The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-02 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

Tait is quite indignant this month with the
Ministry, for having, as he roundly asserts,
invited war. " War," he says, " the folly to
which all other follies are wisdom. War, the
crime to which all other crimes are vir-
tues. We are to have war, and we owe it to the
Whigs !" This is pithy and energetic enough ;
but it has one little drawback—it is not true.

We ate not to have war. Clamorous as a large
body of the French are at this moment, and
eager to revenge themselves for their defeat at
Waterloo, and for, what they take even still more
to heart, the occupation of their vaunted metropolis
by the Allies, there is still an orderly, rational
middle class in France on whom war will entail a
world of injury, and who will therefore exercise all
the vast influence they possess to avert it. We have
great confidence in the good sense of this class, and
have little doubt that the war party, despite their
present frantic clamour, will be compelled to suc-
cumb to them. The Marseillaise Hymn is cer-

. .
tainly a great power just now in France, but com-
mon sense is a greater. " Condition of the La-
bouring Poor in Scotland, and the Management of
Paupers," is a homely, practical, intelligent article,
in which, however—to our shame be it confessed

—we take but little interest. In the " Memoirs o
Jeremy Bentham, there are some amusing letters o
this celebrated law reformer, written when he was
a very young man, and dated from the late Marquis
of Lansdowne's residence at Bowood. Here is his
account of the second Pitt, whom he met with at
his noble friend's :",—" Will. Pitt you know
for certain ; in his conversation there is nothing of
the orator ; nothing of that hauteur and suffisance
one would expect ; on the contrary, he seems very
good-natured, and a little raw. I was monstrously
frightened at him, but when I came to talk with
him, he seemed frightened at me ; so that if any-
thing should happen to jumble us together, we
may perhaps he good pax ; which, however, is not
very likely, for I don't know very well what ideas
we are likely to have in common." A few months
ant tenessr
cot
ahf da(i:areetre of t
Great
yt
Britain,s
pnliki letter,h of,a vni the
ng ba:rihrki atee,:rl
oNill. Pitt,"
upVf
aslnadveNrth ,
hoyCo
the
bye—completely
and
yleit_cn,
mpletgeolyt tihe K
nhisin g—a willing
power
h the
Honeymoon of To-day" is agreeably and unaffect-
edly written. " The Wen" is a tame and superfi-
cial description of London. Considering the sub-
jiedcets,s.thela,rhtem‘lveritsehroiuslurd,ishtaavkeenbweehnenmhoreesplifiaryos
Ica t ofa
Cockney's most marked peculiarity is his love of
comfort. Pride is his distinguishing characteristic,
not pride of person, but of locality. He is proud
that he is born within the sound of Bow bells ;
that he has a Lord Mayor and a Court of Alder-
men of his own, who can order the gates of Temple
Bar to be closed even against Majesty ; that his
city is the largest and richest city in the world ;
that the Thames is never without a forest of masts
stretchinr, for miles along its bosom, and contains a
half-finished Tunnel underneath it ; and that his
darling St. Paul's covers en acre and a half of
ground I It is the pride of these things that forms
the main feature in the true Cockney's character,
ennobling him in his own esteem, and causing him
on occasions to swell and strut like a turkey-cock,
especially when country cousins or friends are pre-