such proofs of the iniquity and demoralization of a great manufacturing town as we did in our two hours' stroll through the streets of Newcastle. The street advertisements were different from those we have been used to encounter elsewhere-one, for instance, was from a "Mrs Chapelsmith, who will deliver a lecture on Sunday evening, in which she will state the reason why, having been a Calvanist"-this is her own spelling-"she is now a Socialist. Admission 2d." The reason assigned by this eloquent and respectable lady for the change, was probably the same that induces a horse that has been too tightly reined to get the bit in its teeth, and run away. There were also advertisements of the establishment of a Chartist newspaper by the conductors of the late Northern Liberator; and we don't know whe ther to consider it as a good or a bad sign, that amidst all these and numerous other handbills, was one inviting so steady and humdrum a man as our stupid old friend, Joseph Hume, to stand for Newcastle at the next election. We did not discover whether Mrs Chapelsmith-ominous name! had signed the requisition; but in all probability the exorbitance of her charge would prevent our economical acquaintance from profiting by her lectures. There was a man with a very pale face and a most cunning expression of countenance, preaching on original sin, under the pillar to Lord Grey. About twenty half-tipsy raggamuffins were gathered round him; and one of these, a young fellow about fifteen, kept his eye fixed on our pockethandkerchief, as if he had some idea it was the forbidden fruit. That lad will certainly be hanged, if there is truth in Lavater. The preacher was not by any means dull; he had considerable action and a great flow of words, and was exceedingly severe, and almost personal, to our first parents. He wore a black velvet cap, which gave him gomewhat the appearance of a converted jockey, and was tremendously long-winded; for when we had circled the market, and seen a large portion of the town, we still saw the velvet cap, and caught a few words now and then about that "miserable happle."

We had heard a great deal of the architectural wonders of Newcastle, and the talents of its enterprizing inhabitant, Mr Grainger. It certainly

The

was a bold thought to bestow any care on the masonry of a town so devoted to dirt and dinginess; but we cannot deny that the attempt to create fine streets and imposing masses of building, has been very successful. Grey monument is very admirably placed, and the architecture in its neighbourhood very striking and massive. The most curious thing, in the present state of the improvements, is the evident encroachment of the new buildings on the old. The old town, with its wretched brick houses, is still there; but it is very manifest to the most cursory observer, that it will soon be entirely submerged in the progress of the architectural deluge. At the present moment it has the effect of the dissolving views which are shown at the Polytechnic, where the image of a new picture is thrown upon the disc before the old one has quite vanished away; and where the majestic porticos and long corridors of the new Royal Exchange are seen effacing, as it were, the blackened ruins of the old. only to be regretted that Mr Grainger's genius had not a fitter stage for its development; for the temples and towers of the Acropolis itself would become valueless in such an ungenial and detestable situation.

It is

With lightened heart we started next morning, Thursday the 10th, on the driving-seat of a capital postchaise, from the door of the uncomfortable

Hotel for Morpeth, fourteen miles. The same perpetual smoke from unfathomable coal-pits destroyed the beauty of the scenery till we came near the end of the stage. Morpeth is a perfect specimen of an ancient burgh town, with remains of former ecclesiastical grandeur, and a spick and span new jail. Our funds were now wearing very low, and we are happy to record a trait which proves that the race of the good Samaritans is not extinct. As we were changing horses at the Queen's Head, we told the landlord, a most respectable looking member of the society of St Boniface, under what circumstances we had left the steam-boat at Bridlington, and asked him if he thought, when we got nearer to Edinburgh, the postmasters would forward us, if we happened to run short, to our destination. Our good-natured friend immediately inserted his hand into an apparently very well-filled

pocket, and offered us as much as we required. The assistance we needed was not much, but we are not the less indebted on that account to Mr Pearson, whose house we charge all welldisposed travellers, and all lovers of Maga, on no account to pass by. From Morpeth to Weldon Bridge is a drive of nine miles through a fine upland country little traversed by coaches, as the main road is through Alnwick and Berwick-on-Tweed. The inn itself at Weldon Bridge is the most captivating spot we ever saw. The Coquet winds gracefully under long lines of ash and oak plantations, and is full of excellent fish; and the landlord, evidently a brother of the angle, knows very well how to make his guests comfortable. In a couple of minutes he furnished us with the beau-ideal of a lunch, where every thing was the best of its kind: the bread home-baked, the butter cool and fresh, the cheese inimitable, and the porter superb. The country continues much the same till we pass Wooler, when it becomes doubly interesting, as being more decidedly a border region and the scene of feuds and forays, far different from these degenerate days

"When the thistle is join'd to the rose, An' the English nae langer are counted our foes."

