The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-05 00:00:00

A TOAST.'

' Come ! a health ! and it's not to be slighted with sips,
A cold pulse, or a spirit supine;
All the blood in my heart seems to rush to my lips,
To commingle its flow with the wino !
Bring s cup, of the purest and sulkiest ware,
But a little antiquc- in its shape ;
And the juice it shall be the most racy and rare,
All the bloom with the age of the grape !
Even such is the love I would edebrate now,
At nee young, and mature, aid in prime,—
Like the tree of the orange that bears on its bough
The bud, blossom, and fruit at ono time I
Then three, as is due, let the honours be paid,
Whilst I give with my hand, heart, and head,—
' Here', to ht r, the fond mother, dear partner, kind friend,
Who first taught me to love, woo, land wed I'"
There are some excellent papers in this number of
Fraser. The " Review of -Macaulay's History of
England" is admirable, and some of the schemes pro-
pounded in the "Loose Leaves from the Note-book of
a Schemer" are not unworthy of consideration. His
proposed scheme of colonisation seems perfectly
feasible ; it turns entirely on the construction of
roads. The territory proposed to be colonised is to
be surveyed, and a complete system of main roads
laid down. The emigrants are to be employed in the
construction of these roads ; they will be fed, clothed,
and their children instructed ; their money wages will
be 10s. per week, and they will be required to bind
themselves to serve until such time as they shall have
repaid their passage money, or until that sum shall
have been paid down for them by colonists willing to
engage their services for a term of years. Thus,
when there was a great demand for labour in the
colony men would be drafted from the roads, and their
passage money having been refunded, Government
would be enabled to send out fresh emigrants from
the mother country. In like manner road-making in
the colonies might go on more or less briskly as the
demand for labour at home fell or rose. " If," says the
writer, " the Government would do this it might
immediately refuse every form of assistance to the
able. bodied labourer at home, and save at once all ex-
penditure on him ; and it might proceed to put down
vagrancy with a high and firm hand." The lover of
field sports will read with greatgusto, " Snow Pictures
by Lieut. Michael South." This paper is a lively narra-
tive of a month's adventures among the snows in the
backwoods of Canada during the winter of 1845,
hunting moose deer. It is as interesting as Robinson
Crusoe. " The Swedenborgian" is a novel of con-
troversial divinity—good of its kind, but the kind
itself is detestable. We have then an admirably
written paper on " New Zealand, and its Recent Pro-
gress under Governor Grey," who, by a rare comhi-
nation of heroism and patience, has rescued that fine
colony from the destruction which seemed to threaten
it in consequence of the impolicy and injustice of
Governor Fitzroy, " whose appointment," observes
this writer, " to an office requiring qualities the re-
verse of all with which he appears in his public
correspondence and conduct to have been endowed
is perfectly unaccountable." 'Would be per-
fectly unaccountable, we are inclined to add,
were it not borne in mind that at the
time the appointment took place Lord Stanley
was Colonial Secretary. There is a passage in this
paper to which we would fain direct the attention of
the subscribers to the Church Missionary Society, a
society in favour of which some prejudice might
naturally be supposed to exist on the part of the con
ductors of such a magazine as Fraser's, but truth
compels them to say—
" We regret to notice that some members of the Church
of England Missionary body imprudently )ielded to the
temptations of their position by exercising an improper
influence over the natives. One reverend gentleman
claimed 9,276 acres of land, under seven different con-
tracts. The commissioners appointed for deciding on the
justice of these transactions very properly reduced the
amount to 3,638 acres.
" These culpable transactions have been but faintly
condemned by the parent society. They cannot be ex-
cused by the natural desire of making a provision for
the large and healthy families with which God has
blessed them in the climate of New Zealand ;' nor can
they be defended on the pretext of encouraging the
natives to cultivate land after a better method, and of
establishing for their instruction exemplary little cons •
munities.'

