ple as this police magistrate, judge of others from themselves; and finding that their own natural inclinations are towards all kinds of evil, or what they regard as such, cannot believe that any person could be prevented from being a scoundrel, except by the slavish and selfish terror of hell-fire. We will not press this. But we will appeal to facts. Does Mr. Rawlinson know anything whatever of the state of opinion among the lettered, or as they are called, educated classes? If so, he knows, that not less than one-fourth or one-third (at a moderate computation) of all the persons whom he meets at dinner, are either actual unbelievers, or have only the faintest and most doubtful belief; though they do not chuse, by avowing their sentiments, to expose themselves to martyrdom. Now, is there any perceptible difference between the conduct, in every relation of life, of this portion of Mr. Rawlinson's acquaintance, and the remaining three-fourths or two-thirds? Would he himself, on any occasion requiring confidence, place one particle less of it in them, than in the average of the remainder? Certainly not; nor is it possible for religion to exercise less influence over the lives and characters of actual unbelievers, than it does over the vast majority of professing Christians. If there be any difference, it is not in favour of those who call themselves Christians; for the speculative homage paid to a rule of life which they never for one half-hour sincerely endeavour to act up to, has rather a perverting than an elevating effect upon the character. Unbelievers, if they have not the direct influences of Christianity, have reason and natural feeling, and by those aids may, and generally have, worked out for themselves some moral convictions, by which they may really govern their conduct; but Christians who live in the world, and do as the world does, that is to say, who lead a life the main objects of which are such as Christianity either makes light of, or actually condemns, and in which nothing, except a certain small number of acts and abstinences, either flows from religion, or reminds them of it; such persons have perpetually to reconcile conduct of one kind, with a creed of a quite opposite kind; they cannot with any satisfaction to themselves, reflect on morality, or question themselves on their own moral state; all their moral perceptions become dim and confused; they acquire the habit of sophisticating with themselves, and paltering with their notions of duty: Christianity is practically disregarded, except on new or peculiar exigencies; and they live, if of a cautious character, according to respectability, and the breath of men; if incautious, by mere impulse.

Compared with such Christians, he who has the manliness to speak out, with simplicity and without ostentation, the fact of his unbelief, is a religious man. And he is turned out to starve-while they, possibly, are on the very bench which condemns him.

6th June. Business of the House of Commons. It is just now beginning to be found out that the House of Commons has too much to do, and does it in a clumsy manner. The schoolmaster is certainly abroad; intellect is on the march; it will soon be discovered, after due investigation by a commission or a committee, that two and two make four, and that the sun is the cause of day. The Business Committee of the House of Commons has passed the following resolutions:

1. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that with a view to promote the convenience of members, and to facilitate the dispatch of private business, it is expedient that certain measures which, under the existing laws, must be brought separately under the consideration of Parliament, should be provided for by general enactments, enabling parties interested therein to proceed to their accomplishment without having constant reference to the special sanction of the Legislature.

2. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that if possible, a General Inclosure Act should be passed, which may enable parties having an interest therein, to enclose lands, subject to such provisions as may secure the rights of all concerned, without subjecting themselves to the heavy expenses which are now incurred.

3. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that powers of providing for paving, macadamizing, watering, draining, and otherwise improv ing cities, towns, and places, should be vested (under certain conditions and regulations) in the inhabitants, to be carried into effect without the neces sity of appealing to Parliament.'

