Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review

St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell.-W. S. of Richmond, has this month sent us a contribution of one pound towards the repairs of St. John's Gate. The architect has apprised us that the central portion of the South Front is now restored, as well as the whole of the North Front. He wishes the public to come forward and finish the towers on this side, when the character of the building would be complete. The details might afterwards be restored by degrees.

CHEVALIER BUNSEN. A Corre spondent says, "As your pages have incidentally been made the vehicle of an attack on Chevalier Bunsen, which charges him with infidelity (July, p. 29) it is fair that they should also record the defence. Archdeacon Hare has published, in the September No. of the British Magazine, a defence of M. Bunsen, against a letter in the Christian Remembrancer, in which a similar charge is made. It may be added, that the chevalier was present at the meeting held on Sept. 3, at the Hanover Square Rooms, for establishing the "Foreigners' Evangelical Society," on account of the numerous foreigners in England (estimated at 100,000) who are destitute of religious means; and that his speech is stated in the papers to have "made a great impression." As your pages, Mr. Urban, may be reckoned among some of our most lasting records, it is highly desirable that they should register the defence, after having admitted the attack. The use of the word most, in attributing infidelity to the German professors, will justify a pendant from the celebrated Czerski's Letter of July 3, 1845. "I can assure you, that by far the greater portion of the Romish priesthood are destitute of all Christian belief, and make a mockery among themselves of that which they profess to hold most sacred. I know many who do this." Let us hope, that both accusations are overcharged.

The New Cross at Glastonbury (engraved in our October Magazine). In consequence of an oversight in the original plan, the spire of the new Cross was taken down, soon after its erection, in order to lengthen the mullions of the second or upper tier, and carry the spire itself six feet higher. By this alteration the new Cross is now about 45 feet high, exclusive of the three steps and metal cross above; altogether, from the ground to the top of the gilded cross, it is exactly 50 feet

6 inches in height, and has a very magnificent and imposing appearance. A spinal column or backbone has been introduced, running from the base to the summit, to give unity, solidity, and compactness to the entire pile. The three steps are placed round the base, so as to form an elevated platform for the edifice, and the whole area is inclosed with a neat wrought-iron palisading. Following the form of the structure, in immediate connection with the railing, there are iron standards, with appropriate fixtures, termed nossels, to emit the water, which is supplied from the original sources, which are springs in the hills, about a mile distant from the spot, and which are inclosed in curious structures of solid antique masonry, coeval with the days of the abbots. These springs are to the north-east of the town, on the gentle range of declivity which forms the base of the mount called the TorHill, and which gush out at the upper portion of that hill. Directing its course to the west, the water fills the baths at the southeast of the town, runs through Chinkewell Street, crosses the Abbey Close, and so on to Chaingate, at the entrance of St. Magdalene Street, where it supplies the old baths, and from thence runs through the valley, till it mingles with the waters of the Brent. In p. 360, instead of "by a wooden figure of a naked man," read " a stone figure of a naked man," and omit the following three lines. W.R.

Our Correspondent H.M.G., in p. 490, having stated his belief that the Egyptian Squares, manufactured by Mr. Cox, were named from their form and not from their proportions, LICHFELDENSIS "begs to explain that, although they were at first made of different sizes, they were expressly named from the proportions marked in inches on the largest of them, in reference to the proportions of the second pyramid, according to Belzoni's measurement, which was as followsThe basis

684 ft.

568

456

140

And, unless H.M.G. can show to popular comprehension how the integer 113, on which he comments, has reference to these numbers, his attempted solution of their mystery cannot be received.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of the World.-1822.
(Continued from Vol. XXV. p. 590.)

