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however, will seem the less extraordinary when it appears, as it does at p. 118 of the first volume, that a notorious burglar caught in flagrant delict actually turned out to be a member of the senate! Such a system as this is the fruitful parent of every crime, of every baseness, and of every conceivable turpitude. It is therefore not wonderful that the seeds of distrust and ⚫deceit are sown in the very social habitudes, amidst the lares and penates of this peculating, prostrate, corrupt, yet most suffering people. It is not wonderful that, under such a system, the bridegroom questions (vol. i. p. 171) whether the bride does not consent to be his to worm from him some secret; that a father (vol. i. p 189) betrays his own son to the police; that more robberies and assassinations are committed in St. Petersburgh than in Paris, London, nay, in all the European capitals together, (p. 215;) that the friend runs to the police to betray all his associates, (p. 288;) that the nephew who seeks refuge in the house of his uncle Lanskoi, is given up by that uncle (p. 288;) that an unfortunate lady is hurried off to Siberia, from a ball, in her ball-dress, (p. 195;) that a foreign merchant is obliged to pay 8,000l. to official persons, not to be harassed in his business, (p. 207;) that the tavern-keepers of Petersburgh have from forty to sixty per cent. of their gains wrung from them by the police, (p. 211;) that thieves are taken into custody for thefts which they never committed, (pp. 217, 218;) and men's tongues cut out for pasquinades which they never wrote, (p. 218;) that a wholesale system of murders is carried on, (p. 219,) in which the lower villains of the police are participant, and that a constant emulation is kept up in crime. These are some of the blessings consequent on an autocratic, irresponsible rule. The very enumeration of them causes the blood to run cold. We confess we can hardly venture to write on them with temperance or moderation; for we cannot think on them without loathing and indignation. That we have exaggerated no statement-set down nothing in malice, will plainly appear from a reference to the pages which we have cited from the first volume. The individual, whoever he be, who has brought these infamies of the Russian system to light deserves well, not alone of England and Englishmen, but of the civilized world. In the second volume, however, there are more important Revelations' concerning the army, navy, and secret police of Russia; but on these we cannot now enter, but must content ourselves with recommending the book to the attentive perusal and consideration of our readers. It is certainly the most copious, correct, and searching account of Russia and her political system that has hitherto appeared.

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ART. V. The Real Union of England and Ireland. By Monckton Milnes, Esq. 12mo, pp. 87. John Ollivier, London.

THE new grant to the college at Maynooth has disturbed nearly all the old landmarks of party. Everywhere, on this question, the men who have been accustomed to do battle side by side have been marshalled against each other. But in no respect is the effect of that measure more conspicuous, than in the schism which it has produced between liberal politicians and the great majority of protestant nonconformists. This last fact is a somewhat serious business. Should these parties continue to judge inconsiderately and harshly of each other, it is not improbable that they may both have sufficient space and sufficient reason to deplore the result. We have some firm thoughts in respect to the evils inseparable from this Maynooth policy, if persisted in, and we shall not scruple to give a firm utterance to our opinions on that subject, as occasion may demand. But we think there is more to be gained, just now, by a little calm questioning, than by giving place to the sort of passions which are apt to be intrusive at such junctures. We have a few suggestions to offer to the liberal statesman, with regard to the recent conduct of the nonconformists, which we think may not be unuseful to him, should he be disposed to concede to us a hearing; and in giving expression to the sentiments which prevail amongst protestant dissenters, in this new posture of affairs, these parties must bear with us if our word of encouragement should be coupled with a word or two of caution. When good men differ on the ground of great principles, we submit; but it can never be unwise to attempt to remove so much of disagreement as results from misconception. If liberals and nonconformists could be brought to see their own defects or faults as they see those of each other, the gain to both would be considerable.

Some of our readers will not need to be apprised that the modern nonconformist-if we may venture a personification in so grave a connexion-is a personage liable to be a little moody. He is a man having a rough world to get through, and should be held excused if he does not always carry his amiableness upon his coat sleeve. In every second man he finds a scorner, and in endeavouring to make his way along he has to bear with much rude jostling from either side. He is so often called fool or knave, that, satisfied of being neither, he is in danger of concluding that all about him are either fools or knaves. In his

view, it is his better intelligence and his greater honesty which have made him what he is; and it is not strange if he should be a little disquieted when he finds this intelligence voted as so much absurdity, and this honesty as so much grimace. We must not expect the words of such a man to be always of the most oily description; and if his retorts should not be in the best taste, in all instances, we have to remember what may be said of the assaults which provoke them. We admit that his views on the questions in which he is most interested are not on all occasions the broadest, or the most discriminating that might be taken; but we think him right, for the most part, both in the truth which he selects, and in the place which he assigns to it. Like most persons who happen to possess a strong sympathy with popular tastes, he is not always proof against flattery, and, in consequence, is sometimes led to overrate his strength, and to commit himself to undertakings beyond his reach. But he is not soon disheartened. He can bear up against delay, and even against defeat. There is elasticity and iteration in him. Senators may affect to analyze him, but when it is needful to be so employed, he can show himself no less expert in subjecting the character of senators to a similar scrutiny. In fact, he has somehow learnt to regard himself as born to give law to such functionaries rather than to render them a servile submission. knows that the new wisdom of the statesman is often only the old wisdom of the church. His predecessors were men whom statists did not create, and he regards their descendants as men whom statists will never be able to destroy. He feels all this, and has laid his account with a life of conflict-a struggle between pride and power-between the stout heart from within and a strong hand from without; or, in other words, a conflict between principle and fashion-between the man who has something of his own, and the men who are content to take all things upon trust. He has diverged from the beaten path, and the prescribed course. He had nothing to gain, but much to lose by so doing. He saw the penalty, he has incurred it willingly. Some men may trace all this to perverseness, or to a disguised selfishness; we think, that, making just allowance for the imperfections which cling to all mortals, the eccentric sort of life which distinguishes this person has a much higher origin, and is deserving of a better name.

