The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-14 00:00:00

LoN DON, TUESDAY EVENINGS SEPTEMBE]ft 14, /862.

7 to 1 agst Trousseau—taken
9 to 1 agst 1-hrbingpr—taken

INTELLIGENCE EXTRA.
EPSOM AUTUMN MEETING, 1852.

Mr. B. Crewe's Abdalle.h, 5 yrs, Bst 71b, against Mr.
B. Land's The Greek, 3 y rs, 76t 71b. One mile. 200,
la ft.

UPTON-UPON-SEVERN, 1852.

Handicap for the Upton Stakes, 3 ft, if declared on Sa,
tutday week.

Candlewick, 5 yrs, Bst 51b—Letterpress, 4 yrs, 7st
101b—Odiham, 4 yrs, 7st 101b—Batwing, 5 yrs. 7st 101 b
—Worcester, 4 yrs, 7st 41b—Cingari, 5 yrs, 7st 41b—
Lady Amyett, 3 yrs, 7st—Ethelwulf, 3 yrs, Est 6ib—
Surge, 3 yrs, 6st 61b—Winifred, 3 yrs, 6st 41b—Royal
George, 3 yrs, 6st—Romulus, 3 yrs, sst 101 b.
NEWMARKET SECOND OCTOBER MEETING,
1852.— TUESDAY.
Acceptances for the Cesarewitch Stakes.
Yrs st Ihl Yrs st lb
Cariboo
liust,borough
Lady Evelyn
(including 6lbs extra) Galvankni
Black Doctor 4 8 4 Mrs, Bitch
Kingston 3 8 41King Pepin 3 6 4
Ariosto
Stilton
Alorzl
Chief Baron Ni.- Elyacinth
. _

cholson
Joe Miller

INvau
Iles

Montague
Windisehgratz
Frantic . 3 7 8
Neaehaixi 4 7 6
Indian Warrior
Timid Fawn
Bird on the Wing *3 7 3
Musician 5 7 :.,
Knight of Gwynn° 5 7 1
Le Jiff .... 4 6 13
Westhergage 3 6 11
Lady Amyott 3 6 11
Marchioness
Kat. of the Garter 6 6 10
King Charming
Candlewick
Proctor
c by Melbourne
out of Sally War-
foot
Butterfly

Merry man
La Gazza Ladra 6 5 12
Harrier
Waterfall
Lindrick 3 5
Sit of Blue 3 5 10
Athentt Pallas
Jullien 3 5 9
Mary Ann 3 5 9
Richard Primmer 3 5 8
Knight of the Shire 3 5 8
Lerryw h en t
Lady Harriet 3 5 6
Madeline 3 5 5
Little Davie 3 5 5
Dangerous
Babette
Termagant
Dollond
Jessic3, 3 5 3
Missive

The others d
NEWMARKET HOUG.
Acceptances for the C
Yrs st lb
Teddington 4 9 3
Turmas 6 8 10
Lady Evelyn
(including 61bs extra)
Truth
Russborough
Hernandez
Glauca
Kingston 3 8 3
Ariosto
Officious
Ephesus
Sir Charles 5 7 11
Stilton 3 7 11
Neasham 4 7 11
Hobbit) Noble 3 7 11
Alcoran
Harbinger
Chief Baron Ni-

Ld not accept.
EITON MEETING, 1852.
:ambridgeshire Stakes.
Yrs st lb
Father Thames 3 6 8
Lady Agnes
Poodle 3 6
Miss Fanny . 4 6
Dulcet a 6 6
Lancaster
Bardolph 3 6 6
King Pepin 3 6 6
Deceitful 4 6 5
Phlegra
Erwin°
Convulsion 3 6 5
Sanita
Scarecrow
Kate 3 6 5
Kilquade 4 6 4
101 d English Oak., 3 6 4
Sackbut
Athena Pallas 3 6 3

cholson
Eliza Middleton
Longinus
Ilook'em Snivel• 4 7 7
Grief
King of Trumps 3 7 5
Grey Tommy 3 7 5
liothorpe
Indian Warrior
Adino 3 7 4
The Cutler 4 7 3
Weathergage 3 7 2
Le Juif
Ring leader 4 7 1
Caracara 3 7 1
Hangerford
Flirt
The Italian 5 6 13
Musician
High Sheriff . 3 6 12
Allegro
Lady Amyott 3 6 12
Gladiole
(including 3lbs extra)
Trousseau
b f by Faugh-a-
Ballagh, out of
Miniature
Kadidjah 3 6 10
Proctor
Herbert
c by Melbourne,
out of Sally
Warfoot
Glenluce 3 6 9
Manifold 5 6 9;
Candlewick 5 6 8
Young Trouble-
some 4 6 S

