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THE

AND

EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE.

THE SCHOOLMASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM.

No. 25.-VOL. II. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1833. PRICE THREE-Halfpence. THE DUTIES OF THE PEOPLE AT THE taxes which prevent or restrain the diffusion of PRESENT PERIOD.

ALTHOUGH they have been, in a great measure, Liberated from the political thraldom in which they were so long and so injuriously compelled to remain, for the purpose of enabling the Aristocracy to enhance its wealth and power, by every legalized expedient of spoliation, the People must not imagine that they have done their duty by obtaining the enactment of the Reform Bills, or by returning to the Parliament, about to assemble, men who were instrumental in getting these bills passed. They must not suppose that this is reform-it is only the instrument by which, if properly exerted, a practical efficient reform is to be obtained and it must never be forgotten, that it is only by the judicious, steady, persevering exertions of the people themselves, that this instrument can be made to accomplish the great ends for which it was intrusted to them. The duties more particularly incumbent on them, on the eve of the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, are the following:

DUTIES OF REPRESENTATIVES.

1. To keep constantly and steadily in view, that representatives are sent to Parliament, not for the promotion of the particular and exclusive interests of particular individuals, orders, classes, communities, sects, or professions-but for the purpose of ensuring, by the abolition of bad, and the enactment of beneficent laws, "the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number" of the whole people; and, therefore,

2. In a spirit of impartiality and philanthropy, to use all the means in their power of acquiring and diffusing an accurate knowledge of the principles of those laws which regulate the acquisition and distribution of public wealth, and of the several classes of circumstances which do, or may affect the welfare of the community: in other words, it is incumbent on every individual, so far as his circumstances allow, to acquire and diffuse a correct knowledge of the principles of political economy and politics; and consequently,

"ABOLITION OF TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.

3d. To promote petitioning, at as early a period as possible, for the ENTIRE ABOLITION of all those

political and other useful knowledge. These foolish and tyrannical imposts maintain the reign of ignorance, error, and prejudice; they retard the progress of science and arts, and the improvement of morals; they consequently prevent the accumulation of wealth, and the amelioration of the circumstances of the people; and, of course, unnecessarily tend to uphold vice, immorality, and insubordination, and thus to add, unnecessarily and most injuriously, to the expense of military and police establishments, while they render religious and educational institutions much less efficient and beneficial than they would otherwise be. Of imposts of such pestifeous tendency, no good government can stand in need. It ought never to be forgotten, that it is not for the purpose of bringing money into the treasury, but with the diabolic intent of keeping the people in ignorance of their own concerns, and for maintaining abuses and the misgovernment of those who "loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil," that these taxes were augmented, and have so long, in opposition to the general will, been retained. This was openly and unblushingly avowed in the House of Commons. under the Tory regime. Every government, essentially aristocratic and oligarchical, will naturally incline to fetter the press, and seek for plausible pretences for retaining, in part at least, the taxes on paper and advertisements. It has, therefore, been of late hypocritically pretended that these imposts could not, in the actual state of the public finances, be dispensed with; but were any desire existing among men in power to render the press, as it ought to be, essentially and really free, and usefully efficient, as the Schoolmaster-General of the whole people, an unobjectionable succedaneum could easily be found.-Vide next section.

CORN LAWS.

4. Next to the duty of providing for their moral and intellectual, it is incumbent on the people to ensure the supply of their physical wants. The CORN LAWS, therefore, which have been enacted not for the purpose of adding to the revenue, nor for affording encouragement or benefit to the actual cultivator of the soil, but merely for the wicked purpose of dishonestly and iniquitously