BEFORE Sir James Mackintosh went we talked of the Durham Libel Case and the Attorney-General's speech, which Sir James said was a model of forensic eloquence. The law of libel appeared to him one of the most difficult in a free country. It seemed like a paradox, he said, but he thought there might be more freedom of speech and writing in a despotic country. If it went too far, a lettre du cachet, or an alguazil, and the author disappeared. But, where all things were to be according to law, the boundaries were most difficult to ascertain with justice to both the libelled and libeller; and, after all Bentham had said about it, the matter was as far from settled as ever. Mills had proved to demonstration that perfect freedom of the press was the only security; that the evil was always overbalanced by the good; it was proved to demonstration as far as law was concerned, but he had omitted feeling and morality: feeling, which cannot be defined by act of parliament or weighed in the scales of justice; and morality, which may be sapped to its foundation by a book of which the law takes no cognizance. For, if left unrestrained, except by public taste and opinion, what guard is there against the corruption? Public opinion varies with every age: there are times when a moral malaria is abroad, seasons when a profligate pestilence has filled the land; and it is at these times that law must interfere and should have the power to interfere; the loss of so much freedom of speech or publication is nothing compared to the advantage of a check upon iniquity. The how much and the how little is the difficulty: in such cases a discretionary power must be left to the law officers, the natural guardians of a country's good; and, constituted as our judges are, perfectly independent, and with such high characters at stake, they may be safely allowed a power of which the abuse is a less evil than that which they would control.

said that was all very true as far as abstract general morality went, but there are so few cases, he said, in which there is not personality against the Scribes and Pharisees, that it is hardly safe to leave those who sit in Moses' seat to be judges in their own case. In this very affair of Mr. Williams the clergy are not angry because he attacked religion, but because he attacked them; and in their anger there is, as in most anger at attacks, a mixture of fear: they fear not for their faith, but for their livings; not for their altars, but for their fireside. And is it for the good of the community that the clergy should be shielded, and hidden, and uncondemned, however they may deserve condemnation ?

Sir James said that this was the very difficulty, but that the case was almost always simplified thus: the person who makes the attack puts himself in the wrong if his attack is a general one against a class. He may well and wisely argue in generalities against a defective system; he can be

answered by argument. Or, if he knows of an individual case of wrong, the law is open: he can bring his charge to an issue; but where a man publishes a general slander upon any body of men he is fairly open to prosecution as a libeller. And in this case of the Durham clergy, feeling has so much to do with it that every body must sympathise with Brougham's impassioned eloquence; justice may condemn the attack, but Brougham, and sympathy, and hatred of unmanly insult, are all against the attacked in this case. If Scarlett's speech is a model of legal, Brougham's is of indignant eloquence.

Oct. 22. Read Barry O'Meara's "Napoleon in Exile." Extremely interesting, though written by a person on whom, by his own shewing, one cannot place much reliance; but he could not have invented Buonaparte's conversations; and, with all allowance for exaggeration and party spirit and private malice, it is a grievous tale. The despot of Europe reduced to such a narrow theatre of petty squabbles is piteous. Such a choice of a governor over such a prisoner was unfortunate, to say the least of it. The most highborn good breeding, the most refined good nature, could hardly have sufficed in such a situation.

Oct. 24. A strange book was sent from the library, which by its title in the list of publications is put down among biography-Life and Opinions of Sir Richard Maltravers: it is a stupid fiction by some crackbrained radical, with here and there an eloquent passage.

25. Read a curious and valuable History of Consumptive Diseases by Dr. Young: it appears from his account to be a more ancient malady than I had supposed, and not so peculiar to the British isles.

Read some of Davis's Chinese Travels, and Sir George Staunton's Miscellaneous Notices on China. To have novels-a class to write and a class to read works of domestic fiction-gives one an idea of civilization that is very well supported by Sir George's tracts. The idea of that vast empire of which we have such partial glimpses has always appeared to me something of the sublime. Needham's notion that the Egyptian hieroglyphics are the Chinese characters seems to me to merit more consideration than Gibbon gives it, and may perhaps engage the world again. There is much in the two nations of resemblance,-the paternal government, the system of domestic legislation, circle within circle to the supreme Head; and the mystery which envelopes the two people has something rather captivating for the fanciful antiquary. If we knew more of China, we might perhaps find the living originals of all that puzzles us in the dead Egyptians. Placed in a more remote situation, the Chinese have preserved an existence which the too near neighbourhood of Egypt to European ambition destroyed. Egypt, enlarged from a narrow tract, won from mud and sand, to the vast extent and long-sustained power of the mighty Chinese territory, will be a wide field for future study.

26. Looked over a great many pamphlets and reports on Weights and Measures. This union of the highest science and the commonest practical details is worthy of England. The idea of a base, laid out and measured with all the skill of profound mathematicians, being necessary before a 'prentice at a silk-mercer's in Bond Street can accurately adjust his yard as he serves out my lady's Gros de Naples, is fine.

Simond's Switzerland I looked at, but it is too much of a guide book, and of places too well known, to be interesting in description. But what he

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