Butterfly 3 6 3
!Koh-i-noor ....... 3 6 3
Vermuth
Bit of Blue 3 6 2
Merryman
Knight of the Shire 3 6 2
Follow-me-lads ... 4 6 2
Azael
Hyacinth
Ilex
Lindrick
Sophistry
La Gazzs Ladra 6 6 0
!Cavan
' Ammonia
Puritan
Alfred the Great 3 5 12
Billy Bar 4 5 12
Sir J. Barleycorn 3 5 10
Plot 3 5 9
Tested 3 5 8
Henrietta
Racket&
Jullien 3 5 7
Varmint ........... 3 5 7
Sister to Singapore 3 5 7
Babette
Brawn 3 5 5
Cotton Lady
!Termagant
;Dividend
Pancake
!Jessica
Cornelius
Peacock . 3 5 3
Dollond
Sabra
j Madeline 3 5 2
Isabella
5 soya. each.

The rest pay

THE NORTHERN MEETING.

INVERNESS, SEPT. 11.—This great annual gather,
ing of Highland chiefs and proprietors, and of sports-
men from the south, was commenced here on Thurs-
day and concluded last night. The attendance was
more numerous, perhaps, than on any previous oc-
casion, for owing to the fine weather with which we
have been favoured this season, and the absence of any
absorbing attraction in the south, there has been an
unparalleled influx into the Highlands of sportsmen
of every description, of visitors at the houses of the
northern nobility, and of tourists from every part of
England and the Continent. These have flocked in
great numbers to Inverness to witness the festivities
at the northern meeting, which is the modern desig-
nation for the great Highland gathering, known in the
famous Duke of Gordon's time as the Northern Hunt.
The constitution of the meeting is so far changed that
for field-sports and horse racing have been substituted
piping and dancing. The northern meeting, however, is
still the most thoroughly Celtic demonstration of
which we can boast. At the Scottish fete, in Hol-
land-park, many of the best Highland games were
contested by
a majority of the same brawny High-
landers who came forward at Inverness and at Brae-
mar; but then there is neither the noble panorama of
mountains which surround this picturesque town, nor
the presence of the chivalry of the north, the lineal
descendants of the same men who followed the for-
tunes of Dundee and Prince Charlie. In the large
park in which the games were celebrated during the
last two days,
many thousand persons were assem-
bled ; and though clans and clanships are utterly de-
molished, yet of those present fully three-fourths bear
the names of chieftains with whom the readers of his-

tory are familiar.
The Duke of Richmond, the patron of the northern
meeting, did not attend; but the vice-president, Lord
Saltoun, and Lord Lovat, took en active part in the
proceedings.
The games which came off here on Thursday were
putting the stone, tossing the caber, throwing the
hammer, &c. The hammer was thrown 96 feet three
inches by Donald Fraser, of Upper Killin ; the best
throw ever known to be made at Inverness. Samuel
Kennedy, the big-boned, red-headed celt of Bade-
noch, who regularly appears at the Scottish fete,
tossed with ease a huge caber, which baffled the
strength and skill of every other competitor. Yester-
day was set apart for the competition of pipers and
dancers. The winner of the gold medal was Alex-
ander M'Kenzie, piper to the Marquis of Breadalbane,
a hale and hearty grey old man.
The prizes for dancing called forth a large host of
light-footed competitors from the braes of Strathspey.
The sword dance and Ghillie Callum were never bet-
ter performed, and the reels were given with great
zest and spirit. .

A ball, very brilliantly and numerously attended,
concluded the festivities of each day.
Amongst those present were Lady Ann Mgienzie,
Lady Carolina Townsley, Lady Lovat, Lady Mostyn,
&c. ; Prince Massino, the Earl of Leicester, Hon. F.
Dundas, M.P., Hon. L. Grant and Hon. Lewis Grant,
of Seafield, Hon. Mr. Abercromby of Birkenbog,
Hon. J. Gordon, Sir C. Hope Vere, Sir Henry Wil-
more, Sir Piers Mostyn, Sir Adam Hay, Sir Robert
Menziee, Count Moratt, Mr. Matheson, M.P., &c.

COLLISION ON THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN
EAILWAY.—A collision took place near Leighton Buzzard
yesterday morning, September 13. The 6.30 down train,
which was a very heavy one, with a powerful engine,
marked 110, driven by James Pattison, left the Euston
terminus at its usual time, being due at Leighton at 7.48,
where it arrived in due course, carrying a large number of
second and third-class passengers. The pilot engine came
up to the Leighton station, and having been attached to the
down train, proceeded with it over the single line to that
point where the relaying of the up line at this point termi-
nated. The pilot was then unhooked from the engine of
the 6.30 A.M. down train, and proceeded at a rapid speed on
to the crossing, in order to pass on to the up line to allow the
down train to pass. The pilot engine had nearly reached
the crossing, and was partially crossing on to the up line,
when the down train, the engine of which had been kept by
Pattison the driver following at a great speed, caught the
left-hand hind buffer of the tender, dashing it across the line
down the embankment, and throwing the pilot engine round
across the up line. The passenger down train had its front
stove in, and was also, together with its tender, thrown over
across the down line, and four and five of the carriages of the
down train also being thrown off the down line, the road
was perfectly blocked. With the exception of one gentle-
man, who had his face severely cut with the glass of one of
the carriage windows, and injury to one of the heels of the
policeman who was on the pilot engine, we un&rst,and that
no one received really serious injury.
MANSLAUGHTER AT LIVERPOOL, —On Sunday
morning last, about one o'clock, a widow, named Grace
Jones, was killed by her son-in-law, Thomas Yates, under
the following melancholy circumstances :—About midnight
he went home and found his wife in a state of intoxication.
Being irritated, lie commenced beating her, when her mother
interfered, and Yates struck her on the throat, knocking her
down the steps into the yard, and causing a compound frac-
ture of the skull, from which the deceased immediately ex-
pired. A post modern examination has been ordered, and
Yates is in custody.