Why stop here? Does the self-evident general principle involved in the first resolution, include no cases but those of inclosure bills, and bills for local improvements? Are these even the fittest cases to begin with? Is it not absurd, that from the clumsiness of the law of partnership, every numerous association for commercial purposes requires a special act to entitle it to one of the simplest of the privileges which ought to belong to all jointstock associations, that of being treated in all legal proceedings as a single person?* Why should a turnpike bill, more than a bill for paving and watering, occupy the time of the Legislature? Would not all, or almost all local matters, be best provided for by parties having an interest therein;' the Legislature interfering only where national as well as local interests are concerned, and are in danger of being compromised by the supineness of the local authorities? To ascend to higher matters: what can be more monstrous than that there should be such things as divorce bills? Is it not self-evident, that what is good for a small number of the higher classes, must be good for the whole community; that the grant of a divorce ought to depend upon something else than length of purse; that there ought either to be (as is, to us, obvious) a general law of divorce, or else no divorces at all? In regard to the particular points for which the Business Committee recommends that provision may be made, there is another recommendation which should have preceded. They should have recommended that the House do immediately commence the organization of an efficient representative system of local government. Till then, we should be afraid to trust the local authorities with any new powers; especially any powers of encroaching on the rights of the poor. Who would tolerate, that the men who have stopped up, literally, every path in some of the most populous counties of England, should have the power, without passing the ordeal of Parliament and the public, to confiscate remorselessly the vested interest of the poor labourer in the free air and the pasturage, and the vested interest of the whole people in the enjoyment of the beauties of nature?

It is something that the House of Commons will now no longer pass Bucklebury and Kingsclere Inclosure_Bills. These were considered as cases of pecuniary injustice to the poor. But there are other kinds of injustice, besides pecuniary; injustice to the whole nation, as well as to the poor. Is it too much to expect from those who vote away 11,000l. of the people's money for two Correggios, that they should show some value for the people's tastes and enjoyments, as well as for what are called their interests? Hampstead Heath, it is said, is now on the point of being enclosed; the Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, whose cupidity is the motive to this sacrilege, has already enclosed Charlton Wood, and stopped up every, or almost every, foot-path between Blackheath and the Thames. The writer of this, who has been a pedestrian in the neighbourhood of London for about ten years, has, during that time, had to lament the loss of the two finest pieces of natural scenery within twelve miles of the capital,-Penge-wood, between Dulwich and Beckenham; and the Addington hills, near Croydon. The first, an inclosure bill having been obtained by a man named Cator, who has a house in the neighbourhood, is now in preparation for being cut up into citizens' boxes and bits of garden ground. The Addington hills, one of the most remarkable pieces of heath and forest scenery in the south of England, have been usurped by the Most Reverend Father in God, Doctor Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, the author of the famous prostration

* The Attorney General, we are glad to observe, has since obtained leave to bring in a bill for remedying this grievous and mischievous defect in our institutions.

of the understanding and will,' and of the doctrine, that the King, not in legal fiction merely, but in fact, cando no wrong. When Dr. Howley was appointed to the archbishopric, to which a house and park adjoining these beautiful hills are unfortunately appended, one of his first acts was to obtain an order of two magistrates, for stopping a public road which ran along the summit of the hills; and, this being effected, he immediately enclosed nearly the whole tract with a paling seven or eight feet in height. By this the people of Croydon have lost their most frequented walk, and the people of London and the neighbourhood, the most beautiful scenery to which they had ready access. It is some comfort to think, that the ground which has thus been added to the primate's domain, will in a few years, with the rest of the church property, be at the disposal of the State. When the time comes, and it will come, when we shall see the people of Croydon sally out with axe in hand, and level the fences which have been set up to exclude them from what was morally as much their birthright as any man's estate is his-then, and not till then, we shall feel that the Reform Bill has done its work, and that the many are no longer sacrificed to the few.

14th June. The Tom-foolery at Oxford.-We know not if the sow ever mistakes the squeaking of her own pigs for the voice of the whirlwind; but the Tory aristocracy certainly mistake the voices of their sons and their sons' toadeaters for the spirit of the age. The present exhibition wonderfully exemplifies that great fact in human nature, the importance of a man to himself. From Doctor the Duke of Wellington down to poor Lord Encombe, every character in the farce felt so solemnly persuaded that he was, or at least looked like, a hero or a martyr! while in reality he only looked like a fool. It is really too simple of the Tories to fancy that any one except themselves cares for, or so much as thinks about, what Oxford says or does. We all knew already that it is the hot-bed of Toryism, and that the clergy of the Church of England and the youths whom they educate are sure to be Tories. We know no more now. Tories they are, and Tories let them be. As they were the last Jacobites in the country, so will they be the last Tories. The only remark (beyond an occasional interjection of contempt) which we have heard from the lips of any Radical on the affair, was an expression of regret that a place pretending to be the fountain-head of morality and religion, should teach its youth to cheer a Lyndhurst and a Wynford; as if the youth of the London University should toss up their hats for Mr. Wakley or Mr. Whittle Harvey.