He

Of late, the men of whose character and social position we hold a judgment something to this effect, have been more than usually perplexed and excited. Circumstances have constrained them to make the conduct of our liberal members,' the matter of a close and jealous inquiry. Every new effort to understand it has only appeared to call forth a new feeling of difficulty. Their

language has been, at one time that of muttered surprise, at another that of loud complaint or protest. Our sympathy with them has been most sincere, and we have thought that it might not be amiss to endeavour to give a just and sober statement of their case-showing, not only what their impression is relative to the course pursued with regard to religion by the liberal party in the House of Commons, but something of the reasons of the surprise and dissatisfaction which they express on that

matter.

I. It is felt as something startling, almost confounding, that the members of her majesty's opposition should seem to have agreed to write fool on every man's forehead who does not concur with them in declaring Romanism to be a harmless, and, on the whole, a very useful sort of thing. The noisy impatience evinced by some gentlemen-the impatience, not so much of anger as of pettishness and contempt-when any man presumes to think that catholicism having been found untrustworthy once, may prove untrustworthy again, is a sign of the times about which even the most dispassionate nonconformist may well feel disposed to ask some questions.

In its

Many eloquent things have been said and written by our whig statesmen and literati in praise of the protestant reformamation. Its spirit has been hailed as that of a universal liberator. In its right of private judgment, these persons have been wont to recognise the germ of all other right. benignant influence on religion, they have seen the precursor of a kindred influence on secular politics, on science, literature, and all civilization. But in the judgment of the Romanist, that reformation is, to this day, an unmitigated nuisance and mischief. Nevertheless, by these same statesmen, the reformation is proclaimed as the great boon of providence to the modern world; and Romanism, the system which denounces that reformation as being in all respects the great plague of these latter times, is declared to be, on the whole, an innoxious, and even a highly salutary system! Plain men inquire, as they become observant of this seeming inconsistency and contradiction, what can these things mean? Of course, it will be said, that this talk and temper in favour of the religion of the Vatican is meant to put down the cry of no popery,' as that of the fanatics and intolerants. But our plain man will answer, that this war of sneers and sarcasms has been conducted with no such discrimination. In his estimate, the drift of it has been, to declare protestantism worthless, that Romanism might be declared harmless. Nay more, he feels that the scales are turned, and that inasmuch as a man cannot now-a-days presume to be an earnest protestant,

without being derided as a fanatic, it is the protestant rather than the catholic, who is made to suffer the wrong of persecution -so far at least as these weapons of the modern persecutor can be made to extend. Could he think of protestantism as our liberal representatives appear to think of it, he would not be found to trouble either society or parliaments with his thoughts on that subject. He would then probably do, as he now thinks some others might consistently do drop quietly into the groove of Romanism. In the view of this class of men, it has become the law of liberalism, not only that the assault of Romanism after the Orange fashion shall be discountenanced, but that no man shall dare to speak of that system otherwise than favourably without being branded as an imbecile. We must confess that we are as little pleased with this excess as with that to which it is opposed, and by which, no doubt, it has been in great part generated. There is a fanaticism in politics which is not more to our taste than fanaticism in religion.

The more sturdy class of nonconformists bear these things the less patiently, inasmuch as they are men who think that secular lawgivers forsake their just province in legislating at all on things spiritual. If such men are ever found reasoning with statesmen about the goodness or badness of theological systems, it must be from some hard necessity-and a necessity which can never begin with themselves. It must be created by some act of state interference. In the judgment of these parties, the settlement of all such questions belongs to man as a citizen, and not to man as a legislator. We think, indeed, that these gentlemen push their scruples in this respect somewhat too far. So long as the temper and complexion of society are such that legislators cannot be prevented from meddling with such matters, we are not sure that it would be wise on the part of any portion of the community to content itself with simply protesting against all such interferences of the civil power with these topics. Supposing the principle of such interferences to be repudiated, it cannot be a matter of indifference to those who repudiate it whether its application be after a manner likely to produce a lesser degree of injury to society or a greater. Sanguine men, indeed, may say-Leave them to themselves-the worse use they make of their principle, the sooner will men become weary of it, and have done with it. Prophecy of this sort has been sometimes found true: in a wise and good world, it would always be true; but in the world in which we happen to live, it has often been sadly falsified. Rulers who legislate about religion are of two classes,-those who do so on the presumption of distinguishing between truth and error, and those who do so on the

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