ANECDOTES OF CRITICISM.
(From Eliza C'ook's Journal)
If, in criticism, there were less brilliance and more
charity, better justice would be distributed between tt e
heif
authors who write and the public who read. When I,
as a reviewer, take up my ivory knife, and set down to
cut open the leaves of a new book, what do I invoke,
I
as
r the genius, to attend upon my chair? lam
afraidokfe
the
work. of anything but the untortunate write
work. My object is to flavour my "article," and a
shall
supply relish to my periods; but if unbapPili not, h
" our author" can supply spices, well and good;
lie is
then the mere ground of the dish, and I seri% him up
transmogrified from his original shape—with oraons of
satire, cloves of sarcasm, ginger of vituperation--”Ter
thinking of him, but of making a " stinging review'.
My pen is no quill from the wing of a pacific goose,
my ink no odorous distillation from an Indian wood; the
one is tempered steel—the proper material to stab With
—the other is undiluted gall to
pour into the wound.
Ali around my table are the busts of brilliant critics,
famous in their day, whose trophies are built upon e
pyramid of epics, essays, lyrics, histories, romances, and
.
disquisitions, amalgamated into solid bricks, by the
pestle first, and pressure next, of " first-rate rehears."
One I sce mangling some e half.fledged poet;" another
"crushing a young singing-bird in
its nast;" another
quenching the lamp of some ambitious student's ins Pis
ration. Then I ring my own hammer on the rock, that
an echo may come to me of similar fame, and that in;
vanity asay he plumed by the idea that some poetaster,
or prosaic dullard has been
" extinguished" by a blot of
the terrible liquid, lying, black as Pitlegethon, before me.
Lately, however, I have been refiscting on the critical
art and the critic's responsibility ; but I am not going to
write a disquisition on either. I have, for
lay own edi-
fication, collected some anecdotes to illustrate what I
have been saying, and to show that infallibility is nomore an attribute of the editorial table than it is of
Peter's chair. The victims of great reviews have
mounted to high fame in spite of their reviewers. :glen
have fallen into ridiculous errors through their refasal
to acknowledge, or their inability to
appreciate genius
when its work is presented tangibly to their observatisna.
There are some episodes in the history of criticism
which are universally knovvn—how the living fire of
Keats's inspiration was " snuffed out" by an article in 1
the Quarterly; how Byron was hunted by the Scotch
reviewers until he stood at bay,
and reviewed them in
their turn with a vengeance; how Swift cut to pieces a
whole army of scribes by means of one satirical essay;
how Pope, with a single feather from the goose's wing,
wrote a sacrificial song for a hecatomb of detractors.
Other episodes, however, there have been, less known,
but no less remarkable than these.
There never was, for instance, a mor® extraordinary,
a more absurd, a more impudent criticisim, than that of
Rymer upon the tragedy of Othello. lie said it was
"a bloody farce, without salt or savour, that fillsthe head
with vanity, confusion, tintamarre, arid jingle-jangle."
Now Rymer, in his time, was thought a judicious man;
reviewed a good many books—perhaps decided the lite-
rary fate of several authors. Yet, if the public accepted
his opinion, how much injustice was there not com-
mitted. Nearly equal in impertinence was the observa-
tion of Gifford, that Shnkspere was,
as a poet, inferior
to Pope. This remark, however, from such a man,
though it startles, does not astonish us. Ile was utterly
incompetent to appreciate the richness, sweetness, and
beauty of that poetic nectar which flowed from the lips
of him who was our noblest muse.
He said, that the
only excellence of the dramatic minstrel, whose melo-
dies gushed as though "Ilyssus were in his throat," was
his wit, and that among his merits rhythmical modulation
was by no means to be included.
After this, I do not so greatly wonder that a dull,
dry, and dusty mathematician once told us that Milton's.
Paradise Lost is " worth nothing, because it
proves
nothing." This scientific pedant would have valued
more highly the solution of an algebraical problem, or
an ingenious disposition of straight lines,
curves, and
cones. Figures arithmetical he loved, but figures of
speech, or flowers of thought, he could by no possi-
bility understand. Perhaps he would equally have
sElegyin
caritic%ird, with the most
Churchyard, of
swchoircnhe d
aGr ay
contemporary
amusing condescension,—" This little poem, how-
ever humble its pretensions, is not without ele-
gance or merit 1" What, however, can surprise us,
when Goldsmith's reviewer in the Monthly set down his
Traveller as a " flimsy production;" when Wordsworth
has been described as the " verbose, dry, drab-coated
proper of the lakes;" when Scott has been compared to
Homer; when Rogers has been eulogised as " superior
Shakspere has
beento Go
sneeredleri dge, Saht e lbeyy , oe rn Mj
oonosroen; "asw h e n
an ignoramus, be-
cause he makes Bohemia a maritime country; and when
it has been pronounced of Shelley's poetry, as it was, by
Gifford, that its chief characteristic is, "its total
want
of meaning."
The truth is, that there can be no absurdity imagined
which has not been perpetrated by critics, at one time or'
another. Time, however, cures the little stings inflicted
by the feeble. The day has gone by when readers of
the Literary Gazette would submit to be told by that
journal that " Queen blab" was " a mere mass of bloated
words,'' or that " Adonale" exhibited nothing but "in-
curable absurdity." Fortunately also the day has long gono
by when that periodical would open its columns for any
critic to effuse through them such spleen of a malignant
soul. The " late remorse of love" has made amends to
the fame of the poet, and if the cheap flatteries of poste-
rity atone anything for the wrongs endured in life, they
have been amply yielded in the " immortals" which
now grace the Roman tomb of Keats, and have made
another Lycidas of Shelley, who does not " float upon
his watery bed without the meed of some melodious
tear."

