The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-08 00:00:00

TA

MAC AZINES:,ETC.-(CONTIN UED.)

TAIT' S MAGAZINE.
A cornirebensive review is taken in Tait for
January of what is called, in an expressive but
hackneyed phrase, "the political hemisphere." Our
opinions are altogether at variance with those of the
writer, in regarding the Parliamentary labours of re-
formation as completed. Our legislators will have
something more to do than to abolish old or impose
new taxes. The system of taxation, undoubtedly,
requires the most remarkable revision, but the atten-
tion of the hereditary and representative senators will
be engaged by questions of still greater importance.
It is a gigantic fallacy to imagine, that in the abro-
gation of the corn-laws the Constitution is purged of
its discrepancies. Even in the scanty enumeration of
matters demanding the interference of the Govern-
ment, which is given in this article, there is, surely,
ample material for the constructive sagacity of Par-
liament. Education is the theme of a social agitation
which clamours for the interposition of our law-
makers. Ireland is a field sufficiently extensive to
occupy the wisdom of a national Legislature. The
landed interest affords scope for a thousand beneficent
innovations. The currency would repay the un-
divided investigation of an entire session. Beyond
this the sanatory condition of the people is a subject
imperatively crying out for the efforts of the two
Houses. Ni:ver, perhaps, was so much work definitely
mapped out for the deliberations and decisions of the
Lords and Commons. Nor is the multitude apathetic
about the future conduct of the Members at St. Stephen's.
The destruction of monopoly by the glorious mea-
sures of Sir Robert Peel has only whetted the appe-
tite of the community for further relaxations of laws
which should be obsolete. Civilisation is too pro-
gressive to admit of any indolence on the part of an
enfranchised nation like Great Britain. Men cannot
tarry now in renovating the political and social state
of the empire. We are in the right groove—to ad-
vance is a necessity, to retrograde is an impossibility.
Let there be no carping, therefore, as to the conven-
tional habits or the arbitrary denomination of a Mi-
nistry. The people are the supreme tribunal in hu-
man legislation, as was decisively acknowledged by
the acts and the speeches of the past session. 1846
proved that whenever the national will shall be mani-
fested beyond any gainsaying, the dictates of that
will must thenceforth be obeyed by the Deliberative,
and the Administrative. It appears to us that Tait does
ins
sufficiently bear in recollection the fact that Party
is not only virtually, but actually destroyed. " The
strong party," the Conservative party, was scattered
to the winds by the conversion of the late Prime
Minister to the doctrines of Liberalism, viz., the doc-

trines of free trade. The Opposition party, the Whig
party was almost simultaneously destroyed. It can
never be forgotten that Lord John Russell, while
forming his administration, actually made overtures
to his predecessor for the continuance in office, under
his direction, of Lord Lincoln and other members of
the retiring Cabinet. The Tory party was defunct
in the very conception of Conservatism. The Radical
party is so mingled with the Liberal party, that it is
like the solution of the problem of Sphinx to indi-
cate the precise point in which they have merged into
each other. Even the Protectionist party lack the

source of all unity in being but indefinitely sup-
plied with a head, insomuch, that it w0u14.. be
difficult to decide whether Lord Stanley, or the Duke
of Richmond, or Lord George Bentinck is the actual
leader of that forlorn hope, or whether Mr. Disraeli,
by reason of his superior intellect, should not be
nominated in the House of Commons the Gonfalonier
of Protection. Indeed, this wholesale disseverance of
party- ties has not been restricted to Westminster, but
has found its corresponding confusion in the councils
of Conciliation Hall. It were superfluous, however,
to insist further upon a matter which is ostensible
to the most superficial speculator in the
futurity of political progress, and it were
equally superfluous to do more than simply
deny the assertion of Tait, that no preparation has
been made in the registration courts for the approach-
ing general election. Preparation has been made
and is making in the registration courts and else-
where, and, above all, the popular mind is mellowed
upon all the prominent questions of the day. Candidates
may in certain snug boroughs be " packed, ticketed,
and forwarded for election," as the writer of the
article anticipates, but among the mass of
electors mongering in votes is not so practicable
now-a-days. In Manchester, for example, such
candidates as Mr. Bright and Lord Lincoln
will stand before the enfranchised citizens upon
the hustings, sustained rather by the prestige of
their individual merits, of their personal character,
and of their several careers, than by the imaginary
aid of parties that are no longer in existence. There
is a falsity in the deductions of Tait in this respect
which fills us with amazement, and the falsity of
those deductions arises from the shallowness of the
premises. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder contributes an
agreeable paper, descriptive of " A Visit to Auch
Mel vich." The sketching is so vivid as to render a
perusal of the article almost tantamount to a visit to
that little township of Sutherland. Next is a mas-
terly chapter upon the " Life and Correspon-
dence of John Foster,"" written in the most
brilliant manner of that brilliant and subtle
critic, George Gilfillan. In commenting upon the
anomalies of the departed essayist the writer has
plombed the depths of that dismal but confiding
scepticism which blurred the faith of Foster with a
gloom nearly synonymous with misanthropy and not
far removed from despair. As he beautifully ex-
presses it, the tremendous doubts which oppress
dfartkhoe great nchan toms
essayist
him (Foster) have forced themselves into the sphere
of his soul, and hang there as if sustained by the
P ow e
r devotion of s
m
e o
Gilfillan speaks thus : to Nature, attuhree, pas-
sionate.

