The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-01 00:00:00

AGAZINE DAY

.~~_

BLACKWOODTS MAGAZINE.
" The House of Peers," which is the most charac-
teristic diatribe in this month's Blackwood, is by no
Means so remarkable for its logic as for its rampant
clerical orthodoxy. That the writer is a clergyman,
We have little or no doubt, from his frequent allusions
to the " Property of the Church," which he appears to
think would lunig etc this have been confiscated, had
it not been for the decided conduct of the House of
Lords. Of course, therefore, he sets no bounds to his
admiration of this institution ; and asks in the very
first instance, " where would England now have been,
but for the House of Peers r"—to which we make
answer, infinite!v farther advanced on the road to poli-
tical improvement than she is at present, oris likely
to be for some time to come. The writer goes on to
state—

" In the insolence consequent on Catholic triumph—in
the open announcement of the objects of Popish ambition
min the virulence and animosity of the Roman Priesthood
and their nominees in the British Parliament is to be found
the cause of the general resurrection of the religious spirit
of the nation. All true friends of the Church—all genuine
Protestants in the ranks of the Dissenters—all Christians
in sincerity and truth, have now combined with the friends
of the monarchy in combating the efforts of the coalition of
Papists and infidels who have united for the destruction of
the Protestant establishment. Insensibly the contest has
assumed a religious character. Whig and Tory, Reformer
and Anti-Reformer, are becoming merged in the one grand
distinction of Popish and Protestant. Matters are coming
back to the issue between Rome and England as in 1642 ;
the train is preparing for a repetition of the unanimous
Protestant effort of 1688. The bridge of union between
the higher and the lower orders of England, cut away by
the Relief Bill of 1829, has been restored by the violence
and ambition of the Popsh demagogues. O'Connell con-
fesses that the majority of England—of England so recently
Convulsed with Reform transports—is against him."

The writer must be sadly pressed for the means of
offence or defence when he is obliged to draw his
shafts from Mr. O'Connell's .quiver. The remark of
this gentleman, that England was opposed to the in-
terests of Ireland, was one which he made in haste, and
has repented of at leisure ; for it has been triumphantly
refuted by almost every Liberal Journal in the kingdom.
Yet here we find it again endeavoured to be turned to
account, just as if it were an indisputable truth, instead
of a hasty fallacy. As regards the remark, that the
Present contest between the two parties of Reformers
and Conservatives " has assumed a religious character,"
!lone but a clergyman, who is also a pedant, would
have ventured to put forth such an absurdity. Reli-
gion has no more to do with the matter, than it has
with Mortimer O'Sullivan's Exeter Hall sermons ; the
struggle is
purely political, being an attempt on the
Part of the one party to cripple the rational freedom of
the subject, and on the other to promote it by the ap-
Plication of constitutional remedies to acknowledged
grievances. " The World we Live in," is a rambling,
desultory paper, half-anecdotical, half-satirical ; had it
been
a little more condensed, it would have been more
effective in the reading. With the " Metaphysician"
we will not meddle, for it is a paper that demands more
'close attention than we can afford to bestow on it in
these brief, hasty notices. There are many subtle
!noughts in it, and an approach to ingenious paradox
n,rere and there, which would have delighted Hazlitt.
he " Great Unknown" is a lively tale, in which the
character of a city tourist among the Highlands is not
unaruusingly hit off. " Alcibiades the Man" improves
greatly on acquaintance ; it is dashed off in a free,
bold spirit, without the slightest appearance of effort.
Whoever is the author of this energetic series of papers,
Is unquestionably a scholar of no mean pretensions,
and who is well read in that most puzzling of all Greek
historians, Thucydides. " Historical Painting" con-
tains some sensible truths which those who take an
interest in the Fine Arts will do well to read with at-
tention. " State Education" is the result of much
Patient research, though a Conservative bias is too
evident throughout it.