Byron and Wordsworth were harshly used by
their reviewers ; but they could themselves criticise
harshly, and let us add, unjustly. The latter spent
hours with Thomas Roscoe, railing at Campbell, and de-
scribed the most magnificent lay of Burns as " over-
rated stuff—miserable insanity, without a thought, with-
out an image." We all remember how bitterly he was
himself assailed by the roaming poet of Newstead Ab-
bey, who seldom missed the opportunity to aim a blow
at the—

1 Clumsy, frowsy poem, called the "Excursion,"
Writ in a manner that is my aversion.
Or at " the warbling waggoner, whose rhymes he com-
pared to the cracking of a ploughman's whip.
From
the same pen also descended those reckless lashes which
galled " Bob Southey,"-4, turncoat Southey, that incar-
nate lie,"—epithets with which a poet should never soli
his page. Nor did Byron ever display himself more
unworthy of his genius than when be
spoke of the beau-
tiful writings of Dean Millman, as effusions from " the ox
of verse, who ploughs for every line," though he was;
perhaps, more correct when he likened the stanzas of
Tasso's biographer to " gilded icicles." When, however,
the author of Childe Harold was in the humour to utter
a sarcastic thing, he little cared on whom or what his
arrows fell, whether on Campbell's " droutby hiPPeereue' 'or Wordsworth's " crazed beyond all hope ; or
" drunken Coleridge," or "quaint and mouthy Southey;
"
or Walter Savage Landor, that " deep-mouthed Bco°-
"
tian." Byron, also, if he could spit venom on an enemy,
was capable of superb laudation on a friend—as On
Moore—