Oxford was powerful once; but even the prestige of its power has passed away; it is as effete as the Pope, also an important enough personage in his day. But what has once been powerful, usually lives on until it become ridiculous; and that evil day has arrived for Oxford. Peace be with it! for it can now do no harm.

17th June. Parliamentary Monstrosities.-Lord Bacon recommends that in studying the nature and laws of any principle or element of the universe, we should observe it where it exists in the greatest abundance and strength, and is least counteracted by the presence of any adverse element. We think this a good rule; and in obedience to it, we shall exhibit from time to time such specimens as offer themselves, of the characteristic vices of some institution or some state of mind, carried to the monstrous. Two such have presented themselves within the last few days.

1. What a Bishop is :-In the House of Lords, on a petition for removing the civil disabilities of the Jews, some one remarked, that as they tolerated Socinians, they might as well tolerate Jews, who were not one whit greater blasphemers, (suchat least seemed to be the spirit of the noble lord's remark.) Dr. Grey, bishop of Hereford, and brother of the Prime Minister, hereupon observed, 'The Socinians were a set of persons whom he held in utter abhorrence-as a Christian he could not do otherwise;' but yet he must say that the Socinians, though they rejected the divinity of our Saviour, believed him

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to be the Messiah, while the Jews affirmed the Lord Jesus Christ to be an impostor.

Pious soul! As a Christian he could not do otherwise than hold a large body of his fellow-creatures in utter abhorrence,' because, though they acknowledge the same revelation with himself, they differ as to some fer points of its interpretation; yet, even these people whom he utterly abhors, he thinks it but just to protect from being confounded with those who se knowledge only a part of the same revelation: for these last, utter abhorrence' is not enough; we know not what words he has reserved to express the bitterness of his feelings towards them.

Protect us from such Christianity! If this be the figure under which Christianity is to continue to be exhibited by its recognized teachers, there needs no prophet to predict, that, as the religion of the people of this country, it will not last two more generations. The religion which men shall ever again reverence, and shape their lives by, will be, Dr. Grey may depend on it, another kind of religion than this.

2. What a Landlord is. In a debate, a highly important one, raised on the Emigration clause of the Poor Law Bill by Mr. Whitmore, who took that opportunity of pressing upon the House those enlightened views of colonization, which are about to be, for the first time, realized in the formation of a new colony, Major Handley called upon all supporters of the corn laws to oppose emigration, saying that the principle was exactly the same, for the people ought to stop at home and eat the corn grown in this country.' The principle is exactly the same, being no other than that the whole people of England are the live-stock of the English corn-growers. And we, in imitation of Major Handley's naïveté, but reversing the terms of his proposition, call upon all who do not think it the duty of all English people to stop at home and eat the corn' grown for them by Major Handley, to vote for the repeal of the corn laws: for it is mere twaddling to affect to see any difference between the two pieces of tyranny.

17th June. The Ministry.-In common with the remainder of the liberal press, we augured no good from Lord Grey's filling up his cabinet with mere stop-gaps, promoted from the lower ranks; the resistance of the modified cabinet to Mr. Ward's motion; and that unfortunate letter to Lord Ebrington, deprecating what constitutes the sole strength of a reforming ministry, a constant and active pressure from without.' But our anticipations have been materially changed by Mr. Abercromby's accession to the cabinet, and by Lord Grey's noble speech on the Irish Church. How the 'Times' and the Examiner could possibly see in that speech a truckling to the Lords, passes our comprehension: we see nothing in it but a defiance to the Lords; and the Lords, we are fully persuaded, see it in no other light.