enhancing the rents of corn lands, for the sole repealed, without diminishing the revenue, or benefit of the owners of such lands, and the clergy, adding to the burdens of the people, while whose incomes are regulated by the price of commerce would be encouraged, the rate of profit grain, and plainly also to the detriment of the augmented, the accumulation of capital accelerated, public fisc, of the owners of pasture lands, of agri-and the poor enabled to live on a more acceptable culturists of every description, and of all other and nutritious aliment than potatoes. It is much classes of the community,-ought not to be any to be deplored that the clergy are remunerated for longer tolerated; and the people, especially in great their services in a manner which makes it their incities, and in manufacturing towns, ought imme-terest to uphold the existing system of iniquity. diately to denounce them, in strong and plain lan- It is too bad that a clergyman cannot, with all his guage, and to petition for their immediate repeal. heart, (how could he?) thank the bountiful giver On the particularly injurious tendency and opera- of all good, for an abundant harvest, which may tion of these execrable laws, it is unnecessary, reduce his poor stipend 20 or 30 per cent. No considering how often they have been clearly ex- wonder, especially when the actual operation of the posed, to dwell; but it may be mentioned, and law of patronage is considered, that the clergy of ought to be steadily kept in view, that they occa.. the established church are, in general, illiberal sion, according to the moderate calculation of a anti-reformers; nor that we have lately seen a parvery cautious and considerate practical financier, son, as an elector, after uttering a nonsensical Jerean annual loss to this nation of no less than fifteen miade on the downfall of the price of corn, wool, millions, and that, although this large sum is most and kelp, come forward, in a Highland county, injuriously extracted from the people, scarcely one million of its amount ever comes to the Exchequer whose legislatorial abilities his most partial friends as the proposer of an Ultra-Tory exclusionist, (of in the shape of duty on foreign corn, and that cannot venture to boast,) in opposition to one of even but a small proportion of it finds its way into the most intelligent and talented men of the age. the pockets of the landlords themselves, the rest No wonder that landlords and parsons, and every being as pure loss as if it were sunk in the bottom other profiter by abuse and misrule, should, with of the ocean, or consumed in the vomitory of Mount such inveterate malignity, decry the study of the Ætna. It were far better for the people that the all-important science of political economy, and exlandlords should have their incomes enhanced by ert all their endeavours to render it a subject of means of pensions, to the extent of the benefit vituperation and ridicule. which they really derive from these laws, than in. uitous monopolizing triumvirate, Lord Rapax No wonder that that that such a system as the present, of legalized Rackrent, John Company, and Sawney M'Scourger, swindling, should be tolerated. In the petitions should co-operate in upholding their respective which have formerly been presented to the burgh- frauds, in keeping up the price of corn, tea, and monger Parliaments for their repeal, the injuri- sugar, when, in this ungodly work they are assisted ous effects of these laws were often well pointed by the Right Reverend Father in God, Dr Thomas out, in a merely economical view; but, now, not Tithedraw, Lord Bishop of Pluralstall, and the Reonly should this be done, but their injustice, wick- verend Calvin Gatherpecks, minister of Girneledness, and glaring dishonesty and sinfulness, dale, without opposition from any other pulpiteer should be strongly and solemnly dwelt on, in a than the Reverend Simon Sectary of Noglebe. manner becoming a moral and religious people, The farmers, poor deluded dupes, should at length conscious of their responsibility, not merely to their learn wisdom. They should now be able to perfellow creatures, but to their Omnipotent and All- ceive that high rents and high profits are incomjust Creator. Let any man read seriously and at-patible, and should, with fear and trembling, and tentively Dr. Dwight's discourse on the eighth commandment, and let him say if, without violating every suggestion of conscience, and disregard. ing every deduction of reason, he can presume to look with supine indifference on the existence of this grinding, pauperizing instrument of oppression, or fail to bestir himself in relieving his fellow men from its destructive action. It is not meant that foreign corn may not, fairly and properly, be a subject of taxation, when the object is the legi.. timate one of merely adding to the receipts of the public fisc, and not of giving an undue advantage to a class, who, as mere landlords, contribute little or nothing to the exigencies of the state. Such an impost, if moderate in its rate, say 2s. 6d. or 3s. per quarter, would not, in any considerable degree, enhance the price of grain, and would ensure a handsome addition to the revenue; and thus the taxes on knowledge might be wholly

humble contrition, consider that the great loss of capital, which the corn laws have occasioned to their class, was the just and inevitable punishment of their sinful co-operation with their landlords, in the iniquitous spoliation of their fellow subjects. It is now their duty to co-operate with the people, in obtaining the abrogation of these laws; and the people ought, of course, to assist them in obtaining, by law, such equitable deduction of rent as their circumstances require.