To who
The lyre and laurels of triummare given
hal
Ile won them well and may he weasroitllfs'm long l
This miscalled criticism, however, aids little the
victory of eol;t1 literature over the concoctions of
quackery. It is no less ridiculous than that of the
Irishman, who once reviewed a poem in which the
word key was rhymed with sea. Ile seriously declared
it was a barbarous blunder, or at least a poet's license
carried beyond the limits of the most extended tolera-
tion. " For," he concluded, " to justify the rhyme,
leap
must be supposed to be pronounced keel"
This Milesian critic was probably as Wise in his gene-
ration as his brother of the same craft, who tells usa
-
Churchill, as a poet, is "drivelling and dull,"—" by
nature uninspired, untaught by art." But
most offensive instance of critical vulgarity was afforded
many,. Years ago by the Dublin University Review, which
little resembled then the mild and equitable censor now
reigning under a similar title in the
Irish capital. The
reviewer had exhausted his acidulous ink perhaps the
upon one of
Campbell's poems ;
gay;. ho had not a point left to attack; a line remaining
to dissect. But his rancour was not yet satisfied. So
ho had not another fierce word to
suffi-
ciently gross to tell his readers that there
from the book he turned to the author, and was Buffi-
aaner Campbell should write ill, since he had " eyes cold
lglassy
like those of a dead haddock." This, never-
theless, though more directly expressed, was perhaps
less., malicious than the insinuation of a fatuous London
be added
this
1.-iewer, when, after speaking of Tha/aba,
was no won-
ungracious sentence :—" Of Mr. Southey himself we
know nothing, and we desire to know nothing.
hilosophers pretend to be careless of opinion; but
pets, whatever they affect, very seldom are indifferent.
Wordsworth
professed never to read a criticism on his
Ownth rorks; but Keats, ae I have said, F
hand of Gifford; Kirk White was
der the assaults of reviewers, who
critique; blasted by one
tque wounded Racine
; a single stroke of raillery
almost to death; Perished under
Ilawkesworth is said to have died un-
into the sunshine
and stung him just as he was emerging of popularity; Po ewrithedunder the tortures inflicted
by Dennis;
and, I)
short a friendshiP a even Newton cut s swarmed like wasps
twenty -
1 voueeble criticism on some of his works.
~e._ - fears' duration with one who bad uttered an un-
If, however, some authors have been injured by their
L. Literary Gazette which won a
reviewers, most owe their reputation to their critics. It
to his genius, laurel wreath for
LatheL"; it was Southey who gave Kirk White a name;
it was Leigh Runt who rescued John Keats from the as-
persions of those who wished to do their heavy reviews
as the reviewer is great, does the exultation of the
so contemptible,
au-
thor he praises •
and sink it into oblivion. And in proportion
rise. Sheridan
when he learned that Byron had uttered a laudation of
powers. in some instances, indeed, the panegyric
net easy to deter •
of the anaiably•disposed has been as absurd, though not
kind• Ilaelitt, for example, declared that the " Lao-
damia"
was a poem fit only to be read in Elysium. It is
as the detraction of the envious or Wl-
was said that his pictures were
mine w IL the
author s, ' he* inc ''
e mere daubs of yoke of
01161-
&rate earti 1:
- ^aty; whether Turner lost more when it
egg," or Rogers, when his compositions were described
'—)l,3 unscrupulous eirujat ri.o.us to
us superior to those of Coleridee and Shelley.
Good Poets aro often bad critics. and sometimes false,
because jealous. Anna Seward,—who was herself'vain enough to boast that she could translate en ode of
Horace eV hile
curling her hair,—tells that when
s Darwin had published his " Botanic Garden," in
couplets, he never would read blank verso again.
i
Samuel Johnson, ends his review of " Paradise
Lost" s by saying,
that its perusal ie rather a duty
- pleasure; ho also
than a I said that the diction
of Lycidas was harsh, and its rythm unpleasing: " he
would hang a dog that should reed that poem twice." ,
' What then," asked a lady, "must become of me, who
can say it by heart?" "lie," replied the Goth, " of a 1
surfeit of bad taste." Now the contradictions of genius I

are surprising when, in. opposition to this, we find
Warton declaring that your opinion of Lycidas decides
whether you have a " true taste for poetry or not." But
Boswell's bear could not appreciate Milton. As he con-
fessed to Beattie, he never read him through till ho
wanted to get words for his dictionary. Of Shakspere's
sonnets he also wrote—" Of the best it can only be said
that they are not bad." Pope condemned the author of
Hamlet as writing in "the style of a bad age," and re-
gretted that he had not copied Sackville more! "Rare
Ben," too, was indifferent as a critic. Spenser's stanzas
" pleased him not, nor his manner." Shakspere" wanted
art, and sometimes sense. Waller saw nothing in Milton
but " an old blind schoolmaster, who had written adall
poem, remarkable for nothing but its length." Milton
preferred Cowley to Dryden. Dryden esteemed Catherine
Philips above Sappho; and asked permission from the
bard of Paradise Los* to turn that poem into rhyme?
It was he, too, who eulogised Lord Halifax as " the
greatest genius," and Lord Roscommon as equal to Ho-
race or Virgil. Bat these were flatteries which !should
have made the receivers of them blush. What, how-
ever, could be expected friim a critic who admirer? that
Rymer who tells us that the character of Desdemona is
below that of any kieben-maid.
Gray thought Voltaire, bad no, genius but for writ-
ing. plays, and scorned the most exquisite productions
of Rcusseau. " David Hume," he said, " was an infant
all his life, though unhappily he was taught to read and
write."
obviously, therefore, when poets begin predicting, and
announcing the distribution of renown, fur their contem-
poraries, it is not always true that—