" The language of the Colonial Secretary is more
appropriate : I would not hesitate,' he writes, to
dispossess the whole body of the missionaries of the pro-
perty which they have acquired in this manner, if the
law would enable me to proceed to so extreme a mea-
sure. For the sake of our national character and of our
common faith, I contemplate with deep regret the use
which has been thus made of an influence which ought
to have been devoted exclusively to the highest and most
sacred objects.'"
It is the duty of the managing body of the Church
Missionary Society to institute a searching inquiry
into this case, and (unless that society is intended for
tfri future to be merely a land-jobbing scheme) to dis-
t-hiss with ignominy from their service all those who
have acquired property in this manner, and made this
use of an influence " which ought to have been devoted
exclusively to the highest and most sacred objects."
The writer of this article also feels compelled
to admit that the conduct of Bishop Selwyn cannot
be defended. In that opinon we agree with him ;
but such conduct might have been expected, and when,
some seven years since, the proposition of appointing
colonial bishops was first mooted we strenuously
opposed the scheme, and as one of our reasons for
such opposition we stated, by anticipation the very case
of Bishop Selwyn and the, New Zealand authorities.
The caso of Bishop Selwyn, hOwever, will not, it is
hoped, be without its effect on the,Government. We
.bope: we. shall hear .rio"more of any colonial episcopal
appointments. The ..expense is enormous, and the
office is useless ; an infant colony has about as much
need of a bishop as it has of an opera-house-; it is not
until population has increased and cities and churches
have been built, and there is a body of resident clergy
permanently located each in hi 9 own. "district, that
episcopal superintendence ean' beCome" necessary,
and . such is not likely, to be the case in any of
cur. Oceznie colonies .for lialf a century at least.
Besides a' variety of excellent light , reading, we
have, as usual the.current history of the month and a
4retrosrect cif. the past, ,ard programme for the-!uture of
Fraser's Magazine. -- •

•
The first article in the Mirror is entitled " The
President of the Young Republic,", and is an' indig-
nant remonstrance with the people of France for their
ingratitude to Lamartine, and- Cavaignac, and Ledru
Rollin, to whom they have preferred " a young in
triguing adventurer," who has " enjoyed 'the support
of such ifidiVidUalS, asp;Emile de Girardin and M.
Thiers, which ought aloe to have exclusled him from
the confidence of his country, since a cause supported
by such agency must be bad." The ingratitude with
which Lamartine and Cavaignac have been treated is
worthy of every reprobation, but ere long France will
recover her senses, when she will do justice to
her truly . eminent men, and' visit with
condign punishment the Emile de Girardins, the
Granier de Cassaignaes, et hoc genus *nine, whO have
fOr a time Misled her: Who's that Knocking at
the Door" is an essay, moral, political, philanthropical,
and philosophical, on the various persons who knock
at the door during the course of the day. The
sketches of character are admirable. The lucifer-
match man, the traveller on commission, the can-
vasser, the rate-collector, the schemer, the borrower,
the governess, are described in the true .La Etityere
spirit. Mr.. Percy St.' John a new ro-
mance, entitled " Adventures of a French/Repub-
lican." His opening chapter presents us with an
nof which we can
al knowledge, of
vexouaccth p o rfrt roami t u r eo,ufro r
own
accuracylierso
the French capital in the month of July, 1830, just
befOre the " three glorious days,',' when the parti-
pretre' strong in the protection of that infatuated old
bigot Charles X., and believing that Heaven itself'
would work miracles, if such, were required, in sup-
port of Polignac and the Jesuits, were boasting
everywhere that in three weeks the King would reign
and govern, and that the Members of the Chamber of
Deputies would be imprisoned in Vincennes, all
except those who would pay an unexpected visit to
the colonies, and when the Liberals of all shades were
silently preparing for the contest with arbitrary
power, which all parties felt must soon inevitably
occur, and the advent of which all par-
ties were desirous of hastening. The hero 'is
a young ouvrier, the heroine the daughter of an
old noble; the hero is a Carbonaro, the father
of the heroine an intimate associate of the Prince
Polignac. The brother of the heroine is also in love
with the sister of the hero ; so that we already have
materials, in the first chapter, for a most interesting
story. Hargrave Jennings gives us a paper on
" Pantomimes," which would have delighted the
heart of Charles Lamb; and W. 1-1. Maxwell gives
us an Irish story, " Kitty Connor's Wake," told as he
only can tell such stories. From a biographical sketch
of Pope Pius IX. we extract the following curious
anecdote of the infancy of Mastai Ferretti :
" The credit attached to miracles by the present holder
of the Holy See has excited astonishment; and it may
be remembered that no small ridicule, as well as sur-
prise, was caused by his implicit belief in the miraculous
sure which Mother Madrina, the abbess of Minsk, was
said to have effected on the young Frenchman, Baupin.
The brutality of which that holy lady was the victim at
the hands of the Czar Nicholas, or his still more barba-
runs satellites, doubtless excited a deep sympathy in the
breast of Pius IX., as, even beyond the pale of the
Fl mau Church, it aroused indignation throughout

pig*eC4otrr.espon!:!ence on the Affairs of New Zealand,