The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-01 00:00:00

TAIT'S.

From Mr. De Quincey's article on " Christianity as an
organ of Political Movement" we could select perfect
jewels of thought ; sometimes, like the ruby, flushed
with the hue of his imagination ; sometimes, like
the sapphire, tinged with a heaven-ward bias ; some-
times, like the diamond, lambent with the sparkle of
new and vivid ideas ; sometimes, like the pearl, pure
from the pellucidity of truth. We might pursue the
?setaphor throughout the catalogue of the lapidary. Nor
In doing so should we be violating the stern impartiality
of criticism : our praise is not exaggeration ; oar ap-
Prove' is not panegyric. In proof whereof, we, will
quote hap hazard a few sentences, or, more properly
aPeaking, a few thoughts. Referring to the Deity of
the Christians, De Quincey says.—
" How great was the chasm dividing the Hebrew God
from all gods of idolatrous birth, and with what starry gran-
deur this revelation of supreme Deity must have wheeled upwards
unto the field of human contemplation when first surmounting
the steams of earth-born heathenism, I need not impress upon
any Christian audience."
And again, when commenting on the feebleness of
that love for universal peace which is now spreading
amongst mankind, and upon which we ourselves took
occasion the other day to dilate, he laments that—
" War is still, like a basking snake, ready to rear his horrid
crest on the least rustling in the forest."
In another part he conveys a marvellous immensity of
reflection in a few of our simplest words, where, alluding
to the fact that men no longer continue such demon
Worship as the Grecian and Roman mythology, he ob
serves—

"It is true they do so no longer in our planet. But what
has been apparently may be."
Nor does Mr. De Quincey fall short of himself in
transcribing the views of others ; one passage, indeed,
collated from Sir Isaac Newton's " Optics, is, to our
thinking, sublime, however much the corollary of De
Quincey may depreciate its significance :—our great
Philosopher says, that—
", God is not good, but goodness ; is not holy, but holiness ;
Is not infinite, but infinity."
Tait may rejoice in the possession of such a contri-
butor ; for, though Mr. De Quincey may be somewhat
transcendental as a metaphysician, and somewhat obscure
in his mode of conveying his conceptions, there is
nothing mephitic in his mists of thought, nothing baneful
In the exorbitant idealism of his sentiment. From
A Ramble in North America," in 1844, we obtain
seine novel notions respecting transatlantic natives ;
,nevertheless we have no compensation in the narrative
for the facetiousness of Dickens, the elegance of Hamilton,
the keen observance of Marryatt, or even the amusing
though injudicious scornfulness of Mrs. Trollope. The
magazine reader will, however, swallow the potion of
the traveller in good part, as a well-intentioned piece of
Pleasantry. "Truth and Falsehood" is the continuation
of a romance upon the merits of which it would be invi-
dious to decide before the story has been further deve-
loped. Tait maintains its supremacy among the month-
lies for analytical and elaborate critiques upon the more
remarkable effusions of the book-press. Among which we
observe that the " History of Greece," by Mr. George
Grote, obtains particular consideration. The political
article at the termination of this Edinburgh Magazine,
'would have induced us to amplify the arguments of the
'o_riter had it appeared earlier. It is entitled " The'l Ms on their Trial." But as the Lords can now be
Ply said to be any longer on their trial" (having
°'!oorce unced fur themselves their own acquittal) any ex-
1131°11 of its reasoning would be superfluous.