The name
Of poet and the prophet is the same.
On the contrary, the most lauded writers hay.-
,
frequently had the most short-lived reputation.
Petta. Pindar. though translated into many language;.,
is now decaying in the dust; and after the ephemeral
brilliance oe a few seasons' popularity, thousands of
names vanish and dissipate like vapours from the
hill. Maceabe gives a good satirical imitation of one
of these exuberant panegyrics, supposed to be a friendly
criticism from the Mudforel Chronicle:—"Ferdinand
Count Schwellinbach.—A tale of the Selavonic race.—
We welcome with delight this new proof of the genius
of the author of Baptista, or the Traitor's Grave. It is
indeed, an unlooked-for accession to the stores of ro-
mantic fiction, with which onr literature happily
abounds. In it we find the broad and genial humour of
Fielding; the cutting sarcasm of Smollett; and the deep
tone of feeling and sentiment which pervades the works
of Sterne; the whole worked up with a power which is
i
only displayed at ntervale in the splendid fictions of
Scott; and a sunny gleaminess which ia only :wen stream-
ing over the page of Avon's bard!"
Exaggerated this may seem, but I have read as un-
diluted encomiastics on the most squalid performances in
our own day. Criticism, however, is far more honest
than it was fifty years ago, and far more judicious. Good
writers may be "cut np," or, which is worse, they may
be neglected, while quacks may be puffed into an evanes-
cent renown; but on the whole, there is a temperate and
candid tone in the critical literature of the day. After all,
however, time is the great judge. Mighty floats of folios,
quartos, octavos, and shining hot-pressed "twelves,"
are perpetually drifting into oblivion; but the stars of
real light shine with an eternal lustre. Dr. Howard,
during the reign of George the Second, collected copies
of more than tour hundred editions of Horace. That is
the tree monument of an author's fame. Meanwhile,
however, the cr. itics have great power; they are improv-
ing their use of.it, and it is to be hoped that this branch
of literature will rise to the elevation it deserves to oc-
cupy. I, for one, since I began these remarks, have
mingled somepininoew future,ho, dipped in
my ink, and taken the quill of
a dove instead of the steel pshenal,isvvoitthhamtowre charityiththis be
soft
thequ booksivering I
review
in a phial of sweeter solution,
treated ! THE CRITIC REPENTANT,

THE INCOME-TAX.

Those of our contemporaries who most loudly
felamour for a graduated income-tax, judiciously
evade the trouble of investigating the tneory of taxa-
t ion by an incessant appeal to common sense—or, in
other words, to the uninstructed popular judgment on
a, purely scientific question. On the other hand, the
r ctuaries who were examined before the Committee
d replay abundant ingenuity and arithmetical skill, as
w ell as a general indifference to the practical difficul-
ti..es which might result from the adoption of their
pe. °pose's. Their calculations are unassailable, and
th sir conclusions infallible, on the assumption that
tl tey have stated the question correctly. One of the
most judicious of their number observes, with con-
si 3 erable acuteness, that the present impost is unjust
so far as it falls partly on income, and partly on pro-
p( ty. But the whole of the arguments in favour
of graduation are based on the assumption
tilt I no distinction whatever ought to be made
beetween income and capital. The schBnne for
ecoverting every income into a perpetuity, by
to :dug only the interest on its assumed marketable
w crth, is founded on a most arbitrary fiction. As an
or tlinary rule, men live on their annual receipts, and
mit on 3 per cent. of their saleable value. There ere,
of .course, exceptions, but all the actuaries in England
wi.)l fail to persuade any reasonable penes, that the
ra re operation of capitalizing a professional inccm4
fo,tais the rule of private economy. If, in point of
fa: t, a lawyer, aged 40, with an income of 1,000/1 a-
ye r—which would be worrh, as Mr. William,. in-
fof !ins us, seven years' purchase—were considered by
hi: fiself and his neighbours as the owner of 2001. n
year, the State might safely assess him at that surn,in
the. expectation that it would descend to his children.
Buit, in reality, the income is transitory, and so is the
per: tentage levied by the tax-gatherer ; nor would the
ass' ssinent be strictly just, even on the assumption
Wlll ch we have suggested. Professional incomes have
bee ;a adjusted with some reference to the wants of
the recipient, as proportioned to his education and
posit Lion ; and assuredly the foundation of an heredi-
tary estate was never9nsi'el c
sabh e necessariesofp considered one of the indispen-
Wthessional existence.
].'he Popes of the
century were accused of
undue greediness when they created perpetual appan-
age E; or principalities for theirY
l nephews or illegitimate
sons. In England, however,t would seem, accord.
ing to the judgment of some 0,.
witneeses, that
ecclesiastical incomes are principally th?mtended to found
patrimonies for the descendants of
be each incumbent.
A bishop or a prebendary of TO is to be on the
fullfovra
hislue
assumption that he will leave his family
of his preferment, subject to a small deduction
own life interest. Some of the richest
p trelea prelates of the
present day would, according to the scheme
inch
all the actuaries concur, be assessed at not more than
one-:fifteenth or one-twentieth part of their actual re-
venues. It is surprising that gentlemen so competent
to crelculate individual chances, should have forgotten
that a large number of casualties virtually amount to
a certainty. The entire income of the Church is a
perpetuity, though all existing incumbents may
possibly die to-morrow ; yet the witnesses deem
it demonstrably just—and some of our contemporaries
echo the assertion—that the revenues of the Church,
as compared with hereditary property, should be at
once increased by a definite and calculable per ten-
tage. The incomes of the legal profession, being held
by a more insecure tenure„will doubtless receive a
still larger advantage. The landlord will not find
that, on an average of years, he pays less to his soli-
citor than formerly; but he will have the satisfaction
of knowing that he also pays income-tax for the
purpose of ensuring the lives both of attorney and
counsel. Nor will his steward fail to derive a similar
benefit. In former days, two or three per cent. on
the rental may, perhaps, have been considered a
sufficient remuneration for agency. But new
lights have arisen. The rental, being hereditary, is
subjected to income-tax; but service, prover-
bially, is no inheritance, and the steward's place
may not be worth three years' purchase. The tax,
therefore, is levied, yin his case, on the interest of
three times the annual value, while the employer
pays on thirty-four times his yearly revenue. After
the expiration of the three years, he must still pay
the same or another steward; but he will not the
less continue liable to the same disproportionate as-
sessment. Under such circumstances, one of two
results must ensue. Either a general readjustment
of salaries and of professional remuneration must take
place—or the entire sum paid by the community, in
the form of fees and wages, must be proportionally
increased by the exact amount which the actuaries
and their friends propose to deduct from the tax on
precarious incomes. Until this obvious consequence
has been explained and justified, theoretical reasoners
will concur in that disinclination to change which
practical politicians entertain on grounds of fiscal
convenience. It is scarcely necessary to add that
any diminution of salaries to meet a graduated in-
come-tax would itself prove that the new-fangled
system introduced an anomaly.
While the scientific advocates of fiscal inequality
are considering this difficulty, we may conveniently
turn to the so-called objections of common sense—
one of which is urged by a correspondent of our own,
under the appropriate signature of " Ignoramus,"
who prefaces his remarks with the candid admission,
"I am very ignorant." We have no doubt that
" Ignoramus " at least understands his own affairs too
well to have engaged in the ruinous transaction which
he has thought fit to convert from an hypothesis into
a narrative. It will be observed that the bargain
which he describes was made "a short time since "
at a period, therefore, when the income-tax had ex-
isted for ten years, and was likely to continue for
ten years more. We can assure " Ignoramus " that,
although eminent actuaries may have forgotten so
trifling a consideration, no purchaser of any security
can be affected by an impost, however unjust origi-
nally, which existed at the time of the contract.
Our correspondent, on his own showing, deliberately
incurred the loss of which he complains. If there
were an income-tax of 50 per cent. on short annuities,
a purchaser, with notice of the burden, could be in
no way injured or aggrieved. "Ignoramus" states
his case thus :
" 90/. per annum, dividend on 3,0001. Three per
Cent. Consols;.has been my income hitherto, exempt
from tax. A short time since a friend, on the eve of
his departure from England, had immediate occasion
for 3,0001. I sold my stock ; lent him the money at
the same rate of interest that it yielded in Consols
(3 per cent.), be giving me a charge upon his estate.
I was to be repaid in three years, 1,0001. in each year.
In the ordinary way the money would have come
back to me thus :—End of
let year 1,0001., with interest on 3,0001..... 1,090/.
2d „ 1,0001.,
f 2,000/..... 1,060/.
1,0001..... 1,030/.
3d „ 1,000/., If