ABOLITION OF TITHES.

only, but those of Scotland also, should early pe5. The people, not of England and Ireland tition for the TOTAL ABOLITION OF TITHES. The Scottish children of the Covenant, the followers of Calvin, and the supporters of the simple forms and institutions of Presbytery, have no interest nor inducement to uphold the prelatic pride, the pluralities, pompous mummeries, or cold inefficient

35

formalities, of the proud daughter of the scarlet dame of Babylon; nor are they under any special obligation to submit to the enhancing of the price of their food, merely that Right Reverend Fathers, Venerables, and Reverends, may continue to trouble and annoy the cultivator of the land, and add to the expense of every man's subsistence. If the fox-quity. And let them never cease to petition and hunting interest of England will maintain a parroting priesthood, to perpetuate flimsy ceremonial observances, and to keep their boors in ignorant subservient dependence, let the clergy be paid more Scotice; but let not the evils of the tithing system be maintained to impoverish the intelligent and industrious body of dissenters, as well as the admirers of Episcopacy.

EQUAL TAXATION.

6. As it is notorious and undeniable that the greater part of the national burdens is levied from the labourers and industrious portion of the community, and that, in the ratio of their abilities, they pay a great deal more to the Exchequer than the landlords and wealthy fundholders, the people should immediately petition for a fair and thorough revision of the fiscal code, and for the repeal or alleviation of the duties on articles of ordinary and general consumption, such as tea, sugar, malt, and soap, and for the imposition, on a gradually ascending scale, of a tax on Property and Income. 7. THE PEOPLE OUGHT NOT TO PETITION FOR A REPEAL OF THE ASSESSED TAXES, excepting those on houses and windows, which should be put on a just and rational footing. It would be greatly for the public advantage that all taxes were directly assessed. The assessed taxes do not injure the people, otherwise than by their own amount, and the expense of collection; and it is an advantage that the payment must always be perceived and attended to, because it draws attention to the financial arrangements of government, and leads the payers to check and prevent all unnecessary expenditure. The indirect taxes, on the other hand, cost, in reality, a great deal more than their own amount, and the cost of their collection. Their imposition renders it necessary, that, in every trade affected by them, a much greater amount of capital should be invested than would otherwise be required; and the pro fits of the portion of such capital, assigned for the payment of duty, must be added to the price which the consumer has to pay; and this capital, besides, is locked up, and prevented fro being, as it other.. wise might be, usefully employe in the production of national wealth. Taxes on consumable commodities are paid without the observation of the consumer. The public expenditure is therefore less regarded than if imposts were directly levied ; and waste and profuse expenditure of the public reSources are the natural consequences.

CONCLUSION.

Let the people never forget that many of their representatives have gone to Parliament, not for the purpose of promoting the general good, but to scramble for place, power, and title, and for promoting their own private advantage, or the in

terest of the particular order or class to which they belong. On such men, however plausible their professions, let no reliance be placed; and, therefore, let the people be ever watchful of the conduct of their representatives, and openly and manfully expose every demonstration of political iniremonstrate, until they have achieved the destruction of sinecures and monopolies of every description, the removal of all checks and fetters on honest | industry, and the blessing of a cheap and efficient government. ends, every individual ought to afford to every able To ensure the attainment of these and honest journalist, labouring in the people's behalf, as much encouragement as his circumstance allow.

January, 1833. A NORTHERN TRUTH SPEAKER,

ON THE STATE OF FEELING IN A
MANUFACTURING TOWN.

[This is part of a letter on a subject of urgent imports addressed, by the author of the "Corn Law Rhymes," to the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine.]