Nothing struck us so much as the ride from Wooler, north, as the triumphs of agriculture over all natural disadvantages-up the sides of high hills, nearly to the top, ploughs and harrows were busy; and very fine crops were rising on ridges, in all probability a few years ago too barren to maintain a sheep. No houses of proprie tors, no cottages of labourers were visible, and yet highly cultivated fields of immense extent, if fields they can be called, that stretched hundreds of acres without a single fence, gave evident marks of the toil and perseverance of the Northumbrian farmers. Where do all the labourers live?-for not one village did we come to in the whole of our journey from Morpeth to the Scottish border. Detached houses there certainly were, but very small and thinly spread, and by no means sufficient, as far as we could see, to supply such an army of ploughmen and farm servants as must be required for such immense operations. thinly-peopled a district would have

VOL. L. NO, CCCIX.

So

gladdened the heart of Malthus—if indeed any political economist has a heart to be gladdened—and in other respects it is well worthy of a visit. A fine old castle attracted our attention on the right, with antique towers and picturesque ruins, and altogether with more of a feudal air about it than any in that part of the country. We found it was Ford castle, the seat of the Marquis of Waterford, a place redolent of tilts and chivalry, and perhaps the better adapted, on that account, to be the scene of the return match at Tournament, at one time talked off, for the one played at Eglinton castle. "But lightly lightly tread, 'tis holy holy

ground.

On the left, now covered with flourishing plantations, and interspersed with small hillocks, lies Flodden field, of which, as pious Scotch people, we desire to say as little as possible, unless, as a pendant to it, we may be allowed to make a few allusions to Bannockburn.

A few poor-looking trees, close to the road, had arrested our notice, from being surrounded by a very handsome hewn stone wall. The space so enclosed could not be more than sixty or seventy feet long, by thirty or forty wide. The trees, as we have said, were poor and common, and by no means worthy of such an expensive fence. On enquiring of the postilion, he told us it was called "Percy's Keep, 'cause one of the Earl Percies was slayed there." What Earl Percy? not Persæus ex-Northumbria, for he died, the heathen, on the other side of the Border. We went over all the Earl Percies we could remember in tale or history, from the hero of Chevy Chace and Hotspur downwards, but could not fix on any one who was likely to be the tenant of that roadside sepulchre; and as our cicerone, most probably, could not have answered our queries if we had propounded them to him, we were well pleased to take on trust that some gallant Percy had here looked proudly to heaven from the deathbed of fame, and we now looked back with very different feelings on the young trees and rough grey stones that mark the restingplace of one of that heroic line. had been recommended to stop for the night at Cornhill, a village on the English side of the Tweed; but patriotism was strong in our souls, and we determined to proceed to Cold

F

We

stream, and sleep on Scottish ground, -in this instance, as in many others, realizing the old adage, of going farther and faring worse. The point of entrance by this road, is perhaps the most beautiful on the Tweed. The river is spanned by a handsome bridge, and thick woods wave on each side of the water, as far as the eye can reach. Cornhill is a small village, with one remarkably goodlooking inn, on which we cast back many lingering fond regards, when we pulled up in Coldstream, at the door of a miserable-looking changehouse kept by Mrs Margaret Sang. At one time we had great thoughts of going back to the hostel we had passed; but the house, though dingy and unpromising outside, was clean and cozy within. The landlady was a tidy, bustling, nice old lady; and a comfortable tea," flanked with corned beef, and a young salmon-trout, that morning caught in Tweed, reconciled us to our position entirely. A stroll by the banks of the river, and an inspection of the monument raised by numerous friends to Charles Marjoribanks of Lees-the only monument we could see about the straggling dirty villageconcluded our labours for the day; and, in the midst of an attempt to recollect the passage in Walter Scott,

"Is there a man with soul so dead," we fell asleep. These two border villages struck us, even in their names, to be typical of their respective countries; or to be like the watchwords of two adjacent camps. Bluff, jolly, bigbellied, redfaced England, being represented by Corn-hill; and Cold-stream being the parole and emblem of longarmed, high-cheeked, strong-legged, lion-hearted Caledonia.