In all
By re-investing in Consols 1,0001. of the first receipt,
the dividend thereon, added to 601. of the second,
retained as income, would leave 1,0001. again to re-
invest; and the dividend on the 2,0001., added to 301.
of the third, would leave another 1,0001., which, re-
invested, would replace me as I was before ; I in each
year having had the same income, 901.
" But, to meet the convenience of my friend, I
income-
tax
ad
agreed to take a charge on his estate entitling me to
receive 1,0601. in each of the three years, amounting
in the aggregate to the same sum of 3,180/. AndT
now find myself in this position :--If
orary as to
the -
is continued at its present rate, and
of your corres-
to apply, as it now does, to
perpetual annuities, as someou
ght, then, as I
pondents contend that it
have now an annuity for three
per annum, not exempt from tax. l
3,1801., in the three years—viz
the dividends on the first two 921. 155., besides on
s3theaarllsbeofta xledo6ll.
investments,l making in
all more than 951.; and a
come more than 90/.—in threes cannot take as my m-
cone
I must, thereforie,
this tax
of 951. falls
with years 2701.—0 n
to sth. per annum,ditgre
muste
itah ewrceui gt
limitht exceeding
mynocipal.,,
orinto the paken
place
That such a transaction should t havel as
we have
during the existsho__,
ac..ca.e.nce of the incomTeh-e I
autmost ineonve-
nien"cup ill: ti. lly impossible..
first whichimposi-
tion could arise, except at the
discouragement of bar-
flan of the tax, would be the discouragtemrnay,
indeed,
gains in the particular form supposed. I
law, if pro-
be doubted whether, even under the
actualwould have been
perly enforced, the capital sum d
p But if the law
liable to duty as it was repla
"Ignoramus" assumes, the
were interpreted as
o
d only be attributable
in-
convenience of the result w
ral terms. When Par-
to the unavoidable use of gene . . . .
on annuities, it is not on the
'lament imposes a tax
incomes are mere • instalments of
' • that such
supposition
purchase-money of an estate is paid
a debt. If the pure
insteadof in one, it is evidently
in three annual sums,_
impost. The case suggested by our
not liable to the
k. .
correspondent is of a similar -Ind ; and a puzzle will
always arise as
to the precise boundary line between
income and property. Thirty or twenty years ago
the Government Long Annuities were universally
treated as income ; and when the income-tax was im-
posed in 1842, by far the greater part of that Stock
was held under the same character. No holder who
has purchased since that year has a right to complain
of a tax which must have been taken into account in
his bargain. But, in 1852, the Long Annuities
which will expire in 1860 have naturally come to be
treated only as a matter of speculation, or,
in other words, as capital. The purchaser
at the present time intends to re-invest his re-
ceipts, after deducting the ordinary rate of interest—
in other words, ho is practically acquiring
a per-
petuity ; and so long as a belief in the permanence of
the present income-tax prevails in the market, he may
effect this object on as advantageous terms as if the
impost had never been devised. A respected cor-
respondent, who signed himself " A Capitalist," will,
we are convinced, not dispute this qualification of the
conclusions at which he arrived on the assumption of
a new tax being about to be imposed. As a general