There is war in the city of soot. [Sheffield.] The hand vain, if his intention be to close the butcher's shop. of the workman is lifted against his master, and not in alas! if the master defeat the workman, the same result Yet, is probable; for, while they are injuring each other, a third party, resisted by neither of them, is devouring the substance of both.

"As I am undersold by foreigners," says the employer should lower them, or you will give my trade to the Gerto the employed, " instead of raising your wages, you mans." "I can but starve, then," replies the workman: "the question is not whether you will lose your trade, for pound for beof, while our rivals pay only twopence-halfthat catastrophe is certain, if we are to pay sevenpence per wages, you would tamely suffer the money to be taken from penny. If I would work for nothing, and give you all my you by the basest of mankind, and be poor still. The real shall starve after you lose your trade, or before? question at issue between us two seems to be, whether I why should I starve even then? Yet many, I will follow it thither; and in the meantime, no If your trade go to Germatter by what means, I will get as high wages as I can, that I may be able to pay for my passage over the herring-pool.

me forty per cent., and yet obtain twice my profits." "Then "The Germans," continues the master, "can undersell they can give twice your wages," answers the workman; from your own showing, that if the German workmen are " and the sooner you remove your capital to Germany, and I my skill and labour, the better for us both. It is plain, for their masters can at least afford to give higher wages; not better paid than I am, the fault rests with themselves; but if there is any truth in your assertions, you will soon be unable to pay any wages at all."

"If you will not work for reasonable wages," resumes the master, 66 my work shall be done by apprentices." take another apprentice; no, not one." "But," replies the workman, "I will not suffer you to tyrant," exclaims the master. "The world is full of them," "Then you are a retorts the servant : "it is not the fault of our masters if we have not been brought down to potatoes. How long is it since you sent me to York Castle, merely because I did you now blame me for following your (example? my best to obtain the fair price for my labour? And do always come home to roost." Curses

"you will find it so."

"Yes," says the master,

the master manufacturer. Every word is true.
Now there is no misrepresentation in the statements

The silver-platers of the Continent undersell us twenty

per cent. in price, and fifty in pattern. Still the blind will

not see.

In another year, perhaps, the merchants of Sheffield will import cutlery from Germany, the German scissors being already fifty per cent. cheaper than ours; for the cutlers of Modlin pay only fifteenpence per stone for bread, while we pay three shillings. Still the blind will not see.

The cutlers of Belgium make and sell, for twentypence, a complete set of steel knives and forks, consisting of twenty-four pieces; and the saw-makers of Belgium make and sell, for one shilling and sixpence each, saws equal to ours at nearly twice the price. But then the Belgian artisans and capitalists are not impoverished by act of Parliament. Still the blind will not see.

The Russians, in the market of New York, undersell John Barber's razors thirty per cent., Joseph Rodgers and Sons' cutlery forty per cent., and cast cutlery, in general, fifty per cent.; for the Russian workmen, when they buy two pecks of corn, do not lose, or throw away, the price of one peck; in other words, they are not compelled by law to give a shilling for eighteenpence. Still the blind will

not see.

"Oh, but we shall soon have our bread as cheap as our neighbours." Yes, when our manufactures have left the kingdom, when we have neither edge-tools, nor saws, nor knives, nor scissors, nor money to give in exchange for bread, we shall have it as cheap as our neighbours have it; for capital will not stay here, for potato-profits, if it can get roast-beef profits elsewhere. But the blind will then see. Instead of obtaining, permanently, as they might have done, the fair average price of Europe for their wheat, say forty shillings per quarter, at their doors, they must then be satisfied with two-thirds of that price, say about twentyfour shillings per quarter, at Hamburgh or Amsterdam. Hey, then-but not for a miracle-let the blind see when it is too late; if they are to be a fate unto themselves; and it is written that they shall break stones on the high roads for subsistence! But how horrifying to our souls, to our bones in the grave, will be the music of their gruntle, when, after receiving eighteenpence for twelve hours' hard labour, they visit the paradise of the market, and there, with their miserable earnings, buy bread-not at thirty-six pence per stone, as their victims do, but at fifteen! "Good bye, fine fellow!" "Who is that vagabond ?" "Lord, sir, he was once a great gentleman, who kept a parson of his own." Well, if the enemy thank God for crime and carnage, may not we thank him, if he make themselves his instruments in ridding us of a nuisance-these suicides of their own prosperity, who toil not, neither do they spin? Have they not wickedly and foolishly destroyed more capital, in the memory of one generation, than all the lands of England would sell for at the bread-tax price; and in less than twenty years produced more crime and misery than all other causes in a hundred? This is a subject on which the press has basely, and almost universally, shrunk from the performance of its duty, to the infinite injury of the people, and the now probably inevitable and hopeless