To say that the Tories had the majority in that House, was merely to say what Lord Grey could not possibly be supposed to be ignorant of. To say that he knew it, and that knowing it, he should steadily pursue his own course, and that they, not he, had anything to dread from a collision, was not only no cowardice, but the most triumphant refutation of the charge of cowardice; the distinctest proclamation that, let them do their worst, he feared them not. Lord Grey's speech was the bravest act of his ministerial life, next to the framing of the Reform Bill. He said everything which could have been wished or asked for everything which it had been the reproach of the ministry that it had not dared to say. We were not to expect that he would declare himself an enemy to Church Establishments; there is no reason to doubt that he is a sincere friend to them. Short of this, what did he not say that could have been said on the occasion by the most determined reformer? He avowed principles which went to the root of the whole subject. He declared, that if the endowments of the Protestant Establishmént exceed the wants of the Protestant population, it is the right and duty of the State to apply the surplus to the general purposes of moral and

religious instruction. He declared that if, when those purposes were fully provided for, a further surplus remained, it was the right of the State to take that further surplus, and apply it to any purpose which it deemed most advisable. He declared it as his deliberate conviction, that, in the case of the Protestant Church of Ireland, after the religious wants of the Protestant population were fully supplied, there would remain, not only a surplus, but a large surplus. And he distinctly affirmed, that upon these principles, he, as a minister, was prepared to act. Nor did he, as is the practice of some of his colleagues, say bold things so timidly, that the impression left is of spiritlessness, and not of boldness. The tone of his speech was wholly in accordance with its substance: the style was that of a dignified determinedness of purpose, and by no means, as it has strangely appeared to some of our contemporaries, querulous and dejected.

What matters it, if Lord Lansdowne or Lord Brougham used language which did not come up to the mark of Lord Grey's speech? The principles of a ministry are the principles of the minister who is at its head. Lord Grey is a man who weighs his words: every word with him means all it seems to mean. Lord Brougham's words are thrown out at random; he never speaks twice of the same thing in the same tone.

Few things could have been more solemn and impressive than the warning addressed by Lord Grey to the assembly-addressed to them on an authority so imposing to them as that of Napoleon-that he, the conqueror of Europe, had fallen, not by the strength of his enemies, not by his wars or his imprudences, but because he had opposed the spirit of the age-that the Bourbons who succeeded him, and all the old governments of Europe, would perish from the same cause-and that every government, and the order to which Lord Grey belonged, and which he was as desirous as any one to maintain, unless they profited by the example, would share the same fate. That such truths should be spoken to that assembly, by an English prime minister, was what, very few years ago, would have been deemed impossible. The Lords have never received such a lesson; they will never forget it, though they will never profit by it; it will ring in their ears till the day of their fall.

After Lord Grey's speech, we were not surprised at Mr. Abercromby's acceptance of a cabinet office; and we do not doubt that he had grounds for what he is represented to have said to the electors of Edinburgh, that he has become a member of the administration, because he believes it now to entertain views more consonant to his own, and because he has a strong hope that its measures will henceforth more decidedly attack, and more completely remove abuses; and that thus our institutions, being thoroughly renovated, will more surely tend to accomplish the good of the whole community.'

Almost all that we have hitherto observed of the conduct and declarations of Ministers, since the debate on Mr. Ward's motion, has been of a kind to justify our hopes. We must particularly commend the feeling which they manifested, and which, it must in justice be said, was manifested by the whole House, on the subject of national education, when brought before them by Mr. Roebuck. An excellent committee has been appointed, and there is now reason to hope that on that grand subject something not inconsiderable will be done.

The only bad symptom which we have yet discerned is, their declared purpose of renewing the Irish Coercion Bill. On this subject we suspend our final judgment until the bill is brought in. The military tribunals, which Mr. Abercromby, before he was in office, steadily and uncompromisingly opposed, were the principal blemish in that bill; and we would fain hope that his influence may now induce his colleagues to provide a substitute for that odious jurisdiction. It is not in the least necessary to the efficiency of the bill; and is the great cause of its well-merited unpopularity. To deliver