CANADA.
QUEBEC, ArG•
Par-
liament of Canada has been occupied
affords food for either cSavinilceorl with . theif
whichre
to the Governor's address. There is littleblinif
leaders
olraasttory
has at
of parties must throw down the gauntlet. "reply"
to the Mi-
nistry opropos of something, and M
Thus we have
least immemorial usage in its favour.mr, Boulton, Sir
had Mr. M‘lieneie, Mr. Brown,
floods of eloquence,
Allan M‘Nab, and others pouringas to their future de-
signs, enlightening the countrywhot wrote, the
by his own ac-
signs. Mr.
Hincksidinister of the Crown as Earl
count, is " as much a
roper to allude to the failure
Derby," has thought p
ailroad negotiation in terms
of the Halifaxa complimentary to the British
by no
Me
ns
his the Tories, though at heart
Cabinet; at t
approving the Inspector-General,
t r-General, have indulged in a
burst of loyal indignation. The reply will, however,
.
tbout a division. There is nothing in
be carried
speecheswithout
worth noticing, except, perhaps, Mr.
morin's sthe
tatement that, whatever difference might
exist in the respective populations of the
1 provincesbeTeafter
(and the last census tells how rapidly
two isgaining on its eastern sister), the
Upper Canada.
consent to achange
in Canadians would never .
Frenchnthe law which allots to each province an equal
number of representatives in Parliament.
The supporters of the Ministry believe they have
more then a working majority. It is estimated that
the House contains about 35 Ministerialiats, 24 Eng-
lish Conservatives, 7 French Conservatives, 5
or Annexationists, and 14 Clear Grits. Bu t Rouges,
the di
tinctions of parties have been so altered
of late, that
I should not place much reliance on this classification.
Besides the subjects of legislation to which I have
alluded in my recent letter as being likely to occupy
the attention of the House, the Committee on Rail-
roads, will have its hands full. No less than twenty
applications for charters have been received ; the
strife of rival interests and lines will doubtless give
birth to much angry debate. The Atlantic and St.
Lawrence Railway is to be opened to Sherbrooke on
the 11th instant. Lord Elgin has consented to be
present at the inauguration.
Your American correspondents will have furnished
you with full accounts of the loss of the Atlantic
steamer on Lake Erie, on the 19th instant.p wards
U
of two hundred poor fellows, Norwegian n
emigrants,
they
whose cleanliness and robust
left our wharfs,
had contrasted
favourablyand Highlandwhen
destitute haggard aspect of the Irish with the
settlers, perished in the waves. The recklessness of
+_h'. captains of steamers and conductors of railways in
the States is becoming proverbial.
the gloomy prophecies of the
Notwithstanding
the
crops in Lower Canada are
agricultural sages, has spared a portion of the wheat,
promising. The fly . far from
is
and the potato-rot
will be plentiful and cheap.
neral. Hay
tool; well •
and
barleywe , the orchards never
The oats
wore a more encouraging aspect.— Chronicle.

PROPOSED EXTENSION OF THE PEEBLES LINE.----
We understand that measures are in progress to carry out the
Peebles branch so far as Innerleithen. This portion of rail-
way was surveyed by tho North British Company in 1845, as
a continuation to the westward of their Ilawiek branch. We
believe that the Innerhdthen branch will be a single line, like
the Peebles, and will be formed upon the principle of econo-
mical construction now so generally approved. We under-
stand that the cost is not likely to ezceed 4,5001.
Soottiah,liailwav Gazfite.