The giver is the real culprit, not the needy receiver: the tempter, not the tempted.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW, decreased considerably in price, has made it a point of pride, perhaps, to increase in excellence. The present number is, taken all in all, the most brilliant we have seen of the entire series,-the most rich in piquant and racy passages. It is, no doubt, “very political," but so, in the same sense, were the gayest of the writings of Voltaire, and the wittiest of the compositions of Swift. It is very political, and somewhat satirical withal-pungent, but not bitter nor acrid. Sound logic is hid in raillery, argument is couched in epigram, and truth wears the mask of humour. The pieces of especial note and merit which we have yet read, are THE SUFFERING RICH, NATIONAL EDUCATION, and an article on Public Walks. The Monopoly of Food is a careful, well-reasoned paper, and British Foreign Policy a masterly rapid view of the great landmark of English history. The Reviewers have expended all their spleen on Mr. Martin, the artist, in whom no good thing is found, and reserved all their admiration for the Report of the PoorLaw Commissioners, in which no speck or flaw is to be discovered. There is beside these articles a well-timed paper on the abolition of imprisonment for debt; as we rejoice to find Lord John Russell asserting that the Ministry have resolved that this measure shall be carried through in the present session, and the nature and provisions of their bill must require to be reviewed, that it may still, to the last moment, be made as faultless as possible.

RADICAL TRUTHFULNESS.—Extract of a Letter." I am convinced the Radicals are not even 'wise in their generation,' in not venturing more than they appear inclined to do for what may appear to some of them abstract truths; and to other questions of mere opinion. I believe the great curse of the time is a carelessness about truth; and that it proceeds from this very spirit of this contemptuous acquiescence in popular opinions. There is lying in parish matters, county votings, national councils, and international pledges, because there is lying in the Church. We cannot damn to everlasting infamy the authors of the promises which raised Poland against Russia to her own destruction, or which may betray this country ere long to her share of the same sufferings from treachery, till lying ceases to be sanctioned, and is pronounced accursed from the fountain head."

THE PERTH ELECTION.

THE great county of Perth is again the theatre of a contested election. Last month, when the electors of Paisley had to decide between the pretensions of two firstrate Radical or Independent candidates, and two Conservatives, the Scotsman remarked, that it took little interest in the competition; of course, because there was no moderate Reformer, in others words, Ministerial candidate, in the field. It may be permitted to us to say, that we take no great interest in the Perth election, which is a mere trial of strength between the Whig and Tory parties; there being little of principle involved in the contest. Both candidates are excellent men. Both call themselves Reformers; and both decline to make any but general professions of liberal principles. Sir George Murray, whose party was to be deprived of political ascendency by the reform bill, opposed its enactment in Mr. Graham,

his place in the House of Commons.

whose party was to gain the ascendency by means of the same bill, supported it at public meetings of Whigs and Reformers out of the House. If the electors choose Sir George, they will be represented by an able and honourable man, who will, probably, endeavour to make his own party take as liberal a course as possible; but will vote with the Duke of Wellington against any very liberal measures into which the Whigs may be driven by the country. If Mr. Graham be preferred, the county of Perth will, in reality, have no representative; for Mr. Graham, having taken that place at the Treasury which no Whig partisan in Parliament durst take, on account of the certainty of losing his seat in the House; and having thus identified himself with the Ministry, the vote of the county of Perth will always count one for the Ministry, be the measure good or bad. Mr. Graham has got a retaining fee, and can no more be expected to act an independent part in the House of Commons than the hired Advocate to enact the Judge. The great county of Perth will be as completely a rotten borough, for the time Mr. Graham shall sit for it in Parliament, and hold his place at the Treasury board, as ever was Gatton or Old Sarum. This ought not to be. By the election of Mr. Graham, too, as the triumph will avowedly [see The Times] be one of party, far more than one of principle, the Whig Ministry will be encouraged to suppose their political course approved of by the important county of Perth. In no case ought independent Reformers to vote for a Tory. But we see no obligation on them to vote for a man who gives no specific assurances of the line of conduct he will pursue on those great measures, as to which all true Reformers have made up their minds, such as Short Parliaments, the Abolition of the Corn-Laws, and the Taxes on Knowledge, &c.; and who, in short, while objecting to all pledges, asks to be sent into Parliament, virtually

pledged to whatever measures, not he himself or his constituents, but the men of whom he holds place, shall dictate to him,-bound hand and foot, as the Anti-pledgers phrase it, to the Whig Ministry. Will no independent Reformer stand for Perthshire, and take an honourable defeat at the hands of the two Conservative factions?

TRADES' UNIONS.