ixr.Flra3soer, FRASER'S.
called,
this month, has no political article, pro-
the da .4 ed, and the only allusion to the politics of
',.._r Y, is to be found in an article on the Broad and
nt row Gauge, (the writer of which is an ardent ad-
vocate of the Narrow) in which towards the conclusion
Occurs the following passage :
e.." But a period is, perhaps,
eatthebra;nd, when large and small
'Tines shall disappear alto
nevrgalloper, when Mr. Stephenson's
, backed at 10,000 i. against twice his weight •
"'hen the Mammoth engines, big and beautiful as they are,
Splendidly rushing down their broad streams of iron, shall
give place to something still more rapid and powerful—the
atmospheric principle, which Mr. Brunel believes Then
let them be rolled to the National Museum, and take their
Places beside Henry the Eighth's gun, or the figure of the
dethroned Jupiter, or the statute of the repealed corn-laws."
henceforward field We hope that the protectionists, as a party, will
as gracefully to the clearly ex-
pressed wishes of the people, and regard the repeal of
the corn-laws as un fail accompli. But if we have no
article on special politics in the present number of Fra-
ter, we have laid down, in an admirable article on the
Education of •the Army, certain axioms in general
politics in the truth of which we most cordially
"lour.
"It may savour of the paradox—yet we believe the senti-
rn.„.
,_
b -.L to be just—that the very last persons who. deserve to
__a consulted, in regard to substantial reforms in any of the
6i-eat institutions of this country, are those who, in their own
persons,n,„„ constitute a portion of the moving principle, so to
'7l', in such institutions.- Men seldom attain to what is
.
eaded influence h professis, or offices, or occupations,
It hatever these ma be, till they have arrived at the verge,
at
p., least, of old age; men seldom arrive at the verge of old
:,3,"' as members of a profession, or of a public body of any
rt, without having their minds overlaid by an impenetrable
rust of prejudice, and their reason itself clouded and oh-
rinred through the growth of settled habits both of think-
Cg and of acting. Take the Church—as we are accustomed
the
use that term, most improperly restricting it to signify
e bishops and clergy—does any sane man believe that they
are the
A , best judges in regard to arrangements that may be
t'eued if we seek to give the greatest efficienCy to the mi-
as'a,trations of their order among the people? What ecclesi-
astic would have originated—what ecclesiastic did not in his
feel in the measures which were begun by Sir Robert
tea *n
1835, and are still in progress? The clergy looked
af,
their
only to what they described as the respectability
irraolwonffionrdezro;fthey argued in defence of superabundant
eethed
pluralities, commendams, and Lord
knowsgood slice owhat, because, forsooth, the chance of getting a
rate talents
high
birth
auatdof the loaves and fishes, lured young men of
tirely overlookefidrsttl; fact, that iv%toiletlitehemseifiicsotnr
dreds of thousands of
foixithe people were ministry.
want of spiritual
clergy liisuTheihdne,gyhuefnno-:
sands, of hard-workin and hundreds, if not thou-
benefices, which brought -th
Rob
or eighty, or possibly a hund men' in men, starving upon
forty pounds a-year,
took a different view of the srißobert Peel, a layman,
Lament, ho literally forced utre Sirbein
g supported by Par-
tthheat they,
which all among the discgn i. Church ref
merits"
beyond the age when menove 13- the few who horms, of
be more absurd than
ave got
be mistaken, now acknowledge ther 'nay, perhaps,
Fraser is right, and nothing can
Chet
their to employ in the work of reform
been nurtured in, and who imagine ethrnann who have
beingis connected with, the existence well-
of the
it is desired to abolish; and as it would uses which
to employ churchmen in devising a scheme of hated absurd
reform, or army men in devising a scheme ofarmy
fort; or red-taptsts in devising a scheme of official -
re-
form, so it is equally absurd to employ lawyers in de-
vising a scheme of law reform, or to consult medical
Alen on any scheme of medical reform; and if Sir J.
Graham, instead of listening to the selfish absurdities
Propounded to him by pure physicians and pure sur-
geons on the one hand, and by pure apothecaries, and
" all at" general practitioners on the other hand, pur-
sued his own course, guided by the plain dictates of
Common sense, the medical world would n)t at this
Moment have been in its present state of most admired
disorder. The most interesting article in the present
tiumber of Fraser is the opening. one on the " Man-
:aers Traditions, and Superstitions, of the Shot-
40anders." It has opened up a new world for
fie book-making tourists, and we expect that during
fro° ensuing spring we shall be inundated with "Sketches
Or
ThShetrand." Colonel Mitchell continues his papers
PreveesPrincipal campaigns in the rise of Napoleon, and
hue _ most learnedly that tip, Eaireror ought not to
that ~,woll the Battle of Austerlitz. What a pity it is
kJolonel 4lld RMitchell was nut consulted by the Austrian
ussian and
.I:t_td h© been Prus,ian generals on that occasion.
i Z 1 nil.
so it is evident that Wellinuton would have
~
+ etio,,, I Sir Arthur
Wellesley, for Napoleon would
.' besa destroyed ten years before the Battle of
\