It is not to be supposed that the journey, such as we have described it, was performed "in sunshine and in calm." We did not, indeed, feel the

effects of the wind so much on the dicky of a chaise, as on board the gallant Clarence; but the gale was blowing with unabated fury. The young plantations were bent beneath it wherever we looked; even the young wheat was in many places as completely laid as if it had been submitted to a fortnight's rain; and, greatly to our satisfaction, we heard, at the various places we stopped at, that the Edinburgh coaches were filled with passengers from Bridlington; from which we concluded, that many who seemed to consider our departure premature, had grown tired of tossing about at anchor themselves, and had disembarked on the following day. The Clarence itself did not leave her shelter till the Wednesday; as the captain very sensibly concluded, that after waiting so long, it would be useless to put to sea till what he waited for came. But even on Wednesday the passage must have been very rough. By land the wind was not only very high, but as chilly as we generally find it in November. The sea, which we saw on our stage from Aln bridge to Wooler, looked cold and tempestuous, and we could perceive, even at that distance, long lines of white breakers along the shore. The rest of the trip to Edinburgh is through a country so well-known, and of which, with the exception of the neighbourhood of Kelso, so little favourable can be said, that we pass all details of it sub silentio. The gale, in addition to causing us much fatigue and anxiety, we found, on arriving at Edinburgh, had cost us, besides the full passage-money to Leith, a little more than thirty pounds, which is a convincing proof that raising the wind does not always increase the property. And it is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that the rest of our journeys, at whatever time of the year, shall invariably be by land.

WE address our countrymen on the eve of the most important decision which can be formed by a free people. The elections are to settle the question, not between names but things-not between parties but principles. They are distinctly to decide, whether we shall henceforth be governed by individuals pledged to dangerous innovation, or to others whose opinions are in conformity with the spirit of the constitution. The writ which summons the nation to the hustings at this crisis, summons them to stamp the practical determination, whether we shall submit all that is dearest to us on earth, to a party ele vated into power by the populace, dependent on the populace, and now offering to purchase that populace by a still deeper devotion to its will, or shall fix in government men of ability and character, alike superior to violent demands and criminal concessions.

In our remarks, we shall limit ourselves to the great object, the actual dangers of the constitution. We

shall leave the characters of the present cabinet as we find them. They are not made for panegyric, and they will never be named by history-they are passing, even already, out of the public mind. No man regards them as formed by nature, or by circumstances, for the true depositaries of public power. If they had been

thrown into the humblest condition of official drudgery, or left to lounge away their faculties in the shapeless and valueless round of fashionable life, no one living could have regarded them as misplaced-no national regret would ever have been called on to lament over their lost energies. The only use of such lives is to confirm the contemptuous maxim of the Swedish statesmen, "With how little wisdom states may be governed," and to guard posterity against the desperate evils that may be done by faculties which seemed to be made for doing nothing.

But the object to which we look, beyond the career of those triflers, is of a bolder form. The true danger of all free constitutions is democracy. By the predominance of popular power, all the constitutions of the an

cient republics perished. The favourite demagogue became the despot; or the seizure of the public property broke down the resources of the state against foreign aggression; in all an element of discord had been introduced-a fatal disease which, sometimes gnawing away the vitals of the state, at others maddening it, rapidly brought the constitution to the sepulchre.

Modern Whiggism is pledged to democracy. A Whig government of great talents, vigorous activity, and public character, established by eminent public success, if such shall ever be, may by possibility refuse a compliance with the more extravagant caprices of the multitude; but a Whig ministry, at once weak in its composition, and ill-omened in its career, hopeless of pursuing any original course for itself, and helpless in carrying through even the ordinary duties of administration, must be dependent. The more it is scorned by men of character, the more eager it must be in its canvass of the men of none; the oftener it is defeated in the legislature, the oftener must it take refuge behind the rabble; until, altogether deserting the natural and manly means of appeal to the national judgment, it lives on intrigue, traffics in pledges, and thinks all the hurts of its nature healed by the prolongation of its

pay.

We shall now proceed to give a brief history of Whiggism-once a noble name, and identified with British freedom, but long since degenerated into the watchword of a party, never trusted but with hazard to the national prosperity, never active but in times of public misfortune, and never obtaining power but to leave its trace in some broken bulwark of the constitution.

The Whiggism of the Revolution of 1688, was a declaration of the triumph of the Church of England over the tyranny of Rome; it established the great principles, that the government of England was not to be favouritism, nor the religion superstition; and protesting alike against the tyranny of James and the bigotry of his religion, it gave us a constitu tion unexampled in the world. Who