" From 'man, thus too utterly bare before him, he
turns away, with a deep pensive joy, to Nature, feeling
that she is true, were all else untrue—that she is beau-
tiful, were all else deformed—that she stands innocent
and erect, though her tenant has fallen—and, like a
child in his mother's arms, does he repose, regaining
old illusions, and recalling long- departed dreams of joy.
There is something to us peculiarly tender and pathetic
in Foster's love of Nature. It is not so much an admi-
ration as it is a passionate and perpetual longing. It is
not a worship, but a loge. He throws his being into Na-
ture. It is as if he felt his heart budding in the spring
trees, his pulse beating high in the midnight tempest
and in the ocean billow, his soul shooting up, like living
fire, into Snowdon, as he gazes upon it; or we might
almost imagine him the divorced spirit of some lovely
scene, yearning and panting after renewed communion,
gazing himself away into the bosom of Nature again,
while the murmuring of streams, and the gong of
breezes, and the waving of pines, were singing of these
strange nuptials, the soft epithalamium. He engages in
mystic converse with the Creation. He seeks for mean-
ings in her mighty countenance, which are not always
revealed to him. He asks her awful and unanswered
questions. He seers to cry out to the river, ' What
meanest thou, thou eloquent babbler, wilt thou never
speak plain, wilt thou never shape me any distinct
utterance, from the vague and soft tumults of thine
everlasting song?'—to the rocks and mountains, Will
ye never reveal those secrets of an elder day, which are
piled up in your massive walls; to your solemn hiero-
glyphics shall there never arrive the key?' but to add,
in stern resignation, 'Be it so, then; retain your tre-
mendous silence, or utter on your inarticulate sounds;
better these than the jargon, the laughter, and the blas-
phemies of the reptile and miscreant race of roan; to
you, my dumb kindred, I am nearer and dearer than to
those that so speak."
The author of " The Gallery of Literary Portraits"
continues by observing that Foster goes forth in the
realms of nature, and, in the agonies of his " tre-
mendous doubt," propounds to the mountains and the
heavens " the infinite question," expecting from them
in return " the infinite answer." Yet, he continues,
" Though he is fond of questioning Nature, and
loves her old and solemn harmonies, he is no Fine-ear'
to catch that subtler speech, that fairy music, that lan-
guage within language,' that angelic strain, which some
few purged and prepared spirits, who can the bird lan-
guage fully tell, and that which roses say so well,' hear,
or seem to hear, in the rustle of the leaves awakened at
midnight from their dreams of God —in the great psalm of
the autumn blasts—in the sweet self talk of the love-sick
sunnier waves—in the blue smile of the sky—nau, in the
hush of the evening, and the stammering sparkle of the stars.
To these low and silvery whispers, piercing the clash of
all common sand terrific sounds, like the calm No of
Shadrach Meshac, and Abednego, heard amidst the
idolatrous symphonies and cymbals on the plain of Dura,
Foster's ear is deaf as Byron's. He is aware of their
existence, indeed; he listens to hear them, but they will
not speak to him their profoundest tidings; he hears
only a great tumult, but knows not what it is—a tumult
of grandeur, terror—sweet, and despairing tones, end-
lessly intermingled—and dies, believing that God is
Love, bat not feeling, with Tennyson, that
"'Every cloud that spreads above and veileth love itself
is Love."'
Men have repeatedly mourned that Foster, writing
so well, wrote so little. Hear what Mr. Gilfillan says
in palliation of this apparent sluggishness :
" Foster's indolence has been often, but, we think, un-
justly, condemned. It ought rather to be deplored.
Unfurnished with a regular training, yet furnished with
an exquisitely sensitive taste, early damned to the
mines' of hopeless professional toil, transferred thence
to the drudgery of writing for bread—never gifted with
a fluent language nor a rapid pen—what wonder that
shrankthathe
found composition an ungracious task,
so little. Latterly, but for an overwhelming sense of
rwoitnegs
oand u
cdhe,e
apne ndi nngo dtihsagtu sht: w Ourro
to
fsruormpriistewisitthhatahegrwo
duty,giant,
whose a
wouldr
strength his bleeding fragments, who would weep at
not
t had have
been
cut
movingall lf
in e
impotent saw
a
•the spectacle? In such mutilated might sat Foster at
his desk."
An article on "Ireland and her present Necessities,"
by J. O'Connell, M.P., will be read more extensively
than any of the other contributions ; and it deserves to
be so read for these reasons, first fromtehepractiea
distin-
guished position of its author among th
patriots of Ireland ; secondly, from the eminent im-
portance of the subject at this moment; and thirdly,
from the many rational arguments and convincing facts.
contained in the paper. It is to be continued in the