ruin of their oppressors, who seem doomed to open their

eyes on the edge of a precipice, over which they must plunge headlong. But of all the treason against all, in this matter, that of the Philosophers of Useful Knowledge has the most brass in it. They calmly ask, what the workmen would say if a conspiracy existed to raise the price of beef, butter, bread, and ale? As if that conspiracy were not 'the cause of all our heart-burnings, our agonies, and our despair!

It is frightfully amusing, dismally instructive, to observe the deep hatred, the blasting scorn, with which the working classes of this town, and their betters, as they are called, regard each other. They are all deplorably ignorant on the subjects which most nearly concern them all; but the workmen, I think, are less ignorant than their employers, in spite of the pains which have been, and are taken, by the ultra-pious and intellectual, to keep them in ignorance. Will your readers believe, that the Westminster Reviewthe book most likely to teach our workmen what they most need to know has been, and is excluded, by an ex

press law, from our Mechanics' Library? Such, however, is the fact; the wisest and the best have had their own way, and we are now reaping the consequences. But if our first merchants themselves have yet to learn the alphabet of political economy, can we wonder that rich and poor alike are quarrelling about effects, when they ought to be remov ing causes?

Nor is it less horribly amusing and instructive to observe, how completely the aristocratic leaven has leavened the whole mass of society here. Even our beggary has its castes. All try to seem rich, that they may not be thought poor; and all, but the tax-fed, are in danger of poverty. Perhaps the most frightful symptom of our social disease is exhibited by the masters who have been workmen, and who exceed in arrogance and insolence, by many degrees, the cab-driving sons of the sons of the dunghill sprung. Next to them, in their vituperation of the poor, are the inThere must be some solvent-and their name is Legion. reason why Calamity, like an old woman, lives for ever. Hanging by a hair over the grave dug for Hope, do they vilify the all-plundered poor to conciliate the rich. If so, the flattered and the flatterer are worthy of each other.

rest.

"Well, Mister What's-your-name, I hear you still think we must have a free trade or a revolution." "Yes, I do." "But if we have a free trade, what will become of the landlords ?" "They never ask what will become of you, if we are not to have a free trade. Why care for people who care for nobody but themselves. Your wheel-barrow is not a coach-and-four; it is the grapery that is in danger, not your grand epergne, plated with sham silver." "Well, but Mr. What's-your-name, how is your trade now?" "Very bad." "Pshaw we never prospered better than at present. Look at that new street! what an income is rising there!" "That income is not rising but sinking. More than one-half of the capital expended there, is already lost for ever, in taxes on wood, bricks, and bread." "Bread! come, that is a droll joke! what has bread to do with building? The money, however, must have come from somewhere." "True; but do you know that the poor-rates of England and Wales last year increased eight per cent. on the average? There is not one county upon which to hang a quibble; not one was stationary; in not one was there a decrease; and the increase was greatest in those counties on which depends the prosperity of all the In Warwickshire, the increase was sixteen per cent. -in Lancashire, twenty-two. Does this look like pros perity? A little more such prosperity will close the manufactories from one end of the kingdom to the other; and then your favourite Wetherell will see the difference be tween a mob that chooses to do evil, and one that cannot avoid doing it." "Well, but Mister What's-your-name, you should not be ungrateful. You see, God has sent his A few months since, a scourge, the cholera among us." very big man, in a certain great house, blamed his Majesty's Ministers for the precautions they took against that disease. Shortly afterwards it arrived at his own door, but it passed on, and entered not; how, then, can it be of God?" "Are famine and bad governments your gods ?" "Well, you are a queer fellow, Mr. What's-your-name. But what do you think of your Radicals now? The men are masters." "Yes, sir; but instead of trying to establish low wages, which signify low profits, had you not better try to raise profits by joining with your men, heart and hand, to effect the removal of the great cause of contention?" "What! submit to the beggars? I would starve first." "Now, Mr. Sneak-for-nought, if you were weighed, are you worth three-halfpence? First, let it be possible for you to become rich in England, and then, perhaps you may despise the poor without being ridiculous."