A very general prejudice is entertained by the upper and middle classes against Trades' Unions. We do not partake in it. These formidable bodies are, as yet, equally ignorant of the extent of their power, and of the objects to which it can be properly applied. They have, as yet, done nothing but make mistakes. They have done little good, and some mischief. But good will come of it. A little more experience, a little more of that collision of mind with mind, which large associations are sure to occasion, will convince the Unionists, that their attempts to raise and keep up wages, by a succession of strikes, are vain, and worse than useless. They will find that their employers do not make those extravagant gains which they suppose; and, in fact, have no more power to depress and keep down wages, than the operatives to produce the contrary effect. When there is a brisk trade, and consequently a large demand for labour, wages will rise, and cannot be kept down. In some rare cases, strikes may be useful in hastening a rise of wages. Were the trade in the hands of a few employers, and were these to combine to keep wages at the existing rates, a strike, of even a small number of the operatives, would instantly make wages rise. But when trade is dull, or when, by the competition of foreign artisans, whose bread is not taxed, only a certain price can be obtained by the British employer, no advance of wages can be procured by a strike, however well conducted. In such a case, the ill-judging operatives may inflict an injury on their employer as well as on themselves; but force him to raise their wages they cannot, because he can neither get a corresponding price in the market which he supplies, nor can he afford to reduce his rate of profit. Competition prevents a trader from gaining more than the ordinary rate of profit; and that rate, in our times, is too low to suffer any abatement.

Combinations, therefore, to raise wages are simply mischievous to both employer and operative, and to the operative more especially. Yet we are glad to see the operatives combined in unions. They will unlearn much prejudice and error, and acquire much valuable knowledge. Wages in this country are too low, and the hours of labour, in many trades, too long. The working classes are taxed far beyond their due proportion; admitting that the producers should be taxed at all, which may well be doubted. By our infamous system of laying taxes chiefly on the absolute necessaries of life, and those little indulgences which the poor generally regard as necessary to their comfort, the working men are grievously oppressed; and the middle classes too, though not to the same degree. Above all, the tax on food, not for the purposes of the State, but to swell the revenues of the landholders, is a grinding and tyrannical exaction, to which the despotic States afford no parallel. The working classes do not yet half understand how much the Corn Laws affect their condition. When they do, Corn Laws will be at an end.

That the working classes will not long submit to the corn-law robbery may be regarded as certain; that they will make an orderly and peaceable demand for liberty to buy food at the cheapest market, instead of resorting

to sudden violence, will probably be mainly owing to the Trades' Unions. Rick-burning, machine-breaking, and similar outrages, are not to be dreaded from men combined in Unions, and acting on resolutions first deliberately canvassed and determined on. Swing is not a Unionist. The free utterance of their complaints which men give, when united in great associations, will always afford warning of any danger which the State has to appre hend from the discontent of the working classes.

But the Unionists must not think that the tyranny which some of them have exercised on those workmen who do not join the Unions, is less odious than if it had been exercised by more wealthy oppressors. The right of the working man freely to dispose of his labour, must not be violated by tyrants of either high or low degree, by either landholders or Unionists.

It

THE DORCHESTER UNIONISTS. SINCE the Reform Bill was carried, the Whigs have looked askance on all large assemblages of the people. was not so while the Bill was in jeopardy from the old enemies of Reform, and, with it, the Whig places. Then Whigs out of Parliament could join those grand demonstrations of the physical and moral strength of the Reformers, which were required to maintain Earl Grey's administration in power, and enable it to carry the Reform Bill. Then Whigs in Parliament, then the Lord Chancellor himself, could remark on the sublime scene which the Birmingham meeting afforded, when the vast multitude, with uncovered heads, prayed to Heaven to aid their endeavours to emancipate themselves from the bondage of a corrupt aristocracy. But the Bill was no sooner secure, and the Tory power broken, than a change came over the spirit of the Whigs. Rarely is a Whig now seen at a public meeting of Reformers; and Political Unions, and Trades' Unions are become their especial abhorrence. They would have put down the Unions long ago, had these bodies not been too strong to be dealt with by an arbitrary Act of Parliament. Unfortunately, a Trades' Union at Dorchester was so foolish as to prescribe to its members a secret oath. Six members of the Union were tried for taking that oath, which, although a piece of mere folly, was, by virtue of an obscure statute against secret oaths, obtained by Pitt during the mutiny at the Nore, magnified into a crime. For this factitious crime, apparently, the six men were sentenced to transportation for seven years. But the real offence in the eyes of those in power, was the belonging to a Trades' Union. The sentence was universally condemned. Petitions for its reversal were in the course of being sent from every quarter; a loud cry of severity and oppression was raised over the whole country. And what did the authorities? With indecent haste, the poor victims of a law which they neither knew, nor could know, were shipped off, to be out of the reach of mercy, lest that mercy might be thought to proceed from compulsion! A petition for their recall is prepared by the Trades' Unions of London; who, to the number of fifty thousand or more, accompany the petition, in a quiet and orderly procession; stopping at a considerable distance from the Home Office, that Lord Melbourne might not refuse taking in the petition, from the apprehension of being thought to do so from compulsion! And yet reception was denied to the petition of so many thousands of the people of England, from that contemptible motive, although only some half-dozen Unionists approached the scene of presentation!