There is one subject on which the great vulgar of this town are nearly unanimous in opinion-I mean the neces sity of an issue of small notes. They know nothing about the laws of currency; on the contrary, if put to their choice, they would, I verily believe, choose Pitt's inconvertible ones.

We have, however, a few reasoning manics, who pretend to know something of the matter, and ho presume to doubt whether Pitt's Bill or Peel's Bill has

one

done most mischief. They audaciously inquire, how it happened that a ministry, advocating the principles of freetrade, interfered with the natural laws of currency, and consequently with the freedom of trade in money? They actually impugn the wisdom of encouraging a huge and mischievous banking establishment, to the injury of all the useful banks in the nation. They stupidly imagine that there is no difference, in principle, between a one-pound note and a five-pound note; and they wonder, with the simplicity of idiocy, why we are compelled to have the note which we do not want, and prevented from having the note which we do want. They innocently ask, why bankers should not be allowed to issue one-pound notes, payable in gold at the counter, and with no other restraint than the mutual watchfulness and jealousy of the respective issuers! When told that if one-pound notes reappear, the gold coins will disappear, they reply, that if so, very few gold coins can be wanted; and that, by an issue of small notes, controlled by no law but the natural law of the case, pound might indeed be made to do the work of five." When reminded of the crisis of 1825, they ridiculously assert, that the law alone was the cause of the crisis-that law which sagaciously made one over-grown bank liable to furnish specie for the whole realm, and furnish it in greatest abundance, when directly interested in furnishing none at all. For, they say, if the thousand banks of the empire had each been liable to provide gold (not bank pa- | per) for the payment of its own notes, all the gold wanted would have been found, and no inconvenience whatever would have been sustained by them or the community. When told that theory is but theory, they sneeringly answer, that Watt's steam engine was theory fifty years ago. These fellows, I have little doubt, would rather give a shilling for a peck of good foreign wheat, than thrice that sum for the same quantity and quality grown in their own country. If I were in authority, I would hang every man of them to-morrow. I know, Gentlemen, you do not agree with me on the Currency Question-and perhaps not altogether upon other points-but you will be glad, perhaps, to give insertion to these opinions of the inhabitants of a great manufacturing town, The people to be governed well, must be known well.-I have the honour to be, your most obedient servant,

EBENEZER ELLIOT.

POPULAR ESTIMATION OF GEOLOGY. ST. FOND relates that in Mull, the son of his hospitable landlord, could not make out at all what he might be after "in the hill," whither he carried a small hammer, but declined taking a gun. About twenty years back the late Professor visiting at Donibristle, took a chaise from the North Ferry. On the short drive of three or four miles, his conduct appeared so suspicious to the sapient driver, that he thought it incumbent upon him, as a duty he owed to his lordship, and to a house to which he took so many fares, and from which he received so many horns of ale, to impart his apprehensions to the servants. "I kenna what sort of chap I have brought you the day," said James, as soon as he had got rid of the professor and his portmanteau, "but I ne'er thought to have got him this length. Ye'll need to keep an e'e ower him. We never travelled a quarter of a mile, but I bud stop the chaise, and set him down, when he out wi' a bit little hammer he keeps, and paps at a stane on this side o' the road, and a stane on that side o' the road, and puts them in his pouch!-but at Mr. dyke, I thought he wou'd hae riested a' thegither. He canna be richt-and he's a decent-like, well-put-on man,

too." Nor does geology appear to be extending rapidly northward. The subjoined anecdote, which reminds us of the professor's adventure, is given in a late Dundee newspaper. "Nearly the following dialogue took place between a clergyman, in a remote part of Angus, and a parishioner,

who was in the habit of letting summer lodgings. After the ordinary inquiries "Your new lodger seems a quiet man ?" "So he seemed at first, Sir, but we're grown doubtfu' that he's no richt."—" No richt, John; not behaving himself, or not paying his accounts?" "Ou no, he's weel aneugh that way-no richt in his mind, I mean. My wife and me notice that he tak's out a hammer wi' him ilka day to the hill, and aye brings hame at night a bit poky fu' o' broken stanes; he bigs them up in an out o' the way corner o' his room, and tak's as muckle care o' a wheen chucky stanes as if they were something o' use. Now I was thinking that he's may-be been no richt, and gotten escaped frae his frien's; so the night, when he was sitting in his room quietly, I just gae the key a thraw that he might nae rin aff, and so cam down to see if you thought we might keep him lockit up till he was cried at all the kirks. Or may-be ye might help us to adverteese him in the papers, to let his friends ken." It is needless to add, that the clergyman advised them just to leave the suspected philosopher to himself, so long as he lived quietly, and paid his bills.

REV. WILLIAM MUIR, D.D. MINISTER OF ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH. DR. MUIR is a native of the west of Scotland; and immediately after being licensed in 1812, while but a very young man, he was at once presented to a city church, the magistrates of Glasgow appointing him to the new parish of St. George's, in the most fashionable part of that city. He was considered at that time decidedly the best and most elegant preacher in Glasgow, though then quite moderate in his religious views. The arrival of Dr. Chalmers of course eclipsed his fame in the public estimation, though not the least with his own congregation, who continued ar

dently attached to him till deprived of his ministrations by his translation to Edinburgh.

Dr.

In 1822, Dr. Muir was presented to the parish and church of New Greyfriars, in Edinburgh. Here he greatly surpassed all the expectations that had been formed of him, and drew a crowded audience. He continued minister of this parish till the year 1829, when the magistrates, having erected another handsome church and extensive parish in the New Town, after a good deal of anxious deliberation regarding who was the best minister to appoint to so important and influential a parish, fixed on Dr. Muir, who was accordingly translated to be minister of St. Stephen's. This change was a fortunate one in many respects. Muir had before this period been severely tried in the fursunk under it; but here he was a changed man; he was nace of domestic affliction, and his spirits had considerably roused to a new and more extended sphere of duty and usefulness, and his animal spirits, as well as mental energy, were greatly improved by the change. Those severe domestic bereavements, which are so heart-rending to our nature, had already proved to him, as they have often proved to thousands, blessings in disguise, sent as it were direct from the hand of Providence; and the fruits of them were a meek and sanctified spirit, and a double excitement to the diligent performance of all duty. Whatever his discourses might have been in the earlier part of his career, during his ministry in the parishes of Greyfriars and St. Stephen's they have been decidedly orthodox and evangelical: they are strictly practical and useful; and, from a strong sense of the paramount importance of the labours of the Christian pastor, he evidently bestows the utmost diligence and industry in their preparation. He has been most successful with his congregation: while, on the other hand, they, aware of his great anxiety for their religious welfare, are reciprocally attached to him, though, creditably to themselves, not with that blind devotedness which some. times leads many well-meaning, but weak-minded people, forgetting that, excellent though he may be, he is still but in a congregation, to make an idol of a favourite minister, a frail and fallible being like themselves.

Dr. Muir's style of composition is very correct and elegant, it abounds in antithesis. His sermons are distinguished by clearnesss and perspicuity